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We’ve added a new feature to Total Diatribe.  It is a comic strip called “Sumthin Sumthin”, which ironically is completely and totally about sumthin…. and sumthin.  There is a new page dedicated to Sumthin Sumthin, the link is at the top right of this page.  There are 4 strips to date.  Later assholes.

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So I’m with my 2 year old boy at a local indoor playground today.  There are a million of these types of places around with the inflatable bounce rooms and slides and shit.  I’m generally in a meh mood because I’m even at the place, when I start noticing the other clientelle.  I’ve been at this place at least a dozen times, and the other folks were normally in the same socio-demographic group that I’m a member of,  you know, entitled assholes.   Today was different.  The first clue that something was amiss was when I caught glimpse of a bright yellow mullet out of the corner of my eyes.  I had to give a double take, the dude was in his 50’s had a bleach blonde mullet, and get this.  Feathered Bangs!  They were so impressive that they deserved to be capitalized.  He even had a long handled comb in his back pocket.  Then I start noticing middle and high school aged crackers running all over the place and jumping around on the apparatus (and scaring the shit outta my boy).  Typically there are 1 to 7 year olds there, this was something else.  By this time my redneck senses were going ape-shit.  Shiny light would blind me from keychains attached to belt-loops, I saw not one but two neck tatoos, and a pod of rednecks changed the channel on the TV in the parents area from Football to NASCAR… WTF!!  For some context, I grew up among the rednecks in rural Pennsylvania, only we didn’t call them rednecks, in PA they were called hicks.  Same difference.  However, I can speak their language.  I’m struggling if I want my boy to be fluent in redneck or not.  I think it’s inevitable, so I should embrace it.  I already purchased him a rusty Chevey Blazer with ultra-patriotic bumper stickers.  So he’s got that going for him… which is nice.

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Or GIMP in my case.  Hat tip to Newscoma who tweeted on this today.  Evidently there was a photoshop contest for altering a McCain tongue out pic from one of the debates here.  I missed the contest, but I’m posting what would have been my entries.   Check out the full contest, there are some hilarious ones there.  Feel free to Crank the pics with Photocrank…

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Ok, get ready for diarrhea of the keyboard.

So I got back from the geek conference on Friday (not to worry, I didn’t wear my full length Chewbacca costume this time) and went right to a Halloween party this weekend… for the kids.  Let’s just say the highlight of the party for me was when I was getting my daughter out of her car seat when we arrived, my left calf started to really itch.  I pull her out of her car seat and am holding her in my arms when I look down at my now burning leg to see that I’m standing on a fucking Georgia fire-ant metropolis, and they are throwing a “fuck-you” party on my leg.  After dancing around and yelling like an asshole for a few minutes we went to the party.   I also got to miss Penn State beating the shit out of Michigan in the second half…. shit.  Later that night the girl has a fever and ends up with strep throat.  Awesome.

Sunday was a lazy day, we did jack shit in the morning, which was spectacular and then shopped for the week and carved the biggest fucking pumpkin ever that night.  This pumpkin is so big, I could shove both of my kids in there and light the candles…. not that I would ever do that, again.  Monday was back to the grind, dealing with hundreds of unread emails and voicemails, and general work shit.

Which leads to today.  Today is two weeks away from election day.  I’m struggling with the fact that I am going to make a protest vote (most likely a write-in for Ron Paul) that nobody will notice or care about.  But after much reflection, it is the only vote that I can make with a clear conscious, so what if it is “throwing away my vote”, I’m not going to vote for somebody who I think will do a bad job just because he is the lesser of two evils.  If enough people say enough is enough, maybe they can make a difference.  Doubtful, but one can always hope on a Tuesday morning.

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So I’m in Florida this week for a technical conference that is full of IT nerds.  A shitload of fucking nerds, geeks, and chips, dips, and dorks.  When I say a shitload, I mean a fucking shitload, like 6 or 7 thousand of em.  As I’m looking at this sea of awkward dudes and the occasional woman (btw, if you were a chick looking to get laid at this conference and couldn’t… then there’s no hope for ya) with disdain, it slowly comes to me.  I understand these people.  I kinda look like them.  I do the same thing for a living.  I actually like what I do for a living, and like talking about it.  I fuck around on my computer until late at night.  Wait for it.  Wait for it… Holy motherfucking christ on rye bread.  I’m a nerd.  Goddamn it.  Now I have to kick the shit outa myself.  Fuck.  What’s worse… I totally get why the pic below is funny.  FUCK!

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Shoot yourself twice in the upper body while being evicted.  This happened to 90 year old Addie Polk of Akron Ohio, and Fannie Mae forgave her loan and signed her  house over to her (click here for full article).  Something tells me that this strategy will have limited returns for pretty much everybody else who decides to use this method.   Congress and “the people” can only use one symbol per crisis, everybody else in this situation is fucked.

In a similar vein, I watched a portion of Meet the Press today and Tom Brokaw stated this:  (full transcript here)

… let me introduce a moment of heresy into the political campaign. Isn’t it also time for these candidates to reflect just what Peggy was saying and say to the American people, “You’ve got a role in this, too. You’ve got to step up.” We’re not going to make gain without some pain here in the next year, and, in fact, the American people have been part of the problem that we have right now. A lot of them took loans that they should—ought not to have taken. Credit card debt is very high. And they want to turn a blind eye to things like entitlements, Medicare and how we’re going to pay for it.

I had some immediate conflicting reactions to this statement.  First, it was a bit of a sting as I have spent many years of my life living above my means as well as many many Americans, currently, my family has paid down most of our debt and have taken great pains over the last couple of years to eliminate credit spending all together.  But the statement rings true.  My second reaction was making this statement (as a member of the MSM and a puppet of our government) is like a drug dealer complaining about the junkies.  Our government has taken great pains to encourage spending both by average Joe and by themselves with their incredible deficit spending, forcing an unnaturally low interest rate, giving incentives to sub-prime mortgage houses, and by giving two fucking ridiculous tax rebates and encouraged people not to pay down debt or save but to buy buy buy.  How many of you sat down with a used car salesman mortgage broker to obtain financing to purchase a house and were told:  “you’ve been cleared for XXXX” where XXXX was waaaaaaay more than you knew you could realistically afford.

It fucking makes me sick.

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Deep breaths people, deep breaths.  Find your inner chi, find your core, go to your tranquility cave, take a chill pill, mellow out, breath into a paper bag, have a beer, get laid, and for christ-sakes quit freaking out about fucking gas!  Of course there is no gas when everybody runs out and tops off their tanks on their way to and from work, and then fills up random containers full of gas a la the Road Warrior.  I live in North Georgia, I used to think that people were laid back around here.  This situation shoots that theory full of shit encrusted holes.  Quick, I hear that the hurricane and terrorists are causing a shortage of moon-pies and RC Cola, you better drag your redneck asses to the sterr to stock up on that shit.  Fuck.

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I ran into a Scott Adams piece on CNN.com (click here) and he had a nearly perfect quote about the 2008 elections.  For those of you who don’t know Scott Adams, he is the Dilbert guy, and you may not be a big enough geek to like his shit.  The good news is, I am a most certainly a big enough geek to make up for the rest of you unwashed “cool” people.  Anyway, here is the quote:

Moneywise, I can’t support a candidate who promises to tax the bejeezus out of my bracket, give the windfall to a bunch of clowns with a 14 percent approval rating (Congress), and hope they spend it wisely.

Unfortunately, the alternative to the guy who promises to pillage my wallet is a lukewarm cadaver. I’m in trouble either way.

I would only add that that lukewarm cadaver is also going to increase spending on his little “wars”, but he won’t tax you, he will just increase deficit spending.

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I’ve had two losing poker sessions in a row, but somehow, both sessions felt satisfying.  In early August I was in New Jersey for vacation, and had the opportunity to sit for about 10 hours at the Borgata.  The Borgata continues to be my favorite poker room, it is huge, nice seats, good dealers, and has lively games 24/7.  I played 2/5 NL at the Borgata with a $500 buy-in, which was the table max.  About half-way through the session, I was down to 200 bucks, and then quickly afterwards I found myself with about 50 bucks in chips in front of me.  I wasn’t playing horribly, actually, I thought I was playing rather well.  I made a couple of good lay-downs and had some very close beats (like pocket KK vs. pocket AA), and there were no moments where I thought “that was a fucking donkey move”.  I found myself all-in with my last 50 bucks and I finally won a decent hand.  I rode a rush past my buy-in and then roller-coastered 100 up to 100 down for the remaining hours of the session.  I left 100 down but felt satisfied that I was able to fight back.  I think I could have made it a positive session given time, but it was 4 am and they were breaking the table down.  If I was single, I would have stuck around, but life calls sometimes.

My last session was on Saturday night, home game at my house.  Much smaller stakes as it is a home game and 7 of the 8 people at the table work with me in some fashion.  And, let’s just say that changes my playing strategy.  I bought in 4 times (a new record for me), but fought back at the end to wind up 10 bucks down from my original buy-in.  Not bad, however, I find it very hard to play against  co-workers or people who work for me.  I tend to not play very aggressively and rely on card luck.

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