Bob’s Blog

I’m starting to think that after 4 years, it’s time to call it a day, and just walk away. Because the frustrations aren’t worth it anymore. Trying to deal with some who put their agenda over everything else is just futile at this point. And feeling like your countless hours of work and stress were a waste of time does not help either.

It’s a battle that cannot ever be won, it seems.

Personal Update:

Summer is trudging along. For the most part, it hasn’t been fun, and that’s mostly due because of work. I think, maybe tomorrow, I might do some casual job hunting. Nothing serious, but it can’t possibly hurt to look for something else, even though I know most places won’t hire me for only a month and a half. But at least it would make me feel better knowing I went out and did some browsing – no matter how late in the game it is.
I did though, last week, make a trip back to BG. And it was great and a lot of fun (from what I can remember anyways!) and it was something I needed. To be with (most of) my close friends again was nice and a lot of fun.

I’m not going to lie. I’ve been in a slump the past month or so. Things just have not gone my way at all, in any part of my life so far for this summer. Girls, friends, family, money, work. The other day, all my frustrations boiled over, mostly stemming from work but from a few other things; from living at home, money, and so on. And it’s just like, “I can’t deal with this crap anymore.” But, we all go through it at times.

Just have to slug it out.

One of the weirdest, most awkward, but most relieving events happened to me today. I ran into the girl I dated in high school.

She was my "first". The first girl I ever took on a date. The first girl that ever kissed me. The first girl that ever cared about me. The first girl that ever made me feel special, and that I was worth something to someone. The first, and only girl at this point, that I ever loved. She was my everything. I loved her and she meant the world for me. I would've died for her. She was the only thing I would ever look forward to waking up to at the time. I hated high school, I hated the bullshit and the people. But not her. She was, and still is, one of the most beautiful girls I've ever seen. We had so much chemistry together and she will always mean something to me. I never really told her or showed her how I felt though and this is the one regret I have in life. And because of this, I've tried to live life and let people know that they mean something to me, and that I appreciate them for what they do for me as much as I can.

The last summer I had before I left for BG was the best summer I've ever had, because the majority of it was spent with her. I cannot put into words how much she meant to me. The night before I left for BG, we were together. I dropped her off at her house, and I drove back home. It was the longest drive back home of my life, from anything. I remember crying on the way home because I already missed her, and I knew that things would probably never be the same.

And they weren't.

I haven't spoken to, or seen her in almost 4 years now. She made a lot of bad decisions with her life – stripping being one of them. She had a rough childhood and family life. Shitty previous boyfriends. Shitty friends. And she surrounded herself with a lot of bad people, people that I wanted nothing to do with and left for BG because of. I did everything I could to help her after high school and to get her life together before I left for school. She refused it all, and it hurt.

Much like the current situation I've been dealing with for the past few weeks with another girl, we just stopped talking and went our seperate ways. It's hard to explain what happened, because nothing really did happen. We just stopped talking and seeing each other and everything just dissolved. I remember the very last conversation we had on the phone when I was in BG, it was absolutely so cold and impersonal. It was tragic, it was heartbreaking, and it was a cause for the heavy depression I had my first year of college (which is an entirely differant topic in of itself). I had a lot of ill will towards her and our group of friends at the time and it took a lot of time to get over her. But, I got over it and for the past year or so, I've been wondering what's happened to her, and I ran into her today.

She's now married, has a child. She has a decent job, and her husband cares about her and takes care of her and their son. Her baby was born 2 months premature, but he's beautiful and he's healthy. They're moving soon into a great house and they're living decently. She's grown up so much, and it's I am absolutely estatic to see her life coming together for her.

I'm just so genuinly happy for her. And I pray, and hope, that her life will finally stay this way and that this man keeps caring and never, ever breaks her heart. She's a one of a kind.

This made me think all day, and let me just say to you all: Let the people you care about know that. Don't let them slip away from your life because of petty nonsense. Life is too short for that. Let your loved ones know that you love them and care because people can exit your life as fast as they came in. And, I think this event today inspired me and motivated to make some changes and be bolder in life.

I know you'll never see this, or know what I've felt. But, thank you for everything, Dee.

This is pretty much, the funniest and greatest thing I've ever seen on the internet.

I mean, what other television program can you find babies that are 100lbs, wild teenagers out of control getting sent to boot camp, and ghetto mommy's trying to find their baby's daddy?

It has everything I want in a tv show, and more.

My favorite premise? I can so totally relate to all those out there who just totally lose count of who they're sleeping with, and are completely unsure of what kids are theirs.

All of the pretty ladies in the stands and who watch the games. Why, oh why, do I live in America again?

Oh yeah, the World Cup so far has been a lot of fun to watch, as always. The US/Italy game was most excellent, and here's hoping we can beat Ghana to (hopefully) advance to the next round!

I finally saw X-Men 3 the other night with a couple friends. I was completely let down by this movie. Now, usually, I'm not one of those people that complain about books/comics being changed for movies. It's just part of the game and it's normally something I can look over unless it was completely drastic. But not this time around.

The first two X-Men films, I thought, were genuinly good films. Like any other comic book adaption, there were some changes made with the characters and personalities, but it was nothing that ever bugged me too much and it never deterred me from the rest of the movies.

But this time around, it really bugged me. Admittedly, I'm an X-Man fanatic and a comic geek in general. And I felt the characters were completely misused throughout the entire film, and that many of the characters were not given enough justice because of the focus on Wolverine, Storm and Jean Gray. Now, I have no problem with the focus being pretty much on Wolverine. He's the franchise character, he's comics biggest and most popular character (and my personal favorite anyways) so – it's to be expected. Ditto on Jean Gray's role. The whole "I love Jean Gray" storyline got tired by the second film and I don't think it should've dominated this one. About a quarter through the movie, I groaned "Get the hell over her already" to my buddy. We both had a good chuckle over it.

In addition, if you're hyping it up to have all these mutants and make it out to be an "epic" film, then live up to it.

To treat Angel like a blip on the screen? To not even have Gambit in the film? Why was Nightcrawler completely left out?To kill off Cyclops? And to have Rogue and Mystique lose their powers? I mean, c'mon. And don't even get me started on Juggernaut and what they did to him. They couldn't even give us a Colossus/Juggernaut fight.

To be honest, I didn't even really care that much for the storyline, it didn't carry the emotional weight the first two did. I felt some of it was too over the top and corny, even for a "comic book movie". (i.e Wolverine's speech at the end, some of Halle Berry's acting, and the "I'm The Juggernaut, bitch" line. Even though it's a homage to the online cartoon parody, it still came off ridiculous)

I wasn't expecting anything groundbreaking, just a good solid action flick and it just left so much to be desired. They really should've waited for Singer after he got done with Superman, or at the very least, not bring in a guy with a track record of creating mediocre movies.

A couple weeks ago, this old woman comes up to me and is like, "Do you have ice cream on a stick?" Odd question, but yeah. We do, they're called Arctic Bars. And they are delicious. But, back to the story. I show her where they're at, and she responds, "NO! Don't you have like A ice cream on a stick? Or A ice cream on a cone?" I look at her like, "WTF are you smoking?" and she continues to babble on, "Like, individiual cones! Or individual ice creams! Individually wrapped or something? Don't you guys have that? I want ice cream now! I don't want a whole box of ice cream, just like, A ice cream on a stick or on a cone!!"

I would've loved to see the look on my face after she said all this. I replied, "…..no….we don't carry anything like that."

She storms away saying, "Doesn't this damned store have ANYTHING?"

Why don't you try going to that Dairy Queen right down the street, ma'am. I've heard rumors for a while that they sell "individual ice creams".

About two years ago, I went to go see a man by the name of Mike Doughty perform at Howards, in BG. Never heard of him before. Two friends of mine made the hardcore drive from Cleveland to Bowling Green to see him, then leave right after the show. They invited me to the show, so I went, never even hearing of this guy before. But, I was assured that this was a "must go". This guy, apparently, was that good.

And, he was. It was just him and his acoustic guitar. I had never even been to Howards before. It's dark, it's grimey, and small. Basically, it's so incredibly rock and roll. There were maybe about 25 people there at the show and it seemed like everyone in that room knew every word, to every song. Except me, of course.

It was small, it was intimate and quite frankly, it was one of the most memorable and interesting shows I've ever been to. Mike Doughty is just a genuinly interesting guy. What I later found out that night is that Mike Doughty used to front a band by the name of Soul Coughing. He played a couple of songs that sounded familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on where I've heard them before, and it turns out – he fronted that band. The music he now creates is totally differant than Soul Coughing, and is quite good (more singer songwriter-ish). And I hope to actually catch him again, for the 3rd time, Saturday night.

Anyways.

You may or may not have heard of Soul Coughing. They had two hits in the 90's, Super Bon Bon (which is one of the COOLEST songs ever) and Circles, which, apparently, has been played numerous times on Cartoon Network (according to my roommate of last year, anyways). But they were definitely much more "underground" then mainstream and often a forgotten, or ignored band.

So what is Soul Coughing?

"Slacker jazz". That's all you need to know. Listen to these songs, and you will feel like the coolest kid in the world. There is just something undeniably groovy, catchy, and cool about the music. They can totally change the way you listen to music if you give them a shot. These are three of my personal favorites by them, off their album Irresistable Bliss.
Super Bon Bon

Soft Serve

The Idiot Kings

I suppose every workplace has their one nut-job/weirdo/guy that makes you feel kind of weirded out. We, at the store, are no exception to this. "That creepy guy" happens to be our store janitor/clean up guy, ironically enough.

We'll call our creepy janitor guy, Joe. Joe is short, balding, a bit overweight, has a moustache, and just looks odd. Not saying everyone who is short, balding, a bit overweight, has a moustache and glasses looks creepy, but if you saw this guy, you'd say to yourself, "Yeah, he has the potential to be a perv." He just gives off that vibe. And honestly, he just looks like a janitor. It's just one of those "things", I guess.

From what I understand, he lives at home with his parents. He's in his late 30's, early 40's. I can't really confirm the living at home thing, but co-workers always joke about that. In his truck, he seems to have packed just about everything he owns in there. There are clothes and whatnot in there. And, one of the few things of substance he does talk about is travelling, and he always goes travelling. Where? I don't know. So, I'm guessing there's some truth to him living at home, or does from time to time anyway. This guy, without question, is single.

Now, don't get me wrong here – he's a nice guy. He is always talking to people, and likes to talk and socialize. That's great. The real problem here is what he talks about and what most of his conversations consist of. Typical conversation starter:

Joe: You know what would be great?

Me: *thinks to self, already knowing the answer will be something involving "working in our birthday suits"/naked*, but will entertain anyways* What's that, Joe?

Joe: Working in our birthday suits! How great would that be? Of course, we would probably get fired or told to go home, but just imagine it! It would be great. Maybe the store would be a lot less busy if we all worked naked!

[insert uncomfortable laugh from me here]

Me: Yeah, that would be really something else. Who knows though? Maybe the store would actually get busier!

*chuckles from both of us*

And just repeat this about 3-4 differant times a week. Every week. Every week for as long as I've worked at the store, which is basically 4 summers now. And of course, one is left with the mental image of this man working in his so-called birthday suit. And you are constantly repeated of this conversation and image because he brings it up almost every damned day. It isn't pleasant, and that mental image bothers me throughout work.

Occasionally he'll throw in some talk about sex, or maybe sports, or some other weird perverted thing. But, generally – it's about wanting to work naked. I don't know why one would want to work naked when handeling the garbage, or scrubbing the toilets. But, apparently, he's into that type of thing.

Today at work, it was a bit of an exception. He had a differant conversation, and it went as follows:

*as I put away cardboard, he creeps up*

Joe: Today is a great day to have sex with 16 year olds.

Me: *literally dropping the card board and insert uncomfortable chuckle* hah, what?!

Joe: Yeah, ya know. It's a great day to have sex with 16 year olds!

Me: *trying to find a way to steer the topic away from this* Oh, it's a great day to do anything but be here at the store. It's such a nice day outside.

Joe: Yep. It really is, beautiful day out. It's a really nice day outside, and it's definitely a great day to have sex with 16 year olds!

*walks away laughing*

I mean, wtf?

Over the past couple days, I've noticed some interesting things. For those that don't follow the news much, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the supposed leader of the Iraq insurgency, was killed the other day by 2, 500 pound bombs dropped by the U.S. military.

I have my own thoughts on this man. I think he's nothing more than a very small part of a very large problem. I don't think his death really means that much in the long scheme of things. Maybe it's differant for the troops, and maybe it's a morale booster for both here at home who support(ed) the war and those fighting abroad. But I think he was more of a scape goat, a symbol perhaps, for the administration than anything else. And really, this guy being dead isn't going to stop the insurgency. And it isn't going to stop bitter feelings between all the differant ethnic groups within the region. And it isn't going to stop the resentment felt by many Iraqi's in the country have against our troops being there.

Terrorism is a hydra. You kill one and you spawn 5 more in the wake. And it doesn't matter if it's this man, or bin Laden. Terrorism is as old as human civilization, as old as war itself. You will never kill it. You may kill people, but you will never kill ideas or fanaticism. One man's terrorist is another man's patriot.

What's interesting is some of the glee I've seen from the right (and some in the left) in regards to this man's death. And while no doubt he was a terrible human being and had this coming to him – it is not something to take pleasure in. I see guys like Sean Hannity saying how "great" of a day it is that the man's dead and how he takes pleasure knowing he's dead.

I don't think anyone should ever take pleasure or joy in the demise in someone else, regardless of how terrible human being they are/were. You should never be joyous in war. I find it to be the lowest, darkest point in human nature. I can count on one hand the amount of wars I can see in modern history that were ever really justified (World War II being the biggest example).

I've read things on the internet in the past day about people saying how he is someone that if captured, should be given no basic human rights, he doesn't deserve any because he took them away from others, that he should be tortured, and so on. And this goes for any terrorist, and anyone held captive now by the U.S.
I find that line of thinking incredibly ironic and hypocritical at the same time. We point the fingers at these terrorists, and say that they killed people and they are barbarians for their actions. And that killing is wrong and they are terrible people for what they've done. And then the same ones who point the finger cheer for the blood of the terrorist. What I've learned through life is that for every finger you point at someone else, there are three more pointing back at you.

What should seperate "us" from "them" is the way we treat others. We as the lone superpower in this world, the most powerful and influential nation in the world, have the obligation to do what's right. Thousands of years into this, and one would think that humans would evolve to think with our heads and not always our gut. Just because we could kill and we could sink to low levels of human behavior, doesn't mean we should and it doesn't mean it's always right.

I am not calling for pacificism, sometimes you have to fight. And war and killing isn't always black and white.This world itself is not black or white. We live in an incredibly complex age. But I believe we should hold ourselves to higher standards both ethically and morally, think about how consistent we are in our line of logic, and think about our actions and how we carry those out.