Blogs

I don’t get some people. As I have said ad infinitum, I have been online forEVAAR—well, at least since the late 80s to early 90s; we're talkin' pre-web—and every time I think I have seen everything, the interwebs surprise me yet again. Usually with something I can subsequently complain about.

One favorite point of whiny complaint is the Amazon system wherein people can ask questions about a product and others who have purchased it chime in to answer to the best of their ability. Innocuous questions, like “Is this made from high-quality materials?” or “Will this fit on my ’75 Datsun?” Good questions that deserve a response.

And yet, there is a certain percentage of people who respond to these questions with variations of “I don’t know the answer to that one.”

Feel free to produce this dramatic work of art any time you wish. And don't say I never gave you people nuthin.

Interview With a Swill-Pig
a play in 5 acts

                                    Act 1: THREE DECADES AGO

SWILL PIG: Hello. I'm an attention-whoring swill-pig!

MEDIA: Hello, Mister Swill-pig! Have some more swill!

So I am stuck with the dilemma of "Do I make an expensive repair on a twelve-year-old car with 250,000 miles on it?" versus "Do I want the expense and the hassle of a new car?" Which, don't get me wrong, is a heckuva better predicament than "Do I eat this month or pay the electric bill?" But as someone who HATES CHANGE, I do not want a new car. Especially since nowadays, if I want a manual transmission (and I do), I will probably have to special order it.

So like any dutiful child, I unload my burdens on my Favorite Parents. (Some may call it "whining", but I digress. Besides, Mojo is so neglectful a child my Favorite Parents treat my whining as a Special Privilege they occasionally enjoy, since usually our conversations are more along the lines of "How are you?" with me just sort of grunting at them.)

Mind you, these are the people who TAUGHT me how to drive a standard transmission, filled me with tales of just how easy it is to DIE with an automatic, and they OWNED nothing but manuals until about twenty years ago, when my Favorite Father got over his general prejudice of the automatic transmission ("It's just one more thing to go wrong with the car") and now embraces them as an intergral part of his existence. My Favorite Mother, too, not ONLY went through much of her adult life driving a manual, but this HONKIN' BIG ORANGE VAN with three-on-the-tree which was our primary school bus-esque conveyance for us in high school when WE learned how to drive and got to occasionally borrow The Van and offer rides to our scores of worthless, shiftless, carless friends. In the eyes of her peers she was a freakin' TRUCK DRIVER with this MONSTROUS HULK that dwarfed their tiny insignificant four-passenger vehicles. But again, I digress.

I have never been to the Basketball Hall of Fame.

I'm sure this is true of the majority of people in the world, and even true of the majority of Americans. Except, of course, I grew up in the next town over, and I can't think of too many people in my life who have NOT visited the BBHoF at some point in their far-more-interesting lives. Indeed, it's kind of a standard school field trip destination when one is in elementary school, although exactly WHY I cannot say. Not being a basketball fan in the first place, I have the sneaking suspicion a field trip devoted to learning about basketball--let's face it, the rules AREN'T THAT DIFFICULT TO FOLLOW--would be about as appealing as a trip to, oh, say, the box factory.

While I myself don't care much for politics or political arguments in general, as usual I find myself in the minority, as everyone around me likes nothing better than a full-throated screamfest on a nearly daily basis. In a feeble attempt to streamline the process of a political discussion slogging toward where most political discussions eventually end up, I have made another short video of questionable taste and repulsive aesthetics.

(In retrospect, I should have documented this whole anecdote on my phone, via pictures or video. But I didn't. Because I had worn down my phone's battery to a nub-like 20%, and all of my instructions I had to follow were on the phone, and I was afraid the phone would die in the middle of my many tasks. So you will just have to take my word for it.)