How to Lament Advertisements

Posted on January 30, 2014 by qrparker

I lament advertisements.

Trust me, I understand why they exist. I understand the need for people to sell their product, and I understand the best way to garner positive feedback for something is to subconsciously relate it to something people already like. I get that, and I lament it.

Notice something?

That’s right! I bought the energy drink! Thinking I was immune to advertisements is what made me so vulnerable to them.

The conscious mind is what gets all the attention – it looks all glamorous because it’s what makes us better than ants or rockpiles, but we can learn a lot more from focusing on the subconscious mind — the things we do when we don’t have a real reason to do them.

When you start to try and pinpoint the reasons behind your action, you’ll find you often can’t come up with anything satisfactory. Instinct is a warm-bellied master, but he feeds you gruel. The void chills the heart, but the meals are sweet.

I’ve noticed WordPress has started to post ads on the bottom of my posts. This isn’t my doing. If you want to remove the ads you have to pay WordPress 30 dollars a year. I’m not going to do this. I failed Financial Mathematics, but I know making negative money on something is a bad thing.

I don’t like ads, especially when I don’t get any off the top. Please bear with me.

~Fin

More Canada

Posted on January 16, 2014 by qrparker

I’m back in North North America until school starts up. Canada is nice place to vacation, because everyone does their best to ignore you, especially if you’re the kind of person who looks a little troublesome.

I went to see a movie with Sister One. It was more difficult than you’d think, because in Canada, days that are close to holidays count as holidays.

In order to travel to the movie, we took this magical train not available in Real America called the Skytrain. Cars are the transportation of land, airplanes are the transportation of the air, and the Skytrain is transportation of the middle.

In case you couldn’t figure out what a Skytrain is by the name or that helpful diagram, a Skytrain is a train whose tracks are suspended in the sky rather than bolted into the ground.

A lot of Canada’s culture is based around doing the opposite of whatever Real America is doing. It’s like those teenage boys who hate Justin Bieber so much that they pay $500 dollars to go to his concert to throw an empty water bottle at him. Justin Bieber doesn’t care where the money comes from. All he cares about is that people keep saying his name. (YOU’RE WELCOME FOR THE FREE PUBLICITY, JUSTIN BIEBER’S MARKETING TEAM.)

I always enjoy my time here, but I think I’m about ready to return to Real America, where the only Canadians you see pretend like they don’t hate you.

~Fin

Yelling at People During Meetings

Posted on November 6, 2013 by qrparker

Sometimes in my line of work, I end up yelling at people. Not that yelling is technically in the job description. I’m not a foreman or middle-manager, where yelling is essentially your defining characteristic (that, and a deep-seated sorrow, although that’s something I do have, thank you very much.)

If I were in a job that requires me to be exploitative, like a congress-human (note the gender-neutralization – I’m very inclusive) or if I was the president, I think my yelling might be justified. The president has to spend all day of his or her day trying to wrangle in a slithering herd of psychopaths and liars, hoping to milk their venom into something semi-useful. If you’re a congress-human, you’re a snake who spends all day yelling about how everyone else is probably a snake. If the president yells, everyone pays attention because it probably means China has finally decided to invade using their perfectly synchronized gymnast-girls. If congress-humans yell, it means they’re just trying to fit in. Yelling in the case of both of these professions would be considered appropriate.

When I get passionate about something, I don’t speak.

I pontificate.

A paper isn’t bad, it’s an opaque mess of troglodytic drivel.

A performance isn’t unsatisfactory, it’s sub-par to the point of non-existence.

An idea isn’t poor, it’s an insult to the intelligence of every organism born over three-minutes ago.

Needless to say, this hurts people feeling beyond the recommended threshold for not receiving murderous glares. If I was a politician, this kind of dense yet vague criticism would not only be encouraged, it would be essential.

I, however, do not have a job in politics. Many people say I don’t have a job at all.

What is it exactly?

Sit down and I’ll tell you, friend.

What I have is an internship at a research journal.

To what does that entail, exactly? To put it in Layman’s terms (Larry Layman – a dumb guy I know):

I provide an outlet for cocksure nerds to publish their thoughts regarding schoolwork. Also I hurt people’s feelings during meetings.

It’s a tough job, but some has to be unpaid to do it.

~Fin

Anarchy, Week 2

Posted on October 10, 2013 by qrparker

As we close in on the second week without a government, my fellow citizens and I begin to see the repercussions. I’m living on nothing but cheap canned beans and half dollar ramen noodles. Was this basically my diet before the government left? Who can tell? All the days blend together in this post-democracy hellscape.

If I work out my dumb citizen head-brain, I can almost remember how this government shutdown began. Of course, as a non-politician with limited funds, I can’t even begin to possibly comprehend the complexities of such decisions. Such things require amazing mental gymnastics to make even the slightest sense, and my brain ego is just too human-sized to perform such incredible feats of self-rationalization. I believe it had something to do with how letting poor people see doctors will explode the country with an atomic death bomb of deadly, unsafe human compassion.

What then?

There is no ideology so perfect it can take precedent over basic human compassion. How can you promote the religion of Jesus in one breath and advocate against healing the sick in the next? What would Jesus of the bible (that kind hearted hippie who hung out with vagrants and wanted everyone to love each other) have to say in this situation?

But I suppose none of that matters now. The government is gone, and as far as I reckon, they ain’t coming back. Only a matter of time before Cormac’s McCarthy’s road winds through the once vibrant and beautiful streets of our land. All we left to remember our once great nation is the post office. Allelujah, brothers without leaders.

~Fin

America Finally Ends

Posted on October 3, 2013 by qrparker

So guess what? I’m living in an anarchist state.

A couple of days ago, the American government officially shut its doors. And then locked those doors, and flipped their country off, and then went off to enjoy the paychecks they’re still receiving thanks to the 27^th amendment to our constitution. In this way, the 27^th amendment is kind of the perfect allegory for the American Government itself. That is:

On paper it has good intentions

In practice it’s selfish and juvenile

It took over 200 years to get done.

That’s what I don’t understand. Democratic and Republicans both love the same things – eating expensive foodstuffs, gerrymandering districts, taking pictures of their dicks – they’re like the two kids in school fighting over Star Wars and Star Trek. You’re both a bunch of fucking nerds who like stars! Stop arguing over whether the stars are going on a trek or going to war!

Everyone should have figured out that America is the greatest country in the world – if you’re already rich. Otherwise it kind of blows. We have to go into personal debt to receive what places like Canada and France take as basic human rights.