You ain't nothing until someone tries to steal your identity

Yesterday evening I received a phone call from the head office of my bank. They informed me that they were canceling my debit card because they suspected it may have been copied and that I should monitor my accounts to see if anything unwarranted is going on. They couldn't provide me with any specific information except that I had to go to my bank branch to get a new card and find out the details. I just returned from my branch and it turns out that the ATM at the convenience store around the corner from my house is suspected of having one of those false fronts that copies your card and a mini camera video tapes your pin number.

There are a million scams like this out there and I've always thought that it would be really easy to pull a lot of them off. The only problem is I could never bring myself to do any of them because I would feel way too guilty ripping innocent people off. I heard somewhere that 1 in 25 people are sociopaths (that seems high to me) meaning that they have no conscience and are incapable of remorse. These people could commit any crime and not feel bad about it because they literally were unable to. The guy who was going around to all the coffee shops and stealing the Tsunami donations boxes would probably be one of these people although there are definitely other motivations for criminals as well and they aren't necessarily all sociopaths.

Dr. Robert Trestman, a professor of psychiatry and vice chairman at the University of Connecticut Health Center who has done 20 years of research on severe mood and personality disorders, said sociopaths are people who

"really do not demonstrate a sense that you're a human. From their perspective, it's them, and everybody else is just as useful to them as a chair, just as meaningless as a chair. So if you hurt or kill, it's no worse than hurting a chair. It's just the utility of the chair as it relates to them."

If that's 1 in 25 people or 4% of the population that's pretty fucked!

tags:crime, criminals, sociopath

Everyday is Halloween

A friend of my sister's came up with an idea which she relayed to me. It's basically as follows: Imagine someone emigrated to North America from another country (for the sake of this idea lets say a rural area in a country that is not a part of the "western world")Now Imagine that the day they arrived it was Halloween, they would probably think that the way we do things over here is pretty crazy. When she first presented me with this I thought it was funny and imagined this person looking at hordes of children dressed up in bizarre outfits going door to door for an unknown reason. I wondered if the person would think that this is everyday life for us over here. But the more I thought about it the more I came to think that Halloween (to someone from a remote region of a far off land) would be no more strange than how we DO live our everyday lives. If you look at the large scope of western fashion alone (even what the average person wears) it would probably be virtually impossible to tell the difference between most peoples clothes and a Halloween costume. From the middle aged woman with an inch of makeup, a spray on tan, and bouffant hairdo and a dress from 1965 to some decked out goth kid how would a new arrival really be able to tell the difference. I also think that Halloween would probably be a mere blip on the radar compared to all the other sights and sounds of any town USA.

tags:Halloween, ideas, misc

My Soul Stamped "Return to Sender"

An absurd line of thinking I have been exploring lately is this: What if (no matter what religion you subscribe to) when you die the wonderful afterlife you were promised is gone. Now I'm not saying that it didn't exist but that it has either moved or has been "re-formatted". The best analogy I can come up with is this: When a acorn falls off of a tree it hopes to find a nice piece of earth to burrow itself into and start its new life, Now lets say that the earth is long gone and the acorn finds itself landing in a parking lot. The acorn is basically doomed to roll around the parking lot for the rest of its existence. The acorn would have no idea that once it left the tree that the promise land it had always believed would be there would be altered. I think that somewhere in my mind I fear that when I die my soul will float off to wherever its going only to smack right into the proverbial parking lot and spend the rest of eternity floating around on the surface.

This brings me to a another line of thinking. What am In the dark about as a 27 year old. When you are a child you believe in certain absolutes, the most obvious examples are Santa Claus and the Easter bunny, more complex and less absolute are issues like believing that television commercials are public service announcements. When we get older we realize that these things are completely false and its really just a part of growing up etc. But what if this doesn't only happen when we leave childhood but at other parts of our life as well. How do I know (as a 27 year old) that once I hit 30 I will be let in on truth about some of the things I fundamentally hold to be true (also at other points down the line as well). Of course no one who has passed those ages would divulge the truth, the same way you wouldn't (or shouldn't) tell a small child that there is not Santa Claus (they probably wouldn't believe it anyway). So getting back to the original point what if we spend our whole lives believing in something to be an unshakable truth only to hit a paved afterlife.

I am aware that there are some religions that don't believe in afterlife, I was just using the basic Christian "heaven" type framework for my example.

I also realized that this is full of "What If's", that's just the mood I'm in today

tags:ideas, religion, what if

Klara Polzl Hitler

Tom was right. The picture in my previous post (and this one) is of Klara Polzl Hitler, Adolf Hitler's mother.

I found the pic while flipping through and old book I had and it hit me that I never even considered that Adolf Hitler had a family. Being such a diabolical figure in history, for some reason in my mind he existed as a sole entity that appeared in time without a family history or future (I think in my mind he existed in the same way I would imagine the devil, but in this case we are talking about an actual human being who actually lived). I guess I also never pictured him as a child, only as the confused, demented syphilis ridden middle aged man who is prominently featured on the history channel. Its hard to explain but I guess I don't picture someone who murdered millions of people to have had a normal family dynamic or any family dynamic for that matter. I think that my thoughts are so influenced by films that I subconsciously fill in the untold parts of the story (not with necessarily the most logical events but maybe the ones most important to the overall plot). Prior to finding the picture, in my brain Adolf Hitler just showed up in Germany one day without a back story. I know the parts of his history that contain all the atrocities so the rest had been filed as unimportant.

Guess who this is

Without giving any information about this picture I am curious to find out what people think of it. Who do you think it is? Create a story/scenario if you like. I will reveal the answer in my next post.

Reality shows popularity waning

When reality shows first hit the scene I resisted them full force and refused to watch them on basic principle. I didn't see a single episode of Survivor Season 1 until the night of the finale. Before going out a friend and I turned it on for about 5 minutes, we decided we had to leave the house because we could feel ourselves getting sucked in. That night at the bar it was extremely quiet (maybe 5 people in the whole place) I imagined that everyone was having a Survivor party and watching the show in droves (they must have been, it had been all anyone could talk about for months). I was stubborn and wanted in no way to give in to this new TV trend.

This all changed when I found myself working in a job that was in essence a
sinecure. I had nothing better to do than watch TV and seeing as this was still supposed to be a job the TV didn't have cable and therefore I only got 2 channels who's reception was relatively clear. I learned something interesting about myself while in this position: I could watch the most ridiculously terrible crap day in and day out if I had nothing better to do (or was too lazy to do something else). I literally watched the soap opera "Passions" for 2 years straight while absolutely despising it with every fiber of my being. (eventually I accepted the show. But in my defense I think they got new writers). The passions thing is a separate issue but I did start watching reality shows when they were on and in most cases I didn't hate them the way I had convinced myself I should.

If Jerry Springer and COPS have taught us anything its that drama and conflict are entertaining and can pass as a viable TV show. Reality shows are based on this doctrine, without it they're nothing. I personally find that the closer a show gets to the finale the less interesting it becomes. I watched the entire season of last years Apprentice except the final 2, by that point there are so few contestants left that it becomes more of a serious competition and I couldn't care less about the actual outcome. In reality TV the end doesn't justify the means, the means justifies the means. This formula doesn't work if you want your show to have longevity, essentially you are making the equivalent of a popcorn movie. Its entertaining for the time you spend watching it but it utterly forgettable. I have to really think to remember the people who won all the reality shows I've seen let alone all the jackasses who got voted off in the early weeks of the shows.

Of course American Idol is the exception to the rule. Because they are working along to an actual goal, we are more likely to hear about them when the thing is all done, but no one who placed lower than the top 2 (unless you banged Paula Abdul). So in actuality it isn't the exception to the rule. The show still has the conflict and drama they just condense most of it into the audition stage of the show and 90% (actually 83.34%) of the finalists are forgotten (especially Josh Gracin).

I guess I should get to the point of this post. All the reality shows (including the flagship Survivor) are dropping in the ratings. It seems that people's interest is moving back to scripted drama's like the monster hit "Lost". This isn't a bad thing because the reality template is getting pretty worn out. I'm sure the big shows will stick around for quite a while longer but we probably wont see many more flash in the pan's like the "Temptation Island"s or the "Average Joe"s anymore.

tags:tv, reality tv, entertainment

Revisions in popular thought

As I was sorting through some of the mounds of crap I have lying around I came across something that I had ripped out of a spin magazine back in the early to mid nineties. It has to be late 1993 or early 1994 (judging by what is written). It is a list of the 100 greatest songs of all time as voted by the readers (click to view a scan), on the reverse are various other top lists. There are some interesting things to note especially after this years release of spin's top 100 albums of the past 20 years.

Whenever we see a list of the top modern rock (or any rock for that matter)albums or songs of all time Nirvana will undoubtedly be in the top 5, or top 10 if its a British list. This is just accepted fact these days because that's the way history has presented to us since the mid nineties. We are told that grunge and especially Nirvana broke onto the scene and changed everything, although this is true it wasn't until Cobain's death that Nirvana (and the idea of grunge) rose to legendary status.
There is ample evidence right there on the readers songs picks of 1993. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" ranks as number 43. The song didn't get any better after Cobain killed himself the following year. The number 1 song on the list is "Black" by Pearl Jam, Which makes sense because during the whole "grunge" thing Pearl Jam was a much bigger phenomenon than Nirvana was. The difference is that Pearl Jam made a bunch of mediocre records after Cobain offed himself thus changing the way music history is written. Its not breaking news that death is the best thing for a career (I've always found it interesting that people seem to forget that Lennon made crap records (with the exception of Imagine) for all of the 1970s.

As I said on the reverse of the readers poll there were other lists one being Spins picks for the top 5 albums of all time. Beside the 5 I will indicated what position the albums are on the new spin top 100.

1.Ten, Pearl Jam (drops to position 93)
2.Nothing's shocking, Jane's Addiction (drops to position 42)
3.Dirt, Alice in Chains (drops off the list)
4.The Joshua Tree, U2 (drops off the list)
5.Ritual de lo Habitual, Jane's Addiction (drops off the list)

Its funny that with the exception of Radiohead's OK computer the other 4 records in the top 5 had been released when the 1993 list came out. There is one glaring entry on the 1993 list that somewhat blows my theory about death and fame and that is of course Alice in Chains "Dirt" album, in just over ten years it went from being hailed as the 3rd best album of all time to an album someone would be embarrassed to use as a coaster. The explanation may be directly related to the last line of Cobain's suicide note. "Its better to burn out than to fade away". After "Dirt" Alice in Chains literally faded away where as Cobains death sprung them even farther into superstardom. Had Cobain's and Stayley's deaths been reversed I suspect history would too.

tags: music, top 100, grunge, Nirvana

Why I Hate Plastic Surgery

Ultimately its false advertising (I'll get to that in a minute). I wish we could live in an ideal world where people aged gracefully and accepted themselves how they looked but I live in the media obsessed Western world and I guess if I want all the stuff I love about this world I must also accept all the crap that comes along for the ride. But that doesn't mean I have to sit mute on the subject either.

I think Plastic surgery (much like CGI) is still at the point where it looks ridiculous. It's very obvious, bizarre and looks out of place next to natural elements. It's like looking at Jar Jar Binks beside Queen Amidala, one is a thing of beauty and the other is an abomination (not just on an aesthetic level but on a theoretical level too). I not only hate looking at it but hate everything that it stands for as well. As with all cases there are probably exceptions to these rules: Let's say there are some filmmakers who can create CGI that is indistinguishable from reality and there are plastic surgeons who can do the same. They are true artists and no-one can see the seam between the real and the artificial. ( I don't have any specific examples, but they may exist).

Now please don't get confused I am not talking about reconstructive surgery or any procedure for people who genuinely need the work done. When I say plastic surgery I am talking exclusively about vanity surgery. I'm talking about the type of people on Extreme Make Over who think that they're lives will be miraculously better if they could just look different. Its as if thinking that replacing your yellow front lawn with astro-turf and covering the peeling paint with vinyl siding on the outside of your shit-hole house will somehow transform the interior as well. People on this show with that line of thought quickly find the inside of their home is just as empty and messy as it was before the only difference is that people walking by think the house now looks better (if not a little artificial).

On the point of false advertising. We are attracted to the opposite sex first and foremost on a physical level (anyone that tries to deny this is full of shit) lets face it essentially we are still mammals and we still possess natural animal instincts. Somewhere deep Below all the McDonalds jingles and Simpson's quotes we have the basic inherent instinct to procreate the species (even if it is un-necessary anymore with world over-population). Like animals we pick mates based on physical traits. If you went to the supermarket and bought a box of Kellogg's Rice Krispies and then went home and opened the box only to find No-Name rice puffs inside you'd rightfully be pissed off. The same thing would apply when Joe/Jane-Schmo has offspring with Neo-Barbie/Ken and a goblin-child pops out. Plastic people aren't bringing the genes they advertise to the pool.

tags: plastic surgery,ideas,insight,

The Bargain Store

You will not find a more retched hive of scum and villainy. You know the kind of place I'm talking about.

*its the kind of place that attracts all the degenerates because it has the cheapest cigarettes in town.

*its the kind of place that you buy batteries from because they are ridiculously cheap thinking how can they be different than name brand batteries only to learn that they last literally 5 minutes.

*its the kind of place that seems to only have customers with really strange sounding coughs.

*its the kind of place that has a bargain bin of VHS movies that all suck.

*its the kind of place that has a frozen food section with the lowest grade meat you can find. Oh and the food Isle is shared with something dangerous and/or toxic.

*its the kind of place where they sell T-shirts called "America's Own" brand on the tag, but on the other side of said tag it reads "Made in Bangledesh".

*its the kind of place where Nascar fans get their wardrobe.

Anyway, I'm not even going to mention the name of this store because I think by now everyone knows what type of store I am talking about. At this store I bought a bottle of RC cola, mainly because I had no idea the stuff still existed.

tags: bargain, shopping, cola

The Office

I Originally wrote off the first season of the American office after seeing the pilot episode because it was a poor cookie cutter version of the British version. At that point I had seen the entire 2 seasons and the holiday special so I really didn't want to watch the whole story played out again. So up until this season I had only seen 1 episode of season 1. This all changed when I caught an episode of season 2 a couple of weeks ago, the show has definitely come into its own. The basic premise is the same but they are rolling with a different storyline all together. Steve Carell is the perfect person to play the boss character, he does it brilliantly. I literally cannot picture another (American) actor who could putt it off as well as him. Its also a refreshing change to see a show that features "average" looking people. I don't know how the show is doing in the ratings (its on NBC who are in last place of the big 4 networks) but I hope it can finish its run.

tags:tv, entertainment, the office