The greatest waste of space: humans

Working in retail for the 3rd summer of my life, I’ve noticed something about people: they seem to think the world revolves around them. They expect everything handed to them on a silver platter, that the world owes them something, and they deserve special treatment. I’m in college, and this would be my third job I’ve had. Luckily, this is only the second I’ve had that requires human contact/interaction. And thank the stars that it’s the first one I’ve had in California.

Working at a Drug Store is interesting, because they sell a little bit of everything there. From, the obvious, drugs like aspirin and enemas to hardware products like screwdrivers and light bulbs. Obviously, it’s a disappointment if a store you go to does not have the item/product you are looking for. I mean, there are millions of stores across the region where one can find something in particular. What’s the real pain in the ass, is how people express their disappointment.

For example, the other day, just before I clock in for my shift, one couple is in to buy some champagne for a party that night. Well, we do have a modest selection of wines, beer and other forms of alcohol. What the husband decided to rant about was the fact that only the “cheap champagne” we kept chilled, not the “good kind.” Now, mind you, this store has a sign on it that says “Longs Drugs” not “Longs Liquor” so what do you expect?? If one is looking for already chilled champagne, one goes to a liquor store. Where I grew up, the drug stores never sold alcohol, so you’d go to a liquor store. Duh.

Why people get so uptight over the little things in life is well beyond me. Life is too short to complain about the little things. I seriously believe people wake up in the morning and think to themselves “who and how can I make as many people’s day as miserable as possible?” That’s what is wrong with today’s society. It’s all about us. Nobody cares about the guy or girl bagging our groceries, or the person waiting on us at our favorite restaurant or the person delivering our mail. Face it, if you’re well off or rich, you’re most likely a snob who thinks they’re better than everyone else.

I have this crazy idea, and I’m wondering if it will ever work, but stay with me on this. How about everyone, while a teenager, is required to work manual labor/customer service, something where you have to deal with customers all day, for a year. May keep people from being uptight asses about their groceries being bagged the wrong way, or their sub has swiss not provolone. Think about it.

Death from above, below and in between

I’ve read, seen and smelled many strange things in my life. When you’ve driven in Boston, LA and anywhere in Florida, one would think I’ve seen, read and smelled it all. Apparently not. Apparently, the new “hip” thing in the exploration of our solar system and universe is beyond strange. In fact, not even the SciFi channel has come out with a movie as strange as this: a space elevator.

A $4 billion project. And not only would it get us humans from the surface of our lovely planet to orbit, but somehow it would carry space explorers to other planets. Hope they serve peanuts on THAT trip, and you aren’t afraid of heights. Stargate, a giant circle which creates an artificial wormhole between itself and another giant wormhole (as seen currently running, quite succesfully, on the SciFi channel starring Richard Dean Anderson a.k.a MacGuyver), seems much more plausible and realistic than this. Humans have dreamt of hundreds of ways of getting from point A to point B in space, from warp drive to worm holes to whatever they used in Star Wars, and the best we can come up with as doable means of space exploration is a giant freaking elevator??

Ok, I see some problems with this. First off, since there would be a fixed point on Earth where this fantastic voyage would originate from, you would basically need a fixed point in orbit that maintains the same speed as the Earth’s rotation (not sure that anything we do send into orbit actually does this). Second, if it is a fixed point, may I remind people that it’s easier to hit a motionless target rather than a moving one? All we need is these psycho religious fanatics to hijack another plane, let alone a boat, and slam it into THIS thing. Can you imagine, they’d have to patrol the base platform, below it for those sneaky underwater attacks, and the 62,000 miles between the base and the end point into space (how far they claim it would go). We couldn’t protect Pearl Harbor from Japanese attack nor the Pentagon or the Twin Towers on 9/11, how are we going to protect this thing?? Thirdly, a space elevator??!

I mean, I just cannot get over this idea, and who thought it would be a GOOD one at that. And NASA seems to like it…I think we need to cut back on those tech heads’ caffeine over there, don’t you? Ok, sending crap into space strapped to a giant, highly explodable rocket isn’t a brilliant idea, but at least it makes sense!

Just make sure to pack plenty of dramamine and tranquilizers for those people who have height issues.

Our heroes, the sports figures

More and more we are reading about controversy in sports, from what age can an individual be drafted as a professional to steroids. I wont bother with the former, seeing that a person has to right to skip important parts of their life to become an athlete.

But, steroids, performance enhancing drugs, all that, now THAT is a topic that many have delved into, and there is no limit as to what can be said about it. These people get to live every person’s dream (well, almost everyone’s) and play a sport they excel at for a living. I can tell you now, I dream every day about playing professional baseball, wishing I had been one of the gifted few. These people, as I said, live that dream, and yet, somehow, that dream is lost behind dollar signs and all that crap not too long after realizing the dream. The pressure to be the best, to keep performing at a higher level is quite high. I can see how athletes are tempted to do what’s necessary to rise above the others, or to maintain they’re lofty status.

Take Barry Bonds, my focus for this little topic here. This, I will never argue against, is a great hitter. His discipline at the plate is unparalleled. But, if you look at him, watch him hit pitches, you may notice something, I sure did, and I don’t know why no one else has questioned this. Most home runs of his (I see watching highlights on ESPN) would be deep flies, at the most, if anyone else hit the ball with the same level of contact. He is SO strong he can muscle a routine fly into a home run. At his age, with the rate of his muscle growth, he should not be able to do this. Think about it: how many baseball players have, around or at the age of 40, been as strong as him? He put on, what, 20-40 pounds of muscle in one off-season (Assuming those reports are correct)? People who spend their lives working out, muscle building, will say his increase in muscle mass in the amount of time it took him is impossible without performance enhancers.

I don’t care if they’re “legal” or “illegal” performance enhancers, THEY’RE STILL PERFORMANCE ENHANCERS. It taints an entire game by using anything unnatural outside of normal muscle building through weight lifting and dieting. These people get paid millions of dollars, and we spend hundreds of dollars to see them, to play a game, and it’s all about, in the beginning, their talent, realized or not, and to me, using steroids and all that kills the magic of this, or any, sport.

Political Correctness

Hey all who might be looking at this here Blog thing. All I can say is I don’t care too much about offending people, or about being politically correct about issues. Which leads me to my first issue: political correctness. It’s in my opinion that people who are offended by people who don’t really care about being p.c. are people who are just way too sensitive. Honestly, I don’t care about your feelings when it comes to issues here, but that’s not to say I’ll be full of hate, bigotry and all that lovely stuff. There’s a fine line between all that. Hatred based on skin color, ethnic background, religious beliefs, etc is just plain retarded. I just like humor.

So, if someone who’s white, black, brown, yellow, purple or polka dotted is fair game to me, I’ll make fun, “attack” (not in the physical sense) and all that based on all that crap. Sue me, I don’t care about your feelings. If you’re offended, you need to take a look at yourself and figure out why you are so uptight.