White noise to hide our shame

We are supposed to love our neighbor
as we love ourselves, but I don't think we
have a clue what that means. I have been avoiding writing on Katrina or other political topics as of late because frankly, this all exhausts me. It is emotionally and even physically tiring to take in the state of the world right now and allow it to weigh on oneself to the extent one might think it should. The things going on in the world today are really no better or worse than throughout the whole of history by and large, but that doesn’t make them bear on our souls any less. What should be different though is that we as a society should be more enlightened (heck, we can even fly to nearly any country we please in about a day) but it is starkly apparent that we are not.

You really can’t turn anywhere without hearing about Hurricane Katrina, nor should you be able to. This is an amazingly catastrophic event and having been to New Orleans once before, I cannot wrap my head around the fact that my hotel, the Hard Rock Café I so enjoyed, and the Convention Center I spent my time at are either under water or filled with humans forced to live upon each other like so many chickens in a cage. People are starving, people are dying, and yet the primary discussion is how the administration screwed this situation up. Who cares? I am exhausted with this conversation. If we couldn’t keep the country from re-electing Bush last year on account of a misled war and misappropriated funds, how will tossing a red state into the Gulf of Mexico change anything? The administration will never own up to anything, we’re going to get the same schpiel over and over, and we should just accept that they are a bunch of inconsiderate hate-mongers who are in it for themselves. But then again, it’s our fault they’re in office. Let’s focus on the fact there are thousands of people without homes who are dying in the Superdome all the time. Let’s get them out of there and let Bush deal with God for the blood on his hands.

But another issue that has come up is that of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s decision to veto a bill in California that would permit gender-neutral marriage. He hasn’t actually signed the veto as of this writing, but he has announced he is planning on doing it. I feel like I’m talking to a wall when I try to debate the issue of gay marriage, primarily because I don’t understand why our “enlightened” society thinks this is an issue at all. If your next door neighbors get married, do they take part of your house? No. Do they come club your knees? Unlikely. But should you prevent them from realizing happiness just because you don’t think they’re right for each other? Absolutely not. It’s the same thing with gay marriage; two men or two women marrying each other does not affect anyone else in the least. The only possible effect I can think it would have would be on those who are insecure with themselves who are forced to comprehend a different world order. Being gay is not a choice. Look at the research and results from “change therapies” and “change ministries” across the world. The only thing they change is making people into hollowed out shells of wasted lives. For God’s sake Arnold, let the vote go to the people. You ran in a highly unusual election on a ticket of supportiveness and now you’re taking it back to save your own hide. This is irresponsible and decadent – it is no different from making black people use a different drinking fountain or forcing Jews to live in ghettos. You are condemning millions of people to societal death because of something they have no choice over and frankly, it’s embarrassing that it’s even your decision to make in the first place.

I’m usually up for a happy and lively debate, but what is going on right now is so very scary and close to home that it’s hard to take it lightly. I feel like we’re looking God right in the face and we’re still just thinking of ourselves. That is the only explanation I can think of in a world where the "Religious Right" is identified as a hate generating organization, where I can't argue with a colleague who asks why Christians are such evil people, and where movements to "protect families" fight to break up some of the most loving unions in the world today. We can and should do more and rise above the fray but if that's not something we're willing to do, then God help us.

My personal war with the office coffee machine

It looks harmless, but it can ruin your
reputation at the push of a button. As I’m sure anyone who has the pleasure of the nine-to-five grind in an office setting can understand, the office kitchen is a very treacherous place full of mystery and danger. It does have its upsides, such as how it keeps me in the banana trade without ever having to purchase fruit myself, but you can only find these benefits after wading through a veritable sea of delicious treats that do their darnedest to knock you off your diet. I am convinced that between the cookies and cakes (and I mean full-on, multi-layer, chocolate cakes) and the little bowls of Gummi Bears spread about the office at critical intersections, someone here is trying to get us fat and bake us into a pie.

But there is one particular item in the standard office kitchen that will continue to elude me and, I’m sure, thousands of other office denizens around the world: the coffee machine. Let’s be honest – we all know how to make coffee. We all have machines at home and all of us are well versed in the theory of brewing whether we took the introductory college class or not. Hot water goes through the grounds in the filter and then pours into the pot. Voila – fresh brew. Yet it never seems to work that easily when it comes to the coffee in the office kitchen. There is always some established system that any deviation from which will cause the standard coffee machine, that looks surprisingly like the one at home, to produce a viscous sludge that will bring the whole office to its knees. I know this because this happened to me yesterday.*

First, a quick flashback. In my old job as an agent assistant, the coffee was always already made by the time I arrived until the guy who came in the earliest quit and wasn’t replaced. The coffee making duties then fell to me, which wasn’t so bad since we had an automated machine that accepted pre-packaged amounts of coffee and there was little room for error. The partners decided they no longer wanted the luxury of this coffee maker so it was replaced with two separate machines to make regular and decaf, but with the old maker went the coffee packets and we were seemingly left with no coffee. Searching through the fridge I discovered a jar of grounds (unlabeled of course), which I proceeded to use for the next few weeks. This was until one of the partners saw what was happening and alerted me to the fact that the jar contained not coffee, but espresso. Entertainment is already a very stressful business – and I was inadvertently drugging the office.

You would think the years of experience would teach me, but apparently not. Yesterday the woman who typically sets up the coffee was out and we were forced to perform the task ourselves. Usually the machine has a new filter full of grounds in it so the next person just has to fill the pot and turn it on, but that wasn’t there either. When I came back to the kitchen desperate for my fix, I was on my own and I had no idea what the system was – how many scoops, which coffee to use or what kinds of voodoo spells to speak over the coffee maker. Trying to figure it out, I discovered there were two jars of coffee and both had weird crystal grounds instead of the normal-looking ones, so I just loaded it up with an arbitrary amount and set it to brew.

Apparently I have no clue what instant coffee is, as that is what I put in the machine. You’re just supposed to add water and it turns instantly to coffee, so brewing it was sure to yield interesting results. And interesting results they were - the office is still talking about the foul and vile liquid that poured forth from the nozzle that led me to empty my cup, throw out the pot, and swear off coffee. At least until this morning. Apparently the actual coffee grounds are in the nondescript Tupperware container hidden under the filters and stir sticks. Of course! Why not look for coffee everywhere except where there are clearly labeled jars of “coffee.”

There is always a system to office coffee. My advice is if you don’t know it, stay the hell away. The kitchen is a place of danger and mystery – if you go in there without knowing what you’re doing, you just might be up to your neck in deep-fried pastries and poison coffee. You’ve been warned.


*In the interest of full disclosure, I should say at this point that I am, at times, accident-prone. I have managed to get myself into some oddly embarrassing situations that most people are able to avoid with the greatest of ease. I like to say that I’m just thinking so far ahead that I can’t see what exactly is on the sidewalk in front of me, but I think the more common term is “klutz.”

How to "hear spiders eat babies" and other useful household tips

Wikihow.com holds the answer to life, the universe,
and everything. Or at least it could have. Life is full of those pesky little questions that nag at the back of our minds. What is the proper way to set up and host a cocktail party? Does the comma go before or after quotation marks? When you need to tell someone off on the road, do you flip the bird first and then shout expletives, or vice versa?

For centuries the answers to all of these questions were passed down in the oral tradition and about ten years ago, a great site called Ehow.com came along to serve as a database for those trivial, yet crucial, bits of information. With the evolution of the internet and the success of the Wikipedia, a user modified online encyclopedia, Ehow soon became Wikihow.com where the general public could readily contribute its knowledge to the greater good. But I don’t need to tell you that people are a few fries short of a Happy Meal from time to time, and occasionally some contributions are deleted by the administrators. I think this is a gross violation of freedom of information, but fortunately for you dear, smart, and educated readers, the deletion log is available for your general perusal.

Users can either submit an article on how to do something, or a request for someone in the know to write about their question. Of course there are the scads of articles about how to do those little things no one taught you to do in high school, such as how to “steal a Jeep Wrangler,” “make a firecracker”, or “smell poo.” Have you ever been suspicious whether your mum was a rhino? Well, there was an explanation available for you but it appears James didn’t think it was appropriate. This also goes for “how to tell if your rat understands English” or “if your spouse is an Alien.”

For those of us living on Skid Row, we know that life is a struggle and we must constantly be on the lookout for our fellow man. That’s why courageous webizens tried to write about how to “survive a bedn attack...again,” “piss someone the fuck off,” “kill a man using a grain of rice,” or “how to bludgeon someone’s head into nothing but liquid and gas,” all of which Jack H. didn’t think you’d want to see. And if you happen to be on the not so friendly side of any of these things, particularly a “bedn attack,” there was also a short-lived description of how to “die awesomely.”

Are you having trouble in bed, or even getting there in the first place? Well maybe the first step is to “kick your clingy best friend to the curb,” which unfortunately you’ll have to read about somewhere other than Wikihow. Perhaps you need to “learn to live a ‘gossip girl’ life,” learn to “touch a girl’s butt with her not caring,” or simply learn how to “become super hot.” If you’re doing all right in the boudoir and need a bigger challenge, then the article on “how to bang your girlfriend’s best friend” would have been a great help.

But then there are those situations that really nothing in any of our experiences has prepared us for and we require articles on these topics to protect ourselves in case they happen. However, there will be no help for the needy when it comes to “dismantling an atomic bomb,” “establishing democracy in Nepal,” “defeating aliens and extraterrestrials,” or “killing a giant man eating dinosaur with a laser beam hat with just your bare hands.” There used to be advice on “how to hold a dance where everyone must pay with live chickens” or “how to dance naked in the street in front of everyone you’ve ever held dear,” but alas you're going to have to figure these ones out on your own.

So if you want to check out this delightful list of things you could have learned but now may not get the chance, I encourage you to head over to the Wikihow deletion log at your earliest convenience. Perhaps it is even time to lodge a complaint against the administrators who have denied you the right to know how to “silence or kill your neighbor’s dog without being caught,” “boil a small baby with a minimum of fuss,” or even “peel a live elephant using only your bare hands.” We are Americans for Pete’s sake and we have a right to know - a right that is apparently ranked just slightly lower than our right to be creatively unintelligent.