Michael Kindt's Blog, page 501

I am a weapons-grade smartass.

See?

Fucking A.

In other news:

Spent the day with Mom, helping her pick out a new computer. She's so clueless about technology, but likes to play games. The number one priority for her: "Does it have free cell?"

:)

We got an adorable little laptop. 300 bucks. With free cell. She's not one to fondle the little pad to get the pointer to move around, so we also got a mouse.

Mom's all set and, just about an hour ago, scurried off to play with her new computer. She told me I have to remain near my phone to answer any questions she may have while she fires it up back at her place.

It's 2011. I'm always near my phone because it's in my pocket. She's so cute :)

Jesus christ I love that woman.

Now, I am drinking Bud Light and listening to Guy Clark. What the hell are you doing?

Story time.

Someone scolded me good-naturedly yesterday on Facebook for not posting enough stories around here lately. I'm all political now, they said, which is odd—true, but odd. I don't even like politics. I'm writing several stories and a book, but unfortunately they're in various states of undress. So here's an old one:

——-

Margaret, Mike, and The Mousetraps

        Several years ago, I was the assistant manager of a liquor store. It was called Queen City Liquors and it was a really nice place to work. The owner and manager was Margaret, a very cool older wo­man who had won the store in a divorce, like, 20 years previ­ously.
        Obviously, we sold alcohol of all kinds, but also alcohol paraphernalia, like shot glasses, wine glasses, styrofoam coolers, beer coozies, shakers, and so on. We also sold some snacks like chips and sun­flower seeds and candy bars.
        This is where the mice come in.
        The store opened at 10 am and Margaret worked the first shift every day, seven days a week. She won the business in a divorce and it became her new husband, her new family, her whole life. It may sound sad, but she wasn't a sad person. She loved her store and was very happy with her life. This was one of the reasons she was so cool. Miserable people an­noy me and I generally avoid them. Happy people are where it's at, socially.
        Word to the wise.
        Anyway, she got to the store about 9:30 and worked till 5 pm, which is when I came in. I closed the store down five days a week, getting out of there about 12:30 am. The other two days a week, we had a college student close down.
        So I get to work about ten to five one day and Margaret is up in arms. Her store has mice! They gnawed through a Doritos bag! She found turds in her office!
        I noticed a little stool behind the counter which wasn't usually there. "In case I see one and have to get off the floor," Margaret explained. She went on to tell me that she was "absolutely terrified" of mice.
        This is called musophobia—the irrational fear of mice. I realized Margaret had a severe case.
        "Oh, Mike, will you take care of it for me?" There was both fear and pleading in her eyes. "I don't even know how to set a mousetrap and there's no way I could ever touch a dead one. I don't even want to look at one."
        I felt so sorry for her. "Sure, Margaret. No problem."
        Off she went to grab some bait and traps downtown.
        But there was a problem—a big problem. You see, I don't kill anything. Ever. I'm 'dead' serious—ha, ha. At my house, I even catch flies with a paper cup and release them outside—fucking FLIES. There's no way I could kill a mouse if I can't even hurt a fly.
        So, yeah. At the time I didn't think of humane traps. Margaret wouldn't have been down with the idea anyway. First off all, she's a hard-headed (and pretty successful, I might add) businesswoman. It would be illogical in her mind to spend more on hu­mane traps when regular mousetraps are so cheap and work just as well. Second, though she feared mice, she also fucking hated them. Death was a reas­onable penalty for invading her store. In fact, it was probably too good for them.
        She was back inside a half an hour with two standard traps, some peanut butter, and a little wedge of brie.
        Yes, I was thinking the same thing you are now: brie?
        I told you she was a successful businesswo­man.
        So Margaret went home and I was left with a moral dilemma. I wanted to please my boss, whom I respected and cared about, but at the same time I didn't want to cause the death of another living creature to do it.
        I went ahead and baited the traps, but didn't set them. I put one under the snack stand and one in the office next to the tell-tale turds. I didn't know what else to do.
        By the way, I didn't use the brie. I ate that my­self.
        "We have smart mice," Margaret told me when I came in the next day.
        "Oh, yeah?" I said.
        "Yep. They got the bait and got away. Both traps were sprung this morning."
        "Probably defective traps," I said. I picked the one up that was under the snack stand. The peanut butter I had applied the night before as bait was completely gone. I flipped the trap over and preten­ded to look at the bottom. "I knew it," I said. "These are American made. They're crap. You should have gotten Japanese traps."
        I looked at her and shook my head disapprov­ingly. My eyes said to her: You, Margaret, and you alone, are the reason we still have mice. Jesus.
        "Japanese traps?" she asked.
        "Yeah, the Masaharu Morimoto 5000 is the best mousetrap on the market. It would've been worth the extra expense."
        "Where do I get some? Wal*Mart?"
        "You're in luck. It just so happens that I have two in my car. I'll run get them."
        She laughed as I was going out the door. "Really? Do you sell them on the side or something?"
        "No, I just had a feeling the traps you got wouldn't work so I picked some up before I came in."
        "Great," said Margaret. "Bring the receipt and I'll reimburse you from the till."
        Of course, they weren't Masaharu Morimoto 5000 mousetraps. There's no such thing, tragically. They were standard humane traps. The mouse goes in to get the bait, trips the door, and is trapped in­side. He's confused, he's frightened, but he's alive. Later on, you release him outside or in the govern­ment building of your choice.
        They weren't Japanese made either. Japan is too smart of a country to squander its production power on mousetrap manufacturing. They got im­portant shit to build. No, they were made in China, like everything else in the U.S.
        Well, it took two days but we finally caught one mouse—and one mouse only. Perhaps he was the vanguard, the scouting party of a much larger mouse invasion force that would've come had the political leadership of the liquor store not acted so quickly. Who knows?
        After the little guy was incarcerated in the trap, I took him home and released him in my yard, since there was nothing but parking spaces and traffic around the store. The next day, my cat dropped his lifeless corpse at my feet.

WHEREIN I SOLVE THE DEBT CRISISThe deadline to raise the debt...

WHEREIN I SOLVE THE DEBT CRISIS

The deadline to raise the debt ceiling is almost here. On August 2nd, if we haven't increased our limit on the great big credit card in the sky, also known as China, the world as we know it will end and everybody, including you reading this, will die.

Just kidding.

Some of the things that will happen, though, include drastic, forced budget cuts, a disruption of Social Security and Medicare, and difficulty paying all those soldiers fighting all those wars to keep our country so free. Our credit score will plummet and it will be difficult in the future to borrow money, which will be terrible beyond words for a nation of consumers that no longer generates its own wealth.

Right now, very important people wearing very similar clothing are trying to hammer out a deal to borrow more money so that we can keep on borrowing more money.

The Democrats want to raise taxes. They call it "closing loopholes" or "letting tax cuts expire," but it's really just raising taxes.

Economists will tell you it's a bad idea to raise taxes when the economy's tanking. Rich people, you see, create new jobs by their investments and spending.

And, golly gee, just look at all those jobs they've been creating!

Republicans, in keeping with their philosophy of "I got mine. Screw you," want to cut a bunch of programs that help people instead of raising taxes. They say we need to control spending, which is pretty hilarious when you realize that there's no money to spend, much less control how it's spent.

In short, our government is working feverishly on both sides of the aisle to go further into debt.

But there is a solution, and it comes from the most unlikely of places: Wisconsin. Apart from cheese and being located next to Canada—America's hat—the only thing Wisconsin is known for is union-busting.

The governor up there, Scott Walker, successfully dismantled collective bargaining, rendering unions who work for the government essentially toothless. Most notably, this affected the teachers of Wisconsin, who were operating under the misapprehension that their jobs were somehow important.

He also got rid of the unions' right to claim work as 'union-only', meaning the state and county governments of Wisconsin can now use prison and jail inmates to do work they previously had to pay people for.

The union-busting law went into effect at the beginning of this month and already Racine county is taking advantage of its new labor market, using inmates to do landscaping, painting, and other basic maintenance once done by county workers.

"Scott Walker: Genius," it must say on his business card.

America's greatest untapped resource is not its children, who, let's be honest, are pretty stupid and don't do much besides play video games and text their friends. It's our prisoners. As the land of the free, we have the largest prison population on the globe, all of it going to waste. Even our creditor, China, with a national population four times greater than the U.S., has fewer prisoners. We're not even talking per capita either. They have fewer prisoners, period.

Nobody incarcerates like America.

It's a vast labor force that could be put to work essentially for free. They could catch all the stray dogs, clean up the garbage, build the roads, everything. Best of all, we wouldn't have to pay them dime one. Sure, we'd still have to give them baloney sandwiches and beat them with billy clubs when they get out of line, but imagine the money we'd be saving!

The government (federal, state, and local) could even rent their prisoners out to corporations and businesses, thereby EARNING money. Instead of buying all our plastic crap, gizmos, and gadgets from overseas, we'd make everything right here at home. At gunpoint.

Our national debt would swiftly become a thing of the past. Rather than trying to figure out how to increase the amount of money to borrow, the very important people wearing very similar clothing would be free to do what they were hired to do: think up more laws.

Sometimes the obvious is the hardest thing to see, isn't it?

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sitasays replied to your post: Just took a foot bath.Wow, I'm impressed. I work at a resort and as...

sitasays replied to your post: Just took a foot bath.

Wow, I'm impressed. I work at a resort and as a massage therapist, we are always looking to create treatments that will appeal to men. I would love to get some insight to what you might like to see on a spa menu.

Honestly, I wouldn't have the first clue. I have no idea what goes on at a spa. I'd like to get a professional massage someday, though. Never had a pro do it. Perhaps when I'm a zillionaire.

My feet were getting rough and since I wear sandals 24/7 in the summer I thought I'd try and do something about it :)

Just took a foot bath.

Soaked them for twenty minutes in some Footloose & Fancy Foot Fizz (with chamomile and lavender!). It was relaxing and I enjoyed the gentle burning.

After that, I rubbed this gritty Fine & Sandy Sudsing Foot Scrub Beach Pedicure stuff all over them. This experience was gooey and somewhat less enjoyable. I liked the smell though.

I washed that off and applied liberally some Shea It So Shea Butter Foot Cream. I liked the name of this stuff. "Shea It Isn't 'Show'"….shounds like Sean Connery, who, like me, is ALL MAN, baby.

Now I'm wearing socks and feeling quite pampered. My masculinity is firmly intact, but just to make certain, I went out in the yard, drank a beer, smoked a corn cob pipe, and hocked loogies under the starlight.

In 2003 Fox News argued before Florida courts that a news organization has no legal obligation to tell the truth in their newscasts... and WON.

In 2003 Fox News argued before Florida courts that a news organization has no legal obligation to tell the truth in their newscasts... and WON.:

bringtheruckuss:

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

First of all, be sure to read in full the article behind this. Also, know that several other large media "players" supported Fox in its fight, filing briefs of their own in the case, so it wasn't just big bad Fox News.

Second of all, the article is slanted to be anti-corporate, making it sound like giant media corporations can say and report whatever they want. The outcome of this case reinforced that they, in fact, could. What isn't mentioned by the article because of anti-Fox and anti-corporate bias (which, by the way, I strongly share) is that this case reinforced everyone's right to say and report whatever they want.

All news is biased. All of it. Including this article. Including EVERY article. The very fact that an article exists reveals bias—why is the article talking about THIS and not THAT? What if THAT is more important than THIS? Who decides? That's right, the person writing the article who is biased toward THIS and not THAT.

Speech should never be limited. Never.

The opposing side fought this as a whistleblower case and Fox fought it, rightly I believe, as a free speech case, and won, also rightly.

If all reporting must pass some external "truth police", it would be very dangerous indeed for all forms of speech. If you encounter some reporting you believe is horseshit, counter it, prove them wrong, call them out, fight against it.

But, sorry, you DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO SHUT THEM UP.

PSYCHO BITCH PLANTS VEGETABLE GARDENOak Park, Michigan - An...

PSYCHO BITCH PLANTS VEGETABLE GARDEN

Oak Park, Michigan - An unstable, mentally deficient psycho bitch has planted a vegetable garden in her front yard, causing outrage and shock to tiny-dicked civil planner Kevin Rulkowski. Mr. Rulkowski, who enjoys beating his kids when they fold their socks incorrectly and constantly washing his naughty, naughty ass, is leading the charge against Julie Bass, a woman so clearly off her meds that she actually planted a variety of healthy, nutritious vegetables in her front yard.

Oak Park is typically American: rule-happy. Its city council is like any state legislature or the U.S. Congress—a group of self-righteous fuckwits sitting in a fancy room thinking up new rules to enforce.

Oak Park city councilman Derek Dooschnozzle summed it up well. "Whenever we create a new law, ordinance, or regulation that limits the behavior of other people, my tiny dick gets rock hard and I race home and masturbate with tweezers and a magnifying glass."

The code which Mr. Rulkowski is using against Ms. Bass is one of his favorites. "It's terribly vague," said Mr. Rulkowski, polishing one of his really shiny doorknobs, "so can be used against virtually anyone I don't like for virtually any reason I make up."

The code states that a front yard "has to have suitable, live plant material."

"The key word is 'suitable,'" said Mr. Rulkowski, who, having completed polishing the doorknob, began polishing it again. "Suitable can mean anything. More importantly, it is I, Kevin Rulkowski, a perfect citizen and model American, who determines what is suitable and not Julie Bass, who, obviously, is an escapee from the looney bin."

Ms. Bass insists she has never been in a looney bin, much less escaped from one. "Unlike the majority of Americans, I'm not even on anti-depressants."

She planted the garden this spring and has been having fun with it. "We thought it'd be really cool to do it so the neighbors could see. The kids love it. The kids from the neighborhood all come and help," she said.

One of Ms. Bass's neighbors, who insisted on being anonymous, is not a fan, however. "That garden drives me crazy," said the neighbor. "All I do anymore is stand in my kitchen looking at it out the window and seething. In the morning, it's still there. In the afternoon, it's still there. In the evening, it's still there. Doesn't she know how annoyed I am?"

"They say, 'Why should you grow things in the front?'" said Bass. "Well, why shouldn't I? They're fine. They're pretty. They're well maintained."

Neither side is backing down in this critical, all-important debate and it will head to a jury, where, if convicted, Ms. Bass faces up to 93 days in jail.

Hard to believe the U.S. is in decline, ain't it?

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More street art by Blu. This was in Los Angeles, in America, and...

More street art by Blu. This was in Los Angeles, in America, and was whitewashed 24 hours later. We have free speech in America, but only if we say things the authorities allow us to say. More info.

Street art in Lisbon, Portugal by Blu

Street art in Lisbon, Portugal by Blu

This is my kitty Boomer, full name Boomerang. I've posted...

This is my kitty Boomer, full name Boomerang. I've posted pictures of her before because she's so cute. She came to live with me in 2006. She was homeless and thin. I felt sorry for her and fed and watered her one day, but didn't invite her in. I wasn't 100% sure she was homeless and didn't want to adopt someone else's cat behind their back. She WAS quite thin, though, and I felt sorry for her. After that, she kept coming back (thus her name). As you can see, she now has a nice soft belly. These days, her hobbies include laying in the sun, laying in the shade, laying in the grass, and laying in my underwear drawer, which I keep open just for her. My boxers are perpetually covered in hair, but I don't mind.