How Not To Act in a Hostile Situation

For lack of anything else to talk about here is a fun story about me a being pretend badass one night a year or so ago:

It was around 2:30 a.m., I had just gotten off the metro on my way home from work. The walk from the metro to my house was about a half mile. As I’m sure many of you know you, could live in the safest neighborhood in the world (which I certainly didn’t) and you still wouldn’t be super comfortable walking around it in the middle of the night. Unless you’re drunk of course, then it’s totally natural taking a 4 a.m. stroll through where ever. I didn’t have the benefit of my beer muscles so I was on the lookout for any sort of mischief. Maybe I’m just naturally paranoid, or maybe it was the fact the it was P.G. county, but every time a car passed me I was pretty sure I was getting jacked, I was always suspicious of the person walking towards me, but for the most part I made it home unscathed on a nightly basis so my paranoia was unfounded.

On this night as I was walking home I noticed 4 kids walking up ahead, approximately 15 to 17 years of age. So that natural suspicion kicks in again and I think to myself, 4 kids wandering the streets this late on a Tuesday cannot be up to anything I want to know about. With that I mind I decide I’m just going to lag behind until they pass my street where I can turn and go home. There seems to be a fundamental difference between a bunch of kids hanging out doing nothing and someone who spent the last 10 hours getting beers for drunk a holes, because they simply were not walking at an acceptable pace. Eventually I gave up on avoiding potential trouble and just passed them. That was my first mistake, remaining patient is a key to avoiding potential conflict. Here’s the conversation that ensued as I walked by and one the little pretend gangstas jumped in front of me:

Fake Thug: “Hey man, what’s up?”
Me: “Hey”
FT: “Don’t run away.”
Me: “I’m not, I’m walking home.”
FT: “What’s in your bag?”

I should mention that I had a bag slung across my shoulder carrying random things that like my iPod, a book, change of clothes, etc. I should also mention that I was a waiter at the time so I made all my money in tips. I would usually try and get to the bank every few days and deposit the cash so I didn’t spend it as quickly. That day was one of those days, only I had forgotten to stop at the bank so I had like $800-$1000 in my bag. There was no way I was letting these little dickheads take my bag.

Me: “Don’t worry about what’s in my bag.”
FT: “Motha fucka you see all these brotha’s behind you, you better give me your bag.” (Note: edited for content because I’m white and I’m pretty sure even if it’s in a quotation I’m still not allowed to use the word he really used.)
Me: “Dude, I’m not giving you my bag, just leave me alone.”

Right then one of the other kids grabbed my bag and tried to rip it off my shoulder, spinning me around in the process. The original FT used this opportunity to start sucker punching me from behind, which I thought was pretty weak but whatever (also he didn’t have much pop, he hit like a girl). As I’m wrestling with one guy for my bag and getting punched in the face by the other guy I can’t help but notice that the other to kids seem pretty nervous about the whole ordeal. This only helps in hard my resolve. I mean, how can I get robbed by someone whose heart isn’t even in it? If you’re going to commit a crime at least commit to it. So I throw a few elbows and eventually wrestled the two kids off of me. I guess me fighting back was a little unexpected because they gave up and started walking away. That should be the end of the story, but then you wouldn’t be factoring in my usual bad decision making skills.

Maybe I had a bad day at work, maybe it was the redhead in me kicking in but I was feeling a little feisty that night. I started taunting them. Probably not the best idea, but really, you just had an unsuccessful attempted robbery of a 140 lb. white kid, you deserve to be made fun of. In anyone found out you might even get kicked out of the ghetto. Anyway I may have called the one kid a “bitch” and said something to the effect of “why don’t you come over and try something without your boys backing you up.” He took this to heart apparently. The two more aggressive of the bunch turned back and started walking towards me.

One kid was threatening to stab me. I didn’t put much stock in this threat because he was wielding what appeared to be a broken coat hanger. The other guy said, “what did you say to me motherfucker?” (He had a bit of a potty mouth) To which my response was, “I said you are a bitch.” He got in my face and grabbed my shirt with both hands. That’s when I saw my opening; he dropped his guard, so I absolutely drilled him in the nuts. I mean right square in the balls. I know it’s kind of an unwritten rule that a dude doesn’t kick another dude in the junk but he wasn’t fighting fair so why should I. Anyway, he dropped in total agony. The other kid was few yards behind saw this, abandoned his stabbing threat, and took off running. The end.

So what did we learn from this whole trial? First thing is that I’m an idiot. Who narrowly avoids a complete ass beating and then taunts the people for not getting the job done? Second, I’m a badass. I didn’t think I had it in me but I was wrong, I am definitely badass.

I'm Going to Need Some Gold Bond and a Bottle of Lube STAT

As noted a few weeks ago I am currently in training to run a marathon in March. In high school I was a fairly avid runner, I ran both track and cross country, I wasn’t great but I won a race or two in my day. I continued running to stay in shape in college but after I stopped playing baseball sophomore year my output slowly tapered off to almost nothing by graduation. So basically I hadn’t run regularly in about 4 years when I started training. I’ve noticed a few subtle differences I feel should be pointed out.

First are the fairly obvious ones. Along with not running it’s been like a year and a half since I’ve been to the gym. This was a bad idea. Getting back in shape once you’ve stopped working out is a bitch. When I get in a rhythm of working out I love it, I feel like crap if I don’t. When I haven’t been exercising regularly I hate it, I find sitting on the couch watching the Food Network to be much more enjoyable than kicking my own ass at the gym. It hasn’t quite happened yet but I think I’m slowly getting to the point where I take pleasure in running again, so that’s exciting. Another obvious one is simply the difference between being 18 and 26. I hurt. My knees are all creaky, I’m sore in the morning, it all sucks. Frankly I’m kind of pissed about it. If I achieve only one thing through all the training it will be to stop hurting every time I do something physical.

There was a point in my life where I could run a 5k race in like 16 minutes in June and end up with barely more than a healthy glow. Now I run 3 miles in 50 degree weather and I’m sweating like Lindsey Lohan in a crystal meth lab. It’s disgusting. Seriously when did I turn into Patrick Ewing? It takes me a good half hour after a work out to stop sweating.

Chafing seems to be the most serious complication I’ve encountered thus far. When I graduated high school I was 5’10” and weighed about 125 pounds. If you didn’t know I ran 40 miles a week you’d think I was either anorexic or had a serious heroin addiction. Now I’m pushing 160, not exactly tipping the scales but it has an effect. The point is I never remembered my thighs touching when I ran before, but they do now. I made the mistake of wearing boxer briefs on a particularly long run and now I don’t have any hair on my inner thighs. Ok so I’d be lying if I didn’t say it feels kind of cool, but the process that made that happen hurt like hell and it’s something I hope not to recreate.

I pretty much went balls to the wall with this whole training deal without properly weighing the situation. There are a few unexpected obstacles to overcome.

I'm Thankful for Old People

I have a medium to possibly large family. Both of my parents have 4 siblings, many of whom have children of there own. With that many people, and given the amount of dysfunction and alcoholism associated with a lot of those people, you would think that the holiday season would provide endless hilarity. Me being one of the few sane ones (relatively speaking of course) I should just be able to sit back and enjoy while booze and bitterness lead to all sorts of wacky antics. You know, like a normal family. Unfortunately ( or fortunately depending on who you ask ) my clan seems to have a complete indifference to all things family. It's a near impossible feat to get more than 15 people in a room at once, and even then it's only for an hour or two. As a result Thanksgiving is usually a small affair, which sucks because I know that I'm am missing out on some truly great trainwrecks. I will try not to convey my dissappiontment while I share two notes on this years Thanksgiving that I found mildly amusing.

The holiday get togethers are mostly gotten together at either my parents house or an aunt's house in Williamsburg. This was a Williamsburg year. There is always one staple of a holiday meal at my aunt's house: the food never even comes close to approaching what one would deem an appropriate temperature for a meal. I have never had a hot meal there. I don't get it, is this how the eat every meal? I can't believe I have never contracted salmonella or some other sort of poisoning from under cooked food. Every year I try as discreetly as possible, so as not to offend the host, to microwave everything I have on my plate. This year the kitchen was to crowded and I felt to bad to do it. Nothing says Thanksgiving like a cool slab of turkey and lukewarm mashed potatos all smothered in ice cold gravy, mmm mmm.

My grandma is old. The kind of old where you have to basically have to scream at her to get her to understand anything you say. I imagine in her prime she was an outrageous gossip as well because she loves to talk about people behind their backs. However she has failed to realize that her extreme hearing loss also means she has lost the ability to whisper. Here is what she said this year as she was "whispering" about my sister's boyfriend at about 115 decibels: "Is Jessica's boyfriend Jewish? He looks like a jew." I pretty much lost it when I heard that from the other room, I live for that kind of stuff. Old people say the darnedest things.

Ugh

One of my good friends from college, Hotmetal, was in town last night from Philly via San Diego. He’s home for Thanksgiving and decided to drive down for the night to hang out. He is, and I mean this in the kindest most an endearing way possible, and idiot. The good kind of idiot, if that makes any sense, but an idiot none the less. Which I am sure you could glean from the totally inexplicable nickname Hotmetal. Here is a typical sort of conversation you tend to have with Hotmetal:

Hotmetal: Let’s get a round of car bombs.
Me: No I’m good, it’s a Tuesday, I have to work early tomorrow.
Hotmetal: Just one.
Me: No really, I’m all right.
Hotmetal: C’mon how often do we get to hang out anymore? Just do one.
Me: Fine dammit.

Or

Hotmetal: I bought these long island ice teas that I don’t really want, chug one.
Me: What makes you think I even want to drink that much less chug it?
Hotmetal: Just do it.
Me: No way.
Hotmetal: C’mon how often do we get to hang out anymore? Just chug it.
Me: Fine dammit.
Clearly I’m easily persuaded. Before you know it your whole “it’s a Tuesday I’ll just have a few beers” idea is shot and you’re in Chinatown at a karaoke bar at 2 in the morning singing “She’s Like the Wind” by Patrick Swayze (it doesn’t really matter what city you’re in, it’s always Chinatown). I say this as if I’m complaining but secretly I love it; but there is one fact I seem to neglect over and over again: at 26 I no longer have the ability to get absolutely shitfaced and close down a bar on Tuesday and wake up for work at 6:30 a.m. on Wednesday. I mean, technically I can wake up, but I’m a total waste of life right now. At least I managed to change my clothes this morning, unlike last time I tried this one.

Eric, You So Crazy

If anyone read this blog with any regularity than they probably would have picked up on the central theme of the whole thing: I’m kind of a dumbass. My friend Aaron constantly tells me that I should stop writing about how much I suck. For some reason he might be under the impression that I have low self-esteem, which really couldn’t be further from the truth. I’m actually a pretty big fan of myself. Some have said that I have a little of a big head. I don’t know if that’s true or not but there is one thing I know, I am awesome. But as awesome as I am I also have the proclivity to be a bit of a tard because I pay attention to almost nothing that goes on around me. I think the little anecdotes are amusing so I write the down in this blog on the off chance that someone else feels the same way. So it’s not low self esteem, I’m just a giver who wants to brighten the day of other with my total absentmindedness.

Having said all that here are the most recent examples of being not so awesome:

I moved about six weeks ago. I have acquired a depressingly small amount of personal objects in my 26 years, so the move was rather unorganized. Why bother with packing when you can just throw all your crap in the back of a van in 45 minutes and bounce. Since the temperature has dropped recently I’ve started wearing my dress coat to work. It’s a pretty standard 3 button, knee length, black Banana Republic coat. When I put it on I noticed the shoulders were a little broader, I thought this a little strange but just blamed it on not going to the gym in a while. This morning was particularly cold so I had to button up on my walk to work this morning. That’s when I realized that collar was all off, and the buttons seemed to low. I thought maybe it’s just losing shape or something from hanging in the closet for months. Then at lunch today Brian went ahead and confirmed that I had in fact taken his coat when I moved out and have been wearing it this whole time. Upon further the inspection they are completely different coats and anyone other than me would have picked up on this immediately. Well that and also in the pocket were receipts in Brian’s name from thing he bought last winter. I’m not sure why this didn’t raise any sort of red flags for me. I would be the worst detective ever.

Speaking of lunch today I pulled another classic Eric style boner. I am notorious for not finishing my food. I have a small appetite; my eyes are always bigger than my stomach. It’s gotten to the point where Morgan doesn’t order that much food because it is a guarantee that if she is still hungry I’ll have plenty left over to go around. Today I ate at a deli that I have never been to before. I ordered a club sandwich, a medium fry and a soda. I thought things seemed fishy the total came to $16, that’s a bit excessive for a sandwich. Then I get an absolute mountain of a sandwich. There was no way I was finishing it as is, but that’s before the fries came. Seriously, who fills up a 72 ounce bucket with French fries and then has the audacity to call it a medium. There was a comical amount of food on my tray, which in hindsight I totally could have seen coming if I had simply looked at the menu of the restaurant I had never been to before instead of just waltzing in and ordering like I owned the place. It’s always nice, during the holiday season, to throw away about 6 pounds of turkey when there are people starving outside

I Love My Job

When you spend most of your days wallowing in a cubicle dying a slow death you have to find ways to spice things up, make life a little more interesting. Be it putting your coworkers stapler in a Jell-O mold a la The Office (which by the way is much harder than you’d think, it took a lot of recipe experimentation), or covering someone’s entire cubicle in post it notes. Sometimes it can be organizing a flip cup game in the conference room. You haven’t played flip cup until you’ve played with a bunch of engineers in their 50’s that probably haven’t had fun in thirty years, they eat that stuff up, and it’s hilarious. Or say you have a brash young intern how is want to make bold proclamations like the ability to eat 50 Dunkin Donuts Munchkins in 5 minutes (or that he invented the question mark). When that scenario arises there is only one logical step that can follow: an eating contest in the break room. Brian, being a natural born instigator, lined up an opponent for the contest. The stakes were as follows: first one to finish pays for the others Munchkins, if it is done in less than 5 minutes the person gets and additional $20. Any reasonable person knows that this is not possible unless you are Kobayashi, which they are not, but it’s fun to make them think they have a chance and get everyone else in the office riled up in the process.

The contest did not get off to a great start for Ben, two munchkins in he admitted that it wasn’t happening, but he’s a soldier, he carried on. His two at a time technique got him off to an early lead. By the time the 5:00 minute mark comes around they’ve barely put a dent in the box, not even close to halfway. With the prize money out the window I have no idea why they kept going, but they did. Pride is a funny thing I guess. Over time Justin (the intern) started mounting his comeback, he was the tortoise to Ben’s hare. Ben tapped out at around 15 minutes with 14 donut holes left, a pretty piss poor effort if you ask me. Brian (once again, instigator) declared that Justin could only get his DD paid for if he finished the whole box, even though Ben already quit. 22 minutes and 45 Munchkins later Justin had finally had enough. Normally I would give him credit, it was a pretty impressive/disgusting effort, but when he claims that he can eat a whole box in 5 minutes he gets no props for eating most of a box in a half hour. Nice try pussy. Occasionally you can hear a little moan of stomach pain coming from his cubicle, I love it. Once again, another awesome day at the office.

Good One

Sometimes when I'm in the zone at work I listen to my iPod. That way people know I mean business and won't bother me. So I'm listening this morning on random and up pops some music that I didn't know I had. I admittedly have an eclectic taste in music, I have almost all genres of music on the iPod, hip hop, pop, r&b, alternative, country, whatever, you name it I've got it. Having said that there is one genre I definitely don't have, classical, so how in the hell did Beethoven's 9th Symphony get on my iPod. Either I really missed the mark on some of my music downloading or someone is playing a really weird prank on me.

Side Note: It was pretty good, I might have to get some more classical music, it helps me concentrate and I feel smart when I listen to it.

An Offer I Really Wish I Could Refuse

Boss: “So I was going through everything that needs to be done on this project in the next 6 weeks to meet our deadline.”
Me: “Ok.”
Boss: “Well we have about 1,000 hours left in the budget, that’s about 5 people full time until the end of the year, I don’t think we will end up needing all of those hours, but there is a lot of work to be done.”
Me: “Well that’s good, always nice finishing with room to spare.”
Boss: “Yeah, well we have the budget for 5 people but as of now you’re the only one available to work on it.”
Me: “Hmmmm.”
Me in my head: Son of bitch I know what’s coming next. Don’t say it, don’t say it don’t say it.
Boss: “So if you wanted to, you can start putting in 10 or 11 hours day.”
Me in my head: Shit he said it.
Me: “All right, I’ll see what I can do.

I hate when it’s phrased like that. Oh what a generous offer, I would absolutely love wallow away in my cubicle for an extra three hours a day. It sounds like it would absolutely suck but really is there anything more fulfilling than a job well done. Actually I can think of several things, like happy hour. There worst part is that I can’t say no. I’m a real go getter with upper management written all over me, it would be hard to keep up appearances by not working a few extra hours a week when things need to get done. Plus he’s totally calling my bluff, it’s not like I have anything more important to do. My commute to work consists of an 8 minute walk down the street, so basically working an extra few hours at worst means I’m going to miss an episode of 30 Minute Meals, or Scrubs if I have to work real late. Well that and my life sucking just that much more. And actually it is the holiday say so making a few extra hundos a week isn’t a bad proposition.

Dammit, it actually is a good offer, and I’m really pissed that I somehow developed that mindset. Today I officially became old.

A Heart to Heart With My Blog

Oh blog, when you totally disappeared last Thursday I was left very confused. My friends kept saying, “I tried to read your blog today and it was gone, what happened?” I had no idea, you just up and vanished. At first I though maybe it was a problem with Blogger, I checked a few other blogs and saw that they were all in complete working order. That’s when I got angry, how dare you leave without even the courtesy of an Error 404 message. I thought we had something good going. After a while I started to blame myself, maybe it was something I said, or I didn’t write well enough for you and you’d moved on, or maybe you were angry with my lack of html skills that left you with just a plain old default template. But it wasn’t that was it, you knew what you were doing all along.

You’re so smart blog, you always know all the right strings to pull in this relationship. I think you just realized that things were moving a little to fast between the two of us and you decided to take a step back. You inexplicably departed for over three days to give me my space (but not MySpace, I didn’t cheat on you with that other blog while you were gone). I needed some time to work on me, to decided where we were heading on this blogging journey, you knew that even before I did, you’re so awesome. I totally got all introspective and I think I got it figured out. But I don’t need to tell you the conclusions I came to do I? You’ve known all along?. Its good to have you back buddy, I missed you.

I'll take "The Penis Mightier" for $400 please Alex

I have an absolute wealth of useless knowledge. I am an expert on nothing but I know a little bit about a lot of things. You know those irritating people who like to chime in with some worthless fact no matter what the conversation is? That’s me! I take a strange sort of pride in it, there’s a tiny little superior feeling I get out of knowing these things. I like learning also. For example, remember like two years ago when that movie Alexander came out, I watched that movie and decided that I needed to read a few biographies on him. I decided this not because I found the subject interesting (although it turns out to be fascinating), but because I didn’t really like the idea of Colin Farrell knowing more about something than me. Unless of course it’s how to look smoldering, or cursing, that guy can toss F bombs around with the best of ‘em. I realize that this makes me appear a little smug and pretentious, I promise I’m not. Or maybe I am sort of a prick, who knows, I hope not.

Basically the point is I know a lot of random crap, and revel in that knowledge, so there is really only one outlet where the useless becomes useful: Jeopardy! I love Jeopardy. I have been trying to get on it for years. I’m 100% convinced I would kick ass on the show but all my attempts have been rejected. I tried Teen Jeopardy!, College Jeopardy!, and regular Jeopardy all to no avail. Apparently the process is to take an online test and there is then a random drawing of names from those who passed to come take an interview. I have never made it to the interview process and now believe that it was all a scam perpetrated by that a-hole Alex Trebek just to get my email address to send me stupid spam emails about Jeopardy! goings on that I don’t care about (actually the fact that I didn’t see that one coming makes me feel sort of stupid and think maybe I wouldn’t do so hot on the show). Every couple of weeks I get an email and every time I feel a little twinge of excitement thinking I’m finally getting the call to the show. Every time I’m disappointed. I got one today to let me know that Celebrity Jeopardy! is coming this week with such magnificent stars as Regis Philbin, Susan Lucci, and Curt Schilling. I hate Curt Schilling, I don’t care if he’s making an appearance, when do I get my shot? Hell I’ll donate my winnings to charity like those lame celebrities as long as I get to beat up on some people on a quiz show. Ok my I’d donate half of my winnings, or none of them, but you get my point.

I’ve been spurned one too many times Trebek. If I ever make that dream true I plan on treating him like Sean Connory in those SNL skits. He’s earned it.

Dang it

So I’m mildly bitter this morning, and let me tell you why. I first started this blog about four months ago mainly as a way of amusing myself and my friends and killing a little time at work. Eventually I realized that a better way of killing that time was to read the blogs of others who write much better than me. One the first (and subsequently one of my favorites) that I started reading was Steph. Basically it’s a log of all the retarded acts performed by her and her friends. She is definitely funnier than me, and also Australian, therefore has an infinitely more popular blog. Every Wednesday she likes to link to a blog that she finds entertaining, I received the honor today.

As a result of her link my traffic has jumped about 300% in the last day. People from 14 different countries have perused my incoherent ramblings. So what am I bitter about you ask? My last post is about damn Eric Roberts. Most people don’t even know who the hell he is. It seems unlikely to hook people in is what I’m saying. So now I have people from Tunisia checking in to my blog to read about a damn Akon video. Son of a bitch. Why couldn’t it have been the day when I wrote something that amuses someone other than Brian? Of course that suggesting I ever write something funny, which is debatable. I guess I’ll just have to bask in my one or two days of glory where I few hundred people read this trash and then go back trying to writing for my 20 friends who feel obligated to check this out.

Smack That

So last night I’m watching Sucka Free on MTV2, because I hate sucka’s so I can relate to that type of programming, when a video comes on by Akon f. Eminem. Akon rolls up to the club in his Lamborghini Gallardo. I’m expecting him to pop out alone, or perhaps with some sort of bodyguard or member of a posse or entourage, but oh no, he’s got someone else riding shotgun with him tonight. Who is it you ask? Well it’s none other than the black sheep of the Roberts family, Mr. Eric Roberts. What? I don’t get this. This is not the first video that he’s made a guest appearance in these last few months. Did I miss a memo or something; is Eric Roberts cool all of a sudden? I was always under the impression that he was, in fact, not cool. Don’t get me wrong, Best of the Best kicks ass but that was like 17 years ago. Now all of a sudden it’s cool to have him in hip hop videos. How did this happen? When you’re sitting around thinking up concepts for videos who was the first person that said, “Yeah, I like where this is going, but you know what we really need to push it over the top, Eric Roberts.” I mean I totally understand where ERob is coming from. It’s not like he has been cranking out the blockbusters over the years. Wait, so you’re saying all I have to do is drink some Crystal, objectify a few women and get paid, and I don’t even have to talk? Where do I sign? But what’s in it for the artist? I feel like I can think of hundreds of people I’d rather have in my music video. This is just another example of me having no clue what is cool or why.

Mission: Impossible

As I’m sure I have discussed before I have an ongoing bet with Matt and Jake as to whether I am capable of running a marathon in 3 ½ hours. Well this week marks the beginning of my 20 week training period in preparation for the marathon I hope to run in March. Since I like things to have titles and themes I’ve giving my marathon training a name; I’m calling it: Operation: F U Jake and Matt. I think it has a nice ring, don’t you? Here’s what is on tap for the week:

Monday – Easy 3 miles (60-90 seconds slower per mile than marathon pace)
Tuesday – 4 x 800m
Wednesday – Easy 4 miles
Thursday – 20 min. tempo run (15-30 seconds faster than marathon pace)
Friday – Rest (convenient timing on my part I think)
Saturday – Long 8 miles
Sunday – Cross Training

It’s a slow start but I anticipate a long and difficult road ahead. Luckily I have a secret weapon, hatred. Whenever I find that I don’t have the energy to run all I have to do is think of how insanely bad I want to dominate Matt and Jake to get me up off the couch. When I’m outside running and its 25 degrees in January I’ll have my searing, white hot, passionate anger to keep me warm. When I can’t possibly put one foot in front of the other all I have to do is think of Jake’s quote from a few weeks ago, “Eric, I’m 99.5% sure you can’t do it in under 3:30,” and I will be pushed forward for a few more miles. So thank you guys, there is no way I’ll ever pull this off without you’re astounding lack of support, and I appreciate you guys for that. I hate you guys and you suck and my desire to say F U Jake and Matt will propel me to great heights.

PS I’m setting the over/under date for my first serious injury at December 13th, any takers?

PPS I don’t really hate you guys, but you do in fact suck

PPPS There is no way using that many colons in one paragraph is grammatically correct

John, John, John. We need to talk.

I’m not a very political person. Sure I have opinions, but I don’t really have the energy, passion, or overall knowledge to argue with the types of people who take this stuff seriously (there's a good chance I'm not smart enough either). And for the most part the opinions of that sort are unchangeable anyway. For that reason I try to never write about politics in my blog (because no one wants to read it I’m sure) but then this happened:

"Education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your
homework and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. And
if you don't, you get stuck in Iraq." – John Kerry

Really John Kerry, you had to break that one out now? You couldn’t wait, like say, a week to say something that dumb? Everything was going so well and now you’re trying to ruin it again. Sure I know it was a joke. Most people of reasonable intelligence get that it was a joke but come on, you know how tricky those republicans can be. Sure making totally benign joke is nothing compared to say tax fraud, bribing public officials, or making sexual advances at 16 year old pages but before you know it the GOP will have everyone forgetting names like Frist, Abramoff, or Foley all because you don’t support the troops. God help you if you don’t support the troops. I mean, sure W can make jokes at correspondence dinners about these sorts of things but everyone knows he supports the troops; he’s the one who sent them there. Even if I were to give you the benefit of the doubt; let’s you purposely made that little botch as a way to bring up the topic of the incredible hypocrisy of the administration when it relates to this issue I’m taking that benefit back. Why am I taking it back? Because of a lesson my dad taught me a long time ago. He always used to say that a good 80% of America is just really stupid. That means you have to be careful of the things you say. They don’t get nuance, they don’t get that all you did was butcher a joke aimed at the president, not the troops. Republicans realized this a long time ago and that is why you have to be careful. They are excellent at making huge issues out of smalls one to deflect from what really matters, and they come up with some really kick ass catch phrases that they like to hammer home. Americans love catch phrases and it’s a really safe bet to say that you gave them material for some great ones.

Besides even if you totally nailed the joke it wasn’t exactly a zinger. So please, just stop talking ‘til next Wednesday, America thanks you in advance.