Bryan E. Sampieri's


You are the ^th person that I've probably pissed off here.

Contents:

1. Disclaimer
2. Beware of falling sarcasm!
3. Some people should just be shot...
4. Population & Death
5. Abortion & Eggs.
6. Animal Rights? Living organism rights!
7. Advertising.
8. Lawsuits.
9. Immigration & Freedom...
10. Language...
11. 2001, A Math Odyssey...
12. More fun with numbers...
13. It's the End of the World as We Know It...
14. My advise to you is...

Disclaimer:

     These are my opinions. Being a citizen of the United States of America, I am entitled to have my own opinions, and to express those opinions (actually, this applies since I'm a living entity, but try telling that to someone like Castro or Hitler). If you don't agree with my opinions, that's your right. If you want me to change my opinion, then e-mail me and provide a well thought-out, valid, factually-base argument as the reason why I should change my opinions. Otherwise, tough shit. Plain and simple. "Because I said so" does not a valid argument make.
     Also, if you don't see a topic here for which you'd like to know my opinion, e-mail me and I'll add it.
     If there is anything for which you own a copyright and you feel that I am violating that copyright, then I am not aware of it. If you make me aware of it, then I will be more then happy to rectify the situation. E-mail me and tell me that you would like me to remove/alter/correct (whatever applies), and I will be more then happy to do so. I don't understand why everyone is so quick to jump into court over copyright infringement, especially without even taking the time to put forth a simple request to the person who is violating the copyright to please stop. Simple enough. You just call/write/e-mail the person and say "Hey, you're violating my copyright and I want you to stop. (--insert vailed threat here--)" If they ignore you, then fine, sue them, but it really is amazing what people will do if you just ask them and make them aware of the situation.

Beware of falling sarcasm!

     This is a little info about me. I am, first and foremost, sarcastic and cynical. Very sarcastic and cynical. Anything that you read here may be laced with lethal doses of sarcasm and cynicism (S&C from now on). Please keep this in mind when reading. I am not pessimistic, but I'm not optimistic either. If anything, I'm realistic... usually. The glass is neither half full, nor half empty. I'm just not that thirsty.

Some people should just be shot...

     That's right, shot. There are lots of just plain stupid people who shouldn't be given the chance to be rehabilitated once they show the level of their stupidity.
     Example:  A woman in Florida bought crack cocaine from her local drug dealer, but she thought the dealer ripped her off and sold her a rock of baking soda. So what does she do about it? Get her cousin to cap him? No. The genious that she is, she goes to the police to file a complaint. Duh! The police listened to her complaint, then tested the rock. It was, in fact, pure crack cocaine, and she was then arrested for possession. This woman should just be shot. Put her out of our misery. There are too many people on the planet to have to worry about taking care of total morons.

Population & Death...

      Ultimately, it comes down to the simple fact that the planet, while capable of sustaining a very large population of any number of species, is filling up, and filling up fast. The time is not far off when the amount of people on Earth will exceed the number that the planet is capable of sustaining. If that hasn't happened already. No one knows what that number is, of course, but there is little doubt that it is pretty close. Nature is trying to curb our growth. With things like AIDS and the apparent surge in natural disasters, Mother Nature is trying to put us back in our place, but we are acting like a typical rebelling teen and disregarding her.
     Death comes in many forms.

• Capital Punishment - AKA, the death penalty. All for it! If someone murders someone, they should be put to death. Sentence to be caried out within a month. Film at 11. Only one appeal, which must be filed for before the end of the month. I'm talking murderers here. Murder being defined as "the crime of unlawfully killing a person especially with malice aforethought" (from Merriam-Webster Dictionary). Manslaughter may be another story, though. And even if an automatic death penalty is not instituted, a speedy sentence should be carried out when the death penalty is given. Why should we have to pay to keep someone sentenced to death alive for years. He/she's been tried, convicted, and sentenced. Fry him/her already.
• Self-defense - If someone breaks into my house and threatens my life or my family's life, they won't make it out of the house alive. Period. If someone attacks me with what I perceive as an intent to kill, I wouldn't hesitate to kill him/her first. It's a plain and simple concept. If someone attacks you, you should have every right to defend yourself. If it requires that you have to kill someone to protect yourself, then do so. That is not to say that just because someone attacks you, you kill them. If someone punches you, then that certainly doesn't warrant his/her death. But that doesn't mean that you can't defend yourself. Try to restrain the person. Run away if you have to. But don't be afraid to act with deadly force when necessary.
       And I'd like to applaud the government of Louisianna on their so-called "shoot the carjacker" law. If you haven't heard of this, the law basically states that if someone tries to steal your car with you in it (carjacking), then you can use deadly force to prevent it. Now, there are going to be problems, I'm sure. I can see the headline now. "Man asking for directions shot by paranoid old lady". Well, shit happens, but I think that this is a good idea overall. Last I heard, carjackings have gone way down in Louisianna.
• Suicide - And why not? If someone wants to remove him/herself from the planet, who am I to stop them. This applies especially in regards to the terminally ill. Jack Kevorkian has the right idea. Not that we need to franchise Suicide Cafes or something, but it's my life, it's my decision. I've done my legally required indentured servitude of 18 years, and now I'm an adult. If I'm already dying of some terminal disease and can end it now and save myself x days/weeks/months of pain, who are you to tell me I can't. It's not your choice, it's mine, and you have no right to make it for me, and you have no right to restrict my right to make it. If you try, we'll see what you say when you get the hospital bill when I tell them you said you'd pay it.
• Natural Disasters - "Natural disasters are on the rise," some newspaper or magazine headline read last year. No they aren't. Natural disasters are not on the rise, nor on the decline. They happen with the same frequency as always. Population is on the rise. And today, there are a lot more people living where there were none a few years or decades ago. And where are they living? Right where these natural disasters have been occuring for thousands of years. In fact, the only true "natural disaster" here is the population growth.

Abortion & Eggs.

     If you believe that abortion is just wrong, then if you have children of your own, you cannot exert any control over them whatsoever.
     Reason: If you have no right to decide whether or not they are make it to birth, you should have no right to control any other aspect of their life. Consequently, if you have the right to control them after birth, you should have the right to control them before birth. This, of course, would make it legal to kill your children after birth, but due to the nature of the living, the likelihood of a parent killing a child is pretty slim. But even still, they are your children. (See: Population & Death above)
     As for the eggs, well, let's just say that I'd like to go out to some of these anti-abortion rallies and demonstrations and take a poll of the people there and find out how many of them eat eggs. Nothing like some scrambled, aborted chicken fetuses for breakfast. Or how about an aborted chicken fetus omelet? Could you please pass the ketchup?
     Myself, I don't eat eggs, except when they are mixed in with more complex foods, like cake, but that is because I don't like the taste all that much. I am, however, pro-choice on the abortion issue. I feel that it is the parents' decision. Parents as in about 60% the mother's/40% the father's say, if the father is around. It still should come down to the mother over all, since she is the one that will, or will not, be carrying the baby to term.
     If you can't afford to raise a child, either emotionally or financially, then you shouldn't have one. It's no more right to abort a child then it is to bring one into the world and have it grow up unloved and malnourished. And you will hear the argument that you should then give the child up for adoption. Well, that's all fine and good if you are a white woman having a white child, because as unfair as it is, most adopters are white and they want white kids. The odds that a healthy white infant will be adopted are staggeringly higher then that of children of any other race.

Animal Rights? Living organism rights!

     Nothing pisses me off more then the vegetarians of the world who, when asked why they don't eat meat, say that "it's wrong to kill animals." Oh yeah? Well, what about that head of lettuce that was just sitting there in the sun, minding it's own business, that you off-handedly ripped out of the ground, shredded, drowned in low-fat creamy italian dressing and scarfed down? What about it's right to live?
     Since it doesn't have a consciousness, since it doesn feel pain, since it isn't self-aware, then it doesn't deserve to live? Prove to me that it doesn't feel pain or doesn't have a consciousness. This reminds me of the end of the song "Disgustipated" on the Tool album "Undertow":

     And the Angel of the Lord came unto me, snatching me up from my place of slumber. And took me on high, and higher still until we moved to the spaces betwixt the air itself. And he brought me unto a vast farmland of our own midwest. And as we descended, cries of impending doom rose from the soil. One thousand, nay a million voices full of fear. And terror possesed me then.
     And I begged, "Angel of the Lord, what are these tortured screams?"
     And the angel said unto me, "These are the cries of the carrots, the cries of the carrots! You see, Reverend Maynard, tomorrow is harvest day and to them it is the holocaust."
     And I sprang from my slumber drenched in sweat like the tears of one million terrified brothers and roared, "Hear me now, I have seen the light! They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?! [Amen!] Can I get a hallelujah?! [Hallelujah!] Thank you Jesus."
     This is necessary, this is necessary. Life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on life feeds on........ -- Maynard James Keenan, Tool

     It's a basic principle that life feeds life. Everything exists to feed everything else. As far as meat, if you don't like the taste, then that's fine. I don't like eggs all that much, so I don't eat them. Nutrition is another matter, however. Meat probably shouldn't be eaten every meal. A moderate portion once every day or two is all you need. Our cavemen/cavewomen ancestors were lucky if they got fresh meat once a week. And don't think that people were not meant to eat meat. That's like saying dogs are vegetarians in the wild. Bullshit. Dogs are primarily meat eaters, whether it be rodents or cats or they gang up on a baby cow. Anyone who feeds a dog an all vegetariun diet should be reported to the ASPCA.
     And while we're on the subjuct of living organism rights... There is the case of the woman who had the local SPCA sent after her. She is now being sued because some squirrels died in traps that were set on her roof. You see, she had been getting squirrels in her attic and she had a pest control guy come to set some animal-friendly traps on her roof to catch the squirrels. Her son would go up on the roof to get the traps when there were squirrels in them and take them across town to let them out, where they could bother someone else. Well, a couple days went by and the traps didn't get checked and a couple of squirrels were in the trap and died of starvation or dehydration or whatever. So the neighbor called the SPCA and they are now sueing for cruelty to animals.
     What's wrong with this picture? A) They are squirrels, which except for one or two species of squirrel, are not near endangered, so who really cares. B) Shit happens. It wasn't as though they were trying to kill the squirrels. But they are going to waste time and money to sue some old lady who didn't want her Christmas decorations in the attic to get chewed up.
     I'd like to get pictures of the lady who called the SPCA and the SPCA members all washing their hands and then take them to court for killing bacteria and germs that should have every right to live as well. Anyone who takes anti-biotics is a murderer.

Advertising.

     I don't know what to say about advertising in general. You almost can't live without it. It pays for all those TV shows that you watch and it pays for this web page. But there are all sorts of little problems with various areas of the advertising world.
     Pay cable stations:
     If I have to pay for a cable station, then I shouldn't have to watch commercials on them. I can't watch more then 10 minutes of some show on the Discovery Channel without a commercial interuption, but I'm paying the cable company to get that station, who is in turn paying the Discovery Channel for the rights to broadcast it to its customers. If you can't make enough money from selling the channel, which they couldn't, then sell more ads or raise the ad rates and let me watch it for free. Same thing with magazines.
     Meaninglessness in ads:
     Did you ever here this Aamco ad line? "The fact is, half the cars serviced by Aamco don't need a new transmission." Let me tell you something. If it is true that half the cars serviced by Aamco don't need a new transmission, then, half of all cars serviced by all stations don't need new transmissions. Unless, of course, they are operating in some strange rift in the dimension-where-normal-statistics-don't-apply. And that's all well and good, but you'll notice that they don't say that just because your car doesn't need a new transmission, they aren't going to tell you it does. Anything like this just drives me nuts. Of course, I don't have to worry because if I take my car to a service station and they tell me it needs a new transmission, well I already know that it does. Anyone want to buy a car? ; )
     Stupid ads & policies:
     I hate stupid ads. If they are stupid as in funny yet dumb, that's okay, so long as I don't have to see it 3 million times every week. But just plain bad ads piss me off. Of course, I understand that someone somewhere had to have liked it enough to pay for it, which is why they say there is no accounting for taste. However, if there is an ad for a product and I think the ad is bad enough, I won't by that product based on the fact that I don't approve of the ads. For example, I won't take my car to Aamco (see above).
     Similarly, I won't shop at certain stores, not just because of the ads, but because of the policies of the store. I have never set foot it a Wal-Mart store, and I never will. But if someone is driving and they want to stop there, then I will wait in the car, thank you very much. If I'm feeling extra pissy that day, I'll even stand outside of the parking lot. Why? Because of their policy on selling albums with "Parental Advisory: Explicit Lyrics" stickers on them. Well, fuck them. They may have changed this policy recently, and if so, I don't know about it, but I'm not going to go in and find out. It's been pretty easy to avoid Wal-Mart though, since there is only one near me. Besides, there are two K-marts that are closer then the Wal-Mart, and there is nothing that I could get a Wal-Mart that I couldn't get any number of other stores that are all closer.
     Well, to be honest, I did go into a Wal-Mart in July 1997. I didn't buy anything though. Me and two friends were visiting another friend who goes to school in Livingston, Alabama. Well, while there, we stopped in the Wal-Mart cuz she needed some stuff, and this small town (45 minutes west of Tuscaloosa) has nothing else nearby. I would have been content to wait in the car, or in the parking lot, but it was 103° F and about 250% humidity. I hate that kind of weather more then Wal-Mart. Besides, it wouldn't physically kill me to go into a Wal-Mart, but staying outside might have.

Lawsuits.

     Well, it is your right to sue someone for a valid reason, but this society is sue-crazy. And all those lawyers who everyone makes jokes about because they are such bad people? Well, you're feeding their families and buying their Porsches and mansions. I don't really know which is worse. The woman who sued McDonald's because she spilled hot coffee on herself that she bought at McDonald's or the judge that agreed with her case. Or the guy who use the lawnmower to trim his hedges and got his arm cut off because he couldn't hold the mower steady enough and sued the maker of the mower since it didn't say in the manual that you shouldn't use it for that purpose. Or the burglar who broke into a house, tripped going down a flight of stairs in the dark, broke his leg and, you guessed it, sued the owner of the house. (Check out more ridiculous lawsuits at the World Wide Legal Information Association website.)
     These are the biggest loads of bullshit I have ever heard of. Why, you might ask? Well here's a list of should-be's:

• If you buy something, it is yours. You own it and anything that you do with it is your responsibility. If you don't have the common sense to use the product in a proper manner, then you deserve everything that happens. A manufacturer or retailer should not have to be responsible for your lack of intelligence and common sense or your lack of manual dexterity. If they are to be held responsible, then there should be a way to rank people for stupidity and clumsiness and if you are below a certain level, then you can't buy and/or use a certain range of products.
       Example: A level 6 person can't use lawnmowers because he/she has the potential to not use it properly or a level 2 person can't drink hot beverages that might burn because he/she is prone to dropping the cup.
       But since that is never going to happen for all sorts of reasons that I won't bore you with, then companies should not be liable for the actions of a person using their product. If someone attacked me with an ax, there should be no way that I can sue the maker of the ax. And you can put all the warning and proper usage labels you want on a product, but if someone doesn't read them or disregards them, there is nothing a company can do about it.
• If you are breaking into a place where you aren't supposed to be, then that alone should be a waiver of your right to sue for anything. Period. If you break into my house in the middle of the night and hurt yourself, then good, because you shouldn't have been there in the first place.
• If you sue, and you lose, you should be responsible for the court costs for both parties. Almost any other country that allows its citizens to sue other citizens, the rule is that if you waste the time of the court and the people involved on a lawsuit, you damn well better have a good reason. If you lose the case, you not only have to pay your own half of the court costs and your lawyer, but you also pay the defendant's half of the court cost. I don't know if they have to pay for the defendant's lawyer, but they should. You'd see a lot of these stupid lawsuits disappear damn quick because all these people are going the think long and hard, twice, whether they want to take the chance. Of course, you should be able to appeal, but if you lose, then that's just more court costs to pay. But, to be fair, if you win a lawsuit, the person you're suing should automatically be responsible for paying all the costs of the suit, instead of you having to make sure that include that potential amount in the suit or make the paying one of the stipulations.

Immigration & Freedom.

     The basic problem with immigration is that there is too much of it. I'm not talking about just those who come to the US, but of immigration in general. Most often, the word immigration is thought of as moving to the US, which makes sense, since most immigration is to the US, from other countries.
     One thing that I don't understand is if so many big companies are closing down manufacturing plants in the US to move them to Mexico because of the cheap labor and lower costs and less regulation, environmentally and otherwise, then why are there still so many Mexicans still trying to come across to the US? I'm sure there's more to the story, but it's something to think about.
     The bigger problem I have with immigration is political immigrants. The people that run away from their home country to some supposedly better country because of the political situation. Masses of people swarmed out of Ruwanda and Iraq and Haiti in the recent past to escape persecution from their governments. Do you know what would have happened if all those people, in Ruwanda, for example, had turned on the rebels that were driving them away and swarmed against them as a whole? They would've won. They wouldn't have had to become refugees. But no. And what it shows is that they only care about themselves. Selfishness, pure and simple.
     They run in large groups for the same reason that buffalo do. For protection in numbers. The more people, the higher the odds of survival. But the same odds hold for turning the tables and standing your ground. Look at what happened in the Czech Republic recently when the President Milosavich didn't want to concede to the votes of the people, who picked someone else to lead them. The people came together to protest, held demonstrations, showed they weren't going to let up the protesting until Milosavich gave in. The people there stood as one and in the end, they prevailed.
     Okay, sure, if there is fighting, then some people will get hurt or killed, but sometimes that is what has to be done. It might be good if some of these people saw "Braveheart." Freedom is your right as a living creature, and if someone wants to take that freedom from you, you have the right to defend that freedom. If you don't want to defend it, don't come crying to me about it. I have my own freedom to worry about.

Language.

     In the United States:
     I get varying responses to question of the official language of the US. Some think it's English. As far as I know, there is no officially, legally recognized language in the US. By default, since most of the general population speaks English, I would have to say that it would be English, but since it is not written anywhere as such, there is no way to require that citizens of the US be able to speak English. This, as I see it, is a problem.
     Other countries have official languages, why not the US. I think the US government should set English as the official, legal language of the US. I only say English because more people speak it then any other language in the US. It is only fair to assume that every single person be required to speak at least one language, since language is the medium through which we think and speak. You can't you run a society where no one can communicate with the other members.
     Well, what about two languages? Sure, Canada does it. And everything can be translated and be printed and spoken in multiple languages. (Yes, you'll see that when you buy a product, the manual is often written in two or more languages, but remember that is because they sell the product in other countries, not because people in this country speak all those languages, even though some do.) Okay, then, two languages. Which two? Well, most would assume Spanish. Fine, but that'll piss off the French. Well, okay, let's have French also. Well, that's fine, but now the Germans want in. Well, it's only fair. What about Italian? See where this is going? The US is just such a large "melting pot" of people that I can't see a fair way to pick a language other then to pick the one that is most used (English) and go with it.
     Now, I heard someone on a cable station arguing something about languages. It was someone trying to make a point about Spanish in America. I think it was in regards to a recent New York City high school graduation requirement that was just put back on the books that made kids take a certain test only in English. (Can someone confirm this?) The argument was that Spanish was the third most spoken language in the world and that English was fifth. I imagine that Chinese was first, and I wondered what was second and fourth. He said that it means that there is a language predudice and they should let the kids take the test in Spanish as well. Big whoopdy-doo! We aren't talking about how many people on the planet speak what language. We are talking about in the US. By far it's English.
     According to the US Census Bureau, in 1990 the population of the US was 230,445,777. The number of those who were native Spanish speakers who spoke English at a level of "not well" was 4,826,958 and "not at all" was 1,845,243. The number of people who speak only English is 198,600,798. (If you want to know, after English and Spanish, the next 5 languages most spoken in the US are French, German, Italian, Chinese and Tagalog (Tagalog is from the Phillipines).) Of course these numbers have changed since 1990, and it'll be interesting to see the change in the 2000 census, but overwhelmingly, English is the most spoken language in the US.
     So basically, I think that it should be required that if you want to become a citizen of this country, one of the requirements should be that you speak English. I'm not saying that the person must become so fluent that they can recite the whole Webster's dictionary, most people who speak English can't even do that, but they should be able to carry on a simple conversation and understand the road signs. Nor should they abandon their native language. But it's not fair that I should have to inconvenience myself to learn to speak Spanish so that I can communicate with the Mexicans that keep moving to my home town. (I don't know why they move into my town, since most of them work on the local farms, and the only thing the local farms seem to have grown in the past 2 years are housing developments, which is another issue all together.) But they want to come here, so they should speak the language of the people here before them, not the other way around. If I move to some other country where they don't speak English, I would expect nothing less of myself, or anyone else, then to learn their language.
     Ebonics:
     It seems to me that everyone who talks in Ebonics, aka street slang, ends every sentence with the phrase "ya' know?" I would like to know the value of speaking a languange which you have to end every sentence by questioning whether or not the person understood the sentence? As it happens, though, this practice has rubbed off into regular English, similar to "like". Like, ya know?
     I don't have a problem with Ebonics as a language, or as a subset of English, or whatever it is officially classified as. Itsay ootay adbay atthay igPay atinLay idn'tday atchcay onay asay ellway. (It's too bad that Pig Latin didn't catch on as well.) But the same rules apply as above. Ebonics is not English and you should be required, as a citizen of the US, to be able to speak English.
     I don't know what that moron out in California was thinking when he suggested that school's use Ebonics to teach inner city children. The guy was black, by the way, although I don't think he was a big speaker of Ebonics.

2001, A Math Odyssey...

     The year 2000 is the start of the next century. Most people believe this because it seems to make sense. And it does. Many people say that it is really 2001 that is the start of the next millennium. Uhh, no. The argument is that you start at 1 and count up, and 2001 would be the start if you started at 1, but you don't count from 1, you count from 0 (see NOTE below. The difference between the years 1 B.C. and 1 A.D. is 2 years, with 0 in the middle. Counting from 0 is day 1, day 2, day 3, etc. up til year 1. The year markers mark the end of the year, not the start.
     Proof: When you are born you start at 0 and count up and at 1 year from the day you're born, you are 1 year old. You don't start out at 1, do you? No, you don't. (If you hold the belief that life starts at conception, then you are actually about 9 months old when you are born, but for the sake of the argument, just count from birth.) The same applies to hours, decades, centuries and millinnia, and whatever the next level is. The year 2001 is the end of the first year of the next millennium, but midnight at the end of 1999 and the start of 2000 is the start of the next millennium. Don't believe me? Do the math yourself.
     NOTE: Well, actually, as it happens, the current calendar actually did start at 1 A.D. This is because the monk in the 5th Century A.D. that was called on by the Pope to create a new calendar (the current one) didn't think things through. More specifically, at the time that this monk was called on to create the new calendar (since the one they were using was a bit messed up) there was no concept of zero in Europe. The Chinese and Aztecs and all had no problem with zero, and zero had been around before, but apparently it got lost along the way. So, the monk didn't realize that he should be counting from 0 instead of 1 and by the time someone realized that they needed a 0 to make Europe a whole, and by far better, place to live, people where all well into the calendar and quite liked that year. This is not the first end of a century where people have argued whether to celebrate (or cower in fear, as the superstitions of the times may have said) on the x99-x00 evening or the x00-x01 evening. In fact, it's happened almost every century since the current calendar was created. Basically, the people want to party on x99-x00 because it seems right, it feels right, (and should be right) for the same reason you can't wait to see that odometer in you car turn over from 099999 to 100000 miles. But the powers that be are morons. They can't count and they think that the only way to fixed it would be to make the current year actually the year before, and then they'd have to fund re-writing of the history books. Well, I'm all for just saying that the 1st Century A.D. or the 20th, for all I care, only had/has 99 years and party like hell on December 31, 1999 - January 1, 2000. See you in New York City.

More fun with numbers...

     The number 3 is an important number. Why? Not because of the Christian idea of the trinity and all that. 3 is important because that's how things happen. In 3's. However, as with most things, there are guidelines to things happening in 3's. Things just can't happen as arbitrary 3's. You can't just say "My alarm went off, I drove to work, I ate lunch... that's 3!" It doesn't work that way. There has to be connections. It has to follow the rules.

The Rules: (Note that there are 3.)

1. The 3 things are either all good or all bad, but not both in the same set of 3.
2. Either '3 similar things happen to the same person' or 'The same thing happens to 3 similar people'.
3. They happen within 3 of the same time intervals. 3 months, 3 days, 3 years, etc.

     Now, you may or may not know that there is 3 of something, especially when it's Rule 2-B. Singer John Denver died recently, and you may be looking for another 2 country singers to go, but actually, he is the 3rd of 3 to die. Most people don't know that the first 2 were not country singers, but were involved in the music world, both big names in their time and professions. One was an orchastra conductor and the other had been head of the Metropolitan Opera House in NY. 3 older musicians. Princess Diana and Mother Theresa died so I'd look out for a humanitarian woman to go before too long. Actually, it probably happened within a week of the other 2, but you may not know it.

It's the End of the World as We Know It...

     Everyone is starting to get more and more riled up as the days go by and the year 2000 approaches. Well, basically, this is because someone decided that the year 2000, or some day reasonably close to that year will be the end of the world, the apocalypse, the end of all personkind and his/her rule on Earth, yada, yada, yada. So they say. Well, I'm not sure what the point is in worrying about it, since one of two things will happen. A) The end will come and nothing we can do can change it. Or B) it's all a bunch of malarky and if we waste our time because we assume it's all going to end, then we'll look like idiots.
     I keep having this recurring thought that someone in the next couple of years is going to start some big war, things are going to go nuts, everyone's running around preaching the end of the world so why not just go out with a bang and then at midnight on December 31, 1999/January 1, 2000, the world all of a sudden doesn't end and everyone stops and looks at there watches and looks around with embarassed looks on their faces and says: "Oh... well... that's all right then. Well, sorry about that. I'll just be going now. Care to join me for a spot of tea?" And they all go home, or to the hospital, if necessary. Except, of course, for that one guy who's always late who comes running in in a suit of armor that he stoll from the museum for the occasion, sword raised above his head, screaming a war cries at the top of his lungs for a couple of minutes before he realizes that it's too late. (Actually, this sounds a lot like a Monty Python skit.)
     Well, I stand by my opinion of the end of the world that is supposed to occur sometime in the near future:

The end of the world will not come simply based on the fact that we couldn't be so lucky.
   Or:
The end of the world will not come simply based on the fact that the planet couldn't be so lucky.

My advise to you is...

     These are some helpful quotes and sayings that might help you get through this crazy existence we call life, as well as things to think about. Credit is given where credit is due, insofar as I know where the quote came from. If I've mis-credited anything, then e-mail me and I will correct it.

• "Never go up Shit's Creek without a paddle." -- me
• "We are so enamored with what other people are doing. Why? If you see someone who is doing something that is so much more interesting the what you are doing, then why do you do what you're doing? Why not do what they do, instead?" -- me
• "The Trash Heap has spoken." -- Fraggle Rock
• "What's so amazing about really deep thoughts?" -- Tori Amos
• "If you really want a challenge, just deal with yourself." -- Tori Amos; "B-sides", Apr/May 94
• "Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, prefunctory gift that nobody ever asks for. Unreturnable because all you get back is another box of chocolates. So you're stuck with this undefinable whipped mint crap that you mindlessly wolf down when there's nothing else to eat. Sure, once in a while there's a peanut butter cup or an english toffee but they're gone too fast and taste is fleeting. You end up with nothing but broken bits of hardened jelly and teeth shattering nuts. If you're desparate enough to eat those, all you got left is an empty box filled with useless, brown, paper wrappers." -- The Cigarette Smoking Man (aka Cancer Man), "The X-Files"

The last time that I changed my mind was on GMT.