It's the year of the dragon, bitches!

Now’s your chance to make any resolutions you failed to make on Jan 1, but honestly, New Year’s resolutions are stupid anyway, no?  I mean, if you need to make changes in your life, why wait until Jan 1 to do it? If one day you suddenly realize that you’re a complete fuckup shouldn’t you try to remedy that as soon as you make this discovery?   Does it make any sense to just continue along your merry path of fuckupery fuckiing up even more shit until the first of the year? 

Of course not.

Regardless, if you’re not the person you want to be yet, then it’s a safe bet that you’re never going to be.  Let’s face it, most of you have pretty much cultivated the body and personality that you’re gonna have for the rest of your life, and it’s not gonna get any better.  It’s only gonna get worse. 

Oh sure, you can make a few small changes here and there.  Maybe you can stop stuffing your face long enough to lose 5 or 10 pounds.   Maybe you can take that class in creative ass scratching that you’ve already wanted to take.  Maybe you can take a stab at trying to reign in your spending on Cheetos and porn. 

Maybe.

But at the end of the day, how much have you really changed?   And is it really that much of an improvement? If you’re a dickwad today, you’ll be a dickwad tomorrow and most likely you’ll be an even bigger dickwad in a year.  Sure you might be a slightly lighter dickwad who can creatively scratch his as like a champ with a few extra bucks in his pocket, but you’ll still be a dickwad.   Some things just can’t be changed. 

It’s all about inertia, my friend.  And most of us are a bunch of weak-assed motherfuckers who are pretty much incapable of affecting the kind of change it would take to make any sort of discernable difference.

Case-in-point: me. 

Every year, come Jan 1, just so I’ll have something to tell the shit-ton of fuckwads asking me what my New Year’s resolution is, I “resolve” to be nicer to people.  Now, whether you actually know me for reals or just from this blog, you’ll realize this is pure absurdity.  Me?  Nicer to people? Ahahahahahahahahah.  Let’s pencil that in right after that snowboarding trip to hell.

So you might be inclined to think that I just say that I’m doing this without making any sort of actual attempt to follow through, but every year I actually do make a valiant effort to be nicer to people.  Well, “valiant” maybe a slight exaggeration, but if you catch me on/around Jan 2 or 3^rd you might be one of the few who can bear witness to the kinder, gentler me.  Of course any other day of the year you get the same old ornery asshole that everyone else gets the pleasure of meeting.

So you might now ask, what then is the point?

And my response to that might be: Are you a fucking moron?  There is no goddamned point.  Try and keep up here. 

Anyway, my window of niceness came and went this year in the blink of an eye leaving no residual evidence behind that it ever really happened.   You’ll just have to take my word for it. 

Maybe if you catch me early next year, you’ll sniff out a subtle whiff of sweetness in the air, but until then you’re pretty much stuck with bitter old me, though on the flip side of that, you probably aren’t any kinda picnic either.

Maybe next year we should just all resolve not to make any resolutions.

Is it that birds of a feather flock together or is it that opposites attract?  I suppose it’s perhaps a little bit of both.  I need to have something in common with someone to get along, but at the same time if I were forced to hang out with an entire posse of me, I’d end up killing everyone.   Lord knows I am not a bundle of joy to be around.  It shocks the shit out of me that I have the friends that I do (fucking masochists…).   It shocks me even more that I’ve been able to cultivate the romantic relationships that I have, albeit said relationships have been very limited and few and far between (again: fucking masochists).

But one thing that has become abundantly clear to me is that heartless bastards like me don’t mesh well with other heartless bastards.  Though perhaps “heartless” is a misnomer.  I can’t speak for anyone else, but it’s not that I’m completely heartless.  It’s just that I’m un-emoting.  

There’s a difference, you know.

A HUGE difference….

Dammit, there IS!  Stop rolling your eyes at me!

Eh, it’s not worth explaining if you don’t get it, but there is a difference.

Regardless, it seems to me that people seek other people out, not only because they have some things in common, but also because those other people may have qualities that they themselves may not possess.

Now, I’m not saying that because I’m a supergenius, I’m going to be seeking out morons, or that I’m going to be seeking out Quasimodos because I’m sensationally attractive.   I’m just saying that sometimes it’s nice to be with someone who has qualities that you don’t have.  Maybe you’re an introvert and you are therefore attracted to extroverts.  Or maybe you’re somewhat miserly with your affections and therefore like being with people who are not… though truth be told, I’ve had friends that are big huggers and I deal with it, but I honestly wish they were less huggy – I refrain from slapping them away when they come at me with their open arms and sappy “I love you, man” expressions because I’ve found that a lot of people take such things wayyyyyyy too personally, but let me set the record straight: just because I don’t want to hug your ass every time I fucking see you does NOT mean I don’t like you.  All it means is I don’t want to have to hug your ass every time I fucking see you.  I mean, honestly… hugging is a worthless gesture unless there’s making out involved and/or someone gets to cop a feel.  Am I right? 

As a side note, what’s the deal with complete strangers hugging each other?  I feel like this is becoming more and more prevalent and accepted in society and quite frankly I don’t like it.  I don’t like it at all.  I don’t let people I’ve known for YEARS invade my personal space like that.  I’m not going to let some random stranger do it, regardless of how excited they are to meet me.   Who knows what kind of cooties they’re bringing to the table?  I don’t need their bacteria-laden bodies pressed up against mine.   Though I have observed that people find it somewhat off-putting when I hold up a hand in protest as they are going in for the old squeeze o’ death (and even more off-putting if I add a, "Whoa now.  Not so fast.  You can just back the fuck off there, Sparky.") so I’ve found that the best way to combat this is to make yourself as rigid as possible so that it’s like trying to hug an inanimate object -  which also works well in other situations where you thought someone was gonna be all that but they ended up soooo not measuring up to expectations (if you know what I mean) and you just want that person to hurry the fuck up and just finish already so you can stealthily slip away, delete your number off their phone and get the hell outta dodge while they're sleeping off their one-sided post-coital bliss and....

....dammit where was I again?  Oh yeah - warding off huggers....

So, uh....people generally don’t hold onto a hug for very long if they sense you’re not as into it as they are. But if this still doesn’t deter them and they continue to hold on for an unreasonably long period of time (i.e., more than a fraction of a second), it helps if you try and struggle against them a bit, though this is a last resort because again, people often don’t take too kindly to having a hand pressed against the side of their head as you’re trying to wrestle yourself away from their vice-like grip. 

To provide an analogous frame of reference, I suppose I feel like I'm the cat in a world of Pepe le Pews…. STOP THE MADNESS PEOPLE!  Hugging, much like the term “I love you” (which has been overused to the point that it's completely meaningless from most people), should be reserved for that select group of people in your life that you actually love.  And for me this consists of like 3 people… ok 2… well 1… um can I count myself as someone I love?

ANYWAY, after that huge digression within a digression…. the point is, that if you wanted or needed someone exactly like you there really would be no point, would there?  I mean let’s face it.  We all can get the job done ourselves.  We don’t really need help in that arena (or at least most of us don’t), so why would we want to spend the rest of our lives, or even extended periods of time, with someone just like us?

Variety is the spice of life, no?

Well… upon further thought, maybe it’s just that nobody would want to spend extended periods of time with someone just like ME.  Maybe that’s the true issue here.  And maybe that’s why I’m smack in the middle of life and haven’t found anyone who wants to spend the rest of his/her (I won’t discriminate at this point) life with me.

But why not? Am I really that much of a pariah?

• Smart?  Check!
• Funny?  eh... sorta.  Right?
• Attractive?  Well… I’d like to think so, but I ain’t getting any younger…. Let’s just say I’m somewhere above average.  Maybe.  Perhaps?  Fuck.  I’m screwed aren’t I?
• Good personality?  Ok, so this is where things start to really go to hell in a hand basket. 
• Lovable? Fucking dammit…

Well, there’s always crazy cat lady to aspire to… um… if cats didn’t make me to in to anaphylaxis….

I guess I’ll have to resort to hoarding instead.

At some point in your life you are forced to realize that more of your life is behind you than in front of you. Obviously you never really know for sure when you’re gonna kick it, but statistically speaking here in the US, the average life expectancy is around 80 (technically 78ish, but let’s be optimistic and round up). As a side note, the country with the lowest life expectancy is Afghanistan at 44. Fucking 44. How shitty and depressing is that? That would mean I’d likely be dead in 5 years if I wasn’t dead already.

Regardless, as it stands, on the eve of the eve of my 40th birthday all evidence, statistical or otherwise, seems to indicate that it’s probable that half of my life lies in the past. And truth be told, possibly a lot more than half given my lifestyle of sloth, recklessness, and shitty eating habits. Also, I’m sure there are several people out there who’d take some pleasure in offing me if given the chance.

Anyway, when you reach these points in your life where you are suddenly faced with the harsh reality surrounding your own mortality, you often wonder whether you’ve lived it to its fullest and all that happy-assed introspective bullshit. And I can say without a doubt that for a majority of you, if you say “yes” you are fucking delusional.

In the grand scheme of things we are all just a bunch of selfish assholes doing selfish asshole things and interacting with other selfish assholes to help magnify our selfish assholery….

So what if you recycle and belong to a co-op? So what if you give blood on a regular basis and donate to [insert trendy charity o’the week here]? You’re still most likely a selfish asshole. Perhaps less so than some, but it’s kinda like being the skinniest person at fat camp or the most sane person in the asylum. You’re still a fat fuck or a crazy-ass bastard and the fact that you aren’t the fattest/craziest just means that you’re stuck in your own mediocrity and maybe you should try harder to excel at the things you know you can excel at.

That’s why my new goal in life is to be the biggest, most selfish asshole on the planet!

Because the true issue here is all about excellence, isn’t it? Most of you have never really exceled at anything, have you? You might be good at some things, but what are you great at? Everyone wants to be great at something and maybe that’s what we spend our lives trying to do. And if you’re not trying to be great at something, then what’s the point of your existence, really?

I dunno. Do you? I suppose I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve realized that perhaps there is no point. Things sorta come around full circle, don’t they? I seem to have gone from existentialist angsty teenaged asshole to a manic career-driven professional, to an existentialist angsty middle-aged asshole.

Man, I really need a new hobby. I think it’s a toss up between ugly latch-hook rug maker competitive eater, or belly button lint collector…

Or perhaps I need to put a little more thought into this….

So Best Buy is suing NewEgg.com because they (Best Buy) feel that they own the word "Geek".  So my first reaction was: WTF, Best Buy?  You didn't INVENT that word.

But then I thought about it a little more.  If I could corner the market on the name "Heather" I would.  I'd wipe out every other Heather from the face of this earth... well maybe "wipe out" would be a bit harsh, but I'd at least make them all change their names to something else.  I'm sure they'd be OK living the rest of their lives as Margarets or Candices, right?

(It actually did incense me that the screen name "H3ather" was already taken on several sites, including Twitter (hence the "z" on the end of my Twitter handle), but I just have to take solace in the fact that I'm the best and most important H3ather.  All the others are poseurs and losers - if you don't believe me go look them up - the current "h3ather" on Twitter is dull as shit.)

Anyway, PCWorld posted this infographic a few months ago that was published in Oct 2010 that showed who is suing whom in the tech industry.  As you can see, pretty much everyone is suing everyone.

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Well then this got me to thinking (dangerous, right?).  I have beefs with these companies.  I could sue them all too!  So below is an infographic of the reasons why I should be able to sue these companies.

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50 years ago today, John F. Kennedy challenged our nation to put a man on the Moon in less than 10 years.  And WE DID.

Do you think we could ever accomplish something like this again?

I don’t.  

So if you weren’t aware of this fact (and it’s likely that you were not, which is probably space program failure reason number one), in 2004, President Bush decided it’d be a really cool idea to start a new manned Moon mission program.  This became known as the Constellation Program.  (Which is a really stupid name if you think about it.  The layman’s definition of a constellation is a grouping of stars.  And the Moon is neither a star nor a constellation, but whatever.) 
 
The goal of the Constellation program was to complete a post-space shuttle program by 2015 that would take peeps to the International Space Station and then to get them on the Moon by 2020.

OK now first of all, 2020 minus 2004 = 16 years.  What the fuck, people?   We did this shiz in half that time before and with motherfucking slide rules.  SLIDE RULES!  Do you even know what a slide rule is?  Have you ever even held one in your hand?  Look at the picture below. 

See the thing sitting on top of the calculator?  That piece of plastic with numbers and shit written on it?  That’s a slide rule.   You move that little plastic sleeve around to figure out complex calculations like logarithms and trigonometric functions.  Do you even know what logarithms are ?  (If you don’t then you’re just proving my point that we as a nation are getting dumber every single day.)

They didn’t even have a sweet ass HP-28S (shout out to all the mega nerds who get this reference!  and for those of you who don’t, you can google that shit yourself),  which actually was probably more powerful than the Apollo computer systems....uh, for those of you who don't know (and please please please let there not be anyone out there who doesn't know this) the Apollo missions were the first missions to the moon back in the 60's and 70's. 

The Apollo guidance computer had 2K of memory.   You don’t even know what a “K” of memory is, do you?   You know what an “M” of memory is... and a “G”, but what is this “K” that I speak of???  Well, just to give a general frame of reference to you non-techy people, an iPhone 4 has roughly 260,000 times more memory than the Apollo guidance computer.   Think about this.  The thing you use to text all your moronic friends with and surf intrawebz pr0n with is more than a quarter of a million times more powerful memory-wise than the thing that guided a goddamned bucket of metal filled with 3 guys to the fucking MOON.

Seriously, if you considered the technological power we have today v 50 years ago, we should be able to get someone on the Moon by next Friday if we all put our heads together and started working on it today, right?

But the problem is that we would never do that.  We as a country aren’t capable of focusing on a common goal anymore.   And going to the Moon is a stupid goal anyway, right?  Whether you’re nodding your head in agreement right now or screaming angrily at your screen about the merits of a new lunar program, you’re proving my point as we speak.   We as a nation can’t agree on anything.  Our government can’t agree on anything.  If aliens (who clearly had a better-backed and more committed space program than we do) landed on the Earth tomorrow and told us that they’d destroy us unless we came to a consensus on one thing (ONE THING), even if we got to choose what that one thing was, we’d be completely fucked.  I don’t think we could even agree on whether or not we wanted the aliens to destroy us.   I’m sure there's some group of whackjobs out there that would be all in favor of complete world destruction.  Granted, some of those whackjobs would also believe that they were special enough to be miraculously spared, but that’s a whole other story. 

If you’re still disagreeing with me, consider this statement:

If Obama were to make this statement in a speech today,  don’t you think he’d get laughed off the stage (well he'd also probably be criticized for using the word "man" rather than "person" but that's a completely different topic)?  We aren’t fucking Musketeers.  What is this one for all and all for one bullshit?  All I know is if it doesn’t benefit me directly, I’m not gonna support it.  And more importantly, if it means that my hard earned tax dollars are paying for it, then I’m gonna rally against it… I mean if I was motivated enough to rally against anything I would rally against it. Maybe. Well, how ‘bout if I sit on my couch and quietly rally against it in my head while I eat Doritos® and watch Dancing with the Stars?

Anyway, we don’t have to worry about such things.  NASA couldn’t nail down a budget that was at all palatable for the powers that be and then Pres. Obama gave it the old “fuck it all” and cancelled the program in 2010 with the caveat that we should focus our efforts on manned missions to Mars.

Yeah.  If we can’t agree on a budget for getting to the Moon, it makes perfect sense to shoot for Mars.

I see this program succeeding in oh…three days past fucking NEVER.

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I’ve been a legal adult for a long, long, LONG time but I’m still sort of waiting for that magical moment where I become a true adult.  I’m not quite sure when it’s supposed to happen.  I always figured there’d be some sort of catalyst and I’ve narrowed down several things that were NOT that catalyst, which include:

• Turning 18 – Absolutely not.  There’s no way you can be an adult if you can’t legally drink.
• Turning 21 – Uh, no.  Witness virtually every American’s 21^st birthday and you will conclude (as I did) that this may actually be a huge reversion in adulthood.
• Getting a real job – Haha.  Yeah.  Right.  It’s amazing how juvenile people are in the corporate world.
• Getting Married – When I got married it was just a union of two immature asshats which made for one mega dose of immature asshattery…
• Turning 25 – Woo hoo! I can rent a car without a penalty!  But alas, still not an adult…
• Buying a house – Holy shit we have money!  Let’s spend it on something really really big and really really expensive that we may never really truly “own”!  And let’s buy a pool table and a ridiculously large TV so that all we can afford is IKEA® furniture , 1 bean bag chair that we fight over, and a futon… um… yeah no…clearly still not an adult.
• Having a kid – I’ve not had one, so I’ll let you know if/when it happens, though after studying many of my friends who do have kids,  I suspect it won’t really change my adult status (or non-status, if you will).
• Turning 30 – You’d think this would do it, wouldn’t you?  It didn’t.
• Getting divorced – Hellllllllllllls yeah! I’m freeeeeeeeeeeeeee to be as immature as I want!  It’s kid-in-a-candy-store time!  Again, another huge reversion in adulthood…
•  Getting a really important job – So this one is tricky ‘cause now there’s this very serious, very responsible Bizzaro me that appears when it needs to in a Jekyll/Hyde sorta fashion and quite frankly, serious me sucks.  If I ever met serious me I’d want to kick my ass and you would too…
• Turning 40 – Dunno, but I’ll let you know when it happens.  I suspect, however, that it will change absolutely nothing…

Regardless, if you have read any part of my website you’d know that I am pretty much the antithesis of an adult.  And yet, I’m still a relatively successful functioning member of society.  Is that a fluke?  Perhaps, but I hope not. 

As I’m typing this, I’m popping a sheet of bubble wrap on my desk that I was saving, but it was just sitting there calling my name…..H3aaatttthhhheeeeer, come pop meeeeeee….. and I’m currently trying to resist the urge to throw it on the floor so I can jump on it…

Adults don’t jump on bubble wrap.  It wouldn’t even occur to adults to think about jumping on bubble wrap.   Adults are civil and mature and politically correct.  Adults don’t swear like sailors.  Adults don’t find silly juvenile humor funny…. though in my experience adults don’t find much of anything funny and the things that they do find funny aren’t very funny.

Here’s the thing.  My theory is that some people are just more prone to adult-ness than others.  Most of these people happen to be very uninteresting with nonexistent senses of humor.

So the true test is this:  if you’ve read through everything on this site and a) there’s nothing that you’ve found even remotely humorous; b) you’ve rolled your eyes several times at the immaturity of it all; and/or c) I’ve truly offended your sensibilities more than once, then you are, in fact, an adult.  Congratulations.  Now get the fuck off my site. 

So my very scientific conclusion is this: adults aren’t actually people who are “grown up”.   You can probably be an adult at any age.  Adults are people who suck the fun out of life.   Adults are people who suck in general.  And adults are people who have chosen to take life way too seriously.

As cliché as it sounds, life’s too short.  Go photocopy your ass*.   Find something ridiculously juvenile but ridiculously funny and laugh until you can’t breathe.  Go jump on some bubble wrap.  

It might just make your day.

In every real man a child is hidden that wants to play.
-Friedrich Nietzsche

*Disclaimer – do this at your own risk.  I’m not responsible for your acts if you work for adult assholes and this is grounds for firing you.

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In case you’ve been living under a rock for the past day or so you know by now that a team of Navy SEALs has killed Osama bin Laden… eh who am I kidding, even if you were living under a rock, you’d probably still have your phone with you so you could tweet about living under said rock, so everyone should know this by now. 

So what was your first reaction? 

Was it something along the line of this:  “Wow, that’s awesome news!”

Or was it something along the line of this: “Grumble Grumble Grumble... [insert random negative comment and/or reason as to why nobody should be even slightly happy about this news]”

I don’t know many people who believe that this occurrence solved any of the major issues at hand in today’s world.  I’m sure there are some naïve people out there who do believe this, but we’ll ignore that particular fact for the purposes of this post.

What it did or did not “solve” is not the point.  The point is, why can’t people just revel in this moment, if only for a short period of time?   Why do people have to instantly form conspiracy theories or focus on how it will affect political approval ratings or discount this accomplishment by calling it meaningless?

It seems that we as a species are experts at finding the dark cloud on even the brightest and sunniest days.  

You know the story of when Jesus fed those thousands of  people with 5 loaves and 2 fishes?  Well I have it on good authority that on that day, the following conversations could be overheard (if you don’t know the story, in a nutshell,  rumor has it that Jesus fed a crowd of thousands with 5 loaves of bread and 2 fishes by miraculously dividing them up to create baskets and baskets full of food - and yes the story calls them "fishes" and not "fish"):

• Crowd member  1:  Dammit, I’m allergic to seafood.  Couldn’t he have miraculously produced some chicken or something instead?
• Crowd member 2:  Holy shit, this bread is dry.  I’m PARCHED.  Why couldn’t he have done that ‘water into wine’ miracle instead???    
  
• Crowd member 3: I never saw him wash his hands before he manhandled all the food.  I’m not eating this bacteria-laden slop.
• Crowd member 4: Yeah, it was miraculous and all, but I heard that his approval ratings have been down in the toilet lately and I KNOW he just did this to up his ratings.  There’s no way anyone could be that altruistic.  He’s acting like he thinks he’s the new messiah or something.
• Crowd member 5: Eh, it’s nice and all, but we’re just going to be hungry again tomorrow.  There’s still a world hunger problem out there, you know.  He should have just let everyone starve.  
• Crowd member 6:  Did anyone ever check under his robe?  And did anyone actually watch him closely when he was performing this “miracle”?
•  Crowd member 7:  I wasn’t really that hungry to begin with and all these people look fairly well fed.  Why couldn’t he focus his attention on solving some other problem, like smiting adulterers or something?

I shit you not, those are actual snippets of conversation from that day.  I know someone who knows someone who has a friend named Al who’s great grandfather to the 25^th power was there that day. 

Anyway, I guess the thing is that any day that an evil evil human being is removed from the face of the earth has to be a kinda somewhat OK day, doesn’t it?

We can bitch about all the things it did or did not accomplish tomorrow, but for today why can’t we just be glad that it happened?

Because our species sucks.  That's why.

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.....piloted by CIA agent Francis Gary Powers was shot down over the (then) Soviet Union.  For those of you who only know U2 as an Irish rock band (man that Bono totally rocked the mullet back in the day, didn't he?), the U-2 is a reconnaissance plane (i.e., it flies really high and takes pictures) built by Lockheed (Skunk Works) in the 1950's.  It was "replaced" by the SR-71, but it's still in use today (whereas the SR-71 was retired over a decade ago).  (As a side note, while Powers survived being shot down over the Soviet Union, he died in 1977 when the Bell helicopter he was piloting ran out of fuel near Burbank, CA.)

In any event, the U-2 incident caused much embarrassment to the US and (not surprisingly) put a bit of a strain on US/Soviet relations.

Ah, The Cold War.  Those were the days, weren't they?  Back then all we had to worry about was total world annihilation followed by  nuclear winter (for those of us unlucky enough to escape annihilation).

Back then, the Soviets were the ones fucking up Afghanistan.

Regardless, in honor of today, here are a few super awesome pictures that I took a couple of years ago.  It's a pretty bad-ass looking plane, no?  And the wingspan is ridiculous.

As a side note, you're gonna have to deal with the fact that I talk about aviation and aerospace a lot.  Though, if airplanes bore you then you are clearly a freak.

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