It’s official. I’ve spent way too much time on this blog over the years, amassing thousands of comments. In fact, the tip jar in this diary will be my 10,000th comment. In order to celebrate this achievement, I am going to share some excerpts from my unpublished diaries dating back as far as 2007. Please be aware that many of these diaries were started while I was angry and/or drunk. Others were ideas that went nowhere or failed attempts at being clever/funny. And some were just me being a jerk because I didn’t like what another person wrote. So without further adieu, I humbly offer these embarrassing snippets.
I wrote my very first unpublished diary titled “Buying the Media” on 2/20/2007. I was pointing out that Boeing was buying advertising on numerous media outlets, not because they wanted people to buy anything, but because they wanted to have influence over the media. After all, most cable news viewers are not in the market for a multi-million dollar jet. I’m not sure why the story was never finished.
This is bullshit
Boeing Global Advertising Campaign Rolls Out Sixty- and 30-second television buys include CNN, CNN-International, CNN Financial News, Headline News, MSNBC, CNBC and Bloomberg. Wall Street Journal (WSJ), Financial Times, WSJ-Asia, WSJ-Europe, Handlesblatt and Nikkei Shimbun are the selected print avenues. In the future, media will be extended to additional print, outdoor and electronic venues.
In July of 2007, I started a piece title “Cindy Sheehan and the Sadness of War.” I didn’t get very far.
I feel very sad for Cindy Sheehan.
If I remember correctly, Cindy’s behavior was getting a bit erratic at the time and even some on the Left were criticizing her. This must have been my feeble attempt at defending her. I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose child, especially in a senseless war.
Later that month, I penned a weird one titled “Obama Goes Ridiculous.” I can’t recall what I thought was ridiculous and got only as far as writing a disclaimer.
Disclaimer:I do not plan to vote in the Democratic Party Primary because I do not feel strongly enough about any one candidate. However, without a doubt, I will vote for the Democratic nominee in the general.
I must have had a hunch that Obama was going to win, and apparently I was not happy about it. You could say that I was in the “sux” camp for a while.
In September of 2007 I wrote what appears to be a well researched piece about the the Iowa Caucuses titled “Forget Iowa.” Not sure why I never finished/published it.
Alternate Title: Fuck Iowa Seriously, why should Iowa, or any other one of the early primary states, play such a pivotal role in selecting the Democratic nominee for president? What's so special about residents of those states that should give them more influence in the selection process? Is it tradition? Is it to give the smaller states a larger voice? Is it a campaign fundraising issue? Whatever the reason(s), there is no disputing that Iowa has a disproportionately strong influence over presidential elections and the federal government in general, and it's time to put an end to it.
Based on the statistics from the 2000 Census, Iowa has just under 3 million residents (2,926,324), which makes it the 30th most populated state. The population represents approximarely 1.04 percent of the total population of the United States (281,421,906). The following shows a per capita measure of influence that Iowa has in the federal government. The number in parenthesis represents the national ranking. Iowa 2000 Population per Senator: 1,463,162 (21) Population per Representative: 585,265 (4) Population per Electoral Vote: 418,046 (18) You can see that despite being the 30th largest state, Iowa has a larger than deserved influence in both Congress and the selection of President. Let's look at Iowa's neighbor to the east for a stark contrast. Illinois 2000 Population per Senator: 6,209,647 (46) Population per Representative: 653,647 (31) Population per Electoral Vote: 591,394 (47) Illinois is the fifth largest state and has a population of 12,419,293. Yet, it has a substantially smaller per capita influence than Iowa. And I haven't even gotten into the influence Iowa has in selecting candidates due to the early scheduling of the Caucuses. We all remember what happened to Howard Dean in 2004 in Iowa.
In November 2007 during the heat of the Democratic Primary I started a diary titled “In Defense of Hillary.” I actually feel similarly today; I don’t want to defend her, but feel compelled to do so. I never finished the diary because I probably drew a blank.
The first time I suspected that Hillary Clinton was going to run for president, I shuddered at the thought. This was long before she ever actually announced she was seeking the nomination, shortly before she ran for Senate. The Bill Clinton impeachment was still fresh in my mind, and the Clinton Administration was being criticized for questionable pardons (Mark Rich) and trashing the White House (keyboards missing W's). I had severe Clinton fatigue, to say the least. But I saw Hillary emerge from the carnage
After that, I didn’t write another diary until February of 2008. Then I had a series of unpublished ones with angry titles such as “F—k This Place”, “Kool Aid is Bad for You”, and “Why Daily Kos Sucks.” Here are a few choice tidbits from those abominations.
[Kool Aid] makes you a part of the idiot masses, forcing you to choose between shirts and skins. A sports team fan who always thinks the best of the home team, and quickly sees what's wrong with the visitors. A lemming. It's almost like gambling... I bet on red, so I am hoping that the marble falls in a red slot. I gave money to Candidate A, so I can only root for said candidate. Fuck the issues... I already made the bet.
…
I drank the Kool Aid, so I must obey the spin.
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This blog has become the suckiest of sucking... a partisan blog that makes Rush Fucking Limbaugh blush. A source of talking points with no substance. You are way too ON MESSAGE. I mean seriously... Do you think that telling someone you posted on DKos makes you more or less credible.
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Are you fucking stupid or something?
I was pretty quiet after that, putting the primary behind me and getting behind Obama (mostly). I also started dating my wife during that time, which tempered some of my anger and stupidity. However, it didn’t stop me from writing a sarcastic diary about the Democratic health care plan in March of 2010 titled “Finally... At Last Health Care for All.”
I've been planning to go into business for myself for a while. The only thing stopping me was my company-subsidized, privately provided health care plan. I couldn't afford to pay hundreds of dollars per month for my own health care plan... especially with my high blood pressure and family history of heart disease. But now that the Democrats are passing a historic health care reform bill, I will quit my job tomorrow and move to Maine to be with my fiance and our unborn child. The Democrats have finally delivered!!!!
A few months later, I started a piece about foreign technology workers. I never got past complaining about my own woes.
Once upon a time, there was a successful, mid-sized, American insurance company with a staff of 200 Information Technology professionals on its payroll. This company (Let's call it Utopia Insurance) took care of it's employees, providing flexible work hours, excellent benefits, and numerous other perks. It wasn't unusual to come across people who had worked for the company for 25 years or more. Many profited from the success of Utopia Insurance, especially the employees who had an excellent stock plan. But when the company's founder retired, and the sons took over, things changed drastically.
The first sign that the employees were no longer important came in 2007, when the board of directors began considering offers to buy the company. They told the employees that they owed it to the stockholders to entertain any offers that might make money. Never mind that the employees held a good portion of the stock. Two months later the deal was finalized, and a Spanish company, let's call them Cojones Life took control of Utopia Insurance. At first, Cojones promised the employees that everything would be the same. They bought Utopia because of the employees and had no intention of making any changes. But the stock market didn't fare well in 2008, and insurance companies make money from investing unearned premiums in the markets. So the once happy employees at Utopia were asked to make sacrifices for the good of the company.
This is one of my favorites:
Defending Obama 101
1. 11th Dimensional Chess - You're just not smart enough to understand the bigger picture. 2. Hey 3. asdassas asadasdadasd asdadasdasd asdadadsasd asdasdadsasdasd asdadsasdasdasd
And this one:
If I was God, the world would be a much different place. Time I certainly wouldn't make a year last approximately 365.2425 days. Instead, I'd use the metric system and design the universe in a way that my loyal subjects could easily understand. The earth would travel around the sun in exactly 100 days and there would be 10 months, each having 10 days. And naturally, each day would be divided in 10 hours. That's an intelligent design that I could live with. Weather In my theoretical universe, weather would be a concept that no one would understand. It would always be 70 degrees and dry. Snow, rain, sleet, hail... gone! I know that a lot of people enjoy the changing of the seasons. But I also know a lot of people who hate raking leaves and shoveling snow. And I'll tell you what. You leaf-peepers who enjoy the fall foliage in New England... I'd make the leaves change colors the whole year round.
Anatomy Why on earth would an intelligent designer make the storage temperature for sperm be LESS than the animal's body temperature? Having external testicles makes the human male vulnerable to painful accidents and attacks, not to mention leg sticking incidents on hot and humid days. I'd change that for the good of mankind. I'd also eliminate the need for menstruation. Need I explain more? Republicans Eliminated. Karma
Here is a sad one I started in 2011 titled “They Are Part of the 99% Too.” I stopped writing because I was concerned that the girl could be identified. I left that part out here as well.
"Claudia" seems much happier these days. She is no longer sleeping in the dangerous tent city near the banks of the river, the place where she was gang-raped last summer. The shanty town where a group of middle-aged, chronically homeless men preyed on this young woman of 20 years. Each man took his time, knowing that no one would stop it and no one would call the police. They were laughing at the fact that Claudia is not very smart, mocking her while ravishing her. In fact, if Claudia had a slightly lower IQ, she would not have been in such a predicament. She would have been living in government housing. But alas, she scored slightly too high on an IQ test and did not qualify for assistance. And in the end, she decided not to pursue charges against the men because one of her "friends" convinced her that it was worse being labeled a snitch. "Stitches for Snitches" is what she says. Claudia's problems started long before the horrific sexual assault. Her father disappeared shortly after her birth, and her mother was bitter that God had given her an imperfect child. She was often beaten with a leather belt for being "stupid" and slow. And for making her father leave... an accusation frequently made by her wicked mother. But Claudia's mother eventually found another man, a good man with a job and a truck. A man who shared in the mother's love for mocking the "retard". A man who liked to slip into his stepdaughters bedroom for late night fondling sessions. A man who knew that his wife would never believe the word of someone like Claudia over his own.
So at 17 years old, emotionally and physically damaged Claudia left home and headed for the city. She managed to find a shelter for homeless teens and a community center where she could get help with her emotional problems. Initially, the staff at the shelter did not know that she had a low IQ. And Claudia was hesitant to tell them because she had been known as the stupid kid her whole life. Instead, she became friends with some of the other unfortunate teens and began drinking and doing drugs.
Lastly, in 2012 I started a piece about competitive swimming titled “How to Swim the 400 IM.”
The 400 Meter Individual Medley is perhaps the most difficult event in swimming. To excel at it, one must possess a combination of strength, speed and endurance as well as good technique in each of the four strokes. It is a grueling sprint event that is comparable to the running mile in terms of intensity. Years of training and natural talent are required to perform at the highest level in the Olympics. Typically freestyle is the fastest of the four swimming strokes. However, in the 400 IM the butterfly leg is often swum slightly faster because 1) it is the first stroke and there is no fatigue factor and 2) you get a diving start. A good goal is to try to even-split the butterfly and freestyle legs, achieving equal times for both. The thinking is that if your butterfly is much faster than your freestyle, you took it out too fast and didn't leave enough energy to finish the race. But if your freestyle is much faster, you took it out too slow and had extra energy to spare when the race was over. Of course there is an exception to this rule: the swimmer is much better at one discipline than the other. But at the elite level in the final of the Olympics, the swimmers competing in the 400 IM are good at all disciplines. Follow me below the squiggly for an analysis of the men's and women's finals from London.
In the Men's 400 Individual Medley at the London 2012 Olympics, seven out of eight of the competitors swam a faster butterfly leg than a freestyle leg. Horihata Yuya of Japan was the only competitor who swam a faster freestyle leg (by 0.1 seconds), finishing in 6th place. The winner, Ryan Lochte, swam the butterfly leg 3.63 seconds faster than the freestyle leg. On the women's side,
I started this after watching a Chinese woman in the Olympics swim an absurd race like no one else had ever done. I stopped because I was heading towards making unsubstantiated accusations.
Thanks for reading!