This little piggy

So the weirdest thing happened the other day. As you may already know I was involved in an accident that nearly ended my life. As a result my toes were crushed. My toenails have been slowly growing out and I have waited gleefully for them to be long enough to cut. Every time they are ready I get to cut off some of the dried blood that is crusted between the toenail and the skin. Then recently they started to develop a little fold in them and I noticed that they were peeling up in the middle. I thought that they had split in half and were about to break off. I kept waiting for the time that they would catch on a sock and hurt like hell as I ripped them off with the snagged clothing. Ouch! It turns out that they had already broken though and the toenail had continued to grow underneath the old one. The top damaged piece was still attached when the big toe on my right foot finally caught on something and it came off absolutely painlessly. Upon closer examination I discovered that all of them were the same. Now I was able to break them off by lightly tapping on each of them and then peeling the top layer off. It was like a snake shedding its skin. What was left underneath was reminiscent of a time when my feet looked healthy. With the exception of a few frankenstien style scars on my right foot, my feet look completely normal. No blood, no contusions, just a couple of scars on the top of my foot. Now things will never be completely perfect. My toes still don’t properly rotate on the joint so instead of going up and down they wiggle from side to side. My left foot is slightly turned out and it hampers my ability to walk. My dreams of becoming an NBA all star have most likely been shot but with a minor adjustments to my bindings I might be able to do some mild snowboarding next season. Overall I am happy with my recovery, especially considering the fact that I should probably be dead. Now if I could just stop thinking about starting a vigilante task force to kill drunk drivers, I might be in pretty good shape!

The type of man I want to be

The Liberty Of All (1877)
Robert Green Ingersoll
THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD (excerpts)

Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no life worth living. Every good government is made up of good families. The unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short- haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.

The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.

I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold.

But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it is true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.

I read in a book -- and I will say now that I cannot give the exact language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the substance -- I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.

Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So he caused a sleep to fall on this man -- now understand me, I do not say this story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme Being took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw material used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed. Well, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and they started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they might do and of one thing they could not do -- and of course they did it. I would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs would have been full of cobs. And then they were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back in.

Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have the toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this.

Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that……………..

………….In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says, "I will make her happy," makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.

If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head of a family -- the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite expressions.

Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched her heart -- imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now, here, let us settle who is boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling -- I abhor a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man unspeakably?......................

………………Think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this gentleman -- the head of the family -- the boss!.....................................

…………………Get the best you can for your family -- try to look as well as you can yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah, your eye was bright, your sleep was light, and you looked like a prince. Do you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of it! Any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your level best.

Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor." I tell you to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent to borrower and lender both. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be happy. The happy man is the successful man.

Happiness is the legal tender of the soul…………………

………………………..It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine affection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with perfume and with joy.

And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless branches of the tree of age.

I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and love.

Valentines Day and Why You Suck at Love!

It’s that time of the year again. The time of year when we celebrate love, romance and mass commercialism in the form of witty Hallmark cards. It’s not that I don’t think paying $4.50 for a piece of paper with a generic poem on it is the best way to tell my wife that I love her, it’s just that I am confused with the concept of love being mandated on a set date of the year. What’s worse is that millions of poor saps are going to be running to the flower store and staring in bewilderment at the card and candy section in a last minute attempt to avoid a fight with their girl about why they don’t love them. What gets even more interesting in these situations is that the girls are willing to accept these expressions of love from their men on a few select nationally mandated holidays rather than on a consistent basis. Boy the mass marketing machine seems to be unstoppable. I was in Subway eating lunch today and I overheard two of the fattest girls that I had ever seen in my entire life talking about what they want their boyfriends to get them for Valentines Day. Now I am not sure if I was more shocked by the fact that they wanted flowers (not very filling you know) or by the fact that they had boyfriends! It got me thinking though. Does my continuous critic of the world around me send off a vibe that I feel that I am better than everyone else? Let me first say that I try to be, but I don’t believe that I am. The older I get, the less I feel that I know. The older I get the less I feel I can do. I look at everyone else and somehow I can only see my inferiorities. Yet even in light of this I still find myself having internal conversations about the stupidity of the public in general. If Hallmark really wants to improve their standing in this capitalistic market they need to create more holidays. They only have to convince the females to celebrate them. The males will do whatever it takes to keep their uninterrupted access to pussy flowing. I feel lucky that my wife does not take these holiday celebrations to seriously. We create our own rituals rather than subscribing to someone else’s. The fact that we express our love to one another on a daily basis makes the allure of a romantic blowout a couple of times a year seem less than desirable. Let me tell you, doing something special for the one you love on a consistent basis is a lot more expensive than having that big “to do” a couple of times a year, but it sure is worth it when even an idiot like me still gets to look at the rest of the world every Valentines day and remark at what a bunch of mindless pieces of crap they are!

Jung's personality test

This is actually pretty damn close!

To outsiders, INTJs may appear to project an aura of "definiteness", of self-confidence. This self-confidence, sometimes mistaken for simple arrogance by the less decisive, is actually of a very specific rather than a general nature; its source lies in the specialized knowledge systems that most INTJs start building at an early age. When it comes to their own areas of expertise -- and INTJs can have several -- they will be able to tell you almost immediately whether or not they can help you, and if so, how. INTJs know what they know, and perhaps still more importantly, they know what they don't know.
INTJs are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest. What prevents them from becoming chronically bogged down in this pursuit of perfection is the pragmatism so characteristic of the type: INTJs apply (often ruthlessly) the criterion "Does it work?" to everything from their own research efforts to the prevailing social norms. This in turn produces an unusual independence of mind, freeing the INTJ from the constraints of authority, convention, or sentiment for its own sake.
INTJs are known as the "Systems Builders" of the types, perhaps in part because they possess the unusual trait combination of imagination and reliability. Whatever system an INTJ happens to be working on is for them the equivalent of a moral cause to an INFJ; both perfectionism and disregard for authority may come into play, as INTJs can be unsparing of both themselves and the others on the project. Anyone considered to be "slacking," including superiors, will lose their respect -- and will generally be made aware of this; INTJs have also been known to take it upon themselves to implement critical decisions without consulting their supervisors or co-workers. On the other hand, they do tend to be scrupulous and even-handed about recognizing the individual contributions that have gone into a project, and have a gift for seizing opportunities which others might not even notice.
In the broadest terms, what INTJs "do" tends to be what they "know". Typical INTJ career choices are in the sciences and engineering, but they can be found wherever a combination of intellect and incisiveness are required (e.g., law, some areas of academia). INTJs can rise to management positions when they are willing to invest time in marketing their abilities as well as enhancing them, and (whether for the sake of ambition or the desire for privacy) many also find it useful to learn to simulate some degree of surface conformism in order to mask their inherent unconventionality.
Personal relationships, particularly romantic ones, can be the INTJ's Achilles heel. While they are capable of caring deeply for others (usually a select few), and are willing to spend a great deal of time and effort on a relationship, the knowledge and self-confidence that make them so successful in other areas can suddenly abandon or mislead them in interpersonal situations.
This happens in part because many INTJs do not readily grasp the social rituals; for instance, they tend to have little patience and less understanding of such things as small talk and flirtation (which most types consider half the fun of a relationship). To complicate matters, INTJs are usually extremely private people, and can often be naturally impassive as well, which makes them easy to misread and misunderstand. Perhaps the most fundamental problem, however, is that INTJs really want people to make sense. :-) This sometimes results in a peculiar naivete', paralleling that of many Fs -- only instead of expecting inexhaustible affection and empathy from a romantic relationship, the INTJ will expect inexhaustible reasonability and directness.
Probably the strongest INTJ assets in the interpersonal area are their intuitive abilities and their willingness to "work at" a relationship. Although as Ts they do not always have the kind of natural empathy that many Fs do, the Intuitive function can often act as a good substitute by synthesizing the probable meanings behind such things as tone of voice, turn of phrase, and facial expression. This ability can then be honed and directed by consistent, repeated efforts to understand and support those they care about, and those relationships which ultimately do become established with an INTJ tend to be characterized by their robustness, stability, and good communications.


Take yours
http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Don't hate Wal-Mart

I keep seeing this commercial from the wakeup Wal-mart association. It starts off with this lady who looks very distressed. She stares at the camera and says "do you know how long it would take me to make the same amount of money that a Wal-mart CEO makes in one year? 1000 years! I think I am going to be sick." Well I think I am going to be sick too. This lady most likely cruised through life, skipped school, did drugs, fucked around, and when it came time to throw herself into the job market, the only skill that she was capable of doing was standing at a counter swooping discounted can goods over a scanner. This CEO on the other hand, went to college, probably has a Masters in Business, got hired with a great company and did such a fantastic job that he eventually worked his way up to the head of the company. Now why should he feel bad for making a lot of money? He worked his ass off to be where he is, while this "poor lady" obviously did not put forth 1/1000 of the effort. Let's consider that the average Wal-mart employee makes $10 an hour. At 40 hours a week this is $400. Multiply that by 52 weeks in a year, and she makes $20,800 a year. Multiply this by the 1000 years that it would take her to make the CEOs salary and we can figure that the CEO makes roughly $20,800,000. If these figures are correct then this CEO actually is working for a lot less then the CEOs of most companies, and in my opinion the lazy lady working the registered is slightly overpaid for what she is doing. If she is not happy with the way her life has turned out, then she has other options. Go to school, get educated, get training in a different field, and find a new job. You don't get to go through life being lazy and not trying to better yourself and then bitch about someone who worked hard to make a lot of money. Succeeding in life is not something that is just handed to you. It takes hard work and determination. I want people to stop complaining about where they are in life. If you don't like it, make a change. Do something about it. Stop complaining and start taking action. I hated working in restaurants, so I went to a trade school to learn how to work in I.T. It is that easy. To the CEO of Wal-mart…. I commend you. Good job. To the workers, shut up or make something happen. Life is not something that just washes over you like a wave. Life is something that you have control over, and as a result, you have no one but yourself to blame for your situation!

Shitting like a king

I went out to a company dinner last night. The restaurant was very posh, the wine was expensive, the steaks were perfect and the check was incredibly high. Out of everything, I was most impressed by the bathroom!!! Yes, here was all this atmosphere, a huge fire pit, snotty waiters and all and I went to the bathroom three times just so I could check it out over and over again. This bathroom was amazing. The ceiling, walls and floor were all made up of the most beautiful marble you have ever seen. The sink was marble and had these two really fancy silver faucets. The hand soap was smooth and made your hands feel good and instead of paper towels or an air dryer there were linens made of Egyptian cotton to dry your hands on. The men's stalls had these heavy wooden doors and there were no gaps under the floor. You could shit in complete isolation. The room was sound proof to so you could make all of the noise necessary. There was very high quality toilet paper and several selections of tissue. Everything was spotless. I would have felt comfortable eating my dinner off of this toilet. They must have had someone in there every couple of minutes to clean up, because men's restrooms do not stay in this condition for very long. The urinals even had some sort of padding material to prevent splash back! Overall this was the best bathroom experience that I have ever had. I only hope that one day my lifestyle will warrant the use of bathrooms such as this on a more consistent basis.