Birds! Birds! Birds!

I absolutely hate detest abhor birds. They are the most fo(w)l creatures on the planet. And it's strange because I have a love affair with penguins. But I don't consider penguins as birds since they lack the ability of flight. I do hate one specific penguin that attacked me in New Zealand but that is a different story.

My displeasure with avian creatures began long ago when, as a young lad, I was brutally and maliciously attacked by a rabid goose in the park while feeding innocent ducks.

At the time, I thought nothing of this goose and his unmitigated rage toward such a precocious and awesome young me ( I mean, just look at that picture. I do look awesome).

Time went by, and still I try...

--Sorry, channeled my inner Billie Joe for a minute there.

I grew up a bit and really began to dislike birds because they were constantly shitting any- and everywhere near, on, or around me. Most notably next to my head during a family vacation to Florida. I had chosen to sleep out on the balcony of our condo on the beach one night as it was temperate and glorious. Next day, BAM! I woke up with seagull shit peppered all around my head and neck. I took that as a sign of seagull rage at my pillow being the down of one of his close cousins.

Those incidents aside, it was in college that my hatred and distrust truly blossomed.

I went to school in a small-ish college town in West Central Texas, far enough away from home but close enough that I never had to do laundry in a dorm if I didn't want to waste my weekend. The most populous birds around here are the most annoying as well -- grackles, sparrows, and some type of really annoying and blind morning screecher. Well, one fine morning, I was awakened by a screech followed by a loud thud on my bedroom window. The aforementioned blind morning screecher had decided to pay me a visit.

Rather than unsuccessfully attempt falling back to sleep, a decision I bitterly regret to this day, I got up to make breakfast. Tedium and mundane daily routine things finished, I left the protection of my dorm and headed out to pick up a friend who needed a ride to class. Upon setting foot outside, I was overcome by a flock of grackles with Flock of Seagulls hair.

My instinct was to run away flailing like a scared child but damn it, I was a man and didn't want to look a fool in front of the gaggle of hot chicks that were walking my way. So I took my chances with the grackles and made it to my car with haste.

The night before, I had had no choice but to park under a tree. Trees are well-known for their connctions with the flying mafia, so approaching my car I was overly cautious. Closer and closer I inched, scanning the limbs for my foe. Not to be outdone, my caution was well met in form with an opening salvo from above. A couple of unseen sniper pigeons took aim at me and unleashed a flying flurry of fowl excrement.

With a quickness unmatched by anything, save a lemur, I deftly avoided the sneak attack. Also in my favor was the fact that pigeons make terrible snipers and they instead assailed my car. A small moral victory for the birds. In case you are keeping count, that's

Safely inside my motorized automobile, I let my guard relax ever so slightly, knowing full well that no bird could penetrate my impentetrable fortress of rolling awesomeness. That's not to say they didn't try...While driving to my friends house, I approached a well known, affluent neighborhood complete with trees-a-plenty lining the street. Wearing my courage underneath and all around me, I sallied forth determined to make my quest. Driving down the tree lined rue, I could feel the beady eyes of a thousand unseen miscreants gazing, gawking, and glaring down on me as they plotted best how next to break my spirit. 

And then it happened. Word seemed to spread throughout the Taliban of Talons that it was I in the vehicle, the natural enemy to all birds everywhere, the George Bush of the avian community. A shudder from my right -- a tree lifted as the weight of fifty birds took wing against me and swooped across my path causing me to brake forcefully out of surprise. A flutter on my left -- and a highly skilled flight of ten more birds buzzed my roof and rained down feces. I soon learned all the choreography was but a ruse for the true attack. No sooner had I thought the worst was over, another lone bird pulled a kamikaze barrel roll above me and plummeted toward my moving car. A loud THWACK! and my winshield was fractured in twain by this divebombing hellion. 

I arrived safely to my friend's and thought my day could only get better. And I was wrong again.

Upon retrieving my friend and going back to the campus, I had need of going to class myself. Rather than drive back to the dorm and walk the short distance to class, I parked on the street and humped it across campus to the fine arts building...in the rain..and the snow..and the 110 degree heat.

As I drew nearer the door, another perceived barrier of solace, I noticed tell-tale signs of growing unrest. Trees were swaying unnaturally in the non-existent breeze, and the chirps and tweets soon turned to banshee cries and angered screeching. I pressed on, determined not to let the birds play intimidation games wtih me. In retrospect, I should have gone home.

I climed the stairs and was headed for the door when the final blow was struck. A lone bird, high above had spied me and sprang into action for the good of all bird-dom. Spiraling downward at break-neck speeds, this insane suicide bomber hurtled toward the earth making necessary adjustments mid-flight to stay on target. Just as my hand reached out to grasp the door handle, I was overcome with a stabbing, searing pain the back of my head.

The bird had struck true. The beak of the suicide bomber had planted itself in my cranium, breaking through and causing a non-fatal wound from which my life force trickled down my neck. I winced and checked my wound, looking around the immediate area for what had struck me. There on the ground was my attacker -- a dead sparrow brought down by his own hatred of me and all humanity.

I'd say I won in the end, but the battle rages on still. Alfred Hitchcock is out to kill me and will someday win. The final tally for that day was 

Maybe someday I will get on that scoreboard....maybe.

Casey Anthony or How I Learned to Stop Caring and Accept Americans are Idiots

Not Guilty.

At least that's what they've said on the murder, abuse, and neglect charges. Fair enough. A jury of peers could not be swayed by the prosecution of the state, therefore they were correct in their decision.

Many people are outraged by this. Why? The thing I've heard and read most on Facebook is that the system failed. No, the system did exactly what it was supposed to do. The failure here was the prosecutors. Within the scope of any criminal trial wherein the state or federal government is charging a person, a group, or conglomeration with a crime, the burden of proof rests solely with the prosecution team. The defense is there to poke holes in the case to the best of their ability in order to disprove the theories being presented. 

In order for the system to fail, laws would have to be disregarded entirely -- no trial by jury just hang the fuckers, throw out all the rules and laws they waste our time. I love criminal cases like this, especially when the verdict is not guilty. The public outcry is just hilarious to me; just reaffirms the notion that people don't understand how judicial proceedings work. Trial by jury is easy enough to understand, you box up 12 people too stupid to make up an excuse or act like a racial bigot and you have them try to comprehend the complex notions of motive, means, and opportunity. The part that gets most people, in particular the loudmouth morons who have an opinion on everything regardless of how stupid they sound, is the part where the defendant is innocent until proven guilty...did we all catch the operative word there? PROVEN.

Proven -- transitive verb;  to establish the existence, truth, or validity of (as by evidence or logic)

It's right there. Perceived criminals are innocent until it is proved otherwise through means of evidentiary support. I fail to understand how people can screw that up and formulate these scathing opinions that someone is guilty when they have nothing to do with the situation in the first place. In the Anthony trial, was the death of the child particularly disgusting, no. It was sad and disheartening, but it is not as if the child was hacked and mangled and slowly strewn about town over the course of several days after having been sexually assaulted and raped in public. No child deserves to die, but for outside entities to formulate opinions of the accused based upon heresy, circumstance and outward appearance is appalling. Especially when the judicial system gives everyone the right to be considered innocent unless and until the prosecuting body can prove otherwise.

Okay, I'm done. But I will leave you with some my particular favorite comments of friends that I've run across on Facebook.

CG: "Free Boosie...maybe if we did, he would put out a hit on Casey Anthony"

AR: "Dear USA government, you suck big balls. The end. Not guilty my ass" (I find this one particularly funny because the girl who wrote it clearly has no concept of the court system, and she's generally dumb as a pile of rocks)

KS: "She's so damn guilty, I don't believe this. I thought public opinion counted for things like this!" (Just....wow)

The Wide World of Sports

There are two things I enjoy greatly in this world, and those two things are tennis and women. Like any true man, I love pretty women, they are just soft and wonderful. All manner of women in some way strike my fancy, and I don't mean in a strictly boarish, misogonistic, oogling sort of way. Women are beautiful, I appreciate beauty, therefore women are something I like in all forms.

I also like tennis. I'm good at tennis, having myself played since I was 12 years old. It is a great game, easy to learn but hard to master. Growing up, I watched all the tennis I could and played and practiced for hours on end day in, day out trying to learn and get better. So, naturally, when the two collide I am very much in a good mood.

That said, today is the Women's Final at Wimbledon. I love Wimbledon. The grass is magical and I'm sure that being there in person would be as well. Mostly I love Wimbledon because in my head it is pronounced Wimbly-Don and that makes me smile. Aside from that, the women's game rarely holds interest for me. I find them to be rather slow paced and dull on many occasions, mooning the ball back and forth lazily as if they have only just picked up a racquet for the first time. But one of the things I enjoy most about women's tennis, which is a point of contention amongst the elite and purists, is the grunting and shrieking during the matches.

Many people find these noises to be annoying and distracting from the game itself. I don't. I enjoy the fact that they are so committed to their craft and trying as hard as they can that they show that even during the point being played. Sure at times it does get a bit excessive, but in those moments even if I can tune out the caveman sounds, I find my mind wandering and wondering. Sometimes I think about what it would have been like if I had continued my tennis playing and attempted to break into the major levels of the game, other times I question decisions of the players as far as shot selection and placement. Most times though, especially in the women's game, I can't help to think to myself,

 <Kyle (my inner monologue's name)>. <Kyle,> I say, <I wonder if the grunts the women make on court are the same as they are in the bedroom.>

This often times sparks a debate or anger in women in general, as they think I'm a pig. And maybe I am. But if you've ever watched women's tennis, as a man (even if you're not a man but you try to think like one now and again), you can't help but think that. How satisfying it must be, in the throes of passion, as you rail a beautiful woman, to hear such noise and passion. The fact that you could be the one to ellicit such sounds would be a powerfully addictive thing indeed. Every day would become a drug seeking adventure with you begging, pleading, and seeking out the sounds that bring you climactic realization. And how magnificent a feeling when that happens!

Okay, that's it. That's my chauvanistic thought train for the day. And also, to quote David Mitchell, especially since Sharapova just went down in the final, "In the women's game, why does the pretty one always lose to the moose?"

A Fleeting Thought

So, in the course of watching the Rangers game just now as I penned the previous post, I watched a commercial. Not out of the ordinary, but it seemed to reaffirm everything I believe about America as a whole. The commercial was for Taco Bell's new XXL something something burrito.

 In it, there are all manner of various representatives of other countries questioning the sanity of Americans and the size of the food we portion. I have to agree...why the hell is everything so gargantuan? Not only that, but then everyone runs around asking why the obesity rate is skyrocketing. You can't be serious. You don't know?

Granted the commercial is going to be seen by the masses here as funny, mostly because, as I've learned through my experiences, the general American public en masse is retarded and can't understand little more than that they are alive for some reason. Okay, I could make this a much longer diatribe but I haven't the energy. And I'm missing the Rangers game.

The Book of Weasel (An Abbreviated History of Voice)

Chapter 1

1 In the beginning was silence. 2 Man, looking across creation, saw this and was content. 3 The vastness of all that lay before him was enough, for as long as he had food Man was happy. 4 And so it was that Man began to kill indiscriminately to make for himself food and clothing.

5 Soon though Man became consumed with desire. 6 And the desires were many, some good, some bad. 7 The desires of Man grew within him, and unencumbered, began to fester within him. 8 Man wanted nothing more than to express his desires in some way. 9 Man knew not how to go about this, knowing only to how to kill. 10 However, Man also knew that the red liquid from animals he murdered stained the blades of the grass and rocks around him. 11 And so, Man began to dip into the blood his fingers and mark the rocks around him trying to communicate his desires. 12 After many trials, Man was able to, in some ways, depict his desires upon the rocks. 13 And Man was again content.

14 Drawings soon became strewn across Man's dominion. 15 He began to grow confused by his own creation, and was again consumed with desire to clearly solicit his thoughts. 16 Knowing nothing but murder and art, Man was growing more and more angry at having his desires and thoughts go unheeded. 17 The anger boiled over in him, and Man for the first time discovered his own powers were not limited to a life of unanswered pictograms and swift death. 18 Man ushered forth his will, resulting in a feeble, nondescript gutteral grunting. 19 The grunting of Man signified in him a great accomplishment. 20 And Man soon learned to point while forming his sounds, and this greatly increased the efficacy with which all Man's desires were unlocked before him. 21 And Man was content a third time.

22 Man and his grunt were soon the most feared creature in all creation. 23 Beast and bird, feral and fowl, soon learned the sound of Man and grew to understand the grunt as warning. 24 Man, the eternal hunter, stealth and swarthy, had given into his own desires for communication, and in so doing doomed his own greatest asset. 25 No longer could Man wander the realms and kill indiscriminately, he would need to develop another desire. 26 Thus was born self-control. 27 Man became aware that the ability to grunt was not that he must do so constantly, and Man soon began to alternate silence with grunt ushering in again his ability to hunt effectively. 28 As result of Man's newfound ability to control his gruntings, Man stumbled upon conversation. 29 Man was again master of his domain, killing at will and communicating the details of his kill to his fellows. 30 And Man was content.

31 One day, Man, while tromping through the wood, began expirimenting with his grunt. 32 This was much to his liking, as the days had grown in monotony of sound and duty. 33 In order that Man break up his boredom, he began trying to change the sound he could make. 34 And Man practiced this, and over time grew able to make different sounds. 35 With different sounds, Man discovered he could indicate a variety of things without need of pointing as he grunted. 36 Thus Man invented meaning and was content.

37 Man and his meaning were soon forever linked as infallible. 38 Yet even so, Man was soon grown discontented again. 39 He desired again to change his surrounding. 40 He desired more meaning and more sound. 41 And so it was that Man, in his growing capacity for self-actualization, opened his mouth for the first time. 42 Whence cameth the opening of the mouth of Man, he grunted and was taken aback. 43 The grunt had become noise both loud and resonant. 44 And Man expounded his understanding and began to form his lips to alter the noise. 45 With practice Man was soon able to formulate noise that expressed the sounds he heard in his world. 46 Thus was born speech, and though infantile Man knew this was good and was content.

47 Man, now with ability to make speech, began to practice this. 48 He sat daily jibbering and jabbering in his home forming new sounds. 49 He combined sounds together and in succession, trying to make more and more sense of his world. 50 Soon Man differentiated his sounds giving meaning and name to things he saw. 51 And Man grew excited by his discoveries. 52 He became determined. 53 The sounds of Man would become his greatest asset. 54 And Man learned that he soon could form words. 55 Unfortunately for Man, this meant that also Wo-Man soon learned speech and words. 56 And though now Man was forever doomed to listen to Wo-Man never shut up, Man was content.

Chapter 2

1 With speech fully learned by Man, he set about making more complex the gift he gave himself. 2 And thus Man became aware that through speech he could tell others of his adventures. 3 Thus Man gave birth to spoken word. 4 The oratory ability became all the rage and Man and his contemporaries soon began to craft new words and manipulate speech into stories. 5 Man was content.

6 The spoken word of Man was to become the predominant force in his ability to practice dominion over beast and other Men as well. 7 The words of Man were of great use in communicating desire and want. 8 And Man practiced his words to be effective and memorable. 9 For even though Man could communicate, he was aware that if no other Man recalled his words they were no good. 10 And Man became consumed with desire to put words into permanent form. 11 Thus Man stepped back and designed language to be written. 12 And Man was content.

13 The written form of Man's speech proved difficult in that he was not able to produce his language where all Men could then know it. 14 This was not Man's fault entirely. 15 Man had neglected that to know language in written form, Man would need to be able to read it. 16 Thus the need for literacy was born and Man soon began to educate his familiars. 17 The spreading of language and literacy soon grew. 18 And Man became content again.

19 The production of literature by Man soon became tantamount in his eyes. 20 But because the demand was great, Man struggled to keep up. 21 Being resourceful and ingenious, Man soon invented a machine to reproduce his language onto paper. 22 And so it was that printed language fostered education of Man, and it was good in his eyes. 23 Man, now able to educate himself, found that invention could swiftly be at his fingertips. 24 And Man was again contented.

25 Through study Man became a great inventor. 26 Trial and error his nemesis but greatest teacher. 27 And Man soon developed electricity to light his way as he invented more things from his language and education. 28 And Life was good, and Man was content.

29 Electricity became all the rage. 30 And Man invented a great many things at its hand, all the while increasing his voice and speech and language. 31 Telephonic devices and televisionary machines and computational components, all were Man's desires and his voice gave life to them in accordance with his will. 32 Man soon discovered his ability to communicate was no longer limited to those only around him. 33 He could express himself to all Men around the world without fear of travel. 34 And Man grew content.

35 Man, now imbued with his need to communicate with others around the world, began to do so at his will. 36 He had grown his voice to be heard by the masses, indiscriminately killing all Men with his ideas and wonders and desires. 37 And though Man was killing his familiars, so conversely were they he. 38 The amount of ideas being voiced soon grew loud and begged for a place to be localized. 39 Thus the internet blog was born. 40 And Man was content.

41 With the invention of a civilized forum to placate Man and his ideas, came also a revision of the language he so long toiled to perfect. 42 Propriety and syntax of voice gave way to convenience and sloth. 43 Man discovered his abilities were once again waning toward the days of grunts and gutteral throat noises. 44 N Man b kuntnt.