2ndclepunkbuddha

I refrain from talking politics with others.  I tend to encounter two very extreme types in the world : the bleeding heart liberals and the adament conservatives, they jump down your throat at every given moment.  Just the other day, I happened to mention the name of Mitt Romney to someone.  I said I wondered if the name "Mitt" is actually his name or if it's a nickname, and if it is in fact his birth name that is a rather odd name.  Although that observation was/is a rather harmless one, the person in question (whose name I will not name because I AIN'T CRAZY) proclaimed me to be a Republican before all before them.  To this I was rather taken aback.  But, we are bent on labling people and proclaiming ourselves to know more than others around us do.  But I digress ... As we saw today, Obamacare passed in Congress.  To this, I felt rather ... Taken aback.  Having been on the inside of the healthcare industry and having seen one atrocity aft...

Last weekend I went to a pool party at someone's house who I didn't know.  When asked how or why I was going, I admit I had little true explanation.  In the past several weeks I have been going out quite a bit to MeetUp groups, found on their website MeetUp.com.  Type in your zip code and interests (tennis, biking, swimming, etc.) and you will given a myriad of things to do in your region.  As I have decided that I am going to extend my network even further than it already is (if possible), I have been going to a lot of these get togethers.  Some people host parties at their houses (for games aired on television and regular party parties), opening up their dwelling to people they don't know.  Why?  I guess now that we are in the digital age, one just has to depend on the kindness of strangers and think to themselves "a stranger's just a friend you haven't met".  Dangerous?  I guess so, but that's another blog. When I arrived, I was a little...

The other day I was talking to Dad.  I usually try not to blog about things my family does and says, but like everything else it will sneak in.  I made mention of some members of the theater company who are trying their hands at play writing.  Dad suggested that perhaps I should do this.  I responded that I really wouldn't know what to write a play about, but he said I have a lot of potential in it.  Before I could agree or disagree, he said I should write about my years in high school. This made me think because I have determined that this is a real preoccupation with my Dad.  He likes to scream at me when gets on his high horse and tells me that I have to go to my high school and/or college alma mater in order to get good friends instead of who he perceives as losers.  Point out the fact that he gave my information to a graduate of my high school who I no longer choose to have contact with and all of a sudden his ego deflates.  (Once...

I can fully admit that I used to be a snotty hipster kid.  I was one of those obnoxious things now pre V neck T shirts and skinny jeans (back when it was plaid flannel and in that odd time before the metal heads cut their hair short again) - digging my clothes out of the garbage, listening to obscure bands that no one gave a crap about, pursing the degree, turning my nose up at things, etc.  But I grew up and got over that.  Eventually after the college years were completed the first time around, I got out into the outside world of illiteracy and disappointments, and I stopped reading books.  Recently someone said that I should start reading this book (title) that he had given me because he wanted me to identify with a certain character or story in it, and also because he said that he really related to this one character who is an immortal (and no it's not a vampire book, the individual in question has more of a sense of creativity than that).  But, I confess, I...

Today I did something that I have not done in a very long time.  For some reason, since I was feeling nostalgic and rather disconnected from the outside world due to lack of a phone and because I was waxing on just said nostalgia in the last blog, I got it into my head that I was going to go someplace that I hadn't been to in a long time, the mall. I hadn't been in one in quite a while unless it happened to be nearby another place I was going to patronize (ex. Chipotle's).  Quite honestly, I have no reason to go there anymore.  I have resigned myself to the post skinny hipster wardrobe - I buy my clothes off the rack rather than dig them out of the garbage or Salvation Army bins, but I long since decided that I would be sending a much stronger message by wearing what I already own more.  When I was a kid, it seemed that malls were places that kids went to.  Do they still?  Granted it was the middle of a weekday and not a Friday or Saturday night, but I di...

Last Friday night I was on a road trip to visit a friend in Pittsburgh.  When I got within spitting distance of my location, my phone suddenly went haywire.  Someone had sent a text and the GPS switched over back to the main screen to receive the text message.  I attempted to switch the phone back to the GPS only to have it crash.  Fortunately I recognized enough landmarks (ex. the IKEA store on the hill) to know where I was and had his address written down on a piece of paper to get the correct location and arrived safely within a few minutes.  This was the first time I had spent a weekend without a phone in a very long time, and Verizon told me they would send a new one via FedEx this coming week. It made me think that not too long ago we were living in an age without said technology and the aids it gives us.  How many of you remember the facts that: If you had to make a phone call, you were tethered to a wall, all phones had rotary dials, and were le...