Saturday, December 07, 2002
I don't have too many hang ups. At least I don't think I have too many hang ups. Except one. I won't use someone else's toothbrush. Bleah. I don't care how well I know that person. Don't care where else my mouth or their mouth has been recently. My toothbrush - that's my business.
Jim Parisi
Friday, December 06, 2002
I have my car back. It was in the shop all week due to that unfortunate meeting in a parking lot with a two-ton GMC. Subsequently, I had been driving a maroon Taurus all week. Let it be said - I am very, very glad to have my Mustang back. It is truly a guilty pleasure (and highly addictive) driving a sports cars. Driving a car that will go, turn, stop, whatever, when I want it to, how I want it to is wonderful thing. Besides....really....do I look like a Taurus kinda guy?
Jim Parisi
Thursday, December 05, 2002
I love dogs. I like dogs more than people, generally. Anyone who has ever owned a dog can relate to this sentiment I think. Nothing in life is better than a happy puppy. Nothing. I have stopped my car to pet a Boxer puppy. I love dogs. This is why the seemingly recent trend in dognappings has me so disturbed. My friend Gary had his dog stolen right from his yard. Two other neighbors in his development have had their pets stolen. I don't know for what reason they are being stolen. Sold to unsuspecting families? Medical experimentation? Satanic ritual? Dog fighting? Who the hell knows. Where does one go to buy a stolen pooch? Some guy on a street corner with a raincoat? "Psst....hey buddy...wanna buy a Chihuahua?" No crime pisses me off as much as stealing a little kid's family pet. If someone had stolen my dogs as a kid, I would have hunted them down till my last breath. Then again, we had two 80 pound attack trained Boxers who would protect our house with their lives. Good luck stealing them assface. Walk into that house uninvited and you were bound to become a very reluctant chew toy. Couple rounds with them pups and you would be squeaking like one, guaranteed. Currently my parents have a 200 pound Mastiff and an 80 pound Doberman. They like the big dogs if you didn't guess. Have fun getting them. A pissed off Doberman might just bite your leg. Tear out your calf doing it, but you will live. A Mastiff? He will bite OFF your leg. I dig those dogs. Personally, I think dognapping (and kidnapping, catnapping, horsenapping, hamsternapping, etc) ought to be a capital crime. It's stealing part of a person's family. Stealing part of their heart. Well, maybe capital punishment is a bit severe. But I don't think that the convicted perp isn't above being stapled with roast beef slices, covered in kibble, and sharing a cell with a hungry pack of pit bulls.
Jim Parisi
Wednesday, December 04, 2002
There is an advertisement on my banana. I'm serious. There is an ad for the "Ice Age" DVD on the bunch of bananas I only recently purchased from Albertson's. It's bad enough that the ATM machine now plays a friggin commercial when I go to get cash, but do advertisers have to screw with my breakfast as well? Are companies getting so desperate to reach an increasingly jaded consumer base that the next great marketing opportunity is supermarket produce? What's next? Phones with custom jingles - essentially an advertisement for record companies? Wait a minute... Is there anyplace I can be free from corporate harassment? Anywhere? At what point will national parks be sponsored? Am I one day going to be climbing Micky's El Capitan, the ride, in the Disney Yosemite Family Theme Park? How about my personal life? Adverts for Ex-Lax or Beano on toilet paper rolls? Am I going to crack open a condom wrapper one day and see an ad for Extenz? Or Planned Parenthood? When does it stop? When can we as a democratic society turn to big business and say, enough already. We want our privacy. We want our freedom. And freedom doesn't mean a freedom to choose between AT&T and Verizon, or Coke vs Pepsi. Freedom means living free from unwanted coercion. A backlash is building. You can see it happening. You can see it in the rise of fundamentalist movements. You can see it in the anti globalization protests. However misguided they all might be. I think we are heading for a major cultural flashpoint. A shift. It's bound to happen if corporations in the endless pursuit of profit keep taking away our decisions and replacing them with a never ending selection of crap for us to choose. It's becoming too pervasive. Soon even dreams will be sponsored. And that future pisses me off.
Jim Parisi
Tuesday, December 03, 2002
I'm having a strange technology week. First, I was unsuccessful (again) in getting my PC to see my Apple Airport Wireless router. I have gone through countless attempts. No luck. But when I set up my father's brand new Linxys wireless network, my Orinoco card saw the network instantly. And I thought Apple systems were supposed to be easy to set up. Second, it seems I might have a digital Jesus in my life. My battered cell phone has a second life. A regular mobile Lazarus. After a sudden death in a fall from a moving car, it miraculously started working again yesterday afternoon. I have my connection to the outside world. I feel so blessed. Now I just need someone to lay their healing hands on my Airport, and I'll be happy, happy man.
Jim Parisi
Monday, December 02, 2002
I'm back from Vegas. My roommate has put up a tree. She hasn't decorated it yet, but I arrived to find a plastic tree in my living room. Personally, I have never owned a Christmas tree. I really couldn't care less. I hate the idea of cutting down a perfectly good tree, and sticking a plastic conifer in my living room just seems silly. Now I'm not a modern Scrooge or anything. I love Christmas and all that be kind to neighbors, give gifts, spirit of the season, yada yada yada, but consider the reality of my life. I'm rarely home to enjoy it. I don't have kids to enjoy it with, and I won't even be at my home for Christmas. So a tree seems like a waste. Personally, I'd rather keep my living room free of unnecessary decoration. I have enough clutter in my life. Besides, a reflective holiday moment in front of a well lit Christmas tree will just take my attention away from what I most enjoy on a quiet evening home alone - soft core porn on Cinemax.
Jim Parisi
Sunday, December 01, 2002
It's been a good day - if a bit disappointing. I didn't send Yak Crack. I could make lots of excuses. I was sore from training at the indoor gym. My hands hurt. It was too cold. It was too wet. I couldn't focus. My shoes were too tight. I had chalk in my eye. I had gas. I suck. Bottom line - it didn't happen. I'm gonna have to try again. I really need to learn to focus to succeed with this sport. Learn how to suck it up. Stay focused and confident and not fear the fall. But honestly - I hate to fall. Well, that's not true. Falling is over so fast and it's usually kind of fun. It's the thought of falling that I hate. Looking down and seeing the ground, seeing how far I am from the last piece of protection. Looking up and seeing how far away that next placement is going to be. Feeling the hands start to cramp and shake. Visualizing greasing off that last hold and sailing into the air - wondering if that last piece will catch a fall. Wondering if I'm going to bounce off a ledge or a rock or crash into the wall breaking a wrist or severing the rope on an edge and meeting the ground at fifty miles an hour or so and then losing a limb or rupturing a spleen or ending up a vegetable or orphaning my unborn children or....well, you get the idea. But in reality, the pro will almost always catch the fall, and the only thing I will hit will be mountain or desert air. Convincing my head of that is the challenge. Finding the strength to climb without hesitation, without fear; that's the key. I didn't have that day today, so I will have to go back to try again.
And then the cell phone died. I have one of those Palm Pilot/cell phone combinations. I live off it. There are 500 contact names in it. And those are just the women from my little black book (riiiiight). It's kind of like oxygen for the business traveler. Well, it didn't survive the fall to the black top. It's not a good idea to drop it from a moving car. Just in case you didn't read that chapter in the manual. And I can't seem to find a replacement at the store where I bought it. I feel so naked. I now have no connection to the outside world and I am on the road. It's like losing a limb. I keep reaching for the phone - and it's not there. I'm going through withdrawal. I may need therapy. If I don't have a replacement by Tuesday, I might have to...gasp...start using pay phones again. Shudder.
Jim Parisi
