So the past weekend I was going through a bistro area of the metroplex. I seem to more or less be comfortable no matter where I go. I may not fit in, but I don’t let that stop me from going to various locations. I’m tougher than the snobbish and the gangbangers, generally.

So I had gone to a particular store to get a few things. As I was heading back to my car to get in I heard a little girl with a sense of urgency in her voice, “Mommy! What is that guy doing?”

Striking me odd, I looked up to see what the little girl could be wondering about…just in case, you know. She looked to be about five or six years old…and she was looking and pointing straight at me. I checked behind me just in case, not a person…I was the object of her attention.

Mom: “Who? Him? He’s just getting into his car…” (which she looked carefully to make sure I wasn’t doing anything suspicious…mainly that I used a key to obtain entry)

Girl (with a look of stark confusion): “You mean, that his car doesn’t unlock the doors for him?”

I tell you, our society is going to die off as probably one of the most retarded societies in the history of the universe.

Mom: “Now what did I say about pointing? Don’t point or talk about him anymore, you might hurt his feelings!”

Yep…one of the most retarded societies…

Okay, I’ve been talking with various people. I think I’m going to start to quit selling the virtues of my hometown and the surrounding area. Many people still wonder what’s so special about Texas. I can’t really answer that for them…I’m a Texan, so how things go about here is natural and the way of life for me. I am not a developer or businessman either, so I don’t really care to make a brochure for you.

However, it’s pretty obvious…just look here, here and here. I mean, 162,000 new people in the span of one year?!? That’s insane! I’m serious, go back to where you came from…most of you. Those that I personally know are pretty cool and they can stay. But I was telling Tony a few weeks ago, how I used to think that we had the best drivers in the country. Going up to Chicago, San Diego and Norfolk while in the Navy and visiting other cities as part of that joyous career I realized exactly what a stupid driver was. I couldn’t wait to go back home on leave and let my blood pressure ease with easy driving on the road.

Not anymore…I have to affirm that the Dallas area now has to have about the worst drivers I have ever come across. Almost a fifth of everyone I come across on the road are idiots when it comes to driving. The same with the people I interact with. The ratio that had polite, respectful and warm people…that number is dwindling and we’re getting, let me not bother with my adjectives. People are always complaining and moaning about every little inconvenience they come across through their daily lives. I almost want to have boring conversations, “Hey, nice weather we’re having today…” “Yup.” Almost everywhere I go, someone’s huffing about something. Go fix your issues, geez.

I guess this is the result of two events. One was a lady who obviously transferred from somewhere else and started talking about something having to do with the south and Texas that she didn’t like, “Up where I come from…” Sorry, I don’t care where you came from…where you came from must’ve probably sucked for you to move here, as those three above articles may seem to suggest.

Then there’s the lady who cut in front of me at a store and mumbled that she was simply in a hurry and that seemed to justify her cutting in front of me and two other patrons behind me. She had her three kids all making a racket as well. A personality similar to the Dark Me that came from Pascagoula and lingered through the Sweeney Era came out and I basically tore her up verbally in front of her kids. She tells me how dare I say those things at her and that it shows the type of personality that I have. I tell her the fact that I directed that to her with no second thought just shows what type of person she is and to get back in line you dumb…” Yeah, she got to the back of the line.

Besides, there was that story a few months ago that there is higher camaraderie amongst individuals (friends and/or workplace) proportionate to their swearing. I am also a former Sailor, and I did greatly enjoy my time, overall, in the Navy. No excuse, but that’s what it is.

Finally, I had shot Corey an e-mail and that got me thinking…I held it off! Up on MySpace I had carefully laid out and listed who I considered my heroes. For whatever happened, I must’ve been interrupted the day I initially put those up because I forgot one.

I came across Corey while in the Det offices in Pascagoula. Around that time, I finally had gotten the tactical sling for the M14 and was giving it a try to see if it would actually work. For those of you that don’t know me well enough, I gave up on the Cole and Navy as far as trying to outfit us correctly when one of my GM buddies told me that what we were going to be equipped with would be more or less the exact same as before we got attacked. And here I was thinking that during this rebuilding it would be the opportunity to do things right. When that didn’t happen, I broke open my wallet…if we weren’t going to do it, then I would.

Of course, this type of behavior (and yes, I was getting fed up and frustrated…with other things as well, but I digress…) was looked upon by leadership above me and I was about heavily resisted just about everywhere, which ticked me off even more. My initial impression of Corey, as with just about everyone with a higher rank above me at that time, wasn’t too high…especially when he started looking at what I was doing.

To my surprise, he was all for it and encouraged me to draft a paper for the virtues of the sling (which ended up not going anywhere). In a wide field of idiots, as far as I was concerned, he was a rare person…turns out he had a background in security, tactics and so forth…which made things more appealing to me.

From then on, he was one of the handful that didn’t trample on me, block me on honest issues and so forth. I figured if I was going to keep having this opportunity, I’d better not screw up…so I tried not to. Well, I did die in a drill giving Agnes my gas mask when she forgot hers, lol.

Other than that, he was also the only one who kept after me to look into considering reenlisting into the Navy. My decision to leave wasn’t short-sighted, it was more thorough and methodical than any research I had done into my gear, tactics and so forth. I did not want to get out and even though the perception within the ship even up to us returning from our deployment was for me to get out, I had always kept the option open. Maybe if he was my LCPO I would’ve probably stayed, but I assessed a lot of things and when I made my first impression of the next CO, XO and even our newest LCPO (I was the first person on the ship to hate him, didn’t take long did it…)…the future of the Cole, that was the final nip and I walked off the Cole’s brow with seabag over my shoulder. I still hadn’t recovered from before the deployment and if I was going to be of use to anyone in my future, I needed some spare time for myself…something I just wasn’t getting in uniform.

While we’ve been busy, it was good to shoot him another e-mail and figured I’d use a little of my time and post him the honor and respect he’s due.

…via, surprise surprise, Glenn.

Finally, the first time I heard this particular essay of his. Worth a listen, if just for the message whether you take it religiously or not.

Also, for you all that love those giant Cadbury eggs…I don’t know what to say, lol.

…when you can dance off the calories?

Actually, I find this post fitting as earlier today Chip and I went off and after having a rather heavy meal…well, did some DDR. Now, some of you that know me are wondering why on earth I linked a Wikipedia entry of DDR…as if everyone should know about it. I think more people know about it than I think, but I’ve also come to the conclusion that it isn’t as big as fans of the game think it is. Case in point, I used to think I was below average player. Compared to a couple of people that I know, that is very true…however, despite my absolute suckiness for video games overall (and especially DDR) I seem to be better than the overwhelming majority of those that set foot on the machine.

Come to think of it, with the exception of maybe less than half a dozen locations…everywhere I have found a location with a machine I range anywhere from being decent to being the best person anyone’s seen. That’s BS, because I’ve seen some good players in person. Of course, I was pretty well known for DDR on the Cole and was the best one on the ship…which I guess isn’t really something to brag of, lol. Only Jeremy (I’ll spare him the humiliation…some of you know who I’m talking about though, lol) came pretty close. But let’s not forget Sean’s arms swinging fame as well!

Anyhow, Chip got a bulletin and shared it with me. If you don’t know much about DDR, I do encourage you to understand the concept of the game with the above link…otherwise you’ll be fairly confused of what comes next.

So to start off, the song in question…well I don’t know if this is exactly the same song, but it’s close enough if it isn’t…is Fascination Maxx. It’s not an easy song…I sure can’t do it. Below is a vid of that song…

Pretty easy, huh? Well that sets the stage… As many here in America know, we are aware people in other countries do things we consider quirky and vice versa. Few countries get that feeling when compared to the country of Japan. I won’t ramble, but if it’s not dead true it’s awfully close.

Not too long ago, McDonalds appeased our retarded society that generally refuses to accept their own responsibility and put the blame elsewhere. This has gone from spilling hot coffee on someone’s lap, who successfully sued McDonalds…all the way to posting nutritional value (or lack of…) information on food cartons. And oh my, the interviews that followed and the sudden shock on people’s faces when they all of a sudden realized eating ten Big Macs in one setting might not be beneficial to your health…DUH!

I had to get that rant out. Either way, if this is Japan’s answer to health concerns or something entirely independent I do not know. However, it’s not every day you watch TV to work out to Ronald McDonald doing some DDR…

Okay…weird. Then the following video shows. Most probably won’t find this amusing, but for someone who understood the game (and remembers those wonderful super long DDR marathons in Pascagoula), this has me laughing plenty.

Anyways, that’s my post for now. We just finished changing our clocks, so I know this upcoming week’s probably going to suck as everyone tries to get back to their rhythm as far as the sun in the sky is concerned.

Also, I still haven’t figured out what Anthonie’s e-mail is…so hopefully he’ll coast by and see this and enjoy the vid anyhow!

Okay…so while in the process of attempting to test an update for my site, I’ve figured I’d amplify on my last post…well, actually it won’t be me. I have a snippet of two of Glenn’s shows. The first is a bit about how we’re (in general) voting these days. There’s probably some Obama fans reading that won’t like it…get over it. He’s not going after Obama, he’s going after you. Vote, I don’t care for who…just make it a smart vote. Be glad you’re in this country and that you…whoever you may be and the background you come from (even if it’s just coming out of high school, breezing through the four years with iPod headphones stuck in your ears filled with emo songs)…you have a vote that carries the same amount of weight as mine, and that’s not to say that I’m special…but there’s a lot of people I know, Wil comes to mind, that has some concerns for that. But I’ve ranted about that before, so let’s not bother. I just want this to be a little disclaimer before some people get all huffy if the candidate they like is mentioned.

Second one amplifies my previous post about the Moment of Truth. I’ve ranted just a few days ago, so I’ll just leave it at that.

In the end, I’m just running a test for myself. I will hope to be including some audio and video (scarcely…don’t think I’m gonna be some vlogger of sorts…) and have decided I’m not going to let my pages slow loading by directly embedding to them. They’re going to be linked and opened on new browser windows/tabs (whatever your particular browser’s preferences are). That lets you get the specific audio/video without doing something like going through my MySpace last year when you had to wait for the 50 or so embedded YouTube videos to load up in my comments. By opening it separately, that also lets you move on past my blogs/pages if you want to go elsewhere.

So okay…here’s the Glenn audio.

EDIT: Oh yeah, forgot to mention why I put the Rockstar commentary up. It was amusing as Glenn mentioned this, then later on while the TV was on the news was covering Obama in Fort Worth and the reporter mentioned him as a rock star. Yeah…