There's an article on CNN.com about a recent bust where about seventy people were arrested for belonging to this child porn website. I realize that I pay more attention to stories like that since my daughter was born. I usually just write the people off as being sick fucks, but this shit was on a whole different level. The site they were on required members to upload videos of them raping a child in order to join and view content. They had to post new shit frequently in order to keep membership and membership status was on a tiered system. The highest rank required the child to be screaming and visibly upset and devastated or some shit like that. I can't bring myself to go back and read it to get the wording right, but it was very fucking sick. What really pushed me over the edge was the part about them having categories on their site and Infants being a damn category.
They caught seventy of the people and they all face thirty years in prison. The Attorney General said basically what I'm saying now, thirty years isn't enough for what they did. I always hear that child molesters and rapists get what they deserve in prison, but even if they send them to one of those prisons from that show Lockdown, it isn't enough for me.
I have a daughter, she just turned one and it's sick shit like this that has made me so paranoid that I don't trust anyone to babysit. I don't even let my mother babysit and it isn't that I don't trust her. It's that I don't know when she might go visit a friend of hers and run to the bathroom or something and they might do something. A year ago I would've told you that I'd never shelter my child and that I wanted my daughter to grow up hood tough just like I did. When I was five I started catching the metrobus by myself. In NC I thought those kids were so soft because they were driven everywhere. Well, I'm eating crow because I won't let my child out of my sight because of shit like this.
So what do I think these guys deserve? First off, I'm not saying we just go kill people without a trial. They had to post videos to join the site, right? Well, let's go to the videotape! If John Doe is on camera and we, the jury, see him raping a child. He's guilty. But his ass ain't going to jail... at least not right away. We're going Law Abiding Citizen on his ass. I'm talking torture, smelling salts and blood transfusions to make sure that he experiences pain that pushes him just to the brink of death and then we pull him back, let him heal and start it all over again. Then he goes to jail and gets the shit beat out of him each day.
I don't even know how to end this post, because I'm so damn mad.
Friday, August 5, 2011
Rise of the Planet of the Toddler
True story, no exaggerations:
I took my phone away from my daughter and put it on the back of the couch out of her reach. Now the couch is up against the wall in the living room and she isn't tall enough to climb up on the couch without help, so you can see my logic in putting the phone there. She got pissed, started screaming and when I wouldn't let her get the phone she got mad and went storming into the bedroom. She's only one, so she isn't old enough for the "who the hell are you yelling at" or the "I know you didn't just storm away from me" ass whoopings. I let it go and went in the kitchen.
I hear a noise and look over the bar to see her dragging the big empty Pampers box into the living room. Like most ghetto families, we feel that a cardboard box is a vast realm of fun and adventure for our child, so we don't throw them away. I thought she was going to get in the box or play with it or something. At no point did it enter my mind that she was going to turn the box upside down, push it over to the couch and then use it as a step ladder to climb onto the couch to get to my phone.
What in the hell do you do in that situation? She's only twelve months old so a part of me respects the ingenuity. Most kids have the memory and attention span of a fruit fly. For her to look opposition in the eye and go build a damn ladder is amazing. On the other hand, she did act like I wasn't even a factor in the whole process which shows just how little she thinks of me. I swear to God living with her is like living with one of those velociraptors from Jurassic Park. If she ever figures out how to open doors, it's over.
I took my phone away from my daughter and put it on the back of the couch out of her reach. Now the couch is up against the wall in the living room and she isn't tall enough to climb up on the couch without help, so you can see my logic in putting the phone there. She got pissed, started screaming and when I wouldn't let her get the phone she got mad and went storming into the bedroom. She's only one, so she isn't old enough for the "who the hell are you yelling at" or the "I know you didn't just storm away from me" ass whoopings. I let it go and went in the kitchen.
I hear a noise and look over the bar to see her dragging the big empty Pampers box into the living room. Like most ghetto families, we feel that a cardboard box is a vast realm of fun and adventure for our child, so we don't throw them away. I thought she was going to get in the box or play with it or something. At no point did it enter my mind that she was going to turn the box upside down, push it over to the couch and then use it as a step ladder to climb onto the couch to get to my phone.
What in the hell do you do in that situation? She's only twelve months old so a part of me respects the ingenuity. Most kids have the memory and attention span of a fruit fly. For her to look opposition in the eye and go build a damn ladder is amazing. On the other hand, she did act like I wasn't even a factor in the whole process which shows just how little she thinks of me. I swear to God living with her is like living with one of those velociraptors from Jurassic Park. If she ever figures out how to open doors, it's over.
Tuesday, July 26, 2011
A Hero Aint Nothing But A Sandwich
I'm gonna get on my soapbox for a minute.
I just read this article on CNN. It's about the new 9/11 first responders health care program. To bring you up to speed:
Congress is finally getting around to starting a program to cover the medical expenses of the emergency responders to the World Trade Center. A lot of them got really sick over the years and all signs pretty much point to their exposure to various toxins and pollutants at Ground Zero. Now, I won't even bother asking why it took ten damn years to get this going. What concerns me is the headline of the article that says that the program won't include cancer treatments.
Hold up, what?
Apparently a good number of cops, firemen and EMTs have come down with rare forms of cancer and the government says that there is no scientific evidence to prove that they got it from the various things they inhaled while digging through the nine-story tall pile of smoldering steel, concrete and ash that remained from the collapse of two 110-story buildings filled with 3,000 people. Some of the cops are in their 30's and doctors which makes it even more rare (and kind of common sense) to consider the common denominator that they all were there on that day.
Everyone remembers where they were on 9/11 and everyone remembers some piece of news footage that showed those people not just trying to get people to safety when the first tower collapsed, but running right back toward the second one before the smoke could even clear. The news heralded them for working 24-7, using buckets and moving debris by hand in what looked like a futile attempt to find survivors, becoming deathly quiet at the faintest sound that could be a whimper or a cry from a survivor under the debris. They were modern day Hercules in the weeks following. Ten years later, they can't even get a claim paid.
What the hell have we become?
I just read this article on CNN. It's about the new 9/11 first responders health care program. To bring you up to speed:
Congress is finally getting around to starting a program to cover the medical expenses of the emergency responders to the World Trade Center. A lot of them got really sick over the years and all signs pretty much point to their exposure to various toxins and pollutants at Ground Zero. Now, I won't even bother asking why it took ten damn years to get this going. What concerns me is the headline of the article that says that the program won't include cancer treatments.
Hold up, what?
Apparently a good number of cops, firemen and EMTs have come down with rare forms of cancer and the government says that there is no scientific evidence to prove that they got it from the various things they inhaled while digging through the nine-story tall pile of smoldering steel, concrete and ash that remained from the collapse of two 110-story buildings filled with 3,000 people. Some of the cops are in their 30's and doctors which makes it even more rare (and kind of common sense) to consider the common denominator that they all were there on that day.
Everyone remembers where they were on 9/11 and everyone remembers some piece of news footage that showed those people not just trying to get people to safety when the first tower collapsed, but running right back toward the second one before the smoke could even clear. The news heralded them for working 24-7, using buckets and moving debris by hand in what looked like a futile attempt to find survivors, becoming deathly quiet at the faintest sound that could be a whimper or a cry from a survivor under the debris. They were modern day Hercules in the weeks following. Ten years later, they can't even get a claim paid.
What the hell have we become?
Monday, July 25, 2011
The Things We Own End Up Owning Us
Here's something I wrote two years ago. I found it after Googling myself just now. Apparently I started a blog two years ago and this was the only post. If only I knew what was in store for me two months after I wrote it. I'll tell you about that tomorrow. For now, enjoy:
“The things we own end up owning us. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.”
-Fight Club
Do you hate your job? Do you fantasize about turning in your notice every single day? Do you come back down to earth and realize that you really can’t go anywhere right now? If so, then welcome to my post!
I’m writing this because I can’t find anything like it anywhere online. Last year I worked as a manager in a call center in Durham, NC. My wife and I had a combined income of over $100k. All of our needs were met and we had plenty of disposable income. For two kids with humble beginnings, we were doing alright. By humble, I mean poor. Strangely enough, we were miserable!
I thought something was wrong with me. I searched the internet looking for other people who felt that way but Google never brought up anything. Apparently no one fell in my category. I just can’t believe that I’m the only person who had a good job, wasn’t happy because it was a bad job fit and despite all of the money, felt the need to quit and start over.
I watched Fight Club one night and heard that quote (the one that’s the title of the post) and used it as confirmation to get the hell out of dodge. I realized that while I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, I was hurting myself by staying in the same situation. I wanted to move to DC and live in a real city. I wanted to try a different career or go back to college or…ANYTHING!
Growing up broke, you hear a lot of people with money complain that money doesn’t buy happiness. I wanted to slap a lot of those people as a child. Money seems like the key to happiness when you’re poor. To grow up and become the person who would throw all of that away seemed crazy to me, but I had to reconcile within myself one fact: Money has no value but what we give it.
Money is something that we trade in exchange for something else. We all know this, but a lot of times we only consider that fact from the stand point of already having it. Yeah, it’s common sense that you trade your dollar for a peice of candy in the store. What we don’t realize is what we traded in order to get the dollar in the first place.
If you are like me and worked a job that was somewhat brain-dead, then you know what I mean. Now, I don’t mean that being a manager doesn’t require a brain. What I mean is: In lower level management, you are often just a mediator between upper management and the front-line employees. You are not there to make decisions. You are simply there to report back to the front line and then to take their concerns to upper level management. Any decisions you make are probably based on an interpretation of company policy, not your own thoughts on the matter.
With all of that said, my job could have been done by the big magic hat from Harry Potter. So I was trading my time in exchange for money. Some people can operate in a job like that. I couldn’t. I need a job that trades me money for my creativity, my intelligence and my knowledge. If I don’t have the existing skills that someone would pay for, then I need to go out and get them…at least that’s how I felt at the time.
The only reason I stayed at my job as long as I did was because I’d never made that much money before. No one in my family had. Once I made it, I bought a car, rented a nice house and started a lifestyle that cost money to maintain. When I wanted to find a better job that had more intrinsic value, I couldn’t bring myself to leave because I knew I’d have to give up one of those things that I wanted. The things that I owned were starting to own me.
I can’t tell any of you what to do, but I will say this much: If you find yourself in that situation, please take inventory of your life. Every person has a price. Money should never be compensation for unhappiness. Your time is the most valuable resource that you have. Once it is gone, it can never be replaced. In the end, you will miss the things you didn’t do…you probably won’t miss the money.
“The things we own end up owning us. It’s only after you lose everything that you’re free to do anything.”
-Fight Club
Do you hate your job? Do you fantasize about turning in your notice every single day? Do you come back down to earth and realize that you really can’t go anywhere right now? If so, then welcome to my post!
I’m writing this because I can’t find anything like it anywhere online. Last year I worked as a manager in a call center in Durham, NC. My wife and I had a combined income of over $100k. All of our needs were met and we had plenty of disposable income. For two kids with humble beginnings, we were doing alright. By humble, I mean poor. Strangely enough, we were miserable!
I thought something was wrong with me. I searched the internet looking for other people who felt that way but Google never brought up anything. Apparently no one fell in my category. I just can’t believe that I’m the only person who had a good job, wasn’t happy because it was a bad job fit and despite all of the money, felt the need to quit and start over.
I watched Fight Club one night and heard that quote (the one that’s the title of the post) and used it as confirmation to get the hell out of dodge. I realized that while I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, I was hurting myself by staying in the same situation. I wanted to move to DC and live in a real city. I wanted to try a different career or go back to college or…ANYTHING!
Growing up broke, you hear a lot of people with money complain that money doesn’t buy happiness. I wanted to slap a lot of those people as a child. Money seems like the key to happiness when you’re poor. To grow up and become the person who would throw all of that away seemed crazy to me, but I had to reconcile within myself one fact: Money has no value but what we give it.
Money is something that we trade in exchange for something else. We all know this, but a lot of times we only consider that fact from the stand point of already having it. Yeah, it’s common sense that you trade your dollar for a peice of candy in the store. What we don’t realize is what we traded in order to get the dollar in the first place.
If you are like me and worked a job that was somewhat brain-dead, then you know what I mean. Now, I don’t mean that being a manager doesn’t require a brain. What I mean is: In lower level management, you are often just a mediator between upper management and the front-line employees. You are not there to make decisions. You are simply there to report back to the front line and then to take their concerns to upper level management. Any decisions you make are probably based on an interpretation of company policy, not your own thoughts on the matter.
With all of that said, my job could have been done by the big magic hat from Harry Potter. So I was trading my time in exchange for money. Some people can operate in a job like that. I couldn’t. I need a job that trades me money for my creativity, my intelligence and my knowledge. If I don’t have the existing skills that someone would pay for, then I need to go out and get them…at least that’s how I felt at the time.
The only reason I stayed at my job as long as I did was because I’d never made that much money before. No one in my family had. Once I made it, I bought a car, rented a nice house and started a lifestyle that cost money to maintain. When I wanted to find a better job that had more intrinsic value, I couldn’t bring myself to leave because I knew I’d have to give up one of those things that I wanted. The things that I owned were starting to own me.
I can’t tell any of you what to do, but I will say this much: If you find yourself in that situation, please take inventory of your life. Every person has a price. Money should never be compensation for unhappiness. Your time is the most valuable resource that you have. Once it is gone, it can never be replaced. In the end, you will miss the things you didn’t do…you probably won’t miss the money.
Ordale Was Here
Blogging has been difficult. I have zero readers except for my wife and the few coworkers whom she bullies into reading my site, and some part of me prefers it that way. It's hard to write from the heart when everything you say online can be examined under a microscope. I once got in trouble at work because my boss found my Myspace page and thought "phone slave" was an inappropriate job description. In these uncertain times, the last thing I need is for a job to turn me down because of something on my website.
But what's the point of having a blog if you can't speak from the heart. The truth is that I'm complicated. I have a million thoughts swirling around in my head at all times and some of it is serious, some is funny and some is just "off." I get mad, I say things that are mean but that doesn't mean I'm not a good person. It just makes me human. The whole point of this site was to get my thoughts out there in written form and if someone found it useful, funny or whatever then great. If I keep everything bottled up because I'm afraid of how it'll be perceived then there is no reason to write in the first place.
So here it is lonely reader, the new, uncensored, untoned-down website of The One and Only, short, dark and handsome and sometimes lonely, Ordale J Allen. The hell anonymity. When it's all said and done, I want something that'll say "I was here."
But what's the point of having a blog if you can't speak from the heart. The truth is that I'm complicated. I have a million thoughts swirling around in my head at all times and some of it is serious, some is funny and some is just "off." I get mad, I say things that are mean but that doesn't mean I'm not a good person. It just makes me human. The whole point of this site was to get my thoughts out there in written form and if someone found it useful, funny or whatever then great. If I keep everything bottled up because I'm afraid of how it'll be perceived then there is no reason to write in the first place.
So here it is lonely reader, the new, uncensored, untoned-down website of The One and Only, short, dark and handsome and sometimes lonely, Ordale J Allen. The hell anonymity. When it's all said and done, I want something that'll say "I was here."
Monday, July 18, 2011
Harry Potter and the Job Fair
After watching the last Harry Potter movie I can't help but wonder...What the hell is the unemployment rate looking like in the wizarding world?
Maybe this is one of those cases where reading the books comes in handy, but the movies never explained exactly what Hogwarts graduates go on to do after school. My thought is that eight years without studying math, foreign language and computers would probably put them at a disadvantage. Magic is cool, but, unless there's a spell that can turn paper clips into rent money, I don't see a bright future for most of them.
I'm certain that Harry will land on his feet. At worst, he'll just do a bunch of lecturing tours and maybe write a book (or seven) about his crazy middle and high school years. But people like "random Black boy #3" who sat eight or nine yards away from Harry every dinner scene...what will become of him? I guess the sanitation and trash removal sector could use a guy like him. Lord knows they devoted an insane amount of screen time showing how good those Hogwartians are with a broom.
Maybe this is one of those cases where reading the books comes in handy, but the movies never explained exactly what Hogwarts graduates go on to do after school. My thought is that eight years without studying math, foreign language and computers would probably put them at a disadvantage. Magic is cool, but, unless there's a spell that can turn paper clips into rent money, I don't see a bright future for most of them.
I'm certain that Harry will land on his feet. At worst, he'll just do a bunch of lecturing tours and maybe write a book (or seven) about his crazy middle and high school years. But people like "random Black boy #3" who sat eight or nine yards away from Harry every dinner scene...what will become of him? I guess the sanitation and trash removal sector could use a guy like him. Lord knows they devoted an insane amount of screen time showing how good those Hogwartians are with a broom.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Netflix...The Weakest Link
This right here has people pissed. Netflix is splitting the DVD and streaming plans. It's a sad day in Toon Town folks. At first I was pissed. Netflix is supposed to over salvation from the price gouging that's common with cable carriers. My one DVD plan is going up 60 percent, unless I pick which part of their service I like most.
They gave an explanation on their blog, but I've had enough experience as the "face" of big corporations to know when someone is feeding me bullshit. The truth, which isn't even mentioned in the blog, is that licensing costs are going up ten-fold. They simply can't afford to keep their same pricing structure. I understand that, but Netflix isn't essential enough to my life for me to easily swallow a sixty percent price increase.
What I also find slightly insulting is how they presented this as if it were something done to help me, the consumer. Personally, the DVD option was a supplement to the stale instant streaming selection. I had no problem watching 25 year old episodes of Family Ties while I waited for my sorta new release DVD to arrive. Now, you're taking that away unless I'm willing to pay double.
Let's say that I was willing to pay another 8 bucks for one DVD. Netflix still has that waiting period on new movies. Three weeks is a bit excessive don't you think? Remember "the dollar movie theater?" They were usually crappy theaters where your feet stuck to the floor, the popcorn was stale and the sound system sucked, but it was a dollar. I loved the dollar movie, because I could wait for those "meh" movies to arrive instead of paying full price when they were first released. Redbox is the DVD equivalent of the dollar theater.
Like Netflix, Redbox has to wait three weeks for good movies, but they're only a dollar. Netflix wants eight times that amount for the same quality. The claim is that you get unlimited movies, but so often I put a movie at number one in my queue only to get the second or third selection. By the time I finally get what I really want, a few days have passed. I've never gotten my number one choice eight times in a month. Redbox wins in this case. I can reserve the movie online, and pick it up at the grocery store. If it's not at that kiosk, then I can check the 7-11, McDonalds, Wal-mart or any of the other 10 kiosks within a one mile radius of my house.
I didn't plan to give this topic so much attention, but I guess more of me was pissed about the price increase than logic could pacify. I'm canceling my plan. Period. I'll keep checking instantwatcher to see when they get a large number of "new" movies to stream and maybe two or three months from now I'll sign up for a month, watch what I want and then cancel. Wait three months and repeat.
They gave an explanation on their blog, but I've had enough experience as the "face" of big corporations to know when someone is feeding me bullshit. The truth, which isn't even mentioned in the blog, is that licensing costs are going up ten-fold. They simply can't afford to keep their same pricing structure. I understand that, but Netflix isn't essential enough to my life for me to easily swallow a sixty percent price increase.
What I also find slightly insulting is how they presented this as if it were something done to help me, the consumer. Personally, the DVD option was a supplement to the stale instant streaming selection. I had no problem watching 25 year old episodes of Family Ties while I waited for my sorta new release DVD to arrive. Now, you're taking that away unless I'm willing to pay double.
Let's say that I was willing to pay another 8 bucks for one DVD. Netflix still has that waiting period on new movies. Three weeks is a bit excessive don't you think? Remember "the dollar movie theater?" They were usually crappy theaters where your feet stuck to the floor, the popcorn was stale and the sound system sucked, but it was a dollar. I loved the dollar movie, because I could wait for those "meh" movies to arrive instead of paying full price when they were first released. Redbox is the DVD equivalent of the dollar theater.
Like Netflix, Redbox has to wait three weeks for good movies, but they're only a dollar. Netflix wants eight times that amount for the same quality. The claim is that you get unlimited movies, but so often I put a movie at number one in my queue only to get the second or third selection. By the time I finally get what I really want, a few days have passed. I've never gotten my number one choice eight times in a month. Redbox wins in this case. I can reserve the movie online, and pick it up at the grocery store. If it's not at that kiosk, then I can check the 7-11, McDonalds, Wal-mart or any of the other 10 kiosks within a one mile radius of my house.
I didn't plan to give this topic so much attention, but I guess more of me was pissed about the price increase than logic could pacify. I'm canceling my plan. Period. I'll keep checking instantwatcher to see when they get a large number of "new" movies to stream and maybe two or three months from now I'll sign up for a month, watch what I want and then cancel. Wait three months and repeat.
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