I have to admit, I’m pretty excited because it sounds like Fear Factor is going to be airing a scene from my all-time favorite porno.

Urge to kill rising. I find the reaction here far more threatening than both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street combined.

Seriously, just read through a bunch of these. It paints an ugly picture.

If you really need access to blacked out Wikipedia pages, Google’s cache feature works wonders.

-Chuck Close

I like that we do things (some consciously, some not) that buck conventional tradition.

If I were to be completely honest, I take secret pleasure in the fact that our tendency as a family to not do things the ‘normal’ way wigs out my mother in law. She’s very much a “you do things because that’s what people do” kind of person and that bugs me. I truly think she’s never taken the time in her life to stop and consider anything on more than a superficial level. It seems most of what she does, believes and lives is based on the idea of “that’s what you do” – and that’s always annoyed me.

So when she calls my wife and asks if we have pork cooking on the 1st, I smile on the inside when my wife explains that we’re doing sushi and the muffled Charlie Brown trumpet voice on the other end of the phone that you can barely make out seems just a little deflated at the notion that someone might actually not do what everyone else does.

I expect this trend to continue in 2012.

That is all.

I have a few bills that have ridiculous fees attached. I’ll spare the complete list and just use this as an excuse for more Waste Management bashing.

Verizon wanted to charge people a $2 ‘convenience fee’ for paying their bills online.

Waste Management includes a $4 ‘administrative fee’ on each bill which I find really interesting as we’re paperless and I pay online. They waive that fee if you sign up for automatic payments. (which is exactly what Verizon wanted people to do – not so coincidentally)

I dunno. Of course charges like this are stupid, but it sure looks like this is the next wave. Just like these businesses don’t want the expense and hassle of sending a physical bill, they don’t want the hassle of physically processing payments and, more importantly, not getting payments. They want to take the money automatically. Seems like the fee acts as a sort of insurance against non-payment.

Like I said, I already have a few monthly bills that follow similar protocol and Waste Management is charging twice the ‘outrageous’ amount Verizon wanted.

Is it stupid? Yes. So get used to it.

I don’t see the problem, it’s edible. I mean, I really only like the white meat when it comes to poutry, but I’m not going to try to gross you out into agreeing with me and not eating dark meat. So who cares if it’s the ‘left over bits’ of the bird? I got two words for you, Jamie Oliver – Andrew Zimmern.

I, personally, don’t understand the concept of going ‘too far’ with most things and Halloween is certainly not the exception. Hell, it’s the rule. It’s the one time when it’s kind of okay to go a little too far. What can I say? I like things to be all or nothing.

We had heard a lot about a Haunt in Columbus called the Haunted Hoochie. The idea whas that it’s a bit more extreme than your standard Haunt fare (which is usually midly humorous at best). Here’s a quick video:

Honestly, the video show the best of it all. That’s not to say it wasn’t cool. It was. But I think I had myself expecting a little more. On a scale of 1-to-10 with 1 being family friendly and 10 being the extreme end of things, I’d put this in the 5 or 6 range. Crazy stuff. The actors touched you, which was neat. I think a few with the chainsaws were getting kind of ‘friendly’ when the girls came through too…and I think that’s all totally cool as long as you understand as a visitor what you’re getting into.

For comparison, the average theme park haunt stuff is probably a 2, maybe 3 for the better things on my scale.

Like, really. I don’t get the idea that this stuff is any more than silly, forgettable fun. We kep saying we’d like to see someone really push it and do an 18+ haunt and really fuck with you. Face it, as an intelligent adult, nothing they do can truly ‘scare’ me. It’s a show. I’m not a moron. But you can do things that will stick with me. Show me fucked up stuff. Or totally fuck with my head. A friend on Facebook recently posted a promo video for a Haunt in NYC that seems to be taking the latter approach and really trying to mind fuck people:

It’s cool because there’s a set of rules attached to visiting:

1. YOU MUST WALK THROUGH ALONE.
2. You must be over 18.
3. Stay on the marked path at all times.
4. You will be prompted to do certain actions. Please do exactly as you’re told. This is for your safety.
5. There is absolutely no speaking allowed inside. You can, however, scream as loud as you’d like.
6. Do not ever touch the actors.
7. Do not ever touch the walls.
8. You must wear a protective mask and carry a flashlight at all times.

That’s a pretty good start. Although I think my approach would be almost entirely the other direction. I’d want to leave you with imagery that would take a while to shake.

Interestingly, we’ve started a yearly tradition with a Halloween party for my daughter’s birthday and we hope to keep doing it for my son once she gets too old. I’ve been checking out different forums for ideas, inspiration and tips. One post caught my eye recently on one forum that was titled, “Over the Top? WARNING, graphic image”

I clicked eagerly thinking this was my kind of thing and it might be something I could incorporate for our party. So I click it and what do I see? This:

Whadda you think, is this over the top? I don’t mind pushing the comfort zone, but there are limits.

For real? On my scale this is a 1. Completely harmless, silly and forgettable.

The most interesting thing were the replies. Oddly enough (to me, at least), there were people who thought this was too extreme. No one seemed to find it uninteresting, boring and trite as I thought.

Then today on Facebook, Cedar Point posted something about their Halloweekends event and one of the replies to the photo posted (of a character getting makeup done) basically complained of the actors getting too close. I’m thinking, “My God. The experience at Cedar Point is as tame as it gets. It’s a fun, silly vibe that I’m totally ok with taking my kids through.” and here’s what I believe to be an adult saying they feel like it goes a little too far.

I have no point really – that’s the case with a lot of crap I post here. Just a random concept. An idea. A realization. It’s funny how different we all are and where we draw those lines.

…and, how fucked up am I really?

Or more correctly – how fucked up is everyone else?

A report by the conservative Heritage Foundation notes that when most Americans hear the word, they think of people who routinely can’t afford the basic staples of life: nutritious food, shelter and clothing. In reality, data from other federal surveys suggests that’s not the case for most poor people. And thanks to steadily increasing living standards, many or most poor Americans have things such as internet service, cable TV and dishwashers–not luxuries, to be sure, but not the picture of destitution that the word poverty often brings to mind.
As the report’s authors, Robert Rector and Rachel Sheffield put it: “[T]he actual standard of living of America’s poor—in terms of amenities in the home, housing, food consumption, and nutrition—is far higher than expected.”

This is something I struggle with a lot. I don’t mean to trivialize living in poverty, but our expectations are pretty high.

When I hear people saying they’re ‘hurting’ because they didn’t feel comfortable taking a vacation this year, I know our priorities are out of whack.

If you have cable TV and internet service, you’re not poor. You may be living at a lower standard than those around you based on the curve, but you’re not poor. Being poor or impoverished to me is the inability to meet basic life necessities. Beyond that, everything else is gravy.

If you have gravy, you ain’t poor, brutha.