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13.12.02
The angst-o-rama of earlier is abating...slightly... but here's the skinny, as reported in an e-mail to my darlin' Mel earlier on...
Sorry I was in such a foul mood today...I didn't really feel like explaining
while other people were in the office, but I spent all morning basically
re-typing somebody's 12-page resumé, which was boring and frustrating, because the software'd crashed and I lost about two pages of it and had to re-do them.
Compounding this, running into Nancy (ex-girlfriend I don't like) last week led Scott to feature her as his column subject this week (she's still quite active in the English community, and part of lots of committees and groups and blah blah blah)...so while I was toiling away re-typing this totally pointless document that nobody needed and there was no point in even doing -- 80% of it was English in the first place, so "translating" it was a joke -- while I was doing this, Scott was talking a desk away to the girl that dumped me and trashed my self-confidence, listening to her list off all her achievements so he could give her a half-page of glorification in the paper tomorrow.
All of this led me to wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life,
retyping other people's resumés and renovating a house instead of doing, well, interesting stuff, and a very bad mood.
Matt Shepherd 13.12.02
Putting the Id back in idiot
Just finished typing 4,500 words of Pfizer resume. Basically, a long, long, long list of publications that the most boring, tedious, bloody irrelevant person in the world has published over the last 20-30 years of her bloody boring, irrelevant life. Christ almighty, the only thing more boring than neurologists is...nothing. There is nothing more boring than a career neurologist.
Nada.
This is the first time I have ever hated my job.
Yeargh.
Matt Shepherd 13.12.02
Talk About Comics :: View topic - Gun control
I was listening to the news last night, and apparently Canada's gun control law, being 500 times over budget and rather unweildy, is in danger of being shuttled off. And I say, "dag nabbit."
Listening to proponents of the law blither away with weak defences of it, I felt they missed the core component of gun control that I really like:
If something can enable a real stupid person to kill me from over 50 feet away, I'm all for keeping track of it.
I mean, you could throw a rock or a stick from a few dozen feet, but you'd have to rely pretty heavily on (a) surprise, (b) luck, and (c) your ability to hypnotize somebody from a great distance, making them completely unable to duck. Rock- and baseball- and knife-throwing all require a fair amount of skill and/or chance, and none of them usually travel faster than the speed of sound.
I've also read a bit of history in my day, and never have I run across somebody going on a "bow-and-arrowing spree" or a "rock-throwing spree" or a "pointy stick rampage." The gun (and pretty much any other explosives-using device such as the hand grenade, land mine, and Pumpkin Bomb, if you're Green-Goblin-inclined) is the only way I can think of for a card-carrying lunatic to do me in without me getting some sort of half-decent shot at defending myself.
Let me paint two parallel scenes here:
Scene One: Madman with knife decides to attack me.
Me: "Golly. That fellow with the knife seems to be walking over here rather briskly, and foaming around the mouth. Perhaps I should kick him in the groin, or run away, or prepare to defend myself, or call the local constabulary."
Scene Two: Madman with gun decides to attach me.
Me: "Golly. That -- arrgh!"
I think that pretty much sums 'er up. Granted, there are lots of legitimate uses for firearms, such as, um, putting down Old Yeller, and killing the man whose wife you're sleeping with on a hunting trip and making it look like an accident. Come to think of it, there aren't really a lot of uses for firearms except for blasting away at unsuspecting wildlife, which is something else I could really do without.
Those who oppose the gun registry generally oppose it because they say it's an infringement on their right to own firearms. In secret. It's an infringement on their right to cache lethal killing devices in their basement. Just in case, you know, there's a big secret-lethal-killing-device party over at Joey's house and you don't want to be left out. Why the heck SHOULDN'T I know who in my neighbourhood has firearms? At least then I'll know who to smile at.
Matt Shepherd 13.12.02
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