Cutting Through The Bullshit…. Machetti’s Blog

So I occasionally scan the pages of urbandictionary.com to keep up on “what the kids are saying these days.” Not only do I find the amazing new sexual positions created by 13 year old masagonists hilarious, I also love the creative nicknames created by other sinical 20 somethings.
The 13 year olds define such acts as the rusty trombone and the Cleveland steamer. My peers of the cubical wasteland define some great new slang such as “bluetool”, “Multi-Slacking”, and the one I wish to comment on “cubical speed.”

I have pasted their definition at the bottom of the blog entry. Anyways, I always found it funny how my office, being as tight with their money as a child and their favorite teddy bear, would shell out money for free office coffee. The caffeine is there to boost productivity. But I think the taurine - caffeine blend of an energy drink is much more effective. (cracks open rockstar number 2 for the day) If they bought rockstars for everyone I’d see that as a benefit. The shitty folgers and maxwell house, they burn up daily, just doesn’t cut it for me.  The more awake I am the more I can work, the quicker my work gets done, and the more money they make out of me. Being that I purchase my own cubical speed, (6 dollars a day habit) means that I need to subtract that 6 dollars per day from my daily wages in order to compensate for the uncompensated artificially increased productivity I am giving them. So I take my 8.5 hour work day and subtract .5 hours for that 6 dollar productivity increase. Then I factor in the fact that my wages are about 25% lower than the average wage for my position in other companies near me. (thanks carearbuilder.com for making me realize how bad I’m being fucked)  So I subtract 25% from that 8hours to compensate for lack of compensation bringing us to 6 hours of work. Then I take into account the .5 hours per day I spend teaching my coworkers who make more money than I how to do their job, while they work only 25% of the day, so I don’t feel guilty. So we are at 5.5 hrs of work per day, subtrack my .75 hr lunch break, brings us to 4.75 hrs of work. And that is all I give them. If you are cheap and go to McDons for lunch and get a cheap combo meal, you are not going to get filet mignon from them in return. They get what they pay for, and a little more so that there is room for a raise. So what to do with all that other time they haven’t purchased? I cyber-multi-slack, surf, blog, bulletin, myspace, message board, and email back and forth to my girlfriend all day long. And this delicious rockstar gives me the strength to get all of that done in one 8.5-12 hr work day.
Defined:

I’ve been very interested in reading about the V-Tech shooter after listening to his manifesto. Mr. Cho grew up in Fairfax County, Virginia, the county with the second-highest median household income in the United States. I grew up in a working family as well surrounded by an affluent community where most of my age group peers had much more money than I. It’s easy to have sympathies for class war when you are mistreated and “picked on” by the apposing class. The American dream is a beautiful ray of light that unfortunately only shines on a select group, and they flaunt that light in the face of those who are in the darkness. Killing innocent people is wrong, in a classroom or in sending soldiers to die in an illegal war. Murder is murder. 

I can’t help myself though to be slightly impressed that Mr. Cho could carry this out. I do not agree with what he did but the fact that he could carry out all these killings without anyone rushing and disarming him is certainly noteworthy. Is it an observation about how passive the “herd” has become. Or are we all so individualistic that our instinct is to play dead and hope he shoots your neighbor instead of you. I understand life and death situations, I also understand fight or flight, but no where in fight or flight is an instinct to play dead. Some students ran, some laid there, and the heroes seem to be the teachers. No one, as far as I have heard, were killed trying to pry the pistols from his hands.  

I also keep thinking about how many victims had at least 3 bullets in him. It makes me think of military training (3 round center mass) which is beaten into your head. This kid, post high school, should have joined the military. We could use people with the lack of a fear complex. In basic training he would have learned socialization skills, he would have been surrounded by people of similar or lower means levels, the crazy in him would have been put towards good instead of bad. As I heard about the 30 casualties in the 2nd phase of his attack, all I could think was “army of one.” 

Psychologists that studied “the ice man” Richard Kuklinski, a former contract killer who’s murders are numbered in the hundreds, speak of his lack in a fear complex. This kid seems similar in that regard, and I think it’s his lack of socialization that drove him to use this ability for bad as apposed to good (soldiers, firemen, police officers, rescue divers etc… often have the same lack of fear complex) 

I don’t want you to think I sympathize with this murderer, but I do understand the anger, resentment, and frustration in being ”weird” and financially disadvantaged while surrounded by rich people. It’s almost enough to drive anyone crazy.  The lesson that should be learned is to socialize and appreciate our eccentrics, they often grow to become great contributors to our society. But when we ostracize and bully them and make them feel like “dog shit” some react in horrible ways.  

This August I am going off to College and the media would have me believe I’d be safer back in Afghanistan. When people die in large numbers here in the US is a massacre, when a president sends troops to die in an illegal war in Iraq it’s called the “price of victory.” Fuck that, the soldiers dieing in Iraq as just as worthy as breaking news, their names their killer’s names are worth as much journalistic coverage as these victims at VA Tech. It also amazes me that a shooter with two pistols could kill 30 and wound 17 more without anyone subduing him. There appears to be some heroic stories though, a professor who was also a holocaust survivor, held the door to his classroom so his students could escape out the windows. He was shot dead through the door. 

But acts of heroism occurs everyday in Iraq and these stories are rarely told.