The Zeppo

 I may just have a job. A Sergeant with the Cincinnati Police Department finally got back with me after a month and said he'd chosen me. But the choice has to go through City Hall and the process can take one more month. So, it's good news, but also it's going to stretch my tolerance for stress and my patience.

If I get this job, it'll be a step in the direction I want to go with my career.

In all seriousness, I believe it is important for people to see this movie and I'll give a few reasons why. The book is the first in a trilogy called His Dark Materials. It is a story in the same vein as Chronicles of Narnia, only the language is much easier to read and while metaphor is used, Writer Philip Pullman puts them right out there for everyone to see. He knows exactly the point he is trying to make.

The first reason that anyone and everyone should go to see this movie (and read the books) is that the conservatives of the United States and many other countries have worked themselves into a rabid furor over it. Personally, I think that reason alone is enough to hear this particular story.

Let's skip right past the fact that the book itself is a work of fiction and that as always the reader can take from what they read as they will. Let's focus in on the fact that the Conservatives are acting precisely as the they are criticizingly described in the book.

The reason, in all likelihood that they don't want anyone to see this movie or read the books, is because they were told that it would be bad by their pastor, their priest or their minister, not because they've read the book themselves and decided that it wouldn't be appropriate for their child to read.

AGAIN conservatives are telling the majority of the citizens of the United States how to raise their kids as if they're some sort of shining example to take one's cues from. Go see it for yourselves. Read it for yourselves. And then make your own decision based on your own opinion.

The second reason everyone should see this movie (and read the books)... TALKING ARMORED BEARS! Seriously, how cool is that?

In conclusion, take time out of your day next weekend and go see this movie. And as the George Harrison of the Beatles once wrote: think for yourself.

Still haven't told the boss yet, but she hasn't been in the office for me to speak to directly.

She's not going to be happy.

I've started sifting through jobs in the Cinci area. I've found 5 or 6 that don't suck salary-wise and that I'm qualified for.

I started thinking this morning about what I wanted and I think what I really want most of all is to not settle. When people settle, they get stuck and I don't want to be that guy who is stuck in the same job the rest of his life.

I want something different. I want to take risks. I want to live and learn. I don't want to be comfortable, because after a while you become numb from it. I want my life to be raw.

In less serious news, I can't wait to have chipotle again. I'm going to eat it for a week, I freaking swear.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14707282/from/RS.2/#storyContinued

Ohio. Please. PLEASE. Don't do this.

What's in a name? Stolen from raynbow_flyer

1. Are you named for anyone? If so, explain.

My grandfathers: Andrew Yenco and George P. Novak. Andrew George Yenco, that's me.

2. Do you have your children's names picked out already? If so, is there any significance?

No. Well, maybe. I'm not really planning on having children at all right now, so its far from my mind. I'd like to honor my parents or grandparents in some way though.

3. If you were born a member of the opposite sex, what would your name have been?

Alyssa. My Aunt found out about it, shortly after I was born, and named her first girl that instead.

4. If you could re-name yourself, what name would you pick and why?

If you asked me this as a kid, I would have had a name. Right now? I wouldn't even consider it. My name was given to me to honor my grandfathers and it reminds me of them every day. I loved the both of them very much, more so now that my childhood memories are all that I have of them.

5. Are there any mispronunciations/typos that people do w/ your name constantly?

People spell my last name wrong regularly. Apparently Yenco is too difficult for them to remember. It's the slovak equivalent of Johnson. In fact, it used to be Jenco before my great grandfather had it legally changed so people would stop pronouncing his name wrong (stupid british-descended motherfrakkers). Jen = John. Co = son. (incidentally Ca is daughter). I used to wish all the time that we were like everybody else. Now I'm proud of having a different last name.

Some of my heritage:

Sto lat, sto lat,
Niech żyje, żyje nam.
Sto lat, sto lat,
Niech żyje, żyje nam,
Jeszcze raz, jeszcze raz, niech żyje, żyje nam,
Niech żyje nam!

A Polish toast, usually sung at weddings, but a birthday or celebration of another sort would fit too.

It means (roughly):

A hundred years, a hundred years,
May he (she) live for us.
A hundred years, a hundred years,
May he live for us.
Once again, once again, may he live, live for us,
May he live for us!

What it means to me:

It means family. It means home. It was sung on every birthday that I can remember on my father's side of the family, usually started by my Grandfather and Grandmother. I miss them both very much.

I want it to remain a part of my family's traditions as long as I'm alive.

This Rahman guy in Afghanistan. The muslims over there want to kill him because he converted from islam to christianity. They've chanted in the streets, "Death to christians."

Gee golly. I wonder why christians are so biased against islam.

Just another reason, in my mind, why religion has absolutely got to be a private thing. It's personal. It's not meant to be some large organized bloated mind-controlling entity. We have enough problems with GOVERNMENT doing that, thank you very much, we don't need another rooster in the henhouse so to speak.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with being spiritual. There's nothing wrong with having traditional beliefs.

There is something wrong with those traditional beliefs dictating that you kill or harm someone because of life choice they made.

I still advocate pulling out of all of those islamic countries. Let them fall into chaos. Let them kill one another, if that is what they truly want. It's none of our business (except, you know, that it is because the people in charge of our company are big into oil and these arabic countries are big on the oil production).

In conclusion, buy a hybrid or new energy source car and petition for immediate withdrawal of our military from the middle east.

Along with the Adams family (and I'm not talking about the gothic freaks here, I'm talking about our second President's descendents), the Cheney and Bush families and a select few others have been and continue to be the richest in the country and have been since ... well, lets just say a long way back. And coincidentally... those families have the most members to have attended Ivy League universities like Yale. And also coincidentally, they're among the families who have had the most members in political office in the United States.

Well, isn't -that- a coincidence.

Anyone who doesn't see the problem with this situation has to be on some sort of crack... or doesn't give a shit about the ideals that the United States was founded upon.

Let me summarize for those of you who may not get why that first paragraph is disturbing (just for shits and giggles, we'll call you people "mouth-breathers"):

Back in ye olden days of yore, people were ruled by families who claimed descendence from God or a god or that they were given the right to rule by God or the gods. People were stupid. People were treated like shit for millenia upon millenia, but they still believed everything these families had the right to do what they were doing.

Then some smarter people came along and said, "Hey wait a second... we're tired of just doing whatever you say. You aren't giving us any say in how we live our own lives and you're demanding higher and higher taxes from us. ... Fuck you, King-dude!"

So there was a war and the King-Dude's army got flung out with the help of some Froggy Allies.

The morale of the story:

The reason that families like the Bushes, the Cheneys and all those other ones are in power is because they like the King-Dude's family in days of yore, are fucking cheating. Instead of everyone being equal in America, no one is. The rich get richer, they're in charge of our government, our armies and our money. Oh... and the CIA and FBI, so they can illegally investigate you if they think you're a terrorist (without evidence, I might add).

Basically in 200 years of being a country we've gone from being a colonies of an empire with a monarch in charge to be a country of states with a quasi-monarchy in charge. What's that you smell?!?!? Why... its freedom!

**note** I am not advocating wild overthrow of the government. I would, however, like people who are QUALIFIED to be in control of the government, our armies and our money. I refuse to elect another rich man into the position of the Presidency of the United States of America. When people like myself can barely afford to finish school and the children of these MORONS in charge of our country are going to an Ivy League School and wondering which of their 12 cars (that their mommies and daddies bought them) they should bring with them, SOMETHING IS WRONG.

I think organizing is a good idea, though, but I'm a big believer in non-violent protest.

Now, you mouthbreathers... go tap tap tap your little keyboards and click your mouses: go to http://www.google.com and type in Martin Luther King Junior or Ghandi. Read about their struggles to change the world they lived in.

If we let ourselves get sucked in... if we let these manaics run our country into war after war, the United States will cease to be. We are a country with a proud military tradition. But we are NOT the world's peacekeepers.