Couple things...

1. I understand that you are a lowly overpaid and overcompensated city employee and union worker. I feel for you that you have to sit on your ass all day and drive around a bunch of people on their way to their laughable private sector jobs where they will earn less working full time then you will by working part time. I get how frustrating that must be to you Ms. Tri-Met Driver (on the #12 Parkrose at 10:55 a.m. this morning). I know that it must be tough that the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 757 lost in the contract negotiations and now you have to pay a portion of your healthcare costs like normal people. But that does NOT give you the right to hustle granny off the bus because you are behind schedule. Here’s another thing you don’t get to do: be rude to a disabled man needing help getting the seat up so he can manually roll his wheelchair into the space provided. And here’s the next thing you don’t get to do: Attempt to chastise me for helping him. Don’t worry. I’ve already written my letter to the Tri-Met customer complaint department with your bus number. I’m tired of being treated like a second class citizen because I CHOOSE to use public transportation. Yes. CHOOSE to. You are a CITY worker. You applied for this job. If you don’t like it, FIND ANOTHER ONE. But then you’d be stuck working like the rest of us shlubs have to and you just wouldn’t dream of giving up your cushy paycheck just because you can’t stand the people you work for, would you?

While I’m on the topic of Tri-Met inconsistencies, WTF is with all the dogs on the bus and MAX?? Have you not read your own company’s rules for riding policy regarding animals?? Here, let me quote it for you “If you bring a pet, keep it in a carrier”. http://trimet.org/howtoride/rules.htm WHY are you allowing these burnouts to bring their mangy smelly dogs onto the bus? What about when Fido goes native and bites someone? What are you going to do then? Service animals are pretty easy to spot. They usually come with a disabled person, have a vest that identifies them as a service animal and are trained to lay down by their person’s feet and NOT sniff the crotch of people boarding the bus or MAX.

2. What the hell does the “universe” have against taking a fucking shower and getting a job? I know plenty of hippies that work and are productive. I mean, they aren’t perfect, being Liberals and all, but they WORK. They shower. And a few of them volunteer their time and energies to do the things in life that people who truly believe in things do. I’m not saying that this hippie thing is fabricated. (although I personally think Wicca is a bunch of BS. But who am I? I’m a Jew with a Baptist upbringing. I’m sure I’m more fucked up than they are!) All I’m saying is that if you deadbeats look at the people that you are trying to mold your ideas after, you’ll see that there are plenty that live this lifestyle and are doing quite nicely for themselves. I’ve been in the homes of some pretty freakin’ well off hippies. Here it really is in a fucking nutshell: Don’t sit at the fucking MAX platform and cry about how you love Portland but don’t want to be homeless in the winter and how this must be all a part of the universe’s plan for you. NO IT’S NOT. G-d (or goddess or high power or Jupiter or a fucking door knob if that’s what you pray to or even *snicker* the spirit of Carl Sagan) wants you to be productive, work and enjoy work and reap the benefits of work. ‘Mother Earth’ doesn’t want her kids laying around her house all damned day and fucking night sucking off her tit and never moving on to become adults. She (like so many mothers since) has a natural life cycle that NEEDS her kids to MOVE THE FUCK ON with their lives. So why not do your momma a solid? Go take a shower. Cut those nasty fucking turd looking things off your head and start becoming the being that you were put on this planet to be. Nobody likes a mooch. NOBODY.

More public transportation pet policy information: http://www.dogjaunt.com/2009/05/traveling-by-portland-or-public-transit/

Resource for homeless youth: http://www.outsidein.org/index.htm

Resource for adult and family homeless: http://www.centralcityconcern.org/

AND ANOTHER THING!

**This rant was originally published October 4, 2010 in the 'Notes' section of my FaceBook page.**

1. LOOK. I've been eating at Subway longer than you have been breathing. I know what THE FUCK kind of sandwich I like and how I like it. Don't act like putting three extra fucking slices of turkey on my sandwich or enough jalepenos for me to taste them is such an inconvienience to you! IT'S YOUR FUCKING JOB!!

If you are that blatantly incompetent that you can't perform your basic essential job functions - making a G-d DAMNED SANDWICH FOR FUCK'S SAKE - then just go home and walk to your room, close the door behind you, strip naked and beat the hell out of yourself!

AND! You work in Customer Service. Let me repeat myself... CUSTOMER SERVICE. Not "What a bunch of bullshit, I can't believe this bitch expects me to wait on her" service. OF COURSE I DO!! I'm a paying fucking customer.

IF you work in the service industry and you treat me as though I am an inconvienience to you and a waste of your time, I WILL CORRECT YOU.

2. IF you walk or drive in downtown Portland, OR and do not understand what a Grid System is...Please let me enlighten you...

http://www.movingtoportland.net/portland_map.htm

Numbered streets run NORTH to SOUTH. Named streets run EAST to WEST. OH!! AND DIPSHIT! By the way...Numbered streets are... NU-FUCKING-MERICAL. Named streets are...wait for it...ALPHA-FUCKING-BETICAL. AS IN 1st Street. Then there is 2nd Street. Next is 3rd Street. The named streets? Oh? I thought you'd never ask...ANKENY, BURNSIDE, COUCH, DAVIS, and MOTHER FUCKING EVERETT!!!

As with most streets in most cities there are also what are known as STREET SIGNS. READ THEM. Just because you are in a downtown doesn't mean that you have carte blanche to act like a moron. C'mon people. Really?

3. DREADLOCKS ARE NOT A HAIRSTYLE. They are the direct result of a lack of personal hygiene. You are a hippy. Go make some fucking soap and use it you fucking dirtbag.

4. I'M FUCKING READING. Don't interrupt me. Oh, really? You've read this book? Then you should know better than to break the flow of the character's monologue, you fucking asshole.

5. While I appreciate your right to be a complete idiot I do not recognize your right to attempt to coerce me into joining your club of imbeciles. If you "FEEL" that this country should be heading down a certain path but have no foundation to support your claim then it is of no consequence to me and you will NOT convert me to your perverted sense of "for the greater good". I am not interested in helping anyone that feels that they are due just because they are.

My current situation is a direct consequence of the choices that I have made over my life time. SO IS YOURS! If you have been a deadbeat layabout your entire life then you have no right to expect me to pay for your existence. Government assistance should a stepping stone not a lifestyle. I have no problem paying into a system that is set up to provide just that. A help up. Not a hand out.

6. Pay attention to the fucking world around you. If you are caught off guard then you weren't paying enough attention. Trust me on this one. It happened to me...

I really need to get one of those recording devices

Here's my biggest beef with me. I get all fired up and on a rant and then, I go home, eat some dinner, watch some Sci-Fi, go to bed and it all fizzles out of me. What I need is one of them there hi-tech flim flam vocal recording do hickies. Then I would be able to go off on a tangent and subject others to my opinions and not just irritate my daughter with my views.

Anyone have a suggestion?

Un-fucking-believable.

Pt. II; the pieces left out

I decided to post part of the Emergency Preparedness rant that I left out earlier. It was just bugging me too much not to post it. :-)

I am now invoking my right to digress in my own rant. Listen to me very carefully, my Liberal friends. There is something that you need to know now. When the day comes whose door do you think you will be knocking on for help? Who do you think is going to be stock piled with food and clothing? Who do you think will know how to start a fire or build a shelter? That's right. The Conservatives. The Republicans. The Libertarians. The Tea - Partiers. Those of us that understand that in order for to survive we can't leave anything to chance.

Think about this for a little bit. Just a little bit. How many of YOUR like minded friends, both political and social, are truly prepared for an emergency? How many of them could you count on to know what to do if something were to happen? I can tell you that ALL of my like minded friends have some kind of plan in place when the chips fall. Some of us actually have group plans. Do you have one of a 6 set 2 way battery operated radios with one of your friends to contact? Do your children know how to reach all of their emergency contacts?

When the crisis occurs I won't be home. My Conservative friends and I will be at least two days ahead of you. The way I see it, half of you arrogant shits will be dead. Murdered by the looters you fought so hard to coddle before the event. They knew no other way but to take what you had to feed their own needs. That included your lives. The other half? Well once you come together there will only be about an eighth of you worth a damn to anyone else. And that's being generous. I figure you will either argue each other into starvation or if there are a few amongst you that know how to survive in an emergency your generous contemporaries will force you to slave away and work to exhaustion to care for them because after all, they were too weak willed and weak minded to learn and prepare themselves. You owe it to them. You can't just let them starve!

Two (rants) for the Price of One (because I'm lazy)

I am really surly today. Actually, I have been surly all of this last week. I originally thought that it was due to my being sick, but no. The illness was only a physical manifestation of my inner irritation. I have been on edge a lot. I have that urge to grab innocent people by the wrist and slap their faces with their own hands. I call them innocent but only because I don’t know them. Who knows? Maybe they need a good bullying. You should know that writing this has put an evil smirk on my face. Just thinking about that pea coat, long scarf and wide brimmed wool cap wearing douche bag that always stretches his legs across the seat on the bus so that no one can sit by him getting slapped repeatedly with his own hand makes me giggle. Instead of “Quit hitting yourself” I would say “Keep hitting yourself, keep hitting yourself”. Ha ha ahahahahaa. That shit is funny.

I don’t like it when my word processor corrects my English, either. Fuck you Word. Fragment this you cock sucker. (Oh, that it agrees with… Son of a Bitch)

Why are the simplest of tasks so fucking hard for some people? Have we really become a society so G-d damned lazy that we can’t either read or listen to direction? Do you really need me to tell you what day of the week the 8^th is on when not only is it written down ON THE ORDER I SENT YOU but also ON THE CALENDAR to your right? Christ on a crutch. You would think that with the information supplied to you that you would be able to figure it out. No? You really are that stupid? Wow. Oh, and you’re 55? I have now been amazed that you made it this fucking far in life. Go slap yourself.

Grab the edge of the desk, Chrystal and take a few deep breaths. Slow the heart rate down just a little. Is this what my Grandfather felt like all those years? Why didn’t anyone warn us? Why was there no one to say “Hey, by the way, when you get to your late 30s, you will be so overwhelmingly irritated with the stupidity around you that the only term that will lull you to sleep at night is ‘postal vengeance’? I don’t know, you guys. Maybe there was someone in your life that gave you the yellow warning. Not me. I was surrounded by individuals with intelligence that greatly surpasses my own. So I venture to guess that if dealing with people is this hard for me, how was it for them? And if I’m not as intelligent as they were what does that say about society in general?

Let me move on…

Prepare yourself. Let’s put the jokes about a Zombie Apocalypse to the side for a few minutes. We are not an impenetrable nation. We are just as susceptible to attack as anyone else and to think otherwise is naïve and dangerous. If you have a family and no plan of survival for a MINIMUM of two weeks then you are putting the lives of those you love in jeopardy. Even if all you do is read and keep handy a book on survival, at least you are doing something.

For those of my friends that think so egotistically that this won’t happen here, in good old peace loving Portland, Oregon, just think back to November 26, 2010. A nineteen year old male by the name of Mohamed Mohamud attempted to detonate a bomb at the annual Christmas tree lighting in Pioneer Courthouse Square http://www.katu.com/news/110941254.html . Had he not been detected by the FBI early in his plans to kill thousands of families, we would have been in a serious state of panic here in the Portland metro area. Think about that for a little while. Really let that sink into your thought process. What if he had been successful? Would you have had the resources to properly provide for you and your family? Things like that don’t sit well in our minds but that’s why they are important for us to recognize and meet head on. We have to face the unpleasant and prepare for the worst. I don’t want to be stuck with my pants down scrambling for someone to help me feed and care for my family. Do you?

In addition, I would like to remind everyone reading this that in an emergency the need for personal protection is drastically increased. Individuals that obtain their firearms legally are much less likely to be the ones out rioting and looting local businesses. A firearm is essential to any and all emergency preparedness kits.

My paranoia runs deep. I see these as possible reasons to have one if the shit hits the fan:

1. There are riots in the street and people start breaking into homes to loot the basics that they did not have the foresight to store up themselves and feel that because I did means that I am obligated to share with them.
2. I have evacuated and am stuck in a wooded area that has wild animals that are a little too curious about what’s I got in my picanic basket.
3. You are about to become a Zombie. I will fucking kill you. Again.
4. To assert my right as an American citizen to protect myself against the tyranny of those that wish to control and dismantle my freedoms.
5. To assist in the protection of my friends and their families. I am not so arrogant to think that I could survive solely on my own. That old adage of ‘Safety in Numbers’ is just as true in a crisis.

By the by… Notice that all but one of my reasons stated above are about protection. I can’t think of one gun owner that I know that carries for the sole purpose of causing someone else harm. And to my Vegan/Vegetarian friends, animals are not people. I’ll eat the fuck out of Mittens or Fido if I have to. I’m not joking. I’m sure G-d will understand. Even if you don’t.

So to recap this rant. I am a bully. Stop being stupid. Prepare yourself and your family for a crisis situation. Mittens and Fido are both ridiculous names for pets.

Thank you for reading this far.

I believe that you should always give credit where credit is due. In keeping with my morals and values, I would like to thank my friends Joe Kessel, Larry Good and Will Stewart for providing me with some of the following links. Without these three gentlemen, I would not have all the information or resources that I do so readily available to pass along to you.

Resources to get you started:

http://southwestwashingtonsurplus.com/

http://beprepared.com/Default.asp?bhcd2=1297189324

http://www.iqtest.com/

http://www.survivaltopics.com/survival/the-5-basic-survival-skills/

http://www.captaindaves.com/dl-list/dl14-asg.htm

http://pun.org/schools.html

http://www.am-i-dumb.com/

http://www.fema.gov/plan/index.shtm

http://www.appleseedinfo.org/

http://www.portlandonline.com/police/index.cfm?c=35911 (women’s self defense training)

http://www.redcross.org/

http://www.brainbashers.com/commonsense.asp

http://www.ooze.com/ooze13/cats.html (BWAH HAHAHAHAAA)

http://www.surviveinplace.com/indexspf.php