February 2, 2009

It is not that I do not have enough money already, making a good salary at my job as a fully tenured professor of ethics in the uber Greater Maryland University System. I used the word "uber" in part because I grew up in Germany in a house close to the wall but I refuse to use an umlaut because you can go fuck yourself if you have a problem with me not wanting to figure out the HTML code for that kind of thing. It would interfere with my train of thought which is fragile as I am given to going off on a tangent or two when I have to go look up some code to make an umlaut just because your ass is tighter than a size sixteen spandex thong on an elephant of about two years of age. Grow up.

As I was saying it isn't that I don't have enough money already, with my job and my outside interests, some of which have been ruled illegal by common sense lacking liberal judges and congresspeople. Therefore I won't go into that and get to the point. The point is that I have a new plan that is going to make me a lot of money.

While I was buying houses that had been foreclosed upon for four dollars and selling them for sixty grand and making a lot of coin on that scheme I started thinking about the movie business (a pipe link was used there - check it out). And I started thinking about actors and actresses and how I see some in a lot of different movies and how confusing it is that they aren't always the same person from one movie to the next. There is no reason to cause this kind of confusion in a sensible person like myself who is terrified of the idea of people consolidating power in the central federal government.

The thing is that fewer people are going to movies and more people are watching serial television series because they offer the same actors playing the same characters week after week. Why don't the people who make movies understand this absolute fact about human nature? And then I thought some more and realized that we live in a country where knowing something other people don't know gives you a leg up on the competition. And competition is what it is all about and that is part of why any kind of regulation of business in this country is wrong, wrong, wrong.

What I have done is written up a forty page prospectus which outlines my plan for forcing actors to choose one character to play and to require them by law to commit to this one character or get no more jobs, and by that I mean a law passed in California (where Hollywood is - a place you may remember from that pipelink I mentioned) because we must maintain states' rights in the courts. I know people who can get dirt on these actors that we could hold in a holding tank and threaten to release that dirt to the public if that actor tried to make a movie as a different character. Rough and tumble style cops could be used to enforce these laws.

My prospectus states in no uncertain terms that before this idea can be put into place I am to be paid a large and suitable package of money and bonds because I will be selling this idea to Hollywood and they have lots of money because of their movies even though their movies are failing (I think they make money off shows like Dexter which is a show I really like about a guy I would love to hang out with). The money can be brought back to the investors if Hollywood puts my plan into action. Soon your dreams will come true. Soon you will not have to face the confusion of seeing Bruce Willis play someone other than John McClain from the Die Hard films which are the only films he should be allowed to be in with the exception of appearing as that character in other movies. Just think about how excellent this would be and we would no longer have to be confused. We are sensible. We will win. Even in the face of liberalism.

England is completely pathetic

There, I said it. But I also mean it. I woke up this morning to about 3 – okay, perhaps 5 – centimetres of snow on the ground. Enough to persuade me that riding a motorcycle to the station might not be the wisest option. So instead I take the bus, who – despite driving very carefully indeed – nearly spins out on the first sharp bend.

Anyway, so I made it to the station in about 45 minutes instead of 20 minutes (very careful bus driver), and I arrive to discover that all the trains are either 45 minutes delayed (!) or cancelled altogether. Now, I don’t want to appear cynical, but a train weighs... what... 200 tonnes? 300? I completely fail to understand how a loosely conglomerated alliance of snowflakes can stop a six thousand horsepower colossus of steel.

Now, upon finally arriving in Paddington (on a train that was 45 minutes delayed, but rolled into the station about 2 minutes after I arrived on the platform, so was perfectly timed for yours truly), I’m faced with the next obstacle on my journey: The tube system. Most of the tube lines are part closed, and a few are completely shut due to ‘extreme weather conditions’. Okay, so London had a little bit more snow than Reading – 10 cm, perhaps 13 at the most – but here’s a newsflash: the word ‘underground’ in ‘London Underground’ should be a hint... And the Circle line, which runs almost entirely underground (apart from one or two open-air stations), should under no circumstances be allowed to close due to snow.

Walking from Embankment hit me with a realisation, however: All the roads were completely covered in snow, and this is at 9am in the morning. Why? The roads are usually full of people with brooms and (wait for it...) shovels, cleaning up the discarded bottles, chip wrappers and mess from the night before. From a city which proudly didn’t skip a beat in the face of the 7/7 tube bombings by the hands of terrorists, isn’t it just a little bit pathetic to be completely handicapped by a few fistfuls of snow?

I buy the argument that the country isn’t prepared (and perhaps that it isn’t economically feasible to be prepared for an edge-case which occurs one day every couple of days), but frankly, it isn’t as if you need specialist bomb squads to deal with a couple of inches of snow. All you need is some shovels, some snow ploughs and some grit. Easy.

Here’s a suggestion: When you realise there’s going to be snow (which you will do at 4am, because there’s snow already then), start calling everybody who normally cleans the streets. Get them to leave their brooms, and just bring their shovels. And then start shovelling. It’s hard work for sure, but pay them extra, and engage the local Starbucks, Nero and Pret franchises to keep everybody who works warm with tea and bagels and baguettes. Of course it’s going to cost money, but is it going to cost more than letting the entire city grind to a halt? Like hell. Pay homeless people, pay people who are out of work, pay people on community service, hell, see if you can get prisoners to volunteer. Call in the national guard if you have to – it’s not that bloody difficult to clear the roads of some snow, people.

Finally, I leave you with this thought: If I were a station manager on the London Underground, I’d grab a spade myself and clear the stairways in and out of the station of snow. It’d take me 20 minutes to clear all the stairs, and the stations would be infinitely safer as a result. Hell, I’d have done it as a commuter if I could find an implement to do it with.