Blogs I hate

Welcome to the dark side of the internet. In no particular order, here are just a few sites that I read for pure, masochistic glee.

Insight on Freedom - It's almost as if this is a joke, like some guy decided to make a blog combining every single hilarious stereotype of the American conservative. Just the right column alone, there are predictable proclamations toward bombing Iran, hatred of immigrants, against universal healthcare, and pride at being the descendant of a Confederate soldier. Yikes.

Arthur's Hall of Viking Manliness - Someone has a small penis.

Townhall - It's a nice consolidation of "middle of America" conservative opinions. Y'know, the kind that believed the swiftboaters, want to teach intelligent design, and are concerned that teh gayz will somehow ruin their marriage by getting married themselves.

Freedom's Watch - Heavy on the patriotic theme. Note the red, white & blue colors, the flag superimposed over an image of the US, the EAGLE. They've also got the typical Reagan-fellating conservative thing going, which is pretty annoying. But then they go above and beyond with "Big Labor's Radical Agenda." As if workers unions are the ones that are outsourcing manufacturing jobs and leaving American towns devastated when their main job source is shuttered and moved to China.

God Hates Fags - Imaginary deities don't have feelings.

GodTube - It's like YouTube, but for Jesus. The vid below is a great example of specific demographic that this site targets. It seriously made me LOL.

Musings of a Maniac - The title says it all really. Obsessed with American Idol, secret crush on Hillary Clinton, and the most dumbed down, regurgitated right wingnut malarkey I've seen in quite some time.

Concerned Women for America - Y'know, it's really disgusting when a man perpetrates a misogynist agenda, shielded by religion - that it's "god's will" that women should stay at home and raise the family, "defer to her husband's leadership," have no reproductive choices whatsoever because they're simply "vessels," holding tanks or storage lockers for his children. It's even more loathsome to see women wreak this kind of havoc on each other.

Exodus International - Jesus will save you from your dirty homo lifestyle. That's seriously what this site is about. No joke.

World Net Daily - These people love guns, Ann Coulter, labeling everyone that isn't a white christian a terrorist, etc. All under the extremely specious label of "free press."

New to the RSS reader

Newly added to my RSS reader this week are these three blogs:

Are We At War With Iran? Good Question.

The Essentia Sphere - Unfortunately, this blog turned off comments, which is understandable when there are posts like this to make assholes angry.

feminist_rage - Ok so, I don't know anything about Live Journal, but this is a community in it and I only discovered it when I was getting a bunch of links from it. But it's a good read, especially when you're feeling all Womyn Power!

Silver linings, etc

(photo from icanhascheezburger.com)

This has been a hard week. Turns out, I was wrong in my assumption that I would just bounce back after getting canned. My egomaniacal idea that my vast skillset would translate easily into the non-profit sector proved false when I realized that I don't really have a skillset. That superhot guy is avoiding me again and I think it's because my ex badmouthed me. The bf has been working 6 days/week to make up for my lost income and I miss him. Brad. Heath. Republicans.

It's probs just my hysterical uterus and I just need to buck up.

At least I still have all my lady parts. And I have a truly awesome, selfless bf, who hasn't complained once about all the extra hours he's working. I'm still able to line up job interviews and I have another one tomorrow. I get to spend some real quality time with my beta fish, Gene McGranagan. Turns out, my neighborhood is a lot of fun to walk around while everyone else is at work. Netflix. My RSS reader. Facebook.

Update: I was wrong; I am FUCKING AWESOME. I let the situation get me down and I let the dirty, underhanded tactics of my petty former employer make me think that I'm less than I am. Anyone know a good lawyer?

Contact your Congressman

So a while back, I reminded you to contact your Congressional representatives because y'know, their actions represent us. When they pass stupid shit like the Patriot Act or No Child Left Behind, we do too. Yikes.

But it's kind of intimidating, just calling up your rep and demanding stuff, right? What do you say? Who should you talk to? How should you go about it? Well, I came across an eHow article detailing just that.

They're your representatives in Congress; you pay their salary and they work for you. So there is no reason why you can't contact your Congressional representative. You might want to explain why you think she should vote a certain way on a bill, or get him to help solve a problem you're having with the federal bureaucracy

It's specific to just the House of Representatives, but you can easily translate the ideas to the Senate, as well as your local and state legislators. It recommends emails, which is a good first step. I've sent a few to my representatives, but have only received form replies. If you're concerned that you'll be disregarded, it's a good idea to get on the phone. That way you'll know that at least 1 person has heard what you have to say.

New Blogrolls!

I added a few blogrolls to the right column. They're just a few of the many, many (some would say too many) blogs I have in my RSS feed and keep track of regularly. Now I'm sharing them with you.

Update: As I noted in the comments, I'm working on a new post of blogs I hate. Have you surfed some particularly infuriating ones lately? Leave them in the comments or email beagoodhuman11 at gmail dot com. Thanks!

Misogyny in office supplies

Inspired by this post from The Curvature and this one from Days in a Wannabe Punk's Life I bring you this from the loathsome ad agency that represents Axe body spray:

See what they did there? You're not just surfing the net, you've got your whole fist up some disembodied whore's skirt! Click those buttons; scroll that little wheel thing; you know she likes it! After all, she's got no mouth to tell you no and no hands to fight back. Ha! Ha!

In my estimation, Axe users not only smell like cheap man-perfume, they're misogynistic assholes, too. Definitely NOT proof of good humanity. If you can't boycott all Unilever products, banning the purchase of the crappy Axe line is a good start. Being a good human means not supporting ones that aren't.

Ugh, disgusting. Source.

I'm rich!

I'm loaded. It's official. I'm the 429,712,644 richest person on earth! How rich are you? >>

And I didn't even know it!

Well, I kind of figured it out, thanks to the Christian Children's Fund commercials when I was a kid.

I stumbled upon this site, the Global Rich List, which showed me just exactly where I stand in the world from an income standpoint. Just put in your annual income and it will tell you how rich you are. I used my old salary and found myself within the top 7% in the world. The top 7% in the whole world. Wow.

Cool right? I lifted this from their "Why are we doing this?" section:

"We are obsessed with wealth. But we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.

We wanted to do something which would help people understand, in real terms, where they stand globally. And make us realise that in fact most of us (who are able to view this web page) are in the privileged minority.

We want people to feel rich. And give some of their extra money to a worthwhile charity."

Sounds good to me! Go check it out and see just how loaded you are.

How to make people think you care about them

So I sound like a sociopath, so what? Truth is, I care very much about people, individually and collectively. It's just that they might not know it. So maybe a more apt title would be, "How to let people know that you care about them." But that's kind of lame. These highly insightful tips are useful for a number of reasons. People who think you care about them are more likely to trust you, to like you, to care about you in return. Making them think you care about them can lead to friendship, marriage, and/or a successful money-swindling scheme. Because I care about you, I will enumerate them for ease of reading.

1. Actually care. Not required, but extremely helpful. Be interested in what they have to say, how they feel, and about the events that are going on in their lives.
   
2. Buy them stuff. Careful! Buying someone's affection often backfires if it's not accompanied with genuine care and love. But a little something out of the blue is great. Ex) My friend is in school for massage therapy. I saw a massage therapy magazine one day that looked really interesting and informative, so I got her a subscription. It didn't cost a lot and I was able to show my friend that I was thinking about what's important to her.
   
3. Really listen to what they have to say. Don't remember COM 101? Well, check this helpful page on active listening for details. An easy way to do this is to devote all of your attention to them while they are talking. Turn the TV off. Step away from the computer. Look at them. If you're on the phone, go sit someplace where there aren't any distractions.
   
4. Don't disagree with them. Go back to the active listening page and figure out how to apply the paraphrasing and primary empathy sections. Suppose they've got some whack opinions that you don't agree with, but don't really want to get into an argument over. Showing them that you're listening and restating their ideas back to them will help them feel validated, while you didn't admit to agreement. This works best with old people and children.
   
5. Call them to do stuff. Making plans to include them is an obvious way to show someone that you want them around. But don't be an idiot about it. Your friend that just got dumped probably doesn't want to go the the bridal expo with you. And as much as you want your athiest friend to go to church with you, I bet he or she really doesn't want to.
6. Do stuff that they want to do. So maybe you're the recently dumped or athiest friend. Go anyway! They will appreciate it and you may not hate it (although you probs will.)
   
7. Tell them. This is the one that I suck at most, which is a shame since it's arguably the easiest to pull off. Maybe I will add this to my half-hearted resolution list.

There you have it, an easy peasy little guide to making people think you care about them, whether you do or not.

And we're back!

So I got my final expenses taken care of at the old job. Now I really think I can wash my hands of the whole situation and, as a bonus, open Be a Good Human back up to the dozens of you that missed my narcissistic missives. I hope never to have to do that again. Lesson learned.

Oops!

I have a link for this blog in the signature of my personal email. And I am an idiot. Today I sent an email to my former boss and copied the directors of HR and payroll regarding an expense reimbursement issue and I forgot to delete the link in my signature. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

So I've decided to restrict the permissions to people I know and love for a while. At least until I know I'm getting paid for those expenses. Then I won't really care if they see that I hated their guts.

RAINN online training

So I've been doing the initial 20 hours of online training in order to volunteer for the RAINN online hotline. I've been trying to do it a little bit at a time, because immersing myself in rape and sexual abuse statistics and stories kind of makes the days a little grayer. It's like a Law & Order: SVU marathon, only without Ice T or that nice feeling when the bad guys go to jail at the end of the hour.

Feeling shitty about your day? Maybe nothing is going right for you lately and you just want to catch a damn break. Consider volunteering your time with people who need it and you might notice that you don't have it so bad.

Cross your fingers!

So I'm going on another date with that superhot guy again. We chatted on the phone a few times, but I got the feeling that he wasn't really into me as much as I was into him. I went on a few dates with some other guys over the past few weeks, but I don't like them as much as him. Tomorrow I'm definitely going to convince him that we should totally be boyfriend and girlfriend.

Some Light Reading

The Carnival of Career & Job Advice is up at Ask the Career Counselor. My losing my job post is in there somewhere, amidst some really excellent, helpful posts on just about anything job-related. It is highly recommended that you peruse the selection.

Debt free say wha?

So I'm reading this book, Debt Free by 30. No joke. I'd really like to believe that I can be free and clear of debt in a scant 8 years, but that is an awful long time from now.

How, you ask, does my level of indebtedness have anything to do with being a good human? Well, as I not-so-subtly alluded to before, if, as my Papa would say, I don't have 2 pennies to rub together, there's no way I can make good on all my grand promises and ambitions of good humanity. I can get so bogged down with fear that I'll never pay off my loans that I can't even take action to help myself, let alone anyone else.

(That was some sloppy sentence structure right there. Do me a favor and read it as if I were speaking to you and all those awkward word choices and comma placements will just seem like the charming idiosyncrasies of our conversation.)

You should know that I'm not a personal finance expert by any means. Take nothing I say as sound advice, except for the part when I say that you should ask someone else. I put bar tabs on my credit card in college. Drunken calzone binges, too. I shackled myself to a 6.75% fixed student loan interest rate to save $150 off my monthly payment but added thousands over the long run. I'm dumb as hell.

I'm about 1/3 through Debt Free by 30. Right now I'm lurching through a section on investing that I'm not prepared to handle yet. But the first section, that was really helpful. Would you believe that in all my "Just put these car bombs on my tab!" financial experience, I never really thought about looking at what I spend my money on? Shocking.

This book gives a thorough list of all possible expenses, including fixed bills like rent and cell phone to flexible spending like groceries, going out, and cable. All I had to do was open up my checking and credit statements for the past 3 months and add up what went where. I used the calculator on my phone for the hard stuff.

Now here's why I'm so evangelical about it: because of all this financial evaluation, I found a way to save over $300/month without significantly changing my lifestyle. That means no extra roommate, no getting rid of my cell, no passing up an invitation to go out. With an extra $300, I can eliminate the credit card debt in like a second, make a bigger dent in the student loans, and support causes I care about. I do love winning, especially if that means that Bank of America loses.

Maybe this won't help you. Probably because you're not a dumbass like me and you already keep pretty good track of your spending. In that case, do a blog search of "personal finance" and good luck to you with the results. There are some pretty smart people out there who aren't making nearly enough money on AdSense.

Pros & Cons: New Year's

Pro: Evaluating yourself and setting goals for improvement
Con: They're the same damn goals every year

Pro: Kissing at midnight
Con: Vomming around 2 or 3

Here's a quote I read in someone's away message one time and just remembered: Champagne for my real friends; real pain for my sham friends.

What did you do for New Year's?

I went on a dinner-and-a-movie date with the bf. We saw Juno, which is good, if a bit simplistic. And no 16 year old talks like that. They're simply not that clever. All my home friends think I'm crazy for not going to Times Square. I don't really understand the allure of being fenced in like herded animals, standing around in the cold. I also don't really get the ball drop. What's that all about anyway?

2007 was a pretty big year for me.
-I officially became the most educated person in my entire extended family by graduating from college. That was kind of exciting. Then I moved away from almost all my friends and fam and now it's kind of boring.

-My bf and I hit the 3 year mark and escaped all the "When are you two gonna get hitched?" questions unscathed. (One time, we went to our local big-box store and we were waiting in the checkout line and I put my arms around him and gave him a big kiss because we do that and everyone always gags and tells us to get a room. Then this guy came up to us and tapped on the bf's shoulder and handed him a business card. He said, "You look so nice together. Give me a call if I can be of service." And his card identified him as a pastor. Creepy! And very sweet! I found it in the bf's stuff while we were packing to move here and got all misty that he kept it. True story.)

-I gave my little sister a great xmas that she bragged to all her little friends about.

I never really make New Year's resolutions because think they're kind of lame. Or maybe I'm kind of lame. I dunno. Here is a half-hearted attempt:

1) Find a way to pay my bills. Whether that's getting a job, opening a brothel, or selling my eggs, I don't really care. The sooner the better.

2) Drink less pop. It's a sick, sugary addiction that I kicked once, only to have it come roaring back. Yuck.

3) Volunteer my time in person. I'm still excited about the RAINN online hotline, although I haven't finished the training yet. But I'd like to, y'know, interact with live people. I used to spend so much time at work and now in my job search in front of a computer. It makes my eyes burn and also makes me forget how to converse with people right in front of me. Which reminds me:

4) Multitask less. Paying a little bit of attention to 800 different things doesn't get any of them done. I can see that when I'm being objective about it, but I have a hard time doing anything about it.

Not a very exhaustive list. Do you have any good resolutions that I can piggy back on?