RENT? WE'RE TALKING ABOUT RENT?

ONE YEAR LEASE ON MISERY Renting sucks. I've done more than my fair share of it. I rented, and lived in, four different places in Massachusetts, and five in Philadelphia. Renters have no rights. Landlords can fuck you over and fuck you over and fuck you over and it's fine. God forbid any tenant should stand up for his rights and the law is there to keep them in check. "Not so fast buddy, there are laws in place here to protect the asshole who owns your building. Come back and see us when you have some laws that protect tenants. Until then, fuck off." I had to leave my last building because of severely negligent management. They refused to fix major problems in my apartment, even when given months to do so. When I stood up for myself and decided to withhold rent until the problem was fixed, they tried to sue me have me evicted. Now, if I wanted to sue them I couldn't recover court costs. If the landlord wanted to sue me, they could. How is that fair? I am now encountering problems at my current dwelling and have been getting the same "less than speedy" effort from the management to fix them. The staff of the building says the management is cheap (as the staff at my last building also told me) as do the repair people they call to my apartment. I live in a very nice building in a very nice neighborhood. This is as good as it gets. It isn't good enough. My current landlord went so far as to tell me he's put our repairs "on the back burner," Fuck that noise. Can I put paying rent on the back burner? Of course not. There are laws to protect that. Like anything else the laws protect the people with the power and the money and not the people who really need protecting. Fuck you management, and fuck you building owner. Thanks for taking all of my money and giving nothing in return. I hope your dicks go limp. Happy holidays. INTELLIGENT DESIGN Does anyone else find it a little ironic that the term intelligent design could never been used to describe creating anyone who actually believes in intelligent design? Oh yeah, someone really thought it out before they created human beings like George Bush. They really covered all their bases. I'm sorry if reading this blog is the way you're finding this out, but there is no guy sitting up in the sky in the kingdom of heaven. He just doesn't exist. No one created a garden of Eden, threw a couple of people in there, and let the rest just happen. Besides, if there was only Adam and Eve, and they just had two boys, where did all the other people come from? Did they fuck their mother? Do I pretend to know where life originated? No. I know it didn't start on this planet. I know "god" didn't create it. And if I am wrong? If god did create life? Then there are a lot of people worshipping a sadistic, heartless, evil, asshole. That's right I said it. If god created this life ripe with poverty, war, disease, and heartbreak, then fuck him right in his godly ears. Keep your mindless "god created life and put even a fucking ounce of thought into it" theories out of the classroom. It's bad enough kids are being taught that Columbus discovered America (for white folks maybe) and that all Americans have equal rights. You want intelligent design? Invent a machine that will make Republicans tell the truth. A NEW SEGMENT I've spent 27 years being embarrassed by things my mother did. She's wonderful person and mother, she's just a little out there. I think it's high time I shared some of these moments with the rest of the world. When I was 13 my family took a trip to Yellowstone National Park. To this day it is still one of my favorite vacations ever. The park publishes a list of park activities each month so visitors can easily find things to do while vacationing there. One morning my mother woke us up and announced that we would be driving about 100 miles to participate in a Yellowstone Scavenger Hunt. What 13 year old boy wouldn't like that? The four of us (mother, father, younger brother, and myself) piled into our rent-a-car and headed out. 100 miles is no short drive, but we were excited for the big hunt and figured the car ride was well worth it. It took us a little time to find the place, but we arrived just in time to join the scavenger hunt, or so we thought. We were indeed on time, but there would be no scavenger hunt that day. My mother had neglected to understand the clever pun that the park rangers had worked into the month activities bulletin. SCATvenger hunt. What is a scatvenger hunt you ask? It's a hunt for animal shit. That's right folks, a shit hunt. The park rangers supplied each visitor with a pair of rubber gloves and a little sheet that had pictures of various animals along side of pictures of each animals' feces. In what universe is this a good (or fun) idea for an activity? We had driven 100 miles to put on rubber gloves and collect animal dung. And collect animal dung we did. I am still a fan of scavenger hunts to this day. I will however, make it a point to never collect animal shit again. Thanks Mom. IT'S THE BIRTH OF THE LORD, QUICK! GET YOUR WALLETS! A friend of mine recently informed me that during her church's midnight mass on christmas eve, that the priest had no qualms telling everyone that they would be collecting money twice that night, once because it was christmas, and once because it was Sunday. Those good hearted christians, never afraid to show their love for the birth of their savior with a cash donation. Why stop with collecting money twice though? I hear Santa's elves formed a union in the last off season and the sky rocketing cost of their health insurance is becoming quite a burden on Old Saint Nick. Also, alter boys aren't going to molest themselves and cover ups aren't cheap these days. Dig deep in your pockets christians, it's jesus's birthday. If everyone kicked in an extra dollar next year, I bet we could get a really sweet birthday cake for the big guy. Even poor kids get a birthday cake from time to time, shouldn't we all donate a little more hard earned money and get one for jesus? It's not everyday that god has a kid for cryin' out loud. No one gets to eat the cake of course. It'll just be built in his honor and then allowed to spoil before some soulless (i.e., donationless) homeless people get their hands on it. Come to think of it, next christmas, I think everyone should just clean out their bank accounts and give it all to the church. After all, they will really put it to better use. Sure you might need food, or to pay bills, but the word of god isn't going to spread itself. Since church officials seem to be the only ones who can tell christians exactly how to avoid hell, I think it's safe that next season, you can all just donate your life savings (I hear they don't except cash in heaven anyway) because jesus would have wanted it that way. Hooray for jesus! 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1...HAPPY NEW YEAR! Well folks, it's that time of year again. See you all on the other side in the big '06. Stay hungry for another big spoon full of truth.