On being Global Citizen with an American identity and a Latin Heart

Preamble
Please know this post has been typed entirely with my thumbs on an iPhone in a hotel in Mexico City. What follows is a post about being a global citizen. It is not entertaining as I hope most of my posts to be instead what follows are the reflections of an American citizen and world traveller. Please note that I use the word 'patriot' in the post and do so with honesty and without pride. The following perspective presents a fond affection for America and the World beyond, specifically Latin countries. This post is not well suited for American nationalists or anti-American practitioners.

Amble
My trip to Mexico City is almost done. I fly out Sunday to head back home. As I write this it occurs to me that the more I travel the more I appreciate both foreign lands and my country. I would consider myself an American patriot by choice. For many intellectuals and people of great intellect this choice may be seen as unintelligent or nationalistic, as if by being an American patriot I am proud of the horrible or dumb shit the US does; I am not. 
I have grown accustomed to a certain lifestyle and culture. The US embraces individualism more than other countries I've been to, at least as a general rule. In the States, I feel that people are often judged more for their accomplishments than for their connections or charisma. Of course the general population of the US is not without their adamant first impressions or biases (which still manage to fantastically infuriate me) but my Life has been about self-redefinition and I have been fortunate to be successful in each transition. To be able to choose my Life and succeed at each step is a blessing. 
In the US, if I don't like something I can change it (not all the time, but often enough) either by communication or quitting one thing to start another. To many this endeavor would be applauded as 'gumption,' 'moxie,' 'initiative,' or 'drive.' In the US, if I fail at something I can do it again even if I have to move to a different place in the country. It is easy to move around in the US, and despite a fantastically varied political and religious climate, over 95% of all Americans I've met respond well to an honest 'hello' and a firm handshake. In some instances it is wise to continue conversation no further and I wait the waters long enough to get a sense of the local tide of people's politics and mood before speaking openly. I find this wise in any situation and country. 

I am American by my devout pragmatism and celebration of the individual and cultural variety. I welcome and bless the concept and discussion of new ideas. I believe that a human can recreate, define and mould themselves and that this is a necessary journey before any human could call themselves an adult, even if the chosen mold is the one already present or in effect. I believe in the strength of the individual and the ability of one person to make a difference without requiring all people to make a difference, because depending on the scope of affect I think all people already do. 
Yet all this industry and self sufficiency has created a distant, mistrustful or angry social culture. I have certainly been no stranger to this nor an innocent bystander, and there are certainly pockets of Americans who are as warm as the sun in an August field. However, after my trips to Brazil, Spain, Italy and Mexico, I would say I have a Latin heart. 

Maybe it's the left ventricle or upper aorta. Hell, maybe it's the anterior, lateral cochal with a side of mitral valve. Wherever or whatever it is, I do know there is a certain openness, humor, humility, and joviality to each of the different friends I have made in each of the Latin countries. It should also be stated that my data is skewed and may be naively formed based on the small sampling size of Latin citizens I have met worldwide. However my sampling size of Americans is large and spans multiple coasts, biomes and states which brings some legitimacy to these feelings. 
This of course detracts not an inch from the amazing Americans I have met who have a home in the fondest berths of my heart. 
It occurs to me that I am part Latin because certain social norms. 
First) Vulgar humor is the norm in Spain, Mexico, Italy and Brazil. I don't mean mean or angry humor. I find no joy in that. What I am writing of relates more to dirty jokes and liberal uses of slang because it's fun to cut up and let loose, not for any lack of self-respect or intelligence. I have had the opportunity to work with some of the most intelligence people each country has to offer. 
Second) Greetings and goodbyes are warm. In these countries the men give a vigorous handshake or a hug, or both. An informal quality can be quickly established without question. 
Third) Passion and vivacity. This reason is currently more ambiguous in articulation as the description itself is ambiguous. I can't say American adults are known for laughing aloud, especially in public as if a rule exists about avoiding it. In Mexico at a business meeting where large sums of money have been exchanged, professionals can still be found to laugh out loud and exchange a few jokes. 

For these reasons and more I am happy to be aware of and to occasionally take part in Latin cultures. For the reasons of celebrating the strength of the individual, the industry of business and ability of an individual to guide her/his destiny I am happy to be an American. 

I am grateful to be a citizen of the world and have my home in the US. 

An Apartment Tour

A viewing of my apartment is long overdue. For over a year I have
referred to it in many forms from the modestly self-deprecating
"improbably small" to the more sarcastically self-deprecating "I just
found a shoebox. This will make a great lean-to." Of course, when a
worldly view is taken, my apartment is described modestly as "not that
bad" and when seen against the most ravaged areas of the world it is
described with blunt vulgarity as "pretty fcking good" or as described
with a rated G vernacular "a king's palace." While not all of these
descriptions are correct they do all give a nod to it's relative place
in the world and I hope with whimsy or humor.


I've given the topic of displaying my apartment great thought. Do I display the inherent glitz or glamour of living in LA, which is missing from my apartment? Perhaps I showcase the with an artistic air only an illustrator / programmer could. Maybe, a nod to the great mystery novelists of Los Angeles, Raymond Chandler and James Ellroy, is in order. I've decided on an amalgam of the last two. What follows are photos in the style of artistic mystery. All photos were taken using low light to enhance the thrilling excitement found in a good mystery novel, with avant-garde compositions to reflect my artistic nature. This exciting expose was shot at night with the lights off.

The first image in the series is taken at night with the lights off. Notice the slanted perspective, the daring contrapasto of line and shape. Is that a shadowy figure lurking with ne'er a thought of charity? Or is it the top of my bunk showcasing a new, softwood portable shelf I designed? It's the shelf of course! It's hard to see in this photo but the shelf and feet of the shelf were joined with handmade dowels. The shelf has yet to be finished, but already the quality of a solid 4" x 10" x 2' board can be appreciated.

This second picture adds further mystery with an ominous red light. It's placing is daringly off center creating a heightened anxiety to an already riveting composition. The light draws the viewer in forcing him or her to ask "Is that a laser sight for a sniper rifle? Is the picture's hero figure about to be iced by a government conspirator?"
No! That's a picture of the smoke detector inside my apartment at night with the lights off. The red light means you know it's working.

The third picture is dark, smokey, filled with a dread foreboding brought to silently thrilling life by the silent juxtaposition of decanted angles and bold chiaroscuro. The viewer is often heard thinking silently to herself: "Oh god! what fell thug waits in the shadows just beyond the door?" The answer?
Why just to the left of the door is a framed series of etchings tastefully framed. If you look closely to the right of the door, you'll see custom made blackout curtains adding to the ambience of a photo taken at night with the lights off.

This last photo required me to really stop down to f64 and focus on resculpting the available light to describe a haunted scene. The lens choice was a prime with post-expressionist tendencies creating veritable Manet zeitgeist.

Two Circumstances

:: Necessary Preamble ::
   Greetings... I've been remiss as of late in sending out updates of the postings. The last mass messaged posting related to an impending time zone change for the city of San Francisco. This was my addition to this year's April Fools tomfoolery. Shortly after that I posted a follow up blog describing where exactly the comedy was in the April Fools day post. This later followed by a rousing post about the taste of oatmeal and which artistic endeavor was most similar to the bland sludge that is McDonald's oatmeal.



There have been many goings on of late. Work is going well. I have a distinguished collection of vodkas, which I hope, would be proof to anyone with even an inclination toward the clear, Russian indulgence that Grey Goose is not the best in vodkas. Some people are snooty about beers, and many more about their wines, whereas a few of us (outside of Russia) prefer a sip or two of vodka chilled from the hoary frost of the darkest tundra (aka your freezer, in modern parlance).

In the past year I have travelled to strange lands (Las Vegas) and foreign shores (Madrid and Berlin/Potsdam). I have slain mighty beasts (the little flies that accumulate in the garbage when you forget to take it out) and constructed a chamber so sumptuous as to light the hidden fires of even the most modest of women (it’s a nice bed really made from 2”x6” boards with a lovely, embroidered fabric on top... and its affect on the elegant gender... ummm, I may have indulged in just a wee amount of hyperbole... okay, I lied. Totally.)

The First Circumstance...
Two new circumstances are occurring in Life at this moment that seemed to have crept out from nowhere. I’m often a rambling, roving, unsettled kind of guy. I’ll move one place for a while then another and another and another, never staying long enough to leave an indelible mark on the physical location but just long enough to make lifetime friends. With as much moving as I’ve done, I can do that pretty quickly by now. Don’t worry, it’s not a race, but I would totally win. With all seriousness, or at least as much as I can muster, I’ve decided to chart one of these very important, newly arrived, Life circumstances using a rubber chicken graph. The first newly arrived circumstance is that of nesting. The rubber chicken graph below clearly explains my nesting trends over the past eighteen years.

“The Rubber Chicken Graph, originally conceived by Steve Martin. In this graph we see the largest rubber chicken with boxing gloves represents the nesting trend while in California. It’s important to note the position of the cloud in relation to the sun.”

The Second Circumstance...
The second, and equally impactful Life circumstance to surface recently, is an old habit which I’d enjoyed most of my Life and over the past 10 years I’d lost track of, my art. I won’t write much about it as conversation about art is never a good replacement for art.
The first set of illustrations are a series of portraits I’ve been working on

The next set of illustrations shows a progression of images from initial sketches to current state.

~ Game Art ~
Some friends and I are working on a game for cell phones. What follows is a series of illustrations from the early art phase of the game. The first set is a series of random character studies.

The next set is from the same game set, but are a series of vehicle illustrations.

~ A Tattoo for a Friend ~
A friend of mine has asked me to design a tattoo for him. It will eventually end up on his right arm. It is based largely on symbols used throughout the Dark Tower series, by Steven King. It's still a work in progress, as are most of the illustrations in this post, but it's a welcome start to an old practice.

Lastly, the beginning of what may, or may not, turn out to be a comic... (done with pencil, and art markers on watercolor paper)

Food Slurry, in my mouth...

At the airport...
    So I'm here at LAX with plenty of time to spare for my 1:30a flight. I am happy to have been able to select emergency exit row seats for both seats. I asked about the cost of first class from LAX to MEM and the airline saw fit to ask for $1100. I saw fit to decline. As per food at the airport at 12:31a I haven't decided if McDonalds being the only place open is added insult to the cost of first class, or if that it's open at all is a blessing in a day that has otherwise been extraordinarily long and perhaps even grueling. 
In an eleventh hour save, McDonalds is apparently now offering oatmeal. It looks like lumpy glue and tastes like water with wood pulp. Fortunately the overpowering mixed flavors of blandness and gluey water pulp are occasionally broken up across the slow slide along my taste buds with short bursts of fruity parts. Yay fruit. 
Were I to compare the flavor of said oatmeal to art, or an artistic attempt, I admit to being lost for an adequate comparison. It's not like the following things:
1. A child's drawing - this art has varied acceptance in the art world and even without it decades of pseudo acceptance this art form still possesses chaotic lines, drastic colors and sometimes a failure to define a central composition making it far more exciting than the taste I'm currently trying to forget. 
2. The Dada movement - eventhough a toilet, a shovel and graffiti are accepted objects of art in this movement, this art also represents a move toward celebrating counter-culture and general silliness. This would be as if someone created Jesus pancakes, gave him a curly mustache and topped him with M&Ms: clearly more exciting than mouth gruel. 
3. Impressionism - I weep to think it's possible to compare what I'm eating to such beautiful art. After checking the dipstick in my tear wells I find that I am not crying and find therefore that this comparison is not possible. 
4. Cubism - I am admittedly not a fan of cubism but still think there's more thought behind the execution of this art than the quantifiable amount of flavor failing to slake my tastes at this moment. To further prove this point, the Cubist movement did generate Picasso's "Guernica" and that's pretty damned great. For some reason, if Cubism were translated into food, I think it would feature grilled, flayed asparagus. It's textured, bold, continental and straddles that line between tasty and healthy very well. 
5. Russian Literature - This one is getting close. Russian literature is depressing and can leave the reader wondering aloud "Why God? Why?!" I wondered this same thing while spoon feeding myself what I continued to reassure myself was healthy and character building. However depressing Russian lit as an artform is, it's still intelligently crafted, moving and well respected for its artistry and passion. 
6. John Singer Sargent & The Muppets - any comparison of either of these to the ill-textured gloppy-gloop, now passing into the temporally abstract space of memories while causing little to no impact in the digestive processes, is just plain ridiculous. 
7. Self-indulgent art - this is worse than the oatmeal, but still more exciting because of the existential peril inherent in self-indulgent art. 

Wait!! I think I have a comparable visual media whose roots grow, however long ago, from an artistic source: paparazzi photography. It's bland, bleeds together and occasionally

First Trip to Vegas

          Vegas is a tiny wellspring of hearty diligence, an oasis of the bacchanalian senses along a street known as "The Strip." It might be five miles long, but then again, if you're counting the miles along The Strip you're not the target demographic for Vegas' main industry, monetized gratification. Vegas is what I thought LA would be. In comparison, my experiences in LA have been tame. Driving down The Strip, in Vegas, has more excitement, flash and pizazz then I honestly was expecting. This city built on the power of neon attraction. As an exotic dancer reveals the wonder and fullness of her breasts, Vegas opens herself wide for the neon show down under beneath. It is a neon rose whose synthetically velvety petals bloom full with the varied colors of lust for money, power, sex, escape, food, importance and stature, all blooming full in varying degrees of each. In its lesser displays of desires immediately gratified, Vegas can entertain a tame or moderate sense of lust bringing an often enjoyable passion to a day or trip. The desire for great food, new shows, a little extra pocket cash and beautiful people are mainstays of human desire in a society that can afford them. I make it a habit to wonder about the very nature of things, as if to divine their unique characteristics into one definition. To that end I posit there's something more to Vegas than the electric sex of neon lights promising orgasmic payouts from the loosest slots. A brief scan of American television programming should dispel all question about our need for Vegas to exist and can even give a glimpse as to the nature of the role that Vegas serves for us, as a nation. Vegas is, as I can see, America's DIY, personalized reality show. It has all the makings for it, easy access to: risk, sex, food, and other people blindly seeking the same thing in close confines of each other. Is your life missing a spot of drama? Need to invent a little fury, chaos, joy or sadness to make meaning out of Life? Perhaps you need to create an obstacle and then overcome it? Vegas baby... In Vegas, you star in your own reality show, YouTV. For most people visiting Sin City, one episode on YouTV is gambling.

Gambling
Personally, I hate gambling. Hate it. With a roiling, intrinsic fury I hate gambling. I hate the uncertainty. No... that's not true. I hate the certainty that I'm going to lose my money. After even a cursory review of 'the odds' at winning in Vegas, I can not spend my money on that. I have nothing against gambling in a moral sense. Gambling is nothing where there is no one to act on it. Gambling is just one of those things that people praise when it pays out and scorn when it runs them dry. I am no fickle friend to gambling. I am no friend at all to it, except I guess for my $3. I was staying at the Treasure Island hotel last week, on official business for work. During my stay I did approach and court a slot machine, one among many of the herd of silly play toys. This being my first forray into gambling I learned a few things real quick. First, as you approach a slot machine you run the gauntlet of the slot machine's manipulative foreplay: the casino floor. The casino is designed to keep you in. There are no clocks on the walls. All clocks are swept clean from even the memory of the casino floor. Bright colors, fight for your attention over the flashing lights and clamour of almost winners so close to winning they come close to blowing their load of cash on the very next bet. For slightly serious gamblers and beyond, the alcohol is free and delivered by women in short skirts; that's a one-two punch: a pair of gams delivering the happy juice. With ample inebriation and disorientation, the casino has you set up for the slot machine to knock you down. Slot machines are jealous, joyless bitches. They wear the prettiest faces, tease man and woman alike, sound bells of conciliatory odds in place of guaranteed payouts and create an aura of pretty, shiny, want-to-touch. The draw is visceral. But like a toxic lover, former or current, the payout is almost never worth the time and money invested.
Despite, or because of, this amazing stigma and sacred place our society has for Vegas, and gambling in Vegas, I decided to partake, to test the waters and have an experience I had not had before. I sat down at a slot machine. I don't remember which one but only vaguely where it is in relation to the elevator bank at the edge of the casino floor. I had three dollars and decided I wasn't going to waste my time on chump change bets. None of that coin crap for this high-roller. I was going to bet all three dollars in one place because I wanted the bigger payout, and wanted to get to sleep faster. So, I found one that took dollar bets, added my three and pushed the button. I remember for a brief moment looking for directions and guidance on how the payout scheme works, and how to tell if I'd won. I learned that any cash payout above $1500 has to be handled at the change counter and is not paid out in a flood of canvas bags each with well worn dollar signs on them. My gambling experience was a comedic non-event. These are the exact steps of my gambling experience:
1. read directions
2. look for place to insert money
3. insert money
4. push button
5. go back to bed.
Within five seconds of pushing the "GAMBLE ALL THREE DOLLARS YOU CRAZY TEXAN" button the machine went silent without performing any magical feat of pulling money out of thin air, from behind my ear, or even from it's own money tray. So it sat, lights flashing, sounds abuzzing beckoning the next taker to place their bets. It's like the machine didn't even notice me sitting there. There was no hug or even a hint of a shoulder shrug or 'keep your chin up champ' speech. As easily as I was forgotten from the machine's cognition I started chuckling to myself. What was I expecting after all? I gave a machine money with no pre-arranged agreement in place that it would return all, part or more than I had given it. Like a terrible lover, it took my money without blinking and made not even a motion to console me. So, in this episode of my DIY Reality Show, I bet it all and had nothing to show for it. Drama.

The Luxury Hotels
Vegas is enormous and yet all the enormity is encompassed in a small section of a small city. I say Vegas is enormous because when experienced from what appears to be the most locally common form of transportation, the human foot, The Strip stretches on beyond normal limits of the human attention span. Impeding the limits of the human attention span is the intricacy and planning and partially comendable skullduggery with which each blaring speaker, neon sign, lewd poster, flashing marquee, outdoor coverband, and alcohol vendor is placed. But forgive me, these are just the intruding sights to see at ground level. Look above street level and you'll fall humble or greedy at the colorful, windowed mountains sitting idly, bright and gaudy yet all the while immovable and silent. They are as mountains built to reflect our desires and our deepest wishes while being just as out of reach to us as those same desires and wishes. You can see the mountain tops and even walk to its street-corner base and as long as you remain at the base you'll never be able to reach the top of the mountain. You could crane your head, squint an eye and hold your arms in a position just so and from that one very specific and limited view you could say you've reached the top and achieved your dreams and yet in the next minute when you close your hand around the mountain to embrace your moment you'll capture naught but air and an invented memory of greatness. These mountains of Vegas are the luxury hotels.

Art
Try as hard as the bohemian, anti-establishment sentiments of artists may, art will always follow money. Vegas is a strong, proud and jaw slackening example of how art thrives in a culture of money. I hope to return to Vegas numerous times to witness more of this in its highly unexpected manifestations. The one place I was able to see art thrive beyond mere means of survival was at The Wynn, and specifically at bar / lounge combination of the Parasol Down and the Parasol Up.
The Parasol Down is a delightfully enchanting bar sitting in a nook surrounded on either side by grand circular stairs. In an attempt to describe the Parasol Down in a sentence or, to be succinct about the environment created by Parasol Down; It is a vivid explosion, in red, of Victorian decor sensibilities, magnified by the vibrancy of the world through a child's eyes and nestled in a private nook between two grand staircases. If you do believe in, at least the possibility of, a world slightly removed from our own and wonderously inexplicable, the Parasol Down is surely then a mirror to a world whose heart beats with a living imagination. Above the grand stairs, in anticipation of rain that will never come or an unexpected precipitation of fabulous, hang gargantuan parasols of bright colors, shapes and designs. Imagine the color and heart of Seuss with the fantastic imaginings of Tim Burton; these are the great parasols that mark the bar / lounge combo. The Parasol Down creates an ambiance bigger than its square footage and is certainly a place I'll be returning to when next I visit Las Vegas. The Parasol Up, at the top of the dual, grand, circular stairs, is a lounge in the same style and serves at the conduit from / to the gambling floor. As you journey beyond the Parasol Up toward the exits here you'll find artistry as well in the mosaic floors, select botany and vivid lights.


Path through Vegas to the Other Side and a Final Olfactory Comment
With enough sobriety, when the casino floor and the slot machines can be seen for something other than their anticipated fiscal rewards, Vegas is fun. Having an appropriate sense of the clear chasms that await anyone who falls from their own grace, is one way to ensure your safe passage through. If you go gambling: never carry your debit/credit card on you, bring your own watch or timer, bring only an amount of cash you are comfortable with losing and assume it is lost before you start playing, bring friends with you who pay their bills on time and successfully manage their debt to income ratio. Vegas can be a lot of fun.

Oh yeah, Vegas sometimes smells like strippers and despair.

45 Minutes for April Fool's Day

After taking informal surveys from a few readers, it seems that perhaps my April Fool's Day joke was shrouded in too much research, or too many words. What follows is a defense of my joke meant more to explain that my article was indeed a joke. In this defense I'll even be pointing out where the comedy is.

In order to explain the comedy I'll list what was fact:


Facts...
#1. Fact: The first paragraph is entirely false
#2. Residents did, in fact, send in postcards to a Haight community betterment association. These residents also sent in postcards asking for a 45 minute timezone offset. This much is true. The call was for residents to send in ideas to make The Haight an even better place to live.
#2.a. I know all three people who sent in postcards on behalf of a new timezone. Only one of them was a resident of SF in his youth, but not of The Haight. The second person was his wife, and the third person was a mutual friend of the two
#3. The Haight is a trendy neighborhood in San Francisco.
#4. That creepy bunny in the photograph is an actual art piece sitting approximately 3 feet above the sidewalk and standing roughly 3.5 feet tall.
#5. Edwin M. Lee is the current mayor of SF and was actually appointed mayor by the San Francsico Board of Supervisors in January 2011, after Gavin Newsom became Lieutenant Governor of California
#6. Certain Bay Area communities actually target the gay community through means of entrapment via night sting operations in public parks.
#7. California is a majority Republican state
#8. The Uniform Time Act of 1966 is real and it does provide local exemptions for daylight savings observances
#8.a. I have no idea if there's a loophole that would allow any part of the US to create their own timezone
#9. There is no international governing body for time zone regulation
#10. Gary, IN does share the CST with Chicago.
#10.a. People are pretty sure why this is the case.
#11. Turn of the century San Francisco (before the great quake) was a dominating industrial, agricultural and economic force in the state and country.
#11.a. The quake changed San Francisco's future permanently
#12. The Standard Time Act of 1918 is real
#12.a. Before this legislation, Railroads were the governing forces behind standardizing time across the nation. Before trains, no one could travel fast enough across the country to require a standardized time. All clocks were set by the timing of solar noon.
#13. I once saw the remnants of a Chinese New Year parade.  I saw these remnants at night.
#14. I'm pretty sure many people regard Rep. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a horse's ass.
#14.a. I'm pretty sure many people are proud to be represented by him as well.
#15. Jean Quan is the mayor of Oakland.
#15.a. She is the first Asian American, and first female mayor of Oakland.
#15.b. Oakland is the 6th largest city in the US
#15.c. A Wikipedia article says she's a Democrat
#16. Windows 7 is an operating system
#16.a. It has been known to find new hardware though none has been installed
#16.b. It will nag you to install updates
#16.c. it will force close all applications in order to restart and install new updates
#16.d. You will lose data when it force closes applications to install new updates and restart
#17. Marc Copage was a child actor and was in the 1960's TV show "Julia"

If it's not listed above, then it ain't true.


The Jokes... those funny, funny jokes...
#1. That any city would adopt a timezone that is: a) applied only to the city and not the rest of the state, and b) that is an amount of time as odd as 45 minutes off... totally hilarious.
#2. Nasbatz... I love funny acronyms
#3. I'm pretty sure people wouldn't look to San Francisco as a place to take the moral high ground
#4. My friends and I really did write post cards to a Haight community betterment association, demanding that The Haight start its own timezone.
#4.a. We did this to help give credence to this April Fool's day joke
#4.b. We really did mail them to the Haight betterment association
#4.c. They were postage paid so it seemed like such a waste not to send them
#4.d. We sent them in over a month ago... he he he
#5. Mayor Edwin Lee's "voluminous political teet." I giggled the whole way through that section.
#6. Mayor Edwin Lee could never have passed as Marc Copage...

Edwin M. Lee: from Wikipedia

Marc Copage (right): from diahann-carroll.info

#7. That any populist rallying slogan printed on t-shirts, banners, store fronts would be as verbose as: "The Bay Area Conglomerated Cities and Municipalities are at the Height of their Combined Fortitude when the Leadership of Aforementioned Cities and Municipalities are Ratified to Unify On the Nasbatz Legislation"
#8. Teabaggers, Indibaggers and Massbaggers. That's just funny.
#8.a. I considered other states: Illbaggers, Mainebaggers, Carolbaggers, Pennsylbaggers, Arkbaggers
#8.b. Some states just didn't lend themselved well to this joke: NewYorkbaggers, Vermontbaggers, Floribaggers, Louisibaggers
#9. Though a potshot, and low hanging fruit in the joke tree, the characiturization of a teabagger was preposterous enough to be comical... I think.
#9.a. The icing on the cake in this charicaturization is the reference to "Mr." instead of "President" Obama.
#10. Timebaggers? That's just ridiculous... and therefore funny.
#11. The construction of a completely faricated history of Asian Immigrant practices to maintain time with their homelands.
#11.a. I have no proof that this happened, nor any proof that it didn't.
#12. I wish my description of dealing with Windows was more fictional. Certainly a computer can't defecate its source code from USB ports, yet.


So, that's about it.
Thanks for reading.
Sleep well.
No more jokes.

45 Minutes for San Francisco

This article has been reposted from a previously posted article about a crazy new time zone that's supposed to start, tomorrow, in San Francisco!

 
:45m for San Francisco

AP - Reuters

"45 minutes for San Francisco" is the latest political cry to sweep through San Francisco, California, and even some state's rights advocates throughout the country. In a surprising move that shocked the California political system today, the City of San Francisco will begin observing it's own time zone. With the surprising support of the California Senate, starting today, San Francisco and most of the surrounding Bay cities will be changing their clocks to the North American Standard Bay Area Time Zone (Nasbatz). This new time zone will place San Francisco, and the whole Bay Area, an additional 45 minutes behind PST.  How this shift will impact the financial and political landscape of California and our nation has yet to be seen. Many Californians were surprised by the eleventh hour push from the state legislature to enact Nasbatz. Some citizens were even unaware that Nasbatz was on the ballot. When asked to comment on why the new time zone legislation was pushed through, the general consensus among lawmakers presents a unified voice: "San Francisco needs to set a new moral standard that all Californians can be proud of. While Hollywood and Los Angeles have had decades to set this standard, the Bay Area Communities feel now is the time to proudly move forward for a better California. Step one is to further separate ourselves, in time, from our misguided brothers and sisters in the South of California. Let them continue playing with cameras while we get to business."

What started out as an innocuous series of mailings to a neighborhood suggestion poll, multiple residents initially urged the Haight (a trendy neighborhood in San Francisco) to create a new time zone 45 minutes behind the current Pacific Standard Time. Eventually this local demand caught public support, spreading like wildfire to the mayor's desks for multiple Bay Area cities: Vallejo, Berklee, San Francisco, Hayward, Redwood, Marin County, Sausalito, Palo Alto, San Jose, San Rafael and San Mateo. The Haight, long known for its bleeding edge intellectualism, and socially progressive leadership, is the home to this newest political call to action.

The Haight has always been an exceptional source of socio-political leaders for the bay area communities.

Eventually spearheaded by San Francisco's mayor, Edwin M. Lee initially took this fledgling community movement and let it suckle at his political teet until it could stand on its own. Though it can be easily observed that under the tutelage of Mayor Lee's voluminous teet Nasbatz legislation grew to  public prominence, some suggest there exists a more self-serving motivation behind Mayor Lee's voluntary teet nursing of Nasbatz.  Appointed just a few months ago, by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Edwin M. Lee was promoted to Mayor of the city in January 2011. Mayor Lee's earlier political endeavors have to date been, at best, modestly documented. As of the date of publication of this article, it cannot be confirmed nor denied that Edwin M. Lee was working under the stage name "Marc Copage" on the 1960's TV show "Julia." In an attempt to fill the well worn shoes of previous San Francisco mayor, Gavin Newsom, Mayor Lee stated that "I am a big boy now and can legislate all by myself." Some San Francisco citizens are wondering if this new time zone legislation is an attempt to secure the seat of San Francisco mayor, or if he is truly working on behalf of the City by the Bay. Said one San Francisco native: "Any mayor that frees us from the stigma of that Hollywood s__hole in So Cal is totally the mayor for me." Mayor Lee has held many discrete meetings with other mayors from the Bay Area cities, calling on their support to create a unified local government voice. An unidentified source credits Mayor Lee with the populist rallying slogan printed on t-shirts, banners, store fronts seen throughout the Bay Cities: "The Bay Area Conglomerated Cities and Municipalities are at the Height of their Combined Fortitude when the Leadership of Aforementioned Cities and Municipalities are Ratified to Unify On the Nasbatz Legislation."

Strong support for the Nasbatz legislation came from the Bay Area's LBGT community (BALBGT). To date, some of the Bay Area police forces still practice harsh entrapment policies by way of public sting operations, focused on the LBGT community. These operations are held at night in public parks. BALBGT claims that these illegal entrapment practices will be easier to spot with the additional 45 minutes of daylight. While the "45 minutes for San Francisco" slogan is the most predominant, and the "The Bay Area Conglomerated Cities and Municipalities are at the Height of their Combined Fortitude when the Leadership of Aforementioned Cities and Municipalities are Ratified to Unify On the Nasbatz Legislation"slogan is a close second among citizens, BALBGT has adopted their own variation: "45 minutes for Justice."

Legality
In terms of public support, California Legislatures are appealing to their largely Republican base in order to garner public support for the Nasbatz legislation. While California passed the law recently, It is set to take effect today at 12:45a when the time in the Bay Cities will reset to midnight. Statewide lawmakers realize the relative difficulty in passing muster on a national level. To preemptively subvert the anticipated political fallout, The state's defense of the NASBAT time zone is a two pronged offensive: a call to state's rights and an unseen loophole in the Uniform Time Act of 1966, which allows for local exemptions from DST observance.


Teabaggers unite for "State's Rights." 
Throughout the state, and even into the national political theater, Teabaggers are rallying behind this is as a clarion call to unify support for state's rights. Teabaggers from as far as Indiana (Indibaggers) and Massachusetts (Massbaggers) have planned multiple public, political sit-ins. Said one Massbagger, "You know, we're just hear doing our part to support the Constitutionally mandated rights of the individual states. This is just another attempt for our illegitimate president to push his socialist agenda on the working men and women of this great country ordained by God himself. We've brought our signs and are ready to make a raucous. You can see where my 5 year old drew a thin mustache on Mr. Obama."

Historical Precedence
There is no international governing body regulating the use, procurement and enforcement of time zones. This has made the adoption of new and creative time zones a simple matter for most nations. Even in the United States, various segments of the US adopt time zones which are counter intuitive to their geographical location. Further to the point of the San Francisco natives in favor of the new time zone (Timebaggers), the state of Indiana has segmented its time zones along political boundaries. Indianapolis and as far north as West Lafayette are situated in EST, while Gary is in CST with the rest of Chicago. Why Chicago has embraced Gary when Indiana hasn't is a curious political question which is still unresolved. Beyond these localized situations of time zone offsets, San Francisco's history with time zones is more colorful than is remembered in modern times.
The city's first discussion of time zone change started as early as the beginning of the 20th century. At the time, San Francisco was establishing its financial and political dominance in the area through its agriculture, mining and shipping connections to Pacific nations. Many of the city's Asian immigrants kept time with their town, regions or nations of birth. Even as late as 10 years after the ratification of the Standard Time Act of 1918. They maintained this temporal similarity to keep cultural ties and practices with their relatives and business associates across the Pacific. This separation of time across strict cultural lines created two distinct day cycles in the city. One day cycle was the standard day practiced by Caucasian Americans and was originally set closely to the solar time zone and eventually to PST. The second day cycle of the Asian Immigrant class almost completely reversed day for night. This large disparity in day cycles effectively created and allowed for the near unchecked propagation of San Francisco's thriving underworld and black market. While most Caucasian Americans slept during the night, some would find back alley opium dens and brothels which were open through most of the night. Though modern times have unified the day cycles into what was PST and is now NASBAT, Chinese New Year parades in San Francisco still last well into the night.

Political Opposition Responses
Mitch McConnell (R-KY), often understood to be a general horse's ass, had this to say on the matter: "This legislation once again shows the audacity of tax and spend liberals too lazy to wake up with the rest of an already lazy time zone. How will this new legislation reflect on our troops who are fighting wars abroad? This is a time to send our support to the fighting men and women of our US military. I have it on good authority that the soft on defense liberals have encumbered an otherwise conservative and law-abiding state. What the hell is a Nasbatz anyway?" Asked Rep King (R-NY), "What's the Islamic population percentage of The Bay Area?"
Jean Quan (D), mayor of Oakland, has opted to keep Oakland out of the effect of the new Nasbatz legislation, seeing the adoption of a new time zone as a possible rift inside the state. Specifically, Mayor Quan stated that her "city is an industrial and economic linchpin and has more important things to worry about than the bickering between Los Angeles and San Francisco."

The letters that started it all. 
     At time of publication, the editors at AP - Reuters were able to attain a selection of the letters from the original Haight Neighborhood letter writing campaign. These letters are being posted here.

Software Updates
In order to ready their user base, both Apple and Microsoft are expected to roll out operating system updates allowing for the new time zone NASBAT. While Apple's update is expected to be released under the name of an uncommon East Asian Panther species coated in an air of tragic coolness, the Windows update will require users to run the update as an administrator, asking when they'd like to be reminded to restart Windows every 5 - 10 minutes eventually nagging the user into submission wherein the OS will force close all applications before users have time to save their data. It is expected 1 in 8 Windows 7 systems will indicate new hardware is found, subsequently informing users they have 30 days to purchase a license for the new Windows 7 NASBAT time zone operating system update for the new time zone update operating system update system. Earlier versions of Windows operating systems will merely defecate source code out the computer's USB ports.