Misery Loves... Justification

He Says:


I have, never in my life, been accused of being an optimist. The glass is half-full if it was empty before the waiter put something in it. It is half-empty if I had a full glass and someone drank it.  So I'm not one of those "life is what you make it", "every cloud has a silver lining", "turn that frown upside down" bullish spitting peoples.


Sometimes things just suck.


The question, then, becomes, what are you gonna do about it?  Are things just gonna suck, and you sit there in the suckiness and be sucky? That seems counterproductive to me. If something sucks (and not in a good way), it is completely understandable to at first be overwhelmed.  It is a natural reaction.  But why would one choose to stay there? Simply put, misery loves justification.

Misery may love company, but any house guest can overstay his or her welcome. At some point even misery prefers to be alone... But justification is a different story. Justification is the four-course meal on which misery thrives. It is the surf, turf, potatoes, steamed veggies, and quadruple-layer chocolate cake that feeds misery and keeps it both fat and strong.


I mean, seriously, if you can justify why you're miserable, you lose the will/power/focus to do anything about it.  "I don't have time", "I've tried everything" and, my personal favorite, "It's not my fault!" Every time you justify being miserable and your sucky condition, the misery inside you smiles because it is getting stronger while you get weaker.  Misery's goal is to keep making you weaker until the only victory you will be able to achieve is one that is Pyrrhic in nature.

There will always be reasons why your present condition sucks, and there will always be reasons to justify not even trying to do anything to change that present condition. But if things are so bad to begin with, what do you have to lose? And if you just tried to justify your misery because your circumstance is special, then by all means, be miserable, have a drink, and die slowly - both literally and figuratively... Just make sure you have a nice suit/dress picked out, and someone has something non-miserable to say at your funeral.

"Happy White People Day" Indeed

SHE SAYS:

On July 4th, Chris Rock tweeted"Happy white peoples independence day the slaves weren't free but I'm sure they enjoyed fireworks." And oh boy did that burn a bunch of White  folks biscuits. Why? What part of it wasn't true??

  The 1st Independence day was to declare  independence from Great Britain of primarily White men who owned property, followed by white men who did not own property and finally white women. Black people were not included in that declaration. He did not address how slavery originated, who owned the most slaves or any of the other irrelevant points people are raising.

 

Actually Chris Rock commemorated the day more appropriately than most. He made a statement about the systematic oppression of a people by their own government. Doesn't that just SCREAM 4th of July?

When White folk die or are mistreated it is a travesty of national or even global proportions. And do we ever move on from those tragedies? No. "We Will Remember" "Never Forget" If you even mention that the holocaust wasn't the greatest example of genocide, you are anti-Semitic.

White folk in America want us to forget about slavery. Guess what? We'd love to!  We have tried to assimilate for generations and just be Americans, but due to the dedication to racism that persists specifically against Blacks in this country; we cannot forget. 

 

When we forget and get comfortable we build our own profitable, self sufficient communities. And they are lynched burned to the ground. (Rosewood,Fl. 1923) When we forget and get comfortable we forget to remind our children to cross the road and not look a White person in the eye. (My Grandmother. Augusta, Ga. 1939) Our sons are killed for allegedly whistling at a White woman(Emmitt Till, Mississippi Delta 1955) . Shot at by the NYPD 41 times, killed while reaching for the wallet that holds the ID to identify himself to the officers. (Amadou Diallo Bronx, NY 1999) Or something as simple as a 13 year old boy being stopped frisked and questioned about  how he acquired his handheld video  game in his pocket. (My Nephew. Brooklyn, NY 2006)

So since Independence Day is the day that a group of people chose to declare their independence from a nation that enacted a system of oppression on some of it's people; Independence at it's core for Black people in America still has not come. Yes we've come a long way, but not far enough.

We cannot forget our history. Lest we be doomed to repeat it. And we are still recovering from the first pass. We still have to watch our backs in the nation of our birth; permanent prime suspects to a never ending crime. But much like my people before me I am hopeful, I am prayerful and I am expecting a miracle. I am expecting a true independence day for all Americans... Someday.

"It's been a long, long time coming. But I know a change is gonna come. " 

Dealing With The Devil

She Says:

Riddle me this: What do Mike Bloomberg, the MTA, The GOP and Apple all have in common?
Answer: They are all closely linked and allied if not the very Devil himself!

Bloomberg bought his way out of term limits and had become the Dictator in Chief of NYC. The MTA holds the city hostage with ever increasing fares and ongoing "service improvements" That only seem to serve to eff up most people's already hellish commutes. The GOP wants you to pay FICA and die! Why should average citizens see a doctor? But you'd better file those 1040's... Or that's your ass! But, on to my devil of the day, but very high on my list all days...APPLE.

As I type this rant I am on an iMac. An iMac that some awesome friends gave me when they crumbled and bought a new over priced Mac. I have never bought an apple product first hand. I refuse. I'm broke. Apple's rich. Everybody buys Apple..So apple don't need my money.. Shout outs to the two cool people I bought my first macs from on craigslist. Super Shout outs to Joe & D. The kind benefactors that gave me this mac for $0. And a drink or two :)

****Warning: The rest of this post will contain some four letter words. Some will find it amusing, others offensive...But I don't care. Because this is how I feel down deep in my soul. When something ticks me off, even if you don't hear it out loud I'm cussing on the inside. God hears it. So why bother hiding it from you.****

I used to love Apple. The macs were shiny, and cool. And they did cool stuff that windows did not. They had ITUNES!!! 99 cents a song! Whoo hoo! I no longer had to buy an entire 16 track crappy cd just for 3 cool songs! Genius! Oh look! Itunes works on PC. I signed up. All the while saving my pennies so That I could eventually buy my very own (overpriced but awesome) mac.

One day, and 400 dollars into my Itunes library. My hard drive died. Just died. No warning or anything just bye bye hard drive. I lost my pics and all of my music. I know they tell you to back up your itunes. You are supposed to back up everything. But who actually does it before their first computer meltdown? No One. That's who.

So I do the logical thing and call Apple. I tell them my story, and ask them to explain to me how I can download my music again. They say that I can't. But I can go to my account where every song I bought is listed and buy them all again if I'd like.
Hell No! I would not like! I would like for you to re issue my music that we both know I spent 400 dollars on. I'm sorry ma'am. We just cannot do that. There is no way we can.
That's pretty much how that stupid ass conversation went.

Those Bastards!! They  act like I asked them to ship me a bunch of CDs or a crate of vinyl. The music is digital!! Why can't they just press a few buttons. Re-digitize and send me my shit?! That is when I realized that Apple did not give a crap about it's customers.
I found "other ways" to get my music back. And I was happy. It was also then that I decided I would only buy Apple products second hand if at all possible. They don't care about me... They ain't getting my money!   Some time had passed and I was looking for a song. I could not find it anywhere. I knew I had purchased it from itunes before so I bit the bullet and went to re purchase the song. Do you know that apple had the audacity to grey out the song so that I could not re purchase it!
So... I called Apple. "Umm yeah.. sooo. I wanted to buy this song right? And Ya'll won't let me."
"Well we see you've purchased it before. So you can't purchase it again" That's when I snapped and informed the chick on the line that I would be calling back everyday, all day until someone in there let me buy that damn song again. I vowed to holler at every poor soul who answered the phone until I got digital justice. Suddenly a supervisor came on the line and said that they would make a one time exception and re issue all 400 dollars of my music to me. As a courtesy. My ass. Here's a courtesy. Be good to your customers before they turn into hollering shrews.

I have heard horror stories of people walking into the Apple store with a loose screw on a unit and being charged more that what the computer is worth to fix it or offered an upgrade on a new machine.

Just today I decided that I needed to upgrade my mac's software. I go to the website and see that the newest upgrade will be released in July. Cool. I'll get it then.. NOT so fast. In order to get the latest upgrade you have to have every one in between. I'm running leopard. Mountain lion comes out in July. Snow leopard and lion are between them. So I effectively have to buy and install two useless upgrades to get to the new one. Why? is this a punishment for not following the curve? That's like Microsoft saying you are using XP. You want windows 7? You gotta buy Vista. I know. We are not using it anymore, but we don't appreciate that you did not buy it. You were supposed to buy it. and for your defiance, we will force you to buy it.

Ain't this about a bitch. How about they just charge extra to skip upgrades? That would make sense.
Apple doesn't care what makes sense. Apple wants assimilation. Like the Borg. They want you to abandon all free thought and purchase. They want your mind, your wallet and your immortal soul. But that usually is the price you pay for dealing with Satan isn't it?

Kiss my grits Apple! I will find "other ways" to get that upgrade. My money belongs to me! My soul belongs to Jesus! And my heart belongs to PC! I'm just using you because you're flashy and easy.