Today is the annual Great American Smokeout.  And don’t you love the picture they used for that linked article?  It’s like the woman with the cigarette stepped out of a film noir.  Yeah, that’ll really encourage more people to quit.

I don’t think there are any smokers who read my blog these days.  (Hell, there are barely any people of any kind who read my blog.)  But if you know anyone who is trying to quit, today is a great day to show them some support.  I’ve been smokeless for . . . Jesus, I’m not sure.  I think it’s been between 8 and 9 years.  It was tough in the beginning.  Especially when I’d have dreams that I caved and started smoking, again.  I’d wake up with the smell of cigarettes in my nostrils and horrible dream guilt.  Tthanks to lots of love and support from Mrs. Lizard King, and  a strong desire to be smoke-free, I managed to stay on the wagon.  Honestly, once you make it to about the six month mark, it gets so much easier.  Rarely ever a craving after that.  And, if you do, it’s pretty easy to control.

You do really have to want to quit.  I believe there are some people who never quit because they simply love it too much.  Me, I really wasn’t enjoying it anymore.  It was just something that I had always done so I kept doing it.  Then, I cut down to having anywhere between 0 and 3 cigarettes a day.  I did that for about two years.  It got to the point where I had 1 every other day, and maybe 2 or 3 on the weekend.  Then, one fateful winter, I contracted a terrible chest cold, and I got real with myself.  I always said I’d quit smoking by the time I reached a certain age.  Here I was three years past that mark and still puffing away.  Cutting down probably improved my health somewhat.  But I was still getting chest infections about once a year, and winded by simply running up a couple flights of steps.  Maybe it was different for other people.  For me, I had been prone to bronchitis and respiratory ailments ever since childhood.  I realized that as I got older it was only going to get worse.  Did I want to be one those people who have to have an oxygen tank next to their bed?  Or have a doctor prescribe one of those things you blow into every day to build your lungs back up?  I made a resolution right then and there as I lied sick and coughing on the living room couch.  Probably watching The Matrix, or an old Western, but I guess that’s not important.  The important thing is that I had tried quitting numerous times before and had never stuck with it.  Once, I even quit for two years and went back.  Why?  Because I was young and I knew that I would live forever.  I eventually opted for cutting down because I knew cigarettes were hurting me and I didn’t think I could quit entirely.

The last time around was different and I could feel it.  I had grown up enough to admit that smoking was a relic of my younger days.  It was so much a part of my self image, though, it was hard to imagine myself without it in my life.  So I created a new self image for myself and built a new lifestyle around it.  A lifestyle that involved not having to leave the warm comfort of my favorite restaurants to brave the freezing Chicago cold for a smoke.  In fact, Chicago winters might have had more to do with my quitting than I realized.

Giving up the habit was also helped by the changing times.  More and more places were becoming smoke free zones.  Today, with the arrival of a new warning campaign, it seems that smoking is regarded more negatively than ever.  Everywhere outside of Kentucky, that is, where I believe they actually have an Olympic Smoking Team.  At least they stopped giving out smoking breaks at the elementary schools.  That was positive step.

Each time I smell a cigarette, or see someone lighting up, a great wave of gratitude washes over me.  My wallet is very grateful, too.  Kicking the habit is without a doubt the best thing I’ve ever done for myself.

Now, if only I can give up methamphetamine.

Note:  I use an asterisk to show that there’s a corresponding footnote at the bottom of the post.  So make sure to scroll down for an extra-special treat!  Let’s try it out.*

I can’t say enough good things about Harry Frankfurt’s postmodern treatise, On Bullshit, available in a limited edition from Princeton University Press.  The 67 page book, which is little more than an essay, offers some entertaining insights into “bullshit” as a 20^th century phenomenon.  The first part of the book is the wind up before the pitch.  Professor Frankfurt establishes his argument by examining the origins of the word itself, launching into a fairly dry, rhetorical exercise.  But afterwards, the book really takes off as a piece of analytical satire.  Frankfurt first states that we have a knack for creating an abundance of bullshit out of an imposed sense of civil responsibility:

Thus the production of bullshit is stimulated whenever a person’s obligations or opportunities to speak about some topic exceed his knowledge of the facts that are relevant to that topic.  This discrepancy is common in public life, where people are frequently impelled . . . to speak extensively about matters of which they are . . . ignorant.  Closely related instances arise from the widespread conviction that it is the responsibility of a citizen in a democracy to have opinions about everything (63-64).

I feel like I could write an entire book based only on that block quote.  It doesn’t just speak to me; it BOOMS to me in the voice of John Huston.  It’s one of the truest passages I have ever read.  We pump out bullshit like little industrial factories.  I agree with the author that much of it is a product of our liberal sense of obligation, and  I would couple with that the media’s influence on us; not only from a score of news (and news-like) shows, all pointing at important issues with the attitude that any educated/moral person should be thoroughly knowledgeable about them, but also from interview/forum shows, such as Oprah, that demonstrate you don’t have to know what you’re talking about in order to have an opinion.** Our media is constantly showing us that important, interesting people all have strong opinions about . . . well, everything!  So, if we want to be like them, then we, as individuals, also need to have lots and lots of important opinions.  “I think that . . . I believe . . . It seems to me . . . If you ask me . . . , “on and on and on as the bullshit piles up in the streets.

“Yeah, and you’re one of them, Mr. Smartybutt!”

Yes I am.  Except for three important distinctions:  1)  I am me, and thus less annoyed by my own ranting than I am by other peoples’; 2) I try to restrict generalizations to myself, rather than making blanket statements about groups of people of whom I am ignorant; 3) I am constantly trying to educate myself so that when I do have the need to express an opinion, or exhort a belief, it’s based upon factual data and not just something that was told to me by somebody some time ago.

This is one of my pet peeves.  This here, check it out:

Men are one way and women are another way.

How do I know so much about all men and women?  Well, I don’t.  So let me rephrase that statement.

Men are this way.

That’s much better, isn’t it?  No?  Well, why not.  I am a man after all.  Therefore I should be able to sum up the thoughts and feelings of all those who belong to MY gender.  Let me be more specific.

Men are sex-crazed weasels who love football.

There!  That has to be the absolute truth.  How do I know?  Have I tested this hypothesis?  Have I personally conducted a scientific survey of the earth’s population?  Well . . . no.

Theoretically, an assertion like that is no different than saying “all black people like fried chicken and watermelon.”  Or, “all gay men have great fashion sense.”*** Even a neutral statement like “all women love fragrant soaps” isn’t any better.  It’s not the specific implication of these statements that’s so harmful, but the blissful ignorance out of which they’re conceived.

Let me try, again.

I am a sex-crazed weasel who loves football.

Well, now we’re getting somewhere.  I can speak with great authority on the subject of me.  Except, honestly, I’m a bigger basketball fan than football.  Also, I’m more of a fuzzy bunny than a weasel.  We don’t have time to go into the sex crazed part.  Me-yeow!

Frankfurt challenges the popular notion that bullshitting is less harmful than lying.  We all know that to be called a liar carries a lot more negative weight than to be called a bullshitter.

(T)he consequences of being caught are generally less severe for the bullshitter than for the liar.  In fact, people do tend to be more tolerant of bullshit than of lies, perhaps because we are less likely to take the former as a personal affront.  We may seek to distance ourselves from bullshit, but we are more likely to turn away from it with an impatient or irritated shrug than with the sense of violation and outrage that lies often inspire (49-50).

He defines lying and bullshitting as two, slightly varying types of misrepresentation.  A lie is a conscious effort to distort the truth.  The liar for that reason must be aware of an established truth in the beginning in order to distort it.  Bullshit, on the other hand, doesn’t have to be intentional; it can, and often does, come about due to a lack of information.  The liar sets out to dissuade you from the truth, and the bullshitter simply creates the truth.

Let’s say that I conduct a study of the world’s male population in order to prove that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels.  I then discover that exactly 98.9% of the men in China are not sex crazed weasels.  But, despite the evidence, I go ahead and present my study as showing that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels.  That is a bold face lie.  But assume that I had set out to prove that All Men Are Sex Crazed Weasels based only on the fact that I believe it to be so.  I have no need for research, since I know that I am a sex crazed weasel, and I am a man, so it only stands to reason that all men feel and think exactly like me.  Bullshitting seems harmless until you consider that at least the liar knows which facts are true and which are false.  The bullshitter doesn’t know the difference, and doesn’t care.

Not to be misunderstood, let me say for the record that I hold a sincere love in my heart for many types of bullshit.  Fiction, for instance, is pure bullshit.  All storytellers, regardless of the medium, are weaving bullshit.  Why this doesn’t offend my fragile sensibility is because of poetic license.  I know that an artist is manipulating tangible truths in order to convey an often more elusive, intangible truth.  The bullshitters I’m waving a pointy stick at are those who take their own bullshit way too seriously.  I suppose they crave recognition and praise so urgently that they can’t take the time to read a book, or whatever other actions are necessary, in order to develop some modicum of expertise to put behind their words.  And that, people, is nothing but bullshit.

*Jesus that was an obnoxious thing for me to do.  I’m such a pretentious dick.

** I like Oprah, btw.  But if you played a drinking game where you did a shot every time someone on her show spouted off about something that they know absolutely nothing about, how far off the intoximeter do you think you would score?

*** Believe it or not, I know gay men who have horrible fashion sense.  Are they the exception to the rule?  No, it’s just that no one cares what they have to say, so they don’t get a show on Bravo.

Modern Warfare 2 (and Call of Duty: Black Ops hitting shelves next week).  No argument here.  I love the Call of Duty/Modern Warfare games, but they do fit the description put forward by California.  There’s 2 games.  One of which hasn’t come out yet.

Madworld.  This one keeps surfacing in news clips about the video game debate.  It’s a black and white, cartoonish title that came out for the Wii almost two years ago.  But, again, human on human violence is depicted, so let’s chalk it up.  There’s a big 1.

Well, that’s it.  Goodnight folks!

Sort of anticlimactic, isn’t it?  I didn’t bother throwing in sports titles, since that violence, although more real than anything else out there, is never considered bad.  Also, I skipped other war titles because most of them are people shooting each other, blowing each other up, and/or knifing each other in the back.  California has said that it only takes issue with depictions of “ultra-violence.”  Of course, they never clearly define what that means.  It’s a “I know it when I see it” sort of thing.  I’m assuming they mean stuff along the lines of beating people with their own limbs, eye-socket raping, and chainsawing bibles.  The games that come close to qualifying are exempt for the simple reason that they rarely, if ever, depict human on human violence.  Herein lies my point:  most video games are fantasies in which violence is carried out against imaginary creatures, such as zombies, orcs, robots, aliens, dragons, plants, ghosts, werewolves, goblins, and an assortment of hard to describe, Cloverfield-sized baddies usually reserved for boss battles.  But no people.  Unless you count the occasional douche who joins your Left 4 Dead game and then whacks people in the head when they’re not looking.  That shouldn’t be counted since those people usually end up being kicked from the game.

The truth of the matter is that the general public is less interested in depictions of real violence and more interested in high fantasy.  At least where video games are concerned.  I love me some good video game violence, but it’s not a determining factor in whether or not I buy a game.  Of course, this case isn’t about protecting me.  It’s about protecting “our children.”  Never mind the fact that most video game consumers are between their late twenties and early forties.  I believe the most recent percentage is estimated at around 66% of the market.

I have a great idea.  If the state of California is so concerned about minors playing violent video games, maybe they should offer public seminars on how to be a better parent.  And while they’re at it, they could take a look at some of the movies Guvnuh Schwarzenegger has made.  They’re pretty violent stuff, you know?

I knew something was wrong when I got up this morning.  The sky was all blood red and I cold hear the faint sound of Jesus crying.  I walked into the next room to see one of my cats, Ruby, pointing at the PC and dangling a tea bag from her opposite paw.  She was trying to tell me something.  Unfortunately, I thought she was trying to tell me that I should tea bad the computer, so I ignored her.  I came back to the  computer later, and saw that she was reading an article about a gloating Sarah “Mama Grizzly” Palin.  I now understood Ruby the Cat’s concern.  A cat who is apparently smarter than any member of the Tea Party movement.  She and I are in the same boat.  A boat filled with dumb people who believe that drinking salt water is good for you when you’re adrift on the ocean.

I want to laugh off Palin and her tea bagging associates.  But I have this weird sense of historical deja vu.  Let’s see . . . a failed politician, laughed at by most, starts a peoples’ movement during a time of great recession and political upheaval and, ultimately, ends up running the country through fear and intimidation.  Ah, I see you want to say George W. Bush, don’t you?  I admit, it’s very close.  But no, it was Hitler.  Didn’t see that one coming, did you?  Neither did Bush Sr. when he said that Saddam Hussein was the next Hitler.  Turns out it was Sarah Palin.  Who knew?  A kingdom lost for want of a time machine.  Heavy sigh, here.

I’m just going to try to relax and save my strength.  I’m going to need it.  Like that other great American named “Sarah”, Sarah Conner, I am cursed with the foreknowledge that in a few years we will all be fighting maniacal robots.  Sure, it sounds way cool and all.  But I have a feeling it will be much harder than the video games let on.

I have to go now.  There’s a storm coming.

“Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heaven.”
Lucifer, Paradise Lost

The best part is that anyone who protests this as blasphemy shows their own ignorance. Paradise Lost is one of the most pro-Christian works you’ll ever read. Milton was blind and still managed to compose over ten thousand lines of verse to honor God. There was no braille back then, you know. You were blind and wanted to write ten thousand lines of verse about God, you had to love God way more than even those I Love You This Much statues can convey. Then, after he was done, the man wrote a sequel! Hollywood would have been all about this guy!

Studio Exec: We understand you just wrote an epic poem that will stand as the geatest achievement of your life, but . . . how would you feel about a Part II?

Milton: If the Lord guides my hand to such an undertaking, then undertake it I shall. I must also be an executive producer with a percentage of the gross.

Of course, religious or not, such a quote could ultimately inspire the neighbors to burn down my house and lynch me in the night. All the while I’d be screaming, “Don’t you see the irony? It’s a religious quote but you didn’t recognize it! HA HA!”

“Yeah, buddy. That really showed us. Now put this rope around your neck.”

Ah, well. My humor is often lost on the masses.

I guess I didn’t object to the religious nature of the quote on the house as much as that it was such a wimpy quote. If you’re going to vandalize your own property, do it with some flair. Here are a few other quotes that I would offer up as acceptable alternatives.

“I will sweep away everything in all your land,” says the Lord. “I will sweep away both people and animals alike. Even the birds of the air and the fish in the sea will die. I will reduce the wicked to heaps of rubble, along with the rest of humanity. I will crush Judah and Jerusalem with my fist and destroy every last trace of their Baal worship. I will put an end to all the idolatrous priests, so that even the memory of them will disappear. For they go up to their roofs and bow to the sun, moon, and stars. They claim to follow the Lord, but then they worship Molech, too. SO NOW I WILL DESTROY THEM!”
(Zephaniah 1:2-6 NLT)

“It’s clobberin’ time!”
Ben Grimm (The Thing), The Fantastic Four

“The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.”
H.P. Lovecraft, The Call of Cthulhu

“Abandon hope, all ye who enter here”
Dante Alighieri, Dante’s Inferno

“We belong dead.”
Frankenstein’s monster, The Bride of Frankenstein

“Woooooooooo, Baby! Woooooooo-wooooooooooo!”
Augustus “Cole Train” Cole, Gears of War and Gears of War 2

“Crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and . . . hear the lamentation of their women.”
Conan the Barbarian, Conan the Barbarian

“There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge, and I knew we’d get into that rotten stuff pretty soon.”
Raoul Duke, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

“Story of my life. The nuts are always at the other end of the bar.”
Drunk guy, The Octagon

So Dick “Head” Cheney is supporting Trey Grayson in the  Kentucky Senate race versus Rand Paul, son Ron Paul.

I’m bias here because I believe Cheney is an evil troll who has intimate relations with his own feces.  You know, like it says in the Bible?  Therefore, if he supports anything it is the duty of the human race to oppose it.

Let me break down the cons of  Trey Grayson against the pros of Rand Paul.

Con:  Grayson believes we should keep detaining and torturing terrorist suspects.  What’s wrong with that you ask?  Well, what they don’t tell you is that Grayson’s list of possible terrorists includes Conan O’Brien, creepy storefront mannequins, that kid who made Grayson’s nose bleed in third grade, people who use grenade launchers in Modern Warfare 2 online multiplayer, monkeys, ostriches, Yoda, and Grayson’s own mother.

Pro:  It’s fun to say Rand Paul’s name like he’s a character from Lord of the Rings.  “The floor recognizes Rand Paul Son of Ron Paul!  What news do you bringeth fortheth, Son of Ron Paul!”  Shit like that.

Con:  “Trey” is a really gay first name.  And not the good kind of gay like that guy who helps you through a tough break-up and then splits a pint of Ben & Jerry’s with you.  But the bad kind of gay.  Like someone who’s name is “Trey.”

Pro:  Did I mention that Rand Paul is the son of Ron Paul?  And Ron Paul is a doctor?  That’s right, you know what I’m thinking.  Free x-rays!  Just say Rand Paul Son of Ron Paul sent you.

Con:  Trey Grayson cannot get you free x-rays.  Think about that.

Pro:  Rand Paul almost held the world record score on Tron.  Critics might raise objection to cite this as a pro since he never actually broke the old record.  I say, have you ever played Tron?  That game is really hard, damnit!  Seriously hard on the higher levels.

Con:  “Trey” actually rhymes with “gay” which shows how gay he is.  (Again, bad gay and not good gay.)  In addition, if you take the letters g-a-y out of Grayson you have “gay” (the bad kind).  My my, and what letters does that happen to leave behind?  R-O-N!  Grayson’s own last name supports Ron Paul!

Oh.  That’s right, Ron’s not running.  It’s his son.  Well, it’s still an odd coincidence, don’t you think?

There it all is in simple black and white.  I hope I’ve helped to shed some light on something.  Anything really.

( . . .)

Hey, I said I’d post each day.  You know how tough it is to find things to write about?

I’m going to lay down for a while.  My head feels funny.

Bad ass.

Yeah, these modern day vamps are little girls. Literally, if you ever saw Interview With A Vampire. They need to take a page out of the book of Old Skoolers like Daracula. Oh, and that other Dracula. And, of course, there’s also Dracula.  How could I forget him.

Don’t even get me started on Blacula. I don’t want to say too much about him here. I have to save something for my MLK Day post.

“This blog is very insiteful.  I will read more of this blog.  You make valid points on things.”  <bleep click bleep>

Or how about this one:

“You have such an interesting perspective on topics.  I will read more of your topics and tell all of my friends about them.  Please excuse my many missed-spellings.  I am just a humble web person and not a robot.  End program.”

Then the other day I received a new one that has to be the worst conceived yet.  This is it word for word.

“I usually agree with your blog posts, but in this instance I ought to say that I do not share your views.”

It’s one thing to try and sneak behind my guard by using flattery.  But what moron thinks that disagreeing with me is the way to my heart?  The first thing I’m going to do is say, “Who is this moron who doesn’t agree with my brilliant views on things and stuff?”  Then I’m going to look more closely at the URL to see where they hail from or if they work for the government.  And alas the jig is up.  If you want to catch me off guard then don’t say something that will make me raise my guard.  Not that the flattery was working either, it was at least the smarter way to go.  And there’s always that second or two when I receive one of these fake complimentary comments when my defenses do flicker and I think, “Someone out there likes me!”  Then I snap back into being a creature of pure hate.  But you never know, one day when I’m vulnerable they might just fool me.  So sugar is definitely the way to catch this fly (wink wink).

Now I leave you with The Wicker Man edited as a comedy trailer.

More people need to shut the fuck up.

I know what you’re going to say.  “But Lizard King, we have been shutting the fuck up!”  Then how come you answered me?  Don’t answer again, nimrod.  Just shut the fuck up.

Here’s the problem.  There are way too many people who think they have worthwhile things to say.  Back in the day, these people would rant in their diaries and the rest of us had less headaches.  Now, thanks to my old nemesis/mistress, Technology, it’s a retarded meteor shower of opinionated assholes out there.  I can’t leave the house without getting hit in the head by one.  And they all start the same way, by saying, “IMO.” In your opinion, really?  Assuming that it is your opinion and that you haven’t borrowed it from some other asshole, why do you think it’s necessary to inform me that it’s your opinion?  I’m assuming right off the bat that it’s yours, okay?  Don’t cast unnecessary suspicion on yourself.  Or better yet, just shut the fuck up.

I took this shutting up thing to such heart that I ended up taking my own advice.  I thought, “wait a minute, I’m one more person droning on about things that are unimportant.  Mabye I should STFU!”  I stopped blogging and I kept my opinions between me, my wife, and my cats.  Now I realize that I was misguided.  I wasn’t one of the people in need of a good shutting up. You see, it isn’t everyone, just certain people.  That hadn’t occurred to me.  So now I’m offering up this simple guide of who needs to go STFU.  Keep in mind that if you’re on this list, and you comment on my blog, then you’ve already gotten it wrong.

1. Anyone under the age 25.  I know you all think that you have important things to say, but you really don’t yet.  Trust me.  By the time you do, you’ll be too beaten down to feel like sharing. So shut the fuck up.

2. Religious people.  This one is tricky.  Allow me to clarify.  If you are religious and you want to talk about anything other than religion or politics, jabber away.  You feel Jesus or whoever calling you to testify?  Then jam a squirrel in it instead.  Shut the fuck up.

3. Trekkies.  If you own a warehouse of Star Trek collectibles, go to Trek conventions, and can only get off by reading erotic fiction that takes place between Star Trek characters, then you, my friend, can have no serious opinion on anything.  So . . . ah, hell.  You know.

4. Servants of Cthulhu.  For God’s sake! Shut the fuck up before He hears you!!!

5. People who didn’t get #4.  Don’t ask me, “What does that mean, I don’t get it?”  Shut the fuck up for a minute and go look up H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.

6. My relatives.  For the love of God, shut the fuck up.

7. Avatar fans.  The movie sucked. Now shut the fuck up.

And finally, number eight.  This one is reserved that special person who reads this post and then offers up a point by point rebuttal.  You see, in actuality, this post is only halfway serious.  Number 4 on the list should have been a strong indication of that.  It’s something we here on planet Earth call “humor.”  I’m not going to tell you to shut the fuck up.  I’m really not.  I’m going to say that for you, this blog might be a little too advanced.  Take baby steps.  Go read some Erma Bombeck or Garrison Keillor.

9. Erma Bombeck and Garrison Keillor.  There wasn’t gong to be a #9, but when I typed their names, I thought, Wow, yeah.  They should be forever shutted the fuck upped.

And there we go.  A dummies guide to shutting it.  I hope that helps make the future a brighter place for all of us but mostly for me.  And I hope everyone has a great St. Paddy’s, even though it’s a complete blasphemy of a holiday.  Enjoy your green things and don’t forget to stay caught up on Lost.

Ah, hell.  I did it again.

10. Lost conspiracy theorists.  Just shut the fuck up, professor, and enjoy the damn show.

That is all.  Lizard King signing off.