Everyone knows who George Carlin was.  Not everyone liked his particular brand of humor, which was always sharp and punctuated with crisp four-letter words and divergent thoughts, but to me it wasn’t always about his humor.  What I liked about Carlin was how razor sharp his mind could be.  How he took everyday topics and shone a light down upon them, making them brighter and more defined, and forced you to look at them in ways you never thought about.  He was a master of logic and thought, and never let even the small details go unnoticed.  No one was safe.  Nothing was safe.  Everything and everybody was fair game.

And he was right. 

I’ll repeat that:  He was right.

No one pushed the envelope more than George.  No one had more balls.  The greatest comedian in my lifetime.  One of the greatest thinkers ever.  An inspiration to me most definitely, and many millions of others.  One of the smartest people who ever lived.  Ever.

The whole world is dimmer somehow…

Carlin on language.

Carlin on environmentalism.

Carlin on religion:

Carlin on voting:

Carlin on intelligence and fat people:

There are so many more moments.  Do yourself a favor and watch them all.

Bye George.  We miss you already.

At the time of the purchase, I was looking to buy the new Mazda 6. It had just come out, in 2003 I believe, and I saw one and liked it, so I zoom zoomed over to the local dealer for a test drive. Loved the car, hated the price. At the same time, I made a few parking lot drive-bys of a local Ford dealership looking for a deal. In the end, it came down to a brand new $30,000 car, or a two year-old $10,000 car. I opted for the practical route, and although having the new flashy car would have been cool, the Taurus is now completely paid off and still runs great. I made the right decision. Maybe…

The car is affectionately referred to as the Oldmanmobile, a reference to the fact that a giant family sedan with significant body roll and very conservative appearance is not really the chick magnet car that a 30-something single guy flaunts. It’s also not very descriptive of my personality, at least not that I think. It is, however, very dependable. It gets OKish gas mileage and has no major mechanical defects, despite the fact that it will likely turn over 100K this year. It’s easy and cheap to insure and has enough power to motor up and down the mountains without too much effort. And it’s big enough to score big pedestrian points without suffering too much damage should I go road-rage postal and decide that those missionaries and that old lady are SO not crossing in front of me today. Ha HA! Not that I would ever actually do that. Of course.

Even so, why is it that others don’t respect my property? I know my car isn’t a shiny new pearl, but it’s not a haggard old beast either. The disrespect and common stupidity that people demonstrate is abhorrent. Case in point:

This wonderful scrape mark, which is actually quite large and not really depicted well in the picture, was courtesy of my old neighbor Steve. Steve was a huge, fat, disgusting 400lb piece of shit dumbass who did nothing useful with himself except drink beer and cavort loudly on his balcony at all times of the year. Did I mention he lived directly above me? Do you know what it’s like to have a 400lb man live on the floor above you? Even in the deadest of winter, you could find fat Steve sitting outside on his balcony at 3 in the morning, belching along to his hee haw country station, stopping only to take a quick jaunt over to the 7-11 nearby to pick up another case of Milwaukee’s Beast. Fat Steve was kind enough that when he finally got evicted, he managed to hit my car (in the next stall over) with his U-Haul trailer as he pulled out, making the scrape you see here. I only noticed it later in the day as I prepared to leave for work. Had I caught fat Steve in this little deal, I’d have broken his legs and shoved that U-Haul trailer up his ass. I’m sure it would have fit with room to spare.

This second dent is only a couple days old. I came out of a Home Depot to find this lovely bit of wanton destruction waiting for me. Obviously, some careless person or their evil spawn opened a car door into my passenger side. This sort of thing happens sometimes, but what struck me was the effort that must have been put into it. This is no ordinary door ding. This is a massive dent right in the reinforced part of the door. Someone really had to take a good back swing and put some force into this one. Again, had I caught the perpetrator, violence could quite possibly have ensued.

Of course, it’s not their car that got smashed. Had it been their car, they’d have been pissed off. Probably wanted to have a chat with the guilty party, or at the VERY LEAST, a small note with an apology. “Dear person: I’m sorry that I’m a huge waste of perfectly good breathable oxygen and a burden to the intelligent people of the world, but I unfortunately let little Timmy open the door to my 2008 Cadillac Escalade too swiftly and he’s put a small scratch on the door of your… um, silver car old thingy. Please accept my humble apologies, and rest assured that Timmy will get a stern look from his father someday.”

If only that were reality. Alas, it is not.  No respect for other people’s property.