Monday, April 21, 2008

Talkin' bout my g-g-generation

The generation that I'm in - Generation Y, if you want to call it that (and have me shoot myself in the balls!) - is an interesting group. Far from the "Greatest Generation" of WWII era veterans in a hopeful existence filled with tranquility and pink houses and suburbs and all the rest, we're a self-absorbed bunch of self-medicated-and-self-psychoanalyzed idiots, all speaking out loud like we're starring in our own John Cusack film, walking through the narrative of our daily lives like it has any gravity at all.

Not that i'm any better. I analyze every move I make 30 times before I make it, first checking with friends and select coworkers about the best course of action. We're afraid of our own shadow, scared to offend, or stand up, or... do anything on our own. Which seemingly runs counter to the very American idealism we tend to espouse.

We hate ourselves, pray we don't become like our parents, seek immediate answers to long-term problems (dating sites will be the downfall of this nation's relationships... believe it) and live in a culture which places a premium on replacing difficult parts of life, not fixing the problem. Hole in the dam? Buy a new dam! Car have a flat tire? Buy a new car! Problems with the wife? Match.com will give you 6 months at only $16 per! Find a new wife!

I'm just sick of it. Probably because I'm so wrapped in the same cloth that I so despise.

Sigh.

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Birthdays, mortality, and The End

Forgive me a little self-indulgence, if you please.

I turned 29 today. As in, one year from 30. 9 from 20. 11 from 40. 21 from 50.

29, in all respects, should not be a "big deal" birthday (my list is as follows: 16, 21, 25, 26, 30, 40, 50). However, in my family, the DW men do not last beyond 60. They just don't.

So am I looking at my midlife crisis? This is the question I've been pondering all morning.

Perhaps it's best that I haven't heard "Happy Birthday" from many today. I'm having a lot of trouble seeing what's so "happy" about it.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

There are some crazy people in this world.

Is this news? Hardly.

Somehow, a couple months back, while at work, I got on the Internet Trail of New World Order conspiracy theorists that believe, among other things, that the Washington Monument's height is perfectly divisible by '666', that Washington DC is laid out as a pentagram, and that Denver International Airport, our beloved DIA, is to be the central headquarters of the New World Order once the Illuminati comes to power and begins washing our brains of truth.

I don't know where to begin, either. Although I'm starting to think about a trip to DIA to disprove a lot of these theories... they just seem too crazy.

Yes, there's an underground train going from terminals to concourses. Yes, there are a lot of fences and steel and "holding cells" for things like baggage, different departments of airline headquarters, etc. Seems like most of it is an overreaction to some very basic airport infrastructure to me.

However, some of the claims, about the Masons and some sculptures, paintings, etc., are interesting (which is why I ended up on these trails to begin with).

Want to waste an hour or two without knowing you're doing so? Check This Out:



Then, class, do some Google searches. "Denver International Airport New World Order," "DIA murals," etc.

Why would I write about this if I don't believe in, well, any of it? Mostly because I'm fascinated by human nature. I'm fascinated that people would look so deep into a mural at an airport (which the artist says is just about environmentalism in an article HERE) and see all these horrible atrocities, amazed and stunned that someone would take the above video and really believe that a warehouse and a bunch of abandoned land would be used as, essentially, a concentration camp.

Just makes me laugh.