Technology is awesome. Type a few obscure lyrics into google, and boom! There is the song you and your friends sang… Except songs had different titles then and the only way you can find it is going to the record department at TSS (this is 1979, ok?), and playing “Name That Tune” with the clerk behind the counter…
♫ “ONCE UPON A TIME I DRAAAANK A LITTLE WINE. WAS AS HAPPY AS CAN BEEEEE. HAAAAAAPPY AS CAN BE!” ♫
“Aw fuck I know this one. Fuck! Damn! Piss! Shit! Hey old man, get out here!”
The “old man” comes out from the back. He’s 27. The clerk is just out of high school, and I’m 14. So yeah, old man. “Sing it again”
♫ “ONCE UPON A TIME I DRAAAANK A LITTLE WINE. WAS AS HAPPY AS CAN BEEEEE. HAAAAAAPPY AS CAN BE!” ♫
The old man is like “I know this, fuck! Fuck! Fuck!!!”. I leave them to ponder this song, stuck in their head, until they stop breathing and choke on their spit, i guess…
The mystery continues for 43 years… Until today when I searched for it.
What used to be the premium site for fact-checking has become a tool for Partisan Politics
This kills me to write.
For 20+ years I was one of Snopes’ biggest defenders.
This website taught me how to read the news, urban legends, and rumors and think critically. Before Snopes, I truly believed kids died of pop rocks and soda; Elvis was a racist; Flipping on your high beams was a recipe for death from gang initiates. For the longest time, they seemed impartial and many on the Right-wing hated them because they were bitter that their BS was called out.
But now? I am beginning to believe they think life and politics hold only one perspective and anything else was “Fake News” and a possible Russian plot to make Trump GodEmperor4Lyfe. In fact, they have declared war on satire sites because they feel it’s important everyone embraces one ideology (or they think everyone is just *THAT* stupid).
So here are the following examples I have noticed where people posted a Snopes link in my Facebook comments to imply something I posted was “Fake News,” when, in fact, it wasn’t.
“There is no evidence Austin and Geoghegan were aware of any terrorist threat in Tajikistan, or that they travelled through that region particularly in order to vindicate their belief in human kindness.”
Now, this appears to be edited since the time someone posted this in my Facebook comments. It used to be marked “FALSE”, now Snopes is settling for splitting hairs over the true intention of the Millenial Cyclists, and calling it a “Mixture”. My intention of posting this was to make it clear to the many doe-eyed, idealistic morons on my friends’ list, is that the world is NOT a safe place. There are dangerous corners of the world, and not everything is like a festival in San Francisco. You venture to these places, and you don’t look like everyone else there… you will be a victim. Robbery, rape, murder, human sex trafficking, organ harvesting, kidnapping, you name it. In America, we take for granted how clean and safe our environment is. Many people think the rest of the world is that way.
Maybe you should ask a Jewish person how limited their world-traveling can be.
After someone posted this link to inform me that I was committing the grave sin of “Spreading Fake News,” I quickly went to the cyclist’s blog site where they stated the following:
” You watch the news and you read the papers and you’re led to believe that the world is a big, scary place. People, the narrative goes, are not to be trusted. People are bad. People are evil. People are axe [sic] murderers and monsters and worse.
I don’t buy it. Evil is a make-believe concept we’ve invented to deal with the complexities of fellow humans holding values and beliefs and perspectives different than our own—it’s easier to dismiss an opinion as abhorrent than strive to understand it. Badness exists, sure, but even that’s quite rare.”
If anything, this opened my eyes to a NEW kind of White Privilege. The one where you think every place is as nice as the gentrified neighborhood you just moved yourself and your gluten-free latte-maker into.
Seriously people… just be careful.
You have no idea how good we have it in America.
Solipsism kills.
“While the Yes I’m Right story was based on a New York Times article published in April 2008, the web site made no attempt to inform its readers that the incident had taken place over eight years earlier and that they were republishing a years-old story with no clarification about when it occurred…
As the incident occurred eight years ago and Turkey is an officially secular country, it’s not clear how Yes I’m Right concluded (despite the statements from law enforcement and her own family) that Bacca had been killed over religion.”
Again, like the one above, they are splitting hairs over petty details like the date of the occurrence and the possible religious orientation of Pippa Bacca’s rapist(s)/murderer(s). They concede she was trying to promote peace. Given that Turkey’s flag has a crescent moon and star in it, I would say it is not exactly a “secular country,” Snopes. According to the Turkish government, 99.8% of the Turkish population is Muslim (although some sources give a slightly lower estimate of 96.4 percent). And while we don’t know who did it, it’s pretty reasonable to assume the culprit(s) were of the Muslim variety?
“We don’t know for sure” is not the same as “nope, this is false!”. You can draw a reasonable conclusion based on available facts and evidence.
The point is, some naive “flower-power” type thought the world was like the safe environment they have always lived around and had a rude awakening. Sure this could happen to anyone hitch-hiking, but aren’t we seeing a pattern with these peaceniks going to dangerous places to “prove us wrong”, only to have the exact opposite happen yet?
Look, I have met many Muslims in my life, and most have been warm and kind. (One even brought in an entire feast for our office to share to mark the end of Eid.). I know better to paint Islamic people with a broad brush like Right-wingers tend to do… but could it just be possible, that maybe, just maybe… many of these Muslim-majority countries aren’t safe for women to be traveling alone in, given their Bronze-age views towards women?
Also, I saw “Midnight Express”.
You couldn’t pay me to travel to Turkey without bodyguards.
“However, as it turned out, the photograph was taken on 10 June 2018, but it did not show a child confined by immigration authorities to a cage. Rather, it was snapped during a protest staged in front of Dallas City Hall to call attention to the Trump administration’s practice of separating families and confining undocumented children.”
Now you know DARNED WELL this has made the rounds on social media and has been used consistently by the Left to support their “Children in Cages” narrative. (No, children aren’t in cages. What we see are misleading closeups of a “holding pen”). Had the Right-wing been this duplicitous, Snopes would have slapped them down with all their fury. As you read the article, clearly you see this crying child is actually part of a protest demonstration, and he is neither held by ICE or even in a cage against his will.
NOPE! “Miscaptioned”.
Although clearly, there is ZERO truth to this picture, they want to soften the blow to any well-meaning people who are using this picture for their Liberal agendas.
“Oh hey, guys, I don’t want to upset your righteous anger, but it’s not as ‘TRUE’ as you would like it to be. Don’t be mad now.”
“This is indeed a genuine photograph that was taken during the Obama era in 2014. However, there major differences between the immigration policy at the center of the pictured protest and the child detention centers that were at the center of public outrage in June 2018.
In a nutshell: Families were separated under President Barack Obama as the result of deportation of undocumented people from the United States. Families were separated under President Donald Trump as parents and children were put into different detention facilities after they crossed the border to ask for asylum in the United States.”
This one is the exact opposite of the one above. Yes, this sign is real. This was a real issue, not from being separated at the border, but from deportations.
However, it is also marked “MIXTURE” because of how it is used. And it really leads you to believe Snopes is running interference for the Democratic Party.
Kids are STILL being separated from their parents… instead of a holding pen a few hundred yards away, now it’s thousands of miles.
As sad as I find this separation of children and parents (and if you know my back history, you’d understand), the fact is, they are separating the children at the border for a reason. There is a rising surge of people kidnapping children to pose as families, in the hopes of getting through the border. And DNA testing of many of these suspected families is showing 1/3 of the children aren’t related.
So what do you find more reprehensible?
Children separated from “parents” until proven otherwise, or kidnapped children being used to sneak in by criminals and then heaven-knows-what happening to them afterward?
Also, most of the pictures of “kids in cages” that everyone is upset over are actually from 2014 (during the Obama administration), despite Snopes insisting Obama never separated families (which I can now no longer find on Snopes, but was used quite often in debates).
“Multiple social media users shared images of a letter they say was anonymously sent to the facility.”
I saved the best for last, because this is the entry that opened my eyes to Snopes and how they play with words, and frame things to suit one particular side of the political aisle. A daycare center in Whitehall, PA gets a letter complaining about a Black employee, and the phrase “make your daycare great again,” made it seem pretty obvious this racist person was a Trump supporter. The “multiple social media users” were just the daycare owner’s son and daughter… (so it’s not a “wide group of random witnesses verifying this act,” like Snopes is leading you to believe. More on that later.).
Hmm. If only people knew someone who lived in the area of this daycare center to give you an idea of how this is a complete hoax…
OH WAIT! YOU DO!
ME!!! I LIVED IN WHITEHALL, PA!
For three years, this was the location of the “Casa de Brooksy” as I worked surveying land for an oil company. I can tell you with all honesty, this must be the most diverse area I have lived in all my life (and by “diverse,” I am using the word correctly) it was easily 40% White, 30% Black, 20% Syrian, and 10% Hispanic and others. My next-door neighbor knew Barack Obama as a teenager in Kenya, and during the 2012 election was screaming as if her own cousin was just re-elected as President.
It would be insane to conceive that someone would have a concern about a Black person in this area. In fact, the daycare owner, Dominique McKelley, even says she has several Black employees.
And believe me, this was definitely NOT a Trump-supporting area.
And, ironically, Snopes has the most-likely culprit featured right in their article.
The one who spread this all over the internet via Twitter.
There was quite a long thread by author Thomas Wictor who reportedly exposed Lexi as a fraud, a webpage by another unraveling the mystery scooby doo-style.
And since Ms. McKelley has never been arrested or convicted of this alleged hate crime (and yes, I agree it’s a hate crime), I try to word this all very carefully.
But if you use Occam’s Razor, see who is closest to the dumpster fire, who was enjoying all the attention, and who benefits the most from it… it’s rather crystal clear.
But don’t hold your breath for Snopes to try and bring the truth.
They worded it as “Did this actually happen?”, so any attempts to call this a hoax is immediately shut down by the people who want to see racism everywhere.
I have tried to explain to people online how this was hard to believe, given the racial composition of the area. But I got the usual shouting down by SJW-types.
What do I know, I only lived in this area, right?
CONCLUSION
Now don’t get me wrong, I have met some really dim-witted Right Wingers that still believe bullshit like “they found WMDs in Iraq,” and “they are using aborted babies for parts“.
(Okay, stem cell research? maybe… but what use is a heart that is half the size of a lentil on the black market?), and other insane conspiracies… and Fox News has been known for over a decade to spew partisan-skewed stories that barely resembled the truth.
But they aren’t the only ones.
CNN and MSNBC seem to be on the same mission of spreading partisan-based propaganda, we now have an industry of “Outrage News” online, where clickbait, shares, and visits generate tons of revenue from people looking to soothe their confirmation bias.
Where was Snopes when the kids from Covington HS were being crucified by the media, and Nathan Phillips gave his side of the story that was NOTHING like the events we all saw in the longer video?
Or when a woman nearly lost her business and reputation when people on Facebook posted a misleading picture of her talking to a young man about immigration, and they made it look as though she was hatefully screaming at him? (The kid actually had to come forward and clear it up as people were doxxing her and threatening her and her business)
How about when the Young Turks published a news piece about the Black church in Greenville, Mississippi burning down with “Vote Trump” written on the side and ridiculed any idea that it might not have been a Trump supporter or the hate crime it was made to look like?
Or when Shaun King falsely accused someone on his Facebook page of being a white supremacist and murdering a young Black girl?
Or hell, most of what Shaun King puts out to get the SJW crowd riled up that later turns out to be false? (and this guy is supposed to be a journalist?)
Or any number of articles by THE RAW STORY* that is immediately called out by readers as having a misleading headline that says the exact opposite of the story?
Let’s face it, people are either voting FOR Trump, or AGAINST Trump in November 2020.
With all of the choices in the 2020 Presidential Election, most of us have already made up our mind. However, while most people voting against Trump will accept whoever the DNC chooses for them (again) we all still have people we would prefer in the White House. So I have compiled MY 2020 wishlist of who I would vote for:
Tulsi Gabbard
Donald Trump
Giant Meteor
The wino that tries to wash my windshield on my way to work (I think his name is Mark or Hector?)
Marianne Williamson’s Healing Crystals
Zombie Apocalypse
A Baltimore Rat
Bernie Sanders
Elizabeth Warren
Yang, Buttplug, Spartacus, and Beto (As one person, though. Sewn together like Frankenstein).
A series of Human Extinction events
Kamala Harris
Joe Biden
For the life of me, I can’t understand why a party that constantly villainizes white men and police officers would have two old white dudes and a cop/prosecutor as their front runners (or not offering anything to the Middle class, moderates, and independent voters you will need to win), but okay…
Why do you people keep trusting your political parties to do what they claim they stand for?
I have always said that “If anyone takes our guns away, it will be the Republicans”.
Obama had eight years to do it, and never did. Why?
Because you were expecting it.
Everyone was ready to raise hell at the first sign of it happening. But they know when a Republican does this (or Amnesty for Illegal Immigrants, or add more government agencies, etc), Republicans will just quietly whimper and accept it. Instead of getting mad as hell and threaten to not support those candidates next election.
“I am not happy that they took away bump stocks, but at least they didn’t touch silencers”
“I am not happy that they took away silencers, but at least they didn’t start endorsing Red Flag Laws“…
“I am not happy about Red Flag Laws , but AT LEAST THEY DIDN’T SHOVE THAT 14-INCH DONALD TRUMP-SHAPED DILDO COMPLETELY UP MY ASS AND, THANKFULLY, STOPPED JUST SHORT OF THE PART WITH THE SPIKES“…
Listen America, you need to start getting mad about your rights being slowly stripped away. While you were so busy worrying about Barack Obama announcing on TV that you had to “hand in all your guns… or else,” he was busy continuing the work of George W. Bush’s Government-expanding extravaganza by stripping even more of your Fourth Amendment rights, with even MORE spying, Civil Asset Forfeiture, detaining citizens indefinitely (NDAA), and drone-bombing the living shit out of innocent people in the middle east… all in the name of “Keeping America Safe”.
You had already signed off on this when Dubya was starting this breakdown on your privacy, because “MUH 9/11!” “MUH PATRIOTISM”.
You don’t seem to understand there is ONE government, with two parties that know how their supporters work.
Like a Snake Oil Company with two salesmen with two completely different sales pitches…
One of them will make the sale.
But the Company will keep on doing whatever it wants.
They know the Democrats take an 8-year nap when their guy is in the White House.
They know Republicans will NEVER vote for the other side…
… because Republicans believe Democrats will take their guns away, and make the government even bigger…?
So I had a dream last night (I think it was a dream…). I was visited by TULSI GABBARD
She flew in my window. She was glowing and had wings. She was an angel. A Tulsi Angel.
She hovered over me. Her lips pursed into a smile as she beckoned me closer with her finger.
As I sat up in my bed, we were nose to nose. I began to become lost in
her big, beautiful, brown, angelic Samoan eyes… Then we closed our
eyes as she drew closer, and my heart raced as I thought “THIS IS
IT!”… I was trembling in anticipation!
And she whispered in my ear “I only like you as a friend”. And she was gone.
*Big dreamy sigh* Exactly the way I always thought it would be.
One less hour would make up for the deficit, says Occasio-Cortez.
Washington (AP) – On Friday, House Democrats made a surprise vote. It was such a surprise, Republicans didn’t even know to show up.
The vote was a proposal by rising-star Alexandria Occasio-Cortez. Remove an hour from everyone’s lives to help offset the deficit. “You’ve heard the saying ‘Time is Money,’ right?,” Occasio-Cortez announced, “Well what if we cut one hour out and used that money to offset our staggering deficit? It would relieve some of the debt our constituents are burdened with. Plus, they’ll be sleeping, they’ll never miss it!”
As expected, the decision was unanimous without any Republicans present to “screw it all up, just because”.
An outraged President Trump tweeted that the Democrats have “gone too far,” and promised to restore that hour back to Americans in September, just before the next election.
When asked if there are any special movies this weekend AOC planned on seeing, the young congressperson responded: “The last movie I went to see was called ‘Closed For Rennovations’. It was very noisy and I couldn’t follow the plot with all these construction workers moving around and talking. It was stupid”.
‘What did she win an Oscar for, playing a broomstick in a corner??!!?’
Aurora, Illinois (AP) – For International Women’s Day, and the Premiere of Marvel’s Captain Marvel, we sat down and spoke with an expert on both… A Men’s Rights Activist named Marty Cohen.
“It’s so frustrating,” Cohen confesses, “Us guys want to teach her a lesson about hating ‘White Dudes’… but what can we do? She got no ass, no tiddies, and she always looks bored. Like someone is reading her the ingredients of gluten-free cereal! I can’t fap to this!”
To my horror, he pulls up a picture of Ms. Larson on his laptop and proceeds to whip his ding ding out.
“Yeah come on, baby! Time for some White Dude dick! Who’s your da…. ARRRRGH! WTF! WHAT DID SHE WIN AN OSCAR FOR, PLAYING A BROOMSTICK IN A CORNER?”
Totally defeated from her lack of sex appeal, I left Marty Cohen to quietly sob, as he put a Hot Pocket in the microwave (with unwashed hands), and fired up his XBox to cheer himself up.
So, I’ve moved to an old farmhouse last year. When it gets cold, the place becomes infested with mice.
We got cats, so no problem, right? Well, no. Our cats are kind of assholes. They lounge around like they are in the First Class section of the Titanic, and us humans are their servants. To ask them to kill some vermin in exchange for a roof over their head seems to be beneath them.
So I got glue traps from Wal-Mart.
Not quite sure what I was thinking with that one. Perhaps I thought I could come home, find a dead rodent or two in the trap, then chuck it in the garbage and forget about it. (Like your mom did with that abortion in high school.).
What I didn’t expect was to come face to face with some poor living creature struggling in the glue. Something with intelligence, feels pain… and from the shrieking, feels fear, obviously.
So anyway… I just got home and accidentally stepped on the one under my desk. As I am about to peel it off my sneaker…. I hear the desperate squeals of a terrified rodent under my foot.
FUCK! *STOMP* FUCK!*STOMP* FUCK!!!*STOMP*
Not only is Ben Jr. still squealing and I didn’t put him out of his misery, but the glue trap is EXTRA stuck to me now… with mouse guts too, probably..
So I use the other foot to peel it off (fuck that, I ain’t using my hands). And find there are TWO mice struggling to live. One about the length of my thumb. Tiny little thing.
I’m not a heartless prick and won’t let them live their final hours in terror. I toss the glue trap, with Ben and Willard in it, into a plastic bag, take it outside and stomp the shit out of it, to put them out of their misery and leave the bloody bag in the trash can. And hopefully scraped all the sticky, gooey mouse guts off the bottom of my sneaker in the wet grass.
That was too much for me… I went and picked up regular mousetraps to snap their necks from now on. I’m a jerk… but I am not a monster.
So far no new takers. I think my message of “DEATH AWAITS ALL WHO ENTER THIS ROOM” has come off loud and clear.
Anyone know how to get mouse innards glued to the bottom of a sneaker off? It’s still there. Yuck.
When I was a teen, I was a volunteer at the Ridgewood-Bushwick Senior Center in Brooklyn. We helped the elderly with food deliveries, help shopping, clean, deliver things. Make their lives easier.
I was very disappointed in the lack of wisdom my elders had. You watch any TV show, and a wise old geezer appears and says the one magical thing to give our hero a second change to win. Real life? PHHHLLLPPPH! They were just basic meat and potatoes kinds of people. Their whole life was: Wake up, go to work, come home, have dinner, fall asleep watching Johnny Carson. Lather. Rinse. Repeat.
No real gems to pass on to the next generation. Nothing to explain how life works, or the complexities of Human Nature, not even an explanation of why the drive-thru ATM buttons have braille on them.
One of them did advise me to “not get old”. Did I listen? NOOOOOoooooo…. 🙁
Now I see people my age, middle aged, rapidly approaching seniors, and they are passing on tweets from some Millenial Tumblrina as if she has all the answers, but she’s just mad at her daddy, and the woman forwarding it with “So much this!” added is just a bitter spinster mad that her husband left her for a younger version of herself. She thinks because she is young, she has her fingers on the pulse on the future, as if we are entering a new Age of Enlightenment. It’s just a ridiculously over-sensitive time.
We are trying to appear “progressive” and “open-minded” about issues like 57 genders, paying a carbon tax when you ALREADY pay taxes to live in the an Industrialized Society, fighting for the rights of Transgenders to pee in the stall next someone’s young daughter, when none of them asked for this as far as I know of. In fact, none of the transgender people I know in real life ever seemed to have an issue with finding a public bathroom to use.
Meanwhile those guys, that sported mascara and fishnets on college campuses three years ago, are now clean-cut, married, expecting their first kid and saying “OMG, GUYS! It was college and I was going through a phase!”
Life’s lessons never seem to touch certain people.
All the world’s knowledge is just a few taps away on their smartphones, yet we still have people that think the world is flat, afraid to vaccinate their kids, and think Lizards have enslaved the Human Race.
So I’m thinking maybe stupid kids, turn into stupid adults, and then stupid old people?
I’m not gay… but I can understand the importance of spending the rest of your life with the person you love, and have society recognize it.
I don’t have any tattoos or piercings… but I understand the need for people to express themselves.
I don’t own a gun… but I understand why some people want them to protect their family.
I don’t own a pitbull… but I can understand how people love them for their loyalty and sweetness, and how fears and exaggerations from the media can spin so much bullshit and unfair laws against them.
I don’t own a uterus… but I can understand why someone would not want to have a child at this current time, and would prefer to not bleed to death correcting that mistake.
I most likely don’t share the same beliefs in your God, nor do I dismiss the idea of a Higher Being and order in the universe. If it brings you comfort, and makes you a better person, then I respect you for it.
I am neither Conservative or Liberal… I make up my own mind and see one or the other makes a good point here and there.
It’s called compassion. The ability to see things from another person’s point of view, and realize not everything is about you.
We are all set on different paths, headed for the same destination. The difference is the stops we make on that road, and the lessons we need to learn along the way to become better people.
It’s all about Love and living without Fear.
Don’t be assholes, unless it’s absolutely funny.
NOTE: I originally wrote this August 5, 2012 on my Facebook page. Took me forever to find it as it’s deep down in the in the memory hole over there. I have to wonder why I bother writing anything over there as we have the attention span of gnats now, and unless it fits in a meme, no one will bother to read it. So I figured, “Let me post it on my site, where no one will read it!”
Looking back on 2 decades of being an old school web guy and obnoxious jackass…
“Whuzzup” Created. “Free Stuff” created. “Avon Order” demo created. Website receives RSACi rating. URL added to AOL Netfind, Lycos, Yahoo!, HotBot, and Alta Vista. “Non-frames” version of Erox Graphix created for browsers that cannot view frames.(Originally published in XOOM)
~ April 15, 1998
Well EricBrooks.Com didn’t exist until July of 1999. Blogger.com didn’t exist until that year either. Heck it wasn’t even my original EroxGraphix site (long since become a p0rn site… don’t go there. I posted a link to the Wayback Machine.). It was on a free site named Xoom. Like most old schoolers, we practiced on a site like that, or Geocities, or Angelfire before we felt we can move up to the “Big Leagues” and get a “real site”.
And like most Webmasters of those days, we made a “What’s New?” page just to keep our (virtually non-existent) visitors updated to new features we added to the site. Eventually we also promoted other web friends, injected our political opinions, talked about recent national news…
The weblog was inevitable.
Many of us saw what WebGod and pioneer Jeffrey Zeldman did: Posting daily, talking about others, drawing in a HUGE FOLLOWING… so we stepped up with our “What’s New” pages.
One weekend in 1998, the family made a trip to Queens, NY from the Poconos and I wanted to post updates remotely (back then, you’d write the web page and FTP’d it up). So I took Matt Wright’s Guestbook script (we all had that and his FormMail script.), and hacked it to post entries on a page.
Still, before weblogs existed.
So, fast forward to the early 200’s. With blogging becoming a full-blown thing all the cool kids were doing as we hung out on MetaFilter, I fought the term “blogger” for at least two years.Blogs were boring. People talked about going to the store and buying kale and assembling IKEA furniture. WTF? I am trying to entertain people and they are wasting some poor schmuck’s bandwidth with mundane details of their lives.
My stuff was special.
I’m special.
My mom said so.
DRAMA = AN AUDIENCE. WHO KNEW?
"No Such Thing As Bad Press" and all that stuff…
Recently, I was optimizing my site, going over old posts and I realized… HOLY SHIT, I WAS A PRICK!!!! I was looking at it all from an outsider’s point of view, and wondered what the hell was going on in my head at the time. I kind of thought of myself as some kind of “Internet Superhero” who would defend the little guy and use my influence to make change… but man, was I overbearing.
No wonder why I hate Social Justice Warriors so much. I was just like them.
Poor Joe Jenett of Coolstop. I missed his email politely letting me down from inclusion in one of his projects, so I got the impression he was a cruel snob, and launched an electronic Jihad on him for years.
Man I am so sorry, dude! (uhm… well, the time where I rigged a bot to keep voting us as “blog twins” was pretty funny though.). 😀
It was around that time I caught the attention of Faith from ctrl-alt-ego.
A tough no-nonsense lawyer from New York.
Two loudmouths from New York… this ought to be interesting. We traded barbs almost nightly, and people had to come back and forth to read the latest. After the September 11th 2001 attacks, we both sort of formed an unspoken truce. But we kept the feud going for appearances sake. We sent emails laughing at our jabs.She was also a key ally in helping me get my kids back and getting CPS off my family’s back after a grueling 3 year battle of bullshit with them. I will always be grateful for that.
Dialup and 14K modems… aka the stone age.
Yeah the good old days where people made Javascript popups for no reason, posted rainbow unicorns (which made a big comeback on MySpace a few years later). Learned HTML without any schooling and some did quite well for themselves freelancing after honing their skills on Angelfire and GeoCities. People editing their web pages in Microsoft FrontPage and uploading it with WS FTP Uploader… The LinkExchange banners and counters… it was a totally different landscape in 1998.
A hoax involving a fake girl dying of leukemia also humbled the hell out of me and taught me to listen instead of running my big mouth. (I still hear about that to this day despite apologizing twice in the MetaFilter thread.) You know what, though? I deserved it. It made me a better person.
Citizens all over America will recall their ‘Where were you when September 11th Attacks Happened?’ moments on social media today… usually starting with someone telling them ‘Hey, Quick, turn on the tv!!!’
While this is clearly the ‘Where Were You When Kennedy Was Shot?’ for GenX’ers and GenY’ers, surely they can’t possibly think it’s merciful to subject their friends to paragraphs of mundane details about their lives surrounding this event, is it?
Look, we get it. You want to infuse yourselves into the story like Jack and Rose in ‘Titanic’, but that was fictional.
Also, they did exciting stuff while all this was going down.
Also, they got laid.
Most of the really great stories will probably never be told. For the people who lost family, were first responders, or witnesses to the people jumping to their deaths or being covered in a cloud of asbestos, sheetrock, and pulverized human remains… It was too much. They don’t want to talk about it. They still don’t.
So that left the people online seeking attention, and who later, worried that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein would crash a plane into their midwestern county fair next.
Fast-Forward, to 2031: These overly-narcissistic senior citizen ex-bloggers regale the story of their glory days to their grand children in the Sunnydale Nursing Home…
“So there I was on this beautiful day, not a cloud in the sky, when my mother called and said ‘QUICK TURN ON THE TV!’, and there it was…”
“Incredible, grandma! So what happened next?”
“Nothing, I just watched it on tv. It was the only thing running day and night.”
“Yes, but what did you do afterwards, did you join the army to fight them like great-great grandpa did in World War 2?”
“No. I told you, I watched this horror on tv. My world was changed forever. I made Facebook posts about it.”
“Did you go to NYC and help as a first responder?”
“NO! I WAS HORRIFIED BY WATCHING IT ON TV, WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT FROM ME???”
Life is a never ending river flow. Sometimes the course can become dangerously erratic; Sometimes it’s filled with obstacles like rocks and fallen trees; Sometimes it reaches an ‘end’ with a really large drop, where it continues again.
Every time I watch this video, I get a new message out of it. Well more like the same message, but a different emphasis here and there… life doesn’t stop with your sorrows and it doesn’t care about your feelings, or what you think is “fair”. Obstacles are meant to be bypassed or broken, and you are meant to grow stronger through it all, and keep going.
I’ve had critics call me ‘phony’, based on my online persona. I see me more as ‘fluid’, and will change, adapt, and flow as the situation suits me. Maybe I feel differently about something as I did six months ago, maybe my perspective on a topic or a person has changed. It is the key to growth, survival, and longevity. I’m still who I am at the core, and those close enough to me can see that.
You may get a different message though. This was my interpretation.
Ya know, for a supposed “Web Geek”, I can be pretty slow on the uptake sometimes. I have heard about “RSS Feeds” for years , but the way it’s been described, it just sounded like something only Techno-ÜberNerds would be interested in.
“You need a news aggregator, application, ping this, dilithium crystal flux capacitor… blah, blah, blah…”
*Yawn*…
Anyway, for us English-speaking folks that doesn’t have every episode of Star Trek memorized… Recently, I have learned there are a whole lot of uses for everyone with RSS Feeds. Mainly, it can save you a lot of time and only visit a site when there’s something new and interesting. It’s great, especially if you are a very busy person, and/or or have blogging friends scattered everywhere.
So here is how to bookmark “Live Content”. You can not only do it with *my* RSS feeds, but any other sites that offers feeds as well.
You have the option to put them on your Google Page (or Google Reader), or MyYahoo, but what we want is to bookmark it in our browsers… Firefox appears to be the most popular browser these days, according to recent stats, so I will mainly focus on that in here..
STEP TWO: Subscribe with “Live Bookmarks” (Firefox)…
With Chrome, add it to your Google Reader.
With Safari, click on the “RSS” button in the address bar, and then click on “Actions:” > “Add Bookmark” on the lower right side, and view in your toolbar.
With Internet Explorer, click on the RSS Icon in the right side of your toolbar and subscribe, and then view it in your “Feeds” tab in “Favorites”… but does anyone even use IE anymore???
Keep it on the default “Live Bookmarks” and press the “Subscribe Now” button…
STEP THREE: Find the feed in your bookmarks… In your Firefox Bookmarks (And you can save it anywhere in your bookmarks, actually. It’s best to keep all your favorite reads in one spot.), you’ll find a special icon for feeds, and in that, a full list of items…
You can see by the icons what is fresh content or what you have visited already…
Like I said, you can not only do that with this site, but other sites you like that offer RSS Feeds. It’s the way the web is going now, with content and information flying shorter and faster.
Don’t forget to subscribe to my feeds, ok? 😉
Welcome to the RMS Titanic MySpace.
As you can see, many MySpace bloggers have become disenchanted with the state of affairs here. It may be fixed. It may not. Many of your favorite bloggers have set up blogs elsewhere, and I recommend you to do the same.
Some tips to survive the impending MySpace implosion:
1. DO NOT LEAVE MYSPACE! How will people find you? Do you think I would be on MySpace if people surfed my website without someone telling them where to go?
2. Use the status stream to pimp out your blog.
3. Post a blog here with the comments off, and just a link to your offsite blog (a trick the old timers here did a lot).
4. Bookmark the following blogs listed below.
5. Or… follow them on your Yahoo and Google pages with Black Rose’s simple tutorial using their RSS feeds…
You know, I thought this was the stupidest song I ever heard when this came out.
“What the hell kind of thing is THAT to say to the woman you love?”
Of course this was the 21 year old “romantic 80’s Eric” talking. He thought a single stemmed rose and having “She Walks in Beauty” memorized and able to recite it on command was the ticket to a woman’s heart.
No wonder I spent so much time alone.
My hand and I sort of became an item, and went steady after a while.
It took a bit of life lessons to realize being a romantic and “any ol’ girl will do”, just isn’t the way.
(I laugh watching these “Hopeless Romantic” types leaving graphics to women all over the place here. It warms my heart to know there are men just a little more clueless than I am. These guys don’t love a woman. They’re just in love with LOVE. )
A woman wants to be seen for who she is. Loved for who she is. Sometimes even despite who she is…
You need to SEE her.
You need to notice the unique things that make her who she is… and love her for it.
I see so many relationships fail because of ones selfishness (I could
write a book on what NOT to do there!). Fear too. Fear breeds some of the
ugliest things out of human beings, and it wreaks havok on your love
live. Irrational jealousy, distrust, your overactive imagination running away with
you… add that with the selfishness of expecting someone to be more
than who they are, or what you thought they should be. Thinking of nothing but “what’s in it for me?”. Seeing what they do as some sort of reflection on you… well, you wont
last very long on that path.
Ever meet someone who got so ugly after all the flowery “I love you”s, to getting annoyed and angry because they expected something out of you or thinking they should get something out of it for what they’ve done from “the goodness of their hearts”, despite previously saying otherwise?
Did they really love that person…?
Or were they just “bartering” like it was some kind of business arrangement?
Love should come with no expectations. No strings attached. No scores being kept.
A heart can’t be bought, or earned, or seized. It can only be given. Love is all about giving. When you get it back, you are the luckiest bastard in the world.
A few things I’ve learned along the way these past 44 years.
Anyway, back to this stupid song…
Someone once said “Sorry, but you’re stuck with me”, and it took all of my worries and concerns of losing her right out of me. My ex used to say all the time “You’re like an old shoe, Eric. That’s why I keep you around. I’m comfortable with you.”
Consistency.
Security.
Stability.
Women want that too.
As the Lord of Chaos/God of Mischief… this has probably been my hardest lesson to learn to this date. I fear routine and boredom. I’m usually at my best when all hell is breaking loose. I’m not happy unless everything around me is going terribly wrong. I find comfort and order amidst the madness and mayhem. The joy in someone else’s pain and misery… turning negative energy into something positive. Count on me to fuck up or sabotage just about anything with my nihilistic mindset.
Fortunately there are other sides to me, and I can work on this.
We’ve had our doubts, but we never took them seriously
And we’ve had our ins and outs, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be
We thought about giving up, but we could never stay away
We thought about breaking up, but now we know it’s much too late
And it’s no great mystery
If we change our minds
Eventually, it’s back to you and me
~ “Stuck With You” – Huey Lewis & the News
This is love. This is the sum of all good relationships.
Ups and downs. Good times and bad times.
Partners in life going through all sorts of things and emerging stronger for it instead of giving up, and learning something new about one another. Closer than ever.
Being comfortable with each other. Stuck with each other.
And being happy they’re stuck with you, too.
I remember a friend commenting “I want a man I can feel comfortable peeing in front of.”
I volleyed back by stating that “being allowed to fart in front of someone is considered a milestone in my relationships.”
Sure, we grossed everyone else out… but we got it.
It took me a long time… but I finally get this one too.
I finally get this song and what it means too.
It’s the next step after the romance and the honeymoon phase.
It’s about being with someone and enjoying them.
Let go of the fears and doubts… You are with each other because you CHOOSE to be.
This time, around five years ago (June, 2005), I saw the Web Blogosphere dying a slow, painful death and realized Web 2.0 was all headed toward Social Networking, so I got together with a bunch of like-minded individuals to save our Web Presence and came up with a Community called…
And it was a WONDERLAND! We had an arcade, we had goofy adventures in the message board, newsfeeds, promoting each other, Saturday Night Chats, an AI Bot that greeted newcomers (and we all flirted and tried to corrupt her), fake celebrity profiles… anything went as our imaginations ran wild.
We had… FUN!
MySpace? Well that was for kids. My children had accounts here for years and I felt I was stepping on their toes and didn’t want to invade their territory (in fact, my then-13 year old daughter showed me how to make myspace layouts). But I saw celebrities with websites like Tommy Lee, Dave Navarro, and Bobbi Billard making the jump here and using this as a promotional tool… bringing themselves to the masses, and I thought “What the hell”.
Anyway… this isn’t even the point.
Look, I know I’m a prick, okay? I know I have a mean streak a mile wide, and I tend to get into mischief (did I mention I’m a PROBLEM ADULT?). I’ve been reviled on the web, I’ve had my share of fuck-ups that people never let me live down for YEARS, I’ve been shunned, and insulted, and blacklisted by the BEST… there’s also a WHOLE OTHER side of me that somehow leaks through in all I do. A good side, a kind and compassionate side. I am a nice buncha guys… but I try to keep much of “me” hidden from public view.
So, I guess I have a thicker skin than most of the so-called “hardcore e-thugs” here that can’t seem to get past someone here not liking them or poking at them. Much of what I see around here from the “Drama Club” is a bunch of whiny insecure crybabies pretending to be badasses, and I am baffled at some of the things that freak people out/sets them off that they have to go to the lengths that they do to defend their cyber honor.
You need to comment under someone in every status and every every blog to let them know you don’t like them? REALLY?
You need to make everyone around you uncomfortable because they are a friend of someone you don’t get along with and you fear betrayal? SERIOUSLY????
… and my personal favorite… (and the actual point, I know, I know…)
You are up in arms because someone you thought was your friend had some negative observation about you????
HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
Do you even REALIZE how weak and insecure you look to the rest of us???
OK, listen Chuckles… here is how the REAL WORLD works.
We all form opinions about EVERYONE here. You get to know people. You like them, even though some things about them can grate on your nerves sometimes. No one is perfect, and they have many sides to them. Even some of the most LOATHSOME people I have “met” online, I can find something good to say about them if I try hard enough. There’s none of this “unconditional love”/”Say nothing but good about me” crap. Anyone looking for that is bound to be disappointed very soon (and you know you can’t do it either… ya just never got caught yet.). I watch idiots vouch for and defend people they barely know around here all the time… and they look like they are merely lying and covering for them, or a bunch of sniveling sycophants.
Normal, well-adjusted people don’t just stop liking someone or stop being their friend because of someone’s say-so or some dumb scandal… unless they are as misanthropic and paranoid as the retard that brought the drama out into the public.
And the people that save their negativity for when they no longer like the person? Well anyone with a brain is watching them going “Gee, I wonder what they REALLY think of ME?”.
And the people that can beam over you one minute and then rag on you like you are the biggest piece of shit the next…? Oh hell no! Do you really want to be involved with someone THAT freakin’ unstable???
I will admit, that in many arguments online, I see a lot of truth in what’s being said about someone… regardless of how much I like/dislike the parties involved. That’s not an “act of betrayal”… it’s just being realistic. Learn from it, take what you can out of it… stop fucking whining and acting like your dead cat was dug up and molested. If there’s no truth to it, and it’s THAT absurd, laugh it off. Most of us know bullshit just being said to rile someone up when we see it. Who gives a rat’s ass what a bunch of strangers has to say and think?
It seems like “Genuine and Sincere” is a codeword for “Someone who blows sunshine up my ass and tells me I’m wonderful”. And “Keeps it Real” is the polar opposite, “Someone who hates everyone with pure bile and negativity”.
Who the fuck wants to get close to people like that??? (Besides a Therapist?)
Guerrillero put it best the other night when he said “I like a whole bunch of you, but I wouldn’t invite you to my home“. That’s kind of how I feel about everyone too. I’m not looking to forge solid lifelong friendships on MySpace to fill some pathetic void in my real life… I’m here to be entertained and have some light hearted fun.
There is way more to all of us than meets the eye.
Let’s just keep it at a respectful distance and emotionally detached from now on, ok?
And if you have an issue or two with some of my behavior, well… I’m ok with that… and vice versa.
In the event that some earth-shattering drama blog were to ever come out with some shocking revelation, hoping to sway public opinion against me, let me give you my response ahead of time…
“Yeah? Aaaaaand….? WHO FUCKING CARES?”
I’m a mean spirited bastard. What’s the surprise here? The thing is, people will still love me more than you, trust me more than you, and I will still draw a crowd… AND you will STILL be a moron that is despised for good reason. So there.
Top Story:
JOKO’S BLOG DIDN’T RANK YESTERDAY
Schmeattle, WA (AP) – MySpamous Celebrity, Joko, was distraught yesterday as he checked MySpace Top Blogs section all day, hoping for news about his four page blog and it’s place in the rankings… only to find out MySpace was stuck on yesterday’s ranks all day long.
“I clicked the link over and over, I don’t understand,” he tells reporters as he begins frothing at the mouth. “I thought okay, maybe it will be up now, or maybe later, AND I KEPT GOING TO THE GODDAMNED PAGE AND THERE WAS NOTHING!”
His blog, titled “Why don’t you people comment my crappy videos any more? It’s Bad Lisa and Eric Brooks’ fault, isn’t it? *HIC*“, was expected to show up in the top ten, given the large volume of visitors and comments to see how Internet Royalty will react to his temper tantrum and gift of blaming others for just about everything wrong in his life.
When assured by the owner of his liquor store, as he commandeered his laptop, that perhaps it was just a glitch and it will be up tomorrow, Joko retorted: “DON’T YOU SEE? ALL OF MY COMMENTS WERE FROM 2 DAYS AGO! IT WONT RANK AS HIGH!!!! ARRRGHH!!! YOU JUST DON’T GET IT!!!!!”
JIM N.A.A. COMMITS MYSPACE SUICIDE; NO ONE NOTICES
East Bumfuck, N.C. (AP) – MySpace blogger Jim n.a.a., best known for deleting all members of MANtana and RSS off his friends list in outrage (but no one realized it), and writing blog after blog bitching about various MySpace personalities (that no one bothered to read), deleted his profile this week. We thought we should tell you since no one has asked about him, and this most likely went unnoticed in the blogging community.
NAA leader Hulia, flanked by top officials, Viriato, Guerrillero, and Mike, was quoted as saying: “We have been made blissfully unaware of this event and wish to extend our deepest apathy to the readers and fans of… wait. Who????”
No memorial has been planned for ol’ Melon Head as most of MySpace just carried on as though nothing happened and there’s no point in mentioning this any further.
SCIENTISTS MAY HAVE DISCOVERED OSHAY’S PENIS
Sacramento, CA (AP) – NANOLABS®, a micro technology research firm may have finally developed an electron microscope powerful enough to see Oshay “Pee Wee” Duke Jackson’s genitalia.
Richard Smalls, director of NANOLABS® research and development, demonstrated to a tiny member of reporters on hand.
“Waiiiit… there it is,” Smalls says as he focuses, “I think”.
“Nope, almost got it… wait… it’s. Hang on.”
“There it is! I see it! LOOK!”.
Hopes were dashed as it turned out to be a pencil waved in front of the lens as a prank by a colleague.
NANOLABS® CEO, Holden Littlewood, assures the public that they will not give up hope, and will continue their research.
ADVICE COLUMN “ASK ERIC”
I’m not sure why Harry Fox chose to delete my comment on his blog yesterday, but it is rare when I give any of my MANly wisdom or advice, so here it is again.
TAKE HEED, GENTLEMEN…
There is something people don’t understand about me, and they have to in order to truly know me.
I NEED to believe.
I NEED to see the world and all of its mysteries with a child-like awe and amazement.
I NEED to believe all things are truly possible.
I NEED to believe in magic and other unexplained forces at work without looking at it too close.
It is essential to my creative process and ability to tap into something deep inside me to make my own magic in all that I do. This is what works for me. I suspect it’s the same for many creative types.
——————————– In the Summer, I find myself drawn to lightning storms and wander outside to face it unprotected.
I draw from the sheer power and rage of Mother Nature, making it my own. I know how She feels. It’s OUR fury She is acting out.
I don’t feel the cold rain, the howling winds, or even fear being struck… I let go and trust Her not to hurt me.
I just let go… AND BELIEVE.
At some points in my life, blind faith was all I had to go on….
———————————
“I hope you hear the music again this year, Eric…”
An email I get every year from a friend, and it brings a smile to my face. There’s a story behind it. There is a magic in the air this time of year that I have no desire to look too close at it. I just appreciate it. I shared the story on a message board and fully expected people to think I was insane. The response was surprising and unexpected…
On several Christmas Eves, in the middle of the night, I found myself wandering out to the middle of the streets. Much like I do during lightning storms. It’s as if I was being called, and my body had no choice but to obey.
There is no religious significance to it. The settings were just right. The stillness, the quiet, the lights, the starry skies and the snow all around me. The animals foraging for food in the woods quietly. The peaceful souls sleeping comfortably, the excitement and anticipation of dreaming children of what is about to come. The energy of all living things around me…
In the middle of the quiet road, I’d close my eyes and draw from it all… Opening myself. Connecting. Becoming one with everything. Becoming something larger than myself, or the world around me, even the universe surrounding it…
And then I’d hear it.
I’d hear the music that was calling for me.
Not quite human voices… it’s way too high pitched, possibly out of human frequency.
A beautiful melody that can’t be described with words or explain the joy and tranquility it gives you. The tears you formed from the beauty of it all…
You can’t experience these things unless you keep yourself open to them. This is why I NEED to believe.
———————————– Anyway, one friend on that message board had to share this with me. She told her husband about my story, and he froze. He was a musician. A very spiritual man. Tears welled in his eyes.
He said “I’ve heard that music too. I thought I was the only one and was afraid to tell anyone thinking I was crazy”.
“I hope you hear the music again this year, Eric…” Every year she drops me a note in my inbox to remind me.
I hope you all can hear that music at least once in your lives…
All the best to you and yours.
UPDATE:
Andrew Mattock passed away in February 2013. Although we parted on friendly terms shortly before his passing, he was still a jerk to many people, and being terminally ill is STILL no excuse for bad manners.
Reading about Andrew Mattock’s plight with his liver has gotten me thinking about my own mortality. I have resolved that if my time on earth was suddenly cut short, I will do the following.
Apparently, Andrew and I differ in philosophies…
Poor Blandrew… I’ve seen bulletins here and there by well-meaning people serving as his enablers, and stating that people should “leave him alone” and he should have a “Free Pass” for all the things he does and says given his condition.
Well when you’re NOT the object of his wrath, verbal abuse, or threats… that’s pretty easy to say, isn’t it?
FUCK THAT. When you think about it, in the next decade or two, *MOST* of the people currently reading this blog will not be here. So looking at the big picture, aren’t we ALL in the same boat? Doesn’t that give us ALL the right to be manipulative & verbally abusive pricks too?
Nope.
In fact… is there ANY valid excuse to treat people like he does online?
Most of us get online to escape our troubles and have fun, not to have someone bring their crap here and expect us all to stop what we’re doing and care, or be dumped on because they think they’re the only ones with problems.
Don’t get me wrong, I do care about people. But that’s reserved for a select few here. But for Sir Ossis of D’Liver here, and any other Sickly Sues or Johnny Come Latelys… please tell us why you’re so darned special and your troubles are somehow more important than our own and those we care for?
*crickets*
Thought so.
Sorry, but I think his “failing liver” story is bullshit.
I don’t need proof or evidence. It’s my opinion and I have every right to it. It’s just part of his manipulation of vulnerable women and his excuse to be a verbally abusive dipshit and get away with it.
The only way to prove me wrong is for Androol to kick the bucket, and then I will put out a bulletin saying “I guess I was wrong. OOPS!”, and get on with my life.
No, I can’t be nice to him. He gives me the creeps.
HAHA! Did this guy just issue a rape threat on the internet? WHOAH, not without buying me dinner first, buddy!
[Sir AnBlew is getting crazier by the second!]
There’s way to much to get into so let me just borrow my comment from TOY’s blog about this pigfucker…
——————————————————
You, my friend, take the cake for being the sorriest excuse for a “man” that MySpace has seen yet (and we have seen many pathetic men here!). Your blogs are filled with self-serving bullshit to try and convince people you are someone you’re not, and the fact that you need to post every single private correspondence that comes your way… just proves you’re a douchebag.
Here’s what we all get out of your blogs:
You are self-loathing and insecure.
You project your many, MANY flaws into others, and it looks like you are screaming at your own shadow most of the time. Only your fake profiles agree with you.
Your contempt for women is clear as day, and you have all the earmarks of a self-loathing closet case.
You feel threatened by me… and you think knocking me down will make you “king of the mountain” here. (HAHA! You can have it bud. I’m nobody special or important here. You care more about popularity than I ever did.)
You’re another one of those over-50 y/o “man-children” that run loose on myspace and think you have some sense of entitlement which is typical of your “me generation”. Your kind cause everyone headaches and get blocked by everyone who can’t take your bullshit anymore.
When you can’t have someone/something you want… you try to destroy it so no one else can have it. Real mature there, bud.
You have SERIOUSLY underestimated some of the people you’ve targeted here.
You are scared and alone. And we can see right through your false bravado.
You feel betrayed now? Wait till you find out you are just a pawn in a larger game and the people supplying you with info and support show you just how disposable you are once you’ve been proven of no use.
Hear that, Andrew?
It’s the sound of hundreds of people LAUGHING AT YOU. 😀
Yeah I know this one looks a little mean to people unaware of what’s going on… but if see his cruel comments all over the place, or talk to people who have gotten threatening emails by him, or spooked enough to take a break: They’d tell you I went easy on this PSYCHOPATH. He needs to be avoided.
[BLOCK Andrew M by clicking HERE]
(Link disabled since none of this exists on MySpace anymore)
Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are solely those
of Eric Brooks. They do not necessarily
reflect those of his employers, friends, contacts, family, or even his pets (though my cat,
Puddy,
seems to agree with me on many key issues.). In accordance to my terms of use, you hereby
acknowledge my right to psychoanalyze you, practice accupuncture, and mock you incessantly
with every visit. As the user, you also acknowledge that the author has been legally declared
a "Problem Adult" by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and is therefore not
responsible for any of his actions. ALSO, the political views and products advertised on this site may/may not reflect the views of Puddy or myself, so please don't take them as an endorsement. We just need to eat.