An unspoken issue in the Presidential Elections

Ok... since no one seems to want to touch this one, let let me be the one the break the ice on this unsavory and unthinkable issue... the idea that there is a high likelihood that the next President Of The United States will die in office! It's unthinkable... but statistically speaking we are overdue for it to happen as evidenced by the list of President's who have died in office and the time span between each death, which is roughly between 10 - 20 years. Don't believe me? Go here and check the list

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_Presidents_who_died_in_office

Let's face facts - the next Vice President is very likely to be the next President. Unfortunately, we still live in a racially charged country where numerous redneck bubbas would love to go down in history as the man who killed the first black President. Sad but unfortunately true. On the other hand, if McCain wins, he has so many health problems and is so old that the likelihood of him surviving even one term is pretty low. So in essence, this election comes down to whose Vice-Presidential candidate we would want running our country and who is qualified to run our country.

Scary thought eh?

EAT THE RICH!

Got money problems? You aren't alone and if you voted for G.W. Bush you got no one but yourself to blame. The man who bankrupted every company GIVEN to him by his father has now bankrupt the COUNTRY given to him by his father.

Good job asshole! So very happy to hear that you and your cronies are making more money than you can count while the rest of us are struggling to pay our bills, buy our medications and food and pay for our housing.

But the jokes on you assholes... just like the French Revolution there is a US Revolution coming and it's coming sooner than you think.

You greedy rich motherfuckers are looking MIGHT tasty right about now...

where's my fork and knife?? I got some rich people to eat.

Microsoft Sucks

Ok... how bad a PR move is it when a company as big as Microsoft has to create a commercial campaign that makes it's newest operating system, the horrible Vista monster, look like it's actually a great system? We're talking about their Mojave commercials where "real people" (are there fake people??) are tricked into believing it's THE SYSTEM for them by showing how it works on a computer with EVERYTHING new on it - built to work with their new, piece of shit OS. Face up Microsoft - you blew it again. This is Windows ME again.

I'm switching to Linux!

I'm stumped...

All I can say is HUH??????

Ok... I get that she is pro life and anti-sex education and teenage pregnancy but for christ sake couldn't the stupid cow tell her little whore daughter to keep her friggin legs closed?? Isn't the 18 year old MAN who impregnated a 17 year old (possibly 16 years old depending on when she was impregnated...) guilty of statutory rape??

Oh jeez... don't get me started. Are you people who support this ticket absolutely stupid or are you just crazy? You are all poster children FOR legalized (in some cases ENFORCED) abortion.

WTF????????

Funny

Independence

After having gone through six months of wretched Hepatitis C treatment I am finding myself a new person - less tolerant of other's stupidity than I have ever been (and I have always had a low tolerance for stupidity) and finding myself more aware of my own and other people's inconsistencies and justifications for the fucked up things they do and don't do to make their and others lives better.

There's a bigger point/issue there but it brings me to a favorite song of mine called "My Way" - NO NOT THE SAPPY FRANK SINATRA LOUNGE LIZARD SONG but a song by the band Los Lonely Boys...

My Way

I don't need no fortune
I don't need no fame
That's all just an illusion
To me it don't mean a thing

You can try and deceive me
But I see right through your skin
And what you're trying to tell me
Is something I don't believe in

Don't tell me how to live my life
Don't tell me how to pray
Don't tell me how to sing my song
Don't tell me what to say

Cuz I believe that miracles
happen every day
I don't care what you say,
I'm gonna do it my way

You say you have all the answers
And I should do it your way
How many times do I have to tell you
I ain't no puppet on a string
Listen to me...

Don't tell me how to live my life
Don't tell me how to pray
Don't tell me how to sing my song
Don't tell me what to say
Cuz I believe that miracles
happen every day
I don't care what you say,
I'm gonna do it my way
I'm gonna do it my way
What'd you say

Ohhhhhhhhh
Ohhhhhhhhh
Ohhhhhhhhh

Don't tell me how to live my life
Don't tell me how to pray
Don't tell me how to sing my song
Don't tell me what to say

Don't tell me how to live my life
Don't tell me how to pray
Don't tell me how to sing my song
Don't tell me what to say

Cuz I believe that miracles
happen every day

I don't care what you say
I'm gonna do it my way
I'm gonna do it my way
Ohhhhhhh I'm gonna do it my way


I'm getting to the point (at 44 years of age I realize it's a little late but better late than never they say) where I am realizing what I want and having the courage to do anything and everything to get it.

my daily dose of laughter

ok... I just got my dose of major entertainment and hilarity courtesy of CNN. I was watching earlier today and of course all the anchors and reporters and special guests (like that douchebag William Bennet - the original drug czar appointed by Reagan... I thought the drug czar was the guy you go to to get your drugs - boy was that a mistake lol) are all debating the results and implications of Super Tuesday and every so often they take a break from the election to go to their various "special correspondents" (i.E. the ones they send out in hurricanes and blizzards and other natural disasters... the "disposable reporters") one of whom I notice she has a big assed cold sore on her upper lip(despite her mask of thickly caked makeup designed to hide the sore) and she does a minute or two showing pictures of the aftermath of the tornadoes yesterday in Tennessee and of course the first picture she shows made me laugh - a picture of a Dr. Pepper machine destroyed by the storms. OH NO...NOT THE DR. PEPPER! Like that was one of the worst results of the storms... a knocked over smashed Dr. Pepper machine - that's the first picture they decide to show. Screw the 57+ who died and the hundreds injured...THERE'S A DR. PEPPER MACHINE DOWN! Now that's funny. But it got even better right after when they cut to commercial from the reporter with the huge cold sore - a commercial for Valtrex! I'm in comedy friggin heaven at this point - a Valtrex commercial right after a report by someone who obviously either needed Valtrex or forgot to take her dose of Valtrex. I'm still trying to figure out if that was planned that way or if someone in the control booth was trying to humiliate the poor girl or it was just coincidental but no matter how it came about it was friggin funny!

Bringing Sexy Back My Ass

For those of you "not in the know" - there is a plethora of gay "hookup sites" on the Internet where a certain portion (mostly lonely troll like creatures and "men" who act like stupid little boys and are incapable of maintaining a "relationship" any longer than it takes them to "get their rocks off."

My favorite of these sites is one called Manhunt. Manhunt is very well known as THE SITE to be on if you want to meet other "men" for anonymous (and usually highly unsatisfying if not downright creepy) sex AND a great place to make Crystal Meth connections. Now Manhunt has tried for years to claim that they promote "safer sex" and are warriors in the fight against this terrible drug addiction that has afflicted the gay community here in DC. But despite their BS claims, the fact of the matter is Manhunt is one of the prime reasons STD's and Meth addiction is on the rise in the area. Several years ago they even implemented rules for profiles that included "No references to drug use or the term PNP (Party and Play)" - BUT GET THIS - what they did to counteract that decision was to add a checkbox in the profiles where you can check off "NO PNP". So they just made it that much easier to find Meth and the poor schmucks that are addicted to it by simply finding the profiles that DON'T have NO PNP checked off. To my knowledge Manhunt is THE ONLY site with that kind of stupid feature. The owners and moderators of this site should be fined and injected with a vial of a combination of HIV tainted blood mixed with a healthy dose of Crystal Meth. They don't care about the gay community in any way - they care about making money off of us before we die from the diseases we will probably pickup from the people on this site or become such pathetic meth freaks we are no longer able to use a computer (much less speak coherently). Personally, I think the people behind Manhunt are also the people behind the influx of Crystal Meth, but since I don't have any proof that's just my theory.

But my favorite part of the site these days (I love good entertainment and tweaked out drug addled gay men are funny as all hell) is the headlines people use for their profiles. My favorite is "Bringing Sexy Back" - the absurdity of which is mind boggling... the best these poor saps can hope for is to bring STD's and drug addiction back. These pathetic, delusional men couldn't bring sey back if they were Raquel Welch in her prime. It's almost sad to see these people all becoming trolls before their time. Maybe Manhunt should change it's name to Trollhunt. My other favorites about this site is the amount of people who I know personally and or from my former profession working in a doctor's office who claim to be HIV negative when in fact some of them have been positive for 20 years. That and the middle aged guys who only date and/or hookup with kids half their age. Can we say this all together now?... GET OVER YOUR PETER PAN COMPLEX AND ACT LIKE MEN YOU JERKOFFS! Doesn't anyone know how to age gracefully anymore? Apparently in the gay community the answer is a resounding NO.

Then there are the "bug chasers." What, you may ask, in the world is a "bug chaser?" This is about to get ugly and very frightening... you see, "bug chasers" are guys who are lucky enough to be HIV negative but advertise in their ads that they want a poz guy to "give them the gift" That's right - they want to be infected! I've been HIV positive for over 25 years now and let me tell you stupid little moronic shits that HIV IS NOT FUN AND IT SURE AS FUCK ISN'T A CLUB YOU WANT TO JOIN! HIV has all but destroyed much of my life and stolen many of my life's opportunities from me. Taking pills every day gets old REAL FUCKING FAST boys.

You boys definitely AIN'T bringin sexy back...

What's "sexy" to me? Strings... connections... intimacy... knowing the name of the guy I'm doing it with is always hot too. I guess I'm just an old fashioned kind of guy that way.

Dysfunctional B*tches

I have an idea. Not just an idea but one of the GREATEST IDEAS EVER for a concert tour AND I don't even care who steals the idea from me. But this is something I know would sell out every stadium in the world...

The Dysfunctional Spoiled Bitches Tour!!!

Just think... Amy Winehouse, Courtney Love, Brit Spears, Christina Aguillerra, Whitney Houston AND Paris Hilton attemping to handle the emcee position.

Tell me you wouldn't pay big bucks for that??

Hep C

I have been spending the last couple of years researching facts about Hepatitis C because I was diagnosed with it three years ago. What astounded me was the lack of knowledge that most people, including my own primary care physician (and most primary care physicians that I know of) have about this disease and it's symptoms and treatment. I joined several online Hep C support boards and educated myself through the experiences and information posted by other Hep C positive people and not only learned more than most of my doctors do about the disease, but also made some great friends along the way. I finally chose to go through the treatment for Hep C back in November of 2007 after much deliberation and at the encouragement of my primary care physician and my boss and co-workers, despite my warnings to them that the treatment is very hard on the patient and the medications have some serious side effects, including mood changes, fatigue and bouts of uncontrollable anger and/or depression. Within the first 2 weeks I had been fired from my job due to an uncontrollable outburst I had directed at our socially and professionally inept office manager. The current standard treatment is weekly shots of Interferon (in most cases Pegulated Interferon) and gobbs and and gobs of Ribavirin. The Ribavirin is the primary cause of the emotional changes as well as causing dry skin (think alligator skin), vision problems and a miriad of other fun side effects. The weekly shot, however, is a whole other ball of wax. It normally results in feeling like you have to flu for 3 or 4 days after - and you have to go through this every week. I am fortunate in that I am on a short treatment plan - 24 weeks and after 6 weeks have already gone undetectable. Many people have to go through the treatment for 52 weeks or more and sometimes have to do the treatment more than once. Let me tell you this now - HEP C SUCKS! And there are a lot of people running around who don't even know they have it. So in the interest of public service and your own health please read the following information about Hep C. One thing noted in the report of great importance is not sharing personal hygiene items such as fingernail clippers, toothbrushes and even combs and brushes. The Hep C virus has the unusual ability to live in the tiniest speck of dried blood for what is thought to be months while retaining it's ability to infect anyone unfortunate enough to come in contact with it. DON'T SHARE YOUR PERSONAL HYGIENE ITEMS FOLKS! And here's the report...

What Is Hepatitis C ?
Hepatitis C virus (HCV) causes inflammation of the liver. A national U. S. survey found that 1.8 percent of Americans – about 3.9 million – have been infected with HCV, of whom most ­ about 2.7 million – are chronically infected with HCV, with many showing no signs or symptoms. The good news is that, in 1995, a reliable antibody test for HCV was finally implemented nationwide. About 41,000 new cases occurred in 1998 with 15-25% recovering spontaneously. Hepatitis C is a slow-progressing disease that may take 10-40 years to cause serious liver damage in some people.


Who Is At Risk?
Since about four million Americans are infected with HCV and most don't know it, you should have a blood test for hepatitis C ­ whether you feel sick or not. About one in ten people infected with HCV have had no identifiable exposure to HCV. That said, here are several obvious risk factors:
Intravenous (IV) drug users – even IV use in the distant past.
Those with multiple sex partners or sex with partners who have other sexually transmitted diseases.
Those with tattoos or body piercing done with unsterile instruments. Anyone who has had a blood transfusion prior to 1992 or clotting factors produced before 1987.
Hemodialysis (diabetes) patients.
The potential for transmission from an HCV-infected mother to her newborn appears to be about 5%.
How Does it Spread?
Injection drug use is the primary risk for HCV infection. Injection drug use accounts for about 60% of all new cases of hepatitis C and is a major risk factor for infection with hepatitis B virus. Among frequent drug users, 50-80% are infected by HCV within the first 12 months of beginning injecting.
Straws shared in snorting drugs are also a potential source of infection of HCV. The hepatitis C virus is found mainly in blood.
HCV is not spread through kissing or casual contact.
In relationships where there is one steady partner, sexual transmission is exceedingly unusual, less than 3% over decades in sexually active couples. Transmission from HCV RNA negative individuals has never been reported. Sexual transmission may be more common among those with multiple sex partners or where there is a history of sexually transmitted disease but this remains controversial and unconfirmed.
HCV may be transmitted by using razors, needles, toothbrushes, nail files, a barber's scissors, tattooing equipment, body piercing or acupuncture needles if these items are contaminated by blood of an infected person.
Healthcare workers have a 2% risk of acquiring HCV after a needle stick contaminated with HCV-positive blood.
There is no evidence indicating that HCV is transmitted through breast milk.
The current transmission rate through blood transfusions is estimated at less than 1 per 1,000,000 units transfused.
Symptoms
Most people who are infected with the HCV do not have symptoms and are leading normal lives. If symptoms are present, they may be very mild and flu-like – nausea, fatigue, loss of appetite, fever, headaches, and abdominal pain. Most people do not have jaundice although jaundice can sometimes occur along with dark urine.

The incubation period varies from 2-26 weeks. Liver enzyme tests may range from being elevated to being normal for weeks to as long as a year. The virus is in the blood and may be causing liver cell damage, and the infected person can transmit the disease to others.

Diagnosis
Test for HCV antibodies: HCV infection can be determined by a simple and specific blood test that detects antibodies against HCV. The current enzyme immunoassay test (EIA) that detects anti-HCV has a sensitivity of about 95% in chronic HCV. HCV infection may be identified by anti-HCV testing in approximately 80% of people as early as five weeks after exposure. This test is not a part of a routine physical examination, and people must ask their doctor for a hepatitis C antibody test. (Note: The antibody itself does not provide immunity, and the test does not distinguish between acute or chronic infection.) If the initial test is positive, it test should be repeated to confirm the diagnosis (and exclude possible laboratory error). If the initial test is negative, but the infection could have occurred within the last six months and HCV is suspected, antibody levels may not be high enough yet to be detectable (antibodies may not be present in the first 4 weeks of infection in about 30% of patients) or you may lack immune response. Under these circumstances, ask you doctor about repeating the test and about alternative test methods.

Test liver enzyme levels: If you may already have chronic infection, your doctor will test the levels of two liver enzymes. These are alanine aminotransferase (ALT) and aspartate aminotrasferase (AST). Both are released when liver cells are injured or die. Elevated ALT and AST levels may appear and disappear throughout the course of the HCV infection. If the liver enzyme levels are normal with chronic HCV, they should be re-checked several times over a 6 - 12 month period. If the liver enzyme levels remain normal, your doctor may check them less frequently, such as once a year.

A Song Before Bed

I'm busy these days transferring all of my music onto my IPod (yes I have succumbed to the almighty POD - I AM A POD PERSON NOW!) - including my huge collection of CD's, massive stacks of old obscure records (ok... yea I got some awful shit in my record collection I admit it) along with the record collection my mother left behind when she passed as well as all of my downloaded live music from trader friendly bands. A huge job to be sure and while I hate converting to the IPod format from the purer WAV files I can't argue with the ability to carry my entire library of music with me. Anyway tonight I burned a show by a band I like called Donna The Buffalo and the opening song to that night's show had kind of stuck in my head - a song called "Seems To Want To Hurt This Time"... Kind of sums up how I feel about life these days...

Seems To Want To Hurt This Time
Jeb Puryear

Life, love, potential love
Causes so much joy
Has the adverse power
To hurt you that much more
It's the same dark that falls
On the light that shines
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

I take a look inside
Nowhere to turn or go
No clear distinction
Above or below
Surreal existence
Casts its shadows to the blind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Aw, the party's crashin'
Fade into a distant drone
It only takes just one of us to be alone
Nobody's going but I still feel left behind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Red lights serenade me as I try to go
Outside the wind crashes with the smell of blowing snow
Three in the morning, cradled by a mental bind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

Someday I will return
It will be none too soon
Jump off the front porch
Land on the crescent moon
Until then these fancy dreams
Are for another mind
Everything seems to want to hurt this time

All I want to do is wake up
Return to the loving kind
But everything seems to want to hurt this time

All I want to do is wake up
Return to the living kind
But everything seems to want to hurt this time

New Year Same Old Sh*t

Well... now I know anyone who might be reading my blog (IS anyone reading my blog I wonder??) probably is wondering a few things... like am I crazy? And since I don't post with any kind of regularity what the hell is the point of me having a blog anyway and therefore why does it (and by extension why do any of us) exist? Well the answer to question one is probably and the answer to question number two requires too much time to answer and has been pondered over for thousands of years by some of the greatest philosopher's of our times. Of course, I'm the only one who knows the answer to that great question but I'm sure as hell not sharing it with anyone who reads this tripe. You wouldn't get it anyway. Which isn't to call any of you stupid or simple but hey you are reading my blog so what does that say? Case closed.

Anyway... it's a New Year with new challenges (like keeping people like Huckabee and Romney out of the friggin White House...) and as per my long standing policy of not picking any resolutions until at least the middle of the year there will be none listed here. Last year I made my resolutions in November and they all worked out pretty good so why mess with a good method eh?

Anyway for the past few months I have been doing treatment for Hepatitis C (which, if you don't know anything about you need to inform yourself about) - the treatment sucks - it consists of a weekly shot of Interferon (in my case Pegulated Interferon)which leaves you feeling like you have the flu for 3 days EVERY friggin week as well as a myriad of pills that have such charming side effects as fatigue, dizziness and uncontrollable emotional outbursts that usually exhibit themselves as something known as Riba-Rage (Ribavirin is one of the rude meds I have to take every day). In the first week of treatment the Riba-Rage actually ended up costing me my job. It was a shitty paying job with a psycho bitch for an office manager and I had been looking for another job anyway so it all worked out in the end. Turns out many people (the smart ones) don't work while they are on treatment. So I spend my days taking my meds and feeling sleepy and sometimes a little rage here and there and wait for the treatment to be done with (I finish in March I think and then there's another 6 months of clearing all the poisons out of my system). And despite eating I've lost more than 20 pounds since beginning treatment. I was 150 now I am 128 pounds. It ain't pretty. BUT it's working... my viral load has already gone undetectable and I am likely to completely clear the virus. It's good to know it's working because as I said the treatment and the sides SUCK ASS!

Last couple of years have been rough - my partner of 12 years this coming March and I have been on a roller coaster in life. Somehow I doubt the ride is over so when I don't post it's either because I am constantly dealing with the side effects of my meds or I'm too busy holding on for dear life while riding the roller coaster.

So Happy New Year to any fool who might be reading this... who knows when I will post again? Could be tomorrow could be next week might not be ever.

That's kind of how life is...