On Mondays (Redux)

The following piece was written by yours truly quite a few years back, out of no apparent necessity and for no real reason whatsover; at the time it seemed to be the last of this pointless urge that has only recently resurfaced in the form of, well, whatever this is (I could say "blog", but I'd rather take my time and coin a fancier and less demeaning term). Its existence had since been forced to latent memory for practical and sanity-related reasons, until it found its purpose, which I guess is to serve as filler until I sort out the ominous voices in my head and write something of relative meaning. So here it is, the literary equivalent of meat in a can, almost the same as it was the day it got shelved.

Monday morning.

It is an indefinable amount of time to seven when I finally force my eyes to gradually open. Deep from within the cavernous vastness of my head I have been hearing a repeating, urgent sound. I can now safely identify it as either an alarm clock, or a freight train racing towards me. Neither case is particularly pleasing. Initial efforts to get up have brought to my attention that what was once my head has in fact been replaced with what feels to be a seven-ton monolith, give or take. I'm pretty sure sand has crept down my throat as well. In my still half-asleep mind an all-too-familiar dialog plays out; "Alright kids, what did we learn today?" -and the answer always comes in chorus; "Drinking feels good at night, but reeeally bad in the morning!". By now I could have muttered the all-time classic "I'm never drinking again - ever!", but let's face it, lying to yourself never did any good. Instead I opt for another classic: "I really, really don't like Mondays".

Now, you can ask Sir Bob Geldof and he will assure you that I am not alone in this. However, since I lack the crazed determination of a gun-toting sixteen-year-old to act on it, or even the knack to write a hit song about it, I'm simply stuck with disliking them. Not that Mondays themselves are to blame per se; they did not ask to be put right after Sundays. This is how things go in the Great Walk of Life, where no one is really innocent. So Mondays are called upon to bear the burden and blame of opening yet another week and perpetuating the cycle. The concept alone is absurd, starting what you've already been done with; then again, everything in the Great Walk of Life is.

History reference: in 1979, the Geldof-led Boomtown Rats had a hit song with "I Don't Like Mondays". The Dubliners' song tells the true story of sixteen-year-old California high school student Brenda Spencer. On a fateful Monday morning, Brenda grabbed her father's gun and opened fire on her school from a house across the street, injuring eight students and killing the school's principal and custodian. When later asked why she'd gone on the shooting spree, she simply responded "I don't like Mondays". Since then the phenomenon of school shootings has been a recurring one around the world. State officials, sadly enough, have never been proactive about banning firearms, let alone Mondays.

Be aware.

Rx feed - because all the other drugs just don't work anymore.

The big D

Brief thoughts on death, courtesy of good ol' sleep deprivation:

 I had always wanted to die a teenager, full of false hopes and unfulfilled potential. Since that clearly did not happen, my second preference would be, not at all.


 By my count the Grim Reaper had had plenty of opportunities to pluck me off this rock during my teens, but hey, you snooze you lose, move on ya bony bastard.


End transmission.

Rx feed - the surge that feeds the urge.

Feed a child with a click!

You have all seen online campaigns like this, whether you are on Facebook, MySpace or any other online community, or simply haven't set your junk mail filter high enough to block friends that are prone to sending stuff like this your way. They seem to be getting more in number lately; chain e-mail, discussion groups and the like, all prompting you to one seemingly miraculous website or another, promising you can do your part to end starvation in the third world with just one click... Well I got a bone or two to pick with that notion.

First of all... what sort of children eat clicks? And if there are such children, are they responsible for every double-click we've ever done that has not worked? Have we been falsely blaming Microsoft all those years? All those damn years, wondering where the missing clicks went... Imagine that, conniving third world childe-beasts feasting on your frustrated clicks while you wait and you wait in front of a frozen screen and nothing happens...

And even if the sly progeny of the underprivileged nations are not to blame for all the missing clicks, how can you know for sure that these campaigns actually work? What if all these kids, pretending to starve and begging for your yummy clicks, are secretly working for computer hardware companies in a ploy to sell more mouse devices? But I'm getting too paranoid for my own good now.

Feed a child with a click; it actually does work, and that's where its brilliance lies. But see, it's not really the child you set out to feed in the first place. No sir, it's not the bony, exhausted toddler in the picture; it's more likely the legacy of the person that set up this fascinating website that claims to end world hunger by use of the trivial mechanics that is clicking on your mouse controller. Assuming of course that this brilliant, brilliant man, a true pioneer in e-activism, has actually procreated successfully; and even then there's a good chance that his offspring is receiving that money through delayed child support payments. Well, at least you're helping the children of divorced parents, and that is something.

Simply put, if you really think you're changing anything that matters in this world by clicking on something, slouched in front of your computer screen, well think again. If you're fervently supporting a cause by nodding to a discussion board's ambiguous views, nice try hero. It's as effective as getting mad at the television set for giving you bad news. I bet that has worked wonders for you so far.

Rx feed - the perscription to your needs.