Crazy Product Reviews (Part III)

Again, my Amazon.com profile is right here.

Cast Aside Your Burdens and Taste a Piece of Heaven!, May 16, 2009
By J. Wactor (Tucson, AZ) - See all my reviews


It was the winter of 2008 and I was stationed in Camp Taji, Iraq. While I slept comfortably in my tent, a nameless entity infiltrated the battalion tactical operations center (TOC) and discarded a vital piece of my drip coffee maker away, thus rendering it less than useless. It was a cunning and ruthless tactic meant to demoralize the Coalition Forces and send us back to the states dejected and caffeine deprived, and could have worked, had it not been for the reinforcements of the Bodum Chambord Coffee Press.

Whereas I'd originally believed French Press aficionados to be prissy and stuck-up with too much free time on their hands, I've come to understand that perhaps I merely have been too addicted to coffee to logically consider that 8 oz. of coffee may be all I need for one day, and such small quantities can be crafted carefully instead of brewed in bulk. You are talking to the person who until recently drank around 40oz. of coffee daily; I had no time or patience to skillfully brew small quantities of French-Press coffee. It was an absurd thought, one that I never thought I'd entertain, but this little French-Press coffeemaker has transformed an addiction of coffee into a genuine admiration and enjoyment for the art of coffee making.

Combined with an exquisite choice of beans this coffee maker will simply revolutionize a coffee drinker's taste buds. Each cup of coffee will ease the burdens of your proletariat lifestyle; no longer will you be forced to drink Victory Coffee all the days of your life. With this little baby you will drink from the fountains of the bourgeoisie and know emphatically that life really can be THAT GOOD.

But seriously, buy this French-Press maker. I will never drink another cup of drip coffee again, and neither will most of the coworkers I've shared my brews with. It's heavenly.

About Contentment.

"You might think your life matters but the truth is this: nobody fucking cares" - Donald Stolley, 11 May 2009 0930

I was engaged in a conversation with a friend of mine this morning who made this statement as a precursor to his overall outlook on reality, and I have to say that I thoroughly agree with him. Reality is a collection of meaningless, trite events that make less of an impact than most of us realize. You need more convincing? Read on:

Stolley: “You have this huge pimple on your head, and for you it’s a big fucking deal. You are so intensely self-aware of your complexion and physical appearance, you fail to realize that for other people, it’s just a pimple. Sure you might get a statement or two like, “Damn are you growing another eyeball?” But at the end of the day, no one is going home to their spouse to talk about the size of your pimple. I know this is a sophomoric example of what I’m trying to get at, but you get the picture.”

Wactor: “It’s true. For the most part, no one’s going to pat you on the back when you accomplish something, no one but yourself. Sure, your parents want you to succeed on a general level. But the truth of the matter is that if you have good parents, as long as you’re content with your position in society, that's all that matters. What I mean is: if you’re content being a carpenter, your good at it, it contributes to society, and you make enough to pay the bills, your parents aren't going to admonish you for it. Not truly.”

Stolley: “Right, and the thing is, if you’re having a bad fucking day at work, and you call up your parents to talk about it, your parents will care, maybe even show some empathy, but they’re certainly not going to lose any sleep over it.”

Wactor: “The only person that’s affected by your actions is you. For example, my NCO this morning lauded and praised my coworkers for their dedication to run sixteen miles in preparation for the marathon next week; have I ever gained any praise for working on my Master’s degree while I’m deployed? No. And I don’t need it, because in the end the only one that stands to gain from my accomplishments is me. I have to become fulfilled from my own success if I ever hope to make it anywhere.”

This, unfortunately, is why I will not quit smoking anytime soon; the social interaction you derive from smoking cannot be easily replicated. If you find something, let me know. My lungs would thank you.

About Calls/Puts.

Buying stocks is called investing.
Buying stocks in calls/puts is called insanity.

Calls/puts is a method of gambling; esentially you are telling the market that by date X my stock will reach Y price or better. If it doesn't you lose it all; if it does, you stand to gain a lot from it. The risk is substancial as you can see, and after nearly seven months of investing I decided to try it out with what I considered to be a 'sure thing'.

I have found myself thorughly discontented with the process. The losses are piling; the overall success of my portfolio are diminishing. It's been a learning experience, one that says 'Never, never do this again'. I might as well start lighting cigars with $100 bills; at least my money would provide some comfort in that aspect.

I'm doing well in the stock market overall, but every once in awhile inexperience takes hold and shakes the profits from me like a bully during recess.

Lemuel's Life (Part II)

"Sophomore year, join a fraternity! Pi Kappa introduces you to mild hazing and boring meetings. You eventually lose interest and are known only for running naked in front of lost pledges shouting, "Follow the moon! The moon will lead you home!"

(I think this picture is funny yet visually appropriate. I am a black kid with curly hair; Pi Kappa was a bunch of white kids shaking my hand and putting their arms around me)

Freshman year, I never saw myself pledging a fraterity. The idea of going through so much trouble to join an elite grouping of male bonding seemed to me to be an insincere approach towards making friends...and gay. Who pays out of their pocket to acquire comraderie!?

Much like most things I initially abhor, I ended up trying it out sophomore year anyways. Pi Kappa was a fraternity that didn't care where you came from, who you hung out with, how you dressed, or how you sang (singing ability is a huge influencial factor amongst Abilene Christian University fraternities. Go figure)

Which was good because I didn't care for most people, dressed in black with a white-out contact and skateboard, and was never destined to be the next American Idol.

Pi Kappa made me carry bricks to my classes, hazed us wearing 'Scream masks', and generally made us attempt impossible tasks. I was rewarded with vague, blasé recolections of my entire sophomore year, either attending Pi Kappa functions or ditching work to go to my dorm room to play Warcraft III. Not exactly grabbing life by the balls, but I had not found my niche in ACU; most activities I engaged in that year were merely to pass the time.

In subsequent years I would periodically attend functions to haze that year's pledges with nakedness and other shenanigans. My visits were itermittent at best, much like most things I do.

A trip with Dustin Simms re-introduces you to the wildly addictive world of comic book collecting! Eventually you'll be spending $25/week on comics! Lose $3000 over the next three years.

This was one of my bigger mistakes. Collecting comic books is an expensive hobby for a college student earning negative money. Hell, it's too expensive a hobby for me to do it NOW, earning as much as I do. I blame Dustin for this mistake and hold him personally responsible for all the dough I sank into comic books in the three years following the reintroduction. They are heavy, space consuming, and have been sitting in my grandparent's attic for the last two and a half years. I have nowhere else to put them, no way to transport them, and no desire to remove them from storage anytime soon.

Someday they're going to get thrown out like my grandmother did to my dad when he never picked up his comic collection. Then I'll have a son who will hear about the fate of my comic collection and look at me like I tossed a treasure chest full of gold dabloons over the deck to sink to the bottom of the ocean, exactly how I looked at my father.