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I hate American exceptionalism, and blind patriotism pisses me off, but, during the Olympics, I secretly root for the United States.

This day is the day that I traditionally set aside to direct a tirade toward a specific person. Miraculously, after forgetting about it all year, I was reminded about it this morning. This year, it's dread that's stopping me from making a more direct statement.

No, I haven't forgotten. Yes, I was a jerk, and I'm sorry. Yes, you are probably still incompetent. Yes, you could learn from this. No, you probably haven't. No, I don't want to keep thinking about it time after time. Yes, I probably will. Yes, an actual apology for what you did rather than a generic “Sorry for the way that things turned out.” would have gone a long way.

Happy Valentine's Day!

On the bus today, I almost felt the urge to just take the headphones out of the iPod of the person next to me and put my own headphones in them and her headphones in mine on just a spur of the moment thing. Is music shared among strangers a beautiful thing or am I just really weird?

First we were the Pepsi generation. Then, we became the Seinfeld generation. Now, we're somehow the iPod generation. Tomorrow, we'll be some sort of generation with some sort of adjective attached implying that we're the product of mass-market, popular culture with a dose of moral decay added in for good effect.

Yeah, right! It's bad enough as if my generation was perceived to be shallow enough to revolve entirely around an iPod, a nihilistic television show or the concept of instant gratification. It's worse to be assumed that we're a lost-cause generation with no hope and a future worth weeping for. It's a load of bullshit… pure, unadulterated bullshit.

When I deal with someone at work, I'm privy to their details: date of birth, address, employment history, racial background, driver's license number… Point being, I know the age of the people that I talk to. Some of these people are decent people who it's a pleasure to help. Others… let's just say that I pray that they call me some nasty bad word so that I can hang up on them. I tend to notice a correlation: people born in the '80s are not just nice; they are the most pleasant, understanding and patient people to work with. People born in the '40s, '50s and '60s are not by any means awful as a rule, but most awful people were born in the '40s, '50s and '60s. '70s… it's hit or miss. Does that really make sense? In the world of inevitable moral decay¹, shouldn't it be the young ones who would be the most awful, rude, inconsiderate people that you could imagine with their impatient sense of greedy entitlement?

1. Which is the biggest lie ever!