Next They're Gonna Take My Thumbs

I've been away for a few days because they shut off our television and Internet. Those cruel Comcast bastards. You fall two months behind on your bills and what do they do? They shut you down. That's life on the lowest rung for you. One moment, you're enjoying access to a vast array of pornographic videos and online shopping options via high-speed broadband while simultaneously watching National Lampoon's Vacation in crisp High-Definition for the 8th time, the next you're e-mailing your parents with your hands out because paying off your Comcast bill will otherwise require the donation of a significant quantity of your body's vital fluids and plasmas.

The TV, I've got to say, I don't mind so much. I think I could probably go several weeks before I msised TV at all. (Okay, I'd miss "Hell's Kitchen" and "Making the Band," but not so much that I'd sacrifice occasional luxuries like ordering out for Chinese food or gassing up my car). It was lack of Internet that was seriously cramping my style. I had no idea how much time I spent on this thing until it was suddenly taken away from me.

Approximately once every four minutes, I would think of something I wanted to look up on the Internet, only to have a sudden realization that the Internet had been disconnected by my corporate betters. It would be, seriously, within the same thought. "Man, it sucks there's no more Internet connection. I guess I'll just throw on a movie. I wonder how long Excalibur runs. Oh, I know, I'll just look it up on IMDB. Oh, wait, shit!"

A vicious cycle. It's depressing, to realize that you no longer actually attempt to store pieces of information within your brain, but just rely on computers to tell you whatever you want to know at any given time. One day, if the Internet for whatever reason ceases to exist (maybe some kind of electromagnetic blast?), we're all going to be left totally fucking helpless.

The point is, I need my Internet access. As Senator Ted Stevens might say, "But this service is now going to go through the internet and what you do is you just go to a place on the internet and you order your movie and guess what you can order ten of them delivered to you and the delivery charge is free. Ten of them streaming across that internet and what happens to your own personal internet? I just the other day got, an internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday and I just got it yesterday. Why?"

I can't really sum it up better than that.

All of these pesky financial concerns have driven me into the arms of a second employer. Yes, that's right...I'm cheating on Laser Blazer. I've begun seeing someone else. I'll be tutoring high school juniors, hoping to bring up the all-important Verbal SAT scores so that privileged, wealthy children can get yet another leg up over everyone else in the collegiate admissions process. Because, Lord knows, "legacy" admissions, elitist social "networking," access to superior public resources and the option of private school doesn't give these kids enough of a head start. There must be something else we can do for them.

But I need the money, and these tutoring gigs pay pretty well, so I shall put my reservations aside and do what needs be done to pump these scores up a few hundred points. In all honesty, I dig the company I'll be working for (which shall here remain nameless, thank you very much), it seems like an alright outfit, and I'm looking forward to getting started.

In particular, I like how this place is still a small business, a relatively new venture run by people with a lot of experience. I like getting in on the ground floor with companies, when the owners are still optimistic and concerned with being well-liked by employees. When you come on board early, everyone still has kind of a bounce in their step. They haven't been broken down mentally by the dread monotony of the actual work that goes into running a company. Once you've been there a few years or, worse yet, the small business turns corporate...it's all over. Welcome to Time Clocks and Bi-Monthy Evaluation Meetings and Mandatory Overtime and Office Politics. It's pretty sweet, by which I mean it makes me want to take a stapler to my frontal lobe.