How Much of You Do the Big Four Own?

Not what I was going for, but oh well.

Google, Apple, Amazon, and Facebook are worth a combined 2.8 trillion dollars. Despite all that cash, they all pay well under the corporate tax average in the US (Facebook only pays a 4 percent tax rate!). All that revenue is going to a small number of people--Facebook only employs 23,000. Sure, you might know a lot of people that work at an Amazon warehouse, but how much are they getting paid? Is our increasing servitude to these four companies worth the disruption they cause the economy when one of them puts yet another company out of business? I don't think so: these companies are vast data mining operations that sell every piece of info they can glean from you to the highest bidder. In the futile interest of reducing the onset of the surveillance state (hah, it's been here for a while), I'm going to examine my usage of the four aforementioned companies and figure out if I really need the services they provide.

Amazon--I've had a Prime membership for three years, but I don't really need it. I don't order a whole lot from Amazon. Their streaming service is my least watched app--none of their original series have grabbed my attention, and the exact same movies can be watched on Hulu. I do use a Firestick to watch TV, but you don't have to have Prime to use one. It is awful damn convenient to order books from them, since there isn't a bookstore in my vicinity. However, you don't need Prime to order stuff. I think I could cancel our Prime membership, if I can talk my wife into it.

Apple--I've never purchased an Apple product. I used to have an Ipod, but it was given to me by my sister. Apple's entire strategy is to design nice-looking products and charge a lot more for them than they are worth. Since I've resolved never to get a smartphone until it is government-mandated, I have little use for them. Their PCs are shit, and tablets are for children. As far as I'm concerned, the world's most valuable company ain't worth shit.

Facebook--Facebook also sells a product that I'm not interested in. It was fun in Facebook's nascent days to check out girls and keep tabs on friends while I was in college, but as an adult I have no use for fake news and shitty design. Seriously, every time I log in the whole interface is so terrible I have to wonder what all those billions are being used for; I assume Zuckerburg is building an underwater lair in the shell of an old volcano. If you care about somebody, visit them in person or call them on the phone. Stop putting your life up on Facebook for them to data mine at their pleasure. My profile picture is the face of William Riker, and my birthday date is listed as January 1st, 1901. The only reason I have a profile at all is for my business. Otherwise, I'd never use Facebook.

Google--Ah, and here is where my snarky attitude and smug superiority fail me. I use Google for everything. If I have a question, I google it. This blog is provided free of charge from Google Blogger. I have 10 gigs in my Google Drive, 10 gigabytes of music and writing that I've done over the years. My email account is a Gmail account. I do use Firefox as my browser instead of Chrome, but big whoop. Youtube is full of nerds commenting on bullshit, but that doesn't mean I've never uploaded a video myself. I suppose I could backup my data on multiple hard drives like I used to in the past, but it is so damn convenient to be able to access the same document on multiple computers using Google Drive. I'm probably not going to change my email, and this blog ain't moving. Perhaps I should start using Bing to look up shit, but Microsoft is basically the granddaddy of the big four, and is Bing still around? Fine, Google. I surrender. Please don't sell my secrets. I swear they aren't worth anything.

Weightlifting: 2018 Goals

Remember this stupid commercial?

2018 is the year of hypertrophy, the year to add muscle mass and not worry about how much I squat, bench, or deadlift. Due to the back injury I've written about here, I haven't been able to squat or deadlift without pain for a while, so the focus on bodybuilding is a side effect of that fact. Increasing volume and intensity comes before adding weight to the bar. Here's the program I've been doing lately:

Day One: Chest/Back--I've been using only three exercises, the bench press, cable row, and pulldowns, alternating the two back movements. I don't feel like I need more variation than that, since I've always had big pecs naturally, and the upper back doesn't need anything besides vertical and horizontal pulling. I've never seen the need to do direct trap work.

Bench press: 5 to 6 sets of 8 to 10 reps, starting with at least 50 percent of my max, and going up into the 70 percent range.

Cable row/pulldown: 5 to 6 sets of 10 reps.

Day Two: Shoulders/Arms--Currently, I'm not doing much overhead pressing, since the bench press takes care of the front delts, and my manual labor job is hard on my shoulders.

Side laterals: 3-5 sets of 10 reps.

Dumbbell face pulls: 3-5 sets of 10 reps.

Barbell/DB curls: 5 sets of 10 reps.

Pressdowns: 5 sets of 10-12 reps.

Day Three: Legs. No heavy squats, but split squats (essentially a lunge with one foot on a bench) are a decent replacement. Considering getting a leg press, but I don't think I need one.

Split squats: 5 sets of 10 reps.

Leg extensions: 5 sets of 12 reps.

Leg curls: 5 sets of 10.

Dumbbell calf raises: 5 sets of 12.

And that's it. I do this routine once a week, sometimes switching up exercises. I might do a strength block in a month or two to switch things up.

New Old Music: Wish There Were Some Air

A very old song about drowning underwater (not really). I think it's one of the better singer-songwriter pieces I've done.

Writer's Block: Life without Squats

I look at my power rack

and see a rusted frame

a weak monument

to the greater ambitions

of a less-compressed spine.

I can still squat on my toes;

I can use the toilet like any man.

I can tie my shoes,

put on my socks,

lift the litter off the floor.

Lunges are a poor substitute;

leg extensions are for babies

and people scared of weights.

I console myself with the fact

that the Rock doesn't do squats.

My legs won't atrophy without them,

for it is not their destiny to be

balsa wood sticks.

As Jeff Goldblum said,

"Life will find a way."

And so I will persevere,

while my power rack gathers dust.

Good bye, old friend.

May I use you again some day.

New Old Music: Time Machine

A song about the underclass, married to a techno beat. No idea why I called it "time machine."

2018 Fake News Predictions

Look at this shithead.

As the White House releases today a controversial (i.e., bullshit) House intelligence memo alleging FBI bias in the Russia investigation, Pointless Venture thought we'd make a few predictions on future news/fake news developments for 2018 because why the fuck not? We're living in Trump's world, which means if you say something enough times, then it becomes true. Maybe at the end of the year, if we're all still here, we'll examine this post and see if any of these came true. Let's hope not!

Prediction 1: President Trump's true weight will leak to the press, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders will have to lie to Americans and say that the President does not weigh 300 lbs. Let's get this straight--the President is fat and full of orange dough. He does not weigh 239 lbs, and it's doubtful he's 6'3. I will give it to him that he must be a medical miracle, because he's still alive even though his daily diet seems to consist of KFC and charred steak.

Two men, clearly the same height.

Prediction 2: President Trump will be recorded using the N-word. He already called African nations "shithole countries". There has to be a non-negligible chance that a live mic catches the President using a racial slur. If this happens, cue all the GOP politicians defending Trump, saying that the President didn't mean it while his base continues to not give a shit. Tax cuts!

Prediction 3: The Piss Tape will be proven real and leaked on the net. Is it a little far-fetched to believe that Donald Trump went to Russia and paid prostitutes to piss on a bed that the Obama's slept on? I dunno. He seems to have paid a porn star 100 grand to have an affair and nobody cares. And despite what Congress would have you believe, his Russia connections are very real. Donald Trump, by all accounts, is a very petty, stupid man, having been filthy rich enough his entire life to avoid the consequences of his behavior. Therefore, we give this one a pretty high chance of happening.

Prediction 4: Republicans will continue to give no shits about democratic institutions. Mitch "the bitch" McConnell was recently quoted as saying "2017 was the best year for conservatives" in his entire career. Anybody wondering whether Trump will be impeached if the Russia investigation reaches a conclusion unfavorable to the President has their answer in the Senate Majority Leader's quote.

Prediction 5: Nobody will know what to believe anymore. We're basically already at this point. Sure, intelligent people are not distrusting what they read on Politico or hear on CNN, but since when have intelligent people made up the majority of the electorate? Apparently, a large number of people get their news from Facebook, which has done jack-shit to purge its newfeed of fake news. I guess when President for life Zuckerberg topples Trump in a bloody coup and forces us all to have social media installed directly into our eyeballs, we may finally see the error of our ways.

Prediction 6: Stupid people will continue being stupid. Remember when Jerry Sandusky was convicted of sexually assaulting young boys as a member of the Penn State football program? Remember how Penn State fans vehemently protested the NCAA's punishment, to the point that the NCAA erased the four year ban after two years? Football was all that mattered to these people; the terrible sexual abuse of children for a period of fifteen years by an assistant coach of the Nittany Lions may as well not have happened. Trump is the Republican Party's Jerry Sandusky. He's doing what he can to fuck over the marginalized, but team players are blind to these abuses because he's on their team. He's a part of their identity. Yankee fans hate the Red Sox. Everybody but New Englanders hate the Patriots. Logic doesn't figure into the debate. If it did, stupid people wouldn't be stupid.

New Old Music: Heart Beat

An ancient song from 2009 that I wrote for the woman that would become my wife.

Writer's Block: More Bad Poetry

To My Dog

Dog,

I am sick of your farts.

Get the fuck out.


To the President

Your brain is full of worms.


To My Wife's Cat

If I feed you cheese,

Will you stop pooping so much?

I feel I am making

A deal with the devil.


To My Television, My Wide-Eyed God

Is it bad to see nothing?

Is it wrong to feel the eye of malice

Forming from the blank black glass,

Styling itself a friend,

A diplomat to lost souls?

Is there nothing wrong to watch?

To hear?

To listen?

When I shout at you,

Why do you not shout back?

Please give me the friendship

I so desperately need.


To My Baby

I dub thee "Mr. Toots."

It seem that I am more tolerant

Of my flesh and blood

Than with the dog. 



  

The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

Shorty after the new year
They come in suits of plastic, Martian men, roaming the streets with their machines, collecting samples while the troops put up fencing. News has already gotten out; we're ground zero for something bad, something alien, perhaps, or more likely engineered. I look out the window, blinds drawn, for you don't want to draw their attention. People have been disappearing, the ones who asked too many questions, who seemed a little too interested in the coughing and sneezing of their neighbors. We told ourselves it was the flu, that we'd get better in time, that modern medicine would have the cure for what ails us, that we could continue on with our lives of gentle consumer servitude. The children distract themselves with their electronic gadgets, but our internet connection is out, the modem's light blinking like a beacon warning us to stay away and keep quiet. We're all peering between drawn blinds, watching the forces marshal in our small slice of American suburbia. After hours, I start putting liquor in my coffee to counteract the caffeine. I don't want to be too awake in case something happens. I want to feel the heavy weight of battling drugs.

Day ten of our confinement
Billy has the cough. His nose runs like a faucet, mucus leaking from his nostrils in green streams of slime. We don't let him out into the back yard in case someone sees him. He is confined within a smaller prison, the prison of his bed room. My wife has him lapping up fluids, a wet towel pressed against his forehead to cool his fever. After tending to the boy, she washes her hands for several minutes until they are cracked and raw. I read in an encyclopedia that every sneeze releases millions of virus particulates. The hand washing gesture is as futile as Macbeth's.

Day fifteen
We hear a knock on the door. I get up slowly, as though I'm being called to the scaffold. A glance through the peephole reveals men in plastic, respirators and hoods covering their faces, concealing any hint of human recognition. I can't see their faces so I can't read their faces; nevertheless, their purpose seems grim, unfeeling, determined. I crack the door open and ask if I can help them. A muffled voice rings out, and papers are presented, government licenses, CDC badges. They want to come in the house. I tell them that that's impossible, that we haven't the room, that the place is a wreck and that my wife has a phobia of strangers. They stand for a while uncomfortably, silence filling the spaces that we refuse to fill with useless words. The muffled voice speaks again, saying that habeas corpus has been suspended and warrants have been issued for every house in the cordoned zone. I give him my best smile and nod while he speaks, as though I understand and comply. As I unlock the door and let them in, I take my pocket knife and run it against their plastic suits, my eyes on their hidden orbs, smiling, distracting. Everyone enters punctured; everyone will soon be as we are, prisoners of illness. I make sure to hack and cough as much as possible as they take samples from our furniture. I make sure they catch my disease.   

New Old Music: Cossacks

An old song, one of my weirdest. Dig the guitar solo, which I did with my old piece of shit Paul Reed Smith, which I ended up retiring after destroying the tremolo.

Writer's Block: New Year

The fog flows in

Blanketing curves

Setting loose lights

That freewheel

Plummeting madly

Wisps whipping 'round

Bodies without heads

Starved souls steering

Toward cliff sides

Falling futures

Babbling mouths

Babes aging

Turning to men

That eat themselves

Feet first

Like a snake

Making a ring

Happy new year.