jd yates

It’s time now for me to blog about flakey people.

I hate them, they’re everywhere, and they should all go to hell, eat shit, and die twice. Scientifically classified as a subset of asshole, these folks are way more crafty and subversive. They hold their personal schedule in highest regard, causing them to value their time way above anyone else’s. The thought that you might have liked the opportunity to make other plans is an affront to their way of life. They will lie, cheat, and steal just to keep their options open and to make sure they get to do everything they want to do. FUCK THEM!

A word to the wise (or just the few of you who might enjoy seeing my face again, ever): if you say you’re going to be somewhere, you had bloody well better SHOW UP! This does NOT include calling or txting at the very last possible second saying you’ve come down with some random summer laryngitis shit and “can we go out tomorrow night?”. I’m not buying and will hang up in your face. done.

The saddest thing is that this behavior has seeped its deceitful way into the mainstream. Everybody does it, and everyone knows everyone else does it. It’s become societally acceptable to show up 2 hours late to a dinner or simply not show up at all. It’s gotten so bad that we now factor this probability into the equation when making plans. I have to make dinner reservations an hour earlier than I want to eat if I expect anyone to show up in time to save me from starvation. This also means that I’m the pathetic soul that has to go claim the table at 5 o’clock and hover over a margarita for an hour while I wait on my friends to start filing through the door sometime between the 45 and 90 minute marks.

To the credit of a couple of people, this rant does not apply to you… but hear this: Everyone else, this is for you… I am THROUGH putting up with this utter BULLSHIT! From this moment forward, people who exhibit this behavior will henceforth receive no further invitations or communication of any sort, for that matter, from me. period.

My forgiving nature will be taken advantage of no further.

I have spent the last 3 years making up for people who thought they were pulling one over on me. NEWSFLASH: I wasn’t buying it then either. The fact is that I, unlike the flake, posses a conscience and therefore can’t just not do what I say I will. So there I sit, awkward as fuckall, in a packed restaurant alone with my margarita… or maybe its the shit-nasty dark/dank pub that my retard-hetero friends picked and I’m pacing up and down the bar so as not to make eye contact with the handlebar mustache group in the back that’s quietly planning my lynching. Never again. No more paying for parking just to find out that all my friends that knew I was coming just left. No more searching crowded bars to find that they were never there to begin with. No more inviting people over and paying for and preparing copious food and drink to have 2 of 10 commited people actually make it. No more.

I REFUSE TO SACRIFICE ANOTHER FRIDAY NIGHT TO ANYONE WHO DOES NOT RESPECT MY TIME AND FRIENDSHIP.

“The presence of gratuitous evil in the world disproves the existence of a benevolent God.”

Gratuity and benevolence… one I hear too much and the other not enough. This comment was a clear attempt at inspiring religious discussion via the blogosphere, to which my knee-jerk reaction was “If you want to start a debate then you might consider saying something I disagree with.” Upon closer inspection I realized I neither agree nor disagree with that statement (a common problem of mine causing a lack of opinion on almost anything).

Gratuitous evil is an interesting concept, and open to a couple of interpretations. The first, and my favorite, is that it really is simply violence and pain for the sake of violence and pain. Normal people taking their God-given (*sorry, couldn’t resist*) free will and using it to destroy the lives of others. The religious zealots respond to this with the other interpretation which is that all experience has a purpose… pain and suffering are meant to shape us as people and help us move through our lives having learned something, making gratuitous evil no longer gratuitous. This happens to be a perfectly agreeable viewpoint to me as well, sans the infallible omnipotent higher power. Thusly we arrive at my lack of opinion on the topic. Sure evil is unnecessary in concept, but one must wonder how things might have turned out were all the evil in your lifetime removed. Would we be happier people for it or just a bunch of pussies?

I’d also like to take this opportunity to better flesh out my own definition of a benevolent God. I somehow doubt i would thank a God that spared me every upset, disappointment, and setback in my life. On the other hand I would certainly thank the God that kept my mother from dying of cancer… How do we define benevolent, then? Webster says “well meaning and kindly” which I feel lacks the gravity that the word carries, especially in this context. Perhaps that makes this a simple case of a bad choice of words. Surely its possible to provide a more accurate description of your creator. Something along the lines of “semi-compassionate”, “mildly humane”, or “magnanimous-ish”

(Aside: Congruent with society’s overall rose-colored attitude toward generally everything I think the christian God is arguably the most benevolent in history which only serves to make His existence even less likely. We’ve now taken faith, meaning a belief in things that can never be proven but which vast amounts of people take great comfort in and some even die for, and made the scenarios and lore surrounding it even less plausible by agreeing to think that the mastermind is perfectly well-meaning. Making a case for the gratuity of evil was even easier than i thought.)

It would appear that the more I write the more I lean toward agreeing with the comment… Here goes the home-stretch.

This line of thought brings in an interesting and terribly sensitive topic, Fate. A concept I’m terribly uncomfortable with, the ideas of benevolence and evil’s lack of gratuity seem to support it. I utterly refuse to believe that anyone or anything controls the circumstance and outcomes of my life except me. If that means I don’t believe in God or His plan then I’m happy to say so. The argument for free will in a fate controlled environment is that we’re simply allowed to choose how to react to the cirucmstances in our lives… bollocks in my opinion. As far as I’m concerned proactive is a much more logical stance than reactionary, I create my own circumstance as well as control its effect on me and my reaction to it. If anyone’s omnipotent in my life, it’s Me.

It would appear that over the course of this blog I may have actually formed an opinion on something. Someone call and check on the temperature in hell… oh wait, i just disproved its existence, shit.

A good friend of mine blogged about steak last night… I’ve decided to recommend that he seek therapy.

As I sit here and ponder topics for this entry (the truth is I’ve been pondering all day and come up completely dry) I wonder how he managed to write a complete sentence on steak, much less 5 complete paragraphs. Two of my readers (totaling a nice round 50% sample) spent the morning coaxing and prodding me to blog, and helping me come up with ideas, of which i now have an extensive list, but all I can seem to do is put it off. Once again these circumstances have culminated in me sitting in front of a keyboard ranting about having nothing to write about until i think of something to write about.

Perhaps the better idea is to wait until after my social event of the evening, come home slightly intoxicated and repeat the process over a nightcap…

Perhaps not.

From my window I can see a guy downstairs at the pool. He’s in a swimsuit talking on his cell phone with a bunch of papers laid out in front of him in a very Cash McMogulson-esque way. I wish I could do deals in my swimsuit. I bet Andy does too (that’s the guy who wrote about steak, he likes to do deals. Oddly didn’t mention Bob’s.) For those of you who don’t know what I’m talking about, see Katherine Harper’s Blog.

I started writing this no less than 2 hours ago… distraction is the DEVIL. McMogulson went inside, I guess his bluetooth headset died.

Seeing as how I’ve got to start getting ready for the evening very shortly I’ll end this entry by posting a list of topics that I never got around to covering in previous entries and that we came up with today. I’d very much like responses recommending which topic to blog on in my next post, not to mention commentary is always appreciated. Also, for the purposes of this weeks entry we won’t count this one since it’s mostly crap.

#1: Generation X/Y’s preoccupation with appearance and social status, my views on which may be skewed by where I live. Also, it’s affect on us growing up and how to avoid/overcome self-esteem issues resulting from it.

#2: The lack of academic stimulus in my life and its connection to my new dependence on spellcheck and dictionary.com. Should probably include at least a paragraph or so on how to remedy this, just so as not to appear complacent. Am almost totally complacent.

#3: Just once I want to write a blog in totally british and fabulously hilarious Bridget Jones style.

#4: The dating roller-coaster. An expose on the different sorts of people everyone is contractually obligated to date before finding love and why.

#5: Flakey people and the alarming (perhaps even record-setting) number of them I’ve gone through this year.

This should prove quite interesting.