I live in NYC. I live right by the World Trade Center. I walk past the site every day, sometimes several times a day.

Ever since this “mosque business” started there have been a plethora of idiots all over the streets crying about it and screaming about “Real Americans”, whatever that means. My message to these people is always the same: SHUT THE FUCK UP, AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY WAY.

What really pisses me off is the people that come from out of town to protest. Why do you care? What the fuck is wrong with you? Do I come to your town and protest against building a new church? No, I don’t. Now pack up your shit and go home.

I, for one, fully support anyone who wants to build something in Manhattan that provides some kind of public space. Some people are trying building a community center a few blocks away from the 9/11 site with a prayer room. That’s it. Do you have any idea how hard public space is to come by in this city? It’s hard to find a clean place to shit with a door on it.

If you don’t live in NYC, particularly downtown Manhattan, you shouldn’t care about this. This isn’t a national issue. If you really care about stopping the spread of Islam, start in your own city. Hold protests all over your “Real American” city, but get the hell out of mine and stop taking up sidewalk space.

/rant

What the fuck is a, “Real American”? That term used to refer to honest blue-collar workers. Now it has been perverted, like so many things, by the Tea Party to mean: Anyone who is a white bigoted idiot. It used to be such that, if you were born in America it didn’t matter where you came from, you were an American. Now there are two classes of Americans: Real Americans and Not-so-real Americans. You’re a Real American if you’re white and subscribe to Jesus Christ. You’re not a Real American if you’re brown. You’re whatever makes you brown first (black, Hispanic, Persian, etc.), and then you’re a little bit American second. According to the Tea Party, if you’re a Muslim then you’re a terrorist first, and an American second. This kind of bigotry is already worming its way out of politics and into policy. Just look at the ridiculous policies in Arizona now—if you look vaguely Hispanic you’re an illegal immigrant first, and an American second.

*sigh*
What are we doing?

Have you ever wanted to have a radio in your office, dedicated to entertaining you? Nap rooms when you’re too tired to think or had Spike Lee show up to an agency meeting?

W+K is one of the agencies that understands the Internet. They also have a two letter domain name. I don’t think that’s coincidence. As awesome as it would be to work for W+K, I was forced to respectfully decline. After a quick back and forth, I asked if it might be possible to work at their New York office, but this was the response I got:

What can I do to entice you to consider us in PDX?

How do I answer that? How about this:

What do I have to do to convince you that I can do my job just as well, if not better, without moving to Portland?

Really, why should I have to move to Portland? Why is it still normal for people to relocate for work? For certain professions I understand it—you need to be in the office every day. That’s how work “gets done.” But that doesn’t apply to me. And I’m not just saying that because I believe that I deserve to be an exception. There are, undoubtably, thousands of others just like me—there is nothing I do “at work” that I can’t do from anywhere with an electric socket and a decent Internet connection.

Why isn’t telecommuting the norm? Why do we still coordinate everything over those shitty Polycom conference phones? Why isn’t video conferencing the norm? Why don’t more companies use IRC or something like Campfire? Let’s ditch the conference call and use Mumble instead. Let’s axe the white board and use Draft.

It’s 2010. Relocate for work? What are we doing?

You have to have a cable subscription, with HBO, in order to use the service. Who thought this was a good idea? Why would you spend all that money for hosting and bandwidth to bring HBO ONLY to people who are already paying for it? My guess is that it has to do with their contracts. Verizon and Comcast would pitch a fit, and probably threaten to drop HBO all together if they started offering their service à la carte to anyone in the world willing to pay for it. You know what though? Maybe they should. HBO should piss off the major telcos. I’m sure someone will pick them up. See how many people drop Comcast and Verizon for DirecTV when DirecTV is the only one who offers HBO.

The reason I don’t have cable is because it’s too expensive and most of the things on TV are terrible. I’d gladly pay $10/mo for access to HBO GO, assuming it has a large enough library. I’m sure a lot of people would be willing to pay for such a service as well. But I’m not going to pay upwards of $50/mo for cable TV and HBO.