This Job Sucks. This State Sucks. This Future Sucks.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Had another fire in the tank farm yesterday.  We were rubberizing the tank nozzles when the curing agent got a little too hot (note: this procedure is not nearly as sexy as it sounds), and the rubber all ignited at once.  The curing agent got too hot, because the engineer - in the work instructions - doubled the amount recommended for use, "so it would get done faster".

It's always a good time, here in the land of SUN and FUN, FUN, FUN.  It seems to be a rule that if you can get a job in Arizona, it must be inhumanly stressful.  I bet Big Gay Cowboys never have days like this.  No, for them it's all riding off into the sunset after saving polio victims from komodo dragons, and getting a big kiss from the horse.

I wish I had a job like that.

Instead, I deal with a refinery that is constantly on the edge of self-destruction, staffed by under-trained operators who are themselves led by lunatics and the mentally retarded.  THIS IS NOT HOW I PICTURED THE FUTURE, BACK WHEN I WAS JUST A LITTLE GIRL. 

In Portland, they have art gallery openings.  In Arizona, we have excess radiation and toxic dumps called "landfills" that they build housing developments on/around.  25 years later, the ground starts to crack open and smoke comes out, AND NOBODY FUCKING NOTICES.  It's just ANOTHER DAY.

Maybe it's just me and my bad attitude.  Maybe this is the way things are supposed to be.  Maybe the REAL future is out there somewhere in an alternate universe where people occasionally LEARN if you whack 'em hard enough in the right spot.  Maybe over there, they learned from WWII and maybe they learned that supply-side economics doesn't work, and maybe they learned that after a certain level of wealth it's just gluttony, especially in a world full of hungry people.

And it occurs to me that in that world, Big Gay Cowboys wouldn't HAVE to save polio kids from gigantic fucking lizards, because polio would be wiped out and the lizards would be kept for eating congressmen.

Or Kill Me.

[Suu]

You know, Roger, I've been thinking a lot about employment and life and shit lately too. I figured if I returned, you'd have the Holy Answer. Low and behold, I'm never disappointed.

Real life isn't Lefty and Dusty riding across the Prairie searching for adventure on NPR. I mean, that shit has been an escape for the huddled masses yearning for entertainment since Keillor started that show, what? 30-40 years ago? Time is relative, and irrelevant at the same time.

Shit never really changes, does it? Are we ever really SUPPOSED to like our work? I SUPPOSE I like mine, in that, I'm working freelance for the summer rather than pay taxes to the filthy state that has YET to give me a refund because they were too busy getting smoke blown up their asses by some washed up baseball hero now wanted on charges by over 9000 creditors for a game company that may singlehandedly bring little Rhody to it's knees. No, we're already on our knees, it's time to start losing organs to make ends meet, here.

I think everyone's view of the future is skewed. In three years, according to Marty and the Doc, we should have Hoverboards. I will be greatly depressed if we don't. Well, at least we still have moving walkways at airports.

And they tell US we have a negative outlook. They tell US our attitude is bad, right? I mean, no economy, no rhyme or reason to the barely-there semblance of a republic we live in these days, and no fucking Hoverboards. No, I'm calling bullshit, Roger. It's not us, it's THEM.

[tyrannosaurus vex]

AZ has always been a home to terrible people. Like Australia. Unlike Australia, the riffraff that populated Arizona Territory self-deprted from the Nice Guys Society back East. Also unlike Australia, Arizona's awful people stay awful, have awful kids and grandkids, and elect awful bastards to office.

It's tradition. It's not pretty, and that's the point here. It's another dimension, which is why it's only one letter off from "Oz." We have the Tin Sheriff, whose joints were all locked in place by hate years ago. The brainless Governor Scarecrow who really does have a lot to say considering all the empty space in her head; and the Cowardly Opposition, whose roar sounds more like "may I have another Sir?"

Us? We're stuck with the role of Dorothy, just trying to find a way back to a home we are increasingly suspicious never existed at all.

But then, at least it ain't Kansas.

[The Dark Monk]

This is how the Fallout series started, and how eventually the west is ruled by a New California Republic, the East is ruled by psychotic Roman Legionnaires, and an army of Securitrons hold Arizona/New Mexico.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

AZ has always been a home to terrible people. Like Australia. Unlike Australia, the riffraff that populated Arizona Territory self-deprted from the Nice Guys Society back East. Also unlike Australia, Arizona's awful people stay awful, have awful kids and grandkids, and elect awful bastards to office.

It's tradition. It's not pretty, and that's the point here. It's another dimension, which is why it's only one letter off from "Oz." We have the Tin Sheriff, whose joints were all locked in place by hate years ago. The brainless Governor Scarecrow who really does have a lot to say considering all the empty space in her head; and the Cowardly Opposition, whose roar sounds more like "may I have another Sir?"

Us? We're stuck with the role of Dorothy, just trying to find a way back to a home we are increasingly suspicious never existed at all.

But then, at least it ain't Kansas.

Fact:  Arizona is populated with the descendents of people who thought that New York City circa 1870-1920 just wasn't violent enough, and old people who come here to die.

And you're right about it being another dimension.  It's the afterlife.  And we were bad.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

You know, Roger, I've been thinking a lot about employment and life and shit lately too. I figured if I returned, you'd have the Holy Answer. Low and behold, I'm never disappointed.

Real life isn't Lefty and Dusty riding across the Prairie searching for adventure on NPR. I mean, that shit has been an escape for the huddled masses yearning for entertainment since Keillor started that show, what? 30-40 years ago? Time is relative, and irrelevant at the same time.

Shit never really changes, does it? Are we ever really SUPPOSED to like our work? I SUPPOSE I like mine, in that, I'm working freelance for the summer rather than pay taxes to the filthy state that has YET to give me a refund because they were too busy getting smoke blown up their asses by some washed up baseball hero now wanted on charges by over 9000 creditors for a game company that may singlehandedly bring little Rhody to it's knees. No, we're already on our knees, it's time to start losing organs to make ends meet, here.

I think everyone's view of the future is skewed. In three years, according to Marty and the Doc, we should have Hoverboards. I will be greatly depressed if we don't. Well, at least we still have moving walkways at airports.

And they tell US we have a negative outlook. They tell US our attitude is bad, right? I mean, no economy, no rhyme or reason to the barely-there semblance of a republic we live in these days, and no fucking Hoverboards. No, I'm calling bullshit, Roger. It's not us, it's THEM.

It is only by my forbearance and Holiness™ that my attitude hasn't gone from "worse" to "Chainsaw Billy" in the last few years.  I do NOT have a negative outlook...I have a REALISTIC outlook, or perhaps even an idiotically optimistic outlook. 

And I don't need hoverboards or flying cars or anything like that.  I just need a death ray.  That's all the future I want, and all the future Arizona needs. 

[The Good Reverend Roger]

This is how the Fallout series started, and how eventually the west is ruled by a New California Republic, the East is ruled by psychotic Roman Legionnaires, and an army of Securitrons hold Arizona/New Mexico.

Um.

[Juana]

There's a reason I kick AZ refugees out of my state. They bring that "Oh, the ground is smoking? Hm," attitude with them, and California's got her own problems to deal with (and her own home grown people like that, too, actually - how do you think we got like this?).
D'you reckon the desert will eat them, if you leave them out there? Because I can set them free at the edge of our border with you, in the Mojave.


Or maybe we can dump them in Nevada. No one would notice them, I think.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Bump for use elsewhere.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

I always want to say that this is NOT the future that I was promised, and then I remember that I grew up in the 80's.

This is EXACTLY the future I was promised, only a little bit nicer. 

[Trivial]

I wanted a flying car until I realized that most the population have enough problems handling 2 dimension navigation.

Meh soon I'll be living n a solar dome on a platform in space.

[Lenin McCarthy]

I read on a hitchhiking guide site once that about 50% of Arizona is covered with Indian reservation and the other half is covered in senior citizens.

[Anna Mae Bollocks]

They told us when we were little kids that when we grew up, we'd only work three days a week. It was in Weekly Reader.

And it CAME TRUE! Weekly Reader left out the part about trying to live on $90 a week in the 21st century, though.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I read on a hitchhiking guide site once that about 50% of Arizona is covered with Indian reservation and the other half is covered in senior citizens.

And the other OTHER half is Tucson.  Come to Tucson.  It's PARADISE.