Random Thoughts on Germs, Spying and Demon Vomit

Ever since I was a kid, whenever I finished a meal, a full stomach would send me into an uncontrollable and very annoying sneezing fit. My assumption has always been that it was the chewing motion that would cause my sinuses to drain hence causing the me to sneeze. However, in a recent Google search, I found that the nerve telling your brain that you’re full sits right next to the one that tells your nose that to sneeze. Interesting, yes? Maybe. I kinda figured that just like everything else in my brain, these two nerves are just a touch “off.”

What I’m not sure of, and the whole point of bringing this up, with regard to my dysfunction, is what’s more irritating to me, the sneezing spasm itself or the litany of “bless yous” and the variations thereof that follow. There are the “god bless you people. These people take advantage of your sneeze to hammer you with a desperate need  for divine intervention. There are the family of foreign language versions of “bless you” that I don’t know how to spell and don’t feel like looking up. Regardless, most people finish their meals with a sweet dessert or glass of port. Me? I finish mine being peppered with superstitious hexes rooted in the fear of contracting the black plague.

Why do we feel compelled to say bless you anyway? Rather the person sneezing should be begging forgiveness. Why do I have to bless when you’re blasting with your disgusting germ seeds and could be infecting me with dengue fever. Bless you? I think not. It’s bullshit. You sneeze, you apologize.

I bought one of those Alexa things from Amazon. Not sure why. I don’t really know why I buy 80% of the things I purchase. Even in spite of hearing all the warnings about how it listening to me, I still don’t really care. I seriously do not care if the black ops people can hear me. I’m too lazy to plan evil things. I have no idea of how to nor do I have the energy or even the desire to overthrow or subvert the current or any governmental administration. I don’t care enough. I also hear tell that Amazon may listen in on my conversations and use it to market properly and more efficiently to me. To this, I say, if Amazon wants to use my private conversations to better understand what it is that I want and need, then so be it, more power to them. I’m spending money buying things like hamburger presses and magic vegetable peelers. If Amazon can offer me some direction to not being an absolute idiot with my precious money, then I’m all in.

More than likely though, I can see my Alexa being used against me as follows, “Jon, I have contacted your insurance company and advised them to cancel your health policy. I saw what you ate this weekend and even I’m sickened by the sight of you.”

Now that election season is upon us, and thankfully passed, it occurred to me how much I hate the word, “gubernatorial.” What the hell is that supposed to mean anyway? The person we elect as the head of any particular state isn’t called a “gubernor”, they are called governors. Isn’t politics fucked up enough as it is that we, can maybe, put a hold on not making even worse? Surely this grammatical heresy hearkens back to some old English spelling or pronunciation where they really did pronounce the “B” but we don’t here. Leave it to us to change the way a word is pronounced but leave the spelling alone. Isn’t the English language confusing enough as it stands?

I’ve read recently that Halloween now rivals Christmas in the overall spending. I have a super hard time believing this because, let’s face it, what does Halloween really have? Candy, costumes and lawn ornaments? There’s no way that can add up to video games, televisions and cars. Who gets a fucking car for Christmas anyway? You see all these commercials with the giant bows fastened to the top of some 75 thousand dollar Lexus. My dad bought my mom a car for Xmas one year but he also handed her the payment book with the keys. I don’t necessarily consider this a gift. It’s more like hanging a millstone around someones neck and shoving them into the cold river.

In my mind Halloween while it may somehow catch up in the spending department, it will never surpass Xmas in the excitement factor until something is done about the music. There are literally thousands of Xmas songs by just about every artist trying to make a buck. Halloween has what, Thriller, The Monster Mash and the Ghostbusters theme? And, FYI,  albums full of creaking sounds, screaming and wailing ghosts do not count as music.

How come in every horror movie involving demon possession, the demons can only speak Latin? In fact, the only time I can remember a demon speaking in modern English was when Linda Blair’s tormentor, in The Exorcist, told that priest guy that his “mother sucks cocks in hell.” That’s it? Really? Your a demon, you’ve waited potentially thousands of years to use English in a horror film and with your first opportunity, you drop a stupid “your mama” joke.

Of course, there are languages much older than Latin, Sumerian for instance, so why pick haunting people in an old Roman tongue? I happen to believe is that it’s because of the Catholic Church. They’ve subverted every horror movie since the first days of the genre probably to make themselves seem more necessary. Like, you might think you can handle this demon infestation yourself but your dumbass cant even understand first century dialects so…

As long as the Church seems to think they have a lock on religious horror, let’s do it the right way. You know what would be really scary? A movie about letting your local priest babysit your kids. Now that’s terrifying.