I shouldn't watch childrens television.

My almost three year old son loves his cartoons.  Sometimes I can get behind it.  Sometimes I wonder what the hell he's watching, and if I was the same way when I was his age.  Part of the problem is that I tend to apply logical thinking and look for deeper meanings in some of the things I see, more as a fun intellectual activity for me.  

My man Smiles McFeety has a couple of favorite shows. A Disney Peter Pan spinoff, Jake and the Never Land Pirates (which I, for some reason, can mostly put aside my ridiculous thinking and get behind), Adventures of Chuck, Bo on the Go! more recently, amid a smattering of other kid friendly Netflix available fare.  But how kid friendly these shows really are is a question in my mind, that is up for debate.

Aside from the obvious misrepresentation of colonial era piracy, Jake is full of colorful characters, is surprisingly well written for a kids show, and does offer a surprising amount of continuity.  This is one I'm afraid to Google any information about it just because I don't want it ruined for me, the internet being what it is and all.  The music is exceptionally well done, and it's not uncommon for me to sing along with my kid when watching the show.  Even the villain characters are likeable.  Captain Hook is still a jerk, but he's a likeable jerk most of the time.  A lot of this comes from a stellar cast of surprisingly famous people.  David Arquette, Sharon Osborn, Tori Spelling, Josh Duhamel, Jerry O'Connel, and even Adam West pop in from time to time to voice characters.

Watch out for this guy though.  No one, ever, should trust Cubby.

And then it starts to get weird.  Sinister, even.

The Adventures of Chuck and Friends is a kid friendly post apocalyptic tale of a group of kids who have to deal with their leader being a total dick all the time, and casually reinforcing outdated stereotypes.  I wish I was making this up.

Anthropomorphic cars and trucks live in a near utopian society where the only conflict ever seen is when the lead character, Chuck, does something to upset his surprisingly loyal friends, who still hang out with him despite the fact hes always a grade A jackass.  We get that the show is named after him, and he's the central character, but every single conflict, difference, or disagreement from this show stems from the main character bullying his friends into doing what he wants.

Wait, what?  Post apocalyptic?  Follow me for a sec.  A couple episodes in, we meet an elderly school bus.  This school bus isn't large enough to let the child we see in, but is perfect sized for human children.  As we've never seen a single human, adult or otherwise on this show, and none of the child-vehicles show any evidence of going to school, we can draw a couple of conclusions.  At some point, cars and trucks became sentient after the fall of humanity, but still seem to cling to human tropes.  Did a couple of people upload their consciousnesses into smart cars and evolve a society from there?  Did AI evolve to resemble human thinking and thought, 'Hey man, cars are cool!'?

Those two idea are (very thinly, mostly in my head) supported by our own modern day stereotypes.  The cars and trucks seen on the show are analogous to certain preconceived traits/personality types.  The pickup truck speaks in a southern accent and idioms and has cattle horns, as if they couldn't figure out a way to make a cowboy hat work.  The street racer car is of Japanese decent and likes shiny, flashy things.  The garbage truck is seen as constantly smelly and unintelligent.  There's a band tour bus that shows up one episode that speaks in your expected surfer/stoner tones.  No band, just the roadie.  The guy with the German name only speaks in harsh, unintelligible honks and is always angry.  I wish I was making this all up.

Yep, I totally can ruin everything.

Bo on the Go! is one of my dudes more recent interests.  It's the story of a warlock (who insist his charges call him 'The Wizard'.  I know what you're up to, warlock!)  who keeps a young preteen succubus named Bo (who doesn't know what she really is) locked in a castle with only a young dragon.  The show is supposed to promote healthy activities and developing motor skills like getting up, moving around, running, and jumping, but after about 5 minutes or so of this, Bo runs out of energy.  She needs the kids watching to get up and move around, so she can steal their energy ("When you move with me, you give me energy!"), so they can complete whatever menial task The Wizard sets up for them that episode.

The kids are supposed to set up a 'Bo Zone' where they can move around unhindered and perform movements and jumps and arcane hand motions to summon Wizard and transfer energy to Bo.  This sounds like a kid friendly, eldritch, potentially demonic summoning circle to me.  Obviously the terms warlock, succubus, and most of the arcane elements I've posited here are never mentioned, but seriously, read between the lines.  It's plain as day to anyone with a passing interest in the supernatural side of crytozoology.

The stuff of Nightmares in its nascent form.

Burnout!

Ever get to a point where you just feel burnt out in every single aspect of your life? Life at home, life at work, life with your friends, family, loved ones? And it's not necessarily anything they've done, just common, run of the mill, 'need a break from it all for a while' burnout?

This is where I am right now.

If it were just one or even two parts of my life, I could deal. Just take a little break from that area, focus on something else, come back in a few days or weeks refreshed and ready to tackle things with a new perspective. But alas, it's not just one or two parts of my life. It's every. Single. One.

And this need of a break is even extending to things that I'm not even actively doing. I've got a pile of unread books sitting around that I've been putting off. Movies, a small handful of games, TV shows, backlogged. I've got half a dozen creative projects that I've been intending to start, false starting, started and shelved... Sometimes, I have the time and just don't want to get into it, and other times, it's all I wanna do but I'm stuck doing anything else. It's maddening, really.

But its the big areas that I'm more concerned with.

Work burnout, however, gets a lot more worrisome. It makes you sloppy, less professional, and more willing to take chances just because you really don't give a fuck. And of course, I work in one of the more upscale, professional types of places in the casual dining hospitality industry, and it's been starting to show that I'm cracking a little under the surface. This is something that I really need to put the brakes on now, before I really screw up and get an unwanted kind of vacation. The kind that involves making a full time job out of finding a full time job.

Home burnout, is probably the least affecting one I have right now. Things around the house are fairly stable and for the most part, relaxed. There have been a few bumps along the way, but for the most part, everything lately has been getting a lot more manageable. Would a change of scenery be nice? Absolutely. Will it kill me to wait a few more months? Not right now.

Social burnout, this can get linked to two separate social circles.

My drinking circle, I've really cut back on the last few weeks, because of all the extra work I've been having to do. Of course, in my line of work, working more makes that end of shift beer sound that much better, but I've been trying to cut back on spending, and drinking out is the first thing to go. This'll change in a few weeks when a night or two out becomes a bit more affordable. It's been kind of nice not getting into a lot of the drama that comes out of these though, so there's another bonus.

My geeking circle, we've been getting burnt out on fast moving deadlines for goals we haven't been able to hit just yet, and everyone involved has been feeling the strain. Some people have already started taking the time off to recover, which puts the rest of us at a disadvantage, because we can't do things without them, which causes us to get more frustrated, which causes more burnout related breaks, which just becomes cyclic. There's other things involved here as well, which I have to take a bit more shit for since I'm in something of a leadership position in some aspects of things. This, likely, will become another post topic later on.

That odd center of the Venn Diagram of my primary social circles, ironically, is totally stress and drama free right now, thankfully.

So what can I do? I'm already planning a vacation early next month, which should help immensely with the work, home, and drinking circles. Said vacation corresponds with some things relating to my geeking circle, which deadlines hit or not, won't matter because 99% of our current projects will get scrapped and we'll be into something totally new. And maybe while I'm on this vacation, I'll figure out exactly how much juggling I really need or want to do, and come back with a few less plates in the air.

After all, everyone prefers 'moderately relaxed, smart assed because it's funny and I don't really mean it' Me more than 'rediculously stressed, extremely angry, purposefully mean so you'll leave me the hell alone' Me. I know I prefer the first one.

So you want to be a blogger...

Someone earlier today suggested I start a blog to help me kind of kick start my old writing habits. In theory, I thought this was a good idea. Not only would it give me a chance to get used to writing on a regular basis, but it would also give me an outlet to spout off on whatever I wanted to talk about, regardless if my friends were interested or not.

Sometimes, popping into Vent and ranting about some topics just isn't cool, ya know.

So here it is. The thoughts and opinions of a geeky bartender on whatever I feel like spouting about. Expect to see me rant about news, current events, art, geek related topics, WoW, and whatever the hell else I feel like. While I'm generally a nice guy, I'm also a cynical, smartass bastard with a dark sense of humor. You've been warned.