So depressing...

OK, I'm calling it: It's officially a depression and I'm depressed. Today a good friend of mine got let go because a giant corporation decided to tighten it's belt a bit. The fact that the thing he's working on had nothing to do with that deal, and even that deal was not going to actually produce a product for at least a couple of years was meaningless.  He's not the only one.  A third of the company got the heave ho.  I've worked with these people and they're amazingly talented, bright and some of the hardest working mother-fuckers you'll ever meet.  Monday they'll have no work to do. 

To make matters worse, last night I accidentally got sucked into watching Rob Lowe have a heart attack and boy did it make Ally McBeal and the Flying Nun sad. Perhaps someone stronger than I could hold back tears when the Flying Nun is crying, but I'm not that guy. On top of all that, I'm pretty much constantly bombarded with news telling me reasons I should be depressed. Gloom and doom galore seems to be stomping on Obama's audacious hope. I'm sick of it and it's really pissing me off!

GET A GRIP PEOPLE. These news outlets are the same people who told us to duct tape our windows closed in case of gas attacks. Rob Lowe is far to good looking for god to take from us and next weekend the Watchmen movie is coming out! There's lots to look forward to! Life isn't all that bad. What about not having anything to fear but fear itself do we not get? I know years of Jose and the Pussy Cats and Space Ghost rotted out brains a bit, but surely we can understand this, can't we?

The media loves drama and so do a lot of us, but I'm OK with cutting it off with a remote control. This doom and gloom stuff has got to stop, because it's pissing me off. I'm not hoping for a return to the granite boardroom table dotcom times, but we all might feel a bit better after a game of foosball. We're all sitting here on a huge chunk of land that's chock full of cool stuff. Dirt with all kinds of useful plants growing in it, flamable gas just pouring out of the ground, people who can type little words on a keyboard and have it turn into Killzone 2 or Blogspot.com.  Can you imagine a world without Youtube?  I don't want to live in that world.

So what the fuck is the problem? We've got raw materials, stuff and smart people who can do stuff. When I'm king I'll connect these three things to make sure that all the people who can do stuff have a chance to do it to stuff. Why the hell are we waiting for banks? I'm going to nationalize the bank system because I don't like the idea of an organization being able to make money from people who don't have much money just by having money. It even sounds dangerous and I guess we're finding out that it is. When your job is making money by having money then you're not really doing anything.  Citibank, you're broke after taking $2 from everyone who took $20 our of their own bank account by using one of your little cash machines? Where the hell is that money? Judging by the tie of the teller in your branch, it's not going to employees.

So houses got built. Loans were made. People got that money, right?  Where is that money? I know many people paid more than their homes were worth because the banks artificially inflated housing costs by telling everyone they could buy a house. But someone got paid. We need someone to find where the hell all that money went and get it back.  Most of all, we need to remember that, in the end, money is just bits of paper and data in a data bank.  The real worth of my kingdom is you, my loyal subjects.  Now go and make the flying nun proud.  She'll be so happy if you like her.  I mean really like her.