"Todd's Wide World of 'What If? II'"

"Recent studies show that Americans are no more smarterer than previous generations."

Lancaster (Durrrhhh:Roy'drs) - Recent studies conducted by Government Scientists have found that since the founding of the United States of American in... whatever the hell the date was, Americans have actually become consistantly stupider than the generations immediately preceding them. "Think of it like the opposite of an Atomic Bomb blast;" a scientist explains, "where there is an ever-expanding concentric ring of damage originating from a single point of impact." Upon noticing that I was just holding the tape recorder close to his mouth, and drooling on myself while staring at his shiny pocket-protector, the scientist slapped me. "I'm sorry, but I need your full attention for this theory... you alright?" After I wiped the drool from my chin and nodded, the smart-guy continued, "At the rate of intellectual degradation of the American public, people will at one point forget to breathe and drop dead; in other words, death on a massive scale."

And then I crapped my pants. Of course, the scientist didn't realize it at first, but once he did... he ran back into his office. I was unable to get him to get out from under his desk to finish the interview.

My head cleared the nearer I drew to the newspaper's bullpen, and a thought came across my mind as I typed this article,"Could it be that it isn't our fault, the ones with standard IQ's that we're losing our intelligence? Could it be that the smart people are making us all dumber?" To test my theory, I asked Tommy, the chunky Intern to go ask Dr. Davidson, the paper's resident Mathematics and Physics genius and scientific consultant to explain the "Theory of Relativity" to him while I watched from across the room with my Binoculars. Tommy didn't see the point, but being a dutiful Intern, he complied.

What I saw shocked me: Tommy crapped his pants within five minutes and then passed out on the floor. Dr. Davidson hunched over Tommy, checking his pulse... Tommy was dead. Apparently, Dr. Davidson's impressive wealth of knowledge shut Tommy's mind off and stopped his heart. I dashed back to my desk and sent out a company-wide e-mail warning all the other co-workers of what was going on (excluding all the really smart ones, of course) and asked them to meet me on the roof of the building to discuss what we should do at 9 PM. E-mails rapidly hit my account, expressing concern, but said they would be there... some even offered to bring drinks.

At 9 PM, we discussed our options. Many said that we should just go to another State and ride it out, until I mentioned to them that if we went to a State with a lower IQ than us, we would probably be the ones who killed other people. They agreed, a road trip was out of the question... even if we loved Florida, it was too dangerous. So we then talked about how we could identify the smart people so that we could save lives, and Bob from Accounting mentioned a Flier that could have really hard questions on it that we could hand out on the street, and people would have to give us their personal info (home address, etc.) in order to participate. He said the questions could be randomly generated by a computer program so as to avoid hurting any who wrote or filled out the Flier... a silent weapon.

It was such a brilliant idea that Bob, upon realizing how smart it was, threw himself off the roof in order to avoid hurting the rest of us... the first martyr for the cause.

Marlene from the Circulation Desk said that we could print the Fliers at night with the printing presses that the paper used, and Don from the Printing Division agreed to set the plan in motion. So now we had a plan, but we had a bigger problem... this would be an Underground movement, and we needed a zippy title. Among the names that people came up with, (I especially liked "The Crimson Dumb", but I'm too fair-skinned to wear Red) "The Dumb Uprising" was the one that everone liked the most... we avoided using the word "Militia" since the dudes that us that word are too dumb even for us.

Take heart gentle people, "The Dumb Uprising" is here to save us all... we'll be sending in reports from the front-lines of "The War on Smartness" to this Blog from time to time to keep you updated.

Viva La Estupidistas!!!

"Well, that makes sense..."

Before I get into this little segment, I would first like to explain what "The Talk" means. "The Talk" is when you and your partner, boyfriend, girlfriend or spouse discuss the direction of your relationship. It sometimes happens in the early stages of the relationship, but more often than not it happens later on... in the final stages of your relationship, right before divorce is brought into the equation.

For this "Talk", Kristi was concerned with our compatability, our possible future together and some of the less-than-perfect parts of who I am. All of these things are, in my mind, good things to talk about, and when it comes to my flaws (which are numerous) that is often my favorite part of any discussion (and no, I'm not being sarcastic). Kristi is a positive, kind-hearted, caring and sensitive person, and she isn't vindictive at all... in any way. So, with all that out of the way, on to the segment!

Kristi and I had "The Talk" yesterday, and amongst the various topics on her mind, she told me that I'm an opinionated person... so much so that I sometimes make others (especially her family and friends) uncomfortable from time to time. I wasn't aware of this, and I instantly felt bad about it. Her whole family and all her friends are some of the coolest people that I've ever met, and finding out that I may be making them feel ill-at-ease because of what I say is not cool at all. If this applies to you, and I wasn't aware of it at the time... I apologize.

But, I don't apologize for being opinionated... it's not in my nature to apologize for something that I am. If people think that I'm critical of others, they'd probably be interested in my views of myself... which, believe me, they aren't all that great most of the time. I'm always been more critical of myself than I've ever been of others, and over time I hope that part of me will start to get tired of making little snide comments and take a dirt nap. Believe it or not, my criticisms are largely topic-based (much like this Blog is topic-based, and helps me vent), and they don't apply to everything in my life.

When I was a kid, I was quite, hiding from negative responses or aggressive posturing due to how small I was. Most people may not know this, but I was 5 foot 3 until I was 16... I was the short, doughy kid who always had to stand in the front of the school photos because I was so short. But that attitude changed when I went in the Navy, where being confrontational and direct with people is the only real way to get stuff done. I sometimes have trouble turning that part of my mind off for some reason.

Since I got out of the service, I've discovered that I don't like having to argue with people for one simple reason: They may tell you what they really think of you. And more often than not, what your friends, family and co-workers keep inside of themselves could cripple your self-esteem for a long, long time... trust me, I know first-hand what that's like, and I don't like telling people things that are pointlessly negative. Pointlessly negative is when you say something just to hurt someone else, and not to help them. There are times that in order to get past something, you have to be told the truth, and sometimes the truths stings.

My Mom used to always tell me as a kid that I'm "Too critical of others", and I guess that I never really took the time out to think about what that means. At times I'm critical, harsh, opinionated, yes, but I expect people to be the same way with me... but I guess that is something that other people may at times feel too intimidated to say, due to the kind of forceful personality that I have.

Kristi is the first person aside from my Mom, Bob and Geoff that ever talked to me about me. It was refreshing to hear someone else's opinions on what I do, how I act, what I say, and how those things affect others. Even if it isn't always positive... it's still true. We all have friends, but how many of us have friends that will tell us the truth about us? Believe it or not, that's more rare than getting something that is literally for free.

I've been spending too much time in my own head lately... I think that it's about that time that I stop doing that so much. If you guys think that I'm too wordy in my observations, you would hate to be stuck in my head for just one day... I often find myself too long in the tooth for my own tastes on a daily basis. Also, when the topics of opinion and criticism come up, I'm not one-sided in my views... I welcome the chance that someone else can prove me wrong. I've been wrong on a lot of things in the past and it's only logical that it'll happen in the future, I can take being proved wrong, since I like debates and discussions.

As for our relationship, I think (again, my opinion) that Kristi and I are doing alright so far, we just need to spend more time together. Kristi wants to go do stuff that see places in a more spontaneous way than we've been doing, so I'm guessing that would be a good place to start. Kristi said that these things that she brought up were just little things, but to me, the little things are some of the most important parts of any relationship. And being open to talk about anything is even moreso important, because if you don't talk, nothing can be fixed. And if nothing gets fixed, it breaks... and I don't want this to break, so I'll do all that I can to keep it working.