In no particular order since they are all WAY past due.
Updated 2/23/10
Any adult who STILL can't admit they masturbated EVER.
The fact that people who have no imaginations always have nothing but negative things to say about people who have vast imaginations.
The frighteningly large number of Americans that think an accurate summary of the First Amendment is that you have the right to practice Christianity in the Protestant church of your choice, and that the part about free speech doesn't really matter.
People who read my page, like it, and decide to sign up to a forum as Negativepositive and act like my page is their homepage. Even weirder are people who read my page, acknowledge that it's mine, then LINK to it with "additions" they would like to see that are things that are ALREADY on the page, but they reworded them very, VERY slightly. Worse are people who use the name "negativepositive" to make a .com, myspace page, flickr, livejournal, etc. who post a poem, a couple of pictures, or nothing in particular, and then apparently move on.
"I'm negativepositive! Welcome to my page!.... Last login: April 22, 2003."
This guy Adam Sessler from TechTV (now called G4, which sucks more and more by the day) who really, really liked my Jennifer video that I made in September of 2002. In "Jennifer," I walk around Manhattan among crowds of confused onlookers with a red snapper under my arm, seeing the sights as though I'm hanging out with my girlfriend. He liked it so much that in August of 2003, nearly a year after I published "Jennifer," he made a few small videos of (get this amazing originality) him walking around town among crowds of confused onlookers with a red snapper under his arm, seeing the sights as though he's hanging out with his buddy. Not just any fish, but a red snapper, no less. He even buys the fucker at some Chinatown fish place, just like I did. How inventive! I'm sure it's all just a BIG COINCIDENCE that he thought of the EXACT same idea as me a year after I thought it up. I mean, a guy walking around the city with a red fucking snapper under his arm talking to it like it's a person... That's like a comedy standard, right? WRONG. The fucking guy even holds the fish the same way. Dude, the least you could do is link to me. It's the least you could do for blatantly plagiarizing content from my page to put on your shitty channel to ensure that you have a job. I made the video expecting no money in return, whereas you deliberately steal people's ideas to get your paycheck. Goddamn, what a blood sucking parasite. "Slippy the Fish?" How many hours around the boardroom table did it take to come up with "Slippy?" Jesus. What brilliance! Just call it "Swimmy the Fish what Digs Wetness" and save yourself some effort. Why does TechTV need to resort to blatantly plagiarizing me to have something interesting on their channel? Because they suck ass and I kick ass. Seriously, eat a fucking dick, Adam Sessler.
Pizza places that only have specials if you're having a huge party or something.
"TRY OUR NEW 4-4-4-4 DEAL! You get FOUR large pizzas with FOUR toppings, FOUR packs of breadsticks, FOUR packs of buffalo wings and FOUR two-liters of soda for only $44.44!"
"Got anything for a medium pepperoni?"
"Nope! That's twelve bucks!"
Gizmodo has a section where every week they review the best new iPhone apps, and every week a few people whine, "Why only iPhone apps? Why not Android apps?" Oh, gee, maybe because the section is called "This week's best iPhone apps," not to mention that there are many times more iPhone than Android owners, and seemingly most Android owners really wanted an iPhone, but didn't want to be on AT&T?
People on Facebook whose apparent purpose in life is to make a great effort to give the impression that all they do every day is wear fancy clothes and drink fancy drinks and eat fancy food with fancy people at fancy parties at fancy restaurants.
Video games, music and movies that are "coming soon," and then don't come out for 2 years or more. Hey, fuckfaces. 2 years from now isn't fucking soon, especially for a videogame that will be beatable over a weekend, a CD with 2-3 good songs on it or a movie that's worth seeing once, maybe, once it comes on Netflix.
Software updates that make previously functional software and hardware into non-working software and hardware.
"Ahh, yes. See, we added a new feature. The new feature is that now your sound card does not make sound. It's a bug fix, really... for people who consider a sound card providing their computer with the ability to make sound a bug. I mean, you did spend a bunch of money on a SOUND card with the intention of it being as silent as a stone, right? And up until now you have been playing videogames and movies and music with sound, right? And who wants that? Pffft! All that noise messing up your entertainment! Well now we have taken care of that for you. You're welcome."
To add to the above: Good old video games and applications that need a shitty old operating system and shitty old hardware to run. If a game ran really well on a 166mhz processor and 32 megs of RAM, it ought to run like a motherfucker on a 2ghz processor and 4 gigs of RAM, not "not at all."
Christians who are debating me who think a valid argument against my points against their religion is to quote scripture at me like they are casting a magic spell.
"What evidence do you have for your religion?"
"When he said this, he called out, 'He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'"
"Uhhhh, did you even read what I said?"
"Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly."
"You know what? I'll take your attempt to divert with mumbo jumbo as your concession, and you can go fuck yourself."
Movies and TV shows where one of the characters is reading a plot-critical note, email, etc. and the thing flashes on screen, half visible, just long for your brain to think, "Oh, hey, I should read that," and then it's gone faster than anyone could possibly read it all. Gee, thanks.
Clients who bring up ancient history.
"Good morning, I just needed to ask a question about one of our bills."
"Okay."
"Okay, the date of the event was November 10, 08, and there was a charge on the invoice for 'miscellaneous' for $14.23... And I just need to know what that was."
"Uhhhh.... You want me to tell you what something was, that was entered as miscellaneous, from a bill that totalled $22,093, from over a year ago.... for 14 bucks?"
The fact that I have to take my pants off to talk to my doctor about my asthma.
People who scoff at you for not being familiar with a trend that is certain to be a short lived fad, which they believe is undeniably culturally significant.
(1995) "Pfff, you've never heard of Pogs? These are going to pay for my retirement. Just you wait!"
People who scoff at you for being involved in things that are certainly not short lived fads but undeniably culturally significant.
(2010) "Pfff, quit yammering about the internet. I don't see what you people see in it."
That moment in a debate when you realize that your opponent is actually out of his mind and that you have totally wasted your time and energy forming cohesive, reasoned arguments. It's not that they're wrong, or ignorant, or buying into a fallacy, but are clearly crazy.
"God is real, and faith is a totally valid reason to believe in him. Plus, science that contradicts the Bible is clearly wrong."
"First off, to demonstrate that God is real, you have to provide evidence, as faith is just an excuse to believe in something without a good reason."
"You believe in this reality? Reality is just an illusion created by Satan to test your faith."
"And you don't see the glaring contradiction that you doubt the reality in which you read the Bible and came to your faith in God? How would you be able to come to this conclusion that reality is an illusion?"
"The Devil told me so."
"That's cute. I understand that you have strong faith, but don't exaggerate."
"The Devil talks to me all the time... audibly. Pfff, like he's never talked to you before? Nice try!"
"Hmmmm, okaaaayyy.... You know what? I think we should cut this discussion short. Yeah..... See, when we started this debate, I made the perhaps hasty assumption that you weren't crazy. But now that it is clear that you are, I don't think it would benefit either of us to keep going. I can make a thousand reasonable arguments, but none of them are going to make you not be crazy..... Yeah..... Sooo, good bye...."
While I am a huge fan of videogames with graphics that are amazingly realistic and detailed, it's silly how many of them have settings that would make a very good computer from 5 years after the game's release slow to a crawl. "Man, I sure am glad I dropped 4 grand on this computer. Now when I crank all the details and effects on this 5 year old game I'm up to 1.5 frames a second with constant hard drive grinding. Sweet!"
Videogames like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 11 Online that have been running for years and had graphics that were totally shitty even for when they were released, and haven't really been updated at all.
People who have video blogs on YouTube who look weird on purpose, with such things as facial tattoos, earlobe stretching, bumpy implants under their skin, loads of facial piercings, unusual makeup and hair, etc, whose entire video blog is them whining about how it's fucked up how people stare at them or won't give them a customer service job or whatever. "Why are people doing exactly what I wanted them to do? STOP STARING AT ME! I mean, I know my whole appearance is a carefully constructed 'look at me' stunt, but damn!"
"Your video will start in 30 seconds, right after this ad!" Pff, then I don't want to see it. Fuck you. The video itself is probably only 30 seconds long, so you can take your Crest White Strips and shove them up your asshole.
Debaters in spoken debates whose approach is to talk like the fucking Micromachines guy and rattle off way more points than a normal speaker could possibly address in the allotted time.
Retarded debaters who think that making loads of unsupported claims and assertions is the same thing as giving evidence, ignoring the fact that all these new claims require additional evidence for themselves.
"See, Yahweh created the universe in six days."
"Uh-huh...."
"And he made Adam from dirt and Eve from Adam's rib."
"Uh-huh...."
"But Satan tricked Eve into eating the fruit, and she got Adam to eat it too, and that's why we're all sinners from birth."
"Uh-huh...."
"But then God came down to earth in the form of Jesus, and died to redeem us of Adam's sin, and the only way to receive this redemption is to believe in him."
"Uhhhh, and how do you know any of this is true?"
"Well, because the Bible is the true and inerrant word of the creator of the universe."
"And what evidence do you have of any of this?"
"Haven't you been listening? How much more evidence do you need?"
Stupid, inconsiderate fucks who have no excuse for themselves.
This morning I was on the train and it was completely packed. If the guy with the small coffee had gotten a medium, it wouldn't have fit. Nobody is getting on this fucking train. I am leaning on (pressed against would be a better description) the doors. The train stops, the doors open, nobody gets off, and I feel this hard, angular object jamming repeatedly into the backs of my calves. I turn around and this dink is pushing a hand cart with two large boxes, the type used to pack copy paper, into my legs. He's not just gently urging the cart into the train, but forcibly ramming it into my legs the way one would do to try to smash an uncooperative bag into an overhead bin on a plane before the people behind you get annoyed.
"Excuse me. What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
"Uhh.... I uhh... " as he looks at the floor and starts backing away, allowing the doors to close.
Retards who think saying "Christmas" instead of "Happy Holidays" is like dropping a nuclear bomb in a culture war. Who gives a shit? I'm an atheist. Merry Christmas. Look. No blisters. No stray lightning bolts. "Our holiday that we stole from Solstice-celebrating pagans is the reason for the season!" Actually, the tilt of the earth is the reason for the season, but I guess stealing someone else's holiday is no more or less goofy than the other shit you think is importatnt, so go nuts.
Websites dedicated to "sexiest women in tennis," or "sexiest women in TV cooking shows," or "sexiest woman politicians," or other bullshit like that. Uhhh, is Anna Kournikova hot? Sure. Why not? You know who's hotter? 99% of porn stars, and we'll get more than a grainy paparazi pic of them digging a bikini out of their ass cracks from them.
People whose list of books they have read since high school is almost entirely comprised of books that reassure them that their religion is right. This list often does not even include their own religion's holy book.
Copiers and printers that barf out 4-10 more copies after you hit "stop." See, the correct number of copies to make after someone hits stop is zero.
Pepperidge Farm Top-sliced Hot Dog Buns. These should be called "Pepperidge Farm Whoops We Sliced Them On The Wrong Side, Sorry About That, half price Hot Dog Buns."
Golfers. "Check out my new putter. Yeah, it's pretty sweet. It's got a titanium alloy head with carbon fiber reinforcement, flat lie configuration, satin finish to reduce glare, precision aligned weighted inserts and a .25 millimeter corrugated surface. Cost me 325 bucks... oh, just for the head.... but it's so worth it because now I am ever so slightly more accurate when I hit a little white plastic ball into a hole in the ground from a few feet away."
Hmmm.... We've got twice the amount of money that the National Endowment for the Arts gets annually. What should we do with it? I know, let's make a movie about some computer animated blue jungle people that still just look like computer animation!
Those moments where you are doing something on your computer that is as ostensibly low-demand as saving a small text file, backspacing through a word, or hitting the start menu, and your computer completely shits a brick as though you are installing an OS or copying an entire hard drive to another.
People who want you to appreciate the deep underlying meaning of the most retarded, shallow pop fluff music ever made.
"Dude. You just aren't getting it. See, Lady Gaga's 'Poker Face' has a spirit and artistic vision and bravery that is beyond your grasp."
I have my clock radio set to Glen Beck because it makes me irritated enough to wake up, and this morning he said the most ironic thing I've heard in a long time. (Screamed into the microphone with righteous indignation): "They capitalize on any tragedy to push whatever laws they want through!" .... referring to the democrats. Anyone remember 9/11? The Patriot Act? The creation of the department of Fatherland... err, sorry, Homeland Security? Warrantless wiretapping? The completely unneeded war in Iraq?
Christians who trot out the argument that atheists are "arrogant." While this is little more than a whine, and has no bearing whatsoever on the validity of someone's ideas, I still think it's hilariously hypocritical. Consider the following...
"Hey there. I know something pretty important, which you apparently are not privileged enough to know. You know this huge, ancient universe? I know where it came from and what it's for. That's right. It was made by a creator. Yes, I know this. I also happen to know that he, yes, I know it is a 'he,' made this universe, which is at least 156 billion light years across specifically just for one species that lives on a small percentage of the surface of only one planet. Oh, and this planet is the only one in the entire universe that has any life, since it is the most important planet to the creator and all his attention is focused on it, and that is why it is so perfect. Oh, those other planets and stars? Those are just there to be pretty for us humans. Of course, humans are not just some really smart animal, and are in fact not animals at all, but transcendant beings, completely unrelated to any other species on earth. I know scientists like to say that they have determined that the universe is billions of years old, and that this species has existed for a few hundred thousand, but I know better than them. Have I done experiments? Do I have evidence? Pffft! I just KNOW, okay? I can FEEL it! I don't need any evidence. I would say that I got this information from this absolutely true book, but I haven't quite gotten around to reading it just yet. Oh, but I still know every word of it is true. Oh! And actually, he didn't make it for all of this species, just his chosen members, a minority of this species. I also conveniently know that I just so happen to be one of these special members. Yes, indeed. God set up the laws of the universe and ordered the structure of DNA specifically to design my species, the most important species. He even went so far as to make me, I mean us, in his own image. Not only do I know how this universe came to be and for what purpose, I also know what the creator of the universe is like. I know what he likes and what he doesn't. I know what he wants us to eat, what he wants us to think, what sexual practices he approves and disapproves of, what name he prefers to be called, what makes him happy and what makes him angry. That's right. I have no clue what the guy sitting next to me on the bus is thinking, but I am fully aware of the thoughts and feelings of the very creator of the universe, who I can't even see, touch, or hear, and whose presence I can't provide a shred of evidence for... unlike that guy on the bus. Oh, and by the way, I am fully content in the knowledge that he is quite happy with how I am living my life, and furiously angry with how you are living yours. How do I know this? Pfff. Wait and see. Oh boy, are you ever gonna get it. I on the other hand, who am not half a speck of fly shit in the greater scheme of the universe, am deeply beloved, on a personal level, by the creator of the universe. He is deeply interested in my every thought, and he speaks to me. Yes, yes, I am quite important to him, if you must know, and he and I talk to each other a lot. He and I have a very close relationship. He tells me that everything I believe is true, and that everything I doubt is wrong, and furthermore, evil. It is because you disagree with me... err, I mean, Him that you are going to burn forever in a lake of fire. Yes, your mere inability to see the world as I see it is so vile a sin that you deserve whatever punishment the creator can sling at you. On the other hand, he is so impressed by my mind, and so pleased with the way I have lived, that he plans to preserve all of my thoughts, memories and beliefs after my body dies so I can live forever at his right hand, right where he has planned for and wanted me to be since the beginning of time. The ultimate goal of the creator of the universe...... Me."
Could there POSSIBLY be a more blindingly arrogant point of view?
More on the Youtube "hater by default" shit: I just watched a video of someone using a guitar app for iPhone. It was laid out as 6 "strings" that you could pluck, strum, and finger like a guitar, and had a sound that sounded pretty much like you would expect a synth or sampler to sound when playing a guitar. The comments for the video were loaded with people saying, "Man, that doesn't sound like a real guitar," "Get a life faggot," and other pleasantries. Uhhhh.... gee... a PHONE WITH A GUITAR PROGRAM DOESN'T SOUND AS GOOD AS A REAL GUITAR. NO SHIT, RETARD, IT'S A PHONE. Did you get that? HE'S PLAYING A GUITAR ON A PHONE. Let me put this into perspective, since it has kind of slipped past you. Around 4000 years ago, someone invented the guitar. By comparison, very recently, someone invented the phone. Later, someone invented radio broadcasting. Then later, someone invented a phone with no cord that used radio to transmit to a receiver in someone's house. Then later, someone invented a cellular phone that broadcast and received radio waves from much farther away. Then later, the cellular phone developed to the point that you could put sound, graphics and a touchscreen on it, that are so advanced that we are having a debate on how much like a guitar the phone can be made to seem. That doesn't fuck with you at all? Is it as good as having a real guitar? Find me a guitar that lets you post pictures on Facebook.
People whose reaction to anything creative, which someone clearly put a lot of thought an effort into is, "Heh, looks like someone had some time on his hands." Pretty much everyone has some time on their hands. The time that you had on your hands you put into watching TV. Other people actually fucking DO something with the time they have on their hands. At the end of that time, some people have an elaborate photo collage, or a painting, a website, a miniature model of Manhattan made of individually sculpted grains of rice, or a book. You have an ability to give a plot synopsis of 7 TV shows and an opinion that the Broncos might go all the way this year. Who gives a shit?
Christians who dishonestly try to play the "protect the children" card in their objection to pornography. Am I against kiddie porn? Damn right I am, however, since it has not been demonstrated that there is a corellation between people using regular porn and people becoming child molesters, there is no justification for criminalizing the act of adults producing, distributing, selling, buying, or viewing porn that depicts consenting adults having fun with other consenting adults and/or various plastic objects. Get that? People who use porn don't have a higher incidence of being into fucking kids, so blow it out your ass. "We need to ban all pornography lest some pure, innocent mind should come across documentary evidence that there's more to sex than having a baby." Bullshit on a stick, Mable. What you object to is the idea that people in your town are doing something in private that makes your neurosis flare up. Oh dear! Someone masturbating in the privacy of their own home might make your precious, hypersensitive (and imaginary) God upset. Same goes for your argument against gay marriage, and let's be honest for a second, prostitution. It's one thing to decide for yourself that seeing other people have sex (and enjoy it) is beyond your comfort zone, but what you are doing in your attempt to criminalize these things is inflicting your insecurities on other people. Let me clue you in. I'm not in your club, hence, I am not subject to its bylaws. Other people's freedom will always be more sacred than your religious prudishness.
The race against the bread and the milk.
"Hmmm, I feel like treating myself to a nice dinner. I read that the new Mexican place down the street is really good and pretty reasonably priced. I should go check it out.... Wait, no. I got that bread at home. I guess I better go home and make sandwiches before it goes bad.... Fuckin' sandwiches again."
Apologetics: The religious notion that when a holy book says something that is clearly wrong, it's not wrong, and that when it says something clearly contradictory, it's not contradictory, and when it says something clearly immoral, it's not actually immoral, and when it says something so astoundingly stupid that even the most credulous fundamentalist has to back away, the Bible was just being poetic, or words with a meanings as clear as "the dog is brown" don't really mean "the," "dog," "is," or "brown." "Stone disobedient children to death? No, no! The Bible was just being metaphorical!" Sure it was.... So, what was that a metaphor for?
Blatantly dishonest creationist debating tactics. I debate with Creationists a lot, and it always strikes me as hilariously ironic how quickly they reach for big fat lies and transparently fallacious arguments to make their case. Not once do they say, "Creationism is a scientific fact, and here's the evidence," and then show actual evidence. They will whip out an argument from ignorance (God of the gaps), elaborate with an argument from incredulity (intelligent design), try to knock down evolution with quote mining and straw man arguments ("You think <modern animal A> just one day turned into <distantly related modern animal B>?"), assuming that if evolution falls, creationism wins by default (fallacy of false alternatives), ad populum arguments, demand impossible amounts of evidence of impossibly strong quality while providing no evidence at all for their own case, use red herrings, use special pleading ("For something to exist it has to be made by an intentional agent.... unless the something is God"), use the "you can't attack my position since I won't tell you what it is" game described farther down, misrepresent facts and statistics (I.E. "most scientists are actually creationists" or "science has yet to find a single transitional fossil"), make ad hominem attacks, redefine words (when Genesis says the universe was made in 6 days, the days could have been of indeterminate length), move the goalposts ("There's no transitional fossils." "Really? Here's 20 examples." "Yeah, but where are the fossils transitioning between THOSE fossils?"), then reach for non-sequiturs like, "If God didn't make the universe, there would be no morals," constantly change the subject when asked hard questions, make arguments from authority, loads and loads of unsupported assertions, arguments from personal "revelation" (if you can't demonstrate your "proof" to anyone else, it's not proof), beg the question, reuse previously debunked arguments and previously answered questions while ignoring the fact that they are previously debunked or answered, make arguments based on their misunderstanding of scientific concepts like the 2nd law of thermodynamics or the theory of relativity, copy-paste plagiarized bullshit from apologetics websites, and on and on and on....
And the most perplexing thing to me is, if the concept of Creationism is so clearly true as to be "obvious," why do they use absolutely nothing but intellectually dishonest debating tactics to defend it? One would think something true would be better defended by truth, no? If you are going to attempt any of the arguments above, you HAVE to know you're being dishonest by using them, and if YOU know you're being dishonest, and Creationism can only be defended with lies and fallacies... WHY THE FUCK ARE YOU A CREATIONIST? If there is a God who is all knowing, surely HE knows you're lying, and don't actually believe what you're saying. Do you think the doctrine of Christianity is to PRETEND to believe shit you don't actually believe is true?
Polls where they skew the results by giving slanted questions. This douche Bishop in the Catholic Church denies the Holocaust and says there is no evidence to support it. The Pope gave a wishy-washy denunciation of the incident, and said that the guy can't be a Bishop until he recants. This ultra-conservative Catholic website had a poll.
"Do you believe in freedom of speech?"
[] Yes
[] No
....as though that was really the issue at hand.
The same website later had another poll. In New York, as part of the unconstitutional "Faith based initiatives" BS, the Catholic Church was receiving government money to help the poor. Then they were caught discriminating against homosexuals by refusing to distribute this aid money to them, on the basis of sexual preference, which is illegal. The poll was worded like this:
"Do you believe the Church should be forced to comply with an immoral law?"
[] Yes
[] No
Don't want to give up your right to discriminate? Don't fucking take government money and you can hate whoever you want. Want government money? Then you don't get to discriminate against people. That's the way it works, shit for brains.
The way the media completely forgot that Michael Jackson was a lunatic who fucked teenage boys the day he died.
Theists who tell me that my atheism is a religion. Sure it is, in much the same way as not playing baseball is a sport.
Unabashed cocksucker assholes on forums whose avatar is some movie, TV or anime character who is an unabashed cocksucker asshole in whatever show they're in.
Online stores that can't sell you a light bulb without 4 email confirmations and a monthly newsletter for years.
Cliff Notes Fundie Christians. These people believe that every word of the Bible is true and written by the creator of the universe, which is ironic since they have never quite managed to read the Bible themselves, occasionally with the exception of a few verses recommended to them by their pastors.
In the beginning, God created everything in like a week or something. Then he made Adam and Eve (not Steve) and Eve made Adam eat an apple 'cause the Devil told her to. Then God made a worldwide flood which killed all the bad people and dinosaurs and that's where fossils come from. All the animals were saved on a boat, which is amazing, because there are literally hundreds of different species of animals.
Then Jesus was born of a virgin and people far and wide all immediately accepted him as the son of God.
Then Jesus wrote the Ten Commandments, the source of all human morality.
1. Thou shalt not have any other God
2. Thou shalt not kill
3. Thou shalt not lie
4. Thou shalt not... Uhhh.... Oh! Thou shalt not commit adultery
5. God hates fags
6. You can't go to heaven unless you believe in Jesus
7. Uhhh...... Hmmm.... Well, the Ten Commandments are really important and you should always obey all of them or you're evil. Uhhh... I'll come back to the Ten Commandments.
Then the Jews killed Jesus on the cross so he could forgive our sins, and on Easter he rose up and went to Heaven. Oh wait! I forgot! Jesus also had some disciples. John, Peter, Matthew, uhhh, Moses, uhhh... I think that's it. I better go Google it later.
In the end, Jesus will come back to earth and kill all the liberals and Jews and communists and gays. Look. It's totally true. Even Nostradamus said so.
On October 26th, the news reported the death of TV "funny man" Soupy Sales. His manager said of him, "Soupy was the last of the great TV comics when you talk about Ernie Kovacs, Red Skelton, right down to Howdy Doody." Yeah.... the LAST of the great TV comics.... You know, because modern TV comics are still struggling to surpass the pinnacle of comedic genius, the pie in the face. Go fuck yourself.
The sad truth of the environmental movement.
Don't get me wrong. I wish that every lake and stream and field and the air was completely untouched by human pollution, but sadly, the only way the environment could go back to the way it was before human technology is if we wipe ourselves out.
What's goofy about environmentalism is that many people take it to the level of a religion. Let's say you go from the cradle to the grave constantly trying to minimize your carbon footprint. You avoid using paper when possible, you recycle everything that comes into your house that can be recycled. You eat an organic vegetarian diet since it does less harm to the environment. You wear only natural fibers colored with natural pigments. You use natural cleaning and hygiene products that do a shittier job for twice the money. You ride a bike instead of a car. You compost. You plant trees. You go to protests against big polluting companies. You give yourself and others guilt every time someone is hurting the environment more than a wild animal could. Essentially, you spend your life until your dying day being ashamed of your species, but it's okay, right? You made the world a better place, right? Sure you did. And then 3M or Dow or Exxon or Procter and Gamble farts out as much pollution in one second as you would have in a thousand lifetimes if you weren't even trying to conserve.
People who get mad at you for accurately following the incorrect instructions they gave you.
"Meet me at 42nd Street and Broadway at 7."
You go to 42nd and Broadway, and even show up like 15 minutes early. At 7:15 they are still not there, but that's still reasonable since the trains sometimes fuck up. You decide to call them.
"Hello? I'm here. You okay?"
"What the fuck?! I've been here for 45 minutes!"
"You said to meet you at 7. I've been here a while. I don't see you."
"Well I'm standing right here at the Port Authority! Where are you?"
"I'm at 42nd and Broadway like you said."
"I don't see you!"
"Well that's because you're on 8th Avenue, which is like a quarter mile away."
"Oh."
Then they're still mad at you.
Uncreative assclowns whose 2009 Halloween costume is Austin Powers.
Oh, and on a side note, if you have to tell people what your costume is, your costume sucks.
Other douchey costumes include, but are not limited to: "Guy who goes as a giant vagina," "Guy who goes as a giant penis," "Guy whose whole costume is a hat/glasses/wig/tie/mustache or any other single piece of lazy flair," "Socially awkward guy who clearly spent at least a thousand dollars on his movie quality costume," "Catwoman," "Girl who goes as sexy <insert any career here>," "Fat, geeky girl who goes as some anime character that only she and perverted 40 year old Japanese guys know about."
IPhone games that make it into the iTunes top 10 that sell for over 5 bucks that you wouldn't play for free if they were Flash games on some website.
Products that try to mimic successful products but don't do it as well and charge comparable or even more money.
"Sayyyy, I see you eyeing that Flip videocamera."
"Yeah, it's 200 bucks, really small, simple to use, and the quality is decent for stuff like YouTube and whatnot."
"Yeah, but I bet you've never seen this new Vid-o-tronic!"
"How much is it?"
"Well, it's $350, but isn't it cool?"
"Mmm.... It's kinda big."
"Well, uhhh, yes, well, you can't really slip it in a pocket, but we have this nice bag for it."
"And how much is that?"
"Only $40."
"And uhhh, does it shoot in HD?"
"Well, no..... But look. It comes in a wide array of colors!"
"Yeah, uhh, the Flip does too."
"Ohh! And it's got zoom!"
"Yeah, so does the Flip."
"Hmmm..... Look! It has this nice view screen which-"
"Yeah, so does the Flip. What's the file format?"
"Pardon?"
"The videos. Are they avi, mp4, wmv, mov, what?"
"Oh, uhhh, they go on tape, which you have to transfer using software and a cable-"
"Which, let me guess.... 40 bucks."
"45."
"Yeah, uhhh, how about no."
Signatures. It's the 21st century. You mean to tell me we seriously can't think of a better way of verifying identity than a messy scribble that doesn't even look like a word?
The doubly fallacious argument many religious people make against atheism that "most people in the world are religious." First off, even if everyone on the planet believes something, that doesn't make it true, and you are ignoring the glaring fact that all religions are blasphemies to each other. Whatever religion you belong to, most people in the world think you are denying the one true religion, which, conveniently, is their own.
"We are people of faith!"
"Yeah, but your god is a false god, and my god said I should kill or convert people who don't believe in him, and let's be honest, killing is always more expedient."
If your only point is "the majority of people in the world have a religion," then you are right, but you ignore the fact that whatever your religion is, it is a minority religion.
Creationist who want schools to "teach the controversy."
"Lots of Americans don't believe in evolution, and if the schools are gonna teach evolution, then they should have to teach 'intelligent design,' too, and let the kids decide for themselves. Never mind the fact that we wouldn't want to let our kids decide for themselves how to wear their hair or how to dress or who to date or which political party to support."
"Hear hear! And we Flat Earthers want our theory taught too!"
"Yeah! And we want science class to teach our kids that the world sits on the back of a giant turtle!"
"You idiot, it's the universe that sits on the back of a giant turtle!"
"Yes! And we Seveners think that the sum of any two numbers is seven!"
"And we believe that all rain is a giant's pee!"
"And we believe the earth is really a giant egg! Teach the controversy!"
Retards who think that the moon landing was a hoax, and in particular, morons who came to this conclusion not by evidence, but by the stupid assumption that if the government says X is true, that means X is necessarily false.
1. Enter bathroom
2. Pull down pants and sit on the toilet
3. Take a shit
4. Wipe
5. Pull up pants
6. ________
7. Wash hands
8. Leave bathroom
People who can't remember what step 6 is. And let's be honest. People who can't remember step 6 probably think 7 (and maybe 5) are totally optional. Oh, and if you're still trying to figure it out... FUCKING FLUSH, YOU FILTHY FUCK.
Girls who follow the following formulas:
Are girl B's tits larger or better looking than mine?
If yes, then, "Pfft. Those are implants."
Is girl B skinnier than me?
If yes, then, "Pfft. She's definitely got an eating disorder."
Is girl B prettier or more apparently happy and social than me?
If yes, then, "Pfft. She's a total slut."
Creationist retards who attempt an ad-hominem attack against evolution in the form of: "Yeah, well that's how the Nazis justified killing Jews. They used Darwin to justify their belief that the Jews were an inferior race." Yeah, you know, because nobody was a racist before Darwin published "On the Origin of Species," and nobody had messed with the Jews before the Nazis...... right? Guys?
"Friends" who try to rip you off.
"Well, I better head out. Let's get our bar tab. Hmm. Let's see... $160 bucks. Just give me 80. I'll get my half plus the tip."
"80? I had three beers, dude."
All those panicked 2012 "Mayan calendar end of the world" retards who will suddenly have amnesia when nothing happens.
"....5.....4.....3.....2......1..... Happy New Year! 2013!!!!! Wooo!"
"So?....."
"..... So.... Happy New Year! ..... What?"
Little League Baseball. You know, nothing builds character like your parents giving you shit because you want to quit because they paid a bunch of money and you don't want to play because a bunch of nine year olds call you a faggot because you're scared of the ball, due in no small part to the fact that you have a dark, three inch circular bruise on your thigh from getting pegged by the other team's pitcher, who is the coach's son and looks suspiciously like he's 17.
Those days when you get over constipation. You take a shit in the morning that is the same size, texture, hardness, color and weight as a hand grenade, and then 3-4 times that day you take subsequent shits that are the size of a toddler's leg.
The illogical bullshit contradiction in all of the three big monotheisms where you have a God, who is supposedly omniscient and omnipresent and eternal, and who is supposedly the designer of human nature, who is constantly surprised, perplexed and outraged by human actions.
"Dude! What the fuck, man?! I fucking TOLD you not to eat that fruit! Why would you do that? Now I'm going to have to punish all mankind! Are you happy now? I hope it was tasty. Pfff, well yeah, I let it grow there, and made you incurably curious, but how was I supposed to know you were gonna fuck with it? Man!"
Retards who don't understand how the burden of proof works.
"Well, prove that Allah ISN'T the one true God."
Debaters who are as deeply biased as you can get who make a plea for you to be open minded.
"Don't let your bias blind you from the irrefutable fact that Allah is the One True God, Mohammed was his messenger, and anyone who believes otherwise is a deluded infidel."
Oh yeah, that's an even-handed, dispassionate assessment of reality.
Friday, 5:12pm: "Hey, man, have a great vacation. Get some rest and don't even think about this place for the next two weeks. Enjoy yourself."
Monday, 8:16am: "Hello, sorry to bother you. I didn't wake you, did I? Sorry. I was just wondering if you placed an order for office supplies. No? Do you have the phone number for the vendor? Thanks."
Monday, 8:22am: "Hello. Yeah, sorry to bother you again. You didn't happen to have the account number did you? Can you look it up for me? Thanks."
Monday, 10:07am: "Hello. Could I send you a spreadsheet? We are trying to figure out something and maybe you can make sense of it."
Monday, 11:35am..... Monday, 1:03pm..... Monday, 2:23pm....
People who sit on shit that is clearly too flimsy to sit on.
"Oh, hey! It's a wobbly antique table with inch thick legs made of wood that has been getting dryer and dryer for the last hundred years. It would probably be close to breaking if I put anything heavier than a half-full cup of coffee on it, but I think I'll just plant my ass and all my weight on it. What could go wrong?"
People who prove you right. I generally think of myself as pretty liberal. I try not to be prejudiced and not to judge a book by its cover. So I see some guy and my first instinct is, "Hey, that guy looks like a criminal." But I try to suppress that urge, and try to give him the benefit of the doubt. "He can't help what his face looks like. He might be a great guy," I guiltily say to myself. Then a couple of days later I go to work and the guy's not there.
"Where's Dave?"
"Oh, you didn't hear? Oh my God! He went to jail for raping a 15 year old!"
"Goddamnit," I think to myself.
Gold Bond Powder's bright fucking orange container. Just what I need. Total strangers can see my translucent Duane Reade bag from half a block away and think, "Boy, I bet that guy has some sweaty balls."
People who think of the south as a sort of local place where everyone knows each other.
"Oh, you're from Kentucky? Really? My sister in law is from South Carolina."
Wow, your sister is from 450 miles away? What a fucking coincidence! Are you retarded?
Those retards on airplanes who think it's ok to take your seat. You're stuck in the terminal waiting to get on board as they call platinum premium, gold premium, premium, first class, people with disabilities, people with children, people with children with disabilities, group 1, group 2, group 3, and finally general boarding, then you move down the aisle at a snail's pace because the fucks with children are taking for-fucking-ever, and you finally get to your seat, 24C, and there is some fuck sitting in it. How is this okay?
"Excuse me."
"Huh?"
"That's my seat."
"Oh, sorry. I'm a retarded asshole who thinks they put my seat number on my ticket as a polite suggestion."
That cheapass kid on the Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, King of Fighters, etc machine. The little fuck hogs the machine for hours and beats people in the cheapest way possible.
You pop in your money...
"FIGHT!" Fireball, fireball, fireball, uppercut, fireball, fireball, fireball, uppercut! "You lose!"
Next guy...
"FIGHT!" Fireball, fireball, fireball, uppercut, fireball, fireball, fireball, uppercut! "You lose!"
Boy, that sure took a lot of skill! I'm sure that really felt as rewarding on the first guy as on the 50th. Eat shit.
People who call you trying to get a hold of your coworker during off hours.
"Hi, uhh, yeah, I uhh, was trying to get a hold of Dave."
"So call Dave. It's six in the morning. It's not like he's sitting at a desk next to me."
"Yeah, uhh, he's not picking up."
"Well, then I guess you're shit outta luck."
"Could you call him?"
"Pffff, NO. Either he's screening you, which at this moment I can fully relate to, and in which case he will then be annoyed at me for calling on your behalf, or maybe he's just not answering his phone, due in no small part to the fact that it's SIX IN THE FUCKING MORNING."
"Hmmm, maybe Sarah can get a hold of him."
"Yeah, make everyone in the office hate you."
"You're not helpful."
"I'm helpful after I punch in, dickfart. You aren't looking for helpful. You're looking for an enabler. Fuck you."
People on Facebook, Myspace or Twitter who use their "status" to fight with someone, and thus obliquely let everyone know way-too-personal details about their private lives.
Janice: is crushed.
Janice: thinks some people need to grow up.
Janice: thinks some people need to learn to be honest with themselves, then maybe they can be honest with others.
Janice: is feeling free.
Janice: doesn't understand why some people have to be such assholes.
Christians who attempt to co-opt scientific discoveries to rationalize a belief in their god.
"Well sure I believe in the Big Bang. That was the method God used to create the universe!"
Really? Well, let's just look that up in the Bible, shall we? Gee, that's funny. The Bible doesn't say anything about the expansion of the universe. In fact, the Bible seems to state that the universe was created only a few thousand years ago, and that the sky is a solid dome over a flat earth, and that the earth sits on pillars immovable, and that the stars are tiny and attached to the solid sky and can fall to the ground. I don't see any implication of a vast, ancient universe that is expanding anywhere. "Well yeah, I believe in evolution. That's the mechanism God used to get all the diversity from the life he initially created."
Hmmmm, let's go back and see what the Bible has to say on the subject. Wow. Apparently the people who wrote the Bible think that people initially came from dirt and ribs less than a week after the creation of the universe. Pfff, well that's fucking obviously wrong. If an account in a book says ABC happened, and in reality XYZ happened, and ABC didn't happen... that would kinda mean that the book is fucking wrong, wouldn't it?
Sorta related to the post above... What the fuck is the deal with Biblical apologists saying something in the Bible is literal when it's correct, and metaphorical when it's wrong. Like, the Bible can say something with a meaning as perfectly clear as, "The dog is brown," and if, as in the case of six day creation, it's clearly wrong, apologists will be like, "Well, it all depends on how you look at it. You have to know when it's being metaphorical. It's not wrong." Uhhh, it fucking IS wrong, and there's no other way to read it. If it says "On the first day XYZ happened," that doesn't mean, "Well it might not literally mean a day, it might mean millions or billions of years." Bullshit on a stick.
Perhaps the only thing more irritating than a slow fuck in front of you is a slow fuck that you are leading.
"Right this way." Then you walk 30 feet and turn around and they're 20 feet behind you. See, when some retard is puttering along in front of you on the sidewalk, you just elbow him in the base of the skull, step on him when his face hits the cement, and you go about your day. When you are leading one of these shitheads, they can just stroll along at the pace of a three-toed sloth, playing with their Blackberry, picking their nose, and enjoying the scenery, and who gives a fuck what you have to do today?
Something I have noticed. Politicians of all stripes have sex scandals. If you want an example of a politician cheating on his wife with a woman hotter than his wife, that's trivially easy to find. If you want a sex scandal where a politician is using taxpayer money to pay for a house where he has dogfights and sells unregistered guns to Bolivian drug cartels and does crystal meth with underage tranny midget boys and rapes them and lets the dogs rape and maul them... That takes a Republican... And the more the guy claims to be a Bible-believing born again Christian, the more severe the crime will be.
I just passed an advertisement seeking donations for some public educational service.
"Help Rabekah graduate."
Sure, I'll help. The first thing she needs to do is learn how to spell her name, because that is not how you spell Rebecca.
"Excuuuuuse me. Can you help me? Do you know how to get to James Street? What's today's date? Do you have a light? What train do I take to get to Union Square? Do you know where this address is? What's the zip code here? Can I have a quarter? What day is it? What street is this? Does this street go to James Street?"
Look. Fuck you. Get your shit together. The reason other people exist on this planet is not just so you can wander through life not having the slightest idea where you are and what's going on. Like my watch? It's nothing special. You too can have one just like it for a very reasonable cost. I didn't buy it just in case I should chance to bump into your clueless ass and give you the time.
Rule: If you are debating, you aren't allowed to make arguments that use simple words that you can't even fucking pronounce. You hear me, "Kabane the Christian?" It's "special PLEADING," not "special pledding," retard.
People who you have to share office computer resources with who make passwords so absurdly strong that there is no way you will ever remember them.
"What's the password for the purchasing program?"
"Oh, it's 0ph9Cg4j31Hf6DpL9."
People who think they are making a logical, rational argument because they repeatedly SAY their illogical, irrational assertions are logical and rational.
"Well, logically, the universe had to have a first cause, and logically we should assume that such a cause would be all powerful and all knowing, so it's just rational to assume that the God of the Bible is real."
No, it's not logical. You just made a bunch of unsupported assertions without any supporting evidence, and that shit doesn't fly.
Unstable jobs where everything is in a constant state of flux, where you can go months or even years never feeling like you can take the financial risk of ordering an extra topping on your pizza.
Jan 12: "This email is to inform you that our company has been bought out by another company."
Jan 30: "Please welcome your new boss."
Feb 17: "Please welcome this new person. Please assist us by training them to do your job."
Mar 1: "Please welcome your new new boss."
Mar: 15 "We will be combining your department with another department."
Mar 27: "Due to the recent combining of departments, we will be laying off redundant positions. Please report to HR for a performance review."
Apr 10: "We are pleased to announce our merger with our competitor."
Apr 12: "Due to our recent merger, we will be laying off redundant positions. Please report to HR for a performance review."
Apr 18: "Please welcome your new new new boss."
Jan 30: "Please welcome your new boss."
Feb 17: "Please welcome this new person. Please assist us by training them to do your job."
Mar 1: "Please welcome your new new boss."
Mar: 15 "We will be combining your department with another department."
Mar 27: "Due to the recent combining of departments, we will be laying off redundant positions. Please report to HR for a performance review."
Apr 10: "We are pleased to announce our merger with our competitor."
Apr 12: "Due to our recent merger, we will be laying off redundant positions. Please report to HR for a performance review."
Apr 18: "Please welcome your new new new boss."
And on and on it goes, and two years of not going on trips, not buying anything nice and eating cheap later, you're still employed, but still feel like you could lose your job any day.
Theists whose strongest argument against atheism is that if there's no God, that would be sad. Uhhhh..... tough shit. "But what meaning could life have if there's no God?" Uhhh, if your life would be meaningless if the highly improbable God Hypothesis is wrong, then it's entirely possible that you are leading a meaningless existence.
Theists whose strongest argument against atheism is that if there's no God, there's no moral standard.
"But if there's no God, what is there to stop me from murdering you and having sex with your dismembered corpse?"
Uhhhh, did you just tell me what you want to do to me, and would do if you thought there would be no eternal punishment for it? Time to state the obvious again. If you would be immoral without God, YOU ARE IMMORAL.
Guys who think they are being original, not retarded, by wearing business suits that look fucking wacky. Oh, yeah, you look awesome in that beige suit with white lapels, red pin stripes and a powder blue tie on a mint green shirt with royal blue shoes.
Advertisements for big corporate brands that play the hometown angle. Like they make some dumbass pandering appeal to some stupid local interest or way of life specific to the locale.
"Almost as sharp as the Razorbacks! Gillette!"
"It's as refreshing as finding an empty seat on this crowded subway! Pepsi!"
Creationists who "love" science until the second it begins to subject any of their cherished beliefs to even the most trivial scientific scrutiny.
Safe food? "Yay, science!"
Clean water? "Yay, science!"
Medicine, diagnosis, radiology? "Yay, science!"
Surgeries, organ transplants, artificial organs? "Yay, science!"
Dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics, tooth whitening? "Yay, science!"
Electricity? "Yay, science!"
Cars, planes, trains, motorcycles, helicopters, boats? "Yay, science!"
Plastics and polymers? "Yay, science!"
Global telecommunications? "Yay, science!"
Digital cable TV with DVR? "Yay, science!"
The internet, cell phones, iPods, computers, video games, PSP's, GPS, etc. etc? "Yay, science!"
Nuclear energy? "Yay, science!"
Space exploration? "Yay, science!"
Hmmmm... It seems like there's loads of strong evidence to support the idea that the universe and planet are much older than was previously thought, and that all organisms on this planet share common origins.
"Well, you can't just put all your faith in science."
July 10, 2009's example of deep, hard-hitting journalism comes from CNN.com, where the third article on the main page is titled "Psychics see magic in Michael Jackson's life." Among the comments in the article, "He's an old soul," "His was a 'six life path,' meaning he was magnetic and drew people to him. That, coupled with the fact that he was born on a two day made him irresistible," "Psychic Eddie Connor believes Jackson will be reincarnated within the next 20 years." Of course, when you make an article this preposterous it pays to have a voice of reason and skepticism to even it out so you don't look like you have lost all journalistic integrity. At this point they would bring in Michael Shermer or James Randi or something to make the story more even handed, right? Well, not exactly. Their "skeptic" is Jack Rourke. "Jack Rourke said no reputable medium or psychic will try to contact Jackson for at least six months." OH! WELL OF COURSE! I mean, this is science, right? Six months! That's the minimum time before you can talk to him! Anyone claiming that they are TALKING TO THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL JACKSON earlier than six months from now is obviously full of shit! Not like REPUTABLE psychics like Jack Rourke. That guy is a pro! Hey, Jack, can we talk to the spirit of Michael Jackson yet? "Not til after December 25th. That's the cool-down time. Anyone you want to talk to who was dead before January 10th? OH! I can do that for you, because I am a reputable psychic."
What the fuck.
Guys from Brooklyn who only speak English, but speak it with such a thick accent you have no fucking clue what language they are speaking.
"Yap-a-dap. Bezzinidap. Jib-a-j'bezz!"
"What?"
"J'bezz! Yap-a-dap. Zezzbregap... Please, y'kno."
Then you think, "Huh? 'Please?' Holy shit. He's speaking english!"
Busy Bee coworkers who seem to only exist to make everyone around them look like slackers.
Boss: "Good morning. I hope you guys had a good weekend. Get into anything interesting?"
You: "I had a few friends over. We had a little barbecue and it was nice. Got a little sunburned. Then Sunday I saw that Michael Bay movie. You know, the one with all those giant CGI explosions."
Boss: "Oh yeah. That one."
Busy Bee: "Yeah, I had some free time, so I spent most of the weekend reworking our cost analysis spreadsheets from scratch. They weren't really giving me the data I wanted, so now it's more streamlined, so you can see how all the items in our expenses track back to orders, and how the cost is recovered and how much profit or loss there is per hour, day, week, month and year."
People who can't just get dumped without turning into a fucked up psychopath.
Tuesday, 7:30pm: "You know, I have been thinking... We've been seeing each other for like 6 weeks, and you're really focused on your job, and I'm really focused on my job, and I feel like we don't really see enough of each other to really have a relationship, and I think the best thing would be to cut our losses now before it gets serious and one of us gets hurt. I like you a lot and hope we can still get along."
Theists whose strongest argument against atheism is that if there's no God, that would be sad. Uhhhh..... tough shit. "But what meaning could life have if there's no God?" Uhhh, if your life would be meaningless if the highly improbable God Hypothesis is wrong, then it's entirely possible that you are leading a meaningless existence.
Theists whose strongest argument against atheism is that if there's no God, there's no moral standard.
"But if there's no God, what is there to stop me from murdering you and having sex with your dismembered corpse?"
Uhhhh, did you just tell me what you want to do to me, and would do if you thought there would be no eternal punishment for it? Time to state the obvious again. If you would be immoral without God, YOU ARE IMMORAL.
Guys who think they are being original, not retarded, by wearing business suits that look fucking wacky. Oh, yeah, you look awesome in that beige suit with white lapels, red pin stripes and a powder blue tie on a mint green shirt with royal blue shoes.
Advertisements for big corporate brands that play the hometown angle. Like they make some dumbass pandering appeal to some stupid local interest or way of life specific to the locale.
"Almost as sharp as the Razorbacks! Gillette!"
"It's as refreshing as finding an empty seat on this crowded subway! Pepsi!"
Creationists who "love" science until the second it begins to subject any of their cherished beliefs to even the most trivial scientific scrutiny.
Safe food? "Yay, science!"
Clean water? "Yay, science!"
Medicine, diagnosis, radiology? "Yay, science!"
Surgeries, organ transplants, artificial organs? "Yay, science!"
Dentistry, orthodontics, periodontics, tooth whitening? "Yay, science!"
Electricity? "Yay, science!"
Cars, planes, trains, motorcycles, helicopters, boats? "Yay, science!"
Plastics and polymers? "Yay, science!"
Global telecommunications? "Yay, science!"
Digital cable TV with DVR? "Yay, science!"
The internet, cell phones, iPods, computers, video games, PSP's, GPS, etc. etc? "Yay, science!"
Nuclear energy? "Yay, science!"
Space exploration? "Yay, science!"
Hmmmm... It seems like there's loads of strong evidence to support the idea that the universe and planet are much older than was previously thought, and that all organisms on this planet share common origins.
"Well, you can't just put all your faith in science."
July 10, 2009's example of deep, hard-hitting journalism comes from CNN.com, where the third article on the main page is titled "Psychics see magic in Michael Jackson's life." Among the comments in the article, "He's an old soul," "His was a 'six life path,' meaning he was magnetic and drew people to him. That, coupled with the fact that he was born on a two day made him irresistible," "Psychic Eddie Connor believes Jackson will be reincarnated within the next 20 years." Of course, when you make an article this preposterous it pays to have a voice of reason and skepticism to even it out so you don't look like you have lost all journalistic integrity. At this point they would bring in Michael Shermer or James Randi or something to make the story more even handed, right? Well, not exactly. Their "skeptic" is Jack Rourke. "Jack Rourke said no reputable medium or psychic will try to contact Jackson for at least six months." OH! WELL OF COURSE! I mean, this is science, right? Six months! That's the minimum time before you can talk to him! Anyone claiming that they are TALKING TO THE SPIRIT OF MICHAEL JACKSON earlier than six months from now is obviously full of shit! Not like REPUTABLE psychics like Jack Rourke. That guy is a pro! Hey, Jack, can we talk to the spirit of Michael Jackson yet? "Not til after December 25th. That's the cool-down time. Anyone you want to talk to who was dead before January 10th? OH! I can do that for you, because I am a reputable psychic."
What the fuck.
Guys from Brooklyn who only speak English, but speak it with such a thick accent you have no fucking clue what language they are speaking.
"Yap-a-dap. Bezzinidap. Jib-a-j'bezz!"
"What?"
"J'bezz! Yap-a-dap. Zezzbregap... Please, y'kno."
Then you think, "Huh? 'Please?' Holy shit. He's speaking english!"
Busy Bee coworkers who seem to only exist to make everyone around them look like slackers.
Boss: "Good morning. I hope you guys had a good weekend. Get into anything interesting?"
You: "I had a few friends over. We had a little barbecue and it was nice. Got a little sunburned. Then Sunday I saw that Michael Bay movie. You know, the one with all those giant CGI explosions."
Boss: "Oh yeah. That one."
Busy Bee: "Yeah, I had some free time, so I spent most of the weekend reworking our cost analysis spreadsheets from scratch. They weren't really giving me the data I wanted, so now it's more streamlined, so you can see how all the items in our expenses track back to orders, and how the cost is recovered and how much profit or loss there is per hour, day, week, month and year."
People who can't just get dumped without turning into a fucked up psychopath.
Tuesday, 7:30pm: "You know, I have been thinking... We've been seeing each other for like 6 weeks, and you're really focused on your job, and I'm really focused on my job, and I feel like we don't really see enough of each other to really have a relationship, and I think the best thing would be to cut our losses now before it gets serious and one of us gets hurt. I like you a lot and hope we can still get along."
8:30pm to 4am: At least 25 crying, screaming phone calls.
Wednesday, 7:30am: Calm apologetic phone call making an attempt at a rational appeal not to break up.
7:35am-8:45am: Angry, screaming phone calls.
9:00am-10:45am: Office phone rings, caller hangs up, about 30 times.
11:00am: Boss calls you into his office to discuss a phone call he received from a woman claiming that you beat and raped her.
11:12am: Boss tells you to take a half day to go home and get your personal affairs in order. In reality, you're probably fired.
11:15am: Walk out to the company parking lot to find every window of your car smashed out.
12:05pm: Arrive home to find two windows of your house smashed out, and a police cruiser in the driveway. The police officer serves you with a restraining order.
12:15pm: Find all of your clothes burning in the oven.
12:25: Find your computer completely wiped clean except for a video of your ex-girlfriend sucking some other guy's dick... Filmed today.
2:00pm: The phone rings and a tender voice says, "I miss you, baby."
Wednesday, 7:30am: Calm apologetic phone call making an attempt at a rational appeal not to break up.
7:35am-8:45am: Angry, screaming phone calls.
9:00am-10:45am: Office phone rings, caller hangs up, about 30 times.
11:00am: Boss calls you into his office to discuss a phone call he received from a woman claiming that you beat and raped her.
11:12am: Boss tells you to take a half day to go home and get your personal affairs in order. In reality, you're probably fired.
11:15am: Walk out to the company parking lot to find every window of your car smashed out.
12:05pm: Arrive home to find two windows of your house smashed out, and a police cruiser in the driveway. The police officer serves you with a restraining order.
12:15pm: Find all of your clothes burning in the oven.
12:25: Find your computer completely wiped clean except for a video of your ex-girlfriend sucking some other guy's dick... Filmed today.
2:00pm: The phone rings and a tender voice says, "I miss you, baby."
People who are devout Christians and attribute their conversion to "miracles" that could easily be explained by natural means. Usually the event is something completely fucking ordinary, but they see it as undeniable proof of God.
"You can't tell me God doesn't exist. I used to be just like you, and I was unemployed, my wife and I kept trying to get pregnant but nothing was happening, and my dad was sick. Then I prayed for God to help me, and a couple of months later, I got a job at Jiffy Lube, then a few months after that, my wife got pregnant, and my dad is getting better."
Gee, I might be inclined to agree with you about these dumb events being miracles if your new-found employment was that a Fortune 500 company called you up out of the blue and offered you 50 million a year to be their CEO, despite you being a talentless, uneducated schlub, and if you and your wife conceived despite having no genitalia, and your dad lost his torso in an accident, and was now well on his way to a full recovery.
Twisted bathroom habit of the day. I was just in a public restroom, and this guy was resting both of his hands on the top of the urinal as he peed, as though he was riding a bicycle or resting his hands on two white porcelain shoulders. Dude, just touch your penis. It's yours. It's okay, and hopefully it's much more sanitary than a damn urinal. Then you're going to "shake off" with urinal hands. Fucking foul.
The conversation I have every single time I go to Dunkin Donuts.
"I'd like two doughnuts and a large milk."
"Milk and sugar?"
"No. Just milk."
"Coffee with milk?"
"No. Just a cup with milk."
(Looking to her coworkers for help) "You want milk in your coffee?"
"A cup... with JUST milk in it."
(Scratching head and staring at the register) "Uhhhhhh...." Then they charge me a different amount every time.
YouTube video bloggers whose channel is nothing but WAY too close shots of their big sweaty faces mouth breathing with their slobbery lisp into their webcam microphone as they whine about everything that has them miffed.
The new "Ice Age" movie, "Dawn of the Dinosaurs," which seems to imply that dinosaurs not only lived at the same time as mastodons, sabertoothed tigers and modern animals like weasels, but came LATER, which is wrong, and in the reverse order by roughly 60+ million years. Great. Just what we need. More dumb, confused kids who will grow up to be young earth creationists because preachers will capitalize on their ignorance and make them embrace the idea that these animals could have all coexisted.
Today I saw an ad for a new show called "Dance Your Ass Off," which features morbidly obese manatee-like women in skimpy dresses which display yards and yards of flubbity cleavage dancing.... JUST WHAT EVERYONE WANTS TO WATCH!
Today in my company cafeteria they were playing Hanna Montana on the loudspeakers, which is odd, because I am fairly sure we don't employ any 10 year old girls there.
People using cell phones who move the phone away from their ears to their mouths to speak. They can hear you, idiots.
Today I saw an ad for some community college or trade school, which depicted a goldfish leaping from a tiny fish bowl into a larger fish bowl, with the caption "Yes you can!" How depressing. No, don't have the goldfish escaping his prison into the freedom of a stream, have him escaping into a slightly roomier prison. Hate your shitty, little, underpaid, unrewarding job? Get your degree so you can get a slightly less shitty, underpaid, unrewarding job.
What is this shit where someone like Mike Tyson or some other celebrity goes to prison for breaking just laws, and then assholes say, "Free Tyson"? So the fact that you admire someone means they shouldn't be subject to the same laws as everyone else? How do you figure?
Lousy debaters who keep making the same already defeated argument over and over, maybe slightly reworded, as though you're going to forget that the point was already addressed.
"See, the structure of DNA has a pattern, and complex patterns can only come from a mind, hence, Yaweh made the universe."
"Actually, you're just asserting a guess on both ends of your argument. You don't know that a complex pattern needs a mind to make it, and even if you could prove the universe had a designer, there's no reason to just assume it's Yaweh. It could just as easily be Brahma, Allah, or any of the other gods which are credited with making the universe, or some god or intelligence (or more than one) that humans never even contemplated."
"Okay, but see.... DNA has a complex pattern, and what could make a complex pattern besides a mind? And who had the first mind? Yaweh!"
Mean, scary, completely unapproachable bosses who always give themselves credit for having an "open door policy," which none of their employees dare to observe. Look. If all of your employees feel like getting within ten feet of you might put them on a downsizing / more work / write-up / screaming in their faces short list, you have an open door policy in the way that a trapdoor spider has an open door policy.
Customers who wander into places where they have no business being, and more to the point, are stupid for being in, and they seem to think they have every right to be there. "Hello? Sir? Hello? Mister Zookeeper? Yeah, uh, hi. I was uh, over there and I wanted to take a picture of those tigers, but they were hiding in those bushes over there in their enclosure, so I couldn't see them, so I saw that little door off to the side, and I went through it so I could get closer, and, well, now one of the tigers has my leg. Yeah. The other zookeeper wasn't helpful at all. She started screaming and running around. Yes, I can SEE that we're in the hippo enclosure and I can SEE that you're feeding the hippos, and I don't appreciate your tone of voice. I'm a PAYING CUSTOMER and I can't believe you're acting this way. I mean, I'm a paying customer and I came here to take pictures, and I think everyone here could really use some training in customer service. I'm not supposed to go in the enclosure? Well I didn't see a sign telling me not to. Besides, how am I supposed to take pictures if there are bushes in the way. It's unacceptable, and I'm not leaving until I get my leg back. In fact, I would ask to speak with the manager, but I'm about to lose consciousness from the blood loss. I don't know what kind of place you think you're running here, but that's the last leg and penny of mine you're getting.
People who try to maintain the upper hand in a debate, not by having a strong case, but by being either extremely misleading or obscurantist about the point of view they are defending, or simply by being all over the map. This game is called, "You can't attack my position, because I won't tell you what it is.".
"Being an atheist is stupid."
"So you are a theist?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well what's your position?"
"The universe is too complex for us to understand it."
"How does that make atheism stupid, specifically?"
"Because you can't know there is no God."
"Atheism doesn't say absolutely there is no God, merely that there is no good reason to believe there is one."
"But that's stupid."
"So you're a theist?"
"Not necessarily."
"So, what, you're a deist?"
"No."
"Pantheist?"
"Pffft! No."
"Agnostic leaning toward theism?"
"No."
"Agnostic leaning toward atheism?"
"No."
"50/50?"
"No."
"Then what is your argument?"
"That atheists are stupid."
"And you make this claim from what position? Theism?"
"No."
"What is your position?"
"What difference would that make?"
"Fuck you."
"Journalism" June 4th, 2009: Msnbc reports that in the comic, "Archie," Archie will propose to Veronica.
Neg's response: Didn't they stop making Archie comics like 30 years ago?
Bumping into coworkers on the subway. You're tired and hungry after a long day at work, and you just want to get home and relax. You put your headphones on to block out all the dumb people and start to feel at ease. You take a book out of your bag and start to open it to the place you left off, when you see one of your coworkers on the platform. "Oh shit. Let me just turn around and maybe he won't see me."
You turn your back to him and start reading your book. "Maybe he's taking a different train." Then the train pulls up and the guy gets on. "Fuck." Then you look over to see where he's standing and your eyes meet, and there's a definite look of recognition. He starts taking his headphones off and starts coming towards you. "Shit." You politely take your headphones off. "Oh well... I was enjoying listening to that."
"Long time no see!" Fucking trite.
"Heh, yeah...." Awkward silence.
"So... Sup?" Yeah, it's generic, and not really a pertinent thing to ask, given that you were just working together ten minutes ago.
"Headin' home."
"Yeah." Awkward silence.... "Been busy at work."
"Don't I know it! Heh...." Awkward silence...
You hear the faint pop-tish of the music in your headphones and figure that you're not going to be able to listen to it so you turn off your iPod and put it in your pocket. Consider this an act of surrender.
"You live in Manhattan?"
"Queens."
"Really? What part?"
"Astoria."
"Ahh..." Awkward silence. No indication that this is a good or bad thing.
"What are you reading?"
"Uhhh, The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud." Oh, great. I'm reading a book about how religion is fearful, infantile nonsense. This should spark a conversation that I really don't want to get into with this doofus.
"You taking a class or something?"
"Nah, just reading it. Just, uh, something interesting to read."
"What's it about?"
"I, uhh, kinda just started it." You're on page 55 and it's only about 70 pages long.... And you read it a few months ago.
"Ahh." This is apparently this guy's favorite non-comment.
20 minutes go by and the train is pulling into the station where you'll transfer to the N train. Finally, you'll be free of this nitwit. The train stops and people start moving towards the doors. The guy is also getting off.
"What train do you take?"
"The N."
"Cool. Me too!"
Fuck.
Douchebags who put their sunglasses over their ears facing backward. Careful. They might break when I punch you in the base of the skull.
May 15, 09: In Florida, a woman is suing her daughter's high school for publishing a yearbook where, in a class picture, her daughter, who couldn't even be bothered to not wear super short shorts even for the news interview, was sitting in the front row wearing a short skirt and no panties and her twat was clearly showing. You know, because it's her school's fault that her daughter is a whore. To make matters worse, even the mom was wearing daisy dukes - I mean, the news is going to interview you about your trashy daughter. At least TRY to look the part of the outraged litigant. "Ya, know? Maybe if we're going to sue the school for inadvertantly failing to catch a picture showing that you're a total slut who can't even cover up her pussy for a yearbook photo, maybe we shouldn't both look like total sluts when the news people get here."
Only thing that could look dumber than a man in sandals: a man in sandals wearing a toe ring. And yes, I saw this. I wish I hadn't, but I did.
Customer service assholes who make it as obvious as possible without getting fired that you are in no way going to rush them. You walk into the bank and there's a bigass line, and you're agitated because you're running late to work. You finally get to the front of the line, and a customer leaves the counter, so you move up to the teller. The teller looks up at you without moving their head and says, "I didn't say next customer. Please wait for the next teller." You get back in line, and are there for about 5 seconds before the same teller says, "Next customer," as though this isn't ironic or passive-aggressive at all. You walk up just as they decide to start adjusting their chair. They mess with the lever, sit on the seat to get it to go down - whoops, too far, lever, up, sit, lever, up... Uh oh, they dropped their pen... Better bend down really, really slowly and in a maximally labored fashion to pick it up. Okay, got the pen... Hmmm this chair still doesn't feel right. *Adjust adjust* Okay, that's a little better. Oh wait a second. This desk is pretty cluttered up. Let's just put these papers away. Huh? What's this paper? "Jamie! Do you know what this form is for?" Jamie walks over to the teller's station as slowly as possible and stares at the form for a long time. She then gives a dumb shrug and hands it back. The teller then stares at it for a long time, before putting it in a drawer. Hmmm... This pen doesn't write. Let's just look in a couple of these drawers here.... Nope. No pen in there. "Jamie! Do you have any pens?" Jamie then strolls to a back office, clearly in no hurry. The teller continues smacking her gum open-mouthed. Jamie then strolls back around the corner with a few pens in hand and hands them to the teller. The teller takes a few moments to put some of them in the desk drawer... then decides that, "Nah, this indistinguishable Bic pen doesn't look as awesome as that other one I put in the drawer. I'd better reopen the drawer and get that other one." Okay, let's just straighten up these pictures of my fat children for a second. Oh look, some eraser crumbs. Better go fetch a waste basket and brush those off the desk into it. Okay, now where were we? Oh, right! The customer. Well, I can't really take care of the customer without my glasses. Let's just dig that glasses case out of my buttoned front pocket... then rebutton the case, then put the case back in the pocket... then rebutton the pocket, and now I can take care of this customer - oh shit. Look how dirty these glasses are!! Hmm, let's just dig in these drawers again and find a kleenex... Okay, now let's wipe these off... check them a few times to make sure I got all the shit off... Let's just stroll back over to the wastebasket to throw away this kleenex... Okay, now put the glasses on... Log into the computer. Oh shit. Typo. *Clickety Click* Okay, logged in now.... "How can I help you today?"
YOU CAN FUCKING KILL YOURSELF!
Miss California 2009. I know what you're thinking. "This is lame. Neg is throwing himself a soft ball that pretty much every liberal in America has already decided was too silly to comment on. Of course what she said was bigoted and dumb, but who cares?" Well, yeah, I think she's a bigot for opposing gay marriage, but that is not my complaint here. How dumb can she be? I mean, WHO THE FUCk does she think watches the Miss America pageant? Straight men? Straight women? The Christian Right? Bullshit. GAY MEN! I mean, you're on a show whose audience is 99% gay men, and a gay man, whose approval you are seeking, asks you if you support gay marriage... WHAT DO YOU SAY? The truth? Bullshit. You give them the answer they want! If you're fake enough to put vaseline on your teeth to make them sparkle for the cameras, then you're fake enough to give them the appeasing answer they want.
Like, let's say I have been asked to be the keynote speaker for a banquet for the NRA. Do I make a big speech about how we need more gun control? Not if I don't want to be run out of the banquet hall with an army of angry gun nuts on my heels.
They shouldn't even care what she thinks in the first place. This isn't an elected office. The California State Senate won't have her on speed dial. Who gives a shit what she thinks? Just do those crunches, put on your bikini, and DANCE, MONKEY, DANCE!
That retarded ad for "Sunsetter" awnings. "It can keep your porch up to 20 degrees cooler!" Wait a second, asshole. Did you just explain to me how shade works?
People who live in this world, filled with its vast variety of music, who haven't found anything more beautiful, awe-inspiring or moving to listen to than Billy Joel.
"Extended release" allergy pills that, on a scale of 1-10, rank a 2 on relieving allergy symptoms, a 0 on lasting the 12-24 hours they claim to help, and an 8.5 on the get you fucked up and groggy and disoriented factor.
People who are SURE that someone has stolen or tampered with some possession of theirs which nobody wants.
"Have you seen that shitty sweater that I wear every single day? You know, the crappy looking cable knit that was probably blue at one time but is now faded and has grey dirt on the high points? Yeah? Well someone stole it!"
People who would look perfectly normal, even attractive, but they fuck it up with some STUPID fashion accessory.
"Hi! I'm a spunky, 20-something girl. I look smart and sexy in my outfit that's just flirty enough to not look slutty, or at least I would, but then I fucked it up by wearing a dumb Dick Tracey hat!"
"Hey there. I'm a pretty fit guy who spends a few hours working out every day. I eat right and I drink lots of water, which helps keep my skin clear. Of course, that's all a huge waste because I wear a nice suit with Oakleys and white sneakers, which makes me look like a complete tool."
The fact that the laundromat has four televisions at full volume and all four of them are showing the same terrible Spanish soap opera.
Bristol Palin said in a recent interview that she has no regrets. Well no shit. That's because you're fucking dumb. Stupid people have no regrets. They bungle through life and everything is just peachy. See, a smart person might stop and think, "Y'know... Maybe being the 18 year old unwed mother of a kid spawned by a mullet-headed retard isn't the best situation to be in," but not good old Bristol. All is right with the world, regardless of how bad your judgment is. "I wouldn't have it any other way." Retard.
The recent trend where exceptionally amazing electronic bands at least partially remake themselves as kinda-okay-I-guess rock bands that retain a tiny smidgeon of their old electronic sound. I.E. Younger Brother, Boards of Canada, The Future Sound of London, etc. I liked the past sound of London a lot more. "Hey, guys. Let's stop making highly technical, rich, atmospheric, multilayered electronica that's unlike anything anyone has ever heard, and instead make some flower-power psychedelic music that sounds exactly like the music that people got so sick of in the early seventies that they puked out disco.
Christians whose strongest appeal as to why I should become a Christian is, "But Jesus was tortured and crucified for YOU! He died to redeem YOU of your sin!"
First off, I didn't ask him to do that, and I really don't give a shit if I'm on good terms with an invisible man who holds me personally accountable for some dude eating an apple thousands of years ago. How petty. And they always make it out like he made this huge sacrifice. Supposedly, Jesus was the son of God, and capable of miracles, so certainly it would have been within his power to feel no pain whatsoever. If he was capable of miracles and then let himself feel the pain of being crucified, that's his fault. He felt exactly as much pain as he let himself feel.
Let's play a game. You give me five dollars. Jesus' life pre-crucifixion was probably worth about five bucks. He was hated, called a heretic, spat upon... Okay, now in three days I'll give you back five hundred trillion dollars. Sound like a good deal? After three days Jesus came back to life and then went to heaven, where he's basically the vice-ruler of the universe, standing in judgment of all mankind for eternity. It's a good gig if you can get it. Who wouldn't undergo a short period of torture to gain that kind of status in the universe?
So the dude gets nailed up on boards by Romans and dies. How is that God redeeming anything? It's not like God punished Jesus himself. What does one thing have to do with the other? Beyond that, there is one absurdity that makes the whole enterprise completely insane. God has the power to do anything, right? And God can decide to forgive anyone of anything, right? So just forgive us. Why kill someone? Why not just say, "Okay, it's just a fucking apple, and it's not like you all made him eat it. You guys weren't even born yet. How could it be your fault? Sorry, guys. I got a bit hot-headed. Don't worry about it." Gee, such a thing might actually make God not seem like a total asshole. But no, someone committed a tiny offense thousands of years ago, so someone has to get slaughtered like an animal. Then Christians would say that under the law, a blood price must be paid or there's no forgiveness. So God is SUBJECT to the law?
"Original inherited sin" is perhaps one of the most immoral doctrines of Christianity, as I see it. You are guilty of the crime of someone else whom you have never met. The police bust down your door and drag you away. You are put before a judge and are found guilty because some other guy, whom you have never met or heard of, and has never heard of you, stole a car in another state.... before you were born. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE! How is this moral? How is this reasonable? And how is God, who operates this way, the ultimate authority on morality? Are you fucking kidding me? That is far more immoral than anything I, or probably anyone else has ever done. Sure, Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot sent millions to their graves, but that is nothing compared to a being that would torture billions for eternity for some guy eating an apple. In fact, if you take the story seriously, the only reason there is death at all is because of Adam's fall. So every person who has ever died has God's immorality to thank for it.
Thank God there's no God.
People who haven't watched a nature show since they were made to in High School.
Debaters on my side of an issue who lie, exaggerate, or obfuscate, and make us all look like a bunch of desperate liars, when the real facts would have been sufficient to smash the other guy's argument.
Debaters on my side of an issue try to play nice and win over the crowd with humor, anecdotes, and other showmanship, while their opponent wastes no time in going for the jugular and making them look like a clown.
This is sort of a weird one, but I keep bumping into it, so I think it warrants a response.
Christians who believe that "other people" have a religion, but they have truth. It's not that these people are unorthodox Christians or religious moderates. Much to the contrary, these people are usually hard liners. They say "religion" as though it is some dirty word, like people who subscribe to a religion are deceived, but they know the truth, unadulterated by an organization. And the "truth" that they know is, (insert 100% pure Christian fundamentalism here). "I don't have a religion. I have a relationship with Jesus!" ..... which is a religion.
Let me straighten you out, because you seem pretty confused. Answer yes or no to the following:
1.) Do you believe that some wise / powerful / intelligent being or beings created the universe or had some part in creating the universe and giving rise to life?
2.) Do believe that this creator has specific wants / requirements of us?
3.) Do you believe that this creator shows benevolence towards people who obey these wants / requirements, and that he is indifferent to, or actively punishes people who disobey these wants / requirements?
Answer yes to any of the above? Congratulations! You have a religion! Believe that this creator was the Biblical God, who sent his son Jesus to redeem mankind of sin, etc? Congratulations! You're a Christian, and that's a religion! Holy shit, you fuckers are weird.
My neighbor who thinks 8am is a good time to learn to play the acoustic guitar.
Not to sound like a whiny nerd, but seriously, it's been over 30 years. There's no fucking excuse for some retards to still mix up Star Wars and Star Trek. "Haw! Look at that guy with the full stormtrooper costume. He's a big trekkie." NO HE ISN'T. He's a nerd, yes, but NOT a fucking trekkie.
Debaters whose point is so weak that they try to take refuge by nitpicking the definitions of words.
"Can you prove God exists?"
"Well what do you mean by 'prove?'"
"Provide evidence for."
"Well it depends what you mean by 'exist.'"
NO IT DOESN'T, YOU ASS. You're just wasting fucking time. Words have definitions. YOU AND I BOTH KNOW WHAT THE DEFINITIONS OF WORDS LIKE "PROVE" AND "EXIST" ARE. If your argument was even slightly robust, you wouldn't be bullshitting around with these fucking terms. You would be like "YES. And here is my argument." Instead, you insult both of our intelligence by attempting the most ultra-last ditch of salvage operations on your weak-as-shit argument.
People on Myspace and Facebook who are homely, ugly, or just plain goofy looking who post several new closeup pics of themselves, usually with the camera held at arm's length, EVERY FUCKING DAY, so it shows up on your "updates" column. "Hey, guys! Check out my new sunglasses. I took 8 pics so you can all see how awesome they look with my potato sized nose, weak chin, mono-brow, lazy eye, horrific acne, and female pube-stache!"
Dumb debaters who don't shut up and don't realize when they have been completely trounced and had their argument completely shut down. It's a shame that you can't actually deal a knockout punch by debating.
Condom ads that make the claim that, "It feels like you're not wearing anything at all!" You're full of shit, and you know it, right? I mean, there are some that feel better than others, but the best condoms in the world still feel like you're fucking a warm water balloon.
People who hate where they live and never move. Look, if you have been bored as shit and annoyed with the yokel retards around you for the last 30 years, and where you live isn't a prison cell, GET THE FUCK OUT.
"Hey, man, I haven't seen you since high school. What's new?"
"Pffft... Nothin'. Nothin' new ever fuckin' happens here."
"THEN FUCKING MOVE!"
Houseguests or dates or other people who you are trying to keep entertained, who eat weird shit at weird times.
"Hey, it's 12:30. Wanna grab some lunch?"
"Nah, I just had my breakfast at 10."
"Uhhh, you want to eat later or something?"
"Actually, I eat a big breakfast and then don't eat again until like 8 or 9pm, but you can eat something if you want, and I totally won't sit there and stare at you and make you feel really weird and rude for eating in front of me."
People who, when you walk into the room, give you that distinctive, paranoid, "Huh?! What do you want?" look. Like, I understand if you are relaxing at home in your boxers, scratching your balls with one hand and eating corn chips with the other, as you watch old reruns of "Saved By The Bell," and then suddenly, I bust through the door wearing nothing but a duct tape bikini and a gorilla mask, and then run up and jump up on your coffee table and stand over you in a "ready" stance, and just silently stare at you, then yeah, the "What do you want?" look is fully warranted. But if I walk into our shared work space, a subway car, McDonald's, a bar, a bookstore, or some other public area, giving me that "Holy fuck! What?!" look is just fucking weird.
Office collection cheap asses
"Hey, uhh, as you know, Bob has been out of work for about three months due to his kidneys, and he's going to need a transplant, and he's having a really hard time making ends meet, so we decided to do a collection to see if we could help him out. The ten of us have already put in. Do you want to put something in for Bob?"
"Sure. Here's a 20."
"Thanks. That brings the total up to $32.43"
"What?"
Programs that automatically check online for updates, or more to the point, new versions for you to buy from them, that have a little alert that says "So you want to get the update now?" and there's a little box to check that says "Do not remind me again." This check box apparently means "Remind me again, whether I check the box or not."
People who, when you talk to them, stare at your tie or your hair or your collar or something else and you start fucking up what you were saying because you're distracted by wondering if you look like a slob.
Towns where last call is 1am.
"No, no, no. That's enough fun for you. You have to go to work tomorrow. Our economy depends on you dragging your ass out of bed tomorrow early so you can make widgets for eight hours. Don't be late!"
I have always thought black metal was the goofiest shit ever, but that took on a whole new dimension when I saw this interview. The lead singer of this band said that he was disappointed when the fans just showed up for the music, because the message was so much more important. The message, apparently, is, "HRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! HURRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!! WHUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR!!!!!"
The internet forum ultra-say-anything-super-devil's-advocate-hyper-vitriolic factor. There is something about internet forums that makes people insane, and I'm not 100% sure that it's always just a put-on to troll or spur conversation. Like, they think, Hi! I'm anonymous, and now I'm going to say the most evil, hateful thing you have ever heard.
ActualContributor: "... and that's how we could have a healthier balance of state and federal control while still preserving personal freedoms."
OtherActualContributor: "Yeah, I agree with what you said about the courts. It reminds me of the system you find in places like Holland."
CrazyGuyWhoComesOutOfNowhere: "I think what we should have done was ally with Hitler in WW2 instead of fight with the allies. That way we could own Europe and I could live there instead of The US, because I can't stand being here with all the damn Mexicans anymore."
ActualContributor: "WTF?"
So uhh.... Sarah Palin's knocked-up teenage daughter and her goofy mullet-headed boyfriend had their baby. And, uhh... They named it Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.... Tripp... OF COURSE they named it Tripp. Fucking rednecks. Just name it anything. Trig, Pencil, Track, Trap, Skirt, Shed, Crate, Beef, Trick, Scrit. Who gives a shit? Just name the fucking thing. It doesn't have to be the name of a human being, just something that would be quick and easy to yell at the brat when it misbehaves at Walmart.
Orange popsicles. Stop it. Nobody wants that shit. You're making a product that everyone hates. I mean, I assume the artificial grape and cherry flavors and colors aren't more expensive than orange, so what are you trying to accomplish by making one third of every box of popsicles something that people despise? You make the pack with the red, purple and orange popsicles, and the red ones go right away, followed by the purples. Then the person goes to the freezer, mouth watering, and sees that all that's left are the orange ones. At that point, they stop and are confronted by a possible change of plans. "Hmmm... I really want a popsicle, but if it's orange, maybe it's not worth it. But, well, I paid for the box, and I hate to waste food, and I might as well use these up to make freezer space for the next box... Fuck. Fuckin' orange." If you made a box of popsicles that was nothing but orange, it would be the slowest selling thing in the case, right behind "Free-Zee Bat Frozen Guano on a Stick."
Hipsters who wear tee-shirts of the shittiest bands ever, to be ironic. No, see, Motley Crue isn't so shitty that their tee-shirt is cool. They're so shitty that you're a dipshit for owning their tee-shirt. What's the fucking point in spending 28 bucks on a tee-shirt for a band that you wouldn't spend a dollar on their CD if you saw it in the clearance bin? But wait, there's a double dose of irony, because you think Motley Crue is shitty... but you LIKE Panic at the Disco. Fuck you.
People who speak authoritatively on topics which they are clearly ignorant about.
"Wow, that 'March of the Penguins' was amazing. What's weird to me is that cold blooded animals can live in that environment without freezing solid."
"Uhh, birds are warm blooded."
"No they aren't. Only mammals are warm blooded. Do you see any hair on a penguin? You need hair to keep your temperature up."
"Uhh... Actually, hair just retains heat. The heat comes from the body metabolizing food."
"Look. Only mammals are warm blooded. You need to be warm blooded to give live birth."
"Uhhh, then I guess you're saying that many fish and snakes are warm blooded?"
"Fish and snakes don't give birth to live offspring."
"Some do. You never had guppies in your fish tank growing up?"
(Long contemplation)
"If they give birth to live young, then yes, guppies are warm blooded."
Old people who do annoying or reprehensible things, and their excuse is that they have always done those things, so why should they stop now?
"What? I've smoked cigars in McDonalds and farted loudly and picked my nose indiscreetly and taken fists full of breath mints off restaurant desks where I'm not even eating and patted women I don't know on the ass and casually dropped the 'N-bomb' in normal conversation for years! Who are you to tell me not to?"
Dumb nicknames
Did you ever have some retard try to give you some dumbass nickname that was just completely ill-conceived and irrelevant, and then had them try to make it stick?
"Hey, Michael!"
"Sup."
"Heh, Michael the Pickle!"
"Huh?"
"That's what I'm gonna call you! Hah! Michael the Pickle!"
"Pickle... What? I don't get it."
"Heheh, what's that, Pickle Man?"
"Uhhh... I don't eat pickles. I don't even like pickles, but I don't hate pickles enough to make it worthy of comedy, and I don't see any pickles around to make you think of pickles... I'm not wearing a green shirt... It doesn't even fucking rhyme! So... What's with the pickles? I don't get it."
"Michael the PICKLE! Hah!"
"Whatever."
Six years later, when you bump each other...
"PICKLE MAN!"
"What the fuck?"
Today in the news: Apple cutting some iTunes prices (also see video... because this is so important that we at MSNBC needed to make a video in addition to the 4-screen tall article about it).
"Since when is msnbc in the business of hawking shit for Apple? This isn't news," thinks Neg, as he downloads 40 different bands' entire discographies plus bootleg concerts, b-sides and videos... FOR FREE. Yeah, sorry, Apple, but you can make it as cheap as you want, but you're still in direct competition with FREE.
People who use Skype or Ventrilo who have a microphone that makes it sound like they live in a house full of ceramic tiles, screeching cats, clothes dryers full of pots and pans and wailing feedback, who, when you say, "Dude, your mic is fucked up," reply, "Yeah, it sucks... SO AS I WAS SAYING... SCREEEEEEE"
The way that people who claim moral authority are usually immoral, even by their own definitions.
Movies where they make the characters so simplistic that you can effortlessly psychoanalyze them.
"Oh, see, that's why he struggles with relationships. He's thinking about when his judgmental mother died."
Bullshit. I mean, I know the movie's only an hour and a half long, but nobody is so transparent that you can watch them for a few minutes and know things about them that a best friend might not even know.
People who ask for help in a passive aggressive way like, "Hey, are you busy? What are you doing?" Like you're accountable to them. They act like you not doing something they think is important means you ARE going to help them. Uhhh... What am I doing? I was sitting at my computer looking at dumbass viral videos... and no, that doesn't mean you're getting free help with your bullshit paper.
Weird authority figures at work who make your life difficult with their unfounded perception of you.
You're taking the elevator to your office. On the third floor, a high level manager gets in. You smile a completely un-weird smile, don't avoid eye contact, but don't give them hard, challenging eye contact, and say in a calm, friendly and agreeable, but not pushy tone, "Good morning."
"Good morning," they reply, in a similarly amiable way.
The elevator comes to their floor, and they make eye contact, so you smile and say, in the same polite way, "Have a good day."
"You too." They get off the elevator and the doors close.
A couple of hours later you get a phone call from another manager who is a lower level than the first, but above you.
"Hey, did you see David Ross today?"
"I think I saw him in the elevator."
"I just came out of a planning meeting that he was in and after the meeting, he pulled me aside and said you were 'difficult.'"
"Huh?"
"Did you say something rude to him or something?"
"I think I said good morning."
"Did you say it sarcastically or something?"
"Of course not. I know who he is. There's no way I would think of doing something insulting to him."
"Well, whatever it was you said or did, he didn't like it, so be careful how you act around him."
"Uhh, okay."
"Talk to you later. be careful how you talk to people."
"Okay. Talk to you later."
Boss hangs up. You hang up.
"What the fuck?"
That one annoying drunk girl at every party whose grating, high pitched, birdlike cackle can be heard clearly, and twice as loud over the din of clamoring voices.
Jan 28 news: The economy is falling apart. A quarter of a million jobs have been lost this month. There is a rash of suicides due to people being out of work... And one rich couple who has ten dogs spent 150 thousand dollars to clone their dead dog. You know.... You could have gotten a new dog from the pound for 50 bucks. And I think I should state the obvious. A clone of your old dog isn't your old dog. It's still a new dog that you've never met before, and who doesn't know who the fuck you are. Not only that, but your first dog died of cancer, so now you have a second dog that will probably die of cancer. 150 grand for probably less than a decade of new dog. IT'S JUST A FUCKING DOG! And rich people wonder why the poor hate them. Let them eat cake, indeed.
One-track-mind managers. Like, they have on their plates tasks A, B, C and D, but they can't think of anything past task A, regardless of its real importance, and their whole world grinds to a halt until they get it done.
"Oh, uhh, could I get our sales totals from last Thursday? I need them for a meeting next week."
"Sure. That will just take a minute to do, but first I have to count this cash drawer, because I can't leave the money sitting out."
"Okay."
Two minutes later....
"Did you get those totals yet?"
People whose justification for believing in religion is, "Well, it's true for me." Things are not real just for you. They are real, or they aren't. If you're right, then every other philosophy is wrong. If you didn't nail it, then you're wrong. You don't have a "differing opinion." You're just wrong. What is real is not dependent on how you feel about something. Your feelings about things should reflect, and be affected by reality, because thinking that it works the other way around is delusional.
A guy in a blue suit is standing in a white room. In his right hand, he is holding a red ball. He drops the red ball, lets it bounce twice, then catches it in his right hand.
What happened?
If you report anything other than exactly what I just said, it's not that you have a different, but equally valid opinion. You're wrong. If you recall that there were two men in a brown room and one of them was wearing a red suit and the other was wearing a green suit, and the man in the red suit bounced a blue ball five times and then it was caught by the man in the green suit in his left hand, either you really weren't paying attention at all, or there is something seriously wrong with your mind. "But, I feel in my heart of hearts that the one man blue suit white room red ball two bounce theory just can't be right." Well, you're wrong, and how you feel about it is irrelevant. "But I wouldn't want to live in a world where the one man blue suit white room right hand red ball two bounce theory was true." Well, too fucking bad. If, as in the case of religion, a billion people believe what you believe, and not what really happened, guess what? YOU'RE ALL WRONG. A billion people being wrong about something in the same way doesn't mean they're right, or that they have an opinion that is valid and should be respected. They're just wrong, and should be corrected. The proposition laid forth by Christianity is as follows: God has existed forever, created the universe in less than a week, 6000 years ago, and made humans in his own image. This is almost definitely wrong. Perhaps even more incredible than this batshit-insane story is the fact that people today believe this account of the actions and demands of the creator of the universe which was spread mostly through oral tradition by people who were completely ignorant of things like dinosaurs, germs, genes, the size and shape of the earth, and the list of things they knew nothing about goes on and on. What are the odds that these people, whose lives were ravaged by their basic ignorance about pretty much everything more advanced than feeding goats, got the entire history of the universe, and the creator's sayings, likes, dislikes, demands, and promised punishments and rewards... EXACTLY RIGHT? Pretty fucking slim. Now, the universe and life and the diversity of species obviously had to happen SOME way, so how did it happen? This is not a matter of opinion. It began SOME WAY. It couldn't have happened 100 different ways that are all equally valid opinions, and it almost definitely was not perfectly figured out by ignoramuses from 2000+ years ago who wouldn't know a double helix if it grew to the size of a skyscraper and started singing Bon Jovi songs while doing backflips. "Vanilla ice cream is delicious" is a matter of opinion. "The creator of the universe will send you to hell forever for not kissing his ass in the ways described in this book," is a statement of facts, not opinion, and the odds of these facts, that were written by people who knew next to nothing about anything, being correct are pretty close to zero.
Dumb Amazon recommendation of the day:
"Oops, I Did It Again" by Britney Spears. Recommended because you bought "I Am Not A Doctor" by Moloko.
Looking for irrational guilt, fear, tribalizing prejudice and suspicions, the termination of your real learning process and unfounded assurance?
Give religion a try.
Looking for an eye-opening, mentally transformative experience that will radically alter your perception which you will always remember and will blow away anything else you have ever experienced?
Give LSD a try.
Retards who you can't give anything to, because you KNOW they will lose or break it. Like it's a 100% probability. It's just a matter of time.
"Here's your two-way radio... Now, don't lose it, okay?"
"Okay," the guy scoffs, as if to say, "Pffft, I'm an adult. What? You think I'm retarded?"
Two weeks later...
"Dude, where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you all morning? Is your radio on?"
"Uhhhh..."
"You lost it, didn't you?"
"Yeah..."
People who keep talking after you tell them you need to use the restroom. Like, if it wasn't urgent, I would just wait for you to stop yapping and go later, and you would never even know I had to go. The fact that I'm telling you at all should be a clear indicator of the urgency of the situation.
"Do you have a minute?"
"Actually, could I get back to you in a few minutes?"
"I just wanted to go over our expense reports for last week."
"Okay, I'll be right back. I need to use the restroom."
"So I was looking at the expense reports for last week and I see a few things that are unaccounted for."
"Okay, look. Right now, a huge loaf of super-soft shit is trying to pry my ass cheeks apart like one of those carnival strongman shows where the dude bends the steel bars on his cage, and all of my physical and mental energy is currently being spent trying to prevent my pants from being filled up like custard being piped into an eclair. If I'm trying to focus on holding my shit in, I'm going to be too distracted to give you a good answer, and if I break that concentration, I'm going to shit my pants, and then we're both going to be far too distracted to think about the expense report. So, uhh, I'll be right back, and I promise this little meeting will be much more productive than it would be if I shit my pants."
Christians who say "Merry Christmas" in a sideways, "so there" kind of way, so the transparent implication is, "Merry Christmas, you fucking heathens. Not your secular 'Happy Holidays' bullshit! This holiday is all about MY beliefs, particularly my belief that I need to assert the dominance of my religion at every possible opportunity."
Look, I might be an atheist, but I do enjoy Christmas (at least the parts of Christmas that are actually enjoyable). Christmas means to me what it means to pretty much every other American who celebrates it. Namely, it's all about buying presents for people to make them happy, hoping I get back presents or a piece of ass of comparable value, despising the mall, despising the mall parking lot more, eating and drinking with family and friends and staying indoors as much as possible because it's fucking cold outside. So pass the fucking eggnog, assholes. It's not all for you, and there sure as fuck wouldn't be any liquor in it if Christmas was all about Jesus.
Business computers that are clearly capable of reporting, but don't create any reports about anything that would be useful.
"How many hamburgers did I sell today?"
"Uhhh, the computer doesn't record that, but apparently 67% of people who ordered hamburgers got cheese on their burgers."
"Okay... But how many customers did we have?"
"Uhhhh... 256,425."
"What? Today?"
"No. Ever."
"How many today?"
"Oh, it doesn't record that."
"Hmmm... How much money did we make in November compared to October?"
"It doesn't record that."
"What does it record?"
"Oh look! It recorded the number of times female employees pressed the 3 key vs how many times the male employees pressed the 3 key."
"Pfff! Really? And what does it say?"
"It's about the same."
Party DJ's who play "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" at corporate semiformal Christmas parties in New York City.
Any poll that is rigged by excluding obvious strong contenders. Comedy Central has this "Stand-Up Showdown" shit where you get to vote for your favorite comedian. The guy who's winning is that fuck with the puppets. A close runner up is Mitch Hedberg, which makes sense, but if you can vote for dead guys, WHERE THE FUCK ARE GEORGE CARLIN, BILL HICKS AND RICHARD PRYOR? Also missing are people like David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Doug Stanhope, and pretty much most seasoned comedians you can name. In their place are tons of comedians who nobody has ever heard of, even the retards who think of Comedy Central as an authority on comedians, as indicated by the single digit vote tallies. Basically, lots of people who left an indelible mark on stand-up comedy are ostensibly missing, but every doofus "Hey, I'm a really, really fat guy with a Hawaiian shirt and no neck and a million fat jokes!" asshole is there with 3 votes apiece. It's like having a poll for best American presidents and excluding Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, and Kennedy, but leaving in names like Harding, Buchanan, Nixon and George W. Bush.
On a side note about comedians, I'm tired of Kathy Griffin being unduly given this contrived image as an "edgy" comic. She's edgy if you compare her with Oprah, but her whole act is like reading People Magazine with a slightly sarcastic tone in your voice. She's so edgy that she dares to tackle such unmentionable topics as, "Boy, men and women sure are different, am I right?" and "Hey, let's talk about celebrities I've met, and bring up my resume in the process," and "My aging mom is lovably crazy," and "Boy, the Osmonds sure are weird." HOLY SHIT! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! YOU'RE FUCKING EDGY AS FUCK! HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!
These retards on AIM and MSN...
Flowbee29: dude, neg, are you gonna put your fuck canada page back up?
Negposorg: no
Schmelvin9882: neg! I miss the canada page. are you ever going to put it back?
Negposorg: no
Glankensprock: hey neg! just wanted to say I like your site
Negposorg: thanks
Glankensprock: I think my favorite thing was the canada page. are you ever going to put it back?
Negposorg: no
Transgenderteenwolf: hey neg, are you ever gonna put the fuck canada page back?
*exit AIM*
On an amusing side note, my Blackberry thinks "Transgenderteenwolf" is a misspelling of "transgressions," which is kind of suitable, in a twisted kind of way. But yeah, the Canada page had not been updated in a long time, and I really wasn't interested enough to keep working to keep it fresh just so some frat boy from Alberta could get all red in the face. Political humor is funny when it's fresh, and when it's not fresh, it's like those retards who still make Monica Lewinsky jokes.
Comedians and actors from a long time ago who are credited as being comedy pioneers, and you can't really find anything they did that was actually funny at all.
Comedians and actors from right now who are the hottest rising stars in comedy, and often land tons of movie deals, full-time roles on SNL and other sketch comedy shows, sitcoms, etc. And they are only slightly amusing with a huge team of writers backing them up, and aren't even kind of funny on their own.
The fact that a lot of Americans who whoop and howl about America being all about freedom and liberty are also for the war on drugs, against abortion, against gay marriage, against free speech, for the death penalty, for torturing anyone the government labels an "enemy combatant," against basically all immigration, for suppression of political movements they disagree with, for suppression of ideologies and religions other than their own, for establishing Christianity as the official national religion as a means of oppressing people who don't conform, for establishing English as the official national language as a means of oppressing people who don't speak English, for Guantanamo Bay, for the Patriot Act, against people who disagree with the government, for the expansion of police power, against art, for banning books, against interventions that might truly make foreign people more free, for interventions that make foreign people less free while protecting or expanding American corporate interests, and are often racist or sexist... The list goes on and on. Ask one of these assholes with their fucking awful American flag cowboy shirts what freedoms they actually support sometime. "Uhhhhh.... I support the right to own a gun... and, uhhhhh... I support the right to say The Pledge of Allegiance and wear a flag pin and take off your hat and put your hand on your heart when they sing The Star Spangled Banner at a baseball game... And uhhhh... Did I mention guns yet?" So you can wave your flame-retardant flag all you want, but you sure as fuck don't believe in freedom or liberty.
People in this day and age who hold up the line because they still don't quite get the concept of metal detectors.
"Take off anything metal you might have on you and put it in the bin, then step through the gate."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Do you have anything metal on you? Cell phone?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP"
"Step back through the gate. Any other metal?"
"Oh yeah, sorry. My keys."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Oh sorry. I forgot about those ten rolls of quarters I had in my back pocket."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Whoops. Forgot about that steel ingot in my jacket pocket."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Oops! Yeah, forgot about my dinner-plate-sized commemorative Dale Earnheart belt buckle."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Ahh, yeah. That must be my big clunky Mister T necklaces."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
While it bugs me when people name their babies overtly pretentious bullshit like Chaz and Søren, worse are people who, in 2008, name their newborn babies names like Johnston, Harriet, Mable and Rose. How about naming your kid something that they won't have to be a senior citizen to grow into?
Christians who try to press the argument for prayer in school by dishonestly painting themselves as victims of discrimination. "But our kids aren't allowed to pray in school!" Bullshit with a capital B. Your kids can pray wherever and whenever they want. What isn't allowed, and shouldn't be, is a publicly funded school sanctioning prayer. You can't have the principal or school chaplain or whatever get on the intercom and say, "Okay, students, it's 9:30. Time to bow our heads and pray." School is a place to give children the tools they need to learn how to think, not what to think. If your kid wants to pray, he will, and he will be perfectly free to do so. If your kid doesn't want to pray, he shouldn't have to explain to his peers why he doesn't bow his head and murmur during a sanctioned prayer time.
Oh, and on a side note to this:
"What's with these damned atheists trying to get 'under God' taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" First off, "Under God" was added during the Red Scare to distinguish the US from those "Godless Communists," which is pretty goofy. More importantly... Why are kids made to say the Pledge of Allegiance anyway? Pledge Allegiance? If my government is good, sure, I'll be loyal and supportive to it, but if it sucks, then no, I'll fight against it or leave. Why make a five year old say the Pledge of Allegiance? Same reason you start forcing religion on him at that age, because that's when his head is still soft and he'll believe any dumb shit an authority figure tells him. "Be a nationalist! Be a good Christian! Santa is watching you!" Bullshit.
Conservatives who sarcastically "congratulate" me for Obama's victory. "So, you got your guy in," they say with obvious disgust. Look, we spent the last eight years absolutely ruining this country with your dumb, self-serving ideas. It's time to give something else a try.
Un-asked-for charity. You walk into the office on a Monday morning and find on your desk a pile of neckties. The lady you work a couple of desks away from says that her husband doesn't wear them anymore, and that you can have them.
Gee, thanks. So you were cleaning out closets this weekend, and found some ties that were too crappy for your husband, and weighed your options of throwing them away, giving them to the Salvation Army, or to me. You apparently deemed that I was more in need of ties than the Salvation Army, as my own ties leave much to be desired, so you brought them to me, since I obviously can't afford to buy my own. Of course, you expect me to wear these ties, so you can see them and think, "Oh, that's one of those crappy ties I got rid of." Thanks.
Guys who are all hoity-toity about tying their necktie in an unusual way that they read in some dumbass magazine like GQ or Maxim - you know, magazines for pinheads who have nothing more interesting to think about than which buttons to button or not button on a suit jacket.
"First you hang the ends down so the wide end is about eight inches lower than the skinny end. Then you wrap this around here, and fold this part over that part and make a one inch zig-zag fold here and then wrap this part around it, then you flip this part around here and wrap this part around that part two times, then put this part through this loop, then make a square knot in this part and then wrap that part around it twice, then tuck this end through there, then pull it tight. So as you can see, it looks great - JUST LIKE IF YOU TIED IT THE WAY EVERYONE ELSE TIES A TIE!"
Christians who are against abortion and embryonic stem cell research, due to the assumption that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception, which makes this cluster of cells worthy of the same rights as a fully formed person. But most of these same people think that someone going to a fertility clinic for in vitro fertilization to is a beautiful thing, despite the fact that they will fertilize many ova in the process, maybe a dozen or more, and maybe only one or even none of them will become a baby. Congratulations. You are have just "murdered more babies" than almost anyone who has had an abortion. Of course, I say this facetiously, since most fertilized eggs never end up becoming babies anyway. Most of the time, fertilized eggs just die, or will be flushed away during a woman's period. I guess that makes God by far the most prolific murderer of babies of all. By the way, sorry that I've been on a "bash religion" tear lately, but it's been a while since I was in a good, rational debate with someone. Religious people seem to be running amok with irrational ideas lately, more than the norm, which is far from rational.
My general instinct is to hold doors for people rather than let the door slam their faces, and while I don't expect or even want gushing gratitude, if you think you're going to just walk through without a thank you, a look, a smile, a nod, OR EVEN NOTICING ME, as though the door just magically stayed open by itself, you can go fuck yourself.
Me, age 0-18:
Me: "Poopy."
Mom: "WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? WE DON'T SAY THAT KIND OF FILTH IN THIS FAMILY! GET OVER HERE! I'm gonna wash your mouth out with CHLORINE BLEACH!"
My younger sister, age 12-present:
Sister: "Fuckity fuck cuntfart mcfuckity shitcock twatsnot fuckin' jizzbag snatchnuggets tits diarrhea eater dick fuckin' clitscab buttfucker!"
Mom: "Tee-hee! You're so silly! You are such a funny girl! Funny and smart! How did I ever get such a creative child?" *hug*
The "hater-by-default" factor on sites like youtube, myspace videos, etc.
Someone posts a video. The video is 30 seconds long and features an average looking guy performing some planned stunt or skit that seemingly most people would find funny. (It's not one of those videos that are famous because they're horrible, such as the Star Wars Kid or Chocolate Rain.) Then you look at the comments. For every "Haha, that was funny" there are 100 people saying shit like,
"You look like a faggot."
"Retard."
"What kind of shirt are you wearing? It looks stupid."
"Your accent is annoying."
"Your fat."
"Is that your mom in the background? She looks like a fat dyke!"
"Why would you do that? I hope you die!"
"Fuck you, cunt!"
"What a stupid faggot."
"Why don't you buy some soap, you zitty sack of shit?"
"FAKE!"
Bands who have no ambition to be anything more than a local band. Whoop-dee-doo! You're the hottest Phish cover band in Eastern Tinyville, Oklabama. Who gives a shit?
Retards from Sarah Palin's "Real America," who think that the reason people in big metropolitan cities like New York vote for Democrats is because they're a bunch of soft, sissy liberals who don't give a shit about national security. Listen to what you're saying and use what the years of alcohol and crystal meth has left of your brains and think for five seconds. Who do you think the target of terrorism is? YOU? Right. Let's say some terrorist has built a dirty bomb. Where is he going to set it off? You think his list of targets includes Uncle Skeeter's Bait 'n' Tackle Shack down over there yonder by the "crick" at the end of some dirt road with no name in West Virginia 25 miles outside the nearest town, which, itself only has a population of 2000? Bullshit. You roaches would probably survive a nuclear war, just from the distance you are from civilization. "But what if Osama Bin Laden were to blow up the factory outlet mall in Dry Ridge, Kentucky? They got a Waffle House there! If the terrorists blow it up, I'll have to drive another 30 miles to get my hashbrowns smothered, topped, chopped and scattered!" Look, Billy Bob. Don't fucking worry about it. WE'RE the target. Nobody really even cares about you. Not even dim-witted politicians from the "Meth Capital of Alaska."
People who, when you patiently explain a philosophical concept in terms a four year old can grasp, still don't get it.
"If God is omniscient, and has a plan..."
"Uh-huh..."
"Then at the beginning of the universe he knew that I would be born..."
"Uh-huh..."
"And he also knew that I would grow up and be an atheist..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So if God exists, and is omniscient and perfect, and has a plan, there's no way I could have free will, because no matter what path I 'chose,' he knew in advance that I would 'choose' it, and in fact created me TO 'choose' to be an atheist, and will send me to hell for a destiny that he knew about, and indeed designed from the start."
"But yes you do so have free will!"
"Okay, look."
"Uh-huh..."
"Let's say I'm omniscient."
"Uh-huh..."
"And you flip a coin, and I know through my omniscience that it will land heads..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So since I knew ahead that it would land heads, it's not a random occurrence..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So it had to land heads. There's no other possible outcome. The notion of probability is out the window. It 100% has to land heads."
"What if I choose not to even flip the coin?"
"You can't fool someone who's omniscient. I would have known that the outcome would be you not flipping the coin. Your 'choice' not to flip the coin would, in fact, not be a 'choice' at all, but what I knew would happen."
(Failing to see the relationship to the previous argument.) "Uh-huh..."
"So if God knows everything, he knew before the universe even existed that I would end up being an atheist."
(Still failing to see where this ties in) "Uh-huh..."
"So there was no possibility but for me to be an atheist."
"Uhhhh..." (Blank stare)
"So if there was no other possibility, I could not have had the free will to choose otherwise. The outcome is exactly as he planned it."
"But yes you do have free will!"
"Okay, look. You believe that God knows everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"You also believe that he has a plan for everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then why pray?"
"Well, because God hears me and will make a way for me to get the things I want and need."
"Okay, look. If God knows everything, and has a plan, then you praying is pointless, because he knew long before you ever existed whether you praying to him was in his plan, and if him giving you stuff was in his plan."
"But, uhh, no, praying isn't pointless."
"It is if he's omniscient and has a plan, because the outcome would always be exactly the same as when he first laid out the plan. He even knew that some dude was going to pray to him at 8:23:14am November 2nd and pray for all the stuff you prayed for... So you didn't even have the free will to ask for the shit you asked for. It was all part of his original plan."
"But yes I do so have free will!"
"So you believe God can change his plan?"
"If he wants to."
"Then he can't be all-knowing."
"Yes, he is so!"
"If he was all-knowing, he would know how everything would turn out in advance, including his plan, so there is no way he could change his mind."
"Huh?"
"So even he can't have a free will, if he knows how everything will turn out."
"Huh? But yes he does so!"
"So basically you have to choose. Either God is all-knowing, or you and God have free wills, because it is impossible to have both."
"NUH-UH!"
Tiny towns full of old people with pristinely groomed lawns where the main industry and main use of land is cemeteries.
Recently MSNBC ran an article about the most notable discoveries about the ancient ancestors of humans. The article had many neat things about developments in hip and skull structures, teeth, and so on, and all-in-all was fairly interesting. What annoyed me was that before they even got through the first paragraph of the introduction, they gave this dumb, placating lip service to creationism, something along the lines of, "While many people believe that humans were designed by a supernatural creator, another theory is that humans evolved over a long period of time." Look. Just fucking get to the Australopithecus bones and shut the fuck up. Anyone who actually cares enough about his education to learn about this shit, even if only purely for the enjoyment of expanding his consciousness, probably doesn't buy the story about dust and ribs and talking snakes anyway, so stop insulting our intelligence. The two theories are on far from equal scientific footing, and are definitely mutually exclusive, so you can forgo the dumb disclaimer. Every adult who believes in either evolution or creationism is at the very least aware of the opposition of these two ideas, and the impossibility of both of them being true, so what's the fucking point? If you're going to make a news article that asserts things like the fact that the earth is greater than 6000 years old, or that humans share traits and genetic material with less developed organisms, just fucking do it. If you were doing an article on advanced math, you wouldn't waste valuable page space explaining concepts like "2 plus 2 equals 4," so why would you explain that, "Hey, just so you know, there are some people who disagree with this evolution stuff." No shit. They're wrong. They are as wrong as people who believe that 2 plus 2 does not equal 4, and it's staggering that their beliefs are treated with greater respect. Like, you wouldn't make a disclaimer in your math article that says, "Please be aware that some people do not believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4," you would just disregard them and their dumb opinions, because they're fucking retarded. You made an article that assumes, correctly, that modern humans evolved from earlier hominids, so have some fucking balls and just roll with it without taking time to coddle all the willfully ignorant, soft-headed retards who will disagree. Anyone who sends an angry email to the editor with some variation of, "Well, actually..." is fucking wrong. You know they're wrong. Anyone with a scientific education knows they're wrong. THEY'RE WRONG! Don't baby them for being wrong, just fucking disregard them.
The Windows registry.
"What the fuck! My computer is doing something really fucked up and annoying! I'd better look online to see if anyone knows how to fix the problem."
"Oh, just hit start, then hit 'run' then type 'regedit.' Then open the folder called HKEY_CURRENT_USER and dig way down all the hundreds of folders until you come to the folder called 873873UHD8947390748DJHFD8327KJHFD837. Open that and then search through the thousands of files with long gibberish names of equal length until you find the entry {CBU837436-6534654-49837-78DDC-5897FDE1RTB48}. Now delete that entry. Ok, now close regedit and restart your computer."
"OF COURSE! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?"
In November, '08, the heads of the American car manufacturers flew in their private jets to Washington to beg congress for 35 billion dollars to bail out their failing companies. So let's see if I have this straight. If I open a restaurant, but my business model is flawed, and my business fails, I lose my money, my employees will be out of work, and I will probably spend the rest of my life up to my eyeballs in debt. But if I run a corporation that has made shitty, poorly designed, gas guzzling cars that nobody wants for decades, and my profits decline, and my company could actually be considered partially to blame for the fact that America's economy is sagging, then I can sit there in my 3000 dollar suit and expect a huge handout. Makes sense to me.
Hate mail take-backs. Lately, I have received several requests from people who sent me retarded shit, which I posted on my page unaltered, and then years later, presumably after they finally got their first real job, they send me emails begging me to take their bullshit down.
From: Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
April, 2002 Subject: FUK U FAGOT!
"OMG I FUKIN HAET U DUDE! UR NOTHIN BUT A FUCKIN FAGOT AND A JEW AND A JEW FAGOT WHAT JEWS AROUND ALL FAGOTY LIKE UR GAY OR SOMETHIN, U FAGOT! IF I EVER MEET U ON TEH STREET IM GUNNA BEAT YOU SO HARD THAT UR GUNNA GET BEAT REAL HARD CUZ I NO U CAN'T FITE CUZ UR A FAGOT! U FUCKIN FAGOT!"
From: Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
October, 2008 Subject: Requesting removal of my email
"Good afternoon. A few years ago, I sent you an email which I regret, which was insensitive and inappropriate. I see now that you were right, and I apologize whole-heartedly for sending you this correspondence. Recently, I have started a job with a multinational corporation, and see that if my email is found by my superiors on the internet, it could embarrass me, and possibly even compromise my livelihood. Again, I apologize, and would greatly appreciate it if you would remove my email.
Best regards, J. Beefytits"
From: Negativepositive
To: Jack Beefytits
October, 2008 Subject: Re: Requesting removal of my email
"No."
[-+]
From Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
October, 2008 Subject: Re: Re: Requesting removal of my email
"FUK U FAGOT! IM GUNNA FUKIN SUE UR ASS YOU FAGOT! I HOPE U FUKIN DIE! I HOPE SOMEDAY I MEET U THEN I WILL STOMP ON UR FAGOT ASS! SEE U IN CUORT FAGOT!"
Hey, if you're going to be a dick, don't be a pussy about it.
Comedians on Comedy Central. Yeah, it's ironic, I know, but you know what's funny? Filth. "Oh, hey, so great you could make it, Mr. Stanhope! We are so happy to finally be shooting a special with you, which will be interrupted with that annoying jazz song every five minutes as we go to a ten minute commercial break, which will feature all the same commercials in every break. I just wanted to talk for a sec before you go on. As you know, this is basic cable, so, you know how you usually tell hilarious bits about fucking midgets, and hookers having war-torn twats that look like someone kicked a hole in a rotting pig carcass, and the smell of hooker pussy while on a heroic dose of mushrooms, and needing to meet a two headed girl with new and interesting holes to fuck because it's the only way you can get off? Well, uhh, yeah, you can't talk about any of that. Nope. So uhhh, just stick to jokes about airports and fast food, maybe some Carlin-ish examination of an expression that if you think about literally it seems weird. Hell, just point out how weird the set looks. Yeah. Just nice fluffy stuff like that. Cool. Well, go out there and knock em dead... but, uhh, don't color outside the lines. Yeah, we know it won't really be funny, but we'll just dub in the laughter and applause later. Don't worry, nobody will know. This channel aims for the middle. In fact, nobody who regularly watches this channel even knows who you are. We don't get great comedians. We get lame comedians and make them stars. I mean, we gave Mencia his own show for fuck sake, and anything that retard has ever said that was mildly amusing, some better comedian said before him, and he just took it and repeated it to the ignorant people who watch us. So go out there and make 'em laugh... but not too much."
Christians who seriously don't understand how dumb circular arguments are. It works like this. How do you know the Bible is true? Well, the Bible says it is the word of God. How do you know the Bible is the word of God? Because the Bible says so.
I got in an argument with a fundamentalist recently who was trying to use this concept to "prove" the event of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. "Hundreds of people SAW him crucified, and then he was laid in the tomb, and then THE TOMB WAS EMPTY! Then he appeared before at least 500 people! How can you not take the testimony of 500 people, many of whom were disbelievers, as proof?"
I responded, "Because that is not the independent testimony of 500 people, it's the testimony of ONE BOOK, and that book could have said any number the author wanted."
How can I not see that as proof? Okay, let me introduce myself. I am Negativepositive, high priest of the Holy Church of the Almighty Glombrax. Glombrax is the son of the one true god, Grickencrack, and the book of Glombrax attests to this. Actually, that whole episode with Jesus being killed and resurrected was just plagiarized from the book of Glombrax, which is twice as old as the Bible, according to the book itself. You think 500 witnesses is a big deal? Well the book of Glombrax says that after Glombrax was killed by the second sun landing on him as he lay on his lawn chair drinking margaritas (this second sun was later flicked into deep space by Grickencrack to prevent it ever landing on the earth again), he lay dead, not for a wussy 3 days, but 20 years. In that time, one MILLION people got to line up and check Glombrax's pulse to make sure he was dead. Then, after 20 years, he rose from the dead, and this was witnessed by the same million people, ALL of which, previously didn't believe in Glombrax's divinity. 500? PFFFFT! Then he ascended into heaven in a solid gold flying Lamborghini. SEE? How can you not see the testimony of these ONE MILLION PEOPLE as proof that Glombrax is truly the son of the real god, Grickencrack? How? Because I just pulled it out of my ass, much like the Bible was pulled out of the asses of people who thought the earth was flat, that disease was caused by sinfulness, that stars were actually just tiny specks of light that could fall to earth, that Pi is 3.00, that the universe was a few days older than humanity (and that humanity apparently came long after it actually did), that the moon emitted light, bats were birds, rainbows never happened prior to an impossible worldwide flood, that some birds and insects have four feet, dragons, unicorns, giants were real, and on and on and on.
Okay, let's play devil's advocate for a second. Let's say that the Bible actually accurately recorded the individual testimonies of 500 independent people who believed they witnessed a miracle (which, of course, it doesn't even bother to do). How easy would it be to get 500 people in the first century to believe something preposterous? Fuck, FOX News does it every single day to millions of people with a far tighter grasp of reality than anyone in Jesus' time. Imagine that you could be sent back in a time machine to Jesus' time and show those people something from modern times. A fucking WHEELBARROW would knock these retards on their asses. "HOLY FUCK! I CAN LIFT UP A WHOLE 100 pounds of sand, and move it over to that other pile of sand! YOU MUST BE THE FUCKING SON OF GOD! HOLY SHIT, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! Check out my sand pile!"
People on Myspace or Facebook who invite you to groups that support causes or politicians who are of only a tiny local interest at best. "Join the group 'Citizens for the Bridge' (8 members) We are fighting the current state proposal that aims to tear down and replace the 20 foot long bridge that spans some creek you have never heard of on a road you have never and will never travel, in a town you have never and probably wil never visit, and looks like any other bridge, and has no particular historical importance, and we demand that the state instead spend much more money to restore the bridge, which has been deemed unsafe and on the verge of collapse. Help us in our fight!" WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Publishers and record labels that have 80 tons of bullshit that nobody gives a fuck about and one or two truly brilliant artists, who act like those few shining stars are of equal or even lesser importance compared with all the other shit they sell. "Welcome to the quarterly TVT records news letter for Fall of 1991. We have many exciting new compilations of TV theme songs for this year which we know you're going to love! We are trying to get the rights to the theme to 'I Dream of Genie' for volume 38, so keep your fingers crossed. Also, and I hardly even think it's worth mentioning, but the band Nine Inch Nails has submitted another album of new music to us, but we really don't think it's worth publishing. It just sounds like a bunch of moody noise to us, and frankly, we don't get it. We, of course, will hold Trank Reznik, or whatever his weird name is, to his contract to give us 5 albums which are worth publishing, but we will do so at our discretion, and honestly I wonder why we ever signed him to begin with. We really don't think this band is going anywhere."
<img src= "picture, usually of a cat, but often of another cute animal, doing something funny">
" "witty" dialogue with exaggerated misspellings and poor grammar "
Now copy and paste that 5000 times and you have a nearly exact replica of almost every "wacky pictures" sites on the internet.
"Wacky pictures" sites on the internet where someone took a normal picture and then used some extremely simple photoshop procedure, like using the stretch tool to make the subject's eyes "c-ray-zy," and then they post it like it's the most awesome thing ever. "Holy shit! It's a baby, but its eyes are CRAZYLOL!" *click next* "Holy shit! It's a picture, usually of a cat, but often of another cute animal, but its eyes are CRAZYLOL! Oh, and it's using "witty" dialogue with exaggerated misspellings and poor grammar, because clearly, it's CRAZYLOL!"
Bands that I never knew were good, and then I hear them and have my mind blown, only to discover that they only released like one or two albums and broke up 5 years ago, so I have nothing more to hear of theirs, and nothing to look forward to.
Bands that I heard in passing years ago, but for whatever reason, never followed up on, and then I get myself all twisted up thinking that they were really amazing, so I scour the internet trying to find what I heard, and of course this only happens with bands that had small releases, or vinyl-only releases, which ensures that I have to put forth tons of work, and often spend too much money, to find the music I heard, and either it's really good, but very short, or it's not nearly as good as I thought I remembered.
Creationists whose other misguided beliefs could be debunked through meaningful debate, if only they weren't creationists.
"Homosexuality is a sin. It is entirely unnatural, and a choice that people make in defiance of God!"
"Actually, if you look at lower animals, particularly higher primates, you find that there is a surprisingly high percentage of individuals that tend towards bisexuality and homosexuality. Even in animals as low on the evolutionary tree as birds and......"
*Dumb, self-assured smile*
"Oh.... Right. You think people aren't even related to other animals, and hence, think human behavior is entirely unrelated to animal behavior."
*Dumb, self-assured smile*
"And all these points, which would be evidentiary to someone who actually understands biology, are meaningless to you."
*Dumb, self-assured smile.... nod, nod, nod*
People who somehow believe in evolution AND creationism, or believe that evolution applies to plants, animals, etc, but not to people, since people aren't animals.
"Of course I don't believe that the earth isn't only 6000 years old, and I can see that higher, more advanced species developed over time from less developed species."
"So you can see that humans are somewhat closely related to great apes?"
"PFFFT! NO. People came from dirt and ribs, and were created in God's image. Don't you know anything?"
People who seem to believe in evolution when one of its concepts suits their argument. This is an actual conversation I had with someone.
"How can you say that homosexuality is natural? You don't see gay animals."
"Actually, you do. Oh, by the way, I didn't know you believed in evolution."
"I don't."
"Then why would you make a comparison between human behavior and animal behavior? If humans are not related to animals, animal behavior would be completely irrelevant to human behavior."
"Errr, uhhh, well, errr...."
"Although, if humans and animals had a shared ancestry, then yeah, human behavor would be directly related to animal bahavior."
"Uhhhh, errr, uhhhhh...""
Creationists whose understanding of evolution, and the basis for their arguments against it, is that a chimpanzee gave birth to a blonde, blue-eyed human child.
People who think that one of the most valuable skills you can have in modern America, and are a failure as a human being if you don't have, is the ability to shoot a gun well. Look, when the zombie armies come, then yes, firing a gun will be a useful skill, but most people can get through their 9-5 lives just fine without having perfect form with a gun. "Pfft, look. Her elbow is all wrong. She's gonna lose her bead when the gun kicks." Who gives a shit?
People who try to bargain by lying and exaggerating about the prices of things with relatively well known values.
"Man, why do I waste my money in your restaurant? I could go to Burger King and get a value meal with a Double Whopper with cheese, large fries and a large Coke for two dollars!"
Ummm, NO YOU CAN'T.
RPG videogames where you have to play for hours or even days or weeks before you get reasonably useful abilities. You make a character. At level 1, your list of abilities are apparently "Attack," and "Hope you live," though there doesn't seem to be a button for the second one. After several levels you gain a new ability: "Block." After several more levels you get another ability: "Heal 10% of your health for 50% of your magic." Of course, you advance along and at a quite advanced level, you finally have a list of abilities that you look at and think, "Gee, that would have been nice to have for the last 50 levels."
Reason #248 America is fucked
There is a very real possibility that the Stock Market could crash and send us into another Great Depression. Also, we are mired in two major wars with no end in sight, and the way that we have handled these wars, which were purportedly to make us safe from terrorism, have actually made us much less safe from terrorism, meanwhile, Americans are losing their liberties at an astonishing rate, as America looks more and more like a fascist state. What pressing issues are foremost in the minds of a frighteningly large cross section of voters? "We need to get someone in the White house who will ban abortion and gay marriage once and for all!"
You assholes. Who am I kidding? Should I expect rational thinking from people who would take their children out of public school to shield them from science classes that might teach them that Noah didn't chill with dinosaurs, giants and dragons? Yeah, silly me to assume people would actually be concerned with real problems that could affect them. (Oct 12,'08)
The recent saturation of ads on TV, billboards and the subway for airlines, where they act line the flight itself is going to be one of the best parts of your vacation. "We've got TV and wi-fi and satellite radio and delicious hot meals and seats that tilt all the way to being fully reclined. Holy shit! We've even got duvees! No fucking shit! Duvees on an airplane! Well fuck me runnin'! You're going to wish the flight would never end!" Then anytime you're actually on a plane, even on the airlines that make these ads, they have all the luxurious amenities of a fucking post office. Your knees are pressed against the seat in front of you, the meal is a can of soda and 0.002 ounces of pretzels and maybe, if you're lucky, they have a super shitty movie to watch on a tiny screen that's all cloudy and etched and fucked up from the time some brain trust tried to use an abrasive scrub pad to get a stain off it. Sometimes you get on a plane and it's visibly in a bad state of decay. Am I the only one who would rather not be flying in a plane that seems to be staying in the air simply by the power of duct tape and prayer?
Pretentious bosses who take up valuable time in meetings and ceremonies to pontificate about the company's "culture." Look, blow your new-agey bullshit out your ass. This company manufactures plastic forks. Who gives a shit? The Mayans were a culture. You're just a pretentious goober trying in vain to assign importance to something trivial. Let's see here. I showed up on time? I treated clients well? I did what I could to make the company money with minimal expense? The company is meeting or exceeding projected goals? Morale is on a reasonably even keel? Cool. Now you'll excuse me if I don't pretend to act like the company is of metaphysical importance to the universe and weave it into the fiber of my existence. "Culture?" Pfffft.
The large number of Americans who think that if you aren't a jingoist, you're not a patriot.
Friends who give themselves a schedule that essentially allows for zero free time, who then act bitchy with you because you can't ever seem to be able to schedule a time to meet up and hang out. Look. I'd like to hang out too, but I wasn't the one who decided to go out and get married and have two kids and work a full time job plus a part time job on weekends and also go to college full time plus take a kickboxing class three times a week. "Well, dude, I told you I was free from 3:45 to 5pm on Monday if you wanted to hang, but I guess you had something important to do. Pfft. Give me a call sometime, I guess."
People who, if gas rose to $18.62 a gallon, would still be like, "Pfff! Look at mister hippie dippy birkenstocks and his little pussy hybrid! Does it run on bean spouts? Haw!"
Bar flies who are incapable of walking into a bar without being kicked out 45 minutes after closing time because they won't get the fuck out on their own and keep nursing that last drink they bought at last call as though buying it gives them a divine right to sit there and be a loud jackass when the bar staff wants to close. "C'mon, man! You can't kick me out! I still have nearly a whole beer left!"
Girls who think that the sexiest thing in the world is a cop.
"Oh, baby! Remember last night when you busted that sweet house party at 9:30 because those people were committing the vile crime of being of age and drinking and playing a cool mix cd in the privacy of their own home, and then you threw that one guy to the ground and dragged him to jail for having a joint in his pocket, and then you and a bunch of other cops spent the next three hours searching the house for drugs and questioned the home owner until he was stressed to the breaking point because he had dared to have a few friends over? That was so HOT!"
Apparent prioritized design purposes for Legos:
1.) To create small objects with the maximum number of sharp angles and ideal size to hurt like a motherfucker when someone steps on them barefoot when they are left on the floor.
2.) To act as interlocking bricks which children can use to create structures and play with.
The fact that a search on Facebook or Myspace reveals that apparently the majority of my high school class has done nothing whatsoever since graduation but gain weight, have a bunch of goofy looking children, love the lord and root for the home team. And you wonder why I left?
Vending machines that don't have an option to refund your money when the item you want is out. If I walk into a store and want a Pepsi, and they're out of Pepsi and every other relatively non-disgusting soda, they don't force me to buy a fucking Sunkist because that's all they have left.
A couple of years ago, I was called to jury duty, and as expected, this helped to further diminish my hope for humanity. It was a criminal trial. Apparently, this guy called this other guy a name. This was witnessed by several people. The other guy then got in his car, drove to a sporting goods store and used his credit card to buy an aluminum baseball bat. (The store provided a copy of the transaction for evidence, which showed the guy's name. Also, the store owner picked the guy out of a lineup.) He then spent a few hours driving around looking for the name-caller. When he found him, he got out of his car and smashed the guy's face in with the bat. This was witnessed by many people, including two police officers, who wrestled the guy to the ground and got the bat away from him. The bat, of course, was brand new and matched the model of the one purchased a few hours earlier.
Plea: Not Guilty.
Vendors on sites like Ebay and Amazon who apparently ship things through some weird type of mail that is designed specifically to go as slowly as possible. Like, if I mail my landlord my rent on a Monday, he gets it of Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. But if I buy something from some vendors, they send it via "media mail," which apparently is a special type of mail where you go to the Post Office, and they use your package as a coaster in the break room for a couple of days, then ship it to a warehouse in Arizona that is guarded by vicious dogs. After a couple of weeks, they send a guy on a horse, Pony Express style, to pick up the package, and maybe his horse will die of thirst in the Arizona desert, in which case they wait another couple of weeks to send another rider. Once a rider actually makes it through the desert and successfully fights off the dogs and gets your package, he rides his horse to a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio. The package is then given to a 93 year old nearly-blind altzheimers patient who is verbally given instructions to take the west-bound R-18 bus to the 8th Street terminal, switch to the south-bound F-21 bus, the local, not the express, and get off at the 7th stop, walk 2 blocks east and 6 blocks south, then put it in the second mailbox from the south east corner of Limestone Blvd and Lime street. Three weeks later, the old man is found dead on a park bench, miles away from his intended destination, without the package, and a notice is sent to the vendor to ship a new copy. Then the process begins again, and continues until your package finally reaches you... or maybe not.
Recently in New York, there has been an advertising campaign to try to paint Islam as a peaceful, tolerant belief system that has been demonized by nothing other than Americans' ignorance of their beliefs, which seeks nothing but the respect afforded to any other innocuous belief system. The ads are laid out in two panels. The first has a relatively benign phrase in the form of a question, such as, "Head scarf?" or "Prayer rug?" The second panel says "You deserve to know," and has the group's web address, whyislam.org. Head scarf? Is that really one of the most serious questions plaguing the minds of Americans who are hesitant to see Islam through rose colored glasses? How about some real questions? Clitoral mutilation of children? Jihad? Honor killings? Beheadings? Stoning people to death? Lopping off people's limbs as a sentence for committing crimes that would be misdemeanors in the West? Mujaheed? Patently and often violence-inciting anti-semitic sentiment and satire in much of the mainstream Islamic media? Global conquest as a central doctrine? Huge swarms of people rioting in a murderous rage after being offended by the tiniest and most innocuous shit? Beating, killing, or raping women for having the audacity to show an inch of skin? Women being sentenced by tribal counsils to be gang raped as a punishment for their brothers' offenses? Suicide Bombing? House of War? Destroying significant historical artifacts that are older than Islam because they supposedly insult a religion that didn't even exist when they were made? Destroying statues and pictures for fear that their mere existence might lead to idolatry? Whipping and cutting yourself to a bloody pulp? Fatwas condemning Islam's critics to death? Jizya? Mohammed married a six year old and fucked her when she was nine, when he was 54, and in many Islamic countries, in the 21st century, the age of consent has been lowered to 9 in admiration of the prophet? Women as property? Women as second class citizens with a highly diluted set of legal rights compared to those enjoyed by men? Trying and sentencing rape victims to death by stoning, since, supposedly being raped makes them adulterers? Fathers and brothers murdering their daughters and sisters because having them fall victim to rape brings shame on the family? Death for apostates? You deserve to know. Why Islam? WHY, INDEED?
Things that would make multiplayer online games fun:
Strategy
Planning
Acquisition of interesting weaponry and equipment
Coordinated teamwork
How online gaming actually works in 99% of multiplayer games:
Spawn with a shitty weapon
Run around in a panic trying to find a better weapon
Get killed in one or two shots by someone you didn't even see after running around for 15 seconds or less
Respawn
Repeat
Any job that requires you to be there and working while most sane people are dead asleep. I mean, granted, when I pull off the interstate at 4:23am to buy a Slim Jim, some King Dons and a Mountain Dew, I'm glad there's someone around to sell them to me, but seriously, keep checking the classifieds.
Creationists on YouTube who try to "scientifically prove" creationism. I just watched this video by this tard who framed his argument in such a way that it rips itself apart. Of course, he apparently deleted all the negative comments and left up all the Christians who said he did a great job, and now he has comments blocked. Gee, that doesn't slant anything.
"Let's talk about time. If I tell you that I will give you a million dollars after an infinite amount of time, am I ever going to give you the money? No. Therefore, time has to be finite. Therefore, it goes the other way too. Time had to begin at a certain point, and the universe is made up of things, and things cannot exist outside of time, therefore God had to create the universe." Oh.... and God is not subject to time.... because you say so? I assume, since God has a name, you assume he's a "thing," and "things" cannot exist outside time, so God couldn't have existed outside of time, to "create" time, so, uhh, God doesn't exist, and never did. GOOD JOB. You proved it. Actually, you did prove something conclusively. You proved that you probably skimmed an article in a magazine that mentioned some basic concepts of Einsteinian physics, and apparently misunderstood it completely.
Realtors who are just flat-out liars.
"So I notice that the unit below this one is a Merengue bar, and the unit above it is a roller skating rink, and outside, 20 feet to the left is a NASCAR track and 20 feet to the right is a NASA rocket testing facility, and across the street is a shooting range where people can pay to shoot 50cal machine guns. Isn't it noisy?"
"Noisy? No. Nobody has ever said anything to me about the noise. The previous tennant used to say that it was very quiet and peaceful. OH! Did I point out the new bathroom fixtures?"
People who live in fear of doomsday scenarios that could in no way be altered by human actions. Someone just sent me a video warning me to "get educated" about the OORT cloud of comets, because sooner or later, a shitload of comets are going to hit the earth and wipe out all life on the planet. Uhhh... WHY? While I always like learning new and interesting things, what could possibly be the reason to try to implant fear and dread in people about something that there is no possible way to stop, and might not even happen for millions or billions of years. Do you really think humanity has that long? And if the shit happens TOMORROW, what good would it do to worry about it? What are you going to DO about comets smashing into the earth and annihilating all life on the planet in a single day? Hint: that Bruce Willis movie was ridiculous, at best. "You should educate yourself!" Yeah? Well you should calm the fuck down and have a slice of pie, because pie is delicious, and maybe you won't be here tomorrow to have a slice, but you' don't know either way. I'm betting you will take the slice of pie, and tomorrow you'll be back to have another slice. Lots of people since the dawn of human history lived until their dying days, worried every day about the "imminent" end of civilization. What did they all have in common? They were all worried unnecessarily, and now they're dead, so who cares?
Retards who haven't figured out that a video camera is not a regular camera, who TURN THE CAMERA ON ITS SIDE to frame the picture in "portrait" rather than "landscape." Hey, dipshit, this isn't a paper picture that someone can turn in their hands, you are posting this shit on youtube, and nobody is TURNING THEIR MONITOR ON ITS SIDE to see your retarded video of your baby laughing.
People who marvel at the amazing idea of bomb disarming robots. Sure, using a robot to get rid of a bomb is better than losing a human life, but every time a five dollar bomb annihilates a two hundred thousand dollar robot, we still aren't really winning.
The screaming, raving preacher on the street outside my office says that if I don't believe in Jesus, there's something missing in my life, and you know what? He's right. There IS something missing from my life... Most notably missing is the urge to stand on a street corner for hours every day and abandon all self respect as I scream and rave about imaginary things and annoy the shit out of passers-by and people in nearby offices who are trying to concentrate on actual work.
Oh, and there's this other guy who screams and shouts in the street near my work. He has spent about 2 hours a day, three days a week, for the past two years standing outside with a sandwich board with something or other written on it about some injustice or some corrupt official or something, shouting the same repetitive phrase over and over. It sounds like "BLUH-dee-BLUHHHHH! BLUH-dee-BLUH-dee-BLUHHHHHH!!!!" Yeah, in two years of practically tripping over this guy on my way out of the building, I haven't quite figured out what he's protesting. I mean, I'm sure he would be happy to tell me in detail what he's fighting for, but as it turns out, I'm not the least bit interested what some crazy asshole has to say about anything. Here's the deal. When there's 500 people with signs shouting a repetitive chant, it's a protest. When it's ONE guy, he's a fucking whack-job who needs pills.
On September 1st, the news broke that John McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, had a 17 year old unwed daughter who was pregnant. It was the biggest news story of the day, drowning out such insignificant news as Hurricane Gustav. Of course, nearly everyone piped in on the news media that "Children are off limits. Palin's daughter's pregnancy should have no bearing whatsoever on how Palin's character or ability to lead are judged." A CNN poll was worded, "Should voters care that Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed daughter is pregnant?" Of course, the vast majority voted No. In fact, a few Republicans called the Democrats and media sexist for even mentioning it. You know, because no Republicans would ever stoop so low as to say anything sexist about Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi.
And I fully agree that shit happens, and 17 year olds will occasionally ignore their parents' authority and fuck and get pregnant, and it's not the most conclusive way to judge the character of Sarah Palin, who, by the way, opposes ALL methods of birth control, including condoms, even for married couples. Surely this whole thing is completely out of her hands. And I also agree that voters should not be so focused on a candidate's spouse, children, or, even pastor. (Remember?) However, if this was the daughter of Barack Obama or Joe Biden, the Republicans would have taken it and used it as a sledgehammer to smash the Democratic campaign and demonstrate the egregious moral failings of liberals. It would be the key note of the ongoing Republican National Convention, and every speaker there would have alluded to it for a cheap laugh, and would have gotten nothing but cheers for doing so. If it was a Democrat, it would have cost them the election. Obama or Biden's illegitimate grandchild would have been their Donna Rice, their Willie Horton, their Swift Boat Veterans. But it's a Republican, so, c'mon, guys. Don't be so petty.
Oh, and a side note. The irony of this whole media blitz is hilariously hypocritical. The top story of the day on EVERY news media outlet in America: "Should the media be so focused on Bristol Palin's pregnancy? Well should it? Hey, let's talk about whether or not we should be focused on Bristol Palin's pregnancy, because I don't think we should be. What do YOU think about Bristol Palin's pregnancy? Do you think it's important? Here, take a poll about the importance of Bristol Palin's, daughter of vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, pregnancy. Oh, you don't think Bristol Palin's pregnancy is important? There you have it. Americans don't think Bristol Palin's pregnancy is important, or that it should be important. Bristol Palin is pregnant, by the way. She's Sarah Palin's daughter. But that's not important. It's totally unimportant and irrelevant... that Bristol Palin, the daughter of Sarah Palin, the republican vice presidential candidate, is pregnant... and unmarried. STOP PUNCHING YOURSELF! STOP PUNCHING YOURSELF!"
"Christian scientists" who make their primary goal the debunking of evolution. Okay, just for the fuck of it, let's say that you somehow disprove evolution. You still haven't come a single step closer to proving creationism. Where's your fossil record of snakes with vocal cords and lungs and brains big enough to handle human speech and reasoning? What, uhh, species of tree produces the fruit that gives the ability to determine what's good and evil, because that's the sort of shit that you could actually test. Oh, it was lost in Eden? Well, considering that we can pretty much see a fly on the ass of a racoon with satellites, Eden shouldn't be too hard to find, so, uhhh, you wouldn't happen to have a rough idea of the coordinates, would you? I mean, if the earth is only 6000 years old, that kind of stuff should be relatively easy to find, compared to dinosaur bones that are hundreds of millions of years old.
People who eat a hamburger or slice of pizza with a fork and knife.
Bands whose main purpose seems to be to get the word out. "Dude! Are you doing anything Tuesday? You should come see us play! I mean, I know we've been around for four years, and our play list has only grown by two songs in that period of time, and the two newer songs are covers, but dude! You should come check it out! Oh, and don't forget to check out our website. It has a blog where I tell you about upcoming shows and lots of links to where you can buy our music and merchandise. Oh, and there is a monthly video blog where I tell you about our creative process, and tell you about upcoming venues, but no music. Oh, and add me as a friend on Myspace, and subscribe to me on Youtube. If you do want to get video of us playing music, we have a DVD of us playing live, and it includes a video for one of our songs, shot entirely by me and my girlfriend without ever leaving the yard. Here, man! Take some stickers to, you know, spread the word!"
The most notable thing going on today is that the stock market is taking a beating following a run on a bank.
Front page headlines on cnn.com:
Lady finds snake in washing machine.
Which celebrity couples are the most green?
Check out our review of the new Batman movie!
What's the deal with Bret Favre?
On July 6th in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, a Pakistani man, Chaudhry Rashid, killed his 25 year old daughter by strangling her with an electrical cord because she refused to stay in an arranged marriage with a Pakistani man from Chicago. While the CNN and ABC articles did refer to the killing as an "Honor killing," the following words are ostensibly missing from both of their articles: Muslim, Islam, Islamic, Sharia, all of which are central to the concept of why this murder took place at all. Instead, the articles repeatedly tiptoe around the crux of the issue by referring to the incident as an act of domestic violence. While it is inargaubly that, it intentionally misses the point. Calling this simply an act of domestic violence would be like calling a nuclear bomb blast "unseasonably warm weather." Say what you will about my tolerance of different religions and cultures. If Mr. Rashid had been a Christian, Hindu, Jew, Bhuddist, Mormon, Taoist, etc, or, ideed, an atheist, Sandeela Kanwal would still be alive.
Radio stations where you have them on in the background, and then you realize the last song they played was "Freeze Frame" by the J. Giles band, and for at least the last ten minutes, they have played nothing but commercials, and you think, gee, is it really worth it to sit through ten minutes of the most annoying commercials on the planet, just so I can get to hear 'Hip to be Square' by Huey Lewis and the News? No. No it isn't.
Smarmy turds who say, "You know, diet sodas are actually much worse for your body than regular soda." Yeah, well, I'm sure soda in general is bad for your body, but this year I switched from regular soda to diet soda, and as a result, I dropped 25 pounds in five months, without altering anything else about my diet or level of exercise, and I'm sure that's really crappy for my body.
People who want to show you ultrasound pictures of their baby, or their sister's baby, or their wife's baby, and you haven't even met these people, and expect you to act excited. Look. I don't even want to see pictures of these kids running around Chuck E. Cheese's at their eighth birthday party, much less a blurry black and white blob of gibberish where you can sorta-kinda, if you squint, make out a hand or a head. Oh, wow. Maybe it's a leg... Or maybe it's your colon full of that Double Whopper with cheese you ate a few hours ago. I would be equally impressed to see a blurry black and white picture of either. When it's my baby, then yes, I will be happy to get visual confirmation that my son actually has a head, and only one head. When it's not my baby, it looks like every other ultrasound picture I've ever seen. How do I know you didn't just get that picture from Google Images? And what difference would it make to me if you did? "Wow... Your baby has some handsome JPG artifacts. Nice pixelation on that kid."
People who have a dumb milktoast concept of what it means to be "bad."
"Oh my god, I've been so naughty this week. I had not one, but TWO chocolate chip cookies after lunch!"
"Yeah, I was kinda naughty too. This morning I woke up on the floor of a public restroom stall, and I can't remember how I got there. I felt like shit, so I snorted some cocaine off the toilet seat for a little pick-me-up. Then I went outside and didn't see my car around, so I stole a car and went to see this guy who owes me money. He wasn't there, but his girlfriend was there giving me the run-around, so I head-butted her in the face and knocked her out and dug around her pockets and found her wallet with 250 bucks in it, plus an ATM card, and the stupid broad had written the pin number right on it, so I hit the ATM and took out a grand. Then I drove by this seedy neighborhood and picked up a couple of hookers and took em to this hotel and we all did a bunch of coke and fucked for a few hours with no protection. Then that guy kept calling my cell phone screaming about his girlfriend, and that shit got old, so I kicked the hookers out naked into the hotel hallway and drove back over to the guy's apartment and beat him bloody while his girlfriend just hid in the bathroom crying. So yeah, I was kinda bad today too."
"Oh, god! And did I tell you? I ate pizza today! God, my diet is so screwed!"
People who take on this air of superiority and act aloof about their jobs and try to push for more money because they "have other offers," and then end up never leaving because they're full of shit.
"What are you going to bring to the company picnic?"
"That's in what, two weeks? Pffft, right. Like I'll even be here by then. I'm about to blow this dump."
Three years later....
"Heh, this place can kiss my ass. I'm tellin' ya man, I am outta here."
Does the world really need another movie about a hot, prissy girl who falls in love with a hot urban guy while taking part in an over-the-top street dancing competition between rival break dancing gangs? Wait. Let me answer before you say something stupid. No. No it doesn't. (Insert "illegal auto street racing," "illegal underground martial arts tournament," etc. as applicable.)
Web filters at work that were apparently put into place completely arbitrarily by someone who didn't even look at the website.
I recently tried to view a website about Final Fantasy XI Online, and was met with the corporate "blocked site" page. On the page they show the corporate web usage policy and list the reason the website is blocked. "Reason: Hate and Racism. Your IP has been logged." What the fuck? So now H.R. Is going to see my name tossed into a list of people who were checking out pages for neonazi and white supremacist groups because I was looking for something about Final Fantasy?
"Please hold while the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is located... Please hold while the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is located... The Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable." I mean, I'm no marketing expert, but maybe it's not the best idea to put your corporate branding on something that is directly indicative of how shitty and broken your service is. Oh, gee. Nextel is trying to locate them. Any other company's phone would be fucking ringing by now.
The fact that emails sent from my job are caught in the spam filters, but somehow "SexyGirl35681" who wants me to view her "private pictures" and "Karim al-Qusur" who claims that I "AM WIN CANADA LOTTERY" get through just fine.
People who are not actually participating in The Olympics, who act like The Olympics are of some vast importance. It's people playing sports, and most of these are sports that fucking nobody gives a flying fuck about except when they are in The Olympics. When was the last time you went to a bar and found the entire place fixated on the curling match on TV? When was the last time you hurried home from work so as not to miss the bobsled races or weightlifting competition on TV? That's right. Never. This year's summer Olympics are being held in China, amid tons of protest about China's human rights record. To the protesters I say, why protest now? Because of the Olympics? Who gives a shit? Why weren't you out protesting before? Oh, right. You get more visibility because of The Olympics.
On my way to work I saw people passing out religious pamphlets. This was nothing new, but the title of the pamphlet made me chuckle. "The Scam of Unbelief." Scam? Uhhh, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there's no money that is inherently derived from not believing in fanciful things. So uhhh.... Where's the fucking scam? When was the last time a paleontologist said, "If you don't buy me a private jet, I can't do my work?" When was the last time a biochemist said, "No, the federal government can't see my financial records because they belong to God?" (Both of these claims were made by evangelist Kenneth Copeland). On the other hand, there's a shitload of free money to be made in religion. Religion is the greatest scam ever conceived, and I guess they don't like competition. It's the old "defense by accusation" ploy. Scam? Hah! "But, if people stop believing in God, who will pay for the gold leaf and jewels that we planned on buying to embellish this huge building that is a dwelling for nobody? And how are we going to afford our 200 acre mega-church complex? And how will we pay the legal fees to protect our army of kid-touchers from pedophila charges? And the Pope is getting bored of his solid gold jewel-encrusted scepter and wants a new one. Who's gonna pay for that if people start realizing we're full of shit? How will people be able to convince their relatives to murder their daughters for honor after they've been raped? Who will we get to blow themselves up on crowded busses if people start figuring out that there's no invisible man in the sky smiling down on their actions? Who will chop off their children's foreskins and clitorises when people realize that the real reason for their removal is to diminish sexual pleasure and that there is no supreme patriarch out there to be offended by sexual pleasure?"
Apple is at it again, trying to peddle their lack of innovation to their goofy, little, brainwashed appleheads as though they were amazing innovators. The second generation iPhone commercial begins, "What is 3G?" as though they fucking invented it. "It's the internet (dramatic pause) twice as fast. It's sending and receiving emails (dramatic pause) twice as fast. It's text messages (dramatic pause) twice as fast." Oh yeah... You get the internet twice as fast as the old iPhone. In other words, the iPhone is now finally on a network that is JUST AS FAST AS THE ONES USED BY EVERY OTHER CELL PHONE IN AMERICA! How about making a retroactive commercial for the generation one iPhone. "It's the internet... HALF AS FAST. It's emails and text messages... SLOW AS FUCK COMPARED TO ANY OTHER PHONE."
Cheese soup. Know what the difference is between cheese sauce and cheese soup? With cheese sauce, you are using cheese to flavor something that's less fatty than cheese. With cheese soup, you're drinking a much larger quantity of liquid cheese without all the fuss of chewing something else in the process, you fat fuck. Maybe I should just give you a jar of mayonnaise and a spoon and watch you go to town.
The myth of targeted advertising on the internet. Since my first Windows 95 baby steps on the internet, I have heard the nervousness, which varied in intensity from cautious and sober to tin-foil hat conspiracy theory paranoia, that unseen forces were floating around the internet, collecting a record of everything I look at, everything I write, everything I search for, all my associations, all my friends, all my political interests, all my private thoughts. These forces would then use this record against me in the form of (dastardly villain trumpet blare - picture the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch from Monty Python) TARGETED MARKETING!!!! Gasp! What an abridgement of my freedom! So... Annoying as it might be, where is it? I don't see them advertising electronic music, viral videos, stand up comedy, video games and porn to me, at least not to a greater extent than they advertise these things to anyone else in spam and banner ads. From what I can see, about the only thing they seem to know about me is that I am most likely male, and speak english. OH! And apparently, I own a computer. Let's see, what do I get advertised to me on a regular basis?
"Refinance your Mortgage!" Good research, retards, I have lived in apartments for nearly 9 years.
"Order discount prescription drugs from Canada!" Gee! Just what I need, considering I generally don't take any prescription medication and have no problem getting boners.
"Meet Christian singles in your area!" Wow! It's uncanny how you pinpointed the exact demographic that I totally have no urge to meet at all!
"I am Abdullah Izmir, and I need your help urgently in a private financial matter!" Sounds legit to me!
"Your Citibank account am be locked from access to you! Contact urgently!" Okay, Master of English grammar! I will hurry and contact you to reopen my nonexistent Citibank account.
"Why not enroll at the University of Phoenix, for a brighter future?" Sure, why wouldn't a 35 year old guy who has a middle class income in New York City enroll in classes at a college 2500 miles away?
"Refinance your student loan!" I don't have one, but hey, maybe you can loan me some money for the education I don't plan on getting in Phoenix!.
People who give you gift certificates that are too small to be useful at the store they are from without you spending more money. Oh, gee, thanks. A 10 dollar gift certificate for Best Buy. Now I can buy... Nothing.
"The miner owns three gold mines." Correct
"This is where he mines for gold." Correct
"Today, upon finding a large nugget, the miner said, 'This gold is mines!'" WRONG!.
People who in this age of caller ID think they can get away with the old "Call and hang up" bullshit. Congratulations. You just made a new friend. I have a long commute, a cell phone, and nothing to do on the way but call your dumb ass back 100 times.
People who go on Amazon and give "The God Delusion," "The End of Faith," "God is Not Great," "The God Who Wasn't There," and other atheistic books and videos 1 star reviews purely on the basis of, "GOD IS SO REAL! HOW COULD YOU EVEN SAY GOD ISN'T REAL? NO WAY IN HELL WOULD I EVER EVEN WATCH FIVE SECONDS OF THIS VIDEO, BUT I'M GOING TO GIVE IT A NEGATIVE REVIEW ANYWAY! YOU'RE GOING TO GO TO HELL!"
People who think they can just blurt out their CRAZY worldviews and think that nobody will call them out on how crazy they are. Recently I was talking to some friends about books and movies and we were all talking about stuff we liked. I mentioned George Orwell's "1984" and a few people in the group were like "Oh, yeah. That was a good one." This one guy blurted out, "Yeah, I can always enjoy a good book, even if it does rip on ultra-conservatism." Yes, he used the term "ultra." Usually the only people who prefix "conservatism" with "ultra" are liberals who want to point out how far to the right someone is, but this guy was casually referring to himself as an ultra-conservative. If what you get from 1984 is that it's a happy ending because the party smashed Winston Smith's mind and spirit until he submitted and conformed, and that this was a good thing for society, you're fucked up, and I will be the first to tell you. Like, as much as I disagree with run-of-the-mill conservatism, I can understand it, but to be an advocate of totalitarianism.... go fuck yourself.
Cults. This one seems to really speak for itself, but I think it goes a bit beyond the whole "Those people are KOOKS" factor. I tend to think in a rational way, for the most part, and this has led me to believe that the claims of religion tend to be highly suspect. There are things that people believe that are real, and there are things that people believe in that are not real, or at best, are highly improbable. A million people, or even billions of people, can believe in something and be wrong. Even if you are, for instance, a Christian, you can look at other belief systems and see the glaring flaws in logic and low degree of probability of their claims. However, on the other end of the "sanity in numbers" scale, there are beliefs that are held by very few people. If everyone who believes in something can fit in a single subway car, there's a very strong possibility that those people are crazy. Being in a minority is one thing, but how does someone get to the point where they can examine a belief, that is highly improbable at best, and held by only 200 people, or 50, or 20, and think, "Hmmmm.... You know... This guy Dave says he is the son of God, whose true name is Guadachungo, and he says that the best way to show appreciation to Guadachungo and to the Almighty Dave is to let my underage children engage in orgies with Dave and his 25 followers, and that once we all share the same blood, and we give all our money and property to Dave, he will receive a divine message from Guadachungo, and we will steal a school bus and ride it to a place far away in the desert, where we will all douse ourselves in gasoline and set ourselves and our children on fire to burn away the old bad skin of sinfulness away, and once we are pure, Guadachungo will arrive in his spaceship to take us to his home planet.... Yeah, that sounds reasonable."
Reason number 728 why America is fucked.
Who would win in a hypothetical presidential election?
Candidate 1: Has an IQ of 168. Highly educated in economics, cultures, history, political science and geography, and has spent time as a professor in most of these subjects. Previously held the office of Governor in a state whose economy, crime rate and educational system took a sharp turn for the better during his two term tenure. His reputation is that of a strong diplomat who has worked in the United Nations and already has a good rapport with the leaders of many countries which have a wide variety of styles of government, and economic, racial and religious backgrounds. He doesn't particularly like apprearing on television, and appears somewhat awkward and has a dry manner of speaking. His advisors are carefully chosen for their knowledge of world affairs, economics, history, and their ethics. Stated reason for running: Wants the US to be seen as a positive force around the world with a strong economy, reduced crime and with real opportunities for the working class. Has not publicly stated any religious affiliation, and says that his religious beliefs are a private matter, and should be considered irrelevant due to his qualifications to lead. Does not resort to mudslinging in his campaign, believing that his qualifications and well-known sense of ethics will ensure a win.
Candidate 2: Has an IQ of 115. Went to an expensive university and got a Bachelor of Arts degree with a C average. During his years at the university, he was known not for his academic achievements, but for his wild social life and popularity. Has been previously employed as a newscaster and sports reporter, and is comfortable and photogenic on television. Later he served one term as a senator with an unremarkable record. Most Americans would say of him, "He seems like the kind of guy I can relate to. He reminds me of my uncle, the kind of guy you would want to have a beer at a barbecue with." Frequently uses frat boy adjectives like "awesome" "killer" and "sweet." His advisors include mostly people who gave him a leg up politically in the past, an assortment of old friends, donors from previous campaigns, evangelical Christian clergy, college roommates and friends of his family. Stated reason for running: Believes that the US is a Christian nation and should return to more traditionally religious values. Says that God speaks to him and guides him, and despite having been married for 30 years, having two children and having served in the senate, claims that the most transformative moment of his life was becoming a Christian. Sees the US as far superior to all other nations, and believes that the way to keep it that way is to maintain its position as the world's only superpower, by whatever means necessary. Repeatedly implies that Candidate 1 is unpatriotic, cowardly, and is pandering to foreign countries, and is probably an Godless atheist, or worse, a radical muslim.
I just read an article on MSNBC about 17 girls, aged 15-16, who all became pregnant in one year at one particular high school. It turns out that they had all made a pact to get pregnant, and one of them, a 15 year old, was pregnant with the child of a 24 year old homeless guy. You, uh, fucked a hobo... specifically to get knocked up... at age 15... and now your baby has pedophiliac hobo genes. GOOD JOB, DUMBASS! I wish I could say, well at least the only life you're ruining is your own, but nope.
I'm in line behind this old woman at Wendy's, and she spends like five minutes ordering, asking what comes with what, and how much more it would be for this and that, then finally, when she's done ordering, the cashier tells her, "That will be $8.37," and she reaches in her pocket and pulls out a fucking fist full of change and dumps it all on the counter. She doesn't even count it or anything, and I swear there wasn't a single quarter in it. So then the cashier has to sift through this pile of mostly pennies and nickels to get the amount he needs. The correct response to having a five pound load of coins flopped on your counter isn't to count It, but to pick it up and throw it in her face as hard as you can.
Any service where you can sign up in a couple of minutes with nothing but a credit card and an urge do so, but you have to jump through a million hoops of flaming bullshit to cancel the service, and even when you're through, you wonder if you're really through, and you check your mailbox, email, credit card statement and bank account half expecting to see more charges.
Movies where the plot would completely grind to a halt if anyone acted the way real people really act.
Example:
Two guys who have never met previously meet in a bar and end up talking to each other for ten minutes about some generic conversational shit, then one of them says goodbye and leaves, and the other one sits there and orders another drink. Fast forward to the next day, or the next week or whatever. One of the guys is walking down the street at night to where he parked his car. As he puts his key in the door, he hears some scuffling in an alley across the street. From where he's standing, he can see that there is someone in the alley dragging something. The person in the alley looks over and they make eye contact. They both recognize each other from the bar the other night. The guy in the alley is dragging a dead man and is covered in blood. The guy calls to the guy with the car to come help him get rid of the body. In real life, the guy's response would be:
A.) Make a concerned face, then sigh, realizing that he must help the guy from the bar in getting rid of the dead body. He pulls the car up near the alley, pops the trunk, then spreads a tarp. He helps the guy from the bar lift the body into the trunk, and then they both drive out to the country and finally finish burying the body when it's almost dawn. He then drives the guy back to town, and they agree to keep in touch. He then drives home, and his girlfriend sees him covered in blood and dirt, and asks what happened, but he says not to worry about it, so, of course, she obediently doesn't ask any more questions, you know, like any normal girlfriend. In a few days, the police or the mob or whatever comes directly to the guy's door to ask if he has ever seen, they hold up a picture either of the dead guy or the bar guy, "this guy." He plays it cool and says he doesn't know anything, which is absurd considering how they knew exactly who to look for and where to find him. And the plot thickens...
B.) Immediately upon realizing that the guy is dragging a bloody dead body, he rips the car door open and gets the engine started as quickly as physically possible, then slams the gas and hauls ass out of there. When he gets some distance away and the initial panic begins to subside, he dials 911 on his cell phone and tells the police what he saw, but never looks back, and hopes the police didn't take down his phone number. He wonders what happened to the guy from the bar, but never actually finds out. He feels a bit unnerved that he shared a beer with a killer, and occasionally catches himself looking over his shoulder, but he never sees the guy again.
Celebrities who name their kids whatever the fuck they feel like. "The Edge," whose name I can't even bring myself to write without using quotation marks, the dumbass guitarist for the dumbass band U2, named his daughter Blue Angel, because I guess he digs air shows. Michael Hutchence, before he died of auto-erotic asphyxiation, which one of my friends referred to as "the Hutch Clutch," named his kid Heavenly Hiraana Tiger Lily. Nicholas Cage named his kid Kal-el, which is Superman's given name, you know, because he's not an earthling. Jermaine Jackson showed the limitations of the Jackson family's creative genes by naming his kid a fucking pun, Jermajesty. Bono, not wanting to be outshined in stupidity by his band mate, named his kid Memphis Eve. The dumbass rapper T.I., who, when he's not making utterly generic rap music or being arrested for trying to buy guns from federal agents or shooting every one of his videos with the camera staring up his flared nostrils, took a tip from Jermaine Jackson and named his kid Messiah Ya'majesty. Penn Gillette, the talking half of Penn and Teller, decided to name his kid Moxie Crimefighter. Jason Lee took one too many bumps on the head during his skateboarding career and named his kid Pilot Inspektor. Gwyneth Paltrow named her kid Apple. Sylvester Stallone named his kid Sage Moonblood. Of course, Michael Jackson named his kids Blanket and Prince Michael II, but since it's fucking Michael Jackson, naming his kids that bullshit is just about the most normal thing he's ever done.
"We're going to name our kid, "Kyd!" (David Duchovny)
"Uhhh, no sir. We're going to call child protective services to keep your new baby safe from your stupidity."
People who are so perplexed by atheists that they ask, "Well, aren't you afraid you're going to hell?" Uhhhh, a disbelief in hell is sort of par for the course for atheists. In fact there are many people who do believe in God, but not hell. It's like threatening me that if I don't believe in your pet pegasus, he will bite me. We have no fear of hell, and no fear of being bitten by a pegasus, on pretty much equal levels.
Summer snowmen. I understand that it's hot outside, and while I am boundlessly thankful for girls in little tank tops, it has to be understood that if you're a hefty girl who isn't comfortable until you cake yourself with enough baby powder to look like there was a disaster down at the chalk factory, maybe you need to upgrade to a tee-shirt. It's cleavage, not funnel cake.
I don't think of myself as homophobic, and I definitely don't think of myself as prudish, however, I can't help but feel like the guy sitting across from me in this crowded subway car, thumbing through a big, glossy magazine of graphic hardcore gay porn, with an expression on his face as though he's reading a newspaper, and with a total disregard for the people around him, is at least a tiny bit fucked up.
Girls on myspace who did a photo shoot for a local hair salon when they were 19, who are now 31 and haven't done any actual modeling jobs since the salon gig, and have never done any actual acting jobs, but list their occupation as "Model, actress" and are full of their own shit, and think they have a fan base because they have 300 myspace friends, and 95% of them are either bands that want exposure, or dumbass guys with "show your abs" pics, who send comments that say, "Yo girl U lookin good! Holla back!"
The fact that we live in a universe that is at least 93 billion light years across, and has existed in the form that we know for at least 13.73 billion years, and is made up of an uncountable number of tiny particles that we only barely understand, and somewhere in this mess of vastness and things that we have only a flickery comprehension of is a galaxy that is one of perhaps hundreds of billions of galaxies, which is about 100,000 light years across, and home to at least 200 billion, and possibly as many as 400 billion stars, one of which, about 26,000 light years from the center of the galaxy, travelling in orbit around the center of the galaxy at 492,120 miles per hour, is a star which formed about 4.59 billion years ago when a hydrogen molecular cloud rapidly collapsed and the hydrogen began transforming into helium through constant nuclear fusion. And the various heavy elements within the cloud condensed to form a handful of planets, one of which possessed, against incalculable odds, the special chemistry which, somewhat recently, led to the formation of living things, and this planet revolves around its star at a speed of 66,420 miles per hour and spins at a speed of over 1000 miles an hour. And sometime very recently in the history of the universe, this planet produced its first species that had the mental capacity to begin contemplating all these things, and wondering at how everything came to be, and its purpose in the universe, and this species has only recently devised some meager means to begin untangling all these mysteries, which were utterly beyond the comprehension of any previous species on this rare planet. And this species, in only the past couple of hundred years, has expanded its knowledge and understanding of the universe many, many times over, and the more it learns, the more it realizes how much there is left to be learned, if in fact this species survives its own stupidity, which looms large over the frighteningly near horizon, threatening to destroy this species forever... and millions of these beings, most of which have a mere 70-something years to exist, can think of nothing more important or interesting to do with their brief time in the universe, than to sit, night after night, staring in rapt anticipation... to see which vacuous whore Bret Michaels would rather fuck.
People who, if something is cool, they hate it, and if something is really lame, you can almost be assured that they love it. Like, they love anything that sucks balls and hate anything that's good.
"So.... The New American Gladiartors."
"OH MY GOD! I can't believe they brought that back! I AM SO HAPPY!"
"Professional Wrestling."
"OH, DUDE! Don't even fuck with professional wrestling! I mean, if you saw the last Smackdown, you can't even tell me that shit wasn't fuckin' amazing!"
"The Departed."
"I don't get that shit, man. I mean, It's supposed to be like all bang bang shoot-em-up but they spent most of the movie like blah blah blah. People kept telling me it was gonna be good, but it's been a while since I saw a movie that bad."
"M. Night Shyalaman's 'The Village.'"
"OH MY GOD! That was one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen. I totally didn't see that twist coming! I mean, I thought these people were really living in the 1700's, scared of some creatures in the woods. And then it turns out that it's really modern day and the creatures were all bullshit? OH MY GOD! That took me totally by surprise! That has got to be the best acting and writing I have ever seen!"
"Pokemon."
"OH SHIT! Haha! I caught em all! That shit is AWWWWWWESOME!"
"Nine Inch Nails."
"Man, I can't get into that faggotty disco Bleep Bleep Bloop Bloop shit."
"Toby Keith."
"Fuckin' yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Ain't nobody can write or sing as good as him, and he's really got his morals and priorities in the right place. I mean, The USA putting a boot in your ass... FUCK YEAH! WOOO!"
Pregnant celebrities. First, I want to start off by saying that there is plenty of real news happening in the world, so devoting all this time to keep everyone informed about who is knocked up is bullshit. But seriously, what is this shit? Has everyone in Hollywood become Mormon? It's like every woman who is over 15 years old and has made more than a buck fifty in Hollywood or the music industry has been pregnant in the last year. You know what's less sexy than being pregnant? Nothing. And don't give me that, "You're being misogynistic" shit. Women are beautiful. Pregnant women look like an alien seed pod with dark nipples. Seriously, I know you assholes can afford birth control. Use it.
People whose critique of a great movie or book doesn't get any more intelligent than, "It was too long." You know why "The Godfather" was that long? Because it had to be. The other thing that cracks me up are people who can't think of a better point to make in a debate other than "You use too many long words." I recently had a laugh posting a YouTube comment where I pointed out another instance of Dane Cook plagiarizing lesser known comedians, and got plenty of the usual, "Don't be a hater" "Go suck a dick, DANE RULEZ" bullshit, and one that made me me cackle. "no offense but you use 2 many large words!" The "large words" were "flagrantly" and "illustrious," by the way.
Automated customer support that doesn't help a fucking thing. So recently I bought an XBox 360, and a week after I bought it, the optical drive stopped being able to read discs. I checked the "support" area of the XBox page, and, as usual, they make you jump through hoops to get to the actual "email someone for help" link. The page was basically the usual "tech support for idiots" load of shit of the "make sure the machine is plugged in, make sure the machine is turned on" variety.
"Make sure the disc is not dirty or scratched."
It's brand new. Check.
"Make sure the disc is formatted for use in your region."
USA, Check.
"Turn the machine off, and then back on again and try again."
Check.
"Three or four more suggestions that Neg was too angry to remember."
Check.
"If these fixes do not remedy the problem, click here for technical support."
Subject: "Disc is Unreadable" Error
I purchased an XBox 360 one week ago, and the optical drive can no longer read any discs. I have tried game discs, DVD's and CD's, all brand new, free of dirt, smudges or stratches, and coded for use in the US, and the machine gives me the error, "Disc is Unreadable." I have tried restarting the machine, and this had no effect. What should I do?"
Subject: Re: "Disc is Unreadable" Error
Please follow these steps to correct this issue:
Make sure the disc is not dirty or scratched.
Make sure the disc is formatted for use in your region.
Turn the machine off, and then back on again and try again.
Three or four more suggestions that were exactly the same as the questions found on the "troubleshooting" page that Neg had to go through to even get to the tech support email link, and was even angrier to read again.
Thank you,
Jessica.
Yeah, whatever, "Jessica."
So, I opted for a non-technical solution. I returned the fucker to the store.
Morbidly obese girls who think that if you don't think they're sexy, your obviously some superficial asshole who would never date a girl unless she was anorexic and built like a coathanger. Uhhhh, there's a lot of grey area between Mo'nique and Kate Moss, and denial isn't endearing.
People who go on Amazon or other places where you rate videogames, who give a game a one star review because they didn't understand a core aspect of the game, like the idea of paying to connect to an mmorpg game, or needing to own the original game in order to play the expansion pack, when the requirements to play are posted all over the product.
"So I bought this piece of crap expansion for World of Whore-craft, (Get it? Because it rhymes with Warcraft? Holy fuck, I'm clever!) and like, you need to buy the original stupid game first! Like, they're intentionally ripping you off! I mean, I honestly expected that the full version plus the expansion would cost 20 bucks less than the full version by itself, because that makes sense! Oh, so then I buy the stupid original game, and then get this shit! They expect you to PAY a fee every month to play! I mean, what if I don't even want to play online? Oh, but gee, get this! This piece of shit doesn't even have a single player game! What a fucking load of bullshit! They want me to PAY to play with OTHER PEOPLE? Fuck that! Like I want to play with other people anyway! This game is 100% bullshit, and you are a sucker if you give them a dime! I wouldn't play it if they paid me!"
"They threw me under the bus." Seriously, this phrase needs to die. A couple of years ago I had never heard it, and now every time the laudromat loses your sock or someone doesn't like your tie or McDonalds puts a pickle on your plain cheeseburger, "THEY THREW ME UNDER THE BUS!" Aren't we being just a tiny bit melodramatic and overly sensitive? I mean, the desired impact of the phrase is in the imagery. Someone betrayed you and shoved you in the path of a speeding bus, where you were presumably dragged under the axle and scraped and crushed into a mess of bloody, shredded meat. Now, due to a couple of years of overuse, you assume that someone using this phrase was "mildly inconvenienced," or "miffed."
Last fall, I made a post ripping on supposed progressives who were following the Pied Piper named Ron Paul and being obnoxious about getting out the vote for this little stealth candidate turd. I just wanted to offer a little follow-up on that. In April, the US House of Representatives voted on a resolution to urge China's government to end its crackdown on nonviolent Tibetan protestors, to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, to allow independent international journalists to have access to Tibet, and to release imprisoned nonviolent protestors, etc. This is not to say the US plans to force China to comply. The House voted 413 to 1 to pass the resolution (Currently there are 435 members in the House, so it can be assumed that there was broad bipartisan support.). Guess who the "1" was who voted against it.
Today I read an article that American schools were considering making 50% the lowest possible percentage you could make an F, so even if you skip an assignment completely, you don't get a 0%, you get a 50%. The reasoning? Well, if you get a 0%, you have to work really, really hard to get enough passing grades to bring your grade up to a passing level. In other words, we should make it easier to pass and graduate from high school without being able to find the United States on a globe, without knowing when America was settled, not knowing what the Declaration of Independence is, not knowing how to read and write without resorting to AOL-speak, and being completely baffled by math, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. "Uhhhh, the Periodic Table? PFFT! When I get my period is none of your fuckin' business, so you need to step off!" So, the solution to American students being too stupid to pass our dumbass watered-down educational system is to make it EVEN EASIER. I'm sure the rest of the world is cheering us on. "YES, YES! MAKE AMERICAN STUDENTS EVEN DUMBER! WE WANT THEIR JOBS!" Every country in the world wants to be as successful in the 21st century as the US was in the 20th. Should we just fucking hand it to them as we decay into the next member of the Third World?
The conservative concept that there is an infinite amount of wealth, and the only reason everyone isn't a mulit-billionaire is because they don't try hard enough, and if you're not lucky enough to be born male to a white, rich, American family who gave you a boatload of trust funds and an inheritance that is many times what an average person makes in a lifetime, or if your parents were too cheap to pay for an Ivy League education, well, PFFFT, that's YOUR problem. Oh, you mean to tell me you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars of disposable income to take a chance on high-risk / high-yield stocks? HAH! That's YOUR fault. Fuck you, little people.
Speaking of retarded stoner humor, this retard at the gorcery store this morning was wearing an ever-so clever parody t-shirt with a picture of a fat, squinty-eyed Pikachu wearing a t-shirt with a pot leaf on it, with the caption, "Toke-e-Mon, Gotta Smoke Em All!" Oh, I might have forgotten to mention, he was shopping with his 6 year old daughter.
Retards who can't smile without biting the end of their tongues. Is that supposed to be cute? "Oh, that's a funny joke! A-th-th-th-th-th-th!"
People for whom getting in a bar fight, being restrained by security, dealing with police, being arrested and taken to jail for a day or two, eating jail food, taking communal showers, shitting in front of 20 other people, and being released with orders to report to court are all normal parts of an average weekend and nothing to worry too much about.
I always thought the perfect way to tell if I was getting old is when the music that young people think is awesome and becomes massively popular is the most stupid and irritating sound imaginable to me. That's bad news for me, because it apparently means I've been old since around age 14.
Parents who think their 35 year old child would be completely fucked if they weren't there to provide an endless stream of advice and suggestions about life decisions.
35 year olds whose lives would fall apart without a constant stream of parental guidance.
Ferrets.
Rarely will I single out a particular animal to hate, as I tend to see the natural benefits that certain adaptations in animal behavior or physiology would benefit the animal from an evolutionary standpoint, which tends to make most animals, at the very least, interesting. Even animals which seem to be pretty dumb can be interesting from the standpoint of biology. But seriously, ferrets are the most useless animals on the planet. Granted, guinea pigs are easily as dumb as ferrets, but they at least have the benefit of not being a wiggly, hyperactive slinky that bites, plus they have that adorable little squeak noise that basically serves as a beacon to predators, saying, "Hey, predators! Here I am! I'm a dumb, slow moving nugget of meat waiting to be snatched up and devoured!" A ferret is what happens when you remove the brain and spine from a cat, and then give it angel dust. It's as though they live their lives in a state of trying to be as annoying as possible. They can't even run like a normal animal. They kind of turn sideways and slink along with their back arched up and their back feet out of alignment with their front feet. Another thing I find interesting is that about 90% of the people who own ferrets are Wiccans. I attribute this to a need to have an animal around them which is actually dumber than them, in which case a dog would not fit the bill. If a wiccan had a dog, they would end up being the dog's pet. "Ah, but Nichodemus here is my familiar!" Congratulations. You have a spiritual link to the animal equivalent of silly string.
Then there's the fact that they have a skunky odor. As if it wasn't bad enough being nature's retard, they have BO to boot. I had a friend that had one that would chew on the cables that connected his VCR and DVD player to his TV. Not wanting to see the inevitable outcome of this, he decided to "train" the ferret not to do it. The ferret would go for the cables, and he would pick up the ferret, and move it away from the spot, turning it so it faced away from the TV. As soon as the creature's feet hit the ground, it would make an immediate B-line back to the cables. He snatched up the ferret again, and again the ferret ran straight back to the cables. It stopped being funny after about the 25th time. Even the dumbest cat or puppy would figure out that their master was trying to convey a message after being yanked away from doing something annoying and destructive a few times, but not a ferret. The ferret can only think, "DUHRR! CABLES, HAHAHAHA! DOIIII!" A fish has a greater learning capacity. Then there's the annoying no spine thing. If you pick up a ferret, and snap someone with it like a wet towel, the ferret is still thinking, "DUHRRR!! VIDEO CABLES! YAY! WHEEE!" My friend had a cage for the ferret, and he bought this sort of mulch for the bottom of the cage. The bag said, "Ferret litter." What it didn't say was that this was a verb. Any time the ferret was in the cage, its primary interest was to get as much of the litter out of the cage as possible. Sticking to character, it did this with an annoying scratching sound. My friend would call out, "TSST! HEY! STOP THAT! NO! TSST TSST TSST!" which, of course, the ferret seemed not to even notice. "YAY! LITTER! WHEE!!!" *fling fling*
Amazing bands that release a 7 song EP of mind-blowingly great and earthshatteringly unique music who then say, "Fuck it," and disappear.
Shitty bands who keep playing shitty shows and releasing new, shitty albums for thirty shitty years.
Employees who don't get the concept of VIP clients.
"See that guy over there? That's Mr. Johnston. Take very good care of him."
"Sure."
"No, like, REALLY."
"What? He's just a guy. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else."
"Yes, but he's my boss's boss's boss's boss, and once his pants are on, he can stamp on all our balls and then kick us all straight into an unemployment line on a whim, and I've seen him do worse for much less than getting mediocre service."
"Yeah, whatever. I'll take care of him. Pfft."
People who don't smoke pot who think that the only people who smoke pot are the very worst fringe of society, the Ted Bundys of the world. These are the people who heard that Bill Clinton tried pot in college and thought, "Well shit! I can't vote for that guy! No doubt the pot damaged his brain! What happens if there's a crisis? We can't have a president who will just sit there drooling like a retard!" Here's a tip, you disconnected assholes. Unless you have spent your entire life confined to a secluded religious cult compound on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, most of the people over age 16 you have met have tried pot. And if you did grow up in some weird religious compound, you should really give drugs a try.
People who smoke pot who assume that everyone smokes pot, and that everyone they meet will relate to, and be thrilled to hear their stoner humor and anecdotes about getting high, and won't think they're a retarded pothead.
"Dude! You know what today is? Haw haw haw!"
"Uhhh, Wednesday?"
"Nah, man, the date!"
"It's uhhhh... Is it the 21st?"
"Nah, man! It's the 20th! Hah!"
"... Uhhhh... And?"
"April 20, dude! Yeah!"
"... Is it your birthday or something?"
"No, dude! 420! Hah-haaah! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"
"... Did you get your tax refund check or something?"
Fat comedians whose entire routine is about them being fat.
"Hey, everyone! It's great to be here! As you can see, I'm really, really fat!"
10 minutes later...
"So I was shopping for a car, and the dealer kept trying to sell me a Mini Cooper. Can you picture me in a Mini Cooper? It would look like a bumper car!"
10 minutes later...
"So I went to this all-you-can eat buffet, and you could see the look of fear on the guy's face."
10 minutes later...
"So I was dating this girl. I haven't seen her in a while though. Either she left me without saying a word, or she's stuck in between my rolls of back cleavage like a remote control between the couch cushions!"
10 minutes later...
"As you can imagine, I'm not a very successful triathlete."
10 minutes later...
"Boy, I sure am fat! Goodnight, folks! You guys have been great!"
Comedians who are really fat who make no reference to their weight at all, like we can't see it and it has no impact on your life. Yeah, sure, tell us jokes about your girlfriend. Tell us jokes about the rude cashier. Tell us jokes about airports. You're completely ignoring the elephant in the room. Look, the most obvious thing about your personal appearance is that you're fat as all hell. I'm not saying you should base your whole act on your weight, but come on. You talk about your kids, you talk about your mean boss at some crappy job, or your nagging wife or some rude customer service operator, but not ONE joke about food or exercise or finding clothes or people's rude remarks about your weight or how much you dig sitting around at home, puffing your bong, eating snacks and playing your X-Box? Really? Seriously? Dude, you're 400 fucking pounds. When you tell us an anecdote about your girlfriend, we don't even hear it because the mere mention of the word girlfriend distracts us by conjuring the image of a big, sweaty, naked walrus man huffing and puffing and getting all red in the face as he crushes a woman with his fat, gelatinous belly.
People whose Myspace page is almost completely focused on, "Yo, fuck all you haters! I am who I am, and if you don't like it, you can kiss my ass!" You know, as much as I flap my mouth, and as much as I express opinions that are probably only held by me and four other people, two of which are on medication so they stop having such opinions, I almost never get negative messages on Myspace. So I have to assume that you are probably getting mean messages because you're such a giant douchebag that otherwise mild-mannered people can't resist voicing their disgust at your very existence. Like, there must be some sort of primal instinct at work here. *Click....* "Doot-dee-doo..." *Click...* "Ho-Hum..." *Click* "AAAGH!" (Guy punches his computer monitor as hard as he can) "WHAT THE FUCK! GOD! I HATE THAT GUY!" It's maybe not a coincidence that almost everyone who has this as the central message of their page is either a morbidly obese girl turning her giant ass towards the camera in a slutty, skin-tight tube dress that is barely long enough to cover her ass, or a sixteen year old white boy with a shitty little patchy peachfuzz Ja Rule mustache who looks like he's trying really hard to look like a member of Icy Hott Stuntaz. I found this image today on some retard's myspace page and it made me cackle. The horrible editing flaws have been preserved to give you the full effect. Very classy.
.
People who claim to have arrived at their religious faith through scientific inquiry. "I think in a scientific, skeptical way, and if you tell me something, I need to see some sort of irrefutable evidence before I believe it. Well, if you walk down the street, you see buildings, and you know that even if you didn't see them being built, they had to be built BY someone. So where did life come from? Obviously, like the buildings, someone had to CAUSE life, and that's where God comes in." OH BOY, you sure gave that a lot of scientific thought, fuckwit. Let's see, I like hamburgers, but also I like pizza, therefore pizza was invented by Mayor McCheese. It's the only possible rational explanation. Gee, maybe buildings don't build themselves, because buildings are not organisms. Maybe when you have buildings that have DNA and reproduce, and gather and consume sources of energy for themselves and maybe eat things and have to avoid being eaten, and need to solve problems for themselves, maybe then we will have buildings that evolve over generations so they are more suited to their environments, but until then, it would be unfair to say it's like comparing apples to oranges, because APPLES and ORANGES are both at least PARTS OF ORGANISMS. It's more like comparing apples to carbeurators. As for "arriving" at creationism through science, you're full of shit, because there is absolutely no evidence for it. Here's a tip, mister scientist. In science, you need evidence. A guessed solution to a problem without an obvious answer is not evidence. By the way, there is a much more obvious solution, for which there IS evidence, and your denial of this evidence just shows how unscientific your thinking is.
While there are a ton of movies with flawed science, the ones that really piss me off are movies where the central plot is completely dependent on the audience being completely ignorant of extremely basic scientific facts that you would fail elementary school science classes if you didn't know. The average third grader could watch "The Core," and say, "Uhhhh... This is bullshit."
"Welcome to our company's annoying-as-fuck phone menu, where you may speak your choices. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"Track a package."
"Did you say 'Hamster Fish?'"
"No."
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"TRACK... A... PACKAGE...."
"Did you say 'Meatberry Cloud Guitar?'"
"NO."
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following---"
"FUCK!"
"Did you say 'Minnesota?'"
"NO!"
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"TRACK..... A..... PACKAGE...."
"Did you say 'Algebra Muffin Soup'"
"FUCK!" *click*
People who will never let you finish your extremely interesting anecdote because the first moment you take a breath, they will interject and interrupt you with their own dumbass, mundane anecdote, because they're narcissistic fucktards who are in love with the sound of their own voices.
"And then the CIA agents strapped me to the chair and stuck me with a huge syringe in my neck, and then-"
"Oh my god! Dude! The other day we were at the mall, and you remember that chick Jenny who was dating Mark? She was with Dave, and man, she must have gained at least 10 pounds over the winter!"
All those lame viral videos of people playing ultra-corny songs on orchestral instruments. Oh boy! Guys on cellos playing "The Final Countdown." That was almost as funny as those guys on cellos playing "Barbie Girl." Surely much, much more hilarity awaits us in the future. I can hardly wait for videos of guys on cellos playing "Der Kommissar," "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go," and Van Halen's "Jump," because that would be amazingly clever, original and ironic.
The recent hilarious shift in anti-drug ads. They have finally realized that only a fairly small number of teenagers are dumb enough to dabble in drugs like crystal meth and crack, and stick mostly to drugs like pot, LSD, ecstasy, etc. and hence, statistically, will almost definitely not end up as pregnant, scab-covered, HIV positive meth whores who live with hobos who put cigarettes out on on their faces and sleep in an alley on a soggy piece of cardboard in a puddle within three months of trying drugs for the first time, and they have finally realized that most teens are too smart to buy that "gateway drug" bullshit, and it annoys them to no end that teens can go to school, smoke some pot afterwards, have fun, and then show up on time, and perfectly healthy, to school the next day.
So how have they changed their ads? "Hey, kids! Don't submit to peer pressure! Instead, submit to peer pressure! Instead of your friends thinking you're a pussy for not trying drugs, now in opposite land, your friends think you're a douche for trying drugs!" They finally realized that kids value their friends' opinions, and that not all teens have friends who are just assholes trying to get them to do stupid shit and ruin their lives. Yes, kids value their friends' opinions, often more than the opinions of their square-as-fuck parents. Fucking farout. There is nothing more hilarious than a pencil-necked, upper-middle class advertisement writer trying to relate to modern teenagers.
A teenage guy who looks exactly like an extra from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video walks up to his friend, who looks like an Eagle Scout, in the hallway of a high-school.
"Hay, dude! I sure had fun last night! I was so high from smoking that marijuana cigarette that I do not remember what happened. You know, because you can black out from smoking pot."
"Don't you remember anything?" His friend looks annoyed.
"No, man, like I said, I was too busy being high to remember ANYTHING!"
"Have you looked at the internet?"
"Oh, dude! The internet! What did it do?"
"Look over there! Those fellow teenagers are using their cellular phones to look at the bad and embarrassing thing you did on the internet!" The camera shifts focus to show a dozen teenagers in the background looking at the guy, then at their cell phones, then giggling.
"Oh man! How was I to know that the internet would see me doing something bad and embarrassing? I was too high from drugs! What if my girlfriend sees it?"
The girlfriend, who also looks like a Young Republican, and better looking than he could probably realistically get, walks up. "I am breaking up with you, druggie! And don't try to send me a text message on your cellular phone either!" She then walks off in a huff before the guy can say anything.
"Oh no! Dude! What will I do now?"
"Don't ask me, druggie. I am not your friend anymore." He coldly walks away.
"No, dude! C'mon! I couldn't help it! I was high on the internet! I mean pot joint!!"
The camera shifts focus again to the kids looking at their cell phones and laughing, to reinforce that now that he's branded as a druggie, he has nowhere to turn, and that his life in highschool is utterly ruined. The camera shifts back to him, as he makes a face of such utter embarassment, it's as though he was caught fucking a goat and then the act was broadcast live on the jumbotron at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Prudish passive-aggressive assholes who try to take all the wind out of a really good dirty joke by saying, "I don't get it," as though they didn't hear the same perfectly coherent filth that everyone else is laughing at.
Rally retards. People who stand for causes that I support, who speak out publicly and try to look intelligent by using "advanced" vocabulary words, but butcher them and make the whole movement look stupid. Like the news will be covering an anti-war protest, and of course, they single out the one guy who is yelling the loudest to interview. He's full of passion and emotion, but mostly full of his own shit. "We need to communify to the so-called President that we are not going to stand idly by while American troops are in harm's way! This is not negotiatable! We need to find a way to facilify a expeditious withdrawal before we're quagmired in a quagmire! It's impossible to quantate-ify how much irrepair-ible damage Bush has did to this country. I mean, ever since 9/11, Bush has exploitated the situation, and has gave us a belligerous reputation around the world!"
Bands that have very extensive discographies spanning many years and eight to twelve albums that are indistinguishable from each other.
Christians whose understanding of stem cell research is that immoral, unwed sluts who engage in premarital sex and have a total disregard for decency, and have abortions just for kicks about as often as they buy new shoes, as their preferred method of birth control, abort their third trimester babies for money (which they probably spend on drugs), and these babies are then vivisected by soulless scientists, who root through their bodies in search of certain, special cells, as the living babies writhe and scream in pain, and are then thrown, still half-alive, into trashcans. And then these cells are used to make headless human clones, which are harvested for organs.
Of course, if you asked any of these ignoramuses if they knew what a blastocyst was, they would think you were trying to change the subject.
The fact that every time I see Ann Coulter, she's wearing a tank top, strappy dress, or something else designed to show off her neck and shoulders, which sucks because she's built like that screaming guy from Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" video.
The recent dumbass trend of using vague "teaser" ads and viral marketing for EVERYTHING. You see a bus drive by. On the side is an ad that is a blank white block that extends the length of the bus, with lower case text that says, "the revolution is coming." There is no mention of what the fuck this actually means, or even what company it's for. Maybe you can figure it out if you carefully examine the tiny copyright information, but the obvious intent is to make you wonder what the fuck it's about. You get on the subway and see another ad, again, all white with lower case text: "are you ready for the revolution?" As you walk down the street, you see stickers on lamp posts and newspaper vending machines that say "viva la revolucion." You turn on the TV, and every commercial break has an ad for it, "are you ready? the revolution is coming april 11th."
And so, April 11th comes, and now the ads on TV and posters are flashy and brightly colored. "THE REVOLUTION HAS ARRIVED! For a limited time, get a FREE small coffee with any Ihop breakfast platter! VIVA LA COFFEE REVOLUCION! AT IHOP!" What? Are you fucking kidding me? Who gives a shit? Fuck you!
Guys who wake up, take a shower, drench themselves in cologne and put on clothes that they think will get them laid, leave the house, try to get laid on the walk to the bus stop, try to get laid by hitting on multiple girls at the bus stop, then get on the bus and try to get laid on the bus. Then they get off the bus, and try to get laid on the one block walk to the subway, then they try to get laid on the subway platform, and then try to get laid on the train. Then they get off the train, and try to get laid on the way to Starbucks, then try to get laid at Starbucks. Then they leave Starbucks and try to get laid on the four block walk to work, then arrive at work and try to get laid. For lunch, they hit the company cafeteria, where they try to get laid, then try to get laid in the elevator on the way back to the office, where they try to get laid. Then they leave work, once again trying to get laid in the elevator on the way down, then try to get laid in the lobby. They walk to the train, trying multiple times to get laid on the way, then try to get laid on the train and bus rides home. On the way home, they stop at Burger King, where they try to get laid. Then they head home, where they take another shower, then drench themselves in cologne again, put on more flamoyant clothes that they think will get them laid, then head out to a bar to try to get laid. On the way to the bar, they don't waste a moment, and spend the entire transit time trying to get laid. Once they get to the bar, of course, they try to get laid, even while waiting in line to get in. Once they get in, they try to get laid, as they consume nearly enough alcohol to go into a coma. They even pester the shit out of the marginally attractive girl bartender, who no doubt fends off advances from hundreds of drunk, horny losers a day. Eventually, they figure out that they aren't getting laid in this bar, so they head to another bar, of course, trying to get laid en route. Then they get to the other bar, where they try to get laid. At this point they're so trashed that even the most vile, undersexed swamp monsters in the place won't talk to them, so they decide to call it a night. They get a cab, and yell out the window at girls on the street to try to get laid. If the cab driver is a woman, they will try to get laid with the cab driver, regardless of her attractiveness, age or weight. The cab drops them off in front of a convenient store a few blocks from their apartment, where they buy cigarettes and try to get laid. They get home and immediately turn on the computer to try to get laid on Myspace and Facebook by sending a whole shitload of girls messages that include a dumbass picture of them trying to look thuggish and pulling their shirt up to show their abs, shot with a digital camera in a bathroom mirror. Then they feel their first pang of shame for the day as they jerk off, because they feel like jerking off is for faggot pussies who can't get laid, and handling your own penis is kinda gay, but the shame is short-lived, as they drift to sleep, reeking of stale cologne, cigarettes, alcohol and sweat, with a twinge of optimism, because tomorrow is a new day, and hey, they might get laid.
The fact that if you're at the bottom of the corporate ladder and show up for work without shaving 30 minutes late a couple of times, you're told to get the fuck out, you're fired! You get nothing! In fact, security will escort you out and we will mail you your personal effects from your desk. YOU MAKE ME SICK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE! But if you're at the top of the corporate ladder and you get busted using company funds to pay for a mansion where you snort cocaine off the asshole of a thousand dollar an hour hooker as you make such horrible business blunders that the company's stock drops like a stone and costs the shareholders billions of dollars, you are politely asked to step down, but will retain a position on the advisory board, and will keep your personal assistant and driver, and will still have a nice office on the executive floor, and will receive a severance package worth three years pay and stock options, with a total value of about 80 million dollars, which will no doubt only increase by leaps and bounds as someone more competent than yourself takes the reigns and the stock recovers.
Old people and hicks who are still, after all these years, shocked, horrified and pissed off because, "I went to the mall today and there was this girl who had a blue streak in her hair. Like, she dyed part of her hair BLUE! Does she think that's attractive? Oh my God, I couldn't believe it!"
If you tell me that you believe that there is a 10 foot tall invisible minotaur named Hector living in your apartment who travels to the planet Gribuglox every night and brings back with him a large syringe containing millions of microscopic yellow people, which he injects into your bladder as you sleep, and every morning you pee these little people into the toilet, where they travel to the sewer, where trillions of them have gathered underground and are plotting a takeover of the planet, and I ask you why you would believe this ridiculous shit, or what evidence you have of your claims, I'm apparently right to ask, because you're fucking psychotic, but if you tell me that you believe that an invisible man in the sky, who can do anything and knows everything, created the entire universe in 6 days and made the first human out of dirt, and later caused a virgin to give birth to the invisible man's son so that he could be killed, and then resurrected, thus redeeming all humans who accept that he now exists in the form of crackers and wine, from the inherited, and previously unforgivable, blame for the dirt man eating the wrong fruit, so that people can live forever in peace and bliss, as long as they follow this big list of rules and rituals, rather than be condemned to eternal torture, and that the invisible man is at the same time one person and three people, and if I demand the same rationalization as I would for the no more improbable space travelling minotaur, I'm an intolerant bigot who doesn't respect other people's beliefs.
The day after "No Country for Old Men" won its much-deserved Oscar for best picture, I saw a bunch of editorials that were whining about how all of the movies that were nominated for big awards are movies that nobody even goes to see. Well, gee. That might have something to do with the fact that the highest grossing movies of 2007 are all dogshit. Oh, should they have given best picture to "Spiderman 3?" Maybe "Shrek the Third," "Transformers," "Pirates of the Caribbean 3," "Harry Potter 5," or fucking "Alvin and the Chipmunks?" How about "Wild Hogs" or "Rush Hour 3?" All of those grossed much, much higher than any of the nominees. Why? Because Americans have shitty taste in everything. Americans wake up, drive to work while listening to the Bob and Tom show while eating an Egg McMuffin, listen to Rihanna, Linkin Park, Fergie, Nickelback, Kanye West, and Daughtry, read (if they actually read) Harry Potter and Grisham, buy their clothes at Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister or fucking Walmart, and then go home and watch "American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," "Survivor," and the "Oprah Winfrey Show." The reason the best movies aren't blockbusters is because Americans have horrible taste. I've realized for a long time that a very effective way of guaging how stupid something is is seeing how popular it becomes in America. Gee, I'm so sorry they gave oscars to movies that are actually good. Maybe you misunderstood the concept of giving awards to things that aren't stupid. I can see where awards shows like the Grammys might confuse you. You can happily sit through the worst dogshit day and night, but when someone wants to put a movie or music album in front of you that has actual substance, you recoil in disgust. It's like you want to eat nothing but Hohos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, an occasional apple wouldn't fucking kill you.
People who post and email clever little "factoids" that are of extremely dubious credibility as though the fact that someone forwarded an email to them, and they forwarded it to me makes it 100% true. "Did you know that brushing your hair while chewing gum for one minute burns 880 calories?" Really? Because running on an elliptical machine as fast as I can for a half an hour until I'm pouring sweat and feel like I'm going to die burns about 90.
People who see that you got a haircut or a new suit or something, and know that you look good, but it would fucking kill them to actually pay you a compliment, so they qualify it with a thinly veiled insult. Like normally you look like a pile of dogshit, but today you actually kind of pulled it off. "Boy, Dave cleans up nice, huh?!"
People who think the most beautiful, exciting, awe-inspiring, exquisite thing ever made by human hands is the F-15 fighter jet.
Fundamentalist Christians who try to explain away discrepancies and impossible scenarios in the Bible by twisting the meaning of what the Bible says.
"Well, when it says the Bible says the Earth was created in six days, God could have made those days millions of years long if he wanted to. So like, the first six days could have been 500 million years long, or whatever." Oh wait, let me check the Bible to see where it said that. Oh wait. I see. You just made it up.
Here's one I found particularly amusing that I read on a creationist website.
"When it says that God brought all the animals before Adam to name them, of course it wouldn't make sense for Adam to name thousands of animals per second for 24 hours solid, so some Biblical scholars concluded that this probably only referred to his livestock and other animals that lived near him, a few hundred animals at most. 'All' does not necessarily mean 'each and every.'" Ummm... THAT IS THE FUCKING DEFINITION OF "ALL," FUCKTARDS! "All" doesn't mean "some," idiots. There is no other way to interpret "all" except as "every fucking one." If I walk into a room with a hundred people in it, and say, "I am going to give you all a red tee shirt with a picture of Ernest Borgnine giving a thumbs up sign with the caption 'Fuck you'," I had better have at least a hundred red tee shirts, or I'm a liar, and fucking nobody is going to buy some bullshit story about how "all" can have different definitions. (Oh, and please, someone make this shirt so I can buy one.)
Look, the only reason to believe in ridiculous shit like creationism is if you believe every word of the Bible. If the only way you can believe every word of the Bible is to twist the meaning of "All," to mean anything other than "All," you're full of shit, and aren't even a fundamentalist anyway, which negates any reason to believe in the fanciful fairy tale accounts of the history of the universe. It isn't bad enough that I live among people who believe dinosaurs never existed, but I have to live among retards who think "All" doesn't mean "All," too?
Those weird moods I get in when I go through Netflix and start checking "Add to queue" willy-nilly, then, a few weeks later, when I've forgotten all about it, I check my mailbox and think, "What the fuck? 'The Postman' with Kevin Costner? WHY?"
Hey, y'all. My name is Skeeter McCray. I live in Paintsville,KY, and ain't never been no more than ten miles away from the place where I was born to my 16 year old parents who were first cousins, and I ain't got no desire to go nowhere, neither, on account of city folk are all either faggots or jews, or faggot jews, and all foreigners are communists. I ain't never went to school since third grade, and that don't hurt me none, because all them people who done stayed in school think they're all high and mighty, and most of em are damn liberals, any-hoo. Besides, ain't nothin' I need to know that ain't in the Bible, which, o'course, I ain't never read, on account of I cain't read, but it don't matter none, because I love Jesus with all my heart, and know that he hates blacks and liberals and faggots as much as I do. A pretty good summary of my knowledge of history is that God created the earth in a week, about 6000 years ago, then Jesus showed up and made a flood that killed all the Moslims, and that the South shall rise again, and that we won the Vietnam War against Hitler. The only thing that comes a close second to how much I love Jesus is how much I love my guns, and I'll be goddamned if any commie liberal is gonna take them away. Of course, I always say my guns is for huntin', but y'all know that I'm just itchin' for some minority to step on my lawn so I can blow him away and claim self defense. I don't know nothin' 'bout the news, 'cept that it's borin', that all liberals are pussy Anti-American commies what want to destroy America, and that if something comes out of the mouth of Bill O'Reilly, it's as true as if Jesus hisself said it. Now, I know that all y'all people what graduated from some high-falootin' university or get yer news from the Guardian UK are probably thinkin' "Dang! This som'bitch is fuggin' ignorant," but you know what? I don't give a shit. You know why? Because I ain't got nothin' to do all day but whittle, shoot squirrels from my front porch, beat my wife and VOTE. That's right, I vote in every election, whether it's to stick creationists on the school board or racists on the city council or to keep a black man from bein' the president. And y'all know what's the funnest part? My vote counts as much as yours. That's right! Y'all might have more degrees than I have teeth, but my vote will always be there to cancel out y'all's vote, so stick that in yer pipe and smoke it, Mister "I got my PHD at Columbia University in political science!" And let's be honest fer a second. Y'all don't actually vote in every election, or maybe not at all, right? HAW! That's what I thought. Well, y'all can just sit back 'n' watch, and me and people like me will be tickled pink to shape public policy. Y'all know that there's a lot more of us than there are of you, and by God, WE VOTE!
Retards who derail meaningful discussions because they don't believe in FACTS, and want people to not talk about ideas that presuppose these facts are true, but instead, to try to prove to them that these facts are true, which is of course futile, because the person believes in something stupid like faith over facts, and regardless of how much irrefutable proof you shove in their face, they will retort with something that could easily be equated to "LAA LAA LAA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Guy 1: "So some scientists are saying that many dinosaurs that were once thought to be reptilian, might have actually been more birdlike, and maybe even had some feathers and might have been warm-blooded."
Guy 2: "Oh yeah, I was reading about that the other day. It was really interesting when they pointed out the forelimb bones that had the little notches in them like modern birds have that cradle the ends of pinion feathers."
Guy 3: "Pffff! So let me get this straight. You think there were big scary creatures called dinosaurs that were on the earth millions of years before people? HAH! That would be kind of tough, considering the Bible says that humans arrived on the sixth day of the entire universe. How do you explain that, dumbass?"
Just shut the fuck up, retard.
Hicks from some backwater hole in Appalachia where the whole town consists of four mobile homes, a gas station, and a couple of old broken washing machines, one of which now serves as a doghouse, who, when they hear that you want to travel to London (or insert New York, Paris, Munich, Tokyo, or anywhere else that's farther away and more interesting than Ed's Used Tires), their initial reaction is, "What the fuck you wanna go there for?" Oh yeah, and leave ALL THIS?
Dumbasses who lie to you to your face in a way that you are absolutely certain to discover they are lying very quickly and easily.
I see one of my employees in his street clothes clocking out about 45 minutes early. I ask him why he is leaving early. "Oh, I told Scott that I was done with my work and had some things to take care of at home and he said it was ok if I left early." I didn't want to step on the other manager's toes, so I let him go.
A few minutes later, I pass Scott in the hall and ask him if he had given the employee permission to leave. He replied, "Dave came to me and said that YOU told him it was okay for him to go home early, so I said that if you said it was okay, it was okay."
Basically the guy had told us both the same lie. I mean,. I could maybe understand if we were talking about a four year old kid who stole a cookie, but we're talking about a 45 year old man.
People who manage their finances in such a way that if the home office fucks up and sends the Thursday paychecks on Friday or misses two hours of overtime and puts them as back pay for the following week, they turn into Bill Paxton on "Aliens." "What the fuck? Oh my God! How the fuck am I supposed to get by like this? I'm fuckin' DOOMED, MAN! I'm FUCKED! Oh, man! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!"
Neighbors who either make a shitload of noise all the time and annoy the shit out of you, or neighbors who are constantly annoyed by little noises like you walking around your apartment or running water who apparently sleep or go to work NEVER.
Snobby retards who consider themselves aficionados of comedy, who think that nothing has been funny since the Smothers Brothers.
People who turn fucking everything into a bullshit game of 20 questions.
"Cook that Hot Pocket."
"You want it cooked?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm... That's a Hot Pocket?"
"Yes."
"You want me to cook it?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm... I've never cooked one of these before. How do I cook it?"
"Follow the directions."
"What directions?"
"The directions on the box."
"This box?"
"Yes."
"Hmmmm... It says to place it in the sleeve, place it in the microwave, cook it on high power for 2 minutes, rotate it, then cook it for another 2 minutes, or until hot."
"Yep."
"Hmmm... This goes in the microwave?"
"Yes."
"But it's like a pie. Wouldn't that be better in a conventional oven?"
"No."
"But I think it would be more crispy. Why not give it a try?"
"Because it's not designed that way. Just do it like it says on the box."
"Hmmm... It's got cellophane on it. Do I take that off? They don't mention it in the instructions."
"You couldn't really put it in the sleeve if you didn't."
"But do I then put it back in the cellophane after I put it in the sleeve?"
"No."
"Do I put a certain side up?"
"The sleeve says 'This side up.' Put that side up."
"Does it matter how the pie is set in the sleeve? Like do I put the flat side or the curved side down?"
"Who cares?"
"Uh oh, the ends are sticking out of the ends of the sleeve. Is that okay?"
"It doesn't matter."
"What's the wattage on the microwave?"
"Who gives a shit? It's a Hot Pocket, not braised pheasant. It's going to be a crappy Hot Pocket regardless of how carefully you cook it."
"It says to rotate it after two minutes. How far should I rotate it?"
"It doesn't matter."
"If it didn't matter, why would they says to do it? Should I rotate it 90 degrees? 180?"
"180. Just cook the damn thing."
"It doesn't mention putting the sleeve on a plate or anything. Should I? I think the microwave will get dirty if I don't."
"Sure, use a plate."
"Will it change the cooking time?"
"No."
"Oh, hey. This microwave has a carousel. Do I still need to rotate it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Do I still cook it for 2 minutes, stop it, then cook it for two more minutes?"
"No, just set it to 4 minutes and leave it in."
"Do I change the cooking time?"
"'....OR UNTIL HOT!' Just cook the fucker."
"I'm going on break soon. Should I get someone else to cook it?"
"NO. Just do it. Goddamn!"
"Okay..... It's bubbling, but it's only been 3 minutes, 45 seconds. Is it done?"
"'OR UNTIL HOT!'"
"You think it's done? It's been 4 minutes now."
"It's done."
"Stop the microwave?"
"Yes."
"Do I take it out?"
"No, you leave it there until the end of time. Of course you take it out."
"Is it hot though?"
"Of course it is."
"Should I like, get an oven mitt or a spatula or something to get it out?"
"Whatever."
"What do I do with the sleeve thing?"
"You save it for your future grandchildren. Throw it away."
"Hmmm.... Isn't it supposed to look like the picture on the box?"
"Hot Pockets never do. It's kind of accepted that it's going to look like a porpoise took a shit in a pie crust."
Here's how the conversation should go.
"Cook that Hot Pocket."
"Okay................ Here you go."
The white balding guy in the crowded airport terminal this morning at 4:45am doing Tai Chi. Welcome to crankyland, bean sprout. You're doing something pretentious for the purpose of being seen, and nobody here is in the mood to look at you, and we sure as fuck don't think you're interesting. Now calm the fuck down before I am overcome by the urge to throw my six dollar coffee at you.
Employers that take forever to deal with even the simplest and most mundane problems.
"Hello, this is Irving Stanwick, head of global distribution at Blah Blah Blah, the leading manufacturer of satellite telecommunications technology... Oh, Hi, Dave. The break room coffee machine is broken? Are you sure? Hmmmm..... Uhhhh..... Ooohhh..... Who would we call to fix it? Maybe building maintenance? Maybe Scott from accounting would know? Hmmm...."
Three Months Later
"Hello, Irving Stanwick. Oh, hi, Dave. The break room coffee machine is broken? Again? Oh, it was never fixed? Uhhhhhhh...... Hmmmmmm.... Did you talk to Judy from H.R.? I think maybe she knows who deals with the coffee machines."
"Thanks for a nation of finks...”
-William S. Burroughs, A Thanksgiving Prayer (1988)
New York City's "If you see something, say something" campaign. In tons of places in NYC, like on subways and buses, there are posters everywhere showing a mosaic of pictures of people's eyes. Under the eyes is text that reads, "There are 16 million eyes in New York City. We're counting on all of them." Below this is a phone number to call if you see "something suspicious," which is vague in the extreme. Of course they mean this will help keep us safe from terrorism, but, of course, none of the attacks on September 11th, 2001 would have been averted or even lessened by everyone in New York glancing suspiciously at everyone else and repeatedly smashing their speed dial, where they had stored the hotline as entry #1. To augment the already overbearing mass of posters everywhere, the subways frequently play an audio recording, vaguely warning to "Be alert to suspicious persons or activities." When I first saw the poster, it immediately reminded me of the dark piercing eyes of Big Brother glaring out from posters and video screens in the John Hurt rendition of "1984." A few years after the initial release and ubiquitous posting of the original "If you see something, say something" posters, they posted a follow-up poster, which no doubt, they intended as a positive, optimistic thing, but made my blood run even a little colder. "Last year, 1944 people saw something and said something." This is supposed to make me feel safer? Nearly 2000 busy-bodies made themselves public snitches and did the police's work for them, just because they saw something "suspicious." Of course, if they had ACTUALLY stopped any real terrorist threat, there is no doubt that it would have been trumpeted all over the national press as a grand success story, a testament to the great value of the surveillance state, where everyone watches everyone, and tells the authorities everything they see that they deem "suspicious." Instead, all we see is the number, which could mean anything. The number might not even be accurate, and might not have any bearing to the improvement of public safety. To quote the photographer who took the picture, "This means there were 1944 people who were terrified for no reason." All it means is, "You are being watched.... by everyone... so watch what you do. You wouldn't want someone to think you're doing something suspicious." I mean, you might be doing something EVIL, like forgetting your shopping bag in the subway, or, (gasp) taking a picture of something on the street. I mean, only a terrorist would do something like walk down the street in a quiet neighborhood by himself... AT NIGHT EVEN. Obviously you're up to no good, plotting the destruction of God, mom and apple pie. Of course, all this snitching is anonymous, which bypasses the 6th Amendment of the Constitution, and as always, fascists instantly equate "people having rights" to "being for the terrorists." (Note the "Fair and Balanced" journalistic integrity of the reporter. In the case in question, a passenger told the flight crew that some people were making him nervous because they were (gasp) muslim on a (gasp) plane, and the police came and took them off the plane, and it turned out they weren't doing shit, so the people sued. "I mean, GOD! What kind of country are we living in if you can't just report someone to the authorities and accuse them of terrorism when they aren't doing a fucking thing wrong without fear of repercussions?") I mean, maybe before they started a program where you can anonymously call a hotline and accuse people of terrorism, they should have remembered that there are some idiots in this country who are fucking hysterical and paranoid who think that everyone who is a darker shade of brown than them or wearing something other than a polo shirt and khakis is probably up to no good. Call me crazy, but I don't want to live in a country where the idea of freedom is being negligibly safer from terrorism because any asshole can point a finger at me and have me waterboarded because they thought I had a funny look in my eye and they got spooked over nothing.
Review sites that are such pussies that they're scared to commit to saying that item A is better than item B. Hey, assholes. You're a review site. That's the whole fucking point. Comparing shit to other shit. They are either scared to give real reviews or are definitely selling something. Like recently I was contemplating changing my cell phone service (Something about the fact that my Sprint phone sometimes will be "roaming" standing right next to City Hall in the most populous city in the fucking US, because Sprint sucks the scabs off a meth whore's cum-encrusted anal sphincter. <--- Honest review). I googled "wireless service reviews." While some of the sites seemed to offer legitimate info, most would go on and on about, "What you want to do is find the carrier that's right for you, and here's a ton of information on every aspect of mobile phone service, but of course, we never name company names show prices or commit to saying that feature A is better than feature B. So basically, we're just creating more homework for you to do before switching phone services, when you actually came here to get your homework done. Blah blah blah, CDMA, blahbitty blah blah, GSM, blah bleee bloo blah, PCS blah blah blah...." Fuck you. ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHERS. WHICH ONE IS IT? THAT IS THE ONLY INFORMATION I NEED. Give me ratings, give me user reviews, give me prices. Oh, and YOU CAN TAKE DOWN THAT REVIEW YOU DID IN 2004, ASSHOLES. It's still fucking showing up on Google on the first page when you search for wireless service reviews, as though it's still fucking relevant to anything.
Here's a perfect example. It's December 20th, 2007. What is currently the best videocard available for gaming? "Ahh, well, the new Nvidia blahbitty blah is capable of producing 32 gagillion triangles per second with polyblah blah shading and blah blahbitty mhz frontside bus blah blah blah blahhhh... and of course the new ATI blah blah blah runs at 208 million blah blahs per blah blah blah with a framerate of blah blah blah with a blahbity blah processor for anti-aliasing blah blah blah..... Here, look at some cryptic mathematical graphs that all look pretty much the same and might or might not show pertinent information." YES, BUT WHAT IS THE BEST? I have 600 bucks in my hand and I'm looking for something that runs games better than anything else in that price range. WHAT IS IT? You know the fucking answer. GIVE IT TO ME. STOP BEING SUCH PUSSIES AND GROW A GODDAMN SPINE.
Even though I know it would probably be the shittiest job in the world, I always wanted to work at Home Depot just so I could refer to my boss as the Home Despot.
Guys who act like there's something wrong with you when you see a girl who is physically attractive, but dumb as a box of hair, and you are actually turned off by her stupidity. They say something like, "Whoa, look at that," and then when you qualify your agreement with, "Well, yeah, she's built nice, but she seems kind of doofy," they give you that look like, "What, are you a faggot?" No, but there's only so much enjoyment I can get from fucking someone who is borderline retarded.
Gee, maybe we'll eventually stop fucking for a second and have to actually talk to each other, and I'd rather not have to entertain a conversation that begins with, "I love Christmas trees! They're so purty! When I get my own apartment I'm gonna have ten Christmas trees and I'm gonna leave them up all year long! That way it's like Christmas all the time! And every year I'm gonna get another Christmas tree until the apartment is nothing but Christmas trees! YAY, CHRISTMAS TREES! YAAYYYY!!!'"
People who aren't diabetic who are paranoid about the sugar content of foods with a negligible sugar content.
"Would you like some Shredded Wheat?"
"Oh God no! Do you know how much sugar that has in it?"
"Yeah, enough that you can't even goddamn taste it. I mean, when I eat food that tastes like hay, I think 'boy, this is like eating hay-flavored candy.'"
People who should be pushing mops who are in positions where they need to deal with people.
*Ring, ring*
"Hello, this is blah blah with blah blah company."
"Hello......."
"...... How can I help you?"
"This is security......"
"...... Yes, what can I do for you?"
"There's somebody down here....."
"..... Who is it?"
"There's someone here....."
"....... Yes, who is it?"
"Oh, hold on...... He's making a delivery."
"What is he delivering?"
"Yeah, delivery......"
"WHAT is he delivering?
"He says he has a delivery for blah blah at the blah blah company...."
"Yes, but what is it?"
"Delivery."
"Can you send him up?"
"*Scoff* No....."
"Okay, I'll come down, but what is he delivering? Do I need to bring a cart or something?"
"I dunno. He says he has a delivery."
"But what is it? Is it big? What is he delivering?"
"Can I put you on hold for a second?"
"Okay."
"............... Hello?"
"Hello."
"So are you coming down?"
"What is being delivered? Is it large or heavy?"
"Should I tell the guy you are coming down?"
"Fine! I'll be down there in a second."
I go down and the delivery is a little cake in a shopping bag. For all I knew it could have been a palate of soft drink cases.
The fact that there are a million high security buildings and areas in New York City where a million retarded tourists are constantly debating with a million security guards about, "Can I go inside? But why not? But I just want to see it. But why can't I? I'm not gonna do nothin'. I just wanna see it. Why can't I?" BECAUSE YOU CAN'T, IDIOT! Because it's the United Nations building and MAYBE they don't allow every random retard who feels like it stroll through the front door and start taking pictures, or maybe shoot world leaders in the head, dipshit.
That unclever "Sheeple" thing that I have heard in a million places in the last couple of months. I had heard this before, but now I'm hearing it everywhere from videogames to car advertisements. Of course, retards still think the dumb pun is witty. "See, because sheep follow the flock, and people who follow the flock are, heh-heh, SHEEP-ple, get it? Because they're like SHEEP-PEOPLE, heh-heh. Get it?" The irony is that I'm hearing it from a million angles at once, so who's the fucking sheeple now?
Incomplete or incorrect walk-throughs for videogames. While most games can be figured out by simply paying attention, some games, particularly RPG's, can be completely infuriating unless you get some hints here and there. There's really no way they can expect you to know to randomly trade four cicada shells to the guy hiding in the barrel at G-17 when you can't even see him, and there's a million other people to talk to, and how the fuck are you supposed to know what cicada shells are for, particularly when even if you talk to the barrel guy, he just says something cryptic like, "Boy, I sure would like to help you, but it seems I'm lacking something"? And here all this time you've been throwing them away because they take up inventory space and they sell for only 1 gremf. So you go online, and search for a walkthrough. You hit the first match, and find a walkthrough for missions 1-8 out of 52 missions needed to complete the main story line. THANKS FOR NOTHING, FUCKASS!
The somewhat disappointing truth about presidential approval polls. When President Bush gets a 30% approval rating, that doesn't mean that people think he's doing a 30% job, it means that 30% of Americans still think, "Ya-huh, he doing GOOD GOOD job for America! He is GOOD and SMART. He CHRISTIAN too, what means he is MORAL and GOOD! Also he pertecting us from terrists like Osama bin Saddam, who I think is in the Middle East somewheres in England. That's important, cuz he wanna shoot us with a nuculur bomb cuz he hate freedom. I seen a nuculur bomb once on Terminator 2 and it was scary cuz that lady done turned into a skeleton, and that skeleton was screamin'! Now, if there's one thang I know', it's that I ain't never wanna meet no damn screamin' skeletons, SHIT-FIRE! He GOOD president, doing GOOD GOOD JOB, yea-up!"
People who are WAY too goddamn stupid to be on TV, but are anyway. "I don't think anything predated Christians." "Uhhhh, the Greeks came before them, then the Romans, then Christians." "Jesus came first, before them." EVEN THE GODDAMN BIBLE NEVER SAID NOTHING CAME BEFORE JESUS, RETARD. Mary and Joseph were BC characters. That's What B-C FUCKING MEANS! IT MEANS "BEFORE CHRIST!" EVEN THE MOST DEVOUT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THAT SHIT HAPPENED BEFORE THE GODDAMN BIRTH OF CHRIST! HOLY FUCK! I Wonder how that job interview went.
"So, what do you think you have to offer? What can you bring to The View?"
"Well, I can speak on a broad range of subjects like DOIIIIIIII and DURRRRRRRHHHH.".
People with some kind of "two soup cans and a string" internet connection that drops all the time who use IM programs. Beefmonkey is online.... 2 minutes later.... Beefmonkey is offline...... 30 seconds later.... Beefmonkey is online.... 5 minutes later..... Beefmonkey is offline.... 30 seconds later.... Beefmonkey is online.... 3 minutes later..... Beefmonkey is offline.....
No, I will not go to some site to give your podcast a five star review even though you take five minutes out of every show to explain how easy it is and how important it is, so shut up about it. Easily over half of podcasts do this, and to me all it is is extra bullshit to fill up iPod space and extra time to download. If I download 12 podcasts, that's an hour of begging for ratings right there. Here's a little common sense... I listen to podcasts... on an iPod... and I don't listen to my iPod unless I'm out and about... and if I'm out and about.... I CAN'T FUCKING GO TO SOME WEBSITE AND VOTE ANYWAY, and when I'm at home, I plug my iPod in to charge, and I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT YOUR PODCAST AT THAT POINT. In fact, there are podcasts I try out and don't like, and I'm not even thinking about it enough to remember to unsubscribe. Sorry to burst your bubble, but your podcast is not the most important thing to happen to me in my day. Stop it. It's stupid.
TV shows that do segments on people with severe physical deformities, and the TV shows are, of course, totally depending on a voyeuristic public to get ratings. They then take the people out in public and play the intolerance card when people stare. "Why are you staring? That's not acceptable." Oh, gee. Why are people staring? Maybe they're never seen a set of siamese triplets joined at the face and are inquisitive, the same fucking reason you made this segment, in hopes that people would be eager to do their inquisitive staring from the comfort of their living room sofas.
People who are 32 chronologically and 14 emotionally.
"Baby In The Well" news stories. Of course, I don't necessarily specifically mean stories about babies stuck in wells. I mean any news story about something dumb and emotional, although truly insignificant on a cosmic scale, that the media goes apeshit over, and then spends weeks covering and distracting the public from all the real bullshit that's going on. Insert "trapped miners," "lost mountain climbers," "Terri Shiavo," "Jon Benet," "OJ," "domestic hostage situation," "armed stand-off," etc. in place of "baby in a well," as applicable. Paris Hilton stubbed her toe. Discuss.
A baby falls down a well. Within minutes, news crews are on the scene. An alert simultaneously flashes across the screen on Fox, MSNBC and CNN, interrupting coverage on the Iraq war. Some asshole graphic designer has already made an elaborate computer animated sequence with dramatic theme music that will flash on the screen before and after every commercial break for the next two weeks. "SAVING BABY CHRISTINE!" All the channels immediately place a box in the upper left hand side of the screen showing a 24 hour a day live video feed from a camera pointed down into the well, which simply shows blackness. Of course, the well-watch cam is not inset during commercial breaks, because beneath the surface the whole purpose behind this hoopla is generating commercial revenue.
Then they bring in a seemingly endless stream of "experts" for their live 24 hour a day coverage. A pediatric nutritionist is brought in to talk about how many days the baby could survive without food. A pediatric orthopedic surgeon is brought in to speculate on the injuries the baby might have sustained from the fall based on nothing but guessing. A geologist is brought in to discuss the kinds of rocks that the well is made of. A well builder talks about the design of the well. A survival specialist is brought in to speculate on how much cooler it would be at the bottom of the well and whether the baby will get hypothermia. The owner of the company that designed the winch that they are using to try to get the baby out comes on to tell all about the winch, and they show lots of CGI and stock footage of the winch being used in various applications. A 21 year old guy who made a short student film about a baby in a well for college credit is brought in to discuss the similarities between his film and the baby in the well. They interview a family whose baby fell in a well a few years ago and caused a media storm, so they can describe what it was like to have their baby stuck in a well. A psychologist is brought in to speculate on the emotional state of the baby. Some random weirdo with a distracting beard is brought in to speculate on the amount and quality of the water at the bottom of the well. Some political pundit asshole is brought in to bitch that the government isn't doing enough to protect America's babies from the scourge of wells. There are copious computer animated diagrams showing the well depth and where the baby might be stuck, but of course, they're all just guessing.
Inevitably, when someone from the local hick police force or EMT or whatever calls a press conference, or whenever anyone does anything to maybe do anything to get the kid out of the well, they immediately cut to that as a NEWS FLASH. "Well it appears that they are setting up some sort of tripod on which to maybe mount a winch. Sarah, do we have any further information on this tripod?" "Yes, John, it appears that they ARE INDEED setting up a tripod of some sort. Whether the tripod will be a mount for a winch or maybe something else, we do not know, uhh, at this time." Four hours pass and the tripod still has nothing mounted to it, but the live coverage continues, complete with "expert" commentary. "So in your expert opinion, what are we looking at?" "Well, it appears to be a tripod.... Hang on, wait a second... one... two..... three.... Yes it is a tripod. A tripod, of course has three legs. If it had four or more legs, we would be looking at something else. I can tell from here that it is most likely made of metal, though what kind of metal I do not know. Ummm... Couldn't we, uhh... just ask the rescuers what's up with the tripod?" "SHUT UP! WE'VE KILLED FOUR HOURS ON THIS THING! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY IPHONE AND GEICO COMMERCIALS WE'VE PLAYED IN THAT TIME? If they just tell us what it is, we'll have to think of something else to talk about! You don't want that, do you?" "No, uhh, of course not... So I'm not sure of the weight capacity of this tripod, so I really can't guess on its suitability to lift Christine out of the well, or maybe...." etc. etc.
Of course, every 20 seconds, they cut away from the talking heads to show the same montage of stock footage of the well and home videos and pictures of the baby OVER AND OVER AND OVER. They also occasionally enlarge the inset well-watch cam to fullscreen so you can get a closer look at pitch blackness. Of course, about once an hour they drag out the poor, distraught parents to talk live to the media about how they are praying and trying to hold onto hope, and they give the bloodthirsty media the ratings-driving prize they want: tears.
A week later the 24 hour coverage is still going on. The well-watch cam box in the corner has been upgraded from a camera that picks up visible light to an infrared camera, so instead of a black rectangle, the rectangle now shows a green doughnut that fades to a pitch black center. The talking heads are still speculating. The tone has shifted to "Who can the family sue if the baby is not recovered alive?" "Mister Politician who is up for election, where do you stand on the move to outlaw all wells?" The talking heads talk, and the montage of the little girl and the well plays again and again.
After two weeks they finally recover the little girl's dead body. It turns out that the baby died in the initial fall and has been dead the whole two weeks. The 24 hour well-watch cam is turned off and is replaced by a repeating loop of people holding candles and bringing flowers to the family's home.
The media gets it's teary-eyed interview with the family, who look like they haven't slept for the entire two weeks. The talking heads keep talking and talking as public interest begins to wane. The media has milked the story dry.
They have managed to keep the public enthralled by a spectacle and keep their sponsors happy for two solid weeks without having to do a shred of real journalistic work.
"Such a tragic end to such a dramatic story. Now we bring you back to Iraq, where political factions are working towards a deal to.... Just a moment. We have just received a news alert that five members of a Boy Scout Troop have become lost in the woods in Washington State!" And the dramatic theme music blasts as an animated CGI logo fills the screen: "THE SEARCH FOR TROOP 168!"
Rich fucks with horrific teeth. Seriously, sometimes you'll see these corporate CEO's and heads of state and their teeth look like they are made entirely of tartar. Like you know you could easily scratch off a big cake of goop off the front of their incisors and squish it out from under your fingernail like a wad of camembert cheese. They appear on your TV screen and you can smell the hallitosis in your living room. Seriously, assholes. You could wipe your asses with hundred dollar bills. How could you let your teeth decay until they look like an ant farm? If I had your money my smile would fucking blind people.
So, I just saw a guy who was wearing an oversized t-shirt down to his knees with Tupac Shakur on the front. He was wearing the standard issue oversized Roca Wear jeans with the waistline at about his mid thighs. These cascaded down and bunched up over his sparklingly brand new white Nikes. His forearms were covered in gangsta looking tattoos. He was smoking and had one of those annoying 2-way radio cell phones, which, of course, he had cranked up to full volume for effect, so we could all hear the lovely "Sups" and "Yo, where you ats." Oh, I might have forgotten to mention, he was an Indian guy wearing a turban. Soooo... You've completely assimilated all the dumbest things in American culture, but kept the one thing that might make sense to lose. Yeah, that makes sense.
Isn't it about time to stop electing people to plan our future who believe that God is going to come down and take all his chosen people bodily to heaven sometime probably before next Tuesday?
Those horrible zits that look like shit and swell and hurt, but never rise close enough to the surface to pop. Like you'll have this big red volcano looking thing on your chest or the back of your neck, and it sticks out far enough that you can easily align your index finger and thumb on it. Then you squeeze and squeeze and then switch to using both your thumbs, and you continue to squeeze harder and harder. You can see a little plasma emerging on the skin, but the thing simply won't pop. You can feel something that feels like a ball bearing deep inside it. You keep squeezing and then you feel the ball bearing crunch. At that point things get a little hazy because you lose consiousness from the pain. When you come to, you look down at your chest and the thing is swelled up like a big red fucking golfball. A month later the thing still hasn't popped, despite many attempts, and you start to feel like it will always be there, like a third nipple.
People who combine their dumb superstitions.
"What if the Star of Bethlehem was really a UFO flown by alien greys?"
"What if your stupidity is contagious?"
Companies with telephone operators who transfer you repeatedly so you have to reexplain your entire problem to multiple people who have no idea what you are calling about.
"Hello, retail services."
"Hello, my name is Joe Blow and I ordered a box of widgets about three weeks ago and I haven't received them yet."
"Do you have your order number?"
"Yes, it's order number 105672."
"Hmmmmm............ Could I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Hello, order tracking."
"Uhhh.... Yes, my name is Joe Blow, and I was trying to track my order. I placed an order for some widgets about three weeks ago and I haven't received them yet."
"Do you have your order number?"
"105672."
"Hmmmm........ Were these the three inch widgets?"
"Four inch."
"Hmmm......... Could I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Widget development, this is Dave, how can I help you."
"Uhhh.... Sorry, I think they might have sent me to the wrong extension."
"Did you have a problem with widgets?"
"Yes."
"Were these the three or four inch widgets?"
"Four."
"Are they not working?"
"I haven't received my order yet."
"Oh... Sorry, what did you say your name was?"
"Joe Blow."
"Could you hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Hello, this is customer service. Is this mister Blow?"
"Yes."
"I was told you wanted to place and order for some four inch widgets."
"No, I ordered a box of widgets three weeks ago and have not received them yet."
"Oh, uhhhh... Could you hold for a moment?"
"*Sigh...* Sure."
"Hello, distribution."
"I ordered a box of four inch, not three inch, widgets three weeks ago and I haven't received them. My order number is 105672. DON'T TRANSFER ME!"
Dumb fashion companies that haven't been in style since my childhood that keep hanging on and waiting for that big comeback. Hear me, Reebok? That Rbk shit isn't fooling anyone. What's that, Jordache? Did you say something?
People who randomly add unnecessary words to sentences because they think it makes them sound smarter. I just overheard one side of a phone conversation that made my eye twitch. The lady was using her very best rehearsed sophisticated voice.
"I had emailed her yesterday, and I had asked her to bring pens to the meeting. She had said she would bring them."
If you took every "had" out of that quote, it would be proper English.
People who, when their current course of action proves completely fruitless, continue doing exactly the same thing again and again.
This waiter was using his two-way radio to try to contact another waiter.
"*Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... " he said repeatedly in the exact same tone.
Finally, I said, "Just go find him." As I said it, it looked as though he snapped out of a trance.
People who are angry at you for not having information that you truly have no reason to have.
"I wanted to get a price quote for an LCD projector rental for a meeting."
"Sorry, sir. We're the catering company. We don't deal with AV setups. You need to get that price quote from the AV-Media department."
"So you don't know? Psssht! What's their phone number?"
"Uhhh... Hang on, let me look it up for you."
"DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING?" Then the phone makes a loud clattering sound as he hangs up with a slam.
People whose default facial expression is as though someone is holding a plate of dog diarrhea under their chin.
People who want you to be on time for something so they ask you to be there WAY earlier than necessary. Like today I was told to arrive at a meeting at 7am. Of course, the meeting was way out in the middle of nowhere, so I had to get up at 3am to make it there on time. When I arrived at 7am they told me to grab some coffee and wait for the meeting to start. The meeting started at 9:30. Fuck you.
Commercials that depict customer service calls as being absolutely no hassle to the absurd extent that even the most optimistic viewer would scoff, "BULLLLLLLLSHIIIIIIT!"
A guy is checking his bank account online and sees a purchase for 2000 dollars that he didn't make. He picks up the phone and calls customer service. The scene cuts to a very attractive girl in a suit wearing a headset in a very clean and organized call center. Everyone in the background is busy gleefully helping other customers. The girl is smiling ear to ear and sounds genuinely happy to hear from the guy. "Thank you for calling Providence Bank. How may I help you today?"
"I believe I may be the victim of credit fraud. There's a charge for 2000 dollars on my account that wasn't me."
"I am sorry to hear that, Mister Smith. We have credited the 2000 dollars to your account."
"But... I didn't even tell you my name. How did you--" The guy hits refresh on his web browser and the $2000 credit shows in his account immediately. "Huh? Uhh, wow! That was easy! Thanks!"
"No problem. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Foot massage, maybe?"
"Sure! Thanks!"
People who are barely even famous who have Wikipedia pages about them that they obviously wrote themselves. Compare the congratulatory fanboy tone and extensive "triva" bits of the previous article to one about someone who is inarguably more well known, admired, and successful, whose career is much more extensive and whose most notable work is a household name and has been enjoyed by millions of people worldwide for over a decade. Oh, and uhh, if your agent wrote it for you, you're still a laughable douche.
That dumbass, predictable "joking but serious" shit when you walk by someone with pizza, beer, liquor, flowers, etc. etc. "Awww! You brought that for me? Why, thank you!"
People who can't adjust to changes in their jobs even when given way more than an adequate adjustment period.
"Agh! I still can't figure out these new expense reports! Why can't they just use the expense reports we had before?"
"Uhhh, they changed the expense report format in 2002."
"Well, the old ones were easier to use."
"Well, tough shit."
Unemployed people who list their employment status as "self-employed."
And the dumbass of the year award goes to...
I ordered some food for delivery. The total was 14 bucks. The delivery driver shows up and I hand him a 20 dollar bill. He asks me if I have anything other than a 20 and says that he has no change. "Really? You have NO change," I ask in disbelief, and he shakes his head.
He stands there with my 20 in his hand looking frustrated and stupid. I could almost hear his meager mental hardware clinking and clanking in his head. His brain apparently couldn't come up with anything reasonable, so he went into "throw up hands" mode. "Well, I don't have any change," he says as I start to get the impression that he's thinking the transaction is complete.
"Well, you aren't getting a six dollar tip." This seemed to have the "splash of cold water" effect and I could see him trying to think again. At this point I was getting really pissed. It was bad enough that it took like an hour for my food to arrive, and now I have Lenny Small on my doorstep who didn't figure that he would need any change. My fucking order is between 10 and 20 dollars. Nearly every ATM gives you 20 dollar bills. That makes the odds of me handing him a 20 dollar bill pretty goddamn high, and he didn't think this would come up? At this point it seems like this could go on all day, and since seeing this guy's dopey face is making me angrier and angrier the longer I look at it, I decide to do something before I haul off and hit him. Punching pizza guys is generally frowned upon, and it's not like he doesn't know where I live.
"Look. Forget it." The words again seem to have a "Snap out of it" effect. "I don't want the pizza anymore. Tell your boss you couldn't make change for me and the customer was annoyed and sent it back."
Finally, this ultimatum seemed to make this guy realize that solutions existed that were outside of just standing there in front of my door looking retarded. "Wait. I'll go get change. Give me the 20 dollars and I'll bring back your change."
"Uhhh, if I give you 20 dollars, you're going to leave and go about your day."
"Uhhhh, okay, I'll take the pizza and go to the bank and get change and come back."
"Uhhh, if that pizza goes with you, after all this, sorry, but I don't think I trust that nothing bad will happen to it before I eat it. Even if you don't do something to it, it will be stone cold."
The guy chuckled a little. I guess I foiled his plot to put his balls on my pizza. "Uhhhhh....."
He was starting to go back into impasse mode, so I presented the solution. "Leave the pizza here. You know where to find me. Go back to your store, get change, come back, and I will pay you." His eyes lit up, as though I had a great solution that he wouldn't have thought of in a million years.
Absurd or unnecessary "because I said so" rules or precautions.
"Whoa! You can't take that cart on the elevator."
"Why not?"
"Well, you could damage the elevator."
"Look. The cart plus what's on it weighs about 100 pounds. I think it's safe so say that's considerably less than you or me. Its wheels are made of rubber, just like the soles of my shoes. Obviously, I know I will get in trouble if I scratch the sides of the elevator, so I promise I won't let the cart touch the sides or door of the elevator. Plus, there's a camera in there if you care to make sure. Also, there's nobody in the elevator, so it would be just me and the cart, with no possibility of bumping into someone else, or having someone else bump the cart and scratch the sides of the elevator."
"It doesn't matter. You can't take that cart in the elevator."
Radio stations that still have "CD" in their jingle or call name. "You're listening to CD 101.5!" OOOOOHHHHH! CD's! They're HI-TECH! It's awesome that you're boasting that you're using 25 year old technology that's on the verge of obsolescence! WOW! You're not just 101.5, you're CD 101.5! Fucking WOOT!
People who go on the subway with a big purse, a tote bag, a back pack, another tote bag, a laptop case, and a rolling carry-on bag with another bag sitting on top of it. Hey asshole, if you need a mobile office, buy a fucking car..
Today I had to use the LIRR train because my job had me working way out in the sticks. The eastbound train was due to arrive at 7:55. I arrived at the station and waited in the ticket line. The bitch in the booth worked as slowly as possible. When I got to the counter, the train was coming into the station. I told her my destination and said I wanted a round trip. She made this stink-face and said, "The next train doesn't get here until 8:36."
I said, "The train is right here NOW."
She says in this ho-hum tone, "Yeah, but you're not going to catch that train."
"I WILL IF YOU GIVE ME MY TICKET."
After some huffing and puffing and ghetto mumbling she gave me my ticket and change and I ran and slipped in the door of the 7:55 train as it was closing. It was too bad I couldn't simultaneously be on the train and telling this dumb bitch off and giving her the one finger salute of "I told you so." To think this bitch had just DECIDED that I was going to be 40 minutes late AND would have to pay the higher "Peak" rate for my ticket when the train I wanted was within reach if she would just stop being retarded. I remember when these fucking ticket tellers bitched and moaned when the MTA started making ATM-like ticket vending machines, saying that they would take away jobs. The only reason I went to the teller instead of the machine was to get, uhhh.... I think in the olden days they called it "service." It's pretty fucking bad when a machine can give me far better service than a person. Would the machine keep me waiting around to hear its opinion on whether I will make the train if I run for it? Fuck you. I hope a machine does take your job. In fact I hope someone makes a machine whose only functions are making your children cry while kicking you in the twat.
More on the LIRR:
This morning my job wanted me to be way out in the the middle of nowhere by 7am. Soooo... I have a choice. Either I can arrive there 43 minutes early, or 51 minutes late. You would think they could have more frequent trains since all the commuters are paying 12 bucks. Oh wait. What am I thinking? The MTA giving halfway decent service for a reasonable price? Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.
People who operate a podcast that consists entirely of other people's music, who go for long periods of time between updates, citing "lack of creative inspiration." Uhhh... The fucking music is there. All you do is pick songs and make a podcast. There's very little demand for your personal creativity. Just fucking do it. If my goal was to make a podcast of various artists' music, I could crank out hundreds of ten song shows, creating play lists much faster than the songs could even be compiled into podcasts. I could even stay within genre and mood constraints. Take your "writer's block" and shove it up your ass. You're just lazy.
While it can make the work day go by faster if you are allowed play music in the office, almost nothing can make the day more agonizing than working in a place where they play shitty music. Try working 9+ hours a day listening to country music. It's enough to make someone go postal.
People who don't understand that there is a lot of gray area between "Go out and have a few drinks with your friends" and "Get so drunk you throw up all over yourself and pass out and have to be taken home by one of your friends an hour after arriving at the bar."
People who spam their MySpace friends list and email address book to "get out the vote" for some candidate who: A.) I have already expressed my disliking of directly to the sender, B.) Is considered to be either a complete douchebag or wing-nut by most people and is only liked by a tiny group of people who are fucked in the heads, and C.) Because of B could never win in a million fucking years... ARE YOU LISTENING, RON PAUL '08 RETARDS? Oh, and for the record, as of October, '07, I'm not supporting anyone for president. There's really nobody but douchebags running, and it's a typical presidential election, like always. You have the Democrats, who seem to always pick their candidates as though they are designed to lose, wholly relying on the misguided "well, at least we're not republicans" strategy that they should have learned doesn't work when Kerry lost to an incumbent whose approval rating was in the 30-40% range, and on the other side you have a geezer actor, a crazy cultist who flip-flops on abortion rights just to get votes, and a former mayor who is the only person on the planet that used 9/11 to enhance his career more than Osama Bin Laden did. I haven't seen a worse spread since Goatse.cx.
Tests and certifications that the government makes you do which are basically just ways to make you waste time and pay money. Like recently I had to take a 15 hour class and take a test to get certified in New York City in food safety. The cost of the class was $108.00. If you run a restaurant and there is not a manager or supervisor on the premises with a food handling certification card, and the Health Department comes to inspect, it is a critical violation with a huge fine, and you run the risk of having your restaurant shut down. So I took the class and test. The stupid thing is that a fucking chimp could pass. The test was 50 questions, and you can miss as many as 15 and pass. Personally, if you miss anywhere close to 15, I want to know what restaurant you work at so I can avoid eating there. The test had maybe 2 or 3 questions where you had to actually remember a number or think for more than half a second. Most of the questions were like this (Actual question from the test.):
The reason chicken must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees is:
A.) To improve the flavor.
B.) To increase business.
C.) To give the food a pleasant color.
D.) To kill salmonella bacteria which can spread food borne illness.
REALLY? I had to take a class to learn that? Not only is the correct answer obvious, but the question and answer contain the only important information that you might have to remember. It's as though the question is a lesson. Seriously, you could get almost every question right, even if you didn't take the class, if you had an iota of common sense. I got 100% on the test. The guy in front of me missed fucking TEN... And this fuck gets the same card I do. You seriously might as well just have a window where you walk up, pay $108.00, and they give you a card. If that guy missed ten questions on that EASY AS FUCK test, he's gonna fucking kill someone.
People who, when you fuck up, go into this passive aggressive "helpful" mode to thoroughly rub it in.
"Good morning. Do you have that report I need?"
"Aaah! Sorry, I forgot! Give me a few minutes and I'll finish it up."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I just forgot, I'm sorry. It shouldn't take long. Just give me a few minutes."
"No, I'm sorry. It might be my fault."
"Huh?"
"I must not have communicated clearly how important that report is."
"No, I understood, I just got caught up in other things and forgot."
"No, I think I need to get more in tune with how to communicate with you. Is there something more that I could do for you so you and I could be more on the same wavelength? Would you like for me to email you assignments in addition to asking you? Maybe I could install a new bulletin board in here to list what reports I need."
"That's not necessary. I was just busy yesterday and forgot."
"No, no. I'm going to call facilities when I get back to my desk to have a bulletin board put in. Would you like for me to put a message on your voicemail too?"
"No, that's not necessary."
"I just want to help you as much as I can."
THANK YOU! I GET IT! I FUCKED UP! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE, ASSHOLE!
People who, when you fuck up, go into this passive aggressive feigned inability to understand how this could happen to thoroughly rub it in.
"Good morning. Do you have that report I need?"
"Aaah! Sorry, I forgot. Give me a few minutes to finish it up."
"You didn't do it?"
"No, sorry."
"But... How did..... Wait, you really didn't do any of it?"
"Sorry, I was busy yesterday and I forgot."
"Wait, wait, wait... I'm trying to wrap my head around this. You knew the report was important, right?"
"Yeah."
"And you didn't do it?"
"I forgot."
"But if you knew it was important, how is it possible to forget about it?"
"I don't know. I just got busy with other stuff and it got put on the back burner."
"But.... I don't understand how you could put it on the back burner if you knew it was important."
Of course, this conversation could go on indefinitely, and these conversations usually will, until you finally say, "THANK YOU! I GET IT! I FUCKED UP! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE, ASSHOLE!"
People who say, "Dammit! I'm fed up with this shit. How am I supposed to get by? I work a shitload of hours, hardly ever see my kids, and my wife works too, and we can still barely pay the bills because the rent, utilities, phone, cable, etc. just go up and up and every year I get my review and they give me a teeny tiny raise that doesn't even begin to cover the increase in the cost of living. I guess I should be happy they give me anything at all, because it's not like my workplace is unionized. And then the cost of healthcare is going through the roof, and there's no way I can afford insurance, and my job doesn't offer me any benefits, and Medicare doesn't cover enough. I've had a bad knee and a really bad cough for years, but I can't possibly support my family if I spend money to get it checked, and if I had to miss any work, we'd be totally screwed. I'm so sick of how corporations have so much power in government. It's like nothing gets done unless some Fortune 500 assholes want it. And of course, I pay way too much in taxes, and those rich fat cats don't pay nearly their fair share! And then there's that goddamn war! The government is spending all it's money on this stupid war that we never should have gotten in, and may never get out of, when we have real problems here at home that need fixing. My brother was supposed to be home from Iraq months ago, but they keep sending him back and extending his tours. If this keeps up, there's going to be a draft, but of course, just like in Vietnam, all those rich assholes will find ways to keep their kids out of harm's way, and it'll be the little guy that gets stepped on again, just like with everything else. I've had it! They'll be hearing my anger in the voting booth this November! That's right! I'm gonna vote.... Republican!"
People who apparently do nothing all day but take FUCKING MEANINGLESS online quizzes and post them on bulletins on Myspace. I have retards that post the results of 6 or 7 quizzes every day on Myspace bulletins and almost always, the questions are completely irrelevant to anything. Do these people think that anyone actually reads that shit?
"1. When was the last time you were in a car?" Today.
2. "Have you ever been to see a movie with anyone on your friends list?" Yes.
3. "What is your third favorite food?" Meatloaf.
4. "Have you ever been to Ohio?" Yes.
5. "What day of the week were you born on?" I dunno! LOL!
6. "Are you good at math?" No.
7. "What color are your mother's eyes?" Blue.
8. "Have you ever gone skydiving?" No.
9. "Where was the best place you ever went on vacation?" The Bahamas.
10. "Do you like apples?" Yes.
11. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" No.
12. "Have you ever eaten Thai food?" Yes.
WOW! I FEEL LIKE I KNOW YOU SO MUCH BETTER NOW! THANK YOU FOR SHARING THESE DEEP AND REVEALING FACTS WITH ME! The only thing I learned is that you're apparently stupid.
People who think they're going to get real change in Congress by reelecting the same douchebags that have been there for 20 years. "Oh boy! I could never live with myself if some conservative took that seat. I'd better elect Joe Lieberman to another term."
You could hear the collective forehead slap as gay rights activists everywhere, who had been working their whole lives to promote acceptance, shouted, "FUUUUUCK!" as all their hard work was nullified in two minutes and eleven seconds.
"CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected to receive two free iPod Nanos!" FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU!
Invariably, people will occasionally blurt out "fuck" on live TV. A person will say "nigger" or "faggot" or something else that pisses a lot of people off. In steps the media gestapo to make rules and impose fines and bring the hammer down with complete disregard for free speech. Then, self-professed champions of free speech step in and say the dumbest thing they could ever say in hopes of saving free speech. "What's the big deal? They're just words. Words have no power. I mean, why is everyone so angry? Words can't hurt anybody. They're just words, geeez!" Just words? Hey, idiot, words ARE important. Should people have a heart attack and get all self righteous when they hear a word they don't like? Probably not, but words ARE powerful. Words ARE important. Words CAN affect people. Not only is the free exchange of ideas perhaps the most important factor of democracy, but without words, we would probably still be trying to perfect the stone axe. Imagine humanity unable to communicate complex ideas, feelings, instructions. Words aren't just important, they're probably the most important thing to make us something more than chimps with less hair and upper body strength. Using the "They're just words" argument is like trying to defend women's rights by saying, "What's the big deal? They're just women. What could some silly, little women do? You people are getting all worked up over some little, powerless, pathetic women? It's not like anyone is really listening to what they're saying, so who cares?"
By the way, I am definitely not a huge fan of words like "faggot" or "nigger," but I have the foresight enough to know that people who preach freedom are contradicting themselves when they would limit what people can say and think. Freedom is the freedom to say cunt, shit, asshole, fuck, tits, motherfucker, cock, etc. etc. etc. as well as the freedom to say, well, you know... the N word and the F-a-g-g-o-t word too. Oh, and, uhh, this trend of making celebrities who say or do things that offend your delicate sensibilities apologize and go to rehab and sensitivity training is getting pretty fucking absurd. Every day some famous retard calls someone something, and then has to do Al Sharpton-supervised community outreach and go to counseling, and it's getting pretty goddamn tedious.
People with ridiculously outdated political views. "You know, this country has been in a real downward spiral since they gave women the right to vote." Shut up, retard.
Spammers who use some name in the "from" field that is HIGHLY unlikely. I mean, okay, you're from China, and maybe the only American TV you get is soap operas where they name people ridiculous shit like "Drake," and "Hunter," but let me throw you a tip. These names are uncommon enough that when I see them in my in-box, I know you're full of shit. *DELETE* Let's see here. Currently in my in-box are emails from Meehan Tera, Walker Coulson, Holden Griggs, Lake Colbert, Corty Hargrove and Aileen Bradshame. *Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, and delete.* Oh, and uh, sending me emails with "Important security issue with your Bank of America account," or "Please acknowledge" or "Urgent" as the subject.... *Delete, delete, delete, delete.* Fuck you retards.
Many videogames give NPC's lines of dialogue to say and motions to do to make the game more interesting and realistic. Like in Stalker and Bioshock, friendly and enemy NPC's all have little blurbs of banter and talk to each other and stuff. I can understand that if you have four guys sitting around a campfire, they're probably going to be talking about stuff. The downside is, after a few hours of gameplay, and these games take MANY hours of gameplay to accomplish anything, you will be done hearing new banter. The guy sitting at the campfire 20 feet from the start of the game is saying the same shit as the guy sitting at the bar 2 miles away and the guy sitting at the campfire 10 miles away. "Let's drink to him once more. He was a good stalker." Just shut up.
People who sell things on Ebay that they don't really understand.
"Makintosh Ipod. This is the thing that you use to hook up to your computer that plays youtubes or myspaces. It is white on one side and silver on the other. It has an internet screen on the front for looking at internets. There is some kind of hole on the bottom that I think is used to hook up an antenna. Right now it has an internet on it that you can listen to of Jethro Tull, but I think it has room for more internets. I am getting rid of it because I am tired of Jethro Tull and want to get a new Makintosh with other internets on it. Right now the batteries are dead so you will need to get new batteries. I think it takes AAA batteries, but I can't find the little door to insert them. This might be that Ipod with the phone, but I'm not sure. I got it from a guy in Ohio in 2004. Maybe the guy I got it from in Ohio could tell if it has the phone. I think that the rectangular hole on the bottom might be the antenna hole and the hole you talk in, but I don't see an ear hole.
Auction starts at $750 USD. 0 bids.
People who have been doing their job for a long time, and have been doing it wrong the whole time, who won't listen to a fucking thing about how to do it correctly, because, "Hey, I've been waiting tables for the past 15 years. I think I know what I'm doing here. I preset the milk, sugar, and coffee cups before the people arrive, so they have no idea how long the milk has been sitting out. The clients sit down. I give them the salad. When they're done with the salad, I bring around the main course. They got a choice of beef or fish, so I carry as many of each as I possibly can without dropping them. They tell me which they want and I set it down. Once all the entrees are down, I come around and give the people wine, ice water and bread. Then I come around and give steak knives to all the people that got beef. When the people are done with the main course, I roll this horrible, banged-up stainless steel utility cart into the room with all the dessert, and pick their plate up with one hand and serve dessert with the other. I have bus tubs on the cart and I stick the dirty dinner plates in there as I take desserts off. Once everyone has dessert, I go with coffee. I mean, that's the way I done it for 15 years. Now you come in here and start telling me to take people's orders at the start and serve them water and bread and wine from the start and set down steak knives after I clear the salad and set down coffee cups, creamers and sugars after I cleared the main course and to only carry two plates at a time and to wait until all the whole table is cleared from one course to start serving the next course, and to keep the filthy bus cart out of sight, and to serve from the left and clear from the right... I mean, 15 years I've been doing this, and there's never been no problems. Why you wanna come in here and change stuff around? Have YOU been a waiter for 15 years?"
There are two types of people who own samurai swords. Samurais and man-boy cosplay nerds who have a few screws loose and haven't been laid since the first Iraq war. There is a very simple test to determine which you are. Are you an aristocratic warrior swordsman from feudal Japan? No? Then you're not a samurai.
Ummmm... yeah, I think I rest my case. HOLY SHIT! THAT GUY ON THE LEFT WITH THE BEADY EYES JUST KILLED A BOX! That will be an incredibly important skill if he is ever attacked by boxes, or maybe it will help him unbox canned peas faster at his job as a grocery stocker. Awww, I shouldn't make fun. This guy is obviously deeply into eastern culture, as demonstrated by his artfully displayed Bhuddist beads, Yinyang-emblazoned Levis jacket, incense thingee which he apparently bought some little Pier One table thing to display, red cloth and shelf that he bought at Walmart, plug-in candle and picture of the Dalai Lama that he printed on his Canon Bubble-jet. The top right picture is fun too. We have a tubby Chun Li and the guy who runs the comic shop on The Simpsons making their best serious faces as they are imagining they are slaying Sephiroth. The guy in the lower right is itching for someone to offer him a Red Pill, and the guy in the bottom center is taking a short break from crying to take one last webcam pic with his left hand just before he commits seppuku. (Side note: Remember what I said before about button-down black shirts.) Here, Pugsly McGetsnone takes a break from pissing off his parents with Insane Clown Posse to record his pre-highschool rampage video manifesto. That's not a hoodie, it's a ninja invisibility cloak.
Of course, there will be these idiots who read this and say, "But wait! I took classes. I actually know how to USE a katana." Uhhh, WHO GIVES A SHIT? It's not like this is a practical or worthwhile skill to have. It's not like that gives you some license to walk around town with a katana on a sword belt in case anyone tries to start shit with you. The only accounts I've seen of people out in public with katanas are videos on youtube of crazy guys on PCP getting tasered and pepper sprayed by the cops. The title is usually something like "Crazy sword guy" or something.
Dentures that look so white and "perfect" that it looks like the person is wearing a boxing mouthguard. The idea is to look like you have teeth, not that you're Jim Carrey in "The Mask."
People who vote for a politician based on their support for some pet cause, regardless of disagreeing with them on most other things they stand for. "Hmmm - this candidate is Pro-Nafta... which I'm against, against abortion, and I'm pro-choice, for the War in Iraq, which I'm against, for deporting all immigrants, which I'm against, pro-death penalty, which I'm against, obvioulsy pro-big business/upper class, and I think that's unfair, against stem cell research, which I am for, pro-nuclear buildup, and I think we should at least partially disarm, against universal healthcare, which I'm for, against strict pollution regulations, and I'm an environmentalist, for blurring the line between church and state, which I'm against, for creationism in schools, which I think is ridiculous, for censorship of media, which I'm against, has been in the Senate for 24 years, and has a voting record that I would strongly disagree with 95%... oh, but wait... He wants to have the FDA regulate organic food to make sure it meets certain criteria before it can be labelled organic. As an organic-only vegan, that sounds pretty cool to me. This guy is getting my vote come November!"
Ear hair on the loose. As men age, often they start growing hair in weird places. It's sad, but true, and while it's a fact of life, that doesn't mean nothing should be done about it. I mean really, how do you expect people not to think it's gross that you have more thick, wire-like hair growing out of each of your ears than I have growing in both of my armpits and crotch combined. This morning I was on the train with this guy who kept staring at me, who I was about to ask to stop, when I noticed that the rims of his ears had black hair all over them. Who the fuck are YOU staring at, asshole? Your ear has a fucking mustache!
People on myspace who have a band that occasionally plays in a bar in Portland, Oregon who add me as a friend. I think, "Hmmm... Maybe they liked my website, or maybe they saw my musical tastes and have a CD that I would like that they're trying to get exposure for." So I OK the friend request, and then get daily bulletins about some show they're doing in Portland two weeks from now.
Chefs who became chefs seemingly so they can find as many ways as possible to serve people goat cheese.
Okay. We fucking get it. You like goat cheese. That doesn't mean you plan a dinner and start with an hors d'oeuvres of goat cheese in phyllo and tomato and goat cheese bruschette and a cheese board featuring goat cheese, appetizer of smoked goat cheese with artichokes, salad of mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette with crumbled goat cheese, and for main course have a choice of sturgeon with asparagus and goat cheese or filet mignon with melted goat cheese, and for dessert a goat cheesecake. DUDE! LEAVE THE GOAT'S TITS ALONE FOR A FUCKING MINUTE! PLEASE!
Workplaces where it would be unrealistic to assume that you are not visible to a security camera anywhere you go. Let's be honest. Noses need picking sometimes
Computer techs who act like you're retarded when they don't even know the problem.
Today I came to work and had no network connectivity on my work computer. I called IT and got this guy who sounded really irritable.
"My network connection isn't working."
"Well what is it doing?"
"What do you mean? I can't connect to the network or the internet."
"*Loud sigh* Well what were you doing that made it disconnect?"
"Nothing. When I left last night it was working, and this morning I logged on and it wasn't."
"*Loud sigh* Did you kick the network cable out or something?"
"No."
"Okay, bring up a command prompt."
"Okay."
"Type ipconfig /release"
"Done."
"Okay now reboot."
"Okay." The system reboots.
"You have a network connection?"
"No."
"*Loud sigh*"
He has me do a lot of things in the system settings and in the command prompt. I rebooted a couple times. I followed all his instructions exactly. After trying a few things, he was getting more and more perturbed. He had me repeat most of these things a few times, instructing me to repeat his instructions back to him to ensure that I'm not a moron and am following his instructions correctly. Basically, to him, the fact that he told me a few things to do, and still can't connect means that I was too stupid to correctly follow his instructions.
"*Loud sigh* I guess I'll come down there and look at it. *loud sigh* I'll be down there in... *loud sigh* about 30 minutes. *loud sigh*"
He comes down and starts fiddling with things. The first thing he tries is the same thing he had me do a couple of times, and guess what. NO CONNECTION.
So a couple of hours have passed and he's got his supervisor here as well. They have cable testers and laptops and have made about a dozen phone calls. He's looking more and more aggravated all the time. Soooo.... I guess it wasn't such a simple problem , and I guess I'm not the retard you thought I was.
People who tell people that they look like a certain celebrity, as though it's such a great compliment. Even if the celebrity in question is attractive, unless the person has self esteem issues, they probably don't want to hear that they look like someone else. "Hey, you look like Christina Aguilera!" What if the girl hates Christina Aguilera for whatever reason? What if the girl considers herself more attractive than Christina Aguilera?
What's worse is when the celebrity is unattractive. "Dude! You know who you look like? Gary Busey!" Don't fucking tell someone that shit. Nobody wants to look like Gary Busey. Fucking Gary Busey doesn't want to look like Gary Busey.
Timid mergers. You're on the on-ramp for a highway. Traffic on the highway is moving at 65-70 miles an hour. Obviously the best way to merge into this traffic is to come to a complete stop at the end of the ramp.
The Prime Minister of Vietnam is named Tan Dung..... GRAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm not sure what everyone else is eating, but am I the only person who isn't having noisy, gassy, splattering diarrhea in public restrooms that stinks so badly that people have to flee the area before they puke? Seriously, it seems like every time I'm in a public restroom I hear this, "Spit... sputter.... BRACKITA BRACKITA BRACKITA..... sputter..... BRAP...... drip...... BRACKITA BRAP...... "
People who give you gifts that are seriously way too over the top. "Hey! Merry Christmas, guy I hang out with every once in a while! Here's your gift, a 25 dollar gift certificate at Virgin Records. Oh, you brought me a gift? Ohhhh.... A uhhh... mountain bike.... Thhhanks."
Organ donation. Don't get me wrong. I know sick people need organs, but what pisses me off is something I think is pretty simple. I sign my organ donor card. I die. They take my organs FOR FREE. They then charge patients $250,000 for a kidney, $350,000 for a lung, $350,000 for a pancreas, $900,000 for intestines, $450,000 for a liver, $500,000 for a heart... So from my body alone, the medical industry stands to make millions of dollars with organs they got FOR FREE. Millions of dollars for them, not a penny for me or my family, and they couldn't even do it at all without donors. Sorry, sick people, but fuck you, greedy medical money-grubbers.
If your main source of income absolutely depends on Myspace, and you don't actually work for Myspace, uhhh... Get a job.
Guys that use retarded "tough guy" banter that sounds forced and stilted and just makes them seem staggeringly stupid and weird. There's this guy I work with who most of the people I work with think is most likely in the closet, despite his frequent assertions that he's a real ladies' man. This guy has all the machismo of Guy Smiley. We're leaving work one night and despite being mid-September, the weather was nice and warm and clear, with a slight cool breeze. He notices the weather, and says, at a volume that could probably be heard across the street, "Holy FUCK, it's nice out! I need a BITCH right now! I need a BITCH right here so I can FUCK her!" Congratulations. You're still gay, but now you seem even gayer and definitely dumber.
Karate, tae kwon do, etc classes that people join primarily to learn self defense, where they mostly teach you how to do flips and splits and break balsa wood boards that are held up over your head and scream "KEEE-YAAAAAAAHHH!" Yeah, that's really practical. How about teaching me how to kick some drunk lummox's ass who decides to start some shit because he thinks I looked at him funny? I think at this point I should state the obvious. I think one of the keys to getting in a fight without getting arrested, is not drawing attention by shrieking "KEEE-YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" as loudly as I can. Ever watch UFC? I think it would be kind of a dumb argument to claim that these guys aren't fighting well. Do you see any of them doing backflip kicks and breaking little boards that are suspended over their heads as they cry, "KEEEE-YAAAAAAAHHH"? No? Why is that, do you suppose?
Acne "cover-up" cream. Great. Now instead of looking like you have a big, juicy zit, now you look like you have a big, juicy zit with some weird orange stucco on it.
The way they made the Transformers in the Transformers Movie look like they were made of ten million moving parts, the largest of which being the size of a pencil.
Evangelical Christians who think that being gay is a choice, a perversion, a mental illness, but feigning a siezure as you roll your eyes back in your head and call out, "ZAMBAALA JOALICAMBOOZOO AALANICAMBAALICJOOMAACIBAALALALALALAAAA!" is completely natural, a blessing and beyond one's control. "What? That's totally normal. God does that to you. It's speaking in tongues. It's not like you're doing it yourself. But, wow! For people to say that being attracted to members of the same sex is natural? Now that's just perverted, right there! I mean, I know many homosexuals claim they knew they were gay since early childhood, and it's a fairly widespread phenomenon among upper primates, but WOW! Why are all those four year olds and chimps choosing to defy God's law? Oh, wait! God is speaking to me again! CHIMICHANGA AFRIKAABAMBAATAA SHANAANAA MECCA LECCA HI MECCA HINEY HO!"
As you might imagine, living in New York City exposes me to a wide range of cultures, which by and large is a very good thing. However, there is something that I would like to address. There are some cultures in which body odor doesn't even show up on the radar as far as things to worry about. They simply don't give a shit. They could have BO that could knock you out, and they are like, "What's the problem?" Then there are other cultures that deal with the problem not by practicing good hygiene, but by covering the smell up. Let me be an ambassador to help make your stay in the US a more pleasant one for both of us. Below are some schedules to help you recognize habits and improve upon them.
CORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Tuesday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Wednesday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Thursday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Friday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Saturday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Sunday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
INCORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Tuesday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Wednesday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Thursday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Friday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Saturday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Sunday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
INCORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as people try to distance themselves from you.
Tuesday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as people within a 20 foot radius clutch their noses as their sinuses burn as though they just snarfed kerosene.
Wednesday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks. Proceed to your boss's office for a very awkward meeting that he absolutely doesn't want to have to do, but is basically obligated to because all your coworkers demand that he say something to you about your reek.
Thursday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as nobody without a hazmat suit can come near you without choking.
Friday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as birds fall out of the sky at your passing.
Saturday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Wonder why all your neighbors are moving out.
Sunday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Turn on the TV and see that the police are investigating a possible hazardous chemical leak which just happens to be centered around your current location.
People who have bad breath that you can smell from six feet away. It's one thing if I'm close enough to shake your hand and notice that you had something with garlic for lunch, but some people just walk in the room and you swear they must have a dead rancid raccoon stuck in their throat.
That moment when you pour cereal in a bowl, then you pour milk over it, and then realize that you only have enough milk to slightly dampen the cereal. So now you either have to throw it away, which sucks because you bought the cereal and you're hungry, or you have to grind your teeth through an utterly unenjoyable breakfast.
People who try to play off their scientific ignorance as being open-minded.
"Is the earth round or flat?"
"Hmmm, you know... That's a very interesting question. I suppose the answer to that question is largely a matter of perspective."
"It was an either-or question with a correct answer."
"I understand that, but I don't think it's fair to rule out all possibilities. I mean, you might say it's round, and you could present evidence to that effect. On the other hand, there might be a body of evidence to support it being flat."
"Ummm... It's round. There's no credible evidence to support it being flat."
"Well you say that now, but certainly in the past there were scientists who believed that it was flat, if that was the common knowledge of their era. Also, the Bible says the world is flat."
"Yes, but they were wrong. It's round. Them thinking it was flat isn't a matter of perspective, it's attributable to their ignorance."
"I can see where you're coming from, but I think you have to look at the question from many angles."
"It's round. The end. Now, if you want to believe it's flat, please, PLEASE find the edge, and jump off it."
Not really something to be destroyed, but definitely something that makes me feel funny... What's the deal with certain restaurants where I am the thinnest guy there? I mean, at 225 pounds, I am no bean pole, but what the fuck? It seriously makes me have the feeling that I shouldn't be eating there, so I don't suffer the same fate. I've been to Boston Market a few times, and I go to Popeye's every once in a while, and it's as though nobody eats there except fat fucks. I just had lunch at Popeye's and while I was in line, this whole family of jello trolls came in and took over the whole fucking restaurant. From what I could guess, there were two husbands, two wives, another lady, and five kids, and there wasn't one of them who wasn't morbidly obese. There was a 12 year old girl in the bunch who could definitely kick my ass in tug of war. One of the husbands waddled up to the counter and ordered for everyone, so they could all sit down and huff and puff from exhaustion from dragging their ponderous asses to Popeye's all the way from Burger King a block away. The woman sitting across from me had boobs that looked like she was hiding an elephant seal in her shirt..
The retarded doublethink that conservatives do to justify why we need to stay in Iraq indefinitely. For months we heard that Bush was waiting until he heard the progress report in September by General Petraeus to Congress before he decided how many troops should stay in Iraq, and for how long. GEE! SURELY A LOYAL GENERAL WOULD NEVER, OHH, LIE, OR, OHHHH, HAND-PICK DETAILS LIKE A MOUTHPIECE FOR THE WHITEHOUSE TO SIMPLY DO WHAT BUSH WANTS OR ANYTHING!
Then later, (doublethink) we were told that Petraeus was going to deliver the report not to Congress, but to the White House, (doublethink) and that the White House would then take his findings and then THEY would present a report to Congress, and that this was ALWAYS the plan, and that the White House would then issue the report. NOOOO, Nothing suspicious about that!
Of course, we all knew that the contents of the report would be irrelevant. Regardless of the general's assessment, we would end up doing what Bush wants.
Suppose the report sees the war through rose-colored glasses.
"Everything is great here. We're making promising progress, and signs of stability are popping up all over, just like those lovely bustling markets (which were pretty much photo-op props) that McCain and Katie Couric visited."
Solution:
"Well obviously if we start pulling troops out, we will lose all these wonderful gains we've made. To pull out would ensure that the budding democracy here will fail. The continued stability of this region requires an extended US military presence or things will plunge back into chaos, and all our hard work would be a waste, and all the people who gave their lives for this would have done so in vain! Don't you support the troops?"
Suppose the report says things are a mess.
"This is a nation on the brink of a full-blown civil war, and has become the greatest recruiting ground for new terrorists. Al Qaida is here in force and are killing people every day."
Solution:
"This is the central front in the war on terror. To pull out now would only show our enemy that we are weak, and that the American people do not have the resolve to fight the long fight necessary to defeat them, also, leaving would remove any safeguard against the civil war that is teetering on the brink and threatens the stability, not only of Iraq, but the entire Middle East. We would be fools to pull out and let this happen! To pull out would ensure that Iraq becomes a new nation of terrorists who would stop at nothing to hurt Americans. Nothing stands against this chaos except the brave men and women serving there. Don't you support the troops?"
So then, yesterday, Petraeus gave his report to a highly skeptical Congress. His conclusion: We are making amazing strides and meeting goals, AND (doublethink) it's a complete mess with no obvious solution but one... WE NEED TO KEEP AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ MUCH, MUCH LONGER!
Very important news article on MSNBC on 8/31/07: "Mormons: IS POLYGAMY IN THE AFTERLIFE OK?" Holy fucking fuck. WOW! No doubt this amazing journalism will win a fucking Pulitzer. THIS IS IMPORTANT NEWS!
People who read some shit in some magazine or something and try to twist the meaning to justify their own dumbass behavior.
"I read that drinking beer is good for your kidneys."
"Yeah. Drinking A beer is good for your kidneys. Drinking beer until you throw up and pass out every night is NOT healthy."
Organic, natural or healthy products that are advertised in a way that focuses entirely on, "Wow! I can't believe it doesn't even taste like twigs, tree bark and moss!" And you fucks wonder why I have a Whopper and a Pepsi for lunch.
Closeted gay Christians. Uhhhh, you're gay. Big whoop. Just be gay. You've been sold a dumb idea from Opposite Land. They tell you being gay is a decision you can make. Fuck that. Being gay is a natural phenomenon. Being a Christian is a choice. Be yourself.
Openly gay Christians. Maybe it's just me, but when I'm thinking of joining an organization or movement, I check to make sure they don't specifically say they stand against everything I'm about and want to destroy me. You espouse a belief system that seeks to stone you to death and send you to hell. Why would you do that? The Bible is pretty explicit when it comes to how "God" wants gays dealt with. There aren't any good endings for gays in that Choose Your Own Adventure Book.
Openly gay conservatives. See above.
Americans who still have no grasp whatsoever of the metric system. I mean, I know we eat Quarter Pounders and buy gallons of milk, but there's truly no excuse for having no concept at all. I mean, say what you will. The rest of the civilized world uses this scale. It might make sense to at least have a fucking clue. "A kilogram? Uhhhh.... That's kinda like 900 pounds, right?"
What's even dumber is when people don't get it when the metric amount is right on the package of something. Like for my job, one of the things I need to purchase is Pellegrino water. This has the metric amount right on the fucking bottle, and does not have the imperial amount. It comes in liter, half liter, and 250 milliliter bottles. My purveyor has no idea what to make of this.
"I need a case of Pellegrino in 250ml bottles."
"Uhhhh.... What's that?"
"The little 250ml bottles."
"Is that 16oz? 12oz? What?"
"It's like eight and a half ounces."
"Oh, because I didn't know."
"It's the one with the two five zero on the box."
Stiff, unsupportive, judgmental, denigrating, shame implanting parents who, when you somehow grow into a balanced, sane adult who isn't addicted to antidepressant medication see themselves as having been the "cool rock'n'roll" kind of parents who were open and related well to their kids and were behind them every step of the way.
Security guards who act like a robot with an erased memory when you forget your ID. Every morning when you show up to work, "Hey, g'morning, Steve. you catch that 49ers game over the weekend? That was brutal! Okay, well have a good day. Catch you later. I'll be bumming a cigarette later! Ha-hah!"
Then one morning you show up to work, and just as you get to the security checkpoint you realize that you forgot your ID card. You walk up to the same guard who was so chummy yesterday to explain.
"Good morning, sir. How can I help you? Lost ID? Hmmmm...." He squints at you suspiciously as though you have an oil barrel full of anthrax tied to your back with big red letters that say, 'WARNING: ANTHRAX!' "Hmmmmm.... Hang on. Let me call my supervisor," like he's never laid eyes on you before.
Adults who can't grasp kindergarten level math. I just overheard two middle aged security guards arguing over how long one of them had been working there.
"So you've been working here almost 10 years."
"I was thinking almost 9."
"Well when did you start?"
"January of 1998."
"Well it's almost 2008, so that's 10 years."
"Yeah, but like, you start at zero."
"Yeah, but you've been here for nearly ten years."
"No, but when you first start, that doesn't count as one."
In the time it took me to swipe my ID, empty all my pockets and put all my phones, cameras, etc. through the x-ray machine, walk through the metal detector, collect my things on the other side, reinsert all the correct phones and cameras in the right cases, put the things back in my pockets, hit the elevator button, wait for the elevator, get in and press the button, they were still no closer to an agreement.
Churches that credit themselves as being open minded and inclusive because they will take anyone of any religion or background and convert them so they're just like them.
"Most beautiful people" lists in magazines and on TV that include Queen Latifa. Okay, so you're trying to be nice or inclusive or whatever, but no. She isn't. I mean, if I'm just some out-of-shape balding gamer nerd from Kentucky, and I have fucked better looking girls, no, she doesn't get to be on a "most beautiful" list unless it's like a list of "most beautiful people who happen to be standing in this room at the moment," and it's not a very heavily populated room. I'm not really just trying to rip on Queen Latifa, but she has this weird tendency to keep turning up on these lists, and I DO NOT GET IT.
Popular music stations that try to sneak in a country song here and there. Uhhh.... Nobody wants to hear that shit. If they did, they'd be listening to the country station.
People who want to pretend they're interested in your personal life who forget important painful things that you have told them previously, which they would have fucking remembered if they actually cared.
"Oh, hey. How's Sarah?"
"I don't know."
"You don't see much of each other lately?"
"Nope. Not since she dumped me a couple months ago. You knew that."
"Oh. That's too bad. She was nice."
"Yes, she was."
"And pretty."
"Yeah..."
People who name their kids FOR REAL Biblical names. Of course names like Paul and Michael and David are pretty standard at this point, but you can take your Solomon and Zachariah and Jebidiah and stuff them up your asses.
People who assume everyone around them is a christian. Like I was having a conversation with this lady I work with about a difficult customer we have. Basically, she's one of these customers where nothing will please her. When she says jump, you jump twice as high as the world record, and she's annoyed that you didn't try hard enough.
"Well, some people just seem to want to have something to complain about," I say. (Yes, I am aware of the extreme irony of me saying this. Shut up.)
"She must have DEMONS."
"I was just going to say she was a bitch, but whatever."
"No, I mean, there are real invisible demons that torment people and make them act crazy."
I do my best polite smile.
"You agree, no?"
"Actually, not really."
"But you're a Christian," she says with the same presumtuous confidence as if she had said, "But you breathe air."
"Nah."
"Yeah, but you believe in God," she reinforces with the same tone.
Still trying to hold my polite smile, "Not really."
"Well whatever you want to call it, you do believe in some ultimate power out there."
"Mmmm, no I don't."
She then continued talking about demons and Jesus in this completely matter of fact tone, like I really did follow the same religion as her, but just wasn't being forthcoming about it.
In reference to the specific complainer above, I was filling in for the corporate cafe manager who was on vacation. I had worked there before on occasion, so the staff and the clients recognized me as a manager. It was my first day filling in for his absence, so anything there was what was already ordered by the manager. Anything NOT there, I would have to order myself for the next day, and explain the concept of "tough shit" to anyone who wanted something that was not there. So I'm walking to the cashier area to see if they need any change or whatever, and this bitch comes up to me in a fury.
"YOUR COMPANY SUCKS! YOU NEVER HAVE ANYTHING I WANT! IT'S REALLY THE PITS! I WANT THE OLD CONTRACTOR BACK IN HERE BECAUSE YOUR COMPANY STINKS!"
"Uhhh, what was it you were looking for?"
"ALL YOU HAVE HERE IS THIS STUPID KID CEREAL AND I WANT CHEERIOS AND YOU NEVER HAVE THEM!"
I look at the cereal rack for literally half a second, I calmly reach over, take a package of Cheerios off the rack, and hand it to the bitch.
"Well.... WELL IT'S NOT JUST THAT! THIS PLACE HAS TOTALLY GONE DOWN THE TUBES AND BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH..."
People who are conservative not because they believe in limited government power and frugal fiscal spending, but because "them dang liberals want to take our guns away!" This can be easily interchanged with, "them dang liberals are gonna let faggots get married," or "them dang liberals won't let us replace evolution with unintelligent design in school," or "I'm a filthy rich business owner and don't want to pay my fair share of taxes or make sure my workers are fairly compensated and working in a safe working environment," or "My company makes an unsafe product, and I want to make sure I can keep selling it without any restrictions," or "them dang liberals think that women and non-caucasians deserve some sort of rights and respect." Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think there is a single reason to want to be a conservative that isn't based on selfishness, aggressiveness or prejudice.
19 year olds on Myspace that list their annual income as "250k or higher."
"Family values" Republicans that are rooting for Rudy Giuliani who ignore the fact that he has had extramarital affairs, has been sued for sexual harassment, and sued his own ex-wife, who was also his second cousin, because she would not allow him to bring the girlfriend with whom he was cheating on her into their house, which she was still living in, to meet his kids on Father's Day. He had also previously had an extramarital affair with his communications director, and was lifelong pals with a priest who was convicted for pedophilia. He also has a long history of ignoring important events in his family such as graduations and often goes for long stretches of time without talking to his kids, and even his own stepdaughter is rooting against him in 2008.
These same "family values" conservatives also like to accuse liberals of conducting "witch hunts" when their guys like Ted Haggart, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jim Bakker, Josh Bolton, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough, Jimmy Swaggart, Strom Thurmond, David Vitter, Thomas Ravenel, Robert W. Allen, etc. etc., who are all purportedly all pure as the driven snow and wonderful Christians, and in many cases highly motivated against anything un-Christian, homosexual, drug-related, etc. turn out to be deeply involved in illegal, or indisputably non-Christian sex / drug / corruption scandals. I can just hear the reasoning now... "Yes, for years I, Larry Craig, have fought tooth and nail to keep homosexuals from being able to get married. I mean, if they're all happily married, whose dick will I be able to suck in airport restrooms?" Or how about Ted Haggart? "My purpose in life is to preach the word of Jesus Christ and bring his blessing to everyone, regardless of how many gay male prostitutes I have to smoke crystal meth with to get the job done!" I mean, these assholes still make jokes about Clinton not inhaling. How the fuck did Haggart think he would get away with the same excuse? "Well, yes, I was buying meth from a gay male prostitute, but I never used it and we never had sex" Holy shit, that's idiotic. Of course, the problem, as I see it is not that assholes like Haggart and Craig are lonely gay men looking for affection, but that they spent their careers making a shit-ton of money by attacking gays and doing everything they could to make it more difficult for gays in America. It's not the fact that they're gay, it's the fact that they are hypocrites. For instance, Craig was one of the key republicans calling for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Clinton got some consensual extramarital head from someone he knew from their working relationship. Craig propositioned an undercover cop for anonymous sex in a public restroom in an airport, and then pleaded guilty, and then reversed himself and said he's not gay. He's so full of shit it's amazing. Of course, we're working on a different dynamic, since Craig is a republican, and republicans want him to resign, not just because he did something illegal that displays his hypocrisy, but because as they see it, you can't be a good republican and be gay. Think about this for a second. Republicans spend millions of dollars on campaigns to gain seats in the Senate, and now that one of their guys might be (gasp) gay, they would RATHER LOSE THEIR SEAT than have a gay senator filling it, despite the fact that he voted exactly the way these assholes wanted.
Podcasts with "breaks." Like, if I'm listening to a political debate podcast, why the fuck do I need to hear a song in the middle? If I wanted to listen to a song, I've got plenty of them on my iPod already. If you are making your podcast and need to take a shit, just hit Stop on whatever you're using to record, make a mental note about what you were talking about, and then after you're done, come back, hit record, and just continue talking.
This morning at 6am I was awakened by a huge repetative booming sound that was loud enough to literally make my apartment shake. I looked outside and there was a dump truck and a back-hoe, and they were tearing out the sidewalk. The back-hoe would pull up a five foot by five foot by eight inch thick slab of sidewalk, lift it over the rim of the dump truck, and then drop it from full height into the truck, making the ground shake... AT SIX FUCKING O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING!
People who "know better" than you, when in fact they don't know shit, and they even KNOW that they don't know shit.
I tell the cab driver, "I need to go to the Mariott on Jay Street in Brooklyn." He apparently is unfamiliar with the landmark and looks like he's pondering for a second, so I follow up with directions. "Take 43rd to the BQE, then take it to Tillary Street. I'll tell you when to turn." I then start fidgeting with my iPod.
After a few seconds I notice that the car is not moving, and half assume that he's waiting for the right moment to cut across traffic so he can make the left turn to get to 43rd street. I look up and he has a huge map spread in front of him. "Take 43rd to the BQE and take it to Tillary Street."
"I'm just... I want to... Uhh... Get directions."
"Those are the directions. I've made this trip a hundred times."
Reluctantly, he put the map away and followed my directions, and drove SLOW AS FUCK the whole way there.
Copycat tattoos. Great way to make a statement about your individuality, idiot. Do you know how many retards I have seen with those same fucking tiger paws on their cleavage like that rapper Eve? Way too goddamn many.
Magic Johnson used in ads for HIV medication. "Oh, God! Surely Neg isn't going to attack a guy stricken with HIV!" You're goddamn right I am. But what galls me more than this guy making tons of money on his own disease is the message of these ads. The intended message is obvious. "Buy our drugs and you too can live as long as Magic Johnson has with HIV." That way, the pharmeceutical companies can cash in on people desperate to save or extend their own lives. The message these ads convey to me is, "Look! If you catch HIV when you are at the pinnacle of human physical fitness, and have millions of dollars to spend from a long career as a professional athlete, with more money coming in all the time from books, interviews, speaking engagements, and for doing endorsements for pharmeceutical companies, you can probably live with HIV much, much longer than some poor slob with no health insurance who can't even afford to see the doctor for a physical."
Serial killers who get that old time religion right after they get caught. "Y'know. I feel awfully bad for all those 23 elementary school kids that I took out to the woods and raped, and tortured, and raped, and killed, and raped, and dismembered, and raped, and buried... and then dug up and raped again, and then buried again over the years, but everything's changed now, because I finally came to know the Lord, and I know in my heart that Jesus has forgiven me. I've been born again and cleansed by the blood of Christ! PRAISE THE LORD!"
Retards who have been so brainwashed by propaganda that they see muslims as like this comic book villain. I just listened to this deluded asshole rambling about, "They LOVE death. The only thing that makes them happier than killing is dying themselves. We can't set up democracies in the Middle East, because they don't envy our freedom, they just DESPISE it. The reason Muslims have plural marriage and have lots of kids is so they can raise more holy warriors. The Koran is nothing but a manual on how to kill and wage war."
People who know that you have artistic or musical ability that want you to make some art like the art they like. "Oh, Monet's 'Waterlillies' is so nice. Why don't you do something like that?"
Well let's see here. First off, my art is nothing like Monet, Monet's art is cool because it was his idea, and if I did an impressionist painting of waterlillies, that would make me a hack. Pardon me if my artistic vision is not what you want hanging in your precious living room.
"Artists" who have artistic ability who don't see what's wrong with using their skills to just copy other people's style.
People who lump homosexuality and bisexuality in the same category as nymphomania, alcoholism, pedophilia, bestiality, satan worship, murder, drug addiction, rape, terrorism...
Parents who make their kids eat notoriously gross food. Like, you know before you even try that your kid will hate liver and onions, and it's not even a particularly healthy thing to eat, so what's the point, just showing them who's in charge?
The fact that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report went on break on the same day Alberto Gonzales resigned and the story of senator Larry Craig trying to solicit gay sex in a public restroom broke in the media. I got home from work, turned on the TV and sat there waiting to laugh my ass off. Jon Stewart popped on the screen and started his intro. The anticipation was almost too much. Then he started talking about Karl Rove resigning, and I was like, "What the fuck? A rerun?" Seriously, if I was the producer of The Daily Show and we were on break and there was a news day like that, I would say, "Fuck it! We've got a show to do!"
Multimillionaire pro football player Michael Vick just pleaded guilty to charges of funding a dogfighting ring called "Bad Newz Kennels." Today the NAACP said, "As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Mister Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football." Uhhh... AS A SOCIETY WE SHOULD SEE THAT BRUTALLY KILLING AND MAIMING DOGS FOR ENTERTAINMENT IS FUCKED UP ENOUGH THAT THIS ASSHOLE SHOULD BE SHUNNED BY SOCIETY AND CEASE TO MAKE MILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS A YEAR FOR PLAYING A STUPID GAME. I mean, how the fuck can they justify this shit? HE KILLED DOGS FOR FUN! I mean, I know he's black, and the NAACP stands behind people who are wrongfully accused of crimes that they are accused of because of their race, but holy fuck! Pick your fucking battles. THE GUY PLED GUILTY! He fucking DID IT. If he didn't do it, don't you think he has enough money to fund an excellent defense? What a great role model for kids! What a pillar of the community! I mean, he's REALLY, REALLY GOOD AT A FUCKING GAME, and that should exonnerate him from KILLING AND MAIMING DOGS FOR ENTERTAINMENT because, DAMN! HE'S REALLY GOOD AT FOOTBALL! Fuck Michael Vick, and fuck the NAACP for thinking he's "not such a bad guy," or that he deserves our fucking support. I'm sure when Martin Luther King talked about the promised land, he was referring to a place where people who run dog fighting rings deserve our support. You fucks have lost your way.
Doctors, vets and mechanics. Whenever you go to one of these, imagine a dollar amount that seems like a high-ball realistic estimate. Then multiply that amount by three. Then add 200 bucks.
Movies based on well-known traditional stories, where they take massive "creative" license.
For instance, Blade. Here you have a vampire. Vampires do what? Let's see... they drink blood, don't age, and they can be killed by sunlight, a stake through the heart, or decapitation and holy water has some sort of pepper spray type effect on them and they can turn other people into vampires by biting them. But wait! According to Blade, vampires disintegrate when you cut them, even just on the hand, with silver. Hmmm... Silver.... Umm, the directors realize that the movie is about vampires, not werewolves, right?
Hyperconservatives who STILL, in 2007, sound like they're just reciting Dubya talking points.
"You're damn right I'm for the war! Well, we HAD to liberate Iraq from Saddam. He aided the terrorists who carried out 9/11, and he had weapons of mass destruction. Who cares if more Americans have died in Iraq than died in the 9/11 attacks, if you criticize this war, it's clear that you don't support the troops. The Iraqi people see us as liberators, not occupiers. We're fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here. We're making the world safe for democracy. The reason we were attacked is because the terrorists hate our freedom. Of course we need to be able to wiretap all Americans without court oversight. How else will we stop the terrorists from hurting your children?"
Zoos that create enclosures for animals that are focused on realism to the extent that you can't even see the animals. Granted, I don't want to see a 2x2x2 bare cement box with an animal in it, but the whole point of a zoo is that I don't have to delve through a jungle to maybe catch a fleeting glimse of some animal's tail peeking out from behind a rock, which is under a bush, which is growing on a cliff, which is 20 feet over my head.
Magazines about synthesizers that do little feature stories like "20 most influential synthesizers of all time" that don't even mention the Roland TB-303. Like, they'll go on and on about their dumb prog rock, and Emerson Lake and Palmer, and go on a windy shpiel about some huge modular synth that only 10 people owned that gave one Hawkwind song a unique sound, and then they'll feature some synth that was so uncommon that the best picture they can find of it merely shows the synth far in the background in a 1977 picture of Genesis's studio. Meanwhile, they act like techno music is totally insignificant in the history of electronic music. Here you have a genre of music that spawned subcultures and dozens of subgenres and has had significant commercial success and loads of notable figures in popular music for literally decades trying to adopt or incorporate core elements of the techno sound, and Keyboard Magazine wants to go on and on about fucking Keith Emerson month after month. Here's a tip, assholes. Techno is the single largest and longest-lived genre of synthesizer-based music ever. Writing off techno as some sort of fad in the context of the evolution of electronic music is like ignoring the dress when examining women's fashions. Sure, the Minimoog was a great synth, and probably deserves that top position you always give it in your top 20 lists, but you would think that the TB-303, which spawned far more direct emulators than any other synthesizer ever made would deserve at least an honorable mention, particularly before some obscure shit that most synth geeks have never even heard of. Most everyone who's into vintage synthesizers will recognize a 303 before your bullshit Clavitronic ZPX1305 or whatever that sold 200 units in 1979 before the Clavitronic company went out of business after only 6 months of producing them, and the magazine can only cite one or two songs that used it.
People who speak in short blurbs of unclear, nonspecific gibberish who get frustrated when you don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
"So what's up?"
"Hey, sup."
"No, I mean what happened?"
"What happened with what?"
"That guy."
"What guy?"
"You remember.... That guy."
"Uhhh..."
"The guy... Last week. What happened?"
"Guy..... Last week..... What are you talking about?"
"(Loud, annoyed sigh) The guy in the restaurant!"
"Ummmm..... We had a lot of guys in the restaurant last week."
"The guy with the thing.... You know!"
"Guy with the thing.... What?"
"(Even louder and more annoyed sigh) The fat guy!"
"Yep, we had a lot of fat guys too."
"(Super-loud and annoyed sigh) There was a fat guy..."
"Okay...."
"Who came in last Tuesday...."
"Uh-huh..."
"And he had an allergy to onions..."
"AHHHH...."
"And he got some soup that had onions in it..."
"Yeah, I know the guy now."
"What happened with him?"
"Oh, he was fine."
"Oh..... See? Was that so hard?"
"Yes, it was. Why didn't you just start by asking me about the guy with the onion allergy who got the soup?"
*Dumb shrug*
The fact that MTV still uses Techno or IDM for 90% of their station ID's and bumpers, but play none in their programming.
Animal shelters that make it unreasonably difficult to adopt a pet. Obviously you don't want to give animals to the local sketchy Chinese restaurant or a guy with a long rap sheet of dogfighting convictions or a traveling show called "Uncle Meatclamp's Super Vivisection Extravaganza," but if some normal person wants a pet, they should be able to get one. That's kind of the fucking point of an animal shelter, no? To find homes for pets? Recently I have been looking to get a kitten. No, fuck you and your "we only let you adopt full grown cats" shit. If I want a kitten, I'll fucking get one. So one place I checked will only take people by appointment, requires two letters of recommendation by people not in your family, a letter of recommendation from a vet (what if you don't have one?), a letter from your landlord stating that it is okay to have a cat, and they won't let you take the cat with you. They will deliver the cat to you so they can see your apartment and decide if it is suitable for a pet. They also require you to take your cat to them (not your own vet) for periodic vet exams. And of course, they reserve the right to reject your application for any reason without telling you why it was rejected. Adopting a fucking child is simpler. So you've got all these cats and dogs that need homes.... GOOD JOB. You set up all your policies which will ensure that many people just skip over your service and go to another shelter, or (and I know this is one of those things that piss these people off) just go BUY a pet from a breeder or pet store.
People who read that I'm trying to adopt a kitten from a shelter who immediately react by going into PETA ally-finding mode, and praise me for doing "the right thing" or "something noble" by getting a cat from a shelter instead of buying a kitten from a pet store. You know what? I really don't give a shit where I get the cat. I just figured it would be cheaper and easier to adopt rather than buying one. If that turns out not to be the case, (read the entry above) I'll probably end up buying a kitten.
Retards who wear REALLY obvious toupees. Like, I assume the desired effect is, "Hey, that guy has a full head of hair," not, "Mommy, why is that man wearing a fur hat in July?"
Seriously, have some self respect. Look in a fucking mirror. If you look in a mirror and think anything, ANYTHING other than, "There is no way anyone would think this is fake," then we all know it's a damn rug and think you're pathetic. It's not the gradient realism scale that you might think. There's no middle-ground "Well, it sorta looks real." It either looks absolutley like it's your hair growing naturally out of your head, or it's hilariously fake as fuck. Oh, and let me assure you, it IS hilarious, and we DO laugh when you walk out of the room. What's even dumber is that almost every rug I see is not even approaching that "maybe it's real" threshold. If you rate toupees on a scale of "Really? It's a toupee? I never knew," to "Hmmm... Maybe that's a toupee," to "Holy shit, what the fuck is that on your head? It looks like you stamped on a badger until it was flat and then stuck it on top of your head," I would say 90% of toupees rank badger.
Toilets that splash water all over their seats when they flush. If the first law of robotics is robots must not harm humans, the first law of toilets should be toilet water stays in the toilet.
Employees that hide and disappear and fuck off all day, and then when you finally see them, it's because they came out of hiding to tell you that they're going on break.
Cash registers at places like McDonalds that display the "Avg Srv Time." These are always bullshit. The display never shows anything over a minute. Usually the number is somewhere between 40 and 50 seconds, which is ironic, because every time I notice these displays it's because I've been in line for a million goddamn years and have exhausted things to look at so I look at the little display that says 43 seconds and think, "Well, let's see. I was the fourth person in line when I got here, and now I'm the second person in line, and it's been at least ten minutes, so, uhh, BULLSHIT!"
The fact that every single day of my life I don't go to bed until well after the point where I stop, look at the clock, and think, "I am an idiot for still being awake."
That bullshit in Windows Media Player where it's supposed to acquire codecs it doesn't have to play sound and video files. I look at a ton of stupid shit on the internet, and NOT ONCE have I ever seen the little text in Media Player SUCCESSFULLY get a codec. Whenever you see "Acquiring Codec," you know that the next message will invariably be "Error downloading Codec." YOU CAN'T EVER DO IT RIGHT, SO STOP PRETENDING. It's like if someone asked me to use telekinesis to lift an object, and I made a straining face while looking like I'm concentrating, and then I let out a sigh and said, "Sorry, I tried, but I can't." BULLSHIT.
At my job we often get waiters from temp waiter agencies to help us with large events. Occasionally, one of these waiters misunderstands the idea of "temp" and decides to try to get more hours. While some of our better temps get invited to work several times a week, or eventually get hired as permanent employees, for the most part, we usually bring in most of these temps only when it's very busy or we have a particularly large event. One of these temps has apparently figured out the perfect way to get no hours at all. It's as though she's making a guide on how never to get hours from me. I can guarantee she's never going to work for me again. Her technique in assuring this is as accurate and perfect as if she read my mind.
HOW NOT TO GET HOURS FROM ME:
1. Show up to work looking like a slob.
2. Come early so as to try to get extra time in without permission.
3. Do a crappy job.
4. When I call you to ask if you can work, record my personal cell phone number.
5. Call my personal cell phone 5 times every day asking for work.
6. Wait no more than 2 minutes between each of these five calls.
7. Leave a voicemail on every call.
8. Begin each voicemail with the same creepy, disingenuous "Good day, sir."
9. Be the live-in girlfriend of another temp waiter who isn't stellar, and when I call for him, answer the phone and ask if there are any hours for you.
10. Get your boyfriend to ask for hours for you every time he works.
11. Get your boyfriend to call my personal cell phone and ask for hours for you.
Americans who still can't grasp a simple concept: If our only solution is to kill or torture people who threaten and disagree with us, it will make more people threaten and disagree with us.
People who give themselves truly horrible looking amateurish homemade tattoos. There is one word that should stick in your mind above all others when you're about to get a tattoo: FOREVER. Yet, I frequently see these piece of shit tattoos that looked like they were done by some staggering, drunk asshole stabbing himself in the arm with a papermate while looking in the bathroom mirror. The guy sitting across from me on the subway right now is apparently right handed, as he has a cross on the webbing bewteen his left thumb and index finger, and a capital letter N on the knuckle of his left middle finger. It looks as though he was trying to draw on his hand with a blue Sharpie marker while someone was doing that bully big brother "stop hitting yourself" game, and since he probably used marker ink or something, it's faded and pale, and the characters are sloppy and irregular. Oh, and to some, the next point might seem tangential, but I think it punctuates the previous idea very poignantly. I noticed his hands because he had a big stack of lottery scratch-off tickets, which he sat and scratched off, one after the other.
On July 3rd, President Bush had a choice to make.
A.) Let Scooter Libby go to jail and serve his time for the felony charges that a jury in federal court found him guilty of, which was actually a very lenient punishment for treason, and thus save a tiny bit of integrity.
B.) Say fuck it and basically pardon him, tossing what little credibilty you have to the wind, as you once again hold personal loyalty far above justice, integrity and simple common sense. Perhaps this concept eluded you, but sacrificial lambs get sacrificed, and fall guys fall.
Oh, uhh, guess which one he chose.
Of course, the optimist in me would like to believe that he's breaking those last few matchsticks and that Americans will eventually slam their fists on their desks and say, "That's it! This asshole has gone too far! Who the fuck does he think he is?!" But then on the 5th, I was standing in the grocery store line and saw the front of the USA Today. The front page stories were, "Al Gore's son had pot in his car," and "What will we do if Harry Potter dies in the last book?" and then I remembered that they will always get away with their bullshit because Americans are fucking retarded. I went to work and tried to strike up a conversation with a coworker. "Can you believe Bush basically pardoned Scooter Libby?"
"Who?"
About a week later, at a press conference, Bush was asked about the issue and he said he felt that the outcome was fair and that it had "run its course." Uhhh.... FUCK YOU! WE will tell you when it's run its course. Nixon resigned over less. It's like a bank robber stopping in the middle of the getaway chase and telling the cops, "Sorry, guys, but I think this has run its course. You can go home now. Shoo." This situation is over when WE decide it's over. You're the one with some 'splaining to do, and we won't let you shrug us off.
Oliver Stone made a proposal to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a movie about him, but he rejected the idea because Stone was an American, and hence, part of "The Great Satan." ....... HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAH! That guy is a fucking hoot.
"I'll pray for you." You know what? Don't. Obviously you know how fucking condescending this is or you wouldn't say it. It's like a last stab in an argument. "I don't respect your opinion at all. Obviously you're too stupid to believe in the same imaginary being as me, so I will take it upon myself to beg this fake god, not to spare you, but to convince you that he's real so that you too can submit and kiss his ass, and see yourself as a lowly scumbag in need of forgiveness for things that are perfectly natural, but deemed heinous crimes by people who believe in the same fairy tale as me. Hopefully, after you believe the same bullshit I do, he won't decide to destroy you and torture you forever."
Last weekend, treetrunk-necked professional wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and seven year old son before hanging himself. The internet, in true detached-fuckhead fashion overflowed with idiots saying things like "RIP Chris Benoit," and, "It's such a tragedy, he was one of my favorite wrestlers." Look. I know you guys have small brains, as something like being a wrestling fan sort of requires it, but LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. The guy KILLED HIS WIFE AND KID. That is tragic FOR THEM, not for for Chris Benoit. Awww, but he killed himself.... AS HE SHOULD HAVE. The only thing good that came from the incident is that the perpetrator is dead. Of course, they try to retort that he was obviously suffering from mental problems stemming from the use of anabolic steroids, like that will make me say, "Oh... Then I guess he couldn't help it. Poor guy." No. FUCK that shit. A woman and seven year old kid are dead because this asshole wanted to make his freakishly thick neck even thicker. The whole thing is his fault from start to finish, and it's times like this that I wish God was real, because it would be comforting to know that this asshole is suffering somewhere.
Clients who give you twenty pages of instructions for an order, who get furious at you for missing something minor that was 3/4 of the way down on page 17 and is two words long, particularly when the missing thing is fixed in five minutes and nobody but them even noticed it was missing. Like I have this one client that flies off the handle over the littlest shit. The other day she came to me literally red in the face and shaking all over to tell me, "Your waiters put out the coffee and milk, BUT THEY FORGOT THE HALF AND HALF! I SPECIFICALLY SAID I WANTED HALF AND HALF!" Of course, her group had not yet arrived, and the waiters brought the half and half long before they ever did, but she acted like someone had shoved a spear in her mother.
The fact that about 95% of the time, someone who says, "I don't have time to deal with other people's drama," are, themselves, completely characterized by being a huge mess of their own drama. You don't have time because you can't even handle your own.
The fact that about 95% of the time, someone who says, "You know me, I don't like to complain," is someone who complains incessantly about fucking everything.
Girls who learn to pole dance and try to separate its origins from what they're doing. "This isn't something risque, it's just a lot of fun and good exercise." Oh, so pole dancing has nothing whatsoever to do with strippers, huh? You just HAPPEN to be wearing vinyl go-go boots with three inch platforms and you just HAPPEN to be holding yourself up with your ass cheeks. How many calories do you burn when you slide the pole between your tits like that?
Videogames where your enemies are impervious to environmental hazards that would kill you if you ran through them. Like, I understand the concept of a lava monster that lives in lava and is made of lava, and is, hence, not negatively affected by being in lava, but if a bunch of human soldiers are running through a mine field to get me, a mine field, which, if I ran through it would kick my ass, some of those assholes had better lose a leg or there's some bullshit going on.
People who need to use an electrical outlet who unplug something of yours, who then don't plug it back when they're done. So you have your cell phone plugged into a charger that isn't plugged in, then you go to put it back on your belt clip, and look at it, and it's dead. "What the fuck?"
Today I overheard someone say "Janjuary." Oh, and uhhh... I didn't mishear it, because I was standing right next to her and she said it twice. Jan-ju-ary.... No, no... She was a native English speaker.... Yep... Janjuary. Just something I heard..... That's all...... *Brain explodes*
Today I got in a debate with this Christian who used the Gregorian Calendar as EVIDENCE of the truth of Christianity. "Just look at a calendar. What YEAR does it say it is?" (Sideways smile.) Look. All that is evidence of is that the people who made the calendar were Christians. Beyond that, 2007 is a totally arbitrary number. It's like the celcius temperature scale. It's based on the physical properties of water. Water boils at 100 degrees celcius and freezes at 0. This doesn't prove some farout cosmic truth. It just means that whoever decided to make the celcius temperature scale decided to base it on water. IT'S NOT LIKE GOD CAME DOWN AND SAID, "LOOK AT MY PDA! SEE? IT'S FEBRUARY 24, 1582! FIGURE THE REST OUT!" If anything, Catholics just took the Julian Calendar, stuck Jesus' supposed birthday in there, and named the calendar after the Pope Gregory XIII. WOW! THAT'S SO SCIENTIFIC!
Idiots who think that being an atheist means "You don't believe in anything." Uh, fuck you. I believe in plenty. I just tend not to believe in unprovable and highly unlikely things like God, the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I believe in different things than you do. Does your disbelief in the things I believe in mean you don't believe in anything? Of course not. What really pissed me off was seeing a news clip of Christians complaining about atheists' complaints that they were being persecuted. The Christians' main argument was that they were justified in persecuting atheists for their beliefs since atheists didn't believe in anything, so it's not actually religious persecution, and thus, is completely constitutional. Other excuses that they used which are 100% bullshit were: "Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion," "This is a Christian nation," "All morals come from God so atheists have no morals," "Love can only come from God, so atheists don't know how to love," "So they want to take 'Under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Where does it end?" They also complained that a public school was made to say a Muslim prayer at a football game since a Christian prayer was also said, implying that Muslims do not, and should not, have the same rights as Christians in America. Also, keep in mind that this point was made during a discussion about atheists in America, implying that Muslims are atheists. This was on the Paula Zahn show, which is on CNN, and this even-handed news channel chose as its panel for this discussion: a hardcore Christian supremacist, another hardcore Christian supremacist, and as the voice of reason, a Christian who says basically "I disagree strongly with what Atheists are all about, but maybe they have the right to express some of their opinions.... maybe."
Companies that see some other company that has a really great business idea or model that makes them almost instantly hugely successful, who then try to copy the idea and make their own business that offers a very similar service that is not nearly are good. For instance, Netflix popped up, and offered a service where you pay a very reasonable monthly fee, and they ship you DVD's in about one day, and include a means for you to return them postage-paid, and they will send you 3 or 4 DVD's at a time with no late fees, etc. and they have a fucking ass-ton of movies. (I don't mean to plug, but I seriously think they kick ass.) Then about a year later, some other company pops up that offers a through-the-mail DVD rental service where you pay about what you would pay at Netflix, but they have 25% as many movies, will send you one DVD at a time, gets movies to you in 4-5 days, has tons of hassles like not shipping your orders, acting like they didn't receive your returns when they actually did, and you have to stamp the envelope for your returns. WHY BOTHER? I mean, seriously, you're supposed to be the COMPETITION, so COMPETE. There should be a reason why you get customers other than because people didn't do any research and picked the wrong company.
Children who don't understand concepts like, "Don't pick the dog up by its tail."
Parents who don't understand concepts like why someone would yell at their child for picking the dog up by its tail and don't immediately take over the role of person yelling at the child picking the dog up by its tail, but instead think you are a horrible person for making their retarded child cry.
I remember when I was a kid I had a pet turtle. One of my little sister's friends was over. They were both about five. I saw the kid walk over to the aquarium and there was an instant panic reaction. It was as though I could see the future for a moment and caught a glimpse of my turtle hurtling towards the ground. The kid picked up the turtle, and I tried to hold back and give the kid the benefit of the doubt. "Be careful. Don't drop it," I said. Anyone who has ever picked up a turtle knows that a healthy one will always do one of two things. Either it will hide in its shell, or it will squirm and try to make you let it go. My turtle did the latter. Five seconds after he picked up the turtle, my clairvoyant vision proved to be true, and there was my turtle with a cracked shell writhing in pain on the cement back porch of my house. At this point I stopped holding back and did what most pet owners would do in a situation where some dumbass has inflicted a potentially fatal wound to their pet. I flipped out. Later, I was told that the kid's parents would no longer let him come to our house because I was mean. Uhh, fine. Fuck you. GOOD. Don't come over, dumbass. I wish you had never come over in the first place and hurt my pet. Better yet, why don't you come over so I can drop you on the back porch from 20 times your height to see if you like it.
Non-spammer spammers on Myspace. You know these people, and I'm not talking about Jen, Mindy, Tara, Michelle, Stacey, and Cassie, who all have 1 friend each and all sent you friend requests in a span of fourteen seconds with pics of them in thongs on webcams with identical porn-site links in their profiles. I'm talking about people who are in a band, or are comedians, or have online auctions, or are promoting a nightclub, who request you as a friend, and they seem legit, then you accept, and three times a day you get a bulletin about how to download their songs, buy t-shirts in their store, bid on stuff on Ebay, see them at such-and-such nightclub next week, etc. Can you say, "Delete from friends"?
People who hear that Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia steal jokes, and are then shown undeniable evidence, who then retort with, "Stop crying about it. Those guys are making millions and have tons of fans. I like Mencia's version better anyway. Don't cry just because you're jealous. You're just a bunch of haters." Uhhh.... FUCK you. Those guys are making millions on STOLEN JOKES. Maybe, just MAYBE, the people who should be enjoying that success are the people who WROTE and first performed those fucking jokes.
Girls who wear shoes that are obviously too small. Okay, so you have huge feet like a seven foot tall man, but you are not making it less obvious by wearing shoes that look like they could explode off your feet at any second. Look. You're wearing open toed shoes, and every one of your not-so little piggies is hanging off the front of the shoes and is on the cement. WRONG.
Clients who expect, nay, DEMAND personal service for simple things that would be faster and easier, for both the client and the service provider, if they just placed the order automatically.
The client goes to my company's webpage, skips past the "Order Form" link and goes straight to the "How to contact us" link.
"Hi, uhh, hello. Hi. Is this Chompy Catering? Hi. Okay. How are you today? I was, uhh, hoping maybe I could talk to someone about booking an, uhh, event. Yeah, uh, I have some bushiness associates coming into town, and, uhh, we were going to have a, uhh, meeting on, uhh, August 12th. Oh, uh, it's going to be on the uhh, 11th floor. Oh, uhh, in conference room C. Uhhhh.... Well, we were hoping maybe to get some refreshments, and uhh, what? Oh, at 8am. Well, it's kinda early so we were thinking maybe we could get some, oh, I donno... maybe some coffee, maybe some bottled water, and uhhh, do you have danishes? How about bagels? Do you have doughnuts? What about croissants? Hmmm.... Maybe we'll just get some bagels. Oh, uhh, it'll be for four people. No, no china. Paper and plastic is fine. Is that all you need? Oh, uhh, I'll be the host, so you can, uhh, put it under Joe Blow... J as in Janet, O as in Omelette, E as in, uhhhhhhhh Ear, B as in Boy, L as in.... uhhhh Loser, O as in Optical, W as in, uhhhh, Weenie. Huh? Oh, the cost center is 4325. That's it? So will you send me like a confirmation email? Okay, thanks!"
Yeah, thanks. Now that I'm done with your staggeringly demanding order for coffee, water and bagels for four, for two months from now, I can call the CEO's assistant back so we can have another planning meeting for that cocktail and dinner for 350 people next week. Hopefully she has picked out which wines, linen, china, silverware, glassware, flowers, background music, candles, hors d' oeuvres, cocktail food stations, appetizer, salad, main course choices and dessert and audio-visual equipment she wants.
Meanwhile, you could have just fucking hit the website, clicked "Order form," and then typed Joe Blow, tab, 4325, tab, 4, clicked calendar, Aug 12, tab, 8am, tab, down arrow, 11th floor, tab, down arrow, C, then clicked Coffee, Water, Bagels, and SUBMIT, and not only would you have been DONE, but you would have instantly gotten a confirmation, and I would have received a completed order sheet AUTOMATICALLY. Welcome to the fucking modern age, asshole.
I am currently sitting across from a woman who is about 35 years old. She is wearing a tank top with a low neckline to show her cleavage... which is covered in a forest of curly, black chest hair.
Paranoid fucks who think you're following them in areas where you really don't have any option other than to keep walking behind them. Of course, the only other option would be to maybe run past them, but that would almost definitely seem more crazy than just walking behind them, and they'd probably start screaming or maybe stab you.
Like today, I was standing in the elevator bank at work. waiting to go to the second floor. There was this other guy there and he kept looking at me. The elevator came and I got in and pressed 2. The other guy was also going to 2 and I guess he didn't feel that the 2 was sufficiently lit up so he pressed again. "Oh shit! He's going to my floor!"
The elevator stopped at 2 and we got off. I was going to the east side of the building. "Oh shit! I'm going to the east side too!" What are the odds of both of us going to the east side? Pretty good, since about 80% of everything of note on that floor is east of the elevator bank. From the elevator bank, there's a long hallway, with literally nowhere to turn off except men's and women's restrooms. Since I wasn't going to the restroom, that put me behind this guy for about 50 feet, and about every 10 feet he would half stop, look over his shoulder and give me a "What the fuck? Are you following me?" look.
GET HELP! Nobody is following you..... you paranoid shithead who I am going to sneak up on and strangle with piano wire as I buttrape your mouth and put my diseases in you.
People who still think putting a Dilbert comic on their cubicle is edgy.
While I retain a deep hatred of flyer assholes, the ones that really piss me off are the ones with attitudes. Today I was walking down the street when I saw fliers scattered all around on the sidewalk where people had thrown them down. Standing at the radius of this circle of litter was this guy with a stack of fliers in his hand looking at me and moving in to cut me off. Almost all flyer fucks do this to basically block your way so they can literally shove their flyer for "20% off men's suits" or "Flashdancers" or "Free shave with a haircut" or some other crap in your hand. It's like being flyer raped.
So I see this guy and do what I normally do. I stare straight ahead as though he isn't there, and don't say a word as I walk past him. This guy, however, was deeply offended that I was uninterested in whatever dogshit he was trying to foist on me. HOW DARE I?
"Pssssht! Whatever, dick!"
"Oh really? What am I missing out on?" The guy looked really confused. "What's the flyer for?"
"Huh? Uhhh, it's a latin band promo."
"Oh, so you're giving me shit for not taking your ad for some crappy band that I couldn't give two shits about? Fuck you."
"Fuck YOU!" The guy looked almost as pissed off as he looked confused.
"All you're doing is creating litter, idiot. Get a real job."
He was a gifted wordsmith. "Uhhh.. Pfff Tsss FUCK YOU!" he shouted as I walked away.
Fuckheads who want to start a mosh pit at EVERY concert. I can fully understand why a pit would happen at a Ministry concert, but if you're seeing Orbital you need to calm the fuck down.
People who go to a concert where there definitely will be a mosh pit, who stand right near the front, right in the middle, and then get bitchy when people around them don't behave.
Recently, I saw Skinny Puppy live. It was the third time I've seen them live. Skinny Puppy is very energetic, very loud, very theatrical, and EXTREMELY noisy. It's a given that there will be a pit at Skinny Puppy. It would actually be really strange if there wasn't. Huge mosh pits turned out to be three for three.
So I'm right near the front, and next to me is this girl who is trying to make out with her boyfriend more than she's really trying to watch the show. So they play Tin Omen, which gets the crowd pumped up, and a huge wave of people surges forward and presses me against this chick and her boyfriend. At this point, I'm basically just trying to stay on my feet and not fall down. Then this bitch starts honking at me. "OH MY GOD! GET THE FUCK OFF ME! GOD! WHAT THE FUCK!"
I'm like, "I'm sorry! What can I do?" And seriously, I have the weight of a few hundred people pushing me forward. So sorry for not being physically able to to stand like the The Rock of Gibraltar as the wave of bodies breaks against me. Should I just stand up straight and hold them back so I don't touch precious Princess Ragsalot? If you don't want to be pushed in the middle of a pit, get the fuck out of it. We all paid the same amount for our tickets. The additional price of the best view in the house is being jostled around a bit. Tough shit. Realize where the fuck you are.
Skim Milk. Seriously, fuck that shit. And while we're at it, fuck the sliced melon and yogurt for breakfast crowd. I never was one of those steak, bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy breakfast guys, but if you're going to eat a 14 calorie meal for breakfast, just don't eat. There's no point.
Below is a list of things that milk was never meant to be:
Translucent
Blue-Grey
Thin
Watery
Flavorless
Nonfattening
Consumed by women who are average height and 92 pounds who think they are fat.
Milk is a fatty substance and always has been. Think about what it is and where is comes from. It is a fatty substance, which comes from a fatty animal that weighs three quarters of a ton, that is a food source for its fatty, quarter-ton offspring... SO IT CAN PUT ON WEIGHT AND GROW.
If you are still insistent on drinking this weird shit, the least you can do is save some money. A quart of skim milk costs $1.99. However, a quart of whole milk also costs $1.99. First, take eight empty gallon milk jugs. Next, pour 1/8 of a whole milk quart in each of the eight jugs. Finally, fill the jugs the rest of the way with cold water. WOW! You just got eight gallons of skim milk for $1.99! Now you can take that money you saved and shove it up your ass!
Adults who seriously act like three year olds. The other day I saw this girl arguing with her boyfriend. Of course, there was copious yelling and foot stamping, but then she did something truly hilarious. She threw her Blackberry phone on the sidewalk and broke it. YEAH, BREAKING A 500 DOLLAR PHONE WILL DEFINITELY FIX THE PROBLEM AND MAKE YOU HAPPY!
I was already pissed off enough that Paris Hilton was released from jail three days into her 45 day sentence, then, as always, Al Sharpton had to go and make me even madder.
"It had all the appearances of economic and racial favoritism. I think it's another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to me a different criminal justice system for some than others."
While his horrible grammar by itself is enough to make my eye twitch, and I do agree that her celebrity and wealth were almost definitely factors in her release, I want to sit Al down and explain something that he doesn't seem to ever understand. NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS EVERYWHERE EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY ON THE PLANET EARTH IS A CONSPIRACY WITH THE EXPRESS INTENT OF OPPRESSING BLACK PEOPLE. I mean, I know that's your shtick and all, but Paris Hilton getting out of jail early has about as much to do with black people as the price of orange juice has to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regardless of her race, if she was a white blonde girl, or arab or chinese or black or hispanic or indian or whatever, if Paris Hilton had all her wealth and celebrity, I have no doubt the outcome would have been exactly the same.
Opening bands at concerts that are so bad that it seems like the only reasons they were picked is to be endured as a test of the headliner's fans' dedication, and because they couldn't possibly upstage the headliner.
People who still act like crop circles have some sort of unearthly origin. Hey, assholes. The people who were making them came clean years ago, and they even showed how to make them. IT WASN'T UFO'S, RETARDS, SO STOP ACTING LIKE THERE'S SOME DEEP SIGNIFICANCE. At best, you could call crop circles art, or maybe a prank. It would also be fair to call them a HOAX.
People who, when they are inconvenienced in a tiny way, act as though you have committed some atrocity against their family.
"Do you have any poppy seed bagels?"
"Sorry, we ran out. We have plain, whole wheat, pumpernickel, sesame seed, onion, cinnamon raisin and everything bagels."
"Pfff, but, but I WANTED A POPPY SEED BAGEL! GOD, THIS COMPANY IS A PIECE OF CRAP. ALL I WANTED WAS A POPPY SEED BAGEL! IS THAT SO HARD? ANSWER ME! I'M GOING TO EMAIL YOUR SUPERIORS, AND IF THERE ARE NO POPPY SEED BAGELS TOMORROW THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!"
Inconsistent security bullshit.
Like sometimes when I bring someone into the building at work, security wants me to escort them, and they want their driver's license, passport, birth certificate, credit report, police record, FBI file, fingerprints, a blood sample, a hair sample and an imprint of their teeth.
Other times someone just shows up in my office. "How did you get in?"
"They just let me in."
Things that are obviously supposed to be refrigerated that say so on the package. Look. If you don't know that milk needs to be refrigerated, you're too stupid to read "Keep Refrigerated," and if you're that dumb, please don't refrigerate your milk because you deserve to be sick.
People who think they're making some kind of deep connection with people through completely unremarkable interests and experiences.
"Wow, you like 'The Godfather?' I love that movie! Wow!"
Here's a tip. About 99.999% of Americans have heard of, seen, and liked "The Godfather."
People in charge of making announcements who can't even speak English. This morning on the train:
"Dis Queenpwaza, tronfear to N, Dawbew. Nastop Core Hauza Squeer." (This is Queens Plaza, transfer to the N or W. Next stop: Court House Square.) I also liked when he referred to Grand Central as "Gron Cenreel."
Those moments when I get a song stuck in my head that I despise.
I was working on a meeting today and noticed the microphones at the head table.
The thought process went something like this.
"Hmm, I wonder how much that microphone costs.... Oh look, there's a sticker on it. Hmmm, 'King Cole Audio Rentals.' Old King Cole. Nat King Cole. Natalie Cole. Hmm, Natalie Cole sucks. Oh fuck, remember that horrible shit where she sang over her Dad's song? God, what a hack! And all those retards thought it was amazing, and they still play the stupid remake instead of the original song at wedding receptions and shit. I wonder if that bitch would even have a job if she actually had to write her songs..... That's why, darling, it's incredible, how someone so unforgettable, thinks that I am unforgettable tooooo FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
Two hour later...
"Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me FUCKIN' FUCK!"
People who talk with their hands on the phone.
Motherfuckers who call me and CHEW THEIR FOOD IN MY EAR. Just what I need to brighten up my day. "Hi, smack smack, I just smack wanted to see glitch smack if you had any glick meeting rooms available smack smack for June 7th. Smack glick slop smack..."
FUCK you. That's goddamn disgusting. Do you want me to call you and put the phone directly against my asshole the next time I need to squeeze out a really drippy fart? You probably don't, and that's exactly how I feel about your smacky chewing noises.
People with the complete lack of instincts for self preservation needed to experiment with extremely addictive substances like crack and crystal meth. I mean, most people my age have probably tried pot, maybe LSD, mushrooms, etc, but it takes a special kind of stupid to get into meth. I mean seriously, what's the attraction. Are these people thinking, "I'm trying meth... This should turn out well." There's not a lot of glamour in a drug that makes you lose 100 pounds, makes your teeth disintegrate into little black rocks and makes a 23 year old look like a 75 year old in a year. I mean, I want to have sympathy, but fuck you. I think to myself, would I try something like that? NO. Of course not. Why not? Because I'm not retarded. I hate to say it, but crack and meth addicts really make me stop mourning the victims of Darwin's hit list. The strong survive. The weak say, "Sure, meth sounds like a load of laughs!" Fuck you.
Nerds that wear a black button-down shirt thinking it gives them that "formal, yet edgy" look, when in fact it just makes them look like more of a nerd, since only nerds do this. You want a bolo tie with that? Seriously, all this fashion statement says is, "I have a level 60 Druid." Sorry to break it to ya.
"Do you have any experience in this field?"
"No."
"Do you have any references?"
"No."
"Do you have any degrees?"
"No."
"Did you at least graduate from High School?"
"Uhhhh.... I dunno."
"You know what? That's okay because I'm a slimy dirtbag of a manager, and you're a pretty girl and that makes me horny. I'm going to give you the job because there's an extremely slim chance that you will realize I threw you a bone and then maybe you will fuck me. Of course, the odds of you fucking me are infinitesimal, but hey, I might as well give it a shot. You can start on Monday."
Automatic-stop faucets in restrooms where the function "don't waste water" far overrides the function "let people wash their hands." I, by far, am not one of these OCD people who washes and washes and washes his hands until they are raw, but I just washed my hands in a restroom and I had to restart the faucet FIVE times to wash my hands.
On a side note, OCD is definitely the funniest disorder ever. Sorry, but turning a light switch on and off fifty times to make sure it's off is pure comedy. I'm sorry, and I know people with OCD suffer, and if they suffered in a less hilarious way, I would be 100% sympathetic.
People who submit lyrics to lyrics database websites that are incorrect. Uhhh... If millions of people like a song, it's likely that a high proportion of them know the fucking words, and when they read your submission on the page, their response is going to be, "WHAT? WRONG!"
What's even dumber is when the lyrics appear in the album liner notes, and people don't just copy them over to the page, but instead write down the incorrect shit they think they hear.
Neckties that start disintegrating after you wear them a couple of times. I recently got a tie and the second time I wore it, I took off my jacket and noticed little bits of navy blue fuzz all over my shirt. After brushing it off, I saw that my tie was all furry looking. I pulled at the fur and it came off in my hand easily, leaving a spot on the tie with no navy blue in the pattern.
People who distribute video and music files on the internet in fucked up formats that often require you to install new media player programs. Look. Mp3. Avi. Mpg. That's all you fucking need. What's the fucking point of having eighty million different types of files that need eighty million different media programs to play. Let's see here. Here's a BHF file that only plays in MegaPlayer Pro, and here's a UBT file that only plays in Omni Media Center, and here's a GDO file that only plays in CineSpark Plus, and here's a MMX file that only plays in Media Maestro HD, and here's a URM file that only plays in PowerPlayer 9.0, and here's a FUK file that only plays in Sketchyplayer Adware DeliveryBot.
Here's some perspective. I wasn't interested enough in this movie enough to see it in the theatre. I wasn't interested enough to buy the DVD. I wasn't even interested enough to put it in my Netflix cue, among over 100 other movies that I just stuck in there in case they might be entertaining. I was barely interested enough to hit "download" and will probably end up watching 20 minutes of it out of the corner of my eye while I'm playing Final Fantasy and deleting it. Do you think I'm interested in it enough to install or even fucking BUY some stupid software just to watch it? HAH! Fuck you.
Drug testing in workplaces where safety and public health are not issues. Look. If people in your company operate a crane or pilot a 747 or perform open heart surgery, then fuck yes, your employees had better be clean, but if the most dangerous thing that happens in your workplace is putting the yellow forms in this filing cabinet and the pink forms in that filing cabinet, then fuck you, it's none of your fucking business what your employees do over the weekend.
I'm not saying everyone has to accept everyone else's worldview, but I have met people who can't even grasp the concept that other people even have very different ways of thinking. Here's a summary of a conversation I just had with a 40 year old man.
"So what's the deal with these guys who were plotting that attack on Fort Dix?"
"Basically some muslim radicals were going to try to kill as many American soldiers as possible."
"But... Don't they believe in the Ten Commandments?"
"Uhh... No."
"And they think they'll go to heaven?"
"Apparently."
"But that's stupid. If they suicide bomb, and die, they can't even pray to Jesus to forgive them, so how are they supposed to go to heaven?"
"Uhhh... I don't think they're too concerned about what Jesus has to say about it."
"But don't muslims believe in Jesus?"
"Well, they do, but he doesn't really have as much of a leading role in their book."
Here's one for everyone who has had the pleasure of working in foodservice.
Captain: "Chef, the people are arriving."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "The people are sitting down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "We're going to take the order now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "Okay, here are the orders."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "We're going to serve the appetizer now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "All the apps are down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "They're done with the apps. We're going to clear."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "Apps are cleared. We're going to serve the salad now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "All salads are down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "They're done with the salads. We're going to clear."
Chef: "Okay."
The captain walks to the hot line with 20 waiters who are each holding two cloth napkins for carrying hot plates.
Captain: "Okay, salads are cleared. We're ready."
Chef: "Ready for what?"
Captain: "To pick up entrees."
Chef: "WHAT? You never said you were getting ready to take out entrees! They're not done yet! Come back in 10 minutes! What the fuck! You need to learn to communicate with the kitchen better! You can't just walk in here and go 'SURPRISE! I'm ready to pick up entrees!'"
Turnstiles that have that little annoying delay before releasing. You swipe your ID card, the thing beeps, the light turn green, you walk forward, then get clotheslined.
Perhaps the only thing dumber than all-fluff news shows like The Today Show are those retarded assholes who stand outside the window with their stupid posterboard signs that say shit like "Happy Birthday Steve" and "Go Cats!" I mean seriously, if you ever wondered why New Yorkers were rude to tourists, wonder no more. "Well here we are in what could be considered one of the epicenters of human culture and achievement. What should we do? I know! Let's set the alarm clock for 5am so we can dress up like idiots and go stand on the sidewalk outside The Today Show holding a "Hi Mom" sign for a few hours in 20 degree weather in hopes of being on camera waving like idiots for a fraction of a second, which nobody will even pay attention to or remember."
Nosy fucks who always instinctively probe for more information than you were offering. For instance, you want to show them a picture you took on your digital camera. You select the picture you want to show them, then hand them the camera with the intended picture displaying. They look at the picture for 1.3 seconds, then start hitting the directional buttons to see what other pictures you have stored.
"Hey, that's a cool cell phone. Can I see it?"
"Sure." You hand them the phone.
"Wow, this is nice," they say as they immediately look to see who is in your phone book and try to search for pictures you might have taken.
People who are terrified of completely harmless animals.
People who still believe that the environment is perfectly fine, and that any shift in climate or change in water, air and soil quality, mass extinctions, etc are just natural occurrences, and even if humans are responsible for the ecosystem falling apart, who gives a shit.
People who recognize that the environment is in trouble who think that a perfectly reasonable expectation is that all people on the planet will scrap their cars, buy bicycles, eat only organic food, recycle everything, stop patronizing any company that ever produced more than an ounce of pollution, limit families to one child per couple, stop using paper, stop using plastic, stop using all artificial chemicals, etc etc. I think Bill Maher said it best. "If Americans were told that they could reverse global warming by simply getting up and changing the channel instead of using the remote control, how long do you think it would take them to just be like, 'Ah fuck it.'?"
Oh, and just a little tip for Sheryl Crow... I have thought you were a dumbass for years, but I really never fathomed how bad it was. Do you really think that telling people they should only use ONE SQUARE OF TOILET PAPER WHEN THEY WIPE THEIR ASSES is a realistic way to advance your environmentalist agenda? While I do feel that we are, to an extent, on the same side in this fight, you will have to pardon me if I don't shake your hand.
People who don't speak much English who only understand you if you use English words arranged in a way that native English speakers would not understand.
"Could you take those boxes around back to the freight entrance?"
"Uhhhhh...."
"Boxes take street there, coming left. Big door. Uhhh, truck big door on back for trucks. Boxes take there."
"Ahhh, okay!"
Science is like an unfamiliar road. You walk down the road, and you might have an idea of where you would like to end up, and after walking 100 miles, you stop, compare your expectations to where you are, and think, "What have I learned?" Then, as you look ahead into the distance as the road twists off into the horizon and vanishes from sight, you think, "I have a lot more to learn," and you adjust your backpack and continue walking.
The difference between science and Christian "science" is that in Christian "science" you see the unfamiliar road and say, "If I walk 100 miles down this road, I will be in the middle of downtown Chicago," then, after walking 100 miles, and taking no exits or detours, the Christian "scientist" stops on the outskirts of Paducah, Kentucky and proudly proclaims, "WOW! Chicago sure has changed a lot since my last visit."
If your GOAL is not to discover, but to prove the Bible is true, you are not a scientist.
Anyone who likes or dislikes music based on where it's from. I'm not talking about like Tuvian throat music or J-pop, or Calypso, which have obvious roots that can't really be denied, but like, if you hate a certain rapper because he's from Brooklyn, and you're from "DA BOOGIE DOWN BRONX, AND YO, BROOKLYN IS BULLSHIT, MAN!" ... you're an idiot. The same applies to the whole East Coast / West Coast rap thing, the whole UK / Detroit techno thing, etc etc.
Cell phones, like the one I am writing this entry on, whose vibrating silent ringer is so slight you would need sensitive equipment to detect it. People try to call me all the time, and I feel it maybe once every five calls.
Bands, comedians, etc. that do national tours, and for some unknown reason skip New York City. Oh, right. You go to Beaufort, North Carolina and Muncie, Indiana and fucking Falls City, Nebraska, with a population of 4,500 people, but you skip New York City? Maybe you didn't hear me clearly. NEW YORK CITY. More people in NYC would want to buy tickets to your event than even live in Moab, Utah, so what the fuck are you thinking stopping there and not here?
Swingers or other people in "open" relationships who want the whole world to know that they are swingers and are totally sexually liberated, etc. who are completely physically repellant. Picturing one of them having sex with anyone is just gross, and picturing them having sex with each other is even worse, and picturing them having sex together with any third party is even worse, and picturing them having sex together with YOU is enough to make you throw up in your mouth. Unfortunately, this seems to apply to almost everyone who professes to be a swinger. I've met a few people who said they were in open relationships, and about 1% of them looked halfway decent. The rest were like saggy jello trolls with pedophile mustaches and gorilla-like shoulder hair, and that's just the women.
People who use my work computer without asking, and are then deeply offended when I ask, "Uhh, what are you doing?"
Let me explain something. There is one thing I hate more than having fucked up popup ads and spyware and shit, and that's looking for a job because Tubgirl found its way into my history on my work computer.
People who use recreational drugs who think that every rock, techno, industrial, etc. song is about a drug experience.
People who like rock, techno, industrial, etc. who are naive enough to believe that drugs played no part in the creative process in a lot of music that they enjoy.
Guys who check out every, EVERY woman who walks past them. I mean, if Masuimi Max walks past you, you kind of can't help but do a double-take, but I see guys who will pinch a fucking nerve by making their head do a prolonged Linda Blair 360 to stare at completely unremarkable, or even unattractive girls. This morning I was waiting for the train, and a train pulled into the station, and I saw this guy who was sitting on the train craning his neck to see this girl who was standing next to me on the platform. He kept staring at her until the train pulled out of the station. I knew she was there, but had not really noticed what she looked like. After seeing this guy falling over himself trying to get a better look, I started to wonder if maybe I was missing something, so I looked at her.
Before me stood a woman who was about 30 years old, 5'6"ish with straight, mouse brown hair about shoulder length cut in an unremarkable way. She was white. She was maybe a few pounds overweight, not fat, not skinny, and was wearing a boring work-appropriate brown suit with flats. She wasn't particularly busty and, indeed, if she was busty or had a nice ass, her suit was cut in such a way that you wouldn't really be able to tell anyway. The only skin she was showing was on her face and hands. She either wasn't wearing makeup or was wearing little enough that you would guess she wasn't wearing any. I didn't notice any jewelry. She didn't have any notable acne, scars, etc. that could possibly be causing the train guy to be doing the holy fuck neck crane. Her face wasn't ugly, and wasn't pretty either. If you witnessed her committing a crime, and the police asked you to describe her face so they could make a composite sketch, you would be hard pressed to remember anything, as there was nothing particularly amazing or unique about her facial features that would stand out in memory.
In short, she was ORDINARY; as plain as Jane gets. The guy on the train was straining to check her out as though he had never seen a woman before, and there was truly nothing to prompt the "DAMN, LOOK AT HER, MAN, HOLY FUCK" reaction this guy was having. Yes, she has a vagina. Calm the fuck down.
Of course, this isn't just about one guy looking at one girl. This is like a plague of retardation, and on a five minute stroll in Manhattan, you can observe this happening a dozen times.
People who are members of a group that has been historically discriminated against, that fail to see the irony of them being deeply discriminatory against another oppressed group. I remember a few years back I was driving through Cincinnati and I saw a huge billboard that featured the smiling face of a black male politician. In bold letters was the phrase, "NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR GAYS."
Workplaces that provide you with a computer that is powerful enough to kind of run a late-90's version of Microsoft Word in 8-bit color at 600x480 on Windows 95 really, really slowly, and if you use a photo as a desktop background, or heaven forbid, get on the internet, the computer's performance slows to a crawl. Just give me a fucking abacus, you cheap fucks.
People in relationships who do irrational, inexplicable, off-the-charts fucking psycho things and use poor judgment, who then can't understand why their partner is perturbed.
People who lie to other people right in front of you, and their lie is something you are privy to, and often the lie is totally unnecessary. Like this one guy who eats lunch in our restaurant about two or three times a week, and has come to the restaurant for the past three months brought a client in today to talk business over lunch. He usually brings clients when he comes. The guy says, "Wow. This place is nice. This is the first time I've been here." He looks to me. "So what would you recommend?"
So now, I either have to piss off a regular customer, who knows the menu by heart and always gets the same fucking thing, or else I have to be complicit, which makes me a liar too.
People who see the whole of human existence as, "I bet that guy is fucking me over. Maybe I should fuck him over like I fucked that other guy over. Wow, I really fucked him over, but that's ok because he might have been thinking about fucking me over. Oh, and I should really fuck that other guy over. I fucked him over before, but he never knew I was fucking him over, so he kinda deserves to be fucked over again. Then again, maybe he does know I fucked him over, and I bet right now he's plotting to fuck me over. Hell with it then, I definitely have to fuck him over now.
Employers who think that the fact that they give you a paycheck is justification to make you do anything.
"Oh, hey! If it isn't our new regional director! Did you come in over the weekend to paint that office like I asked? Good, good. Oh, before I forget, the toilet in the staff restroom clogged and overflowed, and there's stuff all over the floor. It's still clogged and the toilet and floor are full of crap. Yeah, it's pretty gross. Could you take care of that? Oh, and after that I need you to unpack and assemble the desks for that new office."
People who don't get the whole casual courtesy thing.
Like I'll be leaving for work in the morning, and as
"You can't tell me God doesn't exist. I used to be just like you, and I was unemployed, my wife and I kept trying to get pregnant but nothing was happening, and my dad was sick. Then I prayed for God to help me, and a couple of months later, I got a job at Jiffy Lube, then a few months after that, my wife got pregnant, and my dad is getting better."
Gee, I might be inclined to agree with you about these dumb events being miracles if your new-found employment was that a Fortune 500 company called you up out of the blue and offered you 50 million a year to be their CEO, despite you being a talentless, uneducated schlub, and if you and your wife conceived despite having no genitalia, and your dad lost his torso in an accident, and was now well on his way to a full recovery.
Twisted bathroom habit of the day. I was just in a public restroom, and this guy was resting both of his hands on the top of the urinal as he peed, as though he was riding a bicycle or resting his hands on two white porcelain shoulders. Dude, just touch your penis. It's yours. It's okay, and hopefully it's much more sanitary than a damn urinal. Then you're going to "shake off" with urinal hands. Fucking foul.
The conversation I have every single time I go to Dunkin Donuts.
"I'd like two doughnuts and a large milk."
"Milk and sugar?"
"No. Just milk."
"Coffee with milk?"
"No. Just a cup with milk."
(Looking to her coworkers for help) "You want milk in your coffee?"
"A cup... with JUST milk in it."
(Scratching head and staring at the register) "Uhhhhhh...." Then they charge me a different amount every time.
YouTube video bloggers whose channel is nothing but WAY too close shots of their big sweaty faces mouth breathing with their slobbery lisp into their webcam microphone as they whine about everything that has them miffed.
The new "Ice Age" movie, "Dawn of the Dinosaurs," which seems to imply that dinosaurs not only lived at the same time as mastodons, sabertoothed tigers and modern animals like weasels, but came LATER, which is wrong, and in the reverse order by roughly 60+ million years. Great. Just what we need. More dumb, confused kids who will grow up to be young earth creationists because preachers will capitalize on their ignorance and make them embrace the idea that these animals could have all coexisted.
Today I saw an ad for a new show called "Dance Your Ass Off," which features morbidly obese manatee-like women in skimpy dresses which display yards and yards of flubbity cleavage dancing.... JUST WHAT EVERYONE WANTS TO WATCH!
Today in my company cafeteria they were playing Hanna Montana on the loudspeakers, which is odd, because I am fairly sure we don't employ any 10 year old girls there.
People using cell phones who move the phone away from their ears to their mouths to speak. They can hear you, idiots.
Today I saw an ad for some community college or trade school, which depicted a goldfish leaping from a tiny fish bowl into a larger fish bowl, with the caption "Yes you can!" How depressing. No, don't have the goldfish escaping his prison into the freedom of a stream, have him escaping into a slightly roomier prison. Hate your shitty, little, underpaid, unrewarding job? Get your degree so you can get a slightly less shitty, underpaid, unrewarding job.
What is this shit where someone like Mike Tyson or some other celebrity goes to prison for breaking just laws, and then assholes say, "Free Tyson"? So the fact that you admire someone means they shouldn't be subject to the same laws as everyone else? How do you figure?
Lousy debaters who keep making the same already defeated argument over and over, maybe slightly reworded, as though you're going to forget that the point was already addressed.
"See, the structure of DNA has a pattern, and complex patterns can only come from a mind, hence, Yaweh made the universe."
"Actually, you're just asserting a guess on both ends of your argument. You don't know that a complex pattern needs a mind to make it, and even if you could prove the universe had a designer, there's no reason to just assume it's Yaweh. It could just as easily be Brahma, Allah, or any of the other gods which are credited with making the universe, or some god or intelligence (or more than one) that humans never even contemplated."
"Okay, but see.... DNA has a complex pattern, and what could make a complex pattern besides a mind? And who had the first mind? Yaweh!"
Mean, scary, completely unapproachable bosses who always give themselves credit for having an "open door policy," which none of their employees dare to observe. Look. If all of your employees feel like getting within ten feet of you might put them on a downsizing / more work / write-up / screaming in their faces short list, you have an open door policy in the way that a trapdoor spider has an open door policy.
Customers who wander into places where they have no business being, and more to the point, are stupid for being in, and they seem to think they have every right to be there. "Hello? Sir? Hello? Mister Zookeeper? Yeah, uh, hi. I was uh, over there and I wanted to take a picture of those tigers, but they were hiding in those bushes over there in their enclosure, so I couldn't see them, so I saw that little door off to the side, and I went through it so I could get closer, and, well, now one of the tigers has my leg. Yeah. The other zookeeper wasn't helpful at all. She started screaming and running around. Yes, I can SEE that we're in the hippo enclosure and I can SEE that you're feeding the hippos, and I don't appreciate your tone of voice. I'm a PAYING CUSTOMER and I can't believe you're acting this way. I mean, I'm a paying customer and I came here to take pictures, and I think everyone here could really use some training in customer service. I'm not supposed to go in the enclosure? Well I didn't see a sign telling me not to. Besides, how am I supposed to take pictures if there are bushes in the way. It's unacceptable, and I'm not leaving until I get my leg back. In fact, I would ask to speak with the manager, but I'm about to lose consciousness from the blood loss. I don't know what kind of place you think you're running here, but that's the last leg and penny of mine you're getting.
People who try to maintain the upper hand in a debate, not by having a strong case, but by being either extremely misleading or obscurantist about the point of view they are defending, or simply by being all over the map. This game is called, "You can't attack my position, because I won't tell you what it is.".
"Being an atheist is stupid."
"So you are a theist?"
"I didn't say that."
"Well what's your position?"
"The universe is too complex for us to understand it."
"How does that make atheism stupid, specifically?"
"Because you can't know there is no God."
"Atheism doesn't say absolutely there is no God, merely that there is no good reason to believe there is one."
"But that's stupid."
"So you're a theist?"
"Not necessarily."
"So, what, you're a deist?"
"No."
"Pantheist?"
"Pffft! No."
"Agnostic leaning toward theism?"
"No."
"Agnostic leaning toward atheism?"
"No."
"50/50?"
"No."
"Then what is your argument?"
"That atheists are stupid."
"And you make this claim from what position? Theism?"
"No."
"What is your position?"
"What difference would that make?"
"Fuck you."
"Journalism" June 4th, 2009: Msnbc reports that in the comic, "Archie," Archie will propose to Veronica.
Neg's response: Didn't they stop making Archie comics like 30 years ago?
Bumping into coworkers on the subway. You're tired and hungry after a long day at work, and you just want to get home and relax. You put your headphones on to block out all the dumb people and start to feel at ease. You take a book out of your bag and start to open it to the place you left off, when you see one of your coworkers on the platform. "Oh shit. Let me just turn around and maybe he won't see me."
You turn your back to him and start reading your book. "Maybe he's taking a different train." Then the train pulls up and the guy gets on. "Fuck." Then you look over to see where he's standing and your eyes meet, and there's a definite look of recognition. He starts taking his headphones off and starts coming towards you. "Shit." You politely take your headphones off. "Oh well... I was enjoying listening to that."
"Long time no see!" Fucking trite.
"Heh, yeah...." Awkward silence.
"So... Sup?" Yeah, it's generic, and not really a pertinent thing to ask, given that you were just working together ten minutes ago.
"Headin' home."
"Yeah." Awkward silence.... "Been busy at work."
"Don't I know it! Heh...." Awkward silence...
You hear the faint pop-tish of the music in your headphones and figure that you're not going to be able to listen to it so you turn off your iPod and put it in your pocket. Consider this an act of surrender.
"You live in Manhattan?"
"Queens."
"Really? What part?"
"Astoria."
"Ahh..." Awkward silence. No indication that this is a good or bad thing.
"What are you reading?"
"Uhhh, The Future of an Illusion by Sigmund Freud." Oh, great. I'm reading a book about how religion is fearful, infantile nonsense. This should spark a conversation that I really don't want to get into with this doofus.
"You taking a class or something?"
"Nah, just reading it. Just, uh, something interesting to read."
"What's it about?"
"I, uhh, kinda just started it." You're on page 55 and it's only about 70 pages long.... And you read it a few months ago.
"Ahh." This is apparently this guy's favorite non-comment.
20 minutes go by and the train is pulling into the station where you'll transfer to the N train. Finally, you'll be free of this nitwit. The train stops and people start moving towards the doors. The guy is also getting off.
"What train do you take?"
"The N."
"Cool. Me too!"
Fuck.
Douchebags who put their sunglasses over their ears facing backward. Careful. They might break when I punch you in the base of the skull.
May 15, 09: In Florida, a woman is suing her daughter's high school for publishing a yearbook where, in a class picture, her daughter, who couldn't even be bothered to not wear super short shorts even for the news interview, was sitting in the front row wearing a short skirt and no panties and her twat was clearly showing. You know, because it's her school's fault that her daughter is a whore. To make matters worse, even the mom was wearing daisy dukes - I mean, the news is going to interview you about your trashy daughter. At least TRY to look the part of the outraged litigant. "Ya, know? Maybe if we're going to sue the school for inadvertantly failing to catch a picture showing that you're a total slut who can't even cover up her pussy for a yearbook photo, maybe we shouldn't both look like total sluts when the news people get here."
Only thing that could look dumber than a man in sandals: a man in sandals wearing a toe ring. And yes, I saw this. I wish I hadn't, but I did.
Customer service assholes who make it as obvious as possible without getting fired that you are in no way going to rush them. You walk into the bank and there's a bigass line, and you're agitated because you're running late to work. You finally get to the front of the line, and a customer leaves the counter, so you move up to the teller. The teller looks up at you without moving their head and says, "I didn't say next customer. Please wait for the next teller." You get back in line, and are there for about 5 seconds before the same teller says, "Next customer," as though this isn't ironic or passive-aggressive at all. You walk up just as they decide to start adjusting their chair. They mess with the lever, sit on the seat to get it to go down - whoops, too far, lever, up, sit, lever, up... Uh oh, they dropped their pen... Better bend down really, really slowly and in a maximally labored fashion to pick it up. Okay, got the pen... Hmmm this chair still doesn't feel right. *Adjust adjust* Okay, that's a little better. Oh wait a second. This desk is pretty cluttered up. Let's just put these papers away. Huh? What's this paper? "Jamie! Do you know what this form is for?" Jamie walks over to the teller's station as slowly as possible and stares at the form for a long time. She then gives a dumb shrug and hands it back. The teller then stares at it for a long time, before putting it in a drawer. Hmmm... This pen doesn't write. Let's just look in a couple of these drawers here.... Nope. No pen in there. "Jamie! Do you have any pens?" Jamie then strolls to a back office, clearly in no hurry. The teller continues smacking her gum open-mouthed. Jamie then strolls back around the corner with a few pens in hand and hands them to the teller. The teller takes a few moments to put some of them in the desk drawer... then decides that, "Nah, this indistinguishable Bic pen doesn't look as awesome as that other one I put in the drawer. I'd better reopen the drawer and get that other one." Okay, let's just straighten up these pictures of my fat children for a second. Oh look, some eraser crumbs. Better go fetch a waste basket and brush those off the desk into it. Okay, now where were we? Oh, right! The customer. Well, I can't really take care of the customer without my glasses. Let's just dig that glasses case out of my buttoned front pocket... then rebutton the case, then put the case back in the pocket... then rebutton the pocket, and now I can take care of this customer - oh shit. Look how dirty these glasses are!! Hmm, let's just dig in these drawers again and find a kleenex... Okay, now let's wipe these off... check them a few times to make sure I got all the shit off... Let's just stroll back over to the wastebasket to throw away this kleenex... Okay, now put the glasses on... Log into the computer. Oh shit. Typo. *Clickety Click* Okay, logged in now.... "How can I help you today?"
YOU CAN FUCKING KILL YOURSELF!
Miss California 2009. I know what you're thinking. "This is lame. Neg is throwing himself a soft ball that pretty much every liberal in America has already decided was too silly to comment on. Of course what she said was bigoted and dumb, but who cares?" Well, yeah, I think she's a bigot for opposing gay marriage, but that is not my complaint here. How dumb can she be? I mean, WHO THE FUCk does she think watches the Miss America pageant? Straight men? Straight women? The Christian Right? Bullshit. GAY MEN! I mean, you're on a show whose audience is 99% gay men, and a gay man, whose approval you are seeking, asks you if you support gay marriage... WHAT DO YOU SAY? The truth? Bullshit. You give them the answer they want! If you're fake enough to put vaseline on your teeth to make them sparkle for the cameras, then you're fake enough to give them the appeasing answer they want.
Like, let's say I have been asked to be the keynote speaker for a banquet for the NRA. Do I make a big speech about how we need more gun control? Not if I don't want to be run out of the banquet hall with an army of angry gun nuts on my heels.
They shouldn't even care what she thinks in the first place. This isn't an elected office. The California State Senate won't have her on speed dial. Who gives a shit what she thinks? Just do those crunches, put on your bikini, and DANCE, MONKEY, DANCE!
That retarded ad for "Sunsetter" awnings. "It can keep your porch up to 20 degrees cooler!" Wait a second, asshole. Did you just explain to me how shade works?
People who live in this world, filled with its vast variety of music, who haven't found anything more beautiful, awe-inspiring or moving to listen to than Billy Joel.
"Extended release" allergy pills that, on a scale of 1-10, rank a 2 on relieving allergy symptoms, a 0 on lasting the 12-24 hours they claim to help, and an 8.5 on the get you fucked up and groggy and disoriented factor.
People who are SURE that someone has stolen or tampered with some possession of theirs which nobody wants.
"Have you seen that shitty sweater that I wear every single day? You know, the crappy looking cable knit that was probably blue at one time but is now faded and has grey dirt on the high points? Yeah? Well someone stole it!"
People who would look perfectly normal, even attractive, but they fuck it up with some STUPID fashion accessory.
"Hi! I'm a spunky, 20-something girl. I look smart and sexy in my outfit that's just flirty enough to not look slutty, or at least I would, but then I fucked it up by wearing a dumb Dick Tracey hat!"
"Hey there. I'm a pretty fit guy who spends a few hours working out every day. I eat right and I drink lots of water, which helps keep my skin clear. Of course, that's all a huge waste because I wear a nice suit with Oakleys and white sneakers, which makes me look like a complete tool."
The fact that the laundromat has four televisions at full volume and all four of them are showing the same terrible Spanish soap opera.
Bristol Palin said in a recent interview that she has no regrets. Well no shit. That's because you're fucking dumb. Stupid people have no regrets. They bungle through life and everything is just peachy. See, a smart person might stop and think, "Y'know... Maybe being the 18 year old unwed mother of a kid spawned by a mullet-headed retard isn't the best situation to be in," but not good old Bristol. All is right with the world, regardless of how bad your judgment is. "I wouldn't have it any other way." Retard.
The recent trend where exceptionally amazing electronic bands at least partially remake themselves as kinda-okay-I-guess rock bands that retain a tiny smidgeon of their old electronic sound. I.E. Younger Brother, Boards of Canada, The Future Sound of London, etc. I liked the past sound of London a lot more. "Hey, guys. Let's stop making highly technical, rich, atmospheric, multilayered electronica that's unlike anything anyone has ever heard, and instead make some flower-power psychedelic music that sounds exactly like the music that people got so sick of in the early seventies that they puked out disco.
Christians whose strongest appeal as to why I should become a Christian is, "But Jesus was tortured and crucified for YOU! He died to redeem YOU of your sin!"
First off, I didn't ask him to do that, and I really don't give a shit if I'm on good terms with an invisible man who holds me personally accountable for some dude eating an apple thousands of years ago. How petty. And they always make it out like he made this huge sacrifice. Supposedly, Jesus was the son of God, and capable of miracles, so certainly it would have been within his power to feel no pain whatsoever. If he was capable of miracles and then let himself feel the pain of being crucified, that's his fault. He felt exactly as much pain as he let himself feel.
Let's play a game. You give me five dollars. Jesus' life pre-crucifixion was probably worth about five bucks. He was hated, called a heretic, spat upon... Okay, now in three days I'll give you back five hundred trillion dollars. Sound like a good deal? After three days Jesus came back to life and then went to heaven, where he's basically the vice-ruler of the universe, standing in judgment of all mankind for eternity. It's a good gig if you can get it. Who wouldn't undergo a short period of torture to gain that kind of status in the universe?
So the dude gets nailed up on boards by Romans and dies. How is that God redeeming anything? It's not like God punished Jesus himself. What does one thing have to do with the other? Beyond that, there is one absurdity that makes the whole enterprise completely insane. God has the power to do anything, right? And God can decide to forgive anyone of anything, right? So just forgive us. Why kill someone? Why not just say, "Okay, it's just a fucking apple, and it's not like you all made him eat it. You guys weren't even born yet. How could it be your fault? Sorry, guys. I got a bit hot-headed. Don't worry about it." Gee, such a thing might actually make God not seem like a total asshole. But no, someone committed a tiny offense thousands of years ago, so someone has to get slaughtered like an animal. Then Christians would say that under the law, a blood price must be paid or there's no forgiveness. So God is SUBJECT to the law?
"Original inherited sin" is perhaps one of the most immoral doctrines of Christianity, as I see it. You are guilty of the crime of someone else whom you have never met. The police bust down your door and drag you away. You are put before a judge and are found guilty because some other guy, whom you have never met or heard of, and has never heard of you, stole a car in another state.... before you were born. LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE! How is this moral? How is this reasonable? And how is God, who operates this way, the ultimate authority on morality? Are you fucking kidding me? That is far more immoral than anything I, or probably anyone else has ever done. Sure, Hitler and Stalin and Pol Pot sent millions to their graves, but that is nothing compared to a being that would torture billions for eternity for some guy eating an apple. In fact, if you take the story seriously, the only reason there is death at all is because of Adam's fall. So every person who has ever died has God's immorality to thank for it.
Thank God there's no God.
People who haven't watched a nature show since they were made to in High School.
Debaters on my side of an issue who lie, exaggerate, or obfuscate, and make us all look like a bunch of desperate liars, when the real facts would have been sufficient to smash the other guy's argument.
Debaters on my side of an issue try to play nice and win over the crowd with humor, anecdotes, and other showmanship, while their opponent wastes no time in going for the jugular and making them look like a clown.
This is sort of a weird one, but I keep bumping into it, so I think it warrants a response.
Christians who believe that "other people" have a religion, but they have truth. It's not that these people are unorthodox Christians or religious moderates. Much to the contrary, these people are usually hard liners. They say "religion" as though it is some dirty word, like people who subscribe to a religion are deceived, but they know the truth, unadulterated by an organization. And the "truth" that they know is, (insert 100% pure Christian fundamentalism here). "I don't have a religion. I have a relationship with Jesus!" ..... which is a religion.
Let me straighten you out, because you seem pretty confused. Answer yes or no to the following:
1.) Do you believe that some wise / powerful / intelligent being or beings created the universe or had some part in creating the universe and giving rise to life?
2.) Do believe that this creator has specific wants / requirements of us?
3.) Do you believe that this creator shows benevolence towards people who obey these wants / requirements, and that he is indifferent to, or actively punishes people who disobey these wants / requirements?
Answer yes to any of the above? Congratulations! You have a religion! Believe that this creator was the Biblical God, who sent his son Jesus to redeem mankind of sin, etc? Congratulations! You're a Christian, and that's a religion! Holy shit, you fuckers are weird.
My neighbor who thinks 8am is a good time to learn to play the acoustic guitar.
Not to sound like a whiny nerd, but seriously, it's been over 30 years. There's no fucking excuse for some retards to still mix up Star Wars and Star Trek. "Haw! Look at that guy with the full stormtrooper costume. He's a big trekkie." NO HE ISN'T. He's a nerd, yes, but NOT a fucking trekkie.
Debaters whose point is so weak that they try to take refuge by nitpicking the definitions of words.
"Can you prove God exists?"
"Well what do you mean by 'prove?'"
"Provide evidence for."
"Well it depends what you mean by 'exist.'"
NO IT DOESN'T, YOU ASS. You're just wasting fucking time. Words have definitions. YOU AND I BOTH KNOW WHAT THE DEFINITIONS OF WORDS LIKE "PROVE" AND "EXIST" ARE. If your argument was even slightly robust, you wouldn't be bullshitting around with these fucking terms. You would be like "YES. And here is my argument." Instead, you insult both of our intelligence by attempting the most ultra-last ditch of salvage operations on your weak-as-shit argument.
People on Myspace and Facebook who are homely, ugly, or just plain goofy looking who post several new closeup pics of themselves, usually with the camera held at arm's length, EVERY FUCKING DAY, so it shows up on your "updates" column. "Hey, guys! Check out my new sunglasses. I took 8 pics so you can all see how awesome they look with my potato sized nose, weak chin, mono-brow, lazy eye, horrific acne, and female pube-stache!"
Dumb debaters who don't shut up and don't realize when they have been completely trounced and had their argument completely shut down. It's a shame that you can't actually deal a knockout punch by debating.
Condom ads that make the claim that, "It feels like you're not wearing anything at all!" You're full of shit, and you know it, right? I mean, there are some that feel better than others, but the best condoms in the world still feel like you're fucking a warm water balloon.
People who hate where they live and never move. Look, if you have been bored as shit and annoyed with the yokel retards around you for the last 30 years, and where you live isn't a prison cell, GET THE FUCK OUT.
"Hey, man, I haven't seen you since high school. What's new?"
"Pffft... Nothin'. Nothin' new ever fuckin' happens here."
"THEN FUCKING MOVE!"
Houseguests or dates or other people who you are trying to keep entertained, who eat weird shit at weird times.
"Hey, it's 12:30. Wanna grab some lunch?"
"Nah, I just had my breakfast at 10."
"Uhhh, you want to eat later or something?"
"Actually, I eat a big breakfast and then don't eat again until like 8 or 9pm, but you can eat something if you want, and I totally won't sit there and stare at you and make you feel really weird and rude for eating in front of me."
People who, when you walk into the room, give you that distinctive, paranoid, "Huh?! What do you want?" look. Like, I understand if you are relaxing at home in your boxers, scratching your balls with one hand and eating corn chips with the other, as you watch old reruns of "Saved By The Bell," and then suddenly, I bust through the door wearing nothing but a duct tape bikini and a gorilla mask, and then run up and jump up on your coffee table and stand over you in a "ready" stance, and just silently stare at you, then yeah, the "What do you want?" look is fully warranted. But if I walk into our shared work space, a subway car, McDonald's, a bar, a bookstore, or some other public area, giving me that "Holy fuck! What?!" look is just fucking weird.
Office collection cheap asses
"Hey, uhh, as you know, Bob has been out of work for about three months due to his kidneys, and he's going to need a transplant, and he's having a really hard time making ends meet, so we decided to do a collection to see if we could help him out. The ten of us have already put in. Do you want to put something in for Bob?"
"Sure. Here's a 20."
"Thanks. That brings the total up to $32.43"
"What?"
Programs that automatically check online for updates, or more to the point, new versions for you to buy from them, that have a little alert that says "So you want to get the update now?" and there's a little box to check that says "Do not remind me again." This check box apparently means "Remind me again, whether I check the box or not."
People who, when you talk to them, stare at your tie or your hair or your collar or something else and you start fucking up what you were saying because you're distracted by wondering if you look like a slob.
Towns where last call is 1am.
"No, no, no. That's enough fun for you. You have to go to work tomorrow. Our economy depends on you dragging your ass out of bed tomorrow early so you can make widgets for eight hours. Don't be late!"
I have always thought black metal was the goofiest shit ever, but that took on a whole new dimension when I saw this interview. The lead singer of this band said that he was disappointed when the fans just showed up for the music, because the message was so much more important. The message, apparently, is, "HRRRAAAAAARRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!! HURRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!!!! WHUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRR!!!!!"
The internet forum ultra-say-anything-super-devil's-advocate-hyper-vitriolic factor. There is something about internet forums that makes people insane, and I'm not 100% sure that it's always just a put-on to troll or spur conversation. Like, they think, Hi! I'm anonymous, and now I'm going to say the most evil, hateful thing you have ever heard.
ActualContributor: "... and that's how we could have a healthier balance of state and federal control while still preserving personal freedoms."
OtherActualContributor: "Yeah, I agree with what you said about the courts. It reminds me of the system you find in places like Holland."
CrazyGuyWhoComesOutOfNowhere: "I think what we should have done was ally with Hitler in WW2 instead of fight with the allies. That way we could own Europe and I could live there instead of The US, because I can't stand being here with all the damn Mexicans anymore."
ActualContributor: "WTF?"
So uhh.... Sarah Palin's knocked-up teenage daughter and her goofy mullet-headed boyfriend had their baby. And, uhh... They named it Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston.... Tripp... OF COURSE they named it Tripp. Fucking rednecks. Just name it anything. Trig, Pencil, Track, Trap, Skirt, Shed, Crate, Beef, Trick, Scrit. Who gives a shit? Just name the fucking thing. It doesn't have to be the name of a human being, just something that would be quick and easy to yell at the brat when it misbehaves at Walmart.
Orange popsicles. Stop it. Nobody wants that shit. You're making a product that everyone hates. I mean, I assume the artificial grape and cherry flavors and colors aren't more expensive than orange, so what are you trying to accomplish by making one third of every box of popsicles something that people despise? You make the pack with the red, purple and orange popsicles, and the red ones go right away, followed by the purples. Then the person goes to the freezer, mouth watering, and sees that all that's left are the orange ones. At that point, they stop and are confronted by a possible change of plans. "Hmmm... I really want a popsicle, but if it's orange, maybe it's not worth it. But, well, I paid for the box, and I hate to waste food, and I might as well use these up to make freezer space for the next box... Fuck. Fuckin' orange." If you made a box of popsicles that was nothing but orange, it would be the slowest selling thing in the case, right behind "Free-Zee Bat Frozen Guano on a Stick."
Hipsters who wear tee-shirts of the shittiest bands ever, to be ironic. No, see, Motley Crue isn't so shitty that their tee-shirt is cool. They're so shitty that you're a dipshit for owning their tee-shirt. What's the fucking point in spending 28 bucks on a tee-shirt for a band that you wouldn't spend a dollar on their CD if you saw it in the clearance bin? But wait, there's a double dose of irony, because you think Motley Crue is shitty... but you LIKE Panic at the Disco. Fuck you.
People who speak authoritatively on topics which they are clearly ignorant about.
"Wow, that 'March of the Penguins' was amazing. What's weird to me is that cold blooded animals can live in that environment without freezing solid."
"Uhh, birds are warm blooded."
"No they aren't. Only mammals are warm blooded. Do you see any hair on a penguin? You need hair to keep your temperature up."
"Uhh... Actually, hair just retains heat. The heat comes from the body metabolizing food."
"Look. Only mammals are warm blooded. You need to be warm blooded to give live birth."
"Uhhh, then I guess you're saying that many fish and snakes are warm blooded?"
"Fish and snakes don't give birth to live offspring."
"Some do. You never had guppies in your fish tank growing up?"
(Long contemplation)
"If they give birth to live young, then yes, guppies are warm blooded."
Old people who do annoying or reprehensible things, and their excuse is that they have always done those things, so why should they stop now?
"What? I've smoked cigars in McDonalds and farted loudly and picked my nose indiscreetly and taken fists full of breath mints off restaurant desks where I'm not even eating and patted women I don't know on the ass and casually dropped the 'N-bomb' in normal conversation for years! Who are you to tell me not to?"
Dumb nicknames
Did you ever have some retard try to give you some dumbass nickname that was just completely ill-conceived and irrelevant, and then had them try to make it stick?
"Hey, Michael!"
"Sup."
"Heh, Michael the Pickle!"
"Huh?"
"That's what I'm gonna call you! Hah! Michael the Pickle!"
"Pickle... What? I don't get it."
"Heheh, what's that, Pickle Man?"
"Uhhh... I don't eat pickles. I don't even like pickles, but I don't hate pickles enough to make it worthy of comedy, and I don't see any pickles around to make you think of pickles... I'm not wearing a green shirt... It doesn't even fucking rhyme! So... What's with the pickles? I don't get it."
"Michael the PICKLE! Hah!"
"Whatever."
Six years later, when you bump each other...
"PICKLE MAN!"
"What the fuck?"
Today in the news: Apple cutting some iTunes prices (also see video... because this is so important that we at MSNBC needed to make a video in addition to the 4-screen tall article about it).
"Since when is msnbc in the business of hawking shit for Apple? This isn't news," thinks Neg, as he downloads 40 different bands' entire discographies plus bootleg concerts, b-sides and videos... FOR FREE. Yeah, sorry, Apple, but you can make it as cheap as you want, but you're still in direct competition with FREE.
People who use Skype or Ventrilo who have a microphone that makes it sound like they live in a house full of ceramic tiles, screeching cats, clothes dryers full of pots and pans and wailing feedback, who, when you say, "Dude, your mic is fucked up," reply, "Yeah, it sucks... SO AS I WAS SAYING... SCREEEEEEE"
The way that people who claim moral authority are usually immoral, even by their own definitions.
Movies where they make the characters so simplistic that you can effortlessly psychoanalyze them.
"Oh, see, that's why he struggles with relationships. He's thinking about when his judgmental mother died."
Bullshit. I mean, I know the movie's only an hour and a half long, but nobody is so transparent that you can watch them for a few minutes and know things about them that a best friend might not even know.
People who ask for help in a passive aggressive way like, "Hey, are you busy? What are you doing?" Like you're accountable to them. They act like you not doing something they think is important means you ARE going to help them. Uhhh... What am I doing? I was sitting at my computer looking at dumbass viral videos... and no, that doesn't mean you're getting free help with your bullshit paper.
Weird authority figures at work who make your life difficult with their unfounded perception of you.
You're taking the elevator to your office. On the third floor, a high level manager gets in. You smile a completely un-weird smile, don't avoid eye contact, but don't give them hard, challenging eye contact, and say in a calm, friendly and agreeable, but not pushy tone, "Good morning."
"Good morning," they reply, in a similarly amiable way.
The elevator comes to their floor, and they make eye contact, so you smile and say, in the same polite way, "Have a good day."
"You too." They get off the elevator and the doors close.
A couple of hours later you get a phone call from another manager who is a lower level than the first, but above you.
"Hey, did you see David Ross today?"
"I think I saw him in the elevator."
"I just came out of a planning meeting that he was in and after the meeting, he pulled me aside and said you were 'difficult.'"
"Huh?"
"Did you say something rude to him or something?"
"I think I said good morning."
"Did you say it sarcastically or something?"
"Of course not. I know who he is. There's no way I would think of doing something insulting to him."
"Well, whatever it was you said or did, he didn't like it, so be careful how you act around him."
"Uhh, okay."
"Talk to you later. be careful how you talk to people."
"Okay. Talk to you later."
Boss hangs up. You hang up.
"What the fuck?"
That one annoying drunk girl at every party whose grating, high pitched, birdlike cackle can be heard clearly, and twice as loud over the din of clamoring voices.
Jan 28 news: The economy is falling apart. A quarter of a million jobs have been lost this month. There is a rash of suicides due to people being out of work... And one rich couple who has ten dogs spent 150 thousand dollars to clone their dead dog. You know.... You could have gotten a new dog from the pound for 50 bucks. And I think I should state the obvious. A clone of your old dog isn't your old dog. It's still a new dog that you've never met before, and who doesn't know who the fuck you are. Not only that, but your first dog died of cancer, so now you have a second dog that will probably die of cancer. 150 grand for probably less than a decade of new dog. IT'S JUST A FUCKING DOG! And rich people wonder why the poor hate them. Let them eat cake, indeed.
One-track-mind managers. Like, they have on their plates tasks A, B, C and D, but they can't think of anything past task A, regardless of its real importance, and their whole world grinds to a halt until they get it done.
"Oh, uhh, could I get our sales totals from last Thursday? I need them for a meeting next week."
"Sure. That will just take a minute to do, but first I have to count this cash drawer, because I can't leave the money sitting out."
"Okay."
Two minutes later....
"Did you get those totals yet?"
People whose justification for believing in religion is, "Well, it's true for me." Things are not real just for you. They are real, or they aren't. If you're right, then every other philosophy is wrong. If you didn't nail it, then you're wrong. You don't have a "differing opinion." You're just wrong. What is real is not dependent on how you feel about something. Your feelings about things should reflect, and be affected by reality, because thinking that it works the other way around is delusional.
A guy in a blue suit is standing in a white room. In his right hand, he is holding a red ball. He drops the red ball, lets it bounce twice, then catches it in his right hand.
What happened?
If you report anything other than exactly what I just said, it's not that you have a different, but equally valid opinion. You're wrong. If you recall that there were two men in a brown room and one of them was wearing a red suit and the other was wearing a green suit, and the man in the red suit bounced a blue ball five times and then it was caught by the man in the green suit in his left hand, either you really weren't paying attention at all, or there is something seriously wrong with your mind. "But, I feel in my heart of hearts that the one man blue suit white room red ball two bounce theory just can't be right." Well, you're wrong, and how you feel about it is irrelevant. "But I wouldn't want to live in a world where the one man blue suit white room right hand red ball two bounce theory was true." Well, too fucking bad. If, as in the case of religion, a billion people believe what you believe, and not what really happened, guess what? YOU'RE ALL WRONG. A billion people being wrong about something in the same way doesn't mean they're right, or that they have an opinion that is valid and should be respected. They're just wrong, and should be corrected. The proposition laid forth by Christianity is as follows: God has existed forever, created the universe in less than a week, 6000 years ago, and made humans in his own image. This is almost definitely wrong. Perhaps even more incredible than this batshit-insane story is the fact that people today believe this account of the actions and demands of the creator of the universe which was spread mostly through oral tradition by people who were completely ignorant of things like dinosaurs, germs, genes, the size and shape of the earth, and the list of things they knew nothing about goes on and on. What are the odds that these people, whose lives were ravaged by their basic ignorance about pretty much everything more advanced than feeding goats, got the entire history of the universe, and the creator's sayings, likes, dislikes, demands, and promised punishments and rewards... EXACTLY RIGHT? Pretty fucking slim. Now, the universe and life and the diversity of species obviously had to happen SOME way, so how did it happen? This is not a matter of opinion. It began SOME WAY. It couldn't have happened 100 different ways that are all equally valid opinions, and it almost definitely was not perfectly figured out by ignoramuses from 2000+ years ago who wouldn't know a double helix if it grew to the size of a skyscraper and started singing Bon Jovi songs while doing backflips. "Vanilla ice cream is delicious" is a matter of opinion. "The creator of the universe will send you to hell forever for not kissing his ass in the ways described in this book," is a statement of facts, not opinion, and the odds of these facts, that were written by people who knew next to nothing about anything, being correct are pretty close to zero.
Dumb Amazon recommendation of the day:
"Oops, I Did It Again" by Britney Spears. Recommended because you bought "I Am Not A Doctor" by Moloko.
Looking for irrational guilt, fear, tribalizing prejudice and suspicions, the termination of your real learning process and unfounded assurance?
Give religion a try.
Looking for an eye-opening, mentally transformative experience that will radically alter your perception which you will always remember and will blow away anything else you have ever experienced?
Give LSD a try.
Retards who you can't give anything to, because you KNOW they will lose or break it. Like it's a 100% probability. It's just a matter of time.
"Here's your two-way radio... Now, don't lose it, okay?"
"Okay," the guy scoffs, as if to say, "Pffft, I'm an adult. What? You think I'm retarded?"
Two weeks later...
"Dude, where have you been? I've been trying to get a hold of you all morning? Is your radio on?"
"Uhhhh..."
"You lost it, didn't you?"
"Yeah..."
People who keep talking after you tell them you need to use the restroom. Like, if it wasn't urgent, I would just wait for you to stop yapping and go later, and you would never even know I had to go. The fact that I'm telling you at all should be a clear indicator of the urgency of the situation.
"Do you have a minute?"
"Actually, could I get back to you in a few minutes?"
"I just wanted to go over our expense reports for last week."
"Okay, I'll be right back. I need to use the restroom."
"So I was looking at the expense reports for last week and I see a few things that are unaccounted for."
"Okay, look. Right now, a huge loaf of super-soft shit is trying to pry my ass cheeks apart like one of those carnival strongman shows where the dude bends the steel bars on his cage, and all of my physical and mental energy is currently being spent trying to prevent my pants from being filled up like custard being piped into an eclair. If I'm trying to focus on holding my shit in, I'm going to be too distracted to give you a good answer, and if I break that concentration, I'm going to shit my pants, and then we're both going to be far too distracted to think about the expense report. So, uhh, I'll be right back, and I promise this little meeting will be much more productive than it would be if I shit my pants."
Christians who say "Merry Christmas" in a sideways, "so there" kind of way, so the transparent implication is, "Merry Christmas, you fucking heathens. Not your secular 'Happy Holidays' bullshit! This holiday is all about MY beliefs, particularly my belief that I need to assert the dominance of my religion at every possible opportunity."
Look, I might be an atheist, but I do enjoy Christmas (at least the parts of Christmas that are actually enjoyable). Christmas means to me what it means to pretty much every other American who celebrates it. Namely, it's all about buying presents for people to make them happy, hoping I get back presents or a piece of ass of comparable value, despising the mall, despising the mall parking lot more, eating and drinking with family and friends and staying indoors as much as possible because it's fucking cold outside. So pass the fucking eggnog, assholes. It's not all for you, and there sure as fuck wouldn't be any liquor in it if Christmas was all about Jesus.
Business computers that are clearly capable of reporting, but don't create any reports about anything that would be useful.
"How many hamburgers did I sell today?"
"Uhhh, the computer doesn't record that, but apparently 67% of people who ordered hamburgers got cheese on their burgers."
"Okay... But how many customers did we have?"
"Uhhhh... 256,425."
"What? Today?"
"No. Ever."
"How many today?"
"Oh, it doesn't record that."
"Hmmm... How much money did we make in November compared to October?"
"It doesn't record that."
"What does it record?"
"Oh look! It recorded the number of times female employees pressed the 3 key vs how many times the male employees pressed the 3 key."
"Pfff! Really? And what does it say?"
"It's about the same."
Party DJ's who play "Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer" at corporate semiformal Christmas parties in New York City.
Any poll that is rigged by excluding obvious strong contenders. Comedy Central has this "Stand-Up Showdown" shit where you get to vote for your favorite comedian. The guy who's winning is that fuck with the puppets. A close runner up is Mitch Hedberg, which makes sense, but if you can vote for dead guys, WHERE THE FUCK ARE GEORGE CARLIN, BILL HICKS AND RICHARD PRYOR? Also missing are people like David Cross, Sarah Silverman, Doug Stanhope, and pretty much most seasoned comedians you can name. In their place are tons of comedians who nobody has ever heard of, even the retards who think of Comedy Central as an authority on comedians, as indicated by the single digit vote tallies. Basically, lots of people who left an indelible mark on stand-up comedy are ostensibly missing, but every doofus "Hey, I'm a really, really fat guy with a Hawaiian shirt and no neck and a million fat jokes!" asshole is there with 3 votes apiece. It's like having a poll for best American presidents and excluding Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, FDR, Truman, and Kennedy, but leaving in names like Harding, Buchanan, Nixon and George W. Bush.
On a side note about comedians, I'm tired of Kathy Griffin being unduly given this contrived image as an "edgy" comic. She's edgy if you compare her with Oprah, but her whole act is like reading People Magazine with a slightly sarcastic tone in your voice. She's so edgy that she dares to tackle such unmentionable topics as, "Boy, men and women sure are different, am I right?" and "Hey, let's talk about celebrities I've met, and bring up my resume in the process," and "My aging mom is lovably crazy," and "Boy, the Osmonds sure are weird." HOLY SHIT! YOU CAN'T SAY THAT! YOU'RE FUCKING EDGY AS FUCK! HAVE YOU NO SHAME?!
These retards on AIM and MSN...
Flowbee29: dude, neg, are you gonna put your fuck canada page back up?
Negposorg: no
Schmelvin9882: neg! I miss the canada page. are you ever going to put it back?
Negposorg: no
Glankensprock: hey neg! just wanted to say I like your site
Negposorg: thanks
Glankensprock: I think my favorite thing was the canada page. are you ever going to put it back?
Negposorg: no
Transgenderteenwolf: hey neg, are you ever gonna put the fuck canada page back?
*exit AIM*
On an amusing side note, my Blackberry thinks "Transgenderteenwolf" is a misspelling of "transgressions," which is kind of suitable, in a twisted kind of way. But yeah, the Canada page had not been updated in a long time, and I really wasn't interested enough to keep working to keep it fresh just so some frat boy from Alberta could get all red in the face. Political humor is funny when it's fresh, and when it's not fresh, it's like those retards who still make Monica Lewinsky jokes.
Comedians and actors from a long time ago who are credited as being comedy pioneers, and you can't really find anything they did that was actually funny at all.
Comedians and actors from right now who are the hottest rising stars in comedy, and often land tons of movie deals, full-time roles on SNL and other sketch comedy shows, sitcoms, etc. And they are only slightly amusing with a huge team of writers backing them up, and aren't even kind of funny on their own.
The fact that a lot of Americans who whoop and howl about America being all about freedom and liberty are also for the war on drugs, against abortion, against gay marriage, against free speech, for the death penalty, for torturing anyone the government labels an "enemy combatant," against basically all immigration, for suppression of political movements they disagree with, for suppression of ideologies and religions other than their own, for establishing Christianity as the official national religion as a means of oppressing people who don't conform, for establishing English as the official national language as a means of oppressing people who don't speak English, for Guantanamo Bay, for the Patriot Act, against people who disagree with the government, for the expansion of police power, against art, for banning books, against interventions that might truly make foreign people more free, for interventions that make foreign people less free while protecting or expanding American corporate interests, and are often racist or sexist... The list goes on and on. Ask one of these assholes with their fucking awful American flag cowboy shirts what freedoms they actually support sometime. "Uhhhhh.... I support the right to own a gun... and, uhhhhh... I support the right to say The Pledge of Allegiance and wear a flag pin and take off your hat and put your hand on your heart when they sing The Star Spangled Banner at a baseball game... And uhhhh... Did I mention guns yet?" So you can wave your flame-retardant flag all you want, but you sure as fuck don't believe in freedom or liberty.
People in this day and age who hold up the line because they still don't quite get the concept of metal detectors.
"Take off anything metal you might have on you and put it in the bin, then step through the gate."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Do you have anything metal on you? Cell phone?"
"Oh, yeah, sorry."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP"
"Step back through the gate. Any other metal?"
"Oh yeah, sorry. My keys."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Oh sorry. I forgot about those ten rolls of quarters I had in my back pocket."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Whoops. Forgot about that steel ingot in my jacket pocket."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Oops! Yeah, forgot about my dinner-plate-sized commemorative Dale Earnheart belt buckle."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
"Ahh, yeah. That must be my big clunky Mister T necklaces."
*BEEP BEEP BEEP*
While it bugs me when people name their babies overtly pretentious bullshit like Chaz and Søren, worse are people who, in 2008, name their newborn babies names like Johnston, Harriet, Mable and Rose. How about naming your kid something that they won't have to be a senior citizen to grow into?
Christians who try to press the argument for prayer in school by dishonestly painting themselves as victims of discrimination. "But our kids aren't allowed to pray in school!" Bullshit with a capital B. Your kids can pray wherever and whenever they want. What isn't allowed, and shouldn't be, is a publicly funded school sanctioning prayer. You can't have the principal or school chaplain or whatever get on the intercom and say, "Okay, students, it's 9:30. Time to bow our heads and pray." School is a place to give children the tools they need to learn how to think, not what to think. If your kid wants to pray, he will, and he will be perfectly free to do so. If your kid doesn't want to pray, he shouldn't have to explain to his peers why he doesn't bow his head and murmur during a sanctioned prayer time.
Oh, and on a side note to this:
"What's with these damned atheists trying to get 'under God' taken out of the Pledge of Allegiance?" First off, "Under God" was added during the Red Scare to distinguish the US from those "Godless Communists," which is pretty goofy. More importantly... Why are kids made to say the Pledge of Allegiance anyway? Pledge Allegiance? If my government is good, sure, I'll be loyal and supportive to it, but if it sucks, then no, I'll fight against it or leave. Why make a five year old say the Pledge of Allegiance? Same reason you start forcing religion on him at that age, because that's when his head is still soft and he'll believe any dumb shit an authority figure tells him. "Be a nationalist! Be a good Christian! Santa is watching you!" Bullshit.
Conservatives who sarcastically "congratulate" me for Obama's victory. "So, you got your guy in," they say with obvious disgust. Look, we spent the last eight years absolutely ruining this country with your dumb, self-serving ideas. It's time to give something else a try.
Un-asked-for charity. You walk into the office on a Monday morning and find on your desk a pile of neckties. The lady you work a couple of desks away from says that her husband doesn't wear them anymore, and that you can have them.
Gee, thanks. So you were cleaning out closets this weekend, and found some ties that were too crappy for your husband, and weighed your options of throwing them away, giving them to the Salvation Army, or to me. You apparently deemed that I was more in need of ties than the Salvation Army, as my own ties leave much to be desired, so you brought them to me, since I obviously can't afford to buy my own. Of course, you expect me to wear these ties, so you can see them and think, "Oh, that's one of those crappy ties I got rid of." Thanks.
Guys who are all hoity-toity about tying their necktie in an unusual way that they read in some dumbass magazine like GQ or Maxim - you know, magazines for pinheads who have nothing more interesting to think about than which buttons to button or not button on a suit jacket.
"First you hang the ends down so the wide end is about eight inches lower than the skinny end. Then you wrap this around here, and fold this part over that part and make a one inch zig-zag fold here and then wrap this part around it, then you flip this part around here and wrap this part around that part two times, then put this part through this loop, then make a square knot in this part and then wrap that part around it twice, then tuck this end through there, then pull it tight. So as you can see, it looks great - JUST LIKE IF YOU TIED IT THE WAY EVERYONE ELSE TIES A TIE!"
Christians who are against abortion and embryonic stem cell research, due to the assumption that the soul enters the zygote at the moment of conception, which makes this cluster of cells worthy of the same rights as a fully formed person. But most of these same people think that someone going to a fertility clinic for in vitro fertilization to is a beautiful thing, despite the fact that they will fertilize many ova in the process, maybe a dozen or more, and maybe only one or even none of them will become a baby. Congratulations. You are have just "murdered more babies" than almost anyone who has had an abortion. Of course, I say this facetiously, since most fertilized eggs never end up becoming babies anyway. Most of the time, fertilized eggs just die, or will be flushed away during a woman's period. I guess that makes God by far the most prolific murderer of babies of all. By the way, sorry that I've been on a "bash religion" tear lately, but it's been a while since I was in a good, rational debate with someone. Religious people seem to be running amok with irrational ideas lately, more than the norm, which is far from rational.
My general instinct is to hold doors for people rather than let the door slam their faces, and while I don't expect or even want gushing gratitude, if you think you're going to just walk through without a thank you, a look, a smile, a nod, OR EVEN NOTICING ME, as though the door just magically stayed open by itself, you can go fuck yourself.
Me, age 0-18:
Me: "Poopy."
Mom: "WHAT? WHAT DID YOU JUST SAY? WE DON'T SAY THAT KIND OF FILTH IN THIS FAMILY! GET OVER HERE! I'm gonna wash your mouth out with CHLORINE BLEACH!"
My younger sister, age 12-present:
Sister: "Fuckity fuck cuntfart mcfuckity shitcock twatsnot fuckin' jizzbag snatchnuggets tits diarrhea eater dick fuckin' clitscab buttfucker!"
Mom: "Tee-hee! You're so silly! You are such a funny girl! Funny and smart! How did I ever get such a creative child?" *hug*
The "hater-by-default" factor on sites like youtube, myspace videos, etc.
Someone posts a video. The video is 30 seconds long and features an average looking guy performing some planned stunt or skit that seemingly most people would find funny. (It's not one of those videos that are famous because they're horrible, such as the Star Wars Kid or Chocolate Rain.) Then you look at the comments. For every "Haha, that was funny" there are 100 people saying shit like,
"You look like a faggot."
"Retard."
"What kind of shirt are you wearing? It looks stupid."
"Your accent is annoying."
"Your fat."
"Is that your mom in the background? She looks like a fat dyke!"
"Why would you do that? I hope you die!"
"Fuck you, cunt!"
"What a stupid faggot."
"Why don't you buy some soap, you zitty sack of shit?"
"FAKE!"
Bands who have no ambition to be anything more than a local band. Whoop-dee-doo! You're the hottest Phish cover band in Eastern Tinyville, Oklabama. Who gives a shit?
Retards from Sarah Palin's "Real America," who think that the reason people in big metropolitan cities like New York vote for Democrats is because they're a bunch of soft, sissy liberals who don't give a shit about national security. Listen to what you're saying and use what the years of alcohol and crystal meth has left of your brains and think for five seconds. Who do you think the target of terrorism is? YOU? Right. Let's say some terrorist has built a dirty bomb. Where is he going to set it off? You think his list of targets includes Uncle Skeeter's Bait 'n' Tackle Shack down over there yonder by the "crick" at the end of some dirt road with no name in West Virginia 25 miles outside the nearest town, which, itself only has a population of 2000? Bullshit. You roaches would probably survive a nuclear war, just from the distance you are from civilization. "But what if Osama Bin Laden were to blow up the factory outlet mall in Dry Ridge, Kentucky? They got a Waffle House there! If the terrorists blow it up, I'll have to drive another 30 miles to get my hashbrowns smothered, topped, chopped and scattered!" Look, Billy Bob. Don't fucking worry about it. WE'RE the target. Nobody really even cares about you. Not even dim-witted politicians from the "Meth Capital of Alaska."
People who, when you patiently explain a philosophical concept in terms a four year old can grasp, still don't get it.
"If God is omniscient, and has a plan..."
"Uh-huh..."
"Then at the beginning of the universe he knew that I would be born..."
"Uh-huh..."
"And he also knew that I would grow up and be an atheist..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So if God exists, and is omniscient and perfect, and has a plan, there's no way I could have free will, because no matter what path I 'chose,' he knew in advance that I would 'choose' it, and in fact created me TO 'choose' to be an atheist, and will send me to hell for a destiny that he knew about, and indeed designed from the start."
"But yes you do so have free will!"
"Okay, look."
"Uh-huh..."
"Let's say I'm omniscient."
"Uh-huh..."
"And you flip a coin, and I know through my omniscience that it will land heads..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So since I knew ahead that it would land heads, it's not a random occurrence..."
"Uh-huh..."
"So it had to land heads. There's no other possible outcome. The notion of probability is out the window. It 100% has to land heads."
"What if I choose not to even flip the coin?"
"You can't fool someone who's omniscient. I would have known that the outcome would be you not flipping the coin. Your 'choice' not to flip the coin would, in fact, not be a 'choice' at all, but what I knew would happen."
(Failing to see the relationship to the previous argument.) "Uh-huh..."
"So if God knows everything, he knew before the universe even existed that I would end up being an atheist."
(Still failing to see where this ties in) "Uh-huh..."
"So there was no possibility but for me to be an atheist."
"Uhhhh..." (Blank stare)
"So if there was no other possibility, I could not have had the free will to choose otherwise. The outcome is exactly as he planned it."
"But yes you do have free will!"
"Okay, look. You believe that God knows everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"You also believe that he has a plan for everything, right?"
"Yeah."
"Then why pray?"
"Well, because God hears me and will make a way for me to get the things I want and need."
"Okay, look. If God knows everything, and has a plan, then you praying is pointless, because he knew long before you ever existed whether you praying to him was in his plan, and if him giving you stuff was in his plan."
"But, uhh, no, praying isn't pointless."
"It is if he's omniscient and has a plan, because the outcome would always be exactly the same as when he first laid out the plan. He even knew that some dude was going to pray to him at 8:23:14am November 2nd and pray for all the stuff you prayed for... So you didn't even have the free will to ask for the shit you asked for. It was all part of his original plan."
"But yes I do so have free will!"
"So you believe God can change his plan?"
"If he wants to."
"Then he can't be all-knowing."
"Yes, he is so!"
"If he was all-knowing, he would know how everything would turn out in advance, including his plan, so there is no way he could change his mind."
"Huh?"
"So even he can't have a free will, if he knows how everything will turn out."
"Huh? But yes he does so!"
"So basically you have to choose. Either God is all-knowing, or you and God have free wills, because it is impossible to have both."
"NUH-UH!"
Tiny towns full of old people with pristinely groomed lawns where the main industry and main use of land is cemeteries.
Recently MSNBC ran an article about the most notable discoveries about the ancient ancestors of humans. The article had many neat things about developments in hip and skull structures, teeth, and so on, and all-in-all was fairly interesting. What annoyed me was that before they even got through the first paragraph of the introduction, they gave this dumb, placating lip service to creationism, something along the lines of, "While many people believe that humans were designed by a supernatural creator, another theory is that humans evolved over a long period of time." Look. Just fucking get to the Australopithecus bones and shut the fuck up. Anyone who actually cares enough about his education to learn about this shit, even if only purely for the enjoyment of expanding his consciousness, probably doesn't buy the story about dust and ribs and talking snakes anyway, so stop insulting our intelligence. The two theories are on far from equal scientific footing, and are definitely mutually exclusive, so you can forgo the dumb disclaimer. Every adult who believes in either evolution or creationism is at the very least aware of the opposition of these two ideas, and the impossibility of both of them being true, so what's the fucking point? If you're going to make a news article that asserts things like the fact that the earth is greater than 6000 years old, or that humans share traits and genetic material with less developed organisms, just fucking do it. If you were doing an article on advanced math, you wouldn't waste valuable page space explaining concepts like "2 plus 2 equals 4," so why would you explain that, "Hey, just so you know, there are some people who disagree with this evolution stuff." No shit. They're wrong. They are as wrong as people who believe that 2 plus 2 does not equal 4, and it's staggering that their beliefs are treated with greater respect. Like, you wouldn't make a disclaimer in your math article that says, "Please be aware that some people do not believe that 2 plus 2 equals 4," you would just disregard them and their dumb opinions, because they're fucking retarded. You made an article that assumes, correctly, that modern humans evolved from earlier hominids, so have some fucking balls and just roll with it without taking time to coddle all the willfully ignorant, soft-headed retards who will disagree. Anyone who sends an angry email to the editor with some variation of, "Well, actually..." is fucking wrong. You know they're wrong. Anyone with a scientific education knows they're wrong. THEY'RE WRONG! Don't baby them for being wrong, just fucking disregard them.
The Windows registry.
"What the fuck! My computer is doing something really fucked up and annoying! I'd better look online to see if anyone knows how to fix the problem."
"Oh, just hit start, then hit 'run' then type 'regedit.' Then open the folder called HKEY_CURRENT_USER and dig way down all the hundreds of folders until you come to the folder called 873873UHD8947390748DJHFD8327KJHFD837. Open that and then search through the thousands of files with long gibberish names of equal length until you find the entry {CBU837436-6534654-49837-78DDC-5897FDE1RTB48}. Now delete that entry. Ok, now close regedit and restart your computer."
"OF COURSE! WHY DIDN'T I THINK OF THAT?"
In November, '08, the heads of the American car manufacturers flew in their private jets to Washington to beg congress for 35 billion dollars to bail out their failing companies. So let's see if I have this straight. If I open a restaurant, but my business model is flawed, and my business fails, I lose my money, my employees will be out of work, and I will probably spend the rest of my life up to my eyeballs in debt. But if I run a corporation that has made shitty, poorly designed, gas guzzling cars that nobody wants for decades, and my profits decline, and my company could actually be considered partially to blame for the fact that America's economy is sagging, then I can sit there in my 3000 dollar suit and expect a huge handout. Makes sense to me.
Hate mail take-backs. Lately, I have received several requests from people who sent me retarded shit, which I posted on my page unaltered, and then years later, presumably after they finally got their first real job, they send me emails begging me to take their bullshit down.
From: Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
April, 2002 Subject: FUK U FAGOT!
"OMG I FUKIN HAET U DUDE! UR NOTHIN BUT A FUCKIN FAGOT AND A JEW AND A JEW FAGOT WHAT JEWS AROUND ALL FAGOTY LIKE UR GAY OR SOMETHIN, U FAGOT! IF I EVER MEET U ON TEH STREET IM GUNNA BEAT YOU SO HARD THAT UR GUNNA GET BEAT REAL HARD CUZ I NO U CAN'T FITE CUZ UR A FAGOT! U FUCKIN FAGOT!"
From: Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
October, 2008 Subject: Requesting removal of my email
"Good afternoon. A few years ago, I sent you an email which I regret, which was insensitive and inappropriate. I see now that you were right, and I apologize whole-heartedly for sending you this correspondence. Recently, I have started a job with a multinational corporation, and see that if my email is found by my superiors on the internet, it could embarrass me, and possibly even compromise my livelihood. Again, I apologize, and would greatly appreciate it if you would remove my email.
Best regards, J. Beefytits"
From: Negativepositive
To: Jack Beefytits
October, 2008 Subject: Re: Requesting removal of my email
"No."
[-+]
From Jack Beefytits
To: Negativepositive
October, 2008 Subject: Re: Re: Requesting removal of my email
"FUK U FAGOT! IM GUNNA FUKIN SUE UR ASS YOU FAGOT! I HOPE U FUKIN DIE! I HOPE SOMEDAY I MEET U THEN I WILL STOMP ON UR FAGOT ASS! SEE U IN CUORT FAGOT!"
Hey, if you're going to be a dick, don't be a pussy about it.
Comedians on Comedy Central. Yeah, it's ironic, I know, but you know what's funny? Filth. "Oh, hey, so great you could make it, Mr. Stanhope! We are so happy to finally be shooting a special with you, which will be interrupted with that annoying jazz song every five minutes as we go to a ten minute commercial break, which will feature all the same commercials in every break. I just wanted to talk for a sec before you go on. As you know, this is basic cable, so, you know how you usually tell hilarious bits about fucking midgets, and hookers having war-torn twats that look like someone kicked a hole in a rotting pig carcass, and the smell of hooker pussy while on a heroic dose of mushrooms, and needing to meet a two headed girl with new and interesting holes to fuck because it's the only way you can get off? Well, uhh, yeah, you can't talk about any of that. Nope. So uhhh, just stick to jokes about airports and fast food, maybe some Carlin-ish examination of an expression that if you think about literally it seems weird. Hell, just point out how weird the set looks. Yeah. Just nice fluffy stuff like that. Cool. Well, go out there and knock em dead... but, uhh, don't color outside the lines. Yeah, we know it won't really be funny, but we'll just dub in the laughter and applause later. Don't worry, nobody will know. This channel aims for the middle. In fact, nobody who regularly watches this channel even knows who you are. We don't get great comedians. We get lame comedians and make them stars. I mean, we gave Mencia his own show for fuck sake, and anything that retard has ever said that was mildly amusing, some better comedian said before him, and he just took it and repeated it to the ignorant people who watch us. So go out there and make 'em laugh... but not too much."
Christians who seriously don't understand how dumb circular arguments are. It works like this. How do you know the Bible is true? Well, the Bible says it is the word of God. How do you know the Bible is the word of God? Because the Bible says so.
I got in an argument with a fundamentalist recently who was trying to use this concept to "prove" the event of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. "Hundreds of people SAW him crucified, and then he was laid in the tomb, and then THE TOMB WAS EMPTY! Then he appeared before at least 500 people! How can you not take the testimony of 500 people, many of whom were disbelievers, as proof?"
I responded, "Because that is not the independent testimony of 500 people, it's the testimony of ONE BOOK, and that book could have said any number the author wanted."
How can I not see that as proof? Okay, let me introduce myself. I am Negativepositive, high priest of the Holy Church of the Almighty Glombrax. Glombrax is the son of the one true god, Grickencrack, and the book of Glombrax attests to this. Actually, that whole episode with Jesus being killed and resurrected was just plagiarized from the book of Glombrax, which is twice as old as the Bible, according to the book itself. You think 500 witnesses is a big deal? Well the book of Glombrax says that after Glombrax was killed by the second sun landing on him as he lay on his lawn chair drinking margaritas (this second sun was later flicked into deep space by Grickencrack to prevent it ever landing on the earth again), he lay dead, not for a wussy 3 days, but 20 years. In that time, one MILLION people got to line up and check Glombrax's pulse to make sure he was dead. Then, after 20 years, he rose from the dead, and this was witnessed by the same million people, ALL of which, previously didn't believe in Glombrax's divinity. 500? PFFFFT! Then he ascended into heaven in a solid gold flying Lamborghini. SEE? How can you not see the testimony of these ONE MILLION PEOPLE as proof that Glombrax is truly the son of the real god, Grickencrack? How? Because I just pulled it out of my ass, much like the Bible was pulled out of the asses of people who thought the earth was flat, that disease was caused by sinfulness, that stars were actually just tiny specks of light that could fall to earth, that Pi is 3.00, that the universe was a few days older than humanity (and that humanity apparently came long after it actually did), that the moon emitted light, bats were birds, rainbows never happened prior to an impossible worldwide flood, that some birds and insects have four feet, dragons, unicorns, giants were real, and on and on and on.
Okay, let's play devil's advocate for a second. Let's say that the Bible actually accurately recorded the individual testimonies of 500 independent people who believed they witnessed a miracle (which, of course, it doesn't even bother to do). How easy would it be to get 500 people in the first century to believe something preposterous? Fuck, FOX News does it every single day to millions of people with a far tighter grasp of reality than anyone in Jesus' time. Imagine that you could be sent back in a time machine to Jesus' time and show those people something from modern times. A fucking WHEELBARROW would knock these retards on their asses. "HOLY FUCK! I CAN LIFT UP A WHOLE 100 pounds of sand, and move it over to that other pile of sand! YOU MUST BE THE FUCKING SON OF GOD! HOLY SHIT, I CAN'T BELIEVE IT! Check out my sand pile!"
People on Myspace or Facebook who invite you to groups that support causes or politicians who are of only a tiny local interest at best. "Join the group 'Citizens for the Bridge' (8 members) We are fighting the current state proposal that aims to tear down and replace the 20 foot long bridge that spans some creek you have never heard of on a road you have never and will never travel, in a town you have never and probably wil never visit, and looks like any other bridge, and has no particular historical importance, and we demand that the state instead spend much more money to restore the bridge, which has been deemed unsafe and on the verge of collapse. Help us in our fight!" WHO GIVES A SHIT?
Publishers and record labels that have 80 tons of bullshit that nobody gives a fuck about and one or two truly brilliant artists, who act like those few shining stars are of equal or even lesser importance compared with all the other shit they sell. "Welcome to the quarterly TVT records news letter for Fall of 1991. We have many exciting new compilations of TV theme songs for this year which we know you're going to love! We are trying to get the rights to the theme to 'I Dream of Genie' for volume 38, so keep your fingers crossed. Also, and I hardly even think it's worth mentioning, but the band Nine Inch Nails has submitted another album of new music to us, but we really don't think it's worth publishing. It just sounds like a bunch of moody noise to us, and frankly, we don't get it. We, of course, will hold Trank Reznik, or whatever his weird name is, to his contract to give us 5 albums which are worth publishing, but we will do so at our discretion, and honestly I wonder why we ever signed him to begin with. We really don't think this band is going anywhere."
<img src= "picture, usually of a cat, but often of another cute animal, doing something funny">
" "witty" dialogue with exaggerated misspellings and poor grammar "
Now copy and paste that 5000 times and you have a nearly exact replica of almost every "wacky pictures" sites on the internet.
"Wacky pictures" sites on the internet where someone took a normal picture and then used some extremely simple photoshop procedure, like using the stretch tool to make the subject's eyes "c-ray-zy," and then they post it like it's the most awesome thing ever. "Holy shit! It's a baby, but its eyes are CRAZYLOL!" *click next* "Holy shit! It's a picture, usually of a cat, but often of another cute animal, but its eyes are CRAZYLOL! Oh, and it's using "witty" dialogue with exaggerated misspellings and poor grammar, because clearly, it's CRAZYLOL!"
Bands that I never knew were good, and then I hear them and have my mind blown, only to discover that they only released like one or two albums and broke up 5 years ago, so I have nothing more to hear of theirs, and nothing to look forward to.
Bands that I heard in passing years ago, but for whatever reason, never followed up on, and then I get myself all twisted up thinking that they were really amazing, so I scour the internet trying to find what I heard, and of course this only happens with bands that had small releases, or vinyl-only releases, which ensures that I have to put forth tons of work, and often spend too much money, to find the music I heard, and either it's really good, but very short, or it's not nearly as good as I thought I remembered.
Creationists whose other misguided beliefs could be debunked through meaningful debate, if only they weren't creationists.
"Homosexuality is a sin. It is entirely unnatural, and a choice that people make in defiance of God!"
"Actually, if you look at lower animals, particularly higher primates, you find that there is a surprisingly high percentage of individuals that tend towards bisexuality and homosexuality. Even in animals as low on the evolutionary tree as birds and......"
*Dumb, self-assured smile*
"Oh.... Right. You think people aren't even related to other animals, and hence, think human behavior is entirely unrelated to animal behavior."
*Dumb, self-assured smile*
"And all these points, which would be evidentiary to someone who actually understands biology, are meaningless to you."
*Dumb, self-assured smile.... nod, nod, nod*
People who somehow believe in evolution AND creationism, or believe that evolution applies to plants, animals, etc, but not to people, since people aren't animals.
"Of course I don't believe that the earth isn't only 6000 years old, and I can see that higher, more advanced species developed over time from less developed species."
"So you can see that humans are somewhat closely related to great apes?"
"PFFFT! NO. People came from dirt and ribs, and were created in God's image. Don't you know anything?"
People who seem to believe in evolution when one of its concepts suits their argument. This is an actual conversation I had with someone.
"How can you say that homosexuality is natural? You don't see gay animals."
"Actually, you do. Oh, by the way, I didn't know you believed in evolution."
"I don't."
"Then why would you make a comparison between human behavior and animal behavior? If humans are not related to animals, animal behavior would be completely irrelevant to human behavior."
"Errr, uhhh, well, errr...."
"Although, if humans and animals had a shared ancestry, then yeah, human behavor would be directly related to animal bahavior."
"Uhhhh, errr, uhhhhh...""
Creationists whose understanding of evolution, and the basis for their arguments against it, is that a chimpanzee gave birth to a blonde, blue-eyed human child.
People who think that one of the most valuable skills you can have in modern America, and are a failure as a human being if you don't have, is the ability to shoot a gun well. Look, when the zombie armies come, then yes, firing a gun will be a useful skill, but most people can get through their 9-5 lives just fine without having perfect form with a gun. "Pfft, look. Her elbow is all wrong. She's gonna lose her bead when the gun kicks." Who gives a shit?
People who try to bargain by lying and exaggerating about the prices of things with relatively well known values.
"Man, why do I waste my money in your restaurant? I could go to Burger King and get a value meal with a Double Whopper with cheese, large fries and a large Coke for two dollars!"
Ummm, NO YOU CAN'T.
RPG videogames where you have to play for hours or even days or weeks before you get reasonably useful abilities. You make a character. At level 1, your list of abilities are apparently "Attack," and "Hope you live," though there doesn't seem to be a button for the second one. After several levels you gain a new ability: "Block." After several more levels you get another ability: "Heal 10% of your health for 50% of your magic." Of course, you advance along and at a quite advanced level, you finally have a list of abilities that you look at and think, "Gee, that would have been nice to have for the last 50 levels."
Reason #248 America is fucked
There is a very real possibility that the Stock Market could crash and send us into another Great Depression. Also, we are mired in two major wars with no end in sight, and the way that we have handled these wars, which were purportedly to make us safe from terrorism, have actually made us much less safe from terrorism, meanwhile, Americans are losing their liberties at an astonishing rate, as America looks more and more like a fascist state. What pressing issues are foremost in the minds of a frighteningly large cross section of voters? "We need to get someone in the White house who will ban abortion and gay marriage once and for all!"
You assholes. Who am I kidding? Should I expect rational thinking from people who would take their children out of public school to shield them from science classes that might teach them that Noah didn't chill with dinosaurs, giants and dragons? Yeah, silly me to assume people would actually be concerned with real problems that could affect them. (Oct 12,'08)
The recent saturation of ads on TV, billboards and the subway for airlines, where they act line the flight itself is going to be one of the best parts of your vacation. "We've got TV and wi-fi and satellite radio and delicious hot meals and seats that tilt all the way to being fully reclined. Holy shit! We've even got duvees! No fucking shit! Duvees on an airplane! Well fuck me runnin'! You're going to wish the flight would never end!" Then anytime you're actually on a plane, even on the airlines that make these ads, they have all the luxurious amenities of a fucking post office. Your knees are pressed against the seat in front of you, the meal is a can of soda and 0.002 ounces of pretzels and maybe, if you're lucky, they have a super shitty movie to watch on a tiny screen that's all cloudy and etched and fucked up from the time some brain trust tried to use an abrasive scrub pad to get a stain off it. Sometimes you get on a plane and it's visibly in a bad state of decay. Am I the only one who would rather not be flying in a plane that seems to be staying in the air simply by the power of duct tape and prayer?
Pretentious bosses who take up valuable time in meetings and ceremonies to pontificate about the company's "culture." Look, blow your new-agey bullshit out your ass. This company manufactures plastic forks. Who gives a shit? The Mayans were a culture. You're just a pretentious goober trying in vain to assign importance to something trivial. Let's see here. I showed up on time? I treated clients well? I did what I could to make the company money with minimal expense? The company is meeting or exceeding projected goals? Morale is on a reasonably even keel? Cool. Now you'll excuse me if I don't pretend to act like the company is of metaphysical importance to the universe and weave it into the fiber of my existence. "Culture?" Pfffft.
The large number of Americans who think that if you aren't a jingoist, you're not a patriot.
Friends who give themselves a schedule that essentially allows for zero free time, who then act bitchy with you because you can't ever seem to be able to schedule a time to meet up and hang out. Look. I'd like to hang out too, but I wasn't the one who decided to go out and get married and have two kids and work a full time job plus a part time job on weekends and also go to college full time plus take a kickboxing class three times a week. "Well, dude, I told you I was free from 3:45 to 5pm on Monday if you wanted to hang, but I guess you had something important to do. Pfft. Give me a call sometime, I guess."
People who, if gas rose to $18.62 a gallon, would still be like, "Pfff! Look at mister hippie dippy birkenstocks and his little pussy hybrid! Does it run on bean spouts? Haw!"
Bar flies who are incapable of walking into a bar without being kicked out 45 minutes after closing time because they won't get the fuck out on their own and keep nursing that last drink they bought at last call as though buying it gives them a divine right to sit there and be a loud jackass when the bar staff wants to close. "C'mon, man! You can't kick me out! I still have nearly a whole beer left!"
Girls who think that the sexiest thing in the world is a cop.
"Oh, baby! Remember last night when you busted that sweet house party at 9:30 because those people were committing the vile crime of being of age and drinking and playing a cool mix cd in the privacy of their own home, and then you threw that one guy to the ground and dragged him to jail for having a joint in his pocket, and then you and a bunch of other cops spent the next three hours searching the house for drugs and questioned the home owner until he was stressed to the breaking point because he had dared to have a few friends over? That was so HOT!"
Apparent prioritized design purposes for Legos:
1.) To create small objects with the maximum number of sharp angles and ideal size to hurt like a motherfucker when someone steps on them barefoot when they are left on the floor.
2.) To act as interlocking bricks which children can use to create structures and play with.
The fact that a search on Facebook or Myspace reveals that apparently the majority of my high school class has done nothing whatsoever since graduation but gain weight, have a bunch of goofy looking children, love the lord and root for the home team. And you wonder why I left?
Vending machines that don't have an option to refund your money when the item you want is out. If I walk into a store and want a Pepsi, and they're out of Pepsi and every other relatively non-disgusting soda, they don't force me to buy a fucking Sunkist because that's all they have left.
A couple of years ago, I was called to jury duty, and as expected, this helped to further diminish my hope for humanity. It was a criminal trial. Apparently, this guy called this other guy a name. This was witnessed by several people. The other guy then got in his car, drove to a sporting goods store and used his credit card to buy an aluminum baseball bat. (The store provided a copy of the transaction for evidence, which showed the guy's name. Also, the store owner picked the guy out of a lineup.) He then spent a few hours driving around looking for the name-caller. When he found him, he got out of his car and smashed the guy's face in with the bat. This was witnessed by many people, including two police officers, who wrestled the guy to the ground and got the bat away from him. The bat, of course, was brand new and matched the model of the one purchased a few hours earlier.
Plea: Not Guilty.
Vendors on sites like Ebay and Amazon who apparently ship things through some weird type of mail that is designed specifically to go as slowly as possible. Like, if I mail my landlord my rent on a Monday, he gets it of Wednesday or Thursday at the latest. But if I buy something from some vendors, they send it via "media mail," which apparently is a special type of mail where you go to the Post Office, and they use your package as a coaster in the break room for a couple of days, then ship it to a warehouse in Arizona that is guarded by vicious dogs. After a couple of weeks, they send a guy on a horse, Pony Express style, to pick up the package, and maybe his horse will die of thirst in the Arizona desert, in which case they wait another couple of weeks to send another rider. Once a rider actually makes it through the desert and successfully fights off the dogs and gets your package, he rides his horse to a nursing home in Columbus, Ohio. The package is then given to a 93 year old nearly-blind altzheimers patient who is verbally given instructions to take the west-bound R-18 bus to the 8th Street terminal, switch to the south-bound F-21 bus, the local, not the express, and get off at the 7th stop, walk 2 blocks east and 6 blocks south, then put it in the second mailbox from the south east corner of Limestone Blvd and Lime street. Three weeks later, the old man is found dead on a park bench, miles away from his intended destination, without the package, and a notice is sent to the vendor to ship a new copy. Then the process begins again, and continues until your package finally reaches you... or maybe not.
Recently in New York, there has been an advertising campaign to try to paint Islam as a peaceful, tolerant belief system that has been demonized by nothing other than Americans' ignorance of their beliefs, which seeks nothing but the respect afforded to any other innocuous belief system. The ads are laid out in two panels. The first has a relatively benign phrase in the form of a question, such as, "Head scarf?" or "Prayer rug?" The second panel says "You deserve to know," and has the group's web address, whyislam.org. Head scarf? Is that really one of the most serious questions plaguing the minds of Americans who are hesitant to see Islam through rose colored glasses? How about some real questions? Clitoral mutilation of children? Jihad? Honor killings? Beheadings? Stoning people to death? Lopping off people's limbs as a sentence for committing crimes that would be misdemeanors in the West? Mujaheed? Patently and often violence-inciting anti-semitic sentiment and satire in much of the mainstream Islamic media? Global conquest as a central doctrine? Huge swarms of people rioting in a murderous rage after being offended by the tiniest and most innocuous shit? Beating, killing, or raping women for having the audacity to show an inch of skin? Women being sentenced by tribal counsils to be gang raped as a punishment for their brothers' offenses? Suicide Bombing? House of War? Destroying significant historical artifacts that are older than Islam because they supposedly insult a religion that didn't even exist when they were made? Destroying statues and pictures for fear that their mere existence might lead to idolatry? Whipping and cutting yourself to a bloody pulp? Fatwas condemning Islam's critics to death? Jizya? Mohammed married a six year old and fucked her when she was nine, when he was 54, and in many Islamic countries, in the 21st century, the age of consent has been lowered to 9 in admiration of the prophet? Women as property? Women as second class citizens with a highly diluted set of legal rights compared to those enjoyed by men? Trying and sentencing rape victims to death by stoning, since, supposedly being raped makes them adulterers? Fathers and brothers murdering their daughters and sisters because having them fall victim to rape brings shame on the family? Death for apostates? You deserve to know. Why Islam? WHY, INDEED?
Things that would make multiplayer online games fun:
Strategy
Planning
Acquisition of interesting weaponry and equipment
Coordinated teamwork
How online gaming actually works in 99% of multiplayer games:
Spawn with a shitty weapon
Run around in a panic trying to find a better weapon
Get killed in one or two shots by someone you didn't even see after running around for 15 seconds or less
Respawn
Repeat
Any job that requires you to be there and working while most sane people are dead asleep. I mean, granted, when I pull off the interstate at 4:23am to buy a Slim Jim, some King Dons and a Mountain Dew, I'm glad there's someone around to sell them to me, but seriously, keep checking the classifieds.
Creationists on YouTube who try to "scientifically prove" creationism. I just watched this video by this tard who framed his argument in such a way that it rips itself apart. Of course, he apparently deleted all the negative comments and left up all the Christians who said he did a great job, and now he has comments blocked. Gee, that doesn't slant anything.
"Let's talk about time. If I tell you that I will give you a million dollars after an infinite amount of time, am I ever going to give you the money? No. Therefore, time has to be finite. Therefore, it goes the other way too. Time had to begin at a certain point, and the universe is made up of things, and things cannot exist outside of time, therefore God had to create the universe." Oh.... and God is not subject to time.... because you say so? I assume, since God has a name, you assume he's a "thing," and "things" cannot exist outside time, so God couldn't have existed outside of time, to "create" time, so, uhh, God doesn't exist, and never did. GOOD JOB. You proved it. Actually, you did prove something conclusively. You proved that you probably skimmed an article in a magazine that mentioned some basic concepts of Einsteinian physics, and apparently misunderstood it completely.
Realtors who are just flat-out liars.
"So I notice that the unit below this one is a Merengue bar, and the unit above it is a roller skating rink, and outside, 20 feet to the left is a NASCAR track and 20 feet to the right is a NASA rocket testing facility, and across the street is a shooting range where people can pay to shoot 50cal machine guns. Isn't it noisy?"
"Noisy? No. Nobody has ever said anything to me about the noise. The previous tennant used to say that it was very quiet and peaceful. OH! Did I point out the new bathroom fixtures?"
People who live in fear of doomsday scenarios that could in no way be altered by human actions. Someone just sent me a video warning me to "get educated" about the OORT cloud of comets, because sooner or later, a shitload of comets are going to hit the earth and wipe out all life on the planet. Uhhh... WHY? While I always like learning new and interesting things, what could possibly be the reason to try to implant fear and dread in people about something that there is no possible way to stop, and might not even happen for millions or billions of years. Do you really think humanity has that long? And if the shit happens TOMORROW, what good would it do to worry about it? What are you going to DO about comets smashing into the earth and annihilating all life on the planet in a single day? Hint: that Bruce Willis movie was ridiculous, at best. "You should educate yourself!" Yeah? Well you should calm the fuck down and have a slice of pie, because pie is delicious, and maybe you won't be here tomorrow to have a slice, but you' don't know either way. I'm betting you will take the slice of pie, and tomorrow you'll be back to have another slice. Lots of people since the dawn of human history lived until their dying days, worried every day about the "imminent" end of civilization. What did they all have in common? They were all worried unnecessarily, and now they're dead, so who cares?
Retards who haven't figured out that a video camera is not a regular camera, who TURN THE CAMERA ON ITS SIDE to frame the picture in "portrait" rather than "landscape." Hey, dipshit, this isn't a paper picture that someone can turn in their hands, you are posting this shit on youtube, and nobody is TURNING THEIR MONITOR ON ITS SIDE to see your retarded video of your baby laughing.
People who marvel at the amazing idea of bomb disarming robots. Sure, using a robot to get rid of a bomb is better than losing a human life, but every time a five dollar bomb annihilates a two hundred thousand dollar robot, we still aren't really winning.
The screaming, raving preacher on the street outside my office says that if I don't believe in Jesus, there's something missing in my life, and you know what? He's right. There IS something missing from my life... Most notably missing is the urge to stand on a street corner for hours every day and abandon all self respect as I scream and rave about imaginary things and annoy the shit out of passers-by and people in nearby offices who are trying to concentrate on actual work.
Oh, and there's this other guy who screams and shouts in the street near my work. He has spent about 2 hours a day, three days a week, for the past two years standing outside with a sandwich board with something or other written on it about some injustice or some corrupt official or something, shouting the same repetitive phrase over and over. It sounds like "BLUH-dee-BLUHHHHH! BLUH-dee-BLUH-dee-BLUHHHHHH!!!!" Yeah, in two years of practically tripping over this guy on my way out of the building, I haven't quite figured out what he's protesting. I mean, I'm sure he would be happy to tell me in detail what he's fighting for, but as it turns out, I'm not the least bit interested what some crazy asshole has to say about anything. Here's the deal. When there's 500 people with signs shouting a repetitive chant, it's a protest. When it's ONE guy, he's a fucking whack-job who needs pills.
On September 1st, the news broke that John McCain's vice presidential pick, Sarah Palin, had a 17 year old unwed daughter who was pregnant. It was the biggest news story of the day, drowning out such insignificant news as Hurricane Gustav. Of course, nearly everyone piped in on the news media that "Children are off limits. Palin's daughter's pregnancy should have no bearing whatsoever on how Palin's character or ability to lead are judged." A CNN poll was worded, "Should voters care that Gov. Sarah Palin's unwed daughter is pregnant?" Of course, the vast majority voted No. In fact, a few Republicans called the Democrats and media sexist for even mentioning it. You know, because no Republicans would ever stoop so low as to say anything sexist about Hillary Clinton or Nancy Pelosi.
And I fully agree that shit happens, and 17 year olds will occasionally ignore their parents' authority and fuck and get pregnant, and it's not the most conclusive way to judge the character of Sarah Palin, who, by the way, opposes ALL methods of birth control, including condoms, even for married couples. Surely this whole thing is completely out of her hands. And I also agree that voters should not be so focused on a candidate's spouse, children, or, even pastor. (Remember?) However, if this was the daughter of Barack Obama or Joe Biden, the Republicans would have taken it and used it as a sledgehammer to smash the Democratic campaign and demonstrate the egregious moral failings of liberals. It would be the key note of the ongoing Republican National Convention, and every speaker there would have alluded to it for a cheap laugh, and would have gotten nothing but cheers for doing so. If it was a Democrat, it would have cost them the election. Obama or Biden's illegitimate grandchild would have been their Donna Rice, their Willie Horton, their Swift Boat Veterans. But it's a Republican, so, c'mon, guys. Don't be so petty.
Oh, and a side note. The irony of this whole media blitz is hilariously hypocritical. The top story of the day on EVERY news media outlet in America: "Should the media be so focused on Bristol Palin's pregnancy? Well should it? Hey, let's talk about whether or not we should be focused on Bristol Palin's pregnancy, because I don't think we should be. What do YOU think about Bristol Palin's pregnancy? Do you think it's important? Here, take a poll about the importance of Bristol Palin's, daughter of vice presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, pregnancy. Oh, you don't think Bristol Palin's pregnancy is important? There you have it. Americans don't think Bristol Palin's pregnancy is important, or that it should be important. Bristol Palin is pregnant, by the way. She's Sarah Palin's daughter. But that's not important. It's totally unimportant and irrelevant... that Bristol Palin, the daughter of Sarah Palin, the republican vice presidential candidate, is pregnant... and unmarried. STOP PUNCHING YOURSELF! STOP PUNCHING YOURSELF!"
"Christian scientists" who make their primary goal the debunking of evolution. Okay, just for the fuck of it, let's say that you somehow disprove evolution. You still haven't come a single step closer to proving creationism. Where's your fossil record of snakes with vocal cords and lungs and brains big enough to handle human speech and reasoning? What, uhh, species of tree produces the fruit that gives the ability to determine what's good and evil, because that's the sort of shit that you could actually test. Oh, it was lost in Eden? Well, considering that we can pretty much see a fly on the ass of a racoon with satellites, Eden shouldn't be too hard to find, so, uhhh, you wouldn't happen to have a rough idea of the coordinates, would you? I mean, if the earth is only 6000 years old, that kind of stuff should be relatively easy to find, compared to dinosaur bones that are hundreds of millions of years old.
People who eat a hamburger or slice of pizza with a fork and knife.
Bands whose main purpose seems to be to get the word out. "Dude! Are you doing anything Tuesday? You should come see us play! I mean, I know we've been around for four years, and our play list has only grown by two songs in that period of time, and the two newer songs are covers, but dude! You should come check it out! Oh, and don't forget to check out our website. It has a blog where I tell you about upcoming shows and lots of links to where you can buy our music and merchandise. Oh, and there is a monthly video blog where I tell you about our creative process, and tell you about upcoming venues, but no music. Oh, and add me as a friend on Myspace, and subscribe to me on Youtube. If you do want to get video of us playing music, we have a DVD of us playing live, and it includes a video for one of our songs, shot entirely by me and my girlfriend without ever leaving the yard. Here, man! Take some stickers to, you know, spread the word!"
The most notable thing going on today is that the stock market is taking a beating following a run on a bank.
Front page headlines on cnn.com:
Lady finds snake in washing machine.
Which celebrity couples are the most green?
Check out our review of the new Batman movie!
What's the deal with Bret Favre?
On July 6th in a suburb of Atlanta, GA, a Pakistani man, Chaudhry Rashid, killed his 25 year old daughter by strangling her with an electrical cord because she refused to stay in an arranged marriage with a Pakistani man from Chicago. While the CNN and ABC articles did refer to the killing as an "Honor killing," the following words are ostensibly missing from both of their articles: Muslim, Islam, Islamic, Sharia, all of which are central to the concept of why this murder took place at all. Instead, the articles repeatedly tiptoe around the crux of the issue by referring to the incident as an act of domestic violence. While it is inargaubly that, it intentionally misses the point. Calling this simply an act of domestic violence would be like calling a nuclear bomb blast "unseasonably warm weather." Say what you will about my tolerance of different religions and cultures. If Mr. Rashid had been a Christian, Hindu, Jew, Bhuddist, Mormon, Taoist, etc, or, ideed, an atheist, Sandeela Kanwal would still be alive.
Radio stations where you have them on in the background, and then you realize the last song they played was "Freeze Frame" by the J. Giles band, and for at least the last ten minutes, they have played nothing but commercials, and you think, gee, is it really worth it to sit through ten minutes of the most annoying commercials on the planet, just so I can get to hear 'Hip to be Square' by Huey Lewis and the News? No. No it isn't.
Smarmy turds who say, "You know, diet sodas are actually much worse for your body than regular soda." Yeah, well, I'm sure soda in general is bad for your body, but this year I switched from regular soda to diet soda, and as a result, I dropped 25 pounds in five months, without altering anything else about my diet or level of exercise, and I'm sure that's really crappy for my body.
People who want to show you ultrasound pictures of their baby, or their sister's baby, or their wife's baby, and you haven't even met these people, and expect you to act excited. Look. I don't even want to see pictures of these kids running around Chuck E. Cheese's at their eighth birthday party, much less a blurry black and white blob of gibberish where you can sorta-kinda, if you squint, make out a hand or a head. Oh, wow. Maybe it's a leg... Or maybe it's your colon full of that Double Whopper with cheese you ate a few hours ago. I would be equally impressed to see a blurry black and white picture of either. When it's my baby, then yes, I will be happy to get visual confirmation that my son actually has a head, and only one head. When it's not my baby, it looks like every other ultrasound picture I've ever seen. How do I know you didn't just get that picture from Google Images? And what difference would it make to me if you did? "Wow... Your baby has some handsome JPG artifacts. Nice pixelation on that kid."
People who have a dumb milktoast concept of what it means to be "bad."
"Oh my god, I've been so naughty this week. I had not one, but TWO chocolate chip cookies after lunch!"
"Yeah, I was kinda naughty too. This morning I woke up on the floor of a public restroom stall, and I can't remember how I got there. I felt like shit, so I snorted some cocaine off the toilet seat for a little pick-me-up. Then I went outside and didn't see my car around, so I stole a car and went to see this guy who owes me money. He wasn't there, but his girlfriend was there giving me the run-around, so I head-butted her in the face and knocked her out and dug around her pockets and found her wallet with 250 bucks in it, plus an ATM card, and the stupid broad had written the pin number right on it, so I hit the ATM and took out a grand. Then I drove by this seedy neighborhood and picked up a couple of hookers and took em to this hotel and we all did a bunch of coke and fucked for a few hours with no protection. Then that guy kept calling my cell phone screaming about his girlfriend, and that shit got old, so I kicked the hookers out naked into the hotel hallway and drove back over to the guy's apartment and beat him bloody while his girlfriend just hid in the bathroom crying. So yeah, I was kinda bad today too."
"Oh, god! And did I tell you? I ate pizza today! God, my diet is so screwed!"
People who take on this air of superiority and act aloof about their jobs and try to push for more money because they "have other offers," and then end up never leaving because they're full of shit.
"What are you going to bring to the company picnic?"
"That's in what, two weeks? Pffft, right. Like I'll even be here by then. I'm about to blow this dump."
Three years later....
"Heh, this place can kiss my ass. I'm tellin' ya man, I am outta here."
Does the world really need another movie about a hot, prissy girl who falls in love with a hot urban guy while taking part in an over-the-top street dancing competition between rival break dancing gangs? Wait. Let me answer before you say something stupid. No. No it doesn't. (Insert "illegal auto street racing," "illegal underground martial arts tournament," etc. as applicable.)
Web filters at work that were apparently put into place completely arbitrarily by someone who didn't even look at the website.
I recently tried to view a website about Final Fantasy XI Online, and was met with the corporate "blocked site" page. On the page they show the corporate web usage policy and list the reason the website is blocked. "Reason: Hate and Racism. Your IP has been logged." What the fuck? So now H.R. Is going to see my name tossed into a list of people who were checking out pages for neonazi and white supremacist groups because I was looking for something about Final Fantasy?
"Please hold while the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is located... Please hold while the Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is located... The Nextel subscriber you are trying to reach is currently unavailable." I mean, I'm no marketing expert, but maybe it's not the best idea to put your corporate branding on something that is directly indicative of how shitty and broken your service is. Oh, gee. Nextel is trying to locate them. Any other company's phone would be fucking ringing by now.
The fact that emails sent from my job are caught in the spam filters, but somehow "SexyGirl35681" who wants me to view her "private pictures" and "Karim al-Qusur" who claims that I "AM WIN CANADA LOTTERY" get through just fine.
People who are not actually participating in The Olympics, who act like The Olympics are of some vast importance. It's people playing sports, and most of these are sports that fucking nobody gives a flying fuck about except when they are in The Olympics. When was the last time you went to a bar and found the entire place fixated on the curling match on TV? When was the last time you hurried home from work so as not to miss the bobsled races or weightlifting competition on TV? That's right. Never. This year's summer Olympics are being held in China, amid tons of protest about China's human rights record. To the protesters I say, why protest now? Because of the Olympics? Who gives a shit? Why weren't you out protesting before? Oh, right. You get more visibility because of The Olympics.
On my way to work I saw people passing out religious pamphlets. This was nothing new, but the title of the pamphlet made me chuckle. "The Scam of Unbelief." Scam? Uhhh, I'm not sure if you're aware of this, but there's no money that is inherently derived from not believing in fanciful things. So uhhh.... Where's the fucking scam? When was the last time a paleontologist said, "If you don't buy me a private jet, I can't do my work?" When was the last time a biochemist said, "No, the federal government can't see my financial records because they belong to God?" (Both of these claims were made by evangelist Kenneth Copeland). On the other hand, there's a shitload of free money to be made in religion. Religion is the greatest scam ever conceived, and I guess they don't like competition. It's the old "defense by accusation" ploy. Scam? Hah! "But, if people stop believing in God, who will pay for the gold leaf and jewels that we planned on buying to embellish this huge building that is a dwelling for nobody? And how are we going to afford our 200 acre mega-church complex? And how will we pay the legal fees to protect our army of kid-touchers from pedophila charges? And the Pope is getting bored of his solid gold jewel-encrusted scepter and wants a new one. Who's gonna pay for that if people start realizing we're full of shit? How will people be able to convince their relatives to murder their daughters for honor after they've been raped? Who will we get to blow themselves up on crowded busses if people start figuring out that there's no invisible man in the sky smiling down on their actions? Who will chop off their children's foreskins and clitorises when people realize that the real reason for their removal is to diminish sexual pleasure and that there is no supreme patriarch out there to be offended by sexual pleasure?"
Apple is at it again, trying to peddle their lack of innovation to their goofy, little, brainwashed appleheads as though they were amazing innovators. The second generation iPhone commercial begins, "What is 3G?" as though they fucking invented it. "It's the internet (dramatic pause) twice as fast. It's sending and receiving emails (dramatic pause) twice as fast. It's text messages (dramatic pause) twice as fast." Oh yeah... You get the internet twice as fast as the old iPhone. In other words, the iPhone is now finally on a network that is JUST AS FAST AS THE ONES USED BY EVERY OTHER CELL PHONE IN AMERICA! How about making a retroactive commercial for the generation one iPhone. "It's the internet... HALF AS FAST. It's emails and text messages... SLOW AS FUCK COMPARED TO ANY OTHER PHONE."
Cheese soup. Know what the difference is between cheese sauce and cheese soup? With cheese sauce, you are using cheese to flavor something that's less fatty than cheese. With cheese soup, you're drinking a much larger quantity of liquid cheese without all the fuss of chewing something else in the process, you fat fuck. Maybe I should just give you a jar of mayonnaise and a spoon and watch you go to town.
The myth of targeted advertising on the internet. Since my first Windows 95 baby steps on the internet, I have heard the nervousness, which varied in intensity from cautious and sober to tin-foil hat conspiracy theory paranoia, that unseen forces were floating around the internet, collecting a record of everything I look at, everything I write, everything I search for, all my associations, all my friends, all my political interests, all my private thoughts. These forces would then use this record against me in the form of (dastardly villain trumpet blare - picture the "Spanish Inquisition" sketch from Monty Python) TARGETED MARKETING!!!! Gasp! What an abridgement of my freedom! So... Annoying as it might be, where is it? I don't see them advertising electronic music, viral videos, stand up comedy, video games and porn to me, at least not to a greater extent than they advertise these things to anyone else in spam and banner ads. From what I can see, about the only thing they seem to know about me is that I am most likely male, and speak english. OH! And apparently, I own a computer. Let's see, what do I get advertised to me on a regular basis?
"Refinance your Mortgage!" Good research, retards, I have lived in apartments for nearly 9 years.
"Order discount prescription drugs from Canada!" Gee! Just what I need, considering I generally don't take any prescription medication and have no problem getting boners.
"Meet Christian singles in your area!" Wow! It's uncanny how you pinpointed the exact demographic that I totally have no urge to meet at all!
"I am Abdullah Izmir, and I need your help urgently in a private financial matter!" Sounds legit to me!
"Your Citibank account am be locked from access to you! Contact urgently!" Okay, Master of English grammar! I will hurry and contact you to reopen my nonexistent Citibank account.
"Why not enroll at the University of Phoenix, for a brighter future?" Sure, why wouldn't a 35 year old guy who has a middle class income in New York City enroll in classes at a college 2500 miles away?
"Refinance your student loan!" I don't have one, but hey, maybe you can loan me some money for the education I don't plan on getting in Phoenix!.
People who give you gift certificates that are too small to be useful at the store they are from without you spending more money. Oh, gee, thanks. A 10 dollar gift certificate for Best Buy. Now I can buy... Nothing.
"The miner owns three gold mines." Correct
"This is where he mines for gold." Correct
"Today, upon finding a large nugget, the miner said, 'This gold is mines!'" WRONG!.
People who in this age of caller ID think they can get away with the old "Call and hang up" bullshit. Congratulations. You just made a new friend. I have a long commute, a cell phone, and nothing to do on the way but call your dumb ass back 100 times.
People who go on Amazon and give "The God Delusion," "The End of Faith," "God is Not Great," "The God Who Wasn't There," and other atheistic books and videos 1 star reviews purely on the basis of, "GOD IS SO REAL! HOW COULD YOU EVEN SAY GOD ISN'T REAL? NO WAY IN HELL WOULD I EVER EVEN WATCH FIVE SECONDS OF THIS VIDEO, BUT I'M GOING TO GIVE IT A NEGATIVE REVIEW ANYWAY! YOU'RE GOING TO GO TO HELL!"
People who think they can just blurt out their CRAZY worldviews and think that nobody will call them out on how crazy they are. Recently I was talking to some friends about books and movies and we were all talking about stuff we liked. I mentioned George Orwell's "1984" and a few people in the group were like "Oh, yeah. That was a good one." This one guy blurted out, "Yeah, I can always enjoy a good book, even if it does rip on ultra-conservatism." Yes, he used the term "ultra." Usually the only people who prefix "conservatism" with "ultra" are liberals who want to point out how far to the right someone is, but this guy was casually referring to himself as an ultra-conservative. If what you get from 1984 is that it's a happy ending because the party smashed Winston Smith's mind and spirit until he submitted and conformed, and that this was a good thing for society, you're fucked up, and I will be the first to tell you. Like, as much as I disagree with run-of-the-mill conservatism, I can understand it, but to be an advocate of totalitarianism.... go fuck yourself.
Cults. This one seems to really speak for itself, but I think it goes a bit beyond the whole "Those people are KOOKS" factor. I tend to think in a rational way, for the most part, and this has led me to believe that the claims of religion tend to be highly suspect. There are things that people believe that are real, and there are things that people believe in that are not real, or at best, are highly improbable. A million people, or even billions of people, can believe in something and be wrong. Even if you are, for instance, a Christian, you can look at other belief systems and see the glaring flaws in logic and low degree of probability of their claims. However, on the other end of the "sanity in numbers" scale, there are beliefs that are held by very few people. If everyone who believes in something can fit in a single subway car, there's a very strong possibility that those people are crazy. Being in a minority is one thing, but how does someone get to the point where they can examine a belief, that is highly improbable at best, and held by only 200 people, or 50, or 20, and think, "Hmmmm.... You know... This guy Dave says he is the son of God, whose true name is Guadachungo, and he says that the best way to show appreciation to Guadachungo and to the Almighty Dave is to let my underage children engage in orgies with Dave and his 25 followers, and that once we all share the same blood, and we give all our money and property to Dave, he will receive a divine message from Guadachungo, and we will steal a school bus and ride it to a place far away in the desert, where we will all douse ourselves in gasoline and set ourselves and our children on fire to burn away the old bad skin of sinfulness away, and once we are pure, Guadachungo will arrive in his spaceship to take us to his home planet.... Yeah, that sounds reasonable."
Reason number 728 why America is fucked.
Who would win in a hypothetical presidential election?
Candidate 1: Has an IQ of 168. Highly educated in economics, cultures, history, political science and geography, and has spent time as a professor in most of these subjects. Previously held the office of Governor in a state whose economy, crime rate and educational system took a sharp turn for the better during his two term tenure. His reputation is that of a strong diplomat who has worked in the United Nations and already has a good rapport with the leaders of many countries which have a wide variety of styles of government, and economic, racial and religious backgrounds. He doesn't particularly like apprearing on television, and appears somewhat awkward and has a dry manner of speaking. His advisors are carefully chosen for their knowledge of world affairs, economics, history, and their ethics. Stated reason for running: Wants the US to be seen as a positive force around the world with a strong economy, reduced crime and with real opportunities for the working class. Has not publicly stated any religious affiliation, and says that his religious beliefs are a private matter, and should be considered irrelevant due to his qualifications to lead. Does not resort to mudslinging in his campaign, believing that his qualifications and well-known sense of ethics will ensure a win.
Candidate 2: Has an IQ of 115. Went to an expensive university and got a Bachelor of Arts degree with a C average. During his years at the university, he was known not for his academic achievements, but for his wild social life and popularity. Has been previously employed as a newscaster and sports reporter, and is comfortable and photogenic on television. Later he served one term as a senator with an unremarkable record. Most Americans would say of him, "He seems like the kind of guy I can relate to. He reminds me of my uncle, the kind of guy you would want to have a beer at a barbecue with." Frequently uses frat boy adjectives like "awesome" "killer" and "sweet." His advisors include mostly people who gave him a leg up politically in the past, an assortment of old friends, donors from previous campaigns, evangelical Christian clergy, college roommates and friends of his family. Stated reason for running: Believes that the US is a Christian nation and should return to more traditionally religious values. Says that God speaks to him and guides him, and despite having been married for 30 years, having two children and having served in the senate, claims that the most transformative moment of his life was becoming a Christian. Sees the US as far superior to all other nations, and believes that the way to keep it that way is to maintain its position as the world's only superpower, by whatever means necessary. Repeatedly implies that Candidate 1 is unpatriotic, cowardly, and is pandering to foreign countries, and is probably an Godless atheist, or worse, a radical muslim.
I just read an article on MSNBC about 17 girls, aged 15-16, who all became pregnant in one year at one particular high school. It turns out that they had all made a pact to get pregnant, and one of them, a 15 year old, was pregnant with the child of a 24 year old homeless guy. You, uh, fucked a hobo... specifically to get knocked up... at age 15... and now your baby has pedophiliac hobo genes. GOOD JOB, DUMBASS! I wish I could say, well at least the only life you're ruining is your own, but nope.
I'm in line behind this old woman at Wendy's, and she spends like five minutes ordering, asking what comes with what, and how much more it would be for this and that, then finally, when she's done ordering, the cashier tells her, "That will be $8.37," and she reaches in her pocket and pulls out a fucking fist full of change and dumps it all on the counter. She doesn't even count it or anything, and I swear there wasn't a single quarter in it. So then the cashier has to sift through this pile of mostly pennies and nickels to get the amount he needs. The correct response to having a five pound load of coins flopped on your counter isn't to count It, but to pick it up and throw it in her face as hard as you can.
Any service where you can sign up in a couple of minutes with nothing but a credit card and an urge do so, but you have to jump through a million hoops of flaming bullshit to cancel the service, and even when you're through, you wonder if you're really through, and you check your mailbox, email, credit card statement and bank account half expecting to see more charges.
Movies where the plot would completely grind to a halt if anyone acted the way real people really act.
Example:
Two guys who have never met previously meet in a bar and end up talking to each other for ten minutes about some generic conversational shit, then one of them says goodbye and leaves, and the other one sits there and orders another drink. Fast forward to the next day, or the next week or whatever. One of the guys is walking down the street at night to where he parked his car. As he puts his key in the door, he hears some scuffling in an alley across the street. From where he's standing, he can see that there is someone in the alley dragging something. The person in the alley looks over and they make eye contact. They both recognize each other from the bar the other night. The guy in the alley is dragging a dead man and is covered in blood. The guy calls to the guy with the car to come help him get rid of the body. In real life, the guy's response would be:
A.) Make a concerned face, then sigh, realizing that he must help the guy from the bar in getting rid of the dead body. He pulls the car up near the alley, pops the trunk, then spreads a tarp. He helps the guy from the bar lift the body into the trunk, and then they both drive out to the country and finally finish burying the body when it's almost dawn. He then drives the guy back to town, and they agree to keep in touch. He then drives home, and his girlfriend sees him covered in blood and dirt, and asks what happened, but he says not to worry about it, so, of course, she obediently doesn't ask any more questions, you know, like any normal girlfriend. In a few days, the police or the mob or whatever comes directly to the guy's door to ask if he has ever seen, they hold up a picture either of the dead guy or the bar guy, "this guy." He plays it cool and says he doesn't know anything, which is absurd considering how they knew exactly who to look for and where to find him. And the plot thickens...
B.) Immediately upon realizing that the guy is dragging a bloody dead body, he rips the car door open and gets the engine started as quickly as physically possible, then slams the gas and hauls ass out of there. When he gets some distance away and the initial panic begins to subside, he dials 911 on his cell phone and tells the police what he saw, but never looks back, and hopes the police didn't take down his phone number. He wonders what happened to the guy from the bar, but never actually finds out. He feels a bit unnerved that he shared a beer with a killer, and occasionally catches himself looking over his shoulder, but he never sees the guy again.
Celebrities who name their kids whatever the fuck they feel like. "The Edge," whose name I can't even bring myself to write without using quotation marks, the dumbass guitarist for the dumbass band U2, named his daughter Blue Angel, because I guess he digs air shows. Michael Hutchence, before he died of auto-erotic asphyxiation, which one of my friends referred to as "the Hutch Clutch," named his kid Heavenly Hiraana Tiger Lily. Nicholas Cage named his kid Kal-el, which is Superman's given name, you know, because he's not an earthling. Jermaine Jackson showed the limitations of the Jackson family's creative genes by naming his kid a fucking pun, Jermajesty. Bono, not wanting to be outshined in stupidity by his band mate, named his kid Memphis Eve. The dumbass rapper T.I., who, when he's not making utterly generic rap music or being arrested for trying to buy guns from federal agents or shooting every one of his videos with the camera staring up his flared nostrils, took a tip from Jermaine Jackson and named his kid Messiah Ya'majesty. Penn Gillette, the talking half of Penn and Teller, decided to name his kid Moxie Crimefighter. Jason Lee took one too many bumps on the head during his skateboarding career and named his kid Pilot Inspektor. Gwyneth Paltrow named her kid Apple. Sylvester Stallone named his kid Sage Moonblood. Of course, Michael Jackson named his kids Blanket and Prince Michael II, but since it's fucking Michael Jackson, naming his kids that bullshit is just about the most normal thing he's ever done.
"We're going to name our kid, "Kyd!" (David Duchovny)
"Uhhh, no sir. We're going to call child protective services to keep your new baby safe from your stupidity."
People who are so perplexed by atheists that they ask, "Well, aren't you afraid you're going to hell?" Uhhhh, a disbelief in hell is sort of par for the course for atheists. In fact there are many people who do believe in God, but not hell. It's like threatening me that if I don't believe in your pet pegasus, he will bite me. We have no fear of hell, and no fear of being bitten by a pegasus, on pretty much equal levels.
Summer snowmen. I understand that it's hot outside, and while I am boundlessly thankful for girls in little tank tops, it has to be understood that if you're a hefty girl who isn't comfortable until you cake yourself with enough baby powder to look like there was a disaster down at the chalk factory, maybe you need to upgrade to a tee-shirt. It's cleavage, not funnel cake.
I don't think of myself as homophobic, and I definitely don't think of myself as prudish, however, I can't help but feel like the guy sitting across from me in this crowded subway car, thumbing through a big, glossy magazine of graphic hardcore gay porn, with an expression on his face as though he's reading a newspaper, and with a total disregard for the people around him, is at least a tiny bit fucked up.
Girls on myspace who did a photo shoot for a local hair salon when they were 19, who are now 31 and haven't done any actual modeling jobs since the salon gig, and have never done any actual acting jobs, but list their occupation as "Model, actress" and are full of their own shit, and think they have a fan base because they have 300 myspace friends, and 95% of them are either bands that want exposure, or dumbass guys with "show your abs" pics, who send comments that say, "Yo girl U lookin good! Holla back!"
The fact that we live in a universe that is at least 93 billion light years across, and has existed in the form that we know for at least 13.73 billion years, and is made up of an uncountable number of tiny particles that we only barely understand, and somewhere in this mess of vastness and things that we have only a flickery comprehension of is a galaxy that is one of perhaps hundreds of billions of galaxies, which is about 100,000 light years across, and home to at least 200 billion, and possibly as many as 400 billion stars, one of which, about 26,000 light years from the center of the galaxy, travelling in orbit around the center of the galaxy at 492,120 miles per hour, is a star which formed about 4.59 billion years ago when a hydrogen molecular cloud rapidly collapsed and the hydrogen began transforming into helium through constant nuclear fusion. And the various heavy elements within the cloud condensed to form a handful of planets, one of which possessed, against incalculable odds, the special chemistry which, somewhat recently, led to the formation of living things, and this planet revolves around its star at a speed of 66,420 miles per hour and spins at a speed of over 1000 miles an hour. And sometime very recently in the history of the universe, this planet produced its first species that had the mental capacity to begin contemplating all these things, and wondering at how everything came to be, and its purpose in the universe, and this species has only recently devised some meager means to begin untangling all these mysteries, which were utterly beyond the comprehension of any previous species on this rare planet. And this species, in only the past couple of hundred years, has expanded its knowledge and understanding of the universe many, many times over, and the more it learns, the more it realizes how much there is left to be learned, if in fact this species survives its own stupidity, which looms large over the frighteningly near horizon, threatening to destroy this species forever... and millions of these beings, most of which have a mere 70-something years to exist, can think of nothing more important or interesting to do with their brief time in the universe, than to sit, night after night, staring in rapt anticipation... to see which vacuous whore Bret Michaels would rather fuck.
People who, if something is cool, they hate it, and if something is really lame, you can almost be assured that they love it. Like, they love anything that sucks balls and hate anything that's good.
"So.... The New American Gladiartors."
"OH MY GOD! I can't believe they brought that back! I AM SO HAPPY!"
"Professional Wrestling."
"OH, DUDE! Don't even fuck with professional wrestling! I mean, if you saw the last Smackdown, you can't even tell me that shit wasn't fuckin' amazing!"
"The Departed."
"I don't get that shit, man. I mean, It's supposed to be like all bang bang shoot-em-up but they spent most of the movie like blah blah blah. People kept telling me it was gonna be good, but it's been a while since I saw a movie that bad."
"M. Night Shyalaman's 'The Village.'"
"OH MY GOD! That was one of the most amazing movies I have ever seen. I totally didn't see that twist coming! I mean, I thought these people were really living in the 1700's, scared of some creatures in the woods. And then it turns out that it's really modern day and the creatures were all bullshit? OH MY GOD! That took me totally by surprise! That has got to be the best acting and writing I have ever seen!"
"Pokemon."
"OH SHIT! Haha! I caught em all! That shit is AWWWWWWESOME!"
"Nine Inch Nails."
"Man, I can't get into that faggotty disco Bleep Bleep Bloop Bloop shit."
"Toby Keith."
"Fuckin' yeah, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout! Ain't nobody can write or sing as good as him, and he's really got his morals and priorities in the right place. I mean, The USA putting a boot in your ass... FUCK YEAH! WOOO!"
Pregnant celebrities. First, I want to start off by saying that there is plenty of real news happening in the world, so devoting all this time to keep everyone informed about who is knocked up is bullshit. But seriously, what is this shit? Has everyone in Hollywood become Mormon? It's like every woman who is over 15 years old and has made more than a buck fifty in Hollywood or the music industry has been pregnant in the last year. You know what's less sexy than being pregnant? Nothing. And don't give me that, "You're being misogynistic" shit. Women are beautiful. Pregnant women look like an alien seed pod with dark nipples. Seriously, I know you assholes can afford birth control. Use it.
People whose critique of a great movie or book doesn't get any more intelligent than, "It was too long." You know why "The Godfather" was that long? Because it had to be. The other thing that cracks me up are people who can't think of a better point to make in a debate other than "You use too many long words." I recently had a laugh posting a YouTube comment where I pointed out another instance of Dane Cook plagiarizing lesser known comedians, and got plenty of the usual, "Don't be a hater" "Go suck a dick, DANE RULEZ" bullshit, and one that made me me cackle. "no offense but you use 2 many large words!" The "large words" were "flagrantly" and "illustrious," by the way.
Automated customer support that doesn't help a fucking thing. So recently I bought an XBox 360, and a week after I bought it, the optical drive stopped being able to read discs. I checked the "support" area of the XBox page, and, as usual, they make you jump through hoops to get to the actual "email someone for help" link. The page was basically the usual "tech support for idiots" load of shit of the "make sure the machine is plugged in, make sure the machine is turned on" variety.
"Make sure the disc is not dirty or scratched."
It's brand new. Check.
"Make sure the disc is formatted for use in your region."
USA, Check.
"Turn the machine off, and then back on again and try again."
Check.
"Three or four more suggestions that Neg was too angry to remember."
Check.
"If these fixes do not remedy the problem, click here for technical support."
Subject: "Disc is Unreadable" Error
I purchased an XBox 360 one week ago, and the optical drive can no longer read any discs. I have tried game discs, DVD's and CD's, all brand new, free of dirt, smudges or stratches, and coded for use in the US, and the machine gives me the error, "Disc is Unreadable." I have tried restarting the machine, and this had no effect. What should I do?"
Subject: Re: "Disc is Unreadable" Error
Please follow these steps to correct this issue:
Make sure the disc is not dirty or scratched.
Make sure the disc is formatted for use in your region.
Turn the machine off, and then back on again and try again.
Three or four more suggestions that were exactly the same as the questions found on the "troubleshooting" page that Neg had to go through to even get to the tech support email link, and was even angrier to read again.
Thank you,
Jessica.
Yeah, whatever, "Jessica."
So, I opted for a non-technical solution. I returned the fucker to the store.
Morbidly obese girls who think that if you don't think they're sexy, your obviously some superficial asshole who would never date a girl unless she was anorexic and built like a coathanger. Uhhhh, there's a lot of grey area between Mo'nique and Kate Moss, and denial isn't endearing.
People who go on Amazon or other places where you rate videogames, who give a game a one star review because they didn't understand a core aspect of the game, like the idea of paying to connect to an mmorpg game, or needing to own the original game in order to play the expansion pack, when the requirements to play are posted all over the product.
"So I bought this piece of crap expansion for World of Whore-craft, (Get it? Because it rhymes with Warcraft? Holy fuck, I'm clever!) and like, you need to buy the original stupid game first! Like, they're intentionally ripping you off! I mean, I honestly expected that the full version plus the expansion would cost 20 bucks less than the full version by itself, because that makes sense! Oh, so then I buy the stupid original game, and then get this shit! They expect you to PAY a fee every month to play! I mean, what if I don't even want to play online? Oh, but gee, get this! This piece of shit doesn't even have a single player game! What a fucking load of bullshit! They want me to PAY to play with OTHER PEOPLE? Fuck that! Like I want to play with other people anyway! This game is 100% bullshit, and you are a sucker if you give them a dime! I wouldn't play it if they paid me!"
"They threw me under the bus." Seriously, this phrase needs to die. A couple of years ago I had never heard it, and now every time the laudromat loses your sock or someone doesn't like your tie or McDonalds puts a pickle on your plain cheeseburger, "THEY THREW ME UNDER THE BUS!" Aren't we being just a tiny bit melodramatic and overly sensitive? I mean, the desired impact of the phrase is in the imagery. Someone betrayed you and shoved you in the path of a speeding bus, where you were presumably dragged under the axle and scraped and crushed into a mess of bloody, shredded meat. Now, due to a couple of years of overuse, you assume that someone using this phrase was "mildly inconvenienced," or "miffed."
Last fall, I made a post ripping on supposed progressives who were following the Pied Piper named Ron Paul and being obnoxious about getting out the vote for this little stealth candidate turd. I just wanted to offer a little follow-up on that. In April, the US House of Representatives voted on a resolution to urge China's government to end its crackdown on nonviolent Tibetan protestors, to begin a dialogue with the Dalai Lama, to allow independent international journalists to have access to Tibet, and to release imprisoned nonviolent protestors, etc. This is not to say the US plans to force China to comply. The House voted 413 to 1 to pass the resolution (Currently there are 435 members in the House, so it can be assumed that there was broad bipartisan support.). Guess who the "1" was who voted against it.
Today I read an article that American schools were considering making 50% the lowest possible percentage you could make an F, so even if you skip an assignment completely, you don't get a 0%, you get a 50%. The reasoning? Well, if you get a 0%, you have to work really, really hard to get enough passing grades to bring your grade up to a passing level. In other words, we should make it easier to pass and graduate from high school without being able to find the United States on a globe, without knowing when America was settled, not knowing what the Declaration of Independence is, not knowing how to read and write without resorting to AOL-speak, and being completely baffled by math, physics, chemistry, biology, etc. "Uhhhh, the Periodic Table? PFFT! When I get my period is none of your fuckin' business, so you need to step off!" So, the solution to American students being too stupid to pass our dumbass watered-down educational system is to make it EVEN EASIER. I'm sure the rest of the world is cheering us on. "YES, YES! MAKE AMERICAN STUDENTS EVEN DUMBER! WE WANT THEIR JOBS!" Every country in the world wants to be as successful in the 21st century as the US was in the 20th. Should we just fucking hand it to them as we decay into the next member of the Third World?
The conservative concept that there is an infinite amount of wealth, and the only reason everyone isn't a mulit-billionaire is because they don't try hard enough, and if you're not lucky enough to be born male to a white, rich, American family who gave you a boatload of trust funds and an inheritance that is many times what an average person makes in a lifetime, or if your parents were too cheap to pay for an Ivy League education, well, PFFFT, that's YOUR problem. Oh, you mean to tell me you don't have hundreds of thousands of dollars of disposable income to take a chance on high-risk / high-yield stocks? HAH! That's YOUR fault. Fuck you, little people.
Speaking of retarded stoner humor, this retard at the gorcery store this morning was wearing an ever-so clever parody t-shirt with a picture of a fat, squinty-eyed Pikachu wearing a t-shirt with a pot leaf on it, with the caption, "Toke-e-Mon, Gotta Smoke Em All!" Oh, I might have forgotten to mention, he was shopping with his 6 year old daughter.
Retards who can't smile without biting the end of their tongues. Is that supposed to be cute? "Oh, that's a funny joke! A-th-th-th-th-th-th!"
People for whom getting in a bar fight, being restrained by security, dealing with police, being arrested and taken to jail for a day or two, eating jail food, taking communal showers, shitting in front of 20 other people, and being released with orders to report to court are all normal parts of an average weekend and nothing to worry too much about.
I always thought the perfect way to tell if I was getting old is when the music that young people think is awesome and becomes massively popular is the most stupid and irritating sound imaginable to me. That's bad news for me, because it apparently means I've been old since around age 14.
Parents who think their 35 year old child would be completely fucked if they weren't there to provide an endless stream of advice and suggestions about life decisions.
35 year olds whose lives would fall apart without a constant stream of parental guidance.
Ferrets.
Rarely will I single out a particular animal to hate, as I tend to see the natural benefits that certain adaptations in animal behavior or physiology would benefit the animal from an evolutionary standpoint, which tends to make most animals, at the very least, interesting. Even animals which seem to be pretty dumb can be interesting from the standpoint of biology. But seriously, ferrets are the most useless animals on the planet. Granted, guinea pigs are easily as dumb as ferrets, but they at least have the benefit of not being a wiggly, hyperactive slinky that bites, plus they have that adorable little squeak noise that basically serves as a beacon to predators, saying, "Hey, predators! Here I am! I'm a dumb, slow moving nugget of meat waiting to be snatched up and devoured!" A ferret is what happens when you remove the brain and spine from a cat, and then give it angel dust. It's as though they live their lives in a state of trying to be as annoying as possible. They can't even run like a normal animal. They kind of turn sideways and slink along with their back arched up and their back feet out of alignment with their front feet. Another thing I find interesting is that about 90% of the people who own ferrets are Wiccans. I attribute this to a need to have an animal around them which is actually dumber than them, in which case a dog would not fit the bill. If a wiccan had a dog, they would end up being the dog's pet. "Ah, but Nichodemus here is my familiar!" Congratulations. You have a spiritual link to the animal equivalent of silly string.
Then there's the fact that they have a skunky odor. As if it wasn't bad enough being nature's retard, they have BO to boot. I had a friend that had one that would chew on the cables that connected his VCR and DVD player to his TV. Not wanting to see the inevitable outcome of this, he decided to "train" the ferret not to do it. The ferret would go for the cables, and he would pick up the ferret, and move it away from the spot, turning it so it faced away from the TV. As soon as the creature's feet hit the ground, it would make an immediate B-line back to the cables. He snatched up the ferret again, and again the ferret ran straight back to the cables. It stopped being funny after about the 25th time. Even the dumbest cat or puppy would figure out that their master was trying to convey a message after being yanked away from doing something annoying and destructive a few times, but not a ferret. The ferret can only think, "DUHRR! CABLES, HAHAHAHA! DOIIII!" A fish has a greater learning capacity. Then there's the annoying no spine thing. If you pick up a ferret, and snap someone with it like a wet towel, the ferret is still thinking, "DUHRRR!! VIDEO CABLES! YAY! WHEEE!" My friend had a cage for the ferret, and he bought this sort of mulch for the bottom of the cage. The bag said, "Ferret litter." What it didn't say was that this was a verb. Any time the ferret was in the cage, its primary interest was to get as much of the litter out of the cage as possible. Sticking to character, it did this with an annoying scratching sound. My friend would call out, "TSST! HEY! STOP THAT! NO! TSST TSST TSST!" which, of course, the ferret seemed not to even notice. "YAY! LITTER! WHEE!!!" *fling fling*
Amazing bands that release a 7 song EP of mind-blowingly great and earthshatteringly unique music who then say, "Fuck it," and disappear.
Shitty bands who keep playing shitty shows and releasing new, shitty albums for thirty shitty years.
Employees who don't get the concept of VIP clients.
"See that guy over there? That's Mr. Johnston. Take very good care of him."
"Sure."
"No, like, REALLY."
"What? He's just a guy. He puts on his pants one leg at a time, just like everyone else."
"Yes, but he's my boss's boss's boss's boss, and once his pants are on, he can stamp on all our balls and then kick us all straight into an unemployment line on a whim, and I've seen him do worse for much less than getting mediocre service."
"Yeah, whatever. I'll take care of him. Pfft."
People who don't smoke pot who think that the only people who smoke pot are the very worst fringe of society, the Ted Bundys of the world. These are the people who heard that Bill Clinton tried pot in college and thought, "Well shit! I can't vote for that guy! No doubt the pot damaged his brain! What happens if there's a crisis? We can't have a president who will just sit there drooling like a retard!" Here's a tip, you disconnected assholes. Unless you have spent your entire life confined to a secluded religious cult compound on the outskirts of Salt Lake City, most of the people over age 16 you have met have tried pot. And if you did grow up in some weird religious compound, you should really give drugs a try.
People who smoke pot who assume that everyone smokes pot, and that everyone they meet will relate to, and be thrilled to hear their stoner humor and anecdotes about getting high, and won't think they're a retarded pothead.
"Dude! You know what today is? Haw haw haw!"
"Uhhh, Wednesday?"
"Nah, man, the date!"
"It's uhhhh... Is it the 21st?"
"Nah, man! It's the 20th! Hah!"
"... Uhhhh... And?"
"April 20, dude! Yeah!"
"... Is it your birthday or something?"
"No, dude! 420! Hah-haaah! That's what I'm talkin' 'bout!"
"... Did you get your tax refund check or something?"
Fat comedians whose entire routine is about them being fat.
"Hey, everyone! It's great to be here! As you can see, I'm really, really fat!"
10 minutes later...
"So I was shopping for a car, and the dealer kept trying to sell me a Mini Cooper. Can you picture me in a Mini Cooper? It would look like a bumper car!"
10 minutes later...
"So I went to this all-you-can eat buffet, and you could see the look of fear on the guy's face."
10 minutes later...
"So I was dating this girl. I haven't seen her in a while though. Either she left me without saying a word, or she's stuck in between my rolls of back cleavage like a remote control between the couch cushions!"
10 minutes later...
"As you can imagine, I'm not a very successful triathlete."
10 minutes later...
"Boy, I sure am fat! Goodnight, folks! You guys have been great!"
Comedians who are really fat who make no reference to their weight at all, like we can't see it and it has no impact on your life. Yeah, sure, tell us jokes about your girlfriend. Tell us jokes about the rude cashier. Tell us jokes about airports. You're completely ignoring the elephant in the room. Look, the most obvious thing about your personal appearance is that you're fat as all hell. I'm not saying you should base your whole act on your weight, but come on. You talk about your kids, you talk about your mean boss at some crappy job, or your nagging wife or some rude customer service operator, but not ONE joke about food or exercise or finding clothes or people's rude remarks about your weight or how much you dig sitting around at home, puffing your bong, eating snacks and playing your X-Box? Really? Seriously? Dude, you're 400 fucking pounds. When you tell us an anecdote about your girlfriend, we don't even hear it because the mere mention of the word girlfriend distracts us by conjuring the image of a big, sweaty, naked walrus man huffing and puffing and getting all red in the face as he crushes a woman with his fat, gelatinous belly.
People whose Myspace page is almost completely focused on, "Yo, fuck all you haters! I am who I am, and if you don't like it, you can kiss my ass!" You know, as much as I flap my mouth, and as much as I express opinions that are probably only held by me and four other people, two of which are on medication so they stop having such opinions, I almost never get negative messages on Myspace. So I have to assume that you are probably getting mean messages because you're such a giant douchebag that otherwise mild-mannered people can't resist voicing their disgust at your very existence. Like, there must be some sort of primal instinct at work here. *Click....* "Doot-dee-doo..." *Click...* "Ho-Hum..." *Click* "AAAGH!" (Guy punches his computer monitor as hard as he can) "WHAT THE FUCK! GOD! I HATE THAT GUY!" It's maybe not a coincidence that almost everyone who has this as the central message of their page is either a morbidly obese girl turning her giant ass towards the camera in a slutty, skin-tight tube dress that is barely long enough to cover her ass, or a sixteen year old white boy with a shitty little patchy peachfuzz Ja Rule mustache who looks like he's trying really hard to look like a member of Icy Hott Stuntaz. I found this image today on some retard's myspace page and it made me cackle. The horrible editing flaws have been preserved to give you the full effect. Very classy.
.
People who claim to have arrived at their religious faith through scientific inquiry. "I think in a scientific, skeptical way, and if you tell me something, I need to see some sort of irrefutable evidence before I believe it. Well, if you walk down the street, you see buildings, and you know that even if you didn't see them being built, they had to be built BY someone. So where did life come from? Obviously, like the buildings, someone had to CAUSE life, and that's where God comes in." OH BOY, you sure gave that a lot of scientific thought, fuckwit. Let's see, I like hamburgers, but also I like pizza, therefore pizza was invented by Mayor McCheese. It's the only possible rational explanation. Gee, maybe buildings don't build themselves, because buildings are not organisms. Maybe when you have buildings that have DNA and reproduce, and gather and consume sources of energy for themselves and maybe eat things and have to avoid being eaten, and need to solve problems for themselves, maybe then we will have buildings that evolve over generations so they are more suited to their environments, but until then, it would be unfair to say it's like comparing apples to oranges, because APPLES and ORANGES are both at least PARTS OF ORGANISMS. It's more like comparing apples to carbeurators. As for "arriving" at creationism through science, you're full of shit, because there is absolutely no evidence for it. Here's a tip, mister scientist. In science, you need evidence. A guessed solution to a problem without an obvious answer is not evidence. By the way, there is a much more obvious solution, for which there IS evidence, and your denial of this evidence just shows how unscientific your thinking is.
While there are a ton of movies with flawed science, the ones that really piss me off are movies where the central plot is completely dependent on the audience being completely ignorant of extremely basic scientific facts that you would fail elementary school science classes if you didn't know. The average third grader could watch "The Core," and say, "Uhhhh... This is bullshit."
"Welcome to our company's annoying-as-fuck phone menu, where you may speak your choices. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"Track a package."
"Did you say 'Hamster Fish?'"
"No."
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"TRACK... A... PACKAGE...."
"Did you say 'Meatberry Cloud Guitar?'"
"NO."
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following---"
"FUCK!"
"Did you say 'Minnesota?'"
"NO!"
*Click-a-click-a-click* "Wecome to the main menu. Please select from the following options. Track a package, request an invoice, speak to a sales person, or speak to a customer service representative...."
"TRACK..... A..... PACKAGE...."
"Did you say 'Algebra Muffin Soup'"
"FUCK!" *click*
People who will never let you finish your extremely interesting anecdote because the first moment you take a breath, they will interject and interrupt you with their own dumbass, mundane anecdote, because they're narcissistic fucktards who are in love with the sound of their own voices.
"And then the CIA agents strapped me to the chair and stuck me with a huge syringe in my neck, and then-"
"Oh my god! Dude! The other day we were at the mall, and you remember that chick Jenny who was dating Mark? She was with Dave, and man, she must have gained at least 10 pounds over the winter!"
All those lame viral videos of people playing ultra-corny songs on orchestral instruments. Oh boy! Guys on cellos playing "The Final Countdown." That was almost as funny as those guys on cellos playing "Barbie Girl." Surely much, much more hilarity awaits us in the future. I can hardly wait for videos of guys on cellos playing "Der Kommissar," "Wake Me Up Before You Go Go," and Van Halen's "Jump," because that would be amazingly clever, original and ironic.
The recent hilarious shift in anti-drug ads. They have finally realized that only a fairly small number of teenagers are dumb enough to dabble in drugs like crystal meth and crack, and stick mostly to drugs like pot, LSD, ecstasy, etc. and hence, statistically, will almost definitely not end up as pregnant, scab-covered, HIV positive meth whores who live with hobos who put cigarettes out on on their faces and sleep in an alley on a soggy piece of cardboard in a puddle within three months of trying drugs for the first time, and they have finally realized that most teens are too smart to buy that "gateway drug" bullshit, and it annoys them to no end that teens can go to school, smoke some pot afterwards, have fun, and then show up on time, and perfectly healthy, to school the next day.
So how have they changed their ads? "Hey, kids! Don't submit to peer pressure! Instead, submit to peer pressure! Instead of your friends thinking you're a pussy for not trying drugs, now in opposite land, your friends think you're a douche for trying drugs!" They finally realized that kids value their friends' opinions, and that not all teens have friends who are just assholes trying to get them to do stupid shit and ruin their lives. Yes, kids value their friends' opinions, often more than the opinions of their square-as-fuck parents. Fucking farout. There is nothing more hilarious than a pencil-necked, upper-middle class advertisement writer trying to relate to modern teenagers.
A teenage guy who looks exactly like an extra from Nirvana's "Smells Like Teen Spirit" video walks up to his friend, who looks like an Eagle Scout, in the hallway of a high-school.
"Hay, dude! I sure had fun last night! I was so high from smoking that marijuana cigarette that I do not remember what happened. You know, because you can black out from smoking pot."
"Don't you remember anything?" His friend looks annoyed.
"No, man, like I said, I was too busy being high to remember ANYTHING!"
"Have you looked at the internet?"
"Oh, dude! The internet! What did it do?"
"Look over there! Those fellow teenagers are using their cellular phones to look at the bad and embarrassing thing you did on the internet!" The camera shifts focus to show a dozen teenagers in the background looking at the guy, then at their cell phones, then giggling.
"Oh man! How was I to know that the internet would see me doing something bad and embarrassing? I was too high from drugs! What if my girlfriend sees it?"
The girlfriend, who also looks like a Young Republican, and better looking than he could probably realistically get, walks up. "I am breaking up with you, druggie! And don't try to send me a text message on your cellular phone either!" She then walks off in a huff before the guy can say anything.
"Oh no! Dude! What will I do now?"
"Don't ask me, druggie. I am not your friend anymore." He coldly walks away.
"No, dude! C'mon! I couldn't help it! I was high on the internet! I mean pot joint!!"
The camera shifts focus again to the kids looking at their cell phones and laughing, to reinforce that now that he's branded as a druggie, he has nowhere to turn, and that his life in highschool is utterly ruined. The camera shifts back to him, as he makes a face of such utter embarassment, it's as though he was caught fucking a goat and then the act was broadcast live on the jumbotron at the Super Bowl halftime show.
Prudish passive-aggressive assholes who try to take all the wind out of a really good dirty joke by saying, "I don't get it," as though they didn't hear the same perfectly coherent filth that everyone else is laughing at.
Rally retards. People who stand for causes that I support, who speak out publicly and try to look intelligent by using "advanced" vocabulary words, but butcher them and make the whole movement look stupid. Like the news will be covering an anti-war protest, and of course, they single out the one guy who is yelling the loudest to interview. He's full of passion and emotion, but mostly full of his own shit. "We need to communify to the so-called President that we are not going to stand idly by while American troops are in harm's way! This is not negotiatable! We need to find a way to facilify a expeditious withdrawal before we're quagmired in a quagmire! It's impossible to quantate-ify how much irrepair-ible damage Bush has did to this country. I mean, ever since 9/11, Bush has exploitated the situation, and has gave us a belligerous reputation around the world!"
Bands that have very extensive discographies spanning many years and eight to twelve albums that are indistinguishable from each other.
Christians whose understanding of stem cell research is that immoral, unwed sluts who engage in premarital sex and have a total disregard for decency, and have abortions just for kicks about as often as they buy new shoes, as their preferred method of birth control, abort their third trimester babies for money (which they probably spend on drugs), and these babies are then vivisected by soulless scientists, who root through their bodies in search of certain, special cells, as the living babies writhe and scream in pain, and are then thrown, still half-alive, into trashcans. And then these cells are used to make headless human clones, which are harvested for organs.
Of course, if you asked any of these ignoramuses if they knew what a blastocyst was, they would think you were trying to change the subject.
The fact that every time I see Ann Coulter, she's wearing a tank top, strappy dress, or something else designed to show off her neck and shoulders, which sucks because she's built like that screaming guy from Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" video.
The recent dumbass trend of using vague "teaser" ads and viral marketing for EVERYTHING. You see a bus drive by. On the side is an ad that is a blank white block that extends the length of the bus, with lower case text that says, "the revolution is coming." There is no mention of what the fuck this actually means, or even what company it's for. Maybe you can figure it out if you carefully examine the tiny copyright information, but the obvious intent is to make you wonder what the fuck it's about. You get on the subway and see another ad, again, all white with lower case text: "are you ready for the revolution?" As you walk down the street, you see stickers on lamp posts and newspaper vending machines that say "viva la revolucion." You turn on the TV, and every commercial break has an ad for it, "are you ready? the revolution is coming april 11th."
And so, April 11th comes, and now the ads on TV and posters are flashy and brightly colored. "THE REVOLUTION HAS ARRIVED! For a limited time, get a FREE small coffee with any Ihop breakfast platter! VIVA LA COFFEE REVOLUCION! AT IHOP!" What? Are you fucking kidding me? Who gives a shit? Fuck you!
Guys who wake up, take a shower, drench themselves in cologne and put on clothes that they think will get them laid, leave the house, try to get laid on the walk to the bus stop, try to get laid by hitting on multiple girls at the bus stop, then get on the bus and try to get laid on the bus. Then they get off the bus, and try to get laid on the one block walk to the subway, then they try to get laid on the subway platform, and then try to get laid on the train. Then they get off the train, and try to get laid on the way to Starbucks, then try to get laid at Starbucks. Then they leave Starbucks and try to get laid on the four block walk to work, then arrive at work and try to get laid. For lunch, they hit the company cafeteria, where they try to get laid, then try to get laid in the elevator on the way back to the office, where they try to get laid. Then they leave work, once again trying to get laid in the elevator on the way down, then try to get laid in the lobby. They walk to the train, trying multiple times to get laid on the way, then try to get laid on the train and bus rides home. On the way home, they stop at Burger King, where they try to get laid. Then they head home, where they take another shower, then drench themselves in cologne again, put on more flamoyant clothes that they think will get them laid, then head out to a bar to try to get laid. On the way to the bar, they don't waste a moment, and spend the entire transit time trying to get laid. Once they get to the bar, of course, they try to get laid, even while waiting in line to get in. Once they get in, they try to get laid, as they consume nearly enough alcohol to go into a coma. They even pester the shit out of the marginally attractive girl bartender, who no doubt fends off advances from hundreds of drunk, horny losers a day. Eventually, they figure out that they aren't getting laid in this bar, so they head to another bar, of course, trying to get laid en route. Then they get to the other bar, where they try to get laid. At this point they're so trashed that even the most vile, undersexed swamp monsters in the place won't talk to them, so they decide to call it a night. They get a cab, and yell out the window at girls on the street to try to get laid. If the cab driver is a woman, they will try to get laid with the cab driver, regardless of her attractiveness, age or weight. The cab drops them off in front of a convenient store a few blocks from their apartment, where they buy cigarettes and try to get laid. They get home and immediately turn on the computer to try to get laid on Myspace and Facebook by sending a whole shitload of girls messages that include a dumbass picture of them trying to look thuggish and pulling their shirt up to show their abs, shot with a digital camera in a bathroom mirror. Then they feel their first pang of shame for the day as they jerk off, because they feel like jerking off is for faggot pussies who can't get laid, and handling your own penis is kinda gay, but the shame is short-lived, as they drift to sleep, reeking of stale cologne, cigarettes, alcohol and sweat, with a twinge of optimism, because tomorrow is a new day, and hey, they might get laid.
The fact that if you're at the bottom of the corporate ladder and show up for work without shaving 30 minutes late a couple of times, you're told to get the fuck out, you're fired! You get nothing! In fact, security will escort you out and we will mail you your personal effects from your desk. YOU MAKE ME SICK! GET THE FUCK OUT OF MY OFFICE! But if you're at the top of the corporate ladder and you get busted using company funds to pay for a mansion where you snort cocaine off the asshole of a thousand dollar an hour hooker as you make such horrible business blunders that the company's stock drops like a stone and costs the shareholders billions of dollars, you are politely asked to step down, but will retain a position on the advisory board, and will keep your personal assistant and driver, and will still have a nice office on the executive floor, and will receive a severance package worth three years pay and stock options, with a total value of about 80 million dollars, which will no doubt only increase by leaps and bounds as someone more competent than yourself takes the reigns and the stock recovers.
Old people and hicks who are still, after all these years, shocked, horrified and pissed off because, "I went to the mall today and there was this girl who had a blue streak in her hair. Like, she dyed part of her hair BLUE! Does she think that's attractive? Oh my God, I couldn't believe it!"
If you tell me that you believe that there is a 10 foot tall invisible minotaur named Hector living in your apartment who travels to the planet Gribuglox every night and brings back with him a large syringe containing millions of microscopic yellow people, which he injects into your bladder as you sleep, and every morning you pee these little people into the toilet, where they travel to the sewer, where trillions of them have gathered underground and are plotting a takeover of the planet, and I ask you why you would believe this ridiculous shit, or what evidence you have of your claims, I'm apparently right to ask, because you're fucking psychotic, but if you tell me that you believe that an invisible man in the sky, who can do anything and knows everything, created the entire universe in 6 days and made the first human out of dirt, and later caused a virgin to give birth to the invisible man's son so that he could be killed, and then resurrected, thus redeeming all humans who accept that he now exists in the form of crackers and wine, from the inherited, and previously unforgivable, blame for the dirt man eating the wrong fruit, so that people can live forever in peace and bliss, as long as they follow this big list of rules and rituals, rather than be condemned to eternal torture, and that the invisible man is at the same time one person and three people, and if I demand the same rationalization as I would for the no more improbable space travelling minotaur, I'm an intolerant bigot who doesn't respect other people's beliefs.
The day after "No Country for Old Men" won its much-deserved Oscar for best picture, I saw a bunch of editorials that were whining about how all of the movies that were nominated for big awards are movies that nobody even goes to see. Well, gee. That might have something to do with the fact that the highest grossing movies of 2007 are all dogshit. Oh, should they have given best picture to "Spiderman 3?" Maybe "Shrek the Third," "Transformers," "Pirates of the Caribbean 3," "Harry Potter 5," or fucking "Alvin and the Chipmunks?" How about "Wild Hogs" or "Rush Hour 3?" All of those grossed much, much higher than any of the nominees. Why? Because Americans have shitty taste in everything. Americans wake up, drive to work while listening to the Bob and Tom show while eating an Egg McMuffin, listen to Rihanna, Linkin Park, Fergie, Nickelback, Kanye West, and Daughtry, read (if they actually read) Harry Potter and Grisham, buy their clothes at Abercrombie and Fitch, Hollister or fucking Walmart, and then go home and watch "American Idol," "Dancing with the Stars," "Survivor," and the "Oprah Winfrey Show." The reason the best movies aren't blockbusters is because Americans have horrible taste. I've realized for a long time that a very effective way of guaging how stupid something is is seeing how popular it becomes in America. Gee, I'm so sorry they gave oscars to movies that are actually good. Maybe you misunderstood the concept of giving awards to things that aren't stupid. I can see where awards shows like the Grammys might confuse you. You can happily sit through the worst dogshit day and night, but when someone wants to put a movie or music album in front of you that has actual substance, you recoil in disgust. It's like you want to eat nothing but Hohos for breakfast, lunch and dinner. You know, an occasional apple wouldn't fucking kill you.
People who post and email clever little "factoids" that are of extremely dubious credibility as though the fact that someone forwarded an email to them, and they forwarded it to me makes it 100% true. "Did you know that brushing your hair while chewing gum for one minute burns 880 calories?" Really? Because running on an elliptical machine as fast as I can for a half an hour until I'm pouring sweat and feel like I'm going to die burns about 90.
People who see that you got a haircut or a new suit or something, and know that you look good, but it would fucking kill them to actually pay you a compliment, so they qualify it with a thinly veiled insult. Like normally you look like a pile of dogshit, but today you actually kind of pulled it off. "Boy, Dave cleans up nice, huh?!"
People who think the most beautiful, exciting, awe-inspiring, exquisite thing ever made by human hands is the F-15 fighter jet.
Fundamentalist Christians who try to explain away discrepancies and impossible scenarios in the Bible by twisting the meaning of what the Bible says.
"Well, when it says the Bible says the Earth was created in six days, God could have made those days millions of years long if he wanted to. So like, the first six days could have been 500 million years long, or whatever." Oh wait, let me check the Bible to see where it said that. Oh wait. I see. You just made it up.
Here's one I found particularly amusing that I read on a creationist website.
"When it says that God brought all the animals before Adam to name them, of course it wouldn't make sense for Adam to name thousands of animals per second for 24 hours solid, so some Biblical scholars concluded that this probably only referred to his livestock and other animals that lived near him, a few hundred animals at most. 'All' does not necessarily mean 'each and every.'" Ummm... THAT IS THE FUCKING DEFINITION OF "ALL," FUCKTARDS! "All" doesn't mean "some," idiots. There is no other way to interpret "all" except as "every fucking one." If I walk into a room with a hundred people in it, and say, "I am going to give you all a red tee shirt with a picture of Ernest Borgnine giving a thumbs up sign with the caption 'Fuck you'," I had better have at least a hundred red tee shirts, or I'm a liar, and fucking nobody is going to buy some bullshit story about how "all" can have different definitions. (Oh, and please, someone make this shirt so I can buy one.)
Look, the only reason to believe in ridiculous shit like creationism is if you believe every word of the Bible. If the only way you can believe every word of the Bible is to twist the meaning of "All," to mean anything other than "All," you're full of shit, and aren't even a fundamentalist anyway, which negates any reason to believe in the fanciful fairy tale accounts of the history of the universe. It isn't bad enough that I live among people who believe dinosaurs never existed, but I have to live among retards who think "All" doesn't mean "All," too?
Those weird moods I get in when I go through Netflix and start checking "Add to queue" willy-nilly, then, a few weeks later, when I've forgotten all about it, I check my mailbox and think, "What the fuck? 'The Postman' with Kevin Costner? WHY?"
Hey, y'all. My name is Skeeter McCray. I live in Paintsville,KY, and ain't never been no more than ten miles away from the place where I was born to my 16 year old parents who were first cousins, and I ain't got no desire to go nowhere, neither, on account of city folk are all either faggots or jews, or faggot jews, and all foreigners are communists. I ain't never went to school since third grade, and that don't hurt me none, because all them people who done stayed in school think they're all high and mighty, and most of em are damn liberals, any-hoo. Besides, ain't nothin' I need to know that ain't in the Bible, which, o'course, I ain't never read, on account of I cain't read, but it don't matter none, because I love Jesus with all my heart, and know that he hates blacks and liberals and faggots as much as I do. A pretty good summary of my knowledge of history is that God created the earth in a week, about 6000 years ago, then Jesus showed up and made a flood that killed all the Moslims, and that the South shall rise again, and that we won the Vietnam War against Hitler. The only thing that comes a close second to how much I love Jesus is how much I love my guns, and I'll be goddamned if any commie liberal is gonna take them away. Of course, I always say my guns is for huntin', but y'all know that I'm just itchin' for some minority to step on my lawn so I can blow him away and claim self defense. I don't know nothin' 'bout the news, 'cept that it's borin', that all liberals are pussy Anti-American commies what want to destroy America, and that if something comes out of the mouth of Bill O'Reilly, it's as true as if Jesus hisself said it. Now, I know that all y'all people what graduated from some high-falootin' university or get yer news from the Guardian UK are probably thinkin' "Dang! This som'bitch is fuggin' ignorant," but you know what? I don't give a shit. You know why? Because I ain't got nothin' to do all day but whittle, shoot squirrels from my front porch, beat my wife and VOTE. That's right, I vote in every election, whether it's to stick creationists on the school board or racists on the city council or to keep a black man from bein' the president. And y'all know what's the funnest part? My vote counts as much as yours. That's right! Y'all might have more degrees than I have teeth, but my vote will always be there to cancel out y'all's vote, so stick that in yer pipe and smoke it, Mister "I got my PHD at Columbia University in political science!" And let's be honest fer a second. Y'all don't actually vote in every election, or maybe not at all, right? HAW! That's what I thought. Well, y'all can just sit back 'n' watch, and me and people like me will be tickled pink to shape public policy. Y'all know that there's a lot more of us than there are of you, and by God, WE VOTE!
Retards who derail meaningful discussions because they don't believe in FACTS, and want people to not talk about ideas that presuppose these facts are true, but instead, to try to prove to them that these facts are true, which is of course futile, because the person believes in something stupid like faith over facts, and regardless of how much irrefutable proof you shove in their face, they will retort with something that could easily be equated to "LAA LAA LAA! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!"
Guy 1: "So some scientists are saying that many dinosaurs that were once thought to be reptilian, might have actually been more birdlike, and maybe even had some feathers and might have been warm-blooded."
Guy 2: "Oh yeah, I was reading about that the other day. It was really interesting when they pointed out the forelimb bones that had the little notches in them like modern birds have that cradle the ends of pinion feathers."
Guy 3: "Pffff! So let me get this straight. You think there were big scary creatures called dinosaurs that were on the earth millions of years before people? HAH! That would be kind of tough, considering the Bible says that humans arrived on the sixth day of the entire universe. How do you explain that, dumbass?"
Just shut the fuck up, retard.
Hicks from some backwater hole in Appalachia where the whole town consists of four mobile homes, a gas station, and a couple of old broken washing machines, one of which now serves as a doghouse, who, when they hear that you want to travel to London (or insert New York, Paris, Munich, Tokyo, or anywhere else that's farther away and more interesting than Ed's Used Tires), their initial reaction is, "What the fuck you wanna go there for?" Oh yeah, and leave ALL THIS?
Dumbasses who lie to you to your face in a way that you are absolutely certain to discover they are lying very quickly and easily.
I see one of my employees in his street clothes clocking out about 45 minutes early. I ask him why he is leaving early. "Oh, I told Scott that I was done with my work and had some things to take care of at home and he said it was ok if I left early." I didn't want to step on the other manager's toes, so I let him go.
A few minutes later, I pass Scott in the hall and ask him if he had given the employee permission to leave. He replied, "Dave came to me and said that YOU told him it was okay for him to go home early, so I said that if you said it was okay, it was okay."
Basically the guy had told us both the same lie. I mean,. I could maybe understand if we were talking about a four year old kid who stole a cookie, but we're talking about a 45 year old man.
People who manage their finances in such a way that if the home office fucks up and sends the Thursday paychecks on Friday or misses two hours of overtime and puts them as back pay for the following week, they turn into Bill Paxton on "Aliens." "What the fuck? Oh my God! How the fuck am I supposed to get by like this? I'm fuckin' DOOMED, MAN! I'm FUCKED! Oh, man! WE'RE ALL GONNA DIE! GAME OVER, MAN! GAME OVER!"
Neighbors who either make a shitload of noise all the time and annoy the shit out of you, or neighbors who are constantly annoyed by little noises like you walking around your apartment or running water who apparently sleep or go to work NEVER.
Snobby retards who consider themselves aficionados of comedy, who think that nothing has been funny since the Smothers Brothers.
People who turn fucking everything into a bullshit game of 20 questions.
"Cook that Hot Pocket."
"You want it cooked?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm... That's a Hot Pocket?"
"Yes."
"You want me to cook it?"
"Yes."
"Hmmm... I've never cooked one of these before. How do I cook it?"
"Follow the directions."
"What directions?"
"The directions on the box."
"This box?"
"Yes."
"Hmmmm... It says to place it in the sleeve, place it in the microwave, cook it on high power for 2 minutes, rotate it, then cook it for another 2 minutes, or until hot."
"Yep."
"Hmmm... This goes in the microwave?"
"Yes."
"But it's like a pie. Wouldn't that be better in a conventional oven?"
"No."
"But I think it would be more crispy. Why not give it a try?"
"Because it's not designed that way. Just do it like it says on the box."
"Hmmm... It's got cellophane on it. Do I take that off? They don't mention it in the instructions."
"You couldn't really put it in the sleeve if you didn't."
"But do I then put it back in the cellophane after I put it in the sleeve?"
"No."
"Do I put a certain side up?"
"The sleeve says 'This side up.' Put that side up."
"Does it matter how the pie is set in the sleeve? Like do I put the flat side or the curved side down?"
"Who cares?"
"Uh oh, the ends are sticking out of the ends of the sleeve. Is that okay?"
"It doesn't matter."
"What's the wattage on the microwave?"
"Who gives a shit? It's a Hot Pocket, not braised pheasant. It's going to be a crappy Hot Pocket regardless of how carefully you cook it."
"It says to rotate it after two minutes. How far should I rotate it?"
"It doesn't matter."
"If it didn't matter, why would they says to do it? Should I rotate it 90 degrees? 180?"
"180. Just cook the damn thing."
"It doesn't mention putting the sleeve on a plate or anything. Should I? I think the microwave will get dirty if I don't."
"Sure, use a plate."
"Will it change the cooking time?"
"No."
"Oh, hey. This microwave has a carousel. Do I still need to rotate it?"
"No."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes."
"Do I still cook it for 2 minutes, stop it, then cook it for two more minutes?"
"No, just set it to 4 minutes and leave it in."
"Do I change the cooking time?"
"'....OR UNTIL HOT!' Just cook the fucker."
"I'm going on break soon. Should I get someone else to cook it?"
"NO. Just do it. Goddamn!"
"Okay..... It's bubbling, but it's only been 3 minutes, 45 seconds. Is it done?"
"'OR UNTIL HOT!'"
"You think it's done? It's been 4 minutes now."
"It's done."
"Stop the microwave?"
"Yes."
"Do I take it out?"
"No, you leave it there until the end of time. Of course you take it out."
"Is it hot though?"
"Of course it is."
"Should I like, get an oven mitt or a spatula or something to get it out?"
"Whatever."
"What do I do with the sleeve thing?"
"You save it for your future grandchildren. Throw it away."
"Hmmm.... Isn't it supposed to look like the picture on the box?"
"Hot Pockets never do. It's kind of accepted that it's going to look like a porpoise took a shit in a pie crust."
Here's how the conversation should go.
"Cook that Hot Pocket."
"Okay................ Here you go."
The white balding guy in the crowded airport terminal this morning at 4:45am doing Tai Chi. Welcome to crankyland, bean sprout. You're doing something pretentious for the purpose of being seen, and nobody here is in the mood to look at you, and we sure as fuck don't think you're interesting. Now calm the fuck down before I am overcome by the urge to throw my six dollar coffee at you.
Employers that take forever to deal with even the simplest and most mundane problems.
"Hello, this is Irving Stanwick, head of global distribution at Blah Blah Blah, the leading manufacturer of satellite telecommunications technology... Oh, Hi, Dave. The break room coffee machine is broken? Are you sure? Hmmmm..... Uhhhh..... Ooohhh..... Who would we call to fix it? Maybe building maintenance? Maybe Scott from accounting would know? Hmmm...."
Three Months Later
"Hello, Irving Stanwick. Oh, hi, Dave. The break room coffee machine is broken? Again? Oh, it was never fixed? Uhhhhhhh...... Hmmmmmm.... Did you talk to Judy from H.R.? I think maybe she knows who deals with the coffee machines."
"Thanks for a nation of finks...”
-William S. Burroughs, A Thanksgiving Prayer (1988)
New York City's "If you see something, say something" campaign. In tons of places in NYC, like on subways and buses, there are posters everywhere showing a mosaic of pictures of people's eyes. Under the eyes is text that reads, "There are 16 million eyes in New York City. We're counting on all of them." Below this is a phone number to call if you see "something suspicious," which is vague in the extreme. Of course they mean this will help keep us safe from terrorism, but, of course, none of the attacks on September 11th, 2001 would have been averted or even lessened by everyone in New York glancing suspiciously at everyone else and repeatedly smashing their speed dial, where they had stored the hotline as entry #1. To augment the already overbearing mass of posters everywhere, the subways frequently play an audio recording, vaguely warning to "Be alert to suspicious persons or activities." When I first saw the poster, it immediately reminded me of the dark piercing eyes of Big Brother glaring out from posters and video screens in the John Hurt rendition of "1984." A few years after the initial release and ubiquitous posting of the original "If you see something, say something" posters, they posted a follow-up poster, which no doubt, they intended as a positive, optimistic thing, but made my blood run even a little colder. "Last year, 1944 people saw something and said something." This is supposed to make me feel safer? Nearly 2000 busy-bodies made themselves public snitches and did the police's work for them, just because they saw something "suspicious." Of course, if they had ACTUALLY stopped any real terrorist threat, there is no doubt that it would have been trumpeted all over the national press as a grand success story, a testament to the great value of the surveillance state, where everyone watches everyone, and tells the authorities everything they see that they deem "suspicious." Instead, all we see is the number, which could mean anything. The number might not even be accurate, and might not have any bearing to the improvement of public safety. To quote the photographer who took the picture, "This means there were 1944 people who were terrified for no reason." All it means is, "You are being watched.... by everyone... so watch what you do. You wouldn't want someone to think you're doing something suspicious." I mean, you might be doing something EVIL, like forgetting your shopping bag in the subway, or, (gasp) taking a picture of something on the street. I mean, only a terrorist would do something like walk down the street in a quiet neighborhood by himself... AT NIGHT EVEN. Obviously you're up to no good, plotting the destruction of God, mom and apple pie. Of course, all this snitching is anonymous, which bypasses the 6th Amendment of the Constitution, and as always, fascists instantly equate "people having rights" to "being for the terrorists." (Note the "Fair and Balanced" journalistic integrity of the reporter. In the case in question, a passenger told the flight crew that some people were making him nervous because they were (gasp) muslim on a (gasp) plane, and the police came and took them off the plane, and it turned out they weren't doing shit, so the people sued. "I mean, GOD! What kind of country are we living in if you can't just report someone to the authorities and accuse them of terrorism when they aren't doing a fucking thing wrong without fear of repercussions?") I mean, maybe before they started a program where you can anonymously call a hotline and accuse people of terrorism, they should have remembered that there are some idiots in this country who are fucking hysterical and paranoid who think that everyone who is a darker shade of brown than them or wearing something other than a polo shirt and khakis is probably up to no good. Call me crazy, but I don't want to live in a country where the idea of freedom is being negligibly safer from terrorism because any asshole can point a finger at me and have me waterboarded because they thought I had a funny look in my eye and they got spooked over nothing.
Review sites that are such pussies that they're scared to commit to saying that item A is better than item B. Hey, assholes. You're a review site. That's the whole fucking point. Comparing shit to other shit. They are either scared to give real reviews or are definitely selling something. Like recently I was contemplating changing my cell phone service (Something about the fact that my Sprint phone sometimes will be "roaming" standing right next to City Hall in the most populous city in the fucking US, because Sprint sucks the scabs off a meth whore's cum-encrusted anal sphincter. <--- Honest review). I googled "wireless service reviews." While some of the sites seemed to offer legitimate info, most would go on and on about, "What you want to do is find the carrier that's right for you, and here's a ton of information on every aspect of mobile phone service, but of course, we never name company names show prices or commit to saying that feature A is better than feature B. So basically, we're just creating more homework for you to do before switching phone services, when you actually came here to get your homework done. Blah blah blah, CDMA, blahbitty blah blah, GSM, blah bleee bloo blah, PCS blah blah blah...." Fuck you. ONE IS BETTER THAN THE OTHERS. WHICH ONE IS IT? THAT IS THE ONLY INFORMATION I NEED. Give me ratings, give me user reviews, give me prices. Oh, and YOU CAN TAKE DOWN THAT REVIEW YOU DID IN 2004, ASSHOLES. It's still fucking showing up on Google on the first page when you search for wireless service reviews, as though it's still fucking relevant to anything.
Here's a perfect example. It's December 20th, 2007. What is currently the best videocard available for gaming? "Ahh, well, the new Nvidia blahbitty blah is capable of producing 32 gagillion triangles per second with polyblah blah shading and blah blahbitty mhz frontside bus blah blah blah blahhhh... and of course the new ATI blah blah blah runs at 208 million blah blahs per blah blah blah with a framerate of blah blah blah with a blahbity blah processor for anti-aliasing blah blah blah..... Here, look at some cryptic mathematical graphs that all look pretty much the same and might or might not show pertinent information." YES, BUT WHAT IS THE BEST? I have 600 bucks in my hand and I'm looking for something that runs games better than anything else in that price range. WHAT IS IT? You know the fucking answer. GIVE IT TO ME. STOP BEING SUCH PUSSIES AND GROW A GODDAMN SPINE.
Even though I know it would probably be the shittiest job in the world, I always wanted to work at Home Depot just so I could refer to my boss as the Home Despot.
Guys who act like there's something wrong with you when you see a girl who is physically attractive, but dumb as a box of hair, and you are actually turned off by her stupidity. They say something like, "Whoa, look at that," and then when you qualify your agreement with, "Well, yeah, she's built nice, but she seems kind of doofy," they give you that look like, "What, are you a faggot?" No, but there's only so much enjoyment I can get from fucking someone who is borderline retarded.
Gee, maybe we'll eventually stop fucking for a second and have to actually talk to each other, and I'd rather not have to entertain a conversation that begins with, "I love Christmas trees! They're so purty! When I get my own apartment I'm gonna have ten Christmas trees and I'm gonna leave them up all year long! That way it's like Christmas all the time! And every year I'm gonna get another Christmas tree until the apartment is nothing but Christmas trees! YAY, CHRISTMAS TREES! YAAYYYY!!!'"
People who aren't diabetic who are paranoid about the sugar content of foods with a negligible sugar content.
"Would you like some Shredded Wheat?"
"Oh God no! Do you know how much sugar that has in it?"
"Yeah, enough that you can't even goddamn taste it. I mean, when I eat food that tastes like hay, I think 'boy, this is like eating hay-flavored candy.'"
People who should be pushing mops who are in positions where they need to deal with people.
*Ring, ring*
"Hello, this is blah blah with blah blah company."
"Hello......."
"...... How can I help you?"
"This is security......"
"...... Yes, what can I do for you?"
"There's somebody down here....."
"..... Who is it?"
"There's someone here....."
"....... Yes, who is it?"
"Oh, hold on...... He's making a delivery."
"What is he delivering?"
"Yeah, delivery......"
"WHAT is he delivering?
"He says he has a delivery for blah blah at the blah blah company...."
"Yes, but what is it?"
"Delivery."
"Can you send him up?"
"*Scoff* No....."
"Okay, I'll come down, but what is he delivering? Do I need to bring a cart or something?"
"I dunno. He says he has a delivery."
"But what is it? Is it big? What is he delivering?"
"Can I put you on hold for a second?"
"Okay."
"............... Hello?"
"Hello."
"So are you coming down?"
"What is being delivered? Is it large or heavy?"
"Should I tell the guy you are coming down?"
"Fine! I'll be down there in a second."
I go down and the delivery is a little cake in a shopping bag. For all I knew it could have been a palate of soft drink cases.
The fact that there are a million high security buildings and areas in New York City where a million retarded tourists are constantly debating with a million security guards about, "Can I go inside? But why not? But I just want to see it. But why can't I? I'm not gonna do nothin'. I just wanna see it. Why can't I?" BECAUSE YOU CAN'T, IDIOT! Because it's the United Nations building and MAYBE they don't allow every random retard who feels like it stroll through the front door and start taking pictures, or maybe shoot world leaders in the head, dipshit.
That unclever "Sheeple" thing that I have heard in a million places in the last couple of months. I had heard this before, but now I'm hearing it everywhere from videogames to car advertisements. Of course, retards still think the dumb pun is witty. "See, because sheep follow the flock, and people who follow the flock are, heh-heh, SHEEP-ple, get it? Because they're like SHEEP-PEOPLE, heh-heh. Get it?" The irony is that I'm hearing it from a million angles at once, so who's the fucking sheeple now?
Incomplete or incorrect walk-throughs for videogames. While most games can be figured out by simply paying attention, some games, particularly RPG's, can be completely infuriating unless you get some hints here and there. There's really no way they can expect you to know to randomly trade four cicada shells to the guy hiding in the barrel at G-17 when you can't even see him, and there's a million other people to talk to, and how the fuck are you supposed to know what cicada shells are for, particularly when even if you talk to the barrel guy, he just says something cryptic like, "Boy, I sure would like to help you, but it seems I'm lacking something"? And here all this time you've been throwing them away because they take up inventory space and they sell for only 1 gremf. So you go online, and search for a walkthrough. You hit the first match, and find a walkthrough for missions 1-8 out of 52 missions needed to complete the main story line. THANKS FOR NOTHING, FUCKASS!
The somewhat disappointing truth about presidential approval polls. When President Bush gets a 30% approval rating, that doesn't mean that people think he's doing a 30% job, it means that 30% of Americans still think, "Ya-huh, he doing GOOD GOOD job for America! He is GOOD and SMART. He CHRISTIAN too, what means he is MORAL and GOOD! Also he pertecting us from terrists like Osama bin Saddam, who I think is in the Middle East somewheres in England. That's important, cuz he wanna shoot us with a nuculur bomb cuz he hate freedom. I seen a nuculur bomb once on Terminator 2 and it was scary cuz that lady done turned into a skeleton, and that skeleton was screamin'! Now, if there's one thang I know', it's that I ain't never wanna meet no damn screamin' skeletons, SHIT-FIRE! He GOOD president, doing GOOD GOOD JOB, yea-up!"
People who are WAY too goddamn stupid to be on TV, but are anyway. "I don't think anything predated Christians." "Uhhhh, the Greeks came before them, then the Romans, then Christians." "Jesus came first, before them." EVEN THE GODDAMN BIBLE NEVER SAID NOTHING CAME BEFORE JESUS, RETARD. Mary and Joseph were BC characters. That's What B-C FUCKING MEANS! IT MEANS "BEFORE CHRIST!" EVEN THE MOST DEVOUT CHRISTIANS BELIEVE THAT SHIT HAPPENED BEFORE THE GODDAMN BIRTH OF CHRIST! HOLY FUCK! I Wonder how that job interview went.
"So, what do you think you have to offer? What can you bring to The View?"
"Well, I can speak on a broad range of subjects like DOIIIIIIII and DURRRRRRRHHHH.".
People with some kind of "two soup cans and a string" internet connection that drops all the time who use IM programs. Beefmonkey is online.... 2 minutes later.... Beefmonkey is offline...... 30 seconds later.... Beefmonkey is online.... 5 minutes later..... Beefmonkey is offline.... 30 seconds later.... Beefmonkey is online.... 3 minutes later..... Beefmonkey is offline.....
No, I will not go to some site to give your podcast a five star review even though you take five minutes out of every show to explain how easy it is and how important it is, so shut up about it. Easily over half of podcasts do this, and to me all it is is extra bullshit to fill up iPod space and extra time to download. If I download 12 podcasts, that's an hour of begging for ratings right there. Here's a little common sense... I listen to podcasts... on an iPod... and I don't listen to my iPod unless I'm out and about... and if I'm out and about.... I CAN'T FUCKING GO TO SOME WEBSITE AND VOTE ANYWAY, and when I'm at home, I plug my iPod in to charge, and I'M NOT THINKING ABOUT YOUR PODCAST AT THAT POINT. In fact, there are podcasts I try out and don't like, and I'm not even thinking about it enough to remember to unsubscribe. Sorry to burst your bubble, but your podcast is not the most important thing to happen to me in my day. Stop it. It's stupid.
TV shows that do segments on people with severe physical deformities, and the TV shows are, of course, totally depending on a voyeuristic public to get ratings. They then take the people out in public and play the intolerance card when people stare. "Why are you staring? That's not acceptable." Oh, gee. Why are people staring? Maybe they're never seen a set of siamese triplets joined at the face and are inquisitive, the same fucking reason you made this segment, in hopes that people would be eager to do their inquisitive staring from the comfort of their living room sofas.
People who are 32 chronologically and 14 emotionally.
"Baby In The Well" news stories. Of course, I don't necessarily specifically mean stories about babies stuck in wells. I mean any news story about something dumb and emotional, although truly insignificant on a cosmic scale, that the media goes apeshit over, and then spends weeks covering and distracting the public from all the real bullshit that's going on. Insert "trapped miners," "lost mountain climbers," "Terri Shiavo," "Jon Benet," "OJ," "domestic hostage situation," "armed stand-off," etc. in place of "baby in a well," as applicable. Paris Hilton stubbed her toe. Discuss.
A baby falls down a well. Within minutes, news crews are on the scene. An alert simultaneously flashes across the screen on Fox, MSNBC and CNN, interrupting coverage on the Iraq war. Some asshole graphic designer has already made an elaborate computer animated sequence with dramatic theme music that will flash on the screen before and after every commercial break for the next two weeks. "SAVING BABY CHRISTINE!" All the channels immediately place a box in the upper left hand side of the screen showing a 24 hour a day live video feed from a camera pointed down into the well, which simply shows blackness. Of course, the well-watch cam is not inset during commercial breaks, because beneath the surface the whole purpose behind this hoopla is generating commercial revenue.
Then they bring in a seemingly endless stream of "experts" for their live 24 hour a day coverage. A pediatric nutritionist is brought in to talk about how many days the baby could survive without food. A pediatric orthopedic surgeon is brought in to speculate on the injuries the baby might have sustained from the fall based on nothing but guessing. A geologist is brought in to discuss the kinds of rocks that the well is made of. A well builder talks about the design of the well. A survival specialist is brought in to speculate on how much cooler it would be at the bottom of the well and whether the baby will get hypothermia. The owner of the company that designed the winch that they are using to try to get the baby out comes on to tell all about the winch, and they show lots of CGI and stock footage of the winch being used in various applications. A 21 year old guy who made a short student film about a baby in a well for college credit is brought in to discuss the similarities between his film and the baby in the well. They interview a family whose baby fell in a well a few years ago and caused a media storm, so they can describe what it was like to have their baby stuck in a well. A psychologist is brought in to speculate on the emotional state of the baby. Some random weirdo with a distracting beard is brought in to speculate on the amount and quality of the water at the bottom of the well. Some political pundit asshole is brought in to bitch that the government isn't doing enough to protect America's babies from the scourge of wells. There are copious computer animated diagrams showing the well depth and where the baby might be stuck, but of course, they're all just guessing.
Inevitably, when someone from the local hick police force or EMT or whatever calls a press conference, or whenever anyone does anything to maybe do anything to get the kid out of the well, they immediately cut to that as a NEWS FLASH. "Well it appears that they are setting up some sort of tripod on which to maybe mount a winch. Sarah, do we have any further information on this tripod?" "Yes, John, it appears that they ARE INDEED setting up a tripod of some sort. Whether the tripod will be a mount for a winch or maybe something else, we do not know, uhh, at this time." Four hours pass and the tripod still has nothing mounted to it, but the live coverage continues, complete with "expert" commentary. "So in your expert opinion, what are we looking at?" "Well, it appears to be a tripod.... Hang on, wait a second... one... two..... three.... Yes it is a tripod. A tripod, of course has three legs. If it had four or more legs, we would be looking at something else. I can tell from here that it is most likely made of metal, though what kind of metal I do not know. Ummm... Couldn't we, uhh... just ask the rescuers what's up with the tripod?" "SHUT UP! WE'VE KILLED FOUR HOURS ON THIS THING! DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY IPHONE AND GEICO COMMERCIALS WE'VE PLAYED IN THAT TIME? If they just tell us what it is, we'll have to think of something else to talk about! You don't want that, do you?" "No, uhh, of course not... So I'm not sure of the weight capacity of this tripod, so I really can't guess on its suitability to lift Christine out of the well, or maybe...." etc. etc.
Of course, every 20 seconds, they cut away from the talking heads to show the same montage of stock footage of the well and home videos and pictures of the baby OVER AND OVER AND OVER. They also occasionally enlarge the inset well-watch cam to fullscreen so you can get a closer look at pitch blackness. Of course, about once an hour they drag out the poor, distraught parents to talk live to the media about how they are praying and trying to hold onto hope, and they give the bloodthirsty media the ratings-driving prize they want: tears.
A week later the 24 hour coverage is still going on. The well-watch cam box in the corner has been upgraded from a camera that picks up visible light to an infrared camera, so instead of a black rectangle, the rectangle now shows a green doughnut that fades to a pitch black center. The talking heads are still speculating. The tone has shifted to "Who can the family sue if the baby is not recovered alive?" "Mister Politician who is up for election, where do you stand on the move to outlaw all wells?" The talking heads talk, and the montage of the little girl and the well plays again and again.
After two weeks they finally recover the little girl's dead body. It turns out that the baby died in the initial fall and has been dead the whole two weeks. The 24 hour well-watch cam is turned off and is replaced by a repeating loop of people holding candles and bringing flowers to the family's home.
The media gets it's teary-eyed interview with the family, who look like they haven't slept for the entire two weeks. The talking heads keep talking and talking as public interest begins to wane. The media has milked the story dry.
They have managed to keep the public enthralled by a spectacle and keep their sponsors happy for two solid weeks without having to do a shred of real journalistic work.
"Such a tragic end to such a dramatic story. Now we bring you back to Iraq, where political factions are working towards a deal to.... Just a moment. We have just received a news alert that five members of a Boy Scout Troop have become lost in the woods in Washington State!" And the dramatic theme music blasts as an animated CGI logo fills the screen: "THE SEARCH FOR TROOP 168!"
Rich fucks with horrific teeth. Seriously, sometimes you'll see these corporate CEO's and heads of state and their teeth look like they are made entirely of tartar. Like you know you could easily scratch off a big cake of goop off the front of their incisors and squish it out from under your fingernail like a wad of camembert cheese. They appear on your TV screen and you can smell the hallitosis in your living room. Seriously, assholes. You could wipe your asses with hundred dollar bills. How could you let your teeth decay until they look like an ant farm? If I had your money my smile would fucking blind people.
So, I just saw a guy who was wearing an oversized t-shirt down to his knees with Tupac Shakur on the front. He was wearing the standard issue oversized Roca Wear jeans with the waistline at about his mid thighs. These cascaded down and bunched up over his sparklingly brand new white Nikes. His forearms were covered in gangsta looking tattoos. He was smoking and had one of those annoying 2-way radio cell phones, which, of course, he had cranked up to full volume for effect, so we could all hear the lovely "Sups" and "Yo, where you ats." Oh, I might have forgotten to mention, he was an Indian guy wearing a turban. Soooo... You've completely assimilated all the dumbest things in American culture, but kept the one thing that might make sense to lose. Yeah, that makes sense.
Isn't it about time to stop electing people to plan our future who believe that God is going to come down and take all his chosen people bodily to heaven sometime probably before next Tuesday?
Those horrible zits that look like shit and swell and hurt, but never rise close enough to the surface to pop. Like you'll have this big red volcano looking thing on your chest or the back of your neck, and it sticks out far enough that you can easily align your index finger and thumb on it. Then you squeeze and squeeze and then switch to using both your thumbs, and you continue to squeeze harder and harder. You can see a little plasma emerging on the skin, but the thing simply won't pop. You can feel something that feels like a ball bearing deep inside it. You keep squeezing and then you feel the ball bearing crunch. At that point things get a little hazy because you lose consiousness from the pain. When you come to, you look down at your chest and the thing is swelled up like a big red fucking golfball. A month later the thing still hasn't popped, despite many attempts, and you start to feel like it will always be there, like a third nipple.
People who combine their dumb superstitions.
"What if the Star of Bethlehem was really a UFO flown by alien greys?"
"What if your stupidity is contagious?"
Companies with telephone operators who transfer you repeatedly so you have to reexplain your entire problem to multiple people who have no idea what you are calling about.
"Hello, retail services."
"Hello, my name is Joe Blow and I ordered a box of widgets about three weeks ago and I haven't received them yet."
"Do you have your order number?"
"Yes, it's order number 105672."
"Hmmmmm............ Could I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Hello, order tracking."
"Uhhh.... Yes, my name is Joe Blow, and I was trying to track my order. I placed an order for some widgets about three weeks ago and I haven't received them yet."
"Do you have your order number?"
"105672."
"Hmmmm........ Were these the three inch widgets?"
"Four inch."
"Hmmm......... Could I put you on hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Widget development, this is Dave, how can I help you."
"Uhhh.... Sorry, I think they might have sent me to the wrong extension."
"Did you have a problem with widgets?"
"Yes."
"Were these the three or four inch widgets?"
"Four."
"Are they not working?"
"I haven't received my order yet."
"Oh... Sorry, what did you say your name was?"
"Joe Blow."
"Could you hold for a moment?"
"Sure."
A couple of minutes pass.
"Hello, this is customer service. Is this mister Blow?"
"Yes."
"I was told you wanted to place and order for some four inch widgets."
"No, I ordered a box of widgets three weeks ago and have not received them yet."
"Oh, uhhhh... Could you hold for a moment?"
"*Sigh...* Sure."
"Hello, distribution."
"I ordered a box of four inch, not three inch, widgets three weeks ago and I haven't received them. My order number is 105672. DON'T TRANSFER ME!"
Dumb fashion companies that haven't been in style since my childhood that keep hanging on and waiting for that big comeback. Hear me, Reebok? That Rbk shit isn't fooling anyone. What's that, Jordache? Did you say something?
People who randomly add unnecessary words to sentences because they think it makes them sound smarter. I just overheard one side of a phone conversation that made my eye twitch. The lady was using her very best rehearsed sophisticated voice.
"I had emailed her yesterday, and I had asked her to bring pens to the meeting. She had said she would bring them."
If you took every "had" out of that quote, it would be proper English.
People who, when their current course of action proves completely fruitless, continue doing exactly the same thing again and again.
This waiter was using his two-way radio to try to contact another waiter.
"*Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... *Beep* John......... " he said repeatedly in the exact same tone.
Finally, I said, "Just go find him." As I said it, it looked as though he snapped out of a trance.
People who are angry at you for not having information that you truly have no reason to have.
"I wanted to get a price quote for an LCD projector rental for a meeting."
"Sorry, sir. We're the catering company. We don't deal with AV setups. You need to get that price quote from the AV-Media department."
"So you don't know? Psssht! What's their phone number?"
"Uhhh... Hang on, let me look it up for you."
"DON'T YOU KNOW ANYTHING?" Then the phone makes a loud clattering sound as he hangs up with a slam.
People whose default facial expression is as though someone is holding a plate of dog diarrhea under their chin.
People who want you to be on time for something so they ask you to be there WAY earlier than necessary. Like today I was told to arrive at a meeting at 7am. Of course, the meeting was way out in the middle of nowhere, so I had to get up at 3am to make it there on time. When I arrived at 7am they told me to grab some coffee and wait for the meeting to start. The meeting started at 9:30. Fuck you.
Commercials that depict customer service calls as being absolutely no hassle to the absurd extent that even the most optimistic viewer would scoff, "BULLLLLLLLSHIIIIIIT!"
A guy is checking his bank account online and sees a purchase for 2000 dollars that he didn't make. He picks up the phone and calls customer service. The scene cuts to a very attractive girl in a suit wearing a headset in a very clean and organized call center. Everyone in the background is busy gleefully helping other customers. The girl is smiling ear to ear and sounds genuinely happy to hear from the guy. "Thank you for calling Providence Bank. How may I help you today?"
"I believe I may be the victim of credit fraud. There's a charge for 2000 dollars on my account that wasn't me."
"I am sorry to hear that, Mister Smith. We have credited the 2000 dollars to your account."
"But... I didn't even tell you my name. How did you--" The guy hits refresh on his web browser and the $2000 credit shows in his account immediately. "Huh? Uhh, wow! That was easy! Thanks!"
"No problem. Is there anything else I can help you with today? Foot massage, maybe?"
"Sure! Thanks!"
People who are barely even famous who have Wikipedia pages about them that they obviously wrote themselves. Compare the congratulatory fanboy tone and extensive "triva" bits of the previous article to one about someone who is inarguably more well known, admired, and successful, whose career is much more extensive and whose most notable work is a household name and has been enjoyed by millions of people worldwide for over a decade. Oh, and uhh, if your agent wrote it for you, you're still a laughable douche.
That dumbass, predictable "joking but serious" shit when you walk by someone with pizza, beer, liquor, flowers, etc. etc. "Awww! You brought that for me? Why, thank you!"
People who can't adjust to changes in their jobs even when given way more than an adequate adjustment period.
"Agh! I still can't figure out these new expense reports! Why can't they just use the expense reports we had before?"
"Uhhh, they changed the expense report format in 2002."
"Well, the old ones were easier to use."
"Well, tough shit."
Unemployed people who list their employment status as "self-employed."
And the dumbass of the year award goes to...
I ordered some food for delivery. The total was 14 bucks. The delivery driver shows up and I hand him a 20 dollar bill. He asks me if I have anything other than a 20 and says that he has no change. "Really? You have NO change," I ask in disbelief, and he shakes his head.
He stands there with my 20 in his hand looking frustrated and stupid. I could almost hear his meager mental hardware clinking and clanking in his head. His brain apparently couldn't come up with anything reasonable, so he went into "throw up hands" mode. "Well, I don't have any change," he says as I start to get the impression that he's thinking the transaction is complete.
"Well, you aren't getting a six dollar tip." This seemed to have the "splash of cold water" effect and I could see him trying to think again. At this point I was getting really pissed. It was bad enough that it took like an hour for my food to arrive, and now I have Lenny Small on my doorstep who didn't figure that he would need any change. My fucking order is between 10 and 20 dollars. Nearly every ATM gives you 20 dollar bills. That makes the odds of me handing him a 20 dollar bill pretty goddamn high, and he didn't think this would come up? At this point it seems like this could go on all day, and since seeing this guy's dopey face is making me angrier and angrier the longer I look at it, I decide to do something before I haul off and hit him. Punching pizza guys is generally frowned upon, and it's not like he doesn't know where I live.
"Look. Forget it." The words again seem to have a "Snap out of it" effect. "I don't want the pizza anymore. Tell your boss you couldn't make change for me and the customer was annoyed and sent it back."
Finally, this ultimatum seemed to make this guy realize that solutions existed that were outside of just standing there in front of my door looking retarded. "Wait. I'll go get change. Give me the 20 dollars and I'll bring back your change."
"Uhhh, if I give you 20 dollars, you're going to leave and go about your day."
"Uhhhh, okay, I'll take the pizza and go to the bank and get change and come back."
"Uhhh, if that pizza goes with you, after all this, sorry, but I don't think I trust that nothing bad will happen to it before I eat it. Even if you don't do something to it, it will be stone cold."
The guy chuckled a little. I guess I foiled his plot to put his balls on my pizza. "Uhhhhh....."
He was starting to go back into impasse mode, so I presented the solution. "Leave the pizza here. You know where to find me. Go back to your store, get change, come back, and I will pay you." His eyes lit up, as though I had a great solution that he wouldn't have thought of in a million years.
Absurd or unnecessary "because I said so" rules or precautions.
"Whoa! You can't take that cart on the elevator."
"Why not?"
"Well, you could damage the elevator."
"Look. The cart plus what's on it weighs about 100 pounds. I think it's safe so say that's considerably less than you or me. Its wheels are made of rubber, just like the soles of my shoes. Obviously, I know I will get in trouble if I scratch the sides of the elevator, so I promise I won't let the cart touch the sides or door of the elevator. Plus, there's a camera in there if you care to make sure. Also, there's nobody in the elevator, so it would be just me and the cart, with no possibility of bumping into someone else, or having someone else bump the cart and scratch the sides of the elevator."
"It doesn't matter. You can't take that cart in the elevator."
Radio stations that still have "CD" in their jingle or call name. "You're listening to CD 101.5!" OOOOOHHHHH! CD's! They're HI-TECH! It's awesome that you're boasting that you're using 25 year old technology that's on the verge of obsolescence! WOW! You're not just 101.5, you're CD 101.5! Fucking WOOT!
People who go on the subway with a big purse, a tote bag, a back pack, another tote bag, a laptop case, and a rolling carry-on bag with another bag sitting on top of it. Hey asshole, if you need a mobile office, buy a fucking car..
Today I had to use the LIRR train because my job had me working way out in the sticks. The eastbound train was due to arrive at 7:55. I arrived at the station and waited in the ticket line. The bitch in the booth worked as slowly as possible. When I got to the counter, the train was coming into the station. I told her my destination and said I wanted a round trip. She made this stink-face and said, "The next train doesn't get here until 8:36."
I said, "The train is right here NOW."
She says in this ho-hum tone, "Yeah, but you're not going to catch that train."
"I WILL IF YOU GIVE ME MY TICKET."
After some huffing and puffing and ghetto mumbling she gave me my ticket and change and I ran and slipped in the door of the 7:55 train as it was closing. It was too bad I couldn't simultaneously be on the train and telling this dumb bitch off and giving her the one finger salute of "I told you so." To think this bitch had just DECIDED that I was going to be 40 minutes late AND would have to pay the higher "Peak" rate for my ticket when the train I wanted was within reach if she would just stop being retarded. I remember when these fucking ticket tellers bitched and moaned when the MTA started making ATM-like ticket vending machines, saying that they would take away jobs. The only reason I went to the teller instead of the machine was to get, uhhh.... I think in the olden days they called it "service." It's pretty fucking bad when a machine can give me far better service than a person. Would the machine keep me waiting around to hear its opinion on whether I will make the train if I run for it? Fuck you. I hope a machine does take your job. In fact I hope someone makes a machine whose only functions are making your children cry while kicking you in the twat.
More on the LIRR:
This morning my job wanted me to be way out in the the middle of nowhere by 7am. Soooo... I have a choice. Either I can arrive there 43 minutes early, or 51 minutes late. You would think they could have more frequent trains since all the commuters are paying 12 bucks. Oh wait. What am I thinking? The MTA giving halfway decent service for a reasonable price? Sorry, I don't know what I was thinking.
People who operate a podcast that consists entirely of other people's music, who go for long periods of time between updates, citing "lack of creative inspiration." Uhhh... The fucking music is there. All you do is pick songs and make a podcast. There's very little demand for your personal creativity. Just fucking do it. If my goal was to make a podcast of various artists' music, I could crank out hundreds of ten song shows, creating play lists much faster than the songs could even be compiled into podcasts. I could even stay within genre and mood constraints. Take your "writer's block" and shove it up your ass. You're just lazy.
While it can make the work day go by faster if you are allowed play music in the office, almost nothing can make the day more agonizing than working in a place where they play shitty music. Try working 9+ hours a day listening to country music. It's enough to make someone go postal.
People who don't understand that there is a lot of gray area between "Go out and have a few drinks with your friends" and "Get so drunk you throw up all over yourself and pass out and have to be taken home by one of your friends an hour after arriving at the bar."
People who spam their MySpace friends list and email address book to "get out the vote" for some candidate who: A.) I have already expressed my disliking of directly to the sender, B.) Is considered to be either a complete douchebag or wing-nut by most people and is only liked by a tiny group of people who are fucked in the heads, and C.) Because of B could never win in a million fucking years... ARE YOU LISTENING, RON PAUL '08 RETARDS? Oh, and for the record, as of October, '07, I'm not supporting anyone for president. There's really nobody but douchebags running, and it's a typical presidential election, like always. You have the Democrats, who seem to always pick their candidates as though they are designed to lose, wholly relying on the misguided "well, at least we're not republicans" strategy that they should have learned doesn't work when Kerry lost to an incumbent whose approval rating was in the 30-40% range, and on the other side you have a geezer actor, a crazy cultist who flip-flops on abortion rights just to get votes, and a former mayor who is the only person on the planet that used 9/11 to enhance his career more than Osama Bin Laden did. I haven't seen a worse spread since Goatse.cx.
Tests and certifications that the government makes you do which are basically just ways to make you waste time and pay money. Like recently I had to take a 15 hour class and take a test to get certified in New York City in food safety. The cost of the class was $108.00. If you run a restaurant and there is not a manager or supervisor on the premises with a food handling certification card, and the Health Department comes to inspect, it is a critical violation with a huge fine, and you run the risk of having your restaurant shut down. So I took the class and test. The stupid thing is that a fucking chimp could pass. The test was 50 questions, and you can miss as many as 15 and pass. Personally, if you miss anywhere close to 15, I want to know what restaurant you work at so I can avoid eating there. The test had maybe 2 or 3 questions where you had to actually remember a number or think for more than half a second. Most of the questions were like this (Actual question from the test.):
The reason chicken must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees is:
A.) To improve the flavor.
B.) To increase business.
C.) To give the food a pleasant color.
D.) To kill salmonella bacteria which can spread food borne illness.
REALLY? I had to take a class to learn that? Not only is the correct answer obvious, but the question and answer contain the only important information that you might have to remember. It's as though the question is a lesson. Seriously, you could get almost every question right, even if you didn't take the class, if you had an iota of common sense. I got 100% on the test. The guy in front of me missed fucking TEN... And this fuck gets the same card I do. You seriously might as well just have a window where you walk up, pay $108.00, and they give you a card. If that guy missed ten questions on that EASY AS FUCK test, he's gonna fucking kill someone.
People who, when you fuck up, go into this passive aggressive "helpful" mode to thoroughly rub it in.
"Good morning. Do you have that report I need?"
"Aaah! Sorry, I forgot! Give me a few minutes and I'll finish it up."
"Is everything okay?"
"Yeah, I just forgot, I'm sorry. It shouldn't take long. Just give me a few minutes."
"No, I'm sorry. It might be my fault."
"Huh?"
"I must not have communicated clearly how important that report is."
"No, I understood, I just got caught up in other things and forgot."
"No, I think I need to get more in tune with how to communicate with you. Is there something more that I could do for you so you and I could be more on the same wavelength? Would you like for me to email you assignments in addition to asking you? Maybe I could install a new bulletin board in here to list what reports I need."
"That's not necessary. I was just busy yesterday and forgot."
"No, no. I'm going to call facilities when I get back to my desk to have a bulletin board put in. Would you like for me to put a message on your voicemail too?"
"No, that's not necessary."
"I just want to help you as much as I can."
THANK YOU! I GET IT! I FUCKED UP! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE, ASSHOLE!
People who, when you fuck up, go into this passive aggressive feigned inability to understand how this could happen to thoroughly rub it in.
"Good morning. Do you have that report I need?"
"Aaah! Sorry, I forgot. Give me a few minutes to finish it up."
"You didn't do it?"
"No, sorry."
"But... How did..... Wait, you really didn't do any of it?"
"Sorry, I was busy yesterday and I forgot."
"Wait, wait, wait... I'm trying to wrap my head around this. You knew the report was important, right?"
"Yeah."
"And you didn't do it?"
"I forgot."
"But if you knew it was important, how is it possible to forget about it?"
"I don't know. I just got busy with other stuff and it got put on the back burner."
"But.... I don't understand how you could put it on the back burner if you knew it was important."
Of course, this conversation could go on indefinitely, and these conversations usually will, until you finally say, "THANK YOU! I GET IT! I FUCKED UP! NOW LEAVE ME ALONE, ASSHOLE!"
People who say, "Dammit! I'm fed up with this shit. How am I supposed to get by? I work a shitload of hours, hardly ever see my kids, and my wife works too, and we can still barely pay the bills because the rent, utilities, phone, cable, etc. just go up and up and every year I get my review and they give me a teeny tiny raise that doesn't even begin to cover the increase in the cost of living. I guess I should be happy they give me anything at all, because it's not like my workplace is unionized. And then the cost of healthcare is going through the roof, and there's no way I can afford insurance, and my job doesn't offer me any benefits, and Medicare doesn't cover enough. I've had a bad knee and a really bad cough for years, but I can't possibly support my family if I spend money to get it checked, and if I had to miss any work, we'd be totally screwed. I'm so sick of how corporations have so much power in government. It's like nothing gets done unless some Fortune 500 assholes want it. And of course, I pay way too much in taxes, and those rich fat cats don't pay nearly their fair share! And then there's that goddamn war! The government is spending all it's money on this stupid war that we never should have gotten in, and may never get out of, when we have real problems here at home that need fixing. My brother was supposed to be home from Iraq months ago, but they keep sending him back and extending his tours. If this keeps up, there's going to be a draft, but of course, just like in Vietnam, all those rich assholes will find ways to keep their kids out of harm's way, and it'll be the little guy that gets stepped on again, just like with everything else. I've had it! They'll be hearing my anger in the voting booth this November! That's right! I'm gonna vote.... Republican!"
People who apparently do nothing all day but take FUCKING MEANINGLESS online quizzes and post them on bulletins on Myspace. I have retards that post the results of 6 or 7 quizzes every day on Myspace bulletins and almost always, the questions are completely irrelevant to anything. Do these people think that anyone actually reads that shit?
"1. When was the last time you were in a car?" Today.
2. "Have you ever been to see a movie with anyone on your friends list?" Yes.
3. "What is your third favorite food?" Meatloaf.
4. "Have you ever been to Ohio?" Yes.
5. "What day of the week were you born on?" I dunno! LOL!
6. "Are you good at math?" No.
7. "What color are your mother's eyes?" Blue.
8. "Have you ever gone skydiving?" No.
9. "Where was the best place you ever went on vacation?" The Bahamas.
10. "Do you like apples?" Yes.
11. "Do you believe in reincarnation?" No.
12. "Have you ever eaten Thai food?" Yes.
WOW! I FEEL LIKE I KNOW YOU SO MUCH BETTER NOW! THANK YOU FOR SHARING THESE DEEP AND REVEALING FACTS WITH ME! The only thing I learned is that you're apparently stupid.
People who think they're going to get real change in Congress by reelecting the same douchebags that have been there for 20 years. "Oh boy! I could never live with myself if some conservative took that seat. I'd better elect Joe Lieberman to another term."
You could hear the collective forehead slap as gay rights activists everywhere, who had been working their whole lives to promote acceptance, shouted, "FUUUUUCK!" as all their hard work was nullified in two minutes and eleven seconds.
"CONGRATULATIONS! You have been selected to receive two free iPod Nanos!" FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK YOU!
Invariably, people will occasionally blurt out "fuck" on live TV. A person will say "nigger" or "faggot" or something else that pisses a lot of people off. In steps the media gestapo to make rules and impose fines and bring the hammer down with complete disregard for free speech. Then, self-professed champions of free speech step in and say the dumbest thing they could ever say in hopes of saving free speech. "What's the big deal? They're just words. Words have no power. I mean, why is everyone so angry? Words can't hurt anybody. They're just words, geeez!" Just words? Hey, idiot, words ARE important. Should people have a heart attack and get all self righteous when they hear a word they don't like? Probably not, but words ARE powerful. Words ARE important. Words CAN affect people. Not only is the free exchange of ideas perhaps the most important factor of democracy, but without words, we would probably still be trying to perfect the stone axe. Imagine humanity unable to communicate complex ideas, feelings, instructions. Words aren't just important, they're probably the most important thing to make us something more than chimps with less hair and upper body strength. Using the "They're just words" argument is like trying to defend women's rights by saying, "What's the big deal? They're just women. What could some silly, little women do? You people are getting all worked up over some little, powerless, pathetic women? It's not like anyone is really listening to what they're saying, so who cares?"
By the way, I am definitely not a huge fan of words like "faggot" or "nigger," but I have the foresight enough to know that people who preach freedom are contradicting themselves when they would limit what people can say and think. Freedom is the freedom to say cunt, shit, asshole, fuck, tits, motherfucker, cock, etc. etc. etc. as well as the freedom to say, well, you know... the N word and the F-a-g-g-o-t word too. Oh, and, uhh, this trend of making celebrities who say or do things that offend your delicate sensibilities apologize and go to rehab and sensitivity training is getting pretty fucking absurd. Every day some famous retard calls someone something, and then has to do Al Sharpton-supervised community outreach and go to counseling, and it's getting pretty goddamn tedious.
People with ridiculously outdated political views. "You know, this country has been in a real downward spiral since they gave women the right to vote." Shut up, retard.
Spammers who use some name in the "from" field that is HIGHLY unlikely. I mean, okay, you're from China, and maybe the only American TV you get is soap operas where they name people ridiculous shit like "Drake," and "Hunter," but let me throw you a tip. These names are uncommon enough that when I see them in my in-box, I know you're full of shit. *DELETE* Let's see here. Currently in my in-box are emails from Meehan Tera, Walker Coulson, Holden Griggs, Lake Colbert, Corty Hargrove and Aileen Bradshame. *Delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, and delete.* Oh, and uh, sending me emails with "Important security issue with your Bank of America account," or "Please acknowledge" or "Urgent" as the subject.... *Delete, delete, delete, delete.* Fuck you retards.
Many videogames give NPC's lines of dialogue to say and motions to do to make the game more interesting and realistic. Like in Stalker and Bioshock, friendly and enemy NPC's all have little blurbs of banter and talk to each other and stuff. I can understand that if you have four guys sitting around a campfire, they're probably going to be talking about stuff. The downside is, after a few hours of gameplay, and these games take MANY hours of gameplay to accomplish anything, you will be done hearing new banter. The guy sitting at the campfire 20 feet from the start of the game is saying the same shit as the guy sitting at the bar 2 miles away and the guy sitting at the campfire 10 miles away. "Let's drink to him once more. He was a good stalker." Just shut up.
People who sell things on Ebay that they don't really understand.
"Makintosh Ipod. This is the thing that you use to hook up to your computer that plays youtubes or myspaces. It is white on one side and silver on the other. It has an internet screen on the front for looking at internets. There is some kind of hole on the bottom that I think is used to hook up an antenna. Right now it has an internet on it that you can listen to of Jethro Tull, but I think it has room for more internets. I am getting rid of it because I am tired of Jethro Tull and want to get a new Makintosh with other internets on it. Right now the batteries are dead so you will need to get new batteries. I think it takes AAA batteries, but I can't find the little door to insert them. This might be that Ipod with the phone, but I'm not sure. I got it from a guy in Ohio in 2004. Maybe the guy I got it from in Ohio could tell if it has the phone. I think that the rectangular hole on the bottom might be the antenna hole and the hole you talk in, but I don't see an ear hole.
Auction starts at $750 USD. 0 bids.
People who have been doing their job for a long time, and have been doing it wrong the whole time, who won't listen to a fucking thing about how to do it correctly, because, "Hey, I've been waiting tables for the past 15 years. I think I know what I'm doing here. I preset the milk, sugar, and coffee cups before the people arrive, so they have no idea how long the milk has been sitting out. The clients sit down. I give them the salad. When they're done with the salad, I bring around the main course. They got a choice of beef or fish, so I carry as many of each as I possibly can without dropping them. They tell me which they want and I set it down. Once all the entrees are down, I come around and give the people wine, ice water and bread. Then I come around and give steak knives to all the people that got beef. When the people are done with the main course, I roll this horrible, banged-up stainless steel utility cart into the room with all the dessert, and pick their plate up with one hand and serve dessert with the other. I have bus tubs on the cart and I stick the dirty dinner plates in there as I take desserts off. Once everyone has dessert, I go with coffee. I mean, that's the way I done it for 15 years. Now you come in here and start telling me to take people's orders at the start and serve them water and bread and wine from the start and set down steak knives after I clear the salad and set down coffee cups, creamers and sugars after I cleared the main course and to only carry two plates at a time and to wait until all the whole table is cleared from one course to start serving the next course, and to keep the filthy bus cart out of sight, and to serve from the left and clear from the right... I mean, 15 years I've been doing this, and there's never been no problems. Why you wanna come in here and change stuff around? Have YOU been a waiter for 15 years?"
There are two types of people who own samurai swords. Samurais and man-boy cosplay nerds who have a few screws loose and haven't been laid since the first Iraq war. There is a very simple test to determine which you are. Are you an aristocratic warrior swordsman from feudal Japan? No? Then you're not a samurai.
Ummmm... yeah, I think I rest my case. HOLY SHIT! THAT GUY ON THE LEFT WITH THE BEADY EYES JUST KILLED A BOX! That will be an incredibly important skill if he is ever attacked by boxes, or maybe it will help him unbox canned peas faster at his job as a grocery stocker. Awww, I shouldn't make fun. This guy is obviously deeply into eastern culture, as demonstrated by his artfully displayed Bhuddist beads, Yinyang-emblazoned Levis jacket, incense thingee which he apparently bought some little Pier One table thing to display, red cloth and shelf that he bought at Walmart, plug-in candle and picture of the Dalai Lama that he printed on his Canon Bubble-jet. The top right picture is fun too. We have a tubby Chun Li and the guy who runs the comic shop on The Simpsons making their best serious faces as they are imagining they are slaying Sephiroth. The guy in the lower right is itching for someone to offer him a Red Pill, and the guy in the bottom center is taking a short break from crying to take one last webcam pic with his left hand just before he commits seppuku. (Side note: Remember what I said before about button-down black shirts.) Here, Pugsly McGetsnone takes a break from pissing off his parents with Insane Clown Posse to record his pre-highschool rampage video manifesto. That's not a hoodie, it's a ninja invisibility cloak.
Of course, there will be these idiots who read this and say, "But wait! I took classes. I actually know how to USE a katana." Uhhh, WHO GIVES A SHIT? It's not like this is a practical or worthwhile skill to have. It's not like that gives you some license to walk around town with a katana on a sword belt in case anyone tries to start shit with you. The only accounts I've seen of people out in public with katanas are videos on youtube of crazy guys on PCP getting tasered and pepper sprayed by the cops. The title is usually something like "Crazy sword guy" or something.
Dentures that look so white and "perfect" that it looks like the person is wearing a boxing mouthguard. The idea is to look like you have teeth, not that you're Jim Carrey in "The Mask."
People who vote for a politician based on their support for some pet cause, regardless of disagreeing with them on most other things they stand for. "Hmmm - this candidate is Pro-Nafta... which I'm against, against abortion, and I'm pro-choice, for the War in Iraq, which I'm against, for deporting all immigrants, which I'm against, pro-death penalty, which I'm against, obvioulsy pro-big business/upper class, and I think that's unfair, against stem cell research, which I am for, pro-nuclear buildup, and I think we should at least partially disarm, against universal healthcare, which I'm for, against strict pollution regulations, and I'm an environmentalist, for blurring the line between church and state, which I'm against, for creationism in schools, which I think is ridiculous, for censorship of media, which I'm against, has been in the Senate for 24 years, and has a voting record that I would strongly disagree with 95%... oh, but wait... He wants to have the FDA regulate organic food to make sure it meets certain criteria before it can be labelled organic. As an organic-only vegan, that sounds pretty cool to me. This guy is getting my vote come November!"
Ear hair on the loose. As men age, often they start growing hair in weird places. It's sad, but true, and while it's a fact of life, that doesn't mean nothing should be done about it. I mean really, how do you expect people not to think it's gross that you have more thick, wire-like hair growing out of each of your ears than I have growing in both of my armpits and crotch combined. This morning I was on the train with this guy who kept staring at me, who I was about to ask to stop, when I noticed that the rims of his ears had black hair all over them. Who the fuck are YOU staring at, asshole? Your ear has a fucking mustache!
People on myspace who have a band that occasionally plays in a bar in Portland, Oregon who add me as a friend. I think, "Hmmm... Maybe they liked my website, or maybe they saw my musical tastes and have a CD that I would like that they're trying to get exposure for." So I OK the friend request, and then get daily bulletins about some show they're doing in Portland two weeks from now.
Chefs who became chefs seemingly so they can find as many ways as possible to serve people goat cheese.
Okay. We fucking get it. You like goat cheese. That doesn't mean you plan a dinner and start with an hors d'oeuvres of goat cheese in phyllo and tomato and goat cheese bruschette and a cheese board featuring goat cheese, appetizer of smoked goat cheese with artichokes, salad of mixed greens with balsamic vinaigrette with crumbled goat cheese, and for main course have a choice of sturgeon with asparagus and goat cheese or filet mignon with melted goat cheese, and for dessert a goat cheesecake. DUDE! LEAVE THE GOAT'S TITS ALONE FOR A FUCKING MINUTE! PLEASE!
Workplaces where it would be unrealistic to assume that you are not visible to a security camera anywhere you go. Let's be honest. Noses need picking sometimes
Computer techs who act like you're retarded when they don't even know the problem.
Today I came to work and had no network connectivity on my work computer. I called IT and got this guy who sounded really irritable.
"My network connection isn't working."
"Well what is it doing?"
"What do you mean? I can't connect to the network or the internet."
"*Loud sigh* Well what were you doing that made it disconnect?"
"Nothing. When I left last night it was working, and this morning I logged on and it wasn't."
"*Loud sigh* Did you kick the network cable out or something?"
"No."
"Okay, bring up a command prompt."
"Okay."
"Type ipconfig /release"
"Done."
"Okay now reboot."
"Okay." The system reboots.
"You have a network connection?"
"No."
"*Loud sigh*"
He has me do a lot of things in the system settings and in the command prompt. I rebooted a couple times. I followed all his instructions exactly. After trying a few things, he was getting more and more perturbed. He had me repeat most of these things a few times, instructing me to repeat his instructions back to him to ensure that I'm not a moron and am following his instructions correctly. Basically, to him, the fact that he told me a few things to do, and still can't connect means that I was too stupid to correctly follow his instructions.
"*Loud sigh* I guess I'll come down there and look at it. *loud sigh* I'll be down there in... *loud sigh* about 30 minutes. *loud sigh*"
He comes down and starts fiddling with things. The first thing he tries is the same thing he had me do a couple of times, and guess what. NO CONNECTION.
So a couple of hours have passed and he's got his supervisor here as well. They have cable testers and laptops and have made about a dozen phone calls. He's looking more and more aggravated all the time. Soooo.... I guess it wasn't such a simple problem , and I guess I'm not the retard you thought I was.
People who tell people that they look like a certain celebrity, as though it's such a great compliment. Even if the celebrity in question is attractive, unless the person has self esteem issues, they probably don't want to hear that they look like someone else. "Hey, you look like Christina Aguilera!" What if the girl hates Christina Aguilera for whatever reason? What if the girl considers herself more attractive than Christina Aguilera?
What's worse is when the celebrity is unattractive. "Dude! You know who you look like? Gary Busey!" Don't fucking tell someone that shit. Nobody wants to look like Gary Busey. Fucking Gary Busey doesn't want to look like Gary Busey.
Timid mergers. You're on the on-ramp for a highway. Traffic on the highway is moving at 65-70 miles an hour. Obviously the best way to merge into this traffic is to come to a complete stop at the end of the ramp.
The Prime Minister of Vietnam is named Tan Dung..... GRAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!
I'm not sure what everyone else is eating, but am I the only person who isn't having noisy, gassy, splattering diarrhea in public restrooms that stinks so badly that people have to flee the area before they puke? Seriously, it seems like every time I'm in a public restroom I hear this, "Spit... sputter.... BRACKITA BRACKITA BRACKITA..... sputter..... BRAP...... drip...... BRACKITA BRAP...... "
People who give you gifts that are seriously way too over the top. "Hey! Merry Christmas, guy I hang out with every once in a while! Here's your gift, a 25 dollar gift certificate at Virgin Records. Oh, you brought me a gift? Ohhhh.... A uhhh... mountain bike.... Thhhanks."
Organ donation. Don't get me wrong. I know sick people need organs, but what pisses me off is something I think is pretty simple. I sign my organ donor card. I die. They take my organs FOR FREE. They then charge patients $250,000 for a kidney, $350,000 for a lung, $350,000 for a pancreas, $900,000 for intestines, $450,000 for a liver, $500,000 for a heart... So from my body alone, the medical industry stands to make millions of dollars with organs they got FOR FREE. Millions of dollars for them, not a penny for me or my family, and they couldn't even do it at all without donors. Sorry, sick people, but fuck you, greedy medical money-grubbers.
If your main source of income absolutely depends on Myspace, and you don't actually work for Myspace, uhhh... Get a job.
Guys that use retarded "tough guy" banter that sounds forced and stilted and just makes them seem staggeringly stupid and weird. There's this guy I work with who most of the people I work with think is most likely in the closet, despite his frequent assertions that he's a real ladies' man. This guy has all the machismo of Guy Smiley. We're leaving work one night and despite being mid-September, the weather was nice and warm and clear, with a slight cool breeze. He notices the weather, and says, at a volume that could probably be heard across the street, "Holy FUCK, it's nice out! I need a BITCH right now! I need a BITCH right here so I can FUCK her!" Congratulations. You're still gay, but now you seem even gayer and definitely dumber.
Karate, tae kwon do, etc classes that people join primarily to learn self defense, where they mostly teach you how to do flips and splits and break balsa wood boards that are held up over your head and scream "KEEE-YAAAAAAAHHH!" Yeah, that's really practical. How about teaching me how to kick some drunk lummox's ass who decides to start some shit because he thinks I looked at him funny? I think at this point I should state the obvious. I think one of the keys to getting in a fight without getting arrested, is not drawing attention by shrieking "KEEE-YAAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!" as loudly as I can. Ever watch UFC? I think it would be kind of a dumb argument to claim that these guys aren't fighting well. Do you see any of them doing backflip kicks and breaking little boards that are suspended over their heads as they cry, "KEEEE-YAAAAAAAHHH"? No? Why is that, do you suppose?
Acne "cover-up" cream. Great. Now instead of looking like you have a big, juicy zit, now you look like you have a big, juicy zit with some weird orange stucco on it.
The way they made the Transformers in the Transformers Movie look like they were made of ten million moving parts, the largest of which being the size of a pencil.
Evangelical Christians who think that being gay is a choice, a perversion, a mental illness, but feigning a siezure as you roll your eyes back in your head and call out, "ZAMBAALA JOALICAMBOOZOO AALANICAMBAALICJOOMAACIBAALALALALALAAAA!" is completely natural, a blessing and beyond one's control. "What? That's totally normal. God does that to you. It's speaking in tongues. It's not like you're doing it yourself. But, wow! For people to say that being attracted to members of the same sex is natural? Now that's just perverted, right there! I mean, I know many homosexuals claim they knew they were gay since early childhood, and it's a fairly widespread phenomenon among upper primates, but WOW! Why are all those four year olds and chimps choosing to defy God's law? Oh, wait! God is speaking to me again! CHIMICHANGA AFRIKAABAMBAATAA SHANAANAA MECCA LECCA HI MECCA HINEY HO!"
As you might imagine, living in New York City exposes me to a wide range of cultures, which by and large is a very good thing. However, there is something that I would like to address. There are some cultures in which body odor doesn't even show up on the radar as far as things to worry about. They simply don't give a shit. They could have BO that could knock you out, and they are like, "What's the problem?" Then there are other cultures that deal with the problem not by practicing good hygiene, but by covering the smell up. Let me be an ambassador to help make your stay in the US a more pleasant one for both of us. Below are some schedules to help you recognize habits and improve upon them.
CORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Tuesday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Wednesday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Thursday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Friday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Saturday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
Sunday: Wake up. Take a shower, wash your armpits with deodorant soap, dry off, apply deodorant to your armpits, proceed with your daily tasks.
INCORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Tuesday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Wednesday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Thursday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Friday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Saturday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
Sunday: Wake up. Proceed with your daily tasks.
INCORRECT:
Monday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as people try to distance themselves from you.
Tuesday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as people within a 20 foot radius clutch their noses as their sinuses burn as though they just snarfed kerosene.
Wednesday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks. Proceed to your boss's office for a very awkward meeting that he absolutely doesn't want to have to do, but is basically obligated to because all your coworkers demand that he say something to you about your reek.
Thursday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as nobody without a hazmat suit can come near you without choking.
Friday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Proceed with your daily tasks as birds fall out of the sky at your passing.
Saturday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Wonder why all your neighbors are moving out.
Sunday: Wake up. Apply very strong perfume. Turn on the TV and see that the police are investigating a possible hazardous chemical leak which just happens to be centered around your current location.
People who have bad breath that you can smell from six feet away. It's one thing if I'm close enough to shake your hand and notice that you had something with garlic for lunch, but some people just walk in the room and you swear they must have a dead rancid raccoon stuck in their throat.
That moment when you pour cereal in a bowl, then you pour milk over it, and then realize that you only have enough milk to slightly dampen the cereal. So now you either have to throw it away, which sucks because you bought the cereal and you're hungry, or you have to grind your teeth through an utterly unenjoyable breakfast.
People who try to play off their scientific ignorance as being open-minded.
"Is the earth round or flat?"
"Hmmm, you know... That's a very interesting question. I suppose the answer to that question is largely a matter of perspective."
"It was an either-or question with a correct answer."
"I understand that, but I don't think it's fair to rule out all possibilities. I mean, you might say it's round, and you could present evidence to that effect. On the other hand, there might be a body of evidence to support it being flat."
"Ummm... It's round. There's no credible evidence to support it being flat."
"Well you say that now, but certainly in the past there were scientists who believed that it was flat, if that was the common knowledge of their era. Also, the Bible says the world is flat."
"Yes, but they were wrong. It's round. Them thinking it was flat isn't a matter of perspective, it's attributable to their ignorance."
"I can see where you're coming from, but I think you have to look at the question from many angles."
"It's round. The end. Now, if you want to believe it's flat, please, PLEASE find the edge, and jump off it."
Not really something to be destroyed, but definitely something that makes me feel funny... What's the deal with certain restaurants where I am the thinnest guy there? I mean, at 225 pounds, I am no bean pole, but what the fuck? It seriously makes me have the feeling that I shouldn't be eating there, so I don't suffer the same fate. I've been to Boston Market a few times, and I go to Popeye's every once in a while, and it's as though nobody eats there except fat fucks. I just had lunch at Popeye's and while I was in line, this whole family of jello trolls came in and took over the whole fucking restaurant. From what I could guess, there were two husbands, two wives, another lady, and five kids, and there wasn't one of them who wasn't morbidly obese. There was a 12 year old girl in the bunch who could definitely kick my ass in tug of war. One of the husbands waddled up to the counter and ordered for everyone, so they could all sit down and huff and puff from exhaustion from dragging their ponderous asses to Popeye's all the way from Burger King a block away. The woman sitting across from me had boobs that looked like she was hiding an elephant seal in her shirt..
The retarded doublethink that conservatives do to justify why we need to stay in Iraq indefinitely. For months we heard that Bush was waiting until he heard the progress report in September by General Petraeus to Congress before he decided how many troops should stay in Iraq, and for how long. GEE! SURELY A LOYAL GENERAL WOULD NEVER, OHH, LIE, OR, OHHHH, HAND-PICK DETAILS LIKE A MOUTHPIECE FOR THE WHITEHOUSE TO SIMPLY DO WHAT BUSH WANTS OR ANYTHING!
Then later, (doublethink) we were told that Petraeus was going to deliver the report not to Congress, but to the White House, (doublethink) and that the White House would then take his findings and then THEY would present a report to Congress, and that this was ALWAYS the plan, and that the White House would then issue the report. NOOOO, Nothing suspicious about that!
Of course, we all knew that the contents of the report would be irrelevant. Regardless of the general's assessment, we would end up doing what Bush wants.
Suppose the report sees the war through rose-colored glasses.
"Everything is great here. We're making promising progress, and signs of stability are popping up all over, just like those lovely bustling markets (which were pretty much photo-op props) that McCain and Katie Couric visited."
Solution:
"Well obviously if we start pulling troops out, we will lose all these wonderful gains we've made. To pull out would ensure that the budding democracy here will fail. The continued stability of this region requires an extended US military presence or things will plunge back into chaos, and all our hard work would be a waste, and all the people who gave their lives for this would have done so in vain! Don't you support the troops?"
Suppose the report says things are a mess.
"This is a nation on the brink of a full-blown civil war, and has become the greatest recruiting ground for new terrorists. Al Qaida is here in force and are killing people every day."
Solution:
"This is the central front in the war on terror. To pull out now would only show our enemy that we are weak, and that the American people do not have the resolve to fight the long fight necessary to defeat them, also, leaving would remove any safeguard against the civil war that is teetering on the brink and threatens the stability, not only of Iraq, but the entire Middle East. We would be fools to pull out and let this happen! To pull out would ensure that Iraq becomes a new nation of terrorists who would stop at nothing to hurt Americans. Nothing stands against this chaos except the brave men and women serving there. Don't you support the troops?"
So then, yesterday, Petraeus gave his report to a highly skeptical Congress. His conclusion: We are making amazing strides and meeting goals, AND (doublethink) it's a complete mess with no obvious solution but one... WE NEED TO KEEP AMERICAN TROOPS IN IRAQ MUCH, MUCH LONGER!
Very important news article on MSNBC on 8/31/07: "Mormons: IS POLYGAMY IN THE AFTERLIFE OK?" Holy fucking fuck. WOW! No doubt this amazing journalism will win a fucking Pulitzer. THIS IS IMPORTANT NEWS!
People who read some shit in some magazine or something and try to twist the meaning to justify their own dumbass behavior.
"I read that drinking beer is good for your kidneys."
"Yeah. Drinking A beer is good for your kidneys. Drinking beer until you throw up and pass out every night is NOT healthy."
Organic, natural or healthy products that are advertised in a way that focuses entirely on, "Wow! I can't believe it doesn't even taste like twigs, tree bark and moss!" And you fucks wonder why I have a Whopper and a Pepsi for lunch.
Closeted gay Christians. Uhhhh, you're gay. Big whoop. Just be gay. You've been sold a dumb idea from Opposite Land. They tell you being gay is a decision you can make. Fuck that. Being gay is a natural phenomenon. Being a Christian is a choice. Be yourself.
Openly gay Christians. Maybe it's just me, but when I'm thinking of joining an organization or movement, I check to make sure they don't specifically say they stand against everything I'm about and want to destroy me. You espouse a belief system that seeks to stone you to death and send you to hell. Why would you do that? The Bible is pretty explicit when it comes to how "God" wants gays dealt with. There aren't any good endings for gays in that Choose Your Own Adventure Book.
Openly gay conservatives. See above.
Americans who still have no grasp whatsoever of the metric system. I mean, I know we eat Quarter Pounders and buy gallons of milk, but there's truly no excuse for having no concept at all. I mean, say what you will. The rest of the civilized world uses this scale. It might make sense to at least have a fucking clue. "A kilogram? Uhhhh.... That's kinda like 900 pounds, right?"
What's even dumber is when people don't get it when the metric amount is right on the package of something. Like for my job, one of the things I need to purchase is Pellegrino water. This has the metric amount right on the fucking bottle, and does not have the imperial amount. It comes in liter, half liter, and 250 milliliter bottles. My purveyor has no idea what to make of this.
"I need a case of Pellegrino in 250ml bottles."
"Uhhhh.... What's that?"
"The little 250ml bottles."
"Is that 16oz? 12oz? What?"
"It's like eight and a half ounces."
"Oh, because I didn't know."
"It's the one with the two five zero on the box."
Stiff, unsupportive, judgmental, denigrating, shame implanting parents who, when you somehow grow into a balanced, sane adult who isn't addicted to antidepressant medication see themselves as having been the "cool rock'n'roll" kind of parents who were open and related well to their kids and were behind them every step of the way.
Security guards who act like a robot with an erased memory when you forget your ID. Every morning when you show up to work, "Hey, g'morning, Steve. you catch that 49ers game over the weekend? That was brutal! Okay, well have a good day. Catch you later. I'll be bumming a cigarette later! Ha-hah!"
Then one morning you show up to work, and just as you get to the security checkpoint you realize that you forgot your ID card. You walk up to the same guard who was so chummy yesterday to explain.
"Good morning, sir. How can I help you? Lost ID? Hmmmm...." He squints at you suspiciously as though you have an oil barrel full of anthrax tied to your back with big red letters that say, 'WARNING: ANTHRAX!' "Hmmmmm.... Hang on. Let me call my supervisor," like he's never laid eyes on you before.
Adults who can't grasp kindergarten level math. I just overheard two middle aged security guards arguing over how long one of them had been working there.
"So you've been working here almost 10 years."
"I was thinking almost 9."
"Well when did you start?"
"January of 1998."
"Well it's almost 2008, so that's 10 years."
"Yeah, but like, you start at zero."
"Yeah, but you've been here for nearly ten years."
"No, but when you first start, that doesn't count as one."
In the time it took me to swipe my ID, empty all my pockets and put all my phones, cameras, etc. through the x-ray machine, walk through the metal detector, collect my things on the other side, reinsert all the correct phones and cameras in the right cases, put the things back in my pockets, hit the elevator button, wait for the elevator, get in and press the button, they were still no closer to an agreement.
Churches that credit themselves as being open minded and inclusive because they will take anyone of any religion or background and convert them so they're just like them.
"Most beautiful people" lists in magazines and on TV that include Queen Latifa. Okay, so you're trying to be nice or inclusive or whatever, but no. She isn't. I mean, if I'm just some out-of-shape balding gamer nerd from Kentucky, and I have fucked better looking girls, no, she doesn't get to be on a "most beautiful" list unless it's like a list of "most beautiful people who happen to be standing in this room at the moment," and it's not a very heavily populated room. I'm not really just trying to rip on Queen Latifa, but she has this weird tendency to keep turning up on these lists, and I DO NOT GET IT.
Popular music stations that try to sneak in a country song here and there. Uhhh.... Nobody wants to hear that shit. If they did, they'd be listening to the country station.
People who want to pretend they're interested in your personal life who forget important painful things that you have told them previously, which they would have fucking remembered if they actually cared.
"Oh, hey. How's Sarah?"
"I don't know."
"You don't see much of each other lately?"
"Nope. Not since she dumped me a couple months ago. You knew that."
"Oh. That's too bad. She was nice."
"Yes, she was."
"And pretty."
"Yeah..."
People who name their kids FOR REAL Biblical names. Of course names like Paul and Michael and David are pretty standard at this point, but you can take your Solomon and Zachariah and Jebidiah and stuff them up your asses.
People who assume everyone around them is a christian. Like I was having a conversation with this lady I work with about a difficult customer we have. Basically, she's one of these customers where nothing will please her. When she says jump, you jump twice as high as the world record, and she's annoyed that you didn't try hard enough.
"Well, some people just seem to want to have something to complain about," I say. (Yes, I am aware of the extreme irony of me saying this. Shut up.)
"She must have DEMONS."
"I was just going to say she was a bitch, but whatever."
"No, I mean, there are real invisible demons that torment people and make them act crazy."
I do my best polite smile.
"You agree, no?"
"Actually, not really."
"But you're a Christian," she says with the same presumtuous confidence as if she had said, "But you breathe air."
"Nah."
"Yeah, but you believe in God," she reinforces with the same tone.
Still trying to hold my polite smile, "Not really."
"Well whatever you want to call it, you do believe in some ultimate power out there."
"Mmmm, no I don't."
She then continued talking about demons and Jesus in this completely matter of fact tone, like I really did follow the same religion as her, but just wasn't being forthcoming about it.
In reference to the specific complainer above, I was filling in for the corporate cafe manager who was on vacation. I had worked there before on occasion, so the staff and the clients recognized me as a manager. It was my first day filling in for his absence, so anything there was what was already ordered by the manager. Anything NOT there, I would have to order myself for the next day, and explain the concept of "tough shit" to anyone who wanted something that was not there. So I'm walking to the cashier area to see if they need any change or whatever, and this bitch comes up to me in a fury.
"YOUR COMPANY SUCKS! YOU NEVER HAVE ANYTHING I WANT! IT'S REALLY THE PITS! I WANT THE OLD CONTRACTOR BACK IN HERE BECAUSE YOUR COMPANY STINKS!"
"Uhhh, what was it you were looking for?"
"ALL YOU HAVE HERE IS THIS STUPID KID CEREAL AND I WANT CHEERIOS AND YOU NEVER HAVE THEM!"
I look at the cereal rack for literally half a second, I calmly reach over, take a package of Cheerios off the rack, and hand it to the bitch.
"Well.... WELL IT'S NOT JUST THAT! THIS PLACE HAS TOTALLY GONE DOWN THE TUBES AND BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH..."
People who are conservative not because they believe in limited government power and frugal fiscal spending, but because "them dang liberals want to take our guns away!" This can be easily interchanged with, "them dang liberals are gonna let faggots get married," or "them dang liberals won't let us replace evolution with unintelligent design in school," or "I'm a filthy rich business owner and don't want to pay my fair share of taxes or make sure my workers are fairly compensated and working in a safe working environment," or "My company makes an unsafe product, and I want to make sure I can keep selling it without any restrictions," or "them dang liberals think that women and non-caucasians deserve some sort of rights and respect." Actually, now that I think about it, I don't think there is a single reason to want to be a conservative that isn't based on selfishness, aggressiveness or prejudice.
19 year olds on Myspace that list their annual income as "250k or higher."
"Family values" Republicans that are rooting for Rudy Giuliani who ignore the fact that he has had extramarital affairs, has been sued for sexual harassment, and sued his own ex-wife, who was also his second cousin, because she would not allow him to bring the girlfriend with whom he was cheating on her into their house, which she was still living in, to meet his kids on Father's Day. He had also previously had an extramarital affair with his communications director, and was lifelong pals with a priest who was convicted for pedophilia. He also has a long history of ignoring important events in his family such as graduations and often goes for long stretches of time without talking to his kids, and even his own stepdaughter is rooting against him in 2008.
These same "family values" conservatives also like to accuse liberals of conducting "witch hunts" when their guys like Ted Haggart, Larry Craig, Mark Foley, Jim Bakker, Josh Bolton, Newt Gingrich, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Joe Scarborough, Jimmy Swaggart, Strom Thurmond, David Vitter, Thomas Ravenel, Robert W. Allen, etc. etc., who are all purportedly all pure as the driven snow and wonderful Christians, and in many cases highly motivated against anything un-Christian, homosexual, drug-related, etc. turn out to be deeply involved in illegal, or indisputably non-Christian sex / drug / corruption scandals. I can just hear the reasoning now... "Yes, for years I, Larry Craig, have fought tooth and nail to keep homosexuals from being able to get married. I mean, if they're all happily married, whose dick will I be able to suck in airport restrooms?" Or how about Ted Haggart? "My purpose in life is to preach the word of Jesus Christ and bring his blessing to everyone, regardless of how many gay male prostitutes I have to smoke crystal meth with to get the job done!" I mean, these assholes still make jokes about Clinton not inhaling. How the fuck did Haggart think he would get away with the same excuse? "Well, yes, I was buying meth from a gay male prostitute, but I never used it and we never had sex" Holy shit, that's idiotic. Of course, the problem, as I see it is not that assholes like Haggart and Craig are lonely gay men looking for affection, but that they spent their careers making a shit-ton of money by attacking gays and doing everything they could to make it more difficult for gays in America. It's not the fact that they're gay, it's the fact that they are hypocrites. For instance, Craig was one of the key republicans calling for the impeachment of Bill Clinton. Clinton got some consensual extramarital head from someone he knew from their working relationship. Craig propositioned an undercover cop for anonymous sex in a public restroom in an airport, and then pleaded guilty, and then reversed himself and said he's not gay. He's so full of shit it's amazing. Of course, we're working on a different dynamic, since Craig is a republican, and republicans want him to resign, not just because he did something illegal that displays his hypocrisy, but because as they see it, you can't be a good republican and be gay. Think about this for a second. Republicans spend millions of dollars on campaigns to gain seats in the Senate, and now that one of their guys might be (gasp) gay, they would RATHER LOSE THEIR SEAT than have a gay senator filling it, despite the fact that he voted exactly the way these assholes wanted.
Podcasts with "breaks." Like, if I'm listening to a political debate podcast, why the fuck do I need to hear a song in the middle? If I wanted to listen to a song, I've got plenty of them on my iPod already. If you are making your podcast and need to take a shit, just hit Stop on whatever you're using to record, make a mental note about what you were talking about, and then after you're done, come back, hit record, and just continue talking.
This morning at 6am I was awakened by a huge repetative booming sound that was loud enough to literally make my apartment shake. I looked outside and there was a dump truck and a back-hoe, and they were tearing out the sidewalk. The back-hoe would pull up a five foot by five foot by eight inch thick slab of sidewalk, lift it over the rim of the dump truck, and then drop it from full height into the truck, making the ground shake... AT SIX FUCKING O'CLOCK IN THE FUCKING MORNING!
People who "know better" than you, when in fact they don't know shit, and they even KNOW that they don't know shit.
I tell the cab driver, "I need to go to the Mariott on Jay Street in Brooklyn." He apparently is unfamiliar with the landmark and looks like he's pondering for a second, so I follow up with directions. "Take 43rd to the BQE, then take it to Tillary Street. I'll tell you when to turn." I then start fidgeting with my iPod.
After a few seconds I notice that the car is not moving, and half assume that he's waiting for the right moment to cut across traffic so he can make the left turn to get to 43rd street. I look up and he has a huge map spread in front of him. "Take 43rd to the BQE and take it to Tillary Street."
"I'm just... I want to... Uhh... Get directions."
"Those are the directions. I've made this trip a hundred times."
Reluctantly, he put the map away and followed my directions, and drove SLOW AS FUCK the whole way there.
Copycat tattoos. Great way to make a statement about your individuality, idiot. Do you know how many retards I have seen with those same fucking tiger paws on their cleavage like that rapper Eve? Way too goddamn many.
Magic Johnson used in ads for HIV medication. "Oh, God! Surely Neg isn't going to attack a guy stricken with HIV!" You're goddamn right I am. But what galls me more than this guy making tons of money on his own disease is the message of these ads. The intended message is obvious. "Buy our drugs and you too can live as long as Magic Johnson has with HIV." That way, the pharmeceutical companies can cash in on people desperate to save or extend their own lives. The message these ads convey to me is, "Look! If you catch HIV when you are at the pinnacle of human physical fitness, and have millions of dollars to spend from a long career as a professional athlete, with more money coming in all the time from books, interviews, speaking engagements, and for doing endorsements for pharmeceutical companies, you can probably live with HIV much, much longer than some poor slob with no health insurance who can't even afford to see the doctor for a physical."
Serial killers who get that old time religion right after they get caught. "Y'know. I feel awfully bad for all those 23 elementary school kids that I took out to the woods and raped, and tortured, and raped, and killed, and raped, and dismembered, and raped, and buried... and then dug up and raped again, and then buried again over the years, but everything's changed now, because I finally came to know the Lord, and I know in my heart that Jesus has forgiven me. I've been born again and cleansed by the blood of Christ! PRAISE THE LORD!"
Retards who have been so brainwashed by propaganda that they see muslims as like this comic book villain. I just listened to this deluded asshole rambling about, "They LOVE death. The only thing that makes them happier than killing is dying themselves. We can't set up democracies in the Middle East, because they don't envy our freedom, they just DESPISE it. The reason Muslims have plural marriage and have lots of kids is so they can raise more holy warriors. The Koran is nothing but a manual on how to kill and wage war."
People who know that you have artistic or musical ability that want you to make some art like the art they like. "Oh, Monet's 'Waterlillies' is so nice. Why don't you do something like that?"
Well let's see here. First off, my art is nothing like Monet, Monet's art is cool because it was his idea, and if I did an impressionist painting of waterlillies, that would make me a hack. Pardon me if my artistic vision is not what you want hanging in your precious living room.
"Artists" who have artistic ability who don't see what's wrong with using their skills to just copy other people's style.
People who lump homosexuality and bisexuality in the same category as nymphomania, alcoholism, pedophilia, bestiality, satan worship, murder, drug addiction, rape, terrorism...
Parents who make their kids eat notoriously gross food. Like, you know before you even try that your kid will hate liver and onions, and it's not even a particularly healthy thing to eat, so what's the point, just showing them who's in charge?
The fact that The Daily Show and The Colbert Report went on break on the same day Alberto Gonzales resigned and the story of senator Larry Craig trying to solicit gay sex in a public restroom broke in the media. I got home from work, turned on the TV and sat there waiting to laugh my ass off. Jon Stewart popped on the screen and started his intro. The anticipation was almost too much. Then he started talking about Karl Rove resigning, and I was like, "What the fuck? A rerun?" Seriously, if I was the producer of The Daily Show and we were on break and there was a news day like that, I would say, "Fuck it! We've got a show to do!"
Multimillionaire pro football player Michael Vick just pleaded guilty to charges of funding a dogfighting ring called "Bad Newz Kennels." Today the NAACP said, "As a society, we should aid in his rehabilitation and welcome a new Mister Michael Vick back into the community without a permanent loss of his career in football." Uhhh... AS A SOCIETY WE SHOULD SEE THAT BRUTALLY KILLING AND MAIMING DOGS FOR ENTERTAINMENT IS FUCKED UP ENOUGH THAT THIS ASSHOLE SHOULD BE SHUNNED BY SOCIETY AND CEASE TO MAKE MILLIONS OF FUCKING DOLLARS A YEAR FOR PLAYING A STUPID GAME. I mean, how the fuck can they justify this shit? HE KILLED DOGS FOR FUN! I mean, I know he's black, and the NAACP stands behind people who are wrongfully accused of crimes that they are accused of because of their race, but holy fuck! Pick your fucking battles. THE GUY PLED GUILTY! He fucking DID IT. If he didn't do it, don't you think he has enough money to fund an excellent defense? What a great role model for kids! What a pillar of the community! I mean, he's REALLY, REALLY GOOD AT A FUCKING GAME, and that should exonnerate him from KILLING AND MAIMING DOGS FOR ENTERTAINMENT because, DAMN! HE'S REALLY GOOD AT FOOTBALL! Fuck Michael Vick, and fuck the NAACP for thinking he's "not such a bad guy," or that he deserves our fucking support. I'm sure when Martin Luther King talked about the promised land, he was referring to a place where people who run dog fighting rings deserve our support. You fucks have lost your way.
Doctors, vets and mechanics. Whenever you go to one of these, imagine a dollar amount that seems like a high-ball realistic estimate. Then multiply that amount by three. Then add 200 bucks.
Movies based on well-known traditional stories, where they take massive "creative" license.
For instance, Blade. Here you have a vampire. Vampires do what? Let's see... they drink blood, don't age, and they can be killed by sunlight, a stake through the heart, or decapitation and holy water has some sort of pepper spray type effect on them and they can turn other people into vampires by biting them. But wait! According to Blade, vampires disintegrate when you cut them, even just on the hand, with silver. Hmmm... Silver.... Umm, the directors realize that the movie is about vampires, not werewolves, right?
Hyperconservatives who STILL, in 2007, sound like they're just reciting Dubya talking points.
"You're damn right I'm for the war! Well, we HAD to liberate Iraq from Saddam. He aided the terrorists who carried out 9/11, and he had weapons of mass destruction. Who cares if more Americans have died in Iraq than died in the 9/11 attacks, if you criticize this war, it's clear that you don't support the troops. The Iraqi people see us as liberators, not occupiers. We're fighting the terrorists over there so we don't have to fight them over here. We're making the world safe for democracy. The reason we were attacked is because the terrorists hate our freedom. Of course we need to be able to wiretap all Americans without court oversight. How else will we stop the terrorists from hurting your children?"
Zoos that create enclosures for animals that are focused on realism to the extent that you can't even see the animals. Granted, I don't want to see a 2x2x2 bare cement box with an animal in it, but the whole point of a zoo is that I don't have to delve through a jungle to maybe catch a fleeting glimse of some animal's tail peeking out from behind a rock, which is under a bush, which is growing on a cliff, which is 20 feet over my head.
Magazines about synthesizers that do little feature stories like "20 most influential synthesizers of all time" that don't even mention the Roland TB-303. Like, they'll go on and on about their dumb prog rock, and Emerson Lake and Palmer, and go on a windy shpiel about some huge modular synth that only 10 people owned that gave one Hawkwind song a unique sound, and then they'll feature some synth that was so uncommon that the best picture they can find of it merely shows the synth far in the background in a 1977 picture of Genesis's studio. Meanwhile, they act like techno music is totally insignificant in the history of electronic music. Here you have a genre of music that spawned subcultures and dozens of subgenres and has had significant commercial success and loads of notable figures in popular music for literally decades trying to adopt or incorporate core elements of the techno sound, and Keyboard Magazine wants to go on and on about fucking Keith Emerson month after month. Here's a tip, assholes. Techno is the single largest and longest-lived genre of synthesizer-based music ever. Writing off techno as some sort of fad in the context of the evolution of electronic music is like ignoring the dress when examining women's fashions. Sure, the Minimoog was a great synth, and probably deserves that top position you always give it in your top 20 lists, but you would think that the TB-303, which spawned far more direct emulators than any other synthesizer ever made would deserve at least an honorable mention, particularly before some obscure shit that most synth geeks have never even heard of. Most everyone who's into vintage synthesizers will recognize a 303 before your bullshit Clavitronic ZPX1305 or whatever that sold 200 units in 1979 before the Clavitronic company went out of business after only 6 months of producing them, and the magazine can only cite one or two songs that used it.
People who speak in short blurbs of unclear, nonspecific gibberish who get frustrated when you don't know what the fuck they're talking about.
"So what's up?"
"Hey, sup."
"No, I mean what happened?"
"What happened with what?"
"That guy."
"What guy?"
"You remember.... That guy."
"Uhhh..."
"The guy... Last week. What happened?"
"Guy..... Last week..... What are you talking about?"
"(Loud, annoyed sigh) The guy in the restaurant!"
"Ummmm..... We had a lot of guys in the restaurant last week."
"The guy with the thing.... You know!"
"Guy with the thing.... What?"
"(Even louder and more annoyed sigh) The fat guy!"
"Yep, we had a lot of fat guys too."
"(Super-loud and annoyed sigh) There was a fat guy..."
"Okay...."
"Who came in last Tuesday...."
"Uh-huh..."
"And he had an allergy to onions..."
"AHHHH...."
"And he got some soup that had onions in it..."
"Yeah, I know the guy now."
"What happened with him?"
"Oh, he was fine."
"Oh..... See? Was that so hard?"
"Yes, it was. Why didn't you just start by asking me about the guy with the onion allergy who got the soup?"
*Dumb shrug*
The fact that MTV still uses Techno or IDM for 90% of their station ID's and bumpers, but play none in their programming.
Animal shelters that make it unreasonably difficult to adopt a pet. Obviously you don't want to give animals to the local sketchy Chinese restaurant or a guy with a long rap sheet of dogfighting convictions or a traveling show called "Uncle Meatclamp's Super Vivisection Extravaganza," but if some normal person wants a pet, they should be able to get one. That's kind of the fucking point of an animal shelter, no? To find homes for pets? Recently I have been looking to get a kitten. No, fuck you and your "we only let you adopt full grown cats" shit. If I want a kitten, I'll fucking get one. So one place I checked will only take people by appointment, requires two letters of recommendation by people not in your family, a letter of recommendation from a vet (what if you don't have one?), a letter from your landlord stating that it is okay to have a cat, and they won't let you take the cat with you. They will deliver the cat to you so they can see your apartment and decide if it is suitable for a pet. They also require you to take your cat to them (not your own vet) for periodic vet exams. And of course, they reserve the right to reject your application for any reason without telling you why it was rejected. Adopting a fucking child is simpler. So you've got all these cats and dogs that need homes.... GOOD JOB. You set up all your policies which will ensure that many people just skip over your service and go to another shelter, or (and I know this is one of those things that piss these people off) just go BUY a pet from a breeder or pet store.
People who read that I'm trying to adopt a kitten from a shelter who immediately react by going into PETA ally-finding mode, and praise me for doing "the right thing" or "something noble" by getting a cat from a shelter instead of buying a kitten from a pet store. You know what? I really don't give a shit where I get the cat. I just figured it would be cheaper and easier to adopt rather than buying one. If that turns out not to be the case, (read the entry above) I'll probably end up buying a kitten.
Retards who wear REALLY obvious toupees. Like, I assume the desired effect is, "Hey, that guy has a full head of hair," not, "Mommy, why is that man wearing a fur hat in July?"
Seriously, have some self respect. Look in a fucking mirror. If you look in a mirror and think anything, ANYTHING other than, "There is no way anyone would think this is fake," then we all know it's a damn rug and think you're pathetic. It's not the gradient realism scale that you might think. There's no middle-ground "Well, it sorta looks real." It either looks absolutley like it's your hair growing naturally out of your head, or it's hilariously fake as fuck. Oh, and let me assure you, it IS hilarious, and we DO laugh when you walk out of the room. What's even dumber is that almost every rug I see is not even approaching that "maybe it's real" threshold. If you rate toupees on a scale of "Really? It's a toupee? I never knew," to "Hmmm... Maybe that's a toupee," to "Holy shit, what the fuck is that on your head? It looks like you stamped on a badger until it was flat and then stuck it on top of your head," I would say 90% of toupees rank badger.
Toilets that splash water all over their seats when they flush. If the first law of robotics is robots must not harm humans, the first law of toilets should be toilet water stays in the toilet.
Employees that hide and disappear and fuck off all day, and then when you finally see them, it's because they came out of hiding to tell you that they're going on break.
Cash registers at places like McDonalds that display the "Avg Srv Time." These are always bullshit. The display never shows anything over a minute. Usually the number is somewhere between 40 and 50 seconds, which is ironic, because every time I notice these displays it's because I've been in line for a million goddamn years and have exhausted things to look at so I look at the little display that says 43 seconds and think, "Well, let's see. I was the fourth person in line when I got here, and now I'm the second person in line, and it's been at least ten minutes, so, uhh, BULLSHIT!"
The fact that every single day of my life I don't go to bed until well after the point where I stop, look at the clock, and think, "I am an idiot for still being awake."
That bullshit in Windows Media Player where it's supposed to acquire codecs it doesn't have to play sound and video files. I look at a ton of stupid shit on the internet, and NOT ONCE have I ever seen the little text in Media Player SUCCESSFULLY get a codec. Whenever you see "Acquiring Codec," you know that the next message will invariably be "Error downloading Codec." YOU CAN'T EVER DO IT RIGHT, SO STOP PRETENDING. It's like if someone asked me to use telekinesis to lift an object, and I made a straining face while looking like I'm concentrating, and then I let out a sigh and said, "Sorry, I tried, but I can't." BULLSHIT.
At my job we often get waiters from temp waiter agencies to help us with large events. Occasionally, one of these waiters misunderstands the idea of "temp" and decides to try to get more hours. While some of our better temps get invited to work several times a week, or eventually get hired as permanent employees, for the most part, we usually bring in most of these temps only when it's very busy or we have a particularly large event. One of these temps has apparently figured out the perfect way to get no hours at all. It's as though she's making a guide on how never to get hours from me. I can guarantee she's never going to work for me again. Her technique in assuring this is as accurate and perfect as if she read my mind.
HOW NOT TO GET HOURS FROM ME:
1. Show up to work looking like a slob.
2. Come early so as to try to get extra time in without permission.
3. Do a crappy job.
4. When I call you to ask if you can work, record my personal cell phone number.
5. Call my personal cell phone 5 times every day asking for work.
6. Wait no more than 2 minutes between each of these five calls.
7. Leave a voicemail on every call.
8. Begin each voicemail with the same creepy, disingenuous "Good day, sir."
9. Be the live-in girlfriend of another temp waiter who isn't stellar, and when I call for him, answer the phone and ask if there are any hours for you.
10. Get your boyfriend to ask for hours for you every time he works.
11. Get your boyfriend to call my personal cell phone and ask for hours for you.
Americans who still can't grasp a simple concept: If our only solution is to kill or torture people who threaten and disagree with us, it will make more people threaten and disagree with us.
People who give themselves truly horrible looking amateurish homemade tattoos. There is one word that should stick in your mind above all others when you're about to get a tattoo: FOREVER. Yet, I frequently see these piece of shit tattoos that looked like they were done by some staggering, drunk asshole stabbing himself in the arm with a papermate while looking in the bathroom mirror. The guy sitting across from me on the subway right now is apparently right handed, as he has a cross on the webbing bewteen his left thumb and index finger, and a capital letter N on the knuckle of his left middle finger. It looks as though he was trying to draw on his hand with a blue Sharpie marker while someone was doing that bully big brother "stop hitting yourself" game, and since he probably used marker ink or something, it's faded and pale, and the characters are sloppy and irregular. Oh, and to some, the next point might seem tangential, but I think it punctuates the previous idea very poignantly. I noticed his hands because he had a big stack of lottery scratch-off tickets, which he sat and scratched off, one after the other.
On July 3rd, President Bush had a choice to make.
A.) Let Scooter Libby go to jail and serve his time for the felony charges that a jury in federal court found him guilty of, which was actually a very lenient punishment for treason, and thus save a tiny bit of integrity.
B.) Say fuck it and basically pardon him, tossing what little credibilty you have to the wind, as you once again hold personal loyalty far above justice, integrity and simple common sense. Perhaps this concept eluded you, but sacrificial lambs get sacrificed, and fall guys fall.
Oh, uhh, guess which one he chose.
Of course, the optimist in me would like to believe that he's breaking those last few matchsticks and that Americans will eventually slam their fists on their desks and say, "That's it! This asshole has gone too far! Who the fuck does he think he is?!" But then on the 5th, I was standing in the grocery store line and saw the front of the USA Today. The front page stories were, "Al Gore's son had pot in his car," and "What will we do if Harry Potter dies in the last book?" and then I remembered that they will always get away with their bullshit because Americans are fucking retarded. I went to work and tried to strike up a conversation with a coworker. "Can you believe Bush basically pardoned Scooter Libby?"
"Who?"
About a week later, at a press conference, Bush was asked about the issue and he said he felt that the outcome was fair and that it had "run its course." Uhhh.... FUCK YOU! WE will tell you when it's run its course. Nixon resigned over less. It's like a bank robber stopping in the middle of the getaway chase and telling the cops, "Sorry, guys, but I think this has run its course. You can go home now. Shoo." This situation is over when WE decide it's over. You're the one with some 'splaining to do, and we won't let you shrug us off.
Oliver Stone made a proposal to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to make a movie about him, but he rejected the idea because Stone was an American, and hence, part of "The Great Satan." ....... HAAAAAAHAHAHAHAH! That guy is a fucking hoot.
"I'll pray for you." You know what? Don't. Obviously you know how fucking condescending this is or you wouldn't say it. It's like a last stab in an argument. "I don't respect your opinion at all. Obviously you're too stupid to believe in the same imaginary being as me, so I will take it upon myself to beg this fake god, not to spare you, but to convince you that he's real so that you too can submit and kiss his ass, and see yourself as a lowly scumbag in need of forgiveness for things that are perfectly natural, but deemed heinous crimes by people who believe in the same fairy tale as me. Hopefully, after you believe the same bullshit I do, he won't decide to destroy you and torture you forever."
Last weekend, treetrunk-necked professional wrestler Chris Benoit murdered his wife and seven year old son before hanging himself. The internet, in true detached-fuckhead fashion overflowed with idiots saying things like "RIP Chris Benoit," and, "It's such a tragedy, he was one of my favorite wrestlers." Look. I know you guys have small brains, as something like being a wrestling fan sort of requires it, but LOOK AT WHAT YOU ARE SAYING. The guy KILLED HIS WIFE AND KID. That is tragic FOR THEM, not for for Chris Benoit. Awww, but he killed himself.... AS HE SHOULD HAVE. The only thing good that came from the incident is that the perpetrator is dead. Of course, they try to retort that he was obviously suffering from mental problems stemming from the use of anabolic steroids, like that will make me say, "Oh... Then I guess he couldn't help it. Poor guy." No. FUCK that shit. A woman and seven year old kid are dead because this asshole wanted to make his freakishly thick neck even thicker. The whole thing is his fault from start to finish, and it's times like this that I wish God was real, because it would be comforting to know that this asshole is suffering somewhere.
Clients who give you twenty pages of instructions for an order, who get furious at you for missing something minor that was 3/4 of the way down on page 17 and is two words long, particularly when the missing thing is fixed in five minutes and nobody but them even noticed it was missing. Like I have this one client that flies off the handle over the littlest shit. The other day she came to me literally red in the face and shaking all over to tell me, "Your waiters put out the coffee and milk, BUT THEY FORGOT THE HALF AND HALF! I SPECIFICALLY SAID I WANTED HALF AND HALF!" Of course, her group had not yet arrived, and the waiters brought the half and half long before they ever did, but she acted like someone had shoved a spear in her mother.
THINGS IN FINAL FANTASY XI ONLINE THAT PISS ME OFF
Yeah, yeah, I made a self-indulgent entry about a MMORPG videogame that most people probably will have no point of reference to, and will not understand 90% of this. Who cares? My page. Tough titty.
1. People who come back from a 6 month break from the game who get pissed off when people don't rush to help them complete missions or get some piece of gear they want. Gee, sorry, but who were you again? Oh, and you need help getting Sea access so you can uhh... maybe go on another 6 month break starting tomorrow?
2. People who come to 1out of 20 linkshell events who get pissed off when other people who show up for 18-20 out of 20 linkshell events get to lot on gear ahead of them.
3. People who join an XP party when they have 15 minutes to play.
4. People who only show up to linkshell events when they know there is a strong possibility that they will get to lot on a piece of gear that they want.
5. People who decide that WoW is really a lot more fun than FFXI, and either quit or start a parttern of playing once a month for an hour, two days after they get an E body, an M body, a Ridill, a Kraken Club, or some other awesome game-breaking gear that their LS-mates would blow a homeless guy to have.
6. People who log on Wednesdays and Sundays at 6pm and log off Wednesdays and Sundays at 9:30pm because that's when Dynamis is going on. Gee, surely that Koga Chainmail shouldn't go to someone who plays Ninja every day. NO, NO! Don't give the Sorcerer's Hat to the guy who is at every single linkshell event as Black Mage! Give it to that guy who plays 6 hours a week and doesn't show up for any other linkshell events!
7. Gee, thanks guys. It sure was great of you to spend hours and hours and weeks and weeks farming Sky against loads of legit US and JP linkshells, and even more Gil Seller linkshells while I was busy levelling my 32 Monk. So... I get to lot the Osode for my WAR since I bothered to show up for Kirin, right? WHAT DO YOU MEAN, NO? FUCK THIS SHIT!
8. People who level a great job, like BRD or BLM, and then level a crappy job, like PUP, who cry at every linkshell event because they are always asked to come as a non-useless job.
9. People who level ONE job who think that automatically makes them first lot on everything that could possibly pertain to that job, who get sore at other LS members who want to lot against them, since they have 2 or 3 or more jobs, but need the same piece of gear. "Awwww, come on guys. I'm a MNK. Can't you just let me have the Wyrm Beard? I mean, I know 4 other people here need it too, and a couple of them have the other two pieces and could walk away from this fight and simply pick up their Blackbelts, and I don't have any of the 3 parts yet, but, c'mon guys!" or worse, "C'mon guys! I mean, I know I have a Blackbelt, Destroyers, Faith Baghnakhs, 5/5 Shura, 4/5 AF2, Bandomusha Kote, Dune Boots, Kirin's Osode, Byakko's Haidate, Seiryu's Kote and Suzaku's Sune-Ate, and there are a lot of people here who are not even nearly as decked out as I am, but come on, guys! I NEEED a Genbu's Kabuto!"
10. People who act like they are doing their linkshell a great service by missing events so they can track the ToD of some NM that drops something that they want. "Hey, guys, I know you're in the middle of a fight, but I'm standing here all alone in Valley of Sorrows and Aspid is on his third day. So I know there's like a 95% chance that Adamantoise will pop instead of Aspidochelone, and whether it pops NQ or HQ, I definitely can't solo it, so there's no real reason for me to be here and missing a linkshell event, and you know that by the time Aspid actually pops his window will be 4am-7am on a weekday and nobody will be on, but hey - I'm the guy who mentions wanting an A Body 20 times a day in chat, so I'm going to be totally useless until I get what I want.." We literally didn't see this guy for like three weeks. He would log on for windows, and then log off. Why help a guy who plays 3 hours a day, and not with the linkshell?
11. People who show up for Dynamis 2.5 hours late and want equal lotting rights as the people who have been working hard since the beginning.
12. People who do whatever they feel like while their LS camps a land king for 3 hours against 100+ people, who START to head out to camp IF their LS gets claim.
13. Assholes that bot claims so obviously that it gets to be surprising when they don't claim. Like there's this guy who is at Fafnir / Nidhogg almost every day, and about 9 times out of 10 when he's there, HE will get claim. What are the odds? About half the time, there's so much lag that I don't even see the dragon until the claiming LS is already aligned right and fighting it, yet somehow this guy manages to claim... against 100+ people who are all trying for claim... who all supposedly have a nearly equal chance of claiming... almost every time.... Oh, but of course, whenever someone posts on a forum about his obvious botting, which has a history going back a couple of years, he says, "But I use PS2." BULLSHIT.
14. People in an end-game linkshell that miss events due to not having, for instance, Sea access, who don't spend their time on missions that would get them Sea access, but rather, they spend all their time levelling their secondary job 40-something Paladin. Of course, once they get Paladin to 75 they're going to want to lot on gear for it, which is really helpful since they can't take their paladin to Sea to actually be useful.
15. People who want to lot on endgame gear for a job they are in the process of levelling, when there are people at the event that actually have the job levelled to 75 and need the gear. "Can I lot the Byakko's Haidate for my 62 NIN? I mean, I know my only 75 job is WHM, and that there are a bunch of NINs, MNKs, WARs and SAMs here that need it, but eventually I'm going to level NIN to 75."
16. The DRG acceptance thing. Sure, DRG is a fun job, but for the most part, sad to say, all it is is a non-specialized melee DD class that is outperformed by other classes. So what do so many DRGs do? They get on the soap box and cry and cry about how DRG should be given a chance, how DRG is just as good as other jobs, and how people are stupid for poking fun at it. Can DRG do good damage? Sure they can, just usually not as good as many other classes. If you have WAR and DRG levelled, and you show up to an HNM fight as DRG, sorry, but you picked the wrong job. Go back and come back as a WAR. The HNM LS you want to join says they don't need any DRGs? How about instead of crying about how it's so unfair, why not level a few different jobs so they can invite you for a job they DO need? What's even dumber is when DRG's cry about not being invited to a pet LS. Look, when you can send a disposable pet after a monster, and have that pet tank for you as you issue commands to it, fine, you're a pet job. As it stands now, you would have to melee, which would basically turn you into the tank, and a large part of hate balance in a pet-job alliance is not having to heal people, but rather letting pets fight, and die for you. If a DRG loses his pet, he's nothing more than a second rate melee DD for twenty minutes.
17. People who feel that they are "next in line" for a certain drop when lotting rights in their LS aren't determined that way, then when the thing drops, and other people are allowed to lot against them, they flip out.
18. Startup HNM linkshells that fight HNMs for like 2 weeks until the leaders all lose interest and the LS quickly transforms into nothing more than a social LS where nobody ever feels like fighting anything.
19. People who forget that this is a social game, who do utterly shady shit like steal high-ticket items from other players or team up with Real Money Trade players from China or bot claims, who think that people will just forget and let them enjoy the benefits of having a good reputation, like being in a respectable LS with a good reputation. Like this one douchebag I know formed a linkshell that incorporated bad-rep North American players with Chinese RMT, and borrowed some "friends'" accounts, which he used to tele-hack Padfoot claims. He then sold tons of Astral Earrings, H kotes, etc. and sold the gil to an RMT website. The accounts of the people he used were then BANNED for telehacking, leaving his "friends" completely screwed out of the characters they had been working on for 3 years. Then since no respectable NA HNM LS would touch him with a ten foot pole, he joined a Japanese linkshell that has a long-standing reputation as the worst botting linkshell on the server, Wizardry, which almost all NA HNM hunters refer to as "Wizbot," which employs mostly JP players with a dash of the absolute worst NA trash on the server. Of course, since Wizbot is at pretty much every HNM camp and bots claims, this guy gets a lot of opportunities to fight HNMs that he never got to fight before. How does he see his situation? "I'm in the best LS on the server." Fuck you in the asshole. Enjoy being in the LAST LS you will ever be in, because no NA shell would even think about touching any of the trash in Wizbot.
20. People who use their bazaar not as a place to sell things, but as a trophy case, or a display of gear they will have once they gain a few levels. Fuck that shit. I wanted to see if you had anything interesting to sell, so you can take that Seal of Genbu, that Third Virtue, that Odorous Knife, that Giant Donko, which are all priced at 99,999,999 gil, and shove them up your asses.
21. People who use their bazaar to sell completely worthless bullshit. Look. Put shit in your bazaar if the cost of listing a slow selling, high value item on the Auction House would kick your ass if the thing came back after three days unsold. Fuck your insect wings, Yagudo feathers, rabbit skins and water crystals, newb.
22. People who price things in their bazaars with no concept of competition or supply and demand. Like, you set up your bazaar mule in Rolanberry Fields. You are selling a Fomor Codex. You price it at 200,000 gil. The bazaar mule next to you has been standing there for two weeks with a fomor codex for sale for 80,000. What do you do? "Duurrrrhhh, PEOPLE WILL BUY MINE BECAUSE IT'S LIKE STARBUCKS WHERE PEOPLE IMAGINE THAT 'EXPENSIVE EQUALS BETTER!'" Then a week later, both mules are still standing there, one with a codex for 200k, and one with a codex for 80k. Meanwhile, another mule has sold four of them for 60k each in the same time.
23. People who fail to grasp extremely basic concepts about game and party mechanics even at somewhat advanced levels. I mean, you made it to The Boyhada Tree (somehow). Shouldn't you have figured out that 60-65 is not a reasonable level gap for a party? Shouldn't you realize that a Paladin isn't an evasion-based tank that should gear up in a Scorpion Harness, Bat Cape, etc? Haven't you realized that Summoner/Black Mage eats ass? Haven't you realized that crabs are annoying as shit and slow, slow xp without a dispeller? Haven't you realized that Dark Knight shouldn't eat mage food? The other day I was invited to two different parties to main heal paladins as the only mage in party on my 57 BARD. "Who's main healing?" "You are." "Uhhh, I have 138 mp. That's like 3 cure 3's." "What? Why do you have so little mp?" "Because bards have no native mp. Any mp I have is from my subjob." "Hmmmmm..." Don't hmmm me, you retard. You're acting like your failure to understand this game is somehow my fault.
24. Retards who go on FFXI job forums, and instead of asking for advice on how to play a job better, or share some interesting and testable discovery they have made (preferably with proof) , they either lie and make grossly exaggerated claims about something they have accomplished with the job, which experienced players can instantly spot as false,
"I was meleeing on my summoner and I had a fully merited WAR in my party with a Ridill and my meleeing was making him look sick. My Carbuncle's Pole was outdamaging him by at least 75%. Also, I was subbing BLM, because healing is for sissy WHM's, and my nukes were outdamaging the party's BLM by at least 200 damage on magic bursts."
or they go into some dorky fanfic about how the job would be so much better if Square Enix would change a zillion factors of the job (which of course, they would never in a million years do) to make it so absurdly overpowered that nobody would ever play a different job ever again.
"I have a proposal that would totally fix the summoner job. First off, summoner should be given main-job level elemental magic skill, which would make subbing black mage totally awesome. Also they should make avatars and spirits completely free from perpetuation cost. That way we could keep them out all the time. Also, they need to make our avatars do, at the very least, as much damage as a black mage or a warrior. Maybe give them double/triple attack, and en-spell damage. They should also raise summoner's base DEX and STR and give them an A-class rating in a good melee weapon class like axe, great katana, etc. and make it so they can equip good melee gear like E-body."
25. People who flat-out refuse to buy NEEDED items for their job because of cost.
"Why aren't you using utsusemi?"
"I'm not tanking."
"But you are supposed to be tanking."
"SHUT UP! NINJA IS NOT A TANK CLASS! IT'S A DD CLASS!"
"Umm, I hate to break it to you, but in 99.999% of parties you will be expected to tank."
"Well fuck that shit! I won't do it."
"Then you won't get parties."
"Whatever."
"Okay, so can we please get some XP? You're tanking, so fire up the shadows and let's do this."
"I don't have utsusemi, and even if I did, I can't afford the tools to use it. I got like 1000 gil."
*KICK*
Today I kicked a Red Mage when he would not try to silence mage mobs. Red mage's primary function is to enfeeble monsters with spells like silence and paralyze and slow so they can't act.
"Try to silence those."
"I can't."
"What, they resist?"
"I don't have silence."
"Why not?"
"That shit is overpriced on the AH. Maybe you should buy it for me if you're so insistant on my having it."
I looked up the silence scroll on FFXIAH.com.
"It's 500 gil."
"So?"
"So that's NOTHING."
"Yeah, well I got 275 gil so I ain't getting silence."
"SO GO FARM."
*KICK*
To give you an idea how much 500 gil is in FFXI, if you were walking down the street and found an old rotten orange peel in the gutter, it would probably sell for 2000 gil. Even a low level character could very, very easily make 500 gil almost by accident in minutes. If you're levelling instead of farming, when you lack an essential spell that costs 500 gil, seriously go fuck yourself.
26. Assholes who think that XP time or Dynamis time or HNM time is skillup time. I was partying with this Thief who would hardly ever melee, but would spam his crossbow the whole time. His skillchain partner would have 300 TP long before he had 100. Finally I was like,
"Dude, what's with the crossbow?"
"Huh? Oh, I'm trying to skill up."
"Yeah, but you never hit, so you get TP slow as hell. You're hurting our efficiency a lot."
"Well that's because my skill is only 73." (skill cap at his level was like 200, so of course he's hardly ever going to hit an XP monster, which also means that he's almost never going to get skillups anyway, since your skill only rises occasionally, and can only rise on hits.)
"Well, you can skill that up on your own time. As it stands now, you're not doing anything meaningful for this party. Stop trying to skill up your marksmanship and just fight so we can get good XP, okay?"
"I'll do what I want."
*KICK*
Another time I was levelling NIN, which is expensive, and sort of a basic concept is, the faster the mob dies, the less tools the NIN uses. So over the course of a level, the cost can be either significantly reduced or increased based on how fast mobs are killed. Having a BLM in a mid-level party can definitely shorten kills, so when I got in a party with one, I tended to have a pretty positive outlook. Then, about 20 minutes into this party I noticed something. It had been a while since I had seen an elemental nuke, and the BLM kept aspiring non-mage anticans. Then it clicked. Bio..... Drain..... Aspir.... Bio..... Stun... Bio..... Bio..... Bio.... Drain.... Aspir.... Bio.... Bio....
"DUDE! Will you stop skilling up Dark Magic Skill and play for real?"
"What's it to you?"
"It's money down the drain because we're killing too slowly and it's wasting tools."
"Pfft. You should have known NIN was expensive when you started levelling it."
"Yeah, but I'm here so we can all get XP. I'm not paying for tools just so you can skill up."
"Whatever." He warped. Good riddance.
27. People who join an XP party and then go AFK for-fucking-ever. So either you're standing there like dorks waiting for this asshole to stop jacking off, or you try to fight without him, so you're working harder to compensate for only having five fighters, and meanwhile this dick is getting XP for free. Isn't it amazing how these fuckheads always seem to magically come back right as the conversation shifts to "Maybe we should kick him, He's just leeching."
Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack, Jack... huh? Oh, shit. They're gonna kick me. "/p I'm back""
28. People who form a party that simply cannot work who try to make the best of it to a stupid extent. "C'mon guys. Sure, I would like more DD's, but all I could find was 4 PLD's, 1 WHM and 1 RDM. Now we can stand here and cry about it or we can try to fight and get annihilated in epic 10 minute fights against monsters that give us 80 xp a kill. So let's do this!"
29. People who either say nothing before leaving a party, or alert their party that they are leaving like this:
/shutdown ....
*Executing shutdown in 30 seconds.......
*Executing shutdown in 25 seconds.......
*Executing shutdown in 20 seconds.......
*Executing shutdown in 15 seconds.......
*Executing shutdown in 10 seconds.......
*Executing shutdown in 5 seconds.......
/p Thanks for the party. I gotta go.
*BLIP*
I had a fucking white mage do this to me tonight about 1/4 into a fight and the tank ended up dying. OH NO! WE DON'T NEED A WHM FOR THE WHOLE FIGHT! YOU GO RIGHT AHEAD AND DISAPPEAR WITH NO WARNING
30. People who get all indignant and pissed off when people point out that they are fucking something up. Now, I'm no great fan of these know it all players who end up on 4 out of 6 blacklists everytime they join a party because they won't shut up about how much better everyone could play if they just did it their way, but if someone does something really fucking bad, or repeatedly fucks up, you should be able to tell them without them having a hissy fit.
Tonight I was in a party on my BRD and this 30BLM/NIN (har-har) who was dual-wielding wands kept "accidentally" popping Firaga and hitting nearby Opo-opos. First off, you never pop AOE (area of effect) nukes when there's the possibility of hitting nearby monsters, and secondly, we were fighting Sahagins, which are strong to fire anyway. He did it twice. The first time I was able to Horde Lullaby and nearly got killed in the process as we tried to handle a Sahagin and two Opo-opos. The second time he did it, I was the only one to make it to the zone alive, since the BLM died quickly, the RDM went down almost immediately from trying to heal him, and the PLD went down from trying to tank 2 mobs at once with no healer. Say what you will about the sleeper bailing, I tried to sleep them, and then hauled ass, because a party with a dead healer, BLM and PLD generally can't pull off a whole lot of miracles.
Once I zoned, I was like, "Dude, what's with the AOE?"
"Well, it's a strong spell."
"YES, but it hits nearby mobs, which then kill everyone."
"Whatever. You should have slept them."
"Uhhh, I tried to, however, if you had not hit them with AOE, there would be no reason to sleep them, right?"
"Whatever."
"And what's with the overnuking? You fire off your heaviest nuke as soon as the monster is pulled and it spends the whole fight running all over. You nuke it hard, get hate, get hit, then as soon as the PLD gets hate back, you nuke it hard again and pull hate again. It's not even like you're using Utsusemi, so what's with the /NIN?"
"FUCK THIS. IF YOU DON'T LIKE THE WAY I PLAY, I'M OUTTA HERE!" At this point he homepointed to Whitegate.
"No. I don't like the way you play, and think the party will be much better now that you're gone." It was.
Oh, and sort of a scary punchline for this... I did a search for him a few minutes later, and he was on his 74 RDM. A 74 RDM with no BLM sub... that doesn't know not to fire off AOE in a crowded XP camp with monsters strolling through it. I guess you really can level up just as a refresh whore. Fucking pathetic.
31. That fucking annoying lag shit where you keep running into the same guy in front of you over and over. To explain, when you run into someone, you stop for a second, then walk through them. If they are running the same direction as you, but slower, this will cause you to never pass them until you go around them. What happens with the lag glitch is someone is running in front of you, then it looks like they stop running. Then you run into them, stop, then keep running. Then a couple of seconds later, the server unlags their character, and they apprear in front of you again, and then THEY STOP AGAIN, and you run into them and stop AGAIN, and this happens over and over and over, and the only way to get around this is if you luck out and go in a different direction, which hardly ever happens in lag-o-riffic places like Dynamis and on the way from the Auction house to the Mog house in Aht Urhgan Whitegate.
32. Food-optional people with gimp-as-fuck gear in XP parties. Gee. I sure am glad I broke the bank on good food and gear to be a much more efficient player so we can still get shitty XP per hour because you can't hit the mob and when you do, you hardly hurt it.
33. People who form a party specifically designed so they don't have to perform their job. The other day I was seeking party on my White Mage. I get a tell asking if I want a party. "Sure." I join, and the party is just the leader and me so far. The leader is a Summoner. Summoners are, for the most part, XP party healers. This fuck went looking for a white mage FIRST to ensure that he wouldn't be healing before even considering what other jobs would be in the party. He then got a Red Mage, a Paladin, and a couple of damage dealers. Of course, as I predicted, XP was slow as fuck, because that's what happens when you sacrifice a strong damage dealer slot for some selfish summoner who thinks his little Carbuncle is a brute who can dish it out. Asshole. After about an hour and a half of getting 2.5k XP an hour, I decided to escape. I said that I had a LS event to attend, and suggested that they get a DD to replace me. He didn't search for a DD. He looked for another HEALER to replace me. When he couldn't find one, he threw up his hands and said, "Well, without a healer, we're going to have to disband the party," to which pretty much everyone said, "Uhhh, why don't you just get a DD and then you can heal." He replied, "HAH! {Healing magic}{No thanks}." So the party disbanded... Then I sent tells to all the other previous members of the party, invited them to a new party, invited a Warrior in place of the Summoner and we went back to the same camp and made about 6k XP per hour for the next 3 hours.
34. People who lie to me about how little money they have when I am tele-taxiing. Pretty standard rates for tele-taxis are 1000-2000 gil, with some people being cool and giving you 5k or more occasionally. Then you get these assholes who you know as high-level players, and are obviously wealthy in game, who shout for a tele and then give you a run-around on the price.
Douchebag: "Teleport: Vahzl, Can I have it?"
/pcmnd add Douchebag.
Neg: "Hello."
*Douchebag offers to trade with you.*
He puts 237 gil in the trade window.
Neg: "Ummm..."
Douchebag: "That's all I have. I'm sorry ; ;"
Neg: "Okay there, mister Haubergeon +1, Dusk Gloves +1, Speed Belt, Unicorn Leggings +1, Juggernaut."
*Trade Cancelled.*
/pcmnd leave
/blist add Douchebag.
35. Cheap-ass tippers like the guy above who think I owe them a teleport because I took them before. I had this guy yesterday tip me 300 gil. I thought, instead of standing there and arguing about how small the tip was, I would just go ahead and take him. So he gets to LaTheine Plateau, dies, homepoints, then 5 minutes later is shouting in Jeuno again for a teleport. Then he starts following my character around and sending me tells, "C'mon, man! Help me out! PLEASE!" and trying to initiate trades with me as I pretend I don't see him.
36. Gear with stats that don't make any sense. I mean, Artifact and Relic armor are made FOR a particular job, SO, wearing that armor shouldn't make you a gimp, but often it does. Like if you're a 60 Thief and you're wearing your full artifact armor, you're gimped because far better gear is out there, some of which is cheap. Right now I'm levelling Bard, and 2 out of 5 of the artifact pieces are good. The rest are pretty pointless. Plus evasion on a Bard? Plus parrying? Plus Strength? 99% of the time, these don't help you, so why put the stats there? What's sad is MOST jobs are like this. It's like SE just tossed a bunch of stats at you without any logic behind it. 2/5 of the WAR set is worth using. 3/5 of the NIN set is worth using. 1/5 of the SMN set is worth using. Of course, even some of those are just situational and better gear is out there. Why bother?
37. The fact that SE still hasn't implemented a system where you can seek a party on a job you are not currently playing. For instance, let's say I want to level on my 22 DRK. This job is basically too damn weak to kill anything near the area where you would XP it. So I get to stand there LFG like a dumbass or try to find party members. If I can't find the right jobs, I basically just stand there and wait, maybe for hours. If I could seek on one job and play on the other, I could be out and about farming on my 75 THF, but the way SE designed it, it's as though they would rather you just waste shitloads of time
38.Ninjas who totally don't get the concept of tanking. Generally speaking, Ninja tanking is about keeping hate, evading attacks, avoiding attacks by using shadows, dealing damage, and some minor enfeebling. Then you get ninjas who think it's about dealing damage, and dealing damage, and dealing damage, and dealing damage and also dealing damage, and who cares if I have the defense of a wet paper bag and the evasion of a cinder block stuck in the mud, and can't keep hate for shit and the healer is dumping tons of MP by healing me because I get hit constantly, as long as I'm dealing damage, everything is peachy.
39.People who join a specifically HNM / Endgame linkshell seemingly with no urge whatsoever to participate in any endgame activities. They have a job at 75, have a couple of friends in the linkshell, and get accepted as a member. From that day on, you see them only occasionally in the linkshell, and whenever you see them in person, they're just crafting or xping some low level job or maybe doing some low level CoP missions. These guys come in two subsets. Group A are the guys who hardly speak in LS, maybe log on once or twice a week, and everytime they say "Hi" everyone is amazed to see them, and Group B which talk, talk, talk, talk, talk, and inadvertantly constantly remind everyone that they're online, not afk, generally not busy, and NOT attending linkshell events, and you wonder why the fuck they're there.
40.People who either get caught or openly admit to hacking, botting, ripping people off, buying massive amounts of gil, etc. who don't then fuck off, but instead keep playing and keep doing the shit they were doing and could not give a flying fuck what anyone thinks of it. This is a SOCIAL game. If you are playing a social game, and everyone in it thinks you suck assholes and see you as a cheater, a liar, and all around douchebag, and the only people in the game who like you are all the other douchebags who got caught for similar stuff and everyone hates, maybe, just maybe, it's time to quit.
40.Gear that is either heavily camped or costs a million gil that you will use from level 32 to 39.
41.People who fill up forums with either how-to guides or requests for advice on how to level a job from 1-18 or 1-30 or 1-40 or some other cheesy shit. How do you level any job from 1-40? Play it for a week. Yeah, but what gear do I need? Fuck it. Something cheap. Yeah, but what food should I use? Who gives a shit? Yeah, but what should I be doing in parties? Use your fucking common sense. White mage? OH GEE! I GUESS MAYBE YOU SHOULD HEAL PEOPLE. Paladin? OH, I DUNNO, MAYBE GET SOME DEFENSIVE GEAR AND TRY TO KEEP HATE. Monk? PUNCH SHIT. Stop being retarded. You almost certainly know what needs to be done, so just fucking do it.
42.While I like levelling up a job without breaking the bank, new gear gives you something to look forward to, so I hate jobs where you get some rinky-dink piece of gear at like level 14 that can be crafted by someone with level 12 bonecrafting and costs like 2000gil, and it's indisputably the BEST thing that can go in that slot until nearly the end game.
43.Gear like Dune Boots, Carbuncle Mitts, Rostrum Pumps and Galliard Trousers that have great stats and look like total newb wear. Seriously, SE? You really couldn't be bothered to make a new model for the best boots Monk can equip, so you used a model for level 7 Leather boots?
44. Uncreative, unoriginal character names. Any name that incorporates any other following: Dark, Death, Shadow, Sesshomaru, Sephiroth, Cloud, Alexander, Angel, Master, Anything-X, Ragnarok, etc. Lilchamp, Lilbuster, Lilbully, Lilstomper, LilANYTHING.
Fucking 16 of them online at 2:30am. Jesus fucking shit.
45. The "Party or stagnate" phenomenon that is a result of the way partying and XP were designed. Either you party, or you try to solo and probably get annihilated and definitely get shitty XP. Essentially, almost all parties need a tank, a healer, a refresher/enfeebler/enhancer and an assortment of damage dealers. The problem is that there's often nobody seeking a party at your level with one of the jobs you need to form a functional party, and there's almost always WAY too many damage dealers. The other end of the spectrum is that if you are levelling a tank job or a healer job, a party only really needs one of either, and more than one will slow down XP. So you might be seeking a party all fucking day, or spending all day waiting for people with the right jobs at the right level to log on and be willing to party. You're a Paladin seeking? Nobody needs a paladin? Tough shit for you. You're a melee DD with the best gear available? Hang out in Whitegate with the other 8 melee DD's your level who want a party. Add to this the fact that even with good parties at the mid to higher levels, you might take several hours to get a single level, and soloing a level might take upwards of a few days, and you're pretty screwed if you can't get fast invites to great parties that last a long time.
46. BCNM / KSNM ripoffs. You start collecting Kindred Seals. As the weeks and months roll by, you see the stack get bigger and bigger, and imagine that once you get 99 of them, you can take your linkshell to do a KS99 run. Finally, after a couple of months of levelling, you have enough seals and trade them in for an orb. 18 people in your linkshell set aside a time to do your KS99 run. You go on Lightsday at 100% Full Moon. The potential exists for you and your linkshell to make a few million gil, or perhaps acquire some near-priceless item, to be split up according to your agreements. You trade the orb, everyone enters. Everyone shows their skill, a few people die, but you win. You click the Armoury Crate... 2 Mahogany logs, 1 Petrified log, a Oblation Abjuration, a Wyvern Scale, an Iron Ore, a Phoenix Feather, an INT Potion, a Demon Horn, a Ram Horn... Congratulations! You just got FUCKED.
47.People who flood FFXI forums with crying and complaining every time there's a even a minor update that doesn't include their job getting something major and game breaking. "Well, it looks like SE FUCKED US AGAIN! Sundi vaguely alluded to summoners getting 'something' 'soon,' but we didn't get Bahamut as a summonable avatar in this update, so he's FULL OF SHIT! It's like SE has it out for us summoners! GOD! Why do I even play this game?! WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!" Seriously, why do you even play this game? Stop. And stop flooding forums with your bitchy whining.
48.People on FFXI forums who can't answer a question like "Which is better, Axe A or Axe B?" without showing their college level math. Okay, you're nerds. We get it. It looks like one of those equations that astronomers would use to determine that Asteroid 469A127 will crash into Ganymede in the year 7312 at 4:35:21 GMT in the afternoon, with the force of the impact altering Ganymede's orbit around Jupiter by 0.000000002457 degrees. You don't need to show us some giant trigonometric equation. Just answer A or B, asshole.
49.Look, if the last word in your job name is "mage," and the first word is not "blue," GET THE FUCK OFF THE FRONT LINE, IDIOT! That goes triple for Summoners.
50. People who farm or craft NEVER, who do nothing but talk about wanting some amazing and outlandish piece of gear that it's improbable you would ever be able to afford to buy even if you did nothing but farm and craft for 17 hours a day, 365 days a year simultaneously on four accounts for a year.
51. People whose gear is 99% dogshit and 1% rediculously amazing. I am looking at a level 75 Thief. His gear is as follows: Gully, Empress Hairpin, NQ Scorpion Harness, Dragon Leggings, Life Belt, Spinel Ring x2, NQ Amemet Mantle, AF1 Hands, AF1Legs, Coral Earring x2, NQ Heavy Crossbow...... KRAKEN CLUB. FUCK YOU!
52. SE one day decided, "Hmmmm, Gil sellers seem to be monopolizing NMs like Roc, Simurgh and King Arthro, and then they drive up the prices on their drops, and the only people who can afford to buy them are probably gil buyers. Fuck this, let's make their main drops Rare/Ex. That'll stick it to those RMT assholes!" They forgot one little thing.... Those NMs also drop very expensive crafting items. So now instead of the RMT's monopolizing Strider Boots, Speed Belts and Healing Staves, now they're out there still attempting to monopolize those NM's, but since the main drops are monopolized, but not even in the market. So now you have fucking RMT USING velocious belts, while regular players STILL have to compete against RMT just like before. How about this. Why not just FUCKING PAY ATTENTION to who the gil sellers are, AND FUCKING KICK THEM OUT OF THE GAME? There are rank 10 gil sellers with god gear, rajas rings and AF2 that have been on my sever for fucking YEARS. Paying the slightest bit of attention would have gotten rid of these scum bags a long time ago. I mean, all the PLAYERS can tell who the RMT's are. Why can't SE? SE should know better than the players when there's some characters who have been killing the same NM's in Quicksand Caves over and over and over and never even leaving the zone and handing all the drops to courier characters for 432 hours solid without logging off once. I mean, gee. It wouldn't be a dead giveaway that there's 18 characters always in alliance who are at EVERY HNM camp, who do nothing all day but make money, yet all their gear is either cheap or free, with no linkshell, and many of them have subjobs that are gimped by 10+ levels, and have names like Happyday, Happysky, Happygame, Gamehappy, Happygirl, Happyboy, Happymoon, Moongame, Moonsky, Gamegirl, Happyluck, Luckboy, Luckgirl, Luckmoon, Moongirl, Luckgame, Luckhappy and Lucksky, but if you report them, SE says, "Ummmmm, what evidence do you have that they are engaged in RMT activities?" Oh, gee. No evidence at all. There just happens to be 10 black mages here, all on autofollow, all level 75 in Seer's gear, all the exact same model tarutaru, with nothing in any of their belt, cape, ring or earring slots, and they all have believable names like Fsvmh, Gxrmh, Pkxzb, Trgfm, Lkznm, etc. and they all cast the exact same nukes at the exact same moment. That's not fishy at all. They're probably all legitimate players. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES!
53. People who have been playing almost every day since the NA release who are just about to ding 62 on their highest level job.
54. People who either don't know an NM's spawn terms, don't understand game mechanics, or otherwise are just shitty at claiming, who think that since you can claim against them, you must be botting. Like at Mee Deggi, the placeholder is easy to spot, and easy to time. A simple kitchen timer can be used to know when the placeholder or NM will pop. "What the fuck! Bullshit, man! You pop flee and then the NM pops 5 seconds later? Fucking hacker asshole."
55. People who are camping against you for some NM, and it's perfectly obvious what you're both there for, who get chatty and start asking questions. "Hey.... Whatcha doin'? You camping the NM? Do you speak English? ...... You know, it wouldn't hurt you to answer me. Have you been here long? Do you know when the NM popped last? Oh, is that the placeholder that you're fighting right there?"
56. Blatantly obvious gil buyers. They play maybe three or four days a week, have maybe a couple of crafts around level 20, don't seem to farm, maybe attend an event here and there, aren't really known for monopolizing high-ticket NM's.... and have a completed Relic Weapon, Kraken Club, Dusk Gloves and Trousers +1, Cerberus Mantle +1, Mahatma Cape, Speed Belt, Full Kaiser set, Herald's Gaiters that they bought, etc. etc. So recently this guy got banned for using a hacking application, which is retarded enough to begin with. Then he makes a new account and comes back. Two weeks after coming back, the guy is sporting full blue-box gear and a peacock charm. OH, NO! You definitely don't buy gil! Perish the thought!
57. People who join an endgame linkshell, who see that 99% of the linkshell is setting up for something that requires a lot of people, I.E. a king camp, linkshell Dynamis, Einherjar, etc. and see the spam in linkshell chat saying, "Come on people, we need everyone here," who think..... "Uhhhhhh.... but I'm camping Leaping Lizzie. I mean, I know i'm 75 on multiple jobs, and my linkshell needs me, and this event was on the linkshell message for the last week, but uhhh... I wanna kill this level 5 NM, so I'm gonna pretend to not see what's going on in the linkshell. Maybe they'll think I'm AFK. Then after I get claim a couple times, I'll probably go level my level 34 Dancer. Of course, when we're fighting an NM I want a drop from, I'll be front and center, and I damn well better get to lot, too, maybe even uncontested." Yeah, I saw your character running around Lizzie camp on my mule while we all waited for your ass, cock eater.
58. Douches who you can always depend on to say something shitty, regardless of what's going on. Someone completes a relic weapon, they will be there to shout in Whitegate and post on forums about how big of a gil buyer that person is. Someone gets a Kraken Club, E Body, Ridill, etc, they will be there to shout in Whitegate and post on forums about how it's a waste for such a crappy player to get such a neat item. Someone's account is hacked, they will be there to shout in Whitegate and post on forums about how it's the person's own fault that the account got hacked and that the person got pwned.
59. Retarded power-nuking Black Mages. Since the introduction of melee-burn, lots of black mages have felt excluded from regular XP parties, and have often had to resort to soloing and mana-burn parties. Want to know why you're excluded? Let me explain. NOT EVERYTHING IS A MANABURN PARTY. You aren't playing for 4 other BLM's and a BRD who all depend on you nuking shit as hard as you can as soon as the mob is pulled. Doing this in a regular mixed melee/mage party will get your ass killed. I partied with this retard today who didn't get this. The party pulls an IT mob. As soon as it is in range, the BLM/RDM casts Gravity on it. He then pops his heaviest nuke on it, followed immediately by stun. The rest of the fight is basically him running around, the melees chasing the mob all over, and then as soon as the melees regain control of the mob, he pops another heavy nuke on it, and the chase is on again, and I'm spamming cures on his retarded ass until I run out of mp and he dies, at which point, he gets mad and says, "DAMN! HAVEN'T ANY OF YOU HEARD OF PROVOKE?" The other end of these guys are the retards who power-bomb HNMs and cause wipes and spike flails and shit. Hey, asshole, You nuke, the mob turns to you, you nearly get killed, and the alliance takes a ton of AOE damage that was directed at you, and then as soon as the tanks get hate back, you're popping Burst II. Stop fucking shit up. You can do a lot more damage if you're ALIVE and balancing your hate than you can by trying to pop crazy numbers on a single nuke.
60. People who XP as RDM/NIN or RDM/DRK. Uhhhh.... Do you see a Dynamis Lord somewhere around here? Are we going to sit back as you solo the XP mobs by blink tanking? No? Then get the right fucking sub, newb.
61. Jackass newbs who join some upstart HNM linkshell that can barely kill Simurgh without mass death, who for some unfounded reason decide that they're badasses and come to every HNM camp talking shit to all the well established and experienced linkshells, and regardless of who gets claim, as long as it's not them, they start shouting, "BOT! BOT!" as soon as the mob is claimed, and continue talking smack even well after the mob is killed.
62. More on supply and demand. Some items are hard to farm or hard to craft, are very good to have, and will generally make a seller a fair amount of money, particularly when the item is in relatively low supply, and usually sells quickly when listed on the auction house. Let's say the history price for an item that drops off an NM averages about 200k. You can look back several months on the history, and one usually sells about every three days, and is 250k on the high end and 180k on the low end. Usually you have to be fairly diligent about checking the AH, as the item sells fast for ~200k, and most of the time, there is not one listed. So I go out and spend time camping the NM, killing countless placeholders, and killing the NM a ton of times and finally get the drop. I go to the AH, and there are none listed. Last 10 or so sold for 200k. I list mine for 200k. Three days later, it comes back in my delivery box, unsold. What the fuck? So I go to relist it, and apparently a lot of people decided to farm this item, and then engage in a race to the bottom, trying to undercut each other so theirs sells first (the one listed lowest sells first, even if the buyer bids much higher than the listing price. For instance, if 10 of an item are listed, and one guy is selling the item for 1 gil, and the others are listing for 190k-250k, and a buyer bids 200k, the guy who listed for 1 gil gets 200k). So I look at the history. In the last three days, the price went from a consistent 200k to 90k to 75k to 60k in three fucking sales. So I just wasted the listing fee for a 200k item, since now, apparently buyers think 200k is a CRAZY amount to spend on a 60k item, even though it's been ~200k for months. So after trying for a week or two, I finally squeeze 80k out of the item, due to low supply. Of course, down the road, when I level a job that needs this item, and find myself in need of one, they are going for 850k and are so heavily camped by RMT that you can hardly expect to get claim ever.
63. Those 3-4 day stretches with unreasonable guild point items. Monday, your GP item gives 5000 points for three items, but it costs 70k to make them, Tuesday, you can get a total of 1200 points, and the item needed is inexpensive, but you have to turn in 72 of them, which ends up not being inexpensive, and not being worth the time, since you only get a measly 1200 points, Wednesday, the item isn't too terribly expensive considering you can get 6200 GP, but the synth requires you to have Goldsmithing sub at 60 and Clothcraft sub at 45, and there have not been any of the item sold on the AH since 2003, then Thursday, the GP item caps at 5000 points, for only three synths, but one of the ingredients needed for the synth sells about once every two months on the AH.
64. Dumbass patches. They reset the servers so all the HNMs pop in JP prime time for the next week, and give us a patch that takes 6 hours to download and install, once you finally get through their horrible update server error messages, and hopefully you will be able to stay connected long enough to get it or it will start ALL OVER, and the patch is nothing but a bunch of bullshit like "adjustments to adventuring fellows," "Adjustments to chocobo raising," "Adjustments to Einherjar (but not to make it easier or even slightly rewarding)," "Changed the title 'Crawler Culler' to 'Crawler-Culler,'" "Adjusted a very hard NM to be very hard again, now that a few people figured out how to make it slightly less than impossible," "Banned 83793873987 gil sellers, but of course, every gil seller you can think of is still there, so they're probably just lying to try to make people happy," "Adjusted our legal agreement so you can no longer sue us for things that you probably should be able to sue us for," "Corrected an issue where you could make decent gil if you expended a fair amount of time, effort, hard work, and ingenuity, so now you cannot make any gil in this manner, because previously it made the game seem rewarding, and we want to maintain it in as unrewarding a state as possible," "Despite the fact that this is the 27th patch since introducing the jobs of Blue Mage, Puppetmaster and Corsair, and the 14th patch since introducing Dancer and Scholar, we will not be including AF2 for these jobs in this upcoming patch, or at least the next 22 patches," "Added new sets of armor and new weapons, which are all very expensive and labor intensive to get, but are only situationally useful 2% of the time over existing gear," "Adjusted enmity generated by certain spells or abilities, so they generate less enmity, since previously it seemed useful to use them for that purpose, and we don't want you to have useful abilities."
65. Videogame Girlfriends. You know what the only thing more hilariously pathetic that not ever having a girlfriend is? Sitting on the beach in Bibiki Bay as the sun rises, in a cuddling position WITH ANOTHER VIDEOGAME CHARACTER. I mean, if this is as close as you get to getting laid, just kill yourselves. I mean, I know this game has a social element, but mostly so you can party with people and kill monsters, not get blue balls while talking to a girl who is probably about as petite, feminine and cute as Andre the Giant.
66. More on dumbass undercutters. It's one thing to undercut people on NM drops, but it's another thing entirely to undercut people on crafted items, particularly HQ crafted items. There is an item that I can craft where the materials for 6 synths costs 10k. Previously, I could break even on NQ synths, and get about 4k profit each on HQ's. This is a pretty reasonable profit, albeit slow money, as only about 4-5 of the HQ item will sell on the AH per day. So what do retards do? They load up the AH with 20 of these things, and mark them down to 1.5k each (with the NQ, which sells even slower, marked down to 200). SO EVEN IF YOU HQ THE SYNTH, YOU LOSE MONEY. GOOD JOB, ASSHOLES
67. People who have four or more level 75 jobs who cry and complain when they don't get to be first lot on all of them, particularly over people whose main job is first lot for an item. "But, but, but, why can't I be first lot on Byakko's Haidate, Novio Earring, Shair Manteel, Riddil, Bahamut's Mask, Dalmatica, Herald's Gaiters AND Homam body? This is bullshit!"
68. The "HQ or lose big" factor in crafting. You spend millions of gil to level a craft. After months of crafting and hunting down or paying out the ass for rare ingredients, you finally reach level 100. So you're gonna be right now, huh? Welllllll, maybe. See, you have essentially spent millions of gil on a lottery ticket. That's because a lot of gear that you can craft now is made of very expensive ingredients, and the biggest potential money makers are high level synths. So.... you buy some rare ingredients, say, a cerberus hide, and you craft it, hoping to get an HQ. Now, either you will HQ it, and be fucking loaded, of you will NQ it, and lose several hundred thousand gil... and chances are pretty fucking slim that you will HQ it, and worse, you might break it, and then you lose millions.
69. People who put forth Z E R O effort and then cry because they have been left behind on missions.
70. Another instance of SE not getting it: RMT has miner characters that will just stand around in dungeons all day mining. They'll just stick one at every mining point in a mine, and grab the spots as they pop. Generally, to not get aggro in a place like Gusgen, a character has to be in their upper 30's at least. So SE decided to "fix" RMT mining.... by making it impossible to mine with a character under level 20. OH BOY! YOU REALLY GOT THEM! And let's say, for instance that RMT are actually using level 1 characters to mine, which they probably aren't anyway, as having a bunch of dead miners would just waste their time. What would it take the RMT to grind a character from 1-20? 5-6 hours? WOW, SE! YOU NAILED IT!
71. Retards who have never been in a strong linkshell, and likely, will never be in a decent linkshell, who think they can rip on really good linkshells. "Pffft. You're in that linkshell where most of the members are pretty much done in Sky, Sea, Limbus, Nyzul, and several have completed relics, Maat caps, Salvage pieces, etc? They suck! lol!"!
72. The way SE was apparently completely oblivious to RMT farmers for like 5 years. "Waaaaait a second..... It seems that there are dozens of illegitimate characters in shitty gear with names like Fxrpghq on every server that do nothing 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but make money by monopolizing NM's, and then passing all the gil to bank characters who then distribute the gil in large even sums of millions to characters that are very well geared despite an apparent lack of taking time or making an effort to make gil... Could it be that all those thousands of GM calls complaining of gil sellers weren't lying?!"
The fact that about 95% of the time, someone who says, "I don't have time to deal with other people's drama," are, themselves, completely characterized by being a huge mess of their own drama. You don't have time because you can't even handle your own.
The fact that about 95% of the time, someone who says, "You know me, I don't like to complain," is someone who complains incessantly about fucking everything.
Girls who learn to pole dance and try to separate its origins from what they're doing. "This isn't something risque, it's just a lot of fun and good exercise." Oh, so pole dancing has nothing whatsoever to do with strippers, huh? You just HAPPEN to be wearing vinyl go-go boots with three inch platforms and you just HAPPEN to be holding yourself up with your ass cheeks. How many calories do you burn when you slide the pole between your tits like that?
Videogames where your enemies are impervious to environmental hazards that would kill you if you ran through them. Like, I understand the concept of a lava monster that lives in lava and is made of lava, and is, hence, not negatively affected by being in lava, but if a bunch of human soldiers are running through a mine field to get me, a mine field, which, if I ran through it would kick my ass, some of those assholes had better lose a leg or there's some bullshit going on.
People who send me an instant message on AIM or whatever, like this...
<Grokmonkey> Hey Neg, guess what man. I got some news you're gonna like.
<Negposorg> What's up?
(A few minutes pass)
<Negposorg> Hello?
(A couple more minutes pass)
*Grokmonkey has signed off*
And then I don't hear from them ever again.
<Grokmonkey> Hey Neg, guess what man. I got some news you're gonna like.
<Negposorg> What's up?
(A few minutes pass)
<Negposorg> Hello?
(A couple more minutes pass)
*Grokmonkey has signed off*
And then I don't hear from them ever again.
People who need to use an electrical outlet who unplug something of yours, who then don't plug it back when they're done. So you have your cell phone plugged into a charger that isn't plugged in, then you go to put it back on your belt clip, and look at it, and it's dead. "What the fuck?"
Preachers who make that idiotic sound at the end of every few words. SO THEY'LL BE PREACHING-AHH, AND THEY'RE GETTING VERY EXCITED-AHH, AND THEY START MAKING-AHH, THIS DUMBASS SOUND-AHH, WITH THEIR MOUTH-AHH, THAT IS SO FAKE-AHH, AND REHEARSED-AHH, AND TONS OF PREACHERS DO IT-AHH. SERIOUSLY-AHH, WHAT THE FUCK-AHH, DO YOU THINK-AHH, YOU ARE ADDING-AHH, TO YOUR DUMBASS MESSAGE-AHH, BY ADDING-AHH, A STUPID, FORCED SOUND-AHH, THAT IS SO OBVIOUSLY CONTRIVED-AHH, AND FAKE-AHH? I mean really, you KNOW you're doing it. At what point in your career as a preacher did you say, "Hmmm, my sermons need something. Hmmm. That preacher I saw on public access was making a ridiculous 'AHH' sound at the end of every few words, and his congregation of dumbass sheep was getting pretty pumped up. Maybe I should just start doing that during my sermon on Sunday. Surely my congregation won't think i've lost my mind and am just being a fraud."
Today I overheard someone say "Janjuary." Oh, and uhhh... I didn't mishear it, because I was standing right next to her and she said it twice. Jan-ju-ary.... No, no... She was a native English speaker.... Yep... Janjuary. Just something I heard..... That's all...... *Brain explodes*
Today I got in a debate with this Christian who used the Gregorian Calendar as EVIDENCE of the truth of Christianity. "Just look at a calendar. What YEAR does it say it is?" (Sideways smile.) Look. All that is evidence of is that the people who made the calendar were Christians. Beyond that, 2007 is a totally arbitrary number. It's like the celcius temperature scale. It's based on the physical properties of water. Water boils at 100 degrees celcius and freezes at 0. This doesn't prove some farout cosmic truth. It just means that whoever decided to make the celcius temperature scale decided to base it on water. IT'S NOT LIKE GOD CAME DOWN AND SAID, "LOOK AT MY PDA! SEE? IT'S FEBRUARY 24, 1582! FIGURE THE REST OUT!" If anything, Catholics just took the Julian Calendar, stuck Jesus' supposed birthday in there, and named the calendar after the Pope Gregory XIII. WOW! THAT'S SO SCIENTIFIC!
Idiots who think that being an atheist means "You don't believe in anything." Uh, fuck you. I believe in plenty. I just tend not to believe in unprovable and highly unlikely things like God, the Easter bunny, the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. I believe in different things than you do. Does your disbelief in the things I believe in mean you don't believe in anything? Of course not. What really pissed me off was seeing a news clip of Christians complaining about atheists' complaints that they were being persecuted. The Christians' main argument was that they were justified in persecuting atheists for their beliefs since atheists didn't believe in anything, so it's not actually religious persecution, and thus, is completely constitutional. Other excuses that they used which are 100% bullshit were: "Freedom of religion doesn't mean freedom from religion," "This is a Christian nation," "All morals come from God so atheists have no morals," "Love can only come from God, so atheists don't know how to love," "So they want to take 'Under God' out of the Pledge of Allegiance. Where does it end?" They also complained that a public school was made to say a Muslim prayer at a football game since a Christian prayer was also said, implying that Muslims do not, and should not, have the same rights as Christians in America. Also, keep in mind that this point was made during a discussion about atheists in America, implying that Muslims are atheists. This was on the Paula Zahn show, which is on CNN, and this even-handed news channel chose as its panel for this discussion: a hardcore Christian supremacist, another hardcore Christian supremacist, and as the voice of reason, a Christian who says basically "I disagree strongly with what Atheists are all about, but maybe they have the right to express some of their opinions.... maybe."
Assholes who make some sloppy, home-recorded amateurish remix of a song, and then distribute it on the internet as a "rare, unreleased remix," as though it's somehow an official release that the band that played the original song had a fucking thing to do with. What's worse is fucktards who download the song, listen to it, don't notice that it just sounds like some asshole chopped it up in Soundforge and then REDISTRIBUTE IT.
Here's the correct chain of events.
1. Some retard splices a Nine Inch Nails song together with chunks of an Amon Tobin Song.
2. Download bullshit song.
3. Press Play.
4. 15 seconds into song, go, "What kind of fucking bullshit is this?"
5. Delete file.
Incorrect chain of events:
1. Some retard splices a Nine Inch Nails song together with chunks of an Amon Tobin Song.
2. Download bullshit song.
3. Listen to song.
4. Bob head to the beat.
5. Copy it to iPod.
6 . Listen to it frequently.
7. Upload torrent to share this amazing find with others.
The only way to redeem oneself from step 7 is:
8. Kill self before dumb genetic material reenters the gene pool.
Companies that see some other company that has a really great business idea or model that makes them almost instantly hugely successful, who then try to copy the idea and make their own business that offers a very similar service that is not nearly are good. For instance, Netflix popped up, and offered a service where you pay a very reasonable monthly fee, and they ship you DVD's in about one day, and include a means for you to return them postage-paid, and they will send you 3 or 4 DVD's at a time with no late fees, etc. and they have a fucking ass-ton of movies. (I don't mean to plug, but I seriously think they kick ass.) Then about a year later, some other company pops up that offers a through-the-mail DVD rental service where you pay about what you would pay at Netflix, but they have 25% as many movies, will send you one DVD at a time, gets movies to you in 4-5 days, has tons of hassles like not shipping your orders, acting like they didn't receive your returns when they actually did, and you have to stamp the envelope for your returns. WHY BOTHER? I mean, seriously, you're supposed to be the COMPETITION, so COMPETE. There should be a reason why you get customers other than because people didn't do any research and picked the wrong company.
Children who don't understand concepts like, "Don't pick the dog up by its tail."
Parents who don't understand concepts like why someone would yell at their child for picking the dog up by its tail and don't immediately take over the role of person yelling at the child picking the dog up by its tail, but instead think you are a horrible person for making their retarded child cry.
I remember when I was a kid I had a pet turtle. One of my little sister's friends was over. They were both about five. I saw the kid walk over to the aquarium and there was an instant panic reaction. It was as though I could see the future for a moment and caught a glimpse of my turtle hurtling towards the ground. The kid picked up the turtle, and I tried to hold back and give the kid the benefit of the doubt. "Be careful. Don't drop it," I said. Anyone who has ever picked up a turtle knows that a healthy one will always do one of two things. Either it will hide in its shell, or it will squirm and try to make you let it go. My turtle did the latter. Five seconds after he picked up the turtle, my clairvoyant vision proved to be true, and there was my turtle with a cracked shell writhing in pain on the cement back porch of my house. At this point I stopped holding back and did what most pet owners would do in a situation where some dumbass has inflicted a potentially fatal wound to their pet. I flipped out. Later, I was told that the kid's parents would no longer let him come to our house because I was mean. Uhh, fine. Fuck you. GOOD. Don't come over, dumbass. I wish you had never come over in the first place and hurt my pet. Better yet, why don't you come over so I can drop you on the back porch from 20 times your height to see if you like it.
Non-spammer spammers on Myspace. You know these people, and I'm not talking about Jen, Mindy, Tara, Michelle, Stacey, and Cassie, who all have 1 friend each and all sent you friend requests in a span of fourteen seconds with pics of them in thongs on webcams with identical porn-site links in their profiles. I'm talking about people who are in a band, or are comedians, or have online auctions, or are promoting a nightclub, who request you as a friend, and they seem legit, then you accept, and three times a day you get a bulletin about how to download their songs, buy t-shirts in their store, bid on stuff on Ebay, see them at such-and-such nightclub next week, etc. Can you say, "Delete from friends"?
People who hear that Dane Cook and Carlos Mencia steal jokes, and are then shown undeniable evidence, who then retort with, "Stop crying about it. Those guys are making millions and have tons of fans. I like Mencia's version better anyway. Don't cry just because you're jealous. You're just a bunch of haters." Uhhh.... FUCK you. Those guys are making millions on STOLEN JOKES. Maybe, just MAYBE, the people who should be enjoying that success are the people who WROTE and first performed those fucking jokes.
Girls who wear shoes that are obviously too small. Okay, so you have huge feet like a seven foot tall man, but you are not making it less obvious by wearing shoes that look like they could explode off your feet at any second. Look. You're wearing open toed shoes, and every one of your not-so little piggies is hanging off the front of the shoes and is on the cement. WRONG.
Clients who expect, nay, DEMAND personal service for simple things that would be faster and easier, for both the client and the service provider, if they just placed the order automatically.
The client goes to my company's webpage, skips past the "Order Form" link and goes straight to the "How to contact us" link.
"Hi, uhh, hello. Hi. Is this Chompy Catering? Hi. Okay. How are you today? I was, uhh, hoping maybe I could talk to someone about booking an, uhh, event. Yeah, uh, I have some bushiness associates coming into town, and, uhh, we were going to have a, uhh, meeting on, uhh, August 12th. Oh, uh, it's going to be on the uhh, 11th floor. Oh, uhh, in conference room C. Uhhhh.... Well, we were hoping maybe to get some refreshments, and uhh, what? Oh, at 8am. Well, it's kinda early so we were thinking maybe we could get some, oh, I donno... maybe some coffee, maybe some bottled water, and uhhh, do you have danishes? How about bagels? Do you have doughnuts? What about croissants? Hmmm.... Maybe we'll just get some bagels. Oh, uhh, it'll be for four people. No, no china. Paper and plastic is fine. Is that all you need? Oh, uhh, I'll be the host, so you can, uhh, put it under Joe Blow... J as in Janet, O as in Omelette, E as in, uhhhhhhhh Ear, B as in Boy, L as in.... uhhhh Loser, O as in Optical, W as in, uhhhh, Weenie. Huh? Oh, the cost center is 4325. That's it? So will you send me like a confirmation email? Okay, thanks!"
Yeah, thanks. Now that I'm done with your staggeringly demanding order for coffee, water and bagels for four, for two months from now, I can call the CEO's assistant back so we can have another planning meeting for that cocktail and dinner for 350 people next week. Hopefully she has picked out which wines, linen, china, silverware, glassware, flowers, background music, candles, hors d' oeuvres, cocktail food stations, appetizer, salad, main course choices and dessert and audio-visual equipment she wants.
Meanwhile, you could have just fucking hit the website, clicked "Order form," and then typed Joe Blow, tab, 4325, tab, 4, clicked calendar, Aug 12, tab, 8am, tab, down arrow, 11th floor, tab, down arrow, C, then clicked Coffee, Water, Bagels, and SUBMIT, and not only would you have been DONE, but you would have instantly gotten a confirmation, and I would have received a completed order sheet AUTOMATICALLY. Welcome to the fucking modern age, asshole.
I am currently sitting across from a woman who is about 35 years old. She is wearing a tank top with a low neckline to show her cleavage... which is covered in a forest of curly, black chest hair.
Paranoid fucks who think you're following them in areas where you really don't have any option other than to keep walking behind them. Of course, the only other option would be to maybe run past them, but that would almost definitely seem more crazy than just walking behind them, and they'd probably start screaming or maybe stab you.
Like today, I was standing in the elevator bank at work. waiting to go to the second floor. There was this other guy there and he kept looking at me. The elevator came and I got in and pressed 2. The other guy was also going to 2 and I guess he didn't feel that the 2 was sufficiently lit up so he pressed again. "Oh shit! He's going to my floor!"
The elevator stopped at 2 and we got off. I was going to the east side of the building. "Oh shit! I'm going to the east side too!" What are the odds of both of us going to the east side? Pretty good, since about 80% of everything of note on that floor is east of the elevator bank. From the elevator bank, there's a long hallway, with literally nowhere to turn off except men's and women's restrooms. Since I wasn't going to the restroom, that put me behind this guy for about 50 feet, and about every 10 feet he would half stop, look over his shoulder and give me a "What the fuck? Are you following me?" look.
GET HELP! Nobody is following you..... you paranoid shithead who I am going to sneak up on and strangle with piano wire as I buttrape your mouth and put my diseases in you.
People who still think putting a Dilbert comic on their cubicle is edgy.
While I retain a deep hatred of flyer assholes, the ones that really piss me off are the ones with attitudes. Today I was walking down the street when I saw fliers scattered all around on the sidewalk where people had thrown them down. Standing at the radius of this circle of litter was this guy with a stack of fliers in his hand looking at me and moving in to cut me off. Almost all flyer fucks do this to basically block your way so they can literally shove their flyer for "20% off men's suits" or "Flashdancers" or "Free shave with a haircut" or some other crap in your hand. It's like being flyer raped.
So I see this guy and do what I normally do. I stare straight ahead as though he isn't there, and don't say a word as I walk past him. This guy, however, was deeply offended that I was uninterested in whatever dogshit he was trying to foist on me. HOW DARE I?
"Pssssht! Whatever, dick!"
"Oh really? What am I missing out on?" The guy looked really confused. "What's the flyer for?"
"Huh? Uhhh, it's a latin band promo."
"Oh, so you're giving me shit for not taking your ad for some crappy band that I couldn't give two shits about? Fuck you."
"Fuck YOU!" The guy looked almost as pissed off as he looked confused.
"All you're doing is creating litter, idiot. Get a real job."
He was a gifted wordsmith. "Uhhh.. Pfff Tsss FUCK YOU!" he shouted as I walked away.
Fuckheads who want to start a mosh pit at EVERY concert. I can fully understand why a pit would happen at a Ministry concert, but if you're seeing Orbital you need to calm the fuck down.
People who go to a concert where there definitely will be a mosh pit, who stand right near the front, right in the middle, and then get bitchy when people around them don't behave.
Recently, I saw Skinny Puppy live. It was the third time I've seen them live. Skinny Puppy is very energetic, very loud, very theatrical, and EXTREMELY noisy. It's a given that there will be a pit at Skinny Puppy. It would actually be really strange if there wasn't. Huge mosh pits turned out to be three for three.
So I'm right near the front, and next to me is this girl who is trying to make out with her boyfriend more than she's really trying to watch the show. So they play Tin Omen, which gets the crowd pumped up, and a huge wave of people surges forward and presses me against this chick and her boyfriend. At this point, I'm basically just trying to stay on my feet and not fall down. Then this bitch starts honking at me. "OH MY GOD! GET THE FUCK OFF ME! GOD! WHAT THE FUCK!"
I'm like, "I'm sorry! What can I do?" And seriously, I have the weight of a few hundred people pushing me forward. So sorry for not being physically able to to stand like the The Rock of Gibraltar as the wave of bodies breaks against me. Should I just stand up straight and hold them back so I don't touch precious Princess Ragsalot? If you don't want to be pushed in the middle of a pit, get the fuck out of it. We all paid the same amount for our tickets. The additional price of the best view in the house is being jostled around a bit. Tough shit. Realize where the fuck you are.
Skim Milk. Seriously, fuck that shit. And while we're at it, fuck the sliced melon and yogurt for breakfast crowd. I never was one of those steak, bacon, eggs, biscuits and gravy breakfast guys, but if you're going to eat a 14 calorie meal for breakfast, just don't eat. There's no point.
Below is a list of things that milk was never meant to be:
Translucent
Blue-Grey
Thin
Watery
Flavorless
Nonfattening
Consumed by women who are average height and 92 pounds who think they are fat.
Milk is a fatty substance and always has been. Think about what it is and where is comes from. It is a fatty substance, which comes from a fatty animal that weighs three quarters of a ton, that is a food source for its fatty, quarter-ton offspring... SO IT CAN PUT ON WEIGHT AND GROW.
If you are still insistent on drinking this weird shit, the least you can do is save some money. A quart of skim milk costs $1.99. However, a quart of whole milk also costs $1.99. First, take eight empty gallon milk jugs. Next, pour 1/8 of a whole milk quart in each of the eight jugs. Finally, fill the jugs the rest of the way with cold water. WOW! You just got eight gallons of skim milk for $1.99! Now you can take that money you saved and shove it up your ass!
Adults who seriously act like three year olds. The other day I saw this girl arguing with her boyfriend. Of course, there was copious yelling and foot stamping, but then she did something truly hilarious. She threw her Blackberry phone on the sidewalk and broke it. YEAH, BREAKING A 500 DOLLAR PHONE WILL DEFINITELY FIX THE PROBLEM AND MAKE YOU HAPPY!
I was already pissed off enough that Paris Hilton was released from jail three days into her 45 day sentence, then, as always, Al Sharpton had to go and make me even madder.
"It had all the appearances of economic and racial favoritism. I think it's another glaring display of how race and money seem to get different treatments. There seems to me a different criminal justice system for some than others."
While his horrible grammar by itself is enough to make my eye twitch, and I do agree that her celebrity and wealth were almost definitely factors in her release, I want to sit Al down and explain something that he doesn't seem to ever understand. NOT EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS EVERYWHERE EVERY SECOND OF EVERY DAY ON THE PLANET EARTH IS A CONSPIRACY WITH THE EXPRESS INTENT OF OPPRESSING BLACK PEOPLE. I mean, I know that's your shtick and all, but Paris Hilton getting out of jail early has about as much to do with black people as the price of orange juice has to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Regardless of her race, if she was a white blonde girl, or arab or chinese or black or hispanic or indian or whatever, if Paris Hilton had all her wealth and celebrity, I have no doubt the outcome would have been exactly the same.
Opening bands at concerts that are so bad that it seems like the only reasons they were picked is to be endured as a test of the headliner's fans' dedication, and because they couldn't possibly upstage the headliner.
People who still act like crop circles have some sort of unearthly origin. Hey, assholes. The people who were making them came clean years ago, and they even showed how to make them. IT WASN'T UFO'S, RETARDS, SO STOP ACTING LIKE THERE'S SOME DEEP SIGNIFICANCE. At best, you could call crop circles art, or maybe a prank. It would also be fair to call them a HOAX.
Somewhat specialty consumer goods, for instance things like headset microphones, that operate on the following quality/pricing scale:
A.) Beyond horrible. Absolutely useless and obviously very cheaply made. Lifespan varies somewhere between 2 months and dead right out of the box. Without a doubt you will be disappointed in the functionality, durability, appearance and reliability. You could not find a worse product if you tried. -- $12.50
B.) A slight step up in quality. It's still basically a cheap piece of shit, but it kind of does what it's supposed to in a half-assed kind of way. It's still pretty much guaranteed to break in under a year of normal use. It looks a little better than category A. -- $37.99
C.) This category has quality ranging anywhere from A to B, but because it's made by some snooty brand like Bose, Sony, etc. it costs a lot more than is justified. It could be a completely sub-functional piece of garbage, but people will buy it and fanboys will write glowing reviews on Amazon, all because of the brand name. Aesthetically, they're awesome. Too bad you can't hear how they look. -- $110.00
D.) The tip of the professional grade iceberg. Usually this is made by some company that the vast majority of consumers has not heard of. This definitely does what it's supposed to do, and does it very well. Fashion takes a back seat to function, but who cares, because it functions extremely well and is very durable. If you buy it, you can pretty well rest assured that you will get years of good use out of it. The downside is that to finally get something that's worth buying at all, you have to pay out the ass. -- $280.00
People who, when they are inconvenienced in a tiny way, act as though you have committed some atrocity against their family.
"Do you have any poppy seed bagels?"
"Sorry, we ran out. We have plain, whole wheat, pumpernickel, sesame seed, onion, cinnamon raisin and everything bagels."
"Pfff, but, but I WANTED A POPPY SEED BAGEL! GOD, THIS COMPANY IS A PIECE OF CRAP. ALL I WANTED WAS A POPPY SEED BAGEL! IS THAT SO HARD? ANSWER ME! I'M GOING TO EMAIL YOUR SUPERIORS, AND IF THERE ARE NO POPPY SEED BAGELS TOMORROW THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY!"
Inconsistent security bullshit.
Like sometimes when I bring someone into the building at work, security wants me to escort them, and they want their driver's license, passport, birth certificate, credit report, police record, FBI file, fingerprints, a blood sample, a hair sample and an imprint of their teeth.
Other times someone just shows up in my office. "How did you get in?"
"They just let me in."
Things that are obviously supposed to be refrigerated that say so on the package. Look. If you don't know that milk needs to be refrigerated, you're too stupid to read "Keep Refrigerated," and if you're that dumb, please don't refrigerate your milk because you deserve to be sick.
People who think they're making some kind of deep connection with people through completely unremarkable interests and experiences.
"Wow, you like 'The Godfather?' I love that movie! Wow!"
Here's a tip. About 99.999% of Americans have heard of, seen, and liked "The Godfather."
People in charge of making announcements who can't even speak English. This morning on the train:
"Dis Queenpwaza, tronfear to N, Dawbew. Nastop Core Hauza Squeer." (This is Queens Plaza, transfer to the N or W. Next stop: Court House Square.) I also liked when he referred to Grand Central as "Gron Cenreel."
Those moments when I get a song stuck in my head that I despise.
I was working on a meeting today and noticed the microphones at the head table.
The thought process went something like this.
"Hmm, I wonder how much that microphone costs.... Oh look, there's a sticker on it. Hmmm, 'King Cole Audio Rentals.' Old King Cole. Nat King Cole. Natalie Cole. Hmm, Natalie Cole sucks. Oh fuck, remember that horrible shit where she sang over her Dad's song? God, what a hack! And all those retards thought it was amazing, and they still play the stupid remake instead of the original song at wedding receptions and shit. I wonder if that bitch would even have a job if she actually had to write her songs..... That's why, darling, it's incredible, how someone so unforgettable, thinks that I am unforgettable tooooo FUCK FUCK FUCK!"
Two hour later...
"Like a song of love that clings to me, how the thought of you does things to me FUCKIN' FUCK!"
People who talk with their hands on the phone.
Motherfuckers who call me and CHEW THEIR FOOD IN MY EAR. Just what I need to brighten up my day. "Hi, smack smack, I just smack wanted to see glitch smack if you had any glick meeting rooms available smack smack for June 7th. Smack glick slop smack..."
FUCK you. That's goddamn disgusting. Do you want me to call you and put the phone directly against my asshole the next time I need to squeeze out a really drippy fart? You probably don't, and that's exactly how I feel about your smacky chewing noises.
People with the complete lack of instincts for self preservation needed to experiment with extremely addictive substances like crack and crystal meth. I mean, most people my age have probably tried pot, maybe LSD, mushrooms, etc, but it takes a special kind of stupid to get into meth. I mean seriously, what's the attraction. Are these people thinking, "I'm trying meth... This should turn out well." There's not a lot of glamour in a drug that makes you lose 100 pounds, makes your teeth disintegrate into little black rocks and makes a 23 year old look like a 75 year old in a year. I mean, I want to have sympathy, but fuck you. I think to myself, would I try something like that? NO. Of course not. Why not? Because I'm not retarded. I hate to say it, but crack and meth addicts really make me stop mourning the victims of Darwin's hit list. The strong survive. The weak say, "Sure, meth sounds like a load of laughs!" Fuck you.
Nerds that wear a black button-down shirt thinking it gives them that "formal, yet edgy" look, when in fact it just makes them look like more of a nerd, since only nerds do this. You want a bolo tie with that? Seriously, all this fashion statement says is, "I have a level 60 Druid." Sorry to break it to ya.
"Do you have any experience in this field?"
"No."
"Do you have any references?"
"No."
"Do you have any degrees?"
"No."
"Did you at least graduate from High School?"
"Uhhhh.... I dunno."
"You know what? That's okay because I'm a slimy dirtbag of a manager, and you're a pretty girl and that makes me horny. I'm going to give you the job because there's an extremely slim chance that you will realize I threw you a bone and then maybe you will fuck me. Of course, the odds of you fucking me are infinitesimal, but hey, I might as well give it a shot. You can start on Monday."
Automatic-stop faucets in restrooms where the function "don't waste water" far overrides the function "let people wash their hands." I, by far, am not one of these OCD people who washes and washes and washes his hands until they are raw, but I just washed my hands in a restroom and I had to restart the faucet FIVE times to wash my hands.
On a side note, OCD is definitely the funniest disorder ever. Sorry, but turning a light switch on and off fifty times to make sure it's off is pure comedy. I'm sorry, and I know people with OCD suffer, and if they suffered in a less hilarious way, I would be 100% sympathetic.
People who submit lyrics to lyrics database websites that are incorrect. Uhhh... If millions of people like a song, it's likely that a high proportion of them know the fucking words, and when they read your submission on the page, their response is going to be, "WHAT? WRONG!"
What's even dumber is when the lyrics appear in the album liner notes, and people don't just copy them over to the page, but instead write down the incorrect shit they think they hear.
Neckties that start disintegrating after you wear them a couple of times. I recently got a tie and the second time I wore it, I took off my jacket and noticed little bits of navy blue fuzz all over my shirt. After brushing it off, I saw that my tie was all furry looking. I pulled at the fur and it came off in my hand easily, leaving a spot on the tie with no navy blue in the pattern.
People who distribute video and music files on the internet in fucked up formats that often require you to install new media player programs. Look. Mp3. Avi. Mpg. That's all you fucking need. What's the fucking point of having eighty million different types of files that need eighty million different media programs to play. Let's see here. Here's a BHF file that only plays in MegaPlayer Pro, and here's a UBT file that only plays in Omni Media Center, and here's a GDO file that only plays in CineSpark Plus, and here's a MMX file that only plays in Media Maestro HD, and here's a URM file that only plays in PowerPlayer 9.0, and here's a FUK file that only plays in Sketchyplayer Adware DeliveryBot.
Here's some perspective. I wasn't interested enough in this movie enough to see it in the theatre. I wasn't interested enough to buy the DVD. I wasn't even interested enough to put it in my Netflix cue, among over 100 other movies that I just stuck in there in case they might be entertaining. I was barely interested enough to hit "download" and will probably end up watching 20 minutes of it out of the corner of my eye while I'm playing Final Fantasy and deleting it. Do you think I'm interested in it enough to install or even fucking BUY some stupid software just to watch it? HAH! Fuck you.
Drug testing in workplaces where safety and public health are not issues. Look. If people in your company operate a crane or pilot a 747 or perform open heart surgery, then fuck yes, your employees had better be clean, but if the most dangerous thing that happens in your workplace is putting the yellow forms in this filing cabinet and the pink forms in that filing cabinet, then fuck you, it's none of your fucking business what your employees do over the weekend.
I'm not saying everyone has to accept everyone else's worldview, but I have met people who can't even grasp the concept that other people even have very different ways of thinking. Here's a summary of a conversation I just had with a 40 year old man.
"So what's the deal with these guys who were plotting that attack on Fort Dix?"
"Basically some muslim radicals were going to try to kill as many American soldiers as possible."
"But... Don't they believe in the Ten Commandments?"
"Uhh... No."
"And they think they'll go to heaven?"
"Apparently."
"But that's stupid. If they suicide bomb, and die, they can't even pray to Jesus to forgive them, so how are they supposed to go to heaven?"
"Uhhh... I don't think they're too concerned about what Jesus has to say about it."
"But don't muslims believe in Jesus?"
"Well, they do, but he doesn't really have as much of a leading role in their book."
Here's one for everyone who has had the pleasure of working in foodservice.
Captain: "Chef, the people are arriving."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "The people are sitting down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "We're going to take the order now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "Okay, here are the orders."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "We're going to serve the appetizer now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "All the apps are down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "They're done with the apps. We're going to clear."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "Apps are cleared. We're going to serve the salad now."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "All salads are down."
Chef: "Okay."
Captain: "They're done with the salads. We're going to clear."
Chef: "Okay."
The captain walks to the hot line with 20 waiters who are each holding two cloth napkins for carrying hot plates.
Captain: "Okay, salads are cleared. We're ready."
Chef: "Ready for what?"
Captain: "To pick up entrees."
Chef: "WHAT? You never said you were getting ready to take out entrees! They're not done yet! Come back in 10 minutes! What the fuck! You need to learn to communicate with the kitchen better! You can't just walk in here and go 'SURPRISE! I'm ready to pick up entrees!'"
Turnstiles that have that little annoying delay before releasing. You swipe your ID card, the thing beeps, the light turn green, you walk forward, then get clotheslined.
Perhaps the only thing dumber than all-fluff news shows like The Today Show are those retarded assholes who stand outside the window with their stupid posterboard signs that say shit like "Happy Birthday Steve" and "Go Cats!" I mean seriously, if you ever wondered why New Yorkers were rude to tourists, wonder no more. "Well here we are in what could be considered one of the epicenters of human culture and achievement. What should we do? I know! Let's set the alarm clock for 5am so we can dress up like idiots and go stand on the sidewalk outside The Today Show holding a "Hi Mom" sign for a few hours in 20 degree weather in hopes of being on camera waving like idiots for a fraction of a second, which nobody will even pay attention to or remember."
Nosy fucks who always instinctively probe for more information than you were offering. For instance, you want to show them a picture you took on your digital camera. You select the picture you want to show them, then hand them the camera with the intended picture displaying. They look at the picture for 1.3 seconds, then start hitting the directional buttons to see what other pictures you have stored.
"Hey, that's a cool cell phone. Can I see it?"
"Sure." You hand them the phone.
"Wow, this is nice," they say as they immediately look to see who is in your phone book and try to search for pictures you might have taken.
People who are terrified of completely harmless animals.
People who still believe that the environment is perfectly fine, and that any shift in climate or change in water, air and soil quality, mass extinctions, etc are just natural occurrences, and even if humans are responsible for the ecosystem falling apart, who gives a shit.
People who recognize that the environment is in trouble who think that a perfectly reasonable expectation is that all people on the planet will scrap their cars, buy bicycles, eat only organic food, recycle everything, stop patronizing any company that ever produced more than an ounce of pollution, limit families to one child per couple, stop using paper, stop using plastic, stop using all artificial chemicals, etc etc. I think Bill Maher said it best. "If Americans were told that they could reverse global warming by simply getting up and changing the channel instead of using the remote control, how long do you think it would take them to just be like, 'Ah fuck it.'?"
Oh, and just a little tip for Sheryl Crow... I have thought you were a dumbass for years, but I really never fathomed how bad it was. Do you really think that telling people they should only use ONE SQUARE OF TOILET PAPER WHEN THEY WIPE THEIR ASSES is a realistic way to advance your environmentalist agenda? While I do feel that we are, to an extent, on the same side in this fight, you will have to pardon me if I don't shake your hand.
People who don't speak much English who only understand you if you use English words arranged in a way that native English speakers would not understand.
"Could you take those boxes around back to the freight entrance?"
"Uhhhhh...."
"Boxes take street there, coming left. Big door. Uhhh, truck big door on back for trucks. Boxes take there."
"Ahhh, okay!"
Science is like an unfamiliar road. You walk down the road, and you might have an idea of where you would like to end up, and after walking 100 miles, you stop, compare your expectations to where you are, and think, "What have I learned?" Then, as you look ahead into the distance as the road twists off into the horizon and vanishes from sight, you think, "I have a lot more to learn," and you adjust your backpack and continue walking.
The difference between science and Christian "science" is that in Christian "science" you see the unfamiliar road and say, "If I walk 100 miles down this road, I will be in the middle of downtown Chicago," then, after walking 100 miles, and taking no exits or detours, the Christian "scientist" stops on the outskirts of Paducah, Kentucky and proudly proclaims, "WOW! Chicago sure has changed a lot since my last visit."
If your GOAL is not to discover, but to prove the Bible is true, you are not a scientist.
Anyone who likes or dislikes music based on where it's from. I'm not talking about like Tuvian throat music or J-pop, or Calypso, which have obvious roots that can't really be denied, but like, if you hate a certain rapper because he's from Brooklyn, and you're from "DA BOOGIE DOWN BRONX, AND YO, BROOKLYN IS BULLSHIT, MAN!" ... you're an idiot. The same applies to the whole East Coast / West Coast rap thing, the whole UK / Detroit techno thing, etc etc.
Cell phones, like the one I am writing this entry on, whose vibrating silent ringer is so slight you would need sensitive equipment to detect it. People try to call me all the time, and I feel it maybe once every five calls.
Bands, comedians, etc. that do national tours, and for some unknown reason skip New York City. Oh, right. You go to Beaufort, North Carolina and Muncie, Indiana and fucking Falls City, Nebraska, with a population of 4,500 people, but you skip New York City? Maybe you didn't hear me clearly. NEW YORK CITY. More people in NYC would want to buy tickets to your event than even live in Moab, Utah, so what the fuck are you thinking stopping there and not here?
Swingers or other people in "open" relationships who want the whole world to know that they are swingers and are totally sexually liberated, etc. who are completely physically repellant. Picturing one of them having sex with anyone is just gross, and picturing them having sex with each other is even worse, and picturing them having sex together with any third party is even worse, and picturing them having sex together with YOU is enough to make you throw up in your mouth. Unfortunately, this seems to apply to almost everyone who professes to be a swinger. I've met a few people who said they were in open relationships, and about 1% of them looked halfway decent. The rest were like saggy jello trolls with pedophile mustaches and gorilla-like shoulder hair, and that's just the women.
People who use my work computer without asking, and are then deeply offended when I ask, "Uhh, what are you doing?"
Let me explain something. There is one thing I hate more than having fucked up popup ads and spyware and shit, and that's looking for a job because Tubgirl found its way into my history on my work computer.
People who use recreational drugs who think that every rock, techno, industrial, etc. song is about a drug experience.
People who like rock, techno, industrial, etc. who are naive enough to believe that drugs played no part in the creative process in a lot of music that they enjoy.
Guys who check out every, EVERY woman who walks past them. I mean, if Masuimi Max walks past you, you kind of can't help but do a double-take, but I see guys who will pinch a fucking nerve by making their head do a prolonged Linda Blair 360 to stare at completely unremarkable, or even unattractive girls. This morning I was waiting for the train, and a train pulled into the station, and I saw this guy who was sitting on the train craning his neck to see this girl who was standing next to me on the platform. He kept staring at her until the train pulled out of the station. I knew she was there, but had not really noticed what she looked like. After seeing this guy falling over himself trying to get a better look, I started to wonder if maybe I was missing something, so I looked at her.
Before me stood a woman who was about 30 years old, 5'6"ish with straight, mouse brown hair about shoulder length cut in an unremarkable way. She was white. She was maybe a few pounds overweight, not fat, not skinny, and was wearing a boring work-appropriate brown suit with flats. She wasn't particularly busty and, indeed, if she was busty or had a nice ass, her suit was cut in such a way that you wouldn't really be able to tell anyway. The only skin she was showing was on her face and hands. She either wasn't wearing makeup or was wearing little enough that you would guess she wasn't wearing any. I didn't notice any jewelry. She didn't have any notable acne, scars, etc. that could possibly be causing the train guy to be doing the holy fuck neck crane. Her face wasn't ugly, and wasn't pretty either. If you witnessed her committing a crime, and the police asked you to describe her face so they could make a composite sketch, you would be hard pressed to remember anything, as there was nothing particularly amazing or unique about her facial features that would stand out in memory.
In short, she was ORDINARY; as plain as Jane gets. The guy on the train was straining to check her out as though he had never seen a woman before, and there was truly nothing to prompt the "DAMN, LOOK AT HER, MAN, HOLY FUCK" reaction this guy was having. Yes, she has a vagina. Calm the fuck down.
Of course, this isn't just about one guy looking at one girl. This is like a plague of retardation, and on a five minute stroll in Manhattan, you can observe this happening a dozen times.
People who are members of a group that has been historically discriminated against, that fail to see the irony of them being deeply discriminatory against another oppressed group. I remember a few years back I was driving through Cincinnati and I saw a huge billboard that featured the smiling face of a black male politician. In bold letters was the phrase, "NO SPECIAL RIGHTS FOR GAYS."
Workplaces that provide you with a computer that is powerful enough to kind of run a late-90's version of Microsoft Word in 8-bit color at 600x480 on Windows 95 really, really slowly, and if you use a photo as a desktop background, or heaven forbid, get on the internet, the computer's performance slows to a crawl. Just give me a fucking abacus, you cheap fucks.
People in relationships who do irrational, inexplicable, off-the-charts fucking psycho things and use poor judgment, who then can't understand why their partner is perturbed.
People who lie to other people right in front of you, and their lie is something you are privy to, and often the lie is totally unnecessary. Like this one guy who eats lunch in our restaurant about two or three times a week, and has come to the restaurant for the past three months brought a client in today to talk business over lunch. He usually brings clients when he comes. The guy says, "Wow. This place is nice. This is the first time I've been here." He looks to me. "So what would you recommend?"
So now, I either have to piss off a regular customer, who knows the menu by heart and always gets the same fucking thing, or else I have to be complicit, which makes me a liar too.
People who see the whole of human existence as, "I bet that guy is fucking me over. Maybe I should fuck him over like I fucked that other guy over. Wow, I really fucked him over, but that's ok because he might have been thinking about fucking me over. Oh, and I should really fuck that other guy over. I fucked him over before, but he never knew I was fucking him over, so he kinda deserves to be fucked over again. Then again, maybe he does know I fucked him over, and I bet right now he's plotting to fuck me over. Hell with it then, I definitely have to fuck him over now.
Employers who think that the fact that they give you a paycheck is justification to make you do anything.
"Oh, hey! If it isn't our new regional director! Did you come in over the weekend to paint that office like I asked? Good, good. Oh, before I forget, the toilet in the staff restroom clogged and overflowed, and there's stuff all over the floor. It's still clogged and the toilet and floor are full of crap. Yeah, it's pretty gross. Could you take care of that? Oh, and after that I need you to unpack and assemble the desks for that new office."
People who don't get the whole casual courtesy thing.
Like I'll be leaving for work in the morning, and as