And yet, somehow, a more fitting title could never be dreamed up. How odd.
Anyway I got some new problems that I’m going to lay out for all of you, (because that’s what I do, I whine and complain in a humorous way. I’d tell you to call me Bitterman, but I’m sure that’s copyright infringement on the comic strip).
Contrary to what my second autobiography, (Joshua: A story of Love, Adventure and Saturday Morning Cartoons) says about my accomplishments, I know that I didn’t invent or discover myspace.com (motto: A place for friends, white teenage girls trying to flaunt how sexy they are even though their asses and chests are concave, and old perverts who enjoy the easy, one-stop shopping of the site.) Nor was I even among the first people to use the site. Nay, I joined on the bandwagon late in the game, realizing this was a great way to prey upon young, naïve girls, (just kidding). Hell, I’ve been living a lie these past few months. You may have heard me at parties, three sheets to the wind, boisterously bragging that “Tom” and I are friends in real life and threatening people to prove otherwise. Sadly, this is not the case. I’m the only person in the history of Myspace whom Tom has dropped from his friends list. That was the day I turned to the bottle for solace.
Yet, I feel that, even as the Johnny-come-lately that I am, that there are some things we can do to improve the place overall. I mean, if we all cooperated in the spirit of unity and togetherness, we could make Myspace a lil slice ‘o heaven. Know what I mean? Do I dare to submit my ideas to the community?
It’d be a pretty damn short and boring entry if I didn’t!
1. Ladies, ladies, ladies, sorry that this first suggestion/rule will hit so close to home for most of you, but I say it in the idea of progress. Limit yourselves to one(1) picture of any pets you may have. In case you have many pets, just do a group shot. You don’t actually have to be in the picture with the animal(s) they know they’re loved. This applies to guys as well, but women are the biggest offenders.
2. This second suggestion is really just a follow up to the first one. You have a child or children; that’s great, but they’re really not that cute or attractive to people who aren’t related to them. Limit one picture as well. This is for both men and women, but I’m more concerned about the women. There’s nothing worse than trying to check out the other pics of some chick to see how cute she is and all you get is 10 pictures of her proudly holding up the results of some drunken mistake, (ummm, I’m talking about people in general, nobody in particular, so don’t get mad). That’s not hot! That’s what photo albums are for. Wait until you snare and trap a guy in some loveless and stifling relationship before you beat him over the head with the insanity that is your life!
3. It took me months to figure this out, (and because it’s more important to girls than guys I bet most guys still don’t know it) but the Top Eight, (16, 32 what have you) is in order! Deal with it! If you don’t agree with this concept, then please put a disclaimer somewhere on your page voicing your outrage to the very idea of ranking people on a site about friends.
4. As much as I dislike the idea of “friend-whores” (you know who you are. Hundreds of friends on Myspace, and maybe two friends in real life) I can’t make any rules about them, since this is a place for friends. But I suggest that regardless of the number of friends you have, you should write a comment or message to them at least once a month. If you do not receive anything in return within a month period, drop that person, cause they ain’t your friend. Don’t have more friends than you can keep up with.
5. Bulletins: Nobody reads them, so quit writing them unless you’re promoting an event. I’ve had dozens of people ask me (I don’t know why) if there’s a code to disable the bulletins. I don’t know, but it shows that people just hate the damn things.
6. This ties in with suggestion/rule four. Unless you know the members personally, bands aren’t your friends. Same goes for Tila Tequila!
7. Keep the backgrounds of your pages simple. There’s only one thing worse than a page that takes ten minutes to load, and that’s a page with such a convoluted background that you develop serious eye problems attempting to decipher the size 10 words thereon.
8. There’s no rule saying that you have to use your own name in your profile, but it’d be nice if your real name was somewhere on your page. Just for those people from your past who think they might have found you can be sure. Besides calling yourself Da Pimp Master, or somesuch shit, really isn’t that original.
9. Speaking of people’s names in their profiles, don’t do stupid ass designs with parentheses and asterisks and shit like that around your name. It’s annoying and insulting to anybody unfortunate enough to come across your page.
10. Here’s the most controversial suggestion: everybody should put up one naked picture of themselves. Wouldn’t that be interesting to see everybody starkers? (not family members, that wouldn’t be cool.) I mean, you can’t hide with some shit like that. You’re just out there for everybody to see, no faking. Oh, and the pictures should be taken once a month and kept fresh.
11. Everybody should read Eighty-Four Glyde, (but you knew that one already didn’t you? Cause you read it!)
Friday, July 28, 2006
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
And the answers came pouring in...
After several thousand emails filled with answers as to why this planet is called "Earth", I have found one that I feel to be the best explanation. This comes from Vince, an army medic with a large brain, (or an over active imagination).
His prize? A guest column spot later on. Until then, enjoy!
Well Hutch, I must say that I am hurt, I do not know who this supposed expert on all things scientific is, but please allow me to make up for his unforgivable shortcomings and provide you with an answer on your origin of the earth question.
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to share my credentials, for before I offer my opinion I think that it is important to recognize that I am an expert in my field, and therefore my explanation be without reproach.
When I was seven years old, I fell down and scrapped my knee, thus learning the valuable lesson that the earth is hard. When at the young and impressionable age of 19 I saw a globe for the first time, and I realized that this planet is shaped like a ball, I deduced that it is round. And lastly, when I was 23, a very large classmate of mine made me eat dirt, and from that experience I was able to deduce that the earth is yucky. Therefore with a history such as this, I propose to you that I am an expert on all things scientific, and especially those relating to Terra Mater, or Mother Earth.
The Earth, or as the ancients wrote it E.A.R.T.H. has been around for years and years. It is pretty old, in fact considering it was the ancients who first saw the Earth, it is only right that they named it after themselves. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to discover that the first two letters of our planet's name stand for Extremely Ancient. Upon further analysis, the ancients also realized that the planet was round, thus the R was added to the name.
Unfortunately, since the Namers of the planet were not blessed with the modern vocabulary we now have, they did not know how to describe the Round thing soon to be called Earth, so the name Round Thing stuck. Recently discovered Polynesian documents detail several dark, dark days in ancient history where the Earth was actually known as the Eart. It was in fact not for many weeks that the H was added to the name.
The etiology of the H is not clear, but the common consensus is that King Herbert of the Holotheisian Horde was walking home from a hotel when he hit his head and fell, scraping his knee. "Holy Hell!" he exclaimed, "this Eart is Hard" and the H stuck.
So now Hutch, you know how the Earth got its name.
In the future, I beg of you, please consult me on these difficult scientific matters, and I will be glad to share with you the knowledge borne of alcohol and boredom, so that you too may be edumakated.
Please stay tuned to Eighty-Four Glyde for my upcoming guest column on an important issue currently being debated on the world stage.
Until then my friends
His prize? A guest column spot later on. Until then, enjoy!
Well Hutch, I must say that I am hurt, I do not know who this supposed expert on all things scientific is, but please allow me to make up for his unforgivable shortcomings and provide you with an answer on your origin of the earth question.
First of all, I would like to take this opportunity to share my credentials, for before I offer my opinion I think that it is important to recognize that I am an expert in my field, and therefore my explanation be without reproach.
When I was seven years old, I fell down and scrapped my knee, thus learning the valuable lesson that the earth is hard. When at the young and impressionable age of 19 I saw a globe for the first time, and I realized that this planet is shaped like a ball, I deduced that it is round. And lastly, when I was 23, a very large classmate of mine made me eat dirt, and from that experience I was able to deduce that the earth is yucky. Therefore with a history such as this, I propose to you that I am an expert on all things scientific, and especially those relating to Terra Mater, or Mother Earth.
The Earth, or as the ancients wrote it E.A.R.T.H. has been around for years and years. It is pretty old, in fact considering it was the ancients who first saw the Earth, it is only right that they named it after themselves. Therefore, it should come as no surprise to discover that the first two letters of our planet's name stand for Extremely Ancient. Upon further analysis, the ancients also realized that the planet was round, thus the R was added to the name.
Unfortunately, since the Namers of the planet were not blessed with the modern vocabulary we now have, they did not know how to describe the Round thing soon to be called Earth, so the name Round Thing stuck. Recently discovered Polynesian documents detail several dark, dark days in ancient history where the Earth was actually known as the Eart. It was in fact not for many weeks that the H was added to the name.
The etiology of the H is not clear, but the common consensus is that King Herbert of the Holotheisian Horde was walking home from a hotel when he hit his head and fell, scraping his knee. "Holy Hell!" he exclaimed, "this Eart is Hard" and the H stuck.
So now Hutch, you know how the Earth got its name.
In the future, I beg of you, please consult me on these difficult scientific matters, and I will be glad to share with you the knowledge borne of alcohol and boredom, so that you too may be edumakated.
Please stay tuned to Eighty-Four Glyde for my upcoming guest column on an important issue currently being debated on the world stage.
Until then my friends
What I did on my summer vacation, or What’s in a name?
(Originally written Friday, July 21, 2006)
I did a little research during my short time off, (that's right, you may not have noticed but there haven't been any Eighty-Four Glyde entries in awhile. I'm in a war, things came up). I did this research because I felt it important to answer some questions that have been rolling around my brain because, sadly, I've got nothing else to think about out here, (except delicious July Fourth sugar cookies.)
As I said, I'd been pondering on some stuff that I was ignorant about, and I wanted answers. So, I did the first thing I could think of, I went and asked my good and suspiciously made up-sounding scientist friend, Dr. Gooch. Sadly, he wasnt any help.
Me: Yo, Dr. G, I got some questions that I need answered, and you're just the man to do it!
Dr. Gooch: I don't think so douche, you still haven't paid me for my last two appearances on your stupid little blog. I mean, nobody even reads that damn thing! Why should I pimp out my obscenely vast scientific knowledge to something that's read less than a book in Anna Nicole Smith's house? (Dr. Gooch likes to keep his insults topical and relevant, just like me.)
Me: I think you misunderstood me Herr Doctor; there is information that I require of you and I shall get it, one way or another...(pulling out the blow torch and a pair of pliers)
Dr. Gooch: Screw you!
At which point the good doctor proceeded to run away. He sure is wily for an old man. So, I was left to do a little research myself.
The question? Who the hell was put in charge of naming the continents, the ocean and the very planet upon which we reside (Earth for those who might have forgotten)?
I mean, I know who America was named after. But why? Amerigo Vespucci was just some old world map maker. The kind of guy who, when he got confused as to how a shoreline looked, would just fill up the space with drawings of dragons and sea monsters and write "Here there be monsters." Could you imagine getting away with such shoddy craftsmanship these days? Microsoft can.
Have you ever wondered why its called Earth? (Unless theres a huge bong cloud around your head, I'm sure the answer is no.) And why did they call it that? Why not something interesting, like Superworld?
Anyway, it was with these questions in my head and the internet at my fingertips, that I decided to get off my lazy ass, (figuratively of course, I was still sitting on my lazy ass when I checked the computer. Hell, I'm sitting on it right now!) and find things out for myself.
What I found astounded me to my very soul!!! (I'm pretty much soulless and shallow )
After a quick and superficial, (15 minutes is all I'm willing to commit to this endeavor, in the name of science) search of two sites, (ask.com and wikipedia) I found absolutely nothing. Anybody surprised? I got plenty of info about the Latin, German and Olde English roots of Earth and every synonym you can think of, (like terra) as well as oodles of definitions. Yet nobody could say who chose to call it Earth, or why they picked such a mundane name. True earth, dirt, ground and terra all mean the same thing, but if that was the only criterion for naming, then all planets would have been named Earth, right?
Doesnt make sense to me, and I can't rely on Dr. Gooch to make up (I don't think he really knows anything and I don't even think he's a real doctor, to be honest) an answer, so I'm going to pose it to you: the readers. If anybody out there can give me a credible sounding reason, real or fake, as to why we live on "Earth" and not "Clitoris" or "Dirt" or something weird like that, then please feel free to write me with your answer. I'll even include it in another entry I do as a follow up, and, (are you ready for the lie?) you'll get a free Eighty-Four Glyde t-shirt! Hooray for knowledge!
I did a little research during my short time off, (that's right, you may not have noticed but there haven't been any Eighty-Four Glyde entries in awhile. I'm in a war, things came up). I did this research because I felt it important to answer some questions that have been rolling around my brain because, sadly, I've got nothing else to think about out here, (except delicious July Fourth sugar cookies.)
As I said, I'd been pondering on some stuff that I was ignorant about, and I wanted answers. So, I did the first thing I could think of, I went and asked my good and suspiciously made up-sounding scientist friend, Dr. Gooch. Sadly, he wasnt any help.
Me: Yo, Dr. G, I got some questions that I need answered, and you're just the man to do it!
Dr. Gooch: I don't think so douche, you still haven't paid me for my last two appearances on your stupid little blog. I mean, nobody even reads that damn thing! Why should I pimp out my obscenely vast scientific knowledge to something that's read less than a book in Anna Nicole Smith's house? (Dr. Gooch likes to keep his insults topical and relevant, just like me.)
Me: I think you misunderstood me Herr Doctor; there is information that I require of you and I shall get it, one way or another...(pulling out the blow torch and a pair of pliers)
Dr. Gooch: Screw you!
At which point the good doctor proceeded to run away. He sure is wily for an old man. So, I was left to do a little research myself.
The question? Who the hell was put in charge of naming the continents, the ocean and the very planet upon which we reside (Earth for those who might have forgotten)?
I mean, I know who America was named after. But why? Amerigo Vespucci was just some old world map maker. The kind of guy who, when he got confused as to how a shoreline looked, would just fill up the space with drawings of dragons and sea monsters and write "Here there be monsters." Could you imagine getting away with such shoddy craftsmanship these days? Microsoft can.
Have you ever wondered why its called Earth? (Unless theres a huge bong cloud around your head, I'm sure the answer is no.) And why did they call it that? Why not something interesting, like Superworld?
Anyway, it was with these questions in my head and the internet at my fingertips, that I decided to get off my lazy ass, (figuratively of course, I was still sitting on my lazy ass when I checked the computer. Hell, I'm sitting on it right now!) and find things out for myself.
What I found astounded me to my very soul!!! (I'm pretty much soulless and shallow )
After a quick and superficial, (15 minutes is all I'm willing to commit to this endeavor, in the name of science) search of two sites, (ask.com and wikipedia) I found absolutely nothing. Anybody surprised? I got plenty of info about the Latin, German and Olde English roots of Earth and every synonym you can think of, (like terra) as well as oodles of definitions. Yet nobody could say who chose to call it Earth, or why they picked such a mundane name. True earth, dirt, ground and terra all mean the same thing, but if that was the only criterion for naming, then all planets would have been named Earth, right?
Doesnt make sense to me, and I can't rely on Dr. Gooch to make up (I don't think he really knows anything and I don't even think he's a real doctor, to be honest) an answer, so I'm going to pose it to you: the readers. If anybody out there can give me a credible sounding reason, real or fake, as to why we live on "Earth" and not "Clitoris" or "Dirt" or something weird like that, then please feel free to write me with your answer. I'll even include it in another entry I do as a follow up, and, (are you ready for the lie?) you'll get a free Eighty-Four Glyde t-shirt! Hooray for knowledge!
Spring Cleaning
(Originally written Saturday, June 10, 2006)
Alright, I'm cleaning out my Eighty-Four Glyde closet. Included are some Columns that I started, but never got around to finishing, either because I didn't have time, I lost my train of thought or I just wasn't interested in finishing. Some were time sensitive and stopped being topical after about a second. Some could offend, so I never finished. Anyway, here's everything I've written, in its entirety. Sorry theyre incomplete, I'm just trying to get rid of everything I've got thats Eighty-Four Glyde related. Consider this stuff like all those Tupac albums that keep coming out every so often. Tracks that Tha Row have that suck, but they;re still going to try and cash in on them. Or as Dave Chappelle said: "Tonight were going to eat all snout."
Genius or perverted genius?
So on 420, this really old dude, (76 years old to be precise) was arrested down in Miami. He was charged with sexual assault, but I have to wonder if thats really what it was.
You see, he was arrested for pretending to be a door-to-door breast inspector. He was caught after a woman became suspicious and called the cops on him. Maybe she didn't believe his official looking badge or something. No wait, I just checked the story and it seemed what roused her suspicion was the fact that he wasn't wearing rubber gloves. She must have believed him at first, because she took all her clothes off and he was already in the middle of his exam when she realized he was not employing proper hygiene. She called the cops and he fled, although I don't really think you'd call trying to make an escape at the age of 76 fleeing, more like a slow but determined retreat.
When the cops eventually picked Dr. Feelgood up, he had already given exams to at least two other women. How crazy is that? How much of a Gump do you have to be to believe that some weird old man showing up at your front door, offering to do a little booby-fondling under the guise of a medical exam, is legit? I figure that's why they booked him under a sexual assault charge, simply because they couldn't book him under a charge of embarrassing some grown-ass women who should have known better. He didn't force himself on them; he didn't get them drunk or give them drugs. He just asked to touch a titty. Who knows, maybe he was able to alert some woman just in time. I would also conjecture that he could possibly have some medical training.
The five hottest women in the world
It is my opinion that everybody should have a list of the five hottest members of the opposite sex. This list should be made up of Hollywood stars and musical icons. While youre considering who would be in your top five, consider my list, which I made about 10 years ago.
1. Salma Hayek. Easily the most beautiful woman in the world, she blows away the competition. Though she appeared in Mexican soap operas back in the day, she wasnt on La Madrastra, therefore nobody watched her. Her first big movie was Desperado, where she played a hot chick. She continued in this way, appearing in movies as a hot chick, (or hot vampire) until her lapse and uncharacteristic portrayal of Frieda Kalho, in the movie Frieda. Though Frieda was known for her wild love affairs with both men and women, she had a ridiculous unibrow and a mustache thats better than one I've ever been able to grow. She lost mucho points for being in this movie. Luckily, she made these points up when she broke up with Ed Norton, who was totally undeserving of her.
2. Rosario Dawson. Rosario is a recent addition to the list. Prior to her, this spot was held by Jennifer Lopez. Sadly, Jennifer started to become too full of herself, obsessed with money, (her love don't cost a thing? How come she ain't married to some poor dude?) aware of how sexy and sultry she is and spent too much time trying to convince everybody shes still from the streets. She had to be permanently taken off the list, shes too overexposed!
I spent many moons racking my brain over who could fill her spot.
Ruminations..
Seriously though, why all the fuss about missing white girls? I mean, either give all races equal treatment on this issue, or just stop reporting it. Nobody cares enough about any of it. Why not just expand the faces on the back of milk cartons idea? We could put faces on cigarette packages, beer bottles, backs of porn magazines and Big Mac wrappers. That'd about cover places every American would notice.
Ever notice how, when something happens involving teens, or people who havent yet reached adulthood, the media try to make the parents feel like ignorant losers? A kid died a few months ago playing that game where you pass out. Remember doing that when you were a kid? I did it plenty, and it was fun. The media got a hold of the game, called it the "Choking Game" in capital letters, put it inside quotation marks and pretended like it was something they just discovered, which adults never knew existed.
The media keep talking about Myspace, (motto: a place for friendsand creepy old sexual predators) and how kids are doing all these things behind parents backs. If reporters are right, kids are getting away with all types of stuff and their parents are blissfully unaware of anything going on in their childrens lives. Who are these absentee parents? The same invisible parents of Sally and Charlie Brown?
Workout regiment of the Gods!
While in America one day, a friend asked me if I'd like to join him in a trip to his gym. We could get in a great workout and meet some interesting and ripe smelling women.
I naturally jumped at the chance to potentially due serious harm to my weak and flabby body.
Country Music: The official music of patriots
Fiddling with the dial, (I'm talking radio dials here, lets keep it clean people) of the radio in any backwater, (a word whose meaning is lost in the annals of time, though I guess I could look it up were I not so damn lazy) in America will most likely bring in the melodious strains of one of the countrys most popular forms of music: country music.
I'm not here to judge ...oh wait, yes I am. And today I'm going to focus my steely gaze and severe (but humorous) criticizing mind on this type of music and its connection to the American military.
So, country music. What can I say about country music that hasn't already been said a million times? It's extremely booty? Thats been covered. It all pretty much sounds the same? Yep, we all know that already.
Why do people listen to country music? Why do they like it so much? Why are so many country artists writing patriotic songs?
And there you go, some of these suck and some of them had some potential. Hell, perhaps one day I'll actually finish up my list of five hottest chicks in the world, I know some people might be curious to see the rest of the list. Some people, (Veronica) already know.
Thats it, I'm done! I'm ready to start fresh again.
Alright, I'm cleaning out my Eighty-Four Glyde closet. Included are some Columns that I started, but never got around to finishing, either because I didn't have time, I lost my train of thought or I just wasn't interested in finishing. Some were time sensitive and stopped being topical after about a second. Some could offend, so I never finished. Anyway, here's everything I've written, in its entirety. Sorry theyre incomplete, I'm just trying to get rid of everything I've got thats Eighty-Four Glyde related. Consider this stuff like all those Tupac albums that keep coming out every so often. Tracks that Tha Row have that suck, but they;re still going to try and cash in on them. Or as Dave Chappelle said: "Tonight were going to eat all snout."
Genius or perverted genius?
So on 420, this really old dude, (76 years old to be precise) was arrested down in Miami. He was charged with sexual assault, but I have to wonder if thats really what it was.
You see, he was arrested for pretending to be a door-to-door breast inspector. He was caught after a woman became suspicious and called the cops on him. Maybe she didn't believe his official looking badge or something. No wait, I just checked the story and it seemed what roused her suspicion was the fact that he wasn't wearing rubber gloves. She must have believed him at first, because she took all her clothes off and he was already in the middle of his exam when she realized he was not employing proper hygiene. She called the cops and he fled, although I don't really think you'd call trying to make an escape at the age of 76 fleeing, more like a slow but determined retreat.
When the cops eventually picked Dr. Feelgood up, he had already given exams to at least two other women. How crazy is that? How much of a Gump do you have to be to believe that some weird old man showing up at your front door, offering to do a little booby-fondling under the guise of a medical exam, is legit? I figure that's why they booked him under a sexual assault charge, simply because they couldn't book him under a charge of embarrassing some grown-ass women who should have known better. He didn't force himself on them; he didn't get them drunk or give them drugs. He just asked to touch a titty. Who knows, maybe he was able to alert some woman just in time. I would also conjecture that he could possibly have some medical training.
The five hottest women in the world
It is my opinion that everybody should have a list of the five hottest members of the opposite sex. This list should be made up of Hollywood stars and musical icons. While youre considering who would be in your top five, consider my list, which I made about 10 years ago.
1. Salma Hayek. Easily the most beautiful woman in the world, she blows away the competition. Though she appeared in Mexican soap operas back in the day, she wasnt on La Madrastra, therefore nobody watched her. Her first big movie was Desperado, where she played a hot chick. She continued in this way, appearing in movies as a hot chick, (or hot vampire) until her lapse and uncharacteristic portrayal of Frieda Kalho, in the movie Frieda. Though Frieda was known for her wild love affairs with both men and women, she had a ridiculous unibrow and a mustache thats better than one I've ever been able to grow. She lost mucho points for being in this movie. Luckily, she made these points up when she broke up with Ed Norton, who was totally undeserving of her.
2. Rosario Dawson. Rosario is a recent addition to the list. Prior to her, this spot was held by Jennifer Lopez. Sadly, Jennifer started to become too full of herself, obsessed with money, (her love don't cost a thing? How come she ain't married to some poor dude?) aware of how sexy and sultry she is and spent too much time trying to convince everybody shes still from the streets. She had to be permanently taken off the list, shes too overexposed!
I spent many moons racking my brain over who could fill her spot.
Ruminations..
Seriously though, why all the fuss about missing white girls? I mean, either give all races equal treatment on this issue, or just stop reporting it. Nobody cares enough about any of it. Why not just expand the faces on the back of milk cartons idea? We could put faces on cigarette packages, beer bottles, backs of porn magazines and Big Mac wrappers. That'd about cover places every American would notice.
Ever notice how, when something happens involving teens, or people who havent yet reached adulthood, the media try to make the parents feel like ignorant losers? A kid died a few months ago playing that game where you pass out. Remember doing that when you were a kid? I did it plenty, and it was fun. The media got a hold of the game, called it the "Choking Game" in capital letters, put it inside quotation marks and pretended like it was something they just discovered, which adults never knew existed.
The media keep talking about Myspace, (motto: a place for friendsand creepy old sexual predators) and how kids are doing all these things behind parents backs. If reporters are right, kids are getting away with all types of stuff and their parents are blissfully unaware of anything going on in their childrens lives. Who are these absentee parents? The same invisible parents of Sally and Charlie Brown?
Workout regiment of the Gods!
While in America one day, a friend asked me if I'd like to join him in a trip to his gym. We could get in a great workout and meet some interesting and ripe smelling women.
I naturally jumped at the chance to potentially due serious harm to my weak and flabby body.
Country Music: The official music of patriots
Fiddling with the dial, (I'm talking radio dials here, lets keep it clean people) of the radio in any backwater, (a word whose meaning is lost in the annals of time, though I guess I could look it up were I not so damn lazy) in America will most likely bring in the melodious strains of one of the countrys most popular forms of music: country music.
I'm not here to judge ...oh wait, yes I am. And today I'm going to focus my steely gaze and severe (but humorous) criticizing mind on this type of music and its connection to the American military.
So, country music. What can I say about country music that hasn't already been said a million times? It's extremely booty? Thats been covered. It all pretty much sounds the same? Yep, we all know that already.
Why do people listen to country music? Why do they like it so much? Why are so many country artists writing patriotic songs?
And there you go, some of these suck and some of them had some potential. Hell, perhaps one day I'll actually finish up my list of five hottest chicks in the world, I know some people might be curious to see the rest of the list. Some people, (Veronica) already know.
Thats it, I'm done! I'm ready to start fresh again.
It takes a helping hand
(Originally written Thursday, May 25, 2006)
Sure are a lot of hungry people in the world. Ever notice that? Poor people too. Man, they're everywhere. This makes me sad. I'm not saying I have it so great, (I am in the army after all) but I still, literally, have it better than billions of people. Where am I going with this? Well, never let it be said there wasn't at least, (at most really) one altruistic bone in my body.
I think that we should go forth into the world and make it a better place for everybody. And even though I'm an American, (though not as patriotic as I should be) I don't believe that making the world a better place means forcing my idea of peace and democracy upon the unfortunate natives of varied and foreign lands.
Nope, the policy of our insane, yet well-meaning, (they mean to become richer at the expense of everybody else) American government, is not my policy. I am a firm believer that charity starts at home. My home to be exact. Give me money!
Seriously though, I'm sure that no matter what part of the country, (I'm guessing all the readers live in America, I don't think Eighty-Four Glyde has gone global yet, but next time you're in a seedy hostel in eastern Slovakia drop my name and they'll give you the Eli Roth special package) there's at least one area where poor people are forced to reside, (if you're living in the Midwest and you're reading this column, you're probably one of those people, I'm looking in your direction Ohio!)
"Why don't these poor people just get jobs?" Those less intelligent and thoughtful of you might be asking. "Why don't you stop being so ugly and stupid you ugly stupidhead?!" I might eloquently respond.
Some people are way to glib. Wanna hear something that's funny in its pitifulness? After Katrina hit, one person asked me why all the poor black people didn't leave. I said it was because they were too poor to afford the means of transportation to get their black asses the hell out of the way. She said that they shouldn't have been poor.
I pondered this. According to her logic, because a person is poor, that person deserves to be at the mercy because they didn't have the foresight. Interesting isn't it?
I did the whole homeless thing once. Just for a little while. It wasn't fun. I had no money for food. Every so often I'd go to a pay phone call up a pizza joint and have them deliver a pizza to a house where I would sleep in the stone cellar, (that cellar, by the way, is where the owners of the house would let their dog do its business. They never bothered to house-train the damn thing, they'd just throw it in the cellar until it was finished). I'd pay by check because I knew that by the time it bounced I'd have eaten the pizza. Luckily, because of our capitalist society, competition in the home-delivery pizza market is quite healthy. I never had to call the same place twice and risk being caught.
Because I couldn't afford to eat three times a day I had to hide the pizza in the coolest place I could find, (did I mention that all of this took place during the damn hottest summer I've ever experienced? Hottest before coming to Iraq that is.) and visit it periodically to eat.
I had no electricity and therefore couldn't keep cool during the heat of the day. The best thing I could do was to sit in the stifling and smelly basement. I also had limited access to water, and changes of clothes, so let's just say I was a bit aromatic myself.
On the other hand, being homeless gives you plenty of free time. I got a library card and spent as much time in the air-conditioned building as they would tolerate. And although I wasn't 21 yet, I could sometimes get my hands on some wine, (amazing how bums love to drink the wine, isn't it? I couldn't really stand the stuff myself, but it gave me something to do with all that wonderful free time I had) to pass the time.
Anyway, my point is, that although I was homeless and not simply poor, I would have had a damn hard time trying to flee the city if a killer hurricane was on it's way.
So next time you pass by a homeless person sunning himself on the street, don't give him any money, he's just going to waste it on Thunderbird Wine. Give it to me instead, because I think those goons from Dominos' and Pizza Hut are finally closing in, and I don't know if I can cover all those damn pepperoni pizzas I bought.
And after all, since charity does begin at my home, I'll be glad to give you directions.
Sure are a lot of hungry people in the world. Ever notice that? Poor people too. Man, they're everywhere. This makes me sad. I'm not saying I have it so great, (I am in the army after all) but I still, literally, have it better than billions of people. Where am I going with this? Well, never let it be said there wasn't at least, (at most really) one altruistic bone in my body.
I think that we should go forth into the world and make it a better place for everybody. And even though I'm an American, (though not as patriotic as I should be) I don't believe that making the world a better place means forcing my idea of peace and democracy upon the unfortunate natives of varied and foreign lands.
Nope, the policy of our insane, yet well-meaning, (they mean to become richer at the expense of everybody else) American government, is not my policy. I am a firm believer that charity starts at home. My home to be exact. Give me money!
Seriously though, I'm sure that no matter what part of the country, (I'm guessing all the readers live in America, I don't think Eighty-Four Glyde has gone global yet, but next time you're in a seedy hostel in eastern Slovakia drop my name and they'll give you the Eli Roth special package) there's at least one area where poor people are forced to reside, (if you're living in the Midwest and you're reading this column, you're probably one of those people, I'm looking in your direction Ohio!)
"Why don't these poor people just get jobs?" Those less intelligent and thoughtful of you might be asking. "Why don't you stop being so ugly and stupid you ugly stupidhead?!" I might eloquently respond.
Some people are way to glib. Wanna hear something that's funny in its pitifulness? After Katrina hit, one person asked me why all the poor black people didn't leave. I said it was because they were too poor to afford the means of transportation to get their black asses the hell out of the way. She said that they shouldn't have been poor.
I pondered this. According to her logic, because a person is poor, that person deserves to be at the mercy because they didn't have the foresight. Interesting isn't it?
I did the whole homeless thing once. Just for a little while. It wasn't fun. I had no money for food. Every so often I'd go to a pay phone call up a pizza joint and have them deliver a pizza to a house where I would sleep in the stone cellar, (that cellar, by the way, is where the owners of the house would let their dog do its business. They never bothered to house-train the damn thing, they'd just throw it in the cellar until it was finished). I'd pay by check because I knew that by the time it bounced I'd have eaten the pizza. Luckily, because of our capitalist society, competition in the home-delivery pizza market is quite healthy. I never had to call the same place twice and risk being caught.
Because I couldn't afford to eat three times a day I had to hide the pizza in the coolest place I could find, (did I mention that all of this took place during the damn hottest summer I've ever experienced? Hottest before coming to Iraq that is.) and visit it periodically to eat.
I had no electricity and therefore couldn't keep cool during the heat of the day. The best thing I could do was to sit in the stifling and smelly basement. I also had limited access to water, and changes of clothes, so let's just say I was a bit aromatic myself.
On the other hand, being homeless gives you plenty of free time. I got a library card and spent as much time in the air-conditioned building as they would tolerate. And although I wasn't 21 yet, I could sometimes get my hands on some wine, (amazing how bums love to drink the wine, isn't it? I couldn't really stand the stuff myself, but it gave me something to do with all that wonderful free time I had) to pass the time.
Anyway, my point is, that although I was homeless and not simply poor, I would have had a damn hard time trying to flee the city if a killer hurricane was on it's way.
So next time you pass by a homeless person sunning himself on the street, don't give him any money, he's just going to waste it on Thunderbird Wine. Give it to me instead, because I think those goons from Dominos' and Pizza Hut are finally closing in, and I don't know if I can cover all those damn pepperoni pizzas I bought.
And after all, since charity does begin at my home, I'll be glad to give you directions.
Everything you never wanted to know about the universe
(Originally written Monday, May 22, 2006)
Greetings all and welcome to another installment of Ask Doctor Gooch! featuring this reality's most intelligent scientist and everybody's favorite smart guy: Dr. Gooch.
In this installment Dr. Gooch will be answering your questions about the universe. Black stars, dwarf stars, distant galaxies; nothing is beyond the realm of Dr. Gooch's knowledge.*
1. Dr. Gooch, what are stars made of, and why do they shine at night?
Though this is a two-part question, it's actually quite simple. It has been common knowledge for several, ummm, minutes that stars are actually just holes in the black fabric of space. You see, if you've ever taken a piece of black construction paper and poked holes in it and held it in front of a light, you've probably noticed that the light shines through paper and right into your dumb eyes. Well the universe is made up the exact same way, except without the paper. So far, we have yet to see what is on the other side of those holes but the Lithuanian space program has been working very hard on breaching that barrier one day.
2. Doc, what is a "black hole?" If I go through one, what would happen?
A black hole is not actually a hole, (unlike stars) they are actually protrusions. We smart, scientist-like guys over in universities and whatnot like to call them "the shaving bumps of the universe." These bumps cause strange ripples and eddies in the space/time thingy. Because of these ripples black holes seem like holes or tunnels. But they're not! And anybody who says otherwise is a dirty, dirty liar.
Anyway, were you to encounter a black hole you would successfully be transported through time. I have actually been in a space ship that has gone through one of these holes, (even though it wasn't a hole. Were I to try and explain how we did it, your puny, non-genius head would explode into thousands of tiny, wet, stupid bits!) Suffice it to say we went through one and had an amazing adventure in a world full of nymphomanic-zombie-robot-dinosaur-ghosts. But that's a story for another time.
3. Just how big is the universe anyway?
Really big, like Alaska. But bigger. You could fit about 20 Alaskas inside the universe and still have enough space left over for a Rhode Island and half of Delaware.
4. Dr. Gooch, how many galaxies are in the universe?
Excellent question. Let me put to rest right now any rumors you might have been hearing about there being millions of billions of galaxies with even more planets. That's bullhockey. As far as we accredited and serious professors of varied intellectual pursuits are concerned, there's only a hand-full of galaxies whose existence we can confirm. The most well-known of these galaxies are of course, the Milky Way, the Almond Joy, the Whatchamacalit, the Charleston Chew and oddly enough, the Everlasting Gobstopper. The lesser known galaxies are Alpha Centauri, Beetleguise, Homestar Runner and the Transfugal Hyperchondrical Blutangdrion. This last galaxy imploded on itself eons ago. It was a galaxy far, far away and it ended a long time ago.
5. How long has the universe existed, and how long will it continue to exist?
This question has been pondered for many years, but recent developments have led to new discoveries. With the invention of the Flux Capacitor we can use our telescopes to look through time. And I have to say, what we saw was very shocking. It seems as though the universe was created, as near as we can tell, December 8th, 1979. That makes absolutely no sense, I know, but it's true. Such is the wonderful and totally unfathomable nature of reality.
Those are all the questions we have time for this time. Join us next time, when Dr. Gooch again panders to ignorant masses. Plus, special guest appearance by the late Don Knotts.
All this and more on Ask Doctor Gooch!
*For the purists out there, and those without a sense of humor, let me lay it out for you here: The answers are jokes and are in no way supposed to be taken as true. Unless you want to, in which case, you should know I just got a call from Santa Claus. He and the Easter Bunny wanted to invite you to play doubles tennis on the moon with the Tooth Fairy.
Greetings all and welcome to another installment of Ask Doctor Gooch! featuring this reality's most intelligent scientist and everybody's favorite smart guy: Dr. Gooch.
In this installment Dr. Gooch will be answering your questions about the universe. Black stars, dwarf stars, distant galaxies; nothing is beyond the realm of Dr. Gooch's knowledge.*
1. Dr. Gooch, what are stars made of, and why do they shine at night?
Though this is a two-part question, it's actually quite simple. It has been common knowledge for several, ummm, minutes that stars are actually just holes in the black fabric of space. You see, if you've ever taken a piece of black construction paper and poked holes in it and held it in front of a light, you've probably noticed that the light shines through paper and right into your dumb eyes. Well the universe is made up the exact same way, except without the paper. So far, we have yet to see what is on the other side of those holes but the Lithuanian space program has been working very hard on breaching that barrier one day.
2. Doc, what is a "black hole?" If I go through one, what would happen?
A black hole is not actually a hole, (unlike stars) they are actually protrusions. We smart, scientist-like guys over in universities and whatnot like to call them "the shaving bumps of the universe." These bumps cause strange ripples and eddies in the space/time thingy. Because of these ripples black holes seem like holes or tunnels. But they're not! And anybody who says otherwise is a dirty, dirty liar.
Anyway, were you to encounter a black hole you would successfully be transported through time. I have actually been in a space ship that has gone through one of these holes, (even though it wasn't a hole. Were I to try and explain how we did it, your puny, non-genius head would explode into thousands of tiny, wet, stupid bits!) Suffice it to say we went through one and had an amazing adventure in a world full of nymphomanic-zombie-robot-dinosaur-ghosts. But that's a story for another time.
3. Just how big is the universe anyway?
Really big, like Alaska. But bigger. You could fit about 20 Alaskas inside the universe and still have enough space left over for a Rhode Island and half of Delaware.
4. Dr. Gooch, how many galaxies are in the universe?
Excellent question. Let me put to rest right now any rumors you might have been hearing about there being millions of billions of galaxies with even more planets. That's bullhockey. As far as we accredited and serious professors of varied intellectual pursuits are concerned, there's only a hand-full of galaxies whose existence we can confirm. The most well-known of these galaxies are of course, the Milky Way, the Almond Joy, the Whatchamacalit, the Charleston Chew and oddly enough, the Everlasting Gobstopper. The lesser known galaxies are Alpha Centauri, Beetleguise, Homestar Runner and the Transfugal Hyperchondrical Blutangdrion. This last galaxy imploded on itself eons ago. It was a galaxy far, far away and it ended a long time ago.
5. How long has the universe existed, and how long will it continue to exist?
This question has been pondered for many years, but recent developments have led to new discoveries. With the invention of the Flux Capacitor we can use our telescopes to look through time. And I have to say, what we saw was very shocking. It seems as though the universe was created, as near as we can tell, December 8th, 1979. That makes absolutely no sense, I know, but it's true. Such is the wonderful and totally unfathomable nature of reality.
Those are all the questions we have time for this time. Join us next time, when Dr. Gooch again panders to ignorant masses. Plus, special guest appearance by the late Don Knotts.
All this and more on Ask Doctor Gooch!
*For the purists out there, and those without a sense of humor, let me lay it out for you here: The answers are jokes and are in no way supposed to be taken as true. Unless you want to, in which case, you should know I just got a call from Santa Claus. He and the Easter Bunny wanted to invite you to play doubles tennis on the moon with the Tooth Fairy.
You don’t need to be Mexican to break the law
(Originally written Wednesday, May 17, 2006)
In case you didn't know it, (and I don't know how you couldn't) I am quite knowledgeable in all aspects of the socio-political policies of America. Quite often television and newspaper pundits, (never really understood what the word means, do pundits pund? Do bandits band?) seek out my advice concerning all the important and relevant topics of the day. Why, rarely a day goes by that I'm not getting a call from Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson asking for help. And since they're all idiots I am very frugal with, lets just say, factually correct information. I enjoy making them look like idiots on Fox News, (motto: Your Source For Uneducated Opinions Masquerading As News) because its so easy.
Anywho, because of my wealth of knowledge people are always coming up to me and asking my opinion on the immigration woes that have beset our country.
"Whats your opinion on the immigration woes that have beset our country?" they say.
"Good question," I reply, furiously wracking my brain for a quick and easy answer.
But sadly there is no quick and easy answer, so I'm often left trying to shove spare change into their confused hands and running away hurriedly, because thats what I always do when I'm confronted by the indigent in the middle of broad daylight.
In those times when the question poser is quicker than myself and able to tackle me to the ground and hold me in their diseased, unwashed hands, I am forced to come up with an actual answer. Fortunately my mind is finely honed, and after minutes spent trying not to choke on vomit induced by my assailants well-cultivated personal aroma, I am able to respond. Clearly, intelligently and to the best of my knowledge.
"Well," I say, batting away the colony of flies that have set up in the beard of the enquirer, "I'm glad you asked.
"You see, America has long been founded upon the back of immigrants. Why, there wouldn't be an America if it weren't for the wretched refuse and the huddled masses yearning to be free, etc. etc. And while its true that they didn't all have the permission, at the time, of the natives already basking on this fine countrys shores, they didn't let that little set back stop them.
"They came by the boatload, from many fine, historic, and most importantly white, European countries, until the ports on the eastern coast were clogged full of Italians, Irish, British and any other random WP you can think of. The American Indians didn't know what to do with all the WPs invading their country.
"The natives didn't all speak the same language, (of course the natives of America didnt actually have an official language, they were just a confederation of unified 'states' with varied languages and ideals) but the important thing is that they shared the same culture, and what unified the natives was the fact that the invaders were different. They had a different culture, different language and different skin color.
"The natives didn't worry much at first because the foreign WPs were willing to live where the natives were not willing. They could and would do the jobs that the natives couldn't or didn't want to. But then the natives felt encroached upon. Everywhere they looked there were uninvited foreigners. And those foreigners chose to bring their own cultures with them instead of adapting to the cultures that already existed in America.
"This angered the natives. All of the good places to live were being stolen by the WPs, and all the good game was being hunted and eaten by these invaders. On top of that, they felt that they were owed something when they tried to trade with the natives. The WPs couldnt seem to accept the fact that nobody had invited them to come to America and kill, burn and eat everything in sight.
"The natives got together and decided to do something. They politely asked for the foreigners to leave. That didn't work. So, they set up guards, minutemen as it were, along the shores, but that didn't stop the boatloads from arriving. Finally the natives couldn't take it anymore, after being backed into a tiny corner of the country the lashed out against the invaders.
"And were promptly killed.
"When they had almost finished with their extermination, the WPs felt bad. They decided to be generous and give isolated and desolate pockets of land to the natives. Where they live to this day.
"And everybody lived happily ever after.
"You see my aromatic and homeless friend, because these two cultures wanted to live in the same country, but could not live together, problems arose and civilizations crumbled. Luckily this is not a problem we have today. America is open to everybody, regardless of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, pizza topping preference and shoe size.
"Today in America, we have learned from the mistakes of our forefathers and will never again stumble in our goal for a unity and cultural harmony."
At this point, apparently satisfied, my newly educated wino friend will help me to my feet and wander away to ponder my incredibly deep words and probably find himself a liquid dinner.
Irony is lost on some people.
In case you didn't know it, (and I don't know how you couldn't) I am quite knowledgeable in all aspects of the socio-political policies of America. Quite often television and newspaper pundits, (never really understood what the word means, do pundits pund? Do bandits band?) seek out my advice concerning all the important and relevant topics of the day. Why, rarely a day goes by that I'm not getting a call from Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly or Tucker Carlson asking for help. And since they're all idiots I am very frugal with, lets just say, factually correct information. I enjoy making them look like idiots on Fox News, (motto: Your Source For Uneducated Opinions Masquerading As News) because its so easy.
Anywho, because of my wealth of knowledge people are always coming up to me and asking my opinion on the immigration woes that have beset our country.
"Whats your opinion on the immigration woes that have beset our country?" they say.
"Good question," I reply, furiously wracking my brain for a quick and easy answer.
But sadly there is no quick and easy answer, so I'm often left trying to shove spare change into their confused hands and running away hurriedly, because thats what I always do when I'm confronted by the indigent in the middle of broad daylight.
In those times when the question poser is quicker than myself and able to tackle me to the ground and hold me in their diseased, unwashed hands, I am forced to come up with an actual answer. Fortunately my mind is finely honed, and after minutes spent trying not to choke on vomit induced by my assailants well-cultivated personal aroma, I am able to respond. Clearly, intelligently and to the best of my knowledge.
"Well," I say, batting away the colony of flies that have set up in the beard of the enquirer, "I'm glad you asked.
"You see, America has long been founded upon the back of immigrants. Why, there wouldn't be an America if it weren't for the wretched refuse and the huddled masses yearning to be free, etc. etc. And while its true that they didn't all have the permission, at the time, of the natives already basking on this fine countrys shores, they didn't let that little set back stop them.
"They came by the boatload, from many fine, historic, and most importantly white, European countries, until the ports on the eastern coast were clogged full of Italians, Irish, British and any other random WP you can think of. The American Indians didn't know what to do with all the WPs invading their country.
"The natives didn't all speak the same language, (of course the natives of America didnt actually have an official language, they were just a confederation of unified 'states' with varied languages and ideals) but the important thing is that they shared the same culture, and what unified the natives was the fact that the invaders were different. They had a different culture, different language and different skin color.
"The natives didn't worry much at first because the foreign WPs were willing to live where the natives were not willing. They could and would do the jobs that the natives couldn't or didn't want to. But then the natives felt encroached upon. Everywhere they looked there were uninvited foreigners. And those foreigners chose to bring their own cultures with them instead of adapting to the cultures that already existed in America.
"This angered the natives. All of the good places to live were being stolen by the WPs, and all the good game was being hunted and eaten by these invaders. On top of that, they felt that they were owed something when they tried to trade with the natives. The WPs couldnt seem to accept the fact that nobody had invited them to come to America and kill, burn and eat everything in sight.
"The natives got together and decided to do something. They politely asked for the foreigners to leave. That didn't work. So, they set up guards, minutemen as it were, along the shores, but that didn't stop the boatloads from arriving. Finally the natives couldn't take it anymore, after being backed into a tiny corner of the country the lashed out against the invaders.
"And were promptly killed.
"When they had almost finished with their extermination, the WPs felt bad. They decided to be generous and give isolated and desolate pockets of land to the natives. Where they live to this day.
"And everybody lived happily ever after.
"You see my aromatic and homeless friend, because these two cultures wanted to live in the same country, but could not live together, problems arose and civilizations crumbled. Luckily this is not a problem we have today. America is open to everybody, regardless of race, religion, creed, sexual orientation, pizza topping preference and shoe size.
"Today in America, we have learned from the mistakes of our forefathers and will never again stumble in our goal for a unity and cultural harmony."
At this point, apparently satisfied, my newly educated wino friend will help me to my feet and wander away to ponder my incredibly deep words and probably find himself a liquid dinner.
Irony is lost on some people.
Mommy Dearest
(Originally written Saturday, May 13, 2006)
Wow, is it Mothers Day again? Didn't I just take a whole 15 seconds out of my extremely busy and important schedule last year to vaguely remember a person who may have been a part of my distant past? Do I really have to do it again?
Just kidding, really. I like Mothers Day. It gives me a chance to buy some wild, out-there presents instead of the usual flowers, given by sons without thought or love. See, you're allowed to give goofy presents on Mothers Day, because it's not a birthday and its not Christmas, (or another Winter Solstice holiday where gifts are exchanged) so you don't have to worry about hurting feelings with thoughtless presents.
My memory of Mothers Day presents is quite hazy, as I'm sure her memory of the presents she's received is hazy, (maybe not though, moms seem to have a good memory about things their kids give them.) If I recall correctly I once gave her a Bonsai tree. Another time I gave her a tie, (I got the parents days confused) And I've given her such amazing gifts as a day at the spa, seven maids a milking, and head lice.
But this year I'm going all out. I ordered some cheesecakes from an online site. There are six of them and they're bite-size or something. I don't know, I don't like or eat cheesecakes, so I didn't really look too hard into it. But I know women do, and it just so happens, (oh wonder of wonders!) that my mother is a woman! Isn't that a fortunate coincidence? I'm sure she'll enjoy the cakes. If my sister doesn't eat them first that is.(That's right Nunya, I said it.)
So, do we all appreciate our mothers? Some people do. I know some of my friends have gone the extra mile. They still live with their moms. That way they dont just show their love and appreciation one day a year. No, they show their love 365 days a year!
And what better way to show love than to leave empty milk cartons in the fridge, messes in the kitchen sink and randomly strewn boxers with shit streaks on them all about the house? I can't think of one.
Sadly, not all of us are caring and giving enough to do this for our mothers. It's sad but true, I know. Some people are so selfish that they have deprived their mothers of the chance to clean up behind them and take care of them. We should be ashamed of ourselves! And it takes this time of year for us to realize just how self-centered we all are. So I think that for this Mothers Day we should all start thinking of our mothers and not of ourselves. Don't buy her flowers, don't buy her gifts, don't make her breakfast in bed, don't make one of those goofy, cheesy coupons, (good for one day of leaving the toilet seat down.) Drop everything you're doing and if you don't already live with your mom, go to her house and make yourself a big heavy load on her life. Mothers love to feel needed and important. So show up at her door with an empty stomach and a full load of dirty laundry. Look at tears of joy on her face when opens the door and she sees you. Thats because she understands just how much you love her.
Happy Mothers Day you loads!
Wow, is it Mothers Day again? Didn't I just take a whole 15 seconds out of my extremely busy and important schedule last year to vaguely remember a person who may have been a part of my distant past? Do I really have to do it again?
Just kidding, really. I like Mothers Day. It gives me a chance to buy some wild, out-there presents instead of the usual flowers, given by sons without thought or love. See, you're allowed to give goofy presents on Mothers Day, because it's not a birthday and its not Christmas, (or another Winter Solstice holiday where gifts are exchanged) so you don't have to worry about hurting feelings with thoughtless presents.
My memory of Mothers Day presents is quite hazy, as I'm sure her memory of the presents she's received is hazy, (maybe not though, moms seem to have a good memory about things their kids give them.) If I recall correctly I once gave her a Bonsai tree. Another time I gave her a tie, (I got the parents days confused) And I've given her such amazing gifts as a day at the spa, seven maids a milking, and head lice.
But this year I'm going all out. I ordered some cheesecakes from an online site. There are six of them and they're bite-size or something. I don't know, I don't like or eat cheesecakes, so I didn't really look too hard into it. But I know women do, and it just so happens, (oh wonder of wonders!) that my mother is a woman! Isn't that a fortunate coincidence? I'm sure she'll enjoy the cakes. If my sister doesn't eat them first that is.(That's right Nunya, I said it.)
So, do we all appreciate our mothers? Some people do. I know some of my friends have gone the extra mile. They still live with their moms. That way they dont just show their love and appreciation one day a year. No, they show their love 365 days a year!
And what better way to show love than to leave empty milk cartons in the fridge, messes in the kitchen sink and randomly strewn boxers with shit streaks on them all about the house? I can't think of one.
Sadly, not all of us are caring and giving enough to do this for our mothers. It's sad but true, I know. Some people are so selfish that they have deprived their mothers of the chance to clean up behind them and take care of them. We should be ashamed of ourselves! And it takes this time of year for us to realize just how self-centered we all are. So I think that for this Mothers Day we should all start thinking of our mothers and not of ourselves. Don't buy her flowers, don't buy her gifts, don't make her breakfast in bed, don't make one of those goofy, cheesy coupons, (good for one day of leaving the toilet seat down.) Drop everything you're doing and if you don't already live with your mom, go to her house and make yourself a big heavy load on her life. Mothers love to feel needed and important. So show up at her door with an empty stomach and a full load of dirty laundry. Look at tears of joy on her face when opens the door and she sees you. Thats because she understands just how much you love her.
Happy Mothers Day you loads!
More movies I think I could do without
(Originally written Thursday, May 11, 2006)
The follow up to my highly praised and very controversial column about movies I didn't like, (or, in most cases, downright hate) will begin.............................................now.
Office Space: Do I dare speak against this cult classic? I do. Don't give me that bullshit about having to work in an office to get it, because I do work in one and I don't get it. Everything about this movie just strikes me as off. From Jennifer Aniston working in a wack-ass family themed restaurant, to dated jokes about Michael Bolton, its all extremely unfunny. Red staplers and weird office losers do not a movie make. I don't like anything by Mike Judge; Beavis and Butthead, Office Space and King of the Hill all just strike a bad nerve with me.
Donnie Darko: I wish I could like this movie more. Unfortunately, since I have no idea whats going on in the movie, I must give this flick a thumb down. You know whats funny? The director has no idea whats going on in his own movie. I watched it with the directors commentary once and I remember him being extremely confused by what he had wrought.
"See, I made water and metal very important themes in this movie. They are symbols. Of what, I have no idea," the director probably said at one point. It was something like that anyway. I did like the song at the end and the part where they were rockin that Tears for Fears song, but that was it.
Theres Something about Mary: Yeah, there's something about Mary alright, a bunch of crap! This movie is so dumb I can't even talk about it anymore without seeing stars and blacking out. Next!
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: Ooh, I know I'm going to get some angry letters about this one. But I gotta do it. I am going to make one of the boldest statements you were ever hear from me that is not politically related. Ready: WILL FARREL IS NOT AS FUNNY AS HE THINKS HE IS (notice how that statement was bold.) Every movie he does is an ode to himself. If somebody is foolish enough to turn a camera on him hell go on forever, thinking everything he says is comedic gold, which it is not. You want proof? How about Kicking and Screaming? That shit looked so dumb I bet one out of ten people who read this actually saw that movie.
Farrel let things go to his head upon leaving Saturday Night Live. I, for one, think he needs to be stopped!
Brokeback Mountain: I'm not actually against this movie at all. I just think there's too much damn hype about it. People need to calm down on that tip. Go see it if you want. I won't, because no matter how many people scream at me that this movie is a very powerful love story I still see it as a flick about two guys getting nutty (literally!) while wearing cowboy hats. Plus, what guy wants to see a love story anyway, (except for Love Actually, that shit was poignant and funny) whether its about a guy and a girl or two guys? No guy does, unless...
Unless the characters in love happen to be ninjas who kill insane amounts of people while trying to work out their feelings out for each other. I might consider watching that.
Alright, thats enough whining for now. If I don't pace myself I'll be worn out way too soon. I guess I could counter this by writing about movies I love, but I've already done that in the newspaper I work for. So, for now, I'll just have to stop drinking so much Hatorade.
The follow up to my highly praised and very controversial column about movies I didn't like, (or, in most cases, downright hate) will begin.............................................now.
Office Space: Do I dare speak against this cult classic? I do. Don't give me that bullshit about having to work in an office to get it, because I do work in one and I don't get it. Everything about this movie just strikes me as off. From Jennifer Aniston working in a wack-ass family themed restaurant, to dated jokes about Michael Bolton, its all extremely unfunny. Red staplers and weird office losers do not a movie make. I don't like anything by Mike Judge; Beavis and Butthead, Office Space and King of the Hill all just strike a bad nerve with me.
Donnie Darko: I wish I could like this movie more. Unfortunately, since I have no idea whats going on in the movie, I must give this flick a thumb down. You know whats funny? The director has no idea whats going on in his own movie. I watched it with the directors commentary once and I remember him being extremely confused by what he had wrought.
"See, I made water and metal very important themes in this movie. They are symbols. Of what, I have no idea," the director probably said at one point. It was something like that anyway. I did like the song at the end and the part where they were rockin that Tears for Fears song, but that was it.
Theres Something about Mary: Yeah, there's something about Mary alright, a bunch of crap! This movie is so dumb I can't even talk about it anymore without seeing stars and blacking out. Next!
Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy: Ooh, I know I'm going to get some angry letters about this one. But I gotta do it. I am going to make one of the boldest statements you were ever hear from me that is not politically related. Ready: WILL FARREL IS NOT AS FUNNY AS HE THINKS HE IS (notice how that statement was bold.) Every movie he does is an ode to himself. If somebody is foolish enough to turn a camera on him hell go on forever, thinking everything he says is comedic gold, which it is not. You want proof? How about Kicking and Screaming? That shit looked so dumb I bet one out of ten people who read this actually saw that movie.
Farrel let things go to his head upon leaving Saturday Night Live. I, for one, think he needs to be stopped!
Brokeback Mountain: I'm not actually against this movie at all. I just think there's too much damn hype about it. People need to calm down on that tip. Go see it if you want. I won't, because no matter how many people scream at me that this movie is a very powerful love story I still see it as a flick about two guys getting nutty (literally!) while wearing cowboy hats. Plus, what guy wants to see a love story anyway, (except for Love Actually, that shit was poignant and funny) whether its about a guy and a girl or two guys? No guy does, unless...
Unless the characters in love happen to be ninjas who kill insane amounts of people while trying to work out their feelings out for each other. I might consider watching that.
Alright, thats enough whining for now. If I don't pace myself I'll be worn out way too soon. I guess I could counter this by writing about movies I love, but I've already done that in the newspaper I work for. So, for now, I'll just have to stop drinking so much Hatorade.
Freedom of the Press doesn’t count in the military
(Originally written Saturday, May 06, 2006)
For those who don't know, (and in case I've forgotten to put it in previous columns) I'm in Iraq. Surprise!
Anyway, while I'm out here, (in Iraq) I write for a little magazine that my office puts out, with a circulation of 10,000 called Band of Brothers. It's not a very imaginative name for a magazine. I would have picked something like Read This Damn You! Or maybe Zonk! (it's an army thing). I don't do much writing actually, mostly just a little goofy top ten list. This list wasn't my idea, I'd like to point out. I'm used to doing a humor column, (Eighty-Four Glyde anyone?) but for some reason my boss thought I'd be good at doing a Dave Letterman-style, (I guess, I don't actually watch the show its on past my bed-time) top ten list.
Well, there's a small problem with that. I have a slight, (slight I tell you!) problem with authority. I also am not a big fan of the military, or being in the army. And sadly, I tend to bite the hand that feeds me.
I found out today that my top ten list for next month has been deemed offensive, insulting and demeaning to my fellow soldiers. I didn't see any of that, I thought it was both funny and extremely true. For those previously mentioned reasons it has been pulled from the issue, and I had to write a new top ten list, (Top Ten Places to Go on Vacation) which wasn't funny in anyway.
Well, since I can't put this banned top ten list in the magazine, I decided to use this damn blog for what it's actually intended for and put it here. So that's what I'm going to do!
Most of you aren't in the army, (I have few army friends) so you might not get everything in the list. To this end I will put explanations to anything I think people wont understand here.
CYA = Cover Your Ass
Gee, I guess that's it. Oh, the key chains I refer to are these ugly little things that say "Stay on the Team." People also get thermal coffee mugs, coins, license plate holders, stickers and I don't know what the hell else, because there's no chance I'm going to re-enlist.
Alright, without further ado, here is my:
Top Ten Reasons to Re-enlist
10. Because if G.I. Joe taught us anything, it's that evil never stops trying to turn everybody into snakes, or robots, or something.
9. Because you know you love having a job where you can randomly order around anybody you outrank.
8. Face it, you've been in the Army so long you wouldn't know what the current fashion is if somebody in a Sean John outfit came up and punched you in the head.
7. Where else would it be possible for a person with 15 years of experience in a job to be bossed around by somebody fresh out of college?
6. Being awarded for doing your job correctly: Worth a lot.
Not getting in trouble because of fine military tradition of CYA: Priceless.
5. The Army will clothe you, house you, feed you, pay you, give you free vacations to distant lands and a weapon to shoot. What more could you ask for?
4. What else would you do, join the Coast Guard?
3. Because there are just so many neat country music songs written about Soldiers.
2. Its the best way to get one of those nifty little key chains.
1. Gotta pay those bills!
See? That wasnt so bad. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe I'm just insensitive and cruel for no good reason. Maybe I'm too observant and cynical for my own good. I dunno. Whatever the problem is, it leads to hilariously wacky results. Now I just need to come up with another top ten idea...
For those who don't know, (and in case I've forgotten to put it in previous columns) I'm in Iraq. Surprise!
Anyway, while I'm out here, (in Iraq) I write for a little magazine that my office puts out, with a circulation of 10,000 called Band of Brothers. It's not a very imaginative name for a magazine. I would have picked something like Read This Damn You! Or maybe Zonk! (it's an army thing). I don't do much writing actually, mostly just a little goofy top ten list. This list wasn't my idea, I'd like to point out. I'm used to doing a humor column, (Eighty-Four Glyde anyone?) but for some reason my boss thought I'd be good at doing a Dave Letterman-style, (I guess, I don't actually watch the show its on past my bed-time) top ten list.
Well, there's a small problem with that. I have a slight, (slight I tell you!) problem with authority. I also am not a big fan of the military, or being in the army. And sadly, I tend to bite the hand that feeds me.
I found out today that my top ten list for next month has been deemed offensive, insulting and demeaning to my fellow soldiers. I didn't see any of that, I thought it was both funny and extremely true. For those previously mentioned reasons it has been pulled from the issue, and I had to write a new top ten list, (Top Ten Places to Go on Vacation) which wasn't funny in anyway.
Well, since I can't put this banned top ten list in the magazine, I decided to use this damn blog for what it's actually intended for and put it here. So that's what I'm going to do!
Most of you aren't in the army, (I have few army friends) so you might not get everything in the list. To this end I will put explanations to anything I think people wont understand here.
CYA = Cover Your Ass
Gee, I guess that's it. Oh, the key chains I refer to are these ugly little things that say "Stay on the Team." People also get thermal coffee mugs, coins, license plate holders, stickers and I don't know what the hell else, because there's no chance I'm going to re-enlist.
Alright, without further ado, here is my:
Top Ten Reasons to Re-enlist
10. Because if G.I. Joe taught us anything, it's that evil never stops trying to turn everybody into snakes, or robots, or something.
9. Because you know you love having a job where you can randomly order around anybody you outrank.
8. Face it, you've been in the Army so long you wouldn't know what the current fashion is if somebody in a Sean John outfit came up and punched you in the head.
7. Where else would it be possible for a person with 15 years of experience in a job to be bossed around by somebody fresh out of college?
6. Being awarded for doing your job correctly: Worth a lot.
Not getting in trouble because of fine military tradition of CYA: Priceless.
5. The Army will clothe you, house you, feed you, pay you, give you free vacations to distant lands and a weapon to shoot. What more could you ask for?
4. What else would you do, join the Coast Guard?
3. Because there are just so many neat country music songs written about Soldiers.
2. Its the best way to get one of those nifty little key chains.
1. Gotta pay those bills!
See? That wasnt so bad. I don't know what the problem is. Maybe I'm just insensitive and cruel for no good reason. Maybe I'm too observant and cynical for my own good. I dunno. Whatever the problem is, it leads to hilariously wacky results. Now I just need to come up with another top ten idea...
The new (and improved) SATs
(Originally written Wednesday, May 03, 2006)
High school students fear it, college administrators live by it and most adults have forgotten the pain and suffering it can cause.
I'm talking about the SATs. The scores people receive on that test may very well determine the college they get into and therefore the outcome of their very lives! Nothing in the history of human existence has ever been as important as the SATs. We must all bow down and worship at the altar of SATs!
Theres just one small problem -- the test is straight booty. As a measure of a persons intelligence and ability to do well in school, it has been measured and found wanting, big time. It doesn't really figure out anybody's aptitude in anything except, maybe, staying awake during times of intense boredom.
Due to the fact that its used by colleges are proof as intelligence, the SATs have come under oodles of fire, and more name changes than Sean Combs. At first it was known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test. But that wasn't good enough for people since, as mentioned earlier, it doesn't actually measure aptitude. Then, it was changed to the Scholastic Assessment Test, until some grammar Nazis pointed out that they can drop either the word assessment or test, as using both is redundant.
So now, and here's the beautiful thing, SAT doesn't stand for anything. Its just SAT. Isn't that just the bees knees?
Want to know a secret? I took the SATs three times. That's right, thrice, (for those who want to know the score, too bad. I'm going to follow my friend Veronica's playbook and reveal nothing!) And guess what: I cheated the last time! Yeah! You know how the proctor says you're not allowed to look back at previous section once you've moved on? Well I did! I threw all caution to the wind and flipped back to previous sections at will! I really needed the help too. As previously mentioned my math skills are about as good as Bob Doles ability to get it up without Viagra: nonexistent. Besides, at least I was doing something with my spare time. My peers would all sleep after finishing a section, (I bet some of you did it to.)
Anyway, the SATs are outdated. No longer relevant. Pointless. A relic of society group-think that is no longer popular.
It's time for a change. And I am going to be the instrument of that change, because I'm just that type of guy.
First off, all math questions should be true or false, that way math 'tards like myself have only a 50-50 percent chance of getting something wrong, instead of a 75 percent chance. I like those odds.
We should put more of an emphasis on spelling words, not so much on pointless analogies. I mean, do we really need to know that Taint is to Gooch as Toupee is to Merkin? No. We need people to know when to use their, there and they're. And other such basic constructs of the English language, cause they're some relly stupid peopel out their.
We should also add a Spanish section. Because regardless of how some people hate to admit it, use of that language is growing. Did you know that Hispanics now make up the largest minority group in the United States? Well I knew it, which is why I decided to spread the knowledge. A Spanish section would be good because I like empanadas, (except for the egg part. Whats that about?) and because I swear I'm getting cussed out by some people all the time and I have no idea what theyre saying. Its time to combat that.
By far, the most important part of the SATs would be a section on common sense. Heres a sampling of how that would go:
1) Jumping off your garage to impress your friends is:
a) Stupid b) Just going to end up as a clip on somebodys Myspace page
c) Bound to lead to d) Dude, that would be sweet!
severe injuries and
embarrassment
2) You're a female 16-year-old junior in high school. You're about to have unprotected sex with your boyfriend. Your thoughts at the moment are:
a) This may not be the best idea b) if its a boy I'll
name him Bart, if
its a girl I'll call her Lisa
c) Is there a cure for AIDS yet? d) uh-oh
The beauty of the new common sense section is that theres a 75 percent chance of getting the right answer. It should help people to see the errors of their ways. The new SATs will not just help colleges figure out who they should allow the benefit of giving them bank account-crippling amounts of money, but will help people get through their regular lives too. Hell, I'm a genius for figuring this out. All this from a guy who didn't even score in the double digits in the old version. What can I say?
High school students fear it, college administrators live by it and most adults have forgotten the pain and suffering it can cause.
I'm talking about the SATs. The scores people receive on that test may very well determine the college they get into and therefore the outcome of their very lives! Nothing in the history of human existence has ever been as important as the SATs. We must all bow down and worship at the altar of SATs!
Theres just one small problem -- the test is straight booty. As a measure of a persons intelligence and ability to do well in school, it has been measured and found wanting, big time. It doesn't really figure out anybody's aptitude in anything except, maybe, staying awake during times of intense boredom.
Due to the fact that its used by colleges are proof as intelligence, the SATs have come under oodles of fire, and more name changes than Sean Combs. At first it was known as the Scholastic Aptitude Test. But that wasn't good enough for people since, as mentioned earlier, it doesn't actually measure aptitude. Then, it was changed to the Scholastic Assessment Test, until some grammar Nazis pointed out that they can drop either the word assessment or test, as using both is redundant.
So now, and here's the beautiful thing, SAT doesn't stand for anything. Its just SAT. Isn't that just the bees knees?
Want to know a secret? I took the SATs three times. That's right, thrice, (for those who want to know the score, too bad. I'm going to follow my friend Veronica's playbook and reveal nothing!) And guess what: I cheated the last time! Yeah! You know how the proctor says you're not allowed to look back at previous section once you've moved on? Well I did! I threw all caution to the wind and flipped back to previous sections at will! I really needed the help too. As previously mentioned my math skills are about as good as Bob Doles ability to get it up without Viagra: nonexistent. Besides, at least I was doing something with my spare time. My peers would all sleep after finishing a section, (I bet some of you did it to.)
Anyway, the SATs are outdated. No longer relevant. Pointless. A relic of society group-think that is no longer popular.
It's time for a change. And I am going to be the instrument of that change, because I'm just that type of guy.
First off, all math questions should be true or false, that way math 'tards like myself have only a 50-50 percent chance of getting something wrong, instead of a 75 percent chance. I like those odds.
We should put more of an emphasis on spelling words, not so much on pointless analogies. I mean, do we really need to know that Taint is to Gooch as Toupee is to Merkin? No. We need people to know when to use their, there and they're. And other such basic constructs of the English language, cause they're some relly stupid peopel out their.
We should also add a Spanish section. Because regardless of how some people hate to admit it, use of that language is growing. Did you know that Hispanics now make up the largest minority group in the United States? Well I knew it, which is why I decided to spread the knowledge. A Spanish section would be good because I like empanadas, (except for the egg part. Whats that about?) and because I swear I'm getting cussed out by some people all the time and I have no idea what theyre saying. Its time to combat that.
By far, the most important part of the SATs would be a section on common sense. Heres a sampling of how that would go:
1) Jumping off your garage to impress your friends is:
a) Stupid b) Just going to end up as a clip on somebodys Myspace page
c) Bound to lead to d) Dude, that would be sweet!
severe injuries and
embarrassment
2) You're a female 16-year-old junior in high school. You're about to have unprotected sex with your boyfriend. Your thoughts at the moment are:
a) This may not be the best idea b) if its a boy I'll
name him Bart, if
its a girl I'll call her Lisa
c) Is there a cure for AIDS yet? d) uh-oh
The beauty of the new common sense section is that theres a 75 percent chance of getting the right answer. It should help people to see the errors of their ways. The new SATs will not just help colleges figure out who they should allow the benefit of giving them bank account-crippling amounts of money, but will help people get through their regular lives too. Hell, I'm a genius for figuring this out. All this from a guy who didn't even score in the double digits in the old version. What can I say?
Be Prepared, even if you’re not a Boy Scout
(Originally written Monday, April 24, 2006)
Let us imagine a hypothetical situation. Imagine, if you will, the end of civilization. Popular culture has taught us that the end of our known, civilized world can happen in a variety of ways. After all, humans are nothing if not welcoming of choices.
Our deaths could come from the environment and the natural world, in the form of global warming, volcanoes, (true, it'd have to be a whole mess of volcanoes but L. Ron Hubbard seems to think its possible) floods, tornadoes, suspect ice ages that appear suddenly, locusts, sociologists, etc.
Another option is a deadly virus or virulent organism. This virus would tear through the population killing almost everybody and leaving only those with a natural immunity or who are safely removed from the bacteria. Not a pleasant way to go, There'd be dead bodies everywhere, and I know I ain't cleaning them all up.
The favorite and classic way is through nuclear holocaust. It's a great old standby. The best part of the nuclear explosions concept is that it leaves space for the rise of nuclear zombies, outrageous mutants and other weird things.
Any way you look at it, society is fascinated with the idea of its own destruction. And for good reason. Humans are crazy! I mean, have any of you been paying attention to what's going on in the world? Its the End of Days people; were only minutes away from oblivion! Repent! Repent before all is lost!!!!!
Alright, I'm glad I got that out of my system. Anyway, all I'm saying is that society could go at any time, were just stupid and crazy enough to do it. So the question is: How ready are you for after the Apocalypse?
I gotta tell you, other than a basic knowledge of how to tie different knots, how to start a fire and how to build a truly crappy pine wood derby racer, boy scouts didn't really help me out. Although, should the apocalypse blot out the sun and all light, I would still be able to put up a tent. So I've got that going for me.
All the army taught me is how to cover my own ass in situations so I don't get in trouble and how to drink excessively. Two areas that won't be very helpful when my family and friends are dropping like flies around me.
The only thing that helps me sleep at night is knowing that not bothering to learn any useless math in school has probably freed up plenty of brain cells for the use in learning which bugs are the most edible and perhaps how to build a rudimentary lathe, using materials on hand, (you know what I'm talking about Nerg!)
We can't all be some mountain men/MacGyver types. Sure knowing how to hunt and skin animals would be useful knowledge. Sure I'd be happy if I knew how to build a windmill or water wheel to generate power for my home. But I doubt I'm going to be able to google any of that information after the fall of civilization. So I'll have to settle for other means of self-preservation.
Generators, iodine pills to purify water, propane, solar and battery powered junx. These are all well and good. Maybe starting my own little garden would be good too. I certainly can't forget plenty of canned foodstuffs, (I'm talking about vegetable, meats and soups, not useless crap like water chestnuts. I've got a can of those right now. Tell me, what can I do with water chestnuts out in the desert?!)
The key, in this situation, is to never go overboard with preparations. Gathering canned foods and a few cases of M.R.E.s, (Meals, Ready to Eat. Standard military food. If you're down for food that tastes like year-old dog food and enjoy one bowel movement a week, then this will be right up your alley. I just don't understand why theyre not called R.E.M. Ready to Eat Meals. Or better yet, A.I.R.S.E.T. Am I Really Supposed to Eat This?) is a sign of preparedness. Building a concrete bunker in your backyard and surrounding it with barbed wire might be considered a little much.
Having plenty of bottled water on hand is smart. Perfecting a technique that allows you to drink your own urine is a little weird.
A few gas masks in your possession is sensible, complete HAZMAT suits with decontamination chambers is not.
If you're rich enough you can just buy your own island. Then you don't have to worry about anything previously mentioned. Viruses wont make it there, zombies and post-apocalyptic biker gangs can't swim there and as long as you're not living in a trailer, the tornadoes will leave you alone.
See? Its not hard to prepare for the future.
I considered doing all of the stuff I mentioned, and more, when I get back to America and I go build my own log cabin out in the backwoods of Michigan somewhere. But I decided thats entirely too much work. Instead, I'll just go move next to somebody whos made all these preparations. Then, the only thing I'll have to buy is a gun. Because I don't know just how neighborly that person will be when the time comes to share his fallout bunker.
I'll need lots of ammo too. After all youve got to be prepared.
Let us imagine a hypothetical situation. Imagine, if you will, the end of civilization. Popular culture has taught us that the end of our known, civilized world can happen in a variety of ways. After all, humans are nothing if not welcoming of choices.
Our deaths could come from the environment and the natural world, in the form of global warming, volcanoes, (true, it'd have to be a whole mess of volcanoes but L. Ron Hubbard seems to think its possible) floods, tornadoes, suspect ice ages that appear suddenly, locusts, sociologists, etc.
Another option is a deadly virus or virulent organism. This virus would tear through the population killing almost everybody and leaving only those with a natural immunity or who are safely removed from the bacteria. Not a pleasant way to go, There'd be dead bodies everywhere, and I know I ain't cleaning them all up.
The favorite and classic way is through nuclear holocaust. It's a great old standby. The best part of the nuclear explosions concept is that it leaves space for the rise of nuclear zombies, outrageous mutants and other weird things.
Any way you look at it, society is fascinated with the idea of its own destruction. And for good reason. Humans are crazy! I mean, have any of you been paying attention to what's going on in the world? Its the End of Days people; were only minutes away from oblivion! Repent! Repent before all is lost!!!!!
Alright, I'm glad I got that out of my system. Anyway, all I'm saying is that society could go at any time, were just stupid and crazy enough to do it. So the question is: How ready are you for after the Apocalypse?
I gotta tell you, other than a basic knowledge of how to tie different knots, how to start a fire and how to build a truly crappy pine wood derby racer, boy scouts didn't really help me out. Although, should the apocalypse blot out the sun and all light, I would still be able to put up a tent. So I've got that going for me.
All the army taught me is how to cover my own ass in situations so I don't get in trouble and how to drink excessively. Two areas that won't be very helpful when my family and friends are dropping like flies around me.
The only thing that helps me sleep at night is knowing that not bothering to learn any useless math in school has probably freed up plenty of brain cells for the use in learning which bugs are the most edible and perhaps how to build a rudimentary lathe, using materials on hand, (you know what I'm talking about Nerg!)
We can't all be some mountain men/MacGyver types. Sure knowing how to hunt and skin animals would be useful knowledge. Sure I'd be happy if I knew how to build a windmill or water wheel to generate power for my home. But I doubt I'm going to be able to google any of that information after the fall of civilization. So I'll have to settle for other means of self-preservation.
Generators, iodine pills to purify water, propane, solar and battery powered junx. These are all well and good. Maybe starting my own little garden would be good too. I certainly can't forget plenty of canned foodstuffs, (I'm talking about vegetable, meats and soups, not useless crap like water chestnuts. I've got a can of those right now. Tell me, what can I do with water chestnuts out in the desert?!)
The key, in this situation, is to never go overboard with preparations. Gathering canned foods and a few cases of M.R.E.s, (Meals, Ready to Eat. Standard military food. If you're down for food that tastes like year-old dog food and enjoy one bowel movement a week, then this will be right up your alley. I just don't understand why theyre not called R.E.M. Ready to Eat Meals. Or better yet, A.I.R.S.E.T. Am I Really Supposed to Eat This?) is a sign of preparedness. Building a concrete bunker in your backyard and surrounding it with barbed wire might be considered a little much.
Having plenty of bottled water on hand is smart. Perfecting a technique that allows you to drink your own urine is a little weird.
A few gas masks in your possession is sensible, complete HAZMAT suits with decontamination chambers is not.
If you're rich enough you can just buy your own island. Then you don't have to worry about anything previously mentioned. Viruses wont make it there, zombies and post-apocalyptic biker gangs can't swim there and as long as you're not living in a trailer, the tornadoes will leave you alone.
See? Its not hard to prepare for the future.
I considered doing all of the stuff I mentioned, and more, when I get back to America and I go build my own log cabin out in the backwoods of Michigan somewhere. But I decided thats entirely too much work. Instead, I'll just go move next to somebody whos made all these preparations. Then, the only thing I'll have to buy is a gun. Because I don't know just how neighborly that person will be when the time comes to share his fallout bunker.
I'll need lots of ammo too. After all youve got to be prepared.
Movie questions (I couldn't think of a catchy title)
(Originally written Friday, April 21, 2006)
Why, in movies, is it that when characters are trying to convince an authority figure of their sanity, they always say the craziest thing possible? (Listen to me Doc, there's a cyborg from the future come to kill me before I have a son who will one day become the leader of a human revolution to topple their evil robot overlords!)
Why, when being chased by a monster or killer, do people always run upstairs instead of outside? (Well, if I go outside I can get away and perhaps flag down some help. But, if I run upstairs I can back myself into a corner to make it easier for Jason to kill me, or, if I'm lucky, plummet out a window to my unavoidable demise. Gee, thats a tough choice. I guess I'll go upstairs!)
Why are movie cops always so skeptical of what they are told by the protagonist? (A guy is chasing you with a knife? Yeah, sure buddy. Let me just walk into this deserted building without any backup to check out your wacky story.)
What in hell compels movie lovers to kiss first thing in the morning when they wake up? (My ability to kiss you when your breath smells worse then Al Roker's boxers after he gets Mudbutt, proves my love for you!)
Is deodorant just an option in movieland?
When people spontaneous break out into song and dance numbers, why do the random extras always know the choreography?
Why is it when characters go to clubs they can always talk and understand each other so easily? It isn't like that in real life. (Here, lets conduct our conversation in front of these 12-foot high speakers, it's more private.)
Movie drug dealers always assume that when doing a transaction, their partners are always going to try and kill them and steal their money/product. Is that really any way to do business? You'd get no repeat customers!
Why are so many movie plots based around the most ridiculous coincidences? There are so many examples, I wouldn't know where to start.
You've been out in the jungle for a week, fighting natives and hunting for treasure; is kissing and hugging a hot chick the first thing you're going to do? (Well, we just escaped being eaten by the Jungle Cannibal Tribe, I think I should show how much I love you!)
Why is it that no matter what the time, day or night, that a person turns on the television or radio, do news broadcasts always show the specific thing that will further the plot?
Why are movie ghosts automatically so violent and evil?
Does anybody realize how silly most romantic comedy plots are? Time travel, notorious and surreptitiously-operating romance therapists, bets, the C.I.A., escorts, angels, how many weird ass ways can two people meet?
People sure do sober up quick in movies when they want to, don't they?
Why is it that singers can become actors (Ice Cube, Queen Latifa) but actors can't become singers (Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Don Johnson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, etc.)?
Are we really supposed to believe that a doll, or other tiny things, can bring a grown man to his knees? How hard would it be to just pick up Chucky and rip his frickin arms and legs off? Hes a toy!
Do I even need to bring up the unlimited ammo people have in movies?
Why is it that when people wake up and their clocks say its only 6 in the morning its already midday-bright outside?
Why, in rom coms is somebody so willing to do something totally out of character and slightly stalkerish to prove their love? Did Drew Barrymore really need to run across the damn baseball field to get to Jimmy Fallon in time? Did that one lady really have to run through New York barefooted to reach Crocodile Dundee before he left on the subway? Speaking of which, why are the conclusions to romantic movies always focused around deadlines?
Why is it that when two people are having a cell phone conversation and they hang up there's dial tone? Are there special cell phones around that I don't know about?
Why is Harrison Ford still being cast as an action hero? I mean, I love the guy, but lets give him a break, shall we?
Why will that one guy always be known as Stifler, no matter what he does?
Why does Hollywood love movies that make fun of itself so much? The rest of the world doesnt.
Bad guys: are they in a union that requires them to stand in a circle around the hero and attack him one at a time? Does this same union require them to have worse aim with a rifle than Helen Keller?
How come you dont see more alien chicks with three boobs? The one in Total Recall wasnt enough.
Why do movies about the future always project their current technology? For example, all futuristic movies from the 80s still had dot matrix printers and those cheesy ass Apple 2 computer monitors that were all green. All futuristic movies from the 60s had worlds populated with hippies and computers that spit out cards with holes in them for an interface. Futuristic movies from the 70s had people with stupid 70s hair, (i.e. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.)
Why do horror movies always do the fake scare, like a bird flying out of something suddenly and startling the protagonist, and then follow it immediately with the real scare? Weve seen the trick a trillion times, we know whats going to happen by now.
There are so many things out there to make movies about, we dont need remakes do we? Especially ones that are exactly like the original, shot for shot, line for line (the recent Psycho remake comes to mind)?
Why do people in theaters always laugh at jokes they've seen a hundred times in the t.v. commercials?
Why can't I think of a funny and clever last question that ties everything up in a funny and clever way?
Why, in movies, is it that when characters are trying to convince an authority figure of their sanity, they always say the craziest thing possible? (Listen to me Doc, there's a cyborg from the future come to kill me before I have a son who will one day become the leader of a human revolution to topple their evil robot overlords!)
Why, when being chased by a monster or killer, do people always run upstairs instead of outside? (Well, if I go outside I can get away and perhaps flag down some help. But, if I run upstairs I can back myself into a corner to make it easier for Jason to kill me, or, if I'm lucky, plummet out a window to my unavoidable demise. Gee, thats a tough choice. I guess I'll go upstairs!)
Why are movie cops always so skeptical of what they are told by the protagonist? (A guy is chasing you with a knife? Yeah, sure buddy. Let me just walk into this deserted building without any backup to check out your wacky story.)
What in hell compels movie lovers to kiss first thing in the morning when they wake up? (My ability to kiss you when your breath smells worse then Al Roker's boxers after he gets Mudbutt, proves my love for you!)
Is deodorant just an option in movieland?
When people spontaneous break out into song and dance numbers, why do the random extras always know the choreography?
Why is it when characters go to clubs they can always talk and understand each other so easily? It isn't like that in real life. (Here, lets conduct our conversation in front of these 12-foot high speakers, it's more private.)
Movie drug dealers always assume that when doing a transaction, their partners are always going to try and kill them and steal their money/product. Is that really any way to do business? You'd get no repeat customers!
Why are so many movie plots based around the most ridiculous coincidences? There are so many examples, I wouldn't know where to start.
You've been out in the jungle for a week, fighting natives and hunting for treasure; is kissing and hugging a hot chick the first thing you're going to do? (Well, we just escaped being eaten by the Jungle Cannibal Tribe, I think I should show how much I love you!)
Why is it that no matter what the time, day or night, that a person turns on the television or radio, do news broadcasts always show the specific thing that will further the plot?
Why are movie ghosts automatically so violent and evil?
Does anybody realize how silly most romantic comedy plots are? Time travel, notorious and surreptitiously-operating romance therapists, bets, the C.I.A., escorts, angels, how many weird ass ways can two people meet?
People sure do sober up quick in movies when they want to, don't they?
Why is it that singers can become actors (Ice Cube, Queen Latifa) but actors can't become singers (Bruce Willis, Eddie Murphy, Don Johnson, Jennifer Love Hewitt, etc.)?
Are we really supposed to believe that a doll, or other tiny things, can bring a grown man to his knees? How hard would it be to just pick up Chucky and rip his frickin arms and legs off? Hes a toy!
Do I even need to bring up the unlimited ammo people have in movies?
Why is it that when people wake up and their clocks say its only 6 in the morning its already midday-bright outside?
Why, in rom coms is somebody so willing to do something totally out of character and slightly stalkerish to prove their love? Did Drew Barrymore really need to run across the damn baseball field to get to Jimmy Fallon in time? Did that one lady really have to run through New York barefooted to reach Crocodile Dundee before he left on the subway? Speaking of which, why are the conclusions to romantic movies always focused around deadlines?
Why is it that when two people are having a cell phone conversation and they hang up there's dial tone? Are there special cell phones around that I don't know about?
Why is Harrison Ford still being cast as an action hero? I mean, I love the guy, but lets give him a break, shall we?
Why will that one guy always be known as Stifler, no matter what he does?
Why does Hollywood love movies that make fun of itself so much? The rest of the world doesnt.
Bad guys: are they in a union that requires them to stand in a circle around the hero and attack him one at a time? Does this same union require them to have worse aim with a rifle than Helen Keller?
How come you dont see more alien chicks with three boobs? The one in Total Recall wasnt enough.
Why do movies about the future always project their current technology? For example, all futuristic movies from the 80s still had dot matrix printers and those cheesy ass Apple 2 computer monitors that were all green. All futuristic movies from the 60s had worlds populated with hippies and computers that spit out cards with holes in them for an interface. Futuristic movies from the 70s had people with stupid 70s hair, (i.e. Luke Skywalker and Han Solo.)
Why do horror movies always do the fake scare, like a bird flying out of something suddenly and startling the protagonist, and then follow it immediately with the real scare? Weve seen the trick a trillion times, we know whats going to happen by now.
There are so many things out there to make movies about, we dont need remakes do we? Especially ones that are exactly like the original, shot for shot, line for line (the recent Psycho remake comes to mind)?
Why do people in theaters always laugh at jokes they've seen a hundred times in the t.v. commercials?
Why can't I think of a funny and clever last question that ties everything up in a funny and clever way?
I do, don't I?
(Originally written Saturday, April 15, 2006)
Awhile ago I wrote a column about marriage. The point of the column was to explain what my marriage was going to be like. Not the rambling and pointless diatribe it turned into, full of bitter and reproachful hatred toward all that is good and decent.
Oops, my bad.
Lets make this column hypothetical, that way we can get past the while question of whether or not I'll ever get married, (or who in the hell would want to marry me) and I won't sink into digression again. Okay, the hypothetical world where I'm going to get married starts......................................................................................now:
My fiance, in a night of drunkenness, decided to let me do all the planning and be in charge of the wedding. I even made her sign a statement to that effect. It was witnessed and is in every way legal and binding. Boy is she in trouble!
Now I had to put a lot of thought into this, because weddings are no laughing matter, and since this is the only wedding and marriage I plan on having, it better be pretty damn sweet.
Firstly, since I'm an atheist, the wedding ain't gonna happen in no damn place of worship. Besides, that would probably raise God's ire or something and put the hoodoo on the whole marriage. And theres nothing worse than hoodoo, you just cant get rid of it, no matter how hard you try. Its like a VD.
And, because I'm not some kind of crazy WP, I'm not going to do one of those weddings on a rollercoaster or under water. Ditto with a theme wedding where everybody is dressed as their favorite Star Trek character. It just ain't gonna happen.
No, the wedding is going to be someplace cool and worthy of my getting married there. Since I can't afford to go to the moon, (yet) thats out. So, instead, I think I'd rent out the mall in D.C. or maybe the Champs de L'Eysee in Paris. Something classy, but where you wouldn't normally think of a wedding being.
Since Bishop Don Magic Juan will be doing my memorial ceremony, it would be bad form to have him do my wedding as well. So I'm going to have an Buddhist monk do it. Not because I'm Buddhist, but because he could do some acrobatic, wire-assisted kung fu on people would try to speak now instead of holding their peace.
Hundreds, if not thousands of people would be invited. So would the press. Naturally I'll be a big famous writer by then, so everybody would want to attend. I would also charge a cover. That could be considered to be in bad taste, but it would help pay for the honeymoon, (true with fame comes large sums of money, but why spend mine when I can spend somebody elses?)
Because it would be incredibly romantic, and just the kind of crap girls go for, we would write our own vows. I'm no good at any of that sentimental junk, so I'll have Prince write mine for me. Prince is incredibly suave and has great luck with the ladies. He's not the most attractive man, so I'm guessing he's gotta be very eloquent. As long as he doesn't say anything about how he's Prince and he is funky, my vows should have my fiancee melting at the altar. I'll be listening to my iPod, (I plan on getting one some day) so it doesn't really matter what she says in her vows.
To keep people occupied and entertained during the wedding, there will be ex-Maxim models, (you know, the ones that always win the "Girl Next Door" contests) doing balloon animals for the kids. Not to mention roving Flamenco dancers, (I saw some at BWI airport once, they were great. Much better than that cheesy Austin Powers impersonator) and a mariachi band. This will make the wedding a little noisy, but it's more exciting that way.
Me, my best man and his crew of merry men will all dress in tuxes specially created by the wardrobe person from the Matrix movies. That's right, all black leather, oddly hued ties and expensive sunglasses. The bride and her chicks will be wearing Vera Wang. Dresses designed just for the wedding and can never be duplicated. They will melt at a time I've designated.
The wedding will end with a fly over by the Blue Angels. Gummy coke bottles will be dropped from the planes, because it's my favorite candy. There will be pinatas all over the place and a Faberge Egg hunt at the end.
Dinner will be prepared by all the Iron Chefs. I won't even going to get into what it all is, cause that would take pages. Suffice it to say that all of your favorite foods will be there. Of course that won't matter if you're not invited.
I'm not even going to talk about the honeymoon, that's none of your beeswax!
So, that's pretty much, in a nutshell, what the wedding will be like. There's more to it, I've got plenty of ideas, I've been brainstorming. But that will all be told to whomever is my future wife, (check out the lack of a dangling participle in that sentence!) The only question that remains is: who wants to get hitched?!
Awhile ago I wrote a column about marriage. The point of the column was to explain what my marriage was going to be like. Not the rambling and pointless diatribe it turned into, full of bitter and reproachful hatred toward all that is good and decent.
Oops, my bad.
Lets make this column hypothetical, that way we can get past the while question of whether or not I'll ever get married, (or who in the hell would want to marry me) and I won't sink into digression again. Okay, the hypothetical world where I'm going to get married starts......................................................................................now:
My fiance, in a night of drunkenness, decided to let me do all the planning and be in charge of the wedding. I even made her sign a statement to that effect. It was witnessed and is in every way legal and binding. Boy is she in trouble!
Now I had to put a lot of thought into this, because weddings are no laughing matter, and since this is the only wedding and marriage I plan on having, it better be pretty damn sweet.
Firstly, since I'm an atheist, the wedding ain't gonna happen in no damn place of worship. Besides, that would probably raise God's ire or something and put the hoodoo on the whole marriage. And theres nothing worse than hoodoo, you just cant get rid of it, no matter how hard you try. Its like a VD.
And, because I'm not some kind of crazy WP, I'm not going to do one of those weddings on a rollercoaster or under water. Ditto with a theme wedding where everybody is dressed as their favorite Star Trek character. It just ain't gonna happen.
No, the wedding is going to be someplace cool and worthy of my getting married there. Since I can't afford to go to the moon, (yet) thats out. So, instead, I think I'd rent out the mall in D.C. or maybe the Champs de L'Eysee in Paris. Something classy, but where you wouldn't normally think of a wedding being.
Since Bishop Don Magic Juan will be doing my memorial ceremony, it would be bad form to have him do my wedding as well. So I'm going to have an Buddhist monk do it. Not because I'm Buddhist, but because he could do some acrobatic, wire-assisted kung fu on people would try to speak now instead of holding their peace.
Hundreds, if not thousands of people would be invited. So would the press. Naturally I'll be a big famous writer by then, so everybody would want to attend. I would also charge a cover. That could be considered to be in bad taste, but it would help pay for the honeymoon, (true with fame comes large sums of money, but why spend mine when I can spend somebody elses?)
Because it would be incredibly romantic, and just the kind of crap girls go for, we would write our own vows. I'm no good at any of that sentimental junk, so I'll have Prince write mine for me. Prince is incredibly suave and has great luck with the ladies. He's not the most attractive man, so I'm guessing he's gotta be very eloquent. As long as he doesn't say anything about how he's Prince and he is funky, my vows should have my fiancee melting at the altar. I'll be listening to my iPod, (I plan on getting one some day) so it doesn't really matter what she says in her vows.
To keep people occupied and entertained during the wedding, there will be ex-Maxim models, (you know, the ones that always win the "Girl Next Door" contests) doing balloon animals for the kids. Not to mention roving Flamenco dancers, (I saw some at BWI airport once, they were great. Much better than that cheesy Austin Powers impersonator) and a mariachi band. This will make the wedding a little noisy, but it's more exciting that way.
Me, my best man and his crew of merry men will all dress in tuxes specially created by the wardrobe person from the Matrix movies. That's right, all black leather, oddly hued ties and expensive sunglasses. The bride and her chicks will be wearing Vera Wang. Dresses designed just for the wedding and can never be duplicated. They will melt at a time I've designated.
The wedding will end with a fly over by the Blue Angels. Gummy coke bottles will be dropped from the planes, because it's my favorite candy. There will be pinatas all over the place and a Faberge Egg hunt at the end.
Dinner will be prepared by all the Iron Chefs. I won't even going to get into what it all is, cause that would take pages. Suffice it to say that all of your favorite foods will be there. Of course that won't matter if you're not invited.
I'm not even going to talk about the honeymoon, that's none of your beeswax!
So, that's pretty much, in a nutshell, what the wedding will be like. There's more to it, I've got plenty of ideas, I've been brainstorming. But that will all be told to whomever is my future wife, (check out the lack of a dangling participle in that sentence!) The only question that remains is: who wants to get hitched?!
Things that annoy me to the point of an aneurism
(Originally written Monday, April 10, 2006)
People who walk in front of you really slowly, but also in such a drunken way that you cant get around them. Theyre in no rush, so they walk slower than an octogenarian. These people are most often found in narrow walkways.
People who ask, Whats your problem? Do they really expect an answer to that or is it rhetorical? I am usually not even aware that I have a problem until somebody decides to point it out to me.
People who use lol more than once a sentence. In fact, more than once a year is too much. There isnt that many funny things written online that would actually make me laugh out loud.
People who drive slower than the speed limit, or who actually drive the speed limit. Those limits are suggestions people!
How airlines board people in the front of planes first. What kind of sense does this make? I never have first class, so I always have to walk past 8 million people and apologize to each one of them about my bag hitting them in the face.
People who are so self-absorbed that they couldnt even name our current Vice-President, (its Spiro Agnew, right?)
People who wear the shirt of the person theyre going to go see in concert. Dont be that guy!
50 Cent, the Game, Blink 182 and other examples of corporate-created music.
WPs and their crazy WP behavior.
The way chicks spend too much time worrying about weird part of their bodies, like eyebrows. Any guy will tell you, as long as you dont have a unibrow, youre straight.
People who stand in line at a fast food joints but dont think about what they want until they get to the front of the line. If you don't know what youre in the mood for, why did you go there? Let me tell you, as a person who's been behind the counter and as a person who's been behind these mental defects in line, I really dont get these people.
People who spend 20 minutes digging around for coins so they can give exact change.
People (sales associates, people behind counters) who spend too much time with the jibba jabba with customers. I got shit I needs to do people!
People who take pride in being ignorant.
Country music.
The whole damn Natalee Holloway story. Shes dead, let the damn story die! What about all the black people who get kidnapped?
Reality television, (except for Real World up to its fifth season. After that it just got stupid.)
Blogs that arent written by or about me.
People who have more fun than me.
People who laugh or smile wayyy too much. They must not know how insincere it looks.
Math, and therefore, to a lesser degree, Soduko. Im fairly ambivalent toward people who play it.
Science
People who are so lazy they make lists as blog entries.
People who will have a conversation near you loud enough to be heard. Thats not the part that annoys me though. The part that annoys me is when these people will be having a conversation about something which you a very well versed in and theyre totally wrong about everything theyre saying, but you can't correct them or else you'd be jumping unbidden into their little world of make believe. Then they look at you as if you just told them you graduated college with a major in bestiality.
People who dont listen.
Show offs.
Finding out about people who had crushes on you years too late to do anything about it.
People who think Golf, bowling, cards or car racing are sports. They arent.
People who do that whole gaa-gaa goo-goo thing with babies. I wont even call it baby talk because babies dont talk that way, only stupid-ass adults do. If you talk to your kids like youre retarded, theyre going to have a very limited vocabulary when they grow up. Dont talk down to your kids!
The weak-ass way people go hunting for vulnerable and innocent creatures of the forest and the field. If you want to hunt, strip down to a pair of shorts, smear yourself with mud and the scat of your prey, track them down through the woods, (instead of sitting in a tree wearing a bright orange vest and drinking beer, waiting for some animal to start humping the fake deer thats standing out in the field below) and kill them with a knife, though your bare hands would be better. Be sure to quickly eat the still hot and steaming heart of the animal you have killed. This can truly be considered hunting.
People who are annoyed by enough things to complain and list them.
Bloggers who dont know when to end an entry.
People who walk in front of you really slowly, but also in such a drunken way that you cant get around them. Theyre in no rush, so they walk slower than an octogenarian. These people are most often found in narrow walkways.
People who ask, Whats your problem? Do they really expect an answer to that or is it rhetorical? I am usually not even aware that I have a problem until somebody decides to point it out to me.
People who use lol more than once a sentence. In fact, more than once a year is too much. There isnt that many funny things written online that would actually make me laugh out loud.
People who drive slower than the speed limit, or who actually drive the speed limit. Those limits are suggestions people!
How airlines board people in the front of planes first. What kind of sense does this make? I never have first class, so I always have to walk past 8 million people and apologize to each one of them about my bag hitting them in the face.
People who are so self-absorbed that they couldnt even name our current Vice-President, (its Spiro Agnew, right?)
People who wear the shirt of the person theyre going to go see in concert. Dont be that guy!
50 Cent, the Game, Blink 182 and other examples of corporate-created music.
WPs and their crazy WP behavior.
The way chicks spend too much time worrying about weird part of their bodies, like eyebrows. Any guy will tell you, as long as you dont have a unibrow, youre straight.
People who stand in line at a fast food joints but dont think about what they want until they get to the front of the line. If you don't know what youre in the mood for, why did you go there? Let me tell you, as a person who's been behind the counter and as a person who's been behind these mental defects in line, I really dont get these people.
People who spend 20 minutes digging around for coins so they can give exact change.
People (sales associates, people behind counters) who spend too much time with the jibba jabba with customers. I got shit I needs to do people!
People who take pride in being ignorant.
Country music.
The whole damn Natalee Holloway story. Shes dead, let the damn story die! What about all the black people who get kidnapped?
Reality television, (except for Real World up to its fifth season. After that it just got stupid.)
Blogs that arent written by or about me.
People who have more fun than me.
People who laugh or smile wayyy too much. They must not know how insincere it looks.
Math, and therefore, to a lesser degree, Soduko. Im fairly ambivalent toward people who play it.
Science
People who are so lazy they make lists as blog entries.
People who will have a conversation near you loud enough to be heard. Thats not the part that annoys me though. The part that annoys me is when these people will be having a conversation about something which you a very well versed in and theyre totally wrong about everything theyre saying, but you can't correct them or else you'd be jumping unbidden into their little world of make believe. Then they look at you as if you just told them you graduated college with a major in bestiality.
People who dont listen.
Show offs.
Finding out about people who had crushes on you years too late to do anything about it.
People who think Golf, bowling, cards or car racing are sports. They arent.
People who do that whole gaa-gaa goo-goo thing with babies. I wont even call it baby talk because babies dont talk that way, only stupid-ass adults do. If you talk to your kids like youre retarded, theyre going to have a very limited vocabulary when they grow up. Dont talk down to your kids!
The weak-ass way people go hunting for vulnerable and innocent creatures of the forest and the field. If you want to hunt, strip down to a pair of shorts, smear yourself with mud and the scat of your prey, track them down through the woods, (instead of sitting in a tree wearing a bright orange vest and drinking beer, waiting for some animal to start humping the fake deer thats standing out in the field below) and kill them with a knife, though your bare hands would be better. Be sure to quickly eat the still hot and steaming heart of the animal you have killed. This can truly be considered hunting.
People who are annoyed by enough things to complain and list them.
Bloggers who dont know when to end an entry.
Will that be on the exam?
(Originally written Saturday, April 08, 2006)
Everybody who went to a college raise your hand. Wow, lot of hands. Okay, people who went to a community college, (more politically correctly known as a two-year college) put your hands down. Yeah, I thought so. Dont be ashamed. Watch this: Everybody who didnt graduate college, drop your hands too. Damn. I thought I was in a small group.
Its true, in these enlightened and knowledgeable times, a lot of people have gone to college, but not so many have graduated, (at least not in a reasonable amount of time. And by reasonable I mean they started and ended college while one president was in office.) It seems that for most people, college is just something you try, like drugs, or for girls, (at least the ones Id like to meet) same sex naked bed-top wrestling. Then its dropped in favor of doing something else. Do we really have such short attention spans? Perhaps. Hell, I totally lost track of what I was just talking about.
On the other hand, look at all the great times and wonderful memories we all carry with us through life because of college. And if were lucky the memories will outnumber the blackouts.
Like the time you got really wasted and ended up streaking. Wasnt that great? Too bad you did it in the middle of winter.
How about the time you got really wasted and tried to fight that entire fraternity/sorority? Dude, that was sweet!
Remember that time you got really wasted and just made out with that random chick/guy at that party? That was funny.
Ooh, ooh, how about the time you got really wasted and tried to break into the science building to steal all the tongue depressors they had?
Good times.
I guess there could be non alcohol related events too, but are they worth remembering? All thats left is going to never-ending classes and doing countless hours of homework. Forget that jazz.
You know who I feel sorry for (besides myself. I always feel sorry for myself)? Those chicks who had boyfriends who went to other schools, or were otherwise not in attendance where you were. Man were those girls missing out. Theres nothing worse than being faithful to somebody when youre surrounded by teens and early twenty-somethings away from their parents for the first time and ready to get as freaky as humanly possible. How could they stand it? Especially considering that their boyfriends were cheating on them with as many drunken sluts as possible, (I know I would have.)
The only people I feel even sorrier for are the people who wasted their entire college social lives on studying or whatever it is people do when they're not getting drunk and groping others. They never understood that college is the only free time they have in life to experiment with anything and do anything they want. That's why most interesting police stories, (and horror movies) involve college kids. Spring Break was created just for college kids. Why, if it wasn't for them Cancuns economy would have collapsed decades ago!
Rumor has it that colleges are just chock full of these things called buildings and within these buildings certain people talk to younger people, teaching them things to use in the future. I found no actual proof of any of this. But I did see a lot of lecture halls full of stuffy, hopelessly out-of-it, super egotistical "professors" who thought nothing of putting their own insomnia-curing books on the syllabus and charging an insane amount of money for them; droning on and on to completely apathetic students about things that would be instantly forgotten as soon as the kids got anywhere near a bong. Tsk tsk.
Many parents met or got married at college. Imagine it, your dad got really drunk one night and went home from some crazy frat party with your future mom. He probably was too wasted to get it up and ended up passing out on top of your mom, but only after she puked on herself and everything around them. They both woke up in the morning, unable to remember how they ended up in the bushes outside the student center. After weeks of embarrassed encounters around the campus, they finally ended up in bed together after another drunken night. They finally realized they probably couldn't do any better, so they started dating. You were conceived by accident one night when your father drunkenly put the condom on his finger instead of where it belongs.
Pitiful isn't it?
Everybody who went to a college raise your hand. Wow, lot of hands. Okay, people who went to a community college, (more politically correctly known as a two-year college) put your hands down. Yeah, I thought so. Dont be ashamed. Watch this: Everybody who didnt graduate college, drop your hands too. Damn. I thought I was in a small group.
Its true, in these enlightened and knowledgeable times, a lot of people have gone to college, but not so many have graduated, (at least not in a reasonable amount of time. And by reasonable I mean they started and ended college while one president was in office.) It seems that for most people, college is just something you try, like drugs, or for girls, (at least the ones Id like to meet) same sex naked bed-top wrestling. Then its dropped in favor of doing something else. Do we really have such short attention spans? Perhaps. Hell, I totally lost track of what I was just talking about.
On the other hand, look at all the great times and wonderful memories we all carry with us through life because of college. And if were lucky the memories will outnumber the blackouts.
Like the time you got really wasted and ended up streaking. Wasnt that great? Too bad you did it in the middle of winter.
How about the time you got really wasted and tried to fight that entire fraternity/sorority? Dude, that was sweet!
Remember that time you got really wasted and just made out with that random chick/guy at that party? That was funny.
Ooh, ooh, how about the time you got really wasted and tried to break into the science building to steal all the tongue depressors they had?
Good times.
I guess there could be non alcohol related events too, but are they worth remembering? All thats left is going to never-ending classes and doing countless hours of homework. Forget that jazz.
You know who I feel sorry for (besides myself. I always feel sorry for myself)? Those chicks who had boyfriends who went to other schools, or were otherwise not in attendance where you were. Man were those girls missing out. Theres nothing worse than being faithful to somebody when youre surrounded by teens and early twenty-somethings away from their parents for the first time and ready to get as freaky as humanly possible. How could they stand it? Especially considering that their boyfriends were cheating on them with as many drunken sluts as possible, (I know I would have.)
The only people I feel even sorrier for are the people who wasted their entire college social lives on studying or whatever it is people do when they're not getting drunk and groping others. They never understood that college is the only free time they have in life to experiment with anything and do anything they want. That's why most interesting police stories, (and horror movies) involve college kids. Spring Break was created just for college kids. Why, if it wasn't for them Cancuns economy would have collapsed decades ago!
Rumor has it that colleges are just chock full of these things called buildings and within these buildings certain people talk to younger people, teaching them things to use in the future. I found no actual proof of any of this. But I did see a lot of lecture halls full of stuffy, hopelessly out-of-it, super egotistical "professors" who thought nothing of putting their own insomnia-curing books on the syllabus and charging an insane amount of money for them; droning on and on to completely apathetic students about things that would be instantly forgotten as soon as the kids got anywhere near a bong. Tsk tsk.
Many parents met or got married at college. Imagine it, your dad got really drunk one night and went home from some crazy frat party with your future mom. He probably was too wasted to get it up and ended up passing out on top of your mom, but only after she puked on herself and everything around them. They both woke up in the morning, unable to remember how they ended up in the bushes outside the student center. After weeks of embarrassed encounters around the campus, they finally ended up in bed together after another drunken night. They finally realized they probably couldn't do any better, so they started dating. You were conceived by accident one night when your father drunkenly put the condom on his finger instead of where it belongs.
Pitiful isn't it?
If you don't see these movies before you die you will spend the rest of eternity burning
(Originally written Monday, April 03, 2006)
In one of my first columns here, I started a list of movies that nobody should see. Either because they're too pretentious, too stupid or too overrated.
In this column I also wrote about how I was long ago inspired to create my own list of movies that everybody should see before they die. Movies that are good, movies that are bad, movies that are completely insane. All these movies should be seen in order to have a more all-encompassing view of the world, and a better understanding of the society in which you live.
I've decided to recreate this list here. I used to be the top 100 movies, but additions and modifications have resulted in a somewhat longer list. There is no order, I just randomly wrote film titles as I thought about them. It's totally subjective, (but then again, what in Eighty-Four Glyde isn't?) which means there might be some you don't believe in, or others that you think should be added. I'm open to suggestions.
Read and enjoy, won't you? (p.s. spelling doesn't count. not this time)
1. Blues Brothers
2. Bubba Hotep
3. Do the Right Thing
4. The Professional
5. The Adventures of Milo & Otis
6. Ghost in the Shell
7. Fist of the Northstar (the cartoon, not live action)
8. Shawshank Redemption
9. Memento
10. Yellow Submarine
11. Labyrinth
12. Dazed & Confused
13. Time Bandits
14. Brazil
15. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
16. Ghostdog
17. Requiem for a Dream
18. Trading Places
19. Hear no Evil, See no Evil
20. Toxic Avenger
21. Lucas
22. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
23. Snatch
24. Trainspotting
25. Warriors
26. Dogma
27. What Dreams May Come
28. Bicentennial Man
29. Neverending Story
30. Volcano High
31. Thursday
32. Event Horizon
33. Arthur
34. Summer School
35. Adventures in Babysitting
36. Solar Babies
37. Story of Ricky (Ricky-Oh)
38. Tron
39. Kentucky Fried Movie
40. Big Trouble in Little China
41. Half Baked
42. History of the World Part 1
43. Strange Brew
44. Brother
45. Frailty
46. The Last Dragon
47. Who Am I?
48. Rumble in the Bronx
49. Fist of Legend
50. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
51. Hero (the Jet Li version)
52. City of God
53. Mall Rats
54. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
55. The Big Lebowski
56. Weird Science
57. Breakfast Club
58. Ace Ventura
59. Tommy
60. Jesus Christ Superstar
61. Bing Long's Traveling All-stars and Motor Kings
62. The Good Son
63. Mother, Juggs and Speed
64. Sandlot
65. Kung Pow
66. Christmas Story
67. "Manos" the Hands of Fate
68. The Empire Strikes Back
69. The Matrix
70. Death to Smoochy
71. Candyman
72. Evil Dead
73. Evil Dead II
74. Army of Darkness
75. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
76. Darkman
77. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
78. Goonies
79. Flight of the Navigator
80. Karate Kid
81. The Usual Suspects
82. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
83. The General
84. The Wiz
85. Stalag 17
86. The Great Escape
87. Animal House
88. Hard Boiled
89. Young Frankenstein
90. Die Hard
91. Cool Hand Luke
92. The Princess Bride
93. Seven
94. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
95. Brewster's Millions
96. Animal Crackers
97. The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh
98. Brain Donors
99. Kids
100. 12 Monkeys
101. Fletch
102. Stripes
103. Tougher than Leather
104. UHF
105. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
106. Robocop
107. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original)
108. Fight Club
109. D.A.R.Y.L.
110. American Psycho
111. Dark Crystal
112. Super Troopers
113. Band of the Hand
114. PCU
115. Predator 2
116. Court Jester
117. The Sting
118. Rocky Horror Picture Show
119. The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai in the 8th Dimension
120. What's Up Tiger Lily?
121. In Like Flint
122. Our Man Flint
123. Boondock Saints
124. American History X
What do you think of that?
In one of my first columns here, I started a list of movies that nobody should see. Either because they're too pretentious, too stupid or too overrated.
In this column I also wrote about how I was long ago inspired to create my own list of movies that everybody should see before they die. Movies that are good, movies that are bad, movies that are completely insane. All these movies should be seen in order to have a more all-encompassing view of the world, and a better understanding of the society in which you live.
I've decided to recreate this list here. I used to be the top 100 movies, but additions and modifications have resulted in a somewhat longer list. There is no order, I just randomly wrote film titles as I thought about them. It's totally subjective, (but then again, what in Eighty-Four Glyde isn't?) which means there might be some you don't believe in, or others that you think should be added. I'm open to suggestions.
Read and enjoy, won't you? (p.s. spelling doesn't count. not this time)
1. Blues Brothers
2. Bubba Hotep
3. Do the Right Thing
4. The Professional
5. The Adventures of Milo & Otis
6. Ghost in the Shell
7. Fist of the Northstar (the cartoon, not live action)
8. Shawshank Redemption
9. Memento
10. Yellow Submarine
11. Labyrinth
12. Dazed & Confused
13. Time Bandits
14. Brazil
15. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
16. Ghostdog
17. Requiem for a Dream
18. Trading Places
19. Hear no Evil, See no Evil
20. Toxic Avenger
21. Lucas
22. Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
23. Snatch
24. Trainspotting
25. Warriors
26. Dogma
27. What Dreams May Come
28. Bicentennial Man
29. Neverending Story
30. Volcano High
31. Thursday
32. Event Horizon
33. Arthur
34. Summer School
35. Adventures in Babysitting
36. Solar Babies
37. Story of Ricky (Ricky-Oh)
38. Tron
39. Kentucky Fried Movie
40. Big Trouble in Little China
41. Half Baked
42. History of the World Part 1
43. Strange Brew
44. Brother
45. Frailty
46. The Last Dragon
47. Who Am I?
48. Rumble in the Bronx
49. Fist of Legend
50. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
51. Hero (the Jet Li version)
52. City of God
53. Mall Rats
54. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
55. The Big Lebowski
56. Weird Science
57. Breakfast Club
58. Ace Ventura
59. Tommy
60. Jesus Christ Superstar
61. Bing Long's Traveling All-stars and Motor Kings
62. The Good Son
63. Mother, Juggs and Speed
64. Sandlot
65. Kung Pow
66. Christmas Story
67. "Manos" the Hands of Fate
68. The Empire Strikes Back
69. The Matrix
70. Death to Smoochy
71. Candyman
72. Evil Dead
73. Evil Dead II
74. Army of Darkness
75. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom
76. Darkman
77. Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
78. Goonies
79. Flight of the Navigator
80. Karate Kid
81. The Usual Suspects
82. Monty Python and the Holy Grail
83. The General
84. The Wiz
85. Stalag 17
86. The Great Escape
87. Animal House
88. Hard Boiled
89. Young Frankenstein
90. Die Hard
91. Cool Hand Luke
92. The Princess Bride
93. Seven
94. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
95. Brewster's Millions
96. Animal Crackers
97. The Fish that Saved Pittsburgh
98. Brain Donors
99. Kids
100. 12 Monkeys
101. Fletch
102. Stripes
103. Tougher than Leather
104. UHF
105. Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome
106. Robocop
107. Texas Chainsaw Massacre (the original)
108. Fight Club
109. D.A.R.Y.L.
110. American Psycho
111. Dark Crystal
112. Super Troopers
113. Band of the Hand
114. PCU
115. Predator 2
116. Court Jester
117. The Sting
118. Rocky Horror Picture Show
119. The Adventures of Buckaroo Bonzai in the 8th Dimension
120. What's Up Tiger Lily?
121. In Like Flint
122. Our Man Flint
123. Boondock Saints
124. American History X
What do you think of that?
Monday, July 24, 2006
War is Hell (when you run out of A.1. sauce!)
(Originally written Thursday, March 30, 2006)
People are always asking me: "Josh, why don't you write a little something about Iraq? After all, you are a soldier in the American army and a journalist. You're currently in the desert in the middle of a war that's been going on for years. The stress, adventure, excitement and range of emotions you and all of our other brave fighting men and women overseas go through must be enormous and lend itself to a number of interesting and heart wrenching stories! Tell us Josh! Tell us about what it is like to be so far from home fighting against those who would see democracy crumble!"
Nope.
You see, that shit's been done to death. Military blogs are a ridiculous cliché now. They all end up being written by two types of soldiers, (keep in mind here that I've not actually read any soldier blogs, I just happen to acquire information through osmosis, and I pretty much think I know it all anyway. If you think I shouldn't comment on a subject simply because I know absolutely nothing about it and I'm making wild generalizations, then this isn't the blog for you. And if you do think I should make comments without having any actual evidence to back up what I'm saying, then you're probably a Bill O'Reilly fan!) those who are great American patriots, and those soldiers who are shocked by the "senselessness of it all."
The first type of military blogs is (yes, I used "is" instead of "are." Is agrees with the singular use of the word type) full of soldiers tooting their own horns, full of pictures and stories about how they gave some weird-lookin Iraqi kids with snot running down their faces pencils and paper and rulers. "What a great thing we did!" these soldiers exclaim. "We have brought education and enlightenment to the poor huddled Iraqi masses!" Nevermind the fact that these kids don't even know how to write their own names and the illiteracy rate in this country is ridiculously high, pencils and paper is all people need to drag themselves out of poverty.
These blogs also wonder, with great pain, why the American media only focuses on the "negative" stories and not the "positive" ones. Every time you open a newspaper you're assaulted by stories of soldiers being attacked and killed by Iraqi insurgents, never do you read about the water treatment plant we just fixed and reopened and the electrical towers that were just erected that now bring power to a 200-mile swath of land from Baghdad to Kirkuk, is what the blogs tell us over and over again, beating us over the head with this information until we submit that the benevolent intentions the American military have are the best ever! (For those who notice these things, that was an extremely long and complex sentence that probably doesn't come out on paper was well as it sounded in my head. Thank you for tolerating this digression, and now back to the column!)
The thing is, those newspapers do have stories about those water plants and electrical towers. The stories appear later, when the insurgents have destroyed the plants and pulled the towers down.
The second type of military blogs is nothing but questions soldiers have for their leaders, but don't ask out of fear of disembowelment or something. Whole pages are devoted to the austere living conditions, bland food and insane weather. Complaints and bitter words abound in these blogs. They might also feature pictures and tributes to their dead friends. "Why did Sgt. Joe Blow have to die!?" they question vehemently. Those blogs are way too negative for my taste.
You see, if I did a military blog I'd be forced to make mine conform to one of these two categories. And I just don't dig on that. I'm too egotistical and full of myself to be a sheep. I've gotta break free of the pack, do my own thing, ride the wave, push the envelope, go to the extreme, yada yada yada, etcetera etcetera, and so forth.
On the other hand one sergeant I know just got a book deal because of his blog, so maybe it's not too late to reconsider the format of Eighty-Four Glyde, (the name of this blog in case you were wondering). After all, the only thing more important than integrity and morals is a big ass pile of cash!
Tune in next time when I talk about how bad things are for me because I only get five cable channels and how I can barely go on out here because they only stock ribeye steaks at the PX.
People are always asking me: "Josh, why don't you write a little something about Iraq? After all, you are a soldier in the American army and a journalist. You're currently in the desert in the middle of a war that's been going on for years. The stress, adventure, excitement and range of emotions you and all of our other brave fighting men and women overseas go through must be enormous and lend itself to a number of interesting and heart wrenching stories! Tell us Josh! Tell us about what it is like to be so far from home fighting against those who would see democracy crumble!"
Nope.
You see, that shit's been done to death. Military blogs are a ridiculous cliché now. They all end up being written by two types of soldiers, (keep in mind here that I've not actually read any soldier blogs, I just happen to acquire information through osmosis, and I pretty much think I know it all anyway. If you think I shouldn't comment on a subject simply because I know absolutely nothing about it and I'm making wild generalizations, then this isn't the blog for you. And if you do think I should make comments without having any actual evidence to back up what I'm saying, then you're probably a Bill O'Reilly fan!) those who are great American patriots, and those soldiers who are shocked by the "senselessness of it all."
The first type of military blogs is (yes, I used "is" instead of "are." Is agrees with the singular use of the word type) full of soldiers tooting their own horns, full of pictures and stories about how they gave some weird-lookin Iraqi kids with snot running down their faces pencils and paper and rulers. "What a great thing we did!" these soldiers exclaim. "We have brought education and enlightenment to the poor huddled Iraqi masses!" Nevermind the fact that these kids don't even know how to write their own names and the illiteracy rate in this country is ridiculously high, pencils and paper is all people need to drag themselves out of poverty.
These blogs also wonder, with great pain, why the American media only focuses on the "negative" stories and not the "positive" ones. Every time you open a newspaper you're assaulted by stories of soldiers being attacked and killed by Iraqi insurgents, never do you read about the water treatment plant we just fixed and reopened and the electrical towers that were just erected that now bring power to a 200-mile swath of land from Baghdad to Kirkuk, is what the blogs tell us over and over again, beating us over the head with this information until we submit that the benevolent intentions the American military have are the best ever! (For those who notice these things, that was an extremely long and complex sentence that probably doesn't come out on paper was well as it sounded in my head. Thank you for tolerating this digression, and now back to the column!)
The thing is, those newspapers do have stories about those water plants and electrical towers. The stories appear later, when the insurgents have destroyed the plants and pulled the towers down.
The second type of military blogs is nothing but questions soldiers have for their leaders, but don't ask out of fear of disembowelment or something. Whole pages are devoted to the austere living conditions, bland food and insane weather. Complaints and bitter words abound in these blogs. They might also feature pictures and tributes to their dead friends. "Why did Sgt. Joe Blow have to die!?" they question vehemently. Those blogs are way too negative for my taste.
You see, if I did a military blog I'd be forced to make mine conform to one of these two categories. And I just don't dig on that. I'm too egotistical and full of myself to be a sheep. I've gotta break free of the pack, do my own thing, ride the wave, push the envelope, go to the extreme, yada yada yada, etcetera etcetera, and so forth.
On the other hand one sergeant I know just got a book deal because of his blog, so maybe it's not too late to reconsider the format of Eighty-Four Glyde, (the name of this blog in case you were wondering). After all, the only thing more important than integrity and morals is a big ass pile of cash!
Tune in next time when I talk about how bad things are for me because I only get five cable channels and how I can barely go on out here because they only stock ribeye steaks at the PX.
Everybody run for your lives! It’s the Easter Bunny!
(Originally written Monday, March 27, 2006)
It has begun.
At first I thought it was just Bill O'Reilly talking more smack, trying to force his views on the rest of America by claiming that he's Joe Decent Citizen. But then I read Stars&Stripes yesterday, (motto: Yesterday's News Tomorrow) and I read about WPs going crazy out in Minnesota.
It seems that the Easter Bunny display that was in the St. Paul city hall was removed by some dude because he didn't want to offend non-Christians. He also said that there were no actual complaints. I guess he was just being proactive, anticipating some shit that wasn't going to occur.
Hmmmmm, that's pretty odd, I thought to myself. Why would a guy remove a public display, (which was not purchased with government money) due to imaginary complaints, unless he had an ulterior motive? Maybe the tourists aren't flocking to St. Paul like they used to back in the good old days. Maybe this guy is simply enacting his own plan for world domination and one of the first steps is to do something nonsensical in an oft-overlooked mid-western city. Maybe he wants St. Paul, Minn. to get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the most anal and uptight place in America. I dunno his motivation, but there's got to me more to it than simple knee-jerk political correctness.
I tried to not get into the whole Christmas/Holiday Tree thing that happened back during December. It seemed to me to be an overblown situation hyped up by people trying to "defend" their religious freedoms, ("It's a damn Christmas Tree! Why must you people attack the one conifer that I hold dear to me and means so much to my people? Don't you know Jesus often slept in evergreens because he didn't want to be eaten by bears at night? Evergreens and fir trees feature huge in Christian lore!" is the type of thing you'd hear these outraged Christians say.)
Prior to this guy out in St. Paul, I wondered if there really were people out there who were so scared of offending people that they'd just wuss everything into some kind of bland, beige version of reality. I figured people like that just existed in movies to act as foils to the liberated main characters. Guess I was wrong. Now my question is: Who are these people who are so easily offended by everything they see?
How can somebody live in the world today and still be so cut off from everything that they wait until now to be offended. Did somebody just wake up one morning and think to themselves, "Gee, how can I annoy regular people today?" Or perhaps they were like, "These secular and commercialized displays of religious holidays are getting too popular. It's time to take them down a notch or two." Are there time-traveling puritans wandering around looking at Christmas Trees and Easter Bunnies and saying "Heavens me! This just won't do at all! I must rectify this blasphemous situation at once and save the soul of that gentleman in the giant bunny suit from eternal damnation!"
I think the answer is none of the above. The only people getting offended are the ones who are railing against the PC upheaval. What they should do is just chill out and let this whole thing die down. The situation is too silly to go on, it'll collapse on itself as soon as somebody realizes that the months are named after Pagan gods, and tries to change them to shit like: Thirdmonth, and Reallyhotmonth, or something.
What I don't understand is this: Since political correctness was created to fix that which offended people, isn't it, by its very existence self-defeating? I mean, too much political correctness is just as offensive as too little. So why did somebody come up with it in the first place? Political correctness is like anarchy, it can't survive because it works at cross purposes to what it is supposed to achieve. And why is it that nobody is taking into account how people are being offended by all the wacky PC junk that's going on? Does being offended by political correctness not count because it's supposed to be there to serve and benefit us all? And what about Scarecrow's brain?!
I try not to get involved with type of stuff. My usual reaction is chill in the cut, chuckling discretely to myself. As an atheist I tend to not get into the religious conversations with people, I'm always afraid that I'll ask questions they don't have answers for and I'll accidentally turn them into atheists too.
And if I did that, who'd buy me Christmas and Easter presents?
It has begun.
At first I thought it was just Bill O'Reilly talking more smack, trying to force his views on the rest of America by claiming that he's Joe Decent Citizen. But then I read Stars&Stripes yesterday, (motto: Yesterday's News Tomorrow) and I read about WPs going crazy out in Minnesota.
It seems that the Easter Bunny display that was in the St. Paul city hall was removed by some dude because he didn't want to offend non-Christians. He also said that there were no actual complaints. I guess he was just being proactive, anticipating some shit that wasn't going to occur.
Hmmmmm, that's pretty odd, I thought to myself. Why would a guy remove a public display, (which was not purchased with government money) due to imaginary complaints, unless he had an ulterior motive? Maybe the tourists aren't flocking to St. Paul like they used to back in the good old days. Maybe this guy is simply enacting his own plan for world domination and one of the first steps is to do something nonsensical in an oft-overlooked mid-western city. Maybe he wants St. Paul, Minn. to get into the Guinness Book of World Records as the most anal and uptight place in America. I dunno his motivation, but there's got to me more to it than simple knee-jerk political correctness.
I tried to not get into the whole Christmas/Holiday Tree thing that happened back during December. It seemed to me to be an overblown situation hyped up by people trying to "defend" their religious freedoms, ("It's a damn Christmas Tree! Why must you people attack the one conifer that I hold dear to me and means so much to my people? Don't you know Jesus often slept in evergreens because he didn't want to be eaten by bears at night? Evergreens and fir trees feature huge in Christian lore!" is the type of thing you'd hear these outraged Christians say.)
Prior to this guy out in St. Paul, I wondered if there really were people out there who were so scared of offending people that they'd just wuss everything into some kind of bland, beige version of reality. I figured people like that just existed in movies to act as foils to the liberated main characters. Guess I was wrong. Now my question is: Who are these people who are so easily offended by everything they see?
How can somebody live in the world today and still be so cut off from everything that they wait until now to be offended. Did somebody just wake up one morning and think to themselves, "Gee, how can I annoy regular people today?" Or perhaps they were like, "These secular and commercialized displays of religious holidays are getting too popular. It's time to take them down a notch or two." Are there time-traveling puritans wandering around looking at Christmas Trees and Easter Bunnies and saying "Heavens me! This just won't do at all! I must rectify this blasphemous situation at once and save the soul of that gentleman in the giant bunny suit from eternal damnation!"
I think the answer is none of the above. The only people getting offended are the ones who are railing against the PC upheaval. What they should do is just chill out and let this whole thing die down. The situation is too silly to go on, it'll collapse on itself as soon as somebody realizes that the months are named after Pagan gods, and tries to change them to shit like: Thirdmonth, and Reallyhotmonth, or something.
What I don't understand is this: Since political correctness was created to fix that which offended people, isn't it, by its very existence self-defeating? I mean, too much political correctness is just as offensive as too little. So why did somebody come up with it in the first place? Political correctness is like anarchy, it can't survive because it works at cross purposes to what it is supposed to achieve. And why is it that nobody is taking into account how people are being offended by all the wacky PC junk that's going on? Does being offended by political correctness not count because it's supposed to be there to serve and benefit us all? And what about Scarecrow's brain?!
I try not to get involved with type of stuff. My usual reaction is chill in the cut, chuckling discretely to myself. As an atheist I tend to not get into the religious conversations with people, I'm always afraid that I'll ask questions they don't have answers for and I'll accidentally turn them into atheists too.
And if I did that, who'd buy me Christmas and Easter presents?
Being tone deaf doesn’t hurt (Verse I)
(Originally written Thursday, March 23, 2006 )
A lot of people say to me "Josh, I'm tired of being a pawn of the music industry. I want to write a song and make buckets of cash off of it, just like my favorite musical artists. The problem is that I'm about as musically inclined as William Hung. What can I do to combat this and acquire truckloads of cash?"
The answer, I tell them, is simple. All you have to do is follow my rules for song writing and you'll be so rich Bill Gates will be your personal ass wiper! Let's discuss, shall we?
How to write a "mainstream" rap song
This is easy. First you must enter the mind frame of the typical "mainstream" rapper. You're black and your life was shitty, so you hurt a lot of people. Naturally, your hard life on the streets made you very mad at the world in general and very good at creative rhyming. Back in the day, when you were slangin' rocks at the corner, you had no time to figure out what word rhymed with "granola." Using "camera" was close enough; all you have to do is change the inflection and enunciation of the word.
Don't forget, for a "mainstream" rapper rhyming skills have nothing to do with hip-hip. All that matters is how many people you say you killed, how much drugs you used or sold, and, of course, how many hundred dollar bills you use to wipe your nose and how many "chicken heads" you've slept with.
You have to take all of these elements and mix them together in an interesting story. It doesn't need to be true because nobody will know. If anybody questions the time you killed a cop with his own shoes, just tell them that all your friends who were there have since died and unfortunately cannot back up your story.
Here are some good basic ideas for your rap song, use them and figure out what direction you're going to take them in:
· I once killed a man in broad daylight, I then proceeded to have sex with his mother on the hot, gum-covered sidewalk.
· Back in the day I flew from Colombia to New York with three pounds of coke shoved in my ass.
· "Insert name of other mainstream rapper here" is a punk and I've most likely had sex with his wife/mother/sister/aunt/cleaning lady.
· I've killed dozens of people so I reserve the right to make "blue" rhyme with "watermelon."
· I keep it real.
· I've engaged in relations with "insert name of hot movie actress/female music artist here."
· White people are stupid.
· Women are stupid.
· I have more money than you and that makes me a better person.
An important part of any rap song is the obscure or topical reference. In order to achieve this reference feel free to watch cartoons, watch documentaries on the Discovery Channel, watch reality television, watch popular movies and read Mad Magazine. It also helps if you have a young child. Fair game for your song are: Bob the Builder, Teletubbies, Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues and anything else that comes on Nickelodeon weekday mornings.
Other good references are of people and things that normal Americans have never encountered. You can throw in the name of your pool boy if you're so inclined. Or the guy you buy your jewelry from. These references will have the hardcore fans doing research to figure out what in the hell you're talking about when you say "I smoke trees/as well as Raul skims my pool for leaves."
Your rap song must have the obligatory reference to how much money you have. You need to impress upon people how rich you are. Make sure to let them know that you're so rich, you can waste your money on clothes and cars "regular people" have only seen in magazines, (or heard about in rap songs like yours.) The purpose of this is to piss off people with inherited money, (because they feel the nouveau riche is too gauche to know what to do with money) and "regular people" who will hate the things they already have because they now feel it's not enough.
To get the point across talk about the many expensive cars you have, (actually owning them isn't necessary) and the pointlessly expensive alcohol you drink. To really show your excess, talk about how you don't even drink the alcohol, instead you use it to take a bath or perhaps wash your car.
Lastly, you must occasionally do a tribute song to either your mother or your dead friends. These songs are meant to be ironic in that after all your other songs about being a tough-ass gangster; you're actually a sensitive individual, a victim of the destructive lifestyle that ensnared you at an early age. In these songs limit your references to your wealth or voracious sexual appetite to one or two lines.
Keeping all this in mind, you should have a hit hip hop song in no time. Enjoy being snubbed at the Grammys!
Next time I'll give tips on writing good rock songs.
A lot of people say to me "Josh, I'm tired of being a pawn of the music industry. I want to write a song and make buckets of cash off of it, just like my favorite musical artists. The problem is that I'm about as musically inclined as William Hung. What can I do to combat this and acquire truckloads of cash?"
The answer, I tell them, is simple. All you have to do is follow my rules for song writing and you'll be so rich Bill Gates will be your personal ass wiper! Let's discuss, shall we?
How to write a "mainstream" rap song
This is easy. First you must enter the mind frame of the typical "mainstream" rapper. You're black and your life was shitty, so you hurt a lot of people. Naturally, your hard life on the streets made you very mad at the world in general and very good at creative rhyming. Back in the day, when you were slangin' rocks at the corner, you had no time to figure out what word rhymed with "granola." Using "camera" was close enough; all you have to do is change the inflection and enunciation of the word.
Don't forget, for a "mainstream" rapper rhyming skills have nothing to do with hip-hip. All that matters is how many people you say you killed, how much drugs you used or sold, and, of course, how many hundred dollar bills you use to wipe your nose and how many "chicken heads" you've slept with.
You have to take all of these elements and mix them together in an interesting story. It doesn't need to be true because nobody will know. If anybody questions the time you killed a cop with his own shoes, just tell them that all your friends who were there have since died and unfortunately cannot back up your story.
Here are some good basic ideas for your rap song, use them and figure out what direction you're going to take them in:
· I once killed a man in broad daylight, I then proceeded to have sex with his mother on the hot, gum-covered sidewalk.
· Back in the day I flew from Colombia to New York with three pounds of coke shoved in my ass.
· "Insert name of other mainstream rapper here" is a punk and I've most likely had sex with his wife/mother/sister/aunt/cleaning lady.
· I've killed dozens of people so I reserve the right to make "blue" rhyme with "watermelon."
· I keep it real.
· I've engaged in relations with "insert name of hot movie actress/female music artist here."
· White people are stupid.
· Women are stupid.
· I have more money than you and that makes me a better person.
An important part of any rap song is the obscure or topical reference. In order to achieve this reference feel free to watch cartoons, watch documentaries on the Discovery Channel, watch reality television, watch popular movies and read Mad Magazine. It also helps if you have a young child. Fair game for your song are: Bob the Builder, Teletubbies, Dora the Explorer, Blue's Clues and anything else that comes on Nickelodeon weekday mornings.
Other good references are of people and things that normal Americans have never encountered. You can throw in the name of your pool boy if you're so inclined. Or the guy you buy your jewelry from. These references will have the hardcore fans doing research to figure out what in the hell you're talking about when you say "I smoke trees/as well as Raul skims my pool for leaves."
Your rap song must have the obligatory reference to how much money you have. You need to impress upon people how rich you are. Make sure to let them know that you're so rich, you can waste your money on clothes and cars "regular people" have only seen in magazines, (or heard about in rap songs like yours.) The purpose of this is to piss off people with inherited money, (because they feel the nouveau riche is too gauche to know what to do with money) and "regular people" who will hate the things they already have because they now feel it's not enough.
To get the point across talk about the many expensive cars you have, (actually owning them isn't necessary) and the pointlessly expensive alcohol you drink. To really show your excess, talk about how you don't even drink the alcohol, instead you use it to take a bath or perhaps wash your car.
Lastly, you must occasionally do a tribute song to either your mother or your dead friends. These songs are meant to be ironic in that after all your other songs about being a tough-ass gangster; you're actually a sensitive individual, a victim of the destructive lifestyle that ensnared you at an early age. In these songs limit your references to your wealth or voracious sexual appetite to one or two lines.
Keeping all this in mind, you should have a hit hip hop song in no time. Enjoy being snubbed at the Grammys!
Next time I'll give tips on writing good rock songs.
If you have to ask, you can’t afford it
(Originally written Sunday, March 19, 2006)
Winning the lottery, (and I don't mean the Shirley Jackson version) is everybody's secret dream. We know the odds are against us, which is why most rational people don't bother playing, but we still wish everything would turn out like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Remember how Charlie only bought maybe two candy bars to get the golden ticket? Much better than Verucca Salt, whose dad bought the majority of a warehouse's worth of chocolate.
What's funny is that every time there's a Powerball worth over $80 million or so, everybody buys a lottery ticket. This makes no sense because the odds are much worse then. Ever notice how those Powerballs are won by an office that pooled their money together? I hate people who cooperate and work as a team.*
Recently there was a Powerball for $365 million, which as we all know, (this is math I can do) comes out to a million dollars a day! I'm not so sure I could spend a million a day, but I'd give it the old college try.
What would you do if you had that kind of money? I know what I'd do, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Firstly, I'd go out and get a bunch of unnecessary surgery. I'd get calf implants, my head baldified and perma-waxed and all of my teeth removed and replaced with either diamonds or perhaps tungsten. I might just have my teeth put into dentures and have those dentures attached to a ring in the back of my throat by a long chain. Then I could scare everybody by pulling my teeth out and throwing them at people 20 or 30 feet holding bags of popcorn or chips.
I'd have all my toes removed and reattached to each other. I'd let the nails grow out and use them as throwing stars. I'd also have a prehensile tail attached to my coccyx.
I'd have penile enhancement surgery, (not that I need it, but what could it hurt?). And I'd have Brad Pitt's abs ripped off his stomach and put on mine, I'm rich, I think I could afford it. I'm thinking I'd have D'Angelo's abs put onto my back, just because I can.
Lastly, in terms of surgery I'm thinking about adding an extra leg, because rich powerful men always walk really fast, and I want to give people the right impression.
Once that was all done I'd go and buy a house. Naturally no house created would be good enough for me, so I would purchase a large tract of land in each state and then I'd have a different national leader residence made on each one. I'd have my own White House in Maryland, a Number 10 Downing Street in Delaware or something, a replica of Kim Jong-Il's palace in Wisconsin and so forth. Then I would live at each one for just one week a year. The last two weeks I would spend at my island in the south pacific.
Of course I would have a fleet of planes, that's just a given. But each plane would be outfitted with a jetpack, so I could fly along side my plane if I so desire. Also in the planes I would have transporters, (I think they exist and the government is keeping the technology secret. If they don't really exist I'll fund the development of the technology) that would beam me anywhere in the world, mostly girls' locker rooms and the dirty back rooms of porn stores.
I would have my own aircraft carrier, but I wouldn't keep any planes on it. No. Instead I would keep a bunch of yachts on it. I would shoot the yachts into the air and blow them up with the huge deck guns. When I ran out of yachts I would launch teen pop stars into the air and shoot them instead. Because, as it has been proven dozens of times before, rich people can shoot and kill anybody they want and not go to jail.
I would buy all the professional basketball teams, football teams and baseball teams. Then I'd shuffle them around. I'd make all the basketball players play football, the baseball players would play football instead and the football players would play soccer so they could see what a real sport is like. Football is for guys who like holding hands and wearing tight pants. It's pretty Brokeback.
I would also fund movies. And I'd have movies I want to see made. There would be a live action version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. A version of War of the Worlds with a more realistic ending, The Kool-aid Man and the Temple of Doom, Titanic II: Revenge of the Ninjas, Jackie Chan vs. Everybody, Chuck Norris Facts: the Movie, the Jet Li who Stole Christmas, Amish Midget Sheep Porn for Kids, Spaceballs 2: the Search for More Money and Story of Ricky 2.
Before I died I would have a bunch of clones of myself made, then I'd have my memory imprinted into them so I could have an army of myself. If this technology is unavailable I'd imprint my memories into a robot. If this too wasn't possible then I'd leave all my money NAMBLA**, just to leave everybody wondering.
*By the way, I wrote this before it was discovered that the most recent winner was just one person, and although I could just as easily change the column to reflect that information, I'm not going to! That's editorial license people!
**The North American Man Boy Love Association, a real organization. Isn't this a funny old world?
Winning the lottery, (and I don't mean the Shirley Jackson version) is everybody's secret dream. We know the odds are against us, which is why most rational people don't bother playing, but we still wish everything would turn out like Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Remember how Charlie only bought maybe two candy bars to get the golden ticket? Much better than Verucca Salt, whose dad bought the majority of a warehouse's worth of chocolate.
What's funny is that every time there's a Powerball worth over $80 million or so, everybody buys a lottery ticket. This makes no sense because the odds are much worse then. Ever notice how those Powerballs are won by an office that pooled their money together? I hate people who cooperate and work as a team.*
Recently there was a Powerball for $365 million, which as we all know, (this is math I can do) comes out to a million dollars a day! I'm not so sure I could spend a million a day, but I'd give it the old college try.
What would you do if you had that kind of money? I know what I'd do, and it wouldn't be pretty.
Firstly, I'd go out and get a bunch of unnecessary surgery. I'd get calf implants, my head baldified and perma-waxed and all of my teeth removed and replaced with either diamonds or perhaps tungsten. I might just have my teeth put into dentures and have those dentures attached to a ring in the back of my throat by a long chain. Then I could scare everybody by pulling my teeth out and throwing them at people 20 or 30 feet holding bags of popcorn or chips.
I'd have all my toes removed and reattached to each other. I'd let the nails grow out and use them as throwing stars. I'd also have a prehensile tail attached to my coccyx.
I'd have penile enhancement surgery, (not that I need it, but what could it hurt?). And I'd have Brad Pitt's abs ripped off his stomach and put on mine, I'm rich, I think I could afford it. I'm thinking I'd have D'Angelo's abs put onto my back, just because I can.
Lastly, in terms of surgery I'm thinking about adding an extra leg, because rich powerful men always walk really fast, and I want to give people the right impression.
Once that was all done I'd go and buy a house. Naturally no house created would be good enough for me, so I would purchase a large tract of land in each state and then I'd have a different national leader residence made on each one. I'd have my own White House in Maryland, a Number 10 Downing Street in Delaware or something, a replica of Kim Jong-Il's palace in Wisconsin and so forth. Then I would live at each one for just one week a year. The last two weeks I would spend at my island in the south pacific.
Of course I would have a fleet of planes, that's just a given. But each plane would be outfitted with a jetpack, so I could fly along side my plane if I so desire. Also in the planes I would have transporters, (I think they exist and the government is keeping the technology secret. If they don't really exist I'll fund the development of the technology) that would beam me anywhere in the world, mostly girls' locker rooms and the dirty back rooms of porn stores.
I would have my own aircraft carrier, but I wouldn't keep any planes on it. No. Instead I would keep a bunch of yachts on it. I would shoot the yachts into the air and blow them up with the huge deck guns. When I ran out of yachts I would launch teen pop stars into the air and shoot them instead. Because, as it has been proven dozens of times before, rich people can shoot and kill anybody they want and not go to jail.
I would buy all the professional basketball teams, football teams and baseball teams. Then I'd shuffle them around. I'd make all the basketball players play football, the baseball players would play football instead and the football players would play soccer so they could see what a real sport is like. Football is for guys who like holding hands and wearing tight pants. It's pretty Brokeback.
I would also fund movies. And I'd have movies I want to see made. There would be a live action version of Aqua Teen Hunger Force. A version of War of the Worlds with a more realistic ending, The Kool-aid Man and the Temple of Doom, Titanic II: Revenge of the Ninjas, Jackie Chan vs. Everybody, Chuck Norris Facts: the Movie, the Jet Li who Stole Christmas, Amish Midget Sheep Porn for Kids, Spaceballs 2: the Search for More Money and Story of Ricky 2.
Before I died I would have a bunch of clones of myself made, then I'd have my memory imprinted into them so I could have an army of myself. If this technology is unavailable I'd imprint my memories into a robot. If this too wasn't possible then I'd leave all my money NAMBLA**, just to leave everybody wondering.
*By the way, I wrote this before it was discovered that the most recent winner was just one person, and although I could just as easily change the column to reflect that information, I'm not going to! That's editorial license people!
**The North American Man Boy Love Association, a real organization. Isn't this a funny old world?
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