Rich and Beautiful

It's sort of weird to me that the writers of TV shows, movies, and all that good nonsense seem to be under the impression that popularity in school is decided entirely by how rich you are. When I was younger, back when school social structures mattered even less somehow, I assumed that this was true, since pretty much every work of fiction I had seen so far had portrayed things this way. Then I realized that I knew stupidly rich kids that everyone absolutely despised, as well as dirt-poor kids that everyone pretty much adored.

But this was before I realized that the entire concept of "popularity" in school is complete bollocks. That's not how things actually work. There are people who are universally known in a school, and may have lots of friends, but there's always someone who's going to hate them. There's really no such thing as a popular kid. There are popular kids within their own personal groups, and those groups can be quite large, but in reality, there is no elite. There is no school royalty. Just some people that a lot of people like. Not everyone.

That's another thing that gets pretty screwy actually. In these shows, they call this group of kids the "popular" kids, but the protagonist almost always hates then. And for good reason, too. These kids tend to be massive, elitist twats. Why would everyone like them? Sure, there are kids like that, and sure, they may be generally well-liked, but they're not univerally liked. Because not everyone is a brainless moron.

This Doesn't Rhyme, But You Can Pretend It Does

Who was it that decided that every song has to rhyme? My knowledge of incredibly ancient music history is a bit limited, but I do know that the modern form of music originated as religious ceremonies. So I have to wonder when it was decided that more or less every song was requires to have lyrics that rhyme. My theory is that since many early songs were simply poems adapted to a melody, this nuance just sort of carried over and stuck. But that just ends up raising more questions, doesn't it?

See, because now I'm wondering who decided that POEMS should rhyme. But that's sort of thing, isn't it? Rhyming is what makes it a poem. At least, in my opinion it does. There are lengthy "poems" that don't rhyme at all. Sure you can go on and on about art and freedom of expression, but I don't think it's really fair to call it a poem when you didn't even bother to make it rhyme. It might still be art, but I think we need a different word for them. I mean besides "rampant pretentiousness".

Of course, if you keep following these kinds of trains of thought, you'll eventually go insane. If you ask who decided that poems rhyme, then you have to ask who invented poems. Then it just keeps going. Who invented writing? Who invented language? This almost inevitably leads to pondering the origin of the universe, which I try not to do because I'm pretty sure it's what makes religious fundamentalist so insane.

By Your Powers Combined

I'm not entirely sure what the major idea behind environmental cartoons is. I mean sure, you could just write it off as "to teach kids about protecting the environment" and be done with it, but I think that's oversimplifying things a bit. I mean obviously, environmental cartoons are preachy and stupid and no one would ever want to watch them unless they had a tire iron lodged in their skull, but there's one thing about them that fascinates me. It's the idea that somehow children will be able to save the environment, and be encouraged to do so. I mean sure, you can tell them to turn off the lights when they leave the room all they want, but that really isn't the major problem, now is it?

There were several episodes of Captain Planet* that tried to teach kids about oil spills. Now, here's the problem with that. What. In the flipping hell. Are children. Going to do. About. OIL SPILLS? Sure, you might say that they're "aware" of the problem, but that doesn't really make much of a difference, now does it? What ideal are you supporting here? Oil spills are bad? Yeah, I'm pretty sure most of us who are old enough to know what they are and have working brains figured that one out awhile ago.

The truth is, children really don't care about this crap, and trying to force it down their throats when they're eight years old will likely lead to them resenting the hell out of you. It's basically making them feel guilty about something they have absolutely no control over.

Leave the kids alone and maybe try educating the adults instead.

*Explaining exactly what Captain Planet was will make my brain hurt, so if you're not familiar with it, check YouTube. Although don't let anyone see you or anything. That'd be pretty damn embarrassing. Honestly, I could go on for hours about the astoundingly embarrassing things happening in that show.

Unintelligent Life Part 5

I always sort of forget that about 75% of the Earth's surface is covered in water and it sort of makes me wonder. If aliens came here, would they consider this to be a "water planet"? Sure, most of it is aquatic, but the entire rest of the planet has incredibly diverse and varied terrains and climates, especially compared to the other planets in our solar system. I mean, they got mountains and crap, but the climate is pretty much consistent throughout the entire landscape. See, because in movies, each planet has their one "thing". There's a jungle planet, or a desert planet, etc. But we don't really have that.

The real question is, would a planet with one single environment and ecosystem be able to even exist as a habitable planet, or are all habitable planets in the universe similar to Earth, with a large amount of water and smaller landmasses occupied by the intelligent life? Or perhaps other planets have intelligent life that resides under water.* That'd be pretty cool. It'd be like Aquaman except not terrible. In fact, if it were scientifically possible, I think a planet made up entirely of ocean would be pretty sweet. And I bet it would look real awesome from space.

I guess what I'm really trying to figure out is whether or not Earth is an anomaly. Do most habitable planets have only one climate? Or are they all like our planet? Dammit, I hope we make contact with another planet before I die or the Earth blows up in a game of space-chicken gone horribly awry. I will be incredibly disappointed. After dying. Or something.

*No, shut up. Dolphins don't count. In this context, "intelligent life" means "building cities and talking and screwing up the environment" and all that good stuff.

He is the Best In the Universe

It's interesting to me how the importance something has to a person is directly proportional to how well they're doing at it. Now that I've completely confused everyone, including myself, with that first sentence, let me explain what I mean. Have you ever noticed how there was always that one kid in class who would deride you for doing better than him on a test or whatever? "It's just a stupid test. And you're a NERD for doing good on it. I'm glad I'm not a stupid GEEK like you. LOSER." But let's say you showed up to school sick or drunk or with a weasel biting your face on test day, so the moron does better than you somehow. Soon as he finds out he "beat" you, all of a sudden he's a genius and you're a loser for doing BAD on the test. And then he will never shut the hell up about that. Even if he fails the next ten, he's still "smarter" than you because of that one time.

Now, this is a combination of two different principles, both of them highly annoying. The first is the idea that certain people will only ever remember the positive moments. You can tell them two hundred things that they're awful at, and give them one shallow compliment, and that's all they'll remember. "Well, you shot like twelve coworkers and tried to push me out the window. But you have good attendance." The other is that people tend to pretend that they don't care about things as soon as they find out they sucked at them. I'm not saying "certain people" this time, because pretty much everyone does that. I know I do. And that creates the great big oaf gloating to you the one time he does better than you, the smarmy prick.

This is even easier to see and sports, and definitely something I know I'm guilty of. As soon as you remember that wait, you actually suck at basketball, all of a sudden the pregame trash talk was "just a joke" and everyone else is "taking it too seriously". This is only excusable if the entire opposing team is made up of complete wankers. And even then it's probably only okay to do like, once. After that, either learn to play better or just inform everyone that you suck beforehand.

Never Gonna Grow Up

There seems to be sort of an interesting divide between children. Well I mean obviously, there's a lot of little sub-groups within the social structures, which children have, apparently, but this one's a bit more specific.* Basically, there are the kids that can't wait until they've grown up and can be adults and be independent and all that bollocks, and there are the kids who are dreading the day they have to actually start taking responsibility for themselves. I was in the latter group, which made perfect sense to me. Most of the adults I knew didn't really seem nearly as happy as most of the kids I knew. The adults had to like, you know, actually accomplish things, which is something I never really liked too much. Not that I do now, but at least people ASK me to accomplish things these days. I just never do.

Of course, if you stick with that "never want to grow up" mindset, you get people like Micheal Jackson and Peter Pan, who I'm pretty sure were both pedophiles. Actually, that's probably where pedophilia comes from. A sort of insufferable desire to be a kid again, coupled with the sexual urges of an adult, resulting in pretty much the creepiest fetish in the world. Sure, there are WEIRDER fetishes, but pedophilia is scary just because it's so easy to pull off. Scary stuff. What was I talking about again? Right, growing up.

Peter Pan always sort of freaked me out. Mostly because of how incredibly fabulous his outfit was, but also because he was still mentally twelve-years-old, despite the fact that he was like, one hundred, right? That sort of scared me. He's basically creeping on Wendy. So yes, I think he was definitely a pedophile. Kidnapping children from their bedrooms and promising them all sorts of wonderful things. Creepy.

*You know what? This is an awful sentence. I hate it. Pretend it isn't there.

I Have No Idea How Much Cars Cost

I've never really understood those people who win the lottery or a game show or something, and they make like 50,000 dollars, and they blow all of it on a car. Just one car. Now, as a kid, this confused me because I didn't understand why you would want to buy a nice car. I always thought it would be way cooler to buy something awesome, like a pool or a trampoline, not a stupid car. But now I see that it's way more ridiculous than that.

See, by the time you become old enough to even PLAY the lottery, you should probably be pretty smart with your finances. And you know, maybe you should be buying, say, food with all that money. That might be sort of helpful. Okay, so maybe you need a car, that's fine, but why not buy a cheaper one instead of a Ferrari or something, THEN use the rest of it to support yourself? Or, you know, your family.

In fact, I bet this situation has resulted in a lot of stereotypically pissed-off wives.

"You spent all the money on WHAT!?"
"A Jaguar."
"We live in a ditch on the outskirts of a slum!"
"But it's got like, thirty cupholders!"
"Our children are starving!"
"CUP. HOLDERS."

Like a Crossword but Worse

Please tell me I'm not the only person who can't stand Scrabble. There are few things that I find more boring and tedious besides being forced to play through an entire game of that stupid thing. Basically, Scrabble has two parts of play, split into two very distinct, alternating phases that continue to cycle until the game is completed. There is the Thinking Phase and the Waiting Phase. The Thinking Phase is brutal. This is the often incredibly long period of time where you sit at the table, trying to come up with a new word. This period becomes longer and longer the more time you spend playing, so that by the time the game is near completion, you can be trying to come up with something good for nearly ten minutes, and you'll still end up only getting about three points because you couldn't come up with anything better than "cat".*

Once you finally do come up with something, you enter the Waiting Phase. The Waiting Phase is similar to the Thinking Phase, in that it's primarily spent doing absolutely nothing, except now, you're the one telling everyone ELSE to hurry the hell up. So you're become the very thing that was annoying you not five seconds earlier. This is why you should never play Scrabble with anybody you like. Or anyone at all, really. It makes people hate each other with its incredible powers of boredom and waste.

So here we have a game where the gameplay is based entirely around being in a period of mental distress and watching other people be in periods of mental distress. Now, there are plenty of games where it's only really interesting when it's your turn, but the advantage that these games have over Scrabble is that it doesn't take twenty minutes in between every turn while you wait for everyone else to finish. And when it IS your turn, it's actually fun, an aspect that Scrabble severely lacks.

Basically what I'm saying here is that it's really goddamn boring.

*No, I don't actually know if "cat" is worth three points. The amount to which I just do not care is astounding.

Turns Out I'm Insane

I feel bad for the people who have to make GPSs.* It seems like it would be a massive pain in the ass to actually do, even with a whole bunch of people working on it. I mean, programming by itself is already one of the most tedious activities in the world, so programming in every street in the entire country...like, holy crap. Seriously, holy goddamn crap. I would rather spend twelve hours a day sticking pencils in my eyes than put up with that crap.** Unless of course it's all automated. It probably is. Well, let's just pretend that isn't the case and continue banging on about how annoying it would be if it wasn't.

Okay, imagine being stuck in a room all day with two computers and a coworker, hereby known as "Kevin". Now, your boss has locked you and Kevin in a room and told you that neither of you is allowed to leave until you have programmed in all of the maps for California. Now, Kevin has been working for the company for about a week, and you hate him. He's one of those guys that tries really, really hard to be funny, but just isn't.*** He smells vaguely like wet cheese. His "Your mom" jokes make you want to smack him in the head repeatedly with the fire extinguisher. There is a convenient fire extinguisher in your executive-induced hell. What would YOU do?

The better question is, of course, what did I do? And the answer is none of your business. Now get out of my house.

*I debated for awhile whether or not "GPS" was the same in plural and singular, because "GPSs" sounds weird when you say it aloud, and doesn't really look right in text. But I figured it would be even more confusing if I did it the other way and just went with this one.
**This may or may not actually be true, but I'm pretty sure there are many, many things I'd rather be doing, most of them not particularly pleasant. Probably has something to do with my absolutely atrocious work ethic.
***Yes, kind of like this blog ha ha you are so funny bite me.

Food For Thought

I find it sort of weird that we're repulsed by feces. I'm not saying that I'm NOT, because I absolutely am.* I just find it strange that everyone is, barring those weirdos that become scatologists.** I mean, it's from our own bodies, right? It's inside of us, but it grosses us out completely. I don't know why, but I find that very, very weird. Like, this is basically just our food, right? Just processed by our own bodies. But we won't even touch it or go near it. And if you do, you're probably considered an insane freak. As you rightfully should be, you goddamn weirdo.

It's gotta have something to do with the smell, right? I mean yeah, it smells like...duh. But anyway, I wonder if people with no sense of smell are disgusted by it. They probably think the same thing, just because society's made them think that way. I knew a kid with no sense of smell once. I should've asked him about it. I'm sure he wouldn't have been freaked out by that at all. Seems like a perfectly legitimate question to me.

There are times in my life where I realize that it's 10:30 on a Friday night and I'm writing about feces. I am perfectly okay with that notion, but I'm sure it's disappointing to my parents somehow.

*In fact, I'm not entirely sure why I'm writing about it. Maybe I'm crazy. Maybe I hate myself. Maybe I have the brainworms.
**This is a real word. I did not make this up. There are actually people who decide that they want to study animal crap for a living. I imagine there's got to be some point in every scatologist's life when they realize that they're not exactly doing what they thought they'd be doing when they majored in Biology.

Get Your Life Changed

I don't think I've ever had what they call a "life-changing event". I mean, obviously I've had events that have changed my life. Using THAT definition, every single thing that happens to you is a life-changing event. The event of you choosing to eat a sandwich has the life-changing consequence of you having eaten a sandwich. It isn't a MAJOR change, but hey, it's still a change. But generally when people say stuff like that, they mean something that majorly changes the way you think. Your personality in general. Now, I'm not saying that I am mentally exactly the same as I was when I was born, I just find the idea of one single event changing everything about your philosophy and ideals to be almost laughable. Motivational speakers and various other sad individuals* say that stuff like that happens to them, and I don't believe them for a moment.

See, I think that a major change in a person has to happen over time, and one single occurrence can't be the sole factor making that much of a difference. The human mind just does not work like that. Now, I can see a whole variety of different, significant events happening in your life causing a major decision to be made, and THEN you might have a major shift in your way of thinking, but to claim that this sort of thing was caused by one, singular happening is to completely misrepresent the way the human mind develops and evolves. Which is why it worries me that so many supposed "motivational speakers" claim these kinds of events. It just "motivates" people to think that "Hey, maybe everything sucks for me right now, but I'm sure one day something big will happen that changes all of that." Not a very good lesson to teach people, especially children.

I've seen people who warn kids about drugs do this all the time. They say they were super hardcore addicted to shooting pure crack cocaine directly into their eyeballs, and then all of a sudden something amazing happened and they got better. Because that's how withdrawal works guys.

*Which isn't to say that all motivational speakers automatically suck. Just most of them.

You Aren't Really A Philanthropist

It always sort of pisses me off whenever the question "What would you do if you had (insert preposterous amount of currency here)?" and that one smug bastard says "I'd give it all away to charity!" Everyone in the room, including you, knows damn well that that is absolutely not even close to what you'd do. You're just saying that because you want everyone else to marvel at what a kind and generous soul you are, and I invite you to therefore clean my shoes with your own tongue, since you're apparently JESUS.* It makes me want to puke twice as much when people on those god-awful TV talent contests say it. Especially when they win and, surprise surprise, they don't give it all to charity. Pricks...

I will generally answer that question in one of two ways: The boring way and the honest way. Now, the boring way is about equally likely to be true, but is much less funny than the honest way.** The boring way is basically saying "I would support myself and my family and pay off the mortgage and blah blah blah reality." The honest way is what I think I would probably end up doing "Oh, I'd blow it all on stupid stuff in about a week." I would probably have no food and SO MANY VIDEOGAMES. That'd be the best few weeks ever before I got cut off for not paying the electric bill.

Next time I get asked this, I think I'll talk about paying off all the money I owe to the mob so they don't come to my house and break my kneecaps. And take my house somehow. After all, I we all owe a little bit of blood money to the mob, right? No? Just me? Okay then.

*Yes, I know Jesus washed feet and not shoes, but I don't want people licking my feet. Now that is just gross.
**Of course, pretty much any answer you give could be considered the boring way, because I'm pretty sure everyone is really, really sick of this stupid question right now.

It's Quite An Art Form

I've always kind of wanted to meet the type of person that it takes to graffiti on billboards. See, because tagging is already one of the stupidest crimes of all time, especially because it's basically risking jail time* for something that brings absolutely no benefit to you personally. You make no money from it, you're not getting revenge on anyone, you're just leaving your stupid goddamn illegible gang scrawlings on something. Congratulations.

But anyway, the people who do it on billboards just fascinate me. I don't know if you've seen this, but I'm sort of amazed by the guy that's willing to go and write "PENIS" on Angelina Jolie's giant face. That takes dedication. First of all, how the flipping hell do they get up there? That would require a very large ladder, and I'm pretty sure you can't just buy 50 foot ladders at Home Depot. So I guess you'd have to specialty order a giant ladder online, and I'm not really sure how you ship something like that to someone's house. Either that, or you have to become ninja enough to climb by yourself. Or buy shoes with really, really sharp cleets. Or both.

More importantly, how the balls do these guys not get caught? I've seen large, detailed letters informing me of all SORTS of things the tagger has done with my mother. I imagine those take a pretty long time to put up, especially with spray paint not exactly being the most cooperative medium. And I've seen stuff like this on signs next to bustling four-way intersections! How do they pull that off? Even at night, somebody's BOUND to see them, especially since the damn things are lit with freaking flood lights. Maybe they dress up like city workers and pretend to be fixing something. I think at the point that they started asking me to put on a fake mustache and a jumpsuit to paint a sign 100 feet in the air, I might reconsider the gang life.

*Actually, I'm not ENTIRELY sure on that. Might be just massive fines, I haven't looked into it.

How About You Just Teach Yourself Then

I think we need to start trying to get people who hate math and have good charisma to become math teachers. See, because the math teachers we have now, they become math teachers because they like math, but they weren't good enough to become actual mathematicians. Well, at least I assume so, because almost every math teacher I've ever met had the people skills of a tea spoon.* Of course, this isn't ALWAYS the case, but since I've only had about one math teacher that DIDN'T act like they'd been trapped in a broom cupboard for the past fifteen years with only an episode of the Andy Griffith Show as their reference for human relations, I'm going to assume that it's at least reasonably common. So of course, we want to try to find charismatic people to teach math, which will be impossible, but shut up, I'm dreaming.

More importantly, we want them to hate math. Why? Because math teachers that LIKE math don't understand how anyone else COULDN'T like math. See, they don't understand that pretty much everyone else in the world with a working brain hates what they love, kind of like being a Justin Bieber fan.** So at least if your teacher hated math, they would understand you, not cry and scream and ask why you don't get it when it's SO OBVIOUS.

This plan, of course, will not work, because nobody would actually WANT to become a math teacher if they had those qualities. They'd be off doing a job that DOESN'T make kids want to stab themselves. And you know what? I don't blame them.

Yeah, not sure if I was clear enough. Math can go dive into a tank full of herpes-infected jellyfish.

*This probably has more to do with the fact that people who like math are, to use a rather outdated term, left-brain, and tend not to be as good with people, but I'm getting to that.
**No, this was too easy. Don't laugh at that, it was bad.

Talentless Show

Do TV talent competitions make anyone else want to vomit blood? Because that sure as hell happens to me every time I watch them. Mostly because there's usually about one person with any actual talent,* and they usually don't win because the only people who give enough of a damn to vote are the teenage girls who just vote for who they think is cute.

Actually, it sort of amazes me that there are people who vote on this crap regularly. It seems like they just want to add even more bull to the oversaturated pop music market. More of the same generic crap. Whoopy-pissin'-doo. I'm sure there are people who feel that compulsion, but I can't imagine what kind of issues it would require.

I do sort of like the idea of a whole bunch of idiots competing for who can sell-out the most. They even make the poor bastards do it before they even win. And they go along with it, because they're so goddamn desperate for attention. Lord help us.

*There is currently a guy on American Idol who is an insanely good singer, and plays the bass like a friggin' pro. It's pretty damn embarassing, because he just has so much more talent than everyone else on the entire show.

Pretty Colors

I really do enjoy the complete and utter insanity that comes with being sick and/or on insane amounts of meds. I'm not sure if this happens to everybody, but for me, I start hallucinating and going completely out of my mind if I even get so much as a cold. For example, today in class I became thoroughly convinced that the kid in front of me was plotting my murder. I also managed to write an essay that later turned out to be complete gibberish.* It's kind of a fascinating experience.

Now, what's REALLY fun is if you become self-aware during these sessions. There are times when I know for a fact that the things running through my mind are completely nonsensical, but I can't stop doing it. It's like having your brain split in half, with one half desperately trying to get the other to stop being a tosspot while the other is chugging Ritalin and attempting to run on the ceiling.

I can vaguely recall a specific instance where I was lying in bed, and I was also somehow believing that I was at school, taking a test. At the same time. And this seemed perfectly rational to me at the time. Basically what I'm saying is that I'm really hoping to read this again in a few days and find out that I actually wrote a five page essay about a teapot sodomizing a dinosaur.

*You know, kind of like everything else I write.

Chapstick and Nothing Else

Women totally get the piss end of the stick on a lot of things, most of them having to do with menstruation and pregnancies, which I'm not going to joke about because I would prefer to keep my testicles. No, the thing that's been bothering me lately has to do with pants.* Mainly, why do the pockets on women's pants suck so much? Seriously, have you ever seen that crap? They get like, an inch of space. What the hell kinda sense does that make?

I like to think that's it's just a deep-seated root of sexism in the clothing industry. "Oh, women never have anything to carry! They don't need pockets!" I can't think of any OTHER reason, besides the assumption that all women will have purses, but that's also a bit sexist.

The thing that bugs me the most is that it serves no purpose. There's no aesthetic difference, so it's apparently there just to piss of half the human populace.

More important issues be damned, ya'all should start protesting THIS.

*Wording this entire paragraph to not be insensitive or dirty is kind of a nightmare.

The Buttons Are Too Small

Technology shrinkage bugs me, and I'm not entirely sure why. Actually, no, scratch that. CELL PHONE shrinkage bugs me. Have you ever seen those super, super tiny laptops? Yeah, those are awesome. Using them makes me feel like a secret agent or a giant or something. So forget what I said about technology,* it's just cell phones. And again, I'm not really sure why it annoys me that we keep trying to make them so damn tiny. Like, it sort of makes sense, doesn't it? You want them to be smaller so they're easier to carry around, but you know what? By today's cell phone standards, the iPhone is friggin'  enormous, and carrying those around doesn't seem to be a problem with anyone. If you can't fit your phone in your pocket, you have crappy pants. Start buying pants that suck less.

And the weight thing isn't really an issue either. You can make those things pretty damn light if you don't suck at engineering, and if your arms really get tired from using a cell phone, you have bigger problems than that. And you know what? Really, really light phones kind of freak me out. They always feel like they're going to just break somehow. Or maybe they're just poorly designed, I'm not sure. Anyway, the point is that I'm not entirely sure WHY we feel the need to make them this small.

I also begin to realize that I probably hate this trend because of how stupidly forgetful I can be. I lose those tiny little bastards all the time. If I had children, I might drop them between the car seats and never see them again. Luckily, that probably won't happen. Having children I mean.

*Why couldn't I just go back and change the first sentence? Because shut up.

Forever and Ever

Tenure is pretty much the stupidest thing in the world. Any rule or concept that can result in an incredibly senile old man being absolutely impossible to fire and still allowed to teach children is something I really don't think we should be keeping around. Actually, you can take it even further than that. I've seen teachers that are downright psychotic or abusive, but you can't get rid of the evil bastards because of this stupid, stupid idea, and I'm getting pretty sick of it.

It also makes it almost impossible for new teachers to actually get jobs, because until the aforementioned senile old man finally freaking dies already, his position is filled, and there's nothing you can do about it.

And you know what? For all the massive, massive amounts of bitching the media does about pedophilia, teachers who have a history of that sort of dsigusting crap can GET REHIRED.WHAT. THE. PISS?

I Am An Idiot

On November 17th, 2010, I published one of my blog posts. Yesterday, the post was accidentally deleted from the site due to my own stupidity. I have no recollection of what it was about or what the title was. Due to the way Blogspot handles post deletion, I will never be able to get it back. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Acceptance Letter

Actually, yeah, let's discuss the electoral college for a bit. In case you live in a ditch* or don't know what a "politics" is, the electoral college basically means that instead of the popular vote deciding an election, each state gets a certain number of votes, and THOSE are decided by election. So whoever gets the most states wins. As you can see, this is complete and utter crap.

So basically, we don't have a democracy here. I've mentioned this several times, but I think it's kind of a weird way to go about things. I mean obviously the whole thing about having a president technically makes us a democratic republic, which I've already discussed, is pretty stupid in the first place, but the electoral college bugs me even more. There's something very, very irritating about being told that you have the right to make your opinion known and have a voice in government, and then having the election not actually be decided by the popular vote. That kind of sort of makes me want to break things, which is always a good decision.

It sort of feels like we're going backwards. Like, in those insane dictatorships that they claim are democracies, where they have "elections" that are completely and utterly rigged. I'm not saying it's the exact same thing, but it just sort of feels wrong. Like, we shouldn't be doing things like that.

'CAUSE THIS IS 'MERICA DAMMIT! RIGHT? RIGHT!?

YEEEAAAAHHH!!!

*In which case, how exactly did you get on the internet?

Three Year Bonus Part 3

It sort of strikes me as a bit odd that we have an age limit on voting. And by "odd", I mean pretty damn irritating. The school system puts so much emphasis on thinking for yourself* and forming your own political opinion. So why don't we let teenagers vote? Hell, why don't we let EVERYONE vote? I mean, kids don't give a crap enough, so they won't really bother to show up, but if someone in middle school of high school wants to be able to express their opinion, they damn well should be able to.

That's what really bugs me though. If everyone in this country is supposed to have equal rights, why is an eighteen year old allowed to vote, but a seventeen year old isn't? We're already stretching the "democracy" thing pretty far with the electoral college.** We don't need to make it even less believable.

It's not like this is like driving or anything. What exactly would happen if we gave younger people the right to vote? Isn't the vote supposed to represent the ENTIRE population, not most of it? Seems like it should. Of course, a bill proposing this could never pass, because we wouldn't be allowed to vote on it.

*Except for the fact that they, you know, don't actually let us think for ourselves, which I find fascinating.
**And my GOD do I hate the electoral college, but that probably warrants its own post.

Way More Fun Than Baseball

Pinata's* always sort of disturbed me as a child. Not the ones that were just colorful geometric shapes** with tassels all over them, those were okay. No, the ones that always worried me were the ones shaped like cartoon characters. I never really understood those. It was like "Hey kids! You know Spongebob? Have you ever wanted to smash his stupid face in with a bat until he bleeds candy? You have? You sick bastards."***  Seems like a pretty awful thing to do to your beloved heroes. Of course, I did it anyway, because there was no way in hell I was going to let any of the other kids get candy if I wasn't.

Actually, there are a lot of pretty messed up things about that game. It seemed to be one of the few games deliberately designed to frustrate children. I mean, they blindfold you, and then some smug douchebag keeps moving the thing out of the way. And of course, the other kids are going to make fun of you if you hit it and nothing happens, you weakling. Of course, that would never happen, because the kid who always got it was the little brother or something that didn't have to wear and blindfold, and they just got to beat the piss out of it. They never let me do that.

There is one specific instance I can recall where the game went on for like two hours because the damn thing would not break, even when we got the kid's dad to knock the hell out of it, which must have been pretty damn emasculating. We ended up using a rake instead of a bat, which probably would have been an incredibly satisfying experience for me, but I was, of course, in the back of the line. And it was the class dickhead in the front, as always. Children are cruel.

*Yes, there is supposed to be a tilde over the n. Yes, there is a way to do that with a standard keyboard. No, I do not know what it is. No, I don't feel like looking it up. No, you do not have to comment on this and tell me.
**"Geometric shapes" has always sounded extremely redundant to me. That's like saying "monetary dollars" or "musical songs".
***This was actually the worst for me with Pikachu pinatas. No one messes with Pikachu.

Everyone's a Loser

You know, I think it kind of reduces the effect of getting a trophy when EVERYONE gets a trophy. Have you ever noticed that? When they have little league sports these days, every single player gets a trophy, even the weird kid with the athletic capabilities of a boiled turnip.* So basically, everyone gets rewarded exactly the same, so that no one child is seen as BETTER by any of the other children. Am I the only one who sees the many things that are horrifically wrong with that?

First of all, children are not as stupid as you think they are. When one of the kids on the team is better than everyone else, your kids know damn well who it is.** Rewarding everyone equally for not doing diddly-piss is never going to change that. And when you don't recognize that and try to ignore it, it screws our heads up. It makes us think that even if we don't work as hard, everyone will get rewarded the same.***

Which brings me to my second point. This stupid crap teaches kids that it doesn't matter how much work you do, everyone's a winner. Everyone. And see, that doesn't work, because to be a winner, someone's gotta be a loser, and if you don't work hard, that loser's gonna be you.

I have five sports trophies on my shelf. I earned exactly two of them, for actually winning something.****

*For the record, that kid would be me. So yes, your predictions of him going nowhere were completely correct.
**I vaguely recall this super hardcore Brazilian kid on my soccer team that basically turned all of our strategies into "Pass the ball to him, win game."
***Which, by the way, is the reason why communism doesn't work. Why bother to work hard and become a doctor or a scientist when you'll make the same amount of money working as a janitor?
****For the record, it was swimming, not something that anyone actually cares about.