Speed of Light and All That

I like how "quantum physics" is starting to become a catch-all explanation for anything we don't understand, regardless of whether or not it explains anything. This is probably mostly due to the fact that anyone who understands quantum physics can begin to answer any sort of science question with "Well, it's because of quantum physics...", and everyone will just believe them, because hey, do YOU understand quantum physics? Of course you don't, you know why? Because quantum physics doesn't make any sense. It is so completely disconnected from any sort of day-to-day, rational thought that trying to explain any part of it will result in at least one bystander suffering from spontaneous combustion. Of the face. And nobody wants that, so we just accept that it solves every problem.

I hope that someday, it'll be like how "The gods did it" used to be a suitable explanation for anything. Just you wait, in a few years, every single question you ever had about the universe will somehow be explained through quantum physics.* Gravity? Quantum physics. UFOs? Quantum physics. Socks going missing in the laundry? Quantum goddamn physics. I am willing to mindlessly believe any field of science that says that objects can be in two places at once, and that things can behave differently depending on whether or not you're looking at them. Theoretical physicists are clearly dark sorcerers, and thus deserve our admiration and fear.

That sound you heard was someone's head catching fire.

*Or possibly dark matter.

There Is Probably No Appropriate Title For This

Here's something I probably shouldn't be talking about: American Indians.* Now, here's the thing that I find so strange: I totally get WHY we do things like allowing them to basically have no problem getting into any college they want to and the massive tax breaks and things like that, I just find it really strange. I'm not against it in any way, because yeah, America totally dicked over the Indians for centuries, but the thing is, I think it's weird to repay in kind for something that somebody's ancestors did. No wait, hear me out on this.

Okay, imagine you're a white guy. That shouldn't be too hard, especially if you already are one. Okay, so you're at your house, getting drunk or setting TVs on fire or whatever it is white people are supposed to do these days. Anyway, the police burst into your house and arrest you. When pressed for the reason, they explain that your ancestors from 200 years ago were slave owners, and you're being punished for it. That'd kinda suck, right? So yeah, the Indian thing is like that, but backwards. 200 years ago, THEIR ancestors got massively screwed, forced off their land, and killed, and now they get to benefit from it. That's cool that we're at least trying to make up for it and all, even though we never possibly could, but trying to do that by helping out people who they never even met? That's nice of them but...yeah. I actually don't really have a conclusion or anything. I don't want them to stop it, I think it's a good thing but...yeah. It's weird. Bring on the hate mail.

*I'm going to call them "Indians", because "Native Americans" is apparently not any better to them. And the whole "political correctness" thing is just so out of hand at this point that it's easier to just keep things as simple as we can.

I Always Preferred Doodle Jump Anyway

Why is everyone so obsessed with Angry Birds? Okay yes, it's a fun game, I'm glad we're all in agreement on that, but it's not THAT fun. It's got charm, sure, but there are what, millions of games on the App Store these days? I just don't see what makes it such a big deal. Now there's commercials and crap. Where the hell did this come from? It's not like it was even a very original game in the first place. By my last count, there are about 10.3 craptilion "fling the thing at the pile of physics objects to not stuff over" games out there, and Angry Birds certainly wasn't the first. It's a fun version of it, and it's well-presented, but it really isn't anything special. Am I missing something? I've played it. It's pretty alright. But apparently, it's better than Tetris.*

And on a semi-related note, what's with this crap where it costs a dollar for the iPhone, but is free-to-play on the Android Market? Did Rovio just decide that it's now officially making enough money from plushies and t-shirts that the actual GAME doesn't really matter much anymore? And if so, WHEN DID WE REACH THE POINT WHERE THAT WAS EVEN POSSIBLE? I'm not ANGRY about it, it's just...goddamn, HOW DID THAT HAPPEN? It's just a stupid Flash game shoved onto a touch screen phone! EVERYONE STOP FREAKING OUT!

Anyway...

I think we've officially reached the point where it's allowed to blow over and be forgotten about. At least, until the inevitable release of Angry Birds 2. Oh shut up, you know it's coming.

*Yeah, Angry Birds has now officially outsold Tetris. EVERY VERSION OF TETRIS. Goddamn.

Burn the Witch

I think the "Obama is the antichrist" theory is my favorite conspiracy theory ever. It's rare that you get to combine the inane stupidity of conspiracy theorists with the balls-out insanity of religious fundamentalists. Come on guys, if Obama was the antichrist, do you really think he would've run as BARACK OBAMA? Hell no, anything that hurt his chances to become emperor of the universe wouldn't be something he'd probably be doing. The antichrist is supposed to have superpowers, right?* So if Obama was the antichrist, he probably could've gotten the Health Care bill passed a long time ago, right? After all, the Health Care bill is the work of the devil, right? If not, then Obama's deliberately not getting it passed, because he's the antichrist. It can't be both. QED, Obama is either not the antichrist, or fundamentalists need to start supporting Health Care.**

I prefer it when they just go around saying he's the devil. That's a lot easier, isn't it? Yeah, okay kids, Obama's the devil. Now why don't you go outside and play so we can work on grown-up things, okay? None of that crap where we're not entirely sure if the antichrist was even intended to be a thing by the writers of the Bible, or what exactly it is. The devil is the devil. He wants you to sin because he's the devil. Basically, the devil is a massive tool, and probably the most black and white villain of all time. If the Bible was a TV show, people would complain about the bad guy not having any motivation besides "because he's evil".

So yes, Obama got elected president because he's evil. Also, this has nothing to do with the fact that he's black. No sir. That would be racist, and surely Christian fundamentalists are anything but racist, right? Right? Guys?

*I am of course referring to what modern Christians THINK the antichrist is like, not what the Bible actually SAYS it's like, that being anyone who preached against Christianity, or possibly a giant monster. It's not really clear, actually.
**I bet nobody's ever written that sentence before.

Money Makes You Crazy

I occasionally wonder about stupid things that don't matter at all. Actually, that's a lie. I do that constantly. Today, I'm wondering about when it is the world will have its first trillionaire and, as an extension of that, when being a millionaire won't be all that impressive any more. If I was an economist, which I never will be, because my brain has the capacity for some form of compassion for other human beings, I could probably make a rough estimate for it. Or, failing that, I could come up with some random year and have people believe me because experts don't lie.

See, because millionaires and billionaires are sort of like the pantheon of modern America, billionaires especially. Maybe millionaires are demigods or something, I don't know. But I mean, you got people like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates and Warren Buffett, and they aren't really people anymore. They're BILLIONAIRES. They're special and different because they could buy and sell you twenty seven times with their pocket change and still have enough left over to buy them and every prostitute in the city a lobster dinner and a ride home. Warren Buffett isn't just a regular guy. He's so ludicrously wealthy that he could just decide to sit in his house and decay for the next fifty years and he'd still probably have enough money to leave his grandchildren reasonably well-off. That's kind of awesome and kind of terrifying, when you think about it.

Personally, I'm waiting for one of these guys to go insane. No, not Howard Hughes insane where they just start raving like lunatics and wearing tissue boxes on their feet. EVIL insane, where they secretly commission a giant death laser and try to take over the world. I mean, after you have all that money, you could live comfortably for the next millennium, OR you could go out in STYLE. Come on, just one. I'm looking at you, Jobs. You're already a bit nuts. iLaser. Think about it.

A Wretched Hive

I'm surprised that YouTube is even allowed to exist these days. You know, because people bitch about how the "Nazis" at Warner Music Group are taking down videos that violate their copyright claims,* but they need to realize that it's amazing what we DO get away with. There are entire MOVIES up on YouTube, and nobody does a thing. Well technically, they TRY to, but they get re-uploaded so fast that there's no possible way the lawyers could keep up, and they have more important things to do. You think Disney doesn't know that there's like a million copies of all their animated movies on YouTube? Of course they do, but they know it's not worth the trouble to try to get them all taken down. There's too many of them, and they come back way too fast. Yes, movies on YouTube are basically herpes.**

So then YouTube has to take the fall for all that, not the users. Because the users are nobody. And it's just amazing to me that there hasn't been a movement by corporations to get the whole site taken down. It's probably because it's such a useful tool for getting videos shown that NOBODY wants it gone. Regular people, companies, terrorists...they all get use out of YouTube. So the companies get to pretty much go screw themselves. YouTube is kind of like if all the digital pirates decided that they were just going to come out and flaunt the fact that they're stealing stuff, right in front of the companies they're stealing from. Actually, it's kind of exactly like that. WOO! ANAAARRCHY!

*I know it gets absolutely ridiculous at times (taking down videos with one second of copyrighted audio, taking down videos that apply for fair use, etc.), but I really wish people would quit whining about this sort of thing. You can't blame them for wanting to keep their claims protected. There are a lot more awful things corporations do to get up in arms about.
**Friday night is Tasteless Joke Night!

I'm Pretty Sure I've Talked About Dinosaur Cloning Before, But Oh Well DINOSAURS

So once the whole cloning thing inevitably gets under way, what're we going to do about the dinosaurs. Yeah, there's two things that we need to stop pretending are true right now: That cloning isn't totally going to become a thing that everyone who thinks it's immoral is just going to have to shut up and deal with, and that scientists totally aren't going to immediately start trying to figure out how to bring dinosaurs back. You know, after all of the clone human organs, benefit humanity, boring, practical science part. In the fun, awesome science division, things have probably already started moving in that direction, so we might as well just roll with it.

Now personally, I know everyone's going to start screaming about how "this is totally like Jurassic Park" and "you guys are totally going to wreck the ecosystem", because apparently these people are going to be shocked to discover that scientists aren't stupid. You know why the people in Jurassic Park got eaten and killed? Because they were stupid and made stupid decisions. Also because it is a movie and it wouldn't be very good if it was just called Placid Plant Eating Dinosaurs Eating Plants Park. When we clone dinosaurs, we're probably not going to be that stupid. You know, we can probably handle that sort of thing. We have rockets and stuff. Shoot a velociraptor. PROBLEM SOLVED.

Or hell, cross breed them with dwarfism. I don't care. Make mini dinosaurs. I just want dinosaurs before I'm dead. Why can't scientists cater to my five-year-old boy dreams?

He Started It

I think it's high time we start solving our wars through means besides "killing each other". Come on guys, there's gotta be a couple different things you could come up with. It's not like murdering a whole bunch of 20-year-olds from the other country is anything other than a psychological and emotional blow. Bombing, fine, but combat itself is becoming a bit pointless these days when we have weapons that can level entire buildings, or even countries, we don't have much reason to be doing that stupid crap any more. So let's start fighting by not pointlessly murdering each other, okay? That'd be kinda fun. We just have to decide what it is we're going to do.

Can't be sports, because if it was Kenya and New Zealand would have a massive advantage. I guess New Zealanders have become strong by having to constantly fight giant spiders all day, and...I can't say "Kenyan people are good at sports" without sounding racist, so I'll go with "I think there's like lions there or something maybe not I dunno", so then I'll look ignorant instead. Can't be video games, because well...South Korea. Yeah, just...yeah, South Korea. See, that's the problem right now. America just has way too much of an advantage in the whole "blowing up other places for...reasons that I'm sure someone can up with" market, which isn't fair to everyone else.

Or, here's a good idea, how about full-grown adults stop acting like goddamn five-year-olds and learn to share. Have you ever realized how many world problems would be solved if the people who run our countries just listened to the things most of us were taught in kindergarten. No lying, no stealing, no fighting, wait your turn, and most importantly, share. Yyyeeaaahhh...

Gourmet ANYTHING

How did we decide that certain animals are alright to eat and others aren't? I mean obviously it was originally "These animals are pretty docile and taste good, let's raise those", so they started with that. Cows? Okay. Pigs? Fine. Chickens? Awesome. And then it starts to get a little weird. Turkeys? That's usually still okay. Sheep? Maybe, but mostly only the baby ones, which is a bit messed up. Ducks? Only in China. Goats? Getting a bit strange, although milking them is apparently alright. After that, it all goes downhill. Dogs and cats? You'll get arrested in most countries. Frogs and snails? French people don't count. ANYTHING that lives on an African savannah? Not gonna happen. So what's the deal with that?

Okay, pretending for a second that there's no such thing as an endangered species list, why would it be totally gross to eat like, a tiger or something? Okay yeah, that would be horrible. I acknowledge that that would be a horrible thing to do. But WHY is that? Why do we think that way? What if you find out there was this new group of people who were totally into eating anteaters, or badgers, or lemurs or something? Wouldn't that freak you the hell out? It probably would. And I'm not entirely sure why. We just sorta picked which animals are okay to eat, and everything else was just not okay.

Sure, you could make the argument that those animals probably taste awful, but there are two problems with that. First of all, taste is subjective. Case in point: There are people who like mint ice cream.* Second, how do we KNOW? There could be a whole world of soul-destroying food just waiting to be discovered. Let's take advantage of that by never speaking of this again.

*Seriously, I do not understand you people.

Just Call Them Whatever You Want

I'm pretty sure that "liberal" and "conservative" have become pretty antiquated terms at this point. It used to be that a liberal was someone who wanted a lot of government. You know, regulations, state-funded programs, health care, all that good stuff. A conservative, by comparison, was someone who wanted a very small amount of government. You know, states rights, independence, unregulated everything, all that good stuff. But that's gotten a bit backwards lately, hasn't it? The "conservatives" are the ones who want to make it so that we regulate everything, i.e: keeping drugs illegal, stopping people from having abortions, telling gay people to go jump off cliffs, etc. And the "liberals" are the ones who want to legalize all the drugs and let people do their own thing. The only point where it still makes sense is in debates like health care, or taxes. But socially? It's pretty much gone backwards.

And don't say "Oh, well some people can be politically liberal but socially conservative." Yes, that's true, but do you think the crazy, super pro-drug people would identify as "conservative"? Hell no. Because to them, a conservative brings to mind a boring white guy who hates gays, or possibly a racist housewife. And to those far right-wing people, a liberal brings to mind an insane stoner who secretly wants total anarchy. So I think it's high time we came up with new terms, so things can start pretending to make sense again.

Okay, how about the far-right can be "assholes", the far left can be "douchebags", and the independents can be "pricks". That's fair, right? If anything, it would make debates far more interesting. And every news station in the world would get to have fun for at least a few weeks while everyone adjusts.

I Guess It Was Future Week

I'm excited to be living in an age when a whole slew* of things are becoming obsolete. Technology is advancing at such an incredible rate these days that a whole bunch of things are starting to be completely useless. We don't need landlines anymore. Plasma screen TVs are starting to be increasingly common. Newspapers are practically an anachronism at this point. That's a new thing for us. Before, old technologies disappeared very, very slowly. It took decades to die. Now, things are getting more and more advanced faster than most people could have possibly imagined. And it is simultaneously really scary and super cool.

I know there was some statistic about how processing power was going to continue to double for the next decade. I don't actually have the attention span to look it up, but the point is that we are going to have the best computers ever and all the naysayers can shut up about it. They're not going to destroy humanity. They're not going to ruin culture. They are going to be SWEET. And then we're totally gonna upload our brains into servers and play video games with our minds in space and if you don't want that then you need to readjust your standards.

There are plenty of things to be cynical about, but "technology is going to become increasingly awesome" is not one of them. It's going to be great. I'm ready for intergalactic space battles taking place inside my skull while I'm also sitting on my couch, which is also in space. Oh yeah, I live on the moon at that point. Because shut up, that's why.

*Doesn't "slew" not sound like a real word? Say it out loud, it sounds like kind of awful soup, or possibly some off-brand dishwashing liquid.

Whaling is Bad

I'm going to talk about whaling, but not in the way you think. See, you don't need me to tell you that whaling is awful. The environmentalist in your life has already told you all about how whalers are no good sons of bitches who are almost certainly going to hell. I don't need to write an entire post about how we probably shouldn't kill endangered species all the time. I'd hazard a guess that you've probably figured that out by now if you have any sort of working brain. There's an entire show on the Discovery Channel to tell you that. I have nothing new to offer there. With that said, I do have something that's bugging me, and for once, it's with the side that I AGREE with.

Anti-whaling guys, I get that you're doing some good stuff. Great stuff even. Protesting something awful, great. Actually DOING something about it, even better. But please, please, please for the love of God PLEASE can we stop screaming about how we need to "Stop Japan", or "Fight against Japan" and all that crap? Don't you realize that that's kinda sorta not okay? I mean, when I see Facebook pages saying "F*ck off Japan, join the fight against whaling!", you're not exactly endearing me to your cause. Which is a problem, because it's a really, really good cause. But when you do stuff like this, you're no better than those European people who think all Americans are drunk rednecks passing out in ditches outside their Broncos and voting for John McCain. Also, regardless of intent, it comes off as racist, so yeah.

Let's be smart about it, right? How about "F*ck off, whalers!"? That's good, right? No need to demonize an entire country when there's perfectly good fallible human beings to demonize. Plus, you know, it's actually them doing it. And you aren't a drunk redneck, are you?

Taken the JERBS

It annoys me, probably a little more than it reasonably should, that I haven't been able to come up with a clear-cut opinion for myself on illegal immigration. It's one of the few debates that come up* where I think both the conservative and liberal sides have very valid points, and are both equally justifiable in their opinions. Well, obviously not the extremists, who are always wrong no matter what. "SHOOT ALL THE MEXEECANS ON SIGHT" and "WE SHOULD LET EVERYONE LIVE HEAR REGARDLESS OF ANYTHING". But let's pretend that idiots don't exist for awhile and talk about something reasonable.

See, the liberal argument is that since this country was FOUNDED by immigrants, we should be okay with letting anyone in. Which is sort of true. And we certainly do put out the APPEARANCE that we're like that. You know, Statue of Liberty, Golden Gate Bridge, all that stuff. But apparently, we're not in that mindset anymore, which doesn't seem really fair. Plus, it's sort of almost impossible to get out of places like Cuba legally.

On the other hand, the conservatives actually have a point this time. Yeah, there are people who are here illegally, and they're kinda dicking over the people who actually applied for citizenship and all that. And the whole Dream Act thing, to give them tuition benefits and stuff? They're taking that money away from inner-city kids who need it too. Plus, yeah, it's incredibly stereotypical to say that they're "taking our jobs", but that IS a genuine point. Goddammit.

The conclusion? I don't have one. Form your own opinion, I'm still working on mine.

*Well, debates that aren't about stupid things anyway. "And I'm telling YOU that Superman could EASILY race the Flash." Which is stupid because if Superman is faster than the Flash, the Flash serves no purpose. Duh.

Superpower Lottery

I always like those comic books and movies and other things where EVERYONE has superpowers. You know, instead of it just being a few lucky blighters who get to fly around and shoot lasers at robots and stuff, everyone in the world is born with one unique power. That'd be pretty cool, wouldn't it? I mean, you could just base your whole life around whatever you end up getting. You're invulnerable? Time to join the military. Super strong? Oh man, pro sports would be awesome. You can freaking FLY? There's about a million possibilities there. Just pick something and go with it.

Unfortunately, there is one rather glaring downside. What if you get totally shafted? You know, you spend your entire life trying to figure out what the innate power inside of you is, and then one day it comes up on accident when it turns out that you can control Pop-Tarts with your mind? And you don't even LIKE Pop-Tarts? Those would be the kinds of people who end up having to work manual labor. Which is necessary, of course, but it's gotta suck for them. I just know I would totally get stuck with something stupid. Like I can turn my hand into a toothbrush, or I'm exceptionally good at making bagels.* And then all the other kids on the playground make fun of you, and you have to hang out with the kid that has supreme power of mucus, but he's REALLY excited about it.

Now, combining this with yesterday's "Let's make the world like Gattaca" plan, you just know people would start engineering babies with all the awesome powers. Unless they aren't hereditary, and are completely randomized. Hey, at least then there's an equal chance for everyone. Some up-and-coming kid breaks out of the slums because he got all the awesome powers. Wait hang on, I just had an idea for a movie.

*Actually, I'm not sure why I listed this, since this is clearly a power that I already have.

All I Want For Christmas Is a New Cyborg Arm

I wonder if we'll ever reach the point when people will want to start deliberately handicapping themselves just so they can get the awesome prosthetics. Or rather, will there come a time when the disabled become superior to us regular folk, just be the virtue of technology that allows them to not only function as well as human being, but even better? Now, I've discussed many times before ("many times" here meaning "I think I might have done a post about one time maybe but I'm not sure") that I'd be totally on board for getting robot eyes and stuff. If they develop the technology to give me an arm that can punch through walls, and it becomes affordable, I WANT ONE OF THOSE GODDAMN ARMS. But see, you gotta get your old arm chopped off to do that. Will that be a service the doctors provide, or will I have to lob my own limbs with a hacksaw in my garage and then call the hospital? Would amputating my arm just because I want a new one be on the same level as physician assisted suicide, or would it be like plastic surgery, except awesome?

I mean, they're developing those suits, right? The ones that can totally make you like 10 times as strong? Yeah, currently there's main problems with those. Number one, power. Number two, they look stupid. So let's say fifty years down the line, we've solved the power issue and streamlined the design into a "just limbs, looks badass" model. Would you wear one all the time? I probably would. Then we'd probably get about a year or so of people trying to be like Iron Man. Then the supervillains would show up. If anything, war is going to become a lot more insane. That is, if we haven't started fighting entirely with robots by then.

Basically, I'm imagining the world of Gattaca, but with robot suits instead of genetic engineering. Actually, I want the genetic engineering too. But I'll probably be dead by the time all this stuff gets going. Dammit.

Green Means Go, Yellow Means Go Faster

We live in an interesting world. We live in a world where you people will be driving down a completely deserted street, with no cars for miles around, and they will stop at a stop light, and wait a full minute for it to turn green. We live in a world where you and seven other people can all be lined up in a row, staring at a hanging light fixture, with nothing but a long stretch of open road in front of you, and the guy who decides he's had enough of this and guns it is considered the crazy one. And you know what? He probably is. Anyone who says traffic lights are stupid or unnecessary should have their car confiscated by social services and dropped from a helicopter.* I just find them FASCINATING is all.

See, because you couldn't have a law that says "If there's like nobody coming for a real real long time, feel free to just go ahead and skip the light." Because that's ambiguous. Laws can't be situational like that, or else people will start using loopholes. But wait! Are not all laws situational and/or ambiguous? Heck, if they weren't, there'd be no reason to ever use a court of law. It would always just be "You broke the law, now you go to jail." No, you gotta have people who's entire job is to decide what the law dictates in any given situation. And they do that over and over and over again. So naturally, having an ambiguous law would be okay, right?

No of course it wouldn't you stupid prick, don't be ridiculous. "Some of the laws are occasionally in the gray area, therefore it's okay for laws to be stupidly situational and based entirely on good judgment" it a STUPID STATEMENT. But see, I can make arguments for it. That's the beauty of it all. If you apply enough carefully worded language you can prove anything. For example I'm trying to prove...absolutely nothing. Christ, this post went nowhere. Good night.

*Not for any particular reason, I just like seeing large objects fall from stupidly great heights. Physics is fun!

LSCNPLT

It takes a special type of person to get a personalized liscence plate. Or rather, there are two different types of people. There are middle class moms, and there are douchebags.* Now, I'm not going to complain about middle class moms. Middle class moms will be middle class moms, and there's nothing I can do about that. They're weird, and they like tacky things. Good for them. But douchebags are different. Douchebags will get personalized liscence plates that only make sense to them, which is fascinating to me. They'll get some plate that says "FGHFDG1", just waiting for someone to ask them what it means, so they can feel smug and explain all the deep thought that went into it. "Nah dude, it's about this ancient Greek-" And then they don't finish because I punched them in the face.**

Kidding aside, I just think it's a pretty stupid thing to spend money on. I mean, there are way more awesome things you could do to your car with that kind of money.*** I mean, at least buy a spoiler or something so that you can PRETEND that it's making you go faster. Actually, I think it would be fun to modify your speedometer so that it would only display absurdly high numbers, just so you can convince yourself that you're a daredevil and driving really really fast. Then women will have sex with you and stuff. I think.

Or you know, you could buy food and stuff. But that's only if you totally suck and enjoy breathing. Loser.

*Making generalizations is the cornerstone of social commentary. Everyone who's not an idiot knows that.
**The author would like to note that he probably will not punch you in the face, and is actually probably incapable of reaching you over the Internet. Or at all.
***I'm not sure how much personlized liscences cost. When I asked my dad, he said that it's "more than it should be".

Don't Stupid and Drive

I'm surprised that the "don't drink and drive" people and the "don't text while driving" people haven't teamed up more. I mean, they both have the same basic cause set out, right? "Don't be a dick while driving". That's a pretty good goal, I think. See, because if doing stupid things in your car was only bad for you, I wouldn't care, for the same reasons I'm not big on keeping drugs illegal. I don't really care much if you want to screw yourself up. It's not my problem. But the whole driving thing is a dick move, because it's bad for other people too. That's just rude guys.

I think they need to play up that aspect more. Most anti-stupid driving campaigns talk about how you could totally get injured and stuff, which is true, but I think it's much more effective to weaponize peer pressure. "If you drink and drive, you could totally kill someone. And then girls will think you're a bastard and won't have sex with you. You murderer." I think that's pretty darn effective. Make someone feel like a total dick. Of course, that doesn't work with sociopaths, so in that case, I'd suggest "Don't commit vehicular manslaughter, because you're probably not going to get a job after that." That's an effective slogan right there.

Although it's all kind of pointless really, since you're not going to remember anything that you learned while sober once you're drunk off your ass. Really, that's kind of the crux of the whole problem. They want you to have good judgment, while ON A SUBSTANCE THAT ESSENTIALLY CAUSES BAD JUDGMENT. So you have to make good judgment BEFOREHAND, which is hard to do. You gotta plan for every possibly situation, and then pray that your drunk ass doesn't decide to ruin everything anyway.

The obvious moral: Never drink anything ever.

That Dog Keeps Laughing At Me

I don't have much to say about it being the beginning of the new school year tomorrow, besides the fact that I think it's really weird that my district has decided to begin the year on a freaking Wednesday. I mean, I'm not complaining about the extra day off, believe me, I just think it's incredibly bizarre. Go to school three days, then go home again, then come back to school for reals this time. Might as well have just given us the whole week off. Anyway, that's all I have to say about that, so let's talk about something stupid instead.

Hunting has got to be one of the most dickish sports in the world, if you can even call it a sport. Especially duck hunting, with the decoys and all that crap. I mean really, tricking some poor duck into thinking he's going to get some, and then shooting him in the face? That's pretty douchey. Not to mention that hunting for sport sounds pretty damn awful when you describe it objectively. "Yeah, we're going into the woods to pump some oblivious deer full of lead. What? Oh no, not to eat them, don't be gross. We just want to kill them. And then chop their heads off and mount them to our living room walls." That's just kinda nasty, isn't it?

Then again, you don't need me to tell you that hunting is awful. I'm sure Disney movies have already taught you all about that. I'm surprised we don't get more pushes for banning the whole thing though. I mean, of coure the animal rights people are AGAINST it, but that's not one of the big things they go on about a lot. Mostly they hate fur, which involves trapping. Now I'm the first to admit that anyone who pays thousands of dollars to wear a dead animal skin is probably going to hell, but at least they're DOING something with it, no matter how stupidly unnecessary it may be. Game hunters though? They just shoot things for fun. That's messed up man. At least PRETEND to have a reason for it.

Happy Do Nothing Day

I like honest we are about Labor Day. For most other "three day weekend" holidays, we pretend that we're celebrating something, and just "observing" it on Monday, which is code for "we really don't want to go to work on Monday and having a day off in the middle of the week would be really weird" (see: MLK Day, President's Day, etc.). But on Labor Day, we are literally just deciding that we don't feel like working. It's one of the few times a year where it's perfectly okay to say that we're having a day off just to have a day off. You can talk about how it's to "honor the hard-working, everyday Americans", but we all know what's it's really for. It's for finally being able to get drunk on a Monday afternoon and have everyone else be totally cool with it.

Although, it is sort of ruined by the fact that everyone ELSE has the day off too, so there's nothing to do. If you want to celebrate your arbitrary day off with a trip to the bar and a prostitute, too bad. They're not working today either. So you have to plan for labor day in advance. Go to the store the day before and stock up on booze so you're prepared. I don't think it's really possible to stock up on prostitutes though. Maybe if you kidnapped them and chained them up in your basement, but that's kinda sorta illegal. Then again, you're already hiring prostitutes, which is ALSO illegal for some reason, so you might as well go all the way and become a convicted felon. You know, that's probably why we don't have three day weekends more often. Too many crimes would be committed.

Of course, another problem is that the REALLY important jobs DON'T get the day off, so if you actually do something that matters, you probably won't get to stop working today. Seems kinda backwards to not let the people who work the hardest take the day off that is there to HONOR THE PEOPLE WHO WORK THE HARDEST. So yeah, Labor Day is stupid. Oh well, THREE DAY WEEKEND.

Buy a House For the Homeless

I think it's kind of screwy to make community service a requirement for high school kids. No, that doesn't mean I think community service is bad, put your damn hand down. However, I think you should volunteer and help people because you WANT to volunteer and help people, not because some school administrator said you had to, or else you don't get to graduate. And really, how freaking ludicrous is that? "What, you didn't complete the arbitrary amount of hours required to get approved by the incredibly fickle lady in charge of the volunteer program? Well piss off, no diploma for you!" That's got to be sending at least twenty five different bad messages. It basically teaches you to hate volunteering, which I think is sort of the opposite of what they were going for.

And yeah, it gets people to do work, which I guess is good for the community but I don't imagine people who have been forced into doing free labor do a very good job. I mean, when you're just going somewhere to collect your damn hours and then blow the whole thing off, there's probably a pretty high percentage of shoddy work going on. No, that doesn't apply to every situation, but it's probably a valid enough concept to be worth complaining about. You end up with a lot of poorly painted fences and drywall replaced with superglue that way.

And I'm not sure if this is a problem anywhere else, but at my school, it's basically impossible to get the hours legitimately, because they only considered about four things to be viable. Animal rescue didn't count. City clean-up didn't count. Fundraising didn't count. But random, stupid crap done for the school did. Really, I think they really taught a lot more kids the joys of BSing, rather than the joys of volunteer work.

Life Isn't Fair

So when did the phrase "Life isn't fair" become a catch-all argument for "You are never allowed to complain about anything ever"? Yes, life isn't fair. I think we're all perfectly aware of that. Donald Trump has more money than you. It's pretty readily apparent at this point. But really, when you just get completely screwed in a way that benefits someone else, and your complaints are countered with "Well, you know life isn't fair", don't you just want to punch that jackass? Probably not, I imagine you're a lot more well-adjusted than I am. Maybe you just want to shove them a little bit.

And it's interesting to me how we tell children this with such enthusiasm. "Teacher, Bobby* set my pants on fire and nothing happened to him, but then when I put cyanide in his apple juice, I got in trouble!" "Well, Jimmy, you know life isn't fair." Screw that man. That is a terrible way to placate children. It's like trying to comfort a kid who thinks his grandma went to hell after she died by saying "No you ignorant child, there's no such thing as the afterlife!" Just because something's true doesn't mean you have to say it.

You know, I bet if I start pointing out the unfairness of life often enough, I could eventually alienate everyone I know.
"My husband died in a boating accident this morning."
"Well, life isn't fair."

"I got AIDS from that slutty chick down the street."
"Nobody ever said life was fair."

"Your best friend just died in a fire."
"OH MY GOD STEVE!"
"Hey buddy, life isn't fair. Calm down,"

*You know, I've never actually met a kid named Bobby, but that name always seems to come up when discussing the fact that children are stupid.