The Cool Jacket Dilemma

I have recently encountered what I like to call the "Cool Jacket Dilemma". See, there are many problems one must face when one owns a cool jacket. Leaving aside for a moment the "you could totally get jumped and have your jacket stolen if it's cool enough" issue, the main problem for me is in social situations. So let's say someone buys you a cool jacket. You know, like for one of those gift-giving holidays, like Arbor Day. When you get that present, you're allowed to say "Oh, this is a cool jacket!" In fact, the person who got it for you wouldn't have done that if they didn't think it was a cool jacket. Unless they hated you or something. So then you have to confirm the fact that it is, indeed, a cool jacket, and that you appreciate it. So far, so good.

But let's say, later on, someone ELSE sees your cool jacket, and they say "Hey, cool jacket!" Well what do you do? You can't say "Yeah, I know!" or you'll look really full of yourself, right?That would just be wrong. So you thank them. You know, as if you made the cool jacket yourself and are glad that someone else appreciates it. That makes perfect sense to me.

So there are different times when it's okay to admit that the jacket you have is cool. Of course, if your jacket ISN'T cool, you have a whole other set of problems. Now, when you GET the jacket, you still have to lie and say that it's a cool jacket. Otherwise, you'll look ungrateful. Can't have that. If you ever actually wear your not-cool jacket, hopefully no one will say anything about it, and you can just ignore everyone. If people start CRITICIZING your jacket, well, I think you know what to do. That's right, nunchuks. Etiquette is hard.

Boring Size

If things keep continuing in the direction they've been going for tha past few years, in about a decade, Halloween candy bars will be about the same size as ants. You notice that? They keep making those "fun size" bars smaller and smaller. Probably so they can sell just as many bags of them while putting in a lot less of the actual candy. At this point, like half of the net weight is just in wrappers anyway, more so if it's a 3 Musketeers bar, since those things are like 90% air. This would be more of a problem if chocolate weren't so delicious, but unfortunately, we are bound by the cacao bean's delectable chains.

You know, they shouldn't call the little tiny candy bars "fun size". They should make chocolate bars the size of 2x4s. THOSE would be fun size. Especially if you ate the whole thing all at once by yourself, and you had to spend the next nine days puking the rest of it back up into a pail. I think that would be a lot of fun. Certainly more than eating the entire fun size of it in one bite. Or less, really. You can swallow those things whole at this point.

Actually, once you get them out of the wrapper, those tiny candy bars are virtually indistinguishable from those fancy truffles you get in the boxes at expensive candy store. Until you taste them and find out they aren't nearly as well made, but that's what you paid for I suppose.* Seriously, the damn things aren't even rectangular anymore. They're square now. Do your part. Either hand out entire candy bars tonigt, or give every kid like ten of the bastards.

*Not that paying three bucks for one piece of chocolate is reasonable either, but I suppose they'll charge whatever they damn well please if people are going to keep paying for it.

The Perfect Body

I think we need to start objectifying men more. You know, because we have all these magazines and such photoshopping women's bodies to be insanely sexualized. I say it's high time we start making it just as bad for men. Because as we all know, the best way to deal with a sexism issue is to make things equally awful for both sexes. That way, we're all equal. It's the communism of gender politics.

Unfortunately, there isn't really any stereotypical "sexy" body for men like the horrifically disturbing one we've created for women. From my research, and by that I mean having some female friends who have mentioned it on occasion, some women like muscley guys, and others find them repulsive. Unlike with men, where seeing a muscled girl makes them feel intimfated and make excuses.* So I say let's just change allthe preconceived notions and just say that what's sexy in a woman should be equally sexy in a man. Flat stomachs, narrow hips, hair, and of course, large breasts. Get to it horrible magazine photoshoppers.

Then we'll have a bunch of teenage boys feeling insecure because THEY don't have boobs, which will result in several lines of the most hilarious diet ads of all time. Come on guys, it's only fair. Teenage girls have to put up with that crap, I think the boys should too. It's only fair.

*You know you've done this. "Oh, she must have really good genes." Because God forbid a woman have a muscular build because of her OWN hard work. It had to have been her dad.

Happy HalLOL SIKE

Alright, let's just get this one out of the way right now.

So I've mentioned before how I think that it's stupid that we say that we're "observing" holidays on the Mondays after them, just so we can have the day off. So I ask you, WHY DON'T WE DO THAT FOR HALLOWEEN DAMMIT? Or, I guess the day after Halloween, that'd be fine too. Or hell, how about just both of them? Come on guys, Halloween's on a goddamn Monday this year? On a scale of one to unbelievably lame, that's like a thirty-seven. So how about we "observe" Halloween on a Saturday, so we can actually go out and do stuff that night without having to worry about sleep? That'd be cool, right? Can we all agree to that? Fine then. When you're sixty, and your kids ask what you did on Halloween when you were younger, so as to offer them some reprise from all the skin melting off their faces,* you can tell them you did NOTHING because you were LAME and didn't want to party on the 29th. And then they'll murder you. Or something. I don't know, children are strange.

Okay, how about we just party all weekend to make up for it? No reason, just straight, government-enforced, non-stop partying until Monday. That'd be fun, right? And then no one would have to show up to their obligations THEN either, cuz they're bosses would be hungover too. And then we'll just kinda slowly let reality sink back in after a few days. Give it some time. Maybe then everyone could chill out in between all the election coverage.

*I'm just going to assume that in the future, face melting will be a major issue. Maybe hair metal makes a comeback or something, I don't know.

Stereotypes Are So Stereotypical

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs is all well and good, but I think it's time we set up some more specific ones, and maybe simplifying it a bit. The Male Hierarchy of Needs, if you will. Personally, I think we could narrow it down to the four most important categories: Food, Girls, Sleep, and Video Games. See, because a strong regiment of these four things can solve pretty much any problem you could possibly have. Starving? Food. Well, good food. You know, steak, potatoes, deep-fried boar testicles, all that good stuff. Horny? Girls. And I guess if you're particularly repulsive, you could replace it with "Masturbation". Not companionship, because real men do not feel loneliness, or in fact any emotions at all. Tempted to commit homicide? Just sleep it off man. Sleeping solves pretty much every problem. Even venereal diseases. I know this because I am a doctor. And video games can do whatever you need them to do. They're probably the most important thing on the list.

Okay, so here's the thing. Continuing on with this bit, I'd have to make a "Female Hierarchy of Needs", right? And then I would make a whole bunch of sexist jokes like a hack stand-up comic. And it would be unbelievably offensive. I like that. I like that we, as a society, have agreed that you can say as many awful things about a group that you already belong to as you want, you just can't say it about other people. It's what allows white people to make fun of white people, which is perfectly alright, because white people kind of suck anyway. See? I can do it too.

Although lately, it seems to be "White people can't make race jokes at all, minorities can", which makes some amount of sense,  I suppose, but seems a little backwards. Not that it matters, because it's a lot better than the alternative. Which would be offending EVERYBODY. That has it's charms sometimes though.

Out-Bother

It's fun to ruin pleasantries. The next time someone asks you how you're doing, be as honest as you possibly can. Or make something up, depending on how good your life is going at the time. You know, because when people ask how you're doing, they don't REALLY care about how you're doing. They're just asking because that's just what you're supposed to do. If you don't, you look like a jackass.

"Hey man, how's it goin'?"
"Terrible."
"Oh that's good, I-Wait, what?"
"I said it's going terrible."
"Uh...why?"
"Well, I've been having a lot of trouble with my bowel movements lately..."

And then keep talking until they want to leave. This works especially well for those people you don't like that insist on hanging out with you. I find it's best to craft elaborate stories about run-ins with prostitutes. Have fun with it, but make sure it's disgusting enough that they don't want to hang around and see how it ends. If they do, stare at them for awhile, then tell them that you'll do the same to them. If that doesn't work, take off your pants. If THAT doesn't work, call the cops.

You know, I say these things like I'm suggesting you do them because they worked for me, but if that were true, I wouldn't have so many obnoxious people in my life. The annoying triumph over the assholes once again.

Bang, Bangs

I wonder how many guys out there spend a really long time with long hair, and decide that it's time to look more respectable, so they buzz all of it off, and it's been so long that they forgot that they have one of those weird, bumpy heads? I bet that happens all the time. You know, because the top of my head feels like downtown San Francisco, so I could never get a buzz cut. But when you have a LOT of hair, you can't FEEL the top of your head, so you wouldn't know. Then you'd look like even more of a fool, first because you got a buzz cut* and second because you got a funny-lookin' head. It'll be even worse if you got some of those big blue veins on your head. Basically, if you're a pale guy, for the love of crap, don't get a buzz cut. It's too risky.

Who was it that decided that women should be the ones with long hair, and men should be the ones with short hair. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining, because it's awesome that way, but it seems pretty arbitrary to me. It's also interesting how if a woman cuts her hair short,** she's a lesbian, but if a man grows his hair out, he's a hippie. Apparently, swimming on the opposite end of the hair spectrum only goes in one direction. Well, usually. Occasionally, guys with long hair get called "fags", but that's mostly in the South, and they call everyone fags there. Even the women.

My problem is that I'm a 0 on the Kinsey Scale, so I have no idea whether men look good or not. Unfortunately, this also applies to myself, so I really have no idea what I'm doing. Which is why I look like crap all the time.

*About 2% of the white male population can rock a buzzcut, and most of them are Irish. Everyone else looks like they got their heads caught in a piece of farm equipment.
**I'm also firmly of the belief that there are very few women who look good with short hair. But I suppose my opinion is completely pointless in that matter.

Hat and a Walking Stick

I wish jazz was still a popular form of music. And not just for "modern music sucks we should go back to the way things were decades ago baaaawww" reasons. And not that crappy modern jazz either. I'm not even going to bother making jokes about that, because I am reasonably certain that every possible joke that could be made about Kenny G has already been made. I'm talking about big band and swing, for the express purpose of THEY HAD THE MOST BADASS DANCES EVER. Seriously, check that mess out sometime. Hip-hop dancing, breakdancing in particular, can be cool in it's own way, but nothing beats a whole bunch of crazy bastards swing dancing to Benny Goodman. Those dances were awesome.

Furthermore, coolest outfits. Come on man, suits and fedoras and umbrellas and goddamn that is so much cooler than a pair of Vans. You could say a lot of things about the 30s. You could talk about the racism, and the Depression, and how pretty much all of their morals were horribly, horribly backward by our modern standards, but I think there is one thing you cannot deny: They had the classiest fashion sense in the world. I sort of like how the idea of really fancy-looking clothes being badass instead of lame is starting to make a comeback, because it's so much cooler.

But this sort of thing is sort of pointless to discuss. Popular music comes and goes, and twenty years from now, we'll have something new to complain about. The past few decades had some great popular music. This one and the previous one? Not a whole lot. So I'm going to wait it out. There'll probably be a grunge to modern hip-hop's hair metal some day soon.

Vote For the Crazy Ones, They're Good At It

I like how all the Republican candidates* (or at least the ones that people care about) mostly have the same opinions on most of the important issues, so they're just resorting to trying to convince the voting populace that the other guy is a massive tool. Luckily, this has been pretty easy for them, because they're all massive tools. Sure, you get the occasional whack-job like Bachmann, who has completely retarded opinions, but we don't really consider those people serious candidates, do we? No, Bachmann is sort of like a defanged, declawed tiger wearing a top hat. Should be a threat, wants to be taken seriously as a threat, but just comes of as pathetically hilarious.

It doesn't help that most of them are terrible people. I love how they're all constantly trying to set themselves up as the "loveable everyman". You know, the kinda guy you'd totally want to go bowling and burn down a strip joint with.** Mitt Romney is especially bad with this. And yep, they're all millionaires. Okay, maybe not, but several of them are. And you know what? They don't give a damn about you and your middle class problems. I have no problem with rich people running for the presidency, but stop pretending you're just like the people you plan to spend the next few years dicking over. The Whig Party already did that back in the 19th century and it...wait yeah, it actually totally worked then.

My biggest fear, really, is that all the self-professed liberals will look at this mass of idiots and think "Oh yeah, they don't stand a chance. Obama's got this one for sure. We don't even need to bother voting." And then they won't. And then President Bachmann. THINK ABOUT TIT.

*Damn, been really political lately, haven't I? I hate myself for that. Must be something in the air.
**This is what other people do for fun, right? It's not just my friends?

Also Ty is Incredibly Obnoxious

I can't decide whether or not I like Extreme Makeover.* Well actually, not really. I HATE the show, but that's because it's a reality show, and reality shows make me want to vomit. What I REALLY can't decide is whether or not I support their endeavors regardless of that fact. On the one hand, helping people is good. That's something I think we can agree on, right? On the other hand, they do it in an incredibly corporate-whorish** way. Product placement, all that garbage. So that's a negative. On the other other hand, they're STILL helping people, and you need money to do that. The end result is positive, even if they had to sell-out a bit to get there. So that would make it a force for good, right?

But then I hit a bit of a snag. Okay, so we have this team of architects, engineers, construction workers, etc. who have the manpower and the resources to build an entire house in a week. Or at least, they claim it's a week, that might in fact be a complete lie. Now, the problem with this is, I feel like this amount of charity is sort of wasted. Sure, occasionally they'll have an episode where they help people who are truly, truly screwed (hurricane victims, people who got totally dicked by a lawsuit and ended up living in a shoebox, etc.) But most of the time, it's people who really aren't in THAT bad of a place. They're boned, sure, but not in a "one sprained ankle away from starvation" sort of way. And that bugs me.

I've been to New Orleans guys. Let me tell you something: It still sucks over there. There's still hurricane damage everywhere. These people could make an episode based in New Orleans every week for the next five years, and they'd still have a long way to go. And when things are like that, it's hard to take the "Our daughter is a midget, please help us" episodes*** seriously.

*You all KNOW I mean the "Home Edition" one. The original incarnation lasted like, two seasons? And the relationship between the two was kind of a stretch at best in the first place. Christ, why do I know that?
**Really spellcheck? "Whorish" is a word? Hot damn.
***No seriously, this happened. Everything else in their life was perfectly middle class. Some people don't even have houses. Just sayin'.

SPAAAAAAAACE

So apparently we've already sent out a probe that's going to Pluto, and it'll be there by 2015. Now that's cool and all, but also sort of sad. I mean, I'm sure there's all sorts of interesting scientific work, but we're all thinking the same thing. "There won't be any aliens on PLUTO. Silly scientists." See, because as far as I'm concerned, every single experiment and mission from any space program is just one piece of the larger goal of finding intelligent life on other planets. Or, screw it, unintelligent life. If we find a whole bunch of tapeworms living on some distant planet, awesome. That's exciting. We've proved aliens exist. That'd be enough for me. Then we can begin performing all sorts of terrifying experiments on the earthworms, because puny earth laws will no longer apply to us.

Not that we really need the proof. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: It would take an incredible amount of willful ignorance to convince yourself that we are completely alone in the universe. Come on guys. INFINITE universe*. Infinite. Infinite numbers of planets. That's just...it's...goddammit. I hate it when the only real argument is "There just IS, okay?", because it's really sort of hard to argue for or against.

Speaking of which, I haven't checked, do young earth creationists believe that the universe is infinite? Or, failing that, at least in other galaxies and stuff? You know, because it seems like it would go against a lot of "literal truth" Biblical interpretations, and this is something we have definite proof of. Then again, these are the people who believe dinosaur bones were planted by Satan so I suppose anything is possible.

*Sort of. Kind of. They haven't actually conclusively proved it, but the official stance from astronomers seems to be that there is a finite density, but you could never actually reach the "edge" of the universe, which is close enough for me.

There Are No Appropriate Puns

Nothing interesting for me today? No? Great, let's harp on conservatives again.

I've already gone over the whole "If conservatives want a smaller government, why are they so into controlling our lives?" thing before, probably more than once. But something that's been particularly bugging me lately is the conservative stance on abortion. Yeah, we could go on for a long, long time about how stupid this debate is, and I know you all are just shocked, SHOCKED that I'm pro-choice,* but there's one thing in particular that's been bugging the hell out of me lately. Namely, how can you be "pro-life" while simultaneously decrying gun control and SUPPORTING THE DEATH PENALTY? Come on guys, at least be consistent. If the ultra-conservatives want to be the one "Kill things if necessary" side of every debate, they should be going all the way!

I thought you guys were supposed to be hardcore! You know, killing the gays and whatnot. Okay how about this: People like the Westboro Baptist Church are pro-life, and they want to kill homosexuals, right? Or at least, they wish they were all dead. Okay, so let's say there's a fetus that a woman wants to get aborted, and through magic future space technology, they know the kid's going to be gay. Somehow. I don't know, I'm not a doctor. Would they want to abort the fetus? That'd be a hard sell, I think. The point I'm trying to make is the Westboro Baptist Church are bastards.

Pretending to be serious for a moment, this is probably one of those things that people are going to be arguing over for far, far into the foreseeable future. I mean, gay marriage legalization is basically inevitable, and I think someday people will agree that maybe we should get in on that free healthcare party, but abortions are going to be hard to get passed. At least as long as all the doctors keep getting assassinated. That's a great way to show that your side is the sane side guys.

*Calling your movement the "pro-life" movement is such a dick move. The implication that the opposite side is made up of people who hate life is so prevalent it hurts.

Side Effects Included Free of Charge

I like all of the medical commercials that advertise really gross health-related products, so they just have to dance around the issue for a minute of air time. Like how all those commercials for tampons and pads can't actually say "THIS IS A THING FOR MENSTRUATION. IF YOU ARE A WOMAN YOU SHOULD BUY THIS BECAUSE PERIODS." Because I'm pretty sure that would break at least seven FCC codes. And they never show blood on the pads, do they? No, it's always that mysterious blue liquid. Ladies, I am not a doctor, because that would be the most ludicrously atrocious idea ever formed by any human beings, but I am reasonably certain that if there is a fluorescent blue liquid coming out of you, something has gone horribly wrong. Nobody should be leaking out Oxi-Clean.

Another good one is Preparation H. No sane advertiser is going to come out and say "THIS IS A BUTT CREAM. YOU PUT IT ON YOUR BUTT." for fear of getting arrested. So all the Preparation H commercials just show people sitting on mildly uncomfortable things (lawnmowers, cheap lawnchairs, iron maidens, etc.), then complaining about it, then deciding to use Preparation H. Apparently, the advertisers are under the assumption that you already know what Preparation H does, so you don't have to have it explained to you. If that's the case, why do they need to advertise at all?

And then of course you get the opposite of this. Everyone once in a while you totally blindsided by a commercial that just comes out and says "HEY, DO YOU HAVE HERPES? THAT SUCKS. BUY HERPESAID. IT WILL KILL YOUR HERPES." I appreciate that. I like the thought that there are apparently some people in the advertising world who have completely lost their will to live and just want to see what they get away with now. At least until they figure out a way to reanimate Billy Mays's corpse.

But First an Important Message From Your Friends At Heinz

So, it kinda sucks that pretty much every video-sharing site is putting 30-second ads in front of their videos now. Not supremely terrible, but annoying. It seemed like a year ago, it was only a few of them. Then a few months ago, YouTube started doing it, and now it seems like everyone does. Sure, banner ads and pop-ups are annoying, but they're nothing a little pop-up blocker and some browser plug-ins can't fix. These before-video commercials though? No way to get rid of those, as far as I can tell. The most annoying thing about them is that some sites only run like five, so you're going to be seeing the same ones over and over and over again if you frequent the website. I know this is the sort of thing that we're just going to have to accept as the norm now that the Internet is becoming an increasingly massive figure in modern life, but that doesn't mean we can't bitch about it.

What I find especially hilarious are those ones on YouTube that are like two minutes long, but they let you skip right past them after five seconds have passed. Most of them haven't even said the product name by that point, and you'll never know either, because you're most likely not going to sit through an entire ad when you can just skip the damn thing. What sense does that make? I'm not complaining, I suppose, because I can just click right past them, but it seems like a massive waste of everyone's time. Apparently, YouTube told some advertising that they could have either a 30-second spot or a 2-minute spot, but people could skip them in five seconds if they took the two minutes. And advertisers, not being real people, but in fact evil aliens, assumed that people would watch the whole thing anyway. That's fascinating.

Oh well, at least it's not as bad as TV. Yet. Luckily, TV is probably going to keel over and die soon. Netflix is a much better way to watch production-quality entertainment, and the Internet is a much faster tool for spreading information. Screw TV.

Deep Thought

You know what's fun? Dissecting blatantly rhetorical Zen riddles in an unnecessarily complicated manner. So let's do that.

Is the glass half full, or half empty? Well, that really would depend wouldn't it? Is the glass be filled up, or emptied out. If it's being filled up, then it's half full. If you're draining it, it's half empty. That seems pretty straightforward, right? Unless this is some kind of space-time glass that has constantly existed since the beginning of the universe, and has therefore never been filled OR emptied. And why is this always used to see if someone is an optimist or a pessimist? The riddle doesn't really say what the glass is full of, does it? I mean, a glass half-full of water is sort of a neutral thing, I guess. But a glass half-full of cyanide? Bad thing. Unless the cyanide is being used in, I dunno, a mixture that cures cancer or something. Really, this is a question that is not even close to specific enough.

"What is the sound of one hand clapping?" is an inherently stupid question. It's really more "What the hell do you consider one hand clapping to be?" Is it slapping your fingers against the inside of your palm? Because that sort of makes a sound. A little one. Is it flailing one of your hands around like a complete spaz, pretending that the other hand is there? Because in that case, it's the sound of air pockets and all that nonsense. Again, not specific enough. We have no idea what you want from us, theoretical question asker!

And of course, if a tree falls in the forest, it does make a sound. Or rather, it makes a vibration. Which is a sound. Although it will only actually become a sound when it's interpreted by an ear. So yes and no. Also, why is it always trees falling in forests? Forests are pretty crowded. They're very rarely completely devoid of life. And it's not like trees falling over is the only thing makes a sound in the universe. Broaden your horizons a bit. And hey, what if the tree was in space? No sound there, right? No oxygen. But trees can't grow in space, you insipid clod. Now get back to work.

Dihydrogen Monoxide

How did the word "chemical" end up becoming a buzzword for awful things happening to the environment and/or processed foods? "Oh, you shouldn't eat that, it's got chemicals in it." Well yes, I suppose it would have to, wouldn't it? You know, because I'm pretty sure you have to have water in your food. Unless you want to eat nothing but raisins and banana chips all the time, which may cause a bit of a problem considering the fact that banana chips taste like grilled cardboard sprinkled with the fine spice of misery. So yes, water is a chemical. Many, many things are chemicals. You can't avoid chemicals. Stop bitching about chemicals. Bah. Humbug.

But of course, I'm not trying to convince you not to avoid processed foods, and all that stuff. No, that mission is alright with me. It's the terminology that bugs me. Look guys, if you want to beat the evil, corporate science-y people at this sort of thing, at least actually know your science. I suck at science, and even I've got this one figured out. There's a reason it's called "chemistry" folks. And what's the first chemical formula most people learn? "H20". There ya goddamn go.

And I'd rather not get into it too much, because it's so absurd that I have trouble caring, but how about all of you New Agers shut up about "genetically modified food", okay? Because it's pretty obvious that you have no idea what you're talking about. If you knew more about genetic engineering than scientists do, you wouldn't be lobbyists. You'd be scientists.

Terrifying New Technology

One should never predict the downfall of society, lest one end up looking like a massive tool that doesn't know what they're talking about. You know the types. The people who, back in the fifties and sixties, were convinced that rock and roll was the music of the devil and that every rock band on the planet was going to try to seduce all of their children to Satan. The people who blame all violence on television and movies because they don't want to confront the real problems. The people who are trying to do everything they can to make you terrified of society because...actually, I'm not entirely sure why. It's not like they're going to ever stop the relentless march of technology and ideas forward.

Of course, these people have been around for centuries. The Puritans, they were big on this sort of stuff. Salem Witch Trials. Apparently, pagans worship the devil. I didn't know that, but it's true. And then there were the folks in Ancient Greece who believed that the written word was terrible for society, because speaking was the one true way to relay information. Thousands of years later, we have the same type of people defending books and talking about the evils of...pretty much anything that isn't books. It's pretty hard to argue against reading. No one's going to vote for the guy who runs on the anti-reading platform. Well, maybe Texans.

These days, it's video games and the Internet. To the people that don't understand it, the Internet is a place exclusively for rapist, pedophiles, and pedophile rapists to come together and discuss kidnapping strategies. And yeah, that's totally happening. You know where else that's happening? The real world. Best to just keep your children inside and never let them speak to anyone but you. Otherwise, how are they gonna stay safe?

The Beautiful People

Why do TV shows and movies always portray the popular kids as the ones with a lot of money? Sure, you can totally use money to buy friends. I've seen it done. But being rich doesn't automatically make you popular, and it seems like writers are completely under that impression. I'm not exactly sure where that idea came from. Maybe there was one guy who went to a school where that was true, or he sprung from the earth at age twenty and just assumed that it was true, but it seems like everyone really liked that guy, because people sort of just started believing it.

There was a kid I knew in middle school that was absolutely loaded. Almost cartoonishly rich. This was a kid that owned five different guitars and couldn't play a single note on any of them. This was a kid that threw parties at his house on nearly every holiday and invited everyone just because he could. And you know what? Nobody ever came. You know why? Because the kid was a tool, and everyone hated him. See, there's sort of a stereotype of the popular kids being dickheads, and that's a bit of a misconception. The kids that everyone LIKES, the REAL popular kids, aren't jerks. Because they're likeable. What TV seems to THINK the popular kids are are just the ones that everyone knows. Everyone knows the jerk, that doesn't mean they like the jerk.

And yeah, sometimes everyone loves the dickhead, because sometimes people are stupid. And sometimes the nice kid gets the crap beaten out of him. And sometimes you have to do a lot of stupid things because you feel obligated to impress people you hate. This is called "high school", ladies and gentleman, and 90% of it is balls.

Pick Your Musical Battles

I don't like it when people talk about how they want to "kill" terrible pop stars, and how much they "hate" them. Guys, come on. I know the sound of Justin Bieber's music makes you want to dig your ears out with a tuning fork, but there are more important "downfall of society" things to worry about. And really, when you're screeching about how immature people are, and then talk about your vitriolic hatred for a teenager you've never met, you kinda sorta look like a massive tool.

And I think it's only fair that we give all these people a chance to not suck. Remember, Justin Timberlake used to be one of those terrible pop singers too. Then he stopped doing that, started being an actor, and we all found out he was really good at it, which was a disappointment to those of you who wanted him to keep sucking. And if you had "killed" Timberlake before then, he never would've played Sean Parker. Ya goddamn weirdo. Am I saying that Justin Bieber might turn out to actually have some sort of talent? It's possible. Not likely, but possible. It's far more likely that he'll fade into complete obscurity and drop off the face of the earth once he hits his late twenties, but it could happen. And then you'll all have to begrudgingly admit that he wasn't the devil after all.

All I'm saying is, hate the music, not the artist. I get it. Pop music sucks. But there really isn't a whole lot you can do about that, is there? That's just the way it's always going to be. If you don't like it, build a time machine and go back to a time when rock was commerically successful. And then get the crap kicked out of you by riot police.

The New Model Can Clean Rain Gutters Part 2

Alright, let's get down to mildly disrespectful business: Steve Jobs died today, and I have a few questions. No no no no, stupid questions. Not reasonable things like "What happens to the company now?" and "Who's going to replace him at whatever job he was supposedly doing?" No, you don't come here for rational viewpoints.* You come here to be made extremely uncomfortable and leave spam in my comments section, so let's get down to business.

First of all, how long do you think the media frenzy is going to last? Now, there's always a lot of insanity going on after a really famous person dies, and occasionally it gets a bit absurd. For me, the breaking point was with Micheal Jackson. Seriously, they went on and on and on about that for MONTHS. And everyone acted real surprised about it too, didn't they? "Oh wow, Micheal Jackson is gone I can't believe it who would've thought he was so healthy etc." And then they autopsied him and found at least twelve varieties of narcotics and a small family of woodland creatures. I didn't have a blog at the time, but if I did I probably would've stopped regular updates altogether and just replaced them with a rephrasing of "Oh my God shut up about Micheal Jackson already" every day.

What were we talking about? Right, Steve Jobs. Now, I'm personally more concerned about how much this is going to affect the "Mac vs. PC" war. Oh, I don't mean in sales. I'm talking about the greasy manchildren who think that arguing over that sort of thing matters and have never heard of the term "personal preference". What I'm waiting to see is when the super anti-Mac people start taking cheap shots. That's going to be a lot of fun. How much you want to bet that someone is going to post something really offensive on Twitter, and the geek media is going to pummel the crap out of them? I give it a day.

*Actually, according to my hit statistics, you don't come here at all. This is basically just me shouting into an empty room here.

The New Model Can Clean Rain Gutters

It annoyed me how Apple made such a big goddamn deal about the whole "voice recognition" thing during the new iPhone unveiling,* for a variety of reason. First of all, yeah, that's kinda not really a new thing. There have been phones for what, five years now that have had voice recognition? And yeah, they sucked too. Hell, there are video games from the nineties that had voice recognition. They were terrible, but we had them.

Oh, but this is going to be good voice recognition, right? Not the kind where you ask it to take you to a pie shop and you end up at the adult bookstore trying to find cream filling in the BDSM aisle? Well, there's a bit of a problem with that boys. It's a little secret that I'm gonna let you in on: Nobody actually wants to use voice recognition software. Why? Because you look like a goddamn fool when you do it. No one wants to be standing out in public, talking to their cell phone. Not ON their cell phone, TO their cell phone.

But they say you could use it to spell out texts! So you can text while you drive, so it isn't dangerous! Sure guys, but you still got to READ the text, don't you? And really, I'll believe that the software is good enough to recognize full sentences, and include various dialects and accents, when I see it. And even if it could, you might as well just be talking on the phone, because you're already removing half of what makes texting so convenient in the first place.

Wait, why do I care? I'm not gonna buy one.

*Oh man, current events discussion. We are through the looking glass.

First Whatever President

It's gonna be weird if Obama doesn't win the reelection, and not just for the "Seriously? We're back to the Republicans again so soon?" reason that you're thinking of. No, I just think that after the huge deal we all (rightfully) made about the FIRST EVER BLACK PRESIDENT, we might still just go back to electing more old white guys. That seems just...odd, even though now that that record has been broken, we're not just going to ALWAYS have black presidents. I don't know, it's gonna seem so boring if the next president isn't a minority. I mean come on, we could at least get a Jewish guy, right? Wouldn't that be kinda cool? Or how about an atheist president? That'd be novel, although I doubt the public's ready. Okay, can we at least get a chick now? We're kinda overdue on that one, aren't we? Come on guys, SWITZERLAND already had one of those. We need to get it together if we, as a country, are going to keep pretending to be forward and progressive.

You know what else? It'd totally suck to be the SECOND black president. You know, because nobody's going to be impressed THEN. It's like yeah, sure, you're the president. We kinda already did that. Looking to get to the moon now. He'd have to have something extra, just to still feel special about it. Hey, how about a midget president? That'd be fun, right? It probably wouldn't inspire a lot of confidence, but hey, it would make political humor almost as easy as it was when Bush was in office, AKA the easy comedy golden age.

Of course, you know we're all waiting for the first openly gay president. Then again, if we didn't get a black guy until like fifty years after the Civil Rights movement, it's probably going to be awhile. And then all the far-right Republicans will cry themselves to sleep every night. Screw 'em.