You Will Be Hit By a Bus

I hate psychics. Well, actually, I guess that isn't entirely true. I can't hate psychics, because there's no such thing as psychics. I hate the people who CLAIM to be psychics, because they are awful, awful people. Now, there are two distinct groups in this little category of insanity: delusional people and scam artists. Delusional people are either mentally ill, and have therefore come to believe that they have mystical powers through the infinite energy of being balls-out crazy, or they've just been somehow convinced that they're magic. Either through hippie parents or just an insurmountably large ego, these people think that they're just super-duper special. And yeah, they're idiots, but I don't hate them nearly as much as I hate the other group, the scam artists. I don't think they need any introduction, really. These are the people who KNOW they have no powers. They're well-aware that there's no such thing as psychics, and they're just doing it to rip off gullible people. And they're bastards.

Speaking of those gullible people, they annoy the hell out of me too. You know, the people who base major life decisions over what their horoscope says. If a girl ever breaks up with you because her horoscope said you were bad news, I wouldn't worry about it. If she's dumb enough to believe that crap, she probably wasn't worth it in the first place. Actually, it sort of annoys me that they print horoscopes in the newspaper. I know that they have fine print about it not being real, but that does NOT seem like the right place to be writing random crap some jackass with a telescope made up off the top of his head.

Basically, astrology and psychics and all that bull are just religion without all of the positive things about religion (the good ones at least). Stripping away all the positive morals and reasonable back-up evidence, and you're just left with pure, unconditional belief. We can do better than that.

Science Doesn't Work That Way

A lot of the times, when you hear somebody complaining about how something in a movie, television show, book, or whatever was inaccurate, or poorly researched ("There's no WAY that plane could fly around that mountain! Planes don't WORK THAT WAY!"), you often hear it countered with something along the lines of "This is a movie about aliens who suck peoples' souls out of their kidneys, and that's what bothers you?" And that argument doesn't really work for me, because it sort of goes against the concept of fiction. When you establish some sort of setting or world where yes, aliens doing that is completely possible, then we expect everything AFTERWARD to make sense within the confines of our world, because you never established anything otherwise. If you show early on that this is a world where planes totally CAN fly like that, then yes, we will believe. But you can't change the rules later on, because we expect everything to be internally consistent.

Of course, this just brings up the argument of whether we should put so much effort into pointing out inaccuracies in the first place. The internet is certainly no stranger to that concept. For me, it works something like this: You should always try to make your movie as accurate as you can. If you make mistakes here and there, fine. It's unfortunate, but it doesn't ruin a movie like so many people seem to think it does. However, you should NOT base an entire plot point around an inaccuracies, because then it just feels like you're making crap up after having written yourself into a corner.

So yes, I do support fact-checking for movies, because these are professional works. I know it seems hypocritical coming from me, because this entire website is an accuracy train wreck, but this is also just some stupid thing on the internet. If I was a professional, I'd probably try a bit harder.

Helpful Disorder

I wonder if there are people who hear voices in their heads, but the voices are really friendly. You know, they give really helpful advice. Instead of telling you to kill your entire family, they remind you to call your mom at least once a week, or advise you not to drive your motorcycle off that cliff. I mean, most people who are schizophrenic are emotionally unstable because of it, so their voices are hostile. So that makes me wonder if there's any perfectly well-adjusted people who just happen to have voices in their heads.

Or how about someone who has multiple personality disorder, but the other personality isn't violent or crazy, just equally cool, but in a different way. Like, one of the personalities is really good with relationship counseling, and the other one's really funny and charming. Hey, it could happen. Of course, this would only be tolerable if the personality switches were predictable, like you switched off every day. Then you could plan things accordingly. And have separate Facebook profiles for them.

Of course, my real point is that this is all probably really offensive to people with those disorders, but unfortunately, I don't know any of those people, so I can't ask. But luckily, no one reads this anyway, so I'm probably going to be okay.

Seriously Guys, Carcycle

You know, with all the "weird car" ideas going around (eg: people building three-wheeled cars, people building cars out of random pieces of scrap metal, etc.), I'm surprised that nobody has attempted to homebrew a car that's controlled entirely by a video game controller. Of course, this is assuming that it would actually be possible to do, which I'm pretty sure it's not. However, every time I think that something cannot be done, the internet usually proves me wrong.* So I say someone has to do it. Even if it isn't street legal, which I can almost guarantee that it wouldn't be, he could still take it out into the desert and avoid killing any mesmerized on-lookers.**

Or how about a car that is steered entirely like a motorcycle, and in fact is a motorcycle, not a car, but it's like, inside. Like a motorcycle with an outside to it. Completely stupid and unnecessary? Yes. Ruins the point of what was cool about motorcycles in the first place? Absolutely. Hilariously awesome? Almost certainly so. I have no idea how this would work, but someone crazy on the internet needs to get to work on it. The universe demands carcycle.

Basically, I understand nothing about cars, so I must assume that anything is possible when it comes to them. Build a car out of air. Build a car that runs on the abstract concept of love. Build a car that runs on cars. BUILD THE DAMN CARCYCLE ALREADY.

*Like remember that guy that got 100% on "Through the Fire and Flames" on Expert? THAT GUY IS AN ELDER GOD.
**Fun Fact: 95% of experimental car test drives end with the death of at least one mesmerized on-looker.

Minus Jokes Are Easy

Right, so we're all reasonably certain that Google+ is going to fail. I mean sure, everyone loves Google, but there's a lot of issues here. Facebook is just...unbelievably massive at this point, and this seems like sort of a weak attempt to topple their success.* "But wait!" you cry, startling a nearby child. "MySpace was huge and popular too, and Facebook took them out! You are WRONG and STUPID Pineapple." Well, there's two problems with that. First of all, MySpace was crap. It was poorly optimized, full of ads, and ugly. Second, Facebook is not only popular with teenagers and confused pre-adolescents. EVERYONE is obsessed with Facebook these days. It's far bigger than MySpace ever dreamed of being. There is a movie about it. Come on guys.

But you know why I REALLY think it's going to fail? Probably not, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Because "Google" has already become a verb, so how are we going to talk about it. I mean, if you "Facebook" someone, that means plenty of things RELATED TO FACEBOOK. However "Googling" something specifically refers to the search engine. And "Google-plussing" sounds stupid. If Google started a DIFFERENT social networking site that was owned by them, but operated separately (i.e: How YouTube works these days), then it could have alright. But nope, they screwed themselves.

I'm not saying Facebook is eternal, of course. I think eventually, something will eventually come along to replace it, and that site will eventually be replaced as well. But it won't be Google+. Because it's too damn hard to say.

*I like to think that Google tried to buy Facebook, and Zuckerberg was all like "Yeah, no." So Google was like "Then we'll just make our OWN Facebook! Muahahahaha!"

Fireworks Are Awesome

I don't think most people are REALLY caught up in their patriotism on the 4th of July. I mean sure, there are tons o people who are nuts for America like, 24/7, and they are incredibly terrifying, but I also know plenty of people who feel absolutely no allegiance to this country who still love to participate (like, for example, me). You know why? Because we get to light things on fire in the name of our country. Every other day of the year, we try to pretend we're very noble and don't get off on setting off explosives, but not today. Today we get to just blow the hell out of stuff, and I'm perfectly okay with that.

When you think about it, it is a pretty stereotypically "American" thing to do, isn't it? Going nuts and burning things to celebrate something that happened over 200 years ago? That's totally the type of thing that Europeans think we do all the time. Then again, Europeans have soccer riots to own up to. Sure, we had that stupidity where some morons started a riot after the Lakers won, but at least no one got killed at that one. Someone did get their shoe store robbed though, so it is a bit tragic.

I also like how we do a lot of it in the name of God, since so many of the staple "patriotic" songs mention God. "PRAISE THE LORD!" (Boom!)

But It's Kinda Cool Sometimes I Guess

I always wonder about the people who show off while riding their motorcycles. Y'know, doing wheelies and all that absurdly dangerous nonsense. Granted, riding a motorcycle at all is already kind of showy, but it's still pretty confusing. Now, I'm not putting down showing off in front of strangers. That I don't really have a problem with. Sure, it's kind of douchey, but if you're really good at something pointless, you might as well make SOME use of it. But the thing about showing off in front of strangers is that you're supposed to do it for the heat of the grant. You do it for the cheering and the women calling out for your seed.* But when you're on your motorcycle, you can't hear anyone, and nobody can tell who you are.

So I guess motorcyclists ride around and ASSUME that everyone thinks they're awesome. I'm pretty sure you could do that with anything and get the same results. "Oh man, those guys over there are probably all talking about how awesome I am photocopying." So the motorcycle guy just gets an ego boost from things that other people may or may not be saying about them. Okay.

And you know, I'm usually not impressed by that sort of thing. Usually I just see them doing dangerous things and think "Wow, that looked really unsafe. Maybe that guy's suicidal. He should seek counseling."

Also, I'm pretty sure everyone who drives a car hates people who ride motorcycles. Lane-splitting and all that. That can't be good for your self-esteem.

*Or that's just what I assume, anyway. I have no discernable talent, so I can't really speak from experience.