I'm Thankful...

Since Thanksgiving was slightly less than a week ago as of this post, I declare it still relevant enough to post on. So let it be written, so let it be done. I'm thankful for so many things right now. The world is a big hefty stinking pile of koala krap, and I'm glad none of that crap has yet to land on me.

I'm thankful that I'm not poor. Being poor would suck. I don't know how those people put up with it.

I'm thankful that I'm not homeless. I have a nice warm home to go home to when I go home. It's home. I mean awesome.

I'm thankful my parents aren't stupid enough to live in New Orleans. We live in a town where a flood would be nearly miraculous, rather than an inevitability.

I'm thankful I haven't been raped/murdered. That's just not for me.

I'm thankful for all the conspicuous consumption my socio-economic standing allows for. We don't need two PS2's in a single house. We don't really "need" any at all. We don't need five computers. I don't need a closet full of clothes, most of which still fit, though I haven't worn them in years. I don't need a rifle. I don't need a collection of 70+ books. But I have all those things. Nice.

I'm thankful that I have a $200 pair of glasses when a $30 pair would work just as well.

I'm thankful that I don't have cancer. Yuk.

I'm thankful that I've never been caught littering or speeding.

I'm thankful that I'm not an Iraqi.

I'm thankful that I have enough useless free time to come up with a list like this.

In short, I'm thankful I live in America, where it's not only my right to have all these things, it's my responsibility. How else are all those poor people gonna know that life can be much better than they have it? I'm performing a vital service to society. But even if I weren't, I'd still be doing it.

Oh How Long It Has Been

I realize that I haven't posted in, like, a week, but I also realize that if you care that much about how often I post, you lead a sad, pathetic life. A couple things happened today in my nonverbal comm class that forced me to break the silence.

First, we always start off every class with some lame-ass icebreaker. Today's was "break up into groups like 6th graders and talk about a time when someone violated your expectations, or you violated theirs. Then, we'll make you stand up in front of the class and tell us the best one from your group." This girl got up to the front when it was her group's turn to share, and she told us about the time when she was standing across the room from a friend she hadn't seen in a while, and the friend made a motion like he was stroking his own invisible pregnant belly and yelled across the room, "When are you due?" Now, before you women out there get all pee-em-essy on me, let me finish my story. Sit down and shut up. Anyway, as I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by the lady folk, the girl was totally offended. Later in the class, however, she gave us a little insight into her friend's motivation for such a heinous breach of male-to-female communication protocol. She actually had gained a lot of weight since he'd seen her last. Not only that, but still later in the class, she revealed that that particular incident had been "Like, the eighth or ninth time that month someone had asked if I was pregnant." Here's a tip, you cow: maybe think about losing enough weight that 8 or 9 of your friends don't assume you're freaking pregnant. If you've got a gut that could hide a small Vietnamese village, you're gonna have to get used to people assuming you're pregnant. It's still better than your friends just saying, "Jeez, you're fat. Lay off the Krispy Kreme, Kirstie Alley."

Another interesting little thing happened in that class. As a girl was giving a presentation on stereotypes, she asked us what, based on her clothing, we thought her job was. One guy said customer service. The prof said retail. Some chick said clothing salesman, but I'm pretty sure she was high. I came *this* close to saying "stripper!" Turns out I would have been right. I think that's the first real-life stripper I've ever met, unless you count my friend Chris. The thing that really surprised me was the fact that she's pretty much a dog. And I don't mean that in a good way. Seriously, I know 70-year-old men who look better than her. The part I loved was the fact that she "disproved the stereotype that strippers are dumb" simply by being a college student. I've got news for you, my less-than-attractive stripper friend. Despite your semi-brain damaged opinion, some college students are borderline retarded. You've actually strengthened my opinon on the matter with your speech on how the Barbie doll holds women to impossible standards, directly followed by the revelation that you are a participant in the single most culpable industry in the propagation of the idea that women are objects who have only to shut up and have large breasts to be appreciated in this world. Good job, you idiot whore.

They Grow Up So Fast

My brother seems to have a bit of a problem. Aside from being a closet homosexual, that is. He has a problem with name-calling. Every time someone does something to him, or he hurts himself, or he just feels like hearing his own voice, he calls someone or something a whore. I am not making this up. He called me a whore three times today. I guess he just doesn't realize that some people who may overhear him could actually be offended by things that he says. I don't think the mother of a 5-year-old would much appreciate having her son or daughter subjected to a 14-year-old repeatedly calling both his parents whores. That's the kind of thing you have to write down so you can remember to tell your therapist later.

It's an awkward stage my brother is in right now. He still thinks it's funny to call people names, and yet he's old enough to know some of the "good" ones. Unfortunately for my parents' reputation, he still seems a bit too young to know what tact is. Or creativity. At least come up with a few new ones. I don't really mind being called a whore, but after hearing it 40 or 50 times, I kinda get tired of the lack of originality. Every once in a while, it would be nice for him to mix it up and call me a fag or a buttmunch or something. Just for some frickin' variety. Whore is just so... impersonal.

...And America Shut Down

There was this movie that came out a while ago called "A Day Without a Mexican." It was about what would happen to America if all the Mexican immigrants suddenly disappeared. A cute little idea, and it got a very tired point across: those poor, lazy, defenseless middle-class Americans would be completely helpless without all their grapefruit pickers, gardeners, and fast food employees to do everything for them. Interesting.

I'm actually thinking about my own version. It'll be called "A Day Without a White Guy." All three branches of the federal government will shut down, along with the governments of nearly every state in the union, every American stock exchange will grind to a halt, the boards of directors of almost every major company will vanish, no tv shows will be made, most of the authors whose books are on the New York Times Bestseller list will disappear, trucking will all but completely stop, barely any trains will run, the majority of nuclear, biotech, chemical, electronic, pharmacuetical, medical, and theoretical research will all but cease, farming will shut down, and every tech syupport guy in the country will vanish. But our pools will be clean, dammit!

I hope you get the point. Everybody contributes to America's prosperity, not just one people group. We would find a way to continue working no matter who would disappear. Mexicans aren't better than caucasians aren't better than Arabs aren't better than blacks aren't better than Jews aren't better than asians. We are all, however, better than the French.

Ya Think?

I was listening to the Richard Randall show on the radio this morning (he's a local guy with his own morning talk show), and someone called in with a statistic that was so earth-shatteringly brilliant, so remarkably abstruse, so confusingly erudite, so boldly intelligent, and so touchingly poignant that I almost threw up out of sheer joy. Unfortunately, this man had deluded himself into thinking that he mattered in the world, and that his opinions were more substantial and relevant than some guy giving a treatise on horse enemas. He was wrong on both counts.

He said, "You know, statistically, there is a larger percentage of white trash in this country than any... other.. kind of trash." This man is so stupid, my eye started twitching, and I think blood came trickling out of my ears. What are these "other" kinds of trash about which this man was speaking? Black trash? Hispanic trash? Asian trash? Gay trash? Well golly gee-whiz, mister. Why is that? Could it be the fact that there are more white people in America than Hispanic people or black people or Asian people? No no no, my young apprentice... That would be far too obvious.

The other part I loved was his inclusion of the word "statistically," which, as we all know, makes anything dumb people say sound slightly smarter. You know, like, "Statistically, there are more men than women in the NFL," or "Statistically speaking, you're more likely to use your front door than you are to never leave your house again."

I had to open up my car window just to let some of the stupid out. It was choking me.

Or Whatever

My generation has a great equalizer tool. We tend to overuse it, but we do that with pretty much everything anyway. No matter what we do, we still can't make any progress in the area of nerds. People who know the answer to a question, and who are very confident in that fact, are still considered nerds. I've figured out why. It's that confidence. People who answer a question surely and confidently are labeled as nerds.

We even have a built-in mechanism to keep ourselves from appearing nerdy, and that's adding the simple phrase "or whatever" to the end of anything we're saying. I finally conceptualized this phenomenon when I overheard a girl having a phone conversation during our break in one of my classes. She answered some question that was asked by the other person on the line by saying, "Oh, no. It's on the top shelf, or whatever."

She knew exactly where it was, whatever "it" is. However, to save herself from the supposed humiliation of being caught knowing the answer to a question, she covered her own butt by finishing with the qualifier, "or whatever."

Even I do it sometimes. I don't want to look like a total geek when I'm watching a movie with my family and someone asks about the other movies the director has made. So I answer with, "Um... yeah, I think he was the director of 'Once Upon a Time in Mexico,' 'Desperado,' and 'El Mariachi,' which was made for $7,000 that he raised by allowing medical experiments to be performed on his body, as well as the 'Spy Kids' movies, 'The Faculty,' and 'From Dusk till Dawn,' or whatever." I knew exactly what movies he's directed, but I had to save myself by putting that small shadow of doubt over my answer.

I'm just glad not everyone uses that same qualifier. Could you imagine?

"I'm sorry, Mr Johnson, but it turns out the tumor is in fact malignant, or whatever."

"Sally, I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you marry me?" "Yes, or whatever."

"Michael, you're adopted, or whatever."

"Unfortunately, we weren't able to remove the fishing pole from your father's eye, or whatever."

"Mr Goldstein, it appears that your newborn child, Lamont Jr., is actually half black, or whatever."

"Honey, I think I left my curling iron on, and, well, long story short, our house burned to the ground, or whatever."

So let's all make sure we use it wisely and in moderation. Nothing screws up a serious moment like an inappropriately placed "or whatever."

Can We Get A Proofreader?

There was a car in front of me that had a bumper sticker on it that read, and I quote, "...and our flag was still there." I'm not kidding. The people at the bumper sticker factory obviously don't have a crack squad of proofreaders. Well, either that or the proofreaders were just too busy looking for spelling errors, because they felt it was impossible for someone to actually mess up a line from our national anthem.

For those of you who live in blue states, let me explain: the line clearly goes, "...that our flag was still there." You know why? Because the previous few words are "...gave proof through the night..." What gave proof through the night? Why, the rockets' red glare and the bombs bursting in air, of course. Allow me to put it in layman's terms: "The glow of the fires and explosions provided enough light for me to see that the tattered remains of the American flag were still waving." To say "...gave proof through the night and our flag was still there" is to say "I have the IQ of a trashcan full of toenail clippings." Morons.

Just One Thing Missing

I have sat through probably a dozen or so car commercials in prime time tonight alone, and I noticed something kind of odd. The cars are an afterthought. There are about a million shots of people standing in weird poses, drummers... uh... drumming, tons of clips of rock songs, rolling hills in the English countryside, curvy roads, some "Children of the Corn"-type kid making car noises, lots of wavy and out-of-focus cuts reminiscent of a Tony Scott-directed Nine Inch Nails video, and oh yeah here's a new car that has airbags in a new and interesting place. Or maybe they added cupholders. Or a light in the trunk.

I think the world's major car manufacturers are actually being run by their own marketing departments. They come to the CEO and give this lavish presentation on some new awesome idea they have for an ad campaign, which elicits the following reaction, "Wow. You guys sure know how to put together an impressive Powerpoint presentation. How can I say no to something like that? We'll have a new car design out within the week. Is that fast enough to shoot a commercial?" The marketing guys answer, "Oh, don't even bother with making the car. We're just going to add heated seats and ground effects to the 2001 Honda Accord. It's not even going to show up in the commercial anyway." "Thanks, guys. You've done it again." Then, they celebrate by going bowling with all their blue-collar factory worker friends from Detroit. And this goes on every day.

I'm sure the diminutive Japanese guy in charge of Subaru Motors America was quite thrilled when his marketing team came up with the idea to make a commercial introducing a new car to the world by not showing it at all. Let's hear it for Emperor CEO Fujiyama san! You not only saved your company a crapload of money by not requiring that they, you know, build a car, but you also managed to make me hate you. Congratulations.

This whole thing is equivalent to trying to sell shoes by showing a commercial filled with barefoot Somalian kids. Way to go, jackass. You've managed to simultaneously ensure that I have no idea what your product looks like and kill all your chances of making a lasting impression on the young, supple minds of America's youth. That's pretty impressive.

This Is Regarding The Preceding Post

Stupid blogger decided to make it a pain in the butt to post pictures. Screw them. I'll just find a way around their stupid formatting issues. Anyway, just look at the picture. Pay close attention to the bright orange sign being held by the only man in the crowd.

I saw that picture a couple weeks ago and thought it was the funniest thing since dead baby jokes. As you can see, it's at some sort of lesbi... I mean feminist rally. Apparently, those dy... I mean feminists were too busy being outraged by "the man" to bother turning around.

Well, At Least I Thought It Was Funny

 
 

Now That We've Decided

Colorado had elections last week, as most of you probably know. The one important issue we voted on last week was a couple referenda concerning state tax refunds. Referendum C, which allowed the state government to keep tax refunds that should've been sent back to the people of Colorado months ago, passed. Referendum D, which would have allowed the state to call up any resident of Colorado and anally rape them with a hot curling iron, was thankfully shot down. I thought Colorado was populated by people who could mostly think through basic lines of logic like "getting taxed= you have less money," but unfortunately I was wrong. I decided to put together a list of positives about Referendum C because... well, I'm not sure why, actually.

1. The governor's salary goes up as a result of Ref C. Good cheese comes from happy governors... or something like that. I saw a commercial that said something similar to that. I may have misheard...

2. We'll have more money going to road construction. I've always said that the answer to slow-moving road contruction is unnecessary raises for the guy who turns the sign from "stop" to "slow." Thanks, voters of Colorado!

3. There's no risk of getting those nasty paper cuts on the envelope of your state tax refund, 'cause you're probably not getting one at all!

4. Similar to #3, you won't waste any deposit slips on your refund check. We're savin' those trees, baby!

5. Your in-state college tuition will only go up by 25% instead of 27% next year. That's right, big spender. You'll have a few hundred dollars that won't go to your college education until the next tuition hike.

6. Ending sentences with "... in accordance with Referendum C" actually does sound pretty cool, I have to admit.

7. That middle school down the street with the basketball team that sucks too badly to even justify having the crappy gym they currently play in? Congratulations. You're buying them a new one. I sure hope your kids don't need braces for the next five years.

8. Those nice 200-year-old people down the street will finally be able to afford those cute little scooters. You know, the ones they use to run over children and honk at us able-bodied normal people? Yup, those are the ones. Awww. Isn't that nice?

That's all the benefits I could think of off the top of my head. I'm positive some more will pop up later. I'll be sure to fill you in as they come, in accordance with Referendum C.

More Space For Me

I just saw an ad on tv about getting immunized against influenza. It told me that there were gonna be thousands or millions or some absurd number of people killed by the flu this year. I sat staring at the tv for a good minute, completely dumbfounded by what I had just seen. They're telling me they want the people in this country who are weak enough to get killed by the flu to actually survive. That means these people might eventually have kids, assuming sex doesn't kill them and they don't die in childbirth. That's unacceptable. I don't want to live in a country that's populated by millions of people who can't handle a little headache and some vomitting. Next thing you know, they're gonna want to make sure we all get immunized from really bad sunburns and paper cuts. Where will it end? I'm taking a stand. No more attempts to save the lives of people who bring down our collective immunity standards. If you're gonna die from the flu, how do we know you're even strong enough to withstand the shot they'll give you for immunization? Sometimes the vaccinations themselves cause people to get sick.

Art? No, It's Mental Vomit.

After being asked what my "job" is and responding that I am a writer (which is like calling a kid who tripped over an exposed dinosaur bone a paleontologist), I was asked if I wrote "for real," or if I was a poet. I couldn't have put it better myself. Writing poetry takes as much talent as does a crossword puzzle on the back of a box of Honeycomb. It's like submerging a crucifix in a bottle of urine and calling it "art." Oh wait...

And anybody who says they like poetry is either lying or stupid. Having a favorite poet or poem is like having a favorite kind of cancer. Especially that free verse crap. Walt Whitman was a giant tool. He was the McG of poetry. Or the Cher of poetry. But of course, movies and music can be entertaining, which really destroys the analogy. I'd rather eat a bucket of Donald Trump's hair than ever read another poem again.

I'd Rather Choke To Death On Lighter Fluid

And speaking of words and phrases that are stupid, how 'bout this one older people tend to use: "Druthers." As in, if I had my druthers, I'd druther no one ever tried to say "druther" as if it were a real word. You know, there's actually a newer, faster way of saying "druthers." It's "way." As in, if I had my way... See? And you don't even have to make up words to say it. Amazing. If I catch anyone under the age of 30 saying "druther," even if they're quoting somebody who is over 30, I'll personally sandpaper their tongue raw.

A Criticism Of A Criticism

I heard some guy talking about phrases he hates to hear. It was either George Carlin or a homeless heroine addict. But I repeat myself. Anyway, one of the phrases stuck out in my mind. It's a phrase used by a lot of people when they arrive for the first time in someone else's house and immediately get smothered by the family dog. They say, "Oh, he smells my dog." Now, the commentator who said he didn't like hearing this phrase justified his stupid opinion like this: Some dogs just like to sniff people. They don't smell another dog on you. They're just curious about meeting someone new.

I found myself, for the first time in 20 or 30 years, actually accusing SOMEONE ELSE of being nitpicky. Can you believe that? I'm the guy who hates it when people say things like "supposably" or "expresso," and I thought someone else was being too critical. I guess there's a first time for everything. Why should someone care whether or not someone else says, "He smells my dog" when they're being licked to death by Justine, the family collie? Hey, whoever said that, get a life. There's more to living than just making fun of stuff all the time...

Quite A Juxtaposition

I was sitting in class today, getting psychologically prepared to ravage yet another comm test, and I saw a guy walk into the classroom with an "I voted" sticker on his hat. Good for him. He sat down just one row away from me. On the other side, there was a girl filling her friend in on whatever had happened on the last episode of "Laguna Beach." What amazed me was the ravenous way in which the girl ate up every new, juicy bit of information concerning these stupid kids and their scripted lives.

I was just sort of struck with the stark contrast of interests represented by the guy sitting to my left, absentmindedly thumbing through his notes, and the girl on my right, who cares more about the faux-reality programming about some kids she's never met in real life than her own circumstances. Sad, really. I mean, sure, it's sad when people care too much about tv shows and don't seem to care enough about "real life," but it's REALLY sad when the show in question is dumber than a sack of wrenches.