I might have only recently turned thirty years old this year back in the month of May, but I was a crotchety old man who was confused by the world long before I grew up to become the lame, overweight, khaki-wearing accountant who stands before you today. Although I’ve never been shy about voicing my complaints here on this blog, there has been a handful of topics that never quite made the cut simply because I figured that I was the only person cranky enough to complain about them. People who bitch online usually do so because they’re seeking a way to validate their gripes. With that being the case, what good is it to bitch about something esoteric or obscure if you’re pretty certain that nobody else will care? Case in point: Pierre Bernard’s Recliner of Rage is an amusing comedy bit premised on the futility of complaining about topics that nobody understands.

Maybe it’s the old age talking, or maybe I’ve just gotten crankier lately, but I think it’s time to speak my piece about some of those things that only seem to bother me. Here’s a warning to you, gentle reader: Your level of recognition and interest will very likely waver while reading through these bullet points. Don’t say I didn’t tell you so.

• Douchebags with Microphones

  Am I the only one who hates those pushy announcers at live shows who are never satisfied with the first round of applause? You know what I’m talking about:
  

  “Hey folks, how is everybody tonight? Oh come on, you can do better than that. How is everybody tonight?”

  I fucking hate those guys. I swear, they must have been one of the main contributing factors that led to the creation of the sniper rifle. Okay, that’s harsh. But at the very least, they must have been a significant contributing factor leading to the creation of the “backhanded bitch-slap”, am I right?

  

  When an announcer asks the crowd to applaud once, I usually oblige him politely. The second time he asks, I fold my arms and sigh. If the announcer is especially obnoxious, and he asks the crowd to applaud a third time, I cup my hands and begin to boo. Go work out your middle-child insecurity issues somewhere off the stage, asshole.




• The Constipated Anime Grunt
  

  Why do anime characters always sound like they’re either constipated, asthmatic, or like they’re constantly getting blown? If you have ever watched anime while listening to the original Japanese language audio track, then you might have noticed that there is basically no such thing as a silent moment in anime. Actually, come to think of it, there’s no such thing as subtlety in anime, either. Everybody is always grunting in exasperation, stammering on some half-formed thought, or gasping like they’re choking on their bipolar medication. Every moment in any given anime has been compulsively occupied by some form of verbal garbage.

  For an example of what I’m talking about, I invite you to watch the first four minutes of Young GTO, Episode 4. Take note of all the grunts, groans, gasps, moans, giggling, and gurgling noises that the voice actors make. Is everyone okay with that?

  I grant you, anime characters often have a good reason for making those crazy noises, because somebody is always suffering from a nervous breakdown, or getting their ass kicked in an anime flick. Anime characters always seem to exist between the balance of two basic operating modes: (1) Extremely violent and pissed off; or (2) Flabbergasted and overwrought with miscellaneous emotion. What the hell ever happened to that level place in between, where people react to the world on a neutral setting? For that matter, what the hell ever happened to the subtlety of silence?

  Please don’t mistake my meaning, because I actually do enjoy watching anime. I just wonder why anime directors always insist on filling in the silences with all of those irritating grunts.




• The Awkward “Next Gen” Look-Away
  Star Trek: The Next Generation is an awesome show despite its numerous, trademark flaws: the sterile off-ship set designs, the tedious battle scenes shown entirely from the bridge, the terrible acting by all of the extras, and all of those ridiculous, “Oh shit, the Holodeck safety protocols are offline” episodes. But above all other gripes, the one thing that bothers me most about the show is the terrible stage direction put on display during all of those two-person, heart-to-heart dialogue scenes.
  

  Does anybody know what I’m talking about? It seems like every time two characters find themselves in the middle of a private conversation on Next Gen, one of them inevitably interrupts the flow of the scene by walking across the room, and then continuing the conversation while facing their back to the other person. It’s such a stilted, artificial maneuver that absolutely reeks of melodrama, daytime soap operas, and live community theater. My suspension of disbelief immediately vanishes every time I see it happen — and it happens way more often than it should. As a fan of the series, I find the Awkward “Next Gen” Look-Away oddly insulting, because I get the feeling that I was never meant to notice the ridiculous maneuver on a conscious level. It’s as if the show’s writers and directors never gave their fans enough credit to suspect that somebody like me would one day stand up and shout, “Why the fuck do the characters keep turning away from each other like that? Is that how people communicate with each other in the 24th century? That’s completely fucking stupid.”

   
   

  The Awkward “Next Gen” Look-Away is such a weird, unnatural maneuver. In a television show where the actors walk around wearing automobile air filters for eyeglasses, and crazy rubber prostheses glued onto their foreheads, any additional displays of outlandish theatricality are simply redundant. There’s no subtlety or subtext added to the scene by something as lame as the Awkward “Next Gen” Look-Away. That maneuver is about as subtle as Lieutenant Commander Geordi La Forge lifting his VISOR to wink at the camera before delivering the following monologue:

  “Commander Riker, I believe this is an appropriate time to tell you something deeply personal about my past. Before I do that, however, please allow me to awkwardly walk five steps in this direction. I’ll keep my back turned to you for a while, which will enable an awesome, over-the-shoulder camera shot with my face in the foreground, and with your face slightly blurred in the background. You see, with these five steps that I am taking while walking away from you, I am providing a visually symbolic representation of my desire to ‘walk away’ from my past. Then again, I am walking away while I’m reminiscing; so am I, in fact, walking towards the past instead? I’m going to turn around now, mid-sentence, in order to face you and to add further ambiguity to the question. The past may always be behind you, but it also always faces you no matter which direction you face.”

  

  Pretty awful, right? I quoted that speech verbatim from an old Dr. Pulaski episode. Every episode centered around that bitch is total trash. Anyhow, all I mean to say is that Lieutenant Commander Data’s oft-derided poem,“Ode to Spot”, has ten times more nuance to it than all of the Awkward “Next Gen” Look-Aways combined throughout the history of the show. I love you to death, Next Gen, but your people have got to look each other in the eye a little more often in order for me to take them seriously.




• Insulting Assumptions at the Crosswalk
  

  Call me crazy, but I consider it a personal affront whenever somebody walks up from behind me and presses the crosswalk button when it’s clear that I’ve already been standing there at the street corner for a while, waiting for the “Walk” sign to turn green. I know how to cross a street, asshole. Do you believe me to be such a helpless person, that I would so passively stand on every street corner that I encounter, praying for the winds of fate to sweep you into my life each time just so that you could enable my journey forward by helping me click a befuddling, magical button? Get the fuck over yourself.

  Show me enough respect to assume that I understand the concept of a crosswalk button, and maybe I’ll spare you the intricate details about the many ways by which you can go fuck yourself.




• Bizarre Self-Censorship by The Roots

  This is an old gripe of mine from way back in the day. First of all, do we have any hip-hop fans in the house? I’m a longtime fan of hip-hop myself, and I’ve learned over the years to take the good along with the bad. Although I can think of a lot of good things to say about hip-hop music, there are also many embarrassing aspects of the genre which put me on the defensive, and which compel me to justify my reasons for listening to it. The one thing I’ve always appreciated about the hip-hop band, The Roots, is that they have never given me a reason to be embarrassed about being a fan of hip-hop. The Roots are all about consciousness, intelligence, clever lyricism, and skilled musicianship. Needless to say, I’m a big fan of their work.

  

  Even so, there is one small thing that has been bothering me about The Roots for the longest time now. On the explicit, “uncensored” version of their hit 1999 album, Things Fall Apart, The Roots have scratched out the word “bitch” from at least two of their audio tracks. That is to say, at least two songs on the album include the word “bitch” in the lyrics — and for some reason, somebody saw it fit to censor the portions of each song where that word is spoken. Now, I’m all for the eradication of misogynistic lyrics in rap songs, but I think the approach that The Roots took on their album is completely ass backwards. Why would you even include that word in your lyrics if it was your intention, down the line, to censor it out of the end product? What makes this self-censorship even more ridiculous is the fact that the album is full of all other kinds of profane words, like “shit”, “motherfucker”, and the N-word. Why is it okay to say all of those other words, but not “bitch”? I really don’t understand the point that The Roots were trying to make with all of that self-censorship.

  To hear what I’m talking about, go ahead and take a listen to the YouTube clip of the song, “Dynamite!” down below. You can hear the word “bitch” scratched out of the audio at 1:29.

  Dynamite!

  For further illustration, check out the clip below for another song from the album titled, “Don’t See Us”. The word “bitch” is scratched out at 1:13. Interestingly, the word “whore” is not censored out, and can be heard clearly just a second before, around 1:12.

  Don’t See Us

  I’ve been Googling this album for years, and it seems as though nobody else out there is complaining about the censorship inconsistencies on Things Fall Apart. I’m going to go out on a limb here and proclaim that I am the first person in the world to call out The Roots on the issue of self-censorship.

  Personally, I would prefer to listen to an album without any obnoxious audio censorship scratches at all. If I wanted to hear all that noise, I could have just dialed into my local hip-hop radio station instead of listening to what was supposed to have been a polished, professionally produced album. The Roots should have either left all of the profanity on their album untouched, or they should have had a band meeting a day before entering the recording studio in order to come up with an alternate, friendlier word for “bitch”. Might I recommend the word “Pulaski” for future reference? I’m just saying.




• Terminology Inspired by the “Good Samaritan” Parable

  Is it safe to assume that most people who grew up in Westernized societies know the biblical parable that Jesus tells of the “Good Samaritan”? As the story goes, an unfortunate Jewish man gets his ass kicked by some bandits, and is left for dead along the side of a road. Two fine, upstanding Orthodox Jewish men (a priest and a Levite) pass by the injured man, but they don’t offer any help. Later on, a third man, who happens to be a Samaritan, comes along and shows the injured man an extraordinary amount of care. The point of Jesus’ parable is to illustrate the importance of showing compassion to your neighbors, which is hopefully a sentiment that we all can get behind, regardless of our beliefs. What made Jesus’ parable so provocative for its time, though, was that it portrayed a Samaritan in a positive light.

  Back in those days, Orthodox Jews and Samaritans despised each other due to their fundamental disagreements over religious doctrine. By casting a Samaritan in the role of the helpful neighbor, Jesus was making a point of showing that the qualities of kindness and human compassion are far more important than our individual beliefs in esoteric, religious dogma. I can’t help but think, though, that the spirit of Jesus’ lesson began to tarnish as soon as people started referring to this parable as the story of the “Good Samaritan”.

  

  The way I see it, the phrase, “Good Samaritan” is basically an archaic variation of a centuries-old, prejudicial slur. When Jesus originally told the story, he just referred to the guy as a “Samaritan”. Later on when people started retelling the parable, they started calling the dude a “good” Samaritan, implying that the majority of other Samaritans out there are bad people.
  

  “Samaritans? They only adhere to the Pentateuch, so they can all go eat a dick. Oh, but not that one, though. The Samaritan from that biblical parable which Jesus tells is one of the ‘good’ ones.”

  Am I being too touchy about innocent terminology? I don’t know, maybe. It just seems odd to me that in this modern day, we would chastise a person for making a remark like, “You’re a credit to your race”, all the while the phrase “Good Samaritan” has become so ingrained in the lexicon, that you could find hundreds of examples of hospitals, laws, and charitable organizations all over the world that bear that very name.

  I’m telling, you man: If, one day, I ever came across a hospital named “The Good Chinaman Medical Center”, I would flip the fuck out. I couldn’t be held responsible for the inevitable shit-storm that would follow. Like, you know. I’d probably stomp home and blog about it in a very stern tone. Or something.

As always, there’s plenty more to bitch about, but I think I’ll call it quits for now. I can only dish out so many complaints in one sitting before even I want to slap my own damn self.

So, this is what it’s like to gripe as a thirty-year-old. It’s funny, because even though nothing much has changed between twenty-nine and thirty, everything somehow seems a little more significant these days. Maybe that’s wisdom catching up to me. Ain’t that some shit?

If I were a comic book super villain, my origin story would probably begin sometime around December 1991. I was just a nine-year-old kid back then, but there came a day many Decembers ago when I formed the presence of mind to reliably differentiate fiction from fact. I thought things through during that Christmas season, and I came to the conclusion that Santa Claus is a fraud. All these years later, I’m still not ready to forgive Santa for never having existed.

No Virginia, there is no Santa Claus. This is a truth that every adult in your life has known, yet they’ve all been bullied into silence by some bizarre social norm which requires adults to deceive naive little children for as many Decembers as possible. It’s okay to grieve, child. A part of your innocence and imagination has just been shattered, and you’re left with the unsettling revelation that not only does Santa Claus not exist, but also with the knowledge that the adults you’ve known have been lying to you your entire life. You asked them in earnest to tell you the simple truth about Santa Claus, and they repaid your sincerity with whimsical double-talk and bald-faced lies. Yes, Virginia, it’s okay to cry. Adults are condescending, deceitful pricks.

Fuck Santa Claus, man. From the moment your child discovers Superman from watching television, you begin warning her that there is no such thing as the super power of flight, because you can’t bear the thought of your kid jumping off a roof with a blanket tied around her neck. When your child starts playing video games for the first time, you start reminding her that there is no such thing as a “Reset” button in real life, because every choice and action has a consequence. When your child sees you doing household cleaning chores around the house, and she then asks why you don’t just clean things up by waving a wand like Harry Potter, you sit your kid down and explain to her that magic isn’t real, and that good things come to people who work hard. Make-believe is awesome, but we place boundaries on our children’s imaginations all the time so that they don’t grow up to become ignorant people who wallow in self-delusion.

It’s not my intention to degrade the value of childhood innocence. I just happen to think that the tradition of lying to our children about Santa Claus is the biggest crock of shit of the Holiday season. Maybe I was an abnormal child growing up, but I genuinely felt embarrassed and betrayed once I realized that my parents and teachers had been lying to me about Santa Claus my entire life, and all because they figured it was “for my own good”. At the age of nine, I learned one of the shittiest lessons that a kid could ever learn: “In the end, you can trust nobody else except yourself.” Merry Fucking Christmas, overly-sensitive, nine-year-old KZ.

A couple years have passed since 1991, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that Santa Claus makes for a pretty decent mascot during the Christmas season. The myth of Jolly Old Saint Nick is a fun tale to tell, but why do so many of us consider it a child’s entitlement to be deceived every December? Some might argue that belief in the Santa Claus myth helps stimulate our children’s imaginations, and that it promotes a festive atmosphere filled with fun for the kids. I don’t deny the truth of that argument, but I do have to question its merit.

Christmas has so much more to offer than Santa Claus — so much more than the mere crassness of all that materialism and bribery for good behavior. For Christian parents, Christmas is a time to remember Jesus, and to celebrate all of the values that Jesus held in the highest esteem: love, kindness, friendship, tolerance, and faith not only in God, but faith in the common humanity that binds us to our families, friends, neighbors, and even to our enemies. Even if you’re not a Christian parent, and yet you happen to celebrate Christmas in your own secular or ecumenical way, wouldn’t your children benefit more from an emphasis on the value to be found in the season’s spirit of love, kindness, and peace, versus an emphasis on a silly story about a fat judgmental magic man who trespasses on private properties without remorse, and who spends the majority of his time stuffing his face and judging everybody?

Christmas is the time of year when we celebrate that lofty promise of peace on earth, and good will toward men. I know, that’s some corny shit. I don’t care if it’s corny, though. Every December, I look toward the stars, and I convince myself to believe — if only for a moment — that one day in the future before the end, humanity will finally get things right. I guess you could accuse me of hypocrisy for speaking out against delusions and lies, all the while I place my belief in impossible things. There’s probably some truth to that criticism. But hey, you know what? At least my delusion doesn’t make lame excuses to get your children to sit on its lap. That’s the creepiest shit ever.

In closing, Santa Claus can go F himself in the A.

Merry Christmas, kids.

With October nearly upon us, my thoughts inevitably turn to all things Halloween. I’ve resigned my fate to a month full of weekends visiting the holiday haunts. I’m also trying my best to reconcile those plans of mine to lose fifteen pounds, versus my expectations of eating fifteen pounds of chocolate over the next four weeks. There is still one element of the Halloween season that I continue to resist. For as long as I live, I don’t ever want to see another ghost movie.

Ghost movies are the most tedious form of cinema known in existence. I make this claim, mind you, even after having been forced to watch Bring it On, Shutter Island, Transformers, and Spider-Man 3 in theaters. What redeeming value is there to find in a movie genre that has only ever produced two unique plot lines?

Here are the two lessons I’ve learned from watching ghost movies: (1) All ghosts are pissed off because they died unjustly in a former life, which somehow entitles them to dick people around, and to visit similar forms of injustice onto their living victims; (2) If you encounter a ghost who isn’t pissed off enough to try and harm you, then you can look forward to weeks of spooky haunting activity, during which time the spirit will provide you ambiguous, obtusely inarticulate messages indicating how they died.

Regardless of whether the plot line for a ghost movie falls under the first category or the second, you can always expect, without fail, to be treated to roughly ninety minutes of the same rehashed bullcrap. There’s a lot of quick camera pans, sudden orchestra jolts, and a good deal of screaming and sobbing. I hate all of it. It’s all just tired, classically adequate spook and scare devices. I blame it on the ghosts.

So here’s a message to all of you ghosts who just can’t leave well enough alone. First of all, to all you pissed off ghosts, who gave you the right to decide who lives and who dies? Aren’t you pissed off in the first place because some evil person (or people) prematurely snuffed out your life in a violent way? What gives with the hypocrisy? I hope that every innocent victim whom you’ve killed would become a ghost, and would band together to kick your ass in the limbo world. Second, to all of you lesser, passive aggressive ghosts who want nothing more than a favor from your objects of harassment, you are all the worst communicators who ever lived and died.

“Oh geez, the ghost wrote me a message on the fogged mirror while I was taking a shower. But what does it mean?”

Here’s an idea, ghost: why don’t you try writing a complete freaking sentence so that we can all wrap this thing up an hour early? Come to think of it, if you do finally decide that you’re one of those pissed off ghosts after all, then try going for a quick and easy kill to save everybody a whole lot of grief and time. I’m tired of all the drawn out sadism and simulated pain.

One day in October 2009, Diana and I were walking down Paradise Pier in Disney’s California Adventure Park, taking in the sights and the sounds, and looking forward to our first ride on the Toy Story Midway Mania! attraction. As we approached the back of the Toy Story line, there was a group of four overweight, middle aged adults who were heading to the same place, but from a different direction, and from further away. Once this group realized where Diana and I were headed, they sped up their pace to a waddling cock-block jog in an obvious attempt to cut us off. Diana and I maintained our leisurely pace, and we still managed to arrive first. Just moments after we had established our spot in line, those fat fucking assholes awkwardly flopped onto the scene like flipper-finned water mammals on land, unceremoniously wedging their way in front of us to cut in line.

Okay, I realize that it isn’t very nice of me to make fun of these people for being overweight. People are people, no matter what their size. And besides, their physical appearance had nothing to do with the situation. Then again, my common humanity with these inconsiderate pricks doesn’t change the fact that they are nothing but fat fucking douches. I guess it’s easier for me to cope with my frustration and stifled resentment if I dehumanize my objects of scorn by thinking of them as fat pieces of shit. Gentle reader, please don’t judge me too harshly. This is how I stay polite on the surface. That’s just how I roll.

Naturally, I was irritated, but I chose to keep my mouth shut. Disneyland is supposed to be a happy place, after all. I wasn’t about to get all gangsta in front of families and children, and start a shouting match at the Happiest Place on Earth. By nature, I’m a pretty non-confrontational guy. Having few other ways to vent my frustration, I pulled out my iPhone, opened the Notes application, and typed Diana a message. Happily, she obliged me by typing back, and we soon realized that we were onto something good. Over that next hour while we snaked through the line, Diana and I enjoyed a silent, yet deliciously passive aggressive shit-talking fest in the medium of text. I saved this conversation and set it aside for nearly a year before I stumbled across it the other day while I was cleaning up the files on my phone. I decided to reproduce the conversation here on my blog for posterity’s sake.

Kevin: You saw that shit, right? These fat fucks in front of us totally cut us off. I’m hating their bacon asses.

Diana: Agreed and what really ticks me off is that they are pretty old and should know better at that age. Rude people grrrrr. I was going to say something when they did it, but then you shushed me.

Kevin: It’s not worth it.

Diana: Fine. But did you hear that bitch on the left? She let those kids cut ahead of them to go find their parents, and then she has the nerve to start complaining about people cutting in line. WTF?

Kevin: Yeah! What the hell was that about? “I’ll forgive young children for cutting, but I put my foot down for teenagers or adults.” Somebody took a bite out of a hypocrite sandwich.

Diana: Yeah she probably took a bite out of four of them.

Kevin: Haha burn. High five. Seriously.

Kevin: I also smell shit / rotten milk. Probably the baby behind us, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it was the rude fat fucks.

Diana: You sure? I don’t smell anything. Maybe it’s you that smells like rotten milk?

Kevin: Hey, the fat fucks are the enemy, not me. If we turn on each other, then who will unite against these douchebags?

Diana: I don’t know, KFC, Carl’s Jr., and cholesterol?

Kevin: I like that alliteration. That’s a consonance trifecta.

Diana: Yeah you like that? You’re not the only writer around here.

Kevin: Clearly.

Kevin: I’m thinking about what that one bitch said. Do you think these people are actually convinced that they’ve done nothing wrong?

Diana: They know exactly what they’ve done. That tall asshole in blue brushed against me and forced me backwards when they were cutting. There’s no way that wasn’t on purpose.

Kevin: Jesus, I didn’t notice that. I would have let you kick him in the balls if I had known.

Diana: Do you think it’s too late?

Kevin: Yeah, I think the window for justified ball kicking has opened and closed.

Diana: Good job, Gandhi.

Kevin: Right, I’m the jerk for talking you out of getting arrested for assault.

Diana: No, you’re not the jerk. The real jerks are the FFs in front of us. Look at that bitch on the right. Maybe she made them all cut in line because she feels entitled to it. She’s all scarred in the face, so she thinks everyone owes her.

Kevin: I owe her a slap.

Man, it’s awesome when Diana and I unite so strongly over a common purpose. Oddly enough, episodes like this one are the moments when I love Diana the most. But seriously, who goes to Disneyland and cuts queues so brazenly like a refugee in a bread line? Go take that shit to Knott’s Berry Farm where it belongs, you fat classless fucks. Merry Diss-mas, douchebags.

• Awkward endings to news articles

  Did you ever notice that online news articles often conclude with inelegant, poorly written endings? I’m not even talking about bad wording or syntax; I’m talking about those awful, lazy, awkward conclusions that only have the slightest bit of relevance to all of the information that precede them. These terrible endings always include some bizarrely inappropriate, non-topical point of fact that seems more jarring and confusing, rather than informative. It’s almost as if the authors just ran out of time before they could wrap things up satisfactorily, so they just reached for the nearest piece of trivia that came to mind, and they jammed it in at the end.

  I admit, this may be an esoteric thing to complain about, but don’t tell me that you have never read a single online article that ended as badly as the following example:

  . . . .
  
  Having run out of bullets during the sixteen hour standoff with police, the unidentified gunman killed his oldest and final hostage — 94-year-old Maurice DeCampo — by savagely beating him to death with a Snuffleupagus stuffed toy. The gunman then turned the toy on himself, somehow managing to jam the trunk of the stuffed Snuffleupagus down his own throat, thereby blocking his windpipe. The gunman had died by asphyxiation before SWAT team members could secure the building.

  

  Snuffleupagus is the lovable, woolly-mammoth-like Muppet sidekick of Big Bird on the Emmy Award winning public television series Sesame Street.
  

Who the hell are the editors who are letting this sloppy bullshit slide? I mean seriously, are these journalism professionals actually trying to be terrible at their jobs?

“Bullshit” is a common American English expletive, often used as an interjection, which connotes disapproval due to unfavorable circumstances, or disapproval in relation to misleading, disingenuous, or false language.

See what I did there? Somebody from the Associated Press should be calling me any day now with a job offer.






• Regular strength first aid ointment

  
  
  

  Why does Neosporin offer both regular strength and maximum strength healing ointments? What market segment is Neosporin trying to capture with a product that has inferior healing qualities? I can picture some guy standing in the first aid aisle of a drug store who would be thinking to himself: “Well, I like the idea of treating my cuts with an antibacterial cream, but I’d like to bleed as much as possible before my wounds are healed.”

  




• Talking like Yoda from Star Wars

  Yes, Yoda is an awesome character. I dare say he was too good for the travesty that was the Star Wars prequels. He deserved so much better than that.

  

  Yet as much as I love Yoda, I can’t stand it when lame motherfuckers try to capitalize on Yoda’s awesomeness by speaking in the little green Jedi’s backwards vernacular. For a taste of what I’m talking about, try opening up a new tab on your internet browser and running a Google search for the phrase, “does not a Jedi make”. For some variety, try diversifying the results by searching for the phrases “does not a” and “make” within the same search. You’ll find plenty of examples of jackasses on the internet who think it is clever and cute to imitate Yoda’s signature cadence.

  I’m sorry, but there is nothing remotely cool about talking like Yoda unless you happen to be Frank-Fucking-Oz himself. I tend to group those people who attempt to talk like Yoda into the same category as those pathetic people who think they can do a dead-on impression of Austin Powers. Both endeavors are equally capable of making a rational listener cringe. Both endeavors are equally lame.

  Imitating Yoda’s speech pattern is about as cool as young Anakin Skywalker’s “Yippee” in Episode I.

  Yeah … remember that shit? Star Wars is fucking lame.

  




• People who mock the Chinese for mispronouncing the letter “L”

  I understand where the jokes about bad driving come from. And I get it that our slanted eyes make us look wacky and blind. I’ll even let it slide that there are those who talk shit about about Chinese people eating cats and dogs, because there are other ethnic groups out there that eat far crazier things. But Jesus, people, get a clue about basic cultural and geographical differences. China and Japan are two completely different countries. I mention this because it’s primarily the Japanese who famously have trouble distinguishing their Ls and Rs, because generally speaking, there is no true “L” sound in the Japanese language.

  

  Many westerners lazily assume that if one rule applies to a single group of yellow people, then it must be that way across the board. I assure you, though: the phonetic “L” sound is alive and well in China and Taiwan. Haven’t you people ever heard of the Shaolin monks, or Lao-Tzu, the father of Taoism? How about Bruce Lee, Jet Li, Ling Ling the giant panda, Lucy Liu, movie director Ang Lee, or even Chun-Li of Street Fighter fame? That whole “Asiany” side of the globe isn’t exclusively populated by an interchangeable mass of “Chinese” people, you know.

  Now that I’ve done my part to dispel that popular misconception about the Chinese, why don’t I set my people back a few more decades by reveling in the self-parody of Notorious MSG?

  China White, bitch.

  




• The “Legitimacy” of Twitter

  I am hardly the first person to hate on Twitter, but I sincerely hope that I am not the last. Why the hell is this gimmicky website so popular? The concept of Twitter is asinine and shallow. If you have something to say, then why would you arbitrarily limit yourself to 140 characters? I liked the original incarnation of personalized online expression back when it was called “blogging”.

  

  Yes, I realize that young people in Iran launched a would-be revolution back in 2009 with the help of their incendiary tweets, but I believe many of those protesters sacrificed substance for the convenience and immediacy that Twitter provided. Imagine how much more impressive it would have been to read a whole host of blog entries decrying the corruption that enabled a tampered presidential election, versus bullshit like, “Protesting Ahmadinejad ftw. The Green Movement shall prevail! Gather @ coffee shop by 14:00. Farrokh: Bring your bongo drums.”

  Honestly, am I the only American who’s irritated by the fact that Twitter has gained so much undeserved legitimacy, that our politicians are now embracing it as a viable means of communicating their thoughts to the public?

  For the sake of illustration, I have randomly decided to pick on Chuck Grassley, the republican United States senator from Iowa. On September 2, 2010, Grassley tweeted the following message:

  Great Qs @ Moravia Senior Hi They have good perspective on fed govt thanks to good teacher

  Notice the abbreviations. You understand what Grassley is saying when he talks about “Qs” and the “fed govt”, but it might take you a second to realize that “Hi” is short for “High School”. It also doesn’t help matters that this tweet lacks any kind of punctuation, presumably due to the fact that Grassley was worried about capping out his 140-character limit. For the record, Grassley’s tweet is only 74 characters. I don’t know very much at all about Senator Grassley. My opinion of this elected official, however, has lowered considerably because he seems to have no qualms about communicating his thoughts in text like an illiterate, net-speaking teenager.

  Why are so many public officials enamored by Twitter? Why do America’s news outlets pay such deference to what famous people are tweeting? Reporters quote tweets all the time in their news stories, as if the American public has been clamoring to hear incoherent, yet topical commentary by somebody whose online handle might as well be “xXbigdixmcgeeXx”? Fuck Twitter up its stupid fucking ass.

  Do you remember when actress Brittany Murphy died in December 2009? Apparently, more than one news outlet saw it fit to quote Ashton Kutcher’s eloquent eulogy tweet during that sad episode:

  2day the world lost a little piece of sunshine. My deepest condolences go out 2 Brittany’s family, her husband, & her amazing mother Sharon.

  I don’t think any further explanation is necessary for you, the reader, to grasp just how much I hate the previous two sentences. But I will say this: If, when I die, anybody ever tries to euologize me in 140 characters or less by employing that abbreviated, internet shorthand garbage, I promise you that my corpse will rise out of the grave as Zombie-KZ, and with whatever portion that’s left of my departed consciousness, I will hunt you down and punch you in the fucking face.

Like I said, I’m just a cantankerous old crank. The world is full of things that I love to hate, and thank God for that.

For nearly one whole week, the wall behind my apartment building stared out defiantly at all those punk kids with its clean, untarnished surface. It was gray, and dark, and severe, but hell, at least it was clean. That was a good week.

By the following week, some hardcore, schoolyard gangster decided that enough was enough, and so he cut second period and most of recess in order to spray up the neighborhood walls. I came home from work that afternoon to find that the recently reformed “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall was now the “S … s … SC” wall.

Isn’t that one of the saddest things you’ve ever seen? Either the person responsible for this tagging has no confidence in his penmanship, or else he just has a huge stuttering problem, and he’s using this public medium as a forum for catharsis.

Fail, motherfucker. You fail hard. You’re not fooling anybody with those fancy manuscript lines running down the completed “SC”. I still see your rough drafts on the left, you stupid amateur shit.

I might have forgiven the kid’s attempt to advertise his dubious gang affiliation with criminals whom he’s probably never met, but only if his graffiti had been the slightest bit impressive. In light of the genius that was once the “VNG, Fack You, Thug Life” wall, I’m offended that I have to look at this half-assed garbage every day.

Fail, motherfucker.

F … f … FAIL.

In response to my super lengthy complaint letter to Six Flags Magic Mountain, I received the following letter from the park’s Senior Guest Relations Supervisor:

Dear Kevin,

Thank you for taking the time to forward your comments about the Ride Lockers and our Loose Article Policy.

Six Flags has identified several rides at each park where riders bringing loose articles onto the ride platform was slowing down the dispatch times significantly and making the ride wait times longer. At some of these rides, we have installed short-term lockers for the storage of articles. In an effort to increase capacity and shorten wait times, we are not allowing any items that can not be secured in a pocket to be brought onto the ride dock of these rides. Riders may choose to rent a locker, to leave the items with a non-rider, or place the items in their personal vehicle. We have tried to communicate this message to our Guests with signage, personnel stationed at the entrance to the rides, as well as updated text in the Park Map & Guide, and on our website.

Your letter gave us very valuable insight to your experience at the park regarding this policy. I want to assure you that I have forwarded your letter to our Senior Park Managment.

We hope you understand our only intent here is to minimize wait times for everyone. Again, we thank you for your comments, and hope to see you in one of our Park’s again soon. If you have any questions do not hesitate to contact me directly.

Sincerely,

Mr. B., Six Flags Magic Mountain Guest Relations

I do appreciate that Mr. B. took the time to write me back, but his letter reads more like an automated form letter than a thoughtful reply. Forgive my cynicism, but I’m not convinced that Six Flags’ main concern is “wait times”. If that were truly the only motivation for these temporary-use lockers, then why not make them free? Aside from that, I reject the premise that these lockers actually make the lines move faster. These locker checkpoints cause plenty of delay all on their own. Just because the bottleneck occurs somewhere other than the boarding platform, that doesn’t mean the line delay has magically disappeared.

Mr. B. also failed to address my complaint about the abusive manner in which the corporate Loose Articles Policy was being enforced. Was it absolutely necessary, for example, for the employee working on the Scream ride to throw away my souvenir cup? I guess corporate policy mandates that all employees act like absolute dicks, right?

I should also point out that some friends of mine recently visited Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, California. The locker policy is being strictly enforced there as well, which means that this bullshit is not exclusive to just the Valencia branch.

I’m done with Six Flags. I encourage everybody who reads this to think twice before patronizing your local Six Flags park. Every theme park shamelessly gouges you, but Six Flags is willing to stoop lower than most others out there. When your company values quick, ill-gotten revenue over customer satisfaction, then you don’t understand the first thing about making money, and you don’t deserve to stay in business. That’s not to say that I expect Six Flags to miss me very much, but I assure you the feeling is mutual.

Mr. B.,

My name is Kevin Zing, and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. My girlfriend and I went to a lot of trouble on the weekend of August 15, 2009 to drive down to Valencia to visit Magic Mountain. A one-way car trip takes a little under five hours from where we live. Given the amount of time and money that we invested into the trip, we were disappointed that our time spent in your park was characterized more by frustrating, unpleasant confrontations, than by fun and entertainment. I personally was greatly disappointed by the overall level of customer service and care offered at your park throughout the day. Mainly, I take issue with your park’s “loose articles” policy.

The ”Loose Articles” Policy

As I understand it, you have a policy that prohibits any and all loose articles from being placed on the boarding platforms of your rides. Loose articles such as backpacks and purses, for example, are technically not allowed anywhere near a roller coaster boarding platform. To “accommodate” guests who are carrying loose articles, you provide temporary storage lockers in front of most of your major rides and charge a $1 fee at each location. Alternatively, you provide locker storage space near the main entrance of the park for $11. I wouldn’t object to the locker prices if their use was voluntary, but I resent the fact that use of these lockers is mandatory for all loose articles, even including items such as your refillable souvenir soda cups, and shopping bags from your own gift shops.

Summary of Events

My girlfriend and I were confronted numerous times by park employees for merely walking through a line for a roller coaster with a gift bag and a souvenir cup in our hands. We were told time and again to either stow away our belongings in a $1 locker, or to get out of line. When we asked your employees why they wouldn’t allow us to simply set our belongings aside near the exit of the ride platform (as is custom practice at every other amusement park we’ve visited), your employees would invariably tell us that they were simply following “corporate policy”. For a while, we gave in and started using the temporary lockers at each ride.

After a while, we decided to save ourselves some hassle by stowing away the gift bag in an $11 locker, but still opted to carry around the souvenir cup. It was a hot day, after all, as it often is in that valley. One of the most upsetting and frustrating confrontations of the day happened shortly afterwards in the line for Scream. As we were nearing the boarding platform, the employee tending to the line asked us to stow away the cup in a locker. It’s frustrating to me that I’m not allowed to carry a drink while waiting in line for a roller coaster in the sweltering heat of Valencia. After some argument with your employee, my girlfriend grabbed the cup and simply placed it on top of the lockers and started to walk away. At this, your employee called out, “Ma’am, if you leave that cup there, then I will throw it away.” Thoroughly frustrated, I told him that I wasn’t paying a dollar to store the cup, and that he should just throw it away. We left the cup behind, and indeed it was nowhere to be seen once our ride was over.

Promptly afterwards, my girlfriend and I made a stop at your guest relations office. It was around 7pm when we decided to do this. At this point, I must mention that the young lady working behind the counter (her name is K) handled our complaint professionally, attentively, and with a much-needed dose of empathy. She listened to what we had to say and acknowledged our frustration. My girlfriend and I both commend K for being great at what she does.

K’s manager, on the other hand, seemed curt and disinterested. He didn’t see anything wrong with the fact that the employee from the Scream ride bluntly threatened us with an ultimatum to either pay a dollar or to have our property thrown away in retaliation for leaving it unattended for 10 minutes. This manager (I regret that I didn’t catch his name) ended the conversation by stating that the only thing we could accomplish that night was to basically issue a formal complaint against any of those rides whose employees did not strictly enforce the locker rule. Naturally, my girlfriend and I declined to complain about not being harassed enough while we stood patiently in your lines. Afterwards, K redeemed your guest relations office by offering us some courtesy and providing us your contact information.

Complaint

Mr. B., I was compelled to write you this letter because I strongly believe that Six Flags’ “loose articles” policy is not only unfair and abusive to your customers, but it also can hurt your company’s profitability in the long run. I know how obnoxious it can be to receive a complaint letter from a presumptuous customer telling you how to run your business, but I ask you to please take note of my arguments and to objectively consider whether operations and policies at your park (or parks) could be improved. My arguments are as follows.

1. Your “loose articles” policy deviates from industry standards in a way that falls well short of the common consumer’s expectations.

Every amusement park out there abides by the same golden rule: “The park is not responsible for any lost, stolen, or damaged property.” At any given amusement park, when I leave my belongings aside while I board a ride, I am fully aware that a stranger could potentially steal my property, and that I would have no legal right to hold the park accountable. In basically every other amusement park that I’ve visited, aside from Magic Mountain, I have been allowed to set my belongings down somewhere near the exit of a boarding platform when it has been my turn to board a ride.

I was both surprised and annoyed to learn that your park prohibits this very common practice. I resent being charged a dollar to stow away my belongings in a temporary-use locker each time I want to board a roller coaster. Yes, I do realize that there are $11 lockers available at the front of the park, but my preference would be to avoid that steep fee. In fact, it would be my preference to avoid all locker fees and to simply be allowed the option to gamble on the goodness of humanity when I leave my property unattended on a boarding platform. When I questioned your employees on why I was not allowed to leave my belongings unattended, I received one of two official answers: (1) “It’s for your own protection”, and (2) “It’s corporate policy”. I find neither answer acceptable.

When the average consumer enters your amusement park, he or she expects to be given a choice on whether to use your storage lockers. As soon as those lockers become a burdensome obligation, the consumer begins to suspect that your organization is deviating from industry practices solely in an effort to gouge your captive audience. I consider myself a cynical consumer with low expectations. When I enter a place of business as a captive audience member (places like amusement parks or movie theaters), I expect to be overcharged for amenities. I don’t balk at $4 bottles of water or $6 hotdogs, because, I know that’s all just part of the game. But being forced to stow away my possessions for every ride is unacceptable, given that most other amusement parks out there allow you to opt for convenience over the safety of $1 lockers at the entrance of every major ride. While it may be safer to lock up your belongings every single time, it sure feels a lot less fun when you’re being told to either pay a dollar, get out of line, or else have your belongings thrown away if you decide to do neither.

Your “Loose Articles” policy kills whatever joy there is to have in your amusement park.

2. Your policy on loose articles discourages customers from spending money inside your park. Generally, the policy can and will lead to a loss of sales.

The whole day, your employees hassled me for carrying around items that I had bought inside the park. I was told to stow away both my shopping bag full of souvenirs, and my refillable souvenir cup. Had I known ahead of time that your merchandise would become such a burden, I would never have bought them in the first place. Given how much grief I received very early on, I decided not to buy anything else aside from food strictly as a matter of principle. My girlfriend and I had intended to visit your park one more time on Sunday before driving back home, but we couldn’t stand the thought of paying your organization any more money than we already had. At the very least, parking would have cost us another $15. We decided instead to drive home first thing Sunday morning.

What frustrates me about my experience in your park is that I suffered abuse due to corporate policies that frankly don’t make any good business sense. What’s the benefit of encouraging your customers to buy souvenirs, only to make them regret doing so for the rest of the day? Your policies discourage people from playing games with large stuffed animals as prizes. Your policies made me regret buying those t-shirts. Your policies made me think twice about buying all of those useless trinkets that I would have brought back to my friends at home. My girlfriend and I had intended to make it a yearly tradition to drive down to Valencia to visit your park. After this miserable experience, our plans to return are indefinitely on hold.

I contrast my experience from last Saturday to my previous visit in 2008, which impressed me so much that I couldn’t wait to come back in 2009. Perhaps it’s not that distressing to you to lose business from an out-of-town tourist like myself, since you have the luxury to rely on a steady stream of local clientele. Please be advised that I spent all Saturday at Magic Mountain with two of my friends who live in Southern California, and they both were not very enthusiastic about returning to the park after everything we went through.

Perhaps your locker policy succeeds in squeezing out some extra revenue from customers in the short run, but your consumers remember things, and we have common sense. When people like me leave your park, we feel ripped off and exploited. You are discouraging people like me from ever patronizing a Six Flags park again. Please step back and view your company policies. Can you truly and objectively say that your organization is on the right track?

3. You are fostering a company culture in which employees think it is okay to issue ultimatums, throw away your customers’ property, and to cite “corporate policy” as an argument-stopper with frustrated customers.

The level of customer service I experienced last Saturday was unsatisfactory. On one hand, I do understand that your employees have an obligation to enforce company policies, even when the rules are not popular with the customers. On the other hand, I didn’t appreciate the authoritarian vibe that all of your workers were sending off.

I didn’t appreciate being issued ultimatums to either pay money or to step out of a line inside a park where I’ve already paid a steep admission fee. I also didn’t appreciate being told that my property was fair game for the garbage can if I refused to stow away my souvenir cup for a fee. Again, I stress the fact that Saturday the 15th was a hot day in Valencia. It’s irritating that I wasn’t allowed to carry my drink with me while I stood in your long lines in the oppressive heat. One of your workers even went so far as to throw away my $14 souvenir cup because I was too cheap to shell out that last dollar for the privilege to ride Scream.

Finally, all but one of your employees failed to offer me any adequate explanation as to why I was not allowed to leave my belongings unattended as I boarded your rides. All day, I heard employees tell me that it was “corporate policy” for all customers to stow away their loose articles. All of your employees merely took it for granted that I would accept that as an adequate explanation. I don’t mean to come off as a snooty customer service know-it-all, but one of the most basic lessons that I learned from my days as a retail clerk is not to tell a customer that something has to be done merely because it is “corporate policy”. It’s a cold, impersonal thing for a company representative to say, and it almost never satisfies a frustrated customer.

To your credit, you have found an able customer service representative in K. According to K’s explanation, in the past, too many customers were accusing Magic Mountain employees of stealing loose articles left on ride platforms, so the company decided to make lockers mandatory on all rides. If what K says is accurate, then I consider your new policy on loose articles to be a massive overcorrection. Regardless, I appreciated her taking the time to explain the policy to me. K’s manager, on the other hand, showed little interest in my concerns and ended the conversation without fully hearing me out. The company policy is what it is, and your manager on duty at guest relations wasn’t interested in fielding complaints about “corporate policy”.

No consumer goes to an amusement park and expects first class customer service, but I was thoroughly disappointed by this kind of treatment.

Conclusion

In short, Mr. B., I feel ripped off. In order to visit your park, I drove 5 hours down from the Bay Area and 5 hours back up to return home. I paid for two nights’ stay at a local hotel, and for two full tanks of gas, and I even bought season passes so that I could visit your park twice in the same weekend visit. I paid your parking fee, and I bought your $14 souvenir cup which all of your drink vendors pushed so hard to sell to me. I even bought some souvenirs from your gift stores. Amid all of that ill-advised spending, I barely had an opportunity to have any fun.

I went well out of my way to visit your park in Valencia, and I left for home unsatisfied. Although the rides at your park are unparalleled in the state, there are cheaper and more local alternatives available to me in Northern California. I probably would have had a much better time at Great America in Santa Clara, for instance, where they don’t hassle you for leaving your stuff aside to ride a two minute roller coaster.

Your policies, and the way that your employees enforce them, suggest a troubling corporate culture in which your organization cynically views customers as dollar signs to be exploited rather than valued guests with common sense. It was my intention to visit Magic Mountain at least once a year. Your policies and your overall approach to customer service, however, have greatly discouraged me from coming back.

I have to wonder whether your policy on loose articles is truly a corporate, nationwide rule for all Six Flags locations, or if it only applies to Magic Mountain in particular. I don’t know whether you have any control or say in the creation and enforcement of corporate policy, but I thought that you ought to know at least what’s happening in your own park.

Thank you sincerely for taking the time to read my letter,
Kevin Zing

But there is one thing that’s been bothering me for quite a while. What the hell is up with all of the show’s oddly named Asian characters? I’m not even talking about Indian actors like Kal Penn who get cast to play Arab terrorists with names like Ahmed Amar, although I do admit that subject is worth it’s very own “WTF” post. No. I’m talking about dudes from East Asia — guys who look like me — playing characters with the most generic, white bread, Caucasian-sounding names ever.

Here’s a breakdown of what I’ve seen so far.

• Tom Baker
  
  

  Seasons 2 and 3 have the Korean-American actor Daniel Dae Kim playing a CTU agent named Tom Baker. Tom Freaking Baker. What we have here is a bad-ass, federal counter-terrorist agent who is handy with a gun, invaluable during a rescue operation, and whose idea of a perfect meal is kimchi, bulgogi, and slices of baguettes and marzipan cakes. Seriously, 24 writers, how can you be this freaking lazy? Baker was a major minor player in the earlier seasons of 24. Daniel Dae Kim racked up a decent amount of face time during his stint on the show. Why would you disservice the guy by giving his character a name that very blatantly does not fit his profile?

  In all likelihood, the writers of 24 probably give all of their minor characters generic names, and then subsequently leave the rest up to casting directors. Once in a while, an Asian guy will audition for a part and land the role, and then he’ll get stuck with some goofy, All-American name like Tom Freaking Baker. Would it have killed somebody on the writing staff to adjust the character name to sound at least vaguely Asian once Daniel Dae Kim was cast for the role? I’m willing to suspend my disbelief when Jack Bauer kills off an entire squadron of rifle-toting goons with nothing more than a pistol, but I have a hard time taking a Korean guy seriously with a name like Tom Baker.
• Agent McCallan
  
  

  In Season 4, actor Vic Chao plays a minor supporting role as a CTU agent mysteriously named Agent McCallan. McCallan is your generic CTU field agent who chases terrorists as a member of a mobile tactical SWAT team. He will occasionally sound off on the team radio to give status updates to Assistant Field Director Curtis Manning, or to resident bad-ass Jack Bauer. I must confess, I’m not certain about Vic Chao’s ethnic origin, but he doesn’t look a damn bit Scottish to me. Is this 24‘s way of adding depth to an otherwise forgettable character? This is a man of Asian descent who bravely fights terrorism as an agent of the federal government — and, oh yeah: his Asian parents divorced when he was nine, and his mother later remarried a white guy named Arthur McCallan, who was kind enough to adopt our brave Agent McCallan when he was but a child. I mean, really … Agent McCallan? Why not name the guy Joe Everyman?
• Mark Dornan
  
  

  In Season 7, Vic Chao returns to the cast of 24 as FBI agent Mark Dornan. Mark Dornan is a stone faced Fed in a suit who sits in on tactical FBI meetings led by Larry Moss, and who will occasionally utter the obligatory, plot-advancing line of exposition. Frankly, this character amounts to nothing more than window dressing. There are tons of actors filling in as nameless office drones on the show, and the fans get along just fine without learning each of their names. I find it odd that Mark Dornan has a name at all. I find it doubly odd that Vic Chao has now played two characters on 24 with generic white guy names. Would it have been so hard to make a last minute script change to rename the character Mark Chao? Did Jack Bauer beat the yellow out of this guy or what?
• Ranger Thompson
  
  

  This final example from Season 7 had me swearing at the television set in disbelief. Between 7:00pm – 8:00pm in Season 7, we are briefly introduced to a law enforcement officer, played by Chase Kim, who is on camera for no longer than two minutes. He appears out of nowhere to come to the aid of distressed FBI agent Renee Walker, delivers a generic line to advance the plot, and then runs to his patrol car to send out a radio message. “This is Ranger Thompson,” he begins to say, before he is rudely interrupted by a wall of bullets sprayed across his chest. I guess the stakes are higher when characters with names start getting killed. I guess. Ranger Thompson is another one of those characters who could have easily been written out of the show. There was hardly a need to even give the guy a name. But if you’re a writer on 24, and if you’re going to such pains to personalize a doomed redshirt, couldn’t you at least try to give him an appropriate name? There’s a thin line between television production efficiency and a lazy disregard for the details.

In general, American television shows have an annoying tendency to name their Asian characters either Lee, Kim, or Wong. It’s as if those are the only three Asian surnames that Hollywood writers know about. What’s peculiar about 24 is that the writers can’t even be bothered to give their supporting Asian characters stereotypical names, and they cynically slap on any generic, All-American white guy names that suit their fancy. Yes, I’m very much aware that there have been Chinese characters featured on the show with such names as Lee Jong, Koo Yin, or Cheng Zhi. I’m not mad about them. In fact, they baffle me even further, because their existence demonstrates that the writers of 24 realize that not all Asian people out there have names like Chad Smith or Reginald Bernard Caucasianton III.

I’m just saying, you know? I still love you, Jack, but your Asian consorts have a bunch of wack names. Keith Zahn out.