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?

Love is in the air, my friends. This February, my chest swells with gratitude and gladness for having found the love of my life — the one girl with whom I want to share every Valentine’s Day for the remainder of my living days. So I guess I’m no stranger to love these days. What a wonderful thing to be able to say. I consider myself lucky to have found a girlfriend as kind, as loving, and as supportive as Diana. Yet luck had very little do with keeping us together for the past seven years. If you’ll forgive me for my presumption, I’d like to share with you some insights into my relationship so that others out there might also reach the peak of romantic bliss, just as I have. True, there are happy couples all over the globe flourishing in a variety of different ways, but there is only one true way to be as happy as Diana and KZ. This one goes out to all of the lovestruck gentlemen of the world who find themselves in need of some romantic advice.

• Rule #1: Never be complacent.

  Relationships require more than mere passion and raw emotions. A healthy relationship requires effort, commitment, selflessness, and reciprocity. All of these requirements amount to a very tall order, but it’s a profoundly rewarding thing when you and your partner manage to get things right. In short, never stop trying.





• Rule #2: It’s okay to daydream when the conversations get dull.

  Let’s face it: women like to talk a whole lot more than men do. Every strong relationship should be built upon a foundation of good communication, but sometimes the temptation to daydream is just too enticing to resist when your girl spends 30 minutes describing the tedious minutia of her uneventful day. Go on and drift off. It’s okay. You deserve a mental holiday every now and then. It’s not like you won’t hear her tell you those stories again a minimum of twenty times.

  Sure, you may occasionally get in trouble when your woman realizes that you aren’t paying attention to her, but the risks are far outweighed by the benefits of daydreaming. For one thing, daydreaming keeps your mind sharp if you do it correctly. Chicks dig a man with a sharp mind, and a strong sense of imagination. Daydreaming also goes a long way to keep you sane when conversations press on the limits of your patience. But the best thing about daydreaming during a boring conversation is that you’ll always have something new to learn about the next time you decide to pay attention. Don’t feel guilty for allowing your mind to wander. Embrace the discovery.





• Rule #3: Show her all of the best aspects of your personality, but also hide nothing.

  Never stop dating your girl even long after you two have moved beyond the awkward dating phase. It’s all too easy to grow complacent in a long-term relationship, but try to put your best foot forward as much as you can so that she will always see the best that you have to offer. Having said that, it’s also important to understand that your less admirable qualities are bound to show through on occasion, so don’t treat them like a dirty secret. By all means, always try to show her your best, but also be honest about who you are.

  Consider the case of Mouthy. I always do what I can to show Diana the very best of me, and she adores me for it because I kick so much ass. Despite that fact, Diana also understands that I’m a human being with my own weaknesses, vulnerabilities, and brittle frailties. I express the essence of those lesser qualities through Mouthy, a hexagonal hand puppet whom I create out of paper chopstick covers every time I take Diana out to eat at an Asian restaurant.

  

  Mouthy wants so desperately to make friends with Diana. Unfortunately, Diana spurns Mouthy’s every attempt to strike up a conversation. Invariably, Diana always finds a way to wrestle Mouthy away from me, and she’ll shred him to pieces before my grieving eyes. Given that Mouthy is made of paper, and given that Diana has demonstrated an alarming propensity for destroying him, Mouthy is the living embodiment of weakness, vulnerability, and brittle frailty. Mouthy’s fragile weaknesses mirror my own. His suffering is my suffering. I do what I can to show Diana my very best, but I also accept the weaknesses of my own constitution.

  

  It’s interesting to note that Diana can so callously destroy a part of me without showing an ounce of remorse. That’s the stuff of psychopaths, man. This aspect of Diana appears to be one of her own character faults. Even so, Rule #3 is a two way street, and so I choose to love Diana anyway despite her moral frailty. That’s just the way true love works.

  Diana loves me for who I am. For better or worse, she accepts all of the things that make me KZ. Diana loves me in spite of Mouthy. Diana loves me because of Mouthy. All you need is a little emotional honesty to make things work.

  
  
  

• Rule #4: Keep the fires burning by inserting a little mystery into the mix.

  The specter of boredom is an unfortunate reality for even the most loving and compatible of couples. Over time, long-term relationships define themselves on dedication and stability rather than impulsiveness and excitement. But who’s to say that the fires of passion are destined to die?

  

  The best way to prevent familiarity from breeding contempt is to spice up your days with a little mystery. This goes a long way to keeping your girl interested and emotionally engaged. Using myself as an example, I have recently formed the habit of arbitrarily abbreviating my sentences so that I only say the first letter of a number of strategic words. Diana finds this practice of mine mystifying, yet mysterious — confusing, yet completely irresistible. Here’s a portion of a conversation that I had with Diana sometime last week.

  Diana: Guess what, Kevin. I reached level 15 on my Smurfs game.

  Kevin: Oh yeah, great. That totally justifies the way you monopolize my iPhone all the time.

  Diana: Yes, it does. See, I can harvest all kinds of cool crops, like peas and strawberries. And sometimes Papa Smurf will send me on missions where I have to go out and look for lost smurfs. There’s also mini-games and Smurfette!

  Kevin: Yeah, yeah, GFY.

  Diana: GFY? What does that … hey, screw you! You “go fuck yourself”.

  Kevin: Whoa, that’s not what GFY means. It stands for, “good for you”.

  Diana: God damnit, I fucking hate it when you turn everything into an acronym. Why don’t you talk like a person and use actual words?

  Kevin: First of all, GFY is not an acronym. An acronym is an abbreviation made up of initial letters which form a pronounceable word. Secondly…

  Diana: I don’t give a shit. I’m just sick of having to decode all of your sentences.

  Kevin: Yeah, yeah. GFY.

  Insert some mystery, keep her guessing, and keep things spicy. She’ll thank you for it in the long run.

  
  
  

• Rule #5: Create no-win situations to remind her of what she has.

  Sometimes the best way to remind your girl that you’re the best choice for her is to confront her with a lighthearted, no-win situation. By stripping away the possibilities for choice from a strategic number of situations, you are gently guiding your girl toward the understanding that you are in possession of the key to a number of life’s hidden truths, which is totally hot. Again, using myself as an example, consider this conversation that Diana and I recently had about our Netflix instant queue.

  

  Diana: What do you want to watch tonight, Kevin? Battlestar Galactica or Desperate Housewives?

  Kevin: You mean B-Star G or Desperate H-Dub?

  Diana: Fine. Do you want to watch B-Star G or Desperate H-Dub?

  Kevin: What the hell are you talking about? Why are you abbreviating your words like that? You mean Battlestar Galactica or Desperate Housewives?

  Diana: You are such a dick, you know that?

  Kevin: I know a lot of things, Diana. You know what else I know? I know that I love you.

  Diana: Yeah, right. My fucking hero.

  I don’t mean to brag or anything, but apparently, I am Diana’s hero. It’s only taken her a handful of no-win situations to realize this fact.

  
  
  

• Rule #6: A well-placed “I love you” can go a very long way.

  As exemplified in Rule #5, saying “I love you” at precisely the right time can disarm your girl, and remind her of how much you mean to her. “I love you” is a wonderfully magical statement. It has the power to enchant her in the midst of a romantic moment, or to melt her heart in the middle of a heated fight.

  

  You should also consider the value of “I love you” for its ability to make you look like the sympathetic party while recalling the events of a lovers’ quarrel. Case in point, here is a continuation of the conversation that I quoted in Rule #5.

  Kevin: I know a lot of things, Diana. You know what else I know? I know that I love you.

  Diana: Yeah, right. My fucking hero.

  Kevin: I truly mean it. I love you, Diana.

  Diana: Fuck you.

  See what I mean? Who’s the bad guy from that particular exchange? Just three simple words transform your everyday, awesome KZ, into a tragically stoic martyr of love. The utterance of that simple phrase at precisely the right moment has made me out to look like a modern-day Casanova. I’m a KZ-nova, if you will. Don’t you desperately want to be like me, now?

  
  
  

• Rule #7: Resist proposing marriage for a minimum of seven years.

  This method seems to have worked for me. I imagine you will be able to employ the same strategy with similar success. Your girl may give you grief for not proposing to her sooner, but she will also respect your resistance, as this will be interpreted as a display of manliness and cavalier strength. Chicks dig manly men of a rebellious nature almost as much as they dig abusive douchebags who treat women like crap. Show her your strong, principled, masculine side without venturing into the realm of douchebaggery, and you’ll be golden.

  

  
  
  

• Rule #8: Fantasy and role-play are great tools for spicing up the bedroom.

  Sometimes keeping it real is overrated. Sometimes it’s more fun to indulge in a little fantasy before bed. Head over to Diana’s Awesome Blog at www.KZSucksAss.com to read all about Rule #8.

  

  
  
  

• Rule #9: Complimenting your girl while she’s getting dressed is a great excuse to cop a feel.

  Try this one the next time you enter the room while your girl is getting dressed. “Hey, honey, have you lost weight?” As soon as she looks down to examine her body, reach out and cop a free feel. Whether your girl believes in the sincerity of your statement after the fact is irrelevant for two reasons: (1) Even if it was just for a brief moment, you raised her personal sense of body image and self esteem; and (2) You got to cop a free feel during the exchange. In either event, it’s a win-win situation. It’s fun to desire, and fun to be desired.

  
  
  

• Rule #10: If you are as insufferably annoying to your girl as I am to Diana, then be sure to thank her this Valentine’s Day for putting up with your ridiculous shit.

  Diana may swear like a sailor, but she has the patience of a saint. I’m lucky that Diana tolerates me in spite all of my self-indulgent, juvenile antics. Diana, I am the happiest that I’ve ever been in life because I have you by my side. Every moment and every day with you is a reason to celebrate.

  

  I love you, Diana. Sincerely, I do.

  
  
  
  

You see, fellas? That’s how it’s done. Cap it all off with a brief display of tender sincerity, and she’ll eat it right up, and let you get away with murder. Ain’t love grand?

Happy Valentine’s Day, everybody.

“Inside thoughts” are the kind of ideas that are probably best kept to yourself. They are the mental processes that fuel those off-colored remarks which jeopardize careers, end friendships, get you punched, earn you sideways glances, and make you want to die the moment you vocalize them into words. I’m talking about the kind of thoughts that recklessly escape your mouth like a drenched and agitated cat bolting away from an involuntary bath. I’m talking about those moments in life when you silence a room because you’ve said too much, and much too loudly. “Of course there’s a way,” you proudly proclaim. “Haven’t you ever heard of glory holes?” Try that line out if you enjoy awkward moments marked by a horrified silence. I’ve been there.

A staggering variety of messed up shit pops into my head on a daily basis. On the whole, my inner sense of discretion filters out most of those inside thoughts from my blog entries, and when I engage in polite conversation. Sometimes though, on occasions like today, the best way to stay sane is to let loose, and to unleash a deluge of inside thoughts onto a hapless crowd of onlookers.

Assuming I still have your attention, let’s get started with the indiscretions.

• 

  My girlfriend, Diana, is an animal lover. She never fails to comment on the tragedy of roadkill when she spots a dead animal in the center of the road. “Poor possum!” she’ll cry. The sight of a dead animal is never a pleasant thing, but I never let things like that get me down. I always assume the possum had it coming. He was probably embezzling money from his employers down at the possum insurance agency. He must have also been a lousy drunk — the kind of douche who would come home sloshed every night after work wearing his brown fedora and his tiny maroon necktie without a collared shirt, and who would spit on the cold plate of dinner that had been lovingly set aside for him, all before beating his possum wife in a savage, drunken rage. Fuck that possum, man. He totally got what was coming to him.

• Assuming there is such a thing as an afterlife, and assuming that Heaven and Hell actually exist, how can we be so sure that Hell is the ghoulishly terrible place that everybody makes it out to be? Heaven is where the virtuous people go, and Hell is the final destination for the dregs of humanity — the non-believers and the sinners. Most religious traditions would scare us into believing that Hell is a place of infinite agony designed to punish people for their unrepented sins. But what’s in it for the Devil? Why would he kick your ass in the afterlife for pissing off God? Doesn’t the Devil get his kicks from defying the will of God? I’m not saying that I have any desire to go to Hell, but who’s to say that, once you got there, you wouldn’t be greeted by a throng of high fives, defiant AC/DC music, kick-ass beach parties, and and an endless buffet line full of pizza, beer, and devil’s food cake?
• Speaking of wicked people, is it wrong that I see Adolf Hitler’s mustache on the back of my cat’s leg? Her name is Madam Beasley Meowington, but I like to call her Hitler Foot.
  
• This next inside thought isn’t a very private one since I’ve talked about it before among a number of my friends. I think it’s still worth mentioning here in this post since most people call for my immediate crucifixion once they hear me admit to it. Here goes.
  

  I’ve never understood the hype over Jerry Seinfeld. I don’t think he’s very funny. He’s a clever guy, and his observational humor can be pretty insightful at times, but neither his sitcom nor his stand-up routines have ever made me laugh. Yes, I’ve seen Curb Your Enthusiasm. Yes, I think that show is pretty damned funny. That’s probably because the show has very little to do with Jerry Seinfeld. Yes Joie, I know. You and I can no longer be friends now that I have declared these thoughts publicly in writing. I’m just not a stickler for a tickler.

• During a recent conversation, a friend of mine remarked, “I could never work in an animal shelter because I couldn’t stand to see an animal put to sleep.” My mind immediately went to a dark place, and I started to giggle. I pictured my friend working as an animal shelter volunteer, happily playing with an exuberant little puppy inside one of the socializing rooms. The play session is interrupted when a solemn man with a stern face enters the room. He is brandishing a pistol in an unconcealed holster. “Ma’am,” he says, “could you please turn around for a moment?” My friend complies and turns around. There is a moment of silence, followed suddenly and abruptly by a loud pop. The next sound my friend hears is the door slamming shut.

  This might be a good time to remind you that inside thoughts reside in a place where good taste goes to die.

• One of my favorite weekend activities is playing paintball. I make no claims to being a bad-ass, or to being any good at the sport. I just happen to find the game incredibly fun.
  

  In the dozen-or-so times that I’ve gone out to play, it’s always been on a recreational field full of novices and newbies, just like me. Often times, you encounter a good number of young preteen kids on those “rec ball” fields. I think it’s awesome to see young kids playing the sport. It wasn’t until I hit my late twenties when I finally mustered the courage to play paintball. Those little kids have a lot of heart, and a lot of guts. I really do admire them.

  Having said that, I have to admit that a very small part of me derives a perverse pleasure from lighting up those young kids with paint. I don’t enjoy it because I’m a bully. I enjoy it because little kids make for excellent target practice. They’re quick, and they’re small, and they’re usually more agile than the average opponent. Also, they usually have a lot more stamina than me because I’m a squishy, aging slob. There are few moments in life that are more satisfying than those times when you snap out from behind a bunker, shoot off a string of paint, and then you see your opponent’s hand rise in the air as he calls himself out. The victory is only made that much sweeter when you realize that the arm being raised belongs to a ten-year-old kid. Good game, junior.

I’d better cool it right here with the inside thoughts before I alienate anybody with good taste who might still be reading this post. I’m starting to feel a little exposed right now, so this is probably the ideal time to stop. Thank you for your patience, gentle reader, and for playing your part in this dance of indiscreet madness.

• 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.

Heroes is back, and with a vengeance!  The new storyline will be riveting, the action scenes thick with excitement, and more villains galore!

‘Tis the release of Season Three: VILLAINS!

The TV show “Heroes” is perhaps one of the most widely-known programs on national television, especially after its sharp rise to popularity from its first season on the air.  The show’s writers carefully and creatively integrated the supernatural element of comic book stories to “real life” characters, effectively making the show appealing to a wide demographic.  At first, Heroes seemed like some sort of X-Men rip-off, but with each episode, the story lines became more and more interesting, due to the nature of each character and how they acquired and used their “abilities,” another word for special powers.

The excitement and originality, however, would only last for a short period of time.  Season one was fairly entertaining and season two felt lacking in comparison.  The infamous writer’s strike earlier this year fortunately brought the ailing second season to a close.  Almost immediately, it was announced that season three was in the works, and the show’s creators promised it to be “bigger, badder, and worth the wait.”  Unfortunately, this turned out to be far from the case.  Perhaps the writers were pissed, because Sylar stole their brains, based on the material that appeared so far this season.

Currently, Heroes is almost halfway into its third season, and with its highly erratic and incoherent plot, it is evident there either may have been a change in writers or the same writers are writing ridiculous material on purpose to see if ratings are affected.  It is highly likely the show’s creators allowed a class of third graders to write the Heroes script, all separately, then taking each submitted script, random episodes had been strewn together.  I mean, nothing makes sense anymore, even though there seems to be some sort of suspenseful moment at the conclusion of each episode.

Do you not believe me?  Here are ten legitimate reasons Heroes season three fails at almost every level (and I am sure there are many more):

1. Sylar’s Sudden Change of Heart

Season one’s main antagonist was a super-powered serial killer named Gabriel Gray, who took on the name Sylar after discovering his potential for acquiring other people’s powers.  He figures out a way to obtain new abilities by slicing the skull off of the top of his victims’ heads to study their brains.  We later figure out that Sylar’s killing spree had been triggered by an insatiable hunger for power consumption, all linked to his innate ability of intuitive aptitude (the ability that allows its possessor to understand how things work).  Essentially, he could find out how people with abilities “worked,” which allowed him to steal their power after exposing their brain and studying it (of course, by doing this, he would kill each victim, the only exception being Claire, due to her invulnerability).

Now, as season three began its course, the creators created a convoluted story, making the viewers feel sorry for Sylar, for he had been a victim of his “hunger,“ forcing him to kill against his will.  In an episode that took the viewers into the past, we saw Sylar attempt to hang himself due to his guilt over killing his first victim.  Additionally, in an episode that took the viewers into the future, we see Sylar with full control over his ability, as he essentially curbed his hunger for power consumption, showing viewers that he had, in fact, become “good.”  He even had a son, named Noah (presumably after Noah Bennet, the man, who during the whole course of the show, hunted Sylar), whom he cited as being partially responsible for suppressing his homicidal tendencies.  During many of the episodes of season three, Sylar was seen fighting his “hunger” and tried very hard to be a “different person” on his road to redemption.

All changed when the eleventh episode of season three aired, effectively rendering the creators’ work to shape the “repentant” Sylar character completely and utterly worthless.  He immediately reverted back to his homicidal self, cited his good behavior as “just temporary,” and began killing innocent victims all over again.

2. Timeline Inconsistencies

Sometimes, aired Heroes episodes take place during a different timeline than the regular course of the show.  For instance, characters will be warped to some unknown time into the future or past.  During “future” episodes, viewers are introduced to a grim future (usually five years into the future), and expect the protagonists in the show to go back in time to keep that particular catastrophe from happening.  Naturally, there will be future versions of the show’s characters without any correlation to their present selves at all, making some viewers realize, “Um, why was that stupid ass episode aired?”  It makes no sense.“  I mean, Claire somehow bears some particular hatred for Peter?  Sylar has a child named Noah?  Then there is also Matt Parkman.  It seems every future version of himself somehow gets caught up taking some stupid ass side for some stupid ass reason.  In fact, the only similarity between present-day Parkman and future Parkman is he is still the same idiot.  The ”past“ episodes are even more ludicrous.  During a recent episode, Claire goes back to visit herself as a baby and runs into her adoptive parents who have no idea who she is, but she ends up talking to them, briefly taking care of herself and giving her parents omens and warnings of the future.  Wouldn’t the present versions of the characters realize, “Hey, I remember when you came back to the past!” ?

Besides, the whole idea of going back to the past could never happen.  Think of the Terminator movies, assuming that robots and time machines actually exist.  If John Connor made it to the future alive, there is no way he could have been killed in the past.  The only time I had seen a well thought out journey to the past through film and TV was when I watched the Darren Aronofsky movie The Fountain.  Go see it if you have not.

Some movies and shows treat going to the past as if the past timeline was moving at the same time as the present one.  For examples, see movies such as Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure (don’t ask me how Keanu Reeves still gets work) and the mid-80s sci-fi B-movie Trancers.  In Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, for instance, the duo “hurried” back home to deliver their presentation, although it would not occur, time-wise, for 100 years.

Heroes does not even take this angle, which makes the already unrealistic show even more unrealistic and sophomoric.

Here is another part, too.  Sylar and Peter apparently became brothers during season three (which was later proven false), although when Peter went to the future, Sylar was still under the impression they were brothers.  So, Sylar and/or Peter could not have found out the truth over five years?  And Sylar had not reverted to his “evil” self?

3. Sylar Petrelli!  I mean…just kidding!

Another way creators/writers try to add spice to their show is to somehow make people who you would never think are related…related (a good example was when Dexter, from the eponymous ‘Dexter,’ finds out the serial killer from the first season was his older brother).  The big “shocker” this season (oooooooo) was when viewers discovered Sylar was Angela and Arthur Petrelli’s son, effectively making him Peter and Nathan’s brother.  This “fact,” of course, proved to be false, as it was retracted several episodes later.  So, here I am again…dumbfounded.  It reminded me of 24’s season six, a sinking ship from the beginning, when the writers said amongst themselves, literally, “The ratings are down this year?  The viewers say we are running out of material?  Oh, screw that…we are making that geek from season five, you know, the bad guy with the Bluetooth…yeah, we’re making him, umm…Jack’s brother!  Oh wait, the show still sucks?  Okay, let’s make the real bad guy his daddy!”  It had been an attempt to save the season (and perhaps the show), but it was executed so poorly.  Given that Heroes did the exact same thing, then retracted it, their execution was even worse.

I could see the writers fighting amongst themselves.  “Who’s freakin’ idea was that?!  I am changing it back to the way it was, bastards!”

4. Arthur Petrelli Pulls A Jesus

Here is another “thrilling” element.  Arthur Petrelli, known to be dead throughout the whole series, suddenly came back to life in season three.  The creators desperately tried to find some reason to bring him back from the dead by airing an episode in the past that showed him being poisoned, but not entirely killed.  He became the main antagonist of the show with the ability to absorb others’ abilities, leaving them dry without power, to take for his own.  This whole plan of his abruptly ended when he was killed off during the last aired episode, but who knows…he may come back to life again!

Since I am also on the topic of inconsistencies, the actor portraying Arthur Petrelli looks nothing like his counterpart on the “group of twelve who founded the Company” photo (see photos below), which means the writers were incredibly desperate to find another villain.  They would have been significantly more successful introducing someone new with a very interesting, preferably disturbing, background.

If you can see what I mean:

Arthur Petrelli

“Arthur Petrelli”

5. Isaac’s Posthumous Paintings Are Back…Again.

In season one, Sylar killed off one of the main recurring characters, a precognitive painter named Isaac Mendez, in order to steal his ability.  Ever since his death, many “posthumous” paintings of his have shown up with some sort of omen attached to them.  Although I understand that idea may work the first couple of times, the writers reuse this concept so often in season three, it is just annoying, not to mention, completely unoriginal.  I mean, how come the characters of the show did not discover these, you know…earlier?  No matter how good the show’s writers think they are…how do you explain the circumstances concerning his paintings that just keep popping all over the place?  Additionally, it just so happens during each episode the paintings and/or comic books they find of his happen to be relevant to the current story line.  During a recent episode, a comic book store possesses all of the “9th Wonder” comic books that were previously undiscovered by any of the main characters.  The show is already unrealistic enough…

The writers could have at least created a new precognitive painter, like the African man, and implied that he/she was painting them.  I mean, seriously…Isaac is releasing more posthumous material than 2Pac ever did.

6. Sylar Loses His Abilities

Viewers reluctantly watch as Sylar regained his abiities at the conclusion of season two.  Or did he?  After the numerous abilities he gained through season one, including telekinesis, freezing, telepathy, melting, enhanced hearing, and radioactivity, the only ability he retained after losing all of them during season two (after taking some sort of antidote) was telekinesis.  Is there any explanation for this?

7. Sylar Has Peter’s Ability?  Yeah, But Screw It.  Killing Is Fun.

Here is how badly this idea was executed.  First of all, it is revealed that Sylar had Peter’s “empathic” ability all along, allowing him to obtain the powers of others without actually having to kill them, essentially revealing that Sylar’s “knowing how things work” ability was just all demented and messed up to begin with.  During the season, Sylar’s reason for killing was to obtain others’ abilities…so if he was in fact “good,” then why did he not continue to take abilities using empathy?  Sylar used his empathic ability once, when he obtained Elle’s lightning.  After this whole new discovery, however, Sylar went back to his old ways anyway, first killing a pretty lady to take her lie detection ability, then killing Elle later…for fun?

8. The Solar Eclipse

The “solar eclipse” seems to be a very important element of the television series.  I mean, the O from the “HEROES” title is represented by a small picture of a solar eclipse.  During the third season, Arthur Petrelli foretells the coming of the eclipse with a drawing.  So, then a two-part episode is released, called “The Eclipse.”  Finally, three seasons later, an explanation!

Prepare to be disappointed, because here is what happened:

The eclipse lasted for less than fifteen minutes and all it did was prevent people with abilities from using them, and then – hey – they got their same abilities right back.  Viewers waited two and a half years for that?!

9. The Niki Sanders / Tracy Sanders Snafu

Heroes also is lucky enough to suffer from the greedy actor/actress syndrome.  You know, when an actor or actress from the show determines that their salary of “only” $200,000 per episode is not enough, so they back out unless they get a raise.  The show’s executive team then proceeds to tell the respective actor/actress to screw off and find work elsewhere, until hey!  There is no work!  So they come back, of course…to find their character is killed off.

Or is it?

Niki Sanders (played by Ali Larter) made an entrance from the beginning of the series as a schizophrenic woman, whose alternate personality “Jessica” possessed enhanced strength (and proportionately enhanced insanity).  At the conclusion of season two, she became trapped in a burning building and subsequently died in the ensuing explosion.  Miraculously, in season three, she came back…but as a different girl named Tracy, a woman “mysteriously“ an exact copy of Niki.  This character appeared out of absolute nowhere, completely oblivious to the fact that someone who looked exactly like her lived in the same area and nobody ever knew.  Seriously, where did she come from?

It is discovered she was in fact Niki’s sister who had been genetically enhanced at birth, giving her a freezing power, unlike her sister, who got enhanced strength.  The whole premise of Niki and Tracy becoming separated at birth,  and the explanation for their different abilities…still remains a mystery.  What I am thinking here is the writers killed her off due to her contract ending (with no desire to renew), until she finally renewed the contract after her character had indeed been killed off.  What a crap idea that was.

10. The Catalyst

May I ask what the Hell is the catalyst and where did it come from?  For those of you who do not know, the catalyst was that glowing essence that apparently was needed to bond the ions for the formula (the substance that grants people abilities) together in order for it to be usable.  I do not understand exactly why it was introduced into the story line, but the whole idea of it was very poor and was equally poorly executed.

So instead of subjecting you to a trivial, self-indulgent list of things that make me happy, why I don’t I just bitch a while about trivial things that piss me off? Somehow, I think, this kind of exercise strikes closer to the heart of things.

Here is my list of petty grievances, organized in no particular order.

• The misuse of Amber Alert signs, utilized for the purpose of breaking people’s balls. The Amber Alert Program was enacted in 2002, enabling law enforcement agencies to quickly disseminate information about time-critical child abduction cases. Many Amber Alert signs have been erected near highways all over the United States.

  


  

  When used properly, these signs display critical information about kidnapped children and their suspected abductors. More often than not, however, these signs display public service slogans designed to nag you and to remind you of your duties as a responsible driver. During most major holidays, the signs command you to “Report Drunk Drivers – Call 911″. Every Fourth of July or Cinco de Mayo, the signs remind you that “Fireworks Are Illegal”. And on ordinary days, the signs pester you with “Click It Or Ticket” or “Don’t Speed – Save Lives”. Just once, couldn’t the people controlling those signs either post something positive or festive like “Happy Holidays”, or just turn off the damned signs? And don’t even get me started on the Schwarzenegger administration’s proposal to post advertisements on Amber Alert signs to generate revenue for the state of California.




• Dim traffic signal lights with bad visibility from varying ranges. While we’re on the subject of driving, I hate those traffic signal lights covered with glossy lenses that make the entire strip of lights appear to be shut off until you drive within a certain proximity of a traffic intersection. I tried to do some research online before writing about these lights, but I came up with nothing. I don’t have an official term for the offending lights, and I don’t understand the science behind the lenses, but what I do know is that they are ridiculous hazards.

  Most traffic signal lights in the United States are bright and visible, day or night, from any reasonable distance or angle. But there is an obnoxious handful of traffic signal lights on the road that are equipped with these terrible glossy lenses that make all of the colors look dim, and you don’t know whether you should stop or drive through until you’ve almost entered the intersection. “Stop” and “Go” are two concepts that should not be equivocated so easily.

  


• Crowd participation. There’s nothing I hate more about attending a live musical performance than being pressured into clapping along with a beat. I’m not trying to crap on the value of shared experiences, but I’m sorry: crowd participation is bullshit. I didn’t leave my house to act as a ghetto metronome; I’m here to be entertained. Clapping along with a song is tedious, and pretty much every crowd grows tired of the game midway through any song. I predict that shit and roll my eyes every time audiences start it up, and I’m always right. I clap my hands only when I believe that I’ve been given a reason to.




• Gratuitous live, on-location reporting by television news journalists. The news is a highly time-sensitive subject. It makes sense that so many TV news journalists report live from remote locations, because sometimes you don’t have all of the facts until just a few minutes before you go on the air. What I find irritating, though, is the culture of television journalism that emphasizes the importance of reporting live and on the scene at all possible times, even when it’s not relevant to do so. In my television-viewing lifetime, I have witnessed such bullshit as a local news correspondent reporting live and on the scene at 11 o’clock at night from some vacant, outdoor venue where an important event happened twenty years ago. I don’t understand this phobia that news agencies have of allowing their correspondents to comment on recorded images while they sit comfortably in the broadcasting studio.


Problems with audio/visual feeds and disruptions by obnoxious bystanders would greatly reduce if these TV professionals would just broadcast from behind a desk more often.




• Astrology. It’s difficult to understand how so many intelligent people can buy into the concept that objects in outer space have a direct effect on the personalities and behaviors of human beings. We’re talking about objects occupying space hundreds of millions of miles away from Earth. How the hell does the alignment of planets have any impact on my development as a person? If you believe that the positioning of planets at the moment of my birth is an indicator of what’s to come throughout my adulthood, then I contend that the arbitrary positioning of objects on Earth at the moment of my birth also plays a significant role on who I will become.

  I think it bears mentioning that when I was born, my father’s Buick Regal was parked 58 meters away from the hospital entrance. It is because of this fortuitous positioning of my father’s car that I will be a generous person with a sunny demeanor and a strong propensity for juggling, ventriloquism, and taxidermy. Had my father parked 57 meters away from the hospital entrance, I would have been a surly, cranky asshole who hates everything and everybody. I really dodged the proverbial spooky-superstitious-matter-and-space-altering-cosmical-tarot-death-card-Scorpiquarius-Year-of-the-Rat-Gemini’s-Twin-Little-Dipper bullet. Thank Zeus! I mean, I don’t believe in anything else that came out of Greek mythology, but I inexplicably accept this dubious correlation between celestial bodies and human bodies.




• DVD commentary banter containing spoiler alerts. I’m a special features geek. I watch a fair amount of television shows and movies on DVD, and I almost always make time to listen to the commentary tracks. The one conversation that I’m tired of listening to is the one that seems to pop up in every commentary track ever recorded. Invariably, somebody on the commentary track wants to talk about a plot point that will be revealed either later in the movie or later in the episode, but they voice their hesitation since they don’t want to spoil the surprise for the viewer. Eventually, somebody else in the recording booth asks, “Who buys a DVD and goes straight to the commentary track without watching the original content?” Then the commentators have a good laugh over this nugget of insight and carry on as though they were the first people to ever have this conversation. There goes another two minutes of wasted commentary time. That’s two minutes’ worth of lost revelations.

  I realize that DVD commentary tracks are inherently a waste of time, but the least that these Hollywood professionals can do is have the courtesy to get a freaking clue about their own industry before they waste my time with this moronic running gag in their commentary tracks.

  


• Birds that swoop low to the ground when they’re flying across a street. Fuck birds. They can fly while the rest of us can’t, and yet they always swoop down into harm’s way in front of my moving car when they want to cross a street. I’ve nearly crashed into a couple of them in my time. Look, birds: the whole point of flying is being able to crap on us land dwellers’ heads all the while you stay out of our reach. If you birds are going to squander your ability with these daredevil antics, then you deserve whatever misfortune becomes of you when you’re not looking.

On this Thanksgiving Day of 2008, I give thanks for all of these petty grievances. They keep me irritated, they keep me human, and counter-intuitively, they probably keep me sane. Seriously though, fuck birds.

• People actually stopping me to ask for directions when I’m obviously lost at all times. Get a clue, people. I might as well have “tourist” or “mug me” tattooed on my face.
• Witnessing a man in a collared shirt and tie taking a leak while he stood on a high-traffic sidewalk.
• Being pressured into getting my shoes polished by an old black dude named Curtis. He saw me walking by in my Skechers, and he went in for the kill when he smelled my weakness. I talked him down to 4 dollars, but I paid him the full 7 after he told me about trying to make rent. Suckered.
• Being approached by a crazy homeless guy who just assumes people understand the random shit he comes up with. I’m headed towards the BART station, and this guy comes up to me and points to an old lady sitting on a bench. “She won’t let people sit there because of the Beverly Hill Billies eating lunch.” he said. “Really? Why’s that?” I asked. And he laughed conspiratorially and looked at me with expectation, as if waiting for me to acknowledge that he and I were in on the joke. I just smiled and walked on.
• Arriving at my school for the first time and noticing that, on a wall in a courtyard a little across the way, somebody had tagged the word “VEGAN.” Dude, you know? Talk about politicizing your eating preferences.

“I study here because I am afraid of people.”

“I study here because I hate the world.”

“I study here because I have to or I can’t play!”

“SCANTRON NOFX!”

“I shit on ignorance.”

“People who write on stuff give me something to read. Thanx.”

“This wood grain pattern effectively simulates the radio wave intensity pattern of the universe.” (written in response) “My Ass.”