On Really Big Car Crashes

Call me crazy, but for some reason, seeing a car smashed beyond recognition actually causes me to smile. Maybe it's because I know that more than likely, someone was being stupid and got punished for it.

On Whoever Started The Whole "Specialty Coffee" Epidemic

Why is it that I can't go into a coffee house and ask for a cup of coffee anymore? It's a simple enough request. "I'd like a cup of coffee, please." The only variables involved are cream and sugar. Now every pretentious little jerk-off is ordering a "half-caff-double-tall-skim-mocha-quasi-vanilla-neo-frappa-crappa with a frigging side of biscotti. DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL FOR MAKING COFFEE COMPLICATED.
Eventually, the whole smugness of the "coffee scene" is going to cause me to become uncontrollably angry, and when that happens, I'm going to start throwing nuclear hot fast food coffee in people's faces and pelting them with stale cheese Danishes until death ensues.

The Grand List of Ways To Be A Totally Vile Asshole Pt. 1

1) Make an anonymous call to the FBI and explain that your neighbor has been talking pretty seriously about "whacking that lying bastard in Washington"

2) Spit on a homeless person.

3) Go ahead and use your cell phone in the hospital, they're just being paranoid.

4) Tell someone their religion is wrong.

5) Try to fit everyone into stereotypes.

6) Don't leave tips. If you do, just make it some loose change.

7) Condemn someone for their beliefs.

8) Be petty.

9) Force your way onto an elevator before anyone has the chance to get off.

10) Patronize a disabled person.

On Anyone Allergic To More Than Three Unrelated Items

We all new someone like this in junior high. The kid with hay-fever who couldn't drink milk and would break out in hives if he got within fifty feet from a cat. What the Hell is wrong with these people? Isn't natural selection supposed to weed out this sort of thing? Everybody is deathly allergic to something. What is going on? There are people who will drop stone dead if they walk into a room where someone has recently been eating a peanut butter sandwich! Send these people back to the gene pool! Since when have peanuts become a deadly toxin?

Shit wasn't this bad when I was a kid. When I was a kid, anybody with multiple allergies would just stop showing up for school, and no explanations would be given. "Jimmy won't be with us anymore." Parents are doing something to their kids that's pussifying their immune systems. Can't have peanuts, can't be near a cat, pollen gives them the sniffles, pus comes out their eyes if they eat fish from more than 10 miles to the south of the equator, they go into anaphylactic shock if you stare at them too hard. Christ! Maybe allergies are Nature's way of saying you aren't cut out for anything other than composting.

On "My Son/Daughter Is An Honor Student/Achiever/Good Citizen/Productive Member Of Society/Blah Blah Blah Student At Loser Jr/Sr High" Bumper Stickers

You know, when you really get down to it, nobody really cares at all that you even managed to successfully procreate, let alone how that particular offspring is doing scholastically.
So please, if you're going to live vicariously through your children, at least spice it up and choose your teenage stoner metal head child (My child can clear a six-foot bong at Hooterville High).

Songs That Are No Longer The Same After Hearing Them At A Strip Joint

"Slow Ride" - Foghat

"The Stroke" - Billie Squier

"Strokin'" - Clarence Carter

"Cinnamon Girl" - Neil Young

"Justify My Love" - Madonna

"The Devil Went Down To Georgia" - Charlie Daniels

"Walk This Way" - Run DMC & Aerosmith

"I'm Burning For You" - Blue Oyster Cult

"Wild Horses" - The Rolling Stones

"I Touch Myself" - The Divinyls

Things That Actually Make Me Smile #2

The Bristol Renaissance Faire

I tell you, that was the day. Men were men, women were property, and everything carried disease. Now, I can relive those days without fear of bubonic plague or being tortured and burned as a heretic! Good food, plentiful drinks, and many saucy wenches to manhandle. No, seriously, you would not believe how much skin you get to see at one of these events. Apparently you get half price admission with dramatic cleavage. If you don't believe me, ask anybody who's gone. Plus, the shows are pretty good, and the shops are fun. But mostly there's lots and lots of cleavage.

On Anyone Reading Anything Oprah Tells Them To Read

Look, this is not the person you should be looking to when making literary selections. Let me guess what the latest selection you are reading is: "a dramatic story of one woman's struggle to gain independence and redemption while finding an unlikely romance." Am I close? Damn right I am. Anyone continuing to read this type of tripe is an affront to the literary world and should be bludgeoned to death with a copy of The Great Gatsby.

Computer Viruses

You know, this is something that is really starting to piss me off to no end. It's getting so that you can't even think about opening an e-mail without your computer self-destructing in some spectacular fashion. And for no other reason than some snot nosed little bastard has no life and needs to power trip by screwing around with everyone.
If you're going to make viruses, at least make them interesting. Have a virus that makes my computer play "Dueling Banjos" over and over. Or just causes the thing to burst into flames as demonic laughter echoes from the speakers. Now that's a virus.

Haiku Express Vol. 1

Boozy

Dull ache in my head

Feel like I'm going to puke

Drank way too much beer

Beer Goggles

Who's this beside me?

Wasn't this ugly last night

Damn those beer goggles

Waukegan

Teen-age girl with child

Ruins the lives of both of them

Please get on the pill

A Little Something To Help The Emo

In the interest of all those who might be wracked with angst, guilt, anger or sundry overblown emotions, I have made a simple list of important steps to getting over it.

1) Get over it

2) Nobody gives a damn about your little problems and petty insecurities.

3) Anyone who says they truly want to help you is lying; they just want money.

4) Your problems are beyond insignificant compared to the big picture.

5) Quit your whining.

6) Don’t you dare try to blame someone else for your problems. Ultimately, it's always your own damned fault.

7) Nobody really cares about your happiness.

8) Get off your lazy ass and do something other than feel sorry for yourself.

9) Think for yourself, little sheep.

10) Stop bothering everyone.

11) Keep things in perspective; it can and will be a lot worse.

12) Drown your sorrows.

13) Be self destructive. Pierce something; get a tattoo, some permanent souvenir of your
self-loathing.

14) Go outside and take a couple of deep breaths.

15) Don’t even bother with suicide. The world is going to go right on spinning with or without you.

This Whole Isreali/Palestinian Thing

Am I the only one who is tired of hearing about the latest atrocities committed between these two groups? How long have they been fighting now, like 14,000 years? Over what? Some land? Yes, I understand both sides of the matter, and see what is at stake for each, but how is mutilating people going to prove the point? HEY, GUESS WHAT MUTTON HEADS! IT WON'T!!
I have a solution: If we bomb both of these groups and all their lands flat, there won't be anything to fight over! They're headed that way anyway, so why not speed up the overall scarring of the landscape and needless loss of life.
Always willing to help, I am.

Listen To This, You Tin-Eared Freak #2

Shapeshifter by Marcy Playground

This is Marcy Playground's second CD, get the first one immediately. My staff at work has described this as "stoner music." They are more or less correct. Though there are some upbeat tracks like "Secret Squirrel" for the most part this album is nice and mellow. Just perfect for sitting with a glass of Bourbon and a fine cigar and just letting the world go straight to Hell around you.
Tracks to memorize: 2,4,6,7,10

Things That Actually Make Me Happy #1: The Zamboni Ice Resurfacer

For some strange reason, it just makes me smile to see one of these things chugging around the rink. As much as I love hockey (and I love hockey), I just can't wait to see this thing during the intermission. Maybe I see the Zamboni Ice Resurfacer as a metaphor for life: Restoring order and smoothing out the deep grooves and cuts of life....Nah, that's bullshit, I just watch because I hope that someday I'll actually be able to see someone get sucked under one of these things.

On The Internet

You've just got to love the masturbation superhighway. This is truly further proof of the indomitable nature of the human spirit. This fantastic technology gives us the potential to put the world's knowledge a few keystrokes away. However it's filled with mostly porn. Why is it that I can do a search for "Leopold and Loeb" (look it up) and come up with 83,700 potentially useful sights, but if I do a search for "buttplug" I get 6,770,000 hits? No, those aren't exaggerations; I just Googled each of those search terms. Just try typing random web addresses sometime and see what you get. Did you know that www.midgets.com is a porn site? The last I checked www.mustard.com and www.meat.com were as porn sites as well. It frightens me to think that at any given moment in time, there must be millions of lonely people desperately beating off at the keyboard. And because of all these people masturbating themselves stupid, I can't do a simple search for anything without ending up with 1,500 extraneous porn sites that for some reason fell under my search heading. At least these people are off the street.

On Reporters Who Speak With No Discernable Accent Until They Say Their Own Name

Maybe I'm the only one who goes berserk when they see it happen, but I just can't stand it. I sit watching the evening news as the reporter does her piece, then goes to sign off: "For channel 7 news this is Judy Gharrrrrr-seeeeh-aaaah" What the Hell is that? Garcia is pronounced "Gar-see-uh" Ethnic pride is all fine and dandy, but save that crap for your Ethnic Day Parade. You're on the news, reporting to Midwesterners. Speak like one. And you know what? Nobody gives a rat's ass where you're from or how you pronounce your name. Just tell me how drunk the driver was that hit that Church bus and how many people the crazed student shot. All I want from the news is sports, weather, and body counts. Keep your pride to yourself. If you can't say your own name in the same manner you say everything else, then just do me a favor and take the toaster with you the next time you take a bath.

Read A Book, You Semi-Literate Loser #2: Here Be Dragons

Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman

Wow, this book kicks some serious ass. This is the first in a trilogy that follows the history of England and Wales in the 13th century. This book has it all: back stabbing, romance, bloody violence, love affairs with 13 year old girls, people dropping dead left and right from everything from dropsy to the runs. I really thought this book was going to blow, but it turned out to be pretty damned good.
WARNING FOR CRETINS: This series is historical fiction so almost all of the characters and major events actually occurred. Not that it's going to matter to you. It's not like any of you had your head out of your collective asses long enough to catch enough of your world history class to spoil the ending.

Horrifically Dated Movie Review #1: Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace

I know it may seem like I'm really late in coming forward this, but it's still pissing me off. Jesus, did that movie suck. I mean, Jar-Jar Binks? I hated this movie so much the first time I saw it I thought I had done something wrong. Maybe I was in a bad mood or something. So I saw it a second time. STILL SUCKED.
Come on! The only way you're getting me to see Episode 2 is if I can be promised in no uncertain terms that Jar Jar will be pelted in the head with blaster fire until nothing remains but a smoking neck stump.

Darth Maul was beyond disappointing. Here's this super tough evil guy who gets beat with the Force equivalent of "Hey, your shoe's untied!" AAARGH!!!
How many ways could Lucas ruin Star Wars for me? Let's see. The Force? Aliens in your blood. Wait, what? The Force was a mysterious power because IT WAS A FUCKING MYSTERY. I'm to believe that little organisms live in a Jedi's blood stream and have absolutely nothing better to do than help people lift X-Wings and choke the shit out of each other?
And hey, if you can speak telepathically with the force, then why the hell did they have to use walkie-talkies? I mean, come on, Luke can scream across half a galaxy and get Leia's attention but Obi-Wan and Qui-Gon need to break out their radios to talk 30 yards.
And for the record: It's really hard to imagine someone who says "yippee" as Darth Vader. Wow, that movie just blew.
Don't even get me started on the crap acting. The actors in this movie were like going to school at Julliard: no chemistry. They could have replaced Natalie Portman with a cardboard box labelled "plot device" and just dragged it from scene to scene and gotten the same results.
Lucas should just be ashamed of himself.

On People Who Make Outlandish Requests of Waitstaff

So a while back I was eating at Chili's for lunch. There's this self-important bitch sitting at a table next to me, having a "power lunch" with three of her equally self important cronies. She orders a "plain chicken breast with some tomato on the side." Well, if I were waiting the table the response would have been "that's nice, too bad you need to pick something off the menu, dummy." However, the waitress was willing to meet this request. She comes out and gives the plate to this woman, who immediately starts complaining that she wanted freshly sliced tomatoes, and was given diced, and that she wanted a plain chicken breast and this one was seasoned. Well sure enough, the manager had to be summoned, and he tried to explain to her that all the chicken gets marinated at the start of the day and there's not much that can be done. However, he won't charge her because she didn't get exactly what she wanted. Fuck her! It obviously wasn't so bad that she didn't finish everything on her plate, the miserable bitch. God, I hope this woman gets cancer right in the middle of her brain.
Look, if you don't like what's on the menu, don't go to the restaurant! And if you just have to make stupid requests, don't be surprised or pissed when your order gets screwed up. Better yet, just stay at home and eat a bullet or some drain cleaner.

People Who Get On Elevators Before Everyone Else Has Gotten Off

I'm only going to explain this once, and I shouldn't even have to do that. Off, then on. I just want to go postal when this happens. The elevator doors open, you go to get exit, and some beat-off shoulders his way on before you can get out the door. What the Hell is so important that these morons just absolutely have to get on the elevator as soon as the door is open? You know what? If you're in that big a hurry to get on the elevator, there had better be a guy in a hockey mask and a chain saw bearing down on you at the time; otherwise you're in for a wicked elbow to the head when I go past you to leave.














To prevent this from happening again, I will make it a point to punch in the throat, anyone attempting an early entry. I will then leave your unconscious body lying in the doorway, so the door will close on your head. Then the elevator will move to the next floor, neatly decapitating you, so you can never bother me again. So there.

Athletic Scholarships

First off, isn't that an oxymoron? So let me get this straight: Student #1 has a 2.75 GPA. Student #2 has a 1.9 GPA but can catch a ball and run fast. So we're going to pay for student #2's education. What kind of bullshit is that? I thought the purpose of college was to expand your knowledge and career skills, and not simply to sell tickets to ball games.
God, this just pisses me off to no end every time I see it happen. I went to college on my own money and student loans, struggling to make ends meet, when all of these sub-moron convicts in training get free rides because they can run the 40 yard dash in under 5 seconds. I say again: Bullshit. It's even better when these bastards choose not to finish college to become eligible for the professional drafts. Screw them! You want to do that? Fine, then every dollar the school has fronted to you is now payable in full before you can leave. And, you have to make a public apology to all the students who couldn't get a scholarship because you were being a schmuck and tying up the money.
That's it. No more money goes to collegiate sports until I start seeing chess team scholarships. Or grants for debaters. Something, anything to stop the proliferation of stupid people in this country. Because, for the most part, that's what athletic scholarships do: Reward the stupid because they can rush for 100 yards a game or shoot solidly from the outside. What a load of crap.

Anyone Who Even Cracks A Smile At "Family Circus" Deserves To Die

I don't understand how this comic has stuck around for as long as it has. What is the draw of four developmentally disabled hydrocephallic kids? For nigh on twenty years this lump of shit has sat in the corner of the comics section like some dim specter of non-joy. Every day I try to make sure I don't read it, knowing it is going to destroy any enjoyment I got from the other comics like a black hole for entertainment. And like a black hole, it inexorably (look it up) draws me into its joyless embrace with some mirthless grammatical fuck ups from Dolly (look Mom! I'm wearing my zucchini) or yet another mindless diagram of Billy's aimless wanderings through the neighborhood.
I pray that one day those dotted lines will end up right in front of the tire tracks of a bus; a dotted outline of a pudgy kid marking Billy's final destination. Then we can have an hilarious strip with Jeffy commenting through beady, tear soaked eyes: "There is no fun in funeral."

Listen To This, You Tin-Eared Freak. #1

Beatnik Turtle: What We've Got

This CD came to my attention a few years ago when I bumped into a couple of guys I went to high school with. They informed my they were in a band and had just released a CD. I had some money to burn so I bought a copy. I was most pleased. I can't really put a label to their sound. They're kind of like a mix of Smoking Popes and They Might Be Giants, but with a solid brass section. Just go to their web site (click on the album cover) and buy a copy. You'll thank me later.
Tracks to Memorize: 2, 4, 5, 6, 12

Read a Book, You Semi-Literate Loser. #1

Foucault's Pendulum by Umberto Eco
All right, you uncultured swine, this is as good a place as any to start. This book has a little something for everyone. There's comedy, romance, intrigue, deception, murder, and one use of the phrase: "Sweet cock." It's a cracking good read even if you don't speak the French, Italian, and Latin needed to decipher a number of passages.
WARNING FOR CRETINS: First and foremost, this book weighs in at 640 pages hardcover. It also discusses at length Templars and Rosicrucians. (Don't even pretend you know what I'm referring to.) Worry not, simple prole (look it up); all is explained in the course of this novel.

The Creative Process

Writing is an interesting art. To be able to take words and form them in a way that is interesting and compelling to the reader. This is apparently not something that comes easily to many people. The art of writing seems lost. Nowadays simply putting together a coherent sentence is challenging enough. Email and texting have helped to seriously undermine writing as a whole. Everything is pared down and abbreviated so as to get the point across with minimal thought and effort. I'm sure I drive people crazy because when I text or IM, I still write in complete sentences. I know it's slower, but I just can't get myself to compromise when it comes to communication.
That said, finding inspiration to write is my big challenge. I've got three different novels I've started to write and then just stopped. I'm not talking a few pages; I've got one that's around 100. I just suddenly lost my muse. It was like somebody pulled the plug on my creative energy. Then I realized what the problem was. I need to be in a bad mood to write. If I'm in a good mood I have no creative motivation. When I'm pissed I like to just burn off the frustration putting words to paper (or screen as it were).
Anyways, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I'm going to do some real writing.

Lactose Intolerance

This just isn't fair at all. I now have to live in constant fear of dairy products. I remember when it first happened. I had a Milk Chug in the morning, and by the time I got to work, I felt like my abdomen was going to rupture. I tried to sneak a fart and nearly loaded my shorts. The smell that came out was beyond the limits of human endurance. I made it to the toilet and fired off a giant stream of simmering green effluvium (look it up). I spent the day running between work and the bathroom, leaving a cloud of persistent yellow vapor in my wake.
It just makes me feel like an old man to have this problem. And the damned thing is, sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't. Cheese? Generally no problem. Ice cream? Rarely. Bowl of cereal with milk? FIRE IN THE HOLE!! Sure, it's kind of amusing to be able to cut farts that make your skin burn, but the paralyzing stomach cramps and violent liquid bowel movements take away almost all of the enjoyment.
You know, I'm not quite sure where I was going with this, but it felt good to get it off of my chest.

Thoughts on Disney

Why, why won't people consider, even for a second, that this is a Godless, soulless leviathan run by Satan? Does nobody else see how this company rapes classic stories and turns them into candy coated kiddie fodder? Last time I checked, The Hunchback of Notre Dame ended with Quasimodo flinging himself into a pit of corpses to die next to Esmerelda, not with a rousing upbeat musical number! Even worse, the toys are out on the shelves and McDonald's running happy meals six months before the movie hits the screens! And if the movie is to crappy for a theatrical release? Why we'll just release it straight to video! Don't even get me started about the theme parks! Eighty bucks a ticket?! Screw that. For that price, I'd better get a hand job from Minnie with admission. Michael Eisner and the rest of his cronies can all go to Hell.

On Vegetarians

First, let's get one thing straight. If we were not meant to eat meat, then our eyes would be on the sides of our heads. God, these people make me sick. "Meat is Murder!" they cry. Well, of course it is, dummy. The animals aren't going to commit suicide for us. We are at the top of the food chain for a reason. We'll eat anything. Look, plants are great; I love a nice salad before my steak. Ask yourself this: Do cows do anything useful for nature? You can't say milk, because the vegans say milk exploits the animal. Same goes for cheese. So basically, all cows do is stand around all day and produce methane. And deer do nothing besides get in the way of cars. And well I'm at it, minks are useless to, so why not make coats out of them?
You don't want to eat meat? Fine, go out into the woods and crunch up all the berries and leaves you want, you commie hippie. All this does is move you down a couple of notches on the food chain. Then we can all laugh as we hunt you down, shoot you through the head, and feast upon your roasted corpse.

Shooting Sprees

All of these shootings in the news have really started to bother me. People are shooting up their schools and places of work. It's just not fair at all. These people can take out all of their anger and frustrations in a hail of gunfire, and I can't do it because I'm not crazy. I feel the same anger and frustration. I have the same hatred of most of humanity, but since I'm burdened with morality and sanity, I can't do anything about it other than lash out passive-aggressively. I envy these people, who are so screwed up that they can act out on their frustration and punish everyone they feel has wronged them. Me? I get this crappy web site. Thank God for booze.