Evidently, Arizona is insane.

As all of you who haven’t had your head buried under a large boulder have heard, there was a terrible shooting last weekend in Tucson, Arizona.  Six people were killed, including a judge, a nine-year-old girl and four other people.  This is terrible tragedy, so I won’t have the usual quick wit and sarcastic humor that I usually exercise in my other postings.  One of the main targets, Representative Gabrielle Giffords, is still clinging to life after being shot through the head.  Yeah, the head.  I always find it amazing that some people manage to survive getting shot in the head.  Modern medicine is amazing, as doctors have removed the top portion of her cranium to keep her brain from being damaged due to swelling.  They have attached the part of the cranium to her hip for blood flow.  That is gross/crazy/awesome.

Poor lady

Now the complete douche that shot all of these innocent people is Jared Loughner.  Excuse me, Jared L. Loughner.  The “L” standing for lunatic.  Or just “Lee.”  As the various news organizations are  beginning to use their investigative expertise, they are building evidence that Loughner is a complete nut.  If you want to look into the eyes of a psycho, look no further than right here:

Shiny, crazy head.

Loughner is being represented by Judy Clarke, who has defended other upstanding citizens such as Timothy McVeigh.  Inevitably, Clarke is trying to get Loughner off of a death penalty charge by pleading insanity.  I hate to say it, but Clarke may be on to something, because Loughner looks completely f*cking insane. I am somewhat of a flip-flopper on the death penalty, but in this circumstance, because it is so apparent that the far-gone Loughner murdered these people in cold blood, he should die.  Did I say that out loud? Yeah, I did.  Oops.

Other blame is being held against Sarah Palin, who on her website, has a picture of Rep. Giffords in the cross hairs for her stance against the right to bear arms.  Under which it reads, “Reload.”  Or something like that.  I don’t want to got to Palin’s website out of fear of going cross-eyed.  I don’t think that Palin is to blame in this incident, but I enjoy the fact that she is getting more negative press.  Her stupid Alaska show was canceled as well.  I just want her to go away.  She and her band of goobers should just leave the Earth on a 1970s era Russian rocket bound for the Sun.

In the next coming months, Loughner’s actions will be dissected on every talk-news show on the planet.  They will look for some type of explanation as to why he did what he did.  They will probably blame video games or some type of demonic music.  No, sorry, Loughner was just out-of-his-mind-past-Pluto insane.  I mean, he got turned away at a Wal-Mart trying to buy bullets. That is saying something.

Most conservatives will push their blame as far away from the Second Amendment as humanly positive, while liberals will call for a banning of the right to bear arms.  I don’t own a fire arm, but I do believe that people should have the right to have a weapon for recreational hunting or self-defense.  However, I think that they ways in which people can get weapons is far too simple.  In Arizona, politicians were trying to give people the right to go to the bar fully armed.  Now that sounds like a party.

Reload.

My stance on gun control is that people should not be able to get weapons that are excessive, like machine guns or automatic rifles.  The country should make it more difficult for people to own weapons by having them go through extensive background checks and supply mental health credentials.  Hell, even throw in a Rorschach test for good measure.  On the other hand, residents of Arizona should all wear electric collars.  That’s my opinion, because that place is filled with loonies.

What do you think about the entire situation and gun control, mindful reader?

Lotto Morons

I haven’t posted in a while but I have decided that posting more blogs is my New Years resolution.  This will help me with my writing and hopefully help me get a job once I finally graduate college in May.  I have to tell you that the “New Year, New You!” campaigns going on everywhere are pretty annoying and it’s only the 4th of January.  Anyway, my blog site will get a major overhall and I may launch another blog site to talk more about my other, nerdier interests.  This site will be fixed on perplexing social movements and current events with some misanthropic cynicism sprinkled on top.  So if you want your dose of satire, come on over.

The topic today is the lottery.  My hatred for this ridiculous needle in a haystack game has been building in me for some time and now it has reached its boiling point.  I utterly despise the lotto because it keeps me from quickly moving through the line at the Seven Eleven.  I know, dear reader, that you were probably thinking that I have some political/social/economic vendetta against the lottery.  That, quite simply, is not the case.  I hate the lottery because it keeps me from buying my damn Vitamin Water, Peanut M&M’s and gas with haste.  I don’t want to be stuck in the Seven Eleven all day as these simpletons spend the day’s pay on scratch-and-cry- over-failure-cards.

Take today, for example, I was at the Seven Eleven buying four Vitamin Waters because they don’t pack them in bulk for some reason (all the same flavor bulk) and I get behind some lady and her son.  The poor kid’s mom wants to buy 40 two-dollar lotto tickets.  I mean, that’s eighty dollars down the drain!  The woman at the register then says that she will give the lady four twenty-dollar tickets instead and even though I can only see the back of the lady’s head, I can sense that she is baffled.  The son then reassures his mother, saying that it’s the same thing, as if the poor kid has been through this all before.  Needless to say, the whole process of getting these lotto tickets moves at a snail’s pace, because our line was beginning to stretch all the way back towards the refrigerated aisle, while the other line was zooming by.

I honestly couldn’t take it anymore.  I didn’t say: “YOU COMPLETE MORON! HOW CAN YOU SPEND EIGHTY DOLLARS ON LOTTO TICKETS IN FRONT OF YOUR SON?!!” like I wanted to.  I just simply moved into the other line, got my delicious Vitamin Water and exited the store.

I hate lotto tickets, and I strongly dislike the morons who buy them.  I feel as though there should be some ground rules for buying lottery tickets, so here they are:

1.  Never, ever buy a lottery ticket in front of your child.  It’s as if you’re saying to them “I’m a complete loser who’s only hope in becoming financially stable in this world is by buying cards and scratching them so I can eventually become rich.  All this money wasted will not mean a thing once I win it big.  Yes, this affects your future. Yes, you are FUCKED.”

2.  Do not buy a ton of stupid lotto tickets, all of which have different values, so you have the register taking hours in figuring out what you want.

3.  Do not buy a ton of lotto tickets while there are more than four people in the Seven Eleven. (Including registers).

4.  Do not buy a ton of lotto tickets and precede to start scratching the ones you receive first, exchanging the winning ones for other, more valuable cards; therefore holding up the line until 2012.

5.  Finally, do buy a lottery card if you are over the age of 65, retired and aren’t worried about your financial future.  If you win, you can shun all your children who continue to ignore you and get on you all the time.  Those bastards.

PS: Andrew Luck is really good at football.

How to Kill Facebook.

Hey! I haven’t posted in a couple of years but I’m back with a vengeance.  I was trapped in a Chilean mine with the other miners so that was the reason that I haven’t posted in such a long while.  Shout outs to Enrique, Javier and CoCo (don’t ask).

 

Party Time!

 

But since I have finally seen the light of day I have gone and seen one of the most critically acclaimed movies of the year, The Social Network, with the acting chameleon that is Jesse Eisenberg–I mean he’s our Daniel-Day-Lewis-however-he-likes-you-to-spell-his-name–and I really enjoyed it.  The movie isn’t about the website Facebook, but about personal relationships and friendship.  And how money makes both of those not that important when they’re is a sh*t load of cash at stake.

Anyway, the awesome David Fincher directed while Aaron Sorkin wrote the screenplay.  It is a male-genitalia sword-fight of awesomeness.  It’s as if Sorkin came in and said “Hey David I wrote this super awesome scene that is going to be insanely hard to film.” And then Fincher was like “Oh, yeah? Screw you Sorkin.” Then he proceeds to direct the hell out of the scene and when Sorkin sees it…SWORD FIGHT!

 

SWORD FIGHT!

 

But this is besides the point.  After watching that awesome whirlwind of a movie, that tornado of cinema with impeccable dialogue, I returned to my home to log on to Facebook.  What did I find? All the usual complaining, poorly written, grammatically incorrect status updates and posts that fill the social network.  It’s awful.  Where is Sorkin when you need him?

What I am about to consider has been talked about before and various groups have been to created to advocate its creation.  Alas, the way to destroy Facebook is for Czar Zuckerburg to create a Dislike button.  Yeah, I know, all six of you who read this post are rolling your eyes.  Screw you, I hope they get stuck.  The pure awesomeness of this button would cause Facebook to implode.

The Social Network’s theme was how a socially inept recluse created a site where all the other socially inept recluses can log on and pat each other on the back.  Wow, I just realized how cynical I’m being.  Whatever.  Look around Facebook and you’ll realize all it is is a bunch of people boasting about themselves and/or complaining.  A nice, shiny blue “Dislike” button would throw a boulder threw all of everyone’s glass self-esteems.  A negative comment takes too long to think of, write, and most of the time it flies over your targets head.  The “Dislike” button would simply say, “you suck.”  No escaping its meaning, just beautiful.

Examples:

Gina:  OMG! What a great weekend, got so waaaaasted.  Mondays suck? Wish it was Friday!! *click: DISLIKE.  Translation: Great, now I have to hear about how your life sucks and your daily countdown until it’s Friday again.

Todd:  I love my girlfriend. *click: DISLIKE. Translation:  Nobody cares.

Ben: I hate my life.  Life sucks. *click: LIKE.  Translation: None needed.

Soon Facebook would be an electric minefield where people wouldn’t be allowed to vent their meaningless frustration.  It would be glorious.  Facebook would crumble.  And the Winklevoss’ twins would personally thank me.

 

Double Team.

 

Now excuse me as I post this on Facebook and gloat.  Huzzah!

Killer Animals

I’m going to go ahead and just say it:  I honestly have no sympathy for any type of animal experts that get killed by animals.  I know it sounds terrible, but it’s just the truth.  They put themselves in harms way and they sometimes get the short end of the stick.

Take Steve Irwin for example.  He was a funny, happy Australian.  He had a family with two kids.  He made a career out of messing with animals.  I understand that he actually save a lot of them too, but on his show it looked like he was always harassing them in some way.  One day, he was harassing some stingray and it killed him. Everybody was furious at stingrays.  But a stingray was just being a stingray, end of story.  And Irwin, well, he was being an idiot.

Pet this? No thank you.

Another story from last year is the woman whose pet Orangutang ripped her friend apart, literally.  Hands, nose, face, and ears.  The ape probably thought that she was a Mrs. Potato Head, but didn’t know that humans don’t have interchangeable parts.  My question is:  who in hell let’s these people have these wild animals?  They sadly had to kill the ape, who was just being an ape.

The inevitable point of this post is to talk about Tilikum, the killer whale that killed his trainer in Orlando two weeks ago.  He dragged her underwater by her hair and swam around his giant fish bowl.  This is horrible for the family and friends of the trainer, but the whale is you know, KILLER.  I don’t know much about animal psychology, but if I was a gigantic whale from the dolphin group trapped swimming and doing tricks for bored families in a big bowl of water I would want to kill something too.  In my off-hours, no less.

I don’t care about zoos or any type of animal show.  I think that they are cruel and stupid.  The animals have the right to be pissed-off and want to kill things.  That’s because they’re animals. No more Steve Irwin”s, Siegfried and Roy’s, or sea world riders.  Just stop.  If I was some tiger floating on some stupid platform for a Vegas crowd I’d want to clamp down on my master’s head too.

Free the animals, especially the killer ones.  Because, if you don’t, they’ll eventually kill you.

This picture is just weird.

Things I Can’t Do

I’m a self-deprecating person.  I don’t really brag too much about myself.  I know this sounds like a profile for eHarmony or something, but it’s actually a lead-in to a list of things I can’t do.  Everyone loves lists.  I know I do.  They’re just fun and easy to read. All those numbers.  All those words.

1.  I can’t sing.  I’ll be the first to admit it.  I know a lot of people think they can.  They can’t.  I sound like Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys when I try to sing.

2.  I can’t draw.  I wish I could draw really well.  I don’t understand how people can be so good at drawing.  Are people just born that way or do they practice a lot?  Maybe I can graduate from stick figures someday.

3.  I can’t skip on command.  I just figured this out.  Skipping is hard, so don’t judge me.

4.  I never was that good a jump rope, especially in Elementary School.  The PE teacher was nice about it though.  He let me and the other kids just swing our ropes around.

5.  I can’t do backstroke.  I don’t like the backstroke because I can’t do it.  I’m in a swimming class and we just started learning this stroke.  I keep getting water in my mouth and sinking.

6.  I can’t eat Taco Bell.  This is a travesty among college students and most young people in general.  I hate this fast food joint.  I heard they squeeze the ground beef out of a tube.  Their sour cream tastes funny.  The cheesy gordita crunch is pretty good.  I’ve learned that eating cheap Mexican food makes it feel like I have a hernia in my abdominals.

7.  I can’t watch musicals.  Mama Mia? No thank you.  Sound of Music?  Ear plugs.  Those Disney cartoons are awful too.  But South Park:  Bigger, Longer and Uncut?  Team America:  World Police?  Yes, please.

8.  I can’t watch American Idol or that other show Glee.  These shows are so ga…flamboyant.  Plus they combine two things that I hate most, bad singing and musicals.  Awful.

9.  I can’t wear hats.  I have a humungous head.  If I were to where a normal hat it looks like I’m wearing a yamaka.  The only time when I looked normal in a hat was when I borrowed an oversized one from a black dude.  I still looked like an idiot.

Yeah, I ended my list at #9.  Try and do something about it.

Watch out for the Mexican Drug Cartels

I hope that all the college students out there have a great and safe Spring Break.  Actually, I couldn’t care less about anybody’s Spring Break.  But I do hope that everyone is safe.

I’ve never cared that much about Spring Break.  It’s in March, it’s still cold and I never schedule anything to do.  I’m still pasty white from not being in the sun for four to five months.  And my college, CofC, has always scheduled its week of Spring Break before any other schools that my friends attend.  So that sucks.

I’m driving home while others are jumping on a cruise liner to venture off towards some random Caribbean Island.  I’m not complaining, I’m just too lazy to ever make any plans.  But this year I will be planning out my summer.  I have to find an internship in order to graduate in Fall 2010.

I’ll be honest.  I have nothing to write about.  I know I was just talking about Spring Break above, but now this has just turned into a random writing tangent.  This past week I had to go see a play for a class.  At the beginning of the play the production specifically stated that they prohibited the use of any cell phones.  Midway through the play, some girl gets escorted out because she was caught using her cell phone.  Turn it off, dummy.

The Wolfman sucks.  How the hell do you mess up the Wolfman?  Especially if you have the man-wolf himself playing it:  Benicio Del Toro?  I was mad that that movie turned out bad.  But they did hire the Honey I Blew Up the Kid guy to direct it.  Stupid move.

Also, there is still a poo bandit out there on the campus of CofC.  I heard there was another poo on the floor in the Jewish Studies building.  Someone needs to find this bastard.

Have a good Spring Break.  If you’re going to Mexico, watch out for all the drug cartels.  And if you’re a pretty white girl, they may try to kidnap you.  I’m just sayin’.

Poo on the Floor

No, this isn’t the new title for an R. Kelly song.  I am writing about a horrible experience I had on Friday at approximately 10:57 a.m.  I was walking from my theatre history class when I decided that I needed to go to the bathroom in order to clear my nose and freshen up a bit.  I was, and still am, suffering from a cold that refuses to go away.

I proceeded to walk up the steps into the Maybank building, head to the left and enter the men’s restroom.  As I opened the door I was quickly followed by a tall, curly-haired fellow on a cellular device.  Due to the fact that walking around in Charleston can be dangerous, I have developed a habit of glancing down to know where my feet are leading me.  Good thing I did this time, because there was a POO ON THE FLOOR.

Yeah, I said it.  A POO ON THE FLOOR.  The fellow behind me was less fortunate because he stepped directly onto the pile of excrement.  It happened too quickly for me to whip around and inform him of the impending danger.  He looked down and said: “Is that #$*&?  Did I just step in #$*&?  What the %#!@”

I couldn’t agree more.  Why in the hell was poo found on the bathroom floor of a college facility?!  It was even close to the toilet.  Who or what managed to do this?  Sadly, I will never know.  Maybe it was a dog.  Maybe it was a human being.

The fact of the matter is that there was an entire piece of poo on the floor of a public bathroom.  What the %#!@.  Seriously.  Someone couldn’t make it four more steps to the commode?  Maybe it was a dog.  Let’s hope for the sake of humanity that it was.  The owner couldn’t use a paper towel to pick up the poo and then flush it down the damn toilet?

What is wrong with our society?  It is so much harder to poo on the floor than in the toilet!  This shouldn’t be going on.  I wish I could find this person and give them a citizen’s arrest.  The charge:  pooing on the floor.  Indecent exposure.  Sexual offender.  TOTAL DOUCHE BAG. 

Ten Best Pictures? WTF

I am a huge movie buff.  To put it simply, I enjoy movies more than the average person.  I’m not a movie snob (some may disagree) and I have an appreciation for all genres.  I enjoy the action schlock-fest like any red-blooded male.  But at the end of the year I always find it surprising and interesting what the Academy has selected for its best picture nominations.

However, this year is different.  Instead of the usual five best picture nominations, the Oscar geniuses have decided to double the nominations to include ten pictures.  In my opinion, this is ridiculous.  Nearly every other award category includes five nominations and that’s the way it should be.  I consider the best picture award to be the top honor of the excruciatingly boring Oscar night and now this title seems squandered.

The best picture category should include the cream of the crop, not filler.  The two movies that stand out to me as filler are The Blind Side and Avatar.  These movies just don’t belong in this category.

The Blind Side, despite a great performance by Sandra Bullock, is a steaming pile of Hallmark crap.  I would expect this to be on the We channel on a Saturday afternoon rather than be in the theatre.  It has Tim McGraw in it for God’s sake.  This movie is cheesy, predictable and will not be remembered by any means.  I think that Oscar is trying to get more viewers with the white middle-class demographic through this insane nomination.

The other film that doesn’t deserve to be in this coveted category is Avatar.  Avatar is a pretty good movie.  The acting is solid and the visuals are sublime.  Yet when I walked out of the theatre I didn’t think, “That is a best picture.”  I just didn’t and to all those blue paint wearing Avatards, I’m sorry.  I sipped the blue Kool-Aid and decided it wasn’t for me, so I spat it out.

Many critics view the movie as plot thin and they’re right.  The movie is Pochahontas or Dances with Wolves or a really expensive Smurfs episode.  The biggest travesty is that this film has the potential to win.  It made a gabillion dollars worldwide and is the highest-grossing movie of all-time.  But this is an Academy Award, not a Guinness World Record.

Right now I feel like movies are important.  As our economy is worse than ever and wars rage, people go to the movies to escape reality.  Yet it is important for some movies to accurately portray what is going on in our world.

The Hurt Locker reflects the war in Iraq through the eyes of a bomb technician rather than the beating audiences over the head with conservative or liberal messages.  The movie unabashedly shows the stress that soldiers go through on an everyday basis.  To put it simply, the movie is incredible.  Up in the Air reflects the unemployment in the world’s economy and Inglorious Basterds is a masterful accomplishment on celluloid.

Will I watch the Academy Awards come March 7?  Maybe a little bit, but they’re so boring.  The real issue is if either Avatar or The Blind Side wins, then Oscar surely loses.

Let’s Hop in a Van and Drive to Vancouver

I really don’t like the month of February.  For some ridiculous reason it has only 28 days, it’s cold, wet and has Valentine’s Day in it.  Yet every four years a random country gets to host the Winter Olympics and save winter TV programming schedules with a ratings boost.

I’ll be honest and say that I prefer the Winter Olympics to the Summer Olympics because they are easier to follow and watch.  I don’t want to stay up until 4:30 a.m. during the summertime so I can watch the most exciting Olympic event, which happens to be TABLE TENNIS.

With nothing else peaking my interest on TV besides the final season of LOST I’ll occasionally watch that thing that’s going on in Canada.  It’s cool to watch the Winter Olympics.  When your friend calls you asking you what you’re doing you can say:  “I’m watching the luge.”  You sound like you know what you’re talking about and it’s fun to say luge.  Luuuuuuuuuuuge.

However every four years America seems to be taken by the stupidest Olympic event of them all:  curling.  I don’t get it, America.  Is it all the obese people sitting on their couches saying:  “Hey, I could do that.” I don’t know.  All I know is that it is one of the longest and dullest sporting events I’ve ever seen since baseball.  Watch the Swedes sliiiiiiiiiiiiiide with their 45 pound curling balls.  Watch the Americans sliiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiide and lose, again.  Now curl, dammit! CURL! CURL! CURL!

Another event that is completely lame is figure skating.  If you’re a straight male you can’t get away with watching this event.  For all you guys with girlfriends that make you sit and watch this with them, I’m sorry.  Everything about this sport is so ga….flamboyant.  What’s hilarious is that the networks were actually worried about the blatant ga…flamboyant nature of the male figure skating that they didn’t know if they should censor it or not.  I say let all those Johnny Weir’s skate around in their sparkling, brightly colored thongs and feather dresses.  I’d watch that.

Despite all of this bickering I do enjoy the Olympics.  Here are my top moments so far (in no order):

1.  Bode Miller decides to not be a fat, drunk, lazy asshole and wins a gold medal.  Hooray!

2.  Shaun White tears it apart on the half-pipe.  I have to admit, the kid’s got talent.  He flies seven feet higher than any other snowboarder and debuts his own trick: the triple-lindy-mctwist-grab-ass-whatever.

3.  America beats Canada at the game they created:  hockey.  Sidney Crosby nor the 18 Staal brothers can’t stop the red, white and blue.  Oo-rah.

4.  Lindsey Vonn wins a gold medal despite hurting her shin.  She is further proof that America loves talented people.  She is also proof that America will like you a lot more if you are super hot and talented.

I could care less if you disagree with my choices, I’m American.

The Super Hole

This past Sunday nearly the Super Bowl drew in nearly 106.5 MILLION viewers making it the most watched TV program of all-time.  I honestly didn’t care too much about the game because it didn’t feature my team the Carolina Panthers, who had a rough season thanks to their terrible quarterback Jake Delhomme.  Alas, that’s a different story.

Right now you’re probably wondering why I’ve titled this post “The Super Hole,” and I’ll tell you why.  The Super Hole is a singularity (science term for black hole) where all of America’s different media corporations converge into the end-all of fusterclucks.  Beer companies save their most misogynistic ads for the evening, movie companies throw down millions of dollars for minute-long movie spots and there are those obnoxious Go-Daddy commercials featuring the gifted actress Danica Patrick.

The commercials are what draw the majority of the less football inclined into the Super Bowl’s four-hour broadcast.  At parties people tell each other to shut the hell up because a commercial is coming on, which is a phenomenon unto itself.  I am guilty too, as my attention went elsewhere when the actual game was on and I immediately focused in once the ads started.

The top ad to me was the one that probably cost the least amount of money to make and show on the air.  It was the Dorito’s “Slap” commercial and besides describing it to you in perfect detail thanks to my college education I will simply post a link through the powers of YouTube:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RiRSejuK4l4

This commercial was the most creative and simple of them all.  I loved it.  Here are the ones that I really hated.  I despise those Go-Daddy commercials, all of them.  I don’t care about Danica Patrick or domain names or Formula One racing.  There, I said it.  No I will not quickly jump over to Go-Daddy.com to see the rest of this ridiculous commercial in the hopes of seeing tits, that’s what PORN IS FOR.  Next up, those baby commercials.  While everyone around me was laughing hysterically I was freaked out completely.  Is there anyone else out there that is freaked out by those babies?

However, the top honor for stupendously stupid commercial goes to Dr. Douchey McDoucherson Timothy Tebow’s pro-life ad with his mommy.  Blurgh! I just threw up and I’m sorry.  I came here to watch PRO FOOTBALL.  Needless to say, anything with a Tebow in it who isn’t crying in humiliating defeat has me diving for the remote so fast that I would knock over twelve beers to get to it.  Did you have to tackle your own mother Tebow?  Was that really necessary?

The best commercial of them all, despite “Slap” was the actual football game.  I mean really, there’s usually around six minutes of continuous movement on a football field through all the stopping.  At first I thought the Colts were going to destroy the Saints.  I thought it was going to be a blowout when Peyton Manning began marching down the field with his lethal offense.  I thought to myself, “There’s all this hype of how great the Saint’s are, but it seems that everyone’s forgotten how good the Colts are!”

Well the ones who believed their own hype were the Saints and after an uneventful first half they decided to step their game up onto an entirely different level.  Drew Brees began schooling the professor of football himself, Peyton Manning.  My expectations were reversed when the Saints proceeded to blow out the Colts 31-17.

America was happy because the underdogs won.  Louisiana still has one of the worst public schools systems in the country.  The levees broke again, but this time they drowned New Orleans in Bud Light, thanks to corporate sponsorship. Bourbon Street spontaneously combusted.  I was happy but I didn’t really give a shit because I hate Jake Delhomme and Tim Tebow.

Oh, and The Who were good too.