Meeting People..

So, as I'm sure you know if you're reading this, I live in Ohio. Ohio is an interesting little place for many reasons, one of the foremost being that it's a major population center, but still far enough from the coasts that everyone here has old-fashioned sensibilities when it comes to things like relationships and sex. I'm 26, (relatively) normal and single. Do you know what a rarity that makes me in Ohio? I'm like a woodland Gorilla. Scientists camp out in front of my apartment building in order to document my lifestyle because everyone knows I won't be along too much longer. 26 is not old.. at all. Why is everyone in Ohio (and the greater midwest) on such a scheduled life plan? Graduate high school, go to college, party for 1.8 years at college, then meet someone (anyone), settle down, and get married by 25-27 to said person. I think I just summed up 78% of the people I know.. and that's fucking crazy. Largely due to this fact, do you have any idea how hard it is to meet some/any one in Ohio? Any female over the age of 23 in Ohio you're meeting at a bar is more likely than not a.) severely damaged, b.) completely insane, or c.) a gigantic slut. I mean sure, there are exceptions to anything, but I'm pretty sure I just summed up 93% of all single post-college women that are trolling for men at bars in Ohio. That sucks. What a lame place. It's 2010, and if you're over the age of 25 in Ohio, you'd might as well be dead. What's the rush? What's the point of beginning to live at age 25-27 in a way that you will continue to live until you retire and/or die? That's the saddest thing I can possibly think of. And I know what you're thinking - hey, why not meet people somewhere other than a bar? Have any ideas? I feel like I should join a book club or something. Church ordinarily would be a good place to meet someone that hasn't been railed by a small town but let's be honest - you shackle your mind when it's bent on the cross, when ignorance reigns, life is lost as Zach D. said.

So I've got some analogies to share with you, my loyal readers (all 4 of you) to better illustrate the situation surrounding dating and meeting people in general.

First, the mountain top analogy: Simply, I equate being intimate with a female to climbing a mountain. No one wants to climb a mountain that has a handrail, steps and a paved trail leading to the top - well, maybe some people do, but they're just lazy. So in my analogy, the fewer signs of human habitation at the summit, the better. You don't want to work your ass off risking life and limb to get to the summit and find a still burning camp fire, a candy bar wrapper, a Sprite can and some abandoned tents at the top. You want it to be pristine up there.. like mother nature intended. Now I'm not saying I only want virgins, because that's a whole other bag of worms, I'm saying if there are tattoos, piercings or the little tanning bed heart things in a place that only someone who you're hooking up with would see, it indicates there's a common audience in this place - a still-burning campfire if you will. That's not pimping.. at all.

Ok, next - in my approximation, there are two methods to meet people, the action/thriller method, and the indie/drama method. The action movie is all flash and show, very little substance. These are the dance club one night hook-ups. Think about it - you go to a dance club/really loud bar, you look kind of cute, are wearing the right thing, and can kind of dance, and boom - you're in. What do any of these things have to do with anything that anyone is actually looking for in a perspective mate? It's so loud in these places that you cannot possibly carry on a conversation, even a drunken one, so you're interacting purely in drunken writhings and half-understood yelled (non)witticisms. Sounds magical. Needless to say, I am not good at attracting people via the action movie method.

The india/drama method is based on story and personality. It's not as fast-acting as the action movie and isn't as in your face about it's intentions, although they are probably and usually exactly the same. The indie/drama method is all about charms and conversation, and it tends to involve more than one night and take place in bar booths where people are playing lame shit on jukeboxes while drunkenly singing along. An indie movie tends to take more than it's run time to charm you and usually follows this schedule - initial meeting involving several hours of random-ass conversation and jokes, exchange of contact information, and then continued random ass conversation in an effort to accomplish over the span or 2+ weeks what the action movie accomplished in 3 hours. Ouch. As you can imagine, this is how I make my living. Now I understand that I'm not Channing Tatum, and my favorite foods all involve making me fatter, so I basically have to.

I need to join some sort of social circle/group. I'll let you know how that goes.

Thoughts on things, Things I hate.

It's crazy - but honestly, my freshman year roommate (douche that he was) was not completely unlike Rand McPherson (and how in the hell does Jeremy "Ari Gold" Piven look younger in 2009 than he did in 1994? It literally blows my mind.



Secondly, how are drug commercials and drug advertising in general still ok? Let's get this straight, this is a product that you cannot get without first going to a doctor, who then must decide whether or not you would be helped by this drug, but then we're going to permit the company to advertise directly to a clientele that cannot make decisions on whether or not to purchase/use said product? That makes the opposite of sense. Doctors make decisions on whether to prescribe drugs based on medical factors that are outside of the realm of understanding of the bulk of their patients, and make these decisions largely independently of their patients. Advertising directly to patients, ergo, thus undercuts the doctor's expertise. Is this really a desirable outcome, especially in an environment when the interaction between mind and body is still not completely understood? I don't think so. Just a random thought.

Remember last post I talked about my dream job? Well I realized my nightmare job - and that's hotel cleaning person. I generally don't dislike cleaning, there's something kind of appealing about having a set goal that you can achieve and see your project, but for me, that only counts for vacuuming, dusting, dishes and laundry (clothes only). It does not count for cleaning linens, both towels and bedding, making a bed, and cleaning the bathroom. I completely hate all of those things - feel like they're far more work than reward, and just generally wish I could pay an illegal immigrant $15/week for the rest of my life to ensure I'd never have to do any of them ever again. These three things are literally ALL a hotel cleaning person's job consists of. At least when you're cleaning your own bed and bathroom it's only your (and whatever partner you have.. hopefully he doesn't look like Kermit) nonsense in there - when you're cleaning a hotel it's a strangers... and people do weird shit in hotels due to the "it's not MY house" factor. So I honestly think that hotel cleaning person is literally the last job on this planet I'd desire.

Oh yeah, one night last week I was feeling sentimental, so I looked back some 4+ years over the history of my existence on facebook and read every post that I've made and other people have made on my wall.. and the results were fascinating, revealing, and a little sad. Let's look at what's gone on in my life since 2005, when I evidently first joined facebook.. I graduated college, left oxford, moved to cincinnati, started law school, graduated law school, took and passed the bar, moved home, moved back to cincinnati, started work as a lawyer. In this interim, several relationships came and went.. I witnessed the start and evolution of more than one relationship. Friendships have come and gone, there are people posting on my wall like it was their job back in the day that I hardly talk to now. Sad. I was flirting with young women on facebook that are married now.. that is deep, man. It makes me feel like a failure, or something. At the very least, it made me realize how transitory all of this really is. You (or at least me), feels like what you have going on right now is somehow so significant in the grand scheme of things, in the grand scheme of your life, and then to look back just 4 years, an insignificant amount of time really, and I recognize that I'm a completely different person now than I was not all that long ago.


Ok - now a couple of new entries into the "Things I hate" category -

• 1: Affliction/Ed Hardy shirt wearing guys. Now, it's not necessarily the shirts themselves that are obnoxious - well, let me switch that to it's not "wholly"
the shirts, because look at this thing.. it is utterly horrific. Rather, the primary problem are the people wearing these shirts. These guys tend to take pictures of themselves and post them on myspace, flex in mirrors, go tanning, and tend to care way too much about their cars. Oh, there is a UFC connection here too. Not that there's anything wrong with UFC in and of itself, but the people who are extremely into UFC tend to be - how does one say? Douchebags. It must have something to do with the quasi-gladitorial For some reason, they clean up on chicks too. What this says about our society, I'm not sure - but I'm at least 70% sure we're heading right to Armageddon, about as fast as we possibly can. Honestly, if there's an Affliction/Ed Hardy sex partner in a female's past - that's a dealbreaker - straight up. Borderline impossible to overlook that one... I mean, I'm sorry and I recognize that everyone makes youthful mistakes, but honestly ladies - you noticed a guy in a tight, completely overpriced tshirt who says "dude" a lot and decided: "I'd like to be underneath him?" - unforgivable.

• The one is in the same vein, only on the opposite end of the spectrum - North Face and the people that speak about North Face as if it was some grand invention that say, cured a deadly disease rather than an overpriced jacket. In case you aren't familiar with North Face, it's an outdoor supply company and clothier that used to cater to mountain climbers and other outdoor types but switched completely to suburban yuppies about 5-6 years ago and now supplies the intrepid explorer of shopping malls and lame bars with a jacket they paid way too much for and only got because all of their friends already had one. This person will then tell you how warm their jacket is like they're going ice fishing and thus need complete warmth for the 200 seconds a day they spend outside for the 10 days that the temperature is under 20 degrees in Ohio. The black "denali" (pictured, but in lime green) is ubiquitous among the under 30 set that can predominately be found at happy hours, starbucks and malls. It is not fully understood why buying the exact same jacket that everyone else has is a desirable or even satisfactory outcome. Usually having the same thing as everyone else is a bad thing among the "cool" set, for some reason this doesn't apply to jackets.. only every other article of clothing.

• People that are really into camping. Now don't get me wrong, I get the appeal of the outdoors, I really do. There's something about natural beauty and being in the wilderness.. I can vibe with that and I'm more than down. I'll go explore a woods or lake or whatever. However, what I will not be doing is moving in for a while. There are crazy inventions called cars and beds and hotels. Camping is fucking expensive. Tents, sleeping bags, gear.. this adds up (to more than just the worst night's sleep you've ever gotten). This is the anatomy of any camping trip: driving somewhere in a car that is fully loaded with shit you use 2 or three times a year tops and takes up 1/4 the space of your garage or wherever you stash it, spending several hours "setting up" at the campsite, then you sit around, bullshit, drink, whatever, go to bed at 3, and then wake up at 7:50 AM with an epic hangover because you just slept on the ground out FUCKING side. Am I the only one that thinks this doesn't sound fun at all? You could just get a hotel nearby where you could shower and sleep in a bed and spend your days outside, with about 1/10th of the packing, a better night's sleep, and it will probably ultimately be cheaper when you add up all of the costs involved in camping (campsites aren't free, after all). Just a thought.

2010: The Year in Film - Shutter Island Review

Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, Mean Streets, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed.. Martin Scorsese is widely considered America's greatest living film director - a title that is now his by default given the way Spielberg and Lucas have been spending the last decade largely fudging up their own formidable legacies.. and Coppola hardly works anymore. While other directors at a similar station in life - decorated, celebrated, wealthy and influential, sit back on their laurels - Scorsese continues to take chances and make his indelible mark on American film, well into his 60's. What does criticism of Scorsese consist of? His current work isn't like his 70's films? Is that a valid criticism? Who among us is exactly like we were 5 years ago, let alone 35? If an artist does the same thing over and over for 40 years, we consider him to be a one-trick pony - see Spielberg, Steven. Scorsese made films rife with angst as a young man, when we are all filled with angst, and now makes films with the trained, reserved eye of an auteur. This is only a bad thing if you assume that you know better than the artist himself - that you know what he or she "should" be doing - like an artist isn't capable of choosing for himself what direction to take with his life's work. The Departed, Gangs of New York, The Aviator and now Shutter Island are not the same as Scorsese's 70's work, but are they significantly worse? Only if you, the consumer, are incapable of accepting anything different or new, like a high school kid who writes "don't change.." in someone's year book and then attempts to hold someone to this request. I wouldn't trust anyone who's the same at 30 as they are at 65, what sort of bizarre life would that be?

Shutter Island is a work by Dennis Lehane, one of the best authors working today. You probably haven't heard of him because he writes predominately crime novels, and as far as the literati are concerned, crime writing is a lesser form a literature. All I care about is the prose, description, characters and plot involved, and when it comes to that, Lehane is a master. He's written 5 novels surrounding private investigator partners Angie Gennaro and Patrick Kenzie (one of which is "Gone Baby Gone" - an underrated film), Mystic River (one of the best films of the 2000s), Coronado (a collection of short stories), Shutter Island and The Given Day, a novel about the 1919 Boston Police Department Strike that will be one hell of a movie once they figure out how to make it.

So what happens when one of my favorite directors and one of my favorite authors cross paths? Hopefully Nirvana -

SHUTTER ISLAND
First of all, fuck Paramount. This film was initially slated for an October 2009 release, but Paramount pushed it back to a February 2010 release and blamed it on the economy, saying they couldn't afford to push another major release in 2009, despite the fact that the studio had both Star Trek and Transformers in 2009, the 2nd and 4th highest grossing films. I first read the book after I knew the film was being released and who was playing who, so I read the book through that lens. Let me say that Mark Ruffalo and Ben Kinsley are inspired casting, and I'm not sure what young actor could have played U.S. Marshall Teddy Daniels other than Mr. DiCaprio. (say what you want about Leo, but the state of acting today is, plain and simply, that there aren't a whole lot of capable actors out there under 40.. you've got Damon, DiCaprio, Depp, Bale, and Ed Norton (who never works) - so who on that list is going to play a Boston-based U.S. Marshall in 1955? - I thought so)

The story, without giving anything away, is that Leo and Mark Ruffalo play U.S. Marshalls sent to mysterious Shutter Island, a Federal Penetentiary and Mental institution for the criminally insane, all violent offenders, the only facility of its kind in the world to investigate the disappearance of a female inmate. All is not as it seems on Shutter Island, and our Marshals soon find themselves in well over their heads as their investigation gains layer after layer and is frustrated by the staff and administrators of Shutter Island, all of whom seem to have something to hide..

This is an old-school Thriller of the Hitchcockian vein, where the impending sense of dread is due not to visceral, physical threat, but rather what we don't know and what's going on in the character's heads. It shortly becomes clear that all is not as meets the eye, as Teddy is a man who's deeply troubled by a series of traumas in his life and the institution may in fact be so much more than merely a mental hospital.



In the hands of lesser talent, this film could have quickly degenerated into pulpy B-movie schlock, but Scorsese's master hand manages to relentlessly ramp up the sense of tension all the way to the film's shocking conclusion. Scorsese has never made a film like this before - and while it may not be as meaningful or significant on a macro level as something like Goodfellas or Taxi Driver, it is by no means a blemish on Marty's stellar filmography. He employs narrative devices like flashbacks and dream sequences perfectly to add to both the character's and yours, the audiences' sense of "what the fuck is going on here?" that never really abates until the conclusion. Even having read the book - I was on the edge of my seat. This is the type of film that rewards repeated viewings, I will certainly see it again if only to catch the film's subtleties and nuances. The visuals are spectacular, Kingsley, Ruffalo and DiCaprio are all great (as is Jackie Earle "Rorschach" Haley in a small but significant role) - and all of the film's elements combine to create a top-notch noir pschological thriller.

I think I read the book in about 4 hours over two days, I couldn't put it down, and the film may in fact be an improvement - Scorsese and the screenwriters add some nice touches to DiCaprio's character that really flesh out his persona. All in all, solid performances, great direction, a sharp, clever story and some spectacular visuals make for the best film of 2010 thus far.

8.3/10 - don't miss it if you like movies.

2010: The Year in Film - Invictus Review

"Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul."

Is some of the text of the poem from which the title of this film was taken - and centers in the most moving scene in the entire film.

INVICTUS

Clint Eastwood is one of the best directors working in Hollywood today - and has delivered some of the best films of the last 10 years in Mystic River, Million Dollar Baby and Gran Torino. Morgan Freeman is one of the most beloved and respected actors working today, and consistently delivers understated performances, in addition to being a longtime Eastwood collaborator, he was arguably born to play Nelson Mandela. Matt Damon is one of the best younger actors working today - and has shown serious acting chops in films from the "Bourne" series to The Departed. Combine these cinematic heavyweights with one of the truly inspiring sports stories of the past 20 years and one of the truly great men of the 20th century, and you should have a can't miss hit and critical darling. If any figure of the late 20th century deserves the cinematic treatment, it's Nelson Mandela, and I figured this film was going to be it. When I first saw the trailer for this one, I assumed it'd win at least best Actor and best Director without breaking a sweat, and probably best Picture as well, given Eastwood's recent films. With all this talent and the quality of the story involved, this should truly be a great film.

While it is a good film, with some great moments and a terrific performance from Freeman as Mandela, it does not live up to the (perhaps unrealistic) expectations I had for this one going in. The reasons are myriad. First, I'd argue that Rugby just isn't an exciting enough sport for the cinematic treatment and the audience (including me) lacks the understanding required for the montages to work. The film just pretends like everyone knows exactly what is going on with the game of rugby (or doesn't care), and just kind of glosses over everything in the rugby scenes. Second, this film can't decide exactly what it is. Is it a Mandela biopic? Not quite. Is it a story of the 1995 South African Springbok Rugby team? Not quite. Is it a story about healing, forgiveness and reconciliation? Not quite. It tries to be a story of two men, in Nelson Mandela and Francois Pienaar, and how the confluence of circumstances allowed them to make a great moment - but in trying to be all those other things, it tries to do and be too much, and stretches itself too thin, by failing to be great at any of these things. This film tries to do too much, and in so doing, fails to do anything spectacularly. It doesn't work as a Mandela character study, as an analysis of the mood in post-apartheid South Africa, or as a sports movie. In addition, the film appears almost amateurish at times... there are some simply AWFUL music choices, and a slow motion montage during one of the rugby matches just looks sophomoric and is about 30 seconds too long. The film also manages to fall victim to a common trap besetting films dealing with race relations and reconciliation, namely a tendency to stray into overdone, sometimes corny sentimentality. There are simply too many narrative streams going at once by the end of the film, leading no other option other than montages, which then fail to lend the proper gravitas to the films' conclusion.

While this film is deeply flawed, there are also some great scenes, some moving moments, and a truly terrific performance from Morgan Freeman.

This film would have been better suited to either go full bore for a Mandela biopic about the early years of his presidency with the Rugby in the background, or full bore for a sports movie about the Rugby team and world cup with Mandela in the background. This was a good movie, but deeply disappointing. What should have been one of the year's best turns into a frustrating, yet solid film that should have been so much more. In the hands of lesser talent, this would have been a fine effort, but I expect so much more from Eastwood and Freeman, especially with a story like this.

I enjoyed this film, but cannot say I was pleased or satisfied with the final product... if you go in with lowered expectations, you may think much higher of this one than I did.
6.5/10.

Grab-bag

First, let's begin with a taste of pure perfection from the best comedy on TV right now:



With that out of the way, there are a few things I'd like to discuss/complain about. There won't be a general over-arching "theme" to this one, but honestly, I'm strangely comfortable with that. So here we go -

• How ubiquitous is porn in our present day and age? Is there anything that's more obviously out there but more obviously ignored by everyone? It's the devastatingly disgusting fart of our public discourse - a multi billion dollar industry involving thousands upon thousands of people that is literally everyone but is ignored by "proper" society as if it were a dirty little secret. Do a google search sometime of something that could potentially be dirty and check out the results. Porn is fucking everywhere, and no one talks about it. That is very, very strange to me. Like, how cowardly are we? Ask someone you don't really know about porn.. they'll pretend not to like it like they don't have gigs of it stashed in a folder somewhere (probably falsely labled to be school or work related). Isn't it weird that a society that is all about openness and "sharing" simultaneously encourages hiding something that literally EVERYONE does? How can that be healthy?
A couple of other porn-related topics - first, does anyone else find it odd that porn has made many otherwise normal interactions between adults incredibly awkward? For instance, say I'm doing laundry in the laundry room of my apartment building, and a young woman comes down all alone. Any interaction becomes incredibly awkward, for no reason other than everyone knows this is a common porn setting. I feel like if I don't bang her on hampers and clothes (which I of course, won't) I'm a complete loser. Elevators? Same deal. If I was to ever be a pizza delivery man (a possibly outcome that becomes less likely every passing day), that would be incredibly awkward every time a woman answered the door.
Second, how many women have realistically done porn? There are literally thousands of sites that update every single day. Sure, there is overlap, but that is a mind-blowing number of women, literally tens of thousands to upwards of a hundred thousand.. in this country alone. I find it amazing that given this reality, I do not know anyone who has done/does hardcore porn. So how does it work? Do 20% of all attractive women from California and Florida do porn and 0% of the rest of the country? That's the only way I can make the numbers work in my mind. Someone should write a paper on this.

This brings me to my next point -
• It took quite a lot of time, but I think I've finally found my dream job. Not that this job actually exists anywhere so to speak of, but does that disqualify a job from being the stuff of dreams? I should think not. This job is doing research on things and then writing papers on them. Now, before you say "Hey, just like a reporter or a professor", slow up, it's not like I'm a damn Gump who didn't think this one through - no, it's not like that at all. A reporter only does research on lame things - like how Councilman Thomas got his summer home or what the popular gifts are this christmas. A professor gets to do research on whatever he/she would like, but this research is supposed to be exhaustive and definitive - you'll look like a dipshit if not. Hence, academic works are accompanied by hundreds of footnotes, which just makes the whole thing a bore. Don't get me wrong, I do want to do real research, I just don't want to have to formally report on the whole thing so some anal retentive nitwit can comb over the whole thing and search for screw-ups. I want to casually research things and then write a regular ass report on my findings.. kind of halfway in between "newspaper columnist" and "professor" I suppose. I would love to do research why afro-americans in Cincinnati feel the need to disregard crosswalks and traffic signals and just cross any street at any time at any pace without regard for oncoming traffic or what societal norms would seem to dictate and report my findings to the appropriate place - namely, myself and my friends. This is important work we're talking about here. I'd love to research why every fast food place now just keeps taking orders before filling the orders they've already taken. What the hell is the point of that? There's no place for you to stand, and they just keep piling up causing a logjam of awkwardness at the front of the line. In addition, I need to research why people panic every time something out of the ordinary happens. Snowstorm? FUCK, we need MILK!!!! Snowplows haven't been invented yet and we might get caught in the house for 3 weeks!!! Thunderstorm? What if we lose power?!? Heat wave? Hope the air conditioning works!! Cold spell? Holy shit, look how high our gas bill is!! Coup in Persian Gulf? OH MY FUCKING CHRIST!!! Gas went up $.15, it now costs me $26.50 instead of $24.85 to fill up my Nissan!!!!! Why is everyone such a spaz, all the time? I need answers to these actually pressing questions.

So I'm getting fucking sick of Lost. I've stuck with it through all these years while other people bashed it, out of faith for the writers and creative talent behind the show - but at this point, if I didn't have 5 seasons invested and only 15 more hours to put up with, I would quit the shit out of Lost. It's turning out to be all fun myth, and no real cool conclusions. Everything that's been revealed has turned out to be much less cool than originally suggested. The Others? Just a bunch of weird quasi religious zealots who aren't actually all that tough. The Dharma Initiative? Just a bunch of clueless hippies. Lame, lame, and lamer. It turns out that Lost was a gimmicky pop-culture phenomenon all along much more interested in entertaining and fooling its audience through parlor tricks and narrative techniques than actually saying anything substantial. Battlestar Galactica for plebs it is. Shame on you Lindelof and Cuse for pretending you had something smart and meaningful when really it was a complicated soap opera showcasing the love pangs of pretty people. Shame on you sir. I'll continue to watch - but I'm not all that excited about it. I've come to the realization that 90% of the shit that's been thrown out there will never be answered to any satisfying degree, and thus was just a waste of time. There are 15 hours left, and meaningful questions remaining re: basically every single character. Good luck resolving that one.


Sorry, I recognize that this one wasn't my strongest entry - but hey, you win some, you lose some. I'll be back with a vengeance.

Fin.

My (and hopefully everyone's...) least favorite people...

So there are people that I just can't stand out there in the world today.. and I certainly hope I'm not alone in this, so this post is dedicated to identifying, describing, and ripping to shreds said people, so maybe that tiniest shred of humanity that reads this blog can make the smallest step towards progressing that horrible sloppy mess that is the current status of the gene pool. So without further ado, let's list these assholes already.

• The "Fake Smart"
For some god unknown reason, in our present society, being young, liberal and hip and liking "cool" clothes, books, music and other general societal type things means that you then, and other people then, think you are smart. Sure - having cool opinions in things makes it more likely someone MIGHT be smart, but something else is required. When the hell did that happen? These things have literally NOTHING in common. Liking "cool" shit is an opinion... one often heavily influenced by media and other "cool" kids. It has nothing to do with aptitude, skill or ability. If you're artistic, wear hipster glasses and skinny jeans, you aren't smart just because of these facts alone. Having an encyclopedic knowledge of (insert media here: books, music, tv, movies) doesn't make you smart in and of itself either. Having a degree doesn't help either. College is fucking easy. If you have parents willing to pay and half a brain, you'll get a degree. I never even took books to or from class through most of college and graduated with more than half A's. I played video games and drank 90 hours a week and still got into law school. Being intelligent requires some actual ability, ability to reason, to solve complex problems and carry through higher-level thoughts. Just being able to make it through a book and pretending to like it doesn't make you smart - some understanding, analysis and synthesis is required. It doesn't have anything to do with liking Phoenix and wearing flannel. Now, as I mentioned earlier, political viewpoint is an important part of appearing to be "fake smart"... and this continues even further with the causeheads. Those individuals that run wild with their being fake smart and use it to devote themselves to some cause they don't really understand and then use their limited actual ability to engage in "debates" that usually end in tears because there was never any actual reasoning involved in the decision in the first place. If you're unable to articulate your reasons for your belief (and no, saying "because it's right" or "because it's wrong" isn't a valid reason) - your belief is then based on faith, and thus you are no better than the creationists your fake psuedo-hippie ass bashes while eating steamed vegetables and watching the Daily Show. The Daily Show is another classic example of "fake smart", in that it pretends to be aloof and humorous while Jon Stewart is spouting opinions from his chair without any accountability because he's "a comedian". Grow a pair Jon. Don't behave like some arbiter of public discourse and then escape from any serious conversation with silliness. That's what a 4th grader does. Oh - if you think the Daily Show is "real" news ("I get my news from the Daily Show, I don't need anywhere else" is a commonly-spouted phrase by the "fake smart" crowd), you're the worst kind of fake smart.


2. People That are Bad at Drinking
Now, people that are bad at drinking can take many forms, they basically run the gamut of anti-social alcohol-related behaviors, and I hate them all. I recognize that anyone can get really wasted and have a bad night (see: me aka Robert Goulet, halloween '08), and I'm willing to give anyone a Mulligan on a rough night or two, that's not my concern here. My concern is people that just basically get into nonsense every time they drink, and should probably just hang up the old drinking shoes once and for all. In no particular order, here's a list/summary:
• The Lightweight. Now if you just happen to be a lightweight and are aware of this fact and act accordingly, I have no beef with you. My problem lies with people that are in fact lightweights, but talk/behave as if they are party people. They just ruin it for everyone else. If you're a 110 pound girl, drinking 7 beers in an hour is probably going to mess you up pretty bad, so why in the hell are you doing it? Why are you crying and getting into fights and making someone take you home at 9 PM? Why are you drinking when you clearly should just give it up? Does anyone know the answers to these questions?
• The snob. We understand that you traveled extensively through Europe's finest pubs and establishments and undoubtedly sampled all of the world's finest alcoholic confections, but honestly, we don't need to hear about how shitty what you're doing now is in comparison. You're just a downer. Grab your cheap light beer and have a good time, stop bitching about how little flavor it has. (this goes double for wine snobs)
• The "I can't drink _________" crowd. Note: this does not count for hard liquor shots. Everyone has a hard liquor or two that just make the old goosebumps rise up just from the smell, or everyone does if they lived life in college even kind of properly. I'm talking about regular ass cocktails/beverages like beer/wine. You can't drink beer? Really? Please Child... stop being a party pooper and sack up. It will honestly take you one week to learn how to love it. You just sit there and make yourself down a couple of beers and then boom. You like beer. You think you're the only whiney spoiled brat who tasted beer for the first time and thought "wow, this tastes really bitter and shitty"? No one likes beer the first time. America's garages, parking lots, basements and back yards are filled with 14-17 year old kids choking down beer learning how to love it. That's just the way it is.
• The Hangover. You know these folks. They're the ones that are Johnny good time the night before but the next day act like hell itself opened its gnarling doors to consume them. These clowns will often bitch while drinking: "wow, shouldn't have done that shot, DEFINITELY going to be hung over tomorrow." Fact, drinking copious amounts of alcohol will make you feel like shit the next day. Fact, being a baby about it does not actually make you feel any better and you'll feel 10X better if you stop bitching about it and sack up. If you really get that hungover that you're truly incapacitated the next day, maybe you should stop drinking?
• The loud one. We all know this joker.. he's the guy who once his BAC reaches .10 everything is screamed at the highest attainable decibel level. There are nights when this isn't a problem (crowded bars, etc.), but 90% of the time, this dude/girl is not on the highest spot of "guys I want to hang out with".
• The crier. Something like 17% of women cry every time they have more than 5 drinks. I read it in a book once or just made it up, either way, it's a serious stat. This just in: crying isn't fun for anyone, ever. If booze makes you do it, take a look at what booze is really accomplishing for you.
• The "bedtime" - now the weird thing about these characters is that they're usually among the most fun people to hang out with ordinarily - until 10 PM comes around and they've magically disappeared. These are a sub-species of "the lightweight", and at least they do us the favor of disappearing rather than fighting/crying/puking, but still - where the hell did you go? Why did you go there? Don't you know that everything only gets more fun as the night goes on?


3. Fitness Freaks
These asshats are just about as bad as it gets. I'm not quite sure what it is about obsessively working out that makes you unable to talk/think about anything else, but someone should create an antidote. Now don't get me wrong, I'm into a good workout as much as anyone, but when it turns into a multiple hour a day thing with accompanying diet regime and you start drinking Michelob Ultra.. you've just become an asshole. I understand you've put a lot of work into it, but honestly, tight shirts, shirtless pictures, secretly flexing in mirrors like everyone can't see you do it, not participating in things with friends b/c it's "unhealthy" and doing things like ordering a wrap just makes you someone I'd enjoy hitting with a bat. Working out is like all things. Best in moderation, unhealthy to excess. Even worse are the really hardcore runners. Smug in their sense of accomplishment and all of that. Listen, I know our society is completely meaningless so you have to set arbitrary and silly goals for yourself in order to get some sense of satisfaction and accomplishment, but really, no one cares that you just ran 10 miles. I'm sure it feels good when you're done, but so does jerking off, and no one has intense conversations about how they jerked it for half an hour. Not to mention - running marathons is ridiculous. The first guy to ever run a marathon (Marathon was the site of an ancient battle between Athenians and Persians and is 26.2 miles from Athens) was a soldier named Pheidippides, who DROPPED DEAD after reaching Athens to warn the city's inhabitants of the Persians' arrival. If the first person to ever do something dropped dead after doing it, you probably shouldn't do said thing. This includes Russian Roulette, swimming with great white sharks, taking a site seeing tour of Afghanistan and having sex with Africans. Plus - once you get to the point where you're wearing this:
in order to be "more" of a runner or whatever, it should honestly be legal to just throw a big blanket party for you. Running and biking are the only two "sports" where casual participants wear the same shit as professionals. Why is that? When guys go play football in the park or whatever, they aren't wearing official uniforms... so why are the douches peddling and/or running strenuously through are streets all done up like Steve Prefontaine and Lance Armstrong? Am I the only one that finds this state of affairs utterly ridiculous? I can't possibly be.


4. Sex and the City - ites
Sex in the City (among other things) has had a disastrous effect on the interactions of women in this country. Now groups of single women think it's cool to encourage each other to be slutty - which, while it may be good in the short run (i.e., you're looking to hook up with someone) is horrible in the long run, because everyone (especially Kurupt) knows you can't make a ho a housewife. The worst part about this encouragement is that it's completely cynical, because 99% of all females really want to be in a committed serious relationship (including the characters on the show), and acting slutty makes this exceedingly less likely to happen. Awful, awful, awful. So basically the whole thing is single women encouraging each other to engage in behavior that will ensure they all stay single for longer and make themselves less attractive to men in the meanwhile. If Al Qaeda went after the creators of sex and the city, I could get on board with that.

That's all I've got for now - I want to post this bad boy already, so be on the lookout for a sequel (squeakquel?) at some point in the future.


Oh, and perfection: