Loud 'N' Clear

The other day I viewed a commercial for Loud 'n Clear, the world's greatest sound amplifier. As I watched it, I said to myself "Doth mine eyes deceive me? What life-altering contraption do I see before me?"

I mean, I have oft wondered how to improve my Bingo or (dare I dream it?) Bridge game, and the solution was so obvious I seemed to have overlooked it. I need to hear better! Of course my quality of life would improve if I could but do such a fun thing as group bingo...

Seriously? They're marketing this product by telling me that I'll be able to participate in games geared towards those on the verge of death? Or by pretending that the little piece of plastic garbage can counteract 100% total deafness? No one in their right mind watches the commercial and thinks "fuck, yes! I can finally hear every word of the hymns that I'm singing while in church!" If you can't read the hymns, maybe you should get fucking glasses. Did that not occur to anyone?

Even better, they try to make us believe that getting one will make parenting easier. Keep better track of your kids by listening to them while they dick around! If your kid has a problem, trust me you'll know about it without a sound amplifier, because the little snot will be screaming so loud you'll wish you'd smothered it with a pillow the night before.

What the fuck are you smiling about? You're going deaf!

Oh, and PS-- there is absolutely nothing stealthy about that bulky piece of shit on the side of your face.

Then the advertising people seem to realize that they need to hit the third chunk of the market share: nosy neighbors and self-esteem-lacking stalkers. The commercial shifts to a woman listening in on other people's conversations while she collects her mail. What the fuck is that? Does the Loud 'n Clear Deluxe Package also include a lock-picking kit, voice distorter, handcuffs, and duct tape?

You've got to be shitting me. We start with a saggy old cadaver playing bingo, segway into a mother pretending to be attentive, and end with a hook-nosed smirker listening to women ogle him from across the room? What a fucking nancy! Put your pride on the line and take a gamble on a woman you find attractive, puss boy. If people are saying something out of earshot, it's because they don't want you to hear.

I know what you're thinking: "Stop right there! That's going too far!"

Listen up, dipshits. The only reason people talk about you behind your back is because they don't want to embarrass themselves or offend you. Because they're cowards and/or you're a pathetic crybaby. So if you want to spy, you sit at the top of the stairs or stand on a chair under the vent like everybody else. This gadgetry shit is weak.

Insects

I'm going to assume that you, whoever you are, dislike insects. Where dislike used in this context is a synonym for "intent to kill on sight." Unless you are some kind of indiscriminate animal-loving person. Where person used in this context is a synonym for "dumbass."

If insects annoy you, you're on the right track. If they do not inspire fear, loathing, and discomfort bordering on anxiety, allow me to push you down that track a little further.

Insects are all fuckheads. This is latent to their taxonomic origin; they belong to class Insecta, which literally translates to "pain in the ass." Insects aren't just disgusting and hideous to look at, they are an active nuisance. When they're not sucking our blood or eating our crops or transmitting diseases or ruining our picnics, they're getting themselves caught in our food processing plants.

Many people don't realize this, but the FDA doesn't protect us from ingesting insect bits. They just set limits on how many can be present in each jug of orange juice. In case you were wondering, there's an average of one maggot per 250 ml of O.J. Even more appetizing is that there's roughly one insect fragment present per gram of noodle products.**** Fucking scrumptious.

The worst part is that this class of joint-legged, thrice-partitioned, brittle-bodied, so-called animals will survive us in the evolutionary race. Something I could fry with a magnifying glass or drown in a well placed droplet of water is more adaptive to surviving than I am? Bull shit. Little bitches can't even keep from wandering into my spaghetti noodles at the Barilla factory. Still, insects could theoretically produce enough offspring in two mating seasons to bury the ENTIRE EARTH in bugs.*******

Insects are the world's spam. Because they lack the balls to grow an extra meter or so and fight for food like we mammals do, they survive through sheer numbers. Killed a mosquito on your arm? Guarantee you there'll be six more within the next minute and a half. They just keep coming until we get too frustrated to deal with their shit.

In fact, they're so universally recognized as headaches with antennae that humans coined these phrases:

1. The term "bugging" someone. If you've never notice the etymological significance there, you should probably take the paste-covered spoon out of your mouth and check back into first grade.
2. To have "caught the bug" refers to getting some kind of illness that isn't serious enough to pose any real health threats but still prohibits you from living life to the 'fullest.' Then again, if your mindset indicates that life can be 'lived to the fullest,' you're a shithead.
3. A "bug in the system" is how we refer to really frustrating problems that afflict computers. The phrase originates from a few decades ago when a literal moth got caught in a literal system motherboard and fried the circuitry. Which proves that this class of arthropods is attempting to sabotage us as a species.


****Statistics from http://www.sixwise.com/newsletters/05/06/29/how_many_insect_parts_and_rodent_hairs_are_allowed_in_your_food.htm

*******Statistics from wherever the hell I damn well please. Stop checking up on me, asshole.

My God Is Better Than Your God

Time to throw down, people. I’ve concluded that the “Whose God is the God” debate is not only impossible to decide, but it’s also really, really boring. “Whose God is the Coolest” is way more important. A debate over 10,000 years old is not a debate. And neither is this:
ODIN IS THE MOST BADASS OF ALL GODS, EVER.

Oh, what? Odin is part of a defunct mythological system that solely existed to provide both oral story tradition and miraculous explanations for natural phenomena? Well, I have researched this subject extensively for weeks to prepare for this essay, and my response to such questioning involves my fist and your asshole. Unfortunately literal ass-reaming is impossible via essay, so allow me to do some literary ass-reaming instead.

Literary Ass-Reaming Exhibit (A): The Titles of Odin
Odin: Seer of the Future
King of the Gods
Bartender of Valhalla
Inventor of Rap
Lover of Liquor
Sinker of Ships
Shipper of Sinks


Did I mention Odin’s nickname? It’s Odin One-Eye. The reason he got that little title is because Odin decided to rip out his own fucking eye with his bare hands and throw it down a well to gain the ability to see the future. That’s right—Odin isn’t omnipotent. But He makes up for it by being the manliest of all gods. Yeah, yeah, Zeus was pretty cool too, since he can hurl lightning or whatever. But Odin didn’t need to be the God of Thunder. He just popped out a kid who could do the lightning duty for him. Remember Thor? The god so cool that he got made into a superhero just to keep him in pop culture? Well, Odin is his fucking dad.

How many days of the year are devoted to your god of choice? One? Two? Bitch, please. You can keep your Christmas or your Groundhog’s Day (I don’t hold any faith over another). I’ll keep Odin’s 52 days of recognition throughout the year. 14% of the year is all about Odin—because “Wednesday” is named in his honor. Look that shit up; I’ve got better things to do than explain every single point I make.

Literary Ass-Reaming Exhibit (B): Picture of Odin


Odin can drink 12,000 beers and still hurl a 500-foot-spear through
the bodies of every other god. Even yours.

**Artwork by Giye, from http://giye.deviantart.com/art/ODIN-113983884

I Have A Dream, and It Is A Latenightmare

Ladies and gentlemen, as a freedom-loving American, I am appalled by the way that the National Broadcasting Company is handling the whole late-night lineup situation. That after a mere seven months, a board of executives looking at a loss of over $4 million could decide to pull the plug on Conan O'Brien is totally beyond me.

Why? Because I am a supporter of dreams. And Conan's greatest dream--to host The Tonight Show--was blocked by a man whose chin looks like it just ate twelve other chins. So of course when I heard about the rallies happening all over the country to support Conan through this terrible time, I jumped at the chance to show my loyalty. Not that I've ever seen The Tonight Show, but I still stand by Conan's resolve. With my hand painted sign in hand ("Jay at 11:30? LeNO Way!"), I took two buses and a train to the NBC building in downtown Chicago.

Chanting and demonstrating with my fellow 200 or so protesters was fulfilling and empowering, especially on a holiday celebrating one of the greatest civil rights activists in history. Between the news crews, the nearby police cars, and the repetitious shouting of "Masturbating Bear for President," I really felt like I was doing a real honor to the concept of civic duty. But one thing really bothered me-- the seeming indifference of passersby. Where I had expected the unwitting public to gather behind us and create a powerful grassroots movement, I saw apathy on a scale that really took my enthusiasm down a notch. My fellow protesters and I stood outside the NBC building in the face-numbing cold for two hours, with our Conan-hair homages and clever support calls (see "Conandia" below), and no one seemed willing to take time from their oh-so-busy schedules to voice their opinions over the grievous actions of NBC. If anything, our numbers dwindled over the course of the evening until our demonstration became less of a mob and more of a throng.

My question, then, is why? Why do the American people seem to care so little? A primetime block of television programming is suffering, and our peers would stand idly by and let it all fall apart. Simply watch as Conan O'Brien becomes the Kitty Genovese of our era. I urge all of you to stand up on Conan's behalf, and make your mild annoyance at the decision of the NBC executives heard! Long live the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien!

Conandia (to the tune of O! Canada!)

Conandia!

The greatest red haired man.

Tonight Show's hooooost and great comedian.

With heavy hearts and teary eyes,

we watch your death by NBC!

We stand by your side, Conandia,

unemployed though you may be!

Greatest red haired man,

Carson's prodigy,

Conandia won't be on our T.V.

Tiny Fucking Corn

This is the transformation of corn. Holy fucking shit.

So I read an article the other day about how corn was originally maize. Which is smaller than corn, less nutritious, doesn't taste as good, and comes in funny colors. Basically, maize sucks. I can understand now why we turned it into corn.

It was fine to that point, even if it seemed kind of wordy for an article on a cereal grain. I figured two lines would've sufficed:

Maize is shit compared to modern-day corn. But we have corn, so no worries.

Unfortunately, instead of dropping the article like a hot coal wrapped in rancid kimchee like I should've, I kept reading. After about two paragraphs, the article transformed into a love letter directed at EVEN TINIER MOTHERFUCKING CORN.

Maize isn't shitty enough. Teocinte. Teocinte makes me want to go back in time and wreck the faces of some of my ancestors.

Let's put this in perspective. Corn: "I'm hungry. Munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch munch. Man, that was good. Steamed, grilled, whatever. I love corn."

Maize: "I'm hungry. Munch munch munch munch. I'm less hungry, but not full. Time to turn this shit into regular damn corn."

Teocinte: "I'm hungry. Munch. Well. Fuck me."

The dumbass who wrote the article while jizzing himself at the thought of teocinte then told a story about some archaeologists who found some dead guys in a cave with fossilized tiny corn. They believed that the people in the cave had starved to death. What kind of dumbasses don't get the fuck out of a cave and forage for food when they're hungry? When my body's low on nutrients, I snap into a Slim Jim. That's just common fucking sense.

Or so I thought.

Not that I can really blame them; they were trying to subsist on fucking teocinte! Best part was, some of the fossilized minicorn they had lying around their skeletonized bodies was un-fuckin-eaten. All that suggests to me is that ancient twat bombs like Carl McCave and Martin Caverson would rather starve to death than waste their time trying to eat disgusting tiny corn.

Tiny fucking corn.

Avatar Sucked Just As Much As I Thought It Would

So I wasn't expecting much when I finally dragged my feet to the movie theater to see Avatar. And I didn't get much, either.

First of all, I want to know what idiot woke up one morning, called James Cameron, and said "Jim, you know how you've been wanting to make a movie about the rape of Native Americans by European gold-seekers and colonists? We need to set that mother fucker in SPACE, Jim. Mother fucking SPACE."

" 'Cuz I get a thousand hugs..."

Also, why is it that the universal formula for aliens always involves giving them elongated bodies and four fingers? Sure, Cameron got all creative on us by giving them cat features, and, oh yeah--USB ports dangling from the back of their heads that allow them access to every other form of life on the planet. It hurt my feelings to know that the writers thought I was too fucking stupid to understand the metaphorical bond that the Navi have with nature; they navigated around my obvious retardedness by allowing the Navi toliterally connect to animals. Talk to trees. And also to upload and download memories into forest networks.

+=

As you can see by this very complicated formula, the Navi were

created through years upon years of Panthro/Roswell fucking.

So yeah, the story was recycled, the writers treated us like we just failed the second grade, the movie was two and half goddamn hours (not to mention $957), the aliens were created to be beautiful blue cat people instead of being realistic in any way, and every character was made out of cardboard. Am I forgetting anything? No, but James Cameron is:

PHYSICS

I'm all for losing myself in the movie experience. Suspension of disbelief and all of that shit. But I'm pretty sure that hundreds of tons of rock cannot float thousands of feet in the air. Pretty fucking sure. Seeing these mountains raised some obvious questions for me. Like, "why are those mountains floating? How is that possible?"

Let's assume for just a minute that the atmosphere on Pandora is dense enough to support floating mountains. Let's also assume that the rest of the rock on the surface of the planet doesn't float due to its cohesive properties. What the fuck is that waterfall doing there? If I remember my water cycle charts from middle school correctly, water doesn't come from fucking nowhere. And how come the rock can support enough water to generate a waterfall, but the WATER STILL FALLS OFF THE SIDE?

I can forgive a lot of things from you, James Cameron. You made Terminator, for fuck's sake. But this is inexcusable. Never touch film again. Not even high definition, 3-D film. Ever.