Kindness

Posted on 19 February 2022 by Lance Arthur

I recently turned another year older, and it was one of those zero-birthdays that occurs every ten years and has a zero at the end of its anniversary. I haven’t lived as long as some and certainly didn’t manage to realize all my dreams and aspirations, so I have some regrets, sure, but I’ve also learned some lessons along the way.

One, learned from my friend Leslie who died before I did, since I haven’t yet as far as I know, is to make your bed every day. Seems simple enough, don’t it, but what it accomplishes is that it starts your day off by being organized and neat rather than messy and lazy, so I recommend you try it yourself if you haven’t already. Just make your bed every day, even if you don’t manage to make it until nighttime. I find it easy and convenient to do when I’m waiting for my coffee maker to be hot enough to make my overindulgence in morning double espressos because it takes about three minutes, tops, and when I go to bed at night I have nice, smooth sheets and nice puffy pillows instead of a wrinkled mess of sheets, blankets and pillows.

Second, and probably more importantly but also much, much less easy is to practice this two-word habit every day: Be kind.

I’m sure many of you already sneered at that suggestion which is, should I mention, rather unkind. Which goes to show you that this two-word habit is both harder to practice than you might think and easier to sneer at and dismiss out of hand without even trying.

As X once sang, the world’s a mess. But we made it that way. You do realize that as human beings, we’re in charge of all this. Most of the good things and bad things you’re dealing with on a daily basis are all up to us. Nature tries its hardest to fuck with us by lobbing a few weather disasters or the occasional volcanic explosion or earthquake and so on, but we otherwise have managed to reconstruct the whole world to make it easier for us to live in it.

Most of these considerations are physical. Buildings, furniture, various modes of transport, the food we eat. It’s designed to make our lives as convenient as possible, and making convenience the uppermost consideration in nearly every aspect of these complicated lives. Drive thru everything. Supermarkets overfilled with so much food we can’t possibly eat it all. Shelters from storms that prevent rain from making us annoyingly wet.

We generally don’t consider all that stuff. I was reminded of it recently when I purchased a turntable again after decades of not having a turntable and experiencing the unique inconvenience of how music used to be.

Now, we literally have a small wireless networked speaker plugged into a nearby electrical outlet and we tell it what we want to hear. We don’t even have to be near it or touch it or anything. We can just say “Hey Siri, play Heart’s Greatest Hits” and moments later we are listening to Heart’s Greatest Hits. Which, by the way, I highly recommend listening to at your earliest convenience.

By contrast, there are about seven steps involved in listening to a vinyl album before you get to listen to it:

  1. Get up off your buttocks and walk to the turntable.
  2. Take out an album and remove the inner sleeve.
  3. Remove the LP from its sleeve.
  4. Place the album on the turntable.
  5. (Optionally) clean the grooves of the album with a small brush of some sort.
  6. Turn on the turntable and move the tonearm over the edge of the vinyl album.
  7. Set the needle into the groove of the album.

In a sense, convenience is about laziness to the nth degree. We can no longer be bothered with remembering phone numbers because our phones do it for us. That’s assuming, of course, that you still make phone calls. Still, you don’t really have to remember anything about your family members and friends. Birthdays? Add it to your calendar. Email addresses? Your email app will fill it in for you. Passwords? Manage them with a password app (which, by the way, you really should be doing).

I’m not averse to convenience by any means, mostly because I am super lazy about most activities. Hell, if I can get something delivered to my door, you know I ain’t heading to a store and looking for the damned stuff. I insist only on two things:

  1. Clean as you go when in the kitchen. Whether you’re cooking or making cocktails or just buttering some toast, clean as you go. Don’t just dump everything into the sink and “come back to it later.” Because you won’t. And please don’t substitute real pots and pans and dishes and utensils for disposable crap. The world has too much disposable crap and as we’re quickly learning, most of it isn’t disposable at all.
  2. Make your bed every day. See above.
  3. Oh! Also please learn the difference between ‘your’ and ‘you’re,’ and please remember that ‘it’s’ is always short for ‘it is’ and ‘its’ is always possessive, like his or hers. Those aren’t laziness things but they fucking bug me every time I encounter them. I think if a genie granted me a single wish, it would be that everyone understands English grammar when they’re writing.

As usual, I have drifted far away from my initial premise which is what I think I excel at as a writer.

Kindness!

One important aspect of kindness is that you probably won’t be treated kindly in return. You’ll have to get used to that. To paraphrase Proverbs 11:17, kindness is its own reward. I’m sure you’re now flummoxed and maybe frightened that I, an avowed atheist, is quoting scripture but take that as a lesson that one can take advice from any source without necessarily adhering to every one of that source’s ideas.

You’re going to encounter people who are, hmmm. What shall I…? Oh, yes! Assholes. Assholes exist in every culture and every country and every race and every gender and no gender at all. They love being assholes and practice it daily, if not every minute of their lives. I’m sure you know at least one asshole, who hopefully you do not consider a good friend. One thing my old therapist taught me is that we can judge our own lives by those we choose to populate it with. If you know a lot of assholes, chances are you’re one, too. I mean, why else would you put up with them?

If you’re already an asshole, you can stop being an asshole just my deciding it. This rule is pretty much true regarding every decision you make in life, because most of those things aren’t based on facts, which can be annoying and frustrating. Opinions are just how you decided to live your life, and you can change your own opinions immediately without any consequences whatsoever.

This is absolutely true. If you hear a voice in your head arguing that you can’t change your own opinion about things, ignore it. While it is true that changing someone else’s opinions is nearly impossible and will likely result in them digging themselves in even deeper just to prove that you’re wrong and they’re right, as if that’s something to be proud of, your own opinions can change by just deciding to do it.

So, please choose to be kind. Or kinder, if you’re already kind. Give people the benefit of the doubt. Try not to judge. Offer help, but not guidance unless you’re asked for it. Listen more, and talk less. Try to understand how someone reached the point in their life where they are right now, and if that’s difficult then just ask them. Chances are they’ll be surprised anyone cares.

Finally, a word about this blog that you’re reading. I used to write rather regularly about pretty much whatever was on my mind, and then I stopped. The reason I stopped is because everyone else suddenly decided their every thought, meal, vacation, funny pet poop, or child utterance was also worth everyone else’s attention.

In short, it’s not. Mine’s not either. Be kind today!

Posted in Listening to Myself Think | Comments Off on Kindness

Starting Over

Posted on 20 December 2021 by Lance Arthur

It has been at least ten years since I wrote anything here, or anywhere really. If there is something out there other than an old tweet, which there shouldn’t be considering I stopped using Twitter shortly after the Cheeto-skinned asshole assumed control of the government and Twitter itself, but whatever. This is a stupid opening paragraph and I already regret writing it.

Do I have anything interesting to say? Probably not. At least, nothing original or compelling by my own estimation.

But I miss writing. I certainly don’t miss the internet, or what it pretends to be today – a celebration of unchecked ego and avarice maintained and overseen by a small group of technology companies and social sites pretending to be of service to humanity when, in reality, they have done more to tear us apart and make us afraid, angry, and insane than any number of drugs or alcoholic beverages could have hoped to accomplish in so little time.

I don’t have a plan, but I have a lot of time on my hands. I guess that’s all that’s needed now, so I shall attempt to make the least of it that I can.

Posted in Daily Doldrums | Comments Off on Starting Over

Laws of the 21st Century

Posted on 17 January 2011 by Lance Arthur

It has come to our attention that the United States Supreme Court is of the opinion that corporations should be enjoying “free speech” rights, but only as far as contributing to political candidates and causes. It is perhaps an unsurprising turn of events, since corporations have been growing more and more inhuman (and therefore human) as the years pass, delivering toxic goods in the form of inexpensive foodstuffs and trying to convince us that smoking is bad and therefore good for us.

With that in mind, we’d like to propose a few more laws that need better definition or simple institutionalization in American society. Just a few simple steps to improve the lives of average Americans and average American corporations so we can all get along better.

The Elevator Waiting Law

Maybe it’s just us, but it sure is annoying when you’re trying to exit an elevator, only to have to be pushed back onto it by the pile of friendly, patient riders trying to get on. Unfailingly, this occurs when the elevator reaches the bottom floor, where there are hoards just waiting with nothing to do but crane their necks at the descending floor numbers while they wait the arrival of the conveyance.

We’d like to propose that those people must stay back from the doors at least three feet until those already on the elevator – and we mean all of the passengers who want to disembark – have had a chance to do so. There will be no elbowing or shouldering or other-limbing to wedge oneself inside before the others have opened up space.

Violators of this law will be hit about the face and neck with raw fish. If raw fish is unavailable due to overfishing, a plywood 2×4 is a suitable substitute.

A related law is the Stand On the Right, Walk On the Left Law, which applies to all escalator and “moving sidewalk” riders. The rule is self-explanatory. Violators may be “goosed” or “shit-needled” by having fingers forcibly inserted into their rectums until they either move over to the correct space or start to walk as designated.

The Sidewalk Sharing Law

Our cities sidewalks can be made more comfortable if parties of three or more are no longer allowed to walk abreast. Two abreast will be the limit.

This will mean that pedestrians going both ways can easily share the same sidewalk without resorting to prescribed lanes for each direction, and that faster pedestrians have room to pass slower pedestrians without either stepping into the flow of traffic or walking in decorative planters designed to create the illusion of nature.

In cases of an odd number of persons in a party, the odd number must walk at the tail-end of the group and may make faces or mimic the stupid and inane observations of any other member of the group at leisure. Others must pair off, even with those persons they cannot abide or who do not have the sense God gave them to use a deodorant or mouthwash while in public.

Violators may be physically pushed off the sidewalk and forced by cattle prod to walk in the gutter or bike lane.

Additionally, any bicyclist who uses a sidewalk to bypass the normal traffic rules that apply to any and all vehicles may be verbally abused in any manner and held up by “slow walkers.” They must also remain quiet when told “It’s a sidewalk! Sidewalk!”

The Airport Line Law

Everyone but the few lucky first class passengers knows that waiting through the security line at the airport is no one’s fault, and than everyone has to go through the degrading, passive-aggressive nature of the act. It may save lives, and it certainly makes us all feel more like children who cannot be trusted to bring drinking water on board an airplane.

Waiting in line for a ticket, or boarding pass, or seat assignment is another case of having to do something that should be a lot simpler to do. One can normally get this done online, now, and walk up to a computer kiosk and swipe a credit card and bypass the whole shebang, but there are always exceptions to that rule and sometimes you need to go talk to an actual human and negotiate the procurement of a slip of paper that gets you onboard.

Recently, the added benefit of a free prostate exam and cancer screening – or is it that the screening gives you cancer? so confusing! – adds to the benefits and joys of waiting in line to get mugged. Since the inevitable is unavoidable (and that’s why it’s called that) we suggest a new law that requires everyone waiting to pass through security be fully naked. Also: no more carry-ons at all. All that shoving and organizing and complaining about not having enough overhead compartments goes away, and it opens up all that space for sex, since you’re already naked.

The Birthday Celebration Cessation Law

After a certain point, celebrating birthdays becomes redundant. There are anniversary dates, like turning any age ending in zero, but beyond a certain point – say, once you can legally drink, which seems to be the last thing to happen to you, because you can already drive and have sex but anyone will tell you that either and both of those things is better with drinking, anyway, so why bother? – it’s just silly if not stupid to continuing throwing parties for yourself in celebration of your date of birth.

We’re not against parties at all, of course, we’re only against having birthday parties which should require pinning tails on things and Barbie doll dressing and lots of screaming, though that screaming should not be occurring because you’re looking in the mirror. So: No birthday parties for anyone after the age of 21. Any other parties, have at it. Otherwise, we’re sending in the police and having your sagging, wrinkled ass arrested.

The Medicinal Marijuana for Everyone Law

Just start growing it and smoking it now. How else are you expected to make it through this hell?

The President of the Future Law

Films may no longer cast African-American actors in the role of the President to simulate a future world where an African-American man could actually be elected President. All films based in times yet to come must now cast women, openly homosexual actors, chimps, or openly-lesbian chimps (aka “The Trifecta”) in that role.

Posted in Daily Doldrums | Comments Off on Laws of the 21st Century

The Offense of the Defense of Marriage

Posted on 13 August 2010 by Lance Arthur

In a recent episode of Futurama, the professor is faced with a group protesting the teaching of evolution in school. The protest is lead by an orangutan, Dr. Banjo, who claims that if evolution (which is just a theory “like gravity or the shape of the Earth”) were fact, there would be no ‘missing link’ between ape and human, whereupon Dr. Farnsworth lists every connection between ape and human save one.

After losing the argument because it’s very difficult to argue facts against ignorance and stupidity, Dr. Farnsworth declares “I don’t want to live on this planet anymore,” and he takes his toys and leaves.

With the on-going anti-gay rants being used in an increasingly thinly-veiled attempt to “save marriage” from the ravages of people who want to get married to each other because they’re in love, all we can say to Dr. Farnsworth is “we know the feeling.”

It isn’t that we don’t want to argue the finer points of equal rights and why ‘separate but equal’ is still ‘separate’ and therefore makes one group of people legally and demonstrably inferior to another (usually larger and more vocal) group. The bigger picture that’s now being painted across the face of the United States, the picture painted with broad and colorful strokes of religious intolerance and racist jargon and threats of violence, is growing increasingly sad and depressing. That picture, which depicts the struggle for control and power in this country, illustrates that the population, or at least the part of the population who likes to yell, whine, cry, scream and rant about the fake problems they think are causing their hard lives to be so much harder – which we would argue, if we could and if anyone would listen, stem from a lack of education, the continuing problem of poverty and the growing disparity between the haves and the have-nots, mostly due to the fact that the haves are using their money to distract the have-nots from real problems and make them think their lives would be much better if immigrants or gays or some other group of people were eliminated or imprisoned or something like that – that the population isn’t interested at all in making things better for everyone. That population is only interested in themselves and what they believe is best for them.

This is where America is headed, and the tracks are slick and fast. America is headed into a kind of head-in-the-sand defeatism with closed doors and raised fences and partitions constructed to enforce an us versus them mentality that pushes people out of the boat rather than helping them into it to save them from drowning. That America, which is supported by the Tea Party and Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck and Fox News and a growing insurgence of loud-mouthed idiots who couldn’t construct a cogent sentence if their lives depended on it (at least without writing a few crib notes on their palms first) is, we feel, winning the war.

How are they doing it? There’s an easy answer. They’re doing it by positioning themselves as on the defense against the other side, rather than as the people with the guns pushing non-white, non-straight, non-Americans out of the boat because they need to protect the boat, rather than protect the people. They’re doing by proclaiming themselves victims, and they’re doing by using language that inflames human weaknesses, mostly fear, and depicting themselves and those who follow them as downtrodden protectors of the historical path of the country.

Where does that leave those of us on the other side of those closed doors, high fences and protective partitions? We are being vilified as monsters, but using words like ‘socialist’ and ‘elitist’ that, we would argue, most of those using don’t even understand. We are being built up as destroyers and monsters. We are being placed in positions that are indefensible because they are lies, and there is almost nothing to be said in our own defense – not that any of the other side is willing to listen, anyway. Mostly because they’re too busy yelling over us.

It is a frustrating time to be an American. We believe that being an American means that we should be defending the rights of all, and supporting freedom of ideas and the right to worship, love and live in the way that makes us happy without hurting anyone else. It means life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It means the Bill of Rights. It means open debates and free education and borders that aren’t armed encampments. It means winning the minds and spirits of people by demonstrating that we honor and support the rights of the individual to love who they want to love, to achieve what they want to achieve, and to create a place on the planet where everyone has the right to be the best and the most that they can to the benefit of all.

We feel that the other side, the Palin-Beck-Fox News side, is not for those things. They are for themselves, alone, and do not actually care about anyone who follows their narrow-minded, fear-mongering stupidity. They are inside their own walled gardens and would cringe with fear and shake with embarrassment if an actual American ever knocked on their door and wanted some tea (not that any member of the Tea Party would ever actually drink tea – ha! see? we can be narrow-minded too! equality! rah!). We don’t actually think they’re even against anything. What they are for is money and power, but only for themselves.

The saddest part of the whole situation is not that it exists, for it has always existed. The saddest part is that they seem to be winning, basing their position and words on fear, and that their followers don’t go out and investigate on their own. The saddest part is that many if not most of those followers are being hurt by their leaders, who say one thing and do another, and think that wearing an enameled American flag on a lapel proves patriotism and support for America when, increasingly, it means nothing at all.

Yelling back at them doesn’t improve the debate or clarify its terms or educate one side or the other about anything that anyone stands for. The idea that they stand for anything is ludicrous. They stand for themselves.

So we’re starting to think like Dr. Farnsworth. If this is actually the way this country is supposed to be, if the citizens of this country prefer to live in a place that is lead by intolerant, narrow- or closed-minded, poorly-educated, scared, angry bullies, then we’re out of here.

Of course, nothing would make those people happier, would it? If there is no debate, no dissension, no stating the facts and stupidity wins, we all lose. America was once a great place. We are now in a period of stagnation and backwards-thinking. We are no longer progressing toward the goal of freedom for all, and want to take away the 14th Amendment, strip human rights, imprison people who cross our borders looking for a better life and afraid of “different,” “new” and “ideas.”

Frankly, we’re pissed off. This happened because we didn’t care and we had more faith in the American public than the American public was worth. It appears, now, that the American public wants a country that is intolerant and ignorant, as if those things are to be celebrated and strived for. Sure, it’s a scary world, but is the answer really to roll up the sidewalks and shut down the harbors and cringe inside our homes? Is the answer to shut our ears and pretend that “the olden days” were really better? And do we want an isolated country that is only one religion, and only one race, and only one way of thinking?

We sincerely hope not. But if that is where the country is going, count us out.

Posted in Shut up Bitch! | Comments Off on The Offense of the Defense of Marriage

The Toilet Saga

Posted on 15 July 2010 by Lance Arthur

There’s nothing we like better than a well-written book, and there is nothing like a well-written book inside the runaway bestselling ode to chastity and the most boring girlfriend in the world known as Twilight, by some weepy-eyed hack living out her teenaged girl fantasies writing sloppy, one-dimensional dreck.

We have to hand it to Stephanie something-or-other for being smart enough to tap into that deep, nay, bottomless pit of longing that lives inside the flat-chested breast of, let’s say, 50% of the American Girl population, along with another 20% of the flat-chested gay men who long, also, to be teenaged girls in high school being chased by the two most in-heat bachelors in all of one-dimensional emotionland.

Yes, we’re bitter. Bitterly jealous of this author who’s raking in the millions based on a series of four books that are so poorly written, so awkwardly plotted and so void of originality that they make your average Dick and Jane book look like the Bible.

And perhaps they are, but we won’t go there (just yet).

Luckily for you, our intrepid research department has managed to dig up the fifth unpublished manuscript in the Twilight series, a tome so wretched in language and so lacking in writerly skills that we thought, just for a moment, that those million monkeys had actually produced something. But no, upon further investigation it turns out that, yes, what we have in our sweaty, vampiricly glittering palms is the unreleased denouement of the series, which we will be more than happy to summarize for you – with copious excerpts – now.

As you’re no doubt aware, in Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Edward and Bella have a half-vampire, half-human baby daughter they name Renesmee, which in Vampire means “she who is a necessary plot development.” Renesmee is mistaken to be an “immortal child,” aka Michael Jackson, by a neighboring vampire and the court of Vampire Law, the Volturi call the Cullens to the table to accuse them of being “too boring to live.” After they witness the full boredom of then now-vampiric Bella, who Edward turned into an undead shrew during childbirth just to shut her up and make her stop making that face like she just swallowed lint covered in lard and dead flies, they realize that the Cullens are actually okay, as long as they stay in Forks because whatever. Free now to live our their non-lives in peace with a weird baby and a hot werewolf who finally admits that he’s way, way too hot to hang out with such losers, even though he does because (bad writing), the novel ends just as the story had begun, with stupid, listless, awful Bella, glittery, poetry-spouting, deathly dull Edward and big, dumb, hot Jacob sitting in a hot tub thinking about sex but not having any.

The fifth book, Twilight: Sunrise begins several years later. Unsurprisingly, nothing at all has changed in the least for the immortally dull Cullen clan. Unlike the first four books, which are written in first-person narrative via Bella’s view of the world in which everyone loves her for no reason and she can do no wrong and the men are all incredibly handsome and sexy and want her so much that they can’t even touch her, while she describes herself in only the vaguest terms and might as well be a turnip for all you know, the protagonist of Sunrise is the now teenaged Renesmee, who goes by the name Me, which makes the first-person narrative structure surprisingly easy, if a bit awkward because she constantly refers to herself in the third-person, Me, as in “Then Me is going to drive the old truck to the general store, though why Me still doesn’t own a Volvo is beyond my comprehension to comprehend.”

That’s one of the most coherent lines which Me speaks, incidentally.

Anyway, let’s get to the fast-paced, glacial plot, such as it is, and see how the author has matured in her style of writing and grasp of language, shall we?

Me is now 16 years old and fake-attending high school. For reasons beyond understanding, Bella, Edward and Me still live with the entire Cullen clan, all of whom are unchanged from the last book. Carlisle and Esme are still pretending to be Edward’s – and now Bella’s – parents and deal black-market Japanese hair gel from their split-level house. Rosalie and Emmett spend most the novel locked in a game room trying to understand the purpose of a pool table without any balls. Alice is still wandering around predicting and foreseeing amazing things like the introduction of a new spreadable cheese made from beaver milk and, in one of the novel’s only surprising twists, reveals that Dick Cheney, who is still alive, feeds on the blood of the Volturi but no one really cares. Jasper is all but ignored in the book, and there is absolutely no mention of werewolves or Jacob at all, other than a passing mention of a wolf rug that is lying in front of the fireplace in the living room and how Bella always sighs when she sees it.

Me is attending school and everyone just adores her. Oddly, but keeping in line with the previous four books, no mention at all is made of what Me looks like, sounds like, wears, eats, or speaks. She is described as being “beautiful on the inside,” and some of her friends, including the gossipy Meredith and the frumpy Gladys, often pour forth with the most overbearing praise for everything she does with phrases like, “You’re the most beautiful girl in school!” and “I’d do you!” so we can either assume that Me is very lovely or that her friends all have very bad taste.

Little happens at all for the first four chapters. Me explains what it’s like to live with the most handsome father and the most boring mother in the world. She is quite close to Auntie Alice and there is one entire chapter where Alice is allowed to do nothing but dote on how lovely Me is and that the world is going to end in three months unless the moon is brought down to Earth via lariat.

Suddenly, in Chapter 5, a new character is introduced. His name is Stephane, though he insists that Me call him Stephen, and for no apparent reason his falls hopelessly and entirely in love with Me. Even Me finds it difficult to understand:

I’m not sure why Stephen professes his undying love for me. He is so beautiful, but there is something… odd about him. All my friends agree, even Gladys who is frumpy and disheveled and smells kind of like Lysol but I love her anyway because I guess I’m just generous and understanding like that. I saw Stephen today in the cafeteria at school and he wasn’t eating. He was just staring at me, so I turned to one of my good friends, of which I have many, and said, “Do you know anything about that beautiful boy over there?” And my friend, whose name is not important, said, “I don’t know, but he’s staring at you! My God, you’re so beautiful!” I thought that was nice of her or him to say, and then I turned my attention back toward where Stephen was sitting and discovered he had disappeared, so I said, “Where did he go?” and my friend, whose name I forget, said, “Can I touch you?”

After a couple more chapters of that kind of action, it is revealed in a surprising turn of events that Stephane is not human, nor is he a vampire or even a werewolf! Stephane is an Egyptian king recently resurrected from the dead – a walking corpse who also happens to be extremely attractive. “My gosh!” Me cries in Chapter Seven, “he’s in love with me and I don’t even know why!” To which her friend, ‘unnamed but less attractive than Me girl,’ responds, “We all love you, Me!”

There are countless paragraphs of longing and passionless staring in various locales throughout Forks until Me is wandering alone in the forest and is attacked by Charlie Swan, her own grandfather and Bella’s father, who was so ignored in the later books that he became despondent and took up as a hermit, eating berries, lichen and small animals “such as mice,” as Me describes him. There is no attempt whatsoever to disguise the fact that the hermit is Charlie, and after the attack he disappears again and is not mentioned.

Anyway, as the “attack,” which consists of Charlie poking Me with a blunt stick and breathing on her with “mouse-scented breath,” progresses Stephane appears atop a ridge outlined by sunlight wearing a small Speedo made completely out of gold and jewels. His upper body is bare and reveals that he is build like a brick shithouse and makes Jacob and Emmett look like “little girls who spent the better part of their lives eating sticks of butter and playing with their own toes.” Whether or not he even has a penis is not mentioned. Stephane “bounds down from above like a hound in heat, his muscles tensed and bulging like bread inside a really hot oven” and falls upon hermit Charlie “pushing him away from Me and surrounding Me with his strong, powerful arms, making Me feel safe, like a girl in some guy’s strong, powerful arms.”

Now that the two of them are together, Stephane/Stephen and Me spend the next chapters getting to know one another, most of which is endless, grueling paragraphs of Stephen telling Me how attractive, smart, funny, and altogether amazing she is, and Me telling him that she understands. Stephane’s dialog throughout consists of the most egregious and horrible attempts at romance ever set to page. A few examples:

“Oh, if only I could bring myself to but touch your beauty with the tips of my fingertips! You are the most beautiful girl I have ever seen, and I should mention that I’m really quite old and have seen a lot of girls, though curiously I have never had sex with any of them.”

Then he looked at Me, and his full, moist, kissable lips parted, and he said, with passion, “Yes, I do like ketchup. You know me so well!”

“Me, no one has ever affected me like… or is it ‘effected?’ Affected or effected? Are you having an effect on me? Yes! You are!”

“I don’t care if you are half vampire! I love you! I love you more than life! My life! Not your life! I would never take your life, you know, even though I am technically dead and thrive on the organs of others, and did I mention that I only eat animal organs? And then only sick animals? Sick animals with missing limbs. Sometimes they are also deaf, and often I only eat a little bit of their organs. Oh, how I love you!”

And so on. Chapters and chapters of that, with the plot moving forward with the kind of glacial pacing usually reserved for Federal Government documentation. Finally, Me brings Stephane home to meet the clan, and he is warmly welcomed and completely rejected by them. Me describes the scene as her boyfriend meets Bella and Edward for the first time:

My mother, who has a kind of beauty that is hard to describe because I don’t know how to describe it in words, and in that sense she’s kind of like me, being Me, or me, because what am I, a writer? And my father, who has an otherworldly beauty and is at this moment standing in direct sunlight with his shirt off and his skin sparkles because I think that sounds cool and lends him an air of beauty that’s so intense that you wonder why the hell he’s with my mother, even though she is beautiful and all that except I can’t describe her to you which is kind of weird, huh? And then there is Stephane wearing his golden royal Egyptian underwear standing next to me, holding my hand in his, which is cold, meaning his hand and not mine, which isn’t, and he opened his mouth and he makes words with it, and his words say “I love your daughter!” with such passion that I think my heart will cry out like birds might do on a warm morning in Forks except for that smell which is always lingering and I think it comes from the mill or maybe it’s that diner where my unnamed friends are always eating even though one would think they have homes to go home to, right? So then my father, Edward, smiles, and my mother Bella, does something with her face that is hard to describe and they open their arms to us both and I say, “Oh, you all love me!” and then they all nod and smile or something.

It doesn’t get much better than that.

We’d like to tell you that this next novel is leagues better than the others and that the author has managed to learn how to actually write plots and characters and dialogue, but in fact it would seem that the opposite is true. Like her former books, she is actually getting worse with practice. And by Sunrise, she can no longer even hold the thread of the story to a cohesive conclusion, and by the end of the book it is difficult to tell who is speaking, where they are or even what time period they are in, since every one of the characters wants nothing more than to heap praise on Me and tell her how beautiful, perfect and amazing she is.

Obviously, we cannot share the full text of the book with you or we’d get our asses sued – or get a movie deal with Fox and have to move to Los Angeles, which you know would just kill us, so what we’ll offer instead is the last paragraph of Twilight: Sunrise to sing you off to beddy-bye with visions of perfect, handsome, chaste men who only want to love you and never touch you until after marriage:

Stephane looked at Me and smiled. His smile was perfect, and then he had this body that was amazing and his voice was like music is only without the up and down parts, and his eyes, which he had two of, looked at Me and they held unlimited buckets of love for Me and he said, “I love you more than I can possibly tell you.” And then I asked him, “Why? Why do you love me?” And he was looking at Me and I was looking at him and I could feel his strong arms around me and some of my friends were there and I could feel their strong arms around me and my mother and my father and there were vampires and a sunset and the sound of laughter and the smell of fresh-baked bread and flowers and the clouds looked like puppies and my feet didn’t smell bad anymore and that little dress which I had been trying to fit into except for the hips thing but now it fit and everyone loved me and wanted me and the end.

Posted in Daily Doldrums | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Bad Ads

Posted on 12 July 2010 by Lance Arthur

Watching TV means watching advertising, just like going online means racist comments from homophobes. You just have to put up with them, and will occasionally be forced to watch some really poor examples of what the marketing departments and ad agencies think will make us drop everything and switch brands or try a new razor or buy a new car.

We watch a lot of television at the World Domination HQ, so we see a lot of shit, but sometimes the shit that comes pouring off the screen is so egregiously annoying, offensive or ignorant that we have to draw your attention to it so you can hate it like we do, making us feel just a teensy bit better about the sewage seat we find ourselves in.

We can only imagine the conversations that take place as these nightmares of American overspending are being bandied about between client and agency.

1. The “Because She Hates Him” ads for Chase Sapphire

The Pitch

“Okay, picture an average American household.”
“You mean: White Anglo-Saxon Protestant split-level suburban ranch circa 1956?”
“Exactly. She, the wife, comes into the living room where he, the husband…”
“Do they have names?”
“No, No names. We need to be able to place the audience in these roles.”
“So… the house and stuff is something to aspire to?”
“Right, right, and we do it all in black and white.”
“Classy!”
“Okay, so she comes in wearing a glamorous dress and poses for him.”
“A ‘voila!’ kind of a moment.”
“And she’s…”
“What does the dress look like?”
“Do I know from dresses? Put in a silk shower curtain for all I care. The dress doesn’t matter.”
“Okay.”
“So, she poses, Voila! And then he thinks about sex.”
“Why?”
“Because he hasn’t had any from her in, like, ever.”
“Right. Married couple. How do we know he’s thinking about sex?”
“Eyebrow arch.”
“I thought that meant he wants chicken tonight.”
“No, that used to mean that stuffing goes with everything, now it means he’s thinking about sex.”
“Is stuffing at all involved?”
“Of a sort”
“Go on…”
“So, then he’s thinking, wow, what a fantastic dress!”
“Wait, is he gay?”
“No, he’s not gay. This is a married couple.”
“Then why does he give a shit about the dress?”
“Because…. because he sees her in a whole new light!”
“Because she usually looks like shit.”
“Exactly! She’s usually wearing some crap and now she’s all in a dress.”
“Okay, I’m liking what I’m hearing.”
“So then… Fantasy sequence! He says, ‘honey, let’s go use…'”
“Does he actually say ‘Honey?'”
“Not necessarily.”
“Okay, good.”
“‘Honey,’ or… something… ‘let’s go use those valuable Chase Sapphire credit card dollars that have been piling up and go on a great vacation so I can show off that fucking dress, yo!'”
“So, flash, flash, flash, Paris, London, Morocco…”
“Who the fuck goes to Morocco?”
“Well, what were you thinking?”
“Like, boating, skiing, stuff that gets the dude off his ass in front of the TV.”
“Because, like, every guy wishes he could get away from the TV?”
“Yeah.”
“Every guy wishes that?”
“Yeah!”
“I don’t think…”
“Anyway! So, flash, flash, flash, Vegas, boat shit, whatever and then she gets this ‘oh, shit’ look on her face because…”
“Because she fucking hates Paris!”
“No, because she already spent all their credits on that dress.”
“I thought you said the dress didn’t matter?”
“Well, it matters because she spent all their Chase shit on that dress.”
“Whoa. Wait. So, he thinks that they should go do some shit together, get out of the house, have some fun, and she’s fucking bought a dress without even asking him.”
“Right!”
“So… he fucking kicks her ass to the curb? Like, it’s a comedy commercial?”
“No! Well, yeah, it’s funny because, see, he sees her in that sexy ass dress and he’s thinking, hells yes, time for some fun with the wife, and she’s gone and spent all the money on the very dress that inspires him to remember she’s got boobs, so…”
“So, no vacation.”
“Right!”
“No boating. No Paris. Just the fucking dress.”
“Right! Hilarious!”
“What, so, she’s some selfish bitch who fucking hates her husband and is trying to drive a wedge between them by spending all their money on herself?”
“No! No, no, no! It’s funny because…”
“What happens next? Does she throw the cat on him when he’s sleeping and set his golf clubs on fire?”
“No, they end up going skiing, right? And then he says he can just call the bank and fix things with a customer service rep right now – like, actually talk to someone.”
“And what does she do?”

“So, she doubts his word because, like, no one ever gets a person on the phone, right?”
“Unless it’s some tikka masala dude.”
“What? Dude, that is racist!”
“What does Mrs. Righteous Attitude do?”
“So, she takes the phone out of his hand and hears some nice American voice on the other end and realizes he was right.”
“Wait, so she calls him a liar to his face, and then rather than listen to his conversation, she fucking grabs the phone out of his fucking hand?”
“Yeah! Hilarious!”
“Then he kicks her out of the ski lift and laughs at her ass in the snow, I’m hoping.”
“No, they have this bet and she has to give him a massage back at the ski lodge!”
“Because otherwise there’s no fucking way she’d ever touch him, let alone in a comforting way.”
“No! Wait, what? No! Where the hell…?”
“And of course she can’t fucking stand him at all so she barely even touches him and he rapes her.”
“Jesus! What? You’re sick!”
“Hey, I’m not the one wearing some fucking dress I didn’t pay for.”

The “We So Didn’t Rip Off Christo” AT&T ad

The Pitch

“So, you know how, like, Verizon is like totally kicking your collective ass about coverage?”
“Yes.”
“So, imagine if you took that concept literally!”
“I don’t follow.”
“Coverage!”
“I still don’t follow.”
“Okay, so, Verizon is, like, saying how they have better coverage than you guys. So what we do is, see, we cover everything.”
“Cover everything.”
“Yes! You got it!”
“No, I still don’t…”
“We cover everything in orange cloth. Like…everything.”
“In orange cloth.”
“Yes!”
“What are we covering? The furniture!”
“The fucking… like… St. Louis Arch!”
“Okay.”
“Fucking Vegas! And we show it happening! Everything’s getting covered up!”
“Literally.”
“Yes!”
“You’re covering up things.”
“Fucking…Maine! And New York and…”
“But without the World Trade Center?”
“No fucking way. No one fucking touches that shit.”
“You just cover it all up.”
“It’s all CG, of course. Sheets of orange material draping all over that shit.”
“Everything.”
“Yes!”
“Everything in the United States.”
“Yes!”
“So you’re saying that using AT&T is like making sure that everything is all covered in orange cloth and you can’t see anything at all and you get buried underneath it and everything from then on is just orange.”
“Well, sort of.”
“Because that means coverage.”
“Yes!”
“Is Luke Wilson still available?”
“We cover him, too!”
“I don’t know. Feels more like suffocation to me.”
“Like suffocation?”
“Feels like, ‘We’re AT&T, and we’re gonna suffocate you.”
“No, that’s not….”
“‘We’re AT&T, and we’re gonna wrap you up in orange cloth, and not just you, but your house, your swimming pool, your grandma…”
“No one is gonna…”
“‘…your dog, your wife’s vagina, everything.”
“That’s a dark place where you live, bro.”
“Count on it.”

The “Our Van is So Bad We’re Not Even Going to Talk About It” VW Routan Ad

The Pitch

“Hi.”
“Hi!”
“We have a problem.”
“Tell me about it!”
“We have this van.”
“Right.”
“It’s… okay.”
“Right.”
“Not great.”
“Who buys vans, anyway?”
“Right, yes. Well, we have a van.”
“Got that.”
“But it kind of…”
“Yeah?”
“Sucks.”
“Ah.”
“But we have a lot of them.”
“Sure.”
“And we need to move them off the lots.”
“Ok.”
“So….”
“So. Is there anything good we can show off?”
“Not really.”
“Nothing at all?”
“Kind of boxy.”
“Like, good Volvo-safety boxy, or bad disposable Toyota boxy?”
“Bad boxy.”
“Ooh.”
“Can you help us?”
“Let’s do a little blue sky. A little white board. A little thinking outside the box.”
“Great!”
“What if… say… okay. So, a van?”
“A van.”
“Okay. So there’s this mom… no! A dad. There’s this dad and he… He doesn’t…. The kids. Kids! The kids are. He has kids… and…”
“Kids are good. Kids and vans.”
“The dad… puts the kids in the van and he’s going… somewhere.”
“Somewhere cool?”
“He’s going to drive around the block.”
“Wait. What?”
“With the kids.”
“He’s just going to drive around the block.”
“Because that’s what this dad and his kids do for fun.”
“Where’s the mom?”
“The mom?”
“Yeah, vans are usually mom’s vehicle.”
“But you want this van to be cool, right?”
“We just want to sell some. Or one.”
“Well, then it’s it’s dad and the kids, because mom is… I dunno, having sex with a Swiffer or something.”
“I’m not sure that’s an idea we want to convey.”
“Mom’s dead.”
“Mom’s dead?”
“Because if mom wasn’t dead she’d be driving the van, right? So… mom’s dead.”
“Okay. But we don’t have to show that part?”
“No, we won’t, like, drive the kids to the funeral or anything.”
“Just around the block.”
“Will the van make it around the block?”
“We think so. But let me talk to the engineers about that. Let’s just assume it will.”
“Okay.”
“And why are they driving around the block?”
“Why are they driving around the block?”
“Why are they driving around the block?”
“Because… when people get a load of this cool van…”
“Do they know the mom is dead?”
“Who, the kids and the dad?”
“No, the people in the neighborhood.”
“Let’s say… no.”
“Okay, great.”
“Um… what was I talking about?”
“When the other people see the van.”
“Right. So, when other people see the van they… punch each other.”
“Because…?”
“It’s funny.”
“It’s funny?”
“Hilarious.”
“”That they hit each other?”
“Well, maybe just one of them hits someone else.”
“So not each other.”
“Not so much. One is funnier.”
“One punch is funnier.”
“Right.”
“You’re the expert!”
“Right.”
“Why… are they… punching?”
“Why?”
“Are they punching?”
“Because… they’re… the van is… they… um…”
“Because it’s funny?”
“Because it’s funny!”
“And the mom is…”
“Forget about the mom. Mom is dead. She used all the fucking Chase Sapphire points to buy a dress and dad killed her.”
“Ok. Wait. What?”

Posted in Shut up Bitch! | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to Insult the One Percent

Posted on 8 June 2010 by Lance Arthur

It has come to our attention that Helen Thomas has fired herself from her job for insulting the entire Jewish community by stating that they should get the hell out of Palestine and go somewhere else like Poland or Germany. The White House even stepped into the fray and denounced the crotchety old lady and she has since apologized for voicing an unpopular and apparently offensive opinion like all the rest of us do, only we put them on YouTube anonymously.

So we started thinking, huh (which is how we always start our thinking) I wonder what would happen if she insulted an even bigger religious minority in the U.S.? What if she’d said something reprehensible about the non-religious?

Let’s be clear here that the headline specifically mentions atheists (around 1% of the U.S. population as of 2008, at least for those willing to claim themselves so) while we just side-tracked into those who claim no religious affiliation (around 15% of the U.S.) which may mean that they still believe in god, or a god, or perhaps several gods or the flying spaghetti monster or who knows what, but they clearly have no homeland to claim based on some book that was written by some guys hundreds of years ago for a joke (speaking, of course, of the Holy Madlibs).

Of the total population of the United States, 2.2% are self-proclaimed Jewish peoples. So about twice as many Jews as God-haters. Still, considering the relatively small number of people who don’t believe in a supreme being with magical powers who has a grand plan that none of us are smart enough to understand, particularly when oil is spilling into the lungs of innocent sea creatures while Lindsey Lohan can’t seem to kill herself with drugs no matter how hard she tries, it’s fun to consider what would happen if Helen Thomas had said something untoward about atheists.

The challenge is, obviously, what can you say that would incense an atheist?

Consider that atheists have no organized belief structure, per se. And by ‘belief structure’ we mean ‘organized set of semi-arbitrary rules which may be applied only as it fits the set of people for whom the rules apply benefits.’ So, you know, things like getting married to your mistresses when you tire of your wives is okay, but marrying the person you love and sticking with them if they happen to be of the same sex is not. Things like that.

Okay, so, ground rules set. How, then, to proceed?

Obviously, using any form of afterlife threats is out of the question. “Gad damn you,” for example, is completely pointless. Similarly, “Go to hell!” or “God hates (your particular little clique)!” are useless. You simply can’t threaten them with anything post-life.

Which leaves you with life, itself. Remember, please, we’re speaking now of insults and not threats. You can certainly say, “I’m going to kill you, you fucking (niche group member)!” but that’s not insulting. And while Jews have been persecuted for basically ever, atheists have been left alone because they’re just so quiet. Homosexuals, similarly, get nailed to fences and kicked in the balls and shoved into some of the same ovens as others have been – birds of a feather? not so much, it turns out – but atheists sit over in the corner reading their books and feeling silently superior to you and your funny ideas about how murderers might get off scott free, but they certainly have another thing coming to them after they live to a ripe old age and finally die of the same disease that claimed your grandparents.

You might think that atheists just don’t care about anything. After all, apathy and atheist sound almost alike! But it’s not true. They just don’t care about your god, or your savior, or your prophet. All those things, they regard as simple misunderstandings on your part, or simple confusion about how things actually work (remove “miracle” from your vocabulary entirely and substitute it with either “natural” or “coincidental” and you’ll start to get the big picture). They care about you, which I know seems weird since there’s absolutely no driving force that would impel them to. If there’s no reward for doing good things, you say to yourself, then why do them?

Which brings us back to the old woman who lived in a shoe in her mouth. Poor, put upon Helen Thomas. Telling the Jews to get out of Palestine because they accidentally shot a bunch of people on a boat – oh, and built a wall – oh, and there was some tank thing or other? And, sure, they have the right to defend their home(land) and maybe the Palestinians don’t and why don’t they just shut up and go back where they came from already? But God gave them that land! Along with the United Nations and a charter, so it’s legally binding as well as Jesusy – or whatever His name is.

Speaking on behalf of the One Percent, we offer only this; we don’t know why you believe what you elect to believe and we don’t really care. We’ll continue to close our doors to Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons and go back to making cookies. Our souls aren’t lost and we aren’t going to hell. We don’t want a holy land (and we don’t think you need one, either) and we think people should be treated nicely just because it makes living here a lot easier and more pleasant than the alternative.

Satan said so.

Posted in Shut up Bitch! | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Apro pos of nothing: Brodyquest!

Posted on 2 June 2010 by Lance Arthur
Posted in Daily Doldrums | Comments Off on Apro pos of nothing: Brodyquest!

Unconfirmed Rumors

Posted on 2 June 2010 by Lance Arthur

Next week, Apple head honcho Steve Jobs will stand up on stage at Moscone Center in San Francisco during the company’s annual World Wide Developer’s Conference and announce a new iPhone that everyone has already seen.

The ice cream sandwich, as our lab boys are calling it (even available in two flavors, chocolate and vanilla) takes the familiar and comfy design of the current iPhone, sits it under a steam roller and adds a new front-facing camera so you can become even more annoyed with AT&T when you can’t complete your video conference.

The fact that everyone already knows about it means that perhaps Mr. Jobs’s biggest surprise is no surprise at all.

Or does it?

We’d like to posit some completely unfounded and spurious rumors in an attempt to short-circuit any actual surprises by announcing them here and now, even though all of these are completely made up.

iTunes gets a new name

When iTunes debuted, it was meant only as a music hub for your iPod. A way to manage all the music you’ve been illegally downloading in one place. But now, iTunes is also managing your iPhone and iPad (and probably whatever future iDevices the company coes up with) so leaving the ‘tunes’ part of it in there makes little sense.

The new name? We had a dickens of a time (rather, our marketing department did) coming up with a new monicker that encompasses everything the application manages now. It came down to two names. The winner?

iYou! iYou allows you (being you, or I, if you’re me) to manage all your you stuff, from apps to docs to movies to pet grooming supplies (using the new iPet). iYou is ever-present and talked to your iPad, iPhone, iPod, iWork, iMovie, and even iGarage iBand (also renamed).

The losing name? iI. Pronounced “Eee!” as in Wii.

New OS X interface

The company line is that WWDC 2010 will be all about the iPhone operating system. The company already introduced a bunch of new concepts for iPhone 4.0, but what about OS X? Will they really completely ignore their other operating system entirely?

Of course not! And keeping with its stance to innovate and create the most elegant and usable interface possible in a computer OS, OS X 10.7 (codenamed Pussy) will, shockingly, adopt many of the design principles introduced in Microsoft’s Windows 7!

I know!

The dock is gone, replaced with a series of mini-captures of every application on your computer so you can see what they would look like if you opened them all. Convenient! And the windows all use opacity and transparency everywhere so you can actually see through one application into the other, creating an invisible and infinite desktop on which everything is always visible.

Plus! OS Pussy’s new “snap” feature will tile all your applications into similar-sized windows inside themselves, and the long-suffering ‘Graphite’ interface has been completely replaced with what’s dubbed ‘Candy Store,’ where every bevel is shiny, every drop shadow is soft and fuzzy, and the color scheme has been borrowed from Juicy Couture, circa 2002. Think pink, everybody!

Another brand new mobile device

Everyone’s seen iPhone 4, already, but you didn’t think that was all the company had up its sleeve, did you? Puh-shaw! Everybody knows mobile is the future, and that the future is mobile. And what is mobile? Mobile is moving! Mobile is slim and sleek and fast and electromagnetic!

Presenting iStick! While the iPad took an iPod Touch and ironed it out so it was bigger and flatter, iStick rolls it into a doobie and lights it up! A magic wand for the future, iStick allows you to record your thoughts be speaking into one end, and listen to them by sticking the other end in your ear. No keyboard, no touching, just you, a stick, and lots of words to post to your Facebook account or Twitter feed. Words, words, words! What could be simpler?

Also, they’ve come up with a brilliant catch phrase for using the device: “Stick it!”

Apple tv replacement

Those of us die-hard Apple devotees know that Apple tv is kind of a stupid device. Even the company calls it little more than a ‘hobby,’ though at nearly $300, that’s a bit more of a commitment than scrap-booking.

Some recent rumors suggest that they’re going to update or replace the current slap of hot-running aluminum (seriously, you can use this thing as a griddle if you’re not actually interested in downloading movies from iYou) with a slim device that has no on-board memory and only two inputs; power + HDMI. It’ll run the iYou OS and grab everything from the cloud.

We call bullshit! Instead, Apple will double the physical size of the unit, add in 2 terabytes of hard drive space, include 17 ports (12 of which are USB 3) and make it into your “home port,” tying your MacBook, iMac, iPhone, iPod(s), iPhone(s), iPad(s) and iStick(s) together, all dongling off the backside and uploading and downloading into a central courtyard of data and pulling out what each one needs. You say WiFi is how everything should connect? No, my friends, if Apple knows one thing, it knows cables! And new connectors! Mini-displayport! Mini-DVI! Hyper-mini-tiny-HDMI with double digital firewall protection that allows studios and TV networks to know exactly what you’re trying to rip off from them and allows them to erase things they don’t even own out of spite!

Apple tv? Gone. Introducing Apple DMCA Hub! Controlling and policing everything you’re watching, listening to and reading, while making sure you know that you never owned any of it.

Stevebot

This has been a long time coming and now they’re finally ready to reveal their most secret and super special invention.

Remember when Steve disappeared for a while? And they said he was sick? And then that other guy took over for a while? And then Steve came back – only he looked… different?

That’s Stevebot! And Apple is finally ready to explain the creation of an animatronic, low-maintenance, high-capacity android C.E.O. replacement vehicle. Stevebot performs all the usual duties of a corporate officer without the headaches of back-dated stock offers and trying to make excuses like “we’re only human” when millions of barrels of toxic sludge inundate your favorite shoreline.

Stevebot is cheap, because only the head and hands need to be “human,” everything else is covered up with denim and black turtlenecks. He only needs to move around a little on a stage, and sometimes appear at coffee shops with other corporate executive bots. Meanwhile, Stevebot frees up the real Steve to do all the more important things like destroy historic homes and park in handicapped spots.

One more thing

We’ve extensively researched these findings and are pretty confident that all of them, to some extent, are almost entirely true. We’ve already lubed up our orifices for new iStick insertion and can’t wait for the Apple media police to knock down our doors, ransack our apartments, deny us entrance and explain that it’s all for the good of corporate secrecy.

This is glassdog! The last bastion of truth in a world of hypocrites and liars.

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Facepeople

Posted on 14 May 2010 by Lance Arthur

Here’s what we understand about Facebook, in no particular order

You never had any privacy in the first place.

A lot of people are complaining that Facebook is too invasive. They say that the service (which is free) is taking too many liberties with their freedom and asking too much of its members, sharing everything they do and say with everyone else.

Number one: Whuh huh? It was our impression that you choose to do or say whatever it is you are doing and saying on that service. You’re still on the internet, you’re still typing into a computer sending your words and images across public utilities onto servers you don’t own or even pay for, electing to do so every time you do it.

What’s the problem? Why are you on there if you don’t want them to broadcast what you’re doing on there? Isn’t that the point? Why do you stay there? Are you afraid of losing touch with all your “friends?” The same “friends” you admit you probably don’t want to know everything about, just like you don’t necessarily want them all to know everything about you?

Idiot.

Number two: Aren’t you the same person already broadcasting your sex life over your phone? Aren’t you the same person who’s wondering why they might have a problem at work if someone happens to check their profile and discover those pictures from that one week in Mexico where you “experimented” with sleeping with llamas? Aren’t you the same person who thinks that all that stuff you’re posting all over the web will magically disappear and be forgotten by Google and never ever turn up at the most inopportune moment? Isn’t that you?

You don’t have to join Facebook

Did we miss the memo that came down from the World Government and the Anti-Christ and the Templars and the group that forces Dan Brown to write novels with his feet that said everyone must join Facebook? Was there a declaration at the border of every country insisting no admittance without membership? Were there armed thugs (hot, shirtless armed thugs) we missed when they called because we were out getting a bagel?

Who said you had to be on Facebook in the first place? And what business is it of yours what the hell they do with their own services? What, you want your money back? You thought all this time they were like some “everything should be free!” zombies using Linux on home-built computers made of weed and Slurpee cups?

Of course they want your information! That’s your only value to them! Did you think they want you there because they like you? Facebook is not your grandmother. Facebook is the fascist hoard telling you not to worry because they have everything under control.

And no one ever said you had to be a Nazi.

Yes, we drew the Nazi card. Already!

Facebook is run by a douche

What’s your definition of a douche? Here’s ours:

Douchebag supreme.

Douche. Photo not courtesy BusinessWeek.com

Mark Zuckerberg, who likes to be called “Zuck” (which rhymes with both ‘suck’ and ‘fuck’ though we bet you thought that in your own head already) is 26 years old today. Yes, as luck (which rhymes with stuck) would have it, today is the C.E.O.’s birthday. Happy birthday, douche!

You do know, don’t you, that the man is cavalier about nearly everything in life, including other people’s (or, as he calls them, “dumb fucks“) privacy and other people’s ideas. Turns out the dude kind of stole the whole Facebook thing (allegedly) from some of his college douchebag friends (allegedly) and then built the thing on someone else’s servers before ripping it free of Harvard’s clutches and striking out on his own, leaving everyone in his wake. And you must also know that Viacom offered him $800 million for Facebook in 2005, which he turned down because he didn’t need the money.

He only needs your life, and all its details, so he can sell that instead! You’re worth far more than $800 million, and he’s known that all along.

Zuck, we salute you! If there was ever anyone to take the mantle of Bill Gates in terms of cold-hearted greedy bastards, you win!

Facebook’s days are numbered

Everything runs in cycles. Facebook is trying damned hard to break out of the ‘next big thing’ cycle that was previously held by such memorable sites as GeoCities, Friendster and MySpace. Facebook is spreading itself far and wide, casting its net around everything it possibly can. It has to be so important and so vast that you ignore it at your peril, because all the cool kids are there and you won’t be able to see anything or read anything without membership.

But that’s a bit backwards. You’ve already proved, as mentioned above, that you love sharing everything! You want people to see your pictures and your video! You want people to read your opinions! You crave an audience and want to be more popular than your friends, or their friends, or people you’ve never even heard of.

You can’t do that in a fenced-in garden unless everyone else is also inside the garden.

But Google kind of already has that territory staked out, the ‘outside the garden’ area, because everyone goes there to find everything. And everything is usually on Wikipedia or YouTube, anyway. What Facebook has in its arsenal – the only thing – is a vast membership of willing participants who will start doing everything through Facebook (buy things, sign in to things, post things) so they, in turn, can take all those things and all the data about you doing all those things (what’s popular? who’s popular? what are you buying? what are you watching? what are you talking about?) and sell it.

Because they know you’ll never pay to get access to Facebook. Why would you?

We should point out about now that there’s no use looking for us on Facebook. We’re not there. Anyone pretending to be us, isn’t. We have no profile, we have no interest in having a profile, and we trust Mark Zuckerberg about as far as we could throw him, which might actually be about four feet because he’s kind of wiry.

Why do we need Facebook when we have you? And we have this? This is all we will ever need? People who want to be here, people we ask nothing of in return, and people smart enough to know better.

This is glassdog, the last bastion of useless information without ads plastered all over it.

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