H.A. Ters

Where do you get off?

2010-03-11T15:54:00.001-08:00

Seriously. I want to know so I can add it to my list of places to never stop at. This is a short list of things that are pissing me off, but that I have to look at on a daily basis. Leave me a comment or tweet back to me if you've got something to add. Maybe we'll write about that too, if we HATe it enough.

Large-screen laptops with their touchpad and keyboard shoved way to the left. Who are the IDIOTS designing these things? It makes me uncomfortable just looking at them. The only people this could possibly be good for is Latent Lefties. You know, the kind that love them some right handed Ten-Key, but still dig using a touchpad pointing device with their left. What? You don't know any? Neither do I. When you design a computer to supposedly sit on someone's lap, it should keep the screen centered in front of you. Similarly, the keyboard should be centered, keeping your hands/arms/shoulders in a somewhat neutral position. I'm not saying you shouldn't try to throw a numeric keypad on a laptop. I love having one on hand, but make the keys slimmer OR SOMETHING, so that I'm not reminded of this nightmare: Thanks for your "support."
Smartphone Facebook Apps. I don't know which foil hat to wear here, so help me out please. When it comes to my mobile phone, I'm a moderate texter. I subscribe to many twitter and facebook friends' updates and have noticed of late, as more of my friends are switching to smart phones, that it is getting harder to reply to or interact with updates from my friends because the "app" they are using doesn't actually update their "status". I can't reply to or "like" a post via SMS because facebook doesn't support that sort of function. I get a prompt reply from facebook saying that my friend has removed this status, so I can't like or comment on it. Horse-knockers, I say! Who is trying to push me away from using SMS messages? Are we talking about the whole conglomerated smart-phone syndicate, or just the wise-asses that think I would be better served by being just slightly more connected (and billable) to the internet?
Website Content Summaries. There are a lot of things I like to read on the internet. Some are informational and newsy where I may pick and choose what I want to read, and others are posted by a friend or other acquaintance such that I would not want to miss gaps in their thought-stream. It is at the friends that have chosen to literarily cock-block my usage of an RSS news reader that I have to thumb my nose. Why would you want to limit my reading pleasure in this way? I shouldn't need to go to your website to hear what you have to say, if I have a tool that will allow me to read it wherever I go. You can even throw ads into your feed, so I won't miss out on that part either. When you block the full RSS feed, it makes me think you don't really want me to read it. Is that what you want? Well then FIX it!
Tweeting ONLY to link somewhere else, and then having the audacity to follow other people. Dweebs, you are useless and unoriginal. There are many of you trolling for more followers with nothing to contribute. Please cease to exist.

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Highway Hate

2009-11-15T11:55:00.000-08:00

Driving annoys me. It's one of those situations where one is guaranteed to be victimized by some sort of dumb fuckery at any time.

Example 1. Driving on an interstate in a rural area you have the cruise control set at 80. While cruising along you pass other drivers or they move to the right lane and allow you to pass. Then it happens. Some popped collar, folded hat, Daughtry listening motherfucker is riding your lane at 59 mph. His mirrors are only useful for him to check the perfect line of his douchebeard or the tilt of his douchehat so he doesn't see your car up his tailpipe. When you look right to go around, you find yourself waiting in line as everyone behind you is now passing to get around this jackass.

Example 2. Same scenerio except this time the douchebag is following you, changing lanes with you, matching speed with you, but making no effort to pass you. He doesn't want to pass you. He wants to drive fast, but he's afraid to take the risk of being in the lead. He'll let you take the risk of getting a ticket.

Real HATers!

2009-04-25T16:02:00.000-07:00

Sorry to take you away from your regularly scheduled HATertainment. The following is me being serious. This is the home for HATe; a place we can rant about all the things we dislike in this world. We rant about movies, cars, and airports. But what does this really say about us? I know for a fact that most of the contributors to this blog are in fact loving and open people who happen to play HATers on the Internet. I sometimes forget that there are still people with real biases and HATred toward others in this world. I forget that not everyone is alright with others because of their skin color or sexual orientation or any number of other equally insignificant reasons.

The fact that there is HATe in this world is something I have a hard time tolerating. I was raised to value other cultures and opinions and I have a hard time even understanding how this HATred and bigotry can still exist. I try to look to the heart of each person not at their skin color or listen to their accent. I know not everyone is like me and, in fact, I love that! We can all learn from each other and become better people for it.

This weekend a very lovely man and his boyfriend were turned away from his sister’s home once her boyfriend found out one of them was black. Even before this they were told they couldn’t sleep in the same bed because they were gay. His sister allowed her partner to discriminate against her brother’s loved one. I just don’t understand this; she is open and loving or at least pretends to be, how can she raise her kids to HATe her brother and his way of life and the people he loves. Family is love and there should be no place in that for HATe. She says, that’s just the way he was brought up. I say, the man is 24 and says he knows about the world, he can shove his experience where the sun doesn’t shine. He should know that not all the things our parents tell us are true and not every opinion our parents have we need to have.

I don’t even know this bigot but I HATe him! He doesn’t know them! He can’t even comprehend that he could be wrong. His beliefs are so obviously right so therefore all the rest of us are wrong. The civil war was over long ago. I can’t believe that these racist ideas still persist

Air Travel

2009-04-01T17:56:00.000-07:00

We've all been through the airport. The government's desire to look like a friend to all and not be besmirched by accusations of racial profiling has forced the hand of the myrmidons working the security counters at our nation's travel hubs to make random searches and to follow a ridiculous guideline of how to convince someone that they were a potential threat and justify detaining and inconveniencing them for another few minutes.

My recent trip through DAY was no exception. I actually take my wardrobe into consideration when I prepare for a flight. I wear loose fitting shoes. I do not wear a belt or suspenders. I put my wallet in my carry on. My iPod, cell phone and camera are all in their own separate cases that are easily distinguished. My laptops are easily accessible as they need to be placed into their own security trays. Boarding pass and passport are always in hand. My sleeves are always short and pockets always empty.

That didn't stop our Mensa ready friends at the TSA from giving me the pat down, ball fondling treatment. They weren't concenred with my "quart sized ZipLoc bag" full of sample laundry detergent gel. I was wearing a fleece vest over a t-shirt and was singled out for wearing a "bulky coat". (the guy in the bubble jacket behind me walked right through) While my patdown that stopped short of an anal probe was in progress I noticed a TSA woman trying to rip the zipper off of my laptop bag.

E-Rock "What are you doing?"

TSA Cunt "Your bag has to be opened, sir."

E-Rock "Why?"

TSA Cunt "Are you carrying a portable hard drive?"

E-Rock "There's a terabyte drive in there. It's impossible to miss. I looks like a book with a bunch of electronic connectors on the back."

TSA Cunt "We need to get it out."

E-Rock "Do you need to destroy my bag in the process?"

TSA Cunt "We will be careful with your property, sir."

E-Rock "I'd like to use MY definition of careful and not yours."

I try to guide her in the proper application of force and leverage in order to open a zipper in order to extract the hard drive, to no avail. She kept flipping the bag and dropping it to find the compartment with the drive in it.

My hard drive rescans and wouldn't you know, it turns out NOT to be a bomb. My clothes are back on and wouldn't you know, I turn out NOT to have a bomb. Sleep well America, the government is keeping you safe.

The Best of the Old

2009-03-12T17:00:00.000-07:00

It has been regularly coming to my attention via my Partner in HATe that I haven't been holding up my end of the bargain in helping to flesh out this website and make it something more than what has initially appeared to be an exercise in automobile HATred. After all, I've been sitting on an archived arsenal of HATe for years, ranging from political figures to Styrofoam pellets.

Nevermind that making this blog was basically an idea that spawned from my head and conveniently lumped onto kEnny's shoulders to make happen.

The problem is, Allie has only one brain, and even that one doesn't usually operate at full capacity, especially when she's writing a book. The idea of taking even a sliver of that creative energy and devoting it to this baby of ours just seemed like too much.

Well, I realized today as I was sitting on my ass goofing off on Facebook that I had no real good reason for neglecting my responsibilities. So when kEnny suggested (for maybe the 37th time) I import my juciest HATes from my garden of vitriol over at Memoirs of a Gouda, I figured there was no time like the present to Git 'r Done (I HATE that saying, by the way).

A lot of those posts are a couple years old or more, although there are a few more recent, but when a HATe is good enough and visceral enough (as with Roundabouts and Circus Peanuts), it withstands the test of time.

So click through the archives and see what's there, and let's toast to old HATes made new, and to new HATes with which we hope to grow old.

Oh.... WOW!!!

2009-03-01T00:01:00.001-08:00

Do you have any idea how much I'm NOT liking Blogger right now? At least it is cooperating a little bit. I know this isn't much of a first post, but this just needed to be said after all the pain and sorrow of the past week. The pondering of how to implement the features here, and those that will be here later, has been fun. The actual execution of any plans has not. It's pretty high on the HATe list right now.

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What Makes Your (future) Car Ugly? Cadillac SRX Edition

2009-01-04T11:39:00.000-08:00

Featured Selection from Autogotistical Carpinions

I used to like the Future/Art designs that Cadillac has been pushing for a number of years now, but when they started applying it to rebadged vehicles shared with other divisions, it just looked wrong. Case in point? Any Cadillac Escalade you see can't possibly lose the air of Tahoe/Yukon/Suburban/Avalanchiness that makes them so ermmm... common. Granted, these vehicles take a lot of work to disguise, but that doesn't mean Cadillac doesn't lose copious amounts of respect for poorly done makeovers. Today's target is a vehicle coming to a Cadillac showroom soon (if GM lasts that long), instead of a vehicle that has been out for a while.

The 2010 Cadillac SRX truly embodies desperation and lack of monetary resources (which kinda reminds me of the K-car), which I can't really blame the designers for (I'm thinking management here) , but have no problem disliking nonetheless. It is singularly unoriginal in every way and has no piece it can call its own.

The original SRX (which was completely original for the US market, by the way) may look somewhat pedestrian by the current standards, but has character and individualilty wholly missing from the new model. Let's examine the sources from which the newfound ugly has been derived, shall we?

Like all the other vehicles in the Cadillac stable, the new SRX has the standard design elements that make them destinctive from GM's other brands. Unfortunately they put the Stink in distinctive this time, because they decided to borrow the same platform used for the Saturn Vue and new Chevy Equinox. While I'm not impressed with the Vue, I think the new Equinox got a change for the better, sharing more visuals with the new Traverse and Malibu than the Trailblazer it used to mirror. At least something good came out of this for the Equinox!

Just like the Equinox, the SRX features strong familial resemblances to other Cadillacs. In this case the Escaladian features are hard not to see, which only shows what a bad match this bulbous platform is for the hard edges and sharp creases featured across the Cadillac lineup.

One last item to address here is the front fender vents prominently featured on the new SRX. Where else have I seen those awesome wheel-arch decorations? Oh yes!! It was something from Ford... The Focus!!!

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What Makes Your Car Ugly? Pontiac Aztek Edition

2008-06-14T00:31:00.000-07:00

Featured Selection from Autogotistical Carpinions

This particular post has taken a lot of thought on my part, because I wanted to do more than just say "Hey, this car is ugly." I now live on the same block as an Aztek so I am given to dwell upon its status as an icon in the automotive industry more often than I'm comfortable with. I believe I can now say I have found the donors which have lent their genealogical makeup to this vehicle, and I can tell you that none of it is pretty.

To begin with, The Aztek was a crossover. In this case that means it isn't quite a minivan. Although it can be painful to look at, the hood line is generally longer, and they scraped off some of the back to "sportify" the rear and keep the "wagon" label from attaching too firmly (this way it rather slides off). On the plus side (some may prefer using the word size instead of side), this vehicle offers a similarly commanding view of the road which has made SUVs so popular in the U.S.A. In my opinion, the Aztek begat the beginning of the end for Pontiac's styling trend taken up in the nineties, whereby they thought that they could make anything look good by adding lower body-side cladding. It worked for many of Pontiac's models, but could not help the Aztek.

The Aztek was supposed to carry on Pontiac's "outdoorsy theme" inspired by the Trans Sport Montana, which was also not very well inspired. The original Trans Sport would have been a revolution in family transportation, which I think was the only reason that Pontiac used the same name for their minivan, as it bore no other resemblance to the concept. Too bad for that. We really lost out folks, but that's nothing new where corporations are concerned.

Back to the topic at hand. Where did the Aztek really come from then? They started with the idea of appealing to folks who really needed a minivan, but couldn't own up to it. But how could they characterize these folks? What features could they add to an existing vehicle to tap a new demographic? It would need to embody independence, flexibility, and use design principles perfected in the previous 20 years. What other cars could they draw from for these elements?

You really didn't need to read this far.

Really. You will be sorry if you go any further.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

The Chevette/T1000 family of cars had been sitting idle for a few pleasant years, and were chomping at the bit to be loosed upon the world once again, so Pontiac made it taller, wider, and updated the interior to match the best in modern adventure vehicles, but kept the same basic shape. There had been previous exeriments with turning standard Chevettes into exciting vehicles, but they were usually panned due to poor placement of bottle openers under the hood.

So we have the basic outline of the vehicle, but what could Pontiac do to keep the masses from exclaiming that they had just seen the Chevette reborn? They had to find a way to disguise it so that nobody would realize what it really was. Unfortunately they drew inspiration from a shining example of movie-making: National Lampoon's Vacation. I'm sure we'll never know the true reasons for doing this, but I'm certainly looking forward to the next car they try to sell with the same styling cues as the Griswold's wagon.

Wait. I think somebody already did. Does this look familiar? I think it might. If you look closely you can see the redundant set of tail lights that accent a very similar rear facia featured on the Lincoln Navigator. How odd!!

Now that we have exposed the Aztek's questionable lineage, I will tell you what was good about it. It could double as a tent! How many cars can do that? There was a boy racer version planned as an Anniversary Edition (a la Fiero), but it didn't convey enough of the Chevette's natural charisma, so it was left in the round file.

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I Piss On Your Flag!

2008-06-09T10:37:00.000-07:00

I was eating lunch yesterday in one of those chain restaurant establishments after which "Chotchskies" in Office Space was modeled, and among the deluge of knick-knacks and other "pieces of flair" bedecking the staff and the walls around me was a giant American flag. I found myself initially noting its garish size, but then admitted that I really do appreciate the aesthetic nature of our stars and stripes. It's bold, edging on boisterous, and its symbolism is pretty self-evident without being too on-the-nose. It could also never be confused with the flag of another country, like a lot of those "three color blocks and nothing else" flags. Yes, I'm talking about you Mexico, Russia, and France! This is not a patriotic statement in the slightest. Viewed simply as a piece of cloth, Old Glory is attractive.

I then began to ponder the flags of other nations, and I realized that while some of them were also notable in the aesthetic sense, others were just downright silly. I'm not insulting your nation by insulting your flag, but come on; if a flag is supposed to encapsulate the greatness of your country via fabric, then I think it's pretty easy to say that Canada blows. A maple leaf? Boring! Leaves are not only exceedingly bland, but they make your lawn all messy in the fall. They're also weak. A baby can tear one in half, for crying out loud! Look, I have a lot of Canadian friends. They are good folks, but their flag is ridiculous. Sorry Canada. Fail.

Japan's flag is equally mundane. A red dot on a white field. Oh the unsavory things this symbolizes for me. Namely waking up in the morning to find you've had a bloody nose on a pristine pillow case, or that Charlie's come blazing out of the bush and you need to bring in the reinforcements (if ya know what I mean, ladies). Look, I know Japan is all minimalist and Zen-like, but their flag inspires me to do nothing more than stock up on Kotex.

You want a much better suggestion for the Japanese flag? Look no further than the Karate Kid. That's right. Cobra Kai, bitches. Strike First. Strike Hard. No Mercy.

Then we have copy-cat countries. The ones who decided to look at the guys next door and go: "Well, what's good enough for you is good enough for us. We'll just change the colors around a little bit and no one will notice. Chief offenders: Sweden and Denmark. Granted, both countries are homes to things I love. Ikea and delicious breakfast pastries, respectively. But this is no excuse to have flags that look like poorly-wrapped gifts. If I received a present wrapped in the style of a Swedish or Danish flag, I'd set it on fire. That's right, kids. Besides, everybody does giftbags now.

Oh, but the atrocities don't stop there. In fact, there is a whole world out there to cover. If only I had the time to pick on them all. But don't worry, I've saved the worst for last.

Poland. Please, do your countrymen a favor and try to do your part in eliminating the ancient stereotype that your citizens are retards, once and for all. Changing your flag would be a good start.

Northern Marianas has a flag that could only be described as infinitely tacky. I could sit here and stare at it for hours and still not figure out what it's trying to tell me about that particular nation. What is that stone thing behind that giant star? Why the bridal garland ripped off from the local Renaissance Festival? Listen, I'm sure all of this gaudiness is significant to the people of Northern Marianas in some way, but to the casual observer, it looks like something stitched together during arts and crafts hour at a nursing home. Oh, and in case you think I'm getting too cocky, remember that Northern Marianas is an American territory. Marianas needs to do a better job of representing. Just sayin...

Technically, the following flag is not for a specific country. It is for an organization of countries. This is the flag for OPEC. Nevermind that it makes the work of Salvadore Dali and Picasso look completely logical, and that it makes the wrinkled ass of John McCain look nearly appetizing. To me, it looks like four heads, one of which is being eaten alive while the other is running away screaming. I guess is kind of appropriate, though to be more accurate, the bite should be coming out of the ass. OPEC's flag would be cool if it featured Chuck Norris engaged in a sword fight with Charlton Heston, but still it wouldn't even matter. This flag fails just for the fact that OPEC was partially to blame for making me pay nearly $70 to fill up my gas tank. Screw you, OPEC.

The worst offender on this list is miles ahead of all the rest when it comes to making the visual senses nearly vomit. I don't even know where to begin, but Brazil has really done their nation a disservice with this doozy of a flag. The color scheme is putrid. The layout is awkward. What's with all of those stupid stars? And the words across the middle? Very bad form. This fail is bigger than the biggest shaking ass at Carnival.

I'd hate to sound biased. After all, the only flag in this entire blog I've praised so far is the American flag, and some of you might think this is incredibly unfair. But in my research, I found a flag that trumps any other. I don't even need to see the other flags to know this. And why? Because this is the kind of flag that everyone wishes they had. Especially someone like me. Libya, you may be full of insane people and are on my personal Top 5 List of countries in which I fear being stuck. But no matter. Your flag is fucking genius. Oh yes, some might call it a tad plain. Perhaps uninspired. Empty, Spartan, or downright depressing, even. But no... your solid green field with absolutely nothing on it is the pinnacle of flaggy awesomeness. It means I can make your flag say anything I want it to say. It's so ironic, really, from a country not particularly heralded as a bastion of freedom, that your flag allows me to have so much of it! Here's my tip of the hat to you, Libya! Hope you like the falafel.

Paging Doctor God!

2008-04-28T17:04:00.000-07:00

Dear God,

I'm sure you're pretty busy playing craps with the universe and all, but I need to ask for your attention on a very important matter. See, there are some people on our humble little planet under the impression that you hold a medical degree. Now, I know you're all-powerful and stuff. After all, you created the planet a few thousand years ago, and there is some evidence you have a bit of a brutal temper, but nowhere on your credentials did I see you attended a reputable medical school. Granted, your son had some healing experience, but he seemed to deal mainly with lepers and resurrecting the dead, so he's a little limited.

Knowing this, why is it there are so many human beings allowing their children to die of curable illnesses under the belief that you and only you can heal them? I read of a Wisconson family who let their eleven year old daughter die of diabetes because they had faith that God running through her veins would serve as sufficient insulin. Not too long before that, a 15 month old girl died from a common bronchial infection because her parents were more comfortable setting up camp in the Lord's waiting room rather than one here on the earthly plane.

Now, I could be mistaken. Maybe you do have a medical agree, but I don't recall reading the part of the Bible that said it was your job to heal every sick person on the planet. Silly me, but seeing as how millions of people die every day, I just figured family practice wasn't high on your list of priorities and that to get by this problem, you made a few of the human beings on this planet smart enough so they could treat the sick.

The only thing I really notice is that the world is chock full of ignorant, arrogant assholes who think that they are special enough to receive the Lord's special healing tonic before the glut of otherwise decent folks who wither away from stupid diseases on a daily basis. Don't they realize that with 6 billion people on this planet, you're kinda busy? But what makes this most egregious is that these freaks aren't even acting on their own behalves. It would be easy enough to shrug off such fanaticism if they were using their own lives as the chips, but they're allowing their children to die for their dogma, and this is appalling.

I read a few stories about your intolerance for bullshit. Does Sodom and Gomorrah ring a bell? You also flooded the whole planet to wash away the idiots, for the love of You! Isn't there something you can do about these negligent, child-killing assholes? I mean, I know you haven't really done a whole lot about the other evil bastards plaguing this planet. Dick Cheney is a prime example. But there has to be something you can do here. These people are not only too stupid to live, but they're totally wrecking your reputation!

I know you've probably chilled out from the days of antiquity, but I think you've got some good old fire and brimstone left in you, and it's been a long time since you've done a major clean-up operation around here. These people seem like a great place to start.

Blasphemously Yours,
Allie

What Makes Your Car Ugly? Dodge Caliber Edition

2008-04-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

Featured Selection from Autogotistical Carpinions

Chrysler's Dodge brand has managed to build quite a styling empire for itself. On the topic of Value, they go head to head with GM's Chevrolet and... er, Ford. When Styling becomes the deal maker, they seem to have lifted themselves to the level of Pontiac from about 4 or more years ago. I'm not saying I don't like the particular vein they have followed in general, but they have largely adapted a boy-racer look to almost every passenger vehicle they sell, which I have found myself rather tired of when seen strapped onto anything less assuming than a Viper, Charger R/T, or Ram Truck.

I won't deny that it has certainly been successful in terms of brand recognition, and what better passive safety feature is there than to have a handy verb spring to mind for any pedestrian facing down a large metal contraption with a over sized set of cross hairs approaching them at high speed? Wouldn't you want to dodge as well? I've been run over (or under, as it were) by a car, and I would have done much better to have received the subliminal advice offered by a Dodge than any given by a Ford Escort.

Back to the topic at hand: The lovely and soft-spoken design of the Dodge Caliber. I'm going to change over to some Firearm and Artillery lingo to help describe it as well. I hope you don't mind.

The Caliber has a face only it's mother fellow Dodge brethren could love. It is by far the most aggressive looking car in it's class, which also defies definition. Can you believe this car replaced the Neon? It seems to be about twice the size. When staring down the gaping grill in front, you can almost pick out the lands and grooves. It is hard to blame Dodge specifically for this though, as Dodge hasn't had much choice. Chrysler has forced its divisions to use the same barrel across a multitude of firing platforms, seeming to change the length to fit everything from derringer to hunting rifle. It is shared with no less than 6 different models, although one might argue the merits of calling the Jeep Compass and Patriot separate models. The other vehicles occupy the mid-size sedan and (believe it or not) full-size crossover-utility segments.

At least we now have word from Chrysler that relief is on the way. If you want a small Dodge in the near future, you may be able to pick up one built by Nissan or Cherry. I don't know if that means the Caliber will stay in the breach to continue firing for future model years alongside the new outsourced compact car(s), or if this signals a retreat for this model. My opinion is that the bore length of this "small" vehicle exceeds that of the larger stablemates (and it isn't very exciting, either).

I'll leave you with what I think is one of the best shots of the Dodge Caliber, so that the wounding sight of it isn't so painful.

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What Makes Your Car Ugly?

2008-04-12T08:43:00.000-07:00

Featured Selection from Autogotistical Carpinions

Editors note: This is the first of many explicitly editorial pieces dedicated to those vehicles that rub me the wrong way. Later on, I may have another series called What Makes Your Car Not-So Ugly to round it out, but not on this blog.

Welcome to the first installment of What Makes Your Car Ugly! You may wonder how one like myself may be justified in asking (and answering) such a bold question, but be assured that I am as well qualified as anyone that might make uneducated and horribly uninformed opinions of somebody else's stuff. I have no business doing it, really. But I like to have fun with it anyway.

Today's topic: The Toyota Yaris.

I don't know if you have had the pleasure to enjoy their incredibly cute little commercials, but the advertising wizards were able to give this car so much "personality" that you forget how ugly the cars are. The hatchback reminds me of an overstuffed bubble about to pop, and the sedan is a stretched version of the same. In some of the advertisements, they actually do pop, as a form of asexual reproductive function.

In giving credit where it is due, I absolutely love the commercial where the lonely Yaris is pondering little MP3 players buzzing about. That one Rocks!

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Screw You, Optimus Prime!

2008-03-09T23:38:00.000-07:00

I like to think I'm moderately intelligent. A few years ago, I had my IQ tested somewhere in the 130s, but I believe it's more in the 120s, which is where it was when I had it tested in Junior High, when IQ tests are typically more accurate. My strengths tend to lie in analyzing human behavior and applying logic to philosophic situations. I'm good at recognizing patterns. I'm pretty evenly divided between being detail and concept oriented, although if I had to choose one, I'd prefer to look at something as a whole. I gravitate toward politics, the study of interpersonal relations, and love examining the world in a sociocultural context. My weaknesses? The mechanical stuff, such as spatial reasoning, math, and other activities that require me to apply my analytical skills to physical objects like mind-benders and Rubix Cubes. I'll never be able to build the bridge, but I could provide a hundred and one reasons why one should be built.

My latest mental conundrum? Transformers.

Yeah, that's right. Transformers, and since I am the mother of a precocious little boy who has recently celebrated his fifth birthday, I have been reminded that there is no shortage of ways in which a mother can be reminded that she is not necessarily the smartest person in the parent-child relationship. I can't stand these toys. It's not that I think they are inappropriate or because I have a problem with robots in general. It's that Transformers have a way of making me regress to having the mental prowess of a tree stump.

Elias received an Optimus Prime Transformer toy for his birthday. I looked, or rather glared, at the piece of articulated plastic secured behind the clear bubble of its box (which proclaimed rather prominently to be appropriate for kids aged 5 and up), and I said a little prayer of thanks to whoever was listening that my son had a father who could show him the way.

But I am not always one to back down from a challenge, so when I saw Ken taking ol' Oppy out of his cardboard shelter today with all of the vigor of a die hard nerd aching to relive a chunk of his childhood, I knew that I too must finally prove myself. I took glances at him over the ten minutes or so it took for him to figure out the toy's bewildering multitude of bending joints that would turn it from a semi-truck into a fearsome robot, and I began to get a little discouraged. Undoubtedly, when it comes to my weaknesses as a thinker, Ken, the guy who spends his days looking at specs for gigantic motherboards, has them as strengths. If it was taking him that long to figure out how to transform this thing, then I would bound to be like the ape before the monolith for over an hour, and would likely give up in disgust in half that time.

When I finally got my hands on it, I was determined to turn it back into a truck. But where to begin? Curses ranging in vulgarity from "What the effing h?" to "Shit on toast in a bucket" flew from my mouth at a record pace as I managed to nearly break the toy in two spots and then hand it back to Ken in a fit of desperate stupidity. I was heartened by the fact that it more resembled a truck than something shat out of the asshole of a robot-eating troll, but given the fact that this is a toy for children of single-digit age, I felt more retarded than accomplished.

Tonight I took a gander at doing the reverse--transforming it from truck to robot. That was even harder, and my IQ took another opportunity to remind me that I was perhaps operating out of bounds. I managed to finish the job, but if I'd been graded on it, I would have likely received a B for my efforts. It was the best I could hope for under such brain-melting circumstances.

I have waged that perhaps I'm bad at manipulating these toys because I have a vagina. Undoubtedly, if one peruses the predominantly pink and purple aisles of the neighborhood Toys R Us, one will find nary a Transformer. Not to say that a person couldn't traverse the store to procure an Optimus Prime for their little girl, but I'd say it's pretty fair to assume that these toys are generally not marketed toward the female segment of the population. No, today's little ladies are busy creating mental conundrums for their parents by squeezing tiny dolls into polyurethane outfits the size of a thumbnail. Those are Polly Pockets, but those deal more in the issues of fine motor skills than sheer intelligence, which is another blog for another day.

Twinkie

2008-02-25T09:57:00.000-08:00

It was 9:30am. I had been awake for nearly two hours, and I was starving. It wasn't just "any" kind of starving, either. It was the sort where one's metabolic functions look like a steadily plummeting barometer before one bitch kitty of a thunderstorm, except instead of atmospheric pressure dropping, it was my bloodsugar. I was on the road when the shakes started to kick in, and my stomach was staging a massive revolt whereby upon the absence of actual sustenance, it was beginning to consume itself while saying: "Feed me NOW, bitch!" I was determined to wait it out, to will away the demands of my most wayward organ, but there was no more waiting. It was either divert off the road to the nearest convenience store to grab something to hold me over, or vomit steaming bile in my lap. Not a good idea. I don't know why I let myself get to such a point of ravenous hunger. Call it thoughtlessness. Call it thinking (perhaps erroneously) that a girl of my size can perhaps stand to skip a few meals every once in awhile. There is also a bit of arrogance mixed in there. I'm "tough," dammit. There are full-grown adults who weigh eighty pounds who are still breathing. I think I can go 12 hours without a meal. Well, not this morning.

As I staggered through the doors of the neighborhood junkfood haven, I didn't really have a plan in mind. Actually there was nothing in my mind. I can't even tell you that I remembered parking the car. All I knew was I needed sugar or I was going to pass out. As is the case with any junkfood haven, sucrose, fructose, and every other compound ending in "ose" is available in outrageous supply, and I need not walk more than four steps before encountering some. So here is my big "Ah-HA" moment, for as I glance near the cash register (what I think of as the honey spot for all things fattening), I spy an array of Hostess snacks, you know, those things that are more a feat of engineering than actual food. I feel the back part of my mind groan at the sight of them. I've been culturally and scientifically engrained. As much as I love food that is bad for me, even I have a limit. But that back part of my mind also knows that it's not in charge at the moment. The feral little weasel in my gut is, and it needs to be assuaged forthwith. I step up to the counter and grab the first object it lands on: a package of Twinkies. I fumble my buck and a quarter out of my pocket and without even waiting for the change, I make for the exit, hoping that I'm staggering, and also hoping (needlessly so, thanks to the bitch that resides in the self-flagellating part of my brain) that the store clerk didn't think that the fat chick was having the physiologic meltdown that she clearly was having.

I tore into the package before I even got to my car and took my first bite of a Twinkie in at least half a decade. I had forgotten what they tasted like. The first Twinkie, I didn't even notice the flavor. I was more consumed with fixing the faltering machine otherwise known as my body. In fact, I think I nearly swallowed the thing whole while thinking to myself that this ought to do the trick. I should be able to make it home without fainting from a rare hypoglycemic spell.

And then the real taste kicked in as I started working on the second Twinkie, and the only word I could muster was "gack." Memories flooded me, ones that I were shocked were still a part of my internal hard drive. Memories of remarking to myself years ago that Twinkies are perhaps one of the most disgusting foods on the planet, those rare ingestible things that should fall under the category of: "Things People Eat When They Hate Themselves." Other players on the list would include Big Macs, Easy Cheese, Wonder Bread, and Dinty Moore Beef Stew.

There is just something so inherently "wrong" about a Twinkie. It's pure science. There is not a single ingredient in a Twinkie that by itself would allow you to survive in the wild, and in many cases would actually kill you on the spot if you ate too much of it. The overall texture and flavor of the "cake" is reminiscent of a Scotch Brite sponge soaked in anti-freeze. The filling tastes and feels like sugary lard with a metallic tinge that likely came from the machine that extruded it, and it coated the roof of my mouth like Vaseline. The overwhelmingly saccharine experience of it all burnt the back of my throat, and attempts at flushing it out with water were futile, as the greasy fat that was now lining my mouth acted like a water-tight barrier, barring my tastebuds from salvation.

To put it bluntly, my soul felt like it was raped after I ate a Twinkie, and I was left with the inalienable certainty that I was summarily subtracted two years from my life, one for each Toxic Deathcake I ingested in an attempt to recover my bloodsugar to an operable level.

And the kicker, as I now sit here comfortably in my home, thankfully not feeling the shakes but more like the shadow of death has moved ever closer to eclipsing my being (at least in the larger sense. I'm sure I've got some years left), I am hungry again. It's almost like in eating the worst food known to (and created by) man, I actually haven't eaten anything at all. It's like a cruel illusion, for I know the fetid residue remains.

"Playdate" and Other Abominations of the Parental Playbook

2007-12-26T10:36:00.000-08:00

I never realized, when I opted to have children, that I would be handed a membership card to an incredibly competitive culture of child-rearing. Those of you who don't have kids now, or do but who haven't been online (or on the right websites) or picked up a book on parenting in the last ten years might not realize this, but it's war out there, and for those who are currently enlisted to fight in it, these are but a few of the battlefronts from which you can choose:

Breastfeeding or Formula? To Circumcise or Not to Circumcise? Spanking or No Spanking? Vaccines or No Vaccines? Electronic Toys or Old-fashioned? Cribs or Family Beds? Attachment Parenting or Babywise? Cloth diapers or Disposables? Television or No Television?

And whichever side you choose, you are fighting for the ultimate objective: The Perfect Child.

What is The Perfect Child, exactly?

That would be one who always says "please and thank you," who will grow up loving his mother and father, be the star of his or her class, go to Harvard on a scholarship, and become a respected member of whatever career he or she chooses (hopefully a doctor). In other words, a child who will validate the choices we agonized over for months and years while raising him, a child who will be the living example of everything we did right, who will be the one that will make us look down our noses at in disgust those who did differently and suffered different outcomes. "Well obviously Johnny is a little miscreant. He was formula fed!"

I can't tell you how many times I've seen examples of such arrogance in fellow parents. These are parents who treat their children like leather-bound day planners in which they write their best intentions, hopes, and dreams. These are people who raise their children not like dynamic, organic human beings, but more like high-performance vehicles. Machines, in other words. Just like a Mercedes Benz requires an oil change every 3000 miles, Johnny requires his allotment of social interaction three times a week in the form of a "playdate."

A friend of mine asked why I abhor that word. Why it makes me want to vomit every time I hear someone use it. I'll break down everything that the word "playdate" implies for me about modern parenthood and the parents who use it:

1. It is a term that brings corporate sloganeering to parenthood. We've replaced "having a beer after work" with "team-building exercise." And now "getting the kids together" has become "playdate." This is because:

2. Given the changing family dynamic with a typical household requiring two working parents, something as simple and free-form as "play" has to be "penciled in." And we had to give it a cute little name like "playdate." Because it's like a date, isn't it? It's a social scenario where parents have to meet and put their assets (in this case, their children) on display like a status symbol, against which their worth as a caregiver will be measured. If little Johnny has a meltdown, then you have failed a little bit, haven't you? Clearly this is a result of you not letting Johnny sleep in your bed. He's expressing his angst at feeling detached from his mother.

3. The use of "playdate" also implies that you wear really high-cut jeans, embroidered vests, and likely drive a mini-van with little soccer stickers on the back. It implies that whatever hotness you once had that attracted your mate to you and got you pregnant in the first place has morphed into a Stepford-like sterility that is devoid of any and all human appeal. It implies that you have become a Mombot, and that your husband will likely be banging his secretary within three years because your vagina feels cold and metallic. Like an unused sink drain. Again, that's what it implies. If you are not a high-waisted jeans wearer with a sink drain vagina and you use the word "playdate" as part of your daily parental vernacular, you are part of a special minority.

But all that aside, I have noticed a trend in parenting, not only during my tenure as one, but also in the years preceding that. At some point, we forgot about our instincts. At some point, we became convinced that whatever we once thought was right was wrong, and we turned to books written by "experts" to show us the way. At some point, we said to ourselves that we weren't good enough or smart enough to figure out on our own whether we should pick up our babies when they cried, and from that point we looked at every choice we made for them the choice between whether we were raising angels or devils.

I stepped off that particular battlefield long ago, when I realized that even the best choices can produce even the worst results, and I don't merely mean bad children. I mean parents who are douchebags.

"The Secret" to Being a Prick

2007-09-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Human beings can be incredibly pathetic creatures. When it comes down to it, we're miserable. We know we're miserable, and we will do next to ANYTHING in order to not be miserable anymore. Those things include (but are not limited to): drinking excessively, abusing drugs, compulsive shopping, compulsive sex, compulsive gambling, lighting things on fire, kicking people in the nuts, primal scream therapy, and finally: clinging to the latest version of recycled self-help mantras that have been on the market for the last thirty years, but have now been modernized to appeal to your attraction to The Da Vinci Code.

What was that last one, you ask? Oh please, like you really NEED to. If none of you have heard of the latest self-help craze The Secret by now, you have probably been too busy being happy of your own accord.

According to the authors of this system, it basically boils down to something like this: If you think about something you want long and hard enough, it will eventually just happen!

Now, I know what some of you are already going to say. "There is nothing wrong with that approach, Allie!" Or some of you die-hard optimists out there are going to tell me that I am being too negative, that I will never get anywhere in life if I don't start thinking more positively about things, and by and large, I will agree with you. But here is my problem with programs that over-sell the concept of positive thinking, and it will be illustrated by a really sucky metahpor that I've come up with basically on the fly:

There are three types of vehicles you can choose to drive through life. One of them is a piece of shit that always breaks down and uses your soul for fuel. Listen to the song "Piece of Shit Car" by Adam Sandler, and you will get what I'm saying. You drive this car, and you begin to resent every other driver on the road for having something better than you.

The next type of vehicle is a luxury land yacht that runs on sunshine, children's laughter, and butterfly kisses. The interior is gingerbread and gumdrops. It makes you so happy, that you pretty much forget about the people in the shitty car, and you turn into a pretentious dickhole.

And then there is the "car" that people drive. It's the middle of the line vehicle that might have a crack or two in the windshield and might stall from time to time, but it will get you where you're going, provided you keep the oil changed, have a decent set of tires, and enough money for good old-fashioned gasoline.

In other words, there is nothing wrong with harboring occasional feelings of negativity, so long as you're still GOING somewhere or DOING something. You have to keep "driving," and remember that although you could be driving the Sunshine Land Yacht of Happiness, things could be considerably worse. You won't get there in the lap of luxury, but you'll get there.

How does this apply to The Secret? For starters, it's ridiculous in the way that it treats the concept of optimism like something that people haven't heard of, and that the Land Yacht is your only option. Second, it presents this idea of "visualizing your goal" as something almost mystic in nature. If you want a 15 carat diamond ring, you need do nothing more than cut out a picture of that ring, hang it up on your refrigerator, and think about it really, really hard. But this doesn't apply to only material things. Got cancer? Paralyzed from the neck down? Forget about that nasty medical crap, and just think positive! According to The Secret, Christopher Reeve was not positive enough, because if he had been, he would have been running the Boston Marathon instead of dying from an infected bedsore.

Think that last sentence sounds bitter? That's called "blaming the victim," a concept that is highly recommend in "The Secret." It goes so far as to advocate not only avoiding negativity, but completely shunning it, because it can seriously interrupt the positive thought process it might take for you to get your shiny red bicycle. Bad things happen to people simply because they weren't thinking positively enough! You must separate yourself from people who are having hardships. Only then will you succeed in claiming what is yours!

In other words, be a detached psychopath, and you will be rich!

And they call this shit a "Secret?"

So what does this boil down to? The Secret is nothing more than a tool to turn people into complete and utter... tools. It insists that you eschew things like reality, empathy, and compassion and turns you into a materialistic asshole whose eyes are focused on nothing more than the self-serving prize.

I think the world has enough of these types of people, don't you?

The only thing that should be shunned is this kind of "program," that at its core is ugly in the most transparent way in its attempts to lure people with the promise of happiness by bringing out what is one of the worst things about human nature: its selfish vanity.

In making you think that you are on the road to happiness, The Secret has done nothing more than encourage you to line the pockets of the only person who is truly benefitting from your transformation into a smilingly deluded imbecile-- Rhonda Byrne, the creator of The Secret.

Killing Me Sweetly Part II- Sugary Tooth Extractors

2006-08-24T23:25:00.000-07:00

There are some things in this world that even when they are not all that good, they are still somewhat enjoyable. Examples would include pizza and sex. Even less-than stellar intercourse that does not result in multiple orgasms is still better than no sex. At least that's the way I feel. You would think candy should fall into this category. After all, it contains sugar, which is the universal feel-good compound that makes all the right chemicals surge through our beleaguered brains. Unfortunately, there are items in the candy world that take us down the road to saccharine perdition, and often times, that road is paved with the expensive dental work or cavity-laden molars of their victims.

The Gouda today will chastise the candies that try hardest to keep the world's dentists in business:

Milk Duds and/or Riesen
JuJubes, Starburst, Now & Later

I mean... what the fuck? Where does the joy lie in rigid, sweet clumps of misery adhering to the cracks and crevices of one's chompers? These virulent rogues of the confectionary world violate the one rule I have for the enjoyment of any foodstuff:

If more time trying to get the crap out of my teeth or out of its natural encasement must be spent than actually chewing, swallowing, and enjoying said foods, it's not worth eating. Life is short, people. I'd rather spend it living off the nourishment I'm putting into my body than fighting with it before ingesting it. Other foods falling under this category include sunflower seeds in the shell, shellfish that has not been cracked open in advance, ribs, and corn on the cob. It's not that I don't eat these things, it's just not something toward which I tend to gravitate first. But let's save those offenders for another post and focus on the sweet stuff.

It's not that the above-mentioned candies don't taste good. I love the combination of caramel and chocolate. No- check that- I want to drown myself in it. I also enjoy the fruity fakeness of the Jujubes and Starbursts, although they don't really trigger in me the "I'm going to die from the sheer lust I'm experiencing from eating this" vibe.

So even if it tastes alright, the act of eating a piece of Riesen, for instance, is akin to using a pair of hedgeclippers to trim my fingernails. Why go to all that trouble and potentially disasterous result by eating that when I could so much more easily swoon myself into the titillating utopia of sucrose saturation by eating one or two (okay, a dozen) of something like, say, a Hershey's Kiss?

I do have a grudging admission, though. Maybe one good thing about candies like this is that by their very irritatingly laborious nature, they halt the tendency to binge. Of course, my tendency to binge (or eat, period) would also be halted if I had to make an emergency trip to the dentist to have the amalgam shoved back into my upper-right bicuspid. I'd rather just not go there.

I almost convinced myself to concede defeat on my own point, but not now!

No... no... Molar-adhering candies are officially dead to me, and I'm sticking to it, dammit!

Now... where are my Kisses?

An Annoyance of Apocalyptic Proportions...

2006-08-22T00:26:00.000-07:00

Getting goods from Point A to Point B often involves some kind of insulation from the shock of transport, be it a bumpy ride in a truck or the rough hands (or boots) of a disgruntled shipping clerk. There is an array of options at our disposal, from bubblewrap to these little strung together bags of air I've been seeing more recently. Those are all well and good. Bubblewrap can be rolled up and stored away for later use. Or popped during one of those fits of boredom that seems to require a form of repetitious stress relief. There is something particularly pleasing about that latter activity. So pleasing, in fact, that bubblewrap might be considered a Talisman.

But there is one packing substance that causes me to go through convulsions of disgust, frustration, and downright irritation from the tips of my toes to the ends of my eyelashes every time I open a freshly shipped box:

Ah yes, the stryofoam peanut. You know, maybe I am just having mental issues with things that pretend to be peanuts that really aren't, but there is something so inherently disturbing to me about these viscious little vittles that makes me want to scrape my throat raw with screams of outrage. I wouldn't call it a phobia so much as a source of unending irritation at their lack of practicality, their considerable bulk in that they cannot be stored compactly, their tendency to break apart and stick to your clothes when you're rooting through them, and worst of all- that squeaky rustling sound they make when the kernels rub together that produces needly little vibrations that worm their way in through my ear drums, tickling the little hairs of my inner-ear, making me writhe in revulsion.

Seems kind of extreme, I guess. I'm certain that this is a little quirk of mine that many people do not share. All I know is that any joy I feel when I receive a long-awaited package is drained away like a plug pulled too soon from a warm bath when I see the goods swimming in a sea of styrofoam. In fact, clouds of wrath gather across my sunny psyche while tiny, silver little blades of fury shoot from my pupils. I am even hesitant to reach in and pull the item out of the box because I know the fucking little pellets are going to go spilling out everywhere, and then I have to wonder how in the hell I'm going to get rid of them.

So I really really dislike these Nuts of The Apocalypse. In fact, I absolutely loathe them. I appeal to all those who have to ship a package to my house to please have mercy on me now that you know how I truly feel about them. I know I can probably do something creative with them. Some goofy craft project with the kids, or maybe break them apart and cover my lawn in fake snow. I can probably even drop them off at the UPS store or some other place that deals in domestic styrofoam terrorism, but I'm just saying that I don't even want it to get to that point. At the risk of sounding like one of those crazy people on Maury Povich who belts shrieks of terror at the sight of a cotton ball, I'd rather not have to be forced to touch them.

Go ahead and laugh. Just... go ahead!

Killing Me Sweetly Part 1: Circus Peanuts

2006-08-11T11:18:00.000-07:00

Is that title not confusing enough?

I figured that there are several candies out there that need to die a painful death, and there are too many to fit in a single post. So Memoirs of a Gouda is pledged to do a multi-part investigation on Friday's Leave it Dead column on the legion of tooth-rotting gastronimic nightmares from our childhood. As opposed to the tooth-rotting, gastro-orgasmic treats of love that we want to keep.

What inspired me to go down this path, you ask? Well, as I was swooning through a mental climax that can only be inspired by creamy mashmallow covered with chocolate and cashews, otherwise known as a Rocky Road Bar, I found myself wondering what could possibly kill this moment.

And out of nowhere, a Circus Peanut popped into my head. You know what they are- the fake, foamy, formidably funknacious, fucking GROSS candies that look like this:

I know they aren't "dead" in the sense that my regular Friday entry typically requires, but I think I need to work this bit of mental anguish out. To not "leave it dead", but to once and for all make them "dead to me". I saw some of these disgusting capsules of evil dangling in a cellophane bag in the corner gas station just last night, and I had my typical flashback involving my first bite of the pugnacious puffy peanut. It was in the third grade, and the girl at the desk next to me asked if I wanted a piece of candy. Upon my eager nodding, as any healthy child in elementary school is wont to do, I accepted in my hand the finger-like, flesh-colored morsel and took my first bite, whereupon the dire urge to vomit assailed upon me like a pair of rough cops on Rodney King. I remember looking at my friend, grinning sheepishly, placing the entire peanut in my mouth, and feigning joyful chewing with all of the skill of a taster on the Iron Chef who has just sampled a spoonful of salmon roe ice cream. When she looked away, I immediately removed said peanut, now tacky with sucrose-laden juvenile saliva and tried to figure out what to do with it. In a fit of ingenuity that would only befit an 8-year-old, I plastered it to the underside of my desk, where I promptly squashed it with my fingertips, like a giant piece of chewed bubblegum. I flattened it as much as I could, and there it stayed for the remainder of the school year, and as far as I know, for years after that.

I imagine that desk now lies rotting in the bottom of some landfill, but that mutilated, petrified circus peanut remains as intact as ever, holding my DNA like a solid piece of amber, only it's been avoided by every specimen of bug, mold, and vermin that exists in such places. Nature will not reclaim what is not of this planet, I am convinced. And I'm also convinced that the Circus Peanut should forever reside in the Hall of What Should Never Have Been and What Never Again Will Be.

Stay tuned next week when The Gouda investigates another conspiracy likely cooked up by evil dentists. The Easy Tooth Extractors known as Ju-Ju-Bees and Milk Duds.

Melons of the Apocalypse That Aren't On Pam Anderson's Chest

2006-06-19T22:57:00.000-07:00

It's like the little fucker is grinning at me...

Awhile ago I talked about how olives were Satan's dingleberries, and I seemed to get an equal amount of validation and disagreement on that to help me realize that I am not, in fact, crazy.

Now I need your concensus on another food item that rankles my gastronomic sensibilities to the very core:

Melons.

Namely, cantaloupe and honeydew. Watermelon is just on the brink of being acceptable, but I have to be in the mood for it. It has a fibrous texture that has a tendency to bother me on occasion, but on a hot summer day, its abundant, mildly sweet juiciness is a godsend.

Honeydew is a step below watermelon but only moderately so. I recently made a fruit salad that had honeydew, blueberries, and mango all tossed in a lime-ginger reduction that was fantastic. The dressing had a way of masking what I have come to view as a "garbage" flavor emanating from these dastardly orbs.

This brings me, however, to the ultimate offender. The Hannibal Lecter of fruits, otherwise known as... Cantaloupe.

Oh killer of joyous sustenance consumption!

Oh vile, malicious melon of mirthful malevolence!

You reek of rot, and taste like taint! Be gone from my presence, oh orange-hued perniciousness, and leave only in your wake a withering rind to remind the world that there is such a thing as elemental evil, for that is your only value!

Perhaps when I've restored my smiting power after this little rant, I will go after the citrusy Damien to the melony Satan: Grapefruit. Until then, I only have this left to say to the melons of the world:

You're dead to me.

3 Car Fads of Shame...

2006-06-15T23:17:00.000-07:00

A car is often someone's platform of self-expression, and people will spend thousands of dollars customizing their vehicles to set them apart from the other motorists out there. Sometimes, you come across real works of art, usually indicative of someone who put thoughtful consideration not only into the modifications, but whether or not they suited the vehicle. Often times though, customization ends up being outright automobile abuse, and if the car had the ability to speak, it would be screaming like Pat Robertson in a gay bar. Right now I'm just going to single out a few aesthetic offenses, and I'll let you all try to come up with some more. Lord knows, there is no shortage of them out there.

Like Pamela Anderson, there's something a little fake up top...

1. The Fake Convertible Top: Face it folks, you're not fooling anybody. Having a car with a roof that looks like it might come down is not making you look as cool as someone who has a car with a roof that actually does. In fact, it's making you look like a downright nimrod, but I am not just going to attack the driver on this one. Perhaps he/she bought the car used and they had no choice but to accept the blunder. Fair enough. How about the guy who actually said: "Hey, it would be too much work to make an actual convertible, but we can getcha halfway there!" Yeah, halfway to Dumbville.

Are you faux wheel?

2. Wheel Woes: In most cases, outfitting your car with a new set of rims isn't terribly cheap, particularly when you have the desire to get all fancy. A lot of people can't afford to plop down a few grand on the set they really want, but rather than be content with the factory standard while saving the dough, there are some folks who are willing to commit the equivalent of basting a poop kabob with a urine marinade and that is: Plastic Wheel Covers. Oh the humanity. Getting caught with these bad boys is like your girlfriend finding a sock in your shorts. Is there really a factory wheel that is ugly enough to require the attachment of these fancy frisbees? My advice? Wait it out for the real thing, people.

Hey, won't you just go? Away?

3. Pissed to Death: How many damn things can Calvin pee on? Seriously. When I see one of those decals, I don't care what the kid is pissing on, I just want to grab my sharpest key and scrape away. Or at least find a decal of Calvin just peeing so I can place it above the OTHER peeing Calivn. Now that would do the trick!

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Moviegoers I'd Like to Assassinate With Poisoned Darts Blown Out of My Giant Coke Straw

2006-05-22T22:46:00.000-07:00

It's inevitable that when you stick several dozen strangers into a dark room together, there will arise an occasional situation where you will get to imagine your deepest, darkest fantasies about what violent acts you'd like to perform on another human being, and then hate the fact you live in a society that insists on a system of law and order which prevents such fantasies from coming to fruition. At least without an accompanying prison sentence.

Freakin' law and order! Gosh!

Let's break the offenders down into categories and I will let you the readers choose the proper, befitting punishment.

The Loud Talker: Do you ever notice that The Loud Talker is a species of sub-human who only likes to perform its visciously infuriating mating call while behind people who are trying to actually pay attention to the movie? Why is this, exactly? Years of research have yet to bear this answer out, but I'm beginning to think that they and their close relatives, The Loud Joke Crackers, have been left out of the latest clinical trials on drugs for the treatment of advanced Dipshitosis, and that is truly a shame. Perhaps it's because scientists are reluctant to enter the ethical gray areas associated with testing meds on retarded people, but that is only a guess.

The Snorer: I can think of so many other places I'd rather take a nap, especially if I was aware that when I slept I sounded like a rhino choking on a puppy. I could blame this problem more on the makers of boring films, but if you are actually snoozing through Mission Impossible 3- a movie that plays on the nervous system like a three year old on a diet of Jolt and crank, you have a serious problem and you should stop making the rest of us suffer with you.

The Bringer of Children: This is not a generalized complaint. This is dedicated to the assclowns who bring their 5 year olds to a screening of Sin City because it's a "comic book movie." Perhaps they think the R stands for "Romping Good Time." And maybe they think that the kid will feel as happy as daddy does watching Jessica Alba dance that way (and maybe mommy too because let's face it, that was pretty damn hot) and that they are being "cool" parents by not being so uptight about what movies the kids watch. Look, I'm not going to debate the merits, or lack thereof of letting kids watch R rated films. I watched plenty of them with my parents when I was growing up. It's just that my parents let us watch whatever we wanted at HOME because they realized that some people don't feel comfortable watching folks getting their brains blown out while knowing a freaked out or bored second-grader is sitting next to them. This also goes to the parents who took their kids to The Passion of the Christ because somehow the Precious Moments bible stories weren't effective enough in the whole indoctrinating business.

And finally:

Cell Phoners: I must address you directly, because it's that important. I know maybe you're thinking that the endless requests by the movie theater to turn off your cell phones before the movie starts are just about as meaningless as the invitations to visit the concession stand for some $6 popcorn, but please- for the love of all that is good and right in this world (and you know such things are beginning to dissipate faster than our oil supply), STOP pissing on my weekly moviegoing experience by thinking that your phone call is more important to the 10 people sitting near you than what is on the giant screen with the moving picture on it. I don't care how much the movie sucks. Your Sir Mixalot ringtone will never be a better alternative.

Ever.

Thank you for your courtesy. Please enjoy the show.

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Celebrities Who Give Their Kids Stupid Names...

2006-04-10T23:09:00.000-07:00

It's a given that most rich, famous people have ids that make my three-year-old appear patriarchal by comparison. Of course if I had enough money to buy God, I'd probably think I should be a character in the Bible too. But that's all beside the point.

Living life by the pleasure principle might make for a fun night out on the town, but these short-sighted people are failing to recognize that they are spawning a generation of children who are going to grow up having their asses beaten senseless by the offspring of people who live in the bubble of reality.

It's not that it's bad to have a name that is unusual, if not distinguished. There are certainly a ton of Allisons in the world, so it can be refreshing to hear something different from time to time, but it takes a real ego trip into the stratosphere for someone (like Sylvester Stallone) to name their kid Sage Moonblood. I actually like the name Sage. But Moonblood? Why do I envison some kid with pointy teeth drinking thirstily from someone's carotid? Okay, so that one is relatively mild. How about Rob Morrow naming his daughter Tu? Tu Morrow.

Cute. Thankfully she's a girl with the option to take her husband's name, if she so chooses.

Then... there is Gwyneth Paltrow. Already naming her first child Apple (imagine in high school all the guys who are going to be talking about getting a piece of "Apple Pie"), her newest addition has been blessed with the moniker Moses Martin, making her a two-time offender for wishing repeated lunch money theft upon her children.

But let's get down to the weirdest of the weird:

Jason Lee (who is now claiming his name is Earl) begot Pilot Inspektor. Penn Gillette of the comedy duo Penn and Teller named his daughter Moxie Crimefighter, because apparently he thinks his daughter isn't an actual person who will have to grow up with that name, but the object of some inky comic book fantasy.

But who knows- maybe some of these kids will grow up embracing their unusual labels. Already the offspring of people who are outside the mainstream, they might use it as a way to further distinguish themselves as a separate entity from their parents. But I'm also being optimistic. Parents who are hellbent on branding their children with the hot irons of their own selfish desires through naming choices and other rituals best not mentioned here are essentially playing dice with the feelings of actual people. It's a way of thinking that is more myopic than my 75-year old grandmother. I mean, come on- Audio Science? Yes, that is a real name.

Save the funny name for your dog and cat. Speck Wildhorse would be a great name for a Chihuahua.

Not John Mellencamp's son.

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Culture-Killers

2006-03-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

There is a zen saying that goes something like this: "Wherever you go, there you are."

It's one of those things that has always intoned for me the importance of being good and true to oneself. It doesn't matter where you end up, because it will always be YOU there. Essentially, the world is what you make it.

I like thinking that. I take comfort in my internal locus of control, and I am a firm believer in the concept of reciprocal determinism (thank you Albert Bandura).

There just comes a time, however, when the life we bring to the party just isn't enough, where we find ourselves trapped in a place so lifeless, so insipid, so completely drained of color and originality that we begin to assimilate with the dreary landscape, becoming Bland Borgs of Boredom.

You wonder where this is?

Sadly, in my opinion, all you really have to do is take pretty much any random exit ramp from any U.S. freeway, and you've found it. The standard features are typically as follows:

McDonald's/Burger King
Denny's/Applebee's/Red Lobster/Olive Garden
Chevron/Shell/Texaco/Exxon/7-11
And of course the overly ubiquitous Wal-Mart and/or Target.

These are fixtures on the American landscape that we not only come to expect wherever we go, but we feel deprived when they are not there. How many times have I caught myself saying in the course of travelling: "Let's keep going until we find a McDonald's [or other familiar restaurant]." or "Oh there's [insert massive chain name here] at the next exit. We'll go there."

How common and trite we've shaped our world. How dependent we've all become on the mass-produced, stamped out of the assembly line predictability of these places. We've become saturated with the sense of security provided to us by nameless faces and faceless names who could care less who we are, so long as we're willing to keep filling their pockets with money if they offer us the right prices and the right names.

Of course many will say that American culture has always made itself a sort of walking advertisement for its own ingenuity; it should be considered a beacon and a blessing that we have been able, as a people, to create such monolithic symbols as Ronald McDonald and Sam Walton's great blue hope, because certainly- at least up until recently- you couldn't ever get Nachos Belgrande in Iraq! It just stops being a positive force for me whenever I feel like wherever I go, the only things that make those places worth being at are the same "comforts" I've left behind.

It's all starting to feel so homogenized and generic. Everything is sponsored by a massive company. There is no such thing as just an ordinary sports stadium named after its own team. It's just a building carrying the bannerhead of the biggest financial contributer on the outside, and when we hear the name Qwest Field (that's the Seattle Seahawks stadium for those not sure), instead of invoking the spirit of the team playing inside, we think of a fucking phone company. Yay!

So yes, wherever we go, there we are. Only I feel like I'm becoming more like the lifeless things that are there, and pretty soon it'll feel like there is no determinism to reciprocate, because both sides will eventually be the same.

And that, Congenial Readers, will really really suck.

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Sudoku

2006-03-07T09:02:00.000-08:00

"Oh great", you say, "Here comes that cheese girl again to totally beat up on something that I totally love!" In the words of Jud Crandall from Pet Sematary, I say this unto thee:

"Ayuh."

But don't worry, Congenial Readers, I plan on keeping the fare rather light for 2 reasons:

-I'm getting sicker by the minute today. Fragging sinuses.

-I have experienced a level of frustration this morning that can only warrant me ranting about it on my blog for a few minutes. It's only helpful that it happens to be Tuesday, the designated slot for my more passionate diatribes.

Sudoku: How When paired with Pokemon and Delicious Teriyaki Food, the Trifecta of Japanese World Domination is Complete

Oh sure, these little number puzzles look innocuous enough. And perhaps you're even feeling drawn to copying and pasting this little diddy onto your own computer so you can print it out and enjoy.

"It's only one," you reason with yourself. Then suddenly you are wandering the aisles of your local Barnes & Noble, Target, or Walgreen's looking for an entire book of them. And then you realize that your house isn't clean, there is moss growing on your teeth, a family of racoons is living in your hair, and that you haven't paid your bills in two months as evidenced by your grimy hands clutching the Sudoku book as you fill in yet another puzzle- in complete DARKNESS.

I was introduced to this game by my lovely father-in-law who was at the time recovering from heart surgery. As he tells it, by the time he left the hospital, pretty much all of the doctors and nurses in his unit were hooked. When I first attempted one of these puzzles, I was completely lost. I've never been much good at brain teasers or things requiring a whole lot of strategy. I enjoy strategy, but that part of my brain remains flabby. Involve numbers in these endeavors, and my IQ drops from a respectable 136 to uhhhhhhhhhhhhh.... nummmbers....

So imagine my surprise when I actually found that I was sorta kinda enjoying these mini-apocalyptic-brain-traps! I left my in-law's house that day, however, satisfied that I'd had my fill of the latest Japanese sensation. It was only a few weeks later when I discovered that this "harmless little game" had become a massively popular phenomenon. Entire sections of the bookstore were devoted to it. There were boardgames, online tutorials, messageboards. It was basically EVERYWHERE, and because I am the kind of person who at least attempts to avoid following the herd in the beginning (the iPod didn't suck me in until about three or four years after its initial release), I was successful in avoiding it.

Then I took a harmless little trip to Target to buy a muffin tin and a makeup mirror, and what do I see in the checkout lane but a row of Martial Arts Sudoku books, each difficulty level represented by a colored belt. Before I could even begin to talk myself out of it, I grabbed White Belt Sudoku and tossed it on top of my other purchases. I rationalized I would keep it in my book bag and only pull it out when there was a lull in activity.

Then I woke up sick and needed something to pass the time laying pathetically here on my couch other than my equally soul-sucking laptop. Suffice to say that the horrendous White Belt Sudoku book is now lying on the other side of the living room. Where I threw it. It reminds me of a deadly, hypnotic Cobra that bites me every time I try to touch it, and I feel compelled to go back for more, because I'm either stupid or I'm a masochist.

Or both.

Instruments of the Apocalypse Part III: Sequels of Shame

2006-02-21T10:22:00.000-08:00

It's Tuesday again. I'm starting to think that Tuesday is a good day to pontificate on the end of the world and the things and people that will eventually bring it about. Henceforth, it is time for another weekly installment of Instruments of the Apocalypse (*cue scary music and screams*). Did you really think that Roundabouts and Laws For Dummies were enough? Congenial Readers, we really haven't even begun to scratch the surface.

Bad Movie Sequels: Myopic Hollywood Executives on Crack and the Films They Greenlight

This topic has been sitting in the inbox of my mind waiting to be expounded upon for most of my life. I suppose that's because every year that passes brings a fresh batch of inspiration. This year in particular has been rather harsh, and by the looks of the commercials and trailers, it doesn't appear to be improving much. So let's just narrow the focus to horrendously egregious movie sequels (read: ways to pound something into the ground until all memory of what it was previously is completely obliterated), rather than mediocre ones (parts 2 and 3 of the Matrix trilogy) or especially rare ones that have managed to either match or better their predecessors (Spiderman 2 or Toy Story 2).

You all know what I'm talking about. If not, let me name a few, and I will just let the titles speak for themselves:

Son of the Mask
Dumb and Dumberer
Big Mamma's House 2
Home Alone 3 and 4
The Whole Ten Yards
Speed 2: Cruise Control
Miss Congeniality 2
Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo

Mind you, I could have gone on for several more minutes there, but my goal is not to nauseate my readers. I bet you are thinking: "So what? How can a handful of awful movies be an Instrument of the Apocalypse?" (*cue scary music and screams*)

Well, it's simple, really.

Whether or not it can be proven that the movies listed above create stupidity in our culture or merely enhance it in those who actually enjoy these films, it is stupidity nonetheless that is being pedalled by the aforementioned Hollywood executives on crack, and in this day and age we do not need more of it, especially the willful sort, because we live in a modern society that protects stupid people instead of letting them extinguish themselves (see Laws for Dummies).

But let's say you are an unwitting victim of one of these movies (i.e. a smart person who is stuck at the house of a friend who is heavily baked, or perhaps on an airplane owned by an airline with a sadistic need to torture its passengers with more than stale snack mix and uncomfortable seats), and you find that a small portion of your soul has been sucked out through your retinas by the mere act of glancing at the screen while one of these films has been playing. And now imagine that there are millions of people just like you (there are). Although it has not been scientifically proven just yet that people can die from experiencing extreme disgust, I have a feeling that in a few more years, it might just become possible.

The combination of furthering the spread of stupidity through genetics and smart people dying from having their souls eaten will bring about such an end-of-days scenario that makes horrible sequels a first-chair Instrument of the Apocalypse (*cue scary music and screams*). Sure, folks like Rob Schneider and Sandra Bullock will continue to have healthy careers, but the cost against humanity is much too high.

I think the only reasonable alternative would be for these actors and executives to be hired by a black-ops sector of the C.I.A. to make their wares to be used as Weapons of Mass Destruction against rogue nations. Sure, sarin gas and A-Bombs do plenty of damage, but you make people watch Batman & Robin, and dying of radiation sickness might just become more preferrable than being exposed to the likes of Ahnold playing Mr. Freeze, and without all of the negative environmental impacts!

Somebody, get me the President!!

UPDATE: Several hours after making this post, I stumbled upon a bit of news that is guaranteed to hurtle us about 50 years closer to the end of civilization as we know it: They are making another Jurassic Park. Start placing the claymores around your bunkers, people. The end cometh.

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Laws for Dummies

2006-02-14T10:48:00.000-08:00

Yep, it's that time again. The time when I feel the need to stack up some double-reinforced soap boxes (so I don't fall through them, ya know), and tell y'all how I think it is and I think it should be. I have found another Instrument of the Apocalypse, and I fear, Congenial Readers, that this one is much more dire than the Circles of Death I tore to shreds the other day. I'm out to be controversial, damn it. Shout hoorahs if you want. But keep the boos to yourself. Like our Great Fearless Leader, I only like to surround myself with people who agree with me and who will blow at least 10,000 watts of pure sunshine up my nether-region. I'm sure you all understand. ;)

Now, on with it!

Laws for Dummies: Forcing Natural Selection's Hand

I not only believe the government should stay the hell out of people's private lives, but that they should also stop trying to interfere in the very important process of Natural Selection. Which brings me to my point:

Helmet laws, seatbelt laws, prostitution laws, and to a certain extent- drug laws. These are laws that are mostly designed to keep people from hurting and/or killing themselves. If I decided to be stupid enough to hop on a motorcycle without putting on a helmet, then I would really be the only one to suffer the consequences. Sure, you could argue that it would cost ALL of us money in terms of medical costs, etc, but to me that is truly irrelevant, because even with a helmet on, a person who suffered injuries in an accident would still incur some expense.

So let's put it this way: Natural Selection is a very important process that involves the "survival of the fittest". It insures that the strongest genes continue on to further the existence of our species. Any idiot can follow the law, because any idiot can understand that there are consequences to breaking one, such as getting a ticket or going to jail. But you take these laws away, and all of the morons on the block will come out to play. They will leave their seatbelts off. They will leave their helmets in the garage. They will try to snort pure heroine bought from the local pharmacy and die of an overdose. And perhaps most importantly, they will help to make sure that only the strongest genes survive. Genes that are stronger because some folks realize that there is such a thing as common sense that isn't mitigated by legality. Sure, there are a few mavericks out there who break the above laws anyway and pay the price. These people should be honored for their sacrifice made for the better of the human race. They are, in fact, heros.

With law upon law being pushed through in an effort to shield people from the impact of their own stupidity, in a few millenia we will be living on a planet filled with folks who worship Larry the Cable Guy, think Chicken of the Sea is actually chicken, and our national slogan will be "Git 'er Done!!" Actually, given the mental midgets currently running our country, we're not too far from that, but if it continues, it will be the end of the world as we know it. Do you really want that?

I didn't think so.

While it's important to give people the freedom to be smart, it is even more important to give people the freedom to be stupid. For the love of humanity!

Instruments of the Apocalypse: Roundabouts

2006-02-11T19:50:00.000-08:00

Roundabouts: Circles More Deadly Than Krispy Kreme (not to mention less delicious).

It goes without saying how I feel about these rings of death, lethal cousins to the equally infuriating 4-Way Stop, that have popped up among the quaint Olympia/Lacey metropolis over the last couple of years, but if there is one thing that might make them more bearable, it would be the implementing of "Idiot Detour" signs at some point before the approach to the roundabout begins to send them off on their merry, perpendicular ways. This would at least spare those of us with brains in our skulls from being subjected to assclowns who:

1. Think a solid line in a road changes its meaning once it's no longer going straight, and therefore:

2. Think it's perfectly reasonable to cut right over on you to exit the circle simply because they were too stupid to enter the circle in the correct fucking lane, and therefore:

3. Cause people to stop in the circle, creating the potential for rear-endings and multiple visits to chiropractors, and therefore:

4. Deserve to have their cars riddled with buckshot for every stupid offense involving said circle of death.

While 4-Way Stops are more time consuming and almost as annoying, they at least allow people to have a little more pause and reaction time rather than just have them hop into a revolving idiot trap. And if that fails there are always traffic lights. And if those fail, manufacturers could work on developing remote, electro-shock devices to be installed into our cars that woud allow us to buzz the living shit out of the offenders from the above list. Perhaps it would cause more car accidents, but fuck it would be fun!!