What the hell? – Page 14

Materialism

December 10, 2009

I’m just going to come out and ask this. Just what exactly is wrong with materialism? And, in order to really answer that, I must also ask: just what exactly is materialism?

In a little resistance to Black Friday and Christmas shopping in general, you get people self-righteously looking down their noses at the shoppers, sighing that the season has lost its spirit, that people are just materialistic and *gasp* want presents, and are thus slaves to corporations by buying into this whole gift thing, that gifts aren’t supposed to be what Christmas is about.

I talked about something similar already three years ago. Though that was more about specific presents and attitudes towards them. Right now I’m referring more generally.
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Founder’s Syndrome

December 9, 2009

Is that what the founders would have wanted?

Or, no, wait, I have a better question. Who gives a shit?

Well, a lot of people. Because to even the most self-proclaimed logical, reasonable people, often “it’s what the founders intended” is a perfectly sound argument. I mean, it’s really not different from saying “it says so in the Bible” or “it’s a tradition”, which just about anyone with half a brain would tell you is fallacious, but somehow whether something was the desire of some revered founder is a perfectly valid question.

It is of course seen most often when discussing our country’s Founding Fathers. Is a particular law unjust? Of course it is. Why? ZOMG, Thomas Jefferson said so!
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One Truth Prevails… Nobody Thinks Much of Americans

December 7, 2009

My favorite anime is “Case Closed”, about brilliant 17-year-old detective Jimmy Kudo who got poisoned and transformed into his 7-year-old self under the pseudonym Conan Edogawa, and is living with his girlfriend Rachel and her detective father Richard (coughElectraComplexcough) though they don’t know who he really is, and when Richard is trying solve a case, which he never can because he’s a dumbass, Conan knocks him out with a tranquilizer dart and uses his bowtie gadget to mimic his voice and solve the case for him. It’s basically several hundred episodes of that, with everybody acting like Richard is so brilliant even though never noticing he’s unconscious and that his lips aren’t moving and that he never remembers solving anything. Haha.

Anyway, since the show is of course originally made in Japan, and only about a quarter of the total episodes have even been reversioned into English so far, I figured some things besides language must have changed. Names like Jimmy and Rachel and Richard sounded a bit English.

Yeah, looked it up, just as I figured. In the original Japanese version, Jimmy is Shinichi, Rachel is Ran, and Richard is Kogoro, as well as a lot of other differences in other characters’ names. The only one that’s the same is Conan Edogawa, but that’s because in the second episode he made it up on the spot from Arthur Conan Doyle and Ranpo Edogawa after glancing at some books on a nearby shelf.
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Delivery Exception

December 4, 2009

FedEx is so goddamn stupid.

So at work the other day, I had to send an envelope to some people in Canada. Went onto FedEx website, filled in the shipment form like I’ve done a zillion times before, and dropped it in the box downstairs.

The next day, I get the Delivery Exception email that the address was incorrect. -_-
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Grown Up Christmas List

December 3, 2009

Now for a festively ageist version of…

YOU SUCK!!!!

I’ve griped about certain Christmas songs many times before, and will surely continue to do so even long after I’m dead. So here’s another whose creator I’d like to throw screaming into the middle of the ocean.

This song is “Grown Up Christmas List”. Just the title threw up some red flags to die-hard pro-youth me. Then at some point I actually heard the song and listened to the lyrics. Yup, I’d say those red flags are quite warranted. :irked:

Basically, the song is about someone asking Santa for wars to never start, for everyone to have a friend, for love to never end. Hmmm… that sounds very nice actually. I can get on board with that. It’s a very nice song.

However! One little problem which completely ruins it and makes it not the lovely song it could be but downright objectionable. Remember that title? Yeah, the idea is that this person is asking Santa for all these nice things, as opposed asking for toys or other material things. In other words, material items are things kids ask for, but adults want nicer things like peace and love and whatnot. Because, naturally, kids are inherently selfish and just want lots of toys.

Oh, boy, yet another example of yuletide hatred of children.

Go fuck yourself with a crucifix, Amy Grant.

This Makes Me Want to Crush Skulls

November 19, 2009

With other skulls.

Taser gun used on 10-year-old girl who ‘refused to take shower’

The officer had been called to the girl’s home in Ozark, Arkansas, by her mother because she was behaving in an unruly manner and refusing to take a shower.

In a report on the incident the officer, Dustin Bradshaw, said the mother gave him permission to use the Taser.

When he arrived, the girl was curled up on the floor, screaming, and resisting as her mother tried to get her in the shower before bed.

“Her mother told me to take her if I needed to,” the officer wrote.

The child was “violently kicking and verbally combative” when he tried to take her into custody and she kicked him in the groin.

He then delivered “a very brief drive stun to her back,” the report said.

The girl’s father, Anthony Medlock, who is divorced from her mother, said the girl showed signs of emotional problems but did not deserve to be “treated like an animal”.

He said: “Ten years old and they shot electricity through her body, and I want to know how the heck in God’s green earth can they get away with this.

“If you can’t pick the kid up and take her to your car, handcuff her, then I don’t think you need to be an officer. She doesn’t deserve to be treated like a dog. She’s not a tiger.” Local Mayor Vernon McDaniel said the FBI should investigate.

He said: “People here feel like that he made a mistake in using a Taser, and maybe he did, but we will not know until we get an impartial investigation.” The local Police Chief Jim Noggle said no disciplinary action was taken against Bradshaw.

“We didn’t use the Taser to punish the child, just to bring the child under control so she wouldn’t hurt herself or somebody else,” he said.

He said if the officer tried to forcefully put the girl in handcuffs, he could have accidentally broken her arm or leg.

Mr Noggle said the girl will face disorderly conduct charges as a juvenile.

A little girl was violently electrocuted by a police officer, at her idiot mother’s consent, because she didn’t want to take a shower and was upset at being forced to.
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Croatan 2009

November 18, 2009

I meant to write this over a week ago, but just hadn’t gotten around to it. So now it’s about 11 days later. Whatever.

So on November 7 I drove south, stopping briefly in Aquia, VA to get gas and visit Grandma in the cemetery, and on further south until the 4 hour and 40 minute trip brought me to North Carolina’s Outer Banks. It’s like the most popular vacation spot for anyone who lives within 2 hours from Washington, DC, though I hadn’t been there. It was a lovely autumn day, and first Saturday for several weeks that it wasn’t raining, so I went, since I wanted to see something.
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No Presidential Speeches for Students?

September 4, 2009

So on September 8, President Barack Obama will being giving a speech aimed at students that schools are encouraged to show live in their classrooms. And, of course, conservatives are throwing a fit. Why? Because as responsible parents, they don’t think this is appropriate for their children to be viewing, that Obama is just trying to indoctrinate their children without their consent.

In fact, there’s even a poll on Facebook about it: “Should the United States President be allowed to do a nationwide address to our children at school, without prior parental consent?”

*facepalm*
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Stigma of a Preteen’s Preference

August 18, 2009

So this morning I was driving to work and a song came on the radio that I’d heard a few times. Thought it was a cute song, so when I got to work I went to the radio station’s website to check the list of recently played songs to see what the title and artist were. And for a moment there I felt I had to cleanse myself, repent, confess my sins, and go into shameful exile. For that cute song, I was horrified to discover, is sung by *gasp* Miley Cyrus!

Of course, that horrified dirty feeling lasted all of half a minute before I realized, well, so what? Sure, I, a 26-year-old, am “supposed” to hate everything about her, as well as the Jonas Brothers and Taylor Swift and whoever else. They, along with Twilight, are a favorite thing to mock by everyone from long-time comedians to the contributors at ROFLrazzi. It has long since gotten stale, though, save for ones that are actually cleverly done. But it doesn’t matter because they’re making fun of something everyone already hates so that right there is apparently what passes for comedy.
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More Pure Stupidity

July 9, 2009

Okay, so I was driving home from work today, and I’m behind some pickup truck, and even by pickup truck standards it looked rather rednecky, with pipes and shit in the back. After a bit I notice a printed sign is taped to the back window and when stopped at a stoplight I finally noticed what it said.

Don’t blame me. I voted for the AMERICAN.

:dubious:

Go ahead. Let that sink in for a moment.

I mean, for a minute I wasn’t even sure which candidate it was referring to, until the obvious factors of Obama having been the one who won and that this was, after all, a pickup truck, which I think is only sold to people who would fellate Ronald Reagan if given the opportunity. And it is probably asking too much of any conservative to recognize that Hawaii is part of the United States while Panama is not.

This has been Day 47 of the 100 Days of Summer, Round 9. Summertime!