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October 13, 2009

The New Worst Company I've Ever Dealt With: Dish Network

In all of my various exploits with stupid people working for stupid bureaucracies, I had not, until recently, encountered a company that fails to provide even mildly competent customer service as completely as Dish Network does. It all started with the move. I was told that I had two options for TV: Charter and Dish Network. That choice seemed easy: I fucking hated Charter, so I decided to go with Dish Network. I called up Dish Network and explained to them that I had tapped them to provide me with mindless entertainment. I gave them my name, phone number, address,...

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September 10, 2009

Jason Mraz Fucking Sucks

I remember the first time I heard this no-talent assclown's music. It was a video for one of his songs and he was going out of his way to be all "look at me, I'm happy and care-free but also a tooled-out hippy." The music itself was inoffensive enough, I guess, but it was completely disposable and uninspired. So, of course, the guy's fucking huge now. I've had his song "I'm Yours" stuck in my head for fucking hours, and I'm about ready to smash my new guitar with my face. That song is infuriating both for its banal lyrics...

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August 31, 2009

Two Rants

First Rant I had to talk to someone at Alliant Energy. As I was leaving the office, I looked up their number and called, figuring that I could get something done on the drive home. Over half an hour later, I was still on hold and I gave up. I got home and figured I'd give it another shot. I called, turned on the speakerphone, and waited. And waited. And waited. For nearly an hour. No one ever answered. Throughout both of these calls, they kept mentioning this call-back program where, if you didn't want to wait on hold, you...

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August 17, 2009

Charlie Keeps Getting Worse

I've ranted about Charlie, the local "we play everything" random radio station before. In fact, things have gotten so ridiculous over there that I haven't really been listening too much at all anymore. I started getting turned off to the whole thing when they started doing more and more talking and less playing of occasionally awful, seldom amazing, but almost always entertaining songs. Then they started broadcasting a morning show. My mind warped when they did that. I mean, wasn't the whole point of these no-DJ radio stations that it was just random music and, well, no DJ? The entire...

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July 8, 2009

I Will Never Own a Mac

Fucking seriously! I'm using chelsadilla's Mac right now, and this thing makes no goddamned sense. First off, there's this "Apple" key. The Apple key does everything you would expect the control key to do. So, if I want to open a new tab in Firefox, it's not "ctrl+T," it's "Apple+T." If I want to copy and paste something--and yes, this computer actually does have copy and paste, so I guess Apple is aware that it's a thing that you can have machines do--it's not "ctrl+C" and "ctrl+P," it's "Apple+C" and "Apple+P." So then you'd think "Ok, if there's this whole...

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July 2, 2009

Who the Fuck Would Do This to a Car?

I was getting back to my car tonight when I noticed this monstrosity parked nearby: Here's another shot: What in the hell is this thing? It's an old sedan, painted metalic pink and green, and then lifted so that it has more ground clearance than my SUV. The amount of money it would take to do this to a car is staggering. Who the fuck would willingly do this to his or her car? Why? Why? Can someone--anyone--please explain to me what goes on in the mind of a person who decides that he needs to spend thousands of dollars...

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June 8, 2009

Me v. Customer Service, Round 2143

I went to the bank the other day to deposit a check. I had seen a lot of ads and stuff for these new ATMs where you don't have to put your deposit in an envelope. Cool. So, assuming that this was the sort of ATM I was dealing with, I started my transaction without first putting my check in an envelope. Of course, I was completely thwarted by the ATM, which was not prepared to take my naked check. So my transaction timed out, I put the check in an envelope, and I started the whole thing again. This...

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June 3, 2009

Up and Up Yours

We went and saw Up this weekend. It was really good, but surprisingly adult oriented. It was definitely the most adult Pixar movie I've seen, which I guess isn't too surprising considering that it's rated PG. There are spoilers in this review. You sort of know that this is going to be a fairly grown-up movie right away. It starts by introducing a young Carl Frederickson. He's a cute little kid who enjoys watching newsreel footage of adventurer Charles Muntz, who's off in South America trying to clear his name or something. Carl immediately meets Ellie, a little girl who...

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May 26, 2009

Grammar for Idiots, Part III

In English, it is often difficult to decide how to indicate that a noun is plural. Sometimes you have to add an S to the word, sometimes you have to drop a Y and add an "-ies," sometimes you have to change the word completely, and sometimes you just have to leave it alone. And that's not even all the options. So, yeah, the whole thing is pretty easy to mess up--if you're an idiot. See, the one thing we always know is that we only ever have to apply one transformation to a singular noun to arrive at a...

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May 14, 2009

More Parking-Lot Shenanigans

Strangely enough, this story involves something that happened at my office, not at my apartment. Mr. Vice and I have an office in an old three-story building. The ground floor has three offices--ours, our landlord's, and a CPA. The second and third floors are residential apartments. The building has a parking lot in the back, and we rent one of the spaces. The others belong to the landlord, the CPA, and some of the tenants in the apartments. Mr. Vice and I arrived this morning to find a giant white van parked in our space. But here's the thing: it...

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May 12, 2009

The Smoking Ban Is Fascist and Wrong

I have railed against Madison's smoking ban since the beginning, and I am saddened to see that it will most likely go statewide. I'm not a smoker, and I never have been. Nor do I plan on ever becoming one. And I do agree that it's "nice" to go out and not come home smelling like smoke. But here's the thing: none of that undoes the fact that the smoking ban needlessly infringes on the rights of business owners to run their businesses as they see fit. As a small-business owner myself, I cringe at the thought of the government...

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March 22, 2009

Unmitigated Douchebag at the Five Guys

Mr. Vice, RPM, and I were at Five Guys this afternoon picking up some food before heading back to RPM's place to watch the Battlestar Galactica finale (which, despite the efforts of RPM's DVR, was awesome). And it was then that I saw one of the biggest douches ever acting like a giant fucking douche. And then I called him on it. I don't know how many of you have been to Five Guys, but it's this burger place. It's pretty good. One of the distinctive things about it is that they have giant boxes full of peanuts for you...

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March 20, 2009

You Know You Sound Like a Condescending Old Rich Lady, Right?

You know what annoys me? Using the word "dear." Not so much when people say, for example, "Did you pick up the things I asked you for, Dear?" Cause on the scale of nicknames for a significant other, "dear" isn't that offensive. I mean, it's not "schnookybottoms" or anything like that. No, what I'm talking about is when people say "I went to visit my dear friends Tom and Jane." What the fuck kind of person talks like that? It just sounds so pretentious and insincere. Am I alone on this one?...

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March 9, 2009

The Choices Some Women Make (Updated)

What in the fuck is going on with Rhianna? I mean, fucking seriously? Let me see if I understand this. Some dude repeatedly punches you in the face on the night before the Grammys leaving you bruised and swollen and you think, "Hey, well, whatever, now I'll just get back together with him. I'm sure he was just stressed." I don't fucking get it. There's a lot to be said for forgiving someone. Holding a grudge isn't good for anyone, and at some point being continually angry at someone else is just giving that person power over you. So, fine,...

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February 25, 2009

This Is Crossing the Fucking Line

I've grudgingly accepted the fact that, in our society, you can now be famous and admired for absolutely no reason. There are young girls in America that look up to Paris Hilton. That, right there, should be enough to let you know that something is seriously wrong with everything. But I think there's someone who's actually worse than Hilton. That person is Heidi Montag. I can't even come up with a good way of expressing exactly how worthless this thing is, so I'm going to resort to analogies. If Paris Hilton is a hangnail, Heidi Montag is inoperable brain cancer....

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February 9, 2009

Lipsynching Is a Sin

You know, I didn't care for Jennifer Hudson's performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at the Superbowl. I've never really liked all the histrionic nonsense people do to the song. But, whatever--it takes a fuckload of talent to do it. And from the perspective of appreciating someone doing something difficult and impressive, Hudson's performance was awesome. Except that it was a lie. Which is bullshit. According to Hudson's manager, lipsynching is "the right way to do it." He goes on: There . . . [are] too many variables to go live. I would never recommend any artist go live because the...

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January 21, 2009

Touché, Charter

My feud with Charter is second only to my feud with UPS. You could say that Charter is like the General Zod to UPS's Lex Luthor. Right. Anyway, when I last tangled with my dastardly foe, I told them to go shove it because they refused to waive a stupid, made-up fee they had decided to charge me. I told them, in no uncertain terms, that they were the worst company in the history of the universe and that I would never do business with them again. This apparently did not resonate with Charter, as I have gotten at least...

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January 7, 2009

Fuck You, UPS (Part MMXCLIIVq)

Those fucking fucks at UPS are at it again. I was expecting a package today, but I knew that I wasn't going to be home in time to be here when they tried to deliver it. So I was prepared for another fight with these worthless fucks. Here, now, is the timeline of how this shit went down. 6:58: I come home, see that UPS has left a sticker on my door, take it, and go to UPS.com to arrange to pick up my package tonight. 6:59: UPS.com has completely failed. The InfoNotice number that I am specifically told to...

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January 4, 2009

Motherfucker!

I hadn't left the apartment all day. So I had no idea what to expect when I left to go to a show with RPM. That was my first mistake. My second mistake was expecting that the ground would provide me with traction. Apparently, slow rain coupled with temperatures fluctuating between just below freezing and just above freezing means that the ground stops being the ground and starts being an exercise in high-school physics: for the sake of simplicity, we'll be ignoring friction in all of our calculations. The result of this whole situation was that on literally the first...

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December 23, 2008

"I Like to Be Here When I Can."

So I actually came far too close to having that nightmare scenario from that terrible JTT movie come to pass. I woke up at 2:30am Central and drove to Milwaukee. The drive was pretty ridiculous, actually. The roads weren't terrible, but they were far from good. In the end, though, I made it to Mil-town without too much of a problem. My parking and shuttle situations worked out fine, too. The problem started when Frontier Airlines decided that, instead of de-icing the plane and taking off, we would sit on the runway for a long time. Like, an hour. After...

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December 5, 2008

People on Dating Websites Are Stupid

Now that I've gotten over the initial embarrassment of admitting that I signed up for one of these things, I think it's appropriate to rant about the kind of shit people write in their profiles. The site I signed up for asks a bunch of questions and then you're supposed to answer in some way that tells people interesting things about you. Probably pretty standard shit. Unfortunately, there are also some pretty standard responses which are really, really fucking lame. Some examples: What I'm Doing With My Life "Living" Really? You're living your life? Gee, thanks for letting me know...

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December 4, 2008

Are the Grammys Completely Out of Touch, or Am I?

I love the first Coldplay album. I think the second one is good. X&Y is pretty bad And this new thing they put out, Viva La Vida, is fucking unlistenable. It's fucking crap. It's some of the worst "music" I've ever heard. "Roman Catholic choirs are singing"? How does that count as a lyric! Compared to "Don't Panic" or even "Yellow," this new shit is appallingly bad. And who the fuck is Lil' Wayne? I honestly have no idea. Have I heard something by him? I mean, what the fuck is going on in the world of music? Anyway, all...

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November 19, 2008

The Upside to the Housing Crisis

So, yeah, I was sort of busy there for a bit. But I'm back now--one of my trials is over and the other one is being rescheduled. Now, yeah, the housing and lending crisis or whatever really sucks. It's fucking over lots of Americans, and I fully acknowledge that, and it sucks, and I'm sorry--not that I played any part in it. But even in the worst situations, it's important to find the good news, the silver lining. With that in mind, I have to tell you guys that I was filled with vengeful glee when I saw this story....

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August 18, 2008

There's No Fucking "H"!

Surprisingly, this post has nothing to do with people mispronouncing my name. Instead, it has something to do with the Olympics. I was watching the trampoline finals tonight and, between thinking "How the fuck is this an Olympic sport?" and "I don't understand how this is a sport," I couldn't help but notice that one of the commentators kept saying that the competitors were getting a lot of "heighth." What the fuck is heighth? Is it like height but pronounced by an idiot? People adding an extra H to the word height has bothered me ever since middle school where...

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August 10, 2008

The Olympics Kick Ass

With most of my friends out of town this weekend, a wicked hangover to deal with on Saturday, and generally low motivation all around, I did a lot of sitting around watching TV this weekend. And I watched the Olympics almost exclusively. Here are some observations: I would do almost any of the female gymnasts on the U.S. team. The ones that are legal, that is. I would not do any of the female Chinese gymnasts because none of them are anywhere near legal, regardless of what they claim. I'm sorry, gymnasts might generally be small and young looking, but...

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August 5, 2008

I Fucking Hate Fucking Internet Fucking Explorer!

Seriously, this isn't so much a browser as a steaming turd that occasionally loads HTML files. Not only does it lack tabbed browsing, it loads pages slower than molasses and it makes my computer run slower than... molasses! Why am I using Internet Explorer and not my beloved Firefox? Because Firefox has decided that the bset possible thing for it to do is crash randomly. It doesn't care if I'm loading a page, playing a youtube video, or just letting it sit there, if it's the exact time I don't want it to crash, that's when it crashes. What the...

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July 31, 2008

Destroying Instruments Is Stupid

I strongly prefer The Daily Show to The Colbert Report. In fact, I don't really like Colbert that much. I mean, I don't dislike him, I just think he's greatly, ridiculously inferior to Jon Stewart. And even with The Daily Show, I don't really like the interview segment. I don't really like the interview segment with any show. Even when I was a religious Conan O'Brien watcher, I would mostly tune in for the monologue and the sketches. So it was that after the two noninterview segments of The Daily Show tonight, I started trolling around for other things to...

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July 17, 2008

I'd Totally Still Do Her, Though

Hayden Panettiere, the cheerleader from Heroes, is totally hot. She also apparently risks her life to save dolphins. And although she's a rich teenager in Hollywood, I haven't seen anything about how she's spending her nights doing blow off of guys' cocks in skeazy West Hollywood clubs. And, as near as I can tell, she hasn't nearly killed anyone with her car. Oh, and she's not the worst actress I've ever seen. So, you know, she's got some things going for her. What she does not have going for her is musical talent. Check out her music video: Now, unlike...

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June 20, 2008

Things That Make Me Unspeakably Angry

Twenty-two-year olds. My contempt for people my own age has almost no bounds, but my contempt for twenty-two-year olds is fucking brighter than a thousand fiery suns. It was Co-SME's birthday, so I briefly went to The Plaza. And what I saw there made me furious. What the fuck is wrong with these people? Skinny jeans on fucking everyone. And the girls that weren't wearing skinny jeans were wearing fucking trash bags and tights. What the motherfuck is going on with these people? But even that's not the worst of it. There was one guy there who was just a...

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June 6, 2008

Hell Isn't Hot, it's Humid

My god, the entire fucking world has turned into a swamp. Seriously, the goddamned humidity is at 83 percent. It's like walking around in a fucking sauna all day. Only it's not as hot, I guess, so that's good. But it's still bad. And I can't fucking handle it. Being from Arizona, I can handle heat. That's different than saying I enjoy the heat, but I can fucking deal with temperatures over one-hundred degrees. And I'd much rather do that than deal with what's going on right now. I feel like I'm fucking drowning every time I go outside. Everything...

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June 5, 2008

Grammar for Idiots, Part II

In English, we use the apostrophe for several purposes. Two of these uses are most common: we use the apostrophe to indicate that some noun possesses something ("This is John's book" or "That is my cat's favorite toy") and to indicate contractions ("I'll be back" or "He's more machine, now, than man"). We do not use the apostrophe to indicate plurality--ever. So all those fucking signs out there that advertise "CD's" are not only wrong, they are offensive. That's all fairly simple, I think, but now it's going to get complicated--if you're an idiot. See, people seem to have trouble...

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June 4, 2008

I Fucking Hate You, Hillary Fucking Clinton

I'm going to draw an analogy between what Hillary Fucking Clinton has been up to and a not entirely hypothetical from my own life. First I'll present what Hillary Fucking Clinton actually did, then I'll make a plausible analogy about myself. For context, I'll be using a hypothetical about the one time I've run for an elected position in my life: Law Review elections. What Hillary Fucking Clinton did: Acknowledge that the delegates from Florida and Michigan wouldn't count but then campaign there, anyway. Hypothetical analogy from my own life: Proxy voting is allowed at Law Review elections, but only...

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April 30, 2008

What the Fuck Are We Paying Attention To?

For fuck's sake, people. Can someone sit me down and explain to me, using really short words, why there is a controversy over what Barack Obama's jackass of a pastor said? Seriously. I just want to make sure I understand what's happening here, so let's recap. Obama went to a church. The guy that delivered the sermons at that church made completely ridiculous remarks after Obama stopped going to the church. And that's the whole thing, right? I mean, I didn't miss something, like the part where Obama told the guy to say those wacky things? That didn't happen, right?...

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April 29, 2008

What's the Point, Really?

I was walking to the courthouse here in Madison yesterday when I found that I was surrounded by people with signs and shit. There were about seven people, each holding antiwar signs. Some of them had slogans on them like "Honk to end the war." And a few passing drivers would honk. But I just thought to myself "What the fuck do you hope to accomplish here?" I mean, certainly you're not hoping to raise awareness. Everyone knows we're at war, right? I mean, most people do. And the people that don't probably can't even read your signs, so they...

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April 22, 2008

Messages to Random People

First message: There are a lot of things you might be, but one of the things you definitely are is a raging bitch. I mean, I know it, you know it, everybody knows it. It's ok--I'm kind of an asshole. It's just the way we are. Or at least that's what I thought. But today, out of fucking nowhere, you decided not to be a bitch and, instead, to be relatively nice. In fact, extremely nice. Why the fuck did you do that? Were you feeling bad for previously being such a huge bitch? Or do you just have some...

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April 18, 2008

Yay Obama!

A while ago, I was having this conversation with a friend of mine about how I hated Hillary Clinton. My friend then accused me of not supporting her candidacy because she's a woman. That was fucking preposterous and, given my relationship with that friend, kind of hurtful because, as is now a well-established principle, I am not a sexist. I told my friend this, and then she asked me a question I couldn't answer: which of her policies do you disagree with? It's not that I agreed with all her policies, it's that I didn't know which of her ideas...

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April 16, 2008

Fuck Kim Kardashian. In a Bad Way.

I think celebrities are stupid. I think that celebrities are, for the most part, worthless, vapid people. I think that people who are obsessed with celebrities are even stupider. I think it is extremely depressing that there are people in the world who think of Paris Hilton as a role model. Still, I check The Superficial several times a day. I do this for two reasons. First, they post pictures of hot girls at least several times a week. Second, they don't so much glorify celebrities as they do make fun of them. I love seeing people I hate fail,...

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April 12, 2008

Another Reason Why I Should Be in Charge of the Major Networks

I've made no secret of my love for the show Heroes. Well, let me rephrase. Approximately seven-eighths of the first season of Hearos was pretty much some of the best TV ever. Then that season ended and it was, well, not the best ending. In fact, it was one of the worst season finales I can think of. Then I got all geared up for the second season... and it kinda sucked. It was missing all the things that made the first season cool--you know, stuff like character development and a coherent story. Oh, and Hiro was in fucking feudal...

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April 9, 2008

Label Whores Are Idiots

I don't know if any of you ever go to the blogs in my blogroll, but I read most of them regularly. One of my favorites is In It But Not Of It, written by a guy who called mike. I agree with most of the random stuff he writes about and I enjoy his writing style. Recently, however, mike posted about how he spends his money on Lacoste polo shirts. And I thought to myself, "Jesus, that's an absurdly stupid way to spend money." Seriously, $100 for a fucking shirt with a stupid little alligator on it? That's fucking...

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April 2, 2008

Grammar for Idiots, Part I

In English, subjects and verbs have to agree. For example, "He runs" is correct, but "They runs" is incorrect. The latter should be "They run." When the noun is singular, as in "he runs," the verb must also be singular. When the noun is plural, as in "they run," the verb must also be plural. Now it's going to get complicated--if you're an idiot. You see, our language has many words for things that are really collections of other things. For example, instead of forcing us to say "a number of animals of the same species doing stuff together," English...

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April 1, 2008

They Deserve the Curse

I don't really like baseball. In fact, I actively dislike it. I think it's a boring, tedious sport, and I think that far too many of the people involved with it are unscrupulous pseudo-athletes, not to mention generally bad people. Still, one of my favorite memories from a few summers ago was watching the Cubs play at Wrigley Field with Mr. Vice, pH, and Emily-in-Chief. That was a just a good time at the ballpark, even though I hardly remember the game. One thing I do remember, though, was thinking how cool it was that there were all these bars...

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March 25, 2008

Judicial Elections Are Stupid

Even before I went to law school, it seemed to me that electing judges--the people in our system that are most supposed to make decisions based on something other than what they happen to believe personally--is stupid. The federal system, at least as it was explained to me in sixth grade, made a hell of a lot of sense: in a representative democracy, you have to strike a balance between giving the majority what it wants and protecting the rights of the minority. Electing the legislature makes sense, then, because it means that the people that write the laws are,...

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March 22, 2008

I'd Be Just Fine Without You

A friend of mine once described U2 as a band that people who know absolutely nothing about music really like. I think she meant that it's an easy enough band to enjoy but that they're really not all that special. I tend to agree, which means that the fact that some people call U2 their favorite band. I mean, ok, U2 was the biggest band in the universe at one point. But that point was twenty-five years ago--I think we can move on. I mean, sure, The Joshua Tree, and Unforgettable Fire were decent albums. But the fact is that,...

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March 10, 2008

Harbingers of Doom

We are fucked. Oil prices are breaking new records every day. We are mired in an endless war. Our President doesn't seem to mind torture. Our leaders are more corrupt than ever. Or perhaps they're not, which is even scarier. Yes, it seems that at almost every turn, we are confronted by evidence that our entire civilization is heading for the shit can. But the most compelling evidence that our culture is (rightfully) doomed comes from Hollywood. Yes, at a time when the entire entertainment industry seems to be completely out of original ideas and left with no option but...

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March 7, 2008

Fascists Come in All Shapes and Sizes

As some of you may or may not have noticed, I love curse words. Although I have lately attempted to cultivate the ability to curb my use of swearing in certain circumstances, I nonetheless talk like a sailor in normal circumstances. It should come as no surprise, then, that I find South Pasadena's attempt to ban cursing to be, well, fucktarded. South Pasadena's City Council passed a proclamation making the first week in March "No Cussing Week." It's a largely symbolic gesture aimed at increasing civility and "elevat[ing] the level of discourse." Because there's no better way to elevate discourse...

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March 1, 2008

The Whole Fucking World Is a Fraud

It seems like lately everyone is lying about everything. First, there was the whole A Million Little Pieces thing. Then, there was Kaavya Viswanathan, the "prodigy" novelist and Harvard student whose novel was discovered to be riddled with blatantly plagiarized passages. Then Marilee Jones, Dean of Admissions at MIT, admitted that she had completely made up several degrees she listed on her resume. And, perhaps most damaging to Mr. Utah, it was revealed that Bear Grylls is a fraud. And just today, these stories are on CNN's front page: Misha Defonseca, the author of a book called Misha: A Memoire...

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February 28, 2008

Ridiculous Shit that Happened Today

First, remember that special Best Buy was offering on Blackberrys? The one that jackass told me would be over last Friday? Well, I was at the Best Buy looking at something we need for the office today--something that was incredibly overpriced--and, just out of curiosity, I went and saw what the normal, nonsale price on the Blackberry was. To my shock, the price tag still said $79. Well, what the fuck is that, I thought. This sale was supposed to be over almost a week ago. So I asked the woman who was there if that was some sort of...

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February 26, 2008

If You Were My Daughters, I'd Disown You

Through the years, I've known a lot of people that were completely full of themselves. But none of the people I've ever met have been as completely and egregiously diluted as the two eighteen-year-old girls who are accusing Southwest Airlines of discriminating against them because they're too pretty. These girls sound like some of the most worthless human beings on the fucking planet. Let's take a look at some of the unbelievable treatment they were subjected to because of their unbelievable looks.As soon as they boarded, [Nisreen] Swedberg says she asked for a bottle of water and was told she...

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February 21, 2008

Apology to the Guy at the Best Buy (This Time, the One in the Cell Phone Department)

I acknowledge that I owe you an apology, Guy at the Best Buy, but let me explain my side of the story first. My phone contract with my current company is about to run out. That means I get to buy a new phone, which, for someone as obsessed with technology as me, is just way too fun. I was extremely excited to see, then, that Best Buy has the Blackberry Curve on sale for $80. That's a fucking bargain. But here's the rub, Guy at the Best Buy: my contract with Alltel, my current cell-phone people, doesn't expire until...

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February 6, 2008

I Hate the Phone Company

At least one of the reasons that I'm excited about starting up our own business is the fact that, at least theoretically, I'll be able to set my own hours. I say "theoretically" because I'm pretty sure that once we have a good amount of business, we'll end up working pretty much normal business hours, anyway. I know that it's hard for me to motivate myself to do work after 5pm. And, of course, we'll have to go to court and meet with clients, and we can't very well do either of those things at 11pm. Still, whenever those concerns...

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January 28, 2008

It Makes Me So Angry . . . . (Updated)

I am not an ad executive. I have never been to business school or even taken a marketing class. I have never written copy or tried to sell anything. I am completely naive as to what it takes to brand and sell a product. I want you all to keep this in mind for what follows. You see, although I am completely ignorant as to what it takes to market a product, I would assume--based on nothing other than common sense (which apparently tells some people that the ass is a reproductive organ)--that an advertising campaign that makes anyone that...

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January 27, 2008

Of Repression and Butt Babies

Apparently, the FCC, those minions of repression and near fascism, have decided to fine ABC almost $1.5 million after it showed a naked female butt during prime time. There are a couple of things I'd like to say here. First of all, our society really needs to get its head out of its ass. Everyone has butts, just like some people have tits and vaginas and other people have cocks. It's not the fucking end of the world, and it's a stupid attitude to decide that all nudity is inherently offensive or sexual or whatever. I mean, seriously. Why do...

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January 21, 2008

But There Was No Joy in Mudville . . . .

I can honestly say that I was more excited for the Packers-Giants game today than any other professional sports game ever, mostly due to the fact that this is one of the few such games I've ever been excited about. This after a lifetime of hating all sports. That started changing this year, first with watching the Badgers every week at L-Dawg and X-tina's. And then, when that was all over, Mr. Vice and pH got me excited for the Packers. The three of us ended up in a bowling alley watching the Packers-Cowboys game, and I didn't mind standing...

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January 19, 2008

With Apologies to Dee . . .

I watched the movie Gone Baby Gone last night. It was really, really good, which is hard for me to admit seeing as how there were two Afflecks involved in its production. But the movie was very well written and surprisingly unafflecky. And the younger Affleck did a very good job. Except in one crucial aspect of his performance: his infuriating Boston accent. Now, I've only been to Boston once--on a school trip when I was a little kid. I remember liking it a lot because we got to see a bunch of really cool American history-related things. I do...

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January 14, 2008

Where No Untalented Black Man Has Gone Before . . . . (Updated)

I'm just going to go ahead and admit this for anyone that hasn't already picked up on this: I love Star Trek. I never really liked the original series. I think it's cheesy, predictable, and boring. I can see past the amazingly crappy special effects, but most of the stories are transparent morality plays and, as a result, all the characters are either completely flat or absolutely overdone. No, my love of Star Trek started with The Next Generation. That show was awesome. I still remember being relatively young and getting really excited whenever Jean-Luc Picard would start doing his...

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January 3, 2008

Germophobes Are Stupid

One time in college, I was at a movie theater with some friends. One of my friends and I were in the restroom just before the show. We washed our hands, and headed for the exit. I noticed that my friend took his long shirt sleeve and wrapped his hand in it before touching the door handle. "What the fuck are you doing?" I asked him. "Can you imagine all the people who come in here every day and don't wash their hands and then touch this handle? I don't want other people's shit on my hand." "You're a fucking...

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December 18, 2007

Don't Call Me Ishmael

It had never occurred to me that my middle name--Ismael--might be difficult for white people to pronounce. I mean, Spanish is an almost completely phonetic language--how hard can it possibly be? Then, one time, I wrote it out for an extremely white friend of mine who was into scooters and the whole mod thing. Anyway, he pronounced it "Is-male" and couldn't conceive that he had pronounced it incorrectly. But that's hardly the most offensive mispronunciation. Although I doubt that many of the people that mispronounce my name have actually read Moby Dick, nearly everyone is familiar with that book's infernal...

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December 16, 2007

Kill 'Em All

I probably know as little about baseball as it is possible to know while still being able to correctly identify a baseball game in progress. There are bats involved, I think. And something about grand slams, although baseball grand slams apparently have nothing to do with breakfast items at Denny's. In any event, I don't know anything about baseball and I think it's a boring fucking sport and I'd rather gouge my eyes out with a baseball glove than watch baseball. While watching the Packers game today, the issue of the Mitchell Report came up. But I've read about the...

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December 14, 2007

Knight Industries Three Thousand?

So, Knight Rider, perhaps the best show of the 1980s, is, like everything else that was once good, bad, terrible, excellent, or mediocre, getting remade. That may or may not be cool, I'm going to wait and see. But the show's already got one strike against it: KITT will not be a 1982 Trans Am. Instead, it'll be a 2008 Ford Shelby Mustang: Now, I love Mustangs, and I think that the late-model ones, this one included, look really fucking awesome. I really like the pseudoretro design. But they're just not KITT. This is what KITT's supposed to look like:...

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December 6, 2007

Why the Fuck Is Amy Winehouse Famous?

Seriously? How the hell does someone like her end up not only famous but nominated for six Grammys, including four nominations in the top categories? That's fucking fucked up. Granted, I've never actually heard one of her songs, but just look at her: She actually looks frightening. And what is with that fucking beehive hairdo? What the hell is going on here? I guess I lied earlier when I said that I hadn't heard any of her songs. I have heard this: But, seeing as how she's just mumbling in a vaguely rhythmic fashion, I don't think it counts as...

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November 29, 2007

That's Cool--I Don't Know How to Raise Kids, Anyway

A Massachusetts state legislator has introduced a bill that would make it illegal for parents to spank or otherwise physically discipline their children. This, frankly, is astounding--I can't believe that someone would actually think that it is an appropriate use of the State's power to tell parents how to raise their children. I can think of few things that are more personal and private than the decisions a parent makes about how to raise children. I can't imagine that any parent would claim that anyone other than their children are more important or that any relationship is more important. If...

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November 25, 2007

New Poll

Alright, I really am going to do the one about stupid law suits. But not right now. Mostly because I'm lazy. Besides, I'm totally in the Christmas spirit now. I wasn't in October when they started putting up the Christmas decorations in stores. And I wasn't in November when there were a bunch of commercials for Black Friday sales. But, now that it's after Thanksgiving and it's actually almost December, I'm all about Christmas. I've been walking around singing Christmas carols to myself for a few days now. So, the new poll asks what your least favorite part of the...

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November 5, 2007

Logic Should Bring Us Together

Although my opinions might sometimes suggest otherwise, our world is not black and white. I cannot accept that two political parties perfectly represent the views of the 300 million individual Americans. In fact, I'm not even sure that the Republicans and the Democrats do a good enough job of representing the views of the majority of the citizens. I know that neither perfectly represents my views, at the very least. So why is our country divided so clearly and bitterly? I'm not really sure, but I do know this: regardless of who's to blame, it's up to individuals to fix...

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November 1, 2007

Apology to the Guy With the Scooter

Seeing as how I generally offend the vast majority of the people around me and, in some cases--as we're about to see--people who have never had any direct interaction with me, I've decided that I need to start apologizing to people. Seeing as how I rarely know the people I piss off, I think this is an appropriate forum. Now, here's the thing. L-Dawg and X-tina live downtown. There's not a lot of parking around there. Sometimes, I have to drive around their neighborhood for a good twenty minutes before I can find somewhere to park. And even when I...

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October 22, 2007

How Not to Write a Movie Review

I think I've mentioned before that I love reading good reviews for bad movies. A good bad-movie review can be really funny and entertaining. Like everything else, though, there are bad bad-movie reviews. And, of course, there are stupid bad-movie reviews. I found this example of a stupid bad-movie review, written by Armond White, the other day while looking on Rotten Tomatoes at the reviews of Tyler Perry's Why Did I Get Married?. Mr. White's review would border on offensive if it wasn't so stupid. So it promopted me to come up with a few general guidelines for writing a...

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October 6, 2007

I Hate the Care Bears

The fucking Badgers lost to the Fighting Illini. What a load of bullshit. I can't say it was unexpected, though, and, after the first quarter, I'm surprised the score was as close as it was. I mean, seriously. People often cite the Ronnettes' "Be My Baby" as the most perfect example of Phil Spector's wall of sound technique. Well, today's football game was definitely the best example of Brett Bielema's patent-pending Care Bear defense. Unfortunately, while the unprecedented depth that the wall of sound brought to mono recordings was a very good thing, the Care Bears defense's main feature--allowing the...

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September 26, 2007

Technology Makes My Neuroses Easier to Live With

I have absolutely no idea why, but I hate going to a store and knowing that the clerk knows exactly what's going on in my life or what I'm about to do based on what I'm buying. I hate going into a grocery store and buying just the ingredients for lasagna because the clerk knows that I'm going to make lasagna that night (and yes, I do know how to make lasagna). I hate going into a hardware store and buying just lightbulbs because the clerk knows that, somewhere in my apartment, a lightbulb is out. I don't know why...

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September 19, 2007

"The Hypocrites of Homosexuality"

One of my favorite books is Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card. Although it's ostensively a science-fiction book, it's one of the few pieces of writing that I think truly transcends that genre. Anyone--sci-fi geek or otherwise--would enjoy that book. Although I've known that Mr. Card is a member of the Chuch of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints for some time, I hadn't really cared too much. Then today, for some reason, I wandered over to his Wikipedia page, and found a link to an article he wrote called "The Hypocrites of Homosexuality." In it, Mr. Card discusses his--and the...

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September 13, 2007

I May Have Overestimated My Chances

That girl I went on that date with is back in the States, as it turns out. Not that that does me any good. While she was away, there was very minimal Facebook messaging contact. I didn't really get a good feeling about it. Then, I knew that she'd be back sometime this week, so I waited to see if she'd call. She didn't. So I messaged her on Facebook. She finally responded today, saying that she had a good time but that, right now, she's "involved" with someone, which struck me as rather odd. The way I see it,...

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September 10, 2007

Things that Made Me Angry Today

I went and watched Shoot 'Em Up with Mr. Vice, pH, and New Guy today. God, that movie sucked a whole fucking lot. I don't know if Mr. Vice is planning on posting a review, so I'll just say this: I thought about asking for my money back after the movie was over, but decided that getting my $5.75 back wouldn't be sufficient. In fact, if they had given me the fucking movie theatre itself, I still would have considered the day a loss. It was fucking terrible. But, strangely enough, the movie wasn't the thing that made me angriest...

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September 4, 2007

What the Fuck Happened to Coldplay?

I know I'm a few years late on this, but, seriously, why did Coldplay decide to call off being a good band? After some initial waffling following the release of A Rush of Blood to the Head, I have since concluded that Parachutes is definitely their best album. The first five songs off of Parachutes are all excellent--they each earn at least four stars on my iTunes list. "Don't Panic" is a great opener that really sets the tone for the album; "Shiver" is a really good follow-up to the first track; "Spies" is one of my favorite tracks on...

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August 31, 2007

I Hate Best Buy

Sending out resumes requires printing resumes. Since my printer was out of ink, it was therefore time to get more ink. That's simple enough, but it was still frustrating as all hell to get it done. The first problem was that I have a photo printer. Although my resume, cover letter, and writing sample are all completely in black, my printer refused to print anything at all because it said that it was out of several shades of color ink. I didn't see how that mattered, but the fucking thing refused to print. I had several extra cartridges of ink...

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August 29, 2007

Honor Shakespeare, Dishonor Nirvana

I went to see an outdoor performance of Much Ado About Nothing tonight. Although I have read several Shakespeare plays, this was the first time I actually got to see one performed. I thought it was pretty good, although I still think that Shakespeare is pretty ridiculous and the dialogue is sometimes impenetrable, especially when it's mumbled in an outdoor venue. Still, the outdoor stage made the whole thing much cooler, except for the part where it started raining really, really hard. But that only lasted for about ten mintues and, after a brief break, the play resumed. The second...

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August 16, 2007

Stevie Ray Vaughn

Seeing as how I have almost nothing interesting to say about myself or anything that's going on right now, either in my own life or in the world at large, I've decided to do what comes naturally: be pissed about things. The thing I'm most pissed about right now is Stevie Ray Vaughn. Some of you might think that I, as an aspiriing guitar god, should probably love SRV. But the fact is that the man sucks balls. Although I fully admit that he was an extremely talented guitarist, he is--along with Eddie Van Halen--a perfect example of why a...

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August 13, 2007

Apparently, "TLC" No Longer Stands for "The Learning Channel"

I'll probably post something else later, but I just thought I'd point this out. Although Mr. Utah has been arguing that TLC's programming has, as of late, been less about learning than about "reality" and house flipping, I maintained that the network still broadcast generally high quality stuff. But, as it turns out, I was wrong. You see, the channel supposedly dedicated to learning has agreed to broadcast the Miss America pageant. This is stupid for so many reasons, not the least of which is the fact that the stupid Miss America pageant needs to just go away. But, no,...

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August 5, 2007

Why the Fuck Is There a Song Called "Radar Love"?

I was driving around this afternoon listening to the local classic-rock station, The Lake. They usually stick to the pretty standard classic-rock stuff: the Beatles, the Stones, Hendrix, Led Zeppelin--that kind of stuff. It's usually pretty good, although they sometimes play some unmitigated crap--seriously, who the fuck likes progressive rock bullshit? Anyway, "Radar Love" came on. And I thought to myself "why the fuck does this sone exist?" It's such a terrible song! First of all, I hate call-and-response arrangements. If you can't come up with a better idea than to constantly switch back and forth between stupid lyrics and...

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June 27, 2007

Stupid Poser Fucks

It used to be that, in order to have a mohawk, you had to be a badass punk motherfucker. Mohawks also used to be relatively rare, and with good reason: what self-respecting individual would shave their head like that and make their hair stand straight up? Alas, those were simpler times. In the past few days, I've seen no fewer than five to ten mohawks. And, in case you're wondering, it's not like I've been frequenting the Club Inferno or anything like that. No, I've seen these mohawks on the sidewalk, at the Terrace, and even at the most god-awful...

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June 21, 2007

Fuck Everything. Just--Fuck!

Some time ago, I posted about what I thought of The Smashing Pumpkins' new song, Tarantula. As it turns out, the song is mediocre and, although my hopes had not been high, it confirmed that the new album probably wouldn't be that great. Well today, thanks to some anonymous poster, I know that the picture on the cover of the single for that song features Paris motherfucking Hilton. Why? How the fuck should I know? Here's the fucking cover: . I swear to god, Billy Corgan--what the fuck?...

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June 19, 2007

Stupid School Policies

There was a lot of talk when I was in middle and high school about school uniforms. Personally, I hate the idea. There are a few basic arguments in support of school uniforms, none of which resonate to me to any degree. First, there's the argument that, by making everyone dress the same, social stratification is reduced. Well, that's just stupid. Seeing as how I was an outcast for many reasons in addition to my cheap clothes, I can't really gauge how much of the high-school social-stratification problem (if it's a problem at all) is due to the brand of...

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June 15, 2007

Here's Something . . .

Good fancy crap, I've been busy. That, together with the laziness that's left over after I finish the stuff I have to do everyday, leaves me with very little time to write out a semi-intelligible thought on here. More importantly, however, absolutely nothing of great import has happened lately, leaving me without things to share. My lack of time has been so complete, in fact, that I haven't even really had time to keep up with any news, so I don't even have anything unrelated to me to rant about. I plan on fixing that right now. First of all,...

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June 8, 2007

Fuck You, Bono. No, Seriously.

If you go to CNN.com right now, one of their top stories is a video about how Bono, who's at the G8 summit, got so angry that he took his glasses off. The man takes off his fucking sunglasses, and it's fucking headline news. Am I in some bizzaro universe right now? If I push something off of my desk, will it fall ip to the ceiling? If I throw a ceramic plate against the wall, will it bounce like a rubber ball? Seriously, what kind of a universe am I living in? First of all, what the fuck is...

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June 5, 2007

Things I Cannot Live Without and Are You British or Retarded?

When I first saw that Apple was releasing a phone, I was underwhelmed. Then I saw the TV ads. And, although the last thing I wanted to do was join the legions of mindless iPodophiles out there, I don't see how I can continue living without one. I mean, seriously--it's a fucking touchscreen phone that does pretty much every cool technological thing you could ask a small, portable device to do. I don't care what anyone says--touchscreens are awesome. Sure, they've generally sucked on phones, but that's mostly because they were designed to be used with those lame stylus things...

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May 14, 2007

Goddamnit, NBC!

Having worked at an NBC affiliate, I have to say that it's been sorta disappointing for me to see NBC's ratings go down the shitter in recent years, alhough it hasn't been exactly surprising. I mean, with the loss of Seinfeld (one of the greatest shows ever) and Friends (not one of the greatest shows ever, but I guess people liked it), NBC took a huge hit. And it hasn't helped itself with the new stuff it's been offering, either: I mean, as much as I love them, how man Law & Orders can people take? NBC has also apparently...

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April 26, 2007

New Poll! and a Rant About Those Young Whipper Snappers

Ok, it's been a while but, at the request of TheExpat, I've posted a new poll. But first, the results from the previous poll. It turns out that the thing the that you're most looking forward to about the summer is . . . warmth, which got 36 percent of the votes. That's not really surprising--even I, an admitted winter lover, was getting tired of the sub-thirty-degree weather. Second place, with 32 percent, was the new Harry Potter book. Neither of those is surprising, but what's mildly surprising is how heavily you guys favored those two: the next closest vote...

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April 19, 2007

I Don't Care What Anyone Says--Janis Joplin Sucks Ass

I was driving into school this morning listening, as I usually do, to The Lake, a classic rock station that recently switched over to a "shuffle" format. I don't really understand why they did that, but whatever. In any event, Me and Bobby McGee came on, and I realized how much Ms. Joplin sucks. She's really fucking bad. I know some of you out there (I'm looking at you, Dee) are Janis Joplin fans, but I just don't get it. Anyone can scream! It's not "distinctive" or "unique" or "revolutionary"--she's just a bad singer, so she screams. She's the Sanjaya...

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April 12, 2007

There Is No Right Not to Be Offended (Updated)

The Don Imus controversy is ridiculous in almost every way. I must admit that I had never heard or heard of Don Imus before this whole thing started, but a friend has described him as a conservative Howard Stern. Fine, so he's a shock jock. No big deal. Given that that's his job--he gets paid to be shocking and outlandish--I wouldn't have thought that his stupid comment about the Rutgers basketball team would be a big deal, either. But I'd've been wrong. The fact that the comment started such a huge controversy proves not that Don Imus is a racist...

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March 22, 2007

Great--Now Everyone Thinks Mexicans Are Idiots

I'm sure many of you have been keeping up to date with the U.S. Attorney scandal centering on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. To recap briefly, certain members of Congress (mostly, but not exclusively, Democrats), are upset at the firing of several U.S. Attorneys throughout the country. Although the attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and, theoretically, can be hired and fired completely on the president's whim, the Attorney General has been accused of firing certain employees solely because they were not sufficiently loyal to the Bush Administration. Mr. Gonzales, for his part, has admitted that he made misrepresentations...

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February 26, 2007

I Just Don't Get It

I know I'm probably in the unbelievable minority on this, but I just don't think Beyonce Knowles is attractive. I don't know what it is that people find attractive about her. I mean--seriously? I mean, I guess she looked decent as Foxxy Cleopatra, but she was the least attractive Austin Powers girl by far: Her Sports Illustrated cover does nothing for me: I guess it looks like she's got smooth skin, which is a plus. But, really, I just don't see it. And, finally, her appearance at the Oscars leaves me cold: Maybe I'm crazy, but I always thought that...

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February 19, 2007

America Is a Bunch of Idiots, but New Jersey Apparently Is Not

Ghost Rider is the number-one movie in America? What the fuck is wrong with you people? What is it about those commercials that made you want to go watch it? Were you all drunk and laughing? I hope so, because that's how I want to enjoy the movie. But, seriously, you people flocked to this thing? That's inconceivable! I'm incredulous. To make matters worse, Ghost Rider took over the top spot from Norbit, a movie so bad one critic said "[f]rom start to finish, Norbit is dismally unfunny, inspiring this Sign of the Apocalypse observation: Big Momma's House 2 was...

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February 17, 2007

Welcome to Rock Bottom

I know this isn't my usual schtick, but I just think this is so funny I have to comment. Britney Spears has apparently shaved her head and checked into rehab. Here's the picture from the Superficial: Man. Remember when she used to look like this? At this point, she might as well just give up. There's no comeback on the horizon for her. And speaking of comebacks, how the fuck does Nicolas Cage plan to rebound from Ghost Rider, which is currently rocking a 24 percent freshness rating at Rotten Tomatoes? God, I hate it when Hollywood puts out shitty...

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February 3, 2007

Damn Stupid Cliffhangers

The last few days have been pretty quiet. I felt pretty bad for a few days, as if I was getting sick. I still might be, I'm not feeling 100% yet. I've been almost nonstop busy, although, somehow, I'm about a hundred pages behind in classes already. I got home at about ten o'clock last night and, though I had previously said I was going to bar review, didn't. In fact, I went to bed at around eleven. And then I slept until about one o'clock this afternoon. It was awesome. I went into the office for a while today...

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January 15, 2007

I Was Just Thinking . . .

I've got a bunch of stuff on my mind right now, so this is going to be one of those random posts. First off, I was reading Althouse today (I don't know why, it's one hell of a crappy blog), and I suddenly realized: I hate coffee shops. I don't necessarily hate the people in the coffee shop, I just hate the coffee shop itself. Althouse posted pictures of herself at one of the coffee shops here in town (she didn't say which one, although it's pretty obvious from the pictures. Still, if she doesn't want to give away which...

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January 3, 2007

The Voyage Home. To My Other Home.

What the fuck did people do at airports before internet cafes? I don't know, and I don't want to know. I got dropped off about half an hour ago here at LAX. After using the amazing curbside check-in option ($2 a bag? Why doesn't everyone use this?) I bypassed the interminable line and got straight through security. Now I'm in said internet cafe, killing time. My flight leaves at 11:55pm Pacific time. I'm kinda excited. I plan on reading my new book, Tipping Point for a little while before going to sleep. I'm in an aisle seat--that's definitely the best...

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December 26, 2006

Of Mexican Soap Operas and Shopping

Wow. Every time I think that Spanish soap operas can't get worse, they get worse. I'm not even going to attempt to explain what the fucking plot to this one is. I will say this: it involves a woman in bondage gear who may or may not be a stripper or a whore, her pimp and/or boyfriend and/or brother who dresses in zoot suits as if that's ok, some seemingly unrelated woman who's in love with the patriarch of some family (with whom she's moving in) and speaks to pictures of her dead parents and the Virgin Mary. That's all...

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December 24, 2006

The Voyage Home: A Special Here is No Why Simulblog

I'm going to try to simulblog my trip home today, mostly because I expect it to be the worst cross-country trip ever. Let me explain. It's 4:32am on Christmas Eve. I am in the Milwaukee aiport. My flight is in just over an hour. As if that wasn't all bad enough, I had to leave my apartment in Madison at 2am. I haven't slept. Like I said, my flight out of Milwaukee leaves in just over an hour. But it doesn't go straight to LA. That would be too easy. Instead, I will be flying from Milwaukee to St. Louis....

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December 4, 2006

Concerning the Impending Finals and Advertising Justice

Not much is going on right now. Finals are about to kick into full gear--the last day of classes is Wednesday. I don't have a final for a little under two weeks, and I don't have my last final for a little under three weeks. I'm not flying home until the 23rd. That's ok, though. I'd rather take it relatively easy and give myself the time to really study than rush and be all stressed out. Speaking of studying, that's been really tough lately. It's not that I don't care or that I don't want to do well, it's just...

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November 8, 2006

A Dark Day for the Land of Brats, Beer, and Cheese

Well, I have to say that I'm very sad right now. I'm disgusted that this state, a state I've come to love, is apparently full of homophobes. Listen to me. Letting two people who love each other, regardless of which reproductive organs those people happen to have, marry each other can't possibly hurt you. It's just incredible that people don't see that. I don't care what religion you are or what you believe or who you're married to or who you want to marry. That doesn't give you the right to tell anyone else that they don't deserve the same...

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September 19, 2006

What the Fuck?

Alright - I don't know what's going on with the blog right now. For some reason, there are some issues with the commenting. There are still several behind-the-scenes issues I'm trying to take care of, as well. It's being worked on. You guys can help me out by trying to comment and letting me know how it goes. Just use the tagboard to let me know if things fuck up. On another note, let me talk about how much I hate people who answer phones for companies. Now, I know the standard complaints and I agree with them all. But...

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August 31, 2006

I Fucking HATE Plastic!

Why is it that, nowadays, everything comes in those fucking impossible-to-open plastic bubbles? I fucking hate it. Everything from electronics to underwear comes sealed in plastic. And this isn't your grandfather's plastic, either. This shit is tough, and you can't really rip it. In fact, I just took a pair of razor-sharp scissors to some of this fucking plastic, and I still had trouble opening the package! It's fucking nonsense! WHY? The fucking worst is when they make you think you've avoided the plastic by putting the item in a cardboard box. But then you get home and you find...

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August 23, 2006

You Suck, Modern Music

So, as I've mentioned, being at my parents' house allows me to watch TV, something I'm not normally able to do at home. Today, I accidentally stumbled onto the most horrific show I've seen in a while. It was called "Rock Star: Supernova." Let me tell you about the show. Apparently, Tommy Lee, Dave Navarro, Jason Newsted (the former bassist for Metalica and the only person with any credibility), and some other guys have started a "supergroup" called Supernova. I put supergroup in quotes because, while the band meets the technical definition of a supergroup, i.e., it consists of members...

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August 7, 2006

Morning Drive Time

I've talked about liking my job a lot, and I do. But, you know what? At 9:30 in the morning, when I'm running late, I've only had 6.5 hours of sleep, it's Monday, and I've got a shitload of work waiting for me on my desk, I've got very little to look forward to. The few minutes of reflection I get on my drive to work are sacred. They're the time when I get to think about the day, the weekend and, more importantly, what I'm going to eat for lunch. I choose to fill this time with talk radio....

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July 27, 2006

Corporate America Can Suck My Ass!

Oh man. I fucking love seeing those I hate fail. And there's literally nothing I hate more than UPS. Fucking nothing. So, when I heard that their stock price tumbled, I was gleeful. My glee was mitigated somewhat by the fact that they still eared a shitload of money, but, you know, whatever. So, why do I hate UPS so much? I'll fucking tell you. It all started when I placed an order on Amazon.com. The fastest delivery option was UPS. Being impatient as I am, I decided to have my order shipped via UPS. A few days later, I...

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June 9, 2006

Random Crap and a Crappy Sushi Restaurant

I want to write something right now, but I don't know what I want to write, so I'm just going to start writing and see what happens. I'm listening to "Ava Adore" by the Smashing Pumpkins right now. That's a decent song. I heard tonight that one of my most hated people at the Law School, let's call him "The Lord of All That Is Douche-ie," has a "really hot" girlfriend. Not surprising, really, since that's what this guy's all about. It's also not surprising that this guy turned in all his potential mate capital for a girl who's physically...

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June 5, 2006

You Know What There Aren't Enough Of?

Life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. I know what you're thiking: "what kind of imbecile would want a stupid life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow?" Yeah, I thought that, too. Fortunately, Madison, Wisconsin, has not gotten a life-sized, painted, fiberglass cow. That's good. Unfortunately, it has gotten 7 billion life-sized, painted, fiberglass cows. Why? Who the fuck knows. Who the fuck knows. I'll tell you what, though, it's a great idea. Because if there's something that a town in Wisconsin needs, it's to increase its reputation for having an affinity for cows. Just in case people forget that we're all about cows here, they'll...

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April 27, 2006

Dorks

Alright. The time has come for me to fucking comment on something. I absolutely hate it when people who are absolutely not dorks claim to be dorks in an attempt to be cool. Listen to me: if you're super-popular and very socially adept, great. But don't fucking tell me that you're a dork because you read Harry Potter. Look, unless you can do the following things from memory, you are not a dork. Just so you guys know, i didn't look any of this shit up: Lord of the Rings Give at least one additional name for Gandalf.Name both of...

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April 3, 2006

How To Tell a Certain Lawyer Joke

Here's one way to tell it: Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers have their hands in their own pockets. Here's another way to tell it: Man, it's cold outside. In fact, it's so cold that the lawyers have their hands in their own pockets. See the difference? Here's the real question, though: which is the correct way to tell it? Let me know your answer in the comments. CAUTION: answering wrong means you're probably a tool, and idiot, unfunny or all three....

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March 25, 2006

What's Worse Than Undergrads in the Law Library?

How about undergrads playing with motherfucking colored pencils?!?!?!?! Seriously, there is an undergrad to the table to my left working with colored pencils. It doesn't look like he's coloring anything... i don't know what the fuck he's doing. But let me tell you, he's making an obscene amount of noise. It's like he doesn't know that wacking pencils together makes noise. And as if that wasn't bad enough, he seems to be making it a point to bang the pencils every time he changes colors. So, he's like "ok, i need red. there's the red, completely away from all the...

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March 21, 2006

Spring Break: Day Five: Twilight to Starlight and Dawn to Dusk

EDITED: This post now includes man-thongs, which i had neglected to enter in my original post. Apologies all around. Where to begin... I guess chronologically will suffice. We woke up early this morning. By “early,� I mean 9:30. That’s definitely way early by MZRM spring break standards. After (covertly) cooking an awesome breakfast of burgers and brats, we departed the lovely Monaco Resort. Destination: Cole’s grandparent’s house in Ft. Meyers. After driving for a while, we arrived. Cole’s grandpa served as the state Republican assemblyman from Osh Kosh for 20 years. Note, that he’s a staunch Republican. We sat and...

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March 4, 2006

Penguins, Gays, and Stupid Fucking People

Apparently, there is a book called And Tango Makes Three. It is a children's book that retells the true story of a penguin egg that was "adopted" by two adult male penguins. According to the reviews at Amazon, it's for kids in pre-school through the third grade. It's illustrated and features cute drawings of a fuzzy little baby penguin and his two adoptive parents. It's cute and heartwarming and wholesome, right? Not according to this article. Apparently, at least two incredibly stupid, idiotic and just plain myopic parents have complained about the book being in the children's section because of...

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February 23, 2006

What the Fuck is Wrong With the "F-Bomb"

Ok, if anyone knows me or reads this thing or meets me or sees me in the atrium or passes me in the street, they know that my absolute, all-time favorite word is "fuck." For an excellent explication of why fuck is the best word ever, go here. (I think that may have been written by Monty Python, i'm not really sure. I'm getting conflicting reports on this.) In any event, there's nothing wrong with "fuck." I mean, i use the word so casually, i don't even realize i'm saying it half the time. That has gotten me in just...

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February 16, 2006

Unfairness

Ok, so i was over at the Formidable Law Blogger's blog, reading some of the comments on her post about potentially canceling class because of the snow. Ms. Althouse considered cancelling class because students who live further away or have children that are in school (and, therefore, home today because of the snow day) would be unable to make it to class while the normal law student would be able to make it. Therefore, having class, argued Ms. Althouse, would have a disparate and unfair impact on those student who, through no fault of their own, simply are not able...

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February 15, 2006

A Brief Explanation of What's Wrong With All of Us

So, Valentine's Day has now come and gone and, as i pointed out, i spent it alone. Again. In addition, it is now official: i'm sick. There's no way around that. So, i spend most of the afternoon in bed, trying to not be sick. Instead i just slept and then felt more sick when i woke up. In any event, now i can't sleep, and i was lying in bed thinking, and my current predicament (the whole thing with my being alone) was on my mind. So, here's what i've come up with. On the one hand, girls are...

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January 24, 2006

Letterman and O'Reilly

Don't get me wrong. I fucking hate David Letterman. And his little dog, Paul Schafer, too. If i could, i would jump through the tv and kick their motherfucking asses. Still, this video shows that even Letterman can not suck every now and then. It's a little old, but entertaining nonetheless. I hadn't seen it, but perhaps the more savvy readers have. In any event, enjoy it. Then post a comment with your own rip at O'Reilly. Or Letterman. Or Schafer who, in classic form, does nothing but parrot Letterman. God, i hate Paul Schafer. Correction: So, i was looking...

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January 16, 2006

"We Play Everything"?

Ok. We all like Nirvana, the band. That was a good band. Once, i was watching Saturday Night Live, it was an episode from the early 90's. The musical guest was some band called Dee-Light or some such shit. Point is, they sucked - hard. And i thought to myself: is this what music was like before Nirvana? Anyway, Nirvana kicks ass. So, generally, if a radio station plays Nirvana, they're going to get the nod from me. But, ok, what if i told you that, in addition to playing Nirvana, this radio station also played Foo Fighters. Well, fuck,...

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