Dec
14
2011Nobody’s innocent, and with today’s government, you’re guilty if it (The President and his cronies [whoever they may be]) says you’re guilty.
Indefinite detention* of American citizens without due process or court trial is real, and it is expected to pass the Senate with flying colors. We only just discovered this piece of legislation because the discussion for it was done in private, which is straight-up, 100%, illegal.
Oh, and the only problem our president had with the bill is he doesn’t have total control because he must report to Congress…that nuisance…when it comes to these detentions. Congress was supposed to be a check on executive power. The idea is theoretically impeccable, but when Senators and Representatives are too lazy to do their homework rather than checking their Facebook statuses, they don’t care how much power they hand off to the president, so long as it means they do less work.
Read More»Dec
13
2011One of the most dubious plots stemming from the Cold War era has unraveled. According to U.S. Department of Defense Secretary, Leon E. Panetta, the USSR smuggled droves of
the Russian equivalent of hillbillies into the U.S. in a not-very-calculated endeavor to lower the national IQ of Americans.
“They would teach them how to slur their words,” said Panetta. “Basically, when you massacre a language enough, it can sound like any language you want to hear.”
All along, locals assumed that these Russian imbeciles were simply more in touch with their Southern Draw than most. At least, we believe that’s what the locals said, but it was difficult to ascertain the specifics because we lacked a budget for a translator.
When asked how this could happen, Panetta explained how easy it is to forge a birth certificate in the Deep South where a rock signed with your name and place of birth in urine passes as a legal…document. In a place where, social security cards are more fictional than Big Foot and the highest respect is paid to those missing the greatest number of teeth, these Russians found refuge. Their only instruction was to take every poll available to them, anything to skew the statistics on everything from health and safety to public education.
The only reason they were caught, Panetta says, is because one of the idiots emailed President Obama, asking the President how he perfected forging his birth certificate.
Dec
13
2011
If you’re a sane American, hundreds of Bieber accessories decorate your house. But those of you looking for something unique and Bieber related as holiday gifts might be at a crossroads. Here are the five best choices for pleasing your loved one this season of boy joy.
1. The Bieber Ball Gag
The bright pinkness sets the mood you’ve been dying to achieve since your last anniversary. Nothing will turn your mate on more than the knowledge that Chinese Bieber lookalikes hand-signed each ball and that the antenna plays a Bieber-only station that’ll serenade her as you do the seducing.
2. The Molestache
Older gentlemen must attract little girls in a variety of ways. If your loved one doesn’t have the voice of a prepubescent Canadian but nevertheless would love to make them swoon, he can perfect his creepiness with the addition of strategically-placed facial hair.
3. Bieber Tat
Street cred is hard to come by these days. It seems like all gangs want are teardrops. But if you give your loved one the face of the Bieber, he’ll be accepted in to the deadliest gangs around. Sporting Bieber, your man can bypass the rigorous recruiting processes tougher gangs typically implement to weed off wannabes. As an added plus, your gang friends might be too afraid to haze you.
4. The Cure
Let’s be honest, side-effects of Bieber fever aren’t exactly conducive to being coherent and unannoying. You won’t pass any tests or sound remotely competent at a job interview with you salivating every time you hear any words that ever so slightly rhyme with Justin or Bieber. The cure for Bieber Fever…2 hours of good, quality music…will snap you out of your driveling as it thrusts you back into reality.
5. Canadian Citizenship
I know obtaining citizenship sounds pretty simple, but it’s actually a whole lot easier than you can possibly imagine. This gift is for your loved ones who are struggling to enter the music scene and will compromise their integrity in a heartbeat. By pursuing the Canadian model, they disregard the fact that a vast majority of people would despise their very existence, setting them up with Canadian greats like Alanis Morissette, Nickelback, Celine Dion, and Shania Twain.
Dec
01
2011
The merits of holding a sale that encourages human-to-door violence cannot be understated*. But you, the customer, want to know what method of brutish behavior warrants the best sales.
Here is what I’ve deduced:
Door Busters – The traditional way of subjecting our gatekeeping friends is by Busting them wide open.
Door Smashers – If you’re shopping in Canada, remember that the etiquette is to smash a door. The alteration appeased the French community, who considered the word buster, which can also refer to a type of person, too much of a word of those “English conigets.”
Door Thrasher – “Supplement” places like GNC offer their customers, hyped up on steroids, the option of shattering the glass completely.
Door Thumpers – You’ll see these at many fast food joints, as they target the larger folk.
Door Bumpers – These are for anyone who pushes off the door to gain the necessary momentum to squeeze by the congestion of competing costumers.
Door Humpers – This sale is for the super shopper who doubles as sexual deviant.
*Crimes against doors often go unreported. If you see a such a crime taking place, you are obligated to report it, lest you be an accomplice to the action against an innocent, defenseless, and most importantly, inanimate, object.
Dec
01
2011
If your script isn’t staler than the produce at Wal-Mart, it won’t earn you a Hollywood production.
Here’s what they’re looking for:
- A remake of a remade remake
- At least one political statement (Don’t be subtle, lest it be missed by the smug Californian producers)
- Strictly enforced gender roles
- Have a car chase in which the police cars all wreck
- Have any dogs barking at any bad guys
- Use the non-word irregardless and condense the two word phrase “all right” into alright (feeling violated yet?)
- A very drawn-out sex scene that’d be physically impossible
- One black guy (no more, no less)
- A dying person’s last words must always be coherent and significant (Never must a dying person not know he or she isn’t dying.)
- Coffee beans that have been digested by another animal, pooped out, re-ingested, and regurgitated by a different animal.
Nov
22
2011
Owners and players are at the mercy of their customers, and it’s not fair:
Dearest football fans, I was your biggest fan until you complained. All this nonsense about how you can’t afford to purchase a season pass must stop. When the dust settles, I fear I will become a fan of fans of a different sport. If you want a better view and free tickets, try out for the practice squad. Given that the players association proposed an 85-man roster to offset the impending burden of 2 extra regular season games (that’s a whopping 12.5% increase in games), there will no doubt be gaps in the roster, like the 4th-string h
older position.
Don’t rule yourself out if you have a criminal record. The Bengals organization doesn’t conduct background checks. And if you sign with the Jets, you might be sent to the sidelines to be a vital member of the tripping crew. Imagine your giddiness when one of your friends drafts you on his fantasy squad. One trip equals 5 fantasy points. For those who can’t make the cut, you can find work as one of the 50 additional sideline employees the NFLPA will require, which includes extra personal trainers, massage therapists, acupuncturists, media coaches, professional speakers, and Jason Statham. Why Statham? When you have more money than God like the NFL, you don’t ask questions; you deliver results.
Everyone, owners included, has suffered from this economic crisis. Roughly two stadium seats remain empty every week. Sure, the awning above your temporary seat eclipses half the field. And yes, owners bribed the fire marshal to not question the seat’s structural integrity. But the point is that you are supporting your team in person—eating a $15 hotdog, drinking a $20 beer, and freezing your baby-maker off if you live in Buffalo, Cleveland, or Green Bay—and your friends aren’t. Should you contract pneumonia from the bitter cold, scores of doctors pampering players on the sidelines can assist you. You owe your team that much.
It wasn’t enough that you demanded the players on your team care about making it to the Super Bowl. And it wasn’t enough that you wanted to hear how your coaches and players would adjust after a loss. You wanted more, more cameras capturing every conceivable angle, more mic’d-up players, more pans to Tom Brady’s wife. The NFL must pay her royalties each time she’s pictured. The owners and players set the bar high for their fans. Though you can’t jump as high as the bar (one reason you’re not a player), you ought to act more mature…like them.
Nov
22
2011
Really? Literally?
There’s no two ways about it: We are numb to Language.
You see it every day. It’s a hyperbolic sentence, posted on Facebook or Twitter, texted, or Skyped. Quite often, these hollow statements are packed full of redundancies, misused words, and superfluous capitalization. For good measure, a multitude of exclamation points and a combination of punctuation marks that mimics an obscure smile—if you tilt your head to the left—have been thrown into the fold.
Plastering on words and making a gilded sentence is an attempt to drive home a point that could have been better constructed without the fluff. Yet, these additions have transformed from a malignant tumor into something of an appendix, perhaps even a vital organ, in our eyes. Because these words are everywhere we look, we’re made to believe they’re necessary for maintaining the integrity of what’s being conveyed.
These days, I completely agree. A big pet peeve of my father’s is when people refer to anything other than God as amazing. When I was young, I thought it odd he found something like that annoying, but I have nonetheless monitored its use over the years. Today, people seem to use words like amazing, love, and hate at a much higher frequency. with my dad. We must reserve these words for special occasions, lest they lose their intrinsic significance in the wake of the monotony. For if a haircut is amazing, what is God? Amazing squared? With four exclamation points instead of three?
The same horrifying trend is happening in the area of “no-no” words. We are fast becoming a swearless society because these words are embedded into colloquial English. “Ride Wit Me” by Nelly is a perfect example. Every other word in the final two minutes of his song is bleeped out on the radio. All we understand is that he is saying things worthy of a mouth full of soap because we have no context, unless we have heard the explicit version.
The explicit version is more troubling because, while it does convey something, the swearing is casual, which dilutes the swear words. If a swear word is to remain as such, it cannot be used casually.
Don’t get me wrong. Cussing is a good thing. As a writer, I need swears when I cannot portray anger or surprise or a different emotion adequately through other outlets alone. Rarely do I use swears in my stories, however, because I believe they make a much grander entrance when “routine” words precede and follow them. A swear word should be that one little pebble stuck inside your shoe, constantly letting you know its there every time you plant your foot.
We no longer take the time, in part because we feel we no longer have the time, to use the right words for the job. If we try, we risk running out of the small amount of allotted characters on our phones or Twitter boxes. I issue you this challenge: before you write anything, take a deep breath and ask yourself what it is you would like to say, and when you finish writing, take some time to remove the exaggerations and redundancies.
Aug
01
2011