Olive Garden

I heard this on the street while walking back to my apartment last night.  I almost stopped in my tracks to see who could have uttered such a thing.  I cannot tell you the depths of my hatred for Olive Garden, I despise everything about that place.  The food sucks, they charge way too much and their commercials are the absolute worst.

Do they really think that some kid giving a double-donger helping of bread sticks to his uncle is going to sell pasta (C’mon, that whole scene is awkwardly phallic, or am I just weird)?  I went out with some chick and on our first date she mentioned that her favorite restaurant was the Olive Garden – ultimate boner-deflator.  How could they possibly do well selling shitty pasta at $15 a plate?  Even talking about Olive Garden sickens me… lets watch the “Dr. Zeaus” clip from the Simpsons to cleanse our palette.

Moon

Speaking of space travel, I was watching Moon, a movie about a man who lives on the (you guessed it) Moon in the near future, and it dawned on me that there have not been any good “realistic” space travel movies lately.  In fact the last one that I can remember is Apollo 13.  Anytime space travel is on the big screen it is some fantastical world that has no similarities to our own.  Compare that to “realistic” war movies which are released all the time, that entertain by depicting war in all of its heroically gruesome detail.  Why is that?  It was refreshing to watch a depiction of what life would be like in the near future with a focus on space travel.

I think it comes down to American culture today and breaking these 2 genres down to their base elements.  It is not war vs space but rather fear vs. wonder.  Fear is winning right now.  As a country we have so many resources that we are pushing towards destruction when those same jobs and resources could be working for a better future for everyone instead.  So that brings us back to my original point, instead of ramming another depressing real life war movie drama down my throat make a compelling movie about space exploration that will give people a sense for what COULD be possible in the future.  I’m thinking of something that stretches the limits of what we are doing today but is still plausible.  Putting the possibility in people’s heads that we can be elsewhere in our solar system gaining something instead of just beating the shit out of each other in some jungle or desert could help things a lot.

Exe’s

So here is a question for all of my readers.  If you know that someone had hooked up with someone that you were interested in dating, would you still be interested in dating them?  I guess for me it would matter how much I liked the person in mind and how close I was to the friend who fucked them.  I would err on the side of not dating the fuckee because I feel like my buddy would always have something over on me.  Not in a literal sense because a real friend would never put that kind of thing back in your face but more the metaphorical sense that your friend would be thinking about how they fucked your girlfriend everytime they saw her.

This comes up because one of my buddies went out on a date that he dubbed as his best date ever.  Then at the end of him relating his date story to me I intimated that I had hooked up with this chick and he was absolutely crestfallen (yes, I am a dick, what of it?).  Anyways, I think it would have been a deal breaker for him and most likely something like that would be a deal breaker for me.

How do you feel about taking a helping of sloppy seconds?

I always thought that programming was created and then advertisers chose what channels or specific programming that they wanted to pair their advertisements with but in this case it looks as if the program is a deviously clever plot to sell more term life insurance.  After playing through this little conspiracy theory in my head I was disgusted by the fact that I could have been watching a show solely made to sell a certain set of products.  At that point I saw the Chantix commercial. It featured a multicultural array of people tossing away packs of cigarettes with shit eating grins on their faces.  Wow, that looks easy – take a pill and kick that habit!  A few doses and you can enter the fast lane to being smoke free… good thing this is a PERFECT drug with many HAPPY, SMILING users… oh wait…

Chantix is an anti-smoking drug with some seriously fucked up side-effects.  I thought Olestra was bad having “anal leakage” as one of its ancillary effects but it has nothing on Chantix.  As stated in the disturbingly fast 30 second disclosure at the end of the commercial (I think the guy from the micro-machines commercial is working for Pfizer now) some of the side-effects include psychosis, suicidal thoughts, disturbing dreams and increased probability of having a  1-1 conversation with Satan (OK – I made that last one up).  Why the fuck would anyone take this drug?  Slap on the nicotine patch or take a lozenge for fucks sake!  If there was even a .5% chance of me losing my mind when taking a drug that I wouldn’t take it, would you?

This drug was OK’d by the FDA.  Is there any rhyme or reason to what is deemed as safe and what is not?  There is so much money involved with a successful drug I’m sure that there are all kinds of back door shenanigans and secret deals going on similar to any other industry that is highly “regulated” with great sums of money being generated.  It is frightening to think of the drugs that are considered “safe” right now that will be taken off the market in a few years.  As I mentioned earlier Olestra was used in snack foods as a fat substitute until people started shitting themselves or exorcist-style puking sour cream Ruffles all over their living room, then it was quietly pulled from the market (I’m sure the folks over at Depends undergarments were pissed).  How many people have to lose their mind to get Chantix pulled off the market?  Type in “Chantix Psychosis” into Google and the stories are horrifying (or kind of funny, if you do not have empathy, like me).

To return to my broader point though, I think more of this style programming is going to be developed in the future.  Since TIVO is eliminating views for traditional commercials I suspect that in the future programming will be created to sell certain products.  It can already be seen in product placement in existing shows but I think the next stage in evolution will be entire episodes and series that are Trojan horses for certain products.  Protagonists will work for Walmart, selling Bud Light while driving a Ford truck with the plot line revolving around wether their character should go to Applebee’s or TGI Fridays.  Truly a horrifying look at television programming for the future… or maybe I’m crazy and it’s just the Chantix talking… only time will tell.

After spending 13 hours in the Portland airport I finally arrived back from my trip to Japan.  Honestly, it is not as culturally crazy as many people would lead you to believe.  Don’t get me wrong, if you want to find craziness and fringe culture it is definitely there in abundance (just like every other major city) but at its core it is a city of pretty normal, friendly people.  The friend who I was traveling with was there for work so I basically wandered around the city by myself for about 8 hours a day then came back and had dinner and drinks/watched her throw up from food poisoning after she got back from work each night… good times.  Anyways, there are several things that I noticed that I never had heard about in all of my pre-trip research:

Ice Cubes

Fuck me, the ice cubes in Japan are glorious, I’m not bullshitting.  In my mind, these little chunks of frozen goodness should be their chief export.  When I ordered my first Jameson and Ginger ale it came with 8 of the most solid, crystal clear, perfect cubes of ice that I have had in my entire life.  When I order the same drink in San Diego I get milky centered chunks of frozen refuse.  I could go on and on about this but me being so impressed by this little stupid detail is another “Reason why the Terrorists hate us”.

Where there is a chair, there is a sleeper

It never failed, wherever there was public seating there would be at least one person passed out there.  I’m not talking about a hobo sleeping on a park bench, as far as I can tell, Japan is a hobo-less society.  Every single place there could be an Asian guy or gal sleeping, there was.  Chair at a museum – BAM – passed out Japanese MILF.  Massage chair display at the mall – BAM – well dressed Chinese businessman catching some Z’s.  I even saw some chick at the booth of a coffee shop “resting her eyes”, come one people, coffee shops are for waking up not crashing.  I don’t get it but I like it. I think between the ice cubes straight from Boreas’s loins  to the public napping I could get very used to living in Tokyo.

Trash cans…

… or rather the lack of ANY public trash cans whatsoever was shocking.  I do not know how it is not the filthiest city on the planet because there are 0 public trashcans.  Seriously, I think I saw “a” garbage can the entire time I was there, it was like spotting a unicorn.  I learned very quickly after the first day to finish whatever I was drinking and throw it away before I left the restaurant unless I wanted to be carrying my cup the entire rest of the day.  There are trash cans EVERYWHERE in San Diego and people still throw garbage on the ground – I can’t even imagine what it would look like if people had to keep their trash on them until they got back home.  The streets around my apartment would look like an episode of “Hoarders”.

Jobs

If Tokyo lacks garbage cans there is one thing that is has is spades: employment.  Anywhere you go there is someone doing a pointless job.  The standard uniformed idiot standing on the sidewalk doing nothing – CHECK.  The cosmetics counter at the mall FILLED with employees looking for shit to do – CHECK.  3 people manning the revolving door at the hotel – CHECK.  I think they just do it to lower their unemployment rate but it seems like a bit of overkill.  I’m sure their office buildings are filled with 2 people to a desk, one to work the mouse, another to work the keyboard.

Baseball

I went to a Yakult Swallows vs. Tokyo Giants game while I was in town and it was definitely worth the trip.  It was something I am very familiar with but presented in a slightly different way.  It was like a minor league game except the fans were REALLY into it and for some reason when there was an especially good play everyone busted out umbrellas.  My friend who I was there with was in the throes of vomiting in the bathroom from food poisoning when something magical happened:

…the only white player on either team had “Your Love” by “The Outfield” as his song before he came to bat.  When my friend came back to the seats she questioned if she had been hallucinating when she had heard that song.  Nope.  That HAS to be a joke, right?  It got us talking about what we would have as our song if we played in the Japanese baseball league.  Her choice “99 Luftballoons” in German and mine was “Dancing too Close” by “NEXT”.  I think any song about a dance boner would definitely intimidate the opposing team.

All in all, Tokyo is a fanatic city and I didn’t even mention the amazing sushi, the flawless transportation system or the beautiful museums and parks (or the chicks dressed up like Little Bo-Peep).  Go there.  Immediately.  You won’t be disappointed.

First things first, I typed San Diego to Tokyo into Googlemaps to get an idea of how far I am going to be traveling.  I chose to get the directions by car and this was actually what it suggested that I do:

16.

Kayak across the Pacific Ocean Entering Hawaii

2,756 m

and

32.

Kayak across the Pacific Ocean Entering Japan

3,879 mi

That would be a hell of a trip, but I think I am going to go ahead and stick with Delta Airlines… and why a Kayak?  If I paddled that far in the ocean I may be mistaken for a juice-head once people finally caught sight of me in Tokyo.

Once I am there the next most important thing was entered into the search field “Bars in Tokyo”.  Besides listing out most of the bars in the area pretty much every site talked about certain bars where non-Japanese speakers were not welcome or walking into the wrong Yakuza club can get you in trouble quickly.  I immediately thought how fucked up that was but then I stepped back and thought about it from a foreigners perspective in the US.  If there was some obvious looking visitor who did not speak a lick of English going into a random club or bar here trying to hand the waitress a card with instructions in English while sputtering out sentence fragments they would probably not be treated as anything other than an annoyance or ignored completely.  From what I have seen the US is one of the worst place to visit if you can’t speak English.  I can just picture some beleaguered tourist stumble into Wet Willies and get told to fuck off because the bleach blond bartender (alliteration!!) with hair extensions couldn’t understand what he was ordering.  Ahhh, land of the brave, home of the free.

Getting to Japan – check, getting drunk there – check, now how about seeing some weird stuff?  You better believe there is going to be some bizarre shit going on there and I can’t fucking wait.  People watching is so much fun.  Here is a little sampling of things I want to see based on what I found after typing “weird toyko sights” into “the Google”:

Guys married to anime pillows:

Chicks dressed up like french maids to go to the mall:

Mothra battling Godzilla?

If I even see one of those things while I am there I will consider the trip a success.  Wish me well, at the very least it will provide some great fodder for the blog, and if I do get killed by a roving gang of Yakuza thugs then it goes without saying that you must avenge my death.

A recent discussion with Mr. Ultraparadoxical led to a discussion about oral sex [Pretty much all of my conversations lead to oral sex somehow... weird], during which I made some strong statements.  He responded by asking me to present them to you.

Allow me to begin by saying clearly: THERE ARE men out there who will suffer from none of the below afflictions; men who just sincerely enjoy pleasing a lady and who combine and balance their oral skills with a healthy dosing of, well, dick.

The conversation Mr. U and I were having however was about men who, after repeated sexual encounters with ample opportunities, have not yet tried to have sex (yep, the penis in the vagina kind) but instead enthusiastically insist on pleasuring her orally and then calling it a day. True, as a lady, this should sound nothing but blissful; all the orgasm and none of the effort? Huzzah! Alas, not so simple.

After wondering aloud in many-a-circle of girl friends, I have confirmed a few truths about these sorts of men, the “I just want to please you” type of men, and women far and wide agree that there are three conclusions to be had.  First, numbers one and two:

1. He has a small penis… and he knows it
2. He has and STD… and he’s waiting for the right time to tell you about it

For girls in our early and mid twenties they encompassed every reasonable possibility.  Not everyone in their twenties has seen as much ass as has Mr. U, and it’s perfectly rational to expect that some men (and women), having not yet come into their own sexual confidence and comfort, would feel slightly insecure about what they bring to the table.  [Special personal note to Mr. U:  I’m not sure I’ll ever recover from learning the term “Arby’s Vagina.”

If college age women catch wind of that euphemism, I think we can safely expect that dorm room sex will plummet and emotional eating will rise.]  If a man is concerned that he’s bringing something less than average to the table, it seems reasonable that he would try to keep it under his hat (if his hat were his pants) for as long as he could in the hopes that he wins the poor gal over with his stellar personality and his incredible oral talents.

Further, we’re a dirty generation. We are. If everyone who had the clap was actually clapping the volume would be profound [That begs the philosophical question... what's the sound of one STD clapping?].  And holy shit, imagine the cacophony if we went ahead and attributed a sound to each affliction! You there, with the herpes, yep – I want you to snap, slowly, like a beatnik… Christ, we’d all be deafened.  There are so many STD’s stuck to our collective genitalia that my gynecologist has switched from trying to scare the bejesus out of me about contracting one (circa 1996) to congratulating me profusely each time I again test clear (circa three weeks ago) because she just “can’t believe it’s actually possible to avoid them anymore.”  So, when you think about it, the numbers are against you.  Therefore, when your date seems to be undeniably avoiding touching his contagious parts to yours, an STD stall is a statistical reality.

These two reasons served me pretty well as a young pup. I would toss them at girlfriends who phoned out of desperate sexual frustration and we’d bat them around a bit, making guesses about whether or not he had a visible STD or a visible penis, for that matter.  But then our 30s began to approach, and with that, the men coming in and out of our lives began to age and explanation number three came into clear sights:

1. He’s impotent… and he knows it.

It’s not just grandpa [or your pre-op tranny grandma] who suffers from erectile dysfunction. Reports are coming in from all over the place of men in their 30s and 40s who suffer from the inability to muster up a useful erection (or keep one), and it isn’t all chalked up to Whiskey Dick [Also the original title for Herman Melville's classic novel until he finally settled on Moby Dick].  Maybe it’s all the garbage he ate in college, smothered in condiments and loosely labeled “food”; maybe it’s how much of his circulation has been going to his hands to help him crush it on his Xbox for 12 hours a week; maybe it’s something his therapist said, or a position in his yoga class.  Maybe he’s an emotional mess, or he smashed his cock and balls up at a rodeo and they’ve never been the same again.  Impotence seems to be on the rise (don’t hate me for the pun) as we age.  After enough reported cases my gaggle of girlfriends and I added it to The Essential Short List of Go-To Explanations.

There will be the occasional outlier.  You may stumble upon a virgin (Lord help you, or rather- him) who hopes keeping his penis in his pants will still get him a wristband at the pearly gates, or a married man who doesn’t think a little yodeling into the gully of a stranger counts as cheating on his (as yet undisclosed) wife.

Finally, allow me to quickly note why the all-oral-until-the-time-is-right approach is a failed approach: I’m not going to eventually find your gonorrhea as endearing as your dimples, no matter how many times you’ve gotten me off with your mouth.  There’s only one way to know whether or not I’m the type of girl who doesn’t have a size (or firmness) requirement, and it has nothing to do with romantic walks on the beach followed by champagne and gentle licking.  So, slip me some firm, clean cock to remind me that I’m not actually in the home of a highly deceiving dike [Be sure to check out Oprah's new autobiography, "Highly Deceiving Dike".. in stores soon!], and then go back to your business if you like—and make me pay for questioning you if you want (is there such a thing as angry mouth sex?).  I promise once I know I don’t need to complain or worry, I won’t, and then you can rightfully take your place as a God among men. See? Everybody wins.

First of all, I had no idea what I was getting into when I purchased the property.  It was all so easy and everyone was telling me that I was making this great decision.  I thought I was going to live in the place for a few years then turn around and sell it for a tidy profit.

In retrospect, I am, as a half retarded friend of a friend would say, “The biggest moron he ever metted”.  When I signed those fateful documents on the day of the close I was getting a loan for $380K that would cost me over $600K if I paid it back in 30 years.  Maybe I should have examined the couple hundred documents that I was signing and initialing, that may have been a good idea.  I did research, listened to people who I thought were knowledgeable but still made a very poor decision.  This whole situation is a great example of a shared illusion on par with organized religion.  Everyone believed the market would steadily climb forever… maybe not.  By the way, this purchase was made at the pinnacle of the housing market.  It turned out that the same year that Katrina took a shit on New Orleans I decided to do the same on my financial future.  The two disasters in the gulf pretty much book ended my foray into the real estate market.

I dutifully paid my mortgage payments for the next few years while watching the housing market crumble and the equity in my purchase slip down the drain.  It is almost comical how bad my timing was.  My purchase was NEVER a good investment.  Almost from the month after I made my purchase the market started to deteriorate.  I picture the previous owner being a Warren Buffet style business Nostradamus but in reality they were probably just like me, trying to make decisions that made sense for them at the time – except their decision to sell was the right one and my decision to buy was laughably bad.

After months of hand wringing and the impending increase in mortgage payments due to the 5 year ARM the decision was made to stop paying the mortgage.  At that point I had to become acquainted with all types of legal and real estate jargon like short sales, deeds, notes, and the dreaded foreclosure.  During this time every sleazebag broker, agent or salesperson came out of the woodwork trying to “help” or give “advice” on the situation.  The hardest part was knowing who was full of shit and who wasn’t.  At one point I even met with a gay real estate duo, one of which was named “Tug” (I’m not kidding).  If you name your kid “Tug” you are pretty much destining them to be gay right?  That would be like naming your daughter Cinnamon and not expecting her to be a stripper.

Anyways, after talking with all of these vultures it became apparent that the first step in the process was to try to restructure the loan.  This was the most fruitless part of the entire process.  What they offered was a complete insult and it took them over 3 months to make it.  After their proposal was rejected we moved on to attempt a short sale.  If I had to make a SAT question out of this part of the proceedings it would be

Loan Restructuring : Useless ::

A – Short Sale Process : Degrading

B – Short Sale Process : Frustrating

C – Short Sale Process : Soul Crushing Waste of Time

D – All of the Above

That’s right! D is the correct answer!  After OVER A YEAR of sending pay stubs, negotiating, working with an agent (who was actually extremely helpful), and disclosing every possible piece of my financial information a buyer was found and the first mortgage agreed to the sale.  A very generous offer, given the circumstances, was made to the 2nd mortgage holder which was denied.  A few offers and counter offers later we could not come to an agreement and the negotiations were over.  All that work by dozens of people (us, prospective buyers of the property, real estate agents and loan company employees) was all for nothing.  It is no wonder why the US is in a rut, we have millions of people employed to essentially do nothing but push paper around and accomplish nothing. At least when a sweat shop worker finishes their 14 hour day they have a couple hundred Nike’s to show for it.

Over a year and a half later and after all of the options for negotiating this process have been exhausted and the property was finally foreclosed on.  In a way, I am glad that it is finally over but in another more accurate way I am terrified, because I went from the mortgage piranha pool to the lawyer shark tank… sweet baby Jesus save me!

Car Trouble

This one is always a winner especially when you are late for work or just don’t feel like leaving the house.  It is very easy to get busted with this excuse though.  It is important to pick something that  A – I won’t get any follow up questions and B – Is not immediately noticeable.  Tires problems, fender benders and speeding tickets are no good but alternators, dead batteries and ignition problems are money.  Remember, when using this lie the problem you make up needs to be like your involvement with people on Craig’s List for “intimate encounters” – intermittent, complicated and not obviously noticeable.

Messaging Issues

“You didn’t get my text?  Hmmm… that’s weird…” said with a quizzical look on your face will pretty much get anyone out of most problems.  This is such bullshit but so easy to use… blame the technology and it is all good.  Everyone knows texting, emails and calls are idiot-proof but everyone will still buys these excuses.  I have this lie used on me all the time at work and it is infuriating.  Listen, shithead, if you send an email, it will get to me.  No, it wasn’t caught in my spam filter.  No, my email server is not down.  The problem is…  YOU DIDN’T SEND IT… that’s why I didn’t get it. *sidenote* By the way – I still don’t understand how people met up when cell phones weren’t around.  Even with mobile phones trying to get people together is like herding a gang of retarded 3rd graders.  Could you imagine trying to meet someone at a concert without a cell phone – complete clusterfuck.

Death/Sickness

I personally shy away from using the death excuse because I don’t like the karmic implications involved in it.  If I make up some bullshit about Aunt Millie being dead and one of my Aunts actually croaked it would probably be all my fault (not really, but really).  Sickness on the other hand is a whole other animal.  I have used that excuse many times. The common cold, hangover, syphilis, gout, spastic colon, Ebola, traveler’s diarrhea… I’ve used them all.  The key is to exclude any unnecessary details and if at all possible notify your boss of your impending absence via email.  Doing your best Marlon Brando impersonation over the phone never works out and at best you sound like a pathetic douche.

I’m sure that I missed some good excuses… do you have any good ones?

Wet Willies: coming soon.  Fuck. Me.  This “bar” is in the same building as my apartment and although it is not directly under my domicile I will likely be walking by it every time I leave me place.  For the entire time I have lived downtown this has been an empty commercial space that used to be called “Visions” which was one of those creepy bars that’s clientele were mostly middle eastern guys with uni brows.  Now it is turning into a Chuckee-Cheese for retards, skanks and tourists.  I would much rather have filthy, meth-head bums milling around the front of my pad than the people who would think that it is a good idea to grab some drinks at “Wet Willies”.  This is going to be a disaster of epic proportions… why, sweet baby Jesus… why?  Oh, Wet Willies let me count the ways I hate you:

The Logo

Scroll back up and take a look at it again so we are on the same page.  Really?  A black fucking icy drink?  Who is the ad wizard who thought of that idea?  It looks like a heaping cup full of dirty slush siphoned off the side of the I-90 tollway.  Furthermore, the “W’s” in the name look like two pairs of droopy tits, which will likely match the physiques of the livestock that will be inhabiting this place. Then there is the tag line.  That slogan reeks of lazy douchebaggery.  Harvard is an institution.  Marriage is an institution.  Motherfucking-Wet-Goddamn-Willies is NOT AND INSTITUTION.  It seems as though they are trying to relocate a Florida (America’s wang) style white trash beach party to the heart of the Gaslamp District in San Diego.  The saddest thing is they will probably be successful thus lowering my faith in humanity one more rung.

The Website

Apparently I am a masochist because I Googled this place and went to their website.  My worst fears were realized.  After waiting 30 seconds for a shitty 1998 quality animation of a taxi clearing snow to complete (why the fuck is the taxi clearing snow????) I realized that this place is a misogynistic, alcoholic slushy shop.  Basically this tells me instead of seeing harmless hobos passed out in the empty vestibule I am going to be seeing fat chicks squeezed into tube tops 2 sizes too small gyrating on the dance floor to the latest abortion of a song by Lady Gaga.  Don’t forget about the creepers and bottom feeder guys that will likely enjoy this type of “institution”.  I am picturing three things 1 – pencil thin 90′s beards 2 – gold neck chains 3 – Ed Hardy clothing and tank-tops or a horrifying combination of both.

1:45 AM

If this place gets popular it will be a shit show when they dump these assholes back on the street.  Mixing 5 different colors of mixed fruity drinks is going to lead to one thing besides making a bad decision with the pig across the bar who had been eye fucking you over her hurricane all night.  That’s right, it leads to a rainbow of vomit all over my sidewalk (thanks KD).  I will be nostalgic for smelling a little bum piss on my walk to work when I am hopscotching between different shades of upchuck.  Yay.

I think I just broke my own record for most profanities in a post but I am legitimately annoyed by this development.  The only positive thing is that it will provide a ton of fodder for the blog and  I plan to make a National Geographic style trip there to witness firsthand this doucheco-system.

Besides the US bombing the shit out of their homes, torturing and killing people indiscriminately there are plenty of ugly things about our society today that would piss off some poor bastard living in a cave in Afghanistan.  Evan as a citizen of this country I am forced to see the stupid, wasteful and vile things that we are bombarded with on a daily basis.  Simply by tuning to MTV to see 20-something trust fund assholes bicker and whine at each other could easily push any fundamentalist over the edge. *sidenote* George Bush’s speeches back in the day always made me laugh when he would talk about the fact that the “terrorists hate our freedom”.  Um… I think they hate the fact that we have a lot MORE of everything than they do and, in their eyes, wasting those boundless resources on vice and impropriety.  Oh yeah – and we invade Middle Eastern countries indiscriminately *end sidenote*   Here are the things that we should hide from any potential terrorists at all costs:

The Real Housewives of _________

If I wanted to see a pack of dried up old skanks fight over money I would go down to Barrio Logan and watch the meth-heads squabble over drug money or I could tune into one of these “Real Housewives” shows.  The fact that these programs are popular enough to have as many iterations in different geographic areas astounds me.  They are the absolute worst kind of women – materialistic, bitchy and above all stupid.  People get bothered when there is swearing or nudity on TV but I find this type of show far more offensive than any tit I have ever seen.  I would rather have my non-existent children watch “Faces of Death” than one minute of “The Real Housewives”.  One viewing of an self-entitled tramp feeding her dog paté while she is complaining about the housekeeper would make any self respecting Al Qaeda member start loading up the rental van with fertilizer.

Lindsay Lohan/Britney Spears/Paris Hilton vs. The Tabloids

I think I have seen Lindsay Lohan’s vag more than I have seen my own dick.  I get it.  When a half drunk tweaked up actress gets out of her town car and you have a camera shooting up her skirt you will probably get a picture of her crotch.  How are paparazzi allowed to do that?  The media lavishes them with attention then when they start to act their age they become pariahs and fodder for jokes on late night TV.  I feel like comedians are waiting with bated breath for Miley Cyrus to turn 18 so they can start tearing her apart in the media.  This is what much of society focuses on for entertainment – the day-to-day lives of horrible, horrible skanks.  It is no wonder that the US is slumping as it is when our role models are lazy, talentless, drug addicts.  Hopefully no one in Saudi-Arabia has access to Paris Hilton’s twitter feed or we are all in big trouble.

Sports players thanking God after games

Are you really that narcissistic?  Do you actually think that God really cares if a big orange ball goes into a hoop more times than the other team?  I always wonder why people who actually believe in God aren’t insulted by athletes and their love affair with thanking Jesus/Mohamed/the Spaghetti Monster every post game interview.  Apparently their god is a personal god that knows, and is concerned with everything that anyone does.  I can almost picture that same “thankful” athlete at the strip club later that night and “Cinnamon” over on stage 4 hopping off the pole to thank sweet baby Jesus for giving her big tits and a low self esteem.

I’m sure there are plenty of things about the US which would drive someone to mass terror… can you think of anything that I missed?

More psyche-outs than you can shake a stick at

I missed my opportunity as an amateur videographer when my buddy went on psyche out spree that likely will never be topped.  He paraded himself down the streets of East Lansing offering high-fives to fellow drunkards and pulling it back right when they were about to connect leaving them embarrassed and angry.  It sounds childish and stupid (it is) but hilarious nonetheless.  It culminated in him trying to psyche out this chick and she flipped out on him and slammed him into a brick wall… good times.  Seeing a 5’6” Italian guy getting physically intimidated by a 5’9” black chick is a brand of amazing that I have never seen before.  This was the same tiny Guido that tried to leap through the sliding door of a minivan while it was driving down the street that same night.  He has a wife and 2 kids.  That’s fucked up and pretty amazing all at once.

Creepy puppet shows

Outside of the Art Museum in Chicago there was a guy crouched down in a filthy wooden box that was putting on a puppet show for the kids walking by.  To really get a feel for how bizarre it was you really need a picture.  Who knows what was going on on the bottom half of that box? I didn’t seem to matter much to people walking by as they stood there watching this shady character with his hands up a felt alligator’s ass.  The scariest thing was that parents seemed to be cool with their children walking up to give this guy (who I guarantee is on the sexual predator database) a few bucks which he would grab with one of his dirt encrusted puppets. This is one step away from having you children run into the crackhouse to pick you up some rocks.

Rat eating a churro

I was at a house party a while back and for some reason there was a churro at said party wrapped in tinfoil.   Amongst the tumult of the festivities the churro was tossed down to the alley below.  A couple of minutes later we heard the scraping of tinfoil being dragged on the ground.  To the delight of everyone at the party a giant rat decided to take the churro back to his lair to have his way with it.  If I had a picture of a rat eating a churro I think that my life would be complete.  That picture belongs on my mantle. *sidenote* The only satisfaction that I can get from writing about this is that I will be number one on Google if you type in the search term “Rat eating churro” – ain’t no mountain high enough – be proud mom, be proud. *end sidenote*

Random guy at a wedding

I went to a friend’s wedding a while back and one of the attendees was so unintentionally hilarious that I really regret I did not have a picture.  He was like a cross between Andy Sipowicz and a staples employee.  He was wearing a tie that was about a foot too short and busting out some dance moves circa 1978.  I actually made one of my friends stand in front of him so I could pretend that I was taking a picture of her to get a shot of the guy on the dance floor.  He was a specimen of being so lame that he was actually cool again.  When most people enter into the lame tunnel they don’t emerge from the other side.  If I am that bad ass when I am 45 I won’t even need a picture of a rodent eating a Mexican pastry to know my life is complete.  Now THAT’S saying something!  Do you have any good pics for me that I can include… if so send them to me at ultraparadoxical [at] gmail.com.