Paved With Good Intentions

In 1972, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare partnered with NASA to start a network meant to use television as a means of providing real education to its viewers.  It was called The Learning Channel.

It was then privatized.  However, it still focused on educational programming - like PaleoWorld (remember that shit?!) - until the mid-nineties when it began focusing on entertainment programming.  

 

And now they show this.

 

 They also show this.

 

*sigh*

Educational programming on television was a fantastic idea back in the 70s, when children still had souls but occasionally zoned out to TV.  Educational programming NOW - when 7 year olds have Twitter accounts and say "I don't have that app" if you ask them if they want to play Horse - is pretty much fucking mandatory if we don't want to start devolving back into monosyllabic Neanderthals.  Oh wait - (begin text) we totes alrdy did omg lolol whatevs YOLO mf! (end text).

This is terrifying.  At the same time that kids are being increasingly saturated with media, that media is becoming increasingly saturated with people who are so mind-numbingly ridiculous, worthless, disgusting, weird and/or vapid that they're actually noteworthy.  What do I mean?  Just check out The Learning Channel's current (EXPLOSIVELY POPULAR) line-up.  I sincerely wish I was making this up:

Toddlers & Tiaras. Keep scrolling after this.  I devoted a whole post to it.

Sex Sent Me To The ER.  "I was doing that thing that causes children, and even though I'm evolutionarily designed to be able to do this successfully, I nearly lost an eye/limb/my life in the process."  Darwinism at its finest.

Sister Wives.  This is about a batshit looney sociopath who sleeps with 4 women simultaneously and has 17 fucking children with them.  When a guy who isn't white does that, all the 'Merikans come out of their bomb shelters and vomit articles all over the internet about their racial superiority.  When a guy who is white does it, he's given boatloads of money and fame so he can entertain those very same 'Merikans.

My Strange Addiction.  I am not going to disparage people who suffer from addiction.  I'm two classes away from a certification in Addiction Counseling so it's a topic that I genuinely care about.  But, profiling people who are "addicted" to eating cheesy potatoes or having sexual relationships with their cars is like trying to bring awareness to sex trafficking by interviewing women who have one-night stands while on vacation.

My 600 Pound Life.  We live in a country that revolves around shitty food that's cheap and profitable for the corporations that sell them, rather than healthy food that's accessible and affordable for the people who consume them.  We are a caricature of ourselves at this point.  This show tells us the plight of all of the victims of our system, yet never once thoughtfully discusses the perpetrators.

19 Kids And Counting.  These people refuse to use birth control because God, and each child born is immediately raised into servitude to support the family, and homeschooled.  They have no opportunity to develop autonomy outside of their family, but more importantly - that poor woman's vagina.  I'm pretty sure she almost loses her uterus every time she farts.

All of this is on THE LEARNING CHANNEL.  Instead of learning about dinosaurs and history and culture, we have an entire network - that was originally spawned to educate the masses - exploiting the very people who are most victimized by our society in its current state.  Think of it this way - when the only form of media was newspapers - you got a glimpse of the most important thing going on in the world, and it was so much bigger than anything in your tiny life that you were fascinated by it.  Now all the important things going on in the world have become really fucking boring in comparison.  Ask a 12 year old if he'd rather mow down zombies with an AK-47 while calling a stranger a fag, or read about what's currently happening in the Ukraine.  You won't finish your sentence before he's screaming "headshot motherfucker!"  How about watching a show about the neurology behind addiction?  Nah - it'd be way more fun to watch this fat chick mainline mashed potatoes covered in 2 cups of cheddar.

The Learning Channel gave me so much material about the decay of modern society that I didn't even have time to bring up the Kardashians.  Oh man, we are totally fucked.

The Laziness of Americans That Defies Explanation With Physics, Logic or Fat Jokes

I'm going to preface this with a fact about myself that most who know me have heard a million times, so I swear not to beat this horse to his 14th death.

One of the annoyances of daily life that has followed me from the very beginnings of my awareness of those around me - and notably how annoying everyone around me typically is - has got to be people who don't return their shopping carts. Pregnant people get a pass if they are in their third trimester, and it is raining. Anyone old enough to utilize absorbent underwear gets an enthusiastic pass and a hug. Injured/disabled - obviously - in fact, I'll push it back for you. Everyone else - you only get a free pass IF THERE ARE LOCUSTS.

This annoyance has been around probably since the invention of the wheel, and honestly - people who don't return their shopping carts now just bore me with the unoriginality of their laziness. There's a new sheriff in town, and ever since they came around to piss on my parade, I HAVE SEEN THEM EVERYWHERE.

There are people among you - your friends, coworkers, family - who take laziness to an entirely new level. These people are the belches and farts of evolution that take human form - as non-handicapped, non-pregnant, non-geriatric assclowns who push the Handicapped button on doors so they don't have to push them open themselves.

I am pretty sure that upon seeing this phenomenon, the little neurons in my brain look around at each other and say, "wait wait, this is our evolutionary competition...?" and immediately start huffing paint and shooting pure grain alcohol because, really, they got this shit in the bag.

Now this isn't just lazy. Pushing this button takes exactly the same amount of energy as pushing the fucking door open. But interestingly, people who push this button because they - gasp - are actually handicapped, are engaging in MUCH greater physical labor to pass through than the sweaty land-cows that push the Magic Button so they can have both hands free to double-fist cheeseburgers while they waddle through the doorframe sideways.

I mean seriously, these neurons of mine are definitely on a booze-soaked huffing binge because I can't even wrap my smart-ass brain around this next level of laziness. I feel like we should only encounter such hyper-laze in a technological age when cars drive themselves, mate with each other and robots wipe our asses.

I mean, where is the logic?! Regular, old-fashioned 20th century laziness at least MADE SENSE. Do something the easy way, because it's easier than doing it the normal way. Examples: Cooking boxed macaroni instead of boiling noodles, grating cheese and stirring. But now, this is a new breed. The new standard is: pushing a button to open a door so that it opens for you, instead of pushing a door so that it opens for you. So:

1) The amount of energy expended is the same

2) The end result is the same

3) Fuck - reread that sentence and the words describing what you're doing are practically the same

So what's the difference here? What makes the Magic Button the more attractive option? Does the Handicapped stick-figure symbol look like a fried turkey leg when your vision is clouded by the gym membership card in your wallet finally giving in and vaporizing?

I think I have it figured out. We have become so entitled that we don't feel obligated to do anything for ourselves! (pause) Wait wait wait... I was not looking to go the self-reflective route as much as I wanted to rag on the over-indulgent and growing stereotype of Americans who make me embarrassed to go to Europe. But, maybe I've directed my snotty dislike in the wrong direction. Maybe this level of laziness spans all activity levels and weight classes and I really need to face a harsh-ass reality:

OMG Y'ALL, AMERICANS ARE ALL FUCKING LAZY. Fat, skinny, rich, poor - we're all festering in laziness. My new mission is to spend an entire day making a mental log of all of the needlessly lazy things that I do not to save time or energy, but simply because I'm a lazy, dopey shit.

Okay, I know where I'll start - when I microwave my leftovers for one minute, I'm NOT going to press 6, 0 instead of 1, 0, 0, SIMPLY because it involves less buttons.

You too can be free of laziness! Join me! It's like someone really important said once:

"Give me liberty, or give me death!"

Unless, uhmm... liberty involves like doing lots of things, or walking places... in which case... let me get back to you after I'm done watching reality TV and eating Pizza Rolls.

How Mystic Tans and Fat Stay-At-Home Moms are Destroying America

We recently celebrated the Fourth of July, which basically means we all blew shit up in the name of loving our country with little/no regard for the non-Americans who were smart enough to design and manufacture the explosives that we set off in open spaces of dry grass which was mowed by Mexicans who we won't allow citizenship, surrounded by innocent children who's parents don't have medical insurance to pay for their hospital bills when they're beaned in the eye with a Roman Candle, in between swigs of Bud Light and mouthfuls of crunchy, sodium-y things. Yay America!

The 4th however really reminded me of the gut-melting ridiculousness of being an American that none of us likes to acknowledge. We're greedy and corrupt, we cast aside the blue-collar workers, the "outcasts", those who are so unfortunate to be both sick AND poor. I mean the injustice that we are at the center of is definitely worthy of a well-researched, epic documentary for the world to see. But, I'm a fucking AMURIKUN so I'll make my point in my native language - via examples from reality TV. This is the first installment of many. You freaking Americans gave me a lot of material.

EXAMPLE #1: Toddlers & Tiaras vs. The Global Human Sex-Trafficking Trade

Who in their motherloving mind wouldn't just spontaneously vomit at the idea of a young girl being whored out for the sexual gratification of perverts? I mean, the UN is all up on that shit and it's a huge global problem. Anyone capable of human emotion could reasonably agree that sex trafficking little girls is fucked-up, yo!

Let me please remind you that you live in America, where mothers dress up their kindergartners in the image of what they wished they looked like when they were 22 before they became obese hedgehogs of wives - in spray-tans, more makeup than B-list porn stars, and enough sequins to bury Elton John on the moon.

I am a non-sex-offending heterosexual woman and my first thought upon seeing this was, "Damn, girl." WHAT IS GOING ON HERE! When I was this age, I had finger-paint smeared on my face and hadn't combed my hair in two weeks. This girl has nicer legs than me and more makeup than I wore to the prom and SHE IS FUCKING, LIKE, SIX YEARS OLD!

Okay, so... let me get this straight. We wax the legs of six-year old girls and shackle them in make-up and body-paint while teaching them that the more men want to bang them, the more they're worth - but we call porn stars and Planned Parenthood patients "sluts"...? My brain is pooping its pants right now.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not faulting these poor girls for the whore parade that they're forced into by their fat, unemployed mothers. In fact, my solution to the American Sex Trafficking Trade that we call "beauty pageants" is really simple - if you have poor self-worth and somehow managed to wrangle a man into marriage so he can pay your bills and free up your schedule to accommodate fast-food binges and Oprah reruns FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST USE CONTRACEPTION. Please don't have children that you sickeningly use to remind yourself that you had really hot genes before you decided to sustain yourself on as many Twinkies as you can shove down your gaping maw before your husband comes home and avoids having sex with you.

I guess the moral of this story is: If you fancy the idea of a female being given money, attention and praise based on the caliber of her body and general attractiveness - please follow the below steps:

1) Take birth control pills like they are fucking M&Ms and double-bag any naked penis that comes near you.

2) Go to the gym, eat a reasonable diet, take pride in your hot-ass body and show it off as you see fit.

3) Use said body to do any/all of the following - land a man/get a job/make money/feel good about yourself/contribute to society.

I mean, shitting out a kid that you dress up sexier than you could ever hope to be is really just the ultimate lazy cop-out. How un-American is that?! I am ALL FOR the excessive portrayal of the beautiful and sexy female body. I love a hot chick in a short skirt any day of the week. So ladies, if you agree with that statement to the point that you want to financially benefit from the fact that men love to look at tan, skinny things - BE A TAN, SKINNY THING. Don't cop-out and just squeeze something out of your vagina that you cover in glitter and mascara while it still has baby teeth and shove it up on stage to be spank-bank material.

Be a true American! Whore yourself and not your offspring! It's the patriotic thing to do.

This Product Kinda-Sorta Does A Couple Things, Sometimes

Sometimes, something so prolific and disturbing comes along in my life that I am instantly and deeply driven to blog. Now, I see and hear a lot of crazy shit in my line of work so when these things come along you know they're big. Today I encountered one of these things.

I'm talking of course about kitchen disinfecting wipes. But not just ANY kitchen disinfecting wipes, American Fare generic brand kitchen disinfecting wipes. Please observe:

They look like normal disinfecting wipes, you say? You are really good at being so, very, very wrong and I'd like to ask you to stop it. Look at the yellow print!! Do you see what that says?!

"Kills 99% of some bacteria"

I admit, after seeing this I had to take two Xanax and cower in the corner of my kitchen drinking 100-proof Rumpleminze directly from the bottle. A disinfecting wipe that kills a limited amount of NOT EVEN ALL THE BACTERIAS?? Well it gets better:

Oh, what's that, you say? Just a lovely little label that says: "Fresh Scent Limited Disinfectant"

I am starting to feel a little cheated by these flaccid, soggy bastardwipes. It's not just that they suck at disinfecting (if I get e.coli, American Fare Wipes--YOUR ASS IS MINE), it's that they're so very aggressive in their marketing of their own suckiness. My Lysol wipes say this on their cover: "Kills 99.9% of germs!! Cleans and Disinfects!" Unicorns and candy!! I am excited about THOSE wipes!! C'mon, American Fare, who's in charge of your marketing department, Opie from Family Guy?

You might be asking yourself, "what are these things good for?", much like I once did before I read the back label. That was a simpler time.

Instead of just being as self-defeating as they were on their front cover and saying something like, "Effective against cleaning kitchens and maybe a sink or some shit", American Fare went and got ambitious. Some mentally challenged, hard-drinking ape who works at American Fare put together quite a lengthy list of uses. Among them, I give you:

"Effective against: 99% of some bacteria on: the outside of microwaves, public restrooms, door knobs, telephone receivers and key pads, wall switch plates, door frames, urinals, steering wheels, seat belt buckle and housings, dashboards, gear shift levers, accessory control knobs, wheelchair lifts, faceguards, plastic straps, and.." (last but most definitely not least) "non-porous surfaces of visors."

SWEET MERCIFUL CHRIST! That list makes me want to drink lighter fluid and rub salt in my eyes. If you want to not-really-disinfect your seat belt buckle, these guys are for you! Those Lysol bastards would whimper and disintegrate at the sight of a non-porous visor surface or a plastic strap, but not these glorious, damp bastards! So American Fare kinda-sorta-"limited" non-disinfecting wipes might not save your children from salmonella or remove germs from your toilet bowl, but god damn it if they won't moisten the shit out of your door frame. But why the fuck can't I use these on the INSIDE of my microwave?? Really? Wipes, now you're just being bossy.

Phew. That was intense. The moral of this story is generic brands suck weiner and you should just buy the good shit. Unless, you know, your door frame is really in need of a good moistening.

Getting Off and Getting Effed Up For The Global Good

As we are all well aware, we are clinging to our copper pennies in these dire financial times. I have especially sad news: my delightful, sexy, low-key PDX store has closed up shop. After 28 years in business. RIP.

Alas, don’t worry about me!! I rake in the chips in an industry that will never disappear regardless of the impending financial apocalypse--Convicted Sexual Deviance. The fact that my sex-offender polygraph business franchise has stayed steady and then some over the last few dismal economic months really makes me think. When the economy crashes, people stop buying silly extravagances. They stop eating out at over-priced restaurants. They stop paying a house-cleaner and just do that shit themselves. They buy generic brand refried beans instead of the good shit--you know, Rosarita brand, with the hot Mexican lady in the flowy white top, that doesn’t have oil settled on top when you open the can.

HOWEVER…

When a bear is hungry… he will eat, my friends. Concurrently, he will drink copiously. And also he will bone random bitches with reckless abandon. Sex and liquor are the great equalizers. So here is my hypothesis: I should sell everything in my possession, including but not limited to my non-essential organs such as one of my kidneys and possibly my appendix; to front the money to open an independently-run Liquor Store/Smut Shop. That’s right folks. Booze, porn, distastefully discreet vibrators, strap-ons, and MIXERS. For the love of all that is Holy, every store selling liquor should be required to sell POP and JUICE, and this novel concept is long overdue in its enactment. I feel compelled to channel one of my regular stop-offs while living in Bozeman, Montana--Pork Chop John’s. Walk through the front door and go left, you get deep fried sausage and chicken-fried pork. Go to the right, and you get a full cooler of mixers along with 90% alcohol content Everclear and the cheapest Jack D you’ll find in the lower 48. Did I mention the cashiers spit their chew at the floor before handing you your receipt? I’m quite sure it’s the closest place to the Kingdom of Heaven on our humble Earth. Ever hit up the liquor store just across the I-5 Bridge in Jantzen Beach? No sales tax, cheap liquor and mixers galore. It is positively magical. I need a spare pair of panties just to walk through the door, I’m not even gonna lie.

So let us all do our part to reinvigorate the global economy. Gas is down to two bucks a gallon so I know you have some flex money in that wallet of yours. Treat yourself to some Toys in Babeland merchandise, and purchase the hell out of some holiday liquor specials. Whiskey AND a tumbler? Rum AND a celebratory shot glass? Random name-brand, rapper-endorsed vodka AND an emblazoned low-ball glass? YES. PLEASE.

We all must make sacrifices. Orgasms and liquor for financial stability, HOLLAH!!

The Skeeziest of the Skeeze

I am about to take you on a journey of skeeze. If you are not well aware of what "skeeze" is, just picture Kevin Federline, with his goatee smeared with lard, wearing a home-confinement bracelet (that bitch totally made up the domestic violence charge) and a shirt that says "Git 'Er Dunn", winking at a girl who is walking home from middle school. That's skeeze. And so our journey begins.

I have two jobs. I work at a small store in the Portland Airport selling lingerie and body products, and I also type polygraphs (read: lie detector) exams on convicted sex offenders who are on probation or parole, as I have done for the last 5+ years. Because of the former, I have endured many a cheesy pick-up line ("Hey, my wife is about your size... can you model this nightie for me so I could see how it fits?" *wink wink*). Because of the latter, I have heard in brain-sloshing detail the dirty habits of my sexually deviant peers for the better part of a decade. I am no stranger to skeeze by any measure. And yet the skeeziness of the skeeze I encountered tonight has become the One Lost Sock in the Laundry Room of my Life. Side note: The cleverness of that metaphor has yet to be seen. Stay tuned for the next few paragraphs.

I was at my lovely airport store, minding my own business on a very slow night. I was checking NFL scores on my Blackberry and rocking out to The Best of Cat Stevens on the store speakers, and a nice gentleman wandered in.

Nice Dude: "This is Cat Stevens playing. Did you choose the music?"

Me: "I sure did, I love Cat Stevens!"

We proceeded to discuss Cat Stevens and his musical glory, and even expanded this conversation to include Bruce Springsteen, Simon & Garfunkel, and James Taylor. We swapped MUST-SEE YouTube look-ups and cemented our random musical assimilatude with a Post-It note trade-off for must-hear ditties. Then... Shit. Got. WEIRD.

Me: "Wow, we totally have the same taste in music. I will definitely look up that video of Bruce Springsteen covering U2's "With or Without You." It sounds killer!"

Nice Dude: "Oh you should. It's really very good. I think you'll enjoy it. (pause) So I have one more question for you."

Me: "Sure!"

Nice (ahem, Creepy) Dude: "Could I give you ten dollars for your socks?"

Okay, I need to pause from the dialogue for a moment. Partly because I just pooped my brains out of my butt and partly because a statement as such deserves an awkward blog-pause.

Pause.

Me: "Uhhm. You mean the socks. That I'm wearing. Like on my feet. Right now?"

Creepy Dude: "Yeah. I'll give you ten dollars for them."

Me: ".... Well... uhhhm... these are kind of my favorite socks. So... uhh... (*brain exploding*) I don't think I can take them off my feet and give them to you."

Creepy Dude: "Oh, okay! (*shakes my hand*) Well, wow, it was really great talking to you!" *exits store*

That.

Just.

Happened.

If you have ever seen Tenacious D: The Pick Of Destiny, I had the exact facial expression of Jack Black as he first experienced Kyle Gass's guitar playing. It's the same expression you'd produce if your father said to you, "You know, I always knew your mother was a trifling-ass whore, and now I have the DNA evidence." It is a look of bewilderment and confusion with a dash of I-knew-it-all-along.

This is what pisses me off about this whole situation: Creepy Dude did not follow through on his skeeziness. He just bounced out at the height of skeeziness, leaving me no time to verbally respond, or even to vomit uncontrollably. I found myself confounded and in desperate need of a Skeeze-Drain-O to cleanse my system. I have thus hit a mental mind-block. I care not about my bank balance, my paycheck, the State of the Union, my health, the weather... I am all-consumed by why a random man finds my used, smelly, worn socks to be worthy of ten dollars worth of US currency. I am also all-consumed by why his inability to attain these socks from me is of so little consequence to him. He didn't even ask twice. I semi-shot him down, and he gave up. Are my smelly socks of so little calibur that in his strange perversion he couldn't even cough up, "...Are you sure?"

Why are my used socks so appealing, and yet so forgetable? Eff you, Presumable Foot-Fetishist Guy. You've bruised my smelly foot ego.

What ever happened to asking a girl out for dinner? When the hygeniency of my smelliest extremities is a source of sexual curiousity, I resign to a lifetime of spinsterhood.

Sexually perverse male gender, I just can't quit you.

Because I Don't Want Ace Ventura After Me...

Preface: I am blogging for a very serious reason today. I have to write about something other than politics. I have written often and at length recently about my desire to throw excrement in the neighborhood of Sarah Palin's vacuous head, and McCain's useless and fossilized scrote. The election is growing ever-near, and I'm seriously, like, one Palin YouTube clip away from filling up notebooks with "Die Bitch Die" and drawing devil horns on pictures of her with my Sharpie, ala Ray Finkle. I do not want to become Ray Finkle. That would involve having sexual relations with Roger Pedacter, and that dude was about as erotic as used Kleenex. So moving on.

So my grandmother is a herb-loving hippie and a 40+ years practicing Buddhist who could grow back a limb with echinacea and good energy. It is because of her that I am keenly aware of my Qi and my karmic balance. And last week, karma hawked a lugie in my hair.

I am a terrible driver. This is no secret to anyone who has driven with me, or the small children who bounce off my windshield as I fly through residential areas in fourth gear. I've been pulled over more times than I can count, but I am not often ticketed (almost never, actually). I think it's because I have boobs and can cry on command. Lucky me. Well, my luck ran out:

That would be the TWO tickets I got last week. The first was a parking ticket for 30 bones for parking too close to a fire hydrant. In my defense, I was five minutes late to class already and the equivalent of the entire population of Suriname was already parked on campus, leaving me to park on the street. In such a situation, I am completely unaware of my surroundings. I'm just lucky I didn't park in someone's front yard or at a stop sign which has been known to happen. But whatevs, it's just thirty bucks, right? I'll budget for that by drinking Vendange instead of Yellow Tail for a few weeks. No harm done.

The second, that smarmy green bastard, would be my "speeding" ticket. I put "speeding" in quotes, because I was actually driving so slow my cousin Emily, who was riding bitch, could have bailed out and landed on her feet. At the speed I was going, a 7th grader with asthma and a limp would have beat me in a footrace. I was going TWENTY-THREE miles per hour. Alas, in a school zone.

(Side note: back in my day, we kids recognized cars as whizzing deathmachines and stayed clear of them. Kids these days hide behind their fancy "school zones" and dance into the street without looking. Maybe a little roadrash would do them good, the snot-nosed bastards.)

So I see the flashing lights behind me, realize that I am still in second gear, and figure I couldn't possibly be written a speeding ticket for driving in second gear. So I get out my registration and license, blah blah blah, like I've done a million times, batted my eyelashes and waited for that familiar slap-on-the-wrist. But oh no, this vindictive ass of a cop came back with that stupid-ass green citation written out for, wait for it...

$186!!!

What kind of fuckstick tickets a nice girl with a big smile $186 for driving THREE over the speed limit?? I'll tell you what kind. The kind with a stupid mustache and probably a tiny weiner and shrunken balls and a fat, ugly wife, and stupid, retard kids who lives in a dumb, filthy house and still has a Bush-Cheney 04 sticker on his fucking stupid beater car and kills puppies for sport. Yeah, that kind.

Oh wait, the mere act of writing this ridiculous citation was not nearly chodey enough to indicate the chode-level of this Chode. If you've ever gotten a ticket, you know that on the back you have three options (and I'm paraphrasing):

1. I'm lazy and have an expendable income. Here's a check.

2. Okay, you caught me. But my hair was on fire, my wife was in labor, I forgot my kid at the gas station, and my mortal enemy was pursuing with with a machete, so I'm really sorry, can you please not make me pay so much.

3. That fucking cop's a liar and I'll see you in court.

Officer Scroteface put a BIG BLACK "X" over option 2. Excuse me? Is this not AMERICA, the great land of making excuses for shit? Isn't that the entire point of our legal system? So people can stand in front of a judge and say "Yes, but Your Honor..."?

My driving karma is so bad, I got a $186 ticket for driving three over the speed limit, written by a traitorous Commie who hates America and everything she stands for. Come on, Great Laws of the Universe, what have I done?!