Preserve the 80s

For some reason whenever I’m around, fucked up things tend to happen. Unfortunately for me, many of these things consist of rather revolting events surrounding various foods which render me unable to eat said foods ever again. I shall relate to you some of these sad tales and maybe in the process ruin some foods for you as well.

Peanut Butter – This one takes place on the fateful day of May 30, 2006. It was actually about 3 hours earlier on the same day as an unpleasant flight I mentioned in a previous post. I was on a layover at the Minneapolis/St Paul Airport and it was around lunchtime. I was looking around for a place to eat but the food court in the terminal I was in was quite crowded. It had a section in which most of the tables were two seaters with one high seat on each side. I was unable to find a table that was completely empty, so I settled on one where I was across from a corpulent fellow who was suffering from rather severe acne. He was dining on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, chewing with his mouth wide open and smacking quite loudly. I cannot verbally express how severe the smacking was. Even in spanking videos there has never been sounds of smacking this highly audible. At one point during my meal (which was a fish sandwich, not that anyone cares) I happened to look up. This motion is one that I would soon come to regret for the rest of my life. My eyes instantly met with the image of the tubby bloke’s mouth wide open with thick strings of peanut butter colored phlegm going up and down between his teeth. I nearly vomited on the spot, though I managed to get to the bathroom where I had dry heaves for a bit, but no actual vomiting occurred. Vomit or no, peanut butter was forever ruined.

Bologna Sandwiches – I never much liked these to begin with, but after a convalescent home experience in  the summer of 1993, they have become completely inedible for me. It was a hot, balmy day and the convalescent home didn’t have the best air conditioning going. Everyone was hot, sweaty and miserable. Either through pure luck or clever planning by the staff, the meal being served that late afternoon/early evening was bologna sandwiches, so at least the ovens wouldn’t be running and making the place even hotter. My gratitude for this did not last long though. The sandwiches were consumed without any significant events occurring around them. The trouble began shortly after when my grandmother’s room mate decided to go to bed early. Before going to bed, she took her dentures and put them in a glass to soak. Shortly before leaving for the night, I went into the bathroom and happened to see the aforementioned jar. My grandmother’s room mate had not taken great pains to clean her dentures before soaking them. In the glass with the dentures were several bloated and stringy fragments of wet bologna, bread, and what I think might have been cheese. Some was wedged into the dentures themselves and some was floating around near the top. To this day I cannot even hear the word bologna without getting ill.

Milk- Milk is disgusting and revolting in and of itself. You shouldn’t need any jarring experience to make you not want to drink it. Don’t drink/buy/sell/rent/steal/ pour/ touch it. Ever.

Oregano – This is another convalescent home one, but oddly enough it was not a real live event, but rather a dream I had around 1991 or so. In the dream, I was in the former Deep River Convalescent Home. That’s right – the 77+1 Deep River Convalescent Home. In the dream, I walked down the dingy main hall of the convalescent home and saw a really unappetizing looking pizza sitting on a pedestal in an alcove. The pizza smelled very strongly of oregano and as I got closer to it, I could see that it had a layer of oregano over it about 3 inches thick. As I looked around the building, I saw bits of oregano everywhere on the ground and I started walking away. I suddenly looked to my right and saw an old guy on a chair in the hallway with Aqua Fresh Toothpaste leaking from his eyes. I didn’t see the actual toothpaste tube, but I’m guessing it had to be Aqua Fresh as no other toothpaste during that time period had the green/white/red color scheme.

Any of the egg sandwiches at Dunkin Donuts – Since my place of work doesn’t really have a bathroom, I typically use the one at the Dunkin Donuts which is about a mile down the road from it. On one such visit, I went into the bathroom, only to find an elaborate fecal mess all over the floor with a stench which even 1000 dead, rotting monkeys using 1000 typewriters made of crotch lint  could not begin to describe, though it had a strong egg component to it. The same is true for the visual make up of it. I darted out of the bathroom as fast as I could, but could not get the smell off myself for the rest of the day, despite taking 3 showers.

That’s all I can type on this subject for now, as I do eventually want to be able to eat again. Happy vomiting.

Many of you may not know who Slappy White is, but let me assure you that after Watson Nuhn, he is the greatest comedian of all time. While he may not be all that relevant to the 80s, he still deserves a song and a shout. He does have a page on Wikipedia, but the admins on there took down the quote section, which was the best part. One can’t help but both pity and hate Wikipedia administrators. They’re the only people on Earth more pathetic than I am. They just sit around all day with their thumbs up their asses nitpicking and undoing other people’s contributions. Enough about them though, they have no place in a Slappy White tribute. Without any further ado, I will now post Mr White’s greatest quotes.

“… and so the black man said to God… Lord why is my skin this dark?” “… and the Lord replied My Son, it is so that the intense sun in Africa will not burn you” “… and then he said Lord, why is my head covered with large mass of kinky hair?” “… and the Lord replied My Son that is so that the mosquitoes and other insects in Africa cannot bite your head” “… so this Black dude says … Then God, why am I in Detroit?”

“I went into a new barbershop in my neighborhood and told the brother, “Give me that Afro look”. Well, I fell asleep in the chair. And when I woke up, I had a bone in my booty.”

“I’ve heard people call mayonnaise all kinds of different things. The white folks like to call it “mayo” and black folks call it “slopple slather”. Let’s just agree to disagree and call it NAISE!”

“One morning I went into a diner for breakfast and ordered some pancakes. The waitress asked me if I wanted Jiffy Mix pancakes or Bisquick pancakes. I said ‘I’m black fool! I want the Jiffy Mix!’”

“Once on an island there was a strawberry, and apple, and an orange. They saw a genie and the genie said that each one could have a wish granted. The apple wished to get off the island, the orange wished for a new car, and the strawberry wished for some damn booty!”

“Hey you with the pompadour! Down in front!”

“You know back in the 40s, a brother couldn’t always get into a classy strip joint. Sometimes, we just had to peel our bananas and throw pennies at them!”

“You know what? There’s an owl outside my house that hoots all night. An owl! I ain’t been gettin’ any sleep for days. Tomorrow night I’m going to moon it. I bet it won’t hoot no more!”

“Wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep, wake up, go to sleep, that’s the daily grind!”

“What I like about blue jeans… is the fact that they’re simple. You put them on, you take them off, put ‘em back on. There’s not room for much confusion!”

“Three things I can’t live without – jail, bail, and ginger ale!”

I’m beginning to think it just might be. It seems as though every day the asshole population among us grows exponentially and I come across more and more beings who are nothing less than completely intolerable. If you disagree, read on and you’ll get my point. Here are a few of the reasons why as a species, we need to just throw in the towel.

People who say “We’re pregnant” – Just typing “We’re pregnant” nearly gave me a stroke. Here’s a quick biology lesson. Females can get pregnant. Males cannot. Only one person at a time is capable of carrying any given fetus. Multiple people can not be pregnant with the same bundle of future semantic abusing asshole at the same time. For fuck’s sake I hate people who utter this phrase. Anyone caught saying it should be clubbed until unconscious and then sterilized in the most efficient manner possible. On second thought, just club them but don’t knock them out. Being unconscious for their sterilization would be too good for them. They should also find some way to slip the fetus a cyanide tablet because if it has any sense, it won’t want to go through life having sprung from such a genetic cesspool.

People who honk their horns at you when you’re fully immobilized in traffic – Ever get held up by construction or in any other kind of traffic jam and get completely locked in? It happens to the best of us. It also happens to the worst of us. I witnessed the latter just yesterday morning while stuck in traffic in New London. There were vehicles surrounding me in every direction and traffic was at a standstill. Despite the fact that there was absolutely nowhere I could go, some raging bitch in the lane next to me was blaring her horn at me, screaming what I assume were obsenities, and wildly gesticulating in a manner befitting a simean tourette’s syndrome sufferer. When I looked away, she began revving her engine ineffectually. She kind of reminded me of a female version of Colonel Sanders, only she didn’t have a white Kentucky Colonel suit, van dyke, fried chicken franchise, or any of the Colonel’s general badassery. Come to think of it, I guess she wasn’t that much like Colonel Sanders, but some loose association brought him to mind. Getting back to the point, you’re pretty much a pile of shit if you somehow expect someone to be able to, and throw a tantrum when they do not, defy the laws of physics and just race through a solid wall of automobiles which surrounds you in all directions.

Enviro-Nazis – They’re not as bad as health nazis, but they’re still a gargantuan pain in the ass. Caring for the environment is all well and good, but there’s a difference between being responsible and having a mile long rod of self-righteousness permanently jammed up your ass. If I want to buy paper plates or a set of plastic utensils, I’m going to do it. A few years back I was reamed out by some enviro-nazi for doing just that. He was a filthy looking creature, with greasy matted hair, crooked teeth, and a ratdog t-shirt. He peered at me through glassed over eyes and his roundish John Lennon style glasses for a moment and then proceeded to tell me I was living for myself and killing the world. His tirade came to an ubrupt end however when I asked him from what eco-friendly material the plastic beads he had around his neck were made of.

Whoever it was that designed those hotelplanner.com commercials – Whoever you are, there’s a special place reserved for you in hell.

The author and purchasers of the Eat this, Not That Series – This one says it all. Not only is there some asshole out there continually shitting all over all things delicious and basically ordering us how to dine, but he actually has a following of devoted fans. It boggles the mind. Instead of being locked up somewhere, this motherfucker of a bastard of a cocksucking douchebag is being rewarded for his exploits. He is the number one reason why I will soon have to buy either tranquilizer darts or a defibrillator.

This post is getting me too agitated. Time to go upstairs for some bacon wrapped waffles to put out this fire.

The preservethe80s store is on the way. Don’t bother with the links at the top of the page to it, things aren’t quite ready yet.

If your answer to the above question is “yes”, do two things. Step One- seek immediate psychiatric help. If none is available, proceed to Step 2, which is to read the following article about the most annoying recurrent themes found various dating profile sites of women I’ve viewed within the past year or so. (Note: I’m sure there are just as many men’s profiles which are equally abhorrent, but being that I solely seek people who possess vaginas, I wouldn’t know and thus will not be covering them in this article.)

1. Women who refer to themselves as “laid back”
I don’t really know why, but that term in and of itself kind of pisses me off. However, it is much more annoying when I encounter it in a dating site profile. This is mainly because in my experience, the women who refer to themselves as being laid back usually end up being some of the most intense and unstable people I’ve ever met. One such woman I met on a dating site (I think it was okcupid) described herself as laid back, then proceeded to tell me about how she once purposely scalded a customer with hot coffee while working as a waitress because said customer complained of slow service. This was about ten minutes into our very first conversation. My point is this- don’t false advertise. If you aren’t a peaceable person, just don’t mention that and play to your other strengths. If you are, then please refer to yourself as “serene” rather than laid back. That would be infinitely less annoying, and also carries an additional benefit in that the word serene has always reminded me of mint mouthwash and connotes good oral hygiene.

2. Using “If you like piña coladas” as a headline

This one is just as hackneyed and annoying as the laid back thing. If hell has a soundtrack, the pina colada song must be on it. Eight times. If you have to make a Jimmy Buffet reference*, at least go with Cheeseburger in Paradise. At least that one involves burgers which is always a plus. Just thinking about that headline makes me want to bash myself over the head with a hammer until I’m in a coma. Even “Want crabs? You’ve come to the right place!” would be a more appealing headline. Dating sites aside, pina coladas are a shitty drink. Speaking of drinks, that brings me to my next point.

3. Women who show themselves with some kind of alcoholic drink in every single one of their profile pictures.

A lot of people like to have a drink now and then and there’s nothing wrong with that. You might think that showing six pictures of yourself with a drink in your hand, depraved grin on your face and a guy leaning into the frame who looks like such a douche that he must be an heir to the Massengill family fortune makes you look like a fun loving and free spirited kind of girl. It doesn’t. The whole getting drunk every Thurs-Sun night thing gets old quick and doesn’t help to make you an attractive dating prospect. Additionally, it gives off the impression that since you’re always drunk, your memory probably isn’t the greatest so you might forget to take the ol’ pill and lock us both into the hell that is parenthood.

4. Overtly sexual/revealing pictures on the part of people who shouldn’t be so willing to expose themselves

Even if you have the body for it, have a little self respect and leave something to the imagination. Putting up borderline nude pictures on a site that almost anyone can see might give you a bit of a thrill, but it also makes you look, to put it delicately, like somewhat of a harlot. It leads a chap to think that you’ll be exchanging bodily fluids with another guy before we can even make it to the table at the restaurant on the first date. There’s a time and a place for porn and a dating site isn’t it. It’s just about the only place I DON’T wish for nudity. (well dating sites and convalescent homes). This goes double if you’re severely out of shape. Dressing sexually won’t make you more attractive if you’re in poor physical shape. Taking better care of your body will, as will having a certain degree of self respect and sophistication. There’s a reason I stopped appearing shirtless in public after developing a beer gut worthy of a 50 year old trucker.

5. Citing “meeting up for coffee” as an ideal first date

This one is quickly replacing dinner and a movie as the cliche of choice for a first date. If there’s any place I can think of that’s an inopportune location for getting to know somebody, it’s a coffee bar. Their space is drafty and ill-defined, they’re always crowded, they’re chock full of pseudo intellectuals, and they’re expensive as hell. It’s the kind of place that’s fine if you’re just going in and out to get a coffee, but you don’t want to spend any amount of time there. You’ll have no privacy and will be contending with the meaningless babble of all the other patrons in addition to the sound of weather channel style music and the constant clicking of laptop keys whenever you try to speak to your date.

Those are just a few of the disconcerting trends I’ve been seeing on dating sites. There will likely be a sequel to this article as the number of my online dating attempt failures continues to grow along with my bitterness. Now that any of you single women who might be reading this know how not to entice me with your profiles you can change them accordingly. Just think, you could be dating a fast food obsessed-26 year old-80s commercial fan who still lives with his parents and has a fear of milk. On second thought, avoiding that situation is probably why women are making their profiles like this to begin with. Fuck.

*I’ve since been informed that the Pina Colada Song isn’t by Jimmy Buffet. That doesn’t make it suck any less, so stop using it in your dating profiles.

Commercials these days are soulless and annoying beyond words. Nearly every commercial I see on tv these days makes me want to break into the mansions of the presidents of the corporations and ad agencies that are responsible for these abominations and re-enact the break in scene from A Clockwork Orange with my own personal entourage of droogs.

Things didn’t always used to be this way. Things didn’t used to be that way at all. If you visit this site with any degree of regularity, you’ll realize that this is a recurrent theme of preservethe80s. In my family, bitching and moaning is a passion. It’s one that we’ve truly made into an art form. Throughout the generations, everyone as had their favorite topic to wax irate over, and the decline in commercials is mine.

One commercial I really hate that is epitome of the modern commercial watching experience is for the Honda Insight. What a fucking stupid name for a car. I can picture the focus group they must have used to come up with that gem of a name. I’d be shocked if even one member wasn’t wearing skinny jeans, a tight sweater, and dyed black hair hanging over one eye. It’s the one where some asshole with a generic college style singing voice sings some song that starts with “When I grow up, maybe I’ll be a singer in a band…”. Throughout the commercial, various young people with greasy hair are shown doing different activities and wearing facial expressions that state to the world “I am asshole, hear me roar”. I hate them. Once when I was 9 years old, I was walking down a hallway in a convalescent home and I happened to glance into a room in which I saw a fat naked old guy bending over to pick something up. As disturbing and damaging as this sight was, it wasn’t 1/1000th as offensive to the senses as the aforementioned commercial. Here’s a link to the shitpile. Proceed at your own blood pressure related risk

Fuck you Honda

Another commercial I hate is this one for some new line of tampons from Kotex. The commercials seek to parody the typical tampon commercial and then try to turn it around in the last few seconds by turning the screen to black, showing some tampon cases with brightly colored lids, and spouting off an attempt at biting satyristic sarcasm which fall flat. With the exception of the last few seconds, these tampon commercials are the very thing they claim to be avoiding. Either they think everyone is too stupid to realize that, or they think they’ll appeal to the angsty Alanis Morrisette/Fiona Apple deep within the souls of the targeted 18-30 year old women and put out a stinging statement that grabs said women by the balls and forces them to buy their product. Not only does Kotex fail to get that visceral emotional reaction they’re going for, they also seem to need some serious education in regard to female anatomy.

Tampon World Turned Upside Down?

I also really hate all the commercials that appear on Adult Swim. The only show I watch on Adult Swim is King of the Hill, and at least once during every commercial break they show a spot for an upcoming Family Guy episode. The episode trailers in and of themselves aren’t what I find annoying. What annoys me is how at the beginning and end of each one, they show a graphic of a bunch of sperm attempting to fertilize an egg cell. If I wanted to see something like that, I’d whack off on to a microscope slide and stare at it, which is not really my idea of a good time. I guess there wouldn’t be an egg to be fertilized, but you get the point.

I couldn’t find a clip of this, but instead I have a link to one of Peter’s unfunny and far too long fights with the giant chicken. Make your life suck more and watch it.

Unfunny Chicken Fight

There’s a common link between the commercials I’ve just mentioned. They all are designed by assholes, have no heart or soul, are horrendously annoying, and make me envy the dead. Now let’s go back in time to the 80s. Not literally of course. If such a thing was possible, I’d have done it long ago and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this poor excuse for a website and you wouldn’t be pissing away your time by reading it. We’d all be back in the 80s, reveling in a world without iPhones, health nazis, or kids named Dakota. We’d be back in a time where every day was cause for celebration. Since I can’t build a time machine, I’ll do the next best thing. I’ll take you on a trip down memory lane by showcasing some of the finest commercials of a generation.

First up is a commercial for Thomas’s English Muffins. This is a commercial that debuted in 1983. It does not attempt deceipt, doesn’t portray self-indulgent lifestyles of arrogance, and doesn’t try to talk down to the viewer as today’s commercials do. It is simply a celebration of the world’s greatest English muffins -  nothing more, nothing less. It is a commercial that lifts up the spirit and makes you feel a little more equipped to take on the slings and arrows of life after you’ve seen it.

Breakfast is dead to me now

Another commercial from the 80s worth mentioning is an ad for New Coke featuring Bill Cosby. There were actually several of these commercials that were made and aired in 1985. They didn’t need fancy bells and whistles or trendy assholes intended to represent aspiration groups to make people want to buy the featured product. All they needed was  green (gray) screen, Bill Cosby, a snappy Bill Cosby sweater, and a can of New Coke. Bill Cosby pours out his heart in an honest and genuine expression of his love for New Coke. I know a lot of people out there didn’t like New Coke all that much but I must respetfully disagree with all of you naysayers. New Coke was by far better than Coca Cola Classic and never should have been pulled from the market. Just because you don’t share the same cola insight as the great Bill Cosby, it is no reason to accuse him of being an insincere corporate shill. In the 80s, Bill Cosby ate Jell-o and bled New Coke and so did I.

You tell em Bill

The last commercial I’ll expound upon in this post is an advertisement for the late McDLT from McDonald’s. Fuck the Big N Tasty and the new “deluxe” angus burgers at McDonald’s. In my eyes, the McDLT will forever be THE lettuce and tomato hamburger. This commercial fills me with a desire that no other non-pornographic production ever has or ever will. There are no words to adequately describe the deliciousness that was the McDLT and there is no way that I could ever do this commercial proper justice through a mere online homage. This commercial does an excellent job of employing both sight and sound to express what cannot be said in words. For 30 seconds, it’s just you and a burger. It may not be heaven, but it is too good to be Earth. I’m not a Buddhist and don’t put too much stock in the concept of Nirvana, but if there is such a thing, I can only imagine it’s basically this commercial.

RIP McDLT

Now that you’ve had a chance to see how great commercials were in the 80s as compared to how atrocious they are now, I hope you will have a greater appreciation for why nearly all things post-1989 should be scorned and rejected.

Happy 1st Birthday Preservethe80s.

Nobody ever cooks things for long enough anymore. This especially seems to be true for any kind of bread product. I can’t imagine what health benefits this would have, but I’m sure the health nazis are somehow behind it.

One of the areas where this is most notable is with Italian bread. You just can’t get a good loaf of it anymore. Gone are the days of the dry, crusty Italian breads upon which many of my fondest childhood deli memories are based. This is the way that all Italian bread used to be. Don’t believe me? Here’s a little history lesson for you: Did you ever wonder why some people call subs grinders? It’s because in the earliest days of subs, they were served on whole loaves of Italian bread. The bread would be so deliciously well cooked and crispy that there would be a crunch when you’d bite into it. Sometimes it would be so firm that it’d almost be difficult to bite through it, requiring one to “grind” their teeth against it to eat their subs. I’m fortunate enough to have experienced such sandwiches, and the thought that this is no longer possible makes me so enraged that I might just have to slash my tires to make it so that I don’t drive to the nearest bakery, bust inside with a baseball bat, and do whatever feels right. Even as recently as about 5 years ago you could still get some pretty good Italian bread if you went to the right places. Those days are now gone. A few weeks ago I bought a loaf of Italian bread that made me want to hang myself. I could have soaked a bunch of tampons in a bucket of water for 10 days  and they would have a more satisfying sandwich exterior than this bread did. It was bleach white on the outside and was as malleable as silly putty. It was almost wet to the touch. I guess people are such pussies these days that they’re afraid of a loaf of bread that throws a little bit of a challenge their way. Let’s just go ahead and make everything soft and cuddly. Let’s start making knives out of cotton and bullets out of ky jelly while we’re at it too. People make me sick.

Another area in which undercooking has been a problem as of late is with pizzas. Every pizza I get lately is whiter than the KKK. The crust is always floppy and weak, barely able to support the sauce and toppings above. You can ask for your pizza to be made well done, but the people who make it will usually just ignore your request. I recently got a pizza that was so pale, doughy, and disgusting that I couldn’t bring myself to eat it. It reminded me this one time when I was a kid when I bought a slice of pre-made pizza from a convenience store and was lambasted by this guy who looked like he’d just walked off the set of one of the Godfather movies. He told me something along the lines of “What da hell are you buyin dat gawbage for? If ya threw it at a wall, it’d bounce back atcha!” With this diatribe going through my head, I decided to try a little experiment. I rolled up one of the pizza slices into a ball and took it out to my garage, then cast it toward the cement wall. It didn’t really bounce, it just sort of stuck there and slowly oozed down. Now I was disappointed on two levels. This pizza had failed as both a meal and a source of entertainment. Since then, I always make sure to check the pizza before I leave the restaurant to see if it’s well done enough and if it isn’t, I have them put it back in the oven. I don’t really feel too good about doing this though, because most people don’t want to do their jobs anymore and since I’m actually asking them to do just that, they probably get pissed off and spit on the pizza when I’m not looking. Paranoia and a love of quality pizza can be a bad combination sometimes.

Are you constantly frustrated by your lowly position in the world? Tired of being given all the shit work by your boss or being tormented by bullies at school? Sick of seeing all the other guys get the hot girls? Pissed off at the government?

If any of the above apply to you, or if you’re just a plain douchebag, take heart. This article will tell you various ways you can get back at the world you hate so much while armed only with a bag of Cheetos and an unhealthy mind.

1. Destroy some clothing – This one I actually lifted from a Cheetos commercial in which some woman gets pissed off and somebody and throws a bag of  Cheetos into her load of whites at a laundromat.  A more effective way to do this is to just throw a pair of pants that you don’t value that much anymore into someone else’s load of laundry with a few Cheetos in the pocket. Hilarity will ensue when your victim takes their clothes out of the wash only to find them caked in orange stains and grease. This one works especially well if you’re some little bastard kid because you can always just pretend  you forgot the Cheetos were in there or didn’t know they could stain the clothes. So if you’re a kid and  you’re reading this, just remember that your generation is pretty much retarded and excessively spoiled so you might as well use that to your advantage. If your parents won’t get you that new toy you want, just throw some Cheetos in the wash and come up with some insipid excuse as to why you did it then act like you feel really bad. If you whip up enough fake tears, your parents might not only forgive you, but also even buy whatever it was you wanted in the first place. Just remember to be creative with your excuses and insincere. This is a skill you’ll need to hone not just for Cheeto related revenge, but also in the professional world when you grow up.

2. Fun with people’s principles – There are a lot of different routes you can take with this one, but for now I’ll stick with the example of vegetarians and health nazis. If you have a PETA badge carrying vegetarian friend,  scrape some of your Cheetos up against some rare meat you have handy (rare, not raw, unless you really want to be a dick about it) until they’ve taken in some of the meat juices then offer them to your earth-friendly pal. Don’t tell them what you’ve done until after they’ve eaten the Cheetos. Just sit back and watch the fun develop as they force themselves to vomit to rid their systems of the minuscule amount of meat they’ve taken in. Alternately, you can just skip the whole meat rubbing part but just tell them you did it anyway. Wait until after they’ve induced vomiting to tell them you were just pulling their leg. A variation on this would be to tell one of your health nazi friends that Cheetos have banned trans fats, then after they eat them you can reveal that no such action had really been taken.

3. Baby Surprise – This one is only feasible if you have access to a baby that isn’t your own, so I guess this is one you could do if you have to baby sit for somebody you don’t like very much. All you really need to do is take some of the ground up Cheetos, wet your hands a little bit, and rub them all over the baby’s body. The parents will come home and think it was their fault for feeding the kid too many carotine-rich foods. They’ll question their ability as parents and maybe even waste some money on a doctor’s appointment. In the meantime, they won’t be feeding junior any strained carrots. Take that Gerber!

4.  Think Different – This one’s pretty simple. Just go around smashing Cheetos into the screens, keypads, and other instruments of any Apple products you come across. This one isn’t really that much of an asshole move, because in the long run if you deprive people of Apple products you’re actually helping them. However, it would piss enough people off so it stays on the list. I don’t know if anyone will get the Apple reference I made by saying “Think Different”, but it was their old slogan. Explaining that weakens the punch of that title a little bit.

5.  Cheesy Deities- This is another pretty simple one. Take a picture of any random Cheeto you find, claim it somehow forms the image of some religious figure and put it on eBay. Some people out there are willing to believe anything and have pretty deep pockets.  Start the bidding at a high price and watch it go up and up. Use the profit you make to buy more Cheetos and repeat the process. Be a real bastard and rip off on shipping too.

6.  Does the carpet match the curtains? -  It sure as hell won’t after you’re done with it. Visit somebody who’ s just put in a new carpet, preferably light colored, and drop some Cheetos as you’re walking around in the room. Pretend you don’t see them and step on a few, making sure to crunch them as deep into the carpet as you can. This will work even better if the house belongs to somebody who lives near you and you can slip in and out of the house without being noticed. If they don’t see you, they’ll never know you did it and their kids will have to take the rap.

7.  The Chester Cheetah Enema – Are you into kinky sex or have any friends or acquaintances who are? If so,  you might want to try the Chester Cheetah enema. Simply grind up some Cheetos and put them into the enema bag along with a little bit of water and let the good times roll. The recipient of the enema will be in for a shock when they go to evacuate and realize they have a colon full of processed cheese powder.  Pretend you don’t know what happened and watch them try to sue the enema bag company. The look on the judge’s face will be priceless when he hears about the case he’s about to preside over. When they don’t win the case, you can  send them a sympathy card along with a coupon for Cheetos enclosed in it.

8.  Fun at the Movies – If you’re at a movie and you have somebody in a seat near you riding your ass about being on your cell phone, coughing too loud, or anything else, you don’t have to take that shit. Just dump an empty Cheeto bag over their head. They’ll be too busy trying to get the crumbs out of their eyes to bother bitching at you anymore and you can sit back and enjoy the movie.

9.  Ruin Somebody’s meal – There are a lot of different things you can do for this one. Just be creative and use your imagination because the sky’s the limit. If you do a really good job, the person who views your disgusting Cheeto act may come to associate whatever food they were eating with your caperings and may never be able to eat it again. This one works best around rich people, because they’ll probably be having some kind of snobby meal that they spent a lot of money on. Why should they get to dine on lobster and filet mignon when you’re stuck eating steak-ums and frozen dinners every night? Take them down a peg throw a phlegm or puss covered Cheeto their way.

10. Morbid Mayhem – Is the thought of going to an upcoming funeral getting you down? Turn that frown upside down by having a little sadistic, psychotic pleasure with the deceased. Be sure to be one of the first guests to arrive, ideally before the service is ready to begin. You’ll also want to make sure that it’s an open casket service or else your efforts will be for naught. Wait for the undertakers to come out and start talking with the immediate family then make some excuse to leave the room, like saying you have to go to the bathroom or take a call on your cellphone. Make sure the coast is clear then sneak into the viewing room. Take some Cheetos and crumble them over the clothes and wipe them on the face of the corpse. This will work especially well if the deceased has facial hair, as Cheeto crumbs are a bitch to get out of it. You can also put a Cheeto in each of their nostrils for the classic “walrus  tusk” joke.  Sneak back into the room with everyone else then wait for the viewing to begin. The funeral home will be in some hot water when they have to explain to how they wound up making the dearly departed so unpresentable for their final appearance. Just make sure you don’t have any tell-tale Cheeto powder on yourself anywhere or else you might wind up in a coffin too.

11. Cheeto Cheating Kids – Kids are stupid and most of them really like Cheetos. Try getting them to do all your bitchwork for you and telling them you’ll give them a bag of Cheetos as a reward. No matter how good of a job they do, tell them it wasn’t good enough and they haven’t earned their Cheetos. You can also put individual Cheetos onto strings and pull them away just as soon as the kid is about to reach them. You might eventually want to give them the at least a few Cheetos at some point though, or else they probably won’t come back and you won’t get to do this again.

The next time you find yourself bored on a rainy day with nothing to do, I hope you’ll remember this little guide and try out some of the tricks above. You’ve got nothing to lose and a world to gain, possibly including some prison time, but some misanthropic fun with Cheetos is always worth the risk.

There are a lot of words/phrases/pronunciations that annoy the hell out of me and should never be said while I am within hearing range. Just what consequences will you suffer if you violate this request? Probably none, but if you’re not careful I might end up trying to come up with a blog post about it that I abandon after I can’t get past the third or fourth sentence, so you’d best watch out.

I was going to use the Ashton Kutcher scale of annoyingness for each word/experession, but once again I’m having trouble uploading my images due to wordpress sucking ass, so you’ll just to imagine pictures of 1-5 Ashton Kutchers  with a shit eating grin next to each phrase to indicate its level of deplorability

1. “Vaca” for vaction – Three Ashton Kutchers

Nobody ever said this until about a year ago, but now everyone does. It’s only subtracting one syllable, so it’s not like it’s really saving any amount of time, it’s just adding a whole fuckload of annoyance to the listener. I don’t really know why, but for some reason it reminds me of the song “Vacation” by the GoGos which is a song that I hate more than life itself. I suppose it doesn’t make any sense since they actually say vacation correctly in the song, but I’m sure had the expression “vaca” been around back then they would’ve used it. I also despise their song “Our Lips Are Sealed”. I wish their lips were permanently sealed in cement. Once again I’m getting off on a tangent but I have NLD, and that’s what I do.

2. “Ant” for Aunt – 2 Ashton Kutchers

I realize this one is somewhat of a regional dialect so I guess I sort of have to let it go but I still hate it. U is a letter and must be recognized.

3. “Cue-pon” for Coupon – 2 Asthon Kutchers                                                        You don’t call your car a “kewp”, you don’t put “cryoo-tons” on your salad, you don’t clip “cue-pons” from the newspaper. Enough said.

4. Shotgun, when used as a term of reservation – 4 Asthon Kutchers

I haven’t heard anyone say this in about 8 years, but used to hear it all the time in high school. People would say “I’ve got shotgun on those fries”, “I’ve got shotgun on that chair”, “Shotgun no blitz on that vibrator”, etc etc when they saw something they wanted and wished to lay claim to it. I’m not sure who or what was responsible for starting that trend, but if I ever find out who the originator was, they’re getting my foot up their ass.

5. “insert word: FAIL” 3 Ashton Kutchers

This one comes from Failblog, one of the most annoying internet memes in recent memory. I don’t really know why I hate Failblog as much as I do. Being the fuck-up that I am, I should enjoy seeing others out there whose life efforts are as fruitless as mine, but instead it just pisses me off.  Maybe it’s the wording, maybe it’s the popularity of the site, or maybe it’s just some other intangible quality I can’t quite put my finger on, but as Tourettes Guy would say, I hate the shit out of it.

6. “Kleenex” being used for non Kleenex facial tissue – 1 Ashton Kutcher

Kleenex isn’t the only kind of tissue out there. Give Puffs and all of the other brands the respect they deserve and call them by name. If you ever ask me for a Kleenex, be prepared to be denied unless that’s the actual brand I have within my possession.

7. Using “google” as a verb – 5 Ashton Kutchers

Google is the most overrated search engine of all time and should not become a part of our lexicon for in any form other than a noun. In my mind, to google something means to mindlessly devote yourself to it no matter how much ass it sucks. The only thing people are googling these days is google itself.

8. Saying “I itched it/myself” rather than “I scracthed it” 3 Ashton Kutchers

This one doesn’t need much explanation. You never hear anyone who’s just painted their house say they “housed it” instead of painted it and you never hear anyone say “I girlfriended her” after they’ve banged their girlfriend. Why? Because if you use the subject of a sentence where the verb should be it makes you sound like a dumbass. Why doing that with the word itch gets a free pass I will never understand.

9.  “It matters on” instead of “It depends on” – 2 Ashton Kutchers

In all my life I’ve only known one person who has said this and I haven’t seen her in well over ten years, but that annoying phrase of hers still rings in my ears on a daily basis. She was also a huge fan of Smash Mouth, so that doesn’t help her case any.

10. “Booya”- 5 Ashton Kutchers

Anyone who says this should be shot on site.

11. People blowing on baby’s stomachs- 500 Ashton Kutchers

Yes, I understand that this one isn’t a figure of speech and I also understand that I limited my scale to only 5 Ashton Kutchers. However, this is the most annoying action known to mankind so I couldn’t leave it off the list. The penalty for doing this should be similar to the one for saying booya, only the shooting should be carried out in a less humane fashion.

12. “Christening” instead of Baptism – 2 Ashton Kutchers

My mom says this one all the time and I hate it.

13. Calling those small hamburgers “sliders” 1- Ashton Kutcher

I’m pretty sure that’s actually the correct terminology, but I hate it anyway. We need to come up with a new term for those. I suggest “miniature burgers”.

14. “Make Love” instead of “Have Sex”, “Bang”, “Engage in Sexual Intercourse”, or “Hot Depression Injection” (the proper term for sex with me)  – 4 Ashton Kutchers

You would think in a society that is as open about and obsessed with sex as ours is, we’d be able to actually talk about sexual relations without having to resort to hackneyed and nonsensical euphamisms. There’s no such thing as “making love”, the phrase is meaningless.

15. “Sleep Together” – 5 Ashton Kutchers

Same as “make love” only even more annoying. Never say you slept with somebody unless you literally mean that you slumbered alongside them.

There are probably upwards of 1000 more items I could have added to this list, but this is pissing me off too much and I need to go to Wendy’s now to get this off of my mind. Farewell.

It seems the Apple tablet, or “iPad” is sucking just as much as I’d hoped, if not more. The youtube videos of it getting slammed by consumers in their reviews are better than porn.

In looking at the analytics for my site, it seems that a good amount of the hits I get come from people who search for “depressing facts”, “depressing facts about life”, “depressing things”, or “depressing life”. With this knowledge in mind, I’ve decided to give my readers what they want and serve up another list of reasons why we envy the comatose.

1. I couldn’t come up with a better topic for this post

2. Gas prices are once again on the rise

3. The Victoria’s Secret Fashion Show barely contains any visible lingerie anymore

4. One can’t go to a grocery store without seeing those John and Kate assholes on the cover of every magazine.

5. “Balloon Dad” wasn’t castrated.

6. Taco Del Mar may not be coming to Connecticut after all.

7. Whoever writes “Eat This, Not That” is still employed

8. Charter Oak Health Insurance is increasing its monthly premiums by more than 20%

9. McDonald’s said they will not bring back the McDLT, ever.

10. 33% of people aged 18-34 are now living with their parents. That means 1 in 3 people are now as pathetic as me (at least in one aspect) and that’s just disturbing.

11. Barack Obama doesn’t like bowling.

12. Depressing fact #10 was grammatically incorrect. I should have said “as pathetic as I am” rather than “as pathetic as me”. Despite the fact that I went through the effort to point that out, I’m still too lazy to change it.

13. Restaurants never sell half sour pickles anymore. It’s always the kosher dill bullshit now.

14. Home Improvement is now on TV Land. Home Improvement is NOT a classic television show. I’d rather watch 5 hours of senior citizens getting catheterized than 5 minutes of Home Improvement.

15. You can’t get a gmail account without giving google your mobile phone number. Fuck you google. Fuck you hard.

16. Without google I wouldn’t have made this post since I’m dependent on those assholes for my website analytics.

17. There aren’t any Rax locations near any airport accessible to me.

18. People are still donating to Quinnipiac University.

19. I can’t find the commercial for Jello when it was first put into single serving cups on youtube.

20. Cool-whip isn’t really completely dairy-free. It contains a small amount of a protein derived from milk.

21. I haven’t done shit to get the preservethe80s store going yet.

I hope it will suck more ass than the Titanic, the Edsel, Waterworld, and Milli Vanilli all put together.

Lately it’s occurred to me that my taste in tv differs wildly from the taste of the average person. The shows I seem to enjoy most either get canceled within a few weeks or ended their original run 20+ years ago. Fortunately some of these shows are available on TV Land, such as the great Sanford and Son, and others, such as The Mullets, have faded forever into obscurity. My goal in writing this post wasn’t to wax nostalgic for my favorite lost tv shows, but rather to bitch about the popular ones that I hate, so I’ll get started.

1. The Office – For a couple of years now I’ve heard people incessantly quote and talk about this show but I never watched it. That recently changed a few weeks ago when I actually watched a couple of episodes on TBS. The hour or so that I spent watching them was about as enjoyable as the time when I was a kid playing basketball when my friend threw a bounce pass that hit me square in the balls. Usually when people constantly imitate a line from a tv show, it’s much more annoying and much less comical than when the actual character on the show says it. However, when it comes to the “that’s what she said” line from The Office, it’s infinitely more annoying when the character himself says it than it is through any imitator I’ve ever encountered. Most of the characters on the show remind me of the assholes I went to college with who I’d get stuck working with for group projects who would have me do all the work then they’d take all the credit…. but that’s material for another post.

2. The Office (UK version)- I don’t know how popular this show is, at least in America, but I’m assuming it must be very popular in the UK as it was the inspiration for the American version. I’ve never even watched 1 second of this show aside from commercials, and I already hate it more than anything else on tv. I especially hate that blond haired guy on the show who looks like an adult version of that kid from Home Alone. Every time I see him on tv I seriously consider smashing the cable box so I won’t be subjected to his maddening visage again.

3. American Dad – When Family Guy first came out, it was one of my favorite shows on tv. When it finally came back from cancellation, it wasn’t the same show anymore. It became pretty much nothing but meta-humor and a sounding board for Seth MacFarlane’s political views. I’m not saying that he shouldn’t take advantage of the opportunity to let his views and messages be heard, but making them the basis of the show took away from any of the enjoyment I once got out of it. You watch a show like Family Guy to escape from the stresses and problems of life, not to be reminded of them.

I’m getting off the subject a little bit here, but my point is that American Dad is just a clone of Family Guy – not of the Family Guy I once loved but rather of the current Family Guy which is unwatchable. Not one character on the show is even remotely likable. If you took the characters on Family Guy and removed all of the humorous/likable aspects of them, you’d have the cast of American Dad. I despise all of them, but I think I hate the alien most, though the daughter gets a high hate ranking too as she looks like a cartoon version of my pepsi loving ex girlfriend who was once alluded to in a previous post.

4. Friends- Unfortunately Maddox beat me to the punch on this one, but it’s just too shitty of a show not to be mentioned in this article. Jennifer Aniston and Courtney Cox were hot back when Friends was in production, but that still wasn’t enough to save the show from being a pile of steaming, mucous-laden geriatric shit. I hate the high pitched tinny voices of all the women on the show and I hate the way the men talk even more. I especially despise that Guido type guy with the spiked hair who eventually got his own spin-off. The only episode of Friends that I ever watched all the way through (and it was at a friend’s house so I had no choice) was one where one of the guys on the show gets depressed and two of the women take him to a really pathetic strip club and he won’t stop wearing sweat pants. What the fuck kind of a plot is that for a show? The answer, a shitty one. Friends also has the most annoying theme song of any show aside from The Nanny.

5. The Nanny- Do I really need to explain this one?

6. Ren and Stimpy- I never even saw this show, but an asshole I went to elementary school loved it and that’s reason enough for me to hate it.

7. Fraggle Rock – This is an older one, but I’ve hated this show ever since I was in nursery school. I seemed to be the only kid in the 2-8 year old age bracket who didn’t like it. I hated the songs, I hated the characters, I hated the props, I hated the puppeteers, and I hated the channel that put it on the air. Already a budding misanthrope during the time when Fraggle Rock was being made, I’d fantasize about the hippie-ish fraggle having some kind of accident whilst painting and succumbing to blood poisoning or the hyperactive one with the red hair getting too excited and running off a cliff any time I got stuck having to watch an episode.

I don’t have the time to write too much more tonight so I’ll just list off some other beloved shows I despise. The (dis)honorable mention list is as follows: Home Improvement, Phenom, Barney Miller, WKRP in Cincinatti, I Love Lucy, A Different World, Punk’d, Jackass, Undeclared, The Dating Game, How I Met Your Mother, Family Ties, Anime in general, Perfect Strangers, Step by Step, Sliders, Star Trek Voyager, Deep Space Nine, Are You Smarter than a Fifth Grader, American Idol, So You Think You Can Dance, and many others, but I’ll stop here because if there’s not enough space on the entire Internet to fit the rest of this list.

I was in Adams little while ago and when I walked by the deli, I saw something I’d never seen before. It was horrific, revolting, and disturbing. It was turkey pastrami. I looked at it for a while, not able to believe what I had just read. Turkey. Pastrami. No matter how many times I ran the two words through my mind, they just didn’t go together. Clearly, this was the doing of the health nazis. Why the hell would anyone buy turkey pastrami? It’s as counter-productive as a lunch meat can be. While you’re at it, why don’t you buy a ticket to Houston on a flightless airplane, install a sink with no faucet/drain, and purchase an issue of Forbes Magazine for masturbation purposes.

Turkey pastrami is yet another example of modern day food vendors giving in to pressure from the health nazis. I’ve seen similar things happen with chicken sausage and turkey burgers being sold in stores as well as with salads being sold as parts of value meals at fast food restaurants. Disguising health food as something palatable isn’t going to make your dining experience more enjoyable. It’s just going to make you slowly forget the good memories you have of your favorite fattening foods until they’re reduced to just a former shell of their once great stature, much like watching any post-1999 episode of the Simpsons will do for a die hard fan of the show.

Somtimes people give me shit for eating pastrami on Italian bread instead of rye bread. Don’t eat your sandwiches on rye bread just because it’s the cool deli thing to do. If you like rye bread, go ahead and use it, but if you don’t just stick with the bread you’re comfortable with. Never be ashamed of who you are, unless you’re that asshole in Hamden who once threw a jolly rancher at me. That’s not really germane to the topic at hand, but I figured I’d throw it in.

Getting back to my point, turkey pastrami is something that just plain should not exist. I actually bought an 1/8lb of it to see if it was as bad as I thought it would be and it was worse. I’m actually glad I didn’t enjoy it though, because if I did that might have been grounds for suicide. The next time you’re at a grocery store, give the health nazis a big Fuck You by buying a pound of mortadella and a slab of bacon and mixing the 2 together, topping it off with a six pack of Milwaukee’s Best. Milwaukee’s Best may be cheap, but it gets the job done.

On another irrelevant yet worth mentioning note, the girl in front of me in line at the deli counter in Adams had a pretty nice ass.

with Wendy’s.

My favorite picture on the Internet that isn't of Vida Guerra

Take a look at the above picture. Have you ever seen such a beautiful sight before? Unless you’ve gone to Wendy’s and ordered one of these in person, you have not. This picture is of a new burger at Wendy’s known to us mere mortals as the Triple Baconator. It features 3/4 lbs of meat with 9, count ‘em, 9 strips of bacon. The fact that this burger exists is sufficient proof that there is life beyond the grave, because there is no way I will ever believe that this burger was not the work of the genius of Dave Thomas. However, one does need to do just a little bit of tweaking in order to get this cavalcade of deliciousness just right. First off, you need to ask for it without ketchup. Ketchup should never be included on anything. Secondly, you should request that it be made without cheese as a substance as lowly and gutteral as cheese is but an insult to the Triple Baconator. The third, and might I add the most important modification that you should make is to put a packetful of Wendy’s Buttery Best Spread on to the Triple Baconator. (Butter makes everything infinitely more delicious) All you have to do is ask the person at the counter for 4 butter packets and they’ll kindly hand them over to you. Why 4 you ask? You need 4 because you’re obviously getting 2 Triple Baconators since nobody can eat just one, and you’ll want a large order of fries to go with each of them. If you use 1 packet of butter per each burger and order of fries, you should be okay, but if you want more you can always ask. Here’s a free tip: If you want your butter to melt on contact, put the butter packets into the cartons of french fries for about two minutes before opening them. This way the butter will be semi-solid upon being opened and will melt on contact with your burgers.

In these modern days of health food stores, kid’s meals that contain milk and yogurt, new diets popping up everywhere, and some health nazi getting in your face about dieting everywhere you go, it’s nice to know there’s a company out there still looking out for the fat guy (or the fat at heart, as the case may be and no, I don’t mean clogged arteries) Thank you Wendy’s for giving me a reason to get up each morning and make it through the long work days. I may be dead in 5 years from a heart attack, but if I can convince the ambulance driver to stop at Wendy’s on the way to the hospital, you’d best believe I’ll die with a smile on my face and a song in my heart.

Do you remember the days when you’d log into your inbox and you’d see a long and complicated letter about how you’re the only surviving yet long-lost relative of some Nigerian king who has nobody to leave his millions to except for you? Do you recall reading e-mails telling you you’d won the Estonian lottery or that if you don’t read and pass along an e-mail that you’ll get ass cancer and die in 39 days?

As impractical and unrealistic as these kind of spam e-mails were, a certain amount of creativity and (albeit it very weak) mental effort was put forth to come up with these thirty second escapes from all things relevant which sadly in some cases actually worked on a select and gullible few. (At least some effort was required when the template for the form letter was made) The spammers of today are of a lazier breed than those in the golden age of spam. Now it seems as though they don’t even care if they take anybody in or not. They no longer pay any attention to demographics or the websites you’ve visited. I’ve done a good amount of traveling in my life and I’ve watched my fair share of porn, but I can guarantee you that I’ve never once been to Vietnam or had an interest in porn featuring goats banging Vietnamese stable maids. Despite this, on a fairly regular basis I receive spam promising access to just that and for only pennies a day. I also get e-mails on a daily basis from the URI alumni association (I never attended URI), petitions from pro choice groups telling me now is the time to protect my body and insure my right to an abortion (I don’t possess a vagina), senior discounts for various online stores, notifications of $500 shopping sprees to Victoria’s Secret that I’ve supposedly won, and offers for merchandise about various sports teams that I don’t give a rat’s ass about. (I’ve never watched a Cleveland Browns game, never cared about the Kansas City Royals, and never even knew about the Ft. Wayne Mad Ants).

As sad and puzzling as these demographically misguided spams are, there are others that are far more pathetic and project a true lack of effort and heart on the part of the spammers of today. These include the ones where the subject line is something like “Hey suga wanna huk up?” or “Local girls want you to fuck their brains out tonight!”. As much as I’d like to believe it, I’m pretty sure the latter isn’t true and even if it were, an e-mail that has a subject line but is otherwise blank isn’t exactly going to help me get to this supposed fantasy fuck fest. Then you have the ones that will just say something like “Miley Cyrus nude Paris Hilton shoves telephone booth ass New Jersey english muffin dildo NASA predicts lunar changes cellophane tape football jersey applesauce horny schoolgirl Uganda Ted Bundy wood glue!” These ones are computer generated and the lack of human touch shows. I don’t want to live in a cold lonely world where I can only receive unwanted e-mails that are of no use to me through machines rather than straight from the greasy fingers of some poor fat, bespectacled, hygiene lacking, socially unskilled (even compared to me) real live pathetic Internet user unsuccessfully attempting to con me out of money I don’t have. Where’s the love in that? Get off your asses, or more correctly, on them, and start sending us real live spam again or just give it up.

PS: I already realize the irony of the fact that I wrote this article about being pissed off by spammers yet most of my comments are from spambots, so don’t bother pointing it out.

Here’s an e-mail I received today that is about a pretty important topic. I encourage you all to read and reply by clicking the link provided further down in the article.

From: Fred O’Regan, International Fund for Animal Welfare <fred@ifaw1.org>

I’ve just received an urgent report that another city in China is planning a mass cull to slaughter any unregistered dogs, strays, and even registered family dogs that are over 14 inches (35cm) tall.

Dog owners in Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, are even being told to kill their own dogs, or else their dogs will be beaten to death by the police and the owners will be charged a fine. Can you imagine being forced to kill your own dog to save it from a more brutal slaughter?

Unless we can stop this now, the Dog Death squads could be roaming the streets tomorrow – beating, stoning, and killing dogs – some right in front of their owners.

You might remember the attached e-mail I sent you recently about a similar cull. We found out too late for many of those dogs, but this time we have a chance to stop it before it starts.

I need you to do two things right now:
1. Send an e-mail to the Chinese Ambassador in your country. So you can act quickly, I’ve written an e-mail for you – click here to review and send it.

2. Make a donation to help IFAW end dog culls in China and to protect animals around the world from similar cruelty.

It’s crucial that you act quickly –according to the government notice, the police will begin combing the streets tomorrow to kill dogs. Please send your message now, and then forward this e-mail to as many of your friends as possible urging them to help us stop this slaughter.

In addition to working to stop this cull, IFAW is helping draft China’s first national animal welfare legislation that will prohibit culls like this. And we’re developing a rabies vaccination and sterilization program that we can offer to rural communities to humanely prevent rabies and control dog populations.

We’ve stopped culls like this in other Chinese cities, and we can stop this one too! Please send your message of protest today.

And then please make a donation to help us continue our efforts to help save animals around the world from cruelty and exploitation.

Please act now to save these dogs – make it the very next thing you do.

Thank you,

Fred

This past Wednesday I was flying home from Baltimore on Southwest Airlines. Nobody should ever fly on Southwest. They’re considered to be a discount airline, but with the exception of their clearance sales, they’re often no less expensive than a typical airline. Sometimes they’ll have special tickets at a low cost, but it’s almost impossible to get them and you usually can’t get them to fly anywhere that you’d want to go to. Also, everything is a fucking joke to the crew members. Every problem is confronted with a brief, but not brief enough, song by the flight attendants and crew. They also don’t pre assign seating so once you get onto the plane it’s a very disorganized endeavor and everyone is scattered every which way trying to find an empty seat and cramming their shit into the overhead compartments. You are randomly assigned a group and passenger number at check-in and if you’re assigned to a high number in a late group, it sucks for you because it means you’ll probably be sitting next to the bathroom and between a baby and a guy who hasn’t showered in 19 years.

I hate flying on Southwest, but that isn’t what I intended to write this article about. What I want to propose is a new rule for airlines that will make air travel significantly less annoying and miserable.

My idea is this: parents traveling with children under six years of age need to sit in a separate designated section of the plane, away from other travelers. They should be assigned to the rear seats with a curtain, at the very least separating them from the other passengers. Ideally there’d be some kind of soundproofing system as well, but money wise that may not be feasible. On second thought, screw feasibility, I want the sound barriers.

Several of my otherwise mildly unpleasant flights have been made into 3 hour trips to hell by little kids and their parents who won’t discipline them. On my last flight, I was seated next to a 2 year old who spent the whole flight kicking and scratching me. He only stopped doing this for two brief periods. One was to sneeze then wipe his snot on my arm, and the other was to start climbing the back of the seat in front of him as the plane was landing. The other passengers were all gawking and going on and on about how adorable the little shit was, but I’m sure if they were seated next to him they’d be singing a different tune. The kid’s mother did nothing to stop this and was not admonished even once by the cabin crew. On another flight, I was directly in front of one kid who kept spitting on me while making machine gun sound effects and next to another who shit his pants not once, not twice, but thrice during the flight. As annoying as all of these experiences were, there was one flight that was even more annoying than all of these put together. This one I don’t even blame on the kid but rather on his dumbass mother. I was flying from Minneapolis to San Diego about 3 years ago and was next to a hot but annoying woman who had a toddler with her who I would guess was about a year old. For a kid that age, he was pretty well behaved and wasn’t doing anything annoying. Surprisingly, he kept quiet through the boarding and takeoff and wasn’t making a nuisance of himself. About five minutes after we got up into the air, the trouble began. The hot but retarded mother of the kid started needling him, actually trying to make him cry. She kept saying shit like, “Oh honey it’s okay if you cry, it’s only natural and I won’t be upset. Come on Connor, don’t be afraid to cry. It won’t upset anyone else, they’re all expecting it and they won’t be bothered. Cry, it’s okay, start crying.”

This went on for about an hour, and the entire time I was pretty much in shock. It’s one thing to be near an annoying, loud mouthed kid on a plane and for the parent to not do anything about it, but actually encouraging your kid to be disruptive and annoying brings rudeness up to a whole new level. After about an hour of her prodding, the kid eventually did start crying as loud as he could and didn’t stop for the duration of the flight, which close to three hours. Once the kid started crying, his mother congratulated him, then she turned to the other passengers and started beaming with self satisfaction and going on and on about how she worries that her son doesn’t express his emotions enough and how you can’t stifle the beautiful natural actions of a child. Anybody who commits a violation like this should be automatically sterilized on the spot. Everyone around her was pretty fucking pissed off, but I think it bothered me more than anyone else. I was hoping for the plane to crash because even though it would mean that I’d meet a gruesome and painful death, it would stop this bitch before she could reach an orgasm from self congratulation and that would be well worth it.

In closing, I urge you all to write your congressman or whoever the hell else you think you can write to about this matter and hopefully within our lifetimes, experiences like these can come to an end. (Except for people who have little kids, but I guess they can sit back there and have fun with the beautifully naturally hellish behavior of their offspring.)

I get laid about as often as a non asshole becomes a state cop. (No offense to any state police reading this, if you’re on preservethe80s, I’m sure you’re the exception to that rule) I’m not happy about this fact, but sadly it’s the truth. As of late, on the very rare occasions that I actually do get into a girl’s bed, I’ve been saddened to find that she’s almost always wearing boyshorts. I wouldn’t say that it completely ruins the experience, but it definitely takes a bit away from it. It’s kind of like when you go to Chili’s and you go to the bathroom while waiting for your food to come and it smells blood-curdlingly horrible inside. You still enjoy the meal when it gets there, but in a limited capacity.

Any time I see a lingerie commercial, boyshorts are there. Any time I’m around a girl who’s talking about lingerie, she always mentions boyshorts. For one thing, I don’t really like the name of them. I don’t really enjoy having any sexual item I come into contact with having the word “boy” in it. I also don’t really like the way they kind of go down in the front of the legs of the woman wearing them. They’re just kind of boxy looking and don’t quite seem like underwear. I guess I’m in the minority on this one because they seem to be more popular today than those shoes with bells on them were in the middle ages.

What happened to thongs? As a lifelong assman, I was happier than anyone when they became a wardrobe staple for most women about 10 years ago. Boyshorts are, in my mind, the anti thong. Some people tell me I shouldn’t be complaining about that, because eventually if sex is going to happen, whatever panties that are on will eventually come off so it shouldn’t matter. People who tell me this are forgetting that I’m the same guy who comes close to having a stroke whenever I’m served a sandwich that has the condiments under the meat rather than on top of it. When it comes to my hangups, I don’t fuck around.

Speaking of thongs, I’m soon going to be selling preservethe80s thongs when I get the preservethe80s online store up and running, which should be in less than a month. Other items will also be sold, though I’m hoping thongs will be the top seller. What could be hotter than a thong with a picture of a 15 year old jar of relish on it? Nothing my friends, nothing.

When the business isn’t coming in, pictures of Big Bird in prison are made.

In each drawing, the guy with the cart says “Would you like something to read?”

In the first drawing, Big Bird asks “Do you have any issues of Self Magazine?”

In the second drawing, Big Bird doesn’t reply.

In the third drawing, Big Bird first says “So cold…” then “Get the hell out of here!”

In the last drawing, Snuffy’s visit to Big Bird goes horribly awry and prison rape ensues. Snuffy says “Rub a dub dub BITCH!” and when asked if he wants something to read, Big Bird replies “Fuck your books, I’m being raped!”

I’ve written a bit in this blog about some commercials I despise, but so far I haven’t dedicated an entire post to it. Having little else to do with my time, I shall now expound upon a few of my most hated commercials.

Axe Deodorant- I hate all of the Axe commercials. They all feature some douche bag guy/guys striking out with women, then using their product and finding it’s the biggest aphrodisiac since a fat wallet, box of chocolates, and a ten inch cock. The saddest part is, apparently this marketing campaign must be working because the commercials have followed this same basic premise for the past five years or so. Pimply faced young dumbasses by the thousands must be flocking to their local Walgreens to buy this in hopes that it’ll help them get laid, but it never will. As a guy who women have been finding repulsive for more than a quarter of a century, I speak with some authority on this subject – it doesn’t matter what brand of deodorant you use, if you don’t have money, good looks, personality, a nice car, trendy clothes, etc you aren’t going to get laid. End of discussion. Damn you Axe for building false hopes in the naive and stupid.

Yogurt (not sure which brand) – The fact that this series of yogurt commercials sticks in my mind enough to annoy me, yet not enough to allow me to remember what brand of yogurt it’s for pretty well illustrates how much ass it sucks. I really don’t need to say anything more about it than that, but I’m going to. The commercials I’m talking about are the ones that feature that vapid looking douche and his bitchy wife who always refers to him as “babe”. One of the two assholes is always on the phone with somebody talking about eating various seemingly fatty desserts whilst being on a diet. Over the course of the commercial, it’s always revealed that they’re not talking about the actual desserts, but rather low fat yogurts that have the flavor of the desserts. I can’t decide if I hate the guy or his wife more, both of them are more intolerable to me than not being the center of attention is for Brad Pitt… which brings me to the next commercial I hate.

I don’t know if I’m getting the title of this movie right (and I don’t really care) but I think it’s called Glorious Bastards. It’s another multi hour shitfest churned out by Quentin Tarrentino and I’ve been seeing commercials for it non-stop as of late and I’m getting pretty tired of them. The movie stars Brad Pitt, who is among my very most hated of celebrities. The commercials for the movie seem to indicate that it is a comedy based around army officers trying to kill Nazis during World War II. One especially annoying scene that seems to be in all of the trailers for the movie is a guy playing Hitler saying “Nein nein nein!” then Brad motherfucking-i love myself-i get to fuck angelina jolie and you don’t-i have a goatee that makes me look like even more of an asshole Pitt says “Oh yes yes yes”. I don’t know why that scene annoys me so much, but it does. If a commercial for this movie comes on again tonight and I see it, something or somebody is going to pay, and that’s a promise.

“Truth” anti tobacco ads – If there existed a place where the inhabitants were forced to spend all day changing old people’s depends using only their teeth while simultaneously being slashed by razor blades and having acid poured all over their bodies, I’d rather spend a week there than sit through a truth anti tobacco commercial. We all know smoking is bad for us. We don’t need to watch film-school style commercials filled with young hipsters annoying tobacco companies and spouting off statistics to tell us that. It’s like watching some combination of an low budget educational video and a Tom Green sketch. Every time I see one of these commercials, I get the uncontrollable urge to drive to Cumberland Farms and buy two cartons of Marlboros. One would be for myself, and the other would be to open up and toss cigarettes out to all the kids I see on my way home. Quitting smoking is always a good thing, but if anyone ever quits because of these commercials, I sincerely hope they start again because their lives are not ones that should be lengthened.

Well there you have it, a small sample of some of the commercials that piss me off. Try watching them for a while and you’ll become just as bitter and angry as me.

With life throwing gallon upon gallon of shit at me as of late, I’ve decided I’m going to make an effort to have a positive outlook (an undertaking that is by no doubt doomed to failure). In that spirit, I’ve been trying to focus on the bright side as of late and attempting to find some things are going well both in the news and in my personal life. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Jack in the Box plans for national expansion, beginning next year. Even though predictably enough, New England will be the last region to get a Jack in the Box, they do still plan to come here, most likely before the end of the next decade. Though it’s no Carl’s Jr, Whataburger, or In N Out, Jack in the Box is still head and shoulders above McDonald’s and Burger King.

The incontinence rate at Groton Regency Center has gone down for the past 3 consecutive years. This is a claim any convalescent home would be proud to boast. In 2006, they had a rate of 60%, which went down to 49% in ‘07, an at the end of last year, it stood at an impressive 29%. Unless you happen to work for the company that makes Depends, that little tidbit of news has to put a bit more bounce into your step.

Lots of people are complaining about how much Bruno sucked. I now feel validated in writing my anti Bruno post.

I’m listed on some website as being better than Pete Wentz. I don’t know who Pete Wentz is or why someone thinks I’m better than him, but it’s something to feel less melancholy about.

The guy in front of me in line at Adams almost dropped a jar of jelly but managed to catch it before it could hit the ground. In doing so he either saved himself about $3 or a jelly-less week. (depending on whether or not he’d have bought another jar to replace the broken one)

If you too take the time to count your blessings, some day you may get to be as cheerful and well adjusted as I am. May God help you if that happens.

Hoveround. The name brings to the mind images of the elderly visiting the Grand Canyon, going to baseball games, out shopping, or just kicking back and relaxing in their backyards. Truly, Hoverounds make you free to see the world.

I know there are a lot of power chairs out there, but none top the Hoveround. Larks, Rascals, those ones at Wal Mart, and “Scooter Store” power chairs are nothing but a joke. Their lack of speed, poorly designed shape and lackluster advertising make them the animal bi products in the hot dog that is the power chair market.

Hoverounds are round for a reason. Their round shape allows for better manueverability in making turns and getting around obstacles. They are now capable of speeds up to 7.5 miles per hour, while the closest competitor barely breaks the 5mph barrier. At that speed, you’re not going to get to the last empty slot machine at the casino my friends.

The dedication of Hoveround’s staff is second to none. They handle all the paperwork for you and also come to your house to deliver the Hoveround personally. They teach you the ins and outs of how it works and make sure you have it down cold before they leave.

I may not be a senior citizen yet, but this doesn’t mean I can’t see Hoverounds for the wonders that they are. As soon as I’m able, you best believe I’ll be a Hoveround user and I hope you will be too.

Last week I was on youtube and saw a banner ad for something called Bruno.

At the time, I remember looking at that and thinking it looked like a piece of shit, and it left my mind soon afterward. Unfortunately, it soon re-entered my consciousness as I was watching tv a few nights ago and saw a trailer for it. Though the title of the movie is Bruno, it may as well be called Borat 2 as it has the same premise as the first Borat movie – Sasha Cohen playing a Eurasian guy who doesn’t wear much clothing and pretending that he’s gay. This apparently is his calling card though, as even outside of movies he pretty much does the same act. This is supported further by his surprise landing, for lack of better phrasing, on Eminem. Since it turns out that was actually staged by Eminem himself, I guess there will be at least one person who will enjoy Bruno.

Nothing about Borat was funny. They took one annoying joke and stretched it out for two hours and it looks like Bruno is going to do the same thing. It boggles my mind that anyone went to the first movie and actually enjoyed it, though I suppose I can accept the fact that not everyone shares my opinion of what is amusing and what isn’t. What I can’t accept is that some asshole movie producer decided they’d rip America off by showing the exact same movie again and having the balls to charge people to see it.

The fact that even one college graduate is unemployed while Cohen becomes a multi millionaire by making these pathetic excuses for movies makes me feel like I’m going to vomit like a vomit fetishist’s significant other at a vomit fetish event. I guess my simile well is running dry tonight, but my dislike of Sasha Cohen and his work springs eternal.