Monday, August 30, 2010

Ask Your Fucking Neighbor

I fucking hate...

This guy- I don't know what his name is, and I refuse to learn it. All I know is this smug-looking douchebag has ruined television for me by forcibly inserting his cheap, Tom Cruise-knockoff bullshit into every commercial break I try so patiently to ignore while I wait for Top Gear to come back on so I can watch Jeremy Clarkson strap a St. Bernard to a rocket and fire it into a lake filled with caramel while disguising it as a test in "dog-happiness-focused-candy-saturated-fuel-efficiency." Seriously, I get really into shows I actually like, and that makes it all the more painful when this cockhat decides to pop up to interrupt me with his awful fucking awkward dialogue with whatever poor stiff they glued to the seat next to him. First it was that ambling, coffee house fuckabout where he spent fifteen fucking minutes holding the door and dodging between tables as people fled from him like a god damned plague rat. I'd run too if I heard this assbag strolling towards me, speech full of pauses more pregnant than a bus full of Catholic schoolgirls. But I guess someone must have told him that people tend to doze off when you wait six eons between lines, so they came up with these HILARIOUS spots where they duct tape him to some photogenic agent and force the two of them to trip over each others' dialogue. I'm sure they had to practice for a while to get the timing of this delivery down pat, but I wish someone had explained to them that no matter how carefully you practice and polish a shit fucking commercial, you can still only hope to wind up with a smoothly-running shit fucking commercial. If, by some miracle, this guy is reading this post right now, please write me a letter explaining to me who you are and how you got this job. Then promptly tell that letter to piss off and fire yourself into the sun.

But I actually don't hate...

A small selection of other advertisements- Commercials can be funny, but I don't want to point out any specifics because I feel like that would be encouraging them as a genre. Imagine, if you will, a classroom full of homicidal delinquent children who are given scissors and glue for some sort of lame arts-and-crafts project. If one of them should happen to cut and sculpt another one's hair into the shape of a gigantic, erect phallus it would clearly be awesome, but you certainly can't encourage the little bastard because then everyone will think it's okay to go apeshit in the name of artistic license. I may be stretching this metaphor as thin as it can possibly go, but I would like to save this article in the last minute by pointing out that the image of the wiener to the left came up in Google when I searched for "state farm guy." At least someone's got the right idea.

Sunday, August 29, 2010

Sunday Double-Feature

Because I slacked off this week, I figured two updates were due. Eat it, time limitations.

I fucking love...

Cooking- I'm not a terribly good cook. Thanks to years of practice, though, I can successfully make food warmer, and there's something wholly satisfying about that. Aside from being able to season food to taste, I feel like cooking satisfies some deep, primal instinct. I know "they" say that things are more satisfying when you work for them, but I feel like preparing your own food goes beyond that. Ever since the first apes discovered fire I feel like part of mankind has had a permanent hard-on for food preparation. There's something so raw and constructive about taking unprocessed ingredients and beating them into submission with a cutting board and frying pan that it makes me feel like my hairy ancestors are smiling up at me from cave-man hell. Also, directly working for my meals also makes me feel like less of a lazy shit for stuffing my face and passing out afterward.

But I still fucking hate...

Cleaning up the messes I make- While I realize this phrase pretty much relates to my whole life, I specifically hate doing dishes. I've worked in kitchens since I was 16, so I can say with all modesty that I clean a mean plate. I can also say with all certainty that I fucking hate doing so. I'm not squeamish about touching old food either, mine or other people's, I just hate washing cookware for a reason I can't quite put my finger on. I think it's that I hate getting both dirty and wet simultaneously. I'm fine with either one on their own, but mix them together and I feel like my entire day is ruined. That and food waste often smells horrible. Leave any small amount of food anywhere and the stink of its decay will haunt you to your grave. Maybe I'm just overly messy with my preparation, but I've had kitchens wind up stinking so bad with the ghosts of dinners past that no amount of baking soda could cleanse them. I'm certainly not going to stop eating though, just because of a few terrible odors. I guess we all have our demons to live with.

MSSNG VLS

I fucking hate...

Vanity plates- Everyone who drives my car, the Scion TC, is an asshole. Maybe I just notice it more because the familiar shape of the car catches my eye, but every time I see another TC on the road it's always cutting people off, running red lights, ignoring stop signs, or parked across five spaces like a fucking douche-bag. I'm not claiming to be any better of a driver, but I do have something these other shitfaces don't: a regular fucking license plate. Very few things on this Earth seem quite as pointless and self-obsessed as vanity plates. I understand loving your car, but labeling it as "JACKS TC" or "MOMS CAR" is unnecessary. I can clearly see what type of car you drive, and, by default, I assume that you didn't steal it. Worse still than the self-important declarations of ownership, are the plates that drop so many letters that I have no fucking idea what they say. I'm sure the owner of "ILVBXLT" thought their love of... I don't know, bacon, BMX, lettuce and tomato figured they were being quite clever, but their plate actually just makes me assume they have a learning disability.

But I actually don't hate...

The occasional decent vanity plate- I can't come up for any hard and fast rule for what makes a vanity plate acceptable, but a certain amount of tongue in your cheek always seems to help. A dumpy, pedo minivan marked "ARAGORN" or a truck with plates reading "VEHICLE," for example, are smart-assy enough to keep me from wanting to stab their owners. Speaking of which, a jeep with the tag "STABBY" is just plain awesome. On principle I still have to hate all vanity plates, but I reserve the right to at least hate some of them much, much less than others. As with most things in life, a little bit of self-restraint can go a long way. Realizing that you have nothing decent to say on your car tags and getting the standard random string of letters and numbers helps make vanity plates all the more special for people who, say, are constantly thinking about devouring children. They are the greatest heroes of all.

Friday, August 27, 2010

Mad Libs, Eat Your Heart Out

I fucking hate...

Copy-and-paste conversation- Working in the public service industry affords you plenty of opportunity to pick the brains of your neighbors and sample the local conversational landscape. Unfortunately, 99% of that landscape sucks. While I could, and most likely will, dedicate entire articles to each of these topics, here is a brief summary of what I have determined are the four different conversations I have on a daily basis:
  • Weather: "It sure is (hot/cold) out! But that's (okay/a living hell) because I prefer the (hot/cold). And after all that (snow/rain) we had last (winter/summer) I guess we were due for it!"
  • Politics: "Interest rates are terrible! What gives, Obama? So much for that hope, huh?"
  • Sports: "I notice you're a dude. How about when (player I've never heard of) (caught/fumbled) that (type of ball)? Oh man, what an (awesome dude/oaf)!"
  • People trying to hide the fact that they have no fucking clue what they're saying: "How about this money, huh? Sure does pay for stuff! I'd like more of it than I have, but what can you do, ha ha!"

But I actually don't hate...

The unstoppable flow of absolute, bat-shit insanity- For every ninety-nine horribly generic conversations that I don't even have to listen to while I'm speaking, at least one will take me completely off guard. Whether it's a crotchety, taciturn old man breaking out of his shell to make fun of your company's horrible advertisements or a shaky, middle-aged woman calling to ask for your help in proving that doctors stole her dead aunt's body (I shit you not), these are the little gems that sometimes almost make life worth living. Seething beneath the surface of every human being is certain flow of unreal, festering madness that is contained behind a concrete dam between our brains and our mouths. I fucking love dealing with the little Dutch boys whose psychological fingers are slipping out of the cracks.

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

A Brighter Day


An old friend is back in town after an eight-month hiatus, so the world doesn't seem terribly hateful. Regular programing will resume tomorrow. In the meantime, it's perfectly okay to let your guard down, even for a second.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Every Rose has its Thorn

I fucking hate...

When a TV show kills off one of the few characters I loved and had a real emotional investment in- Breaking my one-day-long moratorium on nerdy fan-boy talk, here is today's article on characters that I have loved on TV shows I have liked who have met untimely demises. I'm sure I'm leaving one or two potential favorites out, but here is, as far as I can remember, a complete list of characters whose deaths have upset me: Mr. Echo (Lost), Franklin (True Blood), and "Tugboat" Kenley Collins (Project Runway). That is all. Mr. Echo may have been a drug-smuggling war lord at one point, but if I remember Lost correctly (and I probably don't) he was one of the few characters who was totally bad-ass and got shit done without overstaying his welcome by getting obtusely metaphorical or having daddy issues. By the same token, Franklin may have been, at best, a schizophrenic rapist, but seriously, did you see how fast he could text "motherfucker?" If you ask real nice, he would probably have deleted it and started over again just to show you. I know neither of these characters were main plot focal points destined for a long, happy story arc ("violent lives meet violent ends, wah wah wah") but god damn do I like crazy people who get shit done. While Project Runway was a "reality" show in the sense that Kenley Collins is not a fictional character, she still fits in with "crazy people who get shit done." She also did not win her season, and therefore might as well be dead. But stepping back to the sexier two of the three for a second, I think maybe I liked them so much because




I actually don't hate...

When a TV show has the common decency to kill off a character before they become a repetitive prat- Judging by the slow, rambling path of dwindling sympathy I felt for every other character on Lost who wasn't Ben (xoxoxo), I'm actually somewhat thankful Mr. Echo got smoke-exorcised before I wound up hating him for crying over why he was on the island and how those fucking magnets work. If there's one thing I think we can learn from centuries of written fiction it's that 99% of the time a brutal, timely death is a much prouder fate then a dull, plodding, soul-crushing life. Something to think about come my inevitable mid-life crisis. While I will piss and moan with the best of them that Mr. Echo is dead and Franklin never got that rapey wedding he wanted, I'm perfectly content to watch them go out in an entertaining blaze of glory. I think it all comes down to my deep-seated desire to have faith in authors to shape their creations correctly, knowing that even upsetting things can happen for a reason. Because you gotta have faith( a-faith a-faith).

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Same Tempo, New Song

Sunday is the Lord's day, god dammit, so I'd like to do something a little different.

I fucking love...

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World- Without getting into spoilers and while trying not to sound like a doting fanboy, this movie was awesome. It's glitzy, sensually assaulting, campy in all the right ways, and emotional in all the wrong (which actually turn out to be right, because we're all too cool for non-ironic emotional expression). The entire cast was fantastic, from the leads to the evil exes to the bitchy, gay roommate. Especially the bitchy, gay roommate. Thank you Kieran Culkin. Sure the entire thing is video-game tinged and completely over-the-top, but at the same time it still manages to make believable, sympathetic characters, as well as brutally honest, razor-sharp caricatures of every type of pretentious, indie, underground 20-something asshole. Yes, even you (and yes, even me). The entire scene-appeal of the film might be lost if you've never personally known someone who went to Vegan Academy, but it's hard for me to gauge. Either way, if you don't mind some sarcasm with your surrealistic beat-'em-up, or vice versa, I would highly recommend checking it out.

But I still don't like...

Trying to follow the music scene- As a purely personal problem, this movie did remind me what a pain in the ass it was to try and keep on top of good, new music before it blew up to the point of leprous popularity. As someone with a constant twitch in my pants to spill my seed over awesome bands I've never heard before, it feels slightly tragic to hate the effort it takes to learn about them. This doesn't make the quality of a lot of up-and-coming acts any less entertaining. What it does do is make the over-saturation of the market and the media about it somewhat tragically disenchanting to me personally. I'm going to go ahead and blame the internet, as I am eighty years old. I'll also point out that this isn't bitching with any purpose, and I certainly don't have ideas on how to solve it, I just think it sucks that I would feel burnt out about trying to follow something I enjoy in my early 20's. So rather than try and figure out the next big thing (if I ever could), I'm going to go ahead and strap up my hot-pants, leather dress shirt and Flock-of-Seagulls-haircut and download some old Pulp albums. You wanna sleep with common people, like me?

Saturday, August 21, 2010

As Obvious as it Seems...

I fucking hate...

Traffic- I know, boo hoo, we all hate traffic. But seriously, I fucking hate traffic. In Hell, there will be traffic. Miles and miles of stop-and-go bullshit on a hot freeway where no matter how high you turn up your air conditioning you still wind up with a sweaty back and ass crack. And at first we'll all think, "Well this isn't so bad, I dealt with traffic in life, I can deal with it in the afterlife." But then we will realize that while now we can get out of our cars and put the ugly, gridlocked nightmares behind us, in Hell it will reach on for infinity, and you'll always be stuck in the passing lane behind some big fucking van with a "Baby On Board!" bumper sticker who can't seem to go two miles faster than the car in the right-hand lane and in front of a Hummer or some other bullshit death-machine that can clearly see over your car but still insists on riding up your ass as if that will somehow make everyone in front of you go faster. Also, you will always have to poop just enough that it's not an emergency yet, but you can't be sure you'll be able to hold it until you finally get to where you're going.

But I actually don't hate...

Driving in general- Particularly driving at night. There's something about that feeling of command when you're the only car on the road and know you're free to speed and hug corners and generally drive like a twat that just makes you feel like the absolute bees' knees. In these moments I totally understand why people fetishize automobiles and make movies like Death Proof and watch crap like formula 1 racing (but not NASCAR). Burning gasoline in the dark with total freedom of pavement makes me feel like the absolute culmination of civilization. The Romans conquered most of Europe by building roads (and also, you know, by killing and raping), and here I am with dominion over late-night motorways. I really can find myself loving driving, when other people aren't ruining it for me.

Friday, August 20, 2010

Welcome/Hitting the Ground Running

I'm an angry little man. There are a lot of things I hate in this world. But I feel that I'm not really an excessively negative person, I just like to hear myself bitch. Therefore the concept behind Hate/Nothate is simple: for every one thing I hate, try to find one somewhat related thing I do not hate. It's kind of my challenge to myself to prove the world doesn't suck that hard. Just between you and me, I don't think I can do it, but boy am I gonna try and prove me wrong.

I fucking hate...

Vampire Weekend- Never have I gone from loving a band to hating it so quickly. Admittedly, this is probably more my fault than it is theirs, as they seem to have steadfastly refused to change anything between their albums "Vampire Weekend" and "Contra." When I first heard the self-titled release it made me feel giddy, like a hipster school-girl strung out on sugary, watered-down Paul Simon songs. When I first heard "Contra" it made me feel angry, like a slightly older, disillusioned hipster school-girl having vacuous, empty sex to a bad bootleg of Paul Simon songs.

I actually don't hate...

Ra Ra Riot/Discovery- The apparent butt-buddies of Vampire Weekend have released some seriously hot shit in "The Orchard." Ignoring fruit and growing-based puns, it's a great album full of rich, orchestrated pop-rock which I really only compare to Vampire Weekend in my mind because I heard them putting cellos and bullshit behind indie rock first. But seriously, it's the best Vampire Weekend album that Vampire Weekend never touched. Coincidentally, Discovery, the bastard side-project consisting of equal parts Ra Ra Riot and Vampire Weekend is also awesome, and I feel perfectly safe saying that having only heard one song. Between the cutesy vocals and trashy, thumping beat it answered the question I never knew I was asking: what if Usher were a white guy whose two most important possessions were his keyboard and sweater?