Television: crap for jerks.

I don't watch much TV. When I lived in a house with cable TV, I didn't watch it much, because it seemed like the only thing that was ever on was terrible shows for idiots, advertisements, and advertisements disguised as terrible shows for idiots. I liked The Daily Show and the Colbert Report and a handful of cartoons, but for the most part I found almost everything else completely intolerable. When I moved into a house without even a regular antenna on any of the TVs, I didn't miss the tard-tube at all. Being a bit of a nerd helped, because I was able to get any of the shows I liked via the internet, often without having to see any ads at all. I set up my computer to automatically download whatever shows anybody in my house wanted to see to a shared folder that anybody could access over our WiFi network. I did this until I started running really low on hard drive space, and then phased it out. It was no big deal, as we had Netflix and TV shows on the internet were getting more and more accessible to non-geeks. I watched some TV over the internet at work, both to stick it to The Man and to entertain myself, but after I quit my job in July, I pretty much stopped watching any TV at all.

That is, until recently.

I don't know if TV has gotten stupider, or if I had just forgotten how stupid it was. It seems like almost everything is insultingly patronizing, treating the viewer like they absolutely must be a complete fucking idiot. Just turning on the TV makes me lose a little more faith in humanity. Are people so stupid that they're suckered in by the advertisements? Do people genuinely enjoy watching programming that not only doesn't require you to think, but actively requires you not to? Sadly, the answer to both questions appears to be yes, otherwise it wouldn't be the shit filling up the airwaves 24-hours a day. What can be said of a culture where the average person spends four hours a day sitting in front of a screen where the most intelligent thing they can watch is a cartoon about foul-mouthed children who do a lot of on-screen pooping?

Much has been said about the offensiveness of South Park, but I honestly believe it is one of the least offensive shows on TV. Below is just a brief catalog of some of the outrageously ridiculous shit I've seen during my recent adventures back into the world of television viewing.

The Jerry Springer Show / The Steve Wilkos Show
I had a professor in college who was a very active communist. He encouraged us to come to rallies and demonstrations, and he made a communist newspaper available for free to any students who were interested. He was a firm believer in overthrowing the government, and would talk about the rise of fascism ("It's just capitalism with the gloves off," he would tell us). One of the main signs of impending fascism, he told us, was a "culture of dehumanization." Each time he'd mention this, he'd cite The Jerry Springer Show as an example. Poor people go on TV, fight and cry and make fools of themselves, and we laugh at them because they are subhuman trailer dwellers, and we are better than them. Their misery is our entertainment. I remember finding the show mildly entertaining in high school, but always thinking, Jesus Christ, what a fucking circus!

I hadn't watched it in years, and when I finally did, I was shocked. They somehow managed to make it even more of a fucking circus. They now have sideshow freaks moving randomly around the set while the poor people fight and cry and make fools of themselves. They used to have a segment towards the end of the show where audience members could verbally abuse the guests, generally making fun of them for being poor and/or unattractive. They still have it, only now chicks in the audience randomly show their boobs, often taking the stage for this activity, in exchange for Mardi Gras beads.

Even more shocking was the revelation that one of the bouncers from the show, Steve, who I remember the audience chanting for in the old days, has actually been given his own show. I wondered how this could have happened, as it certainly wasn't because he's an articulate guy who can carry a show with his wit. I watched, fascinated, trying to figure it out, when it hit me: it's got the poor people for us to feel better than, AND it has a physically intimidating guy who throws chairs, denies guests the privilege of sitting down, and then yells in their face. Awesome.

Crazy knife-hunting guy
There's a network on cable that seems to be devoted exclusively to hunting and fishing shows. It seems like this would be a niche market, and the cable companies would opt to sell it as part of a fancy package with a million channels, but around here it comes with your standard basic crap cable that doesn't have any of the channels that have anything worth watching (Comedy Central and Cartoon Network). I didn't catch the guy's name, but one show was about a guy who was going to hunt a pig. With a knife. Viewers were treated to footage of the guy training by running around in the woods, stabbing a fake pig, and ranting about what it means to be a man. Very early in the show, he gave a speech that went basically like this: "Never before in history has there been a time when more men were acting like women and more women were acting like men. I'm not trying to attack you personally, but men are not doing man things. That's why I'm going to hunt a pig. With a knife." He told us that the last time he went on a hunting-a-pig-with-a-knife trip, four of his dogs ended up getting killed. I may have missed it, but I don't think he said whether or not he ended up killing a pig that time, which leads me to believe he didn't. It seems worth it, though, four dogs for one pig. Or no pig. Whatever, as long as he's a man. He said that "anti-dog" groups were against hunting with dogs, but I don't see how that could be true. If I hated dogs enough to join a group devoted to hating them, I'd wish jerks always went hunting pigs (with knives) with their dogs. He also ranted about how people don't like his show, because it's too brutal, but that's just how nature is, so it's OK. He cited the fact that wolves were, at that moment, tearing apart a deer as a reason why hunting a pig with a knife is alright, taking care to avoid mentioning that around the globe, animals are also eating their own feces and the feces of other animals. And then he stabbed a pig.

Public access
Holy crap, why did I only now start watching public access? Public access cable channels are a source of real, honest to god, genuine fucking comedy. Where else can you go for crap like this?

• A lone hippy on the screen with the colors all mixed up, noodling aimlessly on his guitar in a boring, masturbatory jam that goes on for half an hour.
• A talentless jackass reading terrible poetry for a room full of jerks so pretentious that they don't laugh him off the stage, even when he fills the gaps between his "poems" by playing "music" on one guitar string tied to some posts and hooked up to a string of distortion pedals.
• A "performance art" piece where a young woman rambles almost incoherently, yells at some invisible, nameless person, and then wraps herself in cellophane while continuing the crazy talk. Again, for a room of pretentious jerks who find value in her art.
• A show called Forbidden Knowledge where a paranoid conspiracy theorist speaks without details about the cops trying to shut him down for spreading "forbidden knowledge," and then answers phone calls where people ask questions like, "Where can I find a kit that turns a regular bike into a gas or electric bike?" and the he gives answers like, "I don't know, exactly, but you should look on the internet."
• An ultra-feminist college professor giving a presentation on sexism in advertising, and finding extreme oppression of women in the most innocuous of things. "In this ad, the shot of the woman is cut off at the feet, so they're trying to say that women shouldn't be allowed to move around, like men, who have feet. In this ad, the women appear playful and happy, which means that all women are stupid idiots who have fun."
  
• More than half an hour of a ridiculously-dressed girl walking very, very slowly, outlining her foot with chalk after each step, and being followed by a jerk who erases her chalk lines. That's fucking ART, man!

Yes, indeed, public access is the best thing that comes with basic shitty motel-cable.

Cops 2.0 / G4
Ah, G4, the network for dweebs: people who are socially retarded and desperately want to be nerds, but simply aren't very smart. The programming that is exclusive to this network relies heavily on average-looking chicks pretending to like video games (average looking chicks + appreciation for video games = really super hot chick), and caters to viewers who like to imagine they're tech savvy, but who don't really know how to use the internet. Seriously, any time I've watched Attack of the Show!, it's just a rehash of what I read and saw on the internet the day before (although sometimes I find myself transfixed; if the female co-host had a show about making toast, I'd probably tune in occasionally).

Another show on G4, Cops 2.0, is clearly geared towards dweebs. It's exactly like Cops, except a good third of the screen is taken up by a box that makes the screen look like a website. It has tabs that look like you'd be able to click on them if it were the internet, but since it's TV, you wait for them to click themselves. The box lists random factoids of little to no value, and quizzes about what you've seen within the last 30 seconds. One of the tabs, when it reaches its rotation, displays a question like "What would you do if you got attacked with a knife?" followed by a scrolling list of answers entered by dweebs who bothered to log on to the website to answer it. They're always very bad attempts at being funny. I'm entirely convinced that the big stupid box on the bottom of the screen appeals exclusively to these jerks, because it excites them to see their internet handle displayed on a TV. Yeah, HaLo_n1nJa14, you're a famous fucking awesome guy now.

Late night TV preachers who give away free stuff
I really dig the late night TV preachers who give out free stuff. It's never particularly good stuff, and the preachers themselves are clearly unscrupulous douchebags praying upon the stupid (unlike anybody else who advertises on TV), but still, it's free stuff, and it's weird, creepy voodoo stuff. I got a green prosperity cloth that came with very specific instructions on how to put it in my wallet, FOR ONE NIGHT ONLY!!!, in all caps with exclamation points so I knew it was serious business, and then send it back to the preacher with my monetary seed that will surely grow. When I didn't send it back, I started getting phone calls from the pre-recorded preacher saying, in a very concerned tone, "I sent you the green prosperity cloth, and I haven't received it back from you. Are you OK?" He ended up sending me another one, this one cut into a weird hand shape instead of a square like the previous piece of felt. I also got a sample of holy water from none other than Leroy Jenkins. It came in a little plastic packet that looked like a sample of sexual lubricant, and also had the name "Leroy Jenkins" written on it. Awesome.

Late night TV preachers who don't give away free stuff (specifically, Jack Van Impe)
Jack Van Impe is a crazy televangelist who preaches about the coming end times, repeatedly saying things like "As seen on the history channel" when giving specific end time dates. He's crazy as hell, and entertaining on his own, but the real draw of the show is his wife: Rexella.

Rexella wears a look of constant surprise on her face, reacts with great concern to everything Jack says, and is also in charge of delivering world news. The news bits are the best part of the show. They simply display different articles, both from the web and print, and Rexella reads the headline of each without any context at all and sort of connects them with a few words in between. If you watch closely you can see how the dates of the articles are all over the place, and what she is saying doesn't make any fucking sense at all. It's something that really needs to be seen to be believed, so it's fortunate that you can catch the most recent episode at their web site.

Infomercials
I know that airtime in the middle of the night when people are asleep is the cheapest, but I always have to wonder if people get stupider during these hours. Regular commercials are bad enough, but it seems like only the stupidest of stupids would buy the crap they're peddling. It's always some basic item that has been around forever and is available everywhere, like a blender, minus much of the functionality of the original product, but plus one extra function that you will use 3 times before realizing you're a fucking idiot and you wasted your money on a grossly overpriced product, shoddily crafted from only the cheapest of shitty materials. I think they rely on people being half asleep, because they make outrageous claims that nobody in their right mind would fall for. "Are you worried this knife won't be sharp enough to filet a fish? Well watch what it does to a tomato!" Last night, I saw one that claimed you should buy from them, rather than from a store, because stores pay for advertising, and therefore have a higher overhead and have to charge you more. They always ask how much you'd pay for an item, and then have somebody give a grossly inflated price that absolutely nobody would ever consider even thinking about paying, and then they tell you it's much less than that, so it is clearly a deal.

I saw one infomercial that claimed you would pay "less than a fraction" of the original price they give. I briefly thought that nobody would ever fall for that, but after thinking about all the other shit on TV, I'm guessing that the average television viewer thinks "less than a fraction" actually means something.

So there you go, folks, a big wad of anecdotal evidence that TV is crap. For jerks. Goodnight, and have a pleasant tomorrow.

I'm pretty sure she made me touch her butt.

I never really socialized much at work. I didn't really even leave my desk except when I had to, and when I did, I would do what I needed to do as quickly and efficiently as possible so I could get back to monitoring the tubes, reading science fiction magazines, and playing with my Nintendo DS. Sometimes I would wear headphones when I left my desk so I could pretend I didn't hear anybody and avoid talking to them. When I was forced to talk to people, I didn't say much, and would immediately go back to my desk when I was done doing what I was supposed to do, regardless of whether or not it seemed like somebody was done talking to me. I just didn't see any need to make friends with the people I worked with, and I didn't want to waste my time talking about the weather, sports, Jesus, TV shows, or any other inane bullshit people seemed interested in. My disinterest in talking to people stemmed less from a specific dislike for the people I worked with than from a general distaste for people.

There were, however, exceptions to this rule.

Some of the people I worked with I found truly disagreeable. Among them was a morbidly obese black woman who dressed very loudly and caked her face with many layers of clown/whore makeup every day. Her appearance was not the only loud thing about her, and I would often be forced to listen to her having long conversations with her friends in their normal indoor voices, which were the screams, yells, and cackles you would expect from people at a loud concert rather than a quiet office building. At least once, I turned my headphones up painfully loud, but was still unable to drown out the sound of her and another woman practicing their gospel singing at full volume.

The woman was somewhat crazy, and I had once heard from a girl my age about an altercation she had had with the woman. The girl was swearing, talking to her friend, when the woman put her face inches from the girl's face and engaged her in a yelling argument over her apparent lack of respect for herself. The girl asserted that she was "a grown-ass woman" who could talk however the hell she wanted to, which only served to make the woman louder and angrier.

I was, unfortunately, too friendly to be actively disliked. Despite my unwillingness to socialize with my coworkers, I would always help people with their retarded-person computer problems if they asked for my help. I would have preferred it if people thought I was an asshole and never tried to talk to me, but I gained a reputation as a quiet but friendly guy who was willing to help people when they were too goddamn inept to do incredibly basic tasks by themselves.

On several occasions, the loud woman came to my desk asking for computer help. Each time, she wanted me to go back down to her desk to help her. She was very slow-moving because of her girth, so I would be forced to endure extra moments of her talking to me. She would tell me about her teenage son's incredible musical skill, and how he played for a large number of incredibly famous acts, and how all kinds of guys really want her because she's so sexy. I never believed her. When we got to her desk, her problem would invariably be something so fucking stupid that it would shock me that somebody would give her a job sitting at a computer much of the day. I would save her file, or maximize her window, or whatever other stupid shit she needed, and then immediately go back to my desk.

I tried to avoid interacting with her more than I tried to avoid interaction with anybody else. When she did say something to me, it was often uncomfortable shit like, "You get more and more handsome every day", or trying to get me to come to her birthday party. I tried to be polite, but I was always very short and in a hurry to get back to my desk.

One day, I went downstairs to pick up my batch of work that should have been printing out at that moment, as it did every evening. The morbidly obese lady was standing near the printer with two other coworkers.

"They're not coming yet," she said.

"Oh," I replied, ready to go back upstairs.

She grabbed my hand. "Here," she said in her deep, manly voice, "let me show you."

I didn't need to be shown, and I sure as hell didn't need to have my hand held to walk 3 feet to the printer. My hand was limp as she clasped it and began waddling towards the printer.

And then my hand touched her butt.

"See?" she asked, gesturing at the empty printer with her free hand.

"Uh, yeah," I said, pulling my hand free. "I guess I'll check later," I said, and went back to my desk, wondering what the fuck just happened. Did she just pull my fucking hand into her butt? I asked myself.

It has been hypothesized that perhaps pulling my hand into her butt was just an unfortunate consequence of her being so fat that her butt took up so much space. That makes me wonder, how often do morbidly obese people "accidentally" touch their own butts? I will never know whether or not she intentionally made me touch her butt, but either way, she had no goddamn business grabbing my hand in the first place.

On my last day of working at that place, she stopped me as I was walking to my boss's desk, trying to bitch at me about doing too much work and raising the ludicrously low standards, which meant she actually had to do some work.

"You do all them boxes, and now Chris thinks we can all do that much. I can't. You need to..."

"This is my letter of resignation," I said, cutting her off and showing her the paper in my hand. "I don't have to take any shit at all from anybody here ever again."

She was clearly taken aback. "Oh," she said, "well, I was thinking I might have to do the same thing if things don't change around here."

"Yeah," I said, not trying to hide the contempt in my voice, "You do that." I walked away.

I'm so happy that I'll never have to see her again.

Don't tease the animals.

I went to a zoo a few months ago when it was still warm out. I'm opposed to zoos in a general sense, because it seems kind of douchebaggy to lock up a bunch of animals, many of them relatively intelligent, for the amusement of a bunch of mouth-breathing members of the general public. For this reason, I haven't been to a zoo in years. That, and I really don't like the general public, and tend to hate being surrounded by people who are almost inevitably a bunch of intolerable idiots.

For most of our walk around the zoo, I was pleasantly surprised. There were things that pissed me off, like assholes in the butterfly room touching the butterflies (it damages their fragile wings), and the small enclosures for animals smart enough to hate being locked up, but I enjoyed being able to see all sorts of critters up close. I was particularly fond of the reptiles, because they're too stupid to really hate their lack of freedom so much, and they're just completely awesome, like scaly science fiction monsters, here to devour your face clean off of your skull.

Everything was going relatively well, until we got to the tiger enclosure. That's when I got really pissed off.

We were watching the tigers going about their business when a family strolled up to the fence near where we were standing. The morbidly overweight matriarch of the clan began clapping and yelling at a tiger who was sitting down, facing away from us.

"Hey!" she yelled, clapping her hands. "Hey! Hey, tiger!"

I wanted to yell at her. I wanted to say, "Hey, you ugly bitch, this beautiful creature could and would eat your whole goddamn family if it wasn't imprisoned for your amusement." I wanted to tell her how disgusted I was with her. I wanted to lock her up in a cage and make her do tricks to entertain me.

I wanted to push her into the fucking cage and watch her get eaten in front of her horrified family.

I generally like animals, but I very often dislike people. Seeing an amazing animal trapped in a small space while a free-roaming, slack-jawed jackass yelled at it was an ugly contrast. For the rest of the day, I was in a pissy mood, thinking about how what I had witnessed happens all day long, every single day that the zoo is open. It seemed so totally unnecessary. What good is served by locking up a tiger so some assholes can look at it? Most of those jerks would be just as happy sitting at home eating McDonald's while watching TV commercials and rooting for their favorite American Idol contestant.

When I heard recently that some dickheads got attacked by a tiger for taunting it at a zoo, I can't say I had any sympathy for them at all. In fact, I wished that all three had been killed by the tiger instead of just one of them. They euthanized the tiger, so if you're keeping track of kills at home, the score is 1-1; everybody loses. At least she was able to maul the two that she didn't kill.

I imagine a scant few of the loudmouthed cretins who taunt animals at zoos would dare taunt a human prisoner safely locked behind correctional bars, even though any tiger can kill a person more quickly than all but the most powerful of humans. Perhaps it is the fact that these animals are locked up specifically for human amusement that emboldens people to act like shit-flinging monkeys.

There are currently more tigers in captivity in the United States than there are tigers in the wild. Sadly, this means that zoos might play a crucial role in their survival at all. For this reason I support the occasional eating of human visitors by zoo animals. If people realize the penalty for taunting a creature might be death or a severe mauling, people might be more hesitant to behave like the kind of assholes who deserve to be killed by tigers. The tiger who escaped apparently could have escaped at any time, but never felt the need to go attack people until it reached its breaking point. If there's any lesson at all to be learned from this brutal attack, it's that tiger enclosures should all be like the one at the San Francisco zoo: inescapable until the tigers have had enough of you and your fucking bullshit.

Can you put the seat up?

My desk chair at work is pretty nice. Pretty much everything about it is adjustable, and I adjust it to my liking every day upon arrival. I am an efficient sloucher, so I generally drop the seat all the way down. When I come in the next day, the seat is usually all the way back up, but it's no big deal, because it's easy to adjust, and I understand the concept of a shared workspace.

"Hey, I have a request for you," the midnight lady said when she got in the other night. She sits at the desk next to mine.

"Yeah?" I asked, "What's that?"

"The day girl wants you to put the seat back up when you leave at night."

"Sure," I said.

"She's really short," she told me.

"Yeah, I know," I said.

I sat there for a second, and then asked, "Hey, can you do me a favor?"

"Sure, what?"

"When the day girl gets in tomorrow morning, can you ask her to put the seat all the way down when she's done?"

"I misplaced your dipstick."

I've needed an oil change for the last 500 miles or so, and I finally got one today. I was fairly oblivious as the guy did his work, and then he said, "OK, go ahead and start up your engine now." I did, and a few seconds later, my car shook and the engine died.

"What the hell was that?" asked the guy changing the oil in the car next to mine. He came over and started looking under my hood. Within seconds, four oil-change guys were looking under my hood, sticking their hands deep inside the dirty black machinery that I don't understand.

"Go ahead and take your keys out of the ignition and throw them on the dashboard," the oldest one told me. I did, and they continued to poke around. After a couple minutes, the guy who was originally changing my oil came to my window.

"OK, sir, what happened is I misplaced your dipstick," he told me.

"Alright," I said.

"Yeah, we'll have it out in a second, it should be fine," he said, and went back to work.

After a couple more minutes, the oldest one asked me to step out of the car. I did, and he got in. He started the car for a split second, making an ugly grinding noise. The guys under the hood poked around, and then he started the car for a split second again. He did it one more time, and then got out of the car and told me I could get back in. After some more mucking about, there were exclamations of relief from the guys under my hood. The dipstick had been recovered.

"We got it," the first guy told me, "Everything looks good."

"OK," I said.

"Yeah, everything looks fine," another guy said. "If you have any problem with it at all, or if you just want to have somebody look at it, just bring it back here. Ask for me, I'm a store manager." I looked at his shirt and made a mental note to talk to Dave if anything should go wrong.

"Alright, cool," I said.

"Are you also a student," the first guy asked as he rang me up.

"Yeah," I lied, "but I don't have my student ID." I figured I deserved some kind of discount after they "misplaced" my dipstick, but I would have tried to get the student discount, anyway.

"No problem," he said, "We'll take care of that for you."

It seems kind of stupid that a guy who changes oil for a living could "misplace" my dipstick. I kind of wish they would have told me exactly what happened, but I probably wouldn't have understood it. I'm clueless about cars. At least this time they didn't try to sell me a bunch of shit I didn't need.

New gaping hole at the farmhouse.

Hello, kitten, what is it you are looking at?



















Is it all this garbage on the floor?



















All of this garbage?














Don't get wet, sad kitty!















You're sitting under a gaping hole in the ceiling.














It will spill insulation upon you.

He's a mean one, Mr. Grinch.

I didn't always hate Christmas. When I was a little kid, I thought it was awesome. It was that special time of year where we didn't have to go to school for what seemed like forever, and then one night, while running around and playing with our cousins, we got a bunch of new toys. It was great.

I didn't know that Christmas had anything to do with Christianity until I moved to Indiana, where everybody was deeply religious. I was 10 years old by that time. My family wasn't religious, but I hadn't developed my contempt for religion by that point, so I didn't really care. Christmas was still the time of year for not going to school and for getting a bunch of new toys. It was still my favorite holiday.

It wasn't until high school that I began to hate religion. I got sick of all the assholes using Jesus as their excuse for sexism and homophobia. I got sick of the self-righteous bastards pointing their fingers and telling me that I was going to go to Hell for completely absurd reasons. I got sick of being seemingly the only person, among smart people and idiots alike, that didn't believe in silly ancient superstitions about a man being nailed to a stick and saving everybody's souls. I was so disgusted by the prevailing irrational beliefs that I stopped celebrating Christmas.

But not really.

A friend of mine invented a new holiday, Cakeamongo, that I began celebrating. Cakeamongo was the non-denominational celebration of cake that involved nothing more than eating cake and exchanging gifts. But like the early Christians who had hijacked the December 25th holiday already celebrated by the pagans, renamed it, and ascribed it new meaning, we had just taken the December 25th holiday already celebrated by the Christians, renamed it, and ascribed it new meaning. For years, I was still celebrating Christmas, but I was calling it something else.

As I grow older, I find that my distaste for organized religion has changed. It's not that I don't find it stupid and annoying, because I certainly still do, but the more I think about it, the more dangerous it seems. I honestly believe that religion is by far the greatest threat to mankind that we face. As technology develops, it becomes easier and easier to kill huge numbers of people at one time. We live in a time in which thousands of people can be wiped off the face of the earth in a single stroke, and still huge numbers of people believe in ideologies that teach that the killing of believers in the wrong god is okay. I don't believe that religion is the primary reason that people kill each other, but it sure as hell is a great motivator and justifier. It certainly helps people divide themselves into groups, rather than thinking of themselves as members of one species. If the middle east was populated by poor-as-fuck Christians, and America was populated by wealthy, spoiled Muslims, I don't think things would really be much different than they are today. Millions of Americans believe that we're living in the end times, and that incredible amounts of death and destruction are just part of what's required for Jesus to come back. If things got bad here, I'd expect to see Christians become just as murderous as the Muslim extremists we hear so much about. I don't think it's an accident that the craziest strains of Christianity are followed by the poorest, most uneducated people in the country, just like the craziest strains of any other religion worldwide.

And you know what? I don't want to celebrate a holiday that has anything to do with those crazy, irrational, and downright fucking dangerous old myths.

It's not just the religious aspect of Christmas that I hate, either. I find mindless consumerism to be ridiculous, as well. I do find it kind of funny, though, that the American public has been suckered by huge, money-making corporations into believing that the best way to celebrate the birth of the ultimate anti-materialist is to buy lots of stuff. Still, I want no part of it. It's kind of sad when people believe that the best way to show that they care about a person is to give them material possessions. Material possessions that, in many if not most cases, the person would not have purchased for themselves if given the money and opportunity.

"Sorry I haven't talked to you all year, but I still totally care about you. To prove it, here's some stuff I purchased for you, wrapped in festive holiday paper."

I understand that many people, religious and secular, think of Christmas as a time of goodwill. They think of it as a time for family. That sounds good, but what about the rest of the year? In December, you're nice to your fellow humans, you see your folks, and then you get to be an asshole the rest of the year? I'm all in favor of being a good person, and I'm all in favor of being close to your family, but I think it's horribly selfish to only do it once a fucking year.

I've been called a Grinch, and a Scrooge, and a cheapass for not wanting to participate in holiday gift-giving. It's not that. It's just that I dislike Christianity, consumerism, and the idea that there are only certain times when you should behave like a decent human being.

A slave to convenience.

I hate McDonalds. I've told myself time and time again that I really need stop eating at that place. The food really sucks, and they have a tendency to fuck up my simple orders. Still, I usually end up eating there about once a week on my lunch break. Why? Because it's so damn convenient, that's why. It's the drive-through place closest to my place of work, and it's the only one besides Wendy's that isn't at least 15 minutes away.

From ninth grade until just a few years ago, I was a really strict vegetarian. Now, as a result of getting older and having my own problems to worry about, I can't bring myself to give as much of a damn as I used to about issues like animal rights, which is something I used to be on the verge of militancy about. Still, my years of meat-eating abstinence have caused me to think most meat is really too vile to eat, and a hamburger is about as appealing to me as a nice hot chunk of dog or cat on a bun would be to most of my fellow Americans. I can generally only eat meat if I can trick my brain into believing it's not really a juicy chunk of animal. I can do that with chicken McNuggets if I drown them in enough sauce. I don't think they taste good, but they're edible and provide me with sustenance when I'm hungry and on my lunch break, and I don't even have to get out of my car.

If I wasn't so damn lazy, I'd bring my own lunch to work every day. That would be the best solution. I haven't been very motivated about making something to bring to work in the morning, though. I wake up in the afternoon without much time to spare before I have to leave. I've tried to adjust my schedule since moving, but I still can't seem to wake up in the morning like a normal human being. I guess I could make something at night, but whatever. Leaving on my lunch break provides me with a moment away from the job, at any rate, and that's always appreciated.

If I was slightly less lazy, I could always choose one of the better options available for consumers willing to leave their vehicles in the evening. That, too, would be better than eating at McDonalds. Maybe it's just laziness, maybe it's me being antisocial, or maybe it's a combination of the two factors, but eating shitty food often seems like the better option, rather than getting out of my car to eat something that actually tastes halfway decent. A couple weeks ago, the cold weather saved me from another night of McNuggets by freezing my window shut. I figured if I had to get out of my car, I sure as fuck wasn't going to eat at McDonalds. I went to Jimmy John's instead, and got a veggie sub. Those actually taste alright, though I could be biased because I feel better knowing no blood was spilt to make said sandwich.

Whenever my order gets fucked up at McDonalds, I don't know what to think. Last night, when they put ice in my drink after I asked them not to, I shrugged it off and figured, "Ah, whatever, I wouldn't care at all if I worked there." The time before that, though, when I didn't get sauce, rendering my nuggets inedible, I thought, "These idiots can't fill a simple order, I really hope they don't breed." Sometimes when I don't get napkins in my visibly greasy bag, I'm pissed. Other times, I don't care at all. It's probably more of a reflection of my own mood than anything else, though. I should be expecting them to mess something up, it probably only bothers me when I'm in a lousy mood to begin with. It gives me something to direct my anger at, even if they're not the real source of my frustrations. Perhaps I frequent McDonalds because subconsciously I'm looking for a place to vent. Or maybe I'm just over analyzing what it means to get poor service at a fucking fast food joint.

All of the McDonalds packaging lately advertises their gift cards as some sort of completely awesome gift. If anybody ever gave me one of those, for any reason at all, I'd never talk to that stupid fucking asshole ever again. In fact, I think if I knew anybody who gave anybody one of those things, I'd never talk to that stupid fucking asshole again. Fuck McDonalds. Why aren't there places that sell good food in a drive-through fashion?

Unsent letter to McDonald's.

To Whom It May Concern:

I work an evening shift in a building close to your establishment. My lunch break is roughly between 6:30 and 7:30 PM, and I am often too lazy to get out of my car in the pursuit of food. This leaves with me with the option of either your restaurant or the Wendy's restaurant down the road. I am a firm believer in voting with my dollars, and I have previously decided not to vote for Wendy's anymore after not receiving what I had ordered. Fast food is not rocket science, and a competent manager should be able to find a workforce capable of such simple tasks as exchanging money in return for French fries. I regret to inform you that I will not be voting for your restaurant anymore, either. This saddens me, as it means I'll have to either get out of my car to acquire food during my lunch time, or I shall have to prepare it in advance. On the up side, I doubt anyone would argue that this is the healthier and tastier option for me. I believe it is in your interest to know why I shall no longer vote for your establishment with my money. Perhaps you can take action to remedy the problems with your restaurant so that others will not make the same choice that I have.

This evening, I went through the drive through at your restaurant. I originally intended to order a coffee, fries, and two apple pies, but on my way through I decided to get a chicken McNugget meal plus the apple pies. I ordered what I wanted, specifically requesting hot
mustard sauce, as I have noticed the sauce (and ketchup, for that matter) is never offered verbally anymore when I place an order. When I was handed the bag with my food in it, I asked for some ketchup for my fries, which was given to me. Upon leaving and opening my bag to consume my food, I discovered that not only had I not been given my fries, I had not been given my hot mustard sauce, either. I tried eating a chicken McNugget without the sauce, but I'm afraid they were rendered completely inedible (to my palette) by this omission. Essentially, I had been charged $5.41 for a medium coffee and two apple pies. This is simply unacceptable. If I'm eating at McDonald's, I don't expect the food to taste good, but I think it's reasonable to expect that I get what I have paid for.

Furthermore, your apparent policy of not giving out napkins unless specifically requested is ridiculous. I know you're trying to save money, but do you honestly believe people don't need napkins to go with a visibly greasy bag of food?

I want you to know that I don't normally complain about poor service, but I am hungry and angry right now, and I blame you. Perhaps you could do something to remedy your service situation in order to retain other customers.

Cordially,

Paulo

Blogs I'd like to see.

I'm a big fan of the NEXT BLOG button. I sometimes spend hours clicking it, looking for gold. I mostly only find garbage, but occasionally I get the good stuff. The cool thing about blogs is anybody in the world can make one, but the bad thing about blogs is anybody in the world can make one. There are such a ridiculous amount of possibilities, so I always have to wonder why I see the same stuff over and over. I gave it some thought, and I realized there are a few blogs I'd like to see, but I never do.

Maybe somebody can start a blog where they copy and paste a paragraph from an online news article, and then have a link to the same article. Maybe they can do this every day, for every news story. That would be awesome. That way, I wouldn't have to go directly to a news site, I could just check the blog, and then click on the links to the news.

Something similar could be done with YouTube videos. It could be exactly like a playlist on YouTube, except it could be a blog, so I wouldn't be limited to having one video per window. That would rock my socks so hard, because only idiots watch just one video at a time.

Or maybe somebody could start a political blog. I seriously have no idea why I never see these. I'm not easily swayed, but if there's one guy I can trust when it comes to the politics, it's some anonymous dude on the internet. Preferably one who swears. Politics + swearing = a great read. I know political people use the internet, too, so I'm sure a blog like this is bound to appear at some point.

I don't use MySpace, so it'd be nice if occasionally I could click NEXT BLOG and experience the world of illiterate attention whoredom through a blog with nothing to offer other than photos, surveys like "What kind of potato chip am I?", and informative essays like, "OMG jimmy iz sooo hott LOL BBQ!!!1!!!11" Maybe somebody can make some templates for these kids, so they can have really snazzy looking layouts completely devoid of content. Oh, oh, and password protection! That would be awesome if I clicked NEXT BLOG and since I didn't know the password I got sent to some other, non-blog site. It would make me feel like I was in a spy movie or something. It's a great idea, too, because it's important to make sure that no random people on the internet are able to read the survey you filled out listing your favorite soft drinks and hat size.

I've never been a religious guy, but maybe I would change my mind if I stumbled upon a blog that was nothing but entry after entry of thanks and praise to our Lord, the almighty Creator of everything. Maybe some damnation, too. If some person on the internet told me I was going to go to hell, I just might change my ways. Quotes from a holy book are good, too, because then I'll know it's definitely all got to be true.

Maybe somebody should start a blog that doesn't really have anything but a blurb about some random thing, and then links to places where you can buy said random thing. I bet if roughly half the blogs on the internet were like this, everybody who had one would be making a shit load of money. I know for a fact that every time I'm looking for a product to buy, I Google it, ignore the links at the top leading me to the product, and instead look for a blog entry that will lead me to those same sites. I've also been looking for a credit card lately, so it would be really nice if a blog would be kind enough to offer me one.

I know I've said some harsh things about celebrity news in the past, but maybe if it was in blog form I'd be interested. Sadly, I've never seen such a blog.

People should put porn on blogs, too. I mean, I can't get it absolutely anywhere else on the internet. It would be really good if it came up while I was clicking NEXT BLOG while at work.

Lastly, I think somebody should come up with an awesome little banner to stick in the corner that renders the NEXT BLOG button completely useless. Maybe it could say something like END DEATH or I SUPPORT CHILDREN, and then it would totally make a huge difference in the world.

Celebrity news is not news.

I was watching the news last night, catching up on what's been going on in the world. There are a couple of wars going on in the Middle East, a heatwave is causing blackouts, some kid has been shooting random people, and some pop singer came out of the closet. Guess which one of these items isn't news.

This is the kind of thing that convinces me that at any given moment I'm surrounded by complete fucking idiots. It blows my mind to know that enough people care about the trivial details of a stranger's life enough that they can report on that sort of bullshit night after night, taking valuable airtime away from actual news. I'd like to have a higher level of detail in the stories of actual things happening, or hear more real news in general, but instead I'm treated to "news" about which celebrity is getting married today.

Every time I buy groceries, I can't help but notice the magazines at the check out line. It's incredibly rare to find any reading material of any substance there. I was wondering aloud if only idiots buy groceries, because there are only shallow celebrity gossip magazines where you pay for your merchandise, and my friend Lew pointed out a key fact: the kind of moron who cares about celebrities is the same kind of moron who makes impulse purchases at the cash register.

There's a particular celebrity whose name will never grace my page, but whose superstar status disgusts me to the point of rage. She has absolutely no discernible talents, but we've been hearing about her antics for a couple years now. If she makes a public statement that she's going to eat a fucking sandwich, it will make the news. People eat this garbage up. When "news" about her is posted on fark.com, it's usually with a tagline making fun of her, but it doesn't matter: even mentioning her name keeps her in the public eye, and extends the length of time we're going to be hearing about her. If the people posting that shit really were tired of her, they wouldn't post it. So it goes with all celebrity news. It serves as advertising. Instead of continuously entertaining us or fading into obscurity, many celebrities opt to do a little bit of entertainment and a lot of staying in the public eye, carefully crafting public personas that are probably completely different from their actual personalities.

And it works. Because people are fucking idiots.

FTD completely sucks.

I hate the very idea of buying flowers. You buy them, you look at them for a while, and then you throw them away when they die. Unfortunately, girls are trained from a very young age to want "romance," which often translates into blatant materialism: they want useless, expensive rocks, or they want useless, expensive plants that will die not long after they are acquired. Until this point, I have resisted ever buying flowers for the most part, but I finally gave in and ordered my girlfriend some useless, expensive roses to commemorate our third anniversary. I kept asking her if I could buy her something that does anything, but she was bent on the useless, "romantic" stuff. I didn't want to buy them, but I wanted to make her happy.

I ordered her some flowers from FTD.COM. They were scheduled to arrive yesterday, July 11, which is the day that they are meant to commemorate. When I was placing my order, they even asked for her phone number, which implied that should there be any trouble reaching her, they would call.

The flowers never showed up. They never called. They never left a note.

I looked at their website, and it said that if the recipient is unavailable, they may leave it in a safe place or they may attempt to deliver it the next day. That would be fine, but it should have been stated on the order page. This isn't the kind of crap you order and receive whenever it arrives, this is the kind of crap you order to be delivered on a specific day. What really pisses me off is the fact that they ask for the recipient's phone number, which implies more effort on their part to make the delivery on time.

This morning, I took a look at my confirmation email and clicked on the customer support link. I filled out a delivery inquiry request. A few minutes later I got an email saying they received and processed my order, scheduled for delivery on the 11th, and they would let me know when they received delivery confirmation. Gee, thanks.

About an hour after the email, the flowers showed up in a soggy box.

"The bottom is really wet, so don't put it on carpet or anything," the delivery lady told me.

Flowers are a perishable item. A very expensive perishable item. A company in the business of selling silly sentimental shit knows that the people receiving it are sentimental about particular dates. One day late is not only the wrong day, it's one day less that she can enjoy her flowers before they die.

FTD sucks. If you want flowers delivered, look in your phone book. There's a flower store down the street from my place, but I'm such a lazy bastard I just used the internet. I've learned my lesson, though. I'll never buy anything from FTD again.

Drive-through etiquette.

I was on my lunch break, in a hurry and picking up some tacos at the drive-through. A lady had pulled in to the parking lot moments before me, and she was driving up to the menu/intercom to place her order. Instead of pulling up all the way, she stayed back. She was close enough to read the menu, but not close enough to order. She sat there for a couple minutes studying the menu before pulling up and ordering. I wanted to pull in front of her while she was busy not ordering anything, but she didn't leave enough room. I kept wondering if she did that intentionally so she wouldn't lose her place in line, despite not even being prepared to be there.

What fucking planet do you have to be from to think this is acceptable? If you need to study the menu, go inside. I don't understand how some people have absolutely no problem inconveniencing others.

I don't want to unfairly judge people, but based on this woman's girth, I think it's safe to say she was no stranger to fast food, so it was pretty unlikely that this was her first visit to Taco Bell. They only have a handful ingredients that they slap together in different configurations, so you're going to get the same thing no matter what you order. If you need more than a few seconds to decide what you want, you're probably stupid enough that you shouldn't be allowed to leave the house by yourself, let alone drive a car.

Denied.

I got off work late one night, and I went to the local Meijer 24-hour megastore for a few items, among them a 6-pack of beer. I only had a couple things, so I went to the U-Scan line. A bored looking guy around my age was standing behind the register, not really monitoring the lines. When I scanned the bar code on my beer, it prompted me to show my ID to the cashier. I walked over and handed it to him.

"Hold on a minute," he said, not even looking at me or my card as he took it and walked away.

When I saw him coming back a few minutes later, he was shaking his head and looking back and forth between my ID in one hand and a small magazine in the other. He set them both on the register and I saw the magazine was a little booklet showing the drivers licenses of different states. He shook his head.

"No," he said, "The numbers and everything match the ones in the book, but I don't believe it. It looks like somebody copied and pasted your picture onto there."

"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"Well, if I have any doubt...you can talk to the manager if you want to."

"Yeah, I want to."

He called somebody on the phone, and I waited a few more minutes. I had a feeling the manager was just going to agree with him, as I've had similar experiences before. If they had any doubt that the ID was real, they wouldn't sell the alcohol. At the age of 24, I still looked young enough that people who hated their jobs and wanted to take it out on customers could give me a hard time. The problem was exacerbated by the fact that I had an out of state license, due to my laziness after relocating.

After being denied alcohol a few times, I had figured out a few rules for picking cashiers if I was buying beer. Whenever possible, I chose a line where the person working the register wasn't white. I'd been denied by one black girl, one Indian guy, and probably 10 white people. Particularly troublesome were overweight white girls. I'd had at least three of them deny me alcohol. Angry looking cashiers were always to be avoided. Young guys were usually alright. I'd had a few tell me they me that they thought it was fake but didn't care. I assumed incorrectly that this young guy would be cool, too.

The manager who appeared was a very effeminate man who spoke with a high pitched lisp. He was the stereotypical flaming homosexual, and had the most ridiculously huge unibrow I can recall seeing.

"What's the problem?" he asked.

"Well, he wants to buy liquor, and his numbers on his license match up, but it looks like somebody superimposed his face on there."

"Mmm... I'm sorry, but if there's any question about the authenticity of the ID it's our policy not to make the sale because it's a liability," the manager told me. I was expecting this, but this time I was going to have my beer, dammit.

"This guy didn't even look at my ID when he took it. He stared at the book and couldn't find anything wrong with it, so he made up a ridiculous story."

"It looks like somebody cut his face out and pasted it there. You see this little shadow?" the young guy said, shoving the license in the manager's face.

"I have my work ID right here," I told them, pointing at the photo name tag hanging from my shirt, "You can see the name and the face match up on that, too."

"I'm sorry, we don't accept those, anyway," the manager said. "We're going to decline to sell you alcohol tonight."

"Let me talk to your manager, then."

The effeminate guy disappeared and I waited some more, fairly aggravated at this point. A few minutes later, a very angry looking woman in a black dress appeared. She looked me up and down like I was a criminal. The young guy explained the situation to her and she told me the same thing that the other manager had said, except with a lot of venom in her voice. They weren't treating me like a customer who didn't understand the policy, they were treating me like I just been caught stealing.

"Let me talk to the store manager, then."

"I am the store manager."

"Look," I said, "I shop here all the time. This is where I do all of my grocery shopping. This guy was never going to sell me alcohol in the first place, so he made up a completely crazy story to deny me. You're treating me like a criminal, and you're about the lose me permanently as a customer. I do a lot of business here."

The lady hesitated. I had said the magic words.

"You can buy it this time," she said, clearly pissed off, "but we can't guarantee that this will work in the future."

She left and I expected the guy to key in my birth date so I could finish my transaction. Instead, he got on the phone again and asked somebody else to come do the sale, because he wasn't going to. He still wanted to be a dick and make me wait some more just because he could.

Watkins Motor Line sucks.

Watkins Motor Line is the largest privately-run less-than-a-truckload freight company in the country, and I recently had the misfortune of dealing with them. Based on my experience, I was convinced they were some kind of shady, fly-by-night operation, but it turns out they're big enough that they're being acquired by FedEx in a deal that could be worth a billion dollars. That was shocking, considering their gross level of ineptitude.

In February, I purchased something that was so big and so far away that the only realistic option for me to obtain was to have it delivered to me in a big truck. Before I ordered said merchandise, the shipping quote I was given was $150, but turned into $175 when I actually did the ordering. The company I was buying from was supposed to handle the freight charges on their end, and charged me accordingly.

When the freight guy showed up in front of my house in a semi-truck, he told me I owed him $172.30. I wrote him a check, he dropped off the crate, and I immediately emailed the buyer about being charged. They said that they accidentally forgot to write PAID on some form, and that's why I was charged, but the immediately gave me a refund of the money I gave them for shipping.

A couple weeks later, I got an invoice from Watkins Motor Line claiming I owed them $172.30. Since I had already payed the driver, I figured there was some mistake and didn't bother dealing with it. After all, they wouldn't have left the crate with me if I hadn't paid, right?

On Saturday, I got a letter from them saying that they had "tried to deal with this reasonably," but that my account was being turned over to their collections department. If I don't pay within 10 days, the account will be turned over to an outside collection agency, and I will be charged 35% more.

I sent an email to the address given in the letter, explaining the situation. I told them that I was willing to check my records to find the check and see if it had been cashed, but that they should check their records first and make sure that's even necessary. I pointed out that they wouldn't have left my giant crate at my house if I hadn't given the driver a check. I received a one-sentence reply from a lady in the High Risk Collection department, asking, "Do you have the check number?" In other words, it's on me to go through all my records, call the bank, and do whatever else is necessary because they're either a bunch of idiots or criminals.

It's completely outrageous how large companies are allowed to operate. If you have enough money, you can afford legal protection to do basically whatever the hell you want. If you're a rich person, you can get away with killing people, and if you're a rich corporation, you can get away with stealing from your customers. Even if this thing works out with me not losing any extra money, I'm still being taken for my time. If I were to send them a bill for wasting my time, it wouldn't be taken seriously. On the other hand, if they can't keep track of things like a responsible business should, they can just send me a threatening letter that I have no choice but to take seriously.

Watkins Motor Line sucks. Maybe once they become part of FedEx next year they'll get their act together, but in the meantime if you need something big delivered, I highly recommend anybody to find a different carrier. If you're bored and want somebody to waste your time and not compensate you for it, though, Watkins Motor Line is the way to go.

More IKEA idiocy.

One of the things that motivated me to start this blog was my undying hatred of IKEA. Today, I found another reason to believe that IKEA shoppers are often complete fucking idiots. Check out what happened to this lucky shopper when she went to the IKEA I talked about in my earlier post:

Christine Blossom, 36, of Ypsilanti Township, was the 87th person to enter the new IKEA store in Canton Township just before 9 a.m. today.

As Blossom rode the escalator up into the store, she and others were surrounded by throngs of cheering and clapping employees.

"This is amazing. What a welcome. What a welcome,'' said an emotional Blossom, as she wiped away tears while riding the escalator.

Crying because people want to sell you stuff? Are you kidding me? If you think IKEA cares about you because you went to their grand opening, watch your step getting off the short bus when they take you back to the home. Oh, and the only reason you never see Ronald McDonald when you go to McDonalds is because he hates you, it's not because he's fake (but you probably guessed that already).

And here's a blog dedicated entirely to preaching the gospel of IKEA sucks!

Bling-bling at the drive through.

There's this guy who works the window at a nearby fast wood restaurant. Every time he hands me my food, I can't help but notice the massive 'diamond' earing in his ear. It's so shiny, there's no way a person couldn't see it if they look in his general direction. Every time I see it, I wonder who he thinks he's fooling.

Jewelry generally serves no real purpose, with the exception to the rule being widely-used items like super secret decoder rings or the more common time-keeping device. Most necklaces, rings, and earrings, particularly pieces with precious metals and gemstones, serve no purpose other than conspicuous consumption. People wear bits of shiny expensive stuff so that people know that either that the wearer is rich enough to throw money away on rocks, or that somebody cares enough about the wearer to throw away money on rocks. In the case of males wearing monster rocks in their ear, the former is more likely.

Suppose this guy has a real giant diamond in his ear. Working part time for minimum wage, he would probably have to work his ass off for a year to get that thing. Is that what he wants to imply? That he's capable of working incredibly hard simply to be able to say, in the end, that he he was able to buy a rock? Does that get you chicks? Or does he want to imply that he has a side business, perhaps selling drugs or some other high-profit activity? If that was the case, why the fuck would he be handing people greasy bags of french fries? It's more likely that his earring is a dirt-cheap cubic zirconium that he bought with less than a week's pay, but that just leads me to wonder who he thinks he's fooling. I think he's one of those guys who doesn't mind girls who are stupid as hell, because one would have to be pretty dull to be impressed by a fake diamond from a guy who's asking if they want fries with that. I've always been under the impression that if you give a girl a diamond, and it's fake, she will be mad at you, despite the fact that it looks the same and serves the same function. Maybe there's a double-standard I'm unaware of, and the ladies find fake precious stones more appealing when it's the men wearing them.

I guess it's possible that a guy working for minimum wage in the service industry is only wearing bling-bling because of his love of hip-hop culture in general. After all, most gangsta rap fans are not gangstas, even the ones who go to great lengths to look like they are.

But I still think it's fucking stupid.

IKEA sucks!

I hate IKEA.

On Saturday, I went out to eat with my girlfriend in a town that we rarely frequent. After we left the restaurant, she noticed the packed parking lot at the brand new IKEA store.

"I thought it didn't open until Wednesday!" she said.
"Hm? Yeah, ok. Sure."
"Do you wanna go see?"
"I don't really care."

We parked and walked up to the door, where an old lady stopped us.

"Do you have tickets?" she asked, smiling and exposing the black gunk between her teeth. We told her we didn't. She told us we'd have to come back Wednesday, when they officially open.

It was at that moment that I decided I would never buy anything from IKEA.

Let me be clear on a couple points: I hate shopping, and I have no problem boycotting a large corporation for an incredibly trivial reason. If a store gives me any kind of reason to avoid shopping there, I gladly accept it. I understand that the early entry tickets, like most everything IKEA does, was just a marketing gimmick. I know they were trying to build some buzz for their new store. The thing is, I don't care that it's just a business tactic that makes perfect sense. No, all I really care about is the fact that I got out of a car at IKEA, only to be told by the lady at the door that I wasn't special and that I would have to go back to my car. I imagine the whole incident, parking, walking, and leaving, wasted about three or four minutes of my life. I know, I know, I was told moments before parking that the store wasn't supposed to open until Wednesday, but where the fuck was my opportunity to score one of those tickets?

I decided to research my new found hatred of IKEA on the internets, so I googled 'ikea sucks.' That led me to this dude's page, where I learned that there were, in addition to my trivial reason, many excellent reasons for hating IKEA. I learned that I was incredibly lucky to only have a few minutes of my life wasted. If you're considering doing some shopping at IKEA, do yourself a favor and check out the comments on this page.

IKEA has built their entire business on clever marketing. It's the same cheap, shitty furniture you can get at other stores that sell cheap, shitty shit. People think they're getting something better than they'd get at Wal-Mart because the experience of shopping at IKEA is different. Instead of walking down convenient aisles of stuff, looking for what you want, you get to wander a maze to make sure you see everything they have to offer. Woohoo!!

Today there was a story about the IKEA I was at posted on Fark. These fools are camping out two days before they open to get $100 worth of free stuff. That's like getting paid $2.09 per hour, and then being told you can only spend the money on cheaply made Swedish crap that will probably fall apart in a year or so.

Fuck IKEA.