TV is Melting...Melting

So its been awhile. The ABIB has been dealing with a serious sitch that has kept her tethered to home and hearth for some time now. Of course being the pop culture/media vulture that I am that also means that I have been tethered to my TV morning, noon and night. Here's what I've learned while glued to the tube:

1. "The Jerry Springer Show" is way more entertaining than anyone with half a brain and an expensive education, save The ABIB, will ever admit. Being the modern equivalent of the Victorian freak show, it provides one with that dirty little voyeuristic peek behind the curtain that our hoop-skirted predecessors used to pay a halfpence for. Freaks of every stripe with tons of baby-daddy-cheating-boyfriend/girlfriend-teen-seeking-to-have-a-baby-to-her-trailer-park-Mama's-crocodile-tear-stained-chagrin drama and little access to modern dentistry scream, pull hair, spit on each other and practically speak in tongues during the jam-packed hour of mayhem and magic. Plus, the studio audience at any given Jerry Springer taping could, in a pinch, sub in for anyone on the stage. It's a hoot to sit in your living room watching the craziness unfold, feeling vastly superior and haughtily amused, while simultaneously praying that nobody chooses to drop by and actually see Jerry Springer on your TV. Jerry! Jerry! Jerry! Jerry!

2. When all else fails I can actually watch back-to-back episodes of "The King of Queens". But then I have to take a shower afterward.

3. Most daytime commercials are hawking horrible fast food crap and they fetishize cheese. Every foodstuff from hotdogs dripping with eight different condiments to the endless versions of greasy burgers available at a dizzying panopoly of grease joints, to, I kid you not, a cheese-stuffed filet mignon, EVERY SINGLE FOOD PORN SHOT CONTAINS DRIPPING CHEESE! Being pulled apart in slo-mo so that it slooooooowly separates between the two halves of whatever it happens to be dousing, or clinging seductively to a forkful of chicken/beef/fries/tortilla chips. Clearly melting, oozing cheese is the visual food equivalent of the Playmate of the Year for the unemployed/under-employed goons (save superior me, of course) who are watching reruns of "Yes, Dear" at 2:30 on any given weekday afternoon. For the record I think all that melting, dripping cheese looks vaguely like puke and it would never sell me anything. Clearly I am not the daytime TV demographic that these food emporiums are aiming for. Thank. Christ.

4. "Maury" is the low class equivalent of Jerry Springer. The sad souls that appear on Maury Povich's show were not deemed to be highbrow enough by Jerry Springer's producers. Baby Daddy Drama is routinely supported by the hard forensic evidence of a DNA test to determine paternity with Povich himself delivering the news to the man child on the hot seat. Slowly he extracts the test results from the plain, manilla folder as everyone breathlessly waits to hear of this lowlife's next eighteen years in and out of child support proceedings or of his ongoing condom-free juggernaut of baby creation. Invariably the "culprit" affects the bored expression that clearly states: "I couldn't give a rat's ass." Frankly, neither could I, but it's way fun to see the triumphant baby mama leap to her feet in angry, superior glee as she announces how "NOW she's gonna get her money for that baby"! Good luck with that, sis. But these DNA test segments are really just the lead-in to the real power of "Maury". If you have a taste for the truly bizarre, keep watching and you will be rewarded. If you find yourself unable to stop laughing at ladies that have paralyzing phobias of balloons or pickles (I actually saw this on a "Maury" segment), clip on your diamond-studded grille from the Dollar Store and sit back and enjoy because "Maury" is for you, my friend. At this point in the show "Maury" literally has no boundaries. Each of these two women were respectively chased with a fistful of inflated balloons and pelted with a variety of pickles. They screamed! They ran! They tried to crawl into a corner! They could not escape the relentless "Maury" crew members who pursued them with the objects of their phobia with the relentless zeal that can only be mustered by a production assistant hoping to hang onto her job past the end of August. For the record: I laughed so hard I peed a little.

5. The nighttime version of number three above is ALCOHOL. Beer is the most frequently shilled beverage but depending on the hour, the network and the show, you can also be sold all manner of wine and a variety of hard liquor. Where the daytime coin of the realm is clearly shooting at the heart of slothful gluttony, the nighttime counterpart is all about skinny women, bubbles and FUN, DAMNIT! Skinny women raising bubbles to their smiling, Restalyn-plumped, shiny lips, views of skinny women laughing and shimmying in sparkly, slinky dresses, gauzy as a dream, through the bubbles lazily floating in a perfect champagne flute and bubbles foaming aggressively over the top of a beer mug in a clearly sexual explosion of froth and FUN, DAMNIT! Everyone in these commercials is continuously laughing, laughing, laughing. It's a never-ending world of FUN, DAMNIT! I guess it looks like fun if you're slumped on your couch with a chestful of potato chip crumbs and a stomach full of sour beer burps working their way up through all the melted cheese and greasy burgers. Because let's face it: TV is the universal hypnomachine and any time you sit down and flip it on you run the risk of waking up in a disoriented haze seven hours later amid Checkers food wrappers and McRib sauce vaguely craving a glass of something with bubbles and needing to put on a sparkly dress. But you know what? The dress looks pretty good on me.

Praise the Lord...

I got my car back! Oh happy day! What a joy it is to be driving once again in a REAL car that doesn't smell like stale urine for the first five minutes after turning on the air conditioner. In a car that doesn't prompt people to hum the "Sanford and Son" theme song whenever I drive up. In a car that actually has working shock absorbers that keep every little crack in the road from feeling like a full-on kidney punch.

Aaaahhhhh....so nice. It was really great returning the Enterprise Rent-A-Hoopdee, too. I got the obligatory:

"And how was the car?"

"It was terrible."

"What?" I was a little surprised to see just how startled the Enterprise employee was when I told him that piece of truthiness.

"Well, it was dirty, it smelled pretty bad alot of the time, and I'm now wearing a hernia truss as a result of repeated jolts to my back from the "suspension" in the car."

"Hmmmm...so sorry to hear that."

"Yeah, well."

Nothing more, no offers of any compensation for my trouble, but in all honesty I didn't make any demands either. And the part about the hernia truss? I threw that out there to him just for dramatic effect. I mean, have you ever seen one of those scary-ass things? Yikes. I just wanted to get the hell out of there and conclude this sordid chapter in my vehicular life. My beautiful smelling and looking car was out there waiting for me, it's silver paint twinkling in the sun idling patiently like the loyal, comfortable, excellent little conveyance that it is. Such a relief. And just think of all the free time I have back now that I no longer work for Enteprise Car Rental!

Apparently I Now Work for Enterprise Car Rental

So a couple of weeks ago my car was rear-ended getting onto the Baltimore beltway and now it's in the shop getting fixed until they feel like giving it back to me. Car repair guys: the frenemies you love to hate. But that's another post. This post is all about getting a rental car to tide you over until your real car is fixed. My insurance pays a pittance daily for me to rent a car from Enterprise Car Rental, a company that has apparently figured out, brilliantly I might add, how to run a business that not only generates easy income, but also gets it's customers to perform the work that any other business' actual employees would be expected to do. To wit: I got the car that was deemed covered under my pittance of a rental allowance and, no surprises here, it was a run-down, tiny, kinda scuzzy (lots of old spills of what I don't want to know staining all the upholstery and black spots of unknown origin or identity on the ceiling [black mold is a strong contender]), make that VERY scuzzy Hyundai Accent. With fucking CRANK windows and manual door locks. Really, Enterprise? Really?

So anyway, I picked it up and drove off the lot already feeling the beginnings of a headache induced by the atomically powerful odor of whatever industrial cleaning agent they used to expunge Lord knows what from the interior of this car. So basically I'm driving around in a hoopdee that smells 24/7 like the inside of a gas station restroom. YAY! I'm already planning how I'm going to call the repair garage hourly with escalating outrage that my CAR ISN'T READY YET, when I turn on the windshield washer to get some shit off the windshield only to find that the passenger side wiper blade is literally hanging off the frame in shreds. What the FUCK!? So now I've got those incredibly ANNOYING streaks that come from a wiper blade that isn't quite making total contact with the glass and the weather man is calling for storms. I'm in a pickle, aren't I? I figure I'll head home and deal with it tomorrow because by now my head is thrumming and I can't feel my nose.

So, brand new day I call Enterprise and in my best, most polite professional voice explain my windshield wiper dilemma and ask what should be done? I'm told to bring it in the NEXT day at 4:00 PM (apparently the only people that hold jobs are the desk jockeys at fucking Enterprise Car Rental but I need my wiper blade replaced so...) and they'll be sure to get it fixed right up. Praying it doesn't rain I plan MY schedule around Enterprise's bewildering timetable because, well, I have to.

Next day, at the appointed time, I drive the little rattletrap onto the Enterprise lot and head on into the waiting room. Nobody is apparently all that busy but I still wait a good five minutes for someone to acknowledge my presence. When they do it's as if I just then walked in because I get a cheerful, bright:

"Well, hello there! Welcome to Enterprise, how can I help you?"

Uh, OK. I explain that I had called ahead and that I'm the one driving the "car" with a shredded wiper blade. Here's what went down:

"OK, well I can switch you out to another vehicle or you can drive down the street to the Firestone place just past the next traffic light and get them to install a new wiper blade."

"Excuse me but the car's right out front; can't you just install a new blade here?"

Now she's getting a little annoyed with my lack of understanding of just how much (or how little) Enterprise actually does to keep it's vehicle fleet in good repair. Listening to her I'm starting to worry about other things...like the brakes.

"Oh, no, no, no, we don't actually SERVICE the cars here. That's done somewhere else. So do you want to swap out to another car or just drive on down the street?"

"Well, if I take another car will I be charged for getting the gas tank from one half to three quarters full which is where it was when I picked the car up?" As I ask this I'm looking at the little white board whose numbers are clearly updated with an erasable pen daily on just what that gas will cost me per gallon, Enterprise-style. I see that today's special price is posted at $5.25 a gallon. I just drove past at least three gas stations posting prices around $3.45 a gallon. Oh, Enterprise, you silly goofballs! You can take your fucking gas prices and go fuck yourselves.

"Oh, yeah. You'd be charged the gas for getting it back to where it was." This followed by a tight, "customer service is SO annoying", smile.

"So just to be clear: my two choices are either I get another car and pay the gas cost, which I see is $5.25 a gallon, or I drive it myself down the street and get the wiper blades replaced?"

"That's correct; of course we'll pay Firestone for the wiper blades."

"I see...well then I guess I'm driving down to Firestone."

She walked away from the counter, made a 30 second phone call to someone at Firestone and told me I could just go ahead down there.

Out I went, back to the rank, scuzzy hoopdee, and drove it, on MY TIME, down to the Firestone station where they replaced the wiper blades and sent me on my way. Thanks Enterprise Car Rental for letting ME help YOU do your fucking JOB because everyone knows just how critical that job is and that, in comparison to the criticality of your job, just how insignificant MY PERSONAL TIME is. Yeah, thanks for that.

So there you have it. I don't remember putting in the application. I don't remember ever being interviewed by anyone but apparently I am now a low-level, car-shuttling jackass who works FOR FREE for Enterprise Car Rental. Folks, it don't get any better than that.

A Story That Should Have Ended In A Classic Spit-Take

You know the kind I mean: the movie character takes a sip of some nameless drink just before hearing some kind of shockingly funny/surprising/angering news and forcefully sprays said nameless drink all over whoever/whatever is directly in front of them? Yeah, the classic "spit take". Now that we have that out of the way I'd like to bring your attention to an outrage...OUTRAGE...that I just read about. Some fool of a woman went to a Philadelphia area Dunkin' Donuts (or as I affectionately call it "Dunky Doo" co-opting the Bollywood phrasing that my BELOVED Pinky uses when taking my daily coffee order at the local DD squawk box) and alleges she ordered a coffee with artificial sweetener, only to find out, after drinking most of it down, that it was POISONOUS sugar in her coffee not the artificial kind as requested. She drank most, but not all, of it down and began to feel dizzy and light-headed and took herself immediately to the emergency room. Of course, something was WRONG WITH THE COFFEE and as an alleged diabetic she was convinced that Dunkin' Donuts had tried to kill her and now owed her an unspecified but sure to be ginormous sum of money in restitution for her terrible, terrible suffering.

Join me in this won't you: OH! BITCH! PLEASE! Now don't get me wrong: I fully understand the seriousness of consuming sugar when it is medically contraindicated, but even a DOCTOR will tell you that, as a diabetic, a few ounces of sugared coffee aren't going to put you into full-on sugar coma status. Plus, bitch knew to save some of the offending drink so that her ambulance-chasing, on TV at 2AM "lawyer" would be able to have it tested to bring serious scientific evidence to the slam-dunk case against the evil corporate drones that willfully tried to kill his client. Now I know that the world is filled with venal people, many of whom are always waiting for the chance to make a quick buck but this is just plain crazy. This is a client that Jackie Chiles would be salivating over. And I especially draw the line at this kind of unsubstantiated mud being slung at MY DUNKY DOO!!!

Anyone who has EVER tasted artificial sweetner in ANYTHING knows for a fact that it is NOT SUGAR. Likewise, if you're used to the taste of artificial sweetner, which I'm sure this constantly-on-the-edge-of-diabetic-disaster gal must be, you know at the first taste that it is SUGAR. Excuse me, but where does this numbskull's personal responsibility enter into the equation? I've mistakenly gotten sugar in my morning coffee order, immediately recognized the flavor as sugar, and returned for the correct order. NO BIG DEAL! So now, in addition to warning me that my hot coffee order is indeed likely to be hot, I'm going to have to read the disclaimer that it might also contain, entirely by mistake, of course: sugar.

I guess what I hate the most about stories like this is that we've reached this place where anything, from sipping a hot liquid to using a hair dryer, have to be filled with written (and in the case of the hair dryer) illustrated, warnings meant to disabuse the stupidest and most dully unaware amongst us, of the potential for disaster. My hairdryer says: DON'T USE THIS IN A BATHTUB FULL OF WATER OR YOU'LL GET ELECTROCUTED!! Just in case the person can't read there are pictures of said hair dryer falling into a tub full of water with horrible, gigantic lightning bolts aiming directly for the poor soul who just wanted to save some time and dry his/her hair WHILE BATHING!

See, to me the fact that we have to warn people who don't know that when they order a HOT COFFEE THAT IT WILL BE HOT, and that when they BATHE THEY SHOULDN'T USE ELECTRICAL APPLIANCES, we've all gone downhill and it needs to stop. I figure, if someone has to be told that "the delicious beverage they are about to enjoy is hot" or not to use a hair dryer while showering, they should be culled from the herd. Let them use that hair dryer while bathing, get fried and be done with it. Do we really need that DNA around anymore? I'm thinking maybe it's run it's course, you know? Who takes a shower and dries their hair? It doesn't even make crazy-person sense.

So anyway, I'll be hoping to see in a few months time, that this frivolous lawsuit was dismissed by a clear-thinking judge and that this avaricious harpy has been reduced to opening pickle jars at the local supermarket so that she can say she slipped on pickle juice and wrenched her back. But sadly I'm thinking that Dunkin' Donuts will settle out of court thus empowering all of the other pea-brained ninnies out there concocting their own exploits in easy money at 2AM while surfing home shopping channels. If I knew where she was I'd send her a year's supply of Splenda and tell the jackass to just order her coffee black and sweeten it herself. But you can't sue anyone for that, now can you?

Ripped From The Headlines!

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A Quickie

So I'm watching TV this evening and here comes a commercial for some version of Crest toothpaste. So they're shilling all about it's great success with scuzzy, funky teeth and to demonstrate how successful it is they employ a CARTOON, an ANIMATED demonstration of a toothbrushful of the Crest successfully removing green slime (not kidding, it was green) from the CARTOON teeth. OK, I get that no human who actually has GREEN shit on their teeth would be in decent enough shape otherwise to allow for an actual live action demonstration of Crest removing said green from otherwise white teeth. If they've got green on their teeth they're probably a) largely missing most of the rest of them; green on one's teeth is never a good sign; and b) the ones that are left are probably mostly brownish-grey.

So there it is, CLEARLY a CARTOON ANIMATION of toothbrushing-away-the-slime. It's all good until I notice that underneath the CARTOON activity there's a printed disclaimer that says: "DRAMATIZATION". Really, Crest? Really? I'm guessing that the people who need to be told that what they're watching, that is to say, the CARTOON that they're watching is a DRAMATIZATION, probably can't read the word DRAMATIZATION and if they can phonetically sound it out they don't know what the fuck DRAMATIZATION means. When we need to tell viewers that an ANIMATED toothbrush scraping away green slime from CARTOON teeth is a DRAMATIZATION, well then, I think we'd all better just hang it up. Even more disturbing is that I'm watching TV at the same time that this majorly disoriented, r-tard demographic is also watching. Time to seriously re-evaluate my leisure time activities. Fo rill.

Hallway Etiquette

This will likely be one of my shorter rants today, folks, because, in all honesty, it's such a straightforward bitch that I can't imagine it's going to take all that long. Today we'll be discussing hallway farts at work. Yes, that's right; hallway farts at a workplace where ONLY GROWN MEN AND WOMEN WORK. This is not a daycare center, elementary school, middle or high school where one MAY be able to forgive such behavior. No, this is the same federal facility that you've read about here before with the unfunny "comedians" and the screaming, door-blocking conversations and the hallway obstructing slow walkers. And it's populated by only adult employees.

Now I don't know about you all but I learned that it's rude to fart in a public place at a pretty young age, not least of all because of the high risk of horrifying ridicule and public outing. "He who smelt it dealt it" was always my favorite as it provided the novel twist that someone might try to outwit the rest of us by being the first to accuse but that we were having none of it. We always knew it was that person not least because the cloud of odorous shame hovered in their general vicinity. And don't try to walk away from it, mofo, that bitch be followin' your sorry ass. Literally.

So, here's the thing: I've mentioned before that my federal building has a bomb shelter-y basement within which you can walk from the elevator exit to the cafeteria. As a result there's normally a decent number of people traversing that underground cinderblock mecca going to and from the gym/cafeteria/coffee bar that exist on the ground floor. Two days ago I was walking that path with two co-workers who I am thankful to have working with me as they provide a blessed diversion from the normal caliber of others that I have to deal with on a daily basis. Anyway, there we were, walking from the elevator to the cafeteria when we passed another person walking in the opposite direction, toward the elevator. I nodded with a silent congeniality that I in no way actually felt, as we crossed paths with him.

Not 15 seconds later I and my two friends walked into the most fucking heinous fart cloud I have encountered in some time. And being a person (as all people do) who farts, I feel fairly sure that I can safely call a heinous fart when I smell one. The hallway seemed to constrict as we all gasped for air (an involuntary but dreadfully inappropriate action considering it brings MORE of the stench into your nose) and I believe I actually gagged.

"OH MY LORD!"
"WHAT THE FUCK!"
"MOTHERFUCKER THAT IS HORRIFIC!"

It was everywhere and seemed to last forever. We walked faster; it followed us. It took us to round a corner and travel another good 50 feet to finally escape that wall of stench. Now, you know as well as I do, that the person that we had just crossed paths with was the cretin who had left that carpet bomb directly in our path. I know that because it was too fucking fresh, the air still too saturated to be anything other than very, very recent. So, I'm thinking, that fucker probably figured that as he was moving away from the offensive cloud, that he could never be pinned with the crime. Wrong, motherfucker! I remember your face and now I know that you cracked off that nasty fucking explosion and that YOU. ARE. NASTY MOTHERFUCKER! How much of a rude, ignorant asshole do you have to be to think that something like that is OK? Where were you raised...in an OUTHOUSE?

When I see him again, and it's just a matter of time, I'll probably do something childish like make a loud farting noise on my bare arm as I get just past him. I suppose I could confront him like an adult and demand to know, face-to-face how on earth he thinks it's OK to fart in public and then flee the scene of the crime like the chump that he is. Not unlike a crime scene though, this perp leaves behind air that points a finger with the authority of a good DNA sample. I figure that the loud, childish fart noise might make him think twice before he does it again. But maybe I run the risk of offering him up the kind of secret handshake known only to members of a hidden cabal, as in "yes, I too engage in our forbidden pasttime, fellow dweller of the underground fart chamber".

Whatever, if it makes him at least think twice before he does that again I will have done my job. With my luck though, he'll stop doing it in the hallway and wait until he gets in the elevator. Now THOSE are the worst! The door is closing as it hits you and then it's TOO LATE TO GET OUT! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!

The World Continues to Fill With Ignoramuses (or is it Ignorami?)

Greetings all, tonight I'm here to talk to you about, as the title of this post says, ignorant-ass people. Now, I've touched on the specifics of tonight's tirade in another post about suffering the indignities of Wegman's. But I have to say, this most repugnant demonstration of ignoramussity (made that one up, you betcha) really calls out for it's own, full post. I'm talking about people who continue to talk on their cell phones while they are being waited on by service personnel.
Can I get an AMEN! people? Here's the way it went down. Yesterday I was at a local movie theater waiting while my other half got us a couple of tickets to see The Fighter (good movie, BTW, super call-outs to Melissa Leo and Christian Bale). Anyhoo, I'm standing around idly trying to decide if I want to spring for the $40 snack of popcorn and a soda, when I happen to see the BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS in the lobby saunter up to the ticket window where a perfectly visible ACTUAL PERSON sat taking money and dispensing tickets.
BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was, whot? whot?, of course yakking on her (yes, it was a her) cellphone. Now, you'd think that common courtesy would dictate that BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS would conclude the call prior to reaching the window but that she would, at a MINIMUM, conclude the call, OR AT LEAST PUT DOWN THE FUCKING PHONE, for the fraction of a few moments that it would take her to speak to the ACTUAL PERSON behind the glass, give said person her money and take the ticket(s).
But apparently BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was at that moment either: A) Dictating the landing instructions for the Space Shuttle, AS IT LANDED; B) Leading peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians; or C) Providing the final variable in the equation that would result in the cure for cancer. Because, quite frankly, anything less would have meant that BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS was just a common, ignorant douchebag so convinced of her own importance that NOBODY and I mean NOBODY was going to come between her and her critical conversation. Not even a LIVING, BREATHING PERSON with whom she was having an IN PERSON CONVERSATION.
I watched with amazement as BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS continued to chat as she barely acknowledged that the woman behind the ticket counter glass had addressed her; did not fucking stop talking INTO HER CELL PHONE as she sloooooooowwwwly extracted some bills from her wallet, and KEPT ON TALKING as the person took her money and gave her the tickets. I heard, WITH MY OWN EARS, the theater employee cheerfully thank her and extend her wish for BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS to "enjoy the movie!" Needless to say, BIGGEST, FATTEST, RUDEST ASS just kep' on truckin', motherfucker, truckin' and TALKIN', that is.
Now for those of you who have been reading this blog, it should come as no surprise when I say that I find most other people to be barely, BARELY, tolerable. They're everywhere, they get in your way, and more often than should be allowed in a civilized society, they smell. But THIS! This was beyond the pale, I mean what kind of a FUCKING BONEHEADED DIPSHIT can't figure out the basic comportment required to be out in public? Bitch got her enormous ass into her incredibly inappropriately tight jeans. Bitch got her fat arms into her incredibly inappropriately tight sweater. Evidently bitch got her BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS to the fucking movie theater. But apparently bitch don't gotta stop her convo for no-fucking-body up to, and including, someone with whom she is engaged in a person-to-person interaction.
I have to tell you folks, it took every ounce of my self-control and my ongoing desire to not get myself arrested, to keep from marching over to that self-satisfied, ignorant asshole and ripping that phone from her skanky-ass ear. And if an earring came away in my hand, all the better. But of course, I didn't; I simply stared at her and shook my head in the way of all curmudgeons. Problem was BIGGEST, FATTEST ASS didn't even see me and if she had I'm sure her tiny, ameoba brain wouldn't have made the connection that I was staring with my shaming expression at her. And really, even if she had I'm sure she couldn't possibly have cared less. Because truth be told, that Space Shuttle wasn't going to land itself.

Google Instant Search Will Make Your Head Explode

How do I know this? Because it happens to me every, single, fucking time I use Google since they've instituted their "Instant Search" browser. OK, so not literally. But I'm pretty sure that Google Instant Search is actually a secret plot to thin out the Earth's population since every time I or anyone I know uses it, it clearly shaves seconds off of our lives in straight up stress. And when you're fucking GOOGLE, those seconds really add up.

So what is it about Google Instant Search that pisses me off? What doesn't? But at the top of the list has GOT to be the whole "as I'm typing and Google Instant Search is thinking for me, it fucks up my typing by guessing what it is I'm about to type and making what I'm ACTUALLY planning to type not make the cut". Because by my anecdotal evidence, Google Instant Search NEVER FUCKING GUESSES CORRECTLY! So it COSTS me time, Google ASSHOLES! IT FUCKING COSTS ME TIME!

How ironic. This from Google's helpful page wherein Instant Search's vast array of advantages is detailed. Oh, and I'm going to equally "helpfully" pick them to pieces.

Faster Searches: By predicting your search and showing results before you finish typing, Google Instant can save 2-5 seconds per search. WRONG! Here's the thing, as stated above: this has NEVER worked for me and only bungles the search criteria I'm typing in WHICH I FUCKING ALREADY KNOW! Also, whose life is so crammed with activity that the savings of, by Google's own estimation, FIVE FUCKING SECONDS makes a measurable difference? To that I say: Hey asshole, if you actually believe that five seconds per search is slowing down your life I'm pretty sure that you're either a meth addict or a hallucinating mental patient. Sorry to break it to you this way.

Smarter Predictions: Even when you don’t know exactly what you’re looking for, predictions help guide your search. The top prediction is shown in grey text directly in the search box, so you can stop typing as soon as you see what you need. WRONG! Um, I don't particularly NEED predictions that can outthink me. That's just plain creepy. I mean we all saw (and were terrified by) the dystopian future depicted in 2001: A Space Odyssey where HAL kind of took it upon himself (itself?) to make "smarter predictions" to Dave. We know where that ended up. And while I'm on THIS particular gripe can I also mention the DROID for Verizon Wireless whose actual SELLING POINT is to illustrate how the DROID actually is a couple of nanobytes away from being HAL? I mean, really, a couple of nanobytes...sheesh.

Instant Results: Start typing and results appear right before your eyes. Until now, you had to type a full search term, hit return, and hope for the right results. Now results appear instantly as you type, helping you see where you’re headed, every step of the way. WRONG! Again, see above tirade about Google Instant Search "helpfully" providing that NORMALLY WRONG set of results based on what it "thinks" you're trying to search for. Not helping, Google nerds, not helping at all.

So there you have it people. Google Instant Search dissected. I'm not impressed and actually I'm annoyed since I CAN'T TURN THAT FUCKING PROGRAM OFF. Oh, they tell you you can turn off Instant Search. They helpfully point you to the Google preferences page where there is, indeed, a link to turning off Instant Search. Bromides! What they DON'T tell you, of course, is that you have to do it EVERY SINGLE, FUCKING TIME YOU USE THE BROWSER. Once you close out Google for the day, it conveniently "forgets" your preference request. "Ooooops!" Google Instant Search says, "Sorry but my AI tells me I'm sure you didn't mean to turn off my 'helpful to humans' Instant Search so I'm going to 'helpfully' turn it back on for you. You can thank me later when I'm picking out your mate and calculating the number of offspring you can afford." Can we say: "The Matrix"?

Not me, kids, not by a long shot. I am by no means some curmudgeon Luddite, but I'm going to find a way to outsmart that fiendish "helpful" application before it starts deciding what I'm going to have for dinner and what I should plan to wear tomorrow. Not that I'm paranoid or anything.

The Dumb-ering Down of America

As if that's possible...our little experiment in democracy is already pretty fucking dumbed-down, but that's another post. Today's tirade, kiddies, has all to do with the notion that vanilla do-gooders can just decide one day to muck around in someone else's authorship for whatever wrong-headed PC reason occurs to them. I'm talking, of course, of the publisher who is planning to issue a new edition of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and expunge every use of the word 'nigger'. Oh, for the LOVE OF...REALLY PEOPLE? REALLY? This from today's New York Times:

A new effort to sanitize “Huckleberry Finn” comes from Alan Gribben, a professor of English at Auburn University, at Montgomery, Ala., who has produced a new edition of Twain’s novel that replaces the word “nigger” with “slave.” Nigger, which appears in the book more than 200 times, was a common racial epithet in the antebellum South, used by Twain as part of his characters’ vernacular speech and as a reflection of mid-19th-century social attitudes along the Mississippi River.

I am so offended by this on SO many levels that I hardly know where to begin. First of all..motherfuckers, it's NOT YOUR LITERARY WORK! It was written by perhaps the most deservedly beloved of American authors, Mark Twain, a man who, in his writing turned the society of his day on it's head and ironically made them look into the face of their own dirty little prejudices. Mark Twain used the word 'nigger' to illustrate the absolute banality of the word and the absolute banality of those who in his time used it. He clearly was onto something that today's cranially challenged "educators" can't begin to grasp. Namely if you call something by its name, if you turn a brightly lighted mirror onto the absurdities of societal prejudices masquerading as "norms", you serve to effectively drain them of any power.

Mark Twain is dead; he can't stand up to this pea-brained little band of sadly mistaken do-gooders and say: "Hey! Keep your grubby little mitts off of my words! I am the author of that book and I chose each and every word in it with deliberation and purpose!" How cowardly, now that he's no longer able to defend his creation, to begin picking it apart in the name of some lame-brained ideal of creative revisionism.

More from The NYT:

Mr. Gribben has said he worried that the N-word had resulted in the novel falling off reading lists, and that he thought his edition would be welcomed by schoolteachers and university instructors who wanted to spare “the reader from a racial slur that never seems to lose its vitriol.” Never mind that today nigger is used by many rappers, who have reclaimed the word from its ugly past. Never mind that attaching the epithet slave to the character Jim — who has run away in a bid for freedom — effectively labels him as property, as the very thing he is trying to escape.

Isn't Huckleberry Finn a better tool as written, for teachers to open an honest dialogue in the classroom about how people use words to subjugate others and how words can offer a direct light into the societal norms of a bygone era? My goodness, books like Huck Finn are historical documents! Should we go back and rewrite history so that nobody will be offended or feel diminished or otherwise disenfranchised? Sheesh.

The larger comment, of course, embedded in this wrong-headed move is that we have become so afraid of looking at truth that even words as written by those long dead are not immune from being hacked at in order to get them to conform to our current appetite for "niceness". MOTHERFUCKING YUCK I say!!

Clearly all of this politesse is absolute anathema to The ABIB, whose very existence is rooted almost entirely in political UN-correctness. So go ahead, whack away at classic literature to your hearts' content, reform everything in the boring, bland image of "Everyone's Happy Valley", but I'm here to tell you it's not right and if we're not careful we'll all be drinking the Koolaid in the name of "what's appropriate". Gives a bitch the shivers...