Ten Things Created in the Last Ten Years I Could Do Without
1. The Hummer – What a gargantuan piece of shit this car is, a testament to cock in its utter lack of nuance, a fuck-you mobile that extends its middle finger to the ozone as it thrashes down the freeway guzzling 400 gallons of ego per mile. Hummer owners, I’m calling you out: what is your problem? This shit isn’t funny anymore.
2. DVD navigation – How can we invent a game like Dance Dance Revolution, fix the Hubble telescope and fit 10,000 songs on a machine the size of a cigarette box… and still I can’t get anything to work from the “menu” of any DVD? You can’t fast-forward DVDs like VCRs used to; more often than not, you end up skipping to the end of the goddamn movie. Also, they don’t allow you to skip the FBI warning – what is this, Communist Kamchatka?
3. 2.4 GHz Wireless Telephones – Hey, I’ve got a great idea: let’s take the bandwidth that already has every garage door opener on it, not to mention every single internet wifi signal, and PUT A PHONE ON IT TOO? That way, you can be sure to fuck up the internet for everybody living within 200 feet of you, which in Manhattan means about 60 folks trying to check their email. Oh, and make the phones kind of suck, too.
4. Shamelessness – You might have hated Clinton for getting a blow job, and you might have hated his wife for trying to get you health care, but at least they had shame. When I think of modern Republicans, I’m reminded of the scene in “Goodfellas” when Henry Hill describes the “Fuck you, pay me” ethos of mob goons. This government has a trademark on cruelty, brazenness and self-righteous dunderheadedness.
5. Cell Phone Service in Los Angeles – Can someone please tell me why I’m paying for this? How can the 2nd largest city in America have worse cell phone coverage than rural Iowa? And don’t tell me it’s because the mountains; if they did it right, the mountains would actually help. If you wonder why movies are so bad right now, it’s because nobody creative can ever finish a conversation.
6. “Strappleberry” flavor – I can take “tutti-frutti” and “mixed berry” flavor, but “strappleberry” sounds like a focus-group name that allows you to actually taste the Polysorbate 60 sliding down your throat. It also sounds like an anal fungus sore. You know it does.
7. “That Don’t Impress Me Much” by Shania Twain – It isn’t that Shania Twain does these little spoken-word coos to begin each song (like “uh-huh!” or “come on, girls!”), it’s that “Impress” has several spoken sections like “okay, you’re Brad Pitt” that are so ear-screechingly awful that I want to claw my own forehead off from utter twee. Also, this song mentions someone who is too smart, too good-looking, or too in love with his car(?) to have the “touch,” as if those things were mutually exclusive. Plus, she’s Canadian and Canadians should know better.
8. Magnetic tags in pants – Please, cashier, can you just remove these motherscratchers when I buy them? I’m really sick of setting off the alarms in other stores because you didn’t snip off the ferrite coil stitched into my crotch.
9. Dook’s and K’s 3rd Championship – I know we – CAROLINA, that is – just won it all, but it doesn’t stop me from wanting to go back and erase 2001. It makes perfect sense that a year that saw the illegal instatement of a frat boy as President and the worst terrorist attack in American history would also see a Dook championship. I’m just happy that the world seems to have righted itself from those awful, awful times.
10. Blogs – Hello? IS THIS THING ON?!?