Robin Hood is a Communist

Commie bastard.

It’s a well established fact that President Obama is a Communist. We also know that Communism is inherently evil because it stifles the independent spirit of mankind, and it does not allow for the growth of independent businesses. This is a bad thing, because businesses are people, too. But not the kind that are supposed to pay taxes. Anyway, what I don’t get is why Robin Hood is constantly getting portrayed as a hero. He isn’t a hero at all. He’s a villainous bastard. He’s a dirty, dirty Commie. He steals from the rich and gives to the poor. That’s the same thing as Obama wanting to “spread the wealth around.” If that’s not a Communist plot, then I don’t know what is.

Irregardless, You Sound Like an Asshole

I’ve been working on my Ph.D. in Internet Trolling for the last 15 years. In all that time, I’ve probably read a billion blog and forum posts. One thing I’ve learned from all that is people have terrible grammar. And I don’t mean the occasional typo or awkwardly phrased sentence. Hell, immune from that I am not. Ahem. What I mean is really fucking horrific grammar. The kind of stuff that makes you question whether you’re reading modern English or Celtic runes. It just goes to reinforce the fact that people are stupid.

Further reinforcing that is the constant use of fake words. It would be way too much work for the average mouth-breather to use a dictionary, so instead they type words they think are real. Unfortunately, more often than not, they turn out to be bullshit words that people propagate because they want to sound intelligent, but are too lazy to put any work into actually being intelligent.

My all time favorite most hated example of this is the fake word “irregardless.”

OK, so I guess you could say that “irregardless” is a real word, because it is something that people say. That’s like believing Bigfoot is real because a lot of people think he is. Just because you want something to be a certain way, doesn’t make it so. No matter how much you want “irregardless” to be a cool-sounding, super-fancy word, it never will be. “Irregardless” is not something you will find in the dictionary, except that it may be there to point you in the direction of “regardless” or “irrespective” which are, in fact, real words.

See?

Yes, that’s right, the words you are thinking of are “irrespective” and “regardless.” Putting them together does not suddenly create a new hybrid word that is more powerful than all other words combined. No, you just sound like Sarah Palin, making up bullshit words like “refudiate.” Clearly, you have no respect for the English language. You continue to rape it like it is some poor 13 year old Russian prostitute trying to pay off her father’s gambling debts.

I realize that I’ve probably just blown your mind by telling you that “irregardless” is not a real word. Of course, you may be thinking that “irregardless” sounds like a perfectly cromulent word, so why not just go ahead and use it? Well, the problem is that to people who have half a brain, you sound like a dumbfuck. Just because “irregardless” is a portmanteau of two real words doesn’t make it real by extension. Kind of like replacing a sandwich’s two pieces of bread with two pieces of fried chicken, and continuing to call it a sandwich. It is no longer a sandwich. It is a godless monstrosity meant to destroy mankind.

Oh, the humanity!

So, here’s a breakdown of why you shouldn’t use “irregardless.” Let’s start with the definitions of its root words:

Regardless: heedless, unmindful, without concern as to advice

Irrespective: without regard to something else, ignoring or discounting

Basically, the two root words mean the same thing. But when you combine them you form a double negative. “Ir” means “not” and “less” means “without.” If regardless means you are unmindful of something, and you put a negative in front of that, it changes the meaning. It now means you are mindful of something. You have changed the meaning 180 degrees. For example:

“I must make the decision regardless of consequences.” — or — I must make the decision despite the consequences.

“I must make the decision irregardless of consequences.” — or — I must make the decision because of the consequences.

The entire meaning of the sentence has now changed. You see how stupid that sounds? That’s exactly what you sound like when you say “irregardless.” You sound like a pseudo-intellectual moron, throwing around words (real or fake) without knowing what the hell they mean.

What he said.

To my surprise very intelligent people such as professors, doctors, lawyers, etc all make this mistake. I think they say it because they think it sounds more intelligent. “LOL WELL I COULD SAY REGARDLESS BUT PEOPLE WILL THINK I’M EVEN SMARTER IF I SAY IRREGARDLESS NOT INSTEAD LOL!” Yeah, that about sums it up. People use the word to make themselves look smarter but end up looking dumber as a result.

Take “irregardless” out of your vocabulary. It doesn’t belong there in the first place. You might be an intelligent person (although that’s doubtful if you’re wasting your time reading this blog), but if you say, type, or think the word “irregardless”, you sound like an asshole.

Your Wedding Sucked

Wedding season is currently underway, and I thought I should make a public service announcement. I know that weddings are a weird topic for Awesomely Shitty, but I felt it was my duty to impart my invaluable words of wisdom onto you. I’ve attended a lot of weddings, including my own, which makes me practically an expert on the subject. So, if you’re planning on having your own, here’s a list of ways you can royally fuck up your wedding and piss off everyone.

1.) The ceremony is too long – A typical rookie mistake. Nobody wants to sit for more than 15-20 minutes watching the two of you stand motionless while some crusty old tool reads through a long-winded ceremony. The longer it goes, the more anxious people are going to be to leave, not to mention they’ll be furious. Of course you thought the 75 minute ceremony with Catholic Mass included was “beautiful.” But your 200 guests didn’t. They were hopelessly bored and contemplating suicide as a means of escape.

2.) The ceremony is too short – I know it seems impossible for the ceremony to be too short, but the last wedding I went to had a ceremony which clocked in at 5 minutes. At any wedding, the ceremony is the main event. The reception is the celebration of that. Obviously, the reception is the fun part with drunken debauchery and horny bridesmaids, but that doesn’t mean you should have the ceremony take two seconds. Put some goddamn thought into the readings, music, and vows to make it worthwhile. Otherwise, you might as well get married by an Elvis impersonator in Vegas.

3.) Somebody read 1 Corinthians – You know the one, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is cliche, love is etc.” Every wedding I have been to except for two (mine skipped it) had this. It is the most overused piece of shit reading. Maybe the sentiment is nice, but it’s hard to like it when you hear it all the fucking time. Love is great and all, but considering 50% of marriages end in divorce, is love really something we want to hear about at a wedding?

Rebecca Black’s Friday is Just as Good as Anything on the Radio

Gangfight.

The craze regarding Rebecca Black’s self-published music video Friday is sort of old news at this point, but since I live in a perpetual time-warp, I figured it would be OK to write about it.

When it was first published online, everyone was talking about it, and not in a good way. People were jeering at the shittiness of her singing, the ridiculously mundane lyrics, and the general ineptitude of the whole thing. I don’t disagree. I mean, she isn’t a good singer, the lyrics are terrible, and it was largely a rather lame affair. Although, the general naivete of the song itself was paradoxically refreshing.

However, I will give her this: the production quality was actually good. For a self-produced music video, the thing looked professional. It had nice film quality, good audio quality, and looked as if they had put some thought into the lighting, production, staging, special effects, etc. Plus, she managed to find a semi-legit rapper to be featured. Overall, Rebecca’s Black’s music video is 1000 times better than your own shitty YouTube audition tape featuring you crooning along with your out of tune acoustic guitar.

When people first heard her song online they said, “LOL THIS SONG SUCKS THIS GIRL IS STUPID LOL!” But if they had heard the exact same song on the radio they would have said, “LOL HOLY SHIT THIS SONG ROCKS! I NEED TO GO BUY THE SINGLE, DOWNLOAD THE ITUNES VERSION, BUY THE FULL ALBUM, AND IMPORT THE BOOTLEG VERSION FROM JAPAN! I LOVE REBECCA BLACK LOL!” When people hear independent music on the internet, they are immediately critical. But when they hear it on the radio, they automatically give it a ton of credit it may not deserve just because it’s on the radio, and therefore “popular.”

Can You Shut the Fuck Up While I’m Watching the Show?

I used to think that most people were like me, you know, rich, handsome, dashing multi-millionaires with countless ladies swooning at their feet. It wasn’t until later that I realized most people were actually not like me at all. While I prefer to be quiet and pay attention to a movie or TV show, most people do not. It seems that most people do not have the ability to shut the fuck up for a 30 minute – 2 hour period of time.

Whether it’s a TV show, a DVD at home, or a movie in the theater, people are constantly talking. This drives me fucking crazy. It’s something I don’t do, save for the occasional joke or random comment. If other people made a comment here or there, things would be fine. But people don’t do that. They feel the need to have an entire conversation throughout the course of the show.

Watching TV or a movie is not the same thing as going out for dinner. There are other people around who want to concentrate on what they paid money for, rather than hearing your inane drivel. This phenomenon seems to be getting worse every day. What is so hard about being quiet? Why is it only I seem to be able to do it? Maybe it’s natural selection? Either I have progressed to the next point in evolution or everyone else has devolved back to the apes.

Case in point: Mrs. Brik and I were at a friend’s house watching the premier of the third season of True Blood. We are big fans and so are our friends. Our friends had also invited other friends, one of their parents, some siblings, and their significant others. It wasn’t a big gathering. There were about 10 people altogether. I thought, “Oh cool, there are a bunch of True Blood fans here. This should be fun.” Of course, these thoughts were entirely incorrect. What I should have been thinking was, “Oh fuck, there are a bunch of talkative retards here. This should be a disaster.”

And a disaster it was. Half of the people there had never watched True Blood before. Two of the people who had seen the show spent every minute explaining shit to the people who hadn’t seen it. “Oh, that’s Sookie. She’s the main character. She has the power to read people’s minds. She is also dating Bill, who is a vampire. She lives in Bon Temps, Louisiana. Jason is her brother. She works as a waitress at a bar called Merlotte’s. At the end of the last season…” It was annoying because this happened every time a new character, location, or supernatural power appeared on screen.

If you are going to watch a serialized show, it would only make sense to start at the beginning and not jump in somewhere in the middle. Don’t expect people to tolerate you asking, “Who’s that? What’s going on? Why are the doing that?” every five minutes. If you are guilty of this kind of thing, here’s a tip for the future. Either start at the beginning, or be quiet and just hope things will start to make sense. If you don’t follow my advice, expect to get bludgeoned.

Worse than that, was this one girl’s boyfriend. Apparently this guy is a world class expert on vampires. He wouldn’t shut the fuck up throughout the whole episode. Every ten seconds he would have to interject a comment or personal insight regarding the mythology of the series. Imagine these quotes in your best, lispy nerd voice.

“Oh, I see that silver harms the vampires in this. That’s kind of lame. I prefer the traditional way of killing vampires. You know, with fire or beheading.”

The “traditional way,” asshole? I could have sworn the “traditional way” to kill vampires was a stake in the heart or sunlight, neither of which you mentioned. Besides, there is no “traditional way” to kill vampires. They are fucking fictional characters. There are no hard and fast rules about how to kill fictional characters. I didn’t realize I was dealing with a vampire scholar here. Traditional or not, all I care about is that the show is consistent. If they set up rules in the show’s universe (e.g. silver harms vampires), they should always stick with those rules. Hell, they could say that vampires could only be killed by a wooden stake up the ass, but as long as they didn’t deviate from that rule, I could care less.

Here are some other annoying quotes from that guy:

“Can vampires cross running water in this show?”

“Are vampires stronger than werewolves in this?”

“Does garlic do anything to vampires in this?”

“Oh, they don’t turn to dust when they are hit with a wooden stake? That is really lame.”

“I don’t think that sunlight should kill vampires. It should be more like in Dracula where their powers are weakened.”

And of course my favorite, and most relevant, comments of the night:

“The opening to this series isn’t nearly as good as the opening to Dexter.”

“You know, the characters in Dexter are so good.”

“I think the sex scenes in Dexter are better.”

Wow. Way to have a hard-on for Dexter. Why the fuck would you compare the openings (or any aspects) of Dexter and True Blood? The only thing these shows have in common is that they are both on TV. Also, way to talk through the entire show, motherfucker. Would it have killed that guy to shut up for a fucking hour? How about ten minutes?

Between him constantly talking like he’s the godfather of vampires and the other people constantly explaining what the hell was going on to the people who hadn’t seen the show, I couldn’t hear a goddamn word coming out of the TV. I had no fucking idea what was going on in that first episode of True Blood. In fact, after we got home, we had to watch it online so we would understand what the hell happened. Suffice it to say, we did not return to our friends’ place for episode two.

This kind of thing really needs to stop. Nobody cares what you have to say. Even if you wrote your Ph.D. thesis on Traditional Methods of Killing the Vampire: A Retrospective Analysis, I don’t want to hear about it while I’m watching some awesome vampire-killing action. If you are talking non-stop about bullshit, it’s going to piss me off. It’s impossible to enjoy the movie or TV show when you are constantly yapping. Also, if you are too stupid to understand what’s going on and need to constantly ask for clarification, you need to step out. Maybe seeing the latest Michael Bay shit-spectacular is more up your alley.

In summary, can you shut the fuck up while I’m watching the show?

Fake Indie Movies (AKA Fuck You, Hipsters)

There are a lot of movies I hate. For the most part, Hollywood can’t resist shoving recycled garbage down the throats of the movie-going public 52 weeks a year. Since 2004 there has been a growing number of “indie” movies released every year. The indie movie trend really exploded with the release of Napoleon Dynamite. Since then the term “indie film” has been Hollywood shorthand for “quirky independent comedy.” Unfortunately, the majority of the movies being passed around as “indie” are nothing close to being independent.

A truly independent film typically has a lot of features you will never find in a Hollywood “indie” movie. For example, if the movie was ever released in a national cinema chain (e.g. AMC, Harkins), then it was likely backed by a major studio, and thus is not independent. Real independent movies are not seen in the same cineplex that shows the latest Michael Bay summer shit-spectacular. They may play in a small theater dedicated to independent films, but usually they just make the rounds on the film festival circuit until they are either picked up for home video release or fade into obscurity.

Real independent movies are way too hardcore for the standard movie goer. They are grainy, often black and white, have really low production values, do not star any known actors, and many times deal with social issues or are completely confusing mindfucks. Perfect examples of this would be the movies Eraserhead by David Lynch and Pi by Darren Aronofsky.

Tale of the iPhone

iPhone, you are a magnificent bastard.

So I finally broke down and joined the legion of iPhone carriers. My girlfriend is Original Gangsta, as she has the 2G phone. I’ve seen her use it for quite a long time now, and I decided that it was cool and I should get one of my own. The only problem was that I was still under contract with Alltel. That cell phone company has amazing service, but the worst phones on the goddamn planet. All their phones are cheap plasticky crap from 4 fucking years ago. I mean, seriously, if they had at least one decent phone, they wouldn’t have been swallowed up by Verizon. Anyway, I digress…

My contract finally ended, and the next day I was all set to make the switch to AT&T so I could get an iPhone 3GS. The “S” is for “suck” — err, I mean “speed,” the S is for “speed.”

Horrible Roommates

My roommate is an undeniably huge asshole. Here is a list of things that he does (perhaps intentionally, I’m not sure) to piss me off:

1. Throws twist-ties from plastic bags on the kitchen floor, even though the trash can is two feet away.
2. Spills juice / drops food on the floor and doesn’t clean it up.
3. Leaves 500 pairs of shoes in the entryway, strategically placed for me to trip over every time I enter or leave the apartment.
4. When asked to clean up his messes, he says that he will, but doesn’t do it.
5. When yelled at to clean up his messes, he assures me he will, but still doesn’t do it.
6. Takes 30 minute showers (with the temperature as hot as possible) and then runs the bathroom sink for 15 minutes (also with the temperature as hot as possible) while he shaves. After all of this, if I try to take a shower, the water is ice cold.
7. Doesn’t turn the shower all the way off, so the water is on all day long, which runs up the utility bill.
8. Runs the heater in the summer, and the air conditioner in the winter.
9. Starts talking and interrupts whatever I’m watching on TV without waiting for a commercial.
10. Slams cabinet doors, bangs pots and pans, and rattles around the kitchen in the middle of the night, waking me up.
11. Put knives into the knife block upside down.
12. Runs the dryer at 7am while I’m trying to sleep.
13. Leaves rotting food in the trash can so that the entire apartment smells like garbage.
14. Explodes food in the microwave, and leaves toast in the toaster for up to a week at a time.
15. Never turns off my DVD player, and it may remain on for up to 24 hours.
16. Is able to run the dishwasher, but unable to empty it.
17. Sleeps from 5pm to 2am, so if I watch TV with the volume on it always wakes him up.
18. Doesn’t understand why I am constantly annoyed with him, and spend as little time at home as possible.
19. Is generally inconsiderate, and has no idea how to live with other humans.
20. Thinks his behavior is completely normal.

Do you have a horrible roommate? Let me know what they do to piss you off.

Verdict: Shitty

Fuck You, Air Travelers

I am sending out a giant FUCK YOU to everyone who was traveling by air this holiday season. But most especially to the selfish motherfuckers who put their goddamn oversized Gortex coats and laptop cases in the overhead bins (you know who you are). Those bins aren’t for your fucking coats and laptop cases, that’s what the spot underneath the seat is for. The bins are for the rolling carry-on’s that are too big to fit under the seat. But you assholes put your fucking shit up there and take up the space, so I can’t put my goddamn carry-on anywhere. There was this one guy in particular. I asked him if I could move his stuff (a laptop case and a coat – you guessed it), so I could put my carry-on into the bin above my seat. He said I could move it around, but he wouldn’t be altruistic enough to take it out of the bin. So much for the fucking holiday season, and looking out for your fellow man and all that bullshit. This was happening everywhere, and becoming such a big problem that they crew made a special announcement telling those assholes to put their small cases and coats under the seats so people could put their larger carry-on’s in the overhead bins. (This has been getting really bad since the airlines started charging for checking bags… so fuck you, too, airlines.) After the announcement was made, I looked around and failed to see a single person do this. This is something that could only happen in America, where we care more about our own fucking comfort than: 1) following the rules, or 2) doing something to aid our fellow man. I eventually did find a spot for my bag, although it was in the first class section, approximately fifty rows up from where I was sitting, crammed into a seat barely large enough for a small midget. So, the selfishness of the other air travelers really made my experience a great one. Thanks a lot, assholes. Go fuck yourselves.