Oh, Yes, I Did (*Snap*)

Hey, America, you know what I absolutely hate?  Of course you do - I come here to bitch about it all the time.  But what am I taking issue with today specifically?  Fashion and style shows on TV.  This is the genre of programming in which the most pompous and pretentious people imaginable criticize everyone, but especially celebrities, for wearing certain clothing.  While I am usually all about throwing idiots, famous or otherwise, under the bus, I find shows created for that express purpose grating.  The hosts are usually a sort-of attractive, but overly-made-up bitch and a ludicrously flamboyant male who gets to call himself a style expert simply by dint of being gay.

Because this is what you should aspire to: white slacks, faux denim, and silver hair.

What many viewers seem to lose sight of amidst the glamor and bullshit fashion doublespeak is the fact that these critics are complete prats themselves.  Why should you listen to them?  They will even claim on-air that a positively ridiculous outfit is unacceptable for one person, yet "just works" for another.  For the record, Lady Gaga's "style" does not work for anything remotely human, no matter how much your queer subculture idolizes her.  Women more often than men get sucked into this vortex of trend trash-talk and self-image questioning because . . . well, they're women.

Let's be honest.

So, what's my logical response to these shallow, pointless, soul-raping programs?  My own fashion guide for women, of course!  Yeah, I went there.  That's right, I am here to provide you ladies with a bit of sartorial wisdom, mostly accrued through simple observation tempered with common sense.  I am aware this will not gain me a bevy of female friends or particularly please my undoubtedly enormous feminist fanbase, but that is a risk I am willing to take.  Bros before 'hos and all that.  I realize the realm of feminine fashion is far more complex and fraught with peril than ours, even though you can wear our clothes when we cannot wear yours, and we can avoid all ridicule simply by rocking this look:

*Indestructible claws and urban decay optional.

I am not going to bother with all the obvious gaffes (Daisy Dukes are only for a select few women, shoulder-pads and leg-warmers died in the 80s, do not attempt to replicate anything worn by Snooki, etc.), but instead focus on the smaller WTFugly trends that have somehow slipped under the bad taste radar.

High-Waisted Short-Shorts

Why is this woman topless?  For the same reason covers of women's magazines look basically like the covers of men's magazines: T'n'A sell, no matter your target demographic.

In what world is this style attractive?  Actually, it is a testament to just how fugly these chick-jorts are that (1) the advertisers put them on a 3/4 naked Asian woman to distract from what little she is wearing, and (2) it did not even achieve that much, since my first thought was, Damn, those are some hideous shorts.  And she's a model!  What do you think the odds are you can pull off this look when she can't?  If there is a body-type that this little number does flatter, I have yet to see it, and hope I never do, because it would have to be something like eggplant-shaped.  Maybe a starfruit figure?  These shorts do weird things to any woman's proportions, accentuating nothing that needs it.  Your ass just sort of blends into your back, while from the front it looks like you cut off your grandmother's jeans.  Hot.

Isn't the point of a croptop to leave the midriff exposed?

Quasi-Maternity Wear

I don't know how else to describe these tops that have become all the rage over the past three years, especially in the bohemian-indie-hipster-art scene.  They are the Empire-inspired peasant smocks that have no definable waistline and simply drape straight from the boobs down.  To the best of my knowledge, this shapeless cut was designed to accommodate a growing baby-bump.  Why, then, have so many of you non-inseminated females taken to wearing these?

  

From the above photos, you tell me who's a prego and who isn't.  Honestly, males are bad enough at this game without you throwing bullshit curve balls.  At this point, you're just looking for an excuse to bitch us out for miscalling a pregnancy, aren't you?  All clothing need not be figure-hugging, but it should follow the basic contours of your body.  And, sorry to say, the larger your cup-size, the sillier this garment generally looks, as if you tried to pull your flowy skirt over your head and got it caught halfway down.  As an additional bonus, I have to imagine it increases the odds that a strong breeze will result in you unintentionally flashing the headlights.  Think Marilyn Monroe's famous pose above a venting steam-grate.

Skinny Jeans

Yeah, they look stupid on guys.  Do they look much better on women?  Not usually.  Don't get me wrong, we of the courser sex appreciate you wearing tight clothes in general, but it should be tight in the right places.  My Man Card may be revoked for revealing this, but when you feel guys' eyes following you out of the room, it's not because they are checking out your calves, well-toned as they may be.  Enter skinny jeans: if you are thin enough to comfortably wear them, you could probably use some carbs, and if not, those pants are probably choking off your ovaries.  It makes your feet look bigger than they are, too, and pairing them with tapered heels just screams hooker.

Or at least loudly proclaims tramp.

Not to mention, due to the proliferation of misguided Emo-Asian-Skater-Punk boys sporting skinny jeans nowadays, it actually makes you appear strangely androgynous (word of the day!).  Men are sexually insecure enough without adding to the confusion.  Imagine ogling a hot piece of meat from behind (if you'll pardon the expression), only to realize when it turned around that it was the same gender as you!  Only that wasn't hot and borderline-socially-acceptable.  Feel our befuddled, neanderthal pain, bi-curious ladies!

Wait, I just blanked out . . . what was I saying?  Oh yeah, more on this later.

More Parents of the Year (and other Dubious Honors)

And now for another Fucktarded Moment in Restauranting . . .

There I am on a Saturday afternoon, bartending.  In my restaurant, the building is divided into two halves, the dining room and the lounge/bar, like many casual dining establishments.  A wall, albeit one with windows, separates the two areas, which means that I necessarily have limited contact with the other side of the restaurant.  A middle-aged woman walks into the bar from the dining room.

CUSTOMER: "Did a little girl with pigtails come in here?  She wandered away from our table."

Wait, you're saying these need supervision?  Weird.

Seriously?  Not only did this woman utter these words with a straight face, she seemed almost as unembarrassed by the implications as she was unconcerned about the possible answer.  It was all I could do to keep from bursting into a fit of laughter.

ME: "Oh, yeah, she went off with some guy who was sitting in here.  That cool?  Ha, just kidding!  Seriously though, I didn't realize it was my turn to watch her.  She took off out the side-door, and since we're not allowed to restrain or verbally reprimand customers' kids, I figured there wasn't much I could do."

Sadly, that response occurred only in my mind.  One of my less-snarky coworkers happened to see the child in question enter the bathroom moments ago, and answered for me, fortunately.

Silly Casey, it's not that hard to get rid of a child.  (What, too soon?)

Meanwhile . . .

Some guy waltzes into the bar without pausing to see if anyone is going to greet him.  He's got his laptop in-hand, sunglasses and unbuttoned powder-puff-pink shirt on - clearly, he's too important to wait like a regular person.  He struts up to the bar rail, where I am posted, eagerly awaiting an interaction with just such a "guest."

HIM: "Hey, do you have outlets?"
ME: "Nope, sorry, our building is actually too old, so they didn't install them everywhere."
HIM: "No?  What about up here? (indicating the bar itself)
ME: "No, not really any that your cords would reach, because they're behind all the coolers and stuff."
HIM: "Oh."  (visibly discomfited)

At about this point, a woman of roughly the same age catches up to Pompous McPinkshirt.  Without asking me any further questions, he mutters something unintelligible to the woman, and they proceed to seat themselves.  Or, rather, they try to seat themselves.  With mounting agitation (on only the man's part, I might add), they go back and forth between three different tables in the same vicinity, spinning in circles and generally resembling nothing so much as guinea pigs cornered by a rambunctious terrier.  Either that, or one of those AI characters in a video game who glitches out and locks up the whole system by repeatedly running into a corner.

I am still trying to figure just what criteria, aside from a total lack of power-sources, they are using to decide between these tables in the Bar-muda Triangle when they leave in something of a flustered tizzy.  Really?  You can't enjoy your casual lunch with what appears to be your significant other on a Saturday afternoon because you cannot plug in your laptop?  For that matter, just how old is your oh-so-vital computer?  Because my puny netbook can run for well nigh four hours before the battery is totally drained.  Were you planning on an intense realtime MMPO gaming session that would suck your electrical stores dry in minutes without continuous current?  Last time I checked, PowerPoint isn't exactly a nuclear telemetry-running program, and, as far as I've heard, restaurants are primarily for eating at, not crafting and troubleshooting multimedia presentations.

Pictured: What this guy apparently thought he would be doing in my bar.

Maybe this is just me being overly-critical and kind of a dick, but I find people's technology fetish, and resultant inability to function without it, pretty damn amusing in cases like this.  Oh, and the restaurant actually does have one table with an outlet, but I don't like to publicize it.

Finally, a vicarious experience from another coworker of mine.

CUSTOMER: "How's your grilled cheese?"
MY THEORETICAL REPLY: "It's cheese between two pieces of bread.  Grilled."

This has been another Fucktarded Moment in Restauranting.

*NOTE: I am aware that I told certain individuals I would next be featuring a guide to women's fashion.  Rest assured, it's in the works.

It's not rocket-science, it's car-science

Despite my best efforts to affect a Dude-like Zen calm, I am actually a fairly high-strung, angry person.  Stunning, isn't it?  This is largely due, I think, to my elevated awareness of the world around me.  And, let's face it, the world is a pretty stupid, irritating, ball-busting place a lot of the time.  (Hence my "drinking problem.")  If you did not know this, it is probably because you are one of the ignorant, annoying, oblivious fucksticks I resent and aim to enlighten/demean whenever possible.  Congratulations.  I can only assume ignorance is in fact bliss, because knowledge is a bitch.

Few situations arouse my ire quicker than retards (read: most homo sapiens) behind the wheel, not least of all due to the fact that your shitty driving is endangering my life.  Or at the very least delaying me, which is almost the same, since you are actively stealing minutes of my life.  And, because of my Holmesian observational skills, I tend to notice every last little thing other motorists are doing wrong.

This would probably be funnier if I wasn't 90% sure it actually happens.

"Road rage" does not begin to cover it, as I exist in a permanent state of mild irritation with everyone else on the road, and it takes very little to make me, in the immortal words of Ron White, "spin off into a whole new dimension of pissed-off."  You are (nominally) operating a complex piece of deadly machinery weighing at least several-hundred pounds at high speed; is it too much to ask that you treat it as such?  Think of it like the podrace in Star Wars.  No, you are not piloting an explosive levitating pair of jet-thrusters hurtling through the air at 200+ mph, but, then again, you don't have more midichlorians than Yoda.  You barely have more brain-cells than a bright orangutan.  Driving a regular Pontiac Aztek is the Jedi-equivalent for normal human beings.

This accident could have easily been avoided by not sucking.

By no means do I consider myself one of the world's best drivers.  That would be the Stig and his ilk.  However, because I am in a mindset of constant vigilance, I can typically maneuver my Chevy Cobalt (don't be jealous) effectively and safely through the streets, bypasses, and parking lots of urban America.  Only one chip on my car is my own fault, while the numerous other dents, scrapes, and dings are thanks to, you guessed it, other people.  Statistically speaking, this sample can be seen as an accurate reflection of the driving world at large; my car is a giant, four-cylinder pie chart, and that minuscule bit of missing paint above by license plate is a wafer-thin slice of the graph, showing what percentage of the time I am a dipshit on the road versus everyone else.

For example . . .

This is not the same as . . . 

. . . this.

It's confusing, I know, since they are both paved areas with lots of automobiles.  However, while one is a purpose-designed, restricted competitive racecourse, the other is a place I actually take my car.  So do families with children, senior citizens, and people even less-conscientious than you, believe it or not.  Mario Andretti's famed maxim "If everything seems under control, you're just not going fast enough" should be born in mind, not only because of its racist humor (heh, get it?), but also because having control of your combustible steel battering ram/deathtrap in a confined space is sort of important.  You are not Vin Diesel, James Bond, or Tom Cruise (anyone remember him?).  All of the other cars will not miraculously avoid hitting you when you insist on peeling out of the supermarket parking lot at 35 mph in your sweet flaming-eagle-emblazoned 1987 Trans Am.  No, wearing your black shades won't change that, nor will the fact that you just watched Transformers: Fast Shit Blows Up or More Fa5ter and Even Furio5er.  Sooner or later, you will collide with another vehicle.  And, unlike Jason Bourne, you have to worry about insurance premiums.

As long as we're on the subject of parking . . .

Parking is not the easiest thing, I will admit.  Parallel-parking is something like a six-point turn for me, usually ending with a rear tire on the curb and my front fender a foot out in the traffic lane.  And that's if I am sober, which is mostly theoretical anyway.  What can I say?  I'm in touch with my feminine side (*rimshot*).

Not the recommended driving position from the owner's manual.

But that's why, recognizing my weakness and the inconveniences it may cause others, I simply avoid paralleling in most situations.  If I have to park a block away, so be it.  The drivers who approach parking as if it is neurosurgery still get on my last nerve, though.

Here's what I'm talking about: there are several open spaces along the front of the building, directly across the lane from another half-dozen on a cloudless, balmy, late-afternoon in summer.  Decisions, decisions!  What's the only logical way to choose?  Cruising by them at a speed no greater than 3 yards-per-minute so you can adequately browse each and every possibility, of course!  Because it totally matters how straight the lines are painted, not to mention how many weeds are growing out of the cracks in the asphalt.  Don't even get me started on proximity to storm-drains or shade trees.

You don't want to be this guy, after all.  Fail much?

That's just another thing I love about Americans: our insistence on searching for the perfect parking space for an extra 15 minutes, rather than spend an extra four walking a dozen more yards.  Because, damn it, if you start compromising your laziness in the parking lot, what's next?  No mini-fridge next to the recliner?  Actually walking through Wal-mart rather than using the fatass, er, "handicapped" go-carts?  Hell, no!  This is 'Merica!  We're number one!  Oorah!  Love it or leave it!  They took our jobs!  Go big or go home!  Yes, I do want fries with that!  Just do it!  Word.

Recent research I have conducted also suggests Americans possess slim to no awareness of the concept of "lanes" on most roadways.  They either (1) cannot see the banana-yellow or polar bear-white painted lines on the pavement, or (2) assume these to be purely aesthetic decoration.  It is the only rational explanation for why drivers feel comfortable swerving back and forth across the road, never once touching that superfluous lever on the side of the steering column mysteriously called a "turn signal."  The only alternative is . . . well, I will let Clive Owen sum it up:

Turning is a more complex maneuver than it seems, though, as a recent experience of mine proves.  A fellow motorist and I are both waiting to turn onto a two-lane one-way road, coming from opposite sides of said thoroughfare.  So there we, our vehicles practically facing one another across the boulevard as we wait for traffic to clear, affording probably a good thirty seconds for all parties involved to assess the situation.  In other words, this wasn't exactly a Hot Wheels stunt-course.

Here is my scientific diagram.

Rather than turn into the totally clear lane nearest him - you know, the one you are lawfully supposed to use, if pure logic isn't reason enough for you - he instead takes the turn extra-wide and ends up in my lane, presumably so that he can almost rear-end me as I simultaneously pull out (there's some kind of sexual joke here, but the wording eludes me).  For no discernible purpose.  Seriously, there was no reason whatsoever to do this - he wasn't avoiding oncoming traffic, or immediately trying to get over so he could make another quick turn ten feet down the road.  He just . . . liked the far lane, my lane, much better, I guess.  Very justified excuse for a near-collision, right?

Can't get enough of my commentary on strangers' driving habits and lack-of-skills, but want it stripped down, sans flashy graphics?  Look no further.  I have been griping about this subject for quite a while.

*By the way, you didn't get that reference to "the Stig" earlier, did you?  The Stig is pretty much the preeminent ninja assassin of the motor vehicular world, the professional driver on BBC's outstanding car comedy talk show - which, yes, is a genre in Great Britain - Top Gear.

Yeah, he's more or less ShadowStorm in a race car.

He's masked, he's silent, he's made of awesome.  Don't be fooled by the shitty American version of Top Gear, which was originally hosted by Adam "the Least Funny Comedian Alive" Carolla for God's sake, England has the genuine article.