Advertise This

From a smattering of oblique comments peppered throughout my many posts, a few sly references, and subtle jibes at certain targets (not to mention the entire body of my last article), you may have gathered that I have a certain . . . disdain for technology, particularly computers and the Internet.  On second thought, "disdain" may not be quite the right word; instead, let's say, "illogical, messianic loathing."  Funny, isn't it?  I need the Internet to air my grievances about the Internet.  The irony is not lost on me, and it's a bitter pill to swallow, depending on the very thing I rail against.  Which does not make me a hypocrite, by the way, it makes me postmodern.  It's like superstar rappers penning one verse after another about how they despise fame in an unending string of hit songs.

What?  That's a completely apt analogy.  Heavy is the crown and all that.

That being said, I actually spend an unhealthy amount of time on the Web, and not just looking at porn, which my therapist assures me is healthy.  Aside from checking my beloved/detested Facebook profile every ten minutes like a needy girlfriend and trying to edit Wikipedia articles faster than the administrators can "correct" them (I'm right, damn it), I log a significant amount of my life on Thatguywiththeglasses.com.  It's funny stuff you should feel morally-obligated to check out.  Now.  But one thing that may give you an involuntary eye-twitch when watching their videos is the advertisements.  And that brings me full-circle to the real topic of this tirade, online marketing, which I said I would be covering in a series of articles back in the summer.  Nice segue, huh?

What's that?  You don't remember when I made that promise?  Better go back to May 21, 2011, kids.  Sorry I got a little sidetracked these past six months.  Anyway . . .

Internet advertising is a huge market of limitless potential, which I have yet to cash in on, for reasons unknown.  I read somewhere (on the Internet) that revenues from online ads are up umpteen-bajillion percent this year and expected to eclipse the combined wealth of Tiger Woods, Michael Jordan, Bill Gates, Richard Branson, and God by 2013.  It seemed like a reputable site.  But I think the advertising brain-trust has become a little too savvy to their market, a diverse demographic that eats up TMZ, "Hide your kids, hide your wife" guy, Angry Birds, and, um, this:

Oh, I get it!  It's funny because you're all retarded!  Seriously, this video has over half a billion hits on YouTube. Half-a-motherfucking-billion.  That means, if everyone in the world had a computer and only viewed this moment of genius once, 5% of the global population would have seen it.  What.  The.  Hell?  And, since only a small fraction of humanity has computer-access, the horrifying truth becomes apparent - a lot of people are watching this America's Funniest Home Videos reject numerous times.  Unfortunately, the aforementioned advertisers have twigged just how vapid the average consumer is, and adjusted their strategies appropriately.  As a result, when I see ads on the Web, not only is my intelligence being severely sodomized, but half the time I am left wondering if there truly was any semblance of reasoning behind the ad, or if the marketers just threw shit up onscreen.  "Hey, people love babies, right?  They like big, bold words, don't they?  And boobs?  That's our auto insurance ad right there!"

And it's not just the content I am talking about.  Even the formatting is starting to baffle me at times.  The marketing on Thatguywiththeglasses is a perfect example, so let's do a quick analysis, shall we?  I actually remember a time when you could just click on a video link and - no, really, get this - go straight to that video.  No lie.  You clicked, video played.  You know, right after it finished buffering and loading for ten minutes.  Maybe insufferable, seizure-inducing banners crowded out the media-player, or you had to play whack-a-mole with the pop-ups, but the video itself was virginal, pure.

Because if there's one thing we hate, it's adulterated celebrity sex tapes.

Then bandwidth increased, connection-speeds left light in the dust, and websites hosting popular videos realized they could force you to sit through a brief commercial, as long as they dangled the carroty promise of the video you actually wanted to see after it.  Fine.  But then the weird shit started happening.  A bottom-banner would pop up inside the media-window, during the commercial.  An ad for the product you were already watching an ad for would interrupt that ad, as if to say, "Hey!  Hey!  Just in case you forgot, you're watching a commercial for this product!  Don't forget!"  Thanks.  Deciding even that wasn't insistent enough, marketers have recently begun inserting a second pop-up box in the corner of the screen.  Really?  Essentially, this is a tacit acknowledgement that their target audience has a fruit fly's attention-span and the cerebral capacity of a blender.

Must . . . resist . . . urge to . . . click.

It's just redundant and overkill, which I can only explain as a profound but well-earned disrespect for the people watching it.  You want to diagnose yourself ADD, this is what you get, America.  Oh, and the stupid things periodically return during the course of the video, just to remind you their products still exist, like a flashback in a movie that recalls an incident five minutes past.  But I suppose it's better than when they would actually interrupt the 15-minute video to show a commercial, which half the time would result in what I assume to be a glitch: the video wouldn't resume once the ad was over.  Cue my aneurysm.

Then there's my old favorite, the cornucopia of online matchmaking services.  I fondly recall an age when such things were few, laughable, and generally regarded as one step above phone-sex lines.  But, like the HMS Titanic, the lowest common denominator has sunk to abysmal depths, a grim testament to humanity's hubris.  Thus, a secret society of failed 90s dot-commers are churning out dating services as if it's going out of style, which I want to believe, given our goldfish-like level of focus, but I know sheer stupidity always outweighs other deficiencies.  Below is one of their adverts, reproduced perfectly by yours truly.

Let's Date Tonight!
Make it the best night of your
life by finding a beautiful
single women [sic] on
GirlsDateForFree!
Click here to connect for free! 

Yeah . . . anyone remember that Enrique Iglesias song from earlier this year, "Tonight I'm Fucking You"?  Well, I can't blame you if you don't remember it, but it gives off the same kind of creepy vibe as this ad.  I mean, I realize this is an online dating service, the shallow, disposable sort barely subtler than the sidebars on porn sites, and only because Facebook doesn't allow its ads to blatantly say, Get Your Dick Wet Now, but it may as well just come right out and admit it.  It's implied anyway, so why not?  This is the kind of website where I have to imagine the average conversation opens with, "Girl, I'm gonna date you so hard, I'm gonna date your brains out."  Mind you, I do not for an instant believe the bullshit promises made by online purveyors of scintillating flesh, but if they're going to lie to me anyway, they may as well go all in with the bluff.

Like this one:

Be A Music Producer

I mean, you have to admire the testicular fortitude of anyone who dares to put this up in seriousness.  I actually have never clicked this ad, so I'm not sure whether it is for a school of some sort or a tattoo parlor.  Either way, the message is obvious: music producers, all of them, must have detailed ink of unspooled cassette tapes somewhere on their bodies.  It's how you can tell they are music producers, sort of like gang tats or Jews wearing the Star of David on their clothes.  One thing's for sure, I want to learn the art of music production from an institute that clearly recognizes the intelligence of its prospective students.  For once, I could set the grading curve.  Then and only then will I feel I have truly earned my congratulatory identifying brand.

And how about Snorg, Threadless, and Busted Tees, those fine online haberdasheries whose sidebars appear on literally every website targeted toward primates under the age of 40?

Mmm, tee-shirts.

Because nothing sells nerd/pop culture/meme novelty wear like a stacked hottie taking it off.  This just seems to be a case of classic marketing gone wrong, because it confuses its demographic.  Yes, sex sells.  Yes, the probable consumers of these hilariously-relevant shirts are sexually-frustrated males.  However, the garments are really advertisements for themselves; we buy them because they are funny, not because their pithy phrases are stretched to the breaking point across a rack two cup-sizes too large for the shirt in question.  I think I speak for the majority of geekdom when I say we know wearing these clever tees will in no way improve our odds with women like those modeling the goods (double entendre!).  Sure, we secretly want to look like superheroes, but not Wonder Woman.

And so the race to the bottom continues, but the real question remains: is there a bottom?  As we boldly explore the ever-expanding horizons of the digital frontier, will we ever find a level of insipidity that cannot be surpassed?  Will our collective intelligence ever be underestimated, or will the mere act of constant web-surfing gradually erode our neurons so that we are always on par with the expectations of the shadowy forces that control our self-imposed Matrix?  Rest assured, the marketers of the Internet will always be there to push the limits, just as watchdogs like me will be there to ridicule the outcome.

KP, out.

P.S. - Serious bonus points to anyone who can explain this advertisement.  Be sure to state your reasoning and cite examples from the reading.  Points will be awarded for eloquence, creativity, and references to Satanic powers.

Express your individuality (in 1 of 6 preset ways)!

*NOTE: Sorry, folks, I promise I am working on another full-fledged article for later this week, but I feel the need to vent in an old-school rant before cranking out another finished, polished product.

If you haven't noticed, I am doing a little bit of redecorating around ThisIsMyBar.  With a growing readership, it's important to stay fresh and challenging.  More importantly, the nature of my ongoing social commentary is such that anonymity is essential.  In short, my livelihood would be in serious jeopardy if my customers ever stumbled on this blog and put the pieces of the puzzle together.  Plenty of you already know who I am, and that's why you read, but as more and more strangers check in, I have to take steps to protect my identity.

Which leads me to some shit that really irks me, and by "irk" I mean "makes me want to shoot bitches."  I'll be the first to admit my technological knowledge expired in roughly 2001.  Since then, I have made a conscious effort to ignore as much of the digital revolution as I could without retreating to a cave to write my angry manifesto and mail out nail-bombs to Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and . . . whoever their equivalents in Japan are (I'm sure they are the ones behind it all).  During middle and high school, I learned enough of the basics about computers and their bastard offspring that I assumed, especially with the constant updates and ever-growing "user-friendly" wave, I would be able to make technology serve my ends when needed.

And I assumed these would go away.

Then, about three months ago, I tried to add the introduction to my blog you currently see displayed under the masthead.  Do you have any idea how difficult it was to add that?  Do you know how close I was to leaving Blogger entirely to peddle my cynicism elsewhere?  Here is the text I started writing at that time to convey my anger:

Hey, kids, did you notice the new intro to the blog?  Right up there at the top of the page, just below the masthead?  You didn't?  Oh, yeah, that's because it isn't fucking there.  Know why?  Google.  Yes, Google, one triumvir of the Holy Technology Trinity (along with Apple and Facebook), who can do no wrong, is currently screwing me like a Black & Decker.  No matter how many times I click "save," no matter how many times I reload the page, Blogger (one tentacle of the Google-beast) refuses to acknowledge a single change I have made.  No error message.  No obvious glitch.  It just doesn't do anything.  Bearing in mind I am using Google Chrome, a browser made by the same company as the blogging program. 

How to resolve this issue?  Why, contact Blogger, of course, and ask them in the politest way possible what the fuck is going on.  Ha.  I repeat, ha.  Now that we're all more connected than ever before, good luck getting a hold of anyone.  Technical support?  Customer service?  Bitch, please.  That's why we gave you the Internet: to get you off our backs.  By providing you with the illusion of endless information, we supplied you with the tools to solve all your own problems.  So leave us alone.  The sickest part?  These buck-passing bastards have the gall, the bile-boiling temerity, to still list Contact Us on their site.  Click that lie, and you'll see your options are either (a) posting your problem on the Forum of Lost Souls, or (b) choosing one of roughly six pre-selected help tutorials.  The only concerns Google is accepting e-mails on?  Trademark infringement and criminal misuse; in other words, shit that hits them in their ginormous pocketbook.  Well, I cordially invite you to go fuck yourselves, you useless, arrogant, monkey-humping, shit-spewing pieces of-

So, yeah, I was a little miffed.  I would have been slightly less pissed if I hadn't already posted a prior problem, the fact that my hit-counter randomly vanishes, on the help forums and received precisely dick in the way of assistance.  I knew it was pointless.  And if there is one thing technology is supposed to do, if there is one selling-point every tech company touts as Gospel, it's that technology is meant to empower you.  Right up the moment it doesn't work like it should.  Then, lo and behold, you are technology's helpless bitch, frustrated and forsaken in the digital wasteland.  The only thing that stopped me from leaving Blogger in high dudgeon, just to stick it to these callous assholes, was the deeper knowledge that, in fact, it would have no effect whatsoever.  Even this small satisfaction, a petty revenge, was denied me, because my opponent was Goliath, while I was the proverbial amoeba on Daniel's ass.  That was probably the most galling to me.  So, I figured shit out for myself, as per usual, and moved on.

Until this recent remodel.

All I wanted to do was change the color of my title text.  That's it.  Simple, right?  Especially given the retard-proof templates Google/Blogger have provided, which I admittedly use to avoid complex design issues.  Well, guess what?  When I selected a different color from the swatch on the template . . . it did nothing.  Surprise-fucking-surprise.  At this point, my expectations are lower than those of a female Bombay slum-orphan.  I was actually forced to go into the goddamn HTML and change the hex-code through trial-and-error.  I have literally not edited code of any kind in a decade.  Britney Spears was not only pop-culturally relevant, but still pretending to be a virgin the last time I fucked around with code.

No, even in those idyllic days of naivete, we weren't buying it, trust me.

So, if things look a little screwy around here, bear with me as I exorcise the gremlins.

But that led me to something that, while not technically an error, infuriates me far more.  On Facebook, I decided to remove any mention of my specific place of employment and replace it on my profile with the simple phrase, "An undisclosed restaurant."  Back when Facebook membership wasn't required by law, you could put shit like this up all the time.  Virtually every field and category on your profile was freeform, allowing users to make up bullshit like Universal Muppetarianism as their religion and pimp-slapping dyslexic reindeer as an activity.  You know, actually showing some kind of originality.

Well, grab your ankles and spread it wide for Zuckerberg's compensatory digital penis, America.

These days, you cannot add anything to your profile unless it already has a page on Facebook.  That's right, unless someone has gone to the trouble of establishing a page for whatever, you are not allowed to post that shit on your profile.  Work for a local company that doesn't need to social-network to stay afloat?  Too bad, dick-cheese, get a real job.  You like a band that has committed the unholiest of holies and not put up a Facebook page?  Forget about adding them to your "Music" field.  Trust me, I tried, just as a test.

Once again, why is this not an option?

Like the old-school "Choose-your-own-adventure" books, you can only pick from three options.  How the hell are we supposed to jumpstart new memes with this kind of authoritarian control?  What, am I stuck in the Jedi Archives being told Kamino doesn't exist just because there is no data-file on it?  (Points if you caught that reference.)  All joking aside, the more insidious side of this is the none-too-subtle message Facebook is sending: if it's not here, it's not real.  Existence as determined by Mark "the Messiah" Zuckerberg.  Plug in or fuck off.  Scary.  Where the hell is my red pill?  If you want to reduce me to a series of 1s and 0s, just another unit in the machine to be quantified, tabulated, and appropriately stored, well . . .

"A website once tried to digitize me.  I ate its server with some Doritos and a pale ale."

Back in my day . . .

. . . Jesus, I'm doing it.  I actually sound like a snarky geriatric already.  Times have changed enough, the sociopolitical tectonics have shifted, and my worldview, the paradigm I took for reality as a child, is now outdated, even antiquated.  Well, fine.  I can deal with that.  Do you know why?  Because, goddamn, I am right (as usual).

The recession is not over.  We still have limited economic growth in this country, especially compared to the 90s, and millions remain jobless.  College education as a sound investment is being questioned by talking heads and even a few people who may have some idea what they're talking about.  Across this great nation, in dozens of cities, thousands are unintelligibly voicing their dissatisfaction with . . . stuff.  Quite a few of them are getting maced, bludgeoned, and/or imprisoned for it, so they must be striking a nerve with someone, which means it's not totally off-base.  As a country, we are still figuring out how to disentangle ourselves from several international conflicts, while dancing around others we would just be itching to get into 15 years ago.  We're trying to figure out how to reinvent the USA for an era without superpowers in the traditional sense.

So what are the legislators in my state busy doing?  What bold measures are they taking to address these issues?  How are my tax dollars being spent to improve my life and those of my fellows?  Passing laws against bullying.  Yes, bullying, truly the greatest threat to our union since the Civil War.

Pretty much the modern Hitler.

As much of an obedient drone as I am, even I have to question just what this legislation's practical upshot will be.  What are we going to do, fine 12-year-olds?  Send them to jail?  The worst part is that I seem to be one of very few people who realize how ludicrous this measure is, how anyone who genuinely supported it 20 years ago would have been laughed off stage (right after their milk money was taken).  It's a testament to how stupid and sensationalistic our society has become that lawmakers feel obliged to intervene.  I think it started when we freaked out at even the merest suggestion of childhood violence.  I recall a case in which, I shit you not, a little boy was suspended from school for taking a discarded chicken-bone in hand, pointing it at another student, and exclaiming, "Bang!"  Up went the Paranoid Post-Columbine Massacre Flag, and the kid was booted.

Whoa, watch where you're pointing those things, asshole!

Do you know how many times I would have been expelled as a kid?  My primary form of playground entertainment was staging reenactments of fight scenes from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  In fact, the majority of boys' games consisted of mostly-feigned violence, which wasn't even prohibited at my school until the umpteenth kindergartener got his teeth loosened playing Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.  Even so, I never heard a mediagasm about the epidemic of traumatic injuries and shell-shock resulting from these destructive episodes.  No, the press hadn't yet perfected the bullshit spin-machine of hysterical pseudo-news.

But no longer.  Now, I can't go two weeks without reading some entirely serious commentary on the "bullying crisis" or the nuanced psychology of adolescent harassment, unless it is superseded by some tragic story of a teenager or even preteen killing themselves over it.  Don't get me wrong, it is sick and sad, but really?  Your existence is so unbearably miserable, your self-worth so degraded, that you no longer want to live?  Because Cheyenne keeps telling you you're ugly, because Derek always pushes you into the lockers, you feel compelled to put an end to the miracle of your own life?  Yeah, sounds logical.  Most inmates of Nazi concentration camps didn't do that, but what did they know about suffering?

The media has even coined the term cyberbullying, for Steve Jobs' sake. Cyberbullying.  Oh, the agony of having to read mean-spirited texts!  How do these kids cope?  Had my childhood transpired during this golden age of technological intercession, I would have been impervious.  Dickish post on my Facebook wall?  Instant messages telling me to eat shit and die?  Sticks and stones, motherfucker.  Meet me under the monkey bars.

No, please, just make it stop . . . oh, wait, I can close the browser.

Shit, I laughed off taunts to my face, once I'd gotten used to them.  Badass, huh?  If you are such a passive-aggressive pansy that you can't even insult or threaten me without using a digital mediator, bring it on.  I like my odds.  The only thing that could make someone a bigger coward?

Actually being intimidated by this tactic.

Seriously, how weak and fragile have we made this up-and-coming generation's collective psyche?  For the most part, the younger set nowadays are the offspring of late Generation Xers and the early . . . whatever my generation is called.  The two generations that produced the video game Bully.  For those who don't remember, Bully was a game in which you assumed the titular role at a private academy, distributing noogies, wedgies, trash talk, and the occasional kneecapping until you ascended to the top of the schoolyard food chain.  Or something.

Strangely, your avatar looked like a cross between King of the Hill's Bobby Hill and Vincent Crabbe, Harry Potter's portliest perennial tormentor at school.

While this is something of a sick role-reversal/revenge fantasy for dorks (think Inglourious BastNerds), it is also evidence that most of us rarely took bullying all that seriously, certainly not in retrospect.  Sure, it sucked like Nickelback, but it was part of growing up for the majority of us, at one point or another.  I didn't emerge emotionally-scarred (much), let alone depressive or suicidal.  And you know what?  Neither did anyone I knew.  If back in 1995ish, one of my classmates had killed himself because he was tired of his ridiculed life, I believe the primary reaction, aside from obvious abhorrence, would be What the flying fuck?  And I think the media would have had a similar - if less-colorful and more judiciously-worded - response to the event, because that shit just did not happen back then.  I refuse to believe the blackboard jungle has changed this drastically in a decade or two (damn, I am old).  It has gotten to the nadir that Googling images of 'bully' brings up this:

And that's just the hall-monitor.

I mean, really?  This is what is considered an accurate representation of the phenomenon these days?  A Tarantino-esque curb-stomping?  Get real.  Yes, the above picture was obviously staged for shock value, but it says something about the state of our society when anyone would realistically consider using such an exaggerated depiction, for any effect other than parody.  This looks like a scene from Schindler's Hall Pass.

My point?  Not to flog the bloody, rotting remains of a long-deceased horse, but our culture fosters hyperbolic victimization.  In our quest to protect children from everything, we prepare them for nothing.  We pad, censor, and sanitize their world to spare their delicate little minds and bodies, reassure them that everyone is a winner no matter what, refuse to discipline them properly for fear of inflicting irreparable damage, and medicate the hell out of them at the first sign of a parental challenge.  Then reality kicks in, and they freak out.  Cue the violins, the 60 Minutes special report, and every other conceivable form of sympathetic validation to reinforce helpless victimhood.  Ad infinitum.

It's a sad day when this is one of the better outcomes you can hope for as a parent.

I did not have this problem, and I'll wager few in my age-set did.  Maybe by the time I was fifteen, I was nearing Ferris Bueller levels of popular immunity, but for my entire life I have been short, underweight, quiet, smart, and curly-haired.  In other words, as obvious a target as a paraplegic albino deer.  Seriously, God painted a bull's-eye on my back.  I won't claim I was incessantly picked on or thrashed daily in the name of sport, but I was always on my guard, and with good reason.  A year or two down the road, my school tried to teach us all a brilliant psychobabble program called "conflict resolution," which stressed using specific steps and clear language to express your hurt feelings and desire for a peaceful end to hostilities with your antagonist.  Which was, of course, the surest way possible to get a royal asskicking, and we all knew it.

"But I said 'Please stop beating me, it hurts my self-esteem'!"

Back then, I feel like kids just had an innate sense for dealing with this stuff on their own.  Indeed, the few times throughout my life that I involved higher authorities only served to reaffirm my suspicion that they were really powerless to do shit for me.  My parents never taught me a thing about fighting, and I truthfully can't recall them telling me anything about standing up for myself; I just knew to do it.  In all their endless obsessing over this "new" hot-button topic, I rarely see any media outlet suggesting, let alone advocating, the most patent and simplest answer: don't back down.  Fight back.  Bullies are never going to go away, so you'd better prepare your kid for them.  It irks me that the sole recent example of this mentality I can cite is Captain America: The First Avenger, in which the wimpy, pre-superpowered Captain, Steve Rogers, says of bullies, "Once you start running, they'll never let you stop."

He knew even chiseled cheekbones wouldn't spare you a beat-down.

And it's true.  So I never ran.  Nor did I often end up in all-out fisticuffs, and that's the point: if you showed no fear, a willingness to get your ass handed to you, most bullies wouldn't follow through.  If they did, well, what was the worst that could happen?  Surely a split lip and some bruises are preferable to suicide.  The fact that I feel compelled to point this out shows just how deluded the discussion has become in this milieu of drama-based media coverage, which glorifies the victims and only encourages more youths to see themselves as similar martyrs.  And, because it's anathema to condone any type of violence, even self-defense, in children (let alone crack down on the mentally-anguished bullies) the harassed kids see little alternative.  Yet the simple fact of the matter is, sometimes, people don't need therapy; they need to get some blood on their knees.

As for verbal abuse, I quickly learned the basic truth that assholes aren't bright.  As such, I could pretty easily outspar them, humiliating them right back.  My tongue only got sharper for the practice, my wit quicker and my eye more critical.  Which has led, bizarrely enough, to this very blog.  So you can thank my adolescent tormentors for that.

*NOTE: I didn't mean to put so many World War II references in this article, it just sort of turned out that way.  Also, sorry if you didn't find this particularly funny, but I feel pretty strongly about the subject.

Oddments

My cynicism knows no bounds, and as a result it's sometimes hard to focus it onto a particular subject.  So I won't.  This is pretty much a freestyle rap of criticism inspired by the photo-dump I just did on my camera phone.  If you can't find something to take offense to in this one, you are more jaded than I.  Congratulations. In the verses of one of my favorite musicians, "You need to slit your wrist, get pissed, and go jump off a bridge."

I love wandering bookstores, but sometimes I find it impossible to heed the old adage about books and their covers.  Because, let's be honest, sometimes the book damn well has it coming.

I wasn't aware the Second Coming had already happened.

Seriously, who is this smug bespectacled bastard?  Based on the titles of his "self-help" manuals, I would have to conclude Paul McKenna is at least in the running for Biggest Douche in the Universe, with all due (dis)respect to the "Situation" and John Edward.  In essence, every one of these tomes of wisdom could be renamed Your Life: You're Doing it Wrong, Bitch.  This no-doubt self-proclaimed guru of New Age doublespeak is telling you - despite probably not having experienced any of these problems himself - what a dipshit you are for not seeing the obvious ways to fix anything and everything wrong in your life.  Luckily, he's here to help you, benighted masses.  Be grateful.

Whatever happened to good ol'-fashioned book burnings?

First off, brilliant title.  I can tell it sprang from the bleach-fried brain of a pompous shithead who's neural circulation is further inhibited by the pair of sunglasses he refuses ever to take off the back of his fat dome.  Second, really?  This was the best cover you could come up with?  Guy Fieri, clad in his vintage 1998 gear, throwing cheese-balls at the camera while flashing his signature I'm-so-muthafuckin'-cool doughnut-smile?  I think there's some sort of sexual metaphor about us taking it in the face from him, but it's not even worth the joke.  There was a time when becoming a TV personality actually meant having a decent one, but those days are long over and we now settle for this kind of shtick.  In fact, I am coining a new term to describe Fieri and his ilk: douche-tool.  Feel free to use it.

Blunt, aren't they?

But at least they're unbiased.

As long as we're on the subject of dubious belief systems, here's another one that drives me up a wall:

Stop.  Lying.

I don't care if you love cuddly-wuddly animals too much to consume anything that came from their bodies, even though our own bodies are unarguably evolved to subsist on such products, you should not be doing this to your unborn baby.  It was only a few years ago when some idiot hippie Georgians (yes, they have hippies down there, apparently) starved their newborn to death by feeding it a vegan diet.  We are an omnivorous species; deal with it.  Sure, it is possible to live on zero animal-products, but claiming it's natural or somehow better for you is 100% wholegrain-fed freerange bullshit.  Is it as horrendous as the McDiet I roundly derided in my last article?  Doubtful.  However, you can propound the superfood/organic/wholistic/holier-than-thou lifestyle as much as you want, yet the fact remains that your diet is far less natural than mine when you have to take a dozen supplements and vitamins, and specifically seek out certain food to compensate for the lack of balanced nutrition on your lentils-soy-milk-and-tofu menu.  Particularly, babies, both in- and outside the womb, need a metric ass-load of nutrients, minerals, and fats for proper pre- and post-natal development, which are found abundantly in, you guessed it, animal byproducts.  If being vegan is so uber-healthy, why aren't all the Olympic athletes doing it?  When was the last time you saw a vegan with defined musculature?  Exactly.  It's just another case of people taking a good idea to illogical extremes. In comedian Ron White's words, "I didn't climb to the top of the food-chain to eat carrots."  (Watch his bit on the subject right here http://comedians.jokes.com/ron-white/videos/ron-white---vegetarians.)

Moving on from the bookshop, what's up with this?

*Facepalm*

My brain reels when I see this kind of insidious, weird marketing.  I don't really have much to say, except what kid just has to have Facebook and Twitter rubber ducks?  In fact, shouldn't the Twitter duck be a songbird?  It's confusing.

Like this.

Some of you are probably too young to remember (which says something), but there was once a truly atrocious movie called Air Bud.  It was your traditional Disney sap story about growing up and reconnecting and reaffirming your self-worth and all that other shit.  Oh, and it had a basketball-playing golden retriever.  Yes, you read that right.  I swear on the Holy Mouse I am not making that up.  Putting aside the moronic oddity of this premise, that flick came out in 1997, and they are still making sequels.  Fourteen goddamn years later.  What the fuck?  The first few were predictably sports-themed, as the titular dog proved to be a multitalented prodigy, kind of like Bo Jackson or Deion Sanders, but then it spun off into surreal strangeness as Bud knocked up some bitch (what? that's the proper term) and had puppies.  Who could also play sports.  And talk.  Talking animals are not unusual in the Disneyverse, of course, but bear in mind they couldn't at the start of the franchise.  Then it stopped being about sports altogether.  And I somehow doubt that's why this latest installment is called Spooky Buddies.  To put it in perspective, this would be like, say, Pixar's Cars franchise starting with the fun-loving anthropomorphic vehicles (bizarre as well, now that I think about it) and ending over a decade later, only the cars no longer talk or do anything themselves and are driven by Paul Walker and Vin Diesel.  Except that has a vague aura of coolness.

Anyway . . .

Blatant ripoffs are Jesus-approved.

The most hilarious part of this?  They are claiming to be quoting an actual Bible verse, namely Psalm 139.  I checked my KJV Bible, and it goes a little something like this:

1	O LORD, thou hast searched me, and known me.
2	Thou knowest my downsitting and mine uprising;          thou understandest my thought afar off.
3	Thou compassest my path and my lying down,          and art acquainted with all my ways.
4	For there is not a word in my tongue,          but, lo, O LORD, thou knowest it altogether.
5	Thou hast beset me behind and before,          and laid thine hand upon me.
6	Such knowledge is too wonderful for me;          it is high, I cannot attain unto it.
7	Whither shall I go from thy Spirit?          Or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
8	If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there:          if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.
9	If I take the wings of the morning,          and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea;
10	even there shall thy hand lead me,          and thy right hand shall hold me.
11	If I say, Surely the darkness shall cover me;          even the night shall be light about me.
12	Yea, the darkness hideth not from thee;          but the night shineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to thee.
13	For thou hast possessed my reins:          thou hast covered me in my mother's womb.
14	I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made:          marvelous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.
15	My substance was not hid from thee          when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
16	Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect;          and in thy book all my members were written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them.
17	How precious also are thy thoughts unto me, O God!          How great is the sum of them!
18	If I should count them, they are more in number than the sand:          when I awake, I am still with thee.
19	Surely thou wilt slay the wicked, O God:          depart from me therefore, ye bloody men.
20	For they speak against thee wickedly,          and thine enemies take thy name in vain.
21	Do not I hate them, O LORD, that hate thee?          And am not I grieved with those that rise up against thee?
22	I hate them with perfect hatred:          I count them mine enemies.
23	Search me, O God, and know my heart:          try me, and know my thoughts:
24	and see if there be any wicked way in me,          and lead me in the way everlasting.

Paraphrase much?  I thought Christians were all about the literal accuracy of the Bible.  Pandas, let alone "Pandamania," were not mentioned once, nor were the words "where," "wild," "about," or "you."

"Can U Psychoanalyze Her?"

Not even joking, that was the actual text under this image on my Facebook sidebar.  And I am supposed to believe this is for a legitimate institution of higher learning where psychiatry is taught.  Right . . . Much like I am supposed to believe this:

"Singles."

If you're thinking this girl looks kind of familiar, it's because it's Hilary Duff of Disney Channel fame.  As much as her career has fizzled into nonexistence, I have a hard time buying that she is trolling Facebook for a boyfriend.  Especially given the fact that she's married.

On the plus side, our society is progressive enough that this is also an actual dating service ad.  And I am so cool with that.

  

This is evidently the approved way to deal with downed power-lines in my town.  Anyone else find that weird?  Speaking of weird . . .

Times have sure changed, haven't they?

A lot.  "Smoking - The Healthy Alternative to Candy!"

WARNING: This product may make you look like a dumbass.

But, seriously, I fucking hate these things.  What I hate even more is that they have become wildly popular.  What I probably hate the most is that I found this picture alongside an article on CNN.com about how manufacturers are actively looking for "the next big thing" in retarded lounge-wear.  Really, it's a fucking robe you wear backwards.  Grow up.

Yup, that's a dude.  For reals.

Just . . . yuck.  Go to hell.  Nothing more to say to that.

My wish: that you would stop wearing multiple polos with popped collars, you douchey dying kid.  Yes, I said it.  What?

Oh, yeah, and screw people who are wearing Christmas sweaters right now.  I couldn't take a picture, because I was working, but I had a customer on November 1st wearing a bright red, bulb-embroidered Christmas pullover.  I guess this is sort of an addendum to my guide to women's fashion, but it goes for both genders.  The fact that she was wearing it on the day after Halloween tells me this bitch was literally counting down the days until it was "acceptable" to don this hideous abomination of wool.  My coworkers can attest to the fact I nearly had an aneurysm at the sight of this, a garment that should have gotten the shit kicked out of you often enough as a kid to preclude you ever voluntarily wearing one again.  The easy way to avoid this faux pas?  Never wear a themed sweater at all, you fucking twat, or I'll torrefy you.

*Mic drop*