And the Morons did rejoice, for they knew not Their Idiocy until the Blogger didst call it out

And the list goes on.  Continuing from my last article, here are the rest of my new Seven Deadly Sins.

Obliviousness

It's not easy to be as smart as me, I get it.  I do not ask that of you, muddled masses.  You don't know what World War I was fought over, how photosynthesis works, or that Jesus didn't actually write any of the Bible, let alone in modern English (though he did write a new introduction for the 50th Edition of the King James Version).  All I want is for you to take a good look around and think, and not only on special occasions.  Make it a regular habit, a continuous process, if possible.  It is not so much about being smart as observant.  More than half of the dipshittery you see people do (outside of reality television and the Internet) is not so much a result of pure ignorance as simply not paying attention to things around them, such as semi-tractors.  Or other unexpected obstacles:

As per usual, the two places where I see this sin most egregiously committed is on roadways and at work.  For instance, I was attempting to perform the simple act of legally parking my wicked-sweet Cobalt at the local mall.  In theory, a task the well-trained orangutan should be able to see through, despite a congenital inability to parallel park (I must have an Asian great-great-great-grandmother . . . natch).  But, lo and behold, I am hindered by someone else's inability to assess this shared paradigm we call "reality."  The motorist - and I use that term in the sense of "temporally-displaced Victorian-era driver who has no bastard clue how to drive because cars are a new thing," mind you - ahead of me stops to turn down the first of a dozen lanes within a massive parking lot.

. . . and now for an almost-totally unjustified, gratuitous steampunk
faux-deguerrotype of a female driver, who happens to be kissing another.

S/he decides to (1) allow five other drivers to turn into the lane ahead of him/her, and (2) follow these five vehicles down the very same asphalt aisle. Stop and consider: what are the odds there are six open spaces off of this particular lane? Why wouldn't you just go on to the next lane to search for a space?  *Hint: Because you aren't thinking more than required to keep the lungs pumping, that's why.  I am starting to suspect vehicles have some sort of direct adverse effect on people's intellect and perspicacity, like maybe the gasoline fumes are leaking into the interior or the engine noise is at the perfect frequency to vibrate their brains loose in their skulls.  Just a theory.  Get on that study, Department of Transportation.

But that act of obliviousness pales in comparison to what I regularly witness at my workplace.  And I am not just talking about people who will ask what a dish consists of while literally pointing at its exact description in the menu.  First, a little background to provide context for the fucktardation I am about to break down.  The restaurant I work at is one of those clever types that decided years ago, rather than be a sit-down alternative to fast food, it needed to be both a sit-down alternative to fast food and also fast food.  It was a really savvy ass-grab at a supersized, more bootylicious market.

Hence, our entire menu of entrees created to be served in-house is also available as carryout or "to-go" food, for the uninitiated, which can be ordered like pizza via phone, or online (never do this), or simply on the spot.  In which case, why don't you just sit down and eat it in our restaurant while it's still fresh?  It doesn't cook any faster because you ordered it as takeout.  Oh, right, so you don't feel obligated to tip me, you cheap bastard.  But that's not even the kicker here.

"What do you mean you don't have time to list off and describe
every item you make to me?  Why would I have thoroughly
perused the menu and decided what I want before I called you?"

This hot brainwave led to a boom in restaurant carryout sales that lasted all of six months.  As a result, you now see the ubiquitous secondary takeout entrance to virtually every chain eatery, which usually leads to a special window or counter for this express purpose, that absolutely nobody thought was necessary ten years ago, because we already had freaking drive-throughs.

Well, that window has been closed at my place of employ for over three years, because we do not get enough business to justify paying someone to man (or woman) that counter exclusively.  Instead, the bartender (me) handles all of the to-go transactions from start to finish.  Rather than seal off our side-door, we just hung a sign up in that service window at eye level.  This sign reads, All to-go orders are being handled at the bar at this time, with a helpful arrow pointing to the bar, which is a mere six feet to the right, just beyond the carryout entryway, clearly visible and quite obviously a bar.

And you would not believe the number of shit-thick mouth-breathers who will stand at that closed counter, looking straight at the sign, and wait to be assisted, like a vacant-eyed dog expecting a Snausage from the guy on TV who said "Sit" in a commanding tone.  Except the dog can be forgiven, on account of being a fucking dog.  What's your excuse?  How do you not put two and two together?  To better illustrate the idiocy of this situation, I have created a convenient graphic:

"Ah, a staring contest is it, painted piece of wood?  Challenge accepted."

That's fuck-stick number 5,920 standing in front of the counter, staring at the sign, and that's me behind the counter using the computer, studiously ignoring the shit out of him to see how long it takes for Brainiac to calculate his odds of getting carryout food from me.   Somehow, you were able to follow the signs that led you to this restaurant, through the door marked "To-Go," to this very window, and now all of sudden you are, what, illiterate?  The answers you seek are literally written on the wall, in bold letters and plain English, no less.  I know it's dark up there, so try pulling your head out of your ass far enough to see what's going on directly in front of your (stupid) face.  On another occasion, when no one was standing immediately at the counter, a guest literally moved the sign aside so as to ask the servers he could see working in the kitchen beyond where to pick up his takeout food, I shit you not.  There is simply no excuse for this.  If you are going to be oblivious to reality, do everyone a favor and stay the hell out of it.

Laziness

Yes, I am including one of the old Seven Deadly Sins in my new list, but because it's "Sloth," the very sin of laziness, I get a pass. That's called irony, look it up. Anyway, "Sloth" makes it sound deeper than it really is, more biblical in its scope, when it is really just this.

No, not this.

Segue scooters, Rascal carts, electric muscle-stimulation patches, and human conveyor belts at airports are the bastard offspring of this sin. You don't even get rockstar credit for indulging this vice, unless your torpor is induced by routine heroin benders. But, because of its very nature, people tend to indulge it, since it is easy - it is defined by its lack of effort on your part.  When your "lazy Saturday" becomes "lazy August" you have officially crossed the line between defying the hectic pace of modern life and just being a useless tosser.

She couldn't even be bothered to put on a top.  Slattern.

Laziness in its varied guises is probably the one sin on this list I have the strongest personal disdain for, precisely because I am susceptible to it, the allure of the proverbial easy path.  And, as Yoda warned us, that's the Dark Side.  It is that sly little voice in your head that whispers, "No need to pick up that gum wrapper you just dropped on the floor right now.  It'll still be there tomorrow," or, "Whoa, hey, why take the time to untie your shoes when you can just pry them off?"  A million little sins such as this add up over time, until you find yourself lounging in your sweatpants and Velcro sneakers watching back-to-back reruns of Two and Half Men because you couldn't fish the remote control out of the refuse that surrounds you.  And there is simply no excuse for that.  Watching Two and Half Men, I mean.  Oh, do you like that pile of laziness in shit form?

Look at all the fucks I don't give.

By no means is this limited to your home-life.  I have commented on this before, but it bears repeating: you would rather circle the parking lot for an extra ten minutes until a spot twenty feet closer to the door opens up, or wait just as long to snake that space as another vehicle is backing out, thus holding up all traffic behind you. Trust me, your plus-sized ass could use the extra exercise.  If you were really worried about expediency, as opposed to expending calories, you would realize you can park and be done with your five-minute Wal-mart stopover faster if you aren't so concerned whether you will suffer coronary thrombosis covering the distance between the lot and the cheap guns/Toby Keith merchandise/American flags aisle.

The same goes for would-be customers who call my restaurant and decide not to order to-go food when I inform them I will not walk it out to their vehicle for them.

Trying to Be Funny

Technology is, once again, the culprit behind this insidious trend.  By giving everyone an outlet, a showcase for whatever information they feel like sharing, it supplies them a false sense of validation.  It's the pretend celebrity status syndrome I condemned last post.  Specifically, it has deluded a lot of unfunny people into thinking they are a fucking laugh-riot.

Though in some cases I think that's a medical condition.

I hate to break it to you, but you are not amusing, at least not intentionally.  I know it's "in" to be funny right now, but some us have been working at this for a long time, figuring out the subtleties of humor and honing natural instincts for dick jokes, and it shows.  That is why we are good at it, and you are the Dane Cook of the Worldwide Web, only not so infamous for blowing harder than Superman.

What, you thought I was kidding?

Wannabe Internet jokesters have taken this to new hellish depths.  This often takes the form of a "meme," which originally meant . . .

"an idea, behavior or style that spreads from person to person within a culture."^[2] A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols or practices, which can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals or other imitable phenomena. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate and respond to selective pressures.^[3] 

The word meme is a shortening (modeled on gene) of mimeme (from Ancient Greek μίμημα Greek pronunciation: [míːmɛːma] mīmēma, "something imitated", from μιμεῖσθαι mimeisthai, "to imitate", from μῖμος mimos "mime")^[4] and it was coined by the British evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins in The Selfish Gene (1976)^[1] as a concept for discussion of evolutionary principles in explaining the spread of ideas and cultural phenomena. Examples of memes given in the book included melodies, catch-phrases, fashion and the technology of building arches.^[6]"

. . . but which now means "basically any picture with overlaid text, intended to be a joke, that retards exchange online."  Do not mistake me, some of these can be brilliant.  That, however, is becoming ever rarer as more and more people try to emulate the good ones, ironically failing in epic fashion when they attempt to make a "Fail" meme.  These typically feature one of a handful of stock images - a Jurassic Park velociraptor, lolcats, Fry from Futurama, a random canine, the trollface, Willy Wonka, or that angry baby with the upraised fist - often against some variation of these standard pinwheel backgrounds:

Just add your own shitty photo and, presto, instant joke!

Actually, the above backgrounds seem to be reserved for the truly heinous attempts at hilarity directed primarily toward forum trolls, really dumb amoebas, and smarter end-tables.  Whether or not they use these elements or "go rogue" on Photoshop, the majority of the netizens producing these memes could suck a golf ball through a garden hose.  They fundamentally misunderstand this kind of humor, which only works if it either (1) makes a comical observation or reference that will be widely understood, or (2) goes all-out absurdist.  This has gotten bad enough that you can now find scores of meme-generators across cyberspace, all designed to reassure losers they can be funny, too, if they only use a program to help package their pithy wit.

Ha . . . good one?  Oh, I get it, it's funny because you suck at life!

For the sake of comedy and human society at large, I think these generators should be heavily moderated by certified, licensed comedians and come with a built-in, automatic "Abort" feature that kills any memes of questionable merit.  You call it censorship, I call it necessary evil.

However, the Internet cannot be blamed entirely, because I have seen this phenomenon other places.  For instance, my job.  Again.  Go figure.  I am not referring to the twats who use servers as a captive audience for their knockoff George Lopez shtick, annoying as they are.  I mean our own internal promotion copywriting department.  I don't know whether it is an in-house operation or a subcontracted firm, but either way, the geniuses have taken a cue from the Taco Bell sauce packet guys and the copywriters for Burger King's packaging.  Seriously, this sounds weird, but if you never have bothered to look at what is printed on your Whopper box (probably because you are one of those oblivious twits), try it next time.  These are surprisingly pretty funny, given that they are, y'know, jokes on sandwich wrappers.

This totally makes up for you for slowly poisoning me to death, creepy Burger King!

Did these need to be funny?  Of course not, especially given that I already bought the product, so the classic humor appeal is meaningless at this point.  But I still appreciate that as long as they're going to write shit on their packaging, they figure it might as well be witty.  And it works because it's dry, slightly offbeat humor that even includes minor innuendo.  In short, the guys who write these understand modern comedy (Kentucky Fried Christ, I envy the jobs of burger copywriters now.)

Then there are the craze-humping lemming scribes who whore themselves out to the chain I work at.  Their job is to generate the cheesiest, stupidest menus they can, laden with humor a dyslexic 5-year-old could pen, or at least I hope that is their job, because they are absolute prodigies at it.  The level of incompetence beggars belief.  For example, they think they are being up-fucking-roariously hysterical when they shit out a line like, "Your Mouth + Our Reuben = BFF."  Wow, clever.  And you even managed to squeeze a "hip" "new" bit of texting lingo in there.  The kids are really going to know we're the bee's knees with wordplay that shrewd.  Or how about this gem: "Tasty.  Tastier.  Tastierest."

Ow, my intelligence.

I mean, really, tastierest?  Tastierest?  Somebody not only wrote this, presumably blazed out of their gourd, but had the gall to submit it afterward, then got it approved by a succession of superiors.  What blood-pact made in what H.P. Lovecraft-inspired circle of the netherworld allowed this to happen?  But the coup de grace would have to be . . . "Sprinkled with awesome."  I am not joking.  Sadly, the hacks writing this are.  I can't tell you how many times I have been asked what the "awesome" in question was in total earnest, only to look at the floor, shamefaced, and admit I have no idea.  If you're going to stoop that low, the menu may as well read, "Hey, cockstains, shovel this crap into your craw," for all the credit it gives our patronage.  You can't fake clever, so stop trying.

Which brings me to my final point for this article, the sin de jour of the United States of 'Merica . . .

Ignorance

Shocker, right?  I'll bet you regular readers never saw this one coming.  Do I even have to explain why ignorance is bad?  It is the root of most of the other sins I listed, or at least a contributing factor, and probably 90% of my posts boil down to me raging against someone else's willful stupidity.  Just browse through my prior posts to see examples.  Everyone is guilty of this in some capacity, and it's not always a terrible thing.  It is, for example, what keeps me from questioning how the hell Taco Bell can offer me so much awesome in a convenient box for a paltry $5.00.  Seriously, there is no conceivable way it should be that disgustingly delicious, so there is no way I want to know what I am really eating.  There are some things you are better off, or at least a lot happier, not knowing.

It's rats, isn't it?  As long as it's not rats . . .

Aside from cases like that, however, you should try to inform yourself, stay aware.  Remember when I said I don't expect everyone to operate on my level?  I was not being a pompous dick.  All right, I was, but the point remains: you don't have to be a genius not to be an idiot.  Look at two of my literary heroes, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson.

These guys.  "Literary" means they were in books first, by the way.

Watson isn't as smart as Holmes, obviously, but he still manages to contribute to society.  He helps Holmes solve the crime, catch the bad guy, and, depending on the fanfic, celebrate accordingly afterward.  I mean, for logic's sake, he is a medical doctor who looks dim in comparison to his friend, although to be fair I think Victorian medicine still advocated leeching.  So what if he doesn't know how to identify 41 types of tobacco ash?  He is competent, and that is all I ask of you, America.

The culture of ignorance is a strong one, though, fueled by a perverse pride in not knowing things.  We parade our intelligentsia on television freak-shows like Jeopardy!, as if a basic grasp of high school-level geography, science, history, and literature is akin to witchcraft.  I think perhaps this is why nerds, dorks, and all of geekdom are marginalized and ridiculed, rather than lauded.

Well, okay, and this.

But I learned a long time ago, you can't be a smartass if you aren't smart.  And, unless you cheerfully submit your generative organs to repeated trauma à la Jackass, you cannot be very funny without genuine wit.  I am not sure if I started being smart and my sense of humor developed from there, or realized I needed to be smart to be funny and boned up on the knowledge.  It's hard to say which came first anymore, the old chicken-or-the-egg conundrum.  See, if you aren't marginally-informed, that makes no sense to you, does it?  Kind of like that Soylent Green reference?  You didn't get that one either?  Exactly.

Brought to you by ignorance.  And sloth.  Probably obliviousness, too.

This sidebar is a perfect illustration.  I am not sure which is worse, the fact someone made this advertisement on the assumption it would work, or that some people probably do actually fall for it.  All linguistic mutilation aside, that is Canadian TV actress Emma Roberts, niece of Julia Roberts, who I am fairly confident is not this company's spokeswoman, nor is she herself trying to pick up guys online.  If you are a crappy Internet Slovakian con-artist hoping to swipe yourself a nice steaming slice of the American pie, either (a) remedy your own ignorance by learning passable English and snapping a photo of an anonymous girl, or (b) recognize your own ignorance and pay someone else who is better-equipped to devise your ads targeting Americans.  A little brain-juice goes a long way, trust me.

It does take a modicum of effort, so you will first have to overcome the second sin on this page.  It was laziness, in case you can't trouble to scroll back up.  Not off to a good start, are we?  Just . . . try a little.  It may take some extra time, but the investment is worth it.  Because I refuse to believe the human race is as stupid as it acts.  Not to sound like a bad '90s PSA, but knowing is half the battle.  The other half is not sucking.

KP, out.

And the Blogger said unto Them, 'Thou shalt not Suck'

This one has been a long time coming, a germinating seed I never realized I had planted.  In a strange way, it is really the point of this entire blog, the alpha and omega.  Hinted at throughout, imperfectly realized, it has been the unseen force behind the preponderance of my articles.  Amazingly, it only just occurred to me to sum it all up in a (relatively) concise, explicit list.  Why should the Catholic Church have a monopoly on moral codification and condemnation?  That's right, faithful adherents, I am officially laying down a set of modern mortal transgressions, the new Seven Deadly Sins.  Why?  Because everyone knows pride, gluttony, the excessive banging of hookers, and coveting your neighbor's goat are hell-worthy vices.  Or at least most people recognize them from that cautionary psychological Brad Pitt thriller.

Ocean's Ele7en

These new entries, on the other hand, are the ethical violations that seem to get ignored or even go unnoticed altogether.  And, as a bonus, my list isn't specific to any creed or god, relying only on my own secular humanist authority.  Which should be more than enough for you.  So, without further ado, let's make like Dante Alighieri and count down the new Seven Deadly Sins.

Technophilia

In case you forgot, I am a bit, shall we say, leery of technology.  It takes many guises and forms, much like the Devil.  Truthfully, I do not hate it, despite the bile I spew here about it.  Technology rocks.  When it is being used as a means to an end.  You know, the way it was meant to be when it was invented.  This - more than the confusing interfaces, illogical commands, and general aura of hipster smugness - is probably what I most loath about Mac: it is about loving technology for its own sake, a cult that fetishizes devices for being devices, rather than for any particular thing they can do.  I suspect some of these people would actually have sex with their iPad if they could.  Is there an app for that?

If only that port was a little bit larger . . .

I'm not bitching about technology taking over our lives.  That happened already.  I am talking about technology replacing our lives.  I am talking about two people sitting across from each other at a restaurant table six years ago and not saying a word to each other, their glassy eyes glued to their phones.  And I laughed at the time, pointing out how absurd the scene was, like a New Yorker cartoon.  I'm still laughing now, only it's more hysterical and mixed with sobs.  I saw an ad online that touted Farmville as "an escape from the city."  I don't remember what happened next, because I sort of blacked out from incredulous rage.  People have been consistently neglecting their careers and families for several years now to play an unending series of "updates" (read: new backgrounds) of a kindergarten-level video game starring knockoff Pokémon that could have been made in 1989.

Coming soon: Christopher Nolan's visionary adaptation, Angry Birds Rising.

Liking gadgets and appreciating technical innovation is one thing.  Ticking off the precious days of your life in ever-more-fevered anticipation of the release of the next version of a device you already own (but with a new charging dock!!!) is pathetic, and not simply because its "inventor" ripped off most of the designs.  There is a fine line between "hobby" and "creepy obsession," which you pissed on as you crossed it miles back.

A recent example just blew my mind: there were people complaining about how Twitter spoiled the Olympics, because it revealed the results before they were televised.  Do you know how I learned this?  Enough people were griping about it that CNN had to run a news story on it.  Well, here's a real newsflash for you, fucktwits - don't follow those Tweets.  Better yet, don't follow any Twitter accounts, because they are the definition of mindless self-indulgence.  How can you complain about this when you are the one choosing to look at the results ahead of their airing?  You're ruining the surprise for yourself, as you did when you peaked at your Christmas presents under the bed before they were wrapped.  Nobody is holding a gun to your head.

"Read the Tweet.  Read it!  How does it feel to know your country
took bronze two minutes before the TV told you so?  Does it depress
you?  Doesn't it make you want to go on some sort of ill-conceived
rampage, now that you know what true chaos is?  Burn it all."

I mean, seriously?  If you are so addicted to a frivolous information feed that you cannot interrupt the stream even for the delayed gratification you supposedly want more, it may be time to seek professional help.

Shit, that's not what I meant, oh, Christ on a stick, no-

Better question: is this a real article?

No, no, no, no, NO.  Damn it, CNN, why did you have to go there?  Why?  You had to validate a bunch of losers' poor self-control by suggesting it may be an actual freakin' medical condition.  I was using the term "addiction" loosely, but you had to go make it clinical.  By running this "story," you're absolving them of the responsibility to turn the console off, because now they're victims of something beyond their control.  It's not their fault!  It's genetic!  Let's stage interventions!  Give them pills!  Pity them!  That will surely make this heinous new "disorder" go away!  What's that?  Some Asian gamers have died when they couldn't bring themselves to stop playing video games?  As in, literal death, without any extra lives?  What the almighty flying feng shui fuck, Asia?  Why do you have to be so weird?  Tentacle porn just wasn't off-putting enough.  This totally undermines my stereotypical image of you as a mysterious, majestic land of tranquil, cybernetic genius warriors.

No, CNN, no, they shouldn't.  And you are stupid for asking that question.

But while I'm harping on one of my old gripes, let's move on to the next sin . . .

Self-Victimization

I am a big critic of this one, in all its varied permutations.  You may recall me illustrating my contempt here and here.  "I was bullied to death!"  "I'm allergic to plants!  All of them!"  "He's not a dickhead kid, he has Advanced Mutant Godchild Syndrome!"  "Waaah, waaah, woe is me!"  Suck.  It.  The Fuck.  Up.  You are not special and misunderstood, you are not a tragic victim, your "struggle" isn't an inspiration to anyone, and you did nothing to earn the attention you are so desperately seeking.  And even if you did, stop it.  You are insulting those who really are suffering in some legitimate way outside of their control, ear-raping the rest of us with your miniature orchestra of nothing but tiny, self-pitying violins.  You know what nobody in the Bible said?  "God helps those who help themselves."  The real Most Interesting Man in the World and all-around renaissance pimp Benjamin Franklin actually coined this proverb, but given how many ignorant Americans persist in believing it is in fact Holy Writ, it's staggering how few take it to heart.

With all the personal empowerment seminars and self-actualization workshops clogging our hotel conference centers, I am baffled that most people aren't under the impression they can not only overcome any temporal obstacle - be it disease, oppression, or the entire cast of The Expendables 1 and 2 - but reverse the time-stream by flying backward around Earth via positive thinking.  Channel your inner spirit mongoose, realign your paradigm, whatever it takes, just knock off the hypochondriact.

Overexposure

The obsession with technology is directly related to this one, because the purpose of most modern consumer tech, aside from dulling our minds to facilitate the impending Reptoid invasion, is to help you lie to yourself and others.  It provides the illusion of importance, a false sense of celebrity to every 'Tard, Douche, and Whorey.  (You see what I did there?  Wordplay, motherfuckers).  Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Pintrest, FourSquare, and Jewish God knows what else all revolve around the conceit that the world revolves around you.  Your every waking moment is a memory for everyone you know to treasure, your every thought or opinion worthy of digital enshrinement for the masses to ponder.  "Everybody knows everything about all of us!  That's too much knowledge!" the incomparable Shatner once quipped on a spoken-word track with Beck.  It has progressed so far that the populace is operating under the mass delusion that everyone should and wants to know everything about everyone else.

Hey, by the way, I like Batman a little bit.

By this point, it is already trite to point out JaneyRae McStarbrite just put on her neon rainbow socks!:) is not a worthwhile status update on Facebook.  We all know people post the most inane details of their daily routines as if any other meat puppet on Cthulhu's accursed earth should care.  We're desensitized to it.  Equally irritating is Facebaiting, which receives due scorn on many an Internet "Most Annoying Trends/Excuses for Human Beings" list.

You know this asshole.

Remember what I said about painting yourself as a victim to garner attention and crappy e-cards?  The converse of this, of course, is the person who posts, "Hemorrhoids again?  Really?  Maybe I should stop mouth-hugging strangers in the NiteSider bathroom.  Are hemorrhoids even a STD, lol?"

Speaking of STDs . . .

So you have a kid.  Congratulations.  You managed to get yourself knocked up/did some knocking up.  I hear that is quite an accomplishment.  And the result is a miracle, no doubt, and in no way am I belittling your precious little crotch-dumpling (okay, maybe I am, just a bit).  But posting a new picture of said infant every 25 minutes on your Facebook wall is annoying as hell to the rest of society.  No, we don't have to look at it, but neither do you have to post it.  Before the advent of Facebook and Imgur and Photobucket and Instagram, you would never have been under the impression everyone, from closest kin to random netizens, needed to see your offspring's first successful shit.  You wouldn't walk down 5th Avenue decked out in a sandwich-board sign bearing your progeny's cherubic image (your word of the day, readers).  Remember the clichéd joke about the relative who brings over two boxes of slides and proceeds to subject the entire family to a 2-hour show nobody asked for?  That's you.

Everybody meet Zaiden Saber Wilcox!

Baby Zaiden, doing his thang . . . being adorable!

Aw, love seeing my special lil' guy so happy!!!

Flashback to six months ago!  Can't believe how much baby Zaiden's grown!

Hey, did I mention I love my child?  Because I do.  Don't all of you?

We get it, thank you.  Now please stop bludgeoning us over the heads with concentrated essence of cuteness.  I will give you a pass for the first 47 weeks or however you parents measure time, what with the novelty of the child and all.  But after that, please limit it to a few photos per month.  I don't feel I should even have to explain why people who do this same thing with their pets are operating on a whole new level of sad.

Beyond the mere irritation factor, though, some commentators are starting to point out a darker side of this trend as well.  Your child has no privacy, from birth onward, no chance to offer permission or consent before they are assimilated, Borg-style.  We love to warn our Twilight-addled tweens about the dangers of posting personal information online as we upload their younger sibling's baby pictures by the terabyte.  Their life is an open e-book for any stranger to download on a tablet reader; they don't even need to check that box that says I have read and agree to the terms and conditions of this service, which is always a lie anyway.  As they grow up alongside the increasingly-SkyNet-like web of technology, these kids will believe it normal to never have a genuine private life, because they never knew a world where that was thing you could have.

"No Facebook?  Right, Mom, and I bet the bogeyman
and Vanilla Ice are real, too.  I'm not a noob anymore."

Their sense of identity and self-worth will be measured by their friend-count and digital portrait, which gives them the freedom to construct a badass image in black leather and Ray-Bans, like the heroes in The Matrix, but also locks their fragile, impressionable minds into, well, the Matrix.  Do you really want your child to grow up to be Keanu Reeves?

This has also led to strange, unforeseen side effects outside of the technological realm, because people cannot separate areas of their lives anymore.  Reality is meaningless, so people start letting the behaviors learned online leak into their actual lives.  I am talking about this bullshit:

When I first saw this, I went all vigilante on the driver and performed a citizen's arrest, right after the less-exercised citizen's high-speed, massive-collateral-damage vehicle chase, on the assumption he was a psychopath proudly proclaiming his kill-count.  Once we straightened that minor misunderstanding out, I was even more confused.

This is, for the record, fucking weird.  And I cannot believe I am the only one who seems to think so.  Why are you advertising the size of your family?  Or the contents of your automobile?  Am I supposed to feel jealous?  Intimidated?  This may come as an ugly shock to you, but I really do not give a damn about your family.  I don't know you.  I have even seen rear windows that feature the name of each family member above their stick-person counterpart.  At this point, you are basically making a checklist for creepy stalkers and serial killers such as the one I thwarted.  Five years ago, I don't think anyone would have dreamed of doing this, but technology has brainwashed us into thinking we need to share this kind of information with the world.

It gets even sadder when single people or childless couples decide they have to follow this moronic vogue and start doing the Facebook "furry kids" thing:

Wow, you have two cats and two dogs?  Bet that fills the void for you.

These are not children, in any sense.  Stop pretending.  It's not the same goddamned thing.  In a way, I suppose it's slightly better because you are only violating the privacy of your animal companions, as opposed to future human beings.  And they lick their genitals in public, so clearly they aren't shy (the pets, not your kids . . . hopefully you break them of that habit before they start preschool).

And now, as God did to Moses in the desert of the Sinai, I'm going to leave you hanging.  Don't worry, I will return with Part II soon.

KP, out.