News Of The Future

newsNostradamus made a career out of predicting the future, so how hard can it be?  All you really have to do is take a look at the crap that’s going on today and multiply it by the stupidity factor.  Let me demonstrate:

News from the not-so-distant future (cue the news desk with the sensible blonde and the older guy looking serious.)

Our top story.  A cute cat video is going viral on the Internet.  It’s reported that today’s cat is 50% cuter than yesterday’s cat and totally cuter than that stupid puppy who was trying to go down the stairs.  Puppy people have sworn to strike back with a series of beagles in funny hats and a dancing bulldog.

A topless protest by PETA supporters has targeted the National Football League by simultaneously staging demonstrations in Chicago, Philadelphia, Miami, Baltimore, Denver, Detroit, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Atlanta, Jacksonville, St Louis and Charlotte, North Carolina.  A number of fully clothed, has-been celebrity spokespeople maintain that boobs raise awareness of the NFL’s systemic and ongoing  insensitivity and offensive Species Appropriation.  “We’re speaking for the eagles and dolphins who cannot speak for themselves,” said one slightly familiar celeb, “And we know exactly what these voiceless creatures want to say.”

In a slightly related story, lawyers from a shadowy group of Somalis are suing the city of Pittsburgh for copyright and trademark infringement. Documents filed in District Court state that piracy is a long and noble tradition in Somalia (which existed long before Pittsburgh had a Major League Baseball franchise.)  The suit also names the owners and management of the Pittsburgh Pirates as profiting from the illegal use of the name.  No one was available for comment because most people in Pennsylvania were saying WTF and the Somalis were “on the high seas.”

In other news, the Kardashian sisters woke up this morning and went to the toilet.  No video is available but fans all over the world are tweeting, “OMG, they’re just like us! #peeperfect.”

The National Weather Service is issuing yet another Temperature Awareness Warning.  Today’s temperature will not be a perfect 22 degrees (72 Fahrenheit.)  It will start out cooler in the morning and rise to 25 (77 Fahrenheit) in the afternoon.  We recommend viewers wear a sweater or light jacket in the morning and take it off when they begin to feel warm in the afternoon.  This ongoing weather pattern is caused by a seasonal condition called “Late Summer.”

And finally, in international news, University of Chicago researchers have discovered that nearly everybody in the world hates us.  They think we’re a bunch of under-educated, over-privileged dicks, so bloated on mindless entertainment it’s no wonder our society is crumbling.  In a totally unrelated story, illegal immigration to the Industrial West is skyrocketing.

We live in a funny old world — don’t we?

Vive La Différence!

oscar wildeI like women.  This isn’t just heterosexual brag: I actually like the company of women.  I was blessed with the coolest thing in the world — sisters — which, as everybody knows, are moms without the mean streak.  So, I grew up with women.  I understand that the battle for gender equality is more than just who puts the toilet seat where.  However, I also know that women are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable traits that make them totally different from men.  Folks, try as we might to commit gendercide on our society, the two sexes are different. Until we recognize that, there can be no equality.  To that end, here are some inconvenient truths.  (But always remember that stereotyping people is a dangerous practice– especially when it works.)

Male sexuality is a dart game.  A man throws his darts.  They penetrate the board.  He adds up the score, mentally compares it to that of every other man on the planet and spends the rest of his life lying about it.
Female sexuality is a Rubik’s Cube.  There are an infinite number of combinations, but only one or two actually solve the puzzle to anybody’s satisfaction.  Playing with a Rubik’s Cube is both fascinating and frustrating — and addictive.  And, BTW,  just because you own the Cube doesn’t mean you know the correct combination.

Women see an elegant woman dining alone and think there must be a sad story there somewhere.  Men, on the other hand, think, “What the hell! It’s worth a shot.”
Men see a handsome man dining alone and think “Gay.”  Women, on the other hand, think. “Gay, but what the hell! It’s worth a shot.”

Women think weight loss is the first sign of a better life.
Men think weight loss the first sign of a terminal illness.

When women call each other “bitch,” ” skank,” or “whore,” they are angry.
When men call each other “ass wipe,” “crotch rot” or “numb nuts;” these are terms of endearment.

For men, women wearing Victoria’s Secret lingerie is sexy.
For women, an Armani suit is lingerie.

Men believe that PMS  doesn’t actually exist and women are just naturally bitchy in varying degrees.
Women believe that PMS is a monthly pain in the ass that, when properly manipulated, becomes a super-convenient emotional “Get Out Of Jail Free” card.

And finally:

Men think they have no idea what women want.
Meanwhile, women believe they know precisely what men need.
Both of them are wrong.

When The Mind Wanders!

ideasSome mornings, before the caffeine kicks in, my mind tends to wander.  Here are a few thoughts.  I’ve dressed them up a bit for public consumption and there is a connection here — somewhere — I think.

The F-bomb is not a bomb anymore.  In fact, it’s not even a firecracker.  Once a powerful part of speech, it was used sparingly for shock and emphasis.  Unfortunately, these days it’s so common it’s become nothing more than punctuation.  Suburban moms use it at the spa; the suit and tie boys attempt to play badass with it and high school students wear it on their t-shirts.  However, if you still insist on using it as an adjective, for God’s sake don’t pronounce the “g” — you sound like a middle class moron.  We have different and more powerful naughty words now, and if you want a gasp from the crowd, drop one of those babies into a casual conversation (but be prepared for the Social Media storm — and unemployment.)

Social Media is beyond relentless.  Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and all the rest are like a Pantheon of Greek Gods: ever watching us, picking favourites, interfering, directing our lives, soothing and punishing at their whim.  And we, mere mortals — we — are Sisyphus endlessly toiling to satisfy their will.  It’s like waking up every morning and a couple of thousand people climb out of bed with you, put their shoulders to a boulder and before you know it, there’s this massive cocktail party going on as we all struggle up the hill.

Ferris Bueller’s Day Off is not a very good movie.  Everybody thinks it is because the first time we saw it we were young and awkward and full of hormones.  Bueller is that confident teen we all wanted to become.  Watch it as an adult and you realize Bueller is actually the asshole kid that always got away with murder.  He’s the one who conned the teacher into extra time on the project that you just pulled an all-nighter for.  The guy who got the girl he didn’t deserve — notably Mia Sara.  And he probably grew up to be a ratbag lawyer (no offence ratbags.)  Incidentally, Matthew Broderick was 24 when he played Bueller and his buddy Cameron, Alan Ruck, was 30.

It’s totally unbelievable how old men always get the hot chicks in the movies.  Check out Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment.  Connery is probably one of the sexiest men who ever walked the planet, but by the time Zeta-Jones came calling, he was nearly 70 and she was barely 29.  Sex is a powerful motivator but there isn’t enough Viagra in the world to make that hookup palatable.

Huffington Post is going to conquer the world.  They’re re-running Randolph Hearst’s winning combination of bad news, snake oil, self-help and boobs and it’s working beyond their wildest expectations.  Not since Hugh Hefner dressed nudity up in a sports jacket and cool-J jazz has a media outlet made such an effective use of soft-core smut.  Try typing NSFW into Huffington Search and you’ll get over 150,000 items in less than a second.  And that doesn’t include all the salacious photos of Paulina Gretzky, Jennifer Lopez, one or more Kardashians, or any other available female.  Then to balance it out, Huffington features a phalanx of bloggers decrying sexism as if nobody ever heard of it before.

One more cup of coffee while I check out Facebook real quick.