Category: Social Media

A Realist’s Guide To “Old Sayings”

quotesThere are three kinds of people in the world: realists, cynics and idiots — and it’s very easy to tell them apart.  Realists see a glass half full of water and, if they’re thirsty, drink it.  Cynics see a glass half full of water and race for Social Media to tell the world Donald Trump peed in it.  And idiots don’t even see the water.  All they see is an opportunity to create some metaphorical homily that’s supposed to enlighten the rest of us who haven’t noticed life’s intrinsic meaning.  Crap like, “It’s always darkest before the dawn” (a physical impossibility) or “Strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet.”  (Tell that to Mary Ann Nichols who met Jack the Ripper for the first time in 1888.)  Here are some other examples of this dumbass bumper sticker philosophy:

There’s Honour Among Thieves — No, thieves are not honourable.  They’re THIEVES!  They steal things; that’s their job.  And when they run out of regular people to steal from, they steal from each other.  (Hasn’t anybody seen The Sting?)

Money Isn’t Everything — Yeah, but it’s sure as hell ahead of whatever’s in second place.

The Meek Shall Inherit The Earth — Maybe, but I’m willing to bet there’s going to be at least one 300 lb. biker, swinging a metal pipe, who wants to contest the will.

All’s Well That Ends Well — This one’s actually true.

Misery Loves Company — Gimme a break!  The last thing I want to see when I’m feeling crappy is somebody who has it worse off than I do.  That defeats the whole purpose of being depressed.

Laughter Is The Best Medicine — If I even touch this one, I’m going to get emails.

Love Conquers All — I’ve only got one word to say about this:  Romeo and Juliet.

Live And Learn/Older And Wiser — Not even close.  We all know somebody who’s made a career out of figuring out stupider ways to make the same mistakes.

Opposites Attract — This makes a mockery of all those birds of a feather who are flocking together.

Never Look A Gift Horse In The Mouth — This one doesn’t even make sense.  What the hell is a “gift horse?”  And, BTW, when was the last time you actually saw a real horse –“gift” or otherwise?  We’re not Trojans, for God’s sake!

And finally, my favourite:

The Early Bird Gets The Worm — What about the early worm?

 

Anger

Wesminster

When does horror become sadness?  When does sadness become anger?  I don’t know; I wish I did.  ‘Cause I’m sitting here, half a world away, wondering why “atrocity” is such a lame word for the latest terrorist attack in London.  The truth is I’m no longer interested in the aftermath of evil or the words that try to describe it.  I don’t care who those murdering bastards were.  I don’t want to know their names or anything else about their twisted little lives.  I don’t care where they were born, and I certainly don’t give a damn about how, when or why they became murdering bastards.  I have developed a malignant indifference to their very existence because, for the life of me, I can’t think of a single place where our humanities touch.  People who believe they have a righteous obligation to kill helpless, harmless men, women and children for the sin of living in an enlightened, fairly permissive, largely benevolent society, are beyond any words I can find to portray them.  And I don’t care what the pundits, the politicians or the various apologists say: terrorists are just pumped-up, pimped-out bullies, and I do not feel any emotion for them except anger — and cold-blooded defiance.

Foods That Lie

foodThe holier-than-thou among us — and Internet nerds — like to point out that our food is woefully contaminated by all manner of terrible crap.  Yeah, so what?  We all know that Grape-Nuts cereal doesn’t actually have any grapes in it — or nuts either, for that matter.  (It’s made of wheat and barley.)  And any European will tell you that American cheese might very well be American, but it certainly isn’t cheese.  In fact, it’s so far from cheese that the manufacturers — yes, manufacturers — have to call it a ‘cheese product.”  And that’s the thing.  These days, various government regulations make certain we’re aware of what we’ve about to put in our mouths, so if you don’t want to eat tridisodiumonotoneglycirodium phosphate or whatever? Simple solution:  don’t.  However, there’s still a lot of food out there casually strolling through legal loopholes to masquerade (“scam” is such a hard word) as something it’s not.
(BTW, this isn’t about GMOs.  That’s a whole different kettle of faux fish.)

Orange Juice — “100% pure orange juice” is orange juice.  However, in order for your breakfast beverage to survive the month or so it takes to get to you, the OJ people actually remove the oxygen from it.  This prevents the orange part of the juice from turning green and the juicy part of the orange from getting slimy.  Unfortunately, removing the oxygen also removes the smell and the taste.  Both of these are artificially reintroduced during processing.  This isn’t a nefarious plot to con you out of your orange juice.  Use your head!  It’s just a very long journey from the tree to your table.  If you want pure orange juice, buy oranges and squeeze them yourself.

Tuna — If you’ve been to a sushi restaurant lately and ordered tuna maki, tuna roll or tuna anything else, chances are good you didn’t actually get tuna.  You probably got escolar, a cheap and plentiful fish that’s been “substituted” for tuna (and not just in sushi restaurants) ever since overfishing devastated the wild tuna stocks.  The truth is the only way you can be sure you’re getting real tuna is pay the big money or buy it in a can.
And while we’re on the subject…

Wasabi — The hot green condiment that’s a staple of Japanese cuisine — except mostly it isn’t.  Real wasabi is prohibitively expensive (it only grows in a few places in Japan) so most sushi restaurants use a combination of horseradish, mustard and food colouring.  They call it wasabi because people like me don’t know the difference.

Olive Oil — You get what you pay for.  Real olive oil is mega-expensive. Anything else is a combination of other oils (soy, mostly) that have had olives carefully described to them.

Honey — Not all honey is created equal.  Some honey is created by bees in a hive.  However, other honey is created by folks in a factory who take a small amount of honey (enough to justify the name) and add fructose, sucrose, glucose and any other -ose they happen to have kickin’ around.  Technically, this is still honey, but in actual fact, it’s syrup.  The way to tell the difference?  The busy bee sugar is pure honey and will start to crystallize the minute you open the jar. The other stuff is too lazy to bother.

Blueberries — The only similarity between consumer blueberries (found in cereals, muffins, cakes etc.) and real round blueberries is both of them are blue.

Coffee — Most consumer brands of coffee have a small percentage of foreign bits and bobs hidden away in the grind.  Basically, this is just part of the harvesting, roasting, grinding process.  No big deal — it’s still coffee.  However, some of the cheaper brands actually add things like grain, soy beans and corn to the mix — just enough so they don’t have to claim them as ingredients on the label.  Coffee?  Kinda, but if you’re devoted to real coffee, buy the beans.

What it comes down to is pure food is all about the money.  Either ya pony up the big bucks for the good stuff, or ya shut up and eat your tridisodiumonotoneglycirodium phosphate.

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Technical Difficulties

I seemed to have hit the wrong button and now WordPress won’t let me like, reply or even acknowledge comments.  We’re working on the problem.  I hope we can fix it very soon but until then I want everybody to know I’m not ignoring you.  Cheers WD