Tag: Entertainment

Goodbye 2018

new-years

It’s the end of December, and 2018 is rapidly fading away.  Time moves on, and another year is gone.  Here are just a few WD observations from 2018, a year that will soon be relegated to the dusty pages of history.

Kim Jong-un, the Grand Exalted Imperial Poobah of North Korea, promised he’d get rid of his nuclear arsenal.  Sounds legit!  After all, this is the guy who claims he invented the hamburger, is the best golfer in history and never goes to the toilet.

Rosanne Barr has a big mouth.  Who knew?

The word of the year was “toxic.”  It replaced sexist, racist, homophobic and hater as the go-to word that means: I don’t like it, and you’re to blame.  Thus, “toxic masculinity” became the complete and total explanation for everything that’s wrong with the world.

Bill Cosby went to jail.  (One down; one Weinstein to go.)

Ben Affleck decided to hide out in Detox until his #metoo moment blew over.  God!  That guy is an even bigger hypocrite than I thought.

There were so many resignations and “You’re fired-s” flying around the White House that they installed a revolving door.

The biggest news grabber of the year was the British Royal family.  Prince Harry got married.  So did Princess Eugenie.  The Duchess of Cambridge had a baby.  So did her Royal wanna-be sister, Pippa.  And Prince Charles turned 70.  But when the newly-minted Duchess of Sussex actually closed her own car door, Social Media truly lost its mind.

The scariest news of 2018 is the Age of Merkel is over, and the even scarier news is the Age of Macron might just be getting started.

Speaking of which, the latest fashion out of France is yellow vests.

There was good news, too!  More ordinary people killed virtual people playing the video game Fortnite than all the world’s soldiers combined did on the battlefield.  Who says humanity isn’t making progress?

Canada legalized marijuana, but most Canadians didn’t notice.  They were too busy eating Skip the Dishes chicken wings and watching Sausage Party on Netflix.

Apparently, Bitcoin (Bitcoins?) lost most of their value – again.  (Those things jump around more than a toddler in a Bouncy Castle.)  However, nobody really noticed, so it’s pretty safe to say they probably weren’t actually worth anything in the first place and – oh, yeah! — Mr. Barnum was right.

Mark Zuckerberg got into trouble when it was discovered that Cambridge Analytica had harvested the personal information of over 50 million Facebook users.  This is bad … but … think about it!  Since the vast majority of Facebook is Clickbait, cat videos and sappy homilies, Cambridge Analytica didn’t really get very much, did they?

At the movies, people were still fascinated by superheroes with Black Panther, The Avengers, The Incredibles, Deadpool and Crazy Rich Asians pulling in hundreds of millions at the box office.

In more entertainment news, Scarlett Johansson decided not to play transgender Dante “Tex” Gill in a movie because of a massive Social Media campaign that pointed out she is not transgender.  This might very well be a watershed moment for Hollywood.  Perhaps, in the future, only aliens will appear in Star Wars movies, only the undead in zombie movies, and since Transformers don’t actually exist, this could be the end of that jackass franchise.  We’ll just have to wait and see.

But the biggest news story of 2018 was:

When Stephen Hawking died in March, it actually lowered the average IQ of the entire planet.  And, honestly, folks, I don’t think we have that many points to give away.

 

We Need New Rules

new rulesWe need some new rules.  Let’s face it, folks: we live in childish times.  Our opinions are no longer thoughtful and measured but instant and shrill.  Our discussions are loud and unruly: our voices are pouty.  We whine and complain, and we’re constantly throwing temper tantrums when we don’t get what we want.  (Take a peek at Hamburg this week.)  In short, we’ve become a bunch of bratty children.  So, it’s time we set up a few boundaries.  Here are some suggestions: feel free to add to the list.

Like fishing, hunting and driving a car, people must have a license before they’re allowed to use Social Media.  They must pass a test that proves they’re actually smarter than a four-year-old before they can have a Facebook, Twitter or Instagram account.

If you’re having a serious political discussion, you cannot refer to President Trump as a “jerk,” an “idiot,” a “moron” or a “dumbass.”  It’s been six months of wall-to-wall name calling.  We get it.  Give it a rest!

Grown men must not wear short pants if they are more than 5 metres away from a beach, a playground, a picnic spot or their own backyard.  (Guys, what don’t you understand about “grown man?”)

Baseball caps must be worn the right way round.  Look, ya moron! Wearing them backwards actually defeats the whole purpose of the hat.

Old men on loud motorcycles must seek professional help for their penis anxiety.

A baby stroller is not a weapon.  Therefore, it cannot be larger, wider, taller or heavier than the mom pushing it.  And dads, the mall is not Charlotte Motor Speedway — and neither is the grocery store.  Slow down!  Your kids are getting wind-burnt.

You can no longer claim to be “spiritual” just because you have a foreign language tattoo.  (The only thing you can claim is you have bad taste and too much disposable income.)

“Like,” “Awesome,” “You know” “Totally” and “Amazing” are banned from polite conversation.

The phrase “plus size” is also banned.  It’s just a sneaky way of reminding ordinary women they’re not supermodels.

The words “for” and “about” are no longer interchangeable.  “I’m embarrassed for it” and “I’m embarrassed about it” are completely different.  The first one isn’t even English.

Vegans must wait at least 5 minutes before announcing their status to strangers.  This rule does not apply to vegetarians (who normally don’t get all pissy about their culinary habits, anyway.)

If you’ve been in 3 or more movies, you’re no longer allowed to talk about poverty.  You’re riding around in a limousine, for God’s sake!  What can you possibly tell anybody about being poor?  (This goes double if you play a musical instrument for money.)

Professional athletes can no longer be paid more than the GDP of Malta.  They’re kicking a ball, not curing cancer. Let’s get some perspective.

From here on, celebrities have to be famous for a reason.  (And a photo-shopped picture of your ass on Instagram doesn’t count!)

And finally

Actors, actresses, singers and musicians who visit poor countries — for whatever reason — are no longer allowed to bring orphan kids home as souvenirs.

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?