Michael Bay Must Die!

Transformers: The Movie...enough said.

I was actually starting to get over my severe hatred for Michael Bay's salacious attempt at creating a live-action version of my beloved 80's cartoon. Then I stumbled upon an article in "The Onion" bashing his talent and mocking him creating a CGI Oscar for himself. Here is the link, it is hilarious:

http://www.theonion.com/content/news/cgi_team_creates_realistic_oscar

But back to my main rant...I hate Michael bay. His career started innocently enough with cult blockbusters like "The Rock", "Bad Boys", and "Armageddon", but somewhere along the line of success Michael's insanity grew. He was granted bigger budgets. Michael pumped out "Pearl Harbor", "The Island", and "Bad Boys II". Somehow, explosions and bullets began to replace important aspects of the movie like "plot" and "character development".

The ultimate heinous act came when it was announced he was set to direct "Transformers". I knew my fate was sealed. I went, I saw, I vomited. Michael Bay systematically raped my childhood in a short 144 minutes. For those of you who took enjoyment in this tepid piece of cow shit, I pity you. I invite you over to my place where I will break out a couple seasons of the animated series and help rehabilitate you to the true mythos of the Transformers.

Then we can plot the assassination of Michael Bay over popcorn and sour patch kids.

Attack of the Killer Coffee

I'm at work. No one else is. All three of my bosses are out on vacation so it's a little quiet in the cubby. I get a little sleepy. I need help. Hmm...coffee might help. I venture into the break room to hunt down coffee. I find the filter. I find the ground coffee beans. I find the coffee machine.

And then I realize I have no fucking clue how to run it. Damn.

I hunt for directions. There aren't any. Damn damn. Alright, well I am a college-educated person, how hard can it be to make coffee? It's just coffee beans and hot water, right? So I fill in what I think looks like 4 cups of water into the coffee pot. I place the filter in the filter holder. I scoop in what I think looks like 4 cups worth of ground coffee. Now I look for the spot where I should be pouring the pot full of water into to begin the brewing process.

Correction, I STUPIDLY look for the spot where I should be pouring the pot full of water.

You'd think this would be a pretty clear part of the machine. I search for the "moron directions", usually a short phrase stamped into the plastic that states "Pour Water Here" so us college graduates can make coffee for our bosses and prove to ourselves the $100,000 spent over the past God-knows how many years was worth it. No such luck for me. Damn damn damn!

So I pick an empty hole in the machine and pour the water in. I hit the "Brew" button and the machine starts to rumble. I watch patiently, trying to determine if I have made coffee or if the machine is going to self-destruct due to water damage. A brown liquid trickles into the pot.

I've made coffee!

And then I notice...there's less coffee than what I thought was going to come out. No matter, I probably couldn't drink 4 cups anyway. I pour my first cup and dig in. Hmm...very bold. And a texture I've never really tasted before. Kinda tastes like...a mouthful of freshly ground coffee beans! I've made some form of "Omega Coffee". It tasted good though. Unfortunately, I was pretty much wired from 11am-6pm straight through. Then I crashed hard and took a 2 hour power nap. I guess I needed to recoup after all those hours of jittering. I'll just chalk it up to a learning experience.

Hmm...still really quiet around here. Getting a little sleepy. Think I'll make some coffee...

The D.C. Grass Toupe

So I'm walking home from work one day and I take notice of this really stupid stretch of sidewalk I am ambulating on. There's nothing wrong with the concrete. For the most part, the ground around the sidewalk is dirt or spotty patches of light grass EXCEPT for the 14 inches of pristine, thick sod lining the walkway. I'm hoping the picture I took with my cell phone clearly illustrates this bonehead idea.

Honestly, who are we fooling? It looks like a really bad toupe for grass with body issues. I just want to bring a comb and try to brush the grass over a little to better hide the dirt "bald spot". That way the grass can feel better about itself. I know if I had a toupe that had coverage like this, I wouldn't feel too good. I'm just trying to help the environment after all. If we're going to kill the planet, at least let it look nice as we do it!

I would love to meet the person who thought it would be a good move. Now I've been to many cities in this country and have yet to see something as silly as the "grass toupe", so I am chalking this up to yet another jackass D.C. thing. I've got this mental imagery of a bunch of politicians discussing how they only have enough money to sod a small portion of the open space in D.C....and then some wise public official has the brainchild that rather than sod a small portion of the park space, they could just sod all the park space with a little bit of grass! WOW!

If you are a botanist or any other kind of "ist" that likes to work with trees or grass and this is some kind of cutting edge technology, please let me know and I will kindly retract my rant. But, living in D.C. for nearly a year now it's easy to see that chances are this wasn't the smartest thing people could have done.

Well that does it for my latest "D.C. is Lame Because..." post. Until the next time I find something retarded in this city (which shouldn't be too long), farewell!

I couldn't have said it better...

Writer Michael Scherer's take on the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner. He nailed D.C. residents to the proverbial "T". Please take a moment to read how lame the people of this city are:

"The Coolest D.C. Party is Still Lame"

Open-Mouth Chewers

Some people fear that when they go to Hell (and I probably will), they will face a world of fire and brimstone. A place where demons will poke and prod at your flesh as you writhe in pain as Satan himself laughs at your misfortune.

I could only hope for such a fate, for I know mine will be much worse.

I fully expect my own personal hell to be populated by open-mouth chewers constantly enjoying a juicy meal right next to me for all eternity.

Where do these people come from? Who taught them how to eat? I once knew this girl...let's call her "Jenn L.". She was pleasant enough (in very small doses), but she really showed her white trash roots at lunch time. I can't describe to you the complete lack of attention she paid to her eating habits. I think I can only relate her chowing down on a sandwich to the T-Rex in "Jurassic Park" eating the lawyer: Just a whole lot of wide bites, lip smacking, and bits of food in her teeth.

I mean, by pure disgust at hearing herself chew you would think she would have self-corrected. Typically when a person performs an action wherein others stare at them in utter disbelief and disgust, that person tends to halt whatever it was they were doing. But no! No matter how incredulously I stare at her as she ruminates like a cow out to pasture, no matter how many blatant hints I drop, no matter how many times I dry heave in disgust, she does not get the hint. To her, this is all normal.

My solution: Death Squads. Just eradicate these people off the face of the Earth.

Brutal? Yes. Necessary? Absolutely.

Once we have rid the world of open-mouth chewers, it will be time to move onto the "Public Nose-Pickers". We'll save that for another blog...

Fuckin' D.C. (Had to put it in for good measure!)

A Cliche Revisement

I'm sure we've all heard the cliche, "It's like riding a bicycle". This phrase generally refers to an action that can be easily recalled with little difficulty or effort.

I am formally filing my protest with this terminology.

I bought a bike today. It's part of my "Let's get healthy and save some cash on Metro costs at the same time" movement I am in now. Back in the 'Good Ol' Days', I rode a bike everywhere for miles on miles. I was quite spry and nimble on it too. Quite the bikerider. In my head I heard that fateful cliche ringing outloud..."It's like riding a bicycle"... Hearkening back to my youth, I felt I would be able to leap onto the bike and take off down the road as if 10 years had gone by in an instant.

I was wrong.

I rode for a block and nearly killed myself. Another block, another near-death experience. Luckily by this point in time I had made it to my apartment and could end the awkwardness that was my first attempt at riding a bike again. Therefore, I am formally protesting the use of the cliche "It's like riding a bike" on a strong argument that it's FUCKING HARD!

Concurrently I am putting aside my macho bullshit ego and ordering a bike helmet. But it's gonna be blood red with flames or something cool like that!

DC was designed by a retarded 2 year-old...

So I heard before that Dan Brown is writing a book about how Washington, DC was designed by George Washington and his Mason buddies to have secret meanings. This is bullshit. After driving through this city over the weekend I am thoroughly convinced that DC was designed by some mentally challenged child. When you look at a map of the city, it seems as if this child barfed his spaghetti dinner onto the floor and then traced it out.

Don't get me wrong, I'm from Jersey (the only state in America who knows how to successfully navigate a circle) so fucked up streets are second nature to me. (Side note: It's a "circle", not a fucking "rotary"!) I spent exactly 10 minutes on the road before I exclaimed, "Oh, what the fuck?", which may be a new record for me. I have never seen a city with more traffic due to stupid city planning in my entire life. I live 2.5 miles from my school campus and it took me 30 minutes. 30 minutes! I could have dragged a dead mule to school faster than it took me to drive there!

If it's not the circles (or morons who don't know how to drive in one) then it's the messed up time-based directional roads. I've never seen this before. Rather than do something smart like fix the roads here, the government found a better way to screw up your commute by making roads uni- or bi-directional. But only on certain days or times. And they don't really make this information very readily available. So if you're new and you happen to find a way out of this jumblefuck of a city to get to your job or another important site chances are you can't ever take that route ever again because of these stupid driving rules.

Some days, roads change from 3 lanes to 4 lanes, which always makes for an interesting surprise as on-coming traffic begins to careen into your lane. Then the locals honk and stare at you as if you're insane for thinking the double yellow line next to you actually meant something. Another surprise the city likes to throw at you is random parking. Once again, after the mongoloid who thought this city up sat back and admired his work he realized he needed parking. But being too stupid and lazy just decided to make entire portions of a driving lane into temporary parking spots. You'll be cruising along minding your own business and all of a sudden the traffic ahead of you begins veering wildly to the left and before you know it you've nearly rear-ended a parked car. Then about 30 feet later it turns back into a traffic lane. Then 30 feet later it turns into parking. Then traffic lane. Then parking. Traffic. Parking. I guess it's good for keeping you on your toes...I guess.

I love DC.

I think I'm cool cuz I clip my employee ID to my belt

I people watch. It's what I do. And I have been noticing downtown that a lot of businesspeople like to wear their employee badges clipped to their belt or belt loop. I have also noticed that if you work for the same company and DO NOT clip your badge to your belt, you are somehow not "as cool" as the ones who do.

Not being from this area and never really seeing this occur before it would seem this is mostly a "DC Thing" to do. And when I say it's a "DC Thing" to do, what I really mean is an "inadequate snobby elitist inferiority complex" thing to do.

This "Belt Loop Fad" is one of my most recent peeves. Especially since it's got to be high on the list of "Ways to Lose and/or Get Your Shit Stolen". Then next thing you know somehow a laptop full of social security numbers is missing because some reject who wanted to look cool for the office chicks had his badge lifted.

This follows closely with the "I judge you when you don't keep your Smartrip Card in a wallet with a clear exterior window pouch" attitude I find many Metro users to have. I know they think I'm a schmuck because I physically remove my Smartrip card from my wallet before I get to the kiosk. Of course, these are the same assholes who hold the line up as they slap their wallet haphazardly across the reader because their clear exterior pouch blocks the signal. I usually whiz past them and smirk. I may be a schmuck, but I'm getting on the train!

Fuckin' DC...

Pink Tissues

Ahh! My inaugural post and I picked a good one.

I've been sick this week. I'm not talking about a runny-nose-for-a-few-days sick, I'm talking about full blown fever, aches/pains, sore throat, hot/cold flashes, coughing up interesting colors, "Please God just let me die" kinda sick.

So I've been on the hunt for those little travel packets of tissues. You know, the ones in the little clear green plastic wrap and you can reseal and are awesome for the on-the-go sick ass? Apparently everyone's had a run on them and I've been forced to use napkins from various eating establishments. Needless to say, my nose has been torn up nicely and I was begging to find regular tissues. I found some at my internship. I was excited...until I realized one critical fact.

The tissues were pink.

Don't get me wrong. I am not a homophobe. I have several gay friends (well, 2) and wouldn't trade the world for them. I'm just part of that early childhood conditioning program where you were taught to not talk about your emotions or cry if you had a 6 inch gash down your leg or to like anything girly like "pink" or "flowers". So here I am: a chapped, runny nose plaguing my existence and my only salvation are pink tissues.

I'll cut right to the chase. I used the pink tissues. Loved them in fact. I just found it odd (and amusing) that I seriously had a conversation with myself about the consequences of using pink tissues as a manly man. I'd have to say that maybe I am one step closer to breaking down that early childhood conditioning. Maybe I'll go pick some flowers next. But they'll have to be manly, bug eatin' Venus Flytrap sorta flowers. Yeah!