Underappreciated Things

I realize that for the most part, this blog features entries ripping on people or systems deserving of criticism. It's probably getting a bit depressing and making some lose faith in existence, however, so I've decided to put a spin on things. I'm going to passively rip on things by mentioning praise for people who don't engage in activities detrimental to those amongst them; people who warrant mention because they stand apart from the pack! It's a cheap trick and won't work on anyone with an IQ higher than Forrest Gump's, and I apologize to that minute portion of the populace that stands above this point.

First and foremost, I'd like to extend my most sincere gratitude to people decent enough to make sure that the toilet area they just used is clean to a point where the next frantically rushing pooper doesn't vomit on the seat. Seriously, you rise above the pack with your willingness to apply a small expanse of the toilet paper situated conveniently nearby to the seat. As if that weren't enough, you make sure to push the little black button above the stall, because that goshdarn motion sensor never works! If you are truly this decent, your ticket to heaven is punched and people on this earth should kiss your feet and offer to become your disciples. Disciples are fun because they never question you, no matter what. So after you're done being awesome, you can feel free to join the ranks of the corrupt and ambitious who order others to fetch them things or raise their miniscule egos.

As awe-inspiring as toilet-wipers truly are, they are matched feat-for-feat by People Who Don't Make Personal Pictures Their Desktop Backgrounds. It's wonderful to walk over to an associate's desk and see that weirdly perfect green meadow with the blue sky backdrop (Or a picture of Demarcus Ware). It is far from it when said associate is sporting a picture of he and his girlfriend garbed with nothing but sand on the Mexican shore. You want to turn your eyes away, but the spectacle captivates your consciousness in a way nothing but Pizza ever should. You then get strange looks from a puzzled associate (Dude, up HERE. That is NOT cool!) and choose to simply saunter out without a word, seeing as any criticism will result in an angry retort consisting of some and occasionally all of the following in some variable order:
It's my space!
Why were you checking out my girlfriend out in the first place?
Sand is healthy for your skin!
Well, at least I don't display something stupid and impersonal like Mickey Rourke beating the crap out of an entire SWAT team!
Are you intrigued by what I bring to the table?
None of these are valid retorts. If the offending party disses Marv from Sin City, deliver a punch to make him proud. If he states the last of these, leave the premises and inform the dude who never explained why he wears a pink shirt every day.
People who keep things comfortable (Is there an opposite of awkward?) are to be praised for not making a situation that is detrimental for everyone beside pink-shirted man. And by the way, that black and white picture of the Labrador is awesome. That was my background for several years. For reference's sake, I believe It's labeled 'Friend'. How fitting. If you take it, you will progress to this label. That's right, shed that 'associate' label. Nobody likes being an associate except for the 20 year olds who haven't finished work on their their bachelors' degrees!

Join us next time on remotely veiled criticisms, where we undermine The Bus Occupant Watching American Pie on his DVD Player Without Headphones , the Overly Excited Instructor Who Teaches Early Classes, and Hillary Clinton!

Ridiculous proverbs, entry one

What you don't know can't hurt you.
Oh?
Little irks me more than this asinine perception we have that the world is our plaything; the only reality that exists is present within the impenetrable bubble that surrounds our lives. It makes me think of the common children's' ploy when wanting to disappear; they their hands over their eyes, believing that if they can't see you, they cannot be seen.
Life is an incredibly complex thing. Not enough people seem to realize this, but orbit is not created around individuals. We are merely single cogs in an incomparably enormous machine, not the warehouse in which the machine is kept. Some of us may rise to the level of Supervisor, those who ensure that the cogs operate as they desire. Every cog has a certain degree of influence on its contemporaries, and as it grows in size or power it grows in influence.
What the hell? I'm ranting about man's importance on the general order of society now?
Basically, people in general are obliviates. I don't attribute it to general stupidity; I don't believe that humans in abstract were created devoid of intellect. It does stem, however, from people desperately wanting to feel a certain way about their surroundings. People don't like to acknowledge that danger exists, they enjoy living with a false sense of security. Why? Because the alternative, in most minds, is paranoia. Constant fear of anything and everything; an inability to take anything at face value. Making a husband's late arrival at home into a crazy sex-and-drugs filled foray to downtown Detroit, turning no newspaper in the morning into a hysterical 911 call about the inferentially dead delivery boy. But that's not the way it is.
The majority of us were created very rational. We've been programmed to think in one extremity or another; Jack Bauer assumes the worst about situations because It's a necessity in his line of work. bykrgothboi3918 simply doesn't care, because he doesn't find life worth living. So he turns a blind face to reality and pretends that if he shuts his eyes, clamps his hands over his ears and loudly repeats hamenaHamenaHAMENA, nothing bad could possibly happen. All this whilst he's living in a roach-infested apartment, spending his parents' pity checks on dope, and listing 'Semi-Pro air-guitarist currently employed by punk group Crashn Emotienz' on his Myspace 'Work' tab.
This 'get real' rant was brought to you by everyone who's genuinely sick of delusions.

The unexplainable nature of the sports fan

I am devastated today. It's tough to spin the emotion and tough to admit to it, as it stems from such an insignificant source. But I have a confession to make that will come as no shock to many of my close associates.
I am a manic sports fan.
Like many of my kind, I obsess. I'm perpetually contemplating different scenarios, analyzing vulnerabilities and strengths, killing myself over retrospective hypotheticals. It's irrational, It's ridiculous, It's unhealthy, but It's the way many people are.
Last night, I had one fervent desire on my mind; to blot out any memory of that afternoon's events. I watched a movie, (Juno: 7/10. Greatly overhyped) three episodes of Arrested Development (Why do good comedies get taken off the air while My name is Earl and King of Queens receive rave reviews and ridiculously good ratings?) and haphazard minutes of Terminator on Fox whilst credits rolled on the respective film I was viewing at the time (Cheesy, cheesy, OH MY GOD IT'S A FREAKING MOUSETRAP).
But as I watched Ellen Page trying too hard to play a punk, Michael Cera being awkward, and Summer Glau talking more than she ever did in Firefly (Another good show... damn you, networks) all I could see was Patrick Crayton dropping passes aimed squarely at his chest, Jacques Reeves facemasking a wide receiver who was diving out of bounds, and Leonard Davis jumping on top of Michael Strahan after the play ended.
Right now, all that's flashing through my head as I count down the minutes to my first class of the semester is a bogus offsides call o Demarcus Ware, Tery Glenn and Terrell Owens playing with Jell-O ankles, and Tony Romo throwing the ball away for an intentional grounding penalty with no pressure on him whatsoever.
Why do we do it? We subvject ourselves to this torture and nev er question the establishment, never question our reasons for allowing these people to break our hearts time after time. Is it wishful thinking? The fantasy aspect; living the game of football vicariously through the eyes of one's favorite team?
I can't figure it out. All i know is that when pitchers and catchers report in a month, I'll be at the forefront of the admittedly tiny Rangers bandwagon, waving my comically large foam finger and cheering on a hopefully average team. When the Mavericks make the playoffs, I'll get behind them one more time, because I'm just that gullible.
And when the Cowboys go on their next great journey, I will jump right back on that Texas-sized U-haul wagon and assure the masses that this time, America's team is destined to vanquish all comers.
If a man can't dream about stuff that will never happen, what the hell can he do?

Society's Leeches

I don't go downtown much. I'm a homely suburbian guy who doesn't like to get his nose dirty and is frightened off by buildings taller than Shawn Bradley and streets dirtier than his own lavatory. But yesterday, a job interview necessitated that I visit the large Public Library in Downtown Dallas.
The first thing that jumped out at me was the sheer lack of houses. I didn't see a single privately-owned residence during my drive through that sector of the city, despite my desperate attempts to find something comforting I could cling to. I realize that there's a complete lack of space, but you'd think that some big-shot would want to build a nice place within twenty minutes' commute of his office building.
There's a lot of futility going on. One of the more humorous things I've seen lately comes to mind; one guy was bundled up to the point where the only unobscured portion of his body were his eyes. He was sitting on a kind of go-kart with two large brushes on the front, going back and forth across the street andd essentially vaccuming. A couple of questions jump to mind. Firstly,
Who the hell deemed this machine worthy of months of design and production meetings? Is there any way that this is a constructive use of someone's time and his employer's expenses?
Second... the man is basically wearing horse blinders. I didn't see him turn his head the entire time, esumably due to the fact that he was wearing a neck brace in a desperate attempt to get anything between his flesh and the raging wind. How is a dude who can only look straight ahead supposed to clean the streets or keep from colliding into a large sewer rat? And how is this vacuum possibly more effective than a bunch of those kids and senior citizens who adopt highways?
One thing got to me more than anything else. That thing? Homeless people.
Let me start by saying that I'm not trying to rip on people who have caught an innumerable quantity of bad breaks in their lifespan. Some guys have been preordained for crappy fortune since before they were born, and that's God's business. I do have a problem, however, with those people surviving on their colleagues' vomit and an occasional hamburger, living for nothing but inebriated debates with each other and the occasional fistfight. There's more to life than taking a midday nap in a public toilet stall and mumbling incoherently to children about mentions of the apocalypse in Job. The bible's a fine pastime, as long as you make it that. Don't come out of it remembering nothing but Old English recitations about things you don't understand.
Refer to the aforementioned street sweeper. Even the most incredibly useless tasks imaginable have a wage attached to them. Most of them require less previous education than the average public high school. Gary from Under the Bridge, however, has chosen to revel in his own waste and other people's orange peels rather than hypothetically contribute something to someone at some point. That's what bothers me. The utter complacency that it takes to be completely and utterly passive about adding to someone's life.
The fact is, a lot of what we do is futile. Decisions are made by a few powerful people who gained our approval on a ballot and those who paid them to win us over. But there's a great deal of difference between giving up on every action of your day- and knowing that what you do may not inspire millions to change the world, but trying anyway.
Or for that matter, just serving up a burger and a non-shifty-eyed smile to Executive Bob and his three lard-filled family members.

Obstinance

Hi. I'm Or. And I'm a television junky.
I love viewing grown men bash into each other in pursuit of a ball. I'm also infatuated by any series encompassing twenty five hours of guns, grim complexions, bikinis, and Whataburger ads. And I stand up and applaud every time Rupert Murdoch (Who owns Fox, for those of you who haven't managed to hear him flaunt it) reiterates to us that Homer Simpson is overweight.
Tie in that preface and the title to this post, and our valued troops would have to be buried in a foxhole somewhere in Vietnam for an extended period of time not to figure out what this will concern.
But I'll cut you some slack, you deprived men and very occasionally women running short of supplies and scampering amok within a forest of Agent Orange and snakes. This will concern the Writer's Strike.
Quick recap.
Upon the release of that which we call DVDs, TV networks and movie production companies approached writers with a plea. They wanted to lower the cut that the writers would receive from every sale, in order to increase the chances that this new form of media would succeed. The writers agreed to this under an unspoken assumption that this was a temporary change, and that if the market were solidified their share of the pie would once again rise in proportion. This has not been the case, however. Typically, the writers will earn approximately a nickel and a penny for their parts in the production of a $20 dvd.
Another issue is the introduction of new media; namely, internet programming. The past several years have seen a massive growth in the number of shows playing their episodes on the network site shortly after the airdate. The writers receive an absolute, unspinnable, unbelievable ZERO percent of the profits from this increasingly significant source of income.
To summarize, the writers are getting the half-digested crusts of the DVD sale pie, while failing to even sniff the scent of freshly baked apple delight emanating from 'New Media'.
The writers, obviously decided that something had to be done. For the last several months, all members of the Writers' Guild of America have refused to provide scripts for the people who provide their Cheese Balls and Red Bull. A lot of them have been laid off after not showing up for prolonged periods of time.
The last time a strike like this occured was 1988. Writing was locked down for 22 weeks, and it cost the industry 500 million dollars.
If this strike continues for a period of time remotely reminiscent to that one, we would be staring a far larger loss in the seamy and unpleasant underbelly.
Why is this discussion worthy of time that could be spent watching the Green Bay Packers and their incredibly irritating fans humiliated on national television? Because it has gone on too damn long.
Let's be reasonable, people. The Writers want to be reimbursed like everyone concedes they should be. Everyone besides the networks. The networks just want to come out of the fall and winter without losing billions. The movie producers are sighing in relief about the next Superman mess laying in a state of perpetual stasis. But let's disregard them.
There's no logical reason that this thing should have extended as far as it has. Networks, you're being petty. Writers, it would help your case to write a lot of this stuff in advance. Don't present it to your producers; in fact, keep the stuff under lock and key. Spoilers suck. But letting the CEOs know that upon reaching a settlement the return of programming could be expedited might allow you to gain negotiating headway. Movie producers, you... just keep busy assuring that nothing gets by involving the aforementioned Caped Crusader, nor the words 'American' and "pie' used in conjunction without 'Apple' in the middle.
Get this done, people. For everyone's benefit.
And now I will do my part to thank you for reading my empassioned , humor-deprived, lecture-esque piece. Presenting the genius of jibjab.com.

Our education system is afflicted, its creators retarded.

Merry friday, readers. I come to you today disturbed, frightened, and generally pissed off about the state of high school and collegiate instruction in this great land.
There are some things for which we must make a stand. We will never accept futbol (entirety of globe), for example. Or crepes (France), or attitudes genuinely compassionate about the unintelligent and barely sentient, yet murderously and depravedly elitist as far as humanity is concerned (Germany).
However, the European system is so far superior in terms of educating people that a comparison is futile. I've created a thorough scorecard for anyone who really feels like taking the trouble of looking into it.
Concentration of what people want to do with a healthy smattering of WHATEVER THEY TRULY WANT TO TAKE AS AN ELECTIVE: 1

A ridiculous assortment of anything and everything directly or indirectly unrelated to the student's career path and/or interests: 0

I have to wonder if there's some sot of hidden agenda here. What good will this senseless diversity possibly do for us? Does anyone honestly believe I will gain any benefit from taking an 'Introduction to Biology II' class during five months of my life, then doing my best to forget it ever happened?
I have found the reason for this puzzling incongruity, ladies and gentlemen. Margaret Spelling, our secretary of education, is hooked on quiz shows!
It all fits. You see, it all comes down to this. When we match up against da Jermans, or the Pacific Rimmers, or even the Dutch, can we stand a chance against them when the situation compels us to answer random questions on obscure subjects? By god, we must! Allow me to transcript a meeting between the honorable Mrs. Spelling and Rational Human Being
RHB: Hi, Margaret. The education system sucks. Nobody in this country can stand being subjected to wasted years and money.
MS: Mr. Being, your arguements are compelling and will be duly noted. However, after the obligatory three-second hiatus of deliberation, I've decided not to change a thing.
RHB: Why the hell not?
MS: Rational, you neglect to view this with a perspective on the big picture. This is a matter of great importance to our nation. It is a matter of pride, a matter of superiority, a matter of half-million dollar commercials!
RHB: Oh my god, you're a german Jew!

OK, seriously. Perhaps some things in this world are more important than Regis and his hypothetical million dollars. If I want diversity, I know what I'm looking for and I'll sign up for it. Don't force me to take two classes in each field when I will retain absolutely zero from the time I spend in that classroom other than a perpetual state of suspended animation. That's dozing.
It's time to adapt. Everyone makes mistakes. Moses hit the rock instead of speaking nicely to it. Ben Franklin didn't use a guinea pig to discover electricity. Jack Bauer trusted that crazy traitor chick who was in the first four seasons. Moses didn't see Israel, Benny felt tingly and had his wig stand up on end, and Mr. Bauer ended up with a dead wife and a great deal of inner turmoil. But then again, that fueled him to save the world several times over during the following years.
Anyway... Mrs. Spelling, quiz shows suck. I'm sorry to break the news to you, but they're all terrible. Look for video clips of Scrubs on Youtube and you will instantly be unhooked from Mr. Trabek.
And for god's sake, admit that the Euros actually won at something. Let's learn from our mistakes. And place boots in their posteriors where it matters. Like imperialistic world domination.

The Promiscuous and Indignant

There's something that's bothered me for the full extent of my consciousness. It's not fat people who wallow in self-pity about their inability to change, although that would definitely be on the radar. I'm talking about those obvious gems of moral conviction and personal legitimacy who choose to dress like Body Saleswomen (I'll leave that up to interpretation) everywhere, with everyone, all the time.
I'm certain that everyone, everywhere all the time has run into this kind of girl. Her garments are always revealing to the point where you wonder if they qualify more accurately as outer garb or as conveniently placed scraps of cloth. She's disguised her face with more oils and paints than the average clown. Her hair is probably dyed several different shades of blonde.
So, you tell me. What message is our lady friend trying to send?
"Hi, I'm here to teach you about the dangers of being a licentious woman in a world where men who will take advantage of that are a dime a dozen!"
or....
"@%^& me now, Dude."
If that's your thing, so be it. You can preach life-changing philosophy advice to youngsters or act like a sexual addict, and more power to you. But this is what bothers me: The nerd nearby ogling aforementioned girl isn't quite enough of a stud. So Skinny, Bespetacled, and Curly gets this...
"Hey, pervert. What are you looking at?"
"My face is up here, jackass."
"What do you think I am, some sex object?"
"Never seen a woman up close, huh? Let's keep it that way."
Enough of the hypocrisy. I'm fine with you expressing yourself in whatever way satisfies your inner tramp. But don't act like a douchebag when someone who doesn't measure up to your standards acts in exactly the expected manner.
Just as advice, though... unless you're finding it fiscally profitable, keep the scant regalia to yourself and whoever you choose to associate with. Frankly, It's a chore communicating with someone who knows what they want, but acts offended when it occurs.

Hi.

I'm Or. I'm an 18 year old student at a Dallas-area community college aspiring to someday major in Broadcast Journalism. I like puppy dogs, long walks on the beach, and pie. I won't say no to a glass of Cranberry Apple. If you've got a problem with the fact that I didn't use false bravado to insinuate that I enjoy indulging in Alcoholic beverages, go away. But be sure to buy whatever Google's Ads tell you to first.
I like sports. To a truly unhealthy extent. I'm also a great believer in short sentences punctuated by emphatic periods. No semicolons. No exclamation marks. Cold, emotionless, perfect periods.
I enjoy music. In this I am truly unique. I forgot to mention, I am better at music than you are. I'd add that to my profile, but seeing as nobody likes glorious, expressive, ear-candy I'll keep it to those devoted enough to read the posts and keep the irrelevant info out.
I'm not emo. I'm not retarded. And I'm good enough a communicator that I don't feel it necessary for every fifth word on a rigid cycle to be an expletive. Here's your daily quota: Damn. You're on the internet, for god's sake. If you're desperate for profanity you don't have far to look.
So, anyway... have a nice life.