Tattoos are stupid.

I have longed for the downfall of society.

I have pined for rainbow parties.

I have ripped off The Onion so badly I'm waiting to hear from their lawyers.

But somehow I get the feeling that this is going to piss more people off.

Tattoos, my dear readers, are stupid. There. I said it. I like to think of myself as an astute observer of the human race, and as such, I have made some observations regarding people getting tattoos. They are quite fascinating.

1. The real reason people get tattoos is because they just want a damn tattoo. 99% of tattoo back stories are A. bullshit, or B. totally half-assed. The guy who came up with "my dog ate my homework" put more thought into his story than most tattoo recipients.

Who hasn't seen this scenario played out a million times...

Person with strange triangular pattern on his arm: Yeah, I got this because it's the Norse symbol of strength, and after my hamster Eggbert died I just felt like I wanted him to always be a part of me.

Right. That guy just wanted a tattoo of a funky triangular pattern. But he sounds like a jackass if he comes right out with it. I, keen detector of bullshit, see through this subterfuge. I would probably have more respect for people if they just came right out with it. "I just wanted this butterfly on my pelvis. That's it." Okay, you're a straight shooter. It's still stupid, but at least you didn't feed me some inane nonsense about it being for the children in Darfur.

2. Sometimes, when a person has made up their mind to get a tattoo but just can't figure out what to get, they'll get a phrase in a different language. Why is this supposed to be cool? I don't care if you've got "A tout le monde" tattooed across your buttcheek or "yo quiero taco bell" on your ribcage, this is not clever. Especially when the reasoning behind it is something to the extent of "I'm 1/16th Chinese... that's why it's written in Mandarin." If you really want to be clever, get your next stupid phrase in Wingdings. Now that's breakthrough.

3. I've even seen phrases in English. Now, what's the reasoning behind this? Unless you're Guy Pearce in Memento, why write a phrase on yourself? Of course, they're all stoic, with a touch of noble. Courage. Honesty. Independence. Why can't you just internalize that? It's like these people are wearing political yard signs. "Jim Martin. Integrity." Oh, so that's what you stand for! Can people not internally motivate themselves anymore? They need a reminder written on themselves? "Well, I was going to wilt under the pressure, break down and cry today, but then I noticed that my left breast reads 'Endurance.' Guess I better stick it out."

Bottom line: People think their tattoo is special. Everyone with a symbol, a foreign phrase, a pattern, a fairy, a heart, et cetera, believes they got their tattoo for the right reason, and everyone else gets tattoos for the mind-numbing reasons I've described above. Hey, who am I to kill a good rationalization?

Footnote/Caveat: It is acceptable to get a tattoo to commemorate a lost loved one. That is, if you really got the tattoo to commemorate said lost loved one. If you got an eagle because it's rad, and then randomly assigned your great aunt whom you never met to said tattoo, that does not apply. You still fail.

How come all of the troubling, eye-opening tales of unbridled teen sex that Oprah talks about never happened to me?

When I close my eyes to ponder, I ponder many things. I ponder about social inequality in this country. I ponder why the grass is green, the sky blue. I ponder why the word "ponder" fails to rhyme with the word "wonder." But of all my pondrances, there is one practically perpetual pondrance that plagues my pondrance-packed pallette.

When the hell did rainbow parties happen?

For those of you who aren't quite hip, rainbow parties are parties in which a bunch of girls wearing different colored lipstick take turns blowing some dude, after which his man-cannon resembles patterned refracted light.

Concerned news anchors and talk show hosts across the country ran specials on these parties, expressing sadness and concern. Meanwhile, I sat in my room, expressing sadness and concern. Some people just have all the luck. I never got invited to any gosh darned rainbow parties! What, was my invitation lost in the mail?

In fact, no one I ever spoke with actually knew about one of these parties happening. I'm starting to believe it was just an amusing concept...an early UrbanDictionary type term, that was taken seriously by an uptight mother or something, and made its way to the forefront. Yeah. That's my rationalization.

But as I sit in my thinking chair (the toilet, obviously) and ponder, I can't help think about that rainbow party that got away. Maybe it was out there. Maybe...

What a pile of bovine excrement!

I'm no stranger to ranting about political correctness. What a stupid, brain-numbing, world-pussifying waste of time. Of course, for the most part, our beloved first amendment reigns supreme, but oh boy, will you ever open a can of worms if you go so far as to refer to somebody as "fat" or "black."

Why is it that the politically correct form of a term is always about 200% longer?

Fat->Overweight
Black->African-American
Gay->Homosexual
Straight->Heterosexual
Retarded->Developmentally Disabled

What's the point in wasting all those extra syllables on PC terms when everyone knows what I mean when I use the shorter one? I only have so many breaths in this life, I don't want to waste them spewing out the likes of "Italian-American."

The problem is stigma. Wrap your head around this: back in the day, "retarded" wasn't an insult. It's just what they called retarded people. An accepted, legitimate word. At some point, it became stigmatized, and then it became totally insulting. Boo-fucking-hoo. The word itself is no different than back when it was socially accepted. The meaning should be no different. Besides, the people for whom the word was coined aren't going to know the difference. It's only stuck-up, uptight white people from California who get offended with this bullshit.

Also, say you're looking for a friend of a friend, who happens to be black, in a big crowd...one that you've never met. Ask what they look like and watch your friend dance around the fact like hell. "Oh, he's about 6 feet tall, pretty built, umm... dark eyes?" Do people think it's insulting to say that someone is black? I sure as hell am not insulted to be referred to as "white." In fact, if someone called me "Caucasian," I might just beat them in the face.

The PC term is African-American, but it's bullshit. That's not what it means. It means black. You'll see Hatians and dozens of other ethnicities lumped into that category in error, while white South Africans are not. Because it doesn't mean African-American. I feel like less than .5% of the population cares about this stupid term discrepancy, and the rest of us have to deal with its mind-numbing idiocy on a daily basis.

I guess I'm pretty much running out of steam in regards to my hatred for this obnoxious convention, but I hope I've touched you all. Don't waste your syllables. Say what you mean.

UNA to Shut Down Illegal Subterranean Torture Center

This afternoon, the United Nations of the Afterlife have successfully lobbied to discontinue a series of appalling torture chambers in a subterranean fortress known only as Hell. According to sources, these chambers have been the scene of hundreds of blatant violations of the Geneva Convention. Violations include, but are not limited to; prodding prisoners with hot fire-pokers, beatings with whips and chains, and the forcible insertion of foreign items into victims' rectums.

"We are thrilled to have finally stopped the perpetrators of these horrendous crimes," said floating apparition Henry Wilcox, UNA Spokesman. "It's 2008, for pete's sake. Who would have ever believed such ruthless and vicious illegal behavior could occur right under our noses on such a large scale? We believe that every disembodied spectre has certain inalienable rights, and we have made huge strides towards our goal today."

The ghouls responsible for the violations have been taken into UNA custody and are preparing for deposition. The leader of the criminal ring, a ten foot tall red monster with irises aflame and a biforcated tail, declined comment. Investigators have learned that its name is Satan; however, it goes by the aliases The Dark Lord, The Fallen Angel, Lucifer, The Devil, and Steve.

Despite a mountain of evidence against Satan and his minions, undead legal analysts working the case are not so sure the UNA will be able to successfully prosecute. Says Wilcox, "Evidently, His Most Unholy has thousands of lawyers at his disposal, and has put together a frightening defense team led by Johnny Cochran. If that son of a bitch kept O.J. off the hook, Lord knows he can do it again."

I want to hunt a pig

Society has a lot of benefits. Government, the interstate highway system, the aqueducts, and so on and so forth. But don't you ever just wish that maybe, just maybe, society will crumble from the inside and we'll be forced to live in a postapocalyptic world, like Will Smith in I Am Legend minus the dark seekers and plus more people? I know I sure do.

I think that living in society dulls down our natural evolutionary traits. Did you know that I am genetically adapted to be able to hunt down a vicious, snarling warthog and roast it on a spittle? YEAH! What a thrill! What's so exciting about going to the grocery store and selecting the finest crop of chicken gizzards from the bunch! Hogswallop, I say.

Haven't you ever wanted to fashion a blade out of limestone? Maybe take on a mammoth in an effort to feed your whole tribe?

It doesn't hurt that back then, the chicks were like totally all about mating. Hey baby, it's for the good of our species. Bow chicka bow wow. Those were the days. Society has watered down our evolutionary instincts and this is my call for anarchy. Burn this mother down! To hell with institutions! SIC SEMPER TYRANNIS!!!