The Douche is gaining momentum...

Quick hitter here...I just rediscovered a stupid commercial. Not a new commercial, just stupid. While I instantly remembered this commercial, it became clear that I never watched it all the way through before. This commercial was for Sylvania Silverlight car headlights.

In it, a smug-looking man in a stupid tweed jacket keeps saying "now you see me, now you don't" in varying shades of light. If you're not following the gist here, Silverlight headlights are better, shine farther, and will probably cook you breakfast.

That's nothing new. A typical commercial angle. I even like the little hitch of the guy walking back and forth into the different headlights. I'm looking at you, visual learners. But here's where the commercial just takes a spinning nosedive into stupid.

The guy, smug as ever, says something like "better use Silverlights, because next time you see me... I might not be alone." At this point, the camera pans out and there's a 12 year old boy standing in front of the guy. I might add that the guy has his hands on the boy's shoulder in a very creepy, very "mommy I think I want to go home" fashion.

How fucking cheap. You were doing so well, Sylvania. Then you had to go and pick one of the 3 or 4 most cliched sensitivities to prey on? Oh, save our children! Give me a break. This is a worse cheap shot than all those goddamn truck companies wrestling for the title of "America's truck," the granddaddy of them all being John "No I won't just die already" Mellencamp and his "This is Our Country" abomination. It's worse than Catherine Zeta-Jones pitching T-Mobile.

Okay, so preying on sensitivities is deplorable, but did they make the commercial just hoping that people would never take more than 3 seconds to think about it? (Ed. Note: clearly it worked for a while on me, because as I mentioned, this is not a new commercial) Is the message that it's okay to run over adults, but not kids?

While I'll agree that it would be fun for all of us to see Sergeant Smug get run down by an old war vet with shitty headlights, is that something we're to extrapolate and apply to all adults? Don't worry about that lady you just decapitated in the crosswalk, she was over 18.

This commercial pisses me off, and I will now drive my car, headlights off, right into a group of small children playing hopscotch. I hope you're happy, Sylvania.

I could kick a wolf's ass.

In a lot of bad movies, there will be a scene in which the protagonist is lost in the woods. (Editor's note: it is Wintertime. There are no exceptions.) During this frenzied search for their car, their log cabin, town, or something similar, they will come across a wolf. This sends the character into a full-fledged hysteria.

Stop the tape. This is stupid! Now, a pack of wolves, I get. You're surrounded, they have sharp things, they have a lot of practice laying the smack-down on unsuspecting forest-dwellers...that's a scary situation. A bear, forget about it. Those things weigh a ton and have paws the size of my thigh. You're toast. Any of the big cats (Lions, Tigers, Cheetahs, Mountain Lions, Panthers, Jaguars, etc) will rip your throat out and use it for wiffle ball. Don't fuck around with these bad boys. But a wolf?!?! A wolf is a yellow lab with a bad attitude. Stop it.

In the movie, the character will freeze (as in stop moving...has nothing to do with the inevitable winter.) They will slowly backtrack as the wolf makes a menacing face and probably slobbers everywhere. Then they will run. This is stupid. Wolves are fast as shit and now you're invoking their predatory response.

According to the highest pillar of academia, Wikipedia, wolves generally range from 44 to 150 pounds. That's nearly a range of 100, so for our purposes we'll call it 95. So I'm face to face with this 95 pound wolf. I'm closing in on 190. I like my odds. First of all, if I can grab a tree branch or something (there will always be one available in the movie...real life could possibly be different), I could poke and jab this surly beast and maintain a safe distance.

In the event there's no stick, I'm still cool. I'd probably charge the motherfucker to let him know that his snarling drool totally isn't working on me. At this point, I would probably entertain the thought that the wolf was rabid, before continuing on unfazed. Taking special notice to protect my throat, stomach, and man-tools, I am now heading in for the Shawn Michaels' Sweet Chin Music face-kick.

Any wolf with half a brain is now running for the hills, knowing that I could eat its bitch-ass with some hot sauce and ask for seconds. But if it was particularly brazen, I'd have to finish it off. Riding an adrenaline rush, I'd keep kicking the savage bastard like Jackie Chan, while eyeing the opportunity for the pin. Once I pounce on the wolf, it's game over. I deflect its desperate attempts to bite/claw at me, and either snap its neck, or crack its skull with my fists of fury. It's game over. I stand over my victim briefly, possibly engaging in some sort of moral dilemma, and then move on.

It's a failsafe plan. Please. Don't be afraid of a wolf. That's just what Hollywood wants from you. Commie bastards.


Who could be afwaid of a wittle face wike that? Awwwww.

Reflection on election defections

Today, I have partaken in a time honored democratic tradition, known locally as "voting." As enlightening as it is to stand on the doorstep of a monumental election, staring proudly into the future with misty eyes and an open heart, I've got to say, one thing just rattled my cage.

The new ballots suck!

When I was a young lad, my mom took me with her to vote. I frolicked joyfully up the hill to our voting center, into the gym, and gazed upon a marvelous sight. A mystical booth, shrouded in the secrecy of what looked like someone's grandmother's tablecloth. What miraculous things could take place behind this glorious veil of democratic anonymity? I went into the booth with her, she closed the curtain, and I laid my eyes upon something to this extent:



This incredible contraption is a whimsical cross between being a mad scientist, a fighter pilot, and the guy who generates power to the electric chair. The bevy of buttons! The symphony of switches! And to top it all off, a huge, authoritative lever that cleared your ballot and took shit from nobody. No wonder people got so excited for election day!

Somewhere in the neighborhood of a decade later, I, Ryan Prescott, took my first journey to the polling place. My heart raced with anticipation as I entered the gym, dreaming of levers and buttons, buttons and levers. What would modern technology add to this enchanting booth? Would I be able to pick up a Duck Hunt gun and shoot my choice? Would I get to play with a touch screen? Surely there would be something there to read my fingerprint or scan my retina.



That's it. I'm handed a ballot, and I'm directed to this. The cold, hard, stiff piece of paper laughing at me as I die inside. No magical box. No buttons and levers. Just paper, marker, and desk. A Democratic Scantron. Where do I enter my PeopleSoft number?

Please also note that the picture of the voting desk is from a site called "election-equipment.com." First of all, silly site. Second of all, election equipment? Really? A desk with a C-shaped piece of posterboard on it? Replace the section directly in front of the voter with glass, and that picture could have come from "Prison-visitation-equipment.com." I come to the gym thinking Night at the Arcade, and I leave thinking CAPT Test. And while I will admit the machine that sucked up my ballot was a little fun, it was still even less amusing than a paper shredder.

We can't let them take the fun out of voting. Not on my watch. Bring back the unnecessary elaborate voting mechanisms, for god's sake. We're a society with a short attention span. Let's try to make voting less like a trip to the DMV.

Oh yeah, and I voted for Obama. Over and out, kiddies!

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."