Christmas doth Approach

Christmas beckons, and I'll be heading the couple of hundred miles to my parents' in two days. There are lots of good things about this, such as free food, free booze, and a chance to catch up with old friends and family members I don't get to see very often. You know what, Christmas doesn't suck. I'd even go so far as to say that it fucking rocks. Here's a quick run-down of how Christmas usually pans out for me.


December 21-23rd

I travel to my parents house. This is the boring bit. When I arrive, we chat and I get drunk with my dad.

Christmas Eve (December 24th)

This is probably familiar to a lot of people in their twenties or thirties whose parents still live in the neighborhood they grew up in. This is when I re-connect with my old school friends (after I've gotten drunk with my dad again during the afternoon). We'll go to the same bars and pubs we did when we were young, get absolutely shit-faced and myself and a particular friend (actually, he's still my best bro) will insufflate some cocaine or munch down some MDMA to get the Christmas cheer extra cheerful. Also, neither of us ever bothered to grow up.
  Last year, I asked an old friend if she wanted to fuck me even though she had just told me she had gotten engaged. She still invited me to the wedding.
  Then, one by one, we'll make our various ways back to wherever we're having Christmas (normally at our respective parents' houses - we're mostly unmarried and childless), although the previously mentioned bro friend and I will often find somewhere else to go and party until the small hours.

OK, that's not really us

While enjoyable, this activity is a confusing one. In the case of most of the people I'll be partying with this Christmas, this will be the only time I've seen them since last Christmas, and I won't see them again until next Christmas. The only reason, it seems, that we're still in contact is so that we all have a reason to get out of our parents' houses on Christmas Eve and get drunk.

Christmas Day (December 25th - duh! -)

My sister only comes over once every two years at best. She was supposed to be coming this year but her and her boyfriend have just bought a house together and are spending it there. I don't have a girlfriend who I've been with long enough to warrant inviting over, so it will just be me, my parents and my Grandma. I did drunkenly invite my ex and her sister over this year (with very transparent intentions, no doubt), but her sister decided against it. I'm forever indebted to her.

We only give six-sided gifts in my family

 I'll normally rise at about 10 or 11 o'clock, and it's round about now that my mother drives to pick up my grandma. It's also about this time that my dad and I will start drinking. My mum, being a sensible and sober woman capable of forethought, will have organized most of the food already for consumption later. When my grandmother arrives, we exchange gifts, give her booze, and shortly afterwards head to the dining table. Food is accompanied by copious amounts of booze, and followed by copious amounts of booze. My Grandma will normally try to say grace, which my mum will normally join in with, while my dad refills his and my drinks. Conversation tends to be jovial and with plenty of swearing, but it can get a little strange, for example when my Grandma suddenly uttered the proclamation: "Homosexuality is an abomination in front of the Lord". It's a liberal household, and this did not go down well.

  Dinner is normally followed by more booze (actually, the flow of alcohol is constant and functions on an "if you wanna drink it, go grab it and give me some" basis), and we'll retire to the living room to play with our presents. This is less exciting since my sister and I grew up. When we're all there, we'll play a board game or, saving that, 'Grandma Buckaroo', a game my sister and I made up some years ago. By five o'clock my Grandma will be drunk and asleep on the couch, and the game involves stacking up as much Christmas detritus on her as possible before she wakes up. It's no fun when my sister isn't there, and we're both in our thirties now so should probably think of retiring this particular tradition.

  At some point in the evening, my mother (the only person vaguely sober by this point) will drive my Grandma home. Sometimes the rest of us will join her for the ride. In the past when I've been in serious relationships, this is the time my girlfriend and I stay behind to have drunken Christmas sex.

Dad, why were you trying to take your sock off?

  My parents will start to wind down. By eleven, my dad is usually passed out drunk on a couch, so this is when I go to the aforementioned friend's place to drink and take drugs. Eventually I make it back and pass out myself.

December 26th 

Testify! No, really, we're going to have to.

Relatives. Mid-afternoon we pick up my Grandma and drive across the city to my uncle's place, filled with cousins, their husbands, their children, and an elderly Welsh lady. We exchange gifts and eat food, I try to comprehend the hyperglycemic ramblings of a six year old, we drink warm beer and and cold red wine, chat, and then, since I hit the big three-zero, I fall asleep on the couch. Then I get woken up to get driven back.   

December 27th

I intend to head back home, but am usually too hungover to do so. I sleep.

December 28th

I head back home and thank the stars that this only happens once a year, even if I do love it.

Fuck the Fakery

So there’s a strike on. Suddenly, the social networking sites are filled with people expressing their solidarity with copy-and-paste updates. Bullshit. These people (and I’m talking about people I know personally) are at best middle of the road conventionalists who are, most of the time, too scared of their own psychological vulnerability to open their eyes and see how the world really operates. They go through life thinking primarily of nobody but themselves – that’s always the main focus – and latch onto a zeitgeist of safe, family friendly, socially acceptable ‘resistance’ to bear their bleeding hearts to their peers in an effort to out-do one another in the same spirit of selfishness and competition which market capitalism and nation states breed. Are they actually going to do anything pro-active or practical about anything? No. It’s all a show. It’s theatre. It’s meaningless.

   

  I don’t really like talking politics that much because, most of the time, I don’t do anything pro-active so it’s nothing but egotistical posturing to shoot off about my beliefs. I don’t feel the need to advertise my views. That makes no difference. Unless I’m going to act, I’ll keep my mouth shut, keep my ego unstroked, and keep feeling shit about myself like everyone who’s ever acted with any degree of apathy towards the horrific inequality and brutal impersonality of the world we’ve created should do. 

Sucky things ubiquitous on internet message boards, comment spaces, and forums.

1.       Trolls. In the past, trolls lived under bridges frightening goats. For some reason (and I can’t understand why) they tired of this and relocated, en masse, to the internet. It seems unlikely that they have parents in whose attics or basements they could carry out their activities, so I prefer to imagine them all living in a vast and dimly lit hangar somewhere, tapping away offensive and irrelevant remarks. The place smells of dirty socks and resonates to a million joyless cackles.  Row upon row, column upon column, at cheap plywood desks – a production line of sociopathic drivel and unrelated memes.  

2.       Spammers. The article commented upon may well be about the iridium content of meteorites, or the topic on the thread may well be concerned with late medieval Belgian lace manufacturers, but still, the links arrive directing you to a site selling folding garden furniture, promoting some band so appalling that you’d wish the W.H.O. hadn’t eradicated smallpox, or promoting time cube theory. Do these people get paid, or is this just an incredibly unrewarding hobby? If they are trying to drum up business, is there actually a return on these types of marketing tactics? Maybe they are all bots. Created by someone. Someone who lives in the hangar mentioned above?

3.       The functionally illiterate. Punctuation, standardised spelling, grammar, syntax... these things are apparently, in the minds of some, either fantastical, mythical concepts or unnecessary and pedantic conventions restricting self-expression. Sure, write however you feel comfortable. Just don’t expect anybody to understand what you’re trying to say unless you also submit the key to your impossible cipher.

4.       People who think they can write in a language which they plainly only have a passing knowledge of. I speak reasonable French, a bit of Spanish and a bit of Italian. I do not, however, visit Italian, French or Spanish language websites and try to engage in complex discussions in these languages. That would be silly. These people mean well, and it’s not their fault they don’t speak the language they’re trying to converse in, but they end up coming across as functionally illiterate as a result, when clearly, they are merely very, very, very over confident.

  

5.       Creationists. The most annoying of the lot. Using a computer, sitting in an air-conditioned room, they will quite happily argue that science is a non-productive endeavour and that the universe was created last Tuesday. Any mention of evolution will result in the following: 

A)     Accusations that evolution is being ‘rammed down their throat’. 

            B)      Claims (equally sanctimonious and erroneous) that evolution is ‘just a theory’ and that there is no real evidence for it, in spite of the fact that they don’t understand that it is referred to and accepted as a theory (rather than a hypothesis) precisely because there is a wealth of evidence to support it.
            C)Some nut pasting three dozen paragraphs of completely unrelated bible verses, usually ending with   a contradictory demand along the lines of: ‘Jesus loves all people! Accept his divine grace and compassion or be damned for all eternity!’.

Everybody sucks, according to this guy, who totally sucks

 From Best of Craiglist:

What is happening to people?

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Date�: 2011-05-08, 12:49AM EDT

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Let me preface by saying I've never posted anything on this section or any other section of Craigslist but I'm feeling very compelled to do so right now.

I just got back from a trip to Wegmans and am in awe at the current state/behaivor/mindset of "people". As I'm walking in, I go to grab a cart and notice three guys (late teens/early 20's) all standing together but on their cell phones texting and blocking the majortiy of carts. So I sidestep them and grab a cart from the sole lane they weren't blocking. I get my cart and proceed but I can't help but notice the people lined up to return bottles/cans. I'm not knocking them (I'm pro-recycle) but it looked like they literally crawled out of a dumpster and needed the deposit money to get through the night. I asked myself "why don't they just stop consuming this sugarwater and use the money for a necessity?" Then I realized Coke and Pepsi are a necessity for the majority of people in this country. I should also point out that each one was overweight (if not obese).

I get inside and start doing some shopping. The procuce section was the most "normal". I grabbed some apples, a few bananas, and some strawberries since it's that time of year. As I left the produce section, it started getting depressing. I see a kid poking his finger through a package of ground beef and laughing his cute little head off. I don't blame the kid (I did that once too when I was his age but my mother grabbed my hand and basically let me know if it ever happened again, I'd lose my hand). However, I DO blame his mother for not caring the least about her son destroying multiple packs of meat. She was actually entertained by his behaivor. So I grabbed some chicken breast and continued on. As I'm passing the "organic food" section, I hear two guys laughing hysterically so I walk back a few steps to see if George Carlin had risen from the dead doing one of his stand-up acts. Nope...wasn't him. The two guys were "tickling" each other. In laymans terms, they were a couple of gay guys. I'm not anti-gay, but it was just weird watching them be so flamoyant in public. Being "out" seems to be the "in" these days.

I get to the cereal isle and see a guy pushing around one of those carts that resembles a car for the kids to sit in. His gf/wife was about 10 feet away yelling out loudly which cereal he wanted. He had his back turned to her pushing the cart the opposite direction with the two kids screaming their heads off as he's looking at his cell phone. I stop at this point waiting for him to pass me but he's in the middle of the isle and knocks into my cart. One of the kids then throws a canned fruit. The guy stops looking at his phone and gives me this annoyed look as if it's my fault im in his lane. A fuse started to light up inside me. As he starts to move his cart back to the right side of the lane, I throw my shoulder into him and knock him off balance. He says "hey" but in a very non-threatening way, so I glace back and he looks away. His overweight gf didn't seem too pleased with me. I grabbed some Wegmans brand cereal with almonds (it's really good).

On to the next isle to get some pasta and sauce. I see a mom that resembles my math teacher in high school. Is it her? Can't be...nope, wasn't her but I instantly smile since I was very fond of my math teacher. She smiles back. Her daughter was next to her..I'd say she was 15 or 16. Lip peirced, glazed eyes, and of course TEXTING. The whole time, this girl is rolling her eyes and being dramatic. About what? Who knows. Most likely something to do with a text. I glance at her and she glances back at me really quickly and then looks back at her cell phone. For that split second when I was able to see her eyes, I felt a weight on my shoulders. This girl, along with the majority of people in the store, had severe mental issues.

What happened to these people? Is it the fluoridated tap water? The anti-depression medications? The fast food consumed on a daily basis? The chemicals in diet sodas and chewing gum? The constant need for people to feel "connected" by using a cell phone but really aren't connected to anything? Movies? Music? Reality televison? Lately, the majority of people I see look dead inside. Battered...beaten...tormented. SLAVES. I then ask myself, "What will these people do when civil unrest and social breakdowns occur in the not so distant future? It's going to be an ugly sight. Well, thank you for reading my thoughts (for anyone that made it to the end). Just the ramblings of a 30 year old male who's losing hope on "people".

• Location: Everywhere
• it's NOT ok to contact this poster with services or other commercial interests

PostingID: 2368807117

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• Copyright © 2011 craigslist, inc.

 Woah. This guy really sucks. How dare people USE THEIR PHONES in his presence? How dare a gay couple ACT LIKE A COUPLE in his presence? How dare people BE FAT in his presence? What an intolerable douche.

Blogs Suck (except the awesome ones)

  In all honesty, I have no interest in reading blogs about quilting (which seem to, quite inexplicably, make up 75% of the blogger universe - who gave these people computers?), families of strangers, or the trials of a young professional getting to grips with a new city. No doubt the authors of such blogs have no interest in reading my nonsense. Their blogs may suck, but they don't. This blog sucks, as do I for being so intolerant of these lovely fucktards' stupid lame blogs that suck but don't because sucking is in the eye of the beholder and my eyes suck.

Maybe?

  Blogs that do unarguably suck are blogs set up by companies to promote their businesses. Fuck them. Those pages deserve sustained denial of service attacks. And ebola.

  Here are some blogs and similar that don't suck at all and are, in fact, awesome:

Lists Galore


Listverse


TopTenz


Animal A Day


List Of The Day

7 Drugs and Why They Suck

'Just say NO!', they chanted in my formative years in the 80s. 'Fuck you' thought my seven-year-old mind, albeit in slightly less colorful language. Still, I didn't know where to get drugs. In fact, I would have had no idea what drugs were if I hadn't been bombarded with orders not to do them. Then the 90s came, and people had pretty much shut up about it. Suddenly, I was thirteen and, one afternoon in detention a voice whispered into my ear from behind while the teacher was out of the room.

'You wanna buy some weed?' it said.

'Um...' I said, not having the slightest idea what he meant. 'Do you mean pot?'

'Yeah, pot,' said the voice, tinged with exasperation already as if it was talking to its senile grandfather. I gave it some seconds of thought.

'Yes. Yes, I would like to buy some weed'.

That was pretty much that for most of the next seventeen years. Being an intelligent young man with a curious mind, I was keen to try all these other 'drugs' I began to learn about. They suck, and here's why.

1. Marijuana: Excellent stuff, provided you have no interest in talking to anyone about anything other than weed. It stinks the house out, which tends to upset most parents, and promotes a degree of lethargy that Rip Van Winkle would be proud of. If, for some reason, you come back from the store and realize that you've bought way too much food to fit into your house, smoke a few joints and I guarantee that you'll be devoid of everything but dried tortellini by the following morning. Excessive use tends to promote the idea that a job involving nothing more than picking stuff up and carrying it to a nearby location is a wise career choice. Name-tags are an added bonus as they encourage you to remember who you are. This has to be earned, though. There are an awful lot of people who will introduce themselves as 'Trainee' in social situations, and that tends to diminish your chances of getting laid.

After we finish this bag, then the next bag, we'll be almost out of weed!

2. Ecstacy/MDMA: Life is tough. People are not receptive to one another and most human interactions are devoid of any real emotional connection. The solution? Methylenedioxymethamphetamine. The euphoric energy rushes... the urge to dance... the feeling of connectedness with the people around you... the inability to remember the beginning of sentences you just... (wait what was I talking about?)... the grinding of teeth and loss of visual control so that reading something or looking at something become tasks requiring all of your attention (which is, by this point, nonexistent)... the inability to use your penis for anything it's designed for... the feeling, two days later, that you want to hang yourself because your serotonin levels are so skewed. Ah, bliss. 

Who needs food? I'm George Jetson!

3. Amphetamines/Methamphetamines (Speed/Crank/Crystal Meth): Short of cash? Want to stay up for five days for no reason? Buy some speed. The first 24 hours will be fun-filled, adrenaline fueled, motor mouthing. Then you get twitchy. The solution? More speed! After three days you'll feel like shit. Stop now unless sitting in front of mirror talking to yourself for the remaining two days, then having a mini-nervous breakdown really floats your boat. If you make it that far, then delusions, paranoia, depression and bleeding gums are your reward. What a trooper!

The hotel wasn't haunted. This was the tale-end of a week-long crank binge.

4. Cocaine: There are too many dicks in the world. Walk down the street and count all of the dicks. It's depressing, isn't it? Well, when in Rome, be the fucking Emperor (or something)! Flaunt your cash wad and shovel this stuff up your nose all evening and you are guaranteed to turn into the biggest dick of them all. You know why? 'Cause you're a fucking winner, and everybody needs to know it. Plus, they're all losers compared to you, especially your friends. Plus, did I mention that you get to flaunt your cash wad? Yeah. Awesome. Fuck you.

Possible side effects of Cocaine use

5. Heroin: So, it's come to this, has it? You hate yourself. Or everybody else hates you. Or you hate everything. Or you're really, really lazy. Or you've just arrived on earth from a distant planet and have no idea what heroin is. Or all of these things. Yay. Lets get  wasted on something that essentially prevents us from wanting to do anything or eat anything. Unless you get hooked, of course, at which point you need it specifically in order to do anything at all. Well, that's all fine and dandy, then. Seriously, the most boring days of my life have been thanks to this drug.

This is definitely a productive use of time

6. Ketamine: They use this to knock out horses. You are not a horse. That is all.

Is this you?

7. LSD: LSD is awesome in almost every way. It's everything you've ever wanted. You'll realize the superficiality if the world, the beauty of humanity and nature, the interconnectedness of all living things, the cosmos, time. You will smile from ear to ear. All the values you have been taught are insignificant. YOU WILL SEE THE TRUTH. Then you have to go home and get some sleep for work the next day. Suddenly, it all seems a bit pointless.

'Johnson, get me the files for the Berringer account'. Why? What does it mean?

'Could you make sure you're ready on time for dinner with my parents tomorrow, honey-kins?' TIME IS JUST A PERCEPTION, BABY. WE'RE ALREADY THERE AND WE'VE ALREADY LEFT. I LOVE YOU. LET'S MAKE LOVE.

You will be left with two options: either live the rest of your life in near depressive apathy because of societies failings, or drop out and live in a commune eating beans.

I AM UNIVERSE!

__________________________
Drugs suck. Look at this nice old man. He doesn't do drugs and he looks... ok, he sucks.

Fuck you, hippies! Smiling is for queers! I was in some war, probably!

Things that suck from the internet.

  I recently disabled my facebook account without telling everybody. Nobody has noticed yet. That sucks. While I accept that it is a useful and enjoyable way to keep up with friends (assuming you have any), the team at CRACKED.com have produced this very accurate depiction of ghosts from the past haunting your present through the wonder of fiber optics. In '10 People From Your Past Who Will Haunt You on Facebook'.

The Traveller

What They'll Say:
Hi there! Long time no see! Just over here in Liverpool and killing time before the Premier League match - downing a few pints, you know? - and spotted you on the internet. I might have found you earlier, but there's no internet in South America (at least, not worth using ;) and the net cafes were too expensive in Japan.
I'm moving around a fair bit at the moment, so here's a link to my travel blog so you can keep track of where I am. Be sure to take a look at the pics I took while trekking in Nepal. It's an amazing place. Have you been? How's it going? Drop us a line.

What They'll Really Mean:

Look at how many countries I've been to. I'm better than you.

Thinks They Moved on from High School

What They'll Say:
Is this who I think it is? I hope so or I might look a bit crazy. I can assure you I'm not though. You might remember me. I wasn't really 'known' at high school. I kept to myself. Surely you remember when I played − or tried to play − the Guns N Roses medley on the piano for the talent quest? Yeah that was me.
I didn't miss that place when I went to college. Met a nice girl really quickly and I'm still with her. These days I'm managing a small but loyal team for a software company. I'm not bitter about high school though. Some good memories. How are you anyway?

What They'll Really Mean:

I was rejected at high school but I've found a place where I'm accepted. I'm better than you.

Read more: 10 People From Your Past Who Will Haunt You On Facebook | Cracked.com http://www.cracked.com/article_16670_10-people-from-your-past-who-will-haunt-you-facebook.html#ixzz1Y3q6C4GU

Facebook sucks. So does the past. And people. Especially me.

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Crazy people don't suck. They can't help it. Their public access TV shows, however, do suck. If you haven't already heard of David Liebe Hart, then... um... you suck.

 

Actually, I take it back. That's amazing. But amazing things suck.

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Bill O'Reilly Sucks (and blows, and huffs, and blusters. And he lives off a diet of children's tears and toenails, alledgedly) 

 

Disclaimer: allegations regarding Mr. O'Reilly's diet are unsubstantiated, as are the allegations concerning Dingos eating children, the Pied Piper stealing children, or God ordering the deaths of all the first-born children in Egypt. 

Disclaimers suck.

Things that have recently sucked for me and those around me.

Basically, life sucks and the world is full of jerks. Unrequited love, war, famine, people stealing your parking space, the crumbs at the bottom of the cereal box that turn to a vile mush when milk is added – it’s all a festering pile of cosmic retribution for something you’ve not done yet because life sucks so much you’ve been too miserable to try. There is no English term for joie de vivre. French people seem miserable in spite of this. Here are some things that have sucked recently.

1: Last week, she said I was a childish, selfish, inconsiderate, unreliable, lazy, shiftless, self-destructive loser with an alcohol problem (but with potential - go figure). That sucks. She was probably right. That sucks more. 

Kirk Van Houten: All of the above

  

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2: A few days ago, she invited me (the one with the apparent alcohol problem) to A FUCKING BEER FESTIVAL. Why? As far as I can make out, because her ex might have been there and she didn’t want to lose face in front of him. After she told me he definitely wasn't going to be there, I rainchecked. She didn’t care. That also sucked.

3: A couple of weeks ago, I decided to play basketball for the first time in years in an effort to get in shape and be more active. Within half an hour, I had bust my right knee, torn my calf muscle and trapped a nerve in my neck. I’m still not recovered. That sucked. 

Ouch! My Lateral Gastrocnemius!

 

                                                                          

4: I was standing outside a bar as a young woman was walking up the street. An older woman walked towards her in the opposite direction, hit her in the face for no reason, and ran off as we were helping the poor girl up. That sucks.

5: My friend broke up with her boyfriend and finally moved out of his van... into an abandoned mental hospital. That sucks.

I simply adore the ambience. Electroconvulsive Therapy is so homely

                               

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