cnn has a new news segment called "...just sayin'". that's funny, i don't remember getting a paycheck from ted turner...

cnn, you filthy sons of bitches.

you know what? i'm not even going to get upset about this, for two reasons. one: it just goes to show that apparently, i already have what it takes to write for a major news network. two: it just goes to show that major news networks provide the caliber of reporting also being offered by an untrained, over opinionated, cynical, twentysomething, who is usually just fucking around to amuse himself.

so i am officially killing my segment, ...i'm just sayin'. mostly i'm doing this because one day i wish to be a respected member of society, not neccesarily because i behave in a respectable manner, but mostly because i bring something important and real to the world at large, and cnn filling a 24-hour news cycle with slanted text polls, "what do you think" segments, email responses, quoting uncompensated bloggers, and generally making up the "news" as they go, does not garner much respect from me, so how could i expect anyone else to respect it?

let me explain further. if there is no "news" to report, then i don't need some jackass pundit, or intern who sucks a mean cock, telling me their opinion, for the third time today, on michael jackson's death. this is not news. it's op-ed. if there is nothing of any great social and political import to discuss, report, or debate, then why not simply run a live feed of congress, the house, or even state government chambers in which an interesting debate is going on? or perhaps a glimpse into the supreme court, or perhaps the news, or government activity of other countries or organizations like the UN, EU, ECOWAS, OPEC, NATO, etc? or we could even show... gulp... live feeds from our military actions.

let me tell you why. it's because we as americans are not supposed to give a shit about real news. what happens in government chambers is not the concern of us rubes and peasants. let the grown ups hammer it out and they'll just tell us how they've decided we should be living our lives, or what we should be thinking about what happens within the halls of politic. nor should we be caring what other countries are up to, not, at least, until they do something that american pundits can criticize, then we hear all about it. i seem to know an awful lot about sergio berlisconi's erections, but why don't i know what is going on in italian parliament? i get up to the minute updates on castro's health, but why don't i know a goddamn thing about the state of the cuban nation?

what's even more baffling is that we essentially treat american news with the same disregard. i'll hear all about that kid in sheepfuck, connecticut who got swine flu, or how the iPhone is really going to blow my hair back, or what that fuck wad on youTube did that got so many hits, but when it comes to real events, and intelligent debate, where the fuck is it? all we ever hear about is what this network, or that dais of amateurs, or this pundit, or that a-hole who had a quirky, or obnoxious response at the last town hall meeting or whistle stop thinks about it.

are we not to be trusted? can we not comprehend and analyze for ourselves, the goings on of our own ruling bodies?

of course we're not to be trusted. if we were left to assemble our own attitudes about what goes on in our country would we buy so much useless shit? would we insist on diversifying our stock portfolios, or getting a flu shot, or buying tShirts that tell the world that we care about the sick african kids but not about the little asian kids who cut, stitched, and printed the shirt? would we really care about maintaining the "sanctity" of "opposite sex" marriage? would we be so stupid as to demand that we get raped by private insurers because we are afraid of a word, just sounds and audible vibrations, letters arbitrarily assembled into a representation of an intangible concept, (that dirty little $10billion word, "socialism")? would we be so stupid as to think that socialism is a cancer on our way of life, then collect social security, or join a labor union? i got news for you, rubes, our "democracy" is injected with socialist ideals. the fact that you pay taxes at all, transportation infrastructure, public schools, the fact that every member of a population should get equal opportunity, equal rights, and equal voice, are cornerstones of socialism.

wake up, fuckwads, we don't live in a democracy. sadly we don't live in a socialist society either. i've said it before and i'll say it again, and i'll keep saying it until everyone gets it: we live in a loosely socio-democratic, firmly aristocratic, plutocratic, capitalistic theocracy. and yes, i did add theocracy, because we cannot seem to pick a political representative that does not embrace a jesus based religion (and sadly the next step after that is not an atheist but rather a believer of some other asinine mythology).

well i'm fucking pissed off.

i'm sick and tired of having to work to utilize the freedom of information act. what a crock of shit that is. first of all, freedom to obtain government held information "freely or at minimal cost [my emphasis]"? no, if the government is doing something, i demand that i be able to obtain full disclosure freely, period. and i want it all, fucking all of it, posted at one collective database, and i want it released on the "news", for isn't that what news is supposed to be? and i want it printed in the papers, and i want a published journal, at least weekly, of the most important government information, objectively expressed, and at their expense, for isn't their expense account paid by us anyway? i don't care if the health care bill is over a thousand pages long. for fuck's sake, i get a goddamn phone book on my front stoop every week, why can't i get the minutes of the senate? i'll even negotiate a bullet point here, the government and media don't have to provide this for everyone, regardless as to wether they asked for it. simply provide an easy to access place to subscribe to the journal, in fact that place should be located on the government free information database, and a lot of the lesser information could be left out of the journal by reason of assumption that it will be provided by the media, objectively. but bear this in mind, when i say the lesser information can be left out, i mean, i don't need the minutes of the debate on interstate monkey travel legislation (it happened), but i do demand every single word, punctuation, and line break of every thing that does get published. i don't want to receive a copy of the patriot act, or the torture memos with black bars all over it. fuck you. you're our government. we deserve to know every word of what goes on in our name and with our money, and especially with the military composed of our friends, family, and selves.

you know there's a theory that if you can't tell your girlfriend about it, it's probably considered cheating. well, if you can't tell the american people about it, then we probably don't want you doing it, and you fucking know that's true, because you are the ones censoring us from it.

on the subject of censoring us from it, i want live feeds, or at least uncensored footage from our military actions. i don't care how bloody, violent, unethical, or disgusting it might be. i want to know what is going on. you want us to support our troops? let them speak for themselves. let their actions garner our respect, admiration, and sympathy, and don't cut it off at the knees with reality shows about celebrities living in the jungle, or programs where r lee emrey yells at me about the new carbine armalite semi automatics that the marines are using. leave that shit to the infotainment assholes, the rupert murdochs and ted turners, the viacoms and GEs.

but until we can break through the firewall of the government censors, and the media filters, i urge you all, please, utilize what you can of the freedom of information act. find important documents like the healthcare reform bill, the torture memos, and the patriot act. watch c-span, not cnn. watch foreign news, deutsche velle, russia today, the cantonese news, multiple mexican news broadcasts, and bbc world news are all available on network tv, you don't even need cable, but if you do have cable why not c-span, or الجزيرة (al jazeera, there's an english language version), or bbc?

i know so many of us try to stay objectively informed, and i don't discount that, but let's face it, the powers that be intentionally make it as hard as possible to achieve and sustain this. so don't be afraid to turn your backs on cheesy crap posing as the news, or anyway to discount that as nothing more than extremely biased, revenue driven, entertainment, and seek things like npr, politico, pbs (and if you don't want to watch pbs, you can find all of their journalism streaming online), and smokinggun.com. the huffington post, and aclu(.org) are great places to find links to released government documents, but if you just google things, they are out there, even things like the health care reform bill. but you know what? that link is a good place to get a link to the health care reform bill, as well (pg 432 is the "death panels" page, as well as the portion of text that was debated on the daily show recently. and take it from someone who has worked in hospice care, what the text is saying is that if a patient should choose end of life care, which is hospice care, that the doctors and counselors will be monitored for quality and effectiveness by a government panel. this is to say, that if you are on your last legs, and want medical and emotional treatment for this, your doctors and counselors will be held accountable for their standard of service. it's actually the exact opposite of a death panel.).

so in light of the fact that when i'm not being an entertaining entertainer, i wish for nothing more than to be a respected informer, my ...i'm just sayin' segment is dead. in its stead, i offer this: i will do more to provide pertinent, objective information, and uncorrupted facts (though the comedy of course comes in skewing it, the facts are facts) that may be otherwise buried in the garbage gyre of the internet, or the bureaucratic red tape of the government.

so one last time, on the circus... i'm just sayin'... there's a lot more to being an informed and enlightened citizen than absorbing what cnn is just sayin...

ladies and gentlemen, chocolate covered bacon.

i thought i had heard of it all when i got word of fried pickles, battered mac and cheese balls, fried coffee, and fried coke. oh no. someone decided to cover fried bacon in chocolate. is it any wonder cynical bastards like myself find it simply beyond belief that the human race has survived as long as it has?

what is wrong with us?

i overheard the news of this fried dead animal confection at a bar where the clientele is comprised entirely of morbidly obese, chain smokers, who are only sober when they are hung over, and even then, it's not 100%. the lights stay off 24 hours a day, nothing ever gets cleaned, they have a shotgun hanging over the door, the bartender has less teeth than fingers, and emanates the distinct smell of cigarettes, BO, and soiled underwear, yet somehow he gets regular tail from the patrons.

this is a clientele that's 3 cocktails deep by 5 o'clock in the PM on a slow day, only listens to country, or classic rock, because they consider hip hop "nigger shit" and new rock "kill yourself music", they all have at least a pair of chronic illnesses, or afflictions, most of them are on unemployment, and should a man enter in clean clothes, and not be grunting in pain, and generally odoriferous, he's not going to get a very warm welcome. don't even try ordering a mexican beer, talking liberal politics (if you're lucky enough to find someone who even wants to talk politics at all), or biding your time by reading a newspaper, doing a crossword, or playing with a rubik's cube.

ride your bike to the bar?

able to see your genitals?

able to use your genitals?

you're probably a queer, by their standards.

and where is this utopia, you ask? where can i get me a slice of that? what dixie-fried, moonshinin', cousin fuckin', appalachian, backwoods, country bumpkin' town do i have to hitchhike to to get me some?

try the san francisco peninsula. oh, yes. it's a spectacular place to see conservatives pretend to be liberals, simply because it's trendy, and this particular dive is a haven for this scene. it was here, in this dingy dungeon full of melting melties, that i first heard the words "chocolate covered bacon" uttered. and when i glanced in the direction of the siren's song, i noticed, as she tipped a tall jack and coke to her lips with her doughy limb, that a livestrong bracelet was struggling to hang on for dear life to that very same wrist.

and let us please be honest with ourselves, people. this does not surprise, does it?

how many livestrongers have you seen living anything but strong? using a yellow bangled hand to take a drag off a marlbroro light, or scratch at their sagging gut, or pull a belt off a gin and tonic? in the heyday of the yellow rubber band, how many did you see slobbing around the state fair, horking down fried twinkies and oreos?

we convince ourselves that "supporting" a healthy cause by making a $2 donation for a trendy tchotchke negates the greasy crumbs on our shirts, or the beer breath, or the tobacco stench in our hair, or the sugar coated fried meat product in our hand.

and yet we live on, and sadly, in the big picture, we humans are living strong.

this, my friends, is the epitome of surviving darwinism.

epilogue:

it bears pointing out, that while googling images for this post, "pig slaughter", "livestrong", "bar fly", "chain smoker", and "beer helmet" all eventually led me to pictures of naked women sucking cock. we are really on the right path here, people. i can just feel it.

in re:

must i go on?

this should, in all respects, be a surviving darwinism, so it will be short, but it comes so hot on the heels of my lambasting of "virtual exercise", that i can only assume it is the universe's response to my last post.

so there it is, people. science said it second: video games are not social activity, exercise, emotional enrichment, or a fountain of youth for your inner child.

for those of you who think that this is some USA today infographic, it is not. this is a study performed by the center for disease control, and it reiterates the point that video gamers tend to be 35+ years old, introverted, overweight, and depressed. in other words, gamers are middle aged, fat, lonely, and sad.

one step closer to the ill begotten, apocalyptic future predicted by, gulp, demolition man, in which we all copulate by putting on our virtual reality goggles, and drive ourselves to orgasm through a epileptic series of Mtv-esque, cyberotica, thereby achieving successful climax without ever exposing ourselves to anything more dangerous than a computer virus, and never enjoying the sins of the flesh.

well, all you fat, sad, lonely, middle aged gamer bastards will not drive me to substitute toilet paper for something called "the 3 shells" (demolition man reference, i am terribly sorry for the obscurity of this allusion... no, i'm not).

now, go outside and get some exercise! that's where i'm going right... now!

for only $49.99 take a staycation at the nintendo wii sports resort!

or, for free, take a trip to your very own bathroom, remove the blades from your razor, and please kill yourself, because if you really want to spend money on a video game staycation, you might be taking up space that other people could use for actual vacations.

right out of the gate, i refuse to accept the concept of the staycation. for one, its definitely just placation, and if you think that's a pun on play and vacation, please refer yourself to the opening sentence of this post, post haste. using the word staycation is just a way to convince ourselves that we are doing more with our days off than drinking michelob ultra at 11:30 in the morning, and masturbating to real housewives of [insert place that should be wiped off the face of the earth], before hitting the patio furniture sale at lowe's.

if you took time off work, and didn't do anything interesting, i don't need... nay, i don't want to hear about it. don't come back to work with a five day beard, and the collar of your shirt unbuttoned, and try to act like you really got out there and grabbed life by the horns. and as for you, mini-staycation? you're just a day off. i call you, playing hooky.

so you take some time off work, and you don't know how to use it awesomely. what's your next move? well, for most people these days, it means finally wearing the $45 campy pajama pants they treated themselves to during their whirlwind tour of the local strip mall on their last staycation, then slopping around their condos, or cookie cutter apartments, watching the 3 hour daytime loop of dirty jobs on discovery channel, until they realize that it is now almost 2 o'clock in the PM and they've already seen the one where he goes pig wrangling... twice.

well, nintendo wants you to know that they are here for you. no longer need you loaf around on your strangely undersized, matching, ikea living room set, accomplishing nothing more than any other skin bag full of protein rich, gelatinous goo. yes, nintendo brings you, wii sports resort. a set of games that i guess are supposed to be reminiscent of things you would do on a resort vacation.

ugh. resort vacations. i don't want to be a me monster here, but this one time, while i was living in a remote village of a third world country, i made a comment in passing to a companion of mine about how cruises and resort vacations were such stupid things to do with your time. instantly i realized, oh no, this woman is a bit older than i, and of the age group that more than most, frequent lame resorts and cruises. as i bit my tongue, she replied, "oh gross, who wastes their time with those goddamn things?" that's when i knew, this woman, she was my kind of woman.

so without even delving into the nuts and bolts of this sports resort game, nintendo is already promising you a fake and distant facsimile of a fake a distant facsimile of activity.

need proof? one of the activities on sports resort is frisbee.

need more? for $2 you can play as much real frisbee as you want, outside, in the sun, and fresh air, with other human beings... and actually get some real exercise.

another activity offered in this package is "swordplay", which sounds like something senators get busting for playing in airport men's rooms, but is somewhere between stick fighting, and fencing, i guess. but the beauty of "swordplay" is that, once you've finished watching a very special episode of kendra, you can segue into the days next activity with grammatical flair.

...and now for a different kind of swordplay, altogether.

see? it's so easy, you didn't even have to put down your low-carb beer, or haul your ass out of the recliner. just tuck the flap on your "john deere" lounge pants, and pick up your substitute phallus, aka wiimote. but what if you fancy a friend for this kind of swordplay? no problem, says nintendo. simply, purchase the nerf sword wiimote attachment set for $19.99 a pair. next, call up a friend, and carefully explain to him, "i was hanging out at home, in my underwear, and felt like a little swordplay. well, i don't think i need to tell you, i got tired of playing with myself after a while, and of course i thought of you. would you like to come over for some swordplay?" what's great about this is that, once you convince your friend to put his dick away, the two of you can actually fight with actual nerf swords, and for some reason simultaneously watch your miis mimicking you on tv.

it's funny. when i jump around in my living room, playing samurai, people call me immature, childish, crazy, or sometimes they just call me, "jesus christ, you could have killed me, you maniac!" but when we spend $50 to make a computer generated avatar with hands and feet but no arms and legs, do it for us, suddenly we are cool?

negative.

look, if you want to take some time off from the grind, and you can't afford to do anything spectacular, fine, but before you tell me you can't afford to have any real fun, keep in mind that there are plenty of awesome things to do in the world that are free. what's more, try not spending so much money having fake fun. if you do that, then maybe next time you have a vacation, you can do something i'll give a shit about when you come back to work. let me tell you, when you start a story with, "dude, i was playing a crazy game of ultimate firsbee," that twinkle in my eye means i'm excited to hear this story that might be going somewhere awesome. when you start a story with, "dude, i got this crazy frisbee game for my wii," that glazed over look in my eye means i'm fantasizing about choking you to death with your own tie.

if only you were wearing one.

damn you, stayCATION!!!!!!!!!!!

brainCandy

canada fears zombie attack more than i do. see? i'm not crazy!

a group out of canada used the most common factors associated with theatrical zombies, to assemble a "study" about potential future zombie attacks.

sadly, the brits are taking the "results" of this "study" seriously. using the "data" to assemble an attack plan if a real deadly, previously unknown, plague should hit the human population, and begin to spread out of control. so, as long as we're using hypothetical scenarios, to find hypothetical solutions, does anyone over on that side of the pond think, perhaps we should consider using hypothetically "possible" concepts to work out the kinks? i'm not sure i want to get some new strain of swine flu, and have some cheeky british comedian come at me, trying to cut my head off, because england is using blood and guts movies to plan out their new extremely liberal healthcare plan.

hmm, well guv'nah, i don't fancy i've seen a mole quite like that before. the nurse will be in directly, to shoot you with a silver bullet. nice knowing you, mate.

says the BBC, "if zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilization unless dealt with quickly and aggressively."

well, i think we can all agree with that, but what's more troubling is that, apparently in countries where healthcare is handled by the government, there is serious concern about zombie attacks! good god, what are we in for, obamacare? mothers in texas have already started eating the heads off of their zombie babies, for lack of proper biological, or ballistic defenses, and we haven't had nearly as much time to dedicate our sharpest minds to the zombie defense concern.

still more troubling is the fact that, if we are basing this potential disaster on the most common factors associated with theatrical zombies, then the black guy dies first. great! so obama socializes our healthcare system, then dies in a zombie attack, leaving us all to deal with our zombie problem by waiting in ungodly lines for generic anti-zombification pills! thanks, obama! what's next? you gonna cure cancer by unleashing the vampires on us? solve the auto crisis by genetically mutating us all into centaurs? bring peace to israel with a diplomatic team of hyper-intelligent wolfmen?

i didn't vote for wolfmen, obama! down with barack ozomba! no more ozombacare!

oh, wait, did that quote say, "if zombies actually existed"?

my bad, i guess i should make sure i have all the facts before i start yelling my head off about things in a public forum. boy, if i had, like, gone to a town hall meeting and yelled out crazy stuff like that, i'd probably look like a total idiot...