Random Things That Confuse Me

For all of my readers that are identical twins that used to have the last name of "Sagan," this counts as your Christmas present because I know how much those specific readers enjoy random musings without any coherent connections.

The world is very confusing. I think we can all agree on that. However, some of the things that are confusing have no business happening, as they are easily fixed. Can't we take some of the money that's funding the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan and put it to good use by solving these problems? There are going to be a lot of rhetorical questions here, so you should probably be prepared. And away we go!

Burritos - Why didn't I eat burritos before? They are fantastic! Everything in them is delicious! And yet, somehow, I didn't really eat them until I was probably 25 years old. Does this mean that the first 25 years of my life were a waste? It might.

Candy Corn - Man, is there any sugar-based "food" that is more polarizing than candy corn? Why do people hate it so much? It's not nearly as bad as hiding coconut inside your candy (I'm talking to you, Mounds and Almond Joy!). If you want to start some fighting, bring candy corn to a party. Or host a party and put candy corn out. People have very strong candy corn opinions. I bet you would get a much more emotional reaction from the majority of people if you ask them about candy corn than you would if you asked them about the upcoming elections. Actually, that is pretty sad.

Leafers - Leafers, or leaf peepers, or whatever they are called, are absolutely baffling to me. Are you seriously driving 100s of miles to look at trees that aren't green any more? What is wrong with you people!!? Is New England the only place that has trees that change color? What the heck is going on here!? Also, these people are terrible drivers. I had a volleyball match up at Pioneer Regional one Saturday afternoon, and 91 was absolutely clogged with New York and CT drivers (go here for my take on drivers from Connecticut) who couldn't maintain a consistent speed because of all the amazing colors. Clowns.

Strawberry candy - Why are strawberries so delicious, but strawberry candy is so disappointing? You know that if you pick up a red candy expecting cherry and get strawberry instead, the candy is ruined. No one is ever like "Oh wow! I was expecting cherry, but I got this awesome strawberry candy instead!!" It's always "Aw man, I thought it was cherry!" and a sad face. Statistically speaking, if you try to trade someone your strawberry Starburst for their cherry Starburst, you will get punched or sworn at 87% of the time. Try it if you don't believe me.

People who insist on showing that they're different - Yeah, we get it. You're unique. We can tell by the fact that you're wearing a winter hat in August, or that you have shorts on over your pants, or that your hair has 4 different colors of the rainbow. We just don't care. Can I get on with my life now?

People in general - Seriously, what's up with them?

"Chix" = "chicken"? - How is that an abbreviation? I saw it on a receipt I got once (probably for a burrito) and stopped in the middle of the parking lot because I was so confused. Luckily no cars were coming. Can I start writing the word "chicken" as "chixen"? If I ever have a restaurant, I may take this random abbreviating thing to a whole new level. No one will be able to figure out their bills!!

The "miracle" of birth - Can something that has happened at least 6 billion times really be considered a miracle? Do people even know what a miracle is? Here's what the dictionary has to say on the matter. I like the second definition. Unusual event, eh? So I guess that maybe something that happens every few seconds probably isn't a miracle. Also, most miracles are not preceded by a forgotten condom in the back of a Chevy 9 months earlier. Just saying. Know what would be an actual miracle? Slick writing a post without cursing. Speaking of which, does he still work here?

Cornbread - Ain't nuttin' wrong with that!

Orange popsicles - These are a distant third in the popsicle world. Also, popsicles are only cherry, grape and orange. Everything else is a lie! Have you ever heard anyone ask specifically for an orange popsicle? I haven't. Most packages are 8 of each flavor, but they should obviously be 12 cherry, 10 grape and 2 orange. The orange ones are to punish your kids when they get mouthy. Want dessert? Sure! Have a popsicle! An orange popsicle! Mwahahahaha!! I probably shouldn't have kids.

Topology - That is some confusing math. It hurts my brain.

Substitute teacher pay - Schools wonder why they have such awful substitutes. Like that crazy old lady. Or that lady who smells like cats. Or that. . . flamboyant guy who let all the kids use their phones during class and told them they didn't need to do the assignment. Maybe it's because the schools pay these people $60-$80 a day, which does not really amount to a living wage for the year. If you subbed every single day of the school year, your earnings would be between $10,800 and $14,400 before taxes. If education is really as important as all the political people say it is (even though it's not, as I've previously stated), start paying people like it is. Also, and I know this violates my policy of not researching things, the average teacher in MA gets paid $56,587 a year, which breaks down to approximately $314 per school day. Shouldn't I be getting at least half that to fill in for them? At least then I'd be substantially above the poverty line.

-Jon

Life's a Beach

That's awfully close to the word "bitch" isn't it? We went to the beach today so I decided to bring back an Mmmmopinion original: Random Shit vs. Something Similar. Completely off topic, I'm watching the Sox while typing this and that Heidi Watney is really cute. I would do horrible, horrible things so that I could do horrible things to her. That sentence is a little confusing but keep trying, you'll get it. When in Rome. The two beaches I'm going to be comparing are Misquamicut (which has two fewer a's than I thought, fucking i's) and Hampton Beach. So come along on a magic carpet ride as I arbitrarily determine categories and winners. This is probably going to set a personal record for least coherent post to date. I'm not sure how I would measure that, maybe I'll have to write a post about it. Nevertheless, let's go.

Proximity to other things: Hampton Beach is close to whatever is in New Hampshire and Misquamicut is close to whatever is in Rhode Island.

Minus one point for each.

Waves: Hampton Beach has decent waves about as often as Haley's Comet comes around. I don't think that's very often but what am I, a fucking astronomer? Meanwhile, the waves at Squamy were insane today. Probably like 10 feet at least. I also don't know jackshit about waves but I think that's impressive. It is for me.

Point: Squamy

Surrounding entertainment: A slam dunk win for Hampton. There's arcades (assuming they haven't all burned down), there's mini-golf, there's a bunch of other shitty stuff that you only buy because you're on vacation. Why do I need a Hampton Beach sweatshirt? So that you know I've been there? Yeah, me and everyone else in Massachusetts. Misquamicut doesn't have shit. Plus, Hampton has that big Italian guy not named Giuseppi who sells sausage grinders. Those things are the tits. Speaking of tits . . .

Slut Factor:
Is it offensive? Almost definitely but I feel it's necessary. Pretty much a clear cut category: which beach is going to have more sluts, or "females" as I believe they may be called outside of Ludlow. This is a strong win for Hampton Beach and while many of the "females" are potential jail bait, I can't take a point away from HB because I'm creepy. God made man in his image, so I assume in his infinite wisdom he thinks it's ok. If not, I have a strict look but don't touch policy. Misquamicut seems like more of a family oriented place, and that's just a real boner-kill.

Point: Hampton

Decision: If you're going to spend actual time in the water and not just work on your tan (it's not just a skin color, it's a lifestyle) then you should go to Squamy. If you're going to check out girls (which I believe is 99.7% of a guy's interest in the beach) then you should go to Hampton. This is one of those mmmmopinions where it's a win-win. Plus I always try to look for the good in any situation. But you already knew this.

Before I close this poorly written abomination, I'm going to present some conclusions I reached today. First, if a girl walks by, no matter what she looks like, and I cannot stress that enough, no matter what she looks like a guy will automatically check her out. I'm confident I mentioned this in my rant about the proper uses of facebook, but it deserves repeating. Ladies: every guy you have ever met in your entire life has judged you based on how you look. If you don't believe that, you're a fucking moron. Before I arrive at conclusion #2 I need to point out that in pretty much every profession a woman's salary is lower than a man's for doing the same work. I'm not saying it's right, but it's a fact that you need to be aware of. That being said, I would gladly, gladly, GLADLY give up a portion of my salary (assuming I start looking for a job) if it would guarantee that every woman I passed would blatantly check me out. It would be the best hypothetical money I could ever spend.

"Just imagine if girls weren't weirded out by our boners and stuff, and just like wanted to see them. That's the world I want to one day live in."

-Slick

Terminator Salvation is . . .

better than I thought it was going to be. Not great, but better than I was anticipating. Now before I delve into my normal movie review, I'm going to reiterate something I wrote earlier. If I find myself in a situation where I want to/need to kill someone, there's absolutely no chance I drag that out. I'm going to chop his fucking head off. I'm not going to pick him up and throw him across the screen or toy with him or do any fucking bullshit. I'm going to straight decapitate him. I'm sick of movies where the hero is captured by his arch nemesis and instead of just killing him, there's an elaborate fight scene or some stupid bull shit. Straight murder. That's the way Slick rolls.

Loyal readers of the blog will remember my standard movie questions and official ranking system. For those of you who are new here, that means you creepy charter guy, the system is broken down accordingly: A Must Watch, A Should Watch, An If you have nothing better to do, An "Eh, Unimpressed", and finally, the much dreaded "Transformers 2". However, three new tweaks must be made. The first is the introduction of a new question: Was this movie predictable? Because even if a movie sucks, if it does something unexpected I'll at least respect it. The second is that I've cut the "Not Worth It" category because I feel like the "Eh, unimpressed" category covers that. Finally, I need a clarification of the "Transformers 2" category. I watched Transformers 2 again last week (don't worry that review is coming) and I realized that it wasn't as shitty as I thought it was. Now before you call me a hypocrite, it was still really shitty. But I realized that it's not on the same plane of shitty as Batman Returns, so my system needed to be revamped. Therefore, the dreaded "Transformers 2" ranking applies to movies that absolutely suck or piss me off when I'm watching them. So with these new improvements, let's go.

Question 1: Would I watch this movie again? Probably not. It was like getting punched in the balls, once is enough. You're not going to rewatch this movie and realize you missed something the first time around. Question 2: Would I have been mad had I paid to see this movie in theaters? Yeah, probably. But, seeing as how I saw it for free I'm not really upset by it. That's probably why I hate Transformers 2 so much, because I paid my hard-earned Randall's money to see that crap. Had I paid to see Terminator Salvation, I probably would have hated it. This will be addressed later. Question 3: Does this movie make sense? NO FUCKING CHANCE. Granted I haven't seen any of the other Terminator movies so I'm not really sure what's going on, but there's absolutely no chance the computer doesn't win this war. Second, the Terminators are absolutely fucking useless. They fucking suck. If you have a giant robot the size of a fucking office building why are you using a piece of shit that has a weakness if you stab it in neck? Stupid fucking robots. I would have made John Connor my bitch. And if you capture John Connor, don't just fucking stand there playing with your . . . robot balls? . . . just fucking kill him. End of war. I guess? Question 4: Was it predictable? Humans win, shocking. And if I ruined the movie for you I don't feel bad because you're a moron.

Rating: Level 4, "Eh, Unimpressed." It was better than I thought it was going to be, but I can't in good conscience recommend that anyone see this movie.

Something I've discovered about movies is that my opinion of them is influenced by two things. First, did I pay for it? Because if I did I have higher expectations. Second, and this is Matt's contribution to the blog for like the year . . . I guess . . . is that my opinion of a movie is affected by what I think of the movie going in. With Transformers 2 (it always comes back to Transformers 2) I expected that movie to be really good. Clearly, I didn't think it was. But, with Terminator Salvation I expected it to be awful, so I was pleasantly surprised when it was just bad.

Finally, my recurring segment "Things that survive an Apocalypse"
1. Motorcycles. No gangs, but the motorcycles are still there.
2. Pregnant bitches trying to get all up in the club.
3. Those weird glove things that don't have any fingers. BECAUSE MY PALMS ARE COLD BUT MY FINGERS ARE BURNING!!!!!
4. CGI Arnold Scwarzeneggers.
5. Popped collars. Because nothing says, "Hey I'm part of the resistance but I'm also kind of a douche," better than a popped collar.

"Hand in hand we can live together, ginger or not, we're all the same. Black or white, brown or red, we shouldn't kill each other, cause it's lame." -Eric Cartman

That doesn't really apply to anything, I just like that episode.

-Slick