You are currently browsing the category archive for the 'rants' category.
Mayor Michael Bloomberg is, in my opinion, the best politician I have ever experienced in my lifetime. Sure, he’s had his failures as Mayor (Jets Stadium), but the man has simply worked miracles for this city. Schools are better, crime is down even further from the Guiliani years, our budget is balanced, things are cleaner, cops are better paid… the list just goes on. NYC has a 24-hour toll-free customer service hotline, for crying out loud! And he didn’t take a single dime from a single contributor or lobbyist to run for office. He paid for all of it himself. The man made billions on his own.
So when the man chimes in about the state of the country, I listen. In a quick Labor Day interview with Channel 4, he quickly distilled the root causes of what’s causing this country to truly self-destruct, and voiced his disgust that neither presidential candidate has addressed these causes in any satisfactory way. In his words, America is committing suicide.
The scariest thing is, Bloomberg is WAY not the type to exaggerate for the media. He means it. One of the best economic minds in this country is truly convinced that our protectionist policies are in the process of putting the entire country through a slow death. And it’s not a partisan thing; he’s pretty critical of both parties.
THIS is why I get so sick of the pedantic circus our presidential elections become. THIS is why I tune out. THIS is why I throw up my hands and decide not to even pay attention anymore. Bloomberg has, in this one 5-minute interview, voiced everything that’s wrong with American politics, and why I can’t even pay attention anymore without putting my head in my hands.
I actually bought a CD this week. I haven’t bought a CD in years! But, listening to Pandora on my iPhone, I actually found a song I really liked that just wasn’t available online ANYWHERE. It was a late 80s cover of Elvis Presley’s “Burning Love” by none other than Ronnie Spector. So I found a used copy on half.com for $8 or so.
Jesus, there is only ONE GOOD SONG on this whole freaking disc. And that was it. Every other song was this terrible 80s pop pablum that made me want to sit in a dentist’s waiting room flipping through old issues of Us Weekly. All I could think was, “$8 for THIS? Imagine if I had bought it NEW back in the day!”
And then I remembered that I did. We all did. And we pretended to like it, but every album and CD we bought with a single listenable track made us all die a little inside.
Downloading isn’t what killed the music business. Filler. THAT’S what killed it.
HELLO. MY NAME IS HEALTHY REQUEST®. I TASTE LIKE BABY VOMIT.
You know what you get when you take the sodium out of chicken noodle soup? FUCKING WATER. THICK, NASTY WATER WITH PIECES OF OLD CARROT AND DEAD BIRD.
And fuck me for buying 4 cans by accident.
I have decided to write a blog for two reasons: first, to stave off the apathy that working from home has allowed to break into my life and make itself at home like a semi-abusive uncle that farts a lot and calls you a heathen for listening to pop music. Second, I find myself full of thoughts most days that seem interesting at the time and never seem to go anywhere. I figured it would be nice to have a place to share them, so that others may tell me that they are not, in fact, interesting at all.
Case in point: today I bought an iphone. Five hours in line to pay $400 (as I did not qualify for the cheap pricing, having bought a new RAZR only a year ago and having had it die twice in that time), spent mostly with nice, agreeable people. This included a big friendly Russian acupuncturist with bad breath and a few assorted nerds and normal people. Truth be known, I didn’t mind one bit. They made for occasional good conversation, shut up (most of the time) when I decided to escape by putting on my earphones, and with the nice weather and the atmosphere of a sunny afternoon just outside Central Park in the summer, it was just the day out of the apartment I badly needed. Even if it WAS 5 hours on my feet.
About a line length ahead of me was this group of unholy over-educated group of young adults. (I’d use the term “yuppies” if it didn’t both date me and include me.) They were loud, and discussing current movies. “Did you see Batman? Oh, it was good, but not as good as Batman Begins. And Heath Ledger? He was great. I heard he went nuts playing the role, that’s why he killed himself. He’s a method actor, you know. That’s when you basically live that character all the time! Yeah, I heard he didn’t sleep for weeks. Who’s that other actor who does that… uh… you know, he was in National Treasure. Nick Cage! That’s it.”
After taking in about as much of this inane and stupid banter as I could stand, I put on my earphones to silence it, tuning my iPod to one of the 3 songs I’m currently obsessing over. I examined them closely, and assumed they had to have attended a good, if not Ivy League college, and clearly thought the world of themselves. This was an assumption proved accurate when the proclaimation of one female in the group, “Oh my god, we are SO movie critics!” managed to break through the protective wall of my earphone. I looked down, noticing that one guy was wearing these obnoxious shorts, the kind they carry at Macy’s next to the penny loafers. White plaid shorts with leather sandals.
Nobody who wears shorts like that is a good person. These people single-handedly reminded me why I will forever avoid the suburbs. Catty, self-important know-it-alls. So, for that, I thank you. Mr. Asshole Shorts.
If you wear them, it is because you are a douche.
