Top 5 Worst Bumper Stickers Of All Time

I haven't had good luck with lists, but this one is short. These are the best of the worst. The ones that make you want to rear-end the car in front of you. The ones that are the source of endless amounts of road rage. The little pieces of sticky paper that endanger peace talks in the Middle East. These are those kind. Here we go:

5. The Apple Logo.We get it. You like Apple products. But since Apple tries to play themselves off as more "intelligent" and "trendy" than the rest of the masses, I would think you would be smart enough to recognize when the company you worship is using you for FREE ADVERTISING. Yeah, that's right. That sticker isn't a prize to show to all your friends that you are better than them. The free sticker that came with your over-priced product is free because they have determined that the benefits of giving away something for free have outweighed the costs. But I guess it serves you right for spending the extra money in the first place. Don't get me wrong. I like Apple products. I just don't like Apple fanboys. Hence the number five worst bumper sticker of all time.

Uhh, that would be think differently. But thanks for playing.

4. Outdated Campaign Stickers. Sorry to burst your bubble but William Jennings Bryan lost. Back in 1908. I get that you don't want to be "mainstream" but you've got to draw the line somewhere. There comes a point at which endorsing the losing candidate doesn't mean anything except you made an unpopular choice. Oh you voted for Nader in 1972? Who is he again? How about endorsing principles rather than candidates. But I digress. It's just lazy. If your candidate lost, I know it is heartbreaking, but stop dwelling in the past.

Actually, that's kinda rad.

3. Family Caricatures. Seriously? What is the point of this? "I have a family, and we are cute!" So? First, you know those little pictures will be outdated in like six months right? And if you are dedicated enough to keep a true-to-life stick figure family on the back of your minivan, you need to get a hobby. Second, those things are not true. An accurate representation of your family would have a pregnant teen daughter, a coke-head son, and a snotty eight year-old. Where is that sticker? Oh here it is:

Hmm. I may have to move this one down a spot.

2. Tramp Stamp. I hardly have to write anything about this one. If you and your car have a matching tramp stamp, you need to reorganize your life. Wait. I just realized, when the souped-up Ram down the street with the fake testicles hanging off the hitch and the beat-up Tercel with the tramp stamp get together... the result can only be the Smart car. I don't want to rain on your parade, but do you ever see any nice cars with a tribal design or a butterfly with a fairy princess in the center of the rear window? No? That's because it's trashy. Even on a car. Time to get out the razor blade. For your car this time.

The essence of class.

1. Twenty-six point two. AKA 26.2. We get it. You like to run. Awesome. I like to drive. Hence, the reason I am sitting in the car. I resent that I have to look at some conceited sticker bragging about how far you can jog. I feel like real marathon runners would have the decency to at least be a little ashamed about what they do. But just because you decided you could PAY real American dollars to run in a sponsored race doesn't mean you get to visually assault me. Also, I can't tell you the number of times I've passed a "marathon runner" only to see a tubby, worn-out house mom driving with a 40 oz. Sonic Cherry Limeade in one hand. Hmm. You have just removed any shred of legitimacy that sticker never had.

Ugh. TERRIBLE.

There you are folks. Enjoy. And if any of these apply to any of you, you are hereby no longer my friend until you remove the aforementioned sticker.Who thinks of these things? Oh yeah, I do.

[Keep Following. I swear I'm a gentle person even if my rants aren't. Some things just need to be said.]

Thank You, Alanis

Sometimes someone has already said it better than you ever could. Thanks Alanis. 

How about getting off of these antibiotics
How about stopping eating when I’m filled up
How about them transparent dangling carrots
How about that ever elusive kudo

Thank you india
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

How about me not blaming you for everything
How about me enjoying the moment for once
How about how good it feels to finally forgive you
How about grieving it all one at a time

Thank you india
Thank you terror
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you frailty
Thank you consequence
Thank you thank you silence

The moment I let go of it was
The moment I got more than I could handle
The moment I jumped off of it was
The moment I touched down

How about no longer being masochistic
How about remembering your divinity
How about unabashedly bawling your eyes out
How about not equating death with stopping

Thank you india
Thank you providence
Thank you disillusionment
Thank you nothingness
Thank you clarityThank you thank you silence

[Keep Following.]

Beautiful People

"The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."

 -Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

How true this is. We always tend to glorify others' lives when we see them. It is easy to say, "So-and-so is so great. I wish I had their life." But we forget that most often, the people we idolize have endured the most difficult trials to become the great person that they are. Those special people are the ones who have endured the most refining in the furnace of affliction. So don't wish for a great person's life unless you are willing to suffer.

But the key is not the suffering. It is the "[finding] their way out of the depths" that makes beautiful people beautiful. Any chump can suffer. But it takes a special person to pause, smile at those things that would ruin us, and keep going.

[Keep Following.]

I've Put This Off For Far Too Long

Yes folks, it's time for a post about the gym. Over the last 9 months, my attendance at the gym has been somewhat religious. I'll give you the good things about the gym before I rip it a new one. The gym is a wonderful place to listen to new music you have recently purchased. I love that I have a solid 45 to 90 minutes to listen to music with (almost) no distraction. I love that everything is simple inside those doors. It's simply you vs. you. I'm weird: I use the push doors when I enter and use the automatic doors when I leave. It's not an OCD thing, I just feel like it's a little test. I'm not an angry person, but the gym gives me an excuse to grit my teeth and grimace. I love the endorphin rush. I love the feeling when I leave--that slow ache that seems to settle in my bones tells me that I won.

Now, on to the... other stuff. First, the music. Who really wants to hear recycled Beyonce and Britney Spears when you are trying to get pumped up? I'm pretty sure the only thing playing the Macarena will get me to do is leave. It's a good thing they don't let you cancel your contract because playing Call Me Maybe three times an hour might do it. Some people think I'm listening to my music loudly so no one talks to me, but it's really to drown out the latest pop star singing about how "wide awake" she is. That's cool. I just woke up an hour ago.

The drinking fountain is a persistent source of annoyance. Water-bottle guy I swear if you fill up your gigantic bottle in the higher of the two fountains one more time I will punch you in the ear. You realize that you are inconveniencing everyone who is taller than a Hobbit for the next three hours while you fill up, right? You are putting your "I'll drink it later" water needs above those who need a drink now. Use the shorter fountain. Trust me, your arms will reach. But even worse than than water-bottle guy is gallon-jug man. Are you really going to drink an entire gallon of water at the gym? Are you training your bladder as well? This isn't the Mojave Desert, I think you'll make it without your emergency preparedness kit.

OK Johnny Gym, I understand you've got a routine to do, but you can't do a circuit of ten machines during peak hours. It's funny because your chest looks like Arnold's but your legs look like Twiggy's. And your half-filled water bottle and dirty towel on the floor next to a machine is not an appropriate way to save your spot. I understand that you have an IQ smaller than your flat-brimmed hat size, but this isn't second grade, you don't get machine-backsies. And don't ask if you can jump in between my sets. The answer is no. I don't ask people on treadmills when they are done, I just wait my turn. I'm not going to ruin your pump if you have to use another machine first. If I wanted to be close enough to you to share sweat I'd ask for you to meet me in the sauna.

The locker room fills me with dread. Without fail I walk in and the first sight I am greeted by is the grisly visage of a naked, wrinkly old man. Listen, I get that in the barracks in boot camp before World War II you all walked around naked, but this is peace time. Time to start fighting the Cold War with a towel around your waist. Also, don't perform your entire morning routine in those sinks. I'd like to wash my hands without seeing your dried toothpaste, black hairs, and shaving cream. I don't know if anyone has told you, but that is what your bathroom at home is for. And just once I'd like to walk into the bathroom without one or more of the stalls being occupied by a dude taking a sit-down. If you are working out so hard you need to take a bathroom break, it's time to relax. It happens so much that I assume that this is what is happening, or else Gold's Gym is paying someone to make sure no one spends too much time in the locker room. Or perhaps it is the cheapest theft-deterrent they can find.

But the most redeeming thing about Gold's Gym in Orem is Zumba lady. Every gym has at least one. If you haven't personally witnessed her "unique" routine I would highly encourage you to join the gym just to see her. I'm glad you curled your hair before you came today--you are way more aerodynamic? I literally laughed out loud yesterday when I saw her. It was dangerous, I almost fell off the treadmill. She has headphones probably blaring Ricky Martin's greatest hits as she does her own routine in front of the mirrors. Classic.

It's a crappy photo but it gives you the idea.

[Keep Following. I always deliver.]

The Upside Of Unfairness

Personal tragedy has a way of tunneling our vision. Our feelings, though poignant and deep, may not always be reliable--especially the negative ones. External events that are out of our control beg us to ask the victim's question, "why me?" I have come to realize that that is a self-defeating question. You are setting yourself up to be a victim. And there is no answer to this question. At least not at first. There is no way to answer that question using reason or logic, because rational thought almost always wants us to understand the world in terms of fairness and equality. But the longer we live, the more we come to observe that fairness (the way we see it) is a pipe dream.

We don't understand what fairness is. I don't know where our lopsided notion of fairness comes from, but often, our idea of what is fair is anything but fair. We want constant happiness for ourselves at the expense of others. We selfishly think that we deserve only good things to happen to us. Too often in our lives, the only things that we label "unfair" are the negative ones. But how often do we think, "this just isn't fair!" when something good happens to us? In our egotistical, selfish mindset we think that when something good happens to us that we did something to deserve it. So according to us, all negative events are undeserved. I don't mean to suggest that all the trials in our life come as a result of something bad we did, or as punishment because of bad karma. I just think that we need to remember that good things are often undeserved too. Good things are sometimes unfair.

Rather than being depressed by this all-encompassing view of fairness, there is still hope. Emerging science suggests that only 10% of our overall happiness level is determined by the external events of our lives. The other 90% is made up mostly by how we choose to react and genetic factors.

This suggests that we never have to be victims of circumstance. We always have a choice. Always. External events, good or bad, can never take away our right to choose. Whether you see the ability to choose as a natural inherent human trait or a God-given attribute, nothing can violate that simple truth. Nothing anyone does can take away your ability to choose. Excluding extreme circumstances, when something outside our control happens, we essentially have the choice between three reactions: react negatively, react positively, or run away. (Although, running away or doing nothing are essentially negative choices because they will leave us woefully unprepared to deal with the next set of negative circumstances that will arise in our lives as a natural result of living in this imperfect world.)

We can either see ourselves as unfortunate victims of our lives and other people's choices, or we can make the choice to smile, be happy, and continue pressing forward. This is surely the harder way, but it will always be the better way. In church we call it agency; it is the ability to act as agents unto ourselves. Still it remains that we can either act or be acted upon. When we are acted upon, it is essentially a call to action.

You are not a victim of your life. Bad things happen sometimes. But they never take away your ability to choose how you will react. Never say, "I can't help the way I feel." That is a lie. I can say this because I have experienced what it's like to make the harder choice, and it works.

In the LDS world we say, "there must needs be an opposition in all things." And in the secular world they call it Newton's third law of motion. Whatever you decide to call it, by the simple fact that you exist, you will experience hardship. You can be sure of it. This is of necessity. You have to have dark to see light, taste the bitter to know the sweet, and feel terrible to know joy. Without opposition, life would be a sterile experience, devoid of... well... anything. So if some soul-crushing trial comes your way, take heart. For so it was with all the good people who have ever come before you. Put the 10% in its place and use your ability to choose to be happy. It won't happen overnight. You are allowed some time to wallow in self-pity. But don't make it a pattern, because you never know when you will experience the upside of unfairness.

[Keep Following. I know, I know... where are the funny posts? "Patience, precious. Patience..."]

Judgment

I had an interesting experience. I now work in the electronics section of Costco. I approached someone to answer his obvious questions about the hard drive he was staring down like a cow stares at an oncoming train. He then asked me if another employee that I work with was there. I replied that he was on break and that I was happy to answer his questions.

Somewhat reluctantly he asked me his question. After I answered, he then bombarded me with questions about all sorts of different things for the next forty minutes. When he was out of questions, he took a step back and regarded me from top to bottom. His next statement surprised me. "When you first came up, you looked like you would know more about athletics than electronics." I was slightly flustered at his candor. It's safe to say that it gave me some food for thought.

It's amazing how much we judge. We do it so much we don't even know how much we do it. I did it as well when I first approached him. And it made me realize that my choice of major in college also surprises people. It's funny that people equate physical prowess with a lack of higher brain function and creativity. As if I need to be skinny and nerdy to be creative. This was especially apparent when my teacher unexpectedly asked me to present my paper to my senior seminar class the other day. This was the college equivalent of the teacher reading the names aloud of the kids who got an A on the spelling quiz in first grade. As I read my thesis statement in a paper about false conceptions about love in LDS culture as made apparent in the movie Inception, I could almost hear my fellow classmates' opinion of me changing.

Now I don't say this to set myself up as a pariah or anything, it's just interesting. Because the opposite may also be true. As much as we categorize and label others negatively, the opposite also occurs. Too often, we are inclined to give others the benefit of the doubt. Especially when they appear to be so happy and "put together" or when they fit in with our prejudices. When in fact, often "in the quiet heart is hidden / sorrow that the eye can't see."

[Keep Following. Food for thought.]

Counter Steering

There are only two things that get you acquainted with the road: time or distance. Normally one would think that the two correspond, because the farther you go the more time you've spent on the road. And of course that's true, but when I say distance I'm not talking about miles traveled. I'm talking about inches to the ground.

There is something primal about riding a motorcycle. Man and machine and nature collide head-on. There are different rules on the road. Society comes with manners and norms and political correctness. But on the road all that is stripped away. When you rocket out of town on six hundred pounds of roaring steel there are no expectations. There is only the static crackle of the wind in your ears and the thump of each cylinder firing below you so loud it's almost deafening--and yet, you'll never hear something so serene. There is no judgment. There are no problems. There are no appointments. There are no urgent phone calls. There are no pressing duties. There is only gravity.

It's as if man has conquered those things that would hold him back. Nature has had its own laws turned on itself. Combustion is made possible by nature, and the only thing it can do to resist is pull at your clothes. But like a beaten man who owes a debt, paved-over nature becomes your greatest ally. With every tree and rock and mountain that streaks by, it rewards the rider by storing an ounce of stress; it keeps that stress in trust. For nature can't solve your problems all by itself, but it can hold them, even if for a moment. You can be sure they'll be waiting for you when you turn the key at the end of a ride, but when you do, you'll be ready to take up your cross again.

Something no one told me about buying a motorcycle was that it allows you entrance into a brotherhood. With each passing biker comes a little left-handed wave and a smirk of acknowledgment. There is someone else who knows what I know. And it might be modern man's greatest kept secret. Yet I'm not afraid to share it because most who read this will still never know what I know. They will make every excuse as to why they can't ride. And I'm sorry, but that is what makes riding even better. I like that I "get it."

Time or distance. Truckers have the time. They have spent days and weeks and months and years with the road. They know it like an old friend. It is there, a familiar companion that gives them financial support. But riding a motorcycle gets you acquainted with the road like a lover. Instead of feet above the ground in a truck, or separated by "quiet control" technology and an artificial atmosphere, on a bike it's just you and the naked asphalt--bare, no pretense, no boundaries. Just inches between you and death. For riders, the road isn't financial support, it's life support.    

[Keep Following.]

Everybody Is Screwed Up. And That's OK.

Everybody has got something. Something that eats at them. A secret past. A dirty habit. A guilty pleasure. A quiet obsession. Everyone has demons. Some of them are very noticeable; you can see the meth addict's open sores with your eyes. Still others have demons that are deep down inside somewhere no eye can see; though the poison that gnaws at their bones is just as real. Maybe it's your fault, or maybe someone else did something terrible to you. But I'm here to say that it's all OK. It's perfectly normal. Really.

Know why? Because EVERYONE has something. Not having a problem is weird.

We are surrounded by ruined people. Everyone you will ever meet has done something that they regret. You can never know until they tell you. Even your best friend may have some horrible issue that they are too embarrassed to admit. So lets start assuming everyone around us is guilty until proven otherwise. Know what happens when we do that? We can finally take a breath. It's oddly liberating to remember how imperfect and screwed up we all are. It is wonderfully reassuring.

The genius behind all of us being screwed up is that our problems seem less bad when we choose to help, love, and lift others instead of condemning them. I can say all this because I believe that we are here with other people for a reason. If God had wanted us here alone, He could have figured out a way. We have other people in our lives to help us, love us, and lift us. And guess what? Those people that are helping, loving, and lifting you have demons too. That is what makes it so great. If they didn't, we might resent their help because "they just don't know what it's like to suffer."

Remember, Jesus saved his most scathing rebukes, not for harlots, adulterers, or thieves, but for hypocrites. God loves us, faults and all. But the thing that angers Him the most is when we try to pretend that we aren't screwed up. We pretend we aren't screwed up whenever we judge others. We pretend we aren't screwed up when we withhold help. We pretend when we selfishly focus inward. We pretend when we numb ourselves with alcohol or drugs. We pretend when we waste time. We pretend when we lie. We pretend when someone asks how we are doing and we answer, "fine." If we truly stopped pretending to be perfect, we would look outside ourselves more often. And the irony is, the more we realize how imperfect we are, the more compassion we have for others.

That is why the scripture says, "And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them." We are supposed to have problems. It's so that we will be humble. And when we are humble, we are teachable. And when we are teachable, we can get stronger. God doesn't magically take away our problems, but he knows how to help us subdue our demons. And we've all got 'em. So when your best friend pours his or her heart out to you, if you remember that you are screwed up too, you'll know exactly how to react.

[Keep Following.]

Movie Snobs

I interrupt my regularly scheduled Hair Theory post to bring you this important message:

Every once in awhile I need to get serious on my blog because something just irks me. I hate the word 'irk' but I'm using it anyway because I'm so irked. The recent release of The Dark Knight Rises and people's subsequent reaction to it has caused me to start thinking. We are such movie snobs nowadays. (I also hate the word 'nowadays').

I've seen SO many people negatively review this movie just because it wasn't as good as the last one. First of all, WHAT?! What do you want people? How could Christopher Nolan have made this movie any better? What would have satisfied you? Please submit your suggestions. I'd love to hear them.

If you had wet yourself in the theater would you have been satisfied? This movie was still the best movie I've seen all year. And I refuse to pan it just because it wasn't "as good as the last one."

Which brings me to my next point. You can't compare these two movies. Yes, they were both Batman films, but that's about all they share in common. If Heath Ledger hadn't died, and Joker had made a return, and the plot had been boring, and the acting not as good, THEN I could see people saying, "This isn't as good as the last one." But again, other than having some of the same characters, they are completely different movies. Chris has managed to capture the nation's zeitgeist three times in a row. Each film in this series has a different and potent message about our society. I'm nerdy enough to admit the movie gave me chills 3 or 4 times.

So comparing the two movies is like... I feel like I'm already losing you, so I'll use an example that even the most... simple... can understand. Comparing these two movies is like comparing a Granny Smith apple with a Red Delicious. Both are apples, but they taste completely different, and when subjective preferences are cast aside, the two apples have different functions. Who can say which is better? Granny Smith are better for pies because of their tartness, and Red Delicious are preferred by most to pack in lunches. Get it? Stop comparing them, it makes you look ignorant because you've missed the deeper messages the films have been trying to deliver.

And finally, we are such snobs today. I would go so far as to say these three films are the Godfather Trilogy of our time. These films are fantastic. I can't stop thinking about TDKR. Yes, it had minor flaws like Bane's voice and a slightly over-complicated plot, but other than that it was superb. I want to see it again because I know I'll get deeper meanings out of it. Which I can't say for almost any movie I see. What do most people think when they walk out of a movie like Transformers? "Hmm, it had awesome visual effects." And then they forget it. It's throwaway entertainment. This is not the case for any of the Batman movies. 


Stop being movie snobs. Even if you were to show our worst movies to people fifty years ago they would have brain aneurysms. Stop being so negative, and think for yourselves. Lighten up. After all, it is just a movie, isn't it? 

[Keep Following.]

Hair Theory

Get ready to take a fantastic journey into the center of my mind. Ready?

I notice things about hair. Whether it be the length of a grandpa's wicked comb-over, or the amount of blue dye in a grandma's fro, I am unnaturally perceptive. It is my blessing, and my curse. Because of my wonderful ability to read hair, I have noticed an interesting hair pattern among the women in Utah. I would now like to present the 9 stages of women's hair:

1. Baby Bald Eagle
This is a stage that, to be fair, is not most girls' fault. Indeed, one could say that because of the sheer lack of hair in this stage, that it is barely a stage at all. But it must be mentioned simply out of sheer ridiculousness. Indeed, it is the lack of the hair that causes the stage seven mother (see #7) to overreact. This overreaction consists of placing a Gargantuan-flower-headband™ on the innocent victim to remind everyone of the gender of said victim. I don't know what mafia-funded company is supplying moms with these headbands, but I have a contact named Vinnie who believes that most of them are produced by a company that sulks in the seedy underbelly of society. Under the guise of homemade craft production, they fuel the mom's supply of overly enormous flower headbands. Vinnie calls the company code-name: Etsy. Furthermore, I believe that this stage causes irreparable damage to the female infant's psyche, thus perpetuating each consecutive stage.

"Seriously?"
"Yes! She looks so cute!"
"No, she looks scarred for life."

2. My Little Pony Girl
Again, this stage may have less to do with the girls themselves, and more to do with the mothers who are beyond saving imposing their demented wills upon their female children. Little girls from ages 2-4 have been known to prance. They revel in their new-found "hair-i-ness" and for them the only logical reaction is to prance. For some reason, prancing is usually accompanied by hushed, mindless singing to themselves. At this stage, most girls have no concept of "dirt-i-ness" and can usually be found playing with the boys in the dirt. The only difference being that the girls somehow manage to include glitter with their dirt. How they do this is still a mystery. Consequently, out of a utilitarian attitude and lack of time, emerges the mom's quick and neat solution: the pony tail. Unfortunately, this hair style lends itself to prancing mindlessly about so well, that the moms have unwittingly furthered the cycle, pushing their scarred little girls toward madness.

Yes, it's quiet time. 

3. "The Butch"
The breaking point comes usually before the girl's sixth birthday. As the availability of scissors increases above the girls' cognitive abilities, so rises the chance of having an "incident." It is a ruthless positive correlation. It looks something like this:

Copyright DJ Scheerer. All rights reserved.

The incident is different for every girl, but after observing the patterns, several commonalities emerge. The first is the girls' desire to cut their hair. This desire emerges from one of two places: either out of a desire to be free from under the bondage of gum-and-glitter-caked hair, or from an apparent desire to become Boy George's hairstylist. Another commonality of this stage is the shared lack of guilt that the girls have for chopping a large chunk of hair from the front of their heads. The only explanation that I can think of is that the girls have not yet developed the "I look hideous" reflex. The effects of this reflex can most easily be observed whenever a girl gets her hair cut later in life. I don't think I've ever met a girl who has been content after visiting the salon. I believe this happens because girls have lingering scars from their butch moment. Deep down, they still feel as if they could cut their hair better than anyone else, and when someone else cuts it, they flashback to their personal "butch" moment and begin berate the stylist. (It has become a personal hobby of mine to ask the stylists who cut my hair about women's post-shear freak-outs.) Sometimes, again this stage is not directly the girls' fault. Sometimes they force their mothers hand into cutting their hair into a freakish mess by sticking copious amounts of Dubble Bubble in an all too conspicuous spot. Sometimes the mom has no other choice but to use the nuclear option, the all-dreaded Perm. I would now like to invite any girl readers to submit pictures of their personal butch moment to me so that I may further my research. And laugh my butt off. Probably not in that order.

[Keep Following. Part two is coming soon to an internet near you.]

Locked in Looming Shadows

I wrote this poem during Fall semester while having a hard day and while considering going away from the PhD and towards creative writing. I've decided it's pretty good and worth publishing--even if only my English major friends appreciate it.

Your ghosts--
They lie with me
in grey matter,
conspirators
of the worst kind.

They squelch my voice
with halting choke,
beat my brains out:
Literary
Dictators divine!

I see you would
frame me between
lines and pages,
Magnanimous--
up to a point.

"Here, no further
mayest thou go."
Never to be
anthologized
or widely read.

"Pay us homage
and perhaps then
we will write your
stone epitaph--
unworthy for water."

I can hear your
silent judgments--
nay, screaming fiery
admonitions--
wishing me unwell.

Leave me alone
Milton. Keats, please
withdraw your hand.
Shakespeare! Redact
thy airy nothings!

I would burn your
works, forsake them
to fire, and insert
stark emptiness
in their absence

To be able
to turn a phrase
without thy mean
influences--
maligning presences all.

Generations
wallow in your
slick afterbirth.
We are raised up,
but doomed to fail.

[Keep Following. I'm perfecting a theory on women's hair.]

Why I Hate Basketball.

First of all the NBA.
Why would I want to watch a bunch of freaks of nature run jog around a basketball court for two hours when the winner of the game is decided in the last five minutes of play anyway? This is more true in the NBA because the teams are so good that the "winner" is the team who happened to score last when the clock ran out. "WAIT," you say, "that is true of most sports!" With that I would have to agree.

But the difference is that it is much harder in every other sport to make points. In other sports, you win because you did some really hard thing to score. Not so in basketball. I trust no sport that has scores in the hundreds when the time runs out. If you knew nothing about basketball and all you knew was that the final score was 103 to 101 at the end, you would assume that 1. it must not be very hard to score points and 2. both teams are evenly matched. These two facts... *yawn* sorry, I almost just fell asleep on my keyboard.

The games should be five minutes long. It would make my life less tedious and watching a game wouldn't be a total waste of my time. Also, in other sports, especially football,  you can be proud of your team's effort despite the outcome. In basketball I would be more mad at the clock and the nature of the game's flawed structure rather than my team if they lost. I would hate to play basketball, knowing that despite my best efforts, and despite staying within several points of the other teams score throughout the game, that oftentimes the result of the game would depend entirely on which team's center raised his arms above his head last. And he makes how much money?! How is the center's effort worth two points when a little guy shoots the ball from almost 25 feet away and gets only one more point for doing so? Points should be worth less if you are as tall as the hoop.

I wonder what sport he plays? 

Little known fact: 

Those would be full length jeans on any other person.

This brings me to College Basketball.
There isn't much to say except that the games are shorter. This is a great first step. The major reason I hate the NCAA is because of March madness. This single-elimination "tournament" embodies all the problems of the time limit flaw. Teams can be upset so easily and lose by only one point, such that any victory can't really be called anything of the sort. The winner of this tournament shouldn't get a trophy. They should all get four-leaf clovers for being so lucky so many times in a row.

This brings me to brackets. Bracket is the worst word in the English language. I hate all bros and their brackets. Because the tournament is completely based on luck, there is no point making predictions about who is going to win. I consistently hear the following statement after the tournament is over: "this chick in the office who knows nothing about basketball had the best bracket, bro!" That's because you have biases. And because you did a stupid thing.

All exaggerated cliches aside, you literally have a better chance of winning the lottery than filling out a perfect bracket. Like, a WAY better chance. The odds are ridiculous. "The point isn't to get it perfect, brah. The point is to get 'most of them right.'" Yeah, you know who else said something similar to that? The local trash fisher at the sewage treatment plant when talking about his short stint in grade school. If there is 0% chance of even getting most of the picks right, why try? Because of the nature of the system, picking winners is pointless. It would be like me trying to fish a lake with a gun from a mile away. And not only fishing, but predicting which fish I'm going to kill out of the 68 fish in the general vicinity.

30 MILLION people fill out a bracket each year. Stop it. I don't want to hear how your bracket is doing. I don't want to hear it because I already know. It sucks. You weren't even close.

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