Monday Hate

Time for another instalment of my Monday bitch session...

Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carry and every other one of the "vaccines cause autism" loons. Fuck these people are annoying. It actually pains me somewhat to put Jim Carry on this list. I've always respected his using his fame to speak out for freedom for Aung Sun Suu Kyi and the people of Burma. I could always overlook his rich-person new-agey mysticism because it seemed to at least make him try to do good. But apparently sticking your dick in Jenny McCarthy makes you stupid.

And what the fuck is with people listening to Jenny McCarthy? A fringe movement full of crazy people suddenly gets credibility because they are now represented by someone who used to give some guys boners about 15 years ago? What, every current media producer had a Playboy subscription in the 90s?

There has never, ever been a scientific study (and there have been tons done) that has shown a link between vaccines and autism. None. Ever. The people who are selling this idea, that the greatest gift modern medicine has ever given the human race is actually giving your children autism, are either snake-oil salesmen or amazingly paranoid fools who need psychiatric help. With McCarthy it can be hard to tell, since she seems so brain-dead. But I have to go with snake-oil salesman since she sells a lot of books promoting her nutso ideas. She now purports to have "cured" her son of autism with nutrition and vitamins. Right. I doubt her son ever had autism to begin with.

The believers in this movement are of the same anti-intellectual, anti-science and unreasonable thought as the 9/11 truth freaks, those who believe Obama was born in Kenya and the people ho believe the moon landing as faked. They need help, seriously.

And if they are parents they need to have their children taken away from them. Like now.

And...

The media, for giving these crazy people a platform that gives them credibility.

Especially Oprah, because Dr. Phil is also her fault.

Monday Hate

Getting to the blog late tonight, but I'm sure I can quickly think of something that's annoying me right now. I think it is going to be a child-rearing related week. So let's get to the hate.

Here's one that's been happening a lot lately.

Mr. Mom. No, I don't mind the 80s movie with Michael Keaton. I seem to remember liking it OK, though I haven't seen it in over twenty years so it might be as bad as I discovered Pretty In Pink is on a more recent viewing. No, it is the reference to Mr. Mom that keeps coming up recently. As I've been talking about our upcoming move, mentioning that I probably won't be going back to work and will instead be home with the kid full time, so many people have said something like, "Cool, playing Mr. Mom for a while, huh?"

Ugh. People seriously, what century is this? Yes, I know that it is still way too often the mother that stays home with the kids, even in this day and age. But let's at least stop assuming that taking care of the kids is automatically the woman's job and that when the man does it he is the male mother and not just the dad staying home with the kid. No milk is coming out of these boobs no matter how hard I try, so I'm definitely not a mom.

I can't believe people don't see it as sexist as it seems to me. What you are really doing is calling my wife "Mrs. Dad" because she's got a successful career. And we all agree that that is an ass-hole thing to call a woman, right?

And the other phrase I hear really often these days....

"They grow up so fast." Uhmmm....no. I'm pretty sure kids age at the same rate as the rest of us, barring them having progeria. So my daughter is not growing up so fast, she is growing just right.

The Return Of Monday Hate

Hello all. Well it has been a long time since my last post, a new baby can really get in the way of pointless blogging, so I'm really going to try to get back to blogging on a somewhat regular basis.

And what better way to try to get restarted than to bring back my formerly regular feature of Monday Hate? Those of you that were reading my blog before the kid as born will remember how this works, that every (hopefully) Monday I list off the things that are annoying me at that moment.

So here's what's bugging me this Monday:

Zipcar. I cannot even begin to convey how much I hate this fucking company. Yet another case of an environmentally unfriendly company calling themselves "green" to sell their products. (My favorite is British Petroleum re-branding themselves "Beyond Petroleum") I have so many supposedly liberal friends who use this service and seem to think that the only emission coming out a Zipcar is sunshine, happiness and flowers. Well, the same crap that comes out of a car you own is the same crap that comes out of a Zipcar. The air quality of our urban areas is at a crisis, not to mention the issue of global warming. And those aren't the only environmental problems with the American car culture (we will eventually pave over every single acre of this country). Yet somehow Zipcar makes a lot of people think they are doing something positive for the environment, and that is one of the ways the company sells itself. But I think it's a lie.

They claim that by car sharing, there are less cars owned by individual people, and that equals less driving. But I don't buy it. Less cars owned by a population does not mean less number of hours there are cars on the road. What Zipcar has done is make cars more available, and for a lower cost, where they wouldn't have been previously for a lot of urban dwellers. This makes people make bad choices for convenience, like run errands that could be done on public transportation.

Zipcar claims that they are lowering car ownership, but I really don't think they take in to account the number of people without cars already that are using their service who would have previously figured out a different way to do what they needed to do. The main reason I don't own a car or belong to Zipcar is because I know how easy it is to make the wrong decision with an air-pollution machine readily available.

And really, if you live in an urban area, especially Manhattan, and you can't run you normal errands like buy groceries, pick up supplies at the hardware store or bring home a set of shelves from Crate & Barrel by foot and subway with a cart, you are just being lazy. My wife and I even brought home an area rug for our living room from Macy's by way of the subway. And we live as far from the subway as you can get while living in Manhattan.

But people think they are doing something good for the environment by using Zipcar. These are probably the same people that think they are doing good by buying Poland Spring's "eco-bottle" when getting their bottled water. Dumbasses.

We all want our air quality and global warming problem fixed, but so many of us don't want to be the ones that have to give something up for it.

It's the new way to be "green" in the 21st century. Don't actually do anything positive, just make people think they are doing good. I think Zipcar's motto should be: "Alleviating liberal guilt about polluting the air since 2000."

Fresh Direct. See most of the reasons above. It's bad enough that it requires big trucks traveling long distances to get our groceries to the market, now we need them driving around the city to get them to our homes. Again, you really should be walking or taking the subway/bus to the grocery store in New York. Seeing these big Fresh Direct trucks sitting on the streets idling while the driver makes a delivery is so bothersome. Just about every grocery store in the city has delivery, except they have guys that do it on foot with carts. No carbon emissions required.

Texting and walking at the same time. I think this may actually be more annoying than people who text and drive. You think you can text and walk at the same time? Well, you're wrong. Nobody can, and yet so many people do. And they usually bump into the rest of us as they swerve down the sidewalk, block our way when we are trying to get around them in a narrow hallway and they are moving at a snail's pace or almost cause accidents by walking out in the street without looking where they are going. Seriously, stop and move to the side if you need to read or send a text.

I've got a new rule for the rest of us. When anyone texting walks by, not looking where they are going, give them a swift elbow to the face. That'll teach 'em.


Well, that felt great to get off my chest. Hopefully I'll have another instalment next week, and will be blogging more regularly again.

Remember, if it's Monday, I must be hating.

Late Monday Hate - New Parent Edition

So since I became a father it is impossible to get anything done on time. I'm thinking that my Monday hate postings will kind of come on whatever day I can get to it. And since we're in a parent mode, why don't we list the things I'm hating about child-rearing?

First off, parenting books. I've seen a bunch of these things now and I've come to the conclusion that they are all full of shit. Most of them seem to be selling one agenda or another and all they succeed in doing is making parents over think everything. None of the things you are told to do in these books are backed up by any real scientific study, they will just make broad claims as fact.

Like, there are some that make it sound like child abuse if you give your baby a pacifier. They tell you that you kid will never learn to suck her thumb and ruin any chance she has of getting in to Harvard. They don't actually back their claims up with any actual facts, you are just supposed to take it at face value because they are the "best selling" parenting book out there. What's really going on is the breast feeding hippy-Nazi's going all freaky about putting anything in a baby's mouth besides mom's nipple and maybe a twig off a hemp plant because there will be "nipple confusion." I've figured out that nipple confusion is as big of a myth as the lost city of Atlantis and compassionate conservatism. I've heard a lot about how it "can" happen, but no instances of it actually happening. And the people who have a problem with pacifiers are the same ones who think it's perfectly OK and normal to breast feed your kid until she's in junior high.

Baby cries, baby is given pacifier, baby stops crying. It's all good. And my kid knows how to suck her hand with no problem and can tell the difference between the nipple with the food and the one without in about a millisecond.

Throw the books away and just ask your pediatrician for advice. The kid will give you a pretty good idea what to do, too.

Speaking of pacifiers...

I hate the cutesy alternative language people make up for kids. Why the fuck can't we call things what they are just because a child is involved? What the hell is a binky? That doesn't mean anything. Pacifier is really appropriately named thing, why do parents insist on renaming it to something so meaningless? It's not a onesie, it's called a bodysuit.

There's also the putting of a Y on the end of words to make them sound more kid-cute. You know that it doesn't make a crap-filled diaper smell any better by calling it "poopy," don't you? What the hell is wrong with just poop? Personally, I prefer shit. But the wife has an opinion on my language around the daughter.

Another version of this is talking to the baby how you think she's going to say things. If my mother calls herself "Gamma" one more time I'm going to scream.

Don't even get me started on the stupid words parents make up for genitalia.

Seems to me it shouldn't be a radical idea to teach kids the right names for things and the correct way to pronounce them.

And then there are the people who think they know who the baby looks like. I have heard just about every possible combination of who my daughter looks like. People have told me she looks like me, others say my wife. I've had some of my family say my daughter's various cousins or other relatives. You know what? She looks like a baby. Babies this young (weeks old) don't look like anybody. Any claim that she looks like anybody is just people projecting some preconceived idea on my kid. Babies are like Cylons in the new Battlestar Galactica, there are about seven basic models. That's why it is so easy to switch them in the hospital and there are identity bracelets on every limb to make sure that doesn't accidentally (or purposely) happen.

The most dangerous thing I can't stand is the "blame medicine for Autism" movement. I am so sick of seeing this anti-intellectual movement treated with legitimacy. I have heard so many claims of there being "studies" that show a connection between vaccinations, oxytocin or some other drug and Autism. None of it is true, and the studies they site as evidence of these connections are either real studies that are being misrepresented or just flat-out made up. Because of the misinformation spread by these wackos, more parents are choosing to not get their children immunized, and they put my kid at a higher risk.


But you want to know one thing I love about having a baby around? You really don't realize until you have one just how much babies fart, and ours really let's 'em rip with the best of them. And they stink like crazy.

So these days I can just cut loose with mine and blame it on the kid. That's the joy of fatherhood right there.

Monday Hate

Oh man, it has been two weeks since I last posted something. Time flies hen you are changing diapers every fifteen minutes.

So a quick hate post today, just to let everyone know I'm still alive:

D.L. Hughley. Good god, who thinks this guy is funny? I caught part of his new Daily Show-wannabe" show on CNN last week when he was talking to Dan Savage. Holy shit, I haven't seen such unfunny comedy since Saved By The Bell was on the air. And besides being unfunny, there is nothing worse than stupid people who pretend they're smart. I would say it's the comedy version of O'Reilly except that O'Reilly is probably funnier.

At one point Hughley basically told Dan Savage to his face that being gay was the wrong way to be. And he defended it with the whole "way I was raised" nonsense. This was how he was defending the African-American population in California for voting for Prop 8 in such high numbers, because of their religious upbringing. He then said that he had never met a black atheist.

Seriously? Fuck D.L., how many black people do you know then? How is it you are a black man who grew up around other black people and you don't know any black non-believers, yet I'm a white guy who grew up in the suburbs and I've met more than one?

I'm not sure if that was a sign of him being a huge liar or completely clueless.

This country has such a rich history of great black artists and entertainers. Why has that brilliant culture become represented by brainless hacks like Hughley and Tyler Perry?

Paul Robeson must be spinning in his grave.

Monday Hate

Well it has been a few weeks since my last hate list. The whole having a kid thing has been really taking up a lot of my time. Did you know that you can't just leave out food for them and hit the bars for the night? I should have thought this through a little better.

But I'm coming down off my high, so it's time to do some hatin'.

I really only have one thing this week...

Back to basics, let me reiterate my hatred of religion. This isn't one of my usual ranting entries about what I'm hating right now. I'm not really seething about religion at the moment (for that we would be talking about my mother-in-law, who was here for three straight weeks making snide little digs at the guy who isn't good enough for her daughter).

No, I'm more just in the mood to celebrate how smart I am for not believing in religion. Besides all the usual crap that I use to point out why religion is complete bullshit, one that I like to bring up is the ridiculousness that the three main world religions (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) are always fighting with each other even though they worship the same imaginary deity. They bitch and moan with each other over who the prophet is, but still, same damn god.

The utter stupidity of religion got highlighted in the news in a delicious way this weekend. Armenian and Greek Orthodox monks came to blows with each other at the church in Jerusalem where these people believe Jesus was crucified.

Scratch that. Came to blows again. This happens pretty much on a regular basis.

And these guys don't just worship the same god. The groups at this church that are always fighting each other believe in the same exact messenger/saviour/prophet as well.

What's that whole god's love thing again?

More evidence to add to the pile of proof that religious belief is a mental disease.

This shit cracks me up. Keep in mind when watching the video that this is one of the holiest places in all of Christianity.

Monday Hate

Time once again for a trip through what my brain is hatin' at the moment.

I woke up today with nothing to write about, but on my walk to work toward Rockefeller Center on 5th Avenue I was reminded of what today is. So I've got one item today:

People who still celebrate Columbus Day. I mean come on! Really? Even after all we have discovered about that monster, the stuff they didn't tell us in school, we still have a parade in his honor being set up this very morning on 5th Avenue.

I don't know if it still the same today, but if you are around my age or older, and went to public primary and high schools, you more than likely were told the usual heroic sounding story of Columbus "discovering" the "new world" and that's how the founding of America began. Period.

This is the moral equivalent of schools teaching that Adolph Hitler was this guy who designed the Volkswagen Beetle, bringing affordable transportation to the working class.

It wasn't until I got to college that I finally got to discover the truth about the barbarian that enslaved and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of human beings. It is estimated that his actions caused the death of over half the population of Haiti in just one two-year period. And the long term effect of enslavement and slaughter led to complete disappearance of the original population on Haiti by 1650.

Think about that. There are parades around America today in honor of a man who is responsible for the eradication of an entire race. Not even Hitler accomplished that, try as he did.

The parades are not as big as they were in years past, thankfully a lot more people are aware. But the Italian-American community in so many cities still stick to celebrating the man. This kind of ethnic pride is sickening.

They may as well have a parade for Mussolini.

*

Monday Hate

Not too long before my blogging will almost assuredly slow down for a while with the child soon to appear. I imagine at that point my weekly hate list will consist mostly of items like "poop" and "spit-up." I'll try to do more than just these Monday hate posts, but most of my on-line attention is being given to my other blog for the time being.

But until Out Of Tune becomes nothing more than bitching about lack of sleep and colic, enjoy these precious moments we have together, just you and I and the things I'd like to beat with a stick.

This week's things I can't stand:

Kirk Cameron. I know, why would I even waste the energy hating a bad, has-been actor? Well, I'm reading my New York Times this morning and I come across a story in the Arts section about some crappy religious propaganda movie about a firefighter who saves his marriage by "turning to god." It stars the former teen actor and current religious fanatic star of the bizarre Left Behind movies. There was this section included in the article:

Mr. Cameron, who has been married for 17 years and has six children, also said that his faith had helped him survive in Hollywood. “As a teen idol who makes it to 37 without being a crack-smoking transvestite stuck in a drug-rehab center over and over, I’d say, wow, those values have served me pretty well,” he said.

I'd say, wow, you're a dick Kirk. So what about the rest of the "teen idols" who made it to adulthood not being addicted to crack? You know, the majority of them? Just because a few from basically one show (Different Strokes) had some issues over the years, people forget that that doesn't represent the whole of people who were ever famous teen actors. Lots of actors can keep their wits about them without having to turn to ancient fairy tales you smug jerk.

And what the hell is wrong with transvestites? You god-loving types just can't make a comment without taking a dig at gay, transgendered or any other people who are different from you, can you? You homophobic, hate-mongering piece of shit.

Miley Cyrus. Disneyland was shut down for a private party, Miley Cyrus' 16th birthday celebration. Guests paid $250 to attend. Need I say anymore?

Boston Red Sox. As I'm typing this they just beat the Angels to win the series and go to the ALCS against the Rays. It reminds me how annoying I remember Red Sox fans being and what a god-awful place Boston is to live. The Red Sox were a lot more likable when they tragically lost in the postseason all the time.

Sarah Palin. I try to keep the political stuff over at the other blog, but I just can't help this one. I really thought it wasn't possible for my hatred of this woman to get any bigger, but the more and more I get to see her the more I cannot stomach this sorry excuse for a human being. Nothing would please me more than to see this woman get beaten with moose antlers by a group of gay environmental community activists from Planned Parenthood on their way to buy some arugula.

*

Monday Hate - Sports Special

Time once again for my Monday hate list. This week, in honor of the baseball playoffs about to begin (GO CUBS!), we're going with an all sports related list:

Public financed sports stadiums and the boobs who mindlessly cheer on the crooks who took their money. Watching the final game festivities at Yankee stadium, the way the announcers talked about the new stadium and the way the fans cheered the mention of it was mind-boggling. Most people around here are clueless about just how much the new Yankee Stadium is going to cost us. And how little it will end of costing the billionaires who own the team. But hey, we should all be helping the poor Yankees pay A-Rod $30 mil a year, right?

By the way, all you Yankee fans who were holding signs that said "The House That Ruth Built" that night, he didn't. The taxpayers built the first one, too.



Rally caps. To anyone who I've told that praying is the single biggest, stupidest waste of time and energy, I owe you an apology. I was wrong. It is definitely rally caps.

The idea of putting your hat on in as stupid of a way possible to give your team the good karma they need to make a comeback when they are losing late in the game...well, do I even have to finish that sentence?

Interleague play in Major League Baseball. OK, we've been doing this "experiment" for twelve seasons. Can we please stop now? Look, I know there is this argument that there is such big excitement with regional rivals being able to play each other, but once the novelty of the whole thing wore off it turns out it is just another series. And it gets in the way of how often a team plays the teams in the other divisions, which is a hell of a lot more important when it comes to deciding the best team in each league.

Besides, for every Mets-Yankees and Cubs-White Sox series, you also get handed Pirates-Royals and Reds-Mariners. And just how is that exciting?

And while we're at it...

The Wild Card and expanded playoffs in MLB. When this started in 1995 it took away one of my arguments of why baseball is such a better game than other American sports. After a 162-game season if you can't win your division, tough luck. No rewards for second place. Not only did this new system ruin any chance for any more of those great pennant races between two great teams and make the post-season way too long, but we also get some really weak-ass teams in the playoffs that shouldn't be there. It is only a matter of time we get a team with a losing record in the playoffs, as is so commonplace in basketball. (Why do they even have a regular season in the NBA when practically every team makes the playoffs?)

The Steinbrenner family. Just when you thought there couldn't possibly be a bigger prick in baseball than Yankee owner George Steinbrenner, along comes his son Hank. That whole family seems to have jackass in the genes.

Monday Newsman Hate

I've got just one thing I'm hating today, besides my mother. (Don't even get me started. I found out she believed and forwarded that awful email going around lying about what was in Michelle Obama's Princeton thesis, basically accusing Mrs. Obama of being a "black power" racist. It is one of the most disgusting things I've seen in all of the awful slander being thrown at that family. It looks like something written by the KKK)

But bitching about my mother will do none of us any good at this point, so I'll just stick with one item for today's hate list, which I'll also post over at my political co-blog.

Here's who I'm really annoyed with today:

Scott Pelley. The hiring of Pelley as a correspondent for 60 Minutes marked a low point for the news magazine, at least until they tragically let the fluffy Katie Couric sit at the adults' table.

Pelley's interview last night with John McCain was infuriating. He doesn't lob softball questions, he gently arcs badminton shuttlecocks at perfect spiking level.

As to be expected, McCain made sure to take every opportunity, no matter what the question was, to: a) Bring up his five years in a prison camp in Hanoi and: b) make false accusations about Barack Obama's record and his own record.

And what does Pelley do, especially when McCain tells lies about Barack Obama? He moves on to the next topic.

It's not like McCain said anything new that Pelley wasn't able to check on right away. McCain came out with all the same stupid talking points he's been saying for weeks now, stuff that Pelley could have easily had follow-up questions to challenge McCain on his claims.

McCain claims that Obama has never reached across the aisle to to work with the other party, despite there being a mountain of evidence to the contrary for both his time in the Illinois Senate and the U.S. Senate. Pelley says nothing.

McCain says Obama is the most liberal Senator based on "his voting record." It should have been pointed out that Obama was called that by a right-wing magazine attack machine, the same one that called Kerry the most liberal in 2004 (gee, what a coincidence), and that their survey has been easily discredited due to the fact that they just pick and choose which votes to count in the survey.

Hell, you wouldn't even have to go through all of that. Just mention that the U.S. Senate still includes both Bernie Sanders, a self-described Socialist, and Ted Kennedy to make the point that it is kind of a silly accusation.

But did Pelley do either?

Even in his own record McCain tells really big lies and Pelley can't bring himself to challenge the Senator. He asked McCain how his administration would be different from Bush's and two of the things he mentioned were torture and the 9/11 Commission recommendations.

Did Pelley then ask him why, if that were true, he has either voted "no" or not even voted every time the 9/11 Commission recommendations came before the Senate and that he also voted against the bill banning torture?

Do I have to answer that question for you?

*

Monday Hate - Word Special

Today I was thinking of words I hate. Here are a few:

Arguably. This is one of the absolutely worst words around, and newspaper writers seem to love to use it. Look, either something is or isn't the best, most, top, strongest, whatever; or it isn't. Don't be such a wus and and just commit to an opinion.

Elitist. Absolutely the dumbest of all the insults being thrown around this political season. It is usually a way to malign someone for being too smart. This year it has taken on an extra special meaning: Uppity nigger.

Belittle. I gotta say, I don't really have a good argument for hating this word. It is just that my mother used this one waaaaaayyy too much when we were growing up. Anytime you said anything that she saw as a criticism, she would say you were "belittling" her. It was belittle this and belittle that all the time from that crazy loon. Would it have killed her to buy a dictionary and learn the word condescend (which is what she really meant much of the time) or maybe disparage, just to mix things up a little bit?

Folk or Folks. Don't get me wrong, when put in front of something like "music" or "art" folk is a perfectly good word. But as Susan Jacoby asks in her new book, The Age of American Unreason, when exactly did we all suddenly become folk instead of people? This has become the way to refer to the general populace, as "folks" rather than people or citizens. Listening to Barack Obama, former president of the Harvard Law Review, use the word folks all the time makes my ears hurt every time he does it. I know he's trying to appeal to the moron masses, but can't he stop dumbing down his speech and just refer to everyone as people? He's running for President of The United States, not the Sheriff of Mayberry.

(Jacoby makes a great point in her book by asking her reader to imagine Lincoln at Gettysburg saying "Government of the folk, by the folk, for the folk..." Just points out the idiocy of the whole thing, doesn't it?)

Numb-nuts. Of all the childish names my brother called me growing up, this one has never made any sense top me. Why is it an insult to have chilly testicles? I'm not sure he even knew what he was calling me. It had the word nuts in it so I guess that was good enough for the simpleton that is my older brother.

Antidisestablishmentarianism. Is this word actually used in any way other than as the answer to a fourth grade trivia question?

*

Monday Hate With A Touch Of Love

All right, time for my weekly hate list. But this week I'll wrap it up with something that I'm just lovin' right now

But first, the hate:

New York Parents. It pains me that I'm soon going to be a member of this group. There seems to be a narcissistic disease that kicks in when you have a small child in this city. They are one of the most annoying things about living in this city. If they are not running you down on the sidewalk with their over-sized strollers, they are pushing their kid out into oncoming traffic while talking on their cell phone. When their kid needs his hat straightened they'll park the stroller across the the entire sidewalk, because pulling it to the side is just too much fucking trouble, while they take their precious time tending to the little one. The rest of the world, namely the people trying to use the sidewalk, be damned.

They don't even need to have strollers to block the sidewalk. If you live in this city you have to try to make sure you don't walk by one of the schools when it's about to let out. I think every single parent and their nanny is camped outside on the sidewalk waiting for their rug rat. And by camped out I mean they are standing around drinking their Starbucks and blocking the sidewalk. And walking their kids home, oh boy. Just today I got stuck behind two mothers walking their broods home, about five kids stretched out across the entire sidewalk between the two moms, walking as slow as Tim Conway's old man character from the Carroll Burnett Show. I had shown up at the corner, from a different direction, at almost the same time as them. One of the mothers looked straight at me, saw me with my rolling grocery basket, and instead of letting me go first, made their kids jump ahead real quick to get in front of me.

So there I was stuck behind little kids and moms side by side like the Monkees, walking at a snail's pace, with me unable to get around. Both mothers each looked back and saw me, neither made an attempt to let me go around. Wouldn't want to do anything that might disturb their precious babies.

Getting back to my building, a place crawling with annoying parents, I have to put up with kids who get on the elevator and press several floors, as they are going through that fascination with buttons phase.

Their clueless parents find them so cute. I do not. I find stopping at four extra floors where no one gets on or off something different than cute.

These are just some of the examples of dealing with the most self-centered group of people in all of Manhattan on a daily basis.

I hope to god there is a vaccine for this plague.

Unsolicited Advice. Man I've been getting a lot of this lately. With my wife expecting a baby next month, I have had a steady stream of pointless pointers from so many people even though I never asked the question.

There is something about so many parents that they seem to think just because they have a kid they know exactly what you are experiencing and exactly the "right" choices you should make. About everything. Geeze, I managed to knock up my wife without anyone else's help, I think between the two of us and some classes and books by actual professionals we can figure this out.

Oh, and I don't count those fucking hippie "doulas" among the list of professionals. The most fraudulent profession since palm reader and Cato Institute fellow.

OK, I got that off my chest, now for the thing that has just been making me giddy lately:

The Yankees Sucking. Opening the sports section today was such a pleasure. The dreaded New York Yankees are in fourth place after losing last night. Hehehehehehehe-hahahahahaha-hohohohohohohoh!

The only thing better than your own team winning is the Yankees losing. Knowing that Jeter and Rodriquez are going to miss the playoffs altogether this year is soooooooo satisfying. It more than makes up for the fact that my Atlanta (racist mascot)s are sucking hard this season.

There IS joy in Mudville.


My Yankee-fan brother-in-law will now boycott my blog for, oh, about the next week or so. Sorry man, had to be done. To awesome to ignore.

*

Monday Hate List

Oh man, I forgot it was Monday today. Hopefully I'll get this in under the wire...


I have only one thing I'm hating today:

Hypocrisy. I know, I know, professing a distaste for hypocrisy does not exactly put me in a class by myself. But with the general election season officially underway we are going to be seeing a lot of it in the coming months, and it has already begun.

John McCain - a misogynistic pig who is against reproductive rights and equal pay for women, and is well known for telling mean-spirited jokes making fun of the looks of women he finds unattractive, including innocent teenage girls - chooses a woman as his running mate and suggest that women should vote for him because those dirty Democrats are sexist for not nominating Hillary. The woman he picked, someone who belongs to the oxymoronic organization Feminists For Life, paraded her family around the stage at the rally to announce her nomination. Like all politicians, she was using her family to advance her career. But then it is suddenly discovered that her 17-year-old is five months pregnant and now Governor Palin is requesting that we respect the privacy of her children.

Excuse me, but if you start off by not respecting the privacy of your own children, you don't get to then demand it from everyone else. (And don't even get me started on how the press has so far decided to ignore the irony that Palin is against comprehensive sex education - the usual crap about it encouraging underage sex - and praises the virtue of abstinence-only sex ed. That's a blog for another day)

Not that the other side doesn't pull the same silliness. Barack Obama let his daughters be interviewed by some fluffy magazine and he later decided he didn't like them being exposed like that, so he declared them off-limits from now on. That didn't stop him from using his cute-as-a-button little girls and their precious charms at the convention for his own political purpose.

Sorry, but you don't get it both ways. Use your family to sell yourself and your agenda, all bets are off. If the Bush girls get to do their little giggly introduction of Dad at a political event, then Dad doesn't get to bitch about the picture of them falling down drunk at a bar popping up in the paper.

(And again, it's a different issue, but Palin's daughter as an example of the fallacy of her sex education agenda wouldn't be off limits either way)

You either want to keep your family life private or you don't. Pick one and stick to it.

*

Better Hate Than Never

I almost forgot to restart my regular Monday Hate feature after getting home from my trip. Looks like I'll get it in just under the wire...

Well, I had a great time in the absolutely beautiful country that is Taiwan, so my list of things I'm hating this week won't be too long. But I've got a couple.

Coach seating on an international flight. Sure, sitting in coach is not great no matter where you fly. But on a flight lasting about 13 or 14 hours, it is absolutely inhumane. There should be a law that all flights lasting more than 6 hours should have a bar on them. A real bar, where you could hang out and mingle with people and listen to some nice jazz or something.

The fact that I don't know a foreign language. Traveling always reminds me that I'm a lazy American who never put in the time or effort to learn to speak something besides English.

Hillary supporters who say they will vote for McCain. Great idea! You are so pissed off about her not getting the nomination that you'll vote for a guy who has an anti-feminist agenda and will load the Supreme Court with guys who will for sure take away every single one of your reproductive rights. Just brilliant! If there was ever an argument for taking away some people's right to vote...

*

Monday Hate - Fashion Edition

For this week's hate list I decided to go with a fashion theme. Here are things that people wear that I find utterly annoying.


Baseball caps with the little gold sticker still attached. Have you seen this? Every hip-hopper-wannabe leaves this sticker, which is nothing more than the authentication tag, on the the bill of the hat. It has got to be the stupidest looking thing since wearing your waistband around your knees.

Hey hip-hop guys, you know this has been done before right, wearing a hat with the tag still attached? Her name was Minnie Pearl. So way to go, great fashion trend you're following there.

Izod-type shirts with the collars turned up. This is really common here on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, where Yuppie culture has seemed to survive. I will see these guys wearing shorts, deck shoes without socks, Top Gun-style sunglasses on top of their heads and these shirts with upturned collars, often in the most ugly pink and/or green color.

I guess I didn't get the memo that we leaped back to 1986. Seriously, you Yuppies need to get a new look. The whole James Spader from Pretty In Pink thing is maybe a little outdated, don't ya think?

Shorts with a belt and a tucked-in t-shirt. Really? You think this is a good look for you? Look, either dress up or don't dress up. But don't think just because you tuck in your "Alpha Omega Rush Week '98" shirt that you are dressed nice. By the way, leaving the shirt un-tucked would go a lot farther in covering up your middle-aged gut.

Men with gold chains. I know you think it makes you look tough, but it really just makes you look like a dork.

A shirt proclaiming to be "The World's Best" or the "#1" Dad/Mom/Grandma/Grandpa or anything like that. How many of those do you think were given to anyone by an actual kid? I would bet zero.

This new trend of women wearing outfits that look like maternity clothes. How the hell is a guy supposed to know if he should offer his seat to a young lady on the subway if you can't tell the difference between the pregnant women and the fashionable ones? It's madness, I tell you! Madness!

*

If It's Monday, I Must Be Hating

I'm in a good mood this week, so I think this list will be kind of short. But I can always think of something that is bugging me....


Diplomat drivers. Walk around anywhere close to the U.N. building and you'll see that pretty much every fire hydrant has a car parked in front of it. Then look at the license plates to those cars and you'll see that they all have diplomatic plates. Then when they almost drive you down in a crosswalk and yell at you like it's your fault, you'll be blogging about it on Monday. Ass holes.

Broadway houses. Pay in excess of 100 bucks to be shoved into an old, run down theatre with no lobby space, an inadequate number of bathrooms, seats that are the perfect size for a person four feet tall and get treated like shit by the house manager. Let the good times roll!

Manhattan on a hot and muggy July afternoon. I know I've said it before, but it bears repeating.

Though this caused me to find something I love more than life itself - a mango slush in Chinatown. So it turned out to be not so bad of a day.

I know I'm breaking my own hate-blog rules with that last one. I told you I was in a good mood.

*

Another Day, Another Hate List

What am I hating this week? I'm glad you asked...



Joe Torre. Have you seen this stupid commercial he made for an insurance company? Look, I get it, he moved from New York to L.A., from a city where a lot of people get around on foot and public transportation to one where everyone drives. So along with all of the other silly stereotypes (doing yoga, writing a screenplay, etc.) he portrays in the ad, he also refers to his new life of "driving."

OK, here's the thing. Joe Torre lived in Westchester when he managed the Yankees and he drove to the park every day in one of his expensive cars. This idea that Torre was taking the subway to the park, or anywhere else for that matter, is just dumb. Every photo or video clip in of him arriving or leaving anywhere is always him in his car. I'm willing to bet that he hasn't been on the New York public transportation system in over 30 years.

Jim Carrey. Most of the time I've been a big supporter of this guy. He has been the most outspoken American celebrity on an issue that is very important to me, freedom for Aung San Suu Kyi and the liberation of Burma from the stranglehold of the illegal military junta.

But now he's shacked up with that dumb bimbo, ex-Playboy model and god-awful "writer" Jenny McCarthy. So now he has jumped on her silly "I know vaccines cause Autism despite the total lack of any actual evidence" bandwagon.

Look Jim, I know those breast implants must be a real comfortable place to rest your head every night. But just because you're sticking your dick in that skanky snatch doesn't mean you have to drink the Kool-Aid and believe her bat-shit crazy nonsense.

TMZ. Do these guys have a life? How pathetic must your existence be if you make your living by showing video of Henry Winkler getting off of a plane, Tom Hanks eating in a restaurant and making fun of female celebrities for being 5 pounds heavier than they were last summer; and calling them fat when you have a bigger gut and ass than them.. The guy who started this brain-dead organization apparently used to be a lawyer, which I guess wasn't bottom-feeding enough for him. (Apologies to my friend Megan, who does good with her law degree)

I didn't think it was possible for there to be anything dumber than People Magazine. I was wrong.

Lou Dobbs. I don't even know where to begin with this xenophobic, racist, bloviating prick. I accidentally saw five minutes of his show yesterday and I almost had an aneurysm. He claimed that Obama was an "elitist" (every person who I've heard make this charge against Obama is a millionaire member of the bourgeois) for suggesting that it would be a good idea for American schoolkids to learn a foreign language. Dobbs would prefer that our population remain uneducated and unworldly hicks. Hey Lou, how's that worked out with our country being led by one of those types for the last 7-1/2 years?

I'd like to see that ass get beat to death with a garden hoe wielded by one of the immigrants who does his lawn.

*

Monday Hate

Too much kindness was being heaped on me last week at a conference, but I'm back in a hateful mood once again. Here's what I'm hating this week:

People who say "They're in a better place" after someone dies. Really? Exactly how the fuck would you know, you've been? I can't imagine anything more rude and hateful to say to a loved one than telling them that their kid/parent/spouse/etc. is better off dead than being with them.

Wolf Blitzer. Of all the hack journalists out there he has got to be the hackiest. (Non-FOX News category)

Jury duty. Don't get me wrong, I like the idea of the democracy and civic responsibility of jury duty. But I had to spend my whole morning in the jury pool waiting area of the New York State Civic Courthouse. And their free wi-fi blocked me from writing my blog. I didn't get picked for a jury selection room, but I still have to go back tomorrow. Sucks.

Trying to find a dentist. I just have to pick out a name from the list my insurance company provides. Jeez, I don't even go to a restaurant based just on the name.

Girls who wear t-shirts with phrases like "Juicy," "Porn Star" or "Slut" written across the front. There are parents out there who need to be kicked in the face.

Also, pants with anything written across the ass. I don't care if it says "Valedictorian," you look like a moron with writing across your ass.

*

Monday Hate List

Time once again to see what Out Of Tune is hating this week:

Sean Hannity. Have you ever wondered what would happen if that crazy, racist, sexist homophobic ass-hole uncle, who spouts off on what he thinks is wrong with the world after a few too many beers at family gatherings, got his own TV show? Now you know.

American football. It is baseball season dammit, I'm sick of NFL "mini-camp" news interrupting my baseball highlights on SportsCenter. At the end of the day, I want to catch up on what happened in the real American sport and not have to see any news on what is happening in that silly game of catchy-throwy.

Intelligent Design. The idea that someone can actually believe in this nonsense astounds me. As someone who will be the parent of a school-age child in about 7 years it frightens me that some crazy people are going to try to push this on her. I'm not going to your church and preaching science, so stop trying to teach religion in our science classes.

Former GE CEO Jack Welch. I was watching this jackass being interviewed the other day claiming that Bush has done nothing to hurt America's reputation around the world. He claims to know this because he travels around the world and the people he meets love America and Bush. This dumb ass fails to mention that all the people he talks to overseas are nothing but heads of state and multimillionaire businessmen like himself. He should climb out of his ivory tower and talk to the people who have to actually work for a living sometime. He might see a different point of view about the American government.

The silly accusation of "elitism".

Anyone who is against gay marriage. Seriously? You actually give a crap if two guys you don't even know marry each other? And don't even try that stupid argument of comparing it to polygamy, child molesting and bestiality you ignorant bigot.

That George Carlin will be be given a small fraction of the tributes afforded that journalistic hack Tim Russert. The death of a great social commentator will be reduced to a one-day story, mentioned in 30-second segments and mostly focusing on his "seven words" bit from over 30 years ago.

Whatever those hand-held video games are that people play on the subway. You ever heard of a book?

Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. I hope this needs no explanation.

*

Hating On Monday

Time for another instalment of "What is Deni hating this week?"

Will try to get to writing more posts soon, but it has been a busy month.

In the meantime, enjoy this week's hate list:


Jimmy Kimmel. Seriously, who the hell is entertained by this dipshit?

The sound of chewing gum being snapped and popped in a person's mouth.

All of the tributes calling Tim Russert a "tough interviewer" who "asked hard questions." Bullshit, he lobbed softballs and didn't challenge any politicians on their bald-faced lies. He was buddy-buddy with all of them and didn't do his damn job the way he was supposed to. The New York congressional delegation is going to push a bill to name a part of a freeway in Buffalo after him. Does that sound like a guy who asked them tough questions? If there is an afterlife, hopefully Russert is being bitch-slapped by Edward R. Murrow right now.

People Magazine.

New York City traffic control cops. Stand on the corner talking on your cell phone while cars block the intersection, run red lights, make illegal turns and wail on their horns. Is that really the job description?

Jenny McCarthy. Dumb blond bimbo has a baby and suddenly thinks she is an expert on pregnancy, children, life in general and Autism. Children in America will die from preventable diseases as a direct result of this woman convincing parents that immunizations are dangerous, despite the complete lack of any scientific evidence. She should be thrown in jail.

Every person who has ever made a prediction about my life. Since I was young I have had so many people tell me I was going to think/feel/believe/become something when I grew up/got a job/went to college/got married, etc. I've been told, usually by my bat-shit crazy mother or some other family member, that I would become more conservative or Republican when I got older, got a job and/or started paying taxes. Pretty much the opposite of what I really became. Since it became known that I'm going to become a father this year I've had a couple people, one being my Jesus freak mother, tell me that I'll suddenly start believing in god or Jesus when my daughter is born. Add that to the amazingly long list of wrong predictions about my life.

"Reality" television.

That fat Jewish kid from Judd Apatow's movies. He is just not funny.

Guys who wear their Bluetooth wireless headsets all the freaking time. It is not a piece of jewelry, and talking to somebody wearing one is so damn annoying.

Astrology.

*