Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope you have a good day and a good weekend. Hopefully it won't suck too bad. Relatives can be a pain sometimes. Do something nice for yourself. It's a hacky thing to say, but sometimes you are the only one looking out for yourself. My weekend will be spent watching DVDs, putting up all of the X-mas decorations and hopefully pursuing some artistic endeavors if I can get motivated enough to pursue them.

Be good,

Grey

Movie Theaters

I love to watch movies. I fucking hate to go to the movie theater. The movie theater has a huge screen and a fantastic sound system and that theater popcorn smell you can’t get anywhere else. It also has fucking morons that don’t know how to act in the theater. I think a lot of this was caused by the advent of cable TV, video tape and the video tape recorder, a.k.a. VCR. As everyone knows, this changed the way everyone watched movies. It became cheaper and easier to watch movies. We could watch what we wanted and when we wanted. Video tapes evolved into DVDs which evolved into Blu-ray and you can even download movies from the internet. Now, I’m not blaming the technology for what has happened to people’s behavior in movie theaters. That would be like blaming cell phones for all of the car accidents that are caused by people talking on cell phones. At some point, idiots have blurred the line between watching a movie at home and watching one in the theater. There are things that you can do at home that you shouldn’t do in public. You don’t go to a movie theater in your underwear, why would you think all of the other rules of watching a movie at home apply to watching one in a theater?

Babies

When did it become OK to bring infants to movie theaters? I don’t mean kids movies, I understand that. I’m talking about any movie PG-13 and up. I’ve seen infants at R rated movies. I’ve seen infants at movies that started at 9 PM. If you are watching a movie at home, fine, let your dullard spawn sit on your lap while you watch Larry the Cable Guy say, “Git r’ done” one more time in his latest cinematic tour de force. But, don’t bring that same “should have been a blowjob” child to the theater while I’m trying to watch Larry the Cable Guy say, “Git r’ done” one more time in his latest cinematic tour de force. What the fuck makes you think the rest of us want to hear your biological mistake scream and screech through an entire movie? If you can’t get a baby sitter then STAY THE FUCK HOME. And this sort of fits into this category, I’ve seen entire families, 4 kids, 2 years old to about 10 years old, with their parents at the movie 300. There are adults that shouldn’t see 300 let alone children. One guy tried to tell me that the movie was educational. 300 wasn’t a fucking documentary. It was an entertainment movie based on a comic book based on the Battle of Thermopylae which happened in 480 BC. It’s like saying, “I want to learn about World War II so I’m going to see Saving Private Ryan”. If you want to learn about something, don’t trust Hollywood, go read a book. And you can’t give me one good reason to bring small children to inappropriate movies. That may not be a byproduct of watching movies at home, but is sure is a sign of bad parenting.

People That Can’t Shut Up

I don’t mind every once in a while someone whispering a short whisper to another during a film. And the people that talk back to the screen, that’s a cultural thing and I don’t go to those theaters any way. But, the people that talk to each other through the entire movie? Did you mistake the theater for a Starbucks? I know they don’t serve popcorn and Twizzlers at Starbucks. Theaters (movie or otherwise) are not a place where people talk. They are a place where people listen. If you want to talk, go to a coffee shop, or a bar, or STAY THE FUCK HOME. You are obviously used to running your mouth throughout the entire movie, do it at home so the rest of us can hear the movie and we don’t have to listen to you wondering if we are going to see Halle Berry’s tits. A movie is not a sporting event that needs a running commentary.

Would it be okay for me, a stranger, to come into your house with baby and have it scream and cry through the movie? Would you want me, still a stranger, to talk through a movie at your house? I’m betting you wouldn’t. So don’t do it when you are in public. Have some consideration for your fellow humans. Put yourself in the shoes of others and see how inconsiderate you are. And if you can’t control yourself in public, then STAY THE FUCK HOME.

Be good,

Grey

Food, Stuff and Drugs

Let’s get some definitions straight first. Food – any solid or liquid you take into your body orally. Stuff – a material object that you purchase or is given to you. Drugs – any, and I mean any, substance that causes an altered state or that one can become addicted to, including prescription drugs, illegal drugs, tobacco, and alcohol. (And don’t even try to argue that tobacco and alcohol aren’t drugs. Just because they are legal, doesn’t mean they aren’t a drug. Plenty of people are hooked on prescription medications and they are plenty legal.) In fact, anyone can become addicted to food, stuff, or drugs.

Food, stuff and drugs are good. They make us feel good. We get addicted to them because they fill an empty space in us or they give us a pleasure that we can’t get anywhere else. Food tastes good, makes our bellies full and satisfies that hunger we all get. Stuff satisfies that need to have and hold things, that need for material possessions, and in the case of DVDs, books and CDs, it provides us with an escape from the things that trouble us. And talking about escape, drugs are one of the major suppliers of escape. From that beer at the end of the day, to the cigarette break at work, to that late night bong hit, they all provide a much needed break.

But, most of you know this shit already.

Here’s something you may not have thought of before.

Have you ever thought of how dependable food, stuff, and drugs are when they are compared to people?

And that we are hooked on our substance of choice because humans are so undependable?

How many times have you eaten an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s (which should be a single serving anyway), or gone binge shopping, or had a double Jack and Coke because of someone and not something. Food, stuff, and drugs are always there for us. They are pretty darn consistent. They will always treat you well, at least better than most people do. The same cannot be said of people. Now, I’m not talking about the “hey, I can’t help you move because NASCAR is on” kind of “not there for you”. I’m talking about the “we’ve been friends long before you met you wife but after you split up with her, I’m going to be on her side”. I’m talking about “yeah, I gave birth to you, but I’m going to treat you like shit”. I’m talking about the kind of hurt and betrayal that shouldn’t come from someone that you care about and that claims to care about you.

Maybe if people were more dependable, thought before they acted, actually cared for one another, we wouldn’t have to turn to food, stuff, and drugs to fill a need and to always be there when we need them. Maybe we would have less addicts and alcoholics. Maybe we would have less people with weight problems. Maybe we would have less people spending all their money on stuff from QVC and we wouldn’t have hoarders and crazy cat ladies. Maybe.

But, that’s not going to happen, right?

Be good,

Grey

Fashion Tips: Plaid Pants and Shorts

Summer is here and I love the clothes associated with the season. I get to wear my jean shorts, my Tevas, and my Utilikilt. And I also love the clothes that the ladies wear, short skirts, tank tops, and tube tops (for our friends in the double-wides).

But there is one type of clothing that could be the enemy of the ladies, the plaid pants. I was out and about the other day and I saw a woman wearing capri pants with a plaid pattern on them. I noticed that the plaid, creating an optical illusion, increased the size of her slightly overweight behind at least 50%. Did she know? Should I tell her? Do other women know? Well, that’s why I am here.

Your ass + plaid = your huge ass.

I’m just trying to help.

Now I’m not saying don’t wear plaid pants and shorts. I just want you to know how your scrumptious bum looks when wrapped in a pattern that should only be seen on bagpipes, flannel shirts, and retro golfers. Maybe you have a bumette or bumita and you want to make it look bigger. Plaid would be the way to go.

Don’t get me wrong, I firmly believe that anyone should wear anything they want. If a 400 pound man or woman wants to wear a bikini or Speedo, more power to them! If a person with a great body wants to hide it in baggy clothes, fine! If kids want to wear their pants down to their knees showing everyone their underwear and look like a moron and walk like a penguin, go for it! And if you don’t care how you look, that’s fine too. Wear what you want with pride. It’s sad that clothes make the man, or woman for that matter, and we aren't judged on who we are instead.

(I would have taken some photos to illustrate my point, but [no pun intended] I didn't want to get arrested for running around the mall, taking pics of women's butts.)

Be good,

Grey

Zombie A Day

Go check out Erica Hesse's Zombie A Day blog. She is cranking out some great stuff. Generic and famous people all get Erica's zombification treatment. Day 37 is my favorite so far.

Your mom has got it going on.

I can't believe myself and 1,900 bloggers put "your mom" as an interest.

It’s the End of the World As We Know It...

and I don’t feel fine.

To borrow something from Chris Rock and twist it a bit for my own use, I love the human race, but I hate people. To quote comedian Bill Hicks, “People are a virus with shoes”. People fuck shit up all the time. Yes, there are good and bad people, and guess what, the bad people are winning. I admit, some things are getting better. Less racism, genderism, (Yeah, I’m making up words. If George W. Bush can do it, so can I and I didn’t go to Yale. At least I admit it that I make up words.) ageism, and even gay/lesbian-ism has gotten better. (But we need a helluva lot work on that one.) But you can’t tell me that lookism (where people are judged by their appearance) has gotten better.

You would think with all of the advances over several thousand years of existence, the human race would be better off than it is. I don’t think we are better off. We travel through space, we cure diseases, we have light beer in aluminum bottles (And in case you didn’t know, aluminum doesn’t keep beer colder because aluminum is a conductor and transfers the heat from your hand faster to the beer while glass is an insulator and the transfer of heat is slower. Just another lie marketers and corporations tell you.), but your pay hasn’t kept up with the rising cost of living, more and more families have both parents working where just 20 years ago most families had a parent home to take care of the kids, and goddammit, I can’t go to a PG-13 or R rated movie without some moron, that shouldn’t be breeding in the first place, bringing an infant or a toddler to ruin my movie going experience!

“But Grey, what about all of the technological advances? Certainly they have made life better?” Don’t get me wrong. I love my computer, my dvds, and my cds and all the other tech “toys” that living in the 21st century has afforded us. But I’d give it all up to (cliche alert) live in a world where people are good to each other, where hate isn’t spewed through the airwaves just to get ratings, and some jerk at a restaurant isn’t going spit on your food. Technology isn’t going to make living with each other any easier. A cell phone with a camera in it isn’t going to make your boss any less of a jerk. Unfortunately, only the humans can make living with each other easier.

I do love the human race and want to see it succeed. I’m not very optimistic at this point. I’ve always been more of a realist than an optimist or pessimist. And at this point I think we are headed towards more of a “Mad Max” future than a “Star Trek” future. Except, I don’t think there is a Max that will save us.

Shit, I sound really preachy, don’t I? Oh, well. That wasn’t my intent. I just wanted to point these things out. And I’m not here to argue with anyone. I just want things to be better. Is that so wrong?

Be good, love each other, love yourself,

Grey