Kia

Kia, the commercial with the hamsters in no way makes me want to buy a car. All it says about the car is that it's shaped approximately like a toaster, and that it's plenty roomy for four adult rodents.

Gee, sounds practical.

No thanks.

Facebook Illiteracy

There are a few distinct groups of people on Facebook these days:

Ghosts: These are the folks who signed up for an account once years ago, and have either no picture at all, a fuzzy picture of themselves taken some five to ten years ago, or a random clip art as their profile picture. "Happy Birthday" is the only thing on the ghost's wall, and it will be from the two or three previous years at least. I have to commend the ghosts for having a real life outside of the internet. Bravo to you.

Grown Ups: People who use Facebook to post pictures of their kids and keep up with relatives and friends they don't regularly see. Most of the posts and pictures from these people will be fairly mundane and as wholesome as Leave It To Beaver. They almost always have a family picture, a picture of themselves with their significant other, or a picture of children as a profile picture. I have no beef with you people. I even consider myself one of you.

Activists: People who use Facebook as their own personal soapbox. Every other post is a link to some poorly researched or highly inflammatory blog article about a fringe topic. The thing they don't realize is that nobody they are trying to convince actually reads the crap they post. We all started ignoring them months ago.

Children: This includes anyone who is under 18, still in high school, or still gets "gas money" from his or her parents. There are some problems with the things kids post, but generally it's at least somewhat excusable given that they are kids and, well, stupid. Nobody can argue that. We've all been there. Someday, senators and businessmen will look back at their archived Facebook profiles. They will see "OMGEEEE MY KITTEEEE IS AWESOMMMEEEEE!!!!!!!" or "Math sux! I wont evr use this crap!" and cringe like everyone else does when they see pictures of themselves in perms and slap bracelets. But we will look past it, because they were kids.

Idiots: These people should be banned from the internet. I'm talking about the ones who, despite being at least twenty five years old, still use pictures they took of themselves in the bathroom mirror making a "sexy face" as a profile picture. The ones who, I kid you not, will have a poorly spelled, profanity laced fight in the status line of the profile they share as a couple. I am "friends" with several of these types on Facebook, and I have some words of advice that might make people take them more seriously.

1. You're not in high school anymore. People do not arbitrarily hate you. Stop making vague statements about drama and haters, because it only reveals your own insecurity and immaturity. Adults have more important things to think about than how much they do or do not like you. Y'know, like mortgages, marriage, jobs, and things like that. Even if there are real drama and haters in your life, talking about them on Facebook isn't going to help. If that is the case, you should probably get some new friends anyway.

2. Let's have some respect for the English language, okay? If you have successfully completed the sixth grade, there is no reason to post misspelled and incomplete words. In fact, Facebook automatically spell checks. You have to ignore the red wiggly line under your illegible ramblings to make yourself look that stupid. Really, it just makes you look illiterate. The same thing goes for text speak written in any post not generated from a mobile device. We have a beautiful and very functional lexicon. Use whole words.

3. Remember that employers regularly look at Facebook profiles prior to hiring someone. If your pictures are all of you half naked and trashed at a kegger, or your posts read like this: "Can u get herpes from toilet seats???" you will not get the job.

4. Nobody wants to see your nasty ass shower curtain in the background of your profile pic. Stop taking pictures of yourself in the bathroom mirror. Duckface is not sexy. Taking "sexy pose" pictures of yourself and then posting them on the internet seems way desperate, especially if you're an adult with children. You will not attract the kind of people you say you want to spend time with.

If you do any of those things, you fail the internet. Cease and desist immediately until you can be a little less juvenile.

Cats and the People Who Like Them

When this commercial started last night, I turned to my husband and said, "I swear, if this is a damn cat food commercial, I'm going to punch something." There are a few glaring problems with it. First, the lady who is obsessed with the fluffy white kitty appears to be neither overweight or insane. Second, the man who is obsessed with the fluffy white kitty is clearly a homosexual. Third, the cats appear to be friendly, and we all know the rule: the more attractive the cat, the more of a psycho bitch it is. Finally, WTF THE CAT HAS A FURNISHED ROOM and the people are eating dinner on a box?

This post is more about the illness that is "being a cat person" than about cats themselves. Don't misunderstand- I do hate cats, both large and small. The big'uns because they are bone-chillingly terrifying, and the litl'uns because they act like the big ones in an annoyingly impotent way. They are unpredictably moody and aggressive. But they can't help being the a-holes of the pet world, so I'll let them slide. (Yes, my dislike for the feline race is fueled by a traumatic experience...)

My beef is with the Fancy Feast cat lovers of the world. Cats, if left to their own devices, eat mice, birds, and garbage. Do we really need to feed them shrimp and salmon out of crystal dishes? Why are people trying to impress an animal that attacks you if you move in your sleep? They aren't going to like you any better if you give them kitty foie gras or dry kibble. Heck, they aren't going to like you at all. The best you can get from a cat is an indifferent stare or *if you're lucky* the privilege of petting them until they decide to bite you. And people who love cats will take the bites and scratches like a masochist. Please, people, enough with the kitty cat tee shirts and coffee mugs. The cat wouldn't make one of you, if the tables were turned. Stop buying better food for an animal that tolerates your presence, at best, than you do for yourself. Anything that stinks and poops in the house should be expected to have a little more gratitude.

Pregnancy Hormones

Damn you. Damn you to hell.

As you may know, I am currently pregnant. Perhaps that's why I'm so bitchy. Whatever. Anyway, I have a beef with the emotional effects of the pregnancy in particular. I cry all the effing time. My computer battery dies while I'm playing a game? I cry. There's nothing good on TV? I cry. I cry when my kids do something cute. I cry when they act like they are monkeys high on meth recently released from prison (they're three and two... it happens.) Today, it reached the level of the ridiculous. All music now makes me cry. Six songs in a row on the iPod. Six. In. A. Row. They were of varying genres and lyrical content. One even made me cry because it was Kanye and that guy is such a douche. Another post on him another time. What a tool bag... But it's ridiculous! What possible reason is there for my body to melt into hysterics at the drop of a hat? The logical part of my brain is standing in the corner of my head screaming at the emotional part to shut the hell up, which is of course, hurting my emotional side's feelings and making that bitch cry even more. Ugh. Therefore, hormones, I not-so-respectfully implore you to knock it off. If I have to plug my ears with my fingers and do the "La-la-la-la-not-listening!" bit, I will. You disgust me.

Also, hormones, you can quit with the barfing. Waiting til I finish the last bite of something I love is not a good time to tell me it might upset my stomach. That's too late. Please plan ahead.

Nonsensical Christmas Songs

In general, I love Christmas music. It's festive. It's whimsical. It gives me peppermint scented waves of nostalgia. When you get down to the lyrics, though, a lot of them are pretty stupid. I have a particular beef with these songs in particular:

I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus recorded by various artists: At the surface, it seems kind of adorable. A little boy catches his daddy dressed up as Santa kissing his mom. When you think about it though, it reveals a disturbing fetish. If the parents thought the little nugget was "in his bedroom fast asleep" as the song describes, what were they doing? Sure, costumes are fun in the boudoir, but Santa Claus? Nothing about a morbidly obese elderly man with rosacea breaking and entering gets me hot under the collar. The song should be more appropriately titled, My Mom Probably Had Her First Sexual Experience with a Department Store Santa (Now She Needs Therapy).

Christmas in Kansas City by Brad Millison: In my husband's words: "I hate that guy. I want to kick him in the face." This entire song is just a tourism commercial. And proof that the guy knows Kansas City isn't in some kind of time vortex (" 'Cause it's Christmas everywheeeeere.")

Do They Know It's Christmas? by Band Aid: I know, I know, it was for a great cause, yadda yadda yadda. It's still a terrible song. The lyrics are stupid. There is no reason to tell the target audience (rich people) not to be afraid at Christmas time. They weren't. The line, "There won't be snow in Africa this Christmas time," bugs me. No shit. They never have snow there. I doubt they care. So to answer the question posed in the title of the song, no, they probably don't know it's Christmas. Christmas, while it is celebrated secularly in the West, is a religious holiday. They probably don't know it's Christmas in China, either. Countries that aren't predominantly Christian don't celebrate it. Stupid song. If I ever write a charity song, I'll make sure it doesn't suck. It'll raise more money that way.

Last Christmas by Wham!: Do you know why this song sucks? Neither do I. I can't figure out what the hell they're even talking about.

This Gift by 98 Degrees: It's sappy and romantic, but if you pay attention, the guy is saying he loves his girl too much to buy her a present. He's not, however, offering anything else. This song just sounds like someone trying to score a pair of candy-cane printed panties.

I'm sure I'll think of more. Consider this the first course of Christmas Beef.

Fat Free Foods

Food manufacturers- do you taste this stuff before it hits shelves? Clearly, you do not.

A box of fat free saltine crackers accidentally made it into my cupboard recently. Now, a regular cracker tastes fine and doesn't have much fat. The fat free ones? They taste like dust and tears. Why make a product that, in my estimation, provides an experience of unnecessary angst? It was like licking an emo kid.

And fat free cheese? I've eaten tastier crayons.

The McRib

A Beef about Pork:

Oh, McDonalds. Tsk, tsk. Why go to the effort to make it look like it has bones in it? Nobody would order a BBQ rib sandwich if they thought it had bones. That is just stupid enough to fall slightly short of whimsical, like the movie Glitter. The McRib is the Glitter of fast-food.