Winner: Cell Phone User of the Year
I am proud to announce that I am the recipient of the First Annual Jen N Tonic Cell Phone User of the Year Award. I feel humbled and honored to receive this recognition as the only person of the 1.2 billion cell phone users worldwide who is able to operate a mobile telephone without turning into a jackass. I would like to thank the people at Jen N Tonic for their insight and wisdom in bestowing this great honor upon me.
Now, some may argue that there was bias on the part of the judges since I gave the award to myself. However, I think that when you review the criteria below you will agree that nobody else on the face of the planet would have been eligible for nomination.
In order to receive the Jen N Tonic Cell Phone User of the Year Award you must be a regular mobile phone user who does not participate in any of the obnoxious activities below. I know some people who avoid most of them, but I submit that I am the only person on the face of the planet who does none of the following:
Answering your phone while sitting at a table or in a group
Contrary to popular belief, hitting the Talk button on your mobile phone does not magically transport you into another dimension where the people around you can no longer see or hear you. Last month I was at a wedding shower where we were all sitting around a small coffee table making polite chit-chat with one another. One of the guest's cell phones rang and, of course, she answered it. She proceeded to have a lengthy conversation with her friend on the other line while remaining seated in the group, leaving the rest of us to sit in uncomfortable silence since it was too difficult to talk over her conversation. If you simply must take that call, it is possible to stand up and move to another location to have your conversation.Staring at your phone and letting it ring while you decide whether or not to answer
Every cell phone has a button that you can press to make it stop ringing without answering it. Usually it's the End button. Use it. And by the way, why is this such a difficult decision? I always see people stare at their LCD for anywhere from 10 to 20 seconds while deciding whether or not to answer the call. What is on these people's screens? A riddle? Mine just shows the name or number of whoever is calling me, thus making my decision about whether or not to take the call instantaneous.Letting your phone keep ringing if you decide not to answer
This is similar to the item above. Again, I would like to take this moment to announce to the world that it is possible to make your cell phone stop ringing without answering it.Having a loud and/or obnoxious ring
You just got your new phone. You're exploring all its features and you discover with glee that it has LOTS and LOTS of different rings! I know, its exciting. You could be the only person in your office whose incoming calls are announced by Beethoven's Fifth. Or you could spice things up a bit with The Entertainer. And you want to make sure you don't miss any of those important calls you get, so you turn the volume up so that you can hear the ring even over the din of the lunch crowd at Golden Corral. The problem is, nobody cares about your cool ring and its volume is jarring and distracting. Either turn the volume down or keep it in your pocket on vibrate.Inability to drive while on the phone
As I noted above, being on your cell phone does not mean you're temporarily spirited away to an alternate universe that consists only of you and your current conversation. You are still in your car. You are still expected to be able to operate the accelerator and the brake and, yes, even the turn signal. Red lights still mean "stop," green lights still mean "go."Answering your phone in a movie theater
This is the worst offense of all. Until last month I thought it was an urban legend. I'd heard stories of friends' cousins' girlfriends witnessing this kind of thing but assumed that, like the rumored organ theft rings, nobody would actually do something so vile. Then I saw it for myself. I was in a theater and at a particularly intense, emotional part of the movie the cell phone of the woman sitting next to me started ringing. She let it ring while she stared at the LCD, then eventually answered and began a conversation. She didn't even get up to leave; she just sat there and chatted away. It would take me about 3,000 words to describe exactly how I feel about this kind of behavior, so I'll just stop here.
A final note: nobody important is trying to contact you. By definition, if you're one of the people who stares at your phone and lets your Mexican Hat Dance ring blare on and on while you decide whether or not you should take a call, nobody is going to trust you with information of any significance. It's ok to go ahead and turn off the phone it theaters, not answer it at the dinner table, or even get rid of it altogether.
Add fire to big stick and it go boom. Fun.
The thing I don't like about the 4th of July is the same thing I don't like about New Year's: fireworks. I enjoy the large, professional productions, but I hate the fact that any yahoo can -- and does -- go out and buy a truckload of black cats and bottle rockets for about $2.50. They don't even get the kind that produce a pretty visual like Roman candles or sparklers; they skip straight to the ones that do absolutely nothing except for make a loud noise.
And since the low price allows these people to get more firecrackers than they could possibly set off in one night even if they tried (which they do), 4th of July and New Year's both turn into a sort of Asshat Ramadan: endless days, weeks, and sometimes even months of the normal, quiet neighborhood sounds pierced with the POP!POP!POP! sound of some idiot who has yet to tire of the bag of fireworks they bought for the holiday.
I don't even understand the appeal of these things for the holiday itself. What is so fascinating about black cats and bottle rockets?! Somebody please explain this to me. Based solely on my observations I can only assume the thought process here is, "Oooo. Me make loud noise. Add fire to big stick and it go boom. Fun." Every 4th of July I see adults and children alike stand around into the wee hours of the night setting these things off. It's as if there's promise on the package that the 1,384th one they set off will explode into a flurry of $100 bills or free a genie who will grant them a wish. But, alas, the same thing happens over and over and over and over again. You light the fuse and it makes a loud noise. This is the intellectual equivalent of sitting around and staring at shiny objects.
A guide to understanding writers
When am I going to learn to stop asking for feedback if I don't want it? When it comes to my writing, I'm a sensitive, hyper-defensive troll who can't tolerate the slightest suggestion for improvement. Yet I always find myself blurting out, "I'd love to hear any constructive criticism you have!" because I want to pretend like I'm a mature adult. My energy would be better spent just sitting around and hitting myself in the foot with a hammer.
At least I know I'm not alone. Dealing with writers who submit articles to Buttafly has taught me that all writers a) are insecure and b) hate criticism almost as much as I do. And they have it easy! Because I'm a crappy editor and fear confrontation, my criticism tends to be very light. A rambling article full of logical errors and spelling mistakes might receive a response like, "This piece is the most glorious work that hath ever been penned, a statement for the ages, as if from the mouths of the winged angels themselves. And could you correct the five misspellings in the third paragraph?" ...And the author will still get defensive and upset with me.
So I've decided to help the editors and well-meaning friends of writers of the world and put together this handy guide to interpreting the secret language of writers:
| A Guide to Translating Writer-Speak | |
| What writers say... | What they mean... |
| What are your thoughts on my writing? | What are your thoughts on my writing, which I will interpret as your thoughts on my value as a human being? |
| I'd be interested to hear your feedback. | I'd be interested to hear you tell me how great this is. |
| Thanks for your constructive criticism, those are definitely areas where I can improve. | I hate you! Die! Die! Die! |
| I will make the changes you suggested right away. | I will drag my feet on making these changes for as long as possible while I sulk. |
| I don't agree with all of your comments. | I will resent you for all of eternity. |
| Is it too long? | Tell me it's great. |
| Is the plot easy to follow? | Tell me it's great. |
| What about the tone? | Tell me it's great. |
How I'm going to get rich
I happened to see America's Funniest Home Videos recently for the first time in years. The last time I watched this show I recall wondering how long it would it last. I mean, people will eventually get sick of shaky footage of kids putting things in or taking things out of their noses and men getting hit in the balls with fast-moving objects, right?
Wrong.
I just saw a family win $10,000 for their video of their toddler son hitting his father in the crotch with a t-ball bat. The second-place contestants pocketed $3,000 because they documented their baby accidentally sucking a piece of spaghetti up its nose. Fantastic. We give away enough money to feed a large family in a third-world country for a year to reward someone for getting a video of a guy being hit in the genitals.
Oh well, I'm done being irritated and am now just going to use this observation to increase my family's income by $10,000 a week. My blog entries from now on will be posted from the Mediterranean resort where I am about to take up a full time residence, living large off of my AFHV winnings.
All I need to do is make a bunch of videos that have some or all of the elements from the list below.
Things that are always funny to AFHV viewers:
- Man getting hit in the groin
- Object coming in or out of child's nose
- Pants falling down
And to cinch up the big $100,000 prize given away to the Funniest Video of the Year, I'll trot out my footage of a child shooting an object out of his nose which hits his father in the balls and causes his pants to fall down. The great thing is THIS NEVER GETS OLD. It is evidently endlessly funny to AFHV viewers, so all I have to do is have my actors change clothes and just re-shoot the scene over and over again.
See you in Venice, suckaz.
Low-fat tofu: let’s think about this for a moment
I went shopping at Whole Foods yesterday. For those of you who aren’t familiar with Whole Foods, it’s a chain of grocery stores where suckers like me buy overpriced groceries because they have the word “organic” on the box.
After picking up some free-range omega-3 eggs and a bottle of sugar-free, unprocessed, organic orange juice I headed over to the faux meat section to grab some tofu. While there I realized that they now have a fake version of every kind of meat: burgers, sausages, bacon, corn dogs, turkey, even meatloaf. What’s next? Soy sheep’s brains and tofu pigsfeet? But I digress.
As I was marveling at what all you can do with soy protein these days, a pinched man with wire-rimmed glasses reached in front of me and picked up a package of low-fat tofu. After examining the label carefully he placed it in his cart.
Let’s think about this for a moment.
Tofu is already not exactly the food of longshoremen and lumber jacks. It’s chunks of pulverized bean curd that supply a little bit of protein for people who are afraid to eat real meat. This I understand. Some of us get squeamish at the thought of eating dead animals. But low-fat fake meat? Have you no joy? If you won’t even let yourself indulge in regular bean curd you need to think for a moment about whether or not your life is worth living. (Hint: the answer is no).
Besides, no one has ever gotten fat eating tofu. EVER. I can’t believe they even make a low-fat version. Do they do cross-marketing with the manufacturers of nonfat rice cakes and diet water?
Anyway, bottom line is that if you’ve ever bought low-fat tofu it’s time to stop and reevaluate your life. Go out and have a low-carb nonalcoholic beer and a gardenburger and ask yourself how it came to this. It’s time to get the help that you so desperately need.
Alanis has changed the way I feel about censorship
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We need more of it. Specifically, I would like to censor celebrities protesting censorship. It’s just too much to bear to see these idiots wallow in martyrdom because they aren’t allowed to say “asshole” or flash their genitalia on national television.
Morissette, the woman who wrote an entire song about a word she doesn’t understand (1996’s Ironic), claims that there is less censorship in her country because “[Canadians] are not afraid of the female breast.” While I admit that I am slightly afraid of Morissette’s breasts, that is not my motivation behind not wanting to see breasts in general on national television. I’m not afraid of sphincters, clitorises, or scrota, but that doesn’t mean that that’s what I want to see when I turn on the TV.
Some things are just inappropriate and deserving of censorship, and anyone who disagrees is being intellectually dishonest. I think we all agree that running Sesame Street and Hot Wet Lesbians II back-to-back on morning programming would be inappropriate. Or that having Hustler and Barely Legal displayed on the grocery checkout aisle is not anything anyone wants. So I don’t think it’s much of a stretch from there to say that bare breasts and profanity should be censored on major TV stations during normal viewing hours (I can see making an exception for late-night, cable shows). Yet when the public expresses their desire for this, celebrities and liberals act as if they’re living in Stalinist Russia.
Clearly the only solution here is to give celebrities something real to complain about. Just for fun we could make folksy, soul-searching feminist ballads punishable by death or require female performers to wear burkas on stage. Hmm…I think I’ve finally found a political cause I can get behind.