Black Licorice

My parents were good parents, but clearly they fucked up when it came to teaching me about the delicate subject of licorice. I'm in my mid 20s now and I still desperately want to believe that licorice is supposed to be red, not black, even though I know I'm wrong. My mom probably fed me a little piece of red licorice when I was three years old and ever since that day my head ain't been quite right.

Let's cut to the chase. Black licorice is shit. All black candies are. Licorice, jelly beans, ju-jubes, gum drops, Colgate Total, you all suck. Black is the colour of death and that's precisely what you taste like. Among other things such as ass, taint, nutsack, and anything else in or around the nether-regions.

Plus, have you ever seen someone after they've eaten a black candy? They look like a ghoul! They've got blue-ish black stains on their teeth and little drops of black juice in the corners of their mouth. It's fucking frightening. They always look like they're about to eat my skin with their black-candy-loving Vampiro fangs.

And are you one of those poor black-candy-loathing pricks like I am who has been in the unfortunate situation where you don't know if the candy you're about to eat is dark purple or black? So you man up and eat it? And it turns out to be black? That fucking sucks! And you almost swear off feeding the gumball machine quarters every time you go shopping.

Also, shame on anyone who actually likes those disgusting assorted licorice candies. Or those Hershey "Goodies".

I will see you and your damn black candies in hell.

Lady Gaga, LeBron James, Justin Bieber, the Cast of Jersey Shore, and TV News

Yesterday I made the huge mistake of turning on the TV. I don't watch television very often, the main reason being that I usually find myself dialing the suicide hotline after a minute or two. I honestly can't figure out how the average person watches between 3 and 8 hours of this parade of shit EVERY DAY! As one of my heroes George Carlin once said, "I don't have pet peeves, I have major psychotic fucking hatreds!" So let's begin.

Lady Gaga: Please! Please! Stop writing news articles for every fucking little thing this bitch does! I don't care! I don't! She's just another singer with shitty "music". If you're into this whole Gaga thing, I'm truly asking you to tell me what everyone's so hyped about because I truly don't get it. I just want to have some grasp on what everyone likes about this cunt so I can complain appropriately. I just don't get it at all, though.

Do people find her hot? Is it the whole man/woman thing? I'm so utterly out of touch with youth values and interests. Surely it can't be the music. Whatever it is, stop reporting on and talking about her! She's just another mediocre hack.

Justin Bieber: Speaking of hacks. Is this little shit supposed to be the new voice of the youth or something? First of all his haircut looks like a homosexual cat got run over and turned into a wig and I don't know why everyone's so gaga over it (aaaw, sheet!). Second of all, make songs that aren't total balls or go back to Stratford.

LeBron James: Following sports stars is for fat, middle-aged, sales reps who have pissed half their life away working for the same boss who doesn't appreciate them. They own small, affordable sports cars and have wisps of gray in their hair and they need something, anything to distract them from how shitty their own lives are. They're under the impression that televised sports actually matter and dedicate their lives to a team. Soon they become sports experts and annoy the hell out of people like me, who are right about everything.

The Cast of Jersey Shore: Personally, I can't wait until "The Situation" and Snooki are old and fat and look like a couple of leather purses. Or maybe they won't make it to old age. Maybe they'll all die from "drama overdose". Maybe one of them will have a heart attack because somebody told them their tan was uneven. Maybe a couple of them will fall into a well and die of starvation because they can't think straight without their hair product and 300 dollar shirts.

I say we pull funding for their rinky-dink little show and pump it into the education system. What an ironic little twist that would be.

TV News: I actually find it kind of cute that you guys still take yourselves seriously. That's so adorable! I think it's so cutting edge of you to form your business model around the old "if a thousand monkeys" theory. If you keep jabbering on 24 hours of the day, eventually you'll say something intelligent and relevant to something.

And your on-screen graphics? Those scrolling tickers and the everlasting stock market window? Your holograms and your word clouds? Man, you guys just must have so much information you're just bursting at the seams! You just need a way to get it all out there!

I simply love your casual little banter and joking between anchors too! You guys are so down to earth, just like me! I can totally see that you guys aren't the uptight news snobs I thought you were. We're all just having fun, but staying informed at the same time as one big family!

Hahaha, I defs LOVE you guys, but...go fuck yourselves, lol!


My solution? Guillotine all of these people and everyone under the age of 20. The heads can be auctioned off to those "hip grandmother" types who still connect with today's youth and want Lady Gaga's head. We then guillotine those people and use their heads as soccer balls in the next FIFA "spectacle". We then guillotine all the FIFA players and hire the heads as the new anchors for Fox News, where nothing will really change.

Fox News will then recommend we guillotine everyone to prevent terrorism and America will agree because "how many planes have you seen crash into buildings since everyone was guillotined? See? It's working."

Now I don't know what's more stupid: this entry or the very people I'm complaining about.

IT'S OVER!!!!!

If they announced today that the wars in the middle east are officially over as of midnight, I probably wouldn't be as excited and relieved as I am now. Okay, I would, but you get the point. Anyway, FIFA 2010 is ending! The last game is underway! The end of this long highway of bullshit is on the horizon!

For a month I've had to listen to trivial crap about NOTHING until it was ultimately drowned out by vuvuzelas. I've had to listen to endless stats about players I don't care about, teams I don't care about, and a game I don't care about.

For a month I've had to watch Coca-Cola's bullshit advertising with dancing Africans happily gulping down that sugary crap. I've had to watch a bunch of pricks placing bets based on what a FUCKING OCTOPUS tells them.

For a month I've had to put up with brain-dead people shouting "Gooooooooooaaaaaall!"

Basically, for a month I haven't taken a solid shit.

And now the last game is underway! I don't give a rat's ass who wins! I'm actually crossing my fingers, hoping a giant asteroid will fall from the sky and land directly on the stadium with 20 seconds left in the game!

I'm giving everyone one grace day and only one. I know tomorrow everyone from your average Joes to your news networks to your Daily Shows will have to talk about the "big win". So I'm granting ONE day to get your ya-yas out.

After that I don't want to hear "soccer", "Fifa", "Gooooaaal", or "Al Gore" ever again. Thank you.

Bros With the Doors Taken Off Their Jeeps

OMG, look at you!

The hot weather's here and it's time to bring your A-game! You're going to tell the world you're SO all about summer! You've just been hibernating for the last several months, simply aching for that day when you can remove the doors from your Jeep so everyone will know that sunshine and tasty waves coarse through your veins.

Canada? Who said anything about Canada? In your mind you're cruising the streets of Malibu whistling at the honeys. Only you don't have time to stop. There are shirts to wear unbuttoned, patios to sit on, Natty Ice's to sip. You're a fun-loving bro on the go!

So get your damn flip-flops on, Kevin. The party-mobile has Blink 182's "Dammit" ready to go at full blast and it's setting sail in 5 minutes! You're going to totally break Rule 115 of the Bro Code if you're not on it.

And let's not forget to stick our arms out the side and drum on the roof along with the music so other people driving can see we're listening to something really awesome. Coolness is at stake here, people! We need to blatantly display how chill we are as often as possible!

To the untrained eye, we may look like just a bunch of douchebags driving around suburbia in a Jeep, but actually the fact that the doors are off means we're on a safari! A good old-fashioned poon safari! But again...no time to stop. Too much bro stuff to do. Otherwise we'd totally hit that.

Summer! High-five, Kevin! If only everyone else knew how epic we are!



(Yes, I realize I switched POVs halfway through. I suck as a writer.)

Fishing Shows

A couple of nights ago I had a very interesting evening. I was meeting somebody at a bar before work and I showed up a little under an hour early. As I was killing time I damn near flipped out because there's only so much bullshit your brain can handle at one time. The steady stream of bullshit that everyday life brings is manageable for me, but this time at the bar was like a year's worth packed into 60 minutes.

First I arrived and grabbed a stool at the bar because I was there alone. In front of me were three TVs. And they were all playing the same show. Strike one, but I can let that slide. A lot of bars do this "same show on every TV" crap. It's fucking stupid as far as I'm concerned, but it's their retarded bar and I'm not going to tell them how to run it.

The thing that I just couldn't get over, though, was the fact that they were all tuned to WFN....the WORLD FISHING NETWORK! Dear God, father of all things holy, please deliver me from fucking fishing shows. I'm convinced that stupid people will watch ANYTHING if you slap a theme song on it. I mean, hell, they've got a channel that shows nothing but a burning fireplace around the holidays. It's literally called the Fireplace Channel. We are so fucked, guys.

But fishing shows? I'd rather spend four hours listening to Ben Stein read from the Bible. Fishing shows have to be man's most boring creation to date and I'm truly curious to know who is watching all of them. And why we need a WHOLE FUCKING CHANNEL DEDICATED TO THEM! AND WHY A BAR THINKS THIS IS SUITABLE ENTERTAINMENT!!!!

And the commercials are no better. All they sell is a bunch of crap that's supposed to help you find fish easier. Trust me, this stuff doesn't work. I bought one and all it did was beep when I pointed it at Madonna's crotch. Sorry, that was a stupid joke.

I can sum up every fishing show ever: guy in trucker hat talking about NOTHING, same guy holds up caught fish, guy throws it back, repeat several times, end credits. Is this shit exciting or what?!

The only thing worse is those damn poker shows where everyone's acting like the smoothest muthafucker this side of the Atlantic. Go fuck yourselves, you shallow pricks. Especially you, obligatory one guy in the cowboy hat.

Poker and fishing are stupid.

Creative Homeless People

I don't know that this is a rant so much as just a commentary on these people, but I have to admit, they get me!

The creative homeless person is simply someone who has thought outside the box and has come up with a clever way to scoop the change from the pockets of passers-by. Most often it's just amusing signs, but there are some who have taken it a step further and they come up with elaborate schemes.

I met this one guy tonight as I was walking down the street just minding my own business. He didn't actually ask me for anything, but I ended up giving him a Toonie anyway. He stopped me wondering if I could call the police. I asked him what for and he told me to look up. I didn't see anything. Then he pointed out a raccoon sitting on a small portion of the eaves above the building we were standing next to. He was worried that it would fall and I could kind of see his point because it was huddled on a small platform and didn't have very many places to go.

Anyway, he was hoping I could make a call and I told him I didn't have a cell phone on me because I didn't own one but I could give him some change for a payphone. And that's what I ended up doing.

Then as I was walking away, my crazy old brain started churning out crazy old thoughts as it tends to do. "Wouldn't it be wicked if that homeless guy had that raccoon trained almost like a pet to climb up to absurd places so he could pretend to be concerned about it and grab a few bucks off morons like me?"

In all likelihood that wasn't the case, but I thought to myself, even if it was I'd still be glad to give that guy some change. Why? Why do I give change to creative homeless people? Because that's at least some effort, my friend!

If somebody asks me "Can you spare some change?", that's not effort. That's being the stereotypical bum. I will tell them, "No, but apparently Obama can (any fucking day now...)." Then I will slap myself for using dated humour and carry on with my day. Point being, traditional methods equal no change from me.

If you tickle that creative part of my brain though, you have a much better chance of getting some jingle in your jeans. As I mentioned before, you're giving it some fucking effort! But perhaps more so, I love creative people. If you can come up with some words on a piece of scrap cardboard that can make me laugh, fuck it, here's some change. It's probably a subconscious thought process like, "Why are you homeless?! You're a creative person and somebody should be paying you for your ideas! That person is now me! Why aren't you at least writing for some shitty little prime-time sitcom?! Best to you, brotha!"

That about sums it up. If I'm ever homeless the first thing I'll do is come up with an epic sign. Something really funny. As opposed to the nonsense I write on here.

G20 Special: Police State

If you've read my past rants about anti-government and personal freedoms, you may expect me to get on here and call the police a bunch of fascists and complain about the "fucking police state" we call Canada.

You would be wrong. In fact, I'm getting pretty tired of all these G20 protesters still whining and crying "Police State!" several days after the summit has ended.

Let me make this perfectly clear: We do not live in a police state in Canada. If you had ever actually been to a true police state, I think you would appreciate your Canadian freedoms a whole buttload more. However, this also does not mean that I will be spewing a bunch of garbage about Canada being the greatest country on earth with absolute freedom. That "national pride" shit that politicians are always cramming down our throats irks me just as much and, in my opinion, is arguably more damaging than police state accusations. That's a different rant though.

If you nay-sayers would open your eyes for two seconds (or "wake up", as you like to call it) perhaps you'd see the irony in yelling "Police State!" all over the mainstream AND alternative news, Facebook, Twitter, Myspace, Blogger, etc. with no consequences. If you actually lived in a police state, you would not have the right to do that and you'd likely be locked up. Many people in police states have no real grasp of how large government dissidence is because speech is so heavily censored.

Alright, I've gotten that out of the way, so I WILL give you this: I see a lot of evidence of a rising police state. I think if we continue down the road we're travelling on, we WILL have a police state. There were lots of examples of police overstepping their grounds just last weekend. Yes, I DO think it's important to protest this and stop it in its tracks before it runs rampant.

Police State: getting there? Absolutely. Living in one? Fuck no. So quit'cher belly-achin'!