901. I know this was a long time ago, but it always bothers me whenever I hear John Fogerty sing “toinin’ and boinin’” instead of “turning and burning” in “Proud Mary”. That’s my problem, and I accept it, but still.

902. Speaking of bands I heard on the radio this week, I know this was also a long time ago, but it really sucks that Layne Staley of Alice in Chains is dead.

903. Of course, it was an utterly predictable death. That doesn’t make it any less tragic, but you know what I mean.

904. Come to think of it, that’s exactly what does make it tragic. You see, a tragedy is a tale of the inevitable downfall of a great but fundamentally flawed character. Layne Staley’s death by drug overdose was tragic in the literary sense. But you can’t just throw that word around whenever something bad happens, like a car crash or a landslide. Watch the news one night and count the number of times they misuse that word.

905. In fact, why don’t you make it a drinking game? Everything else on Earth is a drinking game, so why not that?

906. Kurt Cobain died too. Did you hear about that? It was terrible.

907. Chris Cornell of Soundgarden is still alive, and good for him. I’m not going to joke about his death, and I want to go on the record right now with the fact that I don’t wish him any harm. On the contrary, I’d like him to go back to living with the passion and intensity of his early creative output, instead of teaming up with Timbaland or Moby to shrug out a track too dull to play at a dentist’s office.

908. Oh, for God’s sake! Jessica Simpson didn’t get fat! She put on a few pounds, and that’s it! She’s not fat!

909. Neither is Kim Kardashian, damn it! Also, who is she, exactly? Why is she famous? For not being fat? That’s the impression I’m getting from all those magazine covers.

910. People who shout “spoiler alert!” before they give away an important plot point in a movie or a television series. I know it’s a courtesy, but it’s still pretty lame.

911. How are we supposed to believe that Jack Bauer, a man who has sacrificed everything for the good of his country, is about to spend a two-hour season finale trying to save Kim Bauer, a one-dimensional character that America basically hates?

912. Oh, no! Miss California said something about gay marriage and how she’s against it! And that’s a big deal, because let’s all care what a beauty contest winner has to say about an important social issue! No, I mean it! Let’s argue about that for a week!

913. As much as I hate to admit it, I agree with Donald Trump, who I think was asked to comment on the Miss California debacle this week because he owns the company that built her or something like that. What he essentially said was that if Miss California wasn’t a beautiful, famous woman, then nobody would care what she thinks about same-sex marriage. And when you put it that way, you make it sound like North Americans in general are the shallowest bunch of dinks you’d ever want to meet. But you know what? He’s not wrong.

914. God, I hate that Donald Trump. He’s just such a jackass.

915. Miracle Whip is pitching itself as the nonconformist’s condiment. “We’re not like the others,” their ad says. “We will not tone it down.” Miracle Whip, by the way, is mayonnaise.

916. If anything, horseradish is the nonconformist’s condiment.

917. Just because you’re guaranteed the right to demonstrate peacefully doesn’t mean you can protest on a major highway and jeopardize public safety.

918. On the other hand, the fact that a number of people did that on Sunday night doesn’t invalidate anyone’s right to protest, let alone negate the issues at hand.

919. Mind you, it did shatter in an instant a lot of the public support that peaceful protestors had to work hard to build up. In fact, I’ve heard that counter-protestors are now showing up at the demonstrations.

920. Of course, I’m willing to bet that a lot of those people are motivated by ignorance and fear of the protestors themselves, as opposed to a well-informed opinion on the violence in Sri Lanka. In fact, I’d say there’s a whole lot of people out there right now telling a whole lot of other people to go back to where they came from.

921. If you’ve been on the Internet this week, you know what I’m talking about. I actually had to get off the web and get back to work on Monday afternoon, because I couldn’t take one more poorly written, grossly uninformed and borderline racist comment. Not everybody who respects the rights of the protestors is a terrorist, okay?

922. You know what’s just as bad? Lurking in a comment thread waiting for someone to say something that could be mildly misconstrued as intolerant so you can call them out and show everyone how progressive you are. Not everybody who has some concerns about the protestors is a racist, okay?

923. What is it about the Internet that compels people to pick the dumbest, most ignorant fights they possibly can with each other? Is it because it gives everyday people a voice? Is it the instantaneous nature of the medium? Is is the fact that you can say whatever you want with anonymity and you’ll never have to back it up face to face? Oh, it’s all of those things but mostly the last one? Okay, then.

924. In fact, you might say that the violent conflict in Sri Lanka is a pretty complex issue that a lot of us here in Canada don’t fully understand! Maybe that’s why we’re yelling about semantics instead of talking about the real issues. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t know the half of it. On the other hand, maybe it’s just because we’re lazy and self-involved.

925. I can’t stop biting my nails.

926. I can’t stop grinding my teeth.

927. I can stop drinking any time I want.

928. Andrew Lloyd Webber.

This entry was posted by Matty on Thursday, May 14th, 2009 at 11:54 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.