The one where I talk about how I annoy myself

I'm sure to get on my angry "old man (get off my lawn!) soapbox from time to time. So before I get serious about stupid things, I should tell you about two words I hate using: LIKE & JUST.

Now, these are normal words granted... but I (being from SoCal) use these words too damn much and just out of context. See? Didn't need to use that just. That sentence would have been just fine without. Like, I use as a qualifier all the time, like when I tell a story or when I need a second to think about what I'll say next. So, like, these things drive me nuts when I hear anyone else say them. But I try and just let it go. Like, you know how some people say "you know?" a lot? I'm not terribly bothered by that. I just think, "ok, they're rhetorically asking my opinion... so, do I know?"

It's just a pet peeve and something I'd like to cut back on. I just wish I could go a whole day without using an unnecessarily "just" or "like". Like, you know? I think what I just hate the most out of all this is that one of the dictionary approved uses of "like" is as an interjection, so just how I'm using it. BUT IT SOUNDS STUPID AND MAKES ME SOUND STUPID!!! So fuck you Merriam Webster, that's stupid. Take it out.

I actually thought I'd kicked the "like" habit about 10 years ago. Whenever I used it out of context, my dad would interject (read: interrupt) and say back to me: "bears a verisimilitude" which was his version of what the dictionary would define like as. It so annoyed me, those interruptions, that I would just think about what I was going to say more and eventually excised it from my sentences.

But like all bad habits, she's a bitch to break and is like, back.

Two things here people: I defy you to find 2 uses of "like" or "just" in this blog that are in context and appropriate for the sentence. I know I used one appropriately.

Secondly, anyone else actually have peccadilloes like this or other verbal pet peeves?

the start of the journey is always the weirdest

i'm very late to the ricky gervais bandwagon, but i was listening to one of the gervais podcasts recently when i had a revelation: i'm the Carl Pilkinton my friends. for those of you who don't listen to the podcast, it's ricky (of course) steven merchant (ricky's agent on Extras) and their friend Carl Pilkington - who, as near as i can tell, has no entertainment 'cred'. Carl is either a short bus rear seater or the second coming of Aristotle. my wife is my ricky, and my friend andy is my steven. they're both very intelligent and much funnier than i am.


now, i dont intend to say that the random nonsense that comes out of my mouth is as genius or funny as "is my brain controlling me, or am i controlling my brain" but here's one of the thoughts (along with some supporting evidence) that occurred to me during one leg of a solo road trip i took from chicago to LA recently...

The word RETARDED... isn't offensive anymore.

i think we can all agree that the N word is about the most offensive word on the block. it's considered to be so vile, were i to say it out loud, a large angry black man would be well within his rights to beat my ass (i am whitey white whiterson). the very funny wyatt cynac and even funnier john oliver recently made this point on an episode of the daily show that i admired.

GAY - "that's gay" - totally offensive to homosexuals. you're using a descriptive word about their sexuality in a negative connotation. i get it.

but saying "that's retarded", i'm arguing here, is now officially offensive to no one. BECAUSE NO ONE IS RETARDED ANYMORE. Rain Man? Autistic. and while i think the phrase "that's so autistic" has some legs, no one in the history of man has ever said that before. Corky (aka, Charles Thatcher from Glenview, IL) of Life Goes On was not ever referred to as retarded. from the start, we always knew he specifically had Down Syndrome. you'll never hear anyone say "you're such a down syndrome!" saying that, would be fucktarded.
there's all these real and medically approved (mentally handicapped) names for the issues that were once all lumped under the word RETARDED. as a consequence, there is no such thing as a retarded person anymore. so now, i'm saying retarded with fucking abandon. be prepared is all i'm saying, cause the retard gloves are off.

things i think are retarded:

Dogs - look, the ability to lick your own balls is a huge plus, but eating your own shit? that's just fucking retarded.

Indiana - why the fuck are two pockets of this state on central standard time when the rest of the state is clearly eastern standard zone? why!?!

A: because Indiana is the retard cousin of Illinois.

Vegans - i absolutely get why people would want to go vegetarian (i am not - meaty mcmeateaterson is my game). it's generally a healthier way to live, there's the whole "i'm not contributing to the slaughter of animals for food" thing, the general cruelty to animals, animal testing (though why you'd be a vege because of animal testing boarders on tard logic - i don't eat the deodorant that was animal tested) and all that jazz. i'm even fine with pescetarians or any other sub-genre of the vegetarian hierarchy should they exist. but fuck vegans. vegans try to come off like even eggs or milk harm animals and that's cruel and blah blah blah. fuck you. cows need to be milked or they will fucking die. chickens lay eggs regardless - and you may make the argument that eggs are chicken embryos and now you're cruelly eating an aborted chicken. this begs the question - are you pro choice or pro life. because i'm saying here and now, you can't be pro choice and be angry with me for eating an egg - that's hypocritical. you know what you're eating when you eat corn? cow shit. fertilizer. a poor cow had to shit for you to be able to eat that corn on the cob (with butter - because you're too stupid to realize that butter comes from cows and margarine isn't good for you anyhow) if you can make the argument that ANY use of an animal product in your diet contributes towards cruelty towards animals, then i'll follow your circular logic and argue that ALL food causes harm to animals. dont you think a rabbit wanted to eat that carrot? well you fucking bastard, by eating that carrot a rabbit's family has gone hungry tonight. you fucking retard.***

Cat Ladies - i dont really want to pile on, cat ladies have enough natural enemies. but i would like to draw your attention to the unintended consequences of being a "cat lady". dont cat ladies have families? at some point in their past they surely did. let's take a somewhat conceivable situation: say before "Thelma" was a cat lady, she had a husband and together they had a daughter. now, husband "Tom" leaves Thelma for a younger, blonder model after their daughter "Lois" (Louise was too easy here - that ain't what i'm about) moves away to college. now of course Thelma has nothing better to do with her time (depression) than collect stray cats. sure enough, before you can say Claratin, she's amassed an army of 20 cats. lets fast forward down the line oh, 7 years. Lois is out of college and her lesbian phase is over and she's now getting married to a nice young fellow named "Bob". while she's surely embarrassed that her mother is a "cat lady", she still has to invite her mother (who lives in Florida) to her wedding in Indiana. this leaves Thelma in an uncomfortable situation. she wants to be at her daughter's first wedding, but who would possibly check in on her flock of 20 cats? well, the only person she knows who's crazy enough is of course her "cat lady" friend "Barbara" who also has 20 cats! so Thelma goes out to fucking retard Indiana to embarrass her daughter with her wedding present of a portrait of Bob and Lois done up as two tabby's walking down the aisle towards a Sphynx (it's a hairless cat, yes i've done the fucking research) dressed as a catholic priest - isn't it adorable?!?! guess who painted it for Thelma? that's right, Barbara. So Barb's checking in on Thelma's cats and one day decides to bring over a couple of her kitties for a play date. this is a fucking retarded idea. cats are like feral pack animals. strike that, cats are fucking monsters who hate all other beings. so Barbara's cats come into Thelma's cat haven and immediately piss all over the coffee table, because that's what these fucking monsters do, they mark their territory. and while poor Barb's trying to clean that up, Thelma's little monster's have taken offense to this and immediately start stalking around the intruder cats like some feline version of West Side Story. so now we've got the American Shorthairs on one side and the Russian Blue (a long haired cat for those of you keeping track at home - i told you, i did my research) gang on the other both fucking singing and hissing.

wait....

this now sounds fucking awesome. i want to see cats vs cats in a full on 20 vs 20 battle royale of Cat Lady vs Cat Lady 's cats. who runs bartertown? fucking cat ladies, that's who.


so there's all that. the sesame street word of the day kids: Retarded. i'm owning that fucking word, i'm taking it back and making it my own.

i was going to title this blog: "Herein is the blog whereby i offend every fucking human being on the planet", but that was too fucking long. so this blog is going to have more shit that i find retarded... or just other shit that i think about, cause i'm the fucking Carl Pilkinton of my group of friends and you all need to hear the stupid shit that comes from my brain just going off on it's own little journey and leaving me the fuck alone.

***so andy had this response when i talked to him about the vegan rant:

Here's something horrifying/facinating I just found out (horrifacinating?), speaking of corn - we shouldn't technically be alive right now. Here's the deal - like all good real-time strategy video games, the earth has limited resources, specifically nitrogen - there's only so much nitrogen in the world and nitrogen is what we need to grow food... but we were set to run out of nitrogen by growing as much food to feed all the people in the world about 60 years ago. This would have probably been catastrophic based on the way that we handle over-population and ecological issues (e.g. not well) - but that would have regulated the human population, and we would only have X number of people on the planet eating X amount of food. But then this evil German scientist made up a way to make fake nitrogen, which is how most of our food is grown... which makes most of the food we eat fundamentally artificial. So - veganism, or organic living is a fundamental fallacy. There's that.

and i believe him. why? because he told me and i'm too fucking lazy to research that. this sounds like something he read on the internet and everything on the internet is true. (where do you think i got my cat information?)