rant

Cheerleaders Don’t Lift My Spirits

Here’s a hot sports opinion for you: I think cheerleaders are annoying.

What, you wanted more? No, that’s it. Yeah, that’s all I wanted to say. I think they’re distracting, irritating and annoying. And boring. Sigh. Okay, I’ll explain for you. We go to my son’s football games, and we sit in the bleachers and – well, since he’s in middle school, they don’t take football near as seriously as high school and – well, I … let me start over. Okay, the schools at which his team plays only have bleachers on one side of the field. Which puts you in the uncomfortable predicament (pre · di · `CAY · ment) of sitting right beside the opposing team’s fans. And, more specifically to my point, both groups of cheerleaders are right there next to each other. On the same side of the field. Like five yards away from each other.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:5 mins read

My Science Fiction Fantasy

You know, there are a lot of things in life that get under my skin. So I won’t start this paragraph by telling you there’s nothing that pisses me off more than this one thing. But it does bother me a frightening lot. I mean, most people would think I was being petty and oafish if I complained about it publicly. So I’ll just do it here privately on this here little forum, you see?

So moving along, there are, as I said, many things that bother me. And this is just one of them. I absolutely cannot stand that everywhere you go, Science Fiction and Fantasy are grouped together. Petty? Inane? Shrug. Maybe so. But it really bothers me. Because some people like one or the other, and not both. I, for one, love some science fiction. I like some space opera, which it seems most of the sci-fi genre has moved to, but I really like pretty much anything fictional that involves sciency stuff.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Vincent Hobbes is a Thief

I’m a writer. One might debate how well I perform this craft. Or not. Almost everyone who has read my books has told me they liked them greatly. I say this not in boastful arrogance, but just to say that I do it to the best of my ability, I take it seriously, and I take pride in making it as good as my ability will allow. I’ve written millions of words. A lot of them on this website. If you peruse back through the archives, you will see I have over 450 columns attributed to my name. And most of them are 800 words or more. Not just some quick paragraph about nonsense. Why do I say all this? I don’t know. I think I’m just trying to justify the title I used in the first sentence of my column.

But I don’t need to. Not really. The word writer speaks nothing of the personality of the writing. It doesn’t lend itself to any superlatives or adjectives describing the talent of the human being who takes the title. It only expresses that he or she has set out to perform a task, an effort that takes at least a fair amount of talent or skill, and has thus taken the label.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:newsrantreview
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Congratulations, America! You win!

Way to go, the United States of America. On Independence Day – the day in which you celebrate your nation’s birth – the most important day in this country’s history – you host a hot-dog-eating contest. Let’s all celebrate our nation’s freedom and make ourselves look even more gluttonous and stupid and self-serving and arrogant by stuffing our obese faces with tubes of processed pig intestines and giraffe anus. I can think of no greater glory!

This hot-dog-eating contest has become a staple in American entertainment. These skinny little dudes eat fifty-plus hot dogs in a matter of minutes. They dunk them in bowls of water so they’ll go down more quickly and easily. Do you know how bad hot dog buns (or any bread, for that matter) taste when they’re soaked with water? Yeah, me neither. You know why? Because it’s gross!

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:2 mins read

I Hate Websites That Suck

It seems that in this age, everyone is required to have some sort of web presence. Even if it’s just to tell everyone what your name is, that you have a cat and you like listening to the Jonas Brothers. Everyone has a Facebook page. I don’t even know what happened to MySpace, but it has very clearly been supplanted to the far less flashy Facebook. Everyone has a Twitter, from which they let all of their followers know exactly what they’re doing all day long, every single day. The ridiculousness of all this is getting ridiculous. And there’s your opening paragraph.

First of all, no one cares about you and your stupid cat. No one cares that you like Justin Bieber and James Blunt. You don’t need to take up space on a web server hard drive somewhere just to tell people about your pathetic existence. Nor does anyone care that you’re STANDING IN LINE AT PIGGLY WIGGLY AND IT’S TAKING FOREVER OMG LOL WTF!!!!1 Do something useful with your life. Take down your stupid alliteratively titled website (e.g. Hannah’s Heaven, Carol’s Closet, Mykynzy’s Mansion) and post instead, something useful.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:5 mins read

Open-Source My Life

Here in the last several months, I have begun to embrace the open-source. I have gone off the corporate teet, one might say. I no longer support the big boys just because they come standard and they’re the most well known and popular. Just because they’re the most well known does not always necessarily mean they are the best. And since I have stopped supporting the big guys, my life has gotten markedly better. Allow me to explain.

You see, there are some products out there whose brands have become synonymous with the product they’re selling. Kind of like how everyone says, “Hey, I have some chunky green snot with some hard furry flakes in it, can you pass me a Kleenex?” Facial tissue would be the proper term for it, without applying the brand name. Another popular one is “Hey guys, let’s set up some plastic cups on the Ping-Pong table so we can see them chicks’ boobs!” Table tennis is the brand-detached term for the game.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:9 mins read

What is a reunion without first a union?

It’s that time of year again. You know, that time after Halloween when you begin taking down the sheety ghosts and throwing away the rotten, moldy, blackened, gnat-infested carcasses of the pumpkins on your porch and prepare to replace them with Christmas decorations. It’s that time when we begin winding down the year and getting ready to board up the tree houses for the winter, and start migrating inside where we can convene around fireplaces and football games. We also tend to have a lot more family reunions this time of year.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:6 mins read

Baseball and Politics Don’t Mix

There are a few things I wish to discuss with you under the topic of ‘baseball’. I know we’re all excited that the Rangers were in the World Series for the first time ever, even though they got their asses handed to them for all intensive porpoises. It was still exciting. Irregardless, I’m not really here to talk about the Rangers. Or the Dallas Cowboys. Ahem. One and six? Seriously? Yeah. Let’s move on.

Let’s talk about little league! My son plays for the Local Ball Club Association for Baseball Playing Children of the Local City Ball Club Academy. It’s not a school team, but a select registration team. Anyway, I’m not sure any of that is relevant except to say that it’s not a school team. Which is important for several reasons, which I will list here:

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:5 mins read

The Dumbest Animals at the Zoo

The Fort Worth zoo is a very big place. It’s full of animals. If your goal is to see every exhibit, you really have to haul ass. If you monkey around at the aquarium, you won’t have time for the elephants. I mean, it’s a zoo out there. But really, I think the dumbest animals in the park are – well, you guessed it: humans.

There should be certain rulesets to which we all adhere when in a public place. For instance, when there’s a path that everyone is to follow, and one direction has, say five feet, then you don’t stretch your party across the entire five-foot path. There are other people who are interested in seeing exhibits, and might possibly be traveling faster than you and your party of hambeasts. Sorry, women, the beached whale exhibit is back by the entrance.

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:4 mins read

Would it kill you to smile?

I am not a pessimist, well not completely… yet. I try to have a positive attitude at all times. Especially times that involve people who do not know me. I like to make a good first impression. With that said, there are some actions that just deserve reciprocation. Actions that try to promote a positive setting like a friendly wave or saying hello. My major expectation? If I smile at you, please do me the courtesy of smiling back.

I was very shy when I was younger, and I would keep my eyes pointed down when I was in public. I would never make eye contact. I would walk past friends in a mall and never know it until they yelled my name. Now that I’m older and I have a job where I work around hundreds of people, I try to be more personable. I work in a warehouse that has been converted into office space, and I work in the very back of that huge building. Every morning I walk from the middle of the large parking lot to my desk; it’s about the equivalent of two and a half blocks. I pass quite a few people while walking and I look at each one, in the eyes, and smile. Heck, sometimes I even say, “Good morning!” or “How are you doing?”

(more…)

  • Post author:
  • Post category:rant
  • Reading time:4 mins read