Monday, September 17, 2007

Canadian Psycho

It’s official. I’m on edge.

In fact, I’m beyond edgy. At this point I make Gary Busey seem, well, ordinary I guess. But surely you get the idea.

What can I say? Things haven’t been going exactly smoothly as of late. I feel like the dude that Graham Nash warbled on about in the old Hollies song ‘King Midas in Reverse’.

“He’s not the one to hold your trust
Everything around him turns to dust

In his hand

Nothing he can do is right

He’d even like to sleep at night

But he can’t”


It’s true. Everything I touch lately turns to shit quicker than Brittany Spears professional reputation.

I’m lower than caterpillar shit. Where do I start?

My professional life is about as enjoyable as going to work to be kicked in the nuts all day. Actually, being kicked in the nuts all day sounds more inviting than my job. Financially I’m so broke that Ed McMahon sends me collection notices saying that I owe him $10,000.

Socially, I’m about as active as Wilfred Brimley’s bowels. Seriously, there are single celled bacteria that exist around the rim of my toilet with better social lives than I have. To say that I haven’t been laid in a long time is an insult to chronic masterbater’s everywhere!

And most disturbingly, my squash game is starting to be affected as well. And to me, that’s some serious shit I don’t want to fuck with right there!

Give me herpes. Give me two heads. Tie me to a rock and have my liver torn out by a hungry eagle every morning at daybreak – give me whatever in this miserable life – just don’t fuck with my squash game! Unfortunately, life has no mercy. Even the Squash Gods have forsaken me and look down and laugh. Lately I can’t hit a cow in the ass with a snow shovel. I play with all the focused intensity of a hungry senior citizen attacking their Cream of Wheat.

Yes. Life blows. And it blows hard. It blows like a Hawaiian volcano. It blows like a $20 hooker. It blows like September in the Gulf of Mexico – whatever. It sucks. And needless to say I am a bit anxious about it.

Now I know what you’re thinking besides “Wow! This guy has some issues”: “what is keeping this guy out of the clock tower”, right? How do I manage to keep myself all cool and composed and continually resist the urge to go all ape shit and off myself in a final blaze of glory?

To this I say that imagination is a wonderful thing. In my head, I can act accordingly the way I should be allowed to react when faced with complete idiocy*. I can therefore quietly lash out and let loose all my aggression without having consequential jail time. By now, I must have murdered off everyone I know at least twice.

What can I say? It keeps me sane - in a weird, insane kind of way.

And I’m not just talking about simply wishing hem dead and then moving on again. Oh no! I’m talking about the playing out of an entire, elaborate, grizzly death scene in my mind - something worthy of a Rob Zombie video.

Little do people know that under this seemingly calm façade I’m actually a raging sociopath of Michael Meyers-like proportions. There’s just something instantly soothing and therapeutic about imagining a gruesome, horrible death on somebody who pisses you off and getting it out of your system before going on with the rest of your day - simple.

It alleviates all that pent-up “NGGGAHHH, MUTHERFUCKERS!” rage inside you.

Listed for you below are ten of my more memorable and creative deaths I’ve wished on various family and friends of mine whenever they’ve had the misfortune of being insensitive or inattentive to my own needs like the rat bastards they are.

1) Swallowed whole by 20’ long python.

This one I recommend to reserve for people whom you don’t really want to kill outright, but slowly torture through extremely uncomfortable means instead. Somebody for whom the though of turning into 3 lbs. of python turd left at the bottom of a glass tank is a welcome one; like the woman who holds up lines by checking through more than a dozen items at the ‘Express Check Out’.

2) Trampled by stampeding cattle.

I find this wished death best left for times when you are outside or in the open where you can envision acres of the marauding beasts coming up over the horizon and towards your target. Some times it’s fun to imagine the cattle suddenly crashing through the walls of the office place and wrecking havoc in the aisles overtaking the source of your annoyance in a flurry of horns and hooves.

3) Crushed under a falling piano.

C’mon. Who didn’t chuckle to themselves when Sylvester the Cat got himself flattened by a grand piano? How cool would that be to see in real life? What I wouldn’t give to see a piano fall from out of nowhere onto any sicko at work who doesn’t feel the automatic need to thoroughly rinse their hands after taking a leak.

4) Choked on a hot dog.

I call this one the “Mama Cass Special”. It’s a rather simplistic way to die, I agree. But what it lacks for in creativity it more than makes up for with graphic possibilities. Anyone who’s ever seen somebody choking before knows that this is a rather unpleasant experience - making it all the better an end result for stupidity.

The real beauty of this wished death is that you can substitute any random food item that you might happen to be feasting on at the time. If somebody really ticks you off and you therefore want to spice things up a little bit, try lodging a watermelon in someone’s esophagus. That uppity douchebag next door with all the really expensive power tools in his garage and who insists on running them all on Sunday mornings for no apparent reason other than to wake the dead.

5) Drowned in battery acid.

This one came to me after watching Jack Nicholson take a swan dive into a vat of simmering green goo in Batman. I added my own little twist for the sake of artistic expression. Sometimes during my mental slayings my target will emerge afterwards with purple hair and perma-smile. Upon which I am suddenly donned in a rubberized body suit and proceed to whoop me some idiot ass in the name of revenge. Of course, the old melting flesh and high pitching screaming is nice too.

6) Mauled by syphillic mountain gorillas.

Here’s a real favorite of mine that came to me in a series of dreams where I must have been visited by my Spirit Psychoguide or something. . You just don’t randomly come up with little gems like this on the spot. In hindsight, it might have had something to do with eating some undercooked drumsticks one evening and passing out in front of ‘Gorillas in the Mist’ on the television. Again, I take creative license with the syphilis. But it was these visions in particular that lead me onto this homicidal coup de tat. This beauty comes from a higher - or lower - place.

I save this wished upon death for those really, obnoxious retards you want to physically harm if only they weren’t bigger, cooler, and better looking than you. Like those morons at the gym who stack, like, a thousand pounds on their bench and then walk away.

7) Boiled in molten lava.

The classics never go out of style. Pass the poi.

8) Injected with Ebola virus.

Here’s a doozy. All you need to do is Google ‘Ebola Virus’ and you’ll find enough gnarly images to keep you awake for the rest of your life. You’d have to be some kind of completely annoying asshat to ever have this wished upon you. The “Movie Guy” at Blockbuster comes to mind. Shit, any Blockbuster employee for that matter.

9) Assassinated by ninja’s.

This one is just cool to envision. I can keep myself blissfully occupied for hours while the shit hits the fan picturing this ensuing battle as stealthy, black-clad ninja’s proceed to dissect my nemesis to pieces with their swords and throwing stars. Entertaining as it is effective.

And lastly…

10) Fucked to death by horny bull elephants.

I recommend using this one sparingly. I also recommend not really trying to envision it too much when you play it out in your mind. Needless to say that I save this one for special occasions. I don’t just hand this one out to anybody. You have to really earn this fate, baby. Let me spare you the image altogether by saying I’d rather stick my manhood into a wood chipper than suffer the fate of being fornicated by one promiscuous African elephant - never mind an entire herd.

Do you know the average weight of your average bull elephant’s penis? Fortunately for everybody I do. Would you believe 59.5 lbs.! Each elephant testicle alone weights in at just 4.4 lbs.! That’s over 60 lbs. of furious, hard fucking bull elephant cock slamming into you with reckless abandon. Now that’s gonna leave a mark emotionally!

So whether it be images of some poor bastard having a train being run on him by Jumbo and all his buddies in some after hours circus tent, or some schmuck having his body being used as a drum kit by diseased primates - dealing with stress in this manner keeps me from acting out.

And, yes, I do take a sick, evil pride in having conjured up these frightful scenarios on my very own. It took real creativity, dammit! I’m like the artist who paints with oils, or the sculptor who molds in clay. I can weave my macabre tapestry of imaginary slayings in a way that I could just as easily be adding crisp, yet delicate brush strokes to a rolling meadow on any canvass. When it comes to creating horrific ways to die – I am a Rembrandt.

Besides, it is delightfully calming and usually cheers me up right away.

Like yoga. Only more violent and bloody.

Or maybe I really am just two short steps away from over-obsessing about body lotions and business cards and developing an interest in home chemistry.

Who really knows?

* We have ridiculous, asinine things known as laws that prevent us civilized patrons of planet Earth from dealing with matters in a fashion completely deserving of complete assholes.

Monday, September 03, 2007

Fuck Facebook!

I hate Facebook. I hate it like I hate Raymond.

Now I know what you’re thinking: “But Terry, EVERYBODY loves Raymond!” But it’s not true. I don’t like Raymond. In fact, I think “Terry Hates Raymond” would have made for a much better television show. And, so, by default I absolutely hate Facebook.

Unfortunately for me, the entire fucking world has gone Facebook crazy in an explosion of “Super Fun Walls” and “Likeness Quizzes”.

How did all this Facebook madness get started anyway?

It started off all simply enough. I registered an account and was instantly located by old friends and acquaintances from high school and overseas; all of which I have reinitiated lines of communication. It was pretty cool actually.

But what started originally as a convenient and fun way to reestablish a connection with lost friends soon morphed itself into a cyber circus of ridiculous applications and features so confusing it gives Bill Gates nightmares. Before I knew it, I had been sucked up into the very demonic vortex of this Internet whirlwind known as Facebook.

Boozemail, Bathroom Wall, Honesty Box, Porn Star Names, Top Friends, Hawaiian Luau’s, Growing Gifts, Hatching Gifts, Chalkboards, Pet Monkey’s, Aquariums, Magic 8-Ball’s, marauding vampires and werewolves, zombie armies, hell, you just fucking name something completely arbitrary and stupid and there’ll probably be about a dozen applications just for you!

“Hey, So-and-so likes using and has added ‘The Spanking Tree’ application to their Facebook profile and thinks you should to. To accept please click on the…”

“Spanking Tree? No thanks, MJ.”

IGNORE.

Who uses all this shit anyway?

Some of these invitations sound downright disgusting. For the record: if I were ever to involve myself in something known as a “Super Poke”, I would insist on seeing some recent blood work results and then, maybe, meet for coffee first. There will be no super-poking until I am comfortable and have at least had a chance to limber up first.

There’s even a Catbook and Dogbook for your furry four-legged friends. Isn’t that cute?

Sure, it all seems fine and dandy at first, but just think what deep sociological damage is being done to the one person who finds themselves with the awkward realization that their cat or dog has more friends than they do.

Here’s a person who’ll be racing to the nearest clock tower with their deer rifle.

On the flip side of the coin, how annoying is it to have your inbox invaded by thousands of emails inviting you to join their various events and outings, add new friends or features, or add more bullshit applications to your account?

I’ve had people with whom I’m fairly certain I’ve never even met in my life request to have me add them to my list of friends. That’s weird, right? You just know it’s only a short step from here to being baited by some Internet predator in a chat room and agreeing to meet up in some public bathroom at the park.

But for some people it’s definitely Quantity over Quality when it comes to their Facebook. I have seen people with over 700 people in their Friend’s list. How do they know so many people? They must have to employ a personal secretary just to keep up with all the incoming and outgoing instant messages from friends and family. Nobody is that fucking popular!

So why do they all want to be my friend so bad?

Likewise, how about those people who obviously sit awake all night thinking up ways to improve your quality of life? They must lay awake conjuring up idiotic features and applications to add to your Facebook account that would add significant value to your miserable existence. I want to bury a meat clever into the frontal lobes of these people.

Honestly.

Are these applications a true indication of how your friends feel about you? Judging by all the invitations I get to receive alcoholic beverages and naughty gifts, it’s safe to assume that my friends think that I’m some kind of alcoholic whore.

Or are these just subliminal nudges in a particular direction?

I wonder if these cute and seemingly harmless applications have ever resulted in something more sinister than intended? Take the infamous Food Fight application that had everybody throwing everything from cream pies to sheep at one another. I wonder if someone ever took having a sheep lobbed at him or her a little too seriously and responded by stuffing a Molotov cocktail up the exhaust pipe of their nemesis’ Subaru.

“Thrown a sheep at me will you fuck face?”

Don’t laugh. It could happen.

I can foresee a time in the not-so-distant future where an entire war will be waged over the Internet by these legions of sociable techno geeks. Sure, it starts with innocent kissy face profile pictures and maybe a harmless Internet vampire bite between strangers intended in good fun, but soon enough, little Johnny will return to wage holy hell on all those hapless people in his friend’s list who turned against him.

There’s a perfectly good reason why I don’t stay in touch with some people. Because they’re fuckin’ nuts! Suddenly, all these happily forgotten people from my past are hunting me down one by one. No doubt to exact their revenge.

I feel so exposed.

Now that same annoying, useless, lazy subletter that sat on the couch and hoarded my bagels back in University has located me once again and has not only requested to be my friend, but has also invited me to participate as an Ensign in his growing zombie army. Fuck me! That’s a complete 360-degree turn from my past that would make Anderson Cooper toss his cookies!

Suddenly, this whole Facebook thing seems about as good an idea as dropping Jim Morrison into a meth lab.