Thursday, October 29, 2009

Does anyone have the time to read this?

It's short.

Like time.

And attention.

Douchebags, the new white

A funny, too-accurate depiction of at least one style of modern freak appears below. *(1)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/29/we-are-douchebags_n_338568.html

What was interesting to me was how all these douchebags were pseudo-hipsters. These actors were all scarily accurate in their portrayals, so much so that I wondered as to their d-bag status in real life. But I'll be generous and credit their non-d-bag abilities to harness their inner douches.

There have been some other takes on douchebags and their plight. The earliest I can recall is the classic SNL sketch referencing "Milord and Lady Douchebag".

http://www.veoh.com/browse/videos/category/comedy/watch/v17990992nmqFyzgY

(As is the SNL tradition, it isn't really funny until about 2:35).

And then there was this more recent SNL take as well. This seems to place douchebags within a lower-class income bracket.

http://www.myvideo.be/watch/6554419

The Daily Show, on the other hand, tends to fall a bit closer to my take on the elusive quality of douchebaggery.

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/thu-february-7-2008/the-douche-vote

I tend to define douchebaggery a different way. For instance, Mitt Romney would not be at home with any of these guys. But to me he was a definite douchebag.

It all comes down to, what is your inner douche? Or, and only slightly more seriously, what is it about a person that makes them a douchebag?

Well first, "douchebag" is one of those interesting epithets, along with with "asshole" and "shithead", that while technically unisex is really only used towards males. So there's a specific sort of male energy referenced here - kind of ironic.

What there also seems to require is a certain sort of petty, self-interested shittiness *and* faux sincerity. And *definitely* a smugness.

It also does seem that douchebaggery is a thoroughly white phenomenon. I can only hope that, within the white population I'm a part of, they are and remain a minority. I guess I'll be a proper liberal and hope that they aren't brutally oppressed and kept from reproducing - but does that put me in the odd position of being a douchebag sympathizer? Perhaps even a douchebag as well?

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

C.U.L.T.

I was just reading about apparently great screenwriter Paul Haggis (who I should have known of previously, because he's won two Oscars, but I didn't, so sue me, if you can get money out of my stone-broke wallet anyway), and his thorough and expectably well-written defection from Scientology.

http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/10/28/is-scientology-a-cult-is-paul-haggis-the-next-martin-luther/

Discussion was also made of cults in general, and how the current understanding of Cults is a bit different than in previous eras. Before the 1950's, it meant a new small religion; since around that time, it basically means a group of nutty brainwashed sycophants.

Or psychophants, if you will.

That led me somehow to think it would be great to have a group that was some sort of a cult, or a take on cults, that had the name C.U.L.T.

What could that stand for?

And so a couple of quick minutes were enjoyably wasted, just creating crazy groups that never needed to have existed before:

Cabal of Ultimately Lazy Technologists?

Corporate Uber Love Thangs

Candidly Underachieving Lesbian Theologists

Cut Up Love Thongs

Castigating Ubermensch (who are) Lambasting Thoreau

Can't Understand Labial Toolworking

Any others?

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

It's hard being smart or crazy.


Put me in either category.

But even as I had the idea for this blog this morning, ideas were whirling, still ARE whirling through my head. As I work at my day job right now, taking my short-attention-span break before going back to that.

The frickin' CAPTCHA for creating this blog even had me ideavating. (A new word I just coined in this very sentence.) Just alt-tabbed as a coworker walked behind me, to bring a work-related window to my screen...such is the surreality of the ideADDict.

Here's the CAPTCHA. What's it make you see?

I see "firecough" instantly. Which sounds like an interesting thing for someone else, a bad thing for me. Also what pops up is "freecough" - the "cough of freedom" if you will. Perhaps the cough Glenn Beck would make if one of those Socialist Healthcare workers tried to check him for the heavy hernia he should have, for the tons of crap he's slinging.

And so it goes.