Stuff People Like (#1): The first of many rip-offs

Sometimes you run out of good ideas and have to resort to ripping someone off. Other times, you have plenty of good ideas, but what the hell, you feel like ripping someone off anyway for no particular reason. This is one of the latter times.

One of my favorite blogs out there is Stuff White People Like. This blog is not nearly as popular as mine (he doesn't even have 40 million hits yet), but it has pretty good content for a blog that nobody really reads. There are other ripoffs such as "Stuff Black People Like" and "Stuff Asian People Like," which I am not going to link to out of principle because they are blatant rip-offs and I don't condone that type of behavior.

Now for my own blatant rip-off: I am going to do a however-many-I-feel-like part series on "Stuff ______ Like," where each new episode investigates several distinct preferences of a specific demographic group. So here we go with "Stuff People Like," where you will learn about three things that human beings in general enjoy...


Warming up the environment
People have always made attempts to increase the temperature of their environment. The first advance toward this goal was the invention of fire, which could warm up a local area and also had the great side effect of being able to destroy incriminating evidence. A quantum leap forward was made in 1973, when scientists invented carbon dioxide, a mysterious gas that in large amounts has the ability to warm up the entire atmosphere of the earth. Even better, they discovered that it was really easy to make cars and and factories produce a bunch of this stuff. Jackpot! With this the quest to warm up the globe began. This mission was supported by everyone except Californian yuppies, who think their climate is already warm enough and consequently all drive Toyota Priuses, and Al Gore, whose thick layer of blubber allows him to be comfortable at temperatures as low as 30 degrees below zero Fahrenheit.


Frequently flip-flopping on whether they want to accrete matter
If you attempt to track a person's attitude regarding whether he/she wants to gain or lose mass, you're probably going to see more flip-flops than you would if you watched a John Kerry/John McCain debate in front of 10,000 people on South Beach. It is not uncommon to witness a person ravenously gruffle down a double bacon cheeseburger and large fries, and then make a self-contradictory statement like, "Damn! I need to lose these thunder thighs before bikini season." only a few hours later. People are rather silly in this regard. According to my research, the competing forces at play here are the natural human instinct to accrete matter and the need to fit into cars, doorways, and other tight spaces.


Volunteering useless information
One crazy thing about people is that they love to provide useless information to those around them. In fact, 64% of things people say fall into one of the two following categories: stuff nobody cares about or obvious statements. Take the following examples:

1) Stuff nobody cares about:
"I'm running for President of the United States of America in 2008." -Bob Barr
"Hey everyone! I'm going to jump off this bridge! I'm serious - I'll do it!"
"Amy Winehouse just (insert any action here)."
"Remember to make sure that the cooling mechanism is working before you turn on the nuclear reactor."

2) Obvious statements:
"My favorite blog is definitely 'Buffalo This.'" -any human being
"This is a robbery! Get down on the floor!"
"That was really awkward when you accidentally shit needled that random guy thinking he was Timmy."
"If we can just score some points and stop them on defense, we've got a good chance to win this game!"
"Buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo Buffalo buffalo."

These are all highly unnecessary statements. If you are a person, you probably enjoy saying these type of things (sorry for the species stereotype), but there is no reason to do so. Before you say anything, I recommend you think the following: "Do all 6 billion people in the world already know this fact?" and "Do any of the 6 billion people in the world actually give a damn about what I'm about to say?" If the answers are "yes" or "no," respectively, then please do the rest of humanity a favor and SHUT UP!


...and with that, my friends, this blog has officially jumped the shark.

Kids these days...

There comes a day for each of us when we realize we're no longer spring chickens and that we should just throw in the towel and start going to bridge club and watching "Welcome Back, Kotter" reruns all day. The big sign for me was not someone pointing out my excessive use of the phrase, "Eh, sonny? Eh?" or loss of bowel control, but a more nebulous combination of things such as only recognizing 2 or 3 songs on the Billboard pop chart, no longer being able to make much solid contact at the 85mph batting cage, being ridiculed about my age at a college beirut tournament, identifying with Toby Keith's song "As Good as I Once Was," and not getting what the hell this "Hannah Montana" craze is all about. Yes, at the ripe old age of 25 I finally understand the difficulties of the senior life.

So for one time and only one time, I'm going to stoop to the level of far inferior and less popular blogosphere member Perez Hilton and look at what kids these days are up to, from an old fart's perspective.


"Bobby, that woman is the devil!"

Who in tarnation is this floozy Amy Winehouse supposed to be? I guess she had one big song or something. Is it really that easy to be a huge celebrity these days that this dirty British tore up from the floor up crack whore can do it? I mean it's not like she writes a hilarious blog or anything. What's the big deal?


Soap opera stars and cheesy 80's pop singers invade baseball

So the balloting for the final two players to make the 2008 Major League Baseball All-Star game is finished, and the winners are: Evan Longoria, star of "Desperate Housewives," and Corey Hart, best known for his 1984 single "Sunglasses at Night." What is this world coming to where our national pastime has been corrupted by celebrities with little or no baseball talent? Hell, Amy Winehouse would probably be on the Kansas City Royals' roster if she didn't violate the league's substance abuse policy. Heavens to Betsy!

Disney gone wild

Back in my day, the big Disney Channel stars were cartoon mice and the like. Now the star of some "High School Musical" show that young'uns supposedly consider to be the cat's pajamas gets caught sending pornographic images of herself to her ambiguously gay co-star/boyfriend. Well I never! Isn't there any sense of decency in the world anymore? I want my kids watching Sesame Street, not common street trash!


Kids these days, I tell you, I could go on forever with war stories from my time in 'Nam or valuable "when I was your age" anecdotes, but unfortunately I just crapped my pants. Oops.