Have you ever met someone who went all out to try to impress you, but they missed something completely obvious to everyone around them? It’s likely that you met the kind of person I’m talking about; it’s the guy who memorizes facts that he learned from listicle sites and YouTube countdown videos, but something is off about him which indicates a crippling lack of self-awareness, like bad hygiene.
What I’m getting at is that you should comb your hair. If you expect me to accept that you’ve become a great intellect but can’t be bothered to spend a moment each day combing your hair, what I’m really taking away from it is that you have some misplaced priorities.
As I see it, the main people who are excused from having to comb their hair are:
Bald people. If you don’t have hair, you don’t have to comb it.
People with buzz cuts. It’s a low-maintenance hair style, and combing it doesn’t make a difference.
Cavemen. Cavemen make it their business to look unkempt. This sounds awesome, until you realize that cavemen don’t have video games, the internet, or smart phones.
If you have the hair of a caveman, what you’re telling the world is that you want to live like one. Living like a caveman sucks, so naturally, you’d want to avoid regressing into one. I like technology, so I don’t want to live like a caveman. I also avoid looking like a caveman so I’m not mistaken for one. If you actually do like science like so many kids pretend to, then you should want to avoid looking like someone who doesn’t.
I once met a kid who was in such a hurry to convince everyone that he’s super smart, but his hair looked like a tornado hit a loom. Nice try kid, but your hair prevents me from taking you seriously. Have you seen yourself in a mirror lately?
This thing has better hair.
The kid had a head that seemed huge, not because his head was significantly bigger than usual, but because the rest of his body was scrawny. On top of that, his hair was such a mess that it only added to the illusion of volume. He’d stand to benefit from combing it, even if his first time would take a while.
He’d end up looking like a cult member, but at least he wouldn’t look like a total wreck. And that brings me to my next peeve. Combing your hair is a step in the right direction, but men are expected to get a haircut more than once a year. Whether it’s done by you, a stylist, or even your mom, getting your hair done as needed shows that you care about the rest of us enough to not drag down the atmosphere with your gross head-mop.
Don’t think that just because you’re ignoring it, the rest of us will, too. We laugh at your hair, whether you know it or not.
By now, you’ve probably heard about the recently-announced Thundercats reboot, Thundercats Roar. If you first heard about it from me, I’m sorry. And if you grew up on the first Thundercats cartoon, I’m sorry again for what happened to it.
I did not edit this.
Seeing this travesty spurred me into making a list of the five worst revisions in the history of media, because this kind of thing really isn’t anything new. It’s a little early for Thundercats Roar to make the list, but I suspect that it would easily make an updated list of the six worst revisions in the history of media.
#5 The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker
The year 2000 was among the most optimistic in the history of video games. At that point, we already had Sega’s Dreamcast, and it was in that year that Sony would release its PS2. Even Microsoft wanted to get into console gaming, which it eventually would with its Xbox system. Naturally, everyone was waiting to see what Nintendo would bring, and when they revealed their Gamecube at Spaceworld 2000, they didn’t disappoint. Not only did they show their system, they also showed a short montage of game clips to demonstrate what their system was capable of.
If you’re wondering what Spaceworld was, that was Nintendo’s own tradeshow where they marketed their own upcoming products.
You can watch the demo for yourself here, but just be warned that you might want to have your volume down:
It might not look like much by today’s standards, but at the time, it was proof that the future of gaming was going to be bright. What caught everyone’s attention in particular was this gem:
At that time, I was only just starting to get into Zelda. But if that’s what The Legend of Zelda was going to look like on Gamecube, then as far as I was concerned, Nintendo had more than earned my money. I knew that I had to get a Gamecube on launch day so I’d be ready to play that game hardcore. And that’s exactly what I did.
Then, the following Spaceworld, Nintendo showed gameplay footage for Zelda on Gamecube. And it looked substantially different compared to what we had been shown the previous year. Substantially different.
Photo from IGN, as though the watermark didn’t already say it.
When I first saw how The Wind Waker was going to look, I thought someone was playing a joke on me. But then, when I found out that this was how the next Zelda was really going to look, I felt betrayed.
After a little while, I decided that I was going to give it a chance. As it turned out, The Wind Waker was a pretty good game. In fact, it was among the best in the series. Too bad most gamers wouldn’t know, considering that humans are pretty superficial creatures. But can you really blame them for thinking something was going to be low quality because it looked low quality?
Nintendo really shot themselves in the foot with The Wind Waker’s artistic direction, considering that The Legend of Zelda was one game that people were looking forward to playing on Gamecube, and people had a certain image that they associated with The Legend of Zelda. Tampering with an established work can have the effect of alienating an established base, and companies can’t really count on being able to replace the existing fanbase with a new one. But, for that matter, why would they want to?
People buy Nintendo systems to play the games Nintendo makes. And if Nintendo stops taking their own products seriously, then gamers move on to something else. The radical artistic direction of The Wind Waker came at a terrible time for Nintendo, as it came early enough in the Gamecube’s life cycle that many gamers were still on the fence as to whether to buy one. Many gamers jumped ship in response to seeing how Nintendo was treating The Legend of Zelda, effectively turning that time in gaming into one where just about everyone and their dog owned a PS2.
Eventually, Gamecube would see a Zelda game in the style that gamers were familiar with in Twilight Princess, but by that time, the damage had been done. Sometimes, all that’s needed to make a successful game console isn’t to have the most capable hardware, but for your greatest competitor to make the biggest misstep with their own product.
#4 SD Gundam Force
If you know about anime and somehow don’t know about Gundam, please tell me how you did it. Gundam is one of the most popular and well-known anime in history, and certainly the most famous of giant mecha anime. Numerous spinoffs came about due to Gundam’s influence, even if it was far from the first mecha anime.
Awesome.
In fact, mecha anime were huge in Japan during WW2, when the appeal of overcoming a powerful adversary while piloting a giant machine was easy to understand. When the Gundam franchise rose to prominence, it would come to bear some massive cultural significance. Even American audiences were captivated by Gundam.
It certainly helped that Gundam was appealing on so many levels. It had the fantastic elements of space battles with giant robots, but it also had well-developed human characters and excellently-written story arcs with commentary on the costs of war.
So, what’s the most appropriate way to celebrate the 25th anniversary of an anime known for mature themes and taking its audience seriously? How about some cheap chibi CG slapstick?
If you thought that that’s a terrible idea, you’re not alone. I did too. But it’s not like anyone behind SD Gundam Force so much cared what anyone who liked anime thought of their show as much as they acted on the understanding that they had millions of die-hard fans that would buy anything they pumped out with the Gundam name, even if the product was rectal waft.
Twenty-five years of a space opera with giant robots and mature themes? Make way for some boy in a suburb and his robot friend. I know that the Japanese are in love with cute stuff, but there are some things that you just don’t mess with.
I’d have more to say about this show, but I was never really seriously into Gundam. That this show aired when I was considering it likely had something to do with that.
#3 Toonami: TOM 4.0
The Toonami programming block may not have been a show or a video game per se, but it was still pretty cool because it had its own host with a backstory. Originally, Toonami was hosted by Moltar, a former villain from Space Ghost. Eventually, Moltar would hand Toonami off to TOM, who would host the programming block from then on.
I thought TOM was pretty cool. He, along with SARA, ran the Absolution, a space vessel from which the Toonami block was broadcast. TOM immediately appealed to me, considering that it was one of my childhood dreams to broadcast my own pirate radio station (though the legality of going about it may have been a prohibiting factor). Not only that, I appreciated his somewhat sardonic tone and emphasis on heroism, which made him a dynamic and interesting character.
While the Toonami block mainly focused on anime, TOM sometimes reviewed video games. While it might not have been the main focus of Toonami, TOM’s interest in video games did flesh out his character in a way that worked surprisingly well. By indicating his preferences and how they extended beyond his career, the character of TOM became more relatable.
And it gets better, still. Not content to just sit down and throw his commentary out there, he sometimes had interactive adventures that viewers can influence the outcome of by participating in online games, as was the case for a “total immersion event” called “The Intruder”, which actually saw the destruction of part of the Absolution, and of the old TOM, necessitating his transfer to a new body.
That’s right, fan participation had a lasting effect on the history of TOM and Toonami, and it was entirely possible for participants to goof it up and have TOM pay the price. We had an effect on TOM’s character, and it made the stakes of these total immersion events even higher.
So, imagine how excited I was to learn in 2007 that TOM was going to undergo another redesign, independent of any total immersion event. Each revision of TOM became cooler than the last, and the same could be said of SARA and the Absolution. But it wasn’t until it aired that I found out what would become of TOM:
I wasn’t happy.
I could tell you what’s wrong with this picture, but you see it. TOM’s mysterious appeal was taken away by removing his helmet. For some reason, his neck was a couple wire harness tubes that came out of his two shoulders, and somehow supported the weight of his head. Also, everything else about the new TOM looked ridiculous.
Worse yet, we didn’t get any back story about why TOM looked like this. That’s just how he showed up one day, with SARA gone, the Absolution gone, with a bunch of weird robots broadcasting from the surface of some planet. Being left to fill in the blanks, I would have guessed that TOM had an epic battle against an evil vacuum cleaner that sucked out coolness, and TOM lost pretty hard.
Fans referred to this new TOM as TOM 4.0, but it was my guess that this was how TOM looked in the distant past, meaning this new TOM wouldn’t supercede TOM 3.0 in the in-universe narrative. It was my own head-canon for his appearance, which was what I could manage without any official explanation. He was also referred to as Thomas the Tank Engine.
Even sadder still, this TOM 4.0 was the one that gave us the send-off when the Toonami block finally came to an end. TOM’s farewell speech was moving…
…To the point that I was willing to remember him for being the hero he was before, not the caricature he ended up becoming.
Eventually, Cartoon Network did make things right by bringing TOM back as TOM 3.5 on Adult Swim, and we’re currently up to TOM 5.0 on a resurrected Toonami. And it’s great to have him back.
Let the good times roll.
#2 Metroid Prime Federation Force
The Metroid franchise has historically had an excellent image. For years, the main character Samus wouldn’t so much as make a cameo appearance in a game that wasn’t excellent. In fact, the Metroid franchise is a great case study in building on the original source material. The first game was called “Metroid”, which was short for “Metro Android”, so a player could have assumed that the game was about a robot navigating an abandoned subway system. So imagine the surprise of players around the world when it was discovered that Samus was actually a woman in a power suit.
Sex discrimination in video games means choosing to play as a strong woman.
When you think of strong, independent women in video games, who do you think of first? Many gamers say Lara Croft, but Lara is about as fanservicey as it gets. On the other hand, you see Samus kicking butt, and because she wears a full-body power suit, her appearance won’t be a distraction and her deeds speak for her.
When we found out that Metroid would be a first-person shooter made by an American company (Retro Studios), we were skeptical. But not only did Metroid Prime turn out great, it went beyond expectations.
Things started to go downhill when Nintendo teamed up with Team Ninja to deliver Metroid: Other M. Other M did a lot to flesh out the character of Samus, and what we discovered was that our imaginations were far kinder to Samus than those who wrote for her. Not only that, Other M was plagued by a number of flaws. While it was okay for a video game, it was far below what many of us considered a Metroid game. Nintendo blamed Team Ninja for how the game turned out, and Team Ninja blamed Nintendo. In any case, it seemed like Nintendo thought that players weren’t interested in a new Metroid game, because we wouldn’t see another for a while.
And when we did, we thought that Nintendo lost their minds.
And, without question, I was right to be upset. After all, when the Metroid franchise has been built a certain way and with a certain image, that’s what an experienced Metroid player comes to expect from it. Metroid games starred Samus as the main character, who independently explored alien landscapes and space stations, and found that the titular metroids were somehow involved.
So then, interested in a Metroid game where Samus is put aside? No? Well, how about if it starred some faceless, personality-free Federation troopers? Still no? Well how about if we make it a mission-based affair with emphasis on multiplayer, because we all know how well that worked out for Metroid Prime 2? Still not interested? Well how about we make it a low-polygon atrocity done in the chibi art style? Why does it seem like you’re having a stroke?
I honestly have no idea how Metroid Prime Federation Force made it all the way to production without having the vast majority of the people involved calling it a stupid idea that totally should never have been considered, or how it happened to a franchise that is otherwise known for exceptional quality. What I do know is that the game was intended to stoke interest in the upcoming Metroid Prime 4.
If anyone from Nintendo is reading this, I hope you’ve discovered by now that this is not how you do it.
Finding this game’s connection to Metroid Prime 4 can’t be done unless players make it all the way to a secret ending, where Sylux sneaks onto a Federation facility and hatches a Metroid egg. We didn’t need an entire game to build up to that, and that game didn’t have to be terrible.
Now you don’t have to play the game.
Eventually, I decided to give this game a try, several months after it was released, after finding it on clearance at Gamestop. Even going in with lowered expectations, I was still disappointed. It’s almost as though the developers knew that everyone decided that they were going to hate their game before it was even released, and they gave up trying.
That would have been a pretty solid choice if it came with the decision not to release the game at all. But they did, and it stands as a stain on one of the finest franchises in gaming.
We got this far on the list. But before getting to number one, let’s get some dishonorable mentions out of the way.
Dishonorable mention: Tom & Jerry Kids Show
The original Tom and Jerry was intended for kids already, so one can wonder what the idea was behind making the Tom & Jerry Kids Show. Until you realize that this show was born in a marketing meeting in an attempt to make an old franchise appeal to a younger audience, replacing an audience that was seen as losing interest in it.
Here’s an idea for cartoon execs: If you think kids aren’t interested in Tom and Jerry anymore, just make a different cartoon.
Dishonorable Mention: A Pup Named Scooby-Doo
Another attempt at revising an old franchise to make it more palatable for a younger audience. The biggest problem in this case was that Scooby-Doo was never interesting.
Okay, we’re on to number one. You probably already know what it is.
#1 Teen Titans Go!
I admit that when Teen Titans aired on Cartoon Network in the mid-2000s, I was a bit skeptical. I saw its artistic direction as being a little odd. But when I gave it a chance, it grew on me. Not only did these superheroes kick some butt, as you would expect, but seeing how these character’s personalities interacted with each other when they weren’t fighting conveyed strong characterization which made the action scenes seem like there was even more at stake.
What a great cartoon looks like.
The balance of conflict, drama, and levity was just right. The result was one of the best superhero shows that I’ve ever seen, right up there with Batman: the Animated Series. If you haven’t seen the Teen Titans cartoon from the mid-2000s, you’re missing out!
When fans found out that the Teen Titans were making a comeback, they were excited. Then they found out what they were doing with them.
Someone out there got rich by ruining your favorite brand.
Heh, that’s a good one. Now, show us the real one.
Wait… That’s the real Teen Titans Go? That’s what they’re really going with? How… How did this happen?
The team behind Teen Titans Go is fully aware that legions of Teen Titans fans hate the product that they produce. While you’d imagine that this would be followed by profuse apologies, it’s instead the explanation for numerous episodes that take passive-aggressive jabs towards fans of the previous Teen Titans show. When you criticize them, you’re only adding fuel to the dumpster fire.
Contrary to our own better judgement, Teen Titans Go actually became Cartoon Network’s highest-rated cartoon. This would seem an anomaly until you realize that CN pretty much dumped Teen Titans Go onto every available time slot in the US, and ran frequent marathons of it. This might seem counterproductive, but the low production values of TTG indicates low production cost, which makes it low risk programming that benefits from the strength of brand recognition. Which also does a lot to explain the new Thundercats cartoon.
You can complain to CN, but it’s not going to do any good. Cartoon Network isn’t going to care what you think unless you buy their toys. What’s that? You don’t want to reward mediocrity? Then you’re not the target audience.
And who is the target audience? Kids. And that’s a problem. Cartoon Network is feeding into the notion that it’s acceptable to present children with inferior products. While this is used as an excuse to coast along with a minimum of effort, it backfires in the long run by the principle that you reap what you sow.
Children weaned on inferior products think it’s acceptable to produce inferior products. For examples, look up children’s artwork.
Bad children’s artwork (from Pixshark.com)
Have you ever seen children’s artwork that actually looked good? Me neither. And there’s a reason why this happens: because children have a terrible cultural frame of reference. They see adults producing terrible artwork, so they think it’s okay for their own artwork to be terrible, as well.
Bad grown-up artwork, presented unedited
Cartoonists, step it up. If children are drawing better than you, it’s time to consider doing something else for a living.
Arby’s is an enigma of food. No one expects high quality from fast food, but there’s something about Arby’s that makes it consistently disappointing every single visit.
Take their roast beef sandwich, for instance. As far as I can tell, it’s not made of anything I don’t like. Thinly-sliced roast beef on a toasted, buttery bun? Sounds great, right? Yet, when your order arrives in your hands, you know you’ve made a mistake. The roast beef is a strange kind of grey that roast beef is not supposed to be, and the bun itself limps as though it were on its way to the unemployment office.
In an effort to salvage the meal, one takes it to the condiments bar so the sandwich at least doesn’t taste the way it smells. When you see that the condiments are dispensed by pumps that likely weren’t cleaned for 12 days, you contemplate just throwing your sandwich away, and accept the fact that you lost the few dollars you spent on your sandwich. But after a moment, you cave in and choose between condiments.
You can’t win.
You see “Horsey Sauce”, and think “horseradish”. Unless you’re a quivering wussie, you like horseradish and give the Horsey Sauce a try. But you notice that there’s something wrong when it comes out all creamy. If you ignore this visual warning, you discover that this Horsey Sauce tastes like a concoction of mayonnaise with horseradish flavoring.
The alternatives aren’t much better. There’s ketchup, but fast food places can hardly be trusted to avoid adding sugar to their ketchup. There’s also Arby’s Sauce, which seems like a mixture of ketchup and BBQ sauce. I don’t know what it is exactly, but it has a kind of artificial tang to it as though it were chemically flavored.
You could try something other than a roast beef sandwich, such as a cheddar roast beef sandwich. The prospect of an onion bun sounds great, until you see that the onion bits are like thin shavings, and it’s like some imitation onion flavoring was sprayed directly onto the bun. Something about it just ain’t right. And do I have to say anything about the cheese? It’s cheese in the same sense that the nacho dip from the gas station is cheese, except without what little personality that the nacho dip has.
If you’re one of those knuckle-draggers that thinks bacon makes everything taste better, Arby’s swings low enough to have something for you. Also, you’re wrong. Bacon was never a big screaming deal to begin with, so give it a rest. And while you’re at it, don’t make a fad out of steak, either. I like steak, so do me a favor and don’t make it the official food of mouth-breathers.
Arby’s has the worst sides. You have the choice between grease and greasier. Paprika usually isn’t so bad, but the curly fries are so drenched in it, that it’s actually unappetizing. I don’t know anyone who actually likes those curly fries, so I have no idea why Arby’s boasts about their gross curly fries every chance they get. At one point, they offered regular french fries on their menu. Not ideal, but I went for that because it was better than the alternatives (aside from deciding to eat somewhere else, which would be a great choice). But after a short while of that, Arby’s took the regular french fries from the menu. Were they trying to spite me, or what?
If you think your arteries are evil and must be destroyed, Arby’s potato cakes (hash browns) are a flavorless and insipid way to go about it. If you were to get these (don’t), get a bunch of napkins. Then set it on top of several layers of napkins to see how many layers the grease soaks through. The answer: a lot. I once smooshed one of these potato cakes between two layers of several napkins each, and they’d still soak through. Why does Arby’s offer these hash browns as a side? What kind of sense does that make?
It actually seems as though the sodas from the fountains are the healthiest things on their menu. Consider the implications of that. But if you’re feeling like a lousy food connoisseur, Arby’s sometimes offers a french dip and swiss, which is like one of their roast beef sandwiches, with a different bun, swiss cheese (maybe), and onion dipping sauce. Then, for one moment of sad delusion, you can convince yourself of a vapid sense of culture for eating an imitation gourmet item at a fast food joint. As you sit there with your flimsy pseudo-french sandwich at Arby’s, you can ponder just where your life went wrong. Then you can use your fountain soda to wash down the pills the doctor gave you to make you happy.
About a month ago, David Hogg (yes, that guy) took shots at Arby’s because he objected to the fact that they advertised on a Fox News program where the host was critical of him. Because, you know, we live in an age where if you take issue with how someone expresses their protected freedom of expression, you snipe their income.
A face you can trust in journalism.
I’m not fond of either of them, so if Arby’s and David Hogg were to go at it until there were only one of them standing, I’d feel better regardless of the outcome.
You might be asking, “If you hate Arby’s so much, why do you still eat there?” I really don’t know how it keeps happening. Oftentimes, I’m on the road and want something to eat, and Arby’s is there as a better alternative to McDonald’s and Burger King, and enough time has passed for me to forget how much I disliked it before that I actually consider it. It’s like Arby’s has carved out a niche by taking advantage of that weird kind of amnesia. It’s almost clever enough to be admirable. Just not quite.
Humanity has a mind that enables it to contemplate the mysteries of the cosmos. The math, science, literature, and technology available to us are the culmination of thousands of years of critical thinking. And as fascinating as all of this is, the zenith of human achievement is yet to be seen, as we make more discoveries that are each collectively waiting to be found. And yet, we still sometimes accidentally visit Arby’s.
If you really hate yourself and want to reinforce a dim view of humanity, there’s no more effective way to accomplish this than to work in the grocery or retail industry. There’s a lot to it that makes it some of the worst soul-crushing misery that man can impose on his own kind without violating the Geneva Convention, such as the fluorescent lighting, the destitute pay, and the mindless, low-skill busywork. But what really drives the misanthropy home is the customers.
I’ve worked in the grocery and retail industry for years, and was happy to get out. From my experiences, I can name some of the worst kinds of customers that one can expect to have when they have to work with the general public.
To be fair, I’ll point out that most customers were pretty normal, and therefore weren’t very memorable. This list is more about the ones who, if I were to take over the world, you’d have to thank if I were to usher in some kind of global police state.
The Litterbugs
Once you’ve wiped your nose on a tissue or finished your free sample of coffee in those little Styrofoam cups, you’d have to use the wastebasket. Sometimes, this involves holding onto your trash until you find one, which is the procedure when you’re in any public place. One store I worked at was nice enough to have a small trash bin at the end of every aisle.
Apparently, this still wasn’t easy enough for some people. These would be the litterbugs. They’ll ignore the trash receptacles or pretend that they aren’t even there, and simply leave the trash in their carts, even after leaving. In doing so, they leave their problem for the next person, who blames the staff for not noticing it before they did. So they just ignore the cart with the trash in it, or they just throw it into a different cart, even if there’s a trash bin right by them.
Worse yet are the ones that just drop their trash on the floor when they think no one is looking, or, even worse, the ones that stash their trash among the merchandise. I kind of wonder how filthy their homes are, because in public they’re total slobs.
The cart not-returners
So you’ve gathered up everything on your list and paid for it without incident, and loaded your order into your car. After having gotten this far in taking a trip to the store without making a dunce of yourself, you have one thing left to do – just one thing – before having accomplished the bare minimum of being a decent customer. You put the cart into the cart return.
You can do this, right? That’s what they’re for. They’re designed to streamline the process and make it as easy for you as it can be. But there are still people out there that find it too hard.
If a cart is left anywhere outside a cart return, such as next to a signpost or propped against a curb, it could inconvenience a customer that might have to maneuver their car around it. Or worse, the wind can cause it to drift into a vehicle. This doesn’t just cause dents and nick expensive paint jobs, it can necessitate the need for an expensive coating that needs to be done soon before rust can set in.
The customers on this list aren’t just bad for the workers, they’re terrible for other customers.
The dog walkers
Too many people who go to the store don’t think far ahead, and pet owners are some of the worst offenders. I suspect that their logical progression of thought goes something like this: “I’m going to the store, may as well bring the dogs with me. I’ve arrived, but I can’t leave the dogs in the car, so I may as well bring them in with me.”
I suspect that this is used as a pretext to show off the wimpy little inbred mongrel that they consider a dog, considering that if you’ve met a dog person, you know that they’re proud of their degraded wolf and won’t stop talking about it.
But there’s a problem with this: People are allergic to dogs. Stores don’t prohibit non-service pets just to be mean, they do this because some of us really can’t be around them. Put that on top of the fact that there’s so much else that can go wrong with bringing a dog to the store, and it’s evident that those who bring their pets with them have left their brains at home.
The shoddy-stockers
If you change your mind about an item in your cart, just put it back where you found it. Easy, right? Yeah, it’s so very easy. It’s hard to imagine how anyone can mess this up. But there are those who still manage to.
Hanlon’s razor aside, we know that the reason people do this is because they are either lazy or they think that making the place a mess for the staff or their fellow customers is funny.
What’s more, some of them get creative with it. There are times when there gets to be a rancid smell near a certain spot, and it can take a while before the workers find out where it’s coming from. When they do, it turns out that it’s coming from a leaky, sopping pork roast that’s been set behind boxes of cereal, and has long since spoiled.
The look-in-the-backers
You knew these guys were coming, the ones who can’t find what they’re looking for or found an empty spot, so they ask an employee whether there’s any more in the back.
As much as you’d want to tell these guys what they can put in their back, this isn’t standard minimum-wage procedure, so it’s on to “assisting” them. Usually, the first thing I’d do is check where the item is kept on the floor, because I’d sometimes find what the customer is looking for, and relish the awkward pause as it dawns on the customer, at least in part, that they aren’t as diligent as they thought they were.
In grocery and retail, the back rooms are mainly for unloading stock from trucks, which are then quickly moved out to the floor. Product that remains in the backroom doesn’t sell, so management wants the staff to get the product on the floor quickly. Because of this, very little product is actually in the back, and finding it back there is a long shot.
This takes a while to explain to customers, and if one were to go to the trouble, they’d probably insist that the employee go check anyway, or they wouldn’t get the idea, or funnier still, they’d say that they don’t believe it even though they have little choice but to take the employee’s word for it.
So, what can an employee do about it? Usually, they just go to the back, take a short break, then return in a few minutes saying that they couldn’t find it. At this point, the customer usually resigns himself to the inevitable, but in some cases, they’ll fall into the next group.
The ones that call for managers
There are some people out there who just can’t take an honest statement of fact, however tactfully delivered. So they move on to inconveniencing the next level up on the ladder: the managers.
Customers seem to have the expectation that employees get in trouble the moment management is involved, because when I’d nonchalantly agree to go get management, it seems to surprise them. Believe it or not, employees don’t necessarily have an adversarial relationship with management. They work together, and have pretty similar goals. Besides, making enemies with someone you see every day is stupid.
When I called management over, they pretty much always agreed with me. After all, most people in management are bright enough to understand that giving someone something that they don’t have is physically impossible.
For all the threats that I got from customers saying that they could get me fired, I actually worked in grocery and retail for about a decade without facing termination once. Which was probably worse to endure than collecting unemployment, all things considered.
Miscellaneous checkout shenanigans
As simple as the process of checking out is, it’s surprising just how much can go wrong, and how many customers there are who find ways for it to happen. One would think that customers would be extra careful at this step in the visit, considering that this would be the point where they part with their money. But, it somehow turns out to be when they make the most mistakes. I suspect that there’s some science that the retail industry has mastered to make their customers’ IQ drop by 30 points during their visit, while the sanity of cashiers is the collateral damage that companies are willing to pay.
I’m not kidding, I hated working register with a passion. I’ll just go over a rapid-fire list of dos and don’ts to keep things nice and tidy.
Don’t make a point of paying with exact change. You’re slow at it, and the cashier is faster at it because it’s the cashier’s job.
Don’t attempt to use expired coupons. Do your due diligence.
Don’t hit on the cashier. The setting degrades the experience.
Oldie but goodie: Don’t enter the express lane with more items than permitted. Customers and cashiers alike make fun of you for it.
If your debit or credit card breaks, don’t be lazy, get it replaced. Cashiers hate it when you waste their time by having them punch in all those numbers, and the customers behind you don’t like it, either.
You’re not the first one to joke that “it’s free” when an item doesn’t scan right. If the cashier bothered to pretend a laugh, you have no idea how much effort it took.
If an item scanned the wrong price, it was likely you who made the mistake. Cashiers are seriously annoyed when things have to come to a halt just to do a price check, and so is everyone in line behind you. Take care to read the price tags to reduce the likelihood that you look stupid in front of the other customers.
There’s a lot more, but those are the main ones that I can think of at this point, possibly because my brain isn’t permitting me to recall too much about my grocery and retail work because of some internal mechanism that protects my sanity. Therefore, I’m concluding this list at this point and being glad that there’s life beyond retail.
Situational awareness is one of those things that’s universally recognized as a good quality, but it still seems to be at a premium. This is most apparent when you come across those who stay in the way when you’re coming, without realizing that you’re trying to get somewhere.
This happens in a variety of situations, and it’s very likely to have happened to you recently, so you probably know what I’m getting at. What I want to know is, what is it about pinch points and high-traffic areas that make stupid people want to gather together in them, talking about things they couldn’t put off discussing until having migrated to a less inconvenient spot?
At an office building I worked at, there were actually signs posted telling people not to gather at certain high-traffic areas, so I’m not the only one who sees that there’s a problem with this. But there’s not as big an outcry over it as I like, because Impulsive Socialization Attacks (ISA) are a huge risk to public productivity, and I want to see this problem addressed, preferably with proposed solutions.
Then there are those who walk or drive really slow. If you’re stuck behind someone who slowly plods along and you can’t somehow walk around them, you know how annoying this can be.
Oh yeah, there’s also the people who arbitrarily stop in inconvenient places such as the end of aisles in grocery stores because they think that’s a great place to check their phones, or those who stop right as they get off escalators so they can look around, as though they didn’t already plot out their course or had no idea that people could be right behind them, wanting to get off the escalator, too.
If you frequently blank out to stare into space or feel an impulse to socialize (an ISA), you have a responsibility to make sure you stay out of the way, so you’re not inconveniencing the rest of us when you get into an ISA. Be responsible with your ISAs.
As far as solutions to this problem, I suppose you could just ask someone to move, because you’re trying to get somewhere. However, such trivial social inconveniences can, over time, have a cumulative effect on one’s patience which can result in outbursts, sad attempts to reenact pro wrestling maneuvers, and even pusillanimous passive-aggression, all of which would be preferable to avoid.
Star Wars: The Last Jedi is hitting theaters shortly, and I plan on going to see it sometime after the rush dies down. When I do, I intend to enjoy it for what it is: an enjoyable and novel escape to a fantasy universe with characters I remember and some new ones. I’m not the only one. Millions of Star Wars enthusiasts are ready for the latest installment in this long-running saga.
However, not everyone is willing to let us enjoy it. Some are determined to ruin The Last Jedi for us by making it about their sordid political agenda. While the rest of us go to bed at night, they are scheming around the clock to do things such as regulate shower heads, take away the incandescent light bulb, and, of course, screw up our favorite movies for the rest of us by making it about their SJW fantasies.
I’ve said before how silly it is to attempt to write one’s own political agenda into some form of entertainment that really has nothing to do with it. However, today I’m going to turn their own approach against them to show just how easy it is to cast something into a work that really wasn’t intended.
As we all are likely aware at this point, SJWs like to imagine themselves as the Rebellion from the original Star Wars trilogy, or more recently, the Resistance from the newer movies. I can understand the appeal of making one’s self out to be part of a motley group of freedom fighters that speak truth to power. The problem is, the SJWs are not it.
For one thing, SJWs like to compare the newest villain, Supreme Leader Snoke, to President Trump. The reasoning is that Trump is rich, the leader of a nation, and ugly (not really), traits that make him comparable to Snoke.
Snoke: Star Wars for “public figure you don’t like”.
There are several problems with this, most notably of which is the fact that Trump wasn’t even president when Snoke was conceived as a character. Obama was. And Hillary Clinton was considered the favorite to win the Democratic nomination, a move everyone saw coming years in advance, well before the DNC conspired to screw Bernie Sanders out of it.
Also, Trump is pretty far from the ugliest politically-involved millionaire that I can think of. That distinction would easily go to George Soros.
Furthermore, there’s the very reason Snoke became so unbelievably wealthy: casinos. You know, that thing that the political right usually opposes because they are pro-values, while the left is gung-ho about it because it’s a source of money?
If there’s any group from Star Wars that the Social Justice movement and leftism in its current state can be compared to, that would be the Separatists from the prequel trilogy.
For one thing, there was the fact that the galaxy was relatively peaceful until they started stirring things up. Similarly, race tensions in America were actually very low until the SJWs came along insisting that systems of oppression persist (with arguments good enough to convince them, if not the rest of us).
The reason why the galaxy came into a state of unrest was because a political figure worked behind the scenes to play both sides so he could use the resultant unrest to further increase his political power. Knowing this, consider the fact that Black Lives Matter began as a hashtag campaign, but as soon as it became an organized movement, George Soros funded it with millions of dollars, and it immediately became a terror organization.
If there’s a Star Wars enthusiast reading this, they should be able to tell me immediately what government that the Separatists sought to undermine. It’s the most oft-repeated title of the government that the good guys in Star Wars runs when they succeed in doing so: The Republic. To be more precise, it’s a Constitutional Representative Republic. Just as such a government does in real life, the Republic protects the rights of the galaxy’s inhabitants with rights enumerated in the constitution, while officials are elected to represent each inhabited world in the Senate, each planet maintains its individual identity, and is given significant authority to govern its own affairs.
If that sounds familiar, that’s because that’s precisely how America is governed, right down to the federal government’s relationship with the states, and the protected rights of its citizens. Like the Separatists, the SJWs are being used to destabilize the American political climate to bring the vision of the group behind the scenes into fruition, whether any individual foot soldier is aware of his role or not.
A foot soldier in the world’s saddest army.
Consider also how resourceful the separatist movement was. Even in difficult times, Count Dooku could count on the support of the Techno Union, bankers, and the Trade Federation. They actually had quite a lot behind them for support. In this world, the political left is so massively resourceful, that it makes the Separatist movement seem positively silly. Sure, it’s easy to buy the narrative that SJWs and similar leftists are just an unsophisticated group of resistance fighters, if you were to put aside their support from labor unions, academia, the entertainment industry, banking cartels, the tech industry, social media, the corporate mainstream information media, the IRS, and the military-industrial complex.
Considering the many similarities that current leftism and SJWs have with the Separatists from the prequel trilogy, I’m surprised that they’d turn to Star Wars of all places in an attempt to reach for protagonists that they can identify with. It’s almost as though they haven’t actually watched Star Wars at all, or were too dimwitted to learn the prequel trilogy’s obvious lessons. Though, to be fair, it was easy to sleep through much of Episode 2.
Speaking of lessons, I think that how the Separatist movement came to an end in Episode 3 should give the many SJWs, leftists, and those who carry water for them pause for thought. After the Separatists had served their purpose, Palpatine sent Darth Vader to “take care of them”. That is, by massacring them. Palpatine had obtained what he’d wanted; at that point, the separatists would only have been a liability to him.
Similarly, once left-wing overseers have already gotten what they wanted, what future exists for a bunch of firebrands that only created instability to get them where they are? The initial revolters rarely survive to see the end of the revolution. Those that do might not last much longer. Once it’s over, it will be time to clean up the rabble-rousers before they prove themselves willing to enact the same strategy against them that overthrew the previous government.
See problems with my comparison? That wouldn’t surprise me. This was really only an experiment to show just how easy it is for someone to see a person or people in a work, even if it weren’t meant to be the case. Having said that, the comparison between leftists and the Separatists is surprisingly strong. It’s a bit surprising that they themselves don’t seem to notice it or admit it’s there.
Anyhow, I’m going to try to find an opportunity to watch Star Wars: The Last Jedi in the next few days. And I’ll be rooting for the Resistance fighters as they attempt to keep the Republic alive. Of course.
Ain’t nothin’ like the real thing, baby~.
EDIT (15 Dec 2017): Out of curiosity, I decided to search Google for this entry using its title and numerous variations thereof, but to no avail. This happened even after using the very name of this blog, Magnetricity, in the search terms. Still nothing, except a few of my other pages which were insanely popular anyway. Curious, considering that Google usually indexes content for search results the moment it’s posted.
So I tried popping the title of this entry in Bing. It was the very first result. Just like that.
I’ve long suspected that Google filters out content that it deems challenging to its political agenda, but this is the first evidence I’ve seen which was specifically against me. It’s almost as though there was something to my claim above about the tech industry and social media.
If you’re looking for yet another reason to switch from Google to Bing, there you go.
Bumper stickers are something that I agree with people using because it allows us to determine who among us are so open with their naive ideologies that they’d plaster them on their cars, making it easier for the rest of us to know who the ideologues are, so we can avoid them. Or swerve at them.
Some of these bumper stickers are so verbose, that it would’ve been more effective for them to start a blog or something. At least then, we could just avoid them if we don’t care to hear their opinion. Thank you for reading this one, by the way.
These bumper stickers are trying so hard to outdo each other, that they’re just begging for someone to make fun of them. And today, I’m stepping forward and doing just that. Here is a list of stupid bumper stickers that we see everywhere, and me telling you what you already think of them.
1. Naive Political Ideologies
There’s a car somewhere under all that.
If a political ideology can be summarized in an easy-to-read bumper sticker, odds are that it’s not sufficient to operate an organized society. The makers of political bumper stickers are aware of this, which is why they usually stick with catchy slogans that serve to make the rest of us wish the election cycle was over.
If you spend time on the road, you’re bound to run into a decal that calls the president an idiot, whoever it may be this time. If someone became president, they managed to figure a few things out. The same can’t be said for people who drive ugly cars and demand free handouts for doing nothing.
2. Family Decals
We usually see these ones on SUVs, and they show a father, a mother, a number of children, and sometimes pets. These decals tell potential stalkers whether they’re a military dad, which is usually away from home. The reason why “Dear John” letters happen is because military men that are away from home to serve their country have their wives and girlfriends taken from them by some doucheweasels that are doing no such thing. But, if she’d go along with them, she’s probably not worth having as a spouse, anyway.
What’s more, they tell pedophiles the general age of their children, and in some cases, even their names. This sentence serves no purpose than to give you more time to contemplate the full depths of that kind of stupidity. Contrary to the statistical data available, clinical pedophilia is not rare, and you have to worry about child molesters every time you take trips to Walmart. Not only that, they let them know that their scrawny, wimpy little dogs would be powerless to stop a home invasion.
Great work.
3. Honor Student at Vapid High
If you were to somehow connect turbines to the eyes that roll because of these bumper stickers, the energy generated by them could power Miami. Unless a child is going to college for a STEM major, they only became an honor student by regurgitating whatever information that their teacher told them, or happily going along with their political ideology, or keeping them entertained if they happen to be a pedophile (see point above regarding the same). In any case, the odds of a child becoming an honor student by thinking for themselves is pretty slim.
These children are their teacher’s darlings because they’re succeeding in convincing them of whatever point they’re trying to convince them of. This is not at all hard to do because children are highly impressionable, and it’s easy to convince them of anything. If parents didn’t teach their kids any better, there’s no telling what inane things they’d go around parroting.
By way of example, not long ago, my little brother happened upon the questionable section of the school library. You know what section I mean; it’s the one about aliens, the occult, and various truther garbage. Before long, he was checking out books about Russian ESP experiments and the like. Because, you know, the Russians had plenty of time to devote to weird conspiracy theory stuff, and not more important things like how to rig elections or how to avoid economic collapse in a classless society.
A short while after checking out these books, there were times when I’d try talking clearly to him, and he’d suddenly start staring directly at me with wide eyes and an intense look on his face, as though he possessed any capacity for telepathy, and that he wasn’t a sucker for believing he could do such a thing. If you’re wondering how he’s doing today, he still believes he’s smarter than grown-ups that have been around twice as long as he has, even though he spent half his time alive soiling himself. And probably still does.
So yeah, case in point, it’s not hard to get children to believe just about anything. In fact, if your child is on the honor roll and likes things such as YouTube poop and Spongebob Squarepants, you should be at least a little suspicious.
4. Pets That Are Smarter Than Honor Students
I actually did go to college for a STEM major, and made the honor roll in spite of the fact that I took the hardest classes that the college had to offer (it’s easier to get a high GPA if you take the easy classes). If your dog can program and perform integral calculus, we can talk.
5. Coexist Virtue Signals
People may have problems with turn signals, but they’re too eager to plaster their cars with virtue signals. When someone plasters Coexist bumper stickers on their car, they’re advertising that they’re aware that there are problems in the world, but instead of making any choice that could make the world any better, they’ll instead sticker their cars with vacuous platitudes that change nobody’s mind.
For the most part, all those different ideologies do coexist today, but it’s a brief hiccup in human history. Of course, there’s that the ideology that represents the “C” wants to bring the world under its control, so it’s appropriate that it’s poised to consume all the rest, Pacman style. Also, the “o” is overtly hostile towards all the rest, everyone makes up stupid conspiracy theories about the “x”, and the “t” once attempted to wipe out the true Church to replace it with Romanized and Hellenized pagan mysticism. But aside from that and so many more problems, “Coexist”, right?
I’m a religious minority, so consider what it means when I say that these naive bumper stickers don’t accomplish a thing outside of the appliers bloated ego. It’s an attempt at making people more aware, I get it. Awareness campaigns are worthless because being aware of a problem doesn’t do anything to solve it. The most that anyone who promotes them hopes for is that someone else solves the problem for them. Therefore, when someone engages in an awareness campaign, they’re telling you that they’re already doing all that they intend to do about a problem that they’re aware of.
Coexist bumper stickers aren’t doing anything to prevent a car-bombing, help a Sabbath-keeper find a job, or make the world any more peaceful. What they do is provide income to people that sell these bumper stickers. Just useless.
I just took a few antacids. That’s enough for now.
Cards Against Humanity is doing yet another publicity stunt, this one called “Cards Against Humanity Saves America”.
Considering the misanthropic bent of everything that Cards Against Humanity does, questioning the sincerity of what they’re doing is natural. But as far as the “what” goes, what they’re doing is attempting to raise enough money to buy some land along the US-Mexico border to try to stop Trump from building a wall along it, as though that will do anything to slow down someone that can just take it back through eminent domain.
The entire point is that they want you to buy their cards. There are several problems with that, such as that those cards are positioned near the Pokemon cards at Target, and that’s a game that just about anybody would much rather play. Pokemon brings home Raichu, so that already seems like a much better deal.
No contest.
Cards Against Humanity is pretty self-satirizing, so one only needs to allow them to speak for themselves. There’s a few Q-and-As from their page I’d like to zero in on:
WHAT ARE YOU SAVING AMERICA FROM?
Injustice, lies, racism, the whole enchilada.
Oh yeah, because when taking up a left-wing pet cause, racism immediately becomes the target, because it’s the only way to set the bar lower. You’re racist just for asking that question, Nazi. In fact, everybody is racist, even if they don’t know it.
There. Now that the word has been worn into the ground, can we try articulating our objections instead of calling everyone Hitler?
No? Oh well. I admit that my expectations weren’t particularly high.
YOU SAID YOU WEREN’T GOING TO DO ONE OF THESE COMPLICATED HOLIDAY PROMOTIONS AGAIN.
We’re liars, just like the president.
Check out how edgy Cards Against Humanity is being, they’re dissing the president. It’s not like the routine was old back when it was directed against Obama, right? Or Bush. Or Clinton. Or Bush’s daddy. Or just about every president ever. Get a new routine.
Trump is one of the most overt presidents in recent times. Lying is among the least of anyone’s concerns about him.
I DON’T LIKE THAT YOU’RE GETTING POLITICAL. WHY DON’T YOU JUST STICK TO CARD GAMES?
Why don’t you stick to seeing how many Hot Wheels cars you can fit up your
This is the one that’s supposed to make you ask what their problem is. But that’s hard to do when you know that the cranky millennial shtick is what they’re going for.
It’s established: they can use the mean words.
I’D LIKE TO CANCEL MY ORDER.
We’d like to cancel the 2016 election, but neither of us is going to get what we want.
It took some decent foresight to put this in the FAQ. Think that picture above was a joke? This is the company that literally sent tens of thousands of customers turds in the mail.
Look, I do see this for what it is: a publicity stunt. It’s how Cards Against Humanity is promoting their game. As a publicity stunt, it’s pretty well conceived, and it appears to be having its desired effect. However, there are going to be some people out there that won’t be able to see through the obvious ruse, and will happily contribute thinking that CAH has a legitimate interest in standing up for this left-wing pet cause. In those cases, it was only a matter of time before they’d blow all their money on something stupid like emoji pillows. It just so happens that CAH were the ones to tap into their wallets, this time.
If sadness had an official food, that food would be soup. That’s because soup is almost entirely insubstantial. There’s a few chunks of meat or vegetables or whatever, but the vast majority of it is broth. What is broth made of? It’s water, flavored by whatever else is in the soup. Therefore, soup is mostly water. Does water make a good meal? Of course not.
In just a few bites, you’ll have eaten the substance out of the soup, and be left with flavored water. So, what do you do? Leave the table, of course. You’re done. But no, not if you happen to share the table with a Pharisee. The busybody will come after you for not finishing your “meal”.
So, how do you finish your “meal”? By lifting the bowl up to your face and drinking your water. But no, you’re not being miserable enough for Mrs. Manners. She’ll want you to lift that water up to your face one spoonful at a time, and sip it with the kind of dignified elegance you’d only see in an old oriental painting.
Is it okay if I’m at least a little indelicate? I’m a man, after all. My idea of repairing an old motor is to hit it with a comically large hammer and seeing whether that makes it start.
You know what’s better for dinner than soup? Just about anything, really. Like stew. If you’d take the water out of soup, what you’d be left with is stew. Stew is great because it’s not watered down and insubstantial. Soup is stew, cut with water.
Also, curry. Curry is great. That’s some good eating, right there. Most people complain about it because it’s super spicy, but that’s the great thing about it. Their problem is that they’re being wimps. Spicy food rocks.
Do you know anyone who actually likes soup? I thought not. Therefore, argument over. I win. I know about the famous “Soup Nazi” that was marketed using an episode of Seinfeld. If it weren’t for Seinfeld, no one would care that there was a restaurant in New York City that sells soup. There are a bunch of other restaurants in New York City. Why anyone would stand in line for soup, then pay for it, I have no idea.
Have you noticed how theater staff treats you like you’re stupid? They’ll either roll their eyes as you tell them your movie selection, or they’ll be passive-aggressive about whatever snack you’re ordering.
It could be because they’re yet another teenager that’s upset about having a job that they don’t like which they themselves applied for and underwent the interview process for, and made the decision to leave the house that day to do, just as they did the day before. But I think there’s more to it than that.
Personally, I suspect that theater staff really thinks we’re stupid. And when you consider the kind of dreck that theaters show and people pay to watch, it’s hard to blame them.
Consider The Emoji Movie. Yep, they really made that.
Predictably enough, many reviewers think that they’re being clever by saying that the poop emoji is fitting to describe it. Everyone needs to get over the poop emoji, already. I get it. They made an emoticon that appeals to all the mouth-breathers that think that poop is funny. There’s even a poop emoji pillow, and you can buy it at Target using your Capital One credit card and enjoy a tall Starbucks S’mores Frappuccino on location, in case what you’re doing isn’t corporate enough.
I found out about The Emoji Movie at a theater when I went to see Transformers: The Last Knight. I didn’t read any reviews or plot summaries, so I didn’t know what to expect outside of what the previous Michael Bay Transformers movies were like. Speaking of, I find it hilarious when reviewers act disappointed when Transformers movies by Michael Bay are filled with gratuitous explosions and fighting. Michael Bay directed four other Transformers movies before this one, so I’m wondering just what it was that they were expecting at this point.
What I wasn’t expecting from The Last Knight was that it would be a Transformers movie incorporating Authurian legend into the plot. I’m not kidding, there was a Transformers movie with a plot that involved King Arthur, Merlin the wizard, and the knights of the round table.
What flies in the face of this whole film (aside from the fact that the tales about Arthur and Excalibur are a ripoff of the legends surrounding King Charlemagne and his sword, the Joyeuse) is Optimus Prime’s so-called moral that states that there’s some truth to every legend:
“At the heart of every legend, there is truth: a few brave souls unite to save the world. We can be heroes in our own lives, every one of us, if we only have the courage to try.”
Optimus Prime, in a movie where the main character is a stereotypical “chosen one”.
It’s like they wanted to go with that moral, regardless of what actually happened in the narrative. Not everyone is selected by destiny to do something extraordinary. Most people actually are completely ordinary, and you probably are, too. Besides, not every legend has “some truth” to it. Some of them are complete boloney.
No wonder theater staff thinks we’re stupid. They’re merely reflecting the sentiments of the film industry. How else does one explain how a movie about emojis goes from being a script to a full-length film shown in theaters nationwide? It doesn’t help that we’re paying $12 to see a movie once at a certain time when, if we were to wait a couple months, we can download it for about the same price and then watch it whenever we want, as many times as we want. If waiting for that isn’t a big deal, do we really need theaters?
Give it a try.
This thing has better hair.
I did not edit this.
Photo from IGN, as though the watermark didn’t already say it.
Awesome.
Let the good times roll.
Sex discrimination in video games means choosing to play as a strong woman.
What a great cartoon looks like.
Someone out there got rich by ruining your favorite brand.
Bad grown-up artwork, presented unedited
A face you can trust in journalism.
A foot soldier in the world’s saddest army.
There’s a car somewhere under all that.
I did not edit this.
No contest.
Magnetricity 