I have a tendency to retreat into the privacy of my own private den when things are not going perfectly in my life. This is not a good trait. It is not fair to me or my friends. I am sorry, and I am going to work on this trait, so please bear with me. Pun intended. With that said, I am slowly coming out of hibernation, so I will be trying to get back in touch with the rest of society very soon and will be blogging more regularly. As I wake from my hibernation, the bear is apparently pissed.

The fact though is that I have been in hibernation, so I may not have my facts straight. I thought I was waking up in the year 2008, not sometime in the 1940s and 1950s where McCarthy and other fear mongers thought that we can simply dismiss and, in some cases, destroy lives by screaming socialism. I thought that I was taught that a true and strong democracy was based on a battle of ideas. Again, my mind may be a little cloudy due to the hibernation, but surely we have not returned to these tactics of screaming socialism in the year 2008. I almost wish that I was wrong.

The fact is that we are in the year 2008. The fact is that Republicans are now screaming socialism on the campaign trail. This pisses me off. Whatever happened to expecting professionalism and maturity out of adults? I expected professionalism from my secretary, so why can I not expect and demand the same from my politician? Why would the scream of socialism not be professional and not be mature? Simply, it is wrong…the Republicans know that…the Republicans have made the choice to appeal to the worst in humanity by scaring the voting public with emotionally charged words. In full disclosure, I am not voting for Obama…or McCain for that matter, but I do hate it when I am put in a position to completely defend someone attacked unfairly.

This is why it is wrong…

All of this is coming from McCain’s continued use of Joe the Plumber’s question regarding Obama’s tax plan. McCain keeps describing Obama’s tax plan as a redistribution of wealth akin to socialism.

First, read Karl Marx before you call anyone a socialist. Tax plans do not make someone a socialist.

Second, we have a progressive tax system in this country. This is a fact. What does this mean? This means that the more money that you make, the more taxes as a percent of your overall income you will pay. To illustrate this, the tax brackets for a single (unmarried) person in 2008 are the following:

- 10%: from $0 to $8,025
- 15%: from $8,026 to $32,550
- 25%: from $32,551 to $78,850
- 28%: from $78,851 to $164,550
- 33%: from $164,551 to $357,700
- 35%: $357,701 and above

Why do we do this? Because it is fair. Why is it fair? Here is an illustration. Take Person X that is trying to live on $10,000 a year. Person X is poor. Person X is dirt poor. Person X has to worry about basic necessities of food and water, shelter, and clothing at this income level. Person X is in the 15% tax bracket. Now, take Person Y making $200,000 a year. Person Y’s worries are very different. Person Y is not worrying about survival. Person Y has all necessities covered by their large income. Person Y is in the 33% tax bracket. Yes, the percentages of taxes are different, and yes it is fair. But shouldn’t Person X and Person Y pay the same percentage in taxes for it to be fair? Well, we do not have a flat tax in this country. If we were to expect Person X and Person Y to both pay 25%, just to pick a percentage in the middle, more and more people like Person X will not be able to afford the basic necessities of life, eventually becoming dependent on the state for shear survival. In order to avoid this, we ask those of us that can afford to pay more to pay more. The fact is that those of us who have been given an opportunity to make more have the infrastructure, society, and culture that the government helped to create and maintain to thank for it…to some degree.

Obama did not invent the progressive tax system. It is a fact of our society. In the last 100 years, we have never had a flat tax system. The only thing that changes is the steepness of progression. In fact, during WWII, the highest tax bracket was 94%. 94 fucking percent… Surely, this was just because we were in war. Obviously, WWII was the main driving factor to taxes being that high in the highest tax bracket, but the reality is that we have a strong history of high taxation of the rich. To illustrate this, when I was born in 1978, the highest tax rate was 70%.

If McCain is going to complain about a progressive tax plan, you would expect his plan to be a flat tax…right? Nope…Not at all. He is taking his plan completely out of context in order to scare us all. The Tax Policy center compared Obama and McCain’s tax plans. It can be found here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/story/2008/06/09/ST2008060900950.html

McCain can claim that he will be reducing taxes, but this does not mean that he himself is not guilty of a redistribution of wealth. You see, just because you lower taxes on the wealthy, does not mean that you have created a flat tax where everyone is paying the same percentage of income in taxes. He still is proposing a progressive tax system. He knows this, and he is a hypocrite that is trying to scare voters by screaming socialism.

Another example of him being a hypocrite…McCain voted against Bush’s tax cuts “because of the disproportional amount that went to the wealthiest Americans.” I guess he was in favor redistribution of wealth at that time. Check out the transcript on Meet the Press this past Sunday.

Third, a nuanced fear that McCain is pushing is that Obama’s plan will result in refundable tax credits that would result in the government cutting a check to citizens that actually have no income tax liability resulting in Obama giving welfare to Americans…i.e. – OBAMA IS A BIG SOCIALIST…He is giving money to people that do not pay income taxes…Here is the problem. Our tax system already pays out refundable tax credits to people that have no income tax liability…How can this be? McCain is not pointing out an important factor…People who do not have income tax liability due to low income still pay taxes. How? They still pay payroll taxes…What are payroll taxes? Payroll taxes go to Social Security and Medicare.

McCain’s own tax plan has a refundable tax credit for health care expenses, so he knows that these exist and is even proposing some himself…

More color on this issue can be found at this link:

http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/813/

Finally, still on the tax issue, but less on the socialism issue, McCain wants us to worry that Obama’s tax plans will hurt corporations in this country because the statutory tax rate is not the lowest corporate tax rate amongst industrialized nations. Surely McCain cannot be wrong that corporations would be attracted to countries with lower taxes. He is actually quite right. The problem is that McCain is playing the fear card again because he knows that the American public does not understand the nuances of the tax code. Yep, he is purposely misleading the American voter, and scaring them into voting for him…Country First…I think not.

The nuance is in the concept of the effective tax rate. An effective tax rate refers to the actual rate of taxes paid, not the tax rate written in the statutes. Why would a corporation pay a different tax rate than the ones written in the tax codes? First, corporations have tax offsets that lower taxable income. Second, corporations…are you sitting down?…keep two separate tax books…and this is legal. One tax book is kept to report earnings for the stock market…i.e. – higher earning means that the stock will go up. The other tax book is used to determine how much in taxes the corporations have to pay. How are these tax books different? One way is that the two books use different ways of valuing inventory which drives up earnings or liabilities depending on the method you use. What is the end result? The Government Accountability Office found that 2/3 of all corporations did not pay any taxes between 1998 and 2005…Good times…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/13/business/13tax.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

So where does this leave us? No candidate is perfect. No platform is perfect. However, there is no room for screaming socialism in the year 2008. A democracy is a battle of ideas, so show up and bring some ideas to the table. We need some fucking ideas. What we do not need is diversions of stating that I am putting the Country First while at the same time purposefully and knowingly appealing to the worst in all of us.

Here is the reality…

- A recession is coming.
- We have 2 fucking wars going on.
- We have a disappearing middle class as more and more middle class jobs leave the country leaving us with working class service jobs.
- 3 weeks ago I had friends wondering if they should pull money out of their checking accounts…Seriously, a potential run on the bank. 3 weeks ago I was reliving “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
- Whether you want to ignore all science and say the global warming may not be caused by humans (this is an issue for another time), the world is changing.
- People are losing their homes.

And you want me to tolerate a Red Scare now?

Both plans are progressive tax plans. The fact is that the rich will still be rich, will still be able to live a rich lifestyle, and just because you may pay more taxes if you get rich this does not in any way destroy the incentive system for people wanting to be rich…

McCain is a liar, and he is putting McCain and McCain alone First.

So, it’s been more than a fucking year since I wrote one of these? Goddamn, it’s apparently been the best fucking year ever.

Actually, now that I think of it, looking back, 2007 was more or less the best year ever. That’s pretty cool.

I guess I will get around to talking about that, eventually, but for now it’s 2008, about 9 degrees outside and all my close friends are gone from Atlanta (g and the lady g now rock well in Brooklyn, to the envy of all and sundry). Meanwhile, I’m left here to deal with the bullshit, drinking alone to ease the pain.*

To wit:

1. MY APARTMENT COMPLEX : My man g, assuming he still has time to read this (much less post) while living his awesome new URBAN existence, will no doubt be the first to agree that these fucks that bought our complex from Post are a bunch of cut-rate jackals. Lucky for him (and the complex managers too, I suppose, given the likely reaction they’d have endured) he got out before receiving the letter from them (not mailed, of course, just rolled and wedged between the doorknob and jamb, lazy mfers) that I’ve excerpted here (bold mine):

We are sending this notice to you to inform you that the drop box at the Leasing Office was recently broken into and some rent checks may have been stolen. If you turned in any checks some time between the hours of 6pm and 12pm, on Saturday and Sunday, we ask that you contact your bank and stop payment. Please re-submit payment or contact us by Wednesday, February 6, 2008.

There are at least three things wrong with this, from the shitty expression of time, to the fact that it was only put on my door on the 5th, when they wanted me to take action by the 6th, and, worst of all, that they couldn’t even fucking identify those residents whose checks were missing (for any reason) and contact them specifically, sending a general notice out to the rest of us.

Worse than all of this is the fact that their response to this incident has been to close the drop box, and only accept rent payments in person from now on. How fucking convenient. How about this, you fuckers : install a surveillance camera or two, or, if you’re too cheap for that (and I know you are), just put the goddamn drop box inside the fucking gate!

Oh, right, that wouldn’t help much since THE FUCKING GATE HAS BEEN BROKEN FOR THE PAST 3 DAYS AND IS WIDE OPEN!

It strains credulity to experience this level of incompetence.

Ugh, OK, moving on.

2. DRIVERS : I know I’ve ranted about drivers and driving before, but here’s today’s load of utter horseshit. I’m exiting the highway at North Druid Hills Road, which is kind of a long exit and also one with 4 lanes and a merge. Anyway, kind of a serious “cars everywhere, fucking pay attention” kind of situation. So I’m getting off there and half way up the hill there’s a fucking car stopped in the second lane (also known as the lane I’m fucking in). Well, whatever, shit happens, right, but I’m still pissed off because if your car breaks, especially in such a fucking busy and potentially dangerous spot, with people exiting a highway at 75 or 80 miles per hour, maybe you should put your fucking hazards on. Just a thought.

But then (fuck me this is such total bullshit) after moving to the first lane, to get around this guy, I look over and he’s READING A FUCKING MAP. About 2 seconds later, I guess he figures out where he is, puts the car in gear and then crosses over to the fourth lane (though a merge) to turn right.

I mean, what the FUCK is wrong with people!? You don’t stop your fucking car in the middle of traffic, obstructing every mother fucker on the fucking earth so you can read your fucking map. FIND A PLACE TO GET OFF THE FUCKING ROAD AND DO THAT. I’m nearly spluttering here, I’m struggling so hard to find the words to express how completely inexcusable that shit is. What the fuck goes through a man’s head to convince him that that’s an ok place to stop and check the map. I don’t fucking care HOW lost you are. God fucking fuck.

3. NO FUCKING TRAINS, NO FUCKING TRAINS : Continuing in a related vein, Atlanta still has no fucking useful trains. And, it looks like even the modest fucking expansion that’s been in the works is getting fucked in the ass. Ugh. I want trains so bad, I honestly don’t care if they funded it by taxing blind, elderly diabetics at 75% if it’d get the goddamn job done. Ok, not quite that bad, but for fucks sake you short-sighted Georgian motherfuckers… let’s make this happen. Atlanta is DYING and another few lanes of superhighway ISN’T THE FUCKING ANSWER.

Meanwhile, no trains, and I have to deal with people stopping in the middle of the fucking road to pull out their Rand McNally street atlas. Atrocity.

4. ATLANTIC STATION : I know, i’ve covered this ground too many times, but I was down there again the other day to go to the IKEA (which is still FUCKING PACKED ALL THE TIME somehow) and not only is it still a total load of shite, as it always has been, but they’re busy building MORE SHIT down there. None of that MORE SHIT is trains, cool bars, or anything fun to do. More goddamn condos and apartments. Fucking super. The traffic wasn’t quite horrible enough down there.

Oh, and also the 14th street bride will be closed for the next, oh 30 months, so that’ll help matters as EVERY FUCKING BODY ON THE EARTH gets off at 17th street where Atlantic Station already ass rapes the Earth with it’s complete mediocrity.

5. OFFICE PARK / STRIP MALL CHURCHES : Come on. Really, come on. I know Jesus is everywhere and all but even He fucking hates single story, fluorescent lighted, drop ceilinged, white walled cages like that. The Holy Spirt too. Maybe, maybe, God, the Father, might drop in once in a while, because that’s more or less his job, I guess, but it’s no fun for him. Build a wooden shack in your back yard, like people used to do. Inviting the Lord into a space adjacent to a McDonalds and a fucking tri-lingual insurance agent is just lame. He may still love you, but it’s like the love you have for that annoying uncle who gives you a quarter when he sees you. “Like, gee, thanks Unlce Pete, I’ll go put this right in the bank.”

6. THE INTERNET : Specifically, the fact that people don’t put dates on their shit. Every single thing on the internet should have a fucking date on it, period, OK. But especiallyif you write an ARTICLE, something that either expresses an opinion, or attempts to be useful in some way, PUT A DATE ON IT. I can’t tell if your shit is relevant if there’s no date. It may be 5 years old. This frustrates me to no end, and it’s been getting fucking worse.

On the other hand, my faith in the internet is largely renewed by Aimee Mann’s Christmas Trilogy.

There are a few more annoyances I could list, but whatever, this is too fucking long already. I hope you assholes enjoy my fucking pain.

*I’m being overly dramatic, of course. I still have friends here and manage to be social enough, and — for the first time in my adult life — I’m dating an awesome girl who I like an awful damn lot, and we spend many great hours together. Not that I’ve stopped drinking alone, mind you, but that’s just because I like scotch. Life’s still great, really.

I recognize that bitching and moaning is not, strictly speaking, in the spirit of the season or whatever. Still, I’ll be damned if I’m gonna let some arbitrary date on which our Savior wasn’t even born stop me from delivering the fume and vitriol you’ve come to expect from me.

It has, again, been far too long (since August 10th, in fact) since I posted one of these, but this time I’m not gonna cop out and use that as one of the things… I’m just going to say it and explain that, well, bite me, I’ve been goddamn stressed out and busy.

1. I’VE BEEN GODDAMN STRESSED OUT AND BUSY : This isn’t appreciably different from normal, only way more so. Not so much the busy lately, because in truth I haven’t had much to fucking do because I’m waiting on another agency to fix some shit. But the stress doesn’t abate because deadlines are deadlines and curse curse CURSE.

2. STUPID VANITY PLATES : This came really close to just being “vanity plates” in toto, but I realized that there are two, maybe three, good ones out there, somewhere. Alas, this one, the one right here, below this line of text, does not qualify.

Oh, really? Michael Knight, is that you? Because I don’t recall K.I.T.T. having Tennessee Volunteers colored pom-poms in the back or, now that I think about it, being a friggin Altima. Nor was Michael Knight a weaselly looking twenty something in a button down shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

Maybe you’re merely the NIGHT Rider. Riding around at night. That’s cool, I guess, but not cool enough to advertise it as your truncated, vowel-less, vehicular fucking MANIFESTO.

Or is it that you work for Knight-Ridder, and you’re all “Fuck you, Reuters! We’re number 1!” Meanwhile there’s some dude in a Magnum nearby with the “REUTRS1″ plate and sooner or later y’all are gonna meet up and there’s gonna be a cross-town, wire service slap fight and I don’t think you’ve got it in you to smack that Magnum driving badass, even if his company is second-rate. Also, you probably need to change it MCLTCHY or something… you guys got bought, yo, time to get with the present.

3. CARS WITH HID LAMPS : Look, I recognize that you feel safer when your headlights illuminate the whole fucking zip code as you drive, but the thing is, THEY’RE FRYING MY EYEBALLS OUT OF MY SKULL. I’ll flip the little switch thing on my rear view, which is nice except that now I don’t see shit except two little points of light that are still annoying.

And of course, that does nothing for the side view mirrors or the traffic that’s oncoming or on a side road. Christ, it’s like doing a drive-by on the Sun. The thing about night vision is that it works better if your eyes aren’t having to alternately strain and then be blinded. High contrast bad. So I’m glad you FEEL safe, but you’re making the roads LESS safe, and I want to shoot out your lights with this.

4. MY GLASSES ARE STILL FUCKING BROKEN : In my last installment — you know, the one about 4 months ago — I mentioned that my eyeglasses had gotten broken in Aikido class 2 weeks prior and I’d been too lazy to go get some new ones or repair them any further than just putting some bits of duct tape on there. Fast forward to right now. No change. Same glasses. In fact, fuck, it’s the same damn duct tape. I haven’t even changed that shit. I swear, it’s a good thing I’m a goddamn ninja at work.

5. THIS DOORKNOB :

which is on the stalls in the bathroom at my new building. I have a rule about bathrooms… well, actually, I have lots of rules about bathrooms, but one of them is to touch as little as possible, for as short a time as possible. I think it’s sensible, and I expect I won’t get much argument.

So enter this handle, which has to be the worst piece of industrial design since the Jart (that’s a brand of lawn dart and, yes, we owned some). Notice that it’s got heavy grooves to allow a good grip for rotation, only, rotating a knob whose sole purpose is to slide a small latch by a half of an inch doesn’t require a whole lot of torque, Philip (Philip is the fake name I’ve given to the designer who made this atrocity, since I don’t know who it was. Don’t feel bound by my convention though; call him Jack or Bob or Cap’n Shit-on-my-fingertips for all I care).

Notice that there are no grooves or scoring or knurling of any kind that might help in the pulling of the door closed and notice further that the whole thing is angled so that the diameter decreases as it gets further from the door. So this “knob” which is, we see now, more like just an adornment than a functional part of the door, is both smooth AND tapered the wrong way, making the act of gripping it in order to pull the door closed a tortuous act at best, requiring more effort than required by about 100 times. Worse still, since that’s basically fucking impossible, you have to close the door by pulling on the coat hanger or the (dusty and gross) top of the door itself while ALSO touching the knob so that you can latch the damn thing. This touching of two separate surfaces where one should suffice is clearly a violation of the rule stated above (and violates one other bathroom rule as well, which is that all stall doors must have “firmly closed” as their default state) and stands as an absolute archetype of shitty design. Philip, I hope all you get for Christmas is a dick in a box.

6. FUCKING THIEVING ASSHOLES : I was paying some bills two nights ago and found that, to my surprise, I couldn’t log into my web account at one of my credit card sites. Which is odd, because that’s how I always pay my bills and stuff. So I remember, belatedly, that I had tried to use this particular card (which I seldom use for anything) to buy a book online from a place that doesn’t take Amex, and it had gotten denied. So now I’m a bit freaked. A back story, see number 1 and allow me to sheepishly admit that I’m not the best about checking my statements when I start getting busy. I know I should, but i often just let my non-interesting mail pile up for a while. Anyway, I start tearing through my mail pile to find them and just decide, fuck it, I’ll call the company and see what’s going on. After a barrage of identity confirming questions asking if I’d ever lived in one of the following counties … and do you know a … and what’s your mother’s maiden name, etc. etc. I talk to a lady and she says (I paraphrase for dramatic effect), “So, you didn’t use a Credit Access Check to make a purchase from XXXX AUTO SALES on November XX for $7650?”

…

“Ahh, no, no I certainly did not.”
“Well, it would seem someone else got a hold of one of your checks.”
“Um, yeah, I’d say. I never use those checks and shred them whenever I encounter them.”
“Ok, k, we’ll go ahead and freeze that transaction and …”

and the rest is them handling it pretty much professionally. But, FUCK ME… eight grand on one of those high rate access checks, and I didn’t know for nearly two months. I’m a fucking moron. Some fucker must’ve swiped that shit from my old mailbox after I moved, but before the mail forwarding kicked in or something. In which case my thinking, lawyer though I am not, is that this probably a case of mail fraud as well as theft and misrepresentation and so on. I’ll be filing a police report, probably tomorrow, and I expect it will all work out (i.e. me not paying one dime of that nearly $8000) in the end. But let this serve as a warning, y’all… check those statements. And tell your credit card companies to stop sending those dangerous goddamn access checks.

I’m not even gonna bother prefacing this today… I am pissed off at the following things :

1. MY OWN LAZINESS : It’s was fucking May the last time I wrote one of these. What the shit is that about? I assure you it’s not because I haven’t been angry at all; oh you can be quite certain I haven’t gotten all “YAY! I *heart* everything!” in the past 3 months. Fuck. Yeah, I’m busy, so is everyone… I should write down my anger more. Plus it might help calm my ass down a bit, and that wouldn’t be the worst thing ever.

2. THAT I DIDN’T EAT BREAKFAST THIS MORNING : I mean this in the most general way possible because, as it happens, I actually did eat breakfast this morning and it was a quite serviceable chicken biscuit from Chik-fil-a. But that’s the exception to the rule and most days find me starving half to death sometime around 11 am, which is annoying since frequently I’ve only been at work for about an hour at that point (see number 1). Of course, having eaten that early means I’m hungry for dinner early, but I have a lot of evening things going on (when I’m not working ’til 7 or later) so, again, I’m going nuts by the time I finally get to wherever I’m eating. Waq.

3. MY BROKEN GLASSES : They got jacked in Aikido the other day (2 weeks ago) and it turns out one of the screws is stripped. So the lens/frame situation is being held together by some thinly cut strips of duct tape. It totally works, but I feel like a schmuck going into work every day and I haven’t gotten to the glasses place to get some new ones (see, again, number 1). Super-waq.

4. NOT YET HAVING MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAND : Yeah. I think this one is pretty self explanatory. Me. Island. Whisky on the beach. No annoying people.

5. FLASH RAIN SHOWERS : What the fuck is with going out into the billion degree sunshine, walking over to the post office, all clear, send some concert tickets to dad, walk back out AND IT’S FUCKING POURING! Like, 2 minutes had passed, dammit. So now I’m like, “Do I just walk back and get sorta wet or try and wait it out,” but I don’t want to wait because I’m kinda sorta on the clock, you know. Fucking fuck. So I got wet and was annoyed and dammit the sky should tell you at least 5 minutes in advance of any scheduled weather event.

6. PEOPLE WHO PUT UP TINYURL’s WITHOUT EXPLAINING THEM : You’ve seen them before, I know. Links that are like “http://tinyurl.com/XDp8I”, which is code for some long-ass url that someone wanted to share. I’m down with tinyURL, but you motherbitches need to fucking explain what I’m about to see when I click on that link, because it doesn’t provide information of any kind. Next thing I know I’m staring at some fucking alien looking sex act or piercings or whatever. It’s not so hard, just say “Check out this crazy alien sex shit : http://tinyurl.com/XDp8I”. See? Easy.

It’s been a while and I think it’s time to clear out the warehouse of fury a bit. You may have noticed the new name for this recurring-on-no-particular-schedule piece. I think “The Rage Report” sounds better than “Things k hates”, and it’s a little more versatile.

I’ve also decided I’m gonna change the format a bit. Traditionally I’ve written exclusively about personal annoyances and things that, while unquestionably infuriating, tend to be of minimal import. I’m not doing away with that, because, let’s face it, that’s kind of what I am. I do plan to occasionally weave in some pieces that make me angry that actually *mean* something. Things about politics or religion or whatever that piss me off but not enough to write a whole essay about.

Ok, enough administrative garbage, let’s get to the Rage.

1. THE PS3 : A big gas face to the asshats at Sony for pricing the PS3 at a totally insane $600. Yes, I know, there’s a version that’s $100 cheaper, but it’s effectively like offering a car without windshield wipers or an RPM gauge. That is, the cheaper version is, in fact, cheaper, and technically functional, but it’s not fucking complete. Suffice it to say that unless the PS3 comes with an as-yet-unadvertised capability for cleaning the house, cooking my breakfast or otherwise being a robot house servant, I’m not forking over $600 for it. What’s most infuriating, as g and I have discussed before, is that the price, not to mention the eternity spent waiting for the fucking console has not one damn thing to do with making the gaming experience better. It’s all about fucking Blu-Ray - a technology I have no interest in, insufficient hardware to make use of even casually, and which may or may not even succeed in the medium term. And yet, if I get a PS3, I’m paying to be a Blu-Ray early adopter all the same. Well, fuck them. I’m not buying their overpriced system. Eventually, after the second or third price drop, we’ll see. $600 is a lot of chu-toro and sake.

2. CHATTY FUCKS BLOCKING THE ENTRANCE TO MY BUILDING : I pose a question. Ought I to be less annoyed when people stand directly in front of the door to my building, chatting, requiring me to prompt them to move out of the path so that humans can enter and exit a place of business? If you answered “Yes” you’re wrong and probably a rude and oblivious jerk too. For christ sakes, it’s not like “doors” or “sidewalks” are a new invention. It’s pretty much understood that, unlike some kind of big tent or tarpaulin, buildings have limited access, and placing oneself directly in the line of said access generates inconvenience for 100% of everyone else trying to utilize the walkway, door and card-key access panel. Move 3 feet to left, tools. Talk about your brat’s soccer game and all the cleaning you have to do around the house this weekend somewhere NOT in my way. Thankssss.

3. NON-SIGNALING VEHICUTARDS : I just made up that word. The world needs a term to convey the overwhelmingly common and absolutely outrageous behaviors of those with whom we share our roads. I’m sure I’ve mentioned my relationship to drivers who don’t signal — it’s a relationship founded on pure hate from my side and thought-free muddling through miserable and oppressive life on theirs — previously in this forum. It’s worth another shot today as I almost crashed into this moron vehicutard who thought it would totally fine to pull a u-turn across a split median without so much as one blink from the device whose sole purpose is to tell me when a vehicle is about to change direction. Of course, it was a small satisfaction that I noticed while barely missing the ass end of their fucking Buick that they couldn’t complete the U-turn and were straddling 2.5 lanes of the road. Imbeciles.

4. GM : Really, could they be more stupid? Labor issues, uninspired vehicles and asleep at the wheel management (yeah, it’s a car metaphor, you know you like it) and now, as if they hadn’t already chained themselves to the SUV we get this retarded move. They’re so convinced that people still want giant SUV’s and boring “midsized” cars, and so blazé about the undeniable oil quandary we’re in, that they’re willing to subsidize your gas use for a year. Lame. How about making cars that look nice and perform well and don’t require a direct connection to Saudi Arabian oil fields? Just a thought.

5. JAMES BLUNT : I’ve saved the best for last. This toolcase really raises my ire. Talentless hacks pretty much infuriate me constantly. There are so many of them and they’re frequently so popular, it’s pretty much All Hate, All The Time™ over here. But this guy wins the prize for Worst Song of the Decade. Also, he’s a runner up for Most Mundane Love Song, but it’s not so important.

As if the lyrics weren’t bad enough, the music is the most horrendously sappy, maudlin string of notes humanity has ever heard plucked from the strings of a sad and lonely guitar. It makes me want to set fires and break windows and crush rock with my bare hands. It’s like nails on a chalkboard would be if done by the devil himself in the lowest pit of sulphrous hell; a sonic torment the likes of which neither God nor Man can contemplate without losing their grip on sanity.

I had thought to print some of the hated lyrics here as proof, but I can’t do it. To reproduce them here, I’d have to read them, copy them into the memory of my computer and transmit them over the network multiple times. I just can’t do it. If you wish to verify my words, and consider yourself a strong person, I’m sure Google or iTunes can provide you with the foul stuff. I need to go cleanse myself… I feel dirty just thinking about it.