Essa Alroc's Blog, page 20

Hey Douchebag? I Hope the Manosphere Gives You Cancer

I occasionally go to the Manatopia pages just to piss myself off.

Usually, after an article about how much better men are than women, I see an annoying comment or two.  It’s usually along the lines of ‘these feminist bitches are really going to piss themselves when men aren’t around to take care of them.’

To this I say, “When the fuck did someone take care of me?”

I have nearly died three times in my life. The first occurred when I was three minutes old. I had a knot in my umbilical cord. I just kept gasping for air as the doctors tried to straighten it out. I give credit to myself on that one. Most kids don’t live through that. I did, because I was just that stubborn.

The second happened when I was fifteen and decided to jump into ‘Dead River” (yes, I am fully aware that jumping into something with ‘dead’ in the name is an idiotic idea). I had muscle failure after fighting the tide and had just about decided that death was my only option when a woman named Nina pulled me out by my hair.

The final was my own suicide attempt. I’m pretty sure I wrote a post about it. Go look it up if you’re that interested.

The only thing that was absent was a man saving my ass from anything.

Guys, if you want to just assume that people are better for being born with dicks, then just go ahead. If you want to assume that you’re somehow superior to me because I was born with a different chromosome, then do it. But don’t take credit for something you never fucking did.

Or something you never will do.

Every time I see a comment in the “manosphere” I get a little more annoyed. Apparently, there are men out there who take care of shit. Apparently they are all busy protecting their women, fighting off gang members and breastfeeding wolverines.

Well, where the fuck were these manly men when I needed them?

Where the fuck were you when I was gasping my first breath? (outside smoking a cigarette, BTW. A CNA named Margaret delivered me after you decided I was a lost cause). Where the fuck were you when I was drowning in Dead River?” (Again, smoking a cigarette and downing a Boons Farm with your friends. It was your wife that saved me).

Last one? That was me that saved me. That was the day that I decided that you are responsible for no one but yourself. That was the day I decided that you need to be responsible for your own actions. That was the day that I decided that anyone who tried to divide the world on gender is a fucking idiot.

You don’t get to take credit for something you never did. If you’re out there in the manoshpere, talking smugly about how “They will be sorry when they need to be protected” I say this. “When the fuck did you protect my ass in the first place?”

For all you manly men out there, stomping around out there, saying that you are better than any woman I ask you this. “When the fuck have you helped me out of anything?”

Your only answer can be never.

For all you men out there who bitch that the rules were bent for women, I tell you this. I always ignored those rules. When I was in the military, I never judged myself on the 15-22 female brackets. Instead, I judged myself on the 17-20 male brackets.

And even as a subpar soldier, I fucking wrecked your asses. 270 on the male charts. Suck it bitches. Most of you couldn’t even qualify to hold my jock (provided I actually had one).

Stop relying on your gender. Stop pretending that you have attributes that you don’t have, just because you have a dick. Stop pretending you were somehow taking care of me, because honestly, I never even fucking knew you existed

I am me. I have lived through what I lived through on my own accord. I survived at birth when the odds were against me. I was fished out of a pool by a woman who probably thought I was a rainbow trout. I dragged myself out of a closet the day I learned the meaning of life.

You don’t get to take that shit away, and take credit for my survival, because of my gender.

Take your statistics and get fucked. Your statistics mean shit to me. When the end rolls around, I guarantee you that the gender lines will be equally divided. They will be divided among the strong and your gender won’t matter for shit.

But I will still be there. Because I have already died three times and I did that shit without begging the lord to spare me because I have a vagina.  A fourth is nothing but icing in my book.

So take your gender rhetoric and shove it. I’ll start paying attention the second you do a fucking thing for me.

Until then, I’ll be slicing zombies down with my katana, Michonne style, because I just rock that fucking hard.

Not Facebook Again! Debunking Facebook Hoaxes

Most of time, I hate my Facebook account. It pretty much does the same thing that my email does, with less filtering out of idiots. The only reason I still have one is because it connects to my fan page. Internet marketing and all of that.

But I keep seeing the same shares, reposts and dire warnings from people who can’t be bothered to put something through Snopes before they paste it on their wall. These ‘warning posts’ are designed to incite mass panics, or just get viral shares, from someone who has too much time on their hands. So, let me dispel a few popular Facebook share myths for you.

Drug Soaked Business Cards

I love this one, because a simple application of basic logic could clear up any confusion.

The story starts off with some girl at a gas station. She meets a man who paints houses. She takes his business card just to be nice. As she leaves the gas station, she starts to get dizzy. The dude from the gas station starts following her in his car.  She feels faint and realizes that something might have happened. She pulled up at a house and starts pounding on the horn. The house owners come out and the bad guy drives off. The girl later learns that the business card was soaked with burundanga (a drug similar to the date rape drug) that is used to incapacitate potential victims before the criminals rob or rape them.

Now, I’m not going to get into the basic science of this. Namely, that there is no drug that could immediately incapacitate someone without being injected, eaten or directly inhaled. I’m not going to point out that there has never been one confirmed case of ‘business card’ attack. What I am going to point out is basic logic.

If the drug on the business card is so strong, how the hell is the criminal handing them out in the first place? Think about it. The girl gets the card and starts feeling sick a few seconds after getting it. But the guy who made the card, who drove to the fucking gas station with the card, and then walked up to the girl and handed her the card, didn’t pass out himself? What was he doing, wearing a hazmat suit and carrying the thing around with a set of uranium tongs?

This story has been around since 2008. What hasn’t been found is an actual case of it happening. I will tell you that burundanga (aka Devil’s Breath) is 100% real; however, criminals usually slip it into someone’s food or lace it into a cigarette. It doesn’t work like chloroform, and even chloroform doesn’t work the way described in the story.

The Facebook Legal Notice

I hate this one because it keeps making me get unfriended through no fault of my own. When people unfriend me, I like it to be because of something I did, not because I refused to participate in a completely ineffective chain mail campaign.

The basis of this one is that you need to post some kind of ‘legal notice’ on your Facebook wall to protect your privacy and copyright. If you don’t Facebook will use all your stuff however they see fit. It usually comes with a threat from friends who state ‘if you don’t post this, I’m going to have to unfriend you because my stuff might show up on your page with no legal notice on it.”

Understand copyright people. Once you make it, you own it. That’s copyright. Any disclaimers you see are not legally binding contracts. They’re reminders.

Once you sign up for a Facebook account, you agree to their terms. That means you follow their privacy and copyright policy. You CANNOT unilaterally (meaning on your own) change a contract with someone just by posting something on your wall.

Let me put it in simpler terms. You buy a car. You sign a contract with your bank to make payments. A few weeks later, you decide you don’t like those terms. You write your own new contract. You mail it to the bank.

A bank executive later uses it as toilet paper. Why? Because you can’t unilaterally change a contract. You must have consent from the contracting party.

Also, when you sign up, you’ll notice that you own the information that you post on the site. Facebook already agrees with that. The fact that they made themselves a publicly traded company has absolutely nothing to do with copyright laws. They can’t use your image to make money and they can’t steal your posts. The contract does not change just because the form of the company does. All that changes is who you sue if they violate that contract.

Keep Facebook Free!

These pop up ever now and then. “Facebook is going to start charging you money for your account. Look, this excel spreadsheet shows a grid of how much it will cost per month. Sign our petition, go to this site, blah, blah, blah.”

Most likely, if you’ve opened one of these, you’ve opened and installed a bunch of viruses and malware on your computer.  Why? Because Facebook has no intention of charging a fee. They’re already successful. They have more people using them than any other social media site in the world. They make billions in advertising alone. They aren’t going to fuck with the formula by charging people.

This rumor pops up every time Facebook offers a new add on feature. Right now, it’s making a comeback because Facebook is testing out a new advertising program to promote posts. This is a beta advertising program, similar to Facebook ads, which you have to pay for. It’s a completely optional service for advertising. Facebook has explicitly stated that they will keep the site free. If you don’t believe me, check out the site itself.

Before you share something on Facebook, check to make sure it’s not a hoax. A lot of these hoaxes have been around for a very long time. The ‘pay for Facebook’ one has been around since Facebook started.  Snopes is an excellent resource to find out if something is true, because they actually go to the trouble of researching sources. Don’t play into mass panic. If it sounds like a delusional rant from your great grandfather with a slight case of dementia, chances are, it is.

Have a Little Faith

Many of my posts actually come from the comments I get on another post that I wrote. Ironically, the people that like to disagree with me are the ones that often fuel my fire.

Ain’t that a bitch.

Anyway, the other day I got a pretty well written post that disagreed with me. The person who wrote it was obviously intelligent and had the ability to apply logical thinking. It was on my McDonald’s article, where I bitched out the people that complained about getting fat from McDonald’s food.  Their main point of contention was that the big businesses lied when they were putting out their advertising. That they tricked people into eating their food. That they weren’t being honest and upstanding. That they ignored the health of the public in the interest of making money.

I call that capitalism.

Mainly, the point I got from their comment was that people are sheep that will believe anything that is advertised to them by a cartoon clown, or packaged in shiny wrapping.

On that, I’m calling bullshit.

I know I sound like a cynic most of the time, but I have something to share with you all. I don’t truly believe that most people are deep down idiots. Sure, I’m pretty sure I’m smarter than most people. I’ve said that more than once, but that doesn’t make everyone else morons.

It just makes them average, and average doesn’t immediately equal ‘sucker’.

Back in the days of Big Tobacco, when Phillip Morris was telling everyone that smoking was fine, I’m sure there was a person or two that coughed up a big green lump of lung tissue in the morning and said ‘yeah, right’.

George Orwell’s book ’1984′ is one of my absolute favorites. What can I say? I enjoy a sad, but realistic ending. But there was one thing I always disagreed with. It was this statement. “If there is hope, it must lie with the proles.”

The proles in the book were the people that made up the majority class, in Orwell’s dystopian novel. The proles ran the show without recognizing their power. They only cared for immediate satisfaction and were happy as long as their masters were willing to provide alcohol, sex and violence. In  essence, the proles were entirely useless as long as their mommy’s and daddy’s left the alcohol cupboard open and the television on.

At heart, I am a hedonist. I make a point of enjoying life for all its physical pleasures. But at the same time, I know good from bad. I know when to stand aside and I know when to argue. I might be a cynic, but I still have a voice. And that voice says this.

People are not proles.

They are smart. They know when they are being conned and they know when to say enough is enough. As long as I believe that the majority of people out there are capable of logical thought, as long as I believe that people can take what they’ve learned and make there own decisions, I will never call people proles and I will never believe that my fellow human beings need a babysitter.

A truly intelligent being will never need to be told what they know to be true in their heart.

A truly intelligent being won’t need a surgeon generals warning over the dangers of getting shitfaced and driving. They will be able to figure that out on their own accord.

A truly intelligent being wont get upset because the coffee the ordered was hot or the bacon they asked for came with saturated fat.

A truly intelligent being knows that Snooki offers no valuable parenting advice, that Dr. Phil can’t tell you how to lose weight and that not everything that Oprah says is right.

I have a little faith in my fellow man. For ever one Stella, suing McDonald’s over a hot cup of coffee, I know there are 1000 people calling her a fucking idiot. For every idiot out there who watches “Honey Bo Bo” and learns a valuable life lesson, I know there are 20 more who call it showbiz shenanigans.

The idiots do not rule the world. There are intelligent people out there and we make up the majority. I know we are not alone. Just being born middle class did not render us all idiots. We might not have money, but we do not cater to idiocy to serve your agenda. We are smart, we have hope, we are the future.

And we are not your proles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Essa’s Adventures – Essa Goes Questing

I have now been watching Xena – Warrior Princess for 46 hours. Due to some pre-existing mental disorders, I have a habit of getting a little loopy after watching these shows for extended periods of time. Mainly, I have a hard time separating fantasy from reality.

And all I want to do right now is go on a quest.

I’m feeling quite heroic. Based on my extensive research of getting high and watching nothing but Xena, I am now fully convinced I can do all of the following;

Catch any arrow that has been shot at me right before it hits me in the face
Do a back flip onto a running horse while having a swordfight with a centaur
Do the Xena war cry, “Ayiyiiyiyiyiyiyiyi” loud enough to annoy all my neighbors

Like most skilled warriors and heroes, I need an outlet for all of my energy. But quests can be a bit hard to come by these days, due to our current lack of elves, fairies, hobbits, centaurs and magical crystals that promise world domination. Luckily for me, and for the world, Tuesdays are errand days in the house of Alroc. Now, I must prepare.

I head over to my closet to find my most heroic clothes. Unfortunately, I don’t have any chain mail or armor, so I have to settle on the next best thing. I squeeze into leather pants and an “I gave blood today” t-shirt.

On a side note, I stole the “I gave blood today” t-shirt from another person who actually gave blood. I don’t give blood because I consider it morally irresponsible. I mean, what if they gave the blood to someone that I would rather have die, like a child molester or serial killer? I don’t think I could live with myself if something like that happened. I have the same philosophy on organ donation.

Anyway, the first stop on my quest is the vet, as Sophia has her annual dental visit today. I walk into the office, attempting to look broad shouldered and heroic. It’s very hard to maintain, considering that I’m dragging a 9 pound Maltese, who is attempting to run away backwards.

“You there, reception wench,” the receptionist give me a blank look, “I bring the canine Sophia, of the House of Alroc.” My voice booms through PetSmart and I’m feeling like I have made a good start.

Sophia glares up at me and pees on the floor out of spite.

After apologizing for my ‘miserable cur’ (I got confused and started talking pirate) of a dog, I left for the next stop on my quest; the marketplace.

You all know it as Gas Station.

“Good morning, good sir. I will take this container of your finest mead,” I slap a six pack down on the counter “as well as some smoking tobacco.”

Mr. Gas Station shakes his head as he bags my purchases. “You know, just calling it ‘mead’ doesn’t mean you’re not an alcoholic if you drink it before noon.”

“Seriously?” I am crestfallen. “That’s half the reason that I’m questing!” I take my mead and smoking tobacco and head out to my trusty steed, a red Dodge with 180,000 miles on it. The quest continues to my next destination; the post office.

I stand in line with the rest of the peasants so I can mail my package. Finally, it’s my turn. “Good afternoon, my lady. I need your swiftest courier to deliver this to my armies amassed just outside of Athens.”

I get another blank look from the woman behind the counter. There is a lot of that going around today. “Does your package contain anything fragile, liquid, perishable, or hazardous?”

I lean forward excitedly. “It contains the lost crystal of Atlantis. With it, the holder can have complete power over the tides, as well as all of the creatures of the sea.”

She sighs deeply. “So it’s a rock then?”

I mail out my package, and turn over the 29.95 gold pieces (current US value about $3.95, according to Cash for Gold) for their swiftest horse. But now I am exhausted with questing.

I head home, to drink a 6 pack of mead and watch more Xena. It’s hard work being a warrior.

***FYI to all my readers out there, if you like Xena and you like being wasted even more, try out this drinking game. Every time Xena and Gabrielle use some kind of lesbian double entendre, or look like they are about to make out; take a drink. Trust me; you will be shitfaced before you finish two episodes. On a final note, I am almost 100% sure I have a massive and completely sexual crush on Lucy Lawless. ***

The Apostles Meet with an Editor

Writing is a hard business to break into. It took me three novels before I even got an offer from any publishers at all, and those offers were terrible. Of course, now is easier that it used to be. Ten years ago, my options would have been vanity presses or sending out several thousand query letters, before I found a small time publisher willing to take me on at 3% royalties.

But can you imagine how hard it would have been before the invention of the printing press?

That didn’t seem to stop the apostles, considering the best selling book of all time is the Bible. No joke, that book sold more copies than 50 Shades of Gray and The DaVinci Code combined!

Here’s my question; what if the bible was released today? What would happen if the apostles turned the good book over to one of the Big Six publishers? Well, thanks to my incredible imagination, and non existent fear of blasphemy, you’re about to find out.

 

The Apostles Meet With an Editor – An Essa Alroc Production

Nearly 40 men, all wearing loose fitting robes and sandals, sit crammed into a conference room, watching a woman in a business suit expectantly. Next to her sits another man in a suit, and to his left, another man in a suit. The woman has an extremely large manuscript in front of her and she is going through it, making marks with a red pen.

Lady Editor: I am so glad you all came in today. I’m really looking forward to working on this project with you all. But, before this goes to print, we’re going to have to make some changes. And these changes need to be made fast. Jesus is huge right now, and we need to cash in.

Yes Man #1: That’s right, it’s all about the hype!

Lady Editor: So, I guess we’ll start at the beginning. (She flips to page one) Now, according to this, God made the world in 7 days? (She looks around the room) Ok, so who’s responsible for this “Genesis” section? (The apostles avoid eye contact) Well, whatever, I don’t care who wrote it, but it needs to be redone. God can make the world in 7 days, but it takes him 1500 years and over 40 people to write a fucking book? Even George RR Martin doesn’t take that long to turn in his manuscripts.

Yes Man #2: (shakes his head negatively) We just ain’t buying it.

Lady Editor: Also, apparently, there were only two people in the beginning? So only two people made everyone else on the planet? You guys realize that makes us all products of incest, right? (The apostles look at each other nervously as the lady editor flips through the manuscript) and I mean, incest seems to be a recurring theme in this book. I have to tell you guys, incest is not going to draw in readers in our demographic.

Yes Man #1: (nods agreeably) Our demographic does not like incest. We need to change that. Also, cut the section about Sodom and Gomorrah entirely. The last thing we want to do is alienate affluent gay liberals.

Lady Editor: I completely agree (she has now crossed out about half of the pages) So no on the incest, and let’s do a retool on Sodom and Gomorrah. Instead of getting ‘smited’, they all go to Pinkberry.

Yes Man #2: (looks near orgasm) Product placement! I love it. Let’s take it a step further. Instead of ‘loaves and fishes’ Jesus gives everyone Taco Bell Gordita crunches and Cranberry Red Bull!

Yes Man #1: (his eyes are glazed with lust as he gazes at Yes Man #2 adoringly) You get me so hot when you target the lower middle class 18-25 male demographic.

Lady editor: (rolls her eyes) And we need to get rid of these ‘info dumps’. Do we really need to know that “Adam begat Seth. Seth begat Enos. Enos begat Kainân. Kainân begat Mahalaleel. Mahalaleel begat Jared.  Jared begat Enoch. Enoch begat Methuselah. Methuselah begat Lamech, and blah, blah blah?” I mean, really? Lets keep the focus on the main character. We don’t need to know the whole damn family tree.

Yes Man #2: (eyes light up with glee) I just had an amazing idea.  Is there any chance we could make this Jesus character a vampire?

Yes Man #1: (lets out a low moan of arousal and tackles Yes Man #2 to the floor in a mad sexual frenzy)

Lady Editor: (shakes her head) The Jews already made him an angel in their version. I don’t want ours to look like a cheap knockoff. (she ignores the two men wildly fornicating on the floor) But maybe you guys could give him some better superpowers, other than just walking on water and mass producing bread? I don’t know, maybe x-ray vision or …

Yes Main #1: (stands back up and repairs his rumpled clothes) Maybe he could shoot lightning out of his hands?

Yes Man #2: (laying on the floor, smoking a cigarette) The Greeks already did that with Zeus. (he snaps his fingers) I got it! Jesus is a down on his luck everyman who has a talking sheep!

Lady Editor: I love it! (She shoves the manuscript across the table, back to the dumbfounded apostles) Ok boys, I’m going to need you to cut this down by about 1000 pages, get rid of the incest, lose the info dumps, stick in some stuff about Pink Berry and turn this entire story into a book about a rural Idaho farmer who finds a talking sheep. Also ‘Jesus’ is way to ethnic, won’t play to our demographic. Let’s call him James instead. (she and the yes men leave the room, the meeting over).

Matthew: (Stands and looks forlornly at the manuscript, now covered in red ink) My dad was right. I should have gotten my HVAC degree from community college instead.

Bad Tattoos and the Idiots That Get Them…Like Me

Since I was a teenager, I have had the trashiest tattoo on my upper left arm. Try not to cringe as I describe it.

It is an armband, that goes all the way around and features a rose…wrapped in barb wire. I’m pretty sure the only way I could have made it more trailer park was to give it a mullet and a Trans-Am.

It’s allot like hers, but I don’t have the double D’s to draw the eye away.

When I was in high school, it seemed like a fantastic idea. I was sure I’d love it forever. I mean, I loved those awesome upper arm cuffs that were trendy for about three weeks in 1998. Why wouldn’t I love having one permanently tattooed on my upper arm?

Turns out, there’s a reason teenagers shouldn’t get tattoos. Because teenagers are morons.

I would love to be able to put on a bridesmaid dress and not look like the wedding I’m going to is happening at Universal Studios. I’d like to look normal in something that doesn’t have a Harley Davidson logo.  I’d like to be able to go sleeveless and not have people wonder how much time I did.

It’s not the fact that I have tattoos that’s a problem. It’s that the design of this tattoo is so absolutely ‘white trash’ that it immediately makes everything else look white trash too. Slap me on the steps of Buckingham Palace in a tank top and I will make that place look like a trailer park.

So I’m trying to decide what to do about it. I’ve tried makeup in the past, but thanks to the location and size, it’s just not an option. The makeup just smears all over the damn place, ruins my clothes and looks ridiculous.

I could have it lazered off, but I’ve also been leaning in another direction. Why not go all it? I’m always going to be a ‘tattoo’ kind of girl. In fact, I have one on the back of my neck that I just love. Why not do a cover up that just covers the old tattoo?

I’ve looked into it, and it would actually be way cheaper to get it covered than it would be to get it removed. My only problem is, I’m not sure if I will be writing another blog post in 10 years, calling my 33 year old self an idiot for getting that awful portrait of Morgan Freeman tattooed on her arm. That’s just an example by the way. I would never dream of getting a tattoo of Morgan Freeman on my arm… It would clash with the one I have of Gore Vidal on my lower back.

I could do what I did last time, and let alcohol make the decision for me, but that’s kind of how I got into this mess in the first place.

How About a Little Personal Responsibility?

As you all know, I recently got a Roku. Well, much like a TiVo, the Roku will make certain recommendations for me based on the things that I viewed before. It was doing such a great job, that I actually considered it my own personal television assistant.

Then, it recommended the documentary “Super Size Me” and I nearly fired its ass.

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“What do you mean, this is bad for me? Look, It has lettuce in it.”

I hate Super Size Me because I think that documentary is everything that is wrong with America today.

If you don’t know, ‘Super Size Me’ is an expose that came out about ten years ago. The main premise was a man who set out to prove that if he ate McDonald’s every day, for every fucking meal, he would become a giant fat ass. About half way in, his doctor recommended he stop. He took this as proof for his amazing hypothesis.

A high calorie, heavy saturated fat diet, with virtually no vitamin or minerals, is not good for you. Shocker.

I’m going to be honest here. I’ve never been a big ‘foodie’. I don’t like to try new things and I don’t consider eating a pastime. I consider it an annoying necessity that I frequently forget to do. Generally, I eat about once a day and that once a day is usually an orange or some pretzel sticks. I never have food cravings. Instead, I have dizzy spells that remind me that I’m about to die of starvation. But even at my absolute hungriest, there is nothing on the McDonalds menu that I would willingly order. Everything they make just tastes like greasy sawdust to me. But I’m going to go ahead and defend McDonalds anyway.

Why? Because McDonalds is me. We both give people what they want, even when it might not be good for them. Whether we’re dishing out high trans-fat fries, or a portion of hatred for humanity in general, we are the same. We are the favorites of hung over college students. A McMuffin with a side of a post about excessive drinking is the ideal cure for over indulging. We validate America. We tell them it’s ok to not be healthy and wholesome. Instead, we tell them it’s ok to enjoy yourself and say fuck the consequences.

Then, we deal with the backlash. McDonalds gets sued on a regular basis because of people complaining that their food made them fat, that their coffee was too fucking hot, that their food is addictive.

I get regular hate mail from people telling me that I should be more forgiving, that I come across as too angry, that I should change my opinion because it’s too harsh, that I’m stereotyping, or that I used ‘they’re’ incorrectly.

If our dissidents had their way, McDonalds would be a salad bar and my page would be a mommy blog with G-rated humor about my kid’s potty training exploits. Because that way, everyone would have the choice to be healthy and wholesome forced on them.

And they would all get to avoid personal responsibility.

Let me make this clear world, you are responsible for what you put in your mouth and you are responsible for what you put in your head. Of all these ‘McDonalds made me fat” lawsuits, I have never read one where Ronald McDonald drove to someone’s house, put a gun to their head, and forced them to eat a McRib sandwich.

Of all the pissed of church ladies who have come to my page, I have never gone to someone’s house, held them hostage, typed in essaalroc.com and forced them to read through my posts.

They pull up at the drive-thru on their own and order the #1 supersized, and they read my page without any prompting from me. But they still complain.

To that I say ‘how about a little personal responsibility?” If your pants don’t fit you anymore, don’t blame McDonalds. Blame yourself for overindulging. If my opinions make you angry and offended, don’t send me hate mail. Instead, ask yourself why you would go to a page that specifically informs you ‘posts on this site may be factually incorrect, delusional, mean spirited…or all of the above’ in the header.

That isn’t a joke people. That’s a 100% accurate disclaimer. But I still get emails from idiots who are upset that my posts are delusional, mean spirited, or inaccurate. Um, fucking duh.

“Duh’, is just what I say about the stupid movie “Super Size Me.” Eating fast food every day for a month can damage your health? That’s not a hypothesis. That’s a known fact. Anyone who doesn’t know that is either in denial or is looking for lawsuit material.

Here’s the thing people. You can have a world where everything you eat is wholesome and everything you read is agreeable and suitable for all audiences.

Or you can have a world where you get to operate that precious free will you were born with and choose to occasionally make the wrong choice.

You won’t be any slimmer for eating at McDonalds, and you probably won’t be any smarter for reading my page. But if you go to either place with an open mind, I can guarantee you’ll enjoy it anyway.

God bless America, and God bless McDonalds. Because freedom applies, even when that freedom makes you make bad choices.

Thank you for allowing me to be one of those bad choices.

Writing Like Pompous Ass? Just Say Negatory

Do you know what I find insufferable? People who insist on exploiting gargantuan vocabulary, for no perceptible justification, in every commentary they write or editorial they display. There is a motivation for my abhorrence of these individuals, and that motivation is how you feel after you conclude analyzing this paragraph.

Simply stated, right about now, you’re all probably wondering when the Essa you knew got replaced with a gigantic douchebag.

I wrote the first paragraph to make a point. Just about everyone, including a trained money, could get the point I was trying to make in my first message. However, instead of making it enjoyable to read, I made it obnoxious by puffing up the vocabulary and trying to prove how smart I am. I could have stated my point simply and made it much more entertaining. I could have simply said;

I hate pompous assholes who use giant words for no reason.

Because here’s the thing, the second you call someone on the ‘puffing’ thing,, they always immediately call you an idiot. “Oh, you’re just mad because you didn’t understand me. I understand. Your pea brain can’t comprehend the level of my incredibly articulate vocabulary.”

FYI, assholes, I understand you just fine. I just choose to talk in a way that doesn’t make me sound like a pompous ass. Why? Because it’s rude. What if there are people who don’t understand you? Then, you just sound like you’re purposely talking over their heads to make fun of them.

For example, ladies out there will get this. You’re in a nail salon, getting a pedicure. As you’re sitting there, watching the MTV channel (because they refuse to change it) your pedicurist starts speaking Korean with the girl next to her. You have no idea what there are saying, because there are speaking Korean and you don’t know Korean. Then, one of them looks at you, giggles, and says something else in Korean.

And you have to resist the urge to stab the pedicurist in the fucking throat with her nail file.

Then, just as the hostage negotiator arrives, to talk you into letting at least one of the Korean manicurists go, you find out that they were only talking about Snooki’s latest exploits, and nothing they said had anything to do with you.

Talk about inconvenience!

The difference in the case of pompous asses is these people only think they’re speaking a language that no one else understands. In reality, most people just page through their puffed up vocabulary, write them off as pompous asses, and move on.

Maybe these pompous asses think they’re being high brow and literary. For that, I respond, John Steinbeck won the Pulitzer Prize in literature 1962.

Now, go try and find the word ‘malapropism’ in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’.

Steinbeck won his award because of his ability to get into the minds of the migrant farmers working in the Dust Bowl in the 60’s. He got his award for his ability to build believable characters and make the people who read his work feel what the characters were feeling.

He did not get the Pulitzer for using the word “gubernatorial’ in a sentence.

Am I talking about people who use words that might be big, but are unsure? No. In fact, you’ll notice that I frequently

You know who you are. Chances are, if you’re feeling offended right now, I’m talking about you.

Simply stated, write the way you speak…not the way you would speak if you had a Word 2007 Thesaurus program at the ready.

And don’t tell me ‘words are your hobby’. Words are not a hobby. They are a means of communication. Writing is a hobby. But if your ‘writing’ involves you puffing up your language with unnecessary 5 syllable words so you can prove you’re smart, then its not writing that is your hobby.

It’s kissing your own ass. And trust me, no one wants to join your club.

 

 

 

 

Things I Hate About the Internet

I love the internet. I loved it the first day we got it in our house, in 1992, when my dad hooked up the signal and I listened to that weird, screeching ‘dial-up connecting’ sound through our phone line.

I loved the internet the first time I signed into a chat room run by Yahoo and got into a fight with someone twice my age.

I loved the internet when I realized that I wanted to learn where Jell-O came from and was able to find the entire story in just a few minutes. (Very interesting, by the way. Google it)

I loved the internet when I learned how to write my first virus in notepad (endless folders) and that I could download the answer book to my advanced chemistry class in college.

The internet and I grew up together. We learned things about the world and things about ourselves together. The internet was my first love.

And like a relationship with a high school sweetheart, now is the time to tell the internet about a few things it does to annoy me.

Passwords, Passwords, Passwords

Security password? Why the hell do I need a security password. I already have a password. The password is designed so my forgetful ass can remember it. Now, to get into any one of my bank accounts, I’m required to remember details like my mothers maiden name, the color of my first car and the name of my first grade teacher. I mean Jesus, how much verification do we really need?

Look, Bank of America, it’s my friggen checking account, not the US mint. If some clever internet hacker wants to waste their time breaking in, so they can steal the $1.45 available balance, then more power to them. Requiring me to submit 10 different security answers to access that amount is about as idiotic as someone who rents a safety deposit box for their Beanie Baby collection.

Inspirational Internet Memes

The following scenario has never happened in the history of time.

Arnold gets home from a rough day at the office. He is a cubicle worker who has worked the past 20 years for a company he hates. Today, his boss made a huge mistake, but blamed Arnold. As a result, Arnold lost his job. He started working right after high school, and does not have the transferable skills to get him a another job in the same pay bracket. His wife recently left him for his brother, so he has no one to lean on. Arnold has very few friends, a bleeding ulcer and a serious case of depression.

Arnold decides tonight is the night he ends it all. Before he does, he notices a new notification in his email. It’s from Facebook. This surprises him, as he only has 12 Facebook friends and 10 of them are Nigerian scam artists. Hmm, one of his real friends posted something on his page.

Suddenly, Arnold sees the light. All the burdens are lifted off his shoulders thanks to a form letter, sappy, inspirational paragraph written by a person he has never met. Arnold decides not to commit suicide.

His life has been saved thanks to chain mail.

Look, whenever someone posts one of these on my page, I immediately respond with a ‘defriend’. People who find themselves emotionally swayed by stupid internet memes are the reason drain cleaner comes with the warning ‘do not drink’. If you’re so damn impressionable that you can be convinced by clichéd platitudes, super-imposed over a beach you’ll probably never visit, it’s only a matter of time before you join a cult. Why don’t you get a jump on that instead and get off my page.

Just to prove my point, if I every decide to kill myself, I will slit my wrists with a shank make out of a bunch of rolled up inspirational memes.

Spammers who don’t even try

I hate spam as much as the next girl, but what I hate even more is spam from someone who doesn’t even make an effort.

A while back, I started receiving spam that actually insulted my page and called me a whiny idiot. I nearly mistook it for real hate mail and responded. Then, I got the same massage on a bunch of other websites that I manage and I realized I was dealing with one hell of a clever spammer. Whoever sent the email knew that I would immediately think the worst, which was I was getting more hate mail. I nearly took up the gauntlet and started a fight. A fight that would have simply wound up flooding my page with spam. While I hate that guy for being a spammer, I had to be a little impressed.

However, 700 random letters with 15 back links? It’s like they’re not even trying anymore. Look spammers, take a page out of discountloubitonshoes@gmail.com’s book . Be a little clever. Try a little harder. I’ll still block your ass, but at least I’ll do it with a smidgen of respect.

The ‘Interactors’

About 40% of the blogs you see in the world are a result of one thing. A fledgling author trying to peddle their books. There is nothing wrong with that. After all, if you want people to pay to read what you write, it doesn’t hurt to offer a free sample. In fact, this page started out as one of those. It was supposed to be a marketing site for my books. Then, I got bored, drunk, forgot to take my meds, and my page turned into the ramblings of a madwoman. But I couldn’t stop writing, I had to keep going. Why? Because I’m a writer and once I got started, I realized I couldn’t stop.

I write because I can’t not write. When I’m writing a blog post, around 4 sentences in, it just starts writing itself. The same goes for the stories I write. I was born to write. I was not born to interact.

The self publishing craze has created a new breed of writer. They’re not real writers. They’re “I’m going to write some shitty twilight rip-offs and get super rich’ writers. Then, to get publicity to their shitty book, they write a bunch of blogs about writing, and invite people to interact on their pages. If they’re really obnoxious, they’ll try to interact on your page, by leaving a comment with twelve links to their page in it. Or, they’ll all end their post with a question and an invitation to discuss it in the comments, to increase interaction.

Here’s the thing. I don’t suck at marketing in spite of the fact that I’m a writer, I suck at marketing because I am a writer. I’m good at writing things, but I blow at dealing with people. The majority of the time I’m commenting, I’m not interacting. I’m arguing with someone and calling them a douchebag.

My ‘interaction’ has alienated more fans than it has gained. I regret nothing.

And that, my friends, is genuine interaction. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve made some great friends online, but we don’t ‘interact’. We talk. I care about what they have to say and they care about what I have to say. At no time does marketing enter the equation. In fact, I’m pretty sure most of my frequent commenters have never even cracked the spine on one of my novels…and I have no problem with that.  Because they’re not my audience, they’re my friends.

So I don’t ask them generic questions and ignore their replies when they respond. Instead, I state my opinion and let them share theirs. At this point, I’m not ‘interacting’. I’m having a conversation with a friend. For me, it’s no longer about marketing. It’s about the fact that there is one more person out there who will be sad when I die.

Interacters are the opposite. They don’t care about the people they talk to. Instead, they’re hoping for more site hits and potential readers for their shitty Twilight rip-offs. I learned in  the first few days of blogging that it is not about gaining an audience. It’s about writing. Regardless of what platform you choose to do it on, if you’re a writer, you won’t be able to stop.  You don’t care about comments or audiences. When people respond, you respond to them. You try to be nice.

Unless those other people are douche bags. Then, it’s about hunting them down using their IP address and to harass them endlessly.

So I live the majority of my life on the internet. Well, I’ll tell you, I love the internet. It makes me a living, it’s gained me fans and it’s given me an outlet. Otherwise, I would have just been organizing bum fights or beating hookers to death. For every douche that tells me I have no life because I blog, I ask “Have you ever put your hand inside a volcano? Have you ever outrun a bull at Pamplona? Have you ever dropped peyote at Burning Man?” No? Well then, you can’t blog. You can’t blog because you haven’t lived.

Every writer knows that rule number one to writing is having a story to tell. And how the hell can you have a story to tell unless you’ve lived one first?

I will never be good at marketing. I will never be good with people. But I will always be good on the internet, because I know how people work and I understand technology. And in a world like ours, that makes me a queen.

We are living in a digital world people. I’m not on the internet because I don’t have a life. I’m on the internet because that is where life is right now. And the internet moves pretty friggen fast.

If you don’t stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.

Randall Kennedy, I Am Here For You.

Reblogged from I AM TOM NARDONE:

Let Me help you Randall

I received this comment today. I am not angry at Randall Kennedy. I think that Randall Kennedy simply needs my help. I don’t want to hurt him. I want to help him. The following is his comment to my article I wrote entitled“Telemarketers, I Am Begging You All. Come Back!!”

Read more… 1,047 more words

Hey everyone, as we all know, I'm frequently writing posts about dealing with hate mail. However, one of my blogger friends came up with a unique way to respond. An offer to help out one of the poor unfortunates spewing bile on his page. Tom Nardone, you are a saint and a genius. Maybe even a sagenius.