Winter is Awful

Thankfully I live within the boundaries of "acceptable climate to be happy year-round," and so the issues I encounter regarding temperature are virtually nonexistent. Rarely, if ever, do I encounter a day where it's either so hot or so cold that I seriously consider relocating (although those days come more frequently in the summer than any season) so in that respect winter remains satisfactory, as long as I'm either inside or outside and dry.

I'll get down to business; snow is a terrible thing. It's the worst thing. I envy those from regions where there is little (I say 'little' because I worry that I would tire of its absence if it didn't appear maybe, oh, once a year) of this white menace and would prefer my immediate vicinity to take a hint from the wisdom of others. At the very least, my city needs to make the conscious decision to smarten the fuck up and kick this snow out.
Breaking it down goes as follows:

1. Initial snowfall - One of the worst parts of the process. I can't garner wages during any form of precipitation. Trying to film in the rain is arguably worse, but snow also tends to attach itself to my camera and stay there, melt, and seep into mechanisms unseen. It also seems to enjoy falling slightly past the brim of my hat, immediately swooping upward and placing its ass ever-so-daintily upon my eyeball while my eyeball is open and trying to look at a thing. Snow is like James Bond, if he were very small, and a dick. If I ever meet Sean Connery, I'm going to tell him to tell M to stop hiring snow as a form of warfare against me. I'd tell her myself, but I'm afraid my harsh words might rattle her into a heart attack. You know, because she's old. Snow is hard to gauge for personal efficacy since you may think you can still accomplish outdoor tasks, but once you get out there, you realize it's just as aggravating as if it were a tornado.
2. Flurries - Every time I hear the words "snow flurries" in a sentence like "there's going to be snow flurries," I load a shotgun. I have several positioned strategically around my house, in such a fashion that I can fire one and the others will simultaneously erupt into concentrated explosions, the shrapnel aimed directly at my head. Snow flurries are like Satan's way of saying "I told you this place fucking sucks." Don't go outside, unless you enjoy the feeling of tiny icicles penetrating everything that isn't wrapped in buffalo hide. You can't open your eyes if you're walking at all against the direction of the wind, so you can't see shit, and it's cold and wet. More on "cold and wet" later.
3. Cold and wet (or, I Told You So) - The area in which I live grants us the luxury of extreme regional cold followed by moderate regional warmth. This means that the thinner layers of snowfall promptly freeze, coating everything in an innocent layer of frictionless, transparent surface. When you step foot on this surface, you get a one-way ticket to "Being Cold and Wet" Town; Population: Assholes. Perhaps you fall on more of this substance (which, if you haven't figured it out by now, is ice), which gives you a free transfer ticket to "So That's What My Brain Matter Looks Like" City. Or, inconveniently, you fall into a puddle of wet shit or a local snow bank, which effectively ruins whatever your mood was previously and makes everything you're doing three or four times more irritating. Cold and wet is probably the worst thing that winter brings.
4. Slush - This is one of those red flags that indicate when the Earth is sick of our shit. There exists a substance that, when mixed with dirt, becomes cold, wet, sloppy, sticky dirt. Those of you claiming that mud also fits that description can fuck right off, because it's not at all the same thing and you know it. Well, perhaps you don't, so I'll fill you in. Imagine a thing that you hate. You loathe it. Imagining this item, object or condition alone causes you distress. I bet it's slush. It's always slush. Some dick has the nerve to reproduce, and spawns a child who, with insurmountable genius, decides to pile it all together and jump on it with gusto. The slush flies everywhere, and if you're nearby, you die immediately. Slush will kill you.

I know I left my general "hate everything to some degree" principle off the list, but that's because it's more of a rule for living than a seasonal nuisance. These are all reasons why winter is awful. Maybe I'll turn it into a video, since these posts receive anywhere between zero and virtually zero views.

Windows 8 Is Like A Dog With Two Legs

There are many videos floating around the internet world that depict canines with such pedal shortcomings. Anyone who has viewed these images knows that most of these dogs, with some extra training and attention, become just as good as their four-legged counterparts.

In this scenario, the mutt with the full range of mobility is Windows 7. Its unfortunate playmate is Windows 8, and the two missing legs come in the form of a proper Start menu.

I won't lie, I'm not a huge proponent of drastic change. I've read many a blog in my efforts to reattach those two legs to my new operating system ('how to get the old start menu back' searches deliver fruitless third-party abominations and dangers) and in these informative posts are - as always - someone's opinion about whether or not the change is good. 

Often, this viewpoint comes from the fingers of an ass hole who insults the intelligence of anyone who doesn't like the Windows 8 'Start Screen' better. However, I must be a full-fledged idiot, then, because I hate the Xbox Live home screen and I certainly don't want to adopt it on my computer. I'll drown that orphan.

For those who don't own an Xbox or a copy of the new OS, I'll explain: The screen is opened, innocently and delicately enough, from the same corner as your current Windows logo. It spreads its loving wings, soars up over your desktop, and promptly takes the biggest shit you'll ever see, in the form of every single program you've ever had installed, all over your eyes, nose, mouth, ears, etc. in the form of an "App." Your programs are listed by category and you can choose from them.

Note: I'd also like to suggest to those who don't have either of the aforementioned pieces of technology that they invest in a time machine and travel to this fucking century.

I would assume this new layout is for accessibility, but that can't be correct. If you're building a wheelchair ramp, it's a small incline that starts in the parking lot and daintily raises itself to the level of the curb.

It doesn't start at the second floor window of the supermarket and jut out into the street, blocking three lanes of traffic and creating a huge, vindictive cement wall between you and the enjoyment of whatever you'd like to do with your life.

I understand the need for innovation. You don't want what you're selling to appear stale in the eyes of the consumer. However, if you're going to alienate decades of loyal patrons in an effort to show off how nicely your App screen sweeps to the left, at least make the Start Screen optional, instead of stuffing it down my throat for making the mistake of opening my mouth in excitement. 

Barring that, maybe make it a little bit easier to navigate. There are more of us out here that want the old Programs list back, that freely customizable and wonderful piece of design. I've actually deleted all my Apps and, since that doesn't delete the programs, now have a system of clutter---I mean, folders, on my desktop in order to navigate my shit the way I've always loved to do. That's what I had to do in order to be happy. I'm not alone in this plight.

Windows 8 is the runt of the litter that was born without front appendages due to a lack of room and oxygen in a womb populated by good ideas. With a little work, you can get it to stand up straight, run, probably even fetch toys. However, even with such breakthroughs, everyone who sees it is going to wonder how cute it could be, if only it had all of its fucking legs.

Windows 7 is the older sibling that shits in its mouth just to assert its dominance over the weaker genus.

Marriage is Awful, Weddings Are Worse Pt. 2

In the interest attempting to maintain what little attention span is offered on this vast machinescape, I've separated this post into two parts of semi-equal length. Just makes things easier.

Part 2: Weddings

I've dissected the institution of marriage, extracting whatever emotion serves to cloud what is already a very unnecessary course of action. Weddings are infinitely easier to testify against.
We are a species that prides itself on selfish indulgence and false justifications. Gods are great because they say they are, obesity is a disease, and bigger is better, because it's bigger. That makes it better. Because it's bigger. Shit.
For many, weddings are a celebration created entirely to please family members, largely at the expense of the happiness had by the two getting married. This is a process that rivals Las Vegas for the title of "greatest time-wasting financial black hole." Many spend months in preparation for one or two days, organizing with and paying hundreds of people to ensure that everybody but them enjoys the experience for a few measly hours while cramped into chairs around tables full of people they rarely talk to. The ceremony itself is long and formal, which guarantees that people like me are going to hate existence for its entirety.

While couples could be hoarding their earnings, saving them for the purchase of a home or even for frivolities that are much more enjoyable for a much longer timespan, they instead (often due to direct parental pressure) opt to throw money directly into the garbage, with expenditures that flaunt price tags that shouldn't even be legal. Exploitation of what was initially designed as a day of conventional celebratory entertainment has effectively ruined whatever "sanctity" the ceremony intends to preserve. You're destroying as you create. When you think about it, though, you're not even creating anything good.
Sometimes, during the preparation stage, a couple will, under unbelievable stress and tension, discover things that they despise about each other. Perhaps one half of this partnership isn't as assertive as they could be, and subsequently loses a reservation and must resort to the second-choice venue. For some, this is so pivotal that the entire thing is aborted, and irreversible damage is done to the relationship (to one's "soulmate", as well as with their parents, because if you ruin this you might as well just dig up Grandpa Jones and fuck him right in the ass, since he's already rolled over in his grave). This is a situation that could be avoided entirely if there never was a wedding in the first place.

Included on the list of "reasons why this is more of an awful idea than a good one," is the expectation that the relationship is magically made better by these acts alone. There are no words that strengthen a bond between people, because it is not, and never has been, verbal language that ties two people together emotionally. Being inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame won't magically improve your batting average. Wining an Oscar doesn't make your acting better than it was before you won it. If anything, it makes you sloppy, acting as a milestone in which you plunge your dick and leave it. Both marriage and a wedding will individually and collectively lower your self-imposed standards for relationship quality, over time.
As well, the presence of a minister directly infringes on many people's "keep your religion the fuck away from me" policy, an ideology that must be relinquished for literally no good reason whatsoever.

In case you weren't already convinced, I'll gladly remind you of the ideas behind the "bachelor" or "bachelorette" party. What we've concocted here is a night that is symbolic of one's transition from being unmarried to the horrible, restrictive alternative. Not only does this offer the opportunity to spend hours in the company of other sexually desirable people in a very suggestive and almost insistent environment, but it brings with it the implication that you can be, and up to this point have been, unfaithful to your significant other. You're insinuating that dating someone is so basic and loose that you could have and probably were fucking anything and everything, but you can't do that after tonight, or else you might lose your mate.
Well, fuck you then, for questioning my ability to commit to another, and assuming I haven't already.

I have yet to be presented with a reasonable use for the traditional wedding, unless your aim is to bankrupt yourself and ensure that whatever offspring you may produce during your "night of consummation" (another big issue; I and many other people like to keep their personal lives person, and your whole family knows exactly what you're doing and is happy about it) will be well-versed in the art of panhandling for years to come. I welcome any contrasting views, and wish anyone luck in trying to sway this giant novel of concrete absolution on the matter.

Birthdays Suck

Sometimes I'm a cynical introvert with no desire to speak to anything with a mouth and reciprocating thoughts. Other times, more frequently in fact, I come off that way while trying to challenge or defy consistent social norms that have no purpose other than to uphold traditions older than the concept of common sense itself.

Mostly I just dislike birthdays.

I didn't even remind anyone when my birthday was this year. If my computer had ears, it would probably hear you asking "Why, asshole?" Since that's likely the reason why you were roped into reading in the first place, I'm obligated to answer. Interestingly, that ties well into my first point: Obligation.

Say someone of value to me decides to delve deep into their metaphorical "piggy bank" in order to provide me with something I've been verbally longing for. Great. There are few things I hold in high enough esteem to appreciate as a gift, first of all, but I can't say that, since that means their time and most likely their hard-earned-yet-frivolously-cast-aside money has been promptly squandered. I'll accept most presents without much quarrel (sometimes), but the transaction doesn't stop there. Most people expect you to do something equally "nice" for them; be it return the expenditure on the date of their birth, or do them a favour at some point in the future. Whatever it is, it's oft accompanied by a dark and menacing cloud of debt, in which you'll find me. Even if I were to encounter one of the rare few who don't intend for me to keep that balance, I'll still feel like I should. Right now. Forever.

I don't act as though I can read the minds of my various acquaintances and targets of emotional investment, family or otherwise. As such, I can't possibly fathom what others might be desiring once the one day of the year that they're mildly important to work strangers happens to trundle in and invade my senses. Unless you tell me outright, constantly, incessantly, I'm not going to remember what you want. Come to think of it, I have a difficult time remembering when the fuck your birthday is in the first place. There are just so many and they're almost never in close proximity to each other. It's like taking the same aggravating memory exam each year, just as you've finally forgotten what it is you're supposed to memorize.

There's so much emphasis already on the date, individually, that piling even more celebratory measures upon the heap of one's happiness seems unnecessary to me. Especially since birthdays are so un-special. They're literally as common as human beings are. There are several each day. Odds are, someone's singing that awful song right now. More importantly, what's the significance in childbirth in the first place? Every mammalian species does it (discounting some genetic abominations, like the platypus, or some stupid flightless bird which isn't even a mammal really anyway). Whales give birth, and from what I hear, it's gross as hell. People swim in that all the time, especially if they live on a tropical island.
Think about that for a second. You're swimming in diluted whale placenta and poorly-aimed semen.

Happy birthday.

Cyber-Bullying is a Big Joke.

What's more, people who are irked by internet "bullying" for longer than the 10 seconds it takes to read whatever hate comments they recieve are wasting valuable time and emotion.

"Cyber-bullying" is probably the worst way to classify what should, in reality, be called "wearing out your keyboard at no benefit to anything." The fact that I've dedicated this much time already to the topic causes me more emotional distress than any one of the seven and almost a half billion other people on the face of this vast, crumbling celestial rock ever could. There is no merit to the battle against this phenomenon, and continuing to pursue a means of preventing individuals with soft hearts from being perturbed at length by random, negative comments (no matter how great in number) is like trying to stop wolves from killing for sport.

That's another, completely unrelated issue. Some wild animals are indeed sport hunters and you have to be born deficient to deny that. Get off your towering animal-rights activism horse.
That's an oxymoron.
People who take cyber-bullying seriously are oxymorons. Wait, I mean they're morons who breathe oxygen.

I'm no humanitarian, so the things I say may be construed as hostile. However, I'm just one person, on one particular and isolated piece of the internet. Which is my point, really. There is inherently little risk in speaking negatively of someone from quite possibly hundreds of kilometres away. Subsequently, anyone with a working computer and a semi-functional brain can say just about anything they please, often in an attempt to get a rise out of another person, or to fulfil some sort of misplaced sense of inadequacy.
Even more, according to Occam's Razor, perhaps they just want to "start shit."
Those who sit down with the intent to defame someone completely alien to them have less value than the text they manage to type out, through what are most likely grotesque, disfigured and twisted fingers, hands, faces, maybe a third eye, etc. These people should, in turn, be given as much time as they warrant, which happens to be none. Surprise.

Simultaneously, however, I'm not in the business of pandering to those who take comments such as these with anything more than a grain of salt. There is a substantial difference between offering criticism constructively and trying to cause a person mental turmoil. Most people can recognize this and differentiate; the next step being to disregard the iterations that are simply for the sake of torment. Thus, they are able to keep themselves from harm. You wouldn't get all upset and cut yourself if some street-demon with no concept of your existence told you that you were ugly and your life choices were poor (at least not if you're intelligent and have any idea how rarely strangers care about you), so maintain your thick skin, especially against an ignorant online persona. Many people should learn to do this, and quickly, because the world is much less friendly than the seclusion granted by this generation's development process would lead one to believe.

In some cases, people are stupid right off the cuff, doing things they wouldn't ordinarily do, thinking that the anonymity provided by this great technological advancement will provide some sort of barrier between what they've done on their computers and the reality in which they live. The truth is, this is reality, and they coexist. To think that, for instance, getting your breasts and/or testicles out, live, with a webcam, won't come back to bite you in them, is absurd. Especially when your face is visible.
Imagine the internet as if it's one big amusement park. The only one. Now, imagine that when people come here, they can say/do anything they want, to whoever they want, with a mask on. They only have to pay once a month for unlimited access. Lastly, imagine that parents freely and willingly pay for this luxury, and that provides everyone they talk to with the ability to attend this park.
Now stop imagining it, because that's what the fuck this is.
You have to be a retard to get your tits out at Disneyland, and they don't even get half the business that the internet does.
My point is that some people get what they deserve when they act like an idiot.

Now, don't mistake me. It isn't fair to try and ruin the entire home and online lives of businessmen because they weren't smart enough to have more than one password. Nor is it acceptable to drive people to suicide if they like getting naked online. However, if people were to practice a little discretion, or had some common sense, outcomes like these can be avoided completely. It's not the internet's fault for capitalizing on the mistakes of others, because we've been doing that since the conception of this species. This invention has only made opportunities to do so more widely available and frequent. This wouldn't be the case if those victimized would exercise some caution and took steps to keep their internet lives and their "real" ones as separate as possible.

Remember in King Kong when it turns out that we're actually the monsters? Killing the gorilla isn't going to save us from ourselves. He was behind the huge fence until that fat asshole let him out. The tribesmen had a good idea, keeping him on that island, close enough for us to visit, but not so close that we had to see his big hairy dick all the time.

For those of you who are a little slow, King Kong is a euphemism for the internet in this instance.Try and keep up.