:Blog o’ Doom

Having recently moved, I spent this Christmas and New Year’s Eve by myself - it was a quiet evening to relax. Being an only child resulted in me being somewhat of a loner, and so being alone rarely bothers me. Christmas was very peaceful and enjoyable. New Years Eve I surprisingly found somewhat tougher. But let’s look back on 2008.

2008 was an huge year. It saw one of the biggest US economic downturns in the country’s history effecting ecomonies worldwide. It saw the US government do something (relatively) unprecidented when it bailed out two of the largest financial companies in the world. We saw the first black president elected - and for the first time in a very long time, the world rejoicing about something the US had done. Personally I had many friends and family lose jobs and go through various hardships.

By the same token, we have new technology continuing to come out and enhance our lives. Major consumer corporations like Google, Apple, Intel, and Microsoft continue to bring out new products which are continuing to push enough units (or ad revenue) to keep these companies in business. The economy is said to have reached it’s low point and be on its way back up - even though that’s projected to take at least 2 years.

It’s been a difficult year for many people, but as I was reminded by both Robert Love’s eloquent blog post and my friend Chris, even in a harsh year like 2008 most of us are still significantly luckier than much of the world. We could be in Gaza. We could be in Somalia. We could be in Israel or Iran. I suggest you take a moment and check out The Globe’s photo tour of Israel and Hamas. It certainly gave me a lot of perspective.

I count my blessings for not only being luckier than them, but luckier than most. 2008 treated me well, and I’m incredibly thankful and have no complaints - even about my New Year’s Eve plans. I wish all of you the best in 2009. May it bring you peace, happiness, success, and all the things you are searching for.

As some of you may know, as part of my “Letters of the Month” over at IPOM, I have a “Babes of the Month” list. It started as a lark but has become quite the tradition.

As 2008 draws to a close, I decided I needed to pick the top 5 ladies from this year’s lists. Before I went back and grabbed the list, I decided on a few basic rules to make things simple. No one I know in real life qualifies. This turned out not to be a problem this year, but occasionally people I know make it on the list. Second, no one who also appeared on one of my lists prior to 2008 would qualify. Finally, anyone who was added to the list due to their appearance prior to 2008 (i.e. I watched an old movie or TV show) would not qualify. This, again, knocked one more candidate from the list.

I had very few letters of the month this year due to my moving and traveling. However, most of the lists were longer than average, giving us a solid 10 contestants to start with. The initial list of candidates, in no particular order, was as follows:

• Deanna Russo
• Jennifer Morrison
• Summer Glau
• Jessica Alba
• Charlize Theron
• Danneel Harris
• Kristen Bell
• Mila Kunis
• Sarah Michelle Gellar
• Kathleen Kinmont

Sarah Michelle Gellar did not qualify due to being included in my list back in ‘99. Kathleen Kinmont was included in the monthly list due to a role she played in the early ’90s thus disqualifying her. This left 8 possibilities.

It was an arduous task, but yours truly narrowed it down! In order from 5th place to 1st place, here are my picks:

5. Jennifer Morrison
4. Mila Kunis
3. Deanna Russo
2. Charlize Theron

And, the number 1 babe of the year…

1. Summer Glau

If any of these names are not familiar to you, click the link to head to their IMDB page and check out their work and their looks.

Happy New Year to you all!

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Courtesy of Slashdot’s Idle section, comes the greatest Christmas tree ever. EVER! It’s so beautiful, I want to cry.

It doesn’t snow much in the city… usually. However, this year we’ve had a lot of snow: yesterday there was a foot of snow on the ground. I’ve posted pictures of the awesomeness!

Miranda recently pointed me at Foamy - an entertaining online animation series that more often than not is ranting about the stupidity of those around us. I recommend it.

But it got me thinking… this is the Blog of Doom. A blog born out of a deep hatred for stupidity, ignorance, and people in my fucking way. A home for my festering rants on such lowlifes.

But as of late, there have not been many such posts. It’s time to revive that! To return to our roots, so-to-speak.

A few of the rants I’ve had on the back-burner Foamy has done. I wanted to avoid that, as it would be too easy to just slip into his rant. Then, in another conversation with Miranda, I remembered a true evilness I’d not yet exposed.

Texting.

Texting.
Texting is a great technology. It’s has a lot of uses:

• Sending someone a short message that’s not worth a phone call over, such as “I’m on my way” or “stuck in traffic, will be late”
• Getting someone a message when they cannot easily answer their phone due to class or a meeting.
• A quick addendum to a phone conversation that requires no response
• When someone doesn’t have enough reception to talk, but you have something urgent to tell them.

However, I’ll tell you one thing it’s not fucking good for! It’s not fucking good for having full conversations! If you send someone a text, and they respond, and you still have more to say, that’s a sure sign you should fucking call them! Yet people have 2 fucking hour conversations over a thumb-button technology! It’s like we’ve gone back to the telegraph for fuck sake.

And to make matters worse, when one of these brain-dead fuck-faces sends you the third text message in a row, and you pick up the phone to call them, they don’t fucking answer! I know you’re next to the phone, you just fucking texted me! Pick up! How fucking stupid do you think I am, that I don’t realize you text from and answer your phone from the same fucking device?

Oh, but that’s not the even the worst of it! Oh, no. There are actually overgrown finger-mashing half-witted ass-hats who do things like propose, break up, and get divorced… via a fucking text message! Are you fucking kidding me?! How exactly does this conversation go?

“No more luv, want divorce. sry.”
“O rly? y?”
“cuz”
“but, ilu!”
“no luv u”
“h8 u!”

Man, and people thought breaking up on the phone was bad.

First of all, the people who would do this are clearly too stupid to live and should just be shot.

But more to the point, if you’re dumb enough to know, much less date, much much less marry a douche-bag who would do this, then you deserve to get broken up with. Why? Because you don’t deserve to be happy much less procreate and polute the world with more of your pathetic, useless DNA.

And don’t give me any “that’s so cruel” crap. Go find someone to text you something nice if you can’t handle it.

So to all of you carpel-tunnel-thumb, retarded, WoW-playing, useless wastes of space… STOP IT. Just fucking stop it. If you want to have a conversation, pick up the phone, or, if possible, perhaps try actually meeting up with people. I know, that’s a scary thought in today’s electronic age, but try it getting out of your mom’s dingy basement once in a while and you may actually experience life!

Seriously. Knock it off. I’ll find you.

Thanks Foamy, for keeping me in check.