August 23, 2004

• Moist. That word creeps me out. I don't watch TV specifically because I hate ads. Therefore I'm somewhat oblivious to their specific heelishness. I guess I'll just say car ads to make moneyjane happy. The idea promulgated by much of corporate America and our government that corporate profits are somehow more important than worker's rights, environmental concerns or human well-being.
• Word: 'Proactive.' Ad category: Gastrointestinal (I'm tired of ads that make heartburn sound worse than cancer.) Idea: Divinely sanctioned violence (crusade/jihad.)
• Puberty. As if it's not embarassing enough, the word sounds like someone stuttering. The "get rich quick" ads with the "Money Man" promising to make you tons of money by sitting on your ass and some people believe it cuz he has a suit on covered with $$$ signs. The opinion that one lost life deserves another, whether it be the guilty party or not.
• 1. Fetid. Ugly word. 2. Beer/alcohol ads: the most idiotic pieces of crap ever created. 3. The idea promulgated by much of "progressive" America that profits are somehow evil.
• Oooh I'll play! Colleague makes me automatically assume the issuer is a snot. Ads for financial products where they show you some old fart on a dock with fishing gear saying something oh-so-assertive like "I want my money to work for me" and then cut away to kids running or birds on wet cobblestone or some shit like that, and then cut BACK to the old fart chuckling, as if to say, oh what joie de vivre he has. (runner up: rx drug ads, which are essentially the same ad except they actually mention nausea by name) The retroactively damaging bad sequel. This is split broadly into three camps: The sequel which tarnishes the franchise by association (Godfather III), the sequel which casts doubt on the merits of the originals (Star Wars I: Assignment Miami Beach), and films that senselessly kill off characters whose survival was a major element of suspense in the prior film. (Alien III, in re: Newt) And ooh la la, you've inadvertently won a convert to the Matriarchy thing. A Lord of the Flies style Matriarch in halter top, wild sun-bleached hair and war paint, can toot my conch shell any day.
• Dried up lake beds? Not quite.
• "...blahblah sends a clear signal that..." Why not just say what is meant in the first place? If the signal is so very clear, why do broadcasters have to repeat this utterance over and over? Yours, for the eradication of redundancy (except in rhymed verse), beeswacky
• I just saw "moist" in something, the character's mother doesn't like the word so she uses it without abandon. What was it?
• Wow, retroactively damaging bad sequel is a great one. Mine: Off-putting puts me off. Does it really hurt that much to use yourself as an object in a sentence? Hotels.com Please, make it stop. Close second are those new rhythmic, slightly catchy Pepto-Bismol commercials. I mean, the girl on the right end is kind of attractive, and by inference from the song, she's the one with diarrhea. Ew. Petty idea: the idea that turning on your turn signal immediately before or during your turn does anyone any good. Do you people think it helps you turn? Is the fact that you're turning an intellectual curiosity? If you're turning, I need to know so I can *brake* DAMN IT! Big idea: that "well who's to say?" is somehow a good response to someone's argument that something is wrong or right. We're not all equally right on matters of right and wrong, as is fairly obvious by reflecting on Ted Bundy or any nasty world leader.
• 1: Paleocon. I prefer the term, "True Conservative" 2: Any ad that isn't at least 90% factual. (No, drinking our beer won't score you chicks, driving our car won't make you cooler, our political platform has nothing to run on, so we'll spread rumors about our opposition) 3: The thought in some of the less progressive circles that profit should be prized above all else. You don't have to sell other people out to make money.
• At the moment I can't think of a word that bothers me enough to put here Ad - it's a toss up between prescription drug ads and the "Blank is my anti-drug" ads Idea - Manifest Destiny
• Please kill "twee." Writers are always using it to damn things I like. It's a symptom, really; everyone my age seems completely absorbed in this "my weenie is bigger than your weenie" hatred of everything that isn't completely cowboy and stoic and bursting at the seams with meanness. That sort of thing stopped being clever when we hit post-postmodern, and we've got to be up to at least nine posts by now. Soon we'll have enough for a fence! I've got no problem with social satire that ribs a true excess of sentimentality or a genuine intellectual laziness. But acting all punk rock just isn't punk rock anymore, and no amount of raging is going to make it fresh; I don't like this raining on someone's raining on someone's raining on someone's raining on someone's rain (there was a parade way back there somewhere, but we've forgotten about it by now) that seems to be the only acceptable statement these days. Everyone's so scared of being made fun of that no one does anything but make fun. Doesn't that defeat the purpose? Shouldn't we be looking for things that have even a twinge of feeling other than anger or condescension, rather than labelling them "precious" to prove we'd never be that soft? That certainly doesn't mean anything with feeling is valuable; I'll admit to being a huge indie-pop dweeb (as such, I'll take a certain amount of fun-poking gracefully), but the majority of this "emo" stuff grates on MY nerves. Honestly, though: I heard someone call Lou Reed twee a couple of weeks ago. I did, in fact, say Lou Reed. Lou Motherfucking Reed. That is an issue. I realize you're a big kid. Kicking the other kids isn't going to drive the point home. If something someone stole from you is making you sad, don't go around stealing. Stop the cycle. The other kids would probably be glad to share their cookies if you weren't always urinating on them. I guess that's my word and my concept. I can't think of too many ads, unless "I Love the 90's" counts, and that ties right into my point; it's an embrace of the mockery of things that were cynical in the first place.
• 1. "Bling". I recently saw a craft magazine geared towards grandmotherly women use the word "bling" to refer to some project or another. That is a sign that bling has gone too far. 2. Engagement ring ads. This isn't strictly TV, but it's still really annoying: there are several radio ads in Seattle that are particularly awful. They've become so blatant in the attitude that "she won't really love you unless you buy her a rock the size of her head". If you actually have to eat ramen for two months in order to buy a ring that will convince her to marry you, you should just skip the nuptials and the divorce lawyer and go straight back to singledom. 3. The workaholic ethic. I know (and work with) so many people who believe they are slacking unless they are at their jobs at least 60 hours every week. They wear their long hours as a badge of pride, but they ignore the fact that they waste hours of their "productive" time being sub-productive due to exhaustion, stress, or burnout. Many of them also struggle with depression, migraines, ulcers, and other health issues. Long hours are great for those who are lucky enough to make a living doing something they truly love, but the majority of people work to live, not vice versa. I wonder how many of the workaholics I know will look back in 30 years and question how they've spent their middle years.
• I also hate "yogurt," and "panties." And "bootylicious." i don't think profits are evil. i'm down with profits (with the "bling," if you will... another word i hate; thanks, rhiannon!). i just think that if it comes down to people vs. profits, human needs should win every time. that's all. i'm sorry for hijacking the thread, but just wanted to explain myself. dropping it now, i promise.
• Never heard of "twee" before. I have to admit it's hard to think of the right intonation to make it sound arrogant. "Oh my god, how twee!" "How horribly twee!" "Twee. Next?" Maybe I can see it if one is British. Are the literati really able to effectively use this aloud to defame something in American English? I can't come up with a phrasing that wouldn't make me sound like a fool.
• I'm pretty sure England started it, amphiboly. I've only heard it used in real live conversation that once; even then, thank God, I only OVERheard it (and yeah, the guy sounded like an ass). It's mostly a critic's thing, but CHRIST, are those guys into it. Maybe I just read too many reviews. This is one of about a thousand good reasons to lay off.
• Incent. It's just not a word, people, don't try to make it one. Ads that use fear to try to sell their products. Everything from "I've fallen and I can't get up!" to your run of the mill insurance/burglar alarm/big pharma ad. The idea that questioning your government or its policies means that one is unpatriotic.
• 'Twee' is actually really old. Take, for instance, Julius Caesar II.iv:

  O constancy, be strong upon my side! Set a huge mountain tween my heart and tongue! I have a man's mind, but a woman's might. How hard it is for women to keep counsel!

  Of course, usage has changed a bit since Shakespeare's time: the past perfect form of 'twee' is nowadays rare.
• Word: panties (not to copy the_bone but it really is my least favorite word ever.) Ad: Political hatchet jobs that slander a good man who's done some brave things to stir up support for an AWOL cokehead. Idea: Creationism
• Actually I read a review in which the elves in LOTR were called 'twee'. I think that was totally appropriate. But anyway, that was a great rant babywannasofa, thanks. Wanted to show my support also for panties and puberty. The former is a really awful word that is used so often that we forget how awful it is. Puberty is just ugly in every possible way.
• 1. "Good to go" - this era's equivalent of "lock and load" 2. Any ad that features a phone ringing. I'm sure they do that on purpose so you focus on the ad just to make sure it isn't one of your own fones. 3. The idea that western style continual economic growth is both desirable and sustainable.
• Troll. (in its internet context) Nothing stifles discussion like accusing the person that disagrees with you of being a deliberate asshole, the evidence for which is their differing opinion. Anything locally produced. Big flashy letters and cheesy car salesman make me want to puke. Pride. Ok maybe that is a bit extreme. Perhaps just the idea that pride is always a good thing. What are you proud of? I am proud of a lot of dumb things and a few worthwhile things. moneyjane: If you are looking to reclaim the lost meaning of 'funky', you might try spelling it with an 'ah' instead of a 'y'. Because it's much more fun that way.
• Ha! It would be "Lord of the Flies" in a halter top um, that sounds kinda hot. So I guess a matriarchy would be better.
• Dude! As in - "These damn teenage panties are FUNKAH!" Although that may offend those goddamn twee Creationists. They, and their moist paleocon colleagues seem to find anything even remotely connected to puberty off-putting.
• Word or phrase: Yo. I wish I'd never heard that word. It got stuck in my brain and I started saying it and I can't stop. Kind of like the Canadian "eh", except that I actually say "yo". Dammit! Ad: anything with hip-hop music (I don't hate hip-hop as such, but I don't think they use it very well and I'm not really that fond of it, either). idea: Patriotism (or national pride) as a selling point. The most disgusting ad had a sale on Cadillacs and was suggesting that we should meet Lance Armstrong driving new Cadillacs to show our pride in his accomplishments. Don't even get me started.
• Word(s): tie between arienai and bimyou, and if I might be allowed a little more leeway, the contents of any decently sized katakana-go dictionary. (Hey, you didn't specify English!) Ad: unfortunately too poor to own a TV, and most people I know filter out ads anyway, be it with a tivo or the Adblock extension. I'm tempted to nominate ads for the next point, but Idea: full agreement with drivingmenuts.
• Ok, i'll play: 1. Words: "So" and "like" as in "you so like totally rock"...drives me insane - apparently American teens need to qualify "like" every sentence with "like" extra emphasis! 2.Ad: Car ads with ridiculously low interest rates and cash back! No-one i know has ever qualified for those rates...i think they made specifically for rich nuns and CEOs 2. That Cuba is a bad place!
• Anything, anything, anything to do with local TV news. Is there anything more trite, contrived or useless? From the panic about a hint of snowfall to the lame anchor desk banter that follows up a remote report. I want to reach thru my TV screen and pimp slap everyone involved.
• 1. I have a friend who gets driven into an absolute rage by the word "panties" - he hates it above all other words, it's like fingernails down a blackboard to him. I actually do use the word "twee" in conversation, except I use it as a term of approval (as in, "I love the first Shins album, it's twee as fuck.") Personally, I'd have to go for "zany". Ugh. Even writing it in that context felt dirty. Although the phrase "calling bullshit" is rapidly catching up with it. Please stop using that appalling phrase. Please. 2. Ads that portray men as insufferable idiots only placed on this earth to irritate their long-suffering girlfriends/spouses. First few hundred times, it was cute, a nice little stab at the Patriarchy. But it's now got to the stage where ad breaks are such a non-stop barrage of imbecilic men, you want to break down and weep and apologise for ever being born with a cock. 3. The idea that to know something through study is somehow less morally forceful than believing something really, really strongly, without any evidence at all. Perhaps this is more of an emotive reaction than an actual idea, but I'm killing it anyway.
• 1. incentivate. 2. fridge with tv ads. 3. that past statistics in sporting competitions mean anything when the sample space contains data more than ten years old.
• No offence to the obvious Monkey, but I've never, ever liked the word 'nostril'. But if I got to eliminate a "word", it would be hella. Ads in which the spokesperson actually pretends to be American. There's a Subway ad here which has some Australian/NZ woman putting on a fake North American accent. It's obviously fake, although she is equally obviously trying to do it properly and in all seriousness. The idea that bigger is always better, whether penises, cars, or guns. Islander, there's a radio ad here that has the sound your radio makes when your nearby cellphone is searching for a tower or about to receive a call. It's always on when I'm in the car, and my cellphone always sits in the cupholder by the radio. It sucks.
• Actually, I'll broaden 2. to any ad in which the people in it act as if they have just taken a bucketload of E when they are exposed to the wonders of the product being flogged. Especially one's with families that have impossible dental work.
• 1. America 2. American adverts 3. America
• 1. America 2. American adverts 3. America *hides under desk waiting for drjimmy11's big Amrikkkan stick to hit dng on the bottom*
• Oh yeah ... ads for fridge with internet access.
• 1. I can't decide if I dislike "boob" (and "boobies") or "party" (when used as a verb) more. Probably boob(ies). Makes my skin crawl just typing it. 2. Rx ads. Car ads are certainly more annoying and useless (both the home-grown Cal & His Amazing Deals and Canyonero-esque ones) but rx ads can be actively dangerous and misleading. 3. so many...foremost: that things without immediate economic value aren't worth economic investment (viz. Alaskan wildlife preserve, being able to read Homer in the original Greek, musical education in elementary/high schools). Related to the idea that perserving the environment is incompatible with commercial enterprise (an echo of others' ideas).
• fridge with tv ads. ads for fridge with internet access. Australian fridges sound frightening
• Right now insomnia is irritating the living crap out of me.
• Me too.
• Australian fridges sound frightening Wait until one full of beer falls on you, pinning you by the ankle as you spot Steve Irwin out of the corner of your eye; he's holding a big knife between his teeth, clacking his barbecue tools together, and drooling. Yes, you beer-struck fool, it was a trap, and you're the star of a new reality TV show ... Eating Private Brian. Crikey!
• 1) The word "Addicting". It's horrible. Just say "addictive". It sounds so much better, has served us fine for centuries, and means exactly the same thing. 2) Channel 9 on NTLWorld. It's a 24 hour long commercial for their TV service, which, by definition, anyone watching already has. And yet, if I want to watch a music channel (all of which start with the digit 9) and use their clumsy, sticky, fiddly remote to change channel, and miss, I'm exposed to a few agonising seconds of blank-faced, permatanned automatons saying how brilliant the thing I'm using is, and how I should buy it. Well, I'm sure it is, Terri and Graham, now if you'd only let me use it, we could probably come to some kind of agreement. 3) Anti-intellectualism. Yeah, I don't like the shit you like, you don't like the shit I like. I don't think it makes me a better person. I don't like reading/listening to/watching/looking at the things I do because it makes me feel superior. I do it because I like to.
• My least favourite word is gguglox. Luckily, it doesn't exist! Someone must have eliminated it in an earlier "Imperious George" thread.
• There are many "Hemperor George" posts here. I won't link.
• That's very gguglox of you.
• *ggugs*
• Word: "Impact" used as a verb. "The people were impacted by the new law." No they weren't, fucko. They were affected by it. TV ad category: the earnest, well-meaning corporation conducts a mea culpa and/or pretends to care about your health/wallet/whatever. Example: Anheuser-Busch's "Drink Responsibly" campaign. I work for a company, and we have large corporations as clients (including you, A-B!), and I *know* you jagoffs could give two shits for anything but profits and rightly so. Save the treacle for the Bud Light mash tun, thanks. I'm especially peeved about the candy-ass cigarette companies, who had a golden opportunity a couple years back during the Big Extortion to throw that shit right back in the face of their detractors. "What? Fucking A right, we manufacture and sell a product that will rot your lungs out from the inside! Addictive as heroin, too! And you knew it - what, did you think those big wads of black phlegm in the shower every morning were candy?? Gimme a break. Here's the deal: if you don't like us, don't buy our product. If you buy our product, read the warning labels we've put on there for the last three decades or so and save the self-righteous "I had no idea I could get cancer!" horseshit for Sunday School. And if you want us out of business? Make tobacco illegal. Until then, get off our backs." Idea: Adolescence extended past 21. Grow up, shitheads. Living with your parents until you're 30 is not "financially sound," it's being a leechy turd to the people that gave you everything your whole life. Go get an apartment, numbnuts. (addendum: this is ten times worse if you are a male, just so you know). Pardon the curses. Last week was shitty, this week is likely to be shittier, and anyone that crosses me is going to get an crackfull of Johnston and Murphy.
• "fucko" is my favourite word in the world, as of 4 seconds ago. (also, I'm currently listening to Candyboots' "I Want A Pony" which fits nicely into Fes's little rant there on adolescence).
• Mummy, the bad man's swearing again!
• I'm not going to tell Fes my age. Nor where I live. Nor my sex. I fear he may hit me.
• I think I'd have to go with the "When I use this word I think I'm sounding smart" that is paradigm as in paradigm shift or just in general. Use of this word in meetings should get the speaker a gentle whack upside the head.
• Word: Nugget - enough said, really. Ad: children's advertising - a shame that anyone has to point out why that's disgraceful. concept: football. We really need to move forward as a species here folks. Thank you! Goodnight! Drive safely!
• Word: Synergy. Sounds like a word created by committee, and I'll be damned if it has any meaning at all. Runner-up peeves: "orientate" and "conversate" (it's "orient" and "converse", people), "literally" used in any non-literal sense. Ads: I'm tempted to follow pete_best here, as ads targeted at children strike me as craven and cheap, but instead I'll say political attack ads, probably because I'm just fucking sick of this year. Concept: GOD IS ON OUR SIDE. Fuck you very much. I hope for your sake that you're not wrong, or when you die you're in for one big damn rude awakening. Come to think of it, how do you know? Now shut up and put down your stick.
• Rather than eliminating the word, I'd like to eliminate the marketing idiot at Kinko's who decided "office" could be used as a verb. As in "a new way to office." Um, no. TV ads that need to die: anything showing a sugary children's cereal as "part of this complete breakfast." An idea that needs to die but somehow I just can't let it go: I am going to win the lottery.
• Fes, buddy, you okay?
• Word: "an". Okay, it's not so much the word, but its usage before a non-silent "h", as in "an historic event" or "an heroic achievement". I could see it if "historic" was pronounced "'istoric" -- with a silent "h". News anchors are especially guilty of this. Positively grating. Ad: Wow, all the good ones are taken. I mentally filter out 99% of ads anyway. Oh, okay, how about signs that use apostrophes as plural-modifiers, such as "Apple's for Sale". Idea: The idea that what's good for you is necessarily good for the world; conversely, what opposes you is somehow bad for everybody. I can understand how a person would want to promote a particular viewpoint that may benefit them, but people tend to go beyond that, believing their own bullshit. Idea 2: Can I piggy-back another one? The concept of an absolute Good and an absolute Evil. This, IMO, is one of the most dangerous legacies of Western religion. I'm right, because I'm Good. You're wrong, because you're Bad. Is it so hard to conceive that two parties might simply have opposing interests?? Do you really think that even *Hitler* (Dr. Evil, himself) sat around saying, "Ohhhh, yessss, I am SO EVILLLL!!!!" (No "Godwin" whining, please; the example is apt.) No -- everybody believes in the Goodness and Riteousness of their cause. See Osama bin Laden for a contemporary example.
• anemone should never have existed as a word. For commercials, the toot-your-own-horn sleazeball lawyer commercials drive me insane (anyone in Texas heard of Jim Adler?)... you just know those guys are ambulance chasers and extortionists and they're making themselves sound like they'll fight for YOU! Right. WORD to LordSludge on the absolute good/absolute evil thing. Seeing the world in black and white is the most dangerous thing a politician can do as I see it.
• Word: Maximize, especially in ads where it's used in 'maximize your savings!!!' or in business-ese where you can 'maximize worker productivity.' I also feel that all politicians, regardless of party or nationality should be administered a noticeable, but non-lethal electric shock whenever they utter the phrase 'the American people.' Going on to assert that you can speak for 'the American people' will result in a multiple number of electric shocks as determined by rolling two six-sided dice. Doubles mean you roll again. There are not limits to rolling doubles. Politicians be warned! *Phew, I feel better. Moving on.... Ad: Mutual fund ads--especially those ones with the two yuppies fencing. Also, with the impending American football season, an an Imperious George, I hereby order a halt to any of those godawful Coors "and the twins" ads. Any teenage male amusement that could have been gleaned from said wastes of celluloid and/or videotape have long since been exhausted. The twins may make a reappearance if they are in an ad spoofing themselves with Triumph the Comic Insult Dog. For people who protest that they need comely females on tv, you obviously have not been watching the Olympics--or, come to think of it, network TV for the past 5, er, 50 years. *Takes a break to watch woman's beach volleyball on Telemundo. Idea: That 'simple' is always good and 'complex' is always bad. That all things in heaven an Earth must adhere to a rigid Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS) standard. While I'm all for focusing on smaller tasks and simplifying things so they're manageable, a lot of things in life simply aren't simple. Even where they're simple in design, they're complex in execution. My best example of this would be DNA. We don't have any more than the four bases adenine (A), thymine (T), guanine (G) and cytosine (C), but common sense observation shows us that there's a dizzying array in which these nucleotides can be combined resulting in all sorts of organisms, from bananas to Jon Bon Jovis. *Goes off to conduct a potentially illegal and invariably complex genetic experiment...while rubbing his belly and eating a banana--now that's complexity!
• M A Y O N A I S E it must be stopped....
• The word, the thing itself, or the misspelling?
• busted by the hat!! oh yeah. I hate the stuff so much I cannot even bear to spell it correctly!
• ok, now that I have actually read this thread... the word titties has always bothered me a lot, boobies or boobs is MUCH better... ads for home excercise equipment or plans, that promise bodies like the models, with "3 20 minute work outs a week". even with a personal trainer that would be far from possible... the idea that there is an objective moral truth floating around out there in the universe somewhere and its concommitant concept that a particular side can be "right"...
• Word: "The". English sounds much more fun without it. Ab: Ads that try to demostrate how "hip" the product is (politicians included). More if it relies on stereotypes of hipness (ie. iPod ads). Idea: Afterlife (reincarnation/transmigration of souls included). God's purported existance aside, the idea of an afterlife's reward to life's actions is what has inspired believers of any religion to make a reality out of humanity worst ideas.
• any/all viagra-type TV ads with the stupid double-speak. like the woman with tossled hair in a man's shirt extolling the virtues of her man's new-and-improved penis, saying things like, "my guy, he finds it ENHANCES the EXPERIENCE," and then grinning slyly at the camera. christ.
• "my guy, he finds it ENHANCES the EXPERIENCE," and then grinning slyly at the camera. christ. I love you Dish. You enhance my experience. ;)
• ilyadeux wrote: musical education in elementary/high schools Just saw that. Word up. My high school choral music position was eliminated at the end of the 2003 school year for budgetary reasons (and this in in Miami-Dade FL, a county and state with historically wonderful support of music education). I'm currently teaching music at an elementary school, but with cutbacks in education and the bullshit testing requirements resulting from No (White) Child Left Behind, music educators are just waiting for the other shoe to drop.
• I'm far too tired to actually read through the comments, so I'll just say this: Don't watch television. Oh, and; I'm calling bullshit on those zany men who act like insufferable idiots! Who loves ya, baby!
• 1. word: take your pick 2. ad category: any ad that features a "rocking" blast of music and is then used as a club by over-zealous media buyers or marketers. For example: those goddamn Chevy ads playing goddamn Magic Carpet Ride every goddamn five minutes, and McDonalds trying to bring back the goddamn jingle with the the dumbest goddamn tagline I've seen in ages, "I'm Lovin' It". 3. petty idea: dumbass lowrider pants hanging low on dumb asses (male or female) not-so-petty idea: religious fundamentalism And everything everyone else said.
• dumbass lowrider pants hanging low on dumb asses (male or female) I claim extreme skinniness. I either have low-ass pants, or trousers that end somewhere half an inch above my socks. When it comes to making a decision... Well, hell, it ain't me that's gonna be looking at my boxers.
• word: Empower, which is an annoying concept, as well, in that new-agey sense. ads: cell phone ads - They must be making a huge amount of profit because they advertize all the time. What if they offered reasonable service at reasonable prices, and no locked-in contract? Nah. idea: The maximization of profit. No matter how sleazy, profit is the only consideration. Oh, wait, that's greed, isn't it.
• theora55 - No, that's business. They're in it to make a profit, otherwise they wouldn't want to give you a cell phone. And, if you chose a plan that was really a good deal (comparatively speaking, but try to compare it to the land line rates) they need to make a profit in some way after paying their employees and suppliers, and taxes, and all that other stuff. You can probably find financial listings by your cell pnone provider on line. They have to file financials with a lot of government organizations, especially the SEC, assuming they're not just local. Go read them and let me know what kind of a margin they're getting, and what kind of net income. If you don't want to support what you might think are bandits, don't use a cell phone. Your choice.
• BBF: I claim extreme skinniness. Oops, sorry BBF. Mister shinything is also quite skinny, and would identify with your pants dilemma. Hopefully this is a better description of what I'm talking about: for gents, pants intentionally slung and strapped so low around the roundest part of the ass that several inches of skivvies bloom above the belt. Like this. So the crotch hangs somewhere around their knees. As far as I can tell, even the toothpick-thin have to work really hard to keep their pants at exactly this level. Or is that incorrect? Anyway, apologies for my unintentional bashing of skinny folks in trousers.
• Words: "crispy". Actually, it's not a word, which is the problem. What's wrong with "crisp"?
• 1) word: "edgy" if you have to say you are, you're not 2) ad: pass on this one, no ads bother me that much, I have a remote. 3) idea: I have two, since I passed on the last one. a) the idea that everyone in Los Angeles is "phony" and that the city is culturally or otherwise inferior to New York, SanFran, or anywhere else. Look, the idea that in a city of however many million people "everyone" or even a large proportion are phonier than anywhere else is just absurd. The vast majority are not in the entertainment industry, but I am, and I know far more honest, trustworthy non-phony people that are actors and writers etc then I ever did on the East Coast. As a matter of fact, since most of us moved out here away from our families to try to make it as whatever (writer in my case), we tend to use our friends as surrogate family. Yes there are some sleazy people in Hollywood, just like there are some sleazy people in every place and line of work on Earth. The really stunning thing about this one is how people will say it right to your face. Several Australians, in particular, have felt the need to tell me, in casual conversation, how phony everyone in my city is and how they cant wait to leave. Where else in the world would you visit and say that to a local's face?? b) The idea that things are terrible now and were so much better in the past. OK, Bush and 9/11 suck, but I'm not really yearning for the days of Vietnam, WWII, segregation, slavery, the black plague, saber-tooth tiger attacks etc etc etc etc. People have been complaining about this as long as people have been complaining (see Hamlet for one) but a little common-sense perpsective will tell you almost everything is getting better and better and we, in the first world anyway, now live the easiest and most comfortable lifestyle of any people in human history. the advent of nuclear weapons and damage to the environment are the only things I can think of that are arguably worse now than in the past, but keep in mind we sat on the constant brink of total nuclear annhilation during the "good old days" of c. 1948 to the 80s.
• Word: American. It doesn't mean what 95% of the people living in the U.S. think it means. North, Central and South America are regions of the world with amazing variation in their geography, economies, races, etc. Advertising: Any that prominently feature people acting in a manner that would get any of us shot by bystanders or committed to involuntary psychiatric therapy. Ever seen a swiffer ad? If my wife ever ran about the house, blasting Devo songs and shaking and trembling like an electroshocked rhesus monkey, I'd have to shoot her with a tranquilizer dart. Close runner up: any advertising that depends upon nationalism to sell a product. Idea: Mindless Nationalism/Imperialism. I see the two as inextricably linked, and horribly odious. I guess I'm particularly wound up about this at the moment because of the Olympics and the invasion of Iraq. "...Lord of the Flies" in a halter top...." My wife and I both think this would be a terrible result, but I'm willing to swap in some tight, subtly revealing clothing for the women, and she requests that the then-subjugated men be catcalled for eating ice cream in public if they have more than 2% body fat.
• Word: American. It doesn't mean what 95% of the people living in the U.S. think it means. North, Central and South America are regions of the world with amazing variation in their geography, economies, races, etc. I think it means: a) resident of continents of North or South America, in an almost never-used usage, because why would you refer to what group of continents someone was from instead of just naming his country or: b) the widely accepted usage, a common-sense abbreviation for a resident of the United States of AMERICA, which last time I checked was the name of my native country. Am I wrong?
• Like this. Eep. I ain't got a problem with that being banned.
• Word: I'm going to have to jump on the "panties" bandwagon. It's coy and cutesy and hey, one might even say twee. Euurrrrghhh. TV ads: It's just one company, but I hate it like burning. I've seen it on American cable TV in the last year or so, but I don't know how far its evil has spread. I can't remember the names of the products, since in my head they're just the Incredible Swelling Ass commercials. There are a pair of ads, one Scientific Version with a male narrator posing as a doctor, and one Diet-y Version with a female narrator posing as...nobody. But they ramble on about how eeeeevil hormones are what is causing all your weight gain (they literally say "it's not your fault"), and how this magic pill will make it all go away. Backed, best of all, by graphics of a wireframe man and woman with red sparklies (apparently the eeeevil hormones) making their butts and beer guts swell before our eyes. This would all be terribly funny in a nine-year-old way, if they were not completely serious about that "evil hormones made you puff up overnight" bit, and if they didn't so blatantly pitch the exact same product under two different names to male and female consumers. Men get Whatevercor and the I'm a Serious Scientist pitch; women get Whateverox and the This Will Make You Pretty pitch. That trips my trigger. Dieting good, incredibly lame, gender-coded advertising for miracle snake-oil pill bad. By extension, any OTC medicine commercial with ridiculously inaccurate graphics to "illustrate" the product working, like the pill sliding horizontally down the burning red esophagus and extinguishing the red glow! 'Cause that's exactly what happens. Yep. Treat people like idiots, because they can't understand anything more complicated than "this good! buy it!" Idea: The concept that your taste in music, books, clothes, TV/movies, or food makes you an innately more worthy person, whether it's highbrow or lowbrow. Oh no, it's not what you make of your life or how you treat other people. It's what freaking music you listen to. That's what determines your worth as a human being. Strikes me as just a bit shallow, and just a bit absolutely ubiquitous beyond any hope of ever going away.
• My turn... wheee! Word: Any term, scientific or slang, for women's genitals. I hate them all. Ad: Any ad that has anything to do with personal finance. Mortgages, credit cards, debt consolidation, bankruptcy, investments, whatever. The ads themselves suck (especially ditech), and the services/products they offer are likely to do people more harm than good. Idea: That someone/something else is to blame for one's personal problems. Entirely too many people out there refuse to take responsibility for their own actions. This is follwed closely by people who want extreme censorship on tv/internet/radio because just about everything they hear/see offends them. Change the fuckin' channel already, fucko! Thanks for the new word, Fes!
• drjimmy11: Yeah, you never hear people talking about "Europeans" or "Asians" or "Africans", since you could always just name their country...
• (By the way, that was in reply to drjimmy11's first comment. Has anyone else noticed that comments show up in a different order in preview mode?)
• (By the way, that was in reply to drjimmy11's first comment. Has anyone else noticed that comments show up in a different order in preview mode?) I thought they were showing up in a strange order entirely - my comment showed up in the middle of a thread I thought I'd already read. Spooky.
• According to tracy's blog, the hosting's all cocked up somehow.
• It should be fixed now: according to the hosting company, the server time went out of sync overnight.
• Yes, drjimmy, you are wrong. Just because it's common (and quite incorrect) for some to misuse a specific term does not mean that the rest of us have to abandon all sense and share in the ignorance. It's also rude and dismissive of other countries and cultures to appropriate words for use only by people of one nation. I also take issue with your assumption that using the term 'American' to describe people from North, South and Central America is rare and almost unheard of. I've travelled in countries all over these continents, and only in the U.S. is the term magically assumed to refer to U.S. citizens exclusively.
• On the other hand, coppermac, when I lived in Mexico it was very common for the Mexicans to refer to people from the US as "Americanos", even though they spoke of the country as "los Estados Unidos." I'm sure it was shorthand for "Norte Americanos", but they didn't seem much worried about giving up a continental or hemispherical identification, and they must have forgotten about the Canadians. They really just thought of themselves as "Mexicanos."
• In England most people refer to citizens of the US as "Americans" and the country as "America." It is easier to say than "citizens of the USA" and sounds less ridiculous than "USAian". I'm all the time refering to Americans, and I'm Canadian -- I do with without any cognitive dissonance and no loss of sense of self (such than Canadians have some to begin with). I have no sense of North America being a term with any value in terms of regional culture. If Americans want the word, they're welcome to it. I suspect it is similar to Australians or Russians not thinking they're Asian (yes, I know Australia is a separate continent, I mean 'region of the world'). Just as long as they remember it's just a name and it doesn't entitle them to anything else (e.g. manifest destiny, elbow room and the like).
• Word: Any term, scientific or slang, for women's genitals. I hate them all. What would you call 'em then?
• The unmentionables
• *sings* Want to be Italiano But you don't come from Italy ...
• I mean 'region of the world' Ever hear of "Oceania"? I know it's a long way away and Mercator's projection is skewed to the north, but the term is widely accepted, albeit in crappy places like NZ, Kiribati, Nauru, etc.
• Now, Atlantis -- that's the capital city of Oceania, right? I was thinking Australasia as the region, as I had no idea Oceania was broadly used; I blame my media sources more than my maps though. [I knew Wolof wouldn't let me get away with a casual and unsupported Oz reference!]
• I had no idea Oceania was broadly used That's because you're from Eurasia, and Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia. My big brother told me so.
• Big brothers never lie.
• Wait, so who are the "Dutch"? Assuming they actually exist?
• You haven't heard of the Dutch Threat?
• The Return of Patriarchy Patriarchy does not simply mean that men rule. Indeed, it is a particular value system that not only requires men to marry but to marry a woman of proper station. It competes with many other male visions of the good life, and for that reason alone is prone to come in cycles. Yet before it degenerates, it is a cultural regime that serves to keep birthrates high among the affluent, while also maximizing parents' investments in their children. No advanced civilization has yet learned how to endure without it.