Unhappy Meal

Happy Meals at McDonalds have been steadily getting worse while the toys have been getting better. It has recently come to the point where I, as a child, would open the meal, take out the toy, then throw the food in the trash. When I was a kid, you use to get a Ronald McDonald-shaped cookie in every happy meal BOX. Now instead you get some apple-slices or a yoghurt. People have not and will not eat at McDonalds for anything resembling healthy food. You don’t buy Happy Meals for children because you’re concerned about their nutritional needs. A yoghurt doesn’t counter-balance the 12 pounds of lard put into making four McNuggets. I don’t know when society went off of the rails and this kind of shit started happening, but it needs to stop.

Unconventional Wisdom

I briefly attended the inaugural Vancouver Fan Expo today with my six-year-old step-son in tow, thinking he’d be the best choice for a companion on this epic journey. The Expo was a boiled-down sci-fi and comic book convention with stars like Adam West and Burt ward from the 60’s Batman television show and Lou Ferringo from the Incredible Hulk show. Those small “c” celebrities were kept carefully under wraps behind curtains, while other smaller “c”s were left on display. Alan Ruck was one such star.

He played Ferris Bueller’s lanky friend in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. He was at the back of the centre, looking across at Adam West’s curtain. I thought about his career situation: he completely nailed his role in one of the most loved movies from the 80’s, and he ended up next to Tony Amedola from the Stargate SG-1 TV series, who is probably the 25th most interesting person from that show.

It could be worse those: he could be married to Sarah Jessica Parker. F.Y.I.: there was never a Ferris Bueller II: Hooky with Hookers because Alan Ruck’s character was murdered by his father immediately after the conclusion of the first movie and Ferris blamed himself. He didn’t seem like a good fit for the convention in any event. Sure, he played a nerdy character that a lot of people can relate to, but that’s not what nerds like. Nerds like the square-jawed B-movie actors who portray characters they could never live up to. Nerds are a self-hating bunch. Don’t think so? Go to a Magic Cards tournament.

I also thought about the whole Adam West/Burt Ward situation. Of course anyone would want to meet Batman and Robin, that’s just common sense. The way they had it set up, though, was you had to go in to meet Batman, then go into a separate curtain to meet Robin. Who would want that? Who would want to meet just Robin? At least its the original Robin. I can name Adam West, Michael Keaton, Val Kilmer, George Clooney and Christian Bale in chronological order as actors who’ve portrayed Batman in live action movies, but Burt Ward is the only Robin I know by name. I’m thinking and I can’t even remember if the dude who played Robin in Batman Forever and Batman and Robin was the same actor both times. I could pass him in the street and not know who he was. I could watch him film Batman and Robin Forever: Attack of the Nipples: A Joel Schumacher Flick and still not know who he was after looking at his stage pass for five minutes.

I stepped into the auditorium for a minute and saw Marina Sirtis and Michael Dorn from Star Trek: The Next Generation answer audience questions, which is always hell for everyone, especially the actors. I thought it was interesting because they were the only ones from Star Trek in attendance (aside from the guy who played Q who was hiding somewhere), and their characters did it on the show. It made me wonder if they’d ever done it in real life, possibly while Jonothan Frakes hid in the hall and cried while playing his trombone. Those aren’t the polite kind of questions to ask them, however, but that would never stop other “fans.” The one question I heard while there was if Dorn had any trouble on the set of Deep Space 9 because he’d heard Ira was a dick. Dorn just sort of looked at the douche for a second before answering how he had a great time on both shows, but the cast on Deep Space Nine were quieter in general. Imagine, though, if you’re a professional and people asked if someone you worked with was a dick, knowing you had a reputation. There’s a trend with some actors like Shia Lebouf, Megan Fox, and David Cross to shit all over the movies they do, the directors and the other people they work with, and it’s affected their careers. They’re still pulling in millions of dollars, though, for their lack-lustre performances. Dorn’s mainly a voice actor working in an environment where people would rather pay to hear an A-lister. He can’t afford to say his cast mates suck, even if Shatner in his career involved somehow.

The hugest line-up I saw was for the lady who does the voice of Ash in the American version of Pokemon. That’s the kind of fan base Pokemon has. There were people from Star Wars, Star Trek, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Hercules, Star Gate, and everyone was lining up to see a chick who voices a crybaby boy with a yellow rat. I personally had to buy my step-son Pokemon cards and posters to shut him the hell up.

Then these was the cos-playing. The first thing I noticed was all the doubles. Its fairly standard to see two people dressed the same at a convention. Unless they’re Storm Troopers, they’re not usually in a  group. I saw two Poison Ivys hanging out together, five girls cross-dressing as Scott Pilgrim, two Ramonas, four guys dressed as some horned anime character I couldn’t name because I’m not “hip” enough, and, strangest of all: three women dressed as a gender-reversed Flash. At first I couldn’t figure out who the hell she was supposed to be. I saw the lightning bolt on her chest and thought she was Mary Marvel, but Mary Marvel has a white costume. Then I thought she was Jesse Quick, the third-tier DC comics speedster that hasn’t been reintroduced in the New 52 after being in the last iteration of the Justice League before the reboot, but it still wasn’t right. She was wearing an originally conceived female Flash costume that had no sleeves and showed her hair. I shrugged it off, but then there were two more women dressed exactly like that. I assumed they were Barry Allen, Wally West and Bart Allen, but with female names like Beatrice Allen, Wendy West and Bartzina Allen. I gave them zero points for not including an geriatric Jessica Garrick as the original Flash. The five Scott Pilgrims were pretty weird too, most because their costumes were terrible except for their T-shirts. Plus: zero points for not including a Nega-Scott. Multiple Ramonas made sense to me, though. Ramona’s the only female character in comics as of late that a woman can cos-play as and not be overly sexualized. Still: zero points for not wearing roller skates.

There was the obligatory 90’s Cyclops and Phoenix. No one couple cos-plays as modern Cyclops and the White Queen, mostly because you’re not allowed in public dressed like that. Cyclops got zero points for taking off his visor to look at a toy, which should immediately incinerate everyone in the vicinity. Then there was 90’s Rogue and Magneto. Magneto got zero points for wearing sneakers. Rogue got zero points for not attacking the woman dresses as Ms.Marvel and absorbing her powers. Conventions are an excuse for women to dress in spandex and tease nerds. In Vancouver, though, yoga pants are daily attire, so it takes some of the impact away. Conventions are also the only place outside Ireland where it’s acceptable to be a ginger, given the prior fetishism of Stan Lee and Kirby. I saw five red-headed girl costumes and all were as skin-tight as possible.

Boob Tube

In my continuing struggle against reality TV, I fell to a vicious blow from one of the latest outings. There is now a show about a bunch of middle-aged goombas in the Bronx and their hideous mothers, called Momma’s Boys of the Bronx. Let me assure you that this is the worst thing ever.

From what I observed they took the most negative Italian American stereotypes they could find outside of the Jersey Shore and stuck them on a show. If the show set out to explore why grown men were still momma’s boys, it became readily apparent in one scene. One of the mooks had picked out a piece of lingerie and was going through the Bronx trying to find random women to put it on as their uniform for a cheerleader at a cannoli eating contest. I’m very certain that asking strange women to put on a see-through skirt to show off their “tasty cakes” is enough to get you arrested in most place. Not the Bronx, however. The mother, when told about these actions by her son, merely rolled her eyes… well “eye” is a better expression. She looked as if someone had melted “Mama Fratelli” from the Goonies with a blowtorch like in Hostel, or if she and Sloth had an incestuous love child.  That’s neither here, nor there, as it’s not, “Housewives of the Bronx,” which I’m sure is in the works, or “woiks,” as they’d call it.

The show progresses on to the climax of a cannoli eating contest, in which the momma’s boy did not win. Let me expand on that: let’s say you had a show about you. How sad would it be if the height of a show about your life was you losing a contest where you had to eat pastries? Surely, there must be going on in your life to justify a camera crew following you around 24/7. The man in question for all this is clearly a sexual predator looking to assault women on the street and in their places of business, and yet the most exciting thing he’s got going on is an eating contest in which he spent all episode building up to and didn’t win. Even if the cameras had chosen some other loser living with their mother, that person might have gotten a high score in Angry Birds, or masturbate the most is the span of a day.

He’s not the only “momma’s boy” on the show even. There’s like five more, and only eight confirmed episodes. None of them did anything to top that. It’s sadder than my own life, for God’s sake!

500 Word Essay

On the way down the hill to work there’s a side complex with a health care, university, and police satellite station. Basically, whatever they couldn’t fit into the regular building they stuffed into this one area. As I said, it’s on the way down the hill, and they installed a traffic light especially for it, so on rainy or snowy days when the road is slick you can have fun slamming your brakes for the red light. If you look over at it while waiting for the traffic light you’ll see there’s a sign for the parking rules. The sign is enormous and filled with tiny print. I’ve written high school essays that were shorter and more concise. To summarize, it says, “Fuck you.”

Whoever designed this place was a complete dick bag. When you have to spend three minutes explaining the parking rules then you did not plan ahead.

Storage

The other night I was struggling to find something to watch on TV and was assaulted by two storage auction-themed shows airing at the same time on channels one digit removed from each other. That means that as I flipped through, I saw something that angered me and immediately pressed the button again, only to find a slightly-different show with the exact same premise. It’s like how you’re trying to pick a radio station and they’re playing the same Lady Gaga song. More so: these were both half-hour block programs, and they were playing back-to-back episodes. Back-to-back episodes of any show are a clear indication that the station has completely given up on trying to be original.

The commercials for these shows were for mobile storage containers, which ironically is the worst idea for an advertiser. The shows are about how if you ever decide to place your items in a storage unit you will have your possessions sold off on auction. Basically: you’re paying people a monthly fee to not rob you and should you ever miss a single payment they’ll blatantly rob you then laugh about how much money they’re making off your useless junk. It’s like a mafia protection racket, only your thumbs don’t get broken.

It’s kind of sad how these units end up going to auction. Obviously, the people involved have some sort of monetary source as they’re sitting on thousands of dollars in merchandise. More likely the storage units are being used by people in retirement homes who’ve kicked the bucket. Taking anything from them is like robbing the dead.

Sadder still is how the people in these shows expect to make thousands of dollars selling rusty frames to ATVs. Not the ATV itself: the frame for one: as in a pile of tubes welded together and in quite poor condition as well. There should be a second show where potential buyers tell them to fuck off when they try to hock their veritable junk. These auction shows exist because of trend tied in with the economy. People are going broke. That means they don’t have the money to waste on these junky items the original owners didn’t care enough to spend the $1 to keep.

Cereal Murderer

I bought a three-pack of cereals at Costco that has Apple Jacks, Corn Pops and Froot Loops. Curious, I looked at the nutritional information and found out that Corn Pops has the most nutritional value by far. Apple Jacks is also slightly healthier than Froot Loops, which is shocking because it’s made from real froot. When exactly did Fruit Loops become Froot Loops and why, or was I just a retarded child and never noticed until now? Why the fuck does Froot Loops have to use the fake name while Apple Jacks, which contains no apples, or jacks, get to keep its? Is it because no one eats Apple Jacks? And if we’re so concerned about “trooth” in advertising, shouldn’t Froot Loops contain bits of tucan? There’s a picture of one right on the box. Sometimes it has its young with it. I should be able to pour a bowl and chow down on some freshly hatched, endangered chicks. Why did they ever claim to have fruit to begin with? I don’t know what flavour they’re supposed to be, but it wasn’t devised by nature. It doesn’t smell like fruit either, like the bird in the commercials says. It smells like stale car air fresheners.

You want to know what cereal doesn’t fuck around with the whole pseudo-fruit flavour? Cookie Crisp. It says cookies right on the goddamn box, and that’s what you get. I don’t think it’s even legal here in Canada, because I’ve looked. The only lie is that it’s not “crisp.” You leave that in milk for five minutes, and it’s cookie-flavoured soup. Same goes for Sugar Crisp, or any other cereal. Basically, if there’s more than one word in the name, at least one of those words are lying to you.

While I’m on the subject: why are there five or more flavours of Cheerios? There’s Cheerios, Honey Nut, Apple Cinnamon, Chocolate, Multi-Grain, etc. Same goes for Shreddies and Rice Krispies. In other words: the least flavourful cereals. It’s like they’re admitting to serving you sawdust. Rice Krispies, by the way, do not go, “Snap, Crackle, and Pop.” They hiss at you like venomous snakes. The only way they’re digestible is by putting spoonfuls of sugar and fruit on them, or turning them into Rice Krispie Squares.The three elves pitching the cereal for them are actually adult humans made shrimp-like by a lifetime of eating Rice Krispies. Look at the Chinese and tell me rice eating is healthy for you.

Why are there so many fibre and bran related breakfast cereals? Your biggest dump of the day is supposed to be your morning poop. You’ve already evacuated the premises by the time you pour your bowl. You don’t need another one at 11 o’clock when you’re getting geared up for the big meeting. I think it’s because Dr.Kellogs, who’s been long dead, is a fecalphiliac. The Kellogs company is trying to create a society that does nothing buy eat and shit, and their plan is 50% complete.

Hobonomics

Begging is a secondary economy. Traditionally beggars are considered the poorest of the poor, but that’s not necessarily the case. The Real Canadian Superstore is a case for this. Every shopping cart in the Superstore parking lot requires a Canadian dollar coin to be unlocked. This is to strongly encourage would-be thieves to trade in the cart for the dollar. Bums have picked up on this, and have taken to hanging outside the store to beg for cash. Failing in that, they ask if they can take the cart back and keep the dollar. A dollar doesn’t sound like much, and it isn’t. Multiply that by ten carts an hour, and you’ve got a liveable wage. That’s pretty easy to do considering the traffic going through the store. Housewives, alone and with children, are the main customers at grocery stores, and they’re more vulnerable to “help” from a hobo who possibly might be carrying a knife on their person. In a way, it’s actually a valid service. If you have kids or a baby with you and you’re alone, you’d have to unpack the groceries in the vehicle first, and then head back to the cart corral to get your dollar back, and then walk back with your kids. That’s two extra chances for you and your loved ones to be run over by an S.U.V.. In the rain, it’s even worse. So if you set the goal at ten carts/dollars an hour, you’re actually low-balling your chances. You could probably find one cart every five minutes or so, or even three minutes in some cases. That’s $12-$20 an hour. That’s basically double what the people inside the store are making. Plus, if you’re begging for money as well, you up your profits. There’s no telling how much you could make. You could make an extra $5-$50 an hour on top of what you’re doing in charitable donations.

Compare that with the other money-making past-time for bums: collecting cans. To make a liveable wage, the average bum would have to collect around 4 million cans in a year, and the labour and travel are more involved and the competition is high. Seriously, though: working is for chumps. My comparison to Superstore employees is fairly apt. When I started there, they still had the same dollar per cart system, and I was only making $7.50 an hour, 20 hours a week and had to pay union fees and give up a huge chunk of my paycheque to the government. I would have been better off financially dressing in rags and collecting carts independently in their lot. It’s not like I wouldn’t be worrying about where my next meal might be coming from, or dealing the condescending attitudes from people about my place in society either way.

This is basically what I think of when bums come up to me and ask me for money to make me feel better. It’s obvious they have problems, but there’s no reason why they can’t apply themselves even in their deplorable positions. If the conditions were favourable, I should be asking them for money instead. Take that in your crack pipe and smoke it.

Creep

As anyone knows, there’s more to see at your local mall than the stores. The people there are a spectacle in and of themselves. While visiting yesterday to pick up a few gifts, I saw an old man muttering to himself in the food court. It’s a testament to the progress of the 21st Century when you see a person talking to themselves and the first thing you do is look for a cell phone or bluetooth headset. Of course, people talk to themselves all the time. I do it almost constantly. On closer inspection, he wasn’t talking to himself, but rather a small baby doll he had set on the table in front of him. The doll, by itself, would be creepy, as dolls often are. A doll in the possession of an old man is creepier. An old man talking to a doll puts the creep factor through the roof. I waited to see if he was waiting for his grand-daughter, but he was sitting by himself at a table for two. Technically, he could still be waiting, even if my imaginary grand-daughter was in factually imaginary.

Then there was some freak walking around wearing what he likely thought were wankster clothes, looking strung out on something and too old to still be dressing that way. There’s a short time frame between the ages of fifteen and twenty-three when a white man-child can dress how he thinks stereotypical black people do and only look ridiculous instead of downright pathetic. That’s not the kicker, though, that’s simply an everyday observation. The strangest thing about him was he had an industrial-sized bag of Cheerios strapped to his chest like one might carry a baby in a ghetto Snuggli, and he was snacking on it like there was no tomorrow. Cheerios make a healthy snack, but you typically wouldn’t need to carry around twenty pounds of it on your person like you just finished raiding a Cheerios factory in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. There was a group of teenagers at the food court wearing booty shorts that would likely get them kicked out of school and the dude walks by and practically puts his face in their asses he’s staring so hard. Then he turned around a minute later and walked back with the Pedo-smile on his face, like he was being discrete about his intentions.

Then there was some lady parked next to us in the underground lot. For some reason, as we passed her discount used car, I had a bad feeling about her, like something was off, but all she was doing was looking over her purchases. As I tried to put the baby stroller in the car she immediately stuck her head out her window and said, “I’d hate to tell you, but you just had your last night of sleep,” which sounds vaguely threatening, especially if you don’t immediately latch on to the context. It reminded me of the old lady in that terrible, terrible movie, “Legion,” that makes nice with the pregnant waitress, then tells her, “Your baby is going to fucking burn.” I don’t know why procreating and transporting your ensuing child around make people want to comment. It’s like half the people who ask about your baby have mental farts and panic when they open their mouths.

The second I pulled into the underground lot I saw the strange zombie man that walks around my town. He has some sort of defect that turns him into this hunched, limping thing. It could be that he had a stroke, or that he’s mentally disabled. As far as I can tell from a distance there’s nothing overly wrong with him, except for his entire posture and gait, but if you saw him at night you’d shoot him like he had a bag of Skittles in his pocket.