It wasn't funny the first time...

Great. April 1st is only a day away. Everyone knows what that means. April Fool's Day. I absolutely hate April Fool's Day. Why? Well, let me enlighten you...

First off, I don't like pranks. I never have. I couldn't get into shows like Jackass because I don't see what's so funny about making other people miserable. I'm just not that kind of person. Yeah, I know, I'm kinda weird in the fact that human suffering doesn't make me giggle. Sorry Vlad, just not my thing. I've always been a big believer in the whole, 'If you don't like the game, don't play it.' thing. As such, on top of the fact that I find pranks to be annoying and unfunny, I also do not play them on anyone else. Ever. I would like to think that people would have the common decency to leave me out of this stupid little game of theirs every year. Unfortunately life is not fair and people are assholes.

Inevitably at some point I'm going to get a phone call. This phone call will probably be from the guy in the scheduling department, informing me that so-and-so has called in sick and I'm going to have to cover the shittiest shift we have. And do extra work. And I will inform him that he's full of shit and he needs to leave me the fuck alone. Of course, he'll continue with 'No, really. I'm not joking.'

Why do people do this?

It's obvious you've been caught. It's over. But people insist that 'No, no! This is not a prank! For reals!' and you can argue with them for 20 minutes on it, and they will deny it until they're blue in the face. So finally, you cave in and give up because you just want to get on with your life and go, 'Really?'

Then it hits:

"Haha! April Fools! I totally got you."

No. You didn't. I told you you didn't. The only only fool here is you for wasting my fucking time. I knew it was a joke. It was blatantly obvious. The only reason I 'fell for it' was so that you would shut the fuck up. Being an annoying twat does not make you funny, sorry. This is why I hate April Fool's, and pranks in general. Most of them are stupid, and are totally transparent. But the person will insist, regardless of how improbable the premise may be, that they are telling the truth. That's not how funny works.

Ugh, I'm dreading that day. I want to call in sick, turn off my phone and lock my door and hide under my bed. But in the end the joke's still on me because I'm once again sacrificing the enjoyment of my day to idots with nothing better to do than torment me even further.

Do you need a permit to own a taser? I should look into that, I think it will bring much satisfaction to my daily life if I can shock the shit out of someone every time they do something stupid...

...It'd probably cost a fortune in batteries, though.

Does it hurt when I do this...?

Is there a contest going on that I'm not aware of? It seems like it, because every day people come up with new and original ways to irritate the crap out of me. If there's some kind prize here, let me know, cause I think I'm entitled to part of it.

So earlier I'm at work, minding my own business and doing my boring ass job. Things suck, as usual, but that's about normal. Suddenly, I notice something off to the side and then I realize what it is. There's a bee hovering nearby. I'm not a fan of bees, so I jump up and back away. Then my co-worker chimes in:

"What's wrong?"

And I inform him that there's a bee. Then, his reaction is one that I often get when I point out the presence of a bee...

"Are you allergic?"

At this point, I become irritated. No, I'm not allergic to bees. I never have been, and I let him know this. Then his next response is what really drives me nuts.

"What's the problem then?"

Uh, it fucking hurts to get stung? Hello? I don't have to be allergic to not enjoy pain. What the hell kind of reasoning is that? Just because it's not potentially fatal doesn't mean it doesn't hurt like a bitch. I've never liked bees, and that whole, 'if you leave them alone, they'll leave you alone' line is complete bullshit. They are vindictive little jerks who will search and destroy without mercy. I've witnessed this first hand and experienced it quite a few times, none of which were enjoyable experiences at all. And being the somewhat intelligent person I am, I have learned not to fuck with them, and to get the hell away from them as soon as humanly possible. So why is it that just because I'm not allergic, everyone seems to be oblivious to the fact that being stung STILL FUCKING HURTS?

Here, let me stab you in the fucking hand. I mean, you're not allergic to knives are you? You'll be fine. God, sometimes I think people do this shit on purpose, because despite all the supporting evidence stating otherwise, I still have a hard time believing that people can be that utterly stupid.

Jellyfish: 1, Humans: 0....

So if you haven't heard, which you probably haven't, immortality is no longer science-fiction. Well, at least for one species. Apparently despite all of mankind's best efforts to fight off our greatest enemy - old age - it would seem that some random jellyfish the size of a finger just happened to figure it out on accident. Scientists have discovered an immortal jellyfish.

Well, potentially. It would seem that the jellyfish aren't smart enough to know that they're dying from old age, but if you poke them the wrong way, they will revert back to their child-state at the drop of a hat. So in a nutshell, they return to being a newborn jellyfish and start their life all over again, without actually dying.

As interesting as this news tends to be, it more or less shows how ironic life can turn out.

Here we are thinking we're at the top of our game. We've got computers, cars, guns and chocolate chip cookies. I mean, we're what every other species wishes it could be. Yet with all of our dazzling lights and shiny plastic achievements, we cannot escape death from simple age. And here some little jellyfish that doesn't even realize there's anything above the top of the ocean goes and simply becomes immortal because it feels like it. How's that for a 6 to 24 tentacle slap to the face, eh?

Of course, the scientists are saying that no research is being done on figuring out how this trait can benefit humans. Right. If I found the fountain of youth, I'd only be interested in the historical aspects as well. Hold on, I forgot something: </bullshit>

I would hope someone's digging around in these little fuckers for some answers. I mean sure, we pretty much know how they do it, but even so, it's not something you come across every day. There's something more to be drawn from this other than "Well golly, ain't that fascinating!" Chances are there's not going to be much to work with and some little fucking sea creature is going to sit back and mock us from it's little glass tube while we rot away trying to figure out it's little secret.

Am I jealous? Fuck yes. It's not fair, damnit. Why does some little blob of cells with no comprehension that it's even really alive get to have immortality, when people like me, who have a lot of shit to do and not a lot of time to do it have to suffer with getting about 30 or 40 solid years of enjoyment before I become too old to stand upright without breaking something?

I don't really hate the little fuckers though, I mean it's not like they did anything wrong. But it still seems like a complete waste. Nature's stupidity strikes again!

Once upon a time...

Great. Alice in Wonderland was released. No, I haven't seen it. I probably won't. I'm not much of a movie person to begin with, but holy fucking hell... I think the end of theater as we know it is upon us. They just have no more ideas for movies, do they? It's just a remake of a remake of a remake at this point.

And I'm probably going to start hailing this as the 'Depp' phenomenon because every single time one of these horrid rehashes gets put on screen guess who's in it? Johnny Depp. I do not dislike Johnny Depp as an actor, and he was quite entertaining in Pirates of the Caribbean. However just because he plays one crazy guy well does not make him good at playing another crazy guy well. A good example of this is Micheal Keaton. He was amazing at playing a crazy guy in Beetle Juice. But when cast as another crazy guy, Batman, he wasn't really all that great. But then again, Batman has the depth of a puddle, and the only reason why there's been a dozen or so movies about him is because everyone wants to see the fucked up villains he has to deal with. No one cares about Batman, honestly.

Back on point, I heard recently that they're going to remake Karate Kid. Are you kidding me? I remember when the ORIGINAL was released in theaters. I am NOT THAT OLD god damnit! Do they have any idea how traumatizing this kind of thing is to a person? You shouldn't do a remake when people who remember the original are only in their mid-twenties. WTF, are you getting that stressed for ideas?

Of course, if they aren't making remakes, they're making generic love movies. Girl meets guy, girl embarrasses herself in front of guy, asks friends for help, stupid shit happens involving a dog, guy falls for girl's cute and awkward style, evil bitch ex-girlfriend gets chastised in front of her parents and friends, movie ends. That's pretty much it. I should win an Oscar for pulling on the nation's heartstrings with that one.

And of course, if you can't do that, there's always the 'documentary style screenplay about the oppressed' thing to fall back on. Find an important person in history who was oppressed, find a big name actor that can be dressed up like him, and then read a few biographies from the library and you're sure to win at the Oscars with your 'touching tribute to a great person'. Give me a break.

This is generally why I don't watch movies. Most are garbage. I didn't see Avatar and I probably won't. A friend of mine compared it to Fern Gully. The fuck is this? The biggest movie hit of this last year was a remake of FERN GULLY?! I've lost all faith in Hollywood. You never see anything original and fun anymore. You know what were some good movies? Back to the Future, Short Circuit, Innerspace, and pretty much anything produced by Don Bluth (Except Titan A.E. That was utter garbage).

I don't see how anyone can actually say they enjoy movies anymore unless they have the mental capacity of a snail. 99% of everything produced is crap. Or a crappy remake of something that was good.

I recently took a poll of people I met to see who had seen the original Dr. Doolittle. Not the one with Eddie Murphy, but the original one in 1967 with the Giant Pink Sea Snail. No one had. It was depressing. Meh, I guess if you can't fit a rap montage into it somewhere, people just aren't interested anymore.

If we ignore them, maybe they'll go away...

So, me and a few friends were going to make a trip out to San Fransico the other day. Thursday, actually. We were going to go to the Japanese shopping center, enjoy a little anime and sushi. General geek stuff. Anyway, we're on our way there and suddenly traffic starts to get heavy. Really heavy. Then it just stopped. We were confused and frustrated. Time was ticking before all the good places closed and here we were sitting in what seemed to be deadlocked traffic. Then cars started going into park, engines started to shut off. The freeway became one big parking lot. Shortly after this, we found out the cause...

Apparently, some group of brilliant minds decided that a good way to promote a protest would be to stand in the middle of the freeway. For 4 hours. Now, I'm not really a political person, and I don't really get involved in this, that or whatever when it comes to where the budget is going and all that. But my common sense would tell me that if you wanted to get people to follow your cause, it would probably NOT be a good idea to piss off nearly half of the metropolitan area by blocking traffic for 4 hours. I mean, there's other forms of peaceful protest. You could set yourself on fire, for example.

What hurts the most is the reason why these people were protesting. They were trying to protest cuts in the educational budget. Now, I don't know if this was meant to be ironic or not, but it's really the only explanation I have for people doing something so utterly stupid. Were they trying to show that without an education budget, people would become so utterly moronic as they would think it was a good idea to actually stand in the freeway for 4 hours? It's possible, but I doubt it. I've learned not to give people that much credit. Most likely this was the only way the genius that came up with this plan could figure out how to get attention without doing something illegal. Oh wait. He got arrested and charged with two felonies. Someone didn't think their cunning plan all the way through.

On top of missing out on my little romp through manga-ville, I was twice as pissed off that something I actually support, which is education of the masses (Something that is sorely lacking nearly anywhere you go...) would have such a bunch of dumb-asses trying to stage such an asinine display on it's behalf. They've probably done more harm than good with this little stunt as everyone pretty much hates the people involved and have probably ruined any chance the budget had of being fixed. Way to go guys

And people wonder why everything comes with an instruction manual in 4 different languages. Fuck, even Top Ramen has directions with PICTURES on it. How fucking hard is: 'Add hot water, wait five minutes.'? Seriously. If you can't figure this out without a diagram, then I think you really need to sit back and reflect on your life.