I watched a 12-minute 2017 retrospective on TV and it confirmed my deep desire for an extinction level asteroid event. On a cheerful note...
At the end of each year my friends ask how I’d like to celebrate and each year I provide a practical answer-- assisted suicide, perhaps synced with a countdown hosted by Ryan Seacrest.
With that, here's to "Fun Things I've Learned This Year."
1. We live a large portion of our lives online where algorithms have become as sophisticated as they have spooky in laser focused consumer targeting:
"James, at Facebook we're always here to help. We noticed that you just took a shit. Would you like to check-in and let your friends know what's up with that shit? As a helpful reminder, James, Wal-Mart has toilet paper on sale right now. The store is located .03 miles from your current location-- tap Google maps for more information."
2. I judge people who attend ANYTHING on “ice.” I.e. The Lion King, Toy Story, Disney, etc.
I feel strongly that anything on “ice” is stupid. With the exception of vodka.
I would consider going to see Platoon, Pulp Fiction, Goodfellas or Big Momma's House on ice.
3.Everyone seems to work very hard at their job (when Facebook goes down) in order to enjoy much more relaxing discretionary time to bitch about their job and/or form alliances to kill their co-workers while consuming $4-thousand dollars in alcohol at happy hour.
4. Drunk people who come into a bar and load the jukebox with $20-dollars in fucktard Shania Twain songs and then leave after only two of them have played are no better than terrorists.
5. I’m much too lazy to be belligerent.
6. We seem to officially have bigly tax cut legislation.
7. I'm still poor. BIGly.
8. Things which have been going on for 8-billion years in the workplace didn't seem to require an official company memo or action...oddly, until 2017. Makes it very difficult to differentiate between (other than Matt Lauer) the behind the scenes dickheads in the workplace flowchart, don't you think?
9. I'm going through some sort of bizarre Tex-Mex and BLT food phase.
10. Mike Klein, my editor, still sucks.
11. Twitter raised it's character capacity to 280 which (and I wish that I were making this up) triggered a hyper heated debate amongst those who clearly need 5,768,347 characters to explain anything. Sad.
12. Asian countries remain at the 140 Twitter character boundary because (according to Twitter) nuance in Asian language allows less of a word canvas. Which means the Asians continue to outperform the U.S. Sad.
13. Numerous words and catchphrases dominated the 2017 verbal panorama...
Impeachment, complicit, deep state, collusion, Russian hacking, dilly dilly and holy shit...we're all going to die!
14. Bitcoin. I received a comprehensive tutorial from a friend who is smart about the world (meaning that he won't ever trust me to drive his car) and now Bitcoin perfectly makes even less sense. I strongly worry that Bitcoin is the next Soylent Green. Don't say you weren't warned.
15. I’m still not a role model for children.
16. It appears that I'm not mature enough to use an electronic language translator.
My friend and fellow media disaster,Todd, gave his 9-year old son a translator for Christmas this year. I did what anyone would do...I translated dirty words. Little did I know, this stupid thing stores all searches.
Not a problem as far as Todd was concerned-- His wife-- Melissa, on the other hand, had a slight problem with it.
For our Spanish students in the reading audience...
"Me duele el testÃculo izquierdo de su castigo"
Translates to:
"My left testicle aches for your punishment"
17. Todd's wife, Melissa, still hates me.
Yes indeed...another year has passed and I'm still very confused.
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