Your first thought might be the cost of it all that I hate. It is expensive, too expensive I would say but that isn’t what keeps me from going. It’s the stupid, disrespect douchebags that always sit around me. You know the types. Those that like to make themselves at home by putting their feet up on the seats in front of them. The idiots that will not stop talking. The idiots that dick around their cell phone the entire time. The overall clueless behavior of the average person just pisses me off me to know end.
Every single time I head out to theater to see a movie, usually with my kids, there’s been an asshole sitting someone near me. It’s the teen girls sitting in front of us that talk and text the entire fucking time. Trying to enjoy the film but keep getting distracted by the sounds and lights coming from their cell phones. Idiots that have no problem with putting their dirty smelly feet up on their chair in front of them. One time this asshole at the Krikorian in Redlands, California had his fucking feet up on the chair next to me. His smelly, fucking near bear feet are inches away from my face. I figured when I sat down he would at least have enough decency to take them down. Nope! I shouldn’t have to turn around and ask the fucknut to take his feet off the chair but I did.
People seem to feel entitled to shit that they shouldn’t in today’s society. I have fairly liberal opinions. I think we all should be entitled to clean water, health care, dental care. I don’t mind paying a little more in taxes for these things if it will help the poor and needy. However, we live in a society, and society has rules, if it didn’t, it wouldn’t be a society. Being the slightest bit respectful is a rule. You don’t even have to be polite. Just have a little respect for the people around you. And, it goes further than that. It means being at least a little bit tolerant of other people’s behavior that you may not like but there’s never any excuse to just be flat out disrespectful without cause.
Being tolerant is one of the reason I avoid going to theaters nowadays. I realize the disrespectful girls that were sitting in front of me were just having fun. They meant no harm with their selfishness. And, I never said anything because honestly, it’s not worth the hassle. I have asked people to be quiet before and it usually ends up with shit getting worse. A simple, “Shhh” leads to them being more obnoxious and the last thing I want is to end up on the news for slapping the shit out of a bunch of tweens. Not that I would ever slap the shit out of a kid, ever. But, ohhh!, there are times I my evil little mind has thought about it.
Sometimes speaking out can almost lead to a fight. Not that I have ever gotten into a fight at a theater. But, I almost did one time. Remember the fucknut with his feet up on the seat next to me? This douchebad is with his girlfriend, wearing flip flops. When I turned my head to the left, I would be looking at his nasty-ass toes less than a foot away. I gave the polite look back at him, thinking this should be enough to snap his dumbass back into reality. He had to see me turn and look at his feet several times before I went with full turn to look at his face. I was being as non-confrontational as possible with this asshat.
I get nothing from him. His smelly feet remain. I turn, I ask him if he could take his feet down. I am ignored. Now, I am about ready to explode. I’m a pretty big guy and nothing pisses me off more than stupid people. I have the perfect seats I don’t want to move because of this asshole. The theater is also starting to fill up I don’t really notice any other seats that I like. And, it’s aggravating me even more that I am considering moving to another seat because this fucking asshole wont take his feet off the chair.
Not being able to take it anymore, I turn around and snap at him. “Dude, will take your smelly feet off the chair!”
This doesn’t make him happy and he looks at me and says, “You don’t have to be rude about it!”
I respond back that I had asked him nicely twice and now he’s denying that I ever said anything. I have not only been disrespected by his actions, he’s also calling me a liar. I turn around and say, “You shouldn’t have your feet up on the seat in the first place.” He smarts off again and I swing back around, I am about to go nuclear. In my mind I am thinking, I’m not letting this go. If he touches me I will beat his ass down and humiliate him right in front of his girlfriend.
As I turn and almost waiting for him to lay hands on me I notice it’s not his girlfriend, it’s obviously his daughter, his young daughter. I am now disappointed at the fact that he would set such a bad example of how to act in public by putting his feet up on the chair in the first place. By, lying when he said that he didn’t hear me ask to put his feet down, he heard me, I know it, he knows is. He thought he was going to be a tough guy in front of his daughter. But, what horrified me the most is how ready I was to beat the shit out this guy for being such an asshole. I didn’t say anything after I saw his daughter sitting there confused and probably a little afraid. I turned back around in my chair and spent the rest of time feeling like shit, frustrated and ashamed of myself. I was frustrated that I had to feel like shit because this guy was an disrespectful asshole. That it all came down to a near fight because he was absolutely clueless to how disrespectful he was being and how intolerant I am of blatant stupidity.
I read an article and watched a little news video about a mother who was at the movies and the idiots kids in front of her were acting a fool. She said something to the kids and they acted up and continued to be disrespectful. The mother of the kids later found out about it and apologized on Facebook to the mother she didn’t know in a letter on Facebook that went viral. I thought how sad is that? The story has a great ending but it shouldn’t have been a story in the first place. Those kids should have known better. I understand that they are just kids and even the best parents can have kids that act like fools, it’s kinda of what kids do. Doing stupid things and being punished it for it how we learn sometimes. But, when it’s not just the kids, when it’s the adults that more times than not act worse than their kids, what can you do about it? It’s not worth a fight and I found to my surprise and horror how quickly things can escalate over peoples lack of respect.
Of all these things that I don’t like about going to the theater, last on the list is actually the outrageous prices at the concessions stand. Honestly, it’s not even near the top of list. I’m broke and I would gladly pay more for a theater ticket and the concessions if it meant I didn’t have to deal with all the disrespectful jerks that treat the theater like it’s their second home. Nothing says you’re a scumbag, selfish prick like way some people act at their local theaters.
I used to love going to the theater. There was a time, when my then girlfriend and I would go at least once a week. We saw everything back then. But, over the years, I have seen people just get more and more disrespectful while at the movie theater and I just have no patience for that kind of crap anymore. So, it’s just best that I don’t go anymore. It’s best for me and it’s best for the assholes. Violence is almost never the answer and I shouldn’t have to worry about getting into a fight just because I ask some douchebags to stop talking or to not place their sweaty, smelly feet on the back of or next to my chair. It’s just not worth the frustrations.
Now I am not saying that I can’t control myself, I do still go to the movies from time to time. It’s just that every time I go there is someone acting like an asshole. I can tolerate it when it’s not around me but when that little brat behind me starts kicking my seat, when the idiots around me start playing with their cell phones, when people keep talking during the movie, I just can’t stand it and I realize it’s my problem as much as the assholes. So, for me, I wait for the DVD or Amazon Prime or Netflix.
The simple answer is because one Christian reverend whined loud enough until someone in the government with a sympathetic ear gave in. According to the U.S. Department of Treasury it all started with a letter written by Rev. M. R. Watkinson. A Minister of the Gospel from Ridleyville, Pennsylvania in 1861 during the Civil War.
In the letter Watkinson very politely complained that there was no mention of God on our currency. His most offensive and arrogant statement was, “This would make a beautiful coin, to which no possible citizen could object. This would relieve us from the ignominy of heathenism.”
Think about that for a second, let the arrogance of this statement set in. No one “could could object”? “Ignominy”? “Heathenism”? In over a 150 years nothing much has changed when it comes to the arrogance of some within the religious community. To this day you can see people preaching “In God We Trust” in defiance of those who are trying to take it away from them. Even though there’s no open case of anyone trying to take it away, it’s a popular sentiment with the average religious person who is always made to believe that the phrase is constantly under attack. It’s not under attack but it’s easy to scare the delusional into believing anything when you appeal to their paranoid tendencies. This goes for almost everybody. Religious, atheist, republicans and democrats can all be easily manipulated. However, it’s the strongest when it comes to religion and politics. But, I digress.
So, shortly after Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase received the letter, he wrote to James Pollock, Director of the Mint and instructed him to come up with a motto that suggested no nation can be strong without a faith in God. Pollock came up with some suggestions, chase approved them and the rest is history.
Just like that we went from a country that prided itself on science and industry to a country that proudly claimed to be the leader in religious quackery. Just imagine, if you will, back when Thomas Jefferson and George Washington discussed the design for the first penny. Think about the pride they felt in the wording that was written on it, “Liberty Parent of Science & Industry” They fought so hard to free themselves from the chains of a government overrun and corrupt with religious power. How they must turn in their graves every time a religious person successfully weasels it’s ideology into the very government that was created to protect us from it.
I was chatting with a friend the other day and she pretty much had no idea what Amazon Prime is. She was aware that she could save some money on shipping if she ordered something through Amazon but she didn’t understand how prime videos work. “How can you can I buy a video? Do I have to download it?” She just didn’t get it. And, to be honest, I was late to the whole Amazon Prime Video thing myself because I had and still have Netflix why do I need another source? It didn’t take long to realize that’s stupid. My argument was like saying, “But I already have a shirt, why do I need another one?” After explaining it to her it made me think that maybe there others that just don’t get how it all works or why is it worth the money.
First, I should be upfront that I promote Amazon.com and of course, “Prime”. Yes, I want you to click the link or links below and sign up for it or for the 30 Day Free Trial. But, the motivation for writing this truly is just to offer some information about the service of Amazon Prime, Amazon Prime Video and Amazon Prime Instant Video. It’s an all in one kind of thing but I think that can confuse some people as I have discovered. So let’s start there.
When you sign up for Amazon Prime you get access to all the rest. You don’t have to sign up for a bunch of different things. Just a few clicks and it’s done. You can start binge all kinds of things.
Now let’s start with basics of Amazon Prime and shipping. Here’s the basics of what you get when you sing up.
Shipping Speed Amazon | Prime Member Price:
Two-Day Shipping Free
One-Day Shipping Price varies by item size and weight – as low as $2.99 per item
Saturday Shipping Price varies by item size and weight – as low as $7.99 per item
Same-Day Delivery* (in qualifying cities) $5.99 per shipment
No-Rush Shipping Free
Standard Shipping (4-5 business days) Free
Release-Date Delivery(on qualifying items) Free
Addresses in Alaska, Hawaii, and Puerto Rico
Shipping Speed Amazon Prime Member Price
Standard Shipping (3-7 business days) Free
Expedited Shipping (2-5 business days) Price varies by item size and weight – as low as $5.99 per item
Priority Shipping (1-4 business days) Price varies by item size and weight – as low as $11.99 per item
*Note that after you sing up, you will see the various options available the next time you check out.
Now let’s get into the all the Movies and TV options available. With Amazon Prime Instant Video you have access to tens of thousands of movies and TV shows. As a horror fan I did a quick search to see how many horror titles they had available, over 7,000 titles. You don’t get anywhere near that with Netflix.
Since I just brought up Netflix something to consider. Netflix Streaming service runs $8.99 a month and that comes to $107.88 a year and only Netflix knows how many titles they offer. They won’t say but after constantly browsing their titles and running searches half of what I want to see isn’t available for streaming. Amazon Prime cost 99 bucks a year and with it you have access to more than 40,000 titles in Film and TV. It’s 99 dollar price tag breaks down to $8.25 a month.
Another thing that I like about Amazon Prime is the ability to stream music. There’s over a millions songs available and hundreds of programmed playlists for almost endless listening to your favorite music genres.
It all sounds too good to be true. There are some downsides to all of it that I wish I had known upfront. Actually, there’s only two downsides I have found is that some titles aren’t free even with Prime. You still have to pay to rent them and I will be honest, I don’t like that at all. In fact, when I first signed up with Amazon Prime, I was so angry when I found out that I called up and cancelled my membership. I had been a been a member for just over a year at the time so my credit card had just recently been billed. I had never used their streaming service at that first year. The first time I go to use it and the title I want isn’t free? I was so upset, I called them up and cancelled it. They were nice enough to refund the full amount. I signed back up a year or so later when Netflix axed a series that I like. Signed back up to Prime and now I can stream that anytime I want. The second that is kind of a drag for some is that here doesn’t appear to be a way to pay for it on a monthly basis. You pay up front.
The great thing about Prime though is that it’s getting better and better. One of my favorite mystery writers is Michael Connelly and they’ve got an original series called Bosch based on one of his series book series. But, the most important reason of all to sign up for Amazon Prime is that I am broke webmaster. I’m broke because I don’t link my blog to every other blog out there. I don’t spam my blog, I just post stuff that I want to rant about or find interesting so feel free to sign up below. It will make you feel better for helping the needy. It’s win/win really.
I don’t know what it is that makes people so goddamn stupid. I just saw a post from a friend on Facebook linking to a YouTube video that is supposed to show how you can charge your cellphone with electricity from your skin. It’s frightening how gullible people are. This is what happens when you have no concept of science and logic, you think like an idiot. Stop doing that.
Here’s the video…
I want to explain why this won’t work but if you’re already stupid enough to think this works, you’re certainly going to understand the science involved. So, I will keep it as simple as possible. USB cables don’t work this way. They are not an outlet, there are tiny wires that define what is transferred from one end to other. To just stick one end of a paperclip in there and expect it to link up with the specific wire that sends the electrical current needed for charging just isn’t going to happen, ever. You can get an electrical charge from you skin but it’s somewhere around a tenth of an AMP, that’s not going to cut it. Also, two quarters and a piece of paper don’t make a capacitor not to mention you wouldn’t need a capacitor for this. It’s all just so stupid.
If you want some of the science behind how charging with a USB cable works look for reliable sources. Below is a link to get you started. And remember, this simple phrase, “If it sounds too good to be true, it’s probably is.” And, don’t ever just take the word of someone because they have a blog and told you something. Even if you trust them. Look shit up from reliable sources. Look for the science behind what they are saying. When you read articles look for their sources. Look at the evidence they provide to back up what they are saying and then check those sources.
Don’t be that person that posts stupid shit. Chances are your smart friends are just too polite to tell you that you’re being an idiot. Sometimes they try to politely and explain why what you just posted was completely stupid and lacks any scientific evidence or even a logical train of thought. I know this applies to me, I try to be nice but it’s hard when people just throw a pile of stupid right in your face. Usually what happens now, I just do a silent face palm and remember that there’s a reason I never talk to most of these “Friends” in real life.
You don’t have to be a brain surgeon to not look like an idiot when you post. Just ask yourself, do I really know if what I am about is true or am I just posting it because it sounds cool. If you’re about to post something that is supposed to be factual and you’re only doing it because it sounds cool, you could be an idiot. We’re all guilty of posting stupid shit, it happens. But, let’s be honest, some people do it like it’s a competition.
*Did you like this post? Do me a favor, look at the amazon.com links over there to the right. Click one of them and buy something. It will make you feel better about yourself.
I avoided twitter for the longest time. Why? There’s a couple of reasons. First, Twitter for me has always had been pointless. When it first started it was just a place where everyone posted, “On my way to the store”, “Just sat down to watch a movie” and so on. It was just boring and useless. Also, because I like to rant about stuff. You simply can’t effectively rant on Twitter. 140 Characters at a time isn’t much a rant and people that know me know very well that I can turn a simple subject into a three page rant at the drop of a hat. I began to love Facebook because I rant. If something pissed me off I could tear into the subject. When someone posted something completely false, I could point out the actual truth.
However, I have learned that nobody really seams to give a shit about the truth. I have friends on Facebook that will continue to post the most outrageous lies because some right-wing nutbag page said it’s true. The same goes with the liberal pages, they can be just as guilty of spreading misleading information as well. Both of them posting their dire headlines aimed to spread fear. I found myself correcting the errors not because I am an asshole and want to prove I’m right but because I see no one else doing it. It didn’t matter if it was politics or a picture of a sic little boy that needs “Likes” to get treatment. Even missing children posts would drive me up the wall because almost every time it’s not a missing kid. Sometimes, it’s a kid that has died and these idiots are sharing the photo in an attempt to help with absolutely no clue as to the pain they are causing the friends and family.
Time after time, these same people keep posting this crap over and over again. I mean, you have got to know by now that Bill Gates isn’t going to give you money because you shared a post. Jesus isn’t going to save a dying child because their photo gets enough likes. It has just become too hard to keep up with people that have such a disregard for facts let alone common sense. So why do I follow them? Well, just because they can’t seem to determine fantasy from reality or fact from opinion, some of them I know in real life and they have other attributes I do respect. Thay are basically good people but should absolutely not be allowed to surf the internet unsupervised because they can’t seem to ever understand that just because they want something to be true doesn’t mean that is, in fact true.
So I decided to work with Twitter more but I am sucking at it so bad. I see people go from having only a few friends to thousands in a matter of a few days or weeks. I would love to have thousands of followers. But, I don’t want those thousands of followers to be all of the same thousands of people that I am following. To me that is pointless. I want a wide variety of info in my feed. And, if we’re all just sharing the same information than what is the point? I have already followed several people that don’t interest me, only because I felt it only fair to follow them for following me. I have since stopped doing that
If someone follows me, the first thing I do is go to their feed and scroll their tweets. Are they offensive in a way I don’t appreciate? (Sometimes being offensive is a good thing) Do they sound like an idiot? If so, I don’t follow them. On the other had let’s say they’re in a band that plays a type of music I don’t really care. I might still follow them if I feel that they might have something interesting to say. Maybe I might like the music and when I have time I will check it out. Same goes for authors or filmmakers. I do believe that everyone is capable of having something important or interesting to say. It’s why I scroll their feed before making a decision on whether or not to follow them.
So why do I suck at twitter? It’s been about a month and a half since I gradually started taking Twitter seriously. I’ve gone from about 100 followers to almost 500. And, I have some amazing followers I must say. But, as much as would love a huge following. It seems that some people only follow people so that they will get followed back or worse, in the hopes that the person following them will re-tweet the stuff they say. I Just want no part of that.
I want people to follow me because they think that I post interesting things. I try to post things that I like, things I found interesting, fascinating funny, news worthy. I don’t ever post things I don’t find interesting on some level. I don’t just post links with incredible headlines to get you to read my blog. Yes, I see the irony of this as if you’re reading this it’s because you probably followed a link to my blog. But, my point is that it’s not all that I post on Twitter. The vast majority of things I post are re-tweets or a link to something I found on the internet that I found worth taking a look at.
I have found this to be a terribly ineffective way to gain followers for some reason. Right now there are a couple of “people” that follow me and that I follow, who do nothing but post links to the types of blogs I mentioned above. They promote these blogs and almost every story I have gone to read makes no mention of where they got their information. One of them was so bad the other day I had to correct them in a re-tweet, just giving them the heads up that their information was completely incorrect. No response. So, once I again, I am finding that it just seems as if when it comes to social media, most people simply don’t give a shit about the truth. I want to follow people that I think do care about what they post. That care more about sharing something about themselves than promoting something to sell. As for me I am far more likely to buy something if I like the person selling it than just being told go go buy something.
I just want my posts to mean something. I am not saying that I want every post to be news worthy and science based. I just want to make posts that are at least interesting on some level, funny, scary, informative or silly. It might be a cool tutorial I just saw on YouTube on how to nail wood to cement or a movie trailer for something I want to see or have seen. It could be the latest episode of Simon’s Cat. I want my feed to be interesting and real. I think it is, I follow people from the horror genre to news outlets. Celebrities and science figures to porn stars and rock stars. So if I re-tweet something it’s coming from a place true sincerity. I don’t re-tweet things as part of some deal to get a person to follow me. I actually care about what I tweet. I figure if someone was nice enough to follow me, the least I could do is post things I enjoy rather than just posting or re-tweeting things that are nothing more than creative spam.
I think this is why I why I suck at it. It care about what stuff I pass along to people. I am not some stereo-typical Twitter person that only cares about how many followers they have. I don’t follow people hoping that they will follow me back. I follow people because I want to hear what they have to say not for what I think they can do for me. I follow some folks and all they seem to do is push their latest book or album and it bothers me a little and I will probably stop following them soon. Not because I didn’t like their book but because, I don’t need to spammed with every tweet about whatever they selling in every single tweet. I want to know what they think, what kind of sense of humor do they have? Why did they write that book? Why do they write romance instead of mysteries? I want a peek behind the curtain. These are things that interest me. I don’t mind the occasional spam but a little depth in some form would be great.
Am I wrong here? Am I expecting too much from people? I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that I suck at Twitter. I have made posts I thought were fascinating or things I thought were so damn funny and I get nothing. Not even a simply “Favorite”. So either my tweets are far less interesting and fun than I think or I’m just over thinking it all. Probably both. But, either way I guess it doesn’t really matter. I have to believe in what I re-tweet so I suppose that I will keep sucking at Twitter, I’m good at sucking at Twitter so why change now? Maybe there are others out there who will appreciate my suckage at Twitter and want to follow me for it. For that reason I am going to use this selfie with some pretty strong reasons to follow me on.
