(no subject)

[apocalypsos]

I'm not sure how many of the rants I can do, considering some of them I either know nothing about or have no opinion on anyway, but here goes a few of them:

For fizzygp, On public restrooms...

It's the curse of public restrooms ... other women using them.

And you know, I wouldn't have a problem with the other chicks who are usually milling around the bathrooms I use at the movie theater (which is the most common public restroom I end up using) if it weren't for the fact that I've inevitably just tried to find a stall and remembered that lots of women are fucking slobs.

Seriously, how difficult is it to put your ass on a seat? I've said it before and I'll say it again: nothing is coming up through the pipes to bite your ass off. I've seen that movie, too, and I can officially guarantee that a hungry, discarded pet alligator is not going to fit through the piping of a public toilet.

Oh, wait, you're going to catch something if you put your ass on the seat, right? Some horrible wasting disease that'll make your arms fall off and your knees turn to jelly? GOOD.

Oh, right. It's disgusting, isn't it, because other people have used it and they may have pissed on the seat. Well, guess what? When you crawl down from the dangling chair you've attached to the ceiling with toilet paper and your own spit and I find that you've sprayed your own urine all over the seat and you're trying to sneak away, I'm going to learn from Brad Pitt on the Fight Club DVD (who said urine is sterile and you can drink it) and I'm going to make you lick it off. Gross? Yes. But not as half as revolting as leaving your own piss (or any other bodily fluids) all over a public place and thinking that's perfectly acceptable. You do not urinate battery acid -- trust me, it's safe for you to wipe it up.

For jedusor, On people screaming you should worship God on subways ...

Here, correct me if I'm wrong, but shouldn't religion and which faith you adhere to be a very personal decision?

I can't say I've seen it in the Metro yet, but I've definitely experienced it in college, where a guy continually stood on the quad on a rise in the grass and preached at the students as they passed. And he wasn't obnoxious about it, so nobody (including me) ever had a real problem with him. But I always felt like stopping and asking him if he honestly thought I was going to suddenly decide to change religions back on my way to my photography class.

I mean, if you're being a fire-and-brimstone, offensive asshole (which most public preachers I've seen don't seem to be), then seriously, go away. No, really. If you're going to scream loudly about discriminating against anybody based on religion, I don't want to hear your shit and I doubt anybody else with any brains does, either. But if you're going to go out there and expect to get converts on a sidewalk, it just scares the hell out of me.

Know why? Because I know you're going to get converts on a sidewalk, and that's what bothers me. Your faith is a very serious decision, and you're going to make it on the way to the market?

... the hell?!

For palmetto, On Michael Moore ...

Oh, Michael Moore. Shut up.

You know, Michael Moore suffers from the same "Stop being on my side, damn it!" shade of asshole-ishness that Bill O'Reilly suffers from. (I wouldn't say "suffers from" so much as "revels in," actually.) Neither of them knows when the hell to shut up.

And I hate George Bush. You all know I hate George Bush. And I've realized I don't hate people who voted for Bush, I just don't understand why. Even when those of you who did vote for Bush explain it to me, I still can't understand it. We've had two wars in the past four years and we're probably going to get another one in the next four years, we've got a record deficit, pretty much everybody else on the planet hates our country, the current administration is trying to write discrimination into the Constitution and might try to make abortion illegal (which is only going to make it more difficult for the lives of women in this country, like it or not), and you like this guy?

So, yes, I like Fahrenheit 9/11, but I like it because anything that makes Bush looks bad amuses me. But it's like hearing a really funny joke from a monkey. If there's any possible way that Michael Moore could get more paranoid or condescending, that'd be really nice. (Read 'nice' as 'fucking annoying'.) It might be less bothersome if he could make a coherent argument in his documentaries, or maybe -- for once -- not actually show up in one of them ... nah, he'd still be a little loud-mouthed bastard.

Of course, at least he's not wandering around calling everybody who bothers him "bomb-throwers" like some gigantic, conservative radio-show-host-making-dirty-phone-calls dicks I can name.

Comments

[adjectivegirl.livejournal.com]

SO word on the toilet seat sitch. I always sit fully down. I'm no pansy. :)

[swingangel.livejournal.com]

yeah, totally with you...i mean, if it is that big of a deal, they have those nifty toilet seat covers...works wonders :)

[horsefacehannah.livejournal.com]

What movie precisely is the one with the alligator in the toilet? Because I swear to god, that scares the crap out of me and I don't think I've even seen it. Isn't there a rugrats episode like that?

But my worst toilet fear is Zeke the Plumber.

[apocalypsos.livejournal.com]

It's something from the seventies where some kid's dad made him flush his pet baby alligator down the toilet, and then later it mutated and ate a whole bunch of people. My mother told me when I was a kid that she used to have a baby alligator and her father made her flush it just like that, which is the perfect thing to tell your kid when they're six and will actually believe it. *eye roll*

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

'It's something from the seventies'

Actually 1980, called Alligator and written by John Sayles. One of his cheesy-but-witty exploitation trilogy (Piranha and The Howling being the others).

Y'know, since you asked. *sits the hell down and shuts up now*

[chang-o.livejournal.com]

Pre-dates all of that, I believe. In the 60's (& perhaps 50's too), when it was still OK to buy alligator shoes, baby alligators, etc, a lot of families would go to Florida on vacation & visit alligator farms. They'd sell the baby alligators to tourists and then, as with many other exotic & impractical pets, the tourist kids would take them home- they'd get tired of them or think they were dead, etc, and supposedly a lot of people would flush 'em. I've heard that the reason why there was the urban myth of alligators in the NYC sewers is because a lot of New Yorkers bought the babies & later flushed 'em- so of course, since alligators are aquatic & can live quite a long time, the story arose that some of them survived & grew to full adult size in the sewers. But maybe someone from NY might know more about that myth. So anyway, that's prolly more than anyone wanted to know....

[bailunrui.livejournal.com]

Dude. Don't even mention Zeke. *scarred for life*

[robyn-ma.livejournal.com]

I like Michael Moore but also occasionally wince — he just plays too much into the right's attempts to demonize him, and he's a hard sell to those who aren't already predisposed to agree with what he's saying. On the other hand, while watching The Daily Show last night I thought, 'Jon Stewart is basically Michael Moore five times a week, only not annoying.'

[fyrdrakken]

And now I have to wonder how much of why Jon Stewart comes across better than Michael Moore has to do with attitude. Jon Stewart doesn't take himself as seriously as Moore does, let alone pulling shit like tricksy editing of a "documentary" to make someone look horrible (e.g., Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine), and he's genuinely funny.

[dreamt.livejournal.com]

...pulling shit like tricksy editing of a "documentary" to make someone look horrible (e.g., Charlton Heston in Bowling for Columbine)...

As far as I could see there was no tricksy editing so much as just one old man making himself look bad in an honest interview.

I seriously like Michael Moore, I don't get what people have against him.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Many people are convinced that Moore lies and harrasses innocent people. Also, the lying.

[fyrdrakken]

There's this website -- hang on, let me Google for it -- well, here's Bowling for Truth and here's Truth about Bowling for Columbine -- and they compile lists of deviations from truthful documentary. There's an agenda present on both of these sites, but at least the second one seems well provided with links for verifying the claims made. I haven't actually taken the time to do so personally, but it's information worth considering when evaluating Michael Moore.

[fyrdrakken]

And BTW, my problem with Michael Moore isn't what he says -- it's that by not making everything 100% factual and backed by evidence and on the up-and-up, he leaves himself open to the Bushes' favorite method of dealing with unfavorable media attention, which is discrediting the reporter so totally as to divert attention from the essential truth of the accusations. (As with the Dan Rather fiasco over the Shrub's absenting himself from the National Guard.)

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Plus, Jon Stewart doesn't look like he hasn't changed his clothes in five years

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

Thank you. :) That's pretty much how I feel about the guy, only I really have no interest in watching dude's movies.

Praying on the Metro

[phillyexpat.livejournal.com]

Ah, so you haven't seen the Vietnamese man who opens his Bible and chants . . . or the guy who keeps trying to make a citizens arrest . . .

Re: Praying on the Metro

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

Wait, is that the Christmas caroler guy? He makes one verse and one chorus of "O Come All Ye Faithful" last EXACTLY one Metro-stop.

I like him.

Or, at least, I have a hard time not giggling when he sings.

Re: Praying on the Metro

[phillyexpat.livejournal.com]

My guy was on the Orange line in 2000-2001ish.

Ever since I've moved Downtown, I tend not to be on the metro much. But I get plenty of crazy singing people walking everywhere too.

a funny story

[impulsiveone.livejournal.com]

we have a few local evangelicals that hang around my town. one of them even goes so far as to dress like jesus amd carries around a scaled down version of the cross he was crucified on. standing upright, it's about 7 feet high and the crossbar is 5 feet wide.

during the spring and summer, they will congregate at miller park dring the nightfall festival (an annual local jazz and blues festival) and preach to all the passerby's.

one day my friend and i were walking by and my friend walks up to the guy dressed as jesus and waited for a second. during his sermon, my friend walks up to the cross and licks it. the evangelical stops his sermon and asked him why he did it.

he simply responded, "because i want to trip as hard as you are."

Re: a funny story

[palmetto.livejournal.com]

*whimpers* I want these people out of my religion, kthx.

Just saying hi.

[eleigh.livejournal.com]

Hi, yeah, friended you so now I'm commenting. I just have to say that I'm not afraid of the toilet because of an alligator but when I was little my dad made me watch some documentary on PBS about how in this one country the sewage system was so bad that snakes could actually come up through the pipes and get into the toilet and then bite the people. Scared me to death and I checked the toilet before I used it for months. I think that's why I'm still deathly afraid of snakes. Even cartoon snakes freak me out.

And now I'll stop using the comments as therapy.

[ilanalynn.livejournal.com]

I went to a Michael Moore thing a year or so ago when he came to Portland. He did his normal ranting and whatnot and at the end of the show he said he wanted to call some conservative high-profile person in the area and talk to them on the phone, right there on the stage. So lots of people yelled at him different names of people - right-wing lobbyists and media people mostly, but the most popular was Lars Larson - yes, that's his real name as far as I know and he's the Portland-area equivalent of Rush Limbaugh. Someone in the audience just happened to have his phone number, somehow - I think it was another media-type but I don't know. So he called, and it turned out to be his cel, but on the message for the cel was his home phone number. And he had it held up to the mike so everybody in the sold out audience heard it, we're talking a couple thousand people. So he calls the home number and leaves a really annoying message, and then later on some people went home and left their own messages on him and harrassed him. Now, I think Lars Larson is an unmitigated ass, but still, harrassment (of him as well as his family) is just stupid and wrong.

[lots42.livejournal.com]

Just because I voted for the dude, doesn't mean I like him. When it comes to Conservatism and Liberalism, well at least Cons. are direct about the idiocies they are trying to pull. A wise man once said 'Liberalism always generates the exact opposite of it's stated intent'. And libs state some pretty grandiose things.

From the Twisted Quotes File

[moshez.livejournal.com]

<Donatien_Alphonse> :) no promises - the truth may be a star, but we have a proper motion relative to it. Oneof my favorite quoites - a wise man I knew once said "Honor is truth in motion."
<glyph> Donatien_Alphonse: A wise man I once new said "I invented the hippo!" It's not always best to live by the words of wise men.
<stranger> Donatien_Alphonse: i'm beginning to think wise men should keep their traps shut :)

[sabra-n.livejournal.com]

*loves you forever*

[darxide.livejournal.com]

I will never understand peoples' issues with sitting down on toilet seats. You use those handy dandy seat covers that they have just about everywhere. Or, if they don't have them, you pile on a few layers of toilet tissue... and sit the fuck down.

Women were not created to pee standing up. If we were, then we wouldn't have so many issues on a long roadtrips when there isn't a public bathroom for miles.

The other thing that annoys the hell out of me is people who, not only don't wash their hands after using said public restroom, but who swipe their hands under water just because they know someone's watching them. A. Don't be a disgusting dirty fucking bastard. Wash your hands. It takes a full minute out of your life and is related to basic personal hygiene. B. No, moron, putting your hands under water for 1.4 seconds doesn't clean them anyway. You're not fooling anyone.

[nuit-belle.livejournal.com]

It might be less bothersome if he could make a coherent argument in his documentaries, or maybe -- for once -- not actually show up in one of them ... nah, he'd still be a little loud-mouthed bastard.

Amen to that! My major problem with Michael Moore is that he has some valid points, but, instead of making them, he chooses to exagerate and embellish the issue. In a documentary, you're supposed to be showing what actually happened. Don't distort the facts. It takes away from the power of your movies and your ability to connect with viewers, once they realize you're willing to distort the truth in order to give your movie (*coughBowlingforColumbinecough*) more uumph.

I've friended you; I hope you don't mind.

[wiesbaden.livejournal.com]

No crazy screaming people, but I did have a lady come up to me while I was waiting on the lower platform at Gallery Place/Chinatown just last week, with a bible and a bunch of pamphlets. The pamphlets had one of those 70s-style renditions of Jesus, where he's basically a hunky blond bearded guy in a dress, and she asked me "Do you know who he is?"

I replied "He's supposed to be the son of god, right?" and it looked like I was about to get a cookie, until she twigged on to the fact that I said 'supposed to'. She starts to launch in to a speech about how it's been 'scientifically proven' (I shit you not) that the Bible came to us directly from God, but before she could get up a good head of steam (and because I was bored), I launched into one of my pet peeves about literal interpretation, namely that the Bible as a document has gone through so many translations that it could be filled with errors, citing the famous Michaelangelo's-Moses-sporting-horns example, and it took a while for her to get a word in. When she did, she told me that because we have so many copies of the origninal (huh?), we can go back and check the translation so the version we have now (which one?) is error-free, and anyway 'Biblical Scholars' agree that the version we have now is true (I pointed out that 'Biblical Scholars' and 'legitimate scholars' are not always groups that overlap).

This is about the point where I was going to get into the whole gnostic-gospels, politics-of-who-decided-what-got-into-the-new-testament thing, but my train came. So I thanked her for asking and dashed. I don't think my mom would be too ashamed of me for messing with the evangelist, because I was polite about it.

Hmmm. That was long. Sorry for spamming!

[jedusor.livejournal.com]

Rant #1: I didn't even know people DID that until I was, like, thirteen. *shakes head* Dude, if you don't think you're going to get germs from kissing people or using the same sponge to wash your dishes and wipe your counter, putting your ass where other people have put theirs is not going to hurt you.

Rant #2: I figured you'd have something interesting to say on that. You're absolutely right.

Rant #3: I must confess I disagree. I like Michael Moore a lot. However, I can see how some people might find him annoying, and I don't blame you.