By Brett Yates
updated
Wed, Mar 14, 2012 11:21 AM
Spring is starting, the sun is shining, and the skiing is
top-notch. I'm too happy to complain at length about anything in
particular, so here are five random little thoughts I've recently
had:
1. Why are St. Patrick's Day and Cinco de Mayo the only major
holidays celebrating specific ethnic groups or nationalities in the
United States? Since everyone likes these holidays so much, why
don't we give recognition to every homeland, from Greenland to New
Guinea, and devote a day of drinking and lewdness to each
one?
Some of these holidays would be more fun than others, maybe. St.
Patrick's Day is great and all, but if March 17 belonged to the
French rather than the Irish (a terrifying thought to many, I
know), we'd all be eating duck confit and crème brûlée and washing
it down with champagne, instead of submitting to a plate of corned
beef and cabbage and a glass of green Miller Light. Think about
that for a second.
2. You know what the best part of spring skiing is for season pass
holders? You don't have to feel guilty about sleeping in on ski
days. Unless a blizzard touched down overnight, everyone knows that
the best skiing comes after one o'clock, when the snow's had plenty
of time to get soft and mushy under the sun, and the moguls are in
prime condition. From late March until the end of the season, all
those vigorous, early-rising, admirable folks who always beat me to
the mountain don't have nearly as much reason to be smug, and
that's awesome.
3. Why are Rush Limbaugh's former sponsors making a big
self-righteous show of leaving him behind now that he's made some
disgusting comments about Sandra Fluke? Can they really pretend
that they didn't know Rush Limbaugh was an awful human being before
this controversy? By not sneaking off quietly, all they're doing is
reminding people (who probably wouldn't otherwise remember) that,
until just now, they've actually supported this sexist, racist
blowhard.
4. Somehow, until recently, it didn't occur to me that Pokémon was
basically the same thing as dog-fighting. For those over the age of
30, here's how Pokémon (the word is a contraction of "Pocket
Monsters") works: a Trainer encounters a Pokémon in the wild and
attempts to capture it with his Poké Ball; the Pokémon tries to
elude the Poké Ball, but if it can't, then it becomes the property
of the Trainer and must obey all his commands. The Trainer then
forces the Pokémon to fight other Pokémon for his own amusement,
and if the Trainer's Pokémon wins the fight, he wins a cash prize
from the Trainer on the losing side.
So tell me: why is Ash not reviled by animal-rights activists? He
influenced a whole generation of children with this behavior.
Realizing all this has made me gladder than ever that I was always
a "DBZ" man.
2. You guys notice that the little blue bar on Gmail's loading
screen has suddenly been stylized and repositioned? Now it has
stripes, like a barber pole turned on its side. Somehow upgrades
like this irritate me - like, if that's all you're going to do for
me, don't even bother, man. A new loading screen, seriously? It's
like when a relative buys you a Christmas present, but it's so tiny
and lame that it in some sense it would have been less insulting
had they just bought you nothing at all. It's annoying just to
think about how much someone got paid for this job.
The most important question: how much has the average loading time
increased for Gmail users due to the fancier loading bar? If it's
more than one-billionth of a second, it's too much.
Ok, so I do have some complaints, but mostly they're just
observations that foster slight irritaitons. I'm off to the slopes
with a smile!
Tagged:
Gen Y
