House of Eratosthenes

This is a list of modern-day carcinogens. Tumors. Things that have a toxic effect. Things that will continue to degrade our culture, make it unhealthy…dysfunctional…by their existence, and by their proximity to other things. Some of them are not causes; they are symptoms, showing by their presence that something malignant is churning away madly under the surface, something that would go undetected otherwise. So that’s it. Causes; symptoms; the balance of what’s left, would be things that, in traditional parlance, are just-plain-uncalled-for.

Each and every single one — all fifty of ’em — shows an occasion to get that scalpel out, make sure it’s sharp, and start scrubbing up. Something needs to be removed, and chucked in a scrapbucket, toot-sweet.

1. “Dukes of Hazzard” episodes, in which Daisy wears long pants
2. Family comedy movies in which the dad smacks himself in the forehead and realizes his wife is right about everything, or in which she scrunches up her face and gives him some sob story about how his son is disappointed in him for missing his soccer matches
3. Family comedy movies in which the dad smacks himself in the forehead and figures out he needs to buy his kids whatever they want
4. Family comedy movies in which the dad smacks himself in the forehead and figures out he shouldn’t demand excellence out of his kids — mediocrity is plenty good enough
5. Family comedy movies in which the dad smacks himself in the forehead and figures out he works way too much
6. Teevee commercials where the man is always using the wrong product and the woman is always using the right one
7. Borat
8. Droopy jeans that show off a boy’s or man’s butt crack
9. Men who wear football jerseys so big, they look like hand-me-downs
10. Liberal democrats who reserve a special anger for conservative women they’re too cowardly to direct toward conservative men
11. Liberal democrats who reserve a special anger for conservative blacks they’re too cowardly to direct toward conservative whites
12. Liberal democrats who reserve a special anger for conservative Jews they’re too cowardly to direct toward conservative gentiles
13. Liberal democrats who reserve a special anger for conservative gays they’re too cowardly to direct toward conservative heterosexuals
14. Liberal democrats who say you’re a “wuss” if you acknowledge that something provably deadly is, in fact, deadly
15. Any teevee show whose title contains the words “Real Housewives”
16. People who can’t go three sentences without using the word “basically.”
17. People who think Hooters is a strip bar
18. Innerwebs roll-over/popup ads
19. People who know perfectly well it’s wrong to do drugs & cut school; but because they did these things in childhood, they think they were “cool” and better people than whoever didn’t do those things
20. Any teevee program in which people sit around in a “relaxed” environment and talk…especially if they actually hold coffee mugs
21. Any teevee program in which, whenever something happens, the camera cuts away to people talking about how it makes them feel
22. People who argue with me on the innerwebs…who want me to think something, just because they think it, and they’re oh-so-really super-duper smart…and they can’t distinguish between “your” and “you’re”
22. Laws that are written badly, deliberately, to make it easier to sue people…especially labor laws
23. Hardened men who’ve spent entire lifetimes laughing at the law, who suddenly tremble in fear when “the union wants” something
24. Women who don’t work, who insist the thermostat be turned up higher in the winter than where they want it in the summer
25. Family Guy episodes in which the producers make fun of religious people
26. People who order fancy coffee drinks with whipped cream on top, but with “non fat milk” — especially when they bitch about finances
27. Anyone in a very large car with power steering who turns the steering wheel, while the car is standing still; this makes me wince
28. Girls who carry around rodent-sized dogs in purses or purse-like devices
29. Riding my bike for the better part of a hundred miles, to come home and find my outdoor fridge is unplugged and my beer is warm
30. Parade people
31. Youngsters who go to college, learn how to follow instructions, and figure out from that that they’ll make wonderful “leaders”
32. People who, for whatever reason, try to talk down Climategate.
33. Jackass
34. The Humans Are Bastards teevee trope
35. Women informing their husbands that the house has a new pet dog; forget divorce, this is grounds for execution
36. Atheists who go to court to remove “In God We Trust” from our nation’s currency
37. Mothers who readily acknowledge their sons are spoiled and weak…and then go out of their way to spoil and enable them some more
38. Dads who won’t stand up to the mothers that are spoiling and enabling their sons
39. Movies in which the military is portrayed as a coterie of men who get a perverse sexual thrill out of war
40. Movies in which the military is represented by three- and four-star generals…with full heads of hair
41. People who want to buy and read a certain book because Oprah Winfrey puts it in her book club collection
42. People who think it’s somehow noble to not have any money
43. People who think it’s noble to not have any money, to the point they’ll forfeit whatever profit they’ve rightfully earned
44. People who think it’s noble to not have any money, to the point they’ll starve their own families to try to earn their salvation
45. People who think it’s noble to not have any money, to such an extent that if anyone rich says something, they automatically assume it’s wrong
46. Tofurkey
47. Women with pierced/tattoo’d belly buttons…who show them off…in church
48. Male singers who hit notes higher than an octave above middle-C
49. Software that is re-worked so that in the next version, it is “easier” to use…but capable of doing fewer things
50. People who say Sarah Palin’s “unqualified” and can’t or won’t say exactly what happened to make them think so

I didn’t click the Borat link, so I don’t know what’s behind it. I didn’t watch the movie, either. All I know is that whenever someone tells me that I should watch that movie because it is awesome, or hilarious, or whatever, I know that I am being addressed by an idiot.
- Andy | 12/04/2009 @ 22:44
[…] Read it. […]
- DYSPEPSIA GENERATION » Blog Archive » Fifty Sick Things | 12/05/2009 @ 05:13
It’s just the imdb entry, Andy…which, ironically enough, these days is lousy with rollover/popup ads.

Most of what goes on in that movie just isn’t my “cuppa,” as Buck would say. I sat all the way through it, and if there was anything funny in it it just went flying over my head.
- mkfreeberg | 12/05/2009 @ 07:30
[…] at House of Eratosthenes has made a list of Fifty F*cking Sick Things. It’s hard to find any to disagree with, and it’s certainly appropriate that #1 is […]
- Rhymes With Cars & Girls | 12/05/2009 @ 18:59
Amen, amen, and amen.

I’m really sick and tired of a lot of things on that list, especially 8, 18, 21, 22, and 25.
- cylarz | 12/06/2009 @ 02:23
[…] Memo For File CV Ken Lee Party Crashers: A Letter to the Editor Violence Actually Solves a Lot Fifty F*cking Sick Things His Blank Slate VIII Couldn’t Have Said It Better Myself… XXII Dumping Copenhagen R and S Obama […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/06/2009 @ 08:27
How about tourist who want to do “Non-Tourist Things” The who Lonely planet people who think the idea of travel is to sleep in lice infested bungalows with people whose ide of a vacation is to take drugs and have sex with local women who are too poor to say no?

Would that fit on the list somewhere?

How about: “Sustainable Products” which appear to be a euphimism for low quality crap made by people in grass huts with dirt floor who are paid just enough to not starve but still have to live in grass huts with dirt floors
- Fai Mao | 12/06/2009 @ 21:44
Ditto on #49 – and they change how to get to the features they still have… It’s not just Microsoft, though they’re the first ones to come to mine. KDE 4 was so different I just couldn’t figure it out. Well, without that, I wouldn’t be running XFCE now – lemons to lemonade and all that… 🙂

@FaiMao – I think “sustainable” refers to the revenue stream for the producer, from whom you have to obtain replacements.
- Daniel | 12/06/2009 @ 21:55
[…] expect they’d be chomping at the bit. 20. A lot of them fall into Item #22 on my list of Fifty Fucking Sick Things. They want me to think something just because they think it — they’re so undeniably […]
- House of Eratosthenes | 12/12/2009 @ 10:40

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Fifty F*cking Sick ThingsFriday, December 4th, 2009

Fifty F*cking Sick Things
Friday, December 4th, 2009