Losing my Religion...Advertisements

People keep asking me about the “I am Mormon” billboards that are posted around town. They say things like “Hey why are they doing that?” or “What’s the point of having those up everywhere?” This just plum irritates me. Just because I’m from Utah does not mean that I have a strong relationship with the advertising executives at the Mormon compound. If I did know who these people were, I would tell them that their ads are causing a backfire and people now think they are weirder than before. Advertising your religion is in my opinion not a very good idea, and here is why:

1.       You can’t explain to people why you are advertising a life choice and belief system in 30 seconds.

2.       Let’s be honest, do you really want to claim the crazy people that say they belong to the same religion as you? (Insert polygamist joke here)

3.       The church crowd may get a little rowdy when they realize that their donations are going to billboards that will inevitably get mocked or spray painted.

4.       Your slogan should not be so close to “I am an alcoholic.”

5.       Again, people think you’re weird. 

 The next time someone asks me about these ads I think I’ll just play dumb and turn on a Donnie and Marie album, perhaps they can explain it to us.

Rats with Wings

I have an abnormal fear of birds. I say this is abnormal, because when most people think of birds they think of a delicate swan gliding across a lake, or an eagle soaring through the sky. What I see is a live weapon threatening my safety. I mean, let’s think about this, birds are really flipping scary.

1.       Their bodies are literally made like weapons. They have sharp beaks which they use to either crack open seeds or tear the skin off of their prey. Scary. They have crazy claws that can wrap around anything with their superhuman strength, and oh yeah usually those claws are sharp. Scary. Finally the dreaded wings. Wings that flap and could possibly hit or bitch slap you. Yet again, scary.

2.       Birds are carriers of disease. They eat things and then fly around from place to place spreading nastiness to the world. Can you honestly say that you want to touch something that a dirty bird has touched?

3.       Birds are uncontrollable. You can train a dog to sit, stay, and roll over. However birds are unable to understand these commands. They are unruly and erratic and could swoop in for the kill at any moment. There is nothing scarier than driving in your car and having a flock fly over as if they were enemy planes on the attack. Actually, there is something scarier-being exposed in the open air when they come squawking overhead.

I maintain that my fear of birds is probably abnormal, but I’m going to go ahead and say it’s also pretty legit.

Red Light Camera Mayhem

I feel like all of these new dangfangled traffic contraptions are really a hindrance to our transportation system. You know what I’m talking about, the red light cameras that flash you for going a centimeter over the white line, or the van that sits not so invisibly in the construction zone-they  seem to be causing more issues than benefiting us drivers.

My argument against the red light cameras is that they always seem to flash when you’re not actually running the light and you stopped a bit close, but let the car that full on blows through the light through with no problem. How is this diplomatic?  We all sit before the light, watching the crosswalk sign countdown…5 (Can I make it?), 4 (Hurry up stupid cars!), 3 (I think I can gun it), 2 (shit can’t make it, slam on breaks), 1 (Stop honking behind me, would you want a ticket?) This type of behavior just encourages people to speed through the yellow and/ or rear end the car in front of them. I think I’d rather stand on the corner and take pictures of the people that block intersections when the light changes and then look at you like “You’re actually in MY way.” Pffff.

As for those speed trap vans, I feel like they’re always sitting in the places where no one ever drives that speed  because there isn’t an actual sign indicating what the speed requirement is. What usually happens is you are driving along, and then you see a long line of red lights turning on because everyone has suddenly spotted the van and is pretending that they were going the correct speed the whole time. This action, again, causes people to get rear ended or a major traffic jam because everyone’s all of the sudden being slow. Riddle me this- how is it that our transportation system benefits from a traffic jam?

So until someone can convince me that these new technological advances in our transportation system are greatly benefiting our roads, I say down with these contraptions!

Conservative Liberalism

Recently, I came across a book by the title Conservative Comebacks for Liberal Lies. While my first instinct was to vomit on site, I have to admit the book made me think. Of course my first thought was “Who the f*ck writes this stuff?” but then let’s be honest, someone is writing this because people will buy it. I love how both conservatives and liberals try and sell things. There is an instant stereotype for the conservative aka “Hey pal, why don’t you come thump bibles with me while we go pump some oil with our twin NRA hats on.” And then you also have the liberal alternative of “Hey sugarplum, have you harvested our wheat grass today so that we can walk barefoot down to the peace demonstration?” You laugh, but honestly no matter what side you are on, don’t you find entertainment in just how stupid your opponent is?

I think my favorite part of the conservative/liberal movement is how people express their ideas. This is especially fun when two people from opposing beliefs try and have a discussion. I would just like to be clear, here and now, that no matter how loud you raise your voice, how hard you hit the table, or how many points you can come up with on your fingers, you are never going to change anyone’s  mind. You’d think that people would’ve figured out by now that arguing with someone isn’t exactly the best way to convert them to your side of the aisle. Uh yeah, actually that just makes them hate you even more.

In my mind there are only two ways that we can solve this:

1.       Everybody needs to stop talking about politics

2.       Our politicians need to actually do what we elected them to do (novel concept yes?)

So be you liberal or conservative, I only ask you this: only vote if you’re informed, otherwise we don’t need your dumb opinion anyway. Oh yeah, and don’t buy stupid books.

Sports Fans

The scent of the Superbowl is in the air and with this comes a great topic of discussion- sports fans. It is actually quite strange how excited we can all get about a game that usually involves a few simple rules, a single ball, and a lot of skill.  Everyone has a sport that they enjoy more than others, however I have found that there are typically three types of fans that you can find for any sport. They are as follows:

#1 The Diehard Fan

Diehard fans are probably some of the most intense people you’ll meet in your lives. You know who they are because 90% of their wardrobe is based around their team’s colors. They are the types that can spout off the names of every player including their height, weight, birthday, shoelace color and batting average. They argue at the top of their lungs saying “Well back in ’07 they had an average scoring percentage of 98%, what the hell is happening this year?” These people remind me of my dad whose daily mood is determined by the score of the Dodgers game, or my boyfriend who has a Rockies shrine in his basement and claps loudly at the TV when Helton scores even if we’re in the middle of dinner at a restaurant. To these diehard fans, their team, and their sport, is life.

#2 The Fair Weather Fan

Fair weather fans are fairly easy to spot. A key indicator of a fair weather fan is someone who claims to be the “biggest fan ever” one week, and then seems to be having a multiple personality moment the next. As a resident of Colorado, I think a key spot that you can find this is in Broncos “fans”. The Denver Broncos, like all football teams, have a fairly large following. However if you are a fellow Donkey fan, you know that we’ve been through a lot of changes over the past few years. Most recently we were the center stage for Tebow-mania. Tebow must have some kind of musky scent that brings the fair weather fans out of their homes, because all of the sudden everyone became the ultimate fan. This was most especially true when Tebow and the Broncos won. However, just one Sunday later Tebow sucks and the Broncos are horrible because they lost. By the time the next seven days roll by and Tebow scores the winning touchdown in overtime, we’re back to Tebow is tits and I believe in Mile High Magic! With so much back and forth, I’m considering changing their names to seesaw fans.

#3 The Bandwagon fan

Now in my personal opinion, the bandwagon fan is the worst kind of fan that there is. You’ll be able to identify the bandwagon fan as the moron at Sports Authority buying the “Green Monstah” shirt the night before the big game. These “fans” start watching the game, merely to see what the hell everyone else is talking about, and then they attempt to join in the conversation to sound cool. “Hey guys did you see that layup that Michael J. put up last night?” Your response to this should be: “Uh, no. MJ designs clothes now and watches Space Jam every Friday. WTF are you talking about.” Now I’m not saying I’ve never been on the bandwagon, but let’s be real here kids- unless you’re from the same town as the team, there’s a hot shortstop, or you have a good friend that likes that team, hop off the bandwagon.

Now even though there are three distinct types of fans, the fact of the matter is that at one point or another, we’ve all been one. The question that we all need to ask ourselves is why do we care so much about a game? Let’s discuss this over some peanuts and crackerjacks.