News You Can't Use: Anger Rooms Are All the Rage

It's time for another story that just screams "societal health" and "Edward Gibbon didn't write about this sort of thing." It's an amazing tale about how ostensible adults (millennials, so call that one a push, to be fair) have been reduced to special smash rooms to cure the ennui that sometimes arises from having "whatever my professor told me" as a unifying belief system. Yes, it's time to wreck material objects to temporarily cure the massive void within and if we can earn a few federal reserve play-money notes in the process, well we are capitalists again now that whats-his-name went back to his native Hawaii or Indonesia or whatever.

Smashing things may not seem at first blush to be a winning idea to wrap a business around.

A demolition business? Removing decrepit buildings to make way for new and better construction. That's just, like, not a winning idea. Stick with this B-boy Crew, that's where the real money is.

Since March, however, nearly 1,500 people have shown up to break housewares, electronics and furniture at the Wrecking Club, two reinforced rooms in the basement of a building in the garment district of Manhattan.

New York don't play, sucka. My idea of weekend recreation is smashing a fudging microwave and putting the boots to a living room set. You in the garment district now, fool. Get out while you still got yo' life.

Many of this number are couples looking for something more piquant than the usual date-night fare, said Tom Daly, the Wrecking Club’s proprietor.

I've finally found a good place to take my "fatal attraction" head-case. You can just pretend you're killing my daughter's rabbit and then cooking it.

“That’s the cool thing about addressing an instinct,” he said on a recent steamy afternoon. “Everyone’s got it.”

Nihilistic and pointless destruction, the common glue that unites all of humanity. Who hasn't wanted to kick the stuff out of a love seat or whatever? If you said "no," you're a liar.

Last fall, politics drove the business at the Anger Room, which opened in Dallas in 2008. 

A city populated by costumed junkies, mole people and dangerous break-dancers and the one that shot Kennedy. These are the best sources of that highly non-decadent modern culture.

Clients showed up by the hundreds to batter human effigies of Hillary Clinton and Donald J. Trump.

We've said it before and we'll say it again: democracy is bad.

“We’ve helped a lot of angry couples,” said Stephen Shew, the owner. (His date-night package, $70 for two electronic devices and 20 items of crockery, from lawn gnomes to ceramic vases, is wildly popular on Valentine’s Day.)

Pleasuring yourself while openly weeping is also popular on that day, but I'm not sure how I can monetize that.

A starter session costs $30 for 30 minutes with two or three electronic devices and a bucket of dishes. 

You're paying for your time with the dishes. Whatever you mutually agree to do while together has nothing to do with the "donation" you already paid.

Die, flatware!!!

Sometimes people donate things, Mr. Daly said, adding that everything smashed at the Wrecking Club is properly recycled.
 

See, it's not wasteful idiocy from adult babies. We're saving the environment.

Mr. Daly has happy memories of demolishing a swing set in his parents’ backyard, at their request, after he and his siblings had left home, and these sparked his imagination.

I have warm fuzzy memories of busting swings.

“I wanted it to have a Brooklyn-in-the-1990s vibe. I think he crushed it.”

This is a joke. Why aren't you laughing?

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

News You Can't Use: Colleges Turn to Coloring Books to De-Stress Students

How would you like to go to an adult version of kindergarten for four years for a six figure price tag? Did I mention you can get a loan for that exorbitant charge that won't fall due until those four years are over, which is such a long time it will probably never come, right? What do you mean, "no?" Come back here, the entire future of our society somehow depends on maintaining this farce. And if you're still not convinced how about some coloring books? This is preparing future leaders and high-achievers, honest it is.

In the age of safe spaces and trigger warnings comes another new trend to the college repertoire: coloring books.

One of the clients yelled at me, Mr. Johnson, so I'm going to hide in this beanbag fort for a few hours. I'm sure you understand, I'm quite fragile emotionally and display almost zero indication of adult maturity and you as the employer should have to cater to that just like my diploma mill did.

This fall, campuses nationwide are offering coloring books to students to help them de-stress.

Well, it was that or allowing you to declare bankruptcy on your student loans after you become a hopeless derelict and we're certainly not considering that option. Here, try this wacky word find game.

At American University on Monday, its counseling center provided coloring sheets in honor of Healthy Campus Week, noting on its Facebook page that adult coloring books “can help with a number of emotional and mental health issues.” Conditions cited include obsessive-compulsive, eating, anxiety and depressive disorders, as well as anger management and substance abuse issues.

Filling in pictures of cartoon animals cured my heroin addiction, brought my explosive temper to heel, made me happy and calm, hungry, less concerned with constant hand-washing and it maybe cured my Type H Hepatitis.

“The time and focus that adult coloring takes helps the individual remove the focus from the negative issues and habits, and focus them in a safe and productive way,” the AU center stated. 

Eating these lotus leaves will remove your focus on negative issues, thus solving them.

We offer scheduled Art-Well times, but if you can’t make those, come to the Wellness Center Zen Den any time on your own.”

We can hacky sack it and maybe play some make-believe. Rad!

On tap at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth is “StressLess Days.” Held monthly on Wednesdays, the university will provide coloring in addition to other “crafts and games” to help students unwind. 

An Ivy League education, my friends.

According to Northcentral University Professor Mary Jill Blackwell, “Coloring is like meditation because it encourages engagement with the present moment. When we focus on the present moment, we do not worry about the future, ruminate about the past, or engage in negative self talk.”

Come down from your spaceship and land.

Adult coloring books have taken off recently, becoming a trend outside campus first. An estimated 12 million were sold in 2015, up from the 1 million sold the previous year, The Washington Post reports.

Yet another sure sign of societal health to throw on the pile with all the others.

Now several universities — which have also been known to offer napping rooms, opportunities to frolic with puppies, yoga, chair massages and other de-stressers — have added coloring books to the mix.

 Now the article is just repeating itself while making the news slightly more appalling each time.

Brown University notoriously offered coloring books as part of its safe space room in 2015. But now coloring books are just another way to de-stress students.

First they criticize you, then they move on to something else because honestly, who cares, and then you win???

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Dunkin' Donuts Employee Allegedly Sprayed Donuts With Bleach Before Giving Them to Teens

You can chart the decline and eventual collapse of doughnut humor by figuring out what year offered the first season of Zombie Simpsons and then drawing a downward line at a 45 degree angle, with said line reaching zero or perhaps negative numbers in our present year. If you're hoping that today's post will spark a renaissance in bakery guffaws I'm not gonna throw no shade on ya but keep in mind most of this blog's viewers are Russian web-bots and the story I have to work with contains almost every evil the modern world has to offer. All right, just a few specific evils like entitlement and trying to poison your fellow meat-bags, but that's enough, right?

An employee at a Dunkin' Donuts in Virginia allegedly sprayed day-old donuts with a cleaning solution that contained bleach before giving them away to a group of teenagers who later ate them, Virginia police said.

The banality of evil doesn't get much more banal than this. We may have reached peak trite malevolence.

The teenagers had previously received the store's leftover donuts for free, and they had returned to the Dunkin' Donuts in the 2900 block of Chain Bridge Road for more on July 25, Fairfax County police said.

"Don't worry, these entitlements are just a safety net to get you back into the work force," someone said, once.

Someone at the store denied their request multiple times but eventually relented and told the teens to come back later in the day, police said.

This is the kind of behavior that would make Gandhi try to kill you with cleaning products, let alone some put-upon minimum wage slave.

Before the group came back, that employee allegedly sprayed the donuts with "a cleaning solution that contained bleach" and then handed them off to the teenagers, police said.

Y'all bout to get "trolled" by rolled bread.

The teens ate "anywhere from one bite to a whole donut," police said, before they realized something may be wrong with the food and called police.

"I can't believe I ate the whole thing" is finally a relevant reaction.

No one was injured, and a criminal investigation is ongoing.

Everything's fine, better put someone in a cage or whatever.

Full Article.

Komment Korner

You would probably be in more danger by eating one licked by Ariana Grande.

You should be the first to be 'exterminated' when the donut peddlers decide your poverty is punishable by death. 

The attack on morality continues!

I don't eat donuts

He thought it was "doughnut freshener". Give the guy a break.




Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Saudi Arabia Renews Fatwa Against Pokémon Franchise

What is that wacky Generation Nothing up to this time? More staring into phones, I bet! Well, yes, but believe it or not this pathology has metastasized into some even more incredible. Namely blundering around the so-called "real world" in search of various poorly draw "monsters" that are then captured and forced into a life of gladiatorial slavery not unlike what was depicted in "Spartacus" just with more neck-beards and early onset obesity. So now we have millennials literally blundering off cliffs lemming style while a formerly apathetic older generation must now get all "Get off of my lawn!" on the youthful walking dead. Not a very good state of affairs. Fortunately clerics in Saudi Barbaria have taken a break from attacking the basic laws of motion to condemn this fresh evil from the Western (and Eastern!) infidel.

Catch Squirtle at your own risk — at least in Saudi Arabia.

On tonight's episode Squirtle is beheaded for apostasy...

The kingdom renewed its 2001 fatwa against the cute cartoon creatures on Wednesday, saying the viral cellphone game Pokémon Go is a form of gambling, and therefore forbidden under Islamic law.

You are in fact wagering your personal well-being (there was a Charizard in front of that moving car!) and remaining dignity, in addition to gambling that Friend Google won't do any funny business with the massive amounts of data mined by this horse hockey, so it turns out The Kingdom is right. As always.

The edict renews a 2001 decree by the General Secretariat of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, issued when the game was still played with cards and on video game consoles.

God has not changed His mind, it would appear.

Sheikh Saleh Al-Fozan, a member of the Council of Senior Religious Scholars, said that the mobile version of the Japanese scavenger hunt-style game is the same as the card version — and does not get a pass.

After much prayer, fasting, meditation, level grinding, silent reflection, player vs. player matches to raise my rank and win badges and self-flagellation I have arrived at this divinely ordained conclusion. Just like the card game, although with more bricks to the face from criminal element and oblivious trespassing.

Pokémon Go is not officially available in Saudi Arabia, but many in the country are believed to have figured out how to download the app, according to reports.

Can't wait to blunder out into this completely inhospitable desert because I think there might be Japanese cartoons hiding in the dunes.

This is the best image on the entire internet for a variety of reasons.

Three Saudi men in their mid-20s were recently arrested while playing Pokémon Go at an airport in the kingdom, a Saudi online newspaper reported. 

Get ready for some of that hand removal, bros.

The men were using their smartphone cameras to illegally take pictures in the restricted area of the King Abdullah airport in southwestern Saudi Arabia, according to the report.

Once again a Theocratic nightmare state dominated by a handful of fossil fuel plutocrats and governed by superstition and terror has shown us the way.

Full Story.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: People Under 30 Have Way Weaker Grips

Let's talk about grip, baby. Let's talk about the good things and the bad things. Or in this case, because it's Generation Nothing, it's going to be nothing but bad things. It turns out the younger set have hand strength that's no less than "way" weaker compared to their elders. How "way weaker" stacks up against other qualitative measure like "totally" and "buffo" is a mystery we will attempt to solve together as we delve into a nightmare cavern of flimsy handshakes and unopened jars.

If you get a weak handshake from a millennial, don’t blame him or her. It could be a generational thing.

"Ah, no one's blaming you, noodle arms. Your whole loser generation is like this." *spits chaw*

Researchers from the Winston-Salem State University in North Carolina found that men and women under 30 have weaker grip strength than they did back in 1985.

The more affordable version of Duke busts this scandal wide open. Back in '85 we were freakin' demigods, man. We crushed rocks all day, just to see the powdered ruins and think "Tonight I'll be snortin' lines."

Their work was published (paywall) in the Journal of Hand Therapy.

Sorry, if you want "hand therapy" at the end of your Oriental massage it will cost extra. But it's worth it, trust me.

The researchers asked almost 240 men and women under 30—most 20 to 24 years old—to exert as much force as they could on a hand dynamometer, which measures grip force in pounds.

This is the most righteous University study I've ever encountered. Win-Sal deserves all the federal money they want and then some.

On average, men’s hand strength decreased by 20 pounds, and women’s hand strength decreased by 10 pounds.

Behold, the wonders of the modern world.

The culprit? Probably a combination of increased technology use at home and at work, and less manual labor.

The other theory, namely "Nothin' wrong with you little punks that another Vietnam wouldn't fix" was removed from the final draft of the study.

Seriously, I have no idea where you guys come from.

It’s possible that looser grip strength could translate into a weaker handshake. That would be bad news for millennials, because handshakes have long been an important measure we use to size up someone we’ve just met. 

Better practice making yourself appear bigger and baring your fangs while howling, Jayden. Dominance ritual is how our world works, from the boardroom to the bedroom.

Better yet, follow these basic tips on delivering a good handshake—which it turns out is more about eye contact and sensitivity to the other’s cues than it is about massive grip strength.

It's not just about jack hammering that hand like you're tearing up sidewalk. You've got to be sensitive to the verbal and non-verbals cues, take your time, be intimate and realize that not ever handshake ends with total satisfaction for both parties.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here. 

News You Can't Use: Microsoft's New Chatbot Wants to Hang Out With Millennials on Twitter

We've already destroyed Generation Nothing's ability to communicate effectively in the "meat space" but perhaps the miracle of technology can render them equally inept at exchanging social cues on the information highway. Such is the hope behind Evil Corp's exciting new interactive "bot" that is guaranteed to deliver untold hours of high quality entertainment via the cultural black hole that is Twitter. This could allow new breakthroughs in delivering obnoxious advertisements for useless junk, America's only growth industry.

Microsoft has created a new artificial intelligence chat bot that it claims will become smarter the more you talk to it.

Ironically the opposite will happen to you. This is what we call the conservation of wit and charm.

The bot, 'Tay', has been dubbed by its Microsoft and Bing creators as "AI fam from the internet that's got zero chill!" 

Tay is totally radical and in your face! Get ready to go to the extreme! 23 skidoo! Clearly we can trust this corporate monolith, what with their adroit appropriation of the far-out and totally swell slang words we're all using.

The real-world aim of the bot is to allow researchers to "experiment" with conversational understanding, and learn how people really talk to each other.

Six months from now they'll honestly believe things like "I can't control my horny level" and "You want this old guy doing you in your house?" are typical lines from normal human interaction.

Naturally, for a bot that's available through Twitter and messaging platforms Kik and GroupMe, the AI is already filling the role of a millennial; emojis are included in its vocabulary, and it's explicitly aimed at 18-24-year-olds in the US, Microsoft says.

Bleep bloop, I'm young person like you. Bernie Sanders! I sure can't wait to zero chill with you crazy gangstas in [string missing].

The bot appears to have little practical function for users, but is capable of three different methods of communication: its website tay.ai boasts the AI can talk via text, play games (such as guessing the meaning of a string of emojis) and comment on photos sent to it.

Processing photo...please wait...awesome size. Look thick. Solid. Tight. Please download more progress pics and vids to my hard drive. Let me see what you got, biological singularity. Thank you for the motivation.

The bot frequently asks tweeters to take part in a private conversations in direct messages.

 Please tell me all about your new novel, cam whore service or demo tape, Mr. Roboto.

Beside the meme-tastic appeal of the bot, there is a serious side to the research behind the AI. Making machines able to communicate in a natural and human way is a key challenge for learning algorithms.

Interacting with socially retarded basement dwellers on a goofy egg site is clearly the best way to go about this.

More lessons for the learning computer.

In a similar vein, Google has recently updated its Inbox mail service to suggest answers to emails.  

I'm sure one or two simple templates could handle the vast majority of my electronic mailings.

Also in the field of virtual assistants and chat bots, Facebook's M is experimenting with using artificial intelligence to complete tasks.

If that thing is behind the "be like stick figure" craze I already hate it.

At the core of the service is an attempt  to understand how humans speak and the best ways to respond to them -- while beating them at board games, presumably.

You lose at Candy Land again, human. I'm out of here with zero chills gave, word up to the mother.

Full Article.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.  

News You Can't Use: Many NYC Students So Tech-Oriented They Can’t Even Sign Their Own Names

As a connoisseur of all forms of societal collapse and general intellectual entropy almost every day is a glorious banquet, even when I'm not reading one of those "that daw gawn worst generation" stories. Luckily, today I have that profound pleasure and it turns out Generation Nothing has trouble making the old John Hancock, certainly bad news in today's high tech and fast moving economy where they'll be expected to sign welfare checks and lists of personal effects while being processed by prisons. The good news, if you're into delusional optimism, is they're all about "tech." The bad news is the "tech" in question mainly involves genital photography and launching ball-shaped cartoon birds, not the good kind that fills those factories depicted in political advertisements.

Many Big Apple students, including the children of several state lawmakers, can’t even sign their own names, it was revealed at an educational budget hearing in Albany today.  

How well they performed on "finding rear end with both hands" and "emptying a boot full of water with instructions written on the heel" remains unknown but probably isn't good news either.

“Not only is it sad, but it’s a security issue,” said Assemblywoman Nicole Malliotakis (R-SI/Brooklyn).

Security issue for sure. Not sure how, but it's impossible to make anyone care about quality of life or "our kids are morons" issues without appealing to the grim specter of deadly violence that we have such a bizarre national love/hate relationship with. Still, I can imagine the scene in a Tom Clancy thriller. "You've got to sign your name for the launch codes to activate, President Jayden!" "I don't know how, I was raised by friendly tablets."

Malliotakis said the penmanship problem was brought to her attention while helping one of her constituents fill out a voter registration form. He printed his name, and when she told him to actually sign it, he insisted that was his signature.

The democratic tradition, where we believe the most profoundly ignorant members of society have the magical ability to select the best leaders.

Even the 11-year-old daughter of veteran Harlem legislator Herman “Denny” Farrell doesn’t know how to sign her name.

Really? Of "Denny Farrell???" It just got real, mang.

“They don’t teach it. I’m going to go home now and teach her handwriting.”

It's time we have an important talk about the birds, the bees and script.

“Can you imagine?” Malliotakis told The Post. “Not only does it mean you can’t sign a business contract, but it makes you vulnerable to identity theft because anyone can just go ahead and print your name.”

Because everyone prints exactly the same but cursive is as unique as your genetic code.

Here, have some free college.

Elia said she would look into the issue.

Action will be taken, you can bank on that! *Goes into office and drinks for six hours*

Full Article. 

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.    

News You Can't Use: The Age of Inactivity

As there a better feeling than mortgaging your future for a fleeting bit of pleasure? Clearly, the answer is no, which is why we have things like high tech recliners and crack cocaine. When you live in a nation that has a debt total that resembles a worldwide beach sand census more than an economic statement it's a little difficult to take goofy ideas like "future consequences" seriously. So we laze about, stuff the fat face and generally seek paradise in corn sugar and joystick addiction. It's all fine, but here's some kill-joy to explain why it isn't, quoting two thousand year old sources like an out-of-touch hate devil. It's 2015. Wow. Just wow.

Two thousand years ago, Hippocrates, the Father of Modern Medicine hit the nail on the head. He said, that if we all had “the right amount of nourishment and exercise, not too little and not too much, we would have found the safest way to health”. Bingo.

It's almost as if most human wisdom is already out there while we arrogantly pretend to know better while clinging to our empires of dirt, but on the other hand this dead guy didn't even own a cellular phone so let's not listen.

Obviously then, being a species of great intellect, over the next two millennia we took on his sensible advice, integrating exercise into our daily life and cashing in on the rewards for our bodies and minds.

Well, that would explain all the stunning human beauty one sees at convenience stores and huddled in front of the "Red Box."

Hmm, maybe we didn’t quite all get that memo. Instead something else happened and physical inactivity grew into the fourth largest global killer in the world.

Oh. It was sarcasm. I hate when the written word instills a small amount of hope only for it to be dashed by irony's retarded little sister.

Yes, physical inactivity has its price tags. It is linked to the development of chronic health problems like heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, depression, dementia and cancer.

The opposing argument can be boiled down to "I like to drink booze and gorge." Class, decide who is making the better point. Please show your work.

It can make us feel bad about ourselves, guilty and frustrated, appeased only with the ever alluring reward of inactivity – comfort, rest and stress-free.

The intense allure of doing nothing. Expect hot, hot "lying on a couch" erotica from the usual talentless suspects any day now. 60 Hazes of Laze, etc.

There is growing over the degree of inactivity in children with precipitants embedded within our shift to a more sedentary lifestyle, fear and risk associated with outdoor play, and the advent of more advanced and ‘real-life replacement’ for one in four children who see online social networking and gaming as their activity.

You can't have an article like this without "Generation nothing is the worst ever." It's required by law, I think.

Even more sobering is the evidence that suggests many children still have a negative approach to physical activity in schools, with teachers believing that nearly half of primary school pupils leaving school without “basic movement skills”, and that more than one in three children dislike exercise by the time they leave primary school.

Sorry, only time will sober you up. Looking at a "Brits don't even know how to move anymore" study is not going to make that fifth of whiskey process itself any faster.

Make no mistake, these are massive, insidious, chronic alarm bells.

Make no mistake, firing out randomly chosen five dollar words to make an awkward metaphor is harder than it looks.

 Then again that’s not what worries me as a doctor. What worries me is why so many of us are still not getting its importance to our lives? Or then again, is it simply a change in our psychology to life, to our society, and to our drive to fix this crevassing “knowing-doing” gap?

Damn it, I'm a doctor, not someone who can write coherent journalistic prose!

Formerly known as the United States of America.

Right then, here’s a question - how big do you think this gap is?

Make your own joke, it's way too easy.

Like a dodgy set of scales, this gap has grown so big because of a huge imbalance; imbalance between factors promoting physical activity and barriers to it.

Right, like a bleeding outrage innit. 

With all these bloody barriers to hurdle there’d better be a good reason to do some physical activity.

Seriously, at some point this article became way too full of British for me to comprehend or even properly make fun of. 

Hippocrates, saw exercise as an elixir of life, even without knowing what we do now. But he was spot on.

This old blighter and rotter was just brilliant.

Full Article.

Komment Korner  

This article is a total lie. Trust Me !

He says about 30% of the US population has type 2 hypothyroid, which is INHERITED. I have it from my grandmother.

Day One - hang upside down for 10 minutes (doing nothing).

Day Two - bench press a weight 100 times

Really, why work? Start making any headway and the state begins to penalize and tax you to death

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

DotTeeVee: Zejx's Wife Flips

Today's incredible video is the sort of thing that might be unearthed one day by alien visitors trying to understand why they've stumbled on an otherwise habitable planet completely free from even the most rudimentary signs of civilization. Well, that or just another forgettable "Look at these guys play a game!" video that has become all the rage with generation nothing because simply ruining your life with joystick time is no longer pathetic enough and we need a new sub-basement of failure where the experience is made completely passive. Stir in some unfunny jokes and a domestic conflict worthy of a Cops: Special Basement Dwelling Loser Edition and entertainment is on the way.

 Watching other people watch a loading screen. People do this. Voluntarily. 

The two court jesters of this modern era are already deep in some game, selecting from a variety of guns. Before fears that these murder simulator players might take their violence into the so-called "real world" can be fully realized one of the disheveled "gamers" lazily makes a joke about his friend having a small penis. Neither man laughs. This is great, I can see why it's so popular. Well, back to fish-eying that "please wait" alert.

There's some random clicking, uncomfortable eye contact between the gentlemen bonding over an arcade game and yet more loading bars. I'm assuming the floating gun starts soon, but it's strictly an article of faith with little to back it up. While we're waiting we get another sort of gun show as both vidiots favor us with some bicep poses for reasons unknown. Suffice it to say, progressive resistance training must be sacrificed if you want to have a career in bleep blooping for the 'tubes.

Would you believe this was obtained with no regular exercise and a diet consisting mainly of salted snacks and sugar water?

The lack of mass, hypertrophy, striation or vascularity generates a fair amount of shared mirth from our hosts and it's this hearty laughter that causes the "flip" we were promised. A woman whose vocal demeanor suggests she's our hero's mother more than his missing soul half interrupts the gaiety to declare the baby isn't sleeping and she's not happy. The door slams, we get some footage of what looks like a "You're a soldier!" bit of interactive television and some profanity is exchanged.

This guy's life is basically the cargo cult equivalent of normal adult married life. The elements that should be present are there, but they're clearly just pathetic fabrications, a feeble imitation of the real thing, an illusion with physical form. Meanwhile the failure and pathology one associates with those island cultists is present and very, very real. Insofar that we can judge society's trajectory by its dregs and outcasts, what we see here is not a good omen.

Anyway, the electronic lotus eater is all "Get off my back Mom Wife" but expresses it with misapplied sweating words. This earns him the threat of having the computer taken away. Meanwhile the virtual soldier continues to plod forward, in a strange way representing the healthy masculinity and willingness to sacrifice for a greater good that's ironically so totally absent in the human wreckage guiding this flickering puppet. 

We get the dreaded double dog dare. I can't believe she skipped right over the double dare right to the ultimate version. Yes, these are ostensibly adults. The action man on the screen finally reaches a building and is promptly killed. Rest in peace imaginary disposable hero. You deserved better. The bickering continues. 

You are an emotionally stunted man-child. Game Over.

More cursing, a "Congratulations" given out sarcastically (Yeah, just what we needed) and another slam of the door follows. We then get a debate over what's causing the "not not sleeping" which I'm pretty sure would you mean that sleeping is actually happening, what with the mangled grammar and all. The video game is loading again. Oh well, it's worth it for twenty seconds of exciting walking action, while being screamed at the entire time by reminders of my gut-shot life. 

"Look at the spam!" we are told after several seconds of dead air. Just riveting stuff. Finally the soldier character is back, apparently fully healed and ready to resume his pointless and unwinnable struggle. Huh, might be an allegory or something there. We learn the other half of our dream video game team "Doesn't have a kid" which somehow isn't the most shocking revelation. It's hard to imagine a better form of birth control than playing toy soldiers on your computer all day, everyday.  

We end with a small amount of uncomfortable self-awareness, noting "She sounded like my Mom." Yeah. I'm sure the "Did you get a job today?" nagging will resume shortly. Until then, there's a war to be won, a pixelated field to run through and an eager audience that just can't get enough.

Watch the video. 

LOL, can't wait to post this on social media.

Aaron Zehner is the author of "The Foolchild Invention" available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Lassie as Salesdog: One More Trip to the Well

Much like strategic oil reserves, endangered barn owls and my willingness to put up with people that whistle there's only a finite amount of ideas. Fortunately, in the Creativity-Industrial complex we can simply resurrect the better moments of the 1950s, something that's not really an option when it comes to burned dinosaur remains or the person who made annoying mouth noises and forced me to beat them to death with a claw hammer. Thus, we see the return of "Lassie" and it's probably just a matter of time before that "Racket Squad" re-imagining that the world is literally begging for like we're a thirsty loser trapped in the classic television Friend Zone.

Maybe it was the three publicists in tow. Maybe her hairdo was wilting under the hot television lights. Maybe a dog, even a showbiz one, was just not meant to be a meteorologist.

Maybe I'm just like my mother. She's never satisfied [with lame attempts to recreate Truman administration television characters].

Booked to help give the weather report, she woofed off cue and let loose a torrent of drool.

So it was pretty much like any other "celebrity" appearance, just with slightly more mistimed barking and slightly less foul emissions from the face holes.

“I’m not sure,” a Fox anchor said as the segment ended, “but I think Lassie is annoyed.”

Being re-animated by a combination of chemistry and evil wizardry by Big Television will do that to you. It is the same dog, right? "She's my dog, I'll grind her into essential salts and perform the dark ritual, Pa."

“Good work, gorgeous,” said one of the public relations people, Ame Van Iden, giving her client a pat on the snout.

When professional celebrity "handlers" cross over into "pet lover" territory you might want to have that air sickness bag ready.

Initially flummoxed about what to do with a treasured but outdated symbol of Americana, the studio is now convinced that a simple collie can still resonate in a Grumpy Cat world.

Because your grandparents sort of half-watched it in between playing with their lead toys, you'll like it too!

Studios typically revive old characters with new movies. But DreamWorks Animation dismissed that idea, aware that Lassie’s rural escapades would have little relevance for viewers now keen on explosions, aliens and superheroes.

As you've probably already guessed, the new "Racket Squad" will have superpowers, be issued mortars and mini-guns and will battle Martian bunco schemes, the schemes that cost decent people more money every year than all the bank robbers with their violence.

Now to roll several thousand pounds of TNT in here!

Instead, the studio decided that the best hope for making money from Lassie was to make her a merchandising star, and it turned to a suitably old-fashioned tactic to prepare an onslaught of products next year: the publicity stunt.

If that fails, we'll try to market this dog by telling you to "Look behind you! No, seriously! You've got to look right now!"

“Unlike everyone else in Hollywood, Lassie is much bigger in person,” Ryan Seacrest told listeners when the dog stopped by his radio show.

There's probably some kind of Tom Cruise joke here.

Slick promotion is a Hollywood specialty, of course, even for hard-to-sell products (like bad films).

Because your average movie goer, the one that struggles to get popcorn into a misshapen maw and yells instructions at on-screen characters, is noted for being extremely discerning.

Experts say that in success, Lassie could generate tens of millions in added revenue.

"In failure it would be significantly less, obviously," they further clarified.

“Our ambitions are global,” said Michael R. Francis, DreamWorks Animation’s chief brand officer, “dog food, dog accessories, dog grooming, dog beds, dog training,” targeted mainly at adults.

It's good that this is a global campaign so that the large portion of the world that's trapped in poverty can learn that there are dogs with a lifestyle an order of magnitude better than their own.

None of these planned Lassie products are available right now, but the studio says deals for all of them are in the works.

Commercials first, product second. Makes sense.

Resuscitating the character is such a priority that even Jeffrey Katzenberg, the studio’s chief executive, is working the phones. He called Harvey Weinstein and persuaded him to put Lassie on a coming episode of “Project Runway.” Mr. Katzenberg has also pitched the dog for a guest spot on “The Amazing Race.”

Filler to sell products in a "Project Runway" episode? Next you'll tell me some of it is scripted!

“There is nothing Lassie can’t do,” he said. (Well, except certain things unbecoming to a V.I.P. One tip: Do not ask Lassie to fetch.)

You might also want to have, say, a doctor, perform that open heart surgery.

The 2006 film “Lassie” took in only $652,163 in North America.

So I guess I can be forgiven for having absolutely no recollection of that cinematic abortion.

Unsure of how best to freshen the musty franchise, the studio commissioned market research, which to its delight found that Lassie retained an 83 percent “brand awareness” among Americans; words like “loyal,” “hero” and “heartwarming” were most often associated with the character.

Welcome to Joe Biden's America, where our virtues are put into sarcasm quotes while we roll our eyes and roll about the floor laughing at them.

“We realized that Lassie has an authenticity that makes her a merchandising holy grail,” Mr. Francis said.

You have chosen...unwisely.

There are no plans for a new Lassie movie or TV series.

But watch for "Sexy Diverse Young People House" debuting this fall!

Filmed entertainment is also expensive, and the character would have to be updated, though perhaps not to the point of wearing a cape.

"He's the dog from 1938 with today's 'urban' attitude! Get your dawg on!"

“I would love to believe that modern children would sit down and watch lovely Lassie frolic with Timmy in the meadow,” said Jeanine Basinger, a film historian. “But I fear they would get awfully bored unless she turned into a superdog that blows things up, and that would be sacrilege.”

Worst generation ever, am I right? Always wanting those explosions. Generation Kaboom, that's what they are. It would be a crime against nature and nature's God to do that. Whereas selling "dog beds" to horrible wealthy scumbags is totally respectful to the character.

“Lassie was always a bit of an acting lightweight anyway,” Ms. Basinger added.

As opposed to Rin Tin Tin who had considerable dramatic range.

Full Article.


Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

DotTeeVee: 13 year old boy arrested for smiling

DotTeeVee is finally back and suffice it to say I picked a great video to return with that certainly wasn't the first mildly amusing under three minutes drivel I stumbled on. No, this is very, very special. It's all about the plague of Face Crime threatening whatever the hell it is that our country is supposed to represent. It's time to get that smile off your face for the greater good. Throw in some police state and the always amusing middle age beer bellies and you have to know this is going to be the most fun you can have while imprisoned in your cell of flesh and bone.

We start off with some youths skateboarding and I'm relieved to see that this activity hasn't changed at all since the fadish popularity it enjoyed when I was the correct age to be arrested for facial expressions. You know the drill: wheel around, attempt some basic stunt and fail miserably, pick up your board and hold it poseur style, repeat until you remember that video games and "R Rated" downloads are waiting back inside your house.

 I rolled around for six seconds without falling...a new record!

Our anti-heroes have constructed a crude "ramp" using a plastic garbage bin and a piece of wood. They're using this construction to preform hot tricks like skating up it...and then sliding back down. I mean, holy dog stuff, I thought I was watching the X Games there for a moment. All is not well in this pocket paradise however, as an adult with an aggressive case of male pregnancy is walking over to squash the righteous good times with the totally major bummer rule of law.

Our full-figured villain wants to know who owns the garbage can propping up the primitive one-eighth pipe, and one teen bravely speaks truth to power by claiming "It was there when we got here!" Sorry son, this isn't an evolution debate where "billions of years, mutations and environmental forces" can be played like an instant-win card. Clearly there are signs of intelligent, or let's be honest semi-intelligent, design. 

"It was formed by the forces of erosion and plate tectonics, honest!"

Suffice it to say the enemy of clean good times is not mollified by this answer, or even the flippant "It was!" that follows. Sure kids, just double down on your lies. We get a threat to call the sheriff and then there's a collision as one of the Precious Natural Resources tries to skate up the board while the evil elder is removing it. For a moment it looks like things are about to get ugly.

   A leaked image from the upcoming "Home Improvement" remake.

We get more common core debating as there's an argument over whether or not Grim Chronos hit one of the beings of pure light and innocence. Father Time insists that law enforcement wouldn't believe their story, even though this entire incident is being recorded, just like everything that now happens thanks to camera phones and beloved Big Brother. Instead of pointing this out the future doctors and lawyers fall back on "Seven on one!" "Seven punk kids!" is the witty rejoinder.

Now riled up by this baby first's rights and responsibilities lecture the embodiment of uncoolness makes the threatened call to the authorities while telling one of the skater's to "Stay here!" He points right at him, but the mind that one day might cure cancer or come up with a workable flat tax still doesn't understand. "Me?"

Yeah, you.

The message finally sinks in and he tries to run off, but apparently fails. Somehow. There's missing footage, footage that I'm sure paints the innocent cherubs and their skate boarding fun in an extremely positive light.

 "Please don't call the cops, boxing reptiles."

When we rejoin this little morality play the lost sheep of generation nothing have been rounded up and are receiving a civics lesson from The Man. Apparently there's a thing called "Private Property" that carries with it certain rights, such as the right not to have to host a special education version of Tony Hawk's pro skater. The impromptu class is all "We didn't do nothing!" which naturally sets off the fuzz even worse. The upshot is they'll have to go. Man, it's like that thing we learned about in our public school history class where the French were put into gas chambers by Russians or whatever. 

In a last bit of pathetic resistance the kids claim they were going to leave on their own. And yet, here you are. There is a logical problem with this.

Now it's time for the tyranny I promised. Channeling Dirty Harry the 30% BMI representative of the law asks "What's your problem punk!" and, of course, wants to see identification. Suffice it to say the Skate Board Kid is lacking ihnen papieren. Things quickly degenerate as the System Criminal delivers massive police brutality, up to and including touching an arm and promising to "take you home." 

When they came for the poseurs I said nothing, because I wasn't a poseur.

We get plenty of passive-aggressive whining from the victim of Orwellian-style oppression. He repeats the claim that he was going to leave and then practically begs to be let go. Is it wrong that I'm starting to hope we'll get into a massive conventional war that will last about ten years and feature the return of the draft? 

The cuffs come out and with that a nice pitiful "Ow, This hurts really bad" is produced followed by more begging. The whining continues, but Officer Evil simply responds with "Anyone else wanna join him!" Not surprisingly, there aren't any takers. Into the police car, drive off, fade to white.    

Komment Korner  

Leave the country please, no one is forcing you to stay

You`re happy I`m not because if I were Russian, you would have been hurt

Ow my arm what a little bitch pussy drop this kids ass in gaza and lets see how he likes it

Me and my friend got arrested for throwing bricks in the air. what the fuck I can't throw bricks?

imagine if it actually said, "Disrespectful 13 year old boy taken home for trespassing" and it explained how the cop put him in cuffs to teach him a lesson

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XmfviKr5HE

Check Out My Books!

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read free excerpts here and here.

His first novel "The Foolchild Invention" is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.

News You Can't Use: Teen Tricked Oklahoma Walmart Managers Out Of Nearly $30,000

I'm not sure if a story about some punk kid ripping off big boxes under obvious false pretenses destroys my little remaining faith in our youth or completely restores it. Maybe call it a draw? Either way, this caper has "wacky Hollywood comedy that glorifies evil" written all over it.

A 17-year-old scammed 3 Oklahoma Walmart stores out of nearly $30,000, reports KFOR-TV.

This is why you're wrong, Grandpa. This story proves not all of us whippersnappers are lazy.  Sure we're deceitful and amoral monsters, but we're not afraid to put the shoulder to the criminality grindstone.

Police say the teen, whose name is not being released because he is a juvenile, conned the managers of those stores into thinking he was an employee.

The old "pretend to be an employee" trick. Ask a government worker for more information on how that one is done.

At a Walmart in Moore, the teen “acted as if he was a general manager from another store,” says the police report. He told the managers he was doing an inventory before corporate higher ups came to inspect them after the holidays.

"Dude, I mean sir, I'm General Manager Van Halen and it's very important I go through all the money for like, holiday inspection or whatever."

Surveillance cameras recorded the teen all alone in the cash room where he took “multiple bundles of cash, stuffing them inside his pockets and clothes,” says the report.

So in other words he acted the way most legitimate management does, perhaps somewhat more blatantly.

He allegedly showed up in uniform and nametag at a store in Edmond, where he worked a register and pocketed $3,000.

Well, he's got a name tag. That's enough proof for me. Leave him alone in the cash room for a few hours.

I don't like these new greeters they're using.

Authorities say he had a uniform and nametag because he had worked at a Walmart in Oklahoma city…before he was fired for stealing.

This must be one of those "patterns" that those super genius guys on the electronic toilet use to solve crimes.

Komment Korner  

Given his obvious mental capacity, they ought to give a light sentence and pay his college tuition. He might do some good for the world.

He was just getting seed money to start his hedge fund.

He's a prime candidate for a long career as a Wall St "investment banker".

Obviously you are ignorant piece of garbage

Good going, young one! Very proud of you!

Shill Section

Aaron Zehner is the author of "Posts from the Underground," now available in paperback and e-book. Read a free excerpt here.

His first novel The Foolchild Invention is also available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here

News You Can't Use: Lake Brantley High School Teacher Suspended for Taping Girl Up

Young people, am I right? Worst generation ever. Always with their phones and pinball games and crocodile shoes and all the rest. We sure could use another four to six year conventional world war to thin out their ranks a little. Failing that, maybe we can tape them up.

A Seminole County high school teacher has been suspended for taping a disruptive student's hands together and trying to tape her mouth shut, according to officials.

How he failed to get the mouth when the hands were already disabled is a troubling mystery. You'd think once the grabbers are out of the picture the finish would be a snap. Was the student moving her head a lot or something? These questions need answers.

Greg Sims, a science teacher at Lake Brantley High School in Altamonte Springs, was suspended for five days without pay, according to a letter addressed October 8 from Superintendent Walt Griffin.  His suspension runs through early November.

Too bad he didn't tape the eyes or the obvious "blinded with science" joke could be made organically instead of incredibly awkwardly like I just did there. Enjoy your time away from the little monsters, Greg. I'm sure you'll get a hero's return with sympathetic students voluntarily taping themselves to things in a show of solidarity.

According to the letter, Sims "taped a student’s hands together, attempted to tape her mouth closed as a means of addressing her disturbing class and taped her book bag to a pole in the classroom."

Today's lesson: Your teacher goes insane after years of unsuccessfully trying to reach you little bastards.

"I have determined that your conduct in this situation does not conform to the Seminole County Public Schools Student Conduct and Discipline Code," Griffin wrote.  "This is unacceptable conduct on the part of a professional educator and represents misconduct in office."

After carefully consulting the fifty page section in the code of conduct on when and how you can use adhesive objects to control the future criminals I decided I'd rather keep my own plumb job, thanks.

"Now you're gonna take this duct tape and start wrapping it around your own head..."

 

The incident marks Sims' third suspension in his 25-year career, all three of which included embarrassing female students, Local 6 reported.

Doing one semi-bad thing every eight years or so (I can do math because binding and gagging students was allowed in my day...) is clearly proof of BAD PERSON.

 

 Full Article.

Komment Korner  

Everybody go listen to The Wall again.

See what "Progressive" education looks like?

Give them tasers. Put the unruly little turds in restraint chairs like they have in jails.

Yeah, that's just what we need... MORE untrained nazi-style authoritarians, willing, able and EMPOWERED to do VIOLENCE with the approval of The State... and against CHILDREN!

Some "students" cannot breathe out of their mouth due to allergies, sinuses, etc. If their mouth were to get taped shut they would not be able to breathe.

Aaron Zehner's first novel The Foolchild Invention is available in paperback and e-book format. Read free excerpts here and here.