Drive-By Guffawing

Here are some more things to add to the list of stuff that drives me mad...

People that Shout from Cars

Specifically people that drive by and shout random nonsense at pedestrians and cyclists. This is just Goddamn ridiculous. In the summer I love going for a bike ride. It's fun, good exercise, and a great way to enjoy nice weather. But each time I go out, without fail, some random prick will shout out a car window at me as they zoom by. Sometimes they are trying to say something, but of course I can't hear them because they are speeding past me, but usually it's just a good old scream or yelp. First of all, that just marks these people as morons. They couldn't say something funny, or clever, or a sound that means anything. No. The best the caveman and his asinine friends can manage is a random burst of sound. There's nothing wrong with acting silly in front of your friends to have a good laugh, but if shouting at a stranger as you drive by is 'hilarious' then I'm about to give up on this species. Also, if their intent was not to be funny, maybe the shout was meant to startle the individual? So they lose control of their bike, collide with a vehicle and get killed? Well if that's the idea, then these people are not only stupid as shit, they're crazy and/or cruel. Good for them. The next time some loser hollers at me while I'm trying to enjoy a bike ride, I hope they get caught up with high-fiving their pals and crash into a tree, police car, or chemical plant.

Earphones

Not headphones, but those little ones you have to jam in your ear. Why are they always associated with active people? People are always using them while dancing, jogging, playing sports or other outdoor activities. Problem is, I've never owned a pair that sit comfortably in my ears or stay in while I'm moving around. That's just annoying as hell. But the biggest issue I have with them is that they tangle so easily. You can wrap them up carefully, put them in a drawer and the next time you unravel them you've got a square knot. The wire for one earpiece is always three times longer than the other and there's usually a volume control or clip halfway down the cord to bugger things up even worse. By the time you get the mess undone you don't feel like listening to music and end up strangling a stranger.

Yard Sale Pricing

People who have yard sales sometimes forget the whole idea of a yard sale is to get rid of your extra junk. You can't make a living having yard sales. The best you can hope for is to have strangers willingly take away your garbage and to put a few extra bucks in your pocket. But some lawn jockeys are hoping to strike it rich it seems by asking outrageous prices for stuff that should have been disposed of in 1984. I can't believe these fools who don't accept an offer: "I'll give you 2 bucks." "No, I paid $25 for it new". Yeah? Well, so what? Are you selling it or not? it ain't new any more and if it's so precious to you, why are you trying to get rid of it? How can you set a price on something you don't want anymore? It's not like your a store trying to make your money back. Just take what you can get and move on.

Why Most People Don't Deserve a Refund

If there's one saying that angers me more than any other it's "The customer is always right". I'm sure that anyone who has worked in customer service would share this hatred.

First of all, if the customer is always right, why is there a need for customer service departments? What do they have questions about? If they are always correct, they should always know the answer. I mean, how could someone be right about everything and be an idiot? Those things don't match up.

And what about this expression: "Buyer Beware"

If customers are always right, then what do they have to be concerned about? I'm assuming since they are always right then their choices must be equally precise. Obviously the saying suggests that a person should be wary of products and services that may not live up to expectations or be completely false. But as I've already explained, customers are not stupid since they are always correct, so how could they make incorrect decisions as a consumer? A customer that is always right will fully research a product before purchasing it and fully understand a service before using it.

Of course, I'm being too literal here, because the expression suggests something different altogether. By saying that the customer is always right, it can mean that what the customer wants should take priority in order to please them. A business will bend over backwards to make a customer happy in order to retain them as a customer. That's just another aspect of the expression that drives me crazy.

Businesses can't do everything a customer wants just because of some half-assed motto claiming that they know better. Customers, and people in general, are stupid and greedy. They will make poor decisions, buy crappy products, ignore policies, argue about everything, and demand the world. If companies give the hordes of fools whatever they wish, they'll go out of business.

Overall, I think a more suiting saying would be: "The customer is always loud."

Mitch & Roland: #41 Luggage

Useless Trivia: In panel three Mitch is being hit in the face with a sock filled with quarters. I know many of you might assume they're arcade tokens, but actually it's just quarters.

Once Upon a Lie

Sometimes life gives you the opportunity to entertain and people pass it up completely. The world is full of interesting set-ups, but few people tend to capitalize on this. How can this be done, you ask?

By lying of course.

Okay, here's an example. A guy showed me his cellphone today and it was smashed nearly beyond recognition. I asked him what happened and this was his story:

"I was running across the parking lot and it fell out of my pocket."

What kind of story is that?! If you've got a demolished expensive device it's your duty to give a good story. Here's how I would have sweetened it up with some lies:

"Oh my phone? Man, that was hellish. Did you hear about that bus accident last week? No? It was in the paper and everything. Well I was up this tree near the edge of the woods right outside of town. You know right as you get on the highway? Anyway, I was up the tree collecting inchworms when this bus comes out of Goddamn nowhere.

That bus must have hit a pothole the size of wading pool cause this bitch comes flying off the road and nails the tree I'm in, snapping the friggin' thing in half, and I get flung out of there like a slingshot. Both my shoes whip off me and one of them killed a bird overhead.

Right, so I land on the top of this bus and I roll the whole length of the bus doing somersaults; I must've done 7 or 8 full rotations before going over the back end and landing in the grass. Luckily my cellphone was alright cause I had it in the inside pocket of my jacket.

Then this gypsy came out of the woods and kicked me in the chest. Right in the damn pocket. She was wearing steel toed boots that were 6 sizes too big and filled with sand; you know how gypsies are ... just to add weight to their kicks. Anyway, long story short my cellphone got busted up pretty bad."

Not only is that more entertaining, even if people know you're lying, they recognize the effort.

Chomp: An Epic Adventure into One Man's Quest for Satisfaction

Sometimes when I'm at work and I begin to doodle, things get out of control...

A Bucket of Spam...well the Price is Right

Here are more things that bother me.

Hospital Wait Times

There is nothing good about waiting at the hospital. You're feeling like crap, the seats are uncomfortable, the reading material is boring, the atmosphere is depressing, and you're likely to catch something worse from the guy next to you coughing up fistfuls of phlegm who looks like he's been waiting so long that the hospital was built around him. I recently had to go to get a prescription and had to wait for more than three hours to have the doctor spend 60 seconds to diagnose and push me out the door. Three hours is a lot of lost recovery time, cause I certainly wasn't healing while sitting in that cloud of viruses while reading a readers digest encrusted with mucus. The worst part is, a few days later I had to return to get a note from the doctor for work purposes. This time around I was marked as "low priority" and it took me more than five hours to get that note. I should have told them I had swallowed a grenade, then I would have gotten in under two hours I'm sure.

The Price of Eating Healthy

I'm sick of hearing people acting impressed or surprised when they see a celebrity trim down after having a child, or losing a lot of weight before or after a movie role. It's easy for celebrities ... they're rich! We all want to eat healthy, but each time I go to the grocery store it becomes abundantly clear why I don't eat as well as I'd like. We're supposed to have 5-10 servings of fruits and vegetables a day but if you live in a family of three or more, you're looking at 30 servings a day, so prepare to go broke. Healthy food is expensive, in small quantities, and doesn't keep long, but unhealthy food is cheap, abundant, and will last until the end of time. You could buy organic vegetables and make a salad...or here's a loading pallet stacked of kraft dinner enough to feed you and your family for 6 months. Hell, you still have cash left over to buy some industrial tubs of mayonnaise, and a couple crates of hot dogs. No wonder we're all fat. If we were rich and could hire our own dietary advisors, personal trainers and chefs, and eat properly portioned fresh foods every meal. But since we're on a budget, it's more bologna and cheese whiz sandwiches.

Batteries

Buying batteries for anything is a pain in the ass. They're expensive, don't last as long as you'd want, and the next time I buy AA's only to find that I needed AAA's, I'm going to head butt a glass cabinet. Plus, there are too many choices! You got alkaline, rechargeable , nickel-cadmium, nickel metal hydride, lithium-ion, zinc-carbon, silver-oxide, and about a dozen sizes and shapes. If you don't get it right then you're basically feeding your digital camera money. I'm sure companies have the technology to make long lasting universal batteries, but they don't because then they couldn't sell as much. Them and the light bulb people are in cahoots and I hate their guts.

Stay Tuned Kiddos!

I love listening to people in their 40-60's reminisce about television from when they were kids. They talk about how there were only two or three channels and that the stations shut down by about 9 o'clock at night. They had little TVs and little choice what to watch.

Here's what I imagine someone like myself will sound when they reach that age...

"Papa! Tell me about when you were a kid."

"Alright, but take off your virtua-helmet so you can hear me."

"Okay, I'm listening."

"Well when I was young, we didn't have it so easy like you kids today. Take the TV, for example. We only had about 70 channels to choose from, and we could only watch a few at a time with picture in picture."

"You mean you couldn't view all your favorite channels simultaneously as one streaming visual?"

"Ha! I wish. No, if we wanted to see what was on the other channels, we had to push the proper numbers on our remote controls to find it. Or if we couldn't remember the right number we had to just look at each channel one by one until we found it."

"Holy shit! One by one? That must have taken a minute!"

"Watch your language! But yes, it took a long time. And we only had a 52 inch high definition television that we had to share with the whole family."

"Didn't they have the wall-o-visions back then?"

"Not a chance! Our TV's were nowhere near the size of the ones you got today. The sure they were high definition, but we had to pay extra to the high def channels. It was rough. And the most we could watch in a day was 24 hours. We could only dream of something like Hypertime Television stations."

"That ... sucks."

"Indeed...now you run along, Billy. Go play your games and watch out for the WereLizards"

"Sure, Pops."

Yeah, that's what he future will be like. It's gonna be weird. Especially with all those WereLizards running around.

Tales From a Broken Family

I don't really feel like giving any explanations. Here you go.