Month: October 2018

Three Superpowers I Need

Life would be enhanced if I could have superpowers.  We all want superpowers, don’t we?  I mean, who wouldn’t?  My life would be greatly enhanced with superpowers.  Now, I could go for things like enact world peace, or cure cancer, or some other selfless act, but where’s the fun in that?  No, I want “revenge superpowers”.

This does preclude something like the ability to see through clothing.  I think Superman had that one, but I forget.  That has a certain… provocative allure to it.  There would be downsides, though.  You’d have to be able to pick and choose whose clothes you were ignoring.  Don’t want to see just anybody.  Plus, looking through clothing you wouldn’t be seeing people in their perfection.  The clothes would still be there, so you’d be seeing their body all stuffed in and wrinkled and unnaturally pushed here and there, not unlike a homemade sausage.  And do you really want to see the entire muffin along with the muffin top?  I’m sorry, but that doesn’t sound as appealing as one might think.

Presuming the genie would give me only three superpowers, here’s what I’d choose…

The ability to have the entire road pull over to the side while I drive where I want to, unhindered.  Readers of The Grump know that other drivers is a pet-peeve of mine.  This is numero uno.  People just need to get out of my way.  This includes police and ambulances and fire trucks.  Now, in my own magnanimous way, my superpower would include the ability to heal whoever is being transported by the ambulance, or reverse the fire the fire truck is going to.  The Grump just wants people out of his way, he doesn’t want to be a jerk about it.

The ability to disable all cell phones within a 150 foot radius of me at concerts.  The Grumpess and I went to see Alice Cooper a couple nights ago.  Truly an awesome show.  We had great seats.  The man may be 70 years old, but he can still bring it!  He even played one of my favorite songs from a semi-obscure album from 1980 that he hadn’t played live since 1982 until this leg of this tour.  It was a perfect night… except for the lady in front of me that kept raising her phone in the air, in my direct line of sight, throughout the show.  And for what, some crappy photos and videos that she will probably forget about after next week.  It was rude!  I was tempted to knock on her head and tell her to stop, but an arrest for starting a riot wasn’t exactly in The Grump’s best interests.  So now, I want the ability to disable ALL cell phones around me so that I can enjoy the show.  I don’t think that’s unreasonable at all.

The ability to remember where I put my keys, and my wallet, and my glasses… all the time.  For anyone who is getting up there in age, this is self-explanatory.  What’s that you say?  I should just designate a place and always put them there?  Bless yer heart.

There ya go.

By Annoyances, Driving, Pet PeeveOne Comment

‘Vaginasplaining’

Have you ever coined a word?  I’ve never coined a word… until now.  Or, at least I thought I had.  When I first conceived of this topic a few months ago I did a Google search for ‘vaginasplaining’ and came up with nothing.  Zero.  Nada.  Zilch.  I was excited.  I had never coined a word, and here I now had.  Sorta, but not really, though there is precious little examples or definitions available.  Primarily, people just seem to use it as a clever Twitter hashtag with no actual definition.

‘Vaginasplaining’… some call it ‘womansplaining’… is, of course, similar to ‘mansplaining’.  According to the Urban Dictionary, ‘mansplaining’ is defined as…

When a woman is not smart enough to understand something, so a man explains it to her.

Woman: The wage gap shows that females are being payed less for the same job.
Man: The wage gap is only showing the average pay of man and woman, it does not count for hours worked or different jobs.
Woman: STOP MANSPLANING!!!

I’m pretty sure that that’s just what people do.  Men do it to women, yes.  Men also do it to men.  Women do it to women, and women do it to men.  Especially in relationships where the two people will often snipe at each other in this manner trying to establish some sort of subconscious emotional dominance.  It could also simply be an insecure person trying to fit in to the group and/or show that they are indeed intelligent, too.  It’s nothing special or uncommon, but trying to shame one select group for it is nothing short of insidiously hypocritical.  It’s actually a form of ‘*-splaining’, itself.

Warning, serious political example to follow:  We here at The Grump generally try to avoid political topics, but sometimes politics invades daily life… even curmudgeonly life… so much that it cannot be avoided.  The recent public debate about sexual assault and rape during the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation hearing where women told men that false accusation was simply not an issue because it’s “so rare”, was an absolutely perfect example of ‘vaginasplaining’.

Ok, back to curmudgeonism:  Anytime a woman suggests she can do something better, or knows more about a topic, simply because of traditional gender roles and she’s a woman, that’s ‘vaginasplaining’.  Anytime that a woman belittles a man (or anyone, really) because she’s knows better based on generic factors, that’s ‘vaginasplaining’ (differing body parts excepted).  Anything from a woman directed at a man intending to be dismissive or belittling, where the implication is because she’s a she and he’s a he, is ‘vaginasplaining’.

This word, ‘vaginasplaining’, needs to be adopted and used more frequently.  Orrrrrr, ya know, we could just get off each other’s backs and start treating each other better, and stop being so uptight.

Naaaaaah!

By Daily Life, ObservationsLeave a Comment

Three things Facebook needs to do to improve my experience

Hey Facebook… I’m lookin’ at you, Mr. Zuckerberg… your product is pretty good, but needs help.  I have three things that should be easy peasy for you to fix, because I think you do them on purpose.  Let’s get started..

Put things in order.  News feed and notifications, both.  Skeptical Ken says you do this on purpose because you want people to be confused and stumbling around the site.  You want them spending more time, doing more clicks, that appeals to advertisers, and so on.  It also makes you look incompetent, even though it’s deviously brilliant.  If Social Fixer can put the news feed in order, so can you, and you know it.

Stop notifying me when people I don’t know do something.  Whenever I comment on a friend’s thread I get notifications when people I don’t know… and don’t want to know… post as well.  Let Annoyed Ken carefully phrase this so it’s crystal clear:  I… don’t… care.   I don’t even care if they post in response to my comment, or tag me by name.  All it does it muck up my notifications, which I already have to navigate deftly because you refuse to put things in order.  I don’t know these people, why should I care?

Give me a place to contact with questions… and get answers.  And something easy and legit.  How about an email address or a contact form.  How about something where I can ask a question and get a human response with an answer?  At least a legit place for me to complain about your shortcomings, with a real person reading them, even if you don’t respond.  I know, I know, I know, nobody does this.  Not Yahoo, not Google, not Microsoft.  Be better.

There ya go.  These three things would enhance my experience greatly.  Please note that I did not suggest more privacy or that you don’t sell my information.  We both know that will never happen.

By Annoyances, Rant, TechnologyLeave a Comment

3 Dumb Sports Rules

Sports, like anything else, evolves over time.  Usually for the better, though not always… NFL I’m lookin’ at you with your anal retentive nanny rules that have virtually ruined the game.  But there are some rules that simply defy rational explanation, and that need to be changed.  What are they you ask?  Well, I’m glad you asked, because here they are..

Baseball

Batters are allowed to “steal” first base if they strike out and the catcher drops the ball.  Why?  You either let a good pitch sail by, or you swung at a bad pitch, you don’t deserve a second chance.  You struck out, go sit the eff down!

Football

The ground can’t cause a fumble.  Why not?  We have here some of the strongest and most gifted athletes imaginable, and we can’t hold onto the ball?  Really?  Seriously?  You’re a man, football’s supposed to be a man’s game, hold onto the damn ball.

Soccer

Offside.  This one can’t even be explained by commentary.  An official explanation is required.  According to the Orlando City Soccer Club, offside is explained thusly…

According to the FIFA rulebook, a player is in an offside position if:

  • He is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second last opponent.
  • A violation will occur when he is in an offside position (previous bullet point) at the same time the ball is being passed forward to him.

A player is NOT in an offside position if:

  • He is in his own half of the field of play.
  • No part of the attacking player (head, body, or feet) is closer to the opponents goal than the final defender (not including the goalkeeper) .
  • He is receiving the ball from a throw-in.

Got all that?  Simple.  😐  No, it’s not, and contrary to the link it’s not easier to see than read.  A casual fan has no clue what or when offside is happening, and there’s a good reason for that… it’s dumb.

My solution is really quite simple:  Teach the defense to play defense.  If they don’t defend properly, they deserve to have a goal scored against them.

By AnnoyancesLeave a Comment