Stupidest Election Signs of 2010

Election season is upon us which means... an opportunity to engage as civicly minded and responsible citizens! Just kidding. It means every street corner, intersection, and bare bit of land in this damn state is once again covered with god awful election signs.

Election Signs [ih-lek-shuh n sahynz] noun: A notice of a candidates existence, affixed in public view, displaying pictures and short cliche phrases completely devoid of substance and unrelated to any current issue within the political sphere.

Well, as they say, when life gives you lemons points out how stupid those lemons are and then make fun of them relentlessly until the lemons voluntarily shrive up and cease to exist or you feel better about living in a world with said lemons. So without further ado...

THE STUPIDEST ELECTION SIGNS IN PHOENIX
(2010 edition)

Let's start by throwing (pun intended) some mad props to candidate David Fitzgerald. David Fitzgerald's sign features a picture of a football and the slogan "David Fitzgerald won't drop the ball!" Hey Fitzgerald, that's a fantastic election sign but it left me a little confused, are you running for a government position or for fucking homecoming king? What the fuck do I, an informed and concerned voter, care what sport you play and how proficiently you play it? I know, I know, it's a metaphor... a metaphor for "The best days of my life were in high school and now I have to resort to running for office to prove to myself that I'm still popular." Then there's the little edition slapped on the sign "endorsed by Sheriff Joe Arpaio". You might as well have just written "Fitzgerald: The Next Best Thing to Hitler!"

Well Fitzgerald, your macho bullshit self probably wouldn't have liked me much in high school, and your probably not going to like me now because I'm the only one with the balls to point out how fucking stupid your sign is.

P.S. If I wanted some jockstrap in office I would have voted for Bush, douchebag.

And now on to everyone's favorite governor Jan Brewer. Brewer has signs plastered all over the city of herself as Rosie the riveter. Let's review, Rosie the riveter is a cultural icon from WWII, also known as the end of the great depression... so Brewer, are you trying to remind us that we're in a recession or that we've spent the last eight years losing our friends, brothers, husbands, and sons in a war overseas? Basically, are you trying to rub my nose in the fact that our country is a giant bully, or the fact that last month I had to eat ramen so many nights I sweat MSG because our economy is in worse shape then Lindsey Lohans liver? Hey Brewer, while you're at it why don't you go ahead and remind me that my pet bunny is dead, that I'm covered in stretch marks, or that my math skills are below average. Bitch.

Finally, I want to give a shout out to my homie Justin Johnson, a senate hopeful who has flooded our fair city with giant pictures of him holding his baby up in the air in a quintessential made for TV movie freeze frame ending. (Cue credits.) I'm not even going to rag on Justin for how horribly cheesy these are... I'm sure he's gotten the message from whoever has been running around at night painting his babies face like a juggalo on all the signs.

Well Justin, I guess that's what you get when you whore your child out for votes, consider this a learning experience.

The Other Woman In My Marriage

(Note: This is a guest post from a friend of mine who lived by us when we lived further north in the city. I decided it was time to hear from a smart ass other then myself... and I thought it was pretty funny.)


I hate the other woman in my marriage. I would imagine that most marriages have another woman in them whether the wife realizes it or not. Some husbands have little rendezvous every now and then, some have a standing weekly reservation at the local sleezy hotel motel, and some see them every day, multiple times a day, almost every moment that they're not at work, and sometimes when they are... this is the kind I have. Some are named work, some are political involvement, "hanging out with the guys", some are true flesh and blood women (real women are probably the worst kind of other woman to have)... in my marriage I have to deal with a whore named World of Warcraft and all her little whore video game friends.

World of Warcraft has things I will never have... she has fancy animation, quests, swords (I suppose I could get a sword but I don't know if that would help anything), she doesn't get all flabby and stretchy marky after having my husbands baby. She can stay up all night long entertaining him and never once mumble "Seriously though, stop touching me, I need to sleep."

Basically she's that slutty bitch in high school who stole your boyfriend because she would do dirty things in bed while your 15 year old self was still trying to master doing it missionary without making any weird noises. World of Warcraft is the harlot who sticks her finger up his ass while she's giving him a blowjob... NOW HOW THE HELL AM I SUPPOSE TO COMPETE WITH THAT?!?!

Like so many wives who have to contend with "the other woman" I had fooled myself into thinking "It's not that I'm not enough, there's just something really special about her. If she wasn't around he would only be with me." but like so many other delusional women I was wrong. The skank known as World of Warcraft (I refused to use her nickname, WoW, because that makes her sound exciting, which I maintain she is in fact not) has been on vacation for a few weeks but instead of spending more time with me (or doing anything else at all) like I thought he would, my husband has just been running around after other nameless, faceless, whores. The worst was a particularly filthy hoe named Call Of Duty who in addition to stealing my husband got all up in my face, lay down on the couch, and made my entire house an unbearable place to be. (Call of Duty involves hours upon hours of shooting sound effects. Seriously, if I wanted to hear gun shots all day and all night I would move to Bosnia... or at least south Phoenix.)

Since there is no sign of this torrid love affair ever ending, I have come to the conclusion that we should either become Mormon and invite her to officially join our marriage as a second wife, or I need to find an "other man" of my own. Maybe his name will be shoe shopping... or maybe I'll date 'fun wine bar' who lives down the street. Whoever he is, I need to find him quick because I'm getting really lonely.

Convict an anodyne with passion

All. Politics. Ever.

I hate politics. They're stupid, they just exist to give people something to fight with each other about, and everyone involved in them is most worthy of my hate.

Everyone fights about politicians like there's a good guy and a bad guy. Wake up! This isn't Star Wars, there is no dark side and light side to political parties, everyone on both sides is a ginormous tool. "Oh but Jenna!" I can hear people saying "You don't understand! (insert politician here) has it right. They're so much better than (insert other politician)... they were completely incompetent!" Really? You think the fact that someone is slightly less of a douche bag than someone else is brag worthy? Being the best politician is like being the least creepy person at a porn convention or having the highest reading level in your special ed class... not impressive. Being a little less corrupt or killing a few less people than some other loser doesn't make you a worthwhile leader.

I don't even have to know the opinions of a politician to know they suck. The only thing I have to know is that they hold a major political office because no one with the public's best interests at heart could ever get elected in this country.

The thing that really gets me though is how everyone gets so loyal to their particular party of choice that they completely ignore what's really going on. Being in the pocket of wall street is a perfect example, Democrats will rant and rave about how Republicans are only concerned about the financial assets of the top 1% and Bush only helped his fat cat friends, but completely ignore the fact that Obama bailed big business out just a few short months ago, and Republicans will bitch and moan for days on end about that bail out while conveniently forgetting that Bush passed the first one.

Politics are just an excuse for people to feel superior to one another about having opinions on issues that don't effect them. Are you trying to decide whether or not to terminate a pregnancy? Than your views on abortion (and possibly those of your close, trusted friends) matter. Are you attracted to someone with strikingly similar genitalia to your own? Congratulations, your opinions about gay marriage matter. To everyone else, stop thinking you're better than (insert other person here) because you have what you consider more highly evolved beliefs about (insert irrelevant but controversial topic here).

The reason I hate politics the most though is that it's more addictive than crack. You (and by you I mean I) get sucked into a political tornado (a politinado) and can never escape. Instead you (I) just swirl around in a vortex of frustration, indignation, and family dinners gone horribly wrong when somebody brought up the wrong topic of conversation, working your schedule around so you can attend political rallies, marches, and demonstrations for causes you know are only going to get shut down by the "moral" majority who never bothered to get informed in the first place. And in the end you're just another nobody ranting about how much you hate politics on your blog that nobody reads.

Fuck it. Let's all get high.

Breast Feeding Fanatics

As most of you know I just had an adorable little girl. Ever since I pooped this little monster out of by baby hole I've discovered a thousand more stupid things that I hate but have been refraining from writing about them all in the interest of this not becoming the bitchy mom blog. My silence, however, ends here.

I never realized how much our culture demonizes women who choose to formula feed their children until I had one of my own. I'm going to try and tell the back story without any of the gory details, I don't want to have to deal with the guilt of having scared one of you sterile. (If you want to know you can ask me, but seriously, it will make you terrified of ever going to the hospital again.) Long story short, after her birth because of some complete incompetence on behalf of some medical "professionals" I ended up with a bad infection that because of some more medical incompetence didn't get caught or treated for more then a month. Because of complications from said infections I was not able to breast feed. It was sad, but I got over it... at least I would have gotten over it if nosy middle aged women didn't continue to rub it in my face all the f-ing time.

When did it become any ones business anyway? 'What are you doing with your boobs these days' has become the part of the standard line of new baby questions, everyone who sees her "Ohh! She's so cute! (standard question #1) How old is she? (standard question #2) Is she a good sleeper? (standard question #3) Are you breast feeding?" This isn't women I know either, this is random women in the grocery store, this is women from church that I recognise but don't actually know the names of. When I tell them that no, I'm not breast feeding, they either purse their lips and give me this disappointed look that seems to say 'Well I'm sorry you don't love your child enough to give them the best.' or they stare in horror and me and exclaim "Why!"

None of your damn business, that's why! There isn't a way to answer that question even if I wanted to because the only thing more awkward then being asked by a near stranger what's happening with your boobs is having to answer with a story about what's going on with your vagina and it's healing process. And you know what, plenty of children have grown up just fine on formula... I myself was never breast fed and it's pretty insulting when these women start quoting studies to me on how child who don't have mothers who care enough to breast feed them end up lazy brained. Unless I'm shaking them in your husband's face, what I choose to do with my titties is none of your concern! And the most frustrating of all is that I really wanted to breast feed and I have a good explanation for why I'm not, but I shouldn't have to explain it to anyone!

Dear world, yes I am bottle feeding my child, and no, that doesn't make me a bad mother. You can shove your pretentious breast feeding judgements up your ass.

Facebook Parents

My rant today is twofold. There are two kinds of parents on facebook (this could also apply to any other social networking site but since facebook is the only one I use that is the only one I will rant about. Non sequitur side note: myspace sucks) the first of which is the parents of the people for whom facebook was intended (ex: facebook was intended for my generation, thus, my parents fall into this category) and the second is the people for whom facebook was intended who have now procreated (ex: an old friend of mine from high school who shall remain nameless, for the sake of this rant we will refer to her and all similar people as "Parent X".

Let's start with my dear friend Parent X and all of her social networking counterparts. These are the people for whom parenthood has taken over their entire lives... or at least it would appear that way from looking at them on facebook. The people who don't have their own profile picture but instead have a picture of their kid there, which is especially handy when I can't remember for sure where I know this person from and then instead of being able to look at their picture and say "Oh yeah! It's whats-her-nuts from that-one-place!" I have to actually go to their profile page and then embark on a grand and epic quest to search through all their pictures trying to find one that is of them. And it really is a grand and epic quest since Parent X only ever seems to have 19thousand albums of just pictures of their kids, each album containing 14 almost identical pictures that they took in a three minute picture taking spree and then decided every single one needed to be imparted to the rest of the world. A picture may be worth a thousand words (or in this case a thousand pictures may be worth my wrath) but sometimes a few words really can say just as much. This is the case with Parent X's status updates, all of which are about what their kid is doing at this exact moment in time, with subsequent updates on said offspring's activities continuing multiple times a day, every single day. Does anything happen in their own lives anymore? At what point did they stop being an individual themselves and instead become just a conduit through which their children's exploits could be displayed? Really, I'm asking, I want to know, feel free to enlighten me if you have any explanations.

Then there are the second kind of facebook parents... the old people on facebook. But not all old people on facebook, no no, my anger here is reserved for the ones who are going to actually act like parents while they are on facebook. Anyone who at any point in your life could have been considered an authority figure and now continues in that roll by checking up on you on facebook. These are the people who see pictures of you taking shots of jager at a bar/making out with another girl at a party/going to a concert in revealing clothing/flipping off the camera and then leave you messages (or worse yet, corner you at church the next Sunday) and tell you that you need to not be so wild and that your actions are inappropriate. Out of sheer hatred I'm not even going to mention the people who see these things and then call your parents to tell them about your behavior, those people all need to get gonorrhea and fall off a cliff.

And so to conclude, I have written out the four commandments of facebook. If the ancient Israelites had internet access I'm confident God would have added these to those infamous stone tablets.

1. Thou Shalt Have Thine Own Profile Picture. When your little monsters are old enough to have their own facebook account then they can have a profile picture featuring only themselves... until then yours need to be of you or at the vary least of you with your child.

2. Thou Shalt Pick The Best Picture Of Thy Child, and Add Only That To The Album. Yes, we get it, your child sitting on the couch is just SOOO adorable, and the best way to get that perfect picture is to take shot after shot after shot. But that is only step one, step two is then going through all those nearly identical pictures of your spawn on the couch and picking the best one or two and only posting those. Trust me, nobody cares about the rest of them except you.

3. Thou Shalt Make Thy Status About Thyself. When your child does something that really effected your day or that other people will care about (hint: you are not a good judge of what other people care about, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation), you can put that as your status. The fact that your child has been throwing up non-stop all day and it's making you want to drink - you may post this because it is about you as well. The fact that your child took their first steps - you may post this because it's a big deal and other people care. But nobody gives a shit that your kid is eating a cookie, or coloring a picture, or making funny noises. Repeat: NOBODY GIVES A SHIT.

4. Thou Shalt Be Prepared For The Content Of Facebook Or Thou Shalt Get The Fuck Off It. Call me old school, but I remember fondly the good old days when you had to be in college to get a facebook account and I am not going to start censoring myself just because some middle aged republican extended family member of mine is on here now. I drink, I occasionally give people the middle finger, and I am amused by making juvenile gestures pretending that the Sing Star microphone is a penis... and I will post those pictures. Also, I will swear in my status when I deem it necessary. If you have a problem with that I am not going to worry my pretty little head about it, parents shouldn't be on facebook unless they are ready to deal with what they find.

Food With 9,000 Ingredients

I will admit that I am 'that guy'. You know the person... the one standing in the middle of the aisle at the grocery store for 10 minutes comparing the labels on five different brands of apple sauce before finally being able to settle on one. I am an avid label reader... obsessive even, if there is more then one brand of something that I need I have no choice, I am stuck in that aisle until the quandary of which to choose has been un-quandrarified.

Organic, not organic, low sodium, low fat, all natural, it's all well and good but usually my decision comes down to one factor, which label I can pronounce and understand everything on. If the ingredients in (insert food product here) are roughly the same as they would have been if I had made it myself at home then my guilt over being a bad Mennonite and not actually making it myself is eased. But even stronger then my Mennonite guilt (and us Mennonites have a fantastic amount of guilt... that's right Jews, you're not the only ones who know how to work it) is my fear of the unknown, and in this case the unknown is 18 letter words that I couldn't pronounce if my life depended on it. I like to fancy myself highly literate and if I don't know what these words mean I feel like it can safely be assumed that the vast majority of the American population doesn't either.

So where do all these ingredients come from? What do they mean? What the hell are they? These are questions that I do not have answers for, but I can tell you from the vast amounts of time I have spent taking up space in that grocery store aisle reading those labels that they are in EVERYTHING. And some things I feel like are more justifiable then others, any frozen dinner for example... you're full of bad things and that's old news. Sorry DiGiorno, I know you thought writing "made with real cheese" on the box would make people mistake you for health food but you aren't fooling anyone. And then there are other things that I feel like have no right to have crazy ingredients in, Juice for example. You are juice, juice is not even a product it's an ingredient in and of itself so if you say you are juice then you should contain one thing... and that is juice. You may also, in my humble opinion, also contain water and maybe an added vitamin or two but that is about it. When four out of the top five ingredients on your label (hint: you shouldn't have five ingredients on your label at all) are just different ways to say sugar then calling yourself juice makes you a big fat liar.

To clarify, I am not a crazy food person obsessed with healthy stuff and terrified of preservatives, I've had mac and cheese made with Velveeta for lunch almost every day for the past week and the number of Totinos pizzas that get consumed at my house can only be described as inappropriate... I just am confused by everything having a list of ingredients as long as my arm, I don't understand it, it weirds me out, and I feel like they're taking over the world... or at least the grocery store.