About a year ago I wrote a post about some ass clown blubbering about how his Netflix service was shitty and how he thought it would be a good idea to form a class action lawsuit. I disagreed and called him a pussy and proceeded to poorly explain Laissez-Faire capitalism under the assumption that my words would be carried by angels along the fiber optic circulatory system of the internet bringing reason and logic to the masses. With said assumption in hand, you can imagine my surprise when I recently received a letter in the mail telling me that I was a part of a class action lawsuit against Netflix. There are a couple of class action lawsuits currently against Netflix at the moment. One actually even seems to be valid regarding Netflix’s misrepresentation of business operations in order to inflate their stock prices.

That’s not the one I got, though.

I received MDL No. 2029, also known as the Online DVD Rental Antitrust Litigation. In essence it claims that Netflix and Walmart entered into a collusion where Netflix would agree not to sell new DVDs and Walmart would agree to not rent DVDs online which sent the Netflix monthly subscription skyrocketing to a whopping $9.99 a month and the cost of a Walmart new release to $16.96. $19.96 if you get the Blu-Ray + DVD combo. Anyone who had a DVD subscription to Netflix between May 19, 2005 and September 30, 2010 is eligible to receive restitution if Netflix is found guilty. The sum of which, after lawyer fees and being divided among the several million members of the lawsuit, will probably only be like 12 bucks.

In order to drop a little perspective on you, consider this. These people who were so outraged by their Netflix service that they decided to find a lawyer and file a claim, then took the time, effort and money to set up a website and proceeded to print, package and mail a letter to each eligible subscriber. I’m not bothering to look up the actual number of letters sent out on account of it doesn’t matter. The figure is so astronomically large that the human brain is incapable of comprehending it in any real meaningful manner. Whatever number I’d give you that was even remotely in the ballpark would merely be an abstraction instantly replaced with the placeholder “fucking shit load.”  And just to add a little extra thump when the perspective hits you in the face, all these resources were expended because of a monthly subscription increase that’s roughly the cost of a 2-Liter bottle of Mountain Dew.

Don’t get me wrong, however. The formation of business trusts is always worth keeping a wary eye on, but what’s the worst possible outcome that could come from this? Expensive DVD rentals? Really? There isn’t anything else even slightly more deserving of such a concerted effort?

Seriously, nothing?

As I write this scattered and vaguely coherent rant, Congress is currently wiping its ass with the Constitution and trying to throw your civil liberties in the shitter with legislation such as SOPA, PIPA, and the NDAA. Well, probably not quite this instant. It’s 10:30 pm, which means they’re probably doing blow off the tits of underage prostitutes and eating overpriced caviar paid for by the MPAA and the RIAA. However, my point still stands. Just in a more general, ongoing sort of way.

What’s that you say? Don’t care about having your culture dismantled and sold back to you for the sake of protecting a select few copyright holders or having your amendment rights 4 through 9 revoked? Ponder the following:

Two-thirds of the world’s population doesn’t have enough to eat and of that two-thirds, half are starving. This year alone, 15 million children, too weak from malnutrition to keep the  flies out of their eyes and nose, will become bloated, decaying corpses. That equates to about 3000 dead kids in the time it would take you to watch a copy of The Help.

Add another 400 hundred if you watch the special features.

The answer you’re looking for is yes. If you complain about the cost of renting movies, you should feel like an asshole.

As the leaves turn to amber and drop from the branches of deciduous trees and another fall season draws to a close so does another Battle for Pump[king/queen] which means it is time to crown another champion. This year was hard to choose the winner based solely on the fact that more than one person actually entered. Granted, there were only 4, but that’s still a 300% increase in entrants over the span of a year. So if you massage the data it looks significantly more impressive.

In order to remain unbiased and objective in the the judging I enlisted the help of a third party. After a good, solid, intense five minutes of pouring over the submissions and exchanging some mildly rigorous dialogue. We managed to pick a winner, but first a long, drawn-out assessment of each entry in order to build suspense. When reading the descriptions I suggest doing so out loud in the voice of a female parade announcer that states the obvious in case there are blind people watching.

Kamehameha

This submission, sent in by the 2009 Pump[king/queen], Jim, is a boon to the classic anime and manga seriesDragonball. It features the powerful energy blast Kamehameha and is by far the largest of all the submissions utilizing over four pumpkins! Let’s hope he saved a few pumpkins for the rest of us!

Robots in Disguise

This entry was from last year’s champion, Matt, and depicts the Autobots emblem from the popular Transformers franchise. I applaud Matt’s experimental composition by posing his pumpkin next to what appears to be a piece of bacon. Autobots, roll out!

LifeStyles

This submission was submitted by Kyle and features the logo of one of the most trusted names in family planning, LifeStyles Ultra Lubricated condoms. Question: what do you call a 500 lb woman with a condom in her hand? Answer: a half ton pick-up with a box liner. Zing!

And without further extended masturbatory ado, I present you with the winning pumpkin in the 2011 Battle for Pump[king/queen].

Leonard Nimoy

This submission was sent in by Mike, a first year competitor, and features a startlingly accurate depiction of the character Spock from the first generation Star Trek series. Why is carving a pumpkin? Because he’s in love.

Congratulations, Mike, your package containing your certificate of authenticity, swag, and guide to being a boss will be sent out in a week.

Unless my calendar, bearing me ill will, has falsely purported the month in an attempt to discredit already incredulous credibility, I do believe it is October. Which means, it is time once again, fine friends, to crown another caesar of cucurbits, a gerent of gourds, an overlord of…orange…

To enter the 2011 Battle for Pump[king/queen] send a picture of your pumpkin along with a name and email address (or some way to contact you in the event of victory) to thewush@wusha-tsr.com. All entries must be sent before October 31st. Bonus points for creativity, but if you lack creativity; I’m partial to handjobs.

Aside from the prestigious title of Pump[king/queen] 2011, the winner will receive a hat, a T-shirt and a certificate of authenticity to commemorate their victory. And let us not forget peerage rules of inheritance.

So take up knife in hand and prepare for war!

So the date was September 18th, 2007. 2 days after my 18th birthday.

I got up at 10am and picked up my friend Jay at his house. Today was the day that him and I were going on a road trip to Alabama to meet my mother as I was now legally a man. (apparently I wasn’t manly enough about 3 days before that. haha!) So I picked up Jay and we headed over to Butte, we got some food and I tried to use my new Glacier Bank debit card.. which didn’t really want to work, so before we left town I ended up going to a bank and pulling out $200 extra in cash for the trip down south.

We stopped by our Local Hastings to pick up a few CDs for the trip. We ended up picking up a Led Zeppelin album, a Cake Album, and a The Classic Crime Album. (Haters gonna hate!) As I was walking out of the store Jay started playing with a dog. It didn’t have a collar so he named it Sunny, and then he proceeded to give it some of his meatball sub. Jay asked me if we could take the dog on our trip but I wouldn’t let him as I figured the dog would probably be shitting all over the place in my car. And of course we’d have to feed and water it and there really wasn’t any room in the car anyway.. So to say the least Jay was pretty bummed. He kept going on about how I was tearing him away from the ones he loved and some other nonsense.

Now before I can continue anymore with my story I have to let you all know about a few things… Jay and I made a list of things that we thought could happen, and honestly we kind of hoped they WOULD happen even though some were a little too wild for everyday life. We wanted this road trip to be worthy of a movie. Only time would tell. Regardless as long as one of the things on the list happened to one of us then we would mark it off. A few things on the list were the following.

1. Pick up a hitch hiker
2. Get to 2nd base with a random girl.
3. Meet our friends in Memphis
4. Drive through Denver during rush hour traffic and NOT die. (Much easier than I anticipated.)
5. See at least 1 concert or live show
6. Get mugged or robbed by someone
7. Make at least 1 racist joke in front of someone who might get offended.
8. Bring home a pet. (This one was last minute because I wouldn’t let Jay keep Sunny.)

These were just a few of the things on our list. The others shall remain nameless for legal purposes.   (Mostly because I already said that I was 18 at the time. Derp!)

So we left town on I90 heading east over the pass. Coming down out of the mountains into the flat of Montana we were listening to Led Zeppelin and we passed by a sign over a bridge that had the altitude on it. 5,281 feet. A mile above sea level. Stairway to Heaven was playing as we made our way down the mountain in my 1987 Chrysler 5th Avenue. I started getting teary eyed while hearing the song because I realized I was leaving my mountains.. my security blanket.. I had grown up in Montana, Anaconda born and raised AND Proud of it! I love the cold.. and I loved it when I would wake up every September and look out the window at the first snow. 6 days after my 17th birthday I had woken up to that feeling. I ended up jumping off my front porch into a snowbank in just my boxer shorts. I love Big Sky Country.

We passed a sign west of billings that Said “EXIT BEARS NOW!” and apparently it was a tourist attraction with live captured grizzly bears. Jay tried to make me pull over so could somehow cross “bring a pet home” off our list. I couldn’t do much but laugh because the thought of having a Grizzly in the backseat was making me want to turn around and go get Sunny! Jay was even more bummed when I didn’t take the Exit. Other than not having a new pet Everything was going according to plan. about 4 to 5 hours after we had left Butte we hit Billings and ended up stopping at a gas station to refill and use the bathrooms. Jay pulled out his video camera and we filmed a short segment update about our road trip. We actually had planned on filming the whole thing. Jay had brought like 10 extra cassette tapes but unfortunately he only brought one battery and no charger. Damn it Jay.. Damn it!

After we left Billings we headed south down I90 towards Wyoming. During that portion of the drive we were further looking over our list of To Do’s, and about 40 miles from where the Interstate splits south to I25 we ended up picking up a hitch hiker named Randy. He was traveling to New York just blowing off a few weeks of his spare time seeing the countryside from a different view. We interviewed him with Jays Camera and gave him about a 40 mile ride then we parted ways as he stuck with I90 west and we took I25 South towards Cheyenne Wyoming. The whole encounter was awesome! We got some business cards for his website which ended up getting lost during the trip. and in return I gave him half of my Spicy Italian Sub from the Subway in Butte. He was going on and on about how if you googled some crap he was number 3 on the list. Well shit if you Google Snotball you’ll find every one of my profiles for Myspace, facebook, and God knows what else.

We drove south on I25 for a little while until we stopped at a small town called Buffalo. Jay and I were both very hungry and needed some grub to help our butts regain feeling again. Long drives = Poor circulation. We looked around the town for a bit and we came across a Football stadium where the local high school was having a game that night. It must have been 5 or 6pm. the game was just starting and teenagers were flooding into the stadium. Jay and i joked about crossing the racist joke off the list seeing as we were in a town that was like 75% Native American, but then came to the realization that we had no idea how to find the interstate on ramp from where we were. We just finished our food and got back on the road.

We drove for a few more hours and I didn’t bother to stop anywhere to refill our tank because we had half a tank of gas and I figured that half a tank would at least get us to the next town. But much to my surprise there isn’t a town in between Kaycee, Wyoming and Casper, Wyoming so what do you know… we ended up running out of gas! We were tired and pretty pissed off at the state of Wyoming for not having more towns… But can you blame them? I mean come on its Wyoming.

Anyway it was about 10pm on the 18th when my car died going down a big hill on the outskirts of Casper, Wyoming. It ended up being about a 2 mile walk to the gas station and I left my hazard lights on so that my car wouldn’t get side swiped by anyone going down the interstate. The gas station attendant was hesitant to give us a gas can so I had to actually put a “deposit” down to pay for the can in case we stole it.

When we returned with the gas about 25 minutes later we found that my car’s hazard lights had turned themselves off… We checked to see that all of our crap was still in the car and after about 35 seconds the diagnosis was that my battery had died… So no starting the car even though we had gas now. I could do nothing but grumble in utter frustration at the shit luck we were having.

Since Jay was tired as hell I ended up pushing the car by myself for about 2 miles to the gas station. We hung out for about 15-20 minutes trying to flag people down to see if someone would help us. Being about 11pm now in a tiny suburb of some random city there was no one at the gas station other than the guy that got stuck working the graveyard shift. Jay decided to make the best of it and try doing skateboard tricks off the hood of my car.

I had already called Connor on the payphone to let him know we were well on our way to meet him in person for the first time. We didn’t have any lifelines we could use at that point in time to get ourselves back on the road. We were at the mercy of the night. We were just about to give up hope and settle down in the car for the night when this middle aged hippie driving an old Jeep Cherokee pulled up to us to ask us why we were parked right at the off ramp. His name was Norman and he was a local of the small gas station community outside of Casper. He was also kind enough to give us a jump in exchange for a Muffin at the Gas station. We got the car running again and then after buying the hippie a poppey seed muffin we were off again on another segment of our amazingly uneventful first night. It was about 1am when we came rolling through Denver. I say “about” because since our car battery had died we had no idea what the real time was. We were poor kids.. We didn’t have Cell phones or anything. Denver and Cheyenne seem to be kind of growing together because I never remember seeing any stretch of road between the two cities that didn’t have some sort of store or power plant or Harley Davidson retailer. I was pretty tired by now being up all day and just sitting on my butt driving. but seeing as Jay had an expired license I wasn’t going to chance getting pulled over by a cop in an unfamiliar place.

We ended up parking in Limon Colorado at what I would have guessed to be 2am. Due to my car battery dieing we had lost whatever knowledge of the correct time we had. our clock had actually said something to the sort of 1pm and I was too delusional by that time to make any sense of how we had driven 750 miles in about 27 minutes. All in all from the time I picked Jay up I estimate that we drove approximately 15 hours time.

September 19th. Approximately 6am (my car clock said 5:37pm) I awoke and immediately began driving on what I now realize was 4 hours of sleep. I was told that Limon was a great place to spend a night in a comfy hotel, but what I hadn’t realized before I had gotten there was that it was a truckers favorite stop during routes… so cheap rooms were $90 and I wasn’t about to pay that amount so we ended up sleeping in the car. On a side note, now I hate Limon. haha

We spent what seemed like ages driving east through Kansas on I70. If you haven’t been through there take my advice now. NEVER DRIVE THROUGH KANSAS!! it was 500 Miles of Nothing but fields! The road was damn near a perfectly straight line! The speed limit was 60 miles an hour and it was like “What the hell am I gonna hit out here if I speed!!?!”. There was nothing… Nothing at all for that whole 5 hours of driving… well OK there was one thing… a sign that said “Worlds Largest Prairie Dog Take Next Right!”  but that was it. And I come to find out at a later time that its not a real prairie dog? The damn thing is carved out of wood? At least you can go to Prairie dog town and see some 6 legged misfit cow grazing on some hay by its lonesome self. and some other crazy deformed animals like a 2 headed Rabbit mounted on the guys wall. Kansas is freakin’ creepy!

Anyway we ended up stopping in Hayes to both take showers at a truck stop. Then we got back on the road until we turned off at Salina and took I135 South. I was happy for the direction change because anyplace but Kansas was going to be awesome! We had to stop for another bathroom break inside Kansas because the only interesting thing to do while driving was drink water and process urine. We stopped in this cool little town called Newton which is a fair drive north of Wichita. We saw a KFC from the interstate and had to backtrack through town to find it. Along the way we ended up on some side streets and found a teenager who’s car battery had died on him. In an attempt to gain some good Karma we jumped the kids car for him with his cables and then continued looking for the KFC. This is just a personal opinion here but I truly honestly believe that fried chicken gets better the further south you are. Cause that shit was DELICIOUS!

It was a 275 mile drive to Tulsa, Oklahoma and to be honest that part of the drive FLEW by! I remember talking to my father before leaving town and he was trying to tell me about these toll roads that we’d come across. And me in my naivety could not wrap my head around what he was talking about. Needless to say I accidentally blew through a toll booth outside of Tulsa without realizing what it was. Jay and I had a good laugh at the idea of getting arrested for not paying a 75 cent toll. And then swore that we would attempt to stay on the straight and narrow for the remainder of the trip in hopes of making it back alive and on schedule.

We didn’t see a single White person in Tulsa. We pulled into a gas station so I could quickly fill up the car and ask for directions. Jay decided that instead of stretching his legs he was going to stay in the car. The gas station attendant gave me a ridiculously funny look when I walked into the gas station. So did the other 3 female customers. I guess its about right here that I should point out the the 3 females were all big black diva lookin’ ladies. and the kid at the counter was a tall lanky black guy. Turns out I was in a black Gas station, and I was the first white guy to enter that gas station in weeks. The people in the gas station couldn’t wrap their heads around the fact that I just waltzed in as if it were just any old day and this was the gas station I went too. At first they were very on edge, almost aggressive towards me. But after a few seconds of talking to them they quickly realized that I was NOT from around there and they lightened up. The attendant was behind a 4 inch thick glass window with a tiny slot at the bottom where I would put the money in. He had to call his manager out of the back room just to show him that a 6’2 brawny white boy had come into the gas station to ask for directions.

I’ve gotta say it was actually very hard to understand them. It seemed like every person in that store was mumbling on top of having a very thick drawl. I didn’t really understand the directions they were giving me to get to the exit I needed but politely thanked them and left regardless. Once i got back in the car Jay started laughing his head off saying “Was that fun man? There was NO WAY I was getting out of the car! I would have gotten stabbed out there!” The entire half hour spent in the city looking for the Muskogee Exit we saw a total of 12 black people, 3 middle easterners, and 5 Mexicans. All of whom knew by my overly friendly demeanor that I was not from around there. But nonetheless everyone we ran into were very friendly and very helpful in getting me the hell out of their city as quickly as possible haha.

We continued driving all night in the blackest night I’ve ever seen. It was depressing really.. In Montana you can see the stars at night, billions of them, but everything southwest of Cheyenne was dark and gloomy. Nothing really to look at, and no one else really on the roads until we got about 100 miles outside of Memphis. It had been a very long drive. We had been driving for nearly 15 hours and I was exhausted. The clock on the car dash read something blurry. I couldn’t really make it out but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t correct anyway. I was barely awake at the wheel and Jay seemed to be sleeping. All i could hear was the soft melodies of Cake playing through the stereo speakers, getting slowly more muffled and faded. The whooshing of the car cutting through wind was about the only thing I could hear at this point. I started fading.. And then I blacked out.

I woke up with lights in my rear view mirror blinding me and Jay screaming “LUKE WAKE UP!” at the top of his lungs! It was a Officer of the Arkansas Highway Patrol. It took me a few seconds to realize what was going on and then I pulled over. Jay was pretending to be asleep as I rolled down his window so that the officer could talk to me.

The conversation, I shit you not, went as follows:

Officer: How you boys doing tonight?
Me: Good good, just tired as hell sir. what was I doing wrong?
Officer: well son, you tell me what you were doing wrong.
Me: Uhh….
Officer: Have you boys been smoking any Mary Jane in this vehicle while you’ve been driving?
Me: Haha no sir, if you really want to know the truth I’m just really tired and fell asleep at the wheel.
Officer: Well that’s reckless driving son, License and registration.. And his License too. (points to Jay)

(I give him both our ID’s and my registration)

Me: Honestly sir thank you for pulling us over. We could have died…
Officer: Yeah well I pulled you over for speeding, and I also see that you have a cracked windshield. That crack is obscuring your vision. I’ll have to write you a ticket for it. Stay right here while I go back to my car

(after a few minutes he came back to the car)

Officer: John step out of the car and come have a chat with me.

(I turned off my car and turned on the hazards. then i got out and went to sit shotgun next to the patrol officer in his vehicle.)

Officer: Where you from boy?
Me: Well me and my buddy Jay are actually taking a road trip from Montana to Alabama to meet my mom for the first time, I just turned 18 yesterday.
Officer: Ahh I was wondering what someone from up north was doing down here, did you know your friends ID is expired?
Me: Yes sir that’s why he hasn’t been driving. We’ve been driving since Limon Colorado this morning.
Officer: Limon eh? Well son your story sounds crazy but I believe you. Visiting family should be quite an experience for you, you better keep your eyes open behind that wheel or you wont get to meet them.
Me: Yes sir, we are stopping at a friends house in Memphis to spend the weekend with him, we’ll be heading to my mothers on Monday morning.
Officer: Ahh OK good that’s only about 40 miles so you should be fine driving to there. unfortunately you were speeding pretty bad so I will have to give you a ticket for that and for your windshield.
Me: That’s more than understandable, you’re just doing your job.
Officer: I clocked you in going 97 in a 65 but when I flipped on my lights it seemed you started trying to outrun me. you finally pulled over when your car topped out at 113.
Me: Oh shit haha, I don’t remember any of that! But I highly doubt I can outrun an 06 magnum in an 87 5th avenue!
Officer: (laughs) It’s fine son I believe you, I’m giving you a ticket for going 94 though, that should help you out a little.
Me: Very much so sir, thank you very much for helping us out tonight.
Officer: OK, now get out of the car and get over to your friends house in one piece.

End of conversation.

So I ended up going back to my car and sitting there for a few minutes trying to wake myself up further. Jay had said that when the cop started chasing me I yelled something at the top of my lungs to the sort of “THIS DICK IS RIDING MY ASS!!!” then I floored it. I couldn’t help but laugh at that because I thought it was funny as hell. I turned the key to my car to start it up again… and nothing happened.

I was pretty pissed that my battery had died again.. and that we were stranded since the cop had just driven off… Jay and I sat on the hood of my car just watching traffic go by.. We were talking about how awesome that entire experience was. And how the cop had let us off with a few tickets instead of Jail time for evading the law. We could see in the distance the light from Memphis. It was amazing that it was 40 miles away and yet the town still glowed this great distance. Well OK, maybe it wasn’t Memphis itself glowing… Maybe it could have also been that I was delusional from lack of sleep and that the sun was starting to show its presence just around the bend of the Earth. Jay started talking about calling up Connor and having him come pick us up. But for some reason in that moment of complete exhaustion I pulled a smile onto my face and said, “Don’t worry man, just remember… I’m Luke Schnabel.” then I got back in and turned the key with what little hope I had left.

To my luck the car turned over just enough to get the engine running! Hell yeah! we were off again! About 30 minutes later we were driving through Olive Branch Mississippi looking for my friends house. I was completely flabbergasted to see that down south they don’t have sidewalks. It’s all just grass…. There were fire hydrants sticking out of trees and crazy stuff like that… No concrete anywhere on the streets we were driving on. My less naive self now knows that we were on the outskirts of town and more off on country roads than anywhere rural.

It took me about a half hour to find Connor’s house… His drive way was this 100 yard long Dirt pathway with Large Trees Lining both sides of the road. At the end of the runway it forked and to the left was a Barn house and to the Right was this Huge House. I assumed that Connor didn’t live in the barn. We sat in the car for a few minutes pondering what our next encounter might be like. Neither Jay nor I had ever met our friend Connor in person. We just knew him from an online game we played called World Of Warcraft. We had only just made plans to visit him about 6 days prior. His parents didn’t even know we were coming haha.

My car battery mustn’t have completely died because my clock read 7am. so i figured it was about that time since there was a fair amount more light then there had been when we were on the side of the road 45 minutes earlier.  Jay and I walked up to what we believed to be Connors house. I knocked a few times and a dog started barking. Then this lady came to the door who turned out to be Connor’s mom. She was pretty thrown off at 2 complete strangers arriving at her house at what was actually 5am on a Friday morning. After we told her that we were Connors friends and explained that he told us to knock as soon as we had gotten to his house,  she let us in. She went and woke up Connor and he came walking down the stairs still about 80% asleep with a big smile on his face.

After a few more minutes of talking to Connor, Jay and I ended up crashing on his couches while he went to the first half of school. after tallying it up we had driven 800 miles on our first day and another 1000 miles our 2nd day to get all the way to Memphis Tennessee in 2 days. 16 hours on night 1 and 19 hours on night 2. But we had made it to Connor’s in one piece, and would be spending the rest of the weekend there.

It’s an odd situation to find yourself in when you realize someone you’ve known for awhile and deemed a moderately decent human being shows you a major character flaw. Not something insignificant like they don’t tip or that they own all 6 Creed albums, something with fair amount indication as to the way think and interact with the world around them. Something like being a Holocaust denier.

I remember when I was in the third grade and I was visiting my grandparents for Christmas. We had brought along our new kitten, Snickers. While waiting for the midnight mass – held at midnight, of course, so that you could be the first, most pious person in your time zone to celebrate the birth of Jesus – Snickers kept jumping up between my sisters legs to grab at her purse. My grandmother said Snickers was trying to “jump to Nigger Heaven.” This was distressing on two counts. First, there was the initial realization that my memaw was a racist. Then there was the second, more troubling realization that my grandmother presumably calls her pussy Nigger Heaven.

I found myself in this situation again recently at work when one of my supervisors was talking to another co-worker. Apparently, her daughter is dating a schizophrenic guy who wants to have a sex change and her daughter would be willing to say with him after it, thus making her a lesbian. According to her, this circumstance was tearing her family apart, because as later conversations would reveal, she’s not a very big fan of “the gays.”

Overhearing this conversation, however, put me in a pickle.

There was a part of me that wanted to call her a bigoted fuckhead, and tell her that she should just embrace the fact her daughter might be a lesbian. Because, if she doesn’t, her daughter could go through her whole life feeling alienated and guilty for something that she feels naturally until she eventually kills herself with a pair of Doc Martens while Ani DiFranco plays in the background. But I didn’t, because there is another, much larger part of me, that likes being able to buy food and pay the rent and knows if I called my boss a fuckhead, I’d likely loose that ability. So I said nothing. I just bit my tongue and stared forward.

This is quite worrisome because I’ve always fancied myself a man of principles, but two of my most time honoured principles are beginning to clash. The first being that as long as you don’t dick with me: you’re alright. The second being that as long as what you’re doing is not dicking with anyone else’s ability to achieve happiness: you’re alright.

The problem lies in the fact that the act of hating gays, in and of itself, does not affect me. But hating gays can greatly affect the happiness of others. Whether it be by voting time and time again not to legalize same sex marriage, a right which is afforded every other American, or by dragging a dude behind a pick-up truck and then cutting his cock off shoving it in his mouth.

Obviously, this clashing of guiding concepts is going to require me to re-evaluate the bedrock of my moral foundation, but the worst thing is that I can’t seem to shake this overwhelming feeling of cowardice. I would have loved to call my boss on her bullshit while triumphing the rights of the few, but instead I was overcome by my own desire for self preservation. And thus my pickle presents itself; idealism versus realism. Do I really have scruples or am I just a Nigger Heaven?

A while ago I was trying to find the average bit rate for HD video (there isn’t one by the way) and I happened upon this dude who runs a consumer report blog.  He was bitching about Netflix throttling his streaming service and how it was unconstitutional or something ridiculous. The guy later then posted an update about how his buffering time was over 6 hours and how it was so convenient that it happened after he posted a rant defaming Netflix. He then proposed the idea of forming a class action lawsuit against the red enveloped shceisters so that no child would ever again have to suffer the grand, lachrymose injustice of cruel load times ever again. Which leads me to my three main points.

First, this dude is a pussy, fuck him.

Second, I highly doubt that Netflix spends time and money maintaining a gestapo-like department that scours the internet cross referencing dickheads who talk shit about them on their blogs with their 20 million plus subscribers so they can stick it to some middle-aged whistle blower with a receding hair line and Dorito crumbs stuck to his man boobs. Why? Because no one gives a shit about blogs. The vast majority of blogs consist of self-indulgent ramblings by vainglorious windbags which barely qualify as quantifiable thoughts (see www.wusha-tsr.com).

Netflix isn’t going waste resources on punishing a subscriber because he whines about his service, especially if he actually has power over the buying habits of other consumers. If anything, they are going to try and win his favor so he sings their praises which in turn leads to more customers.  To steal a phrase from amiable, down to earth congressmen everywhere that want to sound blue collar; it’s hogwash.

And thirdly, if a product or service blows, don’t buy it. It’ll either get better or go away. It’s the founding principle Laissez-Faire Capitalism as well as a core component in the field of Thuganomics. A person or company has an idea for a product or service and in turn offers that product or service for a cost, usually money. This, in turn, allows for continued production and service. If money ceases to be brought in, the enterprise ceases to exist. It’s a pretty straight forward concept, that I don’t think needs further explanation, but I did it anyway.

I realize this guy probably doesn’t have much going for him considering he spends his free time watching streaming videos and then detailing his experiences of watching said videos. Suing Netflix could potentially be his claim to fame. His chance to be a footnote in the annals of corporate revolt, but it’s Netflix. It’s not like it’s the power company bankrupting you with exorbitant rates for natural gas. Nor is it the water company pumping raw sewage through people’s faucets. It’s Netflix. It’s a luxury. And for ten bucks a month, a pretty nominal luxury on at that.

If you don’t like your service, cancel your subscription. Don’t form a lawsuit to try and get the government to regulate the behaviour of any person or company that acts in a way you find dis-satisfactory. Doing so is an abuse of the legal system and makes you a dick (see Jerry Falwell).

I was dicking around on ultimate-guitar.com when I stumbled across an article entitled, “In-N-Out: 10 Acts Who Did it Fast.” Basically, it was a list of ten bands that were widely influential, yet short lived. I don’t know why I clicked on it. I hate top ten lists. They never say anything remotely interesting or thought provoking. Their only purpose is either to vindicate or act as an affront to pre-existing opinions. No growth. No development. Just a way to waste ten minutes of your life before you die.

If one were to make a metaphor between literature and vegetables, top ten lists would be candy corn.

Anyway, after finishing the list and saying to myself, “Fuck that guy! What does he know about music?” I made yet another mistake; I read the comments. Now if internet comments were a vegetable, they’d be Christopher Reeve, ZING! And while reading the comments I came upon one by a fella (or gal…la?) named fede01_8 that read: “nowadays bands can’t make a memorable record in decades!” This was then followed by other people agreeing with him, presumably while tossing off.

I’ve heard this argument before, that “music today has no soul/hasn’t been good since [insert year]/yadda yadda yadda, I’m a giant taint face.” Usually these people are referring music or a band from the 60s or 70s. And they’re not just middle-aged people unable to cope with their age or having to deal with the fact that growing a mustache and not cutting their hair did nothing to upset the status quo. It’s kids my age or even younger that weren’t so much a twinkle in their father’s eye when these bands broke up.

My gripe, however, isn’t just that I disagree with them (which makes them inherently wrong), it’s that these people are fucking morons. Not because of differing musical tastes, but because such belief defies conventional logic. In effect, what these folks are saying is that the work and efforts of the millions, perhaps even billions, of musicians of the past forty years can’t hold a candle to some one that only released three albums before they suffocated on their own vomit, because they were too fucked up to roll over on their side. COUGH. Hendrix. Cough.

This thought process of “anything that doesn’t coincide with my narrow margin of sensibilities is fundamentally bad or of a somehow lesser caliber,” may not seem like a big deal when applied to something as superficial as musical interests, but when applied to a more pertinent issue, say, race or religion, the effects can be a little distressing. E.g. slavery, the Holocaust or, I don’t know, the Reagan Administration. Heck! Why not all three.

My point, convoluted though it may be, is that if you like the Doors, you should probably stick your hands in a wood chipper after cutting out your own tongue so that you never express an opinion to another human being ever again.

Oh, and, ahem…

1. N.W.A.
2. Minor Threat
3. Operation Ivy
4. Citizen King
5. Atom and His Package
6. Thunder Cross
7. Meat
8. Dj Methodikal
9. About
10. Against Me! (I know they’re still a band, but anything after Reinventing Axl Rose doesn’t count.)

Another year and another champion joins the ranks of elite persons who have conquered adversity, who have shown enormous bravado in the face of most certain humiliation, a select few who actually submit pictures. With a great warmth welling up in my chest like the roar of the Victoria Falls, I am proud to annouce the 2010 Wusha-TSR.com Pump[king/queen]: Matt Horvath for his Studio Ghibli inspired, Totoro. May he carry the honor with him in his heart until his body is suddenly and inexplicably torn apart by swarming fiddler crabs.

Although, I must admit he had some stiff competition namely, myself and my alarmingly accurate depiction of homosexual Sesame Street puppet, Ernie. Although I didn’t take the picture until today so he began to shrivel. I had to super glue his hair and nose back on.

And that was it. No one else entered.

So, uh. I’m going to go play Bayonetta.

Once again, friends, it’s time for the annual Battle for Pump[king/queen]; the most prestigious title to bestowable by Wusha-TSR.com.  As always, the title of Pump[king/queen] carries with it the inheritance rules of the English Peerage system.

The Rules:

1. Pumpkin carving must be that of the submitter.

2. Submissions must be sent in by 12:00 am, October 31st, 2010.

3. There is no 3rd rule, it just looks weird only having two rules.

To enter, send picture of your pumpkin, along with your name and a brief description of your pumpkin(optional) to thewush@wusha-tsr.com. The winner will receive a hat and t-shirt commemorating their victory as well as a certificate of authenticity and of course, bragging rights for the length of their genetic lifetime.

Go forth and wow me.

A guy with a duck on his head walks into a hospital.  The doctor asked him what can I help you with today.  The duck says “can you get this guy out of my ass?”

It has recently occurred to me that I have been holding various dialogues on the nature of human beings in my head. In fear that perhaps I’m slipping into slow insanity caused by either an early onset of syphilis (perhaps caught by sitting on too many airport toilets) or lack of facebook friends I’ve decided to post a rant. This is going to be the only form of entertainment this website has been graced with for a while so I’m in no fear of competing for cheers with the comical dancing sun bears which are the Wush’s post.

An easily decided topic for my rant, seeing as I’m sitting in South Africa at the moment, people of darkskin on the continent of Africa are lazy as all hell.  Porters carry your bag for 14 steps and expect a few dollars, beggars just tell you that they don’t want to work and most people don’t even wake up till afternoon.  Besides the fact that I have once and for all confirmed that it is racially bred into them to eat fried chicken (every lunch) and watermelon (every breakfast) I have various other beliefs that mark them as never being able to succeed.  While being too numerous to list I’ll go over a few.  They have 3 laned streets.  Not 3 lanes on each side but 3 lanes total. The center one is fought over by traffic and is usually won by the biggest vehicle.  They have no concept of time.  We told the taxi to be there at 3, he showed up at 4.  The plane was supposed to take off at 8, it didn’t start taxing till 10:15.  5 minutes turns into an hour and before you know it everyone goes back to their house cause its dark and they can’t afford lights cause they don’t work enough.  Did I mention fried chicken and watermelon.  I somehow managed to lose weight over here but I’m not chalking it up to their diet.  This proto-atkins no carb diet is why most people in ‘nam not afflicted by agent orange now have severe kidney problems.  You would think that with thousands of years of mankind before the Europeans they would have developed a grand culture or at least a more well rounded diet.

It was a grand trip and I might have a sexy impala to gawk at in a few months after the taxidermist finishes it up.