UPDATE 2: Celebrity Digital Death

Bitch tweeted!

Like all dead people.

Twitter didn't exist back then.  But this guy sure did party post-posthumously...

Viral Facebook Campaigns

By now, I think we all know what this is about.  You change your facebook profile picture to a picture of a cartoon character from your childhood and then you end child abuse.  Or something like that.

Is the bear upset about pedophilia, or the lack thereof?  I find this confusing.

Not unlike the the "I like it on the..." campaign of earlier this year (It had to do with breast cancer.  If you click here to read about it, you will also get to see boobies!!) these "awareness-raising" viral campaigns are nothing more than what some are calling "slacktivism"- joining groups, participating in internet memes that don't actually do anything but rather, allow you to feel good about yourself by doing virtually nothing.  (Hint- if you can change your profile picture with one hand, you have your other hand free to masturbate!  Everyone wins!... Unless you're looking at pictures of little kids- in that case, you've kind of just canceled yourself out.)

"Stop touching your root chakra while watching Justin Bieber videos!"- no matter what you call it, it's wrong!

These campaigns claim to "raise awareness."  Y'know, for those of you unaware of breast cancer, or child abuse.  Here's what seems contradictory- with the "I like it on the..." campaign, statuses were changed by women only.  The idea was to "intrigue" men, to have them ask what their status was about, or perhaps use it as their opportunity to proposition their crush to finally have sex with them on the coat rack. (See?  It doesn't even make sense!  Nowhere you like putting your purse is somewhere you'd also like having sex!  Unless you like leaving your purse on the mad tea party ride at Disneyland.)

Don't ask me how I know this, but I would highly recommend sanitizing that purple tea cup if I were you...

How often do we hear about women getting ahead in their career by sleeping their way to the top?  Or being accused of getting promoted because they are more attractive than their possibly-more-qualified colleague?  We want to be taken seriously, to not be seen as sexual objects, to not have our looks, our bodies, our sexuality a determining factor in our rise to the top of our careers, or the causes for which we fight.  And yet, the most effective way someone can think of to bring awareness to this campaign is to create sexually suggestive facebook statuses?  Isn't this pretty much saying "hey! We want you to care about this disease!  And since we're women, we'll use our sexuality to achieve that!" 

Also, who is the target audience here?  Since all women were in on this, were men the ones to be targeted?  And if so, why?  Are men less aware of breast cancer?  Do we want men to donate more money, because we assume their love of boobies could save millions of cancer victims?

And why even alienate men?  They can also be diagnosed with breast cancer.  And society is A LOT less aware of that.  I found this site.  They promote the pink and blue ribbon, for male breast cancer.  How many of us have seen that?  How many pink and blue items are sold every year to raise money for male breast cancer?  Why are we raising awareness for a disease that everyone is very aware of, and what type of awareness are we raising?  To learn about breast cancer?  How to test for it?  Who is most at risk?  Or is it about donating money, or participating in walks?  And if someone inquires about my status, do I have the knowledge and facts to get that person to actually get up and do something for the cause?

  And what about this cartoon image campaign?  The idea is to "change your profile picture to a cartoon character from your childhood and invite your friends to do the same. Until Monday (Dec. 6) there should be no human faces on facebook, but an invasion of memories. This is a campaign to stop violence against children."

Really?!

This campaign is supposed to stop violence against children?!  HOW?!  Imagine I'm a pedophile.  I see a picture of a Care Bear.  Do I think a) "oh wow, being a kid is really great and innocent, I should stop molesting them" or b)"mmm.  Care Bear.  mmm. Kids watching Care Bears.  mmmm. Must go find a child."  And if I'm not a pedophile (which I'm not, just so we're all clear...) I obviously am against violence against children!  I don't need a facebook profile picture to remind me of that!  And, much like the "I like it on the..." campaign- what type of awareness is being raised?  Is this to help children who have been victims of child abuse?  Is it to help would-be attackers get psychological treatment?  Are we trying to raise money for victims of child abuse?  Are we trying to teach kids how to be on the look-out for potential child abusers?  Once I see the image, and think about child abuse, then what?  
Well, then I probably look at more boobies.

Aaaahhh, no, not those ones!!  WTF?!!?  "Hillary's New Look for the Primaries"- I'll say!

Again, mere slacktivism.  We like to feel that we're doing something but, y'know, just... without really having to do anything.  At least some people were brave and courageous enough to stop tweeting for their cause.  Which is... Oh man, I forget.  Something about Kim Kardashian being tired, I want to say?

"Should I keep sleeping, or wake up, tweet about sleeping, and then keep sleeping??"

If only everyone just complained about this stuff on their blogs.  We'd all be so much happier.

UPDATE: Celebrity Digital Death

It's me and Danny Bonaduce against the world!!

Trust me, if I could make this image bigger, I would.

Celebrity Digital Death

Aaaaahhhhhomgwhat?!  What's going on here?! Alicia Keys is dead!  Look!  She's in a coffin! 

Oh.

Wait.

She's not actually dead.  None of the celebrities are.  But their twitter/facebook accounts are.

aaaaahhhh!  Worst thing ever, worst thing ever!!!

Here's the concept:

"How many real lives can be saved by sacrificing a few digital ones?
MILLIONS Starting December 1 - World AIDS Day - the world's most followed celebrity Tweeters are sacrificing their digital lives to help save millions of real lives affected by HIV/AIDS in Africa and India.
That means no more Twitter or Facebook updates from any of them. No more knowing where they are, what they had for dinner, or what interesting things are happening in their lives. From here on out, they're dead. Kaput. Finished.
But they don't have to die in vain. And they don't have to stay dead for long. Just watch their Last Tweet and Testaments, and buy their lives back." (source)


Here's what I hate:

1- How much money went into hiring the photographers, stylists, web designers, campaign managers, etc, to put this "charity" together?  Of course, any philanthropic initiative takes some initial start up money.  But remember when Sarah McLachlan made this video?  It raised awareness, it made a clear, concise point that remained consistent throughout the video, and- perhaps most importantly- barely cost anything.  Usually, when launching such an initiative, you want as little out-go as possible.  You want the money coming in, you don't want to be spending it on hiring stylists to create massive bouffants.  (pssst- who's Daphne Guinness?) 

2- Remember this campaign?  You should, because it just started in September of this year, and is still very much active and relevant.  Basically, there has been a rise in teen suicides recently, mainly as a result of bullying, and mainly bullying of homosexual, or suspected homosexual teens.  It Gets Better aims to tell teens that suicide is a permanent solution for a temporary problem, and that, quite simply IT GETS BETTER.  So let me get this straight- we're telling teens that death isn't a trivial matter.  It's permanent, it's devastating to your loved ones (and you all have them!) and it is no way glamourous.

OR IS IT?!

This website even encourages it's viewers to "sacrifice yourself."  Is this really the language, and are these the images we want the general public to be seeing right now, given everything that has been happening in our society as of late? 

3- Millions of lives are actually lost due to HIV/AIDS every single day.  A lot of the people who lost their lives never had access to clean drinking water, let alone twitter or facebook.  And, if I donate money to them, they won't come back to life, like these twitter/facebook accounts will.  I think a lot of the fascination with celebrities twitter/facebook accounts is that the "normals" like you and I (and this guy) want to read about the mundane crap they did during the day (actual Kim Kardashian tweet: "I'm soooo sleepy I just need a 7min nap!" don't I know it, sistah!)  This campaign shows us how out of touch and unaware these celebrities actually are.  It's world AIDS day, teens are killing themselves because they are being bullied for nothing other than being true to themselves, and I'm supposed to care that Kim Kardashian and Justin Timberlake aren't tweeting?! (Side note: Kim Kardashian also describes herself as a "perfumista" on twitter.  Just thought you'd like to know...)

4- Oh, what's 4 again?  Oh right- NO ONE CARES IF YOU DON'T TWEET!  Have you noticed how A.D.effing.D. we all are?  If you don't tweet, we'll just read Shaq's tweets.  Or Aziz Ansari's tweets.  Or my tweets.  And what happens if they don't raise enough money to "bring them back to life"?  Will they stay off social networking sites forever?!  Because that's actually huge incentive to not donate.  Of course, I won't know when Kim Kardashian goes to the gym, or when Alicia Keys is feeling bloated, or when Ryan Seacrest's hair needs to be re-dyed (seriously, Ryan Seacrest is participating in this campaign.  Why do I keep getting a sick sense of glee by seeing the phrase "Ryan Seacrest is dead"?) but, on the upside, maybe it will just show us that celebrities don't really matter all that much, we shouldn't care about the self-indulgent sh*t they have to say, and we should focus on the real issues.

Here's what I love:

1- That this campaign is suffering.  Read about it here.  Or here.  Or here.   

2- It's sparking discussion.  Even if the campaign sucks, we all know when world AIDS day is now.  And we can spend hours just speculating which of our fave celebs is eating lunch right now.  It could be anyone!

Just try to tell me she's not at the Peach Pit.  JUST.TRY.

  So, let the discussion begin.  Do you hate this?  Love it?  Do you wish you too were a perfumista?  Are you concerned about who will now bring sexy back, with Justin Timberlake dead?  And how does Lance Bass feel about this?

Exclusive: he feels gay.

Rice

This probably seems trivial, especially after the hard-hitting investigative reporting I poured my heart and soul into for my read-by-over-ten-people-(maybe) auto-flush toilets post.

However, this blog is supposed to be about things I love but also hate, and we're supposed to explore them together, that was the eternally-binding contract we all entered into.  And, like Rogers, I hold you to that contract, no matter how terrible I treat you, and how much sheer and utter crap I make you read.

Ooooh, did you think I meant Rogers, the cell phone/internet provider to which I am currently subscribed?  No, I was talking about these guys, all named Roger!

Anyway, today I'm thinking about my love/hate relationship with rice.  What is the deal with rice?!

Seriously.  what is the deal?!

I eat rice a lot, and like eggs, it is very versatile.  But, c'mon, aren't we over-hyping rice a bit??  According to this site half of the world's population is eating primarily rice.  Really?!  Rice??  Let's explore some of the awesome alternatives we have.  We could be eating meat sandwiched between meat!  And we're eating the seeds of the monocot plant, Oryza sativa (that's how the smart kids say rice.)  When you eat the double down, you've got your four of five pieces, you stick 'em together, you chew, you spend some time on the toilet.  With rice, you have thousands of morsels of cereal grain!  You eat one of them, you feel like you're really getting somewhere, and then you look down at the bowl and you've barely made a dent in it!  Remember Choose Your Own Adventure novels, when you'd go to page 54, fall down the well, get out, get back into the castle, then somehow end up on page 54 again, fall down the well, climb to safety, just to end up on page 54 again, falling down the well?  That is eating rice, to me.  Falling down a never-ending well on page 54.

Would you fall down a well in this Choose Your Own Adventure novel?  Or would you just continuously wave your hands in the air, all the while not caring?

I would also like to add another argument to why I think rice is over-hyped.  If we refer back to this site (note how the page is called "interesting facts about rice."  I'd suggest they refer to this before naming their web pages) you will see that "three of the world's four most populous nations are rice-based societies."  People's Republic of China, India and Indonesia.  But also, according to the site, "Every year, 50 million people are added to Asia's soaring population of 3.5 billion."  Ignoring the fact that the wording of that sentence makes Asia sound like a Sims game, does anyone else sense a rice conspiracy?  If I got three of the world's four most populous nations to eat the double down, then said double down would be the staple diet of half the world's population.

And my, what a world it would be!!

But really, I also love rice a lot.  I eat brown rice with chicken, avocado, sun-dried tomatoes and sweet potatoes, I make sushi a lot, and I've even been known to indulge in a rice pudding.  That's right, rice pudding!  It can be savoury or sweet!  I also found this recipe for sticky rice balls- a delicious food, but an unfortunate nickname.  Rice is also really good for you.  Eaten with almost every meal in Japan, according to Dr. Oz, short-grain rice helps you feel satisfied for longer, and fuller, faster.  And we all know that Dr. Oz should always be trusted.

Oh, wait, no.  Not this guy.  Although he's not exactly untrustworthy, per se.  Perhaps just not as gung-ho about rice...

Anyway.  Do what you want, really.  Rice is great, it's also frustrating.  If it's causing you to stay up late blogging about it, you might want to lay off for a while.  If, however, you've been looking for something extra to cover in batter, deep-fry and add to your double down, try some rice!

Rice, in it's most natural form.

Automatic Flush Toilets

The toilets at my work flush automatically.  I hate it. 

I've tried to figure out when auto-flush toilets first hit society, but after a ton of research, I couldn't find the date.  This is particularly interesting, because my main reason for wanting to have this information was to know at what point we, as a society, became so lazy that we couldn't even flush our own toilets.  Apparently it was at the same point that I couldn't research something as simple as a specific date because I was lazy and got distracted by... other things.

In addition to laziness, I suspect another reason for the popularity of auto-flush toilets is due to our fear of germs.  I also don't know exactly when this happened, all I know is one day people were washing their hands when leaving the washroom or before preparing food, like a completely normal, and well-functioning society and the next day, we're bathing in Lysol and hosing our kids down with windex.

"My child will never get sick!"

 

There's also the issue of the sheer amount of water the auto -flush toilet wastes (because you know it doesn't just flush once.  It flushes once when you walk into the stall, once when you sit down, once when you reach for the toilet paper, once when you stand up, and you get the point... It flushes more than once, basically, in case you didn't get the point.)

According to this site even a water-efficient toilet will use between four to six litres of water per flush.  And according to this site the average person living in sub-Saharan Africa uses 10 to 20 litres of water per day.  That means that, if our auto-flush toilet flushes even only twice instead of once just because we moved the wrong way, or sneezed, or reached for toilet paper, we've used more water than what someone in Africa would use for their entire day.  Why?  Because we don't want to touch anything in a public washroom.  Or because our arms are too sore from carrying around our American Apparel shopping bags to maneuver the flusher.  Or because some people think that, when you use a public washroom, rules of societal norms and common-sense no longer apply and flushing is optional.  (FYI- it's not.)

"I'm so tired from carrying this bag in one hand and posing by seductively glancing over my shoulder!  Thank goodness my toilet has an auto-flush because I need my other hand to hold my hair back!"

So we've already established that, for the amount of water that auto-flush toilets use, we may as well just go sit in front of a bunch of starving kids in Africa and eat buckets of KFC chicken. 

And what about that guy dousing his kid in Lysol we looked at earlier?  Should he really be so grateful for the auto-flush?

Well, according to this guy, the filthiest place in our office is our phone.  And in our house?  Our kitchen sponge.  This makes sense.  I can't really remember the last time I changed my kitchen sponge, and I don't think I've EVER wiped down my phone receiver.  However, almost every time I walk into the public washrooms at work, there is some hard working individual scrubbing the toilets and polishing the sinks.

There's also this to keep in mind.  Basically, by over-sanitizing and over-cleaning ourselves and children, we are actually WEAKENING our immune systems and creating more illnesses and allergies in future generations.  And honestly, they have enough to deal with.

So every time your toilet automatically flushes for you- and not necessarily when you're done your business, but maybe while doing it, or before doing it, or before and after and during it- please take a moment and ponder the following three points.

1.  We are lazy.
2. We have an unjustified sense of entitlement. 
3. We have an irrational fear of germs.

This is YOU, society!  I have just held up a mirror to you!  Look at how scared you are!  

Oh, I'm also supposed to put something in here about why I love the topic being discussed.

Y'know what though?

No.

Tim "the tool man" Taylor

Welcome to my blog.

As a wise man or woman in cyber-space once said- "never before have so many people with so little to say said so much to so few."

I'm going to write about things I love, but also hate, or things I hate but also kind of love. 

As a short intro post:

I have recently discovered that Home Improvement airs on CMT every night at 10pm and then, if you're still itching for some tool man lovin', again at 10 30pm. 

Remember when Jill went back to school and every episode centred around her psycho-analyzing the other character(s) in the scene?  Man, I hated that.  She just accused Tim of being "emotionally off-centre" on a television show.  So really, this episode is doubly annoying, because she's psycho-analyzing in the show AND psycho-analyzing in the show IN THE SHOW. 

But what do I love about this show, or this episode specifically?  Well, Mark's started in on his goth phase, which we all remember as a highlight of the show.  The in-between-scene animation is always stellar, and- although the episode is not yet over- I just know Wilson's going to give some great advice that Tim is going to repeat (poorly), butcher (amusingly), and ultimately, use to bring the family closer together (poignantly.)

Ah, I love it.  (but also kind of hate it.)