JLooney.com

I absolutely, vehemently, unequivocally detest when my rights and freedoms are infringed upon for any reason, but most especially because of an (usually unfounded) assumption someone makes about me.

I’ve ranted previously about pre-paying at the gas pump because it’s assumed that I’m a thief. I’m moving up the scale of judgment and stupidity a bit here. The other night I went shopping at the local Wal-Frickin’ with the missus. We got some groceries for The Boy’s birthday celebration, a few party supplies (paper plates, napkins, gift bags for the schwag, etc.) and a set of 4 wooden TV trays. After we’d checked out, as we were heading towards the exit, the greeter (who looked for all the world like a bored high school kid, resting her lethargic and terminally bored face onto the palm of her hand as she leaned on the desk in front of her and presumably tried not to drool or fall asleep or both) asked to see my receipt.

Now I’m no dummy. I know my rights and I’m pretty aware of privacy laws in the state of Utah.

“What do you need that for?” I responded.

You see, I know that I’m perfectly within my legal rights to dismiss her with a “no thanks” and continue walking to my car. I also know that it’s Wally-World’s policy to check receipts on electronics and large items, even though they have no legal standing to do so. I’ve read plenty of horror stories of people being detained and even having the police called because they refused to allow a Wal-Mart employee to check their receipt.

“Because you’ve got a large item – that table-thing there” she said, pointing to the cart. “We check all the receipts on stuff like that” she continued, as if that made everything ok.

It was late, and I was tired and ready to be home, so I opted to just let her check the receipt rather than risking the inevitable ruckus that would have followed my refusal. She checked the receipt and I was on my way.

Is having a Wal-Mart greeter, being of either the iconic octogenarian or self-important adolescent variety, check my receipt really that big of a deal? I guess it depends on how strongly you feel about your individual privacy and rights.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a privacy zealot or anything, I just feel that one of the basic tenets of our great nation and one of our most valuable freedoms is our individual rights.

Let me switch gears for a minute here, and I invite you to ask yourself if you feel the same way in just a moment, and perhaps more importantly, why or why not.

On December 25, 2009, 23-year-old Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to detonate and explosive device on a Delta/Northwest flight from Amsterdam, The Netherlands, to Detroit, Michigan. He failed, and is currently in custody, but his actions prompted a massive jump in airline security measures and an outcry from the media and political institutions for greater measures in screening airline passengers. One of the proposed measures is the x-ray-like “full-body scan” (image below). Now, it’s not that I take issue with somebody checking out my junk. You wanna see it? I got no problem with that. What I take issue with is the fact that because one man did something stupid, everyone immediately feels like stricter measures are needed, and by and large, people are willing to simply hand over the freedoms that hundreds of thousands of men and women have fought and died for.

click for larger image

Let me just put this in perspective. It’s estimated that approximately 730 million people travelled on commercial airlines in 2008. Assuming that statistic holds (more or less) true for 2009, we can safely say that there’s a 1 in 730,000,000 chance that a terrorist will end up on a plane and try to do something bad.

By comparison, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, there were 13, 846 alcohol-related deaths in 2008. The estimated US population that year was 304,059,724. Now, not taking into account that only a certain percentage of that number is licensed drivers of legal age, and using the whole raw number, that’s 1 in 21,960.

Funny, but I don’t hear anyone screaming as loudly or ardently about drunk drivers as I do about some guy that burned his johnson off trying to blow up a plane.

If you want to really put this in perspective, a law requiring a full-body scan prior to boarding a plane (presumably in the interest of making the flight safer), is pretty much the same thing as requiring every vehicle in America to be equipped with a BAC device that would prevent the vehicle from starting pending a ‘pass’ result with an acceptable blood-alcohol rating.

Never had a drink in your life? Doesn’t matter. Everyone gets screened equally when it comes to airlines, and if this is such an acceptable exchange of risk versus rights, why would the same not hold true with vehicles? After all, the numbers just don’t lie. Approximately 3,500 people died on 9/11 – the worst aviation disaster of all time by a long shot – which is only about 25% of the number of drunk driving deaths annually.

And yet, because of media fear-mongering and our innate need to feel “safe” (whether it’s an illusion or not doesn’t matter), we’re willing to simply hand over our freedoms, no questions asked.

I imagine the men and women who have died protecting those freedoms would take issue with that.

Jason Chaffetz is a damn moron.

I’m not kidding, he’s really pushing for dumbest political figure in Utah, and lord knows we’ve got way more than our fair share of ass-hats and idiots. Look no further than Chris Buttars and Michael Waddoups for proof of this.

What did Mr. Chaffetz do to make himself a contender and throw himself in league with this elite class of fools and blowhards? He thinks Carrie Prejean, the former Miss California who was shredded by the media for her anti-opposite-marriage comments in the Miss America pageant, has a bright future in politics! This is like saying the poor schmuck that just rolled his car on I-15 has a future as a NASCAR driver.

Here’s what he said, as reported by TMZ.com: “that she “has the ability to draw crowds and if she has a strong message to go with that, who knows what she can do? She has star power which can open doors.”

Then he went on to add that “”We’ve all made mistakes when we were 17. (The sex tape) is going to be an impediment, but people are excited about her convictions and her beliefs.”

Yes, we’ve all made sex tapes when we were (allegedly) 17, and although it can be an impediment to, you know, common-effing-sense, that shouldn’t in any way deter people from being excited about what you have to say about morals and Christianity. Right?

Now, let’s just take a quick trip down memory lane, and re-visit a few of the tremendously epic blunders Miss Prejean has committed, shall we?

First, she gave the second-most-retarded answer to a question ever given in a pageant. Prejean was asked by pageant judge Perez Hilton whether she believed every U.S. state should legalize same-sex marriage

“Well I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one way or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage. And, you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that marriage should be between a man and a woman, no offense to anybody out there. But that’s how I was raised and I believe that it should be between a man and a woman.”

What was first, you ask? Caitlin Upland, Miss Teen South Carolina’s answer to the following question:

“Recent polls have shown a fifth of Americans can’t locate the U.S. on a world map. Why do you think this is?”

Her answer?

“I personally believe that U.S. Americans are unable to do so because, uh, some, people out there in our nation don’t have maps and, uh, I believe that our, uh, education like such as, uh, South Africa and, uh, the Iraq, everywhere like such as, and, I believe that they should, our education over here in the U.S. should help the U.S., uh, or, uh, should help South Africa and should help the Iraq and the Asian countries, so we will be able to build up our future, for our children.”

Yes, there are people this dumb walking around without supervision. Unlike Prejean, Miss Teen South Carolina had the good sense to realize she screwed up and leave well enough alone.

Prejean, however, freaked out when she didn’t win, saying first that her first amendment rights had been trampled (hardly. She got to say what she wanted, so she was allowed to freely exercise her right) and when that didn’t work out so well she cried that she was being discriminated against for being a Christian. Really.

Which is kinda funny, considering that just days after the pageant debacle, and after being directly asked if she had ever posed nude or semi-nude (to which she responded in the negative), a semi-nude picture of her surfaced. Now, of course she claims that as a young, impressionable teen model she was exploited and taken advantage of by the photographer, which could possibly be true, if it weren’t for my next point.

Not too much after that photo surfaced, someone discovered a few topless photos of her, posing on a windy cliff. Now get this, since the “photographer took advantage of me” argument didn’t work on the first one, she tried a new tactic. In the photos, she’s seen wearing a bikini bottom and an open vest, exposing her breast. She claims that the wind blew the vest open and the photog snapped a picture. Only problem is, her hair is blowing one way and the vest is open in the exact opposite direction.

All of this understandably stirred up quite a bit of controversy with the Miss California organization.

So to cut their losses, the Miss California pageant decided to let her go, saying she was in breach of contract for not showing up at scheduled appearances and fulfilling the terms of her contract with the organization. Prejean responded by counter-suing, claiming that they had scheduled an unreasonable amount of appearances and had unfair expectations of her. The pageant then

Then, incredibly, an even bigger bomb was dropped. In a preliminary meeting with the Miss California pageant’s attorneys, wherein she was sueing for 1 Million dollars, the negotiations were brought to a hasty conclusion when the pageant’s attorney’s played 30 seconds of a sex tape featuring – you guessed it – the “Christian” Carrie Prejean. Upon viewing the tape she basically said, “shut it off, I’m dropping the suit.”

Her comment? “It’s the worst thing I’ve ever done and I regret it every day”

Sure ya do, sweetie.

But it get’s better. Pretty much right after that meeting, she called her ex-boyfriend, whom she had sent the video to as some kind of present or something, and asked him to say that she was 17 at the time. His response? Hell no! That’d make him a possessor of child pornography, and truthfully, I think he just wanted to see Carrier squirm some more like a slug under a heat lamp and sprinkled with salt.

And as it turns out, she didn’t make just ONE sex tape. Oh no, she made SEVEN! And she took 20-30 nude and explicit photos of herself, to go along with the videos. Who got some Jeebus now?

Speaking of Jeebus, she also recently commented on her implants, and how Jeebus was totally cool with it, saying:

“No, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with getting breast implants as a Christian. I think it’s a personal decision. I don’t see anywhere in the Bible where it says you shouldn’t get breast implants.”

Now I’m not saying that there IS something wrong with getting implants if your a Christian. All I’m saying is that Carrie Prejean is retarded and this quote supports my case.

So, to summarize, Miss Prejean is a liar, a porn star, a hypocrite, has no accountability, and is incredibly stupid.

Which brings me back to Jason Chaffetz. I can only imagine the role models this retard had growing up. If he thinks Prejean is a good example of anything other than a train wreck, he’s probably dumber than she is.

So, all you dumbasses in Utah’s Third District that voted for this ass-hat, I’ll do my best to avoid your fair locale, because if this is the kind of official you elect, I can only imagine with terror in my heart what other idiocy happy valley may be teeming with.

So you know how I’ve pretty much resigned myself to having every fast food restaurant on the planet screw up my food, right?

Well, here’s a little story about last Friday night…

After a long day of training, Elizabeth and I were headed back to my house (she sometimes crashes there on the weekends when she trains). I was hungry and so was she. Because we have an acute lack of Big Kahuna Burger’s in Utah, I offered to stop at Mickey D’s for some cheeseburgers. Elizabeth also requested 3 chocolate chip cookies.

As I pull up to the speaker and red LED light board that allegedly “ensures the accuracy of my order” but which has failed to deliver on that promise even once, a tragically anonymous and at the same time familiar voice rang out, garbled by the supposedly weatherproof speaker and rendered unintelligible long before the soundwaves ever graced the membrane of the microphone on the other end by the poor grammar and heavy accent of someone who speaks little English and has no business working a drive thru anywhere east of Redwood Road.

I placed my order: 2 cheeseburgers no pickle no onion, two normal cheeseburgers, a large order of fries and three chocolate chip cookies.

I waited for an unreasonable amount of time for such a simple order, even at 11:00PM, which is usually a sign of epic fail about to happen. Eventually, I was handed a bag of food and I drove away, down the street to my house.

You’ll no doubt recall my last rant about the Golden Arches, and so it was with no uncertain amount of trepidation that both Megan and Elizabeth looked on while I opened the bag and began to divvy up the food. Two cheeseburgers for me. Check. At least I wouldn’t be the one hungry tonight if they’d screwed up. Two cheeseburgers, no pickle, no onion. Check. Looks like Elizabeth gets to eat, too. Large Fries. Check. 6-piece chicken nuggets. WAIT JUST AN EFFING MINUTE!! I didn’t order any damn chicken nuggets, what is this box of non-descript flavorless random and wholly unidentifiable bits and chunks of reconstituted generic poultry doing in my bag, and where are the effing cookies?!

I went off, as any other perfectly normal and well-adjusted person that shares my not-completely-unreasonable expectations for fast-food establishments would. Now, because I actually had MY food, it wasn’t as ugly or offensive as it could have been, but it sure as hell wasn’t nice at all.

When I was starting to hit the down-slide of my ranting and railing (you can tell when I hit that point because I start to get winded and throw out a string of F-Bombs to try and sustain the momentum and scale of the rant), Elizabeth asked me why I never check the bag before I pull away. As it turns out, that did more for the perpetuation of my rant than the string of F-Bombs, and I managed to stretch this particular episode to damn near 20 minutes, which is pretty respectable considering it was over 3 chocolate chip cookies that weren’t mine anyway.

So after consuming my cheeseburgers, I was still hungry, and figured that with enough ranch and barbecue sauce to dip them in, the nuggets were just barely on the right side of edible. After grabbing the sauces, I reached in the bag and pulled out the little square box containing the offending bird-parts out of the bag. In doing so, the contents of the box shifted ever so slightly against the edge of the container and made an almost imperceptible ‘bump’.

For whatever reason, they non-English-speaking minimum-wage earners had put the three chocolate chip cookies in a chicken nuggets box.

Shit.

So, my deepest apologies to McDonald’s for a completely unwarranted and misguided rant based on my own limited perception. You guys did fine, my bad. Keep up the good work.
And next time, put the damn cookies in the little paper bag thingy they go in.

As many of you know, I’m a HUGE fan of the Radio From Hell show on X96. I have blatantly stolen one of their features for this particular post, although the list of “things” is my own and not taken from the show. This is not quite a rant, but simply a list of stupid and annoying shit I encounter all the time. I’ll follow this up (sooner or later) with a list of cool stuff, so as not to upset the karmic balance of the universe and stuff.

People that talk during movies

This is the one that pretty much set it off and inspired me to make this post. I’m not talking about a low whisper here or there, like “pass the popcorn” or things like that. I recently attended a screening where the lady next to me had to explain the whole damn movie to the moron next to her, and she didn’t even attempt to whisper.

Here’s the deal: if you have trouble keeping your piehole shut for more than 90 minutes at a time, perhaps a movie theater isn’t the place for you. Wait for the effing video, rather than ruin the experience for everyone else that paid $8 for admission, $16 for a bucket of popcorn and $32 for a keg of Coke, OK? And if you don’t “get” the movie, maybe you oughta stick to films targeted to children, tweens, or simple-minded fools like yourself. Y’know, Hannah Montana, Twilight… stuff like that.

Oh, and those of you that text in a movie? KNOCK IT OFF! It’s distracting as hell to everyone behind you, regardless of how covert and discreet you think you’re being!

Stupid Packaging

Now, I realize that I may be alone on this one, but I gotta think that when you buy a consumable food product the intention is to, well, consume it. I would also naturally asume that the manufacturer wants you to consume their product. There are certain cases when this just isn’t true, as evidenced by nearly impenetrable packaging. Examples? You betcha!

Frosted Flakes – kids cereal, that savior to parents worldwide who are too tired, lazy or hungover to get up and make their kid a healthy breakfast of juice, egss, bacon, toast, etc. Problem is, even adults have trouble opening the damn box in such a way that it doesn’t end up all over your kitchen. Although the box opens just as easily as any other cereal box, Frosted Flaks has a surprise in store for you – a bag that resists opening to all but the most muscular assault, and when it does open, copmpletely shreds, creating a dispensary orifice that’s about as well-suited to pouring Frosted Flakes efficiently and easily as a butterknife is to cutting concrete. It’s ridiculous.

Rice-A-Roni – Yep, the San Francisco treat is a real motherbitch to open. Sure, they have a little semi-circle on one end that looks like it’s perforated, but let me assure you, the nozzle that designed this stupid package is laughing his ass off with evry box sold – that perforation is entirely illusory and does nothing. I’ve found the best way to open this nigh-impenetrable carton is by sawing off the top with a steak knife. Not exactly user-friendly.

Gatorade – screwing off a cap for the first time is worse than trying to open a bottle of prescription pills. I know that they pretty much target their drink to athletes and stuff, but normal folk like it too, and getting that lid off for the first time can pretty humiliating and even painful.

That’s about it on this one.

Fast food workers

Now I know this one opens up all kinds of doors, and I could probably spend days just ranting about the Taco Bell near my house and the astounding scope of their ineptitude. However, rather than regale you with epic tales of “Taco Bell fail” the likes of which most people can’t even imagine, I’m going to speak of another fast food establishment – one which until recently I had depended on to get things right the first time, one which (in my experience, anyway) has rarely screwed things up. Yes, dear readers, I speak of the holy Golden Arches.

Until recently, I’d never had a problem at Mickey D’s, but they’ve screwed the pooch the last 2 times I’ve been there. Now, never mind the fact that the order-taker on the headset barely speaks English – there’s one of those screens to confirm your order, and both times I’ve gotten hosed the order appeared correctly on the screen.

In the first incident, I ordered one of their 1/3 lb Angus Mushroom n’ Swiss burgers – sounds good, right? What I had in the bag when I got home was a Big n’ Tasty, which is neither big nor tasty. I was pissed. I mean, I expect this from Taco Bell, but McDonald’s? c’mon, they’ve been doing this thing for decades, and they’re known for the systematic approach they use to get things right! So I called the manager, who I was sure would want to know about the screw up. She also spoke very little English and was difficult to understand (to which my wife counters “well you speak Spanish, just talk to her in Spanish!” – I SHOULDN’T HAVE TO!), and seemed to take very little interest in the incident overall. She said if I came back they’d give me some coupons. Now I don’t know about you, but I go to fast food establishments because I want food fast – I don’t want to turn around and go back and wait for food again, that’s not fast! I declined her offer and hung up on her, still pissed, and ate the nastiest burger on the McDonald’s menu.

The second incident happened a week or so ago, and made me even more pissed. Elizabeth came over late one night and we all decided we were hungry. I took orders for a Mickey D’s run. Two hamburger meal for Megan with an orange drink, two cheeseburger meal for Elizabeth (no pickles, no onions) with a diet coke, and two cheeseburgers for me. I got to the drive up and placed my order with someone who was rendered completely unintelligible through a combination of poor headset mic placement (WAY too close to their mouth), bargain speakers on my end and of course, that ever-present language barrier. Again, I didn’t worry too much because the order showed correctly on the screen. I got home and dropped the bag off in the front room with Megan and Elizabeth while I went back and took my shoes off and plugged my phone in to charge.

“What are you eating?’ the question floated down the hall like the grim reaper coming for your soul and made my blood freeze.

“two cheeseburgers” I replied, hoping against hope that all was well with our culinary predicament, and knowing at the same time that it wasn’t.

“umm, there’s only 2 hamburgers and 2 cheeseburgers here” Both of their orders, but not mine.

I swear, if I wasn’t on medication for my blood pressure I probably would have blown a gasket right then and there. I let fly one of the crudest, volatile, offensive blue-streaks that has ever been heard since the beginning of time, and I did it in my outside voice, even though I was still indoors. Both of the girls, trying to stem the tide of this deluge of profanity, offered me one of their burgers, which only infuriated me more (with McDonald’s, not them). I don’t want a hamburger, I want a cheeseburger. I don’t want a cheeseburger WITHOUT anything, I just WANT AN EFFING CHEESEBURGER! Too much to ask? Apparently it was this night.

So anyway, yeah. Fast food workers that can’t even handle a fast food job MUST GO. With nearly a decade of experience in several kitchens and in the food service industry in general, I feel pretty confident in saying that it’s not that hard to get a fast food order right if you pay attention and do things the way you’ve been taught. Way more work than some of these people can be expected to perform, apparently, but that’s a rant for another time.

That’s my list for today. Maybe I’ll have another next week, or something, but now I gotta get to work on my list of things I dig.

There’s plenty of dumb stuff people do on the road. If you’ve spent even five minutes with me, you know I have a laundry list of pet peeves and stupid behaviors behind the wheel and on the road that bug the living shit out of me.

However, I don’t think there’s anything that bothers me quite so much as the outright stupidity and reckless endangerment that texting while driving represents. Studies have continually shown that texting while driving is more dangerous (from a very statistical and real standpoint) than driving while under the influence of alcohol. Sure, talking on the phone is almost as bad, and the way I see it, unless your the President of the United States trying to avoid total global thermo-nuclear war, there’s absolutely no reason to be talking on your phone while you drive.  Besides, if you’re that important, you’ve probably got someone driving you, and talking on the phone is ok.

Anyway, this video was recently released in the UK, and many are calling it “too graphic and real” and saying that it goes too far.

My opinion? It doesn’t go far enough. Sure, I think the blunt-force visual trauma this video induces is powerful, but what happens afterward? After the hospital stay, after the funerals, after the insurance claims. What then? What’s the horror of living with what you’ve done because you just had to send or respond to a text message.

Just don’t do it.