Every now and then I will notice a random streetlight that’s on during the daytime. It’s bright out, the sun is still shining high in the sky, and there’s one streetlight that’s on. There’s no reason for it to be on. None of the other streetlights around it are on. It’s just that one stubborn light trying to outdo the sun. It’s not right. I don’t trust it. It’s up to something.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You get scheduled shifts for when you are supposed to work. Sometimes you’re a scheduled as an On-Call. That means that you have to call in and ask if they need to work that day. You might have to work if someone who was scheduled to work that day called out or if it’s going to be really busy. Being On-Call sucks. If you assume you won’t get called in and make plans, then you’ll be called in. If you plan on working, they won’t need you. It’s a catch-22. You can’t win.
Critically Rated at 4/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You’re downtown running errands and you see your friend walking towards you. You start walking over, greeting him as you go. You get a few feet away from him and realize you’re talking to a complete stranger. You can brush past him and pretend you’re talking to someone else or you can apologize and explain that you thought he was someone else. Thinking you see someone you know and having it be a stranger is kind of a let down. It’s like seeing The Phantom Menace for the first time and wondering what happened to Star Wars. What happened to my friend? And who the fuck are you? I’m just going to try and pretend you don’t exist. Next time you better be who I think you are.
Critically Rated at 4/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You wake up late and rush around grabbing your stuff and getting ready before heading out for work. An hour or two into your shift you get a whiff of something unpleasant. You sniff around for the source, perplexed as to how the stink keeps following you. Then you realize that it’s you. You can’t remember putting on deodorant. And if you’re not sure if you put on deodorant, you probably didn’t. And if you can smell your own B.O., it’s guaranteed that everyone else in the vicinity can smell you too. You’ll be ok, just don’t hit on anyone.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
It’s fun to throw a Frisbee around in the park. But parks have trees and occasionally Frisbees get stuck in them. They are practically designed to get snagged by branches and stuck on a limb. You’ll spend a few minutes scanning the leaves before you spot the disc. If climbing the tree is out of the question, you’ll have to resort to throwing rocks, pinecones, sticks, water bottles, anything you can get your hands on. You’ll go caveman on the tree for a few minutes before someone knocks it down or everyone gives up. It sucks losing a Frisbee to a tree because it’s not even lost. You know exactly where it is. You just can’t get it. And it’s up there taunting you, mocking your athletic ability. You have failed and now your failure is on display for everyone to see.
Critically Rated at 4/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You used up the last of your trash bags and it’s time to get more. You go to the store and are slightly overwhelmed by the many different choices. There’s different brands, different capacities, different colors, some have handles, some don’t. You grab the one that’s on sale and head to the register. You get home, open the box, take off a bag, whip it open, try to fit it in the garbage can, and realize it’s way too small. You have a whole roll of garbage bags that don’t fit your garbage can. What the fuck, 15 gallon capacity isn’t enough? Getting the wrong size trash bags makes you want to put one of those bags over your head so you asphyxiate and die.
Critically Rated at 5/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
Souvenirs are the little knickknacks you get for friends and family members when you go on vacation. It’s a way of bragging about where you’ve been and pretending you were thinking about them when you were drinking margaritas under the sun. Most of the time souvenirs are display items that you’ll never use like magnets, key chains, shot glasses, and decorative spoons. Sometimes you get a postcard. That’s good for 30 seconds of reading one or two times before you stick it in a drawer and forget about it. Sometimes you get a shirt that you’ll never wear, because every time someone sees South Dakota on your shirt and asks about South Dakota you’ll have to explain that it was just a souvenir and you’ve never been to South Dakota, and nobody wants to talk about South Dakota more than they have to, so it’s just better to let the South Dakota shirt hang in the closet.
If I were in charge of souvenir stands, I would make practical items. Power drills, toothbrushes, and clothes hampers for a start. Things that people need, stamped with a place they’ve only read about. If I can’t go to New Zealand, at least I can clean my gutters with my Auckland pressure hose.
Critically Rated at 9/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
A hammer is a tool that you use to hammer things. I like things that are called what they do. A hammer is basically two parts: a handle and a hammerhead. The hammerhead usually has a crowbar like claw on one side and the smashing part on the other side. You hold the handle and swing the hammer at the nail and try not to crush your thumb. Hammers are mostly used by construction workers and craftsmen, and no toolbox is complete without one. Hammers are one of the most practical tools, and they can also double as weapons for the impending zombie apocalypse. Aim for the skull and make it count.
Critically Rated at 14/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You’re lying comfortably in bed without a care in the world, completely warm and wrapped tightly in your sheets. You’re totally relaxed and at ease. And then you let one rip and you snap out of your reverie. You just Dutch ovened yourself, the ultimate betrayal. A Dutch oven is a cooking pot. It’s also when you fart under the covers and are forced to smell it. It combines the joy of being farted on with the pleasure of inhaling flatulence. It’s not a great way to start your day. It’s even worse when someone else gets you. The worst is when a stranger gets you.
Critically Rated at 1/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
When I was a kid, Holiday lights were known as “Christmas lights.” They were for Christmas and everyone knew it. My sisters and I would help our parents string up the lights around the front of our house. We usually waited until December to put them up, and we never put them up before Thanksgiving. Lights used to come in multiple colors. They were red, green, orange, yellow and blue, and the really fancy lights blinked on and off. And if one bulb burned out, then so would all the others. You would have to search for the broken out bulb, checking all the bulbs one at a time until you found the culprit and replaced it. Those were Christmas lights. Now they are all Holiday lights. Holiday lights are typically white lights that are supposed to mimic icicles. But they don’t look like icicles. At all. They look like daggers of white light stabbing my precious childhood memories. Holiday lights might look festive, but I miss Christmas lights.
Critically Rated at 12/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
If someone says, “I don’t want to go to the DMV,” then you should respond with “Me neither.” A lot of people forget that “neither” is a word. And so they don’t use it. I don’t know why, it’s a pretty cool word and you barely get to use it. Plus you seem stupid when you respond with “me either.” It’s “me neither.” Why? I don’t know why, it’s something to do with negatives and that’s just how it is. Don’t make up your own rules for the English language and you won’t have problems with grammar Nazis. Don’t say things if you don’t know how to say them. You don’t want to let all the Pandoras out of the box.
Critically Rated at 5/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
Living in San Francisco has its benefits. There’s good people, great food, museums and parks and tourist attractions galore. There’s also a stupid law forbidding plastic bags from grocery and convenience stores. The goal is to save the environment by making you bring your own reusable bags. Don’t worry though: if you forget to bring your bag you can buy a paper bag for ten cents. It kind of sucks. You don’t even get a choice between paper or plastic. It’s paper or bust, and you’re fucked if it’s raining. A few years ago, a dime bag in SF was weed. Now it’s literally a bag that costs a dime. Global warming changes everything.
Critically Rated at 4/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You ate some bad seafood and it’s not agreeing with your stomach. You run down the hall to the bathroom and make it just before your bowels erupt. You’re a little embarrassed because it’s coming out fast and it’s coming out furious. You turn on the sink to try to drown out the noise. It masks the sound slightly, but turning on the faucet when you’re taking a shit is unnecessary. Everyone already knows that you’re pooping. The sound of running water isn’t fooling anyone and it doesn’t do anything to hide the stench. It just gives you a little piece of mind and makes you less self-conscious about your bowel movements. It also reminds you to wash your hands when you finish.
Critically Rated at 5/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You have the day off to lounge around the house and catch up on chores and errands. You do laundry, wash that stack of dishes that’s been neglected in the sink, pay a couple of bills, and now you can just crack open a beer and catch up on your TV shows. A few hours into your marathon and that nagging feeling that you didn’t do something creeps up on you. It’s something unimportant enough to forget, and still important enough to sort of remember. But what the hell is it? Knowing you have something to do but forgetting what is was is enough to keep you awake at night. Hopefully it’s not work related and you’re just screwing over a friend or family member. I can always lose a friend but I can’t afford to lose my job right now.
Critically Rated at 3/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
Someone just sneezed. You instinctively respond with “Bless you!” (At least if your mama raised you right). It’s polite and it also has the added bonus of keeping Satan from stealing their soul. It’s kind of weird that sneezing seems to be the only body function that gets acknowledged with a phrase wishing the sneezer divine protection and/or good health. There is no common verbal response for when someone burps, coughs, hiccups, or farts. I think there should be. The next time someone rips one, I’m going to say, “Jesus loves you” and see what happens.
Critically Rated at 13/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
Have you ever been so tired or exhausted that you can’t even blink in unison? You’ve just woken up or you’re about to pass out, and you don’t even realize that you’re blinking in slow motion and also closing one eye slightly before the other. That’s lizard blinking. Because you look like a reptile when you do it. It means that you’re really fucking tired. So get some sleep and stop creeping people out.
Critically Rated at 6/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
You wake up feeling refreshed and ready to carpe that diem. It’s a great day and you feel great. Until you glance in the mirror and see a pimple. It’s an obvious one too. Pimples suck. And why the hell am I still getting them? I’ve been in my twenties for a while now; I don’t want to look like an awkward teen again. You can either pop it or let it be. Both options still draw attention to your face. Popping pimples is oddly satisfying for some reason. It’s kind of fun to kill a pimple. But I still prefer clear skin.
Critically Rated at 5/17
Written, Rated, and Reviewed by Brendan H. Young
Filed under Random Rants
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