Thanksgiving

Turkey

I still do not understand what exactly about this obnoxious bird appears to so many people. Perhaps if Franklin's famous proposal had made the turkey our national bird I might understand the association of the beast with our national culture, but for want of such a status the turkey seems to have been elevated to its current post by luck alone. 

I do not even understand why we must continue eating the creature. It is at best dry and flavorless, but we continue to consume it each Thanksgiving in a misguided effort to emulate our forefathers. Simply comparing it to other poultry should reveal why there is no justification for eating it.

Chicken:

• Common, leading to many recipes/methods of preparation from around the world
• Easy to prepare
• Healthy
• Flavorful (after all, we judge all white meat by chicken's standard)

Quail:

• Fancy
• Unique
• Great Scrabble word

Turkey

• Large (?, might not even be a benefit)

Let's say that you decide not to eat turkey (understandable) but still feel like they might have some worth as a live animal (not so much). Let's take a look at the bird to discover why this position is so utterly wrong:

(photo credit Lara Danielle)

Note how it seems to combine the worst features of lichen on a decaying tree stump, a quadruple chin, and a color scheme chosen by a monkey throwing darts at a color wheel (how else would one chance upon the truly unique combination of bright blue, deep red, and the spectrum of colors from dark brown to ash to white of a burning log?) It is not majestic like an eagle, nor is it beautiful like the bluejay, but rather it has all of the visual appeal of a legged cube with arbitrary chisel marks carved into it.

And even if we ignore the obvious lack of visual appeal, we must also note that the animal is entirely useless. Songbirds brighten days with their lovely calls, owls kill rodents and otherwise keep our homes clear of pests, but the turkey serves no useful function. Other than targets for hunters I can imagine no beneficial role played by the turkey. And even then their function seems entirely unnessecary; I defy anyone to compare the taste of venison or wild boar favorably with that of the lowly and tasteless turkey.


I hate turkeys. They are the worst food and the worst bird. Don't even get me started on

Sleep

Because I tend to publish when I walk in to class, this may not be evident, but I am currently writing this post at a time at which no human should be awake for any reason other than a fire alarm. This would not be a problem, of course, if sleep did not insist on wasting so much of our time.

I will admit to enjoying sleep. I am, after all, human, and to claim to derive no enjoyment from sleep would be an absurdity of the highest order. And yet I do not like sleep in concept. The issue is not with the action itself, but rather that I need to do it. If sleep were entirely optional, it would be much easier to get enough work done during the day. 

But sleep still insists on stealing fully 1/3 of our lives from us. We do not yet know what sleep does for us and nonetheless it persists in robbing us of time on a (hopefully, for health's sake) daily basis. 

Sleep is truly terrible. I hate it (need it though I do). Don't even get me started on

Lessons of a Halloween Costume

Pockets

I don't hate pockets. That would be absurd. Pockets are probably one of the greatest inventions in the history of clothing, after clothing and the red fuzzy hat.

My problem is that no one understands how to make pockets.


For reference, this (at least the top pockets) is what pockets should look like (photo credit DPoPhoto). Note the angle, which faces outwards to allow the hands to enter them easily and withdraw objects without difficulty. Moreover, note how they are placed close to the side of the pants, allowing the pocket to hold many items without interfering too greatly with walking.

The costume I wore most of the day yesterday necessitated my buying of a new pair of jeans for the first time in some time (as I do not usually wear jeans) and I did so operating under the assumption that the pockets would be the same sort of pockets as shown in the picture above.

You can imagine my disgust, then, when I discovered that the pockets were vertical.

I do not know who started this trend or why, but I am greatly disappointed in them. Vertical pockets are next to useless. The are difficult to reach into, requiring near-gymnastic maneuvers for those of us with long arms to reach into them. Moreover, their contents press against the foreleg, impeding walking and generally causing discomfort.

And yet, a flickr search revealed that this seems to be the norm amongst jeans. Why would the makers of pants decide to punish us like this? It is an unreasonable design choice and yet it persists.

There is, unfortunately, an even more egregious design flaw in the current pants industry that seems even more widespread and worse than misoriented pockets: pants with no pockets whatsoever (or only token pockets).

There are perfectly good reasons for having many or few pockets on a pair of pants. Which is in fashion changes frequently, and having additional storage space is sometimes important even when multi-pocketed pants are out of style.

But why have zero pockets? I can't think of anyone that has neither a phone nor a wallet that they need to carry around, let alone a key to a dorm room. And of course it is possible to carry a purse or satchel, but that is not always practical. An item might get lost in a purse, or a bag of any kind might not be able to be carried in a given area. And yet pants continue to be made without pockets to the detriment of everyone.

I find myself wanting for an explanation for this bizarre phenomenon. After considerable racking of my brain the only answer that seemed apparent was some sort of conspiracy between the designers of purses and those of pants. Or, perhaps, the fact that seemingly idiotproof pockets could be ruined proves the old adage: "No matter how well you idiot-proof something, Nature will invent a better idiot".

I hate poorly made pockets. I truly despise them. Don't even get me started on

Further Anger

Pancakes

I am, at my core, a simple and straightforward man. I hold firm in my belief that words should generally mean what they say. For example, when I hear the word cake, I think of this:

(photo credit Eric Savage)

Note the properties that make this a cake. It is a baked good, made of a sugary dough with some kind of additional flavor (usually chocolate or vanilla) and topped with icing. In order for it to be a cake, it must fulfill these properties. Other words containing cake must also follow this principle; for example, a cupcake still fulfills all of the requirements for a cake and differs only in shape, size, and method of presentation from an average cake.

What, then, would you expect a pancake to be? Perhaps a cake that this exact size and shape of a skillet? No. That would be too easy. A pancake is fried bread. Other than eggs, milk, and flour, it shares nothing in common with cake. Imagine how many people have been disappointed over the years, expecting cake but instead receiving this pathetic breakfast food.

This wouldn't be a problem if pancakes were inherently tasty. If I was expecting cake and got baklava, I would not be disappointed. Unfortunately that is not the case.

You might protest, of course, that you have eaten and enjoyed pancakes many times in the past. That, however, is because pancakes are not generally eaten in a vacuum but usually have other, good tasting foods stuck inside of them and ludicrous amounts of syrup and butter added on top. I defy you to find any food that doesn't taste good after it has been drowned in pure, distilled sugar and fat.

Alone, the pancake is pathetic. It's just bread. In fact, it's flavorless bread. If I wanted to eat pure bread, there are plenty of breads that taste good on their own, but I would get better taste and probably more nutrition out of stale Wonderbread than a pancake on its own. Pancakes are terrible. They are truly the worst food. Don't even get me started on

Rain

I'm a big believer in the golden rule. If I wouldn't want something done to me, I don't do it to anyone else. I've found that most people seem to agree that this is a good idea. Even among the animal kingdom this kind of basic respect is easy to find (even rattlesnakes will often leave you alone).

Evidently that logic does not apply to the sky. What does that have to do with the rain, you might ask? Well, ask yourself this: when's the last time you evaporated some water, condensed it, and then threw it into the sky for hours on end? Imagine how inconvenienced the sky would be.

And yet the sky does exactly the same thing to us. Does it stop to think of what the consequences are? No. Does it consider how we feel? No. It just decides on a whim to drench us without cause. It's the rudest of all  natural phenomena and I personally can't stand it. It's the worst. Don't even get me started on

An Explanation and First Rants

Before I begin I would like to clear up a few questions that some people may have with this passion blog.

1. Yes, this blog is not meant to be taken seriously. I have intentionally chosen topics that are not deserving of anger (or, if they might be somewhat worthy of outrage, I have chosen to rail against them in a nonsensical manner).

2. This blog is based on the game Don't Get Me Started, which encourages players to make absurd rants on mundane topics.

3. The title of my blog comes from Shakespeare's Othello, Act 4, Scene 2. The tagline for the blog comes from King Lear, Act 1, Scene 1.

4. I am open to suggestions. If you have any ideas, please place them in the comments below.

Without further ado, let's begin.

Don't even get me started on

Squirrels

Take a moment to look around campus and you'll see them. Standing there in the fields and among the trees, watching you with the squirrelly little eyes, doing that disgusting thing rubbing their hands on their heads. The gall of these rodents! They dare come dangerously close to humans, acting as though they are more than large rats with small heads and an ugly pinecone of a tail sprinting from tree to tree and startling passersby as they go.

Even worse than their appearance is the abominable sound that they make. Mice squeak, birds chirp, but squirrels emit a noise that sounds roughly like tearing metal pitched up 5 octaves. Even worse, when one squirrel starts, every squirrel within earshot decides that now is the perfect time to practice their a capella and begins to join along in the cacophony. They are truly the worst. I hate squirrels. Hate them. Don't even get me started on

Vehicles

I'm sure you're wondering what exactly could possibly be wrong with vehicles. They make life so much easier, right? Well that's just the point. Life isn't supposed to be easy. When I walked the 180 miles from my home to Penn State, carrying with me several hundred pounds of clothing, bedding, containers, and other supplies, you didn't hear me complaining. And yet everywhere I look, everyone seems to be on some sort of wheeled device, moving around without even working for the privilege.

These "cars" and "aircraft" and "horse-drawn carriages" are going to be the downfall of our society. When this generation of weaklings is no longer able to bear a brief 75-mile saunter, let alone any real travelling, we'll be sure to fall to some foreign dictatorship that understands the value of walking in no time.

Even worse are the boats and the airplanes and everything that doesn't move over land. Do you know why I don't play games with cheat codes? Because it's not fun when you get to move in ways that you're not intended to, and that's why such vehicles are wrong. Where are your wings? Can you fly? Exactly. Then why are you flying on an airplane? It's as bad as using the Konami Code. Only a coward uses vehicles. I hate vehicles. Hate them. Don't even get me started on