So, I was driving into my parking spot at my condo in my old car,  a shabby Cavalier dubbed by my friend Marc to be “Lady Cavalieria”. Its real name was “American Shitbox Moneypit of Shit”. My used Honda Accord would be embarrassed of my old car.
My parking space has a concrete barrier wall, about 2 feet high on the North and East corners. It also has all the cigarette butts. It is perfect for sitting on, littering near, sitting on litter, etc.

In any case, along with the trash, the whimsical hobos also accumulate in that corner, often sitting there and ranting, or being passed out, or pooping in a bag or what-have-you. I pulled in a few days ago to find a dude reading the bible and nodding in agreement at some passage. More recently I found an empty suitcase, and before that? An entire cake. A whole, perfect, chocolate cake- made as an offering to me? More on the cake later.

On this particular sunny day, let’s call it spring, There was a murder of hobos (flock? herd? a congress?) gathered on the wall, sitting and discussing important matters. They were exceptionally drunk. Unusually hammered drunk for that time of day, which was after work- perhaps 5 PM? They would have to move in order for me to pull my car in, and they begrudgingly did so.

In any case, the convocation (romp? pod? muster?) of vagrants dispersed, and gathered themselves to travel to the shade by the entrance to my building. I waved “thank you” to them, and deplaned from my car (exited?).

The hobos and I were headed in the same direction, and from one of the I heard “Hey!” In a husky feminine drunken kind of voice. The first time I assumed it wasn’t directed at me, but again it came, like a meadowlark drowning in  vomit “Hey!”.

Inadvisedly, I turned. There she was, an aboriginal woman (”Native” in Canada is an acceptable term), about 6′6″, easily over 250 pounds, rough skinned and stoic. A mighty Amazon warrior goddess from a once proud race, now reduced travelling with a pack (coven?) of itinerant vagabonds who she could easily have crushed in her mighty arms.

“Hey. Hey sunshine.” she said.

I assumed at the time she meant me, as I was the only waifish strawberry blond fellow walking directly through her field of vision. I’m not short, but I was snack sized to this fierce huntress.

“Um, hey.” I replied, blondly.

“Hey sunshine, I like you.” She said.

“Thanks!” I said without a hint of panic. This was a woman who could have taken anything she wanted, riding the mighty plains and gathering victims or lovers in her merciless grasp. I was a man who, confronted by a woman such as she, would do as I was told.

“Yeah, sunshine. I like you”.

“Thanks!” I said a second time, fumbling with my keys.

It was a few days later that I found a chocolate cake, possibly harvested from the local grocery store, sitting in front of my parking stall. There it sat, untouched, pristine, and disappointingly unwrapped… There were 2 plastic forks sitting beside it. No note.

Was this cake for me? From her? I never saw her again. I couldn’t bring myself to bring the cake inside, abandoned there without protective covering. So, I watched it. I watched that cake for 4 days. By day 4, the squirrels and the neighbourhood cats had gotten into it, and it was ruined.

Dear Correctness Readers:

A lot of people ask us how we here at The Correctness can generate so much fresh content, ensuring that so much of our written effort is largely ignored by the people we hope read our articles, like Henry Kissinger or Emma Stone. “How can you generate so much fresh, funny content?” those people ask us, redundantly, “That could be enjoyed by Henry Kissinger for example, or Emma Stone, perhaps?” they continue, reiteratively.

Well, the secret to our success, apart from my stunning good looks, is filler.

“Filler?” You ask?

“Filler.” I respond, nodding. “Fill.The.Fuck.Er.”

“How,” you begin, “does filler help you generate content”, you continue “for your site?” you conclude.

It’s easy. Or, in the convention of the above dialogue, “It’s easy”. There are literally threes of ways to use filler and fluff to plump up even the weakest premise and make sure that people keep coming back to your website!

Pictures of things are also good filler.

1. Make lists of things

Lists of things require minimal effort. You just have to think about a category of things, and then list them. That’s easy. Here are some things you could make lists of:

a) Dogs
b) Cats
c) Lamps
d) Colours of mittens you have owned.
e) Types of mittens.
f) Types of kittens.
g) Colours of kittens wearing mittens.
h) Types of kittens wearing colours of mittens.
i) Triangular Diplomacy in the Nixon administration.
j) Types of lamps.
k) Colours of things that could be on lists.
l) Types of Nixons.

Just imagine the fun you could have discussing lamps!

2. Have an opinion. Have a point of view. Have a burrito.

Maybe, for the sake of argument, lamps make you really angry. You can generate a list of things about lamps, and then narrow it down to the few things that really bother you about lamps. Many of my recent articles highlight my grievances with a specific subject. FYI, another great way to generate filler is to link to things you have already written and use them as examples, like this:

http://www.thecorrectness.com/correctness/a-critique-of-celebrity-tweets-and-primarily-justin-bieber/

or, to a much lesser extent, like this:

http://www.thecorrectness.com/writing/stopping-by-the-woods-to-poop-on-a-summers-eve-by-r-frost/

By venting angrily about the minor annoyances that are inherent to almost any subject, you can spend seconds upon seconds of reader time cranking enjoyment juice into their fun-hungry tummies. Let’s use the lamp thing as an exemplar . Perhaps try our classic “open Letter” format which we are so fond of here at The Correctness. FYI, I typed “asan exemplar” and Microsoft corrected it to “Asian”. The racist concept of a singular Asian exemplar is just another of the typical offensive coding errors present in Word 2007, see the following:

http://www.thecorrectness.com/writing/an-open-letter-to-microsoft-re-word-2007-list-of-demands/

Now, I said we would try using the open letter format with our weak, but serviceable “lamps” rant, and we would see what kind of gold we could prospect from this iron ore mine.

Dear Lamps:

You broke my heart, lamp.

I have often used you for lighting, along with ceiling fixtures and rope light. Your free ride just ended, however, because I’m sick of your shit, Lamps. You. Make. me. Sick. You are always burning out and needing new bulbs. What is that, planned obsolescence? You are hard to clean. I always have to be the one to turn you on, you never turn me on. You lamps are always coming home late and not telling me where you were, showing up drunk, hurling abuse both verbal and physical, and then threatening suicide, only to break down crying and beg me not to call an ambulance, making me complicit in your carefully constructed facade of sanity. Fuck you, lamps!

Sincerely,
Blah blah blah

Now, to be fair, that didn’t really seem to be focused on lamps so much as my own issues, but it would still be a place to start.

3. Having a third thing in your list of things

Having a third thing really helps to round your thing out. Your thing won’t seem a lush, full or complete without a third thing. When God created the Heavens and the Earth, he said, “Let there be light, but not fucking lamps, and let there be some fish and plants n’ shit, and let there be a third, humourous thing!” and when that guy makes demands, things happen! That third thing is everywhere. Always have a third thing.

The only thing that shouldn’t have a third thing is this thing:

10 PRINT “Always have a Third Thing”

20 GOTO 10

If you are looking hard at that solitary example of a list of things that shouldn’t have a third thing, there is still a third thing embedded in it, both as text, but also implied in the absent line 30 which is line 10 repeated.

So, dear readers, I hope that helps. I know a lot of you publish comedy on a several times weekly basis, and you can now generate content like words are going out of style. To recap:

1. Make Lists of things

2. Lunch.

3. A Third Thing.

Sincerely Yours,

RobbieRobTown

P.S.  Still waiting on your contest submission, Emma.

The Correctness Guide to Body Disposal:

Disclaimer: The Correctness legal department reminds you that neither The Correctness, thecorrectness.com, Robbierobtown nor any subsidiary or affiliated agency or individual advocates violence, murder, or the improper disposal of a body.

Manswers style disclaimer for retards: Dude! Don’t ever kill a dude or chick and then do stuff to the body! It’s totally  lame, buddy!

So, you’ve murdered someone! You’ve had one of those arguments with, for the sake of this article, a smallish pig.  Perhaps your pig was treacherous, manipulative or downright cruel. Maybe your pig was abusive.  Maybe you and your pig couldn’t sort out who the real father of your piglets was. Maybe your pig was a national security threat, and even if it wasn’t, you’d best start telling yourself that. In any case, things got a little heated, words were spoken, it all got out of hand, and now you have about 160 pounds of pork to dispose of, and right quickly at that.  Maybe your pig weighed a bit more or less, but he or she had it coming.

Right off the bat, Correctness readers, I’m not going to bring you down with the moral implications of what you’ve done. You have clearly made a mistake, and if you don’t handle this right you will have 30 plus years in  prison to think it all over. Questions like “Why didn’t I do a better job?” or “Was that psycho really worth this jailtime?” are more aptly debated in your own head while a tattooed  inmate rapes you with a mophandle.

So, 160 pounds of the other white meat. Well, you probably can’t bring yourself to eat this prized pig of yours, it seems wrong somehow. Let’s pretend you are a vegan, or you don’t have a full size deep freeze in your home. This pork is going to go bad pretty quickly, and you can’t barbecue fast enough to cook it all tonight.

Step 1: Damage Control

Even in a rural area, where you presumably live, because you murdered a pig and not anything else, you likely made far too much noise having your domestic disturbance. I would recommend the following:

A) Put on some soft music: A lover’s quarrel is often accompanied, I am told, by a tender, sexy reconciliation. Best to let the apartment nextdoor- by which I mean “nearby farm”- believe you are smoothing things over with champagne and chocolates, or whatever it is you people do.

B) Dim the lights and shutter the windows. DO NOT work by flashlight, it will look suspicious.

C) Breathe: The next few steps are going to be difficult, unpleasant, and existentially confusing at best. At. Best.    Give yourself a few minutes to breathe, find your centre, pray to your Gods, and steel yourself for what is coming next.

Step 2: Clean up

Get some incense burning or whip out that aerosol disinfectant. This is the last time you are ever going to be able to smell “citrus mist” or “sage sunrise” again without puking. It probably hasn’t started to smell yet, and if you make quick work of it, it will smell no worse than the average butchers shop. Turn off the heat, while you are at it turn on the AC. Cool down the room.

Again, for the sake of this article, we’re presupposing you didn’t plan this crime out in advance. You probably made quite a mess. This is no time to be stingy with your Swiffer wet-jet fluid. In all likelihood, no volume of chlorine bleach will be enough to eradicate all traces of DNA from your home. How quickly do you have to clean up? Answer the following question:

Did I have a motive?

If the answer is “no”, you have plenty of time. Nobody is coming looking for your pig at your house, because you are simply not a person of interest. On the down side, you are a dangerous sociopath who kills pigs for fun. That will not look good on your permanent record if they do catch you, so do a proper clean up, don’t be lazy about it.

If the answer is “yes” then you have to clean quickly. You need to get as much of the physical evidence you have ever touched this pig or had it in your home as far away from you as possible, as quickly as possible.

If you suspect (and  “suspect” is a word you should familiarize yourself with) that you have 3 or 4 hours , you may wish to drag your pig to the bathroom and disassemble it there. Only about 5 kilos of your pig is blood, but you are going to need to break this pig into smaller parts if you want to carry it out to your car in manageable chunks. Carrying an entire pig to the trunk of your sedan will arouse suspicion, and 160 pounds (roughly 75 kilos) is a lot of deadweight, if you’ll pardon the expression. If you can transport it in one piece, and the neighbours aren’t too nosy, carpe diem. If the police are already on their way head for the roof and make with the crazy threats and poopy pants. You might get good drugs and avoid jail.

Some of you are wondering “why don’t I just wait for the blood to congeal, and then butcher my pig? In answer to that, I suggest you buy a nice pork loin, leave it on your counter and see how long it takes to get hard. It will be longer than you like, and you are already out of “Blueberry Meadows “ cleanser.

Again, you have some soft music playing, and you are using your sharpest knife (and wearing your least favourite t-shirt) and cutting you pig up around the joints. You categorically do not have time to manually saw through bones, and using a power tool is conspicuous, foolish, and messy. if you’ve ever tried to get laminate flooring glue dust out of the blade guard of a Black and Becker circular saw, just imagine cleaning blood out of there.  You are sawing through the joints, and severing tendons, not cutting bones. This is going to be hard work, take you time, be tidy, think some more about what you have done.

Disassembled? Good. You probably have 4 limbs, and a heavy but manageable torso to carry now. Grab some garbage bags, double or triple wrap, and load the pieces into your best luggage. You are going on a trip!

Do not forget to clean your bathroom once the car is loaded. More bleach equals more innocent. Bleach your damn self while you are at it too. Most 24 hour convenience groceries will have bleach, and if your hippie jurisdiction has banned chlorine bleach in favour of tea tree oil and patchouli, you are so fucked. Buy hydrogen peroxide, hair dye, rubbing alcohol, mouthwash, and anything you can find to denature all those pesky proteins in your tub drain. For Christ’s sake, don’t breathe in the fumes. Good news: throw in some Sudafed and you just made Meth. In for a penny, in for a pound, you’re going to need a new job when you get to Mexico.

Before you leave your home, possibly for good, make certain you have accounted for the knives you used for carving, the remaining garbage bags, and any other odds and ends that might incriminate you. You can leave some of it behind, but if your pig was a fan of John Irving novels and The Smiths, put those such items out on display. Was your pig suicidal? That’s how I remember it too. Oh, and whatever the initial murder weapon was, lamp, fire prod, tilting the fridge over on him/her, get that dealt with too.

(ED’s note: For tips on dealing with appliance murder see “The Correctness guide to Disassembling Major Home appliances, especially the Fridge”, Apr. 2009)

Step 3: Road trip!

What a lovely November night at 2 AM it is for a drive in the country! That’s always been your attitude, hasn’t it been? If not, it is now. Just keep telling yourself you love taking leisurely drives in your properly registered vehicle. Oh how you love to wander the backroads of your community at precisely the posted speed limit with your headlights all functioning properly. What fun!

You may wish to stop by the 24 hour hardware store and pick up a shovel, some lye, and some safety glasses. Don’t pay with credit, and for heaven’s sake don’t steal a shovel. Stealing a shovel is the kind of thing that makes police officers search your properly registered and insured car.

Drive until you reach a large industrial compound, situated on an unnecessarily large amount of wooded land. There are lots of these just outside the city limits.  Why go there? Glad you asked. National Parks are well travelled, private land and farms are also well travelled, but you can be quite certain that Louis the janitor is not going to go more than 15 feet out of the emergency exit to take his smoke break. That leaves you free to go three or four hundred meters into the surrounding woods, and dig your grave where no one will ever bother to go looking for it. Who sticks around their work site after work to explore? Nobody does. They all are driving home to fight with their spouses and visit the national parks.

What about on site security? You are carrying a shovel, and you have no motive for this guy. Crack him on the back of the head if he asks any prying questions.  Use the side of the shovel blade when you swing, you might even take his head right off.

I know what you are about to say. You are about to say “I’ve only murdered a pig so far , but now I’ve murdered a human being as well.”. Try no to be too emotional about this. You really loved that pig of yours, and you still diced it up and drove it around for 2 hours, ruining your Samsonite luggage. Try to keep things in perspective: That luggage was a wedding gift and you never got to go anywhere because your alcoholic spouse was too hung over to do anything anyway. (Protip: remove luggage tags with identification info.) Anyhow, security guards work unusual shifts, and are unlikely to have families that will miss them.

Step 4: Disposal

Now you are digging 2 graves. Don’t dig shallow graves. Craftsmanship is the virtue that is going to get you out of this.  Lazy criminals get caught every time by digging flawed shallow graves. You are plenty close to the woods that coyotes will dig up an improper burial site, and Louis the Janitor will definitely notice a severed, half-eaten human hand on the back stoop . Unless you want to be digging a third grave, take some fucking pride in your work.

Once you have dug your graves, say goodbye to your bags and your corpses. Douse the graves with lye (safety glasses!) and start backfilling the holes.  By the time somebody brings a bulldozer out here in 10 years to expand the loading dock, your little problem will long since be worm food.

Maybe, as described in the introductory section of Step 3, it is winter. Now you have two additional problems. First, you will make tracks in any fresh snow. Second, the ground is too frozen to dig in. If it is winter, you are going to alter your plans a bit. Find a river, and drive as far upstream as you can. There will be occasional openings in the ice.  Find a secluded spot, and start dousing your garbage bags and luggage with that lye you purchased (SAFETY GLASSES!!!) , then slip those bodies into the frozen water. The lye should dissolve any fingerprints.

Subsection 4A: Safety on the Ice:

Every year in the northern United States, as well as throughout Canada, people fall through the ice on natural bodies of water and drown.  It is inadvisable to conduct any activity on the ice in the early fall or late spring, as well as in or around a warming period mid winter. If the ice should crack while you are feeding corpse parts into a hole, try to spread out your body weight over the largest possible surface area. Lay flat, and make the shape of a starfish. You can then slowly crawl to safety without further risk of breaking up the already unstable ice.

Step 5: Business as Usual.

Drive home. Make it? Take the car in to be detailed after a brief nap. No calls from the police? Good. Things won’t get suspicious for a while.  If you lived with your pig, you will have to report it missing shortly. Wait a couple of days, so that the neighbours don’t recall that big fight.

If you are not being asked too many questions, you will quite naturally vacillate between a state of smug pride, and a completely justifiable  paranoid anxiety.  If you notice you laminate flooring is producing the sound of a heartbeat, stay calm. It is all in your head, just clean out the blade guard on your Black and Decker circular saw. If you notice the tub is backing up, remain calm, go back to the hardware store, buy a snake and some drain cleaner and take care of it. Do not call a plumber. If you cry every time you cook bacon, or listen to Billy Joel,  or watch “Babe” that is all perfectly natural.

Clean your home and car thoroughly and regularly for a few months. You have basically made it. Resist the temptation to return to the burial site/ river to make sure everything is still okay, That is another major rookie mistake.  Stay in. You can finally rent “Pitch Black” and decide if you would have liked it in theatres or not.

RobbieRobTown Cleans up “messes” for The Correctness when things go “Pete Tong”.

It’s no secret that I’m a big fan of superheros, and comic books. Also, love going to movies. But I’ve come to a conclusion, one that might seem incredulous or shocking on the surface: Hollywood needs to stop making superhero movies.

(Scapulaman, possibly the next big superhero film?)

Maybe not entirely, but 94% of the projects in development should just be scrapped. No Avengers, No Iron Man 3, No Thor, No Spider-Man 4. No prequels, no origin stories, nothing. We’ll let the 3rd Dark Knight movie go ahead, but after that, let’s ban them from Hollywood for another 5 years or so.

And here’s why: I’m getting sick of them. There’s too god-damned many of them. It’s like an ice cream sandwich. If you haven’t had one in forever, they taste awesome. You can’t believe you went that long without one. But if you then go on an almost exclusive diet of ice cream sandwiches, you can’t stand the f*cking sight of them.

The first stage of the superhero movie film is the rumors. The studio says they have a director on board to make Scapulaman in to a film. The internet lights up with every fanboy douchebag offering up their pearls of wisdom as to whom should play Scapulaman, which, while they all think they’re Einstein, usually comes down to “Nathan Fillion or Ryan Reynolds”. I have nothing against either of them, but they’d be the first to tell you they’re not the answer to all the questions Hollywood has to ask. The actual casting is released, and fanboys once again rail to the heavens about how terrible it is, or alternately, hold a Hawaiian-themed jizzfest about how Fillion was born to play Scapulaman.

Then we get those same fanboys proffering plot ideas, based on their favorite (usually the worst possible) story arcs from the past. If the film in question is Batman, it’s non-stop “Harley Quinn!!!!”, if Spider-Man, some paste eater will insist that “Maximum Carnage” is the only possible story (cuz Venom wasn’t bad enough!) They continue to whip themselves into a frenzy, such that when the actual story is decided on, they’ve already decided it was a bad choice.

The press starts covering the opening of the film, and we get either shitty, error-filled articles about Scapulaman, or lengthy interviews with the terrible actress they’ve chosen to play the “love interest” (kept to 3 scenes maximum). All of which leaves the public with a skewed idea of what Scapulaman is all about.

The film opens, and the fanboys go insane, because they “got the character all wrong”, or they “changed the storyline”, or “that ISN’T scapulaman”. And usually, it’s true, because the actual story wouldn’t have appealed to every possible movie goer, so they whipped it in to a smooth pablum. Now the general public is all “meh”, because the story is very lame. The fanboys are furious because the movie isn’t what they wanted. (or alternately, none of the above happens, the story stays true to the book, and no one but the fanboys see it: Case in point, apart from the changed ending (which was still faithful to the spirit of the story), The Watchmen.)

At the end of the day, very few superhero movies are handled well, fewer still actually jump off the screen. I’m tired of the crappy ones, and most of the proposed upcoming films just look f*cking terrible. Who asked for an Ant Man movie? Who? Anybody? No, no one did. Do you know why? Because Ant Man sucks, and the fans barely tolerate him in the comics. But some asshole movie producer, whose only credit is that he worked in the mail room, then blew his boss for 2 years, has decided that the intellectual property “has legs”.

Enough. Make movies about other stuff for a while, so that we can enjoy our ice cream sandwiches again.

Dear Generation Y, or more specficially, those of you who work the drive-thru window:

Shut the fuck up. Seriously. Ask me what I want, and then, here’s the tricky part: SHUT. THE. FUCK. UP. Wait, and actually listen while I tell you what I want to order.

I know you’re all special, and unique, and a pretty snowflake, and beautiful in every single way, but neither of us is getting anywhere faster if you keep interrupting me, usually to incorrectly repeat what you THINK I said, because you were more worried about who’s getting booted from Idol tonight, or what Lady GaGa is up to.

Two instances from recent memory:

Dairy Queen
Me: I’d like a kid’s cone in a cup, with sprinkles, (IS THAT ALL), no, and a Medium Oreo blizzard, (IS THAT ALL?)no, and a medium Strawberry Arctic Rush. (IS THAT ALL?) That’s all.

(I HAVE A KIDS DIPPED CONE, A MEDIUM OREO BLIZZARD), etc…..

Me: No, a Kid’s Cone in a cup, with ($9.25 PLEASE DRIVE THROUGH)

Me: I will most likely stab you through the eye with the incredibly long plastic spoon you might remember to give me.

McDonald’s

Me: I’d like an Egg McMuffin meal, with NO meat, with a Diet Coke as the drink, and a Blueberry Muffin.

(THAT WAS A BACON AND EGG McMUFFIN?)

Me: No, it was NO MEAT. (Thought: How the fuck did you get that from what I said?)

(OH DID YOU WANT THE WHOLE MEAL?)

Me: Umm, yes.

(DO YOU WANTANYTHING OTHER THAN THE MEAL?)

Me: Just a gun so I can kill one of the two of us, probably me.

Maybe if they made drive-thrus work on facebook, or twitter, or such, you’d get it right. As it is, your attention span is only 140 characters long, so no one under the age of 24 is still reading this. We can speak freely. Those guys suck, hey? You remember the Sony Walkman? Those were cool. Especially the bright yellow Sports ones. I had one of those.

Love, admin_rock

I recently spent a weekend at the West Edmonton Mall, home of various lemurs, waterslides, and aging amusement park rides. While each of those things is worthy of much attention, the thing that was consistently evident was this:

Men’s fashion is in a dire state of affairs. I’m talking worse than the 70’s. Worse than the 80’s. Makes the flannel of the 90’s seem like a 3 piece suit. The ratio of awfulness was at least 4 out of 5.

What are we talking about? A fucking awful combination of Affliction, Tap-out, and Ed Hardy. It was hard to find a shirt without some nonsense words written in Old English script, worn by someone who couldn’t read it even if it was written in block letters.

Is this what we’ve come to? We all desire to look like Wrestling characters? We choose to exert manliness not by hitting the gym, but by buying $100 t-shirts? Not only $100 shirts, but the ugliest fucking shirts possible. I mean, look at this shit!

If you gave me that shirt for free, the only time I’d wear it was for that day where I stain the fence.

Old English script? Check. Tough guy vibe? Check. Ugly as shit? Check.

This shirt has a special kind of sad. I think this is the kind of shirt they give to the “special kids” after they reach the age of 30. Note the model has, you guessed it, tattoos.

And my special favorite, this one is an actual photo of a guy I saw at the mall. The innocent have been horribly photoshopped for the protection.

this guy not only is rocking the satin winter jacket last seen in Starlight Express, but he has an original Ed Hardy winter hat in canary yellow. I was tempted, after seeing this, to simply drink some bleach, as i’m no longer sure there is any hope for the human race.

And where do we place the blame for all this? I blame the tattoo guys. At some point, tattoos went from being something that only sailors and inmates had to the “hip new thing”. Soon, everyone was getting any old thing slapped on their arms, legs, back, and scrotum. What happened to the old days of the lady on the bicep that could be made to dance? Now it’s tramp-stamps, “tribal” bands, japanese characters and Calvin peeing on things. Way to class it up, society!

Of course, you might just be Cool.

Or maybe you’re all “tribal!”

But nothing prepares you for this kind of thing. I’ll remember you forever, in a special way.

It takes a special lady to rock the “Baby Head being eaten by a shark in my armpit” look.

My personal favorite: This one could likely have a post all to itself, as I have many questions, based on the implications it raises. Three things last forever, Faith, Love, and Doggy Style.

Before anyone starts furiously typing comment defending their “piece of art”, save it. A quick trip to the waterpark should give you enough proof as to why getting something etched on you in your 20’s is a bad idea in your 40’s.

Remember how you make fun of the clothes your parents used to wear? Remember how those clothes came back in style? Well, fashion is eating itself at such a rate now that we’re skipping a step, where the clothes are instantly horrible, and won’t be back, because the next horrible idea is right behind.

Makes a guy long for the days of the three piece suit again, doesn’t it?

Recently, the provincial government announced plans to increase university tuitions by 1.5%.

I am a Canadian, and in a medium-expensive program so 1.5% of my total annual tuition is $90.

Appalled by the government’s fascistic money-grab, Our Student’s Union recommended all of us students take a weekend out of our lives, go away from homework and theses, and drive to our provincial capital for the weekend. There, we would protest at the legislature.

1. The legislature is closed on weekends, there are no officials to see us protest.
2. Cost of gas to drive to our provincial capital: $100
3. Incidental gas in town: $20
4. Food for the weekend, on the cheap: $50
5. Accommodations in a tent: $70

Cost of tuition hike: $90
Cost of purposeless protest directed at an empty building: $240

Nice work, SU, nice work.

While perusing through an issue of Tiger Beat Entertainment Weekly, which we extended our subscription to weeks before we noticed that it no longer cared about anything entertaining, we found an ad for a drug that claims to help you stop smoking. While The Correctness is 100% non-smoking, we noticed the ad itself was a full page, but the warnings and information for the drug took up no less than a two page spread. Amongst the usual info, we saw some pretty crazy stuff.

Remember, this is for a drug meant simply to help you stop smoking.

…if you develop any of the following symptoms, stop taking (we’re not going to share the name of the drug, because we like our current non-sued lifestyles) and call your healthcare provider right away:

thoughts about suicide or dying, or attempts to commit suicide
new or worse depression, anxiety, or panic attacks
feeling very agitated or restless
acting aggressive, being angry, or violent
acting on dangerous impulses
an extreme increase in activity and taking (mania)
abnormal thoughts or sensations
seeing or hearing things that are not there (hallucinations)
feeling people are against you (paranoia)
feeling confused
other unusual changes in behavior or mood

So basically, to stop smoking, you go bugfuck crazy. Because, let’s face it, what’s a little paranoia and hallucination when it can save you $10 a week! Assuming you don’t actually commit suicide due to the fact that those fuckers are out to get you. Whereas you used to be addicted to smoking, now you’re busy passing out from panic attacks, at least when you’re not trying to take the head off of the nearest person.

“What should I tell my doctor before taking (still not getting sued)?”

That you’re in the habit of taking drastic measures with consequences that far outweigh the problem. This company should look at offering a weight-loss pill that controls appetite by making the user unconscious, or possibly unable to control motor functions.

Oh, and there was a coupon for $30 off!!!!

6 Appalling Pop Cultural Trends of the Last Decade:

There were some awful events in the Oughties, environmental disasters, natural disasters, terrorist acts, wars, economic crises, need I go on? Genuinely sad.

Here at The Correctness though, we thought we would take a look at some insidious pop cultural trends which we have been collectively asked to accept. If we don’t acknowledge them now, we will be force fed these horrors for the rest of our natural lives. Now is the time to recognize that we hate these things, and stop them. You may also notice a theme developing with a certain demographic who is most responsible for the problems we are having. See if you can spot who it is.

1. Calling this decade the Oughties

Far too late. Far, far too late. Needed that ten years ago. And what are these, the Teenies? Worse.

2. Emo

Who foisted this torture upon us? Why did we have to take the kinds of people we used to call “fans of The Cure” and then subtract from that equation enjoyable music, leaving a meaningless string of power chords on which to build an entire culture? What kind of suffering are teenagers familiar with? At least teenage laments in the 50’s were obviously stupid. Is there anything worse than a 15 year old who tries to tell you what pain is? Approximately 1% of teenagers know what pain is, and they likely can’t afford the haircut, and don’t want to stand out at all, or advertise their genuine misfortune. And what is that thing where you prove how different you are by being exactly the same? Ugh, I did it as a teen, it’s just sad.

3. Twilight

Vampires are a symbolic substitute for sex. This is why they are seductive and dangerous to innocent young women. Just as virtually every fairy tale is a coming of age story, vampires serve a narrative purpose too.
How the gods allowed vampires to become sensitive emo kids (EMO!) that- you know what? I haven’t read the books or watched the films. Honestly. The premise is too stupid. If, and I place heavy emphasis on the hypothetical nature of if, IF I had a girlfriend when I was 15 and she had wanted to drink my blood, she could have gone right ahead- and if she had been hesitant so that she didn’t kill me, I would have started slipping my blood into her drinks and showing up at her house bleeding. A suitable horny teen will do anything, including betray their humanity, to get some action.

4. The Return of Eighties Fashion

Oh God, I lived through it the first time, it looked stupid then, it still looks stupid now, and no legion of teenagers, gangly and retarded, will convince me that these things should come back. The neon! The tights! The rubber bracelets, the glasses, the skinny jeans, the HORROR!
Since the mid eighties we have cycled through all of the fashion of the last half decade, and some of it is fun. Most of it however, is abhorrent eye-abrasive mind rape, especially the Eighties. Why is it back? What’s left to bring back? Khaki cargo pants from ‘97? Or is it back to the fifties again. Can I wear boot cut jeans and a white t-shirt, or will I just look rockabilly?
Fashion is a snake eating its own tail. The noose grows tighter, and I need not revisit my Vuarnet sunglasses and my Cosby sweaters.

5. The Return of Eighties Music, but not the good stuff

Oh, you kids love the kitsch don’t you. Look, their was some excellent music in the Eighties, but I lived through it, and this music, categorically, was not on the radio.
New Order, not on the radio, Echo and the Bunnymen, not on the radio, Elvis Costello, not on the radio, The Cure, not on the radio, the Psychedelic Furs, The Clash, The Smiths, The Cocteau Twins, REM, essentially not on the radio.
Look, obviously these artists got some radio play, but they were drowned out by a sea of shit deeper than the Navy’s finest shit-sub could ever fathom.
REO Speedwagon? Hair Metal? What Peter Cetera did to Chicago?
Here’s one for you to remember: Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” Is not a good song. It is popular because it is hilarious. Don’t forget the irony built in to enjoying this song and start just enjoying it as is. It is not a good song. It is ridiculous. You like it because it is ridiculous. You might also like it because you never had to deal with it the first time around. I’m blaming you teens again.

6. The Triumph of Teen Culture

Get off my lawn, it is all your fault. You weren’t alive in the eighties, you don’t understand how godawful they were. Hollywood sells to you, TV markets to you, Radio is dying for you, newspapers were murdered by you, fashion weeps for you, politicians are terrified of you. You are mindless automatons, and you wear what the marketers tell you, you dance like we demand you do, you have no work ethic, you believe you are entitled, you are largely more obese than we ever were.
Teens, you know what? Keep doing what you are doing, because when it is time for my revolutionary army to rise up, I will be able to brainwash you so easily it will make psychiatrists cry.
We are sorry. We are sorry that we made you dress like tramps at 11 years old, we’re sorry we told Disney the formula for selling you music and television (subcategory: Things Disney did to music and television), we’re sorry we market products towards you, we didn’t know you were so weak and shitty. I don’t even think we can save you. Not only are you hormonal and obnoxious (this would be fine, it is natural) but now you get to tell us what movies and music we are going to get sold. I don’t even get why you get to tell us what is popular! You don’t have any money! I have all the expendable income in the world now, and they don’t make stuff for me anymore, because they are designing it for you! I don’t spend my money because I don’t want to buy anything that has been designed for a bunch of retarded hump-monkeys!

The Oughties were awful, and the worst thing about them was what became of teenagers. You poor, hapless, pimply bastards.

If you use the term “Party Cardi” out loud, we will seriously come after you and take a massive handful of sand, and pound it up your ass. Unless you like that sort of thing. In which case, we won’t!