Ace hates motivational speakers (unless they're Chris Farley)

We had a motivational speaker come to work today. Now I will admit before I start ranting, I didn’t go in with the best attitude. I was questioning, in general, motivational speakers’ credibility. Do they get where they are because they have done something extraordinary, or is it just because they know the right words to say to the right people? Regardless, I reflected afterwards and still determined that motivational speakers must be stopped.

First of all, in these 2.5 hours of my life, I didn’t learn a thing. It’s called common sense people! Wait, if you want to get someone to like you, you’re supposed to ask them about themselves!? People actually like talking about themselves? That’s an incredible observation. Oh yeah, now I remember . . . I used that in junior high to talk to girls. The speaker then preached about being genuine when getting to know others, then proceeded to give us a recipe of questions to ask in order to do be genuine. I usually refer to my “How to be Genuine Handbook” when I need answers, but I guess this will work just as well. What ever happened to just asking questions from the heart if you really are interested in getting to know the person? Instead he gives us a formula to get to know everyone and then, according to the speaker, they will want to help you all the time once they like you. Yeah that sounds genuine and not devious at all. Oh, and just to prove his point, (I kid you not) he brought about 30-40 people on stage to ask them these 5 questions. No, seriously, go right ahead. I don’t mind sitting here for 45 minutes while you interview these people that I have no interest in getting to know and will probably never see again.

A few minutes later, he gets everyone (~1,000 people) to stand up and shake hands with someone near you and tell them, “I’m happy that you’re here.” Positive thinking he calls it. I only wish Cy was there with me to bring the total protesters sitting down to 2.

Later, he discusses how to make pain go away with positive thinking. He brings a volunteer up on stage that has back pain. After walking though a ridiculous mental scenario, the girl magically says her back hurts less. This guy’s like Jesus! It should probably be noted that it seemed like the girl was just appeasing him to get off stage. Regardless, what he’s basically telling me is that if I imagine the pain to go away or distract myself enough to forget about it, all is well. It seems to me like he’s forgetting one little thing . . . I can’t quite place it . . . wait, that’s right, pain is our body’s way to tell us something is wrong. If I follow this guy’s technique with my shoulder/knee injuries, ignore them and keep pushing myself to workout and run and play ultimate, well I think I may just be crippled down the road. Is that what you want Mr. Motivational speaker? TAKE SOME TIME TO REEVALUATE WHAT YOU ARE SAYING.

I could keep going, but I won’t. I’ve made my point . . . and that point is that motivational speakers must be stopped! (unless it’s Chris Farley)

Candice hates people who take the elevator up or down one floor instead of taking the stairs

You know who you are. You get into a crowded elevator, especially during the morning rush, and you boldly (with no sense of shame whatsoever), press "2". The next closest floor that has been pushed is 5, but you don't seem to care. You get in, maybe push a person or two out of the way with your arms full of a Starbucks triple vanilla latte with whipped cream and one of their terrible bread/pastry items, and then either push the button yourself or have the audacity to ask someone to do it for you. You arms are full, so therefore your legs aren't functional either, apparently.

Everyone else on the elevator is cursing you every second the elevator takes to get to 2, open the doors, pause, then close the doors as excruciatingly slowly as possible. You get off and go on your merry way, blissfully unaware of the hatred that's teeming inside the elevator as it continues its journey upwards. They all hope you burn yourself on your latte and choke on that apple fritter.

Then, then, fifteen minutes later you decide to go back downstairs to the lobby to get some snacks... maybe a bag of Combos because you're feeling adventurous. You get back on that elevator and there are 3 people inside. They glare at the back of your head with that same intense hatred as you get on and don't press something farther down, something like B1 or B2. That would be the only case in which this situation would be acceptable, but you just whistle happily while watching the elevator lights switch from 2 to L and get off.

The part that kills me most is the people that decide to take the stairs when going up or down 1-2 flights of stairs are the people that are most in shape - the ones that probably need the extra exercise the least. It's the Combos-munching, latte-drinking, oblivious monkeys that I hate the most. The stairs are right next to the elevators! In case of fire take the stairs? Pshaw, you are probably the type to hide under your desk and hope it's just a drill, just so you don't have to walk down that one flight of stairs (and God forbid, the return trip back up). One of these days, it's not just going to be burnt popcorn in the microwave... and then you'll be in trouble. Come to think of it, you're probably that person that keeps burning the popcorn to begin with.

Cy Hates Prom Night (the movie, not the night itself, though he has some fairly strong opinions on that too)

(Perhaps a more accurate title to this post would be "Cy Hates Himself for Seeing Prom Night." Or maybe, "Cy hates having such strong feelings about a horrible movie that he feels compelled to write extensively about it." I'm going to try to restrain myself here, but I make no promises.)

I went to see Street Kings on Saturday with a friend, with the tentative plan to sneak into another movie after it was over, since I couldn't rightly justify shelling out full price for such an obviously mediocre movie. After looking over what was playing and seeing such a god-awful array of "films" (except for In Bruges, which was awesome, but I've already seen), I let my friend decide. And she chose Prom Night. Little did I know what a horrible mistake I had made...

Street Kings, despite its many, many flaws, was decently enjoyable, but what followed next was not. A brief synopsis: During Brittany Snow's freshman year of high school, her mother, father and little brother are brutally murdered by a science teacher who is obsessed with her. He is later committed to an insane asylum. Three days before Snow's senior prom, he escapes, then on the day of the prom, sneaks into the hotel where it's being held, murders about half of the hotel staff and just about all of her friends. She's taken home to her Aunt's and Uncle's in protective custody, but the teacher manages to murder all of the police protecting her, her boyfriend, and is about to kill her when the main detective (Idris Elba, Stringer Bell from The Wire, in a wasted performance) finally arrives and shoots him. Then she hugs the cop, and you know that everybody's happy because the "Everybody's Happy" music starts playing and the credits role.

What?! This is supposed to be a happy ending?! Idris Elba should have just put a bullet in her brain, because there's no fucking way she doesn't live the worst life imaginable for the next five years before she kills herself. At least in movies like Texas Chainsaw Massacre everybody that gets killed (and even the ones that survive) are shitty people to begin with, and you get the general impression that none of them are going to be missed. Even in the original Prom Night the victims were the unwitting cause of a death years earlier, and you can understand why somebody would want revenge. In this version, everyone is an idyllic human being except the bad guy, all of the most horrible things happen to random people for no reason, but there's a happy ending because the cute white girl lives. Bullshit. This would have at least been tolerable if the movie actually had some of the things that one usually finds in horror/slasher movies: gore, nudity, something that is actually scary. I think you see blood actually coming out of someone once, and the scariest part of the movie is probably when Brittany Snow runs into a lamp. I'm not kidding, that's about it. About the only thing that this movie got right was its depiction of annoying, rich, spoiled high school kids, and if I wanted to see that I'd just watch "My Super Sweet 16".

Oh my God, there's so much more to complain about... How did a nerdy high school science teacher become an unstoppable killing machine?! What's with the awkward, tacked on Prom King/Queen subplot that went absolutely nowh--Agh! Restraint!

I guess my real complaint about this movie is that I couldn't yell at it while I was watching it. I dream of a day when certain theaters showing horrible movies are designated as free heckling zones and I can get all of this (and much, much more) off my chest while I'm watching the movie, then never think of it ever again.

Sorry if I spoiled the movie for anyone, but I figured it wouldn't matter; I can't imagine anyone actually paying to see this. What's that you say? #1 at the box office? $22.7 million? Ugh... Anytime anyone criticizes me for not paying for movies, this is all I need to show them. Thanks to people like you, we're going to have to live in a world where Prom Night 2 exists. I hope you're happy.

Candice hates college basketball players who wear t-shirts under their jerseys

Ok,

So this might not seem like a big deal, but it has bothered me forever. What is with college hoops players who insist on wearing t-shirts under their jerseys? It looks ridiculous, no one in the NBA does it (so it's clearly not cool), and it has got to hinder their play somehow, to have these billowy poof sleeves flapping about all the time (like a Cinderella dress or something... Kira, what would the correct term be?)

I tried to be reasonable and come up with some reasons as to why this is the case:

1) It's cold - okay, no one else on the court is cold enough to wear a t-shirt... deal with it.

2) You have skinny/flabby arms - this is like the girl's equivalent of not wearing shorts/swimsuits because you don't like your thighs, except you are playing college ball. You spend countless hours a day in the weight room or at practice. Get over it.

3) You want to be different - congrats...

4) You have hairy armpits - shave.

I feel like when I'm watching them play all I focus on is the flap flap of their sleeves against the flap flap of their arms. It's like an ultimate player wearing a cape that attaches to their wrists so that when they hold their arms out on a mark the cape becomes some sort of armpit webbing that obscures your view of down-field.

Who needs the armpit webbing/odor and sweat repository anyway? Maybe there's a rule that you can't wear the t-shirts in the NBA so players bite the bullet and stop. Or maybe as a rookie you'll get razzed so badly and forced to carry so many bags, shine so many shoes and lick so many gym floors that you'll put the t-shirt away and hit the weights. Or maybe there's a fashion police to the likes of Amare Stoudemire and Shaq who will threaten you with punches to the kidneys if you dare humiliate their team like that. Who knows, but either way, the flappy sleeves have got to go.

Matt Hates Cab Drivers

(Click for big version)

Anna Hates Her Car

It worries me a bit to talk smack about my car. Maybe doing so sets myself up for some horrific crash/explosion/freak accident/etc. But at this point, it just has to be said: I hate my car. Its only saving graces are that it somehow miraculously still has all four doors, and is often an answer in crossword puzzles, as both “Kia” and “Rio” have that awesome two-vowel combo.

My parents bought me this little she-devil from my friend Jon two summers ago. For what we were looking to pay – the used car equivalent of shopping at Forever 21, I think – he gave us a good deal on a nice little car that would get me to the grocery store, my summer job, and back and forth from Milwaukee for a variety of family events involving cake. Great. She still does all that. And she had a huge advantage over the ’91 Honda Civic I had at the time because she can drive in reverse without being pushed.

The advantages, however, effectively end there. My Kia is a featureless car. Though 12 years newer than the KANU – our nickname for the Honda, after his Kansas public radio bumper sticker – the Kia actually regressed in automatic features. The Kia does not have automatic windows. The Kia does not have automatic locks. If you want to adjust your right side passenger mirror while driving, you have to wait until you hit a red light or a stop sign so you can awkwardly reach across the seat and try nudge the little knob just enough to get some semblance of visibility.

The most glaring and most laughable lack of a standard car feature, however, is clearly the absence of a trunk-popping lever inside the vehicle. This means that if I am driving with others and they need to get something out of my trunk (which they invariably must since the two cubic feet of space inside the car barely accommodates five people much less five people AND their cell phones AND their wallets AND their KEYS!), I have to put the Kia in park, turn the Kia off, get outside and open the trunk for them with the key. Seriously. This is not something I thought to check while the Kia was still on the lot, because what the hell kind of car doesn’t have a trunk popper?? Most cars now, in fact, have glow in the dark trunk poppers INSIDE THE TRUNK in the highly unlikely event that you are carjacked and put in your own trunk, yet are daring enough to make an escape. In the likely event, however, that someone should want to use my trunk from the outside, I am put at a grave and, to others, an unceasingly hilarious inconvenience.

As to the Rio’s durability, I’ve blown one of its tiny tires, had a front axle replaced and had to re-weld the back right tire into place. In the last year. (FYI that back tire was moving “left and right and up and down and left and right” while I drove. So that wiggle you all were feeling in the back was not so much endearing or strange, but in fact incredibly dangerous.) And I don’t even want to talk about how much I have spent on these kinds of repairs because I don’t make nearly enough money to joke about how much of it I waste on the Kia.

Maybe I like torturing myself this way. Maybe I need the Kia for more than weekend trips to Milwaukee and the grocery store. Maybe I need something to complain about, something to worry about, and something to waste my money on. In fact, when I get rid of this car, every six months I will take $300 and set it on fire. Then I will walk to the grocery store and take the train to Milwaukee and stop worrying about all four wheels falling off simultaneously when I hit 60 mph as the Rio explodes into a fiery mess of willow green.

Cy hates whatever the hell those seats on the El are made of

It's night, long after rush hour has ended. You hop on the Red Line to head home, one of maybe 10 people in a single car; everyone has a row to themselves. You notice that the seat facing the priority seating is open, the most comfortable spot on the train. You'll have plenty of leg room and a place to put a foot up if you want it. Before you sit down, however, you check with your hand to see if the seat's clean. The seat covering seems cold and maybe a little damp. Is it wet? Did some vagrant just excrete some bodily fluid onto it? Is it just your imagination? You decide not to take a chance and move on to another row, checking to see if this one is clean. Nope; damp again, maybe a little warmer than the last one. You check another. Something's not right about this one either. "Fuck it," you think, gingerly lowering yourself into your original choice, all the while dwelling on what revolting substances are undoubtedly seeping into your jeans from the contaminated seat cover.

Sound familiar? OK, maybe not. Maybe you don't worry about other people's urine and other various excretions getting all over your clothes. I do. And this happens to me every time I ride the El. The seat covers are disgusting feeling, looking, tasting, and the worst part is they don't even make any sense in the first place! Why would you put any absorbent fabric on something where everything from homeless people to wasted college kids are going to be sitting? I've witnessed three people urinating on the El (one was a girl, which I have to admit was kind of impressive) and have heard of at least one incident of public masturbation. Really? We should put something on the seats that'll soak everything up?! This is a good idea?!

What purpose do these things even serve? They don't provide any cushion, contrary to what any rational person might expect from a seat cover. They don't provide any decoration, unless you think seventies and eighties style color schemes, stained and faded beyond all recognition, really add something to the fluorescent-lighted ambiance. As far as I can figure, their only goal must have been to equally distribute as much semen, urine, vomit, and ass sweat as possible, until everyone is equally contaminated. This way, those of us who are able to control our bladders and colons can no longer look down upon those who can't; now all of our pants smell like pee. It's a pretty ingenious social experiment if you think about it, but I'm pretty sure we haven't learned anything from it in the last twenty years (and judging from the patterns on the seat fabric, it's been going on at least that long).

The CTA needs to rip those disgusting cesspools out already, and replace them with solid plastic seats. That way, when I get on, I can just see the fluid pooling in the bottom of the seat and move on to the next one without playing the touching/feeling/guessing game. Then, at the end of the run, you can just hose the whole car down and it'll be good as new; ready for another day of carting Chicago's disgusting and apparently incontinent population around the city.

Anna Hates Facebook

Sure, there are things we all love about Facebook. It keeps me busy at work, for example, and allows me to keep tabs on people I knew in high school who have since gotten fat. It’s like people watching, except instead of the general populace, I am able to thoroughly judge people I actually – or at least vaguely – know.

But really, Facebook, I have to draw the line somewhere, and it’s here: at the fourth degree of separation that you have suddenly decided to bring to my attention via a “People You May Know” feature on my sidebar, right under the birthdays I will not be celebrating, the events I don’t care about and will not be attending, the decidedly unfunny, uninteresting and more often than not grammatically incorrect status updates, and the literally 28 other requests I have been ignoring as they are completely irrelevant to my life (though I’m sure you’re all dying to know if I were a drug, just what drug I’d be, how fast I can type and whether or not I support an end to the Cuban embargo).

What the hell, Facebook? If I cared about the whereabouts of my high school boyfriend’s little sister’s annoying best friend, my fondest memory of whom was four years ago, when she told on me to the Genius Bar at the Apple store after I flirted with the guy next to me so that my dad and I could take his position in the two-hour queue, I would have Facebook-stalked her on my own long ago, and without your encouragement to do so. But she’s annoying, and I have never spoken to her, so I didn’t.

It turns out, Facebook, the three people you have chosen to highlight as people I may know based upon my already established Facebook clan o’ friends are either complete strangers, or I do know those people. And like my aforementioned high school boyfriend’s little sister’s best friend, that guy from my German class, and the girl I may have played soccer with but I can’t quite remember, most of them are annoying. And I certainly don’t care enough about any of them either to have previously asked them to justify my existence by accepting me as a Facebook friend, have them featured prominently on my sidebar, or – horror of horrors – actually call them to get together for a drink and find out through an actual face-to-face conversation what they have been doing since I last saw them three to seven years ago. I don’t care! And I am offended, Facebook, at your suggestion that I do, or should.

In fact, I’d boycott you entirely, but then how would I ever know that that girl in my freshman seminar had a baby, someone I studied abroad with married that skeezy Mexican man she was dating, and holy shit, that guy is still alive?!