iDunno, Maybe

As of yesterday I am a man without an iPod. Come February I will be a cell phone user without a country…I mean a company. (Though, really, how far are we from a world in which cell phone companies are countries? 50 years? 100 years? There’s a better chance we’ll have discontinued cell phones than that corporations won’t have national status. Eke! Depressing.) The point is, I’ve never been more susceptible to the ubiquitous iPhone advertorial onslaught.

The most frightening thing about iPhones is their ability to turn any owner into a word-of-mouth salesman. This is either because the iPhone is an outstanding product that makes life infinitely easier or because it controls minds. Or both, no mutual exclusivity there. The thing obviously makes life easier, but it also gives off a real 1960’s sci-fi vibe wherein eventually some cast-off naysayer scientist will discover that iPhones are actually alien transmitters powering some distant Mothership off of stolen human thoughts.

A lot of my thoughts are worthless, but they’re still mine and I don’t want them stolen. There’s sentimental attachment there. Even if the device doesn’t steal them from you, it deprives you of at least a couple. IPhone users, I’ve watched you piss away your sense of direction; tip-calculating skill; ability to recognize the weather while outdoors. I’ve watched the mom-n-pop shops of your mind close for business when the iPhone information megastore moves to town. In short, I’ve watched you willingly get dumber. And yet, for the first time, I’m open to hearing why the iPhone is a smart purchase. I don’t say the above things to be confrontational, those are my preconceived notions on the subject. As a “salesman,” your first job is challenge my epistemology.

When I think about corporations as companies I want to move to a faraway place like the bottom of the ocean. I hate the machine, hate everything it represents, but every once in a while I’ll equivocate and enjoy its output. If the iPhone is so great, I’m willing to hear it now. But don’t tell me why YOU love your iPhone, tell me why I will. Keeping in mind I live in Los Angeles where the weather never changes and I can calculate a tip.

Keep your mitts of my thoughts, aliens and salesmen!

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

Jackass Get Jacked

In the movies there is often a scene in which somebody is acting like a total jackass, making life difficult for everyone around them, when someone else, noble and true, decides to lay the jackass out with one punch, drawing cheers and acclaim from the affected crowd. In real life, no one cheers. In fact, they become quite mortified. Especially if the jackass is a child. And especially especially if that child is a girl. Even if they do make the biggest jackasses.

MORAL OF THE STORY: Never assume you watch the same movies as the other people in the mall elevator. Hypothetically-speaking.

Speaking of movies and jackasses, did you guys hear about JACKASS 3D?! I did just this past weekend. It’s slated for release later this year and my balls already hurt just thinking about it. Avatars are cool but they’ve got nothing on jackasses. Best worst use of 3D yet.

So, what were people talking about outside of mall jail? I mean, besides the story about the guy who hit a little girl in an elevator. Clearly that one is getting exaggerated. He was probably noble and true. Doesn’t anyone watch movies anymore?!?!?

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

Turf Wars

In college football Bowl Game news, Air Force has just finished annihilating the Houston Cougars. Which is good, because if it was the other way around I was going to insist that Houston defend our skies against strategic attack.

It’s an extremely rare feat when a military school beats a major university in athletics. This season Navy beat Notre Dame football for the second year in a row after losing consecutively for over four decades. And we wonder why the United States hasn’t won a war in over half a century; there’s a stronger military at a  Catholic school in Indiana.

If Notre Dame beats Houston no one should give a shit. It’s just a game. But if Notre Dame beats Army, isn’t Notre Dame a better army? Everyone is so quick to point out whenever an athlete declares himself a “soldier” that war and football are not the same. Well masturbation and knitting aren’t the same either, but they utilize similar muscles. Don’t the same traits that make a football player great translate to a great soldier? Speed, strength, pinpoint body control, discipline. I could be describing a football player or a ninja.

There isn’t really a point here. I don’t actually want football players to go to war because I don’t even want soldiers going to war. I don’t like war. I’d like the troops to come home and improve at football. But I’m still right about all that other stuff.

Be safe tonight, everyone! Happy 2010! Big changes coming in the new year!

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

Don’t Be a Booklegger

Here’s an important message from DC Pierson:

Pre-order the book here. Not just to avoid booklegging, but also because it’s great.

My name is Ben and I blogged this.

Fast & Furious

Tune in to the Discovery Channel at 10pm tonight to catch the series premiere of Motor City Motors starring my hilarious good friend Dave Kaye and his brother James of the custom motorcycle shop Detroit Bros. You may know them from the show Biker Buildoff, but if you don’t know now you know:

Fast cars, power tools, harsh working conditions, sibling rivalry – it’s gonna be Shakespeare in a garage, baby! Tune in and help make my friend a star. And if you don’t care about the success of my friends, watch it because excited television is your thing. If you don’t care about television or my friends…FUCK YOURSELF. Get your blog fix elsewhere, this isn’t the goddamn Huffington Post.

Watch the show! Do something manly for once!

My name is Ben and I blogged this.