The Halloween Issue

Many people love the Fall season. The leaves are changing, you can wear a scarf without looking like a pretentious hipster, and for me, there's a holiday which is really a huge facade for scaring the crap out of little kids and gorging myself on fun size Butterfingers and Runts. But only the banana Runts. Everyone knows the banana ones are the best.

However, coming from a Christian home my parents never let me go trick or treating as a kid because apparently participating in this holiday was Satan worship and I was going to burn in hell for being a rebellious heathen.

Or something like that.

Pictured: the epitome of evil and Satanic

I however, firmly protest that just because Halloween has a sketchy background does not mean that simply by acknowledging its existence I was included in its sketching going-ons.

That's like saying that because I live in Salem, Mass. I'm a witch-hunting conspiracy theorist.

Originally it is thought to have stemmed from a Celtic Festivus type thing where people would stand around a fire (like a Festivus pole of sorts) dressed up like ghosts and spirits and other costumes in hopes that when the other real spirits showed up they'd be like "aw naw, this place taken already man, lets haunt some other town." Personally, if I was a ghost and saw a bunch of other ghosts standing around a big fire I'd be like "'sup guys" but that's just me I guess.

Now instead if we have a ghost problem we have one man in a robe come to our house and shout things written in an ancient manuscript and sprinkle water on stuff.

But that's not the point.

In the 8th century some Pope decided to make a holiday the day after the Celtic festival (called Samhain, and not Festivus, sadly) that was a day of remembrance for all the saints and martyrs ever, called "All Saints Day." The day before it was henceforth named "All Hallows Eve," (I said henceforth in a sarcastic manner, because I honestly have no idea what the connection between "saints and martyrs" and "hallows" are. I don' even know what a "hallow" is.) and later just "Halloween."

So what I'm saying is that Halloween isn't even like, a big deal. Don't think of it being a day when your kid is trying to ward off spirits so much, and think of it more like a big party before a day of remembrance for all the people who sacrificed their lives in one way or another for the greater good.

If you're still not convinced it's a wholesome activity for little kids to do, let me tell you two things. 1: you're taking away a huge part of your son or daughter's childhood by removing this awesome holiday in which they get to dress up like superheroes and demand candy from strangers. And 2: since you probably don't like this holiday because you're a God fearing person, Christmas was originally called Saturnalia, aka an ancient Roman festival that happened early-mid December to worship the god Saturn and involved everyone exchanging gifts, if you had an indoor growing tree it was decorated and topped with a light (not a star like we do, but a sun), garlands and wreaths were hung on doors and on doorways and such... sound familiar? Yeah. You're just as much a heathen for celebrating Christmas as I am for having a good time on Halloween. This was invented around 250 BC, which is like, 250+ years before Jesus was born. Think about that for awhile.

R.I.P Steve Jobs

You may have seen this picture circulating around the inter-webs recently. Let me begin by saying that I don't mean to lessen the death of Steve Jobs or the millions of adorable African and other third world babies. My family actually supports a little boy in Haiti. He's super cute. His name is Pierre.

With that being said, this comparison is like equating the death of Obi-Wan Kenobi to the deaths of the thousands, and possibly millions, of clones and rebel soldiers.

Steve Jobs was a world renowned icon for technological advancement and perseverance, and was, to many, a hero. Obi-Wan was the mentor of Luke Skywalker who trained him in the ways for the Force, and is, to many, a hero. (Nerd query: would "the Force" be considered a proper noun, thus needing capitalization? I did capitalize, just in case. I have no idea.) Those children are people we have never met, do not know the names of, and are dying every day. Clones and rebel soldiers are faceless, nameless, not really important at all, and drop like flies (not to mention their aim is atrocious).

It's like equating the death of Princess Diana to the deaths of the approximate 146,000 people by natural or unnatural causes every day.

It's like equating the death of Boromir to the death of the thousands of Gondorian soldiers that died in the second and third Lord of the Rings.

It's like equating the death of Tupac Shakur to the death of the hundreds of Chinese children every day from poor living conditions.

It's like saying that you should mourn the death of someone you passed on the street once just as much as you should mourn the death of a relative you saw all the time and knew and loved. It's just not the same.

I could go on.

You have to understand that people do care about those deaths. People die every day though, and if I had to be sad about every single one of them, I'd just be depressed and the the freaking time. There's a disconnect in the human brain that allows us to trudge on through life despite the fact that everywhere in the world the vulnerability of life and the proclivity towards death is being demonstrated.

Please excuse me while I pull a Forrest Gump; and that's all I have to say about that.

#bandnameeuphemisms

Sometime in June of this year, my brother, parents, and I were driving through the desert towards Las Vegas, Nevada, from Kingston, Arizona. It was about a three hour trip, and understandably, my brother and I got pretty bored sitting in the back seat. Like most teenagers, we turned to our phones for entertainment. Nobody was texting really, since it was about five in the morning, but Twitter came running to my rescue. I decided that to entertain myself I'd tweet all the band names I could think of that could be taken as a euphemism (if you don't know what that is, it's a dirty joke). This is what I came up with.

*warning: maturity levels may be tested*

Passion Pit

Enya

The Strokes

Explosions in the Sky

Big Smith

Rammstein

Flogging Molly

Finger 11

Blue Man Group

In response, my brother came up with these.

Notorious B.I.G

Bob Marley and the Wailers

The Flaming Lips

Third Eye Blind

M.C. Hammer

Doug E. Phresh and Slick Rick

Bang Camaro

If you're a fan of funny tweets, you should follow me (IncredibleGreg) or my brother Doug (McDouggery). Each tweet is like a tiny, condensed blog, if you want to see it that way.

Hipster Logic

Since it's mainstream to hate Vevo on Youtube, and hipsters are against the mainstream, hipsters love Vevo.

Since Vevo usually only supports large record label bands, hipsters must now listen to mainstream music, because they now love Vevo.

Since they listen to mainstream music, they're no longer hipsters.

However, since it's mainstream for hipsters to listen to obscure artists, hipsters still have hipster cred for listening to mainstream artists?

Therefore, classic hipsters are no longer hipsters?

Usher in the new era of hipsters!

Parachute pants, cummerbunds, capes... I can see it all now. As if California wasn't freaky enough already...