Life Sucks II: The Rantings of a Madman By: Robert Seace (Agrajag/AJ) Published by: Rlunatic/J.hayden pro-ductions Yes, folks, this is the long awaited sequel to my first book: "Life Sucks: AJ's Philosophies and Ramblings". In that book, I outlined my basic attitude towards life, and various aspects of it. In this book, I pick out a few of the things in life which I think are highest on the suckiness scale, as well as my own unique (or, is the word I want "insane"?) solutions to make them somewhat less sucky. And, since I'm really just making this stuff up on the fly, who knows what other strange stuff I'll come up with... Death and Taxes --------------- Yes, these are the only two things we can count on in life. And, of course, they both suck. Death's suckiness is rather obvious to most, and is covered quite well in my first book. And, unfortunately, not even I can come up with a viable solution to this one. Aside from not actually beginning life in the first place, of course; but, that is rather difficult for one (or even TWO) to prevent happening to themselves... However, taxes are a new topic for me. Their suckiness, again, is obvious to most. Though, believe it or not, SOME people actually think taxes are necessary, and actually SUPPORT them! But, that isn't all that surprising, knowing that humans all suck, anyway, and are, on the whole, a quite strange lot of beings... But, it seems to me to be a VERY sucky practice for the government to take a large chunk of our hard-earned money away from us. They want us all to work hard, so that we don't have to go on welfare or something, and take THEIR money, but when we do, they come in and take OUR money. The greedy little bastards... I say let the government earn its money like all other charities and such: with Bingo games, rummage sales, food drives, bake sales, raffles, and other similar things. They already have control over one of the most profitable industries in the country: the sale of alcohol. (Yes, I know that is the STATE government, but government is government, as far as I'm concerned.) Plus, they also already run some of the only legal gambling in some states: lotteries. So, they shouldn't really be stealing OUR hard-earned money, too. If the money they make on the above-mentioned enterprises is not enough for their needs, they can always invest it in the stock market or something. Of course, if the idiots stopped buying $100 hammers and spending millions researching such 'important' things as the consistency of catsup, they might save enough so that they wouldn't NEED our money... I wouldn't be complaining so much if the tax system were actually fair, but it isn't. As the great George Carlin once said: "The rich make a LOT of money, and pay NONE of the taxes; the middle class makes a LITTLE bit of money, and pays ALL of the taxes; and, the poor are just there to scare the shit out the middle class, and keep them going to those jobs." And, unfortunately, this is all too true. If they HAVE to tax us, at least tax fairly, and make the ones who can afford to pay the taxes actually be the ones paying them. I mean it isn't going to be too much of an inconvenience to a person with $400,000,000 to pay in say $200,000,000 in taxes (maybe they won't be able to buy that fifth mansion this year). But, instead of doing that, they would rather take $8,000 from a person making $40,000. It only takes simple logic and arithmetic to see that the latter person has SIGNIFICANTLY less money left over after taxes than the former person. I mean, what in hell do these people NEED with these hundreds of millions of dollars, anyway?? They can better afford to part with some than the latter person can... It all seems so obvious; and, I'm sure that is precisely why our illustrious government hasn't yet figured it out... Madonna and Michael Jackson --------------------------- I've yet to see worse examples of so-called singers than these two annoying, tuneless, brainless idiots. Neither one of them should even be allowed to sing in the shower, let alone distribute albums. And, the sad and ironic part is that many people actually like them. Why? Who knows; my guess is mass stupidity, or at least tone deafness... There is nothing worse than watching MTV or listening to the radio, and listening to a good tune (which they do occasionally play on both MTV and some radio stations, believe it or not), and then have a Madonna or Michael Jackson song come on. I really hate that. It's almost as bad as having that stupid Encyclopedia Britannica commercial come on... And, there is no real solution to this one either, unfortunately, until everyone comes to their senses and realizes that these two 'singers' suck (of course, I'm not holding my breath while I wait for this to happen; after all, DISCO is making a comeback, so I've pretty much lost ALL of my confidence in the musical tastes of most Americans). So, for now, my temporary solution is to change the channel/station, or just shut it off and put in a good tape, like the Beatles, or the Who, or Metallica, or Guns 'n' Roses, or Nirvana, or any of the other great bands that ARE out there in this vast musical wasteland... Environmentalists and Polluters ------------------------------- Yes, BOTH sides suck (of course, by just being humans, they suck; but, I'm analyzing their POSITIONS here, not their humanity). Those that pollute the planet, and strip it of its resources for their own selfish uses do indeed suck, as most people would agree. They are arrogant, self- important little bastards, who think they and the rest of their species OWN this planet, and can do anything they like to it. If it makes them a little richer or something, then they don't care if it makes a few dozen species extinct, or if it eventually results in the death of everyone on the planet... But, something most would NOT agree with me on is that most people who call themselves environmentalists suck, too... How can I say that, you ask? Very easily, I answer... Again, I draw from George Carlin's words of wisdom, and much of the following will be paraphrased from him. The environmentalists don't really care about the Earth; all they are concerned with is that they have a nice place to live. Such shallow self-concern doesn't impress me. Even they think of the Earth as merely a place for us humans to live; they just want us to clean it up a bit so that we don't have to live in filth (think of your mother telling you to clean your room; she doesn't have you do that because she actually thinks the house would prefer to be clean, she does it because she doesn't want such filth in HER house for HER children to live in). Typical human arrogance... Plus, what makes them think that we, one little insignificant biological species can destroy a whole planet?? The Earth has been around a whole hell of a lot longer than we have, and will be here long after we are gone. So, this "Save the Earth" nonsense is pure crap. We can't even take care of ourselves, and yet we expect to be able to save a whole damned PLANET?!? Just think of the stuff the Earth has been through: ice ages, earthquakes, volcanos, magnetic pole reversal, bombardment by asteroids, constant exposure to solar radiation, etc., etc... And, we think some styrofoam fast food containers are going to destroy the planet?? No, the planet is going nowhere; WE are... Just one more failed species. No big loss, either. So, my solution is to be neither... Just respect the planet, out of pure respect, not out of any self-serving goals. Treat it how you'd like to be treated if you were the planet. The Native Americans had a good philosophy in that respect. Recognize that we are NOT the only species (or, even the most intelligent species, probably) on this planet. But, if you want to pollute and abuse the planet, fine, go ahead; you won't do it any harm, but rather will just hasten the end of our species, which I'm sure will be a joyous occasion throughout the rest of the civilized universe. I know I'm certainly looking forward to it, even though I probably won't be around to witness it, unfortunately... Macintoshes and Pepsi Cola -------------------------- These are perhaps the two vilest commercial products on the market. I'm not sure who is responsible for making these things so popular, but I'd be willing to bet they are the same imbeciles responsible for the popularity of Madonna and Michael Jackson... Macs are cheesy little child's toys masquerading as computers, and Pepsi is over-sweetened camel piss masquerading as a soda... And, while I can safely proclaim that the Apple company itself sucks, I can not say that about the makers of Pepsi, since their company also produces that marvelous, caffeine-packed product: Mt. Dew. So, I must conclude that either they just screwed up when they created Pepsi Cola, and kept producing it merely because the idiot populace actually liked the vile substance, OR they just got lucky when they made Mt. Dew... It's hard to say which... And, while I love Coca Cola (Classic), I must say that whoever was responsible for the creation of this New Coke, should be shot immediately. They take a wonderful soda, and try to make it more like the carbonated camel piss called Pepsi. Why? What were they thinking? I say that they weren't... But, fortunately, they came back to their senses and brought back the original formula, and called it Coke Classic. Now, they can sell to both markets: those who actually have some sense of taste, and those who drink Pepsi-like liquids... As far as solutions, this falls into the same category as the Madonna and Michael Jackson problem... Exercise Machinery ------------------ The StairMaster! The StepMaster! Treadmills! Stationary bicycles! Rowing machines! Cross-country skiing machines! Have we really all lost our minds?? I mean, what in the HELL is the logic behind blowing hundreds of dollars on a machine that simulates GOING UP AND DOWN STAIRS?!? Here's a unique idea: why not just go climb a few flights of REAL stairs?? It's a hell of a lot cheaper, and as a bonus you actually GO somewhere, too... The same holds for all of the other above-mentioned machines: just go do the real thing! Geez, some people will buy anything... But, the absolute WORST exercise 'machine' I saw advertised was a slick plastic mat which came with a pair of fluffy slippers which you put on and then used them to slide around on the mat... Is it just me, or does this sound suspiciously like sliding on a freshly waxed floor in your socks? Why not just do THAT, rather than send these money-hungry bastards $50 for this cheesy little mat and slipper set?!? Why? Because, people are stupid... But, I never cease to be amazed at their levels of stupidity... And, the only solution here is for the populace buying these stupid machines to use their brains on occasion. Then, they might actually go ride a REAL bike, or climb some REAL stairs, instead of blowing hundreds of bucks on a machine to simulate that activity... But, again, I doubt that this will happen; humans are stupid... Murderers, Rapists, Racists, and Idiots --------------------------------------- I say that we should spend some money to make a life-supporting colony on Mars or maybe the moon, and then send all of the murderers (who UNJUSTLY murdered, of course), rapists, racists, and plain old idiots (hey, now that I think about it, this would solve the Madonna/Michael Jackson and Pepsi/Macintosh problems, too!) to live there... Never would we have to be bothered by these degenerate low-lifes, again... And, we wouldn't need to spend money on gaurding them (where are you going to escape to from another planet??), or feeding them (let them grow their own food if they want to eat)... So, the only cost would be in sending them to the colony initially, and maybe maintaining the colony (repairs to the pressure system or something once in a while; or, we could just let them learn how to do the repairs themselves, which is a better idea, actually), and of course the initial cost of creating the colony... But, that would still be quite a savings over what is spent now on keeping murderers and rapists locked up (unfortunately, it is not yet a crime to be a racist or idiot)... Or, if we didn't have enough to build such a colony, then we could just skip the "life-supporting" part, and let the bastards worry about how to breathe on their own... Unfortunately, such a plan isn't likely to actually be implemented, as our government is run by fools (amazingly stupid ones), who prefer to spend as much as possible for as little as possible, and would much rather put a criminal in jail where they can learn how to be a better criminal, than to actually punish them in some way... Lobsters -------- No, I don't think lobsters themselves suck... I think the process of how they are cooked sucks... They boil the poor sons of bitches ALIVE in a pot of water! Geez, could we find some crueler way of cooking these animals, perhaps? Maybe flame broil them alive? Or, hell, let's just eat them raw and alive; rip those snapping claws right off, and bite in! Christ, I knew humans were mean, lousy bastards, but this is cruel even for them... How would YOU like to be boiled alive?? I think that's what we should do to people who do cook lobsters like that... Don't get me wrong; I have nothing against people killing animals to eat, but I just think we should be a hell of a lot more humane about it... At least kill the poor lobster before cooking it... Just think of the uproar there would be if we made our steaks by throwing a live calf on a fire... Sure, the animal-lovers would be upset about THAT, but apparently lobsters aren't as important to them as cows... After all, lobsters aren't cute to look at, and don't make any sort of sound, or even any facial expressions, so why feel bad about killing them any way we want? Oh how I hate such self-serving human attitudes... Of course, I know they'll never change, and lobsters will likely continue to be boiled to death so people with money to blow can have a gourmet dinner... Conclusion ---------- Well, I've ranted and rambled on enough for this book, I guess... Plus, my account disappears in 2 days from now, so I want to get this distributed on the Net before I cease to be a Net-dweller... So, as you can see, there are many things in life which really suck... And, I know that my solutions would all work, if they were ever implemented; but, I know they never will be... So, we are still forced to live in life's suckiness, until we die... (Maybe they should put that on a Hallmark card...) The only way that we could ever possibly get out of life's suckiness is if we all smartened up and stopped acting like brainless, self-centered, moronic schmucks; in other words, stopped being humans... But, since the chances of that happening are slightly worse than the chances of the Eiffel Tower spontaneously transforming into a sewer rat, I'm not holding my breath while waiting for it to occur... Until my next book, have a non-overly-sucky life... And, always remember that Life Sucks; so, quit your whining, shut up, and learn to deal...