Usually, when I write a post, it’s regarding a situation or event that either amused me…or frustrated me to the point where it was simply laughable.
But sometimes, just sometimes, something comes along that requires no back story or train of thought.
So, in keeping true to my ‘Life Is Funny’ mantra, here is a photo of a van I was stuck behind in traffic the other day.
In this post I claimed energy drinks gave you anal seepage; it now seems they have a remedy for that.
As some of you will know, the over-censorship of media and entertainment in America really pisses me off.
I’m not a child. I can handle the word ‘fuck’ in a movie filled with uncensored (and apparently child friendly) blood, gore, guts and violence.
Well, this morning as I drove into work I heard censorship on the radio that pushed censorship (and me) to the next level.
It happened during the song, ‘I Write Sins Not Tragedies’ by Panic At The Disco; it’s a great song with an incredibly catchy chorus.
The beginning of that chorus goes:
‘I chime in with a “Haven’t you people ever heard of closing the goddamn door?!”
No, it’s much better to face these kinds of things with a sense of poise and rationality’.
Guess which word was censored?
Yep, that’s right, the word ‘Goddamn’ was censored. The irony of that second line of lyrics was most definitely lost here.
I love this song, but the joy of singing along was ruined.
You see, in America religion is a big deal and it’s so easy to offend people. I knew this was the case before coming in, but I had no idea it was this bad. The phrase “went to church” comes up in more conversations than I’m comfortable with and a lot of my new friends here in the States are very religious.
This is something I have tended to find out when they casually mention going to church or they post something ‘God-ish’ on Facebook. When this happens I get a real sense of dread because I have to think back over every conversation we’ve ever had.
Did I say something blasphemous or offensive?
Have I made jokes about God or Jesus?
Did I sacrifice that goat in front of them?
In fact, not 10 minutes ago, this very subject came up at work (not instigated by me, I hasten to add) and one of my colleagues said, “I swear a lot. I use ‘Fuck’, ‘Shit’, ‘Asshole’ and all that, but if I use GD or JC, then you KNOW I’m pissed!”.
It took me a moment to figure out what she meant by GD and JC. She couldn’t even bring herself to say the words.
To her, saying ‘God Damn’ or ‘Jesus Christ’ is worse than saying ‘Fuck’.
What the Goddamn?
Is it me, or does that seem a bit fucked…er, I mean, ‘Jesus-Christed’ up? This would go some way towards explaining why the word ‘Goddamn’ was edited out of the song this morning.
A few months ago I said ‘Goddamn it’ at work and got told to watch my language. I couldn’t believe it. I was being scolded like a 7 year old by a woman I have heard swear numerous times.
I’ve even started to replace “Oh my God” with “Oh my goodness”. I hate that I’ve started doing this.
But people here are way too sensitive, and the entertainment business knows this. Out of fear of being sued,they’re pandering to the masses by censoring the shit out of television.
Unless the customer is paying for it of course.
Netflix anyone?
Nothing on Netflix is censored and I hear it’s a popular service[1].
So, is America OK with bad language, blasphemy and sexual content when they’re charged a premium? Apparently so.
My wife pays a yearly subscription for something called XM radio in her car. It’s pricey, but there’s little to no censorship. It really expands the selection of music they play as they can air otherwise unplayable tracks and, being a premium service, there are no Goddamn, Jesus Christing commercials.
When it comes to TV, the UK have it right with censorship. Everything is the same as the US until 9pm. Well, I SAY it’s the same, but that’s not strictly true; they don’t play violent action movies on a Sunday afternoon when kids can see it. But apparently it’s OK for kids to see heads being chopped off and people being riddled with bullets, as long as there’s no sign of a nipple or someone saying ‘Goddamn it’.
At 9pm (or the ‘watershed’ as it’s called) it is assumed that your delicate little snowflakes are all tucked up in bed. After that, it’s the parents’ responsibility to manage what their kids watch.
At 9pm, all bets are off. The only word that is bleeped out is the word ‘Cunt’.
Sorry; ‘the C word’.
After 9pm, TV is for adults and if you’re easily offended, change the channel.
[1] Sarcasm, in case you didn’t realise it.
I try to avoid posting twice in quick succession, especially since it’s been a writing drought recently, but I simply had to share this.
I was driving home from work today and, as I joined the freeway, there was a huge billboard offering ‘Vaginal Tightening’.
This was an occasion where ‘LOL’ was appropriate.
I really did. Loudly.
It was highly amusing and therefore I shared it on Facebook. I mean, it’s funny but I didn’t think it warranted a post of its own.
Anyway, as I neared home I saw a store selling alcohol; a self proclaimed outlet of alcohol, or ‘liquor’ as they called it.
Yes, that’s right, it was called ‘Liquor Outlet’.
I had to pull over before I ROFL’d into the car in front.
At lunch yesterday, a few of us went to a local eatery to spend time and catch up.
During our conversation we were talking about a recent work funded night out at a local nightclub
*cough* Hakkasan nightclub at MGM Grand *cough*
Anyway, one of our party was telling us how much she had drunk that night, concluding her tale with my favourite sentence of 2016 so far:
“I was forced to double fist.”
She meant this…
But the action of half choking on my drink, gasping for air and laughing like a busted lawnmower, indicated to her that maybe…just maybe…I thought she meant something else.
I had to share this, it was two good to pass up.[1]
Stuff like this doesn’t just make my day, it makes my hole weak.[1]
[1] not typos.
I’ve noticed that some companies and brands in the USA have names and wording that could be considered…well…downright inappropriate and fucking hilarious in the UK.
Case in point…
Delicious, right?
Now, the dictionary definition of a growler is:
1. a person or thing that growls.
2. a small iceberg that rises little above the water.
To Americans, a growler is some kind of bottle with a handle that is usually used to hold beer.
A growler (snigger)
In England, the word ‘growler’ is slang for vagina.
Over here it’s entirely acceptable to say “Hey, check out her growler” without getting a slap.
In England it’s deemed a bad chat up line to use.
And it gets better.
In the UK we have a verb that is slang for, erm, ‘obtaining a beer foam moustache from partaking in a growler’, if you know what I mean.
Know what I mean? 😉
This verb is ‘Mott’.
For my English brethren who have ever seen Celebrity Juice on UK TV, you will have heard (and seen) Keith Lemon talk about ‘motting a lady’.
This is usually met with raucous laughter as he demonstrates it on one or more of his celebrity guests – more often for an American who has no idea what it means.
Mott mott mott!!
So imagine my joy at seeing these in Walmart last night.
Take a sip, you know you want to.
Although I do have some concerns about these.
Yesterday (Friday), was a pretty amazing day at work.
Firstly, it was the last day of training at my new job which meant it was ‘graduation day’.
As part of graduation day we were asked to collectively choose a theme. As there were almost 60 of us, we all pitched in ideas and then put them to the vote.
Considering the date of this post, you wont be surprised to read that the consensus was the vastly unimaginitively unoriginal theme of ‘Hallowe’en’
Or ‘dress up in whatever the fuck you want’ day.
I wanted to represent the British sense of humour, so I went as a Whoopie Cushion.
No, really.
What’s even better is that my co-worker and friend Trevor (the guy in the picture with me) decided his costume would be ME!
Yes, that’s right….his Hallowe’en costume was ME!
He even had tattoos drawn on his arm.
They say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Personally I find it to be a really good blow job.
But Trevor wasn’t swallowing it.
Also, it’s worth noting here that us Brits don’t use the word ‘costume’ when it comes to dressing up like a bunch of idiots.
We call it, ‘fancy dress’, and we wear ‘fancy dress’ to a ‘fancy dress party’
It was my wife who made me realise that fancy dress is a stupid way of saying it.
“I say Nigel, your attire is positively fancy”
It makes us sound like prancing twats with lace handkerchiefs in our hands and thumbs up our arses.
Anyway back to graduation day.
As a Brit I didn’t realise the sheer magnitude of the word ‘graduation’ here in America.
In England it’s not a big deal and conforms to the dictionary definition of ‘receiving an academic degree or diploma’.
In America it means ‘A celebration that is batshit crazy like rabid gibbons in a banana farm’
Seriously, it was lunacy at its best with over the top celebrations for (essentially) turning up every day and learning what you were taught.
I’d heard that people had failed training in past training groups but the quality of the training and the sheer determination by the trainers that you actually LEARNED the content only suggested that these cockwombles were either asleep, dead or too busy masturbating in the toilets to pictures of gibbons in banana farms.
But that’s not why I’m writing, although I hear http://www.bananafarmgibbonlove.com is getting some traction, as is Kleenex.
No the reason I’m writing is because I made an interesting cultural discovery about my American chums, particularly when it comes to bar etiquette.
After the graduation ceremony had finished and all the gibbons had been rounded up, we all decided to celebrate by wiping off the remnants of confetti, silly string and mashed banana and going to a local bar.
We piled in and made a beeline for the bartender.
Straight away I got the first round in.
“Right, who wants a drink?” I asked.
I received requests for 2 Bud Lights, a Jack Daniels and Coke, a pint of Guiness and a some vodka cocktail thing that was far too complicated to be a drink; I think there were body parts and aviation fluids mentioned.
Anyway, the round came to about $40 which I was happy to pay.
My co-worker who had ordered the complicated vodka monstrosity kept offering to give me the money for her drink. I found this to be a little odd and slightly insulting.
Did she think I couldn’t afford it? She’s usually so lovely.
I blame the booze.
Anyway, my beer was downed in about 3 minutes and after about half an hour I was getting thirsty for another, but no one had offered to get the next round in.
Fuck it. I headed to the bar again and joined some of my fellow graduates.
Like before I offered to buy them a drink.
This round was about $30.
‘No biggie’ I thought, ‘at least I’ll have a few drinks come my way later’.
About an hour passed and one of the guys came over with a bottle of Bud Light and said “this is because you bought me a drink earlier”.
Well obviously.
And that was it.
We were in that bar for almost 4 hours and no-one other than one person (thanks Justin) bought me a drink, or even offered.
I found this to be a little weird. I thought these people liked me.
Later that night I told my wife about it and she enlightened me.
Americans don’t do rounds.
Seriously, they dont do rounds…they only buy drinks for themselves – or for a friend or someone they’re trying to shag.
Oh god, do my co-workers think I was trying to get in their pants? Do they now feel that it was a blatant attempt to throw one up them?
This might explain why my lovely co-worker and friend was desperate to pay for her drink. She must’ve felt guilty and was worried she might have to, ahem, ‘flatter’ me later on.
It’s OK, I’ll tell her it was Trevor all along.
My wife and I went to the cinema yesterday to see ‘Tomorrowland’ in IMAX. We enjoyed it and it’s well worth a watch.
After the film I had to visit the toilet; the inevitable consequence of drinking a LOT of Coke!
As I was having the longest piss in history, I started to get bored and began looking around.
(I was in there alone….otherwise it would most definitely have been ‘eyes forward’)
As I looked to my left I saw this vending machine:
Yes, that’s right; this vending machine – in a cinema – is selling various lubes of different flavours and sensations, Tic-Tacs (important), a form of Viagra (impotent?), condoms and vibrating cock rings.
I’m not a prude, but come on!
This isn’t a pub or a club; it’s a c-i-n-e-m-a.
I guess kissing in the back row has come a long way.
Pun intended.
Pandas are idiots.
No, sorry; you’re all wrong. Pandas are idiots.
Don’t misunderstand me, they DO look cute but it’s all a lie; a ruse to shield you from the fact that they are unfathomably stupid, fat, bamboo chewing twats.
How can we add any level of credibility to a species that simply won’t procreate? How hard can it be? (Pun intended)
Their species is endangered (no surprises there) and it seems we work hard to get a boy panda and a girl panda together for some serious (and often heavily televised) jiggy jiggy.
And do they get funky with each other? No.
The female panda usually rejects the male panda for some stupid reason or another, blah blah blah….
Have you ever watched the news reports on these ‘stories’? The reporter delivers it with an ‘ahh, isn’t it cute and adorable’ smile, but their lifeless eyes tell a different story. They’ve died inside; died I tell you. Their career has hit rock bottom and they know it.
Yet there they stand with their manufactured smile and microphone in hand.
“Ling Ling is still rejecting Ping Ping after her 12th day with him”.
If you ask me, Poor Ping Ping isn’t getting Ling Ling on his ding-a-ling. I feel for him, I really do.
Eats shoots and leaves? My arse.
And of course these big, fat, hairy mimes have no idea they’re endangered. But that shouldn’t make a difference. It’s just hardwired into the male of a species to pork the female of the same species (unless the male is a dog and the female is your leg).
Are we flogging a dead horse when we have to artificially inseminate a female panda with the sperm from a male panda that is sat 12ft away playing with his perfectly functioning dick?
That’s not right is it?
Also, we gloss over the poor person who had to wank* off the male.
Ha ha, ‘gloss over’.
“What do you do for a living mate?”
“I’m a wanker”
Maybe we’re going about this all wrong. Maybe we’ve overlooked something obvious? What about putting the female in some sexy underwear? What about a little mood lighting and Lionel Ritchie?
Nope, straight to the plastic syringe full of panda paint.
Not once have I suggested to my wife that we get out the turkey baster. If I did I’d end up looking like a panda.
But seriously, alarm bells should be ringing here. These creatures either WANT to be extinct, or are simply too stupid to save.
They say that pandas don’t know how to procreate because they ‘haven’t been shown’, but that’s got to be complete bollocks, surely? I saw a documentary once that had a TV in the panda enclosure showing a DVD on how to procreate.
Yes, that’s right, it was playing panda porn!
I pity the cameraman on that gig.
This creature has more sexual hang-ups than a bondage dungeon.
It just grates on me that so much time, effort, money, paperwork and stress goes into getting two pandas together from opposite ends of the globe, only for the female to take one look at the male and say “nah”.
Typical woman.
Although, when you think about it, maybe the female panda is turned off by the fact that the boy panda looks exactly like her. That would make sense. After all, who actually goes and fucks themselves when asked to?
Not enough people in my opinion.
By this reasoning, any pandas that DO mate successfully are therefore either incredibly vain, borderline narcissistic or mentally unhinged.
Put a mirror in the enclosure and sit back.
Stupid pandas.
*jerk
Head In A Blender 