Things that suck - Part I

Oh Monday.  You're back to torment us workin' folk again.  Fucker.

Monday -- as far back as history can reach (or at least as far back or as often as I care to remember) -- has broken even the strongest of people and fictional orange cartoon cats.

That dude from Office Space had a bad case of the Mondays, and he was totally miserable.

Garfield just wanted to sleep it away.

In order to totally perpetuate this disdain for the first day of the week we call "Monday," I will (assuming I don't run out of ideas) provide a list of five things that totally suck.

And here are your first five.

1.  Walking into/through a spider web.
For those of you who know me (for those of you who don't, you're probably better off), you'll know I'm pretty much a fan of nothing that has more than four legs and less than two.  It really goes without saying, then, that one of my least favorite inconveniences in life is to walk through those eight-legged bastards' deathtraps.  Spiders, generally, are tiny little fuckers.  If you happen to walk through a web, there's no guarantee that one of those sons-a-bitches didn't cling on to your shirt.  What's more, you just destroyed it's home, more than likely pissing the spider off.  It can only wait for you to go to sleep so it can crawl in your ear and make a new home (and birthplace for hundreds of its children).

2.  Album fillers.
See also:  Intro tracks, outro tracks, hidden tracks and interludes.
Your favorite band just released a long-awaited album.  It promises to be the best the band has put out thus far.  They will revolutionize the genre.  You expect nothing less than the equivalent of a multiple audio-orgasm.  You haul-ass to the store, grab the CD and immidiately flip it over to check out the track listing.  Looks sweet!  Track number seven's name alone gives the impression that it's going to rip your fucking face off.  Even though you're a little disappointed it's only got 11 tracks in total, it's your favorite band and you don't give a shit.

You put it in and press play.

After some bullshit dialogue or an "epic" instrumental, you're immediately thrown into the song.  But wait, the song is track two.  Where did track one go?  Was it that shitty 10 second clip that led into the song?  Lame.  Now you're down to 10 tracks of solid music.  Not only that, but track two is the single that was released a month before the actual release of the album.  Having heard it played the fuck out on the radio, you skip it and move on to track three.

Now you're only down to nine songs you've never heard before.

Two songs later, you're treated to a silent track, or at the very least, a track that serves no discernable purpose whatsoever.  These tracks usually have pretty kickass names too, so you pre-judge them based on that.  Remember how awesome track seven sounded?  It's a goddamn interlude.  A minute and 30 seconds of slow guitar playing or some computer-generated beat.  Lame.

Eight songs.

Finally you're on the last track.  It's a good finisher to the album.  You notice something, though.  When the song ends, the CD doesn't skip back to track one.  The time counter still counts up.  Next thing you know, your three minute last track has turned into 15 minutes of complete silence.  So you fast-forward a bit.  You stop skipping ahead when you hear voices, or maybe you'll hear an actual song.  Sometimes the song kicks some ass, and you with at that point they'd thrown away that piece of shit interlude and just put this newly discovered "hidden" track in its place.  The most annoying thing about the hidden track, is that more times than not, it isn't a song, but the band talking about shit that has nothing to do with anything.

We bought the album for the music.  If you want us hear you talk, make a fucking behind the scenes DVD or something.

And if we aren't treated to 20 minutes of silence to get to a hidden track, we're usually fed an outro track.  If we're talking about an 11 track album with an intro, interlude and outro, suddenly you're down to an eight track album, which is total bullshit considering how much they charge for CDs.

3.  Tripping over nothing but your own two feet.
It's inevitable.  It could happen on a crowded sidewalk. It could happen at the office.  Regardless of where it happens, though -- everyone and their mother just fucking saw you do it.  See also:  Tripping up the stairs.

4.  That one old lady counting out exact change in the checkout lane.
You got in the 10 items or fewer lane because you're in a hurry.  You assumed it'd be faster because the people in that line obviously don't have nearly as many things to pay for as the people in the other lines.  You realize after about five minutes though, that you're still staring at the Twix.  How can that be?  Is the candy moving with you?  No.  That's just stupid, and you're stupid for thinking so.  Looking at the front of the line, Ethel is diffing her arthritic fingers into her change purse in search for the ever-elusive 23 cents.  She finds a quarter at first, but she puts it back because her grandson is collecting the 50 state quarters, and she's pretty sure -- though not entirely sure -- he doesn't have that one yet.  So much for making it home in time to watch Tool Academy.

5.  Tool Academy.
I understnad reality TV these days is generally as real as, say, the Loch Ness Monster or Bigfoot.  But as my friend Rigo put it, nothing about that show is real.  "These guys can't be real! Niether can the girls for that matter, I guess.  Or the girls' tits.  NOTHING seems real in fact. Ironic its called 'reality TV'."

"Reality" used in its most loose form.  Like "stars" in Dancing with the Stars.

So I guess every Monday you can look forward to my list of things that suck.  If you want a good cheering-up, venture on to my awesome friend Kellie's blog.  On Mondays, she has her own list of five things, but they are good things, not things that suck.

May the rest of your week provide you with lists of things that make you happy.