They should call it FuckDonalds.

I hate McDonalds for a litany of reasons:

- Their mascot is a clown. Clowns are terrifying. John Wayne Gacy used to dress up as a clown. He was a serial killer. Think about it.

- Their food is terrible -- the fries don't taste anything like potatoes and don't disintegrate like real food should, they have a staggering lack of vegetarian options (even Burger King offers a thoroughly mediocre veggie burger) and their McFlurries end up giving you the McFlurries. Disgusting, but true.

- Breakfast stops at 10:30 a.m. as opposed to 11:00 a.m (Thank you, Big Daddy). Trying to order breakfast after 10:30 a.m. is like trying to get George W. Bush to pronounce the word 'Nuclear' correctly -- a damn near impossible and thoroughly futile task.

I rarely, if ever, patronize this franchise but Dan wanted a chicken sandwich and since Chik-Fil-A is closed on Sundays, we decided to hit up the McDonalds' Drive Thru.

It's 10:33 a.m.
Breakfast is over.
Has been for three minutes.

If you try and order an Egg McMuffin, I'm fairly sure that red and yellow stormtroopers will come out and attempt to drown you in a vat of secret sauce.

Luckily for us -- the chicken sandwich is on the lunch menu. The number eight. A lucky number in some culture. Not for us, though.

I pull up to the drive-thru and place my order, speaking loudly and clearly so nothing will get lost in translation:

Jaime: Hi! Can I get the number eight chicken sandwich and a Coke, please?
Drive-Thru Dude: (garble garble) Numba eight? (garble garble)
Jaime: Yeah -- the number eight chicken sandwich and a Coke.
Drive Thru Dude: (garble garble) $5.40 (garble, garble).

I pull up to the cash window, fork over my money and proceed to the pick-up window.

I pick up my food and am about to drive off when Dan realize that instead of a chicken sandwich, the bag contains a Sausage McGriddle.

Dan: This is wrong.
Jaime: The entire concept of McDonalds is wrong.
Dan: No, this isn't a chicken sandwich. This is a Sausage McGriddle.

The guy behind us blares his horn. Calm down, asshole. You'll get your artery-clogging garbage in a minute.

I tell Window Guy that the order is wrong.

Jaime: Hi! Sorry, but this isn't what we ordered.
Window Guy: What did you order?
Jaime: The number eight -- a chicken sandwich.
Window Guy: The number eight is a Sausage McGriddle.
Jaime: But it's past 10:30 and the board outside says "Number 8 -- Southern Style Chicken Sandwich."
Window Guy: Board's broken. Number eight's a Sausage McGriddle.
Jaime: But I said chicken sandwich and breakfast is over.
Window Guy: Number eight's a Sausage McGriddle.

Goddamn it.

We're going round in circles and the guy behind me is practically apoplectic, so I admit defeat and drive off, sans sandwich.

Dan bites into his sandwich and discovers that a McGriddle tastes like a syrup-and-grease coated hockey puck while I remember that my ex used to work at McDonalds and is now in the military. I am suddenly very, very scared for the future of our country.

I abide by the rules of McDonalds' facist breakfast regime and still manage to get screwed.

I'm not lovin' it.

Mortal Nemesii Part 2

The copier/fax machine at work. We are no longer on speaking terms. As much as I would like to live in the world of Office Space, recreating the PC Load Letter scene at 8:30 in the morning? Seriously not cute. On a more positive note though? I'd watch Kung Fu with Peter Gibbons any day.



Let's focus less on the fact that I look like an ass and more on how ridiculously good-looking Ron Livingston is, shall we?

Voice activated customer service helplines. Was Terminator 2 a teeny little indie flick that only I saw? Does nobody else live in fear of the day computers become sentient and collectively band together to eff us in the a? After talking to a robotically perky operator for a good five minutes, I heard it say, “Thank you! I now have all your information in front of me!” First off – you’re not a me! You’re an it! A thing! Not a being! And secondly, the fact that you have all my information makes me feel nuts in that tin-foil hat kinda way.

The VCR. It fell on my foot and if I ever get a hold of Dan’s baseball bat, I’m gonna recreate the following scene:

My mortal nemesises (nemesii?): An Abbreviated List

Kristen Bell – Nothing personal. I love Veronica Mars and think Ms. Bell is all sorts of cute, sassy and fabulous. But I have to dislike her on principle. If she ran me over with her car, Dan would be taking off his pants while dialing 911 (of course, I would do the exact same thing if confronted with Ron Livingston, so it all evens out).



Converse Sneakers – I want to love them, rock them and look undeniably cool as legions of others do, but I can’t. Why? Because on my feet – they look like clown shoes.

Ganondorf – Link is my homeboy and I am a nerd. What’s up? This is also applicable to any other boss or miniboss I may be locked in battle with at any given time.

The Firewall at Work – My lack of blogging lately has been due to the fact that I can’t access blogger.com at work. I also can’t access the ‘Book, Livejournal or a litany of other sites that keep me entertained and informed. I can, however, access my email, ESPN.com (Even though Sports Guy is a rabid Boston fan, he’s still my favorite columnist) and The Huffington Post, so that keeps me going and brings me to my next point:

Reading about politics makes me angry. Knowing I can’t vote makes me angry. Knowing that the people who can vote do so for stupid reasons makes me angry. Actually, that last one also makes me want to paste huge billboards all over the country that read: “Hey numbnuts! You will never have a beer with the president!! Vote for economic self-interest instead!”

The mainstream media makes me really angry as well. I mean, there’s a war still going on, the economy is spiraling further and further out of control, people can’t afford to put gas in their cars, corporate avarice is consuming the country and what are the major news networks flogging to death? The bare back of a 15-year old (Sidebar: Ms. Cyrus, you can’t have it both ways. You can’t be Role Model Sweetheart and Lolita. Did you learn nothing from Britney Spears?), lapel pins and Reverend Wright – a man who made claims remarkably similar to the claims made by John Hagee, Pat Robertson and a slew of “agents of intolerance” (John McCain’s words, not mine) known as televangelists.

Does anyone really care about this stuff? Does it even matter? What is more important to you?

Miley Cyrus – an actress (and I use that term in the loosest sense) who most of us have never even seen perform or the fact that you can’t afford to fill up your car and yet, Exxon-Mobil are reporting the highest profits in history?

The fact that 4000+ of your fellow Americans have died or the fact that Senator Barack Obama (like millions of other Americans, including his opponents, Senator Hillary Clinton and Senator John McCain as well as critics like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly) doesn’t have an American flag permanently stapled to his lapel?

Read for yourself. Think for yourself. Don’t believe the hype. You’re smarter than they give you credit for. Prove it.