Everything Is Stupid

Archive for September, 2011

The Stupidest Travel Complaints Ever

The proof is in the pudding, as they say across the pond there – just because you might have enough money to take a fancy vacation with a travel agent does not mean you aren’t nearly too stupid to live.

The Toronto Star published a short article listing the twenty most ridiculous travel complaints ever heard, as reported to Thomas Cook and the Association of British Travel Agents in a recent survey of patrons of local agents. We are officially doomed as a species. Officially.

Here are some of the best (yes, ten of the twenty stupidest things count as ‘the best,’ and even that was hard). Do people not read the things they’ve written and then smash their own skulls against a wall or something? I mean… really?

“We booked an excursion to a water park but no-one told us we had to bring our swimming costumes and towels.”

The water park does not have gambling and strippers, nor do we give away free bikinis with entry. We apologize for not being Vegas.

A woman threatened to call police after claiming that she’d been locked in her hotel room by staff. In fact, she had mistaken the “do not disturb” sign on the back of the door as a warning to remain in the room.

I think this might be the most confusing thing I’ve heard in a very long time. Seriously? I’m desperately resisting the urge to assume that she’s blonde. Be grateful for your anonymity, my dear delicate idiot.

“The beach was too sandy.”

I’ll admit it, I’ve lived on a beach for a month and I know how this feels. Sometimes there’s just too much sand. But maybe some self-censorship would save your reputation with your travel agent, eh?

A guest at a Novotel in Australia complained his soup was too thick and strong. He was inadvertently slurping the gravy at the time.

By this I take it that the restaurant staff, despite there being no language barrier, sat and watched the man drink gravy for his entire stay without mentioning it to him? I guess I just hope he doesn’t have a heart condition to go along with his idiot condition.

“No one told us there would be fish in the sea. The children were startled.”

I just can’t…. I mean really? Even if it weren’t completely incomprehensible that you would not realize that there are things that live in the sea, you’ve really never heard the one about how there are so many “fish in the sea”? Where did you think that came from, exactly?

“It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England, it only took the Americans three hours to get home.”

Damn those Americans for living so close to Jamaica. I hate it too, I know. Planes suck. But, unless your travel agent is also an immigration agent, I don’t think  there’s much he can do about it. Sorry.

And the last best:

“I compared the size of our one-bedroom apartment to our friends’ three-bedroom apartment and ours was significantly smaller.”

“The brochure stated: ‘No hairdressers at the accommodation.’ We’re trainee hairdressers — will we be OK staying there?”

“There are too many Spanish people. The receptionist speaks Spanish. The food is Spanish. Too many foreigners now live abroad.”

“I was bitten by a mosquito, no-one said they could bite.”

Now hold on just one tiny second here. They do have mosquitoes in England, right? RIGHT?!? OMG! Whew. Thank you, internet. All is well in the world again.

posted by BexvanKoot in Plain Ol' Stupidity and have Comments Off

Stupid Sex: A Mile-High Mistake, Lame Nicknames, Bra Salesmen and Dumb Birth Control!

1. If you are ever even remotely tempted to try and get busy between the plastic toilet and the barely-locked door of the airplane lavatory while you’re at 30,000 feet, here’s another good reason to resist the urge… at least on the anniversary of America’s most memorable airplane-related violence.

Stupid Sex: A Mile High Mistake, Lame Nicknames, Bra Salesmen and Dumb Birth Control!   Stupid American Culture, Brainwashed Americans, Stupidity of Americansvideo platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player

Seriously, if you were just “making out,” perhaps you could have kept it in your seats. Sure, the attendant might ask you to ease up a little if you start to get all handsy, but come on now… you can’t make it from LA to NY without some T&A?

2. In case it wasn’t clear after that little stunt you pulled after The Office’s big gay kiss, just because Steve Carrel gets some laughs with it on TV does not mean it’s a good idea for you to do it at work!

Doctors and even secretaries at NYU Langone Medical Center were so convinced that longtime pediatric nurse Kristen Haight was a 41-year-old virgin, they repeatedly urged her to hop in the sack, she claims in a $45 million lawsuit claiming her medical records weren’t protected.

She alleges that pediatric neurosurgeon Dr. Jeffrey Wisoff repeatedly referenced “The 40-Year-Old Virgin” movie, and reassured her that sex is “like petting something furry for the first time.”

If that was a come on, Doctor, you should know that “small and furry” hasn’t exactly been great a selling point since Alice & Wonderland was published. If you’re not a virgin yourself, it’s still fair to say you haven’t had sex (for free) in at least four decades.

3. Ever gotten the wrong response when you asked someone if an outfit made you look fat? Try being forced to do it in front of some random dude who has to size you up in order to fit you into a pair of bra and panties. Seriously.

Thanks to the strict segregation laws in [Saudi Arabia], women have been banned from working in sales or using fitting rooms. That means that women buy thongs and negligees from male salesman who size them up by looking at them. In one recent incident, a woman asked for a 32C padded bra, and the salesman told her, “No, you’re not a C.”

Dude. You might as well have told her that you didn’t serve “her kind” in your establishment, so she could come back with her crew of bra salesladies to kick your butt out, Pretty Woman style. Probably wearing a different dress, though. ”In 2008, financial adviser Reem Asaad launched a campaign to allow women to work as clerks in lingerie stores. Thanks to her efforts, shops have been ordered to switch to female employees by the end of the year.” Take that, sales jerk! They took ‘yer jobs!

4. Does birth control make you stupid? Well…. a recent study from UC Irvine suggests:

Women using hormonal contraceptives for as little as one month remembered more clearly the main steps in [a] traumatic event – that there had been an accident, that the boy had been rushed to the hospital, that doctors worked to save his life and successfully reattached both his feet, for instance. Women not using them remembered more details, such as a fire hydrant next to the car.

So, without birth control we can remember all the little details, like the environment in which an event took place. With birth control, women were “better” at remembering things that actually happened. What does that even mean? That some of the women who weren’t on birth control were also smoking too much pot that day and couldn’t remember whether it was little Timmy’s hands or feet that needed re-attaching? WTF?

posted by BexvanKoot in Corporate Stupidity,Media Stupidity,Plain Ol' Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity,Relationship Stupidity,Science Stupidity and have Comments Off

Media Stupidity of the Week: Planking (again) and Coning; Vampires and Dancers Attack!

Lots of great All-American Stupidity in this week’s reflection on the news. So, what’s trending in stupid?

Planking gets expensive, and coning is so over.

I don’t think I need to reiterate that planking is one of the dumbest inventions of the modern world, but now it’s not just stupid… it’s painfully stupid. In the wallet.

In what is (probably) the world’s “first workplace planking prosecution” ever, two men have been fined $1500 each by a court in Australia for planking at work and posting stupid planking photos to Facebook. Somehow, very mysteriously, those Facebook photos found their way into the hands of WorkSafe inspectors who determined that planking is not up to workplace safety codes. Yes, not just a stupid planking story, but a stupid Facebook firing too! It’s got everything, really.

“This prosecution isn’t about planking, it’s about workplace safety,” Mr. McQuillen said.

“The workplace isn’t a playground and forklifts are not toys to be played with.”

Mr. McQuillen said the men, when asked their reasons for doing it, both replied: “Stupidity”.

Shouldn’t honesty count for something?

And, right here in the land of the free, folks are taking a stand against ridiculous internet meme pranks, too!

The gone-viral video is a bit of a mystery. Did the lovely blonde really not know what the drive thru manager was talking about, or was their coning plan completely foiled? Either way, Anonymous McDonald’s Manager, we salute you.

When weirdos attack – vampires and dance troupes are freaking out!

Setting the scene: a 69-year-old man spies a confused young blonde get out of a car at a gas station and try to call for someone to pick her up. He invites her to join him as he sits up in his motorized wheelchair on the porch of an abandoned Hooters, and promptly falls fast asleep, no doubt dreaming about the good old days. He wakes up to the crazy chick babbling something stupid about being a vampire and trying to bite his face off! Bleeding and in a shock, he hot-wheels it out of there and to the gas station, where he reports the incident.

When the police arrived on the scene, they found 22-year-old Josephine Rebecca Smith “… half naked and covered in blood, but uninjured. They said she had no idea what happened or why her clothes were off. Ellis said she was dressed when he last saw her, police said.” Despite her vampire strength and skills of manipulation, the police managed to arrest her and charge her with aggravated battery on an elderly person, the court setting bail at $50,000. Better hope she has some rich vampire friends before it’s time to go out into the yard!

And, while the rumor that they are probably vampires has yet to be started, New Mexico local street dance troupe the Zinsations has been opening up a can of whoopass too, this time at least not on senior citizens. No, it is Facebook bullies who are taking the brunt of the brutality this time.

So, just how hard are New Mexico street dance groups? The eldest is an 18-year-old Police Athletic League boxer… and the only guy who was still left standing got away with having his backpack stolen and a strong right hook to his already injured-and-in-a-sling arm. Watch out, So You Think You Can Dance judges! These dancers are badass!

posted by BexvanKoot in Media Stupidity,Plain Ol' Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity and have Comments Off

If You’re Sexist And You Know It…. Fall for Some Stupid Pick Up Artist?

You know the kind of guy I’m talking about… that creep who’s read way too many David D’Angelo eBooks or makes funny faces to himself while listening to his copy of The Mystery Method in his iPod on the subway home from work, all the while scanning the car for potential flirting victims. You’ve no doubt seen the barrage of absurd books, the stupid reality TV stunts, the ridiculous online circle jerks. Even with a vast array of scientific background and psychological insight, this stuff makes me gag.

If you are for some reason the luckiest woman alive and have never met a pickup artist, would you know how to spot one?

“Pickup artistry puts a renewed emphasis on the “hostile” part, encouraging men to pair sexist manipulation with stupid hats to ensnare women into sex at the first possible opportunity. Their ”speed seduction” strategy directs a man to compete aggressively for a woman’s attention, lightly insult her, then isolate her before steering her to bed.”

For example, Mystery (aka Erik von Markovik) claims to have “slept with over 100 women, potentially several hundreds of women and has had an unknown number of girlfriends.” One of his claims to fame includes training other “Dating Gurus,” including a man named after the crazy Fight Club freak Tyler Durden. His “celebrity girlfriends” include a Russian makeup artist, a psychology student, his baby mama and some “Mexican girl” – that’s seriously how she’s identified.

So have you ever wonder just who exactly gets all hot and bothered by the cheesy lines and manipulative tactics?

Studies into the effects and mechanisms of this kind of relationship dynamics (if you can call such “get laid”-goal driven interactions “relationships”) have begun to emerge. The results to the burning question of “Why? Why does any woman fall for this stupid crap?” may not be all that surprising, but it is a lame reflection of the sad state of humanity today. All those dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of women (if you believe the hype) falling for the new niche of “seduction celebrities” out there are a sexist bunch themselves, likely to agree with statements that aren’t just plain wrong in the eyes of everyone I know and love, but almost offensive.

Someone in my Facebook feed used the phrase “reverse sexism” yesterday. I don’t get what’s “reverse” about things like “reverse racism” and “reverse sexism”. Sexism doesn’t presume you’re a man who thinks girls are dumb. Any presumptions based solely on gender are prejudices which lead to sexism. In the most recent study focused on the narcissistic seduction movement, women who were more inclined to fall in line for some stupid seduction tactics were also likely to agree with statements like ”Women seek to gain power by getting control over men” and “A good woman should be set on a pedestal by her man.” Check out all of the statements in the Ambivalent Sexism Survey to see what I mean. Researchers Jeffrey Hall and Melanie Canterberry reported of their study “Sexism and Assertive Courtship Strategies,” of 363 college students and 850 adults:

“Women who have negative attitudes about members of their own gender find men who treat them in a dominant way during courtship more desirable because it is consistent with their sexist ideology.”

Can anyone explain to me why this kind of ridiculous recipe for date-rape is legal, but consensual prostitution is illegal? Yes friends, it’s a stupid, stupid world.

posted by BexvanKoot in Media Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity,Relationship Stupidity and have Comments Off

Tech for Idiots: Movea Sucks, Tasers on Tape, Glowing Kitties

1. Motion Controlled Remotes

We get it, really. The Wii was super cool. Kinect is amazing. Being able to do something on a screen by mimicking the action in your living room is a popular phenomenon. Mimicry is the fundamental concept here. Motion controlled TV remotes that require wagging one’s hands back and forth in endless strange combinations in order to do tasks once made simple by arrow and letter buttons is unilaterally stupid. Yes Movea, I’m talking about your ridiculous Move TV. It’s stupid. Stop it. Right now.

Or wait. Make it into a glove instead. If I could flick through channels like pages in a magazine, that would be alright. Keep up the good work, idiots!

 

2. Tasers

You know all those ridiculous stories of stupid people doing dumb things with tasers? Yeah. Taser International would really like it if you stopped talking about those people, please and thank you very much. Time to focus on the next big thing! Cameras so we can catch police abusing tasers on video more often! I mean…. cameras. Just cameras.

CNN Money reports:

“Don’t tase me, bro!” The phrase is familiar to pretty much anyone that was alive and consuming news in 2007: Andrew Meyer, a senior at the University of Florida at the time, shouted it before campus police shot him with a Taser ECD (electronic control device). Avideo of the incident has been viewed nearly 6 million times on YouTube.

The Scottsdale, Ariz.-based manufacturer of the device, Taser International, now enters something of a rebranding period as it begins to sell its newest product, Axon, a video surveillance system that records police officer response calls. The footage can then be securely stored online for reference.

The company who brought you limited liability weaponry now brings you limited liability surveillance! Hooray!

3. Glow In the Dark Kitties

I suppose that kittens aren’t really “gadgets” per se, even if they do glow in the dark and cure AIDS. But they’re close enough. Bubbles would have a giggle-fit!

So scientists were all like: “What kinds of animals have viruses similar to HIV?” There’s monkeys, who can contract SIV (Simian immunodeficiency virus)… and there are kitties! Cats are vulnerable to FIV, the Feline immunodeficiency virus. Why deal with a bunch of filthy monkeys when you can experiment on *achem* I mean cuddle and love a bunch of adorable kittens?

And what makes kittens even more adorable? Glowing in the dark! When they were trying to come up with ideas about how to genetically “cure” the feline vulnerability to FIV, someone was all like “Hey! Why don’t we stick some jellyfish genes in there! And maybe some monkey too… we don’t want them to feel left out.”

It seems that the glow in the dark aspect isn’t really necessary to the AIDS-curing, as it’s used for “tracking purposes” in the genetic research. That’s probably for the best. As much as I think it would prevent a lot of midnight tumbles down the stairs, I can’t say watching swarms of green blobs roam around the dumpster at night wouldn’t be entirely disconcerting. The last thing we need is people going out and trying to capture “alien cats” for sport. It might stop the spread of FIV, but I don’t think it’ll help stop the spread of stupidity much!

posted by BexvanKoot in Corporate Stupidity,Pop Culture Stupidity,Science Stupidity,Technology Stupidity and have Comments Off