Justin_Case001

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Planned obsolescence and forced upgrades. My family's ISP recently informed us that after years of planning and development, they were finally rolling out their BIG NEW SYSTEM--bigger, better, faster!! The wave of the future!! As subscribers, we were entitled to a free upgrade to better equipment that would give us faster speeds. Let me rephrase that--we were given an ultimatum that we were required to return our old modems and routers and get new ones, and failure to comply would eventually result in a lost equipment fee and the old equipment being shut down once they take the old system offline. Now, I've had my tried and true equipment for many years, and it's served me perfectly and faithfully without a single problem, ever. Our internet speed has always been fine, too. There's no need for any faster. What we had previously was 200mbps. The new equipment gets (up to) 1gbps. Five times faster. Sounds great, right? Except that for us it's completely irrelevant. Everything already loaded/streamed instantly. Everything downloaded super fast. Online gaming was perfect and smooth. And, as we all know, latency is far more important for gaming than download/upload speed, which is why I use a wired connection for my gaming setup. The new speed isn't even noticeable. It would be like if they unveiled a new light bulb that lights up at TEN TIMES THE SPEED OF LIGHT. So, try turning on a light switch in your house, and then imagine turning on the same switch, but the bulb lights up in one tenth the time. Would you notice? You're literally incapable of noticing. That's how irrelevant and meaningless this speed upgrade is for me. Literally the only place where it's noticeable is when downloading a very big game on Steam. Like, at least 50GB. I used to put on some music while a big game downloaded for 20 minutes. Now it finishes in 5. Great. Okay. That's nice. But does that matter in the slightest to me? Nope. It's not like I download a 100GB every day. I download a large game maybe twice a year. Then I spend months playing it. The speed difference is simply meaningless to me. But why am I so grumpy about it? Here I am complaining about something that's better! What's the problem? The problem is that from the moment my ISP made this announcement, I knew it was going to be trouble, and I was right. Weeks without internet and countless hours on the phone with useless, ignorant customer service trying to troubleshoot endless problems is what I had to look forward to. It's working now, but it's been a rollercoaster of headaches, mostly because of employee ignorance and incompetence. Their BIG NEW SYSTEM rollout was about as smooth and well-thought-out as the f*ckin' Hindenburg. They weren't really ready, and nobody knew what the f*ck was going on. I just hate being forced to change and upgrade things that are working perfectly. I often feel like my entire life is nothing but IT troubleshooting, AND I'M NOT AN IT WORKER!! If they want to upgrade their sh*t, fine, but why do they have to shut off my old equipment? Why couldn't I have just kept using it as long as it physically worked? I'm just so sick of having to change and upgrade things. It never ends, it never stops, it never slows. I just want a break for awhile...

The other day, my dad bugged me to watch Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which he does periodically. He raves about that show. I sighed with exaggerated annoyance, as I always do when he brings it up, and told him, like I always do, that I'll get to it when I get to it. I'm a huge Trek fan, but I basically stop at Star Trek Enterprise. That's the last thing that I consider "real" Trek. Everything from J.J. Abrams' 2009 Star Trek movie onward is fake Trek, in my opinion. I don't much care for his movies, and I haven't watched Discovery (nor do I intend to), or Picard, or Strange New Worlds, or anything else. I didn't hate the Abrams movies--actually, I somewhat enjoyed them. I thought they were... fun. I mean, fun in the sense that I wasn't bored. That's about it. Discovery irks me because it looks like it jettisoned too much lore. (I mean, bald, blue Klingons?? WTF??! ) I might watch Picard at some point, and I'll probably watch Strange New Worlds, if nothing else just to shut my dad up. I'm not vehemently opposed to all new Trek--I don't think it's the worst abomination to have ever been vomited out of the maw of humankind or anything. But it's just not... Star Trek. I tried to explain why I feel this way to my dad the other day, I couldn't really articulate why. Then I realized that I had never really thought about it enough to understand why. I have since thought about it, and I figured it out. I now know what it is that I don't like about everything from 2009 Star Trek on, and it has a lot to do with Friendship is Magic, surprisingly. In episode 4.11 of Futurama, "Where No Fan Has Gone Before", Fry is incredibly disappointed to learn that every trace of Star Trek has been erased from Earth in the year 3000. At one point, Leela asks him why the show is so important to him, and he replies, "Back in the 20th century, when I was all alone and didn't have any friends, Star Trek kind of made me feel like maybe I did." Leela replied, "Well, that is sweet and pathetic." Fry's description always resonated with me. That's how Star Trek makes me feel. The magic of Trek, of real Trek, is that they made me want to be there. Any time I watch TNG, DS9, Voyager, Enterprise, and to a slightly lesser extent, TOS (I'm not quite as big on TOS), I fantasize about being a part of those crews. I desperately want to live on those ships (or station in the case of DS9). I want to be a tactical officer on the Enterprise. It always seems like paradise, like it would be the most fulfilling life imaginable, not because it's full of action-packed action, but because of the people--the relationships. Just like Pony, the characters of Trek are like a family, and, just like Pony, I always dreamed of being a part of that family. Now, we all know that, in actuality, being a Starfleet officer on one of their flagships would suck. It would suck monkey f*ck. It would suck hairy, funky, chunky monkey balls. How many times have the Trek crew members faced mortal danger, nearly died, been infected by alien pathogens, had their biochemistry horrifically altered, had their memories wiped, been kidnapped and sent to alien work camps, been tortured, and had their human rights violated? Lol, like, every other f*ckin' episode, right? That's the magic trick--they make us want to be there even though it's objectively horrible. But isn't Pony the same way? We all dream of living in Equestria, of being right there in Ponyville with our beloved pony friends and waifus, but wouldn't that also actually suck funky, chunky monkey balls? How many times have the ponies faced mortal danger, almost died, been mind controlled, and had their huma--er--equine rights violated (à la Tirek sucking their lifeforce out)? A helluva lot, right? Living in Ponyville would actually be intolerably dangerous. We all know that, but we long to live there anyway. Why? Because of the characters. Because of the family. The belonging. Trek, just like Pony, are shows with a central theme of humanity and family. The Trek crews are full of so much community, friendship, fellowship, camaraderie, and love. This is going to sound incredibly corny and cheesy, but the real Trek shows have a distinct coziness to them. I know, I know, but it's true! They're cozy. Like a space Downton Abbey. I want to be there so much. More importantly, Trek makes me feel a little bit like I have friends, even when I'm all alone, just like Fry. It creates the illusion that I'm actually a part of that community and family, if only for a second here and there. It eases the loneliness. That's the magic of Trek. It's a momentary antidote for loneliness. Pony does the same thing. New Trek doesn't. At all. I can only speak for myself, but to me, there is absolutely no feeling of community, friendship, fellowship, belonging, family, and love. It's all just action-packed action. No coziness. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Bupkis. *Fart noise*. New Trek doesn't make me want to be there in the slightest, and that's why I don't like it. But that's why I absolutely love The f*cking Orville--they captured that real Trek feeling perfectly. It has all of the community, family, fellowship, etc. It makes me want to be there. It eases the loneliness. They captured the magic of friendship perfectly. That's why The Orville is the best Star Trek since Enterprise.

Well, yeah, that name doesn't make sense, but it's just a brand name--something made up to sound catchy or whatever, so it doesn't annoy me as much.

Hmm, perhaps... perhaps... but then again, let's not forget that Adrien Agreste is the single most oblivious person to ever exist. This is the guy who sees Marinette's wall, computer, tablet, and phone completely covered in pictures of him surrounded by hearts and he just shrugs and tells Plagg that she just "appreciates fashion, that's all". Adrien could literally catch Marinette jerking off to nude pics of him while repeatedly screaming "Oh, Adrien, I love you, you make me cum so hard!" and he would just shrug and say it's not what it looks like.

Wow. 150 episodes. Seems like a milestone worthy of something special. But nah. If I make it to 200, then... Anyway, y'know what really grinds my gears? Grapefruit. Who the hell thought it was acceptable to just bail out of giving this fruit a name of its own?? Why didn't they give it a proper name? What... did they run out? They ran out of fruit names, is that it? Were the people who name things just tired and didn't feel like doing one more? Were the people who name things sitting around a table in an office thinking up fruit names, and they realized that they missed one, but then it was 5 o'clock on a Friday and they were just done so they said "f*ck it" and just stole another fruit's name? I mean, seriously, what the f*ck? You can't just steal the name of something else, then add the generic category of thing after it and call it a day. Imagine if we did that with any other fruit! Why not have bananafruit? It's not a banana--it's a completely different fruit! Why not? How about applefruit? Why not do vegetables, too? How 'bout carrotvegetable? It's not a carrot! Cornvegetable! It's not corn! Why stop there? How about beefmeat?! It's not beef! It's actually meat from a rhinoceros! We just call it beefmeat because why the hell not?! Why even stop at food?! Why don't we call dogs catmammals? Sharks could be halibutfish! Penguins could be seagullbirds! Motorcycles could be carvehicles, and airplanes could be helicopteraircraft! Lol, I could go all day. Grapefruit is total bs. The absolute only way I can think of in which this idiocy occurred is this: I'm officially starting a petition for grapefruits to get their own name! Or... something. Or not. Whatever, I don't care. I'm done.

Lol, yeah, but he doesn't know that!

Literally anything outside of my own house.

This episode contains moderate spoilers for H2O: Just Add Water, and Littlest Pet Shop. Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? When young TV characters have some kind of big "secret", but they can never tell their parents. I'm talking about, like, kid superheroes and the like. Y'know, secret identities 'n' sh*t. So, like, take Miraculous Ladybug for instance, Marinette can't tell her parents that she's the superhero Ladybug. WHY THE F*CK NOT??! You can't tell me it's for their protection. That's backwards. If the bad guys knew her identity, then that puts her family in jeopardy. Y'know, like the dark knight said: "The mask isn't for you; it's to protect the people you love." But how does it endanger her family if they just know that she's Ladybug?? My Celesita, the energy she spends just trying to hide it. She would free up so much time, energy, and stress if she just told them. Why can't she??! (Btw, I'm not caught up on Miraculous, so if they found out somehow, don't tell me.) Another example is Littlest Pet Shop. Why couldn't Blythe tell her dad her big secret? I mean, she did, but only in the finale, and only because she was backed into a corner and had no choice. She never wanted to nor planned on it. (And of course it turned out that her dad already knew all along because he was very perceptive. It was a really great scene, actually, but the point still stands.) For the entire show, it was unthinkable to Blythe to tell her dad. She told her best friend, Youngmee, but her dad?? Ho, ho, no way! Not a chance! Forget about it! WHY??!! The worst offender of all has to be H2O: Just Add Water, an adorable, charming, irresistible, fun-filled romp about three teenage girls who are secretly mermaids that transform whenever they touch water. They have a best friend that they share their secret with, (mostly because they needed a non-mermaid, male role to kind of balance things out and to give them a sidekick to help bail them out of trouble) but none of them could ever tell their parents. Of course not! Unthinkable!! They spent the entire show doing f*cking backflips to avoid spilling the beans. But WHHHHYYYYY???!! For a long time, I actually felt like they were teasing that Cleo (my favorite character) was going to finally tell her dad. It really felt like they were building to that. It was actually my biggest wishlist item for the show. But nooooooooooooooooooooooo!! Unallowed! He must never know! ...WHY THE F*CK NOT??!!!! Your parents are supposed to be the people you can trust more than anyone in the world. Your first and always #1 fans, supporters, and confidants. And all of the parents on all of these shows were exactly that: good parents. So why couldn't any of these characters confide in them? Why, why, WHY in the name of Celestia's butthole can none of these characters ever tell the people in their life that they can trust the most? Do they think their parents are gonna turn them in to the authorities to be shipped off and dissected at Area-51? What catastrophe do they think is going to happen? It never even seems to occur to them that telling their parents is an option! It makes my head a splode!

Harumph!

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Accidentally getting a little wet spot on your sleeve. Y'know, like when you're washing your hands or something. It's the f*cking worst. No matter what you do, you can't get it dry. You blow it with the hair dryer for an eternity, and it feels dry, so you move on go back to what you were doing, and what happens? You feel the telltale damp spot on your wrist. So you go back to the hair dryer again, and it feels dry, but you can't really tell because the heat masks the dampness. So you blow cool air on it until it's room temperature so you can feel the dampness accurately, and it still feels dry. You can't find any damp spot anywhere. You feel it with the back of your hand or your cheek or somewhere that's more sensitive, and it feels dry. So you move on. But it's still there.... IT'S STILL THERE.... You can't find the spot, but every time you start to move and go about your business, you can feel it on your wrist. You know it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad... You could set it on fire and burn it to ashes and you'd still feel the damp spot on your wrist. The only way it ever feels dry again is to let it sit for a full 24 hours. It's madness. The WORST.

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Arbitrary and pointless traditions regarding what you do with your hands while swearing an oath. Now yer just like, , the f*ck? What is wrong with you? Yup, I'm weird. Weird things annoy me. I absolutely hate the tradition of raising the right hand for oaths, and also placing the right hand over the heart for various pledges. Why? Just why? What does it do? What does it accomplish? Does it mean anything? Seriously. Anything? Why the right hand? Would raising the left be worse? Is the left hand dishonest? So, if I raise my right hand in court, then everything is hunky dory, but if I raise my left, then... what? The oath doesn't count? I'm free to lie? Or is everything I say automatically perjury? Why the hand at all? Why not the right foot? What if hop on one foot and stick my right foot in the air while I recite the oath? How's that? I'm still putting a right body part in the air. Shouldn't that suffice? It's a helluva lot harder to hold your foot up than your hand, so if anything, shouldn't that count for more? How about your right elbow? Picture it. You see how absurd this sounds? How is the hand any different? Explain to me, using logic, why the hand is any different and makes your oath more legitimate. Ha. Gotcha. You can't. And how about the hand over the heart? Why does that make a pledge more legit? Hmm? Why not the liver? Wouldn't that be awesome? "Right hand over your liver, ready begin." That would be the tops. Why not any other organ? Oh, right, I know--because the heart is the center of human emotions, and it knows things... except that it doesn't. Contrary to all of our nonsensical ramblings about loving people with all of our hearts, and memorizing things by heart, (I wrote an entire entry on this, btw) even the stupidest mf-er on Earth knows that your heart houses no memories nor emotion. Your brain does. So, why don't we put our hands over our brains when we make a pledge? Put it on top of your head. There ya go. Or, (and this is a novel idea) why don't we just do nothing? Just speak the words. Who f*cking cares where your hands are when you make pledges, oaths, and promises? IT DOESN'T DO ANYTHING. Now, if, IF you believe in a specific religion, then placing your hand on that holy book and swearing on it does make some logical sense. IF you believe it. (That didn't violate any forum rules, did it? ) But simply raising a hand or putting it anywhere else does nothing. You're either honest or you're not. You either mean the oath or you don't. The location of your hand(s) is irrelevant. It's meaningless. It's stupid. We only do it because it's tradition, and you know what traditions are? Peer pressure from dead people. I swear, if I ever had to give courtroom testimony and take an oath, I'd probably get held in contempt for ranting about this. I'd probably do it Larry David Curb style. "Hey, judge, lemmie ask you something. What's the point of the hand thing?" Next thing you'd know, I'd be spending the night in jail. Pffft. Sweet merciful Celestia, our world is so dumb.

How in the wide, wide world of Equestria did it take me this long to get to this one? Y'know what really grinds me gears? Dust. Why...the...f*ck is it...absolutely...EVERYWHERE???!!! I hate when my house is dusty, and I f*cking hate dusting. Why does it accumulate so Celestia damned fast, even in a room with no windows that you keep closed up tight at all times?! Why is the entire world made of dust??!! Why is the universe so stupid??!! Why does everything suck sooo MUCH??!! On a related tangent, why does the verb "dusting" mean to remove dust? No other word works like that. Frosting a cake doesn't mean to remove the frosting. Greasing an engine doesn't mean to remove the grease. Oiling the hinges doesn't mean to remove the oil. But wait, you can dust for fingerprints, and that means to add dust... ...now I'm confuzzled... Well, anyway...

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? When hard boiled eggs are hard to peel. Few things infuriate me quite so much as peeling an egg and having a chunk of the whites tear off with the shell. I just...

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Self-ordering kiosks. F*ck these things. F*ck them to oblivion. Okay, what pisses me off isn't so much that ordering kiosks exist; it's when a restaurant forces you to use them and gives you no other option. In other words, they have no human employees that will help you or take your order, and they literally refuse to give you face to face customer service. Given my social anxiety and aversion to talking to people, you'd think I'd absolutely love these things, but you'd be wrong. I despise these kiosks for two reasons. One: I'd rather not touch a screen that countless other customers have been rubbing their grubby mitts on. Unsanitary. And two: I have severe social anxiety as it is, and using something like this when other people are waiting for me makes me extremely flustered. I just can't do something like this when I know others are standing behind me waiting. I won't even use a self-service gas station if there are other people there. I only get gas in the middle of the night when it's deserted. I'd rather risk an armed robbery than try to pump gas when someone else is impatiently waiting in line. If I'm using one of these kiosks, then the onus is entirely on me--if I'm having a hard time and taking awhile, then it's entirely on me, and I can feel the impatience and annoyance building in the people waiting, and that makes me collapse into a black hole of self-deprecating anxiety. If I'm ordering from a human being, then the onus isn't on me. I know how my mouth works, so I know I can say, "one burrito, hold the onions," without any trouble, and if the employee is new or something and is taking a long time to figure out the computer, then that's not my fault. I feel no anxiety or pressure because I'm not the one who has to do anything. These ordering kiosks are bullsh*t. They're basically just making customers do the employees' jobs for them. They're just turning customers into unpaid employees so they can hire less people and save a buck. If some people like 'em, that's fine, but they shouldn't be the only option, and that's the case at many places. A lot of fast food restaurants are going this way these days, including lifelong favorites of mine, and I cannot describe how much I hate it. You should always be able to order from a human if you so choose. I usually like any new technology that allows me to avoid talking to a person, but at the same time, I think it's a dark and dangerous path to keep removing humanity from everything. I hate the direction the world is going. We all know that technology is isolating us and making us more lonely and disconnected than ever before, but all we do is just keep making it worse. I'm not some old fogey; I love new tech, but I've also seen enough sci-fi to know how this ends. We're just racing towards a cyberpunk dystopia where human beings are obsolete with the pedal to the metal.

Only long haired ponies will understand this one. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Frizz days. Most of the time, my hair brushes out just fine. I brush for a few minutes, and it's tangle free and the brush goes through smoothly with no resistance and no noise. But then, occasionally, for reasons that are utterly mystifying and inscrutable. the hair just decides that it won't brush out, no matter f*cking what. I never change my routine, I always condition, and all variables appear to be the same, including humidity level, but for seemingly no apparent reason, the hair just won't de-tangle, no matter how much I brush it. It actually seems to re-tangle itself as I brush. I can brush it until my arms and shoulders are literally so fatigued that I can't keep going, and it doesn't make one bit of difference, and every time I run the brush through, it sounds like tearing velcro. It's the f*cking worst!! And then the next day it will be right back to playing nice like nothing happened, even though everything is exactly the same. The hell??

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Bad dreams. Well, er, um, it's not exactly any one specific experience of having a bad dream that annoys me. Well... heh... I might be kinda weird, but as an adult, I actually find the experience of an occasional nightmare to be kinda fun! I mean, when it's something wacky and crazy like some sci-fi horror. Lemmie start again. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Always having dreams about bad stuff and never good stuff. I only dream about bad stuff--the stuff that stresses me out irl. I basically only dream about two things. So, see, the thing is, I'm pretty much a germaphobe, and I'm scared of the rona (covid). I've never had it (a fact I'm quite proud of, btw ) and I'm f*cking terrified of long covid with brain fog. I know I probably shouldn't be, but I am. So, naturally I constantly have dreams of being surrounded and trapped by a mob of infected people coughing on me. Sometimes the dream escalates to a much worse pandemic, like small pox, or something totally new and much worse, like a proper apocalyptic death plague with a 99% kill rate or something. So, there's that, and then my other frequent dream is so lame, stupid, and cliché that I'm embarrassed to admit it. So, I was a Twilight Sparkle in school, in terms of grades and organization, and thus being tardy or not getting my homework done was my worst nightmare. So, I'll have this recurring dream where I'm awakened by my mom knocking on my door and telling me I'm late for school. I'm always the age I am now (nearly 40), but I'm still in high school. I will then proceed to rampage around the house in sheer terror and panic trying to find all my school sh*t, but can't. Then I realize that I haven't done my math homework in months. Sometimes the dream ends there, and sometimes I make it to school but realize that I've forgotten where all my classes are and can't find my schedule. I mean, how f*cking pathetic is that?! Why do I still have these idiotic dreams at 40?!! And that's it. I pretty much alternate between those two dreams. Why can't I ever dream about anything pleasant?? Hear me out here--I'm lonely and miserable irl. I've never been on a date or had a relationship in my life. Fated to die a virgin. Dreams are the one and only place where my brain has complete and utter autonomy, control, and power to deliver unto me absolutely any experience. If it wanted to, my brain could make every sleep a blissful escape into a perfect paradise. So why the f*ck doesn't it?! Where's the downside here??!! Why doesn't my brain just give me dreams of finding my true love and having fairy tale romances with her? How 'bout a sex dream, huh?? Tha'd be nice. Never had one. I have to be a virgin in my dreams, too. If I asked out a gorgeous woman, she'd probably say, "In your dreams, pal," to which I'd have to laugh and say, "NOPE, NOT THERE, EITHER!!" I'm basically miserable all the time, so why can't my brain throw me a frickin' bone in the one place where I could be a little bit happy?? I realize that fears and dreams and closely connected, and dreams are often the brain's attempt to deal with or work out real life fears or anxieties, but FOR F*CK'S SAKE!! I mean, come on. Why can't I ever dream about pleasant things? Why does my brain hate me so much? Why does my brain laugh at me and take pleasure in my suffering? Why? Why? WHYYYY????!!! I even tried to learn how to induce lucid dreams for awhile, but it was kind of a dead end. Why do brains have to be so annoying and stupid? Doesn't my brain know that I'd be happier and healthier if it just fed me pleasant dreams? Stupid brain. Stupid, dumb, stupid, stupid, F*CKING brain.

Yes, I agree--homemade is the best and only way to go to get great cookies today. Trouble is, I hate cooking/baking. I hate it so f*cking much. I wish I liked it, but I just don't. I'd rather file an income tax return than cook something. Microwaving a frozen burrito is almost too much cooking for me! My mom doesn't mind a little light baking now and then. Maybe I'll give that video a looksie and pass it along to her. I've actually had Tate's, and yes, they're very tasty, but I'm not a big fan of crispy cookies. I likes 'em soft and chewy. So... yeah. Thanks, though!

Hey. Y'know what really grinds my gears? Chocolate chip cookies today. I feel like it's so hard to find a really good one. I swear, I haven't had a really good chocolate chip cookie in 30 years. Mrs. Fields' semi-sweet used to be my favorite as a kid, but they started to slip around 2000 or so. They suck today. And it's not just me--they used to be mom's favorite when I was a kid, too, and now she doesn't like 'em, either. They really went downhill. When my parents were young and dating, they used to go to the Famous Amos store. This was back when Famous Amos wasn't just a bag on the grocery store shelf, but they had a store where they baked 'em fresh. It was a completely different kind of cookie than the grocery store ones. Hearing my parents describe those... oh, sweet Celestia, they make it sound like an absolutely transcendent experience. They say that those were the best cookies that have ever been, and nothing today can even remotely hold a candle. The Famous Amos store hasn't existed for 40 years. I hate that I never got to try those cookies. Why can't they bring those back? We can bring back dire wolves (I guess? Apparently?), but we can't bring back those cookies?? The best cookies I can find today are just... okay. I mean, good, but nothing to write home about. Nothing like decades ago. Has every baker in the world just forgotten how to make good chocolate chip cookies??!

As I was watching The Dragon Prince, the same thing kept repeatedly popping into my head: "This is a kid's show??! No, really, is this actually a kid's show? Are we really sure that this is a kid's show?" I'm opting to forego the endless text wall this time in favor of something more concise and spoiler-free. I'm not gonna drone on forever with a lengthy review. I just needed to gush about The Dragon Prince for a couple of paragraphs. I had been eagerly anticipating the show for years, but I wanted to wait until it was finished before watching. It exceeded my expectations. The Dragon Prince is quite simply one of the greatest kid's show's ever made. It's just a masterpiece by any metric, and the fact that it's ostensibly for kids just makes it an even more surprising feat. I've always held the bending franchise (Last Airbender and Legend of Korra) up on a pedestal as the greatest kid's shows of all time. I used to think that nothing could ever compare, that nothing would ever equal it. Well, I'm here to say that DP is absolutely the equal of the bending franchise, and may even surpass it is certain areas. It's the heir to Airbender. DP is basically just Game of Thrones mixed with Lord of the Rings for kids. Well, I'd say not for kids, just approved for kids. It's for anyone and everyone. Any fan of fantasy will love it. What struck me time again was just what they were able to get away with. It pushes the limits of what I thought possible for a kid's show. It pushes the boundaries for romance, violence, and mature themes and morals. The complexity and believability of the world is simply unparalleled, except by the bending franchise. *Minor Spoiler* One scene in particular was easily the most violent, bloodiest, and most intense scene I've ever seen in anything rated for kids. It was shocking and f*ckin awesome. Many of the same things I said about Kipo And She-Ra can be said of DP as well, particularly when it comes to open-mindedness and advancing social thought, as well as disability representation. I just watched those first, so I talked in-depth about them. I don't really feel the need to repeat a bunch of it. If I'd watched this first, then I would have written a long post for this one. It amazes me how far kids' shows have come in a short time, and it may be the one and only thing that gives me a faint shred of hope for the future. The Dragon Prince is a towering masterpiece, and a must-watch. So, my question to you is: why are you still here?! GO! WATCH IT!

Long time fans of my series... *snickers*... pffft, yeah, right. A pony can dream, though, a pony can dream... Anyway, readers may remember that I did an entry on newfangled light bulbs way back in episode 6. It's time a legacy sequel! Y'know what really grinds my gears? F*ckin' LED light bulbs. They're so fickle and unreliable. We have so many that flicker on and off or go dim and then bright again and weird sh*t like that. And it's definitely the bulb, I guarantee you (not the fixture or the power). Incandescent was a way more reliable technology. In all these years, why haven't they figured out LEDs better? But y'know what's even worse? LED flashlights. I've never owned one LED flashlight that isn't a complete piece of fickle trash. They flicker, they go off randomly, they turn off if you point them up, and back on when you point them down (which would indicate loose batteries, but still, why can't them make that work, then?) The other day I had an LED flashlight do SOS on me. I mean literally, it was flashing fast and then slow like Morse f*ckin code! Then you shake it and it stops! The F*CK??!! When I was a teenager, I had a 3-cell incandescent maglight. Best, most reliable flashlight ever made, I'll tell you. As an adult, I got a 3-cell LED maglight. It was a flickering sh*tload of F*CK. I don't know if it's actually the LED technology, or if they're just cutting corners elsewhere and making flashlights sh*ttier and chintzier these days, but I'm sick to death of it. I just want a flashlight that turns on and f*ckin WORKS. Reliably.

I've spent 70 episodes telling you ponies what really grinds my gears. Now, as per @Fluttershutter's request, I'm starting this thread to find out what really grinds your gears. This isn't meant to be the big, earth-shattering stuff. The idea is to talk about all the little, inconsequential, stupid sh*t about everyday life that annoys you. So, how 'bout it? What really grinds your gears?

There's no question that we've made an enormous amount of social and scientific progress over the centuries, perhaps most of that progress being in the last half century or so. Even though the current political landscape and discourse can make us feel the contrary, things are definitely the best and most evolved that they've ever been in the history of our species. However, as I see it, there remains one major hurdle that desperately needs to be overcome in the near future: clearing up misconceptions about atheism, which is the purpose of this essay. Whether you are an atheist or not, we need to start having more honest conversations about the topic. We can still have disagreements, of course. People can disagree about the existence of a god(s), but do so in a civil way in which no one is portrayed as a villain. Here's the short of it: atheism is nothing more than a lack of a belief in a god, but an inordinate amount of people, still today, believe that atheism is some sort of immoral doctrine. This insanity has to stop. Let me explain this very plainly. Atheism is not a doctrine nor a dogma, it's not a belief "system", nor a choice. It simply means that one hasn't been convinced that a god exists. That's it. "I've seen the arguments for and the evidence against, I've read the books, and I'm simply not convinced that a god exists." Nothing more. And yet, it seems that there are still a lot of people who think that atheism is some sort of unethical, immoral, evil, dogmatic belief system, some sort of hedonistic chaos doctrine that says, "nothing matters, so let's all just have orgies willy nilly and kill each other." Nothing could be further from the truth. Atheists, by and large, belief that life matters a great deal. In fact, it is specifically because of the finality of death that we believe every moment is precious, but that's a larger tangent that I don't want to get into right now. The point is that atheism isn't a set of rules or some sort of satanic belief system. It just means one isn't convinced. If I handed you a copy of Harry Potter and said, "Now, do you believe that Lord Voldemort is real?", you would obviously say no. Even if the book itself said that every word was literally true, you probably still wouldn't be convinced. Not without evidence. What if I asked you if you believe in fairies? Unicorns? Dragons? You wouldn't be convinced of the existence of any of those without evidence. It's not outright impossible for any of those to exist, but we have no reason to believe they do. We've never seen a shred of evidence. So, you wouldn't be convinced. It's no different with respect to atheists and god(s). We're just not convinced. It's not a choice, and it's not an active rejection of any of the good teachings of god or the bible (of which there aren't many. :/ ) It's simply a position of looking at the bible and going, "Eh, I just don't see any evidence. I'm not convinced." Before continuing, I'd like to add that atheist are not dogmatic. We don't say that it's impossible for a god to exist, and absolutely nothing can change our minds. No, not at all. Quite the contrary. You show us some evidence, and our minds will be changed accordingly. If a god descends from the clouds and says, "Here I am," they by golly, I'll be a believer. I simply don't believe in things for no reason with no evidence. Not being convinced that a god exists is clearly an amoral belief--neither moral nor immoral. It has nothing to do with whether you're a good person or not, just as not being convinced that unicorns are real has nothing to do with morals. Arguably, not believing in a god often results in better morals because one must get their morals from themselves and other people, and modern people are far more moral, and far better arbiters of morality than an ancient book. Moreover, most religious people don't get the majority of their morality from their holy book. If they did, they'd be executing gays and stoning their children to death for back-talk. Religious people still get the vast majority of their morality from the other people in their culture, and that morality is a product of centuries of secular progress. For instance, figuring out that gay people are just people, and deserving of the same respect, rights, and compassion as everyone else, was the result of secular ideas and pressure. This realization didn't come from rereading and reinterpreting the bible. We have become more moral and more ethical throughout the ages because we are thinking beings with an innate ability to reason, to tell right from wrong, and improve our morality. Morality doesn't come from a god. It comes from us. But whether or not you believe in a god, it's time we stop thinking that atheism is inherently immoral. I chose the subtitle for this essay because there have been so many social hurdles that have been cleared, and are now commonplace and widely accepted, but atheism still has so far to go. In the not too distant past, the issue of the day was civil rights, racial equality and integration. Even though racism is still a problem, there is absolutely no comparison to how it was in the 1960's and prior. We've had a black president, interracial relationships are completely commonplace, and there's lots of black people in the entertainment industry, and in media, and has been for many years. Even though it's not perfect, I'd say we're basically past that hurdle. In my generation, the big issue has been homosexuality. I'd say we are by and large past that hurdle as well. We got gay marriage, and there's a quite a lot of gay representation in entertainment. I mean, you've got sitcoms like Will & Grace, you've got gay characters on shows and in movies, you've got entire LGBT networks, and hell, just the other day I say a jewelry commercial--y'know, one of these "a diamond is forever" things--that featured a lesbian couple. Sure, there's still lots of gay hatred and intolerance, but homosexuality is brazenly out there in the media, and most people seem cool with it. Most shows/movies/networks don't seem afraid to have a gay character. Most filmmakers or tv show producers, or game developers for that matter, don't seem to be scared that if they include a gay character, they'll lose their audience. It's not an issue. But atheism hasn't made much headway, here. Atheism is still kept in the shadows, and having an openly atheist character is taboo. The only openly atheist characters on tv are edgy cartoon characters like Brian Griffin and Rick Sanchez. The makers of these shows get away with it, in part because of their target audience, but also, I believe, because people have an easier time stomaching this position from a cartoon character who isn't real. I suspect that if live action sitcom characters were openly atheist, people would have a completely different and objectionable reaction. I suspect they'd become soured, start hating the show and the character, and possibly even conflate the character with the actor, thinking that they are immoral and such. Cartoon characters don't seem to have this problem as they are so much further removed from the real world. Personally, I think it's tragic that the Big Bang Theory guys are not openly atheist. Of all people, they absolutely should be, and yet with some of them, they just don't mention it, and with others, they are "culturally" religious--they identify as a particular religion, but don't seem to really practice it. I have no doubt that the writers felt that openly atheist characters would drive the audience away. This is absolutely shameful. It is time that we have atheists represented in entertainment at the same level as gays. One of the only openly atheist characters in television history was Mike from All in the Family, a show that was far ahead of its time. Atheism needs to be commonplace in the media. The misconceptions about it will probably never stop until people start seeing atheists in the media and realizing that they're just people, not a cult of vampires or something. We need to start talking honestly about atheism. We need to stop tiptoeing around the word, saying it hushed tones, and being afraid to admit that we're not convinced that a god exists. Regardless of one's beliefs about a god, it needs to be understood that atheism absolutely is not something unnatural, sinister, or immoral. You may have noticed that I always used the phrase "a god", not just, "god", like a name. I do this intentionally to raise awareness that the Abrahamic god is not unique, special, or different from the thousands of other gods that have been created throughout history, thousands of which are still worshipped today. The god of the bible is just one god--one among many. Every believer is an atheist with respect to every other god that's ever been worshipped. We non-believers just take it one god further. *EDIT 2025* I wanted to do a quick revist of this topic. About 8 years later, and absolutely nothing has changed. Shows and movies bend over backwards to accommodate and represent LGBT people (the representation of gay characters is kids' shows is quite astounding these days), which is great, but they still won't touch atheism with a ten-foot pole. Sometimes you might get a character who decides that church and organized religion isn't right for them, but they always make sure to make it abundantly clear that they still believe in god (such as Randy Taylor on Home Improvement). That's the line--it's becoming fairly acceptable to not be a church-goer and subscriber to an organized religion, but you damn well still better believe in god. Can't be a good person otherwise. Atheism on tv is still just reserved almost solely for socipathic a**hole characters like Rick Sanchez or Dr. Greg House. I think Brian Griffin is the only nice, non-a**hole character that I've ever personally seen that just came right out and plainly said, "I don't believe in god because there's no evidence". That little crumb is apparently all we're ever going to get. The only reason why atheists aren't the target of abuse and discrimination is that it's the easiest thing in the world to hide. It's not part of one's biology. It's just an opinion about where the universe came from and what happens after we die. If atheism could be seen as plainly as skin color, I suspect we'd be the targets of frequent violence. Atheist are, always have been, and always will be the most misunderstood, mistrusted, hated, despised, loathed, detested, and maligned group in America. I am a white, cisgendered, heterosexual male atheist, and most conservative American Christians, even the most bigoted and sexist, would undoubtedly break bread with a black, Jewish, trans Muslim lesbian before they'd break bread with me. You know what I think the real reason is for why political pundits don't hate on atheists much and tell people to kick down at them, and why we don't see or hear about much violence against atheists like we do against all these other minorities? Because there's just so f*cking few of us.