When you browse the internet as much as I do you start to realize a few things. For one, most websites are carbon copies of each other by douchebags who don't know how to create original content. So take the billions of sites that are out there now and trim them down to about 10,000. Then take those sites and trim them down to the ones with original content you actually care about, and you're at about 100. That's not many to go through until you're immediately bored.

If you don't understand how to use search engines efficiently or crawl the web as well and quickly as me, then you most likely don't have this problem, but for people like me you can be bored within an hour and there's nobody on this planet who can create content fast enough for you. My friends try to help by showing me something funny they found but are only met with a swift fist to the throat because I saw that shit fucking weeks ago. I've read every article Cracked has to offer, ever, seen every episode Hulu is streaming (except for Glee because seriously, fuck that show), and Reddit is only purple links. I had trusted Australia to leave me with something humorous when I woke up but they let me down again. If somebody like me is reading this they know that joke is rehashed from a meme that was posted yesterday, so while you're laughing because you haven't heard it yet they can't even read the rest of this post because they threw their monitor out the window in a fit of rage.

I've thought about taking a break from the internet but then I wouldn't know what to do with my time. Playing video games is fun but isn't worth it when you realize that Activision is ripping you off for every cent that you have. After all you paid $60 for the latest Call of Duty, $15 per expansion pack, and money on top of that for a service that keeps track of stats even though that was a standard feature in games right up until some asshole realized he could charge people for anything, all for a game that isn't that good to begin with. I'm contemplating reading books but I'm doing everything in my power to refrain from that. The internet just doesn't entertain me anymore and I'm going to need to start burning down orphanages to get my fix.

TL;DR The internet doesn't seem to offer as much as it used to, or maybe I'm just more efficient at browsing.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

While I was watching the Presidential Debate last night, imagining what it would be like if Obama and Romney put on a set of boxing gloves and duked it out for my entertainment instead, I wondered if there's any hope for the U.S. at all. On the one hand you have Obama, who in his four years has managed to do what appears to be absolutely nothing besides killing Osama bin Laden. On the other you have Romney, who I'm fairly sure isn't from this planet. All the while you had Jim Lehrer who, bless his heart, couldn't handle moderating the debate for the life of him. He didn't even want to do the debate this year, probably because he has lost all faith in this country after doing them since 1988; they should have let him sit this one out.

Overall I came to the conclusion that Obama didn't really have a firm grasp on what he was talking about; in all of the years I've seen him speak publicly this was the first time I've ever seen him look nervous. It was almost painful to watch him get run over by Romney's verbal onslaught about how poorly his policies were impacting the country and how his first term in office hasn't improved the economy. I've never been a fan of Obama's policies, but Romney made it painfully clear why some feel the same way I do.

In between the beat down Romney administering, I had to witness him lie directly to the entire country. It's one thing to alter his policies slightly for the sake of a debate, it's another to tell me something I know isn't true. Refusing to acknowledge the $5 trillion tax cut he proposed and saying that he wouldn't cut education budgets simply aren't factual. You don't have to lie to me, I'm well aware of what your policies are, but for the love of Jim stop lying. He clearly can't keep you under control and you steamrolling over everything he said could possibly give him a heart attack.

At this point I don't care who becomes president, it's all going to be bad. I don't agree with Obama's policies and think they crush the middle class into oblivion; I agree more with Romney, but to be honest some of his policies scare me. Is it too late to bring back Ron Paul?

TL;DR It's my belief that whoever wins this election is going to destroy this country regardless of being a Republican or Democrat.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

I've come to the realization that if I didn't have money taken out of every paycheck for savings, I would be borderline homeless. On more than one occasion I've had to make $20 last me an entire week, sometimes longer. While it's not the best week in the history of the world, it's doable. Then when I come into a lot of money all at once I suddenly forget the times when I was flat broke. Everybody is suddenly my friend and they all deserve drinks on me, because fuck knows why. I'm making it rain, when the week before I could only afford a McDouble a day with Ramen Noodles.

I would love to say that alcohol and partying is to blame but I don't think that's it. Somehow when I have no money I can go out to the bar, drink enough to drown a horse, and still have only spent $5 the entire night. I honestly have no idea how that even works. I'm fairly sure that a gypsy cursed me when I was younger (because that's all gypsies ever do) to spend all of my money if I'm overly happy about not being poor because of all the times I laughed at them for being homeless. That's a lesson learned, never make fun of a person to their face, do it behind their back when they can't hear you. Otherwise they'll curse you to spend all your money on frivolous things.

TL;DR I have no problem surviving with $20 for an entire week or more but put some real money in my hands and I'll blow it on nothing.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

As I'm crawling around the internet trying to find topics to write about I've noticed a disturbing trend, websites using videos more and more now instead of simply writing. I know that it seems like a better medium, but when you're searching through news stories all day you learn to hate them.

Usually I'm listening to music when I'm at my desk, so in order to watch a video I have to pause my music to listen. That's not to mention that I have to wait for it to load, and if a website feels the need to use their own video player instead of simply using YouTube (seriously, stop doing this), odds are it's going to load incredibly slow. Of course I can't forget about the fact that the ads usually make me close a video faster than you can draw a blasphemous picture of Muhammad to cause more riots.

Hopefully websites will start to listen. I don't want to watch your shitty videos, they're terrible. Not only do I hate watching them but you're wasting my time. The only videos you're allowed to show on the internet are ones with cats, so if there aren't any cats just give up and go back to writing.

TL;DR Websites need to stop using so many videos because they don't work as well as they would like to believe.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

When it comes to being poor I know a thing or two. I was in college once, I know what it's like to make $20 last for a month. With that being said, how can people go on living buying name brand items instead of the generic store brand? Sure, in some cases generic brand food doesn't taste quite the same, but when you can purchase something for $5 or get 100 of the same item for a nickel, it should be pretty obvious which way to go. Yet I still see people buying store brand as they hop on the bus like a poor person.

Don't get me wrong, I do it from time to time because I'm 100 percent convinced that Froot Loops tastes 1,000 times better than the store brand. I was worse when I was a kid, yelling at my mom that she's making us look poor by buying generic food. We're not poor, now get out of my room while I smoke my pipe and read my leather bound books. Also send in the butler so that I can humiliate him for the price of his soul. Ever since my parents stopped paying for all my shit and wouldn't let me bring my butler with me when I moved out though, fuck anybody who wants to make comments about my generic food. I wouldn't be able to afford my own butler if I bought name brand.

TL;DR Why people insist on buying name brand items instead of generic when it's so much more expensive is beyond me.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

I was picking up breakfast this morning when I noticed something, there was a plethora of old people sitting down to eat lunch. Then it dawned on me, this is their daily routine. Wake up in the morning, take a couple of hours putting on their pants, then travel down to their favorite restaurant to spend the middle of the day eating. That's most of their days while they wait to whittle away into nothing.

Now I know that there are some elderly people who live fulfilling lives right up until the day they die, but what if I become one of the ones who shits themselves if they laugh too hard? That's not the type of life I want to live when I get old. If I'm not able to do things on my own when I'm older, for the love of God whoever can read this just put me out of my misery. The last thing I want to do is be stuck in a daily routine that involves me traveling back and forth to the bathroom 20 times a day and forgetting my kids' names.

TL;DR If my life as an elderly person involves a daily routine of traveling to the same restaurant, I want somebody to put me out of my misery.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

There's a certain truth that many of us have to face as we get older and take on real jobs. There's a very real possibility that we'll spend every day of our lives in a cubicle, never really knowing what outside even looks like while we're at work. Take my cubicle for instance, I can see my monitor and a wall, that's basically the most I'll ever see in the span of a day. Of course I go outside to take a nap every day, but that's because I'm a child and I get cranky if I don't squeeze in an extra hour of sleep.

The one thing nobody tells you when you're younger is that if you happen to end up working in a cubicle when you get older, you're going to hate life. There's no real way to fix that either, how is a company supposed to let you see the great outdoors all the time if they don't have the space for it? Let's all call a cubicle what it really is, a prison cell. I know that it's not meant to be, but that's what it actually is. How sane do you expect to remain in a prison cell? The worst part is I don't even have a conclusion to try to fix it. Just stick employees at desks where they can all eyeball each other? No thanks, I don't want to be judged for masturbating instead of doing my work. So I'll sit in my cubicle until the end of time, losing a piece of my soul day by day.

TL;DR Cubicles are basically prison cells, where you give up a piece of your soul every day for a paycheck.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

I was driving to work today and suddenly I started thinking, is there anybody who actually listens to the radio anymore? My phone is constantly playing music for me because every piece of music I've ever wanted to listen to can be accessed from the internet. I can't even remember the last time I got into somebody's car and they turned on the radio, it just doesn't happen anymore.

You think at this point everybody would have packed up and started their own internet radio station since it's the only way to reach a good crowd anymore. It's not that I hate the low quality of radio or the fact that they play the same songs over and over again until my ears bleed, it's strictly about the commercials. I already know what you're thinking, "if you listen to Pandora there's commercials there too you jackass." Valid point, but I also don't have to listen to a radio DJ talk to me in between songs when I don't care about anything they have to say, then when the commercials kick in it could be a while before actually hearing any music again. Compared to literally anything else, radio is awful now.

TL;DR I'm not sure how radio stations are still in business when they're pretty much useless nowadays.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

As I sat down last night to watch Shark Week like every other person in America I started to wonder, why isn't there a Space Week? I'm fairly sure that you're going to call me a nerd, which I am, but Space Week is something that everybody would like. Just take a look at how Curiosity landing on Mars captured the attention of the entire country. With all that's out there in the universe it's not like we would ever run out of new things to watch either. I think we know almost all there is to know about sharks, but space is the last frontier, there's so much out there that the entire week would have something for everybody.

You don't even have to go at it from one angle either, you can please everybody all in the span of a week. Are there aliens? What in space could destroy our planet at any moment? Are there planets that can sustain human life? If I were to be launched into space and started to take a piss, would it freeze mid stream? Then maybe we could get some funding to go back to NASA instead of spending it on strippers for members of Congress. That's what they do with surplus money there right, they spend it on strippers and drugs? Maybe I need to brush up on my knowledge of what the government actually does since this year Congress may be the least productive since 1947.

TL;DR We have a Shark Week that everybody loves but there should also be a space week.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday

If there's one thing in this world that will cause me stress it's having to call out of work in the morning. Instead of just calling out because I feel like it I have to come up with an excuse. Mine are usually fairly simple, either I'm sick, my cat died, my arm fell off, or something like that, but I still have to come up with something. Why can't people just call out without an excuse and save everybody the trouble of having to guess what you're actually doing? I don't like the pressure, especially when somebody's there listening to make sure we can go to the beach that day.

Don't get me wrong, sometimes I actually am sick and I need the day off to deal with my food poisoning from McDonald's, again. Then other days I open my eyes in the morning and decide that work just isn't for me that day. I can't say that to my boss because they'll think I'm a useless slacker, but coughing like an idiot while somebody stabs me in the ribs with a fork seems a bit over-the-top. Although if I'm the boss I want the most elaborate reason you're not coming into work you can think of. None of that "I'm sick" stuff, I'm talking "I rolled out of bed and there was a dragon waiting for me in my living room. I grabbed my sword and shield and plan on doing battle all day." At least it would make me laugh.

TL;DR I don't think people should need excuses to call out of work, just say why you're actually staying home.

Posted by Atkins under Random Thought Thursday