TheoGeo mentioned Herenton’s website being terrible, and I finally checked it out. Wow. The Angelfire style website is pretty impressive in it’s own right, but you really have to get down to the content to make a judgment. I mean, “Catch-22” would still be a great book if it were scrawled on McDonald’s napkins, so let’s get down to brass tacks.

First, we’re immediately reminded that this is a grassroots effort, no copywriters here!

The headline I understand, no problems there. The subheading is less than clear to me. I’m not sure if I’m volunteering information or what, but I do know that nothing says “classy” like an ISP email. TO CONTRIBUTE TO MY POLITICAL CAMPAIGN EMAIL ME AT HOTBOI4U@AOL.COM!!11

Ok, we’ve established that it’s fairly low budget, let’s get to the facts…

Ok, I don’t see how this is relevant, but I guess I’m in for the long haul. Let’s click the “NEXT” button.

(I cut off the last row, but trust me, all of them were white. It doesn’t really matter, it’s probably the wrong picture anyway.) I particularly like the heading; “What’s wrong with this picture?”.  Good question.

What’s wrong with THIS picture?

Nothing, fuck face, that’s why I voted for him. To suggest that people vote based solely on race is just utterly insulting to a nation that elected a minority president. Using Herenton’s idiotic “position”, McCain would have won in a landslide and that waterhead Palin would be vice president of the United States  (*douche chills*). The idea of a modern society is not to vote for the guy that looks most like you, but for the guy that best represents your political positions. If a black guy comes closest to my positions on most issues, I’ll vote for him. If a Hispanic guy is the best fit, he gets my vote. If an Arab woman best fits my ideals, she gets my vote. To suggest people vote along racial lines is, in typical Herenton fashion, a fantastic way to further divide this already divided city.

I would make a case on Herenton’s positions, but he doesn’t have any, other than being black. I can’t believe someone would actually make such a blatant, transparent attempt at racial pandering. I can only hope that it doesn’t actually work.

Sooner or later I find myself on Steve’s Nude Memphis Blog. I read over it, generally feel a little dumber for my trouble, and move on, but hey, there’s nothing wrong with someone having a differing opinion.

In the course of my random ventures there, however, I’ve noticed an overarching theme. Every single post, as far as I can tell, is about domestic violence, rape, or how woman are persecuting men. At first I wrote it off as venting. I mean, who hasn’t been through a bad breakup and felt a little hostile toward the fairer sex for a bit? I figured it was the male equivalent of “OMGz I am SOOO done with men forever!”.

But it never stops.

Ever.

I was reminded of this recently when my dad was talking about reading random Memphis Blogs, and after mentioning some blogs he enjoyed, said “There’s also a lot of nutjobs, like that nude guy. What’s wrong with THAT guy?”.

I can’t really blame him for coming to that conclusion. Let’s go with the latest post. Who the fuck is in a bar with three female friends and decides it’s a good time to talk about rape statistics? Then there’s defending Roman Polanksi’s rape of a 13 year old as people getting mad about a guy “Fucking a chick who’s too hot for him”. Or the fixation on emasculation seen here. And here. And here.  Or we can look at the fact that he makes a point to highlight any story involving women kicking men in the dick. Like this. And this. And this. And…well, you get the idea, it’s pretty fucking creepy.

I think you get the (insanely repetitive, disturbing) point by now, but no one seems to have ever mentioned it. I’m a heterosexual, twentysomething male, and I just don’t feel this oppression by females. I don’t feel that women are out to get me. While there are certainly differences in the sexes, I don’t feel this animosity he seems to. Am I missing something? Is that blog a parody blog that I’m too dense to have picked up on? Do most men feel this way? Are my father and I in some minority of men that seem to think his perspective is fucking nuts? Am I being trolled?

Hours of Operation

For the love of god, set some hours you can deal with and stick to them. It helps if they make sense. This isn’t a huge deal in the suburbs, but nothing makes me want to stomp a bag of kittens to death like walking a few blocks to a store to find they’re closed, despite their “Hours” sign saying they should be open. It’s not a matter of driving to the next store when you live downtown, it’s a matter of walking another half mile.

It helps if your hours make sense. Second Street Shopper, which is otherwise a great store, is trying to push the food from their deli, yet they were still locked up tight at 10:30 this morning. Good luck selling breakfast when you open at noon.

Maybe I’m a lunatic; scratch that, I’m certainly a lunatic, but knowing that nearly every restaurant downtown has first shift come in at 10-10:30, I’d probably open at 9 every day. Call me fucking crazy.

Website

Kinda ties in with the first one. There’s no excuse for not having a basic website. Fucking contact me and I’ll do it. It costs nothing for basic domain registration, web hosting, and maybe a wordpress blog or joomla front end. There’s no reason to not have a page with your contact info and hours of operation.

Yes, you can call and find this info, but it does fuckall if they’re closed.

Hello, endlessly ringing phone? Yes, I’d like to know when you open. Oh, what’s that? Ring ring? Well mighty fine! I’ll see you then!

With a basic, nearly free website, you can bang it into google and say “Oh, 9am, cool”.

PDF Menus

Jesus tittyfucking christ, please make your menu available in html form, or at the very least scan or photograph the physical menu and link to the jpg/png/gif/etc. I don’t want to download your menu and deal with acrobat reader to see your soup of the day. PDF is for sharing printable files. I’m not going to print your menu. I have no need to save it for posterity. At no point, after the zombie apocolypse, when the interwebtubes are forever gone and your website is no longer available, will I find myself going “Well if only they had made their menu available in PDF form, I would order from the remaining zombie staff”. Every time I do a clean install, it’s assholes like you that make me endure a 35MB download and post-install reboot to see your fucking menu. It enrages me. I want to throw a small child into a wood chipper whenever I encounter this dreaded format.  PDF is the worst thing since AIDS. Please stop. Please.

I’m sure I’ll have more to bitch about soon, but this covers the high notes for today. Fix your shit, you lazy fucks.

That’s great, really it is, but since winning a political race in Mississippi is like being crowned prom king at the special needs school anyway, I’d really appreciate it if you would stop screaming at me about the important issues. You know, not letting gays marry and making sure women can’t get abortions. Can we please give MS their own goddamn TV stations so I don’t have to see this shit anymore?

Let’s be honest, do you really want to be the candidate that the majority of the citizens of Mississippi agree with? You’ve won the consensus of the statistically dumbest state in the union, congrats. You’ve performed an amazing limbo in lowering yourself just a bit lower than the other guy in order to capture that hardcore asshole moron faction. You sir, should be proud.

All the candidates are fairly well educated, so they all know they’re pandering to the fucking morons. They all know they should be saying, “How about we leave gays and women who want abortions alone, and maybe focus on economic development? Why don’t we work to bring our standard of education up? How about we work on getting talkin’ pictures and indoor plumbing?”. But they’re not. They’re going to play the Tard Card and get all the rednecks riled up about how the gays are gonna convince them to fuck other men and domesticated animals and household appliances and marry their neighbor’s lawn furniture, which they will impregnate, then those crazy socialist with the big words will come abort their mantoastergoatbaby against their will and dance around a fire chanting against Jesus Tittyfucking Christ, Jr. Or is it the third? The whole trinity thing is still unclear to me…

The degree to which they’re willing to pander is sickening. I suggest everyone write in Hunter S. Thompson, get as drunk as possible, and hope you wake up to find it was all a bad dream.

Dogs fucked the pope, no fault of mine.

Did it ever occur to you that most people don’t break into apartments/rape and pillage/murder people with a load of groceries?

OH JEBUS! YOU’VE DISCOVERED MY MASTER PLAN! I WAS GOING TO BREAK INTO THESE APARTMENTS AND STOCK THE FUCK OUT OF THEIR KITCHENS, WHETHER THEY LIKE IT OR NOT!

Did it ever occur to you that you could say, “How can you prove that you live here?”, and I could show you my ID with the address on it, or tell you which magazine is in the stand by the elevators at Pembroke, or ask me what the button for the roof is labeled, or any number of things to prove I live there?

It was a much better plan of action to say “I can’t let you in!” and hastily walk away, ignoring me, and continuing your likely vapid phone conversation. I know that you’re very engrossed in who your mother is blowing, but you could take the time to not be a complete bitch.

You will die alone. You clearly lack social skills, and likely have a long history of failed relationships. Your only hope for stability is to trick some poor fuck into miraculously planting his (likely flawed) seed in that barren desert you call a womb. I hope everything bad in this world happens to you, and only to you.

Cunt. Cunt cunt cunt cunt cunt. Cunty McCunterberry, Mayor of Cuntsville.

I look forward to the day I see you struggling to carry in your groceries, so I can slam the door in your face and scream, “CUNT!”.

P.S. – I’m sorry for calling you a “Fucking Bitch”, I meant to say “Horrible cunt”.

Love,

Sig