Category Archives: pop culture

January 13, 2017 · 3:51 pm

An Ode to Evil

Many of you, I’m sure, are familiar with Facebook’s daily “See Your Memories” posts, in which the algorithm dredges up whatever you posted on that particular date X amount of years prior, giving you the opportunity to re-post it, should you deem it worthy.

Last night, my youngest brother, Joe,  mentioned to me that it was twelve years ago on that date (January 12), that Resident Evil IV had just been released and we (myself, and my brothers Joe and Frank) had spent the entire afternoon after school watching Frank play. Watching this horror show (and it was a horror show on so many different levels) meant that none of us got our homework done, and we were all pretty sure that our teachers were not going to accept, “But getting past those chainsaw-wielding bitches was way harder than previously anticipated” as an excuse. So we did the next logical thing and prayed for a snow day.

The Biohazard gods answered those prayers.

So why do I bring this up?

Well, for one, RE7 is coming out in a few short weeks, and we’ll be doing the exact same thing: gathering to watch each other play, get slaughtered, offer advice at solving puzzles and what weaponry should be used where, reminding each other of past epic failures (oh, and they were indeed epic) and in a way, reliving a piece of our childhood. Resident Evil was the one thing we really bonded over in our teenage years. As we’ve become *cough* adults and our lives have pulled us in different directions, it’s good to know that a little bit of zombie obliteration will always bring us back together again.

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November 9, 2016 · 11:06 am

How To Be a True American in these Troubled Times

An Editorial From an Average, American Citizen, after reading these results, that I’d been given the results to share.

“If Hillary was the right woman/candidate to run this country, the results of last nights election would be different. If Trump is as unfit to run this country as people claimed he is, he would not be president-elect at this very moment.
Its ridiculous that people are already throwing around impeachment as an option because they dislike Trump, especially when he hasn’t done anything to warrant the word “impeachment” (which btw Inauguration Day isn’t till January 20th so you might wanna actually come up with legitamate grounds to have Trump impeached before you start babbling stupidity) to be thrown around…now HRC is a different story but she is not/won’t be president so we don’t have to even worry about that.
I’ve seen people already say they’re hoping Trump gets assassinated and that his whole family dies out…and these are the SAME people spewing ignorant remarks about how we as a people “chose hate over kindness. Chose taking a step backwards over progression”. It makes me sick.
Whether you voted for Trump or not, he is our future President of our United States. WITH that title, comes the duty of the people who live in the USA as a whole to respect the POSITION, even if we don’t particularly love the person holding it.
And I’m sure it will happen, because everyone is entitled an opinion but please do not take this status and attack me and what I just said. I will not be answering any negativity so don’t waste your time. This was simply a post to say whether we like it or not, this is how it is and we as a people need to respect the Presidency and stop running our mouths about things that maybe should have happened, things we wished hadn’t happened, but simply did/didn’t. So move on and be proud to be an American. ”    Fin.

With great thanks to my guest speaker, you rock it girl. If anyone else thinks them worthy of submission, I’d be interested curious to read your writing from both sides of the aisle. 

I’ll add subject matter, form, etc. Go get those pens going, kids.

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This Post Brought To You By an Unbelievable Level of Stupid, Courtesy of the Liberal Left

Otherwise entitled: Society has lost its collective mind and I just can’t right now.

  1. Seattle, WA: A man undresses in a women’s restroom, citing a new rule in the city that allows people to choose a bathroom based on gender “identity”
  2. Prince William County, VA: A man dressed as a woman was arrested after police say he was caught peeping/filming into restroom stalls three times in the past year.
  3. Palmdale, CA: A 33 y/o Palmdale man who allegedly dressed as a woman while secretly videotaping females using a department store bathroom was charged with six counts of unlawful use of a concealed camera for the purposes of sexual gratification.
  4. Ontario, Canada: A biological man claiming to be transgender so as to gain access to women at two Toronto shelters was jailed “indefinitely” after being declared by a judge a “dangerous offender”. The man assaulted and raped multiple women, including a Deaf woman.
  5. Toronto, Canada: The University of Toronto recently changed its transgender restroom policy after multiple peeping incidents.
  6. Smyrna, TN: William David was arrested in Wisconsin but was extradited to TN to face felony charges relating to filming women inside Smyrna restrooms, including aggravated sexual exploitation of a minor.
  7. Orange, CA: A 24 y/o man was arrested after a hidden cell phone was recording video inside a unisex, single-stall restroom at Chapman University.
  8. Pitman, NJ: A teacher, school bus driver, and high school student were among 16 people facing child pornography charges in New Jersey. Thomas Guzzi Jr., 36, of Pitman, is also charged with 3rd degree invasion of privacy for allegedly hiding a tablet computer in a bathroom stall to record video of others using the toilet.
  9. Logan County, OK: 43 y/o James Curt Rose sits behind bars for videotaping a 13y/o in the showers at a YMCA
  10. Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa police arrest a man connected with the videotaping of a women who was showering in a residence hall.
  11. Quarryville, PA: 19y/o James Thomas Shoemaker was arrested and faces child porn charges for hiding in a woman’s restroom and taking pictures of young girls on his cell phone.
  12. Montgomery County, PA: A man was arrested at a Target Store after a female patron caught him attempting to spy on her while she was in the dressing room.
  13. Athens, GA: A man was seen on security cameras in a local Target sneaking into a women’s restroom and using his cell phone to take pictures of the ladies in there. He was detained by store security until police arrived.
  14. Brentwood, MO: 26y/o Matthew Foestrel is accused of holding a camera under a Target dressing room door while a female patron was trying on bathing suits. He was convicted of “knowingly and intentionally” filming an 11 y/o girl in a dressing room while partially nude. Foestrel was also charged with unlawful possession of a firearm.
  15. Petersburg, FL: To demonstrate the absurdity of the Target policy, a man, dressed as a man, acting as a man, records a conversation between himself and the store manager in which the man asks if it’s okay that he uses the women’s room because he “feels uncomfortable” in the men’s room. The manager assures him that it is, and he will deal with any complaints from women already using the facilities. The man leaves, as he was only proving a point.
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There are more, of course, but I’m sick of looking at double screens to get the details. I think you begin to get the gist: the idea of allowing one to use whichever restroom or fitting room, or any other place people of a single sex usually gather while in a state of dishabille, they “feel” best suits their “identity” at the moment, is a truly terrible idea.

Now, allow me to clarify one thing. I am not talking about the roughly 700,000 people (out of 323,439,000) in the nation that are transgender. (Although it is biologically and scientifically impossible to turn a man into a woman, or vice versa, that is a post for a different day.) No, I’m taking about the 808,675 (and growing) registered sex offenders in this country and her territories. Now, that’s about 0.25% of the population. Transgenders make up even less than that, even less than the usually reported 0.30%- it’s more like 0.22%. Ergo:

Sex offender population > transgender population

So I’m sorry, but my safety and security as a woman, and the safety and security of other women and girls trumps your “comfort”. Sure, there are plenty of perverts and deviants who would assault women before policies like this, but now we’ve just opened Pandora’s Box and made it extremely easy for them to do so, because now no one will initially question their presence in what should be a ladies-only area. But think about it. I stop at one of these quietly gender-neutral friendly stores after work (because it sure won’t be a vocal one like Target. #BoycottTarget) to pick up a few things. I was in a rush to get out of the building and have to use the restroom. Like most store restrooms, this one is tucked in an out-of-the-way place, away from most of the other patrons. I’m carrying my purse and I’m wearing high heels- not conducive to running. Inside the ladies’ room in a man, dressed as woman, and he’s not there to pee and leave. I’m 5’1 and barely over 100lbs. What are the odds that your average male is not going to have a super difficult time overpowering me?

Ladies, before you get all gung-ho about equal-rights rah-rah-rah, think about how often you already have your guard up, walking alone on the street, in a bar, etc. How often are you made to feel uncomfortable by something uncouth a man does, or says. How frequently do we already go to the restroom in “packs”? It’s not because we need someone to help us wipe our butts. It’s protection for ourselves and each other. Why on God’s green earth would you support something to further endanger yourself?

 

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April 27, 2016 · 9:33 pm
March 16, 2016 · 9:20 pm

Just When I Thought I Was Done Being Surprised…

Generally speaking, there isn’t much that surprises me in the political arena. Catfights, he-said, she-said, insults, and downright sabotage is all sadly becoming pretty run-of-the-mill, but lately, I am bitterly disappointed in the lack of decorum coming once again from the left-wing, liberal, progressive, special snowflakes.

At first, I was surprised and frankly taken aback that we suddenly needed “trigger warnings” and “safe spaces” to protect college students from opposing viewpoints. Are you kidding me? I went to college to be challenged, to learn, to expand my horizons. Pretty much no one agreed with what I had to say, so I quickly learned to back myself up with hardcore facts and statistics (Shut it, Mark Twain.) The more facts I had to support my opinion, the stronger my argument. Someone wanted to challenge my pro-life stance? A graphic description of exactly how an abortion was performed changed more than a few minds. A disagreement over Common Core? I demonstrated “new math” and explained the lack of phonics used when teaching kids to read. (Really, it’s the equivalent of memorizing license plates.) I read everything I could get my hands on. Novels. Newspapers- local, national, and international. Blogs. Magazines. Biographies. I watched stuff on TV like “How It’s Made” and “Mythbusters” as well as “The X Files” and “The Walking Dead”. I learned a second language. I took classes in political science and eastern philosophy and culture and literature, both eastern and western. Only once did I come across any sort of “trigger” warning, and that was one I put in a paper I wrote about self-injury and suicide, and then only after the recent death of a student by suicide.

Now, we are expected to block those precious babies from conservatives, from pro-life groups, from Christians and Jews, from military recruiters, from anyone not kowtowing to the liberal beat. For example:

Lately, the most appalling disruptions have come in the form of organized protests of Republican political rallies, including the shutdown of a Donald Trump rally in Chicago, Illinois, which Trump decided to cancel out of concern for the safety of those attending the rally. Slightly ironic, really, given Chicago’s astronomically high rates of murder and gun violence (despite having the strictest gun control laws in the state). Now, I’m not denying anyone their right to protest. However, when it comes to interfering with another group’s right to gather, we have issues. Considering that the Trump protest had plans to essentially rush the stage, that’s a problem. Look at the riots in major cities stemming from so-called “police brutality” over the last few years. Ferguson. Baltimore. Not cities with conservative leadership. Cities left to rot for decades under liberal progressive policies. Policies that discourage growth, but encourage dependency upon the government.

It’s funny. Go into any national park and one will find literature about not feeding the wild creatures. Why? Rangers don’t want the animals to become dependent on people for sustenance and get lazy, refusing to hunt or forage for themselves. The government should take a page out of its own book.

The next several months are going be interesting. I have several opinions on several topics (because of course I do) but I shall save those for another evening.

Save the mudslinging for a raining day.

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November 9, 2015 · 9:11 pm

I’m not a psychologist, but I did stay at a Holiday Inn…

I would like to throw this next question out, because it is a seriously legitimate question. I am in my first full year of teaching, and my students are anywhere in the range of 11- to 14- years of age. I teach a variety of subjects, depending on the day, and I live and work in a very urban and very poor area. Despite the economic troubles, there is a strong sense of family and culture penetrating the city.

So here is the question: What is WITH kids today?

I didn’t think I was that old, but (and I didn’t think I’d be saying this for at least another twenty years) when I was that age, I didn’t know such foul language existed, and I was far from being a sheltered child. To paraphrase Lewis Black, the “f-bomb” isn’t so much a word as it is a comma. Sexual suggestions, slurs, and commentary one would expect to hear in “Fifty Shades of Gray”  can be heard just passing through the hallways. Students are aggressive toward each other, constantly threatening to throw punches. At best, none can stop talking for more than a minute or so, and their silliness leaves them falling out of their chairs and knocking their books onto the floor.

It’s amazing if any actual knowledge is absorbed.

We try. We go in there, battle-hardened warriors, day after day, never sure if anything we do is making any sense. Are we educating? Are we passing along the facts? Are we getting them to think? Are they interested in the material? Do they want to learn more? Are we giving them the tools to succeed outside the classroom? How can we tell if they’re not responding to us?

I don’t have an answer. I know if I behaved like that when I was in middle school, well, no one in my school would have ever behaved like that. Ever. How does an entire system get turned upside down over the course of a mere 15 years? When did the inmates start running the asylum?

I love my students, but a solution has to be found, or I may burn out of my career before it really even starts.

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August 8, 2015 · 10:54 pm

When Lions Trump Babies, You Know We’re Screwed

 

Imagine, if you will, your friendly neighborhood veterinarian. We’ll call her Dr. Farrell. Dr. Farrell loves dogs. She loves dogs so much, that she runs a dog-specific clinic. She especially loves puppies and mama-dogs, so she concentrates on them. She says she treats them for all types of diseases and testings and screenings to ensure their health, but she’s most concerned with the ones who are pregnant. She knows that the ones who are pregnant and have owners that want the puppies will be fine, so she tells those dogs to go somewhere else for their care. Dr. Farrell takes care of the dregs. She specifically sets up her clinics in areas that have a lot of poor, stray dogs. Dogs that don’t have owners, or have owners that don’t care about them. Dogs that aren’t spayed. Dogs that wouldn’t be able to take care of their puppies. So everyday, Dr. Farrell makes sure her clinic looks hip and inviting, with comfortable doggy beds, bones to gnaw on, fresh food and water. When a pregnant lady dog comes in, Dr. Farrell assures her that she doesn’t have to worry about half a dozen new mouths to feed. She’ll take care of the problem and send the dog on her way.

So Dr. Farrell forces open the dog’s cervix, and reaches in with some sort of suction device and a knife (curette) to cut the puppies apart and extract them from the womb. One of Dr. Farrell’s assistants will have to put all the pieces together again later to make sure all the puppy-tissue was gotten. Sometimes, if Dr. Farrell didn’t get to the dog early enough, she might burn the baby puppies to death with saline, or wait till the puppies are almost born, then as they’re coming through the mama dog’s birth canal, she’ll just stab them in the back of the skull with scissors. Whatever way she chooses, the puppies are dead and no longer the lady dog’s responsibility.

Running a clinic like this is hard though, and even though places like PETA give her a lot of money to keep the unwanted puppy population down, Dr. Farrell has found that she can get a lot of money by selling those puppy bodies to cosmetic companies. People get so angry when they hear that companies test their products on animals, but no one seems to care about the puppies that Dr. Farrell has killed. For whatever reason, they are blind to it. So Dr. Farrell is able to sell those bodies to Covergirl and Bath and Body Works, and they pay enough to buy Dr. Farrell a new car. All thanks to dismembered puppies.

 

Now, be serious. If an undercover journalist had come out in the last 10 days with videos proving that PETA was dismembering and selling unborn puppies or kittens, the country would be in an uproar (see: Cecil the Lion). Instead, an undercover journalish has undeniable evidence that abortion giant Planned Parenthood is selling the bodies of unborn children. More than that, they are line items. They are profit. They keep PP in the black. There is good evidence that many of these children are intact, which means PP is blatently ignoring the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban one way or another. As of this writing, three states (NH, AL, and LA) have cut off funding to Planned Parenthood, and several others have launched investigations.

As Americans – hell, as decent human beings, why are we even pretending that this is okay? What makes us think that it is okay to kill a child at any stage of his or her development? If one killed a panda in its mother’s pouch, he would be in as much legal trouble as if he killed the adult panda. Probably more. Why? Because a developing panda is still a panda. Why are animals protected, and not human babies? They are equally defenseless.

Planned Parenthood is beyond defending. Please, if you haven’t already, watch the videos or read the transcripts. (All of which can be found here.) Urge companies like Pepsi and Bath & Body Works to stop their donations, as others like Coca-Cola have already done. Write your members of Congress on the State and Federal level to defund them; you do not want your tax dollars supporting state-sanctioned murder.

Save the humans.

save-the-baby-humans-panda

 

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September 19, 2014 · 1:19 am

Fighting Microaggression

…also known as, cry me a river, build me a bridge and get over it.

The following video is from Andrew Klavan on “The Revolting Truth” over at YouTube. Special thanks to The Matt Walsh Blog for posting the video to his site first. (Seriously. Go read Matt’s blog if you don’t already. He’s awesome.)

 

First world problems, y’all.

Of the major news networks, current headlines are generally tuned into the Scottish independence vote, but the more national ones:

CNN: “Where is this missing UVA student?”
NBC: “Bachelorette party mom feels ‘lucky’ to be home”
ABC: “Lawmakers propose overhaul to federal black lung program”
FOX: Fox News seems to be the only MSM to buck the trend by having its front page banner focused on ISIS rather than our kilted friends and makers of fine whisky. FOX’s home page reads “Congress OKs key plank of Obama’s ISIS strategy [Editor’s note: glad to hear his staff figured one out] in bipartisan vote.” and their US news page follows up with “Mystery man reportedly seen walking with missing UVA student night of disappearance”
BBC: Obviously, they’re a bit busy tonight (nearly dawn, now, and it looks like Scotland is staying. Sorry, Prince Tearlach. You’re still bonny, even if, by history, you were a sot and really quite a failure, the ’45 notwithstanding. Slainte mhath.) so most of their coverage is devoted to what the north is up to, but their US and Canada page is headlined: “Eight dead in Florida house shooting”.

Thankfully, NBC seems to be the only washout tonight, and really, what can you expect with MSNBC dragging at their heels? No wonder Rush calls that crew PMSNBC.

Sorry, that must have been a bit aggressive, there.

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August 27, 2014 · 2:45 pm

Hie thee hence… to a library.

With the start of a new school year, there will be the usual back to school sales, discussions about who needs more sleep, complaints about the way teachers teach (or don’t), standardized testing, the Common Core, literacy, and everyone’s favorite topic, bullying.

I will be the last to say that bullying doesn’t exist, or that it’s not as big a problem as people make it out to be in light of recent cases, especially two in Massachusetts alone that led two children to choose suicide. I will say that parents need to get their heads out of their behinds and realize that if they are being told that their child is causing a problem, they need to be willing to investigate and if the allegations prove to be true and that child is causing problems, lay down the law and not make excuses for their little brat.

That being said, I’m also a huge advocate of literacy. I absolutely positively Do. Not. Care. what a child is reading (within limits, obviously. A nine-year-old should not be reading Playboy, even for the articles.) as long as that child is reading. Annie picks up a Batman comic book and reads it while eating breakfast? Good for her! Tommy discovers an old Boxcar Children series in the school library? Awesome. I loved those books. Laura’s teacher talks about Laura Ingalls in class, and that inspires her to check out the Little House books only because she has the same name as the protagonist? Sweet. Steve reads the back of the cereal box? Don’t care, he’s reading. Joe, a high-school junior, takes a break from homework to read an article on Cracked.com? Brain candy AND he may be learning something – win/win situation.

Reading is awesome.

To tie this in with the anti-bullying stance everyone from kindergarten to 12th grade is going to be hearing about, I’d like to suggest the “Tortall Universe” books by Tamora Pierce. These are YA novels (I’d say good for a PG-13 audience due to violence and some sexual themes) featuring strong female protagonists in a fantasy world in the country of Tortall. These quartets (plus one duo and one trio) can be read in any order, but chronologically:

Beka Cooper Series (set 200 or so years before Song of the Lioness) tells the story about young Beka Cooper and her rise through the ranks of Provost Guard. In order: Terrier, Bloodhound, and Mastiff

Song of the Lioness Quartet Alanna of Trebond disguises herself as a boy in order to become a knight for the realm of Tortall. In order: Alanna: The First Adventure, In the Hand of the Goddess, The Woman Who Rides Like a Man, Lioness Rampant

The Immortals Quartet: After losing her family, Daine is hired by the horsemistress of the Queen’s Riders, where she meets many strange people who think her knack with animals is more than just a knack. In order: Wild Magic, Wolf Speaker, Emperor Mage, In the Realms of the Gods

Protector of the Small Quartet: The first openly female page in over a century, Kel must prove her worth to all those who think women are not equal to men on the combat field, including the training master. In order: First Test, Page, Squire, Lady Knight

Trickster Series: Ali, daughter of Alanna the Lioness, is kidnapped by pirates and enslaved. She must use all her wit and the dubious help of a very tricky god to get out of the Copper Islands – which are teetering on the edge of a rebellion. In order: Trickster’s Choice, Trickster’s Queen

It is the Alanna books and the Protector books that really have the anti-bullying undertones. I highly recommend them to boys and girls 13+. Most of these are available on Nook and at your local library.

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August 19, 2014 · 3:22 am

Stop! Don’t open. That door!

There’s a lot of lousy things going on in the world today. A laundry list of them. (Note to self, do laundry.) As I am very, very sick of turning on the TV and the radio and the interwebs and hearing about suicides, looting, race-baiting, rape, and the crucifixion of children, I’m going to my happy place.

Now is a good time to warn all of you that my happy place involves killing zombies. Lots and lots of zombies.

I discovered Resident Evil 2 when I was a sophomore in high school through a boyfriend, and in turn, I introduced it to my brothers. There isn’t a lot that a 16-year-old girl and two boys ages 13 and 10 can agree upon, but for the three of us, it was Resident Evil and the extremely unusual  and rather bloody crime fighting adventures of Chris, Jill, Claire, Leon, Ada, and the rest of the gang as they battled the evil Umbrella Corporation. Alright, maybe “crime fighting” is stretching things a bit, but Chris and Jill were RPD special ops, Leon was a cop, and the second game took place in a police station. Close enough.

I don’t know what it was about those games. We watched each other play like we might watch a movie – offering advice, shouting out warnings, and always ready with a clever insult when someone did something stupid, whether that be the character or the one controlling him. And oh, did we screw up. Or, better, tried to make each other screw up. Like the time I neglected to mention that licker that was going to burst through the two-way mirror, and I’m pretty sure the story about how I missed Birkin during the final battle with one of my precious rocket-launcher shots (you only get two) when I had the game set to “auto-aim” will be told at my funeral.

Then again, so too will we recall my brother frantically pointing at the gate and stammering “Use the bent-pin-door-opener-thingie!”

“The lock pick?”

“Yeah, the lock pick.”

Ah, the good old days. Today, it’s rare to get my brothers and me in the same room for more than five minutes at a time; our lives pull us in so many different directions. I’ll always look back with fondness though at the appreciation for a perfect headshot, the achievement of shaving a few seconds off a record time, the beating of the extra game with ‘Hunk” or “Tofu” (yes, that’s exactly what it sounds like. You race through the game as a giant block of tofu.)

Or when someone is in desperate need of a smile, you just look at them and say, “You were almost a Jill sandwich.”

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August 8, 2014 · 10:51 pm

GofundYourself

I’d like to rant a bit about a new trend I’m seeing… well, everywhere. It has blown up with the help of a website I’ve referenced in the title of this entry. I will not name names, mostly because my readers have the common sense to figure it out for themselves and also because I don’t want to direct any more traffic to that site than necessary.

For those living under rocks, the new trend involves begging others for money to pay for a dream vacation, a house remodel, a move, bills, or anything you can think of. Shamelessly.

What happened to personal responsibility? Setting a goal and saving up for it, if one can’t afford it right away? Why should I, as your friend/total stranger be badgered into paying for your lifestyle choice in the name of “charity”? I think we need to take another look at the definition of “charity”.

From our friends at Merriam-Webster:

charity:

the act of giving money, food, or other kinds of help to people who are poor, sick, etc.; also : something (such as money or food) that is given to people who are poor, sick, etc.

: an organization that helps people who are poor, sick, etc.

: the organizations that help people in need

If one were to look at that website’s front page today, of the top 12 most popular, 5 are collecting to offset medical expenses for humans. Two others are collecting to offset veterinary expenses for dogs. One is to extend a wish made by the “Make a Wish” foundation for a child. Another is collecting to build a playground at a hospice hospital. One is a memorial to cover a child’s funeral expenses. One to send a cancer survivor on vacation to Hawaii. One is trying to fund an invention. All heart-wrenching causes, to be sure, but others are more than questionable. Sending a birthday boy to Universal in FL? Buy me a PS4 for my birthday? “I’m moving, pay for my flight?” “Send me to meet XYZ!”

How about, no.

For me, gift giving is fun. I like to take the time to shop, pick out something I think the recipient will enjoy, wrap it up all pretty, write a special message, and give it to him. I like to watch his face when he opens it. For this reason, I don’t like to give money and only rarely will I give gift cards. I prefer surprise, even when a gift is expected for something like a birthday or Christmas.

I don’t like to give to gimme-pigs.

This website is just one more example of the entitlement culture many millennials (my generation, I’m very sorry to say) have. The thought-process that leads to expecting a raise or promotion just for showing up to work every day. The culture that started with everyone getting a trophy and the elimination of competition. Instant gratification and the loss of personal responsibility.

There’s an old, old saying that goes something like this: “If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself.” I agree. Need a few extra thousand dollars to pursue your dream? Get a second (or third) job. Sacrifice. Save. Throw all that change in a piggy bank – a literal one if it makes you feel better about it. (Yes, I have one, and it’s painted to look like Raphael from TMNT.)  Dreamer – fund thyself.

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