Who cares if they serve beer in hell? I'm looking forward to the flaming cocktails.

This book is currently the most popular book in America. 

This book is #1 on the New York Times non-fiction paperback bestseller list. It is the top-sold book on Amazon.com.

It is 154 pages about a four-year-old boy who has a “near-death experience” when he goes under for an appendectomy, comes back, and tells his Nebraska-based evangelical pastor father about all the flying angels in heaven and the size of God’s chair.

It was ghostwritten by Lynn Vincent, responsible for the sewage that is Sarah Palin's "Going Rogue."

If you know me, you know I’m the ultimate cynic about all things theological. I think religion is a crock of shit wrapped in a doily and mass-distributed at Walmart. 

However, I genuinely respect human beings who genuinely have faith and allow said faith to be the guiding force in their lives. I have no disdain for those who care about things like charity, and helping your fellow man, and look to a higher power as giving them purpose and meaning on Earth. It's not my bag, but to each their own, right?

But you know what’s bullshit? Exploiting your four-year-old’s dreams to sell a fucking book in which YOU preach your point of view that the last epic battle is coming and all us non-believers are going to have the proverbial – or, mayhaps, the literal – sword of the righteous thrust into our chests. 

According to the - ahem - prophet Colton, he did all kinds of awesome heavenly shit behind the pearly gates. It's beautiful and all cloud-like and adorned in gold and God just hangs out and gives you high fives every time you win a ping pong game against John the Baptist. Everyone is beautiful and shiny and happy and fit and everyone who doesn't repent is on a one-way broken escalator to Lucifer's lair. Totally unique take on the afterlife.

So here's the thing: if heaven is so “for real” and so totally rad, why did it take SEVEN YEARS for Colton’s story to be told? Colton is now 11. Wouldn’t you think he and his parents would want to share the awe-inspiring revelations about Jesus’s white skin, blue eyes and purple robes right after it happened? I mean, meeting God is a BFD, right?

Also during Colton’s supernatural jaunt, he meets his miscarried sister. Apparently, four-year-olds understand procreation, miscarriages and the pain of losing a wanted unborn child. And apparently, preschoolers are the new darlings of the pro-life movement. If this isn’t thinly-veiled anti-abortion propaganda, I don’t know what is. And this is why I want Todd Burpo’s house to burn down.

It isn’t enough, Burpo, that you get your own podium every week, but now you’re going to pimp your kid to shove your bullshit down the throats of mainstream America? You’re going to make a fortune simply because you had a child with a vivid imagination and everyone in the Midwest hates their lives so fucking much that they’re going to eat up your fanciful tales of eternal goodness and light for all Christians, and damnation for the rest of us?

This is why I hate 95% of America. Because 95% of America is so fucking brainless that instead of reading books about  history or civil rights or economics, people would rather read poorly-written novellas about the alleged otherworldly experience of a child who can’t even tie his own shoes. If you really want to be a Christian, READ THE BIBLE, not this pointless drivel.

The main supporters of this book claim it is ‘encouraging’ and ‘inspirational.’ That means that all the people that are reading this piece of crap are hoping, praying, and patiently awaiting their arrival on some beautiful, peaceful faraway plane. These people are wasting their lives on Earth – truly, the only lives that they have – simply because they believe that something better will meet them on the other side. So as much as I find them repulsive, I also feel sorry for them. If you’re a forty-five year old woman who has to ask a four-year-old to tell you where you’re going, you’ve never really lived a day in your life.

"Be thankful that you have a life, and forsake your vain and presumptuous desire for a second one." – Richard Dawkins

Tajazzle: The stupidest product ever invented.

Have you heard about Tajazzle? No? Probably not, because you're a contentious consumer who doesn't waste money on pieces of shit. But you ladies, wouldn't you like to start having complexes about more parts of your body and buying more crap to slather onto yourself in some attempt to appear attractive to the opposite sex?

Then the Tajazzle is for you. But how much is it going to cost you?

Thank god. I wasn't going to pay $200 for some junk they're selling on an infomercial. I don't even think they charge that much for a Jack LaLanne juicer.

SIXTY BUCKS?!?! Sixty bucks to acquire some talc which they expect you to put on your vagina, a fucking roll-on perfume bottle, and some pieces of plastic with glue on the back? This is no more a beauty "system" than tequila, Taco Bell and cheesecake is a system for giving you the shits.

My co-worker Kate put it best: "It just makes her look ashy."

 

"We are a totally believable couple. Yup."

THIS FUCKING GUY. Doesn't he look like he walked out of a Huge Boss ad in 1991? Nice eyebrows.

If this is an indicator of the kind of woman who owns a Tajazzle system, then obviously it's a time machine in disguise, since I don't think anyone's owned a "Princess" shirt, had spiky gelled bangs or used a cordless phone since 1999.

"Dude, she's so hot because the odor of her vagina is wafting over here. New car smell."

In what universe does this cost thirty dollars? Seth: "It's a tattoo you get out of a vending machine at a Mexican restaurant."

"Hey, are you ready to go to the beach?" "Yeah, I think so, let me see... hat, sunscreen, sarong... wait, I forgot the stupid pieces of crystal stuck to my asscheek!"

"Aw, man, I'm just at this bar, drinking appletinis and being so super masculine and I totally wouldn't go down on a girl unless her pussy smelled like Febreeze."

 I don't want to fucking know where this is going. I really don't. I can get down with some kinky shit, but I don't want anyone licking my feet. Sorry.

I am my most confident when my lady parts are drier than the Sahara! I feel great about the fact that whatever guy I decide to drag home and beg to sleep with me is going to see my stupid bullshit crystal tattoo and think I'm a fucking nut who loves Nicholas Sparks books and owns a hot pink Snuggie and has already picked out the names of the four children we're going to have together (Makayla, Jayden, Addison and Tyler!)

if we don't make it, we'll fake it. well, all you broads will.

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die ticketmaster, die.

I ain't no hippie. I buy clothes that are most likely made in sweatshops. I enjoy Wendy's chicken nuggets and I've probably unwittingly contributed to the 401(k) of the CEO of R.J. Reynolds. But there are two companies that really infuriate me: Walmart and Ticketmaster.

Now, I know that Walmart basically has America by the balls. I know that there are hundreds, possibly thousands, of towns across America that base their entire economy on their local Walmart: where everyone works and everyone shops. And though I find their employment policies discriminatory and sexist (and I am rooting for the million-strong class action lawsuit against them), I recognize that, conscience be damned, sometimes you have to buy things cheaply and you have to buy them from Walmart.

But there is no excuse for the monopolistic shitpile that is Ticketmaster.

Yesterday, whilst showering, I was contemplated this devil of a corporation. Seth, Joel and I are planning on going to see Peaches (of F**k the Pain Away fame) in a week and a half. We went online on Tuesday to purchase the tickets from LiveNation - and found that two $18 tickets were going to cost us $54 - with a NINE DOLLAR convenience charge PER TICKET. You may not be aware, but Ticketmaster and LiveNation merged in February - creating the single-largest ticketing powerhouse in the world. Ticketmaster already controlled the sale of tickets for more than 80% of the venues in the U.S.

I still cannot understand how they have weaseled their way into this deal, effectively avoiding federal antitrust law. David Balto, on AmericanProgress.org, summed it up best, as follows. The beast that is Ticketmaster & LiveNation now:

• sells most of the concert tickets in this country through its contracts with venues
• manages a significant number of the marquee performers in the world or controls their tours
• owns most of the amphitheatres in the US and owns more 'club' venues, as well as controlling (through owning/leasing) a large amount of other clubs and theatres
• owns two of the major resellers of tickets
• owns various sources of competitively sensitive data

So basically, unless the only live music you're into is listening to that homeless guy play his 25-year-old broken Fender Strat in Davis Square on a Sunday afternoon, you're pretty much screwed. I still can't even fathom where Ticketmaster gets off charging YOU $2.50 to print a ticket ON YOUR OWN PRINTER, USING YOUR OWN INK. Not to mention the "facilities fee," which, I assumed, the club just made by overcharging you for booze. They now lump all the fees together into a simple "convenience charge," which they say is to pay for the convenience of finding tickets from your home computer, rather than standing in line at box offices, like they did in the days of yore. But here's the thing - running that online system doesn't cost Ticketbastard ANYTHING. It has boosted their profits tenfold to sell tickets online to anyone, anywhere. And now they've been caught with sending customers to TicketsNow, a so-called ticket "reseller," seconds after tickets are put up for sale on Ticketmaster, and charging huge markups. It seems like the rape will never end.

I won't be going to half as many shows as I used to. I guess it doesn't matter anyway, because the new House of Blues fucking sucks.