The Airing of Grievances

HDO Has a Couple of Quickies

#1. What is with the mass marketing, and buying, of shit like Call of Duty - Black Ops? War is not a fucking game. People die, get their appendages blown off, and suffer life-long mental anguish from war.

#2. What is the problem with the voting public? Sheep? Lemmings? A person could leave Ohio as a representative to Congress, later leave Congress for a Wall Street job at some thieving firm, like Lehman Bros, and while there, come back to Ohio and pressure the Ohio Employees Retirement system to purchase $400B of toxic bonds, that turn out to be worth $200B, and make millions of dollars in commissions. After this debacle, the person can return to Ohio, and what happens? Does he get run out on a rail? No. Does he get tarred & feathered? No. Drawn & quartered? No. Elected Governor? We have a winner.

(Hdo)

Heeeere's Brody!

I thought when you get older you become more bitter and thus, more grievances. Yet I struggle with what issues I might have and with who. So while I feel like I am selling out here we go:

My company's newly implemented internet security: Probably the reason why I am struggling for grievances because the fucking blocked AofG and multiple other blogging websites! Now I can only participate after hours when I hardly want to be on the web when I can kill my work day surfing. Fucked by my own damn department! I am going to have to wait until I get open to even participate in Festivus!

Drama: I am tired of the drama. Tired of hearing about everybody's drama in: overheard conversations on elevators, in offices, from neighboring lunch tables, on Facebook, in dumb ass reality shows where they have to pause with dramatic music to find out if the answer is right or who is eliminated as we could see allot more action or participants if they moved the damn show along. I am even tired and especially tired of the drama on the whiffle ball field. I get it, Art Vandelay and Padre like to argue, its in their blood, was it fair, was it a double, I mean at 40 years old we are still yelling "DO OVER!"

Rhody Basketball: Come out of the gates every year on fire, then burn out in the end and lose to some weak ass teams so our strength of schedule is killed and we can't make the big dance with 20+ wins under our belts. Get your shit together, the NIT is the tournament of losers. Its like not going to the prom but you are the decorating committee.

Grievances From Pennypacker...Ay?

Hello to all you Festivus revellers, gatherers 'round the Pole, fellow
airers of Grievances. I felt it necessary today to call out a
particular subset of humanity though, while small in number, have
caught my attention with their egregious ways of late.

There's no easy nickname to give them, but they all have one thing in
common: they don't look where the fuck they're walking when they cross
the street. So, if you like, we can call them the
No-Look-Fucker-Walkers, or some shit like that.

You've seen them while driving, I know you have. You're in your car,
creeping around a shopping mall parking lot (it's Festivus, you know
-- busy times) and there they are, crossing in front of traffic
without even as much as a glance towards moving automobiles. Sometimes
they're talking or texting on cell phones, sometimes they're just
staring off into space, and sometimes they're even pushing baby
strollers carrying around THEIR PRECIOUS LITTLE MADISON or TYLER or
EMMA or whatever the hell's trendy these days, in a stroller which
likely costs more than the thing you're driving (but that's a whole
other Grievance unto itself; H.E.'s gotta focus here).

What's going through these peoples' heads, anyway? Is there ANYTHING
going through their heads? Are they singing along to 38 Special's
"Caught Up In You" which is coursing through their brains? Tough to
say, really.

Earlier this year in my fair town, it seemed like every day on the
news you'd hear about someone who got hit and killed by a car while
(unsuccessfully) crossing a street. No wonder! With all the friggin'
clueless people in the world, frankly, I'm surprised more don't get
nailed. Perhaps we need to thin out their herd, Fellow Drivers of
North America. I say we mount cowcatchers on the fronts of our cars,
hit the gas, and just go to town.

And thus ends my Festivus rant. Now I have to go pin my father to the floor.

H.E. Pennypacker
Toronto, Soviet Canuckistan

Texans Tragedy Get's Them Off His Chest

Happy Festivus! I have a moderate amount of problems with you people.

The fact that nobody will pick up my screenplay on Hitlers life, "10 Things I hate About Jew"

TV Shows that show a preview for the show you are watching at the end of a commercial break to fuck up people that are watching it on Tivo. You know what you are doing.If I wanted to watch commericals, I wouldn't spend the 10 bucks a month on DVR. Respect my purchasing decision, and stop making your commercials look like my show just came back on. You don't have to sell me on watching how i met your mother. I'm already doing it. Really.

The Economy- As much fun as its been not having a job from July-Present, being broke is getting a little bit tiring. Have we really collapsed the American Economy to the point to where none of us will have jobs? I have skills! I'm not completely useless.

Family- Keep your friends close, your enemies closer, and your family 5 states away and stop speaking to them forever. I guess everybody learns the life lessons to not go into business with people you are related to. Really didn't expect you to fuck me over so badly though. Even people connected to you by blood can get consumed by greed.

If I May Begin...

Festivus, while a brilliant holiday, always feels a little weird for me as I’m not a person who should conceivably be bitching about anything. I’m really pretty darn lucky and I’m surrounded by some beautiful people in this world, however that’s not really in the spirit of this day so let’s talk a little bit about the people that I got a whole lotta problems with, shall we?

Will Smith’s Kids – These two little bastards epitomize everything that’s wrong with the entertainment industry and something tells me that as long as they have an uber-famous dad, we’re going to be seeing a whole lot more of them. What are they 9 and 10? Let’s start with the girl…this shit is not music. It’s shit, and the mere fact that people look towards you as some type of talented phenom is not necessarily a condemnation of you but of people in general. You need to go away as you’re the perfect representation of what bad taste really is. As for the boy…I will never forgive you for what you did to The Karate Kid. Oh yeah…I saw that shit and it was horrendous. I’ve never seen a movie where I wanted the protagonist to get his ass kicked as much as the Karate Kid remake. Do you know that instead of a crane kick, this little douchebag actually jumped in the air and flipped over his opponent and kicked him in the back of the head? It was ABSURD!!! I’ll even forgive the shitty acting, as you’ve probably never been criticized for anything in your life so how the hell would you know how much you suck? The bottom line though you, fucking worm with braids, is that I grew up in with Daniel LaRusso…I knew Daniel LaRusso…and you son…are no Daniel LaRusso.

Leon Powe – “Really Vandelay…Leon Powe bothered you this year?” Well, not necessarily but while I’m on the Karate Kid, I just need to say that this is completely unacceptable. Leon Powe could be dead for all I know and if he is I’d like to spit on his grave for this. Listen, there are no acceptable images that should ever be synced up with this Joe Esposito classic other than Daniel San kicking some Cobra Kai ass (or if anyone ever gets awesome enough to make a highlight video of me playing wiffleball). But if in fact somebody does have the audacity to be so blasphemous, IT CAN’T UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES BE LEON FUCKING POWE, OKAY!!! Daniel San may rack disciprine, but Leon Powe rack my lespect.

If Anyone's Interested...

...Thursday is December 23rd which used to be a pretty big fucking day around these parts so even though we average like a post a week now and everyone but myself and Newman have apparently retired from blogging and Assman even tweets...we still have a responsibility around here to uphold the best tradition of the year for cynical assholes like ourselves. I'll emcee which won't be so much as emceeing but pretty much just releasing a few posts throughout the day and as always, any and all of our readers can submit their grievances to [email protected] by midnight on the 23rd (Wednesday night). We encourage your participation but even if it's just me, that'll be fine because I do in fact have a lot of problems with you people.

Welcome To The Grievys!!!

I have no idea what happened to this post and I forgot what I wrote for an intro (something about sucking then being awesome). Anyway...

THE AofG FESTIVUS EXTRAVAGANZA - 2009

Happy Festivus 2009 folks! In honor of the occasion, I will be making a donation in all fellow grievers names to the Children's Alliance, aka my beer fund. I will not be making one for Dr. Van Nostren though. Aw the hell with it, I'm regifting this year.

As the unofficial day of Festivus celebrated the world over, it is a day to relieve ourselves of our persistent nagging issues we have with the world and all of us in general, and in honor of such an occasion, I will be emceeing from my local watering hole whilst attempting to stay completely off radar from my actual job, since this is my last day of the year and the last thing I need to do is get caught fucking around and get canned. Think of this years emceeing as if it were handled in a missile silo somewhere outside Bumblefuckslavia, Idaho.

I look forward to hearing from a lot of you this Festivus. It has been one of those years it seems. Lives seem to get in the way, people kind of forget this place exists, I'm sure our founding father Frank Costanza is ready to shit kick the lot of us for slacking off, but now is the time to get our thumbs out of our asses and make Festivus what it is. The past year saw the Detroit Lions win a game, Vandelay make fun of idiots, and even Rush get shot down buying a football squad . Yeah, I may have contributed some bile once or twice.

I"m pretty sure that you all know the drill, send your grievances to [email protected] and get it to me by, say, noon-ish and I'll pop those bitches up there in between sips of Miller Lite Sam Adams and Asian Zing boneless wings. As per the ritual, this bitch will not end until one of you asshats pins me in the Feats of Strength, and I'm feeling particularly salty of late, so this should get interesting.

Enough of the bullshit. Let's kick this pig!

 

- Vandelay

- Mrs. Vandelay

- Kruger

- Dr. Whatley

-Kenny Bania

-H.E. Pennypacker

-Johnny

-Assman

-Bethany

-The French Guy

-Joe from Maine

-Newman

-Taylor

-Brody

-Pants Inferno

- Klompus

- Bill Cross

- NonLinear FC

Non-Linear FC Brings up the Rear

(A very late entry from our man Non-Linear but better late than never. Welcome back to Festivus FC! You get to put this pig to bed.)

I had severe grievers block this past week, which is amazing for a crotchety about to be 40 male such as myself. But sitting right in front of my face are a slew snow related issues that make me want to punch a baby.

Northerners living in DC. Hey, guess what Thor, we get that folks in DC freak out during any kind of snow event. Your puffed out chest and constant verbal barrage, proclaiming every denizen of the District "a big hairy vagina" due to their lack of ability to navigate and tolerate the snow is tired, played out clap-trap. Guess what, you chunk of elk anus, the fact that you come from fucking Fairbanks (or St. Paul or Pittsburgh or whatever frozen shit hole you came from) does not mean you've discovered some great secret or masterful insight on the region. It has been said before... A MILLION TIMES.

And here's the thing, Yukon Cornelius, busting on folks that see a decent sized snow storm once every 4 or 5 years is the equivalent of Hawaiians making fun of people from Alaska not knowing how to surf. If you were in Des Moines and people were shitting their pants and freaking out because of a snow storm, fine, let 'em have it. But since you're dealing with folks that very rarely see the White Death, maybe you should realize that running everyone down that can't drive the streets like the grew up on a snowmobile actually makes you sound like an asshole. (Full Disclosure: I grew up in MI, I used to be that asshole... )

People that load up on Toilet Paper prior to a storm. Ok, we all hear about people running to the store and loading up on milk, bread and toilet paper. The first two on that list I can understand, sort of. I mean, in general I'm always a little bit stunned by the need of so many to run straight to the store, but those two are fairly essential and they tend to go stale on you, so... Ok, I'll give it to you. But what the Hell kind of daredevil is so on the edge with the TP? Seriously, man, where did this convention come from? Are people wiping their ass square by square out there? I seriously don't get that... I mean, I wanna party with the folks that live life so close to the edge. "Hey, Darla, we got four squares left! You think we can hold out until next Tuesday on a TP run! I'm feelin crazy!"

People that leave two feet of snow on top of their cars. Wow. I mean... Wow. So, you're that lazy? Really? It's cool with you if your laziness results in traffic chaos and possible death in your wake. I mean, I know this is not a new grieve, but what the fuck? I understand an emergency pops up and you have to hit the road, but we're 4 days past the "snow event" and people are rolling out with 2 feet of snow on their roof.

Hey, fucktard, please stop being a fucktard. I know it's gonna be difficult, but, you know... Fuck you... Put on a helmet, don a neon vest, and fuck yourself with an icicle.

Ok, thank you. I feel like my grieve is lifted.

The Science Hoss is in da Hoss

(A late entry that we missed from Swamp legend Bill Cross)

Do I have a lot of problems? No. With you people? No, not even with the doc and his economic phallacies. So what grievances am I to air? To air is human, to forgive the province of Divine. Not being a 300 pound transvestite, I can’t live in that province. Vincebus Eruptum by Blue Cheer was the first real heavy metal album, the main force behind Blue Cheer, Dickie Peterson died in 2009. I should probably have a problem with that, but it’s the cycle of life. I know I shouldn’t talk to you about life, but with respect to life, I was hoping for health care reform, not health insurance racketeering, but you get your bills from the industries that paid for the congress, not from the people that elected the congress. Congress of the sexual type, well for the first time ever I got less than Bronto, so I may have to start to try. Tries are rugby scores, of which I did not have any this year either. Invictus, which I liked, and Gareth Thomas, the former Welsh Captain, both came out in December, da atat Gareth, so it’s been a big month for the game of Rugby. Rugby was invented at Rugby school in England. Being involved with a school, I get to see the good and some of the bad of the “youth of today”. Good, the instant gratification culture of the aughties has not completely destroyed the moral fiber of today’s youth – (bad) just their ability to spell, use grammar rules and to a certain extent think. I think therefore I am. That I am is sort of an anti-grievance; but I am what I am not, and Gertrude Stein says that’s enough. I know that that’s not enough, but I do have to finish grading.

I told you I don’t have many problems, except now maybe stream of consciousness, first-word, best-word writing may not be my forte.