CrankyRants.com

We’ve all seen the newest head-slapper spark across the network in Twitter.com, and have wondered along with “why didn’t I think of that” the similar but more important question… “why the hell is that so popular?”

For those who haven’t experienced it, Twitter is a mini-blog. A tool to tell the world what you are doing every minute of your day.

“I’m writing a wicked-cool SQL statement right now!”

“I like my raisin bagel. A Lot!”

“I wish my cat wouldn’t look so sad when I eat my raisin bagel and not give her any!”

…and so-forth. This is what we’ve come to. For those who don’t want to go the LifeCasters route like Justin.TV and his Truman-Show side show, there is Twitter. Here’s the catch, though. Unless you are signed up with friends who care about you and your eating habits… no one will ever see it. The content isn’t really worthy of indexing by reputable search engines, so it is literally the same thing as opening your car window on the way home from work and shouting to the busy highway… “I stapled 20 sets of documents today! Wooo!”

The guy in the semi next to you might hear you, and might even alter his personal life… changed forever by your impassioned exclamations. Or he might just return to his cheeseburger dinner and roll the windows up.

For the tens of thousands who are now regular Twitterheads, it’s a spiritual experience and there is no swaying them from their path. And thanks to cool tools like TwitterVision and TwitterTroll.com, the anonymous can be immortalized, if no more than for a few seconds or a few days. But in the end you have to wonder who has the patience and stamina to keep up with the work after the novelty has worn off. Find out at www.twitter.com/crankyrants. I’ll bet it doesn’t take long.
 

Yes, this is what life is like when you’re a mom. Waiting on your kids every move… bored out of your skull and counting the days before they move out of the damn house. 

Happy Mother’s Day, dammit.

For quite some time now, women have chosen to engage in an activity that continues to severely confuse me.  High-end, fashionable, designer handbags exist in this world for the sole purposes of aiding a woman in feeling classy, powerful and almost euphoric.  The perfect handbag can take a look to an entirely different level, resulting in observers believing that you are on a fashion plateau that is all your own and that is simply unattainable.  This is the very reason that I cannot process why, with the existence of such exquisite handy work available, women choose to purchase bags that are such horrific and obvious imposters in the efforts of appearing fashionable. Financial concerns can get in the way at times, but if you’re going to show off your new feathers, better make sure they’re not painted on.

These days, one can find imposter designer handbags just about anywhere.  All over the world, women proudly adorn their shoulders with them as if other women are too unintelligent see the difference between high-end and complete hideousness.  The ways in which a woman can attain such a bag are endless; from their local malls, to the internet, to individuals selling them on the street and even from such a thing called a “purse party.” Like Tupperware. But with purses. These are gatherings of women who get very excited about purses, and hop about in hopes of coming home with about three or four imposter bags.  I’ve actually seen a Prada imposter on the internet that was so terrible that the pathetic excuse for a designer bag actually bore the label Prado! Seriously. Advertised right next to a new Sorny DVD player and Freddie DeBauer wallet.

The thing that I really cannot get past, and refuse to, is that each of the imposter bags range in price from approximately $80.00 and upwards of $150.00.  With women snatching up these babies by the masses, they are spending more than enough to actually purchase one magnificent, first-rate specimen of a handbag that they could carry with much more pride.  I’d think it would make more sense to own one legitimate and beautiful designer bag than five imposters. But then, I’ve been known to wear black socks with shorts in the summer, so I’m probably not the best fashion plate to follow.

If you’re not a sports fan or a coach hater… all that’s left for you to do is start a gambling site. Of course, gambling is illegal throughout most of the country, and online-gambling is being restricted more and more each year. So If you’re going to start one, here’s a few tips.

1. Move to Malaysia. International gambling sites are still cool with the Feds for some reason, and you’ll have access to all of the Malaria you can carry.
2. Run it out of your basement and hire some guys named after things. “Johnny Carburetor” or “Donny Two Ears” or “Jimmy The Fuzzy Ducky Gorbano” or whatever. Makes you feel like your site has a real mob connection.
3. Take the time to get your site a real mob connection. Why fake it when you can do what the pros do. Don’t know much about it myself, but as far as I can tell you gain instant access to plenty of financial and labor-related resources with practically no strings attached, apparently.

Finally, if you don’t want to actually dabble in the illegal and limb-bending world of organized crime… just go for the perfectly legal and legitimate arena of handicapping. You can make whatever predictions you want, charge people to listen to a poorly recorded mp3 of you giving them, and claim each week that you hit 12 out of 14 picks… and no one’s there to correct you because it’s for member’s only. What a deal! Plus you get to use cool phrases like “triple-stunner cast-iron lock of the century” every week.

You’ll find physician jobs on The Recruiter.com.

More prominent than the hater sites, nothing pumps more rich creamy worthless sporting news-pulp through the GAFT like a manaical sports nut with an FTP account. Now that anyone can get a website for $3.95 with free ad-infested hosting account and the goDaddy instant blog hack, those overweight rabid body-painting wack-jobs you see shrieking into the camera every weekend have moved indoors and online.

Fan sites nearly eclipse Lithuanian Granny Porn and mySpace Template sites in number these days, and most of the content is about as useful. Sites like RaiderNation.com, ColtsDrive.com, and SteelersFever.com take the whole notion of “Our Team Doesn’t Stink Nearly As Bad As Your Team” to a new level.

Here’s what’s fun about these sites. Pick any one of them at random, settle into a nice comfy chair, and post a note or comment about how their team is pretty good, but “plays a little too soft to compete with the elite teams.” Now lean back and watch the fireworks.

The entertainment value of the average fan site completely revolves around the insults and mud-slinging rage that most rabid fans will blindly dive into when anyone even remotely suggests that anyone on their team is anything less than a direct descendant of the holy union between Thor and Hillary Swank. So massive is the machismo-lust that a fan-site member would rather take the Nestea plunge into an inflatable pool of boiling Gatorade than accept that maybe the players on their team might have lost their recent game because they were tired, hurt, or looking forward to a quiet afternoon in bed.

So before you sign up and fire off some tasty posts, make a checklist of the following words and phrases.

“Soft on defense.”
“They’re a Finesse Team.”
“Can’t win a game when it counts.”
“Crumble under the pressure.”
And my true favorite: “Would probably have won more games if they would just suck less.”

Remember, post often… and post responsibly. And never give your real name. These guys own guns.

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At any given moment, there is exactly one sports site for every individual sports fan in the world. That’s how many there are. Like the sentinals in the Matrix, one to one is the most efficient way to keep us all hooked into the Global Athletic Feeding Tube, or GAFT as it’s known in the addict community. The GAFT can include team sites, fantasy sites, gambling sites, and even hater sites that promote the firing of coaches before they’ve even been hired. Indiana University still had Bob Knight shaped ass-groves on the sideline bench when Mike Davis got his own “Fire Him” site. And Davis was still coaching the team down the tubes when FireCoachSampson.com got thrown into the ring to bash Kelvin Sampson. Good job. Bad job. No job yet… doesn’t matter. Web prospectors are always thinking, especially in the turmoil of the sports world.

We’ll talk about the other types of sports sites down the road, but the hater sites are the most interesting because they essentially strive to put themselves out of business. The goal of sites like the one above is to raise the ire of fans so high that the coach gets fired. Thus the domain name. But once that happens… there goes your traffic. Everyone is happy the coach is gone… and happy people don’t post nearly as much as pissed off people do.

So the life cycle of the typical hater site, at least the Coach hater site, goes like this: Domain is regged when the poor guy is still some assistant somewhere and doesn’t even have the job yet. Gets the job, site owner dances like he hit the $20 scratch and win lottery, and a new site is birthed into the world. Coach sucks or succeeds, people flock to the site to grip and complain, traffic goes up bringing more complaining from fans and haters alike.

Finally, the coach leaves one way or another… and the site owner tries desperately to offload the whole thing to someone willing to follow the coach around.

Quality web content? You bet! And the sad thing is… a lot of people make a lot of money and traffic from it. Thanks… to the GAFT. Next up, true fan sites.

As a whole, we live in a pretty stupid society. Our entire shaky economy is propped up on the shambling mess of an oil industry that is too bloated with cash and power to evoke any notable changes this side of the “Kinda-Hybrid” car. That’s a car that uses “Hybrid Technology” to sell itself as a green vehicle by merging the standard fossil fuel combustion engine with a wind-powered coolant system. (Open the windows and feel the breeze.)

A quick glance through any Environmental Site or Forum will show you hundreds of people concerned about conservation and ready to take the next step towards numerous alternatives. TheEnvironmentRoom.com alone has listings for Renewable Energy in the form of Solar, Biofuel, and even Hydroelectric Power.

There in lies the problem. Average schmoes like you and me don’t work for GM or Mobil Oil. We can talk all we want about battery-enhanced cars, but we can’t build them, sell them, or in most cases even afford them.

What’s worse, the things that are actually going our way… like the numerous Ethanol plants and gas stations going up around the country… are just as susceptable to the whims of those in power. Demand for Ethanol has actually increased, but the result is an apparent rise in price of the additive, making it more expensive than regular unleaded. Who determines that price… and what are the factors involved?

So that leaves us to stare blankly at the on-coming train wreck of the 4 dollar gallon, with few national leaders twisting arms to stop it. Why halt the extra cash pouring into their personal pockets, especially when they can blame it on violence in the Middle East or uncertainty in Uruguay or whatever.

It’s the age old story: A butterfly takes a crap on a land-mine in Turkistan, and we feel the effects in our wallets over here. Makes me wish I’d installed that 400 gallon fuel reserve tank in my back yard when I had the chance 6 years ago. Coulda let the kids sell it during the summer. Screw the lemonade stand… give the public what they actually need.

There was a time when the pantry had only a few dried goods in it. The fridge was small and cooled by a block of ice. And families got along just fine. Today, I am actually throwing out packets of ancient soup mix and jello boxes so I can make room for the 50 pound block of pop-tarts that just came home from the bulk store.

Sixty years ago, no one needed to stock up on all of this food, because if they needed meat, bread, and a pack of smokes… they’d walk the block and a half to the corner store or meat market… and pick it up. Done. Take it home, make your sandwich, and wolf it down with a smooth and healthy Marlboro chaser.

Even now, the convenience is greater… yet we still stock up. Gone is the exercise, just drop by the super market on the way home. But no one has the patience or tolerance for that either, what with the ever present danger of ”Elderly Coupon Creepers” or “Children of the Cold” (and flu. Spreading germs. Get it?).

So that leads us to the next stage in the evolution of the corner store. Just need a pack of smokes and some sandwich fixins? Don’t even get up. We now buy our cigarettes online at DiscountCigaretteShop.com and our steaks come in a bag from eBay. Just takes a few extra days for everything to arrive. So… you know. Better stock up.

As soon as Dean Kamen gets off his ass and builds us an electric sandwich maker instead of some 10 grand scooter… we’ll really be in business.