I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong...

I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong. I like coffee. Actually, I love coffee. I'd have sex with it if I could, that's how much I love my goddamn coffee. Hell, most of the time, a good cup of coffee is better than sex. Coffee is more readily available, that's for sure. And there's no moral or ethical dilemma in paying for coffee. I'm always satisfied after drinking a cup of coffee. I can easily drink coffee standing up. I can have coffee in public whenever I want and not be arrested. Wait - what was my point? Oh yes - I love coffee.

I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong. I live on the North end of Columbus, near Polaris Fashion Place. If I head toward the mall, how many Starbucks do I find? In the mall itself - a Starbucks kiosk on the first floor. Moving onto the second floor, you find a Starbucks at the Great Indoors store, and yet another damn Starbucks further down. And what's across the street from the mall? Another damn Starbucks. And in the Barnes & Noble behind that Starbucks? You got it - another damn Starbucks. Leave the mall, and head down toward 23... before I even make it there, the Bank One offices have - you guessed it - another damn Starbucks. Onto 23 N... coming up on your right, you've got Giant Eagle - with a damn Starbucks inside. Cross the street, and you come to Meijer, with what else - another damn Starbucks. In front of Meijer, there is - do I even need to say it? Everybody sing it now... another damn Starbucks. In total, according to the Starbucks web site, there are 14 Starbucks within 5 miles of my home. Starbucks has spread across the country like a virus, infecting us with their formula of what a coffee shop should be. I hate the homogenization of American culture that Starbucks represents. Like McDonald's, Applebee's, Wal-Mart, and all other corporate chains, Starbucks is a major contributing factor in the growing blandness of America.

I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong. I admit, I'm barely old enough to remember what it was like before Howard Schultz swept down out of the great Pacific Northwest and clusterbombed us with franchises. I grew up in a town that to this day is Starbucks free. Going home to visit is sheer hell. My java choices are to drink the swill that barely passes for coffee from the local Speedway, or to drink Folger's at my mother's house. It's at those moments that I fervently pray for a Starbucks to magically appear. However, I went to Ohio State back in the day, before Starbucks burst into town like a plague of locusts, and there were plenty of little independent coffee houses that offered a great cup of joe. Going away to college was a coffee-addict's wet dream. Unique house blends, roasted to perfection, lots of people watching opportunities - all in all, great places to hang out and get a caffeine fix. Every coffee place was different. They had open-mic nights where you could watch your friends embarrass themselves. Some were set up in old houses, some in strip malls. Some had work by local artists up on the walls. Some of it was bad art, some of it was good, but it could have been painted by someone sitting next to you. I prefer to support these independent coffeehouses that often existed long before Starbucks set up shop right across the street from them. As a consumer, I have a choice, and I choose to spend my money at locally-owned businesses when I have the opportunity.

I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong. I drink Starbucks coffee on a somewhat regular basis and am generally quite satisfied. Sometimes, it's about convenience, and like I said, there's a damn Starbucks on every corner. The coffee isn't great there, but it's consistent. I know that if I walk into a Starbucks in Seattle (like I really would - there are a ton of better independent places there), or a Starbucks in Columbus, my venti Americano is gonna be the same. Which brings me to another point of my rant - venti? What the heck is that? Whatever happened to small, medium, and large? It's as if Starbucks is a country unto itself, with a language all its own. Or an exclusive club. You ever seen some poor uninitiated soul go in and order a "large coffee"? They look at that bastard as if to ask, "what rock did you crawl out from under, idiot?" That air of superiority, the pretentious snobbery, that condescending attitude in which they correct your order, "I'm sorry sir, we don't have a 'large'..." But sometimes, you've got to have your caffeine, and you've got to have it NOW. So I get in line and meekly ask for my 5-shot venti Americano like the well-trained sheep that I am. Baaaa.

I don't hate Starbucks, don't get me wrong.

It's not hard, douchebags. A grammar rant.

Okay, I've had it. I've finally snapped. I admit, I'm a bit of a grammar and spelling Nazi. Hell, sometimes I correct people when they comment on my blogs. I make no apologies for it, and if you expect one, then fuck off. However, I received an email today with the subject of "your hot". I shit you not. Your. My hot what? I would have replied with that question, but something tells me that the recipient wouldn't have been in on the joke. I mean, this person didn't seem phased that my default picture is currently one of me in my wedding dress. At my wedding. Getting married. If someone can't take that sort of hint, I fear the subtleties of my sarcastic question would have whizzed ten feet or so over his head. Someone I respect once said that the blogosphere is a "congregation of self-important hookers and weirdos". While that statement bears a lot of truth, he also should have added that it is a haven for illiterate fucktards who create pages upon pages of tripe rife with egregious spelling and grammatical atrocities. That's not to say that this is the only place this happens. Far from it. Hell, even upper-level executive, three piece suit management types do it. I've seen it often.

It's ridiculous. It's fucking embarrassing.

I don't know, maybe I actually paid attention in school. Maybe this shit comes naturally to me. Maybe I'm a fucking grammar and spelling idiot savant. It doesn't really matter. What does matter is that this shit needs to stop before I lose my mind.

So with no further ado, here's a crash course, okay?

lose - the opposite of win, to misplace something, ONE FUCKING O.
loose - the opposite of tight, your mother/wife/sister, TWO FUCKING O's.

I see this more often that I should... how can so many people get these two confused? IDIOTS.

your - a possessive, similar to mine, his, her as in "your loose slut of a sister loses her mind every time she gets railed by your whole inbred, shitbag excuse of a family", NO FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
you're - a contraction of "you are", as in "you're a dipshit", A FUCKING APOSTROPHE.

its - another possessive, similar to your, NO FUCKING APOSTROPHE.
it's - a contraction of "it is", as in 'it's fucking simple', A FUCKING APOSTROPHE.

Need a trick? Fine - when using it's or you're, expand the contraction. If "you're head is full of shit" becomes "you are head is full of shit" and doesn't make any sense (maybe it will to you because you're a fucking idiot), then you are using the wrong word. Queef.

to - a preposition, as in "turn to the right" or "it's time to go back to school", ONE FUCKING O.
too - an adverb (know what that is?), synonymous with "also", "as well" as in "Really? I went to college, too. I actually read a fucking book." It can also be used to mean "to a regrettable degree" as in "It's too late for you, moron", TWO FUCKING O's.
two - a number, it comes after one.

there - an adverb, similar to here as in "your short bus is over there".
their - yet another possessive, similar to your as in "it's not their fault that you're a fucking retard. It's your fault."
they're - a contraction of "they are" as in "they're not responsible for your complete ignorance of your own fucking language. Read a book!"

affect - a verb, to influence, as in "Your consistent poor grammar negatively affects my opinion of your intelligence, fucktard." A FUCKING A.
effect - a noun, result, as in "Your inability to spell, punctuate or use words in the proper context had a terrible effect on my ability to view you as an intelligent lifeform, you douchebag." A FUCKING E.

Occasionally, effect may be used to mean to bring about" or "cause", as in "Try as I might, I could not effect real change to your level of intelligence by kicking you in the skull."

Effect and affect are similar but not interchangeable. To effect is to cause; to affect is to influence.One trick that might help you remember the difference between the two: a, the first letter in the word affect, comes before e, the first letter of effect. This makes sense, because something is affected first, and the result is an effect. For example: Your complete inability to grasp the basic constructs of the English language affected our ability to understand your point; the effect of this was that we all laughed at you, mocking your ignorance, you asshat.

I/me - man, you would think this one would be a no-brainer. But no. I see so many pictures on teh Interweb bearing a caption similar to "Jessica and I at the mall". Wrong, fucktard. Here's a handy rule. Remove your BFF Jessica from the picture for a moment, shall we? You wouldn't say "I at the mall," would you? (Well, you probably would, but that misses the point) If saying "I at the mall" makes poor sense, then you should probably recaption your shitty little picture to say "Jessica and me at the mall", mmmkay?

Really, it's not fucking hard, douchebags.

By the way, grammar is spelled with two fucking a's. So next time you want to comment on someone for bad "grammer", at least spell it right.

Douche.

I Love My Dog, but... Ewwwwww

I love my dog, but there are times when she is so gross I don't know what to do. She happily licks out my other dog's ear canals, and eats used Kleenex out of the trash. She sniffs out all manner of grossness. She would fight for a morsel of vomit. And she delights in feces. Lest you think that just any feces would do, oh no - this dog is a feces connoisseur. She will only eat her own.

I didn't believe the early reports that she was a poop sucker. I'd never even heard the phrase coprophagia before until my son reported seeing her do it. I thought he was playing a prank or angling for more allowance, somehow. But no sooner did he tell me than I myself found her in the living room, hypnotically munching her own poo - with a smack-smack-smack sound, the kind you might make when you swirl a delicious food in your mouth and roll your eyes. She was in an elevated state of the yummies - and she was eating her own turd.

She's barely bigger than a turd herself. And very cute. Everyone loves her.


I did my research and learned that it's a fairly common thing for a dog to do. It's a doggie idiosyncrasy, they say. (Needless to say we have banned doggie kisses in our household). I even took her to the vet. There's a medication that supposedly stops this nasty, disgusting behavior. And it worked. For the whole 14 days she took it. It's supposed to break the behavior long enough for your dog to be retrained. To "forget" that they like the taste of their feces, I guess. But not our dog. As soon as the medication stopped, she was right back to munching on her own poop, as if it were filet mignon.

Since the day I discovered her habit for turd snacking, I have never looked at her the same way again. Oh, I go through the motions, but it's always there waiting to bubble to the surface, the picture of her munching poop. She's as cute as a little stuffed animal, but I just can't surrender to her cuteness - because I know what she is stuffed with.