Postcards From the Edge: Guns 'n' Fun

Maybe you didn't really believe that I lived in a town on the cusp of redneckness (redneckedness?) when I recently wrote about Hamilton, New Jersey.

Need more proof? Every couple weeks or so (let's be realistic, I'm not very good at updating this blog regularly) I'll present you with evidence supporting my feelings about Shamilton. Let's give a big warm welcome to...Postcards from the Edge!

First up is the lovely photo above. This charming pic is from the FRONT COVER of my town's local "paper." The event? A Neighborhood Watch demo. The little girl's a future Palin in the making. Get 'er done!

Love Letter to Hamilton, New Jersey (Part I)

Dearest Hamilton,

Recently, Joel Stein wrote a gushing article about Edison, New Jersey and Kal Penn responded to it. I know that our relationship has been fraught with ups and downs -- well, mostly downs, but no matter. It's time I sat down and penned my ode to you, oh Hamilton, home of all things Republican.

Where do I begin?

My love for pizza and pasta was never really quenched until I arrived in your ignorant pastures. What other town can boast of almost-100% Southern Italian cuisine? Where else can I peruse all of the local clip-n-save papers only to find page after exhaustive page of pizzeria reviews and coupons? Your lack of ethic cuisine diversity only makes me long for my faves -- Indian, Japanese, Thai, Vietnamese, Mexican, etc., even more. But, alas, the closest authentic eats of those varieties are in Central/North Jersey and Philly.

What a budget-conscious town! No point in spending hard-earned money on succulent pho. Now I can just drop a couple bucks and get slices and a soda. Or, I can saunter over to the Cracker Barrel. Now, nothing sez class like a restaurant with the words "Cracker" and "Barrel" in it! Move over, Buddhakhan! Eat a big one, Nobu. Stanton Social ... whatevs!

My passion for fashion has also dwindled since joining your borough. Don't get me wrong, when one thinks chic, one must look to Wal-Mart, BJs, Kohls and Kmart. This also is a great money-saving tactic.Who needs Jimmy Choos when you can invest in 10 for $10 shoes at the local dollar store? I've also noticed that the soccer moms in your village think that the more tacky, busy Coach bags they have equals how hip they are. Well, I'm sorry, but I cannot complete with that! These women rock Kate Gosselin haircuts and mom jeans -- I bow down to their epic style.

Well then, what about intellectual pursuits? The library has an old-world (i.e., dirty and dingy) charm that features retro carpet from the 70s. The lone bookstore is a B&N located right near my beloved Kohl's. No museums, no art galleries., etc. But, why would I need all those things when I can spend hours a day just catching all of the misspelled and/or brain-stimulating bumper stickers? Two great examples: "Eat Me, Bite Me, Please Me!" and "If Your Not First, Your Last!" Wow, I am in awe of the succinct glow of these pithy musings.

I'm getting verklempt over here. My love for you is surpassed only by the years of therapy I will require to recover after I am out of your presence. Let us part for now. I will continue my love letter at a later date.

Love you until Wal-Mart institutes an IQ and/or number-of-teeth minimum,
The Hatewatcher

P.S. For idiots that may have read this and gotten offended. THIS IS A SATIRE, STUPID. Gracias.

There's No Such Thing as a Free Facebook

My relationship with Facebook is definitely a love/hate one. Let me clarify. It's not FB I have a problem with ... it's the people who use it.

I'm convinced that the majority of the FB population is one brain cell away from Paris Hilton's level of non-intelligence. Oh wait, that's so not "hot" now. My bad. Okay, one brain cell away from [insert latest halfwit starlet here]. What has me so convinced? The issue of privacy. Apparently, FB is an evil empire that's sole mission is to invade your privacy and use you and your friends' information to make money. Oh my!

Hey idiots, guess what? FB is a company that is intent on making a profit. FB is NOT your friend. Nor does it owe you anything. So, if you don't like having your privacy invaded you have two options. Adjust the privacy settings on your FB account. Or, heavens to Betsy, don't belong to FB! It doesn't seem complicated to me.

Now what really gets me riled up is that some of the same assclowns whining about having their privacy violated are the same TMI idiots that disclose each and every facet of their lives on every social media network in the galaxy. They're checking in there. They're buying that. They're friending her and him. They're writing on walls. They're announcing engagements, deaths and divorces. They're putting coworkers on blast.  (Ooh, I do love when people put coworkers on blast though. Especially when the right person does it, like my girl LS, who is not one of these assclowns I speak about.)

Check out this douchebag. He will delete his FB account only if 10,000 others sign up to do so as well. Hmm, okay. Call me crazy, but isn't it more private for Josh Levy to quietly delete his FB account and go on with life? Guess I'm wrong. It's much more private to create a movement around it and gain attention from strangers.

Sorry FBers, but you made your own virtual bed. Now you gotta lie in it. (Make sure you update your statuses when you do, though!)

The Hate and Hope for Haiti

Hi readers, in lieu of posting a vent, I'd like you to take a few minutes and read this amazing editorial on the history of the hate for Haiti. I know so little this poor but proud island nation. I had never bothered to learn about Haiti's dynamically ambitious origins and its eventual downfall.

To the left is the beautiful "Freedom Tree" in Bois-Kaiman, Haiti, where Dutty Boukman and his fellow liberators plotted the slavery uprising that eventually led to the Haitian Revolution.

I'm not trying to be deep or anything, I just wanted you to feel what I felt after reading the article. The sadness of promises broken and opportunities wasted cannot overshadow the determination and pride of this island's people.

Thank you for your time.

I Used to Like People Before Facebook

From the title of this post you may surmise that I am an evil bitch that hates people. That is only partially true. I truly hate only a select few people in this world. I hatelight (yes, I made this phrase up and doesn't it sound like some kinda diet drink? Maybe it should be called HATElite—that seems more catchy!) annoying members of my Facebook fam. I don't really hate them, I just hate their stupidy at times.

Since I've been on paid vacation (ahem, was laid off from my most current job due to a huge merger/acquisition), I've had more time to spend online applying to new jobs and networking.

More time online = more time spent looking at my damn BB = more time noticing how fucking annoying people can be when it comes to Facebook.

This post is a list of my Facebook-related pet peeves. Nothing more than that. I'm doing a list because I'm in Vegas on vacation visiting my rents right now and this is the quickest way to get a damn post done. My most recent post was from October 2009...forgive me, my fellow hatewatchers, real life gets in the way of virtual life—as it should!

MY FACEBOOK PET PEEVES

(in no particular order and yes, I have done a few of the below acts before I realized how annoying I was)

Weather-related shit. We get it, we get it. Cold sucks and warm rules. Get over it! Especially when the weather that is occurring is normal for where you live. For example, I live in Jersey (fistpump!) and it gets cold during the winter and humidly hot during the summer. I don't post a status complaining about this each and every fucking time the weather is not to my liking. My long-term goal is to move west. I'm done complaining about it, I'm just gonna focus on my goal.

Games. Please don't ask me to Bejewel you, or give you a glock for Mafia Wars. I don't wanna grow a Green Patch. I'm 32 and can find more interesting things to do during the day (especially during the WORK day) than play some dumbass games. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Wii Fit, but come on now people.

24/7/365 negative people. If I wanted to deal with a bunch of emos all day, I'd work at Hot Topic. Seriously, sometimes life sucks. Sometimes you write a negative status to vent. But, EVERY FUCKING DAY??? You must be kidding me with this shit. Yes, life is SO HARD that your mas puto yuppie ass has time to whine and rant on FB via a $200+ PDA about every fucking thing that pissed you off all day. Why not try blogging a couple times a month? (Wink!) It'll save you some time and people will not defriend you anymore. Or they still might. Whatever.

Bullshit friend requests. If you are not my friend or at least a friendly acquaintance that I recently clicked with and will probably get to know better over the years, please don't request me. It's just that simple. If I didn't like you in high school or vice versa, then the same is probably true now. I've lived without getting a daily status update from you in almost 15 years, then I can probably live out the rest of my life not viewing pictures of your babies and pets. Merci!

Big upping spouses and the gifts that they bought you and/or the places they took you for various occasions. Women tend to this this A LOT (I have done it one time, but that was Guy Savoy!). Are you planning to auction off your husby sometime soon and want to tout his positive traits? While I'm very happy that you're happy, do I need to know every single thing ya'll did for your anniversary/birthday/Columbus Day? Isn't it assumed that you love your husband? You don't need to status it, fool.

MySpace-esque profile pics. We get that you find yourself highly attractive. Ladies, I understand that you love your cleavage. But, do you need to crop profile photos in certain ways to ensure your jugs are waaaay prominent? It's FACEbook, not TITSbook. I'm not a hater, I love your breast-eses, I love my breast-eses, we all love our breast-eses. (And we all want ice cream!) But, dude, put that skank shit on MySpace. For realz!!

Also, those with LOOKATME! profile pics tend to also be chronic profile pic updaters. I know that you are just way cute and have many cute pics of yourself (taken by yourself with your PDA), but no need to update daily, okay? I bet Angelina and JLo don't even update their profile pics every day/hour/minute...and they should, they're hot! Now, if you get gender reassignment surgery, then yes, please update your profile pic, so I can give you props on how great you look! I shouldn't even talk shit about profile pics, as mine has been, for months, Bobby Lee (you NOT funny!) holding one of the American Girl dolls.

Chronic status updaters. This is touchy subject as many of my dearest friends are suffering from chronic status update syndrome. It's the nagging need to post status all day long about EVERYTHING you do. Of course, I'm not saying that every item I status (yes, I've made it a verb) is groundshaking, but then again, I update my status a couple times a month, not a couple times an hour.

I know Socrates believed that "the unexamined life is not worth living," but I highly doubt he meant that you should update status each time you have a snack or take a dump. And I beg of you, please do not update your status while on vacay...enjoy your time and focus on the moment with the person/people you went on the trip with! Here's my status...The Hatewatcher thinks you're a complete douche and does not care what you had for dinner every night of the past month.

Attention hounds. You know who you are out there. Some people insist on writing vague and short (and sometimes medically alarming) status updates that will surely draw a bunch of "what's wrong?????!!!" responses. If you need attention that bad, you need to get off FB and get some damn help already. Or, just apply to be on season two of Jersey Shore-ah.

"Deep" shit. Stop posting several paragraphs of poetry, quotations, etc., as your status updates. We get it, you know how to read and have picked up a book at least once (or can Google pretty damn well!). Now, let me call myself out. I currently have lyrics from a Nina Simone song (LOVE that woman and that voice!). But, I limited it to a couple lines, not THE ENTIRE SONG. And for you Jesus freaks, puhlease stop posting big-ass (hyphen or not?) chunks of the Bible. I have already read the entire thing and own a copy. Didn't know that did ya??? See, I keep the surprises coming, my friends.

Captain Obvious. Let's establish from this point forward, that in the modern world, Mondays suck and Fridays rule. Nuff said. Stop posting every fucking Monday about how blue you are and every fucking Friday about how you can't wait for the weekend. NO SHIT! You gotta work for a living or become a fame whore like Tila Tequila. Get over it.

I'm sure I'm missing a lot of FB pet peeves. I plan to write a follow-up post with more shit I hate regarding the FB world.

Got ideas about this post or future ones? Email them to hatewatchersblog@gmail.com. I'd love to hate from you! (Pun intended.)