Thomas Edison Wished He Had Invented it Himself.

Thomas Edison Wished He Had Invented it Himself
By: George

I've often wondered what some of the best inventions in human history were. While I'm unable to shake the weight of the awesome power of nuclear energy, allowing us the ability to harness incredible amounts of energy at the expense of a few mutated gold fish in a contaminated lake, the brilliant force of hydrogen propelled ships blasting off into outer-space, with the prospect of new and even more efficient forms of plasma powered space ships and all the marvelous advancements in modern medical science, the invention of the steak is still, bar none, the most magnificient invention to have ever passed through the superior intellect of the human species' brain.

While the evidence is irrefutable, there are still people in the world who argue that steak is not a man-made invention, but that it comes from nature. Nature? What do people even mean when they say nature? Nature is this term that people throw around in an attempt to somehow differentiate ourselves in our modern industrial life-styles from forest dwelling primates. It's like saying that a garden is not part of nature because people tend to it.

This argument doesn't make sense and I'll explain why using a few basic examples to show the bull-shit hippy assholes just how stupid they are:

Clothes: You'll never hear dipshit nature loving assholes tell you that clothes aren't man-made inventions. But you have to wonder why that is. Original forms of clothes were simply the hides of animals that our neanderthal ancestors tore from their killed hunted prey that they wore on their backs. Granted, we've perfected the technique so that we no longer have to smell the stench of the dead carcass when we prance around church during show and tell, but it's still the same basic idea.

Wooden Furniture: The only time you see people speaking out against wood is when a bunch of tree-huggers head out west to bitch and moan about the degredation of our 'natural' forests. You know, evil corporations committing mass-suicide by cutting down all these oxygen generating free standing objects for the use of building houses and schools. These assholes would have you throw away your cheap and affordable books, rolls of toilette paper and all the dinner chairs you sit on for... well, they don't really give much in the way of alternatives. But I guess we can always make those things out of plastic. What's a few inches off of the ozone layer if we can save a few hundred thousand trees.

Glass: Glass is a really interesting example. When have you ever heard people argue against the fact that glass is a man-made invention? Man, what a load of shit! If steak isn't a man-made invention, then by all accounts of that logic, neither is glass. I mean... come on. Glass is simply the melting down of sand particles in a massive oven by some dude wearing a funny hat with a long stick while he blows on it! Not only can we say it's not a man-made invention, Freud would have had some quarrels about the methods by which we harvest it.

Now, let's be serious for a minute. Steak rules. Nature did not come up with steak all on its own. Just look at all the different forms of steak that exist and that WE'VE invented:

-Fillet Mignon
-T-Bone
-New York Strip
-Ribeye
-Pepper Steak
-Tenderloin

And the list goes on. Thanks to man's ingenuity and superior intelligence, we have been able to succesfully transform an other wise boring milk-producing cow into so many various forms of delicious steaks that Thomas Edison would have shit himself if he had invented them.

But It's More Expensive

But It's More Expensive

By: George

Have you ever had one of those moments in life where you need to take a pause, think about what just happened, look around to see if anybody else noticed, take a look back at the source and just nod your head, hoping there was some fundamental language barrier that the two of you were desperately trying to cross? I've resolved myself to the conclusion that fast food restaurant employees are the epitome of the industrial revolution, minus the tar stains and low life expectancy rates. They are so accustomed to repetive actions that they have become incapable of forming pattern breaking thoughts throughout their daily routines. So much so that it's almost as if when a customer comes in with an out of the ordinary request, they are all of a sudden hit with the agglomeration of ineptitudes which make up their existences while they start mumbling to themselves as all the thoughts that were once paralyzed in their minds start flooding to the surface and dancing on their brains. This lasts for about ten seconds, when their thoughts tire out and return to their slumber. In the mean time, you're left standing at the cash, legs quaking, praying to your choice of divine figure that they won't lunge across the counter screaming “The coke machine is a lie!” while gouging your eyes out with a plastic knife.

Before we get to this, however, I would like to take some time to explain what led up to this mind warping experience. It started one evening while Kyle and I were waiting for the mid season premier of Battlestar Galactica, the self indulging nerd show that any self-respecting adamant proclaimer of manhood will watch and defend against attack at all costs. Our local science fiction network, as a build up to this eight month wait, aired the last five episodes before the break as a way to catch people up for the return. This re-airing of reruns was interrupted by the most existence altering commercials depicting half naked old ladies advertising therapeutic bathtubs, families playing poker with pretzels as currency while singing songs about their love of Cheeze-Whiz, sprinkled with babies crying about their soiled diapers. Modern marketing techniques seem to have lost the fundamental ideology which perpetuated the 1960's boom of advertisement agencies. In other words, marketing to your target audience in an effective way. I have to wonder if these multi-million dollar ad campaigns are spending enough money to notice where their commercials are being aired. Of the millions of angsty teens, wishing apocalypse would come, balding and un-showered middle-aged men and creepy fangirls watching the much anticipated return of their beloved show to validate their inane existences, I can't imagine many would be all that interested in buying their grand-parents bathtubs to help with their plastic hip replacements. In fact, this commercial made me all the more inclined to drop kick the next old lady I saw, in the style of Nicholas Angel. The fact that there wasn't an outbreak of cases where people threw their pet hamsters into their televisions, ran to their kitchen sinks and whipped out a bottle of drain-O to douse their already burning eyes is a testament to the power of that show. In fact, I can safely say that the majority of people watching the build up to the premier would have stuck through gay midget clown cowboys, strapped to a mechanical bull while slapping each other’s bare asses, advertising the new Moley Cyrus album. Fuck you, you eight month mid season breaking, DVD releasing, cow-milking assholes. I'm going to watch this episode, despite all your executive wankering.

We began to settle in, ignoring the quasy pornographic commercials, to watch the last couple of re-runs before the feature presentation when Kyle's pirated cable began to shit all over itself, cutting out the audio while making the picture look like amateur 90s horror flick editing.

Kyle turned his head towards me. Glaring and menacing, he muttered, “Am I seeing right?”

I responded with what seemed to be the only rational thing my late twentieth century upbringing taught me. “Let's leave, completely ignore the issue and hope it resolves itself by the time we get back.”

“Pizza, then?” responded Kyle, while he toyed with his cell phone for the umpteenth time that day.

“And cheese bread.”

In order to place this night in some form of temporal perspective, this would have been less than a week before Kyle's cat was whisked away by the infamous bitch to whom we have dedicated a little musical number titled “The Bitch Who Stole Kyle's Cat.” I mention this, in part because I am now deeply saddened by the loss of our beloved Dubbi, but, because as a parting gift, Kyle had been force feeding dozens of treats to his cat on a daily basis for weeks so that the bitch would be witness to a cat in withdrawal. As a result of the continuous sugar high it was on, Dubbi was unable to stand still for a period longer than the short term memory of an Alzheimer's patient.

“Did you know,” began Kyle, “that cats are able to see reality through the perspective of multiple quantum dimensions?”

My face grimaced as I directed my vision to the cat pawing his way through the wires behind the printer, while it was contemplating its inability to occupy the same position in space as it. “Schrödinger was an asshole”, I mentioned, as I put on my layers of sweaters, constituting a coat.

We finally left Kyle's place to make our way across the street to the hole in the wall pizza joint. Kyle ordered two large pizzas. The lady at the cash fumbled around the buttons until she found the ones corresponding to the order that we placed ten minutes prior. Kyle payed for the pizza and the lady promptly walked away to fiddle with some empty boxes in the back of the restaurant. I can only hope they contained layers upon layers of bubble wrap that she was hording away so that she could take home with her at the end of her shift.

While waiting for our order, we were troubled by the influx of IQ deficient members of our unfortunate species beginning to get louder and louder in the opposite corner of the restaurant. Upon receiving a few dirty looks as a result of our disparaging comments towards them, I remembered my earlier craving for cheese bread.

“I should probably order the cheese bread before our pizza comes. Would hate to have to stay and listen to them very much longer.”

“This is true, but it would also probably be a good idea if we got back to my place before we were gutted from head to toe from the gang members sharpening their switch blades outside the door, waiting for us. Let's try and keep our comments to a minimum from now on, shall we?”

“I'll do my best,” I responded, “but I can't be held accountable for everything I say.”

“Yes you can,” retorted Kyle. “Who else would be? Me? The mentally challenged cashier?”

The cashier threw us a look of disgust as she pried herself away from the padded boxes.

“It's a figure of speech, man. Can't a guy just say something without it getting torn to pieces?”

“No,” came Kyle's calm response.

“Well, this seems like a terribly useless argument, then.” I conceded, still only wanting to order my fucking cheese bread.

I walked up to the cash, assumed the customer position, and waited to be served. The cashier made her way from the back of the restaurant in what seemed to be a directional path towards the front counter, when she banked left and began re-arranging the condiments station. At this point, I've still given her the benefit of the doubt of not noticing me standing upright in the front of the restaurant waiting to place an order. So I made a couple of subtle hand, head and facial gestures to signal her attention. These are all met with the same result. This has now taken about five minutes. That's five minutes of standing at the cash, waving my hand, laughing with Kyle about the inadequacies of the modern service industry and trying to not get shanked in the back by the group of kids who are now waiting to kill us when we inevitably leave the restaurant with whatever order we manage to place. Kyle was starting to get impatient as he began to motion the cashier over himself.

“Listen, do you want me to get her attention?” demanded Kyle, “Because I will.”

“How does she not see me waving my hands in the air while nodding my head to the point of nausea?”

“These are the kinds of questions which make for good stories.”

I finally got fed up of silently gesturing for her attention and called her over in a matter of fact tone of voice.

“Yes, thank you. I would like to –”

“Would you like to order something?” the cashier asked.

“Hm. Yes. I would. Can I please get an order of cheese bread? Eh, yes. That one. The one where the cheese is on the bread, right? Ok... good. You understand the English.”

The pizza arrived before she was able to find the cheese bread button. I immediately regretted placing the order and as I'm about to tell her to cancel it for fear of the end of the world reaching us before she figured out how to place a command, her eyes lit up as she beamed a smile at me in triumph.

“Would you like anything else?” Her question frightened me. I wasn't sure if I should venture to order our drinks from there, or just stop off at the convenient store next door and pick up two bottles of coke. Kyle re-assured me that he was in no mood to make another stop off, as the weather was beginning to dwindle into an ever increasing abyss of dismal proportions.

“Yes. Two drinks, please. One diet –”

“The small one or the large one?”

“Eh, the large one please.”

“But the large one is more expensive.”

I looked at Kyle. Kyle looked at me. I looked back at the cashier who then looked at Dubbi strolling across the counter as he disappeared into the coke machine.