This Post Has No Politics

With the election approaching some folks are hyperventilating (particularly the press which thinks being one side’s fluffer is its job). I’m not worried. In fact I’m probably nowhere near “the grid” (this post should go live via the magic of scheduling).

In case you worry that there’s some level of weird and confusing that will exceed all bounds, become a tipping point, and plunge us into disaster I’ve linked to a few completely incomprehensible things. Take heart! America (and I) survived these things… it’ll make it through a mid-term election.

1970: AMC Gremlin.

Ugh! It’s like a dump truck took a shit and someone called it a compact car. This runty wheeled failure was first presented on April 1, 1970. It probably broke down in the parking lot that afternoon. If anything would cause God to despair for humanity and flood our asses off the planet it would be this. Yet the nation that inflicted this atrocity on the roads was also capable of lunar landings. That glorious era of proud exploration lasted until December 7, 1972 after which NASA crawled up its own ass and died. I’m not saying the Gremlin crushed the dream of space flight but I’m not discounting it either. Point is, we survived.

1984: Relax.

What the fuck is this? It’s so pointless that it turns in on itself and becomes its own gravity well. Yet I can’t help tapping my feet. WTF? It’s a song that’s nothing but hook. America survived this and the UK (it’s a British group) censored a video for it based on the reasoning that it was sexually suggestive so fucking dumb it could damage human minds. Six years later the Berlin wall fell without a shot fired. Coincidence. Who knows? (H/t to Ace of Spades.)

1994: Zima.

Question: How much sugar can you cram into an alcoholic beverage before you’d rather stick your dick in a light socket than drink it?

Answer: Zima

This disgusting shit was excreted into stores in 1994. For some reason the people responsible were not guillotined. If there was ever a drink that would cause you to give up living and shove your head in an oven it was Zima. One year later, on June 27th, 1995 the US Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the Russian Mir Space Station, symbolizing for all that the US and Russia were not necessarily going to vaporize each other and that NASA could still at least put people into orbit. There is no word how NASA overcame the tragedy of Zima but they persevered.

Update, Google searches indicate that there may be a relaunch of Zima. This proves that there is nothing so stupid and reprehensible that people won’t look at failure and try to repeat it.

2005: Lance Armstrong.

In 2005 Lance Armstrong won a record seventh straight Tours de France. This was a heroic comeback given that he’d had some sort of cancer that most men refer to as nut implosion syndrome; also called“ugh I don’t even want to think about it”.

Hm… ball issues and a sport where drugs might benefit a competitor. Sounds legit to me.

Seven years later an investigation concluded Armstrong was a ringleader of “the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen”. They also concluded that having your ball fall off while dominating the living shit out of every other competitor in sight is what they termed “a clue”.

I’d give my left nut for another trophy. Oh wait… 

The point is that America survived a wave of stupid on this one. Eleventy gazillion adoring press articles about the brave role model who kicked France’s cycling world one nut at a time and then later an equal number of articles where the press was shocked to discover what everyone who wasn’t freebasing their own ass had already guessed.

One year later the Nintendo Wii hit the market and all was forgiven. It was far less “uptight” than the other consoles and you didn’t have to go to France on a bicycle to enjoy it.

Marketers had forgotten there’s a place for games that are just for fun and the Wii reeled it in a bit. The Wii was a cute little console for playing games that are less serious. Not every game has to be a six part series called “Super Deathmatch Assassins Full Metal Hellscape of Doomageddon”. We can thank the Wii for reminding game programmers of whimsy.

See? We’ve lived through stupid and come through it. There’s no need to go full shitstorm when the votes come in. Regardless of who wins or how butthurt the losers feel, the sun will rise again and the sky is still blue. Keep steady y’all.