As we grow older, and become more wary of the hardships that the world presents us on a daily basis, we almost forget that there was once a time in our lives when we were children.

There once was a day when we had absolutely no clue whatsoever about what life had in store for us. We were too young and our brains weren’t fully developed for us to know. Our only concerns at the time was whether the square block will ever fit in that circular hole, and when the hell we were getting another juice box to drink. That’s it. Life was that simple.

It was glorious times, and now, as we all progress into our mid-to-late 20s, and beyond, we are faced with real problems. We’re still trying to fit a square block into the circular hole, except we are the square block, and the circular hole is the world. And it’s not working.

So that is why, whenever we are introduced to small children, we become excited and joyful, because for a moment we revert back to our own childhood, and feed off the small child’s youthful enthusiasm and blissful ignorance. Oh and you’re probably wondering what context you would come about meeting small children. Well I’m obviously referring to when you are introduced to a friend’s niece or nephew, or a family friend’s son or daughter. I do NOT mean standing on a street corner holding jolly ranchers while holding a sign saying “I want to meet your kids.”

Anyway, so it’s always funny to see a small child light up with joy at simple things like spinning in a revolving chair, or the blow of bubbles from one of those… bubble-maker things, or in the most adorable context imaginable, interacting with a smaller animal like a kitten or a puppy.

It’s a nice little distraction. Little kids are supposed to be cute. They have not yet developed their own unique physical qualities, and they all pretty much look the same.

However, after a couple of minutes of the kid doing the exact same thing repeatedly, and you watching and laughing along, the time is up. After about two minutes, maybe three minutes tops, it’s time to return your life and go about your business.

I bring this up because today a coworker brought her grandson into the office. Obviously it’s even more noteworthy in this situation, because it’s not often you see a 2-year-old in a work environment (Unless you work at Discovery Zone), and therefore, it’s only inevitable that every single person in the office within a 100-foot radius is going to be attracted towards that desk so that they could meet the small child, all while laughing and making sounds like “Awww” and saying, “Oh my God, he’s so cute!”

And when he spins around on the chair for the first time, sure, it’s funny. Even I’ll chuckle.

However, when it happens for the 11th or 12th time, it’s not funny anymore. I’m not blaming the kid for doing it, shit, if I were 2-years-old I’d be spinning around in that chair until my mom forcefully dragged me away from it.

But when you’re a spectator, and you continuously act like every single thing the kid does is “the cutest thing you’ve ever seen,” then that is when it becomes annoying.

First of all, you’re giving the kid way too much attention. As a result, It’ll cause him to seek more attention, and then he will carry this behavior with him as he ages, thinking that he’s the greatest thing to ever walk this earth. Why do you think Lindsay Lohan turned into such a trainwreck? Because, as a toddler, her mother probably brought her with her wherever she went, and since she was a cute child, every single idiot probably worshipped her. She got used to it, and next thing you know, she’s a drug addict.

By giving these little kids so much attention, we are all enablers.

People’s lives must be extremely dull if they are so entertained by every action, every word of gibberish and every facial expression that they witness from a small child.

I mean, I get that it’s funny, but some people act like it’s the most incredible thing they’ve ever experienced when a small child says practically anything.

And I don’t even dislike kids. I like them. They’re fine. I just think it’s silly when people act like a small child is something they’ve never witnessed before. They all do the same exact thing. Always.

So again, just two minutes of my attention, and then I’m bored by them.

I’m going to be a great father someday.

Alright, I understand that we all like having cool stuff. Giant televisions, laptops, touch pads, stereo systems, whatever. We all want to own everything.

Additionally, I know that people like cheap stuff. Bargain hunting is one of the most fun things about shopping.

Finally, I understand that the economy is in the shitter, and consequently, that people need to rely on discounts to afford things.

I get all that. And yet, it still doesn’t justify the behavior that is put forth by our species on Black Friday.

Honestly, do people not have better things to do with their time? You are that desperate for discounted items that you need to wait overnight, for hours, in the cold and stand with a thousand other jackasses outside of your local Best Buy?

Sorry, but I don’t care how good of a sale there is, my time is too precious to me to waste doing that.

I’ve seen video footage of people storming into Wal Mart on Black Friday, and just grabbing whatever is in sight. They aren’t even shopping for a specific thing. They become rabid carnivores. It’s truly horrific.

Shit, a couple of years ago, a store employee at a Wal Mart in Long Island died because he was stampeded on when the customers were let in the store. He DIED. I swear, on the last Friday of November each year, our country is set back thousands of years to the early ages of tribalism.

So you can imagine my disgust, when I recently read an article about how, nine days before black Friday, a man was already camping outside of a Best Buy on November 16th in St. Petersburg, Florida.

That is nine days before Black Friday. Nine days. Nine.

Do you know how many things you can accomplish in nine days? You can climb a mountain in nine days, read Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s epic novel Crime and Punishment in nine days, you can defeat the entire Mario 64 video game in nine days. Shit, Jesus Christ created the entire world in less than nine days. But no, this guy is going to sit in a tent, for nine days – 226 hours – just so he can save a hundred bucks on a TV. I truly, truly hope that his tent lacked oxygen.

But you know what? That’s not even the worst story that came out of this year’s Black Friday. Not even close. In Los Angeles, a women pepper sprayed up to 20 people trying to gain an advantage while shopping at a Wal Mart on Black Friday.

I… I… really don’t even know what to say. Aside from actual murder, rape, child molestation and kidnapping, this is one of the worst acts I have ever heard of. Talk about a complete lack of scruples. Her mother and father must be so proud.

Whoever she is, she deserves to be lined up, chained to a wall, and should be pepper sprayed nonstop by the police officer who pepper sprayed all of those UC Davis students a week ago.

Seriously, what is going on with our country and abusing pepper spray lately? Pepper spray should be used to prevent an attack, and, well, really that’s it. That’s the only situation. It should not be used on people who are quietly and passively protesting, and not on people who are shopping at Wal Mart, Black Friday or not.

It truly just boggles my mind. Anyone who participates in Black Friday annoys me as it is, but for someone to actually cause physical harm on 20 other individuals by use of pepper spray… let’s just say that I truly, truly hope that this women gets caught. She does not deserve to walk this earth freely.

Again, Black Friday truly brings out the worst in people. I get that we’re all a part of the 99%, but when it comes to Black Friday, I think you’re talking about 1% of the 99%.

If you think that Occupy Wall Street protests haven’t spread, and that people haven’t heard the cries that originated here in New York, well then you are dead wrong.

Apparently protests have stretched to the opposite side of the coast, at a small university called UC Davis. The school is so obscure that I had to research what the name of it was, which is the University of California, Davis. The protests are known over there “Occupy Davis,” which, unbelievably, already has its own Wikipedia page. 

Anyway, the school recently received national attention when its “Occupy” protest went awry, in the form of police maliciously pepper-spraying protesters who were sitting passively, causing no harm, and simply exercising their first-amendment rights. Here is the footage:

It’s 8+ minutes long, but you can just watch the first couple minutes and get the gist, you ADD-riddled prats.

It’s pretty sickening, and the video can easily make you angry. I myself have never been pepper sprayed before, which is amazing given how many times I have pursued girls against their will, but I can imagine that it doesn’t feel too great.

Policemen are given weapons, like pepper spray, night sticks, and guns, but (and I would hope) that they are properly trained to use them in the correct situation. This sure wasn’t one of them.

Just a few days later, news broke that the officers who used the pepper spray were placed on leave. 

It’s just amazing to me that cops could abuse their power like this. Sure, they were probably given orders to break up the protests. However, there are many other ways to do this. As long as you don’t punch or strike, it’s okay to use a little force and attempt to lift them up. They didn’t even attempt that until post-pepper spray.

Or if it’s that big of an issue that needs to be resolved immediately, then read them their rights, and place them under arrest. Not that I would necessarily agree with that either, but it’s a much better alternative to pepper spray.

The last factor is that you can clearly see tons and tons of people standing around with their phones, cameras and iPads, obviously filming this. It’s the viral age, did you really think this would not end up on YouTube? By pushing the button on your pepper spray, you also pushed the button on your career, and I have no sympathy.

But let’s look at the grand picture here. This is yet another national story involving “Occupy” protests, the second that has happened since I made my original post a little over a month ago. Whereas I predicted that these protests would only die down and disintegrate, they have only gotten larger and garnered more media attention. It’s really a good thing because it means that people get it. They realize that there is this hierarchy of corruption that currently exists in Washington that nobody is doing anything to stop. Bush didn’t do anything, Obama hasn’t either, and now the people are taking it upon themselves. I’ve really never been more impressed with our country than I am right now.

Except that my optimism for our nation’s population will immediately dwindle when I log onto Facebook and hear everybody talking about how stressed they are about “cooking Thanksgiving dinner” this week.

I thought it was incredibly annoying when people talk about their Thanksgiving plans, but now I realized that it’s even more annoying when people go out of their way to discuss how they are cooking everything “all by themselves!”

Newsflash: your parents and the rest of your family will tell you that your food was fantastic.

But in reality, they threw up on their way home and stopped at McDonalds to get the shitty taste out of their mouths.

re·la·tion·ship

[ri-ley-shuhn-ship]

1. an emotional or other connection between people:

What is the keyword there? Connection.

Relationships are nice. You meet somebody, and you get to know them, and suddenly, one day you realize, “Hey, I’d like to be with this person more often than not.”

Than you have sex with that person and you realize that you didn’t just use each other for sexual gratification. You can actually stand being around each other, even after having sex one time. So you spend more time together and continue doing monotonous things like going to the movies, drinking together at a bar, getting dinner at a restaurant, and of course, having sex.

And then after a little while, you come to realize, “Hey I guess we’re official now.” Because at some point, after a few months, it should become obvious.

After that, you see where it goes. Hopefully you come to love each other more by the day, your relationship grows, and you possibly even form that ultimate bond by getting married and live out the rest of your lives together.

However it goes, the most important detail isn’t that you want to be around each other all of the time, it’s that you need to be around each other all of the time.

That may not be exactly how the priest/rabbi/wizard says it on your wedding day, when he/she tells the story of how you met, but, in reality, that’s how it goes.

But, wait a minute. Hold on. What happens when one of the two people have to go somewhere else for an extended period of time? Does that make the relationship — dare I say it? — a long-distance relationship? *Cue dramatic music*

Long-distance relationships are an age-old phenomenon. Everyone has an opinion on them. “Oh you can make it work,” “Oh, it’s impossible,” and “Oh. they’re so hard!” You’ve heard ’em all.

One of these days, I’m going to write an entire blog about a certain topic and not give my opinion at all. I’ll just lay out the facts, explain both sides of the argument, and then leave it at that.

But today will not be that day.

Long distance relationships most commonly occur straight out of high school. You and your girlfriend go to different schools, you say you’ll talk every day, and maybe you do, maybe you don’t, but you try to make it work.

This is normal, and a perfectly valid excuse for an L.D.E. (long distance relationship.) Nine out of ten times, it won’t work, but it”s not because of the hardships of the long distance relationship, but because you’re too young. You’re inexperienced, and when you go away to college, you’re exposed to thousands of other people. Inevitably, you’re going to meet somebody else.

If you can sustain a relationship through four years of undergrad, then God bless you. That is when you know it is truly meant to be, and I applaud you. You truly deserve each other, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness.

But then when you get into your mid-20’s, and you have full-time jobs, and you still have a long-distance relationship… well, that’s when I start to laugh.

Naturally, when you meet someone in college, and you graduate, and return to your respective hometowns, then that is when your relationship becomes long distance, at least temporarily. But that’s when you figure out how to make it work.

If, a few years later, you still live there, and she still lives somewhere else, and you have full-time jobs, then, what the hell are you doing?

If you truly say you love this person, then why in God’s name are you not with each other? If I truly cared about somebody, then all I know is that I would not allow us to live away from each other. What the hell is stopping you? A job? If a job matters more than the person you love, then your relationship never had a chance.

I mean, seriously, have you not seen that movie… what’s it called, I can’t remember. Oh yeah, it’s called… any romantic comedy ever made? A guy and a girl realize they have serious feelings for each other, however, they live two very different lifestyles, and it makes them hesitant, because they know that if they follow those paths then they will be apart.

So they pretend their feelings aren’t real, and they make plans to separate and part ways, and then at the very last second, one of them (usually the guy) realizes that he can’t live without the girl. So he drives as fast as he can to meet up with the girl before she leaves, and he tells her what he just realized: that he can not be happy in life unless he is with her, and that is all that matters. And then they kiss. And then the camera fades away and the credits roll.

But, if you, just go about your life, keep working and living 1,000 miles away from the girl “you love,” and are completely content seeing each other possibly once a month, well, then, congratulations, I guess? That sounds like a pretty shitty life to me.

But hey, you can always write on each other’s Facebook wall! Nothing screams romantic like that!