A Brief History of Bad Ideas

Many of you have noticed that over the course of the twelve posts since I began this electronic undertaking, that my favorite subject (target) has been former Utah State Senator Chris Buttars. I loved riffing on his LDS Church inspired politics and the fecal blizzard (credit Dennis Miller for that beauty) that erupted from his mouth every time he opened it. Unfortunately, when Buttars abruptly retired at the end of this year's legislative session, he took his comedic relevance (and most of my material) with him. But fortunately for me, the God that denies luxuries such as clean water, food, and basic medical needs to impoverished children around the globe, has bestowed upon me a confederacy of dunces so ripe for cyberbullying that you may find Swift and Toole high-fiving in whatever place your religion tells you dead people go. The current champion and leader of this confederacy is Donald Trump, who, based upon his recent string of bad decisions, clearly earns his new title. A few quick examples from the Trump Bad Decision Hall of Fame: Trump continues to push the birther movement (just like you push a bowel movement); Trump accepts an invitation to the White House Correspondents' Dinner; and, awkwardly (or triumphantly if you're Seth Meyers), Trump actually attends the White House Correspondents' Dinner. After that debacle, the only bad decisions Trump has left to make are running for President and trying out for a spot on American Ninja Warrior. Karate chop!

Too smart for American politics.

Much like Chris Buttars, Donald Trump is far too easy of a target mainly because of the large number of bad ideas that he not only thinks of, but carries out. With that in mind, there are plenty of other people with plenty of bad ideas floating around in the world worthy of mention. One of my favorites is a woman named Orly Taitz. Taitz is (in)famous for two things: being the "mother" of the birther movement, and being the only person in the world that believes Stephen Colbert is actually a Republican. Taitz emigrated from the former Soviet Union in 1987 and has since found great success as a capitalist. She has degrees in dentistry and its natural counterpart: law. She is also crazy as a loon. A quick check of her website shows a post on May 3, 2011 that reads: "Fox Reported that Bin Laden Died in December of 2001. Why is the Show Now?" By "Show" I believe Taitz is referring to the 1995 documentary about the culture of hip-hop starring Snoop Dog and Dr. Dre (he's no dentist!) or Major League Baseball. Either way, using Fox News as a credible source is as crazy as a PhD candidate citing Wikipedia in a dissertation. Earlier this month, Taitz and her ilk (Trump) were dealt a crushing blow by President Obama when he publicly released his long form birth certificate effectively changing the name of the birther movement to the "afterbirthers."

Idiots and egomaniacs aside, other people have bad ideas too. Take Andrei Kirilenko as an example. As everyone in the world knows (snicker) good ol' number 47 plays professional basketball for the Utah Jazz and just got a tattoo the size of Wyoming on his back. I was initially impressed when I first heard about Kirilenko's new tat, but became frightened when I actually saw it. My first thought was to call Will Graham and warn him that the Red Dragon was still alive, but then Kirilenko explained that it wasn't a representation of his "becoming" through the ritualistic murder of middle-class families, but merely his level 80 paladin from World of Warcraft. Whoops. And when I say "whoops" I mean that Kirilenko should have worried more about scoring buckets and grabbing boards than building power points in Templar's Verdict or Word of Glory. But we can't judge Kirilenko too harshly; what can we expect from someone that embraces a cheap and easy-to-get machine gun as a nickname? Leeroy Jenkins!

Andrei Kirilenko shows of his new tattoo to Carlos Boozer,
Ronnie Brewer, and the guy that looks like Ashton Kutcher, and
asks if they're jealous. They can't answer because they're still playing
basketball.

Perhaps the single best tools we have to explore bad ideas (even better than athletes and politicians) are video cameras, computers, and the web. Thanks to their simplicity and easy access, people have been building websites based upon video clips that chronicle bad ideas throughout the world. Normally these sites break down various bad ideas into categories such as "epic" and "fail" or a combination of the two usually noted as "epic fail." For example, a skier can make an epic jump over a mountain road with busy traffic or your roommate can fail to make it to the refrigerator because you smeared butter on the kitchen floor. A good example of an epic fail may be one in which the skier gets struck by lightning mid-jump and then falls crotch first on to a fence while his buddies laugh hysterically.

The truly wonderful thing about viewing bad idea web videos is that the simple yet descriptive titles prevent you from searching endlessly through the interweb for what you want. You say you have a sadistic need to watch skate punks get hurt? Look no further than "Skateboard Roof Jump Fail," or "Epic Rail Grind Nuts Fail." Perhaps you despise Parkour more than you despise skateboarding? You should certainly watch "Parkour Rocket Ship Jump Fail," or "Epic Parkour Empire State Building Fail." Don't like cats? Why not try "Cat Versus Rhinoceros Fail," or "Cat Pole Vault Epic Fail?" You see? There's almost every imaginable category of bad ideas at the tips of your chocolate-stained fingers. And if computerizing is too difficult, let Daniel Tosh and the tee-vee do all of the thinking.



Skateboarding and bizarre film titles can hurt your genitals.
Wear a cup.

Occasionally, the traditional fail and epic fail labels are replaced with the word "owned" or even something called "pwned." This new usage of owned throws off my contemporary definition which used to describe past-possessive ownership, but now means to have destroyed or dominated an opponent or a situation. The pwned variant means the same as owned, but people argue about its origin just like people still argue about what happened on the grassy knoll that fateful November day. The Urban Dictionary website offers many different insights into its origin, but since the entries are submitted by people that still wear calculator wrist watches, the subsequent definitions are as useless as electronic toilet paper. I suggest a typo -- O is next to P on the Qwerty after all -- and must leave it at that because I can feel myself getting dumber.

There are different versions of pwned, such as pwn (present-tense: I pwn you!) and pwnd (because typing the E is so f****** hard) and my favorite: pwn3d, which means that you got your ass kicked in three dimensions. The object of owned, pwned, pwn, pwnd, and pwn3d is usually a newcomer to a game or someone that has failed at something so miserably people begin to question their reality. If that criteria applies to you, then the Internet will refer to you as one or more of the following: noob (rhymes with tube), n00b (those are zeros to make you feel extra-bad after getting slaughtered), newb (because typing the entire word is difficult while masturbating), newbie (this person has at least a High School education), nooblet (I believe they like to be called "little people"), and of course, the ultimate rookie slam: n00bz (because nothing says f*** you like swapping out vowels for numbers and ending the whole thing with a Z).

What has all of this taught us? Well, don't let your friends record you doing anything stupid or accidentally doing anything stupid -- especially in this electronic age -- because it will become a permanent fixture in the electronic universe. Even if Kirilenko gets that tat removed, his back will never exactly be the same and the Jazz still won't have a championship. Even if the government decides to turn the SETI funding back on, it could still be too late to warn of an alien attack. Even if your most trusted friend tells you that dog wigs are a good idea, you'll always be the dog wig maker (good band)! Even if you think you'll start blogging because someone told you that ... Damn ...

Ouch.