Heroes: Doug Hutchison

   Doug Hutchison, you sir are a true patriot. Keep fighting for what is right. Perhaps some of you less-informed folk are asking yourself "who the hell is Doug Hutchison?" Glad you asked. Doug Hutchison is a 51 year-old actor who appeared in The Green Mile as the sadistic prison guard Percy, one of the most memorable villains in recent memory. He also appeared in some show called "Lost".
    How does one man's acting in a few roles make him a true hero? It doesn't. Last month, Doug Hutchison married his one true love. Love is something we here at Why I'm Better Than You support and truly believe in. Some of you "social conservatives" and naysayers may have a problem with Doug Hutchison's choice of love. Is it a man? No, that would be illegal in most states. It happens to be 16 year-old Courtney Alexis Stodden, an amateur model, singer and Youtube video-er. Marrying a 16 yer old girl, unlike marrying a member of the same sex even if of majority age, is legal in almost all states with parental consent. Here's a glimpse of her vast talents:

  While some of you who have no musical taste at all may criticize her video for being "the worst thing to happen to America since 9/11" and "sounding like a nightmarish Girl Talk-esque mashup of 'Friday' meets 'Believe' by Cher (that awful song that helped to unleash the monstrosity of auto-tune upon the masses), you are incorrect. This 16 year old girl, actually woman, since she is married, has quite possibly recorded the greatest song to hit the airwaves since "We Built This City".

   Why would an A-lister with over two feature films under his belt marry a girl who is slightly younger? Talent recognizes talent. Mr. Hutchison was great in The Green Mile and he might even be in another movie someday. Mrs. Hutchison is one of the greatest singers to come out of Ocean Shores, WA, in over ten years. They may be the best power-couple since Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt. Some people may call Mr. Hutchison a creepy old man. Some would go as far as to call his new bride a teenage bimbo. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Hutchison is one of the greatest actors to hit the silver screen since Sir Laurence Olivier, and his wife is hands down the greatest female the world has seen since Cleopatra. May God bless these true soulmates with many, many years (lord knows Courtney has plenty left) of happily wedded bliss.

Advice for Recent Law School Graduates

   For many of you in your mid-twenties, it's graduation time from whatever law school that you were dumb enough to agree to attend. This means that it's almost time to hit the workforce.  Although some naysayers will say that it's tough for law school graduates to get a job, I say that's poppycock. Almost everyone with a JD will find a fulfilling job. That being said, the JD may not fully train you for what you need to know in your career. Although you've spent lots of hours reading cases and writing memos and whatnot, you may not actually know how to get into practice. Here's some advice that the crappy judge you had a summer clerkship with never taught you but will still help you really put your Juris Doctor degree to good use:


Lattes Have Steamed Milk, Cappuccinos Have Foamed Milk and Steamed Milk.
  This is easy enough to remember, but I can't even begin to count how many times recent law school grads have screwed up my order. It's not that they don't know the difference between a latte and a cappuccino, it's that they overdo it. I've gotten far too many cappuccino's that weigh about a half an ounce because 99 percent of the weight is frothed milk, which is basically air. If you remember to add steamed milk as well as frothed milk, you'll really be making the most out of your law school education.

Never Undercook French Fries. 
  If you're working at a fast food restaurant that serves thicker-than-average fries (think steak fries or wedge fries), make sure they get thoroughly cooked. There is nothing more disappointing than biting into a beautiful steak fry and tasting lukewarm gooey potato in the middle. When you're a fry cook, remember: more time in the fryer is more tastiness for the customer.

Make Sure to Stock Milk Correctly. 
   When you're stocking the aisles at your local grocery store, make sure to rotate the product. If you don't put the newest milk in the back, therefore out of reach to the customer, your customers will be getting milk that doesn't expire for about a month, but your manager is going to be quite angry when you have to explain to him why half of the milk he ordered expired.

Don't Load Up on Parking Tickets
   As recent JD's, we all know that you're only doing your job when you give out parking tickets to people with expired meters and whatnot. But please, don't give me six tickets in an hour just because my meter expired. I'm just going to appeal them and get them dropped anyway.

Don't Knock Over My Trash Cans After You Empty Them
  We all know that most males with a JD end up working for the city as garbage men. That's fine, but it's just disrespectful to just throw my trash containers, tipped over, in the middle of my front yard. It's not that it's hard for me to retrieve them, it's just sort of a giant "fuck you" for those who you serve and weren't lucky enough to get a JD like you did.

In conclusion, there are many things a JD prepares you for. It teaches you how to read a case and how to "think like a lawyer". But the actual training for your future job is certainly lacking. Hopefully soon law schools nationwide will have courses to help students get ready for the workforce, teaching them things like how to cook waffles, how to use a jackhammer, and how to mow lawns. Until then, this blog may be one of the only sources for tips on how to earn the most with your JD.

Hipsters

   Next to zombies, hipsters are one of the greatest threats America faces. For those of you not familiar with what a hipster is, you may want to stop reading right now because there's no turning back from here. I envy your ignorance. Hipsters were kids that sucked at sports in high school and decided to start a band and write poetry so they could possibly stand a chance of losing their virginity before the age of 50. These people normally wouldn't stand a chance of doing so, but something happened a long time ago. These idiots all banded together and reached a critical mass, thereby creating their own social group in which the normal laws of what's acceptable and unacceptable do not apply.
  Hipsters are all about irony. Not Shakespearean dramatic irony, not Alanis Morrisette irony-that-isn't-actually-irony-at-all, but more like opposite day. For a hipster, every day is opposite day. Therein lies the problem. Hipsters were made fun of so much growing up that they had to evolve in order to survive. The way they evolved is to excrete some sort of Teflon-esque coating so you can't ever actually ever make fun of them successfully. If you tell a hipster "hey your shirt really sucks" they'll shrug you off for being "stupid" because they're wearing it "ironically". The skinny ones (which make up 99% of their population) aren't skinny, they're just being "ironically anorexic". The fat ones are merely making social commentary on America's consumer culture.
   With all this "irony" business, it may seem kind of hard to spot a hipster. It's not. Here are the top five tell-tale signs that the person across from you at the bar is not actually a Barry Manillow fan and is just wearing the '78 tour shirt ironically.

5. Obscure T-shirts.      
    Hipsters love to wear obscure t-shirts. If you see an anorexic looking feminine looking male with a Mr. Bubble t-shirt on, you aren't looking at a bathing aficionado, you've got yourself a douchebag hipster.

4.  Women's Jeans. 
    I have no idea how this started, or better yet how it gained any sort of traction. As Charlie Murphy said about Prince, "you know where you got that shirt from, and you're damn sure it wasn't the men's department". This goes the same with jeans. My only guess is that, years ago, some hipster's mom bought him women's jeans by accident and, to escape getting a swirlie by the football team, he said that he did it on purpose to be ironic. I'm quite sure he got the swirlie anyway.

3. PBR
   Hipsters' taste in irony extends beyond their god-awful wardrobe. They consume the beer that they think is the shittiest, which sadly is Pabst Blue Ribbon. Pabst Blue Ribbon has been a staple in my diet ever since it was a dollar at happy hour at a beloved college bar in my glory days. Hipsters have attempted to take PBR from the domain of the fraternity house at 4 a.m. and into their late-night poetry readings or indie alt-rock concerns. As the great Charlton Heston said, "from my cold dead hands".

2. Ridiculous Mustaches
    Hipsters are so amazed at their new-found ability to grow something other than peach fuzz at the age of 21 that they have to show it off to the world in bizarre ways. The way they choose to do this is by growing the most gaudy, ridiculous, supposedly-ironic mustache that they can think of. Hipsters will try to sport mustaches ranging from the Fu Manchu all the way to the realms of 1800's chic, including Chester Arthur and William Howard Taft. Some call it a mustache, I call it a "don't hire me" sign. It's fine anyway, hipsters don't want to work and support our "consumerist culture". Unless it's by buying Apple products and hanging out at coffee shops.

1. Plaid
    By far the most annoying trait of a hipster is their affinity for plaid. Perhaps it's some defense mechanism to shine a good light upon the type of clothes their father was wearing when he would come home drunk and beat them mercilessly for not trying out for the baseball team. Perhaps it's just because it's what Urban Outfitters is pushing on them. I'm not sure of the exact reason. All I know is that they wear plaid, and they are a threat to America.

  By far the single most annoying thing about hipsters is that they reject the label (back to the "irony" thing) and hate other hipsters. Therefore, they are once again more difficult to make fun of, because they will try to deflect any criticism you throw at them. They'll just agree with you and insist that they hate hipsters as much as you do. But at the end of the day, their the ones who will still ride a longboard to class and spend countless hours grooming their girl-repelling 19th century mustache.

  My plan to combat the hipster problem does not involve various types of firearms, as it does with the zombie problem. I will be throwing a hipster-themed birthday party this year. For one night in August, we will all dress like moronic scum that threatens many towns in the United States. But we'll be doing it "ironically", because we aren't actual hipsters. Or are we? Maybe dressing "ironically" for even one evening, even if it's ironically making fun or irony, will start a metamorphosis from which I will wake up one day in a Sesame Street t-shirt and a warm PBR still in my hand. Let's hope not.

You Got Into Law School?! Congratulations, Dumbass!

  "OMG I got into law school!" has been uttered by all too many vulnerable idiots every spring when acceptance letters begin arriving in the mail. Congratulations on really "making it". What's next, an exclusive membership at the county library? Oh right, probably not, because if you actually read books you'd probably be smart enough to get into business school or med school.
   Law school has become a shadow of its former self. It used to be where future lawyers learned the skills necessary for their careers. Now it has become a haven of those too lazy or scared to try to get a job after completing their undergrad degree. "But I'm different, I've always wanted to be a lawyer" will be your response. Listen, I did too. I also wanted to be an astronaut, and you don't see me in Cape Canaveral testing my space suit. Although if there were a for-profit NASA training school in Cape Canaveral that let any dumbass in after college, I can almost assure you it'd be one of the largest schools in the country.
   Let me ask you a question, future annoying student who will no doubt whine about studying and brag about their grades via incessant facebook status updates. Why in the living hell do you want to join a profession which you know is not hiring anyone? Seriously. Let me guess your answer: you're going to work hard as hell and make a 4.0 and have the big firms just dying to hire you. Great! Too bad all of your classmates are aiming to do the same thing, and you are graded competitively on a curve. If you want to have any sort of life at all, you may as well shoot your goal down to about a 3.25. And that's if you are the smartest of the fun kids, which if you are friends with me and reading this post, there is no doubt in my mind that you are not. For those of you that don't want to go out and want to spend countless sexless evenings studying the finer points of contract law and business associations, good for you. Maybe you'll get that 4.0. The downside is that you probably suck so much at life and social skills that nobody in their right mind would hire a cocky dipshit such as yourself.
   Let me tell you about law schools. Many law schools are for-profit institutions. That's exactly how it sounds. You are not their student, you are their customer. You are literally paying the shareholders. The law schools know that since there are so many complete dick-weasels out there such as yourself that will avoid going out into the real world at any cost that they can charge however much they like for tuition. How so? Because the Feds will give your dumb ass as much money in student loans as you want, knowing full well that anyone who is stupid enough to go to law school is certainly not smart enough to hide from the feds or figure out a way to get rid of their debt once collecting time begins. Essentially, an "investment" in a law school "education" is a financial decision somewhere between Western Union-ing your life savings to the deposed prince of Nigeria who contacted you via email, and cashing in your 401k to invest in the Powerball.
   So, if you have parents that are naive, stupid, or rich enough to be willing to pay for you to dick around for another three years, law school may be for you. If you actually want to work for a living, get out if you still can. Get a real job, or go to a real graduate school. Anyone dumb enough to want to go to law school is clearly not smart enough to be a lawyer.

Heroes: Charles Barkley

HEROES

   CNN has some stupid series called "heroes" where they talk about every day idiots that do something stupid like save a busload of children or donate money to prevent the hospital's cancer ward from being bulldozed to become condominiums. We here at "Why I'm Better Than You" won't be discussing these fake heroes. Instead, we will be discussing the true heroes of western civilization. Our first hero is none other than Charles Barkley. 
    Charles Barkley has transcended the line from being a professional athlete into being someone who is famous for how much of a badass they are at day-to-day activities (see Willie Nelson, Snoop Dogg, hell even Justin Timberlake). I can say that Charles Barkley has even become somewhat of a "role model" (see his old commercial) for me. It's not what Charles Barkley has done that I admire, it's how he's recovered from numerous events that would be a public relations nightmare for most.
  I admire Charles Barkley for his unapologetic style and his overall outspoken-ness. First and foremost, when Charles Barkley was pulled overall for suspicion of DUI, he explained to the cop that he was only pulling around the corner to get a BJ from a woman in the car (not his wife) and it was "the best BJ [he's] ever had." He went on to politely tell the officer that if he could somehow get him out of the DUI, he swore to god he would get his name tattooed on his penis. For whatever bizarre reason, the officer still arrested him. It was important to note, however, that Barkley was extremely cooperative throughout the process with the officers and engaged in friendly banter with them throughout. Any guy who's awesome enough to truthfully explain the situation to the officer (kindly) and offer such a kind reward is A OK in my book. Certainly, I do not condone drinking and driving. The officers were certainly right to arrest Mr. Barkley (although the prospect of having my name on his penis in perpetuity would probably be enough for me to let him off with a warning), but it's only human to try to get out of the situation. Rather than screaming at the cop or threatening violence like Mel Gibson or Alan Iverson, he went the classy route and gave the cop an offer he almost couldn't refuse.
 Mr. Barkley also once tried to spit on a fan for heckling him but "didn't get enough foam" and spit on a small girl. Unlike most current NBA players, who would have not apologized and possibly raped the girl, Mr. Barkley sincerely apologized and became friends with her family and provided lifetime tickets to games. That's class. Not everyone is lucky enough to be a recipient of his "classy side", though, as he once through someone through a window (just like in the movies) for throwing ice at him. And he probably deserved it.


Here are a few zingers from the mind of Mr. Barkley:
     "Only poor people go to jail."
     "Anytime a fan touches you, you have the right to beat the hell out of him."
     "Do I have a gambling problem? I do have a gambling problem, but it's not really a problem because I can afford to gamble."
    Responding to someone who said that Auburn is a tough school that requires a lot of academic effort to attend, "20 pts and 10 rebounds will get you through also!"
    "When I was recruited at Auburn [university], they took me to a strip joint. When I saw those titties on Buffy, I knew that Auburn met my academic requirements."

Common Habits of the Poor, Chapter One: Cell Phone Self Portraits

   Welcome to Common Habits of the Poor, in which we will discuss why the lower-class and undereducated folk do the silly things that they do. This will be a regularly updated series with a variety of topics, because lord knows they give us plenty of material.
  For today's topic, we will be discussing why, dear god why, poor people insist upon taking photos of themselves in the mirror with their cell phones. If you don't know exactly what I'm talking about, how I envy you.

    So why is it that the poor have such an affinity for cell phone self portraits? Like nearly anything, the reasons are plentiful and no single reason stands out. Here is a list of several of the main reasons that you can count on your news feed being polluted by your old friends from high school (until they dropped out) who now work at the DMV and moonlight as a self-employed cell phone mirror model:

1.  They need attention on a whim. If a normal human being like myself, and maybe even you (but probably not) were to get a new outfit or a funny hat, they'd wear it out that evening and make sure to be included in a classy group photograph with the outfit. Therein lies a conflict with the average poor person. They do not have the patience to sit by and wait and hope someone notices their outfit. Instead, they have to do the internet equivalent of smacking you in the face with it by posting it online with their cell phone in hand in front of a mirror and wait for their friends to comment on the photo on how great they look (in between commenting on other people's statutes about "drama" and other activities for the poor).

2. They lack friends to hang out with. This is not to say poor people do not have friends. Some of them do. Many of them, actually almost all of them, have been friends since they were small children and were all together on the "greatest night of their lives" (the senior prom, when poor people peak in life). The problem is that most of their friends are working long hours, have no money from not working at all, or taking care of their multiple children to do "fancy things" like have their usual redbull and malibu at the local dive bar that was cool 10 years ago. So, when they want a snapshot and feel the need to express themselves, they have no photographer at home other than the trusty Motorola. 

3. All Their Friends Do It.    This likely needs no explanation. People that dropped out of school in the tenth grade are rarely "facebook friends" with aerospace engineers and cardiologists. Furthermore, the poor are always on social media (because they lack a job) so they get bored (again with not having the job) and change their profile pictures as often as humanly possible. So, when they are in the habit of changing the profile pic every time a commercial break interrupts Maury and all they see is a sea of other profile pictures filled with mirrors, cameras, and the occasional topless male, it's not hard to predict that their picture will be following that pattern. 

 
4.  It Turns All the "Ladiez" On!!!          Clearly. Poor people are born to breed. It takes little for them to unbutton their South Pole jeans and hop in the sack with any random asshole that pays them enough attention. They don't even bother to ask you to pull out and aim your load onto their lower-back tattoo of some poorly-translated Japanese word. Whatever you want is fine. So maybe it does turn all the "ladiez" on if you pose shirtless in front of a mirror like the huge asshole that you actually are. Maybe you're right. But when your child support for your eight children is due, realize that you may not be able to afford your cell phone bill and may not be able to post your awesome shirtless pictures for a while. 

 

What Your Watch Brand Says About You

     There are several very important items that most men need to have. None of these serve any real functional day to day purpose. In fact, the less of a function it serves, the more important it is to have. For example, my car may need new tires, but I also have a pressing need for a Romanian AK-47 to keep under my bed. Guess which one I'll be buying? Let's just hope it doesn't snow in Charleston anytime soon.
   With the meteoric rise of the cell phone, there is perhaps nothing that is less useful yet more vital to have than a wrist watch. Don't question my logic on that one.  Just go with it. The right wrist watch projects an image of timeless classiness, the sort of image that says "I have a cellar full of vintage wine, but I also have herpes." There is nothing more badass than a statement like that. However, the wrong watch can say something along the lines of "I auditioned for Jersey Shore, but was too big of a douchebag to make the final cut."
   The brand of wristwatch is the first thing that most people will notice. The brand of watch says a lot about you... not only how much you paid for it, but how much you want other people to think you paid for it. Here's a list of a few basic brands of wrist watch and what wearing them says about the person fortunate or unfortunate enough to wear them:

Rolex: Please notice me. I saved up all my commission checks for two years from the used car lot and bought this Rolex along with a 2004 Porsche Boxster.

Tag Heuer: I am absolutely clueless, but I wanted to appear as if I had a nice watch. Will you buy me a case of Sudafed?

Omega: I know a little bit about watches, but couldn't afford a Rolex. If I pay your girlfriend 300 dollars, do you think she'll give me an HJ in the women's bathroom?

Patek Philippe: I'm a raging, raging, badass and if you don't realize it, I don't care. Also, your wife and I are sleeping together, and "your" son that you are raising is mine. 

Seiko: Please, stop putting flaming bags of dog shit on my front porch. Please.

Nixon: I can't wait to get my driver's license next year.

Fossil: Which bar are we going to to watch the UFC fight tonight? Did you see my new tat?


  In conclusion, a wrong choice in a wrist watch can be fatal to your life, your family, and your career. Don't mess up your life by making a poor purchase.