"I've been called a greasy thug, too. It never stops hurting. So here's what we're gonna do: We're gonna grease ourselves up real good..."

Warning #1: Heavily opinionated blog post ahead. This is my blog and I am allowed to express my opinion here. I am in no way forcing you to read it or agree with it.

Warning #2: Unlike my last two posts, this one has nothing to do with sweet treats! Sorry about that!

The other day I mentioned people who whine about political correctness.

I mean those people who bitch & moan like "Oh, now I have to watch what I say or the PC police will be after me."

In my opinion, the whole point of "political correctness" is to prevent people's feelings being hurt - inadvertently or otherwise. For example, perhaps you didn't know that a certain word or phrase was upsetting to someone from another culture. Political correctness seeks to provide people with terms they can use that are not upsetting.

I say "seeks to" because we all know there was a point where some of it became a bit crazy, like calling a short person "vertically challenged" (I'm short, and I have absolutely no problem with anyone calling me short. I don't find it offensive or belittling, and I'd be surprised to find anyone did). However, most of the really outlandish stuff was just people playing with the concept and poking a bit of fun at it.

But the reality is that there are a lot of words for a lot of things, and many words and phrases have history and layers of meaning that give them the power to hurt people even when spoken without the intent to hurt.

So to someone who complains about having to watch what they say because of political correctness, I would say - So you would rather hurt and upset people? Really? You hold your ability to tell your dumb bigoted jokes or whatever above the feelings of other people? Honestly, is what is being taken away from you so much more valuable than what it gives to others?

I mean I just don't get it. If I had been using some word or phrase that was upsetting to a whole bunch of people, I would rather know and have an alternative given me so I could stop upsetting them. Like saying "Native American" rather than "American Indian" because duh, they have nothing to do with India and that name comes from the fact that Columbus was a dumbass.

Everyone knows what it's like to be offended and upset and have their feelings hurt. So why are there people that are so desperate to hold onto their ability to blithely do it to others?

Mmmm, shoes.

I wrote and deleted was going to write a long, whiny, self-indulgent post, sulking & pouting because hardly anyone is commenting on any of my posts these days...

...but then I got some new shoes and I thought y'all might enjoy that more, so here is a photo!
Awesome, right? I feel about seven feet tall in them.

Can We Talk About: Homesickness.

I don't actually get homesick that much but when I do it's like being stabbed in the guts. It's sharp and painful.

Things I miss (starting, appropriately enough, with soda and candy):

Schweppes Lemonade. Lemonade in Australia is not what Americans refer to as lemonade. It's basically Sprite or any similar beverage, like Seven-Up (Schweppes is just my favorite brand of this type of soda; it's not as syrupy-sweet as Sprite).
It irritates me that there is no generic name for this soda flavor here in the US.
What you call lemonade in the US doesn't really exist in Australia. I guess Aussies would call it homemade lemonade.
On a related note, what you call soda, we call soft drink.

Milko lollies. Lollies are what you guys call candy. Milkos are delicious chewy lollies that taste sort of like vanilla milkshake. There are also tongue-staining red raspberry-flavored ones called Redskins. They used to have a charming picture of a Native American gentleman on the wrapper but I'm pretty sure he's gone now, even though they haven't renamed them*.

Toffee Apple bars. We call candy apples toffee apples. Toffee Apple bars are a red & green striped bar of chewy candy . The red part sort of tastes like the candy coating of a candy apple, and the green part sort of tastes like apple flavor, but the whole thing tastes excitingly of insulin shock.

Also, they don't even have caramel apples in Australia, to the country's devastating detriment. Thick gooey sweet caramel surrounding a crispy, tart green apple is one of life's great pleasures.

*Shut up, they're not our native people. And you named a football team after them. Shame on you.

Can We Talk About: Geico ads

Geico had a perfectly serviceable ad campaign with that adorable Cockney lizard, and then they go & raise my hackles with this annoying, pseudo-surrealist nonsense with a sentient, googly-eyed money stack that appears to be stalking people. And it's not just one misguided ad either. They appear to have produced a whole series of this dreck.

Stick with the gecko, guys. We don't want a repeat of the caveman fiasco.