I'M NOT RACIST, BUT...

Welcome to day three of the rest of your lives. I'll keep the opening brief becuase today's post is quite long, for those of you reading this in class or at work, you're welcome, to the rest of you, well, you're welcome too.
Top 5 (would be 10 but that’d just make me seem hard to please) things that bother me today.
#1 – Rappers Who Spell Everything Phonetically – Ludacris? Xzhibit? Seriously, at what point did creative spelling become mandatory? Is there some deep seated psychological insecurity present in rappers that causes them to spell their names, albums and song titles phonetically, are they afraid that they might not be able to consistently spell ludicrous correctly? Or did they simply learn how to spell by watching MTV and remain unaware of the fact that the letter “S” is not automatically dropped at the end of a word and replaced with a “Z”.
Rant within a rant – Parents who spell their children’s ACTUAL names as weirdly as possible - Antawan, Antoine, Antwan, Antowain – pick a spelling people, exactly what happens here? The nurse comes, asks you to spell the name for the birth certificate and you decide, this is the time to distinguish your child, this is how you are going to make him special, by adding random vowels to his name. Good job mom.
#2 – Having My Customer Service Calls Transferred to India – This one goes out to Vic. I know I don’t have a degree in communications, but, last I checked when you make an 800 phone call to the customer service division of a company located in San Antonio Texas, you get connected to someone in the U.S. So the question I raise is this, How in the hell does my call end up in INDIA. Yes, I’ve figured it out “Donna” the jig (if you even know what that word means) is up. You see Andeep, Deepak and Riya, what you don’t know is that most people in San Antonio don’t speak with a colonial English accent, nor do they need to have the concept of the U.S. postal service explained to them. So let’s drop the pretense ok? How about from now, when I call, you just tell me the truth and say, “India, where your problems come to be ignored.”
#3 – Needing to Pee in the Morning – Have you ever been on vacation, known you have nothing to do, known you can sleep as long as you want, then you wake up, you look at the clock, realize you still have 2 or 3 more hours to go and try to go back to bed. You close your eyes, try to remember what you were dreaming about, try to fall back asleep and then it happens, that not so gentle pressure on your bladder. You try to ignore it, try to pretend it isn’t there, telling yourself you can hold it, pee when you get up. 5 minutes pass you’re still not asleep, the dream is long gone, you’re no longer relaxed, you’re fighting now, forcing yourself to sleep, but it won’t work, the urge gets stronger. Finally, you can’t take it anymore, you throw off the quilt, put your feet on the cold floor and acknowledge defeat. Pee, YOU BOTHER ME!
#4 – People who Don’t Return Phone Calls – You people know who you are, and so do we. You ruin plans for the night out, waste everyone’s time while you “decide” what you’re doing, and then you magically forget that it was your responsibility to call back. You’re too special to be bothered to make a phone call on your own, it's as if your fingers are too delicate to push down the buttons on a handset, it’s a wonder how you people even use a remote control.
#5 – Made-up Names – Apple, Sistine (that’s Stallone’s daughter by the way), LaToya (The Toya?), LeBron (The Bron?). What in G-d’s name are you people thinking? Do you really think this is what your child wants? To go to school for the first time and have to explain to the teacher and the class that it isn’t a joke or a nickname, no, this is my real name. Yes, when I was born my parents thought that I reminded them of a chapel, IN ROME, or of, well, FRUIT. It’s even better for the ones with names that aren’t even words. This parent is saying that their child is so special, so unique, so singularly wonderful, that the English language, or well, any other for that matter, can’t adequately encompass their extraordinary individuality. Because we all know how no two babies are alike, it’s not like anyone’s ever been given the wrong one by accident or anything…

Who I Like Today and I Don’t Mean Kiera Knightley
- Bill Simmons – ESPN.com Page 2 writer – I’m sorry, but genius such as this must be respected and shown to all. Mr. Simmons has suggested that we create new, more specific, categories for nudity on television, they are:
SN -- Standard Nudity (Note: In other words, nothing special.)
SSC -- Strong Sexual Content (Note: I'd like to keep this one as is, just because it always puts a hop in everyone's step. When I lived with my old roommate Ricky, we would always stay up late watching bad movies on our illegal cable box, and when the "SSC" tag came up, we would both start cheering -- it was like winning in BINGO or something. I miss having a roommate sometimes.)
CESC -- Career-Ending Sexual Content (Note: This covers Chloe Sevigny in "Brown Bunny" and that's about it. It's almost impossible to kill your career with a sex scene.) [Editor’s Note: He forgot Elisabeth Berkley in “Showgirls”]
UDN -- Unexpected, Delightful Nudity
(Note: This covers any scene where the nudity comes out of nowhere with someone you would never expect -- like Katie Holmes in "The Gift," Reese Witherspoon in "Twilight" or even Kelly Preston in "Mischief.")
WDN -- Wildly Disappointing Nudity. (Note: For scenes like Teri Hatcher going topless in "Heaven's Prisoners.") [Editor’s Note: This one’s for you Jake "They're real, and they're not spectacular."]
EN -- Epic Nudity (Note: For those once-in-a-lifetime performances like Natasha Henstridge's in "Species," Apollonia in "Purple Rain" or Nicole Eggert in "Blown Away." I just feel like they deserve their own category. If you've earned the "EN" tag, that's almost like getting an Oscar.)
GSN -- Gratuitous, Sweeping Nudity (Note: I like this one because you know where you stand -- you're getting nudity and lots of it. That's important information at 2 a.m.)
RGN -- Really Gross Nudity (Note: This would cover old women getting embalmed, any nudity in those autopsy shows on HBO, Kathy Bates and Diane Keaton, those "Real Sex" shows where they show some nudist colony in Germany and there are like 100 hairy naked guys standing around, and so on. Give us a heads up. It's imperative. You could probably argue that Kathy Bates deserves her own tag here -- something like "KBN" -- but whatever.)
MN -- Male Nudity (Note: That's an important one -- I need a warning if I'm going to see someone's johnson, whether I'm getting dressed in a gym or watching TV at 1:30 in the morning. If Kevin Bacon decides, "I know this isn't in the script, but I think this scene in 'Wild Things' could use a boost with my dangling member," I want to be prepared. Again, give us a heads up. I don't ask for much.)
APR -- Awful Prison Rape (Note: Classic example -- the Ed Norton scene in "American History X." Come on. Just a mere "R" for "Rape" can't possibly cover how traumatic that scene was. You stick the "APR" before the movie, I'm probably avoiding the movie.) [Editors Note: Anonymous, this one's for you]

They Made Some Bad Mistakes –
“So each of the teams wore different colors, like one was red and one was green and one was orange” Anonymous – It’s not that I enjoy picking on you, OK, so that’s not 100% true, what can I say, I’m weak.