Press Any Button

It'll soon be time to get on a big plane and fuck off to Asia again. Next week I'm supposed to head out on a trip to Japan, Singapore and China for a couple of weeks, with an itinerary which is guaranteed to involve jetlag, interesting food, karaoke, massage and lots of meetings. I enjoy going to all these places - in Tokyo and Shanghai I usually stay in the same hotels so it's easy to settle back into the routine there. Both hotels have Japanese toilets in their rooms, in Tokyo because it's Japan and in Shanghai because the hotel is part of a Japanese chain and presumably their Japanese clientele expect to find the same rectal comforts they would expect at home.

For those who haven't experienced them, Japanese toilets are a real treat. The toilet itself looks pretty much like a normal one except for a control panel on one side with assorted buttons and knobs. They are all labeled carefully with their function but the labels are, of course, in Japanese, so pushing a button while seated is a bit like playing Russian roulette with your arse. (You can't stand up and try them out because there's a sensor under the seat to make sure you're sitting down, for reasons that will become apparent.)

The first thing you notice is that you can set the seat to be warm when you sit on it. This can be nice in the morning, sort of welcoming, although it takes some getting used to. It always reminds me of the old saying: "Making love to an experienced woman is like going to the toilet and finding the seat warm - it's nice but you can't help wondering who was there before you". Incidentally there isn't a button on the toilet to summon an experienced woman to your room, but it can certainly be arranged, at least in Shanghai.

Now that you're seated, business proceeds essentially as usual, without any assistance. However when you're done taking a shit you can press a button and have a jet of water shoot up and clean your arsehole before you wipe. There's a knob to set the temperature of the water (it can't be set too cold or too hot, at least not on the ones I've tried - no-one needs a freezing cold water-jet-in-the-anus wake-up call do they?) and another button to start and stop the jet. When you push the button there's a two second delay while a small mechanical sound comes from down below, making you wonder what you just unleashed. Then a sudden focused jet of water shoots up and hits you perfectly in the brown-eye.

How do they manage this? No matter how you sit it always seems to know exactly where to aim so as to "hit the bullseye". It's amazing. And it's definitely a jet, not a spray, so it gets your attention. (You can also set the water pressure so that it ranges from mild arse cleansing to extreme clag removal.) This is the reason for the sensor under the seat - if it weren't there you could press the button while standing and the water would almost hit the ceiling. It might make for an interesting novelty drinking fountain, I suppose.

One thing for a bloke to note - there's another button, usually colored pink (get the hint?) which deliveres a differently targeted water spray to clean your vagina. Since you don't have a vagina you just end up with a sudden shock and a pair of wet balls, which now need to be dried. There isn't a ball-dryer button on the panel, at least not that I've found.

So now you're done pressure washing your anus, you can wipe your arse in the more traditional manner. This is necessary for two reasons: firstly it just feels wrong if you don't, no matter how effective the spray, and secondly you still have a wet arse. But you can face the world in Tokyo knowing that you, and most of the people around you, have the cleanest ringpieces on the planet. If you can tell anything about a civilization by the quality of its toilets (and I firmly believe there is no better way) then the Japanese are advanced indeed. Just watch out if things seem to be getting extra hot down there - it's not unknown for these toilets to catch fire. In that case just press any button to extinguish your pubes and remember to drop and roll on the bathroom with the minimum of screaming. This is a nice hotel and no-one wants to see a man with burned balls stampeding down the corridor, do they?


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Ready When You Are

There's this commercial on TV at the moment for one of the erectile dysfunction medicines (Cialis, I think) where this bloke is about to get it on with his woman when he leans on the tap in the kitchen and water sprays in the air. The message of the commercial seems to be that, with this drug, if something unforseen comes up you can hold off until it's convenient and still get the use of your boner.

It's a charming image and all that, but it's not very realistic, is it? Just imagine you're all up for it; Junior is standing to attention and you're ready to ride the tuna express all the way to mayo-town, but you lean on the tap and it breaks off. First thing that happens is not that you jump into your lover's arms and laugh at the situation. Are you kidding? My reaction would be "For fuck's sake! I was all ready for a shag and now I have a thousand gallons of water in my kitchen. Where's the fucking cut-off?"

The commercial seems to suggest that you can quickly fix the problem and still have sex, which assumes a level of plumbing ability absent in the average homeowner. Let's assume that you're up for the challenge though - what are the chances that you will happen to have the right parts and tools lying around the house. Last time I replaced a tap I had to buy a propane torch, flux, solder and a heatproof barrier so I didn't set fire to the house. And a new fucking tap. So now you're jumping in the car for a quick trip to Home Depot. With a massive erection. Always assuming you can turn the steering wheel without getting it caught on your helmet, how would you want to be strolling down the aisles looking for plumbing accessories with a hard-on? You just know that some spotty teenager is going to come up to you and ask if you're finding everything OK, as you hobble awkwardly towards the hardware section.

The alternative isn't much better is it? You could call a plumber, but is Cialis really good enough to sustain an erection through the two weeks that it will probably take for them to show up? And if it does, how would you like to be staring at the four inches of buttock cleft that is exposed as he leans over your sink, with an erection? Please God, no.

It isn't really likely to be a broken tap that disrupts your well-planned burying of the "new-and-improved" pork sword though. How often does that happen? No, it will be a phone call that your wife just can't resist answering "in case it's important - you never know." Now you're sitting with a fleshy obelisk while she hears all the latest about her friend's mother's hysterectomy. Or maybe you get a knock at the front door and suddenly you're engaged in a transaction to purchase eight boxes of Girl Scout cookies while desperately trying not to point to the ones you want without using your hands. You might be all "hardened up" when your in-laws drop in for that unexpected visit and now you're looking through their holiday snaps from last year, finding yourself unaccountably aroused by pictures of the shoreline at Bognor.

No, stiffy-pill manufacturers clearly have a hard time confronting the kind of problems that face people in the real world. How about a commercial showing us the guy who pops the pill at work, expecting to head sraight home to surprise his wife, but who ends up getting in an accident on the highway. He steps from his car at the request of the police and as he stands up he, well, stands up. The music plays as the shot fades to an image of the bloke smoking a cigarette in bed, then panning over to the female police officer beside him, naked apart from her hat. A deep voice intones "Cialis - when the moment is right, you'll do anything that moves."


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

A Time And A Place

It occurred to me yesterday, when I made that comment about farting a tune, what a wonderful gift of humor flatulence is, provided that it can be harnessed and deployed in a targeted fashion. Nothing can beat a well-timed fart for its simple ability to render a certain type of person speechless with laughter. Imagine yourself in an exam room - the tension is immense as you and a hundred other people struggle to marshall facts and arguments, scribbling intently in your answer book. Your entire future may depend on the outcome. The room is silent, save for the occasional turn of a page; you look around and wonder why everyone else seems to be writing more than you. You look up at the clock as it moves inexorably on; the sunlight creeping in at the window illuminates tiny particles of dust swirling in the air. Time is suspended. Suddenly, a long rasping fart assaults the room from a place about three chairs to your right. It's one of those that starts low and then rises, for about three seconds, before tailing off on a high note.

The simple absurdity of it, coupled by the realization that everyone else heard it too, starts you laughing silently. You catch someone's eye and they're laughing too. You can't let out a sound but you can't stop laughing, so you shake uncontrollably as the tears roll down. Five minutes of precious writing time elapse as you regain control.

By the same token, there are plenty of occasions where a fart can lose its humor, especially if you happen to be the perpetrator. It takes real courage to drop one in these places, but if you hit the barbecue beans a bit hard last night and are feeling adventurous, here is a list of places to try letting one go. I doubt whether anyone around you will laugh, but the gods of arse humor will most assuredly smile on you.

• In a shared hot tub, before the jets come on.
  
• During a prostate exam (or, if you are female, during one of those girly exams where the gynacologist is buried up to his wristwatch in your clunge, giving your cervix the once-over).
  
• When the vicar asks if anyone here present knows of any reason why these two people should not be joined together in holy matrimony.
  
• Anywhere at all after you have consumed a large prune smoothie.
  
• At a funeral, while bending over the casket to pay your respects.
  
• While getting your shoes shined.
  
• While getting your inside leg measured for a new suit.
  
• In an elevator full of people, right after the doors close.
  
• During copulation, so that the vibration can be felt by your partner through their genitals.
  
• When meeting your child's teacher to discuss their progress during the year.
  
• Driving to lunch with your new boss in his two-seater sports car.
  
• While acting as a nude model for a life-drawing class.
  
• Just as your new girlfriend/boyfriend goes down on you for the very first time.
  
• During a relaxing massage, while the masseuse is working on your upper thighs.
  
• During a relaxing massage, while you are enjoying the "happy ending".
  
• In a rugby scrum.
  
• While sharing a sleeping bag.
  
• In answer to the question "Do you still love me?"
  

Mrs.Bison has a cousin with a massive gift of flatulence who once farted loudly on his girlfriend's leg while they were in bed together. She burst into tears and had to get out of bed and wash it. I am sure he scored absolutely zero points that night for good behavior but the story, recounted to us later by her, was priceless.

Which all brings us to the age-old philosophical question: "If a man farted in the woods and there was nobody there to hear it, would it still be funny?" To which I believe the answer is no. If a person farts and there's no-one around to be appalled by it then the humor is wasted. On the other hand, just don't expect that your gynacologist/masseuse/tailor is going to see the funny side. Humor can be a lonely business...




Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

It Should Be Band

Spring can't be far away now. Want to know how I can tell? It's not the slowly lengthening days, the different angle of the sunshine, the advent of shrill birdsong or the sign of green shoots in the soil. Nor is it the sudden appearance of all the "yard work" oriented merchandise in the home improvement store's garden section; (I'm sure that it's there - I just can't be bothered to go and look at it). No, what gives it away is the first sound of a fucking marching band practicing their awful excuse for music at a local high school.

When Spring arrives there will be weekends when half the band-nerd population of Missouri descends on said high school to "compete" in band contests. They show up in huge fucking trucks, full of outsize musical instruments, ridiculous uniforms and lawn chairs, and march up and down the field in turn, making a noise that could not be beaten for sheer irritation value by the sound of a thousand cats being tortured to death with weedwackers. And there will be hundreds of proud parents in matching "band booster" sweatshirts, their oversized buttocks hanging over their lawn chairs as they root for that particular group of weirdos with which their braces-wearing offspring is associated.

I know that musical taste is an intensely personal thing. I happen to like mostly rock - metal, punk, heavy rock, especially stuff I grew up with - but I can also appreciate occasional jazz, classical, even a bit of Eminem. Country music is hard to handle - it all sounds the same, and it's hard to take anyone wearing a cowboy hat and chaps seriously - but at least you can recognise it as music. Band tunes, by contrast, are just shit. Don't get me wrong, I challenge anyone not to be moved by the majesty of the Grimethorpe Colliery Band playing "Abide With Me", the swelling brass notes lingering in the air, the long tradition of the mineworkers in their heritage. That's a real band. But the typical US marching band plays bouncy excuses for tunes that go like this:

Thump Thump Thump Thump, Ringty-tingty-ting, Parp Parp Parp, Ringty-tingty-tingty, Thump Thump Thump. Etc. Etc.

Let's be honest - there's really no tune, is there? It's a bunch of instruments that would sound crap on their own, thrown together and playing what seems like completely different music. How do you hold a contest for that? I bet you couldn't even tell that there was more than one band there if you couldn't see that they were all wearing different stupid uniforms.

I know, a lot of effort goes into learning the "music" and playing it while marching in a dead-straight line while waving the trombones in unison. It takes a lot of practice and no little skill. But here's my point: given time, and a plentiful supply of beans and chili, I could, I am sure, learn to fart the Star Spangled Banner. It wouldn't be easy, and it would definitely require immense effort (especially not following through on the high notes). But that doesn't mean that anyone should want to listen to it, and I certainly don't expect to sell tickets so people in lawn chairs can watch. On the plus side, if I marched up and down the field at the nearby high school farting tunes out of my arse, at least the noise wouldn't carry so that everyone within a six-block radius was forced to "enjoy" it, like the fucking band practice. Unless I added Veggie Burgers into the mix. Then we might have problems...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Evenings & Weekends

The most miserable scum crawling across the face of the earth today just have to be mobile phone companies. This might seem like the reaction of someone who just had a really bad experience with one but I can assure you that they haven't done anything specific to me recently, so this isn't a "How dare you fuck with me" rant; it's the result of a calm reasoned analysis which concludes that the people responsible for developing mobile phone plans should be gathered together and executed.

The whole industry is built on the idea that you should estimate how many minutes you will talk each month and then buy that many minutes. If you don't use them you waste all the money you spent on them but if you use more the phone company will (almost literally) fuck you up the arse with "overage" charges. The whole idea is patently ridiculous - no matter how many minutes you estimate you can be 100% certain that you will NOT talk for that many minutes. It will either be more or less, guaranteed. Heads they win, tails you lose.

Just imagine buying gasoline that way. You have to decide how many miles you will drive each month and pay a gas station to have that many gallons of gas available for you. It costs you $3/gallon (apologies to European readers, for whom $3/gallon would be a sodding miracle) so you write a check for the cost of that many gallons and send it in. If you don't drive that many miles, tough shit - you can't get your money back. But should you need to drive more miles for any reason you will pay $10/gallon for any extra gas you use that month. Oh, and you are locked into that many gallons for two years. Sounds fair and reasonable, doesn't it? Like fuck.

I had to laugh when they started advertising "rollover" minutes, like this was an amazing innovation they'd come up with just to make your life better. The idea that you could keep the minutes you'd bought and use them over a longer period - how kind of them. But rollover minutes are the answer to a problem that they created. The only reason you had the problem in the first place is because of the arse-fuckingly unfair pricing regimes that the mobile phone companies invented and stuffed down everyone's throats. Those commercials were a bit like someone kicking you in the balls and then telling you that they had some great news - they could sell you some ointment to make them hurt less.

So now Verizon is offering yet another "innovation"; unlimited minutes for a flat fee. Here's what a Verizon lackey said about this new idea:

"The new flat rate voice plans truly free customers from the worry of counting minutes,"

So they're all concerned about us and want to help us over our worries? Bollocks. Big, pink, hairy, dangly bollocks. Complete wall-to-wall, all-in-one, oven-roasted, crispy fried bollocks. They are the bastards who invented "having to worry about your minutes" becuase they are the people who invented the "stick it right up your arse" overage charges that hit you when you use too many. If they charged you the same price for every minute then you wouldn't worry about using more, would you? Not surprisingly, peace of mind doesn't come cheap - it will cost you $100 a month, so better get lubed up for another mobile phone arse-reaming.

Leaving aside the pricing issue, does anyone actually have the time and patience to wade through all the myriad phone plan combinations? And all the hardware options that go along with them? Do you really know the difference between a MOTORAZR2 and a MOTORAZR2 Luxury, or an LG KG800 Chocolate and a VX8550 Chocolate? By the time you've figured that out you don't have any time left to call anyone.

So in special recognition of all the phone company marketing wankers and their contribution to society, here's how they should be punished. They should be assigned a number of lashes between 200 and 1000 but they have to guess how many. (They'll either guess high or low.) After receiving the full number of lashes they will also receive one kick in the private parts for every lash by which they underestimated their assigned number, or one fork up the arsehole for every lash by which they overestimated the number. Plus one hundred "Anytime" slaps in the face, and a thousand "Evenings and Weekends" nipple tweaks. Sounds fair to me...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Mr.Bison's Day

For a long time now it's been possible to turn your dull Google home page into a personalized iGoogle page, complete with a graphic theme of your own choosing, customized links and various gadgets that you can select, or even design yourself. There's a range of iGoogle themes available and some of them are time-based, so that the image at the top of the screen changes during the day - for instance, there's a cartoon monster called JR who can be seen in various situations if you select that as your theme.

You probably already know this, but I mention it because, in an exciting new development that I'm sure will have people all over the world literally pissing themselves with joy, assuming the fucking thing works, you can now have your own Mr.Bison iGoogle design theme as your home page. All you have to do is click on the link below, BUT it will only work if you're signed into your iGoogle account, or if you sign in from that page:

MrBison iGoogle Theme

In the nut-jugglingly unlikely event that you like it, you can set it as your home page, assuming you know how. (This isn't rocket science, but I realize that for some people finding the "Off" switch is a struggle.) Hopefully it will get picked up and offered by Google as one of their standard designs, but this is somewhat unlikely if they actually visit the site...

The design at the top of my screen right now looks like this:



but it changes during the day, going through the following transformations:



Of course it may not work for you at all, in which case I accept no responsibility for the minutes of your life that you wasted which could otherwise have been profitably spent in manual self-pleasure.

This is, of course, a cuddly and benign set of images; having the Bison surfing the internet for porn, pouring a large Scotch or dismembering a corpse in the bath would severely reduce its broad appeal. And I'm all about the broad appeal - can't you tell?


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

10% Off All Teaching

It's Presidents Day today, so Bison Daughter had the day off school. As a consequence she probably learned no less than on a typical school day, since they seem to be mostly concerned with class parties (involving excessive sugar consumption) and dressing up in weird clothes as a treat. In the coming weeks it seems that the little bastards will be given the opportunity to wear "Western Gear" to school, as well as going to school in their pajamas. (This I found especially strange, as it only ever happened to me once, in a dream from which I was very glad to wake up; it hardly qualifies as a treat.)

Just in case there was any time left at school which might involve actual learning, the teachers took the opportunity last week to hand out a fund raising project where kids are expected to sell "discount cards" to friends and family in order to collect yet more money. I'm not receptive to these things at the best of times, but it's not that long since I paid my property tax, most of which seems to go to the local schools, so my immediate reaction to being asked to pimp out my daughter so that they can have even more money to waste was "No. Fuck no. Fuck off. Fuckwits."

The basic idea is that you sell a card for $10 which entitles the purchaser to a number of "buy one, get one free" or similar offers at local businesses. These are mostly fast food outlets, which I find especially humorous; the school spends hours trying to educate kids about nutrition but then asks them to act as street dealers for addictive junk food just so they can extract more of your hard-earned money. This enabled me to explain the concept of "hypocrisy" to Bison Daughter, so I suppose it did constitute a learning opportunity. There's no way, even if I had any family over here (or friends, for that matter), that I would abuse that relationship to peddle them junk coupons. The company behind the whole scam knows fucking well that almost no-one actually gets round to redeeming them, so the school gets a cut for acting as the front for a hard-sell of worthless shite that no sensible person would buy.

People come round at work from time to time with this kind of shit: "Can you buy some candy for my son's baseball team so they can get new uniforms?" And these aren't poor people, scraping by and trying to give their kids a bit extra. They're comfortable middle class, minivan-driving, church-going citizens who seem to labor under the misapprehension that I exist merely to earn money for them to shower on their seemingly limitless progeny. Look, fuckstain, if you can't afford to have kids try using a condom. And since you have no problem driving to work in a new minivan don't come "office-begging" to me just so that you can save your own money.

I couldn't resist looking online to see what grants the school (actually, technically a non-profit foundation that was established to support the school) has made with the money raised. One project, which received a $500 grant, "will begin to educate and build positive lifestyle choices in our youngest students by reinforcing the importance of good nutrition and daily exercise." Better start by making sure they don't use any of the fast-food coupons then. In another case:

"Students will have fitness balls available in classrooms as an alternative seating choice in order to stimulate brain function and increase physical activity and conditioning. This grant will fund the purchase of these fitness balls."

Stimulating the brain by sitting in a different way? Do these kids have their brains in their arse or something? This all just goes to show: if you do give more money to your local school system there's the very real possibility that they'll just spend it on a load of balls.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Liquid Lunch

I'm conscious as I write this that it might end up being infused with bitterness and misery. I'm currently suffering with some sort of abcess or ulcer in my mouth which, while mostly not that painful, makes eating almost unbearable on account of being situated nicely between my top and bottom teeth on one side. Eating, as you may have realized by now, is one of my favorite things. It's also someting I take for granted until I can't do it anymore; then Mrs.Bison starts showing up with roast pork, chicken curry and all sorts of other good stuff which I can't chew. My choice is either to be pissed off because I can't eat what I want, or to be pissed off because I keep chewing the sore part and swearing. On the whole I've been leaning towards not eating as there's less chance of me inadvertantly teaching Bison Daughter a wonderful new word (probably starting with an F).

Of course Mrs.Bison suggested I go to the dentist and get some antibiotics and, of course, I said I'd go next week, maybe, if it wasn't any better, after I got back from my trip, possibly on Thursday. It's not that I enjoy pain - I just can't believe that every little medical problem should necessitate intervention with pills and prescriptions. If I do ever break down and go to the doctor's, I end up in the waiting room surrounded by people with real medical problems. You know, suffering from late-stage bone cancer, or waving around the bloody stump of a major limb, encased in bandages. Once you get done filling out the form with your entire life history and letting the harridan behind the desk photocopy eighteen critical documents you get to sit down and ponder whether the real reason our insurance rates are so fucking high is because people run off to the doctor every five minutes, any time they don't feel "great".

I've heard many time about people taking their kids to the emergency room because they've had diarrhea and vomiting, so they can be put on a drip. Let me tell you, as a kid I spent a week puking and shitting myself empty and I don't believe it ever occurred to my parents that I might need to be hospitalized. Most stuff gets better on its own, and if it doesn't then you can go bother the doctor. Mind you, the flip side of high medical insurance costs is that you end up thinking "Fuck, I paid for this stupid coverage, I might as well use it."

So the long and short of it is that today's diet consists so far of protein shakes, yoghurts and aspirin. Even soup isn't much help - the manufacturers keep falling over themselves to make soups more "chunky", with big lumps of something alleged to be meat, so that you end up with a mixture more resembling the weak stew they used to serve us at school years ago. And that bastard needed a lot of chewing, I can tell you. Look, if I wanted a real meal I'd make one. When I buy soup I'm actually expecting a liquid lunch, so it doesn't help to find stringy lumps of dead cow floating in it. No-one in their right mind buys cans of soup unless they're ill anyway. Soup is designed to be spooned into people in nursing homes, not consumed by the healthy and mobile, no matter how many commercials they show with football players in.

The only consolation is that the useful food groups that can be obtained in easy-to-swallow liquid form include Scotch whisky. This fulfills the dual role of painkiller and mood enhancer, both of which I could use about now. I think that takes care of lunch. And possibly dinner too...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Feel The Buzz

It's really not Valentine's Day without a giant rubber dildo or two, and residents of Texas will be celebrating today the news that the Appeals Court has overturned the law banning the sale of such "obscene" items. The court cited the 2003 Supreme Court case, Lawrence and Garner vs. Texas, which found bans on consensual sex between same sex couples to be unconstitutional. The argument in that case was that the State had no business legislating what people did in the privacy of their own homes, up to and including fucking each other in the arse, apparently. It therefore makes perfect sense that if it's OK to lube up another guy and give him one in his tradesman's entrance then it must be OK for one lesbian to strap on a giant pink vibrating monster and give the other one a good seeing to.

It's hard to imagine in the twenty first century that there are legislators out there who seriously believe the regulation of dildos, vibrators, sailor's friends, butt plugs and strap-ons to be a priority, but they exist. And where do they exist? In the Southern United States, of course, home to the kind of retarded uber-religious nutjobs who build Jesus theme parks and try to get creationism into schools. Exactly the kind of people who would benefit immensely from having a twelve inch black mamba with thrusting motion and realistic ejaculation feature shoved up their rectums.

What's always funny, though, is when you find out that the leading voice among the "moral majority" opposing homosexual behavior has been engaged in a spot of buttock splicing with assorted rent boys for years. It's usually those who speak out most stridently about some moral issue who are most likely to be busily committing that particular transgression in their spare time. I'm therefore fairly confident that among the Texas legislature there are more than a couple of dedicated sexual device users. I think the people deserve to know the truth - do they favor realistic textures and colors, something that looks like a genuine penis? Or are they into bizarre but effective alternatives, with odd protuberances for additional clitoral stimulation and assorted lumps and bumps on the shaft? Have they sampled double-ended delights? And are there any users of the hand-held artificial vagina making laws in Texas today?

Never mind the serious purchase of sex toys for enhanced sexual pleasure, though. What about the gratuitous buying of rubber vibrating implements of joy for the brightening up of stag nights, hen nights, bachelor parties, rugby club dinners and other gatherings of people with high alcohol to inhibition ratios? Where are you supposed to find that shit if your local porn emporium can't sell it?

Of course I don't believe for a moment that the good people of Texas have been deprived of dildos all these years. I'm sure they've been bringing them back from trips to more enlightened states, probably in the trunk of the car. (I wouldn't risk taking a vibrator through an airport - you just know they're going to upwrap it and ask you to start it up in order to prove that it's not a bomb. Plus anything with more than 3oz of gel in would have to be in a checked bag.) And those who don't travel have probably been whittling them out of wood and selling them under the counter at the state fair. (Mind the splinters.)

Anyway, next time you're down in Texas, be sure to stop in at your nearest retailer of erotic, exotic and obscene merchandise, and exercise your right to purchase an Impulse Twin Action Stimulator or a Pulsa Dildo. (Looks good in pink, by the way.) And when you get home, feel free to shove it up your arse. It's your constitutional right!


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

What Gift?

It's Valentine's Day tomorrow, and someone somewhere is going to wake up to a Valentines teddy bear, humorously dressed and carrying a card emblazoned with a personalized message of love. And if they have any sense they will pull on their clothes, get the fuck out of the relationship and never look back. If you've ever considered buying any such piece of shite please seriously contemplate checking yourself into a suitable mental institution for electro-convulsive shock therapy.

I used to look forward to Valentine's Day when I was a kid - it meant the possibility of unsolicited anonymous notes from girls in the mail that held the vague promise of a kiss (or, as I got older, a shag). It also meant the distinct possibility of fuck-all in the mail and no hint of romance, but even this would have to be better than receiving a stuffed bear with a love note. I mean, it's all very well getting the bear and seeing it as an invitation to at least one night of sordid carnal lust, possibly involving multiple orifices and acts illegal in several of these United States, but once you're done you have to turn over and have a conversation with the kind of person who expresses themselves in phrases like "love-bunny".

So what do the gifts that men purchase for Valentine's Day say about them?

Diamonds
A sign of desperation. You are worried that your wife will find out about that indiscretion after the office party. Guilt is the key motivator and any woman receiving a diamond "Journey" necklace should immediately assume that her husband has fucked one of her friends/sisters recently.

Chocolates
You are a feeder. You secretly long for sex with a large woman and the chance to lose yourself in her ample charms. The message you are sending to your spouse is "Bulk up quick, honey, I have a lard fetish." Failing that you'll be beating off to pictures of Rosie O'Donnell before you know it.

Stuffed Toys
You suffer from arrested development. Somewhere down the line you were forced to stop sucking your thumb and wetting the bed but you never quite got over the shock. Buying a stuffed bear for a fully grown woman is just your way of saying "I'm a gigantic pansy." You have difficulty maintaining an erection.

Roses
You have no imagination. Your life is over and you're now just going through the motions; the habitual purchase of flowers on Valentine's Day is a mere reflex act, no more indicative of thought than a fart after a three-bean casserole. Sex takes place on the third Saturday of the month and always in the missionary position. You will never have your dick sucked again. Ever.

Edible Panties
You've never actually had sex with a real woman have you? But you've read about it, and seen pictures. You've watched movies and read the "Readers' Letters" in Penthouse, so you know exactly what a real woman wants, right? Yeah, right. While you're in the store, buy some pornography - you'll probably need it later.

Romantic Dinner For Two
Your desperation is all too apparent. You've been trying to nail this woman for ages and are frantically attempting to sustain the illusion that you have a responsible job with prospects, at least until you can get her into bed. Unfortunately she will eat the lobster, drink the champagne and then have a headache or period or husband to go home to.

Nothing At All
You are a real man, confident in your ability to attract females. Your penis is large and you can lick your own eyebrows. It is not necessary for you to send trinkets and cards; you are witty, intelligent and well-traveled, and your reputation in bed speaks for itself. Nothing further is required. At least that's what I'm going to tell Mrs.Bison tomorrow. Wish me luck...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Fire?

Today at 4:30pm the office alarm went off. It's an offensive, shrill thing, accompanied by flashing lights specially designed to disorient you so that you get lost and burn to death in a filing room or break your neck stumbling down the stairs. The alarm was accompanied by an announcement which said something about using the stairs and going to your designated re-entry point, but the only effect of this, seeing as how no-one could make out what was being said, was to cause everyone to hang about and try to figure it out. They were all discussing what they thought the announcement had said and how to interpret it. Had there been a real fire we'd probably have lost about thirty people left behind listening to the announcement.

In this case, however, we had no idea whether the emergency was a fire or not; the announcement just said "emergency". To start with people gathered in the bottom corridor, as though this was a tornado drill, but then a few of us pointed out that we should probably go outside, in spite of the arse-biting cold. At this point, had the emergency been a tornado, we might have been blown to our deaths, but staying inside with a fire could have led to us been roasted alive. Seems like they'd have a system for this, right?

Outside, once I recovered from the shock of the cold and my testicles retreating upwards, we wandered over to a point where we vaguely remembered some previous drill taking place, at the entrance to the office multi-storey car park. It being 4:30pm a lot of people had decided just to sneak off home early so the big risk to our safety was neither fire nor tornado but getting run over by some bitch from accounting in an oversized SUV as she struggled to see over the fucking steering wheel. Time went by and my ears lost sensation. A woman with a clipboard and an orange vest came over and asked if any of us had taken a headcount.

"What's the bloody point of that? We have no idea who came here and who went to the other end of the building, nor do we know how many people should be here on any given day and how many are off sick, traveling or on vacation. Plus half of them went home - you may have seen one just a minute ago with an HR assistant stuck in her tire treads."

So the hopeless woman in the orange vest asked us if there was anyone we had seen down our end of the building who we hadn't seen outside. We gave a few names. Did she rush off to check whether they were at that moment burning to death inside the office, caught in the middle of a large bowel movement or lapsed into a coma at their desk? Did she fuck. She made a couple of notes on the clipboard and sidled off uselessly. Meanwhile, in a cacophony of sirens and accompanying light display, the fire brigade arrived, finally indicating that this was not a tornado warning but a fire alarm. Probably.

After another ten minutes, which felt like an hour, during which my entire head lost feeling and I seriously considered getting a stupid wool hat out of my car, we were given the all clear and traipsed back into the office. The entire exercise confirmed that in the event of a real fire we would likely lose half the office population, burned to a cinder as they wandered aimlessly around, attempting to figure out where to go. They'd be the lucky ones though; it took fifteen minutes for my ears to come back to life and I'm still not sure my nuts have recovered. Between freezing half to death and being run over by ignorant coworkers, next time I think I'd rather take my chances inside.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Yellow And Bent

It's Sunday today so as usual I dragged my arse into the gym for a session of leg exercises. Deadlifting on Friday (because I worked late and couldn't be bothered on Thursday) followed by a midnight soccer match, and the normal Saturday chest workout, meant that there was not much of me that didn't hurt this morning. And what you really don't need when everything hurts is to have to get in the power cage for squats. I confirmed with a couple of gym buddies that we all feel like shit when we walk in, and much better by the time we leave, although it's not clear whether this "feeling better" is the result of the endorphins released by lifting or just having the whole bastard process over with for another day.

Lifting is only part of the process, however; there are two other critical parts of the equation if you want to build muscle, namely sleep and nutrition. Now, I sleep like utter shit (whatever the opposite of the "sleep of the righteous" is, that's what I have) which means I concentrate more on the nutrition. Meaning I eat a lot.

I read somweher that you need to consume around 1.0-1.5g of protein for each lb of lean body mass in order to build muscle, although I can't remember where I found that information, and you have to be careful when you read advice on the internet that it's not aimed at steroid-using bodybuilders, for whom the normal rules of nutrition do not apply. It's no good eating a 48 ounce steak every day either; since the body can't store that protein you need to consume it in smaller, more frequent quantities, ideally six times per day.

So that means I ought to be eating something like 180g of protein a day. This is very approximate, since I have no idea what "lean body mass" means. Does it just mean "without fat"? And how much fat do I have anyway? It's not like I can take it off and weigh it. But I figure that since I don't take this stuff too seriously I should try and get five or six servings of around 30g of protein a day.

A 30g serving of protein could come from a chicken breast, a whole can of tuna, a serving of meat such as chili, or a whey protein shake made with skimmed milk (always buy the chocolate flavor since all other flavors are specially formulated to taste like arse). With dedication you could arrange to eat such a meal six times a day, not overdoing the carbohydrate (while focusing on complex forms) and combining plenty of fruits and vegetables. Unfortunately I used up all my dedication in the gym so I tend to fall back on three regular meals with odd protein shakes and cans of tuna thrown in between. When you have a full day at work with lots of travel as a bonus it's hard to keep this up. (You try taking unidentified powder through airport security and then explaining to a sweaty fat TSA employee with the IQ of broccoli, who never even heard of the concept of exercise, that this is in fact whey protein.)

All of which brings me to my big problem. Gorillas. Yep, gorillas. Have you seen those bastards at the zoo? A fully grown silverback is a majestic animal with superb musculature and immense strength. Yet it sits there in the grass and appears to do precisely fuck-all in the way of exercise. When was the last time you saw one bench pressing? Or doing curls? And what does a beast like this eat in order to attain such impressive stature? Is it knocking back the steak, chicken, tuna, skimmed milk and whey protein? I think not. It's eating bananas. Fucking bananas, and it puts on muscle like it can't help it.

Perhaps I've underestimated the importance of sleep in muscle development since that is certainly something a gorilla seems to do a lot more of than me. I've never bought a men's fitness magazine in my life, and I'm not about to start now, especially since they're basically gay porn, but imagine how much thinner they would be if they just focused on the training techniques of the mountain gorilla: "Get bigger today! See inside for amazing training tips! Eat a lot of bananas and lie around in the grass!" Sounds like a good plan, except that, in contradiction of my own advice, I just finished a 5lb tub of banana-flavored GNC whey protein. It did indeed taste like arse, and pretty much ensured that I won't be touching bananas for about a year. Guess I'll just stick with lying in the grass then. Pity it's so fucking cold out...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Who's Voting?

I'm about as bored as it's possible to be with US presidential election coverage. No angle seems too trivial for the media to explore and the talking heads have gone into overdrive, repeatedly analyzing and re-analyzing every tiny little piece of poll data. One aspect of the election process has not received any attention however - we hear so much about the people trying to be elected but nothing about the people who will elect them.

Out of about 200 million citizens aged over 18 about 150 million are probably registered to vote and about 90% of these will actually vote. (Don't write in to correct my figures because I'm not paid to research crap like this and, lets be clear, I couldn't give a shit of you tell me that it's now 220 million; this is close enough.)

So who are all these people and why should they be allowed to participate in the election process? "What?" I hear you ask, "Are you suggesting that we disenfranchise a portion of the US voting population?" Actually, yes, I bloody well am. The Presidency of the United States is one of the most powerful positions in the world and it's bad enough that we only get to choose between a selection of Republicans and Democrats, beholden to their parties' ideologies, who have risen through the ranks by selling out and sucking arse; now the final decision rests in the hands of people who I wouldn't trust to pull down their pants before taking a crap.

Let's start with all the stupid people. These are the ones who the whiny liberals are always telling us we can't execute if they kill someone. They "can't be expected to know right from wrong" because their IQ is below 75. So If you're incapable of being trusted to decide whether or not to stab someone to death in a WalMart parking lot I fail to see why you should be trusted to participate in this apparently important election. So no-one with an IQ this low should be allowed to vote. I was tempted to extend this upwards and only allow the top 50% of the population by intelligence to vote, but unfortunately the IQ test is not a common sense test, and university campuses are full of wankers with supposedly above average intelligence who still can't think in straight lines. Ideally we'd give everyone a critical reasoning test; after all, if you can't make logical deductions then you can't process all the factors required to make such an important decision, can you?

Now, what about the kids? The legal drinking age is 21 but people are allowed to vote at 18. What's the deal here? You can't be trusted to decide how many beers to drink at the age of 18 but you can be relied upon for your opinion about the next president of the country? Bollocks. The voting age should be the drinking age, and based on what I've seen of the college-age population here I think 21 might still be too young.

Okay, that's thinned the herd a bit, so let's move on to taxes. Government, when it comes right down to it, is simply an exercise in taking and spending people's money. The money all comes in through taxes and the federal government gets it largely through income taxes (and corporate tax). Surely the corrollary of "No taxation without representation" is "No representation without taxation". After all, if you don't pay any taxes, why should you have a say in how the money is spent? It's a bit like getting a group of mates together and pooling money to buy beer. Not everyone puts in the same amount and you cover a couple of people who are short right now, but if they start telling you that you can't have Boddingtons because they'd rather have Bud Lite then you are within your rights to point out that if they want to buy Bud Lite then maybe they should bring some fucking money next time. So if you didn't pay any federal income tax in the last few years then thanks, but your opinion on the next president isn't really that important. (Don't start giving me stuff about gasoline taxes and all the other taxes; what we need is simplicity.)

This leaves old people. If you paid taxes all your life and then retired, maybe you earned the right to continue to vote, but only subject to a senility test. There would (rightly) be real pressure for old farts to take some driving test to prove that they can still function behind the wheel after the age of, say, seventy, is it weren't for the AARP. How about making sure they haven't started having regular conversations with a teapot before stamping their voter registration form?

And finally there's daytime TV. People who watch daytime TV should be prohibited from voting, ever. I don't mean people home sick, who flick through the channels until they find an old movie. I'm talking about anyone who intentionally turns on the TV to watch the likes of Judge Judy, Dr.Phil, Days Of Our Lives, Oprah, and all that other mindless shit. Your opinion doesn't count because you do not have a brain, and people without a brain should not be allowed to select the next president.

I don't expect that my ideas will get adopted, but then again it probably doesn't matter, since Congress is stuffed with people whose seat was bought by campaign contributions; you could elect a president on the basis of the votes of five year-olds on methamphetamine and nothing much would change. Which makes all the incessant TV speculation all the more annoying...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Time To Shop

In a few weeks it will be Mrs.Bison's birthday and I don't have a fucking clue what to buy her. As usual. She of course knows this and occasionally makes encouraging sounds, like "I'm easy to buy for" and "Just get me anything" which is about as much help as a poke in the balls. To be fair she is an exceptionally low maintenance spouse, which is probably for the best as she married an exceptionally inattentive husband. I have found that the secret of a happy relationship is low expectations.

I have to start planning though, otherwise I'll be doomed to wandering aimlessly through the mall in a state of steadily increasing panic, rifling through crap in the vain hope of some divine inspiration. This never works. Part of my problem is we both operate on the principle of "If we really wanted it we'd have bought it already", the corrollary of which is "If she doesn't already have one it must be a crap idea". I have lots of crap ideas.

Jewellery (or jewelry, if you're American) seems to be the usual standby for people in this situation - if you can't get her something useful at least get her something expensive that says "See - it was worth putting up with me all these years. Now, how about blowing me?" Jewellery is a certified crap idea. Apart from the fact that you have to enter the lair of some condescending slimy salesperson, who will look down their nose and make it absolutely clear that only a homeless crack addict would even consider buying the smaller diamonds, I refuse to buy something that I know nothing about. I might as well walk into the store and proudly state "I know absolutely fuck-all about jewellery and I have money to burn, but I trust you not to fuck me in the rectum on this purchase". Yeah right. Oh, and Mrs.Bison seems to lose earrings with alarming regularity so I might as well drop the gift in the garden and save her the trouble.

I could go for underwear, but if I ask what her size is I get a range. How am I supposed to deal with that? I once read about a store that has rubber tits in various sizes so men can gauge their partner's size by feel but that's not available in our mall. Clothes are the same way, plus I have zero idea how things will look on her. I'm doomed to buy something that makes her look like a frumpy old bitch or a cheap streetwalker. Plus I would have to spend time in women's clothes stores flicking through items on racks and, frankly, I'd rather stick pins in my own scrotum.

Don't give me all that shit about spa days - that whole industry is a gigantic rip-off. Plus I'm married to someone who doesn't have an off switch, so lying down while some orange colored assistant massages cucumber extract into her eyelids doesn't seem like something she'd get a kick out of. So it looks like I'll be on the internet for a while getting ideas.

I, on the other hand, really am easy to please on my birthday. I like boobs. They're a bit like socks: no matter how many you've been given in the past it's always nice to be presented with a new pair. And you don't have to worry about getting me the right size either.


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Lunch Special

Today was a long day at work and I found myself surviving it with the aid of artificial stimulants, in the form of Diet Mountain Dew. This is a wonderful substance, yellow-green and insipid, with just the right amount of caffeine to overcome the post-lunch desire to crawl under my desk and sleep. (There's way too much glass in my office to get away with that.) Sooner or later, though, it becomes time to pay rent on the soda and so I made my merry way through the cubicle maze to the bog.

First let me reassure you that this isn't one of those stories about some bloke dropping his guts in hideous fashion and driving me out in a paroxysm of choking and retching. No, the bathroom was clean and vacant, meaning that I could point Junior Bison at the porcelain without having to suffer some geezer at the adjacent pissoir attempting to make conversation:

"Hey! How are you doing?"
"Why don't you fuck off? I'm having a piss. Do I look like the kind of man who welcomes casual conversation with strangers when I'm standing with my dick in my hand? Think carefully before you answer, motherfucker."

On this occasion I didn't even have to wade through the pool of piss on the floor left by those whose aged, swollen prostate means that they don't so much spray as dribble, rendering them unable even to reach the porcelain. I washed my hands and stepped over to the paper towel dispenser to dry them. Of course the dispenser is always filled to bursting so that you struggle to get one paper towel out, and then end up pulling down about twenty at once. On this occasion, however, I looked down into the bin and noticed, sitting on top of the used paper, a styrofoam clamshell box and a white plastic fork.

This is something you don't expect to see in the context of an office toilet. In fact I wouldn't expect to notice anything at all in the waste bin except paper towels (especially since it's never emptied, resulting in a constant minor avalanche of grey paper onto the normally piss-soaked floor). Why would someone bring their lunch into the bog? Toilet activities are clearly broken down into three very distinct categories:

ACCEPTABLE
Taking a piss
Adjusting your tie in the mirror
Washing your hands
Receiving a text message, provided it's done discreetly behind a door

UNACCEPTABLE
Making a phone call
Squeezing a spot in the mirror
Having a conversation with someone, especially if one of you is taking a crap
Standing next to someone at the urinal when there's more spaces available

DISTURBING, CARRYING A SENTENCE OF DEATH
Eating your lunch on the throne
Playing with yourself
Looking over at someone else's weezer
Loudly scoring your stools for length and firmness

The only possibility that I could offer in the defence of the perpetrator in this case is that they may have bought their clamshell box of lunch in our office cafeteria. The explosive colon-clearing effects of their cuisine have been well documented; perhaps a previous victim decided that they may as well have their pants down ready if they were going to attempt the Cajun spiced meat substance lunch special. If you eat that shit I'm betting that you don't need Mountain Dew to keep you awake in the afternoon...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Bend Over

I was going to avoid writing anything of a vaguely political nature today on account of being bored utterly shitless by all the talk about primaries. Since I can't vote over here the question of which useless candidate I'd vote for is not one that exercises my mind, but it does seem that the distinctions are fairly slim. There are Democrats who will take all your money in taxes and give it to all the special interests who paid for their campaign, like the scum-sucking trial lawyers, and Republicans who will promise not to raise your taxes and then take all your money in taxes and give it to the people who bankrolled their campaign, such as pharmaceutical companies. It's a bit like choosing how you want to be fucked - the process may vary but the end result is the same.

I mention this because I'm freshly returned from Belgium, a country that is renowned for its high taxes and extensive social programs. While sitting at dinner with colleagues from over there it became clear that they were doing very well under the Belgian system. Sure, they paid high taxes but they then received free college education for their children and free healthcare. (By this I mean decent healthcare, not the socialized excuse for a health system in the UK, where you go into hospital for a minor operation and come out in a box, having succumbed to some lethal bacteria.) They drove company cars with the fuel all paid for, lived in nice houses and ate in wonderful restaurants. They all received about six or seven weeks of paid vacation a year and spent it in pleasant locations drinking good wine. On top of this, their chocolate tastes like sex in a wrapper and they have a selection of beers and cheeses that put to shame the yellow piss water and orange fatty blocks that pass for such substances in St.Louis.

So if we all voted for higher taxes surely we could have the vacations, healthcare, education and other benefits typical in Belgium, right? Bollocks we could. Anyone with a half ounce of brain should realize by now that the more money we hand to Congress in the form of taxes the more stupid ways thay will find of wasting it. They'll build bridges to places nobody goes and museums of things nobody cares about. They'll set up commissions, working groups, think tanks and committees stuffed with all the wankers who worked on their election campaigns, and all the money that's left over will be handed out in the form of kickbacks to all the donors who funded said campaigns. In effect your taxes go to pay off the debts they incurred getting themselves elected, and then keeping themselves elected. This is why it doesn't make any sense to vote for more taxes in order to fund better social programs, not even if you're one of the people who don't pay taxes to begin with.

On driving home from a restaurant, in a nice part of one Belgian town, I happened to notice a lot of the windows in the street (a prosperous residential street in many parts) were surrounded by pink neon lights. The kind of pink neon that can only mean one thing - that sex, in one form or another, is for sale. There were women in windows who were (un)dressed to leave no doubt that this was a place that you could, for a small fee, expect to leave your DNA. Which just goes to show that in this enlightened European society getting fucked is a simple matter of choice. Back home, from what little I've seen of the US political system at work, we may not get the vacations, healthcare or higher education but Congress will ensure that we get fucked whether we like it or not. And anyone who believes any different probably shouldn't be allowed to vote...


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Y Not?

I couldn't help noticing the following disturbing medical news story today:

"The sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer in women is poised to become one of the leading causes of oral cancer in men, according to a new study. The HPV virus now causes as many cancers of the upper throat as tobacco and alcohol, probably due both to an increase in oral sex and the decline in smoking, researchers say."

Wow, bummer. Add that to the list of things to worry about when "eating at the Y". It seesm to me that sentient male human beings generally fall into one of three categories when it comes to this particular act:

• Those who do it because they enjoy it.
  
• Those who do it because it means they'll get a blow job in return.
  
• Those who don't do it because it's disgusting.
  

The latter category is typically comprised of anorak-wearing losers, religious nutjobs, homosexuals (who are excused, for fairly obvious reasons) and the kind of people who wash their hands forty times a day. Trust medical science to take the fucking fun out of it though. I could have happily lived the rest of my life without knowing that I risked throat cancer by worshipping at the bearded clam. It seems to me that just about anything remotely pleasurable has been linked to disease, misery and early death. By the time you've given up smoking and drinking, eating fatty food, chocolate and cakes, driving too fast and insultng strangers in bars, what's left? I don't care how much stuff you have on TIVO, it's no substitute for living.

Still, I suppose knowing that you're flirting with the Big C by diving down there might take your mind off all the other potential problems, like not having directions to the clitoris, getting your air supply cut off in the throes of passion, or attempting to hack up a stubborn and irretrievable pube for the rest of the evening.

Of course you can trust the good people of the drug industry to come up with a solution. They intend to market the same drug that's currently used in women, a vaccine made by Merck, for the protection of men. Unfortunately it's not clear that it actually does anything to help; the American Cancer Society is quoted as stating:

"It's not clear yet that the vaccine even prevents the HPV infection in males, let alone cancer or any other illness"

Why let a minor problem like there being no evidence that your product actually works stand in the way of potential drug sales though:

"Merck plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval for the vaccine in men later this year, meaning a government decision would be likely in 2009."

Of course, if you go back to the original article you will discover that the HPV virus is "poised to become one of the leading causes of oral cancer in men" possibly only because one of the other big causes, smoking, has been declining in popularity. It was suggested that an increase in oral sex was also a contributing factor but researchers also noted that HPV-related upper throat cancers declined significantly in women over the last twenty years, implying either that lesbian sex is seriously on the decline (which I doubt, because if you look on the internet it's everywhere) or that the researchers actually don't have a bastard clue what's going on.

One of the other potential causes of throat cancer that was listed is drinking, which in reality means that if you're a man with a view to a muff you're doubly at risk. If the HPV virus doesn't give you cancer then the large scotch you use to take away the taste and try to wash down that stray pube almost certainly will. Which just goes to show that you should never listen to anything the medical profession has to say - all those long days in the lab have addled their brains. Just take a deep breath, remove your glasses and get in there. Just so long as you're getting your sword swallowed in return - I mean, fair's fair, you're risking death down there so it's the least she could do...


Copyright ©: 2008 Edward Bison

AArseholes

In the wake of my recent piece about the simple pleasures of flying coach class on American Airlines from Brussels to Chicago it occurred to someone to ask what I was doing in coach. After all, am I not an international traveler with an allegedly important job and two million miles on American alone? Well yes, but it's our company's policy that we fly coach on any flight less than ten hours. On one hand I think this is bullshit, but when you look at how the airlines fuck you in the arse for the price of a business class seat I can't say I entirely disagree. The airline is kind enough to provide us frequent travelers with a few "system wide upgrades" that in theory can be used to upgrade a coach ticket to business class for no cost. I say "in theory" because they only allocate about one seat in business for this, as far as I can tell, and it's always gone by the time I book my trip. Sure, you can go on the waiting list, in case they have any unsold business class seats at departure time, but business fills up pretty quickly with the kind of people whose company refuses to inflict nine hours of shit, sleepless travel on them before expecting them to work a ten hour day.

This last trip was booked in November and of course the business class upgrade was not available, so I was put on the waiting list. However when my assistant checked the status about a week before the flight she was informed that I was not on the list. Yes I could be added, now right at the bottom, but what fucking good was that? Here's the fun part - have you ever tried complaining to American Airlines? About anything? They absolutely do not give one single piece of shit about any member of the traveling public, and to demonstrate the point they not only make it difficult for you to complain, but they ensure that any response you receive will be so utterly fucking worthless as to make you wish you hadn't bothered.

When I fly Northwest Airlines I expect to be treated like shit - I hardly ever fly them and so I'm right at the bottom of their priority list (which is not good because, frankly, their staff are the earthly servants of Satan) - but American keep sending me crap in the mail about how important and valued I am because of all the money my company gives them to fly me around the world. If they're treating me like crap then the average infrequent flier can pretty much expect to be sodomized in the departure lounge.

Step one is to call the Executive Platinum line at American. This used to be answered by people who would help you with whatever problem you had. Real people, with a voice, and a personality; OK, admittedly a few were a bit thick but most were extremely kind and helpful. Not any more - now you get a giant, perpetual fucking maze of automated options, not one of which says "If you wish to complain about anything please press the hash key now". I did, however, discover that if you give up and shout "Why don't you fuck off with your fucking useless fucking system you fucking wankers" then you get a message informing you that they will put you through to the next available operator, so apparently they programmed it to recognize the universal verbal sign of frustration.

You could try complaining via the website - they actually have a complaint form, although it asks for your flight details and if your flight hasn't happened yet (i.e. they pissed you off before you even got to the airport) then the form won't let you submit the complaint and redirects you to phone reservations. Even filling in the e-mail form elicited at least five "fucking hells". And it's so utterly pointless. The first thing you get is a standard response informing you that they will look into your complaint; the second thing you receive is a short and completely inadequate reply which fails to propose one single meaningful solution and refuses even to accept the possibility that their staff fucked up. The best bit is that the e-mail address on the crappy response is AmericanAirlines.wecare001@aa.com. I'd like to hereby suggest that in the interests of accuracy they update it to AmericanAirlines.fuckyou001@aa.com.

Now I realize that those of you who don't have system-wide upgrades or executive platinum cards might well regard all this as bollocks. "The flight got in didn't it? Just toughen up and get over it." Which is exactly the way the airlines want you to feel. These days you think yourself lucky if your plane didn't do a 777 and crash short of the runway; you hardly dare to expect efficient, professional, friendly service on top. It's not as though I have many options so long as I live in St.Louis; even the Servants of Satan on Northwest Airlines don't have many flights out of here. So in order to better reflect the relationship American has with its most valued customers I'd propose the following automated complaint response:

Dear Frequent Flier. You appear to be mistaking us for someone who gives a shit about your complaint. Don't waste your time - not only will nothing be done, we are already in the process of dreaming up new ways to annoy you. We give you upgrades that you can never use, frequent flier miles that you can never redeem, check-in queues that you can never get through, customer service that you can never reach and flight attendants that will never retire. If you still labor under the misapprehension that we care about your flying pleasure may I suggest that you clearly haven't been paying attention. Please fuck off and die.

Or, to put it more succinctly, how about a new tagline:

"American Airlines - we can't wait to fuck you in the AArse."


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison

Airline Announcement

"Welcome aboard American Airlines flight 89 from Brussels to Chicago. In a moment we will be closing the cabin door so we would like you to stuff all your belongings in the inadequate overhead bins as quickly as possible so that we can depart on time. You will notice that the bins are all a funny shape and completely incapable of accommodating a typical carry-on bag; this is just one of the many interesting features of this Boeing 767. I would also like to draw your attention to the fact that the plane itself was built some time in the middle ages and is apparently held together with tape. This will be comforting to you as we take off and climb to our cruising altitude of 32,000 feet.

Please take your seats and fasten your seat belts. You may experience some difficulty cramming your arse into the coach class seats as we designed them to be comfortable only for someone born with one buttock. We will now show you videos in three languages that provide detailed instructions for fastening your seat-belt, even though a fucking monkey could figure it out; this is the first of many ways in which we will treat you like a complete retard during the course of the flight. We will also repeatedly run videos on federal regulations prohibiting smoking in the lavatories and requiring that you obey all crew member instructions, this in spite of the fact that half our crew members have an IQ somewhat less than that of an aspidistra.

Once we are airborne we will serve a mystery lunch. It will be chicken or beef, but all the chicken meals will run out quickly because you doubt that you will be able to cut the leathery excuse for beef with the pathetic plastic knife with which we provide you. The tiny plastic tray will also include a pink dessert of uncertain composition or origin, a piece of bread and a frozen piece of butter which will break the end off your plastic knife should you attempt to spread it. This will require you to chase your food round the tray with your fork, until it flies off and lands on the floor. Once you are finished amusing yourself with the food you may relax and enjoy the inflight entertainment. Today's offering includes an episode of "Cheers" that's so old you will hardly believe we dare show it, but at least it's not "I Love Lucy", which was what we showed last time, and that was in black and white, for fuck's sake. The tiny earphones that we provide always have one side that doesn't work and they cut out if you so much as twitch in your seat so good luck watching anything.

Our captain has made a special request that you not congregate in the aisles and galleys, for your safety. This is, of course, complete bollocks and the only reason we care is that our flight attendants don't want you in their way. Fortunately we can inflict just about any indignity on you now and attribute it to "new security requirements in the wake of 9-11". (This is why you stand around with no shoes on and all your tiny bottles of liquids in a plastic baggy, waiting for some fat welfare case in a TSA shirt to run a wand over you.) Of course you will be unable to comply with our request as there are insufficient toilets on the plane and we had them installed right next to the galley so you have no choice but to congregate there while you wait to take a piss. Please resist the temptation to slap the flight attendants when they roll their eyes at you, run over your foot with the cart and instruct you to return to your seat. Remember you are self-loading freight and are here to please us, not the other way around.

For the nine and a half hour duration of the journey today we have arranged for you to be seated next to a fat wanker with halitosis who will attempt to tell you their life story while invading your personal space. Should you be seated in an aisle seat we will of course attempt to fracture your knee and elbow with our heavy drinks cart. Our flight attendants are also equipped with extra wide arses so that they will bump you every time they walk up and down the aisle, ensuring that even should you be capable of sleeping in your tiny seat you will be awoken every ten minutes. Please feel free to lean back and relax in your seat; you will notice that it will recline a full two degrees from the vertical. However, there will be a moron in the seat behind you who will pull on your seat back every time he gets up and sits down again, so please restrain yourself from ambushing him outside the lavatory and beating the piss out of him as federal regulations forbid it.

Forty minutes prior to landing we will make you turn off your electronic devices and sit bored out of your mind for no good reason. Flight attendants will be coming through the cabin to bump you with their arse one more time. We will then welcome you to Chicago where the local time will be 2pm. You will feel like utter shit; squashed in an unnatural position in a tiny space that would be illegal if you were a cow. Thank you for flying American Airlines, a member of the One World Alliance. We hope that the next time your plans call for air travel you will think of us because, let's face it, we're no worse than the other fuckers out there are we? And if you live in St.Louis we pretty much have you by the balls. Thank you and have a nice day."


Copyright © 2008 Edward Bison