Memes that caught my eye this week

Ever since departing FB I have found what hopefully a great portion of the world will also discover in the not terribly distant future: That I waste a lot less time on useless crap by FB, IG, etc. not being a part of my life. Obvious privacy issues aside, I think that social media is bad for mental health and is a massive time-sink for billions of people that could be doing literally anything else and do much more for their lives.

These days, when I have some dead time, I will instead move over to 9-gag and even though it is basically just a meme stash for stuff that most likely originated on Reddit, I at least get to have a laugh and even learn some stuff every now and then.

Here are some things that I found amusing / thought provoking this week.

One of the major reasons why I decided to leave the USA and live a life abroad was because 2 of the 3 jobs that I had before abandoning my office life were with the US Federal government. While I only worked in the private sector with one other job the above meme is absolutely correct. I was a project manager one demolition sites at one point and had zero experience working with heavy equipment - yet, I was the boss because of my education. I literally had NO IDEA if the guys in the field were doing their jobs correctly yet without my signature, no one got paid. I believe this extends to all other branches of government and this is why we spend a shitload of money every year and nothing ever changes.

Which leads us to this

I had to do a little bit of digging in order to even know what this was talking about because I intentionally keep my head in the sand as far as USA politics are concerned: It's far too toxic an environment for me to even care anymore. Apparently, they are trying to spend 3.5 trillion dollars on a bill that is as long as all of the LOTR books and the bible combined and nobody has even read it. Yet at the same time the same government is extremely concerned about what the population is going to spend their $600 stimulus checks on. Makes sense, right?

This was funny to me not because my father was like this even though he could have been since he knows how to do just about everything and all of his kids are damn near useless when it comes to knowing practical stuff. It was funny to me because I am becoming the "father" in this picture anytime I meet / see people in their 20's these days. I think it is just because I didn't have the internet when I was a kid and I also had a job for as long as I can remember. Once I could walk without assistance I had a paper-route and the day it was legally allowed for me to do so, I had a minimum wage job at a seafood restaurant. I've been working ever since. I'm a grumpy old man and I am not even that old yet.

This one explains itself but it brings to mind in my own life when I moved to Asia not knowing that they use a different 220V electrical system in all outlets. I brought my Nintendo GameCube with me and myself and my roommate were really looking forward to playing FIFA 2004 or something like that. It actually worked for about 10 minutes before the screen started blinking and then the AC adaptor started on fire.

The legal system in some countries is the reason why crap like this exists. I remember when McDonalds was forced to put a warning on their hot cups of coffee that indicated that "Caution: Contents are hot!" I don't think that people are actually dumb enough to try to eat a pizza without opening the box first, but I think a lawyer saw an opportunity to sue Dominos and made this stupid crap happen as a consequence.

This one is funny to me because when I was applying to colleges, one of the ones I got accepted to was Boston College and I was actually really happy because this is a reasonably prestigious university. However, after I went to visit the city and search for apartments in early winter, I quickly surmised that this is not the place for me. Everything that is in the above statement (which isn't a meme, i know) is absolutely true. I don't understand why people continue to live there after just a week of visiting.

9-Gag is filled with people claiming to be, or who actually are, quite depressed and alone. While that is sad and hopefully not true, some comedy like this is both disturbing and according to the little bit of looking that I did, absolutely true. Great, now I gotta think about the bugs that are living all over my body. They're also in your hair by the way :)

That's it for this week. I hope some of them made you laugh or think. If you got any to send back I'd love to see them. I always appreciate a good meme.