Fatmouse: I before ye, except after sea.

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Pupik

dig the bolts in my neck
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Welcome to Fatmouse. Fatmouse exists in many guises, in many places. Fatmouse GTP is one such guise. All guises of Fatmouse adopt three founding principles:

  • Fatmouse + you = Fatmouse
  • Fatmouse can make you a winner. Fatmouse can make you a loser. Fatmouse doesn’t care to make you a winner or a loser.
  • Fatmouse is unmoved.

The Purpose of Fatmouse
Fatmouse GTP is dedicated to bringing cynics together. To rant. Cynically, about anything they chose.

What is a cynic?
“Telling the truth can get you into hot water. As much as the world needs its cynics, it still doesn't REALIZE that it needs them. Cynics today are habitually castigated by politicians, corporate chieftains and other productive citizens with tidy lawns; they know that we're on to them, so they lump us with the lowest of the low. We're generally cast as the heavies in the black hats, counterproductive miscreants who broil babies when we're not spray-painting obscenities on public monuments. We're portrayed as masters of chicanery and intrigue, untrusting and untrustworthy. Since we're neither leaders nor followers, we're expected to get out of the way -- and the tidy-lawn folks get furious when we don't. Nobody loves a cynic, except maybe another cynic.

Even the dictionary definition of a cynic makes us look like scoundrels:

"a faultfinding captious critic; esp. one who believes that human conduct is motivated wholly by self-interest."

Aside from casting us in a negative light, Webster & Co. miss the point by half a mile. Where's the hint of lost ideals, the rueful humor, the wounded childlike soul that lurks behind the cynic's sarcasm?

What a sadly maligned and misunderstood tribe we are! Cynicism, after all, springs not from cruelty or viciousness, but from precisely the opposite: a fatal love of virtue. If we were mere realists, we'd have no need for cynicism; the world would never disappoint us because we'd expect so little of it. But the best cynics are still idealists under their scarred hides. We wanted the world to be a better place, and we can't shrug off the disappointment when it lets us down. Our cynicism gives us the painful power to behold life shorn of its sustaining illusions. Thus my own definition of a cynic:

"an idealist whose rose-colored glasses have been removed, snapped in two and stomped into the ground, immediately improving his vision."

If we were activists, we'd do something constructive about our discontentment. But we're smart enough to know that we won't prevail, and probably a little too lazy to attempt any labor that's predestined to fail. So we retaliate with our special brand of wounded wit. If we can't defeat our oppressors, at least we can mock them in good fellowship. That's about as much justice as a cynic can expect.

How to join Fatmouse
Interested in joining Fatmouse? You do not become a cynic. You either are already a cynic. Or you are not a cynic. It is something you are, not what you become.

To be accepted into Fatmouse GTP, make three suggestions that could be added to the below list of vexations that a cynic recognises as being vexations. Based on those three suggestions, Fatmouse will decide on your authenticity as a cynic. If successful, your name will be placed on the Registry of Cynics. If unsuccessful, Fatmouse doesn’t care.

It is possible for an existing member to uplift their standing withing Fatmouse in terms of status. One can move from On the Dole, to an Officeworker to Gravy Train with work over-and-above the call of duty. Inactivity by existing members will lead to those members being stricken from the Registry.

Vexations (With added contributions from members of yore):
  • Overwork.
  • Unemployment.
  • "We'll keep your resume on file".
  • People whose cell phones ring at movies and funerals.
  • Being ridiculed by your inferiors.
  • Wondering if you're inferior to your inferiors.
  • Going bald, especially if you're a woman.
  • Getting stuck in a bad career.
  • Realizing that a bad career makes a bad life.
  • The demise of Western civilization.
  • The triumph of degeneracy, barbarism, evil, and MBAs.
  • Cheesy books that stay on the bestseller list for 187 weeks.
  • Chronic disappointment.
  • Eating bean sprouts and dying young anyway.
  • Eternal damnation as your final reward.
  • The phrase "There is no I in team".
  • The bastardization of the English language through, like, evasive superfluousness.
  • The redundant and circular "logic" of the free-floating, ornemental term "proactive".
  • People who simply do not get sarcasm and accuse sarcastic people of being "negative".
  • Small women who drive SUV's that have wheels taller thay they are.
  • People who ask me how I am. Just say hello, and I'll do the same. You don't really care how I am. And I don't really care to tell you. If you mind your business, you'll be too busy to mind mine.
  • People who laugh inappropriately loud and long over small, mundane things, as if their laughter is making it funny.
  • "The wrong promotion". It's "a challenging new position". This means more work, same pay.
  • Being told that your salary "will be reviewed in the near future" (why not just tell me I'm not getting a raise now).
  • "Our staff are our most valuable asset".
  • People who don't know what they're talking but insist on talking anyway.
  • People who mosey up to green lights knowing that they'll get through even if it goes yellow, but refuse to speed up that extra 4 mph that would mean you could get through it also.
  • People who are fat and blame it on everyone else.
  • Native "English" speakers who treat their language with so much disdain that people who learn it as an extra language are actually better at writing AND speaking it.
  • People who insist on being the first into an elevator, and then proceed to let the doors close on you as you enter.
  • People who walk slowly.
  • People who talk loudly.
  • People who walk into your sidemirrors in parking lots, leaving you with a reflection of your door handle when attempting a lane change on the motorway.
  • Word spell checks that want to replace "Fatmouse" with "Farmhouse".
  • People who put their email address in their Outlook signature.
  • The requirement to call insurance companies within 72 hours of a disaster, despite no available phone service or electricity.
  • Businesses that cut your pay, but cover the walls of employee-only areas for suggestions on "How can you save the company money?"
  • People who question your sanity for being married and not having kids by now.
  • People who act as if you forced them to have kids and drag them everywhere.
  • Noisy drinkers.
  • Overfeeders that mention you're putting on weight.
  • Infrequent astrological phenomena.
  • People who want you to read their minds.
  • The concept that selfishness is always a negative.
  • The total lack of (or extinction thereof) legal U-turns anywhere.
  • The State of Kansas Board of Education.
  • Tasteless people who conspire to find ways of promoting their own tastelessness as if it was something of which they should be proud.
  • People who cannot walk in a straight line, and thusly block your attempt to pass them on the pavement.
  • Apparent disinterest in something, yet feeling the need to voice said disinterest so frequently.
  • People who put their bag on an empty chair next to them.
  • People who walk their dogs on a 25-foot leash, and wonder why they have no control over their dog.
  • People who think that just because they call themselves an "asshole", it makes it okay to be one.
  • Whatever your thing is that I won't understand: Perhaps I don't want to understand.

Official Senior Executive Cynics - For work above-and-beyond the call of duty.
Milefile
Giles Guthrie
Duke
donbenni

Gravy Train
Sage
Famine
Gil

Office Workers
Race Idiot
DQuaN
Zrow

On the Dole
xcsti
RSCosworth
jpmontoya/Carl.
emad
Max Powers
skip0110
TB
Zardoz
GTRacer4
TheWizard

Chancellor of the Registry - This document contains no data.
Pupik/FormulaNone
 
People playing their mobile phone ring tones just to listen to them in public places, especially on busses .
Foreign people who come into your country to live and yet refuse to learn any of your language.
People who drive big cars but can't navigate them down any road that's less than three lanes wide without reducing thier speed to under 20mph.
 
Restaurants which have a smoking section next to a non smoking section separated only by a wooden trellis.

People who travel on the tube but insist on not wearing deodorant. Surely these people should be given seat priority over the disabled and elderly.

E-mails which contain adult links but require membership. You said it was FREE to join.
 
People who stop traffic by opening their drivers side door right as you are about to pass them, then proceed to leave it open at a ridiculous angle so that nobody has the opportunity to pass them.
People who don't know your name, but instead of asking they pretend that they do by using clever names such as "bro", "man", and "dude".
People who put clothes on animals, despite how much the animals clearly hate it.
People who think that they are the next comedy legend, and ruin quality comedy movies and skits by overquoting them every chance they get (a common example being the butchering of Anchorman).
 
Going for a run every night but wanting a pint and ciggarette 30mins after.

Trying to think up a good one year after year when this thread comes around!
 
People who vandalise bus shelters in London with stickers stating their desire for the UK to adopt Sharia Law - an act that, under Sharia Law, would be punished by a caning...

People who fart in the lift.

People who fart in the lift just before they get out (and when other people get in, they all think it was you...)

People who get in the lift for just one floor (without a valid reason).

People who get in the lift for just one floor and fart just before they get out... :grumpy:
 
Drivers who slow for reasons unknown, only to make a last minute turn, leaving you wondering "Why?"

Having three seperate wireless networks in your "technologically advanced" college, all with weak and unrealiable signals.

"There's you sign" moments, like when you're installing your donut spare, and a man asks "You got a flat tire?"
 
People who point at their watch when they ask for the time.

I KNOW WHERE MY BLOODY WATCH IS!
 
DQ
People who point at their watch when they ask for the time.

I KNOW WHERE MY BLOODY WATCH IS!
Why would they ask you the time when they had their own watch? Do you mean they point at their wrist where their watch should be? or do they point towards their house where they left their watch that morning?

And why would your watch be on their wrist.

See people that don't think their arguments through.... :grumpy:

"There's you sign" moments, like when you're installing your donut spare, and a man asks "You got a flat tire?"

Nope. I was driving along and the other 3 just swelled up.
 
This year's top vexations must center around politics. Though normally politics is such an obvious choice of vexation as to be beneath Fatmouse's notice (and certainly too obvious to merit elevation or maintenance of standing), in this case, the slobbering masses of the world have outdone themselves to such an extent that Fatmouse must pause to consider the genre afresh.
  • Extreme intolerance: In fact, even using the word 'extreme' is a vexation, yet no other word adequately describes the levels of intolerance reached worldwide by our political 'leaders'. Partisan politics in all countries has reached a new low - both sides shout endlessly that the other is impeding progress, yet refuse to offer the slightest concession toward progress. This is true whether the parties involved be Republican and Democrat, Moslem and Christian, religious and secular, rich and poor, or France and everyone else. The din is deafening and in fact has succeeded in destroying logic and reason throughout the vast majority of the world.
  • Extreme hypocrisy: Be it homosexuality, drug use, economics, or the above-mentioned intolerance, half of the world seems hell-bent on making the other half do as it says, while feeling no need to accept such fascism from others, or indeed even hold to the standards they wish to enforce.
  • Extreme short-sightedness: people who insist that the current American President - or indeed, any American president - is to blame for all the ills of the world. These people insist on cutting down a single tree, whilst oblivious to the utter forest of dead wood surrounding them.
As a member in good standing I apologize to my colleagues for the strikingly non-specific nature of this year's vexations, but as mentioned above, I feel compelled to vent them.
 
When someone critisizes a Muslim sect for being too violent, the Muslims get angry and threaten to chop their head of.
 
People turning Right when in the Left Lane.

People that design road layouts that force you to do so.

People that insist on blocking all traffic from using a roundabout just because their exit is not clear.
 
DQ
When someone critisizes a Muslim sect for being too violent, the Muslims get angry and threaten to chop their head off.
Hence my list of vexations, in a nutshell. The same drama is played out at hundreds of levels, in thousands of places, on millions of subjects every day.
 
Vexations:
  • The word, along with the concept and marketing of foodstuffs that are (or claim to be), "probiotic".
  • The fact that everyone seems to be an expert on Global Warming - irrespective of any knowledge they might actually have.
  • Companies that don't seem to grasp the concept that "normal working hours" are when people normally work and no, I can't be at home then because I have a job in order to pay for the work you're carrying out.
  • Kids who use the internet to communicate to each other when they're sat side by side...
  • Misuse of the word "disinterested", to mean "uninterested".
  • One word - splashback.
  • People who call you on the telephone then, when you answer, say "Hello, who's that?". Come on now - you called me. You tell me who you are and I'll decide whether or not I want you to know who I am.
 
Here's one that vexes me alot: people who are in the same room as a ringing phone, but don't bother to answer it. Do they expect me to do it for them?
 
Even worse is when the phone rings, and my girl turns to me and says "who is that?"


...
 
Again? Hydrogenated Fatmouse?
 
I got a few political vexations myself.

- The fundi bunch (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Robert Tilton, etc.)
- John Kerry
- Any politican that makes a sweeping judgement without providing substantial proof
- Someone who claims they are republican, democrat, green, etc. That act like in no way to what they claim (Joe Liberman, or John McCain anyone?)
- The Socialist Workers Party.
 
- Anyone who acts falsely stupid to get out of schoolwork.
- Backseat drivers whom are under the legal age to drive.
- Emo people that think everyone should care about their problems. Everyone else deals with the same (and worse) stuff. You can too.
- Those who say things only to comfort themselves (i.e: "I need to lose weight..I'm going on a diet" and then you see them at McD's chowing on a double cheeseburger with fries).
 
A few of my vexations...

People that ask about various things that you are interested in, and I'll start to tell them something about say... cars andthey'llinterruptmeandtalkreallyfastaboutthetopiclikethiseventhoughttheyhavenofarkingcluewhattheyaresaying!!!!!111!!
Example: It is equally hilarious and aggravating when someone LOVES the new Mini Cooper, but has no idea it has been around since about '59. "What?! There is an old one?! And they had made it for almost 40 years before it went out of production?!" You don't say...

----
Upper-class soccer moms** who really don't have even an inkling of how large their Chevrofordodge Suburbexplorango XXXLRG really is. I was going about 45 mph on this road, andI had a lady that thought she had enough time to pull into a driveway (about 50 feet in front of me, what other way is there for these people do things like this...) but I think she thought she was going to scrape her behemoth, so she nailed the brakes and was just sitting sideways in my lane. If I was driving anything that handled worse than my bimmer, I would've taken out her rear quarterpanel. It was still within about 6 inches of a collision.

**An unpaid chauffeur who had the bad judgment to give birth to her employers.
---
People who claim to love music, and then proceed to tell you all about Green Day or something equally inane:ouch: ... I usually shut the conversation down by shaking my head and walking away, or if I'm feeling pro-active that day, I'll start in about japanese guitar legend Tomoyasu Hotei or something similar... something that I'm sure they're not familiar with.

---
I love making eye contact with people in traffic who drive an X5 or X3 or better yet a Porsche Cayenne! (Do I have to be an Englishman to use the term "tossers" ?) and then just shake my head and roll my eyes.
I also love it when they tell me their X5 was made in Munich... better check (COUGH Spartanburg, SC AHEM) your build sheet again.

---
I like it when people ask me if I farted, then I can tell them, "No, I smell like this all the time." :D

---
I am a recent victim of what the people with big mouths and little brains call "corporate downsizing". When what it should really be called is "Let's just totally stick it to these 25 people and make the other 70 work that much harder." They just about screwed me last month... and actually when I was walking out of the building, I walked like I had something stuck up my ass while proclaiming, "MAN, my ass hurts!".
---
The fact that as we spend a billion dollars a WEEK killing people over in Iraq, there are thousands and thousands of people who could be put through a four year college with that money instead, and the american people would be that much better off for it. It is a travesty...

---
No matter how cynical you get, it is impossible to keep up.
-
Cynicism is an unpleasant way of speaking the truth.
-
A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin. :D
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The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it.
 
My vexations as of late:

- The stupid media trend of adding "gate" to any kind of public scandal. I've actually recently heard the 'Hot Coffee' Grand Theft Auto uproar called "Coffeegate". I kid you not.

- The hell that is Myspace, and the extreme popularity that it has attained.

- People that call people around their age level "buddy", "champ" and "guy" just to be condescending.

- Politicians that create laws about technology that they have no concept of.

- Jack Thompson
 
People who pass in turning lanes.
People who ride your ass, but wouldn't dream of passing you.
People who decide to go 40 in a 70.
 
People who are too afraid to try something new based solely on the fact that they have never tried it before.

Computer technology growing at a rate faster than my bank account can keep up with.

Microsoft not providing support for Windows 98. That's like not taking care of a child because you have a new one.

People that are too dense to follow the "Right-Hand Rule" when walking down a hallway.

Walmart and the fact that, while they usually have the lowest prices around, it doesn't change the fact that every time you walk in the door, 95% of what you see is the typical overweight female with a stick of a husband and their 4.2 kids that have no common courtesy to just stay out of my way.

Having to back save my AutoCAD 2006 drawings because an Architect doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade from 2000.

People who, over the course of a few months, forget how to drive on ice & snow.

The fact that I don't own a Body Shop to capitalize on said people.

People who choose to rent instead of own.

Kids at the playground that don't watch out for other, and more specifically smaller, kids.

Parents that do nothing when their kids at the park hurt another, smaller kid. If the parent is even there in the first place.

In-laws that think you don't like them because all they ever talk about is things/people you don't know or care to find out about, so you sit there politely with your mouth shut. If you take that as me not liking you, then so be it. I guess I don't like you.

GAS.

Agreeing with Omnis.

Being "On the Dole" when I don't even like bananas.
 
The ever-so-politically correct government of America reffering to the Republican party as the GOP--Grand Old Party.

"Seperation of Church and State." That's a head scratcher.

My Del Sol's gear ratios. Three tickets so far: 61, 62, 61. Damn third gear to hell. I know Fatmouse is indifferent, but I needed that off my chest.

Everyone else's gear ratios. Dude, I want to race, not run into the back of you.

"Follow the Money"
 
TB
People who are too afraid to try something new based solely on the fact that they have never tried it before.

Computer technology growing at a rate faster than my bank account can keep up with.

Microsoft not providing support for Windows 98. That's like not taking care of a child because you have a new one.

People that are too dense to follow the "Right-Hand Rule" when walking down a hallway.

Walmart and the fact that, while they usually have the lowest prices around, it doesn't change the fact that every time you walk in the door, 95% of what you see is the typical overweight female with a stick of a husband and their 4.2 kids that have no common courtesy to just stay out of my way.

Having to back save my AutoCAD 2006 drawings because an Architect doesn't want to spend the money to upgrade from 2000.

People who, over the course of a few months, forget how to drive on ice & snow.

The fact that I don't own a Body Shop to capitalize on said people.

People who choose to rent instead of own.

Kids at the playground that don't watch out for other, and more specifically smaller, kids.

Parents that do nothing when their kids at the park hurt another, smaller kid. If the parent is even there in the first place.

In-laws that think you don't like them because all they ever talk about is things/people you don't know or care to find out about, so you sit there politely with your mouth shut. If you take that as me not liking you, then so be it. I guess I don't like you.

GAS.

You forgot about agreeing with me.
 
Vexations:
  • The decline of personal responsibility/accountability lately
  • Double standards being passed off as "equal rights" (either something applies to everyone or no on at all, otherwise it isn't "equal")
  • People who think rules do not apply to them
  • Those willing to sacrifice liberty for safety. As Benjamin Franklin once said, they "deserve neither liberty nor safety."
  • Anyone who is more than willing to tell you at great length about their religion, but whom will not here anything of yours.
  • Children in general
 
This is just this week...

  1. People who use the word 'unthaw' when they mean to say 'thaw'. 'Unthaw' should carry the same meaning as 'freeze'.
  2. People who chew gum loudly and ask you to speak up so they can hear you.
  3. Women/girls so determined to fit into a pair of pants that they don't care if their stomach hangs out over the sides.
  4. Professors who set a midterm examination date on the same day they have already scheduled an assignment and laboratory report to be due (has happened once this week).
  5. Classmates who drop classes because they're too lazy to keep up, leaving my design project group short a member (this happened twice this week).
  6. Dentists telling me I should floss - they've been telling me this twice a year for longer than I can remember. If I were gonna floss, I would have started by now.
  7. That unknown smell in my kitchen....
  8. People lacking the coordination to avoid biting cutlery while it is in their mouth.
  9. Unidentified hair in your room, car, on your clothing, etc...
  10. Sarah Jessica Parker
  11. People who cut in line at the grocery store, and then say "sorry". I'd rather they be a jerk and then say nothing. They don't have to cut and then lie to me.
  12. Even worse... people who cut in line at the bar, and then say "sorry".
  13. Conversations between 3+ teenage girls: stop and look, every single one of them is talking at the same time about something entirely different.
  14. The idiots in room 338 that stink up the dorm hallway like fish every other day
  15. The idiots in room 327 that burn popcorn and set off the fire alarm on a weekly basis. Our microwaves are identical, they have a 'popcorn' setting - USE IT!
  16. My girlfriend asking me to help her with her "Heroines in Classical Literature" essay and then having the nerve to get mad at me when I have nothing constructive to say. Note - I'm an engineering student.
  17. Classmates who forget to turn their cellphones off/mute during class
  18. The same classmates, who rather than taking out their phone and hitting 'Ignore' let the phone ring to avoid being identified, until the caller eventually get their voice mail or hangs up.
  19. People who wait in long lineups at Subway and don't look at the menu until its their turn to order.
 
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