dogs, bad music, and very stupid people

I've dog-sat for most of my life so I've met a lot of dogs. I've never met a dog quite like Loki. Loki belonged to a neighbour and I babysat him since he was a puppy but he had some weird habits. For one thing, he never sat on a sofa--not on the seat like a normal dog, even when you put him there--but instead preferred the arms or the backs. He was never around cats or anything that might explain where he learned this, he just did it. I used to try and keep him off there but he seemed pretty comfortable with himself and never fell off so eventually I just left him to it.

He would also 'chase' animals on TV. Just animals, not people, so I know he wasn't attracted to the movement like other dogs I've known who like watching TV and don't care what's on the screen. It had to be live-action video of real animals--not people, not animation. It wasn't even that he liked the sound, either, since it didn't matter if it was spoken narration, soundtrack, real sound, or muted. The rest of the time he couldn't be fucked to care that the TV was even on at all, but as soon as there were animals on the screen--whoosh!!--he was off. This is him trying to catch some monkeys off the National Geographic channel a few years ago. He never seemed particularly bothered that he couldn't catch anything--the eternal optimism of dogs, I guess.

I used to live right near Washington DC and any time I went there during a standard US school year (between August and June), there would always be busloads of school groups from out of state on field trips. They could be any age from ten to eighteen and on one particular occasion I was weaving my way past a group of high school seniors on a school trip. I listened to one group's conversation since at that age kids have no volume control and it went like this:

Girl: Where are we?
Boy: Washington DC, duh!
Girl: No I mean, like, what part of it?
Boy: This is the National Mall.
Girl: No way, it's not! It can't be!
Boy: ...why not? Look at the map.
Girl: So, wait... you mean the National Mall isn't, like, a mall?

I used to think that joke only existed in comic routines. To this day everybody in my family thinks I made it up because nobody could be that stupid. Another boy in the group made a comment for which I hope he is rewarded in the afterlife with cocaine and hookers:

"No, but the grass is 20% off!"

I have no clue where they came from but I strongly suspect it was the sort of place that has lead in the drinking water.

And, finally:

I have few strong feelings about music preferences. It's one of the last available types of socially acceptable open hatred and discrimination, so I never tell anyone what I like or listen to--but still don't have any really strong opinions about it. One thing I have never done is develop an inexplicable, intense, violent hatred of a particular singer based solely on their music. Even when it was played to death on the radio and everyone was singing it and talking about it and I was sick of it.

Until now!

People think that British singer/songwriter Adele is the greatest female music artist since, well, ever. It seems like it's required by law for her songs to be played on every radio station at least twice an hour so no matter where I am or what time it is, one of her songs will pop up on the radio. The songs themselves I'm just not fond of--I don't like them at all but it would go no further than a desire to change the station to avoid them were it not for their complete cultural pervasiveness. They are played and talked about and requested over and over and over and over again, all day, every day, without pause.

And for this reason, I FUCKING HATE HER MUSIC.

I can't stand it. It makes my blood boil. Every time I hear those chords or the lyrics I am completely overwhelmed with an uncontrollable urge to commit a violent homicide. I hate the music, I hate the lyrics, I hate her fucking raspy emphysemic voice, and I hate the way everyone thinks she's so freaking awesome. The intensity of my hatred cannot get any greater. If it does it will collapse upon itself and create a dense singularity from which even light cannot escape.

I fucking hate Adele.

I have never in my life developed a hatred this strong of a total stranger who is not at least responsible for something I find extremely objectionable--like the man who shot George Tiller or former President Bush. But goddammit, I hate Adele with every molecule in my body. There is not a single solitary proton within me that doesn't hate her. I have damn near broken my radio because of how hard I hit the scan button when her fucking songs come on. Her death cannot come soon enough for my liking.

I have never met her, I know nothing about her, I've never heard or read any interviews with her, and I don't really even know what she looks like. But fucking fuck, based completely on her overhyped and overplayed songs I hate her so much I wish she would fall off the fucking planet.