Picking nits and taking names

I worked arse-early this morning. I don't mind that, but somebody used a phrase I've heard before, and never really got. The phrase, a very common one, was "Kicking ass and taking names".

I honestly don't know what you need the names for. I was told by the person who said it that you need the names "For kickin' ass!" but that seems overly structured. I've never seen kickin' ass as an orderly, organised activity. It seems more to me like an activity engaged in at the last second, and with no particular order to it. For example, if one is kickin' ass, and someone is there, guess what? There's going to be a foot-ass connection. You don't need to make a list! Just kick ass! This isn't the fucking census!

This got me thinking about what other phrases confer a status of organisation upon a naturally rowdy or disorganised behaviour? Is a demolition derby a structured event? Do jazz and blues players plan out exactly what notes they play, or do they do what feels and sounds right? Did Randy Rhoads write his guitar solos down? Do improv comedians (not the ones on such programmes as "Whose Line", but ones in clubs) plan their entire routine? NO, IT'S IMPROV. You're supposed to IMPROVISE.

I really don't get the "taking names" bit. I would prefer to "Kick this ass, kick that ass, I'll KICK THE ASS OF ANYTHING THAT MOVES!" This isn't to say everything should be unstructured. But kicking ass bank-teller style doesn't really work as a mental image. Kicking ass Dentist-style makes me think people's fears of going to the dentist are well-founded. Kicking ass screenwriter-style reminds me of anything Michael Bay has ever done, as opposed to The Godfather. Activities like kicking ass should be free-verse as opposed to iambic pentameter.

Unless Shakespeare has some as-yet-undiscovered battle raps lying about somewhere in Stratford.

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Now playing: Ozzy Osbourne - Trap Door (Album Version)
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IQ tests for drivers!

Well, Mirta hates cats. It's official. So no new cat for us. However, with no god as my witness, I shall NOT let this deter my quest for a cheapass refurbished Xbox 360! Plus the boyfriend of the person whose cat we were hoping to take was playing Gears of War at the time we were over. And apparently all the time else. End Livejournally content, back to the writing part.

I remembered at the last minute today I was supposed to go to the library for PCMN movies. I pulled up behind a car on the way out of the lot, followed them in a right turn onto the main road, and stopped as they came to an inexplicable full stop no more than 15 feet from the exit. At first I thought maybe they were turning into the gym opposite, but they didn't have their indicator on and they didn't, well, turn. I began to reach for the horn when they remembered that they were ON A PUBLIC FUCKING STREET and drove off.

I really don't understand how people can come to a complete goddamn stop on a public, busy road without a living being in front of their car. Exactly what is it you are stopping for, idiot? Did you get lost? If so, there are SIX PARKING LOTS very near your current location! Pull into one and figure it out there, but the street is not the place for it!

My first thought was, "I wish I didn't have to drive places so I wouldn't have to put up with stupid shit like this," but then I remembered: I deal with this every time I walk into a place with a doorway. Maybe it's a Southern Bumfuck Indiana thing, but people love to stop and talk/read their receipts/put their money away/make sure the cashier didn't eat their clothes/dial their idiot box (a phrase that used to mean television, but I'm co-opting it for mobile phones). I don't think a doorway is the most useful place to do ... anything, really, except for WALKING. Maybe it's evolved to the point that these dumb motherfuckers actually think that roads are for dialing your phone/checking your bags/fucking with your wallet/reading/chit-chatting. If that's the case, I look forward to the mass deaths sure to follow and the return of Homo Sapiens Sapiens to the process of evolution by natural selection.

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Now playing: The Pirate Planet
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