So I’m walking back from Home Depot — it’s maybe 10 blocks through the city for me — and as I cross Broadway a man comes from behind me and says “you should find an ash tray, or quit smoking, or something, you loser.”

Well geez, that was pretty hostile. Naturally, I fired back, “hey, go preach to someone who gives a shit, asshole.”

His response? “Hey, screw you, ya loser. Why don’t ya think about that, huh? Think about why I said that to you, ya loser.”

And my silver-tongued response, naturally, was to make all the curious onlookers laugh: “I already know why you said it. Your father was an alcoholic and your mom didn’t hug you enough, and you’re filled with the rage of 45 years of virginity, so the only thing that makes you feel better is calling people names as you pass them on the street. Who’s the loser?”

And yes. People did laugh.

But I did think about it. I did, as he said, think about why he might say that to me. Who knows? Maybe some of my cigarette ashes flew into his eye — that would be unpleasant. Or maybe I didn’t put out my butt all the way and he burned his big, gross, sausage toes on it as he walked by in his stupid looking man-sandals. Who knows? Whatever the case, it was more than coincidence, because he was upset.

What stands out most, however, is that this 40-year-old virgin thought the way to make himself understood was to cuss people out. It’s kinda silly when you think about it, because if he had said, “hey, man, your cigarette ash burned me… you might want to be more careful,” I would have felt sorry and immediately taken the opportunity to apologize and we could have had a semi-pleasant interaction. And moreover, I would have been more careful about whatever it was from that point on, because I’d be concerned for the people around me.

But instead, he never told me what his problem was. All he did was call names and make a fool of himself. And now, every time I’m near that street corner, I’ll be looking for him so I can flick a cigarette butt at him. Mission accomplished, eh douchebag?

So my point is this… anger really doesn’t solve anything. Nevermind the fact that people have more respect for a man who is in control of his emotions… but how about the thought that being calm about expressing his problem might have actually gotten him a better result? I, for one, learned from this experience that it’s important to express myself in a positive, friendly manner the next time I’m inconvenienced by a stranger.

I’m glad the cold season is finally over. Not because I dislike the cold weather — I actually prefer it. But I’m glad it’s over, because I think if I had to walk behind one more frumpy chick wearing a North Face jacket and Uggs on my way to the train, I might have to stop and give her a piece of my mind.

This has got to be one of the lamest fashion trends I’ve ever witnessed. Ugg makes some nice boots, but you’d never know it by looking at what people buy! Why does every female between the ages of 18-35 find it so important to buy the ugg-liest boots ever made, and then wear them with everything? Is it me, or do these look like something you would expect a primitive tribal people to wear in the winter while hunting elk?

Even worse than the ugly boots, though, are the ridiculous North Face jackets, with their front logos on the back. News flash, people: it doesn’t look trendy, it looks like a screen printing mistake! The jackets really aren’t even nice — they’re cut in a generic, unflattering square shape that make skinny people look frumpy and frumpy people look fat.

What blows my mind is that North Face phenomenon isn’t restricted to the 18-35 crowd. Everyone under 50 is wearing this retarded camping gear on their grueling, arduous drive through the suburbs and into the wild, untamed concrete jungles where they brave the elements behind a desk. What is happening to America?

North Face jackets are actually so popular that they are a motivation for crime in and around the metropolitan DC area, and according to Silver Chips Online, a high school newspaper in Maryland, high school kids would actually throw bleach in people’s faces in order to conceal their identity and rob the wearer of their North Face jacket

So now that the warm weather has finally arrived, I can expect a sixth-month break from this unimaginative fashion trend, and welcome back the equally ridiculous flip-flops and surfer shirts with popped collars.

Quite often — more often than not, actually — when I use the restroom at work, I find myself rather put off by the amount of loose hair littering the top of the toilet seat. It leaves me wondering many unpleasant things about the previous person who sat there.

Here’s the thing: Hair doesn’t just fall out all day long. I don’t wake up to a hair covered pillow every morning. And even if you’re balding, the subject I’m discussing isn’t really the hair on your head, now, is it?

So for the quantity of loose (ahem) body hair I’m seeing to have been left behind from a single sitting, I have to wonder what the previous person (or people) are doing while they sit there to make their body hair fall out? Shouldn’t any loose hairs have already come off while they were presumably showering that morning?

And worse… this isn’t a train station, it’s a professional office. Do you have to leave that mess there? Couldn’t you, uh, clean up after yourself before you leave the stall?

Yeah… you read that right. Sure, there are some people who think Christmas is the evil, capitalist holiday, but those people haven’t really considered Valentine’s day.

Let’s compare: At Christmas, everyone gets to participate, even if they’re not married or romantically involved, whereas on Valentine’s day, only lovers get gifts. At Christmas, you get many gifts from many people and the good givers make up for the bad ones, whereas on Valentine’s day you get one gift from one person (if any at all) and if your lover is a lousy gift giver you’re stuck with it. At Christmas, the amount of thought that goes into a gift has meaning, whereas on Valentine’s Day it’s all about extravagance. It’s okay to return a Christmas gift for something in your size, whereas a Valentine’s Day gift in the wrong size has horrible implications. Do I need to go on?

What else? Valentine’s Day is cheesy and fake. Let’s take a moment to think about what actually happens on Valentine’s Day and how insulting it really is.

Flowers
Guys who never buy flowers for their lover will suddenly be rushing out en masse to buy red roses. Why? What about a red rose makes it good on Valentine’s Day? Hey fellas… did you know that most of your women don’t even like roses? Why not take a moment to learn what she actually likes, and give her that on Valentine’s Day? Maybe it’s carnations, maybe it’s irises… a good friend of mine goes ga-ga over gerbera daisies. Don’t give the same cheesy red rose that everyone else is giving.

Greeting Cards
Millions of men and women will flock to Hallmark stores and pay $5.95 for the right to sign their name to someone else’s declaration of love. Millions more will go to Walgreen’s because they’re too lazy to go to Hallmark, and millions more will go to Wal-Mart where the selection is lousy but the cards are cheap. For what? For someone else to do all the work of declaring their love, and writing it down on a card that you can then give away with your name on it. Seriously… if you love someone, you should be able to tell them so on your own, without the card.

Chocolate
This is the only Valentine’s Day gift that actually makes any sense to me. Why? Because chocolate contains phenylethylamine, which is the same chemical released by the brain when someone experiences feelings of love. Therefore chocolate is a very logical gift, because the chocolate can reliably produce the effect that you desire without you having to do any of the work! It’s brilliant! I mean, why go to the trouble of being charming and attractive when you can just feed a chemical to your loved one? Hmmm…. if only Pfizer or GlaxoSmithKline could come up with an over-the-counter phenylethylamine pill…

Dinner
It will be impossible to find an open table at a restaurant this Thursday, because all those same millions of people will have reservations days in advance, so that they can spend even more money trying to prove they love each other. But how does an expensive dinner prove anything? Paying someone else to do all the work is not romantic. You want to prove your love? Cook something yourself. Or, for a really top-notch Valentine’s Day dinner, cook it together. Bump into each other in the kitchen. Get in each other’s way. Have fun. And save the money, too.

Jewelry
This is, by far, the worst of all Valentine’s Day gifts. This is the uber-expensive gift that a man gives to his female lover to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that his love for her is directly proportionate to the size of his credit line. How do I love thee? Let me count the receipts.

Look, people. This day is all wrong. What you should be doing on Valentine’s Day is cooking dinner together, eating it with candles lit, and then snuggling up together on the couch to watch a sappy movie together. That’s it. Stop trying so hard to make it so big, because in doing so, you are taking all the actual meaning out of it and turning it into a show of extravagance.

Cards, flowers, and jewelry are all nice gifts, but all of them mean more when given on some other day. Why not give her a card because it’s the first Tuesday of the month? How about a diamond necklace as a Happy May 30th present? These gifts should NEVER be given on any holiday — and especially not on the Devil’s Holiday.

It’s only been a week since Apple announced the MacBook Air, and I’ve already had three people ask me for my iBook!

First, let me just make this clear to all my readers: I’m not getting rid of my iBook. Not yet, and not soon.

But more importantly, I’m curious what makes a person even think that it would be okay to ask their friend to give them a two-thousand-dollar computer… one that the person is still using!

Seriously, people. I want you all to line up your mothers in front of me, single file, so I can go down the row, one-by-one, and bitch slap them for forgetting to teach you manners! Seriously… I want to see a row of slappable mothers at my desk tomorrow morning.

…cell phones will be banned. There will be no more loud guy in the line at the bank who thinks I care about his business. No more irritating lady in the grocery store yelling into her phone “What? I didn’t hear that. No, the phone is breaking up.” No more loud ringer in the middle of a movie, or a speech, or during a wedding. No more Bluetooth headsets on the ears of every dork I see. No more 50dB ring tone from the cubicle next to me while I work. No more Nextel beep.

In place of cell phones, I will install a wireless text-messaging system. It will not have a ringer… just a simple LED that changes color when you’ve received a message. Expensive models can vibrate. There will be a 200-character limit on messages to prevent people from rambling on and on. It will be seamlessly compatible with internet-based chat clients, and it will be illegal to use one while driving. I don’t mind if it plays music… through a headphone jack. I don’t even mind if you want to check sports scores or watch videos on it. But I don’t want it disturbing ME any more.

I’ve got a few more observations to share regarding the way people write their personals ads:

• Don’t say you’re recently divorced, or that you just broke up, or anything else to give an indication that you’re fresh out of a long-term relationship. The only guys looking for rebounders are the ones hoping for a one-night stand.
• Find some new words. You all say the same damn thing! “Fun woman looking for nice guy,” or “I like a guy with a sense of humor.” Look, I don’t think I’ve ever met a girl who said “Gosh, you know what I hate? A sense of humor. That really pisses me off.” Okay? See, we know you like a sense of humor. It’s about as retarded as requiring a pulse and a love of oxygen. Hemmingway could read these ads and wish for more description. Fun? Nice? If that’s as hard as you’re willing to try, then get used to being alone.
• Use some common sense. (I know women are from Venus, but men are from Mars and that’s who you’re trying to attract.) If you say “I like being treated like a lady, having doors opened for me and dinner paid for, etc,” and then follow it up later with a line like “I’m just looking to date and meet people, nothing too serious,” you’re not going to have much luck. Men are logical… we can all put that together and figure out the truth, which is that you want to go out and have fun, but you want other people to pay for it. User!
• Don’t say the reason you’re looking for someone on a personals site is because you’re too busy to meet people. In fact, just don’t ever say that you’re too busy. Think about it, gals… why should some great guy waste his time trying to get to know you if you’ve already admitted you’re not going to have time for him? The truth is, if you’re that busy, you don’t need a man, you need a vacation.
• Most personals sites display a short summary of your description — the first few sentences, usually — with your photo on the results page. Don’t waste those first few sentences on useless drivel! That may be the thing that means the difference between clicking and moving on.
• Be alone in your photo, retard. When looking at a photo of two girls, how is a guy supposed to know which one is you? And better still, if you’re in the photo with your arm around some guy, how’s a fellow to know that’s your little brother? If we see a guy in your photos, we move along.
• And one last thing, since we’re talking about photos: Don’t scan your driver’s license photo from when you were 18 and blond and use if for your profile if you’re not still eighteen and blond! What? Do you think you can write build type: athletic in your profile, and I won’t notice when some dark-haired fat girl shows up? And furthermore, you’re hand-picking the best available guys… do you really think they’re going to let it slide that you’re a deceitful person? I don’t know who you think you’re fooling, but it isn’t me.

…popcorn will be banned from office buildings. In fact, there will be no microwaves in any area where people have to work and smell that nasty food some fat-ass wants to shovel into their mouth. Try a slim fast, they’re good for you and I don’t have to smell it.

All of you young ladies who might be reading this owe it to yourself to do what I’m about to suggest. Seriously.

1. Step 1 – Just imagine for a moment that you’re a single guy. Just think of the type of guy you’d like to meet… maybe even marry. Now imagine for a moment that you’re him.
2. Now, got to your favorite personals web site — Yahoo! works.
3. While you’re pretending to be this guy, sign up for a new account and fill out the information. You know the answers to what he’s looking for because you made him up. Just do it.
4. When you’ve got your shill account all set up, click search.
5. Now, spend an afternoon looking at the kind of rubbish that we have to pick from. Start making choices now that will keep you from being a 25 year old divorced mother of two who waits tables at Applebees. You’ll thank me.

I mean it now. If I have to read one more profile that says “I’m a Christian and I expect you to be too” on the profile of an unwed mother, I’ll puke. If I have to read one more time about how “you must like kids because mine are important to me”, I’m going to commit murder. I fucking hope your kids are important to you! Moron!

I’m a very successful, very healthy, physically fit guy. I’ve got a good sense of humor, a nice car, a sense of adventure. I like romance and I love to travel. Do you really think I’m looking for the girl of my dreams to be a used-up-and-thrown-away mother of two who can’t even practice what she preaches? Get real!