Jerks of the Week - March 29, 2010

Jerks of the Week for March 29, 2010

JERK OF THE WEEK NO. 1: Indian Dog Poop Woman

Walking my dogs can be taxing. I have a bipolar sheepdog and a spoiled brat of a 110-pound Akita. When the Akita wants to go out, they fight for the right to go first (good thing QB Dog Killer doesn't know where I live, eh?) When the Akita doesn't want to go out, she hides in one of the rooms upstairs, and I have to drag her down the stairs and out the door. As I'm doing this, the sheepdog acts like an idiot and attacks her, which starts yet another pointless fight.

But that's not all. If my Akita sees another dog while we're taking a stroll, she goes absolutely ballistic; she starts running, jumping and skipping around like she's Rosie O'Donnell in an all-you-can-eat buffet. The only difference is that my Akita is 110 pounds, and Rosie is a svelte 11,000.

And then there's the dog poop. For whatever reason, my dogs like to crap on the sidewalk or the curb. This makes cleaning up the poop a lot more difficult because it tends to stick to the ground. Making matters worse, even if I manage to get all the crap cleaned up, parts of it still fall out of the pooper scooper as I'm walking along.

Now you see why my life is so difficult.

About a week ago, I was walking my Akita around a cul-de-sac in my neighborhood. I noticed this old Indian woman sitting with her grandchildren in front of her house. Unfortunately, my dog decided to take a crap right in her line of vision. Putting forth my best effort, I tried valiantly to get all of the poop cleaned up - and it was a success! No tiny chunks of crap on the ground! Go me!

I proudly walked away. However, on my back around the cul-de-sac, the old Indian woman started yelling at me:

Indian Dog Poop Woman: Hubadabubadahubadabubadahubadabubada!!!!

I couldn't understand what she was saying at all.

Me: What?

Indian Dog Poop Woman: Hubadabubadahubadabubadahubadabubada!!!

Me: Huh?

Indian Dog Poop Woman: Flubbadabubadaflubadabubadadflubadabubada!!!

Me: Can you repeat that?

Indian Dog Poop Woman: Yabadabubadayabadabubadayabadabubada!!!!

I tried motioning her off and said, "No speak Indian," but she kept yelling. I decided to cross the street to see what Indian Dog Poop Woman was yelling at.

I walked over and noticed her pointing to the ground. Apparently, a tiny chunk of dog crap fell out of the pooper scooper. A tiny chunk. There was no reason for her to go nuts.

Me: Sorry about that. I'll clean it up. It's not a big deal.

Indian Dog Poop Woman: You can't leave poop with my grandchildren running around here, yes?

Apparently, dog poop is hazardous for young kids. Who knew?

I managed to get everything back into the pooper scooper. I asked Indian Dog Poop Woman if she was satisfied, and she nodded in approval.

As I was walking away, she asked me a question:

Indian Dog Poop Woman: Is the same dog you were walking before, yes?

What!? It took me about 90 seconds to traverse the entire cul-de-sac, and she was asking if this was the same dog she saw earlier? Perhaps I should call her Crazy Indian Dog Poop Woman. Here was my response:

Me: No, it's not the same dog. In the 90 seconds since you last saw me, I teleported out of this cul-de-sac, went into my house, grabbed another dog that looks exactly like this one, teleported back to this cul-de-sac, and brought it here back to the scene of the crime so you could yell at me.

OK, I didn't say all that. Not that I was intimidated or anything; it's just that going through that would have taken a long time - long enough for more crap to fall out of my pooper scooper, causing Indian Dog Poop Woman to go all "hubadabubadahubadabubada" on me again.

JERK OF THE WEEK NO. 2: Two Things About the Health Care Bill

I've received several e-mails recently from angry people, all going, "Why aren't Barack Obama and this stupid health care plan in your Jerks of the Week! They should be Jerks of the Millennium even though we're only 10 years into this new millennium! Arrghhhh!!!!!"

While some like the health care plan, it seems like a lot of people - at least the ones I've talked to - are completely against it.

Because I don't want to alienate half of this Web site's readership, I'm not going to give my opinion on the health care bill. I will say that some of it can be good (no cap on benefits for people with cancer and other terrible illnesses), while other parts really don't make any sense (taking $900 million out of Medicare and putting more people who never worked into it.)

However, I plan on posting a full breakdown on it later. This site's Web host owner, Kenny Ortiz, is crazy enough to read through the whole health care bill. All 50,000 pages of it. As soon as he's done, I'm going to ask him if he could give his honest take on it - because unlike the general public and (sadly) the people who voted on it, Kenny will actually know what's in the bill.

And that brings me to this Jerks of the Week segment. There are two things that I find highly amusing (and seriously troubling) about the health care bill:


1. It's like a box of choc-o-lates, you never know what you're gonna geeet.

What's in the bill? No one knows. Here's what Nancy Pelosi had to say about the health care bill.

If you don't feel like clicking, she said, "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what's in it."

Umm... shouldn't we find out what's in the bill before we pass it? This is like going to a auto dealership and spending 25 grand on a car without knowing the mileage or taking it out for a test drive. That doesn't make much sense, and neither does passing a bill without knowing what's in it.

I really get the feeling that the people who voted on the health care plan just wanted to pass it to say that they passed it. It's like there's a really hot girl living in your dorm building. During a sexual encounter, you find out she has 10 STDs. You may catch some of them. You may not. But you have a sexy time with her anyway just to brag to all of your friends that you banged her. Same concept. I think.


2. Very nice, sexy time!

Speaking of sexy time, one provision in the health care bill that you may not know about (and I wish I were joking about this):

Under the new health care plan, Viagra will be given to sex offenders. That's right! Your neighborhood rapist will get all of the Viagra he needs to have a sexy time. Very nice. High five.

While this is great for Tony Washington, Quagmire and all Brad Childress look-alikes, I doubt anyone else is happy about this.

What kind of scumbag wrote that provision into the health care plan? And if the idiots in Washington read the bill, would they have passed it knowing that provision was in there? Doubtful.

It's painfully obvious that most of the people who voted on it never read it. Knowing this, I guess we can surmise that they'd all take a chance with that 10-STD hot chick. Maybe that's why that Viagra provision is in there.

Lost Speculation: Man In Black

I didn't want to have two Lost recap segments in consecutive Jerks of the Week entries, but it was unavoidable. Last week's episode was incredible. Nestor Carbonell, the guy who plays Richard Alpert, put on an Emmy performance. The episode also offered more answers than any other, quelling the nerves of the OCD people who were frustrated that Lost wasn't answering enough questions.

I wrote a few weeks ago that I didn't think Jacob was a good guy. Now we found out that Jacob's entire mission is to keep Man In Black - otherwise known as evil incarnate - on the island so he can't escape into the mass population and corrupt mankind. Whoops. Guess I would have died along with Nikki and Paulo relatively early on the show. I wouldn't have been as annoying though.

The fact remains though that Jacob was responsible for Nadia's death. He made everyone's life worse (as we see in the flash sideways, everyone is better off.) He brought people to the island against their will only to be killed by the Smoke Monster. If Jacob's goal was to just imprison the Man In Black, why did he do all of these bad things? I think we have our answer now:


Jacob's Real Goal:

Jacob told Richard that he wants to keep Man In Black on the island. But it's more than that. Why have a list of candidates? Why keep bringing people to the island?

Go back to the opening scene of the Season 5 finale. When Man In Black sees the Black Rock approaching the island, he asks Jacob, "You're trying to prove me wrong, aren't you? ... They come, fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same."

Jacob responds: "It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress."

As soon as Jacob says that, Man In Black turns to him and asks, "Do you have any idea how badly I want to kill you?"

Now, why would Man In Black be so enraged about Jacob trying to prove him wrong? Why does Man In Black instantly kill the entire crew of the Black Rock (save for Richard) as soon as the ship gets there?

Man In Black's whole premise is that people are corruptible. Jacob believes otherwise; if he can show Man In Black that a person can be completely good, he wins the argument. Like Jacob said, "It only ends once."

I believe that if Jacob can prove Man In Black wrong about humanity, Man In Black will die/disappear/cease to exist. That could be why Man In Black is so desperate to kill anyone who comes to the island.


But Man In Black Doesn't Kill Everyone:

In the series premiere, Man In Black kills the pilot, Matt Parkman, whose mind-control ability wasn't working at the moment. Ah, if only Lost had a completely nonsensical plot line like Heroes, Parkman would still be alive on the island. And there would also be college chicks making out with each other. Good times.

Man In Black has killed countless people, yet he didn't murder Locke and several other characters when he had the chance. Yes, he tried to drag Locke into a hole in the Season 1 finale, but that wouldn't entail killing him - as we later saw with the French team in Season 5.

Jacob has 360 candidates - one for each degree on the lighthouse dial. According to Lostpedia, the highest known number for a candidate is No. 346, some guy named Grant. Hopefully not Hugh Grant because he sucks. But I think we can assume that the candidates are numbered 1-360.

Here's my thinking: Man In Black is free to kill anyone on the island - just as long as they're not one of the 360 candidates that Jacob designated. Locke is No. 4, so Man In Black didn't kill him. Sawyer is No. 15, and Man In Black was instructed by the bloody handed kid not to murder him.

Meanwhile, Lacombe, Brennan and Montand, three members of the French team, are Nos. 2, 35 and 102 (per that link). As with Locke, Man In Black tried to drag them down a hole instead of killing them. Why? I believe that Man In Black was instead attempting to corrupt them. Remember what he did with Sayid. He promised Sayid whatever he wanted. He probably did the same thing with Lacombe, Brennan and Montand, and thus, the three men were "claimed." He probably wanted to do the same thing to Locke in that Season 1 finale.

Man In Black told Jacob that he wanted to kill him and all of his candidates. If he wanted to kill Jack, Hurley, Sawyer, etc. so quickly, he would have just done it. But according to an agreement he has with Jacob, he's prohibited from doing so - and he was reminded of this by that creepy bloody handed kid in the jungle.


"Jacob Took My Body."

We apparently know only two things about Man In Black's past: He had a crazy mom, and Jacob "took his body and humanity." This, of course, assumes he was telling the truth to Kate and Richard. For all we know, he was lying. That can't be discounted, but Man In Black seemed sincere at those moments.

To explain what Man In Black told Richard, I'm still sticking with last week's theory. I believe Aaron is Man In Black. Perhaps Aaron grows up to look like Jacob. He's either brought to the island now (in the locked room on Charles Widmore's sub, perhaps?) or later in his life. He then travels back through time, and because he was abandoned by both his mother and the woman who raised him afterward, he becomes pure evil.

If Jacob really did take Aaron's/Man In Black's body, perhaps the entity existing on the island - the one that cures cancer and paralysis - made himself look like a grown-up Aaron while transforming Aaron/Man In Black into a grizzled, older man.

Perhaps this was some sort of punishment, but who knows why Jacob would do this? Maybe he didn't have a human form and needed one to communicate with Aaron/Man In Black. If so, it would be interesting to see what Jacob's true form looks like. Perhaps a tranquil, non-violent pillar of white smoke?


Jacob and Man In Locke Backstory

I was thrilled to find out that we will be receiving a Jacob and Man In Black backstory. It'll be the third-to-last episode, entitled "Across the Sea."

Perhaps then we'll find out how awesomely right or horrifically wrong I am about this "Aaron is Man In Black" theory that I'm stubbornly sticking to.