Things That Refuse To Die

1. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6

Despite being web standards non-compliant, and riddled with security holes, this sluggish mammoth of a browser continues to plague the online world, almost a decade after its first appearance. Many corporations continue to stick with MSIE6, as do certain less technologically focused countries, such as China and South Korea. Webmasters around the globe have launched various online campaigns to petition for a swift death for IE6.

2. The Birther Movement

This “movement” refers to all those numbnuts people out there who are convinced that President Barack Obama’s birth certificate is fake, and that his mother, staying in Hawaii illegally, had the foresight to place birth announcements in newspapers for her newborn son, just in case he wanted to run for presidency 46 years later. Ample amounts of evidence has been shown to prove the legitimacy of the President’s citizenship status, but, as always, conspiracy theorists have particularly thick craniums.

3. The Tamagotchi

I know, right – who would have thought these things were still around? I was finishing high school around the time these electronic pets came out, and they have sold well over 70 million units since then. I never had one, but I used to see them around for the first couple of years after their initial appearance. I thought the species – which looked like a bad mix of a cheap quartz watch and the old colorless Gameboy – had met with extinction years ago. Surprisingly, not only do these things still get manufactured, but they have spawned direct-to-DVD movies and animations as well.

4. Bush Bashing

I know it’s frustrating that the nation is still engaged in an expensive war with no end in sight, particularly when the reasons for this war are hazy at best. Untangling the mess left behind by the Bush administration will take time, and while W. himself has vacated the limelight, scathing online commentaries continue to nail George to the proverbial wall. I wrote a satirical post about his accomplishments myself, just a few weeks ago. But do we really need to keep hammering that old horse carcass, when there’s fresh meat to draw our beads on? Surely the likes of Sarah Palin and Joe Wilson will provide fodder for our blog entries, in the striking absence of a totally brainless administration.

5. Private Militias

Back in 1789, when the Second Commandment Amendment was drafted, the politicians of yore probably did not anticipate the hard-on that beer-guzzling Americans would have for oiling assault rifles on their front porches 200 years later. Back then, granting the citizens the right to carry weapons probably made sense, what with the British Empire constantly trying to kick some doors in. These days, drunken rednecks often form “private militias,” which are basically glorified posses of guys who like guns and are convinced that one day the government will try to rob them of all their freedoms. If these guys could read, I bet they would find a Bible replacement in George Orwell’s 1984.

6. Rickrolling

Some jokes are born unfunny. Rickrolling – the act of posting a link to the Rick Astley music video for his Never Gonna Give You Up hit song, and disguising the link as something else – still keeps happening. The surprisingly popular Internet meme even has its own Wikipedia article. While I’m hardly one to resort to violence to resolve a conflict, I admittedly would not mind meeting the idiot who started this particular trend.

7. Reality Television

When it comes to “reality television,” the word reality is used very lightly and liberally. I don’t think shows like Average Joe or Jon & Kate Plus Eight necessarily reflect any reality in any dimension I am aware of. Cheap to produce and easy to recycle, these shows are the darlings of the network executives who seek to cash in on the hopefully-passing fame of the reality television phenomenon.

8. NBC’s Primetime Programming

Oh, right. Never mind.

Tagged as: humor