I. You Refer to Yourself in the Third Person

There are two circumstances where referring to yourself in the third person is acceptable:

1. Your name is Elmo, and you live on Sesame Street, or

2. You are talking about your twin who came here from a parallel universe, and is a totally separate person completely independent from your physical and mental being.

Unless you fall under one of these two limited exceptions, any use of the third person narrative when talking about yourself automatically makes you a total douche.

And let’s not try to use the “it’s my defense mechanism” excuse because that’s straight-up raggedy. You act douchie as a defense? Against what? A sack of potatoes?

II. You Use Twitter

That’s right: if you use Twitter, you are a giant douche-tastic douche. You honestly believe people find your life so interesting that it warrants posting 140-characters worth of status updates every 10 minutes. I knew there was a reason why the word “twit” appears in “Twitter”!

Don’t take this the wrong way: I do see the need to keep the public informed of every minute detail of your existence…that is, if you’re the Dos Equis Man—the most interesting man in the world.

Unfortunately, you’re not the Dos Equis Man…you’re just a douche bag who uses Twitter.

Super Douche Baggery: you use your cell phone to post up-to-the-minute updates on what you’re doing.

III. You Use a Strategy Guide to Play Fantasy Sports

Playing fantasy sports is already an easy-way-out from playing actual sports. You just sit in front of your computer and manage your fantasy team. Sure, successful management means you might have to analyze player stats—but that requires you do to what? Watch ESPN? Read some sports articles?

Actually, you don’t even have to do any of that hard labor to rise to the top of your fantasy sports league. There are websites dedicated to making sure you have all the information necessary to beat all your coworkers and friends, while doing as little thinking as possible. All you have to do is pick the players for your dream team.

Considering how simple the Internet has made the task of managing a fantasy sports team, at the very least you should be able to pick some players. But if you can’t even do that, and must rely on a fantasy sports strategy guide to hand-feed you which players to pick, then you’re not just a douche—you’re also retarded.

IV. You Wear a Bluetooth Headset or Cell Phone Earpiece Even When You’re Not Taking a Call

People who wear their Bluetooth headsets even though they are not taking a phone call are douche-tastic douche bags. They probably think that wearing their headsets makes them look like they have really, really busy social and professional lives. But why would we think that when we can plainly see you’re not even talking to anyone? You just look like a douche bag who thinks that wearing a Bluetooth headset makes you look less douchie. Epic fail!

V. You Send Mass Messages to Everyone on Your Xanga Friends List

I’m sorry that this is on my list because I know a number of Xangans send mass messages on an almost weekly basis, and it really pains me to say their actions are at all douchie.

But! As a recipient of these mass mailings, I have no choice but to label the act of sending such spam as totally douche-tastic. Seriously, I receive at least one of these messages a day—and I know this because I log into my account for the sole purpose of deleting them from my inbox. I don’t even read them anymore because the ones I did take the time to view were either (1) pointless blabber, or (2) a bunch of inside jokes that only a few of the sender’s friends understood, and I wasn’t one of them.

If it is really that important, then you should send personalized messages to those you want to inform. If that’s not possible, then you should post it on your blog. Either way, you get your message across without having to resort to mass messages. And that ultimately means you avoid being douche-tastic—because sending spam mail to everyone on your Friends list is 100% douche-tastic. 

Of all the seasons, my least favorite is summer. Not because of the sweltering heat, or the stench of people sweating profusely as a result of sweltering heat. Nor is it because of the exponential increase in mosquitoes trying to eat us alive. And it's not even because of the greater risk of seeing Sasquatch-hairy backs and man-boobs as more men begin walking around shirtless. As unpleasant as all these things may be, they are not why summer is my least favorite season. No, the reason why I hate, hate, hate summer is because it is the season of migration: the muffin top migration.

Yes, the dreaded muffin top migration. The muffin top hibernates during winter, and comes out in the summer to flap under the sun. Thus, in the same way that some people rely on a groundhog's shadow to determine the beginning to spring, I rely on the appearance of a muffin top to warn me that hell summer is here. And apparently summer started early this year because today I saw not one, but two muffin tops:

Of all the songs these girls could have sung, they decided to go with Justin Timberlake’s “Sexy Back”—a choice that would have only made sense if the word “sexy” meant “total blindness.” The girl on the left had a spray-on tan that left her looking like she had been living in a bag of Cheetos for the past 10 years. Her friend on the right was wearing what I guess were “Daisy Dukes,” but looked more like “Make Me Pukes” on her cellulitey legs. Both of them were wearing camisoles that did not fit them, causing rolls of flab to form underneath their tops—and which were probably screaming, “Help me! Help me! I am being held against my will!”

As disgusting as the rolls, Cheetos-tan, and “Make Me Pukes” were, however, none were nearly as nauseating as the giant-ass muffin tops that were hanging out for the entire world to see.

For those of you who don’t know, a muffin top is a saggy layer of belly flab that is formed when a girl wears, like, a pair of jeans that are too small for her. But rather than putting on a pair that is actually in her size, the girl instead tries to stuff herself into a garment that does not have enough material to encompass her entire lower body. There is just enough room for her legs and most of her butt—but only because the jeans have managed to make extra space by pushing her belly out…where it must hang over the waistband in a sad mass of flab.

Muffin tops do not only occur when wearing jeans; they can form when a girl wears a skirt, shorts, slacks, or any other bottom-piece of clothing. Look at the girls I saw today: one was in shorts and the other wore a skirt, and both had massive muffin tops sagging all over the place. If the bottoms are too small, then it is inevitable that a muffin top will be born.

When you think about it, there shouldn't even be such thing as a muffin top on something other than a muffin. What is so wrong with wearing clothes that actually fit your body? So you wear a size 48—so what? Most people can’t tell what size a person is just by looking at him, and especially not when that person is wearing clothes that fit.

On the other hand, we all know when someone is wearing something that doesn’t fit, and are never fooled by girls who insist on squashing themselves into bottoms that are two sizes too small. Yeah, you might think you’re rocking size 0 shorts, but you’re actually rocking a muffin top, so you might want to consider doing something like—gee, I don’t know—wearing clothes that are actually in your own freaking size.

My “friend” showed me that nightmare of a video clip where a Domino’s Pizza employee is seen wiping his booger onto a sandwich he was preparing, and then garnishing it with a shred of cheese he had put up his nostril. I guess the video I saw was the abridged version, and there is an “uncut” original somewhere that shows this guy and his coworker doing other nasty things to someone’s food. But you know what? I don’t care if there is an unedited version floating around on the Internet! There is no way in Hell I’ll ever want to see it. I didn’t want to see this sh*t, and I definitely do not want to see that sh*t...and as for the “friend” who showed it to me, he is officially at the top of my sh*t list. I am going to dedicate the rest of my life to making sure he is miserable because, by showing me that clip of those evil imps desecrating a staple of every fast food-lover’s diet, I will probably never order a pizza from a franchise ever again. No more Domino’s, Pizza Hut, Papa John’s, or DiGiorno’s (that’s what you get for bombarding us with your “it’s not delivery, it’s DiGiorno’s” commercials)—I’m all about Red Baron and Tombstone pizzas now. I’ll even make my own pizza if I have to. It’s going to end up being a slice of bread drenched in spaghetti sauce and covered with shredded cheese, but at least it’s sanitary.

Boycotting these pizza franchises probably seems like an overly-extreme precautionary measure. After all, this gross video was of two insipid asshats working at a Domino’s out in Conover, North Carolina. If anyone were to feel the need to stop ordering pizza, it would be the customers serviced by the store those losers worked at because they were the ones exposed to contaminated food. I, on the other hand, am in Southern California—roughly 2,379 miles way from Conover—and order my pizzas from Pizza Hut, not Domino’s. My food is far, far away from the reach of those two nasty employees. And in any event, their crappy conduct should not tarnish the reputations of Domino’s Pizza or its workforce, or the reputation of any other pizza franchise.

Besides, the employees in the video clip were making oven-baked sandwiches, not pizzas, so maybe their grossness was limited to just the sandwiches. Who would order a sandwich from a restaurant that specializes in pizzas anyway? I wouldn’t. Getting a sandwich from Domino’s Pizza is like using an online dating service to find someone who isn’t butt ugly: it’s just not happening. All you’ll get out of it is a date with someone who looks like a leathery monster, and a ton of disappointment—which just so happens to be the same reaction you’ll have when you end up eating a booger sandwich.

Anyway...

Of course, let’s not forget the whole “it could happen at any restaurant” argument. Hey, I hear you, and I agree that there is a risk of consuming toxic food no matter where you go. And refusing to order pizza from a Domino’s, Pizza Hut, or Papa John’s is not going to protect me from the possibility of finding a pube or ass dirt in my meal. I know this, but it’s not going to make me change my mind about boycotting pizza franchises. Being aware of the risk that I am eating food that has been tainted by a crazy food server is not the same as actually seeing the employee tainting food. Once you’ve seen the latter, it is hard to disassociate that memory from the restaurant he worked at or the food he prepared. In this case, I cannot look at a pizza without thinking of how that guy wiped his booger on something someone ended up eating. It was so disgusting that I don’t think I’ll be able to eat a pizza without doing some CSI-type investigating first:

So not worth it!

Imagine what life would be like if McDonald’s served breakfast all day, and that you could buy an Egg McMuffin without having to wake up at 10:00 in the morning just so you could reach a McDonald’s before 10:30 a.m. That would be pretty awesome, wouldn’t it?

Now imagine going to McDonald’s at 7:00 p.m., ordering an Egg McMuffin, and receiving a sandwich that is the size of a big rig’s tire. That’s right: you, eating a giant Egg McMuffin at 7:00 p.m. That’s not awesome—that’s heaven.

And that, my friends, is the kind of heavenly-awesome experience I get whenever I read a news article about how some brilliant example of human intelligence thought it was a great idea to sneak into a zoo enclosure—only to end up having his dumbass chomped on by a wild animal.

The best stories are the ones that have pictures of these losers getting owned by the animals. Those gems don’t come very often—which is too bad, really, because they are full of generous amounts of amusement…so much so that I bet you could probably end world hunger, achieve world peace, and cure herpes simply by distributing copies of zoo-animal-bum-rushes-douche-bag news stories that have pictures of the actual incident.

Here, I’ll show you.

Man Tries to Convert Lions to Jesus, Gets Bitten

A man leaped into a lion’s den at the Taipei Zoo on Wednesday to try to convert the king of beasts to Christianity, but was bitten in the leg for his efforts...

Look! It doesn’t hurt when you pee anymore!

And here’s an article I found on CNN’s website this morning:

Polar Bear Attacks Woman at Berlin Zoo

A polar bear attacked a woman at Berlin Zoo Friday afternoon after she climbed a fence and jumped into its habitat during feeding time…

Uweeheehee! Who says Christmas only comes once a year?

Man, I love how these idiot douche bags always climb into the exhibits for animals with crazy-ass claws and teeth. You’ll never find a headline that says something weak like, “Tourist Crushed by Pissed-Off Galapagos Tortoise,” or “Flamingoes Peck and Poop Trespassing Visitor to Death.” It’s always “Tourist’s Affection Enrages Panda,” “Chinese Panda Mauls Teenage Boy,” or “Gu Gu Strikes Again! Panda Attacks Zoo Visitor.”

Speaking of Gu Gu, he has got to be the most badass panda in the world. He hasn’t mangled just one dumbass—he's bitten the sh*t out of three! Three! And he must have been using some super ninja skills or something because I haven’t found a single mid-mauling photograph of him. Can you believe it? Gu Gu’s punished three douche bags, and all I’ve been able to find are pictures of the third guy lying in a hospital bed. What an awesomely awesome ninja panda of awesomeness!

Hopefully, the next time there is a report on Gu Gu beating on someone, there will be a picture accompanying the article. Are you kidding me? Of course he’s going to do it again! The fact that he has a track record is proof that he will have a fourth dumbass to chew on! And I imagine it will look something like this:

Hell yes, that’s how it’s going to go down. He’s the world’s most badass panda!
 

Last week, I came across a video news clip with the headline “Gallery Exhibit for Toddler’s Art.”

A young child with an art show? How could you not be intrigued by that? The kid must be, like, this century’s Van Gogh, Michelangelo is a party dude! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Heroes in a half shell! Turtle Power! or something to get that kind of recognition, right?

I clicked on the video link, expecting to see a little kid with a drawn-on handlebar mustache, wearing a beret and holding an artist palette while standing in front a backdrop of gorgeous paintings that could make even Chuck Norris cry. Chuck freakin’ Norris!

...And then I saw this:

Okay, that’s not art; that’s crap on a canvas.

Whatever the hell it is, it was made by Aelita Andre—a two-year-old girl who some are calling a child prodigy for creating what looks to me like doodoo art. Sorry, but that’s what it looks like…as does every other picture ever created by the average two-year-old. Seriously, when was the last time you saw a toddler draw something that wasn’t a shapeless smattering of random colors smeared all over the place, huh? He isn’t drawing anything; he’s just playing with paint. And it doesn’t matter what he’s using—crayons, markers, or colored pencils—he’s going to end up creating something that looks like a giant diarrhea tornado.

Aelita Andre is no different, and neither is her “artwork”—so why the hell is her stuff being showcased at an art gallery?

Because her parents are hippies, that’s why. And they call their daughter’s play-with-paint messiness “abstract art.”

Abstract art is not art—and the only people who will try to convince you otherwise is a German guy who paints pictures with his own feces, musicians who compose music out of weather noises, and whoever directed “Cirque du Soleil: Mystere.” It’s only art if the viewer can interpret some sort of meaningfulness in a piece that is completely meaningless on purpose. Why should anyone do that? You’re the artist who created the artwork, so you should tell me what message you wanted the art to convey. Don’t make me play “Where’s Waldo” and try to find the artistic value you want to be credited with. If you drew something that looks like it was created on a jacked-up “Magna Doodle,” then that’s how I am going to interpret it.

Obviously, I am not a fan of this genre, and this news story—if you can even call it that—is only compounding my disdain. What was nothing more than typical toddler doodling suddenly turned into works of artistic brilliance simply because the kid’s parents called it “abstract art.” And not only do people buy that description, they are also buying these messed up canvasses for as much as $1,500! Some parents wouldn’t even pay $1.50 for pictures drawn by their own kids, so imagine how douchie you have to be to pay 1000 times that much for a picture drawn by someone else’s child.

To top it all off, there is controversy over whether a two-year-old was actually the one responsible for this doodoo art. That’s right: some abstract art experts believe that little Aelita may have had help from her parents in creating her messes. A few even go as far as to say they are solely her parents’ work.

…Are you f*cking kidding me? Look at this sh*t! It screams “goo goo gah gah”! There is no question that a toddler created this crap.

"Lapis Lazuli (Dragon with Gem in its Mouth)"

"Lizard at Sunset"

"Mir Space Staton in Cherry Blossoms"

I, on the other hand, have been asked whether my “Paint” pictures were actually created by a child.

These experts should be focusing instead on whether these paintings can still be considered abstract art when the titles were created by Aelita’s parents. How did they know their daughter wanted to convey the Mir Space Station? Does Aelita know what the space station is? Can she even pronounce “Mir”? These are just canvasses their daughter smeared paint on, with titles they created to give off the illusion that it is art and not child’s play.

I imagine that some hippie fart-knockers are going to criticize me for being ignorant in failing to appreciate abstract art. They’ll probably say I’m too simple-minded to realize that the amorphous mess of colors actually has structure; that I’m not intelligent enough to see what is really being depicted.

Umm…really? I’m the stupid one here? You’re the guy who sees a terrier in a painting that cannot be interpreted as anything other than a giant diarrhea tornado. And there is a word for people who see things that aren’t there: it’s called “insane,” so shut the f*ck up.