May 26, 2011

• I know it’s a little late for me to be writing a post about the recent end of the world craziness, but I was just way too busy getting my apocalypse survival kit (i.e., bag of Cheetos and a soda) ready and didn’t have time to write. And when it later turned out that the planet wasn’t going to go up in flames or have zombies walking all over it, I found myself with lots of free time to write but nothing to write with. You see, I’d given away all of my belongings—including my laptop, pens, and paper—because I figured I wouldn’t need any of it when pestilence, famine, war, the “Real Housewives of Orange County,” Justin Bieber, live-action “Incredible Hulk” movies (just give it up already!), and all of the devil’s other incarnations were ravaging the world.

  I tried to buy new writing instruments to replace the ones I’d given away, but that didn’t work because I couldn’t pay for anything. Along with ditching my stuff, I also flushed my life savings down the toilet in hopes that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles would find it in the sewers and use it to rebuild the world.

  Anyway, I’m now a destitute hobo trying to scratch out a living by selling homemade pillows—which are really just piles of fur I’ve brushed off my cats—and…and…

  …And I’m having a really hard time pretending to be a doomsdayer, so I’m going to have to cut this moment of mouth diarrhea short. Who knew it took such tremendous amounts of energy to reach that level of crazy?

  It probably isn’t necessary for me to say this, but I am not a doomsdayer and would never ever waste a second of my life preparing for the end of the world—because in order for me to take such drastic measures, I would first have to believe that it was actually possible to predict when the world was going to end. But I don’t think something like that is foreseeable, and I doubt it ever will be.

  For me, doomsday predictions are only good for 3 things:

  1. Getting attention

  

  

  

  

  2. Justifying laziness

  

  3. Helping you figure out which friends shouldn’t be your friends anymore

  

  

  One thing the predictions are definitely not good for: predicting doomsday.

  And this should be common knowledge, people! I mean, think of how many times we’ve already been through this! The year 2000 alone had, like, 30 different prophesies, and they all ended up the way we expected them to: in total and utter failure. Let’s face it: this schtick carries a 0% success rate—and these odds don’t change just because someone decides to plaster his prediction on a bunch of billboards.

  Speaking of those billboards, I saw one when I was on the freeway and the first thing I thought was, “Okay, this is either (1) an advertisement for a shady debt refinancing company, or (2) some crazy old coot who thinks he has a better understanding of religion is trying to brainwash me into believing the is world is going to end on May 21.” To be honest, I thought #1 was more likely because I couldn’t see how anyone would actually pay money to publicize a prediction that was doomed to fail. You’re pretty much inviting everyone to watch you humiliate yourself on an epic scale.

  But surprise! I was wrong. That weird billboard wasn’t the work of some fraudy debt refinancing company, but of a 1,000-year-old coot named Harold Camping. And he didn’t just pay to have one billboard along a California freeway—he had thousands of them put up around country.

  Even more surprising? Reputable news agencies were talking about him! What the hell for?! To report the general consensus that the May 21 prediction was going to be wrong? We already knew that! It’s a headline that’s been on the list of un-newsworthy news items since the beginning of time!

  And if there is one person who definitely does not deserve any air time, it’s Harold Camping. Pulling doomsday predictions out of his ass isn’t a game he’s never played before. In fact, when I typed his name into Google, one of the suggested search terms that came up was “Harold Camping wrong again.” The first time he made a bad prediction was in 1994, which he later said was wrong because of some bad math he did. I don’t really understand how that makes any sense. The man was a Berkeley-educated civil engineer! He worked in an industry where exemplary math skills are essential! That he thought he could actually hide behind this bad math excuse gives you an idea of how much crazy is pent up in that raisin.

  …Or not, because here I am writing a blog about Harold Camping’s second prediction, which I am only aware of because of all the press it got in the days leading up to May 21. And now that he’s been proven wrong again—and using the bad math excuse to cover his ass again—he’s predicting for a third, a third, freaking time that the world is going to end on October 21. Is taking a dump on people three times not enough to get you committed? How is this man not in an asylum?

  Old Man Camping is no different than any of the other freaks who’ve claimed to have figured out when the world was going to end. He wants to be famous, and have an enclave of followers who revere him. But he’s not willing to get all David Koresh and claim he’s actually a deity incarnate, so he takes the more “modest” route and tries to get people to believe he’s the PR guy for [insert religious figure]. And I guess being the PR guy automatically makes you an expert at using religious text to see into the future—a future where apparently the only thing that occurs is the apocalypse.

  But did you ever notice how these so-called prophets always predict that the world will end during their own lifetimes? They never say it’ll happen later in the future. It’s always “Judgment Day is going to happen before I die.” That’s kind of egotistical, don’t you think? The Earth has been alive and kicking for the past 4.5 billion years or so, but then you show up and suddenly its days are numbered? Hmm…kind of makes it seem like you’re a catalyst for—OMG! We’re not going to be struck down by a higher power! We’re going to be smothered to death by your elitist douche baggery!

  The only Judgment Day Camping and the rest of his fellow ham fortunetellers are able to foresee is the one that only applies to them, i.e., the day society judges them for their failed predictions. And while it’s fun watching them sit in the sh*t hole they dug for themselves, I would rather have them disappear for a while. I seriously need a break from their shenanigans, especially when 2012 is going to exponentially worse. Who cares if the Mayan calendar ends in 2012? Did it ever occur to you that maybe they just got tired of making it? I mean, at some point the person assigned to the job had to have been like, “OMG, why the f*ck are we still working on this million-page day planner?! It’s not like any of us will be around in 2012! We’ll be lucky if we make it past the 900s!”

  It’s just so stupid…!

  • 7:58 pm
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