My last article came about after an argument with a friend. His assertion was those who read my website worshiped me and would listen to anything I said. I told him not to be fooled. My audience is a fickle bunch who would turn their collective backs on me the very second I wrote something disagreeable.

I haven’t been doing this whole web thing for very long, but I have managed to learn a few things. My first lesson was that as long as I attacked the right target, my audience would describe me as utterly brilliant, fascinating and logical, and a person of such high character that I would attain best friend status if not for the damnable Internet keeping us apart. However, should I take a stance contrary to their own, I’d have them shrieking like mommybloggers. Hell, even Atheists, who generally pride themselves on being calm and logical, went all ‘Ryan Holiday’ on me in the face of some very minor teasing.

Dear Bloggers, there’s no such thing as fans on the Internet. You’re only popular as long as you display yourself as a mirror image of those you’re writing for. I think I’ve proven my point pretty well in that regard. Love, V.

The most hilarious part of the last update (If you understood the mentality behind it) was that no one really noticed exactly who I was mocking. An avid WoW player? The type of person to be antagonistic just for the sake of pissing people off? A snob? Oh, come on now! Who does that sound like to you? HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN READING THIS CRAP? If yesterday’s update was your first, I suppose you do have some excuse. If not, you’re an idiot. Seriously.

Oh, perhaps I’m too hard on you guys. On top of that, I probably haven’t delved into my particular level of snobbishness as much as I could have. But let me assure you all right here and now that I highly doubt there is any person alive on this planet that is a bigger snob than me. If anyone even came close, I’d be surprised.

If you own what I’ve dubbed a ‘white trash status symbol,’ such as an above ground swimming pool or a backyard trampoline, I look down you. If I meet your children and they don’t immediately shake my hand and tell me they’re pleased to meet me, I look down on you. If you spend your money frivolously, I look down on you. If you answer your cell phone in the midst of polite company, I look down on you. If, when asked what kind of vodka you prefer in your drink, you respond with the words ‘whatever is cheapest!,’ not only will I look down on you, but I will refuse to dine with you again. If you just read that last sentence with a confused expression on your face because you have no idea how to order cheap booze without appearing as a classless buffoon, then I don’t even want to be introduced to you. (Hint: House vodka will be fine, sir.)

Keep in mind that my particular brand of snobbishness is not reserved for broke people either. In fact, I’m probably a bit more critical of those with money. So if you have theater seating in your house, I look down on you. If you flash around large, expensive jewelry because you think it makes you look like hot shit, I look down on you. If you name drop, I look down on you. If you discuss how much you made on a business venture or investment in detail, without being asked specifics, I look down on you. I was raised to believe that’s it’s impolite to use your wealth to be obnoxious or make others feel inferior.

In fact, right this very second there is a 50? 60? inch television set in my living room, bought and paid for by my dear husband, and every time I walk past it, I want to spit fucking nails. In normal circumstances, I would look down on the type of people who would buy a ridiculously large television set. But there mine sits. In my living room. Mocking me. Whenever people come over, I have to fight the urge to hide it under a blanket. How humiliating.

Furthermore, I judge the quality of someone’s character by how they treat people in the service industry. So if you look right through the girl jockeying the register at the local 7-11 like she’s not even there or (worse) fail to sincerely thank her for her time and effort, I look down on you. Moreover, irritation or anger is no excuse for forgetting your manners. Which is why, even if the midst of extreme fury, I will say crazy shit to people like, “Will you please shut your mouth before I stick my foot in your ass, sir!” Trust me, I realize it doesn’t make much sense, but I guess that’s what happens when you invent your own particular brand of morality. There’s no fucking consistency.

[Side note: There are people no doubt reading right now thinking, “I’m not going to kiss up to people in the service industry. It’s their job to wait on me. It’s their job to be nice. I'm not going to kiss their ass because they are doing their job. Blah, blah, fucking, blah.” To them I say, yeah, but they chose that job. They could have made it their job to rob your fucking house or sell cocaine to your ugly fucking kid, by they didn’t. Instead, they decided to get up at 5 o’clock in the fucking morning to make your coffee and tell you to have a nice day. If don’t respect that, then fuck off right now, you classless piece of shit.]

Have I made my point yet? I hope so, because sometimes, I seriously lay in bed at night lulling myself to sleep by thinking of new and unusual ways to ‘quietly judge’ people. What can I say? When I told you all I was an evil, small minded little person, I wasn’t lying.

Some have said that part of the reason there was so much friction between my Mother and I was due to my tendency to make my distaste in her lifestyle choices obvious. When my Father was alive, my upbringing was very….just so, if that makes sense? And when he died, I was unable to ‘slum it’ with the same zest and zeal as my Mother. My Mother embraced (which is a nice way to say ‘fucked’) people I wouldn’t have spit on (because it’s impolite to spit) and she often insisted that I thought I was better than her. And she was right. Even when I was 7 years old, I thought I was better than my Mother. Not only that, but I totally lacked the ability to keep the sneer of disdain off of my face.

Looking back, I don’t half blame her for punching it in.

Now that I’m older, I have quit seriously playing the ‘who is better than who’ game…mostly because I always come up short. Deep down I know that those I criticize might do things in pretty poor taste a lot of the time, but they generally have more compassion and kindness in their toenail clippings than I have in my whole body. Not only that, but until I can learn to reel in my own inner asshole, I really have no right to judge anyone else.

But I will anyway. So nyah.

With that said, I still prefer the company of other snobs than that of normal folks. Not because I think they’re better people, mind you, but simply because they’re easier to entertain. In large groups, I’ve always had this need to make sure everyone is relaxed and having a good time. For that to happen, I usually have to put on my ‘dancing monkey’ suit and make everyone laugh.

Now if I’m hanging out with a normal, everyday, laid back group of individuals, this is a difficult task. I’m not the only ‘funny friend’ they have, so the entertainment bar is significantly higher. I’ve really got to be on my game with these people and sometimes the pressure is intense.

On the other hand, with a group of snobs, not only am I the funniest friend they’ve ever had, but I’m literally the only funny person they’ve ever known. So let’s just say I don’t have to tap too far into my ‘wit well’ to turn these guys on.

A perfect example of this would be the Monster Truck Rally I went to a couple of weeks ago. My family and I attended with 3 other small families, and even though we had our own private box with plush comfortable couches, private bathroom, professionally catered food with free top shelf alcohol, we all began the evening by lamenting how awful it was to be at a Monster truck rally in a building full of people who could be potentially chewing tobacco and how, God forbid, we were only doing this for the kids.

We continued to complain over the roar of the big, ridiculous trucks as the children watched avidly. Finally, we noticed the noise had died down and we looked around curiously to see if the show had mercifully ended. It hadn’t. Instead, there was a sort of halftime show going on where a buxom blonde was preparing to shoot herself out of a cannon.

One of the other chicks said something along the lines of, “I can’t believe she has a job getting shot out of a cannon. How gross. I’d rather work at McDonald’s than do something like that.”

Curtly, I replied, “Well, look at her. What else could she possibly do? It was either this or low grade stripper.”

Lame joke, I know, but you would not believe how they stirred their martinis and laughed!

The whole evening was a piece of cake. It was almost too easy! As I age, I notice I’m getting more and more socially lazy.

In the midst of all this pointless conjecture, I’ve noticed that I’ve once again digressed from my initial point…which was, quite simply, to quit taking me so goddamn seriously.

Also, I hope you all remember this 6 weeks from now when I write a post mocking crazy people.

The problem with Atheists is most of them are snobs.

Atheists think they’re being clever with their spaghetti monster analogies and fairy tale rhetoric, but at the end of the day, they come off sound like condescending pricks.

Furthermore, any group of people claiming superior intelligence that willingly engages in the fight of a losing battle automatically loses credibility. However, Atheists are too dumb to realize they’re fighting a losing battle, so they persist with the lecturing and the withering stares. Atheists have singled handedly ruined coffee shops with this crap.

I, myself, have not been able to claim belief in a higher power for many, many years. However, I can still see the value in Religion. Perhaps growing up without a strong parental figure in my life made me recognize the possible value of a loving Father figure up in the sky watching out for me. And hey, I try my best not forget that sometimes we all need something to believe in.

Most Atheists have the tendency to thumb their noses at Jesus, and then log onto World of Warcraft so they can pretend to be an orc for a couple of hours. They sneer at the Bible, but have no problem playing endless hours of vampire role playing games. The message is clear. Fantasies are OK as long as they include gratuitous violence and some sort of porn.

It’s no wonder Religious folks don’t take them too seriously. Even the Quiet Intellectual Atheist comes across as if he’s only denying belief to be aversive. It’s hard not to pity the guy addicted to nonconformity like an addict to a needle.

Personally, I don’t mind Religion. Religious leaders, on the other hand, really get my goat. But in my experience, when you approach someone by saying, “Hey. I don’t mind Catholicism. It’s just the creepy priests fucking altar boys that gross me out,” members of the congregation are more apt to listen.

My only real issue with Religion (and ultimately, it’s a fairly small issue) is that it teaches people to be good for all the wrong reasons. Whether it’s the fear of a vengeful God and eternal life spent in the flames of Hell or the possibility of winning a ticket into Heaven accompanied by a boat load of virgins, people are still behaving well to escape punishment or to win everlasting life.

Ideally, people would be good because it’s the right thing to do. Not because they want good Karma to come back on them and not because they’re hoping for a personal cloud to lounge on in the sky, but because doing the right thing is its own reward. I’d like to live in a world where people aren’t secretly hoping for a payoff for every single good dead they’ve ever done.

But then again, most of society today seems almost completely lacking in any moral compass whatsoever. So if ‘God’ does his part to scare some little bastard out of stealing my fucking car, I guess I can’t complain too much.

Any Atheist who does seriously needs to reevaluate his priorities.

First of all, I know there are crazy typos in that last post. I just can’t edit it without fucking up the video for some reason. Don’t ask me. I’m no youtube God.

Second of all, for those of you who are worried about not getting a tax break for your donation to my Charity Challenge, feel free to make your check or money order or whatever the hell you want to send to me out to West Valley Crisis Center directly. In fact, I’d actually prefer you make the checks out to them so I don’t have to diddle around at the bank cashing them and whatnot. I probably should have told you all that from the very beginning, but I’m retarded and I didn’t think of it. Also, I’ve been busy with other things.

If you’re donating via paypal and you still want a tax break…er…I don’t really know what to tell you. Sucks to be you, I guess.

Also, for the people who are worried that I’m going to cheat the system and pocket all the money rather than turn it over to charity, I have the perfect solution for you. Don’t participate in my Charity Challenge. Instead, visit the West Valley Crisis Center and donate to them directly. It’s no skin off of my nose if you donate to them directly; I just can’t keep track of it that way so it won’t count towards my Charity Challenge. However, the kids get the money either way and that’s all I care about. In fact, it’s actually in my best interest if you don’t participate in my Charity Challenge. After all, if we don’t meet my goal, I don’t have to post my picture. So if you would rather leave me out of your altruistic endeavors altogether, please, be my fucking guest. I could use the favor.

And lastly, I’d like to thank those of you who are really digging deep for these kids. Some of ya’ll are only donating a buck (Or less!) and, to me, that’s indicative of the fact you’re only in it for the picture and not the kids. I’m not going to bitch too much, because you’re still sacrificing the cost of a cheap cup of coffee for these kids (oooooo, go you!), but eh. You’re still kind of lame.

But there are also those of you who are making donations that you could have spent on Ipods or cell phones or expensive sneakers or tons of other meaningless shit that ultimately won’t make you happy. You guys are…fucking awesome.

My only hope is that when we finally turn this money over to West Valley and get word on how it was spent, that you actually do gain some happiness from spending money for a change. Unlike the electric mixer in your cabinet that could theoretically chop up a goddamn brick, I hope that you consider this money well spent.

I actually had an entire week worth of updates for you guys, but then I decided not to bother posting them since it’s abundantly clear that if they’re not about my picture, no one gives a fuck. I wish this realization would have made it through my thick skull weeks ago, because I would have saved myself a bunch of time and energy I could have spent doing something else instead of writing. But what can I say? I’m a slow learner.

Anyway, the word on the contest is organizing it ended up being a lot harder than I thought it would be. I found a lot of charities I wanted to contribute to and placed of few phone calls to those in charge of accepting donations and that is where I ended up hitting brick wall after brick wall.

I started out each phone call by saying that I wrote for a somewhat popular website and that I was interested in using my website to raise money for their charity. Everyone I spoke to seemed pretty enthused about my idea and assured me they were going to help me raise the money any way they could. Each of them asked me to email them a list of things I needed from them and told me we’d go from there.

So I told them that I needed them to set up a private paypal account so my readers could donate to them directly and I would also need access to the information so I could track our progress. I also told them that if they wanted to put up a separate little page on their website talking about the contest and letting readers know who their money was going to help, that would be great too.

Not a goddamn one of these charities wrote me back. My guess is they either thought I was running a scam on them or they were so goddamn computer illiterate that they didn’t understand what I was asking them to do.

I kept searching for a charity I felt I could get behind and who would also be willing to work with me on this shit, but time kept passing and the natives were getting increasingly restless. So, I said, fuck it. I’ll just have my own private paypal shit set up and open up a P.O box and then I can just donate to them directly without any fuss or muss.

The downside to this is that anyone who donates is just going to have to trust that I’m going to turn over the cash to charity. But rest assured: the charity I picked goes to helping abused children. It takes a special brand of evil to steal from abused kids. Only serial killers and Catholic Priests are even capable of that level of evil, and I am neither. So, I’d say you’re pretty safe. Also, I’m asking the charity to at least send me a notarized letter I can post here after they receive the money. Furthermore, I may just press my luck and ask for pictures or something so everyone can see what they paid for.

The name of the facility I’d like to donate to is West Valley Child Crisis Center. The people at West Valley help children who have been removed from very abusive situations by children’s service. Feel free to check out their website here and watch a video about the work they do here:
I’d like to raise $10,000. Considering that the chick over at Wide Lawns raised $3,000 and her site is a bit smaller than mine, so I think this number is more than feasible. Hell, by my calculations, if everyone subscribed to my rss feed simply donated $1.25, we can meet the goal without a dime from my regular, less computer savvy readers. Besides, it’s for a good fucking cause.You all have 6 weeks to donate. I figure this allows a couple of pay periods to go by and if anyone is still waiting on a refund check from the IRS,they have time to wait for that too. If we meet the $10,000 mark, your prize will be the satisfaction of knowing you did a good deed.Oh, and I’ll post a recent picture of me wearing a bikini. Am I really a 43 year old fat man? A heinously ugly woman? Nobody knows for sure, but that can all change with your contribution! (Infomercial over)

I’ll be updating once a week to keep you guys posted on the progress. Also, I should probably let you know that anything I collect over $10,000 may be given to a few people who are volunteering their time to make this contest happen. I’d like to post updates about the contest that include pretty colored graphs and screen shots of the paypal account and since I don’t know how to do any of that shit, I asked a few people to help me out in this regard. If I could, I’d like to give them something for their time. Of course, I’ll be sure to let everyone know immediately after reaching the $10,000 mark so if that’s not cool with you, you can uh, quit donating.

So if you’d like to help abused children and/or have an odd curiosity about what I look like, dig deep and donate as much as you can.

You can donate via paypal:

Or, if you one of the last 4 people in the world without a freaking paypal account, you can send me a certified money order here:

Violent Acres Charity Contest
P.O. Box 421272
Indianapolis, IN 46242-1272

Also, feel free to plug this contest on your blog, myspace page, or any internet forums you post on. Like I said, not only is the money is going to a great cause, but the very fact that it exists will build awareness for fucked up children with even more fucked up parents.

The bottom line is it’s real easy to shake your head and pretend you give a shit about little kids who are being beaten, molested, and degraded by the very people responsible for protecting them, but it’s quite another thing to step up and put your money where your mouth is. Quit playing lip service to these kids and help them out in a real, tangible way.

Let’s get this party started, people.

Progress so far:

I’ve fallen in love with a new site.

The gist of the site is the author responds to actual letters people have written to Entertainment Weekly and People magazine. I actually thumb through People from time to time and the idiotic letters people write about last month’s issue have always made me shake my head with wonder. Trust me, he’s replying to real letters here. This shit isn’t fake.

An excerpt:

I mean, if you’re going to try to encourage youngsters, the first rule is to not tell them how fucked up your life is due to the condition you share. This is one reason they don’t bring in fresh corpses to cheer up cancer wards.

It all goes down hill from there, so if you want to spend the morning laughing your ass off, check out Entertainment People now.