I Heart Economic Populism

This is a great time to be alive. During the eight years of the Bush administration I was going insane over the political debates that were going on in our country. Gay marriage? Why do people care? I say let 'em get married and be as miserable as the rest of us. They won't be so "gay" and fancy-free when their spouses nag them about the goddamn lawn for a few years straight. The term "gay" might have to be replaced with something more appropriate -- "in a rut"? "Marking time"? Widespread marriage will certainly make gayness a lot less fun to watch. Their TV shows will have to be less "Queer Eye for the Straight Guy" and more "According to Jim." "Steve, I think we should have more sex." "Well Trent, maybe you shouldn't have sold my favorite cock rings at the garage sale!" "It's not my fault the kids thought they were bracelets!" Wa-ha-ha-ha! Cut to commercial.

Anyway, forget that -- the point is that gay marriage is not a debate that a country of grown-ups should be obsessing over. I've said it before and I'll keep saying it and saying it until everyone agrees with me -- straight people, your lives and marriages are and will be completely unaffected by the fact that some homosexual people you don't know and probably will never meet decide to get married. No one is being hurt here, folks.

There were some important debates in the Bush years. Iraq -- yeah, OK, that was an important debate. Foreign policy in general is big. But as for all the social issues that people were in a tizzy over -- who gives a shit? Does it honestly affect my family whether scientists use stem cells to cure diseases? Maybe it would if I had a disease, but fuck that because I am strong like bull. Right now my main concern is to make a few bucks before I get a crippling disease so that I can suffer extreme, heart-wrenching pain that slowly progresses into early death without going bankrupt in the process. It just makes it more fun that way.

So while people worked themselves into a lather over things that didn't affect them, I was always a bit obsessed over economic issues, and even more obsessed over why other people weren't obsessed with them. There was a book called "What the Matter with Kansas" (which I didn't read, by the way) that wondered why states like Kansas, full of salt-of-the-earth types who were struggling mightily under an income disparity between rich and poor that was approaching Third-World levels -- why would these people be Republicans? Why would they support a party whose primary policy seemed to be "whatever my baby Big Business wants, my baby gets"? When the government was Republican-controlled, they refused to enforce regulations on businesses, gave massive tax cuts to the wealthy Americans, etc., etc., and after a while it didn't even seem to be based on some sort of principle, as Reaganomics admittedly was -- it was just based on "How much can we get?" There was no real ideology beyond kleptocracy, basically.

The "What's the Matter with Kansas" book was basically saying that Republicans were cynically using wedge issues such as gay marriage and stem cells to get a lot of well-meaning religious folks to vote for them, so that when in power, the Republicans could then do absolutely nothing concrete about those wedge issues, but instead enact a lot of punishing economic legislation. Look at the record -- what did Bush do after gaining his alleged mandate in 2004? Did he try to ban gay-married abortion doctors from burning flags made of stem cells? No, he tried to privatize Social Security. (Imagine if he had succeeded on that one, by the way. Euch!) What did he do after garnering a 150% approval rating after 9/11? Did he declare the United States a Christian nation and require school prayer and creationist classes and school lunches made of nothing but holy water and eucharist? Nope, he cut taxes on the rich. Meanwhile, abortions kept on keepin' on unchecked. Y'all Kansans is gettin' played.

But now financial issues are in vogue because the economic shit has hit the fan, and I'm eating it up. (That is a rather disgusting combination of metaphors there. My apologies.) Of course, people are still doing it stupidly -- witness the frenzied teabaggers who are revolting against tax hikes that haven't even happened yet, and that would likely only bring us back to Clinton-era levels, as per a "sunset" clause that Republicans worked into the original tax cut bill. I saw a bunch of the teabaggers on TV and they were all salt-of-the-earth types. Guys, have you checked your paychecks recently? You just got tax CUTS that are giving you more money each two weeks. You're still acting as puppets of the fatcats that you're supposedly so angry with. You think those AIG folks were Democrats?

Anywhoozle, this is all a long prelude to my own tiny little moment of action for economic populism. See, I've been using a Working Assets Visa card for about 7 years now. I've never missed a payment and often carry a balance of around 30% of the limit, which is right in the sweet spot of where they want. I'm a model customer. And then I get a letter saying that my APR is being tripled. For no reason. But you can always cancel, right? Yeah, and you know that doesn't look good on credit reports. And I'd rather stick it to them anyway. So I wrote this letter:

To Whom It May Concern,

I am transferring all of my money from my Working Assets Visa to another card because you recently raised my APR for no reason at all. I have never had a late payment and have carried a reasonable balance for years. It is clear that my APR was raised only because you thought it could get you a tiny amount of more money, with no consideration for what it might do to me, or what it might do to my perception of your company.

I do not wish to cancel, because that would hurt my credit rating, so instead I will pay the card off in full and never use it except in case of emergency. I’m doing this for is not only economic reasons, but also as a matter of principle. I am lucky in that I have other options besides succumbing to your tactics – meanwhile many people, especially in the current struggling economy, do not. It seems that you are blatantly exploiting the financial dire straits of ordinary people. What could mean a miniscule raise in profits for your company could cripple a family living on the edge of bankruptcy. This is unconscionable.

You probably know that Congress is debating legislation that will ban APR raises for no reason, a measure I fully support. Do you really want the same kind of populist backlash currently directed towards banks to be directed to credit card companies? Do you want people to continue the current trend of saving more instead of spending? “Penny wise, pound foolish” practices such as raising APRs for no reason will only encourage such activity. Your salad days of people charging much more than they can pay are over, and through your cruel, myopic policies you are only making it worse for yourselves.

I am cynical enough to expect the philosophy of “a slight rise in profits for us is worth any amount of human suffering – hey it’s a business” to be evident in many businesses. I thought, however, that a company like Working Assets, which spends so much money on progressive causes, would not be so short-sighted. Previously I used my Working Assets Visa with pride, and recommended it to everyone. Now I will tell everyone I can that your company is a sham, and that they should avoid it all costs.

Thank you for your time,

Chris E. Keedei

Now here's my question. Who do I actually send this to? I'm not naive enough to think that Visa president, CEO and Grand Wizard Visa von Visaheimer will read my letter, experience a revelation, and suddenly change all his policies and buy the world a Coke to keep it company. But I would like it to get into the hands of someone besides the poor minimum-wage shlubs who process my payments. Any ideas?

Terrorists Won't Become Like Pirates

I was going to make this a comment to Ed's last post. But as I was writing it, it seemed like there was enough content to make a new post out of it. We'll see, won't we?

Terrorists won't become like pirates. They don't fit into the established Western tradition of rebel worship. This tradition goes back a long ways; certainly nearly a thousand years. Consider figures like Robin Hood, Jesse James, and Andre Agassi. We love them all! And why not? They kill people in authority, flout current standards of morality, and answer to no one. (Well, maybe that doesn't go for Agassi - I don't recall him murdering anyone. But I could be wrong. In any event, he's still a rebel.)

But bloodlust is not why we love them. Rather, it's that they represent freedom. Emily was right when she noted that most modern depictions of pirates focus on searching for buried treasure, exploration, and just general carousing. There's a part of us that wants to be able to do those things - pick up and leave whenever we want, do as we choose, do things no one has ever done before. Sail off into the sunset; ride a lone horse into the sunset; follow a jungle trail...into the sunset. (Sunsets are the key to freedom, apparently.)

But we can't. We have to raise crops, raise families, and follow most of the rules most of the time. It's called society, and it's worked for thousands of years. When society works, it's a wonderful thing. It lets us eat and live comfortably. And it allows us to do things that the cavemen never could. Science and literature, arts and industry - all the advances of mankind are because we buy into society.

There's little pieces of us that still feel like cavemen, though. And fortunately, those bits of us are largely satisfied by allowing a very few people to live that life outside the law. We secretly root for them, and we celebrate them because they let the rest of us live productive lives. If everyone were an outlaw, nothing would ever get done. But if Jesse James robs a couple dozen banks over the course of a couple decades, we can lean on our desks and say, "Man! Did you hear about that last job the James Gang pulled? Phew! Always staying one step ahead of the law, too. Alright - now what were you saying about the third quarter actuarial adjustments?"

It's a fine line, however, between outlaws and fanatics. We like the idea of a little rebelliousness out there; we don't like fanaticism. Why not? Because fanatics aren't any more free than the rest of us - they're slaves to their ideology, and that's not very romantic. This is why terrorists won't be like pirates. They're both on the fringes of society, but we're scared of the parts of us that are fanatical, whereas we are wistful about the parts of us that want freedom.

How can you tell which side of the line someone falls? I think it can all be boiled down to something I call the plush doll test. If you can imagine a historical figure or archetype as a plush doll, it's a rebel or an outlaw. If you can't, then it's a fanatic. For example: Robin Hood - plush doll. Torquemada - not a plush doll. Pirate - plush doll. Ku Klux Klansman - not a plush doll.

And here's where I disagree with Amy. I don't think that Nazis are like pirates, either. We don't celebrate Nazis as a general rule. We tend either to demonize or ridicule them. And we do this, again, because we're afraid of the dark corners of humanity that they represent. They fail the plush doll test.

Like I said, it can be a fine line. But I'm convinced that terrorists will never be like pirates.

Pirates Are Fun and Hilarious! Arr!

Arrr! I'm a pirate, matey! Ha ha ha ... I'm not really a pirate. But me and my Internet buddies just think pirates are hilarious and fun! I've got a pirate costume and everything and I always get big into "Talk Like a Pirate Day" (a real day)!  I've got a load of great pirate jokes too ... hey, where did the pirate go for lunch? Arrrby's! Ha ha ha ...

Hold on a second, I'm just hearing something on the news ... apparently some actual pirates terrorized an American freighter and held its captain at gunpoint? Arrr ... ar ... hmmm. Somehow now pirates are now less fun and hilarious. (And I should also stop putting my news on a one-week time delay. I don't know why I do that.)

I should explain here. I noticed a while ago that pirates were becoming a hi-LAR-ious cultural touchstone, particularly among Internet dorks. Maybe it was the fault of "Pirates of the Caribbean" -- I think it actually goes back to the Sea Captain character on the Simpsons -- but dorks have been finding endless hilarity in pirates for a while. (Among Internet dorks, the latest hilarious cultural touchstone is bacon. No joke. Man, I should really write a whole history and taxonomy of American nerd culture in the 21st century. Some people probably think it's still big glasses and pocket protectors, but it's blossomed into a massive, varied cultural tapestry, complete with a wide range of subcultures.) 

The pirate fascination always struck me as 1) annoying -- pirate voices are extremely easy to do and extremely lame (imagine your boss coming up to you and going "Arr! Avast ye swabs for a team meeting at 10!" and you'll understand what I'm saying) and 2) a little odd, considering that pirates were the terrorists of their day. They boarded ships, killed people, took their stuff -- they were, by definition, horrible people. 

The "pirates are fun" thing even stretches into kids' programming -- ever seen a show called "The Wiggles"? It's absolutely dreadful, so don't. It's a bunch of hammy Australian men wearing brightly colored shirts and singing terrible songs with a painful degree of enthusiasm. Kids love it, of course -- for kids, there's no such thing as "too enthusiastic." 

Point is, one of the Wiggles plays a funny pirate, complete with an eyepatch and pegleg and whole getup. I would watch it and marvel at how pirates are now considered so harmless and fun that they can be on goofy kids shows, when they were once the nightmare of the world. And I wondered if someday kids' shows will have a fun and harmless terrorist. Some goofy, fun guy with dynamite strapped to his chest telling kids to brush regularly, that kind of thing.

Anyway, thanks to the Somali pirates, the pirate trend has presumably suffered a sudden heart attack and died. I owe them a debt of gratitude for that. Though, I admit, my first reactions to the Somali piracy story were more like:

"What the fuck? Do they know who they're dealing with? Do they not get newspapers? This is the United States of Fucking America you're dealing with, hotshot. We destroyed an entire country just because some guy told us their leader got yellowcake from Niger. And we don't even know what yellowcake is!"

And then when I heard that Navy Seals shot 'em all, my nice, liberal, Amnesty-International self got dropped to the curb and I said:

"Fuck yeah, bitches! U! S! F! A! U! S! F! A!"

And it's sad the people had to die, etc., etc. But c'mon, if there's one time we can satisfy a little bloodlust, it's against pirates. Now we just need to go after the Wiggles. (Post script: One of the Wiggles actually did die recently. So that's not funny. Not that it was anyway.)

Why I Regard Grammar Teachers with Awe and a Little Unease

Consider the following:

- Mr. Jones’ cat ate too many blades of grass, and barfed.
- Mr. Jones’s cat ate too many blades of grass and barfed.

Which of these sentences would you claim? There are some who state with authority that the first one is correct. Always use an apostrophe S unless the word ends in an S to indicate possession. “It’s an EXCEPTION,” they proclaim, because as we all know, there are exceptions to every rule. One might even argue that you use pronunciation as your guide: You wouldn’t say, “’Mr. JonesES’, would you?” Would you? Why not?

And then there’s the “and.” (Never start your sentences with “and.”) Why is there a comma before that “and?” Separating clauses? Ah, no, the words after the “and” aren’t a clause. Separating items in a list? Well, again, no. That’s not much of a list. I suppose you could make it a list:

1. Too many blades of grass
2. Barfed

But does that advance the argument for that comma any? No, so let’s just forget that. What does that comma do? Really?

See, the simple darn fact here is that comma before the “and” does nothing – nothing! – to clarify, emphasize, or even spicify that collection of words. So why use it?

Because someone’s grammar teacher in fourth grade told them to. (Never start your sentence with “because.”) That’s it. That’s the only reason anyone ever puts that comma in. Because Mrs. Butters said so. It’s the rule. Don’t believe me? Then chew on this:

My husband insists, because Mrs. Spoon put it on her test in fifth grade, that all four-syllable words should be pronounced with the emphasis on the second syllable. You know, like “advertisement.” The rest of us know that rule is ridiculous (“constitution,” “reservation,” “hypnotism,” “restitution” – just try saying them using that “rule”), but it’s too late for him. Mrs. Spoon said so and so it is.

Everyone in the newspaper industry thinks that there should be no comma before the “and” in a list of three or more items. “beef, turkey and ham shanks.” You gotta be kidding. Beef, turkey and ham shanks, and….what? Don’t leave me hanging, here.

Apparently the shampoo bottle writer at Finesse, the marketer at Evian, everyone at my local supermarket, and just about everyone else who runs a business that is open seven days a week thinks that “low prices everyday!” makes sense. That may not be the fault of Mrs. Spanks. That may just be ignorance.

You know and I know people who smartly assert, “Never end a sentence with a preposition.” But next time you hear it, ask them to explain why. (Never start your sentences with “but.”) Because it dangles? So what? Because you don’t know what should come after the dangling preposition? Really? Convince me that all those proverbial doctors who are in have been wrong all these years.

Elementary school grammar teachers have more power than most of us realize. People change their minds about all sorts of things throughout their lives – their politics, their interpretations of history, their preferences for food, music, and fashion – but their grammar rules? Nope. Grammar rules, immediately after learning, become a part of an intellectual gospel that nothing can ever change. Ever.

It’s really just state-sanctioned brainwashing over thousands of kids. Except that (here’s the kicker, whatever that means) apparently these grammar teachers can just decide which versions of the rules they want to zap us with. There’s no consistency, no real set of standards. And so we return to our charming sentences:

- Mr. Jones’ cat ate too many blades of grass, and barfed.
- Mr. Jones’s cat ate too many blades of grass and barfed.

Whichever version you prefer, you’re right, if only in your own confused little mind. For the record, though, the second sentence is the one that’s REALLY right.

Little Blue Pills

I like Ed's game of advertising pandering; I especially like that the key to getting an ad (so far, I've seen ads for Fast & Furious, Joss Whedon dating, and elderly singles) is to just totally trash/ridicule/demean the target ad subject. So now I've decided to take my power as co-person on this thing and use it to try to draw an ad for one of my favorite cartoons growing up: the smurfs.

In order to get the ad, though, as we know, I'll have to tear those little blue pills apart first. So here goes:

I hate smurfs. And I'll tell you why. Smurfs are racist. Smurfs are sexist. And smurfs are communists. (I hope that sentence doesn't attract any ads for communist dating websites - eCollectiveHarmony, perhaps.) Not to mention their lackadaisical treatment of the English language. To wit:

The Smurfs, as far as I can tell, is the most racist cartoon ever shown on American tv. Smurfs live in a supposed utopia where only blue-skinned beings are allowed. If you don't have blue skin, you're evil. Look at Gargamel and Azrael - white and furry, respectively. And of course there was that infamous episode where the smurfs start turning purple by biting each other. The purple smurfs are totally insane and evil, and threaten to destroy the idyllic life of the all-blue smurfs. (I looked at this online, by the way, and in the original Belgian version of that story, the evil smurfs were actually black! Hanna-Barbera changed them to purple to make it seem less overtly racist. Clearly they wanted to convey more subtle racist imagery.) The other thing the smurfs did was to listen to a lot of music by Richard Strauss and Wagner. Nazi music. Can't get racist-er than those Nazis, my friends.

Smurfs were also totally sexist. They profoundly, purposefully perpetuated the patriarchal paradigm. How many female smurfs were there? Exactly one, for most of the show's run. One girl smurf? Now there's some misogynism for you. Especially when you consider that she was created by Gargamel (evil white guy) expressly to bring about the downfall of the smurfs. Sure, she eventually was turned into a "good" smurf, but what were the outward effects of her inner change? Her hair turned from spiky and black to long and blonde. Her dress grew longer and got frillier. And she got high heels, for goodness sake! She lived in a forest!! All the male smurfs lusted after her - their previously perfect all-male village was riven with division. Strife caused by The Female. And as if the patriarchal stuff was too subtle for people, who was their leader? Papa Smurf. Now, later on, they did get a couple more girl smurfs (although the little one was also made by Gargamel, I think), but that was right about when the show jumped the smurf (or should that be smurfed the shark? (or even smurfed the smurf? See the grammar gripe, later.))

Smurfs were commies. The show was blatant communist propaganda. Smurf Village was essentially an agrarian collective, where everyone wore identical Mao-like outfits, sang ego-crushing work songs (We all work together! Together we all work!), and were led by an apparently grandfather-type figure - Papa Stalin, er, Papa Smurf - who in reality enforced a code of conformity. Intellectuals were persecuted and ridiculed (Brainy Smurf). Old smurfs, outside of Papa Smurf, are nowhere to be found (presumably banished or left to die once their useful working days were over). Gargamel, representing capitalism - he was obsessed with gold - was an evil, lurking figure, that had to be kept far away from the smurfs' unsullied commune. Azrael, representing organized religion (Azrael is an evil angel in Islam), was a tool of capitalism, used by the wealthy to subjugate the weak-minded, and, while outwardly soft and furry, always kept his claws in view as a reminder of what he would do if you let him get close enough.

Finally, the smurfs had the laziest dialect of English. Ever. The word "smurf" is essentially contentless. You can substitute "smurf" for nearly any action verb, noun, of adjective in any given sentence. "Hey! Anyone want to go smurf that smurfy smurf over by the smurf? It'll smurf a smurf!" That's nonsense. Anyone knows you can't just smurf that kind of smurf without using a smurf first. And if you think I'm just being silly, consider this: since the smurfs were on tv in the 80's, we've seen other contentless words invade the language - like (as a placefiller) and dude are classic examples - and more are on their way, abetted by the casual format of the internet. Pretty soon, no one will be able to communicate with each other. When scholars look back on the self-destruction of English, they'll see that it began with a bunch of racist, sexist, Maoist creatures called smurfs.

Alright! That was fun! Let's see how long it takes to get an ad for a smurf-collector dating site.

I'm Doing AdSense

Nice! I initiated "AdSense," which is Google's way of making money -- see it puts ads on the sides of this thing, and every time someone clicks on the ad I get  a miniscule bit of money. Why sell out now, you ask? Hey, now that a full six (6) people, by my count, are aware this world wide web log exists, I gotta squeeze some cheese outta this beatch! (Editor's note: Don't click on the ads just to get me a few cents. Too many clicks from the same person will cause Google shut down the party.)

Actually, I did AdSense only because it often gives fun results -- see, it sends a little robot thingy to scan the content for phrases and then it puts up ads on the side that the robot thinks relates to the content. Since it's all automated, with no actual human intervention, it's easy for it to come up with bizarre, amusing ads. 

So back to why I started this with "Nice!" -- we got on ad for "Fast & Furious"! Which is perfect after I spent the last post making fun of it.  Let's all look at the ad and laugh, laugh, laugh at the sublime stupidity of it all. Never forget, the ad seems to say, that cars go vroom. No matter what you do, do not forget that simple message. 

And hey, one of the taglines is apparently "The Fast Get Furious!" You're telling me they weren't furious the previous three times? So in "The Fast and The Furious" they were actually just fast and mildly annoyed? In "2 Fast 2 Furious" they were merely fast and in a slight bother? In "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" they were only fast and a wee bit caffienated?

Hey by the way, I'm hooked up to NPR on the Face Book, and one recent story was about the weird sequel name for "Fast and/or Furious," and they had some feeble attempts to parody this fact, and man, I was so tempted to enter a comment that linked to the post here and said "it's been done, and done better, so blow me NPR", which would have exposed this World Wide Web log to legions of Nerd Public Radio fans ... but I just couldn't. It just seemed wrong. I'm just such a terrible self-promoter. Meanwhile, there are dudes who do nothing on the Face Book but promote their own stupid crap ... but I hate them, so I guess that comes full circle. 

Anyway, with AdSense, we can now try to rig it to get certain ads to show up -- any requests? Just to test it out, let's pick something easy, like Viagra. Man, I love Viagra. Viagra is the Viagra-est. I Viagra at least Viagra times per day. All you need is Viagra. In fact, I'm inspired to write a poem:

I've seen the falls they call Niagara

I've seen the Taj Mahal in Agra

They all just gave me bad pellagra

Until I got some good Viagra

Viagra cured my nose, toes and penis

It keeps my meninges at their meanest

Despite the advice of dental hygenists

I use Viagra to keep my teeth cleanest

I could go on for days, but you get the idea. My dick was all broke before I found Viagra. Now I fuck my 80-year-old wife every hour on the hour! Thanks, Viagra! (P.S. That's always the ad I wanted to see from them -- something blunt and straightforward, instead of the vague images they show of old people lying in bathtubs outdoors, which by the way seems very unsanitary. Unless, when they were done with the tubs, they disconnected all the plumbing and lugged them back indoors, which I personally think would really kill the mood. I think instead they should show a before and after:

Before:

80-year-old woman: Hey baby, do me good and hard.

80-year-old man: Can't, dick broke. Isn't "60 Minutes" on by now?

80-year-old woman: Rats. I guess you're not really a man. I'm going to have to start an affair with that young, spry 75-year-old at the supper club who's always winking at the ladies and the radiators.

80-year-old man: That old rakehellion an kiss my limp dick.

80-year-old woman: Not that it would do any good!

(Uproarious laughter from the audience. Man sinks in to a deep chasm of self-loathing and despair.)

80-year-old man: Please God, let me die and end my interminable suffering. 

(Even more uproarious laughter and applause. Fade to black.)

After:

80-year-old man: Hey, 80-year-old woman, I just took something called "Viagra." Supposed to make me harder than a motherfucker on Mother's Day.

80-year-old woman: Whatever, 80-year-old man. I'm already getting good dick from that 75-year-old I told you about.

80-year-old man: Oh yeah, well, watch this!

(What follows is a solid hour of footage of furious, grunting, groaning, 80-year-old fuckin'. It only ends when they both break their hips simultaneously. Then an announcer comes on.)

Announcer: Pretty hot, huh? Well, that's Viagra is all about. People who  never, ever wanted to see fucking going at it like animals. )

Well, that turned out to be a really crass and awful post. Nothing like mining that old comedy staple Viagra for a few cheap laughs. Maybe I should do a bit about airplane food next. Not sure how this happened. It's not my fault, for some reason I haven't quite worked out yet. Sigh. I'm now sinking into a deep chasm of self-loathing and despair.

(Unbelievably uproarious laughter. People laugh so hard they all suffocate and die, thus ending their interminable suffering. The end.)

Strangest Sequel Name Ever

So another sequel to "The Fast and the Furious" is apparently coming out soon, and it's called "Fast and Furious." No subtitle, no number -- all the did was take out the "the"s. Amazing.

This is unprecedented in the field of "sequel names that sound too much like the original." The previous champion in this category was "Aliens," the sequel to "Alien." That one was plenty annoying, because you always had to add extra explanation whenever you referred to it, as in "I liked 'Alien,' but didn't care for 'AlienSSSS,' you know, the second one."

"Fast and Furious" easily beats that. Not only will no one understand which movie you're talking about (there will be a lot of "oh, you mean the ones that's in theaters now, gotcha"), but also no one will be able to say "you know, the fourth one" because no one will actually care enough about this crappy franchise to recall whether this is the fourth one or the third or the twentieth. I only know it's the fourth one because I just looked it up on IMDB. The second one was "2 Fast 2 Furious" (dumb name, but accomplishes the basic task of connecting it to the original while communicating that it is a sequel) and the third one was "The Fast and the Furious: Cars Go Vroom!" (No, not really, and in fact, I just gave away the whole plot. Sorry.) The third one was "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift," which I think was about driving sideways or something?

Of course, I've never seen any of these movies, and I'm sure I never will. I'm pretty sure the basic idea is this:

Vin Diesel: My penis is very large.
Some Other Guy: My penis is larger.
Hot Chick: I will have sex with whoever's penis is larger.
Vin Diesel: I will demonstrate my superior penis size by driving very fast.
Some Other Guy: I will also.
(Cars go vroom.)

So I'm using brain space on this whole thing only because of my singular passion for movie sequel names. I wish that were my job, just making up movie sequel names all day, every day. Here are some other suggestions for the fourth "The Fast and the Furious" film:

"The Fast and the Furious: Faster and Furiouser"
"The Fast 4 the Furious 4: Fastin' 4 Furiosity"
"The Fast and the Furious: Zoom! Bang! Boobies! More Zoom!"
"Fasty McFurious: Dublin Drift"
"Grandmaster Fast and the Furious Four" (That one's for the old-school rap fans in the house)
"Fast. Furious. The. And. The."
"Excessively Fast and Gratutitously Furious"
"'I'm Furious at How Fast Those Cars Are!' That's What Lame Dudes Say"

Any of those would have been superior to just "Fast and Furious." It ain't that hard, folks.