The Big Button on the Right

It all started in 1881, after Kenneth Kodak introduced the world to his "light-catching box."

Photography wasn't popular initially, because it was too expensive. After a while, however, when 35mm cameras premiered in 1967, affordability helped usage bloom.

Today, you can't go anywhere without getting your picture taken. Even if you frequent a dive bar, someone in your party will always have a camera.

Which brings me to why America is so awesome: we've segregated our pictures. Girls take pictures cheek to cheek, with kissy-faces and white teeth shining; guys stand side by side, a respectable distance apart, giving a toothless smile if any at all. So much of the same thing...Americans being AMERICAN!

On of our social norms has us adhering to what we think we should be doing in a picture; it's caused the percentage of shitty ones to skyrocket. More and more photos fail to be defined as "photography," and instead revert to a simple cataloging of the familiar.

Sears. Yeah, I always think of it, too.

If you can remember the last time you shopped at Sears, leave a comment. It's the American thing to do.

You Were in a 4g Inverted Dive with a MiG28?

The movie Starman. That's where I first learned of "the middle finger." If you've seen this Jeff Bridges-vehicle, maybe you remember when he (as an alien) uses a urinal for the first time. He observes the guy next to him so as to learn how to properly relieve himself, and the harried trucker rudely flips him off, saying "Up yours!" I asked my grandma what that meant, and she said it was something bad, and not to do it.

The next week, on the school bus, I flipped off Gene the bully. Gene always needed a shower, and he had homemade tattoos. He was 14. A lot of the times he wore Megadeth t-shirts. These shirts almost always had their sleeves removed. He called me a "bathead." He deserved it.

After my detention, I learned to use the finger sparingly and out of eyesight of authority figures. I came to appreciate its strength and nuance.

Fast-rewind 230 years earlier:

Twenty-four months before declaring our independence from the Brits, William Williamson trademarked the middle finger through the Office of the Continental Congress. In short, America became the owner of the gesture. It was actually the first hand motion to be internationally recognized by the United Nations (U.N. Pref. Assoc. 34(c)-0.1ch7).

At first, no one knew that getting "flipped the bird" was an affront. But, thanks to the local printing press (kudos, Johan Guttenburg), the public learned they should be completely offended by a particular outstretched digit. It was an early taste of the freedom our country would soon have...the freedom to be told what to think. AWESOME!

Like telling people they're number one? Let us know in the comments.

Not Tonight Ladies, I'm Here to Get Drunk

Alcohol. It helps 220 million American adults deal with their goalless lives. Well, not all adults...you still have to wait three years after your "adult" 18th birthday.

Why did we, as a country, decide you need to be 21-years-old to legally drink alcohol? Because Herbert Hoover was a gambling addict, and figured it was a lucky age for you to get unluckily plastered.

But Americans weren't always so lucky.

The year was 1922. Americans were happy because no one saw the Great Depression coming. The men were hung like elephants, and the women were looser than a pair of old socks. Then, someone decided to ruin the fun and prohibit alcohol from being consumed. Redonkulous.

For the next 11 years, Prohibition helped millions of tavern owners become homeless, gave homeless people an excuse to actually buy that bus ticket home, and helped build millionaires out of whiskey-runnin', gun-totin', law-flauntin' future politicians. But, that all came to an end after Eisenhower's famous "I'll Have a Beer" speech.

The end of Prohibition allowed our nation to stagger back to it's feet, just in time to get drunk of its ass.

As I write this, America is the only country whose drinking age is 21. All other countries have either 1) no alcohol, 2) no drinking age, or 3) a drinking age lower than 21 (it's 12 in Brazil). Do the math.

Turning 21 is a special time in every non-teetotaler's life. It's the day that one usually sees how much alcohol can be ingested before his or her body defense system literally rejects (read: regurgitates) more than the amount it has determined will kill you. Does that make sense?

Anyways, back to malt liquor: If our Forefathers hadn't invented malt liquor, I would not have been able to get depressingly drunk on my 21st birthday. Not only did I go to the liquor store at the STRIKE OF MIDNIGHT, I bought King Cobra.

Have you ever drank King Cobra? I hadn't. My buddy and I thought it would be a fun choice. We were also idiots.

Now, I'm not sure who the brainiac-wizard was who came up with the name "King Cobra," but it has no snake parts listed as ingredients, and the only reason to call it "king"-anything would be the fact that after too many, it commands you to lie across the kitchen floor.

We were drinking forties. That's slang for a 40-ounce beverage. A big beverage. It's feels even bigger as those alcohol-soaked ounces drive through your circulatory system.

After a couple of "KCs", as we liked to call them, I went to the bathroom. (Warning: a little gross disclosure coming up.) As I sat on the toilet (doing what men do when they sit on a toilet...besides reading), my stomach told me it wasn't feeling good. So, I had to throw up in the bathtub. At that point, my eyes were watering because the stomach acid was so pungent. Also, my nose was running. If earwax could somehow flow, I think all my orifices would have been putting in some O.T.

The moral of the story? Don't drink King Cobra.

So, malt liquor and Prohibition (the end of it) are just two more reasons why America is awesome. Don't think I'm right? Why don't you let me know in the comments