Why I hate Children

WARNING: This is a rant. I am pretty mad right now. I am planning to cuss in this one. You've been warned.

All right, so it's not really children that I hate. I can deal with them in small amounts, and usually the children I (am forced to) socialize with are relatively well-behaved.

It's the PARENTS who I wish to destroy in all forms of violent and gratuitous manners.

I went to see Brave tonight with my sister. (She is my youngest sister and is 15.) What a great movie! It would have been more than great but we decided to go on a Tuesday night. At 7:15. AND THE THEATRE WAS FILLED WITH CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 5.

Who the ever-lovin' fuck takes their toddlers out to a movie at 7 on a Tuesday night?

Obviously every douchebaggy parent in the city.

I was perfectly willing to accept the fact that there were children in the theatre. I wasn't sure what to expect from another Disney-Pixar movie (except that it was guaranteed that I would cry at least once during the movie.) I certainly didn't expect there to be as many families with young children there as there were! A family with two very young children (I'm guessing that they were both under 4 years old and the younger of the two was 18 months) sat in front of us.

I didn't swear about that fact, the baby was really adorable.

Until about 30 minutes into the movie when this kid wouldn't stop fussing and crying.

Now, this is a 2-parent family. Mom and Dad were both sitting there, with both kids and one of them was screaming and crying. Well, Mom was an obese woman and she didn't do a damn thing. She didn't get off her fat ass and take care of this crying kid. No, instead, she loudly told her (husband?) to take the kid out of the theatre after he had been crying for TEN FUCKING MINUTES.

Ten minutes?? Really? You couldn't get off your ass to take your screaming kid out of the theatre so that you didn't disturb anyone else? And then you make your male-thing take the screaming child outside? You lazy bitch.

Here's the kicker to this story: THE DAD COMES BACK ABOUT 10 MINUTES LATER AND SAYS THAT HE CAN'T CALM THE KID DOWN!!

So now we're treated to the Dad loudly insisting that the kid won't calm down, the kid is STILL FUCKING CRYING and I can't hear the whispers of the Scottish characters on the screen because of the bullshit caterwauling this damn kid is making.

I don't go out a lot. I don't have a huge budget for going out and I usually spend what little extra money I have on books or sometimes on meals out with friends or on beer. When I DO get to go out, it's a huge deal and a real treat for me. So to have the first movie that I've seen in theatres since Toy Story 3 (we saw the Avengers in theares, but that was a birthday party, so I don't really count it as a movie night because we budgeted for my birthday party to be a movie and dinner) ruined by a screaming child does not sit well with me.

I was about to say something but the kid finally shut up, so I was relieved of that duty, thankfully.

But this same lazy bitch is such a terrible parent that when we were getting up to leave the theatre (well, when THEY were) she just stood there and yelled at her children until they listened to her. She didn't try to be polite, she didn't try to be a good parent. Hell, she wasn't even responsible. She just stood there yelling at her hyper, screaming toddlers as other people were trying to leave.

Fuck it, not my problem.

When the credits finished (because almost every movie has a little scene of awesome after the credits nowadays, and Brave was no exception) we got up and all had to go to the bathroom. So my sister and I head into the ladies room.

Lo and behold, there is a Cineplex staff member using the washroom. She obviously wasn't on a break as she was trying her damnedest to hustle out of the bathroom after washing her hands but no. Some dumb blonde bitch of a mother (wearing booty shorts and toting two children, again probably both under the age of 4) starts harassing this poor girl!

"Don't you clean these bathrooms? You should talk to your manager! These counters are all wet and small children get soaked when we have to wash their hands! I'm going to speak to your manager about this! Why can't you people wipe this up?"

Fuck's sake, you stupid blonde bimbo! Why don't YOU wipe the fucking water up if it's such a problem? Or, you know, if you were a better parent you would hold your kid up to the sink in a manner that wouldn't get them wet in the first place.

Most public washrooms that don't have doors (like at most malls here, and almost all the theatres) don't have paper towels anymore. Waste reduction and blah blah blah. So how the fuck do you expect anyone to wipe the counters every five fucking minutes?

And this poor girl was just trying to pee and wash her hands so that she could get back to work. There's no need for you to hassle her! Fuck.

I don't understand why these young mothers think that they are so entitled to whatever the fuck they want. Oh good for you, you had unprotected sex and now you have reproduced. Fuck you. Do you want a fucking cookie? ANYONE can have a goddamn child. It's not that difficult to procreate. Why the fuck are you so self-entitled? Why are you such a goddamn prick?

And why the fuck are you so inconsiderate towards everyone else around you?

Y'know what? Fuck it. I don't want to know.

What I WANT is for all of these self-entitled bitches to fuck right off and crawl back into whatever fucking suburb they crawled out of because frankly? I don't give a shit about you. I don't give a shit about your children. You're the inconsiderate bitch who is ruining my movie-date. You're the self-entitled prick who blames everything on everyone else.

You're not a special goddamn snowflake just 'cause you squeezed out another living being from between your flabby, self-righteous thighs. You haven't birthed the next King Arthur.

You're just another sad sack of a human being, a waste of skin filled with hot air and bullshit and honestly, you don't deserve to have these kids in public.

So kindly crawl back into your rich, white-privilege, suburb-friendly, penis envying, gas guzzling car and let me at least have my one night out to myself without wanting to set the zombie apocalypse loose on the cinema and then rampage and kill you first.

Shit, there's definitely a reason why I prefer books over movies.

Kai Kiriyama is a self-righteous bitch in her own right. While she doesn't have kids of her own, she's  taken her  younger siblings out to movies when they were kids and not a blessed one of them was misbehaved.

Also, she regrets nothing.

Email her at thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com if you wanna complain.
And follow her on Twitter: @thekiriyamaheir

She welcomes the backlash.

Zombie Contingency 1

I am a fiction author. You probably already know that. I'm currently working on a couple of zombie novels. Zombie Apocalypse and survival-horror are a couple of passions of mine. I love it, I can't get enough of it.

So this awesome obsession of mine leads me to think about what I would do in a Zombie Apocalypse scenario. It's an interesting topic of discussion and debate, especially among my family and friends. I have heard the most bizarre ideas from friends and family alike - the most insane one so far being that one of my friends suggested strapping dynamite or IEDs to his party and putting them on dead man's switches so that if that party member was ever compromised or in an inescapable situation, they could suicide-bomb themselves and save the group by taking out their own infected self and hopefully a horde of zombies at the same time.

Insane, but interesting. I for one am not going to be on that team if I can help it.

Ideally you would be prepared for the Zombies and you would have a base and provisions and whatever else, just like they did in the wars. But despite that ideal situation, most of my friends have decided that they would scavenge after the fact. There's no debate among most of my friends about what weapons are the best or where they would go. They're all about the melee, blunted or sharp, doesn't matter, and no one I know of has ever actually shot a gun. Except me. Everyone seems convinced that nomadic lifestyles are the best in the Zombie Apocalypse.

And I guess that if I was going to be honest, I'm not well prepared enough (as of this posting anyway) to survive a Zombie Apocalypse if it were to happen within the next month. If it happened tomorrow (and with the way the news stories have been reading lately, I wouldn't at all be surprised if it did) I would be pretty screwed. For one, I'm not at home as I'm writing this. I'm on vacation and I don't have my weapons with me. Except for my brand new slingshot and my pocket knife. While I'm relatively good with them, I'd still prefer to have my other things as well. I don't have a tent or sleeping bag or any other camping gear with me. I have running shoes, but not hiking/camping/steel toed boots. I'm very ill equipped here.

But for me, that would be all right.

In case of a Zombie Apocalypse, I certainly wouldn't be out looting and shooting in the first 72 hours. I'm all about the dig in deep mentality. My first act would be to fortify my house.

I'm building a 72 hour emergency kit with enough food and water to last the first 72 hours of any emergency. The CDC and all other agencies similar always tell you to have one ready, in case of any emergency or natural disaster. Dried food, water, candles, flashlights, blankets, medical gear etc. are all supposed to be inside these kits. And I think that is a damn good idea for anyone to have! Even if the Zombie Apocalypse doesn't happen right away, if it does, then you've got enough of a stockpile for 3 days. And if there's a fire or earthquake or something else and the power goes out and you're stranded, at least you have the emergency kit to get you through the first 3 days.

I know that a lot of people will go insane when the Zombies start showing up, there will be riots, and a mass Exodus and people fighting and killing and getting eaten. The military will show up, things will essentially go to Hell in a handbasket. So why not sit still and gather your thoughts? Make a plan to move out AFTER the initial insanity. Then meet up with your family if that's what you feel you need to do. But if that's who you're going to go find, make sure that they are also provisioned well enough for at least the first 72 hours and that they are able to fortify their own place, or have an alternate safe house set up in advance so you can meet up there after the craziness dies down a bit.

Then, by all means, set up a supply run or six and get the looting and shooting out of your system.

Really though, shouldn't we all be preparing ourselves to dig in and stay fortified in one place as best as we can? Ammunition runs out eventually.

Good luck.

--

Kai Kiriyama is an author working her way towards publication. She writes fiction for books, film and television.  Kai currently lives in Alberta, Canada with her pet snake Rhaegar, her pet hedgehog Odin and enough caffeine to kill a small horse.

Kai loves to get feedback so feel free to leave a comment here. 
Or you can follow and connect with her on twitter: @thekiriyamaheir
Or, if you need more than 140 characters, you can email her at: thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com
And find Kai on faccebook: www.facebook.com/authorkaikiriyama

Criticism, Television, Walkers, and Superviewers

I learned a new word today. "Superviewers". I don't know how I feel about this word.

I was reading an article online from the New York Times that Glen Mazzara (Show runner for The Walking Dead) tweeted earlier in regards to the season finale of The Killing. In it, the writer referred to a certain faction of viewers as "superviewers".

I think the easiest way to sum up the phrase is by describing these so-called superviewers as "fans [of whichever show, movie, media etc.] who use social media as a megaphone and/or mouthpiece to express their extreme emotions towards said media."

And this can be done for positive or negative.

I think it was a very good move for Mr. Mazzara to point this out because, in reality, the majority of the fans of The Walking Dead are extremely intelligent. At least, I like to think so, being one of those fans myself. I assume that there will be a lot more fans of The Walking Dead actually taking the moment to read the article. Whether the same fans take anything away from the article is a different story.

But I did, and that's the point.

I don't really comprehend the concept behind what makes a "superviewer." I use my social networking sites, Facebook, Twitter, etc. to connect with other fans and friends who are also fans. (Most of my real-life friends aren't Walking Dead fans, so I take what I can get. And that is not to downplay the awesomeness that is my internet friends. You guys fuckin' RULE.) I have had some really great, intelligent conversations with people online, especially on Twitter, regarding The Walking Dead. However, I've never expressed disappointment or any negative criticism towards the show. I admitted to crying and feeling very upset over the show, but I would, if I was involved with TWD,  take that as more of a compliment than anything else. I don't understand when people get up on a soapbox and complain about the "pace" of the episodes (or season) or "the lack of zombie mayhem." The writers and producers have a very clear vision of what they want this show to be and I feel that they have done an excellent job of showing us, as viewers, that vision.

I don't personally watch The Walking Dead to get a fix of zombie mayhem. I watch the show because it goes deeper into the psychological aspect of what would happen to the survivors of the zombie apocalypse. I like the fact that it is full of angst and drama. In fact, seeing these characters break down emotionally and try to recover while there are other people's lives depending on them is what makes the show seem more realistic and far more entertaining to me than if it was the same "see a zombie, shoot the zombie, hide from the zombie, scavenge some food whilst running from the zombies, regroup and hide some more, end with a BANG" formula that every zombie movie seems to employ.

I think that this is the problem with the fandom of zombie apocalypse things in general: we have grown accustomed to a one-shot movie that is no more than two hours long that takes us quickly through the emotional degeneration and survival-instinct kicking in phase, through the zombie mayhem and killing and typically ends with a punch and/or a bang.

When you draw that out into a season's worth of television programming, we lose track of how long has actually elapsed in the world. In The Walking Dead, it has only been about 2 months since the outbreak - and Rick was in a coma for the first few weeks of it! Of course these people are still going to be reeling about what's happened and the degeneration of civilization as we know it is still happening. They're not entirely sure how to cope with the losses of... well, everything. They are still trying to figure it out. And this is where the drama comes from. You can't expect everything to work perfectly, people die, zombies show up, everything goes to hell. You have to consider - and this is what I really loved about The Walking Dead - that stereotypes, racism, misogyny, gender roles, psychopathy, and all the other negative stuff that society keeps in check (usually) still exists. Without actual laws and law enforcement in place to keep these things in line, it's all going to run rampant. We have seen it happen in the show. (Merle, Ed, Lori, Shane all show off the things I just mentioned in the first 6 episodes...)

I don't get it when fans criticize the work that these people these PROFESSIONALS do. Weren't you entertained? Did you feel anything for the characters? You know you're coming back next week to watch it. And the week after. And the week after.

The season 2 finale had 9 MILLION viewers.

You watched it every week. Don't deny it. You probably watched the encore too. I know I did.

And The Walking Dead got me to bond with my 14 year-old sister who is also a fan. I go to mom's place to watch it with them every week during the regular season.

I don't have cable TV. I cancelled my subscription almost 6 months ago because I was tired of paying insane amounts of money (it was almost $80 a month for a  basic cable package) to watch Star Trek reruns and Doctor Who, if I was home in time to catch it. Which I never was. Because I work on Saturdays which is when it airs in my hometown.  And I am not a fan of most of the shows on TV these days. I have a very dry and "British" sense of humor. Sitcoms do not appeal to me.



I loved AMC, however. My partner and I would spend days off watching movie marathons and AMC's original programming for hours. AMC got me hooked on Westerns, namely Clint Eastwood's works. Hang 'em High is my favorite.

So please, if you're going to criticize the producers, don't harass them on Twitter. They have made themselves SO accessible to us, the fans, the viewers. So have the actors. Personally, I follow 3 writers, 2 Executive Producers, and 5 of the actors who I can think of off the top of my head on Twitter. I would hate to lose those privileges of being able to get my questions answered, or to see behind the scenes pictures that they share with us because of the soapboxing and the so-called "Superviewers".

I suppose that by writing this I am toeing the line of becoming a "superviewer" myself. But that's okay, because I'm done my soapboxing.

I'm really just looking forward to Season 3.

Kai Kiriyama is a novelist who has several books in the works and is hoping to write scripts for film and television one day, despite being unpublished outside of the internet. She lives in the frozen North with her hedgehog Odin, her snake Rhaegar and her laptop.

 You can find her on Twitter at @thekiriyamaheir and you can email her your arguments if you need more than 140 characters at thekiriyamaheir@gmail.com

Arguments againt Sleeping Naked

What a novel concept, sleeping naked. We are so assured of our safety in our own homes that we have no problem revealing ourselves to the bed when we sleep. It's a relatively new concept too, I think. Sleeping indoors in a building I mean.

But we're protected from the elements indoors, so there's no question of having to protect yourself from rain or wind or snow. We open windows if we're too hot inside our buildings but even then it isn't like we need to protect ourselves entirely from the elements. That's why we build with wood and stone and brick.

But think about it, sleeping naked is probably the worst thing that you can do.

For starters, if you're like me, then you're an insomniac. I can guarantee that your roommates won't appreciate seeing you naked at 3 a.m. sitting on the couch, eating Cheetos and watching infomercials while your eyes bleed. Especially if you live with family. And while sitting naked at the computer is fun for a while, it tends to get boring and drafty after six hours of youtube and LOLcats.

Secondly, if you're an insomniac, you will probably need your phone with you so that you can chat with all your insomniac friends. Where are you gonna stick y our phone while you're doing insomniac things, like eating Cheetos. No pockets. So you'll want at least a place to hold your phone while your hands are busy.

My third argument against sleeping naked is probably the most logical of the lot. What if your house burned down while you were sleeping? Are you gonna have the time to find your pants before you run out of the house? Are you really gonna wanna be rescued by the firemen in your birthday suit? What if it's the middle of January in Canada when this happens? 40 below with no clothes sucks, trust me.

My fourth argument is this: would you run away with the Doctor in your skivvies? Probably not, and to be honest, unless we're talking 9th incarnation, he'd probably leave you behind. Besides, pockets are an integral part of time travel.

Okay okay, so I'm not making a lot of sense. Sue me, I just wanted to write something. But I'm gonna leave you with a final argument to make you reconsider sleeping naked.

The zombie apocalypse almost invariably strikes in the middle of the night and progresses into the next day. If there's zombies on my front step at 3 a.m. I am sure as hell not fighting my way out of my bedroom in anything less than jeans and a Tshirt. My pajamas are awesome, they have pockets in the pants and are made of flannel and to be honest, the Tshirt I usually sleep in is autographed so at least when I get bitten by a zombie that has broken into my house while I'm asleep, I'll look cool when I turn. I ain't having my nekkid body be shot by a survivor, I want that survivor to know that I was pretty damn cool before I was zombified. And dressing gowns are for sissies and Canadians. :P