As 2004 winds down, I’ve actually found the time to write my 2 cents about it. So, here is 2004 as I saw it:
January: Trump Takes MY line and Makes it Famous
Donald Trump’s Reality TV show The Apprentice premiers and to my dismay everyone suddenly attributes the term “You’re fired!” to the man with the world’s largest ego. In mid-2004 he even tried to trademark the term. Some nerve! Real reality has it that I have been using that term frequently since my days as a summer camp counselor over a decade ago. At the time, camp staff were being fired daily and we’d joke to fellow counselors that “word from the camp director is: you’re fired!”
February: R.E.M. & Religion
February 2004 marked a significant milestone in my life. I heard the R.E.M. song “Losing my Religion” for MILLIONTH time! Someone PLEASE tell all media to STOP playing that song. PLEASE! Pretty Please? STOOOOOOOP! We have had enough! The song was good in the beginning. Now it’s not. It’s not even about religion. ARG! No offence to R.E.M., they are a great band but enough is enough with that song.
March: CitynetMagazine.com Gets Shut Down
In March, there was a noticeable slow-down in the downloading time of each page of CitynetMagazine.com. Even Alexa.com said we were among the slowest websites out there for the month of March 2004. It turns out the thousands of visitors per day coming into the site took us and our hosting company by surprise and they shut us down. Within 48 hours, the site was back up. Feewf!
April: William Hung Further Embarrasses Americans
William Hung, a tone-deaf contestant on Reality TV’s American Idol does an atrocious version of Ricky Martin’s “She Bangs” and becomes the laughing stock of America. He then goes on to sell 100,000 copies of his CD, appears on various talk shows and actually gets CitynetMagazine.com’s Miss May 2003 Amanda Swisten to appear in his video for free. Taking one last grasp on his 15 seconds of fame, he released a Christmas CD: “Hung for the Holidays.” To keep it up in 2005, maybe Mr. Hung should become the poster-child for Asperger’s Disorder.
May: Obesity Becomes an Epidemic. AHHH! Watch out for the Fat!
The year 2004 will be known as the one where the obesity epidemic struck. There’s one thing I find odd about this. The word “epidemic” means an outbreak of a contagious disease that spreads rapidly and widely. The media, loving a sensationalized, biased news story, went on to report how there were too many fat people out there ALL OF THE SUDDEN! Wow! Let me get this straight, people who skinny suddenly became fat?! Like, poof – you’re fat! Is there an end to the great obesity epidemic of 2004??
June: Make Mine Marvel!
As a comic book fan, I was ecstatic to see that Marvel and Hollywood managed to put out another high quality Spider-man movie! Yeah, baby, yeah!
July: How many people have spent a night in the Paris Hilton?
As Paris Hilton and the Paris Hilton Sex Video Tape continued to dominate the news throughout 2004, the real question was: How many pornos has she been in? Something like 3 were released by the end of the year. While I’m sure a night in Paris Hilton might be good for the ego, it would probably be boring otherwise. Trust me, I’ve seen her do it.
August: Visitors to the 2004 Olympics Discover that Greeks Don’t Flush Toilet Paper
In August, the 2004 Olympics went off terrorist-free. Instead, tourists visiting Athens and Greece for the first time discovered something almost as heinous: Greece has a sh*tty toilet system whereby people have to place their toilet paper in garbage cans next to the toilet. Hey, I couldn’t make this stuff up! I have been to Greece twice and both times flushed with the best of them!
Also that month, I decided that CitynetMagazine.com needed a re-design and announced that it would be “coming soon.” I started working on it and came to the conclusion that it was gonna be a long process. So, it remains in “coming soon.” status.
September: Client Care Representative is just another Customer Service Worker
In September I realized how bad things had become in the area of customer service. Needing the services of these phone professionals, I realized that the many euphemisms for stupid idiots who hang up on you when you ask something that is beyond their 2.87 minutes of training had expanded beyond what anyone could have imagined.
October: Rescue Me – Firefighters Die Young
October was the month I discovered Rescue Me starring Denis Leary. The conversations in each episode were like classic movie lines and just so true to reality. Perhaps I will write a review of the show in 2005. Oh yeah, and the theme song, “c’mon c’mon” by the Von Bondies rocks!
Since my early pubescent days, the women in my life have made note that firemen were hot. They’re entitled to their opinions, misguided as they may be. Anyhoo, while watching Rescue Me, I figured out why women have a thing for firemen. They die young. Now I honestly mean no disrespect to fire fighters. So I came to the conclusion that they “all” look good because they are so young.
A couple years ago I put together the Top 100 best U2 songs / U2 Greatest Hits list according to me (CitynetMagazine himself!). For the song “Gloria” I mentioned how the band’s lyrics were stolen by some groupies. It turns out that in mid-October 2004, over 20 years later, the lyrics were returned! Crazy but true!
November: President George W. Bush Defeats John Kerry
The world may hate Bush but that hardly influenced over 50% of the American voting public. In any case, Funny George Bush Quotes continue to amuse the world.
Also in November, Mr. I-made-CitynetMagazine’s-line-you’re-fired-famous Trump files for bankruptcy. His casinos owe about $2 Billion. He promptly goes on CNN via telephone (most likely he paid to be on to re-assure investors and support his ego) to remind everyone listening that he is still worth several billion and that this was a good thing. How about this Mr. E .T.? “YOU’RE BANKRUPT!” [BTW, E.T. = Egomaniac Trump.]
December: Slowing Things Down
The website re-design is underway but the new ‘look’ is not up yet. So be it, a new design is coming! These things take time. I decided to release some articles that I was holding onto to appease the site’s fans. Anyhoo, I think you’ll find what I have in store for 2005 to be just as stimulating.
Happy Holidays from moi, CitynetMagazine, and my associates. Let 2005 be a healthy, safe, and prosperous one for us all.
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