Les Miserables 2014

Congratulations to my home town of Evansville, Indiana. For the second year in a row we've made the Gallop poll listing the Most Miserable Cities In America! Huzzah!

The news wasn't quite as good as last year, when we were ranked 8th Most Miserable City. This year we barely squeaked in at #10. Whew!
 
So just what is that special something (or somethings) that put Evansville on the list? Is it the fact that it's a cultural wasteland, the highlight of which is the Annual Nut Club Fall Festival? Is it the new Boondoggle Stadium, er, I mean the Ford Center, which was guaranteed to completely revitalize the downtown area but has had no effect whatsoever? Is it the labyrinthine street layout that makes it a chore to drive even three blocks, much less to the other side of town?

Is it the fact that the city's signature dish and claim to fame is a brain sandwich?

Whatever the reason, here's a big, miserable shout out to you Evansville! Good luck in 2015!

The 2013 Worst Word Of The Year Award!

It seems like every year a boatload of new words are coined, and they're almost always awful. Who can forget past cringe-worthy words such as "hella," "ridonkulous" or "swag?"

I blame the internet for this, for creating these detestable new terms as well as spreading them like wildfire throughout our society.

So what's at the top of my list this year? Is it hashtag? How about Twerk? Selfie?

No, while those are indeed all horrible, horrible words, there's one that scored even higher (or would that be lower?) with me.

The word? Vaping.

What the hell is vaping, you ask? It's an abhorrent, newly coined word that refers to the paraphernalia one needs in order to smoke an e-cigarette, as well as the act of smoking them. Apparently it's a noun as well as a verb.

I'm not going to get into the argument over whether or not e-cigarettes are safe (they're not) or whether they should be allowed in restaurants or the workplace (they shouldn't), but I will say that so called Vaping Stores are popping up all over my city at an alarming rate. Faster even than iPhone repair shops (and that's saying something). I'll bet fifteen of them opened here in the past six months.

Every time I see a Vaping Store sign, or hear one of their commercials on the radio, it's like my ears are being molested. What a terrible, awful word.

As my pal KW Monster says, it sounds like the way Dracula would pronounce "raping."

So congratulations to "Vaping," the winner of the 2013 Worst Word Of The Year Award!