Women “don’t” shit. It’s something you’ve heard plenty of times in your life, I’m sure. The thought that anything that disgusting could happen near an attractive woman, at least, is hardly believable. It’s not an attractive act. Truth be told, women DO need to get rid of waste products, like the rest of us. The belief that they don’t, however, can be attributed simply to the fact that it’s not a feminine act.

A man, however, has the right to take a dump. It’s one of the manliest things you can do. It’s something every man enjoys thoroughly in the right circumstances. Because we enjoy it so much, and because it’s considered disgusting for women to do it, we’ve claimed it as our own.

There are two major problems, however, that can severely ruin the enjoyment of dropping a few logs, and I hope you all know what I’m talking about or I envy you immensely:

Being Interrupted
Given that all men are important by nature, people naturally want to monopolise our time. Often enough, we need to help someone do something, or we need to get out of the bathroom in order to let others use it. Given that the twosies are an almost meditative act, the fact that we can be interrupted during the middle for various reasons fills me with indignation. Who are these people to knock on the bathroom door and make some kind of request of me whilst I’m detoxifying my body? It’s madness! A locked bathroom door should mean that if a man is inside, he gets time to himself until he is finished. I don’t care if your baby is dying and I’m the one with the medicine.

Sounding Off
So, the act itself is of course enjoyable, but thanks to the majesty of female or homosexual house designers, more often than not, toilets are located in an area of high traffic - whether it’s next to your kitchen or along a hallway that people often walk down to get to their bedrooms. The problem with taking a shit is that the noises it can produce are often unsavoury, and even as manly as many men are, it’s mildly embarrassing to have anyone outside that door catch note of your bodily functions as they’re walking past. It may be enjoyable, but it’s also meant to be private. The wholesale lack of soundproofing in modern bathrooms, coupled with the bad location of many bathrooms, saddens me beyond words. It also means that in certain toilet-location situations, I’m wary to lay out a Snickers bar, which is a hesitance I should never have to endure.

Google have tried hard to differentiate their new browser from the other major four browsers on the scene right now. They’ve done a good job, as far as I’m concerned, except for in one area. Here are the icons for the current market leaders in the browser space:

Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and Safari

These are the four browsers that currently rule the roost when it comes to surfing the internet. Odds are 99% of people in the world are using one of these browsers.

Here, then, is the icon for Chrome, Google’s new browser:

Google's Chrome

Hopefully anyone who’s interested in pattern recognition (So, the autistics amongst you) will have noticed something that all five browser icons have in common. If it’s not jumping out of the page at you yet, the similiarity between all these icons is that they’re as round as a button.

After all their efforts, it turns out all Google needed in order to differentiate themselves was to use a square fucking icon.

1988 is a significant year because it was the year that the original generation of Transformers was cancelled on television. I’m an old-school Transformers fan, so this new stuff doesn’t elicit the same excitement in me. The fact that Transformers got cancelled in my birth year led me to think about the cartoons of the 80s, and then the cartoons of the early 90s. Then, I had the crazy notion of “comparing” the two for an internet site! This should be fun.

The shit I grew up with in the early 90s were shows like The Rugrats, Hey Arnold!, The Moomins and The Raccoons. I’m sure you remember them all in some capacity or another. If not, Wikipedia that shit. It’ll bring back memories.

The shows that got cancelled or wound down in the late 80s were shows like Transformers, Thundercats, MASK and Gobots. These were all seriously awesome shows that got some major recognition and still do. They’re classic icons of the 80s era.

The more astute of you might have noticed a startling lack of similarity between the shows I listed for each decade. Let me spell it out anyway: The cartoons of the 80s were all about giant fucking robots, huge explosions, evil groups of people who wanted nothing more than to fuck shit up for everyone, protagonists who had cars that transformed, or were cars that transformed, or amazing shit that made you wide-eyed. The creative juices of the early 90s, however, produced stuff that was essentially real life in cartoon form. If I had wanted to, I probably could have lived a life very similar to Hey Arnold! without much effort. He didn’t ever do anything amazing or impossible. He just lived a normal life, and we were supposed to be entertained by that.

Why do you think I’m watching cartoons, bitch?! I want to see shit explode, not worry about someone’s love life when they’re far too young to even be thinking about love. The cartoons of the 90s bored me significantly. We went from giant robots that I could never even hope to experience in real life to mundane shit that was probably happening outside my door at that exact moment. Maybe it was their intention to make me go outside? I can’t imagine the awesome TV of the 80s produced many nature-lovers, since they were always glued to the TV shouting stuff like “AMAZING!” and “LOOK AT THAT FUCKING ROBOT!”.

For those of you who aren’t so familiar then: The Women’s Institutes (Hereafter referred to as the WI) is a network of… clubs… populated by women. Their goal isn’t as clear as their existence. Why they do any of the things they do is also a little hazy.

The Women’s Institutes don’t have a clear mission statement, unlike many other establishments of a similar nature. They run charity events, and sing in choirs, and have meetings in which they can sell each other the shit they find around their houses. I mean, maybe they’re doing a service in this sense: Some of the women might actually have a need for the useless shit that the other women don’t have a need for, but that they buy anyway.

Sure, I’m fine with people playing bingo and discussing how nice their cream tea was over another cream tea. But let’s look at it this way: I’m a fan of necessity. I do things once they need to be done. It may translate to laziness when it comes to academia, because you’re really meant to start work on something early and not the night before. Regardless of my current academic prowess, let’s call this the “rule of necessity”. And it states that you do things when they need to be done.

And this brings us to the problem I have with the WI. They’re not necessary. In the few minutes of thought that went into this article, the only purpose I could find that the WI serves is one of self-esteem. We have bingo clubs, charities, bake sales, car boot sales. Every function that the WI provides is also provided by another establishment that you’re likely to have nearby. And they usually do it better.

Without these unnecessary functions clouding your reasoning, it’s clear that the WI exists solely to make its members feel important. Suddenly the housewives, who have to stay at home because there aren’t any jobs in the countryside anyway, have something to do with their day. Their lives have meaning, because suddenly they’re baking tasty treats and collecting all the useless shit they can find in order to sell it to women who are equally house-bound, who are just going to sell it back to the original owner anyway.

Tanning well versus Public Nudity
Breasts are awesome. I think both sexes are agreed on this point (Although some of those women with particularly large breasts may enjoy their presence less than their husbands do.). The real problem they present, however, is in tanning the upper body. A number of people aren’t happy with tan lines, and they go to lengths in order to make sure that their bodies are uniform in colour: Nudist beaches, naked tanning beds, fake tan.

The great thing about being a man is that you can take your shirt off entirely in public, on a hot day, at the beach on in your house, and it’s absolutely fine. A woman can’t do the same, unless she happens to be in the presence of slutty people or hippies. What it all means is that men can get a full upper body tan much easier than their feminine counterparts.

I guess we’re both still screwed on the genitalia front, though.

Not Having to Aim versus Keeping Your Distance
Public bathrooms are not exactly clean. Even though urine is sterile, the tendency for substances that are far less hygienic to get on bathroom seats is high. The benefit of being a man, then, is that we can keep our distance from a disgusting toilet seat and aim our urine at the bulls-eye, relieving our bladder pressure and also keeping germ free.

Women can’t do this, if there’s any reason they want to stay away from parking their ass. They have to hover, which I can’t imagine is an easy feat to accomplish. Must kill the legs if you’ve got a particularly full tank. But what women DO achieve is not having to aim. For all those situations when the seat is perfectly clean, and you’d like it to stay that way, thank you very much, then men lose out. It’s too easy to accidently piss all over those wooden ass-platforms (Yes, I just made up a new synonym for toilet seat). I can imagine it’s especially worse if you’re drunk, but I wouldn’t know.

Women, however, get to sit down, and they don’t have to aim anything. They can just relax. Whilst we don’t have to sit, the fact that we have to engage our brains to perform a basic bodily need means that men lose out in a least this regard.

And you’d better all be grateful because this keyboard is weird as shit.

So, onto gender. I have decided to bring to your attention the differences between men and women that some of you may not consider all too often:

Public erections versus periods
Men have penises. It leads to public erections. Whilst women don’t have penises, and therefore don’t have to suffer through “flying their main flag” in sight of others, they still have vaginas and have to bleed once a month. I’m honestly not sure which is worse. Women will tell you that the latter is far worse, but they’re always whining about something (See the next point) so I’m not sure I can trust their judgement.

Women have sanitary products that all but eliminate the publically noticable side-effects of their particular problem. Wouldn’t it be great if there was some kind of pad we could wrap around our penis that would stop other people being able to see when we start straining at the fabric for no reason?

Sobbing like a fool versus being awesome
I’ve noticed that women like to moan about things. Wearing your heart on your sleeve may be useful in a councilling session, but when men like me have to sit near anyone who’s being emotional, it’s balls. First of all, I don’t know how to deal with that shit, because I never experience it myself. Second of all, no-one likes someone else being down because it becomes less fun to be with them. Crying, or being upset, or angry, and expecting someone to “be there for you” is a sure-fire way to alienate male friends who aren’t gay or extremely camp.

Fashion versus not giving a shit
I have nothing against men being fashionable. There is a whole science of men’s fashion that I enjoy myself, even if I don’t partake in it very often. However, men are perfectly capable of living their entire life without trying to be fashionable. As long as they’re wearing simple clothes, plenty of girls will look their way and they’ll be happy. Women, on the other hand, seem to devote a significant portion of their time solely to fashion. The vice gripping so many female minds somehow convinces them that they have to look fashionable to be noticed. How many of them have realised that in today’s fashionable world, simple clothes would actually stand out more? Probably not many.

Suit jackets are like suave coats
I believe the technical term for what all the ladies were feeling on Friday night is “cold as fuck”. As in, “‘ere, I’m cold as fuck! Gimme your fag so I can keep my nose warm.” Of course, no-one was speaking like that at the ball, because that sort of riff-raff isn’t let in. There was an elocution test at the door. I got a First.

I mention that the girls were cold, however, because the men were comparatively toasty. The great thing about suits that I had never realised is that when you’re at a function which just happens to be partly outside (The ball, for example), your suit jacket acts as a sort of sophisticated coat. You can wear it inside, and not get any weird looks, but it’s also warm enough that you don’t need anything extra to wear outside. It’s like a double-entendre in clothing form!

No student event is worth £37
The Summer Ball cost me £37. My hired suit cost me £36. There are possibly students who already own suits, but for the many who don’t, that’s a £73 cost before you walk through the tiny gate that keeps everyone queueing for longer than they should. I can be kind, though, and forget the suit hire, because it’s not really a direct cost.

Given that the Summer Ball is the biggest student event on the calendar, according to the university (Who may or may not be an independent and unbiased source of facts on this one), it should be the best. And it probably is. But it wasn’t worth £37. It turns out they make a healthy profit on the Summer Ball. And some might say that they’re right to, because they claim to put all their earnings back into the student experience. to make Cardiff a better place for us.

I’m pretty sure, however, that I don’t take part in most of the experiences that they’re driving this profit back into. I just think it’d be nice if they gave us the tickets at cost price. Enough to break even, and then made profit off of alcohol and food, like they were doing already. Everyone would be happier with the lowered price, and they’d still make a healthy return on the sales.

1) They always skip the boring parts
You’ll see a scene, in any film that stars a hot guy, where he’s talking to a probably antagonistic but also ridiculously hot girl. They’ll both start spouting corny-ass bullshit lines laden with sexual innuendo. The next thing you know, the scene has cut to the bedroom and they’re going at it like goddamn bunnies. Hot, I know, but realistic? No. It’s that sudden cut which bothers me. For once, I want them to show the car ride over to the house where the two hot people sit in the back and have awkward conversations about the weather and “how nice the neighbourhood is”. You just never see the shit that happens in between conversation and sex, and it has to be a mood killer.

2) Nature doesn’t call
I’ll admit that in some films, a scene will call for an actor to be on the john. But for all the other films… What the fuck is going on? Do these characters have bowels of steel? When have you ever seen the star of an action movie stop halfway through his “Let’s go save the orphans” speech and say “Hold on, I gotta take a shit. Back in a bit… AND THEN WE’LL SAVE THOSE ORPHANS!”. I think Hollywood is in denial of feces.

3) Quick-Drying Hair! Buy now and we’ll throw in a SECOND Quick-Drying Hair absolutely free!
So, apart from movies that happen predominantly underwater, every character in every film ever seems to have quick-drying hair. I’m not talking the kind of rapidity that can be accounted for by a hair drier. I’m talking 30 seconds max, if their hair ever gets wet in the first place. They’ll be in the shower, or in a pool, or get caught in some kind of catastrophic flood, and then in the next scene their hair will be as perfectly coiffed as the day they got it done. Whatever product they’re using, I think there’s a big market for it.

1) Club nights.
So Monday is Tiger Tiger night. Who gives a flying fuck? What is it about Monday that compels you to go to a specific club and do the same thing every single week? It’s like Sunday throws a switch in students’ brains, telling them that they must buy queue-jump tickets for the next day. This actually applies to so many other club nights as well. So what’s the only reason that students “have” to go to Tiger Tiger on a Monday, or to Come Play on a Saturday? “Everybody else does it”.

2) Fake Tan
Stop putting this shit on. There are two possibilities for NOT looking like a douche: A real tan, or pale skin. Both are natural, both look completely normal, and neither of them will get you any weird looks, unless you’ve been cooking your skin on a beach in Jamaica somewhere and you’re naturally orange. Fake tan looks fake. I’m sure that the girls using it know that it does, so why do they continue to do it? “Everyone else does it”.

3) High Heels
High heels seem to be such a staple of the clubbing girl’s life that I’m loathe to suggest that there’s anything wrong with them. Most girls would likely widen their eyes to the size of plates in horror if I mentioned anything about taking away their “Clack-Clacks”. The problem with high heels, however, is that they’re completely useless:

• Yes, they make you taller. Newsflash: Short girls are hot. No-one gives a fuck if they have to lean a further 3 inches to make out with you, because they’re kissing a girl and they’re lucky to be doing so.
• Yes, they can look stylish. Flat shoes, however, look just as nice, come in the same varieties and colours, and don’t destroy your feet in the process. Plus, you can walk home in them, which strikes me as a fundamental bonus for, you know, shoes.

And since I’m sure that girls know this stuff, or would if they thought about it long enough, why do they continue to wear them? “Everyone else does it”.

4) The Club Friend
This could also be called “Not making real friends”, because that’s what the student/club life leads you to do, as long as you rely on clubs for your social kicks. If you only meet people in clubs, it means that you never talk to them because it’s too fucking loud to do so. You never have a real conversation with them until you see them outside of a club, and by that time you’re already “best buds” with them. This is when you realise that they’re either a complete douche, or have no conversational/social skills in the slightest, apart from being able to get hammered.

And you can’t stop being friends with them, because you go to the same club nights together (See item 1), and have the same club friends as each other. You’re stuck with a person you wouldn’t have wanted to be friends with if you’d just spent 5 sober minutes of conversation finding out what they were like. So you’re relegated to having awkward, pointless conversations with them whenever you DO see them outside of clubs. Usually about the weather. Or the previous club night you went to, and how “crazy” it was.

And I’ve just realised that I’ve written this last item in such a way that I can’t make use of “Everyone else does it”… FUCK.

People Who Care About Grass
I’m not talking about Marijuana here, because really everyone should care about that. I’m getting more and more concerned every day that there are too many people in the world who care about actual grass. You know, the green stuff on the sides of roads.

This is in evidence every time you see a sign that asks you to keep off the grass, or a meticulously cut and treated lawn somewhere in the north of England.

I have absolutely no problem with people who decide to use good quality seed, water it well, and cut it properly so that their lawn or grass of choice comes out well. What I DO have a problem with is anyone who gives a shit when their grass gets stood on. I mean, come on! It’s GRASS. It’s the most boring plant in the entire world. There’s nothing interesting, useful or particularly striking about grass, except that it provides a surface on which to do things. Throw a frisbee, for example, or mutilate a dog. When people start asking others to stay off their grass, that just removes its primary purpose.

You cannot tell me that these people want their grass to be nice so that they can look at it, because no-one looks at grass. There’s no point. Therefore, the grass that they keep perfectly maintained and ban anyone else from standing on or walking over has become useless. Well done.

I’m going to start asking people not to walk on my carpet from now on.

Short-ass Alarm Clocks
When I say “short-ass”, I’m not referring to the height of the alarm clock, but rather the length of time the alarm sounds when it goes off. The standard alarm length for most clocks you buy from somewhere shitty like Argos is one to two minutes. I don’t know about those of you who spring out of bed instantly the moment they hear the mildest sound, but I don’t feel particularly happy about waking up in the morning.

I have slept through an alarm in the past that was sounding for 45 minutes solid, and only the other day I slept through 30 minutes of my alarm; Which is exactly why I need an alarm that goes off forever until I get out of bed and shut it off myself.

Using a one or two minute alarm is like asking a paraplegic if he wants to wrestle me. I’m not going to get a very effective result.