15 Trivial Things That Drove Me Crazy Watching Love Actually This Year

It's absolutely no secret that "Love Actually" is not only my favorite holiday movie, but one of my favorite movies of all time. I watch it every single year, often twice, especially since last year I discovered it's the only movie I own with a German dub. But, as we all know by now, my love for something does not mean it won't drive me crazy over dumb trivial things:

1) "Love actually is all around." Okay, I'll ignore the all lower-case as a stylistic choice, but where are the commas??? Aren't The Brits are supposed to care about grammar? I think you mean, "Love, actually, is all around." And the film should be titled "Love, Actually." Aaaaaaagh.

2) Maybe you're alone again because you're a moody hipster with a stupid typewriter who doesn't make copies instead of just getting a laptop like a normal person and constantly backing up like any decent author.

3) Mark isn't holding his head due to the emotional agony that his best friend's wife just found out he's in love with her, he's holding his head because he's walked outside in the thick of London winter in only a shirt and flimsy sweater and his brain is literally freezing to death. Layers, Andrew Lincoln, LAYERS!!!

4) Originally, Rowan Atkinson was supposed to be an angel who disappears at the end of the film after helping out Hans Gruber and Future Jojen Who Is Still Referred To As Love Actually Kid And Holy Crap Still Looks Like A Kid. I'm convinced Mia is his polar opposite: a hell demon trying to earn her horns. It's the only explanation for how she can be so utterly, unequivocally, unbelievably evil!

5) President Poophead and Mia deserve each other. I can't believe the movie didn't have them get together. It's so obvious. He should have had a torrid affair and left his wife after falling in love with her, only to lose her when she earns her horns and returns to the depths of Hell. Justice served!

6) James Bond, yes! Harry Potter, YES! David Beckham, HELL YES! Wait...what about Lord of the Rings? HOW could you forget LOTR??? I don't know if I still have a man-crush on you, Hugh Grant...oh, who am I kidding? Of course, I do!

7) Jimminy Cricket, look at those scrawny little chicken legs. Your arms are bigger. Don't skip leg day, Karl!

8) Professor Snape's greatest sin isn't cheating on Professor Trelawney, it's letting her do all the gift shopping for their family while he puts in zero effort or care. What a deadbeat dad.

9) If the fan base I saw at the 2011 Rose Bowl is a fair representation of the Wisconsin college student population, there aren't this many attractive girls ever gathered together in a single bar, much less the entire state. This is probably the most unrealistic thing in the whole movie. 

P.S. Remember how we kicked your ass, Wisconsin? Rah rah TCU!

10) You can't learn a language or an instrument in two weeks! Especially not enough to be conversational or perform in a concert. If it was, every jackass high school boy would have been the douche with a guitar trying to impress girls, as well as the douche attempting to seduce the pants off the hot foreign exchange students by speaking their native tongue.

11) Why is Jamie's brother at the family Christmas? If you shag your brother's girlfriend, it should be standard policy that you don't get invited! Jamie doesn't need the lure of love as motivation to piss off from his crummy family.

12) I can't decide what I like more: the bodyguard's surprisingly amazing voice or the kids dancing to an undanceable Christmas carol. I just can't decide and it's driving me mad because I'm American and someone has to be declared the winner.

13) This kid has ruined all future Christmas pageants because I will forever be extremely disappointed that there isn't a kid made up as Spiderman for no good reason.

14) He barely put his wife in the grave five weeks ago and he's already crushing on someone new. I don't think the Dementors have to do much to make Brits feel as if all has gone cold. They clearly already are ice queens.

15) Is that a Pixar lamp? Oh...no...oh my god...the insanely archaic G4 iMac is "the new iMac" in this movie. That's how old it is. I cannot unsee it and I can't pay attention to anything else in this epilogue.

3 Terrible Implications Of The Santa Clause Universe

The Santa Clause and The Santa Clause 2 are both mainstays in my Christmas movie rotation. They're cheesy as all heck, but I love 'em. The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, however, much like the Star Wars prequels, Indy 4, Die Hard 5, Spiderman 3, Superman 3 and 4, Blues Brothers 2000, Exorcist II, and The Matrix sequels, is an abomination and does not exist as far as I'm concerned.

But hey, two out of three ain't bad at all; even Messi and LeBron don't score 66% of the shots they take! Despite their cheery mirth and glowy warmth, the universe that's set up in The Santa Clause movies (you know, just the TWO of them) has some dark and terrible implications:

1) The Elves Are Slave Labor That Never Get A Day Off

When Scott Calvin comes to the North Poll for the first time, having been freshly donned the new Santa Claus, the elves are ALREADY hard at work on next year's toys...on Christmas...right as children are barely waking up and getting THIS year's toys. The elves apparently never stop working. Ever.

To really drive the point home, the head elf, Bernard, acts really put-out by Scott's questions, even though they're all perfectly valid and understandable considering he's just been appointed the new magical Santa for life after accidentally causing the death of the old one. Bernard—though hella charming because he's played by the super awesome and underrated David Krumholtz—is curt, full of eyes rolls, and super impatient because there's tons of work to do and Scott is slowing him down and he clearly fears that things might spiral out of control on day one if he can't get back to work cracking the candy-bead whip. Can't this new Santa jerk just get it through his thick skull already? The elves are under so much pressure that even their leader feels like he doesn't have time to meet and greet the new boss.

Scott is obligated to be Santa, does not at all have a choice, and will not get paid. If Santa, the big boss man, the head honcho, the taco supreme, is bound by a contract he was never allowed to read first and is not being compensated, then there's no doubt the elves are bound by an even worse contract. They are clearly slaves. 

2) Parents Ignore Free Presents They Didn't Buy Their Kids

The films establish that kids are in touch with and still believe in magic, which is why they believe Santa is real, but adults have lost that belief in magic and therefore don't believe in Santa. But, Santa does exist in this world, for realsie reals, and every kid in the world either gets presents or coal directly from him, made by the elves, with no involvement of their parents. This means that every parent in the world doesn't believe Santa is real, yet turns a blind eye to the free presents that show up for their kids on Christmas morning. 

No parents are ever shown having a confused conversation with each other over where that damn kayak came from. This means they're all willfully ignoring the creepy appearance of stuff they didn't buy into their locked home by an unknown party, or in subconscious denial. Either way, it's a pretty serious and messed up psychological issue affecting every single parent in the entire world.

3) Santa Magically Knows All Your Secrets

No letters need to be written to Santa to get what you want in this universe. He already knows what you want, thanks to magic. Not only that, he also knows if you've been, on the whole, naughty or nice this year. While that's typical for the Santa Claus myth, these films take the "he knows when you are sleeping" trope to the creepiest extreme.

See, he doesn't just know if you've been good or bad, he knows exactly what sins or good deeds you've committed. Each and every one. He knows your name and where you live without ever having to ask. And most blood-curdling of all, he knows not just what Christmas presents you want, but all your deepest, darkest, innermost desires. That's precisely how he seduces his future Mrs. Claus; he knows exactly what to say and do to please her, and boy does he play every card he can.

Forget big brother government because in this universe, Santa is the privacy-invading creepster supreme. He alone holds the power to expose every person in the world. He can blackmail anyone at anytime. He can manipulate anyone he wishes, bend them to his will and make them dance like a string puppet because he knows all the right buttons to push.

And it's not like he's a magically benevolent being who would never even think of wielding power selfishly. Santa was once a regular person complete with psychological issues, relationships, and personal grudges. If you ever upset him, he can destroy your life without breaking a sweat. No man should ever have such power...

Over-tightening Tire Lug Nuts Should Be Illegal

I was peacefully gliding down the Angeles Crest Highway, listening to tranquil music, enjoying the beautiful serene scenery, and not even having touch the gas pedal as pure momentum carried me calmly down the mountain. All was well. And then, just up ahead, big rocks on the road. 

"No problem, I'll slow down and drift into the other lane to avoid them. Oh crap, cars coming the other way. Well, that limits how much I can maneuver out of the way. Bam. I hit one. That doesn't sound good at all. That sounds like it did damage." That was what went through my head in a matter of seconds, and I was right. A few miles later, it was obvious I had a flat. 

Thankfully, turnouts are plentiful on the Angeles Crest, but I still had to bide my time waiting for one that was sizeable and safely level, which is fairly nerve-wracking when you're driving down a one-lane mountain highway with no room for error. Eventually, I did and was able to harmlessly pull over into a huge turnout with plenty of room to change out to the spare tire. 

Changing a tire in the mountains was definitely daunting, but hey, it wasn't my first rodeo. I'd changed a few tires in my day, so it shouldn't be a problem. Boy, was I wrong. I put the torque wrench on a lug nut and casually tried to pull. No budge. Huh, okay, I'll come back to that one. Try another one. No budge. Another. Same. The other two, nope. What the hell? 

Turns out, the lug nuts were so drastically over-tightened, it took me an hour to get them all off. I had to take breaks because the effort was so draining, not to mention I was afraid I was going to pull or break my back. And although I'm certainly not super duper strong, I'm no weakling either. I've now put in fifteen hard months of serious weightlifting. I won't bore you and brag about numbers, but let's just say that with what I can deadlift, I should have no problem loosening a little itty bitty lug nut with the law of physics aid of leverage via torque wrench. So the fact that it took me an hour, tells you just how insanely over-tightened they were. I don't know how I got it done, but somehow, with brute strength and sheer force of will, I eventually got them all loose. 

I wish I could say it was smooth sailing from there, but the vaguely illustrated diagram and instructions in the car manual for where to place the jack for the rear wheels were so bad, I had spent an hour and a half to change a tire when all was said and done. Quite humbling. But that's neither here nor there. We're here to talk about needlessly over-tightened lug nuts.

It doesn't take a genius to figure out how and why they were overtightened. You don't even need to google it; it's pretty obvious. They were over-tightened because whichever shop last rotated/serviced my tires use a pneumatic wrench to tighten them, and pneumatic power can reach some serious RPMs. That means lots of power, more than enough to satisfy Tim The Toolman Taylor. Why would anyone do that? Simple: it's faster and easier. Efficiency to service more customers and make more money, and laziness to make their job easier. Understandable. 

However, it should absolutely, positively, no questions asked be illegal. People can hurt themselves trying to loosen over-tightened lug nuts. People can be put into danger on the side of the road if the time it takes to change a tire is lengthened. People can get screwed and stranded if they can't loosen them. I'm pretty sure that a year ago, without the strength I now have, I wouldn't have been able to get them loose, leaving me stuck in the mountains with no cell signal. Although I'm confident I would have been able to flag down help from strangers, highway patrol, or the forest service, I shouldn't ever be put in that situation when it's completely unnecessary. No one should.

Any automotive repair service business is responsible for ensuring your vehicle is safe to drive. Part of that safety means ensuring that lugnuts are not over-tightened to the point where anyone, of any size or strength, can't loosen them by hand with a torque wrench. People have to be able to change a tire themselves. When businesses overtighten pneumatically and take that ability away from customers, they screw them over and put them in potentially dangerous situations. It's unnecessary, it's immoral, and it's unacceptable. It has to stop. 

I propose that pneumatically tightening lug nuts should be illegal. Businesses should have to do the final tigthening by hand with a torque wrench, thereby ensuring they aren't over-tigthened and can be loosened by hand. No excuses. I can't believe this isn't already law. Fellow drivers, it's time to stand up and revolt!