These days, the world can be a pretty shitty place. Hunger, poverty, pollution and genocide tarnish our globe like greasy, sparse stubble and pimples on a teenage face. But with so many obvious debacles in our world, it is easy to overlook the little things that make our teeth grind. Take a moment with me to examine these recent baneful but petty descents of humanity.

Nothing makes me slightly upset like seeing a turtle in a cage WITH NO WATER.  Come on, people. Turtles are basically fish with arms and legs and a three-chambered heart and no scales and an unwieldy cinderblock for a jacket. If you don’t let that sucker swim once in a while, he’s just gonna sit around all day staring at his reflection in that disgusting, murky aquarium thing you keep him in, wondering why his ancestors decided to be cowardly and evolve a shielding but stifling shell instead of wings or bipedalism or skin that isn’t green and slimy.

The only thing he’s got going for him is his ability to flail around in water slightly less awkwardly than the way he waddles on land. Hell, he’s even inspired a universal hand-gesture used in awkward situations. Keeping Donatello in that waterless, sand-filled dungeon is worse that keeping a strapping young golden retriever in a kennel all day. Our tragic turtle has already been permanently impounded in a biological kennel. (And no, Virginia, turtles cannot take off their shells, as Nick Jr.’s Franklin would have you believe.) Unless he comes across some radioactive sludge any time soon, put that poor animal near some water.

Everyone I know who has a Moleskine loves to talk about how they have a Moleskine.  “Look!” they say. “I have the same kind of notebook used by Oscar Wilde, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Henri Matisse! What’s so great about it? . . . Well, it’s got this built-in elastic band that keeps it shut. Just like the one used by Oscar Wilde, Vincent Van Gogh, Pablo Picasso, Ernest Hemingway and Henri Matisse!” That’s like taking pride in shooting yourself in the face with the same kind of shotgun Hemingway capped himself with. Wait, what’s that? It has a built-in bookmark too? Never mind, I take it all back.

“Titanic” is the biggest hack-job ever produced by a major studio. Let me elucidate. Financially, “Titanic” was a great idea.  It made over a billion dollars worldwide.  Congratulations, James Cameron! (Clap Clap Clap.)  You proved that when you take a cataclysmic event that everyone finds latently alluring and then juxtapose it with Romeo and Juliet, everyone will love it! Even though it’s three and a half hours long and the nudity doesn’t occur until two and a half hours in. Michael Bay tried the same thing with “Pearl Harbor.” Gosh, I can’t wait to see how 9/11 will be portrayed in fifty to one-hundred years!

But seriously: was there any doubt in anyone’s mind how the movie would end? Or how the relationship between Jack and Rose would unfold? When we meet Jack, we see a gambling, cigarette-smoking American who has spent the last few years of his life travelling Europe to find women who will let him draw them naked. Clearly he has nothing in common with Rose, the young, rich socialite who is engaged to Cal Hockley. Rose, however, is not your typical young rich socialite. No, in fact she—get this—feels trapped by her social and economic position, and sometimes rebels by smoking cigarettes through ornate cigarette holders when her mother expressly told her not to.

And would you know it, Jack and Rose meet and, despite their disparate backgrounds, fall deeply in love. It turns out that being rich is kind of boring, but arm-wrestling with third-class passengers over a few beers is gratifying beyond your wildest dreams. Ironically, the highest-grossing film in North-American box office history tells us that money is worthless and all you really need is a rugged artist to sweep you off your feet. Thanks, James Cameron. Looks like someone grew up in the sixties. Wait, what? You’re actually making Terminator 5?