2013: Net Gain or Net Loss? A Quantitative Review

These days, everything seems to have some sort of measurement system. We have heights and weights, salaries and rankings, Klout scores, GPAs, BACs — it seems like everything must be put into numeric terms. Accordingly, we’ve put together a comprehensive review of 2013, scored with our proprietary scoring system. Every significant event of 2013 will be judged on a scale of -5 to +5. A score of -5 means the event made the world a much worse place, and a score of +5 means the event made the world a much better place. Let’s take a look back at 2013 and see where our world lies after the year’s events.

Hate A Random Country: Iceland

What do geothermal energy, lesbian prime ministers, and unforgivable amounts of twattery have in common? If you guessed “They occur in the United Kingdom,” then I say to you, excellent guess — Margaret Thatcher did make us all wonder. However, the correct answer would be that the aforementioned items occur in Iceland, or as it translates in the native tongue, “Island that we’d all willingly leave if we knew how.” In researching my scathing criticism of Iceland, I have come upon the frequently-occurring issue of having just too many judgments to pass on a country. Therefore, humble reader, know that beyond what I will mention in this exposé, there is an additional plethora of aspects of Iceland that can be mercilessly scrutinized.

One of Iceland's most famous churches. Think they're compensating for something?

I’ll start out with Iceland’s language: Icelandic. First of all: real creative, Nordic buttsponges. We all know that a true country commandeers another country’s language, removes the obnoxiously superfluous u’s from words that clearly require only an “or,” and claims it as their own without adjusting it to their own country’s demonym. But the acquisition of their language isn’t even the most laughable part of it; the language itself is based on an alphabet presumably engineered by Jerry Garcia after a routine wake-and-bake. The Icelandic Alphabet is a haven for oodles of unnecessary umlauts, accents, and all sorts of other bizarre letter supplements that would never be accepted south of the Arctic Circle. What’s even sadder is that they’ve bastardized letters from the English language; according to Wikipedia, the letter “T” is pronounced as “t with a puff of air.” Wow, Iceland. Wow. Be careful with how much air you’re puffing pronouncing seemingly trivial letters – especially when your nation is covered with so much volcanic ash that it resembles Mordor after Sauron gets blue-balled by that one unfortunate-looking orc general who leads the river-crossing.

No, this image isn't from a Megadeath t-shirt

That brings us to Exhibit B – that volcano that totally ass-pounded Iceland. Now I’ll be a man of integrity: The incident was sad for everyone across the world. Until everyone learned that the name of the volcano that spewed its apocalyptic man-chowder all over the Scandinavian island was a sixteen-letter juggernaut that only the Icelandic tongue could force out of its saggy linguistic womb. Legend tells us that the volcano – Eyjafjallajökull – was dubbed so by an Icelandic citizen with Parkinson’s trying to drunk-text on a roller coaster. The tragic news of the Eyjafjallajökull’s eruption was instantly lightened up by the always-competent American news media, which chose to focus not on the severe infrastructural and environmental damage caused by the eruption, but rather on the absurdity of the volcano’s name. Complain all you want, Iceland, but it’s your own damn fault that your language looks like Bananagrams on LSD.

Rather than simply donning flannel and teaching P.E., this woman had what it took to rule a rock with a slightly larger population than Saint Louis

Moving on from Iceland’s “language,” let’s get to the most important aspect of Iceland’s existence: the lesbian prime minister. Before you go check out lesbianprimeministers.com (I already tried, it’s not a real website), bear with me, because I’m about to do something unprecedented; I’m going to compliment Iceland on their lesbian prime minister. It’s great to see that in a country of stereotypes (after all, her name is Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir), there are still people who break them. In many scenarios, this woman would follow the beaten path and become a librarian or professional golfer, but in Iceland, she became the prime minister of an entire country. Okay, maybe not an entire country, but Iceland.

In conclusion, while I give props to Iceland’s non-truck driving lesbian community, I want to remind readers that I still think Iceland is a worthless piece of shit. I think of Iceland as the Scandinavia of Scandinavia – and I assure you, that is not a favorable remark. So, next time you use a word with fewer than twenty letters, or look up in the sky and see something other than a gray mass of ecological screwedness, say to yourself proudly: “Well, at least I’m not an Icelandic titnugget.”