Don't Get Cutesy With My Crunch Bar

So I am standing in the candy aisle at the store trying to pick out a couple bags for work. The choices are immense nowadays and frankly overwhelming. Normally I would go straight to a favorite like Mounds (I know I am the only person on Earth who likes Mounds) or Crunch but with so many variety bags I had to take a closer look. Upon closer inspection I came up with a theory: Every variety pack has at least one crappy candy in it. One bag had Milky Way, 3 Musketeers, Twix and (Blech) Snickers (Snickers is not good. Nougat is not candy!). Another bag had all the good Hersheys bars and Mr. Goodbar (They should rename it Mr. "No one likes this crap" bar.). So i propose that all candy variety packs should be self serve. It is simply un-American to shuck shitty candy into a variety pack and use it as filler to replace better candy. More Twix less Twizzlers.

On that note I am not happy with the packaging of Halloween candy. I bought a Mars variety pack and they are all wrapped in Autumn colors. First off Halloween candy should either be packaged normally inside the bag (For easy low light identification) or in Orange and black. Autumn is not a color palette. Second, the marketing department needs to be more discerning with their colors. In the bag I bought the Milky Ways were wrapped in a yellow wrapper. This could easily be confused with a Butterfinger. Do you understand the mental damage you can do to a kid who, in his haste to hit the next house, reaches for what he thinks is a Butterfinger and later realizes it's a Milky Way? Now multiply that through an entire evening of trick or treating and this poor kid goes to count how many crispity crunchety Butterfingers he got at the end of the night and realizes he got Milky Ways. Now imagine he is deathly allergic to Caramel and he has to throw all of his candy away. His Halloween is ruined and this one moment (Like a butterflies wing flap) leads him to a life of crime all because some marketing moron at Mars decided to get cutesy with the packaging. Repercussions my friend......... repercussions.

Ten Things That Suck
1) Nickleback
2) The Oakland Raiders
3) Narcissistic Starbucks Baristas
4) Nancy Pelosi (Although I would never want to personally find out)
5) Dustbusters
6) Dog fur and dark couches
7) Strange puddles of liquid on your floor
8) Cheap movie rip offs of awesome cartoons (I'm looking at you GI JOE)
9) Thinking up inane items for stupid top ten lists
10) Jay Cutler

In an effort to increase content without actually having to create content, I am starting a new weekly feature called "10 Things That Suck." Look for it on whatever day I feel like posting it.

RIP Twitter 02/16/2011

First it was MySpace (You know, that website that you used to have a ‘Profile’ on back when you were a kid), then Facebook (That place where your grandma and virtual pet keeps in touch with you), then Blogger (Seriously, what kind if ass pimple has a blog?), and now we have Twitter. Let me trace the evolution of stupid internet fads using these four examples.

MySpace-
This started as a place where the ‘cool’ kids hung out. Where you had to be 18 to register but like an R rated movie there were more kids there than adults. It was the cool thing to do and if you were the bees knees you had an profile. It was a great way to belittle other kids too (“You aren’t on MySpace??? Go get in the trash Freshman”). Pretty soon though everyone knew what it was and the virtual population exploded. But like every fad it had to come to an end and it was no longer where the party was. So all the cool cats strutted over to Facebook because they were in the know and were cooler than you MySpacers.

Facebook-
This started as a virtual college yearbook/directory. Great idea and a good way to meet people on campus. Plus you had to be a college student to join so there was a cliqueness (Not a word) to it. If you were on it then your little brother wasn’t, nor was your Dad, your Dad’s creepy friends, your Nanna, and so on. It was the good old days. You could post pictures of you doing stupid things like dry humping a fire hydrant or shotgunning a 2 liter of week old milk without fear that your parents would see. You could tell everyone about your morning deuce without your boss reading about it. You could even tell everyone what kind of contraceptive you use without your grandma having a stroke. Then it was opened up to everybody and it exploded in popularity. Awesomeness ensued when your one night stand, boss, and mom could all post on your wall. You felt the pressure to be accepted so you came up with all kinds of witty little sayings and status changes. If you didn’t people would think you were boring just like you were in real life. And don’t get me started on Facebook affairs (Affairbook has a nice ring to it). Nothing like destroying a couple lives to go find that special guy in high school that you dated for a couple months and left for a reason (The real world isn’t a movie, moron). By the way, if you have more than 20 friends on Facebook then they aren’t your friends. Personally I have enough friends that I don’t call, I don’t need more.

Blogger-
Blogging is stupid. Period. Bloggers are not relevant or funny which is why I do it.

Twitter-
This brings me to Twitter. Micro-Blogging is the official term. You can send people Twits (Tweet doesn’t describe the author as well as Twit) about anything as long as U KP IT 2 144 CARACTRS OR LES OF UNINTLIGIBLE FING GIBBRISH. So now instead of enjoying those Fruit Loops alone this morning, you can tell everyone. When you drop those Fruit Loops off 12 hours later you can tell everyone again. This ‘phenomenon’ is being used by celebrities, athletes, corporations and even Senators to tell everyone very important things in real time. What a treat! I get to hear a Senator sound like a 12 year old girl while he tries to Twit about his latest vote in less than 144 characters. Or get a virtual coupon for Raisin Bran from General Mills. Or Ashton Kutcher can tell me why in the fuck he is a celebrity. And finally Chad “I can speak two words of Spanish but I can’t write them correctly” Ochocinco can show me how dumb he is virtually instead of actually. Guess what everyone? No one wants to hear how boring your life is when they have a perfectly boring life of there own. I already take a couple of dumps a day, I don’t need to virtually enjoy yours too. I also don’t need to hear how witty or whimsical you are so I don’t give a shit that your day is going like a unicycle tumbling from the sky with a rainbow farting unicorn on it. If you were so witty and funny you would have real friends and be doing real things instead of typing about how you wish you were.

Mr. Kotter in the House

Welcome back. Not you, me. I haven’t been here in over a year and I sure have missed myself.

Whiny Crybaby Americans

Yesterday Phil Gramm, former senator, proclaimed that Americans are a bunch of whiners. The exact quote isn’t as bad as the media portrays and of course both Presidential candidates jumped on it too. Why is it that when the truth hurts we run to mommy? Gramm could not be more correct.

America has turned into a clan of greedy, me-too, one-uppers. We work too hard and spend too little time with our families for what? So we can get a bigger house than we need, drive a car that we don’t need, send our kids to schools they don’t need, and get the American Dream that we don’t need. You know that dream of owning a house and all that crap that we are fed by the media and then when it doesn’t happen it’s another story for the never full media Godzilla. I wish we were still in the ‘50’s. One person worked, kids grew up at home and not in daycare, a household had one car, and whole families lived in, gasp, a 1,200 sf house. There were no cell phones, people didn’t spend time watching TV because it didn’t exist, no email or voicemail, and the appliances you bought lasted longer than two years. Families even saved money.

Nowadays everyone wants everything yesterday. Kids out of school get a job and immediately want a new car. People get married and go house hunting the next day. You realize your neighbor has bigger rims so you throw yours in the trash and go buy some spinners. I still think the invention of the credit card and it’s proliferation through all of society has caused this. On top of that, the easier it was to get something the easier it is to be tired of it and want something else.

I’m not sure if this is due to bad parenting or not. I don’t think it is taught to kids but if those same kids were involved in the finances of the household they would be the first to ask “How do you buy that if we don’t have the money?” It’s more of a learned trait than a taught lesson. I have read so many cry baby stories about people who bought a house and now they are getting foreclosed on. Unless you lost a job, there should be no reason to lose your house. If you do, you couldn’t afford it in the first place. Here is a perfect example http://money.cnn.com/2008/07/10/news/economy/rios/index.htm?postversion=2008071014 a woman who makes 25k a year bought a 400k+ home. REALLY? And I am supposed to feel sorry for her? Her “Low payment” was 4,100. Do the math, that’s 49,200 a year. I didn’t take Calculus II but I think that’s more than her yearly salary. It wasn’t the real estate agents fault it was her own fault! We aren’t in a recession, we are in a brain-cession.
We need to stop looking to the govt for help. Neither candidate is going to do anything for you. You need to do something for yourself. We need to go back to basics. What’s important and what isn’t. We are a bunch of whiners. We whine about everything (Yours truly excluded. I get a free pass) and anything and we get ourselves into a load of shit and always expect someone to pull us out. We need to make the changes at home and there needs to be a paradigm shift in America but I doubt that will ever happen. Maybe now that things are more expensive, people will have to decide if they need two cars or all the crap they buy. Once they make those changes, just like corporations did after 9/11, they may realize they don’t need all those things and once their situation turns around they will be in great shape. Yeah right.

Gift Cards Part Deux

I was listening to the best morning show in the world when they started talking about a topic I have ranted on before. The biggest scam in business. No, not oil companies making a profit (God forbid) or Google buying the US government. No, it’s gift cards. Remember when a gift card was actually a gift certificate? Remember when you spent $18 of the $20 on the certificate and you got two bucks back? Everyone knows why you don’t get change (So you spend more then the card is originally. I have touched on all this before but I neglected to mention another hypocrisy. For accounting purposes (flip your Firefox to youtube if you don’t care about money or math) a business cannot count that gift card as income until it is used. So technically it is not even their money that they are keeping from you. It is stuck in electronic purgatory like the bully holding your lunch money over your head while you jump around like a meth head.

The interesting part is that after two years they are able to start taking a percentage of the balance of cards each month. Needless to say there are millions of dollars of unclaimed gift card balances each year. Of course no one in govt is willing to bring this up as an issue except for California where Arnold has proposed legislation to require balances be returned in cash when they reach a certain level. I am sure that the Dems in the CA assembly will suggest those balances go into the General Fund but that’s a whole other column.

"These eyes are cryin’"

I think we need to revisit the bathroom rules. It seems there are still some guys out there who not only enjoy talking at the urinal but they make actual eye contact. This is not ok. Men should never, ever make eye contact when their hot link is out of the package. There really is only one reason why….something could be said. For example you’re at the urinal and a casual acquaintance sidles up to you and starts chatting it up. You, knowing the rules, do not speak nor make eye contact. You continue to ignore these welcoming moves until you double check he is gone and BAM you make eye contact and in your mind he says “So you like my junk?”. In actuality he said “Man, am I drunk” but that doesn’t matter. You have been eye violated and your pe-hymen has been broken. There is no turning back from this and you will now be going to counseling for the rest of your life. This guy is akin to a vampire in that once he breaks your pe-hymen, you will now roam the world’s bathrooms breaking other men’s. So please, let’s stop this scourge before it’s too late.

The Rolling Twinkie

The backpack was a great invention. It allowed us to carry many things long distances without much discomfort. The wheel and Twinkies were also great inventions. One allowed us to push things around and the other allowed us to quickly clog our arteries and Levis. What do they have in common? Because we eat too many Twinkies, we had to add wheels to our backpacks. Was this really necessary? Shouldn’t we be taking wheels OFF the backpacks because we eat too many Twinkies?

Next Stop.....Hell

This is the tenth time that I have written that it has been awhile since I last wrote something and I promise to do better. As if I broke curfew and you’re my mommy. Well I apologize to no one so I am sorry and promise to do better.

I started taking the train into work for the last month or so. Most people have started doing it to save money on gas and parking. I did it because my life was simply not annoying enough and I enjoy waiting around for a couple hours to get home. Don’t worry I have a lot of stories chambered but I need to space them out since material is not my strong suit. So after waiting over an hour for the train to arrive yesterday, I boarded and sat behind blowhard veteran everyone-cares-about-what-I-have-to-say train guy. Luckily he had already located his next victim and had commenced the mental raping. He fit the mold perfectly with his large see through backpack and Star Trek communicator (Err, I mean Bluetooth). He was the type of guy who talks on the phone in a manner where you cannot tell if he is talking to you or the victim on the other end of the radio wave.

His current victim was desperately fighting the pull but kept getting sucked in. He told her how he was busy keeping track of the time the train was arriving and departing from each stop, and that he had an appointment in the next city. He was also giving her navigation tips for destinations she had already told him she never went to and never would. His appointment was at City Hall. He then proceeded to tell her exactly how he was going to get there when he got off the train and even pointed it out from the train. It’s the building next to the Tower Theater with the numbers “311” on it, in case you were wondering.

By this time I felt so relieved that this poor girl had been thrown to the beast instead of me that I almost missed when he stood up to leave. In what appeared to be slow motion, he rose from his seat and went to leave. This was when I first noticed the see through backpack. Then he reached into the overhead compartment and pulled down the ultimate weapon of destruction. He strapped on the black leather fanny pack and everyone quickly moved to the side to let him by.

Steve Jobs: Shepherd of Sheeple

I am sure by now you are all familiar with the Apple iPhone and its sales record of around 1 million handsets. You are also aware that AT&T was to be the sole network for the iPhone and that the contract that was signed between Apple and AT&T certainly wasn’t in the financial best interests of AT&T. They took quite a hit in regards to the normal operating procedure for wireless providers, allowing Apple to make all the rules and allowing them to track and sell directly to AT&T’s customers. AT&T gladly said yes to the contract because they knew that the Apple sheeple would clamor to the iPhone as quickly as Steve Jobs fires employees.

Now comes some interesting news about the unlocking of the iPhone. When you buy a cell phone it comes locked into a certain carrier’s network. However, by law, the carrier must unlock the phone if requested by the consumer to facilitate things like overseas travel where the carrier is not available. This rarely happens because people don’t know that it’s possible and carriers do their best to keep it that way. Another reason is that most carriers run on different frequencies. So in the US, only T-Mobile and AT&T use the GSM network so an unlocked phone from AT&T only benefits T-Mobile customers and vice versa. Here’s the catch; AT&T paid a lot of money to be the sole provider of the iPhone but it behooves Apple to get as many potential customers as possible.

Apple has said that unlocking the iPhone is nearly impossible due to the configuration of the chips and the sim card. It took less than 3 months for a group of hackers to figure out how to do it, write the code, and wrap it in an application. They were primed to sell it weeks ago but got some friendly phone calls from Apple’s lawyers that delayed the release of their program. Then a week after they announced it would be for sale and began distributing copies for $99. This is where things start to smell like a 2 day old diaper. Days later, after getting their hands on the unlock program, a group of developers rewrote the coding, as not to “Steal” the original, and began giving it away for free.

Strange to me that in all of this the only people that won were in the Apple camp. AT&T is now screwed because to activate an iPhone, you can do it through iTunes, unlock it, and use your current sim card from another provider. The guys who created the original software got very little before this group of developers stole it and began giving it away. The key is that those Apple lawyers were probably able to convince them it was illegal to patent their software thus opening up a freeware version of it once it was released. So the big winner is Apple who now has dramatically increased their customer base by sitting around saying “We locked it up the best we could.” Did Apple purposely make the unlock process much easier than it led AT&T to believe? Did Apple strong arm the original developers so that others could write the software while Apple looked the other way? As of now there are more questions than answers.

The Unfriendly Skys

Do you remember back when flying somewhere was actually an enjoyable experience? Me neither. When I was a kid I always wondered why adults hated flying so much. Maybe it’s because I was half the size of a full size adult. Or that I always got to sit in front. Or that I always got on first and got off first. Or that I got all of the attention of the stewardesses because I was always flying alone. I’m pretty sure it’s the fact that airlines suck nowadays. The seats are smaller than the smallest adult can fit in. Then you get screwed by getting a middle seat-the 4 letter word of flying. The food is deplorable. How hard is it to fuck up a snack box? Well I have a box of raisins, wheat crackers and some sort of parmesan cheese spread that says it is possible. I understand the need for me to shut off my cell phone before takeoff. Shit I would ask everyone to shut them off before they get onboard. But asking me to turn of my mp3 player is stupid. I don’t need to learn how to fasten a seatbelt and if my electronic device is interfering with the cockpit then I am pretty sure the terrorists would be exploiting this iPod loophole of security already. Oh the movie will make me feel better about sitting in a lawn chair for 4 hours. It would except that the 6 overhead TV’s are older than I am and the tracking on the VCR is jacked up. Not sure why but I am able to watch an entire season of Entourage on the MP3 player but this multi-million dollar jet doesn’t have a DVD player? Then there is the redeye. What is worse, being awake during one of these 4 hour flights or trying to sleep on one? Nothing like waking up to your face stuck to some blue pleather and hoping the drool on your shirt is yours and not from the fatty next you.

Are You in Pain?

Why do men grunt in the bathroom? It seems like this is becoming a common habit among uncivilized men in public facilities. I’m not sure which grunt is worse; the urinal mini, machinegun grunt or the deep sigh, taking a dump grunt.

The stall grunt seems almost acceptable. Why? Well you are pushing something out of your ass. Second, no one knows who you are so you have complete anonymity to do your best Venus Williams impersonation. The problem is that everyone knows you’re taking a crap. I personally try and draw as little attention to myself when the big dog is scratching at the back door. I am actually embarrassed by a loud fart not overly proud like most men.

The urinal is a completely different story. First off you’re taking a piss. Unless you have a prostate the size of a softball, there really is no effort involved. There is no need to push because it practically comes out on its own once you loosen the levee. The biggest issue I have is the fact that you are out in the open and next to other men. Your grunting and pushing could easily be confused with you diddly oscillating your weiner; something that should never, ever be perceived as happening in a public place. Plus you look like a jackhole since grunting goes hand in hand with the pelvis thrust.

Guys, let’s keep the noises to a minimum in the bathroom.

I'm Rich Biatch!

I am going to be a millionaire. You see, I have discovered the secret to losing weight and keeping it off, all the while doing little to no exercise. I have in fact put this new method to use and am now at my leanest weight since high school. I would go as far as to say that I am now an Adonis; a living tribute to the beauty that is the human figure. It was so easy that even Oprah or Rosie could trim those few excess tons with no effort at all. In fact it takes less effort than what they currently use stuffing their chow holes. Are you ready for the secret?

STOP EATING SO MUCH FUCKING FOOD. Let me give you an analogy. If you have a 15 gallon gas tank in your convertible Beetle and you decide that you want to put 20 gallons in it, what happens? That’s right, you get 5 gallons of gas all over you and you’re manly car. If you have a VW Bus that holds 24 clowns and you put 32 clowns in it, what happens? That’s right, 3 dead clowns and a handful of unhappy emergency room patients. So if you stuff 5 pounds of food down your throat but you only need 3 pounds to function for the day, what happens to the other 2 pounds? That’s right; it goes right to your ass. So how does a chubby fix this problem? That’s right; eat 3 pounds of food. Or better yet; 2 and a half pounds and pull the other half out of that fat storage facility that you call your ass.

I know what you’re thinking; “I already knew that smartass.” Really? If you did, then so would others, and thus we would all be in great shape, and not the fattest nation on Earth. That’s why I am going to make millions. I only need to market this as some sort of new fad diet. One that costs a lot of money so it must work. I need a name for it. Something corny but to the point like “Piehole Tightener”, or “Lard Ass Lightener”. I also need some homeopathic vitamins that I can pawn off as “Diet Pills”. That way people get something for their money and thus feel better about their decision. I also need a spokesperson. Someone who was fat but saw the light of eating less and now wants to make money off of hapless, desperate idiots, just like I do. I have lots of work to do.

Now For Something Serious

Usually I write about things that annoy me in this blog but today I am going to take a step back and get intellectual on you.

I am sure most of you have seen the recent market debacles that have permeated through Wall Street and were preceded by an invisible Main Street melee that no one has been willing to talk about because it hurts to admit our shortcomings. For those not familiar with the events of the past weeks I will give you a quick synopsis. Basically all of the financial misgivings of Americans have come to a head through a small fissure in the financial system. For the last decade we have lived the American dream of free money. Nearly 65% of Americans own their own home (Of course this concept is a misnomer as very few families actually own their home or ever will). In comparison, our parents worked and saved to own a modest home and actually accomplished that goal. This was the backbone of America. The concept of owning something that took sacrifice to get.

Fast forward to the last decade and America is quite different. Now we own nothing. We simply lease or buy on credit. Then we continue to borrow money using the same asset that we don’t own, but is worth more than when we began our payment process. We use that borrowed money to buy more things that we cannot afford and essentially don’t need. We are a nation of debtors. Normally this would be a good thing for the economy. For credit and financial markets to work there need to be creditors and debtors. The concept has a foundation of one person borrowing from another with collateral being the basis for the security of the loan for both sides. The problem manifests itself when the debtor’s collateral is worthless. This can be seen in the use of credit cards and can be expounded to other areas as well.

People buy all kinds of worthless junk on credit. Obviously a home is not worthless but it is only as valuable as what someone else will pay for it. If you buy something with a non-collateralized loan, your desire to repay it is directly attributable to your value of the item purchased. Which is why so many people don’t pay their credit cards off, no one is going to come and get the stuff they bought because it is essentially worthless in comparison to the debt.

This brings us to the present. Markets worldwide have gone through a liquidity crunch in the last few weeks. This was brought about by two colliding forces. The desire for Americans to have everything they feel they are entitled to and the desire of business to make money in an environment of fewer customers. Just about every American believes they have the right to own a home. Even if they have zero credit or even worse, bad credit, they believe they will always make their mortgage payment. With the increasing level of home ownership in the last 7 years, everyone felt they should own a home. This sense of entitlement ushered out sanity and sound decision making. It lead people who should not be homeowners to demand it as an American right.

This demand for home loans coupled with lender’s hunger for an increased debtor pool, led to a severe loosening of credit standards and an increase in risky loans with low up front payments. So now we have a pool of clean, quality debtors mixing with a pool of toxic debtors. Three years ago this was fine because the toxic debtors could afford their artificially small payments and everyone was happy. More home buyers equals higher home values which led to more home equity borrowing which led to even more customers for lenders. Wall Street loved the continued increase in profits from these lenders as well as the increase in Debt obligations available for purchase. Debt obligations are instruments where lenders package up their loans into large bond issues that they sell to banks and institutional investors. The bonds are rated based upon the credit worthiness of the underlying mortgages and the rates they pay are based on those credit ratings. However as the pool of new debtors decreased, lenders had to loosen their credit restrictions in order to continue to profit from a now shrinking populace of new homeowners and re-financers. Wall Street drove this by continuing to demand these asset backed securities because they yielded solid returns and were considered safe because their origination was from something as rock solid as a debtor’s home.

The collision of the demand for credit by home buyers, demand for high yield “Safe” debt obligations by Wall Street, the decreased credit standards of lenders to meet these needs, and what was an inevitable collapse in home prices has arrived. Normally there is a small default rate built into these securities but when they increase due to foreclosures across the country, the securities lose intrinsic value. Since these were owned by institutional investors all over the world, the ripple effect is obvious, but this was different. We started to see these assets get dumped into the market, lowering their value.

This is exacerbated by hedge funds all over the world that are leveraged and own these assets. Why? Well when a fund is leveraged it is more volatile both positively and negatively. When the value of an asset goes down the fund needs to sell assets to meet its margin requirements. When a chunk of its assets are worthless in the current environment, it must sell assets that are valued. These tend to be equities or bonds that are fundamentally sound. This artificially deflates the values of “Good” investments, thus affecting the entire market. Compounding this is the fact that these debt obligations had proliferated all over the world into all types of funds, which is why we saw a global sell off of equities and a flight to sound investments like government backed assets.

With no one wanting to own mortgage backed securities, they had no inherent value. If investors could not rely on the underlying security of mortgage backed securities then what could they rely on? Who is to say who a sound debtor is? Who is to say that a financial institution isn’t holding a large amount of these securitized assets and thus could fall prey to the pandemonium? All of a sudden no debtor could be trusted and no one was buying debt, and without debt, the financial system worldwide stops. Panic sets in because all of a sudden the rules change.

This is a great example of how changing financial habits can crush the foundation of an economy. Our country went from one of saving and buying with cash to spending and never repaying. Consumption is good for economies but entitlement can be deadly.

I promise to write some dick and fart jokes next week.

Heaven on a bun

This will most likely be the first in a long list of stories I will be posting about my recent trip to Americas heartland. A place where they eat deep fried cows stuffed with deep fried cheese and wrapped in deep fried bacon with a deep fried Snickers bar for dessert.

During the week long trip, I not only flew 4,000 miles but drove over 1,000 miles all over Wisconsin. At one point I pulled off the road to use the bathroom at a McDonalds about 10 miles outside of a city (I use the term city loosely. Also, if you aren’t in the center of a city, you are in the deep country). The first thing I notice is that the parking lot is free of 48oz soda spills, straw wrappers, and dirty diapers. In California we call these items breadcrumbs so you know how to get to the McDonalds or Wal-Mart. After walking through this urban meadow I get to the door and nearly knock my teeth out on the window. There in front of me is a full on replica of a Lake Tahoe living room complete with leather couches, marble floors, a freaking fireplace, and the motherload…..a 50+ inch plasma television. There, right in the McDonalds. In California, if your neighbor even knows you have a plasma TV, they’ll steal it, and yet there was one out in the wild. It didn’t even have a chain on it.

After the nice gray haired gentleman resuscitated me, I went to use the bathroom. Once again Ronald slaps me with luxury. Travertine floors, LCD panels in front of the urinals, toilet paper, and the cus de gras…..a real mirror. Not a shiny piece of metal but a real mirror. I thought restroom mirrors went the way of the dodo bird or Michael Richard’s career. I felt like a great explorer discovering something super cool. I was so impressed I actually got hungry and decided to get something to eat while I was there.

I walked around to the front of the restaurant and couldn’t help but notice how clean it was. I stepped up to order and person listened to me and actually took my order. Then she actually counted out my change. I walked to the soda fountain stupefied when I saw nothing. That’s right, no wrappers, no used lids, no spilled soda, no mold in the tray, and no rude customers. The soda fountain steel was shinier than the steel bathroom mirrors back home. Before I knew it, my order was ready. It was fresh. Not, it’s only been sitting around for 10 minutes fresh but just made fresh. I opened it up and the food looked like real food. The chicken was real, the lettuce was real, and the cheese was real (Maybe it was Wisconsin cheese, just made for me that morning).

I walked aimlessly outside to my trusty steed. I felt like I was just slapped by the softest most wonderful pillow in the world. One that smelled of clean mountain air and French fries. This, my friends, was heaven on earth. Thank you Ronald, Hamburgler, Grimace, and most of all the man in charge, Mayor McCheese.

Don't Drink and Fly

It has been a long time since I threw some fonts at you oh gentle reader but I’m back and have a list of subjects as long as a chicken’s talons. So let’s get to it.

I recently made a trip out to God’s country for a family reunion (God owns the land but the devil must own the weather). I won’t get into details in this entry except for a story from the airport. We arrived at the airport a little early for our redeye flight so my stepdad and I head over to the bar for a beer. We sidle up to the bar with him on the left and myself between him and the waitress pass. Across the pass is a typical San Francisco hippie woman with her iMac laptop on the bar and a stumbling, loud drunk next to her.

We ordered our drinks and started talking to the bartender, all the while Barney is yakking in a voice that is not only louder than the boos Barry Bonds hears everyday but is also almost indecipherable. I catch small pieces of the conversation like how he partied in SF the night before and he was heading out to the ATL to party tonight.

Thought number 1: If you refer to a place by it’s airport code, you’re a douche nozzle.
Thought number 2: If you talk to a stranger about your partying in a bar, you’re an asshat.

Now that we have noticed Barney and can’t seem to shake him from our peripherals, we decide to make fun of him. That lasted 30 seconds until he decided to take his shot glass full of whiskey out into the terminal. Bartenders don’t seem to like people taking booze outside of the bar, I’m not sure why, maybe it’s the whole illegal part. Immediately the bartender yells at him to get back in the bar and Barney complied by storming back in and slamming his shot and then the glass it came in. The bartender volleyed back with the “That’s it you’re done, get out.” Which was followed by a stream of F-bombs and some other words that seemed to be fighting themselves to get out of Barney’s mouth for fear of alcohol poisoning. The bartender then threatened to call the cops and Barney left dropping bombs all the way down the terminal. Conveniently his gate was between ours and the bar and luckily his flight was delayed 2 hours.

The bar becomes a knitting circle in seconds and everyone starts making fun of Barney. About five minutes later the bartender notices that Barney left his boarding pass. Fantastic! Now he won’t be able to party in the ATL. Another five minutes goes by and like Waldo in a sea of stripes, he is poking around the bar looking for his boarding pass without the bartender seeing him. Once he realized that his reconnaissance mission was a failure, he left the bar with F-bombs trailing in his wake.

So now Barney is screwed. He can’t get on the plane without a boarding pass and if he goes to get another one, the podium jockey will see that he is tossed and refuse to let him on the plane. Plus it is now 11:00pm. You would think that this couldn’t get better but five minutes later we found his business card that he had given to the hippie girl. We then found his corporate credit card. Now he has to explain to his boss why he has an entire round of drinks for the whole bar on his card.

Table Nazis

So I just got back from a nice little trip to NYC. During that time I ate at more restaurants than I can remember. Which led to this observation; why do people sit at a table long after they have paid their check while there is a large line waiting. Now go with me for a second. Here is the story of the worst offender.

We had a party of 4 and a reservation for 7:45. We should up early hoping to score a table early since we were tired from walking. We walk into the establishment and it is pretty crowded. No worries, we have reservations. So we get the “10 minutes, sir” routine for over an hour. The entire time we are waiting we are noticing people that have paid their check, have nothing to eat or drink, and are still at their table. By the time we are seated the restaurant is absolutely packed. This is a pretty happening place and getting a reservation on short notice is pretty tough.

So we order our meals and some drinks and notice the table next to us is done and has their check. Since we were now keeping score on these types, we watched them. All in all they spent another 45 minutes (No joke) at the table. Finally when the busboy took their water glasses and began clearing the table, they left in a huff. We asked the manager of the place what he does to those types since his reservations are backed up and people like this, who are doing nothing more than talking, stick around and waste tables. He said he usually politely asks if he can buy the guests a drink at the bar but tonight the bar was packed so he couldn’t. We asked why he doesn’t just ask them to leave. He gave the PC answer of not wanting to offend people.

Keep an eye out for these people. I think they mostly hang out in metro areas but all of them must be punished. So all you table huggers, watch out. We the people will start standing up for our tables and take back our reservations from the pudgy grasp of the table mongers.

Cupids Arrow

Today is one of the greatest days of the year. I love Valentines Day. You get to see all of the single people get excited about dates they have that night, only to hear their stories of dismay that the night was terrible. You also get to see people who are in relationships try and do something nice for their significant other, only to see their disappointed face the next day when they tell you that it wasn’t what they wanted.

One thing I don’t understand is who the hell is buying those Valentines baskets that are sold by illegal immigrants on the side of the road? What guy tries to bring that home to their spouse and pass it off as thoughtful? Oh look honey, here’s a plastic woven basket with some Necco hearts and a teddy bear that has lice and a bad case of crabs. Not sure how that works.

And to the guy who decided to wear a pink Bill Lumberg shirt to work today; I hope your boyfriend enjoys eating the Shari’s Berries you bought for him while he’s testing your wind tunnel.

Thanks

Well today is the one year anniversary of the greatest blog in the world. I wanted to thank everyone for reading over the last year and all the new people in the last few days. Of course I will continue to supply you with new venomous rants on as close to a daily basis as possible. With the new book getting published and a new one already in the works, you will have no shortage of great potty time humor. Enough sentimental crap; keep fighting the good fight and join your local chapter of POOP today.