I am not a fan of Santa. With 30 days until Christmas he is revving up his mooch machine in order to further perpetuate his myth of giving. You see Santa is the original welfare king. Think about it. Anyone with kids has to buy gifts for Christmas and usually the best ones get his name on the “From” tag. I have two kids that I work hard to support and ensure they have what they need. Then come Christmas time I like to get them some nice gifts. So I go and buy something really cool and guess who gets all the credit? That’s right, Mr. “Sit on his ass all year and watch as the stupid monkeys spend all their money on gifts”. He doesn’t even have to wrap the presents or deliver them. What the hell is that? Plus, not only do the cool presents come from him but then the lame ones like clothes and educational toys come from me. So not only do I not get credit for the good ones but I get knocked down a peg for getting them crappy ones.
He has adults snowed too. Even adults sometimes put his name on the tag to be cutesy. He has drilled his MO so deep into our psyche that even when we are fully aware of his bullshit we still do it. Anyone who decries dictators and cults of personality (I’m looking at you Mr. “Yes we can” Prius driver) should look into the mirror on Christmas day when not only did you perpetuate his directive but you are wearing his stupid hat too. Remember the Nazi’s wore little pointy hats.
To top it all of the story he feeds us a story about how he and his slaves make toys for little kids and delivers them all over the world in one night. That isn’t even remotely believable. Next thing you know we will be told that a giant bunny runs around our house on Easter crapping pastel turds everywhere. So this year I say we revolt. Stop giving him credit. Stop falling into his trap and letting him brain wash you. Stop his exploitation of midgets. We can change this and end Clausian Fascism once and for all!
Wednesday, November 25
Wednesday, November 11
I'm Not a Chicken, You're a Turkey
So there I am pulling up to the stoplight near my house to make a left turn and I notice a large Ford truck parked in the middle of the lane on the other side of the street. It was parked with the rear end at the corner where it had appeared to have made a right turn but stopped and the driver was gone but his door was open. People trying to turn right had to swing wide to keep from hitting him. The corner has a store and bank on the corner and there is a lot of open space where grass and trees are planted. As I stoppped at the turn signal I looked at the truck and noticed that it hadn't been in an accident and the passenger was still in the front seat. That's when I saw him. Picture a 40 year old balding, slightly overweight gentleman in a sweatshirt with a (You may want to sit down for this) bluetooth still in his ear. He was running around and flailing his arms on a grassy portion of the strip mall. Anyone who has seen the movie "Can't Buy Me Love" would recognize his dance as the African anteater ritual. He continued to bounce around, side to side, like a cowboy herding cats except that it wasn't a cat he was herding but a turkey. You see, I live in a city that is near the foothills and a lot of the area has creeks and large open parks, and because of this there is a large population of animals like fox, ducks and ducklings, and turkeys that roam the streets around the area. This went on for a good minute or two with this ass monkey running into the street a few times and almost getting hit by passing cars. I wasn't sure if he was trying to protect the bird, was looking for dinner, or just didn't realize that this is a common occurance here (I have never in five years seen a smashed turkey or duckling). Either way I will never get the picture of him out of my mind and I will never leave home without my camera.
Monday, November 2
I was standing outside of a restaurant waiting to be seated when I heard a man explaining his new cell phone to a woman. The way I was standing I could see her in my peripherals but couldn’t see him. He was talking about his “New” iPhone and how it was going to revolutionize his life. Obviously this man lives in a bunker and judging by the ingratiating tone the woman had I could only assume they were married. He then starting to ramble off all the cool things it could do and that now he could start writing his blog. Immediately the grasp of my own self worth loosened. You can start blogging now that you have a phone? Really! Was typing on a full sized keyboard simply too hard to do? At this point I was expecting to turn around and see a goofy looking scrawny dweeble. He continued to talk about how he could update his Facebook and many other social dimwit sites. By now I had to see what he looked like. There, sitting on a wooden bench, with his phone enveloped in hand fat was the real life version of “Comic Book Guy”. He even had a quirky comic t-shirt on that on anyone else would be a snuggie.
Tuesday, October 27
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.
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.
Monday, October 26
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
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
Friday, October 23
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.
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.
Friday, July 11
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.
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.
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.
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