Hi... have we met?

I just got back from Narnia and to prove it, I brought back a Turkish Delight!

Who knew they actually made these? My mother in law brought one back from Florida. In all honesty, I was not a fan. My wife and I both read the books when we were little and I was expecting a lot more. It was kind of a jelly substance inside of some Cadbury chocolate. It left a very funny taste in my mouth afterward. I'm going to go and brush my teeth now...

I recently saw a very funny bathroom sign:

This is at a gas station/truck stop somewhere on Interstate 91 in Vermont a little south of White River Junction (if you REALLY want to look for it). I have felt like this before. Actually, this is how I feel right around 11:15 in the morning on work days when I get my lunch break. I pretty much walk into school every morning and start running. The 2 cups of coffee that I drink every morning in addition to the gallons of water really weigh on the bladder the first couple of hours of work and my back teeth are pretty much floating by lunchtime. Kids look at me strangely when I am holding myself and hopping up the hall, with my legs crossed, toward the bathroom, but I don't care... I make more money than they do.

Stuff...

I picked the world's smallest apple last weekend. Then, my 1 year-old immediately tried to grab it from me as I was taking a picture.




The same kid drew this:

I swear that this has not been altered at all. Look at that picture on the upside down magnadoodle and tell me that you don't see a side-view of a scarecrow or a cartoon character person of some sort. I told him to draw me a picture and a few scribbles later he showed me this. He is a genius...

Speaking of genius:

I miss Virginia. When I lived in Spotsylvania (REAL PLACE... Google map it if you don't believe me 22553) I passed this gas station on the way to work. I had to get a picture of their claim to have the best breakfast in town. I am an adventurous eater, but scrapple is something that I will never try (Google that too, while you're at it... never mind, I did it for you... click here... you're welcome), let alone a "scrapple mlet" (I'm guessing they mean scrapple melt... still sounds disgusting). This place is right across the street from a Hardee's, so all they need now is a Checkers to move in on the corner to complete a trifecta of awful food.

I am working in a very entertaining place now, though:

 

 How much do I love that there is a guy named Brian Dubie running for governor in the state that I teach?  It just kinda fits in with the whole hippie aesthetic that is already present in Vermont. I didn't know anything about this Dubie gentleman, so I went to his website and found out he is a REPUBLICAN... How can a guy with a name that sounds like he was a founding member of NORML be a republican?!? He would get so many more votes if he changed his campaign slogan to "Spark one up for reform with Dubie. Just don't pass to the left." Oh wait, that last part kinda fits as a conservative slogan...

QUICKIE!

Hey sports fans...
Regardless of your opinion of the Yankees, chances are you know the captain/shortstop's name. He is a celebrity, has dated Mariah Carey (not that it is something to brag about), has been an all star almost every season he has played, and has appeared as a spokesperson for so many different brands (Right Guard, Ford, Gatortade to name a few). The person who posted this classified ad to sell some baseball cards is clearly living under a rock: 

 

"Deter" Jeter sounds kinda like a butler if you ask me.

I spotted this guy at the Wal Mart in Saratoga Springs, NY. 

 

I apologize for the poor framing. My wife was driving by as I was trying to snap the picture. I will tell you that this pickup, with the Confederate flag in his back window, has New York license plates. I just get a kick out of the contradiction...

Getting something off my chest....

Ok... I feel compelled to comment.




Thank you Pastor Jones, for giving the Muslim world another reason to hate America. Thank you for your ignorance. Christianity is about loving thy neighbor and accepting others. My pastor just gave a sermon last Sunday that involved the praying for your enemy theme that I have heard repeated several times in different settings. You are a church representative and you have pissed all over those lessons. Also, by merely suggesting that burning the Quran as an idea to mark the anniversary of 9/11 (and to protest the building of the mosque two blocks from "GROUND ZERO") you have put the servicemen and women that are currently in Iraq and Afghanistan in just a little more danger than they are already in. One televised book burning that is beamed around the world could set off that one extremist that was maybe having second thoughts about strapping that bomb to his back and blowing himself up in a crowded area. Your hostility is misdirected. You should not indict an entire religion for the practice of a small percentage of the population. 9/11 was the work of extremist whose interpretation of the Quran is different from the mass majority. The pastor's bright idea doesn't surprise me, though. This country needs an overhaul in the tolerance department. I was standing in Subway the other day and some 16 year old shithead was commenting on Obama's plan to pull out of Iraq and more or less declare mission accomplished there (except without the banner). She said, "It doesn't matter because the goddammned towelheads are still going to bomb us," as if we weren't standing in a public place. I guess because there were nothing but white people around, she thought she wouldn't offend anyone. Wrong... I just walked in there wanting to "eat fresh," but I walked out of there wanting to slap a girl half my age in her ignorant mouth. I thought about it and I came to the conclusion that she probably heard it from her father or mother at home and didn't hate her so much anymore. The thing that resonates with me is the scene in the news reports of the US flag burnings that happened after the pastor went public with his plan. It makes me want to tell the people burning the flag that not all of us think that way. They shouldn't generalize Americans as Muslim hating Quran burners because not all of us feel that way about them. But, how can I say that when so many Americans already think all Muslims are "towelhead" building bombers?

For all of your impromptu gas station robbery needs...

Have you ever been short on money and spotted a good gas station to rob, but didn't have a gun? Well this place solved those problems by placing a guns and ammo store WITHIN their gas station:

Ingenious... They even have an archery option for those Robin Hood types. I'm more than willing to bet that the clerk is armed to the teeth, so exercise caution. 

I pass this place on the way to work everyday and laugh. This gas station is in southern Vermont and the first time I saw it, it made me realize that my friend (who is active in Vermont government) was right when he told me "There are two things that Vermonters love: their public school teachers and their firearms."  I am very happy to have some well armed citizens supporting me during union negotiations!

This is just splitting hairs, but don't people proofread before posting a sign in their restaurant's bathroom anymore?

Last week's trip up north... AND A MYSTERY IS SOLVED!

Last week I went to visit my family in northern New York. In my travels, naturally, my eye for life's subtleties (and my childish sense of humor) took over and I came back with some things to report...

My boys really dig animals, so we visited a couple of the area's nature themed attractions to entertain them. The first excursion was to the Robert Moses Nature center in Massena, NY. I saw the world's largest Paper Hornets' nest:

and met Stinky the Stinkpot turtle:

 

...clever.

You are probably as enthusiastic about this as I was. The kids were entertained, though, and that is all that matters. On the way back home, we stopped at Dairy Queen for ice cream. While the rest of the family was ordering food, I had the chance to flip through a local newspaper and spotted this gem:

This is such a confused advertisement. I have nothing against sex shops, but if you run one you have to know your target audience. There is nothing that says "I will not be getting laid tonight" more than this wizard (or is it a "warlock" because that makes more sense because it rhymes with Myke Hawk... and that guy has a funny name). Who are they trying to appeal to? Is it the 35 year old role playing game addict who is too busy playing WOW to have a girlfriend even if he did make a concerted effort to get rid of the man teets, shave his back, and treat his acne and find a girlfriend that didn't mind the fact that he still lives with his parents, has a strangely semi-incestuous relationship with his mother, and wears a Final Fantasy t-shirt in public? Because, if so; THAT guy needs a vibrating c*&k ring and a doubled ended dildo, stat! Plus, no one is ever going to buy Uncle Don's Exotic Interludes THE BOARD GAME because Uncle Don is not a name that you want in bed with you! 

The next stop in our tour of the nature centers of the area was The Wild Center in Tupper Lake, which was actually very worthwhile. They had interesting exhibits (including the moose before the first paragraph), some interesting plants: 

(I still don't understand this one)

weird gifts like these VERY expensive beads (before they were marked down because no one was buying them) made of recycled flip-flops:

(I still wouldn't pay 50 bucks for them)

and the strange water conserving toilets with flushing directions:

 

Ok, I get it. Press up for pee, and down for poop. But, what if I am being chased by the cops because I am under suspicion of drug possession and I have a large amount of cocaine to get rid of in a hurry, but I want to conserve water while I am doing it? Sure, the cocaine is in powder form and it is going to mix into the water nicely, but if I press the lever up, is that going to provide enough water pressure to dispose of the contraband before the police get to me? Or, should I just press down and risk wasting more water than necessary? 

Editor's Note: MYSTERY OF THE "NO JAKES" SIGN SOLVED!

Last posting I pondered a sign in Pownal, VT that I thought was the work of an insane person with a grudge against the Jakes of the world. I showed my father the same picture during my visit and he immediately asked me if the trailer in question is located at the bottom of an incline? I confirmed that it is and he deftly pointed out that this is not the work of a person low on their Thorazine intake, this is merely a person who is sick of hearing Jake Brakes  (on trucks with large diesel engines) being used on the way by their house. I was so disappointed... I was hoping it was a crazy person.

It's the little things that amuse me...

I've been driving back and forth to a linguistics class for the last week ("Why?" you ask. For the stipend, professional development points, and credits toward my next pay raise, of course!). During my second trip through Pownal, VT I noticed this sign:

I don't think that I have ever known anyone to develop such a strong aversion to a single name. Does this sign mean that ALL people that go by the name of "Jake" are to steer clear of this property? What about Jacob, Jacques, Jacobe, Jakov, or Jakub? Does that mean that if retired WWF wrestler Jake the Snake Roberts was passing through town on a promotional tour for his DVD and had to use a bathroom very badly; they would turn him away? Maybe I'll stop and ask tomorrow when I drive through.

Another amusing bit:

I noticed this ad in a local newspaper. Mercedes is a German car, dummy. Your car is about as American as Lederhosen.

ZYNC!

I got this in the mail two days ago and had to share!

WTF? Did they run out of precious metals? The gold card is the O.G. of prestigious and exclusive sounding credit cards to carry. Then came the platinum and platinum plus cards. I have a "Diamond Preferred" card. All of them sound valuable, rich, and important (and there was a time when they weren't handing them out to just anyone with decent credit).
Let's play a game of which one of these does not belong.

**Remember those old commercials from a time when not everyone could have a gold or platinum card, where the rich looking guy would hand a clerk his credit card and announce to the whole establishment what kind of card he is carrying?**

Overheard in a restaurant:
"Put it on my gold card." 
"Put it on my platinum card."
"Put it on my diamond preferred." 
"Put it on my zync." <-------------- THIS IS THE ONE THAT DOES NOT BELONG!

Zinc is the bitch of the metal family. It's a vitamin supplement, not a credit card. And what is up with American Express taking liberties with the spelling? 

BALD!

For those of you who haven't seen me in the last five years, I have a confession. I went bald. I haven't committed completely to it by shaving with a straight razor (mostly because the thought of slipping and slicing my head scares the shit out of me, not to mention the "oh so attractive" scab that would develop), but rather I buzz it on the lowest setting of my clippers and leave the tiniest bit of stubble. I look like a man who has male pattern baldness. If I don't clip every week, I develop the muffin top look on my head (hair is thicker on the sides and extremely thin on top) and I don't like it. In all honesty, overall, I think I look fine. I would say that I am definitely more attractive now than when I was younger. More importantly, my wife still thinks I'm good looking.
Because of my hair affliction, advertisements like this one have become more apparent to me:




(yes, I purposely picked a very old commercial because this guy has funny hair thanks to Rogaine)

I recently saw the newest Rogaine commercial (which I couldn't find to embed in this posting) and it pissed me off a little. It depicts this guy who is going bald and he wears a baseball cap a lot because he is ashamed until he regrows some hair with Rogaine and now he doesn't wear it anymore. Now, I wear a baseball cap a lot, but it's not because I am ashamed of my head. It's because I don't want skin cancer. When I first started going bald, I went through a phase when I tried the hair thickening shampoos and I went through the whole "OH MY GOD, I AM GOING TO LOOK DIFFERENT" phase. I even tried Propecia. I was using that until my wonderful wife pointed out to me that studies have shown that the stuff in Rogaine (minoxidil) and Propecia have been shown to have sexual side effects in a certain percentage of men who use them. That snapped me out of the depression and into the acceptance phase. They don't openly advertise that in the commercials, though. "Sure you're going to look more attractive in the dating world, but you're not going to be able to have sex with the people you attract with the help of your full head of hair because your member is going to be as limp as a wet noodle." *Truth in advertising sells nothing* So, I ask you baseball cap guy: is losing your ability to get an erection really worth gaining hair on your head? Or, do you maybe think you need to start dating slightly less shallow people?

Marketing side-note:
I recently went into Rite Aid and noticed their new generic store brand water.

If you look on the back side of the bottle, the label reads "Allergy warning: May contain the blood and bone fragments of horny teenage campers" in very small lettering.

*For those of you not alive in the 80's, it's a reference to the Friday the 13th movies. Crystal Lake is the name of the campground where...  Oh forget it...

Cloud Pants!

I was shopping the other day with my family. My wife was looking in the women's section of JC Penney's and I was kinda following her, when all of the sudden, out of the corner of my eye I spotted these gems (pic above) on the clearance rack.
I once told my friend Nick the story of the cloud pants and he still picks on me occasionally about it, but here goes...
I don't remember what show my mom saw it on, but sometime in the mid to late 80's my mom saw someone on TV alter some blue jeans by putting rubber bands in certain spots and bleaching those spots (kinda like a tie-dyed shirt). This person called them cloud pants. My mom made me a pair of cloud pants out of some Rustler jeans that I had (for those of you who never had Rustlers, they were the tightest package-exposing jeans out there and they came in 3 styles: blue nut huggers, dark blue testicle stranglers, and black ball chokers). The cloud pants actually became a little mini-trend in my elementary school. Anyway, they looked sort of like the pants in the picture above and seeing these jeans made me a little nostalgic. It's nice to see they are making a comeback! THEY DO SO EXIST, NICK!

THE F-ING SMORSTIX

What you are looking at in the above, poorly rendered photo is a surefire sign that the apocalypse is coming soon. This "SMORSTIX" contraption is a piece of wood, specially designed with a point at the end, meant to hold a marshmallow for roasting over a campfire. In other words, it's a stick. Someone came up with this idea and people are actually buying them. A STICK IN A BAG!?! This is sad. Back when I was a kid, and up until the last time I went camping and actually roasted a marshmallow (probably 15 years ago), we found a stick on the ground or cut one off of a tree and roasted marshmallows on it. This is clearly marketed to attract those people who my brother in law (the cable man) complains about, asking that cable be hooked up at campgrounds to their luxury campers for the summer.What is next? A robot arm, to hold the SMORSTIX out of the camper window while you are in the den of your Airstream watching True Blood in the middle of the woods?

We've moved!

Hi to both of my subscribers and anyone else who may have stumbled upon this. My family and I have moved back to where we came from. We are no longer Virginians. We are now residing in New York. I have absolutely no punch line about the transition  or where we now live because everything that can be said about New York and New Yorkers has already been said. But, here is what my driveway looked like the day that the movers came. I thought that was kind of funny:

All of our worldly possessions were scattered all over while the moving van blocked the driveway so our neighbors in the duplex could not get in or out. THAT IS FOR DRUNKENLY SCREAMING AT EACH OTHER ALL HOURS OF THE NIGHT (WHICH SCARED THE SHIT OUT OF MY 4 YEAR OLD) AND ALMOST LIGHTING THE ENTIRE BUILDING ON FIRE YOU REDNECKS! (ahh... sweet catharsis)

Anyway, here are a couple of things I miss about Virginia already.


Number 1... The woman that drives this truck:

I would get behind this truck every morning on my way to work. It always made me wonder if there was this secret competition amongst the minority populations of this country and what I was missing out on. It sounds exciting, especially if I get to start using 3 exclamation points at the end of questions instead of question marks. Do I need to start killing white male teachers so I can be in on it too?
To the lady of the truck: I think the transvestite Turkish dwarf animal inseminator has you beat.

Number 2... The person that drives this car:

I found the last Bo Bice fan in the world. He/She resides in Virginia (Stafford, County) and will one day be legend. I have photo proof that this person exists! I hope that bumper sticker holds on tight.

Number 3... The Garrisonville Wal Mart:
It was a cultural experience. Every time I walked into that place, I saw something new and unusual: The very tall man with a distinct Baltic accent who said "Have a nice day!" on the way out in the exact same tone every time; the crazy cart guy who would strike up the most random conversations with you and the uncomfortable silence after he realized you didn't know what he was talking about; the really lame grocery section; the even lamer wine and beer section; the fact that they didn't refrigerate their beer.  Sure, New York has Wal Mart, but they are all clean Super Stores now. The Garrisonville Wal Mart is one of the few holdouts for Super Store status and for that, they deserve... something.

Awkwardness at the deli counter...

I was at the grocery store the other day getting some cheese from the deli. I ordered some American cheese and the lady behind the counter asked me if I would like white or yellow. I never really thought of it before, but I was feeling particularly contemplative that day. Does anyone else feel a little racist when ordering American cheese at the deli counter and given the yellow or white option? I, for one, don't see any difference between yellow and white American cheese. I will have to Google the difference some day when I have time. So, when I go to the counter and say "I would like some white American," in my mind I may as well be saying "I reject your American cheese of color! Give me the pure Arian cheese!" Maybe I am overthinking it?

What has my kid been watching? !?

Alright, I am being a complete hypocrite, but I am going to tell another story about my kid again. This one is definitely short (and there is a picture to go along with the story). 

I was getting some coffee creamer from the refrigerator when I noticed something spelled with the magnetic letters.
Note: I swear on my life that this is not something that I staged. I did not manipulate the letters in any way.

Notice anything? Do you see a secret message in the letters? Ok... I have already told you that I did not do this (if I had, I would have picked a much funnier word to write). I know that my wife did not do this either because she is not immature. The only person that it could have been is my 3 year old because we haven't had any company over in a while and we don't let the really little guy crawl around in the kitchen. As a little added bonus to the word SEX, my brilliant little pervert has also written HEF in sort of a crossword format. I'm going to defend myself as a parent by saying that he watches Nick Jr., Sprout, and the Disney Channel. Granted, I usually zone out or read something while he is watching because I can only take so much of the Fresh Beat Band (his favorite).I'd say we are pretty strict about what he watches. We don't even let him watch Spongebob because my wife and I feel that he makes too many bad choices and Jackson should not emulate him (because he emulates everything). So, I can only assume that he is being exposed to the Playboy Channel at daycare... or he is getting up in the middle of the night and ordering it on cable. I think I would have noticed that charge on my bill, though.

It is amazing...

Humans and technology never cease to amaze me. I remember back when my high school first got the internet. It was the slowest, dial up connection that you could imagine, but I thought it was amazing when I loaded up Netscape, typed in a search query, and 20 minutes later I had 10 pages with information on that subject. What's the first thing that every pubescent boy in that computer lab searched for when the teacher wasn't looking? Are you kidding me? We couldn't type in "nude women" fast enough... at least those of us who hadn't taken keyboarding class yet couldn't. Anyway, now we have broadband internet. With a few keystrokes we can have any information, from some very reliable (and some not very reliable) resources, on any topic you can imagine. We also have devices that can hold every song you have ever heard and every song you have yet to hear. On top of that, these things fit in your pocket... anybody want their cassette Walkman back? We have cars that run on electricity and fuels other than gasoline that are filtering onto the market. We have Tivo. We have televisions that rival the movie theater experience. There are refrigerators that can order groceries for you! My cell phone can call anywhere in the world, from just about anywhere in the world, surf the internet, play old Nintendo games, has a built in gps, plays mp3s, AND it is made of metal so if my clumsy ass drops it, I'm not going to the store to buy a new one. That would have blown my mind 10 years ago... With all this great technology and these great advancements, the question that comes to my mind is "How much is too much?" I think I have found the answer:

 

Meet Roxxxy: True Companion, a $7000 sex robot that was recently unveiled by a German manufacturer. According to what I have read, she is fully programmable, "has a personality," and of course C-cups. She (it) is a fully functioning skeleton beneath "real feeling flesh." Oh f#$k this... I am making myself sick writing about it. Read for yourselves here. 

Seriously, this is too far people! This thing is hideous, and even if it was pretty; still unacceptable. The geniuses behind this couldn't have designed a prettier face? 

Human communication in general, has already taken a beating. We communicate more through email and social networking sites than in face to face conversations, or on the phone, or (GASP) a letter on paper. And we use emoticons and shorthand (LOL) to convey feelings... we ALL do it. It has just become so impersonal and some people are losing their ability to communicate with other people without a keyboard in front of them. Now this friggin' thing comes along to give men an alternative to dating? Goddammit! People aren't meant to have sex with robots! Even when I was a lonely (desperate for interaction with a female) teenager, I would not have wanted a fully programmable woman as a companion. Differences are what make people interesting... and awkwardness is what made dating fun. If this trend continues and people buy in, 20 years from now we will all be living in bubbles, eating our favorite foods for every meal, listening to our favorite music all the time, and having all of our needs met by a robot that never disagrees with us on anything... THAT is scary!

HEY SARAH!

NOTE: Please don't misconstrue this as being a republican bashing because it isn't. This is me picking on someone I don't respect. I think that this person is in a position of political power that is undeserved. This person just happens to be republican. It is true that I am a left swaying liberal (some may call bleeding heart) and I do not agree with the right a majority of the time. I also hate Fox News and their fake claim of fair and balanced. But, once again, I am not bashing republicans in general here... 

With that said:
 
I saw a bit of passive aggressive political commentary during my trip to the grocery store today. It seems that Wegman's has a bit of an agenda and I support it.

Why am I happy about this picture? Notice where the two stacks of Sarah Palin magazines are. They are right there where they belong; in the entertainment section. To the left you see Star Trek  magazine announcing that "Klingons Strike Back" (Editors note: I think that Klingons would have a more relevant political message than Sarah Palin even though they are fictional characters. In many ways, so is Sarah.). On top you see Gucci Mane on the cover of a hip hop magazine and a couple of guitar magazines. Below you see Black Belt magazine, UFC magazine, along with another mixed martial arts/fighting mags. Where are the serious political magazines like Time, Newsweek, Harpers, The New Yorker, even The American Conservative? They are a couple of sections over in a completely different area in the books and magazines aisle. Was this done intentionally? I have no idea, but I appreciated the hell out of it. Can she save America? No! She is a walking contradiction who claims to be the representation of the every-man/woman when her record shows that she is just another greedy, corruptible politician (Gravina Island Bridge Project, the Walt Monegan controversy). Do your research America and quit buying into this!

Short post about one of my kids... the one that can talk...

Ok, I am going to keep this short and try not to make a habit of blogging about my kids simply because I think that there are enough people blogging about their kids. I have nothing against it. It's just that when you flood the market with too much of a good thing, that thing becomes diluted and boring. I'm sure that there was a time when apples were the greatest fruit in the world, but then people started growing apples in new ways and cross breeding apples with other apple varieties to make even more apple varieties. Now, you walk into Wegman's (or any given grocery store for that matter) to buy apples and you are overwhelmed by the variety of apples. There are Gala, Golden Delicious, Red Delicious, McIntosh, Fuji, Cortland, and Granny Smith to name a few. That is one aisle of the produce section. It's such sensory overload that you end up buying oranges because there is only one variety that you can afford; Navel. (Put the damn Blood Oranges down. I know they are really good for you and have been called a "super food," but they are $4.50 a pound and you can't afford that!) Same with blogs about kids.
So much for short.What was I talking about? Right, my kid.
Jackson has been in particularly rare form lately. There are 3 instances that I want to share with you:
1. My wife was on the phone with my mother in law and Jackson decided that he wanted to talk to his Nana. They were chatting and somehow got onto the topic of Monte (my sister in law's 6 month old Mastiff). They were talking about how big he was and Jackson pops out with "Yeah Nana, and when he laid down on the floor, his penis went like this" (made motion with finger that represented when Monte got a puppy boner while he was here).
2. The other night, my family and I were watching the Super Bowl. We are not football people. We don't follow it and we don't have a favorite team. We watch the Super Bowl because of the commercials. We decided to root for the Saints the other night, though, because Jackson was asking who we want to win. We picked the underdogs. My wife ended up on the phone again about halfway through the game and of course, Jackson had to get on and talk. He was talking with my sister in laws boyfriend and was asked who he was rooting for. Jackson responded, "We want the whites to win." Now, it took me a second to realize that we had told him earlier that the Saints were the guys in the white uniforms and we were hoping that they would win. For a minute there, I cringed. It sounded like we were having a little Klan rally in our living room.
3. Last night, it was bed time and we were getting ready Jackson ready. My wife said something funny that made Jackson laugh very hard. He yelled, "Mommy, you knock me up!" I immediately turned my head to contain the laughter. My wife said, "You mean crack me up." Jackson then said, "Oh, what does knock me up mean?"
Enough said...

One of the many reasons why I hate the today show...

This morning, I was torturing myself with the Today Show again (Why!?! Well, because my wife was watching it). In one segment, Matt, Ann, and Meredith were hanging in the plaza talking about the Super Bowl and Matt brings up the interesting factoid: 700,000 footballs are produced annually for use in the NFL. Meredith responded to that by saying "That's a lot of balls."
Well, it really is.
Matt chuckled at the double entendre.
Ann, on the other hand, started laughing so hard that she actually transformed into a 13 year old boy. You would think she was watching the greatest comedy routine of all time. She did that walking around thing that people do when they are laughing really hard on their feet. I honestly thought I was watching an episode of Beavis and Butthead for the minute and a half that this went on.
Look NBC... for a quarter of the amount of money that you pay these knuckleheads (Matt Lauer makes 13.5 million dollars annually), I will commute to New York City, co-host the show better than ANY of them (better, at the very least, than Jenna) , AND as a special bonus I will tell much better dick jokes. C'mon NBC! Give a guy a shot!

Oh God, I can't believe I am doing this... In defense (sorta) of Jersey Shore

I am going to preface this by saying that I am not a fan of Jersey Shore. I have not watched a single episode and I never intend to. I think that I have better things to do with my time than watch a reality show. It's where I live. I don't need to watch it on TV, you know? 

I was watching the Today Show this morning (I HATE THE TODAY SHOW, BUT IT SOMEHOW ENDS UP ON MY TELEVISION EVERY MORNING) and I happened to catch the big interview with the kids from Jersey Shore. They announced that the show will be back for another season and the cast will be making a boatload of money ($10,000 per episode). Good for them. They juxtaposed this announcement and the typical Today Show shenanigans (Meredith Viera asking about stupid things like why the one guy is called "The Situation" and if Ronnie and Sammi are still an item... blah blah blah) with outraged Italian Americans in the media and a group called UNICO National (an Italian-American service group (Unity, Neighborliness, Integrity, Charity, and Opportunity)) bashing the show for perpetuating stereotypes. More or less, they were saying that the show should not go on. 
Here's my problem. I am an average television viewer and media consumer, not of Italian descent (I am of Irish, French, and English descent) and when I see a show like Jersey Shore, I see it for what it really is: mindless escapism. When I think Italian, I don't think tanned, steroid using, hair-gelled people referring to themselves as Guidos and Guidettes. I know some Italian folks and if anything, my stereotypes are (based on the people that I have known in my life): they tend to have dark hair, brown eyes, and slightly darker (olive if you will) skin than we lily white folks. If they are second generation Americans, they probably have some awesome relatives who know how to have a get together... but beyond that, nothing really. Being the average media consumer that I am, I can separate reality from the reality show. Do I believe that the people of the Jersey Shore exist and act the way they do on TV in real life? Sure, but comparing them to my stereotypes, these people are freaks and THAT is the draw. MTV wants anomalies. They want to put a show on with people that claim to represent Italian-Americans and their lifestyle on the Jersey Shore, and make people go "I don't know anyone who acts like this!" The audience is drawn in by the freaks and they keep coming back every week to see what sort of hi jinks they'll get into next. The average consumer (me) is not going to go to work the next day and call one of their Italian colleagues a guido because some dummy on Jersey Shore referred to himself as a guido. Just like I am not going to go up to one of my African American colleagues and ask them how much weed they smoked last night or how many gunfights they've been in because I watched a Lil' Wayne video. It's a little insulting to think that there is a group that believes a show like this will cause Americans to develop broad generalizations about entire cultures based on the exploits of 7 people living in a beach house on the Atlantic Ocean.
The whole perpetuating negative stereotypes argument is kind of a cop out because that has always been one of the specialties of entertainment media. Look at my heritage and how they are portrayed in the entertainment media. Irishmen are all drunks. Englishmen all have bad teeth. Frenchmen are all pointy nosed elitists. Am I any of those things? I barely imbibe (ok, I have a few beers over the course of the week, but honestly I could take it or leave it.), so I am being a poor representation of the Irish stereotype. I have great teeth, aside from the small gap in my top front teeth. Down goes the English stereotype. I don't have enough of an ego to be an elitist, so out the door goes the French stereotype. 
So, I say sure UNICO and other Italian-Americans have a right to say "Hey, these people don't represent me." But, let the show go on and realize that a majority of the media consumers out there are going to realize the cast of Jersey Shore doesn't speak for all Italian people. And besides, it's a hit show! It's good for the economy. These kids are getting 10 grand a show? What would you have done in your early 20's with that amount of money? They are going to blow all of that money at all of the mom and pop owned tanning salons, hair salons, car dealerships, and bars in that area and keep some small business owners in business. Considering the state of the economy, this group of kids who are willingly exploiting themselves for money are, in a way, performing a service at the same time. 

Redundant/Wally World

I've been watching TV a lot this past week either because I have been home from work with sick children or because I have been snowed in. I've been watching the local news (www.nbcwashington.com) for updates on the weather and I have noticed the UMUC commercial  is played about 4 times an hour. I don't think that the commercial is funny as far as the general content goes (it's just a commercial advertising a college). It's the name of the institution that amuses me. UMUC stands for the University of Maryland University College (click here for the website if you don't believe me). Look back and read the name one more time. Isn't that sorta like saying "I had a Pepsi-cola soda of Pepsi with my lunch meal at around noon." It's a repetitive title that states what it is more than once (yes, I realize that sentence is redundant too... that is part of the joke). I'm not picking on the college/university (in definition they are basically the same thing), but I think that the institution should consider a name change altogether because UMUC pronounced as a word ("YOU MUCK") sounds kinda funny too.

Unrelated, I noticed a packaging error on a Wal-Mart product. My boys have been consuming a lot of infant's/children's acetaminophen lately to keep their fevers down. We had one bottle of the infant's formula that was purchased not too long ago that ran out, so naturally we went to the store and got another. When I was using the last of the older bottle, it only gave me a partial dose (get to the point Greg, you're losing them), so I went to the other bottle and noticed this:

Both are the exact same packages, both came filled up to the top. One clearly says 1 FL OZ and the other says 1/2 FL OZ. Which package is telling the truth and which is lying? I don't have any conspiracy theories (feel free to send me one, though), I just thought it was kind of funny, and a little sloppy on Wal-Mart's behalf. I will take any opportunity I get to pick on Wal-Mart a little.

Pandas Schmandas

I live in the Washington D.C. area, which means that I have been inundated with news about poor Tai-Shan the Panda (pictured above with mom) at the Smithsonian National Zoo moving back to Beijing this week. The outcry from the public has been amazing. There was even a woman on the news, crying, when the move was announced back in December, as if a family member was given a couple of months to live. Honestly, the grief that this average zoo attendee was expressing is equivalent to the grief that characters on Lifetime movies feel in those emotional hospital scenes when their best friend, who was in a car accident, is in a coma and takes that turn for the worse.

Flatline... 
Cue the dramatic crescendo... 
Director: "Ok Joan! Give us your best waterworks and make sure some of your makeup smears."  



All for an animal at the zoo?!? I'm not anti-animal. I can understand developing a relationship with a pet that lasts year. Loyalty means a lot to me and dogs show more loyalty than a lot of people I know. So, of course you're going to cry when your 15 year old Golden Retriever dies. She was a damn good dog! But a f*&king Panda at the zoo? An animal that doesn't know you from any of the other two million people that visit the Smithsonian every year? An animal that would sooner rip your face off than give you a big ol' bear hug?


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthnews/3311260/Panda-attacks-boy-in-Beijing-zoo.html

Look lady! Be happy for Tai Shan! He is going back to Beijing to be a part of a breeding program because Pandas are endangered! He is going to be the happiest place for a male Panda on Earth! The land of catered food and multiple orgasms a day! Plus, as an added bonus, he will be looked at as a hero for helping to save his species! It's really a great thing for him. Now get back in your Expedition and go home... your family misses you! 

HEY MEGAN!

I discovered this on a recent trip to Bloom...

Ok, let's say that Megan Fox has hit a very low point in her life and is no longer the mega-star sex-symbol that she currently is... Let's stretch this a little further and also say that she has taken up random grocery store hookups as a hobby and her tour of food markets of the US has brought her to norther Virginia. The stars have aligned and she happens to run into the desperate Transformers fan boy that wrote this piece of graffiti. By the time she has made her way to Virginia from California, she has done the deed with every Tom, Dick, and Harry she meets in the middle stall, but this guy is different. She turns him down. That's right folks. Megan Fox, even as a hopeless used up piece of meat, has pride. This guy blew it when he couldn't spell her name right.
This is probably the perpetrator:

The picture isn't very clear because my hand was a little shaky (from laughing) when I snapped. I'm going to play fashion critic for a moment. He is wearing pajama pants, a white t-shirt, and (you can't quite make it out) a Fedora (the hat that Humphrey Bogart made popular). It was ridiculously cold that day, so the pajamas were strange enough, but the Fedora?!? He is either the most confident person in the world or the highest.

Further Thoughts on Last Night's Post

You know, I understand hip hop and car culture. Thanks to songs that have been written about material possessions, such as cars, some people have really embraced this and brought elements of the music into their own lives. This young person decided to put large, flashy rims on his car. Great! He set a goal, saved up his money, and bought those rims! I may be biased here. I look about as hip hop as Ward Clever (I'm a teacher, but, I really love a lot of rap from the late 80's and early 90's (De La, Rakim, early-Wu Tang, Tribe Called Quest)) and I drive a Ford Focus (Lil' Wayne has never and WILL never write a song about good gas mileage). However, by putting big, flashy rims on a beat up, old Buick; are we not polishing the proverbial turd here? Another question... Isn't advertising the size of the rims in big numbers on the windows equivalent to if I were to decide to be super macho one day and wear a shirt that reads "I have a huge penis and proportionately sized testicles" ? I think I am going to have that shirt custom made today!

MY NEW BLOG!/ SOMETHING I SAW AT WAL-MART!

Thank you for checking out my new blog "The Failed Blogger." When I first started blogging, I was fooling myself. I thought that my audience would actually reach beyond the realm of my friends and family. After 3 years... it didn't. Thus the pseudonym. I plan to follow the same free format (writing about things that amuse me and my opinions). The difference? No starry eyed visions of people in other parts of the world giving half a sh#% about what I think about the state of the world. I'm not taking down my old blog. I'm just not posting there anymore. ENJOY!

Umm, excuse me sir... I couldn't help but notice the wheels on your '88 Buick Rendezvous. They are exceptionally large! What size are they? Oh! Of course! Silly me. Why, I should have looked on your window where the size of your wheels is posted in large numbers. They are 24 inchers! Spectacular!

And judging by the rest of your car, I'm guessing that the rims are the most valuable part! A little duct tape might fix that!