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.
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?
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...
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!
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?
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.
