I'm just curious...

How is it that a company called “NetZero” is charging money to access the Internet? When they first came out, they offered free Internet access – hence the name NetZero. You can get on the InterNET and pay ZERO to do so. Now they charge you money, but still kept their name. What the heck? Does this not seem like a foul? You’re not NetZero anymore if you don’t give me free Internet access…you’re Net999 because you charge me $9.99 per month to get Internet access. I guess they were hoping no one would notice. They were wrong.

Have you ever noticed that smokers seem to live in an alternate reality? They don’t seem to realize that they smell like a warehouse fire even though it’s blatantly obvious to everyone within 10 feet of them. Their mouth is like a breath mint graveyard (“where Certs go to die”)…yet they confidently draw close to you in conversations with no thought to the impression they are leaving. They throw cigarette butts out of their cars like it’s not against the law...it’s like they honestly don’t think that a cigarette butt is considered litter. They smoke in restaurants, and even though you can actually SEE the smoke drifting over into other people’s space, they just sit there with a look on their face that says “Nah, this ain’t bothering anyone else.”

Why aren’t lawyers allowed to make the claim that the quality of services they perform is better than the quality of services performed by other lawyers? They do these radio and TV commercials, but have to make this disclaimer…what’s the point of advertising if you can’t infer that you are better than your competition? Wouldn’t it be satisfyingly ironic if this restriction were due to the fear of being sued by someone?

Have you slapped your cat today?

As a cat owner, I have to wonder…what other species on this planet gets the kind of treatment that cats get?

You provide Kitty with enriched, vitamin-laden water crusted Salmon cat food and fresh bottled water (often at great cost). You buy kitty all sorts of little toys so that he is constantly entertained. When kitty gets bored with his toys, he will begin treating your furniture as his toy and clawing the crap out of it…so you hook kitty up with free drugs so that he’s sure to have a good time! (Ever find yourself looking longingly at a bag of catnip after a tough day at the office?). And when little kitty needs to go potty, well, he just goes inside the house! Sometimes he does you a favor and uses the litter box that’s filled with expensive sand crystals, and sometimes he doesn’t. Once he does his “business”, he just walks away…leaving you with a pile of smelly mess to clean up for him. And clean it up you will, because kitty won’t use a dirty litter box!

And heaven forbid kitty get sick…you will spend MEGA money having a specialized animal doctor look at him. Kitty will get the best treatment money can buy, and then you'll have to take special care of kitty when he gets back home. Don't forget to give little kitty his medicine 4 times a day! Don't cause kitty any undue stress! Remember to rub kitty's sore little kitty leg as much as possible!

For all this, what does little kitty offer you in return? The privilege of petting him! Yes, that’s right…as a show of appreciation for all you do for him, little kitty will occasionally allow you to scratch his back provided it’s a convenient time for him. Yeah, it's totally worth it. No really.

Now some of you might think that your cat loves you. Let me ask you a question: if your cat really loves you, then why does he always try to trip you up? Ever noticed that cats are always walking around and under your feet? They cut in front of your path and weave between your legs while you're walking...how many times have you nearly killed yourself trying to avoid stepping on them? The ugly truth is, they WANT you to fall down. To a cat, nothing is better than watching their owner take a nasty fall. See, cats never fall down…they’re cats and “they always land on their feet”. So the thought of someone falling is hilarious to them...especially when it's someone who claims to be a superior being. They absolutely love it when you fall down and split your head open on the coffee table or take a tumble down the stairs. And if you fall because of them, well, that's a real treat...they love that more than anything! It's their way of reminding you of their superiority.

So the next time little kitty tears the skin off your leg because you tried to pet him when he wasn’t in the mood, or leaves a little present on your couch because the diamond crystals in his litter box weren't fresh, don’t say I didn’t try to warn you…

CATS are EVIL.

A good "horse-whuppin!"

A few weeks ago my wife and I were buying a treadmill, and as we’re paying for it the guy asks if we want the extended warranty on it. He explains that the treadmill is covered for 30 days after we purchase it, and after that point if it breaks the company won’t repair or replace it unless we pay them more money to extend this 30 day period for two years.

What exactly am I buying when I buy an extended warranty? Some sort of guarantee that the unit will last longer than 30 days? A promise that if the unit stops working after 30 days that you’ll make good on it? Should I have to pay extra for that? How in the world did retailers convince us that it was ok for them to wash their hands of the goods they sell us after 30 days? How did they ever convince us that we should pay them extra money just to back up what they charge us so much for in the first place?

See, they tell you that the reason you are spending so much money is because you’re paying for quality! They only use the best parts (“made from titanium mined from an ancient cave near Pompeii”), and their quality assurance team tests every unit extensively before passing it on to you (“each treadmill is clogged on by fully grown elephants with flaming boots for 12 years”). They talk about all the fine craftsmanship (“each of our moving parts are hand crafted by genuine aboriginal witch doctors using hot sticks and guano”) and how quality like this means it costs a little bit more but that they don’t mind having prices be a bit higher because they are so proud of the quality product they make and are sure you’ll be pleased with it.

Then, they turn right around and say that they won’t guarantee this quality product for any longer than a month unless you pay them extra.

Fortunately for these retailers, we’re a bunch of lemmings. What we should do is refuse to buy anything that isn’t guaranteed for a proper amount of time by the retailer. But no…some of us end up paying the extra money and getting ripped off. The rest of us have exercise rooms that look like white trash front yards – 6 different workout machines, none of ‘em work, all taken apart and up on blocks…because it’s nigh impossible to repair them once they break (where you going to get the guano at? Stupid health department…) and the company won’t talk to you after that first month is gone.

I bet in the “olden days” (long ago...back when you wouldn't catch anyone - man, woman or child - without a wad of freshly picked tobacco in their mouth...when people had skillet cornbread and pig bacon with every meal and those huge balls of weeds and dust would roll down the streets) you’d get strung up if you sold someone a defective item and then refused to make good on it after 30 days. Back then, you didn’t have to offer a warranty with the products you sold…you either made good on your merchandise or you got “horse-whupped”.

If you think we should bring back "horse-whuppin" then let your voice be heard here! Let's be the instrument of change and give some of these retailers a little "tough love." And while we're at it, let's bring back cornbread too...yeah...more cornbread...I like that stuff.

(Guano - what is this miraculous substance?)

Valentine's Day Haiku!

Here is my Valentine's Day haiku for all the people I've mentioned in my blogs:

Losers of the world
Remove you from the gene pool
Happy we would be

I got nothin' but love for ya baby!

Feel free to add your own V-Day haiku to this post...let's see what you can do! It won't be as cool as mine, but I bet if you try real hard it won't suck too bad. (FYI - a haiku is a form of poetry that lazy people invented so that they could write really short poems and still get credit for writing poetry. It basically involves 3 lines - the first has 5 syllables, the second has 7 syllables and the last has 5 syllables. Learn about it here and then contribute.

What's in a name?

As my wife and I have recently learned that we have a baby on the way, I think the timing is right for a few helpful hints on baby names. Your choice of a name for your child is very important, as he or she will be known to the world for their entire lives by the name you give them. Therefore, it’s important that you not be a freaking idiot when selecting their name…here are a few common-sense ideas to keep in mind when naming your little bundle of joy:

1. Awkwardly spelling a name is not the same as being original

Look, we all want our little baby to stand out in this overcrowded mudball we live on, and having a unique name helps in this regard. However, being original is not defined as choosing a very common name and then messing up the spelling. “Cindy” is good; “Sindee” is a pathetic misspelling of a common name in an attempt to be original. If you want to name your son “Cody” then do it and live with the original spelling – don’t punish him by spelling it “Khodi” or something like that.

2. Your child is not an inanimate object or a consumable product.

Although it may be hard to tell sometimes (especially when they’re watching TV), children are not inanimate objects. There names should reflect this truth. Show them the dignity they deserve and refrain from naming them after objects. There’s nothing worse than seeing a kid named “Cloud” or “Cappuccino” or “Denim”. Also, please resist the twisted urge to name your child after alchoholic beverages with which you are intimately familiar. If names carry meaning and bearing, what kind of legacy are you trying to give them? “Heh…son, when you grow up, maybe you can get drunk off the same beverage that you were named after! WHOO yeah!” Real nice.

3. If you don’t have any culture, neither should your kids!

Now I don’t have any problems with people embracing their heritage and passing that legacy on to their children. The problem occurs when you have parents named Jason and Jennifer who use “culture” as an excuse to give their kid a strange name. They won’t know anything about a particular culture, or any culture for that matter save their own, and yet they’ll proudly announce the birth of little “Umbublu” or “Lee Chi Wan” or “Svetlana”. Give me a break…don’t give your child an Asian name when you couldn’t find Asia on a map and have as your only exposure to that culture the fact that you have had an egg roll from “Happy Dragon”. Just looking like people from another continent does not make you a person from another continent. You don’t even know what meaning or significance the name might carry in that other culture, but you don’t really care do you? As long as your kid’s name is original…it’s all good right? Wrong.

Don’t put your child in the awkward position of having to constantly quell thoughts of revenge on you…follow these simple rules and give them a normal name, would ya?

Fear the Black Ice!

Well, I’d like to extend my appreciation to the local TV stations for working everyone into a panic over “black ice” this morning. It only took me twice as long to get to the office today.

The absolute fear and dread that the term “black ice” instills is ridiculous. According to media reports, the mythical “black ice” is a deadly force that wreaks havoc on bridges and overpasses, waiting with evil glee for its next unsuspecting victim. Stories have single patches of “black ice” no larger than a silver dollar causing multiple car pileups across miles and miles of interstates. “Black ice” often moves across the road to snare cars that attempt to drive around it…it’s intelligent enough to camouflage itself so that it blends in perfectly with the pavement and becomes invisible to the naked eye! OH NO! Who knew ICE could be so deadly? And here I’ve been casually putting it in my drinks this whole time!

When people hear that “black ice” is on the road, they completely change their driving habits. You see them poking around at .5 miles an hour with a trunk full of bread and water and miscellaneous other survival supplies (if you have to stock up on food, why bread? Why not boxes of Little Debbie snacks and Pringles? Those fudge rounds absolutely rule!) They swerve all over the road to avoid the mysterious, invisible patches of slippery ice just waiting to fling them across the median. This is how a single patch of ice the size of a quarter causes wrecks on roads miles away…stupid people doing stupid things because they listened to stupid TV reporters. People act like freaking idiots, get in lots of wrecks and ruin everyone’s morning, and then blame it on a patch of ice on a road they weren’t even on! Then, the reporters are like “See? We warned you about that black ice! Now maybe you’ll listen!”

And so the legend of “Black Ice” grows...

You media lemmings are partially to blame for this. It’s rare to see a journalist these days that doesn’t act as though he’s had several unsuccessful lobotomies. Your not out to report, you’re out to get as many viewers as you can…and “just the facts” doesn’t sell as well as “Winter Storm 2003 – The Day We All Die.” Thus we have “Black ice” – some stupid reporter’s way of making a patch of ice on the road a newsworthy event.

Folks, please get a grip on yourselves and get over it! Ice is not seeking revenge on our species for some past injustice (although some of the stuff we put ice in is certainly not worthy of it – who in the heck drinks Grapico anyways?) It’s just frozen water. It’s not an animate object with an “unquenchable desire for evil”

Wait a minute…my leg feels cold all of a sudden…surely there’s no black ice in my aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!

How can it only be 3:00?

Alien overlords please take notice – I have uncovered your nefarious plot to “do more with less” with the human race. I am fully aware of the time manipulation experiments you are performing on us in order to make us work more. I know that you are causing the 8 hour workday to actually last 14 hours. I also know that you are making up for this time differentiation by causing Saturdays and Sundays only last 2.5 hours each.

If you don’t stop I’ll rock my jar back and forth till it falls over and breaks, killing the brain contained within and depriving you of my portion of the brainwave energy you are stealing to power your ships.

Only an alien could do something so heartless…NOW LET ME OUT OF THIS FREAKING PLACE!

WILL THIS DAY EVER END?

Four things you should not do

In my attempts to bring about some positive changes in our society, I offer up these four activities that I strongly recommend you not do.

1. Be a proctologist

While many of us work around buttholes all day, we hardly have this level of exposure to them. Not exactly the kind of sights and sounds I want my work to involve…some things should just be left alone.

2. Camp out for movie tickets

What kind of idiot sleeps outside the movie theatre for tickets? Are you afraid that you won’t get to see the movie? Has there ever been a person who wanted to see a movie but was in some way denied access to tickets? Do they give away cash to the first people in line or something? I just don’t understand what you achieve, besides looking like an out of work idiot, by doing this. Live at home with your parents much? NERD!

3. Eat liver

I cannot believe that people do this voluntarily. Have you smelled this stuff before? I’d rather have my face pushed down in a garbage can full of used baby diapers and lima beans than have to smell liver – it’s that bad. Plus, if you know the function of this organ and still eat it…well, I have to question your sanity. I really don’t know how else to say this – IT TASTES HORRIBLE.

4. Use those stupid two way walkie-talkie phones

...because no one else is interested in hearing your conversation with your mother about the hemorrhoid cream she uses. It’s bad enough when you hear one side of a conversation because some doof is too inconsiderate to realize how loudly he’s talking on the phone. Now, with these devices, I get to hear both sides of your uninteresting conversation! Yay me! Bottom line - it’s loud, it’s inconsiderate, and you look like white trash using it.

Is your journey haunting you?

“Your journey back to birth…is haunting you, haunting you. Your departure from the earth…is haunting you, haunting you.”

It’s hard these days to find music that has insightful lyrics, so when I heard the above line from a CD I recently purchased I was a little surprised. These lyrics capture what I think is the question that haunts us all – what has my life been all about and how will it end?

I am certainly haunted by the journey that has been my life. Thinking back on what I’ve done, how I’ve spent my time, what I’ve made important…I realize how foolish I’ve been. To have been given so much and to have accomplished so little is a shame I almost cannot bear. I have lived solely for the sake of living. I’ve treated my life as the end rather than the means to a much greater end and in doing so have missed out on many opportunities to do something meaningful. The thought of what I could have done and should have done fills my heart with sorrow and regret.

And yes, I think about how my life will end. The thought of facing my God and my Savior with nothing more to show for the life I’ve been given! Such a precious gift in my hands and yet my accounting for its use will be sorely lacking. If I were to go home now…to my real home…that would be a trip filled with shame. I am not ready to explain what I have done, or rather what I have failed to do, with the opportunity given me. Oh yes…my “departure from the earth” is haunting me.

Just then, when I’m feeling pretty low, I hear a faint whisper from somewhere inside that reminds me - my life is not over yet. What am I going to do?

What are you going to do?

Stop being such a lazy bum!

Does it annoy you like it does me when you see people spending excessive amounts of time and effort just to get a parking place that’s as close to the front of the store as possible? I mean, it’s not like there is a huge difference between the spot in the back and the spot in the front…we’re not talking about miles here folks. Usually you save about 20 yards. Is it really worth the time and effort (not to mention the freaking aggravation you cause everyone else who has to drive around you while you wait for the very front space) just to save yourself from walking a bit?

What I really love is when you see people do this at the grocery store, and then later see them buying weight loss products. You’re so committed to losing weight that you’ll force down one of those Salisbury steaks from Lean Cuisine but you won’t walk an extra 20 yards through the parking lot. Can you say “guaranteed failure”?

Thinking will not damage your brain – some of you should give it a try.