Whatever's tugging at my brain handles
Posted in Society on May 20th, 2008
This weekend, I had to fill up my car with gas. As it was on my way to some other errands, I went to Arco because they generally have the best prices. But I was amazed by how much. Over the course of about 2.5 miles on a main highway, I saw [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous Thoughts, Society on Apr 10th, 2008
So I don't know if this is a scam or just spam, but I got the following spam:
Dear sir:
I am sorry to bother you for a moment, we would be honored to introduce our company and products, hope that we may build business cooperation in the future.
Our company is located in the ¡°garlic hometown of [...]
Posted in Just Personal, Society on Apr 7th, 2008
So, I was driving along in my car, listening to AM news radio because its commercial breaks are shorter and less whiny than public radio's pledge breaks (I'll get to that in a moment), and I heard a commercial for QFC's pharmacy offering $4 generics (like every other Wal-Mart imitator) that sounded wrong to my [...]
Posted in Dangerous Thoughts, Society on Apr 7th, 2008
The current contract I'm on has me editing a few sections of a major corporation's internal employee home page. One of the things we do is take employee submissions of photos of themselves on vacation or pursuing their hobbies, and we post one photo a day to this home page. And what I find [...]
When I heard about Anthony Minghella's death, I felt compelled to write something immediately. Fortunately or unfortunately, a severe head cold got in the way. See, I'm of two minds about Minghella's work. On the one hand, he's responsible for one of my favorite romantic comedies, Truly, Madly, Deeply. On the [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society on Mar 11th, 2008
Pedro Espinoza is a terrorist. There's no doubt in my mind that this gang member from Los Angeles is as cruel, heartless, callous, and evil as any terrorist we're fighting overseas. He is currently under arrest for walking up to a black teen in Los Angeles, asking him if he was in a [...]
Posted in Job Hunting, Society, Techno Thoughts on Feb 26th, 2008
I just got another job scam e-mail, this time offering me a sales rep position. What some of you may not know is that not all the job offer scams are intended to get you to cash fake checks or buy classes you don't need or buy supplies for a project that never materializes. [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society on Feb 9th, 2008
Recently, I was alerted to a story about a school in Colorado that will be accomodating a transgender student... who is in second grade. Yes a little second grade boy will be attending school dressed as a girl, called by a girl's name, and pretty much treated as a girl by the teachers and [...]
Posted in Family & Kids, Society on Feb 3rd, 2008
So, last night I blog about the best way to collect points for the Pepsi Stuff promotion. Today, for the first time, I watch the Superbowl with my son. He'll be three later this month and finally has the attention span to couch potato it for a Sunday with the old man. [...]
Way back when Pepsi teamed up with iTunes, the deal was that if you got a bottle with a code, you got a free download. Now, not all bottles had codes, but it was possible to peek and see if a bottle was a winner if you looked at the right angle. I [...]
Posted in Miscellaneous Thoughts, Society on Jan 23rd, 2008
Remember those old commercials for Trident sugarless gum, where they said "4 out of 5 dentists recommend sugarless gum for their patients who chew gum"? Many a person has honestly wondered what the fifth dentist recommends. Many a comedian has humorously speculated on it. I believe I have the answer.
I realized what [...]
Posted in Society on Jan 10th, 2008
A standard rule of style in American writing is that punctuation goes within quotation marks. For example: "He was going to the park," said Fred. Although Fred's statement was a complete sentence in and of itself, it is part of the larger sentence in this instance.
But there's an instance where I don't agree [...]
So, inspired by creating an antidote to the Sanrio attempts to target Hello Kitty to boys, I took that scuzzy cat concept a bit farther. I added some stains to his shirt, did a version with his tongue sticking out, changed the shirt colors, and did a second slogan. Still, gotta give a [...]
Posted in Art, Society, Techno Thoughts on Dec 28th, 2007
According to this article, Sanrio is set to unveil a line of clothing and accessories for men using the famous Hello Kitty character.
"Young men these days grew up with character goods," said Sanrio spokesman, Kazuo Tohmatsu. "That generation feels no embarrassment about wearing Hello Kitty."
Maybe I'm an old fuddy duddy, stuck in a [...]
Posted in Online Marketing And SEO, Society on Dec 26th, 2007
Earlier this month, my wife ordered some books from Barnes and Noble (via their bn.com site) as Christmas gifts for her grandmother. Everything seemed to go well, the order was delivered on the 20th, everyone was happy. Or so I thought.
On December 23rd, we got an e-mail from Barnes and Noble stating:
Your order [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society on Dec 17th, 2007
There was a story on Slashdot about a kid who was given detention for using the Firefox web browser when his teacher said to use Internet Explorer. This later turned out to be a hoax, but it sparked some interesting discussion, most notably about when/whether a student should follow a teacher's instructions or orders [...]
Posted in Society on Dec 11th, 2007
In a recent trip down to Los Angeles to see my family, the Avis car rental facility at the Burbank Airport tacked an "11.11% Concession Recovery Fee" onto my bill. My first thought was "what the heck is this 'Concession Recovery Fee'?"
The thing to realize is that the daily rate you see can be [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society on Nov 1st, 2007
Duane 'Dog' Chapman, of "Dog, The Bounty Hunter" fame was recently outed by the National Enquirer as a racist.
In a tape recording of a conversation with his son, he tells his son that his African American girlfriend is not welcome around Dog's home or business because the word "nigger" is occasionally used there, and he's [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society on Nov 1st, 2007
My brother-in-law and I were discussing yesterday's jury judgement of $11 million dollars against an anti-gay church that picketed the funeral of a soldier who died in Iraq, and we were discussing whether or not the church group's First Amendment rights were violated by the jury verdict and award.
Now, I've posted regularly in discussions on [...]
Posted in Society, Techno Thoughts on Oct 19th, 2007
So, there's this computer program they're selling which claims to make your PC emit 34,000 homeopathic bioresonance patterns that improve your health and repair damage done by electromagnetic waves from your computer. And it's only around $80. What a bargain, eh? Wouldn't you buy it?
Enter Sense About Science, which has put out [...]
Posted in Society on Oct 9th, 2007
When I was a teenager, a group from my high school was given the very cool opportunity to take a tour of Jet Propulsion Laboratories. During the tour, one of the kids pulled out a pocket camera to take a couple of snapshots. His camera was quickly confiscated and returned at the end [...]
Posted in Society on Sep 9th, 2007
A 4-year old child was injured recently when repo agents towed away his mother's car with him in it!
Trying to avoid being carted away by the careless repo agents, the young boy, Fashawn Parker, leapt from the moving vehicle and required treatment for minor injuries at a nearby hospital. Police said there would be [...]
Posted in Society, Techno Thoughts, Technology & Life on Sep 5th, 2007
To those who actually say "content wants to be free" with a straight face and seriousness of purpose...
"Content wants to be free" makes as much sense as "content wants to be a fireman" or "music is a Republican."
When you say "content wants to be free," you actually mean, "I don't want to pay for content" [...]
Posted in Dangerous Thoughts, Politics & Religion, Society on Jul 15th, 2007
I recently read an opinion piece about a recent judicial decision striking down elements of COPA (Child Online Protection Act) as unconstitutional. Now, on the surface, it's easy to get upset, because it struck down requirements that online porn sites essentially "card" their visitors, thus making it easier for kids to see porn.
The author, [...]
Posted in Dangerous Thoughts, Miscellaneous Thoughts, Society on Jul 15th, 2007
I've been seeing Gary Coleman doing commercials for Cash Call. Recently I read the fine print about the Cash Call loans. If you think the payday advance people are bloodsucking loan sharks who charge outrageous fees, meet Cash Call.
According to the fine print on their commercial, Cash Call will charge you a 99.25% [...]
Posted in Family & Kids, Society on Jun 17th, 2007
Jay Jay the Jet Plane is the animated star of of a PBS kiddie show bearing his name. And "Jay Jay the Jet Plane and the Uncanny Valley" might sound like the title of one of his adventures. But the Uncanny Valley isn't a place. It's a theory that has to do with [...]
Posted in Society, Stupid Thoughts on Jun 17th, 2007
When I was a kid, the corporate mascot for Burger King was alternately a cartoony little king, a more virile and comic-book style king, and eventually Herb.
All of these were okay, comfortable, and well, non-creepy. Okay, maybe Herb was a little creepy. But none of them brought on the outright heebie-jeebies inspired by [...]
Posted in Politics & Religion, Society, Technology & Life on May 6th, 2007
There's an old joke in which a man asks a woman if she'd sleep with him for a million dollars. After some thought, she says yes. Then he asks her if she'd sleep with him for 50 dollars. She says, "of course not! What kind of girl do you think I am?"
"We've [...]
Recently, I was catching up on Aaron Dragushan's blog, Ice Cream For Everyone and read his post about kiva.org.
Kiva is a micro-lending collective where you can invest small amounts in interest free loans given to people in developing economies to help start or expand a business. They're usually just a few hundred dollars and [...]
Posted in Job Hunting, Society, Technology & Life on Apr 15th, 2007
What kind of jobs do you think would ask for applicants with a sense of humor? You might be surprised.
Though I'm not unemployed, I am underemployed. So a little while ago, I began job hunting in the Seattle area. Considering that I have seen many of my jokes float around the net, [...]
Posted in Cooking & Recipes, Society on Jan 16th, 2007
It's a common complaint, over-saucing at Taco Bell.
I'm not talking about how much sauce they put on their food, but instead, how many hot sauce packets they give you with it. In my last two visits to Taco Bell, I got 18 and 12 hot sauce packets respectively.
On the day I got [...]
Posted in Dangerous Thoughts, Society on Dec 18th, 2006
Just read an amazing blog post called "Two Phrases That Destroyed American Culture and was blown away. The two phrases are "the customer is always right" and "you have to earn my respect."
The claim of the author is that those two statements have been used by generations of jerks to treat other [...]
Posted in Dangerous Thoughts, Society on Dec 3rd, 2006
The Michael Richards situation is unfortunate. While doing a set at a Los Angeles comedy club, he launched into a tirade against some African-American audience members who were heckling him. It was videotaped and he's since had to do a LOT of damage control.
But I'm not sure which part is more unfortunate, the [...]