But Jessica would be upset with me 😉 Read this and smile like I did. Imagine that: focusing on Racism causes people to think about racism and identify it more frequently. Racism is a symptom and not the root problem… but then again, I’m religionist and not a humanist.
Category Archives: Opinion
Compromise: Best Buy Shopper
I don’t care for Best Buy. Their policies require employees to lie about their ‘service accounts’ so at to try to manipulate into buying extended warranties. However, they had the absolute best price on a wireless router that I needed while here in Washington State. When I was paying for the router the gal who was checking me out (taking my money, not looking me over, in case you thought I was getting into trouble) asked me if I was going to have someone else install it. This Netgear router is so easy to install that people who know nothing about routers can plug it into their broadband modem and install it with great ease. I told her that I was going to install it and she stopped there. I could tell the question was priming me to see if I wanted to fall under their FUD attack. One thing I hate about companies now is that they’re trying to milk you for extended warranties, service plans and blatantly charging exorbitant fees due to potential failure of the components. They advertise, “Buy this Sony product, its the best most reliable product on the market.” And then immediately they come back, smashing you in the face with, “If this product goes out, Sony doesn’t cover X, Y, and Z.”
If I lived my life with that sort of fear I wouldn’t ride in cars, planes, trains, buses or ride bicycles (let alone try to learn how to ride my new Unicycle). I wouldn’t have had children with Jessica. Heck, I wouldn’t have married Jessica due to fear that the relationship would have failed. Can you imagine reaching for a knife to cut up some chicken and then having a FUD attack? I see things playing out like this:
Self, you can’t pick up that knife, if you drop it or slip you could cut your fingers damaging your tendons, nerves and skin. You could be permanently injured due to the knife. Wait! If the chicken is carrying food-borne germs and diseases I could cut myself and infect myself with somem fatal disease and then die due to the chicken in combination with the knife. Worse! I could cut the chicken, then myself, then drop the knife into my foot causing me to be pinned to the floor by my foot and die not being able to reach the phone to call for emergency help. Self, you better cut the chicken with the scissors after sterilizing them with bleach just in case they have other germs on them from cutting the wrapping paper. I don’t know where that’s been to…
And the lunacy goes on and on! The government, and even your own parents, probably, wanted to protect you with warnings of caution, but instead of mildly presenting warnings they told you things like, “Never run with scissors. Always pay your taxes. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. Don’t run with your shoes untied. Don’t drink out of the milk carton. Don’t masticate, you’ll go blind. Don’t chase your brother with a hatchet ever again or we’ll permanently remove your hatchet privileges.” All of these have a bit of wisdom in them, but they’re just rules instead of principles which are applicable to broader ranges in life. Wow, I’m way off from where I started…
To put it simply: I love the router but I wouldn’t get an extended warranty plan on it because I’m buying it because its a good router. I wouldn’t buy a Honda if I didn’t think it was going to be a good car for my money. I wouldn’t buy a Kitchen-aid mixer if I didn’t think it was the best mixer on the market. I wouldn’t buy an Apple if I thought it was going to up and crash on me and give me a blue screen of death like some warmed over Windows 95 box. When companies try to hit you with a FUD, hit them back with some diatribe about how you’re afraid to touch anything on their shelves because what if someone didn’t wash their hands in the bathroom after making a messy situation of their hygiene, or sneezed or maybe accidentally drooled on the shelf. Further, you want them to sign a contract stating that they will take care of any medical attention that you might need do to getting sick within the next 48 hours from being in their germ infested store. See if they like being FUDed themselves. Oh, and make sure the manager is there to be embarrassed in front of other customers… it’ll be more fun that way.
Oregon Entrails
We had lunch at a local chain called “Shari’s.” It was not a tasty treat, though the service was good. It was strange to have so many people happy to serve while the food was a low quality fare.
“That’s what the guy who invented underwear said.” That’s a line from Jimmy Neutron that I just overheard. Sorry, it was funny so I had to report it. It is much like the whiteboard quote of the week, only different.
One of My Worster Mistakes Ever
Last night, in what is possibly one of the sins in life that could be compared to say, murder, being discovered to not be wearing clean underpants when you get in an accident or not flossing daily: I went into Wal-Mart for a quick pickup of a few items Jess had put on my shopping list that were not at Whole Foods Market. Woops! I said ‘Quick’ and ‘Wal-Mart’ in the same sentence. However, this is not about sins or quick, or a quick sin for that matter (see: teaching a 3 year old potty words).
What amazed me was that a 2 liter bottle of Fresca no calory fruit soft-drink was 88 cents. A 20 ounce bottle was $1.20. If you do the math I could dump what I didn’t need down the drain and come out ahead just for buying 2 liters. I don’t think Coke is making its $100 billion on 2 liter bottles, but instead from those smaller bottles that people buy for convenience.
But enough about convenience. I think the Wal-Mart employees are working so slowly at the checkout lines because the ‘Wal-Mart Channel’ speakers are blaring Wal-Mart propaganda at them and their customers for hours on end. You can’t listen to, “We care about you and your family at Wal-Mart,” while making a $5.34 an hour as a cash register clerk and think, “Heck, yeah! Wal-Mart cares about me!” In fact if anything you can only think, “Turn this freaking thing off before somebody gets a load of damaged groceries for free!”
I especially liked that the Wal-Mart channel had a suggestion that people bring in photos and have Christmas cards made. One happy customer on the commercial said (and I’m not making this up) that people called her to tell her how professional they looked. Do you call people up and say, “Dang, Lucy, that’s the most unprofessional Christmas Card I’ve ever seen. If you send something like that out again, I’m never going to talk to you again!” I didn’t think so.
So, I learned a valuable lesson: buy cheap soda at Wal-Mart. But I learned a more valuable lesson: don’t shop at Wal-Mart period.
Coke, $100 Billion Isn’t Good Enough
In this article: Coke to retire ‘Real’ with new tagline in 2006 you can read about how Coke is only 1.8 Billion dollars ahead of Pepsi in drink sales and its really causing them to push harder. That’s right, billions and billions of dollars are spent on sodas around the globe. Those two ‘big players’ bring in just shy of 200 billion together.
Sales have been slumping though lately. I think this could be because of diet changes, a shrinkage in the economy or the fact that sodas with corn syrup have been linked to all sorts of medical problems, as have sodas with nutra-sweet. I’m doing my part to increase soda consumption, but Coke and Pepsi do not own Dr. Pepper, so I’m not helping them by drinking the Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper.
Schnikeys that’s a huge industry.
Doh!
I just got a phone call from a retailer trying to get in touch with my wife about a present that I know is for me. I’d like to add at this point in time that if you are such a retailer, work for a retailer or hustle watches on the streets of New York city [props to Louanne for the idea for that last one] please don’t call prospective buyers houses with a paragraph full of information. Caller ID is already a dead give away, it would be best to have as little information as possible for anyone but the person to whom you are supposed to speak.
Well, at least I’m looking quite forward to Saturday morning when we’ll have out local S. Mobile street present opening for the Petermans 🙂 The only hint I’m going to drop is this: one.
Worship the Turkey
I just read in an email: “Happy Turkey Day!” Which is like saying, “Happy Mashed Potatoes Day!” We’re not worshipping the turkey, are we? Where are you putting the focus? I’m here to be thankful to God for what He’s provided me with. Its not a day about turkeys is it? Even if you remove the current culture’s rather agnostic/atheistic views from the picture verses my radical Christianity** and go back in history the people were grateful for surviving and they were grateful, together, for what they had. Saying happy turkey day is useless… especially if you’re a vegetarian. Or worse yet: A Hindu. That’s like saying, “Happy We’re Going to Be Eating Your Great-Great-Grandma Day!”
Happy Thanksgiving folks, from the bottom of my un-PC heart.
**that’s supposed to be a joke, I consider myself radical, but not the way some people define radical
A Fine Car Indeed
Last night I went to pick up the Peer family from the airport. We own a green Honda Civic 4 door. It seats five. Five small people. Five small anorexic people. Five small anorexic people who do not have luggage. Five small anorexic people without five pieces of large luggage and some backpacks.
Our Honda civic is too small for carrying that many people. We had luggage on laps, I think we were dragging something off the bumper as well. I think we’re going to go get ourselves into debt for a mini van on Black Friday 😉 Just kidding. However, our fine car gets great gas mileage. It gets the good gas mileage through the use of a special turbo charged lawn mower engine. I’m pretty sure that’s what’s in there because if it was any less powerful with 5 anorexic small people with no luggage it would not go.
This is in no way a complaint about Hondas. They’re great cars. But you have to use the car for the right purpose. But you know what they say: When you’re a Hammer everything looks like a Vanilla Ice.
CNN Police
If you read part of this carefully crafted article “CNN.com – Police: Ludwig’s computers hold crime plans” you’ll note that there’s a building up of the story, there’s a climax that leads you to believe that the computer held exact plans… and then… then… they say, “The alleged plot was never carried out.”
Why can’t CNN, and other news agencies present the news about things like this:
The computer contained alleged plots that have not been discovered to have been carried out…
That would have been so much more forthright and useful. Instead I get to think one thing with a switcheroo ending. On top of that if people only make it through part of the article, which happens when people skim, they get only partial information because the truth was not put in the beginning of the article.
I’m not suggesting that what this teenager did was in anyway validated due to poor reporting, but I will say that poor reporting is an unpayable carreer, if I wanted to read bad news articles… I’d read some of the rumor blogs.
Scarred But Smarter
I just walked through our family room. Oprah was on while Jessica is nursing. Oprah was doing a show on how to know the right bra size. I saw a woman who is not my wife wearing a bra that was not right, and it was not right in way too many ways.
I’m going to gouge my eyes out now.
Why do I catch this stuff? Why can’t they just do shows on how Oprah is a weird religious cult leader and that she wants us all to be happy about that? Can’t we have that instead of older breasts of women being flapped about on network television? If I wanted that sort of smut I’d get a premium cable channel.
Yikes.