Hate: Fine Print

Hey, look who's back!  It's Mr. Bloggenheimer himself!  I actually had someone ask me where I've been for so long (since my last post on 10/31) and I felt all guilty that my legions of fans were up all night waiting for my next post.  It's not that I haven't hated, dug, or didn't get anything in the last six months, I just didn't take the time to share it with you.  My apologies.

So of course I must resume my silliness with something I hate - fine print.  This may seem a bit obvious but my particular distaste for fine print is not that it is required in our litigious society but the way that it is done.  I understand that old ladies will spill the super-hot coffee in their laps at the McDonald's drive-thru and will be represented by scum-sucking lawyers hoping to go fishing in the deep pockets of Mickey-D's.  I got it.  It's 2009 and people want to get rich by buying lotto tickets/winning lawsuits.  Whatever - do what you gotta do, people.  In fact, I'm thinking of poking out my eyeball with a Sharpie because I noticed that that there was no label warning me not to do it and a decent lawyer could get me a nice little nest egg.  I would also be able to park in the handicapped parking spots - assuming I could keep my driver's license.

So my beef is less with the fact that we have to have fine print but does said print have to be so .... fine?  I mean, it's almost as if the people at the Sharpie company don't want me to know stuff!  Surely, that's not true!  Could it possibly be that in the Sharpie fine print, it says "Don't poke yourself in the eye, dumbass, because it'll hurt like hell and, despite getting a parking spot up close, it's just not worth it" and then, when I go and do it, they can say that they warned me and I can sue them all they want but I ain't gettin' a dime?  No one is going to take the time to read the fine print (except the lawyers) so those sneaky Sharpie bastards are just waiting to hose me when I take one for the team and poke out a pupil.  Bastards!

Ever see an ad for some medicine of some kind in a magazine?  Shitsky, talk about fine print overload!  There's more fine print than information about the burning sensation that the medicine is trying to fix!  I'm not quite sure what qualifies as actually needing to be included in the fine print so I think people just put everything in there just to cover themselves.  There's a good chance that I'm not going to use the remedy to my burning sensation to clean my fish tank but the lawyers know that I'll sue the pharmaceutical rep for $3.6million if my goldfish (retail price: 11 cents) starts spending a lot of time floating on his back at the top of the tank.  With all that fine print, my April edition of High Times magazine gets pretty hefty!

There's a new tactic that people are using on TV for the fine print.  The nice people at Big Company, Incorporated are now trying to incorporate the fine print into the conversations going on in the commercials, thusly:

Guy: Man, I have a bitch of a headache

Dude: I'll hook you up with some Headache-Be-Gone, if you'd like.

Guy: Sweet.  I'll take a couple and go drive a forklift.

Dude: My doctor recommends that you take Headache-Be-Gone with food and only when you have had a good night's rest.  Also, he suggests that you don't drive any heavy equipment within one hour of taking a Headache-Be-Gone tablet.  Occasionally, you might have heart palpitations and hair loss as a result of taking Headache-Be-Gone and your wife may suddenly find you unattractive.  You're not pregnant, are you?  Because, you shouldn't take Headache-Be-Gone when pregnant.  Lastly, Headache-Be-Gone tastes like shit.

Guy: Uh, thanks....  I'll just deal with the pain.

Who has these conversations?!  In an effort to eliminate the printed version of fine print, the dumb-ass advertising people have just caused me to change the channel and watch an old episode of The Golden Girls instead of possibly buying their fine product.  Kind of back-fired, if you ask me.

Another way to cram the fine print down my throat is to have some tool say the fine print super-fast at the end of the commercial.  I assume there is some legal requirement for what has to be included in the fine print and the consumer has to be able to read/hear it easily.  Well, I'm here to tell you that this consumer can't understand shit when Mr. Speedy-Talker rattles through the legalese at 100 mph.  A variation on this is to actually do this exercise at the BEGINNING of the commercial which kind of catches everyone off-guard.  Either way, my ears glaze over and the whole thing is just a waste of time and vocal chords - which is probably what the lawyers want in the first place.  Nice work, lawyers.  You suck.

Don't get me wrong, people, I'm a big fan of covering my ass, blank checks and loopholes - and that's pretty much what fine print is all about.  If I don't cover my ass and you find a loophole, you get a blank check from me if you take me to court.  God bless America!

And now I have a headache.

Hate: Other People in Meetings

As a middle-management lackie, I attend a lot of meetings.  At some of those meetings, shit actually gets done but most of them require some sort of follow-up meeting.  And, quite often, there is a meeting immediately following the meeting which is sort of a post-meeting meeting to meet about the stuff we just met on.  Regardless, it's a damn lot of meetings that take up valuable time that could be better served writing blog posts (because I post SO often) or, my latest addiction, skulking about on Facebook.  Dude, we don't have enough time to talk about Facebook but if I had my own company, I would install something in people's chairs that would cause their pants to catch on fire if they ever visited Facebook while on company time because it is such a time-waster!

OK, where was I?

Oh, yeah, meetings.  I was originally going to write about a particular guy who just bugs the piss out of me.  Let's just call him Talks Way Too Much Guy (TWTMG, for short).  I'm not a big fan of people and I'm even less of a fan of people who talk so this guy didn't stand much of a chance of being my best pal in the first place.  Got a point to make?  How about using only 50 words instead of 10000000?!  TWTMG also chews his fingernails.  Or, should I say, fingernubs?  Now, I ain't perfect (surprising, I know) and I chew my fingernails too but I sure don't do it in meetings!  I wait until I'm in the comfort of my own home to gnaw my fingernails until they bleed.  Not TWTMG - he'll stick half his hand in his mouth and start chewing away!

TWTMG also taps his foot.  Loudly.  He only does it every once in a while so he catches you off-guard when he does it.  You know how some people get the whole knee going up and down thing?  That's not as bad as the one-tap because the up-down thing is quiet.  If I close my eyes, I don't even see them doing it.  Mr. One-Tap stomps on the carpet in a random pattern so I can't brace myself for it.  Bastard.

And then there's Mr. Talk About Something Even Though Everyone Else In The Meeting Is Talking About Something Else (let's just call him The Interrupter 'cause it's shorter.)  Like I said, occasionally a meeting will actually produce something of value.  The team is working through something and the next thing you know we're solving world hunger.  Everybody except The Interrupter, that is.  He's talking to his sidekick, Drinking Buddy (with all due respect to Chris Farley and Mike Meyers) about something completely unrelated to world hunger.  And then we all have to re-hash everything we just talked about so he can get caught up.  Oy!  Hey, Interrupter - shut the fuck up!  

A variation on the Interrupter is the I'm Never On Time To Meetings Guy - also known as That Asshole Who Thinks The World Revolves Around Him.  Look, Asshole, if I wanted the meeting to start at 9:13, I would have told everybody to be there at that time.  Usually, though, I stick to the hour and half-hour times.  You know, 9:00, 9:30, that sort of thing.  When you grace us with your presence at 9:13, you're just as bad as The Interrupter because everybody has to stop what they're doing to go over everything that your rude ass missed for the last 13 minutes.  Do us all a favor, if you're going to be more than a couple minutes late just go update your Facebook page instead of wasting my time.

Of course, these days we also have Mr. Cell Phone Bastard.  Mr. CPB loves his phone.  He's got goofy ringtones that he actually changes semi-regularly.  He's texting people and calling people and generally making love to his phone.  If he could marry his phone he would.  The only thing he is not doing with his phone is setting it to vibrate during meetings!  Dude, that's why God made the vibrate feature - so that I could hold a meeting without you disrupting it!  Here's a new feature for you.  It's called the Cell Phone Up Your Ass feature and it's pretty self-explanatory.

Do NOT get me started on Miss (it's always a chick) Loud Gum Chewer!  Hello, do you think we can't hear you just because your cud, I mean gum, is in your mouth?!  I know that you aren't really a two-bit whore but you sure look and/or sound like one the way you chew your gum!  All the rest of us are trying to conduct a meeting here so please take a minute to not snap, crackle and pop your gum.  It would be much appreciated.  Also, you probably won't "accidentally" get a dry-erase marker jammed in your eye.

So, unfortunately because of my middle-management-ness, I have to attend meetings all the friggin' time.  Sure, occasionally I get lucky and a cute chick shows up but I work in manufacturing and cute chicks are about as rare as an Alaskan governor who doesn't de-rail a presidential campaign.  Until that happens, I have to suffer in misery.

That's it for today.  Gotta run to a meeting.

Hate: The Number of Words on the Shampoo Bottle

I debated about posting this in the Don't Get section because having a whole bunch of words on the shampoo bottle just doesn't make sense to me. However, my confusion over the whole issue soon turned to hatred and I'm pleased with my decision to share with you my hatred (not confusion) for the number of words on the shampoo bottle. You could say I Dig my Hate, which could quite possibly put this whole post in the Dig category. Or, you could just agree with me that the whole thing matters about as much as anything related to Jamie Spears' underage pregnancy.

In case there was any doubt that this slacker is a morning person in any way, shape or form, let me kill that rumor right now. I hate getting my lazy arse out of bed in the morning. If I was told that tomorrow at 7:15, Pam Anderson would be backing up a Brink's truck full of money to my front door, I would set my alarm for 7:06 so that I could hit the snooze alarm once before Pam knocked on my door. Upon receipt of said cash and perhaps a quickie (and I do mean quick!)with Pam, I would go right back to bed and enjoy my new found wealth at a more civilized hour like 10:30.

And yet the shampoo people expect me to read their stupid bottles in the shower. Inconceivable (that's a Princess Bride reference for all you Andre The Giant fans out there)! I'm lucky to make it into the bathroom every morning without shedding any blood from my kneecaps or shins and you think I care if my shampoo is gentle enough for me? Gentle, schmentle! Dude, I've used the bar that sits in the nasty soap tray thing far too often to worry about if the shampoo is for dry hair or oily hair. How about one that's just for hair? Keep It Simple, Stupid!

Usually, the label on the front of the shampoo bottle uses a whole bunch of words like rejuvenate, gentle, fresh and clean. Apparently, all shampoos perform these tasks on your hair whether you have oily hair, dry hair, permed hair, colored hair or generally fucked-up hair. I'm convinced that the only thing that makes one shampoo different than other is the shape of the bottle. It's all in the presentation, you know, and a gallon jug just don't look as nice as a lavender-colored bottle with a nifty little flip-top thing on it that is impossible to open with wet hands. I guess the color of the stuff helps to differentiate one shampoo from another although there aren't really that money colors either. You have a few shades of blue and green and white but not many blood-red shampoos out there. There's a look for you!

OK, back to the number of words. Lots of shampoos have a conditioner that go with them. They're a system. God forbid you wash your hair and not use the associated conditioner with it! What are you, a heathen?! And so the conditioner bottle and the shampoo bottle are designed with the same colors and shape and top and crap until the only difference is that one says shampoo and the other says conditioner. Again, unless Pam hops in the shower to read the labels for me (pause here to wrap your brain around that for a minute) after she delivers my money, it's a real pain to sort through all the nifty adjectives (fresh, clean, etc) to get to the one word that is really what I'm looking for.

So that's the front of the bottle. Lots of words and the one I'm looking for (I'll give you a hint - it ends in "poo") is buried under a bunch of stupid-ness.

The stupidity continues on the back of the bottle. Do I really care what the ingredients are? Aren't the ingredients really just "shampoo"? I know there is other crap in there but quit wasting my time and your ink with telling me all about it. I don't care. Lastly, we must discuss the directions on a bottle of shampoo. Yes, I'm sorry, we must. Many a lame stand-up comedian (or blogger) has built an act (or blog) around those goofy directions to Lather, Rinse, Repeat. However, you would be hard-pressed to find such beautiful simplicity on a bottle of shampoo today. You would long for such simplicity while lathering up your 'do. No longer do you Lather/Rinse/Repeat. Now, you Apply shampoo to wet hair, Massage into the scalp, and Repeat if desired. Who repeats? Whose hair is so frickin' dirty that they must repeat? If you need a shower so bad that you must repeat, you should probably be out shopping for a hat instead of fouling someone's shower stall!

Remember when there was a big push on to have generic products in the store? The packaging was black and white and the beer said "Beer" on it and the ketchup said "Ketchup" and the Dorito-like nacho cheese-flavored chips said "Nasty Tasting Pseudo-Doritos"? That's kind of the direction I'm going here, boys and girls, plunk down a black and white bottle that says "shampoo" and I'm a whole lot less inclined to screw it up and I'll have that much less bitterness in my life. And now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go sit patiently by my front door for Pam to show up.

Hate: Not Having any Musical Ability

You know how some people can sing and play the piano or guitar or cello or flute or the sousaphone or even the cow bell? And it sounds like music? You know - those people that actually have a right side of their brain? Yeah, well, I'm not one of them and it kind of sucks. I couldn't sing my way out of a paper bag. I couldn't carry a tune if it had a handle. I can't play the spoons, let alone a sousaphone! So I'm kind of jealous of people who can actually make music that doesn't sound like a cat being strangled. Not that I dislike the sound of a cat being strangled but it just doesn't have the same appeal as a good Eddie Van Halen guitar solo.

Mind you, it's not for lack of trying. My mom used to give me piano lessons when I was a wee lad. She would knock on the door pretending to be the teacher coming to the house (she was a little out there sometimes) and I can still picture the red book of beginner lessons that she would "bring" with her to the lesson. She'd try to teach me middle C and sharps and flats and stuff and it just didn't sink in. I was more fascinated with the cool metronome thing - it made better music than I ever did! Anyway, I'm clearly scarred emotionally by this experience with my mother and someday when the police psychologist is trying to talk me down from the ledge it will all make sense.

But my mom refused to give up on me and forced me into band starting in the 4th grade. I knew there was no way I could tackle anything more melodic than a tambourine but, get this, I couldn't even master the drums! Now, in 4th grade band, the drummer isn't exactly wailing away on a drum kit a la Tommy Lee so for me to suck at just keeping time on a bass drum is pretty frickin' pathetic! And so, like any true champion, I quit. Somewhere, Pavarotti breathed a sigh of relief that some dumb kid in America wasn't fouling the world of music.

My last effort to create any music was to purchase a harmonica. How hard can it be to play a harmonica?! One of the reasons that rock and rollers give for joining a band in the first place is to get babes. I'm all for gettin' babes so imagine the chicks I could get by whipping out my trusty harmonica while sitting around the campfire! Turns out that the harmonica makes one note by blowing and a different note by sucking. Who knew? So, because the chicks prefer actual music than just miscellanous notes strung together and, considering that I hate camping I wasn't hanging around campfires any too often, the harmonica did little to increase the number of notches in my bedpost. The only blowing and sucking going on was by me and it was only adding to the noise pollution in the world. Bugger!

Thus, I am frustrated that I can't get on stage and play the opening guitar riff from Satisfaction. Look how sweet Keith is looking in the pic above! Who wouldn't want to look like that? I'm forced to limit my screaming/singing/air guitaring/drumming to the confines of my car where no one can get hurt. I used to sing a little bit of The Doors to my youngest to try to get him to sleep but now that his eardrum is fully developed he tells me to just read a Dora the Explorer book instead. Just because my daughter can play Three Blind Mice on the recorder, she thinks she can tell me to stop singing Radar Love! If she's not careful, I'll bust out my harmonica and "play" Amazing Grace and show her just how awful I can be! Damn ingrates!

I know that you are thinking that I could tackle the whole music thing as an adult instead of a snot-nosed kid. You're thinking that music lessons as an adult might be more productive than music lessons as a kid, right? I would be more patient. I would understand the theory and not just remember that my right index finger has to go on the key in the middle of the keyboard. I could be like Grandma Moses and take up music as an adult instead of trying to be like Mozart who wrote symphonies at age five. Sure I would. And monkeys would fly out of my butt.

So instead of actually creating real live music, I must fantasize about standing on stage with 50,000 adoring fans waiting for me to lay down some righteous tunes with my guitar/phallic symbol. I'll throw in a few windmills like Pete Townsend, maybe sidle up to the lead singer like Little Steven does with Bruce Springsteen and to top it off, I'll light my guitar on fire like Jimi Hendrix! The place will erupt with awe and admiration of my musical genius! How does he do it?! Good looks AND musical ability! I'd love to give him obscene amounts of money to play at my private party honoring the invention of the bikini where he will, no doubt, be surrounded by hordes of bikini-clad babes!

Or I'll just continue to be a middle-management corporate suck-ass with no musical ability. Either one. Sigh...

Hate: Tupperware

See, this is how twisted my little life is. I am tormented by Tupperware. Brightly (gaily?) colored, innocuous, inanimate plastic bowls have me all in a lather. It's no wonder I drink so much....

One would think that there is nothing to hate about Tupperware. One would think that Mr. Tupper was really on to something when he invented those plastic, re-usable containers to hold last night's meatloaf, wouldn't one? Well, I'm here to tell you that one would be wrong to think that. If one had any sense at all, one would come to the conclusion, like I have, that Mr. Tupper has invented something so evil and diabolical that dogs around the globe are cursing Mr. Tupper's name for a lack of table scraps.

Let me explain my hatred.

My biggest beef with the whole concept is that only a small percentage of Tupperware actually gets used. According to no research whatsoever, only 6.8% of all Tupperware containers ever get used for anything. And I'm not just talking about for storing the leftover lasagna that no one will ever eat. I'm also talking about using it for catching that last little bit of water stuck in the drain pipe when you are cleaning out the hairball in the trap under the sink. I'm talking about not even being used to stash away the kids' Legos that hurt so friggin' bad when you step on them in the middle of the night. The biggest reason for not being used (again, based on pure conjecture on my part) is because you can't buy just one of these damn things. You have to buy a combo pack consisting of twelve different shapes and sizes. You only need one but The Man is forcing you to buy more than you need! Damn him and his marketing degree!!

More hatred comes from the mis-match between lids and containers. You think losing one sock is bad? I challenge you to match up all the Tupper-lids with all the Tupper-containers in your cupboard. It can't be done. For that matter, I challenge you to not get klunked in the head when you open your Tupper-cupboard and all the Tupper-pieces fall out on top of you like the ping pong balls used to do to Mr. Greenjeans on Captain Kangaroo. If you tell me that all of your various Tupper-pieces are neatly organized, I'll call you a dirty liar and never speak to you again.

The problem is compounded because there are some other bastards out there who have gotten onto the bandwagon and are selling competing brands to Tupperware. I'm not going to dignify them by mentioning their names here but, just like Kleenex being synonymous with "facial tissue", they will never be known as anything other than Tupperware.

And then the compounding is compounded because the pseudo-Tupperware doesn't "mate" with the real stuff. Got an off-brand container? Don't try to force the real Tupper-lid onto it -it just ain't gonna fit no matter how many times you kind of run your thumb around the edge trying to make it snap on there. So now I have 48 containers of various sizes and 57 lids of various sizes and none of those blasted pieces fit together and all I'm trying to do is get a stool sample from the dog to take to the vet! What am I going to do - walk in to the vet's office with a mis-matched lid/container combo that allows the whole waiting room to enjoy the aroma of Fido's little present? I don't think so! Let me have a little dignity in my life!

Let's be honest here, boys and girls. If you didn't eat the lima bean casserole last night, what are the chances that you will EVER eat it? If you feel like you need to Tupper-ize your leftovers out of guilt and because there are kids in Africa starving, just get over it. Throw the crap outside to the raccoons and squirrels if you aren't going to eat it. Before you call the ACLU or PETA or 60 Minutes on me, I'm not equating starving African kids with raccoons - I'm just saying that by the time those nasty lime beans make it to Ethiopia, they are going to be more heinous than they are now so don't lose any sleep over it. How many times have you wondered what that funky-ass smell was coming from the fridge only to open up a Tupperware container and find a brown, fuzzy substance the likes of which you haven't seen since you moved out of your college apartment? And isn't it easier to quickly put the cover back on and quickly throw the whole stinky mess away? Yes, I believe it is.

Even with the price of oil going up, you know darn well that the Tupper-people are making a boatload of money on this stuff. However, if we all join together and pledge to stop using all of the various Tupper-like products out there, the world will be a better place. We'll be swimming in cupboard space, the raccoons and squirrels will be well fed and our stress level from trying to match up square lids with round containers will go down to nothing. Lastly, and perhaps most important, we can stride with confidence into the vet's office holding Fido's stool sample in a Ziploc bag where it belongs.

Hate: The Shenanigans That Goes On Behind the Counter at a Fast-Food Place

You know that saying about getting what you pay for? Couldn't be more true in the world of Big Macs, Whoppers and Chalupas. Sure, the food is tasty what with all the fat and sugar and everything but let's just say that the folks who are serving these delicacies to you aren't exactly this year's finalists on Top Chef. When you are getting hooked up with a burger, fries and a big sippy-cup full of Coke for about five bucks, you gotta expect that something else has to give. OK, maybe a few things have to give - considering that the artwork usually looks like it came out of a Super-8 hotel room that had to be renovated after a hooker was killed in a scuffle over a dime-bag. But we're here today to talk about the tom-foolery that happens behind that magic dividing line called The Counter, not the paintings on the wall.

Since I'm a regular at these fine establishments, I get the chance to watch the crack team of Food Service Professionals quite often. During the normal eating times, the folks usually just do their thing. They take your order, they punch some buttons, they "cook" your stuff and they slide the tray with that paper placemat thing on it towards you full of fatty goodness. No sweat. You pay your $5 and you go on your merry way, one clogged artery closer to death.

However, I've noticed that when you visit for a mid-afternoon snacky or a late-morning pick-me-up and the place isn't quite so busy, those rascals behind The Counter can lose.... focus. For instance, it's during these quieter times that an innocent customer can sometimes listen in on a recap of the weekend's parties that the the teenage crowd attended while their parents were out of town. One minute, Ashley is serving up your combo meal and the next thing you know she is regaling her friends about how many beer bongs she did and how it had never come out of her nose before then. It's like Ashley forgets that people can actually hear and see stuff that goes on behind The Counter. Ashley, I just need my grub. I don't really want to hear about your recent experiences at the Piercing Pagoda!

Even the manager can get a little un-professional when he/she thinks no one is listening. When discussing food, I prefer a tight ship over one with leaks in it. Leaks let in germs that even a big dose of Special Sauce can't kill. I like to see the manager dropping fries in grease, assembling happy meals, and generally making sure that Skippy The High School Kid gets my order to me in a timely manner. What I don't like to see is Sporto The High School Kid Who Is Also The Manager get caught up in the discussion about the Algebra test on Friday. If indeed the manager is an adult (i.e. someone that actually uses the health benefits portion of the McDonald's compensation package), it's not just un-professional for him to be talking about the prom, it's a little creepy. That's why Mondays are bad days to go to these joints - too much reviewing of the weekend's events. I suggest Tuesdays when the full burden of the working world has subdued those poor bastards enough that they have become the French Fry jockeys that I'm looking for.

And how about when one of the high school punks is visited by another high school punk. Punk #2 may or may not be employed by the fast-food place but, either way, unless you actually remove all of your clothes in an effort to get noticed, the punk/friend will get far more attention than you will. Remember, Sporto behind the counter ain't getting paid on commission so he is more than happy to let you stand there, wallet in hand, while he blathers on to his little friend about the algebra exam in third period. And if it's some chick who is distracting Mr. Hormones behind the counter, you are better off raising a calf of your own, slaughtering it, grinding it into hamburger and grilling it on the barbecue that you built yourself, while tending the potatos that will be used for french fries.

Lastly, and this may seem nit-picky, but I don't want to hear laughter coming from behind The Counter. Laughter from someone who is touching my food makes me nervous. Laughter might mean "Ha Ha, I just dropped that good-looking guy's Chalupa on the floor" or "Ha Ha, Have you ever put a Chalupa down your pants?!" or "Ha Ha, Hey look, everyone, I'm wearing a Chalupa for a hat!" I generally like a good joke, but I prefer some decorum when preparing my Value Meal. Eating junk food is serious business and, unless Chris Rock is now flipping burgers, I don't want to hear any funny business coming from the land of stainless steel. Let's everyone just calm down and no one gets hurt.

So if you are one of the zillions of people around the world who get a discount on your McFat Burger because you work at one of those joints and wear a paper hat and/or hairnet, please keep it down behind The Counter. Us poor bastards who have fallen prey to your siren song are living on borrowed time as it is so please don't make our lives any more miserable. While it's true that your life isn't exactly a bed of roses (see hairnet comment above), don't drag me down into McHell with you.

Hate: Feeling Obligated to Talk to People

I don't really like people. I've said before that they are interesting to observe in their natural surroundings, but for the most part, I would really rather not interact with them. Perhaps feed them and hope for a fleeting stroke of their head as they scurry away after eating from my hand. Maybe capture them in a photograph while they are unaware they are being watched (oh wait, that's a misdemeanor), but that's about all I'm really interested in.

For that matter, I prefer quiet to noise. As much as I enjoy some high-quality '80's hair band rock and roll, Eddie Van Halen can wear me out with his guitar playing. So, for me, people + noise = hatred.



This post was prompted by a trip to the car repair place to get our super-duper minivan a little more super and/or duper. The garage at least offers the service of taking you where you need to go while your car is being worked and they even pick you up when it's done. Nice! Not so nice was the old guy who blathered on and on about stupid stuff in his life as he took me into work. He covered about 22 topics in the seven minutes we were in the car together, including but not limited to:

his upcoming rotator cuff surgery
his previous rotator cuff surgery
the pain associated with his rotator cuff surgery
his wife's hip and knee replacements
his sister's 60th high school reunion
his nephew's career at GM
his vacation to Florida

During his prattling, I felt obligated to see "oh", "OK" and "Really?" because I'm such a nice guy. He also didn't have the A/C on and I was getting all clammy in the car. You're here to provide a service, Gramps, just get on with it. I'm more than happy to stare straight ahead while you chauffeur me around. Feel free to NOT talk to me.

And how about those long elevator rides with a total stranger? Those are the worst! You go in, you press your button and you proceed to watch the little numbers light up as you go up the building. Of course, you're not just going from the 3rd floor to the 6th floor. You gotta go all the way up to 52! Do I say something? What would I say? "Hot enough for ya?" "How 'bout them Tigers?" "Have you seen that fat guy in Accounting?" It would take an exploding thing of some kind to get me to make idle chit-chat with the other person (that's assuming it isn't a babe who is totally hot for me). Excruciating! If my little elevator buddy wants to talk to me, I might just hear him/her out, but chances are that he/she will just bug me.

I'm happy to report that I work in a two-story building so the dreaded elevator stand-off doesn't happen too often. Unfortunately, said building has a couple of long hallways and the chances of walking down one of them while someone else is walking toward you are pretty good. Damn that architect! So, let me paint a picture for you: I'm walking down the hall headed to a meeting or some other useless activity and pretty soon here comes another lackey doing the same thing. If I'm lucky, I'll have a piece of paper in my hand that I can (pretend to) be looking at, thus avoiding eye/voice contact with the other lackey. If that's the case, I can just kind of glance up as we are passing and mutter a "hey" and keep moving. If I'm really lucky, I will be on the phone and maybe just do the quick, upward head motion that is universally accepted as acknowledging the other person's existence and that's about it.

However, in the event that I don't have any papers in my hand and there is no real use for the phone, I am forced into a stare-down with the on-coming lackey. Do I stare straight ahead? Do I look at everything EXCEPT the person coming towards me? What if it's a babe? How do I check her out without being too obvious? Invariably, we get about 6 feet apart (the exact distance doesn't matter, both parties will know when it's time) and we both do the muttered "hey", making only the briefest eye contact. Oy, vey! I've had root canals that are less painful!

So, here's the deal. Unless you're a babe who is trying to get me in the sack (What?! It could happen!), please leave me alone. If you must say something to me, please just say that it's OK for me NOT to say anything to you - because I really don't want to, I just feel obligated to.

Hate: Game Shows

I've mentioned that I dig sitting on my caboose watching TV. Unfortunately, along with the good ("Lost", "The Rockford Files") comes the bad (see below). The only redeeming quality about game shows on TV is that they make me feel superior to the dolts who are actually on the show. Sure, I might not be able to actually come up with the capital of Nevada (Carson City) while on the hastily-assembled stage but I can spit it out at home faster than you can say "James Rockford, come on down."

You know that song from the Sound of Music that goes "these are a few of my favorite things"? Yeah, well, the few things below are from the song that goes "these are a few of things that suck."

Deal or No Deal: Are you kidding me? Apparently, the name Greedy or Not Greedy was already taken. Here's the premise: There are a bunch of babes holding nifty-looking brushed aluminum suitcases full of different amounts of money up to a cool $1 million. The contestant picks one of the suitcases for himself and then picks a bunch more in hopes of narrowing down the suitcases to determine how much money is in the one he picked for himself. Along the way, a mysterious banker (seen only in silhouette to heighten the drama!) offers the contestant money to stop the whole process and go home. The now-bald-but-with-a-soul-patch Howie Mandel (of blowing up a rubber glove on top of his head fame) is your friendly host. So, anyway, these dumb-ass contestants are offered lots of money along they way. Way more than they would normally see while working behind the counter at the local Hallmark store. Most of the time, the greed gene kicks in and they turn down these offers in hopes of getting even more cash. And most of the time, they get screwed and end up with, like, $1.79 or something. And it serves those dumb-asses right! My last complaint about this show is that the contestants are not picked randomly. People are hand-picked to play so they can bring their families along to cheer them on (there is lots of good cop/bad cop dynamics going on within the family) and the women are usually babes themselves and the men are usually over-the-top characaters of some kind. And Howie is just bald.

Wheel of Fortune: Are you kidding me - again?! My dad, who is a pretty smart guy, watches this show. He gets the puzzles with about two letters showing. I don't know why he watches other than because that is part of his evening routine. It's not mentally challenging (if you ARE mentally challenged by this show, you are probably mentally challenged by small, shiny objects also), Vanna is over the hill by now and the game/set is just generally long in the tooth. We took one step closer to armageddon when "I'd like to buy a vowel" became part of American pop culture. Damn you, Pat Sajack!

Jeopardy: Could Alex Trebek be a bigger pompous ass?! I think not. Granted, some of these questions are pretty tough. For instance, I personally don't know Napolean's shoe size. But the whole idea of "phrasing your answer in the form of a question" is just another way for Alex to show that he is in charge. In the event that you can actually get those stupid buzzer things to work when you want them to, you better damn well make sure that you don't just blurt out 6 1/2 when the correct answer is clearly "What is 6 1/2?".

Anything on During the Day: Let's name a few of them, shall we? Press Your Luck (the stupid show with the No Whammies thing), Password (I do a great impersonation of the announcer telling the audience the word by covering my mouth a little and saying "The word is 'tapioca'"), Card Sharks (works as a drinking game, too!), any version of Family Feud (though I have to give props to Richard Dawson for making out with all those chicks), Tic Tac Dough (my 6 year-old loves tic-tac-toe. I'm an adult and I think it's stupid but apparently the game show people have more in common with my kid who is in kindergarten than with me) and, lastly, Bumper Stumpers (not real well known despite the mentally stimulating premise of deciphering vanity license plates). Good God, that's a lot of bad TV! I bet at the network Christmas parties, the people who work on daytime game shows sit at the tables right next to the kitchen door....

Hollywood Squares: Again with the tic-tac-toe! This time, let's build some enormous structure and plunk a bunch of C-list celebrities in there to crack stupid jokes while answering stupid questions. Brilliant! The twist is that every stupid joke is punctuated by some double entendre of some kind:

Host: OK, Mr. Contestant, which celebrity would you like to choose?

Contestant: Larry Manetti, who played Rick on Magnum, P.I., please.

Host: Larry, for an X and the win, what's in a Sex on the Beach?

Larry: I don't know but I usually end up with lots of sand in my bathing suit!

Host: That's a good one, Larry!

There have been about 15 different hosts over the years, including the eyebrow-less Whoopi Goldberg but it's still the same dumb tic-tac-toe game.

Anything with Couples: The Newlywed Game, The Love Connection, The Dating Game and don't even get me started on The Bachelor. I'm going to start a new show called The Divorce Game made up entirely of people who have been on these shows.

Dude, I could go on and on. The cheesy hosts of these cheesy shows could be their own category of hatred for me. Wink Martindale? Gene Rayburn? Bob Eubanks? Chuck Woolery? Please! You know there are enough white belts between these guys to stretch from here to the moon. How many bottles of Old Spice do you think these guys have slathered on themselves over the years? I can just see these guys at the bar at the Holiday Inn after taping a few shows talking to an unsuspecting chick: "Hi, I'm Wink Martindale, why don't you come by my dressing room after the show and check out some of the fabulous cash and prizes in my pants!"

And now there is a Game Show Network. And so I must kill myself. It's been nice working with you. Remember to help control the pet population - have your pet spayed or neutered.

Hate: Actors Who Take Themselves Too Seriously

I dig movies. I dig TV. Probably TV more than movie, actually. What I don't dig, though, is the actors who think that what they are doing is important. I also hate that female people who act are suddenly called "actors" and not "actresses" anymore, but that's a different discussion. Just like overpaid professional athletes who complain about ANYTHING (you're not allowed to complain about anything in the entire universe if you make as much money as some of those bastards), I don't have much patience for actors or actresses who think that what they do is anything more than, you know, acting.

All interviews with actors are the same, no matter who the interviewer is or who the interviewee is:

Interviewer: Tell me about your latest project.
Interviewee: Well, it's a period piece about a woman struggling against the rules that society has placed on her. It takes place in 1843 in a farming town that is run by a ruthless landlord.
I'er: I see. What did you do to prepare for the role?
I'ee: I really wanted to connect with the character so I spent a week living on a ranch. I even wore long skirts and a bonnet to milk the cows. The challenges that those women faced are overwhelming!
I'er: Wow! You really lived it! That must have been difficult.
I'ee: Yes, I had to be up everyday at 6am to milk the cows and slop the pigs. Then I worked in the fields until 3:30. At the end of the day, I made dinner for the ranch hands right alongside the rancher's wife.
I'er: That's real dedication.
I'ee: Well, I wanted to connect with the character -
I'er: Yeah, you mentioned that.

I have one word for you: blah, blah, blah! Who cares?!! I know there is an entire second industry surrounding the entertainment industry consisting of Entertainment Weekly, Entertainment Tonight and various other things with "entertainment" in their titles - and that just blows me away. You go ahead and make your movie. I'll plunk down my cash to see it (or not) and then you go make another movie. See how simple that is? Don't talk to me about connecting with anything and if you bitch about how hard it was for you to slop the pigs at 6am, you can just shut right the hell up.

See, here's the deal. Making most movies doesn't save the world. Yes, "Schindler's List" woke up a lot of people to the whole holocaust thing. And "Hotel Rwanda" isn't exactly about promoting tourism in that country. So those movies do have a positive affect on our consciences. But, even though I totally dig "The 40-year-old Virgin", it's not going to cure cancer.

So, below is how an interview should go for "Schindler's List:
Interviewer: Dude, that's hardcore.
Interviewee: Yeah, I know. That holocaust stuff is nasty. Nazis suck.

See? The movie says it all. You don't need no dumb-ass director or actor or actress telling you anything more about it. Perhaps if the movie sucks, the aforementioned director/actor/actress feels compelled to over-sell it. How many interviews were done for "Gigli"? Could have been a good indicator, don't you think?!

OK, so now let's see what an interview for "40-Year-Old Virgin" would go like:
Interviewer: Dude, that's hilarious!
Interviewee: Thanks, man. Glad you dug it! My life is pretty shiny right now and I owe it all to a stupid movie. I'm a pretty funny guy so this whole thing came pretty easy to me. A couple of times I had to get up at 9:30 but I called in sick the next day! Can't talk now - I'm meeting my agent at the Benz dealer - he has a red 2-seater all picked out for me.

The difference here is that the interviewee knows that his life is good and he's not afraid to chalk it up to making a damn funny movie. He ain't connecting with nothin'! Except maybe the cute teller at the bank where he shamelessly deposits his big fat paycheck. And he's smart enough to know not to bitch about getting his chest hair waxed because no one gives a rat's ass.

Lastly, I must harp on a particular phrase that the "bad" (read: one who takes himself too seriously) actors use. That phrase is "honing my craft". If I hear some dumb-ass actor talk about honing his craft one more time, I'm going to hone my craft right in his face! Your craft?! Are you making ashtrays out of clay now? Doing a little macrame`? Those are crafts. What you are doing is reading some lines and pretending to be someone else. Shoot, sometimes when I go to the bar and take my wedding ring off, I'm pretending to be someone else! Some people call that being a two-timing cheating bastard but, from now on, I'm going to call it honing my craft! I'm sure the wife will understand.

So, people of Hollywood, please just shut up and make your movies and TV shows. Don't blather on about getting into character and how hard it was to be a ditchdigger for 2 weeks during shooting because there are plenty of people out there who dig ditches 52 weeks a year and they don't go home to a big-ass house and a trophy wife and they sure don't pull down the cash that you do. And if you feel the need to hone your craft, you just do that in the privacy of a rest area bathroom!

Hate: Real World and Road Rules Whores

I mostly dig reality TV. I like the concept of watching people interact without scripts to see their true nature come out. After enough time, you just gotta be who you are. (Isn't that right, Mel Gibson and Michael Richards?) The same goes for me. While I don't think I would yell out the n-word on stage, all of the other corporate suck-asses that I work with might learn some unsavory things about me outside of Corporate-Suck-Ass-Ville. Fortunately, I've conditioned my wife to tell everyone that the bruises came from her accidentally falling down the stairs so at least THAT won't come up but most of my little co-workers would like a little sideways at me if they knew what a big Howard Stern fan I am.

So while I dig the concept, I hate a lot of the people involved with reality TV. I have to interject here, though, that Gary Hogeboom of Survivor (not NFL, in this case) fame, lives in my hometown. My wife taught his kids in school. I've met him quite a few times and I say hello to him at the grocery store and while walking the dog in the park. So I don't hate Gary. Now, one could make the argument that if I knew the rest of the people involved in reality TV as individuals like I know Gary, I wouldn't hate them either. However, anyone making that argument is an idiot and I would no doubt hate those people too.

So I'm here to tell you that the dopes on MTV's Real World and the various related spin-offs bug the tarnation out of me. I only know a few of them by name (again, I prefer to blindly lump people together) but the one name I do know is Beth Something-Or-Other. (After doing some research on MTV.com, it turns out her last name is Stolarczyk). Beth was on the Real World in Los Angeles in 1993. She was the annoying blonde chick - or doesn't that narrow it down for you? People, we're talking 1993 here! If I could type 1993 in capital numbers, I would. If my cypherin' is correct, that means she first "burst" onto the scene 13 years ago and she is still hanging around on MTV as she is on the most recent version of Real World vs. Road Rules. She is ALWAYS on frickin' Real World vs. Road Rules.

According to Beth's blurb on the website, she is a graduate of Ohio State. Let's stop right there for a minute. As any University of Michigan grad can tell you, Ohio State sucks. That's just a given. My other issue is that while Beth's degree is in film, TV and radio production (who knew that OSU had such a thing!), I don't see her doing much producin'. I do see her on MTV calling other chicks bitches a lot. And on any given episode of Real World Road Rules Challenge, she will no doubt cry over being called a bitch herself but that had to have been taught in a 100 level course at best. I don't think she is producing much more than a bad reputation for herself!

I don't know the finances of being an MTV whore. It must be a good-paying gig for Beth and her little friends to hang around and keep doing these friggin' shows. I'm going to make a bold statement here and suggest that perhaps Beth and her whore-friends are able to eke out a little more dough doing this crap than what her OSU sheepskin might provide. I'm also going to suggest that perhaps a little more fame (infamy?) comes along with calling a girl a slut and pushing her into a swimming pool on film than would come from producing a TV commercial for Gynelotrimen medicated cream. Could it be that Beth et. al. are seizing this opportunity to stretch their 15 minutes into 16 or even 17 minutes? The real irony here is that these dumb-asses were on a show called the Real World and yet they continue to avoid said real world by being on stupid TV shows! Good God, people, I implore you to never watch MTV again!

Now then. Perhaps you've sensed some bitterness. You may have even mis-interpreted that bitterness as jealousy. No doubt Beth would call me a bitch and say that I just wish I was her. That's just not true - because if I really was her, I would have hired a rat to gnaw off that mole on my face a long time ago. Part of my problem with this whole deal is that I'm probably not part of the intended demographic for this show: I'm 39, have a normal name (not Puck or Trishelle), prefer Aerosmith to Kanye West and I generally don't get into fights no matter how much alcohol is involved. I'm sure the intended demographic is dumb-ass half-drunk college students - but they probably refer to Beth as the old chick. You know, the one with the mole. Don't get me wrong, I don't have anything against dumb-ass half-drunk college students because that's what college is for.

Of course, MTV is really at fault here. If people didn't continue to watch this drivel, they wouldn't continue to make it. They are no doubt throwing a few bucks at Beth to play "Beth" on TV and she is more than happy to throw away mom and dad's OSU tuition money to follow her dream of becoming a media whore. And I'll be gosh-darned if she isn't well on her way. I've already set my TiVo for the Road Rules Real World 2028 to see how many hairs are growing out of The Mole on Beth's face. The over/under is 13.

Hate: Hypocritical Jesus Freaks

I could certainly have made this entry a general hatred of hypocrites. It bugs the tar out of me when people say one thing and do another, although I probably wouldn't be opposed to a hypocritical racist now that I think about it. I'm also not a big fan of politics and general ass-kissing and most of the folks involved in both activities are hypocrites in my opinion. They'd just as soon stab you in the ass as kiss it.

So my hang-up with Jesus Freaks (or Bible Thumpers, if you prefer) is that it's pretty easy to be a hypocrite when you're holding yourself up so high (and/or mighty). In western Michigan where I live, there are boatloads of Jesus Freaks. I got no problem with that. If you dig your savior or god, you go right ahead and dig him/her. I don't care if it's the same one that I dig - you're entitled - thanks to that good old US constitution which covers the bases pretty well. I think both John Lennon and Rodney King had it right and I generally have a live-and-let-live approach to life. Like I said in my People Watching post, I dig watching people in their natural habitat and I generally find people highly interesting albeit irritating.

So, because of the copious amounts of Jesus Freaks in little old Grand Haven, MI, there are just that many more hypocrites. Again, it all comes back to holding yourself to a standard that really only one guy could maintain. He is my savior of choice and I dig the stuff he did - especially that whole nailed to the cross thing. That's hardcore. So lots of other people dig JC too and they try to follow his lead on being a good citizen. Cool. Good. Go for it. But, before you go spouting off about what he did and what you do, you better be squeaky clean, my brother.

Here's an example for you: I used to work with a guy who was a big fan the Son of God and did the whole bible study thing at lunch and the WWJD bracelets and the whole bit. He could rattle off bible passages like I do with lines from Fast Times at Ridgemont High. The problem with this dude is that anytime we went on some company sponsored event he was all about taking advantage of expense reports. He packed a PB&J sandwich that his dutiful wife made at home when we were at the office but when we had to go somewhere he would start off with a salad and soup, then move into a big steak for the entree, followed by dessert and a drink or two. What would Jesus do? I don't know, but I don't think he would screw the company out of $50 for lunch! Believe me, I'm not hung up on letting the company hook you up every once in a while but that's ME! I'm not the one trying to come off as a super-duper virtuous citizen here. I am what I am and sometimes that ain't too pretty. I'm SUPPOSED to hose the company, he isn't!

So this is not a rant on religion. I'd prefer that you didn't blow up me or any of my friends and family with a roadside bomb in the name of religion but if that's what you believe, that's what you believe. Not my style, but whatever. Something tells me that I'm not going to change your mind, even though we Christians are supposed to do some of that. For that matter, I dare say that any Christian who is intolerant of fill-in-the-blank is a hypocrite. (Being intolerant of stupid people doesn't count.) This IS a rant on making sure you are really as upstanding as you say you are.

Sorry for such a heavy topic today, gentle reader. It was prompted by somebody that is normally reciting chapters and verses but one day this week was cussing and swearing like Artie Lange on a roll with Crazy Alice. I'm no religious scholar (not really a scholar of any kind, actually) so I'm not going to get into a religious/philosophy discussion here. I'll just offer a little bit of free advice: JC had some pretty big sandals to fill so you'd better be up to the challenge, especially that deal about casting stones.

To the untrained eye, it would appear as though I, too, am throwing stones. Well, you're right, and I'm getting ready to chuck a big rock right at your melon, you darn hypocritical Jesus Freak!

Hate: Public Bathrooms

UPDATE! UPDATE! UPDATE!

So I'm dinking around on Youtube a few days after I wrote this post and I see the video on the other end of this link. Unbelievable! Apparently, someone out there is just as twisted as I am but I feel completely vindicated in my feelings about public bathrooms!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IzO1mCAVyMw

So I'm in O'hare airport and I get a certain rumbling down below that lets me know that there's no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks that I'm going to be able to make it until I fly to Boston, secure my luggage, secure a rental car, drive to my hotel and settle in to the privacy of my own little sanctuary to do my business. It must be done. I must actually drop a deuce in a public bathroom. Oh, I've done it before, mind you. But my therapist says it's done irreparable harm that, despite an enormous boat payment that I could help cover with weekly appointments, is simply untreatable. I won't bore you with the details of the transaction in the loo but it was highlighted by an overflow next to me. Oh, the humanity!

My biggest beef with public bathrooms is that they aren't my own. At home, I rarely pee on the wall and flushing is not just a courtesy, it's a given. I also have a nice selection of magazines to read that I might not otherwise have time to review. Soap for the hands afterwards? Of course! Would you prefer to smell like lilacs or roses? Two-ply and plenty of it. It is an unhurried event as long as the kids aren't causing each other to bleed and, I dare say, quite relaxing.

Not so in the world of I'll-just-rest-my-cigarette-on-the-edge-of-the-urinal-while-I-pee. If it's "go" time, man, I hold the world record. Get in, release, wash up and get the heck out! I'm not really a fan of people in general, and I really don't like people in the same Porcelain Prison while I'm doing my thing! No time for the May 1983 issue of Popular Mechanics, thank you very little, I've got business to take care of. And, apparently, half of the Western Hemisphere has taken care of their business right where I'm standing.

Bathroom-ing is not something to be shared with someone else. As much as I don't get the whole deal with women going to the bathroom in pairs, it's just not cool for guys to do it at all. Conversations are not meant to be held in such environs. Talking with someone is best done eye-to-eye not eye-to-urinal-handle-dripping-with-condensation. And yet, I really don't want to look you in the eye and chat while I'm taking a leak so it's best that no talking occurs. If there is a burning topic of conversation (i.e. something related to free stuff or beer or chicks or something) the only legal place for that discussion is while washing one's hands and/or yelling over the hand dryer. Otherwise, keep your eyes straight ahead and we'll all be OK. Also, please do not call me on your cell phone while you are in there. If I hear an echo or grunting or what sounds like a babbling brook, I'm hanging up on you.

I'll admit that there are two exceptions to my hatred for public bathrooms. The first is grafitti. I dig grafitti and there's no better place to read a humorous debate over someone's ex-girlfriend's special skills than a men's room stall. What else are you going to do in there? There's no Us Weekly so you may as well write a poem that has the word "Nantucket" in it.

The other exception, surprisingly, is the port-a-potty. I know you are probably thinking that, if I can't stand a somewhat civilized bathroom in Ohare airport, how could I possibly dig a port-a-potty? The key here is the privacy. Is there anything more cocoon-like than a port-a-potty? Slide the little plastic handle in place so the poor leg-crossing bastards outside know that you're in there and the world is your oyster! No chance of an overlfow here - just drop it in! Want to use the entire roll of TP? Go right ahead - nothing to clog up here! Assuming no one tips it over while you're indisposed, you're good to go and you can let your troubles just fall away! When you're done, you can slide the little lever thing back with confidence and stride outside with nary a care in the world. You're probably also thinking that the facility in the actual airplane is quite cocoon-like also so why couldn't I just use that one? Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of my butt, too.

So there you have it. You can invite me over to your house any time because there ain't no way I'm going to cross the threshold into your water closet and cause undue gross-ness (whether solid, liquid or gas). Public bathrooms are also what's keeping me out of prison and the armed forces. I would have knocked over countless liquor stores by now if I could have had my own facility with a lock in my cell. Now that I think about it, though, my general fear of being shot PLUS the whole shared bathroom thing is what's keeping me from signing up to join the army. You know how we all can sleep better because certain people are on duty in the military? Well, you can sleep better knowing that I'm NOT on duty....

Also, on a related note, it's best not to come to my house at about 6:15pm as I might be unavialable for a few minutes...

Hate: Losing Stuff

While it's true that I dig the show Lost, I hate losing stuff. I used to have a pretty good memory and I could remember where I would put my crap. However, as I've gotten older and have much more clutter in my life, I'm finding that I can hardly remember if I've taken off my underwear prior to hopping in the shower (true example from my 5 year-old. Hilarious!). It's just about a daily occurrence that I wander out to the parking lot at lunchtime to enjoy my favorite fast food value meal and I can't find my car that I parked approximately 5 hours earlier. How could I possibly forget where I parked my car? It's like the size of a ... car!

Speaking of cars, if I can lose the entire car, imagine how often I lose the dinky little keys. I usually carry my cell phone in my pocket along with my car keys but some days I get a little bitter about feeling like Carl the janitor from The Breakfast Club and throw all that junk on my desk or kitchen counter or some place. And then hilarity ensues as I search high and low for them. Before you suggest calling the phone ("Just call the phone, dumbass!"), I always have it on vibrate so as not to intrude upon the quiet of others around me - because I'm polite and not an asshole. I guess that's why God created two sets of keys with every car. He needs to work on creating duplicate cell phones though.

And don't even get me started on finding the clicker. If it meant that the clicker would magically appear in my grubby little mitts by hopping on one foot and singing a Clay Aiken song all while shaving my ear hair, I would gladly sing whatever that little leprechaun has on his greatest hits album. And before you suggest that I actually walk up to the TV and manually (he said, with disgust) change the channels, I suggest that you watch your tongue before I wash it out with soap! If God had wanted me to change the channel myself, why would He have invented clickers?! My legs are for running marathons (for which I've now registered) and my index finger is picking my nose so you just back off, Mister Man!

My most recent lost item is part of my bike rack. You see, last fall I used one of the straps to attach a faux shark fin to the roof of my car for the journey to Chicago to see Jimmy Buffet at Wrigley Field. I was the envy of all the saps on the road that day as they admired my nifty homemade shark fin with "Buffet or Bust" written on it. Unfortunately, I used one of the straps from my bike rack to secure said fin and now I can't seem to find the strap. So instead of putting my bike on the rack outside the car, I had to fold down the seats, remove the wheel, remove the seat and generally piss around with the whole scene instead of quickly loading up. Sure, I can call the nice people at Yakima and get a replacement strap but that friggin' thing is in my friggin' house some friggin' place and I am friggin' determined to friggin' find it! Like, how many places could it be? My little hovel isn't that big so why is it hiding from me? Damn strap!

For you golfers out there, I won't get into the whole deal about losing golf balls. If we're going to talk about golf, I'd rather talk about Tiger Woods' wife's boobs or Phil Mickelson's.

One thing I've learned about losing crap is the fastest way to find it is to give up looking for it. But you have to trick it into thinking that you don't care anymore and then it will show itself. Totally true of golf balls. Your first ball off the tee could have gone into the deepest talc mine (see, the ball would blend into the talc because it's white) coming to rest within inches of the molten core of the earth but if you just mention the word "mulligan", the ball will miraculously show up in the middle of the fairway. No way does that first ball want to get trumped by a mulligan! You could have had every intention of putting on your heat-resistant suit and rappelling down that mine shaft to retrieve your Top-Flite X-Out but don't let the ball catch on or it won't show up in the fairway. My next step with my missing bike rack strap is to break out the Yakima catalog and start dialing the toll-free number to order a replacement. I'm anticipating that the missing strap will magically appear in the microwave or some other completely random place.

Let's review:
Lost is a way cool TV show
Losing stuff sucks (it also sucks when people spell "losing" with two o's)
Stuff shows up if give up looking for it
Phil Mickelson has man-boobs
You lost another 5 minutes by reading my drivel about losing stuff. You should be peeved.

Hate: Stupid Commercials on TV

This may be another Beavis and Butthead type of post where the overriding theme is "I don't like stuff that sucks" but I feel it necessary to share with you my feelings on commercials that are so poorly made it makes me want to buy their competitors' products in an effort to drive them out of business. (That was a long sentence but I'm here to tell you that it was worth every electron.) My poor brain can hardly handle the daily tasks that my little life demands, but when I'm inundated with stupidity, a little bit of gray matter turns black and falls off. Next thing you know, I'll have things that look like little mouse turds falling out my ear every time I shake my head. And that's rarely good.

I should probably be thankful for commercials, shouldn't I? If I didn't mind limiting my TV viewing to just a few local channels with a considerable amount of "snow", I could be enjoying free TV, right? I couldn't watch "I love the '80's" but I could still catch some "Dancing with the Stars". And, for that matter, "Lost" is by far the best show on TV right now even though you can't argue with a good episode of "What Not to Wear". So I need commercials to pay for that free TV. Instead of paying a gob of money each month to the cable company, I would "pay" in the form of commercials. Seems like a fair trade, I guess. What's my deal, then? I'll tell you what my deal is. My deal is when those commercials are so friggin' stupid that my brain turns into mouse turds!

Let me tell you what I'm looking for in a commercial. If you're trying to sell me something just bring in some guy who isn't duded up to look like an expert. That whole "I'm not a doctor but I play one on TV" thing doesn't do much for me. Put a guy in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt and if I feel like he is honest when he is telling me that his product works really well or is better than the competitors', then I'm good to go and I'll buy his stuff the next time I'm in the market. Here's a possible script for the guy in jeans and a sweatshirt. The setting is an empty stage with a gray background (like you used to have in elementary school pictures, except hopefully the guy has a better haircut than I did when I was in third grade):

Guy in Jeans and Sweatshirt: Yesterday, I had a really bad headache and I took some Tylenol and my headache went away. I don't know about you, but it worked better than Advil for me. If you have a headache, you should go out and buy some Tylenol.

See how simple that is? Nobody posing as a doctor with the whole lab coat thing. No goofy pictures or graphics showing a time-release capsule blah, blah, blah. Just some guy who is digging his headache-free life. I don't need a backstory. Don't show me pictures of Junior rubbing his temples because his boss is yelling at him and his wife is bitching about the kids. The reason that this is more effective than any current headache commercials is because I don't feel like he is feeding me a bunch of hooey. This technique works for toilet bowl cleaners, cars, paperclips and refrigerators too. Less is more, people, and the less any salesperson talks, the better.

So that's easy. It's a little bit more difficult to create a commercial that is entertaining in some way. Headaches and Tylenol aren't exactly knee-slappers so you need a hook. You could either go the subtle route with some real Seinfeld-esque dry humor or go over the top with some Office Linebacker kind of stuff. Either way, though, you'd better make it good or I'll run from your dumb-ass product like I'm covered in gummi bears and being chased by a bunch of fat kids.

So instead of wearing jeans and a sweatshirt, have a guy wearing a two-sizes-too-small Superman outfit with a couple of holes in it, big fly-eye goggles and the actor has a big zit on his nose. He could even be holding a bowling ball in one of those cheesy vinyl carrying bags. The script can be the same, though. The temptation would be to have him say something about how fighting crime and life as a superhero really gives him a headache. That would be easy, but no funnier than him just standing there. Instead, just let him say the same thing as if he looks as normal as the jeans guy. Much funnier, and the next day around the water cooler people would be asking what the deal was with that acne-riddled superhero guy and the Tylenol. Also, for what it's worth, that goddamn Energizer bunny has driven me to buy Duracell batteries. Yep, I do know that that stuffed bunny is associated with Energizer - it just makes it easier for me to know which batteries NOT to buy.

Commercials have become so prevalent in our lives that we now have TV shows about commercials and let's not forget the hullabaloo around the commercials that played during the Super Bowl. I'm sure that whoever invented the commercial is wringing his hands somewhere talking about his master plan to shows those bastards at the network that his commercial for Tucks pads is better than this week's episode of Joey. He is well on his way to rule the world via toilet bowl cleaner commercials but I refuse to fall victim to his diabolical plan.

But I digress (which probably is no surprise to you).

My little walnut understands that television commercials do have a place in the universe. I'm just saying let's all try to make this li'l ole universe a better place by making those commercials more direct and with a little bit of entertainment value. Either get to the point and tell me that your product actually works or make me laugh and we're all set.

And if you can't do that, you can just use a babe in a bikini. I'll buy whatever the hell she is selling. In fact, put me down for a case.

Hate: Chafing

This topic actually came to me as I was adjusting the collar on my recently dry-cleaned shirt. I always tell them "No Starch" but my neck was all hosed up from rubbing against my crispy shirt all day long. Even though it was my neck that was chafed it was a real pain in the ass! My life is full of enough crap to worry about and I have to add neck-chafe to the list? Thanks a lot - like I have time for that! Maybe next time I'll be lucky enough to have a pebble in my shoe or a popcorn kernel stuck between my teeth that I can't seem to dig out with my tongue despite hours of trying.

Despite my neck issues, it's also no coincidence that a post about chafing appears right after a post about running. The two go hand-in-hand (foot-in-foot?). Part of the price of running a bunch of miles to maintain my Greek god-like physique is that oh-so irritating burning sensation created by skin rubbing on skin. Or skin rubbing on cloth. Or skin rubbing on plastic. Or just general rubbing of skin. Skin is pretty soft stuff, right? You would think that it wouldn't be a big deal. But, just like smoking crack, rubbing on skin should be done in moderation. When it's not, it leads to chafing which leads to Vaseline and from there everything just goes into a downward spiral.

Often, skin to skin contact is quite a pleasant experience but that usually involves my own skin and someone else's. When it's my left inner thigh rubbing against my right inner thigh for a couple of hours straight, it's not nearly as nice as when one of my inner thighs is rubbing against someone else's (preferably female) inner thigh. And believe me, I'm fully prepared to test this theory by timing thigh contact for a couple of hours with a willing volunteer who meets the criteria as determined by me. I'd use one of those clocks that are controlled by a satellite in outer space to make it official and everything so that no one would accuse me of rubbing inner thighs for more than two hours.

But back to my pink, tender, slightly swollen inner thighs. Man, that hurts like hell! You have to walk all bowlegged so as not to worsen the condition and the only thing that makes it worse is..... a shower! The very thing that you want right after a long run only makes the chafing more painful. The shower feels terrific only for as long as it takes for the water to run down my chest, past my unit and to chafe-land. Man, that hurts like double hell!
Me after a long run: "My inner thighs are chafed and it hurts like hell!"
Me, again: "I sure could use a shower so as not to stink up the joint."
More of Me: "Dude, that hot water on my sensitive inner thighs hurts like double hell!
Me: "When will I learn?!"
Me, still: "Who are you talking to?"

Speaking of Vaseline, often it is offered to runners during a long race. I first experienced this a few years ago as I came up to a water station and there was a race volunteer standing there wearing rubber gloves holding a big dollop of Vaseline. I kid you not! It took me a second to realize that this kind person was offering me some chafe-be-gone. Talk about drawing the short straw! You know that guy was the butt off all the jokes from his little race volunteer friends!

Race Guy: "OK, everyone, let's draw straws to see who is going to dole out the Vaseline"
Volunteer #1(drawing straw): "I hope it's not me. I hope it's not me. I hope it's not me."
Volunteer #2 (after drawing straw): "Blast! I have to be Mr. Vaseline Man! I'll show them. I'm only going to offer my petroleum jelly to the cute girls. All the rest of those stupid-ass runners will have to suffer through their chafing!"
Volunteer #1 to Volunteer #2 (in a mocking tone): "Hey, Mr. Vaseline Man, would you lube me up?!"
Volunteer #3 to Volunteer #2: (also in a mocking tone): Hey, Mr. Vaseline Man, I hear Star Jones is running in this race. Maybe you'll get lucky!"
Newscaster: "Authorities today discovered two bodies hidden in the woods near last week's race course. Oddly, they were covered in Vaseline. Police are looking for a man described as 'really pissed off and holding a short straw'."

The jury is still out on whether chafed nipples are worse than chafed inner thighs, but I'm here to tell you that it doesn't hurt any less. Us runner-types can have this problem during long runs. I'm not going to get into the whole mechanics of why a nipple might be sticking out far enough to be chafed by a t-shirt but it happens. Even on warm days. There are band-aids out there that are designed/shaped specifically for the purpose of keeping your shirt from chafing your nipple. I have to believe that this is a niche market and one would think that your basic round band-aid would serve the same purpose but somebody felt the need to re-package a standard band-aid, mark it up a couple hundred percent and sell it in running stores. As embarrassing as it might be to wear these things, allow me to paint a picture for you: It's 45 degrees and raining. Nipple-chafing set in 30 minutes into a two hour race with sufficient irritation to cause just the slightest amount of bleeding. Now picture a guy whose nipples have been bleeding through his rain-soaked white t-shirt for 90 minutes. Sorry to do that to you, but nipple-chafing is serious business! Let me clean your mental palate by mentioning Baywatch (but don't think of David Hasselhoff) or the words "Amateur Night". Better?

So what to do about neck/thigh/nipple chafing? If you're not into Vaseline, there's a product out there called Body Glide. It looks like deodorant but it helps to keep various parts of your body gliding smoothly. Works pretty darn well, too. And weird as it may feel, invest in the nipple-aids. Nobody has to know. But I'm here to tell you that I will wear band-aids on my nipples before I wear a dicky to address my neck chafing!

Hate: Bad Service

Perhaps you've been able to tell by now, but I'm an impatient sort. I don't want you in my way at the grocery store and it bugs me when my wife digs around in her purse/steamer trunk for the car keys. I don't have enough time in the day to do all the things that I want, so waiting for other people isn't something that I enjoy. I've become especially impatient and intolerant of bad service because, in the end, it means that you are just sucking more time right out of my watch and that just takes away from being able to do the important stuff in my life like, you know, sitting around.

This topic was prompted by a trip to the mall with my lovely bride last weekend. I know what you are thinking. Yes, I went to the mall a week before Christmas. Yes, I should have been more patient and tolerant in light of the whole Jesus thing. Yes, I should have known that everyone in the entire world would be at the very same mall bothering me. Anyway, I experienced some pretty crappy service and I just had to share my feelings with you . Can't a brother just expect the lackies earning their $6.50 per hour (plus a 10% discount from the store!) to do their jobs?!

We were looking for a gift for her dad. Some kind of goofy things that you strap on your shoes to prevent you from slipping while you walk. We could debate whether this gift was going to be any good or not (Amy has the very same thing and has yet to use them but she wants to get a pair for her dad?) but that would take time away from talking about the Employee of the Month at Dick's Sporting Goods.

So we're kind of wandering around looking for these things. We have that look about us that just screams "I hate everyone here and if you could just point me in the right direction, I'll be happy to spend my greenbacks on your overpriced crap so I can then stand in line with the rest of the sheep". Finally, I make eye contact with Skippy and ask him if they carry these stupid things. I knew I was in trouble when he kind of scrunched up his face like he had bitten into a bug and repeated what I asked him. I could hear the little gears turning in his little melon and then grind to a halt as if someone had poured a bucket of sand in there. With great confidence, he announced that, despite the enormous catalog of inventory that Dick's carries, they do not have such an item. While unfortunate that I would have to traipse off to another store, it was even more unfortunate that I saw an entire rack of these goofy things not 50 feet from where Junior had just told me that they weren't! (If that didn't make sense, it means that Dick's really does carry these things and the high school punk had no clue but lulled me into a false sense of security by speaking "confidently".) So off I went to buy the boot traction things and Sporto no doubt went off spreading more bad information. I know that I shouldn't expect much from a chump making $6.50 an hour but come on! If that's what you signed up for, at least do your friggin' job! Maybe Dick's is a little overwhelming for him. Perhaps a place like Hot Topic would be more his speed where the junior high girls aren't as demanding as impatient bastards like me .

Here's another example - and much shorter! I was at Starbuck's (imagine that!) in Meijer's the other day. As we all know, my VentiNonfatNoWhipMocha costs $3.76. Because I didn't want to get a whole bunch of change back, I gave the chick a fiver and a penny. The problem was that I gave her the penny AFTER she had already rung up my mocha goodness. Good God, you'd think I asked her to perform some sort of calculus right on the spot! See, normally her nifty little cash register would have told her to give me $1.24 but now I had given her the extra penny and she froze up like she had stepped on a rusty nail when she was a little kid and the lockjaw had just now set in. She kind of made that bug-biting face and let me know that she "isn't very good in math" and looked pleadingly at me to take back my penny. Standing my ground, I gave her the penny and let her know that the change should be a buck and a quarter. "Not very good at math", she said. She should have said "I'm pretty stupid and I can't think for myself so please don't mess me up by giving me money after the cash register tells me what to do." Again, this transaction took valuable seconds away from watching another video of a guy getting hit in the nuts by the fat kid on his little league team and who wants to miss that?

OK, last example. Most of my monthly bills are automatically deducted from my vast fortune every month insteading of mailing them in. One of those bills is from the evil cable company. Don't get me started on these guys but one month they screwed up and didn't get their grubby mitts on my money. So what do you think they did? They took twice the usual amount the next month. So I got on the horn to the idiots at Charter Communications and asked them what the deal was. It seems that they had a software upgrade that went awry and they weren't able to take their money in the first month so they just helped themselves to my loot in the second month. Huh? What? Does that seem fair to you? You snooze, you lose, man! Let me just say here that you don't want to screw me in the money department. I don't have that much in the first place so I get pretty protective of it. I proceeded to chew on the ear of the Charter person until I thought I was going to have a grabber - all for about $100 that they were entitled to in the first place. Yes, I fully acknowledge that it was no big deal for them to delay their debit a month and the mortgage company wasn't going to change the locks on my house, but that's not the point. The point is that all this crap is done electronically and there is no reason why my little life should be affected by your electrons going haywire. If you have a software "upgrade" (now they can play solitaire and minesweeper online!) have a backup plan, you dolts! People do this stuff all the time. That's what IT nerds are for.

For those of you who think I'm just a whining pain in the ass, allow myself to explain.... myself. This country is becoming more and more service orientated (love that "word" almost as much as irregardless!) and yet I get crappy service! What's up with that? I work in the automotive industry so I see plenty of manufacturing jobs moving to our amigos in Mexico and our (whatever the Chinese word is for "friends") in China. This is done usually because the labor is cheaper and, if those folks can make the same widget with the same quality, then more power to the capitalists who want to reduce their costs. If the punk at Dick's was smart (of course, by definition, he isn't) he would strive to be the best darn flunkie he could be or we might ship his service sector job over to India like Microsoft has done.

Please stop before you try to explain global economics to me. I don't care about the globe. I'm mostly interested in me. Please improve your math skills. Please improve your knowledge of the company for which you work. Please program your software so that it does what it's supposed to do. And, for the love of Pete, quit sucking the time out of my watch!

Hate: Women's Purses

Ladies, I apologize if you don't carry around a purse the size of Montana stuffed with lots of crap like my mom and wife do. Also, if you have just a couple of purses, then this post isn't for you. I haven't had a lot of experience with different women's purses so I'm basing my hate on a sample size of two. Because I like to make broad, sweeping generalizations, however, I'm going to include all females over the age of 16 in this discussion. If you feel like you are being wrongly accused, feel free to go watch a movie on Lifetime or watch Dr. Phil or admire your Longaburger basket collection while I vent.

Being the good husband that I am, I was cleaning out our front closet recently. In addition to the various hats, mittens, jackets, shoes and backpacks stuffed in there, I found TWELVE purses. One short of a baker's dozen! Innocently enough, I suggested to my wife that she had too many purses. She looked at me, blinked a couple of times and then walked away. Having a lot of purses must make you deaf because she obviously didn't hear me. Either that, or she finds nothing wrong with having that many purses and did everything but say "I find nothing wrong with having that many purses. Shut up. Go make yourself useful by taking out the garbage."

So we have the issue of just the sheer number of purses. We also have the issue of their size. Certainly, the size of the purse is related to the amount of crap that is stuffed into said purse. We'll address that next but I'm going to write to my congressman (if I knew who it was) suggesting a tax on any purse larger than twice the size of a man's wallet. I think I'm being generous here. There really is no reason for chicks to carry anything bigger than my leather tri-fold but I didn't want to appear insensitive. (Just between you and me, though, I AM insensitive but I don't want to APPEAR insensitive. Big difference.) Similar to the "sin" taxes on cars that get crappy gas mileage, I'm proposing that a purse that is deemed too large will carry a $100 tax that will be used to build more golf courses. Girls, if you would like to carry around a big-ass purse, that's fine. The consolation for me is that every time you do, I'll be that much closer to enjoying a little pasture pool with my buddies. It's a win-win! Some people might suggest that the money be used to fund something stupid like schools or roads or blind people or hurricane victims. I'm going to take a strong stance on this one, though. Just don't tell the blind people or the people living in squalor in Louisiana. Or is "living in squalor" and "Louisiana" redundant?

The thing that I hate most is the amount of useless crap that is found in a given purse. Archeological digs don't turn up as many ancient artificacts as what you might find in one of my mom's purses. Just last week, the FBI stopped by to look for Jimmy Hoffa in one of her purses! It's a bottomless pit, people! In addition to the paper money (all singles, in our case) is a forest of receipts. I can assure you these are receipts for stupid stuff. Nothing cool like ipods or plasma TV's. These are receipts for pillow shams, decorative figurines and groceries for the family. You know, dumb stuff. If I have a receipt in my wallet, it would be for beer or a new transmission for the car or something manly like that. After I drink the beer, there is no reason for the receipt so I dispose of it properly. My wife, however, has receipts from 1983 in her purse! She will have the receipt for the slippers she bought in 1994 but do you think she has the receipt for the crappy plastic kids toy that broke after the first day so we can take it back to the store to get our money back? If you said, "ain't no way", you are absolutely correct.

My wife's purse and my mom's purse both smell the same. Due to the large amount of gum wrappers, wadded up dollar bills and the leather from the purse itself, the smell that wafts out of the purse when it's opened up to buy another pair of shoes or man-bashing book is enough to bring any man to tears. Imagine the smell of a cow rubbed all over with dollar bills handled by coal miners, ditch diggers and outhouse cleaners then "freshened" with a million wrappers from Trident Cinnamon gum or Wrigley Big Red. Throw in the smell of lint and old lipstick for good measure and you have the makings for something that Sadaam would feel guilty about using against the Kurds. My wallet, despite resting on my right butt cheek all day long, smells better than the purse from hell!

While I'm in a pissy mood, let's talk about the idea of me carrying your purse for you. I know there are men out there who carry purses. I also know there are men out there who prefer Ken to Barbie, if you know what I mean. I honestly don't care which team you play for but please don't carry a purse. There is no good way for a man to carry a purse either his own or his wife's. What am I going to do, sling it over my shoulder? Carry it by the handle where it will inevitably clash with my shoes? I don't think so! The best way to do it is to tuck it under my arm and kind of carry it like a football. Obviously, the whole time that I am in possession of the "football", I will have to avoid eye contact with anyone. Every once in a while, I might get a knowing look from another poor sap of a husband but usually I'll just get stares from small children as they are whisked away, eyes shielded, by their concerned parents.

So there you have it. Ladies - it's time to man-up and start carrying a wallet in your back pocket. All you really need is your driver's license, $50 and a credit card (No, that does not mean you can rack up a huge balance on the credit card!) The rest of the crap that you carry can be strewn about your minivan for all I care.

There, I feel better now.

Hate: Overpriced Things

Many of the things that I will be sharing with you in this whole blog thing will probably be painfully obvious. I'm guessing that this is one of them. Just like Beavis (or was it Butthead?) said: I don't like things that suck!

As I said in an earlier post, I am addicted to mocha latte's from Starbucks. I love them. If I could, I would marry a mocha latte'. I would buy it a ring, walk down the aisle with it and exchange vows with it. After a nice reception and dancing to the chicken dance, we would jet off to the Mediterranean for a week and then settle down for a nice little life. However, besides that I hate the frickin' chicken dance, I couldn't afford it. I've already resigned myself to the fact that my kids will be going to community college because I spend so much money on VentiNonfatNowhipMochaLatte's. Imagine how much I would spend if I was married to it! If those things weren't so damned overpriced, though, my kids could still attend a good college. Which brings me to today's silliness.

I work in the auto industry, the most screwed-up industry in the world. Understanding and reducing cost is a big part of my job and one of the things that I've learned is that cost and price don't have anything to do with each other. Boys and girls, how much do you think it costs to make that beloved mocha latte' of mine? Let's just make some big broad guesses, shall we? For the purposes of today's discussion, we'll leave out the cost of the herion. Milk = 25 cents, mocha goodness = 50 cents, cup = 10 cents, lid = 5 cents, java jacket = 5 cents. According to my cypherin' that adds up to a cool 95 cents. Ok, maybe I have to add in 25 cents to send to Mecca (that would be Starbuck's HQ) for various marketing and overhead crap. Now I'm up to $1.20. MSRP on this stuff is $3.55. That means that Mr. Starbuck is getting $2.35 in profit for every one they sell! Good God, people!! Perhaps the UAW wokers at Delphi should start making mocha latte's instead of poorly-designed, poorly-manufactured widgets for the overstuffed, backwards-thinking, fat-cats at GM! Imagine a whole factory churning out mocha latte's with 200% profit margin on every one. Mind you, Delphi would surely screw it up given enough time, but for a while that would be a sweet gig!

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big fan of capitalism. This is true despite some graffiti that I saw in Ann Arbor way back when I was in school that said simply "capitalism, schmapitalism" that still makes me chuckle today. I also understand the whole concept of supply and demand but I'm not prepared to pull a Rosa Parks and boycott Starbuck's. She is a bigger man than I am in that regard and she's dead and a woman besides! If you can make a buck or two or three, my brother, you just go right ahead. I just don't like it when it's so obvious. If you're going to screw me, at least turn out the lights so I don't see you doing it!

What's worse than getting hosed by overpriced stuff is when the price of really overpriced stuff goes down so it's only overpriced instead of really overpriced. I have one word for you: gasoline. It's a great day when gas is ONLY $2.25, isn't it my fellow sheep?! Hey, everybody,I got a great deal on gas today - it was only $2.19! Huh?! What?! Exsqueeze me?! Since when is that a good deal? I'll tell you when - When you compare it to the hosejob we were getting when it was $2.99, that's when! Our European friends have no sympathy for us because they've been getting hosed for years. I'm sure Jean-Claude is having a laugh over his croissant at us Yankee dogs having to pay that much for a gallon of petrol. Bite me, Jean-Cleaude!

I actually went to http://www.energy.ca.gov/gasoline/margins/ to understand the price breakdown of gasoline. According to this highly informational website, the two big components of gas PRICE are refining and crude oil. (Please see above where I mention that cost and price don't have anything to do with each other...) Makes sense. A couple months ago, those poor bastards in New Orleans had to dodge flying oil rigs which cut into the daily production of crude oil - I understand that. Apparently, though, the big oil companies are able to still eke out a little money at this game because both British Petroleum (BP) and Exxon Mobil (XOM) are back to trading at the same price as they were prior to the Hurricane-o-Rama. As a matter of fact, for the first month after Katrina hit, both stocks increased in value. If you're a stockholder, you'll be happy to know that both are trading about $20 higher than where they were 2 years ago. If you're just a schlub like me driving a bunch of miles to work every day, you might not care so much.

I'm convinced that the CEO's of the oil companies got together and created those hurricanes themselves. I can just picture them setting down their brandy snifters just long enough to wring their hands together as they discuss ways to create an "emergency" so they can drive up prices:
Oil CEO #1 (while wringing hands): I need more money. $1000000000000 isn't enough!
Oil CEO #2 (in full hand-wringing mode): I'm as rich as God! Too bad I can't control the weather like God does."
Oil CEO #1: That's it, by Jiminy! I'll have one of my minions create a few hurricanes!
Oil CEO #2: Great idea! Just don't let that punk George Bush screw it up! He'll have everyone out buying hybrids. That boy seems to have forgotten how he got his money to buy his presidency!
Oil CEO #1: Good point. I'll make sure that it hits New Orleans. Lots of Black people there and you know how George hates them!
Louis Farakhan: Yeah, and George blew up the levees too!

Believe me, I don't know what the "right" price is for that delicious mocha latte' that I drink or for the gasoline that my car drinks. There are some things that are priced correctly, I think. I just can't think of any right now. Maybe something that falls off the back of the truck or that your friend gets for you through his brother-in-law's cousin's girlfriend's step-father. I have a friend who hooks me up for seats to the Detroit Pistons games. I could give a rat's ass about the Pistons but when it says "Comp" where it usually says $37.50, I know the price is right! I have another friend who is a bartender at the Rosebud in Grand Haven. He usually throws a beer my way when I come in. Do I think that the tasty Sierra Nevada Pale Ale is worth $3.50 out of the tap when I can get a six-pack for $7 at the grocery store? No sirree, Bob. Do I think that it's worth free? Damn skippy!

Let's review: I hate overpriced stuff. I like capitalism. I hate getting hosed. I like taking advantage of my friends when they give me free stuff. If you own an oil refinery I'll be your bestest friend! In the meantime, I'm going to load up on a bunch of plastic bottles that cost 5 cents, print some labels that say "John's Water" for 2 cents, fill the bottles at my kitchen sink for a penny and sell it to Louis Farakhan for $1.25 a bottle. If he buys a gross of them, I'll knock it down to a buck apiece. Due to this dramatic loss of revenue, I'd have to skip the week in Aspen this year but I'm willing to cut old Louis a deal because I'm just a hell of a guy!