Tell Me Why?

You Don't Like Mondays...

Apocalypse Meow

Watership Down! I repeat, Watership Down! Medic!

Twouble With Twitter

Twitter, expanding on the dictionary's definition of twit since 2006:

Twit

• Noun - An insignificant or bothersome person, a foolishly annoying person.
• Verb - To taunt, ridicule, or tease, especially for embarrassing mistakes or faults.

The sad part about Twitter is that it actually is a living metaphor for how desperately everyone wants to be connected, to others, and to feel like they are being heard.

Appealing to a voyeuristic impulse driven generation raised on disconnection and instant gratification Twitter, (unlike blogging) is as much about connection as chewing gum is about nutrition. Yet, you will find hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people following the random, mindless white noise events of another humans life.

Pearls of wisdom such as:

Dim sum is my favorite. – 161 followers

I'm at bar camp la. – 887 followers

I am sooo grateful for getting an extra hour of sleep. – 648 followers

Adding 40 friends on facebook - 4226 followers

What is driving not only Twitter but the whole social network phenomena is the need for acceptance and validation; the bigger the number of “followers” or “friends” you have the more “important” you are. Your life is now a essentially a video game.

Shouldn't people desire quality in real friends, instead of quantity in illusionary friends?

Don't people realize sonic pulses are good food MRI’s but not for human connection?

Twitter does not make human interaction more efficient, nor does it help you get more connected, it feeds you an illusion of connection.

The social network phenomena points to one obvious reality, that humans deeply and desperately want to connect, but platforms like Twitter are the fast food of human connection quick, bad for you, nutritionally empty, and feed on giving the least healthy thing to as many people as possible for one simple purpose, money.

I feel like I am becoming more and more jaded lately.

Well, at least I can still laugh at the situation and this video proves I'm not the only one who thinks Twitter is blogging for retards and the next evolution of stupid.

Video thanks to Big Daddy over at Bon Jour, Pee Wee

Karma Karma Karma Chameleon

You come and go
You come and go
Loving would be easy if your colors were like my dreams
Or like Ray-Ban sunglasses...

Obama Fatigue

Obama claims he inherited the deficit...

As Ace so succinctly put it :

"He inherited these deficits like OJ inherited Niccole Brown's head".

He has proposed a budget with a level of spending that sends deficits to record levels!

Obama wants to assume that by 2012, the last year of his first term, revenues will exceed the average of the previous twenty-five years (indeed, the last fifty years!) for every year from then on. He assumes unprecedented revenues to start flowing in, year after year, from 2012 onward. He also assumes unspecified savings in those years way past his first term.

He puts the deficit at 12.3% of GDP in 2009. Throughout the Great Depression, whether under Hoover or FDR, the deficit never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under Reagan, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never exceeded 6% of GDP. Under George W. Bush, with his inherited recession and his tax cuts, it never even got to 4% of GDP.

In fact, in only five years since 1930 has the deficit exceeded 6% of GDP: 1942-46. It has exceeded Obama's 12.3% only from 1942 to 1945.

That was World War II. Then, defense spending was about 40% of GDP. Now it is about 4%.

Obama projects debt held by the public at 59% of GDP in 2009, and about 65% of GDP thereafter, as far as his projections go.

You have to go back to Truman to see debts that high. And Truman was paying off World War II costs. It's been below 50% of GDP since 1957. For the first time since then, it will exceed that level this year, going from 41% to 59% of GDP in a single year.

This is a terrible budget. In Obama's first term, it is even worse than my predictions. Into his second term and beyond, it is still bad, and held together only with rosy assumptions on both the revenue and spending sides. When things can be expected to get really bad, by 2020 and beyond, he makes no projections at all.

Obama also had the great idea to save money with a plans to have our military veterans to use their private insurance to cover combat related injuries! I'm a military veteran! Luckily veterans groups, learning of the possibility last month, quickly mobilized to oppose it and he dropped it.

What kind of President would quickly abandon his moral responsibility to the men and women who have sacrificed so much for our nations freedoms?

The kind who would want an organization with voter fraud investigations in twelve states to partner with Census to help count the number of Americans in the country.

With many criminal indictments and convictions having been leveled in numerous states against ACORN the concern is why the Census should be "partnering" with an organization that has so frequently bribed people to register voters.

What is at stake from an accurate census is huge. The allocation of seats in Congress, and ultimately questions of who controls it, depend on an accurate count. Much of the money Congress spends is allocated based on the census.

ACORN is a "bipartisan" organization in name only. Giving it any type of official role in the process, including making it a so-called "Census Bureau partner," is disturbing.

For a nonpartisan organization such as the Census, ACORN's political connections are also troubling. Last year, the Obama campaign paid ACORN $800,000 to register voters and do other work. ABC News' Jake Tapper caught Obama campaign officials in numerous attempts to hide Mr. Obama's past connections with ACORN. Mr. Obama also gave ACORN money when he served on the board of the Woods Fund in Chicago. For all the work that he has done for ACORN over the years, Investor's Business Daily called Mr. Obama "ACORN's Senator."

In sixty days or so he has made some terrible decisions and they seem to just keep coming.

Only one thousand three hundred and ninety-five more days until he is out. It couldn't come any faster if it was tomorrow for me.

The Doctor Is In

I heard this conversation on the radio this morning:

Clueless Caller: I’m confused. My girlfriend has sex with me, but she refuses to ever kiss me on the mouth.

Relationship Doctor: There are two possibilities. It could be possible she is turned off by your breath or there may be psychological reasons why your girlfriend avoids kissing. Blah, blah, blah.

The Doctor's bottom line was if your girlfriend hardly kisses you, you need to ask her and yourself what the problem is. It might be fixable, but it may also be a sign that she lacks real feelings for you.

I think the Doctor missed the obvious. She ignored a third, but far more likely, explanation for this woman's behavior.

So it looks like it's up to me to help this guy out...

Dear Clueless,

I have some questions about your "girlfriend:"

• Does she usually greet you by asking "Are you a cop"?


• Instead of going out to dinner and a movie, does she just prefer the cash?


• Do most of your "dates" occur in parked cars or motels?


• Is her petname for you "John"?


• After the "date", do you drop her off on any corner?


• When you suggest that she come home to meet your mother, does she say "Okay, but that'll be an extra fifty bucks"?


• Is her favorite movie "Pretty Woman"?

If you've answered "yes" to one or more of the above, I suspect that she may not be your girlfriend after all. You may want to reconsider this relationship and look into some health screening.

Best Wishes,
Q. McLovin' M.D.

I can't believe no one has ever offered me my own advice column.

Bear Mountain Sports Commercial

We The People Stimulus Package

Democracy is not a spectator sport...

In 1776 one of our founding fathers Thomas Paine, anonymously published a pamphlet entitled “Common Sense” which challenged the authority of the British government and the royal monarchy. The plain language that Paine used resonated with the common man and was the first publication to openly push for independence.

Maintaining “the cause of America is in a great measure the cause of all mankind,” Paine passionately argued for independence from Great Britain, and painted the picture of a prosperous future, if freed from the oppressive and economically draining English government.

Now two hundred and thirty three years later, America once again finds itself being taxed without representation, and being drained economically by an oppressive government.

This time, it’s own government run amuck.

What would Thomas Paine say about America’s plight today?

Shooting Star Inc.

I got such a positive response about my newly evolved end of life decisions to have my body flash frozen into a specific pose and shot into space that I believe this idea can be developed into a business venture.

Think about it:

You can literally become the Silver Surfer, or Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a Buddhist could be frozen into a meditation position, Chuck Norris could be posed, set into a spin and perpetually roundhouse kick for the rest of time.

You could be covered in mirrors transforming you into a star!

Speaking of stars:

Star Wars fans - You can recreate an actual scene from the movie as Darth Vader in his battle damaged TIE Fighter hurtling through space!

The possibilities are endless.

Remains could be set into orbit around Earth, into deep space or shot directly at a particular planet.

You remember how Uncle Buster was always so fond of Jupiter, right?

Even if the orbit is imperfect, or if it is effected by some other object the results are still pretty memorable. Either the deceased will be sent back to reenter the atmosphere harmlessly vaporizing becoming a blazing shooting star as a final tribute or they could be knocked out of orbit and fly off into deep space to boldly go where no man has gone before.

I am now taking up a collection for the start up capitol to get this business off the ground (so to speak).

The first million dollars gets you a complementary space burial and memorial video.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

It's time once again to dust off your shamrocks and test your Irish luck, cause we're all green on St. Patrick's Day!

Well, in all fairness I am exactly zero percent Irish.

However, my beautiful girlfriend is half Irish, Ireland is an island as is my country of origin, I was brought up Roman Catholic, one of my best friends in the Army was Irish and I went along with him to visit his relatives in County Cork. I also have an affinity for delicious alcoholic beverages and the color green.

Hopefully that's enough to earn me the right to celebrate.

Saint Patrick, the Roman Catholic patron saint of the inebriated.

Today is the day where we mourn a great man, a humble and courageous man by drinking a whole bunch of green alcoholic beverages and by gathering with friends and family to have fun.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

End Of Life Decisions

This should not be considered a final will and testament, as, obviously, it mentions none of my assets, which will be dealt with in other documents. However, what follows is, in fact, a true statement of my final wishes.

I have often told people that upon my death, at the conclusion of the after party, I want my dead body to be shot out of a cannon and wherever it lands that is where they should bury me.

I don't think it is too much to ask for and it seems like a good way to go out with a bang, so to speak.

I am now considering a different method to dispose of my earthly remains.

Logistical issues aside, upon my death the following should be performed:

I want my body to be placed into a Superman costume and flash frozen into this pose:

The frozen remains should then be launched into outer space.

None of this geosynchronous orbit crap either. I want to be on an extra-solar trajectory.

Why? Because an alien armada on it's way to Earth could come across me and decide that maybe they better make a U-turn and head back to Quasar F-73 and re-think their invasion plans.

So it is written. So let it be done.

Obama's Poll Numbers Are Falling

It is simply wrong for commentators to continue to focus on President Barack Obama's high levels of popularity, and to conclude that these are indicative of high levels of public confidence in the work of his administration.

Indeed, a detailed look at recent survey data shows that the opposite is most likely true. The American people are coming to express increasingly significant doubts about his initiatives, and most likely support a different agenda and different policies from those that the Obama administration has advanced.

Polling data show that Obama's approval rating is dropping and is below where George W. Bush was in an analogous period in 2001. Rasmussen Reports data shows that Mr. Obama's net presidential approval rating. Which is calculated by subtracting the number who strongly disapprove from the number who strongly approve, is just six, his lowest rating to date.

Overall, Rasmussen Reports shows a 56%-43% approval, with a third strongly disapproving of the president's performance. This is a substantial degree of polarization so early in the administration. Obama has lost virtually all of his Republican support and a good part of his Independent support, and the trend is decidedly negative.

The reason for this decline most likely has to do with doubts about the administration's policies and their impact on peoples' lives.

Are people finally taking notice?

The 2010 budget document is on the OMB website.

While the Red Shed (formerly the Whitehouse) talks about deficit reduction as if there were some sort of 'savings' involved, you have to understand that deficits are being reduced by increasing taxes and not by reducing spending you will not be impressed either.

According to the budget document:

Gross Federal Deficit 2008 = $9.986 trillion (actual); increasing in 2009 to $12.704 trillion (est.); by 2013 $16.198 trillion (est).

In one budget year Obama will increases our national debt by 27%, and over four years by 62%, although I expect the real numbers will far exceed the estimated numbers, and Congress may throw more tax increases at the taxpayers as a result. I suppose I can understand China's 'concern' over holding so much US debt.

Paraphrasing the old saw that "the whippings will continue until morale improves" I do not expect that Harry Pelosi, Nancy Reid & DemSoc will be able to resist even more '$timulu$' for the government, just not for the economy.

Our grandkids are going to have to pay the bill when it comes due.

I wonder if they'll have to use Chinese Yuan to do it?

Happy Friday The 13th!

It's Friday the 13th and as a public service I have compiled a list of suggestions that I feel will keep you safe from harm...

Survival Tip #1: If you see a black cat, shoot it.
Better to be safe than sorry.

Survival Tip #2: Use up all your bad luck early.
You can only have so much bad luck in a single day, so just start trying to use your whole quota of it by lunch. Tempt fate through such activities as cleaning your toaster with a fork, picking a fight with a gorilla or cleaning your ears with a nail gun.

Survival Tip #3: Don't talk about Fight Club.
Even if you are a beautiful and unique snowflake, just don't.

Survival Tip #4: Don't let the Jehovah's Witnesses in.
Sure, three hundred and sixty four days out of the year they seem like nice folks who just want to share their crackpot religious dogma and a cup of Kool-Aid with you...but each year on Friday the 13th, they fatten their ranks by kidnapping people and forcing them to watch Veggie Tales until they convert.

Survival Tip #5: Refuse to recognize that it's Friday the 13th.
In many skyscrapers, superstitious builders make the floors jump from twelve to fourteen to avoid the unlucky thirteenth floor. As soon as you wake up today, say, "Wow, what a lovely day March 14th is!

Survival Tip #6: Leave the Earth by close of business April 13, 2029.
Be gone before the Near-Earth asteroid 99942 Apophis smashes into our planet and destroys the world as we know it.

Now you've got to ask yourself one question:

"Am I feeling superstitious?"

You Call That Art?

Do you remember that scene from Fight Club where The Space Monkeys bring in a very dead Robert Paulson and explain how he was shot while on a Project Mayhem assignment to destroy a piece of corporate art and a trendy coffee bar at the same time?

Do you also remember what that piece of corporate art was?

It was a giant sphere which they rolled into a Starbucks.

Even though it was a moving scene which ended with Meat Loaf dying of a massive gaping head wound, my thoughts weren't on the tragic loss of life or on how The Space Monkeys had all been transformed into unfeeling cogs, my thoughts returned to that ugly golden sphere and I remember thinking, “That is not art”.

Fast forward to today as I walked into an office building to attend a meeting and noticed the massive piece of "artwork" that hangs in their atrium from the third to the first floor. I stopped and stared at it, trying to figure out what the heck it was. It took me a few minutes, staring at it’s shiny silver surface until I realized that it looked like the bones of a giant fish.

Well, nothing says “Welcome to Company Inc™, where we do business” like a giant metal abstract trout skeleton.

That got me thinking about a lot of the different corporate art I have seen and I came to the conclusion that referring to any of it as art is damn near an impossibility for me.

I am all for abstract shapes and concepts, but when it looks like a giant piece of sheet metal that has been warped it into a squiggly cylinder which has then been plopped down outside an office building it is not art.

It may be like comparing apples to oranges, but I just can’t call that art as I would a painting by Diego Velazquez or Salvador Dali.

Inconceivable...

A cliff is a convenient plot device...

I have seen a lot of real cliffs, but that is an entirely different story about how bad ass I am. One for another time.

Really though...how many actual cliffs do you think the average person has ever even seen?

In fact, you have probably never seen a real cliff in your life.

Okay, maybe one, two tops.

Now compare that with how many cliffs are seen in movies, television programs, whatever.

The average fictional character encounters a whopping 1.58 cliffs every hour. In fact, 0.00027% of the world inhabited by fictitious people is occupied by cliffs. Not by my measurement, by someone else's; someone who has more credibility than me (note: I made this number up, also the one before it).

The point is this: The average person is never flung off a cliff, or forced to catch someone who has been flung off a cliff, or has assisted the person they intend to duel to reach the top of a cliff, or decided to drive their car over a cliff to avoid capture, or fooled their enemy into thinking they have fallen off a cliff only to slowly climb back up after said enemy has left the area, or skidded slowly towards a cliff while fighting for some life-altering treasure, or, for that matter, has had the life-altering treasure fall off a cliff and then has had to go get it, perhaps by intentionally diving of the cliff.

Fictional characters, however, do this all the time.

Suspension of disbelief can only go so far when it comes to cliffs.

Let's hold fiction to some standard here folks.

New Pet

Nick Drummond shot a great series of photos featuring a Star Wars AT-AT as a new family pet named “ATilla”.

In addition to making great pets I hear they’re great for ridding your home of rebel scum.

Happy Meal

Except for the fact that kids seem to love it, it's hard to find a happy story about the McDonald's Happy Meal. Happy Meals seem to have a bad rap for luring kids into eating unhealthy foods with cheap toys.

On the other hand though, kids don't drive themselves to McDonald's, parents do, and if the kids didn't like the food, it's unlikely a little plastic toy would turn the tide in their demands.

I myself think, even though there is hardly anything to them and they've probably irreparably damaged my arteries, McDonald's hamburgers are delicious.

Well, Luke Underwood an eleven year old from Notts, England has a very happy story. He turned his collection of Happy Meal toys into a tidy sum of cash when he sold it for over eleven thousand dollars.

It is estimated that ten thousand Happy Meals would have to have been eaten in order to amass such a collection, but before you head out to the drive-through, you should know that Luke did not eat those meals himself. At the age of seven, he convinced his father to purchase most of the Happy Meals collection (dating from 1990 to 1999) for about three hundred and fifty dollars which he added to until it was sold at auction. The family decided it was time to sell the items after boxes of the collection began taking over their home.

Time to start checking under car seats and the backs of your kids closet or bed for those discarded Happy Meal toys. You just may find some treasure or a psychotic red and white striped clown...

Play That Funky Music

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Great mashup of various instructional and other music videos to creat one gigantic funk song.

Welcome To The Future...

Obama And The Economy

(The picture doesn't have anything to do with the story, but it was too weird not to post)

It's hard not to see the continued sell-off on Wall Street and the growing fear on Main Street as a product, at least in part, of the realization that our new president's policies are designed to radically re-engineer the market-based U.S. economy, not just mitigate the recession and financial crisis.

The illusion that Barack Obama will lead from the economic center has quickly come to an end. Instead of combining the best policies of past Democratic presidents - John Kennedy on taxes, Bill Clinton on welfare reform and a balanced budget, for instance - President Obama is returning to Jimmy Carter's higher taxes and Mr. Clinton's draconian defense drawdown. Mr. Obama's $3.6 trillion budget blueprint, by his own admission, redefines the role of government in our economy and society. The budget more than doubles the national debt held by the public, adding more to the debt than all previous presidents - from George Washington to George W. Bush...

(Read the entire article)

Saturday Morning Cartoons: Watchmen

Set in an alternate universe where in nineteen eighty-five the tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union are high and the "Doomsday Clock" is set at five minutes to midnight, former superhero turned vigilante Rorschach discovers that one of his former colleagues, The Comedian, has been murdered.

As he investigates the murder he uncovers a plot that is intent on killing and/or discrediting all past and present superheros. As he reconnects with members of his former crime-fighting unit, including Nite Owl II, Silk Spectre II, Ozymandias and Dr. Manhattan, they uncover a disturbing conspiracy that not only links their shared past but has catastrophic consequences for the future.

Read the graphic novel for the first time today. I enjoyed the story. It was deep and interesting, but I never got to a point where I really cared very much about the characters...except for Rorschach.

Has anyone seen the movie yet?

I'll Make You Eat Those Words...

Looking for an innovative way to leave someone a message?

Tired of writing the message down on a piece of paper or post it?

Next time, put it on toast.

This toaster by Sasha Tseng incorporates a little message board where you can write and read quick notes.The message also gets “toasted” onto the toast itself.

Since words are often experienced as tastes by a person with synesthesia...I wonder how this would affect them?

I'd like to have one of these and see how a drawing would turn out on the toast.

I'm On A Boat!

Just posting some frivolous stuff that makes me smile or laugh at the moment. I hope it also brings a moment of happiness to whomever comes by the blog too.