Saturday, August 26, 2006

Next time your daughter gets snubbed on the playground, or the guy in the chekout behind you buys meat, and you want you show you have a pair, buy a Gurkha! It costs $200,000 and will go 150 mph. Here's hoping your new penis gets less that 7 mpg so you can conspicuously consume.

Thursday, August 24, 2006

I was cooking dinner last night when I saw a commercial that showed a woman talking to TV characters telling them they were too violent for her kids and she was going to have to block them. And I wondered: Where did she come from?

It's not the parents' responsibility to police what her kids watch. It's the network's.

I had to go to the bathroom, so once I got settled I changed the channel to the one on in the kitchen. I saw another commercial that showed a man telling a TV character that his portrayal of drug addiction was to intense for the kids, and the dad was blocking him.

In the dining room, I watched CSI as we ate dinner.

I needed coffee for this morning, so I made sure to turn on the TV in the headrest of my van and turned up the volume so I could listen. Since the only place in the world there isn't a TV is the supermarket, I opened my cell phone to watch a tv show streamed to my phone.

Then it struck me: There is a tv in every room in our house. From the moment we wake up, to the moment our eyes close, the TV is on. Frequently, you can walk from room to room and not miss a moment of your movie (unless it's on digital cable: that's only in two rooms).

My parents didn't get a TV in their houses until their late teens. They hadn't witnessed the number of murders I had by the time I hit the same age. They just listened to them on the radio. They weren't parked in front of the TV as soon as they could sit upright.

Today, TV is the babysitter. We put a DVD in and let the kids watch it over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over so the little bastards will shut the fuck up and let us live our lives. We have TVs in the car so all the sugar they eat will be stored up for use in the classroom, while they absorb seventy more commercials before they have to face 8 hours without seeing a cereal ad.

So here's my point. Instead of blocking a channel or show with objectionable content, make you kids play outside!

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Praise Jebus! Some one is finally reading the rest of the Bible like they read Genesis Chapter One!

The First Baptist Church in Watertown, New York has finally gotten around to reading the Bible--you know, the 100% true, un-challenegable, and must be obeyed so don't teach evolution, Word of God--and fired Mary Lambert, who has been disobeying the Lord since 1946! She was a Sunday School teacher who...who.... The sin is so horrible that I cannot wrap my mind around it. She taught men.

The upstart sinner had been violating 1 Timothy 2:11-13: 11) A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. 12) I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent. 13) For Adam was formed first, then Eve.

"I was astonished, absolutely astonished to pick up and read that kind of a letter without being talked to ahead of time about the possibility," whined sinner Lambert. "I've had a number of calls from people within the church being as astonished at the letter as I was, and the community at large seems to be at various sides that this could happen," she said, indicating mass blasphemy in the church.

Look, Sinners, the Lord said that women should not teach men, so they may not teach men. Just like Intelligent Design, it's that simple.

May Jebus bless the pastor of the Watertown First Baptist Church.

UPDATE

The pastor of Waterford First Baptist Church has modified his position, and is now sitting on the edge of the bed with the Devil, not actually in it. Tim LaBouf, also a city council member in Watertown, N.Y., said women could fulfill any role or responsibility they wanted to -- outside the church.

Now this flies in the faith, I mean, face of orthodoxy that holds that the "facts" of Intelligent Design must be taught outside of church, in public schools. The truth of the Bible must be spread!

LaBouf said that he does believe that women should not teach men in church, but added that there were other reasons for firing Lambert that he will not reveal in public.

Labels:

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Remember how the world was going to burn to a cinder and we were all going to die if we didn't fix the Ozone hole by banning CFCs a few years ago? Well, the replacement chemicals cause Global Warming.

I'm sure this is all Bush and Cheney's fault: a part of some secret plan to rule the world. ("What are we gonna do tomorrow night, Cheney?" "Same thing we do every night, Bushie. Try to take over THE WORLD!")

Anyway, chloroflourocarbons "destroy ozone, the atmospheric layer that helps protect against the sun's most harmful rays, and trap the earth's heat, contributing to a rise in average surface temperatures," says the article. So I guess we were combatting Global Warming by destroying ozone and cooling the Earth.

Labels:

Monday, August 21, 2006

How to Buy a Car

I am a long time admirer of the Motley Fool, the investment guys. While I've never had money to invest, their writing style is breezy and informative without being pedantic. Thomas Gardener wrote a 10 step plan for buying a car which I will summarize here.

1. Shop Late. After the 25th, to take advantage of their quota system.

2. Do your research and call around. Get a copy of the "National Automotive Dealer Association Handbook" (NADA), or visit their web site, together the features and their listed costs to get a fairly accurate estimate of their cost. Then call a few dealers and see what kind of deal you can get. But, DON"T COMMIT TO ANYTHING!

3. Add 3% to the NADA estimate, and set that as your highest price.

4. Don't fall for so-called Good Deals. Gardener writes, "It's an unfortunate fact of human existence that in order to get a fair price for a new car, you'll have to drive it off the lot with the entire sales force shouting insults at you. . . . But remember, if a devil smiles and winks at you, you're doing something wrong. The goal is to have these devils hating your guts. "

5. Avoid Trade-Ins.

6. Call out-of-town dealers to see what they will do. If you get a better deal 100 miles away, tell your local dealer and see what happens.

7. Keep trade-ins and new car deals seperate.

8. Don't be afraid to walk away.

9. Use a $200 car as your trade in and see if you can get $1000 for it. Gardener calls it The Lemon Test.

10. Don't let the sales manager intimidate you.

Click on the link above to read the entire article. Not only is it good advice, it's funny, too.