Yet another television ad to toss on the ever-growing pile of ones I hate.  The newest one to join the ranks is the Obama Presidential Coin Collection.  This has nothing to do with politics, but just being plain shady on the parts of the sellers, and how gullible the consumer can be.

If you haven’t seen this commercial yet, former talk show host Montel Williams talks to you about how you can commemorate the election of Obama to the office of President of the United States by buying commemorative coins that documents different times in his life.  There is a quarter for Illinois for where he was senator, a quarter for Hawaii where he was born, and there are also a Washington Dollar and a Kennedy Half Dollar.  Each comes with a full-color image on it corresponding to the coin, and you will also receive a certificate of authenticity (CoA) for each.  As a bonus, you also get a display to place the four coins in.

So, in other words, you are paying $19.95 for $2 worth of coins some yahoo has put colored stickers on, and then he’ll give you CoAs saying, “Hey, yep, these are the coins I put the colored stickers on!”

I always love these coin and money deals you see on TV, like the one to mark the anniversary of 9/11 that had the pop-up twin towers on it.  True class.  I think this one hits a new low, though.  It’s four colored stickers on some normal coins!  I tell ya what, if you want to pay me $19.95 for $2 worth of coins with some worthless stickers on them, I’ll sit here and make them all dang day long for you.

So here are my proposed coin series you will soon be able to order

• Great Moments in Web 2.0 - Who can forget classic sites like Muxtape or Global Pandora?  Sites that lasted but like a blip in a moment of time will have their logos lovingly reproduced on these commemorative coins.  Never will we forget how Global Pandora brought music to the masses of the world, and now you can make sure even your grandchildren will remember!
• New Coke Remembered - New Coke was built to take over the world, but, alas, it never did, and was eventually usurped by its predecessor, Classic Coke.  Remember the packing of all the various New Coke containers such as the 12 oz can and the 2 liter bottle!

You get the idea… anything silly I can put on a quarter sized decal, I’m doin’ it!

If you have ever been tempted to order crap fine products such as these, please don’t.  All you end up doing is making me weep for humanity, and you end up with $2 in change after the decals finally fall off one day due to what is probably substandard glue.

In case you were wondering, I am intentionally not linking to their website, but you can find it without much effort… but please don’t.

Poor, Oprah. She just can’t pick a book, can she?

Remember when Oprah got duped by James Frey, author of A Million Little Pieces?  She was steadfastly behind this book about a man’s trials with drug addiction, even making it one of her precious “Oprah’s Book Club” choices.  Then it came to light that he had made the vast majority of it up.  She had him come back on the show and chastised him for fooling her and the readers.

Think she will do the same with Herman Rosenblat?

Over the years, Mr. Rosenblat has become famous for his tale of how he met his future wife while he was at Schlieben, a sub-division of the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp.  The story goes that Mr. Rosenblat met a young Jewish girl, Roma Radzicki, who lived near the camp, but her family was posing as Christians, when she approached the fence one day.  Over the next few months she passed food to him through the fence, but they lost contact when he was moved to another camp.

Then in 1957, Mr. Rosenblat was set up on a blind date in Coney Island, NY, and he recognized the girl immediately to be the girl that passed him food years before.  They married not long after that, and have now been together for 50 years.

Ms. Winfrey has referred to as “the single greatest love story … we’ve ever told on the air.”  The problem is that it has now been revealed to be a hoax.

Due to the popularity of the story, it was due to be published as a book entitled Angel at the Fence: The True Story of a Love that Survived in February by Berkley Books.  The book has now been canceled and a demand has been made for Mr. Rosenblat to return his advance.  However, the $25 million dollar movie that is slated to be made of the story is still going forward as they had planned to fictionalize large portions of it.

According to Times Online, the story was revealed as a hoax by Ben Helfgott, a former Schlieben inmate, in the New Republic magazine.  He says that the story is a complete fabrication, and other experts on Schlieben have said the story was impossible because where Mr. Rosenblat says this all took place would have put him right next to the SS barracks.

Mr. Rosenblat is quoted as saying:

“I wanted to bring happiness to people.  I brought hope to a lot of people. My motivation was to make good in this world.”

That is all well and good, but perhaps you shouldn’t have told people it was true?  He continued to report this story to be true for years, and through two appearances on the Oprah show.  He had ample oppurtunity to tell people it was made up, and people would have probably still enjoyed it, but instead he continued the lie, and was happy to make money off of it.  That is where he sunk himself.

According to a story by the Associated Press, publishers admit they are not fact checking books because of the volume of releases each year, and it would simply cost them too much to check each one.  To that I say, “tough luck.”  Since when has checking facts become too much of a hassle?  Are publishers now saying that the truth no longer matters?  “Well, it looks sorta true… good enough.”

And what of Oprah?  Has she not learned her lesson?  Should she not be looking to check facts after that whole Frey debacle?  What is that old saying again?  “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me”?  Well, guess what, Oprah… shame on you.

This whole thing is sickening.  It plays on people’s guilt about the Holocaust, it plays to people who are desperate for stories that show love can survive anything, and it just stinks in general that someone could lie for years and feel that is perfectly okay.

There are some news stories that are so shocking you just can’t even begin to comprehend them for a few days until after they happen. The story of Bruce Pardo is one of those stories.

According to The New York Times, Mr. Pardo arrived at the home of James and Alicia Ortega in Covina, CA just shortly before midnight on Wednesday the 24th.  He was dressed as Santa Claus so that people attending a Christmas Eve party would think he was a hired entertainer for the children.  Immediately upon entering the home, he pulled out a semi-automatic pistol and shot an 8-year-old girl in the face, and another girl in the back.  He then proceeded in to the living room and continued his shooting spree before eventually using a gas powered canister of accelerant to set the home on fire.

The immediate death toll stood at 8, but according to The Inquisitr, that has now risen to 9.

Mr. Pardo was later discovered dead in his car some distance away from the massacre site, apparently the victim of a self-inflicted gun shot.  His original plan, gathered from evidence in his car, had been to flee to Canada, but after he sustained third degree burns in the fire, it appears he opted to take his own life.

Good riddance.

This entire incident was the result of a nasty divorce the 45-year-old Mr. Pardo was going through with his wife, Sylvia.  He apparently had gone to the party as she was attending, and, for reasons unknown, decided that any one else that was at the party was fair game for his rage against this lone individual.  What possible motivation he could have had for shooting children is totally lost on me.

It appears that both the 8-year-old girl and the older child have both survived.  Who exactly did pass away has not yet been released with the exception of Mr. Pardo.  Part of this is due to the fact that some of the bodies are so badly burned that they will have to be identified via dental records.

As a parting shot, it would seem this “man”, and I use the term loosely, had also rigged his car with a pipe bomb, but luckily no police were injured when it detonated.

When I first read about this incident, I was stunned beyond belief.  What could possibly motivate any individual to carry out such a plan? I don’t care how bad your divorce is going, you certainly never have a right to resort to violence to take out your ex spouse, and you have even less sanity if you decide to take out innocent bystanders. And children? How does any one point a gun at a child’s face and shoot them at point blank range?

If there is a Hell, I certainly hope that there is a specific section set aside for people such as this.

My deepest condolonces go out to all of the families touched by this evil, evil act.

The economy is hitting every one hard, and police budgets are not immune either.

In the past 24 hours I have heard two odd stories of how different police departments are handling budget problems.  The first came from the infamous “M”, famed around this blog for the World’s Longest Dark Knight Review, who is currently haunting the streets of Gotham New York City.  It seems that the police have increased patrols to seemingly focus on motor vehicle violations in an effort to issue more tickets.  She told me a tale of someone she knew who got pulled over for one thing, told to move over to a specific spot on the side and was issued a second ticket for parking in a no parking area.  This person will fight the second ticket as he was ordered to move there, but that still just shows how desperate they are for income.

The second story I learned about at lunch today as I dined with a friend of mine.  After he gave me my weekly ribbing about salad bar etiquette, I was telling him about what M had told me.  He informed me of a story from St. Louis about how much their police department was spending on badges for their top officers.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch had broken a story about how the St. Louis police department had just spent $1,987 each on five badges.  The new badges were for a chief badge, two assistant chief badges and two lieutenant colonel badges.  These new works of art were purchased from Stange Co., of Maryland Heights which is known for making jewlery for third-world governments up to Queen Elizabeth II.  These new badges cost 100 times that of a rank-and-file patrol officer in St. Louis as their badges cost $19.75.

In all fairness to the new police chief, Daniel Isom, the badges were ordered before he took office, and he agrees the spending is outrageous.  Of course, these new badges are a bargain compared to the $5,900 his predecessor, Joe Mokwa, spent on solid gold badges.

The owner of the jewlery company tried to defend the cost saying that he was sure that the Police Chief of Los Angeles probably spends more.  The newspaper called the LA police chiefs office and found his badge cost $61.  The St. Louis jewler was concerned with how shabby his badge must be at that price.

We are hearing endless stories of how taxes will be raised in states all across this country to help with budget short falls, and then you see stories like this that make you wonder how long the common person will have to pay for the stupidity of those people who are partially responsible for the mess we’re in.  I am always reminded of the Kevin Kline movie Dave where a man impersonates the President after he has a stroke, and when the budget spins out of control, he calls in his best friend, an every day accountant, to look at the governments books and cut the budget to save some programs.

Where are the every day accountants?  You are needed more than ever.

I can’t take it any more… Christmas Sweaters must be banned.

While I am certainly no slave to fashion, I can be a bit harsh in sizing up other people that make really atrocious fashion designers.  Like my hatred of Crocs, I think I hate Christmas sweaters with an even larger passion.  The main reason for my hatred spawns from the concept that they are somehow acceptable.  Oh, yes, wearing bejeweled sweaters with a theme is perfectly okay because it’s Christmas, dontcha ya know.

No, it’s not okay, now stop walking around Walmart in them!

Everyone is entitled to their personal choices in fashion, and everyone is entitled to showing their Christmas spirit, but come on folks, these things are just horrid.  Name one other time during the year you would feel it’s okay to wear a sweater with large fake jewels, conchs and what looks to be a knitted mustache? If you answered “never”, like you should have, then why in the world are you wearing them around the holidays?  What is it about the holidays that make people toss any sort of practicle fashion sense right out the door.

I think I might even understand this a bit more if people only wore them to Christmas parties, but I see women wearing them at Walmart, while eating at Ruby Tuesday, while pumping their gas and so on and so forth.  In other words, somehow in December it becomes okay to wear ugly sweaters 24/7.

Please stop.  If not for yourself, think of the example you are setting for the future generations of the world.  Do you really want to set bad fashion examples for the yound and impressionable minds of this world?  I think the sweater I’ve pictured with this post could possibly turn a person to drugs.  “But, mom, I wanted to see people’s faces melt into conches just like on your sweater!”

Please, can we just give up on the Christmas sweaters in general?

For regular readers of this blog, you may have noticed this post belongs in a brand new category, “Crimes Of Fashion”.  Don’t worry, this won’t happen often, I don’t think I’ve written anything about fashion since my Crocs post in June of 2007, so you know it has to be a pretty heinous fashion crime for me to speak up on it.  So don’t expect me to rant about fashion all of the time, just every, oh, 18-months or so.

So, what say you, is the Christmas sweater a fashion do or don’t?

I am so freakin’ tired of CBS messing up my Sunday nights.

I understand football is popular, no argument there.  I don’t care for it, but I don’t deny those who enjoy it.  What I don’t like is CBS seems incapable of scheduling around it, and for those of us who use our DVRs to record, we’re basically getting the short end of the stick.

For those of you who don’t use a DVR, you set them to record this show or that show, and they know that show X is 1 hour long, so it records 1 hour.  If your show starts late due to football, well, too bad, you lose the end of the show you want.  You do have the option of recording the show after the one you wanted, but that is kept as a separate file on your DVR and means eating up an hour of space for possibly as little as a few seconds of footage.   I am really tired of not getting all of Amazing Race because of this.

So, how does CBS rectify this to everyone’s satisfaction?  It’s fairly simply really, and insulting that they haven’t done it yet.  Move 60 Minutes and all the shows that air after it, back one hour.  So, instead of shows starting at 7 PM EST, you’ll start them at 8 PM EST.  You could fill the time after a game with sime form of sports analysis.  This would put the shows back on the hour marks instead of 60 Minutes starting at 7:32 PM EST like it did tonight, and throwing the three hour Survivor fnale in to total chaos.

Oh, by the way, this does not mess up the west coast channels.  Yes folks, it’s true, this only messes up the eastern and central time zones, so if you have no clue what I am talking about, now you know.

Grow up, CBS.  It’s the 21st century, you can certainly figure out some way to get your shows to start on time.

I think I figured out why I am having trouble getting in to the spirit of Christmas… I lack an Oprah snow globe.

The Chicago Tribune brought the ultimate Oprah collectible to light last week with an entire aticle centered around the wonders of the Oprah snow globe.  It seems that you have to go to the actual Oprah Store in Chicago as I can not find it in the online Oprah store.  However, my life will be far more complete once I have a journal with an Oprah quote on them.

Back in February I asked “Can Someone Explain The Cult Of Oprah To Me?“  I did get a few replies about how she speaks to women, and she somehow captured their emotionalism… and it appears once she has you, she has you.

Now, I actually have a small collection of snow globes, I happen to like them, and most of them are based on movies (mainly Nightmare Before Christmas) and a few Disney World Haunted Mansion ones.  The thing is, those characters tend to lend themselves to being sculpted in or on a snow globe because they aren’t humans.  Oprah is… I know, she’s not a goddess, she is indeed human… and it doesn’t work quite as well.  She looks, well, like a badly sculpted snow glove here.

Then comes the uestion of how you’re supposed to hold this thing and shake it, but hey, it’s Oprah, it doesn’t have to be practicle.

Again, I am befuddled by this whole thing.  It’s one thing to like Oprah, but to adorn your house in her?  When is she finally going to build “The Oprah Worship Centers” around the country?  If she speaks to a part of your soul, I would ask why?  What is it about her that makes fans of her love her so?

I’ve already beat this subject, so I’ll leave it at that, but this snow globe just pushed me over the edge again.  Darn you, Oprah!  I am just thankful she didn’t make a matching one for Rachael Ray… -shudder-

What is with the surge in teenagers loving vampires?

I talked about this sudden love of vampires in Scattercast episode 20, but then when I spent my day in Hastings, I found even more evidence of it.  As I sat in one of the reading chairs to flip through a magazine, I found myself sitting across from the teen novels.  As one girl in a letterman’s jacket with “10″ on the sleeve (oof… I feel old since mine had “89″ on it), I noticed she was picking up one of the Twilight novels.  I just shook my head and went back to my magazine.

After the girl departed, I started scanning the racks and noticed another series of vampire novels for teens, Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schrieber.  I knew nothing of this series, so I looked it up and Amazon pointed me to this summary from Booklist:

Gr. 7-10. Sixteen-year-old Raven is a Goth surrounded by “lesser” folks: her parents have transformed themselves from hippie to corporate, and her only friend at school is an outsider everyone picks on. In Raven’s rich imaginary life, she is bold and special and in love with the idea of meeting a vampire. Schreiber uses a careful balance of humor, irony, pathos, and romance as she develops a plot that introduces the possibility of a real vampire–in the form of an extra-handsome boy, of course– while exploring how a girl like Raven finds ways to cope with a bully who is both class- and gender-conscious of his supposed superiority. Raven’s voice is immediately charming, in spite of her alleged bravado and coldheartedness. Her hometown could be any Small Town, USA, and its possibly haunted mansion just lightens the scene rather than making the story silly. This tale slides down easily and will be welcomed by Goths willing to look on the lighter side of their own culture as well as by readers who have an openminded appreciation for the vagaries of their peers and, perhaps, of themselves.

When I went to Ms. Schrieber’s site, I discovered a sixth book is scheduled for Summer ‘09 and the seventh is on track for Summer ‘10.

What in the world is going on?  What is this sudden teen obsession with vampires?  True, I understand they are romanticizing the concept to a ridiculous degree, but at the end of the day you are romanticizing creatures that are mass-murdering blood suckers!  Oh, yes, they are misunderstood and are outsiders like you… not really, no.  They drink the blood of people.

South Park sent up this whole craze in their 12th season finale, “The Ungroundable“, and as they do with many subjects, they seemed to boil it down to its essentials: It’s a fad for some, a way to empower others, such as Butters used it.  In the end most of it can be blamed on the clothing store chain Hot Topic… a concept I don’t wholly disagree with.  As I said in Scattercast, I can remember my gothy moments from my own teen years, but I certainly never went around putting in fake vampire teeth and drinking clamato juice.

As with all fads, I am sure this too will pass, and I am certainly not saying there is anything that horribly wrong with teens trying to find themselves, but why vampires?  Is it the immortality?  I would hope it isn’t the drinking blood angle, but maybe it is.  And what would these kids do if they ever met a real vampire?  It reminds me of a second season episode of Buffy, The Vampire Slayer entitled “Lie To Me” when Buffy’s fifth grade crush comes to town and takes her to a bar filled with kids obsessed with vampires who dress like them, or how they think they would dress.  When the real vampire’s show up, namely Spike’s gang, all of them freak out and want to go home realizing just how truly evil the real things are.  This episode should be required watching for this new generation of Vamp kids.

So, what say you?  Why is this the new fad amongst teens?  What do you make of it?

My anger at the Walmart situation from Friday is getting worse.

As if the actual incident wasn’t bad enough, more details are emerging of how people went on to purchase televisions as Jdimytai Damourlaid in the entry way, presumably already dead.  No one stopped shopping until the Nassau County Police shut down the store as a crime scene.

Michael Daly of the New York Daily News has assembled more details of how the line started forming at 9 PM the night before.  When the line reached the end of the parking a lot, a line began forming on the other side of the doors, leading to a presumption of line jumping.  The doors were to open at 5 AM, but at 4:45 the crowd surged forward as the doors of the store buckled, leading to Mr. Damourlaid being knocked over and eventually trampled.  There are also now reports that a woman miscarried her child in the melee.

How is this particular Walmart handling the situation?  Business as usual.  The glass in front of where the incident happened has been covered up with cardboard, the greeters are in place, and customers continue to shop.  Why is this store not closed?  The police are still investigating…  You are asking employees and customers to walk over the spot where a man died… no, really, stay open and continue to sell your goods.  Please do.

Of course, it isn’t just Walmart that is making me roll my eyes over this whole issue.  According to CNN, Bruce Both, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union Local 1500 in New York, the state’s largest grocery worker’s union, is also on my naughty list.  He is taking this as an oppurtunity to say how Walmart failed, but it is an extremely thinly veiled commentary on how if the store had been unionized… you get the idea.  The UCFW is also calling for an investigation “by all levels of government” to make sure that justice is served.  I have this to say to the UCFW… you are no better than this Walmart staying open at this point.  You are using this man as a martyr for your cause and you should be ashamed of yourselves.  Let the police do their investigation, let Walmart deal with the family, and if after all that is said and done you still aren’t satisfied, which I’m sure you won’t be, then you can say something.  Until then, sit down and shut up because you are just using this unfortunate incident to further your own ends.

Could someone else tell me why the gun battle in a Toys R’ Us in Palm Desert, California isn’t getting anywhere neat the coverage?  Two women got in an argument, it is unknown if it was over a sale items, and the men with them both pulled guns and opened fire, resulting in both men dying.  Luckily no one else was hurt, but, still… THERE WAS A GUN FIGHT IN A TOY STORE!!! It’s getting some coverage, but it is always followed by, ‘we don’t know if it was over a sale item’, and you can almost hear them want to add, ’so it doesn’t matter nearly as much.’

Thankfully no one else was hurt in the shoot out, but, still… guns… in a toy store… and no one seems to care nearly as much.  I guess it’s okay since the two idiots only killed each other.

Enjoy Black Friday from here on out folks, I’m staying home no matter what is on sale.

Black Friday needs to be ended as we know it, and it needs to happen immediately.

This morning in Long Island, NY, a 34-year-old overnight stock clerk was trampled to death as he attempted to assist in holding back the crowds.  According to reports from the Daily News, the crush was powerful enough that the doors were knocked from their hinges, and the clerk was knocked to the floor and crushed to death.

A later report from the Post Chronicle lists that a pregnant woman was knocked to the ground and later miscarried at a local hospital from the trauma.

I’ve done the Black Friday sales in the past, but I’ve given them up because 1) my sleep matter more to me than saving a few dollars and 2) I didn’t enjoy the antics of the other shoppers.  More and more companies are taking their Black Friday sales online, and I am at the point that if it isn’t online, I don’t really know if I need it.

Do I think Black Friday sales will end?  No, they won’t, but precautions are going to have to be taken to prevent situations like this.  Looking at the Walmart, it appears to not be one of their 24/7 stores, and that probably added to the problem, but whatever caused it, it was wrong.  Some reports I saw through out the day said that a few people stopped to check things out once paramedics were trying to save the man, but otherwise people were too focused on their cheap TVs and $1.50 towels to be worried about the man they were trampling over or was laying there in pain as time passed.

Friends of mine worry about the fact I rarely leave my property unless I absolutely have to.  Tell me why I should?  People worry about the fact I like to do my grocery shopping at 12 or 1 AM.  Fewer people, folks, why should I go during the day?  We’ve all seen my feelings about grocery shopping etiquette.  I don’t want to turn in to a hermit to be honest, but can someone tell me what motivation there is to go out in to public with people that will crush a man to get a cheap TV?

Mankind never ceases to amaze me.  My deepest condolonces to this man’s family and to the woman who had her miscarriage.  To those who trampled and crushed forward… I have no words for you.

Rick Wagoner of GM, Alan Mulally of Ford, and Robert Nardelli of Chrysler all deserve to be strung up by their toes.

I am sure by now you have heard that these three CEO’s went to Capital Hill to beg for the bailout money for their car companies on Wednesday.  The “delicious” irony is that these three gentleman arrived in Washington D.C. on private jets instead of flying commercial.  To add even more insult to injury, Mr. Mulally of Ford took one of the eight private jets owned by the company according to the Washington Monthly.

According to Money Central, it is estimated that each roundtrip on the GM plane for Mr. Wagoner costs the company $20,000.  As Mr. Wagoner lives in Seattle, WA, GM ferries him back home every weekend from Detroit on the private plane, meaning they are dumping an estimated $20K a week in to letting him go home.  Lets say that he takes 52 trips a year on the private plane, it is costing the company $1,040,000 a year to move him around the country.  First class averages out to about $1,600 between any two destinations domestically, so even if they flew him first class every where, you are looking at a cost of $83,200 a year, a savings of $956,800.  How about coach?  Approximately $30,000 a year, a savings of over $1 million a year.  (I personally find first class for domestic flights for anyone to be excessive and ridiculous)

This is only a very small slice of the problem with these companies, but if this is any indication of the mismanagement of funds at these companies, then I almost wish they would fail.  Mind you, I have no desire to see factory workers lose their jobs, but this climate of CEOs being treated like messiahs who walk on water has to end.  No CEO is worth a $28 million dollar pay package.  Golden parachute clauses, insane perks, excessive pay packages, no CEO is worth the amounts of money these men receive.

I do have to applaud the Representatives who called them out on this debacle.  From Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.), as quoted by the Washington Post:

“I’m going to ask the three executives here to raise their hand if they flew here commercial,” he said. All still at the witness table. “Second,” he continued, “I’m going ask you to raise your hand if you’re planning to sell your jet . . . and fly back commercial.” More stillness. “Let the record show no hands went up,” Sherman grandstanded.

I think “grandstanded” was unnecessary in the article, and I am sure it was a bit of a play, but it was a question that did need to be asked of these men.  The commentary was continued by Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.):

“I’m not an opponent of private flights by any means, but the fact that you flew in on your own private jet at tens of thousands itself dollars of cost just for you to make your way to Washington is a bit arrogant before you ask the taxpayers for money.”

I have mixed feelings about the bailout, and I almost always come back to, “Would the government help my family out if our business was in a similar situation to these companies?”, and the simple answer is ‘no’. I understand the theory that these companies are too big to allow them to fail, with tentacles reaching in to too many other industries, but I have to wonder why my tax dollars have to be involved in cleaning up the poor management of companies.

As I said, this is just one small slice of the problem with the American car industry, but it is an insulting situation to say the least.  If anything good comes out of this whole thing, I hope that every one takes a look at every last one of these CEOs with their horrendous paychecks and perks.  And, as a side note, if you know of one good reason why these men and women are paid these insane amounts of money, please explain it to me.  I have never gotten it, and I’m not sure I ever will.

Oh good grief, I love people with too much time on their hands on the weekend.

I was swamped this weekend with working on numerous projects, and only caught the briefest of glimpses of a brewing controversy on Twitter.  For those of you unfamiliar with the microblogging site, if you want to have a running conversation on a subject, you use a thing called hash tags.  Well, the hash tag #motrinmoms popped up this weekend in relation to a new ad campaign started by Motrin.  You can see the ad embedded below.

As I was going through my RSS feeds tonight, Duncan Riley at The Inquisitr posted a great piece about his thoughts on it, and he got me to researching it.  It only took me a few minutes to come to the conclusion that this, like so many things people get worked up over, is much ado about nothing.

What gets me more than anything is that the people who are irked can’t even agree as to why they are offended by it.  Some say it is because it implies that mothers who wear their babies are doing it for fashion or for their egos.  Others say it is the part where is says “Supposedly, it’s a real bonding experience.”  Well, to that part, I can tell you bluntly, unless your kid has said ‘Oh thank you mother, I feel so much more bonded to you now’, then guess what, “supposedly” is the correct word.  You can mention all the studies you want, but your kid could be a lot quieter simply because you just keep jostling them with every step.

As to those who are offended by the fashion angle, while I am sure some parents do it for bonding or other reasons, I can also tell you I have seen numerous parents that truly do it for fashion.  They pay no attention as their child’s head rolls around at dangerous angles right in front of them, or the child is on their back putting everything they can get a hold of into their mouth.  So, yes, I am afraid to tell you, there are many parents out there that aren’t doing it for the “bonding” experience.

I fully realize that 99% of my blog entries deal with me complaining about something, but I would like to think that usually I am at least somewhat constructive.  In this case, these offended #motrinmoms are demanding an apology from Motrin, claiming they will never buy the brand again and discussing how there should be boycotts of the brand, the ad agency and everything else.

In this day and age, is there really anything that can be said in an ad that won’t end up offending some random group of people?  Doubtful.  The energy being expeneded in this whole ranting and raving could be used in about a million other constructive ways, or you could just ignore the ad and go on about your day.  Demanding an apology from the company is just flabbergasting to me, it’s not like they have some how offended a minority or ethic group, they have “offended” a group of people who choose a way to carry their child.  True, Motrin could have picked any way of carrying a child as the source of your back pain, because, guess what, moving a child from place to place is not easy work!  Be it on your hip, pushed in a stroller or some other way I am not even be familiar with, children can hurt your back.

If we keep up this culture of being offended at everything out there we will soon have ads that are black words of the brand name on white backgrounds with nothing else being seen.  Course, that will last until the Mauve Lovers of America get offended at the lack of mauve in advertising.

In short… get over it folks.  Not just the people offended by Motrin, but in general.  Every sub-culture of a sub-culture that gets offended by some random word.  Grow a thicker skin and move along.

1 hour and 8 minutes since a magnitude 7.5 earthquake hit Indonesia, and I can find ONE American news site reporting it.

While monitoring my Twitter feed today, I learned of an enormous earthquake hitting Indonesia via my boss at Mashable, Pete Cashmore.  Mr. Cashmore lives in Scotland, by the way.  So I am receiving news of a major world event via Twitter… from a man living in Scotland.

Okay, fine, but what did the major news sites in the USA show?  (please note that the following links take you to huge screenshots of the news sites named at the time I was looking)  Well, CNN was talking about if GM was worth saving.  Over at MSNBC, they were talking troops in Iraq, and just as I took the screenshot, they did add something up in their “Breaking News” banner.  Google News, which aggregates news from thousands of sites, had nothing on their main page at the time I visited it.  The only news site with something up when I first looked, a full 1 hour and 8 minutes after the event, was Fox News, and even at that, it was just a news blurb marked “URGENT” in red, while a story about Jones Town was the dominating story at the top of the page.  Because, really, the 30th anniversary of the Kool Aid drinkers is just that important.

I understand that it takes some time to report news, but a full 68 minutes after the event, and that’s all I could find?  Is Twitter the new news stream?  Will I have to rely on citizen journalism to get important news stories and links first?  It isn’t just me making some observations as you can see from the message Pete sent out on Twitter just a little while ago.

While I certainly would not say that this is the death of major news outlets, it certainly does not bode well for their future when a guy in Scotland is getting me news about Indonesia faster then they can.

PETA has pulled yet another bone headed move.

According to X17Online.com, around 1 AM Paris time on November 15th, Lindsay Lohan was entering a nightclub in Paris when a member of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) threw a bag of flour at the actress.  As the activist did this, she was also heard to be screaming, “Lindsay Lohan - fur hag!”  Ms. Lohan was fine, and the activist was hauled off by club security.

You know, don’t get me wrong, I love animals, and while I don’t agree with the wearing of fur, I don’t feel anyone has any right to commit what amounts to assualt on another person because you don’t agree with what they choose to wear.  I wouldn’t even be writing about this normally as this is a common occurence for PETA, but it was the tact they decided to take on their blog, in a post written by Joel Bartlett, that I found more disgusting than the attack itself.

Lindsay Lohan’s tan turned noticeably paler tonight after an anti-fur activist showered her with flour at a nightclub in Paris. Lindsay was on her way into the VIP room on the Champs-Elysées just after 1 a.m. early Saturday when she had an entire bag of flour dumped over her head.

When Lindsay was named to PETA’s annual Worst-Dressed List earlier this year, her entry read: “I Know Who Killed Me isn’t just the title of Lindsay Lohan’s latest bomb, it’s the cry of the animals snuffed out so that this ‘mean girl’ can pose in their pelts. Lindsay, there’s no road to recovery for the foxes who are anally electrocuted so that you can look skanky.”

This was followed up by comments from PETA Europe’s Robbie LeBlanc in the same post:

There is nothing remotely ‘fashionable’ about the torture and death of animals killed for fur. Lindsay Lohan might be able to ignore images of bloody animals skinned alive for their pelts, but we hope a dash of flour will help her rise to the occasion and forsake fur once and for all.

I would love to see people stop wearing fur, but this does not mean you have the right to commit assault on them, throw things at them or attack them in any other way.  All of this does is show you to be extremists and, if anything, hurts your cause in that it drives people like myself who might normally stand with you to get as far from you as I possibly can.  It was bad enough when you were suggesting Ben & Jerry’s should switch to using breast milk in their ice cream, but attacking people for wearing something you don’t agree with is just ludicrous.  You are not the fashion police… the state of Florida is the fashion police.

What I wonder is what are you going to do when you throw flour incorrectly, someone inhales too much of it and chokes to death?  What if the person has asthma?  An allergy?  Is all of that ‘justified’ because they wore something you don’t agree with?

Every person has a right to their own opinion, but you have to respect other people’s rights to follow what they believe in.  I am a meat eater, but if I am around vegetarians, I don’t eat meat in front of them out of respect, but that is a choice I make, and if it is unavoidable, i ask them if they mind.  Or I could throw flour on them and scream insults at them… which do you think is more effective?

Get over yourselves PETA.  Take your fight to the lawmakers, but stop acting like 2-year-olds that throw things when you don’t get your way.

After going through the search engine traffic that brings people to this blog, I suddenly feel like I need a shower.

Not long ago I blogged about how it creeped me out when people search on my name, but now I have found something even worse: people searching for 15-year-olds having sex.

Back on October 12th, I wrote a post about how a 15-year-old girl may have to register as a sex offender for taking naked pictures of herself.  The story in and of itself was innocent enough, I didn’t write it in a salacious manner to be sure, but now it is causing people who search for things such as “photo sex Girl school 15 years” and “15 old sex” to find my blog.  Mind you those two results are in my logs for just the five hours prior to me writing this entry.  It is turning in to a daily occurrence since I wrote that post.

A lot of these searches come from countries other than the United States, and I understand morality and ages of consent are different all over the world, but it is still disturbing to me that so many people go out looking for such things.  While I can’t see who these people are, they should still know that there are records being kept of their searches somewhere in the world.

Yes, I realize this post will probably bring in more people doing these searches, and that’s fine because I would rather they know that site owners can see what they’re searching for.  Although I would love to knwo why they are searching so specifically for the age of 15… wait, scratch that, I would rather not talk with these folks at all.

Now, excuse me, I must go scrub my eyeballs after looking at my search traffic.

Been grocery shopping lately? Anyone annoyed you? I can almost assure you you have run into one of these people.

In general I try to do my grocery shopping at 12 or 1 AM just so I can avoid the vast majority of people you run into in the store.  Sometimes I have no choice but to go in the middle of the day, and every time I do it only serves to remind me why I don’t.

The Cell Phone User - “Oh, my phone is ringing and I am in the middle of the aisle, let me stop and answer it.”  This was my favorite for my last trip to Walmart in the middle of the day: a woman was walking down the middle of a narrow aisle in produce with two women walking side-by-side behind her.  She stops to answer her phone, and the two women stop behind her and… stand.  The woman on the phone never turns to look behind her, the two women never say excuse me, and as they stand in their little huddle, they effectively choke off three aisles.  Gee… thanks… really, I had no desire to get to the lettuce, really.

Middle of the Aisle Walker - “You know, I’m in no rush today, and I’m not sure what is in this aisle, so I shall walk down the middle of the row at a leisurely pace, taking my time looking from side-to-side.”  Sure we’ve all had those days where we want to look around, but stay to one side of the blasted aisle!  And here in the USA at least, that means stick to the right side, just like you would in traffic.

End of the Aisle List Checker - “Lets see, did I get everything?  I’ll just stand across the end of this aisle and check it… oh, I did forget something… let me continue to stand here and look up at the hanging aisle directories.”  Do I really need to say any more about this one?  Just move to the end cap for crying out loud!

The Friends - “Oh hi!  How funny we ran into each other passing in the aisle of the grocery store!  Shall we just pull up next to each other and chit chat, blocking the entire aisle?”  Once again, more aisle blocking… this seems to be a common theme.

Think of this as a sequel to Salad Bar Etiquette from earlier this year, but I think it shows a general death of common courtesy.  Pay attention to your surroundings folks, take into consideration what others around you are doing and realize they may not have any interest in watching you chit chatting, shopping or talking on your phone.  I’m not saying you have to rush through the store at super speed, but you could at least let those of us who are in a rush get around you!

Okay, I’ve complained about standard time before, but this really does annoy me each year when it rolls around.

I did finally learn why we have daylight savings time, and it still makes no sense why we are using it.  It was begun to give farmers more daylight in which to farm.  This makes me ask two questions:

1. Why does it matter if the hour is at the beginning or end of the day?
2. We are no longer an ecological based economy, so why are we still using an antiquated timing system that was created for it?

Not all of the world uses Daylight Savings Time (DST), so it makes no sense why we keep it.  Just like our rejection of the metric system makes us an odd ball in the world, so does this.  It is almost like we feel a need to go, “Well, we’re the USA and we simply can not do things the way the rest of the world does it!”

Sure, even without standard time, we would be getting dark earlier, but not quite as early.  Most people get off work at 5 PM in the USA, why make them drive home in the dark?  Also most people run errands after work, again, why make them do it in the dark?  It has also been proven that later sunlight means less energy usage, and that is why we moved the “fall back” and “spring forward” dates around so we could extend the sunlight hours for the majority of the year.  Okay, here’s a wacky idea… it will shock some, but… how about we just go to DST year round?

I know… crazy talk.

I honestly can not for the life of me figure out what the benefits are to doing this any more.  If anything, it seems to hurt far more than it helps at this point.  never mind there are reductions in vehicular accidents and violent crime rates during DST, but let us ignore all the benefits and keep going with this time changing insanity that makes no sense.  Really, please, keep us all in the dark about it! (pun intended)

You know, it fascinates me how airlines and companies like UPS were so quick to adapt to the higher fuel prices this summer, but where are the cut backs now that fuel prices are dropping?

Over the past few months I received numerous updates from UPS for my shipping software of new fuel surcharges.  We were getting one or two of these weeks, tacking on more expenses to our shipping costs, raising them to unheard of levels.

In a more common every day effect on people, airlines have been doing the same.  Fuel surcharges have been added to tickets, not to mention that some airlines are now charging you for checked luggage, which was also supposedly due to the rising cost of gas.

So, prices have plummeted, oil futures are even lower… where are the cut backs?  All of these companies were extremely quick to raise their prices, but I sure don’t see them doing the reverse.  With the economy dropping, don’t you think you might want to encourage people to travel more and do more online shopping?  Or, could it possibly be that these companies used this as an excuse to raise prices and it had no real connection to what was going on with gas?

Nah, it could NEVER be that… could it?

The amount of people in this world who don’t get comedy is beginning to frighten me.

James Gunn, a writer/director/actor, has started a web series entitled PG Porn with his brothers, Sean and Brian, which is all about copying the porn movies of the 1980’s, but without the sex.  Yes, you read that correctly, there is no sex in the series.  It stars real life porn actresses Aria Giovanni, Belladonna and Sasha Grey with mainstream actors Nathan Fillion and Michael Rosenbaum.  Each short film is constructed to be like a 1980’s porn film, just minus the sex so you can concentrate on the riveting stories.  If the first episode is anything to go by, they will end badly… just see for your self.  (Please note there is NO nudity or sex in this clip, but it does feature some rocking porn-style music… if the embed is not working, go here, it keeps going down for some reason.)

While I personally found this highly amusing, it seems that Theresa Darklady Reed of the Huffington Post didn’t.  Ms. Reed calls it “…another example of violent misogyny self-righteously disguised as humor” and “The Gunn brothers apparently consider violence against women to be not just acceptable but sexy…”.  While Ms. Reed claims to “get” the joke, it is fairly obvious she doesn’t.  James Gunn has defended his series against this argument and informed readers of his MySpace blog that in future episodes there are more deaths, but they aren’t always the women.

This is another case like the recent situation of Paramount having no sense of humor about South Park or a couple getting angry over being featured ina  Saturday Night Live sketch.  In no way did I take this little film to be a case of “misogyny” or violence against women.  The Gunn’s have gone on record as saying how this would also technically be rated as PG if it was a film because Hollywood is far more relaxed on violence than it is on sex.  I would also say that for this to be considered an a case of violence against women, it would have had to be intentional on the part of the construction worker as opposed to what was obviously meant to be taken as an accident.

Did he shoot her in the head with the nail gun out of anger?  No.  Did he show remorse afterwords?  Yes.  Would a cop arrest him for manslaughter as opposed to murder?  Yes.  Was it an accident?  Yes.

Why is everyone taking comedy so seriously all of a sudden?It is meant in humor, it is obviously humor, sure it may not be for you, but does that mean you have to try to make it into something it isn’t?  If this was a case of “misogyny”, does this mean women are completely off to being made fun of now?  Does every female character in every story now have to live no matter what?  Apparently so since women dying, even by accident, is now considered an endoresement of violence against women.

… I think my head hurts now.

Again, it seems police have nothing better to do than make stupid arrests.

io9 first pointed out the story and followed it back to its source at NBC LEX18.  18-year-old William Poole, a student at George Rogers Clark High School in Winchester, KY, is currently sitting in the Clark County Detention Center. Why is he there?  Well, it seems he wrote a story for his English class about zombies attacking a high school.

Yeah, you read that right.

For some unknown reason, Mr. Poole’s grandparents went through his writing journal, and coming across the zombie story, they turned it over to the police.  Under Kentucky law, any threat against an event or school is a felony, and so he is being charged second-degree felony charge of “terrorist threatening”.  The police also raided his home and found materials “that outline possible acts of violence aimed at students, teachers, and police.” Prosecutors got a judge to raise his bail from $1,000 to $5,000 on Thursday based on it being a serious felony charge.

Of the entire event, Mr. Poole says, “”My story is based on fiction. It’s a fake story. I made it up. I’ve been working on one of my short stories, (and) the short story they found was about zombies. Yes, it did say a high school. It was about a high school over ran by zombies.”

While I uderstand that threats of school violence need to be taken seriously… zombies?  Really?  Unless when the police searched Poole’s house found a small army of zombies living in his basement, I have a hard time believing they had much on the kid.  And, yes, yes, I know it has been written about endlessly that kids suspend their civil rights in a school setting, but they have no right to write a story involving a school and fantasy monsters attacking it?

I’m not so naive as to think there aren’t large chunks of this story missing, such as:

• Why were his grandparents prompted to read his journal?
• Does he have a history of being disturbed?
• What were the other materials found in his house?
• Did any other writings in his journal pertain to violence at the school, or was it just the zombie story?

Barring those questions, I can’t believe a story about zombies would be viewed as anything more than a science fiction/fantasy s