Fortune has smiled on me
“Calamities are of two kinds: misfortunes to ourselves, and good fortune to others.”
–Ambrose Bierce
Wow. Are things going my way now or what?
First, my wife took me to a Chinese restaurant for dinner last night. After voluntarily moving to a small town, the Chinese food here leaves a lot to be desired. The locals will enthusiastically tell you how good a place is, but when you go there it never turns out well. I can only assume these recommendations are based on the fact the person has never been outside of city limits and has never had real Chinese. Continue reading →
Me love you oolong time
Iced tea became my #1 beverage of choice after I recently gave up carbonated soft drinks and soda. Or, as I commonly refer to it, “liquid candy.”
In the mornings, after I also gave up coffee, hot tea moved to the top of the list.
Each of those, iced tea and hot tea, both had something else in common, though. And that was my old nemesis granulated sugar.
When sugar got kicked to the curb, that was a major game changer.
Sure, it’s easy to give up soda when you’re poppin’ two tablespoons of sugar into your iced tea. And a basic cup of hot tea in the mornings made from a generic tea bag isn’t super-critical when you’ve had a lifelong love affair with sugar and rely on it to fight any bitterness in your brewing technique.
Now I almost never drink iced tea, although occasionally with a bit of lemon it can be quite good if I get lucky in a restaurant.
Mornings are rougher. My hot tea without sugar is so bitter that it is often borderline undrinkable. And in the mornings I really crave a hot drink.
That’s when I learned I was doing it all wrong. So says the following video I found on my Roku and the free CHOW channel.
I Pee You
Ah, Facebook. Bringing me the important news of the day.
My “wall” had been updated. The thumbnail image showed a picture of a home pregnancy test.
Jumping ahead a bit, I tried to guess the category. “Things I’ve Peed On for $400, Alex!”
Nope. That wasn’t it. Actually stopping to read the comment helped.
“Guess Igor is going to be a big sister!!”
Slowly the wheels in my brain began to turn. Oh, I get it! Someone’s going to have a baby. Gosh golly gee whiz! I’m so uncited for my unfriend!
I can only hope that a printout of that Facebook entry will be saved for the baby’s scrapbook. Along with Baby’s First Flash Drive and Baby’s First iPad.
This so-called “friend” on Facebook is actually a life nemesis. Facebook sure is loose with the word “friend,” isn’t it? Why can’t we assign levels to the people we know? In addition to “friends” there should be options for: contacts, acquaintances, coworkers, fakers, posers, hosers and hoze.
To protect the identity of this Facebook friend I won’t reveal how I know her or her gender. But I will say this: I’ve blogged about her before. She’s an expert at milking (pun intended) the system. If there is a penny of government funds that she’s got coming to her, she knows how to shake that tree.
Aside from my recent $22 check for two days of jury duty, I can’t recall ever getting any government money.
She’s also one of the fake Christians I know. And she does things like “bear false witness” by taking a used discount card to the store and deliberating tricking the clerk into redeeming it twice.
Come to think of it, I’m against government being in the baby business. Why should having a baby mean that you get tax breaks? That’s bogus. If you want a baby, fine, go ahead and have one. But pay for it your own damn self.
We all know that the IRS and the tax code have nothing to do with money. It’s actually all about social engineering which is just a fancy way of saying the system is designed to get people to do what government wants. That’s the real reason why there is such an unfair and highly complex tax code.
The code is so big that politicians can’t even agree on how long it is. Title 26, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) code totals to about 3,400,000 million words. The non-partisan Tax Foundation reports that the entire tax code with regulations in 2005 was over 9,097,000 words. To put that in perspective, the Bible has 774,746 words. The code has grown in length between 1995 and 2005 by 18.9 percent. The directions for filing a typical form 1040 totals 161 pages. The “EZ” version is 41 pages. Source.
Social engineering is the reason why we’ll never have anything like a flat tax. Too bad, too, because meeting arbitrary government set deadlines and filling out forms is a violation of our right to the pursuit of happiness.
So the government wants people to pump out babies and therefore gives out tax breaks. I’ve just never been able to understand why. It might be something to do with what hyper-macho Sam Elliott talks about in that commercial for penis-shrinking Dodge Ram trucks. There’s “strength in numbers” and that’s what America wants. We wanna be a contender like China.
If I try to think about it my head feels funny. Instead let’s change gears and concentrate on Things That Get Peed On:
- Neighbor’s car
- Neighbor’s fence
- The floor around a toilet
- A fire hydrant
- Trees
- Ford (see Calvin sticker)
- Chevy (see Calvin sticker)
- Bushes
- The lawn
- Las Vegas
- The bed
- Movie theater seats
- Bumblebees
- Home pregnancy tests
Help me out here! Did I forget anything obvious for this very important list?
Proactive Social Interuptions
Some social situations never happen because of the shared history of the people involved.
I have a friend who is a big supporter of a certain college football team. I’m not sure why he supports them so much. He never went to school there and has no association with the school or the team. All I can figure is that the school is geographically located in our area so many of the locals are boosters for the team. You can be a member of the “in crowd” if you support the team, too. Wear the colors, fly the flag, and fit in. And he does. Big time.
One time he invited me over to his house to watch one of these games on TV. He said it would be a private affair, just the two of us. Now I have little interest in sports and none in this team (comprised of criminal ruffian assholes), but I went because I figured it would be fun to hang out with him, just the two of us, something we rarely get to do. Continue reading →
Aisle Hurl 4 You
Look what showed up on the Apple App Store tonight. It’s called Wedding Dash 4-Ever and it’s only $6.99!
Is there a Temptation Island mode? A plastic surgery center? A weight-loss challenge before the pre-nuptials are signed?
Your goal is to help Quinn, the “fabulous” wedding planner, handle all of the wedding “mania” and avoid disasters like Bridezilla, Groom Kong and a Food Fight. But wait, there’s also “fun conga lines.”
Hell, I’d be willing to pay another $20 for the Divorce Attorney expansion pack.
I wonder if I can drag and drop the Recycle Bin icon onto the game? I’m going to need someplace to hurl.
The app is billed as a “time management game.” Sounds like a pretty accurate description of marriage, too!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the desktop version of Hang Time!
Saving money means you live better
The all new McGallon Latte, available at the convenient in-store McDonalds
Walmart has been in the news recently.
Walmart Sales Fall For Seventh Straight Quarter In Q4, As U.S. Stores Struggle
That’s almost two years of declining sales. Did you know that? I sure didn’t.
The store’s motto is “always low prices.” Always. That’s a powerful word. What does it mean? The dictionary says, “at all times; on all occasions.” It’s one of those words with absolute meaning. It doesn’t mean often or most of the time. It means always.
The new official motto for Walmart is “Save money. Live better.” But you’ll still find the text “Always Low Prices!” plastered all over the company’s official web site.
Save money and live better? Perhaps we should critically analyze that phrase. First, in order to “save” money in that way, you have to spend money. And that’s not saving at all. And you can’t spend your way to living better, can you? Does money mean happiness? Polls don’t bear that out. Money can’t buy you love. But that doesn’t stop companies like Walmart from offering love for sale. Continue reading →
Tiny poll dancer
I have formed an exploratory committee to examine the possibility of changing my avatar.
Exploratory. Now that’s a butt-clenching word if ever there was one. If you know what I mean. But it is the word I have chosen and quite fitting for someone like me, I think.
Avatar. Another interesting word. As I learned from James Cameron, it loosely translates to “I see you” in English.
In other words, my avatar image is how you see me. It’s a pretty big deal.
Since I’m thinking about changing my avatar, I thought I’d break out the poll feature for the first time ever and find out what my reader thinks. The poll feature can handle only one vote, right?
This post also represents my contribution to the science of bracketology in honor of “March Madness” that will soon be upon us. Look, we’re already down to the final two. The winner goes on and the loser has to suck it.
Current avatar for yours truly
Proposed avatar for yours truly
Thank you so much for voting. That is one of the greatest privileges in our democracy and even here in the Abyss.
Shouts from the Abyss 
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