The Feel Turd Moment of the Year
Ebony and Ivory.
The holiday season is upon us. This may be a festive time of year but sometimes it’s important to slow down, focus, center, be present, and remember our roots.
For me, today, that means pausing to pay homage to the poop tag.
“Roll the crap. Action!”
Once upon a time a company made a game called Cards Against Humanity. It was mildly cute but a blatant rip of Apples To Apples. They lost points on that.
But now, I’m happy to say they have more than redeemed themselves. The Christmas spirit is very much alive. So much so, you might say that I’ve been moved.
IKEA the Light
Being new to the big city, my wife and I ran off last night and did something that officially baptized us as seasoned big city denizens. Nothing in this city will ever hold our wonder again.
Laws, yes. M-O-O-N. That’s spells IKEA. And what a sight it was to behold. In fact, I’m going to do my best to document the experience from the perspective of all five senses. Yes, all five! It’s a lofty goal. Let’s see how I do.
After consulting the texts of ancient lore (Google) we determined that we’d have to drive through about 10 miles of urban jungle in areas we had never explored before. This was going to be something new. I packed my machete just in case we saw any urbane gorillas.
At first we worried we might get lost, but while still about 42 miles away, the shape of IKEA loomed large and glowed in the distance. There was no mistaking the mountain of yellow and blue which shined bigger and brighter than Mt. Everest as seen from a distance of 12 feet.
The only close call we had on the way over was when my wife reflexively knee-jerked the car and almost pulled into the parking lot of another garishly colored blue and yellow building. But that only turned out to be the IKEA warehouse. I hate to burst any bubbles but apparently the trendy product widgets contained in the IKEA store are not actually björn there.
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Time to mortar a brick
I’ve been hearing a lot of hubbub of late about online retail sales overtaking traditional “brick and mortar” businesses.
Boo freakin’ hoo. To my way of thinking that’s like worrying about one turd shitting on another.
Still, I thought it might be a good idea to reminisce a few moments about the proverbial good times of ye olde mom and pop. The good old days and the “little man” of Alan Jackson lore.
Brick and mortar? Mom and pop? Who the hell is in charge of naming this shit? Dr. Seuss? Family jewels are found in aisle 42. Bait and tackle in aisle 69. That reminds me: “Clean up on aisle 69!”
I’ve already written quite a bit about Mr. Online Entrepreneur. He’s slippery, slimy and makes jackals and amebas seem like highly evolved life forms. He lies about everything including – most especially – that the product you want is “in stock.” Then he gets your money and you wait weeks to find out if you’ll ever get the product he just totally lied about or if you’ll ever get your money back. Good times.
How about Mr. Brick Mortar? How does he compare? And who is this guy?
Does the plethora of dings on the side of your car give you any kind of freakin’ clue?
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Money Can’t Miserly Love
A wealthy man was generously offering his counsel to a poor man. He said, “The truth of the matter is this: Money can’t buy you love.”
The dispensing of wisdom was briefly interrupted by the arrival of a UPS delivery driver. “Ah. If you’ll excuse me, I see my daily delivery of useless plastic consumeristic widgets made in China has arrived. A box! A box! Oh goodie, a box!”
Spittle flew from jiggly jowls as the man lurched for his box cutter and sliced open the cardboard like a battlefield surgeon. There wasn’t even time for triage. In moments he held the widgets up before his eyes, which briefly glazed over as various pleasure centers in his brain were involuntarily activated, then in a few mere seconds he carelessly tossed the items aside. He was already bored with them.
“Now then, where were we? Ah yes, true happiness must come from within.”
Indeed.
Taking Stock – We Have Your Money
Right after I placed my order online I received this emailed order confirmation. Ho ho ho.
Verily we just had a veritable festive holiday season. All across this great nation currency (and credit) was exchanged for consumer goods, primarily cheaply made shit from China. It was truly a touching and traditional way to honor the birth of our savior Jesus Christ. (Even though historians tell us he was more likely born on July 22nd.)
How well did we honor Him?
- Web visits to online retailers were up for the second year in a row.
- Thanksgiving saw a 6% increase.
- Black Friday was up 7%.
- Cyber Monday was up 11%.
- Christmas was up a whopping 27%.
- The day after Christmas was only up 1% but it still counts.
Halleluja! He is risen along with the economy!
That’s a lot of online orders. But, alas, no stats released yet on how many of those last-minute shoppers were told their coveted items were “out of stock.” That’s the internet’s dirty little secret. Discussion about that peculiar aspect of online shopping would be a real bummer, wouldn’t it?
My research shows that 87% of online retailers make no effort to show real-time inventory status.
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My iPad Prayer (3rd generation)
Click to enlarge and view on original source.
As a former altar boy (reformed) I know how to pray. And I’m not above resorting to such tactics when the need is great. Like when I want revenge on my boss. You know what they say: “There are no atheists in shitholes.”
On my blog I claim to be many things, it’s true. But I’ve never claimed to be mature. E-v-a-r. I dare you to go back and painstakingly re-read every word I’ve ever written. I think you’ll find this claim to be born out. There will be nary a word about the mythical beast known as my maturity. Neener, neener and in yo face!
Ahem.
Where was I? Oh yeah. What could it possibly be that would motivate me to pray? Read on!
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The Klout Pout Boogie #Klout #influence #poop
Merry Christmas, son. I got you some Klout.
First I saw vague references to something called “Klout” on tweets. Things like “I just Klouted someone” or “I got nudged on my Klout.”
Since I didn’t know what a “Klout” was, my brain utterly ignored these tweets. They were invisible. (I know I just contradicted my first sentence. STFU! Hey, who’s the writer here?) Much like the native peoples who couldn’t see European “tall ships” offshore or the way I can’t find the mayonnaise jar when my wife has moved it front and center on the top shelf in the fridge.
Eventually I learned that Klout was a website/company that provides “social media analytics.” Finally! A company to fill that need in our society. Screw the 1 billion or more people without access to safe drinking water and the 2 billion without access to toilets. We got Klout. Yeah!
Naturally I signed right up.
I learned that Klout measures “influence.” As near as I can figure, this a measurement of how good you are at getting other humans to do that most holy of acts: spend money.
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Shouts from the Abyss 
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