Lorie and Ryan Davenport are the Biggest Idiots on the Face of the Planet.

Yeah, you heard me. Idiots. They began camping out at a Best Buy last week in order to be the first in line for the big "Black Friday" sale that starts this Friday. That will be nine days of their lives spent camping in front of the store. Assuming that they are employed, that's either nine days of unpaid leave or nine days of paid vacation time that they're pissing away. Best Buy unexpectedly gave them an iPad for being the first campers at one of their stores but still. What a pathetic way to spend Thanksgiving. Read the story:Link
 
THEY ARE WASTING NINE DAYS OF THEIR LIVES SO THAT THEY COULD BUY SOMETHING ON SALE!

 The best part is that these two losers do this stunt every year. They admitted that they have no idea what they actually want to buy this time around...

Jeez, and I felt a little goofy for waiting a couple of hours before Target opened at 5am on a Black Friday. The kicker was that all the gifts that I got on "sale" there were eventually priced the same just a few days before Christmas. From my own experience, look for sales just before Christmas or avoid the mall altogether by shopping on "CyberMonday" which is the first Monday after Thanksgiving.

Turks with Knives

"When you speak the truth, have a foot in the stirrup."
---Turkish proverb.

So, say you're having a conversation with someone about the insecurities of living in this post-9/11 world of ours and that someone says...
"When I get on the plane, I got to tell you, if I see people who are in Muslim garb and I think, you know, they are identifying themselves first and foremost as Muslims, I get worried. I get nervous..."
What might your reaction be? Maybe agreement or a polite rebuke? Either way, would you go to the end of the earth to see this persons career destroyed and basically upend their world?

Well if you're the CEO of National Public Radio(NPR) you would. And with gusto. The head of NPR, Vivian Schiller, did just that when she fired the respected journalist Juan Williams after he made that comment on The O'Reilly Factor, when the topic came around to the Muslim quandary in America. After firing him she said that Williams should save those remarks for "his psychiatrist or his publicist." Nice! The irony is that Williams went on to say that we shouldn't associate Muslims with extremist Muslims like we shouldn't label all Christians as extremists because of the Oklahoma City bombings.

Personally I agree with the guy. Whether it's a logical fear or not, soft alarm bells go off in my head at times. Coincidentally, a week before Williams was fired, I had an experience where in the restaurant that I work at a group of ten Muslim men and women walked in wearing "their garb", ordered no food, and broke off into groups of two and sat dispersed around the restaurant. ??? They had books with them and were apparently studying Muslim scripture, stayed for about an hour before leaving together without eating. Call me and my associates bigots but we were a little unsettled.

But I'm a reasonable guy. In return, the next time I'm in Saudi Arabia and I wear jeans and a "Guns n Roses" shirt to a restaurant I won't be the least bit offended if the peeps view me a wee bit wearily.

Why I Like To Check Myself Out

There was a time when I avoided those "self-checkout" kiosks like the plague. Now I actively seek them out. I always thought that by using there self-checkouts that I was taking away someones job. It maybe so but I would rather not go through the bullshit of dealing with a talking human anymore.

Example:
I was trying to purchase a bunch of bananas at the Copps grocery store and I busied up to the self-checkout when it asked me for my produce code. Ha! I actually remembered that I would have to know this code and I entered the digits on the touchscreen. Then..."Pistachios $6.99#" came up on my screen. I looked around for a clerk for assistance but there were none to be found. With my morale reaching a new low, I sulked over to the manned checkout.
So now I'm in the "Express" lane which is now 20 items or less. ??? It used to be 10 then 15 but is now 20. So it's either this lane or the "full service lane". I stand my ground.
It shouldn't be too bad of a wait with just an elderly lady ahead of me. But what's this? SHE HAS MORE THAN 20 ITEMS! MORE LIKE 40! THERE HAS TO BE 10 CANS OF SWEET PEAS ALONE! "The secret is to stay cool", I tell myself as I check my watch.
"Are those your bananas?", the clerk asked.
"Yes", says me.
"You should put a bar in between so it doesn't get mixed up with hers"
"They're all the way at the end, it's pretty easy to tell."
Silence.
So finally he scans and then the elderly lady decides to take out her checkbook. After taking about 2 minutes to fill it out she asks, "What was the total again? I want to write it for $20 over."
"It's $37.39"
So she hands him the check, he processes it and then says,
"Oops, you wrote it for $57.33 so you'll get back $19.94".
Oh man here we go! Apparently all this New Math wasn't covered in her period school back in the day so there a multi-minute discussion about how and why this happened, how she wanted a $20 bill to put in a card and how she HATES having to carry around all that coin in her purse. I'm in between openly fuming and frantically searching for $.06 in my backpack just to get the ball rolling.

So after 10 minutes or so, it's my turn.
"Hello"
"Hi"
"Just the bananas?"
"Yes"
"One second", he says and replaces the paper in the printer.
"Do you have a Copps card to use today?"
"No"
"Do you want to apply for one?"
"I have one I just don't want to use it."
I'm obviously vexed and hurried but we have to play the game.
"That will be $1.14"
I hand him a $5 bill.
"One second, Marjorie! I need quarters!"
God Dammit!
"Paper or plastic" says the girl at the end of the checkout.
"Neither. they're already in that little plastic bag"
"But do you want a bag with handles?"
"NO! I'll put in my backpack"
By this time the guy finally gets my change but doesn't hand it to me until he tears off the receipt.
"Thank you for shopping at Copps"
"Sure"
"Have a great day!" says the bagger girl.
"Thanks"
I start to make my escape.
"SIR!"
Jolted I turn around to face the clerk when he says...
"You have 2 coupons"
Our eyes meet, we hold a stare and somewhere off in the distance a dog barks. I nonchalantly walk back, gaze at the 6 or so people waiting in line behind me, grab my coupons, exhale and saunter off.
The coupons? Why they are for cottage cheese and Vagisil...

HBO Feature Presentation

One of the few great things to come out of the 80's. If you remember it, you thought it was the coolest thing in the world at the time. If you never saw it back then, you're wondering what the fuss is all about.
Remember to turn up the volume a little bit and hit the full-screen button...

H. L. Mencken

"Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats""

"Any man who afflicts the human race with ideas must be prepared to see them misunderstood"

"Giving every man a vote has no more made men wise and free than Christianity has made them good"

"It is even harder for the average ape to believe that he has descended from man"

What Happens In Vatican City Stays In Vatican City

When the horrible news surfaced that Catholic Priests were molesting boys I was shocked. When the Catholic church in the U.S. said that they would handle the sexual abuse matters internally instead of turning the molesters over to the authorities I was shocked. But now that I've learned that the "age of sexual consent" in the Catholic's own country, VATICAN CITY, is only 12 years of age I am absolutely horrified!
What?!? It's the lowest age of consent in Europe! Spain is bad enough at 13 but at least it's a teenager, right(ugh!)? So any adult in the nation of Vatican City can have sex with a 6th grader and, as long as the child is "willing", it's perfectly good. AGGGGHHHH!!! The Pope runs the Vatican City! How can this be acceptable!!!
More depressing info here...Link

Mouse Trap!!!

Actually the game "Mouse Trap" is a "Rube Goldberg Machine". Rube Goldberg was a cartoonist whom invented those crazy, ever-flowing contraptions that sometimes serve no purpose except to amaze and delight. Ugh, it's too difficult to explain--just watch this music video if you want to see one a RMB in action and one of the coolest inventions/machines/videos mankind has ever made. And it was all done in one continuous shot!

OK Go--"This Too Shall Pass"

In case you are wondering...it is all done in a single, unbroken camera shot. It took over 60 takes try to get it right. If the machine failed, it took 30 people over a hour to reset it. The people seen cheering at the end are some of the 55 workers that built the machine.
If you are interested, check out another one of OK Go's nifty videos here:Link.

Healthy Health Care

So, for better or worse, America will now have a national healthcare system. What utterly baffled me during the entire "debate" that preceded it's passage was the argument of "look what's happened to the Canadian Health Care System after they nationalized it! Why would we want that?!?"  Like I said, this argument has always left me scratching my head because from every Canadian news source I've encountered I get the feeling that the Canucks  really, really like their HC Scystem. As in 76% of the country.
(The following is a link to polling information which I thought had the best middle-of-the-road results:http://www.ipsos-na.com/news-polls/pressrelease.aspx?id=4467
To come to this conclusion I did a Google search of CHC and CHC polls and found in every article that the majority of the Canadian population is either happy or very happy with the system. Some other interesting facts:
Percentage of citizens with Health Care:
Canada  100%
America  84%
Are Happy with their Health Care:
Canada  75%
America  49%
Percentage of GDP spent on Health Care:
Canada  10%
America 17% 

If being like more like Canada results in everyone being covered and everyone being happier with their coverage while spending less doing so then, ya, I wish we were more like Canada.

Things You Might Have Missed...

Some of my favorite vids. Enjoy!

Noah takes a photo of himself everyday for 6 years. Yup, 6 years. My personal fav and a great accompanying score.


In 1960, Detroit used to have the highest, median income of any city in America. Not anymore.  When watching this video, keep in mind that over 30,000 buildings have already been demolished in Detroit over the past 30 years.
This is what happens when ONE MILLION PEOPLE vacate a city...

That video is the first of a three-part series on You Tube if you want to see more.


South Korea: Boys cheering for their soccer teams. The most amazing thing is that they do this with their CLOTHES (not holding up cards).They have a jacket that is one color on the back, one on the front, and that they can open or close to show a third color shirt on the inside. One school has also figured out how to use their pants to make shading.
 


Speaking of choreography,  two American chicks make this nifty little number.


From the 2008 election....

Cindy McCain Claims She’s ‘Just Like Any Other Female Human’