Category: Life

Today, kids don’t have a gossamer-shrouded Age of Innocence; all they have an Age of Being Charged as a Juvenile.

You know the saying that goes, A smile is just a frown turned upside down?

Doesn’t that actually imply that a smile is a defective frown, inadvertantly inverted from mankind’s normal countenance, that of suffering, stuggle, and pain, by a fleeting and illusory displacement of normalcy by the shiny objects of transient pleasure and is subject to correction by the harsh, uncaring reality who prefers all its frowns to display correctly?

Go directly to Guantanamo! It’s Patriot Act board game:

In this send-up of “Monopoly,” players don’t pass “Go” and they don’t go directly to jail — they go to Guantanamo Bay.

Instead of losing cash for landing on certain squares, they lose civil liberties. And the “Mr. Monopoly” character at the center of the board is replaced by a scowling former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

“Patriot Act: The Home Version” pokes fun at “the historic abuse of governmental powers” by the recently renewed anti-terrorism law.

You know, I would feign some sort of indignation at this misrepresentation of government power, but honestly, how can a capitalist like me not enjoy seeing even a person with an opposing viewpoint indulging in free market profit making without the fear that either of us will be dragged from our beds tonight and summarily executed?

Besides, I still have my deck of the Clinton Impeachment card game.

Not John Carpenter’s The Thing, not Benjamin Grimm, not the Addam’s Family hand.

The Volkswagen Thing.

How can you tell if a seller is "motivated"?

He or she has a For Sale sign in the front yard of the property for sale!

No, not that Diner.

Every Sunday, I take my sainted mother out to breakfast. Well, perhaps “take” is the wrong word, since she usually drives us there in that new little roller skate of hers (I, of course, encouraged her to invest in a car I’d want to inherit, years hence, with low mileage) and she mostly pays for breakfast. So every Sunday, I go with (or perhaps sponge off) my sainted mother to a small diner in historic (if you count the outlot of a new strip mall as “historic,” but someday, it will be, when we’re all living in underground catacombs or in orbit, how we’ll long for strip malls) Oakville, Missouri, for breakfast.

But I digress. Over the course of my many hundreds of dozens of trips to that diner, I’ve learned valuable life lessons that have made me a better man, husband, and father. To whit:

• Spread your jelly thin, for there’s only one little tub of it and four halves of cold buttered toast across which you’ll want to stretch your limited supply.
• Don’t drink all the coffee in the cup, you greedy bastard. Because you probably don’t want to know the real reason why that water is brown–it has something to hide.
• Damn the masculinity, order the strawberries and whip cream on your waffle; for in thirty minutes, these strangers will have forgotten how nancy you looked, and you’ll have the satisfaction of the sweetness in your belly. Assuming, of course, you don’t finish the coffee and see what’s at the bottom of your coffee cup.
• You’ll never be Norm-al. By the time the regular waitresses remember what you want even though you order the same freakin’ thing every freakin’ Sunday, the regular waitresses will have real jobs, and you’ll have to start breaking in a new set of regular waitresses. So don’t expect them to just bring the coffee when you sit down, much less learn your name.

Well, I just have the ill luck to have been born in relatively stable years with great opulence. Some generations get real-life lessons from wars and depressions and real adversity, I get red pepper nuggets in my coffee.

And, sonny, when I was young, we liked it that way.

This book mentioned one, and when I spoke to Heather about them, she didn’t know what I was talking about. So let me explain it to you damn kids the way it was in the days before plastic could survive the sub-32 degree temperatures of Frigidaires.

The ice cube trays were metal, with a louvre fixture atop of them. Essentially, the tray itself did not have separate compartments for the individual cubes, but the louvre blades made boundaries. You poured your water in and let it freeze. Once it was frozen, you operated this lever atop the louvre which caused the blades to shift back and forth, breaking the ice cubes apart and out of their tray.

None of this little plastic twists to pop individual cubes out. In the old days, when we wanted to drop ice in our scotch, we had to freakin’ operate machinery. Which is why we drank it straight, you damn malternative-suckers.

The difference between décor and decor is about 68% in retail price.

I find it somewhat macabre that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation has a service mark on the 65 Roses® description of the disease.

Because it doesn’t want the other Cystic Fibrosis fundraising machines to use it, I suppose. But still, one would hope that charitable organizations would not need to worry about it nor would not spend money and time on proper branding for the disease they’re supposed to be fighting, but I’ve always recognized the difference between charitable organizations and fundraising machines.

Man, who knew they could puree so smoothly?

Man, yogurt for babies. Baby vomit that requires no interaction on the part of babies’ actual digestive systems. And unlike other yogurts which are made from industrial foundry by-products, this stuff is all organic.

One expects the companion product is Yo Mama.

(See also Made with Real Koalas.)

Camo Sleepwear for Women.

I would love ya if I could find ya, baby.

You know, if Victoria’s Secret started stocking some of those figure skaters’ costumes, I’m sure they’d sell some.

Because surely I’m not the only person in America who might be interested in a little game of The Beautiful but Fading Aging Figure Skater at Her Last Olympics and the Corruptible French Judge.

HiddenPassageway.com.

Because secret doors in your home are cool.

Junk mail tonight:

I tell you what, Svetlana, you’ve already mistaken me for a Canadian and a European man. By the time you hit upon the truth, I’ll be less fooled than I would have been at the outset.

The January 2006 issue of Readers’ Digest reprints several clever headlines from Fark.com as one of the end-of-the-story page fillers.

So how do you feel now, keen modern Gen X, Y, or Zer, to know that when you laugh at a Fark headline, your grandmother laughs with you?

On Friday, I received a flyer in the postal mail telling me the HOT STOCKS ON THE STREET, wherein some unnamed entity has deemed Sniffex, Inc. (SNFX) as the stock to buy in 2006! A full eighth of the four page tome is dedicated to the disclaimer, reproduced here in its stunning glory:

IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER & DISCLOSURE: This paid advertising issue does not purport to provide an analysis of any companies financial position and is not in any way to be construed as an offer to buy or sell and security. We are not investment advisors! This is paid advertisement and Sniffex inc (SNFX) is featured company Annecto Corporation (hereafter annecto) managed the publishing and distribution of this publication, annecto disseminates information via paid advertisements. Although the information contained in this advertisement is believed to be reliable, annecto and its editor make no warranties as to the accuracy of the description of any of the content herein and accept no liability for how readers may choose to utilize it. The information contained herein is being republished from already publicly disseminated information by third parties regarding SNFX and are assumed to be reliable, but annecto accepts no responsibility for the accuracy of such information. Annecto, or any of their assets, principals, officers, directors, partners, agents, or affiliates are not, nor do we represent ourselves to be, registered investment advisors, brokers, or dealers. Readers should independently verify all statements made in this advertisement. Annecto has a total production budget of over $500 000 and annecto is a non-affiliated third party, annecto is using its own money to disseminate this report. Annecto or its Affiliates own shares of SNFA and intend to sell them at a the open market. Be aware of an inherent conflict of interest resulting from such holdings due to our intent to profit from the liquidation of these shares. Shares may be sold at any time, even after positive statements have been made regarding the above company. Since we own shares, there is an inherent conflict of interest in our statements and opinions. Readers of this publication are cautioned not to place undue reliance on forward looking statements, which are based on certain assumptions and expectations involving various risks and uncertainties, that could cause results to differ materially from those set forth in the forward looking statements. This is not solicitation to buy or sell stocks. We are not registered investment advisors, this text is for informational purpose only and you should seek professional advice from registered financial advisor before you do anything related with buying or selling stocks, penny stocks are very high risk and you can lose your entire investment. This is not solicitation to buy or sell securities and this newsletter is not a registered investment advisor. Please make special note that Annecto reserves the right to sell any or all of its shares in any company profiled at any time, be that before the date of a profile, during the date of a profile, or at anytime after the date of a profile. Further, specific financial information, filings and disclosures, as well as general investor information about publicly traded companies like SNFX, advice to investors and other investor resources are available at the Securities and Exchange commission web site at www.sec.gov and www.pinksheets.com . Any investment should be made only after consulting with a qualified investment advisor and after reviewing the publicly available financial statements of the company and verifying thatch the investment is approved within the respective investors state. Investing in securities is highly speculative and carries a great deal of risk. Past performance does not guarantee future results. The information contained herein contains forward-looking information within the meaning of Section 27 A of the Securities Act of 1933 and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, including regarding expected continual growth of the featured company. The information contained herein includes forward-looking statements within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Reference is made in particular to the description of SNFX’s plans and objectives for future operations, assumptions underlying such plans and objectives and other forward-looking statements included in the information provided. Such statements, which contain terms such as expect, believe, anticipate, suggest, plan, indicate and similar terms of uncertainty, are based on management’s current expectations and beliefs and are subject to a number of factors and uncertainties which could cause actual results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements. Factors which could cause such results to differ materially from those described in the forward-looking statements include the size and growth of the market for SNFX’s operations, regulatory approvals, the ability to fund its capital requirements in the near term and long term .All statements relating to operational results are hereby qualified in their entirety by the companies filings, including its financial statement filings, under the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.

That, my friends, is 768 words of cobbled-together gibberish (I was going to include [sic] to indicate the grammatical errata, but I gave up quickly. Like a child repeating a mantra under the blankets to protect it from the boogeyman, Annecto seems to have swiped and pasted legalese from a number of sources to create the repetitive cantation to ward off lawsuits.

Not registered financial advisors? You don’t say! Based on the writing and editing skills contained within the forward-looking statements, I’d say that the authors/cobblers lack a diploma, much less whatever paperwork it takes to become a registered financial advisor.

No, Annecto looks more like a pumper and dumper from Yahoo! message boards with a desktop publishing program and a postage budget.

Although I am not a highly-paid marketing professional (I am merely a highly-paid technology professional who works for a marketing company), I’d like to proffer the following tip that might seem like a good idea, if not the obvious:

Pepsi One, Coca-Cola Zero

Never, ever name your product so that, if it’s placed side by side with its equivalent product from your competitor, it sounds as though you’ve just lost a tightly-contested ballgame.

Excellent opportunity in the mail yesterday:

Brian,
I’d like to talk to you concerning a full or part time management opportunity with my company. Please call me at 636-xxx-xxxx.
                    Thank you,
                    Len De Clue

Come on, if you’re looking for suckers, don’t insult their intelligence on the first contact. Although, in retrospect, this is probably a good mechanism for vetting leads. If they want you, Len de Clue, they’re ripe for the harvest.

Comme-ci, comme-ca does not rhyme with ob-la-di, ob-la-da.

If you say it that way, we’ll all know you’re a poser.