Category: Life

In my e-mail box today:

Perverts.

From today’s column:

The New York Times turned its attention to men’s hats last month. Hats, it said, are enjoying “an unforeseen resurgence” in popularity. The “unforeseen” is puzzling, since the media have been announcing men’s hats are back regularly for the past 40 years.

“Hats are back,” the Fresno Bee noted last year. “Hats are once again cool,” the Tulsa World wrote in 2002. In 2001, the Chattanooga Times Free Press trumpeted “hats are back.” In 2000, the Chicago Tribune suggested “the hat is making a comeback.”

“Hats,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune observed in 1999, “are back.” And on and on and on.

But hats are not back, and probably are never coming back, though the reason why is lost to general memory. Everyone has seen old photographs of crowds at baseball games, and marveled at the unbroken sea of hats. What we do not realize is that many, perhaps most, of those men hated wearing hats, which were expensive, easily lost and a bother. They all wore hats because they had to.

I say hats never went out of style.

I’ll hold him, Brock; you hat him.

I don’t know how I feel about this: Vote or Not.org:

Hi. We’re Jim Young and James Hong, better known to the users of our website HOT or NOT as just “Jim and James”. You may be wondering why the heck we’re doing this, so here’s our explanation.

We want you, and every person that is eligible, to vote. This is something we feel passionate about. We know we’re just 2 guys, but we believe that 2 guys with a good idea who are willing to work hard and put their time and money where their mouths are can make a difference… just like one person’s vote – YOUR vote – can make a difference.

In a nutshell, we’re doing this because we care, and because we can. We also like the idea of doing this because nobody else has done it before, and we like to do crazy, new things.

So register to vote if you haven’t already done so, enter to win our money, and drastically improve your chances of winning by getting your friends to register too. We hope you win. (and if you do, it’d sure be nice if you took us out to dinner with some of that cash).

— Jim and James

Not about getting people to vote; that these guys have $200,000 to give away. Envy? Oh, yeah.

Of course, if you must know how I really feel, click the above link and enter. If you win, the person who referred you gets $100,000. Since you haven’t hit the tip jar recently, it’s the least you could do for me.

Why was I the only one at the recycling facility with a W sticker on his vehicle?

The corporate world proves B.F Skinner right once again. Our local Pizza Hut charges seventy-five cents for deliveries now, a cost it just appends to the top of your coupon and the tax. It doesn’t break out the cost nor publicize it anywhere, but you’re probably paying it.

Thanks to the phone companies, wireless companies, and all other companies who have accustomed consumers to surcharges, bogus taxes, and costs of businesses so that the advertised price represents purely the profit, and everything else is extra.

• Another Monday, another 5 unsolicited credit card offers, including 3 separate campaigns from Citibank. Gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to return your business reply envelopes with the terms of your offer, but not application. I consider it my small part to keep first class postal rates down and to raise your cost per customer acquisition for these campaigns.
• A plea for money from George Bush. Look, George, I’ve given money, we’re probably going to give up time and lawnspace for the campaign, but if you want more cash, you’re going to have to send a picture of your daughters.

  For this gambit to be effective, make sure that’s addressed to Mr. Brian and not Mrs. Heather (or, as she might be again known shortly after reading this post, Miss HLI, in which case I won’t have any money to give anyway).

• An offer for AOL 9.0 Optimized, which proclaims right on the box, Block Spam and Web Pop-Ups. As someone who’s logged into AOL 9.0 on a dial-up recently, I certainly notice the oversight that new customers won’t: Web Pop-Ups doesn’t say a damn thing about the six or ten AOL offers that display whenever you try to log in or log out. Those? Still in there.

  An overly expensive dial-up ISP that delivers its own ads to enhance my (slow) browsing experience? Throwing this out unopened is too good for this small box.

A family member bought this card for the punchline, but didn’t realize that she wasn’t part of the niche market this card serves.

The cover:

Click for full size

Weapons of Mass Destruction. Money.

The inside:

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Two things you won’t find inside this birthday card.

Okay, I can see some humor in that, well, more an attempt at humor, but something. And then there’s the back:

Click for full size

A caricature of George W. Bush, saying “Trust me, they’re there.”

So what’s your point, “American” Greetings?

I suppose they’re trying to cater to a hip urban crowd who’s swallowed the load that Iraq didn’t have weapons of mass destruction because those that have been found were just about destruction, not about destroying Catholic worship cermonies.

I’ve never paid much attention to greeting card manufacturers, but I know that the maker’s name is listed right above the price, and I’ll buy my 149 cards from Hallmark now, thanks.

I love it when I get an allusion made by some author, whether it’s Robert B. Parker or Varifrank, who quotes:

It’s not like John Kerry hasn’t tried to run for President before, and got nowhere, not even out of the early democrat primaries. He’s been “unwept, unhonoured, and unsung” for some time, and he’s a not exactly a stunning member of the Senate, he barely makes any kind of presence.

That’s Sir Walter Scott. I can almost quote the complete couplet.

Just don’t tell my mother-in-law, the former English teacher whom I impressed at our first meeting by reciting “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”, that I know this particular quote because, in the movie Groundhog Day, Andie MacDowell’s character Rita recites it to Bill Murray’s character Phil Conners and she attributes it. Knowning how I know what I know often spoils the illusion.

(Link seen on Instapundit.)

Here are the answers to some trivia questions soon to be asked:

1. Samantha Fox
2. Bright Lights, Big City
3. David Hartmann and Joan Lunden
4. Walter Mondale, Geraldine Ferraro, Lloyd Bentsen, Dan Quayle, Jack Kemp, Joe Liebermann, John Edwards
5. Teen Wolf Too
6. Nancy McKeon
7. The Satanic Verses
8. Here’s Boomer
9. Yemen
10. Texas Instruments home computers and Jello gelatin desserts.

Feel free to think up your own and to join me in studying to ensure dominance in trivia nights ten years’ hence.

Strategy Page has a list of Marine Corps bumper stickers. Check them out.

Yes, I mean you, Mom.

In case you didn’t think I had actual friends in the real world, I have posted the photos from Atari Party 5: Fellowship of the Joystick.

Of course, this could mean I married a woman with many friends, but I don’t dwell on it. Too much.

First, Subway eliminated its frequent customer reward program.

Now, according to Michelle at A Small Victory, its European outlets are promoting the “documentary” Super Size Me.

Crass. Very crass, Subway.

The Meatriarchy Guy, the anti-vegetarian icon, has ponders his match: a six pound burger.

On a bottle of Sea Breeze Oily Skin Astringent:

Deep Cleans Excess Oil Down To The Pores

I am no dermatologist, but I had not realized that one should deep clean the oil on one’s face. I was under the mistaken impression that all oil was bad oil, but apparently it’s dirty oil that causes acne. Given that, would Sea Breeze go so far as to recommend oil changes for one’s face? After, say, three months or thirty scowls and smiles?