Seriously, if there was ever a reason to hold on to guns, this is it. I hate these AFLAC commercials with the duck. Gilbert Gottfried has what is probably the most annoying voice in the world today, and I’m a Bob Dylan fan!!
Besides, how many in this series are there now? Fifty? One Hundred? Seriously, give it a break. The duck isn’t cute. The duck is annoying. Kill it.
Here’s another blog post that, like all intelligent people, agrees with me
Starbucks announced this week that 600 underperforming stores would be closed. There’s a story on Yahoo! news here that describes the schadenfreude (read: happiness about others misfortunes) that many feel about thousands of people losing their jobs in a time of declining home prices, a bear market, and skyrocketing food and fuel costs.
Seriously folks, how messed up do you have to be to be happy over someone losing their job in this economic environment? Do you really hate Starbucks that much? Look, it’s safe to say that Starbucks is probably the most expensive coffee in town. I personally funded the 401k’s of I don’t know how many baristas. So yeah, I know it’s expensive. I can only wonder how your precious quirky/funky/eclectic/community/whatever coffee shop couldn’t compete with Starbucks when they were probably selling coffee a whole lot cheaper. It’s a free market folks. That’s how it goes. If a competitor beats you with higher prices, you’re probably doing something wrong. Someone will come along and displace Starbucks someday, just like some other company will displace Wal-Mart and Best Buy and McDonalds.
Say, did you know that Starbucks was one of the first companies to offer health benefits to their part time employees? Does your funky/quirky/eclectic coffeehouse do that? Didn’t think so.
Long story short, people losing their job is nothing to celebrate. Here’s hoping Starbucks makes a comeback, but like the Yahoo! story says, it’s just coffee. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to bleed black and green.
Congratulations to MadTV for being unfunny for 300 episodes. Good grief this show is awful. Seriously, does anyone watch this show anymore?
Low life Massachusetts state representative James Fagan, is upset about Massachussetts considering passing “Jessica’s Law”. This legislation requires a 20-year sentence for rape of a child under 12. Sounds reasonable, no? Aparantly, James Fagan considers these penalties for child rapists “draconian”. His reason for his position against “Megan’s Law” is that it would force the lawyers defending these scumbags to be more forceful in their cross examination of the child victims. He’re what Fagan had to say:
“”Let me tell you why it’s so wrong, It’s so wrong because in these situations . . . that 6-year-old is going to sit in front of me, or somebody far worse than me and I’m going to rip them apart. I’m going to make sure that the rest of their life is ruined. That when they’re 8 years old they throw up; when they’re 12 years old, they won’t sleep. When they’re 19 years old they’ll have nightmares and they’ll never have a relationship with anybody. And that’s not because I’m a nice guy. That’s because when you’re in court, and you’re defending somebody’s liberty, and you’re facing a mandatory sentence of those draconian proportions, you have to do every single thing you can do on behalf of your client. That is your obligation as a trial lawyer.”
What a thing to say. Does this person mean to imply that he would defend his client LESS vigorously if the potential penalty were less severe? Does he mean to imply that the only acceptable defense of a client is to brutalize the victims?
I have heard that many abuse cases of this nature go unreported. After reading this, is it any wonder?
This man is a disgrace.
It never ceases to amaze me how selfish some people can be. About 150 protesters disrupted President Bush’s speech at a naturalization ceremony in Washington DC today, calling for his impeachment.
Now I’ve never had to go through a naturalization process, but I have gone through grad school…while working full time….for three grueling years. That was 3 years ago, but I still remember the graduation ceremony VERY clearly. I remember it because it was MY moment, along with all the other graduates who worked at least as hard as I did, for at least as long. I earned it. If someone were to try to hijack that graduation ceremony with their own agenda after all the hard work I had done…well, my name is on this…..so let’s just say I would have given them a piece of my mind.
Look you can be against the war if this is what this is about. You can be a complete sicko and believe that President Bush orchestrated 9/11 if that’s what you want to belive, but there are designated channels for addressing your grievances. Write your congressman. Write your senator. Write a letter to the editor. Schedule your own darn event. To disrupt and taint the naturalization ceremony of thousands of new American citizens after they worked so hard to attain their citizenship is just plain low.
Freedom of speech is one thing, conducting yourself with even a modicum of class is quite another, as these protestors have proved.
And not to put to fine a point on it, but…it’s July `08. The election is in 3 months, and Bush will be out of office two months after that. Seriously, talking impeachment at this point is more than just a little silly.
You can read the full story here.
Good grief! Can Bank of America (BAC) get ANY lower?!? This is rediculous. The dividend yield is way over 10% at this point. That’s pretty much the only reason to own this pile of garbage :(. I’m hanging in there as best as I can and buying more on the way down, but I’m almost out of cash!
Man this is hurting. But hopefully we are nearing the end. The financials will come back. You’ll see. I hope. 
I’m watching Flavor Flav’s new “sitcom”. This may be the single worst show ever made. It is a train wreck. Worse than ‘After M*A*S*H*’. Worse than ‘Small Wonder’. Worse than ‘Homeboys In Outer Space’.
Seriously. Aren’t there laws against this?
More accurately, I hate ‘I Love the New Millennium’; the new…um…’nostalgia’ series premiering soon on VH1. I loved ‘I Love the 80’s’, I even tolerated ‘I Love the 80’s II’. ‘I Love the 90’s’ did nothing for me. Recession, grunge, the rise of the Clinton cartel. No thanks. But I digress. Are we getting a little ahead of ourselves here? Well, chronologically speaking I guess not. But we are getting a little too caught up with ourselves (if not caught up IN ourselves 
).
The ‘New Millennium’ is still barely a newborn. I thought a millennium was 1000 years? I’m assuming their referring to the ‘New Millennium’ as the first decade of the current millennium (The ‘oughties’ as the Brits call it). But heck, even THAT’s not over yet? Isn’t this like starting the post game show in the 3rd quarter? I guess they’ll film the 2008 - 2010 episodes last?!?
The whole thing is that VH1, long following that trail to hell blazed by MTV has resigned to showing nothing but reality shows, commercials and commercials for more reality shows.
The execs at Viacom aren’t stupid, though. They know that there is a great deal of affection for the MTV/VH1 brand by those who are old enough to remember when these channels still played music videos. To borrow a page from ‘Field of Dreams’, “If we build….something….they will come.” So VH1 markets nostalgia to its older viewer like me. We can stroll down memory lane remembering the things that made us smile like Transformers, Voltron, Star Trek, Hair Metal, The stock market crash. Okay that last one didn’t make us smile so much. But you get the idea. The whole point of VH1’s ‘I love…’ series was to market nostalgia. But to be nostalgic, you have to be at least A LITTLE removed from the
actual subject matter, no?
Well maybe not. These younger kids, being raised on the Internet, Xboxes, Cell Phones, Microwaves, and Instant Messaging probably have the attention span of a carrot. Perhaps 2007 really IS nostalgic for these younguns!
*Sigh* I’m depressed now. I’m going to curl up with a good scotch and a Def Leppard cassette. Wake me up when the live action Voltron movie gets made.
I’ve been on a wikipedia fueled nostalgia trip lately. I’ve been wikiing all my favorite 80’s pop culture items including Transformers and G.I. Joe. I’ve also caught up on one of my favorite bands from the 80’s, They Might Be Giants. I loved their lo-fi, DIY, independant sound and their quirkly lyrics combined with the Johns’ nasally voices.
This was nerd rock before Weezer made it cool (excuse me, “kewl”). Their video for “Don’t Let’s Start” was filmed in my hometown of Queens :), though the duo hailed from Brooklyn. I like a few songs on their 1986 debut, self titled album, but it was their follow-up, 1988’s ‘Lincoln’ that really did it for me…and the rest of the world. The single “Ana Ng” was catchy as all git out. Heck, even the video was in heavy rotation on MTV (you know, back when MTV actually PLAYED MUSIC VIDEOS!!!, but that’s another rant altogether).
Their 3rd album, 1990’s Flood was released to mixed reviews, but I still liked it, especially ‘Birdhouse In Your Soul’. Loved that song. Then they began to lose me.
1991’s Apollo 18 was OK at best. There were a few catchy songs, but I didn’t like how they moved away from jsut guitar, accordion and drum track to a full on band. The sound and the songs had gotten heavier. I dare say that this album sounded more industrial than alternative. TMBG had become ‘just another band’. I did like the ‘Fingertips’ song: 21 individual tracks that would be interspersed through the longer songs when the CD player was in shuffle mode. Most of those 5 second songs were catchier than the full length tracks, probably because they more closely resembled the older,
quirkier sound I was used to. Other than that, Apollo 18 just wasn’t that great.
I had my hopes up for 1994’s ‘John Henry’. No avail. Just another rock band CD. I liked ‘End of the Tour’, ‘Meet James Ensore’ and ‘Rocket To the Moon’, but the rest of the album was dead to me. After that, I just stopped caring about the band. Grunge was on it’s last legs and I was one of the last to board the train, getting into Nirvana just before Cobin killed himself.
I had heard that TMBG did the theme song to ‘Malcom in the Middle’; a crap show that allegedly “SAVED THE SITCOM!!”. Did the sitcom need saving? I didn’t know. I was too busy watching ‘Friends’ and enjoying it. My bad.
Anyhoo, the crappy theme song to a crappy show further turned me off to the band. One thing that crept back into my mind was TMBG’s ‘Dial-a-Song’. Ever since the VERY early days of the band, you could call their apartment in Brooklyn at 718-387-6962 and hear one of their demos on their answering machine. Sometimes the band would change the song several times a day. I remember calling the number from college several times. Ahhh, those were the days.
TMBG’s Dial-a-song persisted for several more years. Lately, I had the urge to dial it again. Just to see what the band was up to. Surely it was still around, wasn’t it? I picked up my cell (thank goodness for free nights and weekends! ) and dialed.
It started to ring.
and ring…
and ring…
and ring.
I suspected the worst, and after a little Googling, my worst fears were confirmed. The Dial-a-song was no more. Done away with in favor of a monthly ‘podcast’. Crap. Just another end of an era from my younger days. I know I had written
off the band a long time ago, but I always liked how you could pick up the phone and hear a song. Yeah, the internet is the future, (heck, it’s the present!), but I always liked the low-tech things like the phone. You know, before they had
robots working for Bank of America answering them and robots working for politicians dialing them, usually during dinner. 
Not too long ago I heard some Dunkin Donuts commercials on the radio. The voices, the quirly lyrics, the melodies sounded a little familiar. After some more Googling, my fears were confirmed. TMBG sold out again by writing and performing in 14(!) Dunkin’ Donuts spots. After some more wikiing, it looks like TMBG has REALLY sold out, recording multiple CD’s and DVD’s for young children, featuring songs about the ABC’s and 123’s. *Sigh*. OK, I understand how children are attracted to the quirkier things. But man, did TMBG have to catch a full-on terminal case of Kenny Loggins disease?
Why do artists always go soft when they get old and/or have kids? Who knows. Maybe because the fans from their early days have kids now and they want to hold to their old fans by appealing to their kids? Thank goodness for Bob Dylan, Iggy Pop and the Rolling Stones. They never got soft. May Red Embers never record a children’s album. Somebody kick me in the crotch if I’m seen singing anywhere NEAR the Micky Mouse club
So here’s to you, oh, Johns of They Might Be Giants. Enjoy your success. You’ve earned it, but I’m not following you into the playpen. I’ll stay here at the bar.
Yes, Connecticut will experience a planned increase in the gasoline tax starting July 1. Governor F. Jodi Rell is willing to forgo the tax if (get this), state legislators can find additional tax revenue elsewhere. WHAT?!? She’ll forget the increase of the gasoline tax if the government can find something else to tax more?!? Why not CUT SPENDING?!? For crying out loud. It’s true what they say. If you’re not outraged, your not paying attention!!