Size Matters

http://villagevoice.com/news/0548,sutton,70434,9.html

What Did You Buy On-Line Today?

They’re already calling it “Cyber Monday”. What the hell is this I wonder? I didn’t get the memo. I didn’t get the newsletter. I didn’t get any indication in the mail that Cyber Monday was upon us. Yet, here it is. And I knew, I just knew, I could feel a charge in the air when I woke up this morning. It wasn’t an ordinary Monday after all; my senses were correct. It was only later that this was affirmed by my reading that it was indeed a special Monday: Cyber Monday.

But…what is it? Well, turn on any major news channel or read any on-line news source, or pick up a goddamn newspaper you old curmudgeon! What am I going to do with you? Fine, I’ll tell you what it is.

Cyber Monday is the first Monday after Thanksgiving during which an apparent boom of on-line shopping that occurs. Not the Friday, Saturday, or Sunday after Thanksgiving. Not the Tuesday after Thanksgiving. Apparently on-line shoppers wait until Monday and then log on en mass and cyber shop for Christmas.

This is the year, I believe, that Cyber Monday will gain mass acceptance and take it’s place proudly among other fabled shopping days like Black Friday or Green Friday or Red Wednesday or the ill-fated You Easily Manipulated Schlep Thursday.

After reading about Cyber Monday, I bounded into the kitchen to whip up some coffee. Well, if it’s Cyber Monday I’d better get on-board and start ordering crap off the internets. Everybody is doing it. I don’t want to show up at work on Grey Tuesday and have someone ask me “How was your Cyber Monday” and I’ll have no stories to tell. No. Better yet, I could be the guy introducing the term “Cyber Monday” to the office. Yes, me, casually getting my morning coffee and dropping wonderful bombs like, “How was your Cyber Monday? What? You haven’t heard?? You missed it, you ass?”

But my delight was quickly banished back where it belongs: my youth. For, as I read further I learned, like Santa Claus, that Cyber Monday, Black Friday, Green Friday, and Stupid Idiot Wednesday were all simply neologism invented by the popular media. You know what a neologism is, don’t you? Goddamn you, how could you live in a media saturated society and not know this term?

A neologism is a word, term, or phrase which has been recently coined to apply to new concepts or reshape older terms in a newer language form. They often become popular by way of mass media or the Internet.

Perhaps “Cyber Monday” will be accepted into the public pantheon of neologisms, taking its place in the sacred vernacular with terms like: “blog”, “tipping point”, “jumping the shark” and “Chuck Cunningham Syndrome”. Regardless, the media is already reporting record-breaking Cyber Monday sales, up 35% from typical Monday morning internet traffic on key sites according to the Akamai Net Usage Index. However, I have decided I will not become a statistic.
Personally, I’m tired of being herded around by the media telling me that the Friday after Thanksgiving is the biggest shopping day of the year. Or that now—just in case I forgot about Black Friday—I can make up for it on Cyber Monday. I’m starting to feel like a little child at the beckon call of the pied piper, or a lemming rushing off the side of a cliff. Madison Avenue, Corporate America, the mass media, they’re all the same person, you know. And that crusty old white guy wants your money any way he can fool you into spending it. He’s already got so much of your Monday that when he sneezes he sends gold dust flying into the air.

When I actually ventured out on Black Friday and found it no busier than any other day. I feared traffic jams, angry shoppers, packed parking lots, and weary clerks. But I’ve seen more shoppers out on an Ordinary Saturday than on a Black Friday. I told my friends that I went out and they gasped in horror. “Were you knocked to the ground by the mad rush of people?” they asked. “Could you find a parking spot?” “Were there any deals?”

But the only reason why people riot to get inside a Wal-Mart at 6:00 am is because the media has whipped them into an unreal frenzy. You probably saw the clips of shoppers, absolutely giddy for the cameras, as they rushed into a Wal-Mart during the pre-dawn hours. In fact, I saw the same clip over and over. I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole event was staged, and shown thousands of times all-day long, burning an image of capitalism onto your soft, turkey stuffed brains. These are the truly sad, empty people who clamor for a day where their skills at purchasing will be pitted against others. They sit outside all night waiting for the doors to open, like Dead Heads, or Star Wars fanatics. They wait for their capitalistic messiah to usher meaning into their neglected and empty souls. Shopping is now the new opiate for the masses. Thank God for the neologism Black Friday! And riding high on its success, they will now give you Cyber Monday.

I suspect Cyber Monday is just like any other Monday, with a little help in sales because Christmas is around the corner. I’ll bet if I could pull the curtain back I’d find a weak old man pulling levers, urging everyone to shop. It’s a buzzword crafted by wizards looking to line their pockets with your money. Did you buy anything on-line today? Did it make you feel good to be a part of a huge cyber revolution of on-line shopping? I will wait until the day after Cyber Monday: Post Cyber Monday Tuesday get mine, if for any other reason, because today is the day I’m supposed to shop and I don’t want anyone telling me when to spend my money. And when that day gets taken over by Madison Avenue, I’ll hold out for Dark Wednesday or Procrastinating Thursday.

Stop the neologisms. Stop the monikers. Stop the madness.

Didn't Your Mom Ever Teach You Urinal Manners?

To put in the “Things I Never Want to See You Do Again” file…

I never want to see you use the urinal next to me again if there is an open one further down the line.

Why do people do this? Let’s take a quiz. Let’s say the bathroom you use at the office has a line of five urinals. You walk in and see me using urinal #1 on the far left. Which urinal do you use?

From left to right:
2. #2
3. #3
4. #4
5 #5

If you said #2, you may have been the guy I just peed next to.

#5 is the best choice, isn’t it? After all, you’re relieving yourself. So, do it as far away from me as possible. I think that’s logical, considerate and normal.

Use #3 if you must, but #4 is also a bad choice because it keeps the next guy walking in from using #3 or #5 for the reason I am posting this blog. I hate it when that happens.

You should never find yourself peeing next to anyone, unless there is no other choice. Unless it’s the 7th inning of a baseball game or boot camp. I’ve done both, and I’d rather not pee next to you ever again.

Best Blog Ever

http://www.ihateyouif.blogspot.com/

I am humbled. I have wasted my blog compared to this genius.

The Plot Thickens

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9971337/

Ode To A Billboard Worker

Billboard worker, when do you sleep?
For I see your handiwork as I drive
But it’s crafter is always elusive

When did that billboard change? I wonder to myself
I plumb that mystery once
I plumb it two times
But my curiosity is not quenched
Yet there is a new advertisement for all the drivers to see
Do your dark masters appreciate this feat of magic?

Under the cover of darkness do you incant?
Like the spider toiling in the silence
Under the stars and the moonlight
Their art greeted by the first dew
Resting quietly, waiting
Perhaps laughing at those who do not appreciate

If only others would consider your example
A more perfect display of seamless workmanship I have never not seen
You receive your orders and carry them out
And no driver is the wiser
In fact they will take the next exit
To get that 44 ounce soda for $.89

Magic I say

They are happy
Your master is happy
When you sleep do you sleep well?

To those who work but do not seek recognition
To those who do their job so well that to be noticed would be failure
To those who put this together
A salute
I guzzle this soda for you

Stay off the Moors

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9911744/

Some Advice for Halloween

http://www.villagevoice.com/nyclife/0543,lalli2,69188,15.html

Hire Me! I Know How to Pray.

Back in June 20, 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney made this statement: “The level of activity that we see today from a military standpoint, I think, will clearly decline. I think they are in the last throes, if you will, of the insurgency.” And now we have the Harriet Miers’ nomination in which President Bush says her religious background was a factor in her selection. What do these two issues have in common?

The Republicans are known as the party of values, and Bush was elected, and re-elected largely because of his affiliation with the Almighty. And the results have been enlightening, but less than holy. I wont go into the sordid details of the war, the economy, disaster preparedness, and independent investigations surrounding the White House, but keeping Bush buoyant during this storm has been his religions affiliation.

There’s an idea in America that if a person believes in God, follows the Bible, attends church, then that person has their priorities straight and that person will do good work. The fruit of that labor may not be clear, but there is faith that the positive results will happen….eventually. Much of Bush’s success has relied upon this belief. Fundamentalists may concede that the President’s work looks bad short-term, but have faith that the long term effects of such a strong Christian in the White House will be positive.

Of course this is strange to reasonable people, the 72% of the people who now think the country is headed in the wrong direction, and it should be strange. If I went to my job interview and said “I will do a good job because I have my priorities straight. I’m a Christian!” I would probably, rightly so, knock myself out of contention for that job. I say rightly so because it would show that I have some kind of fundamental reasoning problem. Let’s say I got the job, did poorly, and the boss called me into his office to fire me. If I said, “You can’t fire me. I’m a Christian. The things I’ve done here are of God…don’t be so short sighted” the boss would probably call security to escort me out.

But isn’t this more or less what the president has said to us during his job interview and during the time when we should have fired him? It is hopeful, yes, but also foolish and illogical to think that just because someone is religious they are also necessarily competent for any given job—except, maybe, minister. (I put the “maybe” in there because I’ve known plenty of devout Christians who made terrible ministers.) Aren’t such leaders who use their divine affiliations praying—pun?—on the hopes and fears of their constituents? Don’t Christians want Bush to be a good Christian president so badly that they will give him much more leeway than a religiously neutral president?

Having said all of this, shouldn’t we be kind of insulted when the President touts Mrs. Miers’ religious faith as a qualifying attribute for the Supreme Court? Does her faith have anything to do with her job qualifications as a judge? And if it does, shouldn’t that fact on the face of it disqualify her?

Perhaps the worst thing the President could have done was to tie Mrs. Miers’ nomination to religion. The President has already used all of the religious capital this country was willing to give out. I think many people have come to the sobering conclusion that just because someone is religious does not mean they are capable. Hardly a week goes by where we do not see a Priest involved in a scandal. Here are people who devote their whole lives to religion and there is no guarantee that they are capable or even moral.

I think we have all learned a hard lesson. I would even predict that religion tied into politics is in its last throes. It may be in greater danger of dying out before the Iraqi insurgency—perhaps before the century is out. I just can’t imagine that politicians in more progressive countries use religion for political leverage. How often does the Prime Minister of France talk about being a devout Catholic? Is he even a Catholic? Does anyone in France care? But can you imagine an atheist trying to run for President in America? He or she would never even get out of the gate.

We would like to think that someone’s fear of God will drive them to be good, responsible, moral and ethical. But there is no direct correlation to this. I’m not saying that Christians cant be good at a certain job, it’s just that it is a not even a variable in the formula. You get a job based on your qualifications and you keep the job based on your performance. It’s pretty simple. To enter religion into that formula would be crazy. If a person wants to be a Christian that’s wonderful, but it should be a non-issue when it comes to a person’s job. Overlooking or excusing mistakes because someone believes in God would not be acceptable where you work, and it shouldn’t be accepted for our political leaders.

Bono Talks Poverty While Bush Eyes Last Fried Chicken Leg

Thoughtalarm has obtained an exclusive copy of the meeting's transcripts.

Bono: We need wealthy nations to donate more. We need to relieve the debt of poor countries.

Bush: Are you going to eat that last piece of chicken?

Bono: It's crucial to not only the health and lifestyle of millions, but to security as well.

Bush: 13 original spices never tasted so good.

Bono: Because millions are starving.

Bush: Finger-licking good.

Bono: That's why, personally, Mr. President, I have made this my cause. We live in luxury, you and I, but millions suffer. Outside, it's America. Outside, it's America.

Bush: I know exactly what you're saying, Bono. I loved your album "The Joshua Tree". "Bullet the Blue Sky" that's what I always say!

Bono: Mr. President...

Bush: (singing) Wooo oooo ooo ooooo, bullet the blue sky!

Bono: What I meant was...

Bush: And that video, with you and that fella on the guitar, walking through Las Vegas....I loved that!

Bono: The Edge?

Bush: Yes, it was.

Bono: No, his name is The Edge. The guitar player.

Bush: The Edge huh? I like nicknames too. Looky here, we got Scooter, Rummy, Condi, Brownie....

Bono: Mr. President, about poverty...

Bush: Poverty is a terrible thing. A terrible thing. We're going to do all we can, Bono. We're going to do the hard work. It's hard. It's hard work! But we're going to roll up our sleeves and do it. And do you know why? Because this is America. Give us your poor, Bono. Give us your tired, your poor and your huddled masses. Such ideals have made America great and we're going to lead the fight against poverty. Now, pass them mashed taters will ya? I love them taters.