Commercial activity

I'm sitting here watching reruns of Cops (watching the crooks engaging in Felony Stupid amuses me), and I just saw a Burger King commercial. Is it just me, or are is that plastic 'King' character more than a little creepy? I mean, between the character and the situations they put him in, those ads are more than enough to put me off going there all by themselves.

Another one that completely puts me off my feed is that damn Dairy Queen commercial with the shrimp eating Popcorn Shrimp.

On the other hand, I do appreciate some of the commercials I've seen. I suspect I'm just one of a multitude of people that enjoys the hell out of the majority of the AFLAC commercials, for example. Another one I like is the 7-Up commercial with the Belching Bunny. I don't know if it's just a local outfit or not, but Taco Johns has been running a series of commercials that utilize W(h?)iplash the Cowboy Monkey (he's a Capuchin monkey that rides a dog) that are usually pretty funny.

Some of these outfits do a damn fine job of making their product or brand memorable - for good or ill...

Politicians

If you want to see what people really think about politicians and other Famous People, head on over to this site and have a look. And if you're sufficiently motivated, they have a nice assortment of photos that you can add your own LOLs to:


see more funny political pictures


see more funny political pictures


see more funny political pictures

Heh.

PS - Don't forget to click on the 'Vote' thingy at the top to see the ones that didn't make the front page(s)...

Life with the Beast of Billings

To give you some idea of what it's like having my cat, Elf, around, here's something I went through just a couple of minutes ago...

It's a kind of cold and yucky day (we've had intermittent sprinkles and snow showers; the weather guessers are claiming we may get up to an inch of snow by tomorrow), so I went into the kitchen to make myself a nice cup of hot tea. After getting a teabag out of the cabinet, I turned around to find something very much like this:

"You're gonna feed me, right?"

Since she's fed in the kitchen (a bowl of dry food all the time, and wet food every couple of days), she's of the opinion that if I go into the kitchen for anything, it must be for the express purpose of feeding her - regardless of how much food is still in either of her dishes.

Anyway, when I simply stepped around her so that I could go about heating water and all that, she finally realized that food wasn't going to be immediately forthcoming, she took up station in front of the door to a small utility closet (water heater, shelves, hooks, etc):

"I'll just wait over here, then..."

The thing about that door is that it's also where she sits when I'm doing something 'long-term': doing dishes, cooking, and such. If you look closely, you can see that there's a gap between the bottom of the door and the floor. When she's waiting for my attention again, Elf will park herself right next to the door; when she does, her tail generally slips under the door and curls around so that the tip sticks out from underneath - in front of her. Apparently believing that she has a new toy to play with, she'll try to catch it. Since she doesn't have an overabundance of brains, that isn't always successful, and her new toy escapes from her - causing her to get a trifle upset. As her impatience with being unable to catch her tail/toy grows, so does the speed and frequency with which it appears and disappears, only making the task of catching it that much harder...

Anyway, when I was done in the kitchen, I came in and sat down in the living room; a couple of minutes later, Elf turned up - electing to crouch down and stare at me for not demonstrating adequate subservience:

"You worthless *$@%&!!!"

Later tonight, I can probably expect any one of several things happen:

• Be trampled (possibly several times) as she tears across my bed when she starts 'happy hour' (cat owners know what this is) about 20 minutes after I go to bed;
• Have her try to catch my tongue if/when I yawn;
• Stand on my chest/belly, and increase her local gravity so that it feels like her entire weight is on each and every one of her paws;
• Leave a particularly smelly deposit in her litterbox, which is in the bathroom right off my bedroom.

Welcome to my world...

Don't be spied on...

According to an article on Wired, the Chinese have been spying on various and sundry assorted people and groups by sneaking through (yet another) Microsoft Word flaw.

This is just another reason that I use Open Office for my word processing needs. Yes, there are versions for just about any operating system, and they all talk to each other very nicely.

Poly Ticks

Even though many (if not most) of our national-level elected officials are tolerably decent peeps individually, I think I've noticed a change in the political parties as a whole.

Seems to me that in my Early Years, the two main political parties were each barely on opposite sides of a line that represented the middle ground: when something came up, each side pointed toward a solution that was only slightly to the left or right.

More and more, however, the Republicans and Democrats seem to be moving farther and farther apart -- one side or the other will produce a 'personality' that draws public attention, and their counterparts will cast around for someone to counteract the other side. This (of course) only results in the first side coming up with a counter-counter-personality, who must be topped. Back and forth they go, each sides Loud Voice moving the group a miniscule bit farther away from the other -- until, finally, we reach the point where any proposal by either side is immediately perceived as unacceptable for the simple reason that it came from the 'opposition'.

I know I'm not the first person to think of this -- the simple fact that there have been repeated attempts to establish and grow a third, fourth, or other 'alternative' party suggests that there are a lot of people out there that agree: neither the Democrats NOR Republicans have a hammerlock on Truth, Justice, and the American Way.

Personally, I think (and hope) that it isn't going to be too much longer before the separation between the two parties is great enough that there will be room for a third -- and further, that once that 3rd party survives an election year, it will quickly grow to overwhelm either of the other two. I think this will happen for a very few simple, basic reasons:

• Our government has simply become too big, bloated, and inefficient.
• Our government is nowhere NEAR responsive to the wishes of the American people as a whole.
  
• Our government has become too intrusive and demanding on the very people it is supposed to be serving.

I can only hope that the necessary changes can be implemented peaceably; otherwise, we may be looking at a second American Revolution.

Equal Time (sort of)

I know I've mentioned my owner "Elf" here several times; just to show that I'm not anti-dog (I'd have one if I didn't live in an apartment), here are a couple somethings from I Has A Hotdog:

Bits o' Fluff

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm anti-China, and why. As part of that don't-support-the-shitbirds policy, I do a fair amount of my non-food shopping at Target versus Wal*Mart: my experience thus far has been that Target offers more not-Made-in-China items that Wally World. For example, today I purchased a couple of items for home - a bookshelf kit and a set of cookware to replace the worn out mishmash of things I've been pretending to cook with until now.

The shelves were Target-branded, and identified on the box as being made in Malaysia. The cookware was a little tougher: even the Wearever brand had a tiny little "Made in China" tucked away on the box; there was, however, a Bialetti set (mine is black, not red) that was made (you guessed it) in Italy. The quality of the Bialetti set more than made up for the marginally higher price compared to the Chinese-made stuff.

On a totally unrelated note, I know that posting has been a bit on the 'thin' side here of late; all I can say is that I've been having Adventures in Real Life. Things have settled down, however, and I fully expect to being more involved here and on other blogs more Real Soon Now(tm). Also, I'm considering re-activating my previous blog, A Different Lemming. If anyone reading this has any opinion on the matter, don't be shy about expressing it - I'm certainly open to feedback, and can understand that updating blog linkage could be considered an annoyance to one degree or another.

In the mean time, have an ordinary day :-|

not Anti-Olympics, but...

I am anti-China.

Enough so that I will be boycotting any and all Olympic activities: not just the broadcast(s) of the games, but any and all Olympic-branded merchandise.

If you want to know why, how about these reasons:

• Tiananmen Square
• Forced 3rd trimester (and even mid-birth) 'abortions' to enforce their one-child-per-family program
• Their governments manipulation of their currency so as to ensure maximum foreign (hard) currency income, versus letting a free and open market establish trading rates
• Their sale of weapons and other arms to unstable and hyper-aggressive countries (think: Iran and North Korea, for example)
• That they came out into international airspace to screw up one of our military aircraft, blamed US for a collision, then holding our military personnel far longer than necessary or appropriate (and keeping our aircraft in the process)
• Their insistence that they can do any damn thing they want, without being held accountable for those actions by the rest of the world

I think those should be good enough reasons, for a start, don't you?

Hit Shappens

I'm sure that all of us have had occasion to have things happen in our lives (personal and professional) that we didn't like/appreciate. Most of us have had the maturity and good sense to consider the situation as a whole (any mitigating factors, best & worst possible outcomes from taking action, etc.), and acted in a reasoned and adult fashion.

However (you knew that was coming, didn't you?), I've had more than one experience of coming across an individual or organization that simply couldn't or wouldn't consider anything but their own viewpoint: extenuating circumstances, consideration for the other sides perspective, or potential consequences. All they know is THEIR needs or wants, and are quite adamant that their wishes be fulfilled immediately -- if not sooner.

What these people and companies fail to understand is that there are people out here in the Real World(tm) that don't take kindly to being poked, prodded, threatened, denigrated, or otherwise mistreated or ignored. There are a lot of folks that will comply with any instruction or demand, without protest; I'd even dare say that the greatest percentage of the race is that way. But -- and it's an important but -- there are those of us who will tolerate that kind of nonsense for just so long before we raise up on our back legs, give our tormentor the finger, and tell them to bring it on - that we may lose the battle, but they'll bloody well know they've been in a fight.

I mean, just so you know...

Having fun while getting more smarters

If you find yourself with a little extra time and the need/desire to have a little fun while (maybe) learning a little bit, you might want to have a look at this Slate article and check out the video for a surprisingly simple -- but HIGHLY entertaining and fun!! -- little 'game' called Crayon Physics Deluxe available from the authors blog.

Been there.

Done that.

Had a blast.