Chalking

DRM, Drugs and Rock and Roll

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

DRM, Drugs and Rock and Roll

What To Do If You Bought Your Wife a Retractable Laptop Mouse at the Intel Gift Shop Yesterday

You messed up big time. Yesterday, you realized, by the talk about restaurant reservations what day it was. Valentine’s Day. Some inexplicably unromantic part of your male brain told you it was a good idea to go to the gift shop that happens to be in the building where you work

You get there and see that the Valentine’s merchandise has been picked over. There is a singing, dancing gorilla that doesn’t do anything when you press the button, a couple of cards that say “Happy Valentine’s Day, Grandmother,” and the usual Intel paraphernalia and office supplies. Maybe it’s Valentine’s panic that inflicts you with temporary idiocy. You know you’re in trouble, and you could still stop at Target for slippers, but for some reason you think it’s a good idea to buy a retractable laptop mouse.

Your wife has a laptop. She would love a retractable mouse to go with it. I’m sure she practically swooned when she peered into the plastic shopping bag to reveal a treasure trove of cheap electronics. The disappointed look on her face makes you think that you should have gone with the broken love monkey. But what you should have done was spend some time thinking of a thoughtful gift.

It is not punishment enough that you slept on the couch last night. You will most definitely be getting the silent treatment from anywhere to 24 to the next 72 hours.

Your wife will never forget that you couldn’t even be bothered to stop at the grocery store for roses that would expire within 12 hours of being charged to your Visa, you big spender, you. You’ve created ammunition for your wife in arguments for years to come. You will have forgotten all about this Valentine’s Day and will find yourself in an argument where she claims you don’t pay enough attention to her, and she will pull the story of the time you went to the company gift shop to get her a Valentine’s present.

Then she’ll bring up the year you brought home Valentine’s wiper blades. And you think she’s done, but she brings up that teddy you bought her that was not only something you saw in a Britney Spears video, but also two sizes too large. By now you’re singing the Meow Mix theme song in your head, because you just can’t take it anymore.

Save yourself from a laundry list of horribly thoughtless gifts. You could have gotten a CD from a favorite band, a book from a favorite author. You could have schlepped to the mall and bought her a box of See’s candy. But it’s too late now. You’re in for make-up jewelry, and it better not be Wal-mart jewelry.

Wal-Mart Singles Out Romantic Fat Bastards

Wal-Mart compiled a list of the Most and Least Romantic States. The rankings were based on sales of chocolate, diamonds, and roses. (Nothing says "I'll love you forever" like Wal-Mart diamonds.) The "Top 10 Romantic Chocolate States" is strikingly similar to the "Top 10 Obese States" list. Which means the residents of said states aren't more romantic, just more likely to need really big pants.

Top 10 Romantic Chocolate Sales

1. Mississippi
2. Louisiana
3. North Carolina
4. South Carolina
5. Alabama
6. Virginia
7. Georgia
8. Kentucky
9. Montana
10. Tennessee

Top 10 Most Obese States

1. Mississippi
2. Alabama
3. West Virginia
4. Louisiana
5. Kentucky
6. Tennessee
7. Arkansas
8. Indiana (Tied)
8. South Carolina (Tied)
10. Texas


States that Didn’t Buy Enough Wal-Mart Chocolate

41. Rhode Island
42. Minnesota
43. Utah
44. Pennsylvania
45. Iowa
46. Ohio
47. Michigan
48. Illinois
49. Wisconsin
50. Hawaii

Least Obese States

41. Nevada
42. Utah
43. Arizona
44. Montana
45. Connecticut
46. Vermont
47. Arkansas
48. Rhode Island
49. Hawaii
50. Colorado


NOTE: The rankings on obesity are from a report, F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies are Failing in America 2006, by Trust for America’s Health, a non-profit organization that wants to improve the health of Americans.

I Need Some Space

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

I Need Some Space

Dear Neighbor,

Flush Fund

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Flush Fund

Boston Emboldens Terrorists by Kicking Capitalism in the Nuts

Plastic boards covered with Light-emitting Diodes, or LEDs, powered by four D batteries, were scattered across several cities as part of an ad campaign for the upcoming Aqua Teen Hunger Force movie. The lights were arranged in such a fashion as to depict Mooninites, characters from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force cartoon.

Boston Emergency Service workers apparently responded to concerned “old people,” who noticed the signs, after they had been in place for 3 weeks without causing any problems. The signs were blinking in what this columnist can only assume was a frightening manner. Coincidentally, a couple of fake pipe bombs were found in Boston on the same day as the ad campaign became a concern to police.

The pipe bombs were not placed by a mischievous, self-centered, talking cup called Milkshake. Nor were they place by the cutting edge ad agency that apparently devised the concept of blinking advertisements, because Bostonians reacted as if they had never before seen such a thing. Similar guerilla advertising schemes, with the plastic boards, were launched in Chicago, San Francisco, New York, Los Angeles, Atlanta, Seattle, Portland, Austin, and Philadelphia without causing massive bridge, road or waterway shutdowns.

Boston Mayor, Thomas Menino, said, "It is outrageous, in a post 9/11 world, that a company would use this type of marketing scheme. I am prepared to take any and all legal action against Turner Broadcasting and its affiliates for any and all expenses incurred during the response to today's incidents."

When an act of pure and harmless capitalism gets the Turner Broadcasting System into legal trouble, the terrorists have won.

Instead of charging the manufacturer of the fake pipe bombs for the disruption of the morning commute, Boston charged the mooks hired by an advertising company to install the signs. I don’t really like advertisers, either, but I don’t think they deserved to go to jail for signs that look about as dangerous as Lite-Brite(R). They expect Turner Broadcasting Systems to pay for the safety measures taken by Boston Emergency Services to protect its citizenry from the scary marketing ploy.

And now City of Chicago Supt. Philip Cline is sniffing around for compensation, because their Police Officers were ordered to remove 20 signs, although it was well known that they were harmless by the time they did so (and, again, these signs had been installed for at least 2 weeks). After this news hit the fan, people probably would have collected the signs and attempted to sell the on eBay, making the removal by city employees nonsensical.