Short Order Cook to a Dog

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Short Order Cook to a Dog

Terrorist's Calendar

President Bush, aka The Decider, claims that terrorists will mark their calendars if Congress passes a law giving a specific date for troop withdrawal. A Cursed Tongue exclusive, we have access to Osama Bin Laden’s personal day planner. As you can see, every day is a good day to bring “Death to America.” I have trouble believing that troop withdrawal will increase the danger to the U.S.A. (Besides which, it would be my guess that Al’Queda would throw a party complete with camel rides and a bouncy casbah if we left.)

Of course, in the same speech Bush called himself a conservationist. Which is kind of like someone claiming to be a vegan and then eating Jell-o. At this point I assume that pretty much everything out of his mouth is steaming cow flop. Members of the Cattlemen’s Beef Association to whom he gave the speech earlier today were un-phased by the copious amount bovine prairie pies served up by the President.

Signless Spring

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Signless Spring

Smoke Free, Choke Free

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Smoke Free, Choke Free

Cursed Tongue Guide to Surviving a Toaster Oven Fire

The key to surviving a toaster oven fire is to be prepared for disaster. Every house/apartment/meth lab should have a fire extinguisher rated for flammable liquid fires, and electrical fires.

• Don’t be surprised that your smoke alarm didn’t go off when the kitchen is full of smoke just because it goes off every time you make toast
• Don’t Panic
• Don’t open the toaster oven door
• Don’t pour water on the fire
• Don’t pour Windex on the fire
• Don’t drive to the Wal-Mart

1. Unplug the toaster oven
2. Get the fire extinguisher
3. Read the instructions on the extinguisher, which you should have read before you went anywhere near the toaster oven
4. Point the fire extinguisher at the toaster oven
5. Follow the instructions on your fire extinguisher
6. If the toaster oven has stopped burning skip to step 9
   
7. If there are still flames licking the toaster oven, call the fire department
8. Leave the area, wait for fire department
   
9. Spend five hours cursing yourself for not setting the timer while you clean up the fine potassium bicarbonate powder off of every surface in your kitchen, including ones you didn’t even realize you had
10. Open windows to air out the space
11. Place bowls filled with vinegar on the counters to mitigate the smell of smoke
12. Now you can drive to Wal-Mart for a new toaster oven and fire extinguisher

Toasted

On March 9th a Chandler man drove to a nearby Wal-Mart to purchase a fire extinguisher because his toaster oven was on fire. The man set his toaster oven on fire while drying the Methamphetamines he was manufacturing.

The man attempted to douse the flames with water and was unsuccessful. Presumably the 19 year-old did not want to bring the authorities in the matter, as he was whipping up a batch of Meth and also in possession of marijuana.

While the man was absent from his endangered condo the sprinkler system was triggered and stifled the flames. Altering the authorities to the fire, and making him the lucky winner of a fabulous vacation in a concrete cell without a view, courtesy of Maricopa County.

Part of the punishment for crimes like this one should be sterilization. This man shouldn’t be responsible for the care of a Chia Pet let alone a human being.

Tune in Wednesday for a special Cursed Tongue Guide to Surviving a Toaster Oven Fire.

Post Traumatic Scandal Disorder

Friday Editorial at Cynical Sarah:

Post Traumatic Scandal Disorder

A Tale of Two Accents

To commemorate “Bloody Sunday,” and compete for black voters both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama spoke at churches in Selma, Alabama.

In her speech Hillary Clinton affected a horribly butchered Southern accent. It was so bad, I was surprised when I saw the visual records of her speech she was wearing a real belt instead of a rope, and she was not chewing on a stalk of wheat. She wasn’t even carrying a brown jug with Xs painted on it. Listen for yourself if you think I’m crazy. Her accent was really that bad.

Now, I don’t have any qualms telling Britney Spears she needs a better publicist. If there’s something at which Spears excels it is creating situations that are cries for help. And therefore, she was practically begged for my advice. But Clinton, a lawyer, a politician, a capable woman who was co-President for eight years, a woman who managed to raise a daughter who isn’t an out-of-control mental. I feel uncomfortable advising her. But if she’s going to insist on acting down-homey, and accessible she needs to add a drama coach to her entourage.

It couldn’t possibly be that she fell into a Southern accent because she used to have one. She was born and raised in a rich suburb of Chicago, Illinois. She went on to college in Massachusetts, not moving to Arkansas until she was 26 or 27, far past her formative years.

Barack Obama also adopted a Southern accent during his speech. Even though he was born Honolulu, Hawaii, and lived there and in Jakarta until college. (I’ve never been to Jakarta, but I’m reasonably certain that chances are slim that he picked up a Southern accent there.) Not that I excuse him from being a Faky Fakerton, but he affected his Southern accent with a much lighter hand.

Clinton’s twang faded in and out and was downright insulting, and I’m not even from the South. I’m sure Clinton didn’t mean to offend Southern voters by butchering a Southern accent. I’m sure it was a misstep, a miscalculation.

She must have figured that talking like an idiot worked for George W. Bush, so it could work for her. Hooked on Phonics may have worked for Bush, but that doesn’t mean it’s the right method for teaching people with a fully functioning brain to read.

Just What Pat Roberston Always Wanted

Okay, you’re going to hate me. But I’m working on my Christmas shopping. If you’re reading this and you’re on my Christmas list, of course I buy your gift in November so it will be fresh. (Although, if I was to buy you a Christmas present in March, it should be flattering to think that I am confident that I will still like you by December.)

I found the perfect gift for Pat Robertson. Now, normally he wouldn’t be on my list, but you know when you find the perfect thing for someone you know, and you just have to buy it for them? I know I probably just lost my male audience, which I believe to be considerable, but please just humor me and nod. I knew you could!

It’s The Human Evolution Coloring Book, and the connection between humans and our closest living primate relatives couldn’t be more clearly explained.

Planned Oblivion

The greedy ratfinks at Intuit are retiring Quicken 2004. They slapped me in the face with this revelation, not by telling me about it via e-mail, even though they could have. I found out when I tried to download my financial information into another wondrous, magical Intuit product, Turbo Tax.

Then last week, I attempted to download cleared charges from my bank and got a dire pop-up warning from Intuit. A death-knell for my current version of Quicken. On the 30th of April Intuit will no longer support Quicken 2004. By “no longer support” they mean that I will be unable to download cleared charges from my bank. “No longer supporting” software used to mean that users wouldn’t be able to phone a call center in Bangalore and talk to someone named “David” or “Cindy,” who was obviously not American because he or she would be polite. No offence to “David” and “Cindy,” but I could have lived with customer service silence.

Now it means that Intuit will cut off the financial information download function of software I legally purchased from them a mere three years ago like a gangrenous limb. Only the limb isn’t gangrenous. The limb is working just fine thank you very much. Without the limb, I’ll have to get off my lazy butt and enter receipts—oh so many receipts. Intuit would have been better off taking a more honest route and making the cut-off date April Fool’s day. I think they call this kind of money-grubbing “planned obsolescence.”

I’m resistant to spending $50 or more on a new and improved version of Quicken, not only because I feel they have me by the slide rule, but also because I have upgraded before. Each subsequent “improvement” of Quicken has taken more space on my hard drive, tripled the number of absolutely useless features, and contained 33% more nagging to purchase other Intuit products and services.

It would stand to reason that fiscal concerns have prompted mutilation of the toddler Quicken 2004. (He never even made it into Kindergarten.) But it seems that picking the pockets of loyal customers is no way to win friends and influence people. Profits for the Intuit are down 20% this last quarter. Despite the fact that it’s tax season and they have a justifiably annual taxing product. What with the rising cost of services at H&R Block, Intuit must really be falling down on the job.

If you have any doubts that the “deciders” at Intuit are completely out of touch with anything resembling reality, I urge you to visit Intuit Tax Rap, a place where Vanilla Ice (obviously using software instead of a CPA or an agent) invites people to submit a tax rap. (It's so stupid, it hurts. Just like Fox News.) They neglect to mention whether the measly grand prize is $25,000 before or after taxes. But it’s probably wise of them to save their money for the class-action suit.

The sad part is that the other big choices for financial and tax software is Microsoft Money and TaxCut. I need another piece of Microsoft software like I need another scary blue screen error. And according to a customer review, versions of Microsoft Money only let users download for 2 years. So it seems I can blame Bill Gates propagating for yet another software swindle. It’s a good thing that Amazon sells used versions of Quicken.