"I'm On The Internet...Can I Have My Million Dollars Now?"

My blog is worth $10,161.72.
How much is your blog worth?

Just in time! As my employment is coming to a slow, drawn out, seemingly interminable end, I find, through Astrid's blog, that this here blog is worth 10 G's. Sweet!

I'm totally going to sell. Now I don't have to bother with any get-rich-quick schemes to make money during my unemployment, because I just know that this scheme will get me rich, and quick!

I suggest you sell out too, before people realize how worthless your opinions really are.*

So, how much is your blog, and by proxy, you worth? Could you buy and sell me like it ain't no thing? I'd be worth more, I'm sure, but the Powers That Be just can't handle how real I am...

*I so totally think everyone who comments here have wonderful, meaningful, insightful things to say. I really support you in your blogging endeavors, now and in the future.

"The Waiting Game Sucks! Let's Play Hungry-Hungry Hippos!"

Only five days until I lose my job (which is a good thing, trust me)! Only three working days! Only 24 more working hours! I can't wait! But that's exactly what I have to do...punch in, and wait...eight long, boring hours...for three interminable, sucky days.

Then it's off to school for me, after a month or two of loafing around the house, that is. Frankly, the timing of all this couldn't be better. Sylvana just graduated from college last May, and just got her job last week. Now it'll be her turn to be the breadwinner. We've done this several times, first she supported me, then I supported her, and so on. Due to the large number of wacky situations we find ourselves in, it just works out that way.

I'm just so excited to shrug off the drudgery of the workaday world, especially this particular half-assed tard farm I'm empolyed by, I had to post! And now the post is done...wow...that sure did pass the time...

"The Fingers You Have Used To Dial Are Too Fat...To Obtain A Special Dialing Wand, Mash The Keypad With Your Palm Now."

I like to think that this guy, at some point in his life, said to a loved one or close friend, "If I'm ever 600 pounds, and living in a mobile home in Missouri, just kill me. Seriously...you'd be doing me a solid."

Frankly, I think if the smoke inhalation hadn't gotten him, the embarrassment of being an object of ridicule for a bunch of slack-jawed yokels as they cut open the trailer with the Jaws Of Life and pulled him out onto the lawn decorated by someone with more plastic pink flamingoes than good taste would've. It's not my style to make fun of the morbidly obese dearly departed, it just always shocks me when things get so out of control. I mean, he must have had enablers...who were these people bringing home the Big Macs and Chocodiles to this guy when he hit 5 Large?

It's easy to point fingers at fat people, saying that if they only had more control they wouldn't be in such a sorry state (I'm refering here to both obesity and Missouri). So let's just do that...




Just kidding. Be nice to the glandularly challenged. But knock it off with the Ho-Ho's when they can't fit out the door anymore.

"Huh...What? Our Anniversary? Are You Sure?"

Happy Anniversary, America! Eleven years ago, on 9/27/94 (ok, so I'm a little late...), a bold and brash freedom lovin' buncha so-and-so's made a pledge, nay, a promise; one they felt so strongly about they just had to put it into contractual form, confirming the widely held belief that, in general, politicians are pretty much functionally retarded.

Oh, America, they so wanted into our pants, and they had all the right lines: they were going to restore dignity and accountability to our government, and reduce the size of government, they were going to restore our trust in government...can anyone blame us for being swept off our feet?

Now, here we are, stuck with their demon spawn of a struggling economy, seemingly insurmountable budget deficits and crumbling infrastructure, and they have the nerve to say that they aren't sure they're responsible for it or if it's from that other guy we used to fool around with.

Typical. Ladies, you know what I'm talkin' 'bout.

For more insight, we can look to Lionel Hutz, attorney at law, who in one Simpsons episode, defined a contract as such: "an agreement under the law which is unbreakable...which is unbreakable (emphasis his)!" Now check out the first thing they planned to do on the first day of the 104th Congress of the contract in question. Seriously, did these guys not bother to read their own contract?

But don't worry guys, America, by now, is a living demonstration of Battered Wife Syndrome, and we'll forgive and forget, and we'll believe it when you say, "We've changed...honest! Trust us." I mean, really, we did bring it on ourselves.

"Knock Him Down!...Go For The Face!...Ralph Wiggum Lost His Shin Guard! Hack The Bone! Hack The Bone!!!"

I'm sure this post will interest none of my regular visitors, except perhaps Shamus, but it's my blog, I can bore if I want to. Hockey is back!!! and while I was excited at its' return, I was also a little hesitant to fully embrace it, not because I am some fair-weather fan still miffed at the NHL lock-out, but because of the rule changes that accompanied the return to the rink.

I am what you would call an Old School hockey fan; the kind for whom a 2-1 game can be as exciting as a 7-5 one (and the kind who thinks that if you can't play hockey outside during the winter, your city has no business having an NHL franchise...seriously, is it a coincidence that we lost an entire season right after a team from Florida, of all places, won the Stanley Cup?). Most of the rule changes focus on making hockey more offense-oriented, such as doing away with the two-line-pass rule, keeping the goalie in net instead of letting him roam when he wants to, thereby not letting him clear the puck out of the zone...stuff like that.

Now that the season is a couple weeks old, I feel a little better about the rule changes. Teams that are built around solid defense and goaltending, like my Wild (love the team, cool looking sweaters, but dumbest name in sports history) are still able to compete, still able to hold their opponents to under 3 goals most of the time. I was, being Old School, not sure about the elimination of ties, but now that I've had some time to get used to it I think it's a good idea, at least you still get a point for losing in overtime. I wonder, though, how the rule changes might affect the record books; with more and more higher scoring games, will scoring records be that much easier to eclipse? Will names like Gretsky and Orr be erased from the books by long-careered players who are merely better than average?

I am still a little concerned about hockey, or the NHL at any rate, as an institution, as we still have the same problem of ownership, namely that many of the owners these days are more interested in hockey as an investment to add to their portfolio than in the game itself. What was once a gritty sport of the commoners has slowly been handed off to slick power brokers, more interested in profit margins than in throwing squids on the ice, who've jacked the price of souvenier hats so high that I fear we're past the point where one could carelessly flip them onto the ice after someone scores three goals.

Hopefully hockey will recover from it's lost season, and can stay true to it's roots and be successful. Do I believe in miracles? Yes!

"I Just Couldn't Eat Any More Kangaroo Testicles...Funny Thing Is, Now I Can't Get Enough Of 'Em."

More testicles mean more iron!

I know the list of grievances one could bring against Reality TV as an institution is virtually endless, and I'm also aware that bitching about Reality TV is getting to be about as odious as the offending programming itself. But eff that, I have an axe to grind.

My lamentations are twofold, and they were brought to the forefront of that part of my brain that processes indignant rage. The other evening, as I settled down to dinner in front of my television, (which is a bad habit, I know, shut up) whilst flipping through the drastically hamstrung options my tele has to offer, I noticed that Fear Factor was on. Strange, I thought, I though this was a prime time program...why is it on at 5:30? Apparently, Reality TV has now made the leap to syndication. If this isn't a sign of the coming Apocolypse, then it is at least proof that God looks down on His creation with great distain.

While I do find the syndication of reality television disturbing, I more specifically am upset by the content of the programming being aired right around dinner time. As I mentioned earlier, I was just settling down to eat, and as I was changing the channels, my eyes came across the image of meal worms, maggots, earthworms, cockroaches and God-knows-what-else...in a blender...which was then turned on...and then poured into glasses...and promptly consumed, though not without much retching and gagging. Is there anyone out there that actually wants to watch this? If so, why; what happened to them to turn them into such disturbed individuals? Why can't they be like normal people...who watch Fear Factor to see if someone will plummet ten stories to their death after their safety harness fails? Now that's good television (not to mention the secret to success for NASCAR)!

"Interesting Side Note On This Parade Float: The Papier Mache Used In It's Construction Is Made Entirely Out Of Broken Treaties."

Richard Ericksberg, of Springfield, Massachusetts, is a dick...there, I said it. He's not alone; there are tons of them out there, but what makes him special is that he took the time to let everyone know that he's a dick. It feels like a crime against Nature just to put his name in the same sentence as the hallowed moniker "Springfield".

Wait, SSB, I hear you interjecting, what's the deal with opening your post with vague libelous slandering? Is he a dick because his first name is Richard? What, in a word, gives?

Well, what Richard did pisses me off to a degree not too many things do. He sat himself down and wrote a letter to the sports page editor of USA Today, which appeared in it's Tuesday edition (look it up yourself, I don't feel like making a link...too grumpy today). As you may or may not know, and I'm sure many of you do, and only a few do not, the National Collegiate Athletics Association has banned the use of Native American school nicknames and mascots in post-season games. And to Richard, this represented a perfect opportunity to belittle the feelings and concerns of an historically oppressed and marginalized group of people. Richard claimed that he, being of Scandanavian descent, was profoundly offended by schools that were "hostile and abusive in their portayal of my heritage through the use of Vikings as mascots and/or nicknames". So sorry, Richard, about the Man keeping you down and all, but if you'd like to switch houses, jobs, educations, etc., head on down to the res...I'm sure you might find some takers.

Speaking as a white male American, I am totally sick of others of my ilk bitching about how their rights are being trampled by "PC crap". They complain that now that they have to be "politically correct", they can't say anything because someone will get offended. Now, I have been around since pre-PC days, and I haven't had to change the way I speak or the words I use at all. Know why? Because I have empathy...because I respect other people's feelings...because I'm not a dick...that's why.

I find it amazing...well, more sad than amazing, but there is some amazement in there, how up-in-arms some people will get when the issue of changing school nicknames to something maybe a little less offensive is raised. And they try to act like they're defending Native American interests, saying, "'Cheifs' or 'Fighting Sioux' reflect the proud and strong heritage of Native Americans. Why, it would be an insult to not call the team in Washington 'the Redskins'."

Here's the deal: if they were really interested in honoring the Native Americans, then once they found out that the Native Americans were actually insulted rather than honored, wouldn't they stop using the nicknames? Isn't that obvious? But to insist on continuing to use the offensive name; isn't that kind of sociopathic? Or is it sociopathetic? Well, it's pathetic, at any rate.

As for you, Richard,,,or may I call you Dick? As for you, Dick, maybe if you and your fellow Scandanavianites get together and have some large protests and get some petitions signed and contact your senators and such, maybe then we'll take a look at the whole Viking thing. But I'm pretty sure you won't, because I have a feeling you weren't concerned in the least about your Scandanavian heritage being belittled when you wrote your little letter. I have a feeling you were just being a Dick.


BTW-the more you watch The Simpsons, the more you get out of the post titles...you get out of it what you put in, I'm just sayin'....