Women Who Want to Fight Over the Baby's Last Name

Some women want to keep their names after marriage. Good for them. Some women don't want the prefix Mrs. either. Fine. Great.

And now, more and more, there are some who aren't satisfied with that and want the baby to have their last name, too. And that, readers, is where I have to draw the line. Now, I have no kids. I speak purely hypothetically. But I would never consent to letting my kids take their mom's name. And I would resist hyphenation with every last fiber of effort.

The women I've spoken to have put forward a few arguments. The weakest ones are the "I went through pregnancy and labor and childbirth and you didn't" arguments. You did so voluntarily, is my response. No one put a gun to your head. Going through pregnancy doesn't entitle a person to some kind of compensation, like a paycheck.

The only argument that has merit is the obvious one, that men and women are equal - and that there's no reason for the child to always be named after the man. I have two responses to this. I think that either, independently, is satisfactory. The obvious retort here is that naming the baby after the mother isn't any fairer. There's no truly fair solution except hyphenation, or selecting an entirely new name. The problem with hyphenation, as others have pointed out to me, is that it's not a long-term solution. Will the great grandchildren be named Johnson-Merrick-Douglas-Finklestein-Shanks-Paisley-Wainright-Gibbs? And the problem with selecting a new name is that no one seems particularly keen to do it.

So the first problem with the "It's not fair" argument is that there's no fair solution being proposed. But now, allow me to introduce the world to the second compelling reason why women shouldn't be fighting this battle and should just gracefully concede it. This second reason is one that is intuitively understood by all men everywhere, but I've never really heard anyone articulate it before.

Women: if your men have to raise children who have your last name, they will be the laughingstock of men everywhere. Men know this, and this is why they will put up enormous resistance to the idea. They may not even care about passing on their name. They may not even like their name. But what they do care about is having every other guy they know and will ever know - including men of the future who have not even been born yet - think they are a whipped, neutered little pansy.

And this isn't just some idle fear. "Who cares what other people think?" you might be saying. "Why should bowing to the prejudices of others have any bearing on our decision?" Well, what if your husband needs to get a job someday? What if he needs to make contacts? What if he needs to make a sale? What if he needs to impress clients? What if he needs to build his reputation or influence others, for any reason, at any time? Wouldn't it be nice if he wasn't mortally handicapped by everyone snickering behind his back about how his wife made him forfeit his own family name so he couldn't pass it on to his own kids? Does she make him pee sitting down too?

Maybe somewhere out there are some hippyish dudes who either don't care or who actually respect the choice. Sure they may exist. But will they be the dudes your husband needs to impress to get that account or make the sale? That's a big N-O.

So that's your dilemma women. If you actually win this fight you are dooming your man to a lifetime of humiliation and disrespect. And if you don't really care about that, then you suck. Count your blessings. Enjoy your advantages in other areas. You live longer. You have higher emotional intelligence. The whole multiple orgasm thing. When have you ever heard a man whine and say he was entitled to something because of his shorter lifespan? You don't. Yes, naming the baby after the man is unfair, but that's just life. The baby last name fight is just not a good place to stand your ground.

200 Annoyances

181. Old people who are just now reaching the stage of email proficiency where it seems like a great idea to send out massive amounts of forwards to everyone they know.

182. The bottom third of the tortilla bag.

183. Sitting at the exact jurisdictional border of two waiters, and neither thinks he's covering your table.

184. People who use the counterfeit verification pen on small bills.

185. People who, when choosing donuts for the dozen-donut box, round out the selection with a coconut donut and a peanut donut. This is done out of some misguided belief that there needs to be complete variety in the donut box, and ignores the reality that not a single person on earth prefers the peanut or coconut donut. If I ran the show, when people chose one of these donuts, the clerks would be instructed to say "Ma'am, are you SURE you want a peanut donut?"

186. Celebrity game show contestants who play for animal charities.

187. A pick-up or SUV whose headlights are at the exact altitude to bounce off my rear view mirror directly into my pupils.

188. Wikipedia entries that inform me, in scholarly prose, that whatever I'm looking up is also the name of a manga/anime/videogame character/band/soap opera episode title/nickname of a wrestler/name of a fictional town in a graphic novel, etc. Who. gives. a. SHIT. Can wikipedia please create a separate site for this meaningless information?

189. Getting the white gumball.

190. When your birthday is too close to Christmas.

191. Foul smelling water in the gas station courtesy window wipe bucket.

192. Bad action/fantasy/sci-fi movies that have the arrogance to end with a sequel tease when it should have been abundantly clear to everyone that there would be no sequel.

193. Kids who make a big production out of adjusting the side mirrors to impress the driving tester.

194. That wheezing laugh. The one fat people have where it sounds like a pig is dying.

195. When news anchors ask their field reporters to describe something they're witnessing on a scale of 1 to 10, no reporter has ever said 4. Or 6. Really the whole 3 through 7 range is never used. This bugs me.

196. These spam emails with subject lines like "RE: your dental plan". Doesn't it cross the spammers minds that this implies I wrote an email with the subject line: "your dental plan"? Why would I write an email whose subject line is "your dental plan"? Wouldn't it be "my dental plan"? This seems like such a basic error yet I see it all the time. Try harder, spammers. Work for it.

197. People who take the elevator to the second floor at the gym.

198. Google not customizing its logo for Memorial Day or Veterans Day.

199. "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Am I the only one who has always secretly felt that this just isn't a great quote? That the sentiment isn't really that profound? That the word choice was pedestrian? That its very quotability makes it seem manufactured and canned? Even when I was kid, I always thought "That was the best he could do?" I mean, I can't say anything, cause it's a "Great Quote". But c'mon. We needed a home run that day, and this wasn't it.

200. For the entire 20 year lifespan of the VCR, people have made the casual claim that they could make me a copy of a VHS tape. "Oh don't worry," they'd say. "I'll just hook up two VCRs together." But it never, ever happened. Was there any claim on earth more frequently made but with less actual follow through than the offer from a friend to dub a VHS tape to another VHS tape via linked VCRs? No one ever, not even once, ever did it. Granted, VCRs are almost entirely obsolete now, but it just must be stated for the record that no one, despite thousands of casual promises to the contrary, actually linked up 2 VCRs to make their buddy a copy of something, ever. And don't bother writing me saying that you did do it, and what the hell am I talking about. Think about it. Did you *really* hook up two VCRs at home to dub something? You really brought the bedroom VCR into the living room and sat there on the rug trying to make sense of all the cables? No. No you didn't. So why did you tell people you could? You just wasted their time.

Undead Army Post Mortem (plus predictions)

To recap the discussion about Dr... you know, the guy running for president who was the subject of the last column. I can't actually say his name, because then the undead army will hone in on this blog again and batter me with insane comments. It turns out they use technorati.com to get minute by minute updates on any mention of... Dr. Grandpa, let's call him, in the entire blogosphere.

You may have noticed I didn't permit any comments on the last post. Not that they didn't try. If I hadn't turned on comment-moderation there would have been an endless chain of them - each one mentioning "Dr. Grandpa" and thereby triggering a new radar blip on technorati, thus bringing in a fresh wave of traffic and comments. Here is a sample of what the undead army had to say:

"...news flash: No other declared Republican candidate has any chance to be elected President in 2008, either. So if not having a chance to win means you shouldn't be in the debate, then that worthless thug Giuliani, that doddering old fool and fascist pig McCain, that cult member and all around worthless Ken doll Romney, the genocidal maniac Tancredo, and the medieval Young Earther trailer trash Huckabee and Brownback shouldn't be in the debates either. Maybe the networks can just shoot a picture of empty chairs and broadcast it as dead air for two hours instead of having a debate at all."

By the way, did anyone see Dr. Grandpa get smacked around the other day at the New Hampshire republican debate? I'm starting to think he actually adds something to the mix. No matter what our differences as republicans, be we worthless thugs, fascist pigs or young earthers, we can all rally around Dr. Grandpa and use him as a punching bag. No matter how many Dr. Grandpa rabid supporters are in the debate audience cheering his every word, it's still nice to see someone like Huckabee dress him down as he stands there blinking and uncomprehending.

Now I'll make a few predictions about the order in which the remaining republican candidates will exit. First out will be Duncan Hunter. Not because his is the most hopeless of the remaining candidacies, but because he actually seems like a sane person. Someone who might actually realize they're not going to win, and, as such, closes up shop. Duncan Hunter, I salute you. (presuming you do it)

Next will be Tancredo and Brownback, in indeterminate order. These guys aren't vanity candidates, and they aren't moonbats like Dr. Grandpa. They're issue candidates. Immigration and abortion, respectively. They're running to support their issues. Therefore, the hopelessness of the candidacy doesn't really phase them. As long as they can get airtime to promote their pet cause, they'll stay on the stage.

Then, Huckabee. He's got it in his head that he's a contender now - and until he's disabused of it, he won't drop out. But he isn't a contender. And he's reasonably sane. Look for him to exit sometime early next year.

McCain might drop out. Maybe. He's going to get crushed in all the early states, then he's going to designate a state as his "last stand" state, where he'll spend all his money and spend all his time. Basically, this was the Joe Lieberman Delaware strategy of 2004. McCain will pick his Delware... and proceed to get crushed there too. Just like Lieberman did. Hopefully at that point he'll have the good sense to exit.

The remaining 4: Giulianai, Thompson, Romney and Dr. Grandpa will slug it out to the bitter end. Look forward to a few debates where Dr. Grandpa gets wayyyyyyy too much airtime. Giuliani will win the nomination, and Thompson may be a good choice for a running mate. Too early to tell on that.

Ron Paul's Internet Army of the Undead

You know, loyal reader, that I can't stand the presidential candidates who have no chance and yet insist on clogging the debate stages. To briefly recap why, it's because I think that the process of selecting a good president is fairly important to the country. As poorly as the debates are currently formatted, they are still the best forum to see our potential presidents defend their positions under cross examination. In my opinion, having to suffer equal time for a Chris Dodd or a Ron Paul is no different, literally no different, than mandating that presidential debates have to devote equal time to a clown that comes out and does a unicycle and bowling pin routine.

Saying that Paul or Dodd provide opinions and unique points of view we may not otherwise hear doesn't impress me at all. This isn't some kind of open mike night, shoot the shit, political roundtable, dorm room jam session where we say "Hey, wouldn't it be cool if we abolished the IRS?" No. It's a presidential debate. It's a place for actual candidates with an actual chance of being president to spar with other actual candidates with positions that actual people actually take seriously.

If you really feel we should abolish the IRS then good for you, but you have a lot of hurdles to clear before you can justifiably take your case on network TV to waste my time with it in a forum that's supposed to be about weighing the merits of serious candidates. Get your man's polls out of the basement before you bring me these goofy, nutjob ideas.

Now, I have a special dislike for Ron Paul, more so than the rest of this year's crop of no-chancers. I dislike him on a personal level for two reasons. (And by the way, all pro-Paul comments on my site will be immediately deleted. I'm not interested in a dialogue with Paul's undead army, only in demoralizing them. Anti-Paul comments though are welcome.)

The first reason I dislike him is his politics. Anyone who advocates an immediate, total pullout of Iraq without even pausing to consider our responsibility for the genocide that would surely follow, can't be taken seriously. And then there was his specific comment in that one debate, the comment where he said: "They (the 9/11 terrorists) attack us because we've been over there. We've been bombing Iraq for 10 years." And: "I'm suggesting we listen to the people who attacked us and the reasons they did it." Here's the whole, fun clip.

Yesssssssss, we should listen to the people who slaughtered 3,000 Americans wholesale. Why did they do it? I'm sure that if we just stopped our cowboy rampage in the middle east just long enough to hear out the radical Islamists, hear *why* they did it, instead of shooting first and asking questions later, then maybe WE would learn something. Of course, I'm guessing we'd hear "You stationed your troops too close to our holy pile of sand." but maybe I'd be wrong. Maybe there's a good, compelling reason for the slaughter of 3,000 innocent people, and we just haven't stopped to listen.

Or, maybe Ron Paul is an ignorant tool? I don't know, I'll just stay agnostic on this one.

The second reason I have a special dislike for Paul is that he commands a tireless, crazy, internet army of the undead. Maybe you've seen them. They're the people who swamp, swarm and overwhelm any internet based poll, discussion, survey, comment space, Q&A, or kaffeeklatsch where Paul is being discussed to offer unreserved praise and unrestrained support for "Dr. Paul".

Nothing wrong with showing support for your candidate, you ask? Why not give your guy a shout out, especially because he's a longshot and could use the boost, you say? Well, because, see, it's a lie. Ron Paul's national polls are in the basement. He consistently, consistently, comes in no higher nationally than 2 or 3 percent among republicans. These polls, the reputable ones, use random sampling. That is, they pick numbers at random out of the phone book, or use some other equalizer so that the sample for their survey is as unbiased as possible. When sampling is done in this responsible fashion, Paul weighs in - consistently, as I said - at 2 percent. (And at Betfair.com, the world's largest betting exchange, he's currently a 17-to-1 dog)

So when some outfit like ABC News or Drudge has an online poll after a debate, and Ron Paul wins it by something like triple the votes of the next highest guy, well.... it's a lie. It ain't so.

Paul didn't win the debate by some absurd triple margin. Indeed, he probably wizzed it down his withered leg. He merely has way more fanatical web-troopers willing to swarm the online-vote-button. And the saddest part about all of this has to be the gameplan of the undead army. They think - seriously - than they can sway people over to Ron Paul by swarming web sites and deluging them with Pro Paul comments. This is their honest to God strategy for winning. Like someone out there is going to be fooled by a rigged debate poll. And these comments they leave on websites. They always start with some neutral sounding paragraph about how much they like the website and have enjoyed reading the contents, and then the second paragraph always begins the same way: "Now personally, I support Dr. Paul." Suuuuure you do buddy. This approach always has the faint aroma of the Mormon missionary who thinks he can loosen me up by asking me if I saw the big game last night before he tells me that he found Jesus.

How did you guys get together anyway? Were you all Lyndon LaRouche supporters, who had nowhere to go after he retired? So you wandered the earth like masterless samurai, waiting for the next hopeless candidate where you could practice your crazy arts? I don't suppose it would mean anything to you if I said that Ron, sorry, "Dr. Paul" doesn't have the remotest chance of winning anything? Does that give you pause for even a second? Does the fact that he came in behind the amateurish Tom Tancredo in the straw poll get you even the tiniest bit depressed? The straw poll! The one event where you can actually bus in your supporters and essentially buy your votes! He couldn't beat Tancredo, the guy who's been casually threatening to nuke our enemies. Couldn't beat him! When you can press a "Vote Here" button online, you guys are all over it like stink on a monkey. But getting a few thousand people into Ames, Iowa - that's a little complex for your armchair generalship, isn't it?

What's the day after Ron Paul's candidacy is over going to be like? Will there be one of those muted, reflective get togethers - one of those somber parties with wine, easy listening music and balloons - where you reminisce and talk about getting back together in 2012? Somehow I don't think so. I think you're all going to move on without a flinch to your next crazy project. What will it be? Rigging the online polls for People Magazine's Worlds Sexiest Man? Stocking more canned food in your fortified, underground bunker? Joining Woody Harrelson's hemp crusade? How about endorsing Tony Cox, the longshot's longshot?

Maybe Ron Paul will run as an independent after he loses the nomination? Won't that be fun. Then we get an additional half-year of you people.

There's really nothing else to say. Except, perhaps: "Go away. Your elderly, confused candidate has no chance. Every word you say is wasted breath, and every line you type is someone else's wasted time. Go bang your head against a door with gradually increasing force until you stop liking Ron Paul. Then apply a cold compress and just cry it out."

How Can Elmer's Glue Keep Calling Itself a Back-To-School Supply?

Nearly every August, when I'm hit with all the back-to-school ads, I see an enormous amount of Elmer's Glue placed front and center.



Can you believe this racket? What kind of a coup is this for Elmer's Glue? It's frickin' glue! You don't need glue in school! I mean what, for a crafts project? For sticking pipe cleaners on construction paper? Something you do in kindergarten and then never do again? For this you need four bottles of glue?



I remember we had white out in school. We may have even had a jar of rubber cement. But outside of shop class, where was the glue? My family owned, I think, a single container of glue, which more than amply met our glue needs for the entirety of my primary education.

Normally, I'd be pointing my finger at Elmer's, crying shame, and demanding that they stop pushing glue as a back-to-school necessity. But the thing is, I don't believe Elmer's is the real culprit here. Oh sure, they're riding this free publicity for all it's worth. But it seems like Office Depot type stores and stationers are pushing the glue all on their own. Like they perennially find themselves long on glue as autumn approaches and are forced to push their inventory like a waiter would push an overstocked Bordeaux.

And the parents are partially culpable as well, for buying into the glue scam. "I can't let Jayden be the only one without Glue!"

But then again, maybe the stationers advertise glue in their back-to-school sales to provide some kind of visual ballast in the ad. I mean, you've got erasers, rulers, mechanical pencils, notebooks. It's all so dry. So boring. It actually reminds you of, well, being in school. Not good. But the glue says fun. It says active. It says you're doing something.

So I checked out the Elmer's website, and yeah, they're milking this for all it's worth. If you don't have a tube of glue in your bag on the first day of school, then you're one sorry motherfucker. I mean, can you believe this site? Teacher's corner? Lesson plan tips? This is a company whose sole purpose is to manufacture polyvinly acetate polymer adhesive. But they want to tell me how to make sure children don't hog space at the water fountain. So yes, they're milking the whole back-to-school ambassador status.

Do you think maybe that in the ye-olden days of American school that glue really was a vital school supply? And that as glue has gradually been phased out as an academic tool, the back-to-school retail industry just hasn't caught up yet? That would probably be the most charitable way to look at it, so maybe I'll just leave it at that and give everyone the benefit of the doubt.

People, You Don't Need to Cut Holes in the Soda Can Plastic Rings Anymore

Every so often, I still see someone piously taking out the scissors to thoroughly carve up a six-pack plastic ring, or "yoke" before disposal. When I see someone do this, they throw me that look. The "I pity you" look. It's the look that says "Maybe YOU don't cut up the plastic rings, Mr. Choke-a-fish, but some of us have a little compassion."

What the sanctimonious yoke snippers don't seem to get is that they already won this fight. You don't have to cut up the six-pack plastic rings anymore because they're all photodegradable now, and have been so for almost 20 years. US and Canadian law demands they be photodegradable, and the one company that makes them, ITW Hi-Cone, bends over backwards to demonstrate how environmentally friendly they are. Did you know they're all made from post consumer product and are made from 30% less material than a generation ago?

Leave them out in the sun for more than two weeks and they disintegrate. Throw them in the ocean and they float to the surface and disintegrate. There's really nothing bad you can say anymore about six-pack plastic rings. They're used in arts and crafts. The days where you could see humorous sights like this are long, long gone.




But cutting up the rings is just one of those leftover behaviors that you can't get anyone to shake off. It's been drilled in so well that you have to cut up the rings. It's a relic. It's like how every gas station still screams out "UNLEADED" 30 years after it's necessary. It's like the people who are still fighting the battle against styrofoam and preaching about saving the whales.

That's it for today. I was actually working on a grand treatise about which supermarket items it's okay to buy the generic versions of, and which items really demand a brand-name purchase - but now that I've taken such a hard stance against branding, maybe it wouldn't be appropriate anymore. It's just... diet coke is so much better than diet rite... I have to admit I'm conflicted here.

Don't Be a Dusthole

That's right readers, don't be a dusthole. For at least the last year or two there have been these billboards all around Las Vegas cautioning drivers not to "be a dusthole". I see one on my commute every day, and sometimes I'm stopped at a red and I get to just stare at it. Here, have a look:




Here's my problem. After living with this billboard in my neighborhood for several years and contemplating it more than once, I have to confess: I STILL HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHAT IT MEANS. And I'm a guy, not to toot my own horn here, I'm a guy with some experience at breaking down ads and deciphering all the hidden insults. But this billboard has been my kryptonite. This ad is just a wall of incomprehensibility. I *want* to know what it's talking about so I can scoff at its presumptiveness and go drive through a little dust just to show it who's boss. But I can't just drive through some dust, cause, this is Vegas and there's dust everywhere, I drive through dust every day, it accumulates on my windows faster than I can clean it, and - for the love of God what the hell is the point of this billboard!

Am I supposed to swerve out of the way when I see dust? Am I supopsed to avoid dust if I see a pile of it on the median? Am I supposed to judge an oncoming dust storm and steer in the opposite direction? And no, those aren't sarcastic asides, those are my actual theories for what the billboard means. I can't just dismiss this appeal to "steer clear" of dust as the rantings of an insane person, which is what it feels like - because someone actually cared enough about this issue to design a public awareness ad campaign, craft the ads, and pay for billboards all around town. So someone with money clearly cares about my driving habits with regard to dust avoidance, but in all of their planning they forgot the most important ingredient - the ingredient that makes your billboard make sense.

So the plan today, right here with you the reader, is to go on the internet, track down the sponsors of this billboard, and find out finally, for once and all, what steering clear of dust actually means and why the Dusthole, pictured, is such a poor dust-steering-clearing decision maker. So here we go...

Okay, I'm back. And now finally, I do know what steering clear of dust means. But I will say, that was not an easy search. I had to deploy all of my googling prowess to track this info down. I did all kind of searches for "air quality", "Las Vegas", "billboard" and "dusthole" and came up with nada. Actually, surprisingly, all I found were other blogs also expressing confusion over the dusthole.

The breakthrough came when I found this site, which you really need to see for yourself. It didn't solve the mystery, but at least now I had a name for the dusthole face: "Dusty the Dusthole"

Now I renewed my search for the meaning of the billboard, using the name Dusty. And voila. I found this article from the RJ. It's a long article about the successful ad campaign to raise dust awareness. Bafflingly, it almost completely omits any mention of what Dusty is supposed to be teaching us. I ask again: what does "Steer Clear of Dust" mean? In the name of the baby Jesus, please, what does it mean? But then thankfully, we get this money paragraph:

Reid and fellow commissioners credited the success of the dust-control program in part to public awareness through television ads that featured Dusty the Dusthole, a character with a penchant for stirring up dust by driving fast on unpaved roads and speeding across vacant lots.

So that's it. Driving on unpaved, dusty roads or lots stirs up dust that pollutes the air. Okay, now how was I supposed to figure that out from the "Steer Clear of Dust" slogan and a picture of a guy with Down syndrome? Shouldn't it have been "Don't kick up dust." with a picture of a truck... I don't know, kicking up dust?

The good news is, I don't think I've ever taken a shortcut across a vacant lot, so I can finally feel relieved that I'm not a dusthole. It had been weighing on my mind. And Clark County, by virtue of having an indecipherable billboard, actually succeeded in its mission, which was to raise awareness. Consider me aware.

I leave you now with my favorite Las Vegas billboard, located somewhere around Decatur and Spring Mountain, which I think pretty much speaks for itself. Till next time!

Willy Wonka Hypocrisy

So I had the opportunity to rewatch this movie recently. The original Willy Wonka. A fine, fine film in my opinion. Has it aged well? Eh, mostly. It does feel out of place that Charlie bumps into an honest to God tinker outside the factory gates. I mean, a tinker? Even in 1971 I'm not sure how many tinkers there were wandering the streets.

Also there's the gum thing. I feel like I grew up in an era that was still recovering from some kind of childhood gum plague. Teachers in school would tell us with the harshest insistence: "Absolutely no gum chewing in my classroom! Do you hear me!" And we're all looking at each other thinking "Gum? Who chews gum? What gum?" So presumably there was a time when children chewing excessive amounts of gum was a huge problem, I just had the good fortune to be born afterwards. No, our problem were those damn curling bracelets that looked like little rulers but they snapped onto your wrist. What were those things? Where have they gone?

But anyways, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory takes a bold stance against gum chewing, and it does feel a little out of date. But dated or not, it is still a great movie.

Well, except for a slightly bigger problem. See, the film has always seemed a little hypocritical to me. How? Well, the Roald Dahl book is a morality tale. Dahl shows us that kids with bad habits get what's coming to them. Take Augustus Gloop for instance:



He's a glutton. He's fat. He eats too much chocolate. He falls in the chocolate river and gets sucked up the pipe. Lesson: don't be such a pig. But now here's the funny thing. Do you know who made the film? Not Paramount or Disney. The film was made by the Quaker Oats Company, and it was made first and foremost as a marketing tool to sell these candy bars:



The actual Wonka candy bar was a complete failure (supposedly it was like a Nestle Crunch bar with graham instead of crackle), but the movie was a big hit. Now if you want to make a film adaptation of a Roald Dahl morality tale about the dangers of eating too much chocolate, do you really think it's wise to use the film as a vehicle to sell chocolate? Don't you think that just slightly undermines the message?

And that's without even mentioning that the book contains another character, Mike Teavee, who's addicted to television:



Why would you make a film adaptation out of a story whose moral is that television is bad for children? Isn't there a bit of a problem there? It would be like, I don't know, making a Cliffs Notes edition of a book about the dangers of using Cliffs Notes. Or taking a book about the sad lives of circus animals, and doing a stage adaptation of it with actual circus animals. It's just not a good idea. Did the filmmakers mind these two casual betrayals of the moral of the story?

So there's always been that hypocrisy with the Willy Wonka film. The film tries to draw moral lessons, and the filmmakers undercut the lessons. But then, with the new, inferior Tim Burton remake, we get a fresh dose of hypocrisy.

See, they've reinvented Mike Teavee. Now he's a video game addict. He's not just vain like the original Mike, now he's violent:



What a smart idea. How bold of Tim Burton to update Mike for the 21 century. It's not just television that rots the brain, it's these damned video games. Good for you Tim Burton! Kids today need to be told what's bad for them. What bold commentary. What fresh insight. What courageous... wait a minute! Hold on! What's this?



Why, it's a video game of Tim Burton's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. "Hey kids, crack is bad for you. Oh and by the way, here, have some crack." Tim Burton, you're a hack. You're nothing. And yeah, the movie sucked. What the hell was up with Johnny Depp?

Do you see now why I hate marketing? Look how they've exploited Roald Dahl and undermined his story. Look how they've sold him out. And for what? To make money? Is that all? Man does this get me cheesed.

Branding

I'm going to have to go into full soapbox mode for this one, so everyone should probably stand back. In fact you may just want to browse out of here.

I think that advertising cheapens and coarsens our lives. It pollutes society. It takes the joy out of everything it touches. It teaches us all the wrong lessons. Any one ad, taken in isolation, is irritating but benign. It's the cumulative force of tens of thousands of them, over years, that cause permanent damage.

Coca Cola, you see, doesn't make you happy. It doesn't mean that the party has started, it doesn't help you bond with the guys, it doesn't take you back to the old days. There are other things in life that really can make you happy; but if you've been tricked into thinking that Coca Cola does it, you're that much poorer. You're further away from the real pursuit of happiness. You've let Coca Cola detour you into a dead end.

I've tried to resist this programming. I know that ads promise things, like happiness, that have nothing to do with their product, but I don't think I've escaped the effects. I know I've been programmed to think that going out and buying something will make me feel better. The act of buying and the act of owning have been drilled into me as the source of personal fulfillment.

Just a brief disclaimer now. All of this is not a prelude to saying that we need to a) renounce materialism and go live on a commune, or b) find Jesus. I'm actually a big cheerleader for materialism, in the sense that I think that all of our material conveniences and comforts are necessary stage-setting for the real pursuit of personal fulfillment. My swiffer doesn't provide happiness, but it cuts the cleaning time in half so that I can spend that surplus time doing something meaningful (or, more typically, playing Grand Theft Auto). For that reason alone I'm grateful for the swiffer.

It's "branding" that has to go. Branding is evil. Branding is responsible for this cheapening of our lives. Here's my amateur theory on the subject.

I think in the old days of consumerism, the really old days, there was no government oversight, no money-back guarantee, snake oil salesmen selling you mysterious tonics and potions, and lots of bad science floating around. If you bought something, drank it, and were allergic to the wrong thing, you could keel over and die. This is why good products, back then, had to trade on their name. If your toothpaste said "Colgate" on it, then you could be relatively assured that it was good toothpaste.

I seem to remember as a kid that a lot of advertising would stress the word "guarantee". Our product is guaranteed. Works every time or your money back. Company founders would appear in their best suit in the ad and give their personal word that the product was guaranteed to work as promised. You don't see that too much anymore. No one makes "It really works!" the focus of the ad these days. Now it's more likely to be a 30 second skit with a joke and some sexual innuendo with the product as a central prop to the play.

The reason why the "guarantee" ads have disappeared is that everything is guaranteed now. By the time something gets to your supermarket shelf, it's passed every conceivable test for safety and effectiveness. And if something still manages to go wrong, you get immediate service recovery. And if something still isn't resolved to your satisfaction, you can sue the bastards.

But the whole reason that Brands and Jingles and Catch-Phrases existed was to convince you of the quality of the product. Now that the quality of any product on any shelf is always guaranteed, what do we need the aggressive sales pitch for anymore? I've always conceded that commercials can sometimes function in an instructive way - for example showing me a upcoming movie that I wasn't aware of, or alerting me to a going-out-of-business sale, or announcing hat day at the ballpark, etc. But there's no longer any need to tell me to use Colgate brand toothpaste.

Because, now, there's no difference between Colgate, Aquafresh and Crest. None. It's all the same thing. Any ad that tries to persuade you that Colgate is superior is just a phenomenal waste of time, money and energy. At best, it annoys you and spoils an otherwise pleasant 30 seconds. At worst it actually succeeds in persuading you that Colgate is better.

So how can a commercial persuade you that one branded commodity product is better than another branded commodity product. The method that marketers have discovered is to persuade you that the toothpaste offers something more than just the normal toothpaste-y goods. One way is to differentiate the brand by inventing lots of different toothpaste categories, like Tartar control, extra whitening, maximum strength (?), etc.

But the problem with that is that Aquafresh and Crest will quickly mimic any successful toothpaste differentiation you can cook up. They'll have their own Tartar control product. So now what?

Now is when you get really sneaky. Now is when you decide that toothpaste can actually transport you into an entirely different lifestyle or social class. If you make an ad that shows a woman scrubbing with Colgate before hopping gleefully into bed with an attractive man in what is obviously a well appointed house, you're pitching a lifestyle. If you see that commercial enough thousands of times, you might actually start to associate Colgate with great sex and fabulous wealth.

And yes, I'm by no means the first person to make this case. In fact it's been made to me in several classrooms - sadly though it's been made by teachers who actually endorse this kind of marketing, and who clearly admire the strategy.

Modern marketing says that you don't pitch the product, because that's futile - all of your competitors have the same product. You have to pitch something that's out of reach, something that's otherwise unobtainable. Colgate doesn't just clean your teeth, it also leads to great sex. You don't need to demonstrate how Colgate can provide great sex, you just need to put them in the same picture frame over and over.

Now this indeed might be the best way to boost toothpaste sales. I can't fault the theory on its successful track record. But I wonder if the professors and faculty in my school's Marketing Department have thought about what they're helping to do to society. (Jeez, and I really hate writing sentences like that last one. But it's worth it. The message has to get out.)

What it does is promote a gnawing sense of insecurity that whatever we currently have isn't good enough. This bombardment of film footage that we are constantly subjected to that equates product ownership with happiness - it messes with our programming. I know my programming has been permanently altered. If someone were to ask me right now: what's the best laundry detergent on the market? Without hesitation I would say "Tide". But, Tide isn't better than any other detergent. All of those detergents: Wisk, Gain, All, Cheer, Tide - all of them - they're all the same. That smug sense of satisfaction I get when I take my Tide to the laundry room and see all the poor saps with their generic supermarket detergent. How I pity them! They can't afford Tide. Maybe I should be charitable and give them a cup? Give them a taste of the good life... See how Tide has twisted my brain?

And these professors, these educators are going into the classroom every day and instructing the next generation how to perpetuate the deception. Does anyone ever raise their hand and ask why we should devote so much time and strategy to convince total strangers that Coke is better than Pepsi, when it's actually not better? That would be a fun question to ask in class.

What can I possibly hope for here? Will ads ever die? Sometimes, when the product becomes so commoditized that no one can even pretend to claim that their brand is better, then the ads go away. Like... I don't know - salt. No one makes ads trying to claim that their salt is the bomb. Unless I just haven't seen them. I can't recall any salt ads where the woman takes the salt down from the cupboard and the muscular, manly husband comes up behind her and puts his arms around her and nuzzles her neck. "Mmm... smells delicious honey. Is that Morton's Iodized table salt?"

Well, yep, I'm definitely plummeting down from the coffee high now, so it's time to wrap it up. People, don't be fooled by ads. All those different brands, they're all the same. Okay, maybe a laundry detergent connoisseur can detect the slightly different bouquet of Cheer and prefers it to Downy, but whose fault is it that he got the idea in his head to have a detergent preference in the first place? Can one really have a preference? Can one really express individuality through brand choice?

All right, I'm done. No more soapbox today.

Ads for States

Isn't it true that there are certain businesses that just shouldn't advertise? Especially on TV? When you see a lawyer standing in front of a wall of books saying "Have you been injured in a motorcycle or automobile accident?" - doesn't that ad accomplish the exact opposite of what it intends? The only thing it tells me is: do not, under any circumstances, use this lawyer. A lawyer who advertises on TV cannot logically be a good lawyer. I'm not saying he's not a lawyer who can't make money from rolling the dice on car-accident cases, but still - he isn't a good lawyer.

And so it is with states who pump out the ads on TV. Here's the rule of thumb. The more feverish the state's tourism office seems in its advertising, the more it boasts, the more they deluge you with their ad campaign, etc. the less you'd ever want to go there.

How many times have you ever seen an ad that says: "New York. Excitement awaits!"
How about never? "The District of Columbia. Come see our rich history." Nope. "Texas. Saddle up and ride!" Haven't seen it. These places don't need ads. These are states that are confident in their ability to draw a crowd. They don't need to strut on the street corner that is a Jeopardy! commercial break.

By contrast, no matter where I go in the US, I am carpet bombed with ads for North Carolina. All the freaking time. The beaches. The surf. The lush landscapes. The history! The peaceful bucolic countryside. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Every damn state has natural splendor. Even New Jersey and Delaware and Rhode Island and Kansas has its share of natural splendor. No matter where you are in the USA, you are probably no more than an hour's drive from as much natural splendor as ANYTHING North Carolina has to offer. What am I saying? I'm saying you can't make "Come see our natural splendor" the central focus of your state tourism ad campaign. A few states like Alaska can get away with it. But North Carolina is just barking up the wrong tree here.

With the NC ads I get this distinct whiff of the old orange juice ad problem. The orange juice ads would remind us how healthy orange juice is and then say something like "Doctors recommend drinking a glass of Tropicana orange juice every day." Well why does it have to be Tropicana, doctor? The same goes with North Carolina. "Like beaches? Like, uh, ferns? Like crickets at night? Like clement weather? Then come to North Carolina!" Well why? Why North Carolina? What temptations and delights can NC possibly have to distinguish it from whatever state you're already in? If what you want is a beach trip, aren't there a dozen states with better beaches? How about Civil War sites? Aren't there far better places to go? Lush countryside? Sleepy towns? What? Tell me! Why would I possibly set foot in this mediocre state?

I give North Carolina Kitty Hawk and that's it. I'm sure there's a good exhibit there, and then probably a decent crab shack next door. Fine. That's one interesting morning you can spend in NC. Other than that, there's no reason to visit. The info on the state quarter pretty much satisfies all my curiosity about NC.

Doctors

And doctors too, of course. Any doctor that advertises on TV is a doctor to avoid. In fact, there's really only one method to find a good doctor. What you do is mention to a trusted friend that you've got this recurring sinus infection, and then the friend leans over and tells you in a conspiratorial tone: "I have this great Ear Nose & Throat guy. The best. Give him a call. Tell him you're a friend."

Then you call the guy, and you find out that a) He doesn't take your piddling insurance plan, b) he doesn't take cash patients, and c) there's a 6 month wait for an appointment. That's how you find a good doctor. You don't just scan your PPO book for the guy with the closest office, and you certainly don't trust a doctor who advertises on TV.

Universities

And hoo boy, you do not want to go anywhere near a institution of higher learning that sees fit to market itself to a mass audience. I suppose if you're completely unskilled and unemployed, and you see an ad for some vocational technical school, then that's okay. Something like DeVry. But if it's an actual 4-year college or university with aspirations to seriousness and respectability, then what the hell are they thinking? When was the last time you ever saw "Harvard. A fine education... at reasonable prices."

There are just some places and people: doctors, lawyers, universities and states - whose success depends on a perceived self-confidence. By advertising, you cheapen yourself. You expose yourself as struggling in the contest with your competition. You send out the warning beacon to stay far away.

Now go on and sue me, states! That's right, take your best shot! (These state tourism offices can be litigious. Just see what the state of Maine did to a blogger who dared criticize its ad campaign)

These "Unrated" DVDs of PG-13 Movies

Isn't this just the biggest crock?

I'm afraid I missed the long, slow buildup to what is currently an enormous cinematic debacle. Just as you don't see an ant or a roach until you've got a full blown infestation, it wasn't till recently that I scanned the aisle at Blockbuster and Hollywood Video and realized that every third title is "Unrated and Uncensored!"

Again, what an enormous, stinking load of bullshit this is. To add 2 seconds of bared breast to your unpleasant PG-13 comedy and then release it as Unrated! like it's a long lost cut of Behind the Green Door - it makes me want to give up all civilization and become Amish. Then kill a lot of people. And then become Amish again.

Here's a condensed version of this sad story. Once upon a time, back when ratings were a whole lot stricter, there were movies that were too violent/disturbing/sexual to get an R rating. But it was the kiss of death to accept an X rating, because the porn industry had eagerly claimed that letter as its own. So if you were unwilling to cut the film down to an R, you screened the movie where possible as "unrated" and hopefully made a few dollars. Unrated meant X, but not porn.

Then we got NC-17, which was supposed to eliminate the gray area, but it didn't work because theaters still wouldn't screen NC-17s and most stores wouldn't carry them. At this point, moviemakers essentially gave up, and resigned themselves to not making movies that couldn't pass by with an R. We, the public, are the losers. In a way, the pendulum has swung back towards permissiveness, since the R rating keeps getting more and more lenient. I'd say it now captures most of what was previously NC-17 territory. Can any movie get an NC-17 for violence alone? At one time I'd say yes. Now, no.

So that's the history of the "unrated" label that the American Pie marketers are now feverishly trying to exploit. Never mind that today's young audiences don't know that "unrated" used to mean taboo, the tactic seems to be working all the same. So now you've got one of these Mr & Mrs Smith or Date Movie! type movies, and they're barely squeaking by with a PG-13. The studio strategy is to edit a blatantly R version of the film for the MPAA and ask for a PG-13 rating. The MPAA falls for the ruse perfectly by demanding a list of 15 specific cuts and changes to get the PG-13. But the studio doesn't care. They threw 40 things in there which deliberately challenge the PG-13 rating. If they have to remove 15, that means they get to keep the other 25. And they get the PG-13 rating.

So now, when it's time to release the DVD, you put the 15 cuts back in and you simply don't resubmit the new edit to the MPAA. Now you've got an unrated version. But here's the thing: The "uncensored" parts that you're now reincorporating into the movie were conceived as bits that could possibly slip by the MPAA into a PG-13 version. In other words, they're weak-R. They're barely-R. They were filmed with the intention of being part of a PG-13 movie.

So when you see something like this in the comedy aisle, stop and take stock of all the ways you're being insulted and deceived.

1) Nothing in America is censored. A DVD that claims to be uncensored is really just saying "We, the studio, chose to self-censor this movie earlier because we knew we could make more money. Now, we can un-censor our own product, because, again, we can make more money."

2) The bits that are now uncensored are weak, weak R-rated shots, some no longer than a single second. Go rent Fast Times at Ridgemont High. Even a tame R rated movie like that has acres more nudity than an uncensored Taj. Go rent The Sure Thing.

3) An attempt is being made to confuse you into associating an unrated PG-13 movie with the Unrated movies of yore. The real unrated movies. Doesn't that piss you off?

4) And what the hell is Blockbuster and Walmart and Target and Best Buy doing? Don't they have these high and mighty policies about only stocking movies with certain ratings? So now anyone can sell an unrated movie at Best Buy? What happens when Henry, Portrait of a Serial Killer comes out as unrated on DVD? What will the Best Buy policy be then? Or Delicatessen?
What kind of cartwheels of logic will be necessary to ban some unrated movies but keep others?

On my recent trip to Blockbuster I asked about their ratings enforcement. Do they treat their unrated movies as R's or PG-13s? Or more than R's? Answer: a blank stare. Kids can rent R rated movies at blockbuster if the account says that they have permission. Do the unrated movies count as R's? Apparently it's at the discretion of the guy at the counter. So..... no.

But don't get me wrong. What's bothering me isn't the idea of kid seeing a tit. It's the rank hypocrisy of Blockbuster. The pious rental chain that won't stock NC-17 fare, the chain that strictly enforces the rating system. I guess when you dangle an extra $3.25 in front of blockbuster their principled position kinds of melts away. And you know, it's not just the hypocrisy. And it's not just the studio's presumption of my stupidity. And it's not just the way that they market their movies to confuse and deceive.

Unrated movies used to mean something. An unrated video meant that you were about to see some seriously messed up shit, or at the very least some bush. Movies that could shock and appall. Exciting movies. Dangerous movies. Movies where buttery fingers could at any minute slip up Marlon Brando's anus and it was par for the course.

And now every third movie on the aisle is unrated, and so of course it ceases to mean anything. Pornographers, in the 70s, exploited the ratings process and turned it into a form of advertising. Single X.... how about Triple X! (question, was there ever a Double X porn movie?) Now, national lampoon is doing THE EXACT SAME THING. Using the MPAA process (and the MPAA are themselves spineless and unprincipled) as a way to promote product.

Roger Ebert is right. (Not something I say every day) The rating system is broken. The whole idea of going back and forth with the MPAA to get the most graphic and explicit R or PG-13 that you can goes against the entire spirit of what the ratings are for in the first place. It also guarantees that the limit of what's acceptable will just keep moving north. Ebert wants an "M" rating, for movies that are too harsh for R, but aren't pornographic. But he's misguided in thinking that this would work. NC-17 was the M rating. That was supposed to be its function. But it failed because it's never going to be in a theater's interest to take a film that comes with a built-in limited-audience handicap. The theater will always be better off posturing and saying "We only play family fare here", (as they show Hostel on 3 screens).

No, there really is no good solution. Eventually the establishment will take a stand against the proliferation of these unrated DVDs, and then blockbuster will clean up its act. Until then, sit back and enjoy borderline R movies that boast that they're Uncensored!

Porn in my PS2

Speaking of arbitrary ratings and smut, why is it that when I put porn DVDs in my PS2 I get prompted to authorize parental control level 8? What in God's name do I need to put in there to get prompted for level 9 or 10? Cause the scale on the screen goes to 10. You may not be aware how disheartening it is to put in some serious porn and find out that you've triggered only this medium-high response from the PS2 parental control. Here I thought I was going to watch some hardcore shit, and the PS2 is treating it like it's one of the lesser Emmanuelles, or a Victoria Secret catalogue or a Oui Magazine.

What do I have to do to get the 10, Sony? What do you want? A snuff film? Nazi medical experiments? I'll do it! Just tell me! I want that 10.

The scary thing here is that according to Sony's logic, they have envisioned a situation where a parent might permit a child to watch anything up to and including hardcore porn, but absolutely nothing more adult than that! You hear me buster! Level 8 and that's it! Now be a good boy and watch your Seka.

Fill Soda Bottles Up All the Way, You Cheap Bastards

I mean wtf? As usual, I'm the one who has to give voice to what I'm sure is an unspoken, private complaint of millions. My whole life I've looked at that empty neck in the coke bottle, and my passing thought has always been: "Hmmm, I'm sure there's some good reason for that." But no, there is no good reason. The bottlers are cheap bastards, and they'll keep giving us progressively emptier and emptier bottles until we just refuse to take it anymore.

Have you ever thought about how much money you've spent on ATM fees over your whole life? A lot, right? Wouldn't it be nice to have all that money back? Well imagine how much soda you've lost to this 90%-full bottle bullshit over the years? Imagine a truck pulling up to your house with all that missing soda. You'd be sitting pretty, friends. You'd be set.

What are the purported reasons for the empty neck? So the soda can breathe, like a fine wine? So a freshly opened bottle won't spill as easily?

"Well come on Rowsdower, it's a carbonated beverage. It's physics. It's about the pressure building up in the bottle, especially when agitated. Don't complain about things you know nothing about."

Oh yes, of course! The carbonation. Wouldn't want to fill up a soda bottle all the way with all that pressure building up. I take it all bac... wha? Wait a minute.... what's this?

The same shit with bottled water? But I thought it was all about carbonation? Ahhhh, so that was just a pile of BS? I see. You cheap, cheap bastards.

Wouldn't it be nice to open a bottle of soda and see the fizzy, quivering surface right there at the top? To know you've gotten your full $1.25's worth? Look at Gatorade, people. See the way it should be done.



Now as long as we're talking about bottled water, I want to spend just a minute discussing some of the claims made on the water bottles about their purification process.

I always like to look, first of all, at where the bottle is maintaining the water comes from. And for the record, I trust something like "Bottled from an Idaho Municipal Water Source" about ten times as much as I trust something like "Bottled from the finest protected natural streams in the United States and Canada". Sometimes it's just "Bottled in Roanoke, Virginia" which tells you virtually nothing, although you can pretty easily assume it means somebody's tap. But my general rule of thumb is to trust the water that proudly claims that it's from a municipal source, and not to trust the bottles that get all vague about crystal streams and leafy glades and babbling brooks and sylvan glens. There's something ugly in that sylvan glen. Something they don't want you to know about. I steer clear of those waters.

But the latest trend is for the water to admit that it's bottled locally from the tap, but then to claim that all kind of purification rituals are performed on it, returning it to a pristine H2O state. I am deeply suspicious of this.

To understand my suspicions you need to understand the sorry state of Las Vegas tap water. For those of you who don't live here I'll break it down. We are serviced by the artificial reservoir Lake Mead - water diverted from the Colorado river. This wide open pool of standing water is pumped into our homes, and when the water is pumped out as sewage.... it gets a sewage treatment plant once-over..... and is dumped back into Lake Mead. Now recycling sewage back into drinking water might be okay on the international space station, but this is America's fastest growing city. If you actually drive out to lake Mead to look at our drinking supply, it's an alarming sight. People bathe in it. There are watersports. Jet skis zip around. Blue smoke pours out of outboard motors. Makes you thirsty, doesn't it?

By the time this reclaimed sewage has had the jet ski treatment and is pumped back into our homes it's been generously dosed with foul-tasting chemicals to make it safe for drinking. Which is a long way of saying that Las Vegas tap water sucks. It tastes like a children's pool.

So along comes a bottler like Niagara, claiming that they've purified our tap water. Suuuuuure.
The bottle says that they treat the water with:
1. Carbon Filtration
2. Reverse Osmosis
3. Microfiltration
4. UV Treatment
5. Ozonation

A list like this sets off all my warning bells. A name like "Reverse Osmosis" sounds too technical. It sounds like a name designed to pacify you into thinking that it's some really robust purification technique, when it fact all it means is that they've hired a person to blow on the water. If reverse osmosis means "blowing on water to make it colder" I am not going to be surprised. Okay, let's look it up....

Here's the scoop. Reverse Osmosis means "filtering". It's a screen that you push the water through. The water goes through, solid particles don't. Ah. How does that differ from... microfiltration? It doesn't. From wikipedia: "Microfiltration is not fundamentally different from reverse osmosis"

Ozonation and carbon filtering involve introducing carbon and ozone to the water to soak up bad things like bacteria. I have nothing to say about this.

Niagara water does taste pretty good, so maybe I shouldn't complain. But I can't shake the suspicion that purified Las Vegas tap water can't be much better than Kevin Costner's purified urine that he made on his Waterworld trimaran. The whole enterprise just seems wrong. I'll stick with my Idaho municipal water, if it's all the same to everyone.

Gas Station American Flags

And now, let's talk about flags at gas stations. Huge, ginormous American Flags. Really big flags. Flags so large you need powerful, gale force winds to actually see them stream. The new home of the enormous American flag has become, for whatever reason, the suburban gas station. The Alamo never had flags this big. Tranquility Base on the moon didn't have a flag this big. Even George C. Scott would say, "Damn, that's one big gas station flag."




I have no problem with enormous gas station American flags; in fact they're nice to see. Plus, they sometimes offer urgent news bulletins. When Ronald Reagan died, how I did I find out? Word of mouth? A TV interruption? Nope, it was a gigantic gas station American flag, flying at half mast, alerting all that something was amiss. It's too bad we have to rely on something like a Chevron to uphold our civic traditions, but there you have it.

But friends, all is not well in the suburban gas station community. Was I the only one that noticed that the death of Gerald Ford threw them all into confusion? Did anyone notice (in whatever part of America you live in) that no one seemed to know when to return the flag to full staff? Ford died the morning of December 26th, and the flag is lowered for 30 days for the death of a president. But no one seemed quite sure when the 30 days were up. Was it 30 days to the minute of the death? 30 days from the presidential order to lower the flag? Or one month from the day of death? (Real answer: the flag could return to full staff after sundown on the 25th)

On the 25th, some flags were back up. Others stayed at half staff for days too long. My feeling is, if you're going to fly the largest American flags on earth as part of some who's-more-patriotic gas station arms race, you at least owe it to the people to obey the rules.

So my question is: who at Shell or Mobil headquarters is in charge of sending out flag bulletins? Does Exxon have a "Director of Enormous-Flag Affairs"? Does AM/PM have a Dead President Flag Coordination department? Does the slurpee guy actually do the raising and lowering? Does he fold a retired flag into the proper triangle.

I visited a local Terribles gas station (it's a Nevada chain) to get the answers. The clerk blinked a few times and referred me to the manager. The manager, for her part, seemed deeply suspicious that someone was asking about the flag. That particular flag is this one, although the picture doesn't really do justice to its size.



"We got a crew that takes care of that." she said. A crew?

"They do all the Terribles."

I wanted to know the name of the company, but I couldn't get any more information from the suspicious manager. Maybe if I get the chance I'll do a little more digging. For now though, lets just be thankful that we get to see businesses flying flags at all, even if it is just a transparent marketing ploy to try to erase the old public perception that gas stations are run by foreigners, and to somehow tie gas-buying with a feeling of patriotism. Despite all that, a giant flag is a welcome addition to our neighborhood skyline. Just learn the rules for raising and lowering it. That's all.


Celebrity Chefs

Continuing on, since I haven't posted in a while, I'd like to blow the whistle on the wild abuse of the term Celebrity Chef. You can't just go around claiming that your restaurant features a Celebrity Chef. You see, without any kind of controlling, regulatory body to assign people official Celebrity Chef status, just about anyone can claim to be a CC, based on nothing more than publishing a cookbook or making one or two TV appearances. That's a load of crap.

Emeril is a Celebrity Chef. Julia Childs was a Celebrity Chef. Paul Prudhomme. Maybe Wolfgang Puck. That's it. Chefs that manage to cross that boundary into the public consciousness. Everyone knows Emeril. BAM! But come on - being on the Food Netowrk a couple of times doesn't qualify you. It's the Food Network. It's a niche channel with a niche audience buried among hundreds of little cable channels. And being generally well known or well respected within the insular chef community - someone like Joel Robuchon - that doesn't cut it either. Publishing some books? Nope. Having a mildly well known restaurant that bears your name? Nope. That's a rich and successful chef, not a celebrity.

David Hasselhoff is a celebrity. Bobby Flay is not. Ohhhh, poor Bobby Flay. Go make me a steak, chef. That's right, put on a ridiculous hat and make my dinner. You're a food cooker. You prepare meals so that others can spend that time on other, more important matters. Oh, you're going to make some little artistic design with the onions on top? You're going to swirl the raspberry sauce around the cheesecake in some wild, crazy way? Oh yeah, that's art. You're a real celebrity. Please.


These Footnotes in the "Barnes & Nobles Classics" Books.

This requires a little explanation. Barnes and Noble publishes a series of "Classic" books - basically the more accessible classics like Huck Finn and Dracula - for reduced prices. It's a good deal all around: they've got relatively attractive covers, some new interviews or commentary, and you can't argue with the price. And if the goal is to introduce a new generation to the joy of great literature through some of the more readable books, who can object?

Well I do, damnit!

I was browsing through B&N, and when I saw the complete Sherlock Holmes in the Classics series for only $14.95, I couldn't pass it up. I love Holmes stories, and I had never read the novels. So I get home with these two fat volumes, I put on a pot of English breakfast, I get a crackling fire going in the hearth, and I settle in to read some Holmes. (all true except for the tea and the fire)

The first story, A Study in Scarlet, is a thrilling mystery with all of the anti-Mormon prejudice that you could possibly want. (and I like a lot) But on almost every page... there is a footnote. A big ol' asterisk with a note from the editor down at the bottom. Now, I didn't buy an annotated Sherlock Holmes, I wouldn't have wanted to. But according to Barnes and Nobles, these footnotes are simply:

"Designed to inform, and never to intrude. The elegant superscripts are clearly visible within the text, and the corresponding notes appear on the foot of the page for ease of reference. With a glance, footnotes briefly identify historical figures, gloss obsolete terms, and translate foreign words and phrases."

Yeah, except, these are the most asinine and unnecessary footnotes I've ever seen. How retarded does Barnes and Nobles Classics think its readers are? Check some of these out:

Sentence in the text: "With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case* in the corner."

*Locked stand in which decanters of liquor and wine are displayed

Really? Wow, thanks Barnes & Nobles! Thanks for the interruption!

"There was a parallel instance in Aberdeen some years back, and something on very much the same lines at Munich the year after the Franco-Prussian war*."

*Conflict between France and Prussia, from 1870 through early 1871.

Ohhhhhhhhh, so it was a waaaaaar between France and Prussia! I thought it was a Franco-Prussian dance, or maybe a Franco-Prussian soup.

"I was standing at the Criterion Bar, when someone tapped me on the shoulder, and turning round I recognized young Stamford, who had been a dresser* under me at Bart's."

*Medical assistant whose duties include bandaging, or "dressing," wounds.

I still don't understand. You mean someone who puts on the band-aid?

Some other terms that are helpfully footnoted:
Farthing
Guinea
Half-Crown
Underground
Gaiters
Huguenot
Plantagenet
Consumption

And, worst of all, every single literary allusion or reference is footnoted. Every time Holmes tosses out a phrase from the bible, or Shakespeare, or any other great work of literature we get the asterisk. Imagine for a moment how annoying that is. When Holmes says "There is nothing new under the sun." do you, the reader, really need to know at that moment what verse of the bible that's from? Does every French word require a translation? Isn't part of the richness of the reading experience either a) catching these allusions naturally and letting them sweep you further into the story or b) knowing you didn't understand something and following up on it later on your own time? I don't know what's worse: being spoon fed like this, or having your ignorance presumed on what the London Underground is.

Go away, footnotes! Stop adding value to my purchase!

180 Annoyances

161. Movies where characters demonstrate how masculine and tough they are by taking a Tylenol and just swallowing it without water. Does anyone, in real life, choose to just swallow pills dry when water is easily available?

162. Old people in the theater who sit there and stare at the end credits.

163. That metallic-pumpkin car color.

164. Gym machines that really highball the burned-calorie estimate.

165. When you get a call from your power company or your cell phone provider or whoever, and they stay completely silent until you've said hello a second time.

166. Parents who have their baby's totally awesome sixth finger removed.

167. Using "I can't hear you!!!" more than once when pumping up the crowd.

168. That hairstyle you sometimes see with black women where it looks like their hair is painted on their scalp. I don't know what it's called but it's really off-putting.

169. Law firms with 6 or more people in the name. (For example)

170. Dressing up as a tennis pro for Halloween. Wearing a white shirt and shorts, carrying a racket, and draping a sweater over your shoulders is officially the least effort you could possibly make at a costume.

171. January gym crowding.

172. All those 10-10-220 and 10-10-321 commercials from about 5 years ago.

173. Sitting next to your parents during a movie sex scene.

174. The headache you get from an autostereogram.

175. How the Chinese government "owns" the panda species.

176. When the ambulence/firetruck eats your whole green turn arrow.

177. Being bent over a barrel by these frickin expensive cell phone plans. $100 a month? Didn’t phone ownership used to cost about $20 a month? Enjoy it while you can, Verizon, I predict it won’t last.

178. Pizza parlours that don't serve by the slice.

179. Coffee grounds in the last sip.

180. That one person at a dinner table toast who absolutely needs to clink every.... person's.......... glass.

The Upcoming Presidential Campaign Season

With all of these politicians announcing their candidacy in the past week, we should all get mentally ready for the TWO YEARS of the 2008 presidential contest that pretty much has just started. And I'll be honest, I'm not looking forward to it. Why? Not because I'm politically apathetic or cynical about the process (actually, I guess I am cynical about the process), but because this is going to be like a two-year-long movie where I've already guessed the ending.

I'm going on record, right now, in January 2007. It will be Hillary, with Obama as VP, versus either Giuliani or McCain, probably Giuliani, and Hillary will win.

There, I said it. I almost feel bad saying it, like I'm spoiling the ending of the Sixth Sense or something. And lord knows, I'm not happy about that outcome. I'd much prefer Giuliani. But in my own mind, a Hillary presidency has been inevitable for some time now. The day she announced she was running for the Senate, back in what, 2000? - was the day I knew she'd be impossible to beat in a presidential contest.

But we're going to have to listen to two years worth of reporting on meaningless BS in the meantime. "Judy, tell us what kind of organization Bill Richardson is putting together. Where is he getting his braintrust?" And "Shep, I'm here in Mitt Romney's campaign headquarters, where it's fair to say they are VERY excited about the upcoming Iowa straw poll."

Why? Why? Do you have any idea how much airtime is about to be wasted on these candidates who have no chance? Now, a year or so back, I complained about the Vanity candidates. These were the guys like Al Sharpton and Alan Keyes and Gary Bauer who must surely have known that their candidacy was hopeless, yet they pressed on anyway with the intention of furthering a personal agenda that had nothing to do with becoming president. With Bauer, he wanted a platform for his nutty ideas. With Sharpton, he just wanted to feed his appetite for publicity and keep his personal profile high. Keyes I think just wanted a TV show.

This time around, with the new crop of hopeless candidates, I don't sense the vanity candidacy as much as I do the delusional candidacy, more in the tradition of Dennis Kucinich than Jesse Jackson. The delusional candidacy is when your candidacy is utterly hopeless, yet you're incapable of recognizing it. Take John Edwards for example. He's the guy who couldn't beat Kerry in the primary. And Kerry is the guy who couldn't beat the loathed, reviled, hated George W. Bush. Democrat primary voters have already formed this thought with regards to Edwards: "We had an unbelievable chance to take the presidency in 2004, cause Bush was so unpopular, and Kerry somehow managed to botch it. And we're supposed to vote for the guy who couldn't even beat Kerry?"

So Edwards has no chance. When Quayle mounted a candidacy in 1996 (or was it 2000?) that was also a delusional candidacy. Didn't he know that his Q score or whatever was in the toilet? Didn't he know he was a national laughingstock? Did no one tell him?

How about Mitt Romney? He's in the low single digits. He's Mormon. He won't be able to carry his own state. He's far to the right of everyone else. And yet my friends on the right are doing everything they can to build his buzz. Friends, the Romney candidacy is so utterly hopeless that I'd have a better chance of bluffing my way into the Mormons' big, exclusive Disney-esque temple for my own wedding than Romney does in capturing the white house.

Someone, please, give me a modern example of a guy who started out in the low single digits at this point in the campaign versus two powerhouses in the 30 digits each who somehow came back to win it. It just can't happen. And yes, the Mormonism is an issue. Don't be fooled by the spin. "We're just as Christian as anyone else." Nope. Uh-uh. "Worrying that Romney will take orders from Salt Lake City is just as foolish as worrying that John Kennedy would take orders from the Vatican." True. But that's not the issue. It's not that Romney might be taking orders from high-priest whoever, it's that he's stupid enough to actually believe in that unbelievable pile of horseshit called LDS. Why LDS is horseshit is beyond the scope of my little rant here, but I encourage you to do the most cursory research and find out for yourself.

Moving on to the two republican contenders. Giuliani and McCain. Here is where I feel least sure, but I give the edge to Giuliani for a couple of reasons. First McCain is old. If he's elected, he'll be older than Reagan was when he was sworn in. Second, McCain is a known quantity. There's nothing new or exciting about him. His signature issue still seems to be campaign finance refzzzzzzz....(snore)

Third, there's the Edwards problem. McCain is the guy who couldn't beat Bush in 2000. The hated, loathsome, reviled George W. Bush. Who's going to give McCain a shot now when his opponent this time (Hillary) will be much more formidable than Gore was back then? He couldn't beat Bush! On the Giuliani side of the equation, there's more to like. Sure he's not as conservative as many republicans would want, but primary voters are more savvy than that. They value electability. They will elect whichever republican has the best chance of beating Hillary. And that's Giuliani. Why? Here's my theory. Voters gravitate toward the candidate who best makes up for the specific shortcomings of the previous president. We have short memories. Bush was the anti-Clinton in 2000. He was a straight-talker, a straight shooter. He'd never betray his wife. Lying and being verbally slippery were against his nature. He promised to exercise moderance and temperance in his presidency. Now without getting into a debate about how Bush turned out, we can all agree that this was his persona in the 2000 campaign. He ran as the un-Clinton. The winner of the 2008 race will be the guy (or gal) who is the anti-Bush. This favors Giuliani. Giuliani projects raw, determined competence. He thinks. He acts. He takes no BS. He gets things done. He's smart. He motivates and can lead. He inspires. He's like the Joe Pesci of politicians. Whereas Bush is verbally clumsy, and articulates everything he says with that folksy smile and swagger that drives liberals insane, Giuliani has that no nonsense tone of voice. Giuliani's reputation, deserved or not, of competence and a record of results could propel him to the nomination. So at this point, I think he has the best chance.

Moving to the democrats, this one's a no brainer. I will start by observing that it appears that I am the only one in the universe who sees that Barak Obama is clearly running to become Hillary's VP, and not to become president himself. Just like I was the only one who was willing to say that Bill and Hillary's marriage was 100% about mutual political ambition, and that when Bill cheated, it enraged Hillary only in the sense that it damaged their careers. Who besides me ever said that, and who will dispute it? And now, in 2007, it is equally obvious. McCain or Giuliani would slaughter Obama. But he'd be mighty attractive in the VP slot. He's making a show at a run to demonstrate his chops, but that's it. His place is at Hillary's side, holding up her arm and smiling for the cameras.

So Hillary. Why will she win. And full disclosure here - I hate her guts. I think the only thing that motivates her is a lust for power, and I've never seen anything to dissuade me in the slightest. Sure, I don't like liberals, but observe how far to the right she's moved in the last 4 years. Do you think, my liberal readers, that this represents a genuine change of heart on her part, or that it's all a calculated move to make her more electable? Say what you will about any other candidate, I can't imagine anyone else in either party having such flexibility with their basic values and principles. It's disgusting, frankly. I prefer a passionate and sincere liberal to someone whose core values are for sale. But anyway, why will she win?

Simple. And again, this is a point no one will make. There are tens or hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of women, who know nothing about the candidates or the issues, who will vote for the woman because, hey, a woman is running for president. And with Obama as the VP you simply seal the deal with the African American vote. Are there white males who will have the opposite impulse? Guys who won't vote for her because she's a woman? Yes, but not nearly as many.

And yes, there are plenty of women who will say "Hey, I'm not that simple or stupid, and I don't like Hillary.". Sure, but there aren't enough of you. Candidacies these days boil down to a few simple things like name recognition and reputation and basic characteristics. Somebody like Bill Evans or Sam Brownback has zero chance because we don't know who they are, and there's no amount of money that can change that.

Well that's it. I'm on the record, 2 years in advance. We'll see how things shake out. And if I turn out to be utterly wrong, I will admit it. But barring some completely unexpected development that changes the game, some event of 9/11 power or significance, I see this playing out very predictably. Anyone disagree?