Brandy, You're a Fine Girl

I took my family to Disney World a couple of weeks ago, and got to see a sizable swath of "Average Americans" all in one spot. I don't get much of a chance to observe Americanus Suburbanus very often; I avoid malls, and other places the species congregates, if at all possible.
I realized we are a nation obsessed with labels. Not just the political labels we like to hurl about. "Socialist" "Fascist" or sometimes both seem to be particularly popular these days. But clothing labels. I didn't see a plain tee-shirt all week. Each one was emblazoned with the "designer's" name in large letters across the front, often repeating it in smaller letters on the back in case we forgot while they passed.
Designer's weren't the only ones capable of duping the unsuspecting herds into purchasing a $0.50 swatch of 50/50 blend with someone else's name on it for exorbitant amounts. Hollister, store and clothing line that seems to attempt an invocation of rebellion, based on the small CA town falsely celebrated for its 1947 "riot" by the film "The Wild One" was a frequent offender. Unfortunately the clothing line mostly succeeds in producing cheap cotton-blend crap in shades not seen since the walls of my Junior High School.
Decorated, of course, with the word "Hollister" in large block print everywhere visible.
I wasn't immune to the pressure to dress "like everybody else" as a teenager, so I understand and can even empathize with "the kids". A majority of the "labelitis" was perpetrated by the parents. People my age and older, tooling a toddler in a designer stroller, wearing a Perry Ellis hat, Ralph Lauren tee-shirt, Tommy Hilfiger jeans, and Nike sneakers. A walking advertisement. Not in discreet, alligator in the pocket, style but a billboard. 48 point font across the man-boobs. An embarrassingly large "Tommy" label on the zipper, dwarfing what passes for bulge.
Surely these shirts and pants are more expensive than my no-name pocket T, Wrangler jeans, and New Balance (they come in widths) sneakers. Why would anyone pay More!!! to be a walking billboard when they can pay less to just wear clothes? I'm not fucking Amish, and I've even been known to don a Hawaiian shirt or two, but I'm not wearing someone else's advertisement unless they pay me, not vice versa.
Or at least give me the shirt for free. (hint) ;-)

I'm not Windows 7

I'm not a PC.  This parody of the Windows 7 ads actually points out the biggest failure with Vista, and what will probably be the ultimate downfall of the Windows franchise - trying to be all things to all people. 

From the maniacal insistence on backwards compatibility that makes security a nightmare to the kitchen-sink inclusion of new features just to say "we have search, too" Microsoft has made features, which are marketable to the masses the sales department are targeting, the goal over security, stability, and malleability. 

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Will Bunch pretty much nails it.
" The only insane people here are the ones who call Joe Stack a hero. He wasn't a hero. He was a coward. To see Joe Stack as something more than a two-bit killer is the greatest case of adding insult to injury that I have ever seen."

When, as an elected official of the U.S. Government, you can't take a stand against someone that murdered Government employees, Veterans of our military, or as a gubernatorial candidate instead claim that a nut-job flying a plane into a building is representative of the "hopelessness" people feel about the government these days?
I don't know about you, but murder-suicide is a cowardly act carried out by the mentally ill and deranged. Not by heroes.
Our priorities are a little bit screwed up, doncha think?

What happens when you crank a Victrola reaalllly fast?

Generation Hex

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWkZltugu4c
According to Wikipedia my generation, Generation X, is the one that reverses the trend, the generation that does worse (by 12%) than the one preceding it.
I'd feel badly about this, except I never truly gave a fuck about the almighty dollar. Yeah, the fact that my 12 year old retirement account has nearly exactly the same amount of money in it as it had when I started it? Sucks. Thanks to George W. Bush and his 3 (THREE!!!!!) market crashes in 8 years.
But I figure I'll figure it out. After all, Gen X-ers statistically hold the highest level of education, right? Okay, maybe that's not everything. But we are the generation largely responsible for GNU/Linux so I'm pretty sure that money is both not our main interest, nor something that is actually necessary. After all, an entire operating system for free? Why worry.
We are, in fact, the generation that currently keeps the world from sucking.
Oh, and why is Paul McCartney bare-foot on the cover of Abbey Road? I don’t give a fuck.

Conan Gets Paid

Looks like Conan will get paid
Okay, I know what with the earthquake in Haiti, and any number of pressing humanitarian tragedies going on right now, a white guy getting paid 40 million dollars to quit his job is well, kinda insignificant. But I think Conan is funny. And I also think he's getting shafted by his employer, the only difference between him and me in this regard is he has a contract that ensures his employer will pay handsomely for the privilege of screwing him, whereas I, in the "right to work" (snort) state of PA, lacking representation by a proper union or Civil Servant designation, can be fired for either a) no good reason, or b) no reason at all.
Without any cause, whatsoever. In fact, a previous employer of mine went so far as to _make_stuff_up to cover their own incompetent identity-thieving screw-ups and attempted to fire me in the process. I kept my job, but lost some dignity. And some money. I kept working there, mostly because I liked the folks I worked with, and I enjoyed the job, but a small part of me stayed long enough to vest my pension, so the company some day would have to pay me back for what they tried to do.
Unions get vilified in the press a lot these days (who do a lot of pundits blame for the failure of GM and Chrysler) and no doubt they are not without blame, but stupid CEOs and upper management (hellooooo, NBC? Anyone Home?) are just as much if not more so to blame. No one vilified the cost of paying U.A.W. salaries when the U.S. Automakers were making large profits on SUVs, but when short-sighted management got caught with there pants on the groundand no small, high-quality fuel-efficient cars when gas went to $4.00 a gallon, suddenly the evil Unions were to blame.
As if the Union were responsible for the allocation of R&D dollars, Engineering resources, and "next-quarter" instead of "next 10 or 20 years" planning for the future allocations done by the boardroom.
Right, blame the folks tasked with assembling and selling a shitty product, not the folks in charge of it being a piece of shit to begin with.

Goodnight, Teddy

59 years old, left too soon. I drive by the spot where his Rolls Royce crashed on Lincoln Drive here in Philly from time to time. It always made me a little sad when I wasn't white-knuckled on the wheel (it's a truly horrible and dangerous road) but now it will feel even more melancholy.
RIP, Teddy. You were a musical hero to this Suburban Philly kid, blasting out of the center speaker on the AM radio.

Request a song

I love that my favorite band has a section on their web site to request a song at the concert you are attending. Maybe they are just acknowledging that some of us don't have the pipes to shout out "Freebird!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" from the back row anymore. Or maybe they actually want to hear what songs their fans are requesting. Either way, it's pretty cool.
Now if the show in Philly wasn't already sold out. . . Eff me for not checking email until I got home.

How much does that T-Shirt really cost?

This article gives a pretty damning list of the "costs" of a cheap cotton t-shirt. The scariest part of the entire article? Walmart and Kmart account for 25% of all clothing sold in the US. It's not scary because of the market power they wield, it's scary because of what it says about our fashion choices here in the US.

Short Bus Pedo?

see more Epic Fails

I'm absolutely certain this is "completely legit"

More Fun With Telemarketers

"Hi, this is Marcy from Comcast Cable. I'm calling with a great new offer. . ."
"Um, is Comcast still evil?"
"I'm sorry sir, I didn't catch that - is Comcast still . . ."
"Evil. Is Comcast still evil? Or did they give that up?"
"Um, I, um . . . I'm not sure what . . ."
"That doesn't sound like a no, Marcy. Sorry, unless they decide to be 'not evil' I won't subscribe. Goodbye, have a great night."