Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Ignor-Ant

John Creamsicle Boehner said of financial reform legislation currently being considered, “This is killing an ant with a nuclear weapon.” It's more like killing a cockroach with a nuclear weapon. The cockroaches on Wall Street and in the government will survive.

The ant they are trying to kill is one tough insect, himself.

Once there was a silly old ant
Thought he’d cause a stock market crash
Everyone knows an ant can’t
Cause a stock market crash
But he had D.C. dopes
He had D.C. dopes
He had un-reg-u-la-ted mar-kets, ig-norant folks
So if you think your government’s
Co-ver-ing your ass, just remember that ant
And whoops there goes another stock market
Whoops there goes another stock market
Whoops there goes another stock market crash

The Blog Goes Commercial

An expanded, better version of something you may have read here before.

Click on this link.

Meals on Wheels for Everyone

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Hallelujah! It's Raining Oil



Hi - Hi! We're your Weather Girls - Ah-huh -
And have we got news for you - You better listen!
Get ready, all you wildcat drillers
and leave those oil rigs at home. - Alright! -

Humidity is rising - Barometer's getting low
According to all sources, the street's the place to go
’Cause tonight for the first time
You won’t need to drill in soil
Just build your own refinery
It's gonna start raining oil.

It's Raining Oil! Hallelujah! - It's Raining oil! Oh boy!
I'll need my oil funnel to let me collect
Enough to get me out of debt!
It's Raining oil! Hallelujah!
It's Raining oil! Don’t you get spoiled!
Slick, smooth, dark: the kind
I can use to get refined

God bless Mother Nature, Halliburton, BP too
And the regulators, not doin’ what they’re supposed to do
Out there in the ocean something went awry
The oil spewed in the ocean, evaporated to the sky
It's Raining oil! Hallelujah! - It's Raining oil! Oh boy!
It's Raining oil! Hallelujah!
It's Raining oil! Oh Boooooooyyyyy!

Comments in the Rolling Stone

MSNBC had the brilliant headline "McChrystal leaves White House after meeting". Later I'll be waiting to read "McChrystal hangs up after phone call", or something equally dramatic and informative. 4-Star General, Commander of Afghan Forces, Stanley McChrystal (McWhiteCastle in some states) is in trouble for comments quoted in Rolling Stone magazine.

By the time you read this, he may have lost his command. Prior to his meeting, however, he made these comments exclusively to me:

I’m a war commander, who’s accused of slander
That is making the President sore
There is no Afghani who can whip my fanny
But this controversy’s worse than war
I’m not insubordinate, and no enemy ordnance
Could ever be so over blown
It’s an EFF-ing big farce if I get my discharge
For some comments in the Rolling Stone

Rolling Stone
Gonna get my assed chewed by Obama
Rolling Stone
I am getting too old for this drama
Rolling Stone
Can’t believe I’d be replaced
By some comments in the Rolling Stone

I said the plans of Biden, just a tad short-sighted,
Would create Chaos-istan
I pissed off Karl Eikenbarry
Whose own ass-cov’ring is his plan
It seems that I’m, just steppin’ on mines
In a political combat zone
Obama should defend me, I am not the enemy
For some comments in the Rolling Stone?

Rolling Stone
Gonna get my assed chewed by Obama
Rolling Stone
I am getting too old for this drama
Rolling Stone
Can’t believe I’d be replaced
By some comments in the Rolling Stone

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

No Thanks, I'm Not Hungary

From www.engrish.com - a restaurant in Budapest, Hungary


Apparently, when you enter the restaurant, you are greeted by an animated votive candle who welcomes you and then sings with all the dancing plates and utensils:

Ma chere Mademoiselle, it is with deepest fear and greatest caution that we welcome you tonight. And now we invite you to despair, let us pull up a chair as the Fatal Restaurant presents - your dinner!

Be our guest, be our guest
When you visit Budapest
Have on hand some ipecac, dear, and
Beware what you ingest

Our hors d’oeuvres
Have no cures
Eat them, if you have the nerves
All this gray fuzz is pernicious
It’s all over all our dishes

Will you die? There’s a chance.
The odds of ptomaine are enhanced
We’ll make messes you can’t possibly digest

Go on, unfold your menu
Take a chance, and then you’re
Laid to rest, laid to rest, laid to rest

Sunday, June 6, 2010

Meals on Wheels For Everyone!

My neighbor dug up most of his basement floor to redo the plumbing under his house. Several guys in the neighborhood pitched in to help. I wasn't among them because they all have some kind of job in a relevant industry or trade that makes them an asset to such a task, while I do not. They also have far greater quantities of youth and strength than I.

So there they were, deep in a cavern of noise and cement dust, when there came the sound of The Chicken Dance being played on mechanical bells. It was the Gold Star Chilimobile coming down the street. All the boys dropped their tools and ran outside to stop the truck and get an afternoon treat.

My neighbor hung back, looking forlorn. “Don’t worry,” I said, “they’ll be back after they finish off their three ways.”

“It’s not that,” he muttered, head down, “I don’t have any money.”

“Come on,” I urged, pulling him toward the street, “I’m buying today.” Turns out some of the other boys were standing by the truck, digging in their pockets for coins that might be hiding among the cell phones, iPods and yoyos stuffed in there, hoping to find enough for at least a coney.

Bob was on his phone, pleading with his wife. “I used the last five you gave me on cigarettes. Can I please have an advance on my allowance? Please, please, please, please, pretty pleeeeaaassseee?”

The chilimobile is a real thing, though it won’t actually be rolling down my street. But I don’t know why not. The article says “The Gold Star Chili Chilimobile is bringing three-ways and coneys to the hungry lunch crowd downtown and other places with minimal food options.” I’m sorry, I work downtown and there are far more food options, in easy walking distance, than there are in my neighborhood at home. Why aren’t they driving down my street?

When I was very young, our neighborhood in L.A. still had milk deliveries. The Helms trucks still delivered bread and doughnuts and other baked goods up until I was a teenager. All the services that had fleets of delivery trucks have disappeared except for the ice cream truck (which is not as good as when I was a kid – you can’t get a double buddy Popsicle to break on the edge of the curb and share with your older sister).

Why not have the chilimobile come down my street, followed by the Christian Morelein beermobile? Think of all the possibilities: Starbucks coffee and muffins in the morning, the Steak and Shake (or In ‘n’ Out or Fatburger – consult local listings) for lunch and a big brick oven on wheels delivering pizza for dinner. I know you are imagining your own favorite things coming down YOUR street and outside YOUR door right now.

Sure, this would put a few gas-guzzling trucks on the road. But think of the millions of cars NOT idling in long drive-thru lines. This would be convenience AND energy savings at the same time.

I am going to look into buying my own …. wait … I think I hear the chicken dance bells …

Saturday, June 5, 2010

He Should Have Had a Strap-On

"Shoppers recall silence, fear in Lynnwood Lowe's store when man shot himself in testicles."

Good headline.

"For a few seconds, there was total silence at Lowe's Home Improvement in Lynnwood just after the gunshot went off at 12:30 on Sunday afternoon. 'It was dead quiet,' remembers Jim Fischer, who happened to be at the checkout line with his wife, Kim. They're doing a bathroom remodel." Essential information to set the scene.

"Kim Fischer will remember that after deciding there wasn't a random shooter in the store, 'nobody got panicky.'

"What Michael McDougall, of Snohomish ... will remember also is that initial moment of fear. 'Initially I thought it was maybe gang-related. I was afraid for my wife and daughter, and I thought, 'I think we should be leaving.' ' he says.

"And he remembers the initial scream, 'Oh, my God, I shot myself in the groin!'

So, how long was this period of fear and thoughts of possibly leaving ("hmmm, could be a gunfight, but I just drove all the way here and paint is on sale just today, so ...") before that guy screamed and everyone knew it was just a another funny epic FAIL story?

But that's not what really bothers me. Why do people carry around guns in the waistband of sweatpants? Especially after Plaxico Burress made it abundantly clear how stupid that is.

If only they made some kind of pouch thing, like you put your cell phone in, to strap the gun into.

Now it makes sense to me why guys wear their pants with the waisteband down below their butts. Keeps the jewels safer.

And if guns are kept in the waistband, you sure can't blame this cop for his mistake.

It's Not Easy Finding Green

I’m Chiquita Banana, and I’ve come to say
If you want a green banana, you’re SOL today
Artificially ripened to a golden hue
Already they are mush before they get to you

This s#!t is bananas
B A N A N A S

I don’t want to eat green bananas but I also don’t want to eat the sickeningly sweet, overripe ones that make me gag like that girl in Fast Times at Ridgemont High practicing her technique.

Bananas are a convenient food to take to work for a mid-morning snack. They are easy to eat and healthier than toaster strudel, even though that has 100% real fruit.

What we would do is buy a couple green ones and a couple almost yellow ones. They ripen on their own quite nicely and you can have one just at the peak of ripeness every day.


Now I go to Kroger and all the bananas are fully yellow, starting to turn brown, which, contrary to Ms. Banana’s lyrics, is way past acceptable firmness. They must have determined that more people buy them that way, though, so they artificially bring them to that level before stocking the shelves.

It’s just not natural. I don’t want my banana artificially ripened and I wouldn’t like it if Chiquita had artificially ripened melons either. I like it the way nature intended it.

I guess I will have to go back to enjoying Pop Tarts, which, by the way, I enjoy raw.