Sunday Morning Conversation

Congress doesn't read your Facebook status updates, and they don't care even a little bit about what you are tweeting.  Unfortunately, the masses tend to believe that if you write it, they will read it. This is not the case. If you are truly interested in having your elected officials hear your voice, then send them an email instead.  The only people that they are actively paying attention to are those of us significantly contributing to them keeping their job$.

Also, sharing is not socialism. It is teamwork.  Wanting to do things politically or economically to "help" out your fellow American citizen does not make you a socialist, it makes you a good person.  We teach our children to share everything they have.  But we are unwilling to put anyone else's needs above those of ourselves or our family.  Even though, by doing so, we will all benefit in the not so long away long run.

Social Security.  Because people exploit and abuse the system, it does not mean they system itself is bad. It means the system needs to take further preventative measures to regulate and protect the system from the bad people that are doing the exploiting and abusing.  Reform = yes, shutting it down = no. Do you not remember that this system saved the lives of your grandparents and their parents? There are good hard working people that use this system properly and they should not be left behind because you are greedy.

Greedy greedy greedy greedy greedy. Stop it. Humanitarianism is not that far off from the lifestyles encouraged by most religion.  Which is the backbone of the conservative ticket that is currently too involved in their jobs as politicians to consider what is best for their country.

Just sayin.....

My New Life

For those of you who don't know, Jesse Shayne and I have left Austin. We now live in Denton. Let me tell you something about Denton: it sucks.  Now, to be fair, in the 6 weeks of us living here we have only been cleaning the house or going to school/work.  We did stumble upon the Denton Blues Festival last weekend and that was a nice surprise, but it wasn't enough to alleviate the fact that Denton is just not Austin.

My biggest irritation with living in this town is the overuse of one way streets, and an even more so, the obese overuse of raised medians.  This is not a big city. There is absolutely no need for this type of action towards traffic control.  The roads are bumpy and cracked and not even a little bit straight, yet there are million of dollars worth of medians through almost every street.  Want to go to that bank over on your left-hand side? TOO BAD! First, you must continue driving for another 2-5 blocks and make an illegal U-Turn at the next light. I don't want to.  If I drove a Jeep I would hop these things all over the place. 

And there is no HEB here. Where the hell am I supposed to shop? They have TWO Wal-Mart stores. I think that in itself is a pretty bad sign. Fuck Wal-Mart. I've had no other options and have been inside that store more in the last few weeks than I have in the last 5 years.  I lost a piece of my soul each time.  My heart goes out to all of the young Vietnamese and other impoverished overworked children that enabled me to buy window blinds for under $5.

In other news, our house is finally in livable condition.  The woman living here before us was apparently a degenerate alcoholic and did not clean anything for the 2 and a half years she lived here, nor did she do anything about the jungle overgrowth in the gardens and the backyard. The grass was over a foot tall in the back, and that was with the drought this summer.

So now that I am settled, please expect to see more from me here.  I apologize for the lack of rants and bullshitting that I know you all look forward to hearing on a more regular basis.

Dear Wendy's,

Once upon a time, a friend of mine ordered a crispy chicken sandwich.  We got back to the office to enjoy our lunches and she unwrapped hers. It was raw on the inside. Unfortunately she hadn't realized this until she was almost halfway through eating said sandwich. We took pictures, wrote letters, and this was the last time I have ever gone to a Wendy's. This was nearly three years ago.

Tonight however I decided to give them another chance. Their marketing has been strong lately, and I feel as though they have stepped it up to compensate for declining public opinion. Plus my only other options on the way home were McDonald's, Taco Bell, and Taco Cabana which I have solemnly sworn off all three of these options until my dying day (happy to be moving in 10 days).  The fact that they have a comparatively impressive Value Menu was enough of a perk to put me in the drive through lane.

I ordered a "New! Crispy Chicken Caesar Wrap" off the $.99 menu.  The guy tells me no sorry, they were out of the chicken that goes in this specific wrap, so I had to either order something else or pay an extra dollar to substitute the "more expensive" crispy chicken they use in their other value meal sandwich, or many of their other menu items. I asked him why, and he reiterated that it was more expensive so he couldn't do it; and then a female picked up to also verify that this was not an option.  My personal opinion is that the customer shouldn't have to pay extra because they ran out of something. Especially something that their entire restaurant is plastered in advertising.

I ordered something else, smiled and friended the drive through guy, as he was extremely apologetic.  I have worked in corporate restaurants for many years so I know that it wasn't up to this guy at all.  He was also very informative.  That it was not his decision, corporate had passed it down, and that quite a few people had been getting upset about the same issue.  A pretty solid indicator that you're fucking something up, by the way.  Then the manager came to the window, and hit on me as thoughts of expected professionalism quickly left my head.

The food sucked. Again. Except for the fries, they were much better. But nevertheless CONGRATULATIONS Wendy's, as you have ultimately made it on to my corporate shitlist, never to be eaten by myself or my family ever again. And whomever else has found this entry enlightening.

Have a nice day.

Today's Rant

Gas mileage. So we know to ask the question of how fast are they driving on the highway when they measure mpg.  But what the question is that nobody is asking is what their definition of a city is.  Apparently the average speed of a national highway is 55 mph.  I can tell you, that especially in Texas nobody is driving 55 mph on the highway, and if you are, I hate you.   So taking into consideration that they consider a "highway" to be 55 mph, (most are 70 mph) what do you think a "city" is?  Is it actually a town where a couple of 55 mph highways run through the one or two blinking lights? Not like an actual city with interstates and loops and stop and go and stand still traffic.

So considering that they are advertising to the masses, those of us living in real actual cities, shouldn't we all share the same definitions? But no. Car companies and their marketing schemes have duped us. False advertising strikes again! As I tell Jesse all the time: it's all semantics.  They're just words, and word's do not mean anything these days.  Don't forget what kind of world we are living in.

Moral of the story: my new Nissan should be getting 24 mpg on the highway and 18 in the city.  Realistically it gets 18 on the highway and 14 in the city.  At the very least Texas should rally to change the parameters of these mpg testing measures so that they accurately reflect the driving culture of the state that we live in.  Or we can continue to lie down ass up like the good consumers we are. yaaaaayyyy!!!!!!

I have to tell you a secret.

I am a closet American Idol fan. Like, I love the shit out of it. Actually, brb. I have to watch Paul McDonald sing Rocket Man....

Its like he's howling at the moon. Grrrr I love him SO MUCH! I just beg for the last word! I picked him to be the winner weeks ago.

So anyway.  This is only the second season that Jesse has watched. I however, due to some pretty crappy roommates, have been watching it for years.  The only seasons that I haven't seen, are the ones from the years I was either living alone, or before my roommates got Tivo. 

When this season was starting, I was 100% anti.  Jesse was convinced that the show would be fine with the new judges, but I took a bit of convincing.  I enjoy it more than  I thought I would.  Jesse made a comment a couple of weeks ago that planted a seed that sprouted new perspective this week.

Yes, there is more razzle dazzle and rat-a-tat-tat this time, and irregardless of whether or not the judges or the contestants are the best ever, the show is more exciting.  Everyone was so worried about Simon leaving the show.  But apparently this "everyone" that we were hearing about didn' event exist.   Nobody cares that he isn't here. Steven Tyler kicks ass and Randy is so jealous. We think it's hilarious.

However, the underlying cost of this is that now we are smeared in disgustingly thick amounts of product placements.  Randy doesn't speak a sentence without name dropping.  Every plug the show has is tied up into multiple layers of promotions.  I mean, duh. It's one of the most watched shows in America, millions and millions have been spent (and made) from this show.  They have to advertise. This is not the point.

I don't really have a point.  Except that my point is that American Culture sucks. It's gross. I am an absolute conundrum to myself. Simultaneously to boycotting hyper consumerism to the best of my American ability, I pursue a career in marketing.  Blah.

Shayne doesn't stand a chance against this stuff.  I fight my conscience about whether or not to let her play with toy laptops and toy cell phones.  She just turned one!!! I know 3 year olds that can operate a Wii better than I could.  I also know 3 year olds that can hold a conversation better than some 16 year olds I know.

I'm just saying.

When do we start regulating? Not really regulating, but just saying "no I don't want you to try to sell me something right now."  Especially because since everyone is selling everything, customer service is out the window. But that's another day another story.  I mean, don't we have some type of choice in the matter? Shouldn't we? We're the ones that are on the receiving end of the constant smut flood.


I know that someone out there agrees with me.  Our children are being brainwashed by the media to consume the media from the day they are born! People make their babies facebook pages.  Did you have a facebook page when you were a baby?  Has anyone stopped to consider the long term repercussions of this over indulgence of media?

I never thought American Idol could get more promoty than it already was.   It has gone from syrupy advertising to molassesy advertising.  Simon left and the show no longer needed to focus on the singing competition first, now it can be a whole circus act.  I'm choking on it, guys.

Paul McDonald: I'm watching this shit for you so you better win.

Brainwashing Children

Veggie Tales. You know, the "Go God" series that teaches children all of the old school American values.  Shayne received one of these books as a gift! And we were happy to have it as we want her library to be vast so that she may choose her path wisely.  However, this particular rendition of God Loves Us, as cute as it is, is also pretty unpolitically correct. Being the good mom I am, I had no choice but to glue a couple of her thick cardboard pages together.

Apparently the little peas (or whatever they are) are dumb hicks.  Complete with missing teeth and poor grammar spelled out as it would sound.  Well, we have family that wear overalls and drive tractors.  And believe it or not they are not dumb (there is of course, an exception for every rule).  They have degrees, and all of their teeth, and you don't need a translator to decipher the words they be spewing out they mouths.

Lets break this down. Perhaps you are unaware of the immense reach that Veggie Tales is capable of.  Since 1993 they have sold 53+ million videos, 13 million books and more than 7 million CDs. They have aired on NBC, Telemundo, ION TV, the list goes on! That means that children everywhere are being exposed to the perpetuation of the country bumpkin stereotype hand in hand with being spoon fed Christianity. 

Beginning at the earliest age of childhood development children are having the seed of pretentiousness planted as deep into their souls as their faith. Which translates into stuck up hoes growing up to marry stuck up pricks that become stuck up politicians and businessmen. Politicians such as these are the ones shutting down your schools and driving economically poisonous steaks into the hearts of rural areas.  Wal Mart is also guilty of said treachery.  All these decisions derived from the notion that country folk are dumb and useless towards the progression of our outstanding American culture.  Ugh. Don't get me started. I think we can all agree that American culture is disgusting.

In summary: shame on you Veggie Tales! Teaching children that some people are better than other people.  Not to mention the flip side of this situation! Which is even MORE awful!

Lets take a quick look at the pretend red/blue map of our country in our minds. We all know that the majority of high value, Christian culture is located where? In the sticks.  Where they drive tractors and wear overalls, much the dummy peas in the currently glued together pages of Shayne's "God Loves Us" book.  So here rather than worrying about brainwashing children to be snobby, we have to worry about crushing an unconscious layer of self worth!  Classic case of self-fulfilling prophecy. 

The most despicable part of all of this is the seething irony!  Our children only know to discriminate because we teach them to do it.  So stop.

How much money does Brenden Fraser make off of Netflix?

So we started out researching a band we heard on Pandora. Which lead to researching Mumford & Sons, which lead to researching Brenden Fraser, where we noticed that not a single movie that has Brenden Fraser acting, singing, taking pictures, producing or even walking around in the background of someone else's acting, is available instant queue on Netflix.

Upon noticing this, Jesse became rather upset.  He feels like somehow Brenden Fraser is making money off of Netflix sending a movie to your house, rather than being instantly available on our Tivo/laptop.  He became outraged at the thought that somebody else that is already very successful (I use this term loosely) is sticking it to the little guy and interfering with Jesse's ability to randomly decide that he wants to watch Encino Man or Son in Law, MonkeyBone, or a handful of other's that we looked up.  None of these movies are "worth getting in the mail" and there is no reason as to why they would not be available instantly. 

So this is what he said: "Man, wtf, I hope Brenden Fraser gets in a car accident on his way home and dies."

REALLY?!?!? So we had this flash discussion about how Americans are SO greedy that he is more concerned with his ability to get a movie instantly, that he would flippantly dismiss a mans life just because he may or may not have something to do with why he can't watch these select movies.

So. Does anyone know if people make money off of having Netflix send movies in the mail rather than watching them instantly?  Obviously, Netflix charges more because it costs them money to do so, but does anyone else make any?

Feedback.