My good friend Andrew Heaton was dead on. Check out his video.
Save the date cards serve a maniacal purpose, and they only postpone the demise/reform of the U.S. Postal Service.
Seriously though, save the stamp and send me an email. Better yet, don’t send any at all, save the money, and make sure there is ample open bar and food treats for drunks.
One of my friends lamented the closing of the Capital City Diner in the District on facebook.
I haven’t been there, and from what the DCist says, it seemed like a nice place. And, for all intents and purposes, I love diners. I have since college — Courtesy Diner, Tiffany’s, Uncle Bill’s — you name the place in St. Louis, diners rule.
This goes to the heart of the “buy local” debate and “big guy vs. little guy” debate. Why do businesses close?
The owner cites rising input costs, which makes sense because of changes in commodity prices. Smaller entities have a harder time weathering those fluctuations than bigger businesses because they lack economy of scale. Often times they also have a harder time competing on price.
Apparently, a Denny’s opened up down the street, and Denny’s had an easier time dealing with rising prices.
In the end, consumers chose Denny’s. People want to blame Denny’s, and frankly, it’s not Denny’s fault — it’s the consumers’ “fault.”
Because at the end of the day, the consumers voted with their dollars and Denny’s won.
(Not to sound like a hater, I hope that they “reformat” and are successful. I don’t wish any ill will on any business because of its size or scope. But we need to be honest who is responsible for closing local favorites — sometimes they are not favorite enough.)
Let’s be honest — Joe Biden has made much more offensive comments about persons of Indian descent in the past. However, this video did not offend me because of the off-color nature of the comments. Rather, it offended me because it shows a poor understanding of economics and global trade. Not to mention a poor memory regarding advertising – you gotta get the name right for the joke to work.
This is going to be a long post, so skip away if you don’t want to read it. If you do want to, make the jump.
People find this entertaining, but they won't find it personally entertaining
Here’s a fun game to play with your friends on facebook: start texting the cat facts to people on facebook who post the Cat Facts! Picture and don’t know your cell phone number. The best way to do this to friends (close and not close) is by setting up and using a google voice account. This will enable you to cut and paste cat facts and save you a lot of time. It will also give you a US phone number with unlimited free texts that your friends will not recognize.
Thankfully, I’ve provided some sample texts you can use to save you some time:
Thanks for signing up for Cat Facts! You will now receive fun daily facts about CATS! >o<
Cats use their tails for balance and have nearly 30 individual bones in them!
Invalid command. Would you like to receive Cat Facts every hour? Respond ‘No’ to cancel.
You have chosen to receive Cat Facts hourly. Did you know that the first cat show was held at the Crystal Palace in London? Mee-wow!
Command not recognized. You have used up your free subscription to Cat Facts. You will now be charged $2 per text. Thanks for choosing us!
Your hourly Cat Facts subscription is now active! To cancel this subscription reply ‘Cancel’ in the next 5 minutes.
Command recognized. To confirm you are human, please answer the following question: Your favorite animal is a _____.
Incorrect. Your favorite animal is a cat. You will continue to receive Cat Facts every hour.
Cats bury their feces to cover their trails from predators!
In ancient Egypt killing a cat was a crime punishable by death. Thanks for choosing Cat Facts! <reply ‘Txt33358ooi7′ to cancel>
Thanks for texting Cat Facts! Remember, every time you text Cat Facts, you will receive an instant Cat Fact. To cancel, reply ‘TxtCancelCF37665yt4′
If you really want to annoy people, here are a ton of facts: http://user.xmission.com/~emailbox/trivia.htm
UPDATE: It didn’t seem to annoy my friend Geoff as much as I thought it would.
The fabled X2 Bus -- The most thoroughly entertaining bus in WMATA's fleet
I am not a bus person. Let’s face it — I am not a public transportation person. But last night, I took the X2 bus from a stop near work to the H Street Country Club for a co-worker’s birthday party. Never having been there before it was actually pretty nice. The only bus I take with regularity is the 9A, which goes from my house to my girlfriend’s house, but I usually drive.
Simply put, there is no easy way to get to bars on H-Street unless you are driving. If you don’t drive, you take the X2. On a side note, I think that the one good thing Amtrak has going for it, aside from never having made a profit ever, is that they have creative names for their trains. WMATA should employ this tactic. Although, I do not have a name for the X2 just yet. I will have to take it more to get a perfect name for it, but for now I’ll just call it the “Hipster Express.”
My ride to the bar was uneventful, but I got to ride shotgun — which is nice if I want to get thrown through the windshield, given some bus drivers’ track records (aren’t unions great?) Seriously though, riding shotgun this time was fun because it just felt weird.
On the way back, the bus wasn’t nearly as crowded, and it had the added benefit of taking me directly to Gallery Place/Chinatown, a conveniently located but horrible metro station. Before I forget, a woman changed her baby’s diaper next to me, and the whole front of the bus smelled like poop. That was awesome. What added to that ambiance was that the woman’s friend alerted her to the fact that the baby pooped because “boys just get that funny look on their face when they are pooping.”
True enough. Say what you want about our subsidized and inefficient public transportation system, at least fellow customers are entertaining.
I hope Ben Stein will be in the video, along with Cameron. Will Charlie Sheen be in it too? Who knows. Jeffrey Jones won’t be in it, I bet.
Probably a car advertisement.
I took this walking home a few nights ago.
So, I work in the NOMA district of Washington, D.C. now. The food choices are superior to that of Capitol Hill, and a change of scenery is good. However, I still have to take the metro and make the dreaded transfer at Gallery Place/Chinatown.
First Lady Michelle Obama shops at Target in Alexandria, VA. Not surprising.
Unlike First Lady Michelle Obama, who shops at Target, I shop at Wal-Mart. For a very simple reason, Wal-Mart is superior to Target. If you think otherwise, well, you’re wrong. I have shopped at both and I am obsessed with prices and compare them all the time. Wal-Mart is routinely superior on both price and quality. If you want to pay more because Target makes their stores prettier that’s fine — more savings for me.
Now that Penn-Daw has its own Wal-Mart, I shop there constantly, and I have stories. You see, Wal-Mart has a diverse clientele while Target’s is less so. Heck, that’s probably why they started the People of Wal-Mart blog. Little known fact: that blog was started by Target shoppers, because the majority of Target shoppers are snobs.
Don’t believe me? Tell somebody you shopped at Wal-Mart. If they say nothing, then they are normal. If they have a negative reaction, ask them where they shop and they will tell you Target. This is because they are snobs. (Known exception: you can still shop at Target and not be a snob, but this is rare. My girlfriend is such a case. I think she’s slowly realizing Wal-Mart is better.)
Now that we got that out of the way, I’ll start sharing my stories. The idea for this series of ongoing posts dates back to my early days in Washington, D.C. when I would blog about my experiences at the Braddock Road 7/11. Sadly, those posts are gone forever, but new stories must emerge.
Most recently, I went to Wal-Mart because I am a man on a budget and needed to get some stuff for lunch this week. I got a 12 pack of cola for 88 cents. Like a Seinfeld episode, I could save my cans and drive to Michigan and turn them in for a profit. The off-brand cola was made by RC Cola, and it wasn’t half bad.
I also needed some whisks, as my sister Betsy took the only whisk we had — I got three of them for under a dollar. Made in China, sure. But as long-time readers of the blog know, I do not subscribe to “buy American” or “buy local” as they are disastrous and stupid economic policies.
As I was stopping in the aisle to get some paper towels, a little boy walked up to me and said “Sir, do you know if turtles can eat fish food?” I responded that turtles can indeed eat algae-based fish food, and also the ones with dead flies, but I’d look it up online before feeding to the turtle. They probably should have done that before going to the store, but it was nice to see this little kid caring about his pets. At Target, a child’s parent would probably tell them to “hush” or have them on one of those little leashes that liberals love so much, which is ironic because they love an unbridled government.
While my Wal-Mart doesn’t sell real guns (yet, I hear they’re making a comeback) they do sell bb guns, which every growing boy should have and Target lacks because they’re soft on awesomeness, my Wal-Mart does sell bullets and other hunting stuff. This is convenient for me if the zombie apocalypse happens. People who shop at Target exclusively are screwed if a zombie apocalypse ever happens. They will not survive.
Another reason to love Wal-Mart is their beer and wine selection, which as you can guess, is superior to Target in both scope and price. Beer is cheaper at Wal-Mart, and you can get decent bottles of wine for $2.50. The beer I routinely buy is 2 dollars cheaper at Wal-Mart than 7/11, and about a dollar cheaper than Target.
Waiting in line to check out, there was a lady with soap and milk behind me in the express line. She was speaking very very loudly and it was beginning to annoy me. Another thing, Wal-Mart has a line that opens up to multiple registers, which is superior to Target’s check out structure, just saying. I bit my tongue, and checked out. Now, before she was called, she decided to just walk to the next clerk who was checking out a lady who was for some reason taking her dear sweet time checking out. The person two slots behind me got to go after me and check out quicker. Poetic justice.
More stories later, and hopefully funnier ones.
Until then, save money and live better. Wal-Mart.
With the big to-do about Google’s new privacy policy, a new game has emerged — what can google infer about your browsing habits? Can they guess your age and gender?
Did Google guess right for me? No.
It could be that Google is assigning demographic age categories based on interest, which might be easier to do than finding outliers like me. Maybe I do have the preferences of a 65 year old man. UPDATE: A computer I’ve used a lot longer had a cookie that got my age range correct, but the category range was largely unchanged.
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