The Secret

You've probably by now heard of...



Ooooh. The Secret. Sounds...secretive. Well gripe fans (fan?), I am here to demystify the secret for you. This thing (video and book) has started to pick up a lot of steam lately. But, I actually heard about it from some girl who was completely sold on it like a half year ago, and decided to download a free copy from my favorite bittorrent site, err, paid for a legitimate copy to stream and watch from their website.

Okay, I actually did download a free copy. Normally I wouldn't mention that, but it's kind of important to the point I am going to make with this entry.

Now, the purported secret in the video (spoiler warning) is that "hey, you can have anything in the world you want, you just need to think about wanting it hard enough and the universe is bound to magically provide it for you." Does that sound absolutely absurd? Yes it does. But that is pretty much the gist of this video, folks. They just spend 2 hours explaining the same thing in different ways and from different people. Oh, and they use fancy, ancient looking fonts and cool red seals and stuff. You know, to lend credibility to the absurdity.

And now, the actual secret. You've probably heard the saying "A fool and his money are soon parted". The secret of this whole thing is that the creator has taken said parting of fool and money to amazing new heights. The secret is that while people who watch and believe in this load of horse excrement's lives suck as bad as ever, probably more so with their new found lack of motivation to actually do anything, the author of "The Secret" is about to land their private jet on the new freaking island they just bought.

I applaud you, "The Secret" creator. Pure genius. Way to simultaneously harness people's laziness and greed for your own benefit. A dazzling performance, to say the least. My only gripe is that I didn't think of it first. :) J/K.

"Fortune Cookies"

I'm a little bewildered by how an idea as bad as fortune cookies seems to never a) go away entirely, or at the very least b) evolve into something better.

Other than being sugary, and as such somewhat resembling dessert since they come at the end of the meal, they are lame in every way. They're not good to eat by any means. It's clear that the inventor's goal was to come up with the very simplest combination of "able to house a piece of paper" and "edible". That stale stick of gum that comes in a package of Topps baseball cards is like a bacon-wrapped fillet mignon in comparison.

And there's nothing fortune about what you'll find printed on the paper. A fortune implies some kind of prediction of the future. Instead you'll find phrases like "You are not illiterate." (Statement Cookie), or "You will obtain your goal if you maintain your course." (Conditional Cookie), or "Don't worry about money. The best things in life are free." (Advice Cookie).

I guess I would argue that "Fortune Cookie" is a misnomer in the very strongest sense of the word. These certainly are not cookies and they ain't tellin' any fortunes.

The concept of the f-cookie could, however, be salvaged. And I am here to tell you how. :) The no-brainer step 1, of course, is come up with a real cookie. A REAL cookie. Not some khaki-colored physics model of a 4 dimensional object. Pecan Sandies are good. I've been known to enjoy an E.L. Fudge on occasion. Oooh, I know! How about one a them Granny B mega-cookies with the delightfully thick and frothy pink frosting. Any of those would work. Lots of choices.

Step 2, mix in some bona fide fortunes. No more statements, advice, etc. Scrap all that boring, non-fortune crap. Now, I realize that the word fortune sort of implies good and beneficial. But it doesn't have to. And this is key. If all the fortunes that people got with their cookies were good fortunes then this idea wouldn't be much better than the current state of affairs. "Everyone's a winner." "I'm okay, you're okay." "Everyone gets a good fortune in their cookie." These mind-numbing PC crap notions are eating us from within. What needs to happen is they need to mix in some bad fortunes. Oh yeah. There needs to be winners, and there needs to be losers. It's human nature. Something like "An IRS agent will notice you used Arthur Andersen" or "That tumor in your head will metastasize within the week." You see how that works? Think about how much more meaning the good fortunes will have given the possibility of receiving bad ones.

Slap one of those into, say, a big gnarly white cholcolate macademia...now you've got a real fortune cookie. :)

Ahead of its Time

With the so-called crossover vehicle craze in full swing, it's time for someone to stand up and give some credit where credit is due. Below you'll find the current Lexus RX 330. Ooooh, fancy huh? Personally I think they're hideous, but you see them all over the place.

Below the Lexus you'll find a circa 1980 AMC Eagle. More hideous still, yes, but you can't deny the uncanny resemblance. Make that bad boy silver, slap on some modern headlights and a fancy "L" logo in the grill...the Eagle would be selling like hotcakes right now. :) A car truly ahead of its time. Nice work AMC. Too bad you sucked so much in every other area that you are no longer with us. RIP.

10 O'clock News

I got a couple beefs with local news broadcasts. I suppose the simplest solution would be to just not watch...but where's the fun in that? :)

Perhaps you've heard the term "if it bleeds, it leads"? Are we really such a bloodthirsty people that, of all the newsworthy stuff going on, this is what we want to see first? I mean, you get home from a stressful day, you're looking to unwind...what better way to relax than get a quick rundown of who got raped, murdered, and/or severely maimed that day in the area?

Also, I hate hate HATE those stupid gimmicky stories they come up with to try keep you watching to the bitter end of the broadcast. And they announce that it's "coming up next" just before every commercial break. Only, it never really does come up next, but rather is like a 10 second afterthought they throw in at the last possible second. Once in awhile I will actually get suckered by it, watch to the end, realize what a fool I've been and then fester about it, internally cursing those tricky marketing bastages for the next 48 to 72 hours. Here's an example of what I'm talking about:

"Tonight on Eyewitness News. A family of 5, driving home from their Disneyland vacation and while singing 'The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round' are tragically killed when a misplaced orange construction barrel, apparently completely neglected for several weeks, caused the driver to swerve and lose control of the vehicle. The vehicle then rolled once and spontaneously combusted. The fiery vehicular inferno continued to roll down the freeway another 30 times into oncoming traffic, ejecting its charred occupants one at a time, until finally coming to a smoldering rest. There were no survivors.

Coming up after the break, a rare three-eyed kitten was born this morning in the Galapagos Islands. Stay tuned for exclusive photos."

But there is no mention of the freaky Galapagian feline after the break. Or after the next break. Or even the next. What ends up happening, of course, is that you get a 2 second glimpse of some lousy cell-phone camera picture just before they say goodnight and the news ends..."My, that certainly was bizarre. Well, thanks for tuning in to Eyewitness News at 10. Goodnight."

And in writing this, I just thought of something else I hate about watching the news. :) Every last commercial in-between the gore stories is for some kind of prescription drug or ailment remedy. Clearly the target audience is old people. Okay, that's it, I gotta cut back. I can feel a few grey hairs sprouting as I write. Maybe I'll become an "Access Hollywood" man for awhile and stockpile some new gripes about it. Until then...