The best things in life are free...

...perhaps. But so are some of the worst.

I give you exhibit A, one of the more laughable letters I've ever received which arrived in the mailbox the other day from Provo's local newspaper, the Daily Herald. I opened the letter and unfolded the piece of paper inside which proudly proclaimed in a big, bold, fancy font:

FREE

SUNDAY

ADVERTISEMENTS

From the letter: "We are starting a special free program in your area called 'Daily Herald Deals'. Through this program you can get the Sunday Advertisements delivered to your home completely FREE!"

Whoa, whoa. Hold on. Are you telling me I can get advertisements...and not even have to PAY for them? Get right the freak out of town! Hell I'd pay upwards of $100 a month for an extra crapload of advertisements to be delivered to my house. And I thought I was living large with the 5 lbs. of rainforest-depleting ads I get stuffed into my mailbox for free everyday from the postal service. Next you're gonna tell me that Comcast is going to get rid of those annoying show segments between commercials and not even raise their rates. Weeee!

I can just imagine the meeting where this idea was initially pitched...

"Times are tough, we need out-of-the-box ideas to save money...anyone?" "I've got it! We eliminate the national news, local news, business, sports, weather, opinion, classified ad, event, movie, lifestyle, tv listing, and health sections. The cost savings will be huge!" "I like it! You think anyone will notice?" "Not a chance."

Die die die

Die die die die die die!!

May you DIE in a heinous fiery car wreck the likes of which no amount of cheap insurance could ever fix! Progressive ads make me pine for the old Geico ads...and that's sayin' something! :)

HP. Gouge. Err, Invent.

I just saw an HP commercial on TV that said "ink" and "a great bargain" in the same sentence. After I cleaned up the Diet Mtn. Dew that I spewed all over my coffee table, I couldn't fire up this blog fast enough.

HP. Ink. Bargain. Bwahahahahahahaa.

I've had the painful misfortune of dropping $35ish for one crappy little HP black ink cartridge a few times. That's JUST the black...the color cartridge is as much or more. And then it prints nicely for about 5 pages before the cartridge clogs and the dreaded missing lines begin to appear. Apparently HP puts a coagulating agent in their ink as a nice little "screw you" after the initial gouging.

I just don't print stuff anymore. It's not worth it. There's probably an 1/8" of dust on my vintage (that is, ugly) HP inkjet printer. Turns out it's less painful to just memorize pages and pages of stuff than it is to try to legibly print them.

Thanks, HP!

Dear ABC,

Because you decided to put that ginormous, I-want-to-put-my-foot-through-the-television-screen annoying red "V" logo with the equally annoying and distracting countdown timer during the entire episode of LOST tonight, I will never ever ever EVER watch V. Ever. You suck. And I liked the original V back in the 80's, too.

Love,

Lane

Lane Pollock just de-linted his bellybutton. Now he will gripe.

I'm not really a facebook guy. Mostly I find it to be a monumental time-waster filled with the the mind-numbing drivel of narcissists and trolls. But, that said, I do occasionally fire it up to see if people I actually care about have posted any interesting pictures or said something clever. Oh, and is it me or is the bubonic-caliber PLAGUE of facebook quizzes finally over? I never got to spam-blast everyone from high school, whom I haven't talked to in 15 years, which Care Bear I would be. Dangit!!

But the intent of my post is to talk about "that guy". You know the one, he (or she) is an acquaintance, you guess. Maybe you knew him from high school, an old job. You don't give two hoots in hell whether or not he is even alive, let alone what he had for breakfast, but...he requested you add him as a friend...you sort of knew him, whatever. (click) Sweet, look at my soaring friend count!

This ill-advised move comes at a price, though, my friends. MOST facebook users, in my experience, are like me. You forget how little anyone cared about your last bi-monthly status update, and so you bust off another, are quickly reminded anew of said indifference, and go do something more productive. Like, I don't know...a dozen rounds of mahjong or maybe a nap. But not "that guy".

You know how you pick up a big, gnarly, chocolate-chip-riddled cookie all in chocolatey-bliss anticipation, take a bite, start chewing, and then to your horror you realize that they are not chocolate chips at all, but nasty freaking raisins? Yeah, it sucks. Well, that guy's incessant status updates and onslaught of retardo-posts are to your facebook news feed as nasty freaking raisins are to the cookie. Shut up, SHUT UP. Oh my heck (Utah roots), for the love, SHUT THE FREAK UP!! Get out of my cookie!

There is a happy ending to this sad tale, however. The greatest creation in the history of facebook is, far and away and without question, the "hide" button. Imagine a button, the simple pressing of which instantaneously transforms all those nasty raisins into chocolatey goodness. In terms of your newsfeed, this is exactly what the hide button does. It is seriously the most amazing feeling firing up the sanitized version of your news feed the first several times. And the longer you've endured "that guy", the more amazing it feels. It's almost worth not hiding him for longer just to experience the more intense amazingness!

Hooray for the hide button! Now if I could only make heads or tails out of how facebook chooses what to actually put in my news feed...a monkey throwing darts, perhaps?

The Truth...sort of.

You perhaps have seen one of these "Dear Me" anti-smoking TV commercials that have been running lately:

You know, with the poor addicted smoker guy (or gal) who write themselves a letter about how much smoking has jacked up their lives and how disgusting they've become, etc., and which at the end declares that "no one can make me quit but me."

That is the key phrase, right there...no one can make me quit but me. Only ME. Back off, would be helpers, I'm flying Han Solo in this endeavor!

So, am I the only one who finds it ironic that at the END of the commercial they throw up a screen which reads "Get coaching from someone who can HELP. 1-800-QUIT-NOW."?

"Here's your U.S. Prime beef, ma'am." "Yes, but is it Angus??"

Introducing new ANGUS Third Pounders at McDonald's!

These bad boys aren't made of just any ol' type of beef...oh no. These are made with Angus, baby. ANGUS ANGUS ANGUS! Notice the word in the ad with the largest font. That's right...

ANGUS!!!

Right about now you may be asking yourself, just as I have...what in the world makes Angus so special, anyway? What IS Angus? According to Wikipedia, the bullet-proof authority of everything:

"Angus cattle is a term that refers to two Scottish breeds of cattle. Black Angus refers to the predominant colouring amongst the original Scottish Aberdeen Angus population. Aberdeen Angus is the original name of the breed, which was developed in Scotland from cattle native to the counties Aberdeenshire and Angus.

During the latter part of 2003 and the early part of 2004, the American fast food industry assisted in a public relations campaign to promote the supposedly superior quality of beef produced from Angus cattle ('Angus beef')."

So in other words...it's just a type of cow of "supposedly superior quality". From Scotland. Angus is just the name of a stupid county in Scotland. It would be analogous to plucking a few bovine beauties from over yonder in Roosevelt and touting them in Europe as 100% Grade-A DUCHESNE beef! Not that Aberdeen Angus crap you can get at the local market. DUCHESNE!! Oh yeah.

Methinks we are being duped by McDonald's and the boys. Hitler's right hand man, Joseph Goebbels, said that "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." Am I comparing McDonald's to Nazi's? Yes. :) No, I'm not. What I AM saying, however, is all you really need to know about Angus beef...sweet, sweet Angus beef...is that you can GET it at McDonald's.

I wrote this...today.

Sometimes people use words in a sentence that are entirely unnecessary. For example...pretend for a moment that you are at a concession stand, the person behind the counter has just given you what you ordered, and then you hear:

"Would you like any candy today?"

Would I like any candy...today? What?? Do I have the option to put some candy on layaway, and then pick it up during the next event or something?

"Yes, I'd like a large popcorn and medium Diet Coke today, some Red Vines tomorrow...oh, and package of Sour Patch Kids and a box of Milk Duds for...say...next Wednesday, please. Would you like me to pay for this today?"

Pavlov's Audience

What is it about people and their absolute inability to refrain, and with arrogant disregard for etiquette, from inserting those asinine, otherwise-classic-song-destroying, the-desire-to-gouge-out-my-own-eyeballs inducing lines inbetween the phrases of the Christmas song Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer?

You know what I'm talking about. All the Monopoly and Columbus and light bulb nonsense.

I'm at the SCERA in Orem's production of Plaid Tidings last night, an onstage musical with Christmas songs. And in a moment freakishly reminiscent of Pavlov and his dogs, once the singer on stage busted out that first stanza, all politeness, decency, and consideration went right out the door, and raw instinct took over for these people. And not just kids. Oh no. The inner "special child" in a handful of adults reared its ugly head as well, last night.

Unbelievable. I honestly was floored. I had just witnessed a faux pas double whammy that made me ashamed of my own hometown. About the only way you could possibly be more rude to the other members of the paying audience, not to mention the actors, than by making unsolicited noises mid-production, would be to make these particular noises. What the hell is the matter with people??

Now, if I just happened to have a time machine, and I just happened to go back, say, 10 min. before the originator gave birth to these lyrical abominations, and I just happened to have the crosshairs of a sniper-rifle positioned directly over his skull...I have to be honest...I think I'd waver just a little before deciding to not pull the trigger. :)

The Official Automobile of Utah

I've been dabbling lately in mathematical theory. Specifically, devising formulae which describe Utah drivers and their corresponding automobiles. Here is my latest offering...

Anyone who's been driving on the freeway at night and had some (see above equation) drive up 6 inches from their back bumper with their exactly-eyeball-level 9 trillion candle power headlights scorching their retinas, knows exactly what I mean. :)