January 2007
A while back we reviewed some things that are just wrong. Out of boredom, now we'll append to that list a little as we ease into the new year.
Recycling pull-tabs?
This stupid office game just never seems to die. Someone will have a bin of soda-can pull tabs from soda cans on their desk, with a little sign that says they want you to help raise money for battered women's shelter or whatever, so please contribute. You're supposed to remove the pull tab on your soda can and deposit into the shoe box (careful, don't hurt yourself or you'll awaken Captain Safety!) Wait a minute, you just threw out the can which contains over 95% of the aluminum scrap value so you can contribute a piece of metal that is worth 0.03 cents... as soon as they collect one million of these tabs this fundraiser will have brought in a whopping $300! Just recycle the whole can and stop failing this virtual IQ test. Forty cans recycled saves the equivalent of one gallon of gas in energy, aluminum as a recycled material is as good as in its original form.
Pepsi is wrong!
Back last summer a Pepsi product trashed the interior of my automobile. I contacted them and submitted a claim against the local bottler's insurance company. They went so far as to send an adjuster to view the damage, which they estimated at about $1100. Then they decided NOT to pay. So I filed suit in small claims court. Now they've hired an expensive attorney who wants to take the case to civil court so he can pass on his fees to me if he can win the case (small claims is capped at $2500). To this I say, Pepsi sucks, don't buy their unstable products! Instead of meeting in civil court, I'd just like to box a couple of rounds with the Pepsi lawyer and call it even. Maybe it's time to get famed Boston ambulance-chaser James R. Sokolove involved, I'm ready to write the TV commercial: have you or a loved one been injured in an accident involving Pepsi products? Call 1-800....
Using a cell phone while riding a horse!
Dudes: if you want to get back to the simpler times before automobiles by taking up riding as a hobby, leave the cell phone in your car. Why must you persist in lowering the horse's opinion of you?
Joey Ramone is dead for the past five years, and CBGB's is now closed.
1950-2001, fifty years young. Without the Blitzkrieg Bop the last thirty years of music would have been quite different, quite worse when you consider rock music might have moved more "classical" in the absence of the Ramones.
Gabba gabba hey!
CBGB OMFUG is now closed but some of their stuff is on Ebay auction! CBGB OMFUG stood for country bluegrass blues, other music for uplifting gormandizers. Read the history here.
The Anthony Wayne Char-Broil is closed!
Located right on Route 46 in concrete-acne-scarred Wayne NJ, Mad Anthony served the best char-broiled food for more than 50 years. What Foods These Morsels Was! Check out Jersey Dogs for for a list of the finest hot dogs, way out west in wild New Jersey! Long live Rutt's Hut!
Expecting hydrogen or ethanol to replace petroleum-based fuels for cars?
Hydrogen doesn't come from a dry Texas well, it has to be made. One way to make hydrogen involves (guess what?) imported petroleum. Of course you could supply the energy with more coal or nuke power plants, but there are good reasons you don't want anymore of those in your community. Hydrogen has very low energy density, and storage requires a heavy tank to keep it liquefied. Did we mention it embrittles steel? And there is the "detail" of inventing an efficient, lightweight, eco-friendly fuel cell, nothing a few trillion dollars can't take care of. Everything that is published about the future "hydrogen economy" is downright depressing.
Fueling automobiles with ethanol made from corn or other crops sounds attractive until you consider that the crops were planted and harvested using tractors that burn (guess again) petroleum, which could burn as much energy as the crop produces. Farming ethanol would compete with other crops, raising the cost of food, lowering water tables, and causing additional run-off pollution (we don't want bugs to eat our fuel do we?)
Advice to SUV owners: in addition to saving for your kids college years, start asking your congressman to pass an law creating a taxfree Fuel Accreditation Transportation Account Savings for SUVs (FATASS), so you can afford to gas up during your dotage! We'll all be dead, but in the next century it will be easy to figure out who's great grandfather owned a Lincoln Navigator through registration records when it's time for petroleum consumption reparations to be paid...
Cup holders in fire trucks?
I had the opportunity to view the inside of a new firetruck recently. Yes, there was certainly a good amount of cup-holders for the entire crew. For what? So they can stop at Circle K on the way to putting out a house fire, and purchase some Big Gulps?
The FDA sucks!!!
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Smiling Bob
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How could this be the twenty-first century, and the Food and Drug Administration still hasn't stopped snake oil marketeers from scamming billions of dollars from stupid people every year? Admittedly they leveled some small fines on the makers of Xenadrine EFX, CortiSlim, TrimSpa and One-A-Day WeightSmart recently, but this is less than the tip of the iceberg. What about the annoying "Smiling Bob" who promises "male enhancement" by selling Enzyte? The FDA doesn't care about this stuff, but the justice department has arrested some of these clowns for credit card fraud. Please, FDA, stop the madness, put MetRX, Vitamin World, and the General Nutrition Center out of business or at least stop their false advertising! |
Real estate agent's commissions?
Who would have thought that this many years into the internet revolution travel agencies would be starving but real estate biddies would keep on collecting $50K commissions?
Hanging Saddam?
Maybe it's just wrong to mix politics onto this web site, but this recent event was over the top. What a missed opportunity to recreate the nice rest camp atmosphere that was Spandau prison. During the "Russian month" he would have trimmed his waistline. Perhaps he could have pulled weeds, scrubbed toilets and done his own laundry. Now he's a martyr.
Designer name mania?
OK, little girls, of course we get it. Unless it says Abercrombie and Fitch, or A&F, or has that stupid moose on it, it just can't be as good. Glad to see we raised you all wrong. How did we get from "we've got to get back to the garden" to "we've got to get back to the Galleria" in less than forty years?
That's all for now!
Check out the Unknown Editor's amazing archives when you are looking for a way to screw off for a couple of hours or more!