Tea Parties

The Tea Party Protests are stupid. There I’ve said it. It’s short, sweet and to the point.

I’m not saying that people are wrong to be unhappy with the amount of taxes they pay. And I’m not saying that people don’t have a right to protest. But teabags? Just plain dumb.

Remember that the reason for the Boston Tea Party was to protest a TAX on TEA. The colonists were dumping tea into the harbor causing economic damage and refusing to allow anyone to pay a tax they felt was unfair. They were destroying the offensive product.  How do these tea parties to day do any of that? If you don’t like paying taxes, then don’t. Go outside and burn a tax return. Or determine how much of your tax bill goes towards spending you disapprove of and deduct that from your return, don’t pay it and then go publicly announce what you’ve done.

If you want to protest unfair taxes, TAKE A RISK. The protesters in the Boston Tea Party did, and Henry David Thoreau did when he refused to pay taxes to support a war he opposed. Your tea bags mean nothing today.

Monsters vs. Aliens

I didn’t hate this movie, but I didn’t love it either. Overall, I enjoyed this story of the film, but there was nothing really special about it. It flowed well, was fun, and allowed me to get attached to the characters, so in that sense you could say it was okay. It did however, seem like a pretty long 90 minutes. In addition, there were enough things that bugged me about the movie that outweigh the things I enjoyed. To make things easy, I’m just going to list my likes and dislikes. And to be honest, it took listing my dislikes to realize what I liked.

Dislikes:

The 3-D: Wow…. Watching Coraline, I got to see what the future of 3-D could be. Watching Monster vs. Aliens, I got to see what 3-D shouldn’t be. This movie was an assault on my senses from beginning to end. I felt like I was watching a movie that was playing on the tip of my nose. Instead of feeling part of the film and having fun with the multi-dimensionalness of the movie, I found my eyes tired and stressed. There were several times when I had to close my eyes just to give them a rest.

In addition, a slight move of my head either left or right caused me to lose the entire 3-D experience and see the layering. Also, there were some parts of the film where the 2-D was just bad. You could see the flatness of the film. 3-D in no way enhanced my viewing experience of this film.

I should add, that the little kid next to me was so scared that early on in the movie he took his glasses off and refused to watch.

The rest of my dislikes apply to either the 3-D or the 2-D version.

“Kill Your Speed or Live With It”

I found this ad from AdFreak as part of their campaign to choose the freakiest ad of February. I’m not lobbying for this to be the freakiest–as I don’t think that it is–but I’m posting it here so everyone can see it. It’s just that important.

Click on the image to see the ad.

I also found a version of the ad from a few years ago. If the one above doesn’t get the message across, maybe this one will. Kill Your Speed (2007).

Kill your speed, or live with it.

A Philosophical Question

Take some time to think about this..

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Here’s a question…

Why is it okay to use animals for testing medicines and other products, but not okay to use animals for entertainment like cock fighting or dog fighting?

Best Super Bowl Ad

I know there is much discussion out there about the best Super Bowl ad, but I really don’t see how. Clearly the best of them all is the ad for Hulu seen below:

That’s really all there is to say.

Other than that the worst of them all were any of the godaddy.com ads.

Alec Baldwin…you rock!  and so do you Hulu!

Why I Love Stephen Colbert

Stephen gets emotional about Obama's inauguration.

You can watch the clip if you want, but really–this picture says it all.

I have been wondering, though, how Stephen is going to fare with the new Obama administration. It’s one thing to mock support someone, but to mock oppose someone seems to me like it will be a much greater challenge. So far we’re two days in and it’s been pretty good!  Keep up the good work!

Teach Baggers to Bag

Today, I rant!

Okay… I was out grocery shopping today and had (yet another) experience that reminded me of some obnoxious experiences I’ve had lately. Bagging groceries.

I try to be environmentally conscious, so I have reusable grocery bags. As you know, these hold much more than the little plastic bags that grocery stores default to.  If you’ve ever noticed, most baggers put very little in each plastic bag, so it doesn’t take much organization to get your groceries out.

Back in the days of paper bags, bagging was a skill. Baggers knew how to to put things in bags to both distribute weight between the bags and not crush your softer foods (breads, soft fruit, stuff like that). If you’re too young to have ever seen good bagging, watch Michelle Pfeiffer demonstrate this skill on Ellen… it’s an eye opener.

What’s my beef? 

Inaugural annoyances

There will be thousands of blogs and opinion pieces analyzing Barack Obama’s Inauguration, so I won’t take time doing that here. I just want to point my own little observations.

1. President Obama said “Forty-four Americans have now taken the presidential oath.” While he is the 44th President, only 43 have taken the oath. Grover Cleveland took it twice (22nd and 24th president). Did Pres. Obama overlook this, did he not know, or did he just think Americans would be too confused if he said “43″ since he is #44?  

2. As part of ABC’s coverage, they occasionally panned the crowd. Only once did they label a person they showed: Caroline Kennedy. They did not however label Rep. John Lewis (D-GA), who is not only a congressman, but was also a prominent Civil Rights Activist.  I find that not only annoying but an insult to Rep. Lewis. Who else did the cameras focus on that didn’t get identified for us?

3. Really Chief Justice Roberts? You couldn’t write the Oath of Office down? That was a ridiculous spectacle.

I realize that in the grand scheme of things, these aren’t big deals really, but still…

No “Thank You”?

For awhile now I’ve become agitated with many of the cashiers that I come across in various retail establishments.  What is this current pet peeve? The rapid disappearance of “Thank you” from customer service people.

Let’s review: back in the day….and this is back in the day before even my day….when a customer went to the store and spent their money there, the person who helped them–or took their money said, “Thank you.”  As in “Thank you for bringing your business to me and not my competitor,” or if there was no competition, “Thank you for spending your hard earned money in my store instead of going without,” or even “Thank you for spending your money here so I can make a living off of my business.”  The understanding was clear. The retailer thanked the customer, because without the customer there would be no retailer. It’s pretty simple.

Now somewhere along the line—

Selling Virginity = Power?

Every now and again, a great money making scheme comes along that makes tons of people think, “why didn’t I think of that!” What is the latest one? Auctioning off your virginity!  22 year old Natalie Dylan (a psuedonym) has decided to auction off her first sexual encounter. That’s right, her virginity to the highest bidder. Before you start screaming “That’s illegal!” she’s got that covered…this will be happening at a brothel in Nevada. Why does Natalie want to auction off her virginity? She gives two reasons. One is to make money to pay off her education bills–and with bids exceeding $3 million she seems set in that arena. The other is part of a thesis she wants to research dealing the “dichotomous nature between virginity and prostitution.” In response to critics, Natalie says she does not believe this is demeaning, but instead empowering.

The first I heard of this was in a blog by Samantha Henig at the XX Factor, which is what has sent me here. After discussing her views on Natalie’s proposal, Henig asked her colleagues: “Can any of you articulate what I so clearly can’t: why this is so far from empowering, and why prostitution is not the same as modeling? Or is the libertarian argument as sound as it seems at first glance?”  Since I’m not able to blog at the XX Factor (one can dream for the future though, right?) I’m putting my $.02 in here.

As a general rule, I’m not a fan of prostitution–not even legalized. My sense is that when prostituting herself a woman allows herself to be demeaned by her client since she has no real power over what their sexual encounter will be. And this is more true for prostitutes on the streets than in brothels I imagine. Women who operate without the protection of the legalization of brothels