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Posts for the date of Friday, April 26, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 2:55 PM |
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I have nothing to say today. Sorry about that.
If you must, blame Jim. He caused me to use all my funniest jokes earlier today via email. Surely, after such a deluge of grossness, I cannot attempt seriousness. Therefore I will not be posting anything of substance today, be it joke, musing, thoughts, befuddlement or stock tip.
I also blame my wife, who made me wake up this morning and work. Had I been left alone, perhaps my dream state would have allowed me to find some sort of inspiration via the sweet darkness of slumber.
In addition, I'd like to blame Todd, who does not have a nickname. I cannot imagine such a life and I've been fretting over his horrible childhood ever since. I've conferred with many people and we've chosen "Puff Toddy." Todd immediately bought several cream colored linen suits and changed his name to P-Tiddy.
I also blame the March of Dimes, who is forcing me to walk several miles tomorrow in the name of saving children. This is a worthy cause. Yet, after hearing about the "official t-shirt" I will be wearing, which is bright orange, I cannot help but think that the March of Dimes has named me the official traffic cone of 2002.
And finally, I must blame my children for causing me to sing such songs as "Going down the highway, doing 94" and "U-G-L-Y, you ain't got no alibi." Had it not been for these moments, I may have been able to muster some sort of creative or communicative energy to post today.
So, clearly, this is not my fault.
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Posts for the date of Thursday, April 25, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 4:01 PM |
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10 REASONS WHY I SHOULD GET TO GO TO SPACE
10. I love space, astronomy and physics. I don’t necessarily understand it all. But, does that really have to be a prerequisite?
9. I’ve always wanted to be an astronaut.
8. I look up in the sky almost nightly and wonder to myself, “What’s out there?
7. I’ve always had a deep interest in medical experiments. Specifically when I’m the subject.
6. I’ve always loved Tang. I’d propose we bring the space program back to its roots.
5. I could finally play, “If I throw this at the moon, will it ever make it there?”
4. I’ve seen 2001: A Space Odyssey many, many times. The HAL 9000 jokes alone would make my trip worth it for the other astronauts.
3. I’d bring lots of CDs. We could rock to Elvis Costello while we added new modules to the ISS.
2. I could finally answer the question that has been bothering people ever since John Glenn first orbited the Earth. “Can you put yourself into high orbit by opening beer cans in space?”
1. If NASA is willing to spend the money to send Chuckles the Monkey to space, why can’t I go? Is there something wrong with me? What does the monkey have that I don’t?
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 12:26 PM |
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The world's ugliest CEO. Look! His hair actually glows with evil! You can see in his eyes the bloodlust against widescreen DVDs. He's thinking, "Must make the entire world Pan and Scan! Mwhahahahahahahaha."
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Posts for the date of Wednesday, April 24, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 3:01 PM |
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Beer, of course, is actually a depressant. But poor people will never stop hoping otherwise.
--Kurt Vonnegut
I was watching the news at lunch today as they talked about some big shake up at Annheuser-Busch. Something about one of the pretty boy rich kids stepping down to let another pretty boy rich kid do more work so the first pretty boy rich kid can sit on his but and eat lobster all day.
But that’s beside the point.
They had a stock analyst on discussing how this decision would affect the AB stocks. Oddly, she looked more like a haggard marketing manager than a stock analyst. No sharp suit. No slim pointy nose that seems to say “superior”, no smart Marlo Thomas “That Girl” haircut. Just a blobby, frumpy woman who, based on her K-Mart Jacquelyn Smith outfit and her wind blown do, I would never buy stock from. Clearly her own portfolio’s performance precludes her from being able to afford high-end clothes. Like Target.
“AB is a very untraditional stock,” she said. “It seems to defy logic. When the market is up, AB is down. When the market is down, AB is up.”
To this I say, with complete superiority, “well DUH.” AB sells beer. Beer, for one reason or another, makes people happy, or forget their sorrows. When the market is up, people are already happy. They don’t need beer. Or at least cheap beer. They can afford to buy imports and high-end microbrews.
But when the market is down, people are depressed. What do they do? Drink? It’s a time-honored tradition. Feel like crap, drink crappy beer. Suck down the brewskies and forget you even have feet, much less the fact that your wife left you, your dog has been repossessed and your secretary, with whom you had an affair, turned out to be a man. These things happen! But with our amber colored effervescent friend, anything is possible. And anyone is attractive.
Granted, you can’t get home until you sober up and by that time it’s too late. Life has come crashing back down on you. You’ve become the pathetic, balding lout with an enormous beer gut and stains, the source of which has long been forgotten, all over your shirt. You trod back to your car, a 1988 Honda held together with rust and a prayer, sucking the final remnants of wing sauce from under your fingernails.
But tomorrow. Tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow you may kill the final pesky brain cell that demands you have some modicum of self-respect. Tomorrow, just maybe, the cheap beer will finally make you “fitter, happier, more productive.” Maybe tomorrow that hoppy medicine will finally make you attractive to the ladies. You’ll be successful, important, and rich.
Of course, these are the same fantasies that workers in a varnish factory play out by the end of their careers. It’s called “delirium.”
That’s why I recommend Guinness. It’s more expensive, so you’ll drink less. You won’t feel guilty spending your grocery money on it because it contains enough calories to keep a football team going for a month. Plus, any drink you can’t see through is certainly worth its weight in beer nuts.
But, most of all, you’ll look successful. “Oh, he drinks an import.” You’ll be beating off the barflies like a horse on the trail. Well, you’ll be beating off something.
But you’ll have self-respect. And in the end, isn’t that all you wanted in the first place?
Of course not. You bought Busch. You wanted to get hammered.
Moral of the story: When in a recession, buy stock in liquor companies. No matter how far down the toilet the economy gets, people will surely be sticking their heads further down that toilet while saying, “No, I’m fine. Don’t worry about it.”
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Posts for the date of Tuesday, April 23, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 10:31 AM |
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I was talking to my lovely wife (whose post yesterday is STILL SATIRE) the other day about soup. Yes soup. She was asking me what I wanted for lunches during the week. Would soup be good? And, if so, which soups are acceptable luncheon dining?
Well, I said, I like potato soup. Mmm. Especially with bacon. I also used to get the cheese soup at Denny’s when I was in high school. I liked it for some reason, even though by definition it’s gross. Melted, milky cheese doesn’t seem appetizing. Might as well just stick a spoon in nacho cheese dip (I probably would) and chow down on that.
But it’s good with bacon.
Well, she went shopping last night and brought me soup. Granted, there’s the traditional chicken noodle soup, and the like.
But she fulfilled my wishes.
She brought me potato cheddar cheese bacon soup. One soup, all three wishes. What an amazing woman.
I'm glad I didn't say I liked peanutbutter too . . .
It gets better. It’s Campbell’s Chunky Soup. It’s the soup that eats like a meal. It’s also the official soup sponsor of the NFL. Seriously. It is. I’m not lying. Why would I make that up? I couldn’t make up something that stupid if I tried.
If I were a famous athlete (and it’s still possible, if they make sitting on your ass a competitive sport . . . we’re trying to get it into the 2004 Olympics), my wife would be following me to the locker room, making sure I ate a hearty meal before my competition. “You need energy! Eat Papa! Eat!” she’d say. I’d be really embarrassed because a manly man like me doesn’t need his wife following him around forcing soup into his mouth. What will the other guys think of me?
Well, it’s okay. Because my wife bought me Chunky soup, the soup that eats like a meal, I feel loved. And it’s a wonderful warm feeling.
Either that or the soup isn’t digesting well . . . No wonder why the Rams lost the Super Bowl. Kurt Warner had a chunk of soup lodged in his intestines.
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Posts for the date of Monday, April 22, 2002
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 9:44 PM |
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Okay, I saw Frailty yesterday . . . and the more I think about it, the more the picture of the president bothers me.
All the elements are there. Work gloves. Axe. He's missing the lead pipe, but that may be out of frame.
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 6:30 PM |
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Today I bought a few DVDs with the booty collected from my wild birthday extravaganza. (The DVDs were Mulholland Drive and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me, if you care.)
Each disc was encased in security tape along all opening edges. It took me ten minutes per DVD to open them. Ten minutes of my life wasted just so I could look inside and see, oooooh, there’s a DVD.
Now, I understand fully why this tape exists. It’s to prevent morons from opening the case and stealing the disc. Which, by the way is a reprehensible action.
Not because it is stealing. Which it is. And that’s inherently wrong. However, this is a crime worse than stealing. This is the mistreatment of the media. Bad! Bad!
So, you’re a criminal who refuses to plop down $20 for a DVD. I understand that, though the $100 you spent on crack last week was a justifiable expense. But, do you realize that by the time you get home after stuffing that disc in your pocket you won’t be able to watch the disc because of the scratches? Are you an idiot?
Wait. Don’t answer that.
So, I have to pay for your folly by spending a good portion of my day trying to liberate the films I’ve just purchased from their prison of a sticky tape-like substance that is covering every possible surface of the case.
Yargh.
As if this is even an issue anymore. The Internet allows you to download films, if you have no desire for quality (or morals for that matter). So, instead of risking incarceration, you can just download it from the Internet without ever leaving your home. Better yet, you can continue to smoke crack the whole time! Get high while pirating movies!
As an added bonus, now that you are a pirate, you get to use all the accoutrements of the trade. Parrot, eye patch and the right to say, “Yargh.”
Security doesn’t stop at the tape all over the packaging. CDs have this too. But now they are putting encryption in CDs that will prevent you from ripping MP3s of the music and distributing it via the Internet. Worthy attempt, I suppose.
However, this technology has rendered the discs unplayable, in many instances. No better way to alienate your audience than to cause your product to be incompatible with their equipment. Brilliant!
The record industry reports that: “In 2000, music sales dropped 9.3%, from $869.7 million to $788 million. Total revenues slipped 2.3%, from $13 billion to $12.7 billion.“ (Business Week)
Well . . . it’s all the fault of people downloading from the Internet, right?
Sure, I’ll give you that. But I have a different theory: the music that is distributed by the companies that are included in Soundscan tracking sucks ass.
In the past few years bands such as Cowboy Junkies, Tori Amos, Liz Phair, and many others, have been dropped from their labels. In the same time, there have been clones of ‘Nsync, Brittany Spears and Creed have popped up everywhere. Listen to one radio station that plays new music for four hours and odds are you’ll only hear a total of 40 songs. All the same songs. Over and over and over. And worse yet, they all sound the same.
However, I’m sure if you look at labels that promote smaller labels such as Not Lame, Bomp, and others, you’ll find a spike in sales.
Makes you wonder why, eh? Could it be that the audience that these record companies once depended upon is getting tired of the same old thing? Of the next big thing? Perhaps they are searching for new bands. Hmmm.
Let’s look at the CDs I’ve purchased, or been given, during the period of slow down: Stew, The Incredible Moses Leroy, Cloud 11, The Negro Problem, Cornelius, Air, The Wondermints, Cherry Twister , The Auteurs, Sarah Harmer , Linus of Hollywood , Ben Folds . . .
The biggest of these names are fringe. The smaller ones are hard to find. But the music is different, strange, off the wall, experimental.
Of course, I’ve also bought reissues of Elvis Costello’s albums. Discs I already own in one, and sometimes two, different forms.
Who knows? Maybe the music world as we know it will come crashing down. We’ll see.
Wow. I got off track there. Sorry!
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posted by Gary O'Brien at 5:32 PM |
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Please note that my wife's blog dated today is SATIRE. If you do not understand it, I reccomend a hearty dose of Swift, Twain, Vonnegut and Heller.
I thank you for your time and attention.
Real post to follow. Or precede, depending upon how you look at it.
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Posts for the date of Sunday, April 21, 2002
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