How Must Martha Feel

Here at the House o' Annoyed I generally try to keep up an originality policy as much as I can. No point in mouthing someone else's rant. No joy in that. But there are some ideas and observations that are just too funny to me not to pass along, even though they did not originally emanate from between my own ears. Like sharing a good joke while hanging around the water cooler. And face it, the ideas haven't been walking up to ol' Tad and knocking him on his kiester lately.

Last night I was watching a repeat of The Daily Show on Comedy Central. Sad to say that it is not a joke that it is where I get most of my news. It was from a couple of weeks ago when Wacko Jacko was acquitted.

Correspondent (Senior Child Molestation Expert) Steven Colbert - the funniest sidekick the show has ever had - pointed out that it is impossible to get convicted of a crime in California. OJ had blood on his glove, he walked. Robert Blake's alibi was "I went back into the restaraunt to get my gun". Skated. Cops beat up Rodney King on tape. Acquitted, which started a riot. The rioters beat Reginald Denny, again on tape. No convictions. And now Jackson.

"Apparently," Colbert pointed out, "to get convicted in California, you must commit your crime in front of the actual jury"

As Jay Leno observed, "think of how Martha Stewart must feel."

Flag Burnin'

Here is a great post about the recent push to amend the US Constitution to ban the burning of the American flag. Cheers to Wiggy! Hear hear!

Today's Subject

It's been TWO weeks now. Starting to spread out the entries. Gotta pace myself, you know? I knew when I started this I would probably lose interest after a while... I think I've done pretty good to keep it up thus far.

I had some things to get off my chest, and these blog thingies do quite nicely to let one vent anonymously to the world. At least semi-anonymously. I know that some of you know who I am. ( Hi dear! I'll be home right after work! )

Perhaps one day I'll start a blog and keep my mouth shut about it so that nobody will know about it and it'll stay anonymous. Nah, I wouldn't be able to keep it to myself. I suppose there's just not enough that annoys me sufficiently. Except traffic. And you don't want to hear any more about that, do you? Well, do you???? I thought not. My life is pretty goddamned charmed when you get right down to it. My problems are not problems at all. Either that or I'm in that emotional Disneyland known as denial.

Which brings me to today's subject -- which, uh, is the fact that I really don't have a subject today. But when one pops into my cranium, I'll be sure to leak it out my fingers onto the keyboard and post it right here in this very spot. Yup. That could happen any time now. Stay tuned.

Traffic blog for the ides of June

Here's one that made me chuckle.

Morning commute, I405, blah blah blah... see my previous posts if you want to be bored to tears with my commuting whine.

But this morning, as traffic was loosening up and speeds picked up, I was cut off by a black Acura Legend that got right in front of me, almost clipping my front fender. After it passed the car that it had been stuck behind, it zipped right back over to get out of the way, as if remorseful. So as I passed it on left, dispensing my typical scornful "what the f*ck do you think you're doing?" glance, I saw the face of a slender 30ish brunette woman, sticking her tongue out at me. Not playfully, but equally scornfully. Getting her neener-neener on.

I had to laugh. I was still annoyed, but laughing nonetheless. The day turned out pretty good after that.

Tad out.

For the record, Mr Jackson...

... was declared "not guilty" on each of the 10 counts with which he was charged. Not once did I hear the the jury foreman use the word "innocent". There's a difference in my book.

And to that, I say a very Gumpian "That's about all I've got to say about that-uh."

It's a Good Day

I've got the morning commute down to a science. Get on the blasted 405 in stop-and-go traffic, stay to the right for a few exits, cut through the half-cloverleaf offramps on a couple of 'em without exiting, then do a hard-over to the number one lane until things loosen up and the rest is a pleasure cruise. Notice I don't call it the "fast lane", since that concept hasn't applied to Southern California freeways since 1983.

Now, I'm not a full-on road rager, but I do take exception to people wasting my time with their cluelessness. It's frustrating to no end when traffic lightens up and the car in front of you, which is doing a responsible 20 MPH in bumper-to-bumper conditions, cranks it all the way up to 45 when every other lane is -BAM!- up to 75.

So this morning I was quite proud of myself for not getting into a situation that would have driven me through the roof. A 20 year old Lincoln, replete with sagging headliner, patches of bondo, and other evidences of half-assed body repairs, is cutting across lanes, one at a time, in an effort to join me in the leftmost lane. In these cases, I usually cast glance to see if there is multiple passengers in the car, figuring they need to get into the HOV lane, so I let 'em over. It's the civil thing to do. But in this case I see just the driver, a rather WT looking dyed-platinum female who, if I had to speculate, was a chain smoker, dressed in office attire. I was already doing about 50, so I pick up the pace a bit to discourage her from cutting in front of me. No problem, it worked, no contention. She merged behind me without incident.

Then I notice what made my day. As the pace increased across all lanes and all those around me were getting it up to 70, I look in my rear-view to see the Lincoln straining to get going any faster than 55 - this, and a trail of visible exhaust behind it, followed by a line of other cars with their right-turn signal on. There, but for the grace of God, went me. I turned my sights forward and sped on contentedly.

I guess the point to all this is that we need to take the time to notice when things aren't as bad as the could be. So the next time things are going pretty crappy for you, just be glad that you're not stuck behind some WT bimbos' slow moving Lincoln sucking fumes.

Have a super day!

It's not possible

Hey, kids. It's been a whole week. Yeah, I know. Been a Tad Exhausted lately. I don't want to get in to it. That's not to say that it is not possible...

Hence the headline. I was shopping with Ms Information the the other day at a local Target. Now I prefer shopping at Target much more than Wal-Mart because shopping there makes me feel like I'm in, how do you say, a first-world country. It's clean, and the merchandise is on the shelf instead of the aisleway, typically near it's price marker.

We were looking for a particular make and model of a bike trailer in which to haul our knee-biters around the neighborhood. We were looking for the "Quick 'n Lite (sic)", which has a feature set we desired, but all they had on the shelf was the "Quick 'n EZ (sic again)" model, which was on the lower end and therefore out of the question. There was only an empty spot on the shelf where the object of our desire would have been right at home, waiting to go home with a good family.

(By the way, don't get me started about the dumbification of the English language in product names. That's an entirely different rant in which I'll likely contribute to the problem. And while I'm at it, by the way, also don't get me started on insipid text messaging abbreviations like "BTW".)

There are no red-shirted clerks around - and that is what they are, don't give me this sales associate bullshit. So I find the nearest kiosk with a customer service phone, which when I picked it up, told me that someone will arrive at the phone within 60 seconds to assist me. Pretty cool, methinks. However, it was a little less cool when I had to call again 5 minutes later.

But then "James" the clerk came sauntering up the aisle with no particular sense of purpose. He was a slight young man with bushy scraggly hair and jaw hanging agape. I couldn't tell if he was coming to help me - there was no one else around - or just aimlessly wandering, waiting for his shift to end. I was a bit surprised when he actually stopped and offered to help.

I led him to the empty space on the shelf and asked if he could find out if they had any "Quick 'n Lite" trailers in the back. I spent a moment pointing out that it was not the same as the "Quick 'n EZ", but as I was telling him this I could tell that I was overwhelming him with information about the products that his store is in business to sell to me. He wrote down the info from the price marker in front of the empty shelf space and disappeared.

About five minutes later he reappeared to tell me that, no, they did not have any more in the back. I already half-expected this answer, as stores never have anything in the back. Most stores, in fact, do not even have a back. But the look on his face was, well, not there. There was absolutely no look on his face. He was a simple zombie looking at me as is if he was looking through me. I knew he didn't want to be there. I knew he probably had just gone to the back to take a quick hit off a bong. I knew that another question would make his eye twitch, or maybe cause him to wet himself as he stood there otherwise perfectly motionless.

So I decided to press my luck - just for entertainment purposes, like betting on a longshot with found money.

"Do you know when you might get more in?" I queried, bracing myself.

"No, that would be IMPOSSIBLE TO FIND OUT" he replied, still gazing through me.

Impossible. I was aghast at the word he used. Perhaps it is because I believe that there is little that is truly impossible. Cold fusion. Travelling faster than the speed of light. Dropping toast and having it land peanut-butter-side-up. But certainly not this. I thought for a second.

"Ah well, thanks for checking".

I thought for a moment and realized that he was right. It WAS impossible for him. It was impossible because he just didn't give a shit. Stupid puke kid. Made me, would you believe, a Tad Annoyed.

But to my surprise, he offered a potentially helpful suggestion:

"Perhaps you could try checking at another Target store, they often carry the same stuff"

I thought again. Hey, dickweed, thanks for nothing. I already know you are not capable of accessing any inventory computer you have back in the employee hooka lounge. So I don't suppose you know how to operate a telephone and call a couple local stores for me to see if your own suggestion is even worthwhile. Of course I did not say this to his face, this is why I have this blog.

Nevermind, James. I think I'll go check at Wal-Mart.

Hamburgers, Kids, and Star Wars, and Porn

According to the San Francisco Chronicle,

A parents group, the Dove Foundation, is trying to strong-arm Burger King
to stop using "Star Wars" characters to promote its Kids' Meals. "Sith" is rated
PG-13, you see, and OMG, won't someone think of The Children™?"

At the same time, a homely stick-figure with a fat purse and stolen cell phone named Paris Hilton is frolicking about in a bathing suit (which she does not fill out) under the guise of washing a Bentley, getting more water on herself than on that which needs to be cleaned, which in this case is my memory of watching her doing this. Oh, yeah, and in the last couple of seconds of the 30 second spot she chomps down on a Carl's Jr. burger.

"This commercial is basically soft-core porn," said Melissa Caldwell, research director for the Los Angeles-based Parents Television Council. "It's inappropriate for television."

The Los Angeles Times reported Tuesday that the group plans to mobilize its more than one million members to protest and is considering asking the Federal Communications Commission to declare the ad indecent.

So you might ask yourself, what's wrong with this situation, and what great ideas does Tad Annoyed have that would solve this?

Glad you asked. Just a simple matter of switching the casts.

First, get Paris off that car (which, by the way, is better built than the thing she was on in her previous well-known video). Replace her with the cast of Star Wars. Get Princess Whats-her-name in there washing down the Millenium Falcon with a sponge, and then washing down those awful fries with a Diet Coke(TM).

Then, replace the Star Wars toys in the kids meals with little Paris Hilton toys. No, not the toys she uses, but little doll replicas. OK, they can just use sticks. But the underlying moral message to the kids is not to become promiscuous while spending all of their inheritance, but rather to encourage the young 'uns to finish that entire high-in-saturated-fat and cholesterol laden burger and fries or else this is how you might end up looking.

In either case, I'm afraid, not a very pretty picture.