Couponing: Not Just For Sad, Old People Anymore

America is all about saving money and finding deals these days.  Every day a knock-off Groupon website pops up, including a new one started by Glenn Beck.  American Pickers is a hit show where people dig through garbage in hopes of finding expensive antiques.  And there is actually an entire website devoted to sleeping in airports to save money on vacations.  While I'm a guy that loves a deal, I also love not wasting my mother f****** time (to paraphrase Al Pacino in Heat).  Many money-saving devotees go to extremes, spending insane hours coupon clipping and living in discomfort to save peanuts on often impractical goods.

Case in point.  A few years ago I was in Walgreens picking up some cold medicine.  At the register in front of me was a silver-haired woman looking to score a deal on the store's 2 for 1 Ruffles potato chips promotion.  The only problem: the store was out of Ruffles.  So the woman demanded the cashier write out a rain check for 2 bags of Ruffles at the sale price.  Never mind the fact that she could have walked 50 feet down to Safeway and bought a bag of chips if she were that desperate.  No, this was more about getting the deal.  It didn't matter if it took days or a week for Walgreens to restock Ruffles, this woman was going to get that deal.

Really not worth the time.

Well, the memory of the cashier reaching under the counter, literally blowing dust off of the stack of rain checks, and then trying to figure out how to fill one out is forever burned in my brain.  But this woman has nothing on the coupon-clipping, money-saving women of TLC's Extreme Couponing.  Yes, they are all women on this show – save for the depressed husbands that get dragged on 5-hour shopping trips.

In case you are unfamiliar, Extreme Couponers go to any means possible – even potentially illegal ones – to save money at the grocery store.  They clip coupons from their papers and their neighbor's papers, download coupons off websites, plan weeks in advance for shopping trips, and generally devote full-time job hours to saving massive amounts of money on groceries.

But is it worth it to spend 40 hours a week in order to stockpile 72 packages of Excedrin?  I wanted to find out, so here is my running diary of Episode 2 of Extreme Couponing.

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00:54 - The narrator tells us we're about to witness some of the most "dramatic check outs you've ever seen."  Well, I've never seen a single dramatic check out ever, so this show will be the first.  Television has brought us a lot of dramatic things over the years: dramatic story arcs, dramatic characters, and dramatic cliffhangers.  But television for the most part has devolved.  Now the bar is so low that we're compelled to watch dramatic check outs. 

1:25 - We're only a minute in and we've already had our first blasphemy.  The narrator informs us that collecting coupons is a religious experience, followed by our first coupon-cutter stating about her stacks of coupons, "I would say this is about a hundred Holy Bibles."  Her 11th Commandment is "Thou Shalt Not Pay Retail." 

One of Jesus' Disciples.  Of course I mean Jesus Hernandez of Ft. Lauderdale, an extreme couponer.

1:36 - Our first Extreme Couponer/blasphemer is named J'amie Kirlew, who bills herself as "The Diva for Coupons."  She's also a big fan of the color purple, as she's wearing a purple blouse, sweater, nail polish and has a heavy lacquering of purple eye shadow.  Her hair, make-up and features make her seem very bird like, she's got quite the beak on her.  She claims to dedicate 100% of her time and her "talents" to couponing.  It's true, I've seen her scissor work and it's phenomenal.

Side note: I'm not adding any further apostrophes to her name out of principle.  From here on out she will be known as Jamie.  Anyone that spells their name with an apostrophe and is not an All-Pro wide receiver or a Grammy winning singer is taking the diva thing too damn far.


2:35 - Apparently a shower filled with 450 rolls of toilet paper is only the beginning to Jamie's stockpiling.  Her storage room has 60 boxes of cereal, 70 bottles of laundry detergent, 100 containers of cleaning wipes, and 200 hand soap dispensers.  Did I accidentally click over to an episode of Hoarders? 

J'amie's St'ockpile

3:10 - Jamie started hoarding/couponing when her husband lost his job.  She was worried she'd never get to go out with her friends again for a glass of wine.  Oh, the humanity!  Jamie was determined to live the lifestyle her family had become accustomed to, so she started couponing – spending up to six hours a day clipping coupons and planning for one of 4 weekly shopping trips.  She's makes spreadsheets, does online research, and meticulously plans her strategy.  She even has an alphabetical list of every item in her local grocery store.

All of this makes me think... Jamie is obviously smart and extremely organized.  She basically spends 40 hours a week at this "job" to scrimp and save on items she doesn't exactly need.  You don't need 200 hand soap dispensers, usually 3 in a home would suit a family's needs.  Why not put your energies into finding an "actual job," make some money, and buy what you want?  Well, the short answer is because Jamie, like all people on this series, has a borderline obsessive personality manifested in clipping coupons.  The whole process has taken on a life of its own.

4:27 - Time to get pretty!  Jamie's most important step in shopping is to slather make-up all over herself because her "image is very important."  I applaud this.  She's also wearing leather, high-heel boots.  Most of the people you see today in grocery stores are disheveled creeps that look like they've just rolled out of bed.  Related, here is my assessment of grocery store shopping demographics based on time of day.

• 8:30 am - Women, post-dropping their kids off to school.  They usually are wearing pajamas and slippers and are buying Frito's snack packs for lunches.  Lost the will to care how they look, will go back to bed once finished.

• 10:00 am - Prime senior citizen shopping time.  They've already been up for five hours.  These creatures wander the aisles slowly, buying boxes of pasta and feeling every single grapefruit in the produce section.  Senior citizens love grapefruit.

• 12:30 pm - The lunch crowd, hovering around the deli counter.  Primarily men – ranging from construction workers on break to businessmen in suits (sans jackets).  You'll see lots of fountain sodas and guys eating their chips while waiting for their sandwich to be made.

• 3:30 pm - The overachieving moms who have just dropped off their kids at their afternoon activity.  These moms are buying Kashi bars and fresh vegetables for dinner tonight.  Very impatient with a set schedule.  They will berate the cashier if necessary.  

• 6:00 pm - Single men buying dinner items.  No more than 4 or 5 items maximum, including a bottle of whiskey or wine, one potato, and a bag of nuts. 

• 10:00 pm - Stoners buying junk food, fat people looking for a midnight snack (often in frozen food section), and single women crying in front of the ice cream display.

5:09 - The narrator tells us that Jamie's coupon plan has to be flawless.  She's got a list of 1,300 items and only $100 to spend.  Oh the stakes!  To prepare, Jamie freshens her lip gloss in the car mirror.  Today, she's dragging her poor husband along on the trip.  Oh sorry, she "invited him."  Right. 

5:56 - Time to put mustard on that hot dog... literally!  Jamie's buying 62 bottles of French's mustard for just $.39 each.  Mustard doesn't spoil, so it can be stored forever.  Here's the funny thing, her husband doesn't even like mustard.  Why bother buying it!? 

6:47 - Jamie's ready to check out, but first she has to reapply her eyeshadow.  The show cuts to a commercial as she peers nervously at her balance ringing up to over $1,200.  Jamie says she's never been this nervous at the register before.  What a cliffhanger. 

Cheese slices really start to add up.

7:45 - One of the annoying things about this program is the false stakes the writers/producers create.  The narrator keeps telling me that Jamie only has $100 to spend and over 2,500 coupons to use.  "She's gone over her all time high of $1,000... and starts to feel the pressure."  Well it's not like she's going to die if she miscalculated.  She just has to put back her groceries and try again.  The manager doesn't walk over and cut off a finger for every dollar she goes over her budget.  The remaining money won't come out of her children's college fund.  Get a grip.

10:02 - Jamie's grand total for four carts of utter crap is worth $1,900.  She gets that total down to $103 with coupons.  It's just a bit over her budget, but she's okay with that.  The narrator calls the check-out "grueling."  Yeah, for the poor cashier and all the saps stuck behind Jamie in line.  And I guess for Jamie's family, who are going to have to eat 90 packages of cold cuts washed down with 62 bottles of mustard.  I hope you like sandwiches kids, that's all you'll be eating for years.

Jamie does a victory jig.  Then in the car, she reapplies lip gloss.  Always a diva.

Flap those wings.

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Check back again for Part 2 where we'll meet Tiffany Ivanovsky, an extreme couponer from Texas with seven kids.  She has a rack in her bedroom for overflow items.  Of course she does.

Adult Babies: Taboo Goes Big.

The only thing that separates an adult baby and a nerdy man-child living at home is this: An adult baby will open his action figure packages to play with them; a man-child won't, lest the figures lose their resale value.  Other than that small difference, the similarities abound.  Playing with toys, having someone cook and clean for you, living without a care in the world.  It's all part of the adult baby fantasy lifestyle.  Finally an alternative lifestyle I can get behind.  Just kidding... I think.

National Geographic Channel's Taboo series recently aired an episode called "Fantasy Lives" and featured the story of 29-year-old adult baby Stanley Thornton.  It got a lot of publicity thanks to a four minute clip NGC put out hyping the episode.  The clip was so compelling, I had to watch the full segment and write a running diary.  Here it is.  (For the full episode, you'll have to do some digging on the Web.)

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01:44 - We're in Redding, California, a scenic city along Interstate-5 and home to the Shasta Dam.  It's known as the "Second Sunniest City in the United Sta... DEAR GOD.  What the... who the...

No bras were harmed in the making of this documentary.

01:55 - Ok.  Wow.  I'm back.  I just had to defiberlate... defrillberlate... defibrillate myself.  Ok.  This is Stanley's caretaker/mommy Sandra Diaz (no real relation).  I mean, wow.  Starting off strong Taboo, very strong. 

2:00 - Sandra wakes Stanley up from a nap.  He's sleeping in a man-sized crib with a teddy bear.   "Being an adult baby, I've had a couple different reactions, some good, some not so good.  I know some people that are perfectly fine with it, and I've had others that are just angry like they think it's an automatic that you're a pedophile because you're into it," Stanley says in an interview.  Wait, so you tell people you are an adult baby???  How does that come up in conversation?  

Bob:  Hi Mr. Thornton, I'm you're new neighbor.

Stanley: Nice to meet you.

Bob:  Wanna grab a beer sometime, shoot the shit?

Stanely:  I don't drink.

Bob: Well, that's okay.  Hey, you play golf at all?  Maybe we can hit up a driving range on the weekend?

Stanley:  I poop in diapers.

Bob: (stunned silence)

And frankly, yes pedophilia is the first thing I think of in this situation.  There is no good reason why adults should spend any time around children unless they are a parent, are with the kid's parents, or are the kid's teacher or licensed daycare worker.  In this horrible age we live in, you can't take any chances.  So when an adult man that is somewhat creepy looking tells me he wants to be a baby, alarms go off.

I admit it looks relaxing...

3:12 - Sandra is a registered nurse and plays the role of Stanley's mom.  She tells the camera, "I love him like he's my favorite nephew, he's like my family member who lost his mother and it's like I'm the aunt stepping in saying it's okay, I'm still here for you."

Favorite nephew?  If I'm going to wipe a grown man's fanny and bottle feed him, I damn well better feel closer to him than a nephew!  Step-mother or something, come on.

3:36 - Stanley's home looks like a total baby hazard.  There's a shot of him playing with Legos on the floor next to a fire extinguisher on the ground, loose electrical wires hanging from the walls, and sharp objects within reach.  To really role play a baby, shouldn't Stanley be putting his finger into sockets and what not?  Or at least baby-proof your home to give it a true sense of living with/like a child!  Immersion!

3:50 - The voice over tells us Stanley lives in a fantasy world (no shit) where a grown man plays with Legos, sucks on a pacifier, is spoon fed, uses baby talk, and even wears a diaper.  Back to my previous point, Stanley only role plays the good parts of being a baby (playing, pooping wherever you want) and none of its dangers.  Also I believe he is mixing age groups here.  Legos and army men are too small for a 2 year old to play with, to really role play this scenario he should be swallowing these tiny items.

Take that pacifier out of your mouth and put in one of those army men!

4:00 - A clinical psychologist comes on to tell us that "cultural norms" imply we are first babies and then grow up into adults, but if someone does this backwards it makes the public feel uncomfortable and threatened.  Well, normal human growth isn't a cultural norm is it?  Isn't it biological?  Babies act like babies because they don't have full brain function or cognitive abilities.  29-year-old adults should crave more advanced stimulation, such as gambling, strip clubs, and Angry Birds.

4:30 - The voice over tells us that Stanley switches to adult mode when he leaves the house to "avoid public shame."  Well, if he wanted to avoid public shame, maybe he shouldn't have left the house in black Dearfoam slippers, white socks and what appears to be a giant muumuu.  

My PJs were in the dryer.

Stanley is at Lowe's to pick up supplies for his next project - a supersized high chair.  This scene is a great endorsement for Lowe's.  Lowe's – the home improvement store that doesn't judge!

5:20 - Stanley says he's been working on the plans for the high chair for a year and a half.  He's already constructed a man-sized crib, which he loves because "there's nothing like waking up in a crib."  No there really isn't.  For a 2-year-old.  You know what else there is nothing like?  Waking up next to a woman in the morning after making love. 

5:45 - Stanley's condition is called "infantilism," which he admits is a conscious choice.  He also admits that for some, it's a sexual fetish (surprise, surprise).  However, Stanley isn't into kink, he does it to relax and as a form of therapy.  I did research into infantilism and some experts speculate that the causes are rooted deep in the stresses of a child's toilet training.

Basically kids need to be cheered when they poop on a toilet, or you are going to scar them for fucking life.

7:00 - Here's where things get serious.  Stanley's stress stems from an abusive home while growing up.  His therapist says he has led a traumatic life filled with abandonment.  He role plays living a different life as a different kid.  This is a heart-wrenching moment made slightly ridiculous by the producer's choice to play overwrought piano music over a shot of Stanley swinging alone in a park.   It's a distractingly heavy-handed shot and obviously staged.  I cringed at this segment.  It should have been played differently. 

Fat guy on a little swing.

9:30 - On to happier times.  Stanley role plays a baby during every meal.  He even eats baby food!  This can't taste good, can it?  I just looked on Gerber's website at some of their puree baby food flavors.  There's Macaroni & Cheese with Vegetables, Turkey & Gravy, and Sweet Potato & Corn.  Not one of those meals do I want pureed and spoon fed to me as an adult.

But... I will say that it is definitely fun to pretend an airplane of food is flying into your mouth hangar.  In fact, I even jokingly do this when I try to get my picky-eating girlfriend to try a new food.  "Who wants broccoli?  Here comes the broccoli plane in for a landing!  I sure hope the hangar doors open in time!"  Usually the plane ends up crashing into her lips, but it's still fun.

Who likes bananas!  Vroooom!

10:23 - Stanley and Sandra receive disability checks and don't work.  When Stanley's not role playing or shopping for lumber, he runs an adult baby website.  They have 1,500 members and the youngest member is 9-years-old and the oldest is 92.  Ok, I get the 92-year-old, but the 9-year-old?  That kid is practically still a baby!  He's just role playing himself!

11:15 - Stanley's high chair is complete and he settles into his first meal in it.  It looks to be some sort of pasta dish.  Sandra asks him if he "wants shaker cheese."  Of course he wants shaker cheese.  He's also eating with a fork.  I don't know about the rest of you, but when I was eating Spaghetti-O's in my high chair back in the early 1980s, I would get in there with my hands and really make a mess.  This is a very sanitized adult baby feeding.

Nom nom nom.

12:08 - It's been a long day for Stanley and he's all tuckered out.  Sandra tucks him into his crib and sings him a lullaby.  "Picture an adult man, laying in a crib, with his puppy, his little stuffed dog, smile on his face, asleep.  It is just so cute," says Sandra.  Cute indeed. 

Wait... what???

Mexican pointy boots?

Late to the Dot-Com Game...

...but this guy still has all the accoutrements.  He's Dan O'Rourke, founder of GoodGuide.com, which actually has a pretty cool iPhone app.  The app scans bar codes on products and gives you a rating on how "green" the product is.  The S.F. Chronicle had a good article about the company in the business section of today's paper. 

However, everyone knows the dot-com boom ended in the year 2000.  Out with it went grey-haired CEOs riding Razor scooters around the office... or so I thought, until I saw this picture in the paper.

And then I flipped the page and saw this one...

Be careful GoodGuide... scooters, unicycles and pinball machines were one of the chief downfalls of the first Dot-Com boom.  Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it!

Conjoined Twins in China...

... or as the press reports it, "TWO HEADED BABY!!!"

I feel sorry for the parents of the child, they didn't find out about the problem until two days before giving birth.  This is super rare, most conjoined twins die within 24 hours of birth.  In fact, that only living two-headed twins I can think of are Brittany and Abigail Hensel of Minnesota.  Not only are these twins surviving... they are thriving!  Brittany is ENGAGED to be married.

And you think it's rough on the unmarried sibling when another gets engaged, what with everyone remarking, "next it's your turn" and "will you ever settle down?"  Try being attached to your sibling and hearing her get congratulated every day on her impending nuptials.  Poor Abby.

Captain Blowhard of the High Seas

A captain blew in from the sea,
grizzled, gnarled and yes, so jaded.
He harnessed his ballast near me,
with legends by time, unfaded.

First revealed: the leviathan.
Lobster-like, tentacled, and vile.
Fought with the skill of a swordsman,
its body sent down a dark mile.

Next on his vast docket, pirates;
took him captive in the Black Sea.
Hopelessness just one of his states.
Get this, a mermaid did set him free!

Lastly, the place of Atlantis,
Found inside a great gaping maw.
Yet in a bout of arthritis,
the map slipped from his pained paw.

These stories they advance nonstop.
My yawns masked by a well placed cup.
This sailor who would be Aesop.
I do wish he would just shut up.

The Greatest Action Scene of all Time and Space.

Recently my friend sent a video clip of a Bollywood movie he described as "The Matrix" meets "Terminator."  Obviously I was intrigued.  What I saw was even better than I expected.  

The clip is the end fight sequence from the movie "Endhiran," which means Robot in Tamil.  Endhiran was the most expensive movie that Bollywood has ever made, think Avatar if the Na'vi had broken into spontaneous song and dance.  To say that Endhiran is a CGI artist's wet dream would be an understatement.  This movie is a CGI artist's three day Viagra-fueled orgy and abject bacchanalia.  The effects in this movie are insane, and not in the "whoa, bro those effects are insane!" sense.  They are insane as in the person who thought them up might be clinically off his rocker, or at the very least smoking a ton of hash. 

The basic plot is that this Indian mad scientist named Dr. Vaseegaran spent his entire life trying to create his perfect likeness... and get this, he succeeds!  Nothing bad could come from playing God could it?  The robot's name is Chitti Babu and at first everything is peaches and tandoori, with Chitti Babu learning about human society.  Aishwarya Rai stars as Dr. Vaseegaran's girlfriend, and the robot helps her cheat on a college exam.  Then the military gets their hands on Chitti Babu and implants a "red chip" into him, making him go bat shit crazy.  

And he's not only crazy, he's also smart.  Chitti Babu creates a hundred robot likeness of himself and proceeds to wreak havoc.  The scene I'm about to deconstruct begins with Dr. Vaseegaran, who has infiltrated the robot's lair in disguise, discovered and about to be killed by Chitti Babu.

0:01 - In case you're wondering why the scene starts with Chitti Babu and his fingers in the good doctor's mouth, it's not because he's giving him an oral exam.  You see, Chitti Babu's fingers are also guns.  But wait!  Just as he's about to cock his trigger/thumb... the military shows up and flashes his eyesight with Vision Bleach.  The Chitti duplicates react like Sean Penn would against a paparazzi flash.  That is to say, pissed off.

0:20 - Chitti tries to use one of his powers - magnetism - to grab the gun out of a soldier's hands.  But the weapons aren't metal!  That's when he goes into "Sphere Mode."  The hundred Chittis go straight Voltron and form into a giant ball to go on the offensive.  Spinning like a murderous gyroscope or a death-bringing Katamari Damacy, the Chittis rain gunfire all over the military!  Then they smash the laboratory wide open and escape.

A trigger-happy Katamari Damacy.

1:21 - Now would be a good time to mention Chitti's awesome lightning bolt sideburns.  That really is the mark of a true bad guy - really sinister facial hair.  Evil Spock had it.  Evil Hulk Hogan (WCW version) had it.  Evil Hitler had it.  Good guys are generally clean shaven, with the exception of Wolverine and Tony Stark (they are more anti-heroes anyway).  

1:52 - Science alert!  The military has managed to get their hands on a downed Chitti clone, and they ferry it to Dr. Vasagaran and Aishwarya Rai in a high-tech, bunkered bus for diagnosis.  He's going to hack into its mainframe and upload a virus or something.  Insert standard computer hacking movie plot here.

You know Dr. Vasagaran is serious because he's rolled the sleeves up on his leather coat.  Which by the way is a great look.  

2:15 - Back to the CGI-fest.  The clones form into a rolling pin and knead the military police force like pizza dough.  The army fires a missile into the clones and think they've successfully killed them.  Key word: think.

Who's got one thumb and is about to be tossed out of a helicopter?  This guy.

In a move ripped right out of Terminator, Chitti utters the Schwarzenneger-esque line "Mind if I come in?" and throws the pilot to the ground.  Chitti reaches the pilot by stacking his clones like a totem pole and elevating himself.

3:35 - Think Chitti can only form simple shapes?  Think again!  Now he assembles into a fucking Cobra snake, complete with hissing sounds!  The clone snake gobbles up soldiers, tanks, police cars, anything in their path.  The snake crunches them up in its belly, then spews its "feces" all over the side of a building.  This is art people.

4:35 - Dr. Vaseegaran has successfully implanted a worm into the clones' mainframes!  Aishwarya Rai looks at him expectantly, like she can't wait to get into his shimmering leather pants.  Also, what is Rai even doing in this movie?  I thought she was supposed to be a Hollywood "It-Girl"?  She even had her own Barbie doll.  Now she's leering at some skunk striped robotics expert while a 100-foot tall robot snake rampages half of Mumbai.  She still has pretty eyes though.

5:00 -The military has trapped the Chitti clones in an electrified fence.  No problem!  Chittis, combine into form of... drill!  The mustachioed military men look on in horror.  At first I thought this shot was just more CGI, like an animator clicked CTRL+V to paste the same guy looking up in disbelief.  No, everyone just has a mustache... except for one guy!  See if you can find him, it's like Where's Waldo.

Hint: It's the guy without a mustache.

6:00 - The Chitti clones have now magneto-morphed into their final, and most imposing, form... the MECHA CHITTI!  Chitti hasn't even broken a sweat, and shows just how unafraid he is by casually leaning up against the side of a building...

Casual cool.

...then giving Dr. Vaseegaran the finger with one of his little clones!  Look closely and you can see the clone is also giving the finger.  I'm sure the director, who goes by the singular name Shankar, had a good chuckle about this in the editing bay. 

F You!

6:58 - The chase is on.  Dr. Vaseegaran and Aishwarya Rai flee in their tricked out bus with Mecha Chitti in hot pursuit.  Dr. Vaseegaran runs a de-magnetizing program on the captured clone... who I thought self-destructed in a previous sequence?  Then he puts the data in some sort of transmitter?  What the fuck is going on here?

7:50 - The most dramatic mouse click in movie history.  So apparently all that science was to shoot a transmitter into Mecha Chitti or something.  Anyway it's happening right now!  You can tell this is a really high tech bus because it has a wireless mouse.  Also, is that an iPod plugged in to the right of Dr. Vaseegaran?  Destroy a Mecha, download some Daler Mehndi... all in a day's work for our hero.

 
8:18 - The Mecha splits apart, and Dr. Vaseegaran thinks he's done it!  Only he forgot one thing... Chitti is equipped with Heelys!  Part shoe, part roller blades, 100% extreme as all hell.  And Chitti's Heelys are blazing fast.

Technology inspired by ten-year-old boys in suburban malls.

 
9:00 - Apparently the high-tech bus also has a giant magnet inside, and Chitti goes flying into it, captured.  Dr. Vaseegaran tickles Chitti's stomach and some sort of control panel pops out.  All of the robots are deactivated.  Sort of an anti-climactic ending to such a grandiosely envisioned scene.  Dr. Vaseegaran removes the villainous "red chip" and thankfully Chitti is deactivated.  Aishwarya Rai is relieved.

Phew.

The video cuts off here, but according to Wikipedia, Chitti's body is moved to a museum where he stays as a warning to students to adhere to Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics.  One student asks why the robot was deactivated... and Chitti's head comes to life, saying "I started to think."  The end.

I smell sequel!

God is doing a NU THANG.

Thursday video break. A young Michael Clancy doing the damn thing.  Embarrassing maybe, but he's now a lawyer living in Phoenix, so I'd say things worked out. 

Pretty Good Idea™ , vol. 4

Black markets are all the rage.  While there are obvious "bad" black markets across the world - prostitution, arms sales, counterfeit pharmaceuticals - there are also some "good" black markets (or at least ones that don't really cause any harm).  Think snakehead fish, illegal taxis, and software piracy.  Victimless crimes operated by everyday Americans just looking to break even.

The point of a black market is to circumvent legal statutes and to make a lot of money without paying taxes.  In recent years cities, and even the state, of California have tried to ban Happy Meals, plastic bags, shark fin soup and more.  But what do I think is the most profitable recently banned item in California?  100-watt light bulbs.

Diagram of a brilliant idea.

Apparently, anything higher than 72 watts is a danger to society, costing taxpayers billions of dollars every year and killing the planet.  By 2014, all incandescent light bulbs will be switched off and switched out for energy efficient LED, halogen or fluorescent bulbs.  But you say, so what?  Well I'll tell you. 

Incandescent bulbs are wonderfully bright and cheap (about a $1 for four versus $6 for a halogen set).  Somewhere, Thomas Edison is rolling over in his well-lit grave.  No longer will school children be able to read their books in bright, friendly workspaces.  Instead they'll be reading S.E. Hinton and Lois Lowry at desks that have the wattage of an interrogation room.

Your child's future workspace.

Well, when I heard about this... the proverbial light bulb went off over my head!  As 100-watt supplies dwindle, an enterprising soul could make a killing.  Here's how to do it.  Rent a U-Haul or drive your pick-up truck over the state lines to Nevada, Oregon or Arizona.  Places like Ashland, OR, Yuma, AZ, and Reno, NV are 100-watt hot beds! Then, hit up the local Costco for bulk 100-watt bulbs and load up said truck. 

When you are back safely in California, you put the word out on every street corner that you're in business.  The mark-up will be nominal, maybe a buck or two, but still enough to turn a tidy 100% profit.  And every parent in the state will be desperate for quality reading light for their little Aurora or Jeremiah.  Think you are a good parent?  Then embrace the black market.  Think of the children.

This week in Commercial Creepazoids. 5/3/11

There's an old assertion that pet owners look and act like their pets.  A lanky person would be drawn to a hound.  A musclebound person would be drawn to a bulldog.  A person who likes to give directions would get a border collie. 

Kenny Rogers and his dog Gary.

The same might be said for couples.  If you date/marry/live with someone long enough, you start to take on their facial expressions, dress, and personality.  But if this new McDonald's commercial is any indication, sometimes people that look exactly the same find each other.

And by look the same, I mean to say they both look like CREEPS.  Sorry for the terrible video quality, but apparently this is the ONLY video of this commercial on the entire Internet.  Maybe even McDonald's is embarrassed by it.  Usually, finding a commercial is no problem.  Companies are desperate to post things to their corporate YouTube page so they can say they embrace social media.  Not this time.

The premise of this commercial is that the creepy woman has all sorts of pet names for his creepy lover.  Names like "Mr. Snuggles" and "Puggle-Wuggle." Alas, the bushy-haired creep can't for the life of him think of some ridiculous name to call the woman in order to prove his unyielding love.  No, the fact that he probably paid for a delicious McDonald's lunch is not proof enough of his passion.  But lo!  The answer to his prayers are sitting right there in front of him... a muse in the form of a large-sized, 280 calorie, 69 grams of sugar-infused McDonald's Sweet Tea. "I love you too Sweet Tea... Pie!"  WHO WRITES THIS.

In my research for this piece, my Google results came up with the Yahoo Answers! query "How does McDonald's make its Sweet Tea so good?"  I didn't look at the answer because I already know.  It starts with fresh pekoe cut black tea, then simply sweetened to taste!  And by sweetened to taste, I mean they add 17 sugar packets to it, then mix it all up.

But to the specifics of this commercial.  Both of these bug-eyed, chubby cheeked jabronis are just plain creepy.  Especially the woman with the Prince Valiant haircut.  It wasn't a good look in the Middle Ages, and it's not a good look today. 

The Knights of the Round Table cut their own hair.

Don't look directly into her eyes.

Is the ad agency going for cute here?  It's not cute, it's annoying.  It's repulsive.  There is nothing worse than being cooed at by a bug faced person with chipmunk cheeks, that goes for man or woman.  You know what's cute?  Golden Retriever puppies.  A better commercial would have been a couple having a picnic in a sunny park somewhere while playing with their golden retriever puppy.  Then, suddenly, the puppy takes a sip of the guy's Sweet Tea!  Then the woman has an epiphany, "we'll name her Sweetie Pie!"

I'm not saying it's perfect, but a commercial without creeps and with puppies is better than none at all. 

Mission Accomplished... for real this time.

I need to take a moment to write about tonight's announcement that U.S. Navy Seals killed Osama Bin Laden.  I don't live in New York or D.C.  I don't know anyone personally that was a victim of 9/11.  I don't think I even know someone who knows someone that was a victim of 9/11.  I don't have any special insight, smarts or knowledge on the incident.  I just watched it on television like millions of other Americans, horrified and upset.