While this news article about higher gas prices is certainly topical and designed to anger people, I’m not at all concerned about paying $3.21 per gallon. No, what angered me is the use of the term “pocketbook.” That term is used quite often in the news media, primarily when discussing fuel prices and the attempts to raise the federal minimum wage, and it just ticks me off. Why can’t they just say “wallet” or even “purse” instead of using a very dated word?

My brother Mark has something of a creative flair, and it is on display in his most recent blog entry. Although he is a relative newcomer to both blogging and the insanity that is “Head-On,” he has quickly applied his humourous take to a potential new product from the makers of Head-On. A YouTube video can’t be far off…

Here are three more reasons that I will probably never grow a beard…

HEAD ON: apply directly to the forehead.
HEAD ON: apply directly to the forehead.
HEAD ON: apply directly to the forehead.

Annoying as hell? Sure. Pure cheese? Yeah. Effective? Uh…depends. The annoying-ness of the “Head On” commercials was actually discussed in-depth on Olbermann’s show last night, with an ad critic analyzing the production values, repetition, etc. Interesting: a Google search turns up this page, which displays only a cPanel (as of Friday at 5:53 am). Here’s the Google cache. Some more searching reveals that applying this product to your skin may be dangerous.

So: have any of you tried using this amazing product?

UPDATE: oops - forgot to link to the inevitable spoof videos at YouTube!

Most of you know that I am a life-long atheist. I reject all assertions that there is a Superior Being, or Supreme Being, or God, or Gods, or anything else of that nature (so to speak). No God, no Jesus, no Allah, no Zeus, no Loki, no Juno, whatever they happen to be called. However…this headline almost - ALMOST - makes me second-guess my lack of belief. Getting rid of Tina Fey is sure to improve the quality of SNL. Maybe there really is a God.

A friend of mine received an e-mail from a relative which claimed that:

REMINDER….16 days from today, all cell phone numbers are being released to telemarketing companies and you will start to receive sale calls. YOU WILL BE CHARGED FOR THESE CALLS! To prevent this, call the following number from your cell phone: . It is the National DO NOT CALL list. It will only take a minute of your time. It blocks your number for five (5) years.

Well, it certainly SOUNDS plausible, as most “forward this e-mail to everyone you know!” letters do. And there is some truth to it: you can indeed register your cell phone number with the National Do Not Call Registry. But there is also some fiction to this e-mail forward: the claim that cell phone numbers will be “released” to the telemarketing industry is simply not true. From the Do Not Call Registry website:

Yes, you may place your personal cell phone number on the National Do Not Call Registry. The registry has accepted cell phone numbers since itd for registrations in June 2003. There is no deadline to register a home or cell phone number on the Registry.

So the warning that you only have 16 days (or 31, or whatever) to register is simply bunk.

Complete, utter, and total idiots: those who believe that the number “666″ has any sort of significance in any context or capacity. And besides, today isn’t “6-6-6″ — at best, it’s 6-6-06, and that’s only if you assume that the calendar has been kept perfectly for centuries. At least it’s good to know that even “rapture-ready” believers can poke just a little fun at this number.

(ps - nifty graphic trick courtesy of Mandarin Design!)

I’m sure many of you already grind your teeth and wince whenever you hear the following phrases, but for those of you who haven’t yet learned to speak simply, here are a few tips:

Do not use the phrase “skill set” — just say “skills.”
Do not say “price point” — just say “price.”
Don’t try to get fancy by saying “thunderstorm activity” — just say “thunderstorms.”

As our friend over at Deliverance notes, “plain talk is easily understood.”

Over at my GreaterFalls site, I’m dealing with the issue of my daughter being sent home from school for having purple streaks in her hair. Not an isolated incident, apparently — there are several middle-schoolers each year who go through this. The argument from the school, of course, is that “un-natural” hair colors are (a) distracting, and (b) might be indicative of gang activity and/or membership. We might be headed to the School Board meeting on Monday evening to raise the issue, but in the meantime, I’d like to know if any of you folks have dealt with something like this in your community.

You know it, and I know it: “Saturday Night Live” is dead, for all intents & purposes. The reasons range from “Belushi died” to “Carvey left” to “Norm McDonald got fired,” but I think that it occurred roughly when Jimmy Fallon and Tina Fey were hired.
I’ve gamely tried about a dozen times during the last three or four years to sit through an episode and find something - anything - that caused me to laugh. Chuckle, even, or giggle. Nope. Nothing. The show has now reached the stage of actually causing pain. It’s not just the writing - that stuff falls flat, as witnessed by last weekend’s “O’Reilly Factor” spoof. It was just not funny. Taking an element of truth and insight, and then exaggerating it, well…that might get some laughs. The words issuing out of “O’Reilly’s” mouth were nothing even close to what he might say; sure, some of the mannerisms the actor employed were semi-accurate, but nothing that he said sounded remotely like what O’Reilly would say.

No, besides the writing, it’s the quality of the actors, and I use the term loosely. Tina Fey, and the shaggy-haired guy that made some stupid video that got uploaded on the internet, and Amy Poehler…these people aren’t actors. Maybe they are writers, maybe even comedians, but SNL is supposed to contain acting, despite the original “Not Ready For Prime Time” moniker. I mean, even when he was coked up, John Belushi could keep a straight face and actually ACT. And Lovitz, and Dunn, and Hartman, absolutely they could act. Hell, even Spade is capable of acting. Not the current crop, though…they muff lines, giggle during skits, and generally make a mess of everything. And I know it’s a cliche to say that SNL sucks, but boy, it really, really does now, and I don’t think that SNL will ever re-capture what made it hip and funny. The show has aimed too low, culturally and demographically, and will never recover.

BUT…there is one shining exception to the above: the “TV Funhouse” bits. Yes, the “Ace & Gary” stuff was overdone after about the second installment, but Smigel is amazing and is able to create side-splitting humor like SNL used to do. If you ever caught one of the 8 full-length episodes of “TV Funhouse” on Comedy Central a few years ago, you probably know what I mean. So hearing that April 29th will be an SNL episode devoted solely to “The Best of ‘TV Funhouse’” was a breath of fresh air. If NBC has any common sense, they’d scrap SNL and just give Smigel a blank check for that time slot.

Check out this ad in a local magazine for a shop called “The Root & Leaf.” Notice the bottom line — it says “Website Coming Soon!” Awww, fercryinoutloud… (more…)

So when I’m trying to move songs from my iTunes library (legally purchased) to my iPod Shuffle, how come a few of the songs have an exclamation point beside them and can’t seem to be copied to my iPod Shuffle? UPDATE: nope, I haven’t moved the songs - any other ideas…?