Snowstorms and Word Play

The Twin Cities were recently covered with 17+ inches of snow and now the East Coast just finished getting whitewashed by mother nature. Here are a variety of terms for large deposits of snow I have read or heard in the past few weeks:

• Snowmageddon
• Snowpocalypose
• SnOMG
• Snownami
• Snowgasma

Have you heard any others?

Attention all males and females!

Males are not better at math than you females! [Edit: 11/19/2010]

Discussion.

Article.

That is all.

The Poopie List

This comes from a time before computers were a part of our everyday lives, a time when chain letters still made the rounds, a time when everyone, not just old ladies, clipped newspaper articles and shared them with friends.

I present to you The Poopie List! I received The Poopie List from my grandmother 15-20 years ago. You’ll shortly find out that my grandmother has a dirty and different sense of humor. Enjoy!

The Poopie List

• Ghost Poop: The kind where you feel the poopie coming out, but there’s no poopie in the toilet.
• Clean Poopie: The kind where you poopie it out, see it in the toilet, but there;s nothing on the toilet paper.
• Wet Poopie: The kind where you wipe your butt 50 times and it still feels unwiped, so you put some toilet paper between your butt and your underwear so you don’t ruin them with a stain.
• Second-Wave Poopie: THis happens when you’re done poopie-ing and you’ve pulled your pants up to your knees, then you realize you have to poopie some more.
• Pop-A-Vein-In-Your-Forehead Poopie: The kind where you strain too much to get it out, you practically have a stroke.
• Lincoln Log Poopie: The kind of poopie that’s so huge you’re afraid to flush it down the toilet without first breaking it into little pieces with the toilet brush.
• Gassy Poopie: It’s so noisy, everyone within earshot is giggling.
• Drinker Poopie: The kind of poopie you have the morning after a long night of drinking . It’s most noticeable trait is the skid marks at the bottom of the toilet.
• Corn Poopie: (self-explanatory)
• Gee-I-Wish-I-Could-Poopie Poopie: The kind where you want to poopie, but all you can do is sit on the toilet and fart a few times.
• Spinal Tap Poopie: That’s where it hurts so badly coming out you’d swear it was leaving sideways.
• Wet Cheeks Poopie: (The Power Dump) The kind that comes out of your butt so fast, your butt cheeks get splashed with water.
• Liquid Poopie: The kind where yellowish-brown liquid shoots out of your butt and splashes all over the toilet bowl.
• Mexican Poopie: It smells so bad your nose burns.
• Upper Class Poopie: The kind of poopie that doesn’t smell.
• The Surprise Poopie: You’re not even at the toilet, because you are about to fart, but oops! It’s poopie!
• The Dangling Poopie: The poopie refuses to drop into the toilet, even though you’re done poppin-ing it. You just pray that a shake or two will cut it loose.

Hidden Gem: Riesen Candy

I think the first time I had a piece of Riesen candy was yesterday and let me tell you something, “It was good!”

I’m not sure why it isn’t a more popular candy, so I decided to do some research on the old interwebs.

It was only introduced to the U.S. in 1991. That partially explains why it isn’t as popular as I think it should be. Plus, it orginated in Germany and everyone knows that one should be skeptical of anything from Europe;)

Wikipedia also mentions the “Riesen for the Post-Season Hot Chocolate.” “Riesen for the Post-Season Hot Chocolate” was first brewed in Boston, Massachusetts during the winter of 2007 as a way to stay warm and celebrate the AFC champion New England Patriots. The drink is prepared by melting the candies over medium heat in a small saucepan, adding one cup of milk per candy. Sprinkle cinnamon or nutmeg to taste. For a little extra kick to the holidays, pour one shot of Kahlúa liqueur per cup.

I know what I’ll be making during the first snowfall of the year.

Do you have a favorite candy that you think should be more popular or can never find? Share the sweet love.

Thoughts on Healthcare and the Reform of It

It looks like we are going to get some sort of healthcare reform in the not too distant future. It’s not going to be exactly what anybody wants, but hopefully we will end up being at least a little bit closer to universal/single payer coverage.

Before we get into it I’d like you to know where I stand. I’m left pretty leaning, but am finding myself drifting towards the left center on some issues. I am for universal and/or single payer healthcare. I have concerns about the cost of it and how efficiently the government can manage a nationwide healthcare system, but I do not think these are reasons to not provide healthcare for all. I believe healthcare is a human right and that everyone should have access to it; citizen, legal resident, and everyone else who falls into a different category.

Pros from my Perspective:
1) Small businesses provide over half of all private sector jobs, and play a major roll in our local, regional, and national economies. They have a terrible time staying competitive with big business and part of the problem is compensation of employees and employee retention. Health insurance is very expensive for small business and I often hear small business owners say they have to decide between hiring or firing employees or paying for health insurance. If small businesses are such an integral part of our economy I would think universal care would be very beneficial to them and the economy on all levels. It would allow those small businesses that provide healthcare to focus those resources spent on healthcare elsewhere and it would reduce the number of employees that leave small business positions because of a lack of healthcare. I don’t see how small businesses can be against healthcare reform. I’m sure there are some reasons and I would love to hear them but I don’t think I’ll agree with many of them.

2) For much of the 20th century large businesses have employed a decent chunk of the population. I think it is possible that this percentage has been shrinking over the past ten years and if it has not I think it will begin to in the very near future. With the advent of the internet, cheap, portable, powerful  computers, and many other reasonably priced technologies it is becoming easier than ever to be self employed and to turn that self employment into a small business. I would venture to guess that there are many people in this fine country with ideas, good and bad, for self employment or a small business and one of the things keeping them from making the jump is lack of healthcare coverage. Yes there is COBRA, but it is often prohibitively expensive and only lasts for a finit amount of time. If we truly want to be the country of the American Dream why not provide healthcare coverage to all to level the playing field and allow those without as many resources to have one less reason to not put their business plan into action.

3) Job Creation. How many baby boomers and putting off retirement until they reach medicare age because they do not want to pay for private insurance or COBRA or are worried about getting insurance after COBRA runs out? I bet a decent number of baby boomers would retire, at least partially retire anyways, if they had access to affordable healthcare. It is even possible that this would save businesses money. They would shed many older workers who earn more money and these workers would, at some point, have to be replaced with younger ones who make less money. These younger workers are not going to be as efficient as the baby boomers they are replacing, so it is possible that it would be a wash.

4) Pros from Google.

5) Google on dumb reasons to be against healthcare reform.

Cons from my Perspective:
1) An article on the top ten myths of American healthcare. My step-dad, who is relatively conservative sent this to me. I haven’t had a chance to take a very close look at it, maybe some of you will.

A few things to note about The Pacific Research Institute is a free market, read conservative, think tank whose purpose is to promote “the principles of individual freedom and personal responsibility.” One should always know where or who one is getting information and what, if any, end goals the organization may have. I think PRI gets mentioned on MPR and NPR from time to time, but it is possible that it is a different PRI. There may be a blog post in the future on the “free market” Pacific Research Institute think tank.

2) Expense. It’s going to be expensive, but that in and of itself deter me from thinking that healthcare for all should be a given. It doesn’t seem that the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Budget_Office or OMB can agree on whether healthcare reform can actually save the country. From my West Wing political education I know that national budget projections are not very accurate past ten years, so there’s that as well.

3) Government Inefficiency. Government is generally inefficient, it just is. I think the main reason is is the lack of competition. One of the beautiful things about capitalism and the free market is how efficiently resources can be allocated. Again, this should not kill healthcare reform, but it is something that needs to be taken into consideration and kept an eye on.

4) Cons from Google and the washington post.

5) Google on dumb reasons to be for healthcare reform.

Thoughts:
1) Americans seem to think that you should not be given anything for “free”, that you should have to work for and earn anything that you want, and that everyone should be able to pull themselves up by their bootstraps. This way of thinking has been very beneficial to many aspects of the development of our nation but it does have some negatives and I think our lack of universal healthcare is one of them. It reminds me of a scene in Runaway Jury where two jurors, John Cusack and an ex-military guy, are arguing about whether the victim of, I think, school gun violence should be compensated by the gun manufacturer. It comes out that the ex-military character thinks that the victim should be not be compensated because he, the juror, has had quite a hard life in the military and seen some really shitty things happen to his military buddies and none of them were compensated for their tough luck, so why should another victim of gun violence be compensated. This is a bit of a tangent, but I think this mind set, that one should have to work for and earn everything even healthcare, is pretty persistant in the U.S. and I don’t understand it, at least not when it comes to the healthcare debate.

2) Anit-choice advocates. I really cannot stand anti-choice activists and their insistence that federal dollars not go towards any abortions. This tactic is just one of many that is being used to try to derail healthcare reform. I believe there is a federal law on the books that already states that federal money cannot subsidize abortions so there insistence on similar wording in the healthcare reform legislation is redundant. I also don’t understand the federal law that states this because if I am not mistaken a variety of abortions have been legal since 1973. I do not care when you think life begins and I do not care if you think you are saving many lives by being anit-choice, you should not make decisions for others period. Rant over.

3) There are powers to be that will lose a lot of money if healthcare reform is passed and will continue lose more and more money as we, hopefully, move closer and closer to unviersal healthcare. I am pretty sure these powers to be are quite involved, directly and indirectly, with many of the movements that are against healthcare reform.

Related Bumper Stickers:
1) Focus on your own F-ing Family!

2) If you can’t trust a woman with a choice, how can you trust her with a child?

3) And many more for and against (The against bumper stickers don’t seem to be that accurate.) healthcare reform.

Questions:
1) Where do you stand on healthcare reform? What are your concerns?

2) Am I missing any pros or cons? What are some of the pros and cons from your prospective?

I’d love to hear from you and what you think on this issue. Please share your thoughts.

Possible Racist, Down on His Luck, Oil Field Worker

I was sitting in the observation car and a gentleman with a lovely neck tattoo sits down next to me and starts shatting away. I’m trying to figure out how to leave or at least show him that I am not that interested in convesation and would rather read my free, weekly Twin Cities papers or nerd it up with my actuary studies.

A few things I learned about my fellow traveler.

1) He is coming from Dickinson, ND.

2) He grew up in Detroit, MI and his fmaily owned multiple body shops.

3) He’s spent the past 20 year living on the East Coast of Florida 30 miles south of where the space shuttle launches from working on cars.

4) He left FL because of some minor marital troubles and his ex-wife had family in Dickinson.

5) For the past two years or so he has been a pipe fitter in the oil fields in western North Dakota.

6) His wife recently, within the past year or so, cheated on him with a college student and his she teaches Business Ethics. How ironic.

7) He has never done drugs and he no longer drinks alcohol.

8) He was injured by a coworker on drugs in November. He has been on disability since then and is currently going to physical therapy, but is collecting a disability check to basically sit at home.

9) Some of his drug addict coworkers asked him to sell his pain medication, but he decided he did not want any major pain medication because it is too addictive.

10) He hates not doing anything and getting paid for it.

11) He has a daughter that has his ex-wife’s brains and his attitude who recently graduated from a community colege in Florida and is doing forensic science for a sheriff in FL.

12) His twleve year old son also has his ex-wife’s brains and his attitude.

13) He is headed back to Detroit for his mother’s and best friend’s funeral.

14) His mother died of a heart attack.

15) His best friend was shot in the back of the head by a couple of, he. looks around to make sure not too many people are listening, n-words. They could have just taken the car without having to kill him. The link at least adds some legitimacy to his story, though it is a bit old, maybe he’s just a talker. I have no idea.

16) He’s going to buy a new wrecked car, fix it up in his family’s shop, drive it back to Dickinson.

17) He’s got a sweet neck tattoo of someone’s initials.

18) He was going to bring his 24-year old girl friend back home , but something came up.

19) The Amtrak employees have offered the worst service he has ever experienced. He state dhe would offer the same level of service if he was making $8 an hour.

I’ve been trying to figure out if this guy is trying to make a connection with me and hit me up for some money or if he is just a talker.

Tangent:
I had lunch on the train with Adam Weber’s mom. She seemed like a nice enough lady. I asked her what her son thought about the job that Brewster has been doing. She replied by saying that her son had asked her not to say anything or comment on football matters and that he didn’t really talk to her about that stuff anyways. Smart, but still annoying not to hear an insider’s opinion of the coach. She mentioned that Adam has had 3 offensive coordinator’s in 3 years. That’s not an easy adjustment for anyone to make. Let’s hope Weber’s best season is yet to come.

Watch Out, The 2010 Census is Coming!

Grab your guns, draw the shades, and lock your doors the 2010 Census is coming and it wants to be your Big Brother

The 2010 Census is Coming Warning Letter:

I received the following in the mail a few days ago:

2010 Census Warning Letter

My first thought upon reading the letter was, “This is ridiculous, a leter warning me that I will get Census information in a week!” Upon further thought and a little light interwebs reading it seems that it actually serves a purpose and will hopefully be cost effective. The goal is to reduce the number of people that do not return their Census forms, thus reducing the number of people that are required to go to physical addresses and follow up on Census forms that were not returned. Check out some of the comments regarding this at newsvine.com.

Here’s Bob Collins’ take on the Census warning letter.

And here’s the Census Plan Synopsis. It talks about the advance warning letter, but with a quick look over I didn’t find anything specific on the cost effectiveness of the letter.

Michele Bachmann and the Census:

Because everyone needs to laugh a bit check out Michele Bachmann on the 2010 Census.

I won’t try to hide the fact that I think Michele Bachmann is Crazy with a capital C. I was going to link to a few articles about her thoughts on the Census, but the Google search does it justice just by itself. Wikipedia is by no means perfect, but it is relatively neutral in how it posts information. Looking at the work Bachmann has done in Congress is just ridiculous, laughable, and scary. I’m embarrassed that she is representing Minnesota on the national stage. Check out what Google thinks of Michele Bachmann and Michelle Bachmann. I find it quite funny that one of the search terms that shows up when her name is spelled incorrectly, Michelle, is, “is an idiot.”

The Strib, the Census, and Minnesota:

Check out the full article here.

Some excerpts from the article:

Nowhere is anxiety [for Census workers] more acute than in Minnesota, where failure to account for as few as 1,000 people could mean the surrender of a seat in Congress for the first time in decades.

Minnesota is an unusual place for a debate about the census, demographers say, because it’s typically one of the most reliable participants. State Demographer Tom Gillaspy is trying to rally audiences to “beat Iowa” by posting the nation’s highest voluntary response rate. The two states tied for that distinction in 2000, the most recent count.

Along with the potential loss of a congressional seat, there are other high-stakes issues: Roughly $7 billion in federal money flowing to the state annually — more than $1,300 per person — is tied to census findings, according to the Metropolitan Council.

The pushback was vivid one recent day as Mark Ritchie, Minnesota’s secretary of state… was addressing students and professors at a college in St. Paul.

With a sly smile, without mentioning names, he talked about the “black helicopter crowd,” the far-right faction openly questioning the census. How ironic, he suggested, that the titans of American capitalism such as Target Corp. rely on the census for their most important decisions.

… a student caught Ritchie off guard… “So you’re saying,” the young man said, “that big corporations use this data to know where to go to crowd out small family businesses.” A valid point and supports those who claim that much of the information that the Census collects is unecessary and increases the Big Brother aspects of government.

Faced with such pushback, Census Bureau chief Robert Groves noted in a recent blog entry that Thomas Jefferson directed the first census in 1790. And James Madison suggested most of the questions.

“Jefferson himself wanted more than just a headcount,” said Steve Ruggles, director of the Minnesota Population Center. “It’s true the Constitution doesn’t mandate the collection of other information — but all the Founding Fathers agreed on that,” and it’s been done that way ever since.

Census data gets used to prove points by folks on all sides. Ruggles, for example, is using it to work with the New York Times on a research project on family issues throughout U.S. history. It will trace trends that some social conservatives deplore, such as rising rates of young children without both parents present, and a trend toward more unmarried cohabitation.

“A major part of my role in state government,” Gillaspy said, “and a huge role for the census, is to raise the floor for these debates. You’re welcome to your opinions, but facts are facts. We need a basic floor of facts, and then people can respond to those differently.”

… One thing Gillaspy is trying to confront is people’s reluctance to admit that they have more people in their home than a city, township or a landlord allows.

“Please report that even so,” Gillaspy said. “That individual level of data is never released” — or not for the better part of a century. “But we do need to know how common that’s becoming, because that’s how programs and work gets started to prevent or resolve that issue.”

“Any baby born on April 1 or before should be counted. Please, people, make sure those babies are counted,” Gillaspy said. … And if people are expecting real soon, please hurry up!”

Closing Thoughts:

I don’t know why people are getting so worked up about the Census. We’ve been doing it for well over one hundred years and it provides much needed information on the people that make up our nation. There should be concern over possible inappropiate and illegal government use of the the collected data, but the Census provides data that is used by many organizations. Last, but not least, Michele Bachmann is definitely Crazy.  

A Lesson in Manners at the Saint Paul Breadsmith

Day: March 7th, 2010
Time: approximately 10:45
Location: Saint Paul Breadsmith, Snelling Ave and Grand Ave

After putting in a little Sunday morning studying at Cahoots I decided to walk down to Snelling Ave to get some fresh baked bread from Breadsmith. After waiting for a minute or two a gentleman in his early sixties wearing a red winter jacket walks in and either doesn’t see me and the two patrons in front of me who have been patiently waiting for fresh baked, artisan bread and pastries or he decides to ignore us and try to get his goods before we get ours. Sizing him up as we are all waiting I am trying to figure if he really didn’t see us and how likely it is that he is going to bolt for the first open cashier. At the same I’m trying to decide if I am going to say anything to him if he does in fact decide to be a punk knowingly or not.

The next cashier opens up and says, “I can help who’s next in line.”

The “gentleman” in the red coat walks forward and as he is pulling out his wallet I say, “Sir, excuse me sir, I believe the two ladies and myself were here before you.” He said something about not realizing there was a line and in my head I thought to myself, “Yeah, everyone that was here before you is just chilling, not waiting to place an order or anything. You know we live in a society right and there are rules in a society that help prevent it from spiraling into chaos, you know that right?”

The cashier shrugs her shoulders and says apologetically, “I don’t know who was first.” He looked a bit flustered and taken aback, but he let the woman two spots ahead of me in line go as well as the woman directly in front me. I don’t blame the cashier for her response. I would have said the same thing if I was in her position and didn’t know who was first.

The man in the red coat and I never ad yet to make direct eye contact and never really did through the whole ordeal. I was unsure if he was going to let me go before him, even though I was absolutely sure that he came in after I did. As luck would have it, the cashier that opened next was closer to me so we did not have to fight to the death to see who would go next.

As I am getting my the bread the women who was directly in front of me says, “Thanks.”

I say, “No problem.” and mention something about working on standing up for myself.

Just standing up for myself and two other random people, one with two kids running around was enough to make my day. Her thank you made it that much better.

As I am leaving I see that the man in the red coat is leaving driectly in front of me. So not only did evryone get to go in the correct order, but the man in the red coat still got out before me. I slow down a bit not wanting to have another awkward interaction and feeling a little bit bad about the entire situation, even though I know I am 100% in the right. I end up heading the same way down the sidewalk as him and as he is getting into his vehicle he says something along the lines of, ” I’d appreciate it if you weren’t so rude next time.”

I was a bit surprised by this, but not wanting to escalate the the situation over such a minor verbal exchange I say, “I’m sorry, I wasn’t trying to be rude.”

He replied back, “Well it came off that way.” I say again that I wasn’t trying to be rude, he then gets into his suv, and we both go on our merry ways.

As I am walking down Snelling Ave towards Selby I am going over the brief interaction in my head. As I think about it more and more I can’t believe the guy had the gall to ask me not to be so rude. I will admit that I often have volume control issues. I think this is in part due to my preception that I don’t get heard. It’s also due to the fact that I was a soccer goalkeeper and spent much of each game yelling quite loudly at various teammates. I don’t disagree with the man in the red coat that I may have come off as rude and startled him, at least from his point of view, but my lack of suaveness does not mean that I was actually being rude. I would argue that that he was surprised by me speaking up and not really sure how to react in the situation. Not wanting or not thinking to look at his own actions he assumed or at least stated that I was being rude. He also does this when nobody else is around, which may have been a coincidence. He did wait until we were half a block from the store, but he may not have even known I was behind him.

Now a joke to help me make a joke. This joke uses stereotypes and I think it’s funny. If you don’t, well that’s just tough $hit.
There are three young boys eating their lunch in the elementary school cafeteria. It’s a few weeks before x-mas [I’m not a big Christ fan so I generally x him out;)] and as young children tend to do they are talking rather excitedly about what they want for x-mas and what they think they are getting.

The first boy, an African-American says, “I’m getting a bike! It’s gonna be so awesome!”

The other two reply, “No way, how do you know you’re getting a bike?”

The first boy replies, “I was playing hide-n-seek with my sister and I saw it in the basement behind the washer.”

The second boy, a Puerto Rican, says, “Unbelievable, I’m getting a bike too!”

The first boy says, “Awesome, we can go riding together all over the place! But, how do you know you are getting a bike?”

The second boy replies, “My mom asked me to get x-mas decorations from the attic and I saw a brand new schwin under a sheet! It’s got to be for me!”

The third boy, an Italian lad, can’t believe his ears and exclaims, “I’m getting a bike too!”

The first two boys, nearly shouting now, say in unison, “How do you know you’re getting a bike?”

The third boy so excited now and almost tripping over his words says, “Well, I told my dad a few days ago that I wanted a bike for x-mas and he said [in a thick Italian accent], “Yeah, you’ll get a bike for x-mas! (Now grabbing his craotch) I’ve got your bike right here!”

Thanks to my good friend JB for the joke. He’s from Strong Island and tells it much better than I’ll ever be able to.

To the man in the red coat I say in a thick Italian accent, “I’ve got your rudeness right here!”

What do you think?
Do you have a similar story? Share it here. How would you have reacted in a similar situation? What do you think about my reaction to the man in the red coat? Agree or Disagree, I want to hear what you have to say.

Moral of the Story:
Be aware of your surroundings.

To the Saint Paul Breadsmith:
You’re lack of any sort of crowd control is extremely annoying, especially given that there are two entrances to your building, and allows for situations like that detailed above to happen much more frequently than they actual should. I think you should do something about it and I will be forwarding this post your way and will eagerly await your response.

Reflection:
I don’t consider myself to be quick with words and this often leads to me thinking of things to say long after I wish I would have said them. If this situation were to happen again, I would do pretty much the same thing until he said something to me outside the store. Once he said something I think I would have walked towards him slightly menacingly, but not all the way up to him, and ask him very politely if he was aware that there were three people waiting in front of him, regardless of the fact that there “appeared” to be no line. I then would have asked him if he thought that whoever was quickest or sneakiest should be served first or if there should be some sort of civilized order to the whole thing. Then, I would have punched him in the face. That’s not what I would have done but it’s fun to think about doing stuff like that.

Things to improve upon in my writing:
My use of tense, mostly past and present, but I just don’t care that much right now.

Guest Post I: The Dumbest Commercial I’ve Ever Seen

Jake is a graduate student at the University of Minnesota. He graduated from Macalester in 2004. Jake and Tyler first met each other in the fall of 2000 at Macalester, and have since been housemates, roommates, playmates, and occasional lovers.

(Note: All links besides the video were provided by Tyler.)

As a mass communications graduate student, I pay an inordinate amount of attention to media. I realize that is not the way most people operate. In my advertising class, one of the themes we continually stress is the difficulty of breaking through media clutter and getting people to actually pay attention to an advertisement. We watch TV while playing on our laptops, listening to music, pouring ourselves another Beam on the rocks in a futile attempt to forget memories that will last a lifetime, and generally doing things orthogonal to any sort of meaningful attention being paid to our happy glowing friends. Nevertheless, even a passing glance at a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial is enough to realize that these commercials are the dumbest, most asinine commercials in the world. They appeal to the lowest possible denominator of human intelligence. I honestly believe that if you genuinely enjoy Buffalo Wild Wings commercials, there is no way we could ever be friends. I consider it a bigger indictment on your character than being a Republican, an Evangelist, or a convicted felon.

While there are a number of retarded Buffalo Wild Wings commercials I could choose from, for me, one stands out above the rest. It involves a basketball game, some very ignorant fans, and of course, the requisite shot to the balls sequence. Let’s take a look:

If this is your first time watching the commercial, your reaction is probably somewhere between ‘neutral’ and ‘generally annoyed’. At least I hope it is. In hopes of enlightening you about the idiocy of the commercial (although most likely just adding strength to your long-standing assessment that I am, in fact, the exhibitor of the aforementioned idiocy), I’m going to break it down second by second. Note that in the youtube clip, the commercial starts at second four.

Second four: The commercial starts harmlessly enough. New York (playing Boston) ties the game on a slam dunk with six seconds left.

Second five: The commercial cuts to a Buffalo Wild Wings, frequented by a number of both Boston and New York fans. Inexplicably though, they’re all ecstatically cheering and clapping. Why in God’s name would the Boston fans be clapping and cheering, when their team just got violently dunked on by their arch-rivals to tie the game with six seconds left? How retarded do you have to be to break into joyous applause when your team has just blown a game? Unless of course you’re a Timberwolves fan, and your team is intentionally losing to try and get a higher draft pick.

Second eight: The shot then cuts to two men laughing and holding each other in a semi-homoerotic pose. One is a New York fan, one a Boston fan. The Boston fan turns to the New York fan and yells out exuberantly “Man, I wish this game would never end!” So let me get this straight, you ass clown: Your team has just given up a lead and potentially blown what would seem to be a big win (given that the bar is packed with fans who are all cheering wildly, albeit naively, for their teams, we can safely assume this is a big game), and you happily turn to your friend to declare that you wish the game would never end? ARE YOU THE DUMBEST Mother F***** ALIVE?

Second twelve: The bartender is commanded to send the game to overtime, by an equally moronic Boston fan. So, your team has the ball in a tie game with six seconds left, and your request is for the game to go into overtime? Either you have an uncanny ability to predict when your team will commit an unlikely turnover and lose the game in regulation, or your brain is the size of a walnut. If you’re eating at Buffalo Wild Wings, I’m going to safely assume the latter.

Second fifteen: The bartender somehow possesses the ability to alter the outcome of professional basketball games. Hey, I didn’t know Tim Donaghy worked at Buffalo Wild Wings? ZING!

Second twenty-three: A camera man at the game, after receiving a page from Donaghy, flashes a bright light that blinds a Boston player who was about to score on a breakaway and win the game. Seems completely logical. Of course, one might question whether perhaps there might be some ramifications to a camera man, directly under the basket, blinding a player on national TV? Was he removed from the stadium? Was he arrested? Did he get immediately pummeled by a hoard of angry Boston players? No. The game just went on as normal, evidenced by the fact that he makes another appearance (this time sitting at center court), seconds later. So his only punishment for potentially permanently blinding a player and costing his team the game is to be moved from under the basket to center court. Sure, why not.

Next, it is a bit strange that, off an inbounds play, there is not a New York player within 30 feet of the soon-to-be-blinded-so-dip-&%!#-s-at-Buffalo-Wild-Wings-can-drink-another-Miller-Lite Boston player. Somehow, in a tie game, New York allows Boston to run unscathed down the court on a breakaway to seemingly win the game. Alright.

Finally, Donaghy somehow already knows that Boston will get this unmolested breakaway, as he is supremely confident his page to the cameraman will work. Wait a second, BARTENDERS AT BUFFALO WILD WINGS CAN SEE INTO THE FUTURE?!? HOLY SHIT!

Second twenty-five: More wild Boston applause, after their player just blew a sure victory by getting blinded and running head first into the base of the basket. I mean, if you’re not going to cheer at that, when are you going to cheer?

Second thirty: Boston AGAIN is within seconds of potentially winning, possessing the ball with just a few seconds left. Somehow, I have this strange feeling an unlikely turn of events is going to occur preventing them from winning the game. And sure enough, I was right! The aforementioned camera man has moved to center court, near the Boston mascot. With Boston holding the ball as time runs down, the whole crowd is on their feet cheering, except for the mascot, who has decided the final seconds of a tie game in overtime seems like a good time to fire t-shirts into the crowd. Unfortunately, he too gets blinded by that son of a b**** cameraman, and (amazingly!) turns toward the court and fires a t-shirt that hits a Boston player about to catch a pass squarely in the nuts. What are the odds!!! Of course, in the ultimate irony for the unfortunate t-shirt to the nuts victim, you’ll notice that the clock has struck zero as the basketball is being delivered to him. Even if he hadn’t gotten hit in the junk, his shot wouldn’t have counted. That poor team just can’t catch a break!

Second thirty-three: The Buffalo Wild Wings logo is shown, along with their phrase: “you have to be here.” Well, next time I want to watch my team blow numerous opportunities to win a game, see one of my team’s players get permanently blinded and another be stripped of the ability to have children, and witness a psychic, evil bartender orchestrate the entire scenario with the touch of a button, I’ll be there.

Tyler again:
Do you have a favorite commercial or one you wonder how it ever made it out of the creative meeting? Find a link if you can and post it in the comments.

Finding the Answer to a Missing Value Multiplication Problem is just…

While standing in the customer service line waiting to return a few baby related items at the Midway Target last night a young lady walked up to the counter and asked, “Do you have a calculator?” I, being the snoop that I am, thought that was a slightly curious question.

One of the two customer service workers replied, “I think we do.” After looking around for a minute or two with no luck I decided to offer the services of my mathematical training or cellphone.

I asked, “Do you need to take the calculator or do you just need to calculate something quick?”

She replied, “I need to figure out how many times 64 cents goes into $15.86!”

Not having that finely tuned mathematical skills, I pulled out my cellphone and confirmed the values she had stated, not wanting to give her the wrong answer. I could have just kept adding 64 cents up until I got close to $15.86, but being the mathematical machine that I am I dropped some knowledge on this fine specimen of the opposite sex and divided 15.86 by .64 to get 24.78125. I replied, “24 will get you as close as you can get without out going over.” She thanked me and went on her way.

So we have:

Finding the answer to the missing value multiplication problem
.64 * x = 15.68
is just a sneaky way of stating the division problem.
15.68 / .64 = x

To be fair she seemed to not be all there and whoever she was with at Target was using an electric cart and we all know what that means… well, actually no we don’t. At least she had the sense and knowledge to seek out help to get her question answered.

I do wish I would have asked her why she needed the answer. I can only assume that there was something she really liked that cost 64 cents and she had $15.86 saved up. Hopefully it was a non-taxable item or she had taken the tax into account in the 64 cent price. We may never know.