Ace has inspired me to add someone totally new and different to the mix. Someone totally unexpected and, perhaps, waaay too nice to be in this business we call blog.
I’d like to solve the puzzle, please.
Thanks, Ace.
Who’d have thunk it?
This story would be criticized for portraying homosexuals as stereotypical, well…let’s just put it the way that they did in Clueless…“a cake-boy, a Streisand-ticket-holdin’, Oscar-Wilde-readin’ friend of Dorothy”, if it weren’t for the fact that it appeared in The Washington Post.
Let Tony Blankley run something like that, and he’d be skewered for mocking the plight of the oppressed.
It’s a long article, but worth reading, if not for the humor alone.
By the way…what is it with tolerating a police officer’s taping over of his tag in order to avoid photo-radar detection?
Leave it to Rankin Rob to bust me if I get lazy in my writing.
To clarify…
I do love British humor, as evidenced by my recent post wherein I stated my intention to travel to N.Y. for the purpose of seeing Monty Python on Broadway.
I do not think that it does so well when ‘Americanized’.
As for sitcoms, I don’t care for ‘The Office’, and as for my sitcom preference…as a comparison to this particular sitcom…I prefer Seinfeld, That 70’s Show and Scrubs.
I apologize for any confusion that may have been created by my previous post.
Last night, after watching months of advertising, I finally saw NBC’s new show, ‘The Office’. Expecting it to be similar to one of my favorite movies ‘Office Space’, I was surprised to find that it was obnoxious, bordering on verbal-slapstick, and yet, I continued to watch, as I assumed that it would grow on me. It didn’t.
Today, while surfing through the channels, I saw a blip at the bottom of the screen, ‘The Office’, and knowing that I was nowhere near the NBC channel, I went back to take a look. It was the BBC. And, I now know that, not only is the American version based upon the BBC hit, it is actually a verbatim recitation of it.
Frankly, I don’t particularly care for the British version either, but at least it is an original.
When will we learn? Hasn’t this been tried in the past? Does anyone remember ‘Coupling’?
While American comedy may translate well overseas, the same cannot be said of British comedy. (Well, except for Benny Hill, which was really just a raucus type of ‘Hee Haw’.) And, Mr. Bean? Annoying.
I find it interesting, the ‘googles’ and ‘yahoos’ that send folks my way.
This jackass must have been a bit disappointed to perform a search for ‘little young naked boys pics ‘, and subsequently find himself here, and perhaps, a bit surprised to find himself here.
Geez.
I hope I didn’t offend the prick.
Sometimes you see an advertisement that is so stupid, that you fail to understand how in the hell the ad agency was able to offload that crap on the customer. Such was the case with a certain series of commercials, aired by Quiznos Subs. Perhaps, you remember them… In the commercials, dancing rodents were sing-songing “Quiznos has been good to me”.
Now.
I understand that, sometimes, the more ridiculous a commercial, the easier it is to remember. I know that memorable ads sell product. And, I understand the old adage, ‘all publicity is good publicity.’
Yet…
Is it possible that I am the only one to have recognized the err in having rats promoting a food product?
Of course not.
So, I try to imagine: The Quiznos folks are sitting around a big table, whilst the ad guy is trying to plug his idea (certainly, several were rendered, as no one would ever walk into a presentation with only one), and the bright fellas at Quiznos chose THIS idea. “Singing rats! It’s brilliant! Customers will be singing our theme song in no time! These rats will be bigger than Clara Peller!”
Now.
Back in the old days, when we actually had to write a letter by hand, or worse, drop it in the mailbox, I wouldn’t have bothered to question them. But, in the age of email, it is just oh-so easy to push the buttons. I wrote, and asked them a simple question…”When, exactly, was it, that Quiznos was good to the rats? More to the point, in exactly which location were the rats treated well, because I will take great pains to avoid it.”
Funny…I’ve never seen the ad since.
Of course, now, we have this.
Damn. I sure do miss those singing rats.
I’m sick to death of hearing about how our judicial/legislative system is bigger and more important than any “one individual injustice”.
Really?
So, what if that “one individual injustice” were your son or daughter?
So, just stop with the ‘I grasp the subtle nuances of the jeopardizing of our system in a way that you other, mere bloggers, cannot begin to understand’ crap.
I call bullshit!
You know that feeling, when you go to an A.A. meeting, or a pawn shop, or the tween movie section of your local video store…and you run into someone you know?
The dread?
The unspoken, “I won’t tell if you won’t”?
No? Well, me either.
But, you can imagine my horror when I ran into her, here.
Never saw that coming…
Is there anyone out there who can tell me WHAT THE HELL this is?
Oh, and by the way…you’re traded there too!
UPDATE: Who is this Adam Oney; he who claims to own 80% of my ass?!
Exactly, how much do think Michael Schiavo will make off of the book rights?
He will write a book, won’t he?
This is, by far, the best, and most informative site I’ve seen..bar none.
There’s no way that you can watch those videos and claim that this woman is unresponsive.
Please, go there.
See for yourself.
I live just a mile from downtown Jacksonville, in a little neighborhood that most in town don’t even know exists. Our little neighborhood, St. Nicholas Park, is just one of several tiny communities that make up the general area of St. Nicholas. Our homes were built around the time of the great war, when shipbuilding was a booming industry. Families located to our neighborhoods, and lived in our modest homes, and went to work to the sound of a whistle each morning.
Our neighborhoods are the type where families raise their children, and then their children buy a house next door, and raise their own children. On the weekends, our streets are so quiet, that once, I held a yard sale, and only twelve cars came by…half of which were residents. There are, that I know of, at least four families on my street, mine being one of them, that feed and care for the stray cats, and everyone knows “Sabrina”, the lumbering sweetheart of a dog down the street.
I often tell people that it’s something akin to Mayberry, or at least as close as you can get in a big city these days.
In our quiet piece of Mayberry, we even have our own little service station. Not a ‘gas’ station, but an actual service station. Guy’s Shell Station not only sells gas, it is one of the rare, remaining, full service stations in town. They offer the conveniences that we’ve all come to expect; self-serv pumps, pay-at-the-pump, etc…, but they also offer (for a price, of course) full service pumps. At these pumps, they will not only fill up your car on a cold and rainy day, but they will check your fluids and your tires, and they’ll do it all with a smile.
Steve, the owner of Guy’s, works as hard as any person there. He is a very unassuming kind of man. At 6′2″, he’s very striking, in that one does not typically see an Asian man who is so tall. He still has quite an accent, and sometimes you need to strain a little to understand what he’s saying, yet, over the years, I’ve come to understand him pretty well.
Steve, and his lead mechanic, Bradley, have brought my car back from the brink of death on too many occasions to recall. They always take the time to explain the problem, and you never feel taken advantage of. And trust me, as a woman dealing one-on-one with a mechanic, that is a rare experience, indeed.
Once, while riding around town, checking out the changes in the surrounding neighborhood, I ran out of gas. I simply wasn’t paying attention, and to make matters worse, I had forgotten my cell phone at home. So, I knocked on the door of a house nearby, and asked to use the phone. The woman inside was obviously nervous about allowing a stranger into her home, and thus brought her phone out to me. She asked me, “What’s the number?”, and without a bit of hesitation, I spouted out the number to Guy’s.( I still can’t believe it. I actually knew the number to my local service station.) The cashier answered the phone, and I asked for Steve. I told him what I had done, and five minutes later, he came to my rescue.
There have been other times when the fellas at the station have been more than neighborly. Just a couple weeks ago, I pulled into the station, and discovered that due to their switch from Shell to Baron Oil, that the credit machines were temporarily inoperable. Steve didn’t even hesitate…he told me to fill ‘er up…”Just bring it by in a couple of days, whenever you get a chance. I know you’re good for it.”
Last Thursday, when I went get fuel, I went inside to pay, and the attendant, who’s name is Brandon, and I began to talk. We had chit-chatted in the past, but this time we talked for about thirty minutes. We discussed cars..his wife drives a Mazda 929. He said that he was ready to get away from the station because he had only come in to help out Steve temporarily since the young guys that were there before him had been stealing. He asked why I had just left work when it was after 8:00 p.m.. We discussed his day job: He was a waste-water management specialist. He had met Steve when he was working on the inspections for the station, and because he lived in the neighborhood, he used Guy’s service station, too. We talked about our neighborhood. We talked about Steve’s new house, and laughed about how our “dinky, old” houses would still be standing long after many of the new houses had fallen. He laughed when I suggested that perhaps I should negotiate my repair costs a little better, if Steve could afford a half-million dollar house. He surmised that Steve had come from money, that if he had to rely upon his income from the station, that he’d be living in a trailer. He told me about how tough it was for Steve to hold on to the station because of the employees who had stolen from him, and because the station had already been robbed a few times in the past. We both said what a shame it is for someone to work so hard, and have others take from him what was his. I noticed the time, and we said goodbye. I said “See ya later.”, and off I went.
This morning, I arrived at work to find my phone ringing off the hook. It was my daughter, and she said “Mom! You’re not going to believe this!”
And she was right. In fact, I still can’t believe it.
Just a few days ago I was laughing and chit-chatting with this quiet, friendly man. A man who was ready to get back to his usual schedule, but who had been happy to help where he could. A man who had always served with a smile, and had added even more to the already neighborly feel of the place.
And now, I just can’t get his face out of mind. He was just doing a job the best he could, and some person thought that whatever little they could get was worth taking his life to get it.
This is why, today, I can’t stop myself from crying at the loss of the clerk at the gas station down the street from me.
My grandmother never learned to drive. She never learned to ride a bike. Which, towards the end of her life, was irrelevant, because she had difficulty in seeing more than the few feet that were in front of her. She depended upon her family to get her where she needed; her doctor’s appointments, her hair stylist, especially the grocery store.
My grandfather, on the other hand, was completely independent. He had been in the navy and had worked as an aircraft mechanic. He proudly showed the certificates he had received for the tools he had invented to make his work easier. He built his house by hand. He could build or repair anything. Until, that is, he suffered from lung cancer.
At the end of my grandfather’s life, he was dependent upon his family and friends to do all of the things that he never would have allowed them to do when he was healthy. He had to lie in his bedroom, in his hospital bed, while all around him his family mowed his lawn, and prepared his meals. At the very end, he couldn’t even rise from bed to go to the bathroom, and had to suffer the indignity of having someone empty his bedpan.
My uncle, J.D., had worked for White-Westinghouse in their nuclear power facilities for many years, until they bought his ‘early retirement.’ He was the first in our family to own anything resembling a Cadillac, and was the first to own a home with a pool. He was, just as his father had been, and independent and intelligent man. After several years of retirement, he ran low on funds, and although he had tried for years to obtain work, his age, and the limited opportunities available for the types of work he had previously performed, left him penniless. After many years of success, he had to resort to selling cars, and purchased a small mobile home, which was moved to a small piece of land given to him by his youngest son.
A short time later he was diagnosed with stomach cancer, and became wheelchair bound. Without his small income, he and my Aunt Pat seriously struggled to get by. Members of his church would bring food and money when they could, and as his health deteriorated, a tube was inserted into his abdomen in order to provide nutrition to his ailing body. He too, just as had been the case with my grandparents, was dependent upon others to subsist.
There are times in our lives when, like it or not, we are dependent upon the grace and wisdom of those around us to get by. No one wants to to be a burden to others, and thus it also requires grace to allow others to assist. Just as much as people need people, people need to be needed by people too.
We all know, from the most basic of science classes taught to the youngest of children, that people require certain things to survive. Yes…human interaction and contact is one of those things, and without them one might go mad, but for now I am discussing the real, basic, elements required to survive:
Air
Water
Food
Shelter
Clothing
We have food banks, and soup kitchens, and charities galore to make certain that even the lowliest of the socio-economic ladder can survive. We contribute to animal charities. Hell, a woman with whom I work has now spent more than $8000 to keep her elderly cat alive. We use politically correct words and terms in order not to offend; everyone is seemingly now ‘challenged’.
We are the most intelligent, compassionate species on earth.
So, you can only imagine my dismay upon hearing, just this morning, that the act of feeding Terri Schiavo is considered to be an “extraordinary measure”. And that, according to an ABC poll, two thirds of Americans want to see Terri Schiavo die.
It is likely that you have already read the news of Rob’s dear mother, Miss Elva, passing away this morning.
Everyone who has ever read Rob’s blog knows that he can be an ornery little poop when he wants to be; poking the bear just to see if it will bite. And, the way he feels about his ex-wife is no secret. He curses like a sailor, and can ‘get your goat’ just about a minute quicker than anyone on the web.
And yet…
He’s still just someone’s little boy at heart.
He’s never been afraid to tell anyone how he feels about his momma. He often wrote of his love for her, and now he writes about how he’ll miss her. My heart goes out to him.
Rob has asked that, in lieu of flowers, that donations be made to Hospice of Savannah, or to the American Diabetes Association. Please, go there and contribute, in Miss Elva’s name.
Additionally, I propose the following:
Next Saturday, March 19, we’ll take a day of rest from the news: Take a break from our sarcasm and the ‘us vs. them’ attacks. And, instead, we too will write something kind or funny or pleasant about our own mothers. For some of us, it may take a bit of thought, yet there’s always something good that can be said of the person who carried you in her womb for nine whole months. Figure it out, and tell us about it.
This will be a day of remembrance for us all.
And, remember to think of Miss Elva.
She can, even now, inspire one to pleasant memories.
God bless.
Tell me, doc.
Exactly, what is the correct ratio of asbestos, lead paint dust and chemical solvent to render one a complete vegetable?
Nevermind.
No response is necessary.
I’ll just wait a little while, and then I can tell you myself.
(maybe)
Magnanimity:
A quality possessed by those who selflessly promote others, and deny themselves credit.
Ex:
“Yes, Sir. ‘He/She/They’ did a great job. We worked as a team, and got the job done.”
also
“No, Sir. I’m afraid that I hold as much responsibility as anyone on the team. I should have recognized the problem sooner.”
Aforementioned behavior typically results in loss of pay, privileges, or employment.
But…damn!, doesn’t it feel good to be the “bigger person”?
Sometimes, you have to stand by, and watch a friend go through a difficult time, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
You can be there to talk. You can express empathy…”I know how you feel.”….”I’ve been there myself.” Yet you know that nothing you say really makes a difference, at all. You stand by, helpless to do anything to improve the situation, or to ease the pain it brings.
So, you say a little prayer, and you continue to be a sounding board, when requested, and hope that all will be well.
And, I do.
I hope, my friend, that all is well with you, and soon.
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