Over 30,000 people will show up to watch the July 4th Hot Dog Eating Contest at Nathan's in Coney Island. Last year, there was a tie in regulation that resulted in a five dog eat off with Joey Chestnut retaining his crown. Afterward the crowd descends on Nathan's to eat hot dogs. Lines will be long and the orders large. They will not each buy a couple of hot dogs to eat politely. The crowd will be jacked up to eat like hogs to prove how many hot dogs they can stuff down their throat. They for a few minutes will all be Joey Chestnut or the skinny Japanese guy.
TIME OFF FOR GOOD BEHAVIOR
Bernard Madoff will be able to leave prison with time off for good behavior in 2139. He will have over a hundred years good behavior because it's hard to shiv anybody while you are dead.
When he gets out it will be hard to find anyone to swindle. They will be paying everything in taxes to pay off the debt Obama has run up.
OFF WE GO INTO THE WILD BLUE YONDER
America's first jet airplane, the XP-59A, first flew on
October 1, 1942.
It was a Top Secret project located at Edwards AFB.
When the dry lake flooded, they had to move it by truck covered up and
disguised with a giant dummy wooden propeller on the front.
On one test flight the jet
was spotted by P-38 pilots flying from
Van Nuys Airport. The P-38 pilots reported seeing an
airplane with no propeller. Everyone was skeptical but
the story circulated. On a subsequent flight, the test pilot
of the XP-59A dressed up in a gorilla mask, wore a derby hat and
smoked a cigar. He made a point to fly next to the P-38
pilots and waved at them. When the P-38 pilots got back to the
base, they told everyone about the plane with no propeller flown
by a gorilla wearing a derby and smoking a cigar.
Their report was met with total disbelief, so the airplane remained a secret
until after the war.
I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD
Have you ever been surprised to hear someone famous just died because you assumed they must already be dead? I was surprised the great actor Karl Malden died at the age of 97, yesterday. I hadn't seen him in anything new for awhile because he made his last film in 1987. He was survived by his wife of 71 years.
I have a new hobby. I think it part of mid life crisis. I watch old movies on TCM then head to IMDB.com to check the birth dates of the actors, how old they are or how long they lived, and if they are dead. Recently, I hit the jackpot. I found someone born in the 1843.
President Obama is Mr. Opposite. Whatever makes good sense, he does exactly the opposite.
HOW TO PROTEST MANDATORY USAGE OF THOSE SQUIGGLY FLUORESCENT LIGHT BULBS
Have a SMASH PARTY. Gather a bunch of people and find a public place. Everyone takes a turn hurling squiggly fluorescent light bulbs on the ground. You can drop some off a rooftop like David Letterman or bored college kids. The bulbs are filled with Mercury and the HAZMAT team will be rushed to the scene. You are sure to get on the local news, maybe even the national news. The nation will become alarmed by how dangerous the bulbs are, a hazard they never knew about. Perhaps, it would cause an uproar and a demand to ban them.
WARNING: You will probably get arrested (endangering the public/hopefully not terrorism)and may have to pay for the cleanup. Someone might get glass in their eye- wear googles. I wouldn't urge anyone to actually do it, but it is fun to imagine.
NEED A KEROSENE REFRIGERATOR?
Everyone knows that the Amish shun electricity, telephones, automobiles and technology in general. Most Amish communities however do have a pay telephone booth.
There is a website, Lehmans.com, that ironically sells non-electric appliances to the Amish.
I'M ON MY THIRD CHERRY COKE and SECOND HAMBURGER, TODAY
A man just paid $2.1 million to have lunch with Warren Buffet. He won a charity auction. He got to pick his brain. I have already figured out how to become a billionaire.
Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world, drinks five cans of Cherry Coke every day and his favorite meal is a Hamburger. He lives in the same house he bought 50 years ago for $31,500.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, is the 7th richest man the world. He lives cheaply and invests his money back into his business. If he stays in a nice hotel, and happens to take a soft drink out of the pricey mini-bar, he replaces it before he leaves with a bottle that he buys for much less at a nearby store.
Warren Buffet once said the only way to go broke is on borrowed money.*
* exception to the rule- giving your life savings to Bernie Madoff
RUTH CAN LIVE IN A VAN DOWN BY THE RIVER
Bernard Madoff is sentenced to 150 years in the slammer and no one will rent his wife, Ruth, a place to live. They don't want anyone knowing that she lives on their property.
Will they hook up Madoff to life support to make sure he serves all 150 years?
IS THERE AN APP FOR THAT?
APPLE chief STEVE JOBS recently disappeared to get a liver transplant. How he got it is stirring up a controversy. He flew around the country and signed up in states where the waiting lists were the shortest. I guess he used his Iphone to compare. Some are shouting- UNFAIR!
My favorite economist, Walter E. Williams, says there is an organs for transplant shortage because you are not allowed to sell them. The transplant waiting list would be much shorter if organs could be bought and sold. He states that to most loving families agreeing to bury their loved one without all of the parts they arrived with would be unthinkable. But, if there was money to be made some children would quickly reconsider and put all of dear old dad's parts on the block for the right price.
MICHAEL JACKSON THE INVENTOR
Michael Jackson holds a patent for ANTI-GRAVITY SHOES. The shoes made it possible for him and his dancers to lean forward far beyond their center of gravity without falling on their face.
START YOUR DAY WITH A BIG HEAPING BOWL OF FROSTED SUGAR CUBES
There are 2.7 billion boxes of cereal sold each year and one out of every two Americans has a bowl of cereal for breakfast. This must be true. I heard it from Ethan Zohn, winner of SURVIVOR season three and inventor of the Easy Crunch Bowl. He claimed it on the new TV show PITCHMEN where he was vying to have famous pitchman Billy Mays sell it in commercials. The idea of the Easy Crunch Bowl is to keep your cereal from getting soggy. It has a shallow end and a deep end.
I won't be buying one. I like my cereal soggy. I wait for it to get soggy. I stir it to make it soggy. I guess I am in the minority, but it seems that the whole point is to have the cereal marinated in milk. Call me a weirdo. I don't drink the milk, either. Why would I drink not cold cereal flavored milk?
A DAY LATE AND A HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS SHORT
The government is about to buy 17,000 vehicles from the bankrupt car companies for $287 million. Why didn't they do this before passing out the bailout money. It may have been cheaper to buy out their inventory.
The could have opened car lots- UNCLE SAM'S BAILOUT CITY. They could have run commercials with a guy dressed like Uncle Sam jumping around a parking lot screaming about his low low prices. They could have a slogan: Uncle Sam is senile. Come in and take advantage of him before he takes his medicine!
DON'T LET YOUR FINGERS GET TOO CLOSE TO HIS MOUTH. HE'S A LOCAVORE
There is a growing trend to become a
Locavore which means that you only eat things raised locally. Locavores believe the food they buy is better if you get it close to where it is produced. Wrong. The best of anything is not sold locally. It is sold where someone is willing to pay highest price which is far away. The best oranges are not sold by the side of the road in Florida. That is their leftovers.
Skirt steak is mainly used for fajitas. The best quality skirt steak produced in the USA is sold to South Korea. Most of the fajitas we make are from lesser quality skirt steak we buy cheaper from Central America.
I remember reading a kid's book where the main character was a struggling Maine fisherman's child. Poor kid. He had to take lobster sandwiches for lunch at school everyday.
Most of the people starving in the world are Locavores.
PUT DOWN THAT REMOTE BOX YOU'RE MAKING MY HEAD SPIN
Have you ever seen a movie dozens of times and it comes on TV and after about 10 minutes you realize you have never seen the beginning before?
DON'T CALL ME A B!%$@
The Duchess of DC, Barbara Boxer, recently got testy with a general at senate hearing for extending military courtesy by addressing her as ma'am. She believes she should only be called senator because she worked so hard for the title. Hard work and accomplishment? It only proves she flim-flammed and hoodwinked enough California crackpots to get voted in and inflict her on us. She is an employee of the people. Like most senators she considers herself royalty. This reminds me of past MBI articles highlighting what she and other senators think of you:
MALODOROUS HORDES GIVE THEM THE HEEBEE GEEBEES
Bloated pompous blow hards and skinny doofus senators look down on you. Need proof?
At the opening of the Capitol Visitor Center, which was originally to cost $71 million but came in at the typical government overrun price of over $600 million, Senate Majority leader Harry Reid had this to say:
"In the summer because of the heat and high humidity, you could literally smell the tourists coming into the Capitol."
Hey, Senator. They aren't tourists. They are constituents and your boss. How could he smell the visitors over the stench wafting out of Congress?
SOMETHING'S ROTTEN IN WASHINGTON DC
Senators are shuddering and their skin is crawling. More and more visitors to the Senate office building are disregarding the SENATORS-ONLY sign on the elevator. Senators, the kings of DC, are actually having to share an elevator with the riff-raff. If it wasn't bad enough when they have to ride with the rabble in coach on an airplane.
THE HAPPIEST DAY OF THE YEAR IF YOU'RE A DRUID
June 21st is the longest day of the year not because your mother-in-law is visiting, it is the Summer Solstice. The Summer Solstice is the day with the most daylight. Daylight will steadily decrease until the shortest day of the year in December.
Modern day pagans and Druids will gather at Stonehenge for a big celebration but the main attendees will be a bunch of potheads who show up to take advantage of new marijuana laws.
Archaeologists have recently decided Stonehenge was a burial ground. The builders would set up a city there once a year. On the Summer Solstice, they would gather at Stonehenge at dawn to honor the dead. Then, they would all walk two miles down the road to an exact replica made from wood. Piles and piles of gnawed on animal bones have been dug up there. At sunset, the ancient people would have a big barbecue, then a giant baby-making orgy.
HAPPY FATHER'S DAY
My kids were welcome to live at home after graduating from college or high school. They had a choice to either pay rent or save half their paycheck. I was not going to have anyone living rent free at home and driving a Ferrari. None moved back in.
Father's Day has always been the number one collect call day. Now, the kids just use their free weekend minutes. They can't use them all anyway.
FOOLS RUSH IN WHERE WISE MEN FEAR TO TREAD
We hear all the time how young brilliant and intelligent a political or business leader is. What you never hear is that they are wise. Intelligence seems to be the only quality that most people prize, today. Intelligence is the ability to assimilate and process information. Wisdom is understanding how the world really works. Intelligence is hereditary. Wisdom is acquired through experience and study. We are up the creek because THE SMARTEST GUYS IN THE WORLD have and are doing unwise things. We need to treasure some dumber guys with wisdom instead of genius fools.
Nobody asks the old wise man anymore.
Fools with our money are soon parted.
THE HAMBURGER PORNO PAGE
The HAMBURGER PORNO page has become a huge smash. See the pictures that will make some drool and some sick.
JUST ADDED: JUCY LUCY from Minneapolis
VIVA VIAGRA SO LONG LIFE SAVINGS
The husband in the Viagra commercial with the bored couple that reinvigorate their romance with blue pills and trip to an island resort looks like Bernie Madoff.
I VANT TO BE LEFT ALONE
I saw a survey that broke down how Americans identify their political leanings. 40% conservative 35% moderate 21% liberal. It makes me wonder why 20% of the Democrats, a party led by the likes of Nancy Pelosi et. al., consider themselves conservative.
A better identity would be MEDDLERS, people who want to tell others how to live and the people who surrender to them, or the I WANT TO BE LEFT THE HELL ALONE. Sign me up for the second party.
GARBO SPEAKS
For you youngsters, Greta Garbo was a famous movie actress with a husky voice and german accent that retired and spent the rest of her life secluded and was infamously misquoted "I vant to be alone."
Garbo clarified:
I never said, 'I want to be alone.' I only said, 'I want to be left alone.' There is all the difference.
YIKES. ROCKS FROM OUTER SPACE!
A German teenager was recently conked on the coconut by a pebble sized meteorite hurtling 30,000 miles an hour. He is OK. If he still has it, he can sell it to the METEORITE MAN . Bob Haag, The Meteorite Man, streaks across the globe with wads of cash and the cunning to evade and outwit local government authorities whenever their is a new meteor strike. He hauls his bounty back home to Arizona to put up for sale on his website.
Summertime is here and time for some nag to show up on TV to tell me I shouldn't fire up the outdoor grill and cook meat with a stampeding global foot print. The nag will continue to pop up through the summer, an easy news filler for the Lazy News rooms. There will also be a co-nag telling me everything I intend to eat is bad.
Charcoal was invented by Henry Ford and Thomas Edison. Charcoal was originally made from leftover Model A wood.
NO RAISE FOU YOU!
NO BONUS FOR YOU!
I guess it would be wrong to appoint someone PAY NAZI so they will call him the PAY CZAR, instead. Obama has created a goon squad of CZARS- 16 21 unelected not answering to anyone but him. He could have called them something else. FDR named his DICTATORS. I wonder if the Soup Nazi, experienced with blunt decisions and terse pronouncements, was considered for the PAY CZAR job.
Obama and the Democrats want to place a salary limit on executives. Won't this decrease the amount of tax money they salivate over to wring from rich people?
This is similar thinking to raising taxes on tobacco to fund education. If they want more people to stop smoking by taxing it more they will have less money to fund education. Liberal politicians are bad at math.
Many people are considering hoarding gold. How much does a gold bar weigh?
The gold bars that GOLDFINGER was planning to ruin in Fort Knox were standard bars held by most of the world's central banks. They weigh 400 ounces and now worth nearly $400,000 each. On a recent TV show, I saw a rich guy pay a doctor with a gold bar. This is a bar sold to investors that weighs 1000 grams. This equals over 35 ounces and is worth over $30,000.
Medical care was cheap when they couldn't do much for you. Now, they can do so much for you and the payment system is so warped that nobody can afford it.
IT'S A MYSTERY
I was watching SHAKESPEARE IN LOVE this weekend. Shakespeare's boss, theater manager Philip Henslowe, had a recurring line he used to explain how things would work out in the end. Here he is explaining to his investor:
Philip Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, allow me to explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to imminent disaster.
Hugh Fennyman: So what do we do?
Philip Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Hugh Fennyman: How?
Philip Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.
This reminds me of how President Obama expects us to believe his insane spending policies will fix anything. It's a mystery to him. The economy would recover being left alone to repair itself naturally. The government is making a mess by trying to avoid any pain
Most Europeans are cuckoo for sausage. Finland loves sausage so much they have a saying:
No Finn is so full that he can't eat a bit more sausage.
OVERHEAD THE KILLER
The giant monster that all businesses face is overhead. Overhead is like a roaring fire burning up your money. You keep throwing all the money that trickles in into the fire until it goes out. Whatever doesn't get burned up by the end of the month, you get to keep. GM and Chrysler had an overhead fire so big and hot it was impossible for them to ever have anything but ashes left.
Anyone that can walk the tightrope and is able to save any of the money from the fire should be applauded instead of being reviled.
You don't need the government planning ways to stoke the fire or waiting to grab even more of the money you save from it.
Since the U.S. taxpayers are now the owners of General Motors, where do I go to pick up my free demo car to drive around?
WHAT NOT TO TWEET
TWITTER is what all the cool kids are using and leaving too much information. Here is a twitter not to leave:
Going out of town for the weekend. Darn it, can't find key. Have to leave front door unlocked.
DON'T NAME YOUR BABY
OSAMA WAYNE MADOFF
Bernie Madoff's sons won't talk to him. They are ashamed to give their last name when making dinner reservations.
Madoff is a name that has become a verb of negative repute. It is a surname that now gives the owner nothing but grief like Hitler, bin laden and Lewinsky and may soon become extinct. Wayne is the middle name that seems common for criminals and heinous serial killers.
If you don't take my advice, when he grows up tell Ossie Wayne Madoff to wear a shirt when the cops break down his door and haul him off to jail in front of the TV cameras.
IS OBAMA CREATING A CZAR CHAMBER
President Obama seems to have a penchant for appointing CZARS to run everything. How many CZARS are there, now? Is he building something similar to a STAR CHAMBER?
The definition of a STAR CHAMBER is a legal or administrative body with strict, arbitrary rulings and secretive proceedings.
The original STAR CHAMBER operated in England from 1487 until it was abolished in 1649. Writer Edgar Lee Masters said this about STAR CHAMBERS:
In the Star Chamber the council could inflict any punishment short of death, and frequently sentenced objects of its wrath to the pillory, to whipping and to the cutting off of ears.... With each embarrassment to arbitrary power the Star Chamber became emboldened to undertake further usurpation....
Will President Obama soon appoint a Burger Czar who makes sure they have a jar of Dijon mustard on his next burger run?
WHAT A BUNCH OF BULL
Some Hot dogs are made out of bull meat. Bull meat is tough so it is best when pulverized and stuck into a tube. SABRETTS, made famous at New York City hot dog carts, uses bull meat.
There is really no reason to use credit cards when you can do the same thing with a debit card. If you can't break the addiction and you love paying interest, why not be your own credit card company and profit from your impulsiveness?
First, save some money and open up a separate bank account that comes with a Visa or Mastercard debit card. When you want to buy something, use that debit card. Charge yourself 25% - 30% interest and if you are late with payments whack yourself with $35 late fees.
Or, you can pretend to be Tony Soprano and become your shylock. If you need money you have to pay the vig (or juice). If you are late with a payment, send your goons around to break some stuff and threaten you. The vig will keep running.
Soon, you will be rich and the only thumb you'll be under is you.
MY LATEST TWITTERS
Twittering is what all the cool kids are doing. They can document their every movement, although if you ask what they did today in person the answer would be a blank stared- "Nuthin". Here are my latest Twitters:
I believe I shall have a bath, now.
I am on the telephone ordering ShamWow from that nice Vince fellow.
Deciding on lunch. Should I have a hamburger or should I have a hamburger?
Popping off to the market for urgent purchase of toilet paper.
Remind me not to watch Useless Housewives of the OC or New York or anywhere else.
Clipping my toenails. They poked a hole in my sock.
Deciding on dinner. Should I have a hamburger or a hamburger?
The neighbor lady never closes her drapes. After what I just saw, she should.
Follow me at twitter.com/mrbadideas
THIS COULD BE AN OBAMA ECONOMIC STIMULUS PROJECT
Fast Food restaurants should post the telephone number for the police that is not 9-1-1. This will give their foolish customers who want to CALL THE LAW after their orders get screwed up or the restaurant runs out their favorite menu item the correct number and it will help keep emergency lines clear. The customers won't be embarrassed by having to take a ride to the crossbar motel for improperly calling 911.
REINSTATE "LOSING YOUR ASS" OPTION
Bad decisions are made when you eliminate the possibility that you might LOSE YOUR ASS. Bad house loans were made because risk was gone. If the loans went bad they were off the hook because someone else was going to absorb it through credit default swaps or ultimately the government.
Bailouts are to keep businesses from LOSING THEIR ASS. Future generations get the bill. What is the limit government can afford to keep some from LOSING THEIR ASS without absolutely everybody eventually LOSING THEIR ASS? I think we have found out.
An irresponsible teenager won't learn until you take his car keys away and sell the car.
One great thing about the free enterprise system is bad businesses get to LOSE THEIR ASS and other people get to buy a lot of assets cheaps. Maybe, they will do a better job with them.
We would be better off if congressmen were in constant danger of LOSING THEIR ASS for bad decisions.
Nobody works and gets paid until somebody sells something. You can't sell anything until you have something that someone might want to buy and you find the person that really wants to buy it.
KRAZY KIM'S BOMBS R US WE CHARGE INSANE PRICES!!!
North Korea makes 90% of their income from the sale of weapons. Their recent exploding of Atomic Bombs underground and launching missiles was more advertising to their unsavory customers than saber rattling.
There are no insects in North Korea. The people are starving to death and have eaten them all.
I GUESS THEY WON'T BE BUILDING KEYPADS INTO THE STEERING WHEEL
Recent surveys say that one in four drivers admit to texting while driving. It must be true, IT'S A SURVEY . Seeing a problem their are many states planning to ban texting while driving.
"But, I wasn't texting, I was twittering."
HELLO MUDDAH, HELLO FADDAH
Summer is here and time for summer camp. Many young campers will find themselves distressed and depressed. Camps have no cell phone rules. They will have to write home (if they can figure out what a pencil, paper and stamps are used for) about their homesickness because they won't be able to text. The camps may need to add texting withdrawal counselors so the campers will be able to cope.
WHAT IS WORSE THAN A HEROIN ADDICT GOING COLD TURKEY?
A teenager without their cellphone to text someone. What are the symptoms of Text Deprivation: anxiety, irritability, hyperactivity, extreme loneliness, the shakes and possible thoughts of suicide. They feel like castaways on a deserted island.
Mrs. Bad Ideas chaperoned a choral group at a competition. Her unenviable job was keeper of the cellphones. The students hovered like buzzards asking for their cellphones back. They were not allowed to have them until after the competition. She commented about how much money she was saving their parents. They all said, "we have unlimited plans". A Middle school girl was all over the news for sending 15,000 text messages in a month costing her unwise parents $400.
Cellphone addicts rush out of movie theaters to call someone, ANYONE. Texters can continue texting and be oblivious to the movie.
Cellphone calls and email are the domain of oldsters and parentals. A caller to a teenager on a cellphone will incur wrath they will never forget for calling instead of texting.
In fifty years, there will be a generation of old folks who can no longer use their thumbs.
If Al Gore gets caught smoking up the place with his Bar-b-q pit he will just tell us it is O.K., he offset it with the bogus carbon credits he bought (from himself).
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN YELLOW AND WHITE AMERICAN CHEESE?
It is the exact same cheese except for the color. Most people prefer the yellow color, a few like the white.
I think red M & M's taste best, too.
DEFINITION OF A LIBERAL POLITICIAN
A liberal is a poor listener with a bad memory who is bad at math and thinks he or she is smarter than everyone else.
Just replace "A liberal" with the name of any liberal politician. For example: JOHN KERRY is ... or NANCY PELOSI is ... or BARNEY FRANK is ...
WHAT ARE MY POLITICS?
I believe in Free Enterprise, freedom and not getting blown up or my head cut off.
I, also, like the Interstate Highway system.
WHAT IS SO AWFUL ABOUT GITMO?
Why are some folks so hot and bothered about closing down Guantanamo Bay. It sounds like one of the nicer prisons to me. It's not a Soviet Gulag or rusty barred concrete walled hellhole. Gitmo is on a tropical island paradise. They get plenty of outside time. They are given 5,000 calorie a day diet. They get prayer time, prayer rug, and a free Koran. They get to spend their day swapping stories and hatching diabolical plots with other terrorists. They can entertain themselves throwing things and hurling insults at the guards without much retribution. It beats Alcatraz.
A NEW NAME FOR THE GOVERNMENT OWNED AUTOMOBILE COMPANY
The government is taking over General Motors and will now produce politically correct cars. I have a new name for the company.
EDSEL
Al Gore and his fellow global warming profiteers are like old door-to-door vacuum cleaner salesmen who throw dirt on your carpet when you open the door so they can get inside to sell you a vacuum cleaner except they throw imaginary dirt.
THE GLOBAL DE-WATERING CRISIS
Until the past 20 years or so, all water eventually returned to the earth's water cycle. We now face a future of dying of thirst as we are rapidly losing water. Our water is being trapped in half-drunk plastic water bottles. The bottles won't decompose and will still be there in a thousand years trapping our precious fluid.
A COMMENCEMENT SPEECH TO REMEMBER
Who remembers a commencement speech? Winston Churchill once gave one that told the graduates all they ever needed to remember.
Never give in. Never give in. Never, never, never, never--in nothing, great or small, large or petty--never give in, except to convictions of honor and good sense. Never yield to force. Never yield to the apparently overwhelming might of the enemy.
Then, he exited the stage.
MY LATEST MOVIE PITCH
The SEVENTH SENSE starring sour puss comedian and failed talk radio host Janeane Garafalo. In the SIXTH SENSE, Haley Joel Osment uttered his famous phrase- "I see dead people". In the SEVENTH SENSE Janeane Garafalo will travel to large gatherings including a Tea Party where she will see 500,000 hard working Americans voicing their opposition to out-of-control mindless government spending and looming runaway inflation and will only "see racists".
NANCY PELOSI IS UP S***CREEK WITHOUT A PADDLE IN A CHICKEN WIRE CANOE
Is Nancy Pelosi a liar or just a poor listener with a bad memory? She claims she was never briefed on waterboarding although there appears to be plenty of documentation to prove that she was in attendance at the meeting. Not long ago, she visited the pope and her report on what was said was completely different from what the pope said about the meeting. He ripped her on her abortion views.
The only reason anyone started objecting to waterboarding terrorists was so they could beat Bush over the head with it.
PLAN B SUCKS*
The number one secret of success is persistence. Plan B kills persistence. When you only have Plan A you have no choice but to persist. Plan B makes it too easy to give up.
* quote by Chris Gardner author of PURSUIT OF HAPPYNESS
We are in financial straits because the companies that we give the money to, that we work so hard to earn and create, so they can play with it had a Plan B and Plan C- Uncle Sam would bail them out.
Almost everything fails at first... The secret to success is persistence. Persistence is automatic with obsession.
ON TODAY'S FLIGHT WE'LL BE SERVING A SNACK OF GOVERNMENT CHEESE
The government keeps taking over failed businesses. Soon, they may be after the perpetually broke airlines.
They could call it Post Office Air. It will be never on schedule, but you'll have to lump it because you'll have no choice.
A TRILLION DOLLARS HERE, A TRILLION DOLLARS THERE PRETTY SOON YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT SOME REAL MONEY
President Obama and his toadies in congress are like a krew on a Mardi Gras float throwing beads to anyone who shows them their boobs, except they throw money.
WHILE HE WAS SCREWING EVERYBODY
HE WAS SCREWING EVERYBODY
Bernie Madoff's secretary is talking. She says that besides not zipping up until after he left the bathroom, he got lots of "massages" (wink wink)
and loved to peruse "escort" ads in the weekly tabloid papers. I wonder if he swindled his "masseuses" by offering to keep their fee and investing it for them. Hey. Free Massages!
PRESIDENT AS TRENDSETTER
Was President Obama trying to stimulate the economy by promoting eating out? He could have ordered and had it delivered, but he and Joe Biden made a burger run to Ray's Hell Burger in Arlington, Va. It will certainly cause a rush to that restaurant but was he hoping for his cultist admirers to head out to restaurants and hamburger stands?
Ronald Reagan exploded the sale of jelly beans by keeping them on his desk to snack on. Bill Clinton did the same for Oral Sex.
President as trendsetter is like the fan devotion to a NASCAR driver. They buy everything that the sponsor of their driver sells.
The OBAMA BURGER
Cheddar Cheese, Mustard (brown or Dijon if you got it), No ketchup (a slight to John Kerry?), Lettuce and Tomato. Medium Well. I have seen him order it that way twice- On Sixty Minutes during his first trip on Air Force One and his hamburger road trip with Joe Biden. I can feel restaurants adding it to their menus, now.
Is it torture to send a terrorist to bed without any supper?
A TIP FROM A GLOBAL WARMING PAUPER
They love to tell you worthless things for reducing your carbon footprint. Here's one they forgot. Hold your breath one minute each hour.
Advice for free and I won't make a penny for giving it. Everyone else chattering about global warming is on the money train. Al Gore has made $100 million from it. Scientists have a easy stream of grant money. Government always greedy for money has new avenues for taxation.Companies like General Electric are buddying up to government to pass laws so you will be forced to buy newfangled light bulbs and so they can sell wind turbines. Marketers can slap green labels (instead of worn-out "new and improved") on consumer products to generate sales. Scalawags can ditch their other money scams to sell carbon credits. Magazines and newspapers have a new ways to alarm everyone in their headlines and covers to drive sales and TV has a new go-to time filler.
MAY IS NATIONAL HAMBURGER MONTH
Hamburgers are the trendiest food going. Many fancy schmantzy chefs are starting burger stands and promoting burgers in their fine dining restaurants costing $15-$30 or more. Burgers made with the pampered Kobe beef are $40 or more. There is a competition on for beef mixtures. It reminds me of bragging about who has the best chili or barbecue at a cook off. They are mixing ground brisket, short ribs and more in with standard chuck and sirloin.
SHOULD WE START A NATIONAL GABBAGOOL DAY?
What the heck is Gabbagool? Who ate the Gabbagool? I am amazed at the number of people that want to look at Gabagool. There has been a big uptick in Gabagool lookers here and it is the number one thing that folks ask the search engines that sends them to mrbadideas.com. What is the deal?
Restaurants in Saudi Arabia are divided into two sections. One section is designated for single men only and the other section is the Family section. Women alone, women in groups and family groups including male relatives may eat on this side.
I used to think women were required to cover up when in public and their freedom restricted because there was a low opinion of them. Unaccompanied men are even thought less of. They are believed to be depraved and women molesters, rapists and wife stealers that women need to be protected from.
What is under the burqas or robes women a forced to wear? Most likely it is designer clothes that they wear around the house and are readily available down at the mall.
A Saudi judge ruled that a man can slap his wife for spending too much on a shopping trip.
CALL YOUR MOTHER
Mother's Day is a tradition that was ramrodded by Anna Jarvis of Grafton, West Virgina. She was never a mother herself, but was extremely devoted to her own mother. Her mother died in 1905, and Anna wanted to honor her. Anna's mother had worked to improve sanitation after the Civil War with Mother's Work Days. Anna organized a Mother's Day Memorial Committee at her church. She, then, went on a letter writing campaign and a crusade giving speeches promoting Mother's Day. By 1909, 45 states, Canada, Mexico, Hawaii and Puerto Rico celebrated Mother's Day and in 1914 a resolution was passed by Congress designating the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day.
Those
Evil businessmen always looking for a new way to make a buck, saw an opportunity to drive people to their stores and restaurants. Commercializing Mother's Day was not Anna's intent. She became so distraught that she started going door to door with petitions to get rid of Mother's Day. Mother's Day is now the biggest day of the year for restaurants, number one telephone call day, and one of the biggest holidays for store sales.
Anna died of a broken heart.
If you go by TV ads for Mother's Day, daughters are sweet and thoughtful and sons are ungrateful boobs that send sickly flowers in a box that mom shoves down the garbage disposal or cause their mother to faint when he actually calls.
HOPE YOU DON'T CATCH THE "HINEY" FLU
Who knew that the name of a flu could be not politically correct. They have changed the name of Swine Flu because if offends pig farmers. For the first time something is unpolitically correct because it affects commerce instead of somebody's hurt feelings.
The new name is H1N1 after the scientific name for the virus. This looks like HINEY to me, which can also be not politically correct. They will need to change the name again. Perhaps, since is a potential murderer, the AMF Flu. Adios my friend.
FIENDS ON THE ROOF
They cut the ribbon May 1, 1931, on the 102 story Empire State Building.
Everyone has heard if a penny is dropped from the top of the Empire State Building that it would kill someone walking down the sidewalk if it hit them in head. This doesn't seem to stop many people from throwing pennies and becoming potential murderers.
Luckily, the tall buildings of New York City create an updraft that catch the pennies and they end up on a ledge 5 stories below the observation deck. As far as anyone can remember, no one has been killed.
If Barack Obama burned down the White House the New York Times would report that he had come up with a brilliant renovation plan.
--Lt. Col. Ralph Peters
A goo goo eyed New York Times male reporter asked President Obama a question at his prime time press conference about what he found "enchanting" about the White House. In this time of major problems stacking up, and delaying the start of AMERICAN IDOL shouldn't they keep out the old lady from the society column?
I didn't watch the press conference. I learned how to make cole slaw watching Alton Brown on the Food Network.
DAGNABBIT YOU YOUNG WHIPPERSNAPPERS AND YOUR NEWFANGLED GEEGAWS AND HOOPDEDOOS
Newfangled is word you would only expect to hear from a 120 year old that talks like Walter Brennan. The telephone was newfangled. The Model A was newfangled. Newfangled means "newly or recently invented or existent, novel; gratuitously or objectionably modern or different from what one is used to." Newfangled was coined around 1470. It is a good word, but you can't use it without sounding like a fossil. We have a blizzard of newfangled stuff thrown at us at a blinding pace with an obsolete word to describe it.` You can feel like a hipster on the cutting edge with a new technology one day and an out of date old fogey the next.
When Pringles first came out they were dubbed newfangled potato chips to make them sound both old timey and new at the same time.
HEAR YE! HEAR YE!
ATTENTION: All Pig Kissing Contests have been cancelled.
Why worry about global warming? The government is spending us so far in debt and printing so much imaginary money that our grandchildren will wish they were dead.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE
Everyday another researcher on the government funded money train comes up with a new cause for man-made global warming. Recently they announced it is FAT PEOPLE. Other days it has been livestock flatulence or cigarette smoking or other fun things. Here is another cause that I thought up while driving around in my car with the V8 engine.
The world's surface temperature has increased 1 degree in the last hundred years. The world's population has quadrupled since 1900. That is 5 billion extra 98 degreers. That is an extra 500 billion degrees. Buddy, you are melting the ice. When do I get my check.
MR BAD IDEAS' EARTH DAY
EARTH SAVING TIP
Get rid of all the light bulbs in your house. Sit in the dark. Go to bed at sundown. Wake up at dawn. Turn off your television when Al Gore comes on.
If Al Gore is so worried about the extinction of the human race, why does he look so happy?
WHAT A WONDERFUL WORLD
Wacked out Extreme environmentalist kooks daydream of saving the world by getting rid of all these pesky people. They dream about people suddenly disappearing and everything they have built rusting, disintegrating and going to seed. The world will be a garden.
No one would be here to notice. Would a tree falling in a forest make a sound? The only thing that would miss us are dogs because we feed them. I am sure that like all grandiose dreams the dreamer has decided they are the only one exempt.
Instead of "almost all scientists agree", now many agree there is man-made global warming because if they don't agree they get canned.
MY ONE TRUE FRIEND
I am now a FACEBOOK friend to Sonic Ice. There are 50,000 other fans of Sonic Ice on FACEBOOK. Who would have thought there were that many people as insane for crushed ice from Sonic Drive-In as me. If I had a Sonic Ice machine in my house, I would give up writing Mr Bad Ideas Notebook and all I would do is make Sonic Ice all day.
You won't be able to find me on FACEBOOK, but I am easy to find on MYSPACE. Just look for Mr Bad Ideas.
IS IT WORTH A FREE DINNER IF YOU MIGHT GET STUCK IN THE OLD FOLKS HOME?
I was watching a commercial for a drug for Alzheimer's. A daughter realizes that her mother might be afflicted when she and her family arrive for Sunday dinner and her mom didn't have it ready and didn't know it was Sunday. The old lady might have just been pretending to be forgetful so her ungrateful kids would take her out for Sunday dinner for once.
WE AIN'T GONNA SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP
The Tea Parties have been misrepresented by the mainstream Lazy News media. They are either too dumb to understand or purposely trying to derail it. They cherry picked the few misguided souls holding inappropriate or offensive signs to paint a picture of the whole crowd. What it is is a revolt against being run roughshod over. The lunatics currently in charge stoned with power are saying to anyone that disagrees with them: We won. Sit down and shut up. We're changing everything and spending our way into a hole we can never climb out of. There is nothing you can do about it. Here's an extra 13 bucks in your paycheck, suck it up and go home and be happy about it.
THEY'D PULL THE WINGS OFF A FLY
I thought liberals were supposed to be caring and kind, but those that claim to be liberal or progressive on the staff of MSNBC, bloggers for THE DAILY KOS amd HUFFINGTON POST, NANCY PELOSI, JANEANE GARAFALO, and all the others that regularly shoot off their mouths seem to be mean, hateful and self absorbed.
I'M MAD AS HELL AND I'M NOT GOING TO TAKE IT ANYMORE
Why can't we have a simple tax system like the FLAT TAX or the FAIR TAX? We can't because it is not in the self-interest of over half of the SOB's in Congress needed to vote for it. Why?
POWER. They use the tax code to control you like a puppet. If you want to pay less taxes you have to jump through their hoops and spend money on things that they deem worthwhile.
FREE TRIPS and getting cut-in on lucrative deals. The main purpose of a lobbyist is to get sweet tax deals for whoever they represent. Fewer lobbyist means less goodies for them.
JOB OPPORTUNITIES. If there are fewer lobbyists then when they retire from Congress they won't be able to latch on to a lobbyist job and make millions.
We are held hostage so they can get rich and feel like royalty.
Solar Panels are hard to sell without a tax credit. Sales are down during these hard times. If your business is not making a profit and you are not paying any taxes, you don't need any tax credits.
YOU MISSED McDONALD'S BIRTHDAY
Ray Kroc opened his first McDonald's April, 15, 1955 in Des Plaines, Ill. He talked the McDonald brothers into letting him franchise. Dick and Mac's original McDonald's restaurant was going gangbusters in San Bernadino, California. At that time, the restaurants had no inside seating, and only walk up order windows.
Today, McDonald's is remodeling their restaurants with soft couches, plasma televisions, wi-fi internet and coffee counters. They want you to come by often and stay awhile. For their first 50 years, they wanted you to hurry up, EAT and GET OUT.
Ray Kroc may be rolling over in his grave. He decided on the uncomfortable plastic furniture and banning cigarette machines, pay phones, and juke boxes. He wanted to turn over the seats fast and discourage loiterers and cigarette puffing punks from hanging around like it was a bowling alley.
One hamburger McDonalds test marketed and Ray Kroc loved was the HULA BURGER- a hamburger with a round of pineapple.
AAARGGH
When the British tracked down the pirate Blackbeard they killed him, and the Captain cut off his head and carried it around as a souvenir tacked to the masthead.
GOBBLE GOBBLE GOBBLE
The U.S. Navy foiled the Somali pirates and rescued Captain Phillips by blowing their heads off when they stuck it out to escape the heat. This would have made Sergeant York proud. In the movie, I assume it was true, Alvin York won a turkey shoot by gobbling and causing the turkey to stick its head up. A deadly decision. And, while fighting in World War I, he gobbled to get the Germans to stick their head out of the foxhole.
HOW DO I KNOW WHEN EASTER SUNDAY IS NEXT YEAR?
Look on a calendar.
Or, It is the first Sunday following the first full moon after the vernal equinox
EVERYONE KNOWS YOU DON'T CALL 911. YOU SUE
Stupid people have repeatedly been in the news lately making frivolous 9-1-1 calls after being gypped at fast food food restaurants. One was upset a McDonald's had run out of Chicken McNuggets. Another was missing a shrimp in their box. If this worked, Ronald McDonald and the creepy Burger King would be serving life sentences at the crossbar hotel for all the things left out of my bag after going through the drive-thru.
I once went to a McDonald's and got a hamburger that was barely cooked. I took it back and the counter person took it to the kitchen. I could see the whole staff gather around the burger in the back corner of the kitchen. They all laughed hysterically. The store was staffed with a bunch of punk kids that day. I heard a cook before I placed my order yelling and complaining about a special order he just got- "What is this? Special Grill Day at McDonald's!" The space cadet that took our order instead of giving us our drinks, grabbed a broom and started dancing around while she swept behind the counter. Should I have made the call or did I have a case?
WHAT DOES A BUNNY HAVE TO DO WITH EASTER?
The Easter Bunny really is a symbol of spring that has been combined with Easter because it falls at the same time. The Bunny is an ancient German tradition and folk story dating back before the birth of Christ. The story goes- A chicken turns into a bunny that lays colorful eggs and spreads them across open lands to change the dreary bleakness of winter into the colors of spring. The kids go out to hunt for the colorful treasures left by the Easter Bunny.
FREE ENTERPRISE IS GREAT! SOCIALISM STINKS
Free Enterprise is under assault by the Utopians. Socialism has a major flaw. Everyone has the incentive to do the least possible. Free Enterprise encourages everyone to work a little harder and do a little extra. Why are grocery stores shelves jam packed and there is always gas waiting for you at the filling station? Because a lot of people have broken their necks to get it there because it is in their self interest to make sure it is there.
Socialism has a hard time surviving without free enterprise. During the days of the Soviet Union, they got what they really wanted and needed on the black market- the illegal free enterprise system. They would have starved to death if farmers weren't allowed to have their own side plots of land to enjoy the benefits of their own productivity.
Why won't the Europeans help us protect the world. Because they have lived their lives under a system where their incentive is to do the least possible.
THIS COUNTRY IS RATED X
BHUTAN is a tiny kingdom located in the Himalayas north of India. It was once thought of as the most isolated place on earth. It has friendly pastoral people and was voted the happiest country in Asia. Among the meats they consume at their dinner table is Yak. The national sport is archery. The houses resemble Swiss chalets and are adorned with paintings of animals and penises.
IT AIN'T AS GOOD THERE
In Philadelphia, they don't call it a Philly Cheesesteak. Philadelphia's favorite sandwich is just called a Steak or Cheesesteak. Like many city's iconic dishes, for example Chicago Deep Dish pizza, San Francisco sour dough bread or New York bagels, there is a lot of civic pride that claims you can't get the real thing anywhere but there. It is usually "something in the water". Ed Rendell, governor of Pennsylvania, likes to explain the difference between the real deal Cheesesteak and all of the imitators and impostors:
They start with good meat, but it's not fatty enough. Then they use real cheese. But the problem is, it doesn't seep down into the bread. And they get the onions right, but then they drain the grease!
FROM NOW ON, ALL CITIZENS WILL BE REQUIRED TO CHANGE THEIR UNDERWEAR THREE TIMES A DAY
Congress has turned into a bunch of drunk monkeys with rubberstamps. Proposing things and approving them without reading bills or even thinking about it. Mad with power some want to tell everyone how they are going to live. They want to be the ones who decree how much someone should be paid, what you can drive, how big your house can be, what you can eat, what kind of light bulbs you can have, what you can read and what you can listen to. Can you say, Tyranny?
In the Woody Allen movie BANANAS, the Castro like character that takes power after the revolution of a banana republic goes nuts with power and proclaims in his first speech that everyone would be required to change their underwear three times a day. To make sure that they did, everyone would wear their underwear on the outside.
The government just raised the tax on cigarettes from 39 cents a pack to $1.01.
They will use the increase to finance children's health care and discourage smoking. Two goals that work against each other. Only a politician could consider this a stroke of genius.
WHAT A HUNK OF JUNK
The Eiffel Tower opened March 31,1889.
The Eiffel Tower was originally designed to be built in Barcelona. When the city fathers decided against it, Eiffel had to find a new location. His design won a rigged contest to find the landmark structure for the 1889 International Exposition in Paris. It beat out other designs including a giant guillotine. French snobs complained that it was an eyesore with one calling it a Metal Asparagus. At nearly 1000 feet it became the tallest building in the world. Some didn't like it towering over and overshadowing Notre Dame Cathedral and the Louvre.
The Eiffel Tower was only intended to stay up for a short time. It was going to be sold for scrap until the French Army decided it would be a good communication tower. The Eiffel Tower has had over 200 million visitors and is the first thing most people think of when you mention Paris.
WHEN THE GOVERNMENT TAKES OVER EVERYTHING
It is the same as going out to eat at a restaurant where they look at you then they decide what you are going to to eat.
Congress always has a shovel-ready project. Their idea of solving a problem is to dig a hole and throw money into it, then leave and their buddies can come dig it up.
EVERY NIGHT IS EARTH HOUR IN NORTH KOREA
This is a satellite photo of Korea at night. Notice the density of light in South Korea. North Korea has to shut off the electricity at 9PM. There is only one bright dot in North Korea. Guess who lives there?
Forget Earth Hour. If you are really serious about saving the earth-
Get rid of all the light bulbs in your house. Sit in the dark. Go to bed at sundown. Wake up at dawn. Turn off your television when Al Gore comes on.
During Earth Hour, Al Gore was like Motel 6.
WOULD A TERRORIST BY ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS A BAD
The new head of Homeland Security refuses to call terrorists terrorists and the Obama administration says that residents of GITMO will no longer be called Enemy Combatants.
They could call them explosives enthusiasts, aero edifice demolishers, virulent disease hobbyists, destructive dreamers, head detachment practitioners, threat tape mixers, poison logisticsticians....
FROM THE DEPARTMENT OF GOBBLEDY GOOK
The Obamaites are against clear concise blunt language. They have deleted THE WAR ON TERROR and replaced it with OVERSEAS CONTIGENCY OPERATIONS which means nothing. I think it could be replaced with
AMERICAN CITIZEN DEATH PREVENTION
YOU DUMB #@$%&S. YOU CAN'T SPEND YOUR WAY TO PROSPERITY
The motivations that lead to getting pregnant have as little to do with knowing how to be a good parent as the process of running for president has to do with knowing how to run a country.
ECONOMY DOWN VASECTOMIES UP
Since November, vasectomies have risen 50%. Men who have been squirming and avoiding getting snipped are hurrying to the doctor before they get canned and lose their insurance.
Your wife is most likely to get pregnant when you think that your financial situation couldn't get any worse.
THE HIDDEN PEOPLE OF ICELAND
54% of Icelanders believe in elves. 90% of Icelanders "take notice" of hidden people- elves, gnomes,faeries and trolls. They believe that there are 7,000 to 20,000 hidden people inhabiting Iceland.
If you can't find your keys, one of those rascally hidden people probably hid them in the woods.
MR BAD IDEAS TRAVEL AGENCY
You are warned against traveling to Mexico because of the violence from Drug Gangs. Some Caribbean islands are off limits. Icelanders are rioting because of economic collapse, plus they have grumpy trolls. Where is a safe place to go?
Looking for a vacation spot with plenty of nighttime entertainment? Plan a stay at
The Smuggler's Inn- an eight guest room bed and breakfast in Blaine Washington. The hotel's front lawn touches the Canadian border. The only thing that demarcates the border are a British Columbia road named Zero Avenue and series of evenly spaced stones in the front yard. When the owner mows the yard, he has to venture into Canada.
Each room comes with night vision binoculars and a giant flashlight that you can use to watch for people (mostly drug smugglers) sneaking across the border. Over 126 border jumpers have been arrested in the front yard.
The Smuggler's Inn was most likely used to help smuggle in liquor during prohibition. The owner Bob Boule has named the rooms after famous smugglers. Two room choices are the Joseph. P. Kennedy room or the Dirty Dan Harris room.
Call for reservations, now.
THE SPRING CLEANING PHILOSOPHER
I was cleaning out the garage and decided that everything in there, that wasn't trash without any redeeming value, fit into two categories.
The first- boxes full of memories apparently in storage for our future museum to ourselves. In reality, they are there for when I attempt to clean the garage every fifteen years or move, whichever comes first, so I can reminisce while I am chunking things into the trash.
The second- parts from worn out stuff ready to be rigged like MacGyver into something to fix an emergency.
I was able to clear out big patches of the garage now ready for the next wave of junk shoved out the house.
OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
You may be outraged by the government approved AIG bonuses, but taxing a small group of individuals is against the law. We are protected by the constitution from capricious laws passed against a person by a petulant leader. We don't want to be ruled over by the likes of a Kim Jon Il or Saddam Hussein or tinhorn African dictator or Richard Lewis in ROBIN HOOD MEN IN TIGHTS.
Do we want to live in a country governed by whims. I wouldn't want to be punished for looking cross eyed at someone in power. Congress should be thrown in jail for inciting a riot to CYA their mistake.
A BAD BUSINESS ALLOWED TO GO BROKE IS A GOOD THING
When a bad business goes broke, other businesses can buy a lot of machinery and inventory cheap. Good customers up for grabs will be offered all kinds of good deals and good employees can go to better situations that they would probably have never pursued. In the long run, everyone is better off.
HOW TO GET BOOED AT A PTA MEETING
Announce that half of the students are below average.
A MEAL FOR HARD TIMES
Here is the recipe for GRUEL described by Charles Dickens as "a meal for hard times". Grab a bowl with Oliver Twist, but please do not ask for more.
oats
water
milk
onion
If you have too many orphans to feed, you can always add extra water and leave out the milk and onion.
A BURGER FOR YOUR DEPRESSION
If you get tired of GRUEL and can afford a little ground
meat, here is a hamburger from the depression- the breaded hamburger that outsells the 100% meat burger at Snappy Lunch in Mt. Airy, North Carolina. Mayberry in the old Andy Griffin Show was based on Mt. Airy.
They call it the "old fashioned" or No-Burger. The secret ingredient is crumbled biscuits mixed into the meat.
The two main jobs of the president is to be THE DECIDER and THE EXPLAINER. Obama can articulate truly stupid ideas and policies really well and with great confidence. The parade of other politicians explaining their stupid ideas can not hold a candle.
HE GOT YOU FOR 50 MILLION? THAT'S NOTHING
Instead of hiding the fact that you were so stupid, some see being taken by flim-flam man Madoff as a status symbol and belonging to an elite club. They use their loss as bragging rights. Some probably even claim to have been ripped off when they weren't.
"Poor thing. Wasn't rich enough to be swindled by Bernard Madoff."
There is a restaurant in New York that will give you a free meal if you were scammed by Madoff. Maybe, this is to save their old customers from rummaging through their trash cans.
MY SAVINGS PLAN
My money is safe. I am unaffected by the whims of the stock market. I have a simple savings plan. When change falls out of my pants pocket into the seat cushions, I let it ride.
INMATE# 61727054's PRISON OUTREACH
Bernard Madoff can't wait to get to prison so he can start an investment club for the inmates or produce a play called PRISONERS OF LOVE.
A GIANT CASE OF THE DWTs
What are the DWTs. It is doing the wrong things. It is when you are busy all day doing everything except the most important thing that you need to do that day. The congress and President Obama have a giant case of the DWTs. They are doing everything except the most important things they need to do to help stabilize things. They look busy and are throwing money around willy nilly. They just try to appear to do something while avoiding what they really need to do.
WHO IS ST. PADDY?
St. Patrick was not the inventor of green beer or green plastic derby hats.
St. Patrick is the patron saint of Ireland. He was born in Wales and lived AD 387 - AD 461. When he was sixteen he was captured by Irish raiders and turned into an Irish slave. He escaped after about six years and went home, but returned to Ireland as a missionary after joining the priesthood.
The legend is that St. Patrick chased all of the snakes out of Ireland. Killjoy scientists always ready to ruin a legend say that glaciers from the Ice Age killed all of the snakes.
BEWARE THE IDES OF MARCH!
There, I quoted Shakespeare- JULIUS CAESAR Act I Scene II.
Julius Caesar was assassinated by senators with daggers on the Ides of March, 2051 years ago. "Et tu Brute?"
The ides of the month in the Roman Calendar fell on the 15th of March, May, July and October. The ides fell on the 13th every other month.
DID YOU HAVE A DATE FOR 3.14159265 DAY? NEITHER DID ANYONE ELSE THAT CELEBRATED THAT DAY.
Math geeks around the world were in a tizzie over Pi day - March 14th or 3.14. Pi is the constant number used to calculate the area or circumference of a circle. It starts with 3.14159265 and continues to an infinite number of decimal places. Pi maniacs compete to see who can learn the longest string. A Japanese mental health counselor holds the world record by reciting Pi to the 100,000th decimal place. Someone should examine his head.
Just imagine Pi day in 2015. It will be like Y2K.
Coincidentally, it is also Albert Einstein's birthday.
THE BEST ECONOMIC STIMULUS
When people feel flush they spend money. When businesses feel flush they hire extra people. The economy expands. When people feel like they are barely hanging on they don't spend. When a business feels like they are barely hanging on they can people. The economy contracts.
You don't have to be rich to feel flush. You feel rich when you get a raise, a big bonus check, make a big sale, a nice tax refund. You start feeling like "there's no stopping me, now". You go out and buy a new car, house, electronics, vacation, nights on the town, your kids can go to college, etc., and write a big check to charity.
The dumb @!#$%*!S in Washington, who for some perverse reason don't believe in promoting prosperity, should stop doing things that make everyone feel like they're screwed.
A BLOODY CAD AND A BOUNDER
President Obama embarrassed himself and the United States during his meeting with the Prime Minister of England. He insulted Gordon Brown by not having a State Dinner as is always afforded to our allies and honored guests. He acted like he was meeting with someone from somewhere insignificant like the Duchy of Grand Fenwick.
He gave back a bust of Sir Winston Churchill proudly presented to President Bush after 9/11, The Prime Minister said he did not want to take it back. He said if Obama didn't want it in his office he could put it in a museum. He was told to get it out of here, we don't want it.
Protocol dictates that you give a gift of special meaning. Instead, Obama gave Gordon Brown a thoughtless gift of 25 DVDs that were either laying around or he sent someone down to Wal-Mart to pick up. The prime minister has gone blind in one eye and is concerned about losing sight in the other. The British public are not pleased.
John Kerry and the other snobby liberals have been worrying about what the French must think of us because of Bush. This incident and the stupid RESET button presented to the Russians makes President Bush seem like a genius and Miss Manners.
With manners like this, you have to wonder if Obama was "raised in a barn".
CARNIES NEEDED TO WORK AT THE AIRPORT
Charging to go to the bathroom, pillows, drinks, extra bags, buying tickets. The airlines are looking for every way to get a few extra dollars out of you. What's next?
After checking in at the airport, will the airlines soon require you to be strapped into a Rosie O'Donnell like contraption that turns you upside down so they can shake all the change out of your pocket?
A travel expert claims the best thing to eat at an airport is a corn dog.
Spring Forward Fall Back
Remember to turn your clocks ahead Saturday night. OOOPS. Sorry, it's next week.I hope you remembered to turn your clocks ahead, If not, you're late.
Daylight Savings Time was invented by Benjamin Franklin. Many farmers are against it because the extra hour of daylight tends to burn their crops up. Arizona doesn't have it because they don't need to be any hotter in the summer.
SAFEST PLACE TO LIVE
Tornadoes in Alabama, Blizzards in Mississippi in March, Volcanoes in Alaska, waiting for the BIG ONE in California, where can you move?
A professor figured out where the safest places to live in the United States are. Among the top three is Roswell, New Mexico.
He looked to see where you were least likely to be hit by a hurricane, tornado, earthquake, mudslide or forest fire. He ruled out places where you could freeze to death in a blizzard or die prostrate from extreme heat and humidity.
Apparently he didn't take into consideration the angry aliens who will disintegrate Roswell when they come looking for their spaceship that crashed there in 1947 and can't find it.
CALLING MR. DARWIN
Recently, a woman was crossing a train track when her car died. She looked to the side window and could see a train bearing down on her. Instead of getting out of the car, she dialed 9-1-1.
WILT'S 2nd BIGGEST DAY
On March, 2,1962, Wilt "the stilt" Chamberlain scored 100 points in a NBA basketball game played in Hershey, PA. A sports record that is unlikely to ever be broken. There is no video record of the game. Over half the people who witnessed the game are now dead. Most of the rest who claimed to have been there are lying.
Wilt must have had a least one day more productive on his way to achieving his record of making love to 20,000 women.
Opal was skinny and lived to be 103. I saw her on a television show that for about 40 years traveled Texas looking for interesting people and stories. They met Opal in 1985 when she was only 83 years old. Opal ran a general store, her father started, in a tiny dusty town in the middle of West Texas. She awoke everyday at 4:00 AM. She had lunch about 9- a cool Dr. Pepper. For dinner at about 2, she would make a toasted marshmallow. They didn't say what she ate for breakfast but I am sure it wasn't he same as an NFL lineman.
FANS OF MR BAD IDEAS ENJOYING THEIR FAVORITE PODCAST
HAPPY SQUARE ROOT DAY
Math geeks get a double whammy of celebrating this month. Later in the month it is PI Day. May 3, 2009 was Square Root Day. It comes around whenever the number of the month is the same as the date, you multiply them together and it equals the last digit of the year. Today 3 X 3= 9. WHHOOOO WHOOOO YEAAHHHHH.
Square Root Day will happen nine times this century with the next Square Root Day in 2016. Guess the month.
IS IT WRONG?
Is it wrong to have a crush on someone in an old movie? They are forever young in the film, but in real life they may be in their eighties and the same age as your mother or grandmother.
I have always had a thing for Julie Harris as Abra in EAST OF EDEN and Joan Leslie from SERGEANT YORK and YANKEE DOODLE DANDY. Joan Leslie is probably doubly wrong since she was only sixteen, but looked like she was in her early twenties.
UNTIL SOMEBODY SELLS SOMETHING, NOBODY WORKS
The most important thing a business needs is to find something they can sell to people who need it and finding people that need to buy what they have. Until a sale can be made, nobody else can work. There is no need for the people that produce whatever product or service you are selling, no one is needed to transport anything, and there is nothing for anyone in the office to do and there is no reason to buy anything used to produce whatever you are selling. How can the government create a job? It can't except for being a customer. It can only get in the way. It is not a business' job to give someone a job out of the goodness of their hearts. There are jobs when there is something that needs to get done.
IF YOU NEED A LOAN TO MAKE PAYROLL, YOU HAVE A BAD BUSINESS.
I'M MOVING TO THE TOP OF A MOUNTAIN SO IF ANYONE TRIES TO COME UP AFTER ME I CAN ROLL ROCKS DOWN AT THEM
Some alarmists are saying that things are going to get so bad there will be revolution and riots in the streets. Gun sales have skyrocketed. It's time to lay in supplies of can goods. You might consider loading up on this:
A person who owns and runs a restaurant is a restaurateur, not a restauranteur. There is no N in restaurateur. It evolved from the previous meaning of the word- a doctor's assistant that sets broken bones.
A MONEY SAVING TIP FOR HARD TIMES
Are you trying to stretch every dollar you have left? You can save money on toilet paper by buying 2-ply, then separate the plies. Oua-la. 2 rolls of toilet paper.
Sure you could do it by hand, but check out the Toilet Paper Separator It will save you even more because No batteries or electricity required.
Unfortunately, if everyone starts skimping on toilet paper they will have to start laying off toilet paper workers. Their lives will be ruined. Their house will get foreclosed and the government will have to bail them out. If you don't wantonly squander your money on stuff, you will be responsible for the ruin of the economy.
GETTING PAID TO WATCH TV
Allen gets his whole staff together at his house to watch the Academy Awards on television. He never misses it, but not because he is a superfan. He never misses it because he makes millions of dollars from watching.
Liberal politicians hate WAL-MART. They are always trying to put the kibosh on WAL-MART coming to their town. They would love WAL-MART if it was owned by the government. The problem is it would be run by the government. Many of the shelves would be empty and others would be full of stuff nobody wants to buy.
That rotten WAL-MART has the most efficient distribution system the world has ever seen. Liberal politicians rail about all of the mom and pop stores that charge high prices, pay minimum wage with no benefits that WAL-MART puts out of business.
I hate Wal-Mart, too. Every time I go in to a Wal-Mart to buy something specific, they place bargains in the aisle. "That's a good price. I need that." I always end up with a basketful of stuff that I needed, but when I walked into the store I didn't remember I needed. Damn you Wal-Mart!
IF YOU CAN READ THIS YOU MIGHT BE A SCHOOL TEACHER
i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno�t mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghi t pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!
They claim that 55 out of 100 people can read the message. 100% of school teachers probably can. The spell check can't. It underlined every word.
I'LL PASS ON THE LIFE PRESERVER I'D RATHER DROWN
California is broke. They are laying off workers, raising taxes on everything they can think of, holding all night state legislature sessions, turning loose over 50,000 criminals because they can't afford to keep them locked up, begging the federal government for a bail out. Yet, they have billions and billions of barrels of oil offshore that they refuse to let anybody drill on. They could lease it and receive a huge pile of cash immediately plus royalties for years to come. Why don't they? Environmentalist wackos would get cross with them.
PEOPLE BELIEVE THE DAMNDEST THINGS
According to the Monday Morning Memo, Author James Michener gave author William Lederer advice that changed his life:
"the public is more willing to believe fiction than non-fiction."
Our bodies contain approximately 100 million sensory receptors that allow us to see, hear, taste, touch and smell physical reality. But the brain contains 10 thousand billion synapses. This means we're roughly 100,000 times better equipped to experience a world that does not exist, than a world that does.
William changed his book with names of real people and countries to fictional characters and countries. His book went on to sell 3 million copies.
Now we know why- if you tell a lie that is big enough and often enough, people will believe it.
WHAT WAS THE NAME OF ABE LINCOLN'S DOG
FIDO
Fido, short for fidelis (faithful), was a yellow dog of uncertain pedigree that followed Lincoln all over Springfield, IL dutifully carrying his newspaper or other objects and waited for him outside of the barbershop. Fido was a house dog and couch potato claiming a horse hair couch as his own. He was left in Springfied in the care of family friends after Lincoln was elected president because Fido was skittish about crowds and cannon fire. Before Lincoln left, he had a photograph taken, perhaps the first photograph of a dog. At the White House, the Lincolns had a dog named Jip. Is this the origin of the phrase "getting jipped" as Fido was?
Andrew Jackson was the first president to open the Inauguration to the public in 1829. 10,000 people came to town and 21,000 witnessed the swearing in ceremony on the Capitol steps. Many descended on the White House for the after inauguration reception which turned into a drunken melee. The rabble stood on chairs with their muddy boots to get a better look at Jackson and broke china and decorative pieces. Andrew Jackson had to escape through a window and spent the night at a hotel. They coaxed the rowdydows out of the White House by putting tubs of punch and liquor on the lawn. Andrew Jackson became known as King Mob.
3:45am IS THE BEST TIME TO SNEAK HOME BECAUSE IF ANYONE SEES YOU THEY ARE SNEAKING HOME, TOO.
February 13th was CHEATER'S DAY- the day when the most unfaithful spouses get caught. Here's a quote in honor of the day:
Hillary Clinton has been cheated on more than a blind woman playing Scrabble with gypsies. ---Dennis Miller
I'M HAPPY YOU LIKE YOUR NEW PAJAMAS, NOW, GET'EM OFF
We are in the middle of the pre-Valentine bombardment of commercials selling husbands and boyfriends on buying sexy pajamas for their wife and/or girlfriend. After the women slide on their new p.j.'s the men will be trying to pull them off in about 30 seconds. Who is this present for?
The man won't be choosing the style he thinks will look best on his wife and/or girlfriend.
After receiving the new pajamas, the women will know from the style they receive which model in the commercial their man has the hots for. His call to action to purchase the pajamas will show the degree his eyes have been bugging out for that girl. I think Mrs. Bad Ideas would like the red pajamas with the straps.
VALENTINE'S DAY FOR CLODS
According to a recent survey, flowers are not in the Top 3 gifts desired by women for Valentine's Day. They don't really want them delivered in person at home. Flowers move up the list if they are delivered by the florist to her office for everyone to notice. Sending them a day ahead of time is even better. There is a better chance that more of her girlfriends will see them.
MY ECONOMIC BIG TRUCK THEORY
You want economic stimulus. I've got your economic stimulus. President Obama wanted to offer businesses a measly $3000 tax credit for hiring a new employee. A new employee costs a lot more than that to hire and train. If you instead offer them $100,000 each (they will have to keep them on the payroll for a year), employers will be driving around in trucks snatching unemployed people off the sidewalk, throwing them in the back, then hiring them on the spot no questions asked. Instead of a trillion dollar stimulus package you will get 10 million people a job.
The Big Truck theory works for other things. You could have emptied out New Orleans before Katrina if the government had a put a bounty on giving rides out of town. Maybe, $10,000 (maybe less) for each potentially stranded person you drag into your vehicle. They say it is impossible to deport mucho millions of illegal aliens back to Mexico. No problem with the Big Truck Theory.
WHAT IS A SHOVEL-READY PROJECT?
The latest buzzword coined by President Obama's word coiners is "shovel-ready project". What is it? The only "shovel-ready project" that comes to mind involves a horse stall.
MORE RESEARCH MONEY WELL SPENT
Scientists at Leeds University (in England) have analyzed why the smell of french fries (chips in England) are so tantalizing.
They found that the appeal of their smell comes from the combination of
nine aromas including butterscotch, cocoa, onion, cheese and ironing boards.
THE OLD WOMAN WHO LIVED IN A SHOE
The mother of the octuplets, known affectionately as OCTOMOM, obviously planned to support them and her other six kids by cashing in on the event. She seems a little screwy. I wonder if she was planning to use part of the money to build a house shaped like a shoe?
One day, she will live in a house with thirteen teenagers.
WOULD ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS SWEET
They say that GITMO has tarnished our image around the world. Who are they? They is those who spend more time worrying about what others think than not getting blown up.
Rebrand it. The old marketing trick is selling something that won't sell by giving it a new name. GUINESS BOOK OF WORLD RECORDS was initially a flop and gathering dust piled up in a warehouse. A guy bought them all, ripped off the cover and stuck on new one with a better title.
Since, most people couldn't find Guantanamo Bay on a map, just rename it. How about the JIHAD ISLAND RESORT. We can turn down reservations from jetsetters that try, It will make it seem more exclusive.
MAKE YOU OWN OPPORTUNITY
Joe Ades, the man who became wealthy selling potato peelers on the streets of New York City died the other day at age 75. He lived on Park Avenue, ate at the finest restaurants in New York with his wife and drank champagne every night.
Five potato peelers for $20, if you don't have any friends- one for $5.
THE WORST ECONOMY IN A MILLION YEARS
How do you stimulate the economy? People must feel secure with their jobs. If they feel secure, then they will live their lives normally and will spend their money. If they spend money and behave normally, businesses won't feel like they are on the verge of going broke. They won't be looking for ways to cut costs. They won't be firing everybody. If they aren't firing everybody and maybe hiring some, then people will feel secure about their jobs. If the government does stupid things, like squandering huge amounts of supposed bailout money on worthless projects and raising taxes, that make consumers or businesses feel insecure, then no one will spend any money and everyone will get canned.
I wonder if I can get some of the wasteful stimulus money to fix my driveway. Just think of how many people I can put to work.
WE NEED A LITTLE CHRISTMAS RIGHT THIS VERY MINUTE
Here is an economic stimulus plan that doesn't cost anything. How about a little inspiration, encouragement and optimism. We have the greatest country with the most ingenious, hard working and hard charging group of people in the world. Get up and Go do it! Maybe, if we repeat it enough we will believe it.
VIOLATING THE GENEVA CONVENTION
I saw the former commandant of Gitmo on TV. He described the detainees mistreatment. They receive a 5,000 calorie per day diet, they even have a pastry chef, and watch high def TV.
It sounds like caloric intake on a cruise ship or resort. Are they trying to ruin their health by turning them into fat couch potatoes? Perhaps they torture them with the Playboy Channel and Britney Spears videos. For recreation, they have plenty of time to relax and dream up devious murderous plots.
Is it against the Geneva Convention to make terrorists leave their tropical island paradise to stick them in a cave in Colorado?
SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD THEY STILL THINK WE WON
If you go to a third world country and notice people wearing Championship t-shirts or hats from a United States team, the other team won. The screen printers print up a bunch of CHAMPIONS stuff for both teams involved in a Championship game so they will be ready for sale as soon as the game is over. They have to do something to get rid of the loser stuff they printed. So, they ship it off to countries where they don't care who won. In Nicaragua, The New England Patriots won the SUPER BOWL and ended the season 19-0.
SIX MORE WEEKS OF WINTER
Groundhog Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow and says: Six more weeks of winter. Phil is right 39% of the time. A coin flip would be right 50%. Phil lives on dog food, ice cream and his yearly nip of Groundhog Punch (which gives him immortality(he is now 122 years old).
SUPER BOWL LOSERS NEED SOMEWHERE TO GO
When you ask a winner of the Super Bowl what's next, he always says, "I'm going to Disney World". Where does the loser go?
I kept seeing tourism commercials for California and Florida. Then, one day I glanced up to see images on the TV of a forgotten destination the ad claimed was a vacation wonderland. Eureka. That's It.
NEBRASKA
SHOULD YOU SLOW DOWN OR SPEED UP?
Some young hooligan hacked into a traffic alert sign on a freeway in Austin, Texas. The sign warned drivers- ZOMBIES AHEAD.
JUST OK BOWL
They could not sell all of the seats at the first Super Bowl with Green Bay and Kansas City. Two college marching bands played at half time. There is no recorded record of the first two Super Bowls because the tapes were erased. They thought no one would ever want to see them again. It wasn't even called the Super Bowl. Pete Rozell, the NFL commissioner wanted to call it THE BIG ONE. Kansas City Chiefs' owner Lamar Hunt thought of the name after watching his kids play with a Super Ball.
WHO IS THAT OLD GUY?
Bruce Springsteen is the half time show at this year's Super Bowl. Former teen idols Paul McCartney and the Rolling Stones have performed in recent years. This was equivalent year-wise as if former teen idol Rudy Vallee had sung with his megaphone at the first Super Bowl.
PUPPIES PUPPIES PUPPIES
The LINGERIE BOWL is out but the PUPPY BOWL scampers on.
The PUPPY BOWL V will air opposite the SUPER BOWL on Animal Planet. It features puppies at play on a set made to look like a football stadium. The PUPPY BOWL usually attracts 8 million viewers amd averages 1.1 million viewers at any one time.
I heard a story on public radio's THIS AMERICAN LIFE where the storyteller told of how her father came up with the PUPPY CHANNEL for cable tv in the 1980s. He made a pilot and composed a theme song. He believed it would be a great stress reliever and calming effect. He made pitches but couldn't get any cable honchos to bite.
In the early days of cable, which was mostly in small towns rebroadcasting the closest big city TV signals, they usually had a channel devoted to scanning weather gauges or maybe trained on a fish bowl.
Super Bowl Sunday comes in second only to Thanksgiving Day for food consumption. It is the #1 day for pizza sales.
CONSUME MASS QUANTITIES
The golden arches had a Super Bowl Day promotion of 50 Chicken Nuggets for $9.99. I assume this is a quantity designed for parties. For a few dollars more you can get a combo with two large fries and two large drinks. This seems designed for hogs. You and a gluttonous buddy could share 25 chicken nuggets a piece, a large french fry and a large drink and hope you don't explode.
They did it last year,so there must be more than a few to folks that want to eat like a lineman. Don't fight over the last one.
The cat's in the bag and the bag's in the river.
NEITHER RAIN NOR SNOW NOR SLEET NOR DARK OF NIGHT BUT ONLY TUESDAYS SHALL STAY THESE COURIERS FROM THE SWIFT COMPLETION OF THEIR APPOINTED ROUNDS
The post office citing operating losses is planning to cut postal delivery by one day a week. It will probably be Tuesday because that is the slowest delivery day. I always call it JUNK MAIL DAY, because that is all I get on Tuesday. Mail was once delivered twice a day and three times a day DOWNTOWN in the business districts (cut back to twice a day in 1969). There is a pneumatic tube system buried beneath New York City that they used to shoot mail between postal stations.
Checking the mail is the highlight of some folks day and the only thing they have to look forward to. We can expect deaths from distress and loneliness especially if their TV goes blank because they didn't get a digital converter. Thanks government for ruining my life.
I will have to wait an extra day for that Million Dollar Check I am always expecting to find.
Things run by the government try to do the least for their customers where it is in the interest of private business to do the most because their customer can go do business with someone else.
I'M CRAZY BLAGO. MY PRICES ARE INSANE!
Governor Blagojevich is skipping impeachment hearings to go to New York to appear on THE VIEW. He continues to say bizarre things like comparing himself to a horse thief and the quandary cowboys would have of lynching him or giving him a trial then lynching him. He says he considered appointing Oprah senator. I think he is angling for a new job after he is impeached as a TV star. If he keeps in the spotlight he could get offered his own talk show. He has already been offered a radio show. If not he can sell cars or electronics like MADMAN MUNTZ and appear "in take advantage of the owner because he is crazy or brain dead" commercials.
ARE YOU READY FOR SOME HAGGIS?
January 25th is the birthday of Robert Burns. Robert Burns is regarded as the national poet of Scotland and Scotland's favorite son. He died in 1796, and Robert Burns Night has been celebrated on his birthday around the world since.
The festivities include the Burns supper with the cutting of the Haggis and
Robert's famous Address To a Haggis is read. Burns aficionados smuggle Haggis made in Scotland in for the special occasion.
Haggis is sheep's 'pluck' (heart, liver and lungs), minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock, and traditionally boiled in the animal's stomach for approximately three hours. Modern Haggis is stuffed in a casing, but for the Burn supper you need the real thing.
FROM THE MOUTH OF BABES
Mrs. Bad Ideas teaches middle school. She asked the class to write a paper on "What is an inauguration?". One student wrote that it is when the president makes a PINKIE PROMISE.
Do you (mr. president) solemnly pinkie promise to ....... as he crosses pinkies with the chief justice.
I BARELY KNEW THE GUY
There are a lot guys that have suddenly become barely known by politicians. Barack Obama has many questionable associates like Bill Ayers and Blagojevich or Reverend Wright that he now barely knows. He may have worked with them or met weekly in a "mastermind alliance" to plot their political rise or have photos surfacing of them laughing with their arm across their shoulder.
How do you defend guilt by association with a good friend. Here's an excuse- In reality, how can you say that you really know someone. Many wives and girlfriends could claim the same.
I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU THINK, I LIKE MIRACLE WHIP
I read a lot of food blogs, watch cooking shows and restaurant travelogues. I have determined that I would not be invited to join the club of a foodie. A foodie is someone who believes he or she is a connoseur, amateur chef, restaurant critic and discoverer. I like to cook and have a secret desire to own a hamburger stand.
A foodie has definite opinions about even the most basic of foods. They think that their hamburgers should be nearly raw and pizza crust half burnt. A foodie is appalled at the thought of using Miracle Whip instead of mayonnaise.
They watch the Food Network, too, where the hosts and chefs are insane about freshly grinding pepper in a pepper mill. I am sure it is stronger but I am not fussy and just as happy to shake it out of a can.
DIETERS STANDING AT OPEN REFRIGERATOR AT MIDNIGHT EATING A GOB OF MAYONNAISE FROM THE JAR
A new survey says that mayonnaise is the second most popular treat for those currently dieting. Of course, ice cream is first. 23.6% find guilty pleasure in mayonnaise.
I HOPE BARACK OBAMA DOESN'T START WEARING A STOVEPIPE HAT
Barack Obama is so infatuated with and channeling Abraham Lincoln, I hope it doesn't lead him to wearing a stovepipe hat.
If he did he wouldn't be accused of losing his mind. He has so many sycophants to excuse his behavior the refrain would be "No one ever changed the world complaining about stovepipe hats?"
He might start a fashion trend. The stovepipe hat may become the IN thing to wear. Chris Matthews might start doing his show while his leg tingles wearing a stovepipe hat.
It could cause a fad of teen punks running in cliques as Stovepipe Hatters.
President Obama is like Chance the Gardener in BEING THERE. His sycophants and the goo goo eyed project whatever they want to see on him.
A REPLACEMENT FOR GITMO
President Obama has promised to close Guantanamo to satisfy his more wacko supporters. What to do with a group of cutthroats who spend their day thinking of ways to blow us up or spray us with deadly disease? No one wants them in a Federal Prison near their town. The English sent prisoners to Australia, the French had Devil's Island. Doing something similar would bring howls against cruelty. Here is an idea:
A man from Oklahoma has been trying to build his own country called New Utopia for years. He wants to gang a bunch of oil platforms together south of Cuba and east of the Yucatan Peninsula on a plateau that is only 60 feet deep. This looks to me to be on the super highway for hurricanes headed for the Gulf of Mexico.
Currently, there is only a buoy tied in place to mark the spot and a website for the Principality of New Utopia. He has been accused of running a scam for trying to fraudulently sell citizenships for $1500,
New Utopia international driver's license for $110, and $350 million in bonds.
He renamed himself Prince Lazarus. The prince has big plans for his new country-- A spaceport, movie studios, a 5000 student medical school, international bank and investment center, a giant mall, an oil refinery and refueling station for cruise ships, and gambling casinos.
If it will help him finance the project, I am sure he would put in a Terrorist Prison. He could put in the Terrorist Prison while waiting for his other projects.
On second thought, if our government meddlers are going to continue to bankrupt our country, forget the terrorists, maybe I will move there.
There is another man that has his own country on an oil platform off the coast of Ireland called SEALAND. He has lived there since the 1960s. Sealand's main industry is a website hosting company, I assume for websites of dubious intentions.
IT'S GOOD EATIN'
Folks in Missouri are smacking their lips over Raccoon. You can't buy it at the supermarket, but you might find a fur trapper selling frozen Raccoon out of his trunk for $3 - $7 each. Coon Eaters say it may sound like a horrible idea until you taste one. A Missouri state biologist says raccoon is one of the healthiest meats you can eat.
It does take a lot of work to prepare a raccoon. First, you have to brine it overnight in a bucket of water, salt and vinegar. Next, you boil it for two and a half hours after removing the last paw attached. The law says that the seller must leave one paw on after removing the head, innards and paws to prove it is not a cat, dog or some other varmint. Then, you slow roast after slathering with barbecue sauce and stuffing the cavity with sweet potatoes.
WAIT TIL NEXT YEAR
January 15th is the day that 90% have given up on their New Year's Resolution. There will no longer be a wait for the exercise machines at the gym.
I COULDN'T BE A DELUDED WANNABE ON AMERICAN IDOL
AMERICAN IDOL has returned.
People who love me stop me from singing by the third note whenever I try to sing a song. I never get past that note. I don't know if I can sing or not. Maybe, I am great and nobody knows because they haven't heard me sing a whole song. I might just start a little off. Maybe, if Simon could just hear me- I could be a star. And, if Simon doesn't recognize my talent that guy can go straight to Hades.
SO, YOU WANT AN ELECTRIC CAR
You can turn any car into an electric car if you take it to an electric car converter company in California. For $55,000 they will put in the electric engine and the power pack-- 5,000 laptop computer batteries. It can travel 120 miles on a charge. You can get a new sports car that will go 200 miles on a charge from TESLA. It will cost you $100,000 and has 10,000 laptop computer batteries. This means that instead of powering 1 million computers you can power 100-200 cars.
There is a motorcycle that runs on 1200 portable power tool batteries.
DON'T QUIT YOUR JOB
UNTIL YOU HAVE ANOTHER ONE
Once, the horse and buggy, the railroad, and IBM mainframe computers were the be all and end all and automobiles, airplanes and personal computers were only in the hands of tinkering crackpots.
Right now, oil, coal and nuclear are the be all. Everything else is still in crackpotland. One day, some of the crackpots will make them obsolete. No one knows which ones until the free market decides. It will happen, but we can't put all our eggs in the kook basket. We need to adjust to what we already have that works.
The free market is the best way to decide what is most worthwhile because everyone gets a vote with their money. It is no longer opinion when you have to put your money where your mouth is.
WHAT IS BUBBLEGUM FLAVOR?
I recently stumbled upon how they make the flavor of bubblegum. It is a concoction of wintergreen, peppermint, vanilla and cinnamon flavorings. If anyone asks, now you know.
LOOKING FOR WORK?
If you just got laid off you might consider a career in a new growth industry. Become a REPO MAN. Auto dealers are now giving loans with qualifications more like the sub-prime loans that got us into trouble. Needing someone to take back all the cars is the future.
I claim to have been ripped off by Bernard Madoff. Now, I have a good excuse for being broke.
OVER 200 VIRUSES CAUSE COLDS
According to a doctor on television, going outside and getting cold and wet will not cause you to get a cold. Staying warm inside hanging around germy people touching door knobs and computer keyboards will.
A GUY WHO ONCE THOUGHT HE WAS BOTH SISKEL AND EBERT
Clint Eastwood is once again ruling the box office. I haven't seen the movie yet, but the trailers make it look like what Dirty Harry is like when he retired.
I was watching DIRTY HARRY and noticed when Clint Eastwood throws his badge in the lake he is a southpaw. He is right handed when he is shooting punks.
Any damn fool can believe and propose anything. It is up to sensible people not to go along with it
LET'S BAN THE WORD CHANGE, TOO
Every January Lake Superior State University in Sault Ste. Marie publishes a list of 15 Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.
Green /
Carbon Footprint /
Maverick /
First Dude /
Bailout //
Wall Street/Main Street
// -monkey (all-purpose internet suffix)
// Icon/iconic
// Game changer
/ Staycation
/ Desperate Search
/ Not so much
/ Winner of (number) Nominations
/ It's that time of year again
For next year I nominate- you know, and "nobody wants to buy a car from a bankrupt company"
I have decided to change careers. I want to be a professional BAILOUT RECIPIENT. mrbadideas.com is facing tough times. Nobody wants to read anything posted by a bankrupt website.
HAPPY 74TH BIRTHDAY ELVIS
THE BEST SANDWICH ELVIS EVER ATE
You probably know about the Peanut Butter and Nanner (banana) sandwiches- the gloppy mess Elvis's cook often made him. Elvis said the best sandwich he ever ate was the FOOL'S GOLD LOAF. It was a sandwich made by the Colorado Mine Company restaurant in Denver that cost $49.50.
The legend goes that one night in 1976, Elvis had two police friends from Denver visiting him at Graceland and talk turned to the FOOL'S GOLD LOAF and how they all wished they had one. So they hopped into Elvis's jet-TCB and flew to Denver. The restaurant delivered the sandwiches to the airport hangar and Elvis and his buddies devoured them and washed it down with Dom Perignon. Here's the recipe:
o 2 T margarine
o 1 loaf Italian white bread
o 1 lb bacon slices
o 1 jar of smooth peanut butter
o 1 jar of grape jelly
Heat an oven to 450 degrees. Cut the loaf of bread in half and hollow it out. Rub margarine all over the outside of the bread, slather on the jar of peanut butter then stick it in the oven. Take out the bread when it gets toasty and the peanut butter warm and gooey. Add the jar of grape jelly. You can either put the bacon in the hollowed out bread cavity or between the peanut butter and jelly.
Elvis could eat one by himself.
WWEE
What Would Elvis Eat?
MY NEWEST MOVIE PITCH
MARLEY & ME has been number one at the box office for several weeks and has quickly grossed over $100 million. Everyone loves a dog movie. You can't lose. There have been thousands of books written about Abe Lincoln. Movies about Lincoln were once very popular and there hasn't been one for a while. Here is a surefire blockbuster:
GEE, I WONDER IF ANGELINA AND BRAD OR JENNIFER LIKE THIS SONG?
Big star obsession or Obama-like infatuation is nothing new. Broadway actress Ethel Barrymore (Drew's great aunt) was one of the first nationally famous stars and glamor girls. In 1901, she happened to briefly drive past a huge ship that was sinking in the harbor. As if the whole world revolved around her, the newspaper headline in huge bold type read:
ACTRESS SEES SINKING VESSEL
GREASY KID STUFF
The SUN BOWL has had 5 corporate sponsors in the last 20 years.
VITALIS was the sponsor for a couple of years. I didn't know that Vitalis, big in the 50's and 60s, was still around. VITALIS was replaced by BRUT. If the SUN BOWL is going to be the vehicle for rejuvenating forgotten brands
I predict that it will next be called The BUTCH WAX Bowl.
"Election Day is when they auction off stolen money to the highest bid."
--H.L. MENCKEN
Most elections seem to be won by the candidate with the most money. That is why incumbents generally win. The governor of Illinois was trying to sell the Senate seat. He was under investigation for selling other apppointments. Most ambassadorships are bought.
Maybe, we should do away with elections. We could just have the office seekers lineup at the capitol on a specified day. The one who presents the biggest check wins the seat he is seeking. Campaign contributions are really voting by putting money where your mouth is. At least, we would be more honest about it.
DON'T LET THE BED BUGS BITE
An Israeli official responding to a question about Hamas launching rockets from residential areas to discourage retaliation and possible deaths of innocent civilians said:
"If you are sleeping in a house with rockets, don't plan to wake up in the morning."
IT'S ALL OVER NOW, BABY BLUE
A Canadian company that specializes in divorces, runs ads in a Toronto newspaper with this headline: "Holidays Are Over - You Can Stop Pretending Now."
TAKE ADVICE FROM A CHEAPSKATE AND PARTY LIKE IT'S 1998
There is no reason to buy a new calendar or throw out an old one.
There are only seven permutations of the yearly calendar. For 2009, you can use an old one from a year that matches, such as 1998, or 1970.
We need Christmas Lights more in January than December. We could use something to cheer us up during the most dismal depressing month of the year. Many homes still have their lights up. They just don't get turned on.
MY NEW YEAR'S RESOLUTION
When my mother-in-law begins to scream and shout, through the window I would like to throw her out. I resolve not to do it here is why. I'm afraid of hitting someone passing by.
---Spike Jones & His City Slickers
I would wish you a Happy New Year, but since some people never find anything to be happy about should I wish them- Don't Get Killed on the Way Home.
WHAT IS AMERICA'S FAVORITE WI-FI HOT SPOT?
Their next door neighbor.
There is a TV ad for a mail order product and the "wait there's more" free gift is a Wi-Fi finder. They show a lady standing in a drive way. I think she is walking down the block desperately using her Wi-Fi finder looking for a signal.
How can you tell if we are in a depression?
When I hop a freight train to head to California to pick fruit.
YOU GOTTA START AT THE BOTTOM TO GET TO THE TOP
On SIXTY MINUTES, Barack Obama once again proudly talked about how he turned down many big money job offers to take a $13,000 a year job as a community organizer. With all of the dealings of the corrupt Chicago political machine coming to light from the "Blago mess" , it finally dawned on me what a community organizer is. A community organizer is an entry level position into the machine of Chicago politics. It is like starting in the mail room or making copies until you learn the ropes in a large company. It is a foot in the door with an eye toward big things to come.
I WANT THE DEAL THEY GIVE THEIR GRANDMA
GM's latest advertising ploy to drum up business to keep from shutting the doors is to offer SUPPLIER DISCOUNTS. Is this really a sweeter deal than the EMPLOYEE DISCOUNT? If I was an auto worker and found out the suppliers were getting a better deal than me, I would go on strike.
IT'S TIME TO HIDE THE PRESERVES
Here is a tip for giving holiday house guests the message they should go home.
An old relative from the South once told me he knew he had overstayed his welcome as a house guest when they took the preserves off the table.
One reader says the preserves trick won't work with his "Deliverance family"
NOT WORTH A BUCKET OF WARM SPIT
Many employers give employees the day after Christmas and New Year's Day off because they know that the workers won't be doing any work. They will be talking, shopping and playing on the internet, and seething about being mistreated by having to come in. It is like trying to teach on the last day of school.
DON'T CLIMB EVERY MOUNTAIN
They just had for the yearly holiday showing of SOUND OF MUSIC.
Filmakers take dramatic license to make films more interesting. If the Von Trapp family had really climbed that mountain at the end of the movie to escape the Nazis they would have been heading into Germany, not Switzerland. The audience smiling with feelings of relief and well being as the "Climb Every Mountain" music plays should instead be screaming "Stop, you're going the wrong way. Turn around!"
ARE YOU TRYING TO POISON ME?
I wonder what the Whopper Virgins' opinion of Big Mac and Whoppers are an hour later? Being totally foreign to their simple possibly vegetarian diets they are probably throwing up and suffering Ronald McDonald's Revenge.
THE #1 MOST READ STORY ON MY WEBSITES
Readership always jumps the day after a major traveling holiday for the most read story on my websites. The reason is obvious. Every year over One Million bags are lost by the airlines. The day after a holiday GOOGLE is burning up with people looking for their lost luggage. I know where it ends up if it is lost forever.
If the airline loses your luggage forever they will not reimburse you for some premium items. Don't pack antlers in your suitcase because if they lose it you are out of luck. The airlines pay a flat $9.07 a pound for luggage never returned to its owner up to $640.00.
Do you know where all lost airline luggage goes? There is a magical special place and you can go there and buy other people's stuff for a bargain. Their loss is your gain.
For those with a compulsion to look in your hosts' medicine cabinet, you can go there just to touch other people's stuff.
A travel expert claims the best thing to eat at an airport is a corn dog.
YOU'RE DOOMED AND DON'T FORGET IT!
The lazy news media has their template. They are pouring it on about how bad holiday sales were. They wouldn't have a story if they couldn't make it seem worse. They report retail sales are down 8 per cent. They fail to mention that gasoline retailing is included. Everyone is driving less and paying nearly half price for gas from last year.
HOW DID YOU GET TO BE SENATOR? I DIDN'T VOTE FOR YOU
There have been a lot of senate openings since Obama was elected president. The openings are going to be filled not by elections, but through connections and pay offs of one kind or another.
This reminds me of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL. A peasant asks King Arthur how he became king. King Arthur explains that the Lady of the Lake presented him with Excalibur. The peasant replies:
Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government.
you can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you.
We will soon have a government picked by Watery Tarts.
RUNNING OUT OF SUCKERS
Bernard Madoff did it with a smile. Social Security does it with threats of taking you stuff or throwing you in the pokey. Ponzi/Pyramid schemes depend on a never ending supply of suckers.
From 1937 to 2005, Social Security took in more than $10.7 trillion in taxes and gave out more than $8.9 trillion. So far, so good. It is projected to run a surplus until 2018 when the baby boomers retire and start cleaning it out. The social security "lock box" will run out of money by 2040.
Farmers once had a lot of kids for their free labor. We need to make more kids, again.
INSTEAD OF HIDING YOUR MONEY UNDER YOUR MATTRESS invest in wheelbarrows. With the way the government is throwing money around for bailouts, everyone will soon need a wheelbarrow to cart their worthless inflated dollars to the store to buy a loaf of bread.
NEW MICHIGAN STATE MOTTO
Every mayor or county politician from every podunk factory town in Michigan has been trotted out on cable news shows to campaign for a bailout and repeat the refrain:
Nobody wants to buy a car from a bankrupt company
Are they planning to put it on the license plates?
BURGERAMA
At LUNCHBOX LABORATORY restaurant in Seattle, one of their burger meat choices is DORK. DORK is a combination of Duck and pORK.
PUTTING ON MY SHYSTER THINKING CAP
Bernard Madoff has hired a pack of high powered attorneys. How do you defend the terrible thing that he has done? He has lost life savings. Collapsed endowments for orphanages. Forced the sale of $20 million dollar beach front estates so the hornswaggled owners can make ends meet.
Here is a defense. Bernard Madoff is a very busy man. People were throwing their money at him to invest. He didn't really want to, but he took their money as a favor. As I said, he was a very busy man. He didn't have time to get around to investing the money. He meant to.
He didn't want to let anyone down. Everyone was expecting a return. So, he just took out the check book. There was money in the bank. A lot of money. He knew he would eventually get around to investing it. He could cover the interest now and replace it with the big returns he would eventually make when he got around to investing it. After all, he is a financial genius. Some even say he is a wizard. It would all even out in the wash, but Bernard is also a victim. He is a victim of Bush. That is why he became such a big contributor to Obama.
Donald Trump says Madoff hung around country clubs asking him and other rich folks into putting money in his fund.
I AM THE LAW!
Two recent movies illustrate leaders drunk with power.
The trailer for FROSTNIXON they keep showing has President Nixon stating: "When a president does it, it's not illegal."
The HBO film HOUSE OF SADDAM shows a Saddam Hussein quote- "The law is anything I write down on a piece of paper."
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A FOOL AND HIS MONEY ARE SOON PARTED and
YOU CAN'T CHEAT AN HONEST MAN
Pyramid schemer Bernard Madoff accomplished what most liberals only dream of- making rich people poor. He made $50 billion disappear without really trying. He traded on his impeccable reputation. The super rich begged him to take their money which he took as a favor. Madoff limited his customers to a small elite group who told all their friends about how smart they were. Because of their greed, nobody questioned the high rates of return he paid, why the returns didn't seem to fluctuate with the market or why the accountant overseeing the books was someone no one had ever heard of. It proves the old flim-flam man saw- "You can't cheat an honest man"
He wasn't a very good pyramid schemer. How it is supposed to work- the suckers at the bottom of a pyramid scheme get fleeced and the guy on top runs off with the money to some country that doesn't extradite. He claims to have run out of money.
I was watching the Business News network and got tired of hearing stories about crooks and scandals, so I turned the channel to THE SOPRANOS reruns on A & E.
The characters seemed more honest.
THE ATM: WHERE YOU CAN ALWAYS GET CASH FOR YOUR LATE NIGHT BRIBES
The corrupt governor of Illinois trying to sell the senator appointment reminded me of another governor bribe story. All of those involved are pushing up daisies. I knew a "character" who was a 50ish black sheep of his family. His father was a well respected businessman and pillar of the community who still talked to him, but was through with bailing him out of trouble. The son was a lawyer and wheeler-dealer that operated from his car. He was always involved in some "big deal". As far as I know, they were all honest. He had a lot of prosperous contacts and amazingly many of his "big deals" paid off. He was always broke because he had to take the money he made on the "big deal" to pay people he owed from previous deals.
He got caught with drugs in his car. He claimed he had taken it away from his nephew then forgot to dispose of them. A governor of a large state had been defeated and was in the final days in office. He scurried around getting everything in order to send in $10,000 for a pardon. I don't remember if he got it, but he didn't spend any time in prison. He rekindled a romance and married a rich old high school sweetheart. He died and is now buried in her flower bed on her estate.
C'MON, YOU THROW LIKE MY MOTHER
President Bush dodged the shoes thrown by the ungrateful Iraqi journalist like a pro. He looked like he was once a great dodgeball player. If he wasn't president, I think he could have grabbed a shoe and beaned the guy on the run.
I think we should line up all the members of Congress and chunk shoes at them. Not only on general principle, but to see who wimps out and dodges the shoes like a little girl.
DO YOU HAVE A FUNNY FEELING?
Have you ever wondered if someone was spying on you? Why would they do such a thing? What have they got on you so far?
This was once called paranoia. Now, someone might be video recording you and getting ready to share it with the world. On television they advertise a sound amplification device and show people walking around eavesdropping on their neighbor's conversations. Get two for $19.95 plus shipping and handling! The wiretapping of the corrupt governor has started folks worrying again.
A Harvard study claims that rhinotillexis is down 70%. The decline is a result of people being afraid of showing up on YouTube because there are cameras everywhere. Rhinotillexis means- picking one's nose with one's fingers.
THE GIFT THAT CEASES GIVING
It turns out Gift Cards are almost as big of a scam to give for Christmas as a lottery ticket. If you don't spend your Gift Card fast enough the value of the card disappears. Some cards have expiration dates. Some start charging maintenace fees until the value is gone- $2 a month, $5 dollars a month, $25 after so many days and another $25 after so many days. The stores or credit card companies get a big pile of money from the buyers which they can earn interest on until they have to pay out. A certain percentage of cards will never be redeemed. They get an interest free loan and then have the gall to charge you for letting them keep it for you. The money is not piled up in a vault. There is nothing to maintain. They don't even need a janitor to dust it every now and again.
Now, there is something to new to worry about. If the Gift Card's store goes bankrupt and many are on the verge, the cards become worthless.
OLD WIVES TALE DEBUNKED
Freezing batteries extend their storage life. Is it an old wives tale or an urban legend? It depends on how old you are. According to a battery expert, freezing batteries doesn't do anything.
If you are a congressman, keeping batteries in your freezer just takes up room where you could hide your bribes.
Gas prices are dropping so fast it may soon be Free!
EVERYDAY IS XMAS IN THE CARGO HOLD
$31 million worth of valuables have disappeared from checked luggage on planes in the past three years since the TSA started its no-lock policy according to TSA figures.
An anonymous baggage handler claims to have never pilfered but has HEARD THINGS.
She says one way to get away with it is to rifle through a bag and then put it on the wrong plane headed to the wrong city. When they finally find the bag, nobody can pinpoint the scene of the crime.
IF YOU NEED A LOAN TO MAKE PAYROLL, YOU HAVE A BAD BUSINESS
Could it be, Bank of America wouldn't loan the window company money because it was a sick business? Apparently it was a Hail Mary to stay in business. The workers held a sit in until the government intruded. If you have run out of money, there is no money to pay anybody. You'll have to wait for bankruptcy court.
The government bullied Bank of America into making a bad loan that is not likely to be paid back. Isn't this is the kind of thinking that has gotten us into the mess we are in.
UNCLE WALT WON'T BE COMING BACK
December 5th was Walt Disney's 107th birthday.
Contrary to popular belief, Uncle Walt's head was not frozen when he died so they could defrost him in the future when medical innovation caught up. According to Neal Gabler's recent biography, Walt Disney was cremated and the ashes are at Forest Lawn cemetery.
Walt Disney was one of the greatest dreamers of all time, but a lot of credit has to be given to his brother, Roy, who had to figure out how to finance Walt's crazy ideas.
If you tell a lie that is big enough, people will believe it.
HOT TO SPOT A FAKE I.D.
If the picture on the I.D. has more than one person in it.
DOUGHNUT SHOPS NEED BAILOUT
One way businesses are economizing to stave off having to lay people off is- NO MORE FREE DOUGHNUTS FOR EMPLOYEES.
This is going to hit doughnut shops hard. They may not survive. No one wants to buy a doughnut from a doughnut shop in bankruptcy. Get the federal checkbook ready or face a doughnutless future.
TALKING TO VOLLEYBALLS
The most remote inhabited spot on earth is in the Atlantic Ocean halfway between Brazil and South Africa. It is part of the United Kingdom, but is almost impossible to visit and the residents won't allow you to move there. It is the volcanic island named Tristan da Cunha.
Tristan da Cunha was named after the Portuguese explorer that spotted it in 1506 but didn't bother to stop. All of the 271 residents are British citizens and descendants of shipwrecked sailors who arrived there in the early 1800s. There are only seven family names on the island. The original settlers were from England or the U.S. except for one Italian. There isn't much choice for finding someone to marry, so most are married to a second cousin with the limited gene pool resulting in a high asthma rate.
Most of the island is a cone shaped volcanic rock except for a small patch of flatland on the northwest coast. There is no airport and ships stop there only about eight times a year. They only get their mail once a year.
Tristan da Cunha's main industry is fishing lobsters and printing Tristan da Cunha postage stamps that are collected around the world. They raise their own food by grazing cattle in a communal pasture and grow potatoes in a community potato patch.
Tristan da Cunhans got television with one channel in 2001 (I bet they are suckers for infomercials) and internet in 2006.
Tristan da Cunha has a semi-tropical climate with a near constant temperature.
The islanders frequently feel the brunt of Atlantic storms. The gusts of wind once were once so strong that they blew the cows and sheep from the pasture and into the ocean.
SOLVING THE WORLD'S PROBLEMS SITTING IN THE BATHROOM
Congress is shaming the Big 3 Auto CEOs into cutting their salaries to $1 a year. I was wondering how you get paid $1 a year. Do they pay you in a lump sum. Do you get a weekly check for 2 cents or do you get 4 cents on the first and fifteenth?
I hated getting paid weekly. In principle, your pay averages out to so much a month. Most months only have four weeks, so you make less than the average that month. Every three months you get an extra week which is like a bonus and you feel rich until you have to set 2/3 of if it aside to cover the short week months. Once a year, you have to wait four months for the extra week.
AAARGGH
Last year,
British ships were patrolling the waters off Africa trying to stop rampaging Somali pirates. They were ordered by the British government not to return them to Somalia because they would be beheaded per Somali justice. They were also ordered not to capture the pirates and bring them back to England. If they step on British shores they can ask for and be granted asylum. The British legal system would cause a whole new problem- Somali pirates running free in the country.
In the old days, they didn't have to contend with such problems.
When the British tracked down Blackbeard they killed him, and the Captain cut off his head and carried it around as a souvenir tacked to the masthead.
YOU WOULD ONLY HAVE TO ASK
THEM TO TURN THAT #@%$! THING DOWN ONCE
A couple of years ago, a cruise ship that was attacked by pirates off the coast of Africa repeled the invaders with some kind of sonic gun that blasted high decibel sounds at them.
I need one of those sonic guns to use against cars that are like rolling earthquakes- their sound turned up too high and their bass rumbling my windows.
I know they are being generous sharing their music with me, but would it be possible to take an electrophonic gun and blow out their speakers?
STOP THE WORLD I WANT TO GET OFF
The world has gone mad. A while back, the Dollar Store raised its price to $1.09. Now, McDonald's is raising their price on Double Cheeseburgers from a buck to $1.19. Do they expect me to shove my arm under the car seat or down into the cushions to dig out change?
McDonald's is creating a new sandwich to sell for a dollar- The McDouble which will have only have one slice of cheese. Will they balk if I ask them to slice the cheese in half and put one on top of each patty so I can be fooled to believe I am still getting a Double Cheeseburger?
I don't know if I can live in a world like this.
IN GOD WE TRUST ALL AUTOMOBILE COMPANIES PAY CASH
I noticed that the TV has been flooded with car ads. It seems like more than normal. I hope the TV stations are making them pay cash because if they are on 30 days the stations may be left holding the bag.
STOP MAKING PENNIES SCREAM
Everyone is holding onto their money and ruining the economy. According to news puppetheads, if we don't frivolously waste every cent that gets in our hands, we are doomed. I know when the economy will recover. The economy will recover when everyone feels secure that they are not on the verge of getting canned.
MY LATEST MOVIE PLOT IDEA
MAY NEED A REWRITE
A President of the United States mysteriously dies.
His vice-president was his bitter rival in the primaries who he reluctantly chose as a running mate. He was the only thing standing between her and her life long obsessive dream.
She dies suddenly. The Speaker of the House becomes the president. A woman that pictures herself as the Queen Bee.
The president pro tem of the Senate keels over from old age and the shock of becoming president.
I need to move the bitter rival character to Secretary of State, which would be the next in line for the presidency. A new mysterious death for the Queen Bee would be needed. Maybe, the Secretary of State challenges the Speaker to a duel like Vice President Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton.
The family of a dictator's food taster are suing because he wasn't properly informed that he might be poisoned.
HAVING A HAPPY THANKSGIVING BY TRYING TO MAKE ME UNHAPPY
Every holiday wet blanket killjoys show up. For Thanksgiving, food nags tell me that everything I plan to eat is bad. Self appointed mythbusters tell me some new horrible fact about the Pilgrims. This year someone claims they were grave robbers. What do they want? For me to be depressed and contemplating slitting my throat?
I'll have another piece of pie, please. What time is the football game?
HOW TO SPEND THANKSGIVING HOMELESS AND IN THE BURN UNIT
Turkey fried in peanut oil is moist and delicious, but most shouldn't try to make it at home. Here are a few rules to remember,
Don't fry the turkey in the house unless you want to burn it down for the insurance money.
Don't fry a frozen turkey unless you want a volcono erupting in your face.
Test the displacement the turkey will make when you drop it in the liquid. You don't want the hot oil to overflow the top of the pot like the HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE DAME when you lower the turkey.
Wear gloves that cover your entire arms.
Forget it. Buy one someone else fried or go out to eat.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!
George Washington initiated
the first Thanksgiving Day holiday held November 26, 1789.
IT'S SUPER LAZY NEWS WEEK
Thanksgiving week is the week that Lazy TV newsrooms wait for all year.
The days before Thanksgiving, reporters will be parked at the airport and will be amazed at how many people are there flying somewhere that day. That is good for killing a few minutes. Then, Friday they can go to a mall parking lot and be amazed by how many cars are there that day. If they are really lazy, they can rerun their reports from last year. Who can tell the difference?
WHERE'S MY CHECK?
The election is over and now I am getting impatient waiting for all of the checks the government wants to send me.
The first government stimulus checks didn't quite work like they were intended. They were created to give the economy a jolt by getting people to go out and spend. 80% of the money went into savings or used to pay debts.
If they want people to spend, they need to send out Government Gift Cards. Wal-mart, electronic store, stripper bar and liquor store business will zoom.
I am thinking of moving to Detroit. I heard you can get a good job at an Auto plant,
DADDY'S LITTLE GIRL
Daddy's Little Girl wanted a credit card. The credit card company wasn't so sure. Daddy's Little Girl's heroes were Paris Hilton, Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan.
Daddy said, "C'mon. Give my little girl a credit card. If she isn't able to pay the bill, I will."
So, Daddy's Little Girl got her card and headed off to the mall. The credit card company soon noticed she had racked up quite a bill. This was good. They said we can sell the debt, take the money now and split the money. Selling her debt was easy. Daddy was going to pay if she wouldn't.
The buyer was no fool. He now had a new asset. "Hey, we can borrow against it. Daddy is going to pay." What a deal.
The credit card company thought "This is great. We can go find lots of Daddy's Little Girls. Everyone can buy, sell, get loans and split the money. We can trust the Daddy's Little Girls to run up the bill. They probably can't pay it back. We don't care. We have Daddy."
Word got around. Scoundrels and scalawags heard about it. They made plans. They could drive around in a truck, grab twits with daddies off the sidewalk and shove a credit card in their hand.
Soon, there were too many Daddy's Little Girls with credit cards who couldn't pay and the banks, investors and insurance companies had bought, sold, borrowed, split the money and were living off the fat of the land. Uh-oh. If the depositors find out, they are going to rush the bank, take their money and hide it in their mattress.
DADDY!!!!! Could we have 700 Billion Dollars?
LOOK! DADDY'S WALLET IS OPEN
After word got around that Daddy's Little Girl got bailed out from her money problems by Daddy, her shiftless brother, reprobate relatives and other rapscallions started showing up with their hand out.
READER COMMENTS ON THEIR GOOD EXPERIENCE DEALING WITH ANYTHING ADMINISTERED BY THE GOVERNMENT
Thank You for sharing
I once had a wonderful experience at the post office. I didn't have to stand in line to buy stamps and I didn't have to wait for a counterperson to finish their break.
DON'T HAVE DINNER WITH CHARLIE CHAPLIN
I don't know if it is a true story or a story told to keep people from panicking and dumping their stocks. The story is Charlie Chaplin and Irving Berlin had dinner the night before the day the stock market crashed in 1929. Charlie Chaplin told Irving Berlin he should immediately sell all of his stocks just as he had.
WAITING FOR THE GOVERNMENT TO SOLVE A PROBLEM IS LIKE EXPECTING TO SEE A UNICORN
My politics.
I believe in Free Enterprise and not wanting to get blown up.
I am fond of the interstate highway system.
GO HOME? I AM HOME
Have you noticed that when congressmen and senators leave office they don't move back home. They couldn't bear to leave the goldmine.
Virginia and Maryland have 500 representatives and the rest of us are left out. They don't have to worry about what the folks back home want until the next election. Officially Washington DC has no representatives, but Georgetown mansions are loaded with them. They got National (Reagan) airport closed down after 10 PM so the jets won't disturb them.
We should have a lottery instead of an election to pick congressmen. Randomly picking them would give us a lot fewer lawyers and ego maniacs and more people that aren't in sombody's pocket. After their term, they go home.
Every election, candidates spend several billion dollars to convince you their opponent is the lowest slime to ever walk on the earth. This must mean we elect the second lowest slimes to ever walk on earth.
ELECTION DISAPPOINTMENT? IF YOU FEEL THAT ALL IS LOST AND YOU CAN'T GO ON
What a way to go. Eating plates and plates of Chicken Fried Bacon with cream gravy.
Sodolak's Original Country Inn-- Snook, Texas
I would post the video, but I thought I was having a heart attack after I watched it and I can't be responsible.
How many parents of teenagers are not nearly bald from pulling their hair out?
MRBADIDEAS.COM READ ALL AROUND THE WORLD AND CANADA
Is this like a CAT BLOG?
A CAT BLOG is one where you write about you and your cat, and nobody but you and your cat would be interested in reading it. And your cat can�t read.
I don't have a cat.
I'M NOT LISTENING LA LA LA LA LA LA LA
We all like to think that we have made a good decision or what we believe is absolutely right.
What we sometimes do is to cherry pick information that supports our decision or belief, ignoring anything that suggests we might be wrong.
I was reading Rabbi Daniel Lapin's newsletter. I am not Jewish, but I read it because he has very wise things to say. Rabbi Lapin gives an example:
"Before buying a new car, most people scrutinize all car ads, seeking out lots of available information on the wide range of choices. But after they have made their purchase they only read advertisements about the brand of car they have bought. The last thing the new owner wants to find out is that he might have bought a better car at a lower price. Once the decision has been made, we tend to avoid information that suggests we might have made a mistake.
We protect our self esteem by welcoming information that supports our actions and avoiding that which makes us uncomfortable. That is why smokers rarely read medical articles about the health risks of smoking."
SHUT UP AND SING
I was watching an interview with famous A & R man John Koladner. An A & R man works for record companies finding new talent, acts as the middle man with the artists and listens to their albums to spot the hit singles. He has been one of the record industries most successful A & R men helping artists like Aerosmith, Journey, Bon Jovi, Madonna, Cher, Madonna.
Koladner said that most music artists are selfish and only care about themselves. He said thay hate A & R men because they are the only people in their life who will criticize them and tell them no.
BEWARE of people with a new way of doing things. There may be a reason why people in the past learned not to do it that way.
THE YAPPY MEAL
I was reading an Advertising Age article that suggested dog meals at the drive-thru window. I started wondering how many people buy their dogs a hamburger at fast food restaurants? The writer posed a conscientious owner dog snack of a bottle of water, a package of dog food and a dog treat. Any Dog Spoiler knows they want a hamburger. I had an Australian Shepherd named Rascal and his number one favorite thing in the world was riding in the car. His dream YAPPY MEAL would have been a small plain hamburger and a cup of ice. He loved crushed ice from Sonic Drive-in which is almost like a snow cone. He would sit in the back seat and eat the ice so fast he would get Brain Freeze.
CLEAN THIS MESS UP. I'M NOT YOUR MOTHER
The conventions are over. Most decisions were made not on the floor but in the back rooms.
In the past, they would have been made in smoke filled rooms. Things are now decided in a legally mandated smoke-free room.
Maybe, the term for the shenanigan laden decision site can be updated to Starbuck's cup filled room or Big Gulp cup filled room. The room must be filled with something.
CUCKOO FOR CURLING
The Summer Olympics is finally over. It is only a year and half until the Winter Olympics. I can't wait. I am Cuckoo for Curling.
DO I MAKE YOU RANDY?
There are reports that with all the athletic young bodies peacocking around and females with an extra jolt of testosterone coursing through their veins, the Olympic Village is a Sexateria. When the athletes aren't competing, they have love on their minds.
TIMES HAVE CHANGED
If you ask a stranger if they can give you the time, they will probably think you are a homeless panhandler. They know that you don't have a cell phone.
GONE WITH THE WIND
The latest craze for nutty politicians is windmills. New York City's mayor Bloomberg is talking about putting wind mills on the top of the skyscrapers and bridges. This idea will be DOA after all the complaints of wind mills ruining million dollar views by green hypocrites.
Government meddlers can't seem to get their stuff together for the Freedom Towers to be built to replace the World Trade Center. Perhaps, they should put up 1776 foot tall pinwheels instead.
When the fad dies out, in fifty years will the United States be the home of miles and miles of dilapidated abandoned rusty wind farms?
UPDATE: The windmills on bridges and skyscraper idea lasted only one day. Time for another idea. They could round up the 8 million rats in New York City and put them to work on squirrel cages (hamster wheels) making electricity.
A NEW KIND OF PICKUP LINE?
One of my twin daughters (I have 3 children- Butch, Spike and Rocko) just moved back to New York City. She was walking down the street and was approached by a prosperous looking well dressed man. He was quite a bit older than her and claimed to be famous.
He complimented her by telling her how beautiful she was from the top of her head to the tip of her toes. He made several other observations about the beauty of her feet?
He asked her if he could take her to dinner. She politely declined. He then offered to buy her a pair of new shoes at Manolo Blahnik. I somehow know Carrie on Sex and the City is crazy about them, and they run over $700 a pair. She declined. Her friends told her she should have taken him up on it, then returned them for a refund.
I wonder if this is a pick up line that works, or just an overenthusiastic interest in feet. I have read that even in this down economy, women that buy designer shoes are not economizing on them. If they have a choice between paying the mortgage and buying designer shoes, they will be moving into a van down by the river.
Women choose shoes to impress other women. I don't think I have ever paid much attention to a woman's shoes. I guess I might notice if she was wearing combat boots.
WHO WAS DUMBER? THE SHOW, HER OR ME FOR WATCHING?
I think I saw the scraping of the bottom for reality television. FCC Commissioner Newton Minnow said over 40 years ago that television was a "vast wasteland". Little did he know what the future would bring. On the show- WANNA BET, they had a 20 year old girl that spends $20,000 a year with her daddy's credit card buying designer shoes. Her talent was distinguishing which designer's shoes they put on her feet while blind folded.
PLEASE SIR, COULD I HAVE SOME MORE?
If you ate the same diet as Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps, you would gain over 70 pounds in a month. In a year, you would be one of those guys they have to extract from their house with a crane.
RENEWABLE SUSTAINABLE ENERGY AND WHATEVER BUZZ WORDS
Wind Power and Solar Power is all the current rage for alternative energy. I have another. Put generators on stationary exercise bikes to create electricity. You will not only get exercise but will be doing your part to save the planet. Like the wind not blowing and the sun not shining it has a draw back. We could have brown outs and black outs if not enough people felt like it that day.
WOULD ANY OTHER NAME SMELL AS SWEET?
BORIS KARLOFF's real name was William Henry Pratt. He never legally changed it and signed all papers with his real name. He was known as a kid as Billy Pratt.
DON'T MISS OUT. OUR PRICES ARE INSANE!!?
It is once again time for the state government's idea for buying votes.
Every August, many states have a SALES TAX FREE DAY for school supplies instead of lowering sales tax rates. People jam the stores and load up. They get interviewed for television while standing in the check out line. If the stores ran an ad announcing everything 8% off today, nobody would bother.
THE PUNCTUATION NAZI
There are few things that cause as much dread as a stickler for the English language reading something you have written. Who wants to be ripped apart? There is a million selling book called
Eats, Shoots & Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation
that urges serve penalties.
For example,
you better use its and it's correctly.
Getting your itses mixed up is the greatest solecism in the world of punctuation. No matter that you have a PhD and have read all of Henry James twice. If you still persist in writing, "Good food at it's best" you deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave.
CORNERING THE DROOL MARKET
Everyone has heard the expression "licking your wounds" and have noticed animals licking theirs . It works. Scientists in the Netherlands have discovered that the protein histatin in saliva actually promotes faster healing. They plan to make a drug thus turning something free into something expensive. Where is my drool bucket.
If you get a paper cut while sealing an envelope you're killing two birds with one stone.
There are 500 million Twinkies made each year. Chicago is number one in per capita Twinkie consumption. There are, also, 1800 hot dog stands in Chicago.
LIFESTYLES OF THE RICH AND SPITEFUL
If you ask someone to name a hotel in New York City, most would immediately answer- The Waldorf-Astoria. The Waldorf=Astoria was built because of an Astor family feud. The Astors acquired their fortune buying up most of the land on Manhattan Island. They were known as "the Landlords of New York."
Caroline Astor was the wife of the grandson of John Jacob Astor, the founder of the family fortune. Caroline was the grand dame of New York City society.
She is famous for hosting extravagant Balls limiting the guest list to 400 from old money New York City families. She started the closed society to keep her daughters away from newly rich uncouth ruffians. Some would go out of town the weekend of the Balls to avoid the embarrassment of not being on the list.
Caroline Astor insisted on being called "the Mrs. Astor". This upset her nephew who complained his wife was a Mrs. Astor, too. To hack her off he built a huge hotel, The Waldorf, next to her house. Caroline's son threated to build a stable right next to the hotel to treat his cousin's guests to the fumes. He thought better of it, moved his mother to a bigger house and built another hotel next door to the Waldorf. He built it taller so the Astoria would cast shadows on the Waldorf. Business is business and they eventually built a corridor called Peacock Alley connecting the two hotels.
The hotel was later moved to its current location and the land of the original became the site for the Empire State Building.
SPEAKING OF SPITE
A SPITE HOUSE is a house built for the sole reason of getting revenge. Many were built during the 1800s by folks rich enough and mean enough. Some are still standing. They tend to be very narrow, 6 or 7 feet wide and were built on some kind of disputed land.
They were built because of a fight between neighbors, families, someone and a church, to stop shortcuts through adjacent alleys, and to stop roads from being built.
Some Spite houses you can still stop by to see: The Skinny House in Boston, Hollensbury Spite House in Alexandria, Virginia, Tyler Spite House (now a bed and breakfast) Frederic, Maryland, and Edleston Spite House in Gainford, England.
The SKINNY HOUSE was built in the 1870's. Two brothers inherited land from their father. They didn't bother to divide the property, and while one brother was away in the military, the other brother built a large house on it. When the traveling brother returned home,he saw what his brother had done and out of spite built a small house on the land that was left. It measures 6.2 to just over 10 feet wide plus it blocked his brother's nice view.
THE NEW SANDWICH AT MCDONALD'S, NOT
The Raw Herring Sandwich with onions and pickles. The National Dish of the Netherlands.
YOU CAN QUOTE ME
I just added a new page with a compilation of brilliance. It is a collection of assorted quotes from mrbadideas.com. Maybe, you can find one you can sell to the READER'S DIGEST.
After watching C-SPAN, I wonder who in the world elected these people. Some don't seem to be able to walk and chew gum.
HEY, WHERE ARE ALL THE MOON MAIDENS?
July 20, 1969, the day that Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon but failed to bring back any green cheese or moon maidens. Or did they?
The approval rating for congress has sunk to 9%. The margin between their approval rating and zero is the people that don't know anything and don't have an opinion that answer the pollsters: "Ummm. I guess they're all right."
LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS
Jesse Jackson recently exposed how he really thinks and how he really is when an open microphone caught him saying he was going to cut Barack Obama's "nuts" off.
This reminded me of the Uncle Don story. Uncle Don had a wildly popular children's story radio program in New York City from the late 1920s to the 1940s. He made a slip that he denied ever happened until his dying day. There is no recording of it and there is a 75 year old controversy over whether it ever happened. Most people only remember his name because of it.
After Uncle Don said his Goodbyes at the end of his program, the engineer forgot to shut off his microphone. He reportedly said "There, that ought to hold the little bastards."
I CHALLENGE YOU TO A DUEL
July 11th was the 204th anniversary of the duel between the Vice-President of the United States Aaron Burr and Alexander Hamilton. Burr delivered a mortal shot and Hamilton died the next day. The duel was held in New Jersey because New York had passed the death penalty for dueling. After the duel, Burr fled to his daughter's home in North Carolina. He was charged but never tried and eventually headed back to finish out his term as vice president.
Congressmen never want to leave office and term limits never makes it into law. Perhaps, dueling should be brought back to solve the problem.
WHO WOULD EVER NEED THIS JUNK?
In the middle to late 1800s, before the automobile, oil was refined and used mostly as kerosene. Gasoline was considered the waste from the oil and was dumped in the river.
HIS DADDY MADE HIM MEAN AS A SNAKE
One of Cornelius Vanderbilt's favorite terms for his son, William, who he deemed shiftless, was BLATHERSKITE.
A blatherskite is a foolish babbling person.
The dictionary says the Middle English skite means diarrhea and in Old Norse it is something even worse. Cornelius also called him a blockhead, sucker and good for nothing. This sounds like child abuse.
Cornelius is the #10 richest man (adjusted to today) that ever lived. William is #4. William inherited all of his daddy's money while his brother's were disowned. Cornelius thought William was the only one ruthless enough to keep his amassed wealth intact.
WRISTWATCH MAKERS ARE THE NEW BUGGY WHIP FACTORY
Wristwatch makers are facing doom. Studies show that young punks no longer look to their wrists for the time. They check one of their electronic devices.
I demand the
government step in to protect the wrist watch industry. They should regulate all electronic clocks on portable devices and require them to run fast or slow.
Tom Bodette is on Al Gore's hit list for
leaving the lights on at Motel 6.
GET READY FOR A WATERMELON SHORTAGE
A researcher recently claimed a substance in watermelon rind is a natural Viagra. Watermelon contains cetrulline which relaxes and dilates the blood vessels, and promotes the production of Nitric Oxide. Nitric Oxide is what you naturally need and Viagra chemically creates.
There may be melees over the last slice of watermelon at the July 4th picnic. If you load up on watermelon you may solve one problem and create another. Romance is difficult when you constantly need to run to the bathroom.
AMERICANS RUNNING FOR THE BORDER
Mexican officials have held gasoline prices to about half the price in the United States, so American motorists are flocking across the border for a deal. Ever heard of a deal to good to be true?
Buying gasoline in Mexico is one big shakedown. 85% of the gas pumps are rigged to pump less than the meter says. All of the gas stations are Pemex franchises and Pemex sets the price, so there is no competition. Gas station owners don't post prices and have been known to water down the gas.
Environmental standards aren't as strict in Mexico, so too many fill-ups can damage catalytic converters and engines.
Gas station attendants dressed in Pemex uniforms are not paid employees. They wrangle for tips, short change and quick change customers that are not paying attention.
YANKEE GO HOME
Some drivers are installing 80 gallon gas tanks on their trucks and SUVs then heading across the border to load up on cheap Mexican gas. Gas sales in Tijuana have gone up 25%. This is causing a gas shortage with long lines. Some stations are running out of gas and closing up. Some gas station owners have started refusing to sell gas to Americans.
EXPERT PREDICTS $1000 BARREL OIL
An expert predicts $1000 per barrel oil by the year 3000. I am the expert. I decided to become an expert because experts appear on television and are quoted in the media all the time and no one checks out their credentials.
Most people never read past the headline and believe it as gospel.
I have followed the basic rules for perfect expertdom. I made a claim that will shake everyone up and I placed it so far in the future everyone will be too dead to see if it comes true.
WHAT A BEAUTIFUL DAY. WATCH SOME BASTARD LOUSE IT UP.
There is a new movement called
Shopdropping. Shopdropping is the reverse of shop lifting- you put things on the store shelf instead of stealing from it. If a shopdropper is caught, police are puzzled as to what to charge them with.
Most shopdroppers are mush heads who believe it is their moral imperative to fight consumerism and make people get their mind right. Some do it to promote themselves and get free advertising. Either way they have contributed more Spam to life.
They didn't have a name for it, but putting poisoned Tylenol on the shelf was shopdropping, too.
Sales of SPAM (or Pork Mystery Meat) are way up. When the economy slips, many people think they are economizing by buying it. SPAM costs more per pound than ground meat.
SINK WATER, THE VERSATILE BEVERAGE
When I was a kid, I loved the different tastes of water when we would go out of town. I asked my father- "Why don't they sell water in bottles at the store?" The answer was "No one would buy it." I was ahead of my time. If I had started water entrepreneurship as a 9 year old, I would have spent many years on the brink of financial ruin, but would now be a billionaire.
Rising gas prices and worries about the economy are leading
people back to sink water. If you drink 64 oz (the prescribed eight 8 oz glasses a day) and buy bargain bottled water it costs you over $400 a year. If you drink sink water it only costs you 50 cents a year.
Stay hydrated.
Don't invite anyone into your house. You won't have to bother cleaning it and you won't be embarrassed.
SAVE NOW PAY LATER
There is speculation that rising gas prices will result in a baby boom. Folks are canceling plans to go out on the town and finding an inexpensive way to occupy their time. I think burning some gas will be cheaper.
ROTTEN TOMATOES
Can someone be charged with attempted murder if they throw possibly salmonella tainted tomatoes at a bad actors and singers on stage?
Human behavior is like water. No matter how you try to control them, both will always find the leaks. People do what is in their immediate best interests.
EAT GLOBALLY BE HAPPY LOCALLY
When Robin Williams guest starred on a LAW AND ORDER episode, his character claimed to be a locavore. That was the first time I heard the term. A locavore is a person that only eats fruit, vegetable or meats that are grown locally. They believe they are saving the planet because they are cutting down on their carbon foot print.
Most of the people in the world that are starving to death are locavores, but not by choice. It is dumb not to participate in the world wide distribution of agricultural products. It is insurance against the seasons and nature damaging everything in a certain location. Trade is good for getting things to where they are needed. Depending on a government "genius" to decide what goes where is inefficient.
Some are locavores because they believe what they get locally is better. The best of anything is not sold locally. It is sold where you get the highest price which will be- far away. The best oranges are not sold by the side of the road in Florida. That is their leftovers.
I remember a story about a boy that lived in a coastal town in New England. He considered himself poor. He had to brown bag a Lobster Sandwich for lunch to school every day.
EAT HEALTHY
Our food supply keeps getting tainted by disease or getting too expensive because it is being used up to make ethanol. Spinach was pulled last year because it was full of e-coli. Peanut Butter was a treat gone bad. You never know when your meat might one day give you mad cow disease and turn your brain into Swiss Cheese. Now, we can't have tomatoes.
The only food that may be safe is Fried Coke. If you are watching your weight, eat Fried Diet Coke.
YOU REALLY DO LIVE IN A SMALL WORLD
A recent study found that most people spend almost 100% of their time within 20 miles of their house. Only about 3% leave a 200 mile circle and fewer than 1% venture further than 621 miles from their house. I would imagine most people with a long commute have seen what is more than a 1000 feet off the road on their route as often as they have been to the moon, and they see most friends or relatives that live 50 miles away as often as ones that live 1500 miles away.
They did the study by picking 100,000 random anonymous cell phones and collected data on which cell towers the cell phones pinged. This has gotten them into hot water with some privacy advocates. Someone always has a complaint. I am convinced these advocates are 60s radicals and their disciples that believe J. Edgar Hoover still has them under surveillance. Who else would worry about it?
DON'T USE $4 WORTH OF GAS TO BUY A $1 HAMBURGER AT THE DRIVE-THRU
Fast Food franchisees are balking at the $1 value menus promoted by their franchisers. The Dollar menus bring in lots of customers, and have been the main contributor to increased sales, but the owners claim increase in commodity prices and higher minimum wages cut into the margins. The owners want to raise the price and want the franchisers to stop spending so much of the advertising money on promoting the cheap menu. The franchisers say the sweet spot for getting the attention of customers is $1. Plus, the franchiser gets their percentage right off the top. The restaurant owner gets the squeeze.
Sometimes in business, you can fool yourself by being extremely busy and feel you are working hard, but not make any money because you are charging too little. You can make more money by charging a better price but being less busy.
There were two guys named Clem and Elmer. They decided to go into the watermelon selling business. They drove over to Farmer John's Watermelon Patch and bought watermelons from him for 1 dollar a piece. They loaded up their truck drove down the road and found a spot by the side of the road they thought would be a prime location for selling watermelons. Clem and Elmer put up a big sign that read WATERMELONS- $1 each. They started selling their watermelons and sales were brisk. After a couple of hours, Clem said to Elmer, "Hey, we aren't making any money!" Elmer said to Clem. "Yea, I know. We need a bigger truck."
WE'LL BE GLAD WHEN YOU'RE DEAD YOU RASCAL YOU
The designer of the Pringles can was so proud of his design that when he died recently his children honored his request and put his ashes into a Pringles can. The Pringles can couldn't hold all of him so they put the rest in an urn.
Some folks have been buried in their favorite car or in a costume of their favorite fictional character. There is a casket company that makes themed caskets.
I love hamburgers. When I die I think I should be buried between two buns.
Any damn fool can believe and propose anything. It is up to sensible people not to go along with it.
A REASON FOR THE WAR IN IRAQ
Nobody has said it, but it is the same as the theory of
how to keep from getting beaten up or raped in prison. On the first day, you find the biggest meanest nastiest ugliest inmate, go up to him and bust him in the nose or hit him over the head with a chair. Everyone gets the message you are not to be messed with.
Saddam Hussein and his even worse sadistic sons were the biggest maniacs with dangerous intentions. Saddam had already ignored ultimatums numbering in the teens from the spineless wimps of the UN. As any weak parent knows, if you aren't willing to back up your threatened discipline, you are going to get your rear end kicked (physically or emotionally).
When you stand up to the biggest, the other evil doers take notice and the cost for any actions they may be considering goes up.
The trouble is we gave the Iraqis their country back on a silver platter and they were so beaten down they weren't willing to take it and defend it. At least, the Kurds were ready to take care of themselves.
Thank you to all that have been willing to fight for our Freedom to live, think and go wherever and whatever we want.
WHY ME LORD. SEE YOU IN COURT.
The Blame Game is in full swing.
Everybody is suing everybody else for whatever frivolous reason. They say if there is only one lawyer in town he will starve to death. If there are two, they will both live in mansions on the hill. It is a good thing they limit law school enrollment.
Congress just passed a bill to sue OPEC for charging too much for oil.
I am waiting for someone to sue GOD for destruction caused by a natural disaster. I have a defense. A hurricane, or earthquake or flood (with you living on the river bank) was going to come through wherever it came through whether you were there are not. It is up to you to not be there.
THE SECRET TO SUCCESS
I don't have too many good thing to say about the Clintons, but I do admire them for one thing. PERSISTENCE.
Bill and Hillary do embrace the number one principle for success in any endeavor. They have proved it time after time. NEVER GIVE UP.
Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools because they have to say something.
--Plato
MY NEW HOBBY
I almost don't have time to add anything to Mr Bad Ideas Notebook. I am too busy looking up the most popular baby names since 1880.
MYRTLE was #27 in 1894 but dropped out of the Top 1000 in 1965. DUDLEY hung around number 300 - 500 for nearly 100 years but dropped off the chart in 1970. Floyd started losing steam after 1938 and is no longer in the Top 1000.
Here is another report in the award winning series on television newsrooms always on the lookout for an easy story to fill up time on the nightly news:
Reporters are being sent to the gas station to ask people filling up their car what they think of rising gas prices. It's incredible!. They are all against it.
Congress is where bloated blowhards congregate to do things to impress the ignorant and enrich their friends.
IT'S A GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY!
There are far too many people that believe in Government Conspiracies or believe government can solve all the ills in their life.
The older I get the more I have come to realize that government can barely wave Bye-Bye or tie its own shoes.
Politicians know they can't fix anything, but they have to appear to try, so they throw big wads of cash ostensibly at the problem to the waiting circling sharks ready to gobble it up. Then, they go on to the next complaint and appear to care about it. That is the only government conspiracy.
Conspiracies are good for selling books, too.
YUCKY!
This story first appeared two years ago when
the city of San Diego proposed to treat sewage and return it to the municipal water supply. They said it would help save them from future water shortages. Now, Los Angeles has decided it is a good idea.
The water can be treated and filtered with reverse osmosis to be just as clean as any water. It is just the thought.
Butch, Spike and Rocko (my son and daughters) would like to add this comment: OOOOH. YUCKY!
In reality, all water is recycled sewage.
Opponents say that only the poor will be drinking sink water. Rich folks will buy bottled water. Most people think that bottled water comes from some pristine idyllic pool of water in a beautiful green valley unsullied by human existence. It is usually just filtered city water.
A reader writes that the water goes through the people of London 7 times a day.
NEITHER A BORROWER OR LENDER BE
When you receive a credit card offer, don't look at the advertised interest rate they are offering. Look at the circular for the default rate. This is the rate they are going to use every trick up their sleeve
to put you on as soon as possible. (sometimes over 30%)
Do you say it doesn't matter what the rate is because "I pay off the balance each month"? If you pay off the balance, you don't need a credit card. It can only be a temptation to get in trouble. Save up an emergency fund. Use the Visa or Master Card debit card that comes with your bank account. They operate with the same rules of no obligation if your card is lost or stolen.
EDDIE DOESN'T EAT SQUIRREL ANYMORE SINCE HE FOUND OUT THEY WERE HIGH IN CHOLESTEROL
Squirrel is becoming the meat of choice for the strident global warming gang. They claim squirrels have a very small carbon footprint compared to cows. Cow flatulence is a major part of raising carbon dioxide levels and there is a lot of transportation involved in getting their meat to market.
Other recent squirrel eating news:
Former presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said in an interview that when he was in college they fried squirrels in the only cooking device allowed in their dorm room- a popcorn popper.
Some wags thought he admitted it to get in good with hillbilly voters in the South Carolina primary. He may be going after the New Jersey vote judging by this news report from last year:
A warning has gone out for New Jersey squirrel hunters-DON'T EAT SQUIRREL MORE THAN TWICE A WEEK. The New Jersey squirrels have been exposed to toxic sludge so caution is advised.
DON'T BRING A KNIFE TO A GUN FIGHT
The new Indiana Jones movie is out along with a new DVD of the Indiana Jones trilogy.
One of my favorite movie scenes is from "Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark". It is the scene in the marketplace where Indiana Jones comes up against the mighty swordsman.
The huge swordsman is dressed in his finery, swinging a giant sword in a well choreographed show of superiority. Indiana stops gives a look then whips out a pistol and shoots the swordsman dead.
Originally this scene was supposed to be a sword fight, but Harrison Ford was feeling weak from the traveler's scourge and didn't feel up to the three days it would take to practice and shoot the sword fight. So, he suggested to Steven Speilberg- why don't we just shoot him and Speilberg said all right that he was thinking the same thing.
SUPPLY AND DEMAND OF GRANDCHILDREN
With the high divorce rate, many children have two families and six or more grandparents. The demand for visits from the grandchildren is high, but the supply is low. The creators of FREAKONOMICS say this is why retired couples with no children at home buy bigger houses than they need centrally located so they can snag more grandchildren time.
We aren't addicted to oil. We are addicted to moving.
THE FIRST BLACK PRESIDENT?
Bill Clinton has always been like a small town braggart- taking credit for anything good that happens even if he had nothing to do with it and denying anything that is bad. He gloms on to any little thing he can use to pump himself up.
Bill Clinton has been walking around for 10 years proudly accepting being called "The First Black President" like it was a badge of honor
as if he actually did great things for black people. Author Toni Morrison who is credited with dubbing him that says it is misunderstood. In an article, she says she was merely referring to the sex-scandal. He was like any black man walking down the street. "Already guilty and already a perp."
ALWAYS WEAR CLEAN UNDERWEAR
This is tornado season and the recent outbreaks of killer tornadoes reminded me of this.
Did your mother or grandma warn you to always wear clean underwear in case you are in an accident?
Minton Sparks, who tells stories set to music, was interviewed while promoting her CD- Sin Sick. She said she was once a social worker and what she loved most were the stories people told her. Minton told the story from a man about the time a tornado came through the farm area where he lived when he was a child.
The tornado had run through the neighbor's farm and threw the woman that lived there up into a tree. She was not badly hurt, but got stuck in the tree. When everyone came to help, they could see up her skirt and notice that she was wearing holey underwear.
The man's grandmother became extremely distressed. They didn't have much money, but she scraped up enough to go out and buy the best most expensive pair of underwear she could find.
Whenever the wind would pick up, she would go to her bureau, pull out her expensive underwear and slip them on. She called them her "tornado drawers".
AND THEY GET FREE ICE CREAM, TOO!
Raul Castro just announced that it is now legal in Cuba to buy a desktop computer, cell phone and stay in the fancy international hotels. Not that anyone can afford any of these things.
Two years ago in May, Fidel Castro in a move that would delight Teddy Kennedy raised the minimum wage in Cuba from $5 to $11. That's a month.
He left out government workers and other professionals for pay raises. Fidel remedied that. Doctors got a $7.40 increase and those with a master's degree got a $1.50 to $4 raise. A month.
Housing, education and other basics in Cuba are free and everything else is subsidized. Basically paychecks are equivalent to Daddy giving you an allowance.
But, this opens the door of basic free enterprise. Somebody saves his money and buys a tool that is needed, but no one can afford, or a group chips in to buy it. Then, they break up the usage into smaller chunks and charge for it. People can pay for the amount of time they can afford. Everyone is better off.
Don't tell Raul.
WHO NEEDS WATERBOARDING?
I was watching Hillary's interview by Bill O'Reilly and she was still against Waterboarding to pry information out of terrorists. She says because it is cruel.
Hillary doesn't need to waterboard anyone. Just put a terrorist in a room with her for a while and they will turn into a quivering mess of jelly willing to tell you everything they know.
HAPPY COMMIE DAY
May Day. The day when some young punks think it is cool to pull out their Hammer and Sickle, Mao, Marx or Lenin t-shirts. Some tiny motley groups staged motley parades marching on downtown sidewalks carrying handwritten poster board signs and banging on a drum. The commie contingents are usually led by a deluded disillusioned whiskered old college professor who returns to his cluttered office after their pitiful spectacles, clutches a glass, sits in his creaky chair and shakes his head ruefully.
Far too many people want to bully other people from expressing their opinion and it is always worse during election season. This is the United States of America where:
Everyone is free to believe anything they want. Everyone is free not to agree with them.
WHAT IS THE PRESIDENT?
The President of the United States has two jobs. The president is THE DECIDER and the president is THE EXPLAINER. You can't really know for sure what kind of DECIDER the president is going to be until they have to decide something. A study of their lifetime character maybe all you have. The 3 AM question has become a big joke but it is probably the best test for making a decision on who to vote for. You should vote for who you most trust to decide.
"Don't forget our CINCO de MAYO CELEBRATION coming up May 5th!"
--A Bar Ad
LET THE FRENCH DECIDE
Expecting the government to solve a problem is like spending your life searching for a unicorn. Government doesn't solve problems, they generally create more by helping one group by screwing another.
The Democrat primaries have become a mess and a microcosm of government mismanagement. Politicians, especially Democrats, can't seem to make straightforward rules about anything.
First, they rushed primary season, they told Florida and Michigan their primaries wouldn't count because they held them before they said they could. Only Hillary ran. They devised the Super Delegates-a group of "elite geniuses" that know better than the voting rabble what is best. If the Super Delegates give Hillary the nod instead of Obama, who by all fair standards will have won, they will alienate hard core Obama supporters who will justifiably feel ripped off.
The Democrats have gotten into a pickle. How can they fix this?
They can make the decision based on how they always make decisions. Democrats are always worried about what the French think about us. Let the French decide. But wait. That leaves out other groups that they shove to the front to make their decisions. What they want goes anyway. Let them decide.
Here is the plan. Form a committee of French people, welfare recipients, illegal aliens and Gitmo detainees. Whatever they say goes. Voila, the Democrats will have their candidate.
I'M SAVING THE PLANET I WEAR A GREEN COLORED SHIRT EVERYDAY
It may make you feel good but too many people confuse symbolism with accomplishing something. A baseball team wore green hats for one game and passed out 10,000 green caps. Last year, they turned out the lights on the Eiffel Tower for a few hours. How is this going to solve a problem. If you are promoting saving the planet that's almost as good, right?.
Some people give themselves a job title- ACTIVIST. How do they qualify?
Getting Naked.
They Get Naked for Peace or Ending World Hunger or Stopping Hurricanes or Stopping Nudity, etc.
They are just looking for an excuse to drop their drawers in public. Most really shouldn't.
WHAT A STIFF
Howard Dean, the head of Democrat National Committee and former presidential candidate, is ranting about how the Super Delegates must have their minds made up by the first part of June on who they are voting for at the convention. I almost forgot he was still around. He pops up to say something every once in a while to again prove how clueless he is.
Apparently sex euphemism was over his head several years ago.
In an interview, he was asked if Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers' papers from working as President Bush's counsel should be released instead of presidential privilege being invoked.
He said: "Yes, I don't think they want to go around playing HIDE THE SALAMI."
This reminds me of a story about President Richard Nixon. He was trying to be "one of the boys" and asked a young single guy staffer: "Well, did you fornicate, last night?"
TWO DOLLAR WORD FROM A THREE DOLLAR BOOK
Euphemism started in ancient Greece. The people believed the gods listened to all human conversation and offensive or boastful words had to be made politically correct so not to offend the god. The meaner and nastier the god, the nicer the word had to be. An example of an euphemism:
Politicians don't lie. They misspeak.
Will Hillary be ready for 3 AM emergency calls because she is up anyway cleaning her guns, knocking one back and waiting for Bill to try to sneak in?
WHERE'S THE BEEF
The rising cost of food (thanks ethanol) is making restaurants look for ways to give you smaller portions for the same price without you noticing.
Restaurant consultants are suggesting:
Get smaller plates (so smaller portions look the same size)
Use lighter-weight spoons and fork (so the food feels heavier).
Serve shrimp on skewers (so it doesn't curl up and will look larger)
They also suggest taking out an ounce or two of the meat portions and cutting them into two pieces, then fill the plates with more low cost starchy food (potatoes anyone?) and vegetables. I have always suspicioned that all-you-can eat buffets know a way to make mashed potatoes expand once they hit your stomach.
They could go with the tried and true. Have lots of really good bread and rolls. I sometimes eat so many rolls I could care less about the entree. How do you think Olive Garden stays in business- salad and bread sticks. Who goes for the food?
BE POLITE
Politeness, courtesy and appreciation are tiny gestures that make life more pleasant for everyone. It depends on being taught by your parents and you keeping in practice.
My mother taught me to send a Thank You for a drink out of a neighbor's garden hose.
--Beth Damn Donahue-Weedman Southern Fried Chicks
PUT UP YOUR DUKES A LEADING CONTENDER IN WE WERE FIRST BURGER BRAWL
One of the many places that are fighting it out to claim to be the home of the first hamburger is Seymour, Wisconsin. Hamburger Charlie Nagreen started selling the ground meat on a bun at fairs in 1885 when he was 15 years old. He did most of the cooking in his booth. When he got tired,or business got slow, an employee would take over the stove and Hamburger Charlie would grab his guitar and start drumming up customers. His pitch:
"Hey you skinny rascals don't you ever eat?"
ANOTHER EASY NEWS STORY DAY
Here is another of the award winning series of reports on television newsrooms always on the lookout for an easy story. TAX IS DUE day was April 15th. The news vans were camped out at the post office to document the crush of cars filled with last minute filers. The reporterette breathlessly describing the scene. The lazy news rooms missed out last year. There was some other big news event that I can't remember, now, that trumped their yearly TAX IS DUE story and they didn't need the story to fill time.
I was just thinking- Hey, I am always on the lookout for an easy story. I always know I have a no brainer article about lazy news rooms on the pre-Thanksgiving airport is busy day or day after Thanksgiving mall parking lot is full day or gas prices have gone up so head to the service station to interview motorists filling their cars who say they are against it day or show up at the bar during a sports championship to capture the drunks going WOOOOOO day.
ELVIS AND HIS CUISINE
Elvis Presley's last meal was cheeseburgers made by his cook Mary Jenkins. Everyone has heard of his love for peanut butter and banana sandwiches fried in butter, but he was a cheeseburger fiend. They say he was making up for when he couldn't get one while growing up poor.
ELVIS AND HIS CUISINE is now showing on YouTube. It is a 1996 BBC documentary divided into 6- 9 1/2 minute parts with either German or Swedish subtitles (I can't tell which it is).
Michael Jackson had a famous chimp named Bubbles. I never knew Elvis had a chimp that ate at the dinner table with him. The chimp also liked to look up girl's skirts and on occasion attack them. It is in the documentary.
IT'S THE CLINTON HOUR
4 pm on Friday afternoon should be dubbed THE CLINTON HOUR. Staying true to the Clinton's modus operandi of dumping papers containing their bad news at that hour, they did it again with their income tax results.
4 PM Friday is the beginning of the weekend and the time when the least number of people will notice while it is rehashed over and over on the news. It is too late to get in Letterman, Leno and Conan's monologue until Monday (or do they check to see if they have the week off). By Monday morning, the news cycle is over, the news media is tired of it and ready to be hot and bothered about something new. The Clintons could dump bad news at a better time- 3 AM Sunday morning, but that would be too obvious.
THIS AIN'T MY FIRST TRIP TO THE RODEO
Mrs Bad Ideas was watching Bronco riding on television and I overheard the announcer comment on the rider:
He's cooler than the bottom side of the pillow
WE HAD TO STOP DOING THAT BECAUSE OF DNA
Everyone has wondered what ever happened to Jimmy Hoffa? The Teamsters president disappeared in the early 1970s and has never been found. Some have speculated that he is buried in the end zone at the Meadowlands stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. I believe the SOPRANOS showed the connection between people that disappear and Pork stores in New Jersey.
WHICH KID ARE YOU PLANNING TO EAT FIRST?
Billionaire crackpot Ted Turner says global warming will kill everyone in 40 years and whoever is left will be a cannibal. He says global warming is caused by too many people using too much stuff. He suggests everyone on earth voluntarily limit themselves to one or two children.
Ted Turner has five children.
FOR THE LOVE OF GINGY, CAN YOU HEAR ME NOW?
The movie is over and the crowd rushes to the door. They have been in a panic. They can't take it anymore. They whip out their cell phones to call someone, anyone. There is a new name for what they have.
NOMOPHOBIA is the fear of being out of mobile phone contact. Having no bars or a discharged phone is leading to anxiety and panic attacks in an increasing number of people.
Let's hope forgetting to charge a phone doesn't cause the suicide or divorce rate to rise.
Cellphone text messaging has turned the younger generation into a bunch of new fangled Western Union operators. Their reply would be WU WT.
YOU'RE NOT EMO, YOU'RE SMILING
What is Emo? I first heard the term several months ago when I read an article that mentioned a style of music called emo. I heard of emo again when an American Idol contestant was described as emo. Last week, I was talking to a high school teacher relative and found out I am a really old fossil that is out of the loop. Emo kids wear tight pants, have bangs covering one eye, claim bisexuality, think everything is stupid, and generally walk around being sad and depressed. She said she catches one girl looking in every mirror she passes to check that she looks sufficiently sad. They are only happy at a concert for their favorite emo band.
Today, I read they are having anti-emo riots in Mexico. Groups of teenagers are going around looking for emo kids to beat up. One marauder said that he hates them, they are stupid and start crying about the least little thing.
In my day, they weren't called emo. They were called Wimps, Wusses and a word that starts with P.
ASHLEY DUPRE, ADVERTISING GENIUS
Elliot Spitzer's favorite prostitute Ashley Dupre's opportunity for cashing in on her 15 minutes of fame may be drying up. Too many people who might pay big money for her pictures are finding they already own pictures. GIRLS GONE WILD offered her $1 million until they found they had a ton of footage of her sitting in their vault. Many other pictures are surfacing.
She still may be able to cash in with a genius advertising slogan for condoms.
According to court papers, she had an amazing ability to reject requests for unprotected sex. "I have a way of dealing with that," she told her boss at the Emperor's Club VIP, "I'd be like,
'Listen, dude, you really want the sex?'"
MY LATEST REALITY TV SHOW IDEA: MEXICO ROAD TRUCKERS
I heard a radio news report about the government's lack of regulating the mechanical safety of 18 wheelers from Mexico on our highways. I started thinking about the reality TV show ICE ROAD TRUCKERS. ICE ROAD TRUCKERS follows daredevil truckers in Canada risking their necks transporting machinery to diamond mines, during the dead of winter, 300 miles across a frozen lake. That is kid stuff compared to driving down the U.S. interstates without any brakes, or smuggling a truckload of angry Guatemalans hiding in a spare gas tank or behind cases of lettuce.
IF WE COULD JUST GET RID OF THAT PESKY CANCER THING
Scientists at universities in tobacco growing states are studying a way to make cigarettes cancer-free. If they are successful, cigarette companies could increase sales by not killing off their customers and knock away objections to smoking caused by its number one drawback.
POLITICIANS and the MAGIC WORDS
Senator caught toe tapping for sex in an airport bathroom. The governor of New Jersey resigns after admitting to being gay. Now, his assistant claims he had every Friday night threesomes with the governor and the governor's wife. New York governor resigns after admitting to years whoring with high priced prostitutes. They swear in a new governor and he immediately admits to running around on his wife. Politicians are freaks! We are governed by freaks!
Last year, Oprah had a show with swingers (once called wife swappers) as guests. They said the MAGIC WORDS. Every weirdo who is interviewed on television always says the magic words to rationalize their perversion- they know doctors and lawyers that also do what they do. They should add governors and congressmen.
It makes me wonder what my doctor has been up to when I go for a checkup.
PEOPLE THAT LIVE IN UFO SHAPED HOUSES SHOULD NOT THROW THEIR WIFE OUT
A house shaped like a flying saucer that stands on a mountainside in Chattanooga, Tennessee recently sold at auction for $135,000. It was built in 1970. It stands on six legs and the entrance is a retractable staircase that lowers to the ground.
A neighbor says one owner had an argument with her husband. She pulled up the stairway, drove her husband's truck underneath it so he couldn't get the stairs down and left him stuck inside.
NOT YOUR SONNY BOY'S CONVENIENCE STORE
Lawson is Japan's second-largest convenience store chain. In 2006, they redid one of their stores to cater to senior citizens. The shelves are jam packed with hearing-aid batteries, false-teeth supplies and wigs. It has wide aisles and calming colors. It has been a runaway success.
If you send some young whippersnapper there to "pick you up some stuff", you can tell them not to forget the lottery tickets and dirty magazines. You're not dead, yet.
UNPROTECTED BY THE POLITICALLY CORRECT
The politically correct are so sensitive and unwilling to offend anyone. They won't call people what they are. They won't call a terrorist a terrorist. They won't call a bum a bum (Would it still be politically incorrect to call them unemployed brain surgeons).
One group they save up all of their repressed meanness for are fat people. They could care less if they hurt their feelings. The LA Times- politically correct central- ran an article a while back about SAUSAGE CASING GIRLS. SAUSAGE CASING GIRLS are overweight girls who wear clothes that are too tight. They show their bare midriff, wear shorts and skirts way too high and necklines way too low and are proud of it.
There is a new movie called RUN FATBOY RUN. Who else could they feel O.K. about slurring.
NEW FIVE DOLLAR BILL
The newly designed $5 bill came out recently. The new bills with have splashes of purple and gray with a big purple 5 in the lower right corner on the backside. When the $20 bill first came out, I got money out of the ATM and immediately drove to Sonic Drive-In for a Dr. Pepper (because I am insane for Sonic's crushed ice). I paid the car hop with the new $20, but she didn't want to take it. She thought I was a loony trying to pay with play money. She was only half right. She had to go inside and ask her boss.
What about the role of government? Well, in the abstract, coming from my time and background, I thought it was a rather good thing, but tallying up the ledger in those things which affect me and in those things I observe, I am hard-pressed to see an instance where the intervention of the government led to much beyond sorrow.
--David Mamet in the Village Voice
READ ANY GOOD BOOKS ON THE INTERNET LATELY
How do people read things on the internet. They don't.
According to web expert Jakob Neilsen-"Instead web users flit about like butterflies in a garden, pausing at anything that takes their interest."
IT MUST BE TRUE. IT'S A SURVEY
A new survey for Nursing Times magazine claims that 1/6th of British nurses have had sex with their patients. Or, at least fellow nurses heard that they did.
I HOPE I GET A GOOD CHRISTMAS BONUS--
Dancing on table tops and photocopying body parts isn't the only thing going on at office Christmas parties.
Another British survey from a dating website says that one-third of those surveyed admitted to having sex with the boss during the party.
Could this be true? Does the boss sit in his office like Bill Clinton with his employees lined up outside the door waiting to wish him or her a "Merry Christmas"?
WHO NEEDS TO FLOSS?--
Another crackpot poll from Britain says 60% of respondents pick their teeth with such things as screwdrivers, scissors, earrings, knives, keys, needles and forks. 23% just leave the food in their teeth.
They all must be true. It's a survey.
Another good tooth picker is a parchment business card. They are thinner than standard business cards but very sturdy. They are expensive cards, so the best source is a crooked lawyer or somebody trying to act richer than they are.
EXCUSE ME FOR LIVING, BUT THE GRAVEYARD IS FULL
A village in France couldn't justify the cost of buying more land to add to their sold-out cemetery, so their mayor has proclaimed: "all persons not having a plot in the cemetery and wishing to be buried in Sarpourenx are forbidden from dying in the parish."
"Offenders will be severely punished."
Standing Room Only?
AIN'T YOU GOT NO GOOD GRAMMER
March 4th was National Grammar Day. It was sponsored by the blue or red pencil wielding group named The Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar, or
SPOGG.
Their purpose: "SPOGG is for people who crave good, clean English - sentences cast well and punctuated correctly. It's about clarity. And who knows how many of the world's huge problems could be solved if we had a little more of that?"
Grammarians lack imagination.
Fretting about grammar often creates writer's block. It is like an OCD chef that never cooks anything because he is too distracted cleaning up every drop and crumb. It is better to clean up the mess when you are finished.
I'M ON MY THIRD CHERRY COKE and SECOND HAMBURGER, TODAY
I just found out how to become a billionaire.
Warren Buffet, the richest man in the world, drinks five cans of Cherry Coke every day and his favorite meal is a Hamburger. He lives in the same house he bought 50 years ago for $31,500.
Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, is the 7th richest man the world. He lives cheaply and invests his money back into his business. If he stays in a nice hotel, and happens to take a soft drink out of the pricey mini-bar, he replaces it before he leaves with a bottle that he buys for much less at a nearby store.
Political pundits on television hype the primaries more than Brent Musberger broadcasting a college Bowl game and are about as accurate as your local TV weatherman.
BUNDLE UP AL
More snow has fallen in North America this winter than in over 40 years. Several large cities had had over 100 inches of snow. The earth has cooled between .55 and .65 degrees in the past twelve months wiping out the earth warming over the last 100 years. The probable cause: activity of the sun. That's inconvenient.
Will Al Gore's AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH become the modern day REEFER MADNESS- a movie meant to issue a dire warning that is now a cult film that causes people to hoot and holler?
THANKS ETHANOL
To make ethanol they are using up more and more of the corn supply. This is causing the price of life's basics to skyrocket. The latest victim is a steak shortage at steak houses. Some are substituting Buffalo. Thanks Ethanol. Before steaks it was popcorn. The price paid to farmers jumped from 9 cents to 13 cents a pound. Movie theaters will be forced to raise their price to keep their 1000% profit margin. Thanks Ethanol. I saw a gallon of milk over $5 because they feed cows corn. Thanks Ethanol. The price of corn tortillas a staple source of protein for the poor in Mexico has doubled or tripled. Thanks Ethanol. Look what it has done to the cost of Moonshine. Thanks Ethanol.
MORE THANKS ETHANOL
Durum Wheat is being used to make ethanol. Durum Wheat is what they use to make pasta. So, the supply is being squeezed. They say pasta is Italy's national dish and the average Italian eats 62 pounds every year. The price of pasta in Italy is zooming up. Thanks Ethanol.
Everyone running for Congress for the first time wants and promises change. Every old SOB that has been in Congress for 30, 40, 50 years just wants to keep coming back and they let all the newly elected know real quick that they are
pip-squeaks that won't be changing anything.
Young voters are flocking to the primaries like never before. Could it be: Barack Obama is like the cool teacher at school; Hillary Clinton is like your mother's strident friend who was always at the women's group meetings in your living room?
WHO NEEDS THE DRIVE-THRU
Now, there is a 12 volt sandwich press that you can plug in and make grilled sandwiches in the front seat of your car. I hope that you park first.
HEALTH CARE NAZIS
In the news, government officials planning to force people to take care of themselves.
Hillary Clinton says that if she is president she may garnish wages to force workers to buy health insurance.
Some Mississippi legislators want to make it against the law for restaurants to serve obese customers. This would lead to black market to go orders.
Another group of killjoys think the Girl Scouts should not push their cookies on people because they are unhealthful. They don't even think it is all right to eat them in moderation instead of sitting there and eating a whole box.
GET YOUR TICKETS, NOW!!!
The New York Philharmonic visited the capital of North Korea for a historic concert and played Gershwin music before an audience of 1400 on Tuesday night. The concert was televised and seen by 1 million of the 22 million North Koreans lucky enough to know someone with a television and electricity. They were gathered around like the neighborhood coming to see the first TV on the block in 50s in the United States
Eric Clapton is considering the invitation to be the next westerner to give a concert in North Korea. Kim Jon Il's son and next in line is a big Eric Clapton fan because he is a GUITAR HERO fanatic.
They love hot dogs in Sweden. There are stands everywhere selling Tunnebrod Rulleor. In Sweden, hot dogs and mashed potatoes are wrapped in flat bread. They usually wash it down with a chocolate drink called PUCKO. PUCKO is slang in Sweden for "idiot".
HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY
I have never accepted one penny of BLOGOLA. No one has ever offered me any.
THEY SHOULD'VE GOT 'EM LIQUORED UP
Have you ever wondered why it now costs over $100 million to run for president? Hillary Clinton's campaign spent $95,000 in Iowa to load up Caucus goers on cheap deli meat.
THEY BLOWED IT UP REAL GOOD
They successfully launched the missile and blew up the Spy Satellite which is the size of a bus, weighed 10 tons and was spiraling uncontrolled.
Space junk is constantly falling to earth. They say over 12 million pounds of it have fallen and no one has been killed, yet.
Your chance of winning the lottery is close to impossible and your chance of being hit by space junk is a million times less. The earth's surface is a little less than 200 million square miles and there are 27,878,400 square feet in a square mile. So, if you are standing in a 10 square foot box- that would be a 200 million x 2.8 million chance. You multiply it. That's 560 million plus a lot of zeros.
Of course, your car or house since they are bigger would have more chance.
I'M NOT DEAD YET. I FEEL HAPPY. I FEEL HAPPY. I QUIT.
--Fidel Castro
Fidel Castro has been saying he was not dead here at MBI for the past two years. Now, he is resigning as El Presidente. He may stop claiming to not be dead any day now.
JUST A GOOD OL BOY
The Daytona 500 also known as the Great American Race is like the Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing and held every year in February.
NASCAR started for races between moonshine runners on their day off.
Moonshine runners would drive nondescript businessman type cars to look inconspicuous. They souped up the engines, reinforced the suspension,and put tanks in the trunk for their product. The tanks were outfitted to dump their load when being chased by the revenuers.
Of course, they had to prove who had the fastest car to each other. They formed the National Association of Stock Car Racing. For some reason, the cars were not plastered with ads
NASCAR groupies who hang over the chain link fence separating the stands from the track and vie for the driver's attention are nicknamed WAFFLE BELLIES
CALL THE MEN IN THE WHITE COATS. HE'S EATING SPAGHETTI FOR BREAKFAST
Dunkin Donuts is going to start selling Pizza and sandwiches to try to generate business after breakfast. A stock analyst who studies the restaurant business stated that "some people don't like to eat at the same place more than once a day." If Dunkin Donuts gains business in the afternoon they will lose some for breakfast. This is probably true. People are such creatures of habit- they have their morning place, lunch places and dinner places and seldom the twain shall meet. Also, they want breakfast foods for breakfast, but not later. Why are they breakfast foods? Initially they were things that can be prepared quickly and it became "just that's the way it is". If you want a hamburger for breakfast or pancakes for dinner you are an oddball.
WORST ADVERTISING IDEA EVER
Mamma Mia Pizza sells ads for the bottom of their pizza boxes.
This unfortunate ad may do wonders for the advertiser, but I don't believe Mamma Mia can expect much repeat business.
BAD IDEA Pizza Box
DOLLAR STORE CRISIS
Doom. We're doomed. I visited the Dollar Store, today, and everything was no longer a dollar. It was now $1.09.
I don't know if I want to live in a world where the Dollar Store must now charge $1.09. What is Nancy Pelosi going to do about this? Hearings. A dollar store price freeze? What do the presidential candidates intend to do?
I demand to know! I demand action!
IF A POLICEMAN TELLS YOU TO FREEZE, YOU HAVE NO CHOICE
International Falls, Minnesota is called ICEBOX OF THE NATION. They just had their record low of -41 degrees.
I heard a TV weatherman say we might have some mild tornadoes.
MAD MAN THREATENS TO CUT OFF HIS NOSE TO SPITE HIS FACE
Venezuelan Mad Man Hugo Chavez is once again threatening to cut off oil exports to the United States. He gleefully warns the price will shoot up to $200 a barrel. The United States imports 1/9th of it's oil from Venezuela. The problem for Venezuelan Mad Man Chavez is he exports almost all his oil to the United States. We have the only refineries set up to refine his Venezuelan heavy crude that has the consistency of tar. He won't have anywhere else to immediately send his oil and his main source of income will disappear.
YOU THINK YOU'RE SO SMART
Mindset Media studied Mac users to determine their "mind-set profile". They found that Mac users feel superior and self satisfied. They are just like the smug Mac Guy in the commercials.
If they really put people in prison for lying to Congress, the place would be empty.
QUESTS ARE GOOD
While you are on a quest, you will discover other good things that you may not have noticed and may have never imagined.
RUNNY NOSE CRISIS
Things can't just happen anymore. The news turns everything into a crisis. Democrat politicians always claim that it is the worst economy in a million years and everything that anyone can worry about is a crisis when they are trying to get back into office.
Too many people have taken their flu shots and cases of flu and colds are down 9%. This is causing a crisis in self health care. Kleenex sales are down 5%. Cold/allergy/sinus medications are also down 5%. Cough syrup down 16% and sore throat remedies are down 13%. Only chest rubs are up- 21% because of warnings against children's products.
Do your part to solve this crisis. Go outside without your coat or shoes. Even better go out in the cold with your hair wet. Don't cover your mouth or nose when you cough or sneeze.
ANOTHER CHILD STAR USED UP AND GONE WRONG
Knut, the famous polar bear, and Britney Spears have something in common. Fame has made them both mentally unstable. Like most child stars, he has grown into a gawky gangly teenager and is not cute anymore. He is no longer even solid white. He has a long raggedy dirty looking coat. Reminds me of a Nick Nolte arrest photo.
Knut's fame made the attendance at the Berlin Zoo soar. Over 2.5 million people came to see him. He was raised and coddled by human handlers. Now, he is too dangerous to interact with his handlers which is driving him crazy. He once made twice a day appearance to adoring fans. Now he is kept inside.
The Berlin zoo trademarked him and will continue to profit from his cute image.
But,
the handlers say that poor Knut is now a psychopath. He is addicted to humans. He will never be able to mate and is destined for a life of loneliness. Another washed up child star squeezed for what he was worth and abandoned.
WHO'S SITTING IN THE CATBIRD SEAT?
Hillary thought she was in the catbird seat. Tom Brady and the New England Patriots are sitting in one. Where did the notion of SITTING IN THE CATBIRD SEAT come from?
Baseball announcer Red Barber used the colorful phrase to describe a batter with a count of three balls and no strikes. The best position to be in. James Thurber wrote a short story called THE CATBIRD SEAT. There is a controversy as to who got it from whom. Barber said he heard it at a poker table in Cincinnati.
The expression probably originated from an area where catbirds live. Catbirds and their cousin mockingbirds head to the highest point in the yard to stake claim on it's territory. They sit up there and start loudly singing just before dawn during nesting season.
They just hauled Britney Spears off to the nervous hospital with a police escort and cleared airspace.
Time to revisit my movie pitch. I wrote it and it began appearing at mrbadideas.com over a year ago. Britney was a minor character in the famous girl out of control trio. Little did I know it may become a documentary:
MY BRITTANY PARAS LOHANN MOVIE PITCH
An old woman, named Brittany Paras Lohann who was once a famous singer-actress before she self destructed, is a recluse living alone in a house on stilts in the Louisiana swamp. Her fingertips are stained yellow from smoking unfiltered cigarettes and alligators are her only friends. Unknown to her, a half-wit lurks in the reeds watching. Is it her child, a relative,her only remaining fan, or an ex-husband? Snooping paparazzi who have ventured out to find her have mysteriously disappeared.
MAKING FUEL FROM FORREST GUMP'S SOCKS
Upon arriving in Viet Nam, Lt. Dan told Forrest Gump and Bubba the most important thing they needed to know was to constantly change their socks. Why? The fungus that causes "jungle rot" eats up socks, tents and anything cellulose.
You can make ethanol mixing the "jungle rot" fungus with agricultural waste- wood chips, stalks, etc. A start up company based in Illinois claims they can produce Ethanol made from wood chips for $1 a gallon. They are partnering with General Motors and are building processing plants that will be ready in 2-3 years.
This may save corn tortillas from becoming a luxury item.
A CROOK JUST CAN'T TRUST ANOTHER CROOK NOT TO BE A CROOK
Phishers in Morocco are giving away free phishing kits. Phishers are the spammers that send you email that looks like it is from a real company like Bank of America or PayPal so they can try to fool you into giving them personal information and steal your identity.
The free phishing kits contain hidden code that steals all the information the phisher with the free kits steals and sends it to the Moroccan phishers. So, the phishers are stealing phish from other phishers.
One way to prevent identity theft is to have an identity so bad that nobody wants to steal it.
A FEW WORDS FROM DR. FILL
The difference between men and women is men don't want to talk about their troubles and all that women want to talk about is their troubles.
I'M RUBBER AND YOU'RE GLUE
Some unnamed prominent politicians who may be running for president seem to operate on the fundraising principle of take the money and ask questions later. If anyone complains, give the money back and apologize.
Allen Raymond, a campaign operative who got snagged and was sent up the river, decided to spill the beans on dirty dealings in campaigns to help sell his book HOW TO RIG AN ELECTION. He takes it a step further. He says if a shady character wants to give you money- take it as long as they agree to also give a small contribution to your opponent. If your opponent tries to expose you for taking illegal funds you can say "hey, you took money from him, too."
CAN'T BELIEVE I ATE THE WHOLE THING
CKE Restaurants, operator of Carl Jr's and Hardees, sales have grown 31% since 2000. How did they do it? By offering salads and other healthful alternatives. WRONG. They went the complete opposite direction by dishing out the biggest fattest burgers they could dream up.
Their latest gluttonous experiment didn't pan out. They tested it in 7 restaurants last summer. Executives said it tasted really good but
"some sandwiches are so unique that consumers can't wrap their heads around them."
They called it the JULY 4th BURGER and consisted of a huge beef patty topped with pickles, ketchup, mustard, potato chips, and a hot dog. A cookout on a bun. This is a Kid's Meal compared to stuff on the HAMBURGER PORNO PAGE
MITT ROMNEY MIGHT BE A REDNECK
If you go on vacation with your five children and you put your dog in a kennel with its own windshield strapped to the roof of your car and that dog has diarrhea and makes a mess all over the rear window so you can't see and you stop and hose it off then get back in your a car a keep driving down the road, YOU MIGHT BE A .....
LIKE IT OR LUMP IT
The current buzzword from politicians is CHANGE.
Nancy Pelosi has finally gotten to show her vision for Changing America. She has created her own little microcosm of government meddling by decree. It is the new House of Representative cafeterias- a part of her "Greening of the Capitol" plan. Some call it "feel good crap".
They serve politically correct food nobody really wants at prices higher than they want to pay. Food that Nancy and her minions have deemed good for you purchased from the correct sort of suppliers. The decor is a shrine to the "renewable earth" with plenty of sloganeering to ram down your throat. You must recycle in the sorting bins complete with detailed instructions. They now have biodegradable flatware, but you have to use a teaspoon to slurp your soup because the ecofriendly supplier doesn't make soup spoons.
The spokesman for the chief administrative officer that oversees the cafeteria (he needs a spokesman?) responded to complaints in typical way of anything run by bureaucrats-
"customers would have to change their behavior to accommodate the environmentally friendly products."
His response to complaints about the ecofriendly straws that melt in hot liquid: "Sip your coffee like a normal human being, we're trying to save the planet here."
We're trying to get accolades from people that don't eat here, who cares what the customers think.
EVERYTHING MUST GO SALE
The British Prime Minister wants to change organ donation policy to stem the shortfall and save 1000 lives a year. He wants to adopt the system used by credit card companies when they change their deal on you. They will assume you agree unless you object. You will have to take your name off the donation register.
My favorite economist, Walter E. Williams, says there is an organs for transplant shortage because you are not allowed to sell them. The transplant waiting list would be much shorter if organs could be bought and sold. He states that to most loving families agreeing to bury their loved one without all of the parts they arrived with would be unthinkable. But, if there was money to be made some children would quickly reconsider and put all of dear old dad's parts on the block for the right price.
I'M MY OWN GRANDPA
Twins separated at birth recently found out they were married to each other. This is a rare. Here is advice for something that may not be:
If your mother visited the sperm bank before you were conceived and you are on the make forget asking "what's your sign?". You need to ask if they are a DONOR CONCEIVED PERSON. If they are then ask what is their father's donor identification number. You may be putting the moves on your brother or sister.
If your father made frequent deposits, you may have dozens or even hundreds of half brothers and sisters.
GIMME THE SWAG
The award show cancellations are causing a panic in Hollywood. Movie and TV stars can't get their swag.
At large film festivals and award shows there are rooms set aside where they can pick up their Bag of Swag. Swag is free stuff that marketers give away on the chance that the stars will be photographed wearing or using their stuff. Swag often includes expensive watches and invitations for free trips to exclusive resorts. Some bags of swag can total freebies worth $100,000. The promoters giving the swag think of it as cheap advertising. The IRS now considers it tax money.
The internet is the new bathroom wall.
NO FUN, MISSOURI
St. Charles, Missouri is considering a bill to curb the rowdy dows in bars. There would be a law against cussing. Would this mean you would have to take it outside to stand with the smokers to swear? This could result in no sports on television in the bar.
The ban would also stop dancing on table tops and profane music, entertainment and literature. Patrons would not be allowed to read their copies of FANNY HILL or LADY CHATTERLY'S LOVER there anymore.
What's next? Policemen required to carry bars of soap? Not allowing you to throw things at the band behind the chicken wire?
TAKE TWO ASPIRIN AND CALL ME IN THE MORNING
Medical care and medical insurance were once inexpensive. It was inexpensive back when they couldn't do anything for you. Now, there are machines that will look into every inch of your insides. They can replace just about any part. They can do surgery on your heart and brain. They have medicines to maintain chronic illnesses. There are pills for the boudoir when a guy's hydrolics no longer work right. They can do so much for us that we can't afford it anymore.
I'VE GOT A GAL NAMED BONY MARONIE. SHE'S AS SKINNY AS A STICK OF MACARONI.
A barista (a person that makes the coffee concoctions- coffee jerk) at STARBUCKS is refusing to use their new term- SKINNY for drinks with low fat milk, sugar free syrup and no whipped cream. She says it will hurt the self esteem of employees and customers to hear SKINNY yelled out all day and SKINNY written on the cups.
The health department should be on the look out for tear drops in the coffee from spindly or big boned baristas.
FALLACY IS THE NEW TRUTH
Word experts recently made a Top 10 list of overused expressions. Included on the list was "is the new". For example: 70 IS THE NEW 50 or GRAY IS THE NEW BLACK. One wag chimed in FALLACY IS THE NEW TRUTH. Many people believe things are true that aren't so and common knowledge has become common ignorance. People believe the damndest things and the more outrageous the more likely they are to believe it- just look at Rosie O'Donnell.
THOMAS EDISON AND THE ELECTRIC CHAIR
January 4th was the 105th anniversary of the electrocution of Topsy the Elephant. Topsy went on a rampage and killed three people on Coney Island. They originally wanted to hang Topsy. Thomas Edison suggested electrocution. The event was witnessed by 1500 and filmed by Thomas Edison. The film was exhibited across the country as ELECTROCUTING THE ELEPHANT.
The word electrocution was coined and the invention of the electric chair was the result of a publicity stunt and other dirty tricks by Thomas Edison.
There is a Body Farm at the University of Tennessee. It sits on 3 acres and has 150 bodies rotting in the sun, shade, water, under leaves, shallow graves, and in trunks of cars so they can study decomposition rates and which insects are hanging around. It is a CSI dreamland. They have another 1000 bodies bequeathed to them and they are looking for more land. It was started by anthropologist Dr. William M. Bass in 1971 so he could answer the first question the police asked about bodies they sent him. It wasn't "who are they", but "how long have they been dead".
AVOID THE CLAP
Chelsea Clinton recently refused an interview to a SCHOLASTIC MAGAZINE reporter because she "doesn't answer questions from reporters even if they are 9 and cute". This reminded me of all the little kids that have been crushed and warped for life after getting to meet their sports super hero and treated by them in a rude and surly way.
Tom Hanks' character in LEAGUE OF THEIR OWN summarized the carelessness of treating young fans. His character was a washed up Baseball home run king reduced to being the cynical drunken manager of a women's professional baseball team. Two ten year old boys recognize him on the street and ask for an autograph. He signs his name and adds "avoid the clap". As they walk off with a puzzled look, he calls out "that's good advice."
The girl stars gone wild that can't keep out of trouble should stop associating with bad companions (like their parents).
PARENTING ADVICE NEVER GIVEN BY BRITNEY'S MOTHER
Here is some advice for Britney and Jamie probably not in their mother's book:
My baby's nose is running. -- Wipe it
My baby has a dirty diaper.-- Wipe it and Change it
It's lunch time. Do you think my kids are hungry? -- Feed them
My baby is crying. -- Hold him
I think I'll take the kids for a drive. -- Put them in car seats
I put whitening strips on my child's teeth. -- Don't
My video just came on TV. -- Turn the TV off. Your kids might see what mommy has been up to.
OOPS! I forgot to put my panties on again. -- Put your drawers on
I need to go out and get my swerve on. -- Stay home and play, talk or read a story to your kids.
Are muffins an excuse to eat cake for breakfast?
SPOILED WOMEN
Sixty or seventy years ago when many labor saving housekeeping devices were novel and new they would have been a thoughtful and appreciated Christmas gift. Now, household labor saving devices are not coveted and are considered a thoughtless gift that could result in objects being thrown at heads, silent treatments or a life sleeping on the couch if you are lucky.
STONE THE CREEPS
The TSA was voted the second least popular government agency behind FEMA. Remember, TSA wants you to pack neatly and in layers so they can rifle through your bags and do the messin up. They mostly confiscate lighters and another government agency claims we are no safer despite spending $5.3 Billion.
Here is my idea for airline safety. A few hijackers can't stay in control when the greater numbers decide to take it back.
Every passenger should be handed a bag of rocks when entering the plane. If someone has evil plans for the plane and starts causing trouble, the rest of the hundred or so passengers can take their rocks and stone the creep.
Rocks shouldn't create any unfortunate holes in the plane like bullets would, and since the terrorists want to take us back to medieval times we can take them back there first. They would be no match for a blizzard of rocks.
STEWARDESS, I'D LIKE A CHIANTI TO GO WITH MY FAVA BEANS
If you don't want to pass out bags of rocks and you can't profile because you might get sued, what can you do? Last year, the suspicious acting Imams that freaked everyone out and were kicked off the plane in Minnesota asked for seat belt extensions. They were not large people and did not use the extensions. They sat them on the floor. Another thing to worry about: seat belt extensions turned into numchuks to conk the crew over the head or strangle them. Soon, the only way to guarantee airline safety will be to strap all passengers into their seats like Hannibal Lechter.
IDENTITY THEFT
In 1938, Woolworth stores sold wallets that had imitation social security cards with a number but no name. The imitation cards were there to show off the wallets like picture frames that come with pictures of people that you don't know.
The problem was that the number on the fake social security cards was real. It belonged to a secretary at the wallet company.
During the next 39 years, it is estimated that 40,000 people used the secretary's number on their tax forms.
HAS ANYONE ASKED HILLARY IF SHE EVER USED DRUGS?
Hillary 1969
WHAT KIND OF GRAVY GOES GOOD WITH THAT?
FOOD NETWORK TV star Paula Deen is a southern cook that believes that everything goes better with butter. Her son teased her that she would deep fry butter if she could. A viewer sent in a recipe and now you can make Paula's Deep Fried Butter Balls
THERE IS SOMETHING FISHY GOING ON
Fast Food restaurants buy fish that is fished because wild fish has a stronger taste. It tastes fishier. Faced with a shortage of fished fish they are having to turn to farm raised fish. To make the fish taste like wild fish they are adding fish flavoring at the processing plant. Fish flavored fish.
LAKE PROPERTY
Several months ago I wrote this quotable quote:
If a lake or river dried up, somebody would be out there building a house on it. They would also be crying, complaining and expecting the government to bail them out after the water came back.
A woman answered an ad and bought land advertised as FOR SALE AS IS. The land turned out to be underwater in the middle of a lake. She is suing the county to have the lake drained so she can use her land.
WHO WAS NOBEL?
Alfred Nobel was the inventor of dynamite. His father invented plywood. Hmmm. Was there a deep seeded resentment causing Alfred to want to blow up building materials?
NOT LOOKING FOR THE BARGAIN
My new favorite song is from a commercial for a heart stent. Do they want patients on the table demanding their brand? This is one product where you are not looking for the cheapest one. The price competition is in the other direction. Here is a TV pitch that could corner the stent market:
Don't settle for a bargain stent as trustworthy as a leaky garden hose from the dollar store. Next time ask for our stent. The most expensive heart stent on earth and worth it.
WHEN YOU GOTTA GO YOU GOTTA GO
Desperate for a bathroom? Immodium brings you the Bathroom Finder. It lists all the public bathrooms in each zip code plus a map. If you don't have a computer handy while in dire need head for a police station, city building, fast food restaurant or hotel lobby.
On a visit to New York City I was riding the subway and they kept announcing that there were "pickpockets on the train". How did they know? I determined they must be psychics.
Emma Clarke was the voice of the London underground (or Tube) until she was recently canned for making a series of spoof announcements she placed on her website. Click to Listen:
FAKE SUBWAY ANNOUNCEMENTS
IF I CAN'T HAVE YOU NOBODY WILL
Joining the scrap heap of advertising blunders- Tylenol had to drop their flop "made with love" campaign. In order to justify the higher price for Tylenol over buying the identical generic acetaminophen, they tried to convince consumers that Tylenol was made with love. An employee making Tylenol is supposedly the equivalent to Grandma lovingly baking a pie for her family.
I couldn't understand how Tylenol employees could love millions of pills rolling down conveyor belts and neither could anyone else. The monotony of repetition generally leads to hatred. If the employees were really loving the the little pills what would would happen if a unhinged lovesick employee refused to part with his precious creations? Fill the bottles with cotton or placebos? Hold the factory hostage?
If you have a headache, you don't care if it was made with love. You just want it to work.
Dennis Miller calls the Viagra commercials with the middle aged guys gathered in the rec room singing about the wonders of Viagra a "flaccid hootenanny".
NOW WE'RE DESTROYING THE UNIVERSE!
Cosmologist using quantum theory which nobody understands, so they can say anything and I can't dispute it, claim that by discovering and thinking about phenomenon in space we are shortening the life of the universe. They explain that it is like a watched pot of water on the stove never boiling. Huh? SAVE THE UNIVERSE. STOP PONDERING.
mrbadideas.com READER. YOU ARE A GENIUS!
I was noticing how complimentary the beer commercials are during football games. "You are a drinker of our beer. Good Call" Or hint at other self esteem builders: you are clever, smart, have great taste, girls love you, one of a kind, and part of the club. They like you. Their beer brand is your friend.
You know what mrbadideas.com readers? I LIKE YOU.
WE GOT THE FANCIEST MOBILE HOME IN THE PARK
The latest scientific study says that most people are not happy unless they are richer than everyone they know.
IF YOU'VE GOT THE DINERO, I'VE GOT THE CAMARO
The latest thing is for top international models, entertainers and financiers to refuse to be paid in U.S. Dollars. Will illegal aliens who send a large percentage of their income back home to Mexico soon start refusing to be paid in dollars, too?
THE PERFECT COVER STORY
Hillary Clinton recently got in trouble for stiffing her waitress at a Iowa diner. During further investigation it was shown the $157 bill was paid by a staff member with a credit card. There was no tip charged to the credit card. Their answer was they left a $100 bill for the tip. If they really left a $100 bill somebody pocketed it and didn't share with the other waitresses. If a waitress pocketed the mystery money she would be a national embarrassment to admit it. The other waitresses will be forever suspicious of their coworkers even if no one is guilty. Nobody will ever be able to prove anything. The perfect CYA? They were really extremely generous and somebody in that restaurant must be selfish and dishonest.
The only thing better would be to payoff one of them to admit keeping the tip and that she always votes Republican.
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are, 'I'm from the government and I'm here to help.' --- Ronald Reagan
NOT A SMALL WORLD
Disneyland is going to reconstruct the IT'S A SMALL WORLD ride. The canal will be deeper and the boats more buoyant. Riders have gotten so fat that the boats get stuck mostly at two spots on the ride. They have to send someone down to lighten the load and take the heavyweights off. It happens so often they have built new docks at the trouble spots. To repay guests for being pulled off the ride they get a free food coupon. They can chomp on a Mouse Bar while waiting for their party.
MR YUK IS MEAN MR YUK IS GREEN
Chna strikes again. They just recalled 1.5 million Thomas the Tank Engine wooden toys because they are painted with lead paint. We know every one of them heads straight for the mouth. This joins the list of other dubious products made in China: poisoned dog food, tainted toothpaste and cough syrup, and fish and shrimp raised in sewage. Do they need to put Mr. Yuk stickers on the back of every product from China?
and
that urges serve penalties.
For example,
you better use its and it's correctly.
Hillary 1969
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