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Showing posts from March, 2010

U. S. Census-phobes — Kindly S. T. F. U.

Seriously… it's 10 questions . Who are you, how old are you, what race are you, what kind of home do you live in and how many people live in your house. Did I miss something? Last week I listened to a radio segment with people sure that the census was going to be used to round up and deport [select your minority group of concern here], to take your guns away (I thought that was gun registration), or to enable the country to house soldiers in your home in times of national emergency (I presume they're going to link the census database with realty databases to determine if you've got more bedrooms than people living in your home). My favorites were the ones complaining about it being unconstitutional, when the Constitution mandates a census be taken every 10 years. (Extra bonus points — and hopefully a special place in hell — if you're a Congressperson making that claim.) People, we've been doing one of these every ten years since we ratified that Constitution. Is

You can pry my Starbucks...

I have to say, I am SO tired of the lame "how difficult is it to order coffee at Starbucks" shtick. Comedians have been riffing on it for years and Steve Martin mocked that whole coffee culture vibe in L. A. Story in 1991. So now, since it's no longer comedy fodder, it seems to have moved into the realm of the anti-elitist, "don't go thinking you're better than me 'cause you drink expensive coffee" crowd. You know, the one's cheering Glen Beck on for his brilliant witticisms. So Adam Carolla's been doing live podcasts the past couple of months, and they've been talking them up on KROQ lately, so I downloaded a few to check out last week. I like Carolla when he's on KROQ and find his "Week in Rage" rants pretty amusing. The podcasts are a different beast. They're your basic talk show format… Carolla comes on, riffs for a few minutes on whatever topics the audience throws at him, then brings in his guests. They ch

Nerd Magnet

I'm not the most social person. Not that I think I'm anti-social… I'm just not the guy going out of his way to strike up a conversation with total strangers. Hell, I stopped wearing t-shirts that said things years ago, because I realized that they encouraged people I didn't know to think I was interested in talking to them. And yet, somehow, I seem to put out this "come talk to me" vibe at the most inopportune moments. (I remember once in college, looking across the quad at some guy wearing an Imperial Fleet Officer Cap and thinking 'god, what a loser'… only to have him walk over and strike up a conversation with me moments later. And yes, I know what that implies about my social status at the time. All too accurate, I fear.) Last week, we had just seen Alice In Wonderland and were heading to the restrooms before leaving the theater. Outside the women's restroom, presumable (hopefully?) waiting for his wife, I was accosted by an older guy, as