Update: In Michela's rush to post this absolutely fabulous gem, she (me) failed to properly credit the source, a fellow blogger whose site is http://animatematters.blogspot.com. This fellow blogger properly names his ultimate source... Must love Gore-bee's internet; through this guy's post about that guy's post about another person's post, you know just about all there is to know just by visiting MediaWatchblog.com!!! Teaching Math In the fifties: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit? Teaching Math In the sixties: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price, or $80. What is his profit? Teaching Math In the seventies: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80. Did he make a profit? Teaching Math In the eighties: A logger sells a truckload of lumber for $100. His cost of production is $80 and his profit is $20 Your assignment: Underline the number 20. Teaching Math In the nineties: A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habitat of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. He does this so he can make a profit of $20. What do you think of this way of making a living? Topic for class participation after answering the question: How did the birds and squirrels feel as the logger cut down their homes? (There are no wrong answers.) Teaching Math In 2007: Un ranchero vende una carretera de madera para $100. El cuesto de la produccion era $80. Cuantos tortillas se puede comprar?

This is the "EX Revenge" Cutlery set. 'nuff said!!!!

You can find this gem at www.PerpetualKid.com. And it comes in SIX colors!

Read all about it I can hear the wheels turning, can't you? "I was supposed to finish this audit. I'm so screwed! What do I do?!" And a little light goes off in her head..."If I set the office on fire, I can say the fire ate my homework!" And so the maniacal thinking goes, to the point where the maniac executes (eh-hem) on the plan and three human beings lose their lives. I almost--and I really mean, almost--feel sorry for this psycho. I can almost see how this crackpot scheme might have seemed like a viable alternative to being fired. But somewhere along the line, one would think that sanity would have settled in and a trip to the unemployment office would seem like less of a hassle than putting together an arson defense. That arson defense is now a triple murder charge, and thinking of the pain the families are going through now...I can't even imagine.

Everyone and anyone who knows me knows all about.... THE NOT-SO-FABULOUS FLOOD OF '05. The scene? One thousand gallons of water pouring in from the ceiling of a third floor apartment, and subsequently destroying said apartment and the two below it. The cause? A broken fire sprinkler that certainly should never have broken. The big deal? The Irvine Company went after Michela like a drunken frat boy on a bikini in Ft. Lauderdale when it was really caused by multiple Irvine Company equipment failures. The upshot? Their vicious bulldog dyke attorney scared the bezeejus out of Michela but in the end, those P-fers didn't get a dime and the only damage was that Michela was tossed onto the street when the lease was up, which seemed a fair trade-off for a several thousand dollar bill in repairs and hotels. Therefore, when I heard the following quote from a source I cannot name, I laughed, having personally dealt with these bastards:

Dealing with the Irvine Company is like dealing with the Mob.

Michela seconds, thirds, and fourths this sentiment. The Irvine Company really does have a monopoly on commercial and multifamily real estate in Irvine, Tustin Ranch, and Newport beach. Let's not forget James Irvine was Irish; maybe the IRA is behind THE FAMILY. Well I just got a good laugh; prior to hearing my seriously sad tale, this person confirmed what Michela experienced first-hand.

Read all about it Okay peeps, it has been a mere six months since I last posted about my dissatisfaction with my (once) brand new BMW. Since then, that fucking car has been in the shop three more times for serious problems; alternator, broken door hinge, and now I seem to have some issue with the exhaust system; a very noticeable whistle and flapping sound is coming from under the hood, and so now I have to go back AGAIN to figure out what the problem is. That visit to BMW service will mark the twenty first visit to the repair shop in 2 years 11 months of car ownership. I have written to BMW of North America about this issue; when I bring it in again on Wednesday, I'm going to ask them to drive it off a cliff for me. The most defective car Consumer Reports ever reviewed was the Yugo, and I think those cars on average did not have as many problems as I've had with my Kraut engineered POC. I am so disgusted, I would never, ever drive another BMW unless they gave me one for free in perpetuity. And even then! Who has time to take their car into the shop every 2 or 3 months? Driving home this evening I was thinking...have I ever gone more than 4 months without having to go into the fucking shop for something? I'm going to have to create a multi-tiered pivot-tabled spreadsheet just to figure this out; I've gone over my paperwork several times, and I have a pretty good idea, but much more analysis needs to be made at this point. And BMW of NA. You don't even want to know what I'm thinking right now... you'd call the police and hire personal security if you did.

Read all about it A million thanks to Frenchie for this one... Add this issue to the long list of the "things grass eaters do to save the planet that actually hurt the planet more" category. It turns out the energy required to manufacture a Toyota Prius hybrid far exceeds not only the energy required to manufacture a Hummer (by quite a lot), but the overall energy 'footprint' (to borrow from the grasseating lexicon) to manufacture and drive said Prius 100,000 miles exceeds that of a Hummer when driven 300,000 miles. I just love liberals; the Vulcans would never visit earth while Libs are in charge, that's for sure; they couldn't handle the illogic.

Read all about it I read this article, and the only other two news articles (or topics) that have made me more angry than this one are those related to my Border Patrol agents (BUSH the LIAR...FREE THE TEXAS THREE!) and the story of a little boy in Georgia kidnapped, raped, and murdered by a father/mother/son trio. This kind of news is enough to make a person want to hunker down and promote world destruction via nuclear bombs. Some days, a world this terrible doesn't seem worth saving. Of course I find the good things in life too, like South Park and Trader Joe's Pound Plus Chocolate Bar with Almonds.. Let's not forget the hysterical photographs one can take in a place called Lamont, California. So what's this heavy jive all about? A little girl who was "diagnosed" with ADD and bipolar disorder at the ripe old age of 2 1/2 years. A year and a half later, she is dead from an overdose of the drugs she was given for her "conditions"; she died a slow, painful death. In the final hours of her life, she tried to get into mommy's room for comfort; in the pain of her looming death, she wanted mommy. Ironically enough, it was mommy and daddy who had slowly been murdering her all along. It's enough to make you want to poke a hole in the prison wall where these monsters are being held for murder and claw their eyes out. These parents medicated the hell out of their children, courtesy of YOUR tax dollars (the were on welfare and medicaid). And these monsters managed to find a public defender who lays sole blame on the doctor; the parents were merely "dutifully" following the "doctor's orders." My ass. They didn't want to deal with their kids' normal behavior. The didn't want to be parents. They wanted drugs to babysit their children so they wouldn't have to do it themselves. And how on god's green earth they found a psychiatrist to go along with this scheme... that psychiatrist should be drawn and quartered with the same horse used on the parents. Two more things come to mind; one, how many more children are similarly drugged up (or down, I should say) with the blessing of an evil psychiatrist? If a child doesn't die, this goes on forever, until this completely ruined human being has to go out into the world and fend for themselves, and their brains have likely been irreversibly damaged. And two, if the field of psychiatry wants to elevate itself from the charges leveled at it by whackos like Scientologists, they should self-police themselves better.

Michela is again the source of a fantastic quip. My second this year! In discussing a certain pigheadedness of someone I may or may not work with...

If you try to milk a bull, all you get is bullshit.

If only you all knew how true this is!

So many people tell me they don't have enough time; for themselves, to cook, to do this, do that. But in the same breath, "Hey, did you see Ugly Betty last night?!" And, heaven help us, "Can you believe [fill in blank] got kicked off American Idol last night? He [she] is the best singer this season!" These people may as well be speaking greek; I've never heard of--never mind seen--Ugly Betty. I couldn't name a single contestant on American Idol, and only a single past winner. I somehow caught Carrie Underwood singing on a stage (was it the Superbowl?) and when I said, who is this chick and why is she singing at this event? She's got the dance moves of a cardboard box and the stage presence of a wax figurine. I was advised she was an American Idol winner. Yes, she could sing, but so can a lot of people; in the video-killed-the-radio-star age, you must also have some shazaam. For that reason, she might be joining Ashley what's-her-face in Not Really A Starville sooner than later... but I digress. Tonight, a rare night when my brain couldn't process another bit or byte, I gelled in front of the TV for precisely 10 minutes, and I caught a show I have heard on the radio is a HUGE hit: Are you smarter than a fifth grader (or something like that). Next time I want to gel 10 minutes in front of the boob tube, feel free to pull all my fingernails off one by one; the pain is less than 10 minutes of standard TV fare. In front of me was a woman--the 'up' contestant--who was wringing her hands over whether or not to "walk away" with her $175,000 winnings, or to answer the question, "How many months in the year have 31 days?" She recited a mnemonic poem several times, and counted the months you recite in the poem (the months with less than 31 days) on her fingers. Finally, she held up four fingers on one hand and one finger on another, and then counted up how many fingers were extended. She then used her fingers to subtract 5 from 12, and still the gnarled knuckles of despair--the four taut knuckles on one hand, and the fist with one finger extended in the other. The tension was palatable (right). "Should I continue? Yes! Yes! I do think 7 is right." After some minutes of this shit, Jeff Foxworthy (our host), says, "We'll give you the right answer... right after this break!" To which the contestant and the audience gasped--nooooo! No more waiting to see if 7 is right!!! Nooooo! We return to the show after our commercial break to learn dear contestant was correct. There are indeed 7 months in the year with 31 days. My chihuahua knew that one. Now we get the next question, and we are told this question is from first grade geography. "What is the only continent that is also a country." Dear contestent starts holding up her hands and naming the seven continents (again with the finger counting). She glosses right over the finger tick of Australia, finishes her list, and declares she doesn't know; they're all countries... "North America is a country..." The host again reminds her she can "walk away" or keep her now $300,000 earnings. He again reminds her it's a first grade geography test question. Ms. Contestant bows out and keeps her $300,000, but not before making me suffer through another round of finger ticks and continent names, still ticking right by Australia without any signs of the fading mental filaments lighting up in that pea brain as it did so. And this is the most popular show on television. Someone please shoot me. Or my TV.

Read all about it Our little duct taped gasoline price sign below is an absolute gem, warts and all. But as it turns out, duct tape isn't good for warts after all. Not only that, this issue has been studied twice. I'd really like to know how this ever came up. At the big grant approval agency in the sky, someone actually went before some board up there and said, "We'd like to study whether warts can be eliminated with duct tape." To which the board replied, "Brilliant! Here's two trillion dollars. What a brilliant idea! This must be studied, and the sooner, the better!"