Fact and opinion

1.  Maybe I’m a little out of the loop but I just heard the Framing Hanley cover of “Lollipop” last week and my ears are still bleeding.  It’s just awful.  What the hell were they thinking?  What would make someone shit all over a perfectly good song like that?  The rule for deciding whether you should cover a song is simple:  if you can’t do it better, don’t do it.  The Framing Hanley amendment to that rule is:  seriously, just don’t.

2.  In other music news, the Decemberists just released their new album The Hazards of Love.  Hallelujah.

3.  Hilarious, but kinda pathetic too:

At about the 2:45 mark, it gets ugly:

Charles, Barack Obama is president of the United States today because of stupid, ignorant people who think like you do.  You pose — you and your ignorance are the most expensive commodity this country has.  You think you know everything.  You don’t know diddly-squat.

Is that any way to talk to a veteran?

4.  I can’t help thinking lately that I’m never going to be anything more than a parody of my dad.  And fighting it only makes it worse because that’s exactly what he would do.  I’m so screwed.

5.  A conversation I had with Smella this evening:

Smella (whining):  I can’t walk!

Me:  Why?  What’s wrong?

S:  I hut my weg!

M:  How did you hurt your leg?

S:  I bumped it and now I can’t walk!

M:  Well, come over here and let me see it.

S (walking across the living room, not even limping):  OK, daddy!

M (in my head):  You fucking with me?

My own little Stewartesque rant

From a story on CNN today about AIG giving out a fresh round of bonuses and the outrage it’s causing:

[AIG Chairman and CEO Edward Liddy said] he took steps to limit his employees’ compensation with trepidation.  He said the company will have trouble attracting and retaining “the best and the brightest … if employees believe that their compensation is subject to continued and arbitrary adjustment by the U.S. Treasury.”

The very next line is just beautiful:

AIG lost a record $62 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008.

So exactly what the fuck makes you think that your company has “the best and the brightest” people if you just recorded the largest quarterly loss in US history?  That’s an insult to bright people everywhere.  And damn, I’d hate to see how much money a bunch of random dumbasses would lose.

Speaking of random dumbasses, the company I work for is not staffed with financial geniuses by any means.  And guess what?  We still turn a profit.  AND we haven’t received $170,000,000,000 in bailout funds.  In fact, we haven’t received any bailout funds.

I was about to say something rude like:  “Who’s the genius now, fucker?” but then I remembered you “losers” (as Rick Santelli would say) are the ones who just got $165,000,000 in bonuses.  Touché, douchebags, touché.

I’m sorry this ends up sounding like a persuasive/argument paper for a high school English class

When I was 18, I bought my first car.  It was a piece of shit but I didn’t know it at the time.  In hindsight, I guess the $500 price should have tipped me off.  But I was 18.  And it was my first car.  Did I mention it had four tires and an engine?  Obviously, I had stumbled upon a once-in-a-lifetime deal.

A few weeks after the purchase, I discovered that my sweet little bargain was actually the piece of shit everyone else already knew it was.  It happened about half a mile from my house.  I had just left and was driving down a narrow dirt road when the accelerator got stuck.  The engine revved up to rod-throwing levels and I was absolutely scared shitless.  As soon as I realized what was happening, I quickly put the car in neutral.  After pumping the gas pedal a few times, it unstuck itself and everything was fine.  Luckily, it never happened again.

So that was a cute little story.  Here’s the part where I piss some people off.

Yesterday, on the northeast side of Indianapolis, an 80-year-old driver had a wreck:

IFD says Feeney was leaving a hair salon when she veered back towards the salon building, shearing the gas meter and striking the building.  From that point, Feeney drove through a bush, hit a fence, turned her car and hit four cars on her way out of the parking lot.

Feeney then drove across Ferguson Ave. and struck DEA Inc., an architecture firm across the street.  According to the report, Feeney backed up but went forward, hitting the house for a second time and striking two additional vehicles on Ferguson.

In case you lost count, that’s a hair salon, an architecture firm (twice), six cars, a gas meter, a bush, and a fence.  Amazingly, nobody was injured.

Of course, the driver claimed that her accelerator got stuck.  I’m not sure I believe that and even if I did, I still think that’s way more damage than was necessary in that situation.

I know it’s a touchy subject but there really should be a law addressing this a little better than the one Indiana now has that requires drivers 75 and over to renew their licenses every three years instead of every four.  And I know that some people get offended when you question their driving ability (because I’m one of them).  And there’s the age discrimination issue.  But we place all kinds of restrictions on teen drivers so why aren’t we admitting the truth when it comes to elderly drivers?

The News Roundup

1. The House just passed the automotive industry bailout.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  We all know that the bailout won’t solve any of Detroit’s problems.  On the other hand, why shouldn’t we help them out if we’re willing to throw $700 billion at the banks?

Either way, I wish the Big 3’s CEOs would get a clue and stop playing games.  It was  heartbreakingly ignorant of them to show up begging for money in their corporate jets.  That just showed how out of touch they are.  But I also thought it was pretty moronic when they took it to the other extreme and decided to drive themselves to Washington the second time.  Unless you’re going to have all of your employees drive whenever they take a 600-mile business trip, then you have to admit that it was just a stunt.  Have you guys ever heard of flying coach?  You know what I’m talking about:  it’s where you have to buy a ticket and sit next to the smelly people.  Like all of your underlings do when they go somewhere on business.  It was all so obviously for show.

And the whole $1 annual salary thing?  Just another stunt that sounds good but that means absolutely nothing when you consider the stock options and other perks they get.

2.  Joe the Plumber is back in the news also.  Moron.

3.  And of course, there’s Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich trying to auction off the Senate seat previously held by Barack Obama.  That’s just absurdly corrupt.  Like an over-the-top caricature of a shady politician.  It sounds like a crappy Jay Leno joke (No, I’m not sure what other kind of Jay Leno joke there is):

Rod Blagojevich got voted in promising to end the corruption in the Illinois governor’s office but it turns out he’s pretty corrupt himself.

How corrupt is he, Jay?

He’s so corrupt that he tried to sell Barack Obama’s old Senate seat on eBay.

Groan.

4.  Apparently, WordPress spellcheck offers blackjack and biologic when you type in Blagojevich.