Bitter, party of one

Or, how Mitt Romney explains losing the election to Barack Obama.

Why I shouldn’t second-guess myself

Racist friend of friend is racist.

I said yesterday that I wouldn’t go to Facebook, due to the overwhelming number of heavily-partisan political posts people were making. And I didn’t, technically, since I saw this conversation in the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but it just goes to show that I really need to stick with my first inclination; deviating from the plan and winging it doesn’t seem to work out too well for me. Besides, everybody who knows my  way of thinking knows that it’s still the same day until I go to sleep and wake up again, regardless of what time that happens. In my defense, I was on my way home after watching the voting results come in at Dempsey’s Pub (don’t go there, btw), and riding NJ transit in the early AM isn’t the most scintillating experience.

The conversation pictured here has continued, with everybody else staying far away from the racially-coded land mine of Shaquita to focus on entitlements, the military, and how Obama will continue to ride around Virginia in his rap-blaring Escalade, snatching money out of old people’s hands and food out of children’s mouths. I may have extrapolated a little there, but I that’s my general reading of the subtext.

And let’s not even talk about the secession comment. Man, I was so tempted not to hide  some of those names.

Not at all suspicious

Oh, Republicans of the Missouri House of Representatives. You have to know that if inducting Rush Limbaugh into the Hall of Famous Missourians requires a secret ceremony, you might not be doing the right thing. Especially if you 1) don’t invite any of your Democrat colleagues and 2) only tell reporters a half hour before the event. Guilty much?

People taking the Onion seriously is never not funny

Except when it makes you want to cry (the non-happy kind of tears). More here.

Free with your five star review

I’ve been reading a  lot today about VIP Deals, a company obviously run by boneheaded morons. They offered to (and did) refund Amazon.com customers’ purchases if they reviewed a VIP Deals product that they purchased, the Vipertek Kindle Fire case. The incredibly helpful company strongly hinted that these reviews should give the products 5 stars. As of last week, 93% of the case’s reviews gave it 5 stars. Amazon for its part, denied knowing of any wrongdoing before being approached by the New York Times about this matter. Within days though, the reviews were gone from the online merchant, and the product went from unavailable to being removed entirely from Amazon.com.

This whole sequence of events leaves me with a ton of questions. The first is, how did VIP Deals even make any money off of this? They refunded customers’ entire purchases in return for (favorable) reviews. There’s no way to know if everybody who bought this case received the offer, or how many of them accepted it, but I wonder how many customers actually ended up paying for this item? Was it really cheap enough to make that the amount paid by those who didn’t write reviews covered the costs of those who did? Also, how did Amazon not smell a rat with this? It’s pretty telling that some of the reviews even mentioned a deal or having their money refunded. While I don’t expect a human at Amazon to read every single review before it’s posted (even though that’s what the retailer says happens), you’d think that somebody, human or machine, would have caught wind of something weird with this item.

The greatest thing ever

This guy‘s two nights in Miami are just like The Hangover. Except without friends, Mike Tyson, an ill-advised marriage, or a pissed-off tiger. Also unlike that movie (I haven’t seen the second one, so let’s just pretend it doesn’t exist), the roofied shenanigans of famous-in-Philly meteorologist John Bolaris had actual consequences. AmEx ruined his credit, but then had to pay him damages; let’s put this one in the “Good” column. His job first suspended him, and then went ahead and fired him all the way; that would go in the “Not Good” column. This table is further developed below.

While this story added nothing to my life and just reminded me that I’m an awful person who will laugh at anything, I am grateful that I read this article, if only for the following words: “In Philly, weathermen and chefs are stars. John has been a huge star in Philly for years.” Sixth borough (are people still trying to make that one happen?), I love you so.

No, slaves and beatings are not appropriate subjects for word problems

What reasonable human being would think that writing about the amount of fruit slaves could pick or beatings they endured would be a reasonable subject for third grade math problems? How did this seem like a good idea?

Today in stupid criminals

This article is equal parts touching, hilarious, and ridiculous, but only because of how stupid this man is and the fact that the dog is unharmed. Who knew that there could be a pit bull crime story in which the pit bull was the victim??

This crime seems like an excellent foundation for a buddy comedy. The character based on Robert Biss would obviously be the idiot sidekick that our (at least slightly smarter) protagonist would try and fail to keep out of trouble.

The logic behind this crime seriously sounds like the caliber of explanation that my 6 year-old nephew gives me right before I place him in time out:

Biss became concerned that shelter personnel would not approve of his application to adopt the dog, so, when given an opportunity to walk the dog on a leash, Biss placed the dog in his vehicle and stole her from the animal shelter.

I’m guessing that his adoption application is definitely going to be denied now.

Not enough facepalm in the world

Sometimes working with teenagers makes me want to weep for humanity, and then drown almost every highschooler in the river of my tears. How does one reach senior year of high school without knowing how to look for something in the index of a book? Is this a generational thing? Because Gruber would not have allowed these sorts of shenanigans to take place. At all.

Bad vegan! No tempeh!

It’s okay that I find a lot of (American?) vegan food boring, because I’m not vegan. A couple of my favorite food blogs are actually vegetarian and vegan (respectively), so it’s not that I can’t appreciate anything that’s not 100% carnivore-oriented (unlike my Southern father, who scoff at any meal I have that does not include at least one animal product). I just know that I’m not the target audience of vegan/vegetarian publications, so if what they’re showing doesn’t appeal to me, it’s not as though these outlets have somehow failed to reach their base.

Failing, in that case, might involve, oh, a vegan lifestyle magazine and web site using images of non-vegan/vegetarian foods in their spreads and only admitting to it after being found out by a blogger. Um…seriously? I don’t care how small your budget is, dude. If you’re trying to sell people on maintaining a vegan lifestyle, I would think that showing actual vegan products and foodstuffs, no matter how airbrushed, would be amongst the least of your efforts.