Opinion – Page 3 – Everyday Normal

February 2, 2009

Groundhog Day

Well Punxsutawney Phil emerged from his hole after a long night of rioting to celebrate a Steelers Victory in the Super Bowl and despite his blurred vision and killer headache, he saw his shadow, which means there will be six more weeks of winter.

When I was a kid I used to think they actually watched a groundhog come out of his hole and watched to see if he went back inside because he saw his shadow or if he stayed outside because he saw no shadow and the weather would be nice. My teachers at school led me to believe that there was some natural phenomenon that animals could sense future weather. When I watched the movie Groundhog Day it blew my whole reality apart. Some dufus pulls out the groundhog and talks to him. That hardly seems like the groundhog is actually predicting the weather. I did a little research and found out that, out of the last 110 or so years the groundhog has seen his shadow 97 times. A longer winter is good for many of the ski resorts in Pennsylvania and so of course the people there want to hear they are going to have a longer winter. I think the fix is in. I am going to get my own groundhog and every year on February 2nd I will set up a camera outside of the hole to see if it goes back inside. This will give me a better forecast for my local area and help avoid the corruption that is going on in Punxsutawney PA. It will also be great that I won’t have to watch the goofy weather people on all the local stations. After six weeks I will record if the prediction was correct.

P.S. Groundhog Day is one of the all time best movies.

November 20, 2008

1994 A Great Year for Music

With this year shaping up to be a pretty shameful year for music I have been looking back to the past for comfort. I have found the year 1994 to be quite comforting and it has a bit of everything for a wide range of tastes. If you like collections there was an INXS greatest hits album, an Aerosmith “Best of” album called “Big Ones” or you can go with the “Pulp Fiction” or “Forrest Gump” soundtracks. For the R&B, Soul-slash-Girly music crowd there was a Boyz II Men, a Sarah McLachlan and I think a Mariah Carey album. Even the Mormon Tabernacle Choir got in on 1994 and put something out.

For the rock fan here is a list of material that may be enjoyable:

Radiohead – My Iron Lung EP
Soundgarden – Superunknown
Tom Petty – Wildflowers
The Verve – No Come Down
Weezer – Weezer(Blue)
Stone Temple Pilots – Purple
R.E.M. – Monster
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
Offspring – Smash
Nirvana – Unplugged in New York
Neil Young – Sleeps With Angels
Live – Throwing Copper
Pearl Jam – Vitalogy
Pink Floyd – The Division Bell
Alice in Chains – Jar of Flies
Johnny Cash – American Recordings
Jeff Buckley – Grace
Green Day – Dookie
Eagles – Hell Freezes Over
Collective Soul – Hints Allegations and Things Left Unsaid
Bush – Sixteen Stone
Cake – Motorcade of Generosity
Dave Matthews Band – Under the Table and Dreaming
The Black Crowes – Amorica
Ben Harper – Welcome to the Cruel World
(Last but certainly not least) Hootie and the Blowfish – Cracked Rear View

Try finding another year with as many releases that are even slightly enjoyable.

You can have a listen and travel back in time.
If you know of anything else that is listenable that was released in 1994 let me know.

November 12, 2008

Legal Discrimination

Treating people differently based on race, sex, religion or any other distinguishing characteristic is frowned upon by our society. In many cases it is actually illegal. With this in mind I would like to draw your attention to a blatant and unfair discrimination that is widely accepted.

As a 16 year old boy my mother threatened me with having to pay for my own car insurance. I called up a company looking for a quote and they told me that to be insured on an 8 year old Honda hatchback I would have to pay $128 a month. I talked to a 27 year old man that I knew who had a Fiero made in the same year as the Honda. He said he paid $16 a month for his insurance. I was stunned. I asked many people why I would be required to pay so much. The answer always came back that it was because I was male and under the age of 25. I hadn’t had an accident and had been a safe driver. The vast majority of accidents that I have seen or heard of have involved young girls in their teens or 20’s, but I was told that males under 25 had the highest number of accidents. That could still be true, but most of my experience has been otherwise. The real point is, what if insurance companies said, “Oh you’re Asian or Jewish or black and you have the highest chance of being in an accident so we will charge you more.” (I am not saying Asians, Jews or black people are bad drivers, they are just random examples.) That would not be a policy for very long if they tried it. So why can they get away with saying that males under 25 must pay more. It is discrimination and it is wrong. I could not control the fact that I was born a male and that I was born in a certain year. If I had caused an accident I could see my rate going up but not just for being a young man. I can also see the fact that they can choose to charge whatever they want as it is their business, but I still don’t like it.

Well, I don’t really have much to complain about as I really didn’t pay for insurance much before I was 25. My name is the same as my fathers so I was always listed on the insurance and I just didn’t have any on my red Cherokee for a few years which saved me a ton of cash. Now that I have a brand new Jeep I pay around $75 a month for two people to have full coverage. It is still a waste of money, as most insurance is, but it is a much better value for the waste.

September 12, 2008

Hobo Eats

A while ago there was a show called $40 a Day on the Food Network. Some goofy lady would go around and eat stuff in different places with the goal of spending $40 a day. Oh wow, $40 a day how will she survive? The show is obviously for the super-rich, elite people. $40 X 30 days = $1,200. $1,200 bucks a month is enough for the lowly people to pay for a house. I should have a show on the Food Network. I can’t think of a great name for it yet. “$7 a Day”, “Hobo Eats”, “Eating Garbage” or “Proletariat Dining”. These are the front runners right now.

I will go around to various places and try to spend as little money as possible; while still dining out. I will take a camera crew with me to recreate the time when myself and two of my friends spent all day at a Golden Corral buffet. We ate breakfast, lunch and dinner. We paid the price later with the strange things that Golden Corral does to your innards. But, it was technically food and it was under $7 a day. There is also the time that I plucked my lunch from neighborhood trees as I headed to school. Another time, I bought some questionable burritos for $0.50 a piece, from a woman who sells them from her car. When you buy questionable burritos from a regular brick and mortar establishment, you are paying for the unnecessary frills like health inspection fees and employee hand-soap. It is secrets like these that will make the show a huge hit. Imagine how entertaining and informative a show like that would be. I think I am the next Food Network Star.

September 11, 2008

Urinal Quizzes

With the invention of the internet there came the ability to spread knowledge of how to behave at bathroom urinals. With games like Urinal Quiz one could learn about proper etiquette in the bathroom without having to be in the bathroom. Imagine the old days when an older, wiser man would take a young man into the bathroom to teach him how to pick urinals. They would watch others use the restroom and the young man would be quizzed about where to go. This was very uncomfortable for everyone involved.

One very important thing that a urinal quiz won’t teach you is what to do about troughs. Who wants to stand around peeing into a giant tub with other guys? This is not only wide open with no privacy, but the other guys may be splashers. So what do you do?

The correct answer is to go outside and urinate on the establishment that put in a trough.

September 9, 2008

Join the Cause

For a few years now, myself and some of my friends have been trying to find a way to help one of the most helpless and downtrodden forms of life on Earth. It pains me to the core to see this life form trampled and killed on a daily basis with no regard for it’s feelings. I see it happen at sporting events and at schools. It happens at protests and rallies, family get-togethers and in everyday life. The constant barrage of carelessness and even purposeful destruction makes me sick to the core. If you haven’t figured it out by now I will tell you, this life form is grass. So small and fragile, so helpless and cut-down. Why can’t we leave the grass alone? It reaches for the sky and we just cut it right back down again.

If you ever see any large group of people on a patch of grass, like at a protest, you need to get your own sign that says, “Don’t Step On The Grass” or “Don’t Tread On Me” with a picture of helpless grass on it. I am organizing a protest now where we can let our voices be heard while we march around the concrete and fight for Gramineae Rights. We need to have some sit-ins to prevent people from mowing their lawns.

While I organize the details and alert the media as to where we will be, you can watch this video of some extremely uncaring individuals who are trampling grass left and right.

If you want to join the fight and help save trillions of lives let me know in the comments. I am actually serious about doing this protest with the news and everything.

July 7, 2008

Current Schemes

ATV’s on the street

I want to save more money on gas, but I am too lazy to keep a motorcycle or scooter balanced while riding. A four wheeler would be perfect. I once called a sheriff’s department to ask them why they aren’t street legal and how I could fix it and they said they didn’t know. I asked a lady at the DMV and she said they were too dangerous. I replied by telling her that motorcycles are just as unsafe if not more so. She was stumped as well. I imagine I would just need to put mirrors and lights on one. If anyone has definitive answers let me know.

Chunky Brownish Yellowish Gold

I just learned that something called ambergris is worth a lot of money. It is used in perfumes and junk like that. It is actually whale vomit. So my new plan was to buy a dingy and head out to sea with a boatload of Long John Silvers meals. It turns out it takes a few years to solidify though.

Computer Ink Ripoff

The last two times that I have gone to the store to buy printer ink refills I have just ended up buying a whole new printer because it was cheaper than the ink. Always look for deals on printers and compare them to the price of your ink.

July 1, 2008

Before the Decade is Over

Some time ago, let’s say last August, I was called in to sign something at a doctors office. Next to the signature was a space for the date. I wrote 8/6/7 in the date space. The woman who gave me the paper looked at it and then said, ” I think you have to put 8/6/07.” I then asked, “Should I put 08/06/07 or 008/006/007 ?”

It will be nice when this decade is over and I will no longer face the persecution for not wanting to put a “0” in my abbreviation for the year. A person should be able to abbreviate a date as far as they can without confusing others. I saw an ad on TV the other day for the Olympics and it said to watch starting on 8/8/08. I thought, “What a shame. It would be cooler if they had 8/8/8.” My family had a reunion on July 7th last year and everyone kept saying that it was going to be on “seven, seven, o’seven”. I think by now it should be clear that I said, “seven, seven, seven”.

It is a strange phenomenon that people cannot mentally depart from placing 2 digits in the year column. Most of anyones life who lives in a single digit decade and lives longer than 20 years will be lived in years with double digit abbreviations and this leads to peoples inability to drop a digit for ten years. Most months are written numerically with one digit and people have no problem switching between one and 2 digits. Once we hit the year column people feel a need to use 2 spaces. In an effort to out-smart-alec me some of you may think, “What did you do in the year 2000?” Don’t be stupid, I used “0”, as I needed to denote the year.

In this decade I have not found another person who is taking part with me in this “Decade-Crusade”. I have found people who agree, but I have never found anyone else who marks the year column of dates without a leading “0”. I only have another year and a half before this issue is irrelevant for 90 years. I would like to find other individuals who feel as I do on the matter. If we can stand up and be counted I bet, ironically, we will still be in the single digits. So far the tally is “01”.