Is This Cliche Or Am I Just A Prick?

Let me start this by saying that if you can give anything for the Tsunami relief effort, I definitely think you should.

I had to put that before I write this because there are some people out there who are a little over-sensitive about this kinda stuff. Even if it is just merely for discussion. I do believe we should help, I donated myself, but this bit of writing may have given the message that I don’t think we should…. That’s not the case.

It seems everytime that we have a huge happening like the one that has just happened in South East Asis a few weeks ago, we kinda go screwy. It happened for September 11 and numerous other events as well. I’m talking about these benefit concerts/games/events to raise money for the relief efforts.

It might just be me but it’s starting to seem a little bit cliche. My main point is about the big concert style telethons they always have where they get a bunch of the top musicians in the world together and have them perform while we all phone in to pledge our money.

Are we really that shallow of a society that we won’t donate if we aren’t entertained first? I don’t think so. I think that a large portion of the population is willing to do whatever little they can to help out without these things. They seem to strike me more as a PR opportunity for the celebrities themselves. To me, I think that anyone out there who was going to donate a small bit to the efforts was going to do it anyway. Without any kind of inspiration from Britney Spears. It strikes me that these are more a chance for a bunch of people with way more money to stand up in front of the world and tell us to donate.

I don’t know about you but I’d say that maybe 1 million of the 10 you made last year on your album is a more helpful contribution than one night of your singing. I’m not saying that none are donating because lots of them have been on the news making very generous donations. In some cases donating more than other countries in the surrounding area to the tragedy.

If it is truly PR that you want. Donate a sum of money, any sum is something, and then get your PR director on the phone to all the papers and TV stations to tell what you’ve donated. That’s fine. At least that is a contribution to the effort, right?

I saw a piece on CNN that talked about how many of these artists do these shows and then don’t donate. Their arguement being that was their donation. We saw them on TV singing and performing so we just assume they’re on board with us but we don’t know if they’ve ever put in a penny. The people with no clean water or food over there don’t have a tv to watch you anyway…. maybe you could spare a couple bucks for them. I’m sure they’d prefer that.

I’m not saying you need to give away 10 and 15 million as some have…. but if the general public can spare 50 bucks, surely you can. I don’t necessarily hold them to a higher standard that they should give more than us, or any at all for that matter, but if you are going to be on the support wagon, you could throw in a few bucks.

Certain things don’t bother me as much. Like the sporting events that are giving half the proceeds from a certain regular season game to the effort. That even was going to happen anyway and someone just decided that all the money from the popcorn sold at the game would go to the effort. That’s fine. If Christina wants to just give half the concession money from an already scheduled concert in to the pot, that seems fine to me. But having these huge benefits with 10 or 12 multi-millionaires on stage telling us to give money doesn’t seem quite right to me. I don’t think there’s enough people in the world saying “I will only donate if Saveage Garden tells me to.” We’re a better society than that. If people feel it is a just cause and have the money, they’ll donate. If they don’t think it’s a worthy cause or can’t afford to give up anything, then that’s fine too.

Right now the ratio of money donated by individuals to that by the governments is something like $4/$1. That’s great. We’re all generous people. but I just think we’re all generous enough without being herded up like sheep by the people we see on TV everyday.

That might be a jaded view, but I personally think it’s a positive one. People deep down are good. I don’t think they need to be given any more reason to donate than that of the original tragedy and the thought that maybe they can help someone out.

Take Care

>Does This Guy Like Anybody?

>I just finished reading this
recap
of the newest RF Video shoot interview with New Jack, and oh my God, it’s unreal. How this guy continues to make money in wrestling is beyond me, but what’s more frightening than that is that people will still work with him.

But if you’re a wrestling fan who is at all familiar with ECW and a little bit with some of the bigger indies, or even if you want to see why exactly he hates the Dudley Boys so much, check this thing out. Craziness, that’s all I can say.

More Warnings

Nick’s best friend -666 posted these on the comment boards a little while ago. They’re great.

A label on a baby stroller warns: “Remove child before folding
A brass fishing lure with a three-pronged hook on the end warns: “Harmful if swallowed
A household iron warns users: “Never iron clothes while they are being worn”
A label on a hair dryer reads, “Never use hair dryer while sleeping”
A warning on an electric drill made for carpenters cautions: “This product not intended for use as a dental drill.”
The label on a bottle of drain cleaner warns: “If you do not understand, or cannot read, all directions, cautions and warnings, do not use this product.”
A smoke detector warns: “Do not use the Silence Feature in emergency situations. It will not extinguish a fire.”
A massage chair warns: “DO NOT use massage chair without clothing… and, Never force any body part into the backrest area while the rollers are moving.”
A cardboard car sunshield that keeps sun off the dashboard warns, “Do not drive with sunshield in place”
An “Aim-n-Flame” fireplace lighter cautions, “Do not use near fire, flame or sparks”
A label on a hand-held massager advises consumers not to use “while sleeping or unconscious”
A 12-inch rack for storing compact disks warns: “Do not use as a ladder.”
A cartridge for a laser printer warns, “Do not eat toner”
A 13-inch wheel on a wheelbarrow warns: “Not intended for highway use”
A can of self-defense pepper spray warns users: “May irritate eyes”
A warning on a pair of shin guards manufactured for bicyclists says: “Shin pads cannot protect any part of the body they do not cover.”
A snowblower warns: “Do not use snowthrower on roof.”
A dishwasher carries this warning: “Do not allow children to play in the dishwasher.”
A popular manufactured fireplace log warns: “Caution – Risk of Fire”
A box of birthday cake candles says: “DO NOT use soft wax as ear plugs or for any other function that involves insertion into a body cavity.”

Attention Wal-Mart Shoppers…

You can’t make up stuff like this. And check out the quote at the end. Not so much for what he says, but for the way he says it.

MUSCATINE, Iowa (AP) – A Wal-Mart greeter was sacked for apparently showing too much of his friendly side to customers.

Dean Wooten, 65, was accused of greeting customers with a computer-generated photo of himself in which he appeared to be naked – except for a carefully placed Wal-Mart bag – and of telling customers that Wal-Mart was cutting costs and the sack was the company’s new uniform.

A supervisor at the Muscatine store where Wooten had worked for seven years told him to knock it off after customers complained. He was fired five days later, in September, after he displayed the photo again.

Wooten’s application for unemployment compensation was rejected by an administrative law judge who said “a reasonable person would know the act of showing a naked body wearing a Wal-Mart sack would not be good for the employer’s business.”

Wooten said he did not see the harm in the photo, which he said was made by a friend who spliced a picture of Wooten’s head on to a shot of another man’s body.

“When I first seen it, I pretty near died laughing,” he said.

Here’s a story.

Once upon a time there was a big moron. She was actually kind of short, but she was large in moronic actions. She had been taking a bunch of medicine that the doctors had been telling her to take to keep her well. And she was well, for the most part. Life was happy. Happy and perfect.

One day, she decided, “I don’t need this crap anymore.” She decided to stop taking her medicine. This went on for a year and a half until she was quite a mess. Sick, with no energy, miserable.

She went to the doctor. When she figured out what her moronic patient had done, she let out a shriek that could be heard for quite some distance. And with the push of a few buttons on the telephone, the moron was back on her medicines again.

All seemed well, a happy ending. The moron was much less of a moron and took her pills religiously. But then some time later, she felt sick again. Slowly but surely, even though she kept taking her pills, she descended into a condition similar to what she felt when she incurred the wrath of her doctor. So back to the doctor she went.

After a zillion tests to figure out what was wrong, all of them coming up normal, the doctor began to say it was all in her patient’s head. Finally, a bigger doctor decided to change her pills. And it was like magic! The moron was cured once again!

She went happily on her way for about five months. Then, suddenly, out of the blue, the sickness returned, and with more of a vengeance than ever. She ran to the big doctor, and he told her to go back to the shrieking doctor, because he didn’t think the sickness was his problem. So, now, the moron awaits her appointment with the shrieking doctor who thinks it’s all in her head.

In an attempt to do something out of character and do something smart, she went to the net to read about her sikness and the medicines she takes. And so it was that she found with great dismay, that she may have caused her own undoing by not taking her medicine for that year and a half. Now she wonders what the rest of her life will consist of, and whether she will ever be consistently well again.

So, the moral of the story is, don’t be a moron! If you’re on medicine that you’ve been on for a while, don’t stop taking it without talking to the doctor at the very least! For fuck sakes, if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

New Year, New Contest

It’s PPV time once again and as usual that means that it’s Salty Ham roundtable prediction contest time as well. So,
here it is, go check it out.

And since it’s a new year the standings have been wiped clean and we’re starting fresh with a brand new year long competition. Last year I almost won the whole thing but ended up somewhere like fifth, which I’ll probably do worse than this year. Only time will tell, but for now, go check out my picks and those of the others. I think mine are pretty good for this show. Dammit, now I just jinxed myself. But whatever, this post sucks. I’m tired. The roundtable will be more entertaining than this, so go read that.

I Look Forward To These Every Year

Toilet brush wins wacky bowl

Michigan anti-lawsuit group gives out “awards” for wackiest warning labels on products.

A toilet brush with a tag that says “Do not use for personal hygiene” has taken top prize for the wackiest consumer warning label of the year, according to an anti-lawsuit group.

The Michigan Lawsuit Abuse Watch, M-LAW, whose main mission is to reveal how lawsuits and anxiety over lawsuits have created a need for overly obvious warnings on products, sponsors The Wacky Warning Label Contest each year.

Other top finishers this year include:

A scooter with the warning “This product moves when used.”

— A digital thermometer with the advice “Once used rectally, the thermometer should not be used orally.”

— An electric blender used for chopping and dicing that reminds users to “Never remove food or other items from the blades while the product is operating.”

— And a three-inch bag of air used for packaging that read “Do not use this product as a toy, pillow, or flotation device.”

“Warning labels are a sign of our lawsuit-plagued times,” said Robert B. Dorigo Jones, M-LAW president. “Plaintiff’s lawyers who file the lawsuits that prompt these warnings argue they are making us safer, but the warnings have become so long that few of us read them anymore– even the ones we should read.”

The group hopes the contest will remind us all to read the warnings on our products more carefully and motivate judges to stop what it says are frivolous lawsuits.

The winning labels were chosen by listeners of a popular morning radio show in Detroit, the group said.

If I can find the full list, I’ll post it. Generally there are a lot of good ones.

Why I’m Glad Christmas Is Over

It’s not the religion. It’s not those annoying songs. It’s not even that people become more fake than usual at this time of year because “it’s the holidays so we should all love one another.” No, my reason for being glad the holiday season is finally at it’s end is much worse than the horror that is any of those. Quite simply, now that Christmas is over, they’ll finally stop shoing that stupid Canadian Tire commercial on TV. Anybody who knows what I’m talking about is probably wondering which one I mean since they’re all stupid, but to me, this one takes the cake. I’m talking about the Christmas themed one that didn’t feature the regular plot of man advertising to the guy next door or marketing to his family gushing about the new Mastercraft toilet paper that he found only at Canadian Tire. No, I mean the other Christmas one, the one that started showing up sometime around November or so.

There’s a family getting ready for Christmas. They’re happy, they’re shopping, they’re finding great deals at Canadian Tire, things couldn’t be better. But wait, something is wrong. The cute little kid, or at least what they’d like us to believe is a cute little kid is not happy and doesn’t think that Christmas is coming. And why? Because as he puts it in that little voice of his that makes me want to kick him down 17 flights of stairs every time I hear it, “Santa isn’t coming because we don’t have a fireplace!” Sorry, let me try that again. “Thanta ithn’t coming becauthe we don’t have a fiow-plathe!” There, that’s more like it.

So time passes, the family is still happy, and the lisping little bastard is getting more and more upset because “Chrithtmath” can’t possibly come due to his family’s lack of a fireplace and Santa’s inability to find his way in without it. It’s around this time when I start wondering if he’s got any friends in apartment buildings who could set him straight, but that’s neither here nor there so we’ll move on.

Ok, it’s Christmas and the moment of truth has arrived for our little friend. Did “Thanta” make it to his “houthe?” Is there going to be a “Chrithmath?” Well of course there is, it’s a commercial, and commercials always have happy endings at Christmas when you’re supposed to part with your money. The kid gets his “fiow-plathe,” everybody else gets their stuff, all is merry and bright for all…accept me, because it’s at this point that the logical part of my brain kicks in and this commercial goes from being simply annoying to being complete nonsense.

Follow me here:
Kid doesn’t think that Santa is coming because his family doesn’t have a fireplace so he can’t get in.
Christmas comes and the family has a fireplace.
Kid freaks out because Santa brought the fireplace for them.

Are you seeing my point yet? If Santa can’t get into the house, how the hell did he get that fireplace in there without using a little technique that most of us might call a break and enter? And if the kid is smart enough to figure out that Santa Claus doesn’t have an entrance, how did he miss that? I mean for God sakes, who do they have writing this stuff, the people who write for Smackdown? It makes about as much sense and it’s just about as frustrating to watch.

Oh well, at least that horrible piece of advertising is gone for the year, and hopefully for good. If not, I guess I can just put it down as one more reason why we’re all supposed to drink so much at Christmas time.

Why Not Just Hit A Boxing Day Sale Or Something?

Steven Murray of Feasterville Pennsylvania was so outraged that he didn’t receive any presents from his family for Christmas that he burned down his parent’s home the next morning.

Police said Murray had committed himself to a hospital on Christmas Day, but decided to sign himself out later that day and walk the eight miles home.

He told police that he saw flames from a distance, but officers were suspicious because his jacket smelled like smoke and they found a lighter in his pocket when they searched him, as well as a gas can by the front door of the house. One officer says Murray “was irritated that his family gave him no presents for Christmas.”

He has been charged with arson and risking a catastrophe, and was jailed on $1 million bail. Nobody was hurt.