Let’s trade pinks! My white car for your white car!
Straight up! No questions asked!
Yours is already on the trailer – you can just deliver it to my house!
My car? A Honda Fit. Why do you ask?
Hello? Come back! Wait!
Category Archives: Farce
Mischief Suggestion
My apologies if this has been suggested by me before, but an incident this weekend reminded me, so here it is:
First of all, don’t do this at a place where you like them and/or they like you. But if they’ve given you lousy service and then screwed up on their security procedures to boot…
Secondly, this isn’t criminal or even particularly rude, more like something that you might see on the old “Candid Camera” show.
So, do we all know what RFIDs are?
While they have a ton of uses, the most common one for most of us is “loss prevention control,” otherwise known as stopping shoplifting.
When you buy your stuff, the cashier and/or their checkout system is supposed to deactivate the RFID, kill it, turn it off. So when you leave the store – well, you leave the store.
BUT… If left active, it will be detected by the scanners near the door and the alarm will be activated as you leave, making a ton of noise. If you just shoplifted your large, economy size bottle of Head & Shoulders, presumably it’s at this point you take off running with your ill-gotten booty.
If you’re like me and you paid for it, you’re just annoyed because someone screwed up and now you’ve got these really loud and annoying alarms going off next to you. It’s enough to give you the vapors! Plus, everyone in the store (except for the employees) is staring at you and wondering what you stole. The employees, on the other hand, have this happen ALL DAY LONG so they simply ignore it.
So much for security.
Now imagine, you’ve just left your local grocery store, or better yet, department store or electronics emporium. You’ve dropped a couple hundred dollars (especially at the grocery store – damn, margarita mix and chips and chocolate is expensive!) on your cart full of stuff and as you leave, you get that loud noise scaring you out of your sneakers.
Here’s my suggestion.
When you get to your car with your shopping cart, go through your stuff and figure out where that still active RFID is. Remove it carefully so you accidentally don’t damage or deactivate it. Now find a good place on the shopping cart, an out of sight place, a place not normally examined casually, and stick the RFID there.
If it’s one of the big ones that’s about the size of a large postage stamp, this plan gets harder, but not impossible. With the little ones like the one shown above, the underside of just about any structural member or pipe will do. With the larger ones, you might have to be a bit more selective.
Either way, once the active RFID is now secure and hidden on the shopping cart, put the cart back into the cart corral. (Really, put it into the corral, don’t leave it out where it will block a parking space or roll off and ding someone’s car. We’re not animals here!)
Then you can sleep peacefully, knowing that every single time that cart goes in or out of that door, those alarms are going to go off. It could happen literally hundreds of times before anyone at the store bothers to go look for the RFID.
Carry on. Be mischievous!
That Feeling When – January 12th
That feeling when you’re hopped up on cold medications to begin with, a ton short on sleep, but you’re trying to pull it together as you get cleaned up in the morning, dressed, and out the door and on the one hand you’re trying to do the normal morning routine but on the other hand your brain is already thinking about the meeting that you’re about to be late to so you put on that nice suit and shirt and tie and grab something to eat and your briefcase and you’re just reaching for the door when some teeny-tiny voice that’s been running your procedural checklist albeit a bit slowly in the back of your cerebellum says…
“Did you put on deodorant?”
Of course you scoff and carry on and have one foot out the door when that voice says, “No, really. I’m looking at the checklist and I don’t remember doing that. This could be a problem.”
Still scoffing you close the door behind you and start to lock it when that voice says, “Fine, be that way. It will be just like that time you forgot to listen to me about which airport we were flying out of.”
So you go back inside, drop the suitcase, as fast as humanly possible while running back to the bedroom you strip off the suit coat, the tie, the shirt, the T-shirt and find…
…that everyone downwind of you in the office is going to thank you all afternoon for listening to that little voice. Even if you are five minutes late.
Blame the cold medicine.
Or the rain.
Or the idiots out driving in the rain.
But never, ever tell anyone the real story.
.
.
.
Wait, what?
Christmas Freak Out
For the life of me, I don’t get it. People are just going nuts over “Christmas this!” and “Christmas that!”
People, people, people!! Relax, it’s not that big of a deal yet. Look at me! Do I look like I’m worried?
It’s simple. Thanksgiving is coming up this weekend, then we’ve got weeks and weeks before…
Wait, what?
“Hello, Amazon Prime? Send me one of everything. Forget drones, I want a wave of C-130’s coming over my house, dropping pre-wrapped pallats into the back yard.”
If They Didn’t Want My Opinion They Shouldn’t Have Asked For It – November 4th
More fun & games with a survey that got honest answers to questions where they probably made different assumptions than I did about the range and scope of acceptable answers.
This one came from a group of MBA students at UCLA for a class project. I got my MBA from Pepperdine a few years ago in a similar program, so I’m willing to spend ten minutes answering their survey. This survey I got picked for because I signed up a couple years back for a Finnish tourist site’s occasional online newsletter. The MBA project was to design and carry out some research on behalf of the resort.
After asking all of the conventional, boring questions:
- How often do you travel internationally?
- How much would you budget for a trip to this resort?
- What kinds of activities would you like to take part in if you were here in the summer (pick no more than three)?
- What kinds of activities would you like to take part in if you were here in the winter (pick no more than three)?
and getting all of the conventional, boring answers, the survey then started to ask the conventional, boring questions about the competition and similar trips that one might take instead of going to their resort.
I decided to not give the conventional, boring answers.
“What would be your ideal, dream vacation location?” I’m assuming they’re looking for something like Tahiti, Australia, Rome, Machu Picchu, and so on. But they didn’t put any limits on it, did they?
“Mars – or the Moon.”
“What kinds of activities would you like to take part in while on your dream vacation (pick no more than three)?”
“Adventure.” Obviously.
“Exotic locales.” It’s like they knew that I might answer this way!
“Local atmosphere.” Okay, how could I not pick this one?
“How much would you budget for your dream vacation?
“$100,000,000” Hey, that’s not even a snarky answer! It’s probably quite reasonable if you assume that I want to go right now. If I was willing to wait about ten years or so I’m sure that SpaceX would be able to do it for only $1,000,000 or so, at least to the Moon. Wait twenty or twenty-five years and I might make Mars for $500,000.
One-way tickets, of course.
The survey has an incentive attached of a drawing for a free week at the resort (air fare not included), so they have my name, address, phone number, and email address.
We’ll see if anyone’s paying attention.
A Few Brief Words
It’s very late, I’m very tired, not terribly energetic or upbeat at the moment, so in honor of the Word Series starting tomorrow, I would like to simply say a few brief words tonight:
Briefcase
Briefly
Briefer
Briefing
Briefness
I won’t even try to pretend that’s original (or funny) but I’m sort of running on empty again tonight – no thanks to The Wax Guy!!
It’s Not Good To Mock Murphy
It occurs to me tonight, while muttering under my breath and using terms of which my mother would have never approved, that our pal Murphy is not an imp, a pixie, a pookah, gremlin, or scamp. Nope, he’s an extortionist. And a particularly stupid one at that.
Foggy alley. Cobblestones. Night. A lone streetlight shines. Against it leans Murphy, casually threatening as you approach.
“Hey, Willett! I hear you used that fancy website of yours to poke a little fun at your truly. That’s not a nice thing.”
“It was just a little lark, Murph, I didn’t mean nothin’ by it.”
“Yeah, sure you didn’t. Say, that’s a nice run of decent luck you’ve got there. Be a pity if something were to happen to it…”
The reason that I think he’s a particular bad, stupid extortionist is that he hasn’t told me what he wants! What good is messing with people and threatening them so they’ll do what you want them to do, if you don’t tell them what it is that you want them to do?!
Moron.
WWALD?
I ran across this picture from my trip to DC last May.
Many diverse thoughts coalesced (coagulated?) and I had the most pleasant fantasy flash through my head.
By whatever means, summon Abraham Lincoln back from his grave to today’s world. Abraham Lincoln, tall, strong, rail-splitter, a hero in his prime. The first President from the Republican Party.
Fill him in on the current Presidential election. Let him watch the debates and the speeches. Let him research the positions of the candidates.
Then let him go visit the Republican National Committee.
They’ll be thrilled beyond belief, squeeeeing themselves apoplectic with his presence. At the next Republican presidential debate, parade him up on stage as proof that God has anointed them as the Chosen leaders of our great country.
Of course, you can’t have the reanimated and revitalized Abraham Lincoln on stage in front of CNN or ABC or Fox in a modern suit – it would ruin the impact. He would be dressed as we see him in Matthew Brady’s photographs, as he’s portrayed above.
And just for an added touch, because he asked nicely, let him carry his axe. It’s iconic.
Squeeee!
Lincoln, the current campaign, the candidates, his axe, all on stage together. Just imagine it!
And you thought “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter” was a stupid, flop of a movie. Nope.
IT WAS PROPHECY!!
What Would Abraham Lincoln Do?
A guy can dream.
Filed under Farce, Photography, Politics, Travel
Who Pissed Off 2016?
Bowie. Rickman. And now Frey. (And my van, but I’m trying to focus on the global issues here.)
It’s only the freakin’ 18th of January! We’ve got a long way to go here, 2016, so let’s figure out what’s wrong and how to fix it. I don’t want you being all bent out of shape over something and making our lives miserable for a whole year when we could get it out into the open, get it fixed, and then we can all get along without torturing each other.
Is it the whole “Two Thousand & Sixteen” versus “Twenty Sixteen” thing? I’ve always been solidly in the “Twenty Sixteen” camp and I’ve noticed more and more people switching as we get further into the century. (Hell, we’re already over 15% there, and I’m embarrassed to say that I had to calculate that percentage…think about it.) I might occasionally slip up, but I’ll do better, I promise. I can proselytize if it would help, just say something.
I know you’re a leap year and that means there will be a little bit more work for you, but consider it an opportunity to make that much more of a positive mark on history. I would like to emphasize the term “positive” there, since a positive mark on history would go over much better than, say, World War III. Everyone loves 1776 (even got its own musical!), right? 1969 got a moon landing! On the other hand, there are those other years, like the whole “Dark Ages.” They not only get a bad rap, they don’t even get remembered individually!
Oh, I see. It’s that election thing, isn’t it?
Look, 2015 already did its job in setting the stage for you. I know it seems like she did a lousy job with that whole “whackadoodles crawling out of the woodwork” approach to fielding nominees, and that does leave you a shitty mess to clean up, but think of it as an opportunity for greatness instead of a chore. For better or for worse, this US election may be one for the record books, either for good or for bad, so let’s keep your chin up and swing for the fences!
We’ll be here to help. I have faith that we’re not really stupid enough to put some incredibly unqualified, blowhard, megalomaniacal, misogynistic, racist, moron blowhard into the White House. As long as we don’t all start buying brown shirts to go along with our assault weapons, you’re good.
In the meantime, feel the Bern! It could happen! Can you even imagine your spot among your peers if we can pull that one off? You’ll be legen…
…
…
…dary! (Sorry, couldn’t help myself.)
In the meantime, let’s work together and make this as easy as possible for all of us. There are plenty of other favorite musicians, artists, actors, writers, idols, and heroes out there that we would really like to see healthy and happy on New Year’s morning 2017. I know you can’t let them all make it, but jeez! Pace yourself!
There are some nice things coming up on your watch. The Olympics. The Juno mission to Jupiter. I’m sure you have some nice surprises up your sleeve, and that’s fine.
Cut us some slack and we’ll put in a good word for you with 1776!
They’re On To Me
I swear, you can’t make this stuff up. (Well, you can, and I can, but I’m not.)
Coming home from the hangar (had to make it in time to watch my beloved KC Chiefs demolish the Houston Texans 30-0 for their first playoff win in over twenty years) I get off the freeway. About two blocks north, out of a side street behind me pulls out a blue sports care. It pulls up beside me at the light.
It’s a Maserati Ghibli.
Okay, so I already suspected that something’s making them more common. Whatever.
I get to the next major intersection and turn right. The light blue Maserati has pulled in behind me and follows.
I drive three or four miles north, then turn left off of the main street onto a secondary street, away from all of the businesses and into the housing tracts. The light blue Maserati follows me.
Now we’re seeing behavior that is…unexpected.
Up over the hill and down the other side. I turn left at the stop sign onto the tertiary street that leads into “strictly middle-class land,” where no Maserati has ever gone before. The light blue Maserati follows me.
This is now full blown creepy, sort of.
Finally turn right onto our short street. Nothing here but us chickens. The light blue Maserati hesitates at the stop sign…then follows me.
We’re just a handful of houses from the corner so I’ve got time to swing into the driveway, get out, and be standing on the sidewalk watching him as it goes by. The driver, a guy, is going slowly, actually looking the other way, as if he were lost and looking for an address.
Sure! That’s what he wants me to think he’s doing!
He passes me, gets a house or two past ours, then finally picks up speed and heads off down the street.
They’re on to me. My story the other day has exposed some super secret cabal, or possibly an alien invasion that’s underway under our very noses. Now the “Maserati people” (who no doubt come from pods) know that I’m a threat to expose them.
If I’m not heard from again, rescue me! I’ll no doubt be in the trunk of a Maserati Ghibli, my mouth covered with duct tape, blindfolded, and handcuffed.
Wait – do Maserati’s have trunks?
Never mind.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 