It will do you good, you spoiled fat doofus

I love to take very long walks.  It's my favorite form of exercise.  It helps me unwind and unpack my thoughts.  It's a good time to re-evaluate my life, and then pull out my XM radio and listen to music until I forget all the things that popped into my brain when I made the mistake of re-evaluating my life.

My record for a single, one-day walk- set last month- is 25 miles.  I hope to break that this spring by walking the Mount Vernon Trail in Virginia.  Get it?  I love walking.

Anyway, I figured out a while back that I live only 4.5 miles from my school, and only 1.5 miles from a Metrorail station which will take me to that school in about nine minutes.  And yet, I was paying through the nose for gas and insurance and upkeep for a car I simply didn't need.  So a month ago tomorrow, I sold my car and I've been a happy hiker (and, when it's dark or rainy, a consumer of mass transit) ever since.  Haven't regretted my decision at all.  Not even once.  Not even for a moment.

So this commercial really irritates me.  Hey idiot- I understand that when you are used to dropping your lard-infused butt into a seat and rolling to work and golf and everywhere else, suddenly being inconvenienced can be kind of a pain.  But I think it's kind of sad that you aren't taking this opportunity to re-evaluate YOUR life.  If you weren't so obsessed with the idea that you MUST have your own wheels and you MUST drive everywhere, you might do a little research and notice exactly how far things are away from your little suburban palace.  I bet you'd find that many of your favorite haunts are really not that far from your house.  Maybe you could walk to work, at least sometimes.  Failing that, I bet there are transit buses available.  You could at least find out.  I promise you that if I'm right, you'd save a heck of a lot of money.  And your daughter would be able to keep her own car.

And who knows?  Maybe you'd figure out that owning a car is really overrated.  Maybe you'd drop some weight and find that you enjoy moving around on your own power.  Maybe you'd discover that you don't really miss $3.80 gasoline and insurance bills and flat tires and traffic jams.

Just a few thoughts from someone who knew he wouldn't miss his car, and wonder why so many people are convinced that they can't live without one.  And oh, BTW- if driving a pink car shamed you so, maybe you could have just skipped your little golf outing.  Or asked one of your friends for a freaking ride.  I mean, jeesh.

I was going to make a pun about pork, but I decided that would be a bit too much

The Family Budget Act.

Because Golden Corral believes that the people who can't afford the Olive Garden but are really too wealthy to be seen with their entire families ordering from the McDonalds Dollar Menu have a god-given right to all the fried junk and cheap meat and fiber-and-nutrient-deficient warm mush they can shove down their cake holes in one sitting.

In August of 2011 I actually dropped by Glenn Beck's "Restoring Honor" rally on the National Mall  (curiosity may not actually kill the cat, but it sure can kill an otherwise perfectly good afternoon.)  When I saw the thousands of old, fat, pasty-white idiots sprawled like toads on their straining beach chairs listening (with their mouths) to their favorite Tea Party Prophet, I should have realized that the Family Budget Act was not far from becoming written in the books of the Law.  I mean, the deficit is a disgrace and a crime (and has been since January 20, 2009) and the Kenyan in the White House is a SocialistMarxistMuslimBlack-
LiberationChurch Fascist with a fake birth certificate, but what they really wanted to know was where could they go after the speech to get a trough of orange mac'n cheese and a handful of cotton candy?

I'm pretty sure that when Obama signed this bill, he cut the legs right out from under his opposition and assured his re-election.  "Hey, look- not only am I not including preventative care as part of health reform, but I'm assuring a regular supply of heart patients for the next generation of doctors!"

And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, being a regular at Golden Corral can no longer be counted as a Pre-Existing Condition.

His next question for Google: "How Do I Start A Conversation With An Actual Human Being?"

I guess this commercial would be kind of cute except that

1.  I wonder why this kid is being raised by an electronic box.  When I needed advice, I knew I could ask friends, my parents and grandparents, a librarian, a teacher, or any number of other people in my life.  At no point do we see this kid consult any human beings for help.  In fact, the only evidence we see that this kid even HAS parents is a text from his mother and a quick shot of her gently putting away his security blanket----errr, cell phone.

2.  If kids at this school are free to carry around their fully-connected devices from class to class, my guess is that this particular boy is worried over nothing, because nobody is listening to him.

3.  Times certainly have changed.  When I was a kid, cute girls didn't act like they wanted to jump boys just because they were smart and articulate.  Damn it.

4.  At the conclusion of this ad, the vicious cycle of the kid's life continues.  He has another problem, so it's back to consulting the Google God That Knows All.   Sorry, but this is pretty damned depressing.

It's Just Lunch, and not ammunition for your alleged friends to use against you

Yes, I suppose that if you find yourself humiliated by your brutally cruel coworkers, who have absolutely nothing better to do while on the clock than to Google your name and then mock your online date profile, you might dump the idea of online dating and try "It's Just Lunch."

You might also consider a visit to Human Resources, where you could file a harassment complaint against the asshole choads who apparently never got their brains out of High School and think it's perfectly ok to goad and bully and shame someone into making adjustments in their personal life.

You might also consider dropping by the boss's office to ask why your coworkers have so much free time that they can just blow off their own duties in order to stalk you online.  Pretty sure there are at least a few paragraphs in the employee manual covering garbage like this.

If all else fails, you might just punch the living snot out of the smarmy dickweeds who have the mistaken idea that they have the right to barge in and piss all over your life without expecting any consequences at all.  After all, if they think that the kind of witless, cruel needling they engaged in on the playground is appropriate for a workplace setting (or adulthood in general,) surely they must concede that bloody noses are also part of the package.

I do appreciate the "South of Buffalo" disclaimer

Ok, here's the plan:

YOU!  Get out there and warm up the car!  Don't forget to adjust the seats for more legroom; there's nothing worse than trying to do this on the way BACK from Wild Wings, when we are all fat and sweaty and drunk and can barely breathe because we've spent the entire day jamming fat down our throats!

YOU!  Get there early and reserve the table closest to the big screen!

YOU! Order up the massive cheeseburgers with everything!

YOU! Make sure the baskets of wings keep coming to give us something to nibble on while waiting for the cheeseburgers!

YOU! Tell the waitress to keep the pitchers coming; the best way to assure that the food tastes good and that we keep ordering it long after we are full is to let us get a good beer buzz going!

YOU! Make sure you've got 911 on your speed dial!

YOU!  Interrupt anyone who tries to talk about anything other than the game on the screen over the course of the afternoon.  ESPECIALLY if they mention family, friends, or their jobs.  In fact, shut up ANYBODY who says ANYTHING that is not an order for more food or a high-volume, football knowledge-deficient comment concerning the game containing at least one curse word!

YOU! Suppress any desire to even think for one minute about how incredibly shallow and sad it is that we feel the need  to spend every damn Sunday afternoon filling ourselves with crap by rooting on a crowd of millionaires instead of being with our spouses and kids!

Spending weekends picking out new chew toys, or picking up new dog dirt. The joys of pet ownership continue to elude me.

Pet Smart Commercial # 1-

Another huge, gleaming white house with hardwood floors....jeesh, I really think I am the only person in the United States who doesn't live in one....

Ever notice that none of these commercials for pet products never advertise worm medicine or pooper-scoopers or those little bags dog owners use to put their little "friends" leavings in?  Ever notice that the dogs in these commercials are always immaculately clean and well-behaved?

And ever notice that the owners of these things are always blissfully happy in these ads?  I mean, really- what is this couple on?  It's a freaking dog.

Pet Smart Commercial #2-

I don't care how attractive they try to make it, I will never, ever want to share a house with one of these ugly, smelly, noisy, slobbering little attention vampires.  And I don't want a dog, either.

Advanced Medicine to keep you working, at all costs

Watching this guy constantly pop pills because he either can't admit he has a serious physical problem or considers it a matter of personal pride that he's never filed a worker's comp claim is more than a little depressing, don't you think?

I mean, just look at him.  He looks like your typical, out of shape, middle aged blue-collar worker who, thanks to wages which have been stagnant since the Clinton Administration finds himself struggling to cover long hours doing a job which really ought to be left to younger, healthier workers (more than enough time for them to become damaged, sore pill-poppers themselves in a few years.)  He GULPS down one over-the-counter pain killer after the other (loudly, of course- God forbid we don't CLEARLY hear this guy get his Tylenol down, we might think it was stuck in his throat, I guess.)  He constantly grabs at his aching body parts- back, knee, whatever is hurting at that moment.  And takes another pill.  With a GULLLPPP.

And sees nothing really wrong with any of this, except gosh it sure is a hassle to keep having to take all these breaks from inflicting unseen damage to his body and GULP down another pill.

Hey, buddy?  Here's a freaking clue:  your problem is not that GULPING down a pill every few hours is cutting into your Good Productive Worker Drone time.  The problem is that your job is freaking killing you, and you are trying to ignore it by masking your pain with drugs.  Two Advil instead of Eight Tylenol?  Yeah, I guess that's an improvement.  But know what would be even better?  If you took an entire freaking afternoon off and used it to see a doctor.  A doctor who might explain to you that Pain, while nothing any of us would ever actually welcome into our lives, is actually a kind of helpful way in which our bodies tell us that something is wrong.  And while there's nothing wrong with GULPING down an anti-inflammatory on the rare occasion, they really aren't supposed to be part of the freaking nutrition pyramid.  There's no Recommended Daily Allowance for Ibuprofen, ok?  And if there was, be assured that you regularly exceed it before lunch.  Get some help, because really- life is far too short and livers are far too fragile for this.