National Debt Relief. Yes, here comes another Boomer Rant...

 

"Being debt is such a struggle..." Actually, being in debt is very, very easy- so easy, in fact, that most Americans have found themselves in exactly that situation with little or no effort at all.  It just requires spending more than what you have.  It can be made more fun by complaining about it and pretending that its someone else's fault ("Society" and "The Economy" are the main go-to's in this regard, just a free tip there) but that's not necessary unless you want to be one of the whiny* entitled idiots featured in a Debt Relief Commercial.

Here's what's hard- living within your means.  Unless you've got family to sponge off of, or know how to fill out all those forms to let the government take care of you, or you are one of these people and are just going to keep widening that gap between what you earn and what you spend, you are going to have to Do Without until you can increase the money coming in until it exceeds the money going out.  Amazingly, there is no end to the number of people perfectly willing to be sponges.  What they lack in initiative and energy they make up with an overabundance of entitlement and finger-pointing.  

Know who pays for debt relief?  People who don't use it.  We get higher interest rates because the credit card companies that cut deals with scofflaws aren't going to swallow the loss all by themselves.  And know what lesson is learned through debt relief?  That debt is no big deal and Someone Else will take care of it when it seems out of control- which only happens when Big Mean Banks stop offering credit.  What a great lesson for today.

*Actually, I'd appreciate it if these guys were a little more whiny and less chirpy and happy about getting some company to negotiate a write-off of thousands of dollars of debt that they never suggest is anything but 100 percent legitimate.  Even the smallest acknowledgement that the problem was self-inflicted and something to avoid, instead of the "I got divorced, I'm a single mom, I got sick, Things HappenTM" drivel, would make me a LITTLE sympathetic.  Instead, you get the sense that these people haven't learned a damn thing and will be back calling for "Debt Relief" inside of two years.  And absolutely positive that they "deserve it." 

Oh Oh Oh Ozempic is the gift that just keeps giving

 

"Ozempic can be used to prevent high blood sugar, which can result in serious heart ailments.  It also can help some patients lose weight."

Prospective patient:  "How much weight?"

"Um...patients on Ozempic have reported losing ten percent or more of their body weight. It also helps prevent Type 2 Diabetes, which has been connected to an increased risk of strokes and heart attacks..."

PP:  "What if I take a double dose every week?  Can I lose more weight?"

"OD'ing on Ozempic is not recommended.  Did I mention that taking Ozempic can lower the damage caused by hormonally active adipose tissue, which decreases mobility and may lead to serious issues like hardened arteries?"

PP:  "So how do I get a prescription for Ozempic?"

"Ask your doctor if Ozempic is right for you."

PP:  "It's right for me.  I am fat.  So I just tell my doctor to prescribe Ozempic and if he refuses- or even hesitates- do a little doctor-shopping until I find one more enlightened to the benefits of Ozempic, right?"

"Um...yeah, I guess.  It's a great drug for treating Type 2 Diabetes..."

PP:  "I don't know that that diababies thing is, but I want to look cut this summer.  I'm getting Ozempic."

"Yeah, I hear that a lot.  Not really sure why our commercials even mention the other stuff.  After all, if Americans were concerned about strokes and diabetes, we wouldn't be on"e of the fattest nations on the planet in the first place...."

PP:  "Hey, that's mean.  It's mostly genetic!"

"Are you actually eating Taco Bell right now?"

PP:   I have to nourish my body!!  Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to tell my doctor to put me on Ozempic- I mean, I'm off to ask my doctor about Ozempic." 

The US Postal Service goes Everywhere...well, Eventually...

 

Maybe, sort of?

Three items I ordered last month to be delivered to Vermont have been "out for delivery" every day for the past week- always expected by 9 PM until 9 PM comes and goes, and then listed as "delayed" due to a "weather emergency."  Amazon is Truly Very Sorry for the delay, and the items are Now Expected to arrive Tomorrow.  Until tomorrow, that is.

Meanwhile, items being shipped through UPS and FedEx - ordered AFTER the items being shipped by the good old US Postal "Service"- have arrived in Vermont despite the "weather emergency" which consisted of a few inches of snow which were quickly removed by plows.  The address has received mail three of the past ten days, none of it in the form of packages.  Apparently the "weather emergency" was bad enough to prevent Postal "Service" trucks from reaching my mother's house in a rural part of the state- but not bad enough for the UPS and FedEx trucks.  Which company claims to go anywhere and used to use that "through rain or snow or sleet" mantra again?

The items in the "care" of the United States Postal "Service" have been sitting in the local Post Office for more than a week now, waiting for the "weather emergency" that is not preventing anyone else from traveling anywhere to subside, I guess. If I head back South before they show up, I guess I can wave to the building they are being held in as I pass.  

Some friendly advice to "ensure a fit life" that doesn't involve usury....

Yes, I will be playing the role of Boomer Scold here....

On the Physical Fitness Side:  Maybe spend less time sitting in one place pretending to be Getting in Touch with Yourself/Embracing your Inner Calmness/ Insert Even More Twee BS Here and more time doing cardio and lifting weights?  I mean, being calm is a good thing, but all that sitting isn't doing a damn thing to strengthen your heart and lungs, and it's actually encouraging the development of hormonally active excess adipose tissue which will, if allowed to grow, will wreck havoc on that Mood you are trying to improve.  As the young people say, get off your butt, go outside, and touch some grass.

On the Financial Fitness Side:  Maybe stop spending money recklessly, pay all your bills on-time, use credit only in emergencies and live within your means instead of relying on high-interest unsecured loans just because they are only a tap on your overpriced phone (which is part of the reason you have money problems, you moron.)  It's amazing how easy it is to get a low-cost loan when you have a good credit score.  It's amazing how easy it is to keep a good credit score when you break your addiction to spending and stop looking for a way to get Peter to pay Paul.  

In both cases, the first step is to stand up, get off your phone, and get to work.  Start by Adulting.  

Ok, Boomer Scolding over.  For now. 

What the actual hell is happening in this stupid Clorox Commercial?

 

I mean, other than this little girl behaving as if she is absolutely determined to make everyone who lives with her as sick as she is by sneezing into that fan/humidifier/whatever, while her mother- who of course must be only a yard or so away, rolls her eyes as if there's nothing out of the ordinary with daughter's douchenozzelry and just goes on with her use of the 12th carton of Clorox bleach wipes she's used since Idiot Spawn got the sniffles?

By the way, this is a pretty new commercial, so we can't argue that it "aged badly."  This ad was created AFTER two years of a highly contagious pandemic which killed more than a million Americans and left millions more with more-or-less permanent debilitating symptoms.  Yet it still features a bemused, unmasked mommy shrugging at the idea of germs being needlessly scattered all over the house.  If dipshit daughter isn't thoughtful enough to wear a damn mask (hell, her goal seems to be the OPPOSITE of protecting her family- more like Misery Loves Company) at least Mommy could.   You know, instead of just applying yet another coat of toxic chemicals to every surface she can find.  

Remember when Aaron Rodgers was in State Farm Commercials?

 

You know, before China, Hillary, AOC, the Tripartite Commission and the ghost of Osama Bin Laden inflicted a virus on the world with the goal of destroying Capitalism, God and whatever "Traditional Marriage" is?

(Sorry, I was just channeling everyone's favorite overrated quarterback/conspiracy theorist/ranking member in the Cult of Trump for a minute there.)

Chances are that after this lunatic's latest juvenile paranoid tirade concerning stuff nobody his age should be bitching about- getting "cancelled" by the "woke" crowd, etc. (seriously, Aaron, you've got enough money to buy your own planet if this one doesn't suit you.  Don't let the stratosphere hit you on the way out,) we've seen the last of his commercial appearances that don't involve a chain of Wisconsin pawn shops or a certain Mussolini wannabee who wants to move back into the White House.  I can't see a whole lot of companies that aren't peddling tin medallions (or fake insurance*) to gullible seniors offering to make this guy the face of their product, can you?

*I can see Rodgers pitching "Medicare plus" cards though.  They'll hire ANYBODY.

Did you catch the glaring error in this GoodRx Commercial?

 

I did, on the very first watch.  And it's not just this GoodRx Commercial- it's an error that shows up in every single commercial featuring a pharmacy.  And it takes me out of the ad every single time because I feel like I've been projected into an alternate reality where nothing at all makes sense. 

Here's the mistake:  Never in the history of the universe has anyone simply walked up to a pharmacy to find someone at the counter waiting to fill their prescription.  Yet in all these ads, not only is there never a line but there's someone in a white coat making eye contact while the customer is still ten feet away, as if the pharmacist is just standing there waiting to be Activated by a customer.   We who live here in Reality know full well that pharmacists are NEVER at that front counter when we finally get there- if we're lucky, they are visible in the back looking at screens or putting stuff into bags.  If we're really lucky, they are using one of those cool pill sorting machines that news channels feel the need to show us whenever mentioning anything to do with prescription drugs.

If we're not really lucky- and it's a typical day and not a reality-bending dreamscape like we see in these GoodRx ads- what we see instead is at least three people in front of us on line, no clerk in sight, and eventually a promise to have that prescription that we were told by an automated voice message was ready two days ago ready in another fifteen minutes to two hours Would We Like To Shop For Awhile And Come Back ThenTM?

A pharmacist just waiting for a customer to casually approach the counter?  Yeah, right.