May 31, 2008
Don't TAKE THE Deal! Oh, I'm SO GLAD YOU TOOK IT! Huh?
Here’s what I don’t get about Deal or No Deal. When it gets to the very end of the game, there’s almost always one relative who is imploring the contestant to keep going. “You know you can get more money! You ONLY have to open one case! DON’T TAKE IT! DON’T TAKE THE DEAL! PLEASE DON’T TAKE IT!” (The way some of these people act, you would seriously think they were going to have a stroke if the game didn’t continue.) But as soon as the contestant accepts the deal, that one relative starts jumping up and down like Tigger, smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and generally acting like a complete and total lunatic, giddy as hell that the contestant accepted the banker’s offer. I understand the relative has to be happy at that point, but wouldn't it be really nice if, just one time, one of the crazy relatives strutted over to a contestant, looked him in the eyes, and let out an angry, “You pussy!” (and then followed that by pulling out a gun and busting a cap in the relative’s ass). Hip-hop stars, feel free to use this as a premise in one of your "songs."
Posted by fool at 08:13 PM | Comments (7)May 30, 2008
Some random thoughts at the end of May…
Is Jos. A. Bank ever NOT having a sale?
I do not think the current President Bush has done a good job. I don’t hate his guts like a lot of people do, but barring some completely unforeseen chain of events, I can’t imagine history will look kindly at his presidency. With that stated, his former Press Secretary Scott McClellan, who just published a tell-all book about Bush’s White House and is promoting it like a complete whore, is an absolute idiot. Have you heard him talk, then or now? He speaks with about as much authority as Eric Cartman giving a lecture about being respectful to Jews. Actually, at least Cartman’s voice probably wouldn’t quiver all the time. Katharine Hepburn had a steadier voice than old Scotty does. In other words, he sounded like a moron when he was working for the president and he still sounds like a complete idiot even though he’s bashing the president.
A review of Forgetting Sarah Marshall and hopefully another movie (if I see one this weekend) coming soon.
Posted by fool at 12:40 AM | Comments (4)May 28, 2008
Being Stuck at an Airport makes you Think (just hopefully not in the same way that I do)
Because of delays, I spent a lot of time in the airport yesterday. And spending that time led to the following thoughts…
If you’re a middle-aged man and want to learn how to play a musical instrument, may I suggest the piano, the guitar, maybe even the violin. ANYTHING but the BANJO! Yesterday, some guy was walking around the airport carrying the book Banjo for Dummies (they can’t possibly make money on that publication, can they?). If he’s not working for the publisher in some official capacity, e.g. working on edits for the next version, something has gone terribly wrong in this guy’s life. Who the hell decides he wants to learn how to play the banjo in this day and age? I mean, why not the accordion? Plus, is it really possible to learn how to play a musical instrument from a book? I guess you can learn anything from a book. After all, that’s how I learned that my thing had special powers. Oh wait, that’s not true. [As a sidenote, can you imagine being in a coma from the age of, I don’t know, say five until fourteen? You wake up, look down, and think, “What the hell happened to him? Why has he gone from looking like a piece of taffy to looking like the big toe on a Grizzly bear’s foot?” (You like the imagery, I know you do. Soon, this blog will start running as a feature in the New York Times Magazine. And when that happens, Hitler will need a blanket because hell will undoubtedly be frozen solid.)]
I’ve never seen so many older people completely conked out in public. You seriously would have thought the terminal was the satellite location for an assisted living center. One guy converted four seats into a personal bed. He looked so comfortable that I was somewhat surprised he didn’t take his shirt and pants off and sleep in his underwear. Fortunately for us, he didn’t go that route. I think the last time he saw a treadmill was about ten years ago, and even then it was only because he was channel surfing one morning and stumbled across ESPN2. Another guy literally looked dead. I thought about shaking him to see if he was still breathing, but decided if he wasn’t dead, being randomly shaken by a stranger might not have helped his health much.
Another man (probably sixty) was incredibly dressed up, but decided to accessorize his thousand-dollar suit with a Los Angeles Lakers baseball cap. I’ve seen some guys pull off the suit and hat look. This guy didn’t. I decided to inform him that the look wasn’t working for him. “Sir, you can take my comment however you want, but I swear I’m just trying to help. Now obviously I’m a male because I have what is commonly known as a tally-whacker. But if I were a female, and a good looking one too - not some fat hog - I want you to know that based on that baseball cap with the suit look alone, my mouth would not go anywhere near your body, and that includes your lips, your neck, and of course your pepe. Have a very safe flight. Let me know if you have any questions." Seemed like a good idea at the time.
To pass the time, I also decided to just randomly start taking pictures of people. I did this on the sly too. And no, not with a camera phone, but with a real stand-alone digital camera. Things were going really well until I pointed it at one guy, clicked the button, and then became instantly mortified as the flash went off.
Posted by fool at 12:45 AM | Comments (6)May 27, 2008
Man's Best Friend
When a male Great Dane sees a female Chihuahua, do you think he looks at her the same way a well-endowed black man (okay, so maybe that was redundant) looks at an Asian woman?
Posted by fool at 02:36 AM | Comments (6)May 23, 2008
The week is almost over. YIPPEE!
Have you ever gone to the doctor and had him totally surprise you by checking your prostate when you didn’t expect it? Well, I have, and that’s how my week has felt. (For some strange reason, my doctor always makes me wear a blindfold for that twenty-five minute exam, but he tells me that’s routine, so I guess I should believe him. Always annoys me when I feel his hands on my hips and him breathing on the back of my neck during the experience, but again, he went to medical school, and I didn’t, so what do I know?!? Now that I think about it, my degenerate ex-brother-in-law also went to medical school. Well, actually, let’s not get carried away here. He went to “D.O.” school, which, if you don’t know, is where you go to be a doctor if you can’t get into an “M.D.” school. This guy really is just an absolute moron. If you met him on the street and found out he’s a “doctor,” you’d seriously think you were on some hidden camera show where they took pure idiots and dressed them up as physicians. I miss interacting with him like I miss getting kicked in the nuts by a horse. (That’s never actually happened (to me), but I can’t imagine I would miss that if it did happen to me.)) Anyway, the whole point of this long diatribe is that I had a hellish week at work – so much to do, too little time, and zero energy. Zero energy as in Terry Schiavo probably had more energy in her final week than I did over the last few days. And that is why I wasn’t a very active blogger.
Posted by fool at 12:13 AM | Comments (2)May 19, 2008
Maybe I would feel Differently if Keeping in Touch with Someone These Days Actually required more than Sixty Seconds worth of Effort
Immediately following my second year of law school, I worked for a big Washington D.C. law firm as a “summer associate.” (If you’re not familiar with the whole “summer associate” concept, let me boil it down for you. You spend 10-12 weeks being wined and dined and getting paid a big lawyer’s salary (at that time $2,400 a week) for not doing a whole lot of work).
My summer associate class was a small one – there were only ten of us – so I got to know the other “summers” fairly well. I really clicked with two of them. One remains a close friend to this day, but the other one and I drifted apart.
I tried to keep in touch with “Summer Associate #2.” (I may be awful at a lot of things in life; however, “keeping in touch with people” is not one of them. That actually is something at which I am quite good. Even Coworker #1 will admit to that). I emailed Summer Associate #2 a handful of times and left him voicemails on his birthday, but he never responded to any of my communications, so after five or six unreturned attempts, I gave up. (Winston Churchill, I’m not!)
Last weekend, I was picking up my dry cleaning when I heard someone call out, “Fool?” I turned around and saw “Summer Associate #2” standing there smiling at me. He was a few pounds heavier than the last time I saw him (he needed to lose weight even back then - yes, I realize this is an unnecessary comment), but looked the same for the most part.
We briefly discussed where we were working and then discovered that we actually live in the same building.
Towards the end of our brief encounter, he exclaimed, “We should have dinner one night!” I didn’t really say yes or no to his suggestion, but gave him my email address and told him to feel free to contact me. I was cordial, but definitely not friendly. I think he was slightly taken aback by my lack of enthusiasm.
Oh well.
I guess I could have tried to fake it, but in truth, I didn’t feel giddy when I saw him. I wanted to say, “Look, pal, I tried to keep the friendship going after you moved, but you couldn’t even hit reply and write a brief email, so why on God’s earth do you think I’m interested in reconnecting with you at this point?”
As "Pretty" might say, maybe I'm just acting like a girl. In any event, do you ever feel that way? Like you put forth all the effort in something and finally gave up when you realized the other person wasn’t reciprocating in any fashion? That’s how I felt with this guy, and just because he's here now doesn't change the way I feel.
Fortunately, he’s originally from Latin America, so there’s an outside chance we might be able to get him deported. Where's ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) when you need it?!?!
Posted by fool at 12:22 AM | Comments (12)May 14, 2008
John Edwards - Backbone of an Amoeba
So John Edwards finally endorsed someone in the Democratic Race for President. Today, he informed the masses that Barack Obama is his man.
Edwards might be one of the most spineless, gutless politicians in the nation. He waits until the nomination is all but locked up to FINALLY lend his support to the Senator from Illinois? Give me a break. Is there anyone alive who thinks there's even a 1% chance that Edwards would have endorsed Obama if Hillary were the shoe-in at this point? What an opportunist!
I don't fault Edwards for looking out for himself; I just fault him for being so insincere. Am I the only one who sees what a fraudulent huckster this guy is? I sure hope Obama does not select him to be his running mate or to fill some cabinet post should the big O get elected. There is not a single position for which he'd be qualified. Not one.
Posted by fool at 07:27 PM | Comments (10)May 12, 2008
Senator Alec!?!?!
Apparently Alec Baldwin is considering a career in politics. When asked by 60 Minutes to comment on some of his public mistakes, Baldwin acknowledged the horrific voicemail he left his 11-year-old daughter, in which he called his daughter “a rude thoughtless little pig.”
Baldwin definitely learned from the experience. I just question if he learned the right things.
"If you go through the things I have gone through with the media, like this thing with my daughter, there's only one thing that comes to mind initially: That is how my daughter must have felt to have this played out in public." Sounds good so far.... But then he continued, "The second thing I realize is, you can pretty much bet all you own that I would never leave another voice mail message for my daughter that wasn't just like something out of a Rodgers & Hammerstein score."
Um, I’m not sure the second lesson is the proper takeaway. Shouldn’t the proper takeaway be (1) that you should NEVER refer to your daughter as a thoughtless little pig, whether it’s on a voicemail or not (especially if it’s a daughter you created with Kim Basinger – I mean, I’ve seen Alec Baldwin, and I’ve seen Kim Basinger – I’m guessing that kid is going to be, how do you say…. HOT, i.e. NOT a little pig even by Calista Flockhart’s definition; of course, it's entirely possible that she is a thoughtless human being, but even if she is, there's no need for daddy to call her an oinker), and (2) 11-year-olds shouldn’t have cell phones.
Posted by fool at 12:06 AM | Comments (9)May 06, 2008
Thinking Fool in Review: Volume I of III
As noted last Friday, the Thinking Fool is three years old. Some of you have been around since this blog’s inception, but most of you have not. Thus, I have decided to look at all the entires over the last thirty-six months and select a favorite one from each month!
Without further ado, here are entries 1-12 of 36, also known as my favorite entries from May 2005 – April 2006.
1. COMING OUT OF THE CLOSET - A CLASSMATE'S STORY (MAY 2005)
2. MY RUN-IN WITH THE CHINESE DIPLOMAT (JUNE 2005)
3. BYE-BYE BAR EXAM, HELLO SYDNEY (JULY 2005)
4. BUT PANCAKES ARE ON THE MENU... (AUGUST 2005)
5. AN OPEN LETTER FROM AMBER FREY’S DAUGHTER TO SANTA (SEPTEMBER 2005)
6. HARRIET MIERS'S RESIGNATION LETTER BEFORE WHITE HOUSE STAFFERS HAD A CHANCE TO MAKE SOME EDITS! (OCTOBER 2005)
7. THE THINKING FOOL AND HIS DAD GO TO VEGAS: CHAPTER II, DISCOMFORT CAN BE A WONDERFUL THING (NOVEMBER 2005)
8. CONVERSATIONS AT WORK: VOLUME III (DECEMBER 2005)
9. "ALL ABOARD!" - I SHOULD HAVE PONIED UP THE CASH FOR AMTRAK: THE STORY (JANUARY 2006)
10. AN OPEN LETTER FROM JIMMY CARTER TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC (FEBRUARY 2006)
11. THE EMOTIONAL LAWYER (MARCH 2006)
12. AND JUSTICE FOR ALL… or at least ONE! (APRIL 2006)
May 04, 2008
Let's protect the animals... and sometimes the humans?
Over the weekend, one of the horses that raced in the Kentucky Derby died. After she broke two of her ankles, the veterinarian-equivalent of Dr. Kevorkian was on the track faster than Bill Clinton would be on Michelle Obama (if Bill had his way).
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) is not happy about the horse’s death, which while sad, isn’t exactly the end of the world, especially now that there is a food shortage around the globe.
I love animals almost as much as anyone. (I say “ALMOST AS MUCH AS ANYONE” because my mom and brother have a sixth sense when it comes to animals, ESPECIALLY Mama Fool! One time she walked by a police car that happened to be a canine unit. All the other people who walked by that car almost got their heads bitten off. Mama Fool, on the other hand, smiled, waved, and ended up putting a hypnotic trance over the dog before he could so much as let out a bark.)
Anyway, PETA is all up in arms about this horse’s death and wants the jockey suspended and a bunch of other stuff done to ensure that horses don’t get injured while racing. (This is what is known as an incrementalism approach to getting the “sport” of horse racing outlawed completely, yes?)
So here’s my question. When it comes to abortion, how many members of PETA do you think are stanchly pro-choice? I have a feeling it’s an overwhelming majority, and that just seems odd to me.
Posted by fool at 09:21 PM | Comments (6)May 02, 2008
Another Year, Another Birthday!
The Thinking Fool turns three years old today! May I be the first to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY!
Posted by fool at 01:28 AM | Comments (10)