Confucius Say …

A few days ago, Jackie and I ordered Chinese food. Really nothing to alert the media about, however, it got me to thinking about something, the venerable fortune cookie.

For thousands of years (or for however long there have been fortune cookies) the same fortunes have been recycled over and over again. Cookie manufacturers have thrown in some excitement by teaching you a new word in Chinese or giving you your lucky numbers. (btw, I have played those lucky numbers in the lottery and they got me bupkis!)

To add even more variety to the lame fortunes, people started reading them and adding “in bed” to the end. Sometimes that makes for a very amusing fortune other times it leads to a fortune that will NEVER happen. Guys, you know the fortunes I mean.

ANYhoooo, I think it is high time to change the face of fortune cookies. We need to get rid of the lame fortunes like the below: (amended of course)

• A friend asks only for your time not your money … in bed

• Curiosity kills boredom. Nothing can kill curiosity … in bed

• In order to take, one must first give … in bed

I want to start my own fortune cookie fortune company. How hard can it be? I think that the fortunes REALLY need to seem like they are telling your fortune. Either that, or just some things that would make you do a double take. I have heard legend tell of cookies out there that actually have fortunes like the ones I am proposing. I have never seen these so I am to assume they either truly are legend, or there are not enough of them. Here are some of the fortunes that I am suggesting:

• “MEOW”

• Your car is on fire

• Yes, that itching is what you think it is

• No, she wasn’t 18

• We just cloned your credit card

• Dave Grohl is waiting for you in your bed

• Facebook will be gone in 5 years

You get the idea. I would love for people to send me some fortunes they would like to see. If my company ever gets off the ground, I will pay you if I use them. Yeah…pay you.

 

You read me rant about it last year so you know my feelings on xmas in the stores after Halloween. On my way home from work last week I saw a house that already had ALL of the xmas decorations up. AND THEY WERE LIT TOO!!! Come on people! I know the weather was nice but November 11^th?!?! If you are going to put your decorations out this early … DO NOT light them, inflate them, animate them or otherwise call attention to them when it is pushing 70 degrees in Chicago!!!!

 

That’s about it for now. Until next time, remember what my good friend Charlie Chan used to say … “One small wind can raise much dust.” IN BED!

Advertisement

It’s So Easy Being Green

Much is said these days about being green. Be green for the environment. Buildings are going green. You can get certified for being green. What exactly IS being green anyway? Is it as simple as recy

cling? Is it as simple as driving a better car or using different light bulbs in your house? It is all of those. Now before you stop reading because you think I am going to be all environmentalist on you … I am not. Don’t worry, I don’t want the world to sink into a giant landfill either. I have just been beaten over the head for too long by environmentalists and politicians and all of th

at telling me what to do. I know we have to do some things but taking away my light bulbs was the last straw. I do not like the light CFL bulbs give off and LED lights look blue. (I mention that because of xmas coming)

 

I do recycle. Mainly because the village gave us these HUGE recycling bins so I might as well use them. I hate to admit it, but I don’t go out of my way to recycle if I am somewhere other than my own home. I use Styrofoam. I buy bottled water. We use disposable diapers. I buy things that are packaged in things that use less that some percentage of recycled materials. I am ok with that. Being totally green is expensive as hell and quite frankly, is kind of a pain in the ass.

 

The expense part everyone knows. Organic food is more expensive because for some reason using no chemicals or commercial processing costs more. I don’t get that. Bamboo is a fast growing highly renewable resource that you can make flooring, rugs, blankets, t

orture devices, almost anything out of. If it is so renewable … why are things made from it so expensive?

 

Solar panels, wind turbines … all expensive. I had a recent experience with “no voc paint” for the baby’s room. TWICE as expensive as regular paint that includes VOCs at no extra charge. Again, don’t understand why less costs more. In most offices, it costs money to have a recycling program above just throwing things in the regular trash.

Earth

 

I am not against the earth. I rather like it here. Being green though is hard work. I have found though that “being green” can help you be lazy as well. Let’s explore some of the ways you can use the green movement to your advantage.

 

Ozone Action Days – These occur when the smog builds, the temps rise and the wind stops blowing. There are a few things that you can avoid due to ozone action days – Mowing the lawn, running on those quick trips to the store, jogging…basically anything that would put more emissions into the air or harm your health. Stay home and enjoy the air conditioning. (btw…these can also happen in the winter so you won’t be able to snow blow the driveway either)

 

Water Conservation Alert – Most neighborhoods these days have water alerts of some sort. These color coded signs tell you what level of water usage you can partake in outside. When it gets to red, take it one step further and limit your indoor water usage as well. Call into work and tell them that because of the water alert, you can’t shower and therefore will not be able to come into work. This way, you save water AND save gas. DOUBLE BONUS!

 

Recycling – Are you tired of taking out the garbage 3 – 4 times a week? Recycling is a great way to solve this problem. Simply add a second full size garbage can and put a sign on it that reads “recyclables only”. This way you have twice the volume of trash storage and only need to take the garbage out half as much.

 

Carpooling – This saves on gas, emissions and whatever else it saves. It also saves YOU the cost of … well … a lot. I heard a great radio commercial for carpooling … or maybe it was a car dealer … Anyhoo, the commercial was about a guy that got into a car pool and had everyone else drive because he didn’t have a car or a license. If you are at a big enough company, you could probably run this scam, switching car pools when you are outed, for a good year at least. Save on car payments, help the environment and get chauffeured everywhere. Sweet right?

 

 

 

Well, that is just a few of the ways that you can use this “green” movement to your advantage. Let me know if you have any other ideas to exploit the system.

 

That’s all for today so until next time, remember … This blog is brought to you by Soylent red and Soylent yellow, high energy vegetable concentrates, and new, delicious, Soylent green. The miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world.

 

Some Dead Are Not Walking

Dead who DO walk

Happy 3 days after Halloween everyone ( I know, it is 4 but I wrote this yesterday and forgot to click the “publish” button”). I still haven’t watched the first episode of The Walking Dead yet but I am looking forward to doing so. Speaking of the walking dead, I hope everyone voted for winners in the yesterday’s election. Ok, enough of the lame, post Halloween jokes. It is time once again to get into the list of those who might be making guest appearances on The Walking Dead this season. That’s right, the Celebrity Death List for October 2010. The year is almost over and unless I totally missed something, NO ONE has a correct guess from the beginning of the year yet. With only 2 months to go, it is going to be a tight race. I know that it seems a little sparse in the number of deaths this month. I am going to admit that I may have missed a few and I am blaming it on lack of sleep causing me to be a zombie myself because of  Tori. We did however have a Television Trifecta this month so that was kind of exciting (actually we had a quinella for the month). Well, here we go!

Abe Gustin – 75 – Founder of Applebee’s – Oct. 7^th

Eric Joisel – 53 – French wet-folding origami artist – Oct. 10^th

Simon MacCorkindale – 58 – Actor Manimal – Oct. 14^th

Barbara Billingsley – 94 – Mrs. Cleaver – Oct. 16^th

Tom Bosley – 83 – Mr. C. – Oct. 19^th

Bob Guccione – 79 – Founder of Penthouse – Oct. 20^th

Alex Anderson – 90 – Cartoonist, created characters for Rocky and Bullwinkle – Oct. 22^nd

Denise Borino – 46 – Ginny Sacrimoni on The Sopranos – Oct. 27^th

James MacArthur – 72 – Danno on Hawaii Five-O – Oct. 28^th

Taylor Swift – 20 – Annoying singer who from what I hear sounds like crap live – Sorry, I must have had a pleasant dream about this one happening. It’s not true. I don’t want to be the cause of an internet rumor … or do I?

As always, if I missed someone, please let me know.

Until next time remember … “This isn’t the Republicans versus the Democrats, where we’re in a hole economically or… or we’re in another war. This is more crucial than that. This is down to the line, folks, this is down to the line. There can be no more divisions among the living!”