OMFG WHER R TEH ACORNS?!?

It is hard to know where to start on CNN.com's December 12th opus, entitled "Scientists baffled by mysterious acorn shortage". Even for the sensationalist game of limbo played by this site, this article marks a new low in "science/technology" journalism. The article presents evidence of an acorn shortage but cannot present one scientist who is 'baffled' by an acorn shortage as mysterious as who in Sacramento reads this blog. An abomination like this deserves to be broken down point by point:

Blagojevich Should Have Gone To Corruption School In Louisiana

Today we have all amusingly chuckled when Illinois Gov. Blagojevich got arrested for auctioning a Senate seat to whomever could muster the cushiest post-Gov position. Of course, the biggest consequence of this is the local pride the arrest stirred within those from the area, which could only be expressed in gleeful status updates and away messages proclaiming "home of the dirtiest politics!" or something to that effect. However, an honest appraisal of the skill of corruption is needed. Blagojegish did the deed himself, on the phone. Any bright-eyed, bushy-tailed grad student with copies of The Wire and The Shield knows that corruption is best administered low-key, in person and through trusted intermediaries.

Stop Sending Us So Many Fucking Catalogs

Living our agoraphobic life, seldom emerging from shelter, we buy many things online to save ourselves interactions with Humanity. However, when you buy one pair of shoes from Eastbay or one frog bra from Title Nine, you are inundated with monthly catalogs that never cease to arrive. Despite buying things online in order to avoid Humanity and enhance our flabby veal-like texture, getting catalogs we don't want forces us to call somebody and have actual interactions. We are then informed that we might still get 4 or 5 catalogs still before we are taken out of their system. Of course, they are just lying to us and we still get monthly catalogs no matter how often we call about it. Well, we couldn't just burn them on the stove and set off our Xtra-sensitive fire alarm, so we felt pretty helpless.

Das Ötmeil

We haven't done a mailbag in awhile, so we'll start out by answering this question from loyal reader Catholic:

Hi DBB. Long time commenter, first time question-asker. I was wondering, when the folks at Das Bloggy Blog wake up and want a Pollanesque, complex carbohydrate laden breakfast, what do they prepare?

As we all know, adherents to the United Church of Poe-Lan are forbidden from mixing dairy with processed cereal. While other value-added concoctions of processed grains such as bread are allowable, new ones are not until they have been traditionally consumed by 10 consecutive generations and thus proven their safety. As shown above, we put two cups of whole oat groats in a crock pot along with some brown sugar, five spice powder, and salt. Then we fill it up with water and cook it for 8 hours. The nutty, textury goodness that results can then be served with raw milk from grass-fed cows.

Our next question comes from our Facebook newsfeed via Random Asshole We Went To Hick Highschool With:

What do Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, and Barack Obama have in common?

The only appropriate response to a question like this is immediate defriending. Why don't you move to Canada or Ireland where there are so many more conservatives?

And a final question from an Anonymous reader:

What is the difference between static and dynamic light scattering?

Static Light Scattering measures the intensity of scattered light as a function of angle and concentration; for dilute polymer solutions this yields the weight-average molecular weight, radius of gyration, and second virial coefficient. Dynamic Light Scattering measures the fluctuations in intensity of scattered light; for dilute solutions of particles this yields the translational diffusion coefficient and the hydrodynamic diameter.

5 Foody Things That Currently Are Reflective Of Our Worldview

We didn't have to start cooking for ourselves on a regular basis until we were 20. There wasn't a grocery store within walking distance, so at that point a box of Zatarain's plus sausage and onions equaled haute cuisine. We then moved up in the world to red beans from scratch and various curries. We also went through a slow cooker phase which we may return to at a future date. But Who's Now?

The Power of Marketing

Corona is a bland Pilsner that necessitates a fresh lime wedge in order for it to have any recognizable flavor. Of course, Don Draper would have you believe that it isn't bland, no, it is smooth and drinkable. And, it is the only beer that you can put a lime in. Despite the fact that many beers will taste good on a hot day with a lime, lemon, or orange wedge, many people will protest quite vigorously if you propose such a travesty. In fact, the flavor of many lagers and brown ales are nicely complemented by addition of a lime wedge. But, the manufacturers of those beers haven't put considerable effort in developing a defacto copyright on the practice like the makers of Corona have.

At our departmental BBQ there were many limes leftover from our chicken marinade, and we suggested to others that they try putting wedges in their Heinekins or Amstel Lights. After all, those beers are pretty bland too. However, this usually was responded with a quizzical look, followed by, "But this isn't Corona!". We had to try really hard to get people to think outside the narrow beer + fruit window ingrained in our souls by Don Draper. What we're trying to say is -- put limes in your bland beers. Any brand. It prevents scurvy.

WKCR -- Left of the Dial and Above Your Tax Bracket

We like us some college radio. In fact, we are like that bland SuperTrain guy from Singles who reminisces about the glory days as we flip through our record collection(s). Two things that were as integral to our college radio experience as accidentally dropping the F-bomb before 10PM were:

1. Fundraising
2. Bureaucracy

Now these weren't the fun, glamorous parts of college radio, like accidentally dropping the F-bomb before 10PM. That was as much fun as we'd had since we were children, when we used to seal lit firecrackers in glass jars and fling dogshit at moving cars from behind a fence. Simultaneously. We had a lot of awesome e-coli infections back then, too.

Fundraising and Bureaucracy were the unfun parts of college radio that involved browbeating by our elders and learning something about something as it relates to life, and our world. Like most college radio stations, we didn't set our sights for the stars and envision a future without those things. For instance, we didn't gather up all of our Low-Ivy entitlement and expect an endowment, whose interest would completely fund our activities. This however, is the plan of the 'college' radio station WKCR, which is loosely associated with Columbia University.

Neither a student enterprise nor a club, the radio station exists outside the umbrella of University governing boards, and thus is not in line to receive money from student life funds. Before a plague of monetary problems struck the station, this existence apart from other student groups suited them. But a spate of financial issues, starting in 2001, has decimated the station’s bank account. The station embarked on an initiative to raise a $4 to $6 million endowment, using the interest to pay for operating costs.

Most stations use student programming funding. Of course, that entails dealing with bureaucracy and actually having to accommodate actual students. (the Horror)

“Is conforming to ABC [Activities Board at Columbia] guidelines worth the $30,000?” she said. “The answer is probably no.”

It's certainly true that student programming funding won't cover everything -- so most stations also set aside a couple of weeks every year to roll up their sleeves and do fundraising.

Ben Siegelman, CC ’07 and the 2006 station manager who helped formulate the endowment plan, said he wanted to “come up with some sort of financial plan in which the radio station did not have to rely on on-air fundraising. I was sick of fundraising.”

Well OK, nix that. The article then notes that their antenna was on the WTC and the replacement one only reaches 10% of the former audience. Of course, something like that only is relevant to two things: fundraising (already out of the question), and advertising. So how about throwing a few spots out there?

“We could have commercials, but then we’d have commercials,” Whitcomb said flatly, “and that’s not art.”

Apparently, if you have a trust fund, you expect the non-profit you work at to have one too. And with a $270K annual operating budget, you need a really big trust fund. Some of this $270K goes to actually paying one guy to do a show and live in New York. Seriously, if you are that hard up to fill airtime, just steal somebody's iPod from a Vampire Weekend show and take a nap. That's basically what most college radio amounts to these days anyway. Of course, not being officially tied to Columbia University means that they actually have to pay rent for station space. We're guessing this is probably the most abnormal part of their budget. Additionally*, their pristine, state-of-the-art equipment looks nicer than the 30 year old mixing boards and duct-taped CD players sported by most other college stations. If only they had the kind of bourgeois networking that WKCR thinks** they have, they too might be able to sneer at such non-profit drudgery as fundraising, bureaucracy, and selling out to the man.

*We apologize for whining! And we are referring to the linked article's picture -- not the one we swiped from the Onion!
**We are uh, skeptical of this plan. But we guess if raising 270K a year is hard, pulling in a $6 million endowment should be a piece of cake.

so here in alaska we were watching the vice presidential debates and...

sarah palin said that as VP she would cut punctuation from the federal budget to save average working americans their tax dollars because i believe that americans should have their tax dollars and be able to spend them rather than the federal government spending them on things like punctuation when we can just use colloquialisms doggone it and they save the hardworking taxpayer money also we should talk in circles and get rid of punctuation which i believe is a personal choice that due to my own personal opinion on that particular issue i choose not to use punctuation but that does not mean that the middle class can not either they will be able to afford punctuation on their own with mccains tax cuts for joe six pack that he can pass even against the wishes of some in his own party that as the original maverick he is able to pass such as forthcoming legislation against punctuation and gay marriage and i mean to say that some of my best friends happen to be gay but personally i want to protect the tradition of marraige in our great country of ours and also preserve the continuity of sentences

This is a fair and balanced blog now.

After so many transparently partisan* attacks on the McCain-Palin ticket (He had an affair with a lobbyist and writes shitty op-eds, she is underhanded and has no experience) the NYTimes finally soldiered up the integrity to attempt a similar takedown of Joe Biden. (Barack "Jesus" Obama has never done anything wrong.) Of course, it was a half-hearted attempt of innuendo that was quickly relegated to the Politics section, gracing the front page for nary a day.

Focusing on the favors the credit-loving hack Senator enjoys in his home state, the all-too-common buried lede debunks his main character building experience:

Beyond landscaping costs, one of the Biden campaign’s largest regular expenditures is for Amtrak tickets for the senator and his aides or consultants. Going back to 2001, those expenses typically ranged from $9,000 to $15,000 a year — far exceeding that of his colleagues in Delaware’s Congressional delegation, whose campaigns spent between $500 and $3,000, federal election records show. Like Mr. Biden, Delaware’s other senator, Thomas R. Carper, and Representative Michael N. Castle commute daily to Washington, their offices said.

Biden, of course, typically makes a point in stump speeches of relating to Joe Six-Pack-With-a-Lower-IQ by talking about his daily commute. It started as a way for him to visit his two young sons after his wife and daughter died in a automobile crash. Now it is a way for him to chill at his lakefront mansion. Senator, I served with Calvin's Dad: I knew Calvin's Dad; Calvin's Dad was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Calvin's Dad. You're cool if I plagiarized that, right Joe?

It is at this point that we left-coast elitists need to remind ourselves of the life of an average American in these trying, desperate economic times. The average American lives in a small town where the manufacturing/call center job he/she used to work at was recently outsourced due to NAFTA/globalization. Sure, the average American could get a new, depressing job at the meatpacking plant/maximum security prison, but the pay is less and it is 100 miles away. Gas prices what they are, a commute is out of the question, and he/she can't sell the house and move there ever since the housing bubble popped.

Also, the team lost in the state quarterfinals again this year. Coach should really start playing that Sanderson boy more. A real sparkplug. And what with Nell's son listening to that rap music, we're going to have get Sheriff McKay to keep an eye on him. I know trouble when I see it, I'll tell you what. Sure thing Jimmy, if I ever see him near your darling Sandra you'll be the first to know.

Anyway -- the point is, the Average American doesn't want to hear about how your campaign spends $10K a year shuttling you and your staff up and down the eastern seaboard so you can be kicking it on your badass deck before the fireflies come out. As much that can be said for the Palin VP pick being a cynical stab at chromosomal inclusivity -- the Biden pick is the same kind of rote process that gave us the uninspiring banality of Kerry and Lieberman. Hang around Washington long enough, and it will eventually be your turn. Yeah, even you there playing kickball.

Tonight's debate will be a fascinating matchup between someone who can't talk in complete sentences, and someone who completes way too many. We won't be liveblogging it! Don't stay tuned!

*In an ironical sense. It's not partisan if you are right.

"It would be funnier if it wasn't sad"

Obama Runs Constructive Criticism Ad Against McCain

From the district that brought you David Duke!

It wasn't long after the creation of Das Bloggy Blog that we were inundated with charges of elitism -- the kind of elitism that is too cool for quirky movies and the Olympics. Sure, every once in awhile Das Bloggy Blog could be spotted ironically double fisting PBR at a "dive bar" like the common man, but generally we were full of expensive microbrew, casual snark, and incestuous linking. We didn't know where the blog ended and where real life began -- it wasn't long before we had alienated everyone we held dear and were left with nothing but pithy pageviews and threaded comments in our head. But it should be noted, to those that haven't disavowed us already, that we never publicly advocated for the sterilization of the poor.

We never brainstormed this idea, kicked it around informally to colleagues, and leaked it to the press. We never whined that such a 'radical' idea would never be accepted politically, and we never preemptively came up with arguments that it wasn't racist.

We say this because Louisiana State Rep. John LaBruzzo, did. Straight outta Ol' Metry, LaBruzzo wants to pay poor Louisianians $1000 for a sterilization procedure -- and also give a little per diem to educated Americans, hardworking Americans as well for popping out more future Republicans:

"What I'm really studying is any and all possibilities that we can reduce the number of people that are going from generational welfare to generational welfare, " he said.

He said his program would be voluntary. It could involve tubal ligation, encouraging other forms of birth control or, to avoid charges of gender discrimination, vasectomies for men.

It also could include tax incentives for college-educated, higher-income people to have more children, he said.

We know comparing everyone to Nazis is soooooo 2007, but there really isn't any other way to react to this. We know it must be hard these days, with gas prices what they are, to come up with new and innovative ways to appeal to your racist electorate. But seriously, next time just talk about resurrecting the rotting corpse of Harry Lee and how much you appreciate McCain's values. As you could guess, some of the unmoderated NOLA.commenters absolutely LOVED this idea (the eugenics one):

WhoaNellie: Awesome idea. One that I have bee saying for years. $1,000.00 is to cheap, let's make it $5,000.00. Beleive me we will come out way ahead. Anybody who wants it is in. In my opinion, there is nothing worse than people who can't afford another child that keep busting them out. Come on people!!! We are paying for the whole ride from cradle to grave. Everything... This is not about race, it is about trying to provide a reasonable quality of life. I only have 2 kids because that is what I can handle. Sure I could have had more, but that is not right.

Oh yea, how wonderfull it is for crackheads and other low lifes to keep on having babies. Think about it people. $5,000.00 is a bargain...

crispyfried: Great idea!,i'm all for it. That thousand will be taken by hundreds probably thousands or more faster than you can blink an eye!.Something has to be done with this welfare crap. It's not working now and neither are the ones receiving it!. Finally someone that speaks the truth and also sees the problems.This guy has the solution everybody cries about. Believe me there's more people than on these blogs that will love this idea.

Truth be told however, they did not seem to make up the majority. If you will forgive us, we'll be going on hiatus shortly in order to work on this country's economic deficit.

Breaking Up Is Hard to Do for Some Companies

When we last left this story, we had passively broken up with our first long-term credit card company, Kapital Eins. They had been sending obvious signals, like letters saying we could cancel the account by not agreeing to a cash advance fee. They even suggested a private location for the breakup, namely their automated cancellation line. This was great, because we have no balls. A lot less drama than the time we broke up with Cingular at Bistro du Sud: The salade niçoise stains never came out of our white linen sports coat, and the waitstaff still snickers when we stroll by.

Well, they must be having quite the dry spell, because we just recieved a 1AM text from them in the form of a random $4.20 check in the mail. What is this for you ask? Do they just feel lonely that their roommate is out of town for the weekend? We sure as hell took all of our How I Met Your Mother DVDs back when we stormed out of their place -- with nary a negative balance in sight. Silly us, we thought they had been getting the hint.

Sure, Kapital Eins says they just want to have a casual drink or two and catch up. But we know that the moment we deposit that check they will reopen our account and start racking up fees on that $4.20 "cash advance". And lets be honest, $4.20 isn't even enough to buy a dime bag these days! (Heyoh!) We think its about time our new credit purveyor, Chuck Schwab, slid up aside, put their arm around us, looked Kapital Eins right in the eye, and said that we didn't wan't to talk to or see them any longer.

List of Notable Community Organizers and Governors

Sparked by a crack we first saw on Gawker, we'd like to make a short list of notable Community Organizers and Governors.

Community Organizers:

• Jesus
  
• Martin Luther King Jr.
• Mahatma Gandhi
• Barack Obama

Governors:

• Pontius Pilate
• George Wallace
  
• Victor Hope
• Sarah Palin
  

Gustav -- The Storm That Cried Wolf

The lessons we all learned from Katrina don't need repeating. What did Gustav teach us? Judging solely by the Nola.commenters, it taught us that we are a bunch of self-absorbed whiners.

After Katrina, Mayor Nagin was criticized for not employing a comprehensive evacuation plan early enough. Evidently he was supposed to find the time and money to do such things while running a financially bankrupt city with failing public institutions. This time, everyone took it seriously. There were free evacuation buses to undisclosed locations(say hi to Cheney for us!) and people actually took them. FEMA even said they would reimburse some evacuation costs we believe. Nagin got wide-eyed and did everything to stroke Gustav's ego short of going horseback through the city with a loud bell and a tri-cornered hat.

Gustav ended up calming down, veering away slightly from the city, and not knocking down the shitty levee system again. So far, so good. But then came the aftershocks of online whiners unable to understand the grey area between no damage and complete flooding. With most of the power gone, and essential services unstaffed, Evacuees weren't allowed back until two days after Gustav passed. Thinking Gustav was a hurricane of iPhones and Harry Potters, some even parked along the road at National Guard checkpoints in advance of the then unknown readmission date. Once back, everyone left their darkened homes and scurried to the nearest WiFi hotspot to complain about lack of said Ben Franklin-juice. Their veins opened, a blood-oath was announced that they would never evacuate again, just to show that Nagin for fucking it all up again.

Please get a grip. When you live below sea-level on the gulf coast, you should have enough patience and money to evacuate on average once a year. Hearing how much it sucks is about as tolerable as a New Yorker complaining about trash piles on the sidewalk and filthy subway platforms; the scorn as logical as a Houstonian bitching about smog and sprawl.

We guess they aren't the only ones that come off as wishing for a Katrina sequel; leftist soapbox-stander Micheal Moore completely alienated us with his opening line on Olbermann 360:



Yep, with lots of time to think about what to say, the best zinger he could come up with was that Gustav was proof of God's existence since a terrible storm could make the Republicans look bad during their convention. We remember Moore mostly for presenting one-sided, biased, and overall convincing arguments for just causes, and for his awkward habit of injecting himself into the plight of victims he supported. But this is unforgivable. A day or two later he posted a rambling non-apology for the statement on his website. Fuck you, Mike. While you keep talking to God and going further down the rabbit hole of insanity, please be sure to say hi to Britney for us.

So, is everything back to normal down there?

Uh, yeah. These are the three guys who singlehandedly rebuilt the city, in case you forgot.

Well, they add a love story to most disaster movies...

Rural China. Falling scaffolding. A long distance shot of dust rising from the village after the collapse. An overcrowded hospital filled with the victims. Sounds like a GREAT way to advertise for GE, right? There's not any recent events that would make this inappropriate in the slightest! Shit, let's just show this during the Bejing Olympics!

Going for the Gold in Olympics H8ting

While Michael Phelps continues his quest to saturate SportsCenter more than Brett Favre, the US is pointing fingers and shouting "Cheater!, Cheater!" as much as they can. In a groundbreaking anemia-strategy, official Olympic Drug Testing People have apparently taken four pre-race blood samples from one the guys who can out-sprint Tyson Gay. Hey, sprinting is an anerobic exercise, right? Meanwhile the Liberal American Media is doing its best to perpetuate stereotypes by saying that two Gold-medalist Chinese gymnasts look younger than the age minimum of 16. Which brings us back to our innate dislike for arbitrary inefficiency in sport; why is there an age limit? Why aren't the best gymnasts in the world in the Olympics?

The reasons cited for the ban often reference the advantages younger gymnasts have. For one, being lighter and shorter give them a greater ability to throw themselves into the air. Coaches say they are more fearless as well. Both of those sound like excellent reasons to get rid of the age minimum. Among the populace, support for an age limit is often framed in terms of putting the stress and pressure of Olympic competition at a mature age. However, we sincerely doubt that State-run training centers and Tennis dads worldwide put promising underage gymnasts under any kind of more relaxed training than the eligible ones. Furthermore, if gymnasts got their medals out the way at their younger peak, they could get out of the sport earlier, start living a normal life, and just join Cirque du Soleil already. It would save us all the the awkwardness of watching squeaky interviews with puberty-cheating 18 year old medalists.

For more Olympic H8ting, read this.

How Medal Inflation Affects You

Another Olympics, another blowing of loads about Michael Phelps has a chance to break Mark Spitz's record of 7 gold medals. But few question the legitimacy of the events themselves; ones in which the goal is to swim from point A to point B the fastest yet you get more medals if you are talented at less efficient forms of swimming. If speed is the goal, why doesn't everyone just swim as fast as they can, regardless of technique? Similar approaches are not taken in, say, track events; we don't have events like the 100m Sack Race or the 400m Tippy-Toe relay. Since all of these 'strokes' simply require one to be able to go really fast through water, is it really any earthshattering surprise that every 30 years or so some broad-shouldered guy with big hands and feet comes along and beats everyone?

This isn't Bo Knows, or even 'Samardzija-guesses' for that matter. This is a sport with obsolete techniques that need to be propped up by redundant medals in order to be practiced at a world-class level.

Style is a quick tennis player practicing serve and volley while a tall, slow player works on an booming serve. Style is perfecting your most unhittable pitch. It sure isn't giving merit to techniques that are inferior by the standard in which they are judged.

Probably the only thing more asinine than giving multiple medals for different ways of swimming slower than possible is competitive racewalking. Racewalkers are routinely disqualified for employing a method to go faster:

Running.

"Yes Bob, you can see it quite clearly in this video feed -- in the 17th kilometre the winner did in fact have two feet in the air simultaneously"

We suppose that these summer games in general require a suspension of logic and common sense, much like a presidential debate on how to salvage the economy. After all, until they figure out what she is on, we will continue to be subjected to stories of how Dara Torres (the 41 year old mother) is facing unfair scrutiny only because of past chemically-enhanced cheaters. She explains her success in these terms:

1. Amino Acid supplements
2. Better Exercise Techniques
3. Longer Rest Periods Between Workouts To Enhance Recovery
4. A $100,000 Payroll Of Aides To Maximize Performance

To which every fan thinks:

1. Diet and exercise, like Barry Bonds, right?
2. Diet and exercise, like Bill Romanowski, right?
3. Yeah, you work out less and get more chiseled. Happens all the time. Makes total sense.
4. Because hiring people that know how to beat the system isn't cheap.

Her live in boyfriend, David Hoffman, is an endocrinologist. You know, the branch of medicine that deals with hormones and would be privy to new hormone treatments that aren't tested for yet in competitive sports. The second lie we are fed is her supposed hottness; other than the A-Rod types that are into that sort of thing, most guys aren't turned on by bulging veins and the most defined jawline this side of Michael Douglas.

We hate the Olympics, by the way.

What Would Officer Jesus do? Shakedown Hispanics, Apparently.

Meet Jonathan M. Lutman. He's a two-year veteran of the Slidell Police Department. He made a habit of removing money from the wallets of Hispanic people he pulled over; using Dobbsian reasoning that they would be less likely to officially complain. Now he's been arrested for it, and hasn't taken the time to take down his laughable, long-neglected myspace page. Let's preserve it for posterity, won't we?Somehow I missed that Delerious? song about racial profiling. Maybe that wasn't the one on the christian rock mixtape commercial on late night cable. His favorite movies don't seem appropriate either. We were thinking he would like a combination of Charlotte's Web and The Godfather. And those insightful blog posts of his!

Wednesday, May 10, 2006

Update So things are going pretty well with work. Its really fun. I get to drive fast and some calls are really exciting. Not too many of those yet. But it has been a good learning experience. So be careful when you come through Slidell, I may be watching!!!

Monday, April 24, 2006

Day one is done!! Well Day one of being a full time police officer is done. I started today and have three more days this week. It was fun today. Not too much happened. But Slidell can now that its streets are safe... Officer Jonathan Lutman is on the job!!!

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

here...read this!! Hey everyone. Wel I finally heard back from the PD. I start on Monday in a temporary position. Then in about a month they will have me do the run again and when I pass it then they will move me to full time. So that will be cool!! It will be nice to get paid to have some fun. I know that it won't all be fun, but I will have my times!! Anyway!! I am still counting the time till Amy comes back to the state!! 2 months!! Acctuallly 2 months from today is when she leaves to come back. Cool huh!! Well I guess thats it!! Later! Jon Monday, April 10, 2006 we'll see what happens Well things are interesting right now. I was supposed to start with SPD tonight, but since I didn;t pass the run last Saturday I can't. I'm not sure what is going to happen yet either. There is supposed to be a meeting with the Chief to see what they want to do. I'm hoping they just let me redo the run. I'm confident that if they do I will pass it this time. We'll see I guess. I also wish that Amy was here. I know that her return to the states is only about 2 1/2 months away, but I am egarly awaiting her return.

Have fun in Angola, pig!

5 Totally Extreme Money Saving Tips That Will Never Backfire, Ever

So what, is Das Bloggy Blog just some kind of snarky know-it-all who stands in the corner and criticizes everyone else, without producing any viable, unique alternatives? Well, normally yes, but the blog is for fun, so we can make an exception here.

Here are 5 hott money saving tips that are guaranteed never to backfire.

1. Embrace Piracy: Trips to the movie theatre, cable, Netflix, and music CD's are expensive. Respectively, stop going, cancel, cancel, and stop buying. Download VLC media player, PeerGuardian, and microTorrent. Go to piratebay and steal what you need.
2. Make Michael Pollan Cry: Did you know that government-subsidized, processed, unhealthy foods not only taste awesome and are cheap, but also are the most calorie-dense? That is called value where we're from. If you are worried about getting a weird combination of scurvy and the rickets, stop whining and take a multivitamin. "But what about the increased health costs associated with that diet?", we mock you in a singsong voice. Don't worry, we'll get to that later.
3. Sterilize Yourself: You know what's expensive? Spending years trying to not have children, and then having them. A one time gettin-yrself-fixed procedure will free you from the burden of birth control. You won't have to worry about providing for another person in the future, thus saving $40 million for their likely college costs. Helping to free the earth from the scourge of more humanity is also a bold environmental statement. If you want to nurture something, start using your Tamagotchi unironically. It won't call you a bitch who doesn't understand before slamming the door and playing Avril Lavigne really loud.
4. Flask It: Drinks at bars and concerts are expensive. Next time your "friends" want to drop $40+, just order soft drinks and slip off somewhere private.
   
5. Let Yourself Go: Now that you are eating junk food all day, you should cancel your gym membership too and start packing on the pounds. Contrary to popular opinion, obese people have less health care costs than skinny people because they die sooner. By striving for every risk factor in the book, the odds of every artery in your body exploding violently at age 65 are really high. In the meantime, you will save by reclaiming your retirement savings with the confidence in knowing that you will expire the very moment your value to the American economy goes away. This may hurt your sex life, but your blood pressure will be too high to get it up anyway.
   

4 "Money-Saving" Tips That Could Very Well Backfire

In these dire economic times, in which we don't read Cormac McCarthy's The Road because we are already living in a post-apocalyptic nightmarescape of depravation, lists of so-called "money-saving" tips (MST) are thrown at us like crescents of fire from a certain Mega Man boss. (We won't make you guess which one, it is Fire Man)

Here are 4 of those tips that could very well backfire and leave you in an even deeper roadside ditch of poverty:

1. Make your own coffee: No list of MST is complete without this one. After all, if you get one of those crazy $5.19 lattes every day you go to work, that is like $1200 a year!! With that kind of money, you could buy one of those flat-screen HDTV that are becoming a default purchase nowadays. So, the obvious alternative is to make your own coffee at home and at work. But for some of us, and we're not naming names yet looking straight into the mirror, doing this just increases coffee consumption. Around NYC, stand coffee costs like $1.50. Downgrading your elitist tastes and controlling your coffee intake to when it is actually needed is the real way to save money here.
2. Do Everything Yourself: To really bump of the volume of tips, MST lists will have numerous entries of "Make/Do _______ Yourself". Besides the lower sticker price, presumptive health benefits from the exercise you will get by doing every goddamned task yourself are also inserted as fact. But, these tips often neglect capital costs and the arduous time spent perfecting a new trade. Here at Das Bloggy Blog HQ, we make our own beer(decent), laundry detergent(meh), and crystal meth(smelly, yet profitable); however much like the guy with the guitar, shaggy hair, and Converse All Stars, we aren't in it for the money. Unless you are getting some sort of innate pleasure from your Tyler Durden wet-dream, its best to leave the farming, seamstressing, and pad-thai making to the professionals.
3. Undermine Yourself: Most of us have better things to do than set traps and inconveniences to protect ourselves from a lack of willpower, such as treating your credit cards like Han Solo to make them less convenient. Seriously, if you have to resort to stuff like that, you might as well hire a trucker hatted douchebag to sit in a van and laugh at you while you fuck up your life.
4. Buy Gadgets: Let's face it, people like to buy stuff. But buying yuppie gadgets won't save you money (they actually cost money). Sure, energy efficient versions of things you already use, like CFLs, are a good idea. But you won't have many reasons to drive your fuel efficient Vespa if you are at home with your new your chromed-out espresso maker and Dance Dance Revolution machine. Most of these tips just lead to #2.
   

Discouraging Impulse Buys, One Casual Snark at a Time

We were buying a few sundry items at Marshalls, and while waiting in line noticed the array of generic iPod and Bluetooth accessories intended as Impulse Buys. We went on a mocking riff on them, just loud enough to be obnoxious. The woman in front of us sent a semi-glare back. A couple of minutes later she then discreetly discarded a car-charger from that display onto another Impulse Buy rack.

Your check-out line is pretty efficient, Marshalls, but not fast enough! We remember how you lost our credit card number a year ago, resulting in weight-loss supplements and Girls Gone Wild videos being shipped to our door. We will continue to guilt-trip your patrons in the check-out line until we get over it*!


*Das Bloggy Blog, a family company, reserves all rights, both explicit and implied, to hold a grudge until we are on our deathbed, at which point a dying request will be made to meet with the current Marshalls/TJMaxx CEO. At such meeting, a tender reconciliation will take place in which we acknowledge past mistakes and hope to move on because we really loved them all along, and -cough, cough- [eyes glaze over and body remains still. CEO shouts to heavens. End Scene.]

Republicans Call For Discontinuation of JFK Eternal Flame

WASHINGTON -- Republicans, putting pressure on the Democrat-led Congress and presumptive Democratic Presidential nominee Barack Obama, called for discontinuation of the John F. Kennedy eternal flame in Arlington National Cemetery.

"For many Americans, there is no more pressing concern than the price of gasoline," President George Bush said. "There is a place in our country that offers untapped energy resources. A place where oil is so prevalent that fumes constantly emanate from the ground before igniting. We must extinguish those flames and remove drilling bans there to ease the unfair pressures that hurt American citizens every day."

"The earth in this place is salty and flowers placed there disappear in a matter of days. I drink your milkshake", Bush emphasized.

"Over the next five months, House Republicans will fight every single day to hold Democrats accountable for their dismal record on producing more energy in our country," House Minority Leader John Boehner (R-OH) told reporters. "So many average Americans have been completely devastated every time they fill their gas tank, and this must end."

Democrats however, claim that energy advantages gained from extinguishing the eternal flame will be small, and any effect on gasoline prices will be years away. "It is possible that a current U.S. Senator will have his own eternal flame in the near future", rebutted Hillary Clinton. "We cannot shut off our country's traditional eternal flames simply to gain fleeting political victories that offer no benefits to middle-class Americans, who are hurt so, so dearly every time they go to the pump and are forced at gunpoint to purchase more gasoline."

President Bush then described the National Ronald W. Reagan memorial, which he claimed was a clear alternative to obsolete, flame-based memorials. "The Ronald Reagan memorial offers a breeze of cool air to all Americans walking by, especially those that are being exploited by the price of gasoline." Bush said, "It is symbolic of his message of liberty the world felt while he was President. I question the logic of continuing to honor a man who is represented by the needless burning of fossil fuels."

The Ronald W. Reagan memorial, enacted upon his death in 2004, consists of a 1974 Cadillac Eldorado with the AC blasting and the windows down, and has been idling on Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington D.C. for its entire existence. In summer months the convertible roof is often rolled down while Sports, by Huey Lewis and the News, is played on the tape deck at a reasonable volume.

Obama, while supporting the eternal flame, offered sympathy to Americans feeling the double-pronged pinch of an economic downturn and rising gas prices, "Too many Americans that I meet every day have been bludgeoned and left for dead by the current administration, their bodies wedged behind a Taco Bell dumpster, because of rising gas prices and the poor state of the economy."

This provoked a harsh reaction from presumptive Republican Presidential nominee John McCain. "I think I speak for all decent, hardworking Americans when I say that I am offended by Barack Obama's statement against easing the suicide-inducing pain we experience every time we hit bingo fuel", he bellowed. "At 4 dollars a gallon, it is like combining the worst things I saw in American History X and making every citizen suffer them."

We've wanted to use this photo for awhile

Besides kinda looking like Ray Romano, Bobby Jindal (R-Gov. LA) just very well might be your next Vice President. But in the complex VP vetting process, in which the VP vetters are vetted by the VP vetter vetters (namely, the press), being batshit-crazy might be a problem. Even if he does very well on the daunting "drink beer and talk" event of McCain's new hit reality show, The Running Mate on ABC.

Lets flash back to the summer of 1991, when punk had broke and Jindal had just graduated with a degree in biology from Brown. He became a Rhodes Scholar and got accepted into Yale Law and Harvard Med. While others were wearing flannel and smoking dope, Jindal was presumably getting straight A's and performing vigilante exorcisms with friends:

It appeared as if we were observing a tremendous battle between the Susan we knew and loved and some strange evil force. But the momentum had shifted and we now sensed that victory was at hand.

While Alice and Louise held Susan, her sister continued holding the Bible to her face. Almost taunting the evil spirit that had almost beaten us minutes before, the students dared Susan to read biblical passages. She choked on certain passages and could not finish the sentence "Jesus is Lord." Over and over, she repeated "Jesus is L..L..LL," often ending in profanities. In between her futile attempts, Susan pleaded with us to continue trying and often smiled between the grimaces that accompanied her readings of Scripture. Just as suddenly as she went into the trance, Susan suddenly reappeared and claimed "Jesus is Lord."

With an almost comical smile, Susan then looked up as if awakening from a deep sleep and asked, "Has something happened?" She did not remember any of the past few hours and was startled to find her friends breaking out in cheers and laughter, overwhelmed by sudden joy and relief.

It seems 360 degree head spins and projectile vomiting are just typical Hollywood exaggerations of REAL exorcisms. Plus, this treatment got rid of her skin cancer! So, the next time you are rejected from Ivy League med/law schools, don't feel too bad. When's the last time you got the devil out of someone?

Blogging till the Breaka Breaka Dawn

As we awoke in a pool of our own heat wave induced sweat at 4AM, we were left to ponder the conclusion of the Democratic nomination 'battle royale'. Then we rose up and punched the wall Raging Bull style in anger that we were not asked to write one of the gazillion Op-Eds on the subject. With bloodied knuckles, we promise to keep it short.

We were pretty neutral on the candidates when they began the race a'yonder. Really, any warm body in a blue Hazmat suit that wanted to clean up this mess would have been fine with us. Hillanevitability aside, Barack Obama was against the war in Iraq before it was cool.(+1) He spent his first night in NYC in an alley we walk by every day, when the neighborhood, it was not so safe. He plays pickup basketball, and comes off as a real human being. For awhile there, he even held out against the lapel pin mafia. So, we were sold.

The more states Hillary lost the worse her behavior became. A couple with a reputation of doing/saying whatever it takes to win, the Clintons started doing/saying whatever it took to win (Maureen Dowd called, and she wants her shtick back --Ed.) By the end of the race, she was touting a tardtastic gas tax abatement and watching the first two seasons of 24 on loop.

Hillary's campaign picked up in a string of Appalachian states. She changed her slogan from the unsuccessful "More experienced than Obama, yet less than McCain" to the focus-group approved "Hey, I'm white!". She did really good in those states, where 20% of white voters routinely claimed race as a factor. She did even better with those voters.

But what about the many voters for whom race was a factor, but would not admit to a pollster/themselves of that fact? Well, we called our grandparents(s) today and brought up the presidential race. Our grandmother(s) likes Hillary and said "Now it's not because he's black, but..." before launching into a David Dukish endgame scenario. Eesh. You have your work cut out for you Barack, güten glück!

Keep Austin Weird BBQ Tofu Sandwiches

While the title should be spoken ironically, the dish should definitely be eaten genuinely. Self-styled 12 year veterans of the State of Texas, Bloggy Blog knows a thing or two about an average day there, we tell you what:

1. Awake to the sounds of someone breaking in; shoot them dead; life-goal now achieved
2. Remember Alamo; forget everything else and stumble around in an amnesiac state
3. Drive around endless sprawl in F-150; count pattern of repeating franchised eateries
4. Lower taxes; work for a living and able to take care of everything oneself, thank you very much
   

Despite what the average day of a Texan might seem, the average day of an Austinite is actually quite different. It is much more weird, quirky, and offbeat, and involves a lot of shopping at Whole Foods. As such, its residents might actually eat this in their native environment.

You should start by prepping the tofu (you will need one package):

1. Open package and drain as much as possible
2. Wrap tofu brick in 4+ paper towels, place between two plates, with a weight on top
3. After about 3o mins of drawing out excess water, discard paper towels and slice lengthwise into 4 pieces
4. Put into freezer until sides are frozen but slice is not all Walt Disney and stuff(30-45 mins)

Cover the bottom of a pan generously with olive oil and heat it up. The tofu slices go directly from the freezer into the hot oil. Put a lid on that puppy before you start looking like Daniel Plainview, and cook 10-15 mins on each side, until they are as crispy as a hitchhiker in Midland. Then throw a whole mess of diced onions and green peppers on top of them there tofu slices. Slather that in your favorite BBQ sauce (and maybe some hot sauce too) and it should look something like this:
You can cook that down a bit until the sauce starts getting sticky on the edges of the pan. The tofu will be sucking in some of that flavor as well. Cut open 4 small whole wheat buns, and put a slice of tofu in each one, as well as a "Texas-sized" dollop of sauce n' onions. Top with a slice of homemade fridge pickle, and well as fresh-chopped scallions, cilantro, and/or dill.

Coleslaw could work with this sandwich too, we reckon. Crack open a Shiner Bock and get right to it! Come to think of it, the end product is something like a bizzaro-world version of one of our obsessions, Banh Mi.

Being Fed Peeled Grapes at the Rent-Controlled Castle

From today's NYTimes , a story of elderly, long-time tenants being harassed by an evil, corporationy corporation:

Stuyvesant Town and Peter Cooper Village are home to roughly 20,000 New Yorkers. There were 8,037 rent-stabilized apartments when Tishman Speyer bought the property in 2006, and now there are 7,297, a loss of 740, according to the company. All of those 740 rent-regulated units became market-rate apartments, increasing the market-rate total to 3,935.

Essentially, evil corporationy landlords harass tenants and neglect needed repairs in rent controlled apartments because there is a strong financial incentive to do so. While this happens in buildings large and small, the above case is notable because of the size and location of the property(big, and awesome). Some of the investigation techniques used by the evil corporation are downright lazy and Googlicious:

In 2007, Tishman Speyer accused Dolores J. Shapiro, 62, an anthropologist and retired professor of nursing, of actually living in Naperville, Ill. Ms. Shapiro says she has never been to Naperville. She hired a lawyer, James B. Fishman, who discovered in an Internet search that a woman with the same name but a different middle initial — Dolores M. Shapiro — appeared to reside at the Naperville address.

This is generally distressing, but don't feel too bad for them yet:

Edward Stanley, 53, a retired police detective and Stuyvesant Town resident for three decades, said he and his wife each sat through a two-hour deposition after Tishman Speyer accused the couple of living in the summer house they own on Long Island. “They asked my wife if she kept a toothbrush in the apartment in Manhattan,” said Mr. Stanley, referring to the lawyers representing Tishman Speyer. “You’re being forced into a position where you have to justify your existence to these people.”

His legal fees have exceeded $5,000.

A number of accused tenants are people in their 60s and 70s who say the ordeal of proving their occupancy is highly stressful. Tishman Speyer claims that Gladys Serringer’s Stuyvesant Town apartment — where she moved in 1991, keeps framed family portraits in the living room and pays $1,300 monthly rent — is not her primary residence.

“If I don’t live here year-round, why would I have my heirlooms here?” asked Ms. Serringer, a retired United Nations employee who is disputing allegations that she lives in property she owns in Florida and Maryland.

It's good to know their property is being well-utilized as below-market heirloom storage. Strangely, the article didn't delve into whether or not their yacht records could prove primary residency. And the stress of your wife being asked where she keeps her toothbrush must be simply overwhelming for a retired police detective.

In this case, Bloggy Blog is going to don a bright-orange Neocon jumpsuit and call the artificial economic construct of rent-control a bunch of baloney. Responding to inadequate housing supply by further restricting it -- for the benefit of a chosen few, doesn't make a whole lot of sense. This strategy worked out pretty well for DeBeers, but obviously disadvantages those who have to scrap for market-rate rent or spend long hours commuting. The real estate version of a non-equilibrium state assures the development of tenant fraud and landlord-hijinks.

In the end, the article's inadvertent characterization of these golden beneficiaries is one of well-off retirees with a victim/entitlement mentality. Curbed seems to buy into the plight of the idle rich, but many of the commenters weren't so easily led. The next time NYTimes wants it's readers to feel sorry for someone, they might want to spend some time finding some people worth feeling sorry for (they can start with the huddled masses of exposed bloggers).

The Best Movie You Didn't Like When You Were 13

With apologies to the timely war-satires of Team America and Dr. Strangelove, as well as the knee-slapping hilarity of American Psycho and Dancer in the Dark, the #1 USA god bless comedy over round these Bloggy Blog hills is "The Cable Guy". Like many in Bloggy Blog's demographic, we rushed to the theatres in 1996 to see Jim Carrey's newest laugh-fest only to be sorely disappointed. He didn't talk with his butt. And that obscene gesture he made to Matthew Broderick went right over our sheltered heads like a short pass from Aaron Brooks. It wasn't until years later that we revisited this film, and were able to grasp the masterful confluence of writing, directing, and performing.

Ostensibly, the film was a satire on the mass media obsession of the American 90's, and to a large extent this goal is achieved. But the real strength of the film lies in the absurdity of low-stakes competition. All of the movie's best scenes examine this motif, for example: pickup basketball, Medieval Times, and porno password. The unequal enthusiasm between participants brings to mind the last time we played shuffleboard at Plug Uglies and were permanently scarred by the trash-talking scamps who dominated the table.

With all these people taking shit too seriously, it's enough to make you want to slack off like good ol' Generation X. In fact, there are too many mid-90s time capsules to comprehensively list: Ben Stiller's pitch-perfect OJ/Menendez parody, ironic 'information superhighway' references, and a soundtrack with the likes of grunge deitrus Silverchair and Filter. Additionally, Janeane Garafalo and Jim Carrey were in this movie.

But as a whole, much of the film's cast and crew had their best work ahead of them. Crazy fame awaited Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson, the guys in Tenacious D would later become appreciated in some circles, and Mr. Show had just started. Current-day "It" boy Judd Apatow executive produced and was forcibly restrained during the entire filming, thus preventing him from turning the second half into a sappy chick-flick like all of his current movies. Even Andy Dick went on to hook up with Trishelle and have a misunderstood MTV show.

If anybody at Bloggy Blog ever took a psychology class we might be able to use some big words and delve into a deep analysis of character motivation. Jim Carrey's social interactions are poisoned by his cathode ray rearing, and he is unable to create the reciprocal friendships he so dearly craves. The success of the movie itself was poisoned by casting Carrey as the lead in an adult-slanting highbrow comedy: the children didn't get it, and the 20s/30s target demographic couldn't take him seriously. But nobody else could have inhabited this character and made him so alternately endearing and repulsive, pitiful and detestable. With each viewing we find something new to laugh at, and the anticipation of old gags only grows.

It's like that time nobody ever read this blog post

Christine C. Quinn is the second most powerful person in NYC city government, and has some pretty good environmental policy stands. These include electronic recycling programs, using better fuel in city ferries, and stormwater management. In fact, her environmental policy stands are so good that she was sending us snail mail about them every couple of months. On single-side printed, non-recycled paper. In fact, its that fancy, watermarked, 25% cotton paper that you buy to print a thesis on. You would think that if you were going to communicate your environmentally-conscious policy stands to your constituents, you wouldn't print them recklessly on tree pulp and ship them via diesel trucks. Email and CIA brain-chip-transmissions are methods with a much smaller carbon footprint.

• It's like that time Hillary Clinton worked for the Barry Goldwater campaign and was on Wal-Mart's board of directors, and is now some kind of everyman, China-bashing populist.
  
• It's like that time Al Gore jet-setted around the world to give a powerpoint presentation about how humanity's jet-setting lifestyle is contributing to global warming.
• It's like that time Bill Clinton lied about getting blowjobs in the Oval Office and invited That Guy Who Hates America to the White House.

Well, actually it's not nearly as hypocritical as those things. But when we emailed Speaker Quinn about her diluted message, she shocked us by sending us back a detailed reply that included point by point responses. Basically, she said her office is trying to print on both sides of recycled paper. Hopefully she can follow through on this easily achievable goal. But, she did not claim to be "taking it seriously".

But the larger point is that a message to a hot-shot city politician was responded to in a way that shows the message was actually read. Kudos to that! It's a lot better than that time we wrote to Rep. Charles Rangel about supporting Catagory 5 hurricane protection in New Orleans and sending more aid in general to the region. The letter we received back from his office thanked us for agreeing with him that New York should be federally reimbursed for housing Katrina victims.

Hey, Buddy, the door is right over there...

Capital One is well known for their great commercials and shitty credit cards. They also like to buy out banks and lay off the workforce. For this Bloggy Blogster, a Capital One card was our first foray into the exciting world of temporary debt. We always paid off the balance in full on our way to choir practice. But, one time we were like a day late and got a 30$ late payment fee. The CSR lied about taking the fee off, even after browbeating us for 10 minutes about it. So we got another card from Schwab and stopped using theirs.

It seems a lot of people had the same brilliant idea, and with the economic downturn, Kapital Eins wants to limit their exposure. Sometimes they just cancel your card. For a solid financial bet like Bloggy Blog, however, they get passive aggressive:

Hey, so we were thinking about actually raising your cash advance fee and stuff, so if thats like, not cool or something, you could like call this number and cancel your account, you know if you like, wanted to. It's like automated and stuff, so you won't even have to talk to a real person.

It's OK, Kapital Eins. We can take a hint[sheds tear]. So, if you want to cancel your card as well, that number is 1-800-261-3718.

Goin' Californie Way TVP Tacos

Now, we here at the Bloggy Blog have never been to California, but we have watched a lot of movies about it. We've figured out that the average day of the average Californian goes something like this:

1. Spot Sandra Bullock reading Naked Lunch at Starbucks
2. Do a drive-by on that punk-ass bitch who owes you money
3. Get stuck in traffic while trying to go to In and Out for some animal style
4. Do yoga while eating a mango and tofu salad while sipping a valerian root/yerba mate blend

If you're flexible enough to assume the lotus position, get ready to fulfill step 4 to being a true imaginary Californian by trying this "offbeat" and "quirky" creation of ours. All quantities are pretty approximate, and feed ~4.

1 cup TVP granules
1 tbsp. olive oil
~1/3 cup diced onion
~1/3 cup diced bell pepper
chopped cilantro, to taste
corn tortillas, many
alfalfa sprouts, to taste

Broth:
1 cup water
1 tsp. vegan chicken bullion
1/2 tsp. MSG (get over it, BPA is the new boogeyman)
1 tsp. turmeric
1 tsp. tabasco sauce
1 tsp. lime juice

Combine all broth ingredients in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Add TVP granules and simmer until all broth is absorbed. Turn off heat, and stir in olive oil, onions, bell peppers, and cilantro. Put two corn tortillas per taco in toaster oven and warm. Spoon filling onto toasted tortillas and top with sprouts. Serve immediately.