Just Say No

I'm not necessarily against scams. The thing about most scams is that it's fairly obvious they're scams. It's a wonder (to me, anyway) that they ever work in the first place. Therefore, as a proponent of "A fool and his money are soon parted", I have a hard time being overly sympathetic toward people who get taken to the cleaners by people who aren't even cleaners. You need to pay attention. If it's too good be true, it probably freaking is! Thus, don't do it! And I know that some softhead out there is going to be thinking "What about the elderly?" The elderly need to pay attention to! I understand that they're all nice and want to help and always have those weird peppermint candies in their purse that they're always trying to give away, but that's no reason to try to take advantage of them. They need to THINK. (And this is coming from someone (me) with an elderly mother. Lemme tell you, that old broad isn't going to help anyone with anything. And that could not make me happier. I don't know if it's because she doesn't want to get scammed or just because she's mean, but I really don't care. It's an effective strategy against evil-doers.)

But not everyone has any sort of built in B.S. beacon in their head. Let's look at a story from the Orlando Sentinel. Yes, it should come as no surprise that this goes on in Florida, but it can (and does) happen anywhere. Here's the scam: Someone who is over 60 years old and Hispanic is approached by two Spanish speaking people. The two people tell the person that they are in possession of a winning lottery ticket. How exciting! To make it even more exciting, it is, of course, a multi-million dollar lottery ticket! Oh, but then comes the sad news. The sad news is that the lucky couple are in this country illegally. See? Sad! But the person (about to be known as "The one with no more money") can help make this situation not so sad by cashing the ticket for the Spanish speaking foreigners.

Now, to me, I can see that situation occurring. The part about where a couple of illegals buy a lottery ticket and win the friggin' thing. I can also see them needing someone else to cash the ticket for them. Both of those things make perfect sense to me. Everything else, however, does not. They don't have any friends who are legal? What about the nice lady at the welfare office who I'm sure helps them get benefits? She couldn't do it? (These are rhetorical questions because, as you know, the whole situation is fake. Please don't email me with answers to these questions. I understand. You, on the other hand, clearly do not. I'm surprised you even read this blog. Grateful, but surprised.) The other thing that doesn't make any sense to me is why they need money first. The part that doesn't make a lick of sense to me at all is why anyone would give it to them first.

Yes, for some reason, this scam involves the person withdrawing a ton of money from their bank account and then giving it to the scammers. In turn, the scammers give the person the lottery ticket and then take them to a grocery store where they can turn it in. It's when the person is inside and finding out that the ticket is worthless that the scammers have drove away, likely never to be seen again, and taken all of the scamees money with them. In the most recent case, it was $14,500. What a bunch of a-holes.

Does the person deserve to lose that money? Well, I'm not trying to be a royal jackass here, but they kind of do! It's a pretty easy nut to crack in this instance. What say you check what the winning numbers are BEFORE you go taking every dime you have out of savings? Is that so far out of someone's realm of problem solving skills that it would have never occurred to them? And if so, WHY is that?! Why would you not question why they need YOUR money first? Apparently, it was for "collateral". I'm not giving someone ALL of my money for freaking collateral. And if you're someone who considers giving all of YOUR money to someone you've never met who isn't even in this country legally, you might deserve to lose that money. I'm just saying. Granted, I am also wondering how someone who could fall for something like this could have been able to amass that kind of money in the first place, as their dense, dense way of thinking doesn't seem like it would allow for the accumulation of riches.

And even though I've just explained my stance on the scamees, don't take that to mean that I am perfectly OK with people being scammers. I am not. Those who prey upon older people are the scum of the earth and should be treated in such a manner. People like that are not fit to breathe the air that is inhaled by humans. I despise people like that. Despise. But the only reason, the only reason that their scams can work at all is through the cooperation of those who are being scammed. If those people would just stop and think things through for a few moments, I really think that things would turn out a lot better in the end for everyone. Well, except for the scammers. But then again, that is the point!

According to the article "Many do not report the thefts out of embarrassment and fear their adult children will think they are senile". Yes, I can understand that. If my mom told me that she gave all of her money to a couple of Spanish speaking shysters, do you know what the first question I would ask her would be? Naturally, it would be "I didn't know you spoke Spanish." But after that? I would absolutely be questioning her state of mind. Why can't these people think of these things before they make these completely ill-advised moves? Why can't they just think, "If I get taken, my kids are going to be looking at homes for me. I'll be completely embarrassed AND broke. Maybe I won't give my life savings to two people I've never met who can't even follow our immigration laws. Yeah, maybe I won't do that." I don't get that. I doubt I ever will. Why are people so eager to help people that they've never met? I hardly want to help anyone. Maybe more people should adopt my surly attitude about goodwill toward men. It's not always overly pleasant, but there would be a lot less of this sort of thing happening, that's for sure.

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Whatchoo Talkin' 'Bout, Shannon?

Shannon Price, who was married to Gary Coleman, might just be one of those gifts that keeps on giving. Now, as Mark pointed out in yesterday's post, could "...we really expect a woman who would marry Gary Coleman to be within 5 ZIP codes of normal?" Point taken (and very well made)! Yeah, shocking that the woman who married Gary Coleman is a little strange (pun probably intended).

But strange is becoming a bit of an understatement these days. First, there was the rather odd 911 call that she made where she seemed to spend a great deal of the time telling the 911 operator what was wrong with her and what her problems were. Meanwhile, her husband lay bleeding on the floor downstairs, but she couldn't go down there because she finds blood to be icky (I'm paraphrasing, of course, but that's about the gist of it). And now there is the interview that she granted to TMZ.

I can only imagine that TMZ paid this dim, dim individual a substantial amount of money to do this interview. And when I say "substantial", I mean substantial in the terms of what someone who was married to Gary Coleman would think is substantial. I'm guessing $10k. Maybe $20k. Not more than $25k. It could be as low as $5,000. I have the feeling that any of those amounts would seem like a million to that chick.

Now, I wouldn't expect someone whose husband had just died to be doing an interview so soon. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't expect them to be doing an interview before the deceased is even placed into the ground. (Please see below for an extremely tasteless image as to what his personalized coffin might look like. What? Too soon?) But even if one were to give such an interview, I'd expect it to have a little bit more to do with the deceased and not the person giving the interview, you know? But that could be just me.

She uses the same voice that she did on the 911 call. That is to say, one without urgency or feeling and completely devoid of compassion. Let's take it from the top. First, she brings up unspeculated about speculation. Apparently, she seems to think that people are/were speculating that she pushed the diminutive former child star down the stairs, causing the gash on his dome and the subsequent bleeding (which she couldn't deal with), hemorrhage and finally, death.

"And...me. I mean, I've had a lot of speculation out there. I've had a lot of people out there say, "Yeah. She pushed him. This and that." You know. People are so cruel. They don't even KNOW. I was UPSTAIRS. He was DOWNSTAIRS. How am I going to push him? You know. And that affected me more than anything because...the scrutiny that people come up with. They're just heartless. Why would I want to hurt my husband? Are you kidding?"

OK, so all about her. Let's talk about her comprehension of what Mr. Coleman's condition was at the time of his hospitalization and what his condition, perhaps, could have been if she had not made the decision to discontinue the life support methods.

"You know, the doctors told us that even if they had done surgery on him that he would have died. He would have bled to death during the surgery. And they said that even if they did take a chunk out of his brain, he would not be the same. He would basically be like Muhammad Ali. He wouldn't be...you know...I mean...he would have died sooner or later anyway from that. Because...you know, the brain...because it's so traumatic."

That statement seems a little bit rambly at best. If they did surgery, he would have died. BUT if they took a "chunk" out of his brain, he's be like Muhammad Ali. Um, last I checked, Muhammad Ali was alive. AND last I checked, Muhammad Ali had Parkinson's Disease. Is she saying that if he had the "chunk" removed from his brain, that it would have given him Parkinson's? I don't think that would have happened. I don't think that's what would have happened at all.

Then there's my favorite part. The "he would have died sooner or later anyway from that". From what, cupcake? From being like Muhammad Ali? Muhammad Ali is in his sixties. He seems to be fairly aware of what's going on around him. I don't think he speaks much, but he doesn't look miserable. But all of that is beside the point, really. The point is that you don't disconnect someone from life support because they would have died eventually. Yeah, we're all going to die eventually, that really shouldn't be a basis for deciding whether or not to remove life support.

But listen, we've talked about Gary enough in this interview. I mean, he's dead, right? Let's talk more about her and what she thinks that people think about her. (The fact that she thinks that people think about her at all shows a fair amount of delusion.)

"I don't want people to be too hard on me thinking that I had to pull the plug too early. He wouldn't have made it anyways, so his heart just would have given out. And I don't want people to sit there and think...I'm a BITCH! And that I didn't care about him. But, you know, be in my situation. I mean, look what happened with Terri Schiavo. I always think of her case. ALWAYS. When it comes to this. I mean...Gary was gone. His eyes were dilated. He wasn't...you know...he was..he was just gone."

He wouldn't have made it anyways? You know, because now it's about his heart. And for cryin' out loud, be in her situation! I mean, look what happened with Terri Schiavo, for God's sakes! She thinks about that always. ALWAYS. Wait. Always? You know how often I think of Terri Schiavo? Never. Even when her case was big in the news, it still didn't get a lot of thinking time out of me. But she thinks about her ALWAYS. OK, then. Is there more? Of course there is. Let's hear about some of her fonder memories.

"And you know, he's, he's, he's done a lot for me. He bought me a car. Which...he chose to do. Which I never asked him for. I thought was awesome. I thought it was very sweet of him to do that."

Perhaps you've noticed the absence of any sort of love in this whole thing. Perhaps you've noticed how completely detached this chick is from...well, everything. But then again, he bought her a car. That was very sweet. She didn't ask him to! That's something! Hey. Wait a minute. He bought her a car? She said in the 911 call that she didn't drive because of all of the seizures and stuff. What is with this chick? Oh, yeah. That's right. She married Gary Coleman. Enough said. For now.

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Just A Little Help

So, Gary Coleman has been dead for almost a week now. (They're still planning his funeral. I'm assuming that once they find an appropriately sized shoe box to bury him in, things will start moving along.) I had thought about approaching this topic sooner, but given the slightly out of control way that he seemed to go through his day to day life, I figured that there would actually be something new to talk about if I just gave it a little time so that more details could start seeping out. Good thing I did. They've seeped.

I've always wondered about his marriage to the Amazon woman, Shannon Price. (She seems to be really tall. Then again, standing next to him, she might be only five feet tall. I suppose that my reference in this matter might be a bit skewed.) While she's about twenty years younger than him, give or take a couple of years (and feet, while you're at it), their maturity level seemed to be about even...if they were both 5. Neither one of them seemed to be the brightest bulb on the tree.

According to Ms. Price, the diminutive Mr. Coleman was prone to throwing fits when he didn't get his way. In the past, some of his fits included throwing a printer, throwing a fax machine, beating his head against a wall, and screaming in a high pitched state of rage that sounded an awful lot like what a 2-year old does when things aren't going just quite right. To say that he was short tempered would be accurate in a variety of ways (not to mention it would make for an awesome pun).

And maybe that's why, whenever I saw the two of them interviewed together (most notably on Divorce Court, where it was revealed that their brief, odd little marriage was never consummated, perhaps because Mr. Coleman did not have access to a ladder), I always found her to come across as rather detached. Don't get me wrong. I don't think that one should be buddying up to someone else who is prone to hurling large computer peripherals during fits of dissatisfaction. I'm just saying that she didn't seem like she was all that into him. That's all.

And judging from the 911 call that she made, it's really difficult to tell that she even liked the guy very much. She was rather...what's the word I want? Hmm...upset? Eh. Maybe, but that's not where I'm headed with this. Umm....panicked? Kind of, but not for reasons that one would think. Indifferent and annoyed with the whole thing after he fell down at some point and hit his head and was bleeding everywhere? Yeah! That's it! That's the term I was looking for. She seemed very inconvenienced by the whole ordeal.

The gossipy folks over yonder at TMZ have been kind enough to provide us with the audio of the 911 call that Shannon Price made from their dollhouse home in Santaquin, Utah. (Of course, they're not going to let me embed the audio here, but the wonderful, newsy folks over there at the New York Daily News will let me embed the audio, which you will find at the bottom of this post.) Now, look, I've been to Santaquin. Many a time. There isn't much there. It's fairly empty and in the middle of nowhere. I would imagine that it would take medical personnel a while to respond to an emergency call. Thus, it's going to be pertinent upon the person making the call to be a little bit more helpful than Ms. Price was!

Ms. Price calls 911 (at least she could figure that much out) and when the operator asks what the problem is, her response is, "Um....um....I just found...I had my husband go make me some food downstairs. I heard this big bang. I went downstairs. Blood everywhere. I don't know if he's okay. I'm not down there right now because I have seizures if I get stressed out. I'm gonna seize." What now?

She has seizures if she gets stressed out? Is that something new? Regardless as to the novelty of it all, she wasn't down there with him? She goes down, sees her husband on the floor and bleeding profusely, runs upstairs to get the phone and leaves him down there without much of any intent of returning to his side? How comforting for the man. He was a lucky little dude. Or not.

Now, the 911 operator seems to get that it would be important for her to go down there to be with him. If nothing else, at least to try and stop the bleeding. I mean, if the guy is unconscious, is she really not going to even try to go and help stop the bleeding?! For reals? Ma'am, you are a real piece of work, that's for sure.

She continues talking to the operator by telling her, "His head is bloody. There's blood all over the floor. I don't know what happened. I really don't know what happened. I just heard this bang and I just went down there and he's on the floor. Send someone quick because I don't even know if he's going to be alive. There's a lot of blood on the floor." The 911 operator responds with, "Is there any way that you can go down there at all?" And I'll give that woman props for saying it as calmly and as kindly as she did. I don't know that those would have been my choice of words in this situation. (Mine might have been more like, "Lady, you're going to have to toughen up and get your ass down there and help your freaking husband so that he doesn't die. I don't care if you're a little squeamish. If you have a seizure, don't worry! Medical personnel are on the way!") To which Ms. Price responded, "I don't know. I'll try. I mean...I don't know." In the immortal words of Bugs Bunny, what a maroon.

The conversation doesn't get much better than that, but it does follow a similar theme. See if you notice it in the dialogue that they shared.

911 operator: How old is your husband?...I'm going to stay on the line with you, OK

Shannon "More About Me" Price: Cool. I've just been like...I've been sick and I really don't want to be traumatized right now. (Yeah, that'd be awful. No sense in you being traumatized whilst your husband is suffering from a massive head wound downstairs. You just stay put, little lady.)

911 operator: Is he conscious?

Shannon "I Need Some Binoculars" Price: Um, no…He's was like bubbling at the mouth. I'll see. Gary! (Mind you, she's yelling down the stairs at him because she won't go down there.)

911 operator: Is he breathing?

Shannon "From The Watchtower" Price: Yeah, I can hear him moving around. Gary? Are you OK?

911 operator: Can you tell him to put pressure on the wound?

Shannon "I'm Missing The Point" Price: Well, it's on the back of his head. So I don't know if he can. (Oh, my GOD. The man is severely injured. Of course he can't put pressure on his own head. He might not even know where his head is at this point! Get your Amazon ass down there and help the man! What is wrong with you?!)

911 operator: He has to put pressure on that wound

Shannon "I'll Do This From A Distance" Price, yelling from the top of the stairs: Gary, you've gotta put pressure on your wound. No, Gary. Don't! Roxy!...(Roxy seems to be their dog. Good to know that she's making sure that the animals are all present and accounted for during this time.) He's lethargic. I can't really help him. I just need help quick. (Oh, but you CAN help him, you nitwit! You're just NOT going to! You clearly are capable of having about as much compassion as does a dining room table.) I just can't be here with the blood. I'm sorry. I just can't do it. I can't. I have my dog. Come on! Gary, what is wrong?! (You have to ask what's wrong? He's massively bleeding from his dome. He's alone in the downstairs of his house. He hears your annoying voice coming from somewhere and yelling at him. I think that there's plenty wrong.)

This sad tale continues along the same lines for a little while longer.

Shannon "But I Have Seizures" Price: There's blood going all over and I can't do anything. He's sitting up now. He's sitting up, but his head is all bloody in the back. And I can't drive. Because, you know, like I said, I have seizures and I've been sick and you know, I can't do anything right now, you know. OH, my God. I don't know what happened. I just asked him if he could go make me some food and he was like "OK" and then I don't know. But his head is all bloody and gross, you know.

911 operator (who deserves a medal or a raise or something for not screaming at that woman by now): He's conscious now?

Shannon "I State The Obvious" Price: He's conscious, but he's not, like, with it. And I don't know if he had a seizure. (No. You're the one who has seizures, sweetie. Try and keep up.) I don't know if he just hit his head and fell. Cause he was like, I mean, he wasn't in like convulsions or anything, you know what I mean? (long silence) I mean, I can't get around right now as it is, you know what I mean? (Actually, no. I don't know. But I certainly don't want you explaining it to me NOW.)

Saintly 911 operator: Shannon, can you help him put pressure on the back of his head?

Shannon "Completely Useless" Price: No. I can't. It's like all bloody. And he's like, not with it. I asked him and he's....

911 operator who is getting tired of this crap: He's going to need to put pressure on that. Is there any way that you can give him a towel?

Shannon "No Help At All" Price: Yeah. I can try...(inaudible)...I just don't want him to freaking die, you know? I'm freaking out." (You can hear her taking her time an ambling down the stairs.) Gary, don't move. Don't move! You have to try and put this on your head. (I'm assuming this is where she throws the towel at him and hopes that he's lucid enough to figure out which way is up so he can help save himself.) Put pressure on it! (Good idea. Yell at the man. That should do it.) There is like blood all fricking over....I don't even know why you're standing. (Good. That's it! Keep berating the man as he bleeds in front of you. Perfect. You should be a doctor.) Here!

This is just making me sad. Very sad. I don't know what killed the guy, but surely her pansiness and her unwillingness to help her own husband played some sort of a part in it. How much blood did he lose because she was not willing to put pressure on his wound? I realize she's seizure-ific or whatever, but it's the man's life! Here's the end of the 911 call (it follows the same vein of patheticness as the dialogue which preceded it):

911 operator: Tell him to sit down.

Shannon "I'm Getting Annoyed" Price: You need to sit down! Gary, sit down! Sit down! (Um, that woman said "tell" not "yell".)

(Seems to be yelling from far away)

(Gary says something)

Shannon "My Floor!" Price: Look at the floor! Sit down! Sit down!
911 operator who is praying the paramedics are there: Check and see if they've arrived.

Shannon "I Can't Answer The Door" Price: Tell them to come in. I'm gagging. I've got blood on myself. I can't deal. (I think I might actually have a hatred for this chick.)

This is where the 911 operator tells her to go to the front door and open it because if she's gagging, she wants her to go and open the door and get away from what is making her gag. That's all that Mr. Coleman would have needed to hear. His beloved bride, gagging at his inconvenient gash in his cranial unit which is causing her all sorts of internal discomfort. But I noticed that it seemed like not less than 3 second after the 911 operator tells her this that she is opening the door.

Shannon "This Is All About Me" Price: I just can't stand very long, you know? And I'm like, panic stricken. The call ends about 10 seconds after this last round of her whining about what her problems are. Whatever.

The entire time that she was on the phone with the 911 operator, her voice was constantly as calm as if she was just ordering a pizza. The only time when her voice was not calm was when she was screaming at her injured husband. I find this odd. I find this sad. And I find this incredibly disturbing. She spent more time telling the 911 operator about herself and what was wrong with her and what grossed her out and what might happen to her than she did talking about Gary. I don't usually (directly) call names, but she has definitely earned the title of "bitch".

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One of These Things is Not Like the Others

In continuation of my plight to bring attention to the craptastic quality of media reporting these daysI bring you this little gem which should serve to really highlight the problem and to ascertain that I'm really not making this stuff up, nor am I making too big of a deal about it.  It also can be used to highlight how many people are just absolutely oblivious to the obvious. And it's those same people who are immersing themselves within the world of news reporting and they don't have any clue as to how important that job is, nor do they care. Look, I'll show you.

Over yonder there at The Huffington Post, there's a little story about a newspaper in Pennsylvania called The Warren Times Observer. They don't seem to be very observant, as it would seem that they ran an ad in their print version of the paper which implied to support the assassination of President Barry. That's right. They ran the ad. Like a classified ad. You have to call them up or, in this case, go down to their office and tell them what you want the ad to say and they print it for you...even if you want to say that you hope that President Barry ends up like other Presidents who have been assassinated. Other US Presidents that have been assassinated. Sure! Print! 

Here's the ad as it appeared on Thursday:

And here's a close up of that same ad.

You can double click on those to make them bigger, by the way. But if you can't quite make out the text of the ad, allow me...It reads, "May Obama follow in the steps of Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley and Kennedy!" And they even included five stars above and below the message just to make sure that it catches people's attention. Now that's advertising!

Now, according to the publisher of the paper, a one John Elchert, "the newspaper's advertising staff didn't make the historical connection." Really? Look, I'm willing to cut anyone a little slack with Garfield and McKinley in there. If it had just been those two that President Barry was being compared to, I could give the moron in the classified ad department a break. I'd do it begrudgingly, but I'd do it. But come on! Lincoln?! Kennedy?! Did this person just think that the person placing the ad was hoping that President Barry would get a performance hall named after him? You know, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, Obama Center. No? I don't think so either.

I'm a bit hesitant to call the person a complete moron, but I'm close! How does one not catch on to that?! First of all, it's a bit odd, the ad itself. I mean, usually the classified are full of ads for cars, lost kitties and 'massages' given by Asian women in downtown locations. Oh, and the phone sex numbers. 1-900-DIALPORN or something like that. (Wait.  Do they still have those?  I think they do, but do those folks make any money on that sort of venture these days? They're like $1.99 a minute. Hey, I've got unlimited Internet access and that means I have unlimited access to porn...with pictures! Why in the world would anyone pay $1.99 a minute to call a 1-900 number that contains no pictures? I don't get it. But hey, if they are making money off of it, more power to 'em!)

So the ad is a bit different. Wouldn't you ask what it meant? I don't think that's out of line. I realize that I tend to ask a lot of questions, but I don't think that, if you're in the classified department and you're helping someone run this ad, it wouldn't be out of the ordinary to say, "Oh, interesting. What does that mean exactly?" You could even go under the guise of thrift by saying, "What is the message you're trying to send? Maybe we could say it with less words and get you a cheaper rate on the ad!" Whatever. But to not inquire about something like that seems like the action of one who is a tad bit brain dead.

Anyway, Mr. Elchert said that "...the newspaper turned information over to police and that the Secret Service is investigating the person who placed the ad." Well, at least someone over there was able to figure out to do that! He also ran a little note in his paper on Friday which said that "...the newspaper "apologizes for the oversight." I see. Well, what did I expect? A picture on the front page of the person who was working that day being flogged by upper management? I'm not gonna lie, that woulda been nice! But really, I guess that's about what I expected.

I know that it was only the classified department. But this is a newspaper. The folks who work for newspapers are supposed to be observant. They're supposed to have a firm grasp on current events and a fairly decent knowledge of past events that aren't so current anymore. Even things like Presidents who were assassinated 144 years ago. Especially if it is the one President to whom our newest President has been compared to a few times! (That would be Lincoln to whom I am referring. Just thought I'd mention that in case anyone is scratching their head wondering when President Barry was ever compared to James A Garfield. By the way, that would be never. He has never been compared to James A. Garfield. And I doubt he ever will be.)

Ah, the newspaper. I'm really going to miss it when it finally succumbs to the cheapness and mass distribution power of the Internet. But at least then all of the morons who are ruining news media reporting will be in one place. We're probably safer that way. Dumber, though. We'll be a lot dumber without newspapers with accurate and informed reporting. But without newspapers, we won't have to worry about one of these crazy assassination implication advertisements sneaking past some dough head who happens to be working the classified desk that day. Whew! And I thought this was going to end horribly!

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Colors - They're the New Black

Let it be known that I am officially giving my OK for the newspaper industry, in lieu of any real news and sans enough paid advertising, to leave large sections of the newspaper blank. Just don't have anything there. No picture. No print. Nothing. Just a big blank space. I'm perfectly fine with that as it is better than some of the stuff that I am convinced was just put there to take up space and make the paper look all complete and wordy and chock full o' news. I've read some of that filler. I'd rather have blank space.

Now, I'll admit to not being entirely sure why it is that I am paying someone to throw a pile of paper on my driveway that contains the news that I have already read about the day before on the Internet. You'd think I'd be paying someone to take away crap like that, but instead, I'm paying to have it brought to me. Go figure. I can't explain it. I've just always had a newspaper in the morning. I haven't always had this kind of newspaper. You know, the kind that is more paper and less news. But I've always had a newspaper, I guess that's why. Onward.

Today's waste of time and space is an article which appeared in the San Jose Mercury News (a newspaper which is declining in quality so rapidly I can barely keep up) on Friday. The article talks about the "colors" which will be popular fashion-wise and decor-wise for the year 2009. I don't know who is in charge of choosing the "colors". I also don't know how those mysterious folks go about choosing the "colors". I'd imagine it's something akin to how they name hurricanes, but I'm not positive about that. All I know is that at some point, we hear what the "color" for the upcoming year is. We are then supposed to incorporate that color into our daily lives immediately or else be seen as one of "those people" who are "so last year". Ugh. Them! (OK, "us"!)

The "colors" for 2009 are (drum roll, please...).......yellow and purple! Yellow and purple? What the hell? Actually, the "yellow" is really "mimosa yellow", which I find odd as a mimosa is orange. But that doesn't seem to matter to a one Leatrice Eiseman, as she said that yellow, "is a hue that sparks imagination and innovation." I see. Yes, I seem to remember Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers all clad head to toe in yellow, 365 days of the year. That explains a lot. Good to know! By the way, the "purple" is more of a softer shade of purple, such as a lavender or a lilac (both of which actually are purple, so I'm fine with that).

The people who are quoted for this story make statements that seem to link two separate entities to each other in a fashion that is unfathomable to me. For example, a one Debbie Zimmer, a "color and decorating expert at the Rohm & Haas Paint Quality Institute in Spring House, PA" (See? Do I need to know all of that? No, of course not. Filler. Leave the space blank, please.) says the following, "As we head toward a more difficult economy, we'll see more conservative colors - dusty purple, lavender and violet." Wait. What?

Why is it that the difficult economy will be surrounded by soft hues of purple again? It's because....oh, that's right, there is no basis for that statement. It's very similar to this statement made by a one Patricia Call, an interior designer in New York, when she said, "Historically, purple is associated with royalty. Now it's being used for everything from cooking ranges to washing machines. In a bad economy, it gives you a lift to feel royal in the kitchen or laundry." First of all, WTF? Second, historically, purple is associated with a) Donny Osmond's socks, b) Prince, and c) probably Barney. Third, I do not recall a purple cooking range (otherwise known as a "stove") or a purple washing machine down at my local Home Depot. And finally, in a bad economy, it gives me a lift to have money. I don't care where it is. The kitchen, the laundry, the garage, it's doesn't matter. Money will give me a lift, not purple.

But here's where I lost it. "Don't care for yellow or purple?" the article asks. Then it proceeds to give us some alternatives to yellow or purple, the official colors of the year 2009. Here are your choices: " 'Menswear' colors, such as gray, navy blue, brown and black....expanding the palette beyond green to embrace blues....fruited shades, such as mango, orange, apple and pumpkin....orange, red, turquoise and teal....white and a whole range of blue."

So, let me get this straight. Instead of yellow or purple, I can go with gray, dark blue, brown, black, green, blue, orange, red, turquoise, teal, and white? That's ALL the other colors!! That's not a choice! Those are just all of the colors! You can't select TWO and say those are the colors for the year and your other choices are ALL of them! What's the point?!?! So basically, you can wear whatever color you want and whatever it is, it's the color of the year! Great! That means I'll never have to read another ridiculous article about this nonsense ever again, as every color is assigned to every year from here on out!

Blank. Leave the pages blank. Please. You have permission. Anything, anything but drivel like this on my driveway in the morning. Anything.

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The Internet or Sex? Your Choice.

Once again, we have a survey in which the results are touted to reveal a heck of a lot more than they actually do. Yes. Shocking, I know. I'm sure what will (or will not) be even more shocking to you is how the data from the results was not exactly used in the most straightforward and accurate manner.

Here's the scoop: The guys over at chip maker Intel got together with Harris Interactive (they do polls and surveys) to try and show how important the Internet and computers and using computers in general are to the average American. OK, that's fine, I suppose, but it seems kind of like an odd thing to want to know. Actually, maybe it's that it kind of seems like an odd thing if you don't know or don't have some pretty decent idea of how important those things are to Americans. (Americans love computers. Americans love the Internet. Survey over. Case closed. When's lunch?) If you were wondering about those in other countries or Aborigine tribes or something like that, I could more easily justify your curiosity. I'd still think it's strange, but I doubt that you'd rate a blog post over it. But if you don't know the extent to which Americans like their Internet, well then, you're one of the few people on the planet who has never heard of a little thing we like to call porn. (Because from what I can tell, if there's something that Americans like more than the Internet, it's the porn found on the Internet.)

But here's where it just gets silly. In order to try to figure out how important something is, you need to rank it or you need to compare it to something else. The Harris Interactive folks (I'm assuming it was their doing. After all, it's what they do.) decided that the best way to gage the importance of the Internet to Americans would be to compare it to having sex. (Oh. Good Lord...)

According to the fit to print piece over there in the New York Times the Harris poll results showed that "...46 percent of women and 30 percent of men would opt to forgo sex for two weeks rather than give up access to their precious Internet for the same period." Uh-huh. Is it that all you've got for me?

Of course not. Yes, there's more! The article stated that "...those surveyed said access to the Internet ranked highest among the discretionary spending items they could not live without. Cable television, dining out, shopping for clothes and gym memberships followed in declining importance." And these folks didn't know any of that or couldn't figure it out without a survey? Gym memberships? You're going to compare my Internet usage with my gym membership usage? Um, OK. Here goes. Internet usage: All the time. Gym usage: Not a snowball's chance in hell. Er, I mean, rarely. And I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess, just guess that I wasn't the only one who answered that way.

But back to the sex part (because really, why wouldn't you want to go back to that? It's fab-ulous!). Do they not see the problem with their question and how it was posed/asked? (Obviously not, if they still went ahead and asked the damn thing, I suppose.) Now, they didn't say how old the people were in this study, only that they were "adults". Now, be honest here! How often, really do the majority of people actually have sex each week? According to the Kinsey Institute, 18-29 year olds have sex about twice a week. And they were being asked about a two week time period?

Well, of course they said that they'd rather give up the sex than the Internet for two weeks! If you go with the Kinsey Institute's findings, that's four times. Yeah, I'm going to have to agree with the folks in the survey. If I have two weeks of which to refrain from sex in order to use the Internet (what am I? Some sort of Rhesus monkey?) I can do without having sex four times! (I wouldn't think that I could, but it's been known to happen!) That's how I'd look at it. Besides, it's not like just because you're not having sex it means that you also have to be Master of your Domain. You can do that in lieu of sex. You cannot do that in lieu of the Internet (as far as I know. There have been a lot of things that have happened that way, but Internet substitution is not one of them!).

I mean, do the folks at Intel and Harris Interactive think that real people in real life are living their lives just like the porn people in Internet life? They must. Hey, Intel and Harris guys! When was the last time you ordered a pizza and the hot, young, buxom blonde who delivered it wanted to have sex with you? Hey, Intel and Harris women! When was the last time you got pulled over for speeding and Sergeant Sagittarius came up to your window with his shirt unbuttoned and his firm, hard abs were tanned and glistening with sweat under the hot summer sun? Oh, that's right. For both of those scenarios, the answer is NEVER!

The Times article even says that "Along similar lines, 61 percent of the women surveyed said they would rather go without TV for two weeks than lose access to the Internet for one week." And why would that be? For the same reason. There isn't crap on TV. So what the hell do I care if I go without it for two weeks? Ooh! And guess what?? If I miss a show that I had wanted to watch on TV, I can watch it on the Internet. That same Internet which I opted for instead of having TV! (They could have reported that maneuver as "Findings show that Internet users are a sneaky, crafty bunch, as they thwarted our survey and watched TV anyway!")

But see, those are all my interpretations of the data. And from my interpretations, one could draw the conclusion that I do not work for Intel. You can really draw that conclusion when you compare my interpretations to those of Intel, as they said that, “The survey revealed that 65 percent of adults feel they cannot live without Internet access, and even more — 71 percent — responded that it is important or very important to have Internet-enabled devices, such as laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices that can provide them with real-time updates on important issues including the state of the economy.” Wait. What?

THAT is what they got from that Harris Interactive poll? My God, why bother doing the poll at all? Why not just throw darts at a board or a donkey (not a real one. I'm thinking a paper one. Probably on that same board you were throwing the darts at.) with different phrases and numbers on it and use those results? You're going to have results that will seem rather extrapolated, but I'm failing to see how that would be any different than what Intel already does! (By the way, just an aside here: I like how they define "Internet-enabled devices" as being "laptops, netbooks and mobile Internet devices". Well, no duh, Intel. Thanks for that.)

So, yes, it's probably true that a whole lot of women would be perfectly OK with giving up sex or TV for a couple of weeks rather than giving up the Internet for those same couple of weeks. But you can't automatically chalk it up to the Internet being better than sex. (Don't get me wrong, sometimes it is. I mean, that's not my experience, but from what I've heard. I hear things.) You'd think that companies that do these polls would know that and you'd think that companies that pay for polls like this would want to know that. But apparently, neither one of those is the case. No, apparently, whatever the results are will be good enough for someone, regardless of how accurate they are. (Does Intel make their chips the same way that they interpret data? Let's hope not, shall we?)

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