Monday, July 30, 2012

Removed

Removed by request

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Chicken is as Chicken Does

Chick-Fil-A is really taking it up the ass lately.

Everything started going wrong for them when someone published a story saying that every year Chick-Fil-A gives millions of dollars to anti-gay rights organizations. It's never been a secret Chick-Fil-A is a religion oriented business, what with their being closed on Sundays. I have heard the restaurant called by the nickname "Christian Chicken," as in "Do you wanna go eat some Christian Chicken?" I went, even though I prefer my food to be more secular. Except for kosher hot dogs. Hey, I'm lactose intolerant.

But being Christian doesn't necessarily mean anti-gay. A lot of Christian people I know choose to regard the part of the bible that has been interpreted to condemn homosexuals the same way they regard the chapters that condemn getting tattoos (Leviticus 19:28) mixing two types of cloth (Leviticus 19:19) or wearing gold (1 Timothy 2:9). Not worth worrying about.

But don't tell that to the Christians in charge at Chick-Fil-A. And don't even try wearing a poly-cotton blend in that place! They will burn you at the stake. Okay maybe not. But wearing polyester doesn't make them feel all icky inside with feelings they don't understand like homosexuality does. Whatever.

Well, the publicity reached the folks that made some of the Muppet toys that Chick-Fil-A gave away to try to attract parents to the stores to buy their children chicken nuggets there instead of the fifty other chain fast food joints that have playgrounds and other good parent blackmailing mechanisms. The Muppet making people decided they didn't want to be associated with companies that give money to hate groups, and stopped providing the toys for the aforementioned blackmailing children.

All of this is fine. If Chick-Fil-A wants to give money to groups who oppose other peoples' lifestyles, whatever. Their money, they may flush it down whatever toilet they choose. I personally think that ship has sailed, and that battle is lost. Young folks could give a shit if someone is gay. Move on. Maybe go after that wearing gold thing, see how that turns out. And if the Muppet making people don't want to be a part of that mess, awesome. Good for them.

But apparently Chick-Fil-A is not as proud of their political actions as they would have you believe, because rather than admitting that the Muppet people are too ashamed of Chick-Fil-A to work with them, they claimed that there was a safety hazard in the toys, and the good people of Chick-Fil-A are doing their best to protect your children from the dangerous Muppet people's dangerous toys.

Also, Chick-Fil-A thinks you are stupid enough to believe this, and that the Internet wouldn't find out. The Internet is a hive-mind. It knows EVERYTHING. This caused a stir, Chick-Fil-A has been caught in a lie. In fact, you might say they got caught bearing false witness against their neighbors. There's something in that book they like so much about bearing false witness isn't there? It's been a long time since catechism class, but I remember that one being in the Late Night show TOP 10 list.

And when people took to Facebook, as people are wont to do, and exposed this fabrication, the fine folks at Chick-Fil-A decided to double down on the lie and create fake Facebook accounts to compound the lies and make things even worse. Because Facebook is on the Internet, and that hive-mind is still there, knowing everything.

Now that Chick-Fil-A realizes it is in the middle of a world-class fuck up of monumental proportions, it says it wants to “leave the policy debate over same-sex marriage to the government and political arena.”

Too fucking late, assholes. Are you going to get those millions of dollars back? Are you going to give the same amount to gay rights organizations? You are already contributing to the policy debate when you are giving money. You can't just back up now and say "this is none of our business."

There's a lot of places out there to get a chicken sandwich. I think I'll be going to one of the others from now on.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

The Dark Knight Rises

What happened in Aurora Colorado at the premier of The Dark Knight Rises is the precise reason I don't go see movies in the movie theater anymore.

Some fucking asshole brought a six-year old and a THREE-MONTH old to a fucking theater at a Midnight showing.

That shit is intolerable.

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

I'm A Bad Person

Yesterday at lunch a coworker expressed with dismay "It sucks that Bob and Tom are gone!" The other coworker said "Is that why they weren't on this morning? They're gone for good?"

Apparently "Bob and Tom" are morning radio DJs out of Indianapolis (I had to ask) and the radio station in Nashville that broadcast their syndicated antics changed format to gospel music only and gave their show the axe. It doesn't count as much of a loss for me because I haven't listened to radio in years and they were on a country station anyway, I'm pretty sure.

I have listened to "morning radio" in the past, especially Howard Stern when he was in DC and later when he was syndicated from New York. I listened to his replacement in DC, a guy who called himself "The Greaseman" and managed to tell the same dirty joke a hundred thousand times until he discovered a racist one which got him fired for telling it. When I got satellite radio I listened to Opie and Anthony for quite a while, when the advertising breaks weren't so brutally often as they are on broadcast radio. I also remember listening to and enjoying the "Don and Mike" show out of DC in the afternoons on occasion. I would consider myself a fan of the medium in the past, but not for quite a while.

Now I occasionally switch to radio when going from CD to AUX on my car stereo and 99 times out of 100 I will hear a commercial. The one other time I always hear the same Bad Company song every time. I have no use for broadcast radio at all anymore. I exclusively listen to books on tape and podcasts. Particularly Adam Carolla, Mark Maron, Jay Mohr and Doug Benson.

What makes me a bad person is that I smiled when I heard that this show that my coworkers obviously enjoyed was going away. Why on earth would that give me any kind of satisfaction? They obviously enjoyed the program. Something about the fact that it was gospel music that replaced them too made me nearly laugh out loud. All I know of them was second hand stories of their antics, which sounded typically "morning zoo" and usually fairly dirty. Was it the irony? Was it pure schadenfreude? Maybe the re-tellings of "Bob and Tom" stories were tedious? I have no idea. I understand why it didn't make me sad, but why did it make me happy?

Friday, July 06, 2012

Number One

Someone asked me the other day if I still blog. I quickly told him that "blog" is a noun, not a verb! One does not "blog." One posts on a blog. One who posts on a blog is known as a "blogger."

Anyway, when I stopped being a grammar douchebag, I thought about it. I don't know why I'm not blogging. I used to think I wasn't blogging as much because Twitter was filling the void of saying snarky things on the internet. But they recently blocked Twitter here at work. Yes I have access to the firewall (the CIO's account is WIDE OPEN) and I could unblock it for myself, but since any admin can go in and see who has what access, I don't need said CIO going in and asking "why the fuck does Duggle think he needs Twitter?"

So now I'm not tweeting, and i'm not posting to my blog, what am I doing?

Answer? Nothing!