Misanthropaea

Lucky 13

According to the provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 - more popularly known as the 'stimulus package' - it appears that our government leaders will be congratulating a job well done by rewarding themselves with some $300 million worth of new hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles, offering even more of a bail-out to the failing auto industry which just received several billion dollars worth of our money already.

Though I applaud the effort and the ecological desire to move away from the greenhouse gas producing combustion engine whose hunger for fossil fuels will one day deplete our planet of breathable oxygen and continue to make the Saudi's richer, I have to confess a certain amount of dismay and outrage that whilst those in Washington enjoy their shiny new thirty- to forty-thousand dollar new toys, the rest of us will be enjoying approximately $13 extra dollars in our pay.

Can someone please explain to me how this is stimulating anything but growing animosity and resentment?

Like many millions of Americans I lost my job and my small business; I have a home that is facing foreclosure and I will be filing bankruptcy. In desperation, I took a shit job (one of two offered to me after nine months on unemployment) and I am making half of what I used to make. I am months behind on everything and am struggling with unwieldy debt and legal hassles, making me suddenly 'toxic' to anyone. After 25 years of being a hard-working person who always maintained good credit and paid my bills on time, I am now just so much shit on the shoe of society because of a nine-month bad spell and a suffering economy. But no-one cares about your history - only what you are now. And 'now' I am shit.

But pretty soon I'll have thirteen whole dollars more on my pay cheque. Man! I can see the light on the horizon as I write this! 

Does anyone else see the hideous irony behind the fact that this Recovery Act was signed into law on Friday the 13th and will take effect on April 1st?

Saying 'Fuck you!' to the American people doesn't get much louder than that...

Scam I Am

A few days ago I was browsing, as one does from time to time, for updates regarding the dreaded and ever-changing Stimulus Package and I noticed on CNN's web site this little Google ad about receiving Government Grants. I realise that about 80% of these ads are bogus but, for the hell of it, I clicked on the link and was promptly whisked away to what was called Jeff's Money Blog, albeit with the strange title of...

My suspicions were immediately aroused by the fact that 'Jeff' appears to sometimes go by the name of 'Jay,' as the URL defines the site as 'Jay Got Cash,' and that he was from my own city (which I know will change depending upon your actual location). And the title of this 'blog' entry changes from time to time as well -- or at least it has in the last two days since this initial screen capture.  Strangely, Jeff's 'blog' was also almost a word-for-word copy of Jessica's Money Blog, another site I stumbled across.

The first red flag that alerted me to the scam was the cheque from the government. As someone with a bit of knowledge regarding image manipulation, the fact that the name 'Jeffrey Donahue' does not conform to the bend of the paper stood out as an obvious and amateurish mistake. That and the font is all wrong.

The second red flag is that the 'addressee' of the cheque is shown to live in Austin, Texas which, according to the poignant Tale of Jeff, is where he was born and raised but does not currently live in that he is a proud firefighter in [Your City Here]. So if, as he tells us, he is now a resident of [Your City Here], why would the cheque he recently received be sent to Austin? Does he still maintain a mailing address in Texas? For someone with so many financial woes, it seems rather unlikely.

Of course Jeff himself tells us in something of a cryptic manner that 'it wasn't always this way' meaning, one would surmise, that he wasn't always a proud firefighter and a family man.

This supposition is given weight by a Freudian slip Jeff makes whilst explaining Step 2 of his easy-to-use Two Step process...

 

What Jeff/Jay or even Jessica fail to divulge however is that the tiny $1.99 and $3.99 shipping and handling fees they claim you will incur on your road to unbelievable riches also includes a one time (and very likely non-refundable) fee of $99 and revolving fees of $49 per month if you don't call and cancel your 'membership.'

Don't ever fall for this shit. Seriously. If you want to help someone make money, click on the various ads in the Area 51 portion of this blog. It won't cost you anything but a few second of time and I get like a tenth of a cent. By the time I'm 100 I might have to claim my earnings on my taxes. But don't fall for these stupid scams. They're almost as bad as the Acai Berry Weight Loss scams masquerading as blogs...

Failed Comebacks

'Gimme that pint, uh... Jesus...'
'Pint of Jesus?'
'Huh? Naw, man, a pint of... uh... gimme a... fuck...'
'I can't do that.'
'What?'
'I don't give a fuck.'

***

'How much is your two dollar Paul¹?'
{*sigh*} '...Two dollars.  Plus tax.'
'What's tax?'
'The part I bet you don't have.'

***

'Gimme that small thing, baby.'
'Oh if I only had a dollar for every time I've heard that...'

***

'Yo, dawg, what's Budweiser²?'
'An Anheuser-Busch product.'

***

'How much I owe you?'
'One fifty-nine.'
'What you got there?'
'One sixty?'
'How much?'
'One sixty.'
'How much was the beer?'
'One forty-nine plus tax, one fifty-nine total.'
'What I give you?'
'One sixty.'
'How much more you need?'
[Pause]  'Ten cents.'
'How much for two?'
'Twice as much.'

***

'What up, dog?'
'1988, Was (Not Was).'

1. Paul Masson Grande Amber Brandy
2. Yes, I realise that this is a request for a long-winded recitation of the various prices & sizes.

And This Week's Fuck You Award Goes To...

Nadya Suleman.

Yes, that's right, the human baby factory and media darling 'Octuplet Mom.' According to this story from CNN, Suleman has set up a web site begging for your help and donations to pay for her bills. According to her publicist - yes, you read that correctly, her publicist - she only gets about $490 per month in food stamps and needs to pay off about $50,000 in student loans.

On the surface this could be a really sad story tugging at one's heartstrings and compel one to assist in these hard economic times. Unfortunately when you stop and consider that, according to her many (and one might presume paid) television appearances, she defiantly chose to have all of these children (now numbering 14) against better judgement and stands by that choice as the right one, one must ask, 'Then why are you asking me for help?'

Who pays for the publicist? Who paid for creating the web site and for hosting it? Certainly Suleman's been far too busy splashing her name across the media world to have the time and effort to devote to the arduous and time-consuming html and xml programming and web development; so where did that cash come from.

Sorry, lady. I'm not buying into the sob story. You consciously made these choices. This is what you wanted. You deal with it. It's not my place or the place of anyone else to pay for your intentional mistakes.

Perhaps I should set up a web site begging for cash to pay my $50,000 or more debt from losing my business and having to file bankruptcy; at least it wasn't a choice I made...

Mean You What Say

Can you hear that sound?

That is yet another death knell for the English language.

Thanks, CNN!