Misanthropaea

Sunny Side of the Street

BBC and Daily Mail (and some American sources) are reporting today that the US economy is officially out of recession because it has apparently grown by 3.5% in the third quarter this year. Most attribute this stunning leap forwards to the restricted scope of the Cash for Clunkers programme and ‘an uptick’ in consumer spending. I’m sure that the thousands of people who continue to lose their jobs and homes will be dancing in the streets. Of course these types of prognostications are typically made by the giant public gougers on Wall Street who, like lawyers, are continuing to make vast sums of money at the sufferance of others.

Maybe that’s why I continue to get email blasts from all of my job searching to inform me that Dairy Queen and McDonald’s are hiring for shift leaders, because the fast food industry is experiencing such a sudden, unprecedented growth from the 3.5% uptick and there is suddenly more disposable income available.

Of course most economists are saying that we will be able to see the effects of this helpful deluge in spending and consumer confidence possibly as early as the second or third quarter of 2011, just in time for the holiday shopping spree before the end of the world! Yea!

And That’s The Way It Is…

For anyone born in the 1980s, the news of Walter Cronkite’s passing probably carries little weight. But for the Baby Boomers and for many of the Gen Xers (or those of us lucky few who fall on the cusp between the two) virtually every significant event of the 60s and 70s, everything that I can recall from my childhood – the assassinations of JFK, RFK, and MLK, the landing of Apollo 11 on the moon, the Viet Nam war, Woodstock, the ‘Summer of Love,’ the shootings at Kent State, the Watergate scandal, the disgrace of Richard Nixon – was all given voice by this great man.

It is no small thing to say that Walter Cronkite was the narrator of a generation… 

And The Fuck You Award For July 2009 Goes To...

American International Group.

Because 170 billion dollars just wasn't enough to bail out these fucking suits at the sufferance and outrage of the rest of the country, AIG now want Kenneth Feinberg to give them the green light for 2.4 million dollars in bonuses for their top-paid senior executives.

Is it just me?

Am I the only one who is sick to death of these greedy motherfuckers continuing to reward and stroke themselves in every possible self-congratulatory way imaginable for a job undone whilst others in the country are struggling for absolutely every little thing, as the jobless rate climbs to almost 10%, as foreclosures spread like a cancer, and we put ourselves further and further into debt to China?

FUCK YOU, AIG...

 

Mail Call

As the both of you know, I enjoy sharing with you from time to time some of the wealth of email I receive as a result of my lucrative adventures here in the blogosphere. This past week has seen something of an unprecedented flurry of activity and I really just couldn't wait to spread the joy.

Mrs Concha Reyes writes...

The Lottery Company

PO Box

200

Harrogate

HG1 2YR

www.lottery.co.uk

*********************

Dear Internet User.

E-mail or call below to claim your prize.

Your email address drew and have won the sum of EUR 1.7M (One Million Seven Hundred Thousand Euros) in cash credited to file with REFERENCE NUMBER: EUROMILLION/WIN/423242931 **89 BATCH NUMBER: EURO/1007/444/606/09; SERIAL NUMBER: 6594; Draw Date: 18/5/2009.

send your information to the Euro million agent.

Full Name....................

Tel:.........................

Age..........................

Secure Email................

Address:....................

CLAIM DEPT

BENDAN COORPORATION

4 SAINT VINCENT COURT

NEWPORT ,GWENT

NP19 OAB

MR.ANDREW SCORFIELD

TEL:+44-753-591-777

FAX:44-7006-078-490

EMAIL:bendancorp@googlemail.com, bendancorplott@googlemail.com, or euromillion@owenrich.net

Congratulations once again from all our staff.

Mrs Concha Reyes.(Secretary), Euro Milliones Board.

Date:18/5/2009

Thanks, Concha! I don't know what 'Euro Milliones' is, but now I can save my house from foreclosure and put the crumbled bits of my life back in order! Guess I won't be needing that embarrassing little cry for help over there on the right hand side of the blog any more!

In a similar - or, as some people like to say, simular - vein, Mrs Stacy Tunner writes...

THE INTERNATIONAL LOTTERY AWARENESS

PROMOTION DEPARTMENT OF

THE FORD AUTOMOBILE COMPANY.

Batch number.....................FA 07456XN

Reff number.......................YSD 5384XN

Winning number...................JHTX00056

The Board of Directors, members of staff and the International Lottery Awareness Promotion Department of the Ford Automobile Company, wishes to Congratulate you on your success as the STAR PRIZE WINNER in this year's FORD'S Automobile International Lottery Awareness Promotion (IAP) held in LONDON,UK on the celebration of annual Anniversary.

This makes you one of the proud owners of a cash prize of £200,000.00 GBP (Two Hundred Thousand Great Britian Pounds) and a Brand New Ford Car.

To claim your Prize of £200,000.00 GBP, please contact the Promo team below and  please quote the REFERENCE NUMBER and BATCH NUMBER and also the WINNING NUMBER for proper confirmation.

1. FULL NAME:

2. AGE:

3. SEX:

4. ADDRESS:

5. ZIP/POSTAL CODE:

6. STATE/PROVINCE:

7. COUNTRY:

8. PHONE:

9. OCCUPATION/POSITION:

Promo Team

Mr Micheal Shaw

FORD Promo Department

Email: fa_michealshaw@live.com

NB: Please  send your replies to the Ford Promo Department team above, assigned to handle your claims. Congratulations once more, and keep trusting Ford Automobile for top quality automobiles.

Regards,

Mrs Stacy Tunner, Lottery Manager.

Wow, Stacy! You have no idea what a relief it is to hear this! Not only will this pile of cash help rebuild the business I lost due to what the political nimrods call an 'economic downturn' and the rest of us who have suffered the repercussions call 'a savage buttfucking,' but now I can sell my Kia and drive in style! Woo-hoo!

Also this week, Dr Sam Jerry informs me...

You're invited to:   Dear Friend,

By your host:   Sam Jerry  

Date:   Wednesday May 20, 2009

Time:   1:00 pm - 2:00 pm  (GMT +01:00)

Location:   Dear Friend, I didnot forgot your past effort and attemps to assist me, now I'm happy to inform you that i have suceeded in getting those funds transferred under the cooperation of a new partner from Japan. Now Contact my secaetary ask him for $1.2m usd for your compensation; his name Mr joe frnak E-mail:(odu_paul2009@yahoo.fr) 1,Your Full Name..........

2,Delivery address........

3,Phone number...........

Regards, Dr Sam Jerry sam.jerry28@yahoo.com

REMAIN BLESS  

Will you attend?   RSVP to this invitation

Copyright © 2009  Yahoo! Inc. All Rights Reserved | Terms of Service | Privacy Policy

And just when you think you can't handle having someone shove another $1.2 million dollars at you for doing virtually nothing - like Paris Hilton does - along comes Dr George Yeboah...!

Dear Sir/Madam,

I do hope this letter will not come to you as a surprise; it was borne out of my desire to share a business relation ship with you. My name is Dr.George Yeboah, a Ghana national married with a wife and two children. I work as an Administrative Manager with STANDARD SECURITY AND SERVICES LTD. in Accra-Ghana.

I got the information concerning you from where I was searching for a reliable person. I decided to contact you believing that by the grace of God, you will accept to be my partner in this business. I joined the services of this company in 1991 as Office assistance to this very level of Administrative Manager. I have been working with this company Within this period, I have watched with meticulous precision how African Heads of States government functionaries have been using STANDARD SECURITIES to move huge sums of money USD, Pound sterling,French France (Cash) to their foreign partners. They bring in these consignments of money cash and secretly declare the contents as jewelries, gold, diamond precious stones, family treasure, documents etc. Mobutu Sese Seko of Zair, Foday Sankoh of Siera Leone. etc. All these people have hundreds of consignments deposited with STANDARD SECURITIES.

Their foreign partners, friends and relatives, are claiming most of these consignments. A lot of them are lying here unclaimed for as much as 15 yrs. No body may ever come for them because in most cases, the documents of deposit are never available to any body except the depositors most of them dead. Since the inception of the 2000 millennium, STANDARD SECURITIES MANAGEMENT changed the procedure of claims of consignments. As soon as you are able to produce all the secret information as contained in the secret file of any consignment, it will be released to you upon demand.  This is why I am soliciting for your co-operation and assistance since these consignments were deposited with several names and codes. 35 have been claimed in the past six months. I have finished every arrangement for you to come and claim consignment NO.988 containing (40 Million US Dollars). I will supply you with all the information and documents. You will then deal directly with the management which I am the head.

The procedure is simple:You will apply officially to the Director of Operations of STANDARD SECURITIES for the release of consignment No. 988. They will demand for some documents and secret codes. which I will supply you with every detailed information as soon as you confirm the reception of this proposal.

In your reply, include your private telephone number so that I can call you for further explanation and directives on the procedure.

God Bless You.

Sincerely Yours,

Dr. George Yeboah

I am truly stunned and humbled by the outpouring of love and assistance I have found in my time of need. Thanks to everyone.

It truly is a wonderful life!

It Can't Really Be *IT* Without the S and H

One of the disadvantages of working in the liquor business is having people ask us over and over again for a product we don't have, and then having to listen to them go on and on about it as though somehow the very act of endlessly expounding its miraculous virtues will, by magick, call it in to being from the very aether; or just eventually make you break down and tell them that, yes, sorry, we were merely having you on; we've actually had it all along and were just deliberately hiding it from you so we could hear you drone on about it like a whiny little bitch so we'd have something to laugh about later.

And one such product is Fat Tire from the New Belgium brewery.

For weeks now we've been badgered about this beer, explaining to enquiring minds that, no, we haven't quite got it yet but, just as soon as the distribution schedule is worked out, we will have it in stock. And, yes, I'm absolutely sure it's not just in the cooler and that I forgot; and, no, I'm not going to toddle off for a look - because I'm not going to look for something that doesn't exist. But of course feel free to second-guess me, though, and pore over the cooler doors yourself until it occurs to you that I might, indeed, just happen to know what I'm talking about.

So when one of our beer deliveries arrived on Friday and we did, in fact, finally receive our long-awaited shipment of New Belgium products (they have three) I dutifully arranged them on a shelf upon which I had previously made space, put up a 'starburst' sign with the appropriate sales information and repeated this action, as per the distribution guidelines, in the cooler, at eye- or chest-level, arranged with like microbrews, 'on the handle' (meaning you open the door and they are right at your quivering fingertips without any straining or reaching.

Within two hours the news had spread like wildfire: people were running in, breathlessly, nearly weeping, to buy Fat Tire by the arm load.

I was reminded of the wave of absurd fascination with Corona - the cool beer, the must-have beer, the beer to be seen with, the it beer of the 80s - when every person who wanted to be the coolest person ever drank it, holding it in exactly the right position so that all eyes could clearly read the label without having to crane their necks:

'It says "Cerveza" on it, man. That's so totally cool. And see, you put a lime in it. That makes me, like, the most important and coolest person ever. I am, like, totally awesome. Does your pussy little beer have a lime in it? Uhm, not.'

'Yeah whatever, Mr Trump. 'Cerveza' means 'beer.' And has done since our ancestors spoke the Indo-European language over seventeen thousand years ago. You're drinking a fucking beer.'

But I digress...

By the end of the night I had very nearly had all I could stand of listening to people rave about Fat Tire as if it were the most spectacular invention since the wheel; having them doing happy-dances and squealing with the same sort of freakish adrenaline-fuelled delight usually exhibited by wild-eyed holiday shoppers after they have savagely beaten an opponent to the ground in effort to get the last Tickle Me Elmo.

So I bought one.

The Fat Tire, not the Tickle Me Elmo.

I felt compelled to determine if all the cloying collateral hype was warranted. And you know what? It absolutely isn't. Though I do not typically offer product assessments, allow me to burst a couple of bubbles: First, this is made in Colorado - not Belgium (as almost everyone appears to stupidly believe); second, because the FDA would not knowingly allow addictive chemical additives to be introduced into the brewing process - at least not without them being printed on the label - and short of being made of Soylent Green, which would also require the proper labelling, the only thing this beer could possibly have going for it is a new, revolutionary, earth-shattering taste unlike any other beer - or cerveza - before or since. Problem is, it tastes like Stroh's. And not real Stroh's - not the original old school Stroh's - but the Red Dog-like pale impression of Stroh's being passed off today as a premium beer.

Once Fat Tire is warmed to about 60 degrees, there are hints of fruit in the nose and some sweet caramel malts lying under some fairly astringent hops, but that's about it. The finish is short and dry and the body is thin. And it tastes like Stroh's. All in all, less than intriguing. And certainly not worth the $3.99 price tag for a 22-ounce bottle. Frankly, if you want a Belgian-style ale with some real meat to it, grab a Maudite Red Ale from Unibroue, because it seems to me that's what Fat Tire was aspiring to be.

Of course it's the cool beer, the must-have beer, the beer to be seen with, the it beer of the moment. But like Killians, Zima, or Corona, it will eventually have burnt itself out and the fickle attention of the public will soon turn to the newest useless craze. But kudos to the folks at New Belgium for tenaciously grasping what the French have known for years: That you can bottle tap water, give it a pretentious name (Evian, which, as you well know, is 'naive' spelt in reverse ) and  Americans will kill each other to get it, because we will buy anything if we think it means we will look like the coolest people ever.

(Oh, and a note to Corona drinkers... I have nothing against Corona. It's a nice little mostly harmless Mexican beer. But will it lift a burning car off a trapped child? Will you be able to soar through the sky to a sweeping John Williams score? Will throngs of vapid followers fall slavishly at your feet to adore you as you press the lime-rimmed bottle-top to your pursed and anxious lips? No. It's a beer. Figure it out.)

Susan Boyle Rocks

For people who get shit on, laughed at and slighted their entire lives for not being thin enough or glamorous enough or in any way good enough in the eyes of the rest of the planet, this video should be required viewing. Actually it should also be required viewing for those people who think it's okay to crush the hopes and dreams of others... 

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...

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...

Transition of Power

Letter found on desk of incoming President Barack Obama:

The Joyous Spirit of Christmas Involuntary Manslaughter

Jdimytai Damour died for your sins.

He didn't intend to, of course.

He probably just needed some extra cash for the holidays, like everyone else, and snatched up the offer of a shit-paying temp job at Wal-Mart to make ends meet.

Little did he realise that after a Last Supper on Thanksgiving Day he would greet a throng of over 2000 frenzied shoppers who would, in the last desperate seconds before the posted 5 a.m. store opening, shatter the front doors and crush him to death in their mindless bovine-like stampede for the best Low Price Guarantee.

The full story can be read here and here.

My reaction to this story-- which I caught a glimpse of on the front page of a local newspaper as I was walking into work on Saturday --was, and still is, a sense of absolute outrage. 

People who know me often seem dismayed if not shocked, even angered sometimes, by my apparent loathing for the holiday season; often times they laugh and call me Scrooge, as if I'm somehow just pretending only to get a rise out of them. The fact is, I fucking despise the christmas holiday and the crass commercialisation which surrounds it and I think the entire phenomena of Black Friday should be boycotted.

Of course I have to hear the whinging bullshit platitudes like 'Don't let the actions of a few people ruin the season for you,' but the reality is, it isn't just a few people.

And to those people who proffer these obtuse and ill-informed remarks, I say go to work in retail for even just one holiday season-- go take a job as a cashier at Wal-Mart (if you can survive that long) --and then tell me people aren't mean and cruel and thoughtlessly self-centred fucks who treat everyone as though they were so much rubbish; tell me they aren't reprehensible creatures who throw their money at you and angrily insist that you, you slow-poke ass-dragging motherfucker, are wasting their incredibly valuable time as you try to make change for them or print off their credit card receipt; tell me they don't act as though you are an insignificant encumbrance in the transaction process; tell me they don't treat you like a needless impediment to their ultra-important cell phone conversation; tell me they don't sneer down at you in sheer contempt because you happen to wear a name-tag or a paper hat or an apron or a uniform and clearly aren't worthy of respect in any way because you are obviously less-than-human in your role of meagre subservience to their every whim; tell me they don't treat everyone as if they were complete shit only to get a good price on some stupid piece of shit toy or that they wouldn't bat an eye at killing you for a fucking iPod or X-Box so that they can go home and feel good about themselves for their proud achievement and look like gods in the eyes of their loving family.

These are the same douchenozzle 'Sunday-Only Christians' who go to church once a week and impatiently ask forgiveness for all the shitty things they've done and said to others so they can start the next week out fresh-- Tabula Rasa --and then screech out of the parking lot to get home in time for a beer before the kick-off; the same duplicitous filth who put up Nativity scenes in their front yards and then threaten to kill the niggers and beaners and towelheads who might challenge their god-given Constitutional Right to have a plastic lighted baby Jesus.

These people make me sick.

And the most telling detail of this story is one of the final quotes:

"When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, 'I've been on line since Friday morning!'" Cribbs said. "They kept shopping."

You fucking KILLED SOMEONE and all you can care about is that you've been standing in line like some fucking idiot with 2000 other fucking idiots who thought it would be a cool idea to rush the store because they just couldn't stand waiting one fucking second more.

Man, that's class. That's compassion. That's The Reason For the Season...