Yesterday I was thinking of grabbing a late night snack and I headed to the refrigerator. Some might head for the pantry for their brand of snack like: cookies, chips, crackers, etc… I’m usually more of a cold snacks kinda guy – cheese, lunch meat & leftovers.

When I opened the fridge door, the appliance bulb was burned out. Of course everyone who has this happen to them immediately thinks – “shit” – I don’t know how to replace this stupid bulb, I don’t know what plastic cover thing I’m going to need to unhook, I know I’ll probably break some tab that holds the thing in place trying to figure it out.

Aren’t those bulbs supposed to last forever?

So, I shut the door an reopened it – maybe the fridge just didn’t notice that I opened the door?

Nope – still burnt out.

I tried pressing and jiggling the closed door sensors – still nothing.

As I’m looking at this unlit food, I’m thinking – this is definitely not looking very appetizing. In fact it’s kind of creepy looking like a dark cave with potentially bad things hidden back there in the darkness. It occurred to me that it might be a good idea when you’re dieting to take the bulb out of you fridge to make the food look less inviting. I know I was suddenly not thinking of eating anything from in there.

I thought about going over to the pantry to see if anything looked good over there. I wasn’t in the mood for chips – but you know – I wasn’t going to reach into the dark recesses of that fridge and get my hand bitten off.

And then it hit me – “Duh… what was I thinking? What about the freezer”

See, that’s more like it. The food looks so bright and shiny. It’s all “good” and ready to be eaten.

So for now, I’ll just have to stick to a diet of frozen pizza, cream puffs, toaster strudels and Haagan Dazs Bananas Foster Ice Cream until “somebody” figures out how to fix that stupid bulb.

Why is everybody looking at me?

As I was sitting in the many rows of chairs, bored out of my mind, I glanced at the organ donor pamphlet they handed me on the way in. The picture of a super enthusiastic, smiling Jessie White is a little creepy to me. It’s a good program that saves lives, but Jessie looks a little too excited to get his claws on my lungs and liver. He needs to tone it down a little and look more somber like the funeral parlor guys.

As everyone sits down, they leave a little buffer between themselves and the next person. Some people are in groups of three. why does it take three or more people to get a driver’s license?

Being a scary looking guy – I get an entire row to myself – which is fine by me.

I’m bored with Jessie and everything else in this place in about 3 minutes. Then I start noticing the sizable number of people that I’m suspecting are 90+ years old getting licenses. There is no specific age when you aren’t able to drive. For some people, I’m sure they can drive and function into their 90s. Other people probably shouldn’t be driving in their 70s. Common sense should prevail here.

Hang on! That guy who is shuffle-walking like the Tim Conway character and can’t hear anything is going to re-new his DRIVING privileges and nobody is saying “NO” – ???

“Sir, can you please read the second line of the eye chart.” Tim Conway looks up from the eye exam machine, he stares at the DMV employee still squinting and says nothing. After about 10 seconds he looks back down into the machine. He knows somebody is talking to him but cannot figure out who and he cannot understand one word. “Sir, can you see the second line?” Again, no response… HOW is this guy able to drive?

Image courtesy Wired Magazine

The lady with the cane, who can walk about 6 feet at a time and then needs to stop to rest for a minute, is also going to continue to drive? She is so frail, that it took her more than a minutes to figure out how to hang on to something to sit down in a chair. How could she possibly brake quickly or swerve to avoid something?

All these super-seniors are accompanied by a younger person (presumably a daughter) who is supporting this process.

They can’t see, can’t hear and can barely move. How do they possibly belong behind the controls of a one ton steel projectile, moving at 30-70 miles per hour, filled with twenty gallons of flammable liquid?

I blame the family for not putting their foot down when grandma and grandpa are too “out of it” to understand that they are no longer road worthy. When they are at that point, tell them you WILL NOT help them renew their license. If they get mad and “take you out of their will” – so be it.

At least you can sleep at night knowing you have protected the kids standing at the bus stop.

When Does the Royal Wedding Video Game Come Out?
Picture courtesy VT Game Reviews

We need to find a place for the Ceremony, Reception and Rehearsal Dinner about a year in advance because everything books up that far out. They can just “have it at the house.” If I did that, it would be considered cheap, but for them, it is an “honor” to be invited to the Palace. That’s a sucky double standard. Why isn’t it an “honor” to be invited to my Palace? Maybe I should start being more exclusive with the guest list at my parties.

No matter which church they choose, for whatever date, it will become open. Imagine if you were supposed to get married and you booked the date a year in advance. Then, one day you get a call from someone who says “I’m sorry but you’ve been bumped by the future King and Queen.” Maybe you get an invite to their wedding as a “concession prize” in exchange for being bumped.

Speaking of invites, I wonder how that works…

At our family weddings, we decide to invite Auntie Betty who will give a $10 wedding gift even though it costs us over $100 for her to be there. The parents want every conceivable friend and relative to be there. The kids hardly know these relatives or have met them only once. They want to trim the list to make room for their friends.

Do you think the Queen and Prince debated over inviting guests. Maybe the Prince thinks that the Prince of Yugoslavia is cheap?

Queen (in a queenly voice): We must invite the Prince of Yugoslavia. His family has supported our family and country for centuries.

Prince (in a South Park voice): Screw him – he always makes an ass of himself. Nobody even knows Yugoslavia has a Prince and he’s so cheap – he’ll probably only give $50,000. Who would we sit him with anyway? At the last party, he picked a fight with the King of Zimbabwe. Let’s invite “Prince” from the United States and maybe Lady Gaga too.

Lastly, there is the Music and Photographer. They’ll ask Paul McCartney and he will “gladly accept the honor” and probably be paid nothing. We have to pay some bad DJ $1000 to play a Paul McCartney CD. We also have to pay a photographer for the wedding – They’ll have thousands of photographers capturing pictures and video of every move they make.

The more I think about it, I’m pretty sick and tired of the whole monarchy/royalty thing. Seems silly in this day and age – no?

“Hey babe… No time to talk… I just got back in town and I’m at LAX. I’ve gotta meet my agent and we’re gonna jump on the 405 and head up to Hollywood to pitch our new project to some studio execs. I’ll call you later – we can grab sushi in Beverly Hills. “

In general, I think us Mid-westerners tend to think of LA people as: having a very Hollywood laden jargon-y superficial language, at the gym every day, more spiritual and definitely eating healthier than we do. Actually, I didn’t see much of that stereotype but I didn’t try to gain access to the underbelly – there is certainly a hidden city you’ll never see. The chief export from the town is a weird amalgamation of culture, politics, fashion and entertainment subject to an even weirder international amalgamation of praise, scrutiny and disdain. I think people see what they want to see, especially if they’re intimidated or in awe of a place. I saw an army of people and business to support the LA export product. I found the LA people I encountered to be very pleasant and attentive to a fat guy from Chicago.

Maybe they confused me with someone famous…

However, while driving around LA and Hollywood, I started to see one really unexpected trend:

Randy’s Donuts, Winchel’s Donuts, Yum Yum Donuts, Tasty Donuts, Tang’s Donuts, Stan’s Donuts, M & M’s Donuts, Spudnut’s Donuts, Kindle’s Donuts, Michell’s Donuts, Magee’s Donuts, Granny’s Donuts, Donut King, Donut Time and so on…

In-N-Out Burger, Fatburger, Bob’s Burgers, Astro Burger, Mel’s, Pink’s, Jim’s, Dino’s, Tomboy’s, Molly’s, Cassell’s, Tommy’s, Cisco Burger and so on…

FYI – they have a Portillo’s that people drive from miles to get to.

I can’t even count, spell or lookup the names of the all the sushi places I passed, but the only type of eating establishment as prevalent as the Donut and Burger places were the sushi places.

I did NOT see that many workout places, maybe two or three tops.

Over all, I’m not so sure anything is healthier in LA. I think they eat the same crap we do – maybe more – but they do a good job of pitching the city as health conscious.

I think if they’re any thinner, it’s because they may work harder to be “in shape” to be employable in a town were many people are involved in the entertainment business and also because it’s always so damn hot that you sweat off all the donuts and burgers. They only healthy thing was, possibly, the sushi – but we have plenty of that here and I don’t know of any dramatic weight loss related to sushi restaurants.

Overall, I’d say you’d end up eating just as badly in LA as you do in Chicago. If they opened a few more places to get a decent hot dog or Italian Beef – I think they might have us beat.

If you think about our current state of world competitiveness contrasted against our current sense of entitlement and “all about me” priorities – this is probably not a good sign. The old saying is: “when the going gets tough, the tough get tougher.” Somehow, if you hear “Dude… pass that shit down here,” – it just doesn’t sound like a competent plan for redoubling our efforts towards being the world leader of innovation and finance.

The desire to be “mind altering” our way through difficult times is a sign and symptom of the weakness that plagues our nation. We think it’s somebody else’s fault that we’re in our undesirable position and if we can just drink/puff/snort/shoot/tax our way through the next week, we’ll be fine.

I’m probably guilty of pizza-ing, McDonald’s-ing and Portillo’s-ing my way through a week – but I can’t allow anyone to put drugs and junk food on the same level. You need to eat… It doesn’t actually help me get through the week, it doesn’t stop me from performing well in my work and I can quit any time I want. Hmmm – that’s probably what an addict would say too. Come to think of it, I have sometimes felt like I was sort of drifting off into another plane of consciousness after having a Cheeseburger, a Maxwell Street Polish or freshly made Churros.

Actually, I’ll get off this junk food stream of thought for now… It’s really going nowhere and we need to get back to the important debate over drug legalization.
(Note to self: Look into 12 step programs).

There are people ranging from tax hungry politicians right on through to modern day hippies (is that the same thing?) that are very anxious to legalize, legitimize and tax the shit out of marijuana. The legalization of one drug is possibly the slippery slope to another – especially when we get hooked on the tax revenue. Hooked on drugs, hooked on government hand outs, hooked on taxes, hooked on the power of a political office – they’re all junkies to me. If they were legalizing it for genuine reasons, I might have different feelings. They’re not REALLY supporting legalization as a freedom issue; they’re taking a we-failed-trying-to-stop-it-so-lets-tax-the-hell-out-of-it approach. Those tax and vote junkies are the worst – they’d sell their mother to get more taxes and more votes.

Maybe we can come up with the equivalent of a Methadone clinic for people hooked on tax revenue, political office and entitlement thinking.

What’s really ironic is that the same assholes that have banned smoking are probably “OK” with legalized marijuana because they can use the resulting tax money to buy more votes.

Regan era politics championed the phrase “Just Say No” – I think the political drug slogan for the modern day might end up being “Just Say Blow”

The Verizon Motorola Droid just got an update to allow flash in the browser and that makes the phone’s browser almost as powerful as the one on your computer (it’s just smaller)

Will Apple and Jobs eventually come back with their tail between their legs or will you iPhonies forever look at the missing block where the Flash capability ought to be.

Coming soon is the new Windows 7 Phone – I’m sure it will have Flash as well as all the usual Microsoft goodies like Xbox games, Microsoft Office, etc…

I think either: Apple admits they were wrong or eventually their phone device lead will fade and Apple will eventually lose the phone market.

Think I’m wrong? – ask the guys at Motorola how easily the lead slips away.
They had it all locked up at one time.

Thankfully, the Boys From Illinois are back with their Motorola Droid.

For more thoughts from frankeboy, visit www.geoffpinkus.com.

For those of you from Chicago, you know the deal with Portillo’s – the lines at Portillo’s are so long you think you should drive right past – but they have it covered…

Their food is reasonably good as fast food goes, but their real skill is volume. They gave up on those retarded drive through talking-menu aggravation-devices a long time ago.

When it’s even a tiny bit busy, they deploy Portillo’s reinforcements out into the front lines of fast food battle with wireless head sets, cash, coin changers, numbered order tickets, wireless credit card processing units and foul weather gear if needed. At some locations the cars get to 15 deep and/or 2 wide – but the lines keep moving quicker than any drive through operation you’ve ever seen.

So, this time, the bag they handed me contained lots of paperwork…

I’m thinking, what is all this crap?

It turned out to be “take out” menus, catering menus, applications for employment – a big stack of stuff in the bag for one food item. Really odd.

It kinda reminded me of walking out of a hospital after having a blood test with all the paperwork and post care instructions, etc…

Then the light bulb went off…

What if you combined Portillo’s drive through efficiency with healthcare?

First, they probably would never let you order anything off their menu ever again – but beyond that, I think they could help with the speed and cost of healthcare.

I can just picture it now…

Drive-through Blood tests, drive-through x-rays, maybe even Drive through Plastic Surgery?

nice…

That’s some real healthcare reform.

Jet Blue

What situation?

If someone (really) hit you in the head, you call it an accident or you file a police report if it was actually intended to injure you – you don’t slide down a slide. WTF is that?

He picked a crappy job in the airline industry where he was essentially a servant to air travelers.

Plus, it’s a business where customers are pissed off all the time.

…my flight was delayed, my flight was cancelled, they lost my bags, the seats are uncomfortable, why do I need to buy another seat for my fat ass, stop that baby from screaming, it’s too hot in here, why aren’t the snacks free, the flight attendants so rude, the flights are too expensive, I don’t want a middle seat…

People hate the necessary evils of the airline industry. Anyone working in the business, even for a short time, knows what to expect.

We’ve all had jobs we eventually hated. You either “suck it up” and deal with the hassles of the job in exchange for the paycheck you’re accepting – or you quit.

You go directly to your management and say, “I’m resigning. Do you want me to work out the next two weeks?”

The drama and stupidity and going down the slide like a child are just a screams for attention. He’s like an obnoxious kid stomping his feet in the grocery store because you wont buy him a candy bar.

Goodbye and Good Riddance.

You think you’re marketable?
You’re nothing but a zany, foul-mouthed bump.
You couldn’t champion the same roadway as my nimble-footed, catlike pedant silly-willyS

Ok – what they hell am I talking about?
Are you totally lost? Good!

By now, some understand – but the others… well… you need to cover up because your GED is showing.

We’re talking about the master of the King’s written word, the employer of excitement who will always be the foregone hero.

You have no idea, still?

As willyS might say – you appear “uneducated” – or do you feign batty for expedience?

If you compromise defeat and stand prepared to expose your seamy, idle-headed nature – know that I am not cruelhearted or distrustful, yet duteous, and offer the goods of my depositary with nary more than a click.

Happy Birthday (soon) willyS. Long gone, but your presence continues to glow in unquestioned fixture.

How many words have you coined? We lost count… (See here)

Clicked on the picture and can’t make out the signature?
(you STILL don’t get it? – wow!!) CLICK HERE

Checkout more of my blogs on www.geoffpinkus.com.

I understand that we need consumer protection laws – but I think some of this stuff has really gone over the top.

When I was a kid, we used solder and soldering irons to fuse wires together – they contained a lot of lead. Remember fishing weights? It was certainly a lot more than I could possibly be exposed to by a wire, containing trace amounts, that is inside a rubber coated wire of a phone charger. In school science class, I remember pouring mercury on the lab tables and we pushed it around with our fingers, splitting and combining the droplets – an amazing substance. Now I know better – and I guessing we probably absorbed some of that mercury into our bodies. I “think” I remember washing my hands afterwards – maybe not though.

Today, if that happened, they would send in a team from the World Health Organization wearing bio-hazard uniforms as if we had been exposed to Ebola. The school would be shut down and the National Guard would be called in.

I’m in favor of smart protection against real threats. But when the nut jobs want a warning label on “everything,” the whole concept of a warning label gets so diluted that nobody pays attention anymore. The moronic “do-gooders” are slowly desensitizing everyone to the point where you’ll not care anymore. A seriously dangerous warning will carry no more meaning than one of these meaningless CYA legally mandated warnings.

As a country, we’re so weak as we’ve “dumbed down” to this level of silliness where people expect a warning so they don’t have to learn, understand and respect the world around them. Expect anytime soon a warning everywhere you look about the air, water and sunlight and everything else you come in contact every day.

My suggestion… isolate yourself from the world like the “bubble boy” so you don’t come in contact with anything or anybody. Then you won’t have to worry about all the warnings.