Man Flashes, Bus Crashes

senaleko/flickr

Here in The Curmudgeon edifice, we are what you might call a “flashy” group, but we are not flashers, at least not that I know of.  That is to say nobody has been caught.  Of course I am not counting our yearly Mardi Gras celebration, where there is some flashing, but the wholesome, feminine kind.  Not so for an act perpetrated on a public New Zealand bus.

A man showed his New Zealand sausage roll to a female bus passenger, who did what any modern, intelligent, progressive woman would do.  She screamed.  She screamed bloody murder.  She wouldn’t stop screaming.  So what does a bus driver do with an hysterical screaming woman aboard?  In New Zealand, he alters his course and drives straight to the nearest police station.  Only by the time the driver gets there, he is nervous and panicky, so when he opens the bus door and gets up, he forgets to put the bus in neutral.  Well, the crazy lady is still screaming, so he can perhaps be excused this temporary lapse in caution.  The bus is not so forgiving however, and it lurches forward and crashes into the police station entrance.

The interesting thing is the flasher was just 14 years-old, so it probably wasn’t a sausage roll, or even a banger, but more like a little sweet gherkin.  The woman reacted absolutely wrong.  What she should have done—and I’m telling all females this–laugh your ass off.  Oh, yes.  Laugh, laugh, point at it, laugh.  Now I don’t know what kind of a reaction a flasher wants in a woman, but I think it’s probably along the lines of shock and awe.  I can guarantee he doesn’t want her to laugh.  No man wants that.  No man can stand that.  Indeed, that gherkin would have retracted back into his pants like a turtle’s head back into its shell.

Police charged the 14 year-old alleged flasher with pulling out an indecent act…er, I mean…carrying out an indecent act.

All this trouble because one stupid kid whipped out his alleged hot dog.

Wait. It wasn’t a hot dog.  It more like a Little Smokey.  Now that’s a scream.

(Some information for this story from The New Zealand Herald.)

School Sells Grades For Cash

Photo by Mangee on flickr

Here in the astute offices of The Curmudgeon, we are, for the most part, an educated mish-mash of personalities and talents.  I would suspect that not everyone got the best report cards on their block—their proud mama’s showing the undeniable evidence of the very cards to anyone they could get into a corner—but that matters not to me.  It only matters if they are good at their jobs.  Still, speaking for myself, I would have liked to have better grades.  Imagine the feeling that swept over me when I read that there was a school with budget problems, that in their divine it’s-the-kids-that-matter wisdom, put their grades up for sale.

“Foul,” I cried.  The cash-for-grades scheme came to light when the News & Observer of Raleigh, N.C. raised concerns about it.  As it was, for a mere $20 dollar donation a student would have gotten 20 extra points, 10 points each on two tests of the students choosing.  To put it in context, this meant that a student could significantly increase their grades in two different subjects.  From a B to an A, or a D to a C, for example.

My school offered no such program and I’m pissed about that.  I could have said, “Mom, I’m flunking Advanced Trigonometry.  Can you loan me $20 bucks?”  Maybe then I would have gotten into Yale.  Let it be known here that I did get into Yale, without bribing my school, but in fairness to Yale, it was in the Drama Department, as an actor.  Not the same standards are applied there as say, biology. Still pretty high standards though.  I didn’t go. Mom said it was too expensive.  So I switched to Ithaca.  Wouldn’t let me go there either.  Turns out she didn’t want me to go anywhere, bless her heart, and that is the one and only thing I regret between myself and my parents.  She meant well, however.  Yes, um, let us matriculate back to the story…

The plan was working, but fortunately or not—depends on your point of view—when the school district administrators became aware of the absurdity, put the kibosh on it.  They said A; stop this shit, and B; any extra credit given will be revoked, and finally C; give back the money you dumb asses.  Sorry to use their official language there, but in the interest of accuracy…

In defense of the payola scam, Suzie Shepard, the principal said, “”Last year they did chocolates, and it didn’t generate anything.” (News and Observer, Nov., 11, 2009)  State officials didn’t like it either, I mean, the negative publicity sucks, and they and all kinds of scholars have come forward to wax eloquent on “wrong message” and other noble subjects.

I do, however, want to make a couple of observations:  When the government introduced the “No child left behind initiative”, and tied federal funding to grade requirements, did the schools rise to these new, necessary levels?  Of course not.  They lowered their standards and gave higher grades for crappier education.  They lowered their standards. That’s why kids can graduate from high school and not even know how to read and why America’s school system sucks and we trail many other developed nations in education, and actually producing products, and other things too numerous to mention.  We’re supposed to be the best?  This is a fine mess we’ve gotten ourselves into.

Secondly, show them the money.  You’ll deteriorate as a country if you don’t teach your children well.  (Crosby, Stills, Nash, written by Graham Nash, 1970)

And as everyone knows, you get what you pay for.  Buy some damn books and pay the teachers well.

Show them the money.

(Information for this article came from The News & Observer, in an article by Lynn Bonner.  This is, however, an editorial.  If you want a news story, you could look it up, as Casey Stengel used to be credited for saying, but it was really coined by James Thurber in his 1941 short story, “You Could Look It Up.”  Hey you could look it up, in Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations. )

Writing a Novel in 30 Days

Photo by Valeriana-Solaris/flickr

Here in the beehive offices of The Curmudgeon, it is pleasant to hear the tap-tap-tapping of  tiny little fingers on the keyboards.  Unfortunately, all the tap-tap-tapping is coming from my office.  I am participating in the National November Writing Month, wherein you write a novel of 50,000 words are more during the month of November.  That’s why I’ve handed this column over to the staff, which is why it isn’t getting done.  I’ll have to take away their company cars, and restrict use of the Bentley.

How, Crusty, you may ask yourself,  can you expect to write a novel in such a short amount of time?  Here’s the thing:  It doesn’t have to be good.  You’re not supposed to go back and fix things, or correct things, or spell check, but rather just keep writing.  Even if you don’t know what comes next, keep writing.  The point is to get a novel completed.  You can go back and fix things later, after you have a rough draft.

This has always been my problem. I must make a chapter perfect (or as close to perfect as I am able) before I continue.  Eventually, I don’t continue.  I become frustrated.  So I think, “This is the thing for me.”  And due to my nature—and the fact that I write pretty fast anyway—I do go back and fix a little, but not too much.  And it’s working.  As of last night, I was about 1000 words ahead of being on track to finishing on time…and it’s pretty good.

Photo by Nir Tober/flickr

I didn’t know what comes next, or who the characters were going to be, or what the plot was, or how it would end, but it all magically appeared, stepping into formation like a well-trained soldier.  Is it putting a grind on my schedule?  Yes, it is, but I’m loving it, and I’m going to have a novel when I’m finished.

So my point is, you can do it too.  Start tomorrow.  To write a 50,000 word novel, you have to average 1666 words per day, and it doesn’t matter if you’re starting late.  Set your own schedule and stick to it.  Do it in two months if you want.  Thats only 833 words per day.  And at this point, this post you’re reading is 385 words NOW.  Piece of cake.  That’s almost on pace to write a novel in 4 months.  Surely you can double it?

Of course, you’ll miss all the groovy prizes, (a certificate and your name on some honor-roll thing, wow), but the biggest prize is all your very own.  Your novel.  Here’s the link for NaNoWriMo, if you’d like to check it out:  <http://www.nanowrimo.org/>.  And this is how many words it takes to finish in four months…NOW.

Stop the Presses! Editor Punches Writer in Kisser

Movie poster from 1931 film, The Front Page

Here in the editorial offices of The Curmudgeon, I have sometimes been know to rant and rave about poor writing executed by a member of the staff.  Not too much, but sometimes.   Never mind that I am guilty of my own share of mistakes and crappy writing, but I’m the boss.  When they become the boss, they can write crappy too.

But I don’t recall having ever punched a writer in the kisser (though I may have kissed a writer in the puncher).  It’s just not the type of thing you expect in this day and age of political correctness and the threat of lawsuits that has us all walking around on metaphorical rice paper.  But at the Washington Post, the good old days are here again, at least briefly, when veteran Washington Post Style editor Henry Allen punched a writer smack-dab in his chicklets.

It should perhaps be mentioned that the Style section of the Post is often derogatorily referred to as the “sandbox,” since it is often staffed with young and inexperienced reporters.  The brouhaha went down like this:  The editor said to the writers of the article, “This is total crap. It’s the second worst story I have seen in Style in 43 years.”  One of the writers said back to him, “Don’t be such a coc**ucker!”   Well, nobody calls Allen a coc**ucker.  An ass*ole, sure, a dic*wad, okay, but not a coc**ucker.   So Allen threw the reporter to the floor and let the fists fly, right in front of the big boss’ office.  Bad move.

Allen was later called into his boss’ office, the door solemnly shutting behind him.  His contract is up later this year.  He probably wont be back.  Who has time to worry about the quality of work anyway?

Allenl is almost 70 years old and a former Marine who served in Vietnam.  In 2000, he won the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.  I think both his military training and his criticism skill helped him here.  Truth is, he misses the old days, when newspapers meant something, and editors would say, “I don’t care what you have to do, just bring me that story! Occasionally, if you were lucky, you might even hear, “Stop the presses!”  You think they stop the presses nowadays?  Do you know how much it costs to  stop the presses?  Besides, the presses probably aren’t even in the building, but across town, the state, the country, or even the world.  Who the hell knows anymore.

Hey, that gives me an idea.  That sounds like a story.  A BIG story.  Excuse me while I speak to my staff.

“Stop the Internet!  I’ve got a story!”

(Information for this story came from the Washingtonian, in a story by Harry Jaffe, Nov. 2nd, 2009.)

(Correction:  Thanks to notification by the brother of the stlyle editor of the Washington Post, this article as been corrected.  It originally reported that style editor Ned Martell threw the punch, but he didn’t.  He assigned the story, but it was Sr. Editor Henry Allen who through the punch. – CC)

Giant Alien Snakes Attack U.S.

Burmese Python by tambako the jaguar on flickr

Here in the pet friendly offices of The Curmudgeon, employees are free to bring their dogs to work.  The dog must be well-behaved though, and completely non-aggressive to humans or other animals.  They must be well-trained and come from the finest prep schools and know which forks go on the left.  But nobody has any snakes, at least not that I know of.

And that’s good, because snakes have a talent for escaping.  The snakes aren’t to blame for this of course, but rather the owners who probably shouldn’t have a snake in the first place, not if they don’t know how to care for it properly.  Try explaining to Suzi in accounting that the large lump in Killer the python’s midsection is her poodle “Puffy.”  This kind of fugitive snake thing is more prevalent than you might think.  And now, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, there are nine species of giant alien snakes in North America that are becoming established in the wild and they wreak havoc on the ecosystem.

By “alien.” they don’t mean outer space but snakes that don’t  have their green cards.  These snakes can grow longer than 20 feet and weigh over 200 pounds, they breed as fast as humans on welfare, and have no predators.  If allowed to continue, if more continue to escape, they will really devastate the system.

It’s already happening in Florida, and the Burmese Python could possibly spread throughout the entire lower third of the U.S.  They have been known to kill humans, but primarily, it’s the ecosystems we have to worry about.  As if we don’t have enough worries with our ecosystems.

I had a friend when I was a kid growing up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, who loved snakes.  Steve Rhode (pronounced Roady) was his name.  You didn’t grow up there with out knowing about snakes, and we did.  We knew which were poisonousness and which weren’t.  We knew how to pick them up.  We knew everything about them, and it was Steve Rhode who taught us.  He was fearless.  Poisonousness or not, he’d grab a snake in the wink of an eye, and he’d keep some.  He had a collection.  He was a wild animal kind of guy.  He once chased a jack rabbit.  I don’t mean he chased it for 50 feet.  I mean he chased it through bramble and bush, across open land, wherever the rabbit went, he followed, until finally the rabbit fell over exhausted.  He kept it.  He’s probably a wildlife expert somewhere now.

Steve taught his dog to talk. When I first reconnected with my best friend from those days, one of my first questions was:  “Could Steve Rhode’s dog talk, or did I just imagine that?”  “No, he could talk,” my friend said.  I became pretty fearless too, except for Water Moccasins.  They terrified me.

So unless you’re Steve Rhode, maybe you should leave the snakes to the professionals…and those religious snake handler people.  They seem a little nutty to me anyway.  Besides, they handle rattle snakes, indigenous here.  So if you must keep snakes, keep American ones.  If they escape, no big deal.

Unless they eat your poodle.

(Information for this article came from the National Park Service, Rebecca Quimby, Oct. 23, 2009)

They Are Watching You: Fear of Facebook

Here in the convivial offices of The Curmudgeon, we are a social company.  Lots of company parties and whatnot.  Many of the employees share personal information on Facebook, MySpace, & Twitter, though why anyone would want to know that Bobby threw-up the sushi he ate for lunch escapes me.

When President Obama was asked by a kid what advice he had for growing up to be President, he said be careful what you post on Facebook.  He knew what he was talking about.  Harris Interactive did a study and found that 45% of employers use social networks to check out job applicants.  Scary enough, but worse, 35% didn’t hire someone based on what they saw there.  “Holy status update,” Batman!

Your current boss may be doing it too.  Badmouthing him or the company?  Hello unemployment.  I check up on my employees.  They keep friending me (BIG MISTAKE).  I’ve only yelled at one worker though, for reporting how drunk he got in the company Irish Pub during work hours, not for getting drunk but for telling the world about it.  Just in case the authorities or somebody’s mother is reading, we confiscate keys and they are given a ride home with the car service I pay for.  (Note to self:  Hire a car service, damnit.)  Don’t you wish you worked for me?  Just use a little discretion and don’t make a habit of it.  Fine Irish whiskey is to be sipped and savored, not swigged down in some “I can hold my liquor better than you” drinking game.

But there are other pitfalls too, worse perhaps.  Burglars love the social networks, though they’re not very social.  So go ahead and tell everybody your going on vacation to Europe for two weeks, or you could go to the roughest bar in the city, stand up and say, “Attention everybody.  I’m going to Paris for two weeks and my house will be empty.  By the way, I live at 666 Dumbass Lane.”  One such man announced he was going to Kansas City, and then posted constant updates about it.  He came home to find his house cleaned out, including the very expensive editing equipment he used to put together videos that he posted on Facebook.  “It was like they knew what they were looking for,” he later said.  They knew what they were looking for all right.  They were looking for an idiot on Facebook.

Spouses use it during divorces.  You might have evidence of an affair, or said how hungover you were which will be used against you during the child custody phase.   “Bye kids.  The bad judge man wont let mommy keep you.“

Still not convinced?  Here’s a couple that will hit you in the pocket book:  The IRS is starting to use it during tax disputes.  Cha-Ching! As they get more and more aggressive, soon they’ll probably have a computer that looks for social network information automatically, and they may be doing it already.  But wait! Order today and you also get….higher insurance premiums.  Insurance companies are pondering this move even as we speak.  Cha-Ching! More expensive homeowners insurance, coming soon to an insurance company near you.  Writing references to drinking or reckless behavior?  Cha-Ching! There goes your driver’s insurance.

Identity thieves love these sites.  I’m not going to even get into phishing and virus’.  Just remember to be very careful with what you post.  Just ask yourself, “What evil could I do with this information,” and you’ll be alright.  Maybe.

Now that’s social networking.

Student Seeks a Personal Assistant: You Need One Too!

Bubbles, my personal assistant.

Here in the efficient offices of The Curmudgeon, we get things done.  Me, being the boss man—the guy on whom all things depend—have more to do than most people.  Well, all of them actually, but I do sometimes have difficulty finding the time to do the little things required for living in this world, like going to the bank or post office, laundry (Mrs. Crusty don’t do laundry), and washing my privates.  So I have a personal assistant to do these little troublesome tasks for me.

She’s a very efficient, cute young lady very good at what she does.  Okay, she doesn’t wash my privates.  I asked but she balked.  That’s a deal breaker, she said.  But it never occurred to me to hire one while I was in College.  I didn’t have the money anyway, but if I had it would have been invaluable.  All those mundane tasks really cut into my party time.

The thought has occurred to Charlie Cooper, sophomore at Georgetown University.  He placed an ad on the University’s employment resource website.  The school’s newpaper first ran the story, and he has become somewhat famous, at least for the next Warholian 15 minutes.  Everybody is making a big deal about it, but here’s the thing:  They’re giving him a hard time.  Why?  What the heck do you care if the kid hires another kid to do this stuff?

“As my PA you will receive an email once a day by 9:00 am with a task list for that day and a time estimate for each task,” Cooper wrote in the ad.  “Important tasks will be bolded on the list and must be done that  day (even though everything on the list should theoretically be finished on a daily basis). At the end of the day you will send me an email telling me what tasks are incomplete or that all tasks have been completed.”

The Georgetown Voice ran the story on its blog with the headline, “Georgetown sophomore seeks personal assistant, takes premature self-importance to whole new level.”  Some students are mad that this perpetuates the myth that Georgetown students are a bunch of rich kids who can’t do anything for themselves.  Looks to me like he knows exactly how to get things done;  hire somebody to do them for you.

Hey, he’s got a job that he likes, that he wants to keep, and it pays more than he will pay the PA.  That makes good business sense to me.  Get off his back and clean up this dorm room, damnit.

Go ahead and hire a PA, kid, and let all the haters go to the DMV for themselves.

Excuse me a sec, (presses intercom button)  Bubbles, could you come in here a minute.  Scratch right here….

A little to the left…ahhhhhh.

(Information for the story came from The Washington Post, Thursday, Oct. 22, in a story written by Jenna Johnson.)

Man Crashes Recliner, Gets DUI

greg.turner/flickr

Here in the cushie offices at The Curmudgeon, we are familiar with comfortable things. Recliners chairs every everywhere. We don’t have recliner races in the hallways or anything, but I think we soon will. You probably will too. Of course there’s the matter of getting your recliner to go.  Fast.

I now call him King of Recliners. Who else but the King could take his La-Z-Boy motoring down a Minnesota street and get a DUI. Dennis LeRoy Anderson plead guilty to driving his motor vehicle while drunk. He was sentenced to 120 days in jail but got probation. This info courtesy of TMZ.

He did exactly what your not supposed to do. Got hammered in a bar on eight or nine beers and got in his vehicle. While flying down the street – capable of 20 mph – he crashed into a parked vehicle. The King wasn’t hurt, but he was drunk, ringing up a 0.29, three times the legal limit. That’s as drunk as “Otis,” as in Mayberry.

Hey, everybody makes mistakes. He has that baby really souped up, too. He installed a converted lawnmower engine. The chair has a stereo, a headlight, and cupholders. Now that’s an Easy Chair. I can see me now, racing down main street with Lawrence Welk blastin’ on the stereo (that was a joke. It would probably be Sublime).

I’m going to get started tomorrow. For an engine, I think the old Suzuki motorcycle will do the trick, and that whiny engine noise will be perfect for bugging the neighbors. It’s got to be a little more tricked out though, CD player, satellite TV, built-in cooler, and whatever else I can think of.

Call me Easy Glider

Saudi’s Ask United Nations For Aid – Say What?

Saudi Kings Palace

Here in the opulent and ostentatious office of The Curmudgeon, we are, financially speaking, well off.  This is not because of the money we make in our endeavors, but what we have made I have invested wisely.   We own one of the largest oil fields in the world and I have invested in properties both here and abroad (among other things -  possibly illegal).  And yet, I have decided to petition the United Nations for aid.

One palace's doors.

How can I do this?  Because I can.  I figure if the Saudi’s can do it, why not me?  Saudi Arabia is ruled by the royal family, the House of Saud, led by King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz.  There are 7000 to 25000 members of the family (depending on who you talk to) but only about 200 or so hold the power and influence.  They sit on the largest oil reserve in the world, and oil revenues go into the Saud’s…um…fanny packs?  What do they carry their money in?  Oh, it’s probably that servant with the suitcase.  Of course, that means any government expenses come from the Saud’s too, but that leaves a sizable chunk to the family, some estimate as much as 40% and up to 1 Trillion dollars, most of which is spent on opulent palaces, luxury yachts, and tricked-out private jets.

But they need the money, just like I do.  If all this “reduce dependence on oil” crap comes to fruition, think what it will do to the Saud’s income?  Why it’s un-Saudi Arabian!  “This despite an International Energy Agency report released this week showing that OPEC revenues would still increase $23 trillion between 2008 and 2030 — a fourfold increase compared to the period from 1985 to 2007 — if countries agree to significantly slash emissions and thereby cut their use of oil.” (dailystar.com., Oct. 9, 2009)

Poor dears!  Poor me!  Of course the royal family could get by on a little less, but those palaces, yachts and jets need maintenance, so they have to think ahead.

This request for Saudi aid has come during negotiations for a world agreement to reduce carbon emissions, and an “Arab

A Saudi palace interior.

environmental group IndyACT and the environmental group Germanwatch released a report today accusing Saudi Arabia of blocking key elements of the negotiations. Among their tactics, the groups said, was slowing negotiations by insisting that the economic woes of oil producers be included in the text.” (ibid)

That’s just the beginning of the Saudi’s arrogance.  The palace pictured at the top had to be demolished because it was too revered, and opulence  and prayer don’t mix, so the subjects demanded it’s destruction.  A member of the Saudi Royal family agreed to an interview in Las Vegas, having consumed a few drinks: “We’ll just build another one,” said Prince Himarshi al-Saud. (The Fig Tribune, May 22, 2009)

“…wallahi we’ll build the tallest freaking palace in the world in its place.”

Attack Cat Menaces UK Postmen

Here in the clubby offices of The Curmudgeon, we are animal lovers.  We have written on this subject before so it’s no secret.  I can’t speak for the rest of the staff, but I, for one, am a dog lover, and as such am not particularly fond of cats.  And yet I own one.  He is, at times, not the nicest cat in the world, being a stray rescued from the “mean streets” and set in his wild and demanding ways.  You’d think he’d be grateful, but nooOOOOoooo.  In fact, My Evil Cat is Trying to Kill Me.

But even I am shocked at the recent goings on  in the United Kingdom, not at the behavior of a certain cat, but rather the wussiness of the Royal Mail Service.  According to the Weston Mercury, the mail delivery manager made a personal visit to notify the cat’s owner that unless their cat is restrained, they will cease to deliver mail to her address.  She was shocked.  “My cat wouldn’t hurt a fly,” she said.  Okay, that’s clearly a lie, for what cat can resist chasing a fly and knocking over everything it it’s path to get it.  But still, a fly is a far cry from a postman.

The cat, the delivery manager said, “as soon as it hears the letterbox, is straight out the cat-flap and attacks the post person.  Animal attacks are a major cause of injury to Royal Mail staff. If any further incidents of this nature are allowed to take place, I shall have no alternative other than to consider suspending the delivery of mail to your home.”  I can buy that most injuries to postmen are due to animal attacks, but cats?  In short, the cat “goes postal” on them.  Methinks I smell a rat.

So they performed an experiment.  The postal rep pretended to post something, but the cat didn’t do anything.  Just like a cat not to do it when it’s owners were around.  Cats are well known for their sneakiness and subterfuge.  But still, a cat?

I think the postal employees are a bunch of scaredy cats.  I certainly wouldn’t go to my supervisor whining about a little pussy beating me up.  And how many, exactly, postmen have reported this behavior?  One?  Two?  It makes a difference.  It could just be a bunch of Cat Hullabaloo.

I hope they get all this straightened out.

The postman doesn’t always ring twice.