Safety Tips - The Extended Version

Okay. This has been a long post in the making. Over the last few weeks, I've noticed things that prolly deserve their own post, but things have been so hectic here at the offices of "Know What I Mean", so we threw them into a Safety Tips post. Keep in mind that this is a collection of thoughts from an extended period of time. I am not like Will, and my mind doesn't work like this in a short period of time. Not that there's anything wrong with that Will... ;)

• All this political bull-shit deserves posts of their own, but well start off with a bang. I wrote a post a while back about how I hate traffic barrels. And that's all I could think of when Hillary wore her pants suit at the DNC for her speech. Senior advisers getting paid six figures, and no one thought to tell her that "traffic-barrel orange" isn't a good look?
• Obama had a commercial where he was critical of 'Big Oil'. In this commercial, the voice-over guy says, and I quote, "Everytime you fill your tank, Big Oil fills their pockets." What. The. Fuck. Last time I checked, ANY company puts money in their pocket when you buy their product. It's not like every company sells you a product at NO profit to them, and Big Oil companies are the only ones making a profit. Sure, they're making a large profit, but that's the nature of a free-market. The margin on their product hasn't gone way up in recent years... but the sheer volume of the product their selling is going WAY up. So to see a commercial like that, where they skewer the info just makes me wanna barf. Although, pretty much the entire political culture makes me wanna barf.
• College football kicked off a few weekends ago. It's just about my favorite time of year, and this season has NOT disappointed early on. But this had me cracking up: ESPN in their every present wisdom, sold the naming rights to the 'kickoff weekend'. And here's what they came up with..... " The Chick-Fil-A College Football Weekend Presented By Southwest." What. The Fuck. How can a weekend sponsored by Chick-Fil-A be presented by Southwest? So Chick-Fil-A paid ESPN to have the naming rights... and then who did Southwest give their money to? ESPN? Chick-Fil-A? If ESPN got the money, I'd be pissed if I was Chick-Fil-A.
• The dude that played Billy-Bob, Ron Lester ( sounds like a porn name ) in Varsity Blues used to weigh 508 pounds. That was his weight when he filmed the movie in 1999. He now weighs 197 pounds. You don't even recognize him, except for his voice which hasn't changed. That movie for me is one of those classically underrated movies. It's not an artistic breakthrough by any means ( well, except maybe Ali Larter in a whipped-cream bikini )... but it was funny and well structured. The football scenes are decent... and Ali Larter is in a whipped cream bikini. So yeah, I said it. I liked the movie. Mostly cuz Ali Larter is in a whipped cream bikini.
• Speaking of Hollywood, Bernie Mac died. Will and I shared a moment of silence after he found out. Will mentioned to me that he was drinking on a Saturday afternoon, and I replied via text asking if he was drinking in Mac's memory. All I got back was "MEMORY???" - and I had to break the news to him.
• And it's not just Mac... famous people are going to the big silver screen in the sky by the droves this summer. Carlin, Don LaFontaine ( the voice over guy ), Chuck Heston, Heath Ledger ( more on him in a moment ), Issac Hays, Jim McKay, Tim Russert, the saxophonist from the Dave Matthews Band... and most of the really famous one's weren't that old. And it's only September... who's left to go this year? Odds anyone?
• Ledger should at the very least get a posthumous nod for Best Actor for his role of the Joker in The Dark Knight. When it was announced that he was getting the role, I thought it was a terrible decision. I was so looking forward to a gritty, dark Batman movie... and after Jack played the Joker so well in the first one, I couldn't believe they were gonna ruin this one. But I couldn't have been more wrong. He nailed it. For the six of you that haven't seen the movie yet, you're gonna love the scene with the pencil. Ouch.
• The Dark Knight was also the first movie I've seen in the theater in at least 3 years. And it will prolly be another 3 before I go see another one.
• Ted Thompson might be a giant jackass... but so far he looks like he knew what he was doing this summer.
• Nort didn't know that the last person to wear number 4 for the Packers before 1992 was Dale Dawson, who wore it in 1988. Shame on him.
• Time Warner has a commercial where they are trying to impress you with the number of employees they have at various positions. They state that they have 6300 engineers. Okay, that's impressive. Then they tell you that they have 10,909 customer service representatives. What. The Fuck. Maybe if your company and product didn't' suck donkey ballz, you wouldn't need so many freaking customer service reps!!!! Maybe you you wouldn't have to charge so much for your shit service if you didn't have to pay so many reps!!! Advertising that you have to have that many people hired to solve problems is not something I'd be proud of! And I was all on the AT&T bandwagon, but those bitches still haven't gotten around to putting U-Verse on my block yet. Asshats... all of them.

Okay, there's more to come, but this is long enough for now.

Never Forget

I know it's been a while since I posted. I've got saved in the drafts folder the longest installment of "Safety Tips"... and you'll get that soon enough.

But it's September 11th today, and anyone that knows me, knows I'm gonna talk about it today. Those that don't know me ( and there's prolly like maybe just one of you reading this now, cuz I haven't posted in forever ) - I can't NOT watch something about that day. But it's not like I have a personal connection... I didn't know anyone living in NY at the time. Heck, I don't even know someone that knows someone that died that day.

But I can't not watch.

And it just so happened that on this seventh anniversary of September 11th, 2001 - I had today off. Just like 2001. So this morning, I sat on the couch, and didn't blink for about three hours as I watched them play the coverage from that day.

Then I watched programs I'd never seen before that were played on the History Channel. And now I'm here to tell you that I did those things... because I have to. I don't know why I do... but I have to watch. So here's a clip you should watch. It's nothing graphic, and you may have seen it already. But it's the clip from the Late Show with David Letterman, which aired on the first day back of shooting the show after it went on hiatus after the attacks. It takes a second to buffer... but watch it. YOU have to watch it too.