Pepper spray was a-spraying, knives were a-stabbing, guns were a-shooting, muggers were a-mugging, punchers were a-punching — it was a “Black Friday” celebration that truly proved if you’re not a part of the worldwide anti-corporate protests, then you’re actually a very stinky part of the problem. But the Gold Medal in Applied Assjerk Consumerism goes to the shoppers at the Target crap box store in South Charleston, West Virginia: These bargain-crazed mouth-breathing waterheads literally walked over a dying 61-year-old man who collapsed in the aisles. Can we please do an “alternate history swap” and have the Native Americans defeat the Europeans? Please?
Family and friends were stunned by the loss of a West Virginia man who died while shopping on Black Friday as fellow bargain hunters reportedly walked around — and even over — the man’s body.
Family members told WSAZ-TV that 61-year-old Walter Vance of Logan County, W. Va., had become ill and collapsed while shopping for Christmas decorations inside Target in South Charleston. He later died after being taken to the hospital, family said.
Witnesses told the NBC News affiliate in Charleston, W. Wa., that shoppers walked around and even over Vance’s body.
But Target couldn’t even win the award for “most violent chain store of plastic imported garbage” this Thanksgiving Weekend. That dubious honor went to WalMart, as usual, with violence at nine different (identical) WalMart stores around the country. [MSNBC]
{ 410 comments }
Two words….West Virginia
Four more words: Aunt Mommy and Uncle Daddy.
Almost heaven…
Did he at least die in the toy aisle? The American Bible says "He who dies with the most toys wins."
And the Torah says, "he who dies with the most oys wins"
I thought the correct translations was "he who dies with the most goys wins"
And the Limbaugh Bible says, "He who dies with the most boys wins."
I just snorted when I laughed, thanks!
And the Japanese Garden Bible says: He who dies with the most kois wins. (okay, I'm reaching)
You are! Koi is plural as well as singular!
I like how you corrected Conrad…direct, too the point, not being koi at all.
Yeah, I was all like, hey, just fix it, stupid. I did look up the plural and decided I didn't care enough to break the scan.
Hmm … that sounds fishy. You're not accusing me of carping, are you?
But he who dies with the most toys is still dead, so Merry Xmas?
Clearly they were just waiting for the invisible hand to do some CPR.
That's a win.
But Rick Perry was nowhere near West Virginia at the time.
Humans are so strange. The same people who fucking slow down from 65 mph to 10mph watch some poor schlub change a tire will just ignore some poor schlub who dies in front of them because it will slow down their hunt for a cheap price cheap quality waffle iron.
In defense of people who slow down, we're not doing it to watch, we're doing it to make sure we don't hit the guy should he lean back an extra 6 inches into the roadway. Same goes for slowing down when there's an accident because we don't want to accidentally hit a police officer or emergency worker who might take one step too many.
Not when it's the opposite lane where the accident took place.
Ok, that's just people being dicks.
I used to hear (back when I listened to the radio) the traffic reports describe "onlooker delays". I eventually figured out that that meant traffic slowed down to a crawl so that the rubbernecks could gawk at some poor bastard's misery.
LOL! I don't know where you live. We don't make those kind of careful, human considerations where I live.
Ahh, Detroit. I miss that place sometimes.
Heh. If the people don't kill you, the cars will. Traffic laws are suggestions, not just in Detroit, but most of Michigan. But, seriously, drive down the Lodge and try and tell me that you don't feel like someone just threw hundreds of bowling balls down the lane, simultaneously.
"Detroit. I miss that place"
*sings*
Can't forget the Motor City!
And where does this happen again?
Plus, everyone after that first person has to slow down so they don't hit the car in front of them.
On the L.I.E., that's why there's a backup that persists for two hours after there's no longer anything to see.
Only two hours? I'm pretty sure some of the backups on Houston's freeways have become permanent fixtures.
Standing waves FTW.
ELEVEN wrecks in a 150 mile stretch yesterday. My drive time yesterday was extended by 1/3 the usual travel time. People are frigging MORONS. I would not ordinarily planned such a trip but it was a family emergency. As God as my witness I will NEVER drive on Thanksgiving Sunday again.
T-day brings out the worst drivers — especially around urban areas where they use public transit 360 days out of the year, and get sloshed and careen around on the highways only on the holidays.
Thank heavens this didn't affect profit margins.
And an idea for a new Reality Teevee show: "Buy It or Die Trying" — so double-win for American exceptionalism!
Jesus wept.
Because he couldn't get a $2 waffle iron.
It's his birthday, he should be getting that shit as gifts.
Imagine how you would feel if someone died because of your birthday and they weren't even inviting you to the party.
"It's his birthday, he should be getting that shit as gifts."
How the fuck is Jesus gonna use a $2 waffle iron when he's nailed to a cross? What he needs is a radio-controlled dune buggy.
And some cheap sunglasses.
"when he's nailed to a cross? What he needs is a radio-controlled dune buggy."
Best mental picture ever.
But Republican Jesus smiled.
Muscular Jesus.
THIS Jesus didn't weep. THIS Jesus is too broke to risk life and limb going to Walgreed's!
Jesus wept.
Yeah, feminized liberal Jesus maybe. Good thing we have folks like Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association trying to get America to embrace a more "manly" messiah. Like Robocop.
not really, just means more presents for ME! (ok so I'm a selfish little BABY jeebus)
So much for all the people who spent the last two days telling me that this is the lowlifes and poors who go to Wal-Mart who do this stuff and the true big box connoisseurs shop at Target.
Target's as anti-union as Walmart, but with better PR, less revolting but more annoyingly smug customers (but not in WV) and not as cheap crap.
Also, Target has a Martha Stewart line.
Also, Target has nice colors, well designed interior set-ups, and generally keep their stores clean.
But, really, lipstick on a pig. Lipstick on a pig.
her christmas ornaments are made in China- how lovely to celebrate the birth of the savior(not mine-I'm Jewish) with things made by virtual slave labor or children. I used to work with a woman who had a new christmas theme every year and bought new crap for her house and tree- EVERY YEAR. As a child, I used to help a neighbor decorate her tree with family ornaments- the same ones every year and help her pack them away.
I've been boycotting Target since I found out they were financing conservatives crazies with big bucks in the 2010 election. Can't say as I've missed the place.
So, where do you now go to get your 20-lb. bag of dog food, printer cartridges, affordable "green" cleaning products, six-pack of underwear, 20-lb. bag of birdseed, garden-hose nozzle, "Best of the 60s" cd for $4.95, Burt's Bees skin cream, something cute for the grandbaby, 20-lb. bag of cat food, and your prescription filled, all at the same place? Yes, I drive a forklift.
Online.
Costco. Only one brand of pretty much everything, but as far as I'm concerned that's a plus: no need to waste time "shopping".
My thoughts go back to the Pork Tip Riots in aisle 17 that my grandfather told me about back in 1935… Because of shoddy record keeping, we'll never know how many people died. And I have to reflect upon how the human heart never really changes.
Not so far off.
Well, that was a giant dose of NOTHING. Why are you posting anti-Muslim hate screeds?
And he was wearing an onion in his belt.
As was the fashion at the time, of course.
…which was the style at the time.
"Gimme five bees for a quarter", he'd say.
That was a mean one, that one was. My gramps knew a guy named Guido who got angry when someone cut in front of him in the line for discounted red and green Zoot Suits. He tossed one of those cartoon bombs shaped like a ball with a long fuse into the crowd and *boom*…no more line. Guido wound up actually getting one of the suits.
The funny part of the story, though, is that he was wearing that suit the day they hanged him for sedition! Cracks me up every time.
Pfft, doesn't even compare to the Pork Rind Riots at the checkout counter in 1991 when Bush Senior held up the line because he'd never seen a barcode check out machine before.
I hate Americans HATE THEM. And I lam an American. Sorry, no snark, just tremendous amounts of disgust.
In the immortal words of Linus Van Pelt: "I love mankind. It's people I can't stand!"
To be fair, US Americans don't have a monopoly on assholes.
It just looks that way as we watch the GOP clown car disgorge its contents
Exactly. Opinions are like assholes; everyone has one.
Unless you have an ileostomy.
You know if we could just get rid of about 10-12 states we'd be a;lot better off. Maybe we could get the confederates to succeed again. I really would not miss most of those states.
Haha, if they could actually succeed they might not need the sweet, sweet federal ameros that the actual successful states (read: liberal) keep firehosing at them.
The South Shall Succeed Again!
I am confused since they never succeeded in the first place.
If only they'd succeeded at seceding.
They're sucks-ass-full states, does that count?
A: Only up to three, and even then, they have to use all of their fingers and teeth.
They blow a lot, too.
I see what you did there. In my own, special, nystagmic sorta way.
The Confederacy didn't succeed. I wouldn't mind seein' the lower SE chunk of the US secede, though. Sorry, I'm feelin' bitchy this a.m.
As a member of that southeast-y chunk, "We're doing what we can, but evolution of ideas is also a slow process."
'Ceptin' the South don't believe in no eeevolution. Ain't in the Good Book.
Yeah, I know. I'm in Tenn-ass-see my own self. I'm undecided as to whether I'd include this chromosomal dumpsite in that seceding chunk.
It has become painfully clear that the North won a Pyrrhic Victory in 1865.
The problem that tends to get overlooked is that the South attacked us, which was clearly going to get an extreme response. Though seriously screw Rutherford B. Hayes for that whole deal about ending Reconstruction in exchange for "winning" the presidential election. Now that was a Pyrrhic victory.
Most of us taxpayers wouldn't.
You know, I hates me some Americans sometimes, too. But, I'll tell you, nothing compares to the obnoxiousness of a German tourist. Nothing.
I bet the Poles, Greeks, Russians, French, Dutch, etc have some stories to tell.
Yeah, stories about how they all hate the German tourists.
Trust me on this. Millions of Indians, Chinese, Malaysians, Indonesians, Pilipinos, Thais, Laotians, Vietnamese, Kambodjans, Bangladeshis, Pakistanis, and Africans from every country in that vast continent join with them. NOBODY likes German tourists. Not even, I suspect, Germans.
no snark here but I was in India a few years ago and saw this old German bastard *traveling* with a young Indian boy and when it was explained to me that he probably BOUGHT that boy it was all they could do to keep me from beating that SOB to death on the spot…one of the most awful moments in my entire life and I can STILL see the look of contempt on that bastard's face
Das ist ein Ungeheuer!
Suddenly I have this inexplicable craving for a jelly donut.
Sie wuenschen ein Berliner?
Yup. Totally agreed. My first encounter with that species occurred when a fat, florid, pig-eyed, yellow-haired specimen had the temerity to elbow me out of his way at an airport counter and when I remonstrated mildly, announced at the top of his lungs in a terrible Hollywood-Central-Casting accent that he would report me to the Tourist Promotion Board for being rude to a tourist.
Years later, several hundred of his ilk further offended me by wearing minuscule, brightly-coloured plasticized and strategically-placed fabric equivalents of fig leaves on their enormous, sausage-like, broiled-bright-red-by-the-tropical-sun greasy, sweaty fat forms all over the hippie trail through Asia. For the good of humanity, if nothing else, the German Tourist should be wiped out as a species. The animal seems to do best in its native terrain.
You know who else thought a certain people should be wiped out as a species?
I am so sorry; I couldn't help myself. You set me up.
I did. It was deliberate. And I should be ashamed of myself. I have to admit to having deep racist feelings about Germans, and I don't really understand why.
I blame my father. He made me read all that shit about Nazis when I was eight or nine, and I think it left me permanently scarred.
"nothing compares to the obnoxiousness of a German tourist. Nothing."
<nodding in agreement>
Happy Baby Jesus Day.
Just when you think that America can't get any worse. This nation has gone from bad to worse to outright vileness. I'm ready to leave, check please!
We might need to shift a few lyrics around this year.
Who cries this way,
oh no, oh no!
Methinks Target needs a new Sanity Clause in its rules for customer behavior.
Silly — there ain't no sanity clause!
I stopped at the mall yesterday and it literally smelled like flatulence. It was packed with obese Neanderthals, full of the noxious combination of McDonald's and Krispy Kreme. I should have lit a match and blown them all sky high.
How did you manage to Just stop by a mall on Black Friday? I thought you either had to camp out for days or scale rotting piles of human flesh to even make it through the door.
You wanna match? I gotta a match – their breath and a thousand buffalo farts.
NEANDERTHAL LIBEL!!
Sounds like my living room, (I'm looking at you, Mr. Fatale).
You guys have Krispy Kreme in your malls? We just have Cinnabon.
My bad, Annie. It was actually Mrs. Field's in front of Frederick's of Hollywood where they lined up for free samples on toothpicks that were actually inserted into their mouths by the sample lady. I tried to romanticize the flatulence.
Oh, that OK. I was just worried that we were really missing out.
Bring out your dead!
Not dead yet!
Kevin Drum had a rather fun What's all this Black Friday nonsense, anyway?" article, in which he discovers that Black Friday was originally regarded as a nuisance. At least that's not a problem anymore.
True. Now it's considered a major fucking disaster.
Progress!
Tar-jay should go back to France where they came from!!!
Besides, Target spelled backwards is Evil. I heard that on Fox News, I think.
"Tar-jay should go back to France where they came from!!!"
I agree! Wait, he's that really annoying guy from the Star Wars movies, right?
"America… fuck yeah!"
Can we please do an “alternate history swap” and have the Native Americans defeat the Europeans? Please?
Do you know how hard it is to watch Everyone vs. Indians movies on television? "Hell on Wheels" is only pissing me off, and making my white husband uncomfortable. Me too, also.
I am so fucking unpatriotic. All I bought this weekend was cauliflower and beer. Well, off to give the kids their evening pepper spray . . .
With cauliflower and beer you could probably just caulk up the windows in your house and re-enact the gas chambers.
I did a grocery store run because I did not want to hit the pet store (near all the big boxes of course) for wet food. Though I consider that an emergency since I am not sure I would wake up in one piece if I ran out of beast chow.
Just so you'll know: they would have absolutely no shame in licking your dead bones clean if you ran out of beastfood. I know this. My beasts have told me so.
You're getting them to build up an immunity? That's a wise idea.
Why did you buy the cauliflower? Pepper spray is a vegetable.
Essentially a vegetable. Like ketchup and catsup and pizza. And unlike cauliflower, my kids might actually willingly eat pepper spray.
I think I like your kids. They sound truly strange.
"Daddy… SPRAY US AGAIN… spray us again!!"
Only 9 WalMarts? That number seems pretty low. I heard reports of fights bad enough that police were called (not rent-a-cops either, real police) in two stores just here.
Oh and don't forget in NC, where two guys chased each other through the mall at 2 a.m. shooting at each other: http://www.wral.com/news/local/story/10422570/
Are you sure that just wasn't some in-store holiday entertainment NC style?
Well it WAS Fayetnam…
The police shot a shoplifter dead at the Walmart here in K-town, TN, a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, shopping continued apace, even as the corpse was removed. True story.
…because business should go on, even through the bloodstained linens. Capitalism stops for no person.
Wow. I wonder if I could keep shopping if the popos had just shot someone dead next to me. Probly not.
Those are just the ones that we heard about.
"two guys chased each other through the mall at 2 a.m. shooting at each other:"
That was the Blues Brothers.
On a mission from god.
Geez. And I just got done whining to my best bud about how some dood got ventilated in a nearby Mall Wart by some fellow shoppers anxious to liberate him of Xmas merchandise. At least they were low-key enough NOT to run and raise the blood pressure of the obese neighbours.
I have never gone shopping on Black Friday. There's not a damn thing I want bad enough to be trampled trying to get it. All I can say about watching these people on the news & videos is this: YOU FUCKING MAKE ME SICK! I HATE YOU ALL!
Now I might be tempted if it were Jaguars for a couple of bucks, but only if they threw in tax, tag & a full tank for free.
I'd settle for a Savannah cat. Jaguars are too high-end for me.
It's hard enough for me to go shopping for, like, food and TP and stuff like that. I cannot imagine what kind of people actually go shopping at these disasterhorrorshows to just, I dunno, BUY STUFF. Shit, I've needed new socks and underwear for over a year now but I'm putting off shopping for that shit till the holes are big enough to freeze ass or toes.
The key is you gotta do the tramplin'.
You know, I could be down for speaking an Algonquian language.
. DO you mean American Indian or Dorothy Parker?
Men seldom make passes
At shoppers who are asses
(it almost works…)
Nice try, Target but when it comes to shopping insanity it is Wal-Mart and then everyone else.
Target, imma let you finish, but WalMart had the best Black Friday stampede/shooting/pepper spraying/parking lot robbery(ies) evah.
To be fair… the insanity at Mall-Wart is pretty much every day…
(God that fucking place is disgusting)
As an ex-pat Brit, this whole Black Friday thing flies high over my pointy bad-toothed head. It's more a cultural idiosyncrasy than anything else.
It's not that this type of behaviour is uniquely American; I've seen riots at Boxing Day sales before. Imagine a crowd of small-town British fishwives fighting for the last hair-straightener from a low-end drug store and you're about there.
We should celebrate this orgy of Western consumerism and treat it as a unifying experience!
Oh, who am I kidding? It's bullshit whichever country it happens in. Save a couple of quid on a toaster oven? Just fuck off. Now I feel old and curmudgeonly as well. Just can't get excited about a cheap xbox, I suppose.
Yeah I hate Xmas shopping, too. When I'm in a mall in Dec, I get the urge to fucking punch the shit out of everyone around me. Now I do all my shopping in Oct before the stampede. Saves my sanity.
There is nothing quite like the scent of desperation in the air of a mall on December 24 within a half hour of closing. People who are completely shocked to find that Christmas is being held this year on December 25 will buy any crap which looks like a plausible gift.
As a retail professional, let me correct you. It's not "people" who are completely shocked to find Christmas is being held. They're all men. I've wrapped their gifts for them until an hour after the store was supposed to have closed. Not a female in the line. Why is it so impossible for men to put wrapping paper on a box? They can lead D-Day, invent the computer, devise the forward pass. But wrap a gift box? No can do.
You think it's genetic? I've given up. Everytime I giftwrap something, it looks like it has tumours. In desperation, I let some cute little sales bunny talk me into buying these cutesy little bags with cards attached. You dump the prezzie inside, the sales bunny puts lots of fluffy paper stuff on top, and voila! No stickytape required!
Helps if you can get a wife, girlfriend, or best gay bud. Usually, they'll complain like hell but do a fab job wrapping the thing and you won't have little lumps of paper and tape sticking out all over the prezzy or stuck all over you.
You are statistically correct on the gender thing. Having, on occasion, been there on Christmas Eve, I must agree that most of my fellow shoppers have been brothers rather than sisters. However, in gender defense, I have to point out that maybe a third of those present have been female — probably no longer shopping, but just trying to keep some guy from going berserk, but still.
Also, too, even in my most dire late buying straits, I never had anybody wrap my gifts. Even when I had to fabricate a box out of random bits of cardboard. Admittedly, these weren't prize-winners, but nobody looks at the wrapping once they've started to take it off.
Oh, also again. When I was much younger, I kind of enjoyed going to a mall on Dec 24, after I had already bought all my presents. Have a couple glasses of brandy, flirt with the overworked staff, maybe buy an impulse item.
I'm with Palinz – my gift-wrapping sucks. We're the type of person for whom the gift bag was invented. And I'm pretty sure I remember seeing women in the stores on Christmas Eve – just not as many women as men.
I already know that all my friends hate me bitterly for this shit, but for years, I give $$ to charity in my friends' name. It's not like they NEED anything, and if they did, they're all edjumacated enough and well-off enough to buy the shit I can afford. The other shit, I can't help them with. (If they can't afford their own fucking house, I can't help them.) Occasionally, when I'm feeling less curmudgeonly, I'll buy them a decent book or cook them a decent meal.
If there's $$ burning a hole in my pocket, I'm sure the poor and hungry, battered women, abused children, animals in shelters, and slave traders' victims need it MUCH more than any fucking yuppie I might be friends with.
I don't hate people who do that. In fact, I love them extra for it. My favorite was when my brother gave a goat to someone in South America in my name.
(Hugs Jukesgrrl) I'm gonna have to run away with you, at this rate. Your brother sounds like a wonderful human being. I hope the goat is happy with its people, and that their lives have been greatly improved with its addition.
I didn't know you were British.
"Just can't get excited about a cheap xbox" I, also, didn't know that you were previously married and no longer attracted to her.
Took me a moment. The vicodin's wearing off.
(and god damn that was harsh and funny. Like watching War of the Roses.)
"Like watching War of the Roses"
In honor of Thanksgiving, I am currently watching "Diary of a Mad Housewife". So far, I've watched 45 minutes and thought, "Thank god I don't have to be married any more" at least 30 times.
Ow.
I hope you're all recovered now. It certainly seems as if you are.
fukui you give me some hope as always.
Imagine a crowd of small-town British fishwives fighting for the last hair-straightener from a low-end drug store
I love Monty Python
So are you fighting AGAINST the War on Christmas if you step over a dead guy? Are these people in fact heroes? I need Fox or Colbert or One-L to tell me!
Yes, all of these brave men and women died as glorious Christian martyrs for Santa-Jesus on the body-strewn battlefields of the WalMart and Target and (fill in name of big box).
… Bristol Palin?
"Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need." Perhaps the wisest words ever spoken by the psychopathic split personality of an author's fictional character.
My life has gotten so much better since I started using your SOAP, Mr. durden!
Needz moar Kanye West.
No tree, I'll get gifts for the granddaughters and no one else. I will bake Christmas goodies for days, as appreciation for Jeffery's employees, and I will send cards to be polite. I'll get tons of stuff for Toys for Tots and nothing else. Jeffery's vendors at work send stacks and stacks of gifts, mostly food items. I will recycle those things into the Christmas goodies I bake, nuts, chocolate, etc. Otherwise, it's just another day at my house.
The Christmas ads are obnoxious, especially the one where the "wing man" helps dad, in the military, buy a diamond necklace for mom. People in the armed forces don't have tons of cash to blow like that. The Lexus company would LOVE to guilt us into buying a car for the person we bump uglies with.
I purchased a single roll of Christmas wrap five years ago and I still have 80% of the roll in the closet. I think I will throw it away tomorrow.
As an adult human man, I would like to say that I wish people would just give me homemade baked goods for Xmas. I have a large family and there's lots of gift-swapping going on, and the entire production nearly imploded (if only!) when I declared I wasn't going to make an asinine list for relatives to take to Walmart and shove plastic bullshit on to me. They expected an adult to go through with this!
No, someone give me some pies or cookies, made with work and love. So keep doing what you do, is what I'm saying.
As an adult avian male, I agree. Please send me home-raised mice, voles and stoats. Especially stoats.
Would ferrets and polecats suffice as suitable substitutes?
That comment sticks in my craw.
Just stay away from the ground squirrels. Please?
Oh, you don't wanna know what we do with squirrels. Suffice it to say that when they see me coming, they run towards Mike Huckabee.
What's the difference between a stoat and a weasel? Weasels are weasily recognised but stoats are stoatally different. You can thank my late father for that joke.
Limeylizzie's here all night! Try the veal. On second thought, for the love of god, do not try the veal. In fact, find the manager that the purchased the veal and knock his fucking teeth out.
Your father sounds like mine. Dad made the most awful jokes, and only he thought they were funny. Laugh? He about to died, each time, slapping his thigh and turning red in the face and choking.
While we all stared, stank-eyed and silent.
Can I not thank your late father for that joke, because I suspect I will never forget it now (because it's clever), yet I still have no idea what the difference is.
I always thought of you as more of a slender type.
True Christmas Story:
It was the first Xmas for the little Radio back in the early 90's and he was the first grandkid on the wife's side. The wife had bought him a trunk full of Made in China crap already and we drove up to Ohio. Aunts, uncles, grandma and grandpa are all buying this shit for him. It's like 1 AM on xmas morning and I am literally starting to shake at the voluminous pile of crap around the tree and filling half a room. Then grandpa comes in and begins assembling a tricycle or something and I decompensated. My first full blown anxiety attack. I went into the bedroom and burned through my catecholamine stores. I ain't religious but this was sinful. 2-3 cubic meters of crap, just crap. I swore to Mrs. Radio never again. If the stupid relatives want to buy him stuff fine, but maybe 1-2 thoughtful things from us.
The funny thing is he had a virus and woke on the special day only to open a third of the shit mindlessly and give up. I gave most of the stuff to toys for tots or something. Shameful really.
I always challenge people to buy me NOTHING for xmas. I'll be surprised and happy. I've challenged the family to have a Made in USA xmas or only gifts you've actually crafted yourself — to no avail.
Listen, I'm not some scrooge-ass. I'm down with the lights and the spirit and the family and food, but I disdain the crass mindless consumerism almost as much as the Kenny G.
Ironically, I think the Vince Guaraldi Charlie Brown Christmas albums is a stellar musical work. I'm weird, what can I say, pepper spray me.
Little Suzie is learning to make a holiday tradition out of collecting her toys that resulted from that horrific scene that you described above, and donating them to "the kids that don't have toys", as she says. All those 1970s claymation xmas specials invariably begin in an orphanage, and we've drawn the connection for her between that and the local homeless/domestic violence shelter. In addition to sweaters and blankets, pots and pans, etc, each year they receive a healthy dose of toys for the kids.
And Vince Guaraldi rocks. I'll pepper spray anyone who says different.
I saw Vince Guaraldi play once, in 1971 Sausalito, when he sat in with some friends' band, and he did indeed rock.
Aw, that is just SO fucking SWEET!
Pepper spray has been mentioned. Thought I would share:
The official Cyber Monday online pepper spray icon from @BorowitzReport
(>.<)
You are welcome.
We did the same thing for our daughter's (first child, yeah) second Christmas many years ago, and there weren't even relatives involved, just me and the ex-pdogette. Our daughter gave up opening presents about three-fourths the way through and walked off bored of it all. Never again. Fortunately, the ex did daycare in the home, so everything got well-used.
You inspire me.
I had to endure black Fridays when our children were younger, because I couldn't convince someone that the stress of buying on that day was not a fair trade for the scant savings. Pick your battles, I guess.
In the meantime, my daughter is now a sophomore in college, and she learned to crochet and knit. This is the second year on her own initiative to make something practical for family members — on their request, even!
I don't know how she saw through the shit-smoke of consumerism, but she fucking well did. Between her and this read here, the only thing that will trim this anti-shopping Christmas season any better would be if the consumers would self-immolate while shopping in their precious malls.
There is nothing, NOTHING worse than those smug, self-assured Lexus commercials…well maybe Kenny G Christmas drool.
As I am reading your comment, RadiosTyrone, a "Lexus December to Remember" commercial is playing on TV. A quick Google search shows the lower priced Lexus at $29,210.00 and the most expensive Lexus is the $465,000 Lexus LFA Nurburgring. Their ad campaign should be "Meant for the One Percent."
But don't forget that Jesus Ken already told you that.
As somebody on twitter said – if you can afford to gift a Lexus, you would probably gift a Benz, instead.
Also, fuck that whole family in the Lexus ad playing guitar hero then going outside to their new Lexus suv. I hope they die in a Christmas tree fire started by stray embers from their fireplace.
Yeah, what the hell is that? FIrst there is a smart phone(Ithink it must be an ad for a phone) and then the photo of the car. And then the car.
"Kenny G Christmas drool"
Joe Queenan is a fairly inconsistent writer, but I enjoyed his review of a Barry Manilow concert, wherein he said, "Whether you like them or not, they're at least actual songs with a beginning, middle, and end, which is an improvement over Kenny G jerking off over the same note for three hours".
We are not celebrating this year.I'll go to the big family dinner, my brother is an excellent chef.My son is 22 and in college. That is where all my disposable money is going. It is not a political statement,my husband and I just don't have any money for it, and I refuse to go into debt for chachkies.
I like the way that you think! I saw something on the web yesterday that suggested that for cousins, aunts, etc. you should draw names for gifts to save money. Just be honest and say you have no money. You'd be surprised how many people will thank you for your honesty and admit the same.
The Catholicism-extended Owls clan has been doing that for eons now. If we bought individual gifts for everyone we'd need to change our last names to Penury. Mostly, the gift lottery system works great, though woe be to you if you draw Owl's pater familia. Needs nothing, wants nothing and thus appreciates nothing.
On the other hand, people have been known to trade vast sums of sugar cookies and first round gifts to be named later in order to get the most cherished recipient of all: Uncle Harvey. He's the only dago in the family and does not take himself at all seriously, often giving others t-shirts with his ugly mug plastered all over the front.
For this, Uncle Harvey is much beloved.
Back when I was particularly poor, I saved my pennies to get nice cards for people. They were always appreciative.
Barb: Your comments often make me laugh and that one of my top three favorite things to do. Thank you.
Thanks to you for "getting it" I often wonder if anyone does.
"No tree"
Back when I was still married to the former Mr. Tessie, we lived in a house with a big wooded yard and had 4 cats. When we brought an Xmas tree into the house, the cats lost their tiny minds and freaked out ("It's a TREE!! INSIDE THE HOUSE!!") and the excitement that followed was fun for the cats, but not for the peoples. After that, we pretty much didn't bother with trees. I've never gotten them since. Don't miss 'em.
Cat diary: 12/20/1996
The food-givers have brought a climbing place into the house. Imagine my excitement — there be birds here. I want to hunt, but their loud voices force me to wait. The torment is great. I must nap. If I ever discover how to get the food out of those shiny rocks, I will kill them.
I think I love you, Barb. Will you run away with me? You can bring Jeffer, he sounds like a decent human being.
I just can't get with that consumerist shit. Giving people things you made with love, and giving to those who have nothing, I can get with. Screw the rest.
Yesterday I bought diapers, milk, toilet paper, and some greek yogurt at the grocery store. And I only had to trample two old ladies and pepper spray a mom and her annoying kid. A Black Friday victory!!
I waited until today- really surprised the person in front of me at Whole Foods-I needed those eggs quickly -but of course I only used organic locavore pepper spray
"Locavore" really does make me want to punch someone.
??
What the–??
"Locavore"??
This is someone who only eats crazy food?
Or [ominous background music] crazy PEOPLE??!
A cannibal who only eats his neighbors.
His name was Walter Vance.
…his name…was Walter Vance.
his name….was Walter Vance.
Needs moar destruction of corporate coffee bar with works of public art.
"Public Art".
I think the conservatives foiled your plans there.
glamourdammerung: You REALLY love your vegetables, don't you?! I wish I'd never clicked on that Kortney thing. It made me want to kill myself.
I went to the hardware store to get furnace filters Friday. They weren't even on sale. But then again I didn't get trampled, stabbed or shot… so there is that.
You got new furnace filters? Looks like someone has a rich uncle.
You have a furnace? Aren't you the hard-working, bootstrap-pulling-up success story of America!
fuck me. we use dried cat gut for bootstraps.
and yeah, WE have cats.
You have cats? You twenty-percenter. We borrow cats in exchange for the lend of a pan without holes in it.
We get the good deal because sometimes the cats leave part of the rats they catch. Protein.
"You got new furnace filters? Looks like someone has a rich uncle."
Yeah, really! If dying from a defective furnace was good enough for Vitas Gerulaitis…
Too soon?
NEW furnace filters?????
Fuckin elitist.
I went to Uwajimaya on Black Friday. The crowds were so intense I could almost count three other customers. Went to get a couple of Mac kitchen knives on 40% off. The gal told me this is the first and probably the last time they'll ever be on sale. That's ok, because they'll probably last as long as my cast-iron pots.
Sorry I'm so bought into the consumer spirit. I'm just trying to help the Japanese pay for the Fukushima cleanup.
Or you could get knives made from Fukushima uranium. I understand that stuff lasts longer than cast-iron pots. Plus it nukes the food while you slice it. A real timesaver.
Welcome to the jungle, the invisible foot of the market at least stepped over the poor guy as a manifestation of how awesome the market is.
50 brazillion angry white people can't stand having a Black man in the White House any day of the week, but they go all berserk for a Black Friday?
They say he didn't have an enemy
his was a greatness to behold
He was the last surviving progeny
the last one on this side of the world
He measured a half mile from tip to tail
silver and black with powerful fins
They say he could split a mountain in two
that's how we got the Grand Canyon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Some say they saw him at the Great Lakes
some say they saw him off of Florida
My mother said she saw him in Chinatown
but you can't always trust your mother
Off the Carolinas the sun shines brightly in the day
the lighthouse glows ghostly there at night
The chief of a local tribe had killed a racist mayor's son
and he'd been on death row since 1958
The mayor's kid was a rowdy pig
spit on Indians and lots worse
The old chief buried a hatchet in his head
life compared to death for him seemed worse
The tribal brothers gathered in the lighthouse to sing
and tried to conjure up a storm or rain
The harbor parted, the great whale sprang full up
and caused a hugh tidal wave
The wave crushed the jail and freed the chief
the tribe let out a roar
The whites were drowned, the browns and reds set free
but sadly one thing more
Some local yokel member of the NRA
kept a bazooka in his living room
And thinking he had the chief in his sight
blew the whale's brains out with a lead harpoon
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Last great American whale
last great American whale
Well Americans don't care for much of anything
land and water the least
And animal life is low on the totem pole
with human life not worth more than infected yeast
Americans don't care too much for beauty
they'll shit in a river, dump battery acid in a stream
They'll watch dead rats wash up on the beach
and complain if they can't swim
They say things are done for the majority
don't believe half of what you see and none of what you hear
It's like what my painter friend Donald said to me
"Stick a fork in their ass and turn them over, they're done"
sure – blame the Brazilians
And why would Brazilians hate a black man in the White House? Lots and lots of Brazilians are black.
I had a Brazilian once. It was kinda reddish. For a few days, anyway.
"God, I hate this goddammed job, and this country, and the elves."
Speaking of Black Friday, I bet Santa is lookin’ forward to the weekend.
That's why it's called Black Friday!
me and every santa in america: watching 'bad santa' over and over and over again.
There is no fucking way in hell I would let my kids sit on that sad Santa's lap.
Can we see the day where kids aren't allowed to sit on Santa's lap? Store policy? Kids will be standing at the knee, from the outside, and perhaps allowed to shake hands, as long as he's gloved.
The Wal-Mart riots were nothing compared to what we'll see when they announce lower prices on better broadband.
I am ashamed of my people right now and can't wait for 12/21/12 when we all wake up to the Age of Aquarius when everyone's nice again – check it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjxSCAalsBE
When did we go from "All you need is love" to all you need is more shit?
About the same time we went from the "Age of Aquarius" to the "Age of Aquisition".
I think it was when the Rutles released "All You Need Is Cash."
Beat me by 12 hours.
Huh! Macy's I could understand, but Target? How red state.
Yes well, Mr. Fancy AntispandexPants, not every state gets to have an elitist MACY'S at which to shop. Hell, to some of my relatives in this red state, Target IS Macy's.
And now you know the real reason why all of the #Occupy crackdowns appeared coordinated, and occurred when they did:
Black. Fucking. Friday.
As I suggested at the time, when it comes to boosting the bottom line of local tax base-benefitting, big box store behemoths on the eve of their most inanely promoted, insanely profitable sales season, all unruly, unsanitary tent encampments are not created equal.
i spent the day cleaning, packaging leftovers and listening to green day.
or other punk things.
tomorrow i will shop local for x-mas.
i haven't felt this pure since 1994.
Pepper spray sales are up 3%. Well over the 2.5% the analysts had forecasted. Capsaicin futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange responded predictably with a surge in volume.
How does this shit happen every year? It's not like the same crap isn't going to keep being made by abused third world slaves and be available every single day for the rest of eternity.
As I always say, they aren't going to stop making shit. And my house only can fit a certain size TV, like 72 inches, max.
And if I got an Xbox, it would totally cut into my Wonkette commenting time. Unacceptable!
I'm not on Facebook because it would cut into my Wonkette time.
And its a big data mining scam, also too.
But only on Black Friday is that crap on super-sale, and there are like maybe three of each item available. Hence, riots and mayhem. "Competitive shopping," I believe it's now called.
Yeah, except none of it is stuff that anybody NEEDS. Is it food? No. Is it medicine? No. Will it make anyone healthier, more intelligent, better educated, better able to balance all the conflicting forces in their life? No.
My parents died recently. It took me the best part of three weeks to clean up their shit. In the end I couldn't manage any more 4 am to midnight cleaning sessions, so I threw it all away. And they didn't go shopping in the last twenty years of their lives because they were too old and mobility-impaired. Plus, their stuff was solid, good old made-in-the-50s-designed-to-last-a-lifetime shit. The crap these people are buying will be broken by January 1st, 2012.
"The crap these people are buying will be broken by January 1st, 2012."
Yes, but they will have received the requisite tangible proof from friends and family members that they are loved, which sentiments will be broken by January 1st, 2012.
you know as a non religious person (ish) i think christmas is an awesome season.
also mr fuflans and i have had a really really shitty fall, so i personally am looking forward to madrigals and various dried fruits and shortbread and – possibly – redemption.
and fuck those people who could walk over other people.
Christmas (or whatever solstice holiday one celebrates in December) is a wonderful thing, particularly up here in temperate climates to break up the monotony of the weather. But, yeah, I could totally do without the (literally) break-neck Black Fridays, and the entire fevered week before Christmas day.
Maybe because we don't celebrate Christmas(look for me serving a meal at a women's shelter on Christmas day)-but I like Claxton fruit cake. I know it is probably the lowest level of fruit cake but I can't help it.
They cut me down and I leapt up high;
I am the life that’ll never, never die,
I’ll live in you if you’ll live in me;
“I am the Lord of the Dance,” said he.
But how does this affect Sarah Palin?
La Griftzilla always smirks to herself when people buy into facile crap.
Are you speaking of her books? Her movie? Her tv series? Her brand of un-prescribed glasses?
She did not get the chance to personally step directly onto a dying man, therefore libruls are picking on her and her family.
That gentleman is just as dead as her careers?
Hope you're happy Jesus.
I hope you are happy, Christians. (Christianity isn't Jesus' fault.)
Jesus, I hope you're happy too.
"2012 can't come quick enough"
I'm afraid you're wrong – there's a Christmas in 2012, too.
Yeah, but everybody will be freaking out and going all Jonestown by the middle of next year, so Christmas will only technically be here next year.
So those of us who don't go all Jonestown really will have a Merry Christmas in 2012!
I think the Mayan calendar or something says that the world is supposed to end before 12/25/12, isn't it? So! Something to look forward to!
"Shoppers"=the same ignorant white people that imagined themselves a movement and then wheeled out in their Medicare paid for scooters and yelled at the black Kenyan about socialism. That's why there haven't been many teabilly rallies lately.
I wish it was that simple. Black Friday's base is the disheartened, disensitized, pyschologically abused poorz of every color, creed, and political lean. If one thing has made me sad about Black Friday, it's that the folks camping out and stampeding look like…America.
Unforunately and regrettably, Black Friday is part of the "circus" in "bread & circus."
For one day a year, they get to feel like they are alive and free (when they are anything but). In reality, the whole day is a cheap and vulgar lie.
Hohoho!
You rang?
Where's the compassion? The decency? The common sense of humanity?
I read that not one shopper helped another lift their cart over this obstructionist geeze, that they might continue on that spiritual journey to the housewares department that we all share.
At least someone could have put a 75% off sticker on him. He would have been out of that store in seconds.What boy doesn't want a genuine dead body* for Xmas?
* Poking stick not included.
"What boy doesn't want a genuine dead body* for Xmas?
* Poking stick not included."
I'm not a boy, but if I get to pick who used to be in the dead body, I'm in.
No fair, there'll be WAY too many votes for the current slate of Republican candidates.
I think we should just try start calling Black Friday "Lord of the Flies" day.
Shopping in the Xmass section shows that you have the true Xtian spirit and strong family values. Compassion does not enter into it. Pepper spray sometimes does.
Low priced Chinese made baubles are the Opium of the Masses!
And one of the elements of Bread and Circuses.
Sales Sales sales are up 7% compared to last year.
Gentleman probably died due to the push and shove, "this plastic back-scratcher" is mine crowd.
The only store I went to on Black Friday was Whole Foods. I did get pepper sprayed while fighting for some arugula, but it was local, organic, gluten-free pepper spray, so it was all good.
I swear I wrote my note(further up the line of comments) before I read yours- our minds are very similar. I hope this does not mean Wonkette is taking over our brains
Ha ha, that's awesome. Everyone knows great minds think alike, and we're all great minds here at Wonkette.
Pepper spray happens to be very good on arugula, essentially.
If it's not RENEWABLE, local, organic, gluten-free pepper spray you are a fascist douche! Here's your big bowl of salted rat dicks, happy holidays…
At least he died doing what he loved.
What a way to sign off. Vapor locking in the toy aisle with a bunch of idiots running their carts into you and bitching while you breathe your last. Do you suppose Target will give the deceased a holiday spray for the coffin or a bill for the clean up? I'm betting they'll send them a bill for the disinfectant at least. WalMart would have kept the body until the check cleared. Target is a classy joint.
They can get Isaac Mizrahi to say something cheeky at the funeral.
Dude! Way too soon.
I don't like laughing so hard before my second cup of coffee.
brav-fucking-o: comment of the year!
thanks but it's not about me, it's about the victim …
"Can we please do an 'alternate history swap' and have the Native Americans defeat the Europeans? Please?"
I'm ok with this as long as in this parallel universe
the Cleveland Indians are the free-spending, trash-talking bullies of baseball,
and the Yankees are the lovable losers.
And being needy makes you attractive.
And steaks and wine make you healthy, slender and fit, while tofu makes you bloat up like a balloon.
… and whiskey is an antioxidant.
In the spirit of the season, may I just say
"Shot them all but leave six for pallbearers"
I WANT MY $2 WAFFLE MAKER!! AHHHRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!!!
Beautiful Yulish midwinter pagan celebrations of the unconquered sun mishmashed into capitalism's high holy day. Bah and humbuggies.
Humbuggies, eh? I think my great-great-grandfather owned one of those. The came in two models: one-horse or two.
I quite like the Jul celebration — Ha, mofo death, the days are gonna start getting longer, we live another year, so fuck you. And when May rolls around we'll fuck anything that slows up.
Please lord, when i go don't let it be in the aisle of a fukkin Target. Or a trussed up in a Thai hotel beatin off, that would be bad too.
And Obama gets into trouble for not invoking God in his Thanksgiving Day speech: http://www.politicususa.com/en/obama-thanksgiving
jesus h christ on a bread stuffed bird.
Video or GTFO
Pathetic.
Competitive dying.
(sorry if someone beat me too it already, but I'm on my 5th cup of coffee and I aint got time to read all the comments.)
Today, we are all Walter Vance.
I have long deplored the crassness and commercialism of Xmess, but have some sympathy for those crazed shoppers who feel that the only way they can afford whatever-it-is is to stampede their way into a big box store. Although Mr Gem and I are frugal, we are "comfortable" enough to not to have to subject ourselves to trampling hordes of bargain seekers. At least some of these shoppers are just trying to stretch what little they have to try and make Xmess meaningful to their families. G-d save/bless/help them.
Oh shit, I forgot to snark.
Unfortunately, I know people who ARE relatively well off and are the cheapest little SOBs you can imagine. I'd wager most of these people can reasonably afford this crap, they're just cheap as all hell.
And there are some that just enjoy jumping into the fray. So be it.
Go on, hon, you can catch up if you try.
Three words: amazon dot com. 'Course the cocksuckers insist on selling dogfighting videos (not the flying kind)….Assholes.
"USA!, USA!, USA!…"
I know; this is a staple of mine but I think this story warrants bringing it back. Oh, the humanity!
The more I read about Black Friday, the less compulsion I have to indulge in my shopaholic tendencies. Assholes keep this up, and I'll get my catch – up contributions to my retirement set up, stat…
"Can we please do an “alternate history swap” and have the Native Americans defeat the Europeans? Please?"
And if that's not possible, can we go to Plan B and do the alternate history thing where the South seceded from the US and we said, "Buh-bye" and let them?
"Target couldn’t even win the award for “most violent chain store of plastic imported garbage” this Thanksgiving Weekend. That dubious honor went to WalMart, as usual, with violence at nine different (identical) WalMart stores around the country."
Is that more or less violence at Walmart than the rest of the year?
Yep.
Target's new slogan: Christmas Deals Worth Dying For!
Too soon.
Only because I was gonna write "A sale to die for" and you beat me to it!
Jesus, God, what the fuck is wrong with humans?
I don't understand your question.
All the aggression that used to help us hunt mammoths and chop down trees now has no survival value and no constructive outlet.
Opposable thumbs?
I think it would be more appropriate if we started calling this "Lord of the Flies Day."
I'm so glad the X-tians won the War on Christmas because it would really be a tragedy if the Wal-Mart greeter had to say "happy holidays" while people were knifing and killing each other.
I really wish the Xtians believed in their own shit for a change.
What part of thou shall not covet don't you people grasp??
We just got a phone call from the county jail.
One of my "Christian" housemates got caught stealing from Macys.
That DO NOT STEAL shit is just another "parable"…
That beats the checkout lines.
How was that announced over the speaker system, "biomass cleanup in aisle 12" ?
Is there no low to which these mouthbreathers won't descend? Pepper-spraying each other, shooting each other in the parking lots, tasing the maddened hordes … and all for a $2 waffle iron, or something equally tacky that they'll break and/or throw away before the year is out.
Well it's not like he was raping some 11-year old kid or anything. These folks were just keeping their powder dry until the real moral test presented itself.
So this is one more advantage of Festivus – no Black Friday.
Or Monday.
Or Tuesday…
Whew. I thought an ad for a book about Catherine de Medici had replaced Kortney.
MrLimeylizzie and I and his twin daughters and their spouses just ask each other what we want and then I go online and buy it, we have a non-religious gathering 2 days before Christmas and then he and I drive to San Francisco and have sexual hijinks at the Mark Hopkins.
I'm totally down with that lizzie, the sexual hijinks part at least, preceded by dinner at Venticello and a Hendrick's martini at the Top of the Mark, of course.
I love San Francisco so much, I would move there in a minute.
Pix or GTFO.
We'd all like tickets, please.
Well, enjoy Knob Hill.
I always do.
Can we please do an “alternate history swap” and have the Native Americans defeat the Europeans? Please?
It took over 400 years for people to get to this point, but yet, we can have that alternate history now. We should actually.
If you listen closely you can hear the Koch brothers giggling.
Hidden by the wall of slurping sounds from countless congressional blowjobs, of course.
According to Noami Wulf, Kansas Superstar Emma says an apology to heblowsalot would be insincere. Won't do it.
Good for her! Woot…
That is the best thanksgiving prezzie ever.
Not sure if this has been posted yet.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/11/27/occupy-okla...
You know there's a Powerpoint slide showing the profits from Black Friday(tm) justify the dead customers (court settlements, paperwork, crime scene cleaning services, etc).
I bet all those people who walked around and over the poor man consider themselves "Christians". But because it was Black Friday, they were willing to walk over an old man to buy junk which they won't even look at five minutes after they open the present on Christmas Day.
The strange mixture of stunned disbelief and outright anger by the employees that someone's doing this on their shift was all kinds of awesome. I think that this is really the strength of the movement. You take the protest right to the everyday, mundane lives of people, in everyday, mundane places like an OKC WalMart. You show people that this movement is literally everywhere, from the deepest blue to the brightest red places in the nation. You get apolitical folks to see which side they are on, to think a bit more about their choices and lifestyle. A few seconds of calling attention to something apparently goes a long way.
You all are over-reacting. Christmas started with the three kings macing baby Jesus, and that turned out fine.
I forgot about gold, myrrh, and capsaicin. You're so right.
I had to do an errand tonight and when I got out of my car I noticed I had parked beside a brand-spanking-new white Nissan. It had:
A "Choose Life" Arizona license plate,
A bumper sticker that read "Is this the change you wanted?" with an American flag on one side and a hammer and sickle on the other side,
And a big decal on the back window that read "U.S. Air Force Retired."
Our tax dollars at work.
At my government-funded workplace, the director's secretary drives a big pickup truck with the following stickers:
Taxed Enough Already
One Big Ass Mistake, America
McCain/Palin 2008
Are you Taxed Enough to pay your own fucking salary? She and her ilk routinely blame Obama for the fact that we haven't had raises in three years, despite the fact that he proposed doubling the NSF budget but their beloved Tea Party said "no, let's cut it 15% instead".
Is there a check box on the 1040 where we can deny funding to hypocritical asswipes? Or would that make the tax code too complicated?
Absolutely beyond pathetic.I maintain that public elementary schools need to teach classes in cause and effect.Not to mention that economics and civics should be mandatory in high school.These people have something wrong with their brains.
As usual, the USAF was too late to save that man.
The center serves cadets whose religions fall under the broad category of “Earth-based".
So, no Mormons or Scientologists, then?
Happy jebus! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDMtaIcrfQ0
Actually, a $2 waffle maker sounds pretty incredible. I love waffles.
But why would you want a $2 waffle? They should cost about a nickel.
$2.00 Bucks! OMG!!
I'm from West Virginia….There's a Target in South Charleston ? OMG!!!
</Sarcasm>
Also Fuck you people for the inbreeding jokes. I've only banged one of my cousins and used a condom! So there! <Sarcasm>
Needz moar Little Drummer Boy!
Pa rump pa pa pom, me & my drum!
You forgot the "h".
That's the town I live near, lard help me.
We were listening to Click & Clack over the weekend, and they were laughing about a gentleman found dead at work. After five days.
He was first in and last out each day (there is a lesson here for all of us!) and nobody noticed he wasn't getting around much. I guess proofreading isn't exactly an active occupation.
Do make a point to speak with your co-workers (if you have any, of course) at least once a day. Or, at least, keep an eye on them – and try to notice if after a day or two they haven't changed their work attire. Or othewise actually moved.
Not nearly as cheery as the Steely Dan song about the stock brokers jumping out of windows and shit.
Whatever. I had my 9 year old dial 911 after I got my $127 ipod Nano with the free $10 Target gift card.
The Devil is the retails.
I regret that this comment was too near the bottom of the thread to receive the upfisting that it deserves.
That is actually a perfect description. I laugh at people who complain about drivers in Northern VA being too aggressive. Granted, I'm usually the person they're complaining about. I can't help it. I learned how to drive in Detroit.
Now if those NOVA fuckers could learn how to drive in the snow I'd be a little happier.
Oh, hon, you need to drive in Jakarta! (Or Mumbai. It's equally dangerous.)
I took driver's ed outside Detroit. The instructor directed me to "consider the speed limit a minimum".
Becoming Huckabee-style "Roadkill Surprise" is preferable to what you'll do to them?
We have a pan, but if we wanna pan handle, we have to go out with a sign to the nearest interchange off-ramp.
I've seen your brand of panhandling.
"Will hedge your funds for a nondilutable holding in your NYSE-traded company, with obvious warrants to be discussed"
'pan'?? can i get off the interchange for a pan?
where are the cats?
If I know cats, they're probably arbitraging kibbles with the local dogs in exchange for amusing feather-based toys.
My, I'd sure hope so. That's the entire point of a craw!
Western Tennessee, repersentin' here. And I'm doing what I can, by posting heavily on facebook about evolution, and sharing Tim Minchin videos, and I'm even trying to form an astronomy hobby group.
JUST TO RUB THEIR FACES IN IT.
"Now if those NOVA fuckers could learn how to drive in the snow I'd be a little happier."
There's an episode of King of the Hill (which, for those who have never seen it, takes place in Texas) where snow is predicted. Of course, everyone goes into panic mode and rushes to the local market to stock up on supplies. As they walk out to the parking lot, one lone snowflake drifts gracefully down. All the cars IMMEDIATELY peel out of the parking lot and collide.
No one's being that kind in these here parts. They're called "rubberneckers" and the practice is called "rubbernecking."
I've trained myself not to look. It took years of gentle shocks through a spare car battery that I keep on hand, but it totally worked, and now I can speed by blood and guts and never even check out the scene in my peripheral vision.
Back in 60's Milwaukee, they called it "gaper's block".
I doubt that they say that now.
Well, that's just the sort of thing I'd expect from the SOCIALIST end of the state.
And a camelback full of a full bodied red wine.
Doesn't matter if they're not science-literate, dammit.
There are worse things than frying.
That's why they send 'em off on vacations.
I spent most of my life either building or maintaining highways, so my contact with tourists was usually cleaning up the mess after they splattered a vanload of unseatbelted people across large chunks of desert landscape, and NObody does this stupid tourist trick better (worse?) than the Japanese.
Is that so? They always seem nice enough to me. Germans and Australians. They get, like, 9 months of vacation per day, so they always seem to be starting companies in new countries. I'd be in some bumblefuck part of China, and end up rooming with German and/or Australian backpacker who were always, like "Oh, I'm just here, starting a little organic import/export company, concentrating mainly on exotic fruit." And I'd be, like, "Oh. I'm here to smoke weed and learn Chinese."
Absolute Win.
I would, but the closest one is 65 miles away. I doubt if I'd recoup the annual membership.
Excellent snark isn't always correct. I loved it!
I had to take my driving test (freeway driving and everything) during the first snow of the year. We are a hardy bunch, no doubt.
Geez.
That was unnecessarily cruel. Now I wish I were dying.
Bad poetry never killed anyone.
(Glances at the Bible)
Not all bad poetry kills people.
You're ready to become a health care worker now!
Yaknow? Ya might just have something there.
There's a French book on gastronomy that I read once in which the author describes a journey through La Belle France and then across the border into Germany. I forget who the author is, but it's some famous gastronome, perhaps even the very Larousse of that eponymous gastronomic masterpiece, but the description of how the author knew he had crossed the border was priceless. He describes a blonde German girl, a veritable vision of loveliness with her thick yellow braids and her high colour, rosy cheeks, enormous blue eyes, the beautiful Cupid's bow of her reddened lips, as they shine with the grease of an enormous pig's meat sausage into which she has just bitten.
Keep 'em at home, you schweinhunds!
Maybe the current crop is acceptable. Although I have my doubts. I once invited one of the backpacker types (an ex of mine was sleeping with him, and he was in Southeast Asia "starting a new business," so why not?) to my house for the holidays. He came over, proceeded to get totally shitfaced and started opining as to how Hitler had failed to finish the job. The house was full of Jewish friends, who took umbrage. I wound up kicking him out of the house at 3 am because he would NOT drop the fucking topic. And he was born in the 1960s, and didn't come from a family of Nazis, so where he got it, god alone knows. I worked for another German schweinhund who "started a little company in Asia" and hired me and a Jewish friend to run it. The friend left work early one day because his baby was running a high fever and the mother was freaking out. The boss comes in, asks for Jewish friend, I relay the circumstances of Jewish friend's non-presence, whereupon damn if the sumbitch doesn't say the same exact thing — Hitler should have finished the job. Is it programmed into all these bastards? Mind you, even though Hitler was Austrian, not German, most of my Austrian friends don't have this bred-in-the-bone anti-Semitism problem. Although the Germans I know don't confine their racism to Jews, they're happy to hate on Africans, Asians, and, well, just cullud folks in general.
Australians are mostly fine since they got rid of that charming Home Minister who used to think "Two Wongs don't make a white" was an uproariously funny joke. Although they still treat their indigenous people like shit when they can get away with it.
Road pizza!
What part of sausages, beer and blondes doesn't define the perfect vacation?
All that, and lubricated too … tell me again why you'd want her to stay home?
Let's see … one billion Muslims, one billion Indians, one billion Chinese … I'm guessing about 5.85/6 of the planetary population?
Oddly enough, my only experience with horrible Germanic people (other than the Pennsylvania Dutch, those fuckers) was with a group of three slutty Austrian women who were constantly trying to fuck my boyfriend at the time. But that was on home turf, so maybe it made the behavior that much weirder for me? Like, “Why are these women crawling into my bed and pawing my boyfriend?” I've never heard a German openly express anti-Jewish rhetoric, but then, I usually introduce myself by saying, “My grandmother spent some time in your prison camps! She said that the food wasn't great. Do you think it's better now?” so maybe that throws them off.
That's a marvelous intro! Guaranteed to deflect any hidden pseudo-Nazi tendencies! Wish I'd thought of that.
Another ex (I know, I go through them like underwear; we're all still great friends, if that helps) decided to go hitchhiking around Yurp in his coming-of-age year; he lost most of his family to the Nazis. He said he had the same exact experience I did. Just about every other German had something to say about Hitler not doing the job right. Weird.
Of course, this is the guy who also told a dear friend who announced she was going camping for her honeymoon: "Bubbulah, Jews don't camp. They flee." I was reading Aharon Appelfeld's To The Land of The Cattails at the time, and it seemed horrendously apposite.
I've known quite a few Germans through work (so, maybe not the tourist clade), and while they tended to be argumentative bastards, it seemed to me that the anti-Nazi laws had worked pretty well. Even substituting Turkish Gastarbeiters for Jews (or blacks), I'd say the percentage incidence of German racist assholes was no worse than the percentage incidence of American racist assholes.
I'm actually glad to hear that. I've been excoriating and flagellating myself since I wrote those words. I mean, I admit to having these shameful thoughts and feelings and behaviours — I haven't actually *acted* on them to the detriment of any German, but I would smack someone else for even thinking these things. So I'm very glad to hear that rather than being justified in thinking of Germans as racist assholes, it might just be that I'm a gigantic biased asshole who should rethink their troglodytish attitudes. Shit, even the VietNamese communists had the good sense to differentiate between the American soldiers bombing the crap out of them and the American Government that put them there.
I'll slink off and do my penance now.
"Online"
For the WIN!!
Sweet.
I'll need that soon. I have a feeling that Amazon is about to pepper-spray the shit out of me.
I'll pass along your compliment.I don't know what I'm getting this year, but I know what I'm giving him.In June the largest wildfire in New Mexico history destroyed 80% of the forest land on Tewa tribal land.The NM Community Foundation is collecting for reforesting.Every $5 donated will replace a tree in a canyon the Santa Clara Pueblo governor says is, “Our church, our heritage, our life.”We Will Heal Fund:https://npo.networkforgood.org/Donate/Donate.aspx?npoSubscriptionId03080&uniqueIDc4466773032635165
Sorry, that link doesn't seem to work all scrunched up. Anyone who wants to donate can just Google nmcf.org and check out the "existing programs" page.
Thanks for the info anyway, I'll check it out. And publicize it. The Native people of this land suffer so much, still. Last winter, in North Dakota(?), so many homes were without heat and the governor of the state refused to declare an emergency so they could get Federal assistance. Disgraceful.
Vade retro, Satanas!
We have some friends in Alsace that have had a winery there for 9 generations. Jacques will not do a tasting for a group of Germans, (his brother has to do them), because of many things,(like two wars, the concentration camp that was just over the way, neighbors who were Nazis, etc.), but the looks of contempt and the smirking are high up on the list.
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