Is It Really Protection?

I have finally gotten around to posting this...it's been sitting in my mind for a few days now, but I've had no computer to type it into...not one at home anyway because I've now rebuilt two laptops and merged them into one. So what does this have to do with protection? Well here it is...feel free to laugh...and poke some fun.

If you're having sex, and you have a condom on...one would call that "protection". Just go with me here...I promise, it has a point. If you install anti-virus software on your computer...it's said that you've installed virus "protection". So why is it, that virus protection never seems to protect you from viruses...it only tells you that you have one and says that there's nothing it can do about it. My point here is...if condoms protected like virus protection, there would be a crapload of unwanted kids running around.

I imagine it would go something like this:

Condom: I detect fertile sperm, but I can't stop it. But if i don't stop it, I'm not doing my job. Wait...there are thousands of those little bastards coming my way and there's nothing I can do. Shit. Damn it...one got through. But you were using PROTECTION.

So yeah, you get my point. They should not call it virus "protection"...they should call it virus "detection"...so you know you're pretty much f*cked and you have to figure out how to deal with it as opposed to being in happy land and surfing the Internet with a total feeling of freedom. Am I a little annoyed? Well, yes I am...thanks for noticing. Virus protection...MEH.

It's Only 5%

This weekend was the (what has become an annual) Massachusetts TAX FREE retail spending weekend...where thousands of consumers go out and buy big ticket items so they can save money by not having to pay taxes. So I went out, as I do every Sunday, to do my fun/errands shopping...where I ran into all the crazy people that have not stopped to punch figures into a calculator to realize they're just not saving THAT much. People are buying TVs, game consoles, furniture...things like that. So let's break it down.

Best Buy has a sign when you walk in the door that says items above $2500 are still charged tax. That's one of the rules statewide. You can't buy a house or a car on tax free weekend (here are some more rules), so we'll say you get the best deal possible at Best Buy...you find a TV for $2499.99. How much are you actually saving? Well, I'll tell you. You've only saved $124.00. OK, so that's a pretty good amount of money if you actually needed a TV in the first place, but a lot of people go out and buy these big ticket items BECAUSE it's tax free weekend. If you didn't need that TV and you therefore didn't buy it...you actually would have saved $2499.99...now there's money worth saving. But our state government knows us. They know we can't resist a savings. I picked up a few good deals myself...some comic books...a few DVDs...things like that. Maybe I saved $8.00 somewhere along the way, and that's great. But keep that in mind next year when the state has a tax free holiday. You may just save more by staying home.

Caeser Salad with Buffalo Chicken is Apparently Not OK

Maybe you already knew this...maybe everyone in the world but me knows this, but apparently you never mix buffalo chicken with a Caeser salad. You might be saying to yourself, "what brings this up?" Well, I'll tell you. I decided that I would eat a little lighter tonight...I would order a salad on my way home because making a salad at home when you get home at 7pm is a pain in the ass. So Katharine called up our neighborhood roast beef place and ordered off of their menu: A Buffalo Chicken Caeser Salad...right off the menu.

When I arrived to pick up this menu oddity, the people at the counter read me the order...part of that order was Buffalo Chicken over Tossed. Uhm...wait. It's supposed to be a Buffalo Chicken over Caeser. They all paused and stared at me. Oh. Yeah? Caeser? With Buffalo Chicken? Do you want bleu cheese dressing? No...it's a Caeser salad...doesn't that tell you what kind of dressing I want? Really? You want Buffalo Chicken with Caeser dressing.

Was I missing something? I mean, it's on the f*cking menu! Maybe nobody has ever ordered it before, but there it is in black and white on the menu. So I'm a freak, and I want Buffalo Chicken with Caeser dressing! Give me what I ordered!

And then of course, I started to doubt myself...was this a bad decision? They whipped up a Caeser salad and handed over all the food. I thought about it all the way home. I complained to Katharine over the phone about how I felt like I was on some hidden camera show. And then I went home...opened the tossed salad with Buffalo Chicken...poured on the bleu cheese...and ate that one. Hmmm...WTF.

Changing History so People Will Forget The Not So Great Parts

Am I the only one that gets annoyed when watching a movie or a sporting event from the past and finding that it has been digitally altered to suit some group that thinks the material is no longer apropriate? Or maybe it's changed because of something undesirable. I'm currently watching the first ever WW...ahem..."WWF SummerSlam 88", and everytime someone says WWF...the "F" is censored out so apparently I'm watching video as presented by the WW {smudge}. This is because the World Wildlife Foundation sued the World Wrestling Federation for stealing it's acronym. The same WWF, now the WWE because of the aforementioned lawsuit, has essentially removed late superstar Chris Benoit from their history...I mean, sure...the guy killed his family, allegedly from a situation involving steriods, but everyone knows that the guy was a wrestler. He was a champion. Nobody forgets about that, just because the company is embarrassed and deletes him from a bunch of web pages. I don't think anyone blames the WWE because one of their wrestlers went crazy. I wouldn't be surprised to find the Orton/Benoit match on the SummerSlam DVD set to be edited in some way...I'll report on that when I get to SummerSlam 2004.

The same thing has happened in movies. In ET, Steven Spielberg changed a line of dialogue shouted as ET and Elliot flew over the authorities to escape the CDC. The original line was "Shoot them!"...and in the special edition, the guns have been digitally removed and the line was changed to "Get em"...I imagine to suit our society which has gotten soft and squishy...touchy feely. A society that changes the smallest things so as to not offend ANYONE. I don't think anyone thinks it's necessary to remove the World Trade Center from the New York City skyline in DVD releases, but it's been done. What the f*ck?! The events that took place there were tragic, but we don't need to pretend it never existed to feel better about it.

History is history folks...the good and the bad of it. Just because it's not always bright and sunny, doesn't mean we should invent bright and sunny to keep our society all glowy happy. I would personally prefer to remember the truth than to be protected from it.

MySpace, Facebook, Classmates.Com, and other Social Networking Sites

It's 2008...have you built yourself a profile on MySpace yet? What about Facebook? Classmates.Com? Most people look at social networking sites and immediately think Dateline: To Catch a Predator. That as soon as they click the CREATE AN ACCOUNT submit button, that Chris Hansen will walk in and start asking you questions. Seriously though...if you're not creepy, you can actually use social networking sites...well...to be...uhm...social.

There's this rumor going around that you have to be 18 (or under) to enjoy such sites, but I've reconnected with bunch of old friends...friends that I may have never spoken to or heard from again without creating a profile. Sure you have to be willing to share some personal information about yourself, but so what. I have nothing to hide. I mean...I'm not posting pictures of myself in my underwear or anything (lucky for you), but I post a bunch of stuff. And I expect people to read the stuff I post. I hate it when someone says, "Why is {insert name here} checking out my profile on Facebook"? It could be that {insert name here} is a creepy stalker OR it could just be that you are friends/acquaintances and they are actually interested in what you posted. Isn't that why you posted it? Because it was interesting...or fun?

Let's all be a bit more social...if you're checking out my personal site and you subscribe to a social networking site, why not post a link to your page in the comments here?! I might want to see what you're up to. If you don't want to post a link to your profile...maybe you want to discuss with me why all of their logos are blue.

Does It Make Me Old That I Needed to Lower the Resolution of My Computer?

Really...I don't even need to say say anything else. I need to go get an eye exam.