This just in - Scott McClellan wrote a book!

I've heard this a couple of times, including a few minutes ago on Diane Rehm - namely the claim that someone "broke" the Scott McClellan story. I'm no journalist, but I don't see how reading and reporting on a well-publicized book by a fairly well-known public person counts as breaking anything. Not much of a scoop there. Just because you got access to an early copy doesn't make you Mr. Intrepid Reporter.

And then the MSM is treating this like it's "devastating" new information. Hello, most of the country is already aware that lies were told to get us into Iraq. The main story here is the former loyal mouthpiece of the Bush administration turning on his former partners in crime.

ACLU Blog: Because Freedom Can’t Blog Itself: Official Blog of the American Civil Liberties Union » Knee-Jerk Redaction?

Well, that's helpful.

Dunkin' Donuts yanks Rachael Ray ad

Michelle Malkin is completely insane. Yeah, I know that's not news to anyone, but ever for her, getting upset over a scarf in a coffee commercial is more loony than I would expect. The worst thing about Malkin isn't that she's crazy, there are plenty of crazy people out there who don't hurt anything. The worst thing is that for some reason she has a following that takes this batshit insanity seriously. Even worse is that companies like Dunkin Donuts would listen to these lunatics.

Someone needs to tell Malkin and all her lunatic followers that they're not going to be killed by terrorists. They're just not. I'm no statistician, but I'm sure there are a million things more likely to kill the average American than a muslim jihadist. And even if terrorism were the number one cause of death in America, Rachel Ray's fashion choices while trying to sell you coffee are not going to change a single thing.

And besides, I thought people like Malkin were opposed to political correctness. Or is it only ok to offend people that have a legitimate reason to be offended, while whiny bitches complaining about scarves should always be listened to?

Exclusive: McClellan whacks Bush, White House

You know what? Fuck Scott McClellan. Most of the more ridiculous shit I heard from this administration came out of his fucking mouth. I don't see any apology in the article, and it seems he's trying to sell a book. If he really had a problem with the shit Bush was doing, he could have not been such a fucking big part of it. He stood up there and lied and spun and obfuscated every day and seemed perfectly content to do so. Just shut the fuck up, asshole.

Badvertising

I couldn't find anything about these commercials on the internets, so hopefully they're just figments of my imagination. But lately, I've heard a few Corona beer radio commercials that are called something like Great Moments in Timeout History or some shit. They seem to be a lousy attempt to create something like Bud Light's Real Men of Genius commercials, which by the way I liked better when they were called Real American Heroes, but people may get confused and think that they were comparing the accomplishments of Mr. Giant Foam Finger Maker with those of police and firefighters on oh my god September 11th, or god forbid The Troops. Anyway, so if the concept of Great Moments in Timeout History isn't bad enough, the supposedly amusing little anecdotes are awful, not funny, not memorable, and the only reason I remember them at all is because I've thought to myself after each one how bad they were. I had hoped to be able to link to an example, but like I said, I couldn't find one on the internets, so maybe, hopefully, they are just in my imagination.

But that brings me to another thing that I noticed a while ago when looking for Doritos on that site. Who the fuck is designing these websites now? When I go to the Doritos website, or the Corona website, it's to find out information about their products, not to be entertained, play games, or join some sort of social network. I hope this isn't a trend that I'm just starting to notice, but both of these sites suck, and made it difficult for me to find out information about their actual products, which seems a little stupid.

So has anyone else heard these stupid Corona commercials? And what about this disturbing trend in website design? Anyone else noticed that?

Garfield minus Garfield

I've been reading this everyday since I saw it linked somewhere. I think it might be my favorite comic strip. It's certainly better than the regular Garfield. Also a little disturbing at times.

One more thing

While I'm in curmudgeon mode, I have to say I'm sick to death of supposedly intelligent people who can't fucking tell the difference between the word lose - the opposite of win and loose - to let something go. There's a whole lot of "loosing" going on on the internet, more than can be explained by the occasional fat finger, which we're all afflicted by from time to time. While reading an otherwise intelligent and properly-spelled post, this particular error sticks out like a giant sore thumb saying "Look at me! You might as well stop reading because I can't tell the difference between 'lose' and 'loose'!" Aside from just general laziness and stupidity, I think you have to lay some blame on spell checkers. People get complacent knowing that any misspelled words will be marked. I submit that all spell checkers should flag the words loose and loosing (especially loosing) as possible errors because really, how many times do people actually want to write loosing and not losing?

Another annoying internet fad

I've been reading a lot at Balloon Juice lately (it's hard to believe he was ever a wingnut, but the posts are out there) and I've noticed an annoying trend. I may have seen it at Kevin Drum's place too, but I'm not positive.

This annoying thing is the practice of taking a quote from the comment thread, striking through certain words and replacing them with something that either mocks the original comment or attempts to make it clever and saying "Fixed" underneath. This may have been mildly amusing the first 3 or 4 billion times it was done, but now it's just tired and stupid. Look, if you have something clever or interesting to say, just fucking say it. The attempt to be cute now just makes you looks silly and unoriginal. Especially at the aforementioned Balloon Juice, where I've now seen this same construction back-to-back more than once, and multiple times by multiple people in the same thread. Enough already!

Frito-Lay Sucks

I've been mad at Doritos for years, after they stopped making the delicious Sour Cream and Onion Doritos. I briefly got over it when they came out with Cool Ranch Doritos, which were just as good. Until they stopped actually putting any cool ranch flavor on the chips. I can't remember the last time I ate any Cool Ranch Doritos that tasted any different than unflavored tortilla chips. They also stopped making the 3D Doritos, which were great, and inexplicably seemed not to have much more flavor on them than their two dimensional counterparts, but somehow tasted like they did. So I've managed to just stay away from Doritos, so I don't have to be annoyed with them. That is, until the other day, when I was hungry and saw new Spicy Sweet Chili Doritos in the vending machine. These were very good, but when I went to get more yesterday, they were gone. So I figured I would just pick some up from the grocery store. But I've since been to three different stores and couldn't find them. Having a product that people want doesn't seem very valuable if it isn't available anywhere. So I'm now back to being annoyed with Doritos.

Also, I went to doritos.com to see if maybe this was a limited time flavor or something, and it looks like they're trying to turn it into some sort of hip social networking site or something. I couldn't see anywhere to get actual information about their products. I don't who's running the Doritos department at Frito-Lay, but I don't think they're very bright.

And speaking of good snacks that I can't find anywhere, someone brought in some great Crispy Mint M&Ms to work, but I looked for those everywhere too and can't find them either.

And just because I'm too lazy to make another post, let me just use this space to tell Arlen Specter to shut the fuck up. No one gives a shit what you think about the NFL, and it's not any of your business anyway. And even if it was, you've got far more important things that you could be spending your time and energy on.

TV Talk

Since Toast has deprived his tv-watching buddies of a thread in which to discuss the current season, I guess I'll just have to get off my lazy blogging ass and do it myself.

Lost - It's been kicking ass all season long. I've not been one of the naysayers who got down on the show during the whole Kate and Sawyer in cages period, but there's no question in my mind that having an end in sight has been great for this show.

Battlestar Galactica - The last season has mostly delivered so far. The Cylon civil war is great stuff, and there have been several intense moments this season - Cally's murder, Anders shooting Gaeta during the mutiny. However, I do get the feeling that they're stretching a bit to fill enough episodes. "The Road Less Traveled", where Leoben turns up and Baltar meets with the Chief seemed to be particularly slow-moving. They're doing a good job with the plot, though. I have no idea where or how this is going to end.

One thing that still bothers me and I hope they address more directly is this - why did the Cylons attempt to destroy humanity in the first place? It really doesn't seem in keeping with where we're going this season. Now it looks like the Cylons want to find Earth as well, and it doesn't sound like they're interested in its destuction. Also, on last week's episode, when the Six killed Barolay, they showed us more about the Cylon psyche. Six didn't understand why Barolay killed her on New Caprica, in such a cruel and senseless way. Not to excuse Barolay's cruelty, but hey, they murdered billions of innocents in the 12 colonies. And since they used nuclear weapons, there had to have been a whole lot of terrible suffering for those who didn't die immediately. What about Six killing that baby in the pilot? I'm having trouble reconciling the Cylons' current empathy and love of life with their earlier actions. I hope that will become clear by the end. I don't want any of those fuzzy endings, I want some answers.

The Office - Due to being very busy over the last month, I just got a chance to watch the first 2 post-strike episodes of The Office last night. The dinner party was absolutely hilarious. "That's a $200 plasma TV!". The whole degeneration of Micheal and Jan from tense, happy-acting couple to train wreck was perfect.

Broadcasters Piss Me Off

Someone on ESPN, during halftime of the Hornets/Spurs game:

...you know Manu Ginobli, with 16 points in the first half, recently voted the most popular person in Argentina, more than their president, that's where he's from.

I'm not sure what country this guy lives in that he even considers that the president might possibly be the most popular person in the country, but it's certainly not this one. How can anyone seriously sound surprised that a professional athlete is more popular than the president? I could list professional athletes for days before I got to one that was less popular than our current president. Hell, Manu Ginobli would probably make that list, too. And even assuming that other countries don't have presidents as crappy as ours, professional athletes are always going to be more popular.

If Obama wins the election (please!), I'm pretty sure he'll be a pretty popular president, but he's still not going to be as popular as Tiger Woods.

Scattegories Meme

So Toast tagged everyone with this meme. Doesn't look too hard. All the answers have to start with the same letter as your first name. My name starts with the same letter as Toast's, so I'm going to try not to repeat any of his, we'll see how that goes.


1. What is your name? John.
2. A four-letter word: Junk.
3. A vehicle: Jeep.
4. A city: Jacksonville. That was an easy one.
5. A boy's name: Jason.
6. A girl's name: Juliet. I can't stand her on LOST.
7. Alcoholic drink: Julep?
8. An occupation: Janitor.
9. Something you wear: Jeans.
10. A celebrity: Johnny Depp.
11. A food: Jello.
12. Something found in a bathroom: Jacuzzi tub.
13. Reason for being late: Just not keeping track of time.
14. Something you shout: Jump!
15. An animal: Jackal. I would have gone with Jaguar, but Toast already used it.
16. A body part: Junk. Can we use the same word twice?

There you go. I tag no one, because I doubt the number of people who read this and don't read Toast's blog is very high anyway.