The Bullshit Observer

Will Smith: This is what I believe and I'm willing to die for it. Period"

Being realistic is the most common path to mediocrity.

Introducing Sarcasm!

New Airport Security Measures: No Place To Hide?

I wonder how mass murderers are going to get around the full body scan.

First the box cutters, then the shoe bombs, then the underwear bombs...what's next? Colon Bombs? Fake Boob Bombs? Oh shit, that's a good one actually. Not hard to do, I imagine.

What is Obama doing about fake boob bombs? Huh?!!

I, for one, do not feel safer. 

Next thing you know, the crazies will be hiding them in the fake hands and legs that sit atop the stumps left after US bombs indiscriminately blew the original limbs right off. By accident.

Drop apologies, not bombs.

Customer Service: Your Call Is Not Very Important To Us

If only we could play a business's ad campaign directly next to recordings of several of its customer service phone calls and show just where the priorities lie. If only.

Experian, a credit bureau, insists that a woman who applied for a mortgage was in fact, dead. It took months to correct the mistake. They bank knew she wasn't dead, but wouldn't loan her the money because Experian didn't acknowledge the fact of her heart beat and overall sentience.

Office Depot gives repaired computer back to customer...glued together with like, uh, glue and has a piece missing. Mental note, don't buy your computer at a place who's name contains "Depot."

AT&T keeps iPhone out of NYC because they can't support it there. Score one for Verizon. 

Bank of America took the human out of the equation and just has a talking lady on a website explaining all their fees. That's not customer service, that's automation. We have plenty of automation already, thanks. Send the real life people back.

Do you have a story like this? Send it to the Consumerist. They will help set things straight.

Climate Crisis: Consensus Vs. Deniers

I get a lot of visitors to The Bullshit Observer from people who type "global warming bullshit" into their favorite search engine. The way the search engine algorithm works is thusly: since the name of the blog is "Bullshit Observer" and I write about the man made environmental disaster known as "Global Warming" and all the controversy surrounding it, I am on the first page of results. There are not many people competing for that particular search term, obviously.

These visitors are among a small group of people out there (and maybe you're one of them) combing the Web, looking for proof that perhaps this "Climate Change Crap" has all been simply the biggest hoax in the history of man or that perhaps the human race is more conscientious objector than primary cause for the change in climate and the mass extinction.

Let's hear from one of these people, shall we:

"It's bad enough when radicals predict our planet is doomed, but when EPA or United Nation leaders conspire with Al Gore's prediction that we have a "climate crisis" with just 10 years to save the earth, I can't help but remember that he's the man who said he invented the Internet, and is becoming one of the richest individuals in the nation selling carbon offsets."

Since 99.76% of all scientists (97.5% of all publishing climatologists) believe that there is a massive climate shift and that humans are to blame for it, we can only assume that these are the "radicals" that this person is referring to. Apparently the exercise of gathering factual evidence to support a hypothesis and then putting your research up for analysis by the entire scientific community to see if it holds up to scrutiny... that's a conspiracy. Putting many bodies of this work together and packing it into a big movie so that we might MIGHT get the human population's attention with this problem, that's just part of the conspiracy. And coming together as nations to discuss what we can all do (and *sigh* never actually agreeing to much) to slow the effects of this corrective mechanism, that's just part of the big conspiracy.

What we really need to do is listen to the Prime Minister of Czech Republic, Vaclav Klaus, and see what he has to say. He seems to be the best known climate change denier.

Interesting to note that the majority of the minuscule number of scientists who disagree with the "Humans are fucking everything up" theory come from the "General Sciences" and "Engineering Sciences" categories of this vast field. Biologists, Mathematicians, and Atmospheric/Environmental scientists are far more aligned with the "human factors" theory. 

Here's a great graphic that puts the arguments for and against climate change side by side.

I wonder what the people within the climate change consensus are motivated by? They have a collective dislike for the actions of their own species? These scientists, world leaders, and environmentalists all hate capitalism? I mean, why would this conspiracy exist in the first place, I can't figure it out? Furthermore, how could they possibly have gotten this far if the evidence is inconclusive? How could they have spread this belief so widely? 

The motivation of the climate change deniers is far more easy to explain. They are either resistant to change and pro-business (meaning pro-consumption) or well-compensated by people who are those things. Example: Exxon is the worlds richest company and has every incentive to debunk the theory. In fact, they have made considerable efforts to do so. There's no telling who's on their payroll and yet the overwhelming majority of people still believe that global climate change is a-coming.

Storm blamed for deaths. Seems a Tad Unfair.

I saw today yet another article blaming five recent deaths on a storm roving over the midwest right now. This on the heels of the Indonesian ferry captain blaming storms for sinking his overcrowded ferry boat and a hurricane blamed for killing a swimmer. 

I think we ought to stop pointing fingers at the weather and start taking a good hard look at the people who died.

This tendency to blame our misfortune on the weather itself must be some kind of hold-over from ancient times when we would chant incantations to the Rain God and treat weather as some deity's angry whim instead of the result of complex meteorological forces. Yet another example of the human tendency to blame anyone but ourselves for our foibles.

Banana Split blamed for diabetes.

Sun blamed for headache. 

Cigarettes blamed for Cancer.

Sharp curve in road blamed for highway fatality.

Declining bee population blamed for lower orange crop which is blamed for economic downturn in central Valley which is blamed for unemployment which is blamed for lower consumer spending.

Hey chum, the fucking weak-ass bees are fucking up our fucking economy.

How about blaming our own lack of ability to adapt to our environment? How about blaming our own lack of common sense? Or blaming the human tendency to take chances and think we're invincible? How about blaming the genius who went swimming during a hurricane? Or the people who go tooling around in their big heavy station wagon with bald tires in a blinding snowstorm?

Katrina didn't destroy New Orleans. People did.

This planet and it's natural forces are not about us, never have been about us and will never be about us. This is what people must learn. You must adapt or you will die.

The storms are a-coming. Either get ready or get killed.

Worst Ads of 2009?

BNET has a roundup of the most despicable advertisements of this entire year and here they are:

10. Red House Furniture: "Where White People and Black People buy furniture." Actually pretty funny in a mostly unintended sort of way. How they thought it would sell furniture is beyond me. 

9. Boost Mobile: Mrs. "Claus Screws Frosty the Snowman." Also pretty funny. With most of the nation's politicians, athletes, and Hollywood celebs cheating on their spouses, I fail to see why a claymation version of Mrs. Claus bopping Frosty is all that offensive. At least she does admit that it is wrong. 

8. Volvo: "Vampires drive them. They also drive motorcycles, but don't think about that." Another movie tie-in ad that the business people thought would be a good idea because it seems smart, but that never actually made sense, you know, in REALITY. I actually pity the creatives that had to do this because, well, I pity myself when I have to do it.

7. Jamison Beer. "Ho White and the 7 Dwarves" Pictured here. I actually think it's kinda funny and I appreciate the juvenile humor. The BNET writer didn't like it. But then, I doubt he's in the target demo of immature 15-year-old-at-heart guy guys who never liked the story Snow White in the first place.

6. Miracle Whip. "Don't Be So Mayo. Be hip and trendy like these paid actors doing weird things in a cheeky way."  It's hard to put your finger on what's wrong with this ad that's trying so desperately hard to make their sandwich spread fit right in with their wrongheaded perception of "young people" cultural norms. I don't know what it is, just rubs me the wrong way.

5. Palm Pre: "Tamara Hope Pretends To Reflect on Juggling as a metaphor for multi-tasking." Sometimes so many things irk you about an ad that it's hard to parse out exactly what they all are. Was it the overly sentimental tone that she uses? Is it the fact that I waited all that time to find out that she's employing a hackneyed metaphor? Is it that her eyes are telling me that she has a really good story for me, but her eyes lied? It could be all of these things and the music that just piled on the over-try.

4) General Motors: "We're reinventing ourselves because obviously the old "ourselves" was bloated, inefficient, and lazy. Oh, and unprofitable." So I actually thought this ad was pretty well done. It was obviously inexpensive to make, so that fits with a bankrupt company advertising in the first place. The V/O was nice, the writing was fine, the music worked, and the clips they chose were active and upbeat. 

3) Ralph Lauren: "Filippa Hamilton as deathcamp survivor with rad clothes."A print ad that actually got posted to the site "photoshipdisasters.blogspot.com." She reminds me of someone though. She reminds me of the blond assistant to the evil mastermind in The Incredibles. She also reminds me of licorice rope and eels.

2) World Wildlife Fund: "Let's employ the World Trade Center attacks to get people off their asses to save the animals." Sounds like a bad idea to me. But I wouldn't know since DM9DDB Brasil removed the YouTube video. Bummer. Instead, I give you this nice video of that famous graduation speech set to lounge music.

1) Virgin Mobile: "Case of the disembodied mouth." The woman puts her cell phone down and her mouth gets detached from her face and continues the conversation with her mom. I actually liked this ad. Kinda. It's trippy. But I wonder where the girl went.

10 Things To Do Instead of Writing Stupid Lists That Really Anyone Could Write

If you're just sitting around, like dozens of people today are, and you feel an urge to write a list of things that you plan on sharing with the world, a top ten list, say... or perhaps it's the Top 10 Most Annoying Characters on TV, or Top 10 remarkable engineers of all time or perhaps even Lindsay Lohan's top 10 favorite sexual positions while she's hopped up on crack and hanging out at some photographer's house, whatever, just STOP yourself, please, and consider a few other, let's say 10, activities that those of us out in the world would rather you partook in.

1) Start a boy band: It seems there's a niche currently. You'll need to assemble a group of good looking young boys who can dance and cover the incredibly large spectrum of personality types between rebel and brooding rebel. Then figure out what your hair styles are going to be. There...you're done.

2) Learn to etch glass with a rotary tool.  Etched decorations never go out of style. Mainly because they're never in style to begin with. They exist above the whole style paradigm. Give one to your loved one. They'll be so touched.

3) Take Full Advantage of Your Former Employer's Outplacement Service. There are strong professionals in this field who will guide and instruct you on how to get another job in your field. If that doesn't work, consider a new career as an outplacement professional!

4) Resolve yourself to take better care of your tattoo. Cleaning it with antibacterial soap, applying Aquaphor ointment in thin layers and using non-scented lotion can help your stupid fucking tattoo of Woody Woodpecker look its best.

5) Remove the blood stain from the drapes. Yes, it might add to the intrigue of your pad, but also clashes with the carpet. First thing to remember is that blood is protein and proteins require cold water. If the blood's been around awhile, you might want to use cold water with Oxyclean. That's what, er, I've heard anyway.

6) Learn how to read sheet music. Don't just play the music, feeeeeeelll the music. That's it...you'll be Stairwaying To Heaven in no time. 

7) Chip in your time on a missing person's search and rescue. Clearly you have oodles of time, so don't be selfish. Check the local hospitals. Over 2,000 people go missing every single day. You could be one of them. Hey, seriously, are you one of them?

8) Go fuck with that army of ants that lives in the corner behind the wall. You've seen the scouts. You know what the're looking for. The time has come to draw out the herd and squash them. Bring home one of those free candy suckers from the laundry mat and put it out for them. Wait till the ant highway is like 5 lanes each way - then douse them with maple syrup and watch them drown in their own version of a happy meal. Oh, you're so sick.

9) Try to decide between bankruptsy or forclosure. You don't really need both. You could potentially file for bankruptsy and exempt your home from the asset list that debtors can access. In any case, you'll need some time to ponder this and that's time you won't be spending cluttering the world with your top 10 lists that really anyone could write. 

10) Pray. Start praying a simple prayer... for example "God what is my purpose on this earth". Get in a habit of waiting for his response before doing anything else. 

How To Choose A Religion

As gods go, I think the more the merrier. I would like to be reincarnated (as a dolphin, preferably). I prefer Indian food over Chinese and I do not own a black cat.

So, according to this flow chart, I should be Hindu.

Then again, I fucking love hummus and bacon and I think underwear can be magical. So I'm not sure where it puts me other than very amused and a few minutes older than before I discovered this chart. Maybe that should be a new religion: Amused. We could all worship Jerry Seinfeld - because he's not outright funny as much as he's amusing. But that's another post. Enjoy the chart.

Thanks to Holy Kaw

Mary Murphy - The Howler Monkey of So You Think You Can Dance

For those of you who don't know her, here she is

I know what you're thinking. How does a larger, older woman with a high-pitched, shriek-y voice (that has absolutely zero tonal range) get on a show where she's given free reign to rant and rave?

How does this show become popular?

How does it become part of a formula that actually works? How, America? How?

She cackles, screams, shouts, and does it all with the same exact tonal range that, if harnessed, could be played into the world's oceans and kill all marine life forms within ear-hole-shot.

You could play her voice in a jungle and incite Rhino's to charge wildly at anything that moves, or play it to Koala bears and they would rip each other's throats out.

It's dangerous. It's unnatural. It's unholy.

And America is eating it up.