At roughly 9 am this morning the phone rings. It's a customer who had wanted to pick his computer up on Friday. Owing to circumstances beyond my control, we closed at 5 pm on Friday, rather than 7. I apologized profusely and asked the man when he planned upon arriving to pick up his computer.
"Well... what's the damages?" was his reply. When I informed him that his bill post-tax (for parts and labor) was just over $200, he balked. "You see, if you'd gotten to me Friday, I couldda payed that. But over the weekend some utility bills an' shit came up and now you gonna have to wait."
With a shrug I informed him that I would be holding his computer until he payed his bill and that it wouldn't be a problem. After he agreed and went about his way, though, this puzzled me. I mean, not to pass judgment on other people whose circumstances I don't know, but does it strike anyone else as odd that this guy had prioritized computer upgrades over an apparently-urgent utility bill?
In my estimation, I've done this guy a service. After all, if he'd actually gotten his computer on Friday afternoon, by his accounting, he would have had his electricity or his water or something shut off over the weekend. And nobody wants to endure a Texas summer with his water shut off... that's for sure.
In light of the fact that I've done my "go to ground for two weeks" nonsense again, I am going to make amends in the best way I know how. You've already seen my wonderful finds in the arena of political amusement and marketing, but I will attempt to render amusements from other areas in my ritual otherwise known as "it's been two weeks since I posted and my blog is looking kind of sparse."
Pasties Funding Pavement: The Adult Industry Gives Back to Brooklyn
Brooklyn, Illinois is a bedroom suburb of St. Louis. Most remarkably, its only real industry is adult-oriented entertainment, movies and bookstores. In short, the entirety of the commercial tax base is derived from XXX establishments. The truly amusing part of all of this is the vague ambivalence the community has towards the establishments and the level at which the local adult industry gives back to the community. Actually, if a visitor didn't know better, by all accounts, he would be hard-pressed to differentiate Brooklyn from any other small suburb of a big city... at least until night fell and the town's population tripled.
Excessive Nudity?!
Speaking of strippers, apparently some police raided a strip-club in Pasadena, MN and charged 14 strippers with "excessive nudity." Now, call me crazy... I understand that stripping bears a certain moral stigma and whatnot... but isn't nudity the point of stripping? As a friend of mine noted, nudity is kind of a binary condition... either you're naked, or you're not. Apparently, that's not how it works in Minnesota.
Racism for Dummies
And lastly... apparently there is a man in Belgium whose excuse for not hiring non-whites is that his dog is racist. Yes... the dog will bite anyone of color, and thus, he cannot hire them. Fortunately, the Belgian Labor Office decided that keeping a racist dog and catering to its White Supremacist leanings is still just cause for being removed from their list of potential employers. Unfortunately, the Nigerian man who brought this matter to light doesn't want his name in the news and thus has declined to file a formal complaint. Apparently, he doesn't want his family hearing about that sort of thing... can't say I blame him.
While I have frequently pulled from the amusing reportoire of Jon Stewart, Colbert has been neglected, mostly due to a difficutly finding his stuff on YouTube and the complete pain that is the Comedy Central MotherLoad video system. That said, this mockery of Michael Griffin (NASA's Chief Administrator), is too good to be ignored.
Part One: Mission Control
Once again, NASA has shown the right stuff. Other government agencies should follow their lead.
Part Two: Airogance
If mankind hasn't done something before, it can't possibly be worth trying.
In fact, I might just have to call this one of the best commercials ever. Incidentally, it's rated PG for censored profanity. All of the profanity is censored, but if you have a creative imagination, you'll figure it out. So yeah... don't come whining to me if you end up offended.