Give Me a Break category archive

In my local rag, Jamesetta Walker sings the blues.

I digs the beat.

Yeah.

ODU President John Broderick said students could face disciplinary action after a photo of sexually suggestive banners welcoming freshmen women to Old Dominion University sparked a furor on social media Saturday.

The three signs at the house, which have been taken down, read: “ Rowdy and fun. Hope your baby girl is ready for a good time …”, “Freshman daughter drop off” with an arrow pointed to the front door and “Go ahead and drop off mom too …”

Right.

One more time: If you have to install it, it’s a washing machine or a computer operating system or a furnace. It’s not art.

Even if it makes persons go “Gee Whiz,” it’s not art.

Art is not “installed.” Art is.

Barnum was wrong. One is not born every minute.

The birthrate is much higher.

Here are real-life lessons in how to King yourself.

Join the Photoslop Generation.

Find the cheese.

(That’s a rhetorical question.)

I stopped at a local convenience store and discovered that the great American Marketing Mafia has developed a new way of assaulting us with their cowpies: GSTV.

That is Gas Station TV. The screens are mounted in the gas pumps and the volume comes on when you start the payment process. An unrelenting stream of commercials pours from the pump along with your gasoline.

Lee Camp reports (warning: language):

From MarketWatch:

As the cost of attending weddings increases, so does the volume of RSVPs marked “Declines with regret.” Some 43% of Americans say they’ve declined to attend a wedding for financial reasons, according to a new poll by American Consumer Credit Counseling. The average cost of attending a wedding — including expenses like hotel stays, bachelor and bachelorette parties, child care, and party attire — reached roughly $539 this year, up 60% from 2012, according to an American Express survey. Of course, that pales in comparison to the cost of hosting a wedding: $28,400 on average last year, according to wedding website TheKnot.com.

I’m so old, I remember when weddings were to celebrate a marriage, not to pick the guests (and the bride’s and groom’s) pockets.

New York regulators will announce on Monday the most comprehensive crackdown to date on deceptive reviews on the Internet. Agreements have been reached with 19 companies to cease their misleading practices and pay a total of $350,000 in penalties.

The yearlong investigation encompassed companies that create fake reviews as well as the clients that buy them. Among those signing the agreements are a charter bus operator, a teeth-whitening service, a laser hair-removal chain and an adult entertainment club. Also signing are several reputation-enhancement firms that place fraudulent reviews on sites like Google, Yelp, Citysearch and Yahoo.

There were also fake reviews of dentists, lawyers, and medical imaging services.

I know that some persons pay attention to online reviews. I rarely do, because I get comment spam almost every day from “SEO” outfits promising to boost ratings. Granting that there are things that you or your web person can do to make your site friendlier to search engines, third party SEO consultancy is by and large a fraud and a scam.

If you must read online reviews, read the ones here.

Via the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Let Gina Barreca explain:

My father understood retail: I once showed him a yellow knit suit that made me look like one of the killer bees from Saturday Night Live, and explained I got a good deal because it was $100 suit on sale for only $19. My dad shook his head in pity and explained “No, sweetie. You got it backward. Some moron originally paid $100 for a $19 suit.”

I can’t say I’m fond of what passes for high school kids’ fashion (or lack thereof) these days, or of the commercials in which retailers try to turn the first day of school into America’s Next Top Model, but, really, now.

In addition to polos and button-downs, Lakewood High (Pinellas County, Florida, where bikinis litter the beaches–ed.) is requiring all pants, skirts and dresses to fall below the knee. But like most schools with new dress codes, Lakewood makes an exception for “spirit wear,” or school-related clothing.

So they still get to ogle the cheerleaders in their mini skirts.

Next, they’ll outlaw Beatles haircuts.

Oh, wait.

For you whippersnappers, here’s a link about Carnaby Street. It was a Quant place.

The ability of Americans to get upset over stupid stuff is infinite.

If you compare the persons you see at a gym with those you see at a bowling alley, this is no surprise (emphasis added):

Machines to restart a heart in cardiac arrest are often required by law in fitness clubs, but a new study found that people’s hearts more commonly stop in places that are home to alternative forms of exercise.

Researchers found the employees of indoor tennis facilities, ice arenas and bowling alleys in and around Seattle were more likely to have to respond to someone in cardiac arrest, compared to those at health clubs and fitness centers.

For a couple of years, I bowled in a league. We weren’t very good, but we had fun. I still have my own ball and shoes.

Nothing I have ever seen at a bowling alley has ever led me to think of bowling as a form of exercise (or bowlers as athletes), alternative or otherwise.

Since when did a women’s 10 or 12 become a “larger size”?

Probably since models could get Photoshopped into looking like emaciated aliens.

Will Bunch, discussing CNN’s stupid coverage of the Zimmerman trial,* drafts the obituary for cable TV. A nugget:

TThat’s the real tragedy of cable TV. Almost every good idea for a channel that anyone has come up with — a channel that shows trials, or a channel that shows music videos, or a “learning” channel, or ( heaven forbid) a history channel — has been ruined by that free-market thing of everyone chasing the Powerball jackpot of ratings, which apparently involves a program about ice road truckers. (Who knew?) Or maybe a poop cruise. But that’s the thing — we used to think that news was above all this. Why were we so naive?

I can remember when I watched CourtTV fairly regularly; I particularly enjoyed “Forensic Files,” which was a relief from the fantasy science fiction world of CSI.

That was before it changed its name to TruTV and became yet another cesspool of “reality shows.”

_________________

*It’s stupid because there’s no story until the verdict is delivered, and that’s not the story that matters.

The story that matters is that George Zimmerman thought it was okay to stalk and kill a kid because he didn’t like the kid’s skin color and that he’s not alone in thinking like that.