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Category: folderol

Rexam: For When How It’s Made Just Isn’t Cutting It

Rexam: For When How It’s Made Just Isn’t Cutting It

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Have you ever looked at all the things around you and wondered: how did I manage to collect all of this crap? Who made this crap, and why? The sheer amount of objects we own is preposterous once you look at them individually. Somebody had to come up with all of this crap, design it, get the materials, make the crap, box it, send it out, receive it, store it, sell it by the truckload to a retailer, send it to the retailer, receive it again, store the crap again, put it on a shelf for a year until you come along, and then sell it to you for a couple bucks. Keep in mind that everything that you own or have ever touched has gone through that same process. That’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. You don’t have to hew all of your furniture out of solid oak logs whenever you need a new dinette set. You simply go down to the store and buy one.

It’s the same process with food and other consumable items, which is completely mind-blowing for me. Let’s say you want a carrot. Well, the carrot is planted, fertilized, tended to, harvested, thrown on to the back of a flat-bed truck, brought to sorting facility, packaged, sent out to distributors, and sold to you, passing though the hands of over a dozen people on its way to your home. Then you take one of the carrots out of the package, rinse it off, dry it off, and then drop it onto your dirty kitchen floor — now it’s ruined.

Love Thy Neighbor Should Be Taken as a Suggestion

Love Thy Neighbor Should Be Taken as a Suggestion

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Way back before I care to remember, on an idyllic Sunday morning during some long-forgotten summer, two kids were running around their house trying to find their father. After a few minutes, they burst into their father’s office to find him relaxing in his favorite chair, reading the Sunday Times. The father looked up at the boys, but didn’t pay much attention.

One of the boys asked, “Say, Dad, have you met the new neighbors?”

The Father looked up from his paper for a moment before going back to the sports section, “No,” he said, “No, I didn’t know anyone was moving into the neighborhood.”

“Well, you’ve got to meet them,” stated one of the boys, “You really should come down and say hello.”

“Perhaps another time; I don’t get very many opportunities to enjoy myself, and I want to read the paper before I do anything else. I work very hard to provide for the both of you and your Mother, so I’d appreciate it if you let me have a few minutes to myself today,” said the father rather curtly.

The boys were starting to get upset. “Look, Dad — you’ve got to come meet them right now!”

After some more convincing, the father got up and said, “Alright! Where are they? If they’re already here I don’t want to keep them waiting. I didn’t know they were that eager to meet me. Have you met them already?”

One of the boys looks up at his dad and says, “Oh no, we haven’t met them either, but our baseball is in their living room, so we think it’d be a good idea if we introduce ourselves.”

Snakes. Why’d It Have To Be Snakes?

Snakes. Why’d It Have To Be Snakes?

Way down South there was this fella… fella I wanna tell ya about. Fella by the name of Viperkeeper. At least that was the handle his loving parents gave him, but he never had much use for it himself. Viperkeeper, he called himself “The Dude”. Now, “Dude” – that’s a name no one would self-apply where I come from. But then there was a lot about the Dude that didn’t make a whole lot of sense. And a lot about where he lived, likewise.

But then again, maybe that’s why I found the place so darned interestin’. They call Miami “Little Cuba”. I didn’t find it to be that, exactly. But I’ll allow there are some nice folks there. ‘Course I can’t say I’ve seen London, and I ain’t never been to France. And I ain’t never seen no queen in her damned undies, so the feller says. But I’ll tell you what – after seeing Miami, and this here story I’m about to unfold, well, I guess I seen somethin’ every bit as stupefyin’ as you’d see in any of them other places. And in English, too. So I can die with a smile on my face, without feelin’ like the good Lord gypped me.

Sometimes there’s a man… I won’t say a hero, ’cause, what’s a hero? But sometimes, there’s a man. And I’m talkin’ about the Dude here. Sometimes, there’s a man, well, he’s the man for his time and place. He fits right in there. And that’s the Dude, in Miami. And even if he’s a lazy man – and the Dude was most certainly that. Quite possibly the laziest in Miami-Dade County, which would place him high in the runnin’ for laziest worldwide. But sometimes there’s a man, sometimes, there’s a man. Aw. I lost my train of thought here. But… aw, hell. I’ve done introduced him enough.

I’ll Have A Dry Big Mac — Bent, Not Stirred

I’ll Have A Dry Big Mac — Bent, Not Stirred

2007 was a good year — Diet Coke Plus ravaged the intestinal lining of soda drinkers around the world, Bulgaria and Romania joined the European Union, much to the dismay of the rest of the EU who thought that it was a much nicer neighborhood before half of the former Soviet bloc showed up, and this video was made. While this video being made might not seem like much of a notable event, I assure you that it might be one of the most important videos you’ll see today.

If you’ve ever wanted to take a good hard look at what 8 years ago was like, this is perfect. People where crushing their Barbra Streisand 8-tracks instead of selling them on Ebay, a big mac still resembled food, and you could actually get your hands on a disposable camera. I never thought I’d see the day when I reminisced about 2007 of all times. I was much shorter at the time, and I mean much shorter. I’m sure that for many of you 2007 was a year like any other, but it was rather special for me, because it was the last time I really was a kid. Over the course of a year I went from having the brain of a child to an 80-year-old man, and I’ve been aging backwards since then.

Learn to appreciate the time that you’ve had and the good times you will have. Someday you might find yourself wondering where all the disposable cameras and Barbra Streisand 8-tracks went. Well, you’ll soon discover we’ve crushed them all and thrown them all in the trash where they belong, but you can’t let hat hold you back. Stop living in the past, man. At least we don’t have to worry about Diet Coke Plus anymore.