Don't Get Me Started On The Stupid Elf

If you ran a popular chain of coffee houses, would you pay somebody to fake lame outrage against you on social media?  

For those of you who have been living in a hole, over the last week or so, Facebook has erupted with people complaining about a popular chain of coffee restaurants who shall remain nameless until they decide to sponsor us.  The source of the consternation: Red cups.  

Yes, the simple fact that the coffee chain, who supplies millions upon millions of people of all races, genders, creeds, and intelligence levels has decided to use red cups made people throw a fit.  The reasoning, of course, is that the cups do not specifically call out Christmas during the "Holiday Season."  The whining has been incessant, with some national public figures even calling for a boycott of the popular java joint in protest of their "War on Christmas."  

This is lunacy.  

Part of the problem here is "Christmas Creep."  That the aforementioned "Holiday Season" now stretches from Mid-October until sometime in late January.  Christmas Proper takes up precisely one of these days, while other holidays, including (but certainly not limited to) Halloween, Thanksgiving, Veterans Day, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years Eve, and New Years Day are also available within the time window.  For anyone to expect the world to appreciate Christmas, and exclusively Christmas, during this entire time is not only selfish, it's short-sighted, missing out on all the other wonderful holiday days that are included.  When the "Christmas Season" was confined to actually Christmas, Christmas Eve, and maybe 10 other days (According to the song), it would be a little more justified to decry the lack of "Christmas" references during that time.  But now that Christmas is three months long, it somewhat deserves to lose a little bit of its cachet.  It's a full quarter of the year, for crying in the sink.  You don't get to be that special.  

Yes, people are upset about the red cups that don't say "Merry Christmas."   I have a theory, which makes a lot more sense than somebody actually being offended by this perceived slight.  I believe that the popular coffee chain paid some person or small group of scattered people a mildly generous sum of money to go onto their social media and throw a world-class hissy over the lack of specific Christmas-related imagery on a piece of cardboard that will last about 30 seconds longer than the coffee that is placed into it.  Almost immediately, in the digital age, the outrage spreads like wildfire, with people vowing to start boycotting the coffee chain (which there's no way they'll actually do), and many many more rising to the defense of the coffee chain and taking up the coffee mantle by supporting the chain and buying their wares.  Millions of Facebook and Twitter messages, coverage in the media, non-stop publicity, millions more cups of coffee, and all for a small fee of paying a few people to pretend to care about the color of their cups. 

If You Have One, I Hate You

Trying to think of what could possibly be in my shopping history to make that website think I want to buy a selfie stick

Yeah, right.  You had that thing added to your wish list the instant you were made aware of it. 

If you're like me...

You kick yourself every morning...

...you've done some online shopping.  One of the main sites is one which, for strictly Blag purposes, we'll call Nile.com.  It's pretty much a one-stop online shopping repository for absolutely anything you may ever need, and about 5 billion other things you couldn't possibly ever need.  The steering wheel desk and banana slicer come to mind immediately, but your mileage may vary.  

In order to maximize the amount of money you spend there optimize your online shopping experience, Nile.com keeps careful track of not only the things you buy from the site, but also things you've looked at on the site, as well as things you searched for elsewhere on the internets.  It's really quite intrusive.  But, it provides you with a nice list of things you might be interested in buying based on your browsing preferences.  Shop for a new computer monitor, and they tell you that you might be interested in a new video card for your computer.  You know...things along that line.  

It will also ask if you want to buy the same thing over and over.  No thanks, Nile.com.  I already have an ice ball maker shaped like the Death Star...I don't need another one.  (The aforementioned example may or may not be true...that's not important right now.)  

So what in the name of all things good and plenty prompted this website to think that I needed a selfie stick?  

I don't know if you know what a selfie stick is or not.  It's ridiculous.  So, selfies are those ridiculous pictures you take of your self standing in front of something instead of taking a picture of the thing that you actually want to take a picture of.  You do so by holding your phone out at arm's length with the lens facing backwards, looking stupid and probably making duck face in the process.  Well, this process is just too cumbersome for some people, so it became necessary to invent a stick that holds your phone out at arm's length with the lens facing backwards, looking even stupider than before and probably still making duck face in the process.  View This Nonsense In Action Here.

You'll be pleased to know that in my lifetime, I have taken precisely zero selfies, and only participated in a handful of them.  I actually reprimanded one person for attempting to make duck face in our selfie.  I have reasonably long arms, and would have no need for a selfie stick should the need to take a selfie arise.  For the record, the need to take a selfie will probably never arise, so don't hold your breath.  

Yet, recently, when I log onto Nile.com, there's my recommendation.  "Just for you, Jeremy...you might be interested in a selfie stick!  Only $24.99!"  

No. 

I Actually Would Vote for B.B. Rodriguez

Vote Robot!


Didn't we just have an election between two robots?  I, for one, do NOT welcome our new robot overlords.  


As you may or may not know, I'm a fan of Wil Wheaton's celebrity board gaming show Table Top, and have even subsequently bought 3 of the games featured.  Yes, Pandemic is one of them.  Anyway, one of the games that hasn't been featured on the show is the timeless classic "Monopoly." 

Monopoly hasn't changed in quite some time, aside from the various novelty versions that have appeared from time to time.  The properties are all the same, the colors have been constant, the railroads are all still the same, good old Uncle Pennybags hasn't aged a day, and you can still go to jail for stepping in the wrong spot...pretty standard for a game based in New Jersey.  As with all timeless classics, fiscal responsibility eventually takes precedent over history and heritage, and Hasbro (Parent company of Parker Brothers) has now felt the urge to crap all over everything. 

Well, maybe not everything...but at least one thing. 

The company has set up an online vote, since nothing on the internet can possibly have its integrity challenged, to replace one of the iconic player tokens with one more stupid.  Currently, there are the Race Car, Top Hat, Battleship, Thimble, Boot, Wheelbarrow, Iron, and Dog.  Everyone wants to be the Race Car, and whoever picks last ends up as the Iron, and complains that he had to be the iron last time.  There are five new tokens set to replace one of the standards, which are a Guitar, Cat, Helicopter, Diamond Ring, and Robot. 

Obviously the diamond ring is stupid, so forget that one.  The cat is simply to shut up cat people who think that since there's a dog, there should be a cat.  The helicopter would be okay, if its design weren't so lame.  The guitar is a popular choice because music is currently not represented in any way in the game.  But, the only possible choice here is the robot.  Not only is it Adorable, but it represents the next stage in human evolution which has always accompanied the player tokens.  Monopoly is very much like a time capsule, showing society's place at the time the game was published.  Property values are adjusted for inflation, man's technical evolution is shown in the tokens (from clothes and sewing, to ironing, to scientific advances like cars and boats), and the overall goal is to gain as much money as you can at the total and humiliating expense of other people.  It's human heritage in box form, and it deserves to honor robotics.  Go vote, everybody!!