First thing this morning, I have to ask if anybody but me starts losing their mind when, disgusted with everything else that's showing on the other 99 cable channels, they turn over to Food Network at 1 AM and all they've got is the fifth re-run of the day of the same episode of "Ace Of Cakes"?
Don't get me wrong, I like watching "Ace of Cakes" but once in 24 hours is enough already, you know?
While I'm at it the same applies to Alton Brown's "Good Eats" and "Iron Chef" and most of the rest of their shows....wait a minute...Giada de Larentiis and Rachel Ray are OK the second or third viewing depending on my mood on some days...
Moving along, have you had the chance to start looking at your income taxes this year?
I spent about ten hours on Monday finishing the Corporate taxes, and now I have about twenty in the overall process so far, but let me tell those of you that don't do your own taxes that some of the things that they make you do to file a 1040 long form with anything but a single W-2 and the standard deductions will make your hair fall out.
You'll want to pull what's left out before you get through schedule C and D and E and the Capitol Gains Schedule.
By the way, did anyone but me know that if you have a long term capitol gain in a given year you have to pay capitol gain taxes on the ENTIRE AMOUNT OF THE GAIN, but if you only have a LOSS in a given year you can only deduct the first $3,000 no matter how much your loss was (unless you have a gain to offset it against)?
So until I sell another piece of property and make some money, I have a lovely fun gift basket full of fun little $3,000 capitol losses, forcing me to file the extra capitol gains/loss form for the next seven or eight years before I recover everything.
Bastards....it looks like the IRS spent years and years putting that "gift" together...
And finally, that last comment reminds me of something else.
Since Valentines day is coming up, I just have to comment on that stupid Valentine Bear TV commercial and the Pajamagram commercials where the announcer says to the guys:
"she'll think that you spent [hours & hours...weeks...months...your whole life...(pick one)] putting it together..."
...taking a big breath....
Any guy that actually buys that line, and in the process believes that WOMEN don't watch the same TV commercials that they do, and goes down on February 14th and hands his wife/girlfriend (or wife at dinner and girlfriend at lunch) a package from these people and says...
"it took me a week to put this together...Dear"
deserves to have to make a visit to the local Emergency Room by ambulance and have to explain to the attending physician how the package got to where it was inside his abdominal cavity.
Which reminds me, I wrote an interesting piece on this subject last year. Being lazy and needing to get back to work designing the official "Jamaican Me Cajun 'Green Butt' Chili Shack," I'm going to reprint it here in its entirity for your enjoyment:
Virgil's Valentine Bear Company
If You Can't Join 'Em, Beat 'Em...
Anyone but me tired of watching the antics of the three stripper chicks on the Vermont Teddy Bear commercials?
On the late night version...I swear to God...the bimbo recipient says this line:
"...it's so much bigger than I thought...(other girls squealing in the background)...I could just kiss it and kiss it..."
Pluuuueeeeeeaaaassssseeeee...Spare me the innuendo.
UPDATE: I found the long ad in YouTube here:
As an equal opportunity insulter, the guys featured in the ad certainly look like losers that would buy the bears based on the appearance of the girls and the rhetoric delivered in the process of opening a box of goods that virtually everyone in America has heard "will make her think you spent days coming up with..."
No...you saw the ad, googled "Vermont Valentine Bear," gave them your credit card number, and hung up the phone on your way to go buy condoms and cheep wine.
Any way...I checked out the web site and wrote about this same subject tongue and cheek (excuse the pun) a few years ago.
This morning I thought I'd revisit the subject again because looking at the site I see that they're somewhat insensitive and exclusionary in their selection and obvious exploitation of certain societal and racial stereotypes of men this Valentines day.
If I were running my own competing "Virgil's Valentine Bear Company" I'd expect to be forced by government equality mandate to include products based on a WIDE cross section of our ever broadening melting pot society.
Not just white people or black people or construction workers or PHD's like Vermont Bear does.
I've taken a preliminary look this evening in some other places and come up with a few pretty good ideas I think.
As a tribute to the undervalued and oft overlooked American Sanitation Engineer, I'd do something using this guy as the model:
Pretty good...huh. After all, everyone doesn't want a CEO Bear or a Donald Trump Bear because it might hurt an ego or two.
Then, while looking through the Vermont Bear offerings I noticed a lack of "diversity" when it came to products aimed at the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, transgendered) market and I immediately thought of these guys:
That covers a lot of ground in my book, how about you?
And not to leave out the angry lesbian part of the LGBT equation I thought of this lovely woman...
That particular model would definitely have to be fully clothed and offered in a extra heavy, extra large cardboard box so the price would put it in a different category from say...the Skinny Gay "Brokeback Mountain" Cowboy Bear or the "Indian Chief with the vibrating tommahawk Caricature Bear."
And finally, I noticed lots of "blue collar" offerings on the Vermont site, but they were all mostly based on "Caucasian" Americans. How about a Bear based on one of the hard working guys from another land country that supports our glorious American way of life?
Someone like this "Taxi Driver Bear" guy from the middle east?
...or this cuddly little fellow, "Construction Worker Bear on His Day Off" from south of the border?
I know, I know, I know..you're probably all excited about the idea by now, and I'm hard at work in my spare time working on my bear prototypes but I'm afraid my products won't be making it to market by February 14th.
Bear with me here (no pun intended) as I get organized, and please keep me in mind for next year. I'll keep you informed as things develop.
Heh...
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