Because you just can't seem to get enough,
This Posting has been SUPERSIZED!

Something about this just feels wrong: There's a Brinks' Home Security commercial that airs in various forms; and the plot usually goes something like this: a criminal breaks into a house, he hears the alarm going off and runs away; the Mom takes her two kids into an upstairs bedroom; just then, the phone rings and it's a person from Brinks, wanting to know if everything is okay. Mom says "yeah", and the Brinks guy says, "I'll send help", and Mom says "Thank You". Something is wrong with this scenario, to me. Because if the criminal had wanted to, he could have attacked the Mom before scampering off, knowing full well it's gonna take the police a little while to get there. In short, if the criminal wants to get ya badly enough, he will. Or, if murder isn't on his mind, since he's already kicked in the door, he could run around the living room, take a few things and then scamper off. So did the "Security Service" really prevent anything here? Maybe, if the criminal was a rookie who was easily scared. Is a career criminal gonna scamper right away when he hears the alarm? Who knows? Whenever I see this commercial, I feel "incomplete" somehow. Like "something's missing" here.

At first, I thought, WHAT A DEAL!: I got a whole bunch of voucher coupons in the mail last week; each one of those coupons was worth $400 dollars toward the purchase of various items; one item caught my eye: I was informed I could save $400 on was a home entertainment center, which basically consisted of a 5-CD changer with 3-foot-high speakers. Well, with the $400 dollar savings my coupon would entitle me to, I could get this 5-CD changer for a measly $149.95! And then I thought about that. Dangerous things happen when I think. And the conclusion I came to was I've already GOT a similar 5-CD changer (a Panasonic, even!), and I'd bought the thing at the local K-mart for $129.95! The only difference was, it didn't include oversized speakers to go with it, but that's okay; the speakers that came with it work just fine. Buying a CD unit with that "savings" coupon would be like a gas station charging you 10 bucks a gallon, but they give you a $7-dollar-off-a-gallon coupon so you end up only paying $3 bucks a gallon. And maybe they'd throw in a free windshield-wipe or whatever. Corporate America is out there trying to get me to buy stuff by lulling me into contentment, not telling me they've inflated the original price and have given me a huge discount coupon, and the amount I end up sending in is the amount I would have paid somewhere else WITHOUT any coupon, the only difference being, they get my money, those shysters.

They care about my credit? That does not compute: Another commercial features a multi-benevolent firm which is all worried about your credit situation. How nice of them. They want you to buy a desktop computer and pay for it over time, and not only will you have a computer, you'll improve your credit rating in the bargain. And the premise is good, but something's rotten in Denmark here. (Why is it always "Denmark"?) The catch is, you pay something like $20 a week for the next YEAR or thereabouts...that's close to a thousand dollars for a new desktop computer. Hold on, trooper...Best Buy or Circuit City has desktop computers in the $400-$600 range these days. Laptop computers cost more than desktops, but I got this here lil' laptop for under $700. So, buying a computer the way these "credit" guys want you to, is like trying to get car insurance if you've been busted for not having insurance, which happened to me long ago. You have to pay MORE for your insurance, and you have to maintain that higher rate for three years before your rates can go down. You're getting penalized for not having insurance, in the same way you're getting penalized for your bad credit if you buy a new computer like they want you to do in this commercial.

Time to celebrate! Let's EAT! Maybe you can save money by not trying to save money? In an effort to save money and/or improve your credit, maybe you're hanging yourself out to dry even more? The Desiderata says this world is full of trickery and deceit, but that with all its broken dreams, "it's still a beautiful world; strive to be happy". So, you've decided not to go for these fantastically complicated offers. Look at all the money you've saved! Well, you might wanna go celebrate by going out to get something to eat. Right now, I'm watching a program on MSNBC called "Supersize Me"; it's aired several times and I've already seen it. The subject is McDonalds', and the guy featured in the program is eating breakfast, lunch and dinner at McDonald's for a MONTH. He gained weight, his cholesterol shot up, and he had mood swings. Doctors were worried about him, nutritionists were trying to get him to quit eating under the Golden Arches, and although she stuck by him, his vegan-organic wife thought he was crazy. So you might think you're saving $$$ by eating at McDonald's, but this program has shown that people can actually put their health in jeopardy by eating there. And doctors, as you might know, have no money-saving programs. None that I know of, anyway.

Just another day on the coast: I never cease to marvel at how fast the weather changes around here. Saturday, the coastal beach was totally socked in by fog. A couple of miles inland, no fog, but where I live, it was gray and gloomy. But on Sunday afternoon, skies were blue and visibility was unlimited Sunday afternoon, along with some fairly harsh winds. Not as harsh as on the day when I got hit by that wall of water (the ocean wave with my name on it, remember?), but the kite-flyers were out there today. And I went back to sit on the jetty where the water struck me last week. I let myself sit there for about 45 minutes, and listened to my gut when it said, "hey, you'd better get down from here now". As I walked up to the jetty, off in the distance I saw a small black spot on the beach. As I got closer, I realized it was a bird sitting motionless on the beach, its feet spread awkwardly on the ground. The bird was obviously dying, hanging on for a few last moments. It obviously had been washed up by the ocean; it looked as if a tidal wave had slammed into it. It still had energy enough to hold its head up, but it looked as if this poor little guy wasn't long for the world. And there wasn't a thing I or anyone else could do for the little fella. Awwwww. There's a fishermens' monument in the nearby little harbor town with the inscription, "the sea giveth and the sea taketh away." How true.
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That "Supersize Me" program about McDonald's has been airing periodically on MSNBC for a few weeks now; you might want to check out the TV schedules; I'm sure it will air again. And yeah, eating there can be bad for ya, but I sure love the sausage-egg McMuffins!