Fuck you Woody

My 4 year old only had one simple request of Santa this year, a Buzz Lightyear.

So one day I was at Sam's (damn, this blog really is about Wal-Mart isn't it?) and I found a life size, fully functional Buzz for the paltry sum of forty bucks.

When I say fully functional, I mean it. He says 75 different phrases from the movie (with the correct Tim Allen voice), has pop out wings and a fake laser on his arm and even comes in the spaceship box like in the movie. And as if that wasn't cool enough, he comes well equipped to cope with even the worst traffic in LA.

"You know what Woody, you whine too much. Me and Peeps are taking the RC car and headin' over to the liquor store & the drive in - don't bother to follow us!"

Note to fellow juveniles: A quick google search of the words "Buzz Lightyear" and "finger" or "bird" reveal that I might be the only person on the planet to notice this.

USA outsources saving the world

Here's the problem with Hollywood these days. They don't seem to realize that most of us sit around with nothing better to do than watch all sorts of trivial science facts on the Discovery channel.

Last weekend, I sloped the kids and took my wife to see "2012". I love end of the world movies and was pretty stoked to see a big budget Armageddon on a movie screen.

If you like these movies don't bother to go see this one. It seems someone finally managed to top Bruce Willis in the category of ridiculous survivals. This movie awkwardly lurches from one "beyond highly improbable" escape after another.

The movie starts the stupid stunts with a high speed escape in a limo (news flash Roland, limos are not fast maneuverable vehicles) that even drives through an open floor office space in a collapsing building.

"Hell, dodging cars falling out of the collapsing parking deck was a piece of cake next to not getting stuck in a cubicle"

From there they race to catch a plane to be deftly flown in between falling skyscrapers by a pilot who's "had a couple of lessons".

No Roland movie is complete without something flying under something falling, - also note LA fucked yet again.

The takeoff is the first of three in which the runway literally falls out from underneath the plane as it barely makes it skyward (really, three fucking times! One even happens to be the world’s largest plane, the Antonov-225 - a one off built to carry the Russian space shuttle).

When asked how the front loading plane could drop a Bentley out the rear later in the flick, we were told "Look closely, the plane in the movie is the Antonov 500 not the 225 so there!

From there they fly to Yellowstone where John Cusak manages to outrun a pyroclastic flow first in a 25 year old motor home and then in a twin engine Beechcraft (as the runway collapses from underneath them - #2).

"Vroomm, vroomm!"

Of course this was needed since wacko conspiracy theorist Woody Harrelson had the map to where the survival arks are.

Next they fly to the Las Vegas airport, which is still standing atop a huge block of ice - err, rock. There they happen to run into the same Russian oligarch that Cusak drove the limo for. It's there that we learn that our fantastically quick learning pilot also did the Russian's girlfriends boobs, which buys them a ticket to ride on the aforementioned giant cargo plane since he can be the co-pilot (whatever school he went to, I'd like a few lessons from that place!).

Not only can he make a nice pair of tits, he is also a quick study of Cyrillic and managed to get the beast airborne for a third cool take off from a disintegrating runway. Hmm, I wonder if I could get some lottery numbers from these people.

I guess the reason for the incredibly weird series of coincidences with the strange Russian and silicone hootered girlfriend is to get past the fact that they need to fly to China. Why China? Well here's where we get to what may be the only believable part of the movie.

You see, since the USA no longer has the productive capacity to build anything the "ships" being built to load all the scientists, rich folk, art treasures, pairs of animals and other persons of extraordinary ability (I hope they got Dorismar in the ark!) are "made in China".

"No, the PRC did not paint these with lead paint - honest"

Yep, now we've off shored the only thing we were really good at for the past 30 years - saving humanity from world ending scenarios in far-fetched movies.

I really do object to having the Chinese take over the job of saving the world. Americans are supposed to do that. After all, we are ones who first figured out how to blow it up. From Gort to Al Gore, we've got a monopoly on saving the world. Why share that one too?

PS: I really didn't spoil the movie for you. There are still lots of amazing escapes that I didn't reveal; including crawling through the ductwork to remove the tit doctor's mangled tools from the "gears of doom"

"Oh shit! anytime I see a gear bigger than a nickle in a movie, I know someone's getting a body part squished in it - I think my dignity is stuck in this one!"

NRA home furnishings

I know a lot of narcos out there read my blog so I thought I’d help you guys out with some great products from the NRA. These are actual products sold by the National Rifle Association through their website.

First up - nothing’s worse than when you’re sitting in your office cooking the books and trying to hide the millions you made exporting marijuana than having some of your rivals bust in and try to whack you.

This handy magnet attaches to the side of your desk so you can always have a pistol ready. Don’t get caught off guard and end up in the trunk of some old abandoned car like the guy you replaced.

It’s also good for avoiding getting busted by the Fed for mistakes on tax return because you were nervously watching the office door.

Please note that the ad says “pistol not included” and if you’re stupid enough to think you can use this with your plastic framed Glock, you deserve to end up on Channel 44.

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=SA%2024385

Item #2 is designed to help you watch futbol-soccer in peace. Don’t try to explain to your mother why you have an AK-47 leaned up against the end table to watch the game.

Now when she comes over, this tasteful clock will help you conceal your dirty business from mama.

It’s also nice to keep the maid from swiping your prized mother of pearl handled 45 and blaming the children (pinche chaca ladrona!)

Pistol also sold separately.

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=HO%2024670

Lastly, while the second amendment is not much of a concern for drug dealers since obeying the law isn’t a top priority it’s still important to keep firearms legal so you don’t have to buy them from the pinche Chinese. Nothing sucks like having a cheap ass Chinese made gun jam up in the middle of a firefight right?

Don’t let little Jose fail to understand the importance of this American right and how it affects the family business. Get him this NRA bib so he can learn to show his support for illegally exported high quality firearms from the USA!

http://www.nrastore.com/nra/Product.aspx?productid=SS%20363

PS: I’m pretty sure the NRA doesn’t like narcos very much so you may have to get an innocent looking pal to help you get them.

Dia de los Muertos calavera

There’s probably a lot of information out on the web about the Mexican holiday “Dia De Los Muertos” or “Day of the Dead” so I won’t elaborate too much on it other than to say that it is not the Mexican version of Halloween.

This holiday is more of a tribute to passed loved ones and friends. A small shrine is usually set up with representations of the deceased person’s favorite things. Often with food, drink and maybe a photograph or small model of a favorite activity or loved one.

Another tradition on this holiday is “calaveras” or skulls made out of sugar. I found this “pan dulce” (sweet bread) calavera in S-Mart for nine pesos and brought it home for my wife. I was highly suspicious that the black lines had been made with a marker but they were actually something sweet according to my wife.

Mushmouth fashion

Just in case you need any further proof that most of the people involved in the fashion industry are nothing more than phony hucksters of the most reviling variety, I offer you this:

Oh brother, where art thou?

Some of my massive fan base (I inherited all of Michael Jackson’s fans after he died. However, for all of the old MJ fans who keep emailing me, I do not have his old photos of McCauley Culkin so quit asking) may have been wondering where I have been.

Just in case you've been pining away for more strange photos of food containers or homemade trucks I'm still here and will resume shortly.

However, just so everyone doesn't think I've gone to play checkers with Elvis I'll explain where I've been.

I've been laying low lately. I got a bad case of the willies after posting on some of the Mexican drug violence. I use some software to track who views this site and how they got here. It tells me where they were from, what their URL is and any searches they made to find this place. After my post on August 10th (since removed), I noticed that people in Miami and El Paso were suddenly reading this.

No one local ever reads my blog. they just don't seem to care (or can't figure out how to use a computer). Miami? I don't know anyone there and in both cases they were searching for information specific to my post.

I suddenly had visions of saying hello to Al Pachino's "little friend". So I figured I'll remove my reporting of what local reporters had to say and lay low for a while. You know, so I don't end up all duct taped up in the back of an SUV with blingy wheels.

"Say hello to my little friend, pinche blogger reportero!"

PS: OK, guys from the Tulsa sex offender registry, I did get this one photo of McCauley from MJ’s manager:

National Community Tax Coalition lies to you

I was killing time at work today and typed "El Paso" and searched for images and ran across this photo posted to the website of some sort of liberal organization called "National Community Tax Coalition".

The caption on their website ( http://www.tax-coalition.org/affiliatesProgramProfilesElPaso.cfm ) reads "One of the neighborhoods served by El Paso’s Neighborhood Services Division".

I was appalled that these people are posting a photo of one of the poorest neighborhoods in Juarez Mexico and claiming it's El Paso and that some sort of exploitation is taking place in El Paso TX (located in the USA, a different country you dipshits!).

I drive by this exact street everyday. It's visible from I-10 as you pass the UTEP campus and can see across the river into Mexico.

Scenic veiw of the Anapra neighborhood in Juarez Mexico - (Note to geographicaly challenged activists -this is a different nation than the USA )

Now, I don't really give a damn about whatever cause they are promoting one way or the other but I do get mad when blatent lies are tossed around to promote ideaology. People, if you are trying to get others to join your cause, tell the truth. Posting this type of yellow journalism on the internet makes you no better than pharmeceutical companies that are organizing disruptive activists to stop the healthcare debate.

El Paso sucks but it isn't that bad.

Sharia vacation photos

"Smile Neda and don't forget to remember where you were standing in line"

The return of generic beer

Mmm, tasty!

I must spend way too much time in Wal-Mart. This will be the fourth time I’ve spoken of it in this blog. However, since I find solace in pushing my cart with the one bent wheel through the cookie aisle late at night, I’ll lay some more Wal-Mart inspired thoughts on you.

Wal-Mart, it seems has had some sort of marketing psycho-weasel squirm their way into the packaging design area. Whereas their store brand once had appealing graphics that seemed to be trying to evoke your senses that you were not buying the cheap store brand (when in fact you were doing just that) now they’ve channeled the late 70’s stagflation in full force.

“I tell ya brother, times are tough”

See, from the time of Nixon to Carter you could go down to the store and buy any sort of food in a UN approved plain white box with the name of the contents on it. Call it “playing the commodity market with food stamps” if you want but this stuff was everywhere. A savvy person could figure out who made it by such things as addresses, packing dimensions etc. It was all generally horrible and the only saving grace was that it was cheap.

“Hey, all they have on this damn island is an IGA store!”

This stuff all went by the wayside by the late eighties or early nineties as we all embraced the concept that we wanted to be rich or at least pretend like we were in our McMansions with the granite countertops and leased BMWs. Noodles became pasta and the plain white box that said “Macaroni twists” became Italian inspired “Rotini” with a nice drawing to imply your cheap ass carbs came from Tuscany.

Fast forward a decade or maybe two and we’re all having a big potluck at the CCC work camp with beans and rice. Seems that Wal-Mart’s branding committee decided that we’d feel like we were wasting our money buying fine Italian Pasta and maybe what consumers have a hankering for these days is a good ole box of the cheapest noodles we can find.

Hence the new look of the “Great Value” brand. Lots of plain white area with a diner style photo of what you can make with the contents. Add in the most boring font you can find and it’s gonna be a winner with the newly unemployed.

Sauce and noodles, now that’s sexy

PS: I hear Smiley Face is getting his notice too, here’s the new guy

“Don’t worry fellow Americans, everything’s gonna be alright…

Ever wonder what the USDA does?

I went down to Sams Club and instead of just getting the cheap milk and some chicken (not to be confused with Wal-Mart's really, really cheap milk http://fiat128-theorangefolderchronicles.blogspot.com/2009/02/is-milk-really-167-gallon.html ) I came home with the usually 150 bucks worth of stuff I really didn't need. One of the things I picked up was this "Kung Pao Chicken Kit".

To be honest, it's pretty tasty stuff, I recomend getting some next time you are frittering away your hard earned cash in Sam's.

Anyway, as I'm sitting there reading the box and realizing I've just ingested more salt than Lot's wife I notice this seal on the box.

Inspected for wholesomeness? What the heck is that??? I dunno but I'm glad our government is making sure it's not in my Kung Pao. I'd hate to come down with a bad case of "Wholesomeness".

The flattening of the bulls

Wal-mart gets a lot of crap from people in small towns for coming in and building a huge store that puts all the local mom and pop stores out of business. I’ve seen lines of protesters form over proposed Wal-marts and in some cases the giant retailer has even backed down.

However, this pales in comparison to what took place in Juarez Mexico. About a year ago while everyone was ducking for cover and worrying about the drug war Wal Mart decided they needed to open up a third Supercenter in the city.

So, in order to make a nice flat spot for the store, they bulldozed the bullring.

Yep, you read that correctly, “they tore down the bullring in Mexico to build a Wal Mart”.

Built in 1957, demolished to build a Wal-mart 2008

Apparently the bullring belonged to the Hurtado family and they own many bullrings throughout Mexico and have done this several times before. From what I was told by a guy I work with, the city was going to declare it a historic monument and the owners tore it down and sold the land before that could happen.

Lets hear it for the moneymen who tear down a Mexican cultural icon to put up an American icon. Do you think the locals feel like they’ve been sold out? No, all they see is the happy smiley symbol of an invader taking away a part of their identity.

Chinga la raza, viva Wal-mart!

As a final indignation to the old bullring, the whole complex (which includes a Starbucks) is named “Plaza Monumental” after the old bullring and sports a sign with the outline of the old ring.

All that remains from before is this now oddly out of place monument to the bullfighters and a bunch of out of date “tourist guide” web sites directing confused googlers to the parking lot of Wal-Mart.


Luckily for the city of Juárez, the older Plaza Balderas bullring had yet to be paved over so it’s been brought out of retirement and pressed into service once again.

PS: There is a wonderful hole in wall restaurant near downtown Juárez called “El Tragadero”. It’s a dingy place filled with even more weathered old men but when you start looking at the yellowed artifacts covering the walls you can see history. It’s the preferred eatery of the “Toreros” and the walls are covered with newspaper clippings, signed photos and other bullfighting memorabilia from long ago. Go there next time you’re in Juárez (just be careful of the airborne “lead pollution”)

More weird Mexican trucks

Here’s another bizarro home made truck I pass a lot on the way to work.

This is made from a mid 80s Toyota LE van, possibly the only vehicle that could give a Volkswagen Bus a serious challenge for the title of “World slowest vehicle”.

By chopping off the roof and adding aluminum diamond plate to the sides a bed was formed. The builder reworked the sliding doors with some hinges from a hardware store to swing open. This gives the truck several ways to be loaded, with the back tailgate or from the side.

Of course, no pickup in Mexico is complete without conveying the notion that the owner is a real vaquero (cowboy for you easterners) so some cattle guard style roll bars were installed with what seem to be mid 70s Ford LTD hubcaps to simulate wagon wheels on the sides.

The greatest car thread anywhere on the internet

I've never really mentioned the H.A.M.B. before and if you don't know what it is by now then this blog entry probably isn't for you (especially if you're one of those lawyers or insurance companies that keeps googling my post about the MCS fire).

The H.A.M.B. is the brainchild of Ryan Cocharan, a typical gearhead with a few extraordinay skills. For over a dozen years, his Hokey Ass Message Board has been the go to place for all things hot rod. Or maybe I should amend that. All things "traditional" hot rod.

Aside from hot rods, it's a facinating window into Americana and the period of time from the 1930s to the mid 1960s. No thread on his forum exemplifes this better than this one. I encourage you to just click at random somewhere in the middle of the 375 plus pages of this and get lost in time. Consisting of mostly old family photos from the contributors, it has some truly amazing photos that you'll never see in Life's archives or anywhere else except the H.A.M.B.

While it's centered around cars, it is at the same time so much, much more.

http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=110219

Cash for clunkers, but where are the clunkers???

So yesterday in a self abusing exercise I decided to drive behind my local Pontiac & Chrysler dealers and see what people are turning in as clunkers.

What I saw truly makes me sick. Top of the list is this very nice looking BMW 735i. Someone seriously drove this into the Pontiac dealer and drove out in one of their discontinued shitboxes???? PEOPLE – What the fuck are you smoking????

“You know, this leather interior is too nice, I’d rather sit on some scratchy cheap ass cloth and listen to the engine strain in a rebadged Korean built G3”

Across the street, some idiot got rid of this Mercedes in exchange for a Dodge Caliber or PT Cruiser. No, it did not have a bad paint job – those streaks on the hood were caused by the overheating engine as they murdered it. The grille? That appears to have been taken home as a trophy by some service guy as it’s been carefully removed.

I’m not a big fan of using a pickup truck to drive around in all the time but I own one and it’s real nice to haul things in. Mine is a 1969 Chevy C-20 bought from the state of NC in a sealed bid auction for the princely sum of $503.99. It’s state yellow and rust colored and has a toolbox bed with diamond plate welded in the floor. Not very attractive but it does the job.

Far less attractive than these “clunkers” for sure. Of special note is the nice Chevy Stepside with the custom paint job. Paint that was blistered off the hood as it was blown up under the most wasteful government program ever conceived by city dwellers who want your ass on a bus.

No rust, I live in the desert!

Who’s definition of “piece of shit” does this fall under?

There’s going to be alot of lonely boats out there

This old Ford was super clean, in fact it looked like it had just been painted.

Another BMW, that just sucks. BMWs are great cars.

America is now the “land of the bailout”. Can’t run a bank? “No problem, we’ve got a government program to bail you out!” “Mismanaged your auto company?” No sweat, just sign up here for your bailout. “Can’t afford to put gas in your big 'ole car when its $4 a gallon?” Well, here’s $4500 to put toward a new one.

What a wasteful society we’ve built ourselves…

How fish feel around sharks

So I’m sitting here at my desk and the HR Manager comes in my office with a serious look on his face.

I don’t know about you but I’ve always considered HR people sorta like owning an exotic pet like a lion or maybe a Komodo Dragon or something. Nice to chat with and generally pleasant but in the back of your mind you always wonder if they are going to bite you one day.

It’s never a good thing to have the HR manager come to your office looking serious. He comes in and sits down and tells me he’s got something to tell me so I glance around the office to see if I want to take anything with me.

He proceeds to tell me that my boss’s brother has been killed during the weekend. It was a kidnapping gone wrong and the “sequestadores” as they are known killed him. The brother was a “yonkero” or junkman. This title refers to people that own auto junkyards or scrap metal yards and they are high on list of targets for the kidnappers in Mexico as they usually have lots of money and plenty of cash on hand.

I feel a nervous chill come over me. The sort of reality slap you get when your wife leaves you or you get busted by the police when you are a teenager. I realize that I’ve seen far too much of this. This is the second person related to someone in our plant to be killed (earlier it was the nurse’s husband, who was sitting outside a friend’s house drinking beer when a group of hit men showed up for the owner of the house and shot everyone outside). My brother in law tripped over a body in the dark while walking to work a few months back and I’ve personally seen five different shootings. A supervisor at one of the other plants was gunned down (he was apparently involved in the drug business) and a car chase ended in one of the other plant parking lots with gunmen shooting two people in front of everyone. The gruesome bloody Nissan Murano just sat there with the wipers on and blood oozing down the door.

Since the local police have their dirty little hands full with the drug war (and trying not to get shot themselves) gangs of bank robbers and kidnappers have set up shop in Juárez with impunity. The cops never catch anyone (that would require actually looking for them) nor is there ever any justice. Oddly, this activity increased dramatically since the PJF and the Mexican army came to town under the guise of getting things back under control. Makes me wonder.

After a while you start to get immune to this stuff, it just becomes numbers on the nightly news (10 today, over 1,100 year to date). You get sort of this sense like you are a wildebeast in a herd and when someone else gets picked off by lions you just keep running. When it happens to someone you know, it quickly comes back to you that Mexico is a very dangerous place to be.

I would advise all of you to stay away from here unless you can’t avoid it like me.

Al Qaeda in the hood

Yesterday the FBI busted into 134 Lakeside Circle in Willow Spring NC and arrested 39 year old Daniel Patrick Boyd, his two sons and four other suburban terrorists with scary sounding Middle Eastern sounding names. Boyd, who looks more like a mullethead than a mullah had been running his own radical prayer sermons out of his house and operating a training camp out of nearby Caswell county.

Now normally, I don’t pay much attention to stuff like this, figuring it’s just another case of mistaken identity by the Dept. of Homeland Security. I usually shrug it off and consider myself lucky that some bumbling flatfoot hasn’t fingered me as the ringleader of some secret plot to blow up all SUV driving cel phone users.

However, this time it was the address that caught my attention as I used to live four doors down from this house. According to Yahoo, it’s 0.18 miles away. I always knew they weren’t right anyway – never offered me any beer…

"Everyone stares at the girl in the red dress"

I got up this morning and was pretty stunned that my email inbox wasn’t full of photoshopped pictures of Obama as Morpheus from the matrix.

Yesterday, during his speech on healthcare reform he made this comment

"If there's a blue pill and a red pill, and the blue pill is half the price of the red pill and works just as well, why not pay half price for the thing that's going to make you well?"

I usually don’t bust out laughing during presidential speeches (well, at least not when George W. Bush isn’t speaking) but that quote had me laughing hard.

Hmm, this and maybe the photo from my June 10th post might explain a lot here. So that’s what all that stuff about “new energy policy” is about.

Lookout coppertop…

It's not the size of your weinermobile but how you use it

Last Friday it seems that the 22 year old chick in charge of driving Oscar Mayer’s “Weinermobile” had a little bit of trouble handing the 27 foot advertising tool she had been put in charge of.

During what I can only guess was a slight unauthorized excursion to try to see Lake Michigan she inadvertently took her rolling sausage down a dead end street.

In a hurried bid to zip up the trip quickly, she gave the gas a quick poke and accidentally rammed the wiener into a tight garage and could not extricate it. Seems like she thrust when she should have stroked (she’s a girl, what did you expect?).

The dog and house remain locked together for hours before it was finally freed leaving the house battered and bruised. The owner of the house had recently dropped her insurance and she hoped that Kraft would pay up but the wiener wreckers didn’t leave a call back number nor did they call back in the morning.

"Oh yea baby, I'll call you in the morning"

This is not the first time the girls have had problems with the big plastic wiener though, back in 2008, they managed to stuff the wiener into a snowbank, which may have led to the the greatest piece of newspaper journalism ever created, read it here

http://www.firefighternation.com/profiles/blogs/889755:BlogPost:362894

Oddly, after pulling it out they found it had gotten shorter in the cold