Lil' Mama Lyrics

A_O_T_O_

- Average cost of raising a child to the age of 18 -- $197,600

- Average annual cost or raising a child -- $11,000

- Average annual cost of living in Washington DC -- $43,000

- Average annual income in US-- $44,000

We appear to be coming up $10,000 short. However, let's multiply the average annual income by two to account for a dual-income family: $88,000. Still a spare $30,000 every year. But wait, don't you want your kids to have a future?

- Average annual cost of college (public) -- $13,000

- Average annual cost of college (private) -- $30,000

Four years of this will run you between $52,000 - $120,000. So save between $3,000 - $6,500 every year.

- Single parents come out $13,000 per child short every year. I don't reccomend it.

- Dual income families have an average of $27,000 to spare. But subtract another $14,000 per child.

- I'd rather save that extra $1,000 (single) to $45,000 (dual income). It'll end up as $18,000 - $810,000 over the course of 18 years. Let's just skip the kids and retire before we're 40.

Trust your mechanic...

T.V. invents a disease you think you have

So you buy our drugs and soon you depend on them

Embedded in your mind, got you coming for more

Again and again and again and again

Gonna rip you off

The magazine says your face doesn't look quite right

Unless you wear our brand new wonder cream tonight

Never look right again unless you grease your skin

Again and again and again and again

Gonna rip you off

Doctor says you need surgery now

You're feeling good 'til the side effects fuck up something else

You're ensnared by the medicine man

Paying out the ass again and again

Gonna rip you off

Trust your mechanic to mend your car

Bring it in to his garage

He tightens and loosens a few spare parts

One thing's fixed, another falls apart

And the rich eat you

And Now, A Joke...

-How do you get a baby out of a blender?

-Nachos

P.S. You're welcome.


*Disclaimer: The author of the above statement does not condone or promote the murder or consumption of babies. He simply finds dead baby jokes hilarious. No babies were harmed in crafting of this joke.*

Internship

I was recently invited via e-mail to join the Washington Internship Program. This program allows students to work with many big companies from the DC area for the low price of $3,400. For ONE summer!? So, let me get this straight. These companies are not only getting a summer's worth of free work out of students, but they're also charging them an amount comparable to an entire semester's tuition for this? What an "opportunity"... It's no wonder how the rich keep getting richer.

The Matrix

Ah, boys will be boys. This is an amusing video I stumbled upon on youtube. It worked on two levels for me; not only did his failed attempt at a Neo impression prove funny, but the video also got me feeling all nostalgic. I miss what the 4th of July meant to me when I was a kid. It used to be about following my pyromaniacal urges and testing the limits of what my parents would let me endanger myself with. Nowadays, the holiday seems more about "patriotism" to me... Somewhere along the line, I lost sight of what this holiday is truly about; irresponsible, potential-fire-hazard filled fun.

Shameless Plug

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It's Pat!

I saw this video on MTV this morning. Initial reaction: err... man or woman!? I've watched the video a few times, and I'm still not sure. So I'll tackle both sides of the issue.

- A note to androgynous men: if you kind of look like a girl already, dark eyeshadow and long hair may not be in your best interests.

- A note to androgynous women: if you already have some masculine features, wearing men's clothing and singing in a deep voice is a big mistake.

I'm not sure which is the case with the lead singer of this band, but I remain quite scared of this androgynous something-or-other. Blurring of gender lines is not something I'm used to in this wonderfully homophobic nation of ours, so I find myself ill-prepared to deal with this situation. I suggest this guy/girl choose one and stick with it. I don't think anyone would be able to prove him/her wrong either way...

Douchebag...

I went to meet up with some friends the other night, which ended up taking me to a very crowded bar. We're talking elbow-to-elbow here; not a comfortable situation for me. Being creepy and anti-social, I tended to stand towards the back of the room as I sipped my drink. Before long, a security guy (or something) came and told me I couldn't stand where I was, as I was blocking the fire exit. This struck me as a hilarious supposition; it's as if he assumed that if there was a fire, I wasn't going to run. How can a flammable being with working legs ever truly be "blocking" a fire exit? I assured him that in the event of a fire, I'm perfectly comfortable being the first one out the door. He then asked me to leave. Douchebag...

Links

Do you ever get the feeling that links have only been added to a webpage to artificially add depth to something that is actually quite shallow?

Hardest Super Mario Ever

This is one of the funniest video game related videos I've ever seen. Be warned, it's laced with obscenities; but I honestly can't blame the guy. This level was user-created and is the most difficult super mario bros. level I can even imagine. Cursing aside, kudos to the guy who made the video for actually playing this. I sincerely doubt I could make it as far as he does (which is sad, since I've been playing video games for as long as I can remember). If you are a gamer, and also a masochist, this and other mods can be found at GameTap.

The Long Arms of The Law

Ahh, edutainment. Shows like this inform our nation's youth about things like healthy eating habits. They can also serve to amuse people my age, provided substance abuse is a factor. My roommate and I catch this show, Yo Gabba Gabba, whenever we can. It's educational and hilarious at the same time. Just look at the length of that dude's arms! I defy you to not laugh as you watch those arms flail about...

Joke's on you; I'm telling you something

La, la, la, la wait till I get my money right

la, la, la, la then you cant tell me nothing right

Excuse Me, is you saying something?

Uh, uh, you can't tell me nothing

(Ha ha) you can't tell me nothing

Uh, uh, you can't tell me nothing

-Kanye West

-- This is one of the most irritating choruses in the history of music. This is repeated throughout Mr. West's song, "Can't Tell Me Nothing." It actually makes me angry. Like, white knucles and grinding teeth; REAL anger. I hear it all the god damned time in my house, as my roommate is a big fan (and seems to think that turning up the volume makes shitty music better). Notes to Kanye:

-- Right does not rhyme with right, and nothing does not rhyme with nothing; IT'S THE SAME FUCKING WORD.

-- Furthermore, the placement of the word "right" in the first two lines doesn't even make sense. It seems that you tacked the word onto the end of the lines to make it rhyme (too bad rhyming the same word over again doesn't work and just makes me angry).

-- Is you saying something? IS you!? Come on, Kanye; go back to school.

-- Seemingly overlooked grammatical rule; a double-negative forms a positive. According to your lyrics, I can't tell you nothing. Since I am unable to tell you nothing; you've said that I have to tell you something. I don't think this was your intended message. And repeating this error three times does not help your cause.

-- Now look back over the chorus, ignoring the nit-picking I've just done. Accept its flaws; just look at its underlying message. THERE IS NONE. So you're going to get some money? And that is going to keep me from saying anything to you? Wow, that's deep...

-- I hate you.

** For more wonderful grammatical errors, have a look at more of Kanye's lyrics at http://www.azlyrics.com/w/west.html **

Life takes Visa

I'm sure you've all seen these commercials (if you haven't, press play above). They have been getting on my nerves for a long time now. They paint credit cards out to be a faster method of payment (as opposed to cash). Is this really the case?

Hypothetical Payment Scenario: Cash: The cashier rings up the last of my items, bringing the total to $19.32. I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. I hand her a $20 bill. She opens the register and counts out $0.68 to return to me while the receipt prints out. When she has the correct amount of change, she takes the receipt from the printer and hands the receipt and change to me at the same time while telling me to "have a nice day" (total elapsed time for this transaction is around 30 seconds).

Hypothetical Payment Scenario: Credit Card: The cashier rings up the last of my items, bringing my total to $19.32. I reach into my pocket and pull out my wallet. I hand her my Visa card. She swipes my card and waits while the system processes my information via an internal modem. After my information has been accepted, the register prints out a credit card slip for me to sign. This is handed to me, along with a pen to write with. I sign the slip and hand it back to her. She keys in a final entry into her register, and it prints my receipt. She hands me the receipt while telling me to "have a nice day" (total elapsed time for this transaction is a little over a minute).

Conclusion: Both forms of payment take very little time out of my day, but it is important to note that VISA IS NOT FASTER. This goes for all credit cards. They will never be faster than cash so long as they rely on a convoluted system with information to process and slips for customers to sign. Furthermore, if they were to do away with said system, they would experience a huge loss of security for their clients; and for what? To save us 30 seconds or so per transaction? I like my credit card just fine, and I use it fairly often; but I've never once thought of it as being more convenient than cash (trendy commercials be damned).

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P.S. Wow, auto-formatting sucks. I spent like an hour making this piece of ascii art; just to have it ripped to shit by blogger as soon as I pressed "publish." However, I'll bet many of you are clever enough to discern what this was a picture of, so I'll leave it for now...

Black History Month

- A cliched statement that I'll bet many of you have heard before: "Q: If february is black history month, when is white history month? A: The other 11 months are white history months." Comments like these have always bothered me, as they insinuate that blacks are purposely excluded from history lessons based on pigment. In reality, if the other months truly are white history months, it's because "white" people (a generalized term applied basically to anyone of european descent) did more notable things.

- History should be taught based on importance of the action, not based on the skintone of the person who performed the action. However, this notion is turned on its head every february as we are told yet again what George Washington Carver did with peanuts. After mister peanut butter, next on the list are figures such as Frederick Douglas or Martin Luther King Jr., whose most notable accomplishments were writings and speeches on the subject of freedom for their people. Outside of a few exceptions such as Carver's peanut butter or Garret Augustus Morgan's streetlight, few black historical figures made a difference in the world that didn't pertain directly to black people. Most of the figures celebrated during black history month are only important to black history, making black history seem to exist within a vacuum.

- I used to dread february when I was still attending public schools for just this reason. I was basically forced to pretend that I thought these figures were important, lest I be branded as a racist. Not to say I don't see the importance of these contributions; but should the inventor of peanut butter really get a whole month? Couldn't these figures be covered as the history lesson progressed to the appropriate point in the lesson? Black history month is nothing more than a token gesture to appease a demographic, and I'm not going to pretend I care ever again.

"Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek." - Barack Obama

- What change are we discussing, here? Could you be more specific about your stance on political issues?

"If you're walking down the right path and you're willing to keep walking, eventually you'll make progress. " - Barack Obama

- That was... pretty. But what kind of progress are we looking to make by continuing down said path? And what do you mean by the right path, anyway?

"It took a lot of blood, sweat and tears to get to where we are today, but we have just begun. Today we begin in earnest the work of making sure that the world we leave our children is just a little bit better than the one we inhabit today. " - Barack Obama

- I get the point, but is this a speech or a sermon? Rhetoric-laden speeches full of hope-inspired prose but devoid of any actual plans for change can't win an election. Can they!?

"Today we are engaged in a deadly global struggle for those who would intimidate, torture, and murder people for exercising the most basic freedoms. If we are to win this struggle and spread those freedoms, we must keep our own moral compass pointed in a true direction." - Barack Obama

- Yeah... moral compass... true direction... refer to above comments from me.

"We have an obligation and a responsibility to be investing in our students and our schools. We must make sure that people who have the grades, the desire and the will, but not the money, can still get the best education possible." - Barack Obama

- And how are you going to do this? Give the people a plan of what you'd do to ensure these promises. Stop relying on your ability to craft cute little sayings and metaphors into your speeches. Most of all, stop assuming that America buys into your pretty words with no policies behind them. Oh, wait. You're ahead in the polls? Perhaps I overestimated your audience... Well, at the very least, I'd still prefer you over Hillary.

Urgent Message For Germophobes

I work with a few of you, and I've seen dozens more in public. I recognize you from your telltale bottles of hand sanitizer you carry in your purses. You think that you can avoid sickness by avoiding germs alltogether. However, you can't avoid manipulating things with your hands, so you're never without your sanitizer to use immediately after touching anything. This sanitizer (much like the anti-bacterial soaps you probably use) kills. 99.99% of all germs on contact. Have you ever thought about the significance of this number? What happens to this .01% of leftover germs? Well, under normal circumstances, this tiny percentage would naturally be kept in check by the other microscopic entities fighting for survival on the surface of your skin. However, you germophobes have leveled the playing field for this bit of leftover germs. You may have killed 99.99% of the germs on your hands just now, but consider what you've left behind. You are left with an extrenely resistant strain of germs, immune to your anti-bacterial strategies. In essence, all you've really done is kill this super-germs's other competition in the germ world. With no other bacteria to fight with over resources, this super-germ will thrive unchallenged. Through repeated use of these same anti-bacterial soaps and sanitizers, you will be ensuring this super-germ's survival, as well as its eventual take-over of your skin or body. Your hand sanitizers are not going to save you, I'm afraid. There's only one real solution; wear oven mitts wherever you go, to keep anything from coming in contact with your hands.

Disclamer: I am not a dermatologist, nor am I an expert on bacterial cell-growth. I didn't even do any research on the above statements. Truth be told, I just really want to see germophobes wearing oven mitts out on the town.

Introduction

As is cliched in first blog entries, here is the part where I introduce myself and you readers pretend you're interested. My name is Taft (named after a river; not a president). I'm in my early (closer to-mid; depressing) 20's, and I've been waiting tables to pay for school for the last seven years (but it feels more like an eternity). I work and live in a very pretentious college town; where people shop at "organic" stores and the boys style their hair to look "messy." Said boys even pop their collars for reasons other than being dracula (unacceptable, I say). I don't really fit into this crowd of complacent, pseudo-intellectual mouth-breathers, but I'm content on my own (at least being alone ensures i'm always in good company). I'm studying journalism in school, but I'm not altogether certain I want to pursue it as a career. Journalism as a field is dominated by dinosaurs who have been writing for these newspapers and magazines for 40+ years in some cases. What is a young journalism major to do? Patiently wait until they retire or die off? I'll give the internship thing a try in the meantime, I suppose; but continuing to wait tables with a bachelor's degree would be the realization of my greatest fear. My interests include basically any manifestation of dissent, like punk rock, anarchy or satanism. Dissenting opinions inspire me, and in this blog you will often see me play the devil's advocate. I suppose that is the underlying theme of this blog; an outlet for me to be as judgmental, sarcastic and sardonic as i'd like to be in real life (if only tactfulness didn't dictate otherwise). If you like what you read, excellent. If you disagree with me, feel free to post comments and initiate a dialogue about it; I would genuinely enjoy the chance to argue the point. We have reached the end of my obligatiory introduction paragraph. BOOBIES ---> ( . )( . )