I’ve seen this commercial a few times on the local TV stations and there is one thing that is glaring me in the eyes that they avoid talking about.

The mother in the commercial talks about “making ends meat is a struggle” and goes on to complain how the (New York) governor wants to add new taxes on juice, sports drinks and sodas.

Of course this commercial is against that, but the one thing I can’t figure out – if you are struggling to make ends meat why in the hell are you buying all these unhealthy drinks?!!?

The first thing you would cut out is the luxuries.  Buying high calorie, sugar flooded drinks are not something that any child should have in excess, and by not buying it encourages them to drink less of it.

I look at this woman and see that she can save a few bucks by not buying that crap.  This commercial doesn’t make the governor look bad for taxing something that we shouldn’t be drinking a lot of, it makes it look like that people are stupid and don’t know how to handle their finances.

]]> http://www.coreycharette.com/avoiding-the-obvious/feed/ 0 http://www.coreycharette.com/it/ http://www.coreycharette.com/it/#comments Wed, 26 Aug 2009 01:10:48 +0000 Corey Charette http://www.coreycharette.com/?p=356 It creates lives,
and ends them.
It build civilizations,
and tears them down.
It brings joys to some,
and sadness to others.
It’s easy to create,
yet hard to destroy.
It can never be touched,
but can easily be felt.

It’s amazing what love can do.

And why is this?

Because I am a father.
And my son sees all of this in me.

If you haven’t heard already 80’s film director John Hughes passed away today.  Being a child of that grew up in the ’80’s I related to all of his films back them.  I always wanted to be Ferris Bueller or John Bender or even Kevin McCallister and to live in Shermer, Illinois.

This isn’t the point of this posting.  I can go on for hours talking about his films in detail.

I kill people. 

Okay, maybe that’s a little over the top, but my timing always seems to be impeccible.

Last weekend I was flicking through the channels and came across the Steve Martin/John Candy movie Planes, Trains, and Automobiles.  Of course, my laptop was near me when watching TV so I figured I’d go to Wikipedia and look up a little bit about John Hughes to see what he’s up to nowadays.

Fast forward to today – John Hughes dies of a heart attack, aged 59.

Okay, so I looked up a celebrity online and they die very soon after.  But, I have done this several times.  I know that I’ve looked up several other people on Wikipedia before to see if they were alive and still working and, not long after, they pass on.

The one other instance that I can think of is the actress Yvonne De Carlo.  A few years ago I was watching TV (as always) and stumbled across “The Munsters” show and was wondering if Lily Munster (aka Yvonne) was still alive.  (I knew the kids were alive and the other adults passed on, but was curious about her.)  So, I meandered over to Wikipedia and was suprised the she was still kicking at age 84!

Two days later she was dead.

I know these are two instances that are 2 1/2 years apart from each other, but I have looked up a couple of other celebrities, who weren’t in the limelight, on Wikipedia just before their death.  I wish I could think of their names now, but I know that this has happened before to me.

So, if you are famous and have a Wikipedia entry online, pray that I don’t look you up one day to see what you’re up to.

Not going anywhere, just taking a little break.

Thanks and hope you stick around,
Corey

Below is a cross-section of whom I’ve seen while going to “do my business” in the local potty.

The H2 No Guy
We all know this guy.  He’s the one that’s allergic to soap and water and doesn’t wash his hands before he leaves.  This is the guy I pray that I never have to meet and shake his hand.  EWWW!

The Doctor
This one is a regular in the bathroom.  He’s the one that, after he washes hands, takes the paper towel to open the bathroom door.  Then, scoots out while throwing the towel out and not making any physical contact with the door.  What the heck it up with this guy?  If he’s going to go and sit inside a bubble afterwards?  Does he slip on rubber gloves at his desk so he doesn’t have to touch his keyboard?  I bet that he has a packet of phone santizing wipes the he uses on his phone before putting it up to his ear.

The überclean Freak
This is a very rare breed of guy.  This man is actually afraid of his own penis.  Before he heads to the urinals he grabs a paper towel with him.  I don’t know what he does with the paper towel, but I do know that he throws it in the toilet.  Does he use it as a level of protection between his hand and his unit, or is it a wiping device?  And don’t throw it in the toilet!  It doesn’t flush you idiot!  Don’t make other people have to clean up your mess.  I don’t know why you would use it as wipe!  Have you ever heard of “the shake?”

The Personal Office Guy
Just because you work in a 4×4 cubicle with no door doesn’t allow you to make the bathroom your own personal office.  There are guys that will take their planners, cellphones and PDAs with them into the stalls.  I sure as heck wouldn’t want to be making professional phone calls with the sounds of “water” trickling in the background.  People aren’t stupid.  If they think it sounds like pee – then it must be pee!

These are the typical group of guys that visit our local bathroom at work.

If you know of anymore, please let me know.  The bathroom really is an interesting place to watch people’s behavior.

My family went on a short trip to Virginia leaving me home alone.  That wasn’t a good decision on their part.

My 5-year old son has a fish bowl and a twenty-eight cent Wal-Mart special swimming around in it.  These are the type of fish that have the lifespan of a Jessica Simpson single.  My son named him Swimmy.  I decided to clean the bowl out since it was getting a bit cloudy.  Cleaned the bowl with no problems and put it back in his room.  A few hours later I went in his room and noticed the fish was taking a nap – upside down.  I didn’t want to believe that it was dead so I decided to poke at it a few times to see if it was trying to play a trick on me.  Guess not.

So, what were my options?

1) Take the remains out of the tank and give it to one of the cats to put some toothmarks into and and leave it laying by the tank telling him that the cat must’ve grabbed it out and played with it like a toy.
2) Get another fish that looks like Swimmy and replace it without my son knowing.
3) Leave the fish in the tank until my son comes home and take him up to his room and show him the fish is dead and try to explain about death to him.

So, I did what any responsible parent would do in this situation – ran to the store to get a replacement fish! 

It was 2 o’clock and I was expecting the family to be home by 7.  That gave me 5 hours to go the store and buy Swimmy II.  

I brought the fish bowl down to the kitchen and got the fish net out to scoop up the carcass.  Needless to say, it was a heck of a lot easier getting the fish out this time than it was before – they don’t seem to put up much of a struggle when they are dead!  I stuck it in a small plastic bag so I could take it to the store and compare it to the living ones.

Got in the car and headed to Wal-Mart.  Unfortunately, I couldn’t go to the one 5 minutes from the house because they don’t sell fish there, so I had to head 15 minutes away to get a fish!  This Wal-Mart, like every other one, was busy so just getting a parking spot was an adventure on it’s own.  When I got in the store I headed right over to the fish tanks.  Pulling out my plastic bag of the fish I pressed it against the glass trying to find one that was about the same size and color.  Actually, I did try to find one that had more color to it, figuring that my son’s faded because IT WAS DEAD!  I spotted one.  I flagged down one of the employees to get the fish for me.  The small Asian woman came over and asked me which one I wanted.  I pointed to the fish I found earlier.  Needless to say, there were more than 50 fish in this tank and trying to get that one specific fish would be chore in itself.  Everytime she would try to grab that one fish at least a half dozen more would be caught in the net.  After her mumbling some words in a language I’ve never heard before she finally got the one I needed.

I took the fish home and placed it the bowl and put it back in my son’s room.  I hope that he won’t notice that it’s a different fish.  If he does then I’ll just tell him that he was gone for a few days and forgot what Swimmy looked like.

That’ll work, right? 

So, I drove 30 minutes roundtrip to buy a 30 cent fish!  The clock is ticking down, the only thing I can do it sit here and wait for him to come home.

1. I am a die-hard Doctor Who fan, and have been since 1984.
2. Even though I am a fan of Rock, I have Air Supply on my Zune.
3. Not a big fan of sports, only watch the Super Bowl and the World Series.
4. I hate roller coasters and will never go on one again!
5. I have no sense of balance that’s why I don’t roller/ice skate.
6. I am a huge fan of seafood, even though I couldn’t stand it as a kid.
7. I don’t take compliments well, so I use jokes to avoid dealing with them.
8. I never watched American Idol and don’t plan on starting now.
9. I’m a huge pessimist and never think anything good will happen.
10. I hate being alone.
11. I can’t stand stupid people.  If you don’t understand something then stop trying!
12. I love sitting and watching the entire Presidential Election results on TV every 4 years.
13. I hate when the Olympics are on TV they take up all the good shows times.
14. It wasn’t until a few years ago until I realized that Jaws was rated PG.
15. I am a repository of useless information.
16. I am a huge couch potato.
17. It bothers me when people misspell simple words.
18. I have no music ability, but always wished I learned an instrument.
19. I don’t like vegetables.
20. I will try any type of food once just to say that I tried it.
21. When I left Connecticut, I never stayed friends with any of my graduating class.  (Starting to reconnect with them online though.)
22. I can’t hold a conversation.
23. Even though I find things funny, I don’t usually laugh out loud.
24. I don’t really follow any religious beliefs, but I don’t like it when someone tries to convince me why their religion is the best one out there.
25. I don’t express my feelings to others – ever!

Not a big deal, but with an 888 prefix I figured that a few phone calls would be for a toll free phone number.

Well, one day after 8 pm there was a phone call.  I didn’t recognize the number so I let the answering machine pick up.  A man on the other end of the phone wanted to reserve a car.  I had no clue what he was talking about, figured it was for a toll free number. I let it go.  At night, we turn off our ringer on the house phone and leave our cell phones near us so if anyone calls us on that phone it must be important. 

The next morning there were several more calls on the answering machine from various people asking to reserve cars!  This went on over the next several weeks.  One time we picked up the phone and asked who they were looking for.  The people were looking for Hertz car rental, but the number they were calling was 813-309-9999 nothing even close to our phone number and NOT a toll free number.  It was confusing. 

I called the number we got from one of the people and I got a busy signal.  So I figured that they were forwarding the calls to us by mistake instead of an 800 number.  We went to the phone book and looked up to see if there was a toll free number listed there.  There was and it was 1-888-123-4567.  The first seven digits WERE OUR PHONE NUMBER!

We called the toll free number and told them that the local office is forwarding the calls to us and not to them and that they were losing business.  We gave them the local number and they said that they would call someone at home and see if they can get them back in the office to change the number to them.

That didn’t work.

So, over the next few days we would get calls after 8pm asking for car rentals.  So, we did what any person would do – we took reservations!

During that time, I called the phone company and told them to stop the forwarding because it’s harassing.  They said that they could call the office and try to stop them, but they couldn’t do it themselves.  I told them I could cancel my phone myself if nothing is done.  That scared them a little bit.

That didn’t work.

So, my last chance was to call the local Hertz office myself.  At 8am I started calling the number over and over until I got through.  A woman picked up and I asked her what her name was and what number they forward their phone to.  I told them that they’ve been forwarding it to our house and that they are losing business.  I told here that if I received one more phone call for a car reservation I was going to be at their office waiting for them to open the door and will handle the problem in person!

That worked!

Sometimes a little threatening gets things done quicker than being nice to people.

Then, I thought to myself: “How long will it be before one of them pops?”  Within a few minutes a loud BANG was heard throughout the hall.

So, I sat down and tried to figure out how to determine how long it takes before one of the balloons pops.

Here’s my formula:

minutes til pop = (number of kids total – number of kids with balloons) x square footage of area they are playing in

 
Looking at this formula: the more kids in the group with balloons and the smaller the area they are playing it the higher chance of one of the balloons popping.

Of course, this hasn’t been verified with scientific study, but any observed eye can attest to this theory.