Why Can't You be More Like Dunkin?

As I was standing in line at one of the thousand local Starbucks's, a thought occured to me. More a question, really. Who invented the sizing of Starbucks? First of all, why are 2 of them in one language (Italian, to be random enough), and one in English? And so the one in Italian which I'm sure most of us can guess is Grande. Grand. Big. Right? Wrong! No, obviously grande is medium. Duh. So then theres "tall". Well, most of us aren't used to our drinks being described in height, but to make an educated guess I'd say.. well... medium or large? I mean wouldn't small be "short"? Wrong again! Tall is obviously small. And then last of all we have venti, which most people probably can't take time out of their caffiene-spiked lives to guess, but it means "20". And boy does that make sense, because obviously "20" is large.
Not only is this system way to confusing, but why just Starbucks? Are they just that much classier that they have to purposely make ordering a daily dose of joe like being in Finland?
The best part of it all is the fact that if you say "small", "medium", or "large", the baristas will just take it and convert it. Only true Starbucks junkies need learn the lingo (thank God!)

ShamWHAT!?

Recently, a popular culture icon of infomercials was arrested. Yes, I'm talking about Mr. ShamWOW man, Vince Shlomi.
Shlomi (unfortunate last name) was paying a prostitute $1,000, when allegedly she "bit his tongue" really hard. His obvious defense action was to "punch the stripper repeatedly". Of course. When he called the police they subsequently arrested him on charges of felony battery (genius).

Shlomi is the popular spokesman for "ShamWOW", the line of super drying towels. How popular you ask? So popular his commercial was rated the #1 Infomercial of All Time by CNBC (there is such a thing?). But really, it is quite the entertaining infomercial. I could swear he doesn't even have a script... "It's made in Germany.... ya know the Germans always make good stuff." You could say they take the "germ" out of "Germany".
Anyway, this is a sad to the infomercial world, and I personally will be crying into a shamWOW tonight at the loss of their spokesman (it can hold up to 12 times its weight of my tears, you know). (I'm assuming they will fire him...)
You can find the commercial at www.shamwow.com .

It's California, What do you Expect?

Recently I found myself at my state capitol, the home of our dearest Governator, in Sacramento. The building itself is lovely, it really is, a take on the actual capitol building where real bills are debated and budgets are actually passed. The building (built in 1864) was falling apart (apparently sometime in the 70's a genius senator decided "Hmmm I wonder if this 100 year old building meets the safety requirements..."), so they had to reinforce the entire thing, and strip most of its insides away. If your wondering what happened to the budget deficit, it cost 60 million dollars.
Anyway, as I was waiting for the tour to start (it was a fine tour but the guide had a deep loathing hatred for children, and yelled at all the classes on field trips we passed), I was sitting on a marble bench on a checkerboard floor, looking at the painfully partial murals across the walls (Native Americans happily labouring on a mission, Spanish priests blessing them, etc), I noticed one particularly uninteresting picture. It was pretty normal, until I realized that as the Native Americans were cheerfully waving to the Spanish, one man actually had his hand on the other guys butt. Right there, on the left panel on the far left. Now I don't have anything against any sexual preferences, I was just surprised that in a state capitol... with the way things are... a Republican governor...
Only in California folks, only in California.

Opinions on Opinions

We all have them. Even the most laid-back, chilled-out, go-with-the-flow dude you know has got some lurking in dark dusty corners of their unkempt souls.... thats right....
Opinions. Ah, the mere word conjures horrified images of wacked-out caffeine freaks shouting their hatred of all things living and dead at you in the grocery store, of the over-zealous Christians who sing obnoxious songs and yell at you about Jesus on the sidewalk... even the meeklings who never see light at Starbucks take it upon themselves to tell you what THEY suggest -- as if you'd care.
Opinions have been highly overrated these days... what happens when we pay people for emptying their brains onto unsuspecting folk below? Rush Limbaugh! Ann Coulter! It's folks like these that give opinions such a bad rap. But are they really that horrible?
I mean, of course we can't just treat every opinion like it's equal, this is America for God sakes. But why do we all hate opinions so much? Is it really the opinions, or is it the act of them being forced upon us? Thats all we ever rely on, in truth. Who's opinion do we value most? The President's! We let him make the calls... "It's my opinion we go to war in Iraq." Bingo! It's done.
Then what? Politicians? Hardly. I'd name the media next in this opinion hierarchy. Talk shows first... and people like Katie Couric, or Bill O'Reilly. Then the news, Fox, MSNBC. Then maybe after that, politicians (but I'm still voting for the Girl Scout Committee before them)...
See how it all works? Its a system, but like a lot of new winning mottos in this country, we need a change. I say we should start showing opinions for what they really could be! Let's not get so down on them, let's lift them up! We have got to re-innovate opinions.
I intend to start here.

Why Do We Blog?

The answer to my question is: I have no idea. The point is you're reading my blog, which reinforced my question. Why do we blog? Why am I blogging? This is the first post I've ever made in a blog, ever. For the longest time I was blogg-immune until today I was struck with the plague of the blogosphere. And hey! Here I am. Blogging.
I'm thinking we blog because we have too many opinions to withhold all the time, we just have to free them, but that could just be me needing to have more space to talk more. In any case, I'm glad that I can add just one more pointless opinion to the menagerie of clamoring idiots that adorn the great monster that eats our souls that we call the Internet.
But hopefully it will be an entertaining opinion in the least.