Remember that huge cash bailout for the auto industry a little while back? Sure you do. The car makers got a huge chunk of cash and, in return, this week they closed a couple thousand dealerships and put several thousand folks out of work. So, money well spent, I see.

And I was thinking about this, and I think the government was a little short-sighted in their bailout process. I keep hearing that the auto industry is essential to the American economy because of the number of workers they employ (minus the several thousand that are no longer working), plus all the dealerships they support (ditto), and then the domino effect of parts manufacturers, shippers, component makers, etc. And that’s where I think the bailout wasn’t thought through all the way. Instead of just handing the various corporations large wheelbarrows of cash for, essentially, nothing, I think they should have done the obvious thing when giving a car dealer a large sum of money:

They should have bought cars.

Think about it. We gave them, what, twenty-five billion? How many cars would that have bought? I’m no mathematician, but I think it’d be something in the neighborhood of 1.25 million cars. What would the government need with that many cars? Well, give them to law enforcement, for one. I’m sure there’s a lot of police stations out there that could use some new vehicles. What about buying hybrids and giving them to local government agencies? Then they’d have new vehicles and lower operating costs, meaning less of a budget burden. That’s win-win. Plus the car manufacturers would be able to ramp up those new hybrid production lines, bringing the overall cost down and making them more affordable for the rest of us, meaning a possible swing away from using so much foreign oil. Another win-win. The feds could also sell some cars at reduced cost to out-of work families. They get a cheap, new car and the government actually recoups some of their bailout money. Win-win again. Plus there’d be the huge upswing in production. Factories would need to work at capacity to meet the demand for that many new cars. Suppliers would have to create and ship thousands upon thousands of new parts to fill the orders. People would be working, jobs would be saved, money would start moving again, and the economy would see a boost. I can’t help but think that consumer confidence would also be uplifted, which would bolster the stock market. And maybe most importantly, America would actually be making something again.

Yeah, it’s too late now, but wouldn’t that have made sense? To get something for all that money? Hell, if I go to the drive-thru at McDonald’s and discover when I get home that they left out my fries, I’m pretty pissed that I just wasted two bucks for nothing. This is twenty-five billion and nobody got anything.

Well, besides screwed.

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The SBM and I are finally locking down the last few details for the upcoming wedding. It’s a smallish, simple affair, nothing too elaborate. We’re trying to keep things as stress-free as possible. One area we figured would be a breeze was the rings. Going to need two of ‘em, round, made of something shiny, should look similar. Go to a jeweler, buy a matching set, go home. Piece of cake, right?

Well, as it turns out, according to all the jewelers we went to (and remember, these are people that are convinced people are willing to pay thousands of dollars for small chunks of carbon), no one actually wants to buy wedding bands in a set. One guy told us, “Only eight percent of people want to buy wedding bands that way,” proving once again that anyone can pull a fake statistic out of their ass. Apparently, we were informed, when a guy buys a woman an engagement ring, he’s supposed to have the forethought to also select a complementary, custom band that will fit with the diamond ring like a puzzle piece. Then, later, he needs to find himself a matching band that completes the set.

Since no one told me about this, we’re now having to scour through a wide selection of wedding bands, trying to find a pair that match, are the right size, the right widths, and are a little more interesting than just plain round. Oh, and they need to not cost forty billion dollars each.

Honestly, with all this effort, I can not understand why the divorce rate is so high…

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Now that October is over, can we please stop with all the Breast Cancer Awareness? Don’t get me wrong, I’m against cancer in all its forms, as it’s rather prevalent in my family and I’ve lost several relatives to The Big C. And as a heterosexual guy, I’m against anything that harms breasts. But I really do not need to be assaulted with the color pink non-stop everywhere I go. Case in point: Went grocery shopping the other day and counted eighty-four items either with the pink ribbon on the label, a pink label, or the item itself was now pink. And that’s not fourteen different flavors of Campbell’s soup, that’s eighty-four separate items from different companies: Soup, yogurt, crackers, cereal, muffins, bread, pasta, ice cream, the list goes on and on. There’s pink Brita pitchers, pink cookware, pink kitchen utensils, hell, there’s even a pink Dyson vacuum cleaner. And you gotta really be against breast cancer to buy a $500 dirt-sucker to show your support.

One of the oddest pink items? Madden 2009 for the Xbox 360. Forgive me for engaging in gender stereotypes, but I think most of the young adult male Madden fans will likely shy away from buying a pink video game, especially one so testosterone-laden to begin with.

Again, great cause, but can we tone it down a little? I’m about as aware as I’m going to be at this point.

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I can’t be the only one who’s thought of this. The whole economic bailout plan they’re debating in Washington right now? The one that’s going to require taxpayers to save the banking industry as we know it? Why don’t they just shelve it for the time being, and get money from a different source? Specifically, I’m thinking the CEOs, CFOs, COOs (and whatever other alphabet-soup titles they have), the presidents, the vice presidents, board members, and all the higher-ups of these failing companies. Take away their salaries for the past year or two, sell their multiple houses, auction off their cars, liquidate their stocks and bonds, cash in their IRAs and 401(k)s, have a garage sale with all their expensive clothes and jewelry, ebay their yachts, and turn their polo ponies into hot lunches for the school kids. Now, I’m guessing even that won’t be enough, so I’m also suggesting that each of them also be required to remove and sell at least three organs. Kidney, lung, pancreas, their choice. Carve ‘em out and offer ‘em up to the highest bidder. I’m betting there’s some oil sheik someplace who could use a new gall bladder.

Come on, if this happened in Japan, there’d be executives over there killing themselves right now.

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The Digital Bits is reporting there’s a new batch of Star Wars DVDs—prequels and originals—on the horizon, slated for release just in time for holiday shopping. I kind of perked up when I read that. Could this at long last be the original non-SE trilogy, fully remastered on DVD the way it should be? Have they found some new behind-the-scenes footage or deleted scenes? Or could it be… The entire saga on Blu-ray? Star Wars in high definition?!

Nope. What it is is a shameless cash grab by Lucas to try and milk a few more bucks out of his rapidly tiring franchise from unwary shoppers. These discs, according to the Bits, are the EXACT SAME discs that were released previously, just in different packaging. That’s it. No new content. No new transfers. No new extras. But if they make them look different, people might just buy them, thinking there’s something new.

So, George, if you’re reading, do me a favor. Step away from the computer, go to the nearest mirror, look yourself deep in the eyes, and repeat this phrase: “I have enough money.” Keep doing that until you believe it and you stop asking fans to keep re-buying the same stuff over and over.

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So I’m pouring myself a glass of milk for breakfast this morning and notice there’s a sticker on the side of the milk jug advertising General Mills cereals. I take a look, wondering what’s so damned important about their cereals that they just have to tell me about it before I’ve even had a shower. The ad shows several boxes of cereal and, screaming in large, bold type, the message: “Whole Grains GUARANTEED!”

So?

I figure there’s got to be more to it than that, so I read the fine print and, no, there isn’t. They simply guarantee that every serving of their cereal will contain at least a certain percentage of whole grains. Well, gee. Whoopee. I find it hard to get all excited that your product, made entirely from grain to begin with, is going to contain a certain amount of grain that’s whole. That’s kind of like bottled water hyping that it “Contains Over 50% Hydrogen!”

And then I think, how would I even call them on this? They’re guaranteeing a certain percentage of whole grains; how do I know? What, am I supposed to pop into the lab on the way to work? Have them run a chemical spectroanalysis or however the hell you check for the presence of whole grain goodness? Five grand in lab fees so I can maybe get back my three bucks if they don’t live up to their claim?

You want to guarantee something useful? How about “Cereal box guaranteed to be at least nine-tenths full when you open it instead of having a full six inches of empty space on top”? I’d buy your cereal then, whole grains or not.

I guarantee it.

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The SBM (that’s Soon-to-Be Mrs.) and I went grocery shopping the other night and there, between the bread aisle and the canned vegetables, I came face to face with utter horror.

There was a cardboard display stocked full of various lunchbag snackables. The display’s endcaps were shaped to look like the front and back of a school bus. Back-to-school savings, good and fine as far as it goes. Trouble is, the artwork for the school bus looks like something out of Lovecraft.

I mean, look at this bus driver. Sloped shoulders, vacant stare, cretin hat, fish lips, right hand that appears to float in mid-air which I guess allows for the bizarre thumb-in-the-back grip on the door lever. Is this the guy you want transporting your little treasures to the schoolhouse?

And this… kid, I guess. What the hell is this thing? Arms appear to be jutting out of his rib cage. Hands don’t even appear to be attached to his arms. Freaky, mutant head resting on top of some abomination of a neck, as he makes the face of the eternally damned and causes untold nightmares for generations to come.

And to top it all off, he’s a ginger.

This is supposed to be enticing? This is supposed to encourage impulse buys? Are people actually supposed to look at this, find it delightful and amusing, and be drawn to it in order to select from the offered items? I have no idea what products were even for sale, so transfixed was I by the freakish horrors beckoning to me from the school bus windows.

I don’t know, maybe it’s a proven advertising fact that bad artwork makes you want to buy Twinkies.

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That’s the sound one makes upon tasting Starbucks’ new Vivanno smoothie drink thing. Let me state, right up front, that the only reason I even tried one of these things was we had a coupon for a free one and the fiancee wasn’t going to forego her Frappuccino to try it. Generally, I regard Starbucks as something to be avoided at all costs, an expensive pretentious warehouse, full of yuppies who think drinking overpriced lattes and tapping on their laptops in public makes them bohemian or something.

Anyway, the best way to describe the flavor of a chocolate-banana Vivanno smoothie drink thing is: Eating an overripe banana that’s gone mushy on the counter and has been dredged in chalk. Seriously. These things are awful. There is no chocolate taste at all. What you get is a thick, gritty, somehow slimy drink that tastes of banana and old sneaker. To make one, they throw an entire banana in a blender with some milk, blend the hell out of it, add ice, a bunch of protein powder and some squirts of what I can only assume is motor oil, blend that, and then stand back to enjoy the face you make when you take a sip.

Even the fiancee, who loves Starbucks, tried it and proclaimed it heinous. We dumped it down the sink when we got home and, while I can’t conclusively prove a connection, the next day there was an earthquake in China. I’m just saying…

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Scotch-Brite brand scouring pads have a claim on the package that says, “Guaranteed not to scratch non-stick cookware.” And I wondered: Why would you need to scour non-stick cookware? Isn’t that kind of the point of the stuff?

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So I’m at the grocery store the other day, buying food and whatnot. My current job pays for squat, so I’m always on the lookout for bargains, sales, discounts, that sort of thing. Glance at the list and see we need some dryer sheets so our clothes will come out of the dryer softer or drier or something. Never fully understood what dryer sheets actually do. So I’m looking over the boxes and I see a 200-sheet box of Bounce dryer sheets with a large sticker on the front boldly proclaiming “11% More!” Eleven percent more? Kind of an odd upsize, I think. Not, say, twenty percent more or thirty-three percent? Isn’t that what they usually do? Still, a bargain’s a bargain and eleven percent more free is still more.

Then I take another look at the sticker. It doesn’t, technically, say that extra eleven percent is free. Looking at the tiny type under the gigantic “11% More” declaration, I read “than the 180-sheet size.” I do some quick math in my head and, yes, two hundred is roughly eleven percent more than one-eighty. But it’s for the same price, right? A glance at the prices shows that it’s not. The two hundred count box costs almost a dollar more than the one-eighty box.

So this is in no way a deal for the consumer. They’re advertising the simple mathematical fact that this box contains more than that box, hoping you’ll just assume that the prices are equal and buy an extra twenty sheets for about a nickel a sheet. Thanks but no thanks.

I bought a box of Snuggle brand dryer sheets instead. That little bear is creepy but, dammit, he’s honest.

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