Readers note: I’ll be employing hash tags after each brilliant observation. Hash tags are the hipster’s way of connoting sarcasm, or implying irony, or providing context. All the Kool Kidz are doing it. #educatingn00bs
- I continue to be intrigued by the new image being cultivated by J.C. Penney. But I am a little puzzled by the fact that the company has two domain names and two websites. JCPenney.net is their corporate meta site, and JCPenney.com is their retail shopping site, and the only thing they have in common is the logo. Whoever sold them on the idea of having to maintain two separate online corporate identities gets my vote for salesman of the year. #smilingwebdesigners
- I see that yet another local neighborhood is protesting the apparently surprising development that someone wants to drill for oil in the big honking pasture adjacent to their homes. And, once again, the protestors display a puzzling lack of understanding of basic property rights (especially considering that most of them probably bought their expensive homes using income that originated in the oilpatch, directly or indirectly). According to the newspaper report, the driller has gone beyond what’s required in the city’s ordinance to mitigate the impact of the drilling on the neighborhood, but that’s not getting in the way of the residents’ outrage (and, apparently, neither is the legal fact that the mineral owners have the legal right to access their underground assets). There’s only one thing that will make them feel better – well, other than not drilling at all – and that’s if they get a cut of the revenue from the drilling. #moneymakeseverythingbetter
- Is there anything more annoying – besides hipsterish hashtags – than opening a brand spanking new box of cereal and finding that the Machine In Charge Of Bag Sealing, in a fit of non-union-sanctioned overzealousness, has glued the inner plastic bag so that there’s no way to open it other than finding a pair of scissors – which, frankly, is an impossibility at 6:00 a.m. – to cut it, after which the bag is too short to seal properly which will probably eventually result in a family of deadly scorpions taking up residence in your Grape Nuts and we all know that’s bound to end badly for all involved?* #1stworldproblems
- And speaking of Things That Invariably Make Life More Challenging, why do flat tires never occur on beautiful cool days? It’s apparently a requirement that you must change a tire either in a blizzard, or in heat sufficient to melt the tire to the asphalt on which it rests. #immutablenaturallaws
- You know how when you’re driving and you observe that everyone driving faster than you is a jerk and everyone driving slower than you is an idiot? (Not that I’ve ever felt like that.) I think there’s a corollary that applies to lawn maintenance. Everyone whose lawn is in better shape than yours is a profligate water waster with messed-up priorities, and everyone whose laws looks worse than yours is a redneck with poor hygiene and deficient civic pride. (Not that I’ve ever felt like that.) #castingthefirstlandscapingstone
- The Tall City BluesFest has announced its 2012 line-up and, man, am I stoked! They’ve managed to coax Tommy Castro out of California for the Saturday night show. If I had a bucket list, attending a Tommy Castro concert would be on it. I don’t have one of those lists, but I plan to check this one off anyway.
*You might have forgotten that this paragraph was actually phrased as a question, so I’ve included this handy footnote to remind you why the question mark appears. #seekinggrammaticalclarityinananalretentivefashion