What Ever Were They Thinking?

The Very Definition Of A Stupid Man

rhs — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 22:14:46 -0400

This is a bit of a break from the humor and irony that this blog is supposed to convey; but I've not been posting much here -- not at all in 9 months, actually -- and this particular story really fits the "Whatever Were They Thinking" title so well that I can't resist...

Ok, you're Christie Brinkley's fourth husband. And ok... she's 52 years old. And... the 19 year old girl you had an affair with is apparently no slouch in the looks department...

But for goodness sake! You're an architect... a good one, probably... a successful one, so they say... but you're not really the single most desirable guy in this world, bud, and you were married to a supermodel you moron! You were married to one of the most single most beautiful women who will walk on this earth in your lifetime! Ask a thousand American men of your age to identify the top ten most beautiful women they've ever seen in their lifetime, and I'll bet 80% would include Christie Brinkley. Even at 52, she's still far above what you might call "a good catch".

But you risk it all for a fling, and you lose. Stupid.

Anheuser-Busch: We Are Shocked! Shocked, To Discover That People Play Bud Pong With... Bud!

rhs — Wed, 19 Oct 2005 00:59:40 -0400

For the past year or so, brewer Anheuser-Busch has been running promotions in which patrons at various establishments are given balls, paddles, a table, a net, and glasses adorned with Anheuser-Busch logos... and said patrons are invited to fill their glasses with water and play a game that very closely resembles one that some of you no doubt remember, if only hazily, from your college fraternity basement days. That game, of course, was Beer Pong, and it involved consumption of, well... beer!... often in significant quantity, and well into the wee hours of the night. Most often it involved the cheap stuff, because with balls and paddles flying around, not to mention the occasional balance problem experienced by players (due, of course, to fatigue), spillage was a serious risk, and the cheap stuff was Bud. The cheapest stuff was Busch.

Ah, yes... Beer Pong. I remember it well. Not all of it, of course, as the ends of many a night of play are a bit of a blur....

Beer Pong was more than a game, really. It was a culture. No!... It was a set of cultures, as it varied from campus to campus, and even from fraternity to fraternity. In my house, we had a vocabulary ("Helen!", "Zamboni!", "MasterPaddle!"...) and ritual built up around our games that was unique, colorful, unlikly to be understood by outsiders even if they were well-versed in the standard forms of Beer Pong, and most of alll... we were dedicated to the proposition that in our "friendly game" there were no losers, because everybody got to drink if they wanted to And my understanding is that where the Beer Pong culture flourishes today -- still mostly in fraternity basements, I would venture to guess -- it has evolved into forms that players of my own generation would hardly recognize... except for the drinking. That has remained pretty much a constant, despite the fact that most college students fall below the legal drinking age.

But I digress.

I propose a believabilty scale from 1 to 10. 1 stands for "Absolute Truth", 3 stands for "I Saw It On Final Jeopardy Last Night", 5 stands for "Wikipedia Says So", 6 stands for "I Read It On A Blog", 8 stands for "Utter Nonsense", and and 10 stands "Proven False". On that scale Anheuser-Busch's recent announcement about Bud Pong rivals only some recent political news ("I don't recall who told me her name", "I've never talked to anyone about that case", and of course the old classic "I have not had sexual relations with that woman") for its sheer chutzpah! They come in at 11, which stands for "How Stupid Do They Think We Are?!"

And what did Anheuser-Busch announce? Why, they announced that they are withdrawing the Bud Pong promotion because they have recently found out that some people may have been playing Bud Pong with... Hold on!... You'll never guess this in a million years!.... Beer!

As quoted in the New York Times, here's what Anheuser-Busch's VP In Charge Of Insulting The Public Intelligence actually said:

Despite our explicit guidelines, there may have been instances where this promotion was not carried out in the manner it was intended.

...

As a company that has invested more than $500 million to promote responsible consumption among adults and to discourage abuse, we believe it is important that our intentions with Bud Pong not be misperceived.

(Emphasis mine.)

What a Clydsedale-sized load of hooey!!!!

Now, I know that some of you readers have probably caught onto the ultimate irony in this story, which can be expressed in five simple words: "Bud? Water? What's the difference?", but that's really beside the point.

If Anheuser-Busch believes that anyone, anywhere -- even the most gullible yokel on the planet -- actually believes that they didn't know, expect, and fully intend that people would play Bud Pong with Bud.... if they really truly believe that... then sell your stock, everybody! Better yet, buy their stock, take over their Board and fire the whole lot of them for incompetence! No, not incompetence, actually. Fire them for being brain-dead.

If they believe what they're spouting, then you can believe that I never once... in all the time I spent in fraternity basements... never, ever, played Beer Pong past 10 PM on a school night.

Van de Kamp's Shape-Aware Frozen Fish Fillets - The Story Begins

rhs — Thu, 13 Oct 2005 18:43:26 -0400

~~Despite the fuzziness of the photo,~~ The instructions are quite clear:

"Place Van de Kamp's frozen fish fillets in a single layer evenly distributed on a 4-sided baking pan".

It apparently doesn't matter whether the pan is square or rectangular, but a triangular pan is forbidden A hexagonal pan is out of the question. Not that I actually have a triangular baking pan or a hexagonal baking pan, but a little bit of time with a hacksaw could certainly change that.

I wonder what will happen if I bake these Van de Kamp frozen fish in a round baking pan? A follow-up post on this topic may be necessary. I presume that it will void the warranty, but will there be any major consequences?

But come to think of it, all the rectangular baking pans in our house are actually 6-sided, not 4 sided. They have a left, right, front, back, and top and bottom. I wonder why the instructions didn't specify that the fillets should be placed in a single layer evenly distributed on the top of a 6-sided baking pan? And don't go telling me that what I'm talking about is baking sheets, and they're talking about baking pans, such as a classic 9 x 13 pyrex dish with sides about 2 inches high. But no... that's not the case, because the instructions clearly indicate that the fish are to be placed "on" the pan, and that is how one refers to a flat sheet-like baking pan. One says "in" the pan when one is referring to something more like a 9 x 13 cake dish.

Now, Van de Kamp is a brand of the Pinnacle Foods Corporation, and they have a form on their web site for questions and comments. I don't think I can resist asking them about this. Stay tuned for answers when they come in.