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Advertising 101 with Sketchy McSleazeball

Do not listen to late-night sports radio.

Especially the commercials.

A stern, authoritatively-deep voice warned me last night that a prominent financial expert who predicted the 2008 financial industry crash was also foretelling a much more devastating “major event” in 2011 that would result in drastic changes to our way of life, possibly even threatening the speed of drive-thru service.

I found this ad intriguing, having long believed that we Americans will have to pay the piper someday for our reckless borrowing, needless consumption, and sloppy penmanship.

The voice insisted that I watch a “video” at the website “endofamerica36.com.”

That’s right. End of America. 36. Dot com.

Sketchy.

Of course I had to see for myself.

The “video” is simply a “financial expert” named Porter Stansberry reading aloud words that appear on the screen, explaining a bunch of stuff about the dollar.

After 90 minutes with Mr. Stansberry, my eyes were sore, but I began to feel convinced that the dollar was on its way into the toilet, and that I should put all my money into gold, silver, euros, grenades, and “modern art” made from Styrofoam and dried rat feces.

Stansberry kept alluding to a secret commodity, used by the wealthy throughout history to shield themselves from imploding economies, that could save my family from the impending crisis if I owned enough of it.

But he wouldn’t tell me what it was. Gasoline? Real estate? Slaves? Pictures of frolicking puppies? I could only guess.

Finally, he offered to tell me the secret if I bought a $50 “trial” subscription to his newsletter.

The whole thing was just disgusting. It reminded me of those letters I keep getting from car dealerships, the one with the return address of “Department Of Financial Reimbursement and Distribution of Entitlements,” or some such official-government-looking verbiage, containing what looks like a check. It’s actually a “voucher” that “guarantees” that I will win either $20,000 cash or an instant scratch ticket.

Gasp! Which will it be? I can’t take the suspense.

So I didn’t bite on Stanberry’s sleazy sales pitch. But I have to admit that his argument seems plausible. At some point, other countries are going to get sick of those cocky Americans and their gargantuan debt, and will reject the dollar as the standard of global currency. Then our government will no longer be able to pay off debt by printing more money or whoring out the Vice President.

I wanted to get to the woods and start canning beets and knitting sweaters from my armpit hair, as it seems all these skills will be necessary quite soon.

Then I remembered Google.

It turns out Mr. Stansberry and his company, then called “Pirate Investor, LLC” (seriously), had to pay more than $1.5 million in restitution in 2007 after being convicted of scamming potential investors with misleading stock tips marketed through email SPAM.

Stansberry maintained that anyone buying stock tips from a company named “Pirate Investor, LLC” deserved to lose everything they had.

No, just kidding. He claimed his erroneous stock tips were an honest mistake. But after a few minutes at endofamerica36.com, it’s hard for me to associate the word “honest” with him at all.

If you want any credibility, come up with a web address that does not have random numbers in it, does not have the production value of a hastily-contrived middle school role play, and does not make me feel the intense need for a shower after only 20 seconds of viewing.

And, for God’s sake, don’t air your ad on sports talk radio at 12:30 a.m.

Shoes Your Weapon

For no good reason, my feet have declared war on me.

If you talk to them (I don’t recommend it, but go ahead, if you insist), they will say it’s all my fault, because I’m 30 pounds overweight and inherited this dramatic clomping motion in my gait, like I’m constantly trying to kill spiders.

True as this may be, I don’t actually walk very often. My primary recreational outlets include swimming, yelling at teenagers, and strenuous nose-picking. None of these require my feet, except occasionally the last one (only when I’m typing).

So my feet have no excuse for aching all the time.

I retaliate by wrenching them into every manner of experimental footwear I can get my hands on, trying to find something that will finally make them shut up.

Recently, I began to think I’d have to give up on shoes and try to only walk on heavily padded surfaces for the rest of my life.

This idea might not be completely crazy, according to Liberty University biology professor Daniel Howell. Interviewed on the Today Show last month, Dr. Howell said, “90 percent of our foot problems can be traced back to the shoe.” He himself goes around barefoot nearly all the time, a choice made easier by the fact that he tends to avoid public restrooms, anyway.

What about cold weather? “Your feet will adapt,” he said, as long as the ground is dry. Sounds like he won’t be visiting Maine anytime soon.

Anyway, Dr. Howell failed to convince me to eschew my shoes. For one thing, walking surfaces are often very poky. Furthermore, you don’t see too many podiatrists walking around barefoot.

So I knew there must be a shoe compromise out there someplace. A few days ago, I finally found it.

If you stray down to the Maine Mall in South Portland, you will probably wind up leaving with something weird. This time, I wound up with a pair of those newfangled round-bottomed shoes.

Go ahead and laugh, but you won’t be laughing nearly as hard when these damn things cause me to trip over your front door threshold and test the limits of your liability insurance.

Sure, from a style standpoint, three-inch soles in the shape of a half-moon do not earn many points. They call to mind a plaster cast, with less allowance for creativity -- a fabulous choice for a mythical creature from a Tolkein novel, perhaps, but not for a sophisticated man about town such as myself.

But they promise to improve your posture, tone your muscles, erase your wrinkles, enlarge your genetalia, reduce your tax liability, and cause you to burn more calories when walking.

More importantly, these half-moon soles seem to distribute my weight more to my arches, meaning they have the potential to cure my plantar fascism, or whatever the hell it is.

Anyway, after I picked up these “toner shoes,” a 20-year-old sales clerk had me stand on this machine that detected which parts of my feet felt the most pressure. The giant computer screen attached to this wondrous device showed that most of my weight rests on the heels and balls of my feet. This amazing revelation enabled the clerk to determine which set of $70 “orthopedic” insoles she would recommend.

Did I buy them? Of course I did. This is war, after all. I need every technological edge I can get.

And some really, really thick carpeting wouldn’t hurt, either.

LePage: Can He Possibly Be Any Worse?

The headline in the Bangor Daily News served up endless inspiration: “LePage Slow to Fill Cabinet.”

Easy pickings for a smart-alecky pundit.

“Maybe he ran out of relatives” - Hmm... too obvious.

“That’s not what his wife said!” - Ugh... better not.

I think I’ll go with: “That’s because no sensible human being would want to have to clean up the colossal pile of bat guano the Baldacci administration is leaving behind.”

Yeah, that should do it.

In its Dec. 31 editorial, the BDN struggled to not gush with admiration over the Italian Scallion. It praised him for everything from school consolidation to shrinking state government, pushing weatherization, and having pellet furnaces installed in state buildings.

Grasping at straws much?

“The hard job of fine-tuning and improving those initiatives falls to the next administration.” Yes, no wonder nobody wants to work for Mr. LePage; he has to deal with those pellet furnaces.

In its adolescent crush-like fawning, the BDN found fault only in Baldacci’s failure to advocate more strongly for all his super-dreamy ideas.

Ahem. Yes, well... while the state’s largest newspaper basks in Baldacci afterglow, allow me to point out that virtually everything he attempted either set us back 30 years or fizzled into a giant waste of time.

Consolidation? No need to beat that horse any more. If you have any doubt, go ask your local school board if they’ve saved any money from consolidation. I dare you.

Meanwhile, high schools across the state continue to waste millions of hours in productivity trying to wrench their curricula into the confines of the PSAT and SAT. While The College Board collects a tidy $50 a year for every 10th and 11th grader in Maine, kids who would rather not go to college, or who lack the skills for college, are left to wonder, even more than they already did, if anybody really cares about them.

Baldacci’s “principled stand” on gay marriage didn’t amount to much after he made virtually no effort to help the new law survive a referendum. He bought the law a nice ring, but then left it at the altar.

Then there’s the Department of Human Services, a steady source of debacles for the last ten years. Time and again he has cut funding for outpatient mental health services, which adds strain to exponentially more expensive jails, psychiatric hospitals, and emergency rooms.

Pennywise and pound foolish, yet again. You can take your car in for regular brake maintenance, or you can wait and let the wrecking company, police, ambulance, insurance companies, newspaper photographers, coroners, and impound lot deal with it later. Time and again, our bald-headed Mr. Nice Guy chose the latter.

Dirigo Health, once championed as an innovative compromise, languishes in near-irrelevance due to underfunding. Baldacci was not able to combat corporate interests to prevent soda tax foes and insurance companies from all but scuttling the program.

Mix it all together and you can start to see why the state still faces a budget crisis even after shedding 1000 employees in the last eight years.

So, no high-priced captains of industry will ever take a pay cut to deal with any of that mess. Who could blame them?

While I wait for my call to become the next Secretary of Innuendo, I’ll be watching closely to see what kind of Marden’s Special-type candidates he can find to salvage some respectability in the state government.

2010: You Couldn’t Have Made Any Of It Up

January:  One of the deadliest earthquakes in recorded history levels Port Au Prince, Haiti; I would imagine things are pretty much back to normal down there by now.

February:  Olympic organizers plan well for a lack of snow in the Vancouver area by having it trucked in from 160 miles away; pleased with how well everything turned out, the IOC then awards the 2022 Winter Games to Houston, Texas... A magnitude 8.8 earthquake kills nearly 500 people in Chile; Americans complain that if you give one third-world country $100 million in earthquake relief, pretty soon all the other third-world countries want to have their own earthquakes.

March: For our anniversary, my wife and I decide to go on our third real “date” since we became parents five years ago; we end up napping through half of it.

April: An eruption of the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajokull (I think my spell check just exploded) spews ash all across Western Europe, grounding a lot of airplanes and prompting everyone to wonder why the Earth seems so darn mad at us lately... The Deepwater Horizon oil platform explodes in the Gulf of Mexico, BP assured the public that they’ll have everything tidied up right quick, nothing to see here.

May: President Obama nominates Elena Kagan to the Supreme Court, prompting a whole lot of really creative and forward-thinking people to make fun of her appearance and question her sexuality... A horse named “Super Saver” wins the Kentucky Derby, no doubt starting a new tradition of thoroughbreds being named after corporate sponsors (my money is on Sears Auto Center in the next Preakness).

June: As it becomes apparent that no one knows how to stop the Gulf Oil Spill, which has the potential to become the worst environmental disaster in human history, with potentially apocalyptic ramifications for ecology, climate, and the economy, Americans decide to “do their part” by making sure their tires are properly inflated.

July:  The Obama Administration sues to block Arizona’s new immigration law, arguing that corrupt and inefficient border patrol is the federal government’s job, thank you very much.

August: Russia bans grain exports after the worst heat wave in 130 years destroys enough crops to cause a major food crisis; Fox News declares climate change a hoax... President Obama announces the end of combat operations in Iraq, though continued U.S. support and involvement will be necessary for a smooth transition; Americans decide to “do their part” by turning down thermostats one degree.

September:  Government lexicographers discover there is no word in the English language for the back of one’s knee... The Gulf Oil Spill Disaster finally ends as BP engineers manage to cap the well and declare it “effectively dead;” I’m sure things are pretty much back to normal down there by now.

October: The 33 miners trapped 2300 feet underground in Chile become national heroes after rescue workers pull them one by one through a precariously winding, narrow shaft to be greeted by their loving families and by President Sebastian Pinera, who instructed them to get the hell back to work... 200 million gallons of toxic sludge spill from an aluminum plant in Hungary; the plant manager who ignored warnings about the weakening reservoir is immediately chosen as the new director of FEMA.

November: A human stampede at a water festival in Cambodia kills 347 people, despite being dwarfed in size and intensity by the line outside Wal-Mart on Black Friday.

December: The world ends at midnight on the 31st.

Let’s hope I’m kidding.

We’re Not Racist, Just Brutally Insensitive

So they’re still going after those Indian mascots. This time, “they” are the Maine Indian Tribal State Commission, a group of stuffed shirts in Augusta who apparently have nothing better to do than try to expose and eliminate tacit and subconscious racism.

As usual, my highly advanced brain has dreamed up a perfect compromise to satisfy everyone. But first, some background:

Those who object to nicknames like “Indians,” “Warriors,” and “Redskins” say they are offensive, unnecessary references to racial stereotypes.

They seriously need to get over it. So what if genocide wiped out 99% of your ancestors, and the dominant culture sees your once-proud heritage as a blur of drumming circles and slot machines? You don’t have to be so sensitive. You should be happy that white people want to “honor” your disappearing heritage by naming a high school team after a slang term for your scalped great-grandfather.

Those who want to keep the nicknames understand that any sort of change - even changes to arbitrary pretend nicknames that no one will remember or care about in 20 years - is a threat to the very fabric of our society.

The Lincoln County News quoted Wiscasset resident Ginny Cooper’s objection to getting rid of the “Redskin” moniker at her local high school:: “[We need] to have sense of humor about these things," she said. "Blacks are now negroes, Japs aren't yellow anymore, and I'm sick of it."

Bingo! You see, it’s not that we’re racist; we just don’t care how non-white people feel about our funny names for them.

Look, we don’t need to put honest, hardworking, community-minded Mainers through the agony of having to abandon allegiance to one cartoon character in favor of another. The only torture I can imagine that would be worse than that is... hm, I don’t know... maybe watching your entire village get slaughtered and burned by invaders from another continent.

A couple of years ago, Old Town High School switched from the “Indians” to the “Coyotes.” I’ve been to Old Town a couple of times since then, and nothing is the same. For one thing, they moved the City Hall down to Main Street, and the Old Town Canoe outlet store is way the hell out on Route 43. It’s as if a pestilence of depression has settled over the whole area.

And don’t even get me started on the ridiculous names that replace the discarded Indian names. Can anyone from Scarborough please tell me: what the hell is a “Red Storm?” There is no such thing. How does one dress up as a “Red Storm?”

Anyway, these pinko, politically-correct types are not going away, so let’s implement this brilliant compromise: Terms like “Indians” and “Warriors” do not have to refer to Native Americans. Why not keep the nicknames, and just change the logo?

Teams named “Warriors” should change their colors to green and black camouflage to honor veterans and soldiers. Their mascots should become uniformed Marines. Don’t for a second think this would somehow cheapen or dishonor the sacrifices of our troops, not if you’re unwilling to think the same thing of Native Americans.

Schools with “Indian” nicknames should change their mascots to yogis or telemarketers. You know, people who don’t mind being called “Indians” because they’re actually from India.

If you cling to the “Redskin” name, you might as well abandon all pretense and rename your teams “The Lynchmob.”

There. Problem solved. In the words of comedian John Hodgman, “you’re welcome.”

Yum... Wikileeks

Last week, I presented low-stress solutions on how to chintz out of this gift-giving season without feeling like a complete, low-class schmuck.

I’d like to take back everything I said, and instead recommend that you buy the book “In Defense of Food” for all your friends and relatives. Spend the $6.99 per copy at Amazon if you have to.

Author Michael Pollan insists that we are supposed to enjoy eating, and guides you into some basic principles that would result in a fully healthy and satisfying diet if you weren’t too lazy to change your habits.

So never mind.

But the book also details how the U.S. government twisted already-flawed science to appease industry, resulting in all sorts of dietary nastiness among the general population.

You see, back in the 1970s, scientists were noticing that people who ate a lot of animal products often wound up dead. Because death is one of those Undesirable Outcomes to be Avoided at All Cost, a federal advisory board wrote a report recommending that people eat less meat and cheese.

Predictably, the meat and dairy industries had a cow (ha!), and the panel whipped up some revisions, instead telling America to “choose meat, poultry, and fish that will reduce saturated fat intake.”

At the time, we all thought saturated fat was the evil substance causing all our problems. Lots of us switched to margarine and other replacements, only to learn later that they were loaded with trans-fats, which are way more hideous.

For some reason, people listen to the federal government about food, even though the government is clearly controlled either by whimsical overreactions to incomplete science or by corporations peddling “edible food-like substances.”

Pollan recounts how the FDA declared Frito Lay chips offer health benefits because (get ready for this) every moment you spend stuffing your mouth with polyunsaturated fats is a moment you’re not stuffing them with saturated fats.

In other words, the government would be happy to have me drinking soda and coffee all day, because, at least then, I wouldn’t be drinking used motor oil.

The most irritating part of all this how little the public knows/knew about it.

Did we see a NBC News “Fleecing of America” Expose on Frito Lay and the FDA? No way.

Where was Wikileaks when we needed them, when all those ranchers and dairy farmers lobbied to make sure they could keep making a living at the expense of public health?

If you’ve been following the news, you know that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange is the world’s foremost persona non grata at the moment, having published thousands of classified documents purported to compromise security interests and political relationships for no clear benefit to mankind.

Yes, we found out that our government has some secret deal with some place called Yemen, wherein we kill off a bunch of people and they take the blame for it. And, it turns out, we actually do have military forces “engaged in combat operations” (why can’t we just say “fighting” anymore?) in Pakistan.

Assange’s wildly radical theory is that governments keeping secrets is generally a bad thing.

But now that these secrets have been exposed, do we really expect contrition? Promise never to do it again, cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my document shredder?

Or are we going to keep wringing our hands over health care costs while lobbyists infest the backrooms of bureaucracy to write our nutrition guidelines and labeling regulations to suit their profit margins, and we just fill our stomachs with whatever the hell they feel like making?

Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas

If you’re like me, your idea of “Working Out” means bringing your briefcase to Tim Horton’s.

If you’re like me, you have found yourself stranded in a blizzard because your Honda Civic, which has power windows, locks, steering, braking, and hundreds of other convenient bits of power, inexplicably lacks any sort of warning chime or buzzer or siren to alert you that you’ve left your headlights on.

But you are most like me if you find the Holiday Season a gauntlet of stressful brainstorming sessions and last-minute shopping excursions, followed by an unsatisfying letdown that results from feeling like maybe your brother-in-law doesn’t appreciate the meat grinder as you thought he would, given that he’s a vegetarian.

Well, this year, you won’t have that problem.

I have devised a perfect three-step system to rescue you from the normal December doldrums.

1.  Give until it feels good. You might have heard the phrase “give until it hurts.” Less popular is the phrase “give until it feels good.”

Abandon all reason in favor of that sweet euphoria that can only come from prioritizing someone else without any consideration for yourself, flinging fistfuls of $20 bills at random strangers until you’re flat broke.

If you don’t choose that third level, you might as well Bah-Humbug yourself back up that mountain above Whoville, or whatever.

But that still begs the question: what to give?

2.  Give something that matters. You know, actually matters.  Notice I didn’t say “matters to the recipient” or “matters to you.” As long as it matters to someone, somewhere on the globe, you can always say, “It’s the thought that counts.”

That relative who seems to have everything, who is impossible to buy for, deserves a $25 donation made in their name to the charity of their choice (even if it is some depraved cause like the Church of Scientology or Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation).

Think about it: if your house is already full of plastic crap imported from China, and you are living comfortably enough to buy whatever would be in a gift-giver’s budget anyway, what would feel better than knowing you inspired someone to help the less fortunate?

You can also go retro by giving something that took time, creativity, or ingenuity to make. This year I’m going to make soap. Nothing sends the perfect message to your filthy relatives than a box of soap on Christmas morning.

I also want to make cinnamon applesauce ornaments decorated with glitter glue and bits of ribbon, which will delight the whole family until your three-year-old niece eats one off the tree and has to be rushed to the hospital to have her stomach pumped.

What epitomizes the spirit of family giving this holiday season more than offering to drive someone to the emergency room?

No need for giant piles of expensive gifts to create cherished holiday memories. Keep it simple, that’s what I say.

   3. Sing modified carols to keep your spirits up. Example:

Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas.

Let Your Cart be Light.

From Now On Your Expenses Won’t be Out of Sight!

Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas.

So Your Nerves Don’t Fray.

From Now On Our Stresses Will Be Miles Away!

Here We Are as in Olden Days,

Crappy Gift Parades, Ignore.

Faithful Friends Who are Dear To Us

Don’t Want Your Wal-Mart Crap Any More.

Through the Years

We All Will Be Together,

If the Streets Are Plowed.

Hang a Homemade Ornament On the Highest Bough!

And Have Yourself a Very Little Christmas Now.

 

Only Voltron Can Save Us Now

The electric car has finally arrived.

In the next few months you’ll start seeing commercials for the Nissan Leaf, a vehicle whose future owners better damn well remember to plug in their cars at night, lest they be stranded when they get up the next morning.

The Leaf rolls on for 100 miles or so without needing gasoline. But then you’re done. It has no internal combustion back-up, and, therefore, virtually no chance of competing with the Chevy Volt, even though it will be about $7000 cheaper.

The Volt has a back-up gasoline engine, which the EPA expects to get a not-too-shabby 37 mpg on the highway. This is helpful, since the battery will only last about 40 miles. I’ve seen driveways longer than that.

But if you’re looking for measurable progress toward curing our “addiction to oil,” you have to feel encouraged. Even skeptics estimate that, based on today’s electricity and fuel prices, not having to buy gasoline will offset the higher sticker prices for these cars.

In other words, we’ve finally reached the point when an electric car costs about the same as an equivalent gasoline car, barring unforeseen engineering setbacks, such as battery explosions that could be seen from the moon.

Marketing remains the only remaining obstacle. All hope for consumer demand and future innovations in this area revolve around people actually wanting these two cars.

We’re not off to a great start here. The names do not exactly inspire confidence.

Cars represent freedom, power, and status. This is why the mini-van, and eventually the SUV, replaced the station wagon, even though the station wagon is way safer and more functional for the vast majority of consumers. But a station wagon isn’t going to climb some remote mesa in Utah, which Americans must do at least once a week, judging by Jeep commercials.

The “Leaf?” Come on.

Do we want a car that gets eaten by caterpillars? That some seven-year-old girl is pressing in a book for an art project? That is covering some Biblical character’s genitals?

No. We want a car like Chuck Norris, only less mechanical.

The Leaf is not this car. It looks like a Prius with love handles and a saggy rear end.

The name “Volt,” on the other hand, invokes power and coolness, as if you cannot possibly drive the car without wearing sunglasses. Its sharp and sporty design follows suit.

The name also reminds me of the cartoon “Voltron: Defender of the Universe,” which I used to watch when I was a wee lad. I barely remember it, but I know it involved five robotic lions from the planet Arus. The lions. each piloted by a brave and helpfully stereotyped “space explorer,” would fuse together, always at just at the right moment, to form a giant mega-robot named Voltron that would fight evil and stuff.

Wouldn’t you want to drive a car that could become the left ankle of a force of justice for the entire galaxy? I know I’d pay an extra few thousand on a down payment for that, especially considering today’s gas prices.

The only problem with the name “Volt” is that it has the word “Chevrolet” in front of it. The public has about as much confidence in GM’s ability to make a decent car as it has in Sarah Palin’s ability to reach the “Tournament of Champions” on Jeopardy.

So there you have it. The next major step in curbing greenhouse gases and reducing our dependence on foreign oil rests in the hands of a company so incompetent the government had to buy it out.

Bicycle, anyone?

How to Save Money on Groceries

People in my life keep complaining that food is getting more and more expensive.

Granted, these are people with no actual information -- people who would no sooner research the pattern of beef and corn prices relative to inflation over the last 50 years than they would perform an unwarranted tonsillectomy on a gerbil -- are experts on how the average family suffers from an increasingly unreasonable grocery bill.

Yet as much as 50% of the food produced in this country goes to waste; we throw half of it away after it’s prepared, reports the New York Times.

When you add in the food we eat that we probably don’t need to eat (yeah, I’m talking to you, Mr. Second Helping), that figure is probably closer to 90%.

A Cornell University study found that 93% of us admit to buying food we never use.

Yeah, we’re suffering, all right.

I checked the government’s Consumer Price Index, and discovered this shocking fact: what you spend depends on what you’re eating. Beef and dairy products did get more expensive last month. On the other hand, fruits, vegetables, and egg salad sandwiches dipped with root beer spilled on them have gotten cheaper.

Overall, food prices in the United States have increased 1.4 percent in the past year - a much slower rate of increase than energy (5.9 percent) or medical care (3.6 percent). Costs for clothing have actually decreased 1.2 percent, which explains why Lady Gaga’s meat dress is actually a status-grab.

Our sustenance comes to us more cheaply than anywhere else in the world. The average American spends about 10 percent of his or her income on food, compared to upwards of 75 percent for impoverished residents of certain Third-World countries, according to the Financial Times.

In other words, while you’re ordering that cheese-steak with ice cream for dessert, and complaining about the bill, some 13-year-old in Sri Lanka is spearing a pigeon for his only meal of the week.

If that perspective does not ease your querulous lamenting, I do have a few tips for saving money on groceries:

1.  Whenever you go to the grocery store, buy 29 gallons of milk.

Milk is always the first thing we run out of. It is the barometer of our grocery-buying habits. As long as we have milk, we don’t need groceries yet. And when we run out of milk, we go to the store.

The problem is, every time we go to the store, we spend $135, regardless of when we were last there and what may or may not be in the pantry at home.

So don’t let yourself run out of milk until you’ve run out of a lot of other stuff first. Freeze it, if necessary, so you don’t have any reason to go shopping for food until you’re desperate enough to eat some of your smaller household insects.

2.  Start a garden. Rumor has it you can make food appear out of the dirt. (Weird, huh?)  Find out how.

3.  Eat at restaurants all the time. Watch your grocery expenses plummet!

4.  Hawk coupons online. Gone are the days when you buy two extra copies of the Sunday paper so you can clip enough coupons to save the amount you spent on extra copies of the Sunday paper. Now, coupon aggregators, retailers, and manufacturers make it easy for old ladies like you to feel technologically savvy.

5.  It would not surprise me of gerbil tonsils are considered a delicacy in certain parts of Sri Lanka.

Eschew the Cruise

You might have heard of the so-called “Nightmare Cruise,” Carnival’s 1,000-foot boat “Splendor” that drifted helpless in the Pacific Ocean last week after an engine fire. Power failed, toilets backed up, helicopters dropped emergency supplies of Pop Tarts and Spam, and, according to one passenger, “a lot of people were getting smashed off warm beer.”

Sounds like a typical week at my house, really. What’s the big deal?

After six tug boats towed the ship to San Diego, it became clear that this would become one of the most amusing and surreal mainstream news stories to appear in quite some time. Here are two actual quotes the Associated Press got from disembarking passengers:

“It was nothing like it was advertised in the brochure.” Hmmm... You don’t say?

“This could be the only cruise where people lost weight instead of gaining weight.” Sign me up!

A 42-year-old man was one of the first of the 4500 vacationers let off the ship because it was his birthday. So much for women and children first.

What kind of sociopathic twit looks around at their fellow passengers, including old ladies who had not been able to get their own food for days because elevators weren’t working, and says, “Can I go first? I’m turning 42 today.”

I have never been on a cruise. And I probably couldn’t go if I wanted to, either, because my wife can’t deal with feeling even remotely trapped. This is a woman who suffered a panic attack at Disney’s “Spaceship Earth” a mere 20 yards from the start of the ride because she thought there would be no way to get out if something went wrong. This was after we had already passed four clearly marked emergency exits.

So I can’t speak from experience regarding cruises. But I have seen “The Love Boat,” and I have watched a video on Youtube called “Pacific Sun Cruise Liner in Heavy Seas” (necessary viewing), which qualifies me as an authority on all maritime matters.

On a cruise, you’re isolated in the middle of nowhere with a few thousand other people who mainly want to get drunk. In other words, it’s just like living in rural Maine. You might as well just stay home and save money.

Oh, sure, cruises have swimming pools and live entertainment. So does Las Vegas, or even Boston. The advantage of those places is you can leave if something goes wrong, and the chances of drowning or being eaten by a shark are relatively small.

Granted, cruises are usually “all-inclusive.” Unlike visiting a major city, there is no need to figure out meals or transportation. Paying strangers to take care of all your basic needs appeals to a lot of people who apparently also can’t wait until they’re old and feeble enough to be admitted at an “Assisted Living” facility.

Cruise ships do occasionally stop at exotic ports, which are usually named “St. John.” But nobody dares disembark for fear that they’ll not have enough money to bribe the crack-dealing cab driver to not leave you with the sex traffickers.

So take it from me. Avoid any vacation that you cannot run from.

In fact, why don’t you come stay for a few days at my house. I’ve got Spam!

I'm Lovin' Immortality

The liberal assault on American Values and our Sacred Traditions continues.

First they came for the traditional gender roles. I didn’t say anything because I hadn’t been born yet.

Then they came for school prayer. I didn’t say anything because I was in school, busy saying the Pledge of Allegiance every morning.

Then they came for marriage. I didn’t say anything because I suspected that even if they did away with marriage, this woman would still be around every day to make sure I knew how clueless I was about everything; I just wouldn’t be able to call her my “wife.”

Now they’ve come for the Happy Meal, and that’s where I draw the line.

Growing up, the Happy Meal was the Holy Grail.

Its cheap plastic toy, usually broken or tossed aside within minutes of being opened, produced unparalleled thrills of anticipation.

There were always three or four different ones at a time, clearly displayed during my Saturday morning cartoons. Which one would it be? To get the same toy you received in your last Happy Meal was considered a complete rip-off.

This experience has united generations across the socio-economic, political, and racial spectra. It is more American than Apple Pie, given that most children have probably eaten way more Happy Meals than apple pies, unless you count those harmonica-styled ones McDonald’s sells in those little cardboard boxes, full of a disgusting, sticky goo that you can’t eat for 45 minutes because it was heated on the surface of the sun.

But now, the City of San Francisco, always at the forefront of chipping away at personal liberty and family values, is threatening to prohibit McDonald’s from putting toys in Happy Meals, at least until the food gets healthier.

The proposed law would prevent any restaurant from giving a toy with a meal that contains more than 600 calories and 640 milligrams of sodium. No more than 35% of the calories could come from fat.

Not surprisingly, this completely unreasonable idea makes the the folks at McDonald’s Grimace.

According to nutrition information provided at their corporate website, a cheeseburger Happy Meal with a carton of 1% milk provides about 600 calories (35% from fat).

In other words, the City of San Francisco is asking McDonald’s to keep their Happy Meals pretty much the same, at least in terms of caloric intake.

But then there’s the sodium. The Happy Meal described above carries 1000 grams, which is about 80% of the recommended daily amount for a five-year-old.

San Francisco officials want McDonald’s to cut way cut back on the salt. But where will all those Bay Area children get their sodium then? From peanuts? Please.

McDonald’s franchise owner Scott Rodrick said it best when he told the San Francisco Chronicle that the city’s Board of Supervisors, “just took the happy out of Happy Meal.”

Not to mention the preservatives. As numerous people (like Morgan Spurlock, maker of the film “SuperSize Me”) have shown, a Happy Meal can last at least a year in open air at room temperature without decomposing.

McDonald’s food does not go bad. Besides being a tremendous advantage for the corporation’s storage and delivery system, it means, as one Internet pundit noted, that I should have the parental right to give my children everlasting life by feeding them Happy Meals every single day.

Who can argue with that?