When reading the story of a couple in Harriman, Tennessee today, I was struck by one thing. Wait. That’s a lie. By about four things, but the point of today’s Quick Tip is only one of them.

According to the Metro: “Officers responded to a call reporting a man on fire in Harriman, Tennessee on Tuesday, only to discover the couple severely burned and, apparently, drunk. The 62-year-old man refused to answer any of the officer’s questions, while the woman insisted that ‘the lawn mower had blown up’ – despite the fact that there wasn’t a lawn mower at the scene, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports. Officers found a can of petrol, a lighter and a cigarette butt on the front porch of the house.”

Now see here’s the important part:

“A neighbour initially told police that he had seen the couple dousing each other with petrol and setting each other on fire, but then recanted his statement, saying only that he’d spotted flames and gone to help.”

So this is the genesis of today’s Quick Tip:

If you aren’t smart enough to make up a believable lie, make sure your neighbours are good and scared of you. You never know when this might come in handy. Being the type of person who sets your life-partner on fire during a fight is one example of how to achieve this.

I hope this has been a lesson to you all!

I realise that I haven’t been funny in a while. Not that nothing funny has happened in a few months. I mean just the other day ten police officers were hurt in a clothing sale. Of course it’s not funny that people were hurt. It’s just funny why they got hurt. Short answer: cuz people are idiots.

And Sarah Palin “helping” John McCain get re-elected in Arizona was pretty hilarious too. I like the part where she told the crowd he was probably at the original tea party. Yes, remind people that he’s really old. When I saw the video clip the expression on his face was priceless. It read something like: shoot me. Speaking of guns, hearing her explain that “reload” is code for “vote” amused me, but more in an eye-rolling way.

The truth of it is, even the story of the man who gave mouth-to-mouth to road kill or the woman who pretended to be an FBI agent and got her neighbours to act as her ‘assistants’ (that was the best part really) failed to really get me in the mood to blog mockily.

Although there are lots of dumb people out there to give me material, most of it has just been putting me in a bad mood. What with the calls for violence and then the lame “we never said that” non-retractions, the division, the vitriol, the flat out lies… the wars and death… the scandals and hypocrisy… the inability to see ourselves reflected in the insults we hurl… Ugh.

Good news though, I saw something that gave me the warm, comfortable feeling that I am not the only one who wants to turn to certain people and say “oh for fucks sake shut up… you’re making us all look bad.”

So, enjoy this little moment. It’s non-partisan and guaranteed to make you feel just a bit better. If it doesn’t work, then when you’re done, make your own ceiling cat and put it over the bed of someone you live with. Preferably while they’re sleeping.

Sometimes life throws you things that require some coping skills. Sometimes other people are unbelievable ass-hats with nothing better to do than stride around the internet inflicting pain and grief on others.

Sometimes I wake up in the morning and just want to go back to bed. Sometimes I do just go back to bed.

And sometimes, if you’re very observant, you can see that no matter what your challenges, whether you be laid up, knocked down, heart-broken or snowed under, there are people who have it worse than you. On the other hand, there must be one person in the world that has it worse than everyone else. I think it might be this guy:

His neighbors didn’t realise he was dead. Instead, they walked on by, believing for days that his corpse was a Halloween display.

Quick Tip #6

Try not to die in October.

I ran across Eternal Earth Bound Pets and my first reaction was to laugh inappropriately, thinking the site to be a spoof or an anti-religion statement, but I have to admit, the site seems so darned earnest and their offer sincere, it’s impossible to wrap my head around their motives.

They’re basically offering “Rapture Insurance” for your pets. A group of atheists have banded together to say that if you get raptured within the next ten years, they will look after your pets for you (for $110 for the first pet and $15 per additional critter). “We are currently active in 22 states. Our representatives have been screened to ensure that they are atheists, animal lovers, are moral / ethical with no criminal background, have the ability and desire to rescue your pet and the means to retrieve them and ensure their care for your pet’s natural life.”

One friend told me he believes it’s a scam through and through… that these atheists are laughing all the way to the bank, insuring Christians against something that’s never going to happen, effectively paying a “gullible tax” (in the mind of the operators of the site.) But my thought is that if their clients really believe they might get yanked up to heaven at any moment, leaving behind unbelieving neighbours and loved ones, and also beloved pets, then if the offer is sincere, wouldn’t it give them peace of mind?

That being said, I figure most people’s pets will die within the next ten years. (The period from payment that the EEBP will cover.) So that also makes me lean a bit toward the scam/joke end of things.

And yet… I know a few people who do literally believe that the rapture could happen at any moment. I wonder if these are the same people that responded to a poll saying they were certain that  Obama is the anti-Christ. So doesn’t that make this more of a bet than insurance? (Well, I suppose insurance is gambling from a certain perspective.) These atheists obviously do believe that they won’t have to actually do anything for your $110. If they did believe it, they wouldn’t be aetheists. On the other hand, they’re offering peace of mind to people who worry about such things.

I still can’t quite process what I think about it. I suppose it is a scam after all, because if they don’t fulfil their promise, the victims of their deception won’t be around to sue. But if these atheists do lose their bets, they’ll have bigger worries on their hands than what to do with a missing stranger’s cat.

It’s really difficult to even know how to categorise this one. But an Obama Chia Pet? Really? No matter how you feel about left v. right or crazy v. sane, a Chia Pet?

These have to be the most useless gifts ever. I read about this on a Weird News site, and then googled it, and came upon the official site for the product, chia-obama.com The best part has to be this description of the product:

Chia Obama Determined Pose Handmade Planter

It occurs to me that never in my life will any “pose” I make have a name, no matter how well I make it. Or I wonder if this means they have a whole line of Chia Obamas? Otherwise, why bother to name it? Is there a “Let’s Be Bi-Partisan pose” and a “No no you di-n’t, Joe Wilson pose” maybe a special “Bowling Pose”? My personal favourite would have to be the “Obama Superman Pose“, but I’m not sure it would work well on a Chia Pet.

Just as well, really, because those things are tacky as hell, and when I get my Obama Action Figure, I really don’t think I want Salvia hispanica growing out of it.

Usually I’m all about being patient. Over the past couple of years it’s a skill I’ve worked to develop, but not always successfully. However, I read a story this week about impatience that made me giggle uncontrollably for a good ten minutes.

A PASSENGER on a bus got impatient of waiting on the driver to start his shift – so drove the vehicle herself.

Chen Li decided to do the driver’s job for him and kept to the 528′s route through Hangzhou, eastern China – even dropping off and picking up passengers.

The woman then abandoned the coach once she got to her own stop.

Driver,  Xiuo Gu was suspended and charged for leaving the bus unattended.

From the Perthshire Advertiser

I love that she didn’t even get in trouble.. I wonder if she got paid! Sounds like she did a better job than the regular guy!

I can’t even remember how I got to the site God Hates Protesters yesterday, but this sign (BELOW…the one to the left I made myself as a tribute to the comedic genius who wrote the real one) was absolutely priceless, so I just had to share. The signs I’ve been seeing on TV shows about recent US political protests both frighten me and crack me up at the same time, which really is quite a feat.

The one below, though, had the unintended (I would think) effect of making me keep score. I scored a 10. I felt rather smug about it too. Not saying which ones… gotta have some sense of mystery about me, but I’ll give you one (in case it wasn’t obvious): Loud Mouthed Women. I really loved that one. I should have a T-Shirt made!

And his creative use of apostrophes! I wonder if this guy is single. If so, man, what a catch!

I wish I could construct plots as compelling as this one.

Now I just pray for a happy ending.

Apparently the actual charge is something like hacking.  CNN reporters are such a bunch of drama queens.  Murder!

But I think the absolute best part of the story is here:

The woman used login information she got from the 33-year-old office worker when their characters were happily married, and killed the character. The man complained to police when he discovered that his beloved online avatar was dead.

It reminds me of the young guy that went to police after being beaten up by a pack of old ladies at a Sarah Palin rally recently.  Allegedly.  Or something.  But the point is, if I were a 20 year old man that went to an enclosed space that was guaranteed to be full of activists of quite the opposite point of view from me, I wouldn’t admit that little gem of stupidity, much less that mob mentality had seized a bunch of seniors and I’d gotten my ass handed to me.

And that’s what this is about really….. good judgement.  We expect our political candidates to have it, we want our bosses and our employees to have it, our teachers and even strangers, and then we go off and do things like give our co-workers our passwords after engaging in some “virtual marriage” (as if the real thing isn’t hard enough, we have to pretend to do it online as well) and then are so shocked and surprised when they go postal on us after we tell them that we’re done with them that we call the police when we’ve been virtually wronged.  You know what?  There’s enough real wrong in the world to worry about this idiot guy’s virtual hurt.

I seriously hope the cops end up just laughing at the guy and saying ‘Umm, this is why everyone with brains ever told you never never never give out your password, no matter what kind of virtual nookie you’re getting.”  And then I hope they add “Dumbass.” just for good measure.

My favourite response to this question comes from Elayne Boosler when she said, “Go To Hell. ” But then there are others who say that America isn’t ready, because somehow a person capable of running for office isn’t capable of dealing with accusations of being a lesbian . Now I’m not a big Clinton supporter, but you have to agree that it says something for someone when the worst insult they can come up with is to say you’re tough, bitchy, and probably a lesbian. Note that among those “insults”, nobody has called her stupid.

So it’s journalists that are asking the dumb question, and not “real” people, but just to play along, what would they, the voting American public, have to do to get ready?

I suppose it depends on what you think might happen when a woman gets elected. We’ve had female leaders in the UK and around the world, and I don’t think it required that they reprint all the ballots in pink, nor did they have to close down the government one week out of four. Amazing, huh?

I suppose the biggest thing that needs to be decided before an American woman can become president is what to call her husband. The First Gentleman? That sounds… ridiculous. However, considering that there is only one woman running for president, and were she to win, her husband will be called, as he is entitled to be called for the rest of his life, President Clinton, then it really isn’t something we need to struggle with for a few more years.