Nofunland: Halloween Costumes

Here is another in a series of posts documenting the transformation of America into Nofunland. This week’s episode: Halloween.

A high school pricipal on Long Island has banned Halloween costumes because he feels they disrupt school.

Long Beach High School Principal Nicholas Restivo, who sent the three seniors home to change last year, said the episode solidified his sense that the school’s costume tradition was disruptive.

Personally, if your parents let you wear it, you aren’t naked, and aren’t carrying dangerous weapons, who cares?

A New Term For UFO

Speaking of UFOs, in a previous post I tried to coin a new term. I think I have another.

UFO stands for Unidentified Flying Object. The poll in my last post gives the figure of 14% who said they have seen a UFO. I would say that figure should be 100% or at least close to it. Who hasn’t looked up and saw something flying in the sky and could not identify?

So, I feel there should be a sub-class of UFOs specifically to address the flying saucer type of UFO, and that term would be extra-terrestrial originating object, or ETOO. Perhaps ExTOO if you prefer. This term would define all objects not originating here on Earth. In practice, it would be used most commonly for space craft.

If this term already exists, leave a comment and let me know.

I See Dead People

A pre-Halloween poll done by the AP and Ipsos revealed that nearly a third of Americans believe in ghosts, 23 percent have seen a ghost, 19 percent belive in witchcraft, and 48 percent believe in ESP. Oh, and 14 percent say they have seen a UFO.

We laugh at these people for believing in this ‘crazy’ stuff, yet some 90 plus percent of Americans believe in a god. Now who is crazy? You can probably find as much evidence that a UFO crashed in Roswell, New Mexico as you can the existance of a god.

Coining Terms For Fun and Profit

While sitting at work, I started thinking about terms such as copyright holder and intellectual property, and decided that they needed cute short names.

Since Intellectual Property (IP) is already used and IPR means Intellectual Property Rights, perhaps this might be useful:

SnIPR – Lawyers/spokespeople/lackeys for IPR holders. Pronounced sniper.

CoHo – Copyright Holder

CoHoe – Lawyers/spokespeople/lackeys for copyright holders.

Now that these are coined, I want to express my copyright status here and now. These are mine! Copyright ME baby! Hmmm, maybe this makes me a CoHore – someone who loves copyrighting stuff. That’s copyrighted too! Yeah! Woohoo!

Nofunland

First in a semi-regular series.

Nofunland is a term I came up with to describe the general atmosphere of America (but can be found in many other countries as well). In America we seem to be on a constant quest to take the fun out of living.
Periodically I will be posting examples of life in Nofunland. Today I start with this case-in-point:

Woman cited for cursing at toilet

A Pennsylvania woman found that her toilet had stopped up and water was overflowing and leaking downstairs into the kitchen of her home. Understandably, she was upset and began yelling and cursing at her toilet near an open window. Her neighbor, a police officer, upset by the noise, called the police.

Now, we do not know the exact details of why the neighbor felt it necessary to call the cops, but we do know that the woman was cited for disorderly conduct which has a maximum sentence of 90 days in jail and a $500 fine. We also know that she was inside her home and not drunk. Where does disorderly conduct come into play? No where. We simply have an instance of a police officer (who was off-duty) overstepping his authority and using his position to get what he wants, and being supported by other police officers that should know better. Seems like there is a lot of that these days.

Indians Hold Key to Joe Torre’s Future

It has been almost two weeks since George Steinbrenner issued his proclamation, win or else. The else being the head of manager Joe Torre on a platter. So far, all there has been is talk and speculation, and no platter. Why is this decision taking so long? Blame the Indians.

The Cleveland Indians beat one of the two powerhouses in baseball, the Yankees. They now have their sight set on the other powerhouse, the Boston Red Sox. How does this affect Joe Torre? Simple. If the Indians lose to the Red Sox, then the Yankees’ exit is the embarrassment everyone thinks it is, and blame needs to be placed, and that place is squarely on Joe Torre’s head (in comes the platter). If the Indians tear through the Red Sox like they did the Yankees, then their defeat of the Yankees was no mere fluke. The Indians were they better team, period.

No decision is going to come until the ALCS is over and the American League representative in the World Series is chosen. If it is the Cleveland Indians, expect a headless Torre to depart George Steinbrenner’s office soon after. If it is the Red Sox, Joe Torre will keep his head, for at least one more season anyway. Unless he chooses to leave.

Ellen DeGeneres and the Pet Nazis

Ellen DeGeneres and the Pet Nazis

When did pet ownership get so complicated? When I was a kid, if you wanted a dog you went to the pet store, the pound or to the Humane Society and they pretty much set you up. No muss, no fuss. Nowadays, you have to go through a background check and an examination of your credit history to land a four-legged friend. Not to mention, sign a contract.

This is where Ellen DeGeneres got into trouble, she did not read the contract. These days you cannot drop a deuce without signing a contract. Ellen did not read that if she could not keep the dog she had to give it back to the shelter, the place where the Pet Nazis live. I think Hitler lived in a shelter, or was that a bunker? Anyway, Ellen gave the dog to her hair stylist where it lived happily ever after, well six months of happily ever, that is, until the Pet Nazis came calling. Living by the letter of the contract, the Pet Nazis tore the whimpering puppy out of the loving arms of the new home’s crying children and as the children tearfully shouted, “No Mummy! Don’t let them take our beautiful puppy!” The women glared back at them and exclaimed, “Never again shall you see this dog, NEVER!”, and with an evil cackle they whisked the dog away. Well, perhaps it didn’t happen exactly that way, at least it was never reported to have happened that way, but the result was the same, the dog who had been part of the family’s life for six months had been taken away.

Ellen pleaded to the Pet Nazis to return the dog, but they refused stating that a home with young children was an inappropriate place for a small dog.. What were they going to do with the dog, use it like a football? The shelter’s owners Marina Batkis and Vanessa Chekroun said they were not giving the dog back and that they were not going to be bullied by DeGeneres.

The Pet Nazis were inundated with threatening phone calls over their actions. One quote I loved came from the women’s attorney, “If you adopt a dog and you no longer want the dog, you can’t unilaterally decide who you want to give the dog to.” If it is your dog, then why can’t you? It seems to me that adoption constitutes ownership. I really doubt that this type of contract could hold up in court.

I wonder if the dog will wind up on eBay.

OK, so its been awhile

Yes, I know I said I wanted to have a daily updated blog. That obviously didn’t happen. I went on a bit of a tangent with my fantasy sports leagues. Yes, I’m one of those geeks.

I started another blog that keeps track of NHL goalies and which goalie would start in which game. It is very time consuming. I did a Google search on other sites that did this and found only a few, but really, how many do you need? So I’m thinking of stopping mine and freeing up some time for myself again.

Baseball Fans?

Okay, I’m watching the LA-Boston game right? It’s the eighth inning all tied. When the camera shows a right-handed hitter’s face you see about four kids sitting in the front row. They are watching TV and waiting for the camera to show them so they can make funny gestures.

They are at a playoff game sitting in the front row off the right side of home plate. Great seats! And these little snot-nosed brats are watching TV so they can act stupid, ignoring the game. What a waste of seats.

Chertoff Is An Idiot

U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff made a statement that illegal immigrants ‘degrade’ the environment.

“Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I’ve seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas,” Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.”

Yet, building a f’in 370 mile fence across the same pristine environment is OK. Not to mention the fact that all the f’in legal people in this country litter the hell out of the environment as well. What a jackass.