TEN JACK TEN

Tom Tom, a company that makes GPS navigation systems, has a new slogan: “Go Confidently.” That would probably be a better slogan for Flomax.

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If you have a loyalty program for your store or restaurant where the customer buys five meals or haircuts and gets a free one, don’t make the customer feel like a shithead for using the free one or you undo any loyalty that may have accumulated.

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Hannah Montana is one of those freakish pop culture things where something of moderate quality gets white-hot because everybody convinces themselves they MUST HAVE IT. Good thing those concert tickets aren’t meant to have lasting value, so at least the parents who piss away $1200 won’t end up with a closet full of unsellable Beanie Babies.

A two-part interview with Futurama co-creator David X. Cohen on the recent direct-to-DVD movie release and the future of the series.

Part One

NRAMA: Now here’s a question I’ve been juggling in my head to just phrase right. What do you attribute more than anything for the return of Futurama?

DXC: As I’ve said many times, and I’ll stay consistent, it isn’t a hard question to answer. It’s entirely due to the fans who supported the show throughout our three year hiatus.

We were dead and they literally were putting the nails on our coffin. Then Fox noticed the ratings were not really declining on Cartoon Network year after year. Also, demographically, they were getting the right kind of numbers, basically the young male adults. In fact, they were tremendous and exceeding everyone’s expectations. Simultaneously, the DVDs really started selling and steadily sold for years.

Ultimately, Fox said they didn’t realize we there was going to be this level of support for the show. Would we please come back and make some more? We owe the fans for this kind of diligence.

Part Two

NRAMA: Now Comedy Central is soon going to be airing Futurama instead of Cartoon Network. Was this strictly business?

DXC: We writers, animators and such are not involved in those decisions. So we found out with a phone call. However, I do think it’s very good for the show. It’s a sign of how great we are that when the rights expired, other networks were now interested in airing us and there was a fight for us.

I’m not sure if I’m patient enough to wait for Netflix to get over the “very long wait” for this. They might get $20 out of me yet.

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A three-part article on race, intelligence, and whether it’s improper to even try to correlate the two from John Derbyshire on NRO:

Part One

There are different races, accounted for — pretty obviously — by having their deep ancestry in different parts of the world. Different races seem to have different patterns of capabilities. What’s it all about? Here are some accredited researchers, applying the tools of scientific inquiry — measurement, classification, comparison — to try to find the underlying facts. What’s not to be interested in?

What’s that you say? It’s wrong to be interested in these things? I’m supposed to pretend not to notice those things I’m noticing? Those aren’t scientists: they are bad people with dark motives only pretending to do objective research? That’s what you’re saying? Okay, let me put this as politely as it deserves to be put: Bite me, pal.

Part Two

. . . nobody ever knows where scientific research will lead. If you fear that knowledge unearthed by science might be used for malign purposes, your only logical course of action is to shut down absolutely all research in every field. I am sure there are people who want to do that. I am not one of them.

Isaac Asimov posed the following thought experiment. Imagine it’s the year 1890. You canvass the world’s best specialists in orthopaedic medicine, asking them all the question: Which current field of research, in which of the sciences, will lead to the greatest advances in orthopaedic medicine during the coming decades? Never mind regular-Joe citizens: you’re asking the specialists.

Asimov said, I think correctly, that none of them would have given the right answer. The right answer would have been: Research by physicists into the transmission of electric current through rarified gases. (Which led to the discovery of X-rays.)

Part Three

Like every other feature of human nature, the groupish emotions are unevenly distributed. Some individuals are richly endowed with them. They are plunged into despair when their baseball team loses; they bristle to hear their religion criticized; they are furious at insults to their nation; if of eccentric sexual preference, they may swear brotherhood with those similarly disposed; and yes, they are mad as hell to hear their race described as failed, even though they understand at some level that it’s an abstract statistical description that does not reflect on them personally, any more than their baseball team’s losing the World Series does.

Your antisocial loner isn’t like that. He probably has no strong opinion about the relative merits of Yankees and Mets. If he goes to church, it’s for personal and metaphysical reasons, not social ones. He’s a poor employee and a feeble team-sports participant. He may like his country, and be willing to fight for it, but exuberant expressions of patriotism embarrass him. He’s more likely than the average to marry someone of a different race. (Am I describing anyone in particular here? No! Absolutely not!) Tell him he belongs to a failed race and he’ll probably say: “Yes, I guess so. It’s sad. But hey, I’m doing okay…”

I may be an antisocial loner, but at least I’m not a poor employee. Right? Anyone?

- The Monday Night Football game between the Dolphins and the Packers was one of those games played in ridiculous conditions that you’ll remember for years.  That moment in the third quarter when the punted ball hit the ground and stuck was classic. How fitting that there was only one score in the game.

- Thank you Fox, for realizing that a 31-point lead justifies switching to a different game.  The Tampa Bay-Washington game was much more entertaining than the watching the Giants try to scrape together some dignity points.

- How come Eli Manning doesn’t get the same beatings for inconsistency that Rex Grossman does?  I’m still waiting to hear the phrase “good Eli/bad Eli, which will show up?”

- The Redskins were lucky to even be in the game after five turnovers, and the sixth was a fitting end to the game. They’re beating themselves so the other team doesn’t have to.

- I love the animated robot turkey that Fox uses for its Thanksgiving game, doing the same jumping around and grandstanding as the football robot used for the rest of the season.

- What did I say about the Eagles’ backup QB?  He got closer to beating the Patriots (3 points) than any other team this year, even the Colts, who lost by 4. 

- I still have good feelings for Kurt Warner, his Rams were fun to watch.  That overtime loss to the 49ers was a real pisser. Maybe he’d look better on a team that could protect him in the end zone, maybe he should have thrown the ball away.  Meahwhile, the Cardinals keep finding a way to lose.

- Speaking of overtime, I’m glad I didn’t give up on the Denver-Chicago game.  Another great game in a great football weekend.

- There’s going to be a lot of people ticked off by the Packers-Cowboys game on Thursday.  Especially Fox, which has to be wondering why the hell it pays all that money to the NFL only to repeatedly lose the most popular team in the NFC to ESPN, NBC, and now the NFL itself.  And then there’s the fans.  The Colts beating up the Falcons was not a big loss last week, but this is a big honking game. This stuff makes me wonder if the NFL wouldn’t just like to take over its own broadcasting.

Musician Jill Sobule on the demise of the traditional recording industry and the uncertainty of digital distribution:

None of my musician friends are mourning the demise of the record industry. Most of us got crummy deals anyway and never saw a penny of royalties. My nephews expect really expensive birthday gifts from me, as they think that I must be rolling in dough, having been on MTV a few times. I always acquiesce, not wanting to tell them the truth.

For us, in this YouTube, long-tail, Kara-and-Walt world, it’s an exciting time. But it’s also confusing. How do I release my next recordings? Do I still put out a CD in the traditional way, or just go digital? Do I send demos one last time to the remaining majors or go indie (this time with a company that lasts longer than a year) and get a, say, 50/50 deal? Do I just finance the whole thing myself–musicians, studio, marketing, publicist, radio, promo, video, etc.? And where do I get the money?

Just another reminder that the RIAA members are all about selling us new versions of what they’ve already sold as opposed to developing new artists and music.

Our Business Is Stupid, And Business Is Good

Welcome to the New Jersey version of mardi gras, courtesy of the NFL.

Women are being encouraged to expose themselves . . . during halftime at New York Jets football games.

A shocking video that initially surfaced on YouTube has cast a bad light on the Jets and their fans. The video shows what is known as a “Gate D Party,” clearly not what most fans pay to see when they come to the team’s home games at Giants Stadium.

Mostly male fans pack the stadium’s spiral columns, presumably drinking beer, sometimes encouraging young women to lift up their shirts.

“The fans — they’re excited and stuff like that,” said Chino Ramos of the Bronx. “They do it in New Orleans all the time. No, I don’t have a problem with it.”

The gathering is nothing new, but many say it has changed — for the worse.

On Sunday, visiting Steelers fan Dawn Gottschalk unknowingly walked into the crowd where she says hundreds of men singled her out and screamed for her to show her breasts.

“People were touching me and things like that and it was very, very frightening,” Gottschalk said.

When Gottschalk refused, it got ugly.

“They started yelling obscenities and throwing beer bottles,” Gottschalk said. “And spitting and it was really intimidating.

“As I was looking for my husband I saw a security guard walking by. I thought ‘Oh great! He’ll stop this.’ But he didn’t. He just kind of was shaking his head. He kind of chuckled to himself. He didn’t stop it. He just kept walking.”

So, if the Jets had a winning record, would the fans not need to amuse themselves by flashing each other at halftime? Or by vandalizing snack carts? Come to think of it, that guy’s claim that they’re “excited and all that” doesn’t ring true. Next time, they should claim that they’re bored by the crappy football.

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Gamestop makes millions of dollars but delivers a terrible customer experience. One of their more annoying habits is to open games, put the disc behind the counter and the box on the sales floor, and charge people full price for a “new” game. Unfortunately, this system only works if you give a damn about the customer getting what they pay for. As reported on Joystiq:

A disgruntled NeoGAF poster bought what he thought was a new copy of Steambot Chronicles from Gamestop, only to find out later that the US retail chain actually sold him a demo disc for the game, with the “Demo: Not for Resale” watermark scribbled out in sharpie marker.

Here’s a hint for would-be Gamestop customers — check the disc. The manufacturing process does not involve manual applications of sharpie blocks. They can only screw you if you trust them.

Think Globally, Act Stupidly

It’s finally happened. The environmentally crazy have determined that people themselves are a form of pollution.

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers - and a voice calling her Mummy.

But the very thought makes her shudder with horror.

Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

Incredibly, so determined was she that the terrible “mistake” of pregnancy should never happen again, that she begged the doctor who performed the abortion to sterilise her at the same time.

He refused, but Toni - who works for an environmental charity - “relentlessly hunted down a doctor who would perform the irreversible surgery.

Finally, eight years ago, Toni got her way.

At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”.

I can assure Toni that the planet does not care about her efforts to protect it, since it’s an inanimate object. However, for completely different reasons, I wholeheartedly agree with her decision to never reproduce. Stupid, you see, is an inheritable trait.

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Meet the greenest of green buildings, but it’s also red — red with the BLOOD OF ANIMALS.

It is one of Emory University’s most environmentally friendly buildings, a hallmark of the institution’s efforts to “go green.” The soaring glass windows in Emory’s Mathematics and Science Center reflect the woodsy view, confusing hapless birds who smash into it at full speed.

“The building killed 60 birds in the first year,” said Wegner, Emory’s chief environmental officer. “It was the wall of death.”

Wegner, a professor in Emory’s Department of Environmental Studies, began documenting the deaths shortly after the building opened in 2002. He found an average of two birds a day were losing their lives during the height of the migration season.

Now Emory drapes parts of the $40 million building with black mesh netting for about three months each fall, and migrating birds bounce off safely.

On the bright side, now we know how to deal with the birds if they try to take over the world. It’s an important advance in our National Horror-Movie Threat Readiness Plan, or the NHMTRP (pronounced “nimtrap”).

Dangerously Stupid

“Tasering” has become a popular verb lately. The police will happily taser people who they would never be allowed to shoot.

Police said an officer Tasered a Thanksgiving Day host when he interfered with emergency crews trying to help a man who had a heart attack.

The incident happened shortly after 6 p.m., on Thanksgiving when a guest was having trouble breathing.Police said the man was having a heart attack and people in the home got in the way of emergency workers, who eventually called police.

Officers said Harvey Kellogg, 47, who lives at the house, kept interfering, then swore at an officer and got combative. He was then Tasered and arrested.

Get in the way, shoot your mouth off — ZAP! What could go wrong?

A third death in five weeks linked to the use of Taser stun guns by police in Canada on Thursday prompted a ministerial inquiry in easternmost Nova Scotia province.Justice Minister Cecil Clarke ordered the review into the use of Tasers in Nova Scotia, he said, following the death of a 45-year-old man who died in police custody Wednesday, hours after being zapped.

In October, Robert Dziekanski, 40, died after being shocked repeatedly by policemen with a Taser stun gun only 60 seconds after they first approached him at the Vancouver airport in westernmost Canada. Police were called to the Vancouver airport after Dziekanski blocked a security door with chairs and a table, and threw a computer off a counter onto the floor.

A bystander’s video released last week showed the four officers then piled on top of the distraught traveler as he lay writhing and screaming in pain on the floor, and within minutes he fell still.

Days later, a Montreal man died in hospital after being shocked by police with a stun gun, touted as a safer alternative to firearms.

Looks like there’s no free zap.

The Nobel Peace Prize is consistently awarded to people who talk a lot, but don’t actually do anything useful.

Basting with a little olive oil keeps chicken breasts from sticking to the grill.

Youth football is all about the running game. Passing, with a few exceptions, comes later.

The Fox News Channel has an infinite supply of newsblondes.

Most podcasts take twice as much time as necessary to say what they’re saying.

It’s silly to say you “believe” in evolution, since it’s a scientific theory rather than a belief system, and whether you believe in it or not has nothing to do with whether the theory is correct.

No TV show integrates social commentary and comedy better than South Park.

I’d play on the Wii more if it supported high definition.

A lot of videogames that let two or more people play at the same time suffer from the “Gauntlet Effect,” which limits the entire group’s progression to the cooperative abilities and attention span of the least focused member of the group.

The bigger the age gap between the vidoegame players, the more pronounced the Gauntlet Effect will be.

There’s a point where you’re waiting in a line when you realize that you should have never got in the line in the first place, because the people running the line don’t respect your time.  And then you realize that this feeling is perfectly balanced against the realization that since you’ve spent this much time already in the line, you will have wasted your time by leaving this line and doing what you now know you should have done in the first place. Either way, you feel like a chump.

I got to mull this over in line at the CVS drugstore a mile from my house.  As I waited for the pharmacy staff to find time in their busy evening to sell me a package of Prilosec, an over-the-counter heartburn drug that’s found on the shelf of every other retail establishment that sells it, including the Kroger across the street.  As I got to hear Avril Lavigne sing “why’d you have to go and make things so complicated?” 

The sales girl had no explanation as to why the Prilosec was behind the counter and they felt that I shouldn’t be allowed to just walk up and buy some if I wanted to.  It’s not like the pharmaicst had to ask me what I was going to do with it or make sure I wouldn’t kill myself by warning me about the dosage level.  Nor, to the best of my knowledge, do bad folks make crystal meth or anything else illicit out of Prilosec.  They just decided to waste my time.

- Watching the Patriots play the Bills was like watching a pro team play a college team. I say again:  relentless scoring machine.  If they go undefeated, they’ll have earned it. I love the idea of the Patriots beating the 1972 Dolphins undefeated mark in the same year the Dolphins fail to win a game at all. And yes, I mean beating. 16 is bigger than 14.  Other teams have already won 15 games in the regular season.

- The Browns are the only team that doesn’t have a graphic to represent themselves on the score reports, just a color. And that color is brown. Insert Tarantino in Reservoir Dogs complaining about color names reference here.

- And speaking of “brown.” I’m tired of seeing overcompensating middle-aged long hair guy pimping UPS services. I will not be sold to by a mullethead.

- Records and homefield advantage always go out the window when the Cowboys play the Redskins. It’s always anybody’s game.

- So, when a player spikes the ball at any time other than a touchdown it’s an automatic delay of game penalty, but when Santana Moss spins the ball onto the field after a reception, it’s no big deal?

- If covering Terrell Owens with a zone is stupid after the first touchdown, I have no word for it after the third.

- I have my answer, the Saints stink.

- I want this on record now: Patriots over the Cowboys in Superbowl XLII, 53-28.

- If Donovan McNabb isn’t overrated, then why do the Eagles play just as well with the backup QB? 

Mark Evanier on the history of Writer’s Guild strikes:

. . . the WGA’s history is largely a series of strikes or threatened strikes, each of which resulted in the establishment of some new right or principle. They won the right to residuals when TV shows were rerun; they won the right to screen credits, setting up a system of rules and arbitrations that stopped the guy who ran the studio from slapping his nephew’s name on your script. The strike of 1960–which lasted 151 days, making it the longest strike in Hollywood until the Writers Guild later bettered its own record–was the one that secured a pension plan as well as residual payments when a movie was run on television.

For a long time, TV residuals were capped after a certain number of runs. It wasn’t until a threatened strike in ‘77 that we began receiving them in perpetuity. That year, we didn’t have to walk–but we would have, and the other side knew it. Some would suggest the studio heads since then haven’t been quite as wise.

In 1981, there was a three-month WGA strike to establish compensation in the then-new markets of “pay TV” and home video. We wound up with a deal so good that the ‘85 contract negotiation was all about the Producers wanting to take it back. They had a better sense by then of the cash to be made in those areas and didn’t like how much of it we got.

The Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Stupid

Hey, Barry Bonds, you just got immunity for your testimony on Major League Baseball’s steroid scandal. Nice work, the only way you can screw it up now is to lie about your own steroid use so you can keep playing and break the major league home run record. No way you’re that dumb, right?

‘Home Run King’ Barry Bonds could spend 30 years in prison if he is convicted of felony charges of perjury and obstruction of justice in the BALCO steroid investigation.

Bonds was charged Thursday with perjury and obstruction of justice for allegedly lying when he said he did not use performance-enhancing drugs.

The indictment charges Bonds with lying when he said that he didn’t knowingly take steroids given to him by his personal trainer Greg Anderson. He also denied taking steroids at anytime in 2001 when he was pursuing the single season home-run record.

Bonds became the highest-profile figure caught up in the government investigation launched in 2002 with the raid of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative (BALCO), the Burlingame-based supplements lab at the center of a steroids distribution ring.

Bonds has long been shadowed by allegations that he used performance-enhancing drugs. The son of former big league star Bobby Bonds, Barry broke into the majors with the Pittsburgh Pirates in 1986 as a lithe, base-stealing outfielder.

By the late 1990s, he’d bulked up to more than 240 pounds — his head, in particular, becoming noticeably bigger. His physical growth was accompanied by a remarkable power surge.

Good thing Bonds has cultivated great relations with the local and national press, because they’ll certainly stand behind a guy who was so great to them when he was on top — oh wait, he was a total prick to everybody? — well, they’ll still take his word for it, won’t they?

Stupid, Meet Stupid

A while back, I said that the rules were different if you broke the law when you were young, famous, white, cute, and rich. I’m man enough to admit I was wrong. You are also entitled to different rules if you are white, young, famous, and completely hagged-out.

Lindsay Lohan was a jailbird for just 84 minutes Thursday, becoming the latest celebrity to serve less than a day for a drunken driving offense.Lohan, 21, turned herself in to the Los Angeles County women’s detention center in Lynwood at 10:30 a.m. She was searched, fingerprinted and placed in a holding cell in the inmate reception area but got to keep her street clothes, sheriff’s spokesman Steve Whitmore said.

“She was cooperative,” he said.

Lohan was released at 11:54 a.m. Her original daylong sentence was reduced because she met criteria that took into account overcrowding at the lockup and the fact that her crime was nonviolent, Whitmore said.

She spent two minutes longer in lockup than Nicole Richie did in August for a similar offense.

That’s right Lohan. Now you see what happens to normal people who commit DUIs with cocaine in their pockets.

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As if life as a gay male escort wasn’t bad enough, now there’s a good chance Boy George will chain you to a wall.

Auden Carlsen, 28, claimed in April that he was chained and threatened at the musician’s flat in Shoreditch, East London, where he had gone as a photo model.

The escort is said to have fled in his underpants. He called the police at 6.30am from a nearby newsagent’s.

George’s brother Kevin said at the time of his arrest in May that the singer found the allegations ‘hilarious’. Kevin O’Dowd said: “The bloke who made these allegations is an escort - what more can I say?”

He confirmed that George and Carlsen had met through the gay dating service Gaydar Commercial where the Norwegian escort offers his services for £400 a night.

The rent boy had already modelled a range of fetish outfits for George’s fashion shop on Shoreditch High Street a month before the alleged attack.

What more can you say? I say the guy was a businessman, and your brother didn’t pay for the “chained to the wall” package, he only paid for the “fetish model” package. Tell your bro not to be so damn cheap. Since he’s calling escort services, we’re pretty sure he knows he’s well past the point where fame gets him sexual comps.

Politically Stupid

Ah, the Clintons. Amoral enough to cheat, dumb enough to get caught cheating. If I ran a newspaper or a late-night talk show, I’d be rooting for Hillary to win next year. This week’s new material:

Gallo-Chasanoff, whose story was first reported in the campus newspaper, said what happened was simple: She said a senior Clinton staffer asked if she’d like to ask the senator a question after an energy speech the Democratic presidential hopeful gave in Newton, Iowa, on November 6.

“I sort of thought about it, and I said ‘Yeah, can I ask how her energy plan compares to the other candidates’ energy plans?’” Gallo-Chasanoff said Monday night.

According to Gallo-Chasanoff, the staffer said, ” ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, because I don’t know how familiar she is with their plans.’ ”

He then opened a binder to a page that, according to Gallo-Chasanoff, had about eight questions on it.

“The top one was planned specifically for a college student,” she added. “It said ‘college student’ in brackets and then the question.”

Topping that sheet of paper was the following: “As a young person, I’m worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?”

What have they got to say for themselves?

In a separate statement in response to the campus article, the campaign said, “On this occasion a member of our staff did discuss a possible question about Sen. Clinton’s energy plan at a forum. … This is not standard policy and will not be repeated again.”

Not standard policy? It was in a binder. There’s nothing more official than a binder.

At least they didn’t tip the college student for asking the question.

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Nothing inspires confidence like sending your mom out to attack your primary opponent.

John McCain’s 95-year-old mother, in a swipe at her son’s rival Mitt Romney, said Friday that Mormons were to blame for the scandal that rocked the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics.During an appearance on MSNBC, Roberta McCain laid out why her son, John, deserves to win the Republican presidential nomination. But in evaluating McCain’s primary rivals, she criticized Romney’s Mormon faith and his time in Salt Lake City.

“As far as the Salt Lake City thing, he’s a Mormon and the Mormons of Salt Lake City had caused that scandal. And to clean that up, again, it’s not a subject,” Roberta McCain said.

John McCain quickly stepped in: “The views of my mothers are not necessarily the views of mine.”

Dude, you sent YOUR MOM out to attack your opponent. “Hey, what are you going to do? She’s old and hates Mormons.” I guess that works if we’re all going to forget that you dragged her 95-year-old ass out in front of a camera.

Our Business Is Stupid, And Business Is Good

The studios can’t afford to give writers more money for DVDs or internet downloads, they’re too busy giving big-name actors and directors money off the top.

That is the conclusion of a surprisingly bleak new assessment of financial dynamics in the movie industry titled “Do Movies Make Money?” The researchers’ answer: not any more.

The report, by the research company Global Media Intelligence in association with its partner Merrill Lynch, concludes that much of the income - past and future - that studios and writers have been fighting about has already gone to the biggest stars, directors and producers in the form of ballooning participation deals. A participation is a share in the gross revenue, not the profit, of a movie.

Through the twists and turns of contemporary deal-making, major studios in theory give away as much as 25 percent of a film’s receipts under such arrangements.

“We can’t give you guys more money, we’re too busy giving it away before we’ve turned a profit!”

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Casinos are only happy when you’re losing. How else do you explain strip-searching a grandmother?

Myrna Jones is appalled at the way she was treated. “I felt just humiliated, embarrassed,” Jones said.

The 65-year-old said it was 13 months ago Monday when she was with friends at the Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway. She was playing video slot machines.

Jones says she was playing $1 slot machines. She won $80, but the machine did not spit out a paper winner’s slip, so she called security and they called a mechanic to open the machine.

Meanwhile, she says she was taken to a room and interrogated by a man she says turned out to be a plain clothes state trooper who then accused her of hiding the winning slip, in an apparent scam to get another.

“He said, ‘On camera it shows you put the ticket in your bra,’” Jones said. “I said no it shows me take out a dollar and put it in the machine.”

But since a first look at the machine did not turn up the ticket, she was ordered into a room where a security woman conducted a strip search.

“I pulled up the sweater and unhooked the bra and she told me to pull up my shirt,” Jones said.

“They kept me down there for two and a half hours. Then they came and said they found the ticket. I said where was the ticket? He said it was in the machine.”

Free advice for casinos: first, thoroughly check the slot machine, then accuse the grandmother of cheating and demand that she unhook her bra for inspection. Reversing this order may result in lawsuits.

Dilbert creator Scott Adams is running a restaurant.  Despite the fact that he doesn’t know anything about running a restaurant.

Those in his 35-member staff at Stacey’s at Waterford can gladly answer that one. In interviews authorized by their generously self-deprecating boss, employees describe him as trusting and appreciative, full of off-the-wall ideas about how to turn around the business, and dramatically clueless about the harsh realities of the restaurant industry.

Emma Lewis, the lunch manager, describes Mr. Adams as someone who should be shielded from tough decisions the way a crawling infant needs to be protected from household hazards. “We laugh and say we’re not going to let him watch the Food Channel,” she said. “He’ll think he can run a restaurant.”

Is there any way we can get Gordon Ramsay to visit and yell at him?  He probably wouldn’t put up much of a fight.

The Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Stupid

You can give all the speeches you want, issue policy statements every week, and take all the right positions on the issues. But all anybody will remember is that you stiffed the waitress when you were campaigning.

“I wished I would have been asked first,” the waitress, Anita Esterday, said of Clinton’s decision to insert her in a speech. “I wish she would have asked if she could talk about me later. I didn’t like it when someone called me up and said Hillary Clinton is talking about you. It’s like, what’d I do now? What’s she saying?”

When I returned to the Maid-Rite a few weeks later, Esterday said the senator had caught her off guard. But once they got talking, she was honest with Clinton about her need to work two to three jobs.

Esterday does not think Clinton got it. “I don’t think she understood at all what I was saying,” Esterday said. “I mean, nobody got left a tip that day.”

Clinton may have decided not to tip. She was also never given a bill — her meal was on the house. Still, Esterday said Clinton might have left her something: “Maybe they don’t carry money. I don’t know.”

That little line buried in an NPR article went national. Then the Clinton campaign kicked into damage-control.

STORY ONE: It was left on a credit card.

Esterday, speaking to NPR from home later Thursday, said the Clinton campaign staffer who visited the diner apologized to her and said a $100 tip was left on a credit card the day of Clinton’s visit. Esterday said the staff member said the money was meant to be shared.

STORY TWO: It was left in cash.

“I explained to her that our credit card machine, you know, doesn’t add on the tip,” Esterday said. “And she said, ‘Well, then, they left a $100 bill there.’

STORY THREE: We gave it to the manager.

The Clinton campaign contacted ABC News to assert that they did, contrary to Esterday’s claim to NPR, pay $157 for food at Maid-Rite and left a $100 tip to be split among the staff.

Sensing the story was reaching the tipping point, ABC News’ Eloise Harper contacted Brad Crawford, manager of Maid-Rite caught in the political mixer, who said the senator’s staff did pay a tip but “it might have not been disbursed properly.”

So at the end of it all, you going to believe, one of the Clinton campaign’s several plausible stories, or the waitress who didn’t get a tip from Hillary Clinton?

On Thursday, Esterday was sticking by her story.

“Why would I lie about not getting a tip?” she told NPR. She also maintained that her co-workers at the
restaurant had not received tips.

“Two others that had worked with me that day turned around and said, ‘We didn’t know about any $100 tip,’ because they both turned around and said ‘We didn’t get a part of it.’ And they didn’t. So, it’s like ‘OK, where did it go?’ That’s the mystery question: Where did it go?”

The manager said he can’t say for sure if Esterday was tipped for serving Clinton and her guests, Christie Vilsack and Ruth Harkin. (Vilsack is the wife of former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack and Harkin is the wife of Iowa Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin). But Crawford said he believes Esterday’s account that she received no tip.

“Where Hillary was sitting, there was no tip left,” Crawford said.

There’s an important lesson here for the rich — be sure to properly supervise the people who pay for things on your behalf or you may have problems maintaining the appearance of giving a damn about the little people.

But then, appearances might be hard to maintain when you’re in the habit of stiffing the help.

. . . it’s all the buzz in Albion.

Hillary Rodham Clinton dropped into the Village House, a favorite diner in this upstate farming town, and ordered two orders of scrambled eggs, home fries and rye toast. So far, so good. The locals appreciate a hearty appetite.

Her breakfast was on the house, and when she left the waitress, a single mom, found not a penny at her plate.

The kicker: Hillary Clinton’s campaign tour through Iowa was called the “Middle Class Express.”

Stupid, Meet Stupid

If you make a living as a public figure, you might want to lay off the racial slurs. Even in private conversations.

The National Enquirer on Wednesday posted on its Web site a clip of a conversation in which Duane Chapman, star of the hit A&E series “Dog the Bounty Hunter,” repeatedly used the N-word in reference to [his son] Tucker’s girlfriend.

Not good. So the immediate question is, assuming Chapman didn’t make a tape of himself saying stupid things and give it to the media, who did?

Television bounty hunter Duane “Dog” Chapman’s son taped a private phone conversation in which the reality star used a racial slur repeatedly, then sold it to a tabloid for “a lot of money,” Chapman’s lawyer said Thursday.

“I guess because of whatever level of anger he had of his father, he felt the need to express it in that manner,” attorney Brook Hart told The Associated Press.

Non-famous people will try to make money from the famous, with the probability rising as a function of the closeness of the relationship and the income differential between the two.

—

And then there’s the employer-employee relationship. Some folks can’t resist using the power they have over others to indulge their awfulness.

Caustic and abrasive [”realtor to the stars” Linda] Stein was riding her employee pretty hard last week in her Fifth Avenue apartment. The employee said Friday she just turned on Stein and killed her out of frustration.

Detectives say Natavia Lowry, 26, was one of more than 60 potential suspects they interviewed since the high-profile and eccentric broker was found bludgeoned to death in her apartment. Lowry told cops Thursday night that she flew into a rage because Stein was shouting and blowing marijuana smoke in her face.

“Lowry said that she was retrieving e-mail for Stein from a computer when Stein approached blowing marijuana smoke in her face, yelling at her to hurry,” NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly said. “Lowry also claimed that Stein used profanity and derogatory language. And that she waved an object that was described as a ‘yoga stick’ at her.

“At this point, Lowry said she grabbed the yoga stick from Stein’s hands and struck her with it six or seven times.”

The trouble with learning just how far you can push someone before they beat you to death is that it’s the last thing you learn.

Our Business Is Stupid, And Business Is Good

Nothing like a product that people buy to they can prove just what kind of sick bastard they are.

Jones Soda Co., the Seattle-based purveyor of offbeat fizzy water, said Friday that it was shelving its traditional seasonal flavors of turkey and gravy this year to produce limited-edition theme packs for Christmas and Hanukkah.

The Christmas pack will feature such flavors as Sugar Plum, Christmas Tree, Egg Nog and Christmas Ham. The Hanukkah pack will have Jelly Doughnut, Apple Sauce, Chocolate Coins and Latkes sodas.

“As always, both packs are kosher and contain zero caffeine,” a Jones news release noted.

The packs will go on sale Sunday, with a portion of the proceeds to be given to charity, the company said.

Jones’ products feature original label art and frequently odd flavors. Last year’s seasonal pack was Thanksgiving-themed, with Green Pea, Sweet Potato, Dinner Roll, Turkey and Gravy, and Antacid sodas. For its contract to supply soda to Qwest Field, home of the Seattle Seahawks, Jones came up with Perspiration, Dirt, Sports Cream and Natural Field Turf. The company - fortunately or unfortunately - prides itself on the accuracy of the taste.

Knowing that there’s a carbonated beverage that tastes like sweat makes me a little uneasy. Isn’t Fresca bad enough?

—

China’s not done getting caught shipping slipshod products to the US. Now there’s toys made of drugs.

The [CPSC] recalled the Spin Master Aqua Dots toy Wednesday after two children were knocked unconscious, and then hospitalized, by eating beads covered with a chemical that metabolizes into the compound gamma hydroxy butyrate — the so-called date-rape drug. The compound can induce unconsciousness, seizures, drowsiness, coma and death.

Perhaps respect for individual child safety is too much to ask from a country that demands that its citizens abort their second children?

Living La Vida Stupid

I’d feel funny visiting this guy’s house without a magazine in my hand.

In South Korea, Sim Jae-duck has earned the moniker “Mr. Toilet” for his work in beautifying public restrooms. Now, though, he’s taken his work to a whole new level.

Jae-duck is building a toilet-shaped house (complete with a luxury lavatory) just in time for the World Toilet Association conference this month in Seoul, South Korea.

A blog focused on the ongoing Writers’ Guild strike. It certainly went a long way in helping me understand the issues.

http://www.unitedhollywood.com/

- The Colts have had a problem all season with maintaining their intensity through the second half. This game was no different, as they lost their 10-point lead against the Patriots in the 4th quarter.

- The Packers keep squeaking by, as if Favre is willing them to victories.

- NBC is interested in doing everything but showing us football games. The latest example is their showy “lights out” (actually down) broadcast to promote the idea that people should follow their noble example and offer similar sacrifices to their pagan gods of choice. I noticed they still provided full power to their microphones so we could hear the self-congratulation.

- So . . . the Cowboys are great except when they’re playing a quality AFC team? At least Tony Romo doesn’t have to live on his commercial endorsements anymore, so maybe somebody else on the team can appear in every damn local TV ad during the games.

- It seems to me that the primary position for flamboyant bigmouths in the NFL is wide receiver. Running backs and QB’s tend to not shoot their mouths off.  Except perhaps Ladanian Tomlinson, and he may have learned his lesson.

- The Lions are still winning games, opening up the possibility of TWO entertaining games on Thanksgiving. So now what I need to know is do the Saints suck or not? 

The Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement In The Field Of Stupid

It’s fine to love your pets. Its fine to object when someone takes bad care of your pet. It’s not fine to be this woman.

A woman wants abuse charges filed against an acquaintance who was pet-sitting for her potbellied pig and allowed the animal to get fat.

Michelle Schmitz said her pig, Alaina Templeton, weighed 50 pounds when Schmitz left her with a co-worker who offered to care for the animal in February, when Schmitz went on medical leave to recover from ankle surgeries.

Nine months later, the pig weighed 150 pounds and it took veterinarians 4 1/2 hours to surgically remove the animal’s collar, the Winona Daily News reported.

Schmitz, 22, said she bottle-fed Alaina when she was just 11 days old and kept her on a strict diet to keep her weight at about 50 pounds.

When she tried to recover the pig in April, Schmitz said the co-worker wouldn’t return her calls. She said that she didn’t know where the woman lived and that when she finally found the woman’s farm Saturday, she discovered that Alaina’s neck had grown around her collar and that the pig had trouble breathing.

Schmitz said she cried for three days after she discovered her pet’s weight problem.

“That pig is my life,” said Schmitz, who has a tattoo of Alaina’s name.

This is truly a layer cake of stupid. Visualize, if you will, a three-tiered wedding cake, with a little plastic bride-pig statue on the top.

LAYER ONE: She bottle-feeds a pig.

LAYER TWO: She gives the pig a first and last name.

LAYER THREE: She tattoos the pig’s name on her body.

THE CREAMY CREAMY ICING: She gives this pig, WHICH IS HER LIFE, to someone who lives on a farm, convinces herself that strict dietary controls will be maintained while the pig lives on a farm, and then doesn’t bother to learn where the farm is.

Our Business Is Stupid, And Business Is Good

Passengers were on a Sri Lankan Airlines plane at London’s Heathrow airport when it hit a British Airways plane and lost a wingtip. The plane went back to the gate and the passengers deplaned. A day later, they showed up for their rescheduled flight:

Club-class passenger Ian McKie, 54, from Loughton, Essex, said: “We were put up in hotels the night of the crash and next morning we were told we would be on a different plane that day.

“We only realised that we were actually going on the same aircraft when we got to the Club lounge and saw the plane but without its wing tip.”

The former policeman, who was jetting off for a two-week holiday with his partner Gill Stone, 52, added: “On board, the cabin crew admitted that it was the same one as last time and that the tip had been ripped off.

“They assured us it didn’t matter but a number of the passengers insisted that they would rather get on the next flight.”

If it didn’t matter, why didn’t they tell the passengers before they got on the plane?

Stupid For Legal Purposes

If man can build it, another man can hump it.

Robert Stewart was discovered in his room by two cleaners at the Aberley House Hostel in Ayr, south west Scotland, in October last year.

On Wednesday Mr Stewart admitted to sexual breach of the peace in Ayr Sheriff Court, where depute fiscal Gail Davidson described how he had been found by the hostel workers.

She said: “They knocked on the door several times and there was no reply.

“They used a master key to unlock the door and they then observed the accused wearing only a white T-shirt, naked from the waist down.

“The accused was holding the bike and moving his hips back and forth as if to simulate sex.”

I’m not trying to stand up for this guy, but how exactly do you breach the peace if you’re humping anything behind a locked door?

—

Use a pickle, go to jail.

According to police reports, the pickle problems began when Bobby Lee Bolen of Buchanan was hanging out at his then-friend Jody Lee’s home in Buchanan on Aug. 20.

Bolen went to the refrigerator and helped himself to some pickles. According to the report, Lee told Bolen he couldn’t afford to feed everyone and not to eat his pickles. Bolen then began yelling and swearing and stormed out, according to the report.

Later, Bolen barged back into the house and got into an argument with Lee. Lee told police Bolen slammed him down on the couch and threw two large pickles at him and said, “Here’s your damn pickles.”

It’s a better story if you ignore the subsequent beating with a telephone when the victim tried to call 911. Just focus on the pickle.