961 12 (blink) 12 (blink) 12 (blink)

961 12 (blink) 12 (blink) 12 (blink)

No, that’s not the ancient VCR in your attic come back to life to taunt you anew about your inability to set its clock.  It’s a practice exercise for those among us who still pay their bills by check.

Take a pen or pencil and a piece of paper and write the number a dozen or so times.  That may put your mind into gear for the next dozen or so checks you write and prevent you from having to void checks because you put the wrong year in the date line.

Of course, you don’t have to scrap the check.  You can cross out the date and write in the correct year and initial the correction.  Or you can sneakily change the final 1 in 11 by putting a little curlicue at the top of it and a little “__” on the bottom.

But wouldn’t it be fun for once to get it right the first time?  Fun, and smug satisfaction.  Imagine how superior you’ll feel to your neighbors and even to yourself if you write 1/15/12 on that check!

Without this little exercise you’re likely to get the year wrong.  And you’re almost as likely to get the month wrong.   And if you’re an unconscious check writer, you may find you’ve written 12/15/11 when you meant 1/15/12.

On the other hand, the check will probably go through even with the wrong date on it.  No one reads those things.  It’s all done by optical scanning and the only thing that counts is that the amount on the amount-number line matches the amount on the amount-in-words line.  If it doesn’t, the bank can choose whichever line it wants.  That’s a change.  Used to be the “words” line was what they’d pay.  Now they can use either.

How do you find out about such things?  By reading the fine print the bank sends you.  You know, the little booklet that you glance at and toss?  The one they sent out with your 12/11 bill, but dated 1/1/12?


Shrapnel:

--Even the thugs aren’t what they used to be.  The New Year’s Day firebombs in Queens were packed in glass Starbucks bottles which are mighty tough to break. Can’t do much damage with thick glass, but at least these guys stole their bottles from an upscale recycling bin... and do they serve lattes at Rikers?.

--The win in the Iowa Republican caucuses doesn’t amount to much and doesn’t predict anything, either.  So now it’s on to greener pastures... or at least different pastures of equal insignificance.  Note:  this was written the day before the event, proving again that there need be no facts in a news item.

--Spell check in Google Docs doesn’t recognize many contractions and Microsoft Word doesn’t allow most punctuation in subject lines.  Time for some little revisions, programming geniuses.  We’re all trained from birth to use contractions and punctuation marks.

Have You Noticed... that the life expectancy in New York City is 82, which is five years higher than the national average?

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012, 12, 12

960 This is the First Month of the Rest of Your Year

960 This Is the First Month of the Rest of Your Year

You’d think that after 40 failed years of sloganeering the Hallmark-y cutsie pop-psych self improvement types would reassess, realize they are passing gas in the ocean and stop.  But no.  The Life-As-Fortune-Cookie crowd may not be raking in the moolah it once did.   But members are taking their own advice, and keeping at it.  Some favorites:

Every Cloud Has a Silver Lining:  Yeah, except the one over you. It’s lined with rain or snow and you’re going to get flippin’ soaked!  Especially if you paid for the book in which this nonsense first appeared.  

It’s Always Darkest Before the Dawn:  No it isn’t.

What Doesn’t Kill Me Makes Me Stronger.  No it doesn’t.

The Glass is Half Full, Not Half Empty:  The glass is holding 50% of its capacity.

Every day in every way, I’m getting better and better.  Oh, yeah?

The older the violin, the sweeter the music.  If the violin was junk to begin with, it ain’t going to turn into a Stradivarius because it’s old.

How about this one from Dr. Joyce “I’m a Ditz” Brothers:  “If you want to be a success, start thinking of yourself as a success.”  Sure, and be sure to spruce up that refrigerator box you live in while you’re at it.

Then there’s this one from Michael Jordan: “If you put in the work, the results will come.”  So don’t lose those dreams of NBA stardom, all you 5’6” uncoordinated nearsighted guys.

Let bygones be bygones.  That’s no fun.


Sleep with dogs, arise with fleas.  Only if you’re juicer than the dog.


You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.  As Barack Obama said in ‘08  Yes We Can.”


And the ultimate from 19th-20th century self help guru Napoleon Hill:  If you can conceive it and believe it, you can achieve it.  Except if you’re a 5’6” uncoordinated nearsighted guy trying to be Michael Jordan.

So look at yourself in the mirror this morning and tell yourself you’re beautiful, you deserve love, you deserve prosperity.  (Are you? Do you?) And remind yourself that this is the first month of the rest of your year.



Shrapnel:
--Thanks for all the comments on WestraDamus-2011.  Each year we consider dropping the feature.  But each year things get so preposterous it’s impossible to stop.

--It took Verizon Wireless only about a day to drop the proposed $2 fee for paying our bills on line.  Huge customer backlash.  We were all getting ready to show them what happens when WE drop the calls.

--This is being posted on 1/2/12.  How many of your resolutions have you already broken?  How many will you break today?

Have You Noticed... almost all people who go on TV and say they’ve had interactions with spirits and ghosts are morbidly obese middle aged women from small towns?


I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2012

959 WestraDamus 2011

959 WestraDamus 2011

       This duplicates what was posted on the Westradamus.com website on 12/29/11.  If you have seen that, then you have seen this.

With 2012 upon us, we offer the 23rd anniversary edition of the WestraDamus predictions, presented each December or January for the year gone by and generally wrong. 'Damus started as a parody of the forward looking Astrological year-enders appearing in the supermarket tabloids, almost always wrong and never acknowledged as such. But the Non-Prophet has grown into an American institution, like the Smithsonian, the Jerry Lewis Telethon, concealed handguns, the Kardashians and the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  And so, we continue...

TOP OF THE YEAR:

This year, we are under the most intense pressure ever.  Another non-prophet has crept upon the scene and made a false prediction so outrageous as to make us look absolutely sane.  The end of the world, originally scheduled first for May and then for October of 2011 will not happen.  Shows you gotta stick with the original, WestraDamus!

Among the big things set to happen last year is the resignation of President McCain who said he wants to spend more time with his family and pursue other interests.  Chief Justice Thomas is to swear in Vice President Palin who says she doesn’t plan to run for election.

The political movement Occupy Main Street will gain momentum after a slow start at midyear.  The Conservative-backed protests have spread to many of the nation’s more prosperous suburbs from its beginnings in Shaker Heights, Ohio.

Occupy Great Neck, Occupy Woodmere, Occupy Palo Alto, Occupy Scarsdale, Occupy Greenwich have all attracted members of the nation’s richest one percent.  Many camp out by putting their tour buses and recreational vehicles in public parking lots.  Police in all these towns say “as long as they’re not breaking any laws, we’re not going to try to stop them from exercising their first amendment rights.”  Demonstrators and Protesters carry signs with slogans like “After all we’ve done for you!” and “Lower Taxes, make jobs.”

In Orlando, homemaker Casey Anthony will become the first Florida death row inmate executed in ages after she was charged and convicted of killing her toddler daughter.  Anthony was arrested at her neighborhood church where police found her conducting a meeting of the Christmas Cookie Club, which she has chaired for the past two years.

Michael Jackson’s Doctor, Conrad “Needles” Murray will face murder charges, but will walk.  

And late in the year, an obscure former assistant football coach in an obscure northeastern town will be honored for decades of dedicated charity work with young boys, but will decline the honor, saying he was only “doing the right thing.”

Now, the Month-By-Month in Non-Prophecy

JANUARY:  

A giant tornado will deposit thousands of dead birds on Arkansas.  Former Governor Mike Huckster will declare it God’s way of providing food for hungry Arkansans.  He’ll say “See, the Lord has provided and even started food prep!”

A similar story will take place in Russia, where hundreds of people are stuck on boats trapped in the ice.  Officials say this will provide freeze dried nutrition for the people starving in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

China will halt production of the Black Eagle jet fighter because lead paint in the fuselage will harm people on the ground when the planes crash.

FEBRUARY:

Egyptian dissidents will descend on the royal palace in an effort to de-throne King Farouk.

The rock band White Stripes will announce it is breaking up.  The general reaction will be “who?”

Japan will deny that Sumo wrestling matches are fixed.  Hulk Hogan will be unavailable for comment because he’s on location filming ads for Rent-A-Center.

Somali pirates will grant political asylum to Egypt’s King Farouk in return for a king’s ransom, but the Bank of Egypt will have frozen his accounts.

Congress will pass legislation opposing the imposition of a leap-day, Feb. 29, 2012.  Republican leaders will laud “one day less of taxation.”  Democratic leaders will laud “the end of a pernicious special interest.”

MARCH:

ATT will offer to buy T-Mobil as part of its plan to make every call in America drop.

The US will impose a no-fly zone over every airport that connects with any major place.

APRIL:

The federal government will shut down because of congress’ inability to agree on a budget.  But certain important agencies will be spared and keep running:  the IRS, the Supreme Court, and the FHA.

A giant earthquake will devastate parts of Japan, but Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Suzuki, Subaru, Sony, Panasonic and Toshiba will be spared.

MAY:  

Saudi diplomat Osama Bin Ladin will be assassinated while vacationing at his summer villa in Pakistan.  Members of his social club, Al-Qaeda, will claim it is part of a worldwide movement to abolish the Muslim faith.  Lexicographers will say he deserved to die because he refused to put “u” after “Q.”  And conspiracy theorists will speculate that Bin Ladin’s murder was similar to Apollo 11’s moon landing... faked.

JUNE:

The entire state of Iowa will be washed away in a flood.  Authorities will quickly try to restore the area in time for the caucuses scheduled for the first week in January, 2012, but subject to reschedule for some time in 2009, to maintain their status as “earliest.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney declares he will not run for president, choosing instead to return to the world of venture capital where he can help more people escape from jobs.

JULY:

Greece will seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors, becoming the first member of the European Union to declare bankruptcy.

AUGUST:

Hurricane Irene will cause mass transit systems up and down the east coast to shut down, bringing heaps of praise to government leaders in the area for showing foresight in protecting residents by having emergency plans in place and using them.

Agencies threaten to lower the credit rating on US debt, but later relent and say “it was only a joke, folks.”

SEPTEMBER:

One of the Republican candidates for the party’s presidential nomination, Herman Cain, will promise free pizza to every American if he wins.  He’s joined on the platform for the announcement by his wife and two lovers.

The Homeland Security Dept.  will announce it has foiled a 9/11 terrorist attack on Parsippany, NJ by a cell of freedom fighters from Luxembourg.  

The Palestinian Authority will request UN membership, causing a walkout by delegations from Taiwan, Kosovo, Vatican City, and the Confederate States of America.

OCTOBER:

Greece’s Bankruptcy will end months of labor unrest.  Qaddafi of Libya will resign to take a job with the World Bank, but only after writing a long letter to his fellow African, Herman Cain, briefly explaining his country’s 24-hundred year history.

An earthquake in Turkey will also hit Turkish Cypress, but leave the Greek part untouched because Greece already has enough problems.

NOVEMBER:

Occupy Main Street Protesters, reacting to the onset of winter-like weather, will take their demonstrations indoors, renting the otherwise useless Madison Square Garden for three months.  Eight protesters will be arrested for illegally parking their RVs at Penn Station.  The owners of two BMWs and a Bentley will see this and move their cars to a paid lot during the arrests.

DECEMBER:

As expected, Christmas will take place on December 25th again this year despite efforts to move it to the nearest Monday.

Your spouse and your lover will become involved in a fender bender, realize they love each other and sail off into the sunset together.

A Brooklyn judge will release an arrested crackhead wanted for a North Carolina shooting, only to see him later re-arrested and charged with the murder of an NYPD cop.  Mayor Bloomberg will go ballistic and people will support him because of the fine job he did in August’s devastating hurricane and besides, it will not have snowed yet this winter.

Israel’s stealth takeover of North Korea will become public knowledge when it is disclosed that founding president Kim Il Sung was Jewish and had changed his name from Sammy Kimmel in the late 1940s.

AND A DECEMBER APOLOGY:

For some time now, WestraDamus has been predicting that Sears/K-Mart would be closing stores and selling off real estate.  Late in December, that became a reality.  Our apologies for being right.

QUICKIES:  

The US unemployment rate for the year will even out at about four percent, matching the inflation rate... the Dow Jones Industrial Average will top out at 5867.56, led by tech stocks and manufacturing... a shortage of toilet paper will cause the sales of handi-wipes and large size post-it notes to skyrocket... The FDA will define “organic” as anything edible and everything else as inorganic... Anti abortion activists will campaign for an end to prohibition, believing even a small constitutional victory will encourage contributions...

I’m WestraDamus, the Non-prophet.  My opinions are my own but you're welcome to them.®

©WJR 2011

This rant will be available throughout 2012 at http://westradamus.com/

958 Art Imitates Art

958 Art Imitates Art

I. Is this what they mean by “playbook?”

Have you heard of the video game, “Hitman”?  It’s been around a long time.  It pits a seemingly invincible secret agent/hired killer against a slew and a half of enemies.  They battle each other on TV or computer screens, getting into armed conflict using such things as guns, knives and ordinary household items with super powers.

Typical game: violent, brilliant animation, no visible connection to reality.

Now, comes the book, “Hitman --Enemy Within” terribly written by Terrible Writer William C. Dietz, of whom you’ve probably never heard and with good reason.

The book follows the action you’d normally see on the game console except there are no elements of either skill or luck.  Reading the book is like watching others play the game only quieter.

But like the game, the book is filled with unrealistic violence, unrealistic characters, an unrealistic plot and no theme.

A book based on a video game.  Three hundred- plus pages of phantasmagorical gore. For the one out of 14 gamers who can actually read.

II.

WWMS

If you don’t consider video games an art form, you haven’t seen enough video games.  But how about fashion design?  Specifically shoe design.

Nike is out with a new retro version of the “Air Jordan” sneaker, kind of an imitation of its own original.  When they introduced it last week, shoppers lined up to plunk down $180 a pair.  In some cases -- Seattle, Atlanta, Jersey City, they plunked down each to secure their places on line.  Police used pepper spray.  No one was killed.  But there were several injuries in each city.

So not only are the cops imitating the performance art they perfected at the 1968 Democratic national convention in Chicago and various “Occupy” demonstrations more recently, but the accommodating civilians are re-creating their own performance art. And What Would Michael Say?

III. Insurance Ads

Then there are those cutsie insurance ads.  Advertising always has been a copycat industry, but now we’re inundated with Gecko wannabes.

GEICO’s computer-generated cartoon gecko is part of a large arsenal of cutsie commercial weapons the company fields.  There also are ads featuring cave men in business attire and a Rod Serling impersonator played by actor Mike McGlone.

Next to climb on this bandwagon was Allstate.  They, too, realize if you advertise heavily, you need variety.  So they feature benevolent, fatherly tough guy actor Dennis Haysbert of “24” TV fame as their spokesman, with a sprinkling of spots featuring actor Dean Winters playing “Mayhem” and causing crashes.

Progressive has the cartoonish “Flo” the checkout clerk, played by comedienne Stephanie Courtney.  She’s ever present and ever tiring.

State Farm has started using car and home destroying giant robots.

And General Insurance has a midget computer generated army general driving buses and cars and driving you nuts.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

957 More On Lipitor

957 More On Lipitor

Let’s start with this tidbit from Wessay™ 955:

Lipitor $4 Co-pay:
With the patent expired and generics available, the maker of this drug wants you to buy it through its own mail order pharmacy/partner which won’t let you if you’re on Medicare or a Medicare advantage plan... and this is not clear on the application.

Now we add:

But wait, there’s more!

Lipitor is expensive.  The co-pay is $200 for a three month supply.  So, Pfizer has started advertising the four dollar co-payment plan.  Apply, and maybe get on this cholesterol lowering gravy train (theirs, not yours,) and pay as little for it as you would for the generic now that the patent has expired.

They put you through application hoops, and the last one is “Leave your phone number and we’ll call you back in the next 48 hours” to confirm all the stuff you’ve said.”  And they do.

And then they tell you that Medicare Advantage insurance disqualifies you for this program.  

Final words to the operator:  “If you would make that clear on the application, you wouldn’t be wasting my time and yours.”
SLAM!

Okay, deed done.

But wait!  There’s STILL more.

The next day arrives in the e-mail a downloadable, printable $4 Lipitor discount card.

Okay.  So who’s right, the phone lady or the e-mail?

Let’s call the help line.

The help line is automated.  Really automated.  No human contact.  Okay.  Let’s call the financial aid line.  The financial aid line says “oh, we don’t cover that.  I’ll give you a number where you can call a live operator to ask your question.”

For reference, here it is: 1-877-234-3050. Save it.  You may need it.  It’s unlisted.

First thing happens is the live operator -- sounding like Lily Tomlin’s “Ernestine” starts reading a pitch for Lipitor.

Customer:  “Please stop reading the pitch. I know all that stuff. But I have a question.”
Operator: “...and when you take Lipitor you will...”
C: “Ma’am, please!”
O: Oh.  Okay, what’s your question?
C: “Why was I turned down for a card and then you sent me a card? And who is right, the lady who rejected me or the e-mail?”
O: “Oh, that must have been sent by someone other than us.  A local doctor or pharmacy...”
C: “Ma’am, no local doctor or pharmacy has an e-mail that ends in “pfizer.com.”
O: “... must have been sent by a local doctor or …”
C: “Madam, it was sent by Pfizer.  Who is right, the live operator or the e-mail?”
O: “...pharmacy.  Uh... the live operator.”
C: “Thank you.  Have a nice day.”
SEMI-SLAM.

Should bill them for time spent.

Shrapnel:

--Lynn Samuels has died.  One of the loudest and least predictable progressive radio hosts, she had no problem taking on president Obama along in addition to the right wing army that dominates and imperils this country.  Samuels was 69 and from Woodside, Queens -- which was unmistakable in her sound if not her views.


--Most phone call dialogues on this site end in “CLICK.”  These deserved “SLAM.”  And thanks to William A. Musser for teaching that the satisfying, phone-smashing “SLAM” can’t be heard by the party who is being SLAMmed.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

956 What Killed Danny Chen?

956 What Killed Danny Chen?

This is the kind of war story that gets lost at a time when the focus is soldiers coming home from Iraq and Afghanistan, surprising their children at school band concerts or on the tarmacs of airports in their home towns.

Danny Chen was a casualty of the war in Afghanistan. He wasn’t the victim of a roadside bomb or a Taliban attack.  He wasn’t the victim of friendly fire or an accident. Eventually the army will figure out whether he put a gun beneath his chin and pulled the trigger or someone else did that for him or to him. He is most certainly dead. But he didn’t kill himself.

They held a funeral in October, in New York’s Chinatown, where Chen lived and his parents live in public housing, and there, read his letters home out loud.

Here’s part of one of them, as quoted by the NBC New York website:
"Feb. 27, 2011: Since I am the only Chinese person here, everyone knows me by Chen” "They ask if I'm from China a few times a day... They also call out my name Chen in a goat-like voice sometimes for no reason."
"People crack jokes about Chinese people all the time. I'm running out of jokes to come back at them."


Pvt. Chen was 19 years old and in a guard tower in Kandahar when the shot rang out.  He was on duty with the 3rd Battalion, 21st Infantry Regiment, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team of the 25th Infantry Division.  And now, eight of his fellow American soldiers have been charged in his death.

Would they have been charged without pressure from Chen’s mother,  Su Zhen Chen?  His father?  His neighbors?  

So, now come accusations out of the law books and the Uniform Code of Military Justice:  dereliction of duty.  Telling lies to the MPs.  Assault. Manslaughter.

What was Danny Chen’s crime, something that would provoke the kind of treatment he is said to have received from his fellow soldiers?  Well, he was a Chinese American and that’s a start.  One night he forgot to turn the water heater off after taking his shower.  So others, apparently including some of his superiors, dragged him out of bed and showered him with physical abuse and racial slurs.  Can’t let a switch in the “on” position go unpunished, no way!

But there were other instances in which Chen was singled out, some of them undisclosed as of now. The army is trying to figure out what, if anything, to do and who do it to.

One thing they haven’t done and maybe won’t do is release the soldier’s diary, possibly a careful record of what went on over there.  But they promise a thorough investigation, whatever that means.  Maybe we’ll eventually know if one of the eight charged men pulled the trigger or put Danny in to position to pull it himself.  And maybe we won’t.

But it’s pretty safe to say these are eight guys -- no, make that nine guys -- who shouldn’t have been together, or maybe shouldn’t be in the army at all.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them.
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011

955 Some Very Short Takes

955 Some Very Short Takes:

North Korea:
The new leader will usher in a new era in Pyongyang as soon as his babysitter gives the okay.

Candidates for the Republican presidential nomination:
-Romney is a 14 year old girl.
-Paul is the cranky old neighbor known for "get your dog off my lawn," and who wants to do the 14 year old girl.
-Gingrich is the community college professor who resents that no four-year school would hire him, when he “just knows” he belongs at Harvard.
-Perry is a life size John Wayne action figure, only dumber.
-Huntsman is Rick Perry with a brain which is turned off.
-Little Ricky Sanatorium is Romney after too many diet pills.
-Bachmann is the home-schooling soccer mom driving an SUV with a "baby on board" placard who careens around you to steal the last parking space.

And if Cain were still in the contest:  Mr. Magoo with one of those four hour erections the Viagra ads keep warning about.

Democratic Presidential Candidate:
Will there be one?

Jerry Sandusky:
“I met him once and immediately felt like taking a shower; good thing I didn’t.” --Anonymous.

Speaking of Penn State:
Some students can’t count higher than nine so when you order the ten piece at the local KFC, open the bucket and count before leaving the counter.

Checkout counters:
Why can’t they make them with extra room at the end so the guy who has to carefully fold his receipt and enter his purchase in the checkbook or count the change for the coffee he bought with a $100 bill doesn’t hold up the line?

Lowe’s:
“I never liked them, anyway.” -- Mahmoud al-Abouzavala bin Salamoudouz, freelance chemist and student pilot, Windsor, Ont.

Piers Morgan:
“I never liked him, anyway.”  -- Larry King.

T-Mobil:
Jilted under appropriate pressure by suitor at&t, but keeps the dowry and has no plans to stop advertising its 4-G network in jingles that make it sound like they’re singing “orgy network.”

General Electric:
Finally gets its 100 year old wish to fully get out from under Thomas Edison by ending American production of incandescent lightbulbs, decades after ending its production of phonograph records.

The Ed Koch Bridge:
No one ever calls it that and no one ever will and did you expect any different?

Lipitor $4 Co-pay:
With the patent expired and generics available, the maker of this drug wants you to buy it through its own mail order pharmacy/partner which won’t let you if you’re on Medicare or a medicare advantage plan... and this is not clear on the application.

WestraDamus 2012 Update:
Plans to scrap the website have been scrapped and 2011 in Non Prophecy will be available at http://westradamus.com/ after all.  Eventually.

Reader Comment:
This from John Gibson of State College, PA.  and refers #954, The Fountains of Russia:

  It is a common misunderstanding that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole of Planet Earth.  In fact he is from the North Pole of Planet Xyurk, in another solar system.  He travels by UFO till he reaches Earth's atmosphere, then switches to sleigh and reindeer for the local travel.
  He also serves 82 quadrillion other solar systems, which makes for a busy night each year.
 It is another error to believe that he is Greek.  Does he look Greek to you?
 Nor is he a Christian saint, as is commonly supposed.  Ever see him visit a church?  He represents a kind of paganism native to his native planet.  It advises being good but otherwise doesn't tell people what to do.

Reader Question:
If there’s a war on Christmas why is there no war on Hanukkah?  Answer:  There can’t be until everyone agrees on one spelling -- then you can go to war.

Holiday Shopping Tip:
It’s December 21st.  If you haven’t finished your gift list yet, you’re beyond help.  The stores are all open from very very early to very very late.  Some are open 24 hours.  Get cracking! If you have finished, congrats.  Don’t forget, the big post-Christmas sales start on 12/26.

I’m Wes Richards.  My opinions are my own but you’re welcome to them. ®
Please address comments to wesrichards@gmail.com
© WJR 2011