Remember that cute little nursery rhyme about what little boys and girls are made of? Well this takes that mystery right off the table, because once the Great Pumpkin gets through with them, you can actually see the component parts! Awesome!
Stolen from Dr Mike.
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Paging all colonic therapists, we have an emergency.
Woman expresses indignation at quote on Starbucks cup
…Printed on the cup was: “Why in moments of crisis do we ask God for strength and help? As cognitive beings, why would we ask something that may well be a figment of our imaginations for guidance? Why not search inside ourselves for the power to overcome? After all, we are strong enough to cause most of the catastrophes we need to endure.”
It is attributed to Bill Schell, a Starbucks customer from London, Ontario, and was included on the cup as part of an effort by the company to collect different viewpoints and spur discussion…
Starbucks spokeswoman Sanja Gould said the collection of thoughts and opinions is a “way to promote open, respectful conversation among a wide variety of individuals. ”
But Incanno said her Starbucks days are over.
“I wouldn’t feel right going back,” she said.
Door, ass, you know how it goes. This is the kind of thing that makes me glad I don’t work at Starbucks anymore. Not that I don’t enjoy interacting with the stupid and hysterical; in fact, I adore it. It’s just that … hmmm, how shall I put this???
Once, during my days as an assistant manager, I happened to have a performance review, and the manager of the time happened to be supportive of me and not particularly supportive of the way the company had decided to look for ways to divest itself of employee #202615, and he knew as well as I did that if I didn’t score “Outstanding” on the interpersonal part of the review, regional office would turf me. So he looked me in the eye and said, “I don’t think we need to discuss this part of the review. Given the difference between what you could say and what you do say, I’m giving you ‘Outstanding,’ on interpersonal skills,” and that, as they say, was that.
See, I actually slightly know the woman who had to play “evenhanded company spokesperson” here, and she’s always been very gracious no matter what the circumstances. That crazed, outraged, apparently-constipated-on-at-least-the-spiritual-level customer had better pray to her God that she encounter only such kind and mannerly spokespeople in the future, because if she ever crosses my path I’ll be bringing out the nukes.
Then again, there’s a reason companies don’t make me their spokesperson, the fucktards.
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Because hey, Britney Spears is alive and you think she can give you better advice than a gore-clotted zombie revenant, crazed with bloodlust and hungry for brains?
At least zombies like brains.
The ever-servicey Guardian has a lovely article on life lessons we can learn from zombies. (I must include a small ed. note here, to the effect that we at the ol’ raincoaster blog have, it must be admitted, even when we don’t want to, that we deleted the Zombie Blog off the blogroll, although it should be noted that this was after a long time, and with great reluctance, and we only did it because that blog was not so much undead as actually, factually, and for all intents and purposes really…well, is it indelicate to put it this way? Dead)
Man-made viruses are bad things …
We, as humans, are fragile things
… When the character of Rhodes is spectacularly dissected by zombie hordes in Day Of The Dead, and screams “CHOKE ON ‘EM!” as they tuck into his guts, he is, in a very real sense, acknowledging his own dehumanised position in consumer culture. Yes he is.
The US military ruin it for everyone
…In Day Of The Dead, they are all racist, sexist and insane, with disastrous results. Quite where the inspiration comes from for this bumbling, disaster-prone, incompetent redneck vision of America‘s military might, is a matter for considerable debate.
Your family messes you up
No genre has reflected the increasingly obsolescence of the nuclear family unit more gleefully than the zombie movie, which posits that family life will not just mess you up, it will also attempt to eat your spleen too…
Always stay close to a helicopter pilot
No matter what goes down in any given zombie movie, you can be sure of one thing – if you haven’t got a helicopter pilot with you, then you are fubar…in the Zack Snyder remake of Dawn Of The Dead, there is no helicopter pilot anywhere to be found, and where do they all end up? Dead, that’s where. So if you are ever introduced to a helicopter pilot, be nice to them
Women are better in a crisis than men are
This may not be news to our female readers (on your side, sisters!) but zombie flicks are either keenly aware of women’s inherent stoicism, or the blokes who make zombie flicks are just trying to suck up…
Animals can be zombies too
Hmmm. Not quite sure how this one can be applied in modern society, but there are zombie monkeys in the 28 series, zombie alligators in Day Of The Dead, zombie dogs in Resident Evil, zombie spiders in Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, and in Zombie Creeping Flesh there is actually a zombie kitten. Yes, you read that correctly. So I guess what this teaches us is maybe that keeping pets is cruel. Or something.
In summary, then: stay away from pets and family members, retain a keen awareness of your own mortality and the power of science, and hang out with female non-US military-affiliated helicopter pilots. Valuable lessons, there, for all of us.
Couldn’t have put it better myself. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to drop a friendly note to my old buddy Flygrrl…
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Another episode in our favorite series of (cephalo)podcasts. Here is the Great Cthulhu taking viewer’s calls and dealing with telemarketers as we all wish we could.
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Ya wouldn’t normally a-thunkit, but the New York media establishment (or counterestablishment) whatever, the New York media hegemony (how I love that word), has today played a large part in keeping my most dearest, secretest, sweetest dreams alive, contrary to their traditionally dream-shattering ways.
They told me Alan Rickman is just as charming drunk as he is sober.
And also that he has a bit of a thing for school uniforms.
Alas! I went to a hippie school, and doubt that a Guatemalan poncho, Che tee and cutoffs quite meets the standard.
Nonetheless, I am willing to try.
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raincoaster 