Wal Mart is Evil so I took off my clothes – Bike Forums
BikeForums member ReachHigher stripped down to her sports bra and spandex after Walmart refused to let her enter the store with her $600 bike. A manager explained that since Walmart sold bikes, bringing in an outside bike would obviously be too confusing to handle. ReachHigher asked if they also sold shirts. “She said yes so I took off my jersey and said well then I’d better not bring this in either…”
Here’s a question for you gals out there – ever been asked to be a bridesmaid in your friend’s wedding and been a little daunted by the costs involved? Buying a dress that you will probably never wear again, travel costs to the nuptial site, accomodations, breast augmentation?
Wait…uh…what?
It’s the latest thing: “Becky Lee, 39, a Manhattan photographer, declined when a friend asked her — and five other attendants — to have their breasts enhanced. “We’re all Asian and didn’t have a whole lot of cleavage, and she found a doctor in L.A. who was willing to do four for the price of two,” said Ms. Lee, who wore a push-up bra instead.”
You’re looking at my brand-new 16 gb white iPhone – so if you are an AT&T Wireless (nee Cingular, nee Cellular One nee Airtouch) customer, you can call me for free!
If you happen to know my number, that is…
My, my. look at the cost of gas all of a sudden! The price for a gallon of regular has fallen eight cents in the last three days, at least in my neighborhood, and an industry analyst says that it might drop another quarter by Labor Day.
Now that we’re so used to >$4.50 gas, and we’re so grateful for this little decline, let’s wait and see if the pols will now raise fuel taxes to get it back up to our acceptable level of pain. Am I being a li’l bit negative?
And a survey estimates that the Arctic holds upwards of 90 billion barrels of oil which would supply worldwide demand for – get this – three years. Should we be willing to risk the destruction of one of the last great unspoiled wild places of the world just so we can toodle around in our cars for another 160 weeks? Should we, just because we can? It’d take another 20 years or so just to get that oil flowing anyway, way past the year of singularity, 2012.
There, I guess that post pretty much runs the gamut!
Obama said he wouldn’t vote for anything that granted immunity to the telcos for eroding our privacy rights, but that’s exactly what he did – and he voted like a Republican to do it. Even Hillary voted against it.
And McCain didn’t vote at all. Hello? Anyone home?
Senate Approves Bill to Broaden Wiretap Powers – NYTimes.com
So Dick Cheney wanted some testimony cut out of some Congressional testimony about global warming that may have been ‘inconvenient’ in his efforts to avoid the regulation of greenhouse gases. I can just imagine a reporter questioning him about it:
Reporter: “Mr. Vice President, anything to say about these reports?”
Cheney: (silence)
Reporter: Didn’t you try to delete some of this testimony?”
Cheney: “No, I didn’t.”
Reporter: “But it says right here…”
Cheney: “Didn’t do it, nope, never happened.”
Reporter: “Then you’re saying this is all a lie?”
Cheney: (sticking his fingers in his ears) LALALA Can’t hear you! LALALA If I say it didn’t happen, that makes it so! Even if it did happen!
Reporter: “So it did happen?”
Cheney: “LALALALALALALA…”
(Continued from the previous post…)
Just five years later, in 1977, when I was twenty-one, I was working at KYOS as the afternoon DJ playing Top 40 music. The DJs at the station had a sort of lighthearted rivalry with the cross-town country radio station, KWIP. Anyway somebody involved with the Atwater 4th of July Celebration came up with the idea of holding a ‘cowchip’ throwing contest between the radio stations as a part of the festivities.
Now a ‘cowchip’, for those with a more urban background, is the dessicated remnants of bovine – uh – defecation. Usually found in pastures, it’s sometimes called the Frisbee of the Prairie. And that particular description gives you a good idea of the logistics of a cowchip-throwing contest.
Anyway, we made on-the-air jokes like ‘the jocks over there are scraping the stuff off their turntables to use in the contest’, stuff like that. The station got us some snazzy custom T-shirts, so we were all fired up.
Okay, so the big day! A typical Central Valley summer Monday in the Central Valley – hot! There was a big crowd gathered for this important event. We each got three chances, so I stepped up to the line:
Note the form, notice how thin the thrower! Notice the graceful leap and follow-through, the enthrall of the crowd tracking the arc of the toss, the two remaining cowchips on the ground on my right, awaiting their literal moment in the sun. They weren’t needed, though, as this particular toss was not only my personal best, but the winning toss of the entire contest.
The guy on the right is me, yes, with all that hair under my trucker’s cap, that huge beard. The guy on the left is Phil Klein, owner of Phil’s Fun House, a novelty shop in Atwater and the fellow in charge of this particular event (I suspect it was all his idea). He made another official presentation a few days later during my radio show in the old studios at the corner of 18th and G, this time with a newspaper photographer from the Atwater Signal in tow:
Note how carefully the caption avoided mentioning the radio station call letters. Also note that the call letters are clearly visible in the very middle of the photo – see, the station wanted to guard against its DJs forgetting the call letters and the slogan of the moment, ‘Summer Of Your Life’ (actually, they wanted us to say the call letters and the slogan every time we opened the mic). Also note that the DJ (using a fake name) is wearing one of those dorky janitor-style retractible keychain belt clips. What on earth was he thinking??
You can see that the trophy wasn’t quite as tall as the talent show award – only about a foot tall – and with a golden steer on top.
I kept that trophy for a long time, too. And I bet that, more than thirty years later, I’m still the reigning champion of the Tri-County DJ Cow Chip Toss-off too.
Sound good, doesn’t it? It’s actually a lie, though – I’ve only posted once on the fourth of July, way back in 2005. So maybe it’ll be annual from here on in.
But I digress.
A certain singing group I’m in, about which I promised not to mention until September, performed a couple of songs this afternoon at the West Hollywood Independence Day celebration at Plummer Park. After we had warmed up, one of my fellow singers commented about how much she enjoyed doing something proactive like this on Independence Day instead of just sitting around drinking iced tea or whatever and waiting for the fireworks to start. That brought back to my mind a couple of memorable Fourth of Julys from my distant past.
Way back in 1972 I entered a talent show that was being held as part of Atwater’s annual 4th of July Celebration. I was just sixteen, and had worked up three songs that fit nicely into the ten minutes that the rules said I got. I remember that I kind of obsessed over what I was going to wear – black pants, a blood-red short-sleeve button up shirt, and a black tie – man, I looked GOOD!
Okay, so the big day! A typical Central Valley summer Tuesday in the Central Valley – hot! I went up on stage with my old Yamaha gutstring guitar and opened with ‘Green Green Grass Of Home’, followed by a comedy number that always got a great reaction, ‘Preacher And The Bear’. I was just about ready to launch into my best one, ‘Get Together’, when the emcee came up and took the mic. I was flabbergasted! And embarrassed! And sure that I was gonna lose!
Anyway, me and my groupies (Mom and Dad, I think) went back to the spot in Ralston Park where we were hanging out with a CB Radio club of which my dad was a member. I remember feeling really disappointed about the whole thing – to be shoved off the stage before my best song!
Dad and I went back to the stage for the announcement of the winners. We were standing in the back, watching all the winners troop up on stage to collect their applause and awards.
Then they called my name.
I remember looking at Dad in disbelief. And I remember him having to practically kick my butt to get me on my way onstage. They gave me this HUGE trophy – it must have been two feet tall with a huge golden eighth note at the top. It was only later that we realized that they had given me the wrong trophy – the plaque was engraved for the winner in the vocal group category – I kept it anyway. It just occured to me that it was such a big trophy because it was intended for a group – maybe the individual winners got somewhat smaller trophies.
I kept that trophy for a long time.
(to be continued in the next post…)
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