Examples of Insanity

A school district in Kentucky will be shutting down their entire school system on Monday to disinfect the schools because a student in that district died of the SUPERBUG.

This was announced today... um... while I applaud their proactive stance of disinfecting the school (despite the fact it probably won’t do any good because “experts” have said that kids can get it from sharing a towel with someone... euw, even the the MEDIA screams that its the next plague and we’ll all die of it because its uncontrollable... except for those antibiotics the “experts” say will kill it) why are they doing it Monday? Why don’t they get off their butts and disinfect the school during the weekend?

For the safety of the kids, they’ll closing the schools on Monday, which means parents will need to either stay home from their jobs to watch their children, or pay to find some other place to watch them. The kids lose a day of learning (and from the news reports I’m hearing, they can’t afford to miss one day because they can barely read once they graduate), so why do it Monday, why not right now? Why can’t the school board get in there with their cleaning rags (don’t share those) and scrub down that school on the weekend?

Mothers Against Drunk Driving has sent a letter to Mothers Against Illegal Aliens telling them to stop using the “Mothers Against” words because people may think the illegal alien hating moms are the same moms that hate drunk drivers. Um, I think I can tell the difference. Here is the list that I found of “Mothers Against” organizations:

Mothers against peeing standing up
Mothers against circumcision
Mothers against jesus
Mothers against videogame addiction and violence
Mothers against methamphetamine
Mothers against noise
Mothers against Arpaio
Mothers against Maddox
Mothers against star wars galaxies
mothers against the draft (probably hasn’t been busy there since we don’t have one)
mothers against misuse and abuse
mothers against munchausen by proxy allegations
mothers against sexual abuse
mothers against guns
mothers against school hazing
mothers against teen violence
mothers against dog chaining
mothers against gang wars
mothers against noise
mothers against brie and chardonney
Mother against murder and aggression
mothers against burning tires
mothers against blogging
mothers against brain injury
mothers against genetic engineering
mothers against fathers in arrears

The list goes on... guess MADD is all for those other things, apparently not so much against illegal aliens.

Ok all you mothers, don’t be against anything, because that’s copyrighted!

Hand Painted... digitally?

Hubby and I were walking through the mall last night and I saw this in a camera store (I've removed identifiers that would most likely get me sued for goofing on this).

Its a placard under a "portrait" that advertises "digitally hand painted" portraits.

Granted, I've seen some VERY nice digital paintings. When I think digital paintings, I see someone with a blank slate who uses the digital pad and pen to freehand paint either something in their head, or recreate something they are looking at. What this store was selling looked suspiciously like a digital program that with a click of a button, turns a picture into something that resembles a painting, that was printed onto canvas to make it look more like a painting. Every flaw from the photograph was there, every detail, everything. Its something that any third grader can do with a reasonably priced photo editor and printer. Once click and TAHDAH!

Ok great, if you don't have a computer, or the computer savvy of a third grader and can't do this for yourself and want it done, fine, but to call it "hand painted"?

I have the highest regard for people that embroider. They take actual needles, and actual thread, and they use the needle and thread to follow a pattern and make something pretty cool looking. It takes a lot of work, time, and probably more than a few pokes from the needle.

On the other hand, you now have sewing machines that you plop a USB card into with a picture, load up the right color thread and that sucker spews out the exact replica of the picture on the card. All the person has to do is... nothing, they could be in another room watching tv for all you know, and yet they expect the same admiration and ooohing and aahing as if they spent months painstakingly poking needle through fabric and doing it by hand. That's not art, that's lazy and sweat shop-like.

We're becoming a mass production "art" machine. Just about anyone with a computer and printer can make their own cards, invitations, t-shirts, or whatever and usually "borrow" other people's hard work to get the perfect picture to slap on those things. Its not the finished product that counts, its actually HOW you get the finished project.

Taking something from your head and creating it yourself, not slapping a pre-made template into a machine and printing it out, there's no glory or pride in that.

Stop making things seem like something else. If you take a picture, click a button, print it on a canvas, don't call it "hand painted". If you smoosh paints on a pallet, use a brush and paint something you are looking at or have in your head... that's hand painted.

Coming Soon to a School Near You

How Do These Things Happen?

Last night hubby and I went to a school charity Bull and Oyster Roast at a local volunteer fire department hall.

I had heard of these mysterious “Bull and Oyster Roast” things mostly in conjunction with fund-raising, but had never attended one mainly because:

1.) I don’t like oysters. Raw oysters are nasty, phlegm-like and frankly if I wanted that sensation, I just have to wait until I catch my next cold and experience it for free. Not only that, but I hear there are some nasty illnesses you can get from eating those things, so I’ll pass.

2.) Unless they are roasting a whole bull on a spit, I’m guessing the “bull” part is beef, and frankly you can get that anywhere, so even if its for a good cause, why spend $35 to go to a dreary volunteer fire department hall and eat beef?

As I expected, we arrived and knew nobody, well, hubby knew one guy from work, the one that sold him the tickets, the rest were strangers all grouped at tables by who knew who. We sat at a table alone for the most part. The “bull and oyster roast” was actually coleslaw (tasty), cooked shreds of ham, turkey, and beef (there’s the bull part), but no oysters. Hey! How can you call it a bull and oyster roast if there are no oysters. Sure, the cookies were good, but I felt cheated because I didn’t get a chance to rant about the nasty consistency of raw oysters and their inherent diseases to complete strangers.

The entertainment consisted of someone spinning a wheel, people putting money on numbers and if the wheel hit that number, they won money. Um... wait a minute, isn’t that gambling and illegal in the state of Maryland?

They also had a raffle, and were selling tickets to a 50/50 thing where they spun a wheel and if the number on your ticket matched... hey, isn’t that gambling. I felt as though any moment we’d be raided by a government agency and arrested.

The entertainment that night was a DJ. Ok, these people make a living (usually a side-living) by playing music for people who can’t (and usually don’t) dance, but this one took it to the very extreme by being... proactive and chipper. Disgustingly chipper, and chatty. He did lame magic tricks with members of the audience (yawn), then they “played a game” where team members had to put on wacky clothes and run back wearing the wacky clothes, take said wacky clothes off and another person dashed across the dance floor and put on the wacky clothes. I thought the funniest thing about this “contest” was that the losing team actually seemed very upset by the fact that the other team “cheated”. Are you kidding me? They’re arguing over a wacky game?

Placated by a funny plastic hat given to all participants (oh brother) the “real” music began... the Electric Slide.

This is where the whole “how do these things happen” topic starts. How does this crap start, spread, and get danced all over the world? Everything from the chicken dance, to the YMCA song, these things have to start somewhere by some idiot, but how do they spread all over, and why? Apparently the “Electric Slide” according to Wikipedia was started by someone in 1976, but actually found its “craze” in 1989. The person that “created” it, actually sues those that post people doing it wrong on video upload sites. Are ya kidding me?

For some reason I was never a participant of such line dancing, having been scarred for life during the whole “disco” craze, and being forced to suffer through “disco dancing” in high school PE class (I’m guessing that was the beginning of the end for high school PE and the very cause of the obesity problem in school children, but call me crazy).

So, last night I sat in awe as people sat out of other dance tunes, but like zombies with no minds, the moment that song started, lurched to the dance floor and did the steps. It was all women too, which bolsters the following theory:

1.) women like to dance, so they drag their husbands and boyfriends to dance places where their male significant others refuse to dance.
2.) women can only pee in groups
3.) out of necessity and the need to dance, the pee groups came out of the bathroom one time, heard a catchy little tune and created a dance (since the “creator” of the electric slide is sue happy, I expect my lawsuit summons in the mail at any moment for saying that women who have peed created this “fad”)
4.) Once the pee group got snippy with each other over something stupid, each member of the pee group started a new pee group, passing on the wacky dance to them, and from there it spread like wildfire because women tend to argue about stupid things and dump their friends for the smallest infraction (before any women sue me, I’m a woman, shut up, I know what I’m talking about)

So, we can thank women with small bladders and the need to dance in groups without their men for suffering through this crap at functions big and small. Now, I’d really like to know who put old Glen Miller dance tunes to a funky beat and strangle them, the same goes for those Macarena morons.