no.83 - Stubborness

Reliability is an admirable trait. Tenacity gets things done. When you are steadfast you can hold out against injustice for a lifetime.

But... when you are stubborn, you obnoxiously cling to your misguided beliefs because you are too proud or too thick or too vain to know you are completely wrong.

If only any of us could tell the difference.

no.82 - Demon of the Bad Hair Day

You've met this demon too. I know you have.

no.81 - The Toaster

The toaster's ubiquity is in direct contrast to its lack of versatility. Everyone lives in fear that this ridiculously simple device is going to burst into flames if it is left plugged in. Why should this be so? All it does is make sliced bread crispy.

Growing up, my mother always kept the toaster unplugged. Now so do I. I suspect there is a good chance you do to.

Why can't we trust them? We don't fear the other things that warm our food and they are all, on the surface, much more dangerous. My oven is snaked with pipes filled with toxic, flammable gas, but I don't shut off the main every time I finish cooking a lasagna. My microwave heats things up molecule by molecule with tiny mysterious waves of heat energy. It has to be ten times as complicated as my toaster, but nobody unplugs the microwave.

I would like to dismiss, as superstition, the toaster's reputation as hate and spark-filled monsters waiting to kill us all. It sounds alarmist and crazy to think a device should be so dangerous when it only serves to make bread crusty. More often than not, it will not even accept a bagel! It sounds like a story was cooked up in old-timey-times when the toaster was a newfangled marvel whose inflammability was part of the cost of being on the cutting edge.

But it isn't an old-timey wives tale.

Just last year, GE caused 140 fires with a single toaster model and ended up recalling 210,000 of the incendiary devices. Hamilton Beach recalled nearly half a million. That's just the last twelve months! These are huge companies who have been making toasters for probably longer than you have been alive!

How can we have come so far with our technology yet we cannot safely warm our bread? Why is the toaster so dangerous?

All the toaster does is make sliced bread crispy... and burn down homes.

no.80 - The Grand Poohbah

Yesterday my daughter and two of her friends, all aged four years, asked to stop by Pooh's House on the way home from school. If you aren't aware of it, there is an old tree at Harvard with a small door at the bottom labeled "Pooh."

As you can imagine, Pooh is never home, but looking inside, sometimes things are found, like a pretty rock or a small teacup sized for Piglet.

Peeking in the tree and imagining that Pooh might have been there only a little while before makes for a Very Exciting Trip.

Yesterday, however we found something decidedly less charming: A book of matches hand inscribed with the message, "Its your Lucky Day! Have a good one!"

I will assume that you have instantly formed an opinion about qualities of the person who left this gift. I would ask that you withhold judgment for a moment so that we can formulate as clear a picture as possible.

Consider the following:

Item #1: This person is enthusiastic!
Both sentences are punctuated with exclamation points. In fact he (I am assuming it is a male) went the extra mile to add "Have a good one!" to his initial message.

Item #2: This person is dedicated.
While it appears he has signed his work with the initial "W", this is just a jagged squiggle left behind as he tried to get his pen to work. You can not see it clearly online, but were you to hold it in your hand, you would see the zig-zag starts, inkless, on the other side. He wanted to write his message to the kids so badly that he had to expend extra effort to get started.

Item #3: This person does not smoke.
The pack of matches is full, not one has been pulled or struck.

Item #4: This person is a giver.
He gave matches to kids knowing he would never receive any thanks for it.

Item #5: This person thinks outside the box.
Given that the sign reads "Pooh" we can all be glad that he did not take the obvious emotionally disturbed route and treat the sign as a label for what he could fill Pooh's house with.
So, we have a creative, generous, enthusiastic, dedicated non-smoker.

For a brief moment, this was how my daughter saw him - as someone great who left a gift. She did not know what matches are. When I explained how matches make fire, how they are not a toy, how they could really hurt someone, she did not take it in at first.

Then, I explained that this was the reason we don't talk to strangers. Here was someone who does not know you, who wants to hurt you. Despite appearances, even a four year old could see what sort of person this was.

What we cannot know is exactly who, which is a shame, because I have a gift I would like to give him in return.

no.79 - Netflix

Demonizing Netflix for its pop-under advertisements right after a post about one of the most corrupt, malevolent souls of the 21st century may be a radical downshift, but Netflix still sucks donkey turds for using the pop-under.

Really, Netflix, you know it's wrong or you wouldn't pop-under. You'd put your ad right on the page beside the seizure inducing dancing girl ads for low interest mortgages. (Which don't run anymore because the economy is so bad there is no one left to take advantage of with a fake mortgage scam.)

A pop-up is pretty obnoxious. It's like a guy handing out flyers on the sidewalk who steps right into your path putting the flyer inches from your eyeballs. But a pop-under is like a guy sneaking the flyer into your pocket. It's creepy and wrong. And... I've asked you not to do it! (You choose to circumvent the pop-up blocker I use.)

What do you think I'm going to do when I find your obnoxious red ad hiding there under my windows after a trip to Snopes.com?

If you don't know the answer, Netflix, the answer is: I ignore you and your unscrupulous ways. I'm not going to have anything to do with you. No way will I trust my address and credit card information to a bunch of desperate, low-life weasels who want to sneak ads under my browser where the obvious purpose must be to manipulate me subconsciously. You could call it a boycott, if a boycott means not patronizing a service so clearly untrustworthy.

Really, how pathetic is your service that this is how you choose to advertise?

In short; you suck and I'll keep walking to the video store - thanks. I hope everyone else does the same.

Netflix Chief Executive Officer Reed Hastings - deserves a pie in the face for every pop-under.

no.78 - Omar Hassan al-Bashir

In honor of the issuance of your arrest warrant for crimes against humanity, let me wish upon you dreams filled tenfold with visions of everything you ever asked for — or ordered.

I drew a little cartoon of you because I know you love cartoons.