Omnibus

I haven't done much posting on here for the past few days, and since I updated you on my personal life below, here's some other important information that you might have missed during the past few days:

Jacob Sullum, a blogger for Reason, is apparently a beer snob - and I couldn't agree with him more. Really, Mr. President? Bud Light? What makes it even worse is that he obviously made that choice (or, more correctly, his image consultants did) because you want to look more appealing to the average middle class beer-drinking America: "Look, Obama isn't an Ivy League intellectual snob, he drinks crappy beer just like you!" The sad part is that they believe Joe the-middle-class-soon-to-be-out-of-work-beer-drinking-average-dude is more likely to say "I like Obama because he drinks Bud Light like me" than "I hate Obama's because he's raising taxes", and they are probably right.

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The "Cash for Clunkers" program is the definition of a successful failure, and even if you knew nothing about it, I bet you could guess that only a government idea could become the epitome of an oxy-moron. I guess no one in Washington bothered to think that giving people free money for a new car would get an overwhelming response. Now they are all acting surprised that so many people took advantage of the offer, and riding in to rescue a program that was a mistake in the first place. Remind me again - why does someone else having a crappy car give them a right to my tax money so they can get a better car? Did they pay help pay for my car? I don't remember that happening.

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Interesting fact about some new polls (and for the record, polls like this are crazy this far in advance of the next Presidential election): Mitt Romney is seeing both his "favorable" and "unfavorable" numbers decline. In other words, fewer people like him....and fewer people dislike him. How does that happen? Are people just completely apathetic about him? Maybe that's good for him, since every member of the GOP who gets attention is getting it for the wrong reasons (paging Jindal....Stanford....Palin....)

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Arlen Specter, also known as that Senator from Pennsylvania who flipped parties after the Democrats took control of everything in January, got loudly booed this weekend in Philadelphia. I can't wait to help kick him out of office next November. I'd vote for just about anyone over Specter at this point.

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Brand New is set to release a new album - so does that make Emo kids happy? or does it make them sadder? Does it make them happy to be feeling sadder, or sadder to be feeling happy? Will I ever understand Emo kids? Maybe the band is growing up a little, because there are 11 tracks on the album and only 19 words (total) in the 11 names. A few years ago, 19 words would get Brand New through about two song titles, if that. This is the band that has given us such verbose gems as:

"Good to Know That if I Ever Need Attention All I Have to Do is Die" (that's 16 words right there)
"Okay, I Believe You, But My Tommy Gun Don't"
"I Will Play My Game Beneath the Spin Light"

Though I must give a little credit. I've been busting on Brand New for a long time (and mostly they deserve it) but "Play Crack the Sky" is a really good, haunting song.

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The Dallas Cowboy's new stadium (which cost well over $1 Billion to build) will have luxury boxes where you can order pizza. The catch? That round slab of dough, cheese, and sauce (no toppings) will cost you $90. In my opinion, anyone who is paying that much for a pizza needs to seriously re-examine their lives.

Of course, to even rent one of those luxury boxes you have to pay $800,000 a year (and that doesn't actually include tickets to games), so maybe $90 for a pizza, $66 for a 12-pack of beer, and $22 for four Red Bulls is just small change. All I know is that if I had $800K to spend, I wouldn't use it to go see the Dallas Cowboys.

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Cab drivers in New York City are pretty much openly ignoring the cell phone use ban. This isn't much of a surprise though, since they already ignore most other traffic laws.

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This is pretty cool (even if it did come from the New York Times), a chart showing what people are doing at any given time during the day. It also makes a pretty background for your desktop.

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Let the countdown begin - exactly 2 weeks until Third Eye Blind's new album is finally released.