via instapundit...is it copyright infringement? marketing savvy? or just coincidence?
well, my money is on the marketing; but who's really copying who? the boys at pepsi are no doubt trying to hook their wagon to the new superstar...for one thing, there's a big new chicago headquarters and it stands to reason they would try to make the tie-in to the hometown boy. but pepsi's slogans have for decades tried to appeal to the new, young generation. and the old pepsi logo looks eerily similar and could just as well have inspired the hopeychangey "o". well, regardless of who's ripping off who...it's one more reason for me to dislike that syrupy-sweet, flat-tasting imitation coca cola.
because it wouldn't be the first time that pepsi embraced exclusionary elitism to promote their brand. years ago i read the story of the corporate recruiters who come to college campuses to try to attract fresh meat into the company fold. and one of the main selling points of the pepsi people was to disparage coca cola as being old and stupid and slow...because you know, they're (shudder) a southern company based in atlanta. now pepsi on the other hand, they said, is based in hip and cosmopolitan new york...way cooler, way smarter, and so much more with it than those clingy, ignernt, porch-sittin' southern folk.
yeah, it does sound familiar...and looks familiar too. fuck pepsi, and the "o", and the logo they rode in on. i'm gonna go get me a coke.
jtc
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Sunday, December 28, 2008
response becomes reminisce becomes rant...
the munchkin wrangler references (and soundly disputes) a "study" that concludes: “sexual content on tv is linked to teen pregnancy rates”. well, me being me, i started to offer a comment of agreeance...then i sorta went all tangential...
well, i can put the lie to that little study with my own personal little anecdotal history. there surely wasn’t any “sexual content” on tv in my little town in the 60’s and 70’s; we got snowy reception of abc and nbc only, and cable was just a rumor when my sweetie and i were missing the onscreen “features” in lieu of our own at the local drive-in…backseat rendezvous which eventually and predictably resulted in my daughter’s debut when we were both just 17.
hard to put the blame on something that didn’t exist, and we weren’t the only ones…several of our classmates made babies that year and the next, though we might be the only ones still together after 37 years; it’s not an easy or advisable path, that’s for sure. but it wasn't hbo, and it wasn’t ignorance either; this was the height of the counterculture age of “making love not war” which resulted in some fairly blunt and practical sex-ed courses in school, and most of us had pretty straight talk from the parental units at home on the possibilities and consequences. still, it was before aids had reared its ugly head and condoms were used not as much for std prevention as for their decidedly imperfect role of baby prevention, and there were those- ahem- whose preference for bareback sometimes outweighed the potential for parenthood in the heat of the moment, but who decided to accept responsibility and embrace the role of parent once it was, uh, thrust upon us.
but none of this is to say that popular entertainment for our young is anything to champion…the internet, videos, movies, “music”, and yes, television to which our young are exposed and addicted, has absolutely had its negative effects on their concept of what is good and decent and worthy as related to attitudes and actions towards others and even themselves; nudity and sex and love have been degraded and defiled and dulled to the point of eclipsing the beauty, tenderness, sacredness...and personal responsibility...that human relations are based on.
censorship at the hands of parents is an excellent tool; we limit the choices of those who are not yet mature enough to make wise decisions…but in the hands of gov, censorship and restriction of anything; entertainment, drugs, guns, and any other victimless pursuit or pleasure, is fallacy…even counterproductive as evidenced by the reduction in unwanted pregnancies, addictions, and other aberrant behaviors in societies which leave such choices up to adult individuals. that is one of the strongest arguments for "little l” libertarianism, and one which has been and probably will continue to be ignored as peripheral or antithetical to common thought and more importantly to those who would wield it, political control.
jtc
well, i can put the lie to that little study with my own personal little anecdotal history. there surely wasn’t any “sexual content” on tv in my little town in the 60’s and 70’s; we got snowy reception of abc and nbc only, and cable was just a rumor when my sweetie and i were missing the onscreen “features” in lieu of our own at the local drive-in…backseat rendezvous which eventually and predictably resulted in my daughter’s debut when we were both just 17.
hard to put the blame on something that didn’t exist, and we weren’t the only ones…several of our classmates made babies that year and the next, though we might be the only ones still together after 37 years; it’s not an easy or advisable path, that’s for sure. but it wasn't hbo, and it wasn’t ignorance either; this was the height of the counterculture age of “making love not war” which resulted in some fairly blunt and practical sex-ed courses in school, and most of us had pretty straight talk from the parental units at home on the possibilities and consequences. still, it was before aids had reared its ugly head and condoms were used not as much for std prevention as for their decidedly imperfect role of baby prevention, and there were those- ahem- whose preference for bareback sometimes outweighed the potential for parenthood in the heat of the moment, but who decided to accept responsibility and embrace the role of parent once it was, uh, thrust upon us.
but none of this is to say that popular entertainment for our young is anything to champion…the internet, videos, movies, “music”, and yes, television to which our young are exposed and addicted, has absolutely had its negative effects on their concept of what is good and decent and worthy as related to attitudes and actions towards others and even themselves; nudity and sex and love have been degraded and defiled and dulled to the point of eclipsing the beauty, tenderness, sacredness...and personal responsibility...that human relations are based on.
censorship at the hands of parents is an excellent tool; we limit the choices of those who are not yet mature enough to make wise decisions…but in the hands of gov, censorship and restriction of anything; entertainment, drugs, guns, and any other victimless pursuit or pleasure, is fallacy…even counterproductive as evidenced by the reduction in unwanted pregnancies, addictions, and other aberrant behaviors in societies which leave such choices up to adult individuals. that is one of the strongest arguments for "little l” libertarianism, and one which has been and probably will continue to be ignored as peripheral or antithetical to common thought and more importantly to those who would wield it, political control.
jtc
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
merry Christmas to all...
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and best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009.
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and best wishes for a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2009.
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Sunday, December 21, 2008
nothin' but the truth...
wow...today's day-by-day editorial episode is just amazing; truer words were never spoken, um, i mean written...well you know what i mean.
jtc
jtc
Thursday, December 18, 2008
thirty seven years...where did they go?
as i mentioned in the biff burger reminisce in my last post, today marks thirty seven years since my terrified little 17 year old ass joined together under the watchful eyes of God with the most awesome 5 foot nothing package of georgia dynamite He ever created. the baptist church where we sometimes went just to have an excuse for a sunday morning date was right next door to the old-line hardware store where i pulled down the huge sum of two bucks an hour for the first year we were married...and the other guys and gals at the store abandoned their posts for a few minutes when we came out of the church to shower us with rice. then it was off to the holiday inn for a one-night honeymoon, and back to our tiny one bedroom upstairs apartment which we had decorated for Christmas with lights on the wall in the shape of a tree. happy but scary times, with a baby girl on the way and a '61 vw bug that my pregnant girl had to help me push-start so we could go to the baby doctor...but i'd go back and do it all again without a second's hesitation.
how in the world could she be the same age as me, have the capacity for hard work beyond someone twice her size (me), a dedication and devotion to her children and grandchildren that amazes me every day, plus put up with my crap all these years and still look twenty years younger? i am one lucky s.o.b., and i thank my lucky stars for her every day.
happy anniversary, babe...looking forward to number thirty eight.
jtc
how in the world could she be the same age as me, have the capacity for hard work beyond someone twice her size (me), a dedication and devotion to her children and grandchildren that amazes me every day, plus put up with my crap all these years and still look twenty years younger? i am one lucky s.o.b., and i thank my lucky stars for her every day.
happy anniversary, babe...looking forward to number thirty eight.
jtc
Thursday, December 4, 2008
on hiatus...
well it's back to work, for a while at least, as my son and i enact step three of my little obama recovery plan (see previous post).
doing the blog thing (a little posting of my own, but mostly cruising and commenting at others' places that i like) eats up time that i need to put to more productive, if not more enjoyable and educational, use. i have to say that i have been amazed at the knowledgeable, intelligent, creative, and often hilarious discourse at the blogsites i have frequented the last several months; thanks for that.
so ya'll play nice, and as frosty said as he melted away, "i'll be back again someday.."
jtc
doing the blog thing (a little posting of my own, but mostly cruising and commenting at others' places that i like) eats up time that i need to put to more productive, if not more enjoyable and educational, use. i have to say that i have been amazed at the knowledgeable, intelligent, creative, and often hilarious discourse at the blogsites i have frequented the last several months; thanks for that.
so ya'll play nice, and as frosty said as he melted away, "i'll be back again someday.."
jtc
Saturday, November 29, 2008
hey kids! learn how to have fun and profit from "the obama recovery"
the talking heads at the msnbc financial desk are telling us the three things we should invest in to profit as obama "fixes" the economy...yeah, those would be the same heads who totally missed (or worse, consorted to conceal) the falling domino effect as the various components of that economy fell hard and fast after being ballyhooed and cheered on to dizzying and unsustainable heights by...them.
me, i'll take a different tack; herewith, my own three-pronged plan:
1. guns and gun stuff. the widely reported boom in gun sales is really nothing new...something similar happened in '94 when the clinton ban enriched gun dealers nationwide by inflating the value of what had been common and not much in demand (a lot of 10 new-in-cosmolene norinco sks rifles was $690 wholesale in '92, you know what they are now); i was the serendipitous beneficiary of a lot of that...it was the most profitable period in my thirty years as an ffl...but it's different this time; the anti's learned some lessons, and disingenuous denials aside, there will certainly be a concerted if serruptitious effort to remove and ban hardware and supplies from the access of civilian Americans, backed up with legislation and a stacked deck of judiciary to make sure that those who would resist can be squashed for their impertinence. so after having divested most of my personal firearms inventory over the last eight years, i'm buying again...any and every decent firearm that i can buy "right", cases of ammunition, and though i never got into reloading, i'm also stocking supplies and dies for that...mostly because they don't want me to, but also just in case. and what better way to protect your assets and have some fun?
2. hard money. like guns, gold and silver are universal currency. because the values have skyrocketed over the last few years, much of what i had accumulated and kept when i sold my pawn store a few years ago in the way of gold and silver coins, bars, and heavy gold jewelry (heavy-link high-karat gold chains have for centuries been the favored mode of exchange in parts of the world where the politics are, shall we say, unpredictable) have been liquidated for profit. but now i'm buying again.
3. the pawn and estate brokering business. having spent thirty years behind the counter i was about fried and ready for some r&r when i sold out to clint in late '05, and i really still have little stomach for resuming the traditional-type pawn business. but my son, now 24 and back in fla with us, has sold his business in georgia and taken jewelry repair/goldsmithing school to develop a trade that will always be in demand...and with a major "redistribution" in the offing, people who have accumulated luxury items like jewelry, high-end watches, exotic cars and other unessential trappings of nouveau wealth, are going to be selling them off and/or using them as collateral to fund their expenses for the foreseeable future. so we're opening a nice little custom jewelry shop where eric can do his creative thing and do repairs and restorations, and i've kept my state pawn and estate broker's license active enabling us to do selective loans and purchases of expensive, but expendable luxury items.
not quite the path advised in the msnbc story, is it? yeah, well, that's exactly the point. let the "o" and his minions invest in his brave new "green" world, sink what remains of their cash into his "securities", and buy stock in the government-beholden "companies" that will do the fake make-work as the socialist regime re-enacts the wpa under their new, new deal...good luck with that.
ya'll go your way, i'll go mine.
jtc
me, i'll take a different tack; herewith, my own three-pronged plan:
1. guns and gun stuff. the widely reported boom in gun sales is really nothing new...something similar happened in '94 when the clinton ban enriched gun dealers nationwide by inflating the value of what had been common and not much in demand (a lot of 10 new-in-cosmolene norinco sks rifles was $690 wholesale in '92, you know what they are now); i was the serendipitous beneficiary of a lot of that...it was the most profitable period in my thirty years as an ffl...but it's different this time; the anti's learned some lessons, and disingenuous denials aside, there will certainly be a concerted if serruptitious effort to remove and ban hardware and supplies from the access of civilian Americans, backed up with legislation and a stacked deck of judiciary to make sure that those who would resist can be squashed for their impertinence. so after having divested most of my personal firearms inventory over the last eight years, i'm buying again...any and every decent firearm that i can buy "right", cases of ammunition, and though i never got into reloading, i'm also stocking supplies and dies for that...mostly because they don't want me to, but also just in case. and what better way to protect your assets and have some fun?
2. hard money. like guns, gold and silver are universal currency. because the values have skyrocketed over the last few years, much of what i had accumulated and kept when i sold my pawn store a few years ago in the way of gold and silver coins, bars, and heavy gold jewelry (heavy-link high-karat gold chains have for centuries been the favored mode of exchange in parts of the world where the politics are, shall we say, unpredictable) have been liquidated for profit. but now i'm buying again.
3. the pawn and estate brokering business. having spent thirty years behind the counter i was about fried and ready for some r&r when i sold out to clint in late '05, and i really still have little stomach for resuming the traditional-type pawn business. but my son, now 24 and back in fla with us, has sold his business in georgia and taken jewelry repair/goldsmithing school to develop a trade that will always be in demand...and with a major "redistribution" in the offing, people who have accumulated luxury items like jewelry, high-end watches, exotic cars and other unessential trappings of nouveau wealth, are going to be selling them off and/or using them as collateral to fund their expenses for the foreseeable future. so we're opening a nice little custom jewelry shop where eric can do his creative thing and do repairs and restorations, and i've kept my state pawn and estate broker's license active enabling us to do selective loans and purchases of expensive, but expendable luxury items.
not quite the path advised in the msnbc story, is it? yeah, well, that's exactly the point. let the "o" and his minions invest in his brave new "green" world, sink what remains of their cash into his "securities", and buy stock in the government-beholden "companies" that will do the fake make-work as the socialist regime re-enacts the wpa under their new, new deal...good luck with that.
ya'll go your way, i'll go mine.
jtc
Thursday, November 27, 2008
thanks giving
the same simple lines from the blessing we said as children applies just as well today...no matter what.
Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, God, for everything.
Thank you for the world so sweet,
Thank you for the food we eat,
Thank you for the birds that sing,
Thank you, God, for everything.
Saturday, November 22, 2008
where were you forty five years ago today?
it's one of those iconic occurences that freeze us in time.
on this day in 1963 the young and charismatic president john f. kennedy was assassinated...and many say this nation's innocence was murdered along with him.
one thing is undeniably true; if you are old enough to remember that day, you no doubt have a sickening sense of deja vu when you think of it...
myself, i was a nine year old playing football in the schoolyard of our little stucco schoolhouse on the shore of lake okeechobee , waiting for the bus to take us home three miles out u.s. 98 among the sugar cane fields, when the word spread that the president had been shot; we didn't know until walter cronkite told us that evening in fuzzy black-and-white that he had died.
we kids didn't really know much about the politics of the day of course, but thinking of it now still brings an odd snapshot image back to me of that sunny play yard and a sense that the happy and carefree childhood that we were enjoying one moment was gone the next.
would history have taken a different course if kennedy had not been killed that day? would the events that were hurtling us deeper into a war in some tiny God forsaken place that none of us had heard of, but quite a few of us would soon find ourselves in -with some of us never to return- have been altered under his guidance? the powder keg of unrest, the uprising on our campuses, racial war and rioting in the streets...would it have been the same if jfk had remained at the helm of our ship of state?
my own sense is that history holds him in a frozen reverence that would not have been possible had he lived and found himself forced to deal with those issues of the era; the world was in upheaval and exploding all around us, perhaps speeded along by the shooting, but inevitable anyway...it would have been more than the legacy of any president, no matter how powerfully inspirational, could endure.
but we will never know.
jtc
Monday, November 17, 2008
the empowerment of cassie...
xavier has a new protege...the need for cassie to go into areas where potential aggressors lurk had her justifiably concerned...i think that apprehension will soon evaporate, and the areas where she works...and the world...will be the better for it. this was my comment on xavier's story:
she is very fortunate to have you as a friend and mentor...
an aside, though...there are no "menacing locations", just places where menacing thugs are likely to congregate and take advantage of the unprotected.
but thanks to you and others like you, cassie's armed and capable presence there along with a growing army of similarly determined and inclined free and fearless citizens are our best hope to reclaim those areas from the evil, opportunistic lowlifes there, and in the process free the good people who are no doubt the majority there to live their lives fearlessly as well.
ain't equalized freedom great? protect the right of xavier to teach and cassie to be empowered, and ultimately save the world...what a concept, and more critical now than ever.
and keep up the good work, xavier...you are an inspiration.
jtc
she is very fortunate to have you as a friend and mentor...
an aside, though...there are no "menacing locations", just places where menacing thugs are likely to congregate and take advantage of the unprotected.
but thanks to you and others like you, cassie's armed and capable presence there along with a growing army of similarly determined and inclined free and fearless citizens are our best hope to reclaim those areas from the evil, opportunistic lowlifes there, and in the process free the good people who are no doubt the majority there to live their lives fearlessly as well.
ain't equalized freedom great? protect the right of xavier to teach and cassie to be empowered, and ultimately save the world...what a concept, and more critical now than ever.
and keep up the good work, xavier...you are an inspiration.
jtc
Saturday, November 15, 2008
and so it begins...
didn't take the leftist msm cartoonists long to show their fear of the possibility of palin in '12...that oughta tell ya something.
jtc
jtc
Monday, November 10, 2008
thank you...
to every veteran, past, present, and future...for your service, for your sacrifice, for saving the world then as now...from the bottom of my heart, thank you.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
well, this is it...
get out there and vote, ya'll!
'cause like ol' yogi said "i loves picinic baskets!"...wait, wrong yogi.
oh, here it is..."it ain't over till it's over"...yeah, that's it...VOTE!
jtc
'cause like ol' yogi said "i loves picinic baskets!"...wait, wrong yogi.
oh, here it is..."it ain't over till it's over"...yeah, that's it...VOTE!
jtc
Sunday, November 2, 2008
what it's really all about...
in the midst of a lively political exchange over at the munchkin wrangler, marko's blog system automatically placed a comment of mine in the moderation queu because i had insterted two links to posts at view from the porch.
when i questioned that, marko later answered that he had been busy feeding and preparing his children for bed...which brought focus anew to what all the chattering is really all about; our children (and in my case grandchildren).
here's three of mine (my oldest daughters two "kids" are not shown; they're teenagers for crying out loud!).
evan...
grace...
ozzy...
and evan and ozzy.
when i questioned that, marko later answered that he had been busy feeding and preparing his children for bed...which brought focus anew to what all the chattering is really all about; our children (and in my case grandchildren).
here's three of mine (my oldest daughters two "kids" are not shown; they're teenagers for crying out loud!).
evan...
grace...
ozzy...
and evan and ozzy.
Friday, October 31, 2008
110% voter participation...
voter registration smashes all records...
well, sure...when you count dead folks, felons, pets, and illegal aliens it ain't so hard...
jtc
well, sure...when you count dead folks, felons, pets, and illegal aliens it ain't so hard...
jtc
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
wasting away again...
in obamaville.
just saw on the late news that jimmy buffet will give a free concert in nearby tampa's ford amphitheater that is really an undisguised and unapologetic mega-rally for bo...it's the "last chance for change rally and concert" on sunday 11/2.
just another icon of my boomer generation in the tank for the obamessiah.
well, i guess the "o" is the 21st century maharishi m. yogi or l.r. hubbard...those privileged self-haters just have to have some magical someone or something to give their empty existence meaning.
adios, jimmy...i'll never waste away another three minutes listening to you again.
jtc
just saw on the late news that jimmy buffet will give a free concert in nearby tampa's ford amphitheater that is really an undisguised and unapologetic mega-rally for bo...it's the "last chance for change rally and concert" on sunday 11/2.
just another icon of my boomer generation in the tank for the obamessiah.
well, i guess the "o" is the 21st century maharishi m. yogi or l.r. hubbard...those privileged self-haters just have to have some magical someone or something to give their empty existence meaning.
adios, jimmy...i'll never waste away another three minutes listening to you again.
jtc
poll lock
no, not archie bunker's nickname for his son in law or the hard-working folks of poland...
what we're talkin' about here is the avalanche of polls being run by various and sundry vested interests to divine the leanings of likely voters. you've got yer msm'ers over at nbc/wsj and the ap, then you've got yer private "commissioned" polls run at the behest of unions and other "neutral" groups...yeah, right.
what they've all got in common is this: polls cost money to run and guess who's got the money in this here ratrace? yes, that would be the people of the "o", whether funded directly or just in the tank for the desired outcome, the polls are overwhelmingly slanted in their presentation, verbiage, and reported results.
and that's just a manifestation of one of our favorite refrains here at the pawnbroker's place...that perception is fairly easily shaped, and once shaped quickly morphs into reality. repeat enough times that the margin is overwhelming and that the "issues that are important" are weighed even more overwhelmingly in favor of the "client" and marginalize the issues where the client trails, and it might render that pesky election thing moot.
yep, there's a poll lock, all right...the whole shebang is all locked up and there's really no need for you bitter clingers to bother...that shit works, and they know it works; don't let it work on you and maybe, just maybe...the one poll that really counts, the one where you walk into that booth one week from today, will be the one where we the people hold the key to the lock.
jtc
what we're talkin' about here is the avalanche of polls being run by various and sundry vested interests to divine the leanings of likely voters. you've got yer msm'ers over at nbc/wsj and the ap, then you've got yer private "commissioned" polls run at the behest of unions and other "neutral" groups...yeah, right.
what they've all got in common is this: polls cost money to run and guess who's got the money in this here ratrace? yes, that would be the people of the "o", whether funded directly or just in the tank for the desired outcome, the polls are overwhelmingly slanted in their presentation, verbiage, and reported results.
and that's just a manifestation of one of our favorite refrains here at the pawnbroker's place...that perception is fairly easily shaped, and once shaped quickly morphs into reality. repeat enough times that the margin is overwhelming and that the "issues that are important" are weighed even more overwhelmingly in favor of the "client" and marginalize the issues where the client trails, and it might render that pesky election thing moot.
yep, there's a poll lock, all right...the whole shebang is all locked up and there's really no need for you bitter clingers to bother...that shit works, and they know it works; don't let it work on you and maybe, just maybe...the one poll that really counts, the one where you walk into that booth one week from today, will be the one where we the people hold the key to the lock.
jtc
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