Fiscal Cliff Won't Prevent Birthdays

However walking off a real cliff will probably prove celebrating challenging.

We made through another Congressional-imposed cliff and just by the skin of our teeth. Oh the fun. One Congressman, Rep. Steve LaTourette, R-Ohio, told CNN's Dana Bash that he and his colleagues won't be hemmed in by the votes of "sleep-deprived octogenarians" in the Senate. Yep, bipartisanship is alive and kicking!

But I don't want to dedicate today's space to the bi-partisan incompetence taking place just a few dozen miles from my desk. Nope today is the first post of the new year and I'm making a resolution (even though I said last year that I won't make any more resolutions...oh well) to provide more new content this year than I have in the past two. For you that's more of my semi-comedic ramblings and for me it's free therapy because unfortunately my medical insurance doesn't see me as medically certifiable so I can't get to see a shrink on their dime. No today's post is dedicated to two birthday's and unfortunately none have to do with octogenarians but one does have to do with flaky cliffs.

Today, the nice folks at Nestle foods remind us that it is the "90-ish" birthday of Bart Simpson's former favorite chocolatey treat, Butterfingers. Butterfinger designated 2013 as a benchmark for its first 90ish years, as the candy bar originally invented by Chicago’s Curtiss Candy Company was believed to have been promoted as early as 1923 (before it ultimately was sold to Nestlé in 1990). However, Butterfinger parent company Nestlé holds a trademark document from 1928, thus the 90ish reference around its anniversary, keeping in line with the brand’s irreverent sense of humor.  The folks over at NPR even did a full story on it today.

Now I am a connoisseur of finer chocolates everywhere and Butterfingers rank up there with some of the best. We all know it's not as great as a Toblerone or even the gold standard, REESE'S Peanut Butter Cup, but it is consistent and it's always good. Plus because it's flaky you are almost guaranteed a surprise flake or two in your lap or shirt pocket a few hours later so it's an added bonus. 

Almost as cool as the pseudo birthday of a candy bar is that my kid, Bloggerman Jr. turned 2 years old a few days ago. Do you realize what this means? Well, yes there is a discount now for day care. Ok, I guess you can look at it as he's another year closer to leaving the house. Fine, he's almost ready to get a job and start pulling his weight around here. But I'm talking about something even bigger then all that. As of his birthday, I no longer have to take out a pen and pad to figure out how old he is when people ask me. There is no more, "well he's almost 21 months now..." Nope. He's 2. Next year he'll be 3, and so on. I don't have to think, I don't have to figure, and most of all I don't have to get overly annoyed, vexed, or irked by slack jawed yokles asking me his exact age. Happy Birthday Kid!

Read more here: http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/01/01/4513933/butterfinger-celebrates-90ish.html#storylink=cpy

Now that's Living!

While many of us have dreamed about what it might be like to live at Ikea, one man is making our dreams reality. Mark Malkoff of New York City is spending a few days (and nights) at Ikea in Paramus, NJ (yeah Bergen County!!) while his apartment is being fumigated.

The story can be found at CNN and you can follow his daily progress on his website.

I personally hope he cracks. It's not that I don't like the creativity of his stunt or perhaps the huge advertising campaign that Ikea should get behind ("We have so much merchandise you can furnish your whole home. Don't believe us? Come live in our store!"). Rather I just want to see him go crazy for the fun of it. I mean there's just so many swedish meatballs and lingunberry juice that one man can eat.

By the way the record for the most meatballs (swedish or otherwise) eaten is: 10 pounds, 3 Ounces by Sonya "The Black Widow" Thomas. Now why do I feel like a salad?

New Year, New Me?

Well not really (again, Hertz should be paying me for these constant plugs!) but I am excited for the year upcoming and all the posts to this blog that will accompany it. To start things off I want to thank our hosts for New Years (you know who you are) as both Mr. Blogger and his wife (Mrs. Blogger) had a great time with friends and hope to do it again soon.

Now speaking of New Year’s I want to take a moment to take issue with the so-called “New Year’s Eve” programming that the networks (both broadcast and cable) trotted out this year to entertain those of us sitting at home. Every year, it seems, these bastions of mindless entertainment out do each other in the vapid, idiotic, and down right OUCH they manage to program into a few hours every December 31.

Here is just a sampling of what I saw: (in alphabetical order)

ABC

Dick Clark is alive, we get it. He looks pretty good for a man his age especially considering his recent health scare. However, to hear him talk for even a few moments is intensely painful and reminds us that even before the stroke people accused him of being a robot with human skin. Well to their credit he looks even more so now, only this time around his speech matches his amour plating.

I realize that taking Mr. Clark off the air entirely would leave the job up to Ryan Seacrest (Out) but it might be worth the sacrifice. At least this way I could skip the American Broadcasting Company’s programming all together. Seacrest had some in depth observations when talking to New York mayor Mike Bloomberg. When the mayor said he wouldn’t run for President (I still don’t believe him), Seacrest stood there with the “err…what do I say to this guy now?” look on his face. He did however seem more at ease with Carrie Underwood and the Jonas brothers (who?????)

CNN

Pretty-boy Anderson Cooper hosted from New York and other then the timeouts for national news (the same national news that had been airing since 12pm in the afternoon) was just as painful. Perhaps its my high aspirations for national news networks that they might find better stories in the “crowds” of Times Square then the broadcast networks do but alas, even the mighty CNN went with the “we’ve found a lady and her kids here who are immigrants and she just became a US citizen….” Boy am I excited! WAAA-WOOOO and junk. STOP NOW….

ESPN

To it’s credit at least the “4-letter” didn’t have a correspondent in New York broadcasting live from the ball drop telling us about all the sports celbs in attendance. They also didn’t go live to Alex Rodriguez as A-Rod conveniently dropped by the NBC Carson Daily show (read the whole story here ) to let everybody in America know how much he “loves” New York (and managed to really make me ill with his “makeout session” with his wife at the stroke of Midnight). No instead ESPN took us live to the Rio Hotel in Las Vegas. You know the one, behind “The Strip” on the other side of the expressway, that bastion of Cool and Hip (and cheap….this is one of the places that you get those $30 room specials on-line). There at a specially designed site, we could watch a world record attempt at motorcycle distance jumping. All of that might have been well and good if the show when started at 1130pm EST got right down to the jump and then we could have tuned into another station to see the ball drop in NY. No. That was not the plan. Instead we had to be introduced to 4 “co hosts, “ all of whom were washed up former athletes who nobody in the audience (including their own families) cared anything about. Then we were treated to an hour, that’s right the damn jump didn’t even occur at midnight (in any time zone!), of packages on the preparations for the jump, how the physics of the jump would work, and oh yes, how the “jump measured up to other events in the world of sport that featured supreme acts of athleticism!”

I beg public television to get it’s HD hat in the ring. Please get a camera on the clock and the ball, leave it there and then just after all the confetti is done falling, go to the celebration in the next time zone (Chicago or something). It’s either that or next year I’m going to stick my head in the sand and wait for the tap on the shoulder that it’s now 2009.

Blogger man… OUT!