Random Thoughts for a Monday

Sitting here desperately trying to finish re-watching season 5 of Lost in order to have seen every episode at least twice before the Final Season premier tomorrow night. I realized a few things that I saw today really tick me off so I wanted to share them with you. Here they are in no particular order:

1) Microwave Popcorn
I haven’t quite narrowed down which office in my hall the smell is coming from but you make a bag of kernels covered in artificial butter flavored, cancer-inducing syrup that would have Orville rolling over in his grave. I understand you need to satisfy that 3pm snack craving. I do too. But I drown mine in a bag of pre cooked Baked Cheetos while you need to nauseate us with the smell that is so unholy that I think I can now see dead people. It could only be worse if you burned it. Now I’m just one person out of how many who work on this wing. What gives you the right to torture all of us with your snack. I’m going to bring in a trout smoothie tomorrow and hide it somewhere near your desk and see how you like it!

2) The Express Newspaper Guy at the Metro
You’re new and I get it. You have been doing a very good job of being conspicuous and handing out the free copies of the DC Examiner newspaper which I really do enjoy reading every morning (sans the editorials that are only fit for rich, redneck, racists/males). But you need to do me a favor, stop hawking it by screaming out the headline of the day. This is especially true when today’s headline is “MontCo crime rate outpaces Fairfax...Md. county records much more violence” Gee that’s comforting especially since I’m A) a resident of Montgomery County and B)don’t plan on moving anytime soon. I guess they could have written it to read, “Crime shoots up at Shady Grove metro station and newspaper men rob people” but that might be too direct.

3) Snow Falling AFTER I’ve Already Shoveled
This one is kind of self evident. I’m trying to be proactive and shovel before the snow is fully done falling so that it doesn’t have the opportunity to ice up at the bottom. But every time I do this we seem to get another two to three inches that I have to go out and take care of again!

4) Spray Deodorant
Is so 1950! Seriously...it is!!! You can look it up! Get a small little stick of Right Guard and join the 21st Century!

Stop That Psychic!

No joke! The front page story in my morning paper was about a psychic suing Montgomery County, MD because they wouldn’t give him a business license. It turns out that the county has had a ban on “collecting cash for predicting the future” on the books for over 40 years. Now this psychic, Nick Nefedro, is claiming that 1) the law is a violation of his right to free speech and 2) that it is biased against gypsies and their “Roma” culture.

I don’t quite know where to fall in on this one as there are so many different angels to take. On one hand, if the law has been on the books this long, how could you have been surprised when your request for a license was turned down? Furthermore, there is no “speech” issue here. If you want to have “free speech” to predict the future then do it for...FREE! Likewise, you can try to collect clam shells or deer hides in lieu of cash. Note that the Supreme Court said that the First Amendment right to Free Speech does not include “false speech” (lies). Besides the county has a legitimate public safety angle here in that these “psychics” are usually frauds looking to bilk the susceptible members of the public by reading their crystal balls.

This last point brings me to the other side of the augmentable pillow (the “cool” side if you will). Maybe we should follow the lead of other area jurisdictions and not regulate this industry. If you as a member of the public are stupid enough to go to them/pay them/and repeat the visits as requested then you deserve what you get. Plus the county gets some padding in its coffers in the form of business tax revenue.

I still can’t understand why people who normally show some smidge of common sense (there’s that phrase again!) throw it all out a window when a woman with a scarf on her head going by the name of “Psychic Jess” tell them that the card with the cute kitty on it means they will meet the love of their life at the swap meet in Terre Haute, Indiana two Saturdays from now.

Perhaps we should do a little selective skimming from the good ole’ gene pool!