Just like Us

Just in: Kelly Ripa "likes eggnog a lot!"

Also: Us Weekly makes my head ache in throbbing dumbness.

Testify

From Rolling Stone's interview with hip hop uber-producer/star Pharrell:

Whose record have you listened to the most this year?

"I like My Chemical Romance and Green Day, in terms of rock. I'm looking forward to the new Puddle of Mudd and the new Strokes albums. And people need to show more love to Ben Folds. Hell, yeah!"

You could learn a lot from a lab

My illict connections to the publishing biz netted me an advance copy of Marley and Me: Life and Love with the World's Worst Dog, one man's memoir of life with a big ass labrador retriever. It's a heckuva book, crampacked with humor, sharp storytelling, and, in the end, a poignancy that'll shake you to your very core.

This intense resonance may correlate to the fact that I too once shared a home with a yellow lab named Annie. Behind that sweet All-American girl's name lay 75 lbs. of intensity that could knock an aunt to the ground with the mere ring of a doorbell. Who, when set free from the chains that bind her (namely, a fraying red leash), could outrun the NCAA athlete in the family. Whose appetite could be not sated by mere dog food, forcing her to snack on the TV remote control and our Brutus Beefcake action figure.

And yet the enthusiasm that awaited me every trip home, with a tail wagging hard enough to clear a coffee table and a tongue falling out of her mouth, always made her indiscretions seem trivial. You can't buy love like that, at least since Guiliani cleaned up Times Square, and you genuinely wanted to protect her during the thunderstorms that sent her under the coffee table cowering in irrational fear.

Would life be better if we were more like dogs? At the end of Marley and Me, the author reflects on lessons learned from his labrador:

Marley taught me about living each day with unbridled exuberance and joy, about seizing the moment and following your heart. He taught me to appreciate the simple things - a walk in the woods, a fresh snowfall, a nap in a shaft of winter sunlight. And as he grew old and achy, he taught me about optimism in the face of adversity.

Mostly, he taught me about friendship and selflessness and, above all else, unwavering loyalty.

Not such a bad dog after all.

Sweet music to my ears

A man + a plan = a PEZ mp3 player. Each one is built one-at-a-time by a one-man operation who got the legal OK from the PEZ Company. Holds about 120 songs, and you turn it on by flipping the head back.

The iPod Shuffle just got a whole lot lamer. It even comes preloaded with hipster indie music - why doesn't Apple do that?

Could this be the thing to revive my dormant and unwieldly PEZ collection? If it dispenses music as well as it dispenses candy, quite possibly.

Irony

...can be pretty ironic sometimes.

Village People cop arrested in South San Francisco

Has a car alarm...

...ever actually prevented a theft? I wondered this at 4:14 AM
this morning when an alarm went off nearby and stayed on for
about 15 minutes.

Why pay more?

I am a man of many talents, yet the one that makes friends and foes boil over with envy are my mad couponing skillz. Example: I once paid $41 for $82 worth of groceries and shelled out a mere $4 for $18 worth of crap at CVS. How? Behold, some of my secrets:

Shop around: what your momma told you was right-on. The aforementioned CVS often has better deals than the local grocery store, plus they take coupons (though no doubling) and give store coupons to ExtraCare card users. And good ones, too, like $3 off your next purchase. Others go store hopping, buying the big sale items at each area store. Chances are you don't have this much free time. In my fantasies about life after marriage, being able to do this is front and center.

A good offense: Sunday coupons are often correlated to store sales that week. Take 10 minutes to look at the store circular, then look at your coupon stash, and plan your Bill Laimbeer-esque attack.

Collect: Get one of them cheapo coupon organizers that Wal-Mart or CVS sell for $3-$5, then file new coupons there each week. You'll have a much easier time finding that 55 cents off Wishbone dressing coupon when you need it.

BOGO: Many coupons require purchase of 2 (or more!). Save these for buy 1, get 1 sales. Technically, you're still buying 2 items. Don't let the cashier try and tell you otherwise.

Clever: 3 for $3 does not usually mean you have to buy 3. Read the fine print. If you only need 1, don't get seduced into buying more.

Swap: Why throw away unused coupons each week when you can swap with a neighbor? One man's trash is another man's 35 cents off Hot Pockets. Seriously, a friend's father does this and swears by it. Some public libraries even have coupon swap bins (not to mention vast CD and audiobook collections that are ripe for ripping onto your home PC, but that's another post).

Rebates - delicious but devious: Tivo made $5 million+ last fiscal quarter because people bought the box and did not mail in the $100 rebate form. Hint: take 5 minutes, follow the instructions to a T, and be vigilant. This same company "lost" my rebate application. One phone call later, a $100 check was en route.

Study the masters: I find this woman's work inspiring.

What I don't do:

• Buy brand names at warehouse clubs--unless it's on sale - buying in bulk usually costs more than buying the same items on sale at grocery stores, plus you look like a jackass lugging 56 rolls of toilet paper around the parking lot. That said, Costco only marks up their prices by 15%, so if they have something on sale, go nuts.
• Get on my knees - some recommend calling companies' toll-free #s and asking to have coupons mailed to you. In this case, I am too proud to beg.
• Shop at all-generic stores like Aldi - My standards are high, and generic Cheerios lack that je ne sais quoi.

I do all of this not for lack of things to do, but because suburban living ain't inexpensive, and beating the system is a cheap thrill. And I do mean cheap.

Here's to you, Niantic Center

Bob Jingle's and Rain Delay's hometown reminiscences prompted me to check in with my old elementary school. Greeting visitors upon arrival was once a sound clip of their school anthem. It's low-fi, off-key, and yet hauntingly beautiful. But how could it not be, with lyrics like:

The symbol of the school we love
Is a little scallop shell
And everyday you'll hear him say
"In school you must do well!"

Yet there are traces of brainwashing throughout, with lines like:

Now let us sing 'til echoes ring
And pledge our loyalty

Did they really need us to pledge loyalty? After all, where you went to school was dictated by your neighborhood. A mass defection to Lillie B. Haynes was not possible, even though their playground ran circles around our tetherball-less tetherball pole.

So why the Stalin-esque loyalty oath? And why is the little scallop shell talking to me?

Dogs are funny

A play on words

Cleverest headline of the week:




















By the way, would anyone actually pay to see a play on words? I say only if it was a razzle-dazzle musical called "Semantics!"