"Don't Let This Happen To You!"

Have you ever seen a dolphin swimming freely in the wild and thought,

"Man, fuck that fish"?

I never have but maybe you're a sociopath and/or you work for SeaWorld.

If that's the case and you need a plumber, there's only one service I can recommend:

Chris's Plumbing Service

"A local plumbing company has put in a permit request to Hillsborough County to dump up to 50,000 gallons of human waste a day on property near the Little Manatee River." - WFLA.com

Not just any local plumbing company, Chris's Plumbing Service!

"Chris’s Plumbing removes waste from septic tanks and portable bathrooms. The permit would allow them to spread the waste on an 80 acre parcel of land, just south of State Road 674."

Wow! That sure is a lot of shit!

Dictionary.com defines "toxic waste" as:

"A general term used to refer to chemical compounds produced by industry which, if they are ingested or breathed in by humans, can cause physiological damage. The disposal of toxic wastes is a major environmental problem in the United States."

Another way to define toxic waste is "human waste products and restaurant grease dumped in an area where there's a pretty high likelihood of it running off into the area where you live." If you disagree with that definition, ask yourself this question: exactly how much human waste and restaurant grease would you tolerate running off into the area where you live before you called it toxic waste?"

"We would like zero human waste and restaurant grease, please"

Shut up, smart and friendly sharks. That was a rhetorical question and it wasn't for you.

If you want to talk shit with Chris's Plumbing Service and how poisoning dolphins (and snook, redfish, blue crabs, tarpon, diamondback terrapins, seahorses, otters, manatees and human beings) will save them lots of money, which they will almost certainly pass along to you, the handful of surviving customers, give 'em a call at

(813) 623-6380

Or contact them at their office located at

6404 US Hwy 301 South
Riverview, FL 33569

Or their web site at

http://chrissplumbing.com/

What fun!
Hey, here's more people you can talk to about it, specifically the people who will be voting on the matter:
Stacy White - whites@hillsboroughcounty.org
Sandy Murman - murmans@hillsboroughcounty.org
Al Higginbotham - higginbothama@hillsboroughcounty.org
Ken Hagan - hagank@hillsboroughcounty.org
Victor Crist - cristv@hillsboroughcounty.org
Les Miller - millerlj@hillsboroughcounty.org
Pat Kemp - kempp@hillsboroughcounty.org

You can also reach these people on the phone by calling (813) 272-5660 

Be sure to reference “Special Use permit application SU 17-0510, by Chris’s Plumbing Services, inc.”

Outrage, for recreational purposes

She's going to pay for this

If you think the general level of stress and anger is more highly elevated than it used to be, you're 100% right.
I have no scientific evidence to back that up, nor any idea how you would even compile that data, but it sure feels that way. So yeah.
We're less patient and there are more things that annoy us and that's a dangerous equation. Road rage is just something we live with now. Along with "to avoid an accident, please use your signal to indicate your intention to turn", we now have "to avoid being shot in the face, please don't flip off the guy who almost sideswiped you because he was texting" as a standard safety tip. People are acting up on airplanes. Fast food workers are too busy capturing murderers to do their job of getting our orders wrong. Starbucks is forcing us under threat of legal prosecution to buy Technicolor-flavored glop. Everybody wants all of our money. These things are the unavoidable nonsense we face in the course of normal daily life.
Which makes it harder to understand the mindsets of people who go out of their way to immerse themselves in it.

For instance, my friend Walt was at the store the other day and his car was damaged in the parking lot. Here's his account of that from Facebook:

Sucks, right? Sure it does. Here's a comment on it from somebody else (I've edited the name, and I'm immature):

First of all, Publix baggers DO offer to take your groceries out for you. I don't know which one this guy shops at, but I hit four different ones on a fairly regular basis and they make that offer every single time.
Secondly, that's his "biggest pet peeve ever"? Ever? In all of his life, nothing bothers him more than inattentive grocery baggers? Sorry, pal. But based on my experience with Publix, your "biggest pet peeve ever" is rooted in falsehood, but congrats on somehow avoiding actual, serious things to worry about.
Third, where does somebody get off criticizing someone else for being lazy because they aren't there to carry their groceries?

Okay, now this is simply absurd. There's no way this guy bags his own groceries "most of the time". Once in a while, maybe when the baggers are outside retrieving shopping carts, I can see that possibly happening. But the situation as stated here, is outright bullshit.

Meanwhile, Walt himself chimed in again:

Seems like Walt, as the actual victim of the accident, is okay with how it all shook out. Again, it sucks, but it's being dealt with and there's noting to be gained from freaking out over it. Walt is resigned to accepting it as something unfortunate that happened without malicious intent on someone else's part.
However, Jack, who has no stake in the matter, has a problem with that:

Well, there you go. Based on what the person drives, Jack has decided (among other things, apparently) that she's a menace.
Anybody else think Jack is waaaaay too heavily invested in this? He's either already wired so tight that everything sets him off and he's one middle finger from shooting someone in the face during rush hour OR he's not sufficiently outraged enough by all the aggravating nonsense that we already have to deal with, so he has to seek out more of it just for something to do.

Jack's out there and that frightens me a little bit.

A moral, ethical and religious dilemma

I still have the truck I bought a few years ago and it still has this on it:

As was the case then, it's not intended to be any kind of great theological statement on my behalf; I just like dinosaurs and think it's funny. I can see why somebody might take offense and all I can say is that's not the intent. Sorry, but your right to be bothered by it doesn't negate my right to think it's funny. Kind of a First Amendment deal, I guess.
My advice would be don't take it that seriously because I don't.

Flash forward to last Thursday and found this note on my window:

I guess she doesn't know I'm an ordained minister

It says...

"Hello : )
I saw your dino & fish on your truck
God is real
God is good
God loves you & I'm praying for you"

And there was a $10 bill attached! In case this has never happened to you, $10 goes a long way toward alleviating any hard feelings about a stranger violating your personal space to impose their personal religious views. $10 is real money! That's a meal (at a restaurant with a value menu) or a tank of gas (if your tank is smaller than what's typically the standard found on most four-wheeled vehicles)! Am I saying my spirituality has a price? No. But if it does, the bidding starts at $10.

So here's my dilemma: Am I obligated to remove the dinosaur, because she felt so strongly about it and I kept the $10? I seriously considered donating it to a good cause. But ultimately, I didn't do it.
-or-
Do I leave it and start parking near churches to see if I can cash in off of similarly-offended individuals? I'll seriously consider donating the proceeds, but ultimately, I won't do it.

My new "Friend"

Are you on Facebook? I am! Of course you are and so am I. Everybody is on Facebook!
Do you wanna be "Friends"? Let's be "Friends"!
This person wants to be my "Friend":

She seems nice, doesn't she? My first observation is that her name is odd. Like she's listing herself in the phone book. Do you remember phone books? They still make them, every year! The latest edition was thrown into my yard. They couldn't even be bothered to drop it on my porch. Just threw it into the yard. Even the people who distribute the phone book don't give a shit about the phone book.
Back to this "Friend" request. I'm going to assume that she likes basketball. Basketball isn't my favorite sport, but I like it. Basketball is nice. I shared this with a friend that I actually know in real life and he said this means she likes black guys. I told him that was an unfair assumption based entirely on stereotypes and speculation. He's probably right, though.

She may not be a real person, though. I mean, those pictures are of a real person but this Facebook profile could be fabricated by someone with intent to commit fraud or some other nefarious act. We need to do some investigation here.

Let's look at her photos (there are only two of them):

Wow. Okay.

How about some of her other "Friends". We don't have any on common, which could be a huge red flag:

Hmm.
Speaking of stereotypes and speculation, while these might all be fine upstanding gentlemen, it's very easy for me to visualize every one of them sitting in their car in a Hooters parking lot after closing time.

All right, let's take a look at her latest status update, for the sake of not only seeing what's going on in her life but also her communication skills (vocabulary, grasp of language etc.):

Okay, obviously this is totally legit! Nice to meet you, Porter. My new "Friend"!

Read all about it

Everybody has a self-indulgent lotto-winning fantasy, something totally stupid they would blow money on if they could suddenly afford to do so. Mine would be to publish a magazine. Getting into the print publishing business at all at this point in the 21st century is a foolish idea alone, but I would be producing a magazine absolutely guaranteed to fail.

It would be a weekly titled "None of Your Goddamn Business" and it would have exactly the same story subjects and headlines as "People", but every article would say exactly the same thing. Can you guess what that would be?

• Scary Mommy Blogger; "My Husband Is Gay" - That is none of your goddamn business.
• Brad's Life Now: How He and Angelina Finally Made Peace - Make peace with the fact that it's none of your goddamn business.
• Will and Kate's Weekend in Paris - Oo la la, that is none of your, 'ow you say, goddamn business.
• Exclusive: Savannah Guthrie's Baby Boy 'I Feel So Lucky' - I feel so none of your goddamn business.
• And the big cover story: What Happened To Richard Simmons? - What happened to him is none of your goddamn business.

This would be on behalf of those of us who think people should have better things to do than worry about celebrities to the point of violating their privacy. And not from a telling-people-what-to-do-when-it-comes-to-harmlessly-spending-their-leisure-time standpoint, but from a leave-people-alone-because-gawking-at-them-like-zoo-animals-isn't-harmless vantage.

 

I might launch a somewhat more edgy sister publication that would be very similar titled "Who Gives A Shit?" magazine. You can probably guess what the format for that would look like.

I know these magazines would fail because the people at whom the messages would be aimed would never, ever buy a single copy. And there's obviously no reason for anybody else to ever pick one up. So, no sales means no advertising sales, so it's an enterprise doomed from the start. But what the heck, it would employ people for a little while so maybe not a totally self-indulgent waste of time and money.