MAGIC         PORK

The “all black tonight” misunderstanding that I wrote about recently reminded me of another incident that happened a couple years back. I was with the same friend and we decided to stop into a club that we had never been in before. The bouncer was a middle-aged white woman. Conversation went something like:

Her: You know it’s Latin night?

Us: (Thinking maybe it was some special event) No… Does that mean we can’t go in?

Her: Oh no, you can go in.

Us: Is there an extra cover?

Her: No, there’s no cover.

Us: (Confused) OK… thanks…

OK so we didn’t actually talk in unison. That would be a little weird. I just can’t remember who said what.

We walked into the club and sure enough it was all Latin-American people and Latin-American music. OK so we stood out a bit, but still - the only apparent reason she told us it was Latin Night was because she saw two white boys and thought “I’d better warn these guys”.

They had a big screen playing funny clips of stuff. So we mostly watched the TV and the people salsa dancing, had a drink, and left. Got to my car and there were no hubcaps on it.

What?! I’m just saying I have aluminum alloy wheels and I don’t have hubcaps. What did you think I meant? Some people can be so racist!

This is unrelated, but I’m reminded of this kid from high school. I went to a junior/senior high school so it was 7th through 12th grade. I was a senior at the time. I got to lunch one day and there was this little 7th grade Latino kid sitting with my friends. He spoke English fine and everything so I think he grew up here but his parents were from Puerto Rico. BTW, I grew up in a small upstate NY town… not a lot of minorities there.

A tangent to a tangent: I was talking to someone once who asked about my hometown “not a lot of black people there huh?”. I gave a little fake chuckle because I thought he was just making a comment (albeit strange) on the lack of diversity in upstate NY. So I said “no” and before I could continue, he said, with a straight face, “good”. It was a little uncomfortable after that.

Anyway, I assumed the others knew this kid but after asking around, I don’t think anyone did. He was just sitting there and wouldn’t move when we showed up. We’d tell him to get lost because who wants some random 7th grader sitting at your table? But he’d just ignore us and stick around anyway, and none of us really cared so he just became part of our table. I guess he didn’t have friends and just felt cool hanging out with seniors - but someone should have told this guy we were the uncool senior table. His name was Paco. We’d still tell him to move all the time if he was in our seat but we weren’t mean about it. It was more of a playful thing. He knew we didn’t mind him being there, as long as we had a spot to sit.

Anyway I bring all this up because Paco wasn’t his real name. We just called him Paco and he seemed fine with that. There was some kid named Paco on 3-2-1 Contact, which we all used to watch when we were younger, and that’s where we got the name. I realize now that was a little culturally-insensitive. That would be like calling an Indian kid Apu. We didn’t mean anything by it, but it still wasn’t cool. I wonder where Paco is now. And what his real name is.

With all the talk about the new sitcom Cavemen - you know, the one about those cavemen from the Geico ads - I just had to watch it. I expected it to completely suck since I don’t even care for the ads but I figured I should see it for myself before passing judgment. So I TiVo’d it and last night I finally brought myself to watch it.

And it was funny.

I’m not being sarcastic. I laughed out loud. It was good from the start until the end. I couldn’t believe it but it was actually funny. It takes a lot of guts to tell the whole world that you loved a show that is getting almost universally panned but there you have it.

If you look around online you’ll see everyone saying how awful it was. I don’t know what show they were watching. Everyone has a different sense of humor so I can definitely see some people not liking it, but the way people are talking as if it’s the worst pile of filth to ever grace the screen makes me think that they were determined that they were going to hate it no matter what and are sticking with that.

You know I have a good sense of humor because you read magicpork.com so I won’t bother trying to qualify myself to you.

I don’t know if they’ll be able to make a whole series out of this however. I’m pretty sure they’ll milk every drop of humor they can out of the caveman setup - if they are even given enough time to before being yanked off the air. But the pilot episode? Great stuff.

Tell me I’m wrong if you wish - but only if you’ve actually watched the pilot. If you missed it, you can watch it on abc.com.

I have no problem with people stealing images from my site. Most of them I’ve stolen from other sites. However, when I steal an image, I copy it over to my server, so that it’s being pulled from magicpork.com. I don’t have the image link to another site. When you do that, you’re using up the bandwidth of the other site because even though it looks like the image is on your site, every time someone loads your site, it’s actually loading the image from the other site’s server.

Well there are plenty of other people that aren’t that considerate or else don’t realize that’s what they’re doing. I can bring up some statistics about my site so I know there are a bunch of sites referring to me that have no reason whatsoever to have a link to magicpork.com.

I first discovered this a long time ago when I posted an entry with a picture of the New Mexico flag - which of course I grabbed from somewhere else. I was wondering why someone’s MySpace page was linking to that image. Every time you post a comment on a friend’s MySpace page you can include an image with your profile and this guy was using the flag image and directly linking to my site every time he posted a comment! I contacted him and asked that he please just make a copy of the image so that he wasn’t using my bandwidth. I didn’t hear back from him and when I checked a few days later he hadn’t changed it yet. I didn’t check again and just gave up. It’s not like my site gets so many hits that it slows it down.

But now there’s a lot of people linking to my images. I look through the referrer list and scratch my head as to why a particular site would be linking to me. If it’s a legitimate link, like “hey check out this AWESOME website” then I have no problem with that. But no, it’s just someone stealing an image, probably after finding it through a Google Images search.

The most popular ones are without a doubt the pictures I took of toilet paper. Those I did take myself. Everything from a blog entry about what I was talking about, how to load the toilet paper - to some sports site saying “Orioles 6, Yankees 3″ and the caption “CRAP!” - to some Dutch site with the phrase “Doet me een beetje hier aan denken”, whatever that means - to a site saying “All Hail The New Currency In Jail”. People loooove the toilet paper.

Back when I was first starting MagicPork, I was talking with my friend Pat of patandfran.com and he was saying that people would do this to him. He said he was tempted to just change the image on them to something really raunchy so that it would show up on their site that way unless they stopped linking to it. Now I see his frustration.

That would be funny, but would also mean I’d have to change my site to not link to that image. Instead, what I’ve chosen to do is implement a little fix I read about online so that an external site can’t reference an image on my site. Apparently this isn’t a foolproof method, and some browsers may not handle this correctly. So if you have problems viewing the site, let me know. But it seems to work okay for me in Firefox and IE.

Speaking of “let me know”… I’ve never included an email address on magicpork.com. This was intentional because I didn’t want tons of spam. I also didn’t know why a stranger visiting my site would want to email me. But perhaps some people would want to give me feedback but don’t want to post a comment for everyone to see, or they just notice something broken with my site and want to alert me to it. Or you’re from Gillette and want to send me a check for my free advertising.

I already get a lot of spam so I’m just not that concerned any more. In fact most spam that I get now is the comment spam that I’ve talked about before. I should let you know that I delete comments to posts older than a couple months or so without even looking at them. I just delete it because most comment spam I get is to older posts and I get a lot of it. So if you had a legitimate comment to an older post that never made it to the site, that’s what happened.

But I still don’t want extra spam or my numerous obsessed stalker fans having my normal email address, so I’m listing a magicpork one. If you know my email address already, you may continue to use it. Everyone else, you can email me at the address listed on my updated About / Contact page. You’ll also find a picture I just took of myself in my bathroom. Hey, it was the best lighting I could find in my apartment. Oh and… you’re welcome.

Even if we’ve never met before, feel free to drop me an email and let me know what you think of my site. I appreciate feedback. Especially since I’m confident it will all be positive. And of course you can always post a comment - that is, if you’re not too much of a coward!

Last weekend, my friend & I decided to stop by this club that’s partly owned by this guy we know. We’re not close friends with him, but we’ve hung out with him before because he’s the boyfriend of an ex-roommate of my ex-girlfriend, who by the way was formerly referred to as my girlfriend on this site but we recently split up. Now that that’s all clear…

The owners of the club are black and it attracts a predominately black clientele. My friend and I are white. I’m so white that my ex-girlfriend, who’s of Indian descent, would joke that I glow in the dark. So I didn’t exactly expect us to blend in with the crowd, but at least we wouldn’t stand out for being slobs. It’s an upscale club and on a previous visit, I felt embarrassed because I was wearing jeans and everyone else seemed to be impeccably dressed. This time we were both dressed pretty well. Or so I thought.

I had gray slacks and a white dress shirt on. We get in line outside the club and I see some guys wearing suits. One guy had this cool fedora on. I’m thinking man, I still look like a slob compared to some of these people. Oh well.

We get up to the bouncer and he says to me “It’s all black tonight, gentlemen. Special event.” Then looks away. I was pretty surprised to say the least. I know that the owners have no issue with white people. But then I realize, he must be making a very dry joke. So I smile and say “oh it is, huh?”

He then looks back at me, breaks his composure and says apologetically “Sorry, I mean all black attire.” I look around, and sure enough everyone is clothed entirely in black. Oh. Now I feel like a shmuck for being the one to bring attention to race. The bouncer tells the other bouncer that they might want to watch how they phrase it.

It’s a good thing I didn’t fly off the handle and make a scene (as if I would ever do that). That would have been quite embarrassing.

I was going to come up with some clever title for this post, but then went with the obvious in a blatant attempt at getting more Google traffic. But I’m sure that even so, I won’t even be on the first 100 pages.

So yes, this post is about Britney Spears at the MTV Video Music Awards. In case you have better things to do with your life and don’t know what I’m talking about, Britney Spears did a surprise performance at the VMAs last weekend that was pretty much a train wreck. No, a train wreck would have been her falling off the stage or something so let’s say it was a 5 car pile-up. Everyone says train wreck. Let’s start a new phrase.

I knew as soon as I saw it that the Internet would be flooded with people trashing it. You can do a search yourself. She wore this slutty bikini and didn’t seem to know her dance moves or her lyrics for that matter (lip-synced). It was just embarrassing to watch. I noticed (because it’s impossible not to in that outfit) that she wasn’t quite the skinny girl she was before. Had a little padding on her. I thought that it probably wasn’t the best choice in costume and I would have went with something a little less revealing if I were her. But I really didn’t think much of it, I just thought the performance was bad.

Then I read online people making fun of her for being “fat” and it made me mad to be honest. Yes that’s right, you thought this was going to be all about Britney-bashing didn’t you? Well I like to surprise ‘ya.

I thought “I should do a post about that”, then later I saw an article on CNN.com saying pretty much what I was saying so good for them. But I’ll continue my point anyway.

People always complain about these super-skinny models and how it sets unrealistic expectations for adolescent girls. Now you have a young woman that (for whatever reason) young girls seem to look up to looking not fat but not exactly skinny - and everyone pounces on her for being fat and don’t think what adolescent girls are going to take away from that? Let’s get real people. A girl that looks like Britney Spears, at any bar in any city in the USA, would be getting hit on left and right.

That’s what made me mad. I just pictured some teenage girl hearing how “fat” Britney was and thinking “gee, I look about like that in a bikini and most of my friends say I look good - I guess I’m really fat though”.

Would I have advised Britney to wear that outfit? Most definitely not. I mean it’s just trashy regardless of her weight. But with her having a bit of a “paunch” on her (seems to be the word everyone’s using - one site said “paunch me baby one more time” which I admit made me laugh out loud), it would have been best to cover it up a little and she still could have looked hot. I read that she was advised to wear this corset thing but she wanted the bikini. So make fun of her for her fashion choices. Make fun of her for her awful performance. Make fun of her for shaving her head or whatever other nonsense she’s done recently. But don’t make fun of this mother of two for having a little tummy.

I don’t know if I’m explaining myself well so I thought of a way to summarize how I feel about heavier 2007 VMAs Britney. I think it will make things totally clear. Imagine someone punches me in the face, then throws me in a cage for a night. But they throw in Britney with me, wearing that outfit. It’s a wash. The beating and false incarceration is canceled out.

But now say they punch me repeatedly in the face, break my left arm, and set my eyebrows on fire before they throw me in. They better get themselves a time machine and throw in 2003 VMAs Britney!! Either that or Rihanna. Preferably after she’s been deprived of any sexual pleasure for two years. Which now that I think of it would also require a time machine.

There, see what I’m saying now? No? OK, nevermind.

Last weekend, I saw part of the Rochester Labor Day parade. Its route is right near my apartment so I just walked down the street and met up with my friend that also lives nearby. We watched maybe 10 minutes of it then left. I’ve never watched a Labor Day parade before and now I realize I wasn’t missing anything.

Here’s my understanding of Labor Day. It was founded by some labor union dudes who wanted to give everyone a day off to thank them for all their hard work and to celebrate all the advances labor unions had made: Eight-hour work day, no children with bleeding fingers coming home every day, things like that. That’s probably glossing over some details but that’s the gist of it.

So with that in mind, I was expecting to see a few unions in a Labor Day parade. What I was not expecting was to see union after union after union. Hey there’s a band. Union, union, union. Loud fire truck. Union… you get the idea.

First off, this was boring. I saw the carpenter’s union. I know it was the carpenter’s union because there was a banner saying so. Then there’s a bunch of people walking behind the banner. I think they may have had matching T-shirts with the union name on them. They had a wagon with their kids sitting on it. The kids were sitting on a stack of lumber or something. I just described one of the more creative groups I saw. To be honest, I didn’t even remember all of those details, it was so boring. I only remembered the kids on the wagon because I saw a snapshot of it on the Insider’s website.

Then there was the roofer’s union. Ooh these people are in big trucks. Wow.

Rochester has a sprinkler fitters union. Interesting. That’s sarcastic. It’s not at all interesting.

Come on people, if you’re going to be in a parade, put some effort into it. Now maybe I just watched for the most boring 10 minutes and there were some amazing floats. If so I’d like to hear about them. But I doubt it.

You want to show off the roofer’s union? Have them roof a frickin’ house! Now wouldn’t you like to see that? Have a parade float with a mock rooftop. You have dozens of carpenters there - they could probably build the float for you 20 minutes before the parade starts. (Too bad there’s probably some union rule that prevents them from doing that.) Then have a bunch of guys up there roofing it as it drives down the street.

Maybe you could have some poor guy lying next to it writing in pain like he had just fallen off a ladder. But luckily there’s a doctor there helping him out - because he has insurance thanks to the union. OK, I may have went too far with that last one. Probably a little too abstract for a float. But the roofing thing I’m dead serious about. I assume they must do that sort of thing in bigger cities because it was just too easy of an idea to come up with.

Carpenter’s union is easy. They have a stack of wood, just have people build something. I saw Witness. If those Amish can build a whole barn in a day, you can build an outhouse in the time it takes to finish the parade. Yes the truck would be moving but you guys do this for a living so you should be able to handle a challenge like that. Go in with the plumbing union and you can actually put a working toilet in that thing too.

OK so the parade was boring, but more than that, it depressed me. Watching the roofers go by, I thought “Man, good thing I don’t own a house because I’m clearly not going to get a good rate on a roof in Rochester”. And each union I saw walk past I had the same thought. The larger the union the worse I felt.

When I saw some smiling man or woman walking along, waving to the crowd, I didn’t think “What a hard-working person, let’s applaud him/her”. No, I thought “Yeah I’d be smiling too if I were you - you’re probably some lazy incompetent person riding the coattails of your more qualified peers, all the while shaking down your company for pay and benefits you don’t deserve”.

OK, so that was harsh and an extreme exaggeration. But that’s the fun thing about having a blog. I can say what I want. I don’t even have to do research or anything.

I hate it when people act like they “deserve” this or that. “All the other companies in upstate NY pay such-and-such. We’re being treated unfairly. Wah wah.” Then why haven’t you taken a job at one of the other companies? Could it be that it’s too long of a commute or you’d have to move and make your kids switch schools or you’d lose your seniority or they won’t hire you…? Then sounds to me like there are non-monetary benefits to your current job isn’t there? If you want to try to get more money or better benefits then fine, but just don’t act like it’s some right you have.

I realize I’m not hurting for money and I don’t have a family to support so I’m not making fun of people that are in that situation. Well okay, maybe I am but I’m making fun of the way some of them play the victim, that’s all. I have family members that are in unions and I know they’re hard-working.

I saw this guy interviewed on 60 Minutes named Richard Berman that’s pissed off labor unions with various ad campaigns he’s run (funded by corporations of course). I immediately liked him. I don’t know accurate his ads are, but they are funny and I love seeing the unions get all in a huff over this guy. This one pretty much sums up what I was saying. I probably could have just skipped the above few paragraphs and linked to it instead: DMV ad (video/mov) or DMV ad (video/wmv).

Here’s another one that’s funny: Thanks Union Bosses (YouTube).

My girlfriend moved to Washington, D.C. earlier this summer, so I’ve visited there a few times and worked remotely from there. Well when you work remotely, you have to call into meetings which means using up more daytime minutes on my cell phone than usual. After going over my limit twice now - last time for over $60 extra ($.45/min for every minute over) - I decided maybe I should look into something like Skype. (If you don’t know what Skype is, it lets you talk over the Internet. If you need any more explanation, I don’t feel like giving it so follow the link.)

Thankfully we make heavy use of IM at work, even when I am in the office, so I don’t get that many phone calls. It’s just the meetings that take up all the minutes so I only have to worry about calling out. Sounds like a plan, right?

Well first off, I need a microphone. I dig out this old microphone from a box of computer junk in my closet. I’ve kept this microphone around for YEARS - I don’t know how long but feels like forever. I’ve never actually used it. I just stuffed it in various boxes over the years just in case I ever found myself wanting to be able to talk into my computer.

So I must admit I felt a little happy that I finally found a use for it. See, I knew I kept this thing for a reason. Then I immediately realized if I did end up using Skype, I’d just buy a cheap headset anyway. Oh well, it came in handy for testing purposes at least.

I read the terms of Skype: apparently it’s free to other Skype users but if I wanted to dial into these conference calls I’d have to sign up for some extra-special-super-duper account (I don’t feel like looking up whatever inconsequential term they use for it) at some rather cheap rate so I figured okay, it beats paying another $60. I downloaded the software (for free) and tried to do a test call. They let you call some number that records your voice and plays it back so you can test that your equipment is all working correctly. It’s free to test out, so I hooked up my beautiful microphone and made the call.

At first it took forever and didn’t seem to want to connect me, but then I got through and started talking. It didn’t pick up my voice. So after playing with the mic, I realized it was picky and needed to be really pushed hard into the jack. So not only did I keep this thing around for years, it’s not even a very good microphone.

Now that I solved that problem, I tried connecting again. Wouldn’t connect me. I don’t mean it wouldn’t connect me to that phone number, it wouldn’t log me into the Skype service at all. I tried a bunch of times and nothing. So I started reading up online and some people were saying it could be a router problem, it could be your ISP blocking it, etc etc. After a little monkeying around, I couldn’t see anything wrong so I basically said “Skype sucks” and gave up.

But then the next day I figured I’ll try again. This time I got through immediately and everything worked fine. I have to sit hunched over the mic so yes, I will be getting a headset if I want to use this. But it worked. I was left feeling very doubtful about whether I wanted to sign up for service though if it was that unreliable.

Now I’m in Washington, D.C. again and still haven’t tried it yet but I read online today that Skype was down for two days last week. They’ve apologized all over themselves and offered to reimburse all paid users that were affected with like seven extra days or something. Just my luck I tried to sign up on the very day that they had a big snafu. I guess I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt that it won’t be a regular occurrence and try again sometime.

I know this isn’t the most exciting post, but I haven’t written in quite a while so I don’t want to hear anyone complaining.

I’ve eaten burritos at plenty of restaurants in Rochester but I recently ate what is hands-down the best burrito. I don’t say that lightly either. I rarely can pick favorites with anything. Favorite CD? “Well, depends on what mood I’m in.” Or “This is one I’m listening to a lot now but that’s just because it’s new.” You get the idea. I’m wishy-washy.

But no. This burrito was just awesome and I am hereby declaring it my favorite. It was the beef burrito at Sol Burrito, on Monroe Ave near Goodman. My two dinner companions were also blown away by their burritos.

Now there’s probably some pompous know-it-all out there that will say “I’ve lived in [insert U.S. town close to Mexican border] and this isn’t authentic Mexican cooking”. You know what else isn’t authentic? Yer mom.

That was intended as an insult but I don’t think it quite worked. Let me try that again… You know what else isn’t authentic? Yer face.

No, still not insult-y enough. You know what else isn’t authentic? Yer mom’s face. Yes! Perfect!

OK so where was I?.. I don’t know a thing about what’s authentic and what’s not. I don’t care. Montezuma’s Revenge is also authentic Mexican but I don’t see you going to the store to buy some bottled Mexican tap water.

I’m always open to the possibility that there’s a better burrito in town, but these are the other places I’ve eaten at so if you’re going to mention one of them, you’re wrong. I’m not saying they’re bad. I quite enjoy some of these places but their burritos are inferior.

• Chilango’s Mexican Restaurant
• Desert Moon Cafe
• John’s Tex-Mex Eatery
• Maria’s Mexican Restaurant
• Mex
• Moe’s Southwest Grill
• Paola’s Burrito Place
• Salena’s Mexican Restaurant
• Taco Bell

So once again there was been a huge gap between posts. If there’s anyone out there still reading this site, I’m afraid you’re just going to have to get used to that. I just don’t feel like doing it much any more, but maybe I’ll get a change of heart and get back into it. Maybe if you flood me with comments pleading for me to keep posting, then it will encourage me to do so.

I have a new job now. Well, not really. I work for a software consulting company so I’m still at the same job, but contracted to a different company now, in a different location, working with different technologies, and with different coworkers and management. So what’s the same? The paycheck and… well not much else. So I’ll just say it’s a new “gig”. Musicians have owned that word for too long.

I’m working downtown now instead of Henrietta, and it’s about a 2 minute drive from my apartment to work. I can actually see the building from my apartment window. I’m being vague because I’m not sure if it’s okay to mention our client publicly. Not that it’s some top secret thing, but I want to play it safe. Although this leads to the typical “tree falls in the woods” question… if you make a public statement but no one reads it…

The one time I walked, it only took about 12 minutes. But then I said “this is too cold” and went the lazy route since. When it warms up, I’ll walk more. At least that’s what I say now. I just have it too good now to be bothered facing the elements. I have underground parking at home, a 2 minute drive (or less, depending on traffic lights), then I park in a parking garage at work and take the Skyway (a covered walkway that connects some downtown Rochester buildings) from the garage to work. For lunch, there’s a cafeteria at work, or I can take the Skyway to the Bauch & Lomb cafeteria (which is pretty good) or Midtown Plaza.  Midtown is a little limited in its options, but it does have a Brueggers Bagels and a Pizza Stop II.  Pizza Stop is a great pizza place on State Street that I used to go to when I worked downtown previously so I was psyched to see there’s a second location at Midtown.

So the point is, I’m lazy and a pansy.  No, that’s not right.  The point is I don’t have to go outside all day.  I can even wear my shoes to work instead of wearing boots and changing into them.  (Those of you reading this from a warmer clime can stop laughing now.)

OK, so that’s it for now.  I’m posting this in a Starbucks in Washington, D.C. by the way.  I say that not because it’s relevant to anything I was writing about, but just to make it sound like my life is more interesting than it really is.

I stopped by Circuit City after work today to return something. On my way into the store, I see some people, maybe 5 or so - I tried to avoid eye contact. They were sitting on the ground, huddled in the rain, under sheets of plastic tarp.

As the young woman at the customer service desk is going through that whole return process, I ask her the question she had probably heard dozens of times that day.

Me: Why are there people sitting in the rain outside of the store?

Her: They’re waiting for the PlayStation 3.

Me: How long have they been waiting?

Her: They started yesterday. It goes on sale Friday morning.

(This was Wednesday night.)

Me: (pause) I see.

Then another customer, some big guy down the counter from us pipes in with “What are they, idiots?”

She didn’t answer that. She obviously thought they were, but that’s a tough position for her to be in. You don’t want to be calling your store’s customers idiots, especially ones that are waiting to plop down a good sum of money.

Now, I thought the people that camped out waiting for Star Wars Episode 1 were idiots but I could at least see where they were coming from. They were fans of the movies and they had been waiting a long time for it and this was a huge event for them. There was a sense of being part of something big, and they were basically hanging out with their friends anyway. Yeah okay, it was really stupid, I won’t try to justify it.

But this… is just a video game console. You buy it, then you bring it back home and that’s that. You’re not even waiting for an event that you’ll be experiencing with other people. If you really had to line up for it or else be forced to wait another month for it to get back in stock… maybe… it would make a little sense. It would make at least Star-Wars-waiting sense, which is not much. But even if we assume it’s going to sell out on opening day, don’t you think you could just come really early on Friday morning? I mean are there really that many people that are going to be waiting for this thing that you’d have to line up days in advance? I think not.

The second thing that crossed my mind as I was exiting that place was: don’t these people have any responsibilities whatsoever? They couldn’t have jobs, or if they did then that means they took time off to sit on the ground outside a store and that’s REALLY stupid. So they must be students - but even then, what kind of coursework do they have that they can do this? Maybe their school is on Thanksgiving break already? I sincerely hope so.

I should go back tomorrow and ask each of them to pose for a photo. If they ask me why, I’ll say I want to keep them so if any of them ever apply for a job where I work I’ll know to show them to the door right away.

In fact why stop there… I could create a whole online database of photos that people submit. Then if you want to check someone out, you’d submit the photo and the facial recognition software would bring up matches on what stupid things the person did. It would be like a background check, except background checks don’t catch things like waiting in line for a PS3. And sometimes you might not even know the person’s name. Hey that guy’s personal ad looks okay, not bad looking… but wait, before you respond better run his photo through DrainOnSociety.com. Someone snapped a photo of him writing a check to pay for $12 in groceries? Forget it.

The problem is, people would submit their ex-wives or bosses or what have you, just out of spite. And then there would be libel lawsuits… yeah probably not worth it. But then again forget that, I would submit all the photos. I’m the only one I would trust to make the right calls on whether someone deserves to be in the database and I’d be willing to back it up in court.

Hmm… I see there’s already a DrainOnSociety.com. I’ll buy it from him in exchange for not making him the first person in my database.