iBGTD

Several weeks ago, I wrote about how I am in need of a new PDA (see iDGTD). The problem is, I am a bit of a slacker and need someone to keep me on task so that I can get things done. After doing quite a bit of research, I think I have finally found the perfect person to be my Personal Data Assistant. Dick Cheney. He just spent 8 years being the President’s PDA, and seeing as how he’s going to be out of a job soon I thought he’d like to do some work in the private sector for a while. And with Cheney as my PDA, my motto would be iBGTD, as in, “I Better Get Things Done...or Dick Cheney will shoot me in the face.” (I just wanted to get the quail hunting joke out of the way early)

Here are 10 reasons Dick Cheney would be the perfect Personal Data Assistant.

1.He doesn’t give in to peer pressure. And by peer pressure I mean 80% of the nation.
2.Every time he asks you to do something, you can assume it is probably his last dying wish.
3.If you don’t do what Dick Cheney says, the terrorists win.
4.Look at that picture. Do you have the balls to tell him no?
5.When he makes threats like, “if you don’t take out the trash I will eat your baby!” you know he means it.
6.You don’t want to mess with him because he probably still has access to a few nukes.
7.He’s proven that he can accomplish his goals no matter how many forms of government try to stop him.
8.When trying to get out of doing something, you can’t appeal to his good side, because he doesn’t have one.
9.He’ll do your dirty work for you.
10. If you don’t do what he says, he’ll shoot you in the face. (Okay, I ran out of reasons)

I Have Financial Aids

So my wife and I decided (okay, just my wife decided) that we should meet with a financial advisor to make sure we were on the right track fiscally. We’ve got a mortgage, and a car payment, and my undying addiction to Mt. Dew to deal with, and we want to invest our money wisely so that some day we can stop living paycheck to paycheck. So we signed up to meet a financial advisor. Now, in our relationship, Ashley is the brains of the operation. I am...well really I am the ass of the operation. I’m not that smart, I sit around a lot, and I kind of smell bad. So Ashley controls all of our finances and she knows what’s up. That being said, she is not a monetary master, and the last time she met with a financial advisor, he made her feel like an idiot. The worst part is, at the end of the meeting he asked her, “Now, will your husband be joining us next time?” As if to assume I would have a better grasp of the situation. This really offends me. Do I look like the kind of guy who would know a lot about money?So today I am going with Ashley to meet this guy, and it is my goal to make it abundantly clear that I am not in any way helpful when having a financial conversation.

Here are 10 questions I plan on asking during my Financial advisory meeting.

1. Can you give me advice on how to get my face on the dollar bill?
   
2. I’ve been told I should put my money in a CD, but don’t you think music is going to be completely digital soon?
   
3. Should I buy Boardwalk?
   
4. If have more money than I can hold in my wallet, what’s another good place to keep my money?
   
5. I’ve been told that the Lottery is for entertainment purposes only and should not be used for investment, but it seems like a pretty good investment to me.
   
6. My Grandpa knew how to pull quarters out of my ear. Can you do that?
   
7. Should I be taking more advantage of that whole “Give a penny take a penny” thing?
   
8. People often say, “You have to spend money to make money.” I’ve been spending money like crazy. When does the making money part happen?
   
9. If I had a vault of coins like Scrooge McDuck, would I really be able to swim through it?
   
10. How much should I pay someone to give me financial advice?
    

Hobophobia

I have a confession to make. I am hobophobic. Now, before you get all up in arms and start having parades all up and down my neighborhood, look closely. I didn’t say I’m homophobic, I said I am HOBOphobic. I have an intense fear of Hobos. And I’m not talking about homeless people. I’ve got no beef with them, nor do I fear them. I’m talking specifically about Hobos. Train riding, pie stealing, no-teeth having, Hobos.
Now, a lot of people might be thinking, “what’s wrong with Hobos? They’re harmless.” But that is a damn lie. When you think of Hobos what is the first thing you picture? A sack tied to the end of a stick, right? But have you ever wondered what they really carry in those sacks? Have you ever noticed the size of those sacks? They are the size of a human head! And that is exactly what those so-called harmless Hobos are carrying around all the time. The head of their most recent victim. Why else would they choose to live the lifestyle that they do? If you had lopped off someone’s head and were carrying it around in a sack tied to a stick, would you stay in one town for very long? No, you’d hop on the nearest train you could and ride it to the next town where you could find your next victim.

That’s why every time I hear the train near my house, I take my pies off the window sill and immediately lock up all the doors and windows. And if you don’t want to end up with your head in a sack, you should too.

He Was a Hanger of Cliffs

It might be a little late for me to be reviewing the movie Cliffhanger, starring Sylvester Stallone, but I watched it for the very first time today. Cliffhanger was just one of those movies that I didn’t get a chance to see in the theaters. So when I saw that I could watch it for free on my Comcast On Demand service, I took a leap of faith (hell yes that pun was intended).
Now, I’m not sure if this movie was good when it originally played in theaters, but it sure didn’t stand the test of time. You know how sometimes you don’t see a movie for a long time, and then you finally rent it and it was so good that you are like, “Man, I can’t believe I didn’t see that sooner. I’m an idiot!” Or other times you are like, “Man, that movie was horrible. No wonder I didn’t watch that in the first place. I’m an idiot!” I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m always an idiot, but this time I was the second kind.
For a movie titled Cliffhanger you’d think there’d be a lot of moments where you are like, “I wonder what’s going to happen next!” That really wasn’t the case, although there were a lot of times where I was like, “I wonder how bad it is going to get next!” And I have to say, I was consistently surprised at how bad it got at each turn.I guess now I know why this movie was one of the free options in On Demand. But maybe, in order to make the service a little more accurate, they should shorten the name and just simply call it On.

iDGTD

Staying on task has always been a bit of a problem for me. It’s not that I don’t want to get things done, it’s just that my brain doesn’t necessarily...work. You could say my mind is like a steel trap, except the hinge is completely broken. So really my mind is a big heavy sharp paper weight.
So when it comes to getting things done, or as the cyber community calls it, GTD, unless I have a really good system in place, I DGTD (don’t get things done). I’ve tried all the usual task management techniques and none of them seem to work for me. That’s why I’ve decided to get a Personal Data Assistant. No, I’m not getting a Palm Pilot or some other fancy schmancy electronic device. I am literally going to hire an assistant who’s sole job will be to manage all of my personal data. This of course won’t be an easy job by any means. Let’s just say I have a lot of personal data.

So how will I find the perfect PDA? What are my options? For starters, there’s my wife. I have to admit, having someone keep me organized and remind me of all those important dates that I can never seem to remember (like anniversaries) is a major part of why I got married in the first place. And my wife is amazing at remembering important information. If my mind is a paper weight, hers is a super computer. She can hold seemingly an infinite amount of information in her brain, and she remembers EVERYTHING! (Especially things involving me being wrong.) Unfortunately, while her mind is like a computer, I apparently don’t have administrative privileges. Rather than keeping me on task with all the things I want to get done, she seems to only be able to keep me on task with the things SHE wants me to get done. Things like doing the dishes, taking out the trash, and paying attention to her.

So maybe my wife isn’t the perfect PDA. I guess I’ll have to hold a series of official try outs to find the best Personal Data Assistant. Check back later to see the results.

I'm Not Leaving...On a Jet Plane!

Recently hundreds of thousands of Americans have been stranded in Airports as their flights have been cancelled. This is a serious problem and if it is not solved soon, the end result could be 300,000 Americans turning into Tom Hanks’ character from “The Terminal.”

The reason this crisis has occurred, according to airline officials, is that a majority of their planes have failed the Federal Aviation Administration safety inspections. BORING! If my flight is going to be delayed and I have to sit in an airport and eventually become a Hangar Hobo (I just coined that) then I want a better excuse than, “Sorry, we just don’t think our planes are very safe.” Give me an excuse with a little more...zazz!

Here are are 10 excuses I’d rather hear for why my flight has been cancelled.

1. “Literally there are snakes on the plane.”
   
2. “Sorry, your flight has been cancelled due to explosion.”
   
3. “Your plane is currently under attack by ninjas.”
   
4. “Turns out your plane was a decepticon, and it has murdered the pilot.”
   
5. “Your pilot is afraid of heights.”
   
6. “We are almost ready. We just had to make a minor repair to the plane but we ran out of duct tape.”
   
7. “We are just waiting for your pilot’s suicide medication to take effect.”
   
8. “We lost your plane.”
   
9. “Everything is ready to go, we just need a little more time to root through your luggage.”
   
10. “Global warming?”