When you need to rant...

[Drtooth]

How about unsweetened iced tea?

Yeah, but that kinda dries you out after a while. Can't tell you how many times I drank the stuff and like a minute later I was thirstier than when I started.

 

[D'Snowth]

Okay, here's a load of hooey:

http://www.weather.com/series/health-minute/video/how-a-cooler-bedroom-helps-good-fat

I keep my living conditions at a constant 65 degrees or below (sorry, Drtooth), and I've been doing so for years . . . so how come I'm still fat? I mean, to see this video's little lecture, they make it seem like keeping your room cool will somehow instantly slim you. I thought it was sweating buckets that was supposed to instantly slim you.

 

[Drtooth]

That really sounds like some good old fashion medicine wagon style hogwash.

Let's be honest here. There are all those little nickle and dime causes and solutions for weight gain, but the fact of the matter is it's all about poor diet and lack of exercise. And also, I'm sick of certain shows dragging out the fattest people imaginable as some sort of subliminal "the country is full of these" or "this is what you'll become" even though it's hard work to actually get that big. So we have all these dumb solutions and dumb things to blame because everyone wants things easy.

The desire for easy solutions and being completely impatient about things is essentially what's wrong with everything. No one wants to do the hard work of fixing anything at the roots for long term change. They want to prune a couple leaves and wait for the same disasters to repeat.

 

[MikaelaMuppet]

I just got my iPod Touch back a couple of days ago and guess what?

My dad takes it away from me again!

 

[D'Snowth]

Oh boy, Drtooth is going to have a field day with this one:

So, we've discussed many times before the psychologically harsh weight loss commercials and adverts and what have you, and we've all discussed the ridiculous measures that are being taken in this day and age to try to curb the childhood obesity epidemic . . . but this takes the cake:

There's a local PSA that's been airing on our local channels lately: it starts off talking about how children have dreams of what they'd like to do when they grow up, whether it's becoming a teacher, an astronaut, an artist, or anything else, and that children need all the support and help they need to make those dreams realities . . . then the PSA says that children may not be getting all the help they need if they're not healthy . . . then we get into the whole childhood obesity thing again, yadda-yadda-yadda.

So basically, this PSA is suggesting that kids won't grow up to be what they want to be if they're fat. Nice.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Unless you're Governor Christie

 

[Drtooth]

There's a local PSA that's been airing on our local channels lately: it starts off talking about how children have dreams of what they'd like to do when they grow up, whether it's becoming a teacher, an astronaut, an artist, or anything else, and that children need all the support and help they need to make those dreams realities . . . then the PSA says that children may not be getting all the help they need if they're not healthy . . . then we get into the whole childhood obesity thing again, yadda-yadda-yadda.

So basically, this PSA is suggesting that kids won't grow up to be what they want to be if they're fat. Nice.

You want a field day...hmmmmm...

well first off all, whatever panicky crap about the childhood obesity epidemic we've had it's...well... apparently working. The levels of obesity have dropped dramatically in recent years among kids.

Secondly... this is where I'm getting into a deep, personal bitterness angle, so bare with me.

I wouldn't the heck be surprised in the slightest if that PSA wasn't somehow accurate. Looks get you hired. Looks, and a video resume voice overed by a B list celebrity which brings us to field day trip number one: Human resources are the WORST people in the world. You know how they have all those unwritten rules about what makes or breaks an interview? While some of it is the obvious "be more polite in the interview situation than you would normally" stuff, a lot of it is monkey shines for their amusement. As in you have to pick the right exact font and format for your resume for them to toss into the pile and hire their friends anyway. And oohhhhh if you even think about putting Comic Sans on there, pull out a loaded shotgun and kill yourself, because you're worth more to the world of employment to a corpse than someone that doesn't know the exact perfect fonts to use on this sort of thing. Side trip: I HATE FONT NERDS!!! I hate the stupid names they give to fonts that make no darn sense, and half of them look exactly the same unless you've a darn Font Nerd and know to every pixel on a letter there is and how they're arranged on the tips of an uppercase L.

Anyway, back to my rant about HR. There's a certain kind of bread and circus to interviewing. They love to see you trying your darndest not to twist in the wind. They want you to be enthusiastic about working at a dead end job, but don't you dare be overenthusiastic or even slightly under enthusiastic or you're apparently not "sit at a desk filing reports for no reason" material. They ask loaded questions with such a smug little grin that can't be answered right enough. And at the end of the day you better the Heck write them a thank you note for doing their freaking jobs and interviewing you. I swear, they love to see all the hope in your eyes fade. They probably got their jobs because they know people and didn't even need to interview. Like I said, Human resources are the scum of the Earth. And yes, bitterness, frustration, and whatever makes me say that.

Which brings us to the second, main trip: Of course it's going to be tough for kids to get jobs because we tell them to reach for the stars, only to find there's a limited number of them and we probably sold them off to other countries and made the rest obsolete. Parents want what's best for their children. No one makes a kid's show where a happy little puppet comes out and says "Hey kids! You're all worthless cogs, and the chances of you getting a dream job are so slim, you'll go mad." No teenage focus show says "if you're planning to go to college, you better the heck have had 10 years of employment under your belt or really rich parents with connections, cuz it's all just a scam we imposed on you." You find this stuff out when it's too late. No one gives 2 craps about you or your dreams because everyone has the same exact dream and only the ones who were predestined to get those dreams (i.e. not needing to go to college for any other reason than getting a piece of paper saying you're qualified) actually succeed. Yep. You can only succeed if you're the perfect amount of lucky and connected or just have rich enough parents to buy your way into something.

We have too many kids reaching for too little stars. So what does that mean? A lot of college educated kids fighting to the death for the same low paying crap jobs they could have got had they dropped out of high school. And they're darn lucky to even get that. Thanks Baby Boomers. Yep. We have this nice society that says "Tall Poppy Syndrome is BAD! But we're going to enforce it anyway."

And of course, the third and final stop: Absolutely hypocritical treatment for fat people. Why is it that when some talentless schmuck movie critic spends an entire review saying how disgustingly fat he thinks Mellisa McCartney is, everyone jumps in to say how much of a D-Bag he is, YET when it's something negative happening to fat people that actually has an effect, everyone's suspiciously silent? How come it's all "You're slightly above weight! You go, Girl!" when a celebrity is barely curvy, but when it's an actual fat person in distress it's all "you should be ashamed of yourself for being in my line of vision and making me feel disgusted. Eat at the same expensive hipster gastro pub I can easily afford but you can't." Or, bringing it back on topic, "you ain't gettin' hired if you ain't screwable." Like I've always said, look at the "Best and Worst beach bodies" tabloid at the grocery store. It's "EWWW! Anorexic person! They need our help" next to "giant gross fat beast with the face blocked out! You'll never guess who it is! Mainly because it's someone you've never heard of." I have a feeling that a lot of the fatophobia is from vein, vapid, constantly at the gym types who constantly dread the imaginary day they wake up, covered in gravy and look at their sausage finger hands getting smothered by their swollen wrists. OH NO! Now only a certain portion of the population will wanna bang them!

Yet, I do see really fat people all the time with work. Hmmm. I guess they want you to be thin and attractive when they hire you, only due to lack of getting out of the cubicle you wind up large anyway.

 

[D'Snowth]

As in you have to pick the right exact font and format for your resume for them to toss into the pile and hire their friends anyway. And oohhhhh if you even think about putting Comic Sans on there, pull out a loaded shotgun and kill yourself, because you're worth more to the world of employment to a corpse than someone that doesn't know the exact perfect fonts to use on this sort of thing.

Did you know that Tom Bergeron once made a cartoon resume . . . and actually got a job interview out of it? Yep. Way back when he was in dire straits in terms of his career and work like and he was desperate for a job, he figured he'd get more attention from perspective employers if he did something different with his resume to help make it stand out as opposed to a stale, typed chronological list of his work experience. He had previous working experience as a mime (back when mimes were, apparently, "cool"), and he was a passable cartoonist, so he drew a caricature of himself in full mime attire, leaning against an invisible wall on one side of the page, and on the other side he had a large speech bubble that had all of his working experience in it. And he actually got a job interview out of it - if only because the interviewer wanted to meet the person behind the bizarre resume. And he actually got a job out of it, working as a board operator during Casey Kasem's Top 40 show.

Could something like that work today? Probably . . . not. However, I think somebody like George Costanza would have better luck getting work today: my sister has worked in staffing solutions before and is on top of how resumes keep evolving, and it's suggested that it's best to leave the specific dates and timeline of your previous working experience out of your resume - so, George's resume would probably look more impressive if he didn't have to mention his employment with Play Now was only four days (which he says was supposed to be fourteen, though it wasn't).

 

[mr3urious]

well first off all, whatever panicky crap about the childhood obesity epidemic we've had it's...well... apparently working. The levels of obesity have dropped dramatically in recent years among kids.

And all without misguided food bans or "sin taxes" either.

 

[Drtooth]

Sin taxes don't work for a simple reason. None of it actually goes to the programs they say they will, and those who are supposed to be priced out of the habit just drive to somewhere without one. Junk Food sin taxes wouldn't go to any health based initiative as they intend, but rather wind up going to fill the gaps in state budgets left off by unwise tax cuts. Which could get into another rant about the right's incessant desire to give massive tax cuts to those who have so much that it doesn't matter, while giving a petty one to those who need it. Long rant short, cutting taxes and funding for things don't make budgets disappear, and when states need that money they no longer get, they toss a bunch of little taxes that hurt the lower classes in a last ditch effort to close funding gaps. In other words, there's no such thing as a tax cut. The government makes that money one way or another. That's why so many towns now have to buy 20 dollar garbage bags.