Things that amuse me, Vol. 18

So where was I? Oh yeah...

Four kids is a lot. Did you know that? Anyway, here are a few of the things that have been amusing me during the past several months:

1.  Before I had kids, I can very confidently say that no one had ever happily stepped on my taint to get a boost up.

2. How many episodes of Mad Men does it take before a woman stops saying things like, "What?! He's married!" The world may never know.

3. My 9-year-old son D- recently found out that dyslexia is a real condition, not just some kind of unhelpful super power of Percy Jackson. Since he got four books and one movie into the series before realizing this, he still might not be able to resist following slow readers around school, watching for magical fight scenes to break out after the tears and misplaced anger blow over.

4.  I'm becoming convinced that it may be the primary purpose of dry cat food to serve as bait to draw mice into The Kill Zone. Either way, the cats get fed, though, right?

5. My 3-year-old son E- opened a fortune cookie to find the observation, "You are never bitter, deceptive, or petty." And that's how we discovered the unwritten label, "Fortune Cookies not intended for users 3 or older."

Corporate intelligence, Vol. 10: We're number -1, we're number -1!

I'm filing this one in the No Press is Bad Press folder:

While perusing the Web to find out if there was already a pitchfork-wielding mob I could join on the march to the Frankenstein's Castle of whoever makes those TVs at gas stations and grocery store lines, or if I'd just have to start my own, Google brought me to GSTV.com.

GSTV stands for Gas Station TeleVision, which, as far as I can tell, is a company that supplies content for the TVs in gas stations and, presumably, other totally inappropriate locations.

But the page to which I was pointed was not their splash page, designed to sell me on the idea of not cursing the waking nightmare this concept has wrought, but rather to a (authorized?) reprinting of a Wall Street Journal article in which the company is mentioned.

The article, despite the WSJ's "pro-business" bent, is distinctly hostile to the very idea of this company, starting with the title, I Don't Want My GSTV, and ending on this gem with which I couldn't agree more:

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Before allowing me to complete my transaction, the pump TV asked me whether I was hungry and exhorted me to go inside to check out the snacks in the minimart. I wasn't, but it did make me wonder -- do they sell hammers in there? There's a TV I'd like to smash.

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I'm thinking someone down at headquarters needs to call a meeting to pass a motion to consider implementing a new policy of manual review of the automatic feed to this section of the Web site.

Self-inflicted sterilization on 500 channels

Just like your mother always told you whenever she wasn't trying to use the TV as an unpaid babysitter, TV will fry your brain cells. But beyond that, it seems, it might also destroy any hope you have of growing your family larger than it already is.

Or at least that's the hope of the Indian government:

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Less sex, more TV idea aired in India

On World Population Day this year, India's new health and welfare minister came out with an idea on how to tackle the population issue: Bring electricity to every Indian village so that people would watch television until late at night and therefore be too tired to make babies.

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While they just might be on to something here, I have to point out that we Americans are having no problems increasing our population at what's traditionally been considered a reasonable rate.

Sure, a lot of that increase might come from illegal aliens jumping the fences to get a better look at our monstrous TVs, but still, we keep the Labor and Delivery nurses on their sensibly supported toes all by ourselves.

If the Indian government's logic was as sound as they seem to feel it is, can you imagine if someone took away America's national average of 8 hours a day of television time? Or, worse yet, our additional 7 daily hours of dicking around on the Internet?? Three billion of us would be packed in here like a typical American backside in a Chinese airplane seat!

We might even, through exposure, manage to grow past our Puritan repression and resulting obsession with sex as something illicit and get back to doing something meaningful with ourselves! I mean, besides making more selves.

Anyway, I tend to agree with this heroic 24-times-a-father from Uttar Pradesh:

"After watching TV," he says, "when we look at scintillating things, we will probably want to make more children."

Yep, that's pretty much how it works, buddy-- you're ahead of the curve!

Even if he's wrong, it's worth noting that although the poor are only getting electricity, at long last, in an attempt to trick them into abstinence, they will eventually learn that it can be used to do other helpful things like light one's house and refrigerate food. They might then feel so happy and hopeful they'll have a few more kids just to celebrate. Jai ho!