Walmart Says You Can RIP for Less!

Funerals cost a lot. Caskets cost a lot. Dying costs almost as much as getting born. Some people mortgage houses, spend all of the life insurance cash, and more just to bury someone. The the cold reality of the $700 Social Security "funeral" benefit shows up.

Well, lucky for us, it's Wal-Mart to the rescue! The nation's low price leader has announced that they're now carrying coffins. Yep, watch your head, those falling prices could land you in one of these caskets.

Caskets start at $12.88 and go up from there. Oh, wait, that's an album by some band called Casket Salesman. OK, so prices start at $895 and go up from there.

Check it out.


--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

The Religion Flowchart: Choosing the Best Religion For You

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Febreze and Bachelorhood

A note for my bachelor friends:

Febreze is NOT a replacement for showering and/or laundry. You can't hose your clothing (or self) down with it and expect to be good for a couple of extra days. Sorry to break it to you.

Also, those commercials lie.

You can't spray down your pad with it and instantly have a clean place. Febreze does not take the used underwear off the ceiling fan, remove the week-old bread crumbs from the sofa, nor does it magically remove the odor from when you got drunk and missed the toilet.

Dads: please don't spray down your toddler with it hoping to eliminate the interesting smells they emit. That doesn't work either.

Also note: it does not work on dogs. Lame, I know, but it's the truth.

In fact, so far I've found no actual use for Febreze. I'm not even sure what it's really for, since the commercials are obviously showing totally unrealistic scenarios wherein it's being deployed.


--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

The Three Rules of Dating, Realtionships and Life

Alright. I've managed, through a long career in various job descriptions, to specialize almost entirely in taking complex things and boiling them down to their basics. I've done this with politics, global warming, religion, and now I'm going to do it with dating.

This information, of course, applies whether your relationship is a man-woman, woman-man, man-man, woman-woman, man-woman-goat, or any combination thereof. Sorry, it does not include donkeys. You sick pervert.

What I am analyzing here is the way that people walk into dating and the resulting relationships as if there's some huge mystique involved. Magazines like Cosmopolitan and Esquire have made whole fortunes from this false mystery and the promotion of it. I'm about to shatter their marketing strategy.

1 - Dating, at its essence.
Lots of discussion is given to "dating" and how this "complex relationship" of courtship is pursued by those involved (and often their mothers). Whole doctoral thesis and sections of religious texts are concerned with the act of courtship (dating) and its activities.

In my usual fashion, I will boil down the act of dating into one simple word that explains everything happening, no matter what it is.

SEX

Yes, folks. Pretty it up all you want, dating is just about sex. Do you dress up for your date, try on a half dozen colognes, spend an hour doing your hair, and use various mirrors and lighting tricks to attempt to pluck every stray hair just to "look good?" No, you do it so you'll look sexy.

We don't ask each other out, go to the best places, eat food we can't pronounce, and act like civilized people just so that we can "have fun." We do it so we can have fun by getting laid.

I don't care what religious phrases, moral overtones, multi-syllable psychiatric terms, or whatever else you try to use to explain dating. They're just really complicated ways to say "sex."

Dating is for sex. Those who don't believe that are lying to themselves. They're probably feminists, Methodists, sexists or some other "ists" to boot.

2. Marriage is for one thing.
All the various human relationships we create for our intimate lives, such as marriage, couple-hood, and all that, are for procreation. (That's a big word for sex.)

We don't get married in order that God will recognize us as a couple who will live together forever, or until "death do us part," or whatever. We get married so that we have a legally-binding contract we can enforce when the jerk tries to dump us when we tell him we're pregnant. Or so that we can keep all our stuff when the witch trots off with our best friend.

No matter the situation, marriage is about sex. More specifically, it's about sex exclusivity and the children that result. Whether your marriage is about two people or ten people or even five people and a yak, it's about exclusive sexual rights.

Everything else in marriage is just dating, but with fewer manners.

3. Old people have sex.
I threw this one in there to make sure you were still paying attention. Make sure to flush after you've finished puking and then keep reading. I promise I'm done grossing you out.

The point of this section's title (don't re-read it, you idiot! Alright, let me know when you get back... geez, throwing up sure does sound sickening) ... oh, right, the point of this section is to get you to note something: no matter how old you get, you're still thinking about sex.

(Damn, how much did you eat, anyway? Is there supposed to be green stuff in there?)

Alright, I'll just finish this off then. Everything in your life is basically about sex. From the time you become sexually aware (scientists are out on this one, but I'm guessing it's about the time people start using the word "teen" to describe you) to the time you die, everything in your life is about sex.

Before that time, everything in your life is about making adults feel awkward about sex. Yep, you may not have realized it, but children exist for one reason (other than growing up to become adults): making your sex life suck.

So, when you really boil it down, Freud was right. From the moment we're conceived (and the thirty seconds before that point, probably), our lives are all about sex.

Conception = sex
Birth = disruption of sex
Childhood = disruption and embarrassment about sex
Teenager = nothing but sexual thought
Adult = pursuit of sex
Death = completing the circle by making room for the people showing up because of conception.

There you go. If you were hoping for deep enlightenment from this, I hope you were satisfied. I know, I know. Don't praise me for my depth of insight. Just send money.

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Gubmint and How Gubmint Works

Received via email

Once upon a time the government had a vast scrap yard
in the middle of a desert. Congress said, "Someone may
steal from it at night." So they created a night
watchman position and hired a person for the job.

Then Congress said, "How does the watchman do his job
without instruction?" So they created a planning department
and hired two people, one person to write the instructions,
and one person to do time studies.

Then Congress said, "How will we know the night watchman
is doing the tasks correctly?" So they created a Quality
Control department and hired two people. One to do the
studies and one to write the reports.

Then Congress said, "How are these people going to get
paid?" So They created the following positions, a time
keeper, and a payroll officer, Then hired two people.

Then Congress said, "Who will be accountable for all of
these people?" So they created an administrative section
and hired three people, an Administrative Officer,
Assistant Administrative Officer, and a Legal Secretary.

Then Congress said, "We have had this command in
operation for one Year and we are $18,000 over
budget, we must cutback overall cost."

So they laid off the night watchman.

NOW slowly, let it sink in.

Quietly, we go like sheep to slaughter.

Does anybody remember the reason given for the
establishment of the DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY....
during the Carter Administration?

Anybody ?

Anything?

No?

Didn't think so!

Bottom line. We've spent several hundred billion
dollars in support of an agency...the reason for
which not one person who reads this can remember!

Ready??

It was very simple...and at the time, everybody thought it very appropriate.

The Department of Energy was instituted on 8-04-1977.
TO LESSEN OUR DEPENDENCE ON FOREIGN OIL.

Hey, pretty efficient, huh???

AND NOW IT'S 2009 -- 32 YEARS LATER -- AND THE BUDGET FOR THIS"NECESSARY"DEPARTMENT IS AT $24.2 BILLION A YEAR. THEY HAVE 16,000 FEDERAL EMPLOYEES AND APPROXIMATELY 100,000 CONTRACT EMPLOYEES; AND LOOK AT THE JOB THEY HAVE DONE! THIS IS WHERE YOU SLAP YOUR FOREHEAD AND SAY, "WHAT WAS I THINKING?"

Ah, yes -- good ole bureaucracy.

AND, NOW, WE ARE GOING TO TURN THE BANKING SYSTEM, HEALTH CARE, AND THE AUTO INDUSTRY OVER TO THE SAME GOVERNMENT?
HELLOOO! Anybody Home?

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Capital Nativity Scene

Via email: The US Supreme Court has decided that no Nativity Scene can be presented on the U.S. Capital this year. Interestingly, this is not for religious reasons.

Apparently, they cannot find Three Wise Men in the nation's capital, they're unable to locate a proper Virgin, and so far all they've located are more than enough asses to fill the stable.

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me

Peace Prize

--Read more coherent stuff from Aaron by visiting his main blog at Aaron's EnvironMental Corner - where the environment is looked at mentally. Or something like that. Or just Twitter: Tweet Me