Musings, rantings, ravings, observations and links
Monday, October 20, 2008
Hoze Sold Separately
I was up in Evanston the other day and I stopped into a toy store called Tom Thumb. I used to hit this place when I was a kid and it never failed to delight. They've got everything and it's nice to know that good things don't change. While perusing their model building section I came across this: the Ho Roundhouse.
How great is this? Does it come with a gram of meth and a DIY criminal record? Are the Hoze sold separately? Am I the only one that thinks that this is totally unbelievable? Look at the artist's rendition on the box. It looks like what I imagine a roadside brothel in Texas or New Mexico would look like. It's absolutely awesome!!! So call up a couple of friends and build it on out for a lifetime of pleasure!!
This really says it all, doesn't it? I mean, in order to sell something, people always say that you've gotta really know your customer so that you can best sell to them. Obviously, the owners of this bar know their customer. Basically they're saying that if you want to get loaded any day, almost any time, you can swing on by and get your cocktail on. Simple. Direct. Genius.
My brother wrote the following in response to receiving the above photo in an email which was titled "Woman swallowed whole by leopard!". I think it's pretty funny, so here it is for you to enjoy. Those of you who know Matthew have to know that this sort of thing can only come from his head: pure. comic. genius.
"I bet they had to break out the famous "jaws of death" to extricate her, you know, the tool used to cut through the twisted metal hulks of car accidents to free trapped passengers. I'm guessing it wasn't pretty.
It's not widely known, but leopard skin has a tensile strength similar to that of spider silk, so in this photo her true bulk is disguised by the powerful containment effect provided by the leopard's skin. Once cut free from it, however, there would have to have been a literal explosion of mass. Not a true explosion of course, since that would technically require bits and pieces of flying debris. I mean, certainly there would have been all sorts of bits and pieces flying and possibly to deadly effect, but I'd have been more concerned by the shock wave caused by and preceding her rapidly expanding body mass. You know, like when a volcano explodes and the pyroclasmic gases roar down the mountain side at several hundred miles per hour, flattening everything in their path. It's quite an image. Thank you for sharing."
"Tensile strength"? "Powerful containment effect"? "Pyroclasmic gases"? WTF? Where does he come up with this stuff? Awesome! And thank you, Matthew, for sharing your priceless viewpoint with us!!
I got this cartoon in an email this morning. Basically, it's all there, right? I guess my only question is, shouldn't China be on the list? I thought that the Japanese occupied quite a bit of China in WW II, but then again, what the hell do I know? Certainly more than you knuckleheads, but that's another story, obviously.
Don't ask me where I get this stuff. I just happened to find this gem and frankly I don't want to ruin its unadulterated awesomeness with too much commentary, so, enjoy.
This one is from the Thighmaster, but I just couldn't resist posting it here. I mean, really, this girl's ass is spectacular; it's a thing of beauty. The thing is, she probably doesn't even know the power she possesses. At this point, in that dress (if one can call that swatch of fabric a "dress"), she is more powerful than Alexander the Great or The Emperor, Darth Sidious. Her ass could probably power Manhattan during a summer heat wave! HUZZAH!
So, you're welcome for this. Have a nice day. Over and out.
I've decided that since I'm so effing beautiful, that I would start a column here at Pedro's about those whom I deem to be ugly. Yes, this is totally rude. Yes, this is not fair to those I choose to ridicule. And yes, I should have something better to do. But I don't and it's Columbus Day, I slept terribly last night and consequently I'm tired, cranky and bitter this morning. On top of that, all I have to look forward to today is a lunch with my sponsor who's going to lecture me ad nauseum about how to fix my so called life. Ugh. Shoot me now.
Any-yawn, I'm going to start off this here column with Sandra Bernhard. Granted, she was brills-effing-murray in Hudson Hizzawk ("Bunny! Ball Ball!"), but lately she seems to be in the news because she can't close her freakin' pie hole. And what a savage pie hole it is! Check out this pic from PageSix.com:
The pride of Flint, Michigan. Jeezus.
Apparently she thought that cracking wise about VP hopeful Sarah Palin getting gang raped by a cadre of black men was "funny." Now I may not be Billy Crystal or George Carlin, but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that gang rape jokes are generally - how can I put this nicely - NOT FUCKING FUNNY. I don't care about your political views. This has nothing to do with that. What this does have to do with is taking a Face for Radio, and then making it even uglier (if that is possible in this case) by making gang rape jokes. What a total douche-tard.
Pan back! Like, waaaaaaaaay back!!!
So that's about it from me today. I'm open to suggestions from you, my loyal reader(s), for more candidates for this column. I figure that at some point I'll have to induct Madonna into the Face For Radio Hall Of Fame, but there's just no time today. I mean, with her face that post could take weeks.
It's been a long time, been a long time, been a long, lonely, lonely, lonely, lonely time.
Can you guess what year this is from?
Greetings, earthlings! I'm thinking about making a return to this here blog. As some of you may know, I am no longer (geographically) Pedro of NYC. However, I am going to continue to blog under this sobriquet because, well, I effing feel like it and PedrosChicago sounds like ass. Deal with it. Don't deal with it. Whatever. But, as they say, there but for the grace of God, be it under a misnomer or not, go I.
Se here we are. October, 2008. I have a word of the day today, simply because I happened to see it at the top of the page of the dictionary while I was checking the spelling of sobriquet. I felt this word was appropriate today because the stock market closed down just over 508 points, bringing its two day total drop to almost 900 points. Suh - Weet, people!! In light of this, I give you Pedro's NYC Word of the Day. Pay attention - this will be on the test.
Sodomy \'sad-e-me\ n [ME, fr. OF sodomie, fr. LL Sodoma Sodom; fr. the homosexual proclivities of the men of the City (Gen 19:1 - 11)] 1 : Copulation with a memeber of the same sex or with an animal : BESTIALITY2 : noncoital and esp. anal or oral copulation with a member of the opposite sex 3 : giving the literal or proverbial high hard one in the pooper to someone, whether they like it or not : syn see ASS FUCKING.
Because, my friends, for the past several weeks the markets have Sodomized (or engaged in Sodomy with) investors, i.e. investors have been victims of an Ass Fucking.
Now luckily, yours truly has no assets to speak of (although I do have a sizable ass - but that's another story) except a 401(k) full of Morgan Stanley stock that I can't touch until I'm like 60 or something. This basically means that the massive sell off in the markets will not impact me like it is and will continue to impact others. And although I'm usually not the sympathetic type, times out there are nothing short of brutal and I hope everyone comes out of this ok.
I have a quick summary for you, the Great Unwashed, that explains how we got here. It's a quote from a guy named Steve Schwarzman, one of the co-founders of a private equity (amongst others things) shop called the Blackstone Group. By all accounts this is one smart mofo, although apparently he's only about 5'3", and as everyone knows, that's gotta hurt.
It’s a perfect storm. It started with Congress encouraging lending to lower-income people. You went from subprime loans being 2% of total loans in 2002 to 30% of total loans in 2006. That kind of enormous increase swept into the net people who shouldn’t have been borrowing.
Those loans were packaged into CDOs rated AAA, which led the investment-banking firms [buying them] to do little to no due diligence, and the securities were distributed throughout the world, where they started defaulting.
When they started defaulting, out of bad luck or bad judgment, we implemented fair value accounting….You had wildly different marks for this kind of security, which led to massive write-offs by the commercial banking and investment-banking system.
In the face of those losses…you needed to raise new equity…which came from sovereign-wealth funds in part, which then caused political resistance to sovereign-wealth funds, who predictably have withdrawn from putting money into the system….It seemed pretty obvious that would happen. We now find ourselves with a liquidity crisis where fundamentally the cost of money for financial intermediaries [such as investment banks] is significantly in excess of their cost of lending it. So several institutions found themselves in a structurally impossible position. We had a series of bankruptcies, whether Bear Stearns or Lehman, or forced sales like Merrill. Goldman reverted to a banking charter for a lower cost of funds, which today is still not low enough for the business.
So that’s the story of how we got here.
Did you guys get that? There's no simpler way to put it. Now head off to your next party and dazzle them with this little tidbit of knowledge. If you are asked to discuss specifics, it is our policy here at PedrosNYC to simply say, "There's a time for business and a time for cocktails. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is the latter. Good evening to you." Then, as you elegantly pirouette away, be sure to mutter under your breath "Sayonara Bitches!!" and adjourn yourself to the bar, where you'll be the hit of the party. In LA that shit might even get you laid. Good luck all, I am out!
I was up in Evanston the other day and I stopped into a toy store called Tom Thumb. I used to hit this place when I was a kid and it never failed to delight. They've got everything and it's nice to know that good things don't change. While perusing their model building section I came across this: the Ho Roundhouse.
