My Presential Platform, Yakov Smirnoff, and Other Thoughts

Seeing all these ads and reading all these articles about running for President got me thinking about my Presidential Platform. Minus my “Liquidation of Idiots” Program and my invasion plans of Aruba, I needed something that would grab the people and rally them to my side. So, I came up with a new governmental department.

I would create a Department of Television, in which the government would subsidize certain shows if they were cancelled. As my Secretary of TV, Seamus would evaluate the current crop of cancelled shows and pick which ones would be saved. If chosen, the government would buy the ad time of the show from the network at an average cost of ad time for the highest rated shows at the time slot and genre, than sell that ad time to companies at a reduced cost (no political ads would be allowed). If the show becomes successful again, the government would reap the reward of higher ad revenue. Also, built in to all shows agreements with DVD, if the show was taken over by the government, the government would receive a portion of DVD and other medium revenues from the purchase.

Now, if this isn’t a winning idea, I don’t know what is. It also has the added benefit of possibly making the government money, instead of pissing it all away like they normally do. Of course, knowing politicians, they would probably find some way to screw it up. I mean, PBS is government subsidized and it’s pretty screwed up.

Speaking of PBS, you may remember a couple of years ago when I posted an open letter to BBC America lightly admonishing them for cancelling Ashes to Ashes after its first season even though the episodes from the second season were already produced and ready to go. Well, a while after that, BBC America threw up the second season, however refused to show the third and final season.

I had just about resigned myself to buying the complete series on DVD in region 2 when I noticed my local PBS station was running Ashes to Ashes. This is the same PBS station that is running seasons of MI-5 and Hustle never before shown in America. So, after re-watching the first two seasons, you could imagine my surprise when my onscreen TV guide started out “In the season 3 premiere…” Yeah, I went absolutely giddy. Seamus told me he hated me since he doesn’t have access to my PBS and my wife simply rolled her eyes and said “that’s nice dear”.

So, I watched the first episode last week and it’s just as good as I had hoped. Not only that, I guess 1983 was the year good music popped up because, while the first two season in 81 and 82 sucked music wise, 1983 rocked. We were given music by The Police and New Order (I still love “Blue Monday”). So, it seems like my local PBS has given the giant middle finger to BBC America. Considering PBS is showing multiple long running British show plus has the amazing Sherlock, it makes you wonder if BBC America has a purpose besides running Doctor Who, Top Gear, and anything with Gordon Ramsay.

Speaking of idiocy, I was recently in a graduate class and the professor asked the class if any of the companies we worked for had recently done anything to better help society or make a difference or some other hippie, tree hugging bullshit. So this girl raises her hand and regales us all with the tale about how her company did away with trash cans. No, she was being serious.

I guess in order to promote recycling; employees only have recycling bins at their desks in order to compel them to recycle stuff that can be recycled. If there is some actual trash that can’t be recycled, they need to walk to the kitchen and throw out the offending item. I cannot express how upset I would be if they tried to pull this bullshit at my work. I would use the recycling bin as my actual trash can. If that got people pissed, I would do the same exact thing, yet at the end of the day take it to the kitchen and dump the entire contents into the regular trash. This is absolutely ludicrous. I’m sorry if I’m to busying doing my job to make you feel better about yourself.

People who are all about being green piss me off. Listen, you think you’re saving the planet or whatever, fine, but don’t shove it down my throat. Even worse are the vegans. I mean, I get you love animals but man climbed to the top of the food chain for a reason. I don’t expect a shark or lion to give me the common courtesy of walking away if they’re hungry.

The worst part about vegans is the fact that they don’t eat dairy. Do those jackholes realize that if you don’t milk a cow it will suffer a great amount of pain before it dies? Think about the consequences of your actions.

Speaking of consequences of your actions, I finally went to see a doctor for a routine checkup and since it had been forever since I last saw a doctor, she decided to run tests which meant drawing blood. I hate needles. Anyway, I make my way over to the lab and wait my turn. I get called in and the nurse has me sit down. She starts talking to me in this thick Russian accent and she looks old enough to remember the Soviet era pretty well.

She asks me how my day is and I start complaining about having to get up early due to fire alarm testing in my building that morning. She starts going off on how that isn’t early and she has to get up earlier every morning. The worst part about it was I tuned her out but all I kept thinking was how she sounded like Yakov Smirnoff. I kept expecting her to say “In Soviet Russia, television watches you!”

The worst part was that I started to smile, but had to try and cover it up. The last thing you want is a woman with a needle thinking you’re not taking her seriously. Things don’t go well in those situations.