Alarming News: I like Morgan Freeberg. A lot.
American Digest: And I like this from "The Blog That Nobody Reads", because it is -- mostly -- about me. What can I say? I'm on an ego trip today. It won't last.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: We were following a trackback and thinking "hmmm... this is a bloody excellent post!", and then we realized that it was just part III of, well, three...Damn. I wish I'd written those.
Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler: ...I just remembered that I found a new blog a short while ago, House of Eratosthenes, that I really like. I like his common sense approach and his curiosity when it comes to why people believe what they believe rather than just what they believe.
Brutally Honest: Morgan Freeberg is brilliant.
Dr. Melissa Clouthier: Morgan Freeberg at House of Eratosthenes (pftthats a mouthful) honors big boned women in skimpy clothing. The picture there is priceless--keep scrolling down.
Exile in Portales: Via Gerard: Morgan Freeberg, a guy with a lot to say. And he speaks The Truth...and it's fascinating stuff. Worth a read, or three. Or six.
Just Muttering: Two nice pieces at House of Eratosthenes, one about a perhaps unintended effect of the Enron mess, and one on the Gore-y environ-movie.
Mein Blogovault: Make "the Blog that No One Reads" one of your daily reads.
The Virginian: I know this post will offend some people, but the author makes some good points.
Poetic Justice: Cletus! Ah gots a laiv one fer yew...
…but…then again, when I use that particular phrase, it can only be about one thing. My most trivial problem. But, at times, surely among the most frustrating, that continues to dog me as if guided by a malevolent supernatural consciousness.
This particular brand of lager…
Notice that it has a pretty girl. It has to have one, it’s like, right in the name. So the brand has been re-designed, the models rotated out over the years more times than in the Tomb Raider franchise. And for those who are interested in dressing up as the next candidate, you can do that…
But you see, there is a problem. We’re in Northern California. Women here are a bit on the catty side, a little bit jealous. They’re into low effort. They look hot enough when they’re young, but then of course they’re not going to want to have anything to do with you unless you’re into their kind of music and pop culture. Once you snag one of them, though, it’s off with the make-up, on with the extra eighty pounds. Tee shirts and jogging pants all day every day. Which means, you’ll notice, anything associated with the image of a pretty girl, tends to disappear. This is a consumer bloc of no-makeup “all-done-tryin'” types, who don’t want competition and they can flex some muscle.
We also have people going extra-slow in the passing lane on the freeway. See, the attitude is everywhere. “Don’t wanna lead, don’t wanna follow, sure as hell not going to get out of the way.”
Now, I’d prefer this beer even if it had some bum’s ass cheeks on the label instead of a pretty girl. To me, the pleasing imagery is just a plus. I’m too old for the sweet sticky “kid’s beer,” not into the peach-flavored oatmeal stout with the wooden spoon to clean up the lumps on the bottom, no thankyew. And we’ve had this crisis, uh, “brewing” since Friday when I’d allowed my reserves to go dry. A dry Friday was not in the cards, the week had been tough. So I stopped by the drugstore that had repeatedly reassured me they’d never run out of the stuff, because it was way too popular in this neighborhood.
They were out of it. Picked over pretty clean, actually, for a Friday. As if the beer guy took pride in his job, but didn’t know anything about days-of-week, nothing more than a barnyard pig. I headed home with one box of Moosehead. Yech.
Just out of curiosity, I asked them what day they stocked. Tuesday. Hmmm, interesting. Yes, if there’s one day a week I think about beer, it’s Tuesday.
Well I drained off the Moosehead by Monday, as it happened. So I headed back in Tuesday to find…nothing…changed. It’s as if nobody bothered to stock a single box, or to buy one. So I grabbed some of that awful stuff, the German stuff that tastes alright but the paper label never quite peels off the way it should.
Today I ducked into my tried-and-true warehouse, that always has the brand I want. Well again, it’s got a pretty girl on the label so…no. It was well hidden. After a few minutes of searching from aisle to aisle, I was browsing the glass-front cold storage room, and I saw it peeking out at me. So I ducked into the cold storage room and pried out the box. Looked for a second & third one…no dice. I seemed to have been snagging their very last box.
I brought it up to the cashier. “I seem to have relieved you of the last box…” Pregnant pause. “In town,” I added, hopefully not too irritably. This aroused a frantic search on the computerized inventory system, which confirmed I must have been in error. There were at least two boxes left. A friendly customer service person raced to the back with all due haste while I loitered.
And loitered some more. After the five-to-ten minutes, the answer came back: Customer right, computer wrong.
That’s when I looked up to the liquor aisle, on the end cap there was a promotion that said “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter!!!,” three exclamation points, featuring this guy:
I really don’t know what the Harlequin Romance Novel guy has to do with butter, or not-butter, or what not-butter has to do with liquor. But I’m pretty sure that if the artwork on the beer I wanted looked like that, I’d have no trouble finding it; everyone would be carrying it. Right out in front, prominently featured. No, more than “pretty sure.” Absolutely positive.
Man’s world, my ass.
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Ah, you’re caught between a rock and a hardplace…and no, that’s a reference to your location, not you personally. See, north of you in the great liberal state of Oregon, there are “Markets of Choice” and other locations that carry some of the greatest, award-winning microbrews not only in the nation, but in the world. I also recall visiting my sister in SoCal, and there were gigantic, small Wal-Mart sized stores that carried nothing but drinks and booze. I don’t recall the name, but they were like gigantic Toys-R-Us’s, only with wine and beer…Beers-R-Us’s. Fantastic. Anyway, if you buy only one type of beer, cases at a time, might be time for a road trip!
- P_Ang | 04/22/2015 @ 18:03It’s Total Wine, and Beverages & More, a.k.a. BevMo. It is the former of those two that had this one, last, well-concealed, just-short-of-booby-trapped, “computer knows nothing about it” box.
So you see, the situation has indeed deteriorated. I was already in the “Toys R Us for beer drinkers” realm. Still coming up dry.
NorCal just doesn’t like pretty girls. It’s not that we don’t have any. And they are tolerated, even doted-upon — but there’s a determined drive to make sure middle-age guys can’t see pretty girls anywhere, even on beer boxes. The high-school jail bait, they’re okay, just as long as they keep their faces down on their little smart-phones with their well-manicured thumbs dancing over ’em.
The empty-nesters don’t want competition. Fabio’s mug over the Frangelico is just fine, but no radiant feminine visages allowed anywhere.
- mkfreeberg | 04/22/2015 @ 18:14“I really don’t know what the Harlequin Romance Novel guy has to do with butter,”
Think
LAST
TANGO
IN
PARIS
Enjoy!
- vanderleun | 04/22/2015 @ 18:23Last Tango in Paris? I don’t listen to hip hop.
- mkfreeberg | 04/22/2015 @ 18:29@vanderleun,
that’s just wrong, dude. So, so wrong.
- Severian | 04/23/2015 @ 08:04Try the Last Mango in Paris instead.
- philmon | 04/23/2015 @ 08:22The male model’s name is Fabio. He was “all that” for 15 to 20 minutes a decade ago. During his period of fame, he was featured in a TV ad for the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter” margarine product.T
Also interesting to note that St. Pauli is the name of a district in Hamburg, Germany.
- bammit | 04/23/2015 @ 08:24It is of note because it is a world famous red light district and you’d likely be hard pressed to find a girl there who is as good looking as the St. Pauli Girl on the bottle.
Last Tango In Paris would have to be a butterbeer, no?
- Rich Fader | 04/23/2015 @ 13:27