I don’t get people who don’t put their bumper stickers on straight. Who literally just slaps one on?

When The News (not this News) gets bored with the news, it is decided that the Greatest Hits of the news shall be revisited. And so, today I read this:

Baby Jessica waits to collect $1M fund

Why are we revisiting this woman? And why are we asking her how she’s doing? She was two-years-old and she doesn’t remember falling in the pipe and she didn’t keep the Get Well fuzzy clown card you sent her back then, even though she was two-years-old and couldn’t read.

Now let’s stop this Baby Jessica business once and for all and devote our full attention to the real reason why my sweet, sweet Diana is no more.

They’ve been advertising this new Veramyst prescription nasal spray on TV lately and, while I know it’s low fruit to make fun of the wacky side effects from products (read: remember Olestra’s anal leakage?), this one stands out as a real winner. From the Patient Information page but also mentioned in the TV ads:

“Side effects include nose bleed or nasal sores. Nasal fungal infection, glaucoma, or cataracts may occur. Have regular eye exams. Do not spray in eyes.”

OK, fungus of the nose? I’ll keep the tried and true itchy nose. And how is it that a nasal spray can possibly cause glaucoma or cataracts? Your nose doesn’t itch anymore but now you’ve got an Abe Lincoln’s head-shaped growth blocking your view when you look to the right.

Then again, I’ve never had a nose that irritated.

The thing about warm weather and spiders is that, you know, spiders get the bold idea that they should even exist.

We had a stereophonic record player in a nice bench-type cabinet when I was growing up. In the ’70’s, they still used the word “stereophonic” when describing audio components to elicit ooohs and ahhhs. They spelled it out too - instead of just saying “stereo” like they do now - because it sounded more like a technological marvel back then. Nowadays, they make greeting cards with stereo sound.

Maybe someday our kids, with their 20th generation iPods, will think Dolby Digital 7.1 Surround Sound is quaint in the same way. Seriously, “digital” is my generation’s “stereophonic.”

“Ummm, Dad, did you guys really need to call everything “digital” back then? Isn’t it kind of assumed?”

Anyway, I’m playing a continuous shuffle of Christmas music on the laptop, piped in through the receiver and it occurs to me that something is missing.

I kind of miss the click of a new record dropping on the stack and that initial scratchy audio while the needle found the first track on the record. My parents didn’t really play too much on that record player save for the occasional Helen Reddy or Manilow album (I love, by the way, that the official Manilow Web site refers to itself as “The Barrynet.”). Because Christmas is when the records really came out for hours upon hours at a time, I associate the sound of records dropping on the stack and playing, with Christmas. Someone needs to churn out a little audio sample that can be interspersed in an mp3 playlist for nostalgia heads. This is kind of promising for people who use Pro Tools but it’s more for processing songs themselves.

Another thing that I recently realized is how my holiday memories are entirely limited to a certain small set of Christmas records for pretty much 20 odd years. Because these records were part of Christmas for me, I can’t really relate to people with other holiday music preferences. So my generation, in some odd way, has a certain language of Christmas albums with which to identify with others. It’s like some odd holiday loyalty to certain holiday performances.

For instance, I’m comin’ at you with a Julie Andrews/Andre Previn Christmas Treasure, Andy Williams Christmas, Time-Life Treasury (but the record set allowed you to open the case to make a popup house which kicked so much holiday ass), Alvin & The Chipmunks, kind of holiday flavor. It’s difficult for me to “get” how you even had a Christmas if one of these wasn’t on your family’s playlist. Oh sure, maybe you had “Christmas” but you didn’t have Christmas.

I’m all for progress though. I guess an iTunes crossfade between tracks is the new black so my family’s holiday tradition will be queing up 4.7 days worth of no-repeat holiday audio joy on shuffle and we’ll call it good. Deck the halls!

The way I figure it, on any given day, 3 of my 5 senses are unwillingly hijacked on my way to or from work.

With driving being such a visual activity, I imagine sight was the first sense to be assaulted while driving. First there were cars and, almost immediately to follow, there were advertisements to look at on the side of the road. It only followed that, by the time World War II rolled around, bumper stickers were already well on their way to telling others in view how to think, what to say, and for whom to vote.

It’s a little known fact that the modern day “My kid is a so-and-so at so-and-so” stickers got their beginnings in the forties with stickers like “My corn is as high as an elephant’s eye at Windy Acres farm.” Since then, it seems the goal of bumper stickers has been to progressively be more in another reader’s face than ever before. Stickers of a Democratic donkey in between crosshairs? Stickers that tell me about choices and children. Stickers that tell me how crazee the driver in front of me is.

I’d like to see more stickers with positivity and a focus on the simple things in life. Here are a few I’d like to see:

Mmmmm… Cheese!
Good Morning! And How Are You?
Honk and Smile

Here’s a real one I’ve been seeing lately: I <3 My Wife

Now that’s the right idea. Maybe I should be encouraged. Maybe not. Have you seen one of these on the road yet? Scrolling LED license frames? A programmable interface on which to spew your views for all to see. Just try to avoid looking at a scrolling band of bright LEDs in front of you in traffic. By the time you get home, you’ve memorized this person’s political views. My retinas are the cattle to this Ford Expedition’s hot iron.

Not being in control of one of my senses is enough but let’s just add hearing in there. These damn iPods and the FM Transmitterfication of American roadways! It turns out that FM Transmitters killed the radio star as it’s damn near impossible to listen to the radio on the road without hearing the slow fade-in, quick peak, and slow fade out - all in a span of 5-10 seconds - of someone’s iPod playing through their car radio with an FM Transmitter.

And aren’t iPods supposed to be loaded up with good music? Their ads will have you believe that you’re only allowed to have good music on them. Not so, not so. Apparently, iTunes and the Innanet empowers people to do better at having sucky music. I’m well aware of how elitist that comes off but Hoobastank? Come on! Someone in a blue VW Passat - shiny and newish mind you - drove by me and I heard fade in and fade out Hoobastank.

Come the hell on. Look pal, there are many things I wish you didn’t do, too. Listening to Hoobastank being one of them.

And last, in the trio of senses I’m not in control of while I drive, is smell. This one doesn’t need much of a description. Who, I ask you… no, I plead with you to tell me, who smokes a fat stogie in the 8 o’clock hour of the morn? “Arghhh, nothing like my mornin’ cuppa joe and a nice White Owl to start my day off right!”

So, the way I figure it, we’ve got two unspoiled senses left to ourselves while driving. Two senses that no one can take from us. Taste and touch. Ain’t nobody gonna force taste and touch on me while I’m driving either. Unless Hammacher Schlemmer comes out with some kind of Go Go Gadget Arms for the car. Some kind of roadway slappy face extension arms contraption.

And power locks are still an option, not a standard item, on new car sales? I need a car with locks more like those vaults you see with the spinny, ocean vessel steering wheel, locks. You know, for when I need to defend the last two strongholds of my sanctuary.

Seriously people, those stickers that come on Rubbermaid bins and trash cans or anything else are meant to come off easily. You don’t need to keep them on forever. What compels you to do so?

Likewise, the tags on your upholstery and pillows that say “Not to be removed except by consumer” are meant to be removed. You’re the consumer in case you were wondering.

Why would a three-year-old girl need low-rise panties? According to the Hanes Web site, they have “…to feel right. Can’t be scratchy. Nothing that fits funny. Has to be stylish. No babyish designs. Ignore her wishes, and it will collect wrinkles in the bottom of her drawer. These hipsters, though, easily make the cut, even with her exacting standards.”

Oh, they totally forgot that my baby girl wants to make sure her panties don’t show with all the exposed hip and navel action she’s displaying with the 1/2″ inseam shorts she prefers in the summer. My daughter and her girlish exacting standards.

OK, how about mini-boyshort underwear? They sell mini boyshorts for three-year-olds at the store! Oh yeah, I forgot that my daughter, just the other day, expressed her desire to feel the sexy feel of boy briefs against her skin but in a cut that’s all three-year-old hottie. And to have cheese. What she said to me was, “Daddy, I want the sexy presentation of mini boyshorts and a piece of cheese, please.”

I didn’t think toddler panties came in anything but utilitarian-style and with slogans other than “Like Grandma’s Only Smaller” or “Covers You Amply.” Apparently, I was wrong.

In my town, going for an evening run means I get to hear total strangers holler gibberish noises at me from their front porches.

“E-ya woop woop woop woop!”

Seriously, this happens two or more times every time I run.

My new box of fish excitedly told me to witness the new Flavor Lock pouch inside. Check this out:

You know, because “New! Sealed in Plastic Bag!” doesn’t have the same zing. If the bag were vacuum sealed, they might have been able to squeak that one by my That’s-Crap-o-Meter™.

Alisa and I just had a conversation about this very thing over the weekend. We finished watching a DVD and I noticed her player has, in big font on the front, “DynaMovie.” DynaMovie? Eh? Of course, because saying “Our DVD player works just as well as any other DVD player you’ve seen” doesn’t have the same sales punch. So, enter Marketing to make up a new word for standard DVD resolution.

This is the world we live in. I’m not allowed to be underwhelmed by the plastic bag I was expecting to envelop my fish. I must be made to be excited as all hell for the plastic bag that, truth be told, I already kind of expect to surround most of my frozen food.