donut.nu

Cynthia Davis, a state representative from (shocker) Missouri, opposes subsidizing school lunches for low-income children because, and I quote, “[h]unger can be a positive motivator.”

She continues, suggesting that if kids just get jobs at McDonald’s then they will receive free food on their break.

I pretty much hope that the 20% of children considered hungry in Missouri go and eat her.

Ms. Davis neglected to mention when her hunger strike will begin so she can get motivated to resolve the hunger issue in her state. She also avoided the question of how she manages to sleep at night.

Colbert is amazing, as per usual:

Okay, I understand people find the holiday season stressful. I also understand that people find the prospect of being snowed in stressful.

However, this does not mean you can throw a shopping basket at me when I tell you that the Transformers DVD that is on sale today (or, rather, Saturday when this happened) will not be on sale tomorrow, even if you put it on hold at guest services.

Yes, I’m serious. A “guest” threw a shopping basket at me because he was supposedly freaking out whilst trying to find provisions, but apparently had enough time to pick out a Transformers DVD set.

Everybody is freaking out because they think they’re going to lose power. Everybody is foraging for food. You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

After I told him he wouldn’t get the sales price, he started going off and spewing a bunch of nonsensical bullshit:

1. “I’ve been living here for 30 years and…” (So what? My store hasn’t even been there for 35 years.)
2. “I’m ex-military and…” (Is that a threat?)
3. “I’ve been to three stores trying to get provisions and I don’t need this right now!” (Dude, you’re buying ping pong balls. How is that helping your search?)

Then he threw the basket at me. I backed up into the corner of my little register section and he began yelling at me to not freak out on him because he “doesn’t need this right now.”

I informed him he couldn’t attack me and that pissed him off. He said he wasn’t attacking me, to get better customer service skills, and that his generation had to deal with “it” and so I have to as well.

Excuse me? Your generation wasn’t typically known for throwing things at shop girls.

After I give him his receipt and run away, I get sort of freaked out. When someone’s in my face, I don’t really back down. I finally found my manager, who I normally hate, and she went over with security and kicked him out of the store.

This is where it got interesting: He started rambling about being ex-military and war and some incident in Germany and whatnot.

Here’s the thing: he was only about 35, max. There is no way he was ever in a war in Germany. And again I say, so what? What does Germany have to do with throwing a basket at me?

Bastard.

One of my favourite webcomics, xkcd, is exactly right about the problem is Wikipedia. I can’t be the only one who has lost hours when clicking through random pages about Brazilian soda brands and oil reserves after looking up Queen Ranavalona I.

Sometimes, I’ll end up reading up on all the really grisly things that scare the hell out of me. Such as plane crashes. I’ve figured out a way I could manage to visit every single country on the planet, should I want (and be able to afford) to, without ever having to step foot on a plane.

You have no idea how happy this makes me. I like my forms of transportation firmly attached to Earth in one way or another.

Sure, sure, I’ve heard all the arguments. The number one most quoted is you’re more likely to die in a traffic accident than in an plane crash. That means nothing to me because 1) I never learned to drive, 2) I’m not particularly fond of cars anyway, 3) I’m betting a lot more people drive every day than get on a plane, and 4) it happens to somebody–so why not me?

Then sometimes I end up reading about the most prolific serial killers in history.

And other times I’ll just end up reading about The Ring. The American version¹ scared me. It probably didn’t help that I first heard about it because they filmed some it at a (Christian!) summer camp I used to go to as a kid in a cabin that already had various murderous stories associated with it. Plus, that child frightens me. Once, several years ago on my ancient Dell laptop², everything I was typing into my computer was appearing backwards (siht ekil tsuj) and I was convinced Samara was going to pop out of my screen and kill me.

My fears are completely irrational, I know.

I really know how to induce nightmares in myself which is why it’s good I’ve recently learned that I Can Has Cheezburger is a cure for nightmares. True facts.

Now if only I knew how to tear myself away from Wikipedia.

1. Actually, I find Sadako in Ringu to be more terrifying than Samara. The look in her eyes is particularly terrifying. ↩
2. This was pre-OS X conversion, clearly–though I was lusting after PowerBooks at the time, but when you have a crap Dell laptop with broken hinges and a 400 MHz processor, anything above 1.0 GHz looks so sexy it becomes difficult to breathe. ↩