World Cup 2010 is finally over.  The final was played last night, and the third place game the previous night.  In what was probably the worst final of anything I have ever witnessed with the exception of reality TV finals, Spain won, football lost and if anyone is left watching in Brazil 2014 I will be shocked and appalled in equal measure.

Tournament villains Uruguay and Germany contested the 3rd place game.  Sadly, neither of these teams got to the final, had they done so it would have been a vaguely entertaining final, but they did not, and it was not.  Germany took the lead early before finding themselves down 2-1 midway through the second half.  Uruguay’s lead lasted an epic 5 minutes before Germany equalised and then scored a last gasp winner and placed in yet another World Cup final.  The best team in this tournament by a long shot, and had they met the eventual winners Spain, the young Germany would have eaten them alive.

As bitter sweet as winning 3rd place is, I’m sure Germany will take a lot of good points from this tournament, proving that it is possible to play great attacking football even if the rules set in place by FIFA are completely detrimental to the sport.  A pointless game, deciding who is the second loser of the tournament, but at least the two teams played with the intention of scoring goals.

The final was not great; it was not as bad as, say, the Japan v Paraguay game, that could be the worst game in world cup history…  Spain v Holland at least has some of the best players in the world, Spain in particular…  It is a shame that they are utterly detestable.

The highlights reel of this final will be made up pretty exclusively of violent attacks as the Dutch team figured out the best way to deal with a superior passing side, they simply kicked the Spaniards off the park…  This is a good strategy as long as you remember to score goals, but when one of your top scorers is thinking more about taking a dive; your chances of scoring drastically diminish.

Robben, the Netherlands one footed right-winger had various chances to score, but for the Spanish goalkeeper/captain Casillas, and Robben’s own desire to fall over in the box.  It must be frustrating for a player like Arjen Robben, he only has one move, and the Spanish defence knew all about it.  Late on he did have the beating of Puyol who could do nothing but pull Robben back.  Had Robben gone down he would have won a freekick, but he was not ready to take a fall until he was in the box…  It did not work.

The English official in charge of the final has come under fire for his apparent reluctance to issue any red cards, it got more and more ridiculous.  When De Jong decided to introduce his foot to the chest of Spanish midfielder Xabi Alonso, he was allowed to stay on the pitch.  Granted, this was the worst foul not to see red, but it was not just with discipline that Howard Webb got wrong; he deprived Holland of a blatant corner kick in the dying minutes, just before Spain found their goal through Iniesta.

Obviously Dutch players have voiced their opinions on the English ref and his assistants, Robben being one of the most vocal.  Had Robben held his nerve and done what he gets payed handsomely to do, and just lift the ball over and already grounded keeper then he wouldn’t be moaning.

“He has robbed us” was what Dutch star Sneijder had to say…  He was talking about the ref, not Robben, who really lost the game for Netherlands.

In the end Spain deserved to win, the way they play might not be even remotely interesting, but they ran rings round Holland, who were no more impressive than a pub league side that is only good at hitting people…  This will continue to trend as the new rules which prohibit tackling turn the game into a non-contact game of cat and mouse, pass pass pass pass pass pass passsssszzzzzzzzz!!

This style of play obviously works, as Spain are now European and world champions…  That doesn’t mean you have to like them.  They notched up quite a few results that you would be forgiven for thinking was binary code, and didn’t set the tournament on fire as they were expected to do.

We can let the viewers decide, are we excited about another world cup if we know that it will be played the way this one was…  Players not taking chances in front of goal in fear of being caught on the break, no big tackles in fear of being carded, grown men rolling about on the floor as if they are engulfed in flames because someone stood on their toes…  It is not for me.  I watched the whole tournament and I feel cheated.

Changes to the fundamental rules of football have drastically changed the game…  Some for the good, like making it against the rules for a keeper to pick up a pass from his own player in order to waste less time, or clamping down on tackling from behind, an act that has deprived us of some great talent who have seen their career end too soon.

What is utterly ridiculous and completely detrimental to the sport is when referees blow their whistle and issue a card because player A has tackled player B from the front, but with “excessive force”, going through the ball and hitting the player is now against the rules…  What is to happen to the last gasp match saving tackle?  It will be outlawed along with spitting, swearing, and scratching your arse because it might rub off on kids who play in leagues all over the world, and we do not want that…  We, apparently, want our young generations of budding stars to look, play and wear dumb colourful boots like Christiano Ronaldo, the Portuguese Man-Woman…  Not crazy tackling, foul mouthed psychopaths with dubbin and blood on their boots.

Maybe an Armani jock strap would have been useful.

There is a lack of role models, decent ones anyway, when I was a kid footballers were photographed grabbing other player’s balls as a stamp of authority, now they are photographed showing off their balls in Armani drawers…  I realise it is cliche and tired to complain about the amount of money in football, but the problem is that with that amount of money in the game there is a level of expectation, this may be a Scottish thing as we like to get the most from our money, but when the big players who get payed the big money don’t entertain me, I get angry.  All they have to do is run around a big grass pitch, show some skill, score some goals, throw in some tackles…  This seems like too much work for some, usually the ones with the fattest wallets.  It isn’t like we expect them to perform brain surgery, or even string a sentence together.

The World Cup was brought to you by: McDonalds, Mars bars, Bud and Coke…  The big players earn over £100,000 per week playing domestic football, they are paid millions to advertise the big products, and if you want the latest Nike boots that are so light you can’t feel them, and so colourful that you can’t polish them on a Sunday morning before the game you will have to part with over £100…  The replica shirts cost £40 and adding a name cost extra…  And to think the England fans had the cheek to boo poor old Wayne Rooney for playing like a brat… a fat, useless, overpaid, under-performing, self absorbed, balding brat…

Capitalism is awesome.

With the world heading straight down the toilet in a swirling cesspool of religion driven idiocy, it is a relief to see that some people are still planning the advancement of the human race.  As opposed to its continuing destruction.

Starting on the June 3 in Moscow a six-man crew will embark on a simulated 520 day round trip to Mars and back.  In what sounds like the opening to a joke, three Russians, one Chinese, one French, and one Italian will live in a warehouse, which has been designed to replicate the ship and a section of the red planet.

The Cosmonauts will spend 8 hours a day maintaining the ship as it travels across our solar system in an attempt to understand the effects on the men and the equipment before any plans to send a manned ship are formed.  Most significantly, the experiment is designed to monitor the psychological effects on the crew.

The men will be completely cut off from the world outside, except from radio contact that they will have with the people running the experiment, which will be subject to a 20 minute delay which would occur if the ship was actually travelling through space.  There will be no natural light and all the air will be recycled.  The cramped and uncomfortable crew will be filmed all day every day by cameras in every section of the “ship”.

While the experiment does have a very real chance of going sour, at least they will catch it on film, and therefore we might get to see it one day. That is reality TV that I would gladly tune into.

Mars in Moscow

To give up such a big chunk of your life to pretend to go to space may seem insane to some people, the same could be said for fighting in unjust wars based on prejudice, fear and racism, at least from an experiment like this the human race will actually benefit for once…  To think a trip like that could be funded for less than we have spent on killing other human beings over the last 8 years is quite the mind melter.

There is an argument that because deep down the crew know they are in a hanger in the outskirts of Moscow  they will not experience the same feelings as they would in real space travel, which is a fairly obvious argument, and also quite a dumb one… 

Given that, the men have already taken part in a 105-day version of the experiment I am sure they will act accordingly…  However, maybe the people in charge should have told them that since the 105 day trip went so well that they are just going ahead with the Mars trip…  Then just shook the mock ship for the first few weeks, making the crew think they were in space for real.  At least for a few days the men could experience the terror one must feel when sitting on a launch bad with a rocket load of highly explosive fuel between their legs…  That would make things interesting.

Not that I am saying this is in any way uninteresting, this is by far the most incredible bit of news I have heard lately, and I for one am pant wettingly excited about the prospect of a manned trip to mars…  Maybe we will meet some aliens and we can introduce them to the religious people who think that they are so right in their choice of a God that they will kill anyone who doesn’t believe what they do.

Despite the fact, they will not be leaving this planet.  For their dedication to the bringing closer the possibility of future exploration of Mars and the rest of the infinite space out there, I salute you.

All's Black and White even my Photo

Chicago, IL (Apr 23) – In between raising money to pay for his defense vying for spots on television game shows, and keeping himself out of prison, Rod Blagojevich hits a new low. Blagojevich may be taking these “reality” shows a bit too seriously.

Blagojevich’s yesterday, had his lawyers attempt to subpoena President Obama stating, “President Obama has direct knowledge to allegations made in the indictment.”

Of course this information at the moment is based upon the former Illinois Governor’s own personal “account” of the events of the days leading up to his arrest. This following a press conference earlier in the week in which, Blagojevich called the U.S. Attorney General prosecuting the case, a coward.

Apparently, Blagojevich deems U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s refusal to publicly release 500 hours of secretly recorded evidence in the case prior to, jury selection to be working against the defendant’s right to a fair trial.

Precedent cited by Blagojevich’s attorney to subpoena President Obama included: Thomas Jefferson being subpoenaed in the 1807 treason trial of Aaron Burr.

These startling revelations on the former Governor’s part much contrast the fact that if there were evidenced within the tapes proving involvement of now President Obama, surely the GOP would have managed to somehow obtain copies (if not the originals) and broadcast them all over the media by now.

Placing little weight against the words of a game show contestant verse the prosecutions tape recorded evidence, would lead even the layperson to the conclusion that, this is simply more “smoke and mirrors” coming from a desperate person.

Only weeks after David Cameron made a fool of himself by taking part in an interview with Gay Times magazine in which he was shown to be the one thing he has maintained he isn’t.  An old school homophobic Tory.  Mr. Grayling announced that, based on religion, Bed and Breakfast owners should be allowed to discriminate against gay couple, despite it being illegal.

His stated position is that while it is illegal for hoteliers to discriminate against any person for race, religion or sexual orientation, the same rules shouldn’t apply to Bed and Breakfast owners because it is their home and they should be allowed to discriminate against whomever they desire.  Then someone with a brain rightly pointed out that if you are a racist, or a homophobe, or have any sort of prejudice then you should probably stay away from working with the public, and you certainly shouldn’t turn your home into a guest house, you would be as well surrounding yourself with other like-minded idiots…  Get a job in the Conservative Party.

Mr. Grayling wanted to make sure that everyone knows that he is not opposed to gay rights, and would not be trying to get the law changed, but he feels it is important to respect the beliefs of people with faith…  I would just like to clarify to any British readers who are hopefully planning on voting in the coming election, the Conservative party not only feel  they need to say that they won’t take away gay rights, but that they accept blind faith in something that may or may not exist, but are completely against something that does absolutely exist and is practiced by not only gay men and women up and down the country, but it is practiced throughout their church with their trusted heavenly priests who love nothing more than sodomizing children, even the Pope is in on the action…  So you can’t be a Christian and be against homosexuality, it’s a new rule that came in since the Pope was proven to be a sinner who looked the other way when he knew this was going on…  Now find something else to moan about…

Being someone who would never think things were bad enough to warrant voting for such a despicably intolerant party, I will never have a Tory vote on my conscience…  I can’t say that Labour or Lib Dem are any better, but at least Gordon Brown doesn’t hate gay people like David Cameron does, and Browns men wouldn’t go on record (whether he knew it or not) and claim that believing in something spiritual or religious gives you the right to discriminate against another human being because of their sexual orientation…  It is 2010, surely that kind of disgusting attitude is best left in the days when it was common practice for hotels and guest houses to put signs on the window stating ‘no gays, no blacks, no Irish and no dogs’…  I should point out that it was during a Tory Government that those signs were in place.

My position is that our future is beginning to look more bleak.  More bleak than robots that look like Arnie, hellbent on destroying the human race?  Yeah.  If we are going to use a movie to predict the future, and I think this is giving the human race all the credit it deserves, the movie Idiocracy by Mike Judge is a far more realistic interpretation of our future, taking everything into account.

In the movie Luke Wilson takes part in a military experiment and is frozen for 1000 years.  When he wakes up he discovers the world has dumbed down so much that he is now the smartest man on earth.  It is a really good film, and it points out the major problems with things that we are currently doing to try to make relatively simple tasks even easier.  In the movie our old friend water is solely for use in the toilet, for everything else they have a movie version of Powerade (with electrolytes!), the President of America is a brash, idiotic former Pro-Wrestler, and everything is taken care of via machine.  Needless to say the general public are as dumb as two short stumps of wood, the English language has been reduced to abrieviated nonsense.  I can’t be the only person who can see that road, and the human race hurtling down it.

It seems like everywhere I go these days; the bank, the supermarket, the airport, everywhere, I am greeted the same way…  “Would you like to try the new machines, thus negating the need for human contact?”  OK, so I added that last bit, but that is what is happening.  I was in a supermarket late the other night, it was around midnight, there was not one person working checkouts all they had open was the new self scan checkouts, so they had made the choice for me.  All of a sudden I was a checkout boy, doing someones work and not getting paid.  Most of the time the damned machines don’t work and I have to call for assistance, which makes the whole rigmarole completely pointless.  I guess I’m old fashioned and a sucker for human contact.  Which surprises even me.

If every major airport, supermarket, bank etc continue to phase out human staff in the never ending quest to save money so that the smarmy old rich folk who run the companies can gorge themselves on panda burgers and fried dinosaur eggs washed down with vintage sparkling child’s tears, then it can only end in one way, and that way is available for preview in the film Idiocracy.  Just if you fancy a wee look.  I don’t mind not having to deal with real people sometimes, but if everything goes virtual my main worry is the availability of a real person to chew out in the event of me being displeased…  A very real worry for me.  If you have ever tried to get in touch with someone regarding your phone or utilities bill, and then lost it before the automated menu is finished completely destroying your vibe, I’m sure you understand.

I genuinely dread going anywhere near an airport since the introduction of  the new ‘Total Recal’ style scanning machines.  This is a problem for me because I love visiting places, particularly hot places, particularly after a long Scottish winter.  I guess these machines are preferable to being stripped naked in front of your fellow passengers and probed, deeply, just to make sure you are not some kind of criminal mastermind who has discovered a way to fill his colon with C4 without dropping dead instantly…  Sadly this could be the next illogical step to prevent something that happens very rarely and is impossible to eradicate completely.  Nothing surprises me anymore with so-called safety measures.  While I’m sure these machines will prevent some incidents, will they prevent an angry passenger from kicking off because he has been in the departure lounge all day staring at the clock watching his take off time drift further into history, his kids are screaming, his wife is on the verge of exploding, he has just spent 20 quid on two sandwiches and a can of some famous fizzy brown water and he has been through the whole thing without the aid of a cigarette because smokers are only a step up from terrorists in the international pecking order of the airport.  If you ever find yourself in this, or a similar situation then good luck finding someone to listen to your complaints…  Unless you speak binary, I’d say your screwed.

To solidify my apparent irrational fear of the future, upon switching on my TV last night I witnessed what I would describe as the most disturbing advertising campaign I think I have ever had the misfortune to sit through.  It featured Manchester United star Wayne Rooney playing against himself at one on one, one of the Rooneys is drinking Powerade, the other is drinking water…  Guess which one wins.  Yeah, you guessed it…  the one drinking Powerade.  It is a shameful advert, which you would come to expect when marketing types gain employment through coca-cola.  Let it be known that Mike Judge predicted it, and when people in the future start watering plants with powerade you will know who to blame.  If Wayne Rooney had any sort of brain in that odd shaped melon he calls a head he should have realised that he was basically supporting the demise of water as a source of hydration and, in turn, civilisation.  Role models huh! Who needs em!

In 2007 Linda Papadopoulos (pictured below) appeared as an expert pundit in a show called ‘My Big Breasts and Me’, the title in itself takes advantage of the male desire to looks at breasts…  Putting the word ‘big’ in the title was a clever ploy to take advantage of men.  I think this is disgusting, I mean, I watched the show, but I feel as if I was objectified and I know I’m not the only one because most of my friends watched it also.

Excuse me! My eyes are up here... Don't objectify me.

It is funny because just the other night I was discussing with a friend how easy kids have it these days, and how that ease is depriving them of valuable lessons.  The  Internet, as amazing as it is, has destroyed the whole concept of learning on the job in regards to sex and destroyed the mystery surrounding it.  As I mentioned before I am a product of Catholic school where sex education was basically one day where a red faced biology teacher stumbled her way through the basics of the act of coitus…  If you were lucky enough you would be passed videos, or magazines which would give you actual insight into sex, and not some thinly veiled attempt at putting you off by telling you that God, and all your dead ancestors would be looking down at you and your dirty, dirty habits.

Celebrity Psychologist Papadopoulos thinks that our celebrity obsessed society is to blame for celebrating women based on their sex appeal and appearance, with “little reference to their intellect…”  Sometimes, and I say this with the deepest love for women like this, but sometimes models only have their looks, sometimes they are as intellectual as a cheese roll…  But they are insanely good looking, should we punish them because God saw fit to bless them with perfect bone structure and long legs…  In any case, men have been celebrating the female form long before lads mags or psychologists such as Linda Papadopoulos ever existed.  Women who are smart and talented in other fields are celebrated and some of them are attractive, and some not so much…  So why is this woman complaining.  It is like moaning about women being degraded in strip clubs, when anyone who has been in a strip club knows that it is men who are the real victims, fleeced of their money on a promise of something that deep down we all know won’t happen due to reasons of legality, but we keep paying regardless.  Women like Linda Papadopoulos are mistaking Goddess-like glorification and admiration with objectification and sexism.  Her argument that advertising such jobs as strippers, or glamour models in the Job Center only adds to the problem, doesn’t hold water…  Strippers can make more in one night than I clear in a month, so who is really being taken advantage of?

The time to take a moral standpoint on the pornification of society has long since passed, with the introduction of the internet it is possible to look at a plethora of things and as nature dictates, young men gravitate towards the dirty stuff…  It’s not society falling apart, it’s a mixture of puberty and bad parenting…  Trust a psychologist to suggest it’s anything other than that, it’s never simple with them.

Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world of electronic madness.

 One of my sons informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I must head down to the Cell Phone store and get a phone that is contemporary with the time.

 I pointed out that the fancy Razor/Slim line phone with camera built in that he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two years ago still works perfectly fine.  Well, except for the camera thing. Never could figure that out.. Even the few times I actually did take pictures I couldn’t figure what to do with them and gave up.

 That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the ceiling or my feet.

Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3 character buttons.  “Hi, son,” would come out looking like, “Gh Qmo.”  My grandkids have even spoken to my wife about Poppa’s crazy text messages.  Give me a break. What ever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn’t that what they were invented for?

They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size of my pinky finger.

 One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly –fishing. “Way to go, son.”

Or in text language, “Xbz um Io, rmo.”

 We were floating the Yakima River in his guide quality drift boat south of Ellensburg, Washington. We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization.  Rock canyon walls were on either side of us. Bear with me as I try to explain this strange thing.

 His “Blackberry” rang.  It was blue and I asked him why it wasn’t called a Blueberry. He shook his head with that ‘dealing with an elder despair’ look I get a lot these days. It was another realtor who called to say that the sellers he represented had agreed to my son’s client’s changes and he had the signed documents in hand.

 My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed and Faxed back, to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River with us.

 He then called his clients and told them he was Faxing the papers to them to sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office.  While he was waiting, he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22 inch beauty as his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients.

 He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, “You are a little behind the times, Dad.”

 I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800 employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos, pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids, their spouse, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

 That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

 My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation.  I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

 The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it’s red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive.  I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as every one in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me.  Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and got a little loud.

 I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, “Re-calc-ul-ating” You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light. Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

 When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.

 To be  perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven’t figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.

 The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden “Paper or Plastic?” every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.

 I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me, “Paper or Plastic?”  I just say, “Doesn’t matter to me. I am bi-sacksual.”  Then it’s their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

 Old Ned

Friend on friend strangulation has been practiced by teenagers for a long time…  Every boy in my year at high school played ‘the fainting game’…  What we didn’t do, however, was call it ‘Space Monkey’  as the papers seem to have picked up on.  I’m not saying that some dumb kids haven’t called it that, but you have to admit it sounds like a name that only a journalist would deem fit for circulation.  What does space monkey even mean?

The concept of the ‘game’ is one kid stands in a wide space (very important) and takes a series of deep breaths, then a willing buddy grabs the first kid by the throat and, with both hands, tightens the skin around the neck, which in turn tightens the arteries that supply oxygen to the brain.  Once the willing buddy feels his best friends brain has been denied enough oxygen he releases his grasp and the strangled kid reaches euphoria for around 5 seconds before collapsing into what is best described as a fit followed by a blackout.

His friends all turned their backs when they realised he was addicted to choking.

What the media are latching on to is the fact that it gives you a high…  What they fail to realise is that getting high has little, if nothing to do with it.  It all boils down to not wanting to look foolish, which they accomplish by ‘spazzing out’ on the floor.  The so called high you get is basically the euphoric feeling you get when someone knocks you out…  Right after the punch in the face, and right before you black out…  The journey into the black, if you will.  Anyone who has been knocked out by any means will know what I am talking about, no more a high than standing up too quick and getting a head rush.

‘The choking game’ as it is known in Britain, or ‘the scarf game’ as the French are calling it has parents worried, there are even websites dedicated to stopping children playing this game.  One real problem with that campaign, or any campaign like it, is that everyone refers to it as a game.  I can’t see the logic in that, if you don’t want a kid to do something give it a scary name…  Like ‘Brain Damage’ or ‘Liquid Dinners for life’.   Another real problem with campaigning against it is the exposure it receives, which re-introduces it to a whole new generation who are at that age where they are just discovering what their bodies can do, and are bored out their minds.

YouTube.com is under fire from angry parents who don’t seem to understand that simply telling their kids that this isn’t like other highs, and that cutting off oxygen to the brain doesn’t make you cool as much as it can make you a vegetable.  Angry parents acheive nothing, it took my friend collapsing into a pile of  cow dung to realise that, one, the game could go wrong, and two, that my ‘let your friends do it first’ policy really worked out for me in that situation.  Later I would find out what it was like when we tried it with a metal chain, believe it or not, in an attempt to be more individual and hardcore.

Of course, there is a serious side to this as people are dying…  Most cases seem to be from head injuries after falling…  which is why it is important that if you are going to try it, you do so with lots of space.  There are many videos on YouTube.com showing exactly what these kids are getting up to and most of it is hilarious…  Which may sound like I am making light of the situation, but my point of view is as follows, this cannot be stopped, it isn’t that big of a deal.  Sure it’s dumb and irresponsible, but I can guarantee that the smart kids who did it to look cool (providing they live through the first time) won’t do it twice, the dumb kids who do it all the time have far deeper problems than their love of the black, and parents should spend more time educating their children face to face on the dangers of such ‘games’, and less time starting websites and making bad YouTube videos that make it look fun.

HAPPY HOLIDAY S EVERYONE!!!!

 MAY YOUR DAYS BE MERRY AND BRIGHT!!!

Location: Barnes and Noble Newsstand in Miami, FL

Executed on: November 28. 2009 at 21:00 Eastern Time

Mission: 7 Post-Its in 7 different magazines.

Objective: Create smiles and the occasional chuckle.

The idea was simple: put encouraging words on post-its that enforce healthy self-images.  In my mind, I paraphrased this to mean: cause someone to feel they are sexy. I got this idea by reviewing the articles written on Matadornetwork.com-I am taking their Travel Writing Course. I read the title: “Call for Submissions: Show Us the True Meaning of Beauty“. It piqued my interest so I clicked on the link which led me to the article written by Candice Walsh-Matador’s editor and fellow Travel Writing student. By the end of the article, I could only think of four words: “What a great idea!!!” So I quickly got out my neon pink post-its from my husband’s backpack (don’t ask) and took out my multi-colored marker set from the closet. At first I thought of my location: Miami.  Since most of the people here speak Spanish, I thought putting some of their words on the note would reach them on a more personal level. If I use the word “bonita” inaccurately, even more reason to laugh right? Also, I thought of putting phrases that were similar to cheesy pick up lines (c’mon ladies you know you like them).

I went up to the second floor and chose a spot to squat where there were no lovers displaying their affections. I looked around me about every 2 seconds to make sure no one knew what I was doing. I pretended to take out a book from the shelf as people walked by. At every snapshot, I felt a rush of adrenaline immediately followed by a sense of triumph. I constantly thought: “Was all this worth the potential humiliation of people thinking what the heck is this girl doing?” YES, the potential perking up of someone’s day would make this mission a success.  So here’s pictures of my seven post-its in seven different magazines.  Notice I make no discrimination in gender, view, or womb status:

As you can tell, I used my favorite line a lot: “You’re Bonita Mamasita!” I also tried to put the post-its on pages where there were images of air-brushed, seemingly perfect people.  The post-its are strategically placed to remind the reader they are just as beautiful. So, as your reading this article, it is also a reminder that…

“You’re Bonita TOO!!!”

Operationbeautiful.com

Disclaimer: I’m unaware if I broke any privacy laws but if I did…sorry.