Friday, August 18, 2006

Butt out

It was a late one last night. I am not a big fan of late boozing and getting to work the next day. Guess I shouldn't have played poker when I got home either.

It was a miserable Brewers game, followed by noise in the bar. I should have bailed right away. It was karaoke night. And of course, it was terrible. I did get some fun out of it though. One of the clowns that was running the show came up to the bar to get a drink and asked me how it sounded. I looked at him and flatly said "Sounds like shit!". He dumbfoundedly looks at me and says "What?" I repeated it back to him. "Sounds like shit in here". He then decided to get a drink at the other end of the bar.

Have to see if that will work at other times.

I always keep an eye on what is going on in the smoking world. As I have stated before, I do not smoke. But I own stock in the big boys so I make money on the smokers. So when I saw the court ruling this morning, I had to check out what it said. I like the fact that the tobacco companies do not have to pay any money out. Cha ching! But with the court saying they lied for years (I would like to know what those years were. I don't recall any commercials over the last 20 years that made smoking sound like it was healthy) which means those annoying Truth commercials will get even more annoying. They will continue to trot out things that happened in the 50s and 60s and act like it happened yesterday. Maybe we should be blaming Ricky Ricardo and the promos he would cut during I Love Lucy. I bet that got more people to smoke than the any commercial did.

To me, it really sounds like the judge has a major hard on for tobacco companies. We all know the product will kill you. We all know they haven't been able to market to kids for years. We all know that that reason kids begin to smoke is to piss off their parents. It has nothing to do with Joe Camel (R.I.P.). It has nothing to do with the Marlboro Man. It has to do with pissing off your parents and being cool.

One of the scary parts of the ruling is that cigarettes can no longer be tagged as "low tar" or "light". They cannot make one smoke sounds healthier than another. I don't like that. Because my fear is that once they get finished with the tobacco companies, they will go after the spirit distillers. Alcohol will be next. Someone is going to sue Miller or Anheuser Busch one of these days on some drunk driving accident and some whacked out judge will rule in their favor.

The government needs to let people smoke. Let us drink. I pay my taxes. Now leave me alone with my bottle.

I am also disappointed that no one had any drinking questions.

Ok, nonsensical rambling in over. Rock on with your bad self this weekend.

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