Al's Blog-o-Sphere

What’s with McDonalds, trying to be some kind of trendy coffee house, instead of what they are, a burger joint? Who do they think they are, anyway? And what is up with this adding “é” to everything in sight? It sounds, well, stupid.

Besides, haven’t they noticed, even Starbucks is closing shops around here. The coffee fad has peaked and the winner is, not Mickey D’s, not Starbucks, not even Spot Coffee, it’s good old Tim Hortons.

So this commercial is all the more hilarious and pointless, pathetic and lame. L – A – M – E. Continue Reading…

Yesterday, I was listening to our local radio stations’ call-in talk show. The main topic seemed to be the latest lawsuit trying to block the Wal-Mart Supercenter proposed for the Lockport Mall location.

A lot of the people seemed to want to know who exactly was behind the Lockport Smart Growth, or as Scott Leffler, the show host referred to as “Citizens for No Growth.” There was speculation that there was ties to both the owners of the local Tops store and Lockport Developer David Ulrich. No one seems to know at all who are ‘members’ of the group, but the idea to “follow the money” seemed to be the idea. But it might be hard to do.

What if Wal-Mart itself, were a secret contributor to the Smart Growth group? I’m not saying it is, but my evil side wonders. It wouldn’t be hard to funnel some money their way through some intermediary. Wal-Mart seems to be benefitting from their efforts as much as Smart Growth thinks they are hurting them. Continue Reading…

Five plastic garbage bags, 10 cents each: $0.50; 350 pounds of pull-tabs, scrap metal value $0.13; one photo op with a little girl on crutches, Pricele$$!

Every once in a while I run into a friend (not always the same one, multiple friends) who insist that everyone should save the little pull-tabs off the top of soda-pop cans.

A few years ago, it was supposed to help fund kidney-dialysis charities. It turned out to be an urban legend.

Later, it was Ronald-McDonald House, which is apparently part true. It seems that RMDH capitalized on the urban legend to use it as an activity. The value of the tabs, however, is so small, that the programs value is mostly an activity promoting the charity itself.

It’s easy to find all sorts of information about this on the internet. The most obvious and reliable, in my opinion is Snopes.com, which usually has the straight dope on any of these questionable rumours. Another good article was Associated Content, which I know less about, but had actually checked it out with aluminum recyclers to verify it’s value.

Charity watchdog, Where Most Needed also chimes in with their site.

The only verifiable site supporting pull-tab collection was the McDonalds-sponsored Courtesy Corporation which clearly is collecting pull-tabs, despite any tangible value to them.
Continue Reading…

Actually said by a weatherman tonight on a local TV station:

If you are going to be out driving tonight, be careful because we haven’t seen rain like this in a couple of days and it could get slick.

Wait a minute. We should be extra careful because of the possibility of RAIN?!?! Because we haven’t seen rain in the looooong time of a couple days? How condescending and patronizing can the TV talking heads get? They must think we are like stupid Turkeys, standing in our front yards, looking upwards at this strange phenomenon, rain. We must have forgotten all about it because our short attention spans don’t go back a mere couple of days. They must warn us to close our mouths so that we don’t drown!

I don’t really think it’s a matter of some contempt for their viewers IQ. I think mostly, when you’re getting paid to fill time talking about something, sometimes they say anything as long as it sounds sort of related to the topic at hand.

I mean, come on, this is Western New York. We drive through blizzards before breakfast here. (And weathermen have a canary about it.) A little rain shouldn’t even be worth mentioning.