Picture Post Wednesday
Happy belated Labour Day to my friends in NZ – sorry I missed you, I was busy. Speaking of busy, I’ve been writing blog posts like crazy, in my head, but none have made it to paper. So, today I’m breaking down the fourth wall on Unfocused Content so that I can tell you about a very special day – it’s Picture Post Wednesday!!!!! I’ve been collecting pictures of interesting things and meaning to write about them. Today, I’ll posting the pics with little mini-stories. I guess we could call it mini-story Wednesday too.
Awesome!
This is my original artwork, inspired by a bumper sticker that said “When Bush took office gas was $1.46.” When I first saw this bumper sticker I thought “So effing what? When Clinton took office, I bet gas was $.99. Hell when Carter took office, gas was…”
You see how this could go on forever, because of the whole inflation thing. But, Clinton or Carter would seem too much like I cared, and we love to talk about William Taft around here.
I’m not sure there was gas when Taft was in office.
We’ve been without a urinal at my office for over a week now. No word on what happened, or when it will be fixed – just a plastic bag and a plunger. Lots of times in life we lose something dear to us without explanation – it just goes away. I think the picture represents that.
So, now we are all using the regular bowl type toilets as urinals, and apparently I work with some gentlemen who believe that if it is yellow, one should let it mellow. I happen to wholeheartedly disagree. Sometimes there is splashing. It is bad enough to have toilet water on ones pants – I do not need another dude’s urine on my pants. Please flush, thanks.
Recently the Coca-Cola in my office went from $5.33 a gallon to $6.93 a gallon. (I might be the only person that measures Coke by the gallon.) Our friendly neighborhood Coca-Cola delivery guy posted a letter on the Coke machine that, in essence, said “our costs are going up, and we hate to do it, but we are passing the burden to you, the consumer, so that our shareholders and corporate executives can continue to live the lifestyle to which they have become accustom.”
The price of a 12 ounce can of Coke went from $.50 to $.65 – a 30% increase. I am usually not a skeptical guy, but I do have trouble believing that Coca-Cola’s suppliers (sugar factories, mostly) had a 30% increase in costs in the past 6 months. I also have trouble believing that Coca-Cola is more expensive to manufacture and distribute than gasoline, even if Bush is president.
A few days later a co-worker taped a news story under the official Coca-Cola letter with the headline “Coca-Cola’s 3Q profits up 14 percent.” The story went on to say “the company says that it earned 1.89 billion, or 81 cents per share, in the quarter ended September 26… Revenue was $8.39 billion, up 9 percent.” I’m not a mathematician, but I am almost certain that a 9% increase in revenue, and a 14% increase in profits, are both indications that Coca-Cola is having a pretty good year.
The next day a third letter went up. This letter used phrases like “use the economy as an excuse to gouge your customer,” “raise your prices 30% and keep the profits,” and “when the economy gets better, no need to lower your prices.” I’m guessing, when the Coca-Cola guy comes back, he is going to think twice about his price increase. Or, maybe not.