In today’s edition of Really?!? with Puntabulous, we look into the consumer group that is suing McDonalds for unfairly advertising their Happy Meals towards young children.

CSPI attorney Gardner said the Happy Meal lawsuit will use the same laws that resulted in a clampdown on cigarette advertising to children.

Really!?! Because tempting kids to go behind your back and smoke cigarettes behind the handball courts at school is totally the same thing as forcing you as the parent to take them to McDonalds and buy them a Happy Meal? Really!?!

Nevertheless, she said, her children constantly ask her to take them to get the latest advertised Happy Meal toy.

“This litany of requests is draining and very frustrating for children,” she said. “I would like this practice to stop.”

Really!?! Telling your kids no is draining? Oh honey, you’re in for a lifetime of hurt when your kids become teenagers! Maybe you’ll need to sue Apple for making iPods look too darn cool! Really!?!

He added that parents do not have the responsibility to offset unfair marketing from McDonald’s.

“Under the law, you don’t blame the victim of deceptive practices,” Gardner said.

Really!?! Deceptive practices? Does “Hey kids, look at this shiny toy!” somehow mean the same thing as “Hey parents! Buy your kids this really healthy meal at McDonalds! It’s fat free and good for you and will totally increase their IQ, SAT, and MCAT scores!”

Timothy Sandefur, principal attorney at the Pacific Legal Foundation, argues that it is the responsibility of parents to regulate what their children eat.

“Not a child on earth has forced his parent to buy him a McDonald’s Happy Meal,” Sandefur said.

Thank you! Finally, someone is starting to make sense! Really!!!

I’ve never been able to mosey. Ever. I walk fast from point A to point B regardless of the circumstances. Museum of ancient artifacts? Great! Gotta see it all as fast as possible! No time to read signs! Zoooooom! When I entered Junior High, my sister Amanda asked a friend who was still in my school to check in on me and see how I was doing. He reported that I seemed to be getting along fine, but that I had a tendency to run from class to class.

Run is a bit of an exaggeration. I just can’t keep myself from walking fast. It’s not even about getting to places faster or on time. Even if there is no deadline to where I need to be, I need to briskly walk there no matter what. If I get stuck behind a pack of tourists I seethe with anger until I’m able to get past them.

“But Craig, lots of people hate getting stuck behind slow people, what makes you so special?”

First off, everything about me makes me special, so quit asking such stupid questions. Secondly, the really odd part about my disdain of moseying comes into effect when I get so frustrated that I turn down an alcove and stand still for a moment (I generally try and play cool by checking my phone, email, twitter, facebook, grindr) and allow the slowpokes to get ahead of me by a large enough distance that I can then reenter pedestrian traffic and move at my own pace. I even do this at work. If I’m going down the hall and can’t pass the person in front of me, I’ll turn into the kitchen, standing around like a putz, then go back into the hall and walk at my own pace. Same goes for museums. I love museums. It’s not that I find them boring and want to get it over with. I find them fascinating, but I just can’t stroll leisurely through them.

See? So it really has nothing to do with getting to places on time. Scratch that. See? So it really has nothing to do with getting to places on time. If I were late, I would have elbowed my way past that disgusting crowd of tourists. But if I don’t have anywhere to be, I still can’t mosey and I’d rather take a break and NOT MOVE AT ALL for a moment so that I can then walk at my own pace.

What are your thoughts on the situation? Can you mosey?

“We even linked our Citibank account to his, so when his account ran low, we just transferred funds!” Oh, is that how college works? Go study in France and mommy and daddy will take care of everything? Awesome! Those whippersnappers get away with everything! Meanwhile, the SUNY Binghamton campus actually had a $5.00 ATM. Not an ATM that costs $5.00, but an ATM that allows you to take out money in increments of $5.00. That came in handy not just for taking out tiny amounts of money to get by, but also gave us the wonderful story of my friend Sarah thinking she had to take money out that ended in 5: $5, $15, $25. Oh the memories!

Well, the slightest cue from on screen would send one or both of these trolls gentlemen into a roar a laughter. Now, the movie is Devil, and while M. Night Shyamalan (who produced, not directed) has given you much reason to laugh at him lately, overall the movie was quite good, and was one of those hush-inducing tense movies with only a couple intentionally funny moments sprinkled throughout. Lights would go out (CUE ROAR OF LAUGHTER). One person would look at another (CUE ROAR OF LAUGHTER). Another person would say “Hi, how are you?” (CUE ROAR OF LAUGHTER). It was almost as if they were sprayed with the Joker’s laughing toxin. What could possibly explain this behavior? Trolls.

Not convinced? Take this story about my Mom’s recent trip to the post office:

Mom: I’d like to send this certified mail.
Clerk: YOU’RE GONNA HAVE TO EMPTY EVERYTHING OUT SO WE CAN SEE IT THEN REPACKAGE IT ALL AGAIN! SNARF SLURP GRUMBLE!
Mom: Um, okay, I’d rather not do that.
Clerk: WELL YOU CAN SEND IT WITH A RETURN RECEIPT IF YOU WANT! ::CHOMPS ON HALF EATEN BLOODY GOAT LEG::
Mom: Um, okay.

Or any of the other customer “service” people you have encountered who have no idea how to talk to people or help them with their problems. Why not just say “Oh, I don’t think you want to do that since you have it all packaged up already, how about we do this instead?”

Or at the very least, think of your nutjob coworkers. The ones who were born exactly the way they are and no matter how you treat them will always be exactly the same. The ones who constantly tell you how much more important their job is than yours, or who will insist you do everything they tell you to do even though you’re on the same level, or will let something of yours sit on their desk for weeks and yell at you for asking about it.

Think about it! These people are trolls! What else could possibly explain it? They were sick and tired of the swamp they were born in, killed a few tourists (nothing wrong with that), made a human costume out of their flesh, then came to civilization and tried to make a life for themselves in the human world. But they have no idea how to act because they don’t have televisions in the swamps and don’t know how normal people act towards one another! Or their troll parents probably tried to eat them on multiple occasions so they have a bit of a chip on their shoulder. Or their warts and pustules get irritated underneath their human costumes so they get easily agitated. Whatever the exact problem is, there are no doubt trolls among us. And just when you thought things couldn’t get worse, they have driver’s licenses.

I live on a road that intersects with the main street of our town, aptly named Main Street. I know that if I want to make a left onto Main Street between the hours of 8AM and 8PM, rather than turning from my block directly onto Main Street, that I need to take a few additional side roads to get to a light that will allow me to make a left easier. It adds about thirty seconds of travel time, but that time is made up by not having to wait at the intersection for the opportunity to make a left.

In addition, the main shopping center in our town has a single-laned exit with no traffic light. If a person wishes to make a left out of the parking lot, they can hold up an entire line of traffic to make a left onto Main Street. Meanwhile, there is a parking lot across the street from that intersection with two entrances. If you make a right onto Main Street, you can easily turn into the parking lot across the street, then make another right onto Main Street, which will send you in the original left direction and on your merry way.

Basically the point I’m trying to make is that if we required it to be easy to make a left onto all main roads at all times, nearly every intersection would have a light at it. Yes, I understand that lights are most certainly necessary at some intersections, but there are ways of getting places without having to make a left onto a main intersection. In the situation I described above, it’s even faster to make the right and use the parking lot across the street to turn around than waiting for an opportunity to make a left. So really what I’m trying to say is, drivers suck and everyone should be as wonderful as me. THE END.

1. Only being able to drink Starbucks and refusing anything else. Really? Dunkin Donuts coffee is delicious, stop being so elitist!

2. Refusing to go to a movie theater that doesn’t have stadium seating. Oh really, you want to drive half an hour longer to a more crowded theater and pay double the price just so you can have your precious seat?

3. Only eating sushi that is imported overnight directly from Japan. Okay, no, I haven’t really met anyone like that, but I have met people that don’t like going to a certain type of restaurant because surely it isn’t as good as what they’ve had elsewhere.

4. It’s dijon or nothing!!! I’m half kidding about this last one, put your pitchforks away.

Let’s not beat around the bush, these people are snobs. These people didn’t start out in this world any different from you and me, but they’ve conditioned themselves to only like things a certain way. I can’t be certain that the guy I saw smoking out of the pipe is one of these people (“Oh, silly child! Cigarettes are so plebeian!”) but it got the big red playground ball in the brain rolling. I tried to think of things that I can be snobby about and — not to sound all high and mighty (“snobby”, one might say) — but i really couldn’t think of any. I was joking the other day with my parents about how I could hardly make out what was happening on their television screens since their DVD players were so blurry compared to my blu-ray, but obviously I was joking and haven’t reached that level of snobbery yet. I almost never turn down going to a movie or going out to dinner due to what we’re eating or seeing, and if those decisions haven’t been made yet, I usually leave it up to the other people to decide because I really don’t give a damn.

That brings me to the question of the day. What are you snobby about? Or if you’re perfect like me (yeah right, no one is as perfect as me) what other snobbish habits have you come across with other people?

2. Why do Digital Copies of movies that come with DVDs and Blu-Rays expire? If I’m buying something that says Blu-Ray/DVD/Digital Copy combo pack, I should be able to get the Digital Copy! Case in point, I bought Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince the other day, which included all three copies of the movie, but after reading the fine print, the Digital Copy expired in May. Say what?

3. I, like most people, love the story of JetBlue flight attendant Steven Slater quitting his job in the most awesome way possible, by cursing out the passengers over the intercom, grabbing two beers, and leaving via the emergency inflatable slide. But most people seem to be focusing on the fact that he’s a working class hero for quitting his job, as if the important thing was sticking it to JetBlue. But as far as I know, JetBlue is a really swell company to work for. The focus should instead be on the passenger who got out of their seat early, hit Steven over the head with their luggage and wouldn’t apologize, which started the whole thing. How about we all be nice and not be trolls to each other? How about we make him a hero of good manners instead?

::inflates emergency slide and slides to freedom::

Then about a month ago, they added two more additional traffic lights, literally hundreds of feet down the road from the original nuisance. For more than 28 years there were not lights there, and no accidents at these intersections that I can remember, but people must have been fed up with — GASP! — waiting at the intersection, so they complained to the town and got traffic lights installed. Yay, government works for you! But not only that, the controls of the original nuisance has been changed, and now it turns red for the main road for no reason whatsoever! At 5:15AM when I’m driving to work along that road, the light at the intersection of the minuscule side street and tiny industrial park turns red even when there is no car pulling up. And it’s red for a solid 15 seconds, which is a long time when you have a train to catch!

I can forgive the two additional traffic lights. I’m a real Mother Teresa in that regard. But I cannot forgive waiting at a red light at 5:15AM at an intersection that hardly anyone ever uses! Especially when that intersection worked fine for years prior to that! I was so fed up, that I did something I’ve never done before. I emailed the town. That would surely get their attention, am I right?! So I went to the town’s website and sent the following query:

What happened to the traffic light on Connetquot Ave and Westbury Street in Islip Terrace? It used to only turn red when cars came down Westbury and wanted to turn onto Connetquot. Now it turns red for no reason, even during early hours when both streets are deserted. Why the change?

A few minutes after I sent that I got a response:

Thank you for expressing your concern. I have forwarded your message to the Department of Public Works, which is responsible for all road and traffic matters in the Town of Islip. If you’d like to call them, the number is 224-5600.

Wow! My query was going somewhere! Who says the government can’t get anything done? Then the next day I got this:

According to the town Department of Public Works, Manhattan Blvd. (from Spur Dr. N to Connetquot Ave.) is on the 2010 repaving schedule.

Um, what? Just so you can see how utterly useless this information is in relation to my query, I present the following map:

Yeah, so since they’re repaving Manhattan Blvd at some point this year, the controls of the traffic light a mile away needed to be changed in order to give imaginary cars the right-of-way? I’m not really following. Or is it that some extremely well trained government employee looked at my email blankly for a while, then unsure of what else they could possibly do, typed “Connetequot” into some handy dandy database and got the repaving information and was like “Eureka! This must be what they’re looking for!” and passed it along to me. Well as the title of this post says, thanks for nothing, you stupid jerk.

According to you I’m stupid, I’m useless,
I can’t do anything right.
According to you I’m difficult, hard to please,
Forever changing my mind.

And then:

But according to him I’m beautiful, incredible,
He can’t get me out of his head.
According to him I’m funny, irresistible,
Everything he ever wanted.

Um, how about according to you? What do you think of yourself? Why is this whole song based on what other people think of her? Don’t get me wrong, the song is totally catchy, and I generally leave it on if it comes on the radio, but I think it wrongly gives the impression that it’s a strong girl power song (given the tough rocker chick way it’s sung) when it’s pretty much exactly the opposite. Okay fine, later on she does sing:

According to me you’re stupid, you’re useless,
You can’t do anything right.

Um, okay, but you’re still not letting us know that you think you’re awesome too. And if she thinks this person is so stupid and useless, why was she dating him in the first place? That just doesn’t make sense! And frankly, pop songs need to make perfect sense like they did in the good old days of Slave 4 U. Now I know not every song has to be super girl power to the extreme (given my adoration of Slave 4 U, you should already know that) and this is the only song I know from Orianthi, so I’m not placing judgment on her, just the song. I think it just bothers me that the song is trying to come across as one thing, but the lyrics are saying another. ZOMG did I just write a music post?