Dear Old Naked Guy In the Gym

Please, for the sake of humanity wrap a towel around your waste. Why are all of you older gents this way? Do you hit forty and just say “fuck it, I want everyone in the locker room to see my shriveled pecker and blinding white pasty ass.” What is a female locker room like I wonder, do they have old pruned beavers on parade? Honestly, if you want to wash you hands fine, but cover it up. Yes the occasional nude moment to put your underwear on, or drying off after a shower is socially acceptable, but you are abusing your privileges. I am not ragging on you just because you’re old, I do not want to see young dudes nude either – but its always you, the over the hill white haired guy with no skin pigment. There is absolutely no need to brush your teeth, hit the scale, and shave naked. My burned retinas can take no more. I am going on record – I will never be like you, because I have enough common sense to know that other people do not want to stare at my junk.

Really CNN Readers, Thats What You Follow?

I find it frustrating when talking to people who feel that watching the E Channel, or Access Hollywood is considered the “News”.  CNN now has a ticker on the right hand side of the page that displays the top rated, or most visited stories.  This ticker, called the “News Pulse” shows the interests of the general public, no matter how flawed they may be.  I made a .pdf of the web-page located here: CNN.com – Front Page For 12/14/2009

As you can notice the top read stories of the day are: “Chris Brown Deletes Twitter Account”, “30 Rock Star In Need of Kidney Transplant”, “Courtney Love Loses Custody of Daughter” and “Is It Time for the Simpsons to End?”  Now obviously who gives a shit about Chris Brown, whoever that may be.  The kidney transplant story would not be as alarming, however there was a top story in the Health Section of a new method of a kidney exchange program which allowed for a 26 person switch, thus saving thirteen lives; apparently a C-list actor from a TV show is more important.  Now I would prefer that the population pay attention to stories that actual matter, stories that could have a lasting impact on the world, but on the other hand I REALLY must know about Courtney Love’s custody battle!  When I look at the list of top stories, Wells Fargo Paying back Billions of dollars of tax payers money kind of sticks out to me, as does finding millions of Bush’s emails (remember the ones that were ‘lost’?)  But hey, guess I am crazy.

Die Phone Books, Die

With the environment debate taking center stage (finally), many of us are transforming our daily habits to become more “green”.  But why are we still receiving phone books – with the exception of the challenge to rip one in half.  Honestly, when is the last time you used one of these paper gluttons?  With the internet granting access to everything in a phone book and then some, I have to ask the same question that pops into my head when I think of pubic hair,  male nipples, dial-up modems, payphones and Blockbuster:  why does this still exist?

According to Earth 911, 660,000 tons of phone books are thrown away each year.  To put this in perspective, by recycling 500 of these useless tree sluts, we could save roughly 24 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 463 gallons of oil and 587 pounds of air pollution.  Additionally, it is estimated that roughly 5 million trees are destroyed each year solely for the creation of phone books.  Also note the difference between white and yellow pages.  White pages do not included advertising revenue and are to be distributed by law in most parts of the U.S.

Luckily, people are taking notice of this ridiculous waste of resources.  Make sure to sign the petition at BanThePhoneBook for a voluntary opt-in program.  This idea (which has now been adopted by such places as Cincinnati, OH) would stop the inevitable pile of phone books from accumulating on your door step – thus to receive a phone book you simply would have to request one.  Call your local phone company or yellow page provider to find out if they have already started an opt-in program, sign the petition, or phone your local representative.  This has to stop.

Additional Facts:

• Each year, enough phone books are created to measure 106,700 miles when lined up end to end, circulating the earth 4.3 times
• 540 million telephone directories are distributed yearly
• Although 80% of the roughly 3,000 paper mills in the U.S. use “some” recycled material during manufacturing, only 200 paper mills use only recycled material
• 15.9% of adults recycle old and/or unwanted phone books
• 81% of people surveyed agreed with or would support the opt-in program

Links and References:

1. Thompson, Claire.  “Is it time to get rid of phone books?”  [Weblog entry.]  Grist.  (http://www.grist.org/article/2009-08-25-time-to-get-rid-of-phone-books/).  August 25, 2009.
2. Mills, Elinor.  “Save a Tree, Ditch the Phone Book” [Weblog Entry.]  CNET News.  NewsBLOG.  (http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-6062983-7.html).  April 19, 2006.
3. http://www.banthephonebook.org/
4. Noguchi, Yuki.  “White Pages Look to Go Green.”  NPR – Online Transcript.  (http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=111831737&ft=1&f=1006).  August 13, 2009.
5. “Facts About Phone Books.”  Earth911.com.  (http://earth911.com/paper/phone-books/facts-about-phone-books/).