Caption This!

Now this......this is depressing.

No one noticed except Jon.

If you get the blog via Email you don't see the YouTube video I am occasionally using.

Here is what Email readers saw on the November 10th update.

And then I thought about this:

A blank where the funny video should be and under it.

This is a scene from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a favorite film of mine.

So if you are Facebook shy there is a direct link to the Chuck's Ruminations blog at the bottom of the Email page.

At this point I have only used YouTube video twice so I'm not sure you really need this information, but you can augment your reading enjoyment by playing the guessing game, is there something I don't see. Chances are if you're not a proctologist, see a colon and an empty space, you are missing a video.

I know there are a million things you can be doing with your free time, like the ladies at Best Buy, so once again I thank you for reading the blog. I probably shouldn't point out what you may be missing, at least you're here.

Once again I admit I know this blog is not going to take off, go viral and make me an overnight Internet sensation. At this point in my life I'm too old to understand how to market it using social media but not old enough to have it self perpetuate and expand. 

Maybe when I'm eighty-five I'll know enough to be slightly informed and people will think its awesome I'm still here.

Yesterday I became of aware of Meme for the first time.

According to Wikipedia Meme is pronounced meem. 

I think Me-Me is certainly more appropriate.

A meme is "an idea, behavior, or style that spreads from person to person within a culture." A meme acts as a unit for carrying cultural ideas, symbols, or practices that can be transmitted from one mind to another through writing, speech, gestures, rituals, or other imitable phenomena with a mimicked theme. Supporters of the concept regard memes as cultural analogues to genes in that they self-replicate, mutate, and respond to selective pressures.....Wikipedia

I encourage you to read about this fascinating topic but I lost interest when Darwin landed on the Galapagos Islands and meme evolution was compared to Mendel's science of genetics.

I can't explain what I don't know or understand. I became aware of all this because of a conversation I had with a friend at lunch on Saturday. She was telling me about Bill Cosby and an unrelated event. Yesterday I noticed a large news presence around him and found several articles pertaining to a recent media campaign of his. 

The New York Post

Bill Cosby is 77-years-old now I think he should have waited another ten years.

A disclaimer: I'm not commentating on the allegations against Cosby. This is the first I've heard them. I'd like to think they're not true, not because I care for the man one way or the other but because they're despicable.

The bad spouse and I saw his live show in Reno forty years ago and he was very, very funny.

"I looked at the room service menu and saw one egg...any style...two dollars."

"For two dollars that egg better have so much style it comes to me singing and dancing."

I am commenting on the many ways I don't or can possibly ever hope to know about navigating the information highway. I'll never have a group of young media consultants like Bill.

They didn't do him much good, did they?

Meme

A Best Buy store already has two women camped out waiting for Black Friday. I can't report this as new news since they've been there five days. One of the ladies said, "Some people think we're crazy but that doesn't bother me a bit. I'm hoping to score a great deal on a new television."

Look, I understand people have different lifestyles and those that choose to sit on their asses on lawn chairs and sleep in tents on cold hard concrete are certainly entitled to do just that. I understand the significance of media attention, the camaraderie and social interaction with like minded individuals but I don't understand such a colossal waste of time just to save a few dollars.

We all know the store sells a limited number of these "Door Busters" but it's safe to say one, if not both, of the early birds will get a crack at the biggest buster of all, a 50" Panasonic HDTV for $199. That's a darn good price. The set sold for $549 last week.

These two women secured their place in line last Wednesday; they will be there for 21 days or about 500 hours. They'll save $350 which equates to .70 per hour for their time.

I don't think they're crazy, I think they're freaking nuts.

My time was worth more than .70 per hour 50 years ago, that's what Abe Saperstein my boss and owner of a Baskin-Robbins franchise thought. He paid me .75 and I was able to save enough for my first car.

I thought about this just a few days ago.

On the way out of town Saturday morning Wanda and I went to Costco to fill up RAVA2E's gas tank.

Gas was $2.99 (plus .009 which really makes it $3 but if I include that I'd have to scrap this entire idea) it was a cause for great celebration.

I can't remember the last time I bought gas under $3 a gallon. The RAV gets decent mileage but it's still a large weekly expense. In October 2012 fuel peaked here in Northern California at $4.67. In the cities people were paying as much as $5. 

So saving $80 to $100 a month is considerable.

When I saw the price I was ecstatic. I hopped out of the car, gabbed the filler and was happily pumping when I noticed a kid about 15 doing the same on the opposite side. His mom was sitting behind the wheel texting her husband about how much Costco Chicken Pot Pie to purchase and if he was interested in the Tabouli Salad on sale.

I was wearing my Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix hat so I knew the kid would realize I was hip......god, I just thought I should try to find a word synonymous with hip, I've been using it so long and it just seemed...old. Especially when describing interaction with a kid. So I went to my go-to Google for hip alternatives.

Yep, you guessed it 13,500,000 suggestions for hip replacements.

I guess that pretty well sums things up.

So I looked over at the kid and said. "Bet you never thought you'd see gas prices under $3 a gallon." I forgot they were under $2 just 10 years ago. Of course he is too young to drive and doesn't pay the bills so he probably didn't care.

"When I was your age gas was .25 a gallon. I remember a gas war in Detroit (I assumed he knew Detroit was once a city) when it dropped to 19 cents."

And then it hit me.

Talking to him about gas prices in 1964 is just like someone talking to me when I was his age about working for Henry Ford in 1914.

He clearly didn't care and wasn't interested.

If I want to interact with the youth of today I'll need to expand my hash tag knowledge. It's clearly more than a canned good price.

I'll also need to learn how to post meme photos.