THE ATTACK OF THE GIRL SCOUTS

210 million
That number isn't the next US financial bailout proposal. That number represents the amount of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies sold in 2008.

1 Billion
Thats not only 3 times the The US population. Thats the amount of boxes of Girl Scout Cookies sold in our country the last 5 years. Thats nearly 3 boxes for every living soul in our country.

I am not one to rain on a childs parade but here comes my wrath of the Girl Scout Cookies.
I am personally a big fan of keeping kids involved in the scouts, synagogue, church, band, theater, karate, etc. It keeps their minds stimulated and engaged. Its a nice alternative to televisions and ipods. But here is my issue with cookie sales....

I don't like them being sold to me when I am doing my weekend shopping. I like to buy them from those I know. Its not that I feel like the cookies being sold by the kids outside the WaWa are laced with narcotic drugs (Although it wouldn't totally surprise me if thsat came out). My issue is that they are being pimped out my children standing in the cold so that parents could live vicraiously through their kids. It hurts me to say it and I may sound insensitive but I don't know a single 10-year-old child who enjoys being stuck in the cold begging strangers to buy cookies. They are seem disinterested.

I spend hundreds of dollars each year buying candles, candy, cookie dough, flowers and such from co-workers helping their kids out. I have no issue with that. There is a comfort level involved, Its a controled environment and I know them and in most cases I know their children. I have attended school plays and music concerts of younger family members and of friend children. The truthis that I'm not a scrooge and I have a long history of working as a camp counselor, school teacher, teen advisor and volunteer for Big Brothers. This illustrates my firm committment to helping the children of America. Its just that I don't like having to keep my head down and quickly shuffle myself out a department store entrance because I'm unable to buy cookies from every girl scout, outside every store, every day in the month of January. Its financially impossible.

If anything, I believe it deters people from shopping in those stores because they hate letting kids down. In this economy, people need to cut corners and the first people to suffer are the Girl Scouts of America. If I'm a shop owner (especially WaWa), I should know that for each box of Girl Scout Cookies sold outside my door, I am losing $3.50 of potential profit. I never heard anyone say "lets shop here because they have lots of GIrl Scout Cookies for sale outside." The Girl Scout Cookie fundraiser is potentially costing our US Economy $750 million dollars this year alone.

So to summarize...
1. I love Kids.
2. I hate kids pimping their cookies on me outside the store.
3. Girl Cookies are killing our economy.

THE FOOLISH THINGS PEOPLE DO

The Things People Do:

In todays blog, I am going to comment on the foolishness of man and woman as it pertains to my own observations. Periodically I will continue to comment on other foolish things we do as a society. But I’m getting the ball started with Shoes on a Wire, Groundhog Day and Infant Vacations.

SHOES ON A WIRE
Ever since I was a young boy, I continually wondered who these foolish people are and why they would chose to toss their shoes on a telephone / electric wire in the neighborhood. I always thought that the wires had two purposes.

1. Providing electricity to the houses on the street.
2. Wireball (Homeruns if you hit the wire).

The fact that people are tossing their shoes on these wires leads me to believe that these foolish people are not long-term thinkers. The short-term joy is that you can proclaim your accomplishment of perfectly landing your shoes on the wire without the laces breaking loose but what these foolish people failed to recognize is that they must now walk home barefoot. Is there really a bragging factor about having to walk home barefoot?

Upon further investigating this matter it has come to my attention that there are other reasons for throwing your shoes on a wire. It is said that drug dealers mark their territory by putting shoes on a wire outside their “zone”, which leads me to believe that we have a serious drug issue in my neighborhood. It is also believed that shoes on a wire actually help give low flying planes better visuals. To which I say if a plane is really going that low then we got bigger problems then some hanging Nikes outside my home. Please foolish people. Leave your shoes where they belong….in those tiny cubbies outside the ball-pit at Chucky Cheese.

GROUNDHOG DAY
Whose stupid idea was this? Some obscure town in PA (Punxsutawney) has a population of 6,000 people but on this particular day (February 2^nd) it jumps to 30,000. For what purpose? To watch a rodent crawl out of it’s hole at 7:25am and look for its darn shadow thus becoming a weather predictor for the entire population of the US. There are so many things wrong with this day that it really makes me feel sad that people take days off from work, drive sometimes 24-hours just to see funny men in big hats expose an overhyped rat.

1. Let’s begin with the scientific perspective. We have Doppler radars, high powered barometers and satellites in space. All in total costing our government and local news affiliations possibly billions of dollars. What is this ferry ferret going to tell me that technology can’t?
2. We are waking up this fuzz-nut up at 7:25am. He is expected to be sharp and on his game in front of 30,000 witnesses and millions of viewers. That’s a lot of pressure? What if he gets tree-fright?
3. His shadow can be compromised by the lighting of all those unlucky news media and their camera lights whom are all stuck in that small town over the weekend instead of covering real news like Blago the Clown Governor of Illinois.
4. If you want a weather prediction then take my forecast. It’s going be cold until mid April. That’s the way it’s been the last 10 years. Its cold global warming foolish people. You don’t need a rat to predict that information.

INFANT VACATION

My last observation of the foolishness of man / woman is vacationing with an infant.
I like to think that I’m a well-traveled man and no matter where I go, there is always someone travelling with a crying baby. Whether it be an eco-tourist trip to Costa Rica, a tour of Hollywood homes in California, the tropic beaches of Maui or even ….dare I say it? Disney World. I truly believe that parents bring their infants for one of two simple reasons.

A. Its cheaper to bring their kids then pay a babysitter (kids get in free, fly free and eat for free).

B. These foolish parents think that other travelers enjoy the sounds of crying babies while enjoy their vacation.

I know this is going to sound hard to believe but I truly think that Disney is turning more into an adult vacation than a child vacation. I recognize that there are kid-themed rides resorts and floppy looking characters coming around to take pictures but this is the reality of your child. To them it’s not a vacation but the extension of their life. For adults, it’s a way to kick back, toss off that stuffy tie and have a week where they can find the kid in themselves. Furthermore there are loads of restaurants and nightspots that are for the over 21 crowd. But I digress from my original point about vacationing with infants is foolish.

There are reasons why kids fly free and get in for free in some places. It’s because they are too young and too small to appreciate these experiences. Here are my own rules of thumb about traveling with kids. If they have to be pushed around in a stroller throughout the duration of the vacation then they are not enjoying their vacation and neither are you.

Vacations are meant to be enjoyed and to create lifelong memories. When you are home a few weeks after your vacation and you ask your child what they liked most about it they should be able to give you a quick reply. If they are too young to talk or too young to remember it then you are a fool because you just wasted your time and money on a kid too young to appreciate. For that, you make into my category of the foolishness of man / woman.

CHANGE HAS COME!!!

You are all invited to…

It’s been about a week since my last blog. This was done on purpose. For the last week I’ve been trying hard to find the words for inauguration day. I am 30-years-old and besides my wedding and the Phillies winning the World Series this will truly be a surreal kind of experience. Before I dive into my feelings surrounding this occasion, I must make 2 disclaimers….

1. This is not a political blog. I will only comment on the biggest political moments.
2. In full disclosure, I am a moderate independent. My voting record will show that I strongly support Democrats on the federal level and Republicans on the local level. I through my support behind Barack Obama about 6 months into his campaign.

But today’s change of power isn’t about me. It is about a man who represents a fresh set of eyes and no strings attached approached to government. A man who will lead our country and not because of the color of his skin but because of his quality of his character.

America puts our trust in him. Yes, he is somewhat wealthy because of his literary works but he has less money than any other president of our generation. In other words, our problems are his problems too and he did not run because he was entitled to it but because he felt that “fierce urgency of now.” He is literally serving to save his own family. In a recent article with Parade Magazine, he eluded that he ran for the sake of his daughters.

My blog isn’t to convince you to support him as I think he already has that in his favor. My blog is to rejuvenate and rededicate yourselves as proud Americans. There are obviously a lot of social, economic and foreign issues facing our country. I don’t expect him to fix everything every night but I think if we watch enough bi-partisan news sources, we have the sense that he will recapture our American spirit and catapult our nation into a new direction.

Think what you may about the previous administration but the truth can’t hide several wars, a recession, crippled foreign relations and the highest unemployment level in over 60-years.

This is a new day with a man who can be best described as the comic book hero of legislation. A man who has a white mother, black father, Philippine sister, Chinese Brother-in-law and Canadian niece. A man who in two years of being in the public, never lost his cool and stayed completely on message about change in America. A message so strong that nearly every politician in America tried to piggyback on that one word.

Today as I watch the pomp and circumstance, I know this is a day I want to be photographed in my memory. I want to have children just so I can tell them about the day that Barack Obama became our 44^th president of the United States.

HOW I PLAN TO BUY RUSSIA

When I was in college, my roommate at the time thought about how great it would be to own Russia, since it is the biggest country in the world in terms of land mass. I just shrugged it off and told him it was not possible. Well its been over 10-years since John and I had this discussion at Penn State and I'm happy to announce my plans to not only buy Russia but ultimately make me the Czar and enable me to rule the world. This is a huge task considering that I currently only own a 750 square foot condo and my love muffin is technically the ruler of that universe.

So here's the plan. You can all help make it happen for me. It will all start with a bake sale. Every cent will go directly to my cause. It will continue with some panhandling, which seems degrading and embarrassing but look at the bright side, I'll have a throne at the end. After I'm done selling cakeand standing outside Walmart with a "help me" bucket, I would have but with inflation it may be more.at least $16 to go towards my ultimate goal of 1.3 trillion dollars. I should of began the discussion by mentioning that Russia's GDP is 1.3 trillion. Therefore buying Russia would mean I'll need to raise at least that amount of money.

My next step is to open up a water ice kiosk at the Willow Grove Mall. I realize that for supplies, rentals, and insurance I'm setting myself back 1K but that's not entirely true. You forgot about the $16 I already earned so now I'm only down $984. I am naming this water ice stand after my nickname, Rudy. So Rudy's Water ice. Has a nice ring to it. Not like that lame Rita's competitor of mine. I project business will boom and over a period of 2-years, I will begin to franchise my water ice around the country.

My next goal is to sell the entire Rudy's Water ice franchise for at least $25 million. This will be a down payment for the movie theater complex I'm going to build, The Rudy-Plex. My fortune will eventually lead to bigger things such as naming rights for sports arena (i.e Rudy Field), branding of salad dressing (I.E. Rudy Vinaigrette) and of course my own college bowl classic, The Not So Gaylord Rudy Bowl. All of these business ventures will lead to big money. I will invest the money wisely, such as the US stock market Or Detroit Lions Super Bowl odds for 2010. You catch my drift? Of course I will invest in land. Specifically buying up some tropical islands, where I can overcharge tourists for everything they do on my piece of land.

The bottom line is that I will increase my fortune to trillions of dollars within 10 years. I will not only buy Russia but I will appropriately change the name to Rudy-land. I will socialize everything and free the people of communism....Oh wait that's already taken care of for me. Anyway, I will become the Czar. My love muffin will go from a 750 square foot condo to a 6.6 million square foot paradise. This dream will become my reality. It all starts with a bake sale. Who wants to make me some cookies?

WELCOME TO LIFE IN MY BRAIN

Friends, Romans and Countrymen (or women or transgender people or other). Lend me your ears as I am about to introduce you to your new favorite website...

Life in My Brain Online (AKA The LIMBO Blog)

I will be your host and moderator, The Legendary One. I live in a cozy 2 bedroom condo in a Philadelphian suburb called Warrington. I live with my wife, who will simply be known as "My Love Muffin" to protect her identity. We live with our 5 beautiful fish (Smoky, Bandit, Bubba, Mr. Fish and Mrs. Fish. They rent out 60 gallons of space in our living room). My goal with this blog is to spew out the nonsensical thoughts running through my head. I will do this in a very fun, responsible and sometimes comical way. Many of you who know me, understand that there are very few things off limits for me to discuss. In fairness to all, I will keep my discussions on poltics, religion and sex to a minimum. Although sometimes there comes an event so historical (i.e Jan. 20th, 2009) where thoughts need to formed and written.

Your role as my friends and audience is to read, enjoy and respond. Send your friends and neighbors to this site and let them know that I do not bite. I will do my best to blog at least once a week. You can be one of my many followers. I will lead you to ranch in Waco Texas where I will have us all burned and...oops wrong kind of following. My love muffin and I are recently married and now looking forward to sharing our stories on how to lead a happy prosperous life on a very limited income.

One of my biggest philosophies in life is that everyone should learn to have thick skin and a strong sense of humor. Four and half years ago (right before I met my love muffin), I enrolled in a standup comedy class. Our graduation consisted of a 5 minute set of raw material. I have since revised, refined and ultimately resigned from the field in pursuit of other career objectives, including earning more notable degrees outside of the spectrum of comedy. But to get into my brain, you must first see my act below...
Once again. I thank you for visiting Life in My Brain Online and I hope you all have a healthy and happy New Year. Below you will see my blog entries before I unveiled this site to the masses.