Money Well Spent

Precisely 1 minute and 23 seconds. That's the time I just spent to download and install Temple Run 2 on my phone. That time frame also includes powering my phone up, inputting my security code - twice because I screwed up the first try - finding and opening Google play, searching for the game, then choosing to accept and download. 83 seconds in total.

Now, flash back 30 years to 1983. The year I graduated high school. Yes, I'm that old. Let's say you wanted a new game. The best video game console of the time was the Atari 5200, which cost just under 3 hundred dollars. In 2013, that's probably around 5 or 6 hundred dollars. The game cartridges ran anywhere from 40 to 60 dollars each, and they had mind-blowing graphics like this:

Dude, that's awesome! We should play this... like... 10 hours a day!

So, if you were over 16, had a job and a car, it only cost you around 350 dollars (not counting the gas it took to drive to Toys-R-Us) to have this amazing entertainment on your home television, which often was in use by other members of your family. No TVs in every room back then, and if you had a 2nd one, it was small and old and possibly didn't have the required hook ups for such a modern gaming system. In 1983, the federal minimum wage, which is what most teenagers worked for, was 3.35 an hour.  Leaving out taxes and social security payments for convenience (or in other words, laziness) it took 104.47 hours for a minimum wage earning teenager to earn enough to purchase this system and this game. Assuming also that he spent his money on nothing else, if he worked 20 hours per week, then he had to work 5 weeks, plus another 4 1/2 hours to have enough.

Flash forward to now. In the time that was spent then to drive to the store, get customer service to open up the case to get the game for you, stand in the checkout line to purchase, then drive back home, you can now:  download the game, play it enough to find out it's boring, delete it, try two or three other games, check some sports scores, read a blog post, update your status on Facebook, and check out movie listings to see if there's anything you want to go see tonight.

I HATE this song!  Where is my Pandora so I can give it a thumbs down?!

You might ask, "So what's your point?" Well, I'm not trying to say how bad we had it then, because it's not true. It wasn't the good old days like some people like to claim... it just was the way things were. I guess my point is that things change. When my 4 year old grandson can do something in 83 seconds that used to take me 100 plus hours, or 4300 times as long,  I marvel at technology and wonder what change the next 30 years will  bring. Hopefully I'll be around to see it. Oh, and another thing. Let's say that instead of wanting that amazing video game, I was interested in saving up to invest in this company I had heard was going to go public in 1986 called Microsoft. The initial public offering was 21 dollars a share. For my 350 dollars I would have gotten 16.67 shares in the transaction. Those shares, through the magic of stock splits, would now be equivalent to 4800 shares today, worth 27.55 per share at Friday's close. That's 132,240 dollars. A net profit of $131,890!  Not an immense fortune, but a lot more than most of us have in our bank accounts. Instead, I got to throw the Atari game in the trash a few years later. But I'll always have the memories.

From Snarky with love.

Did you enjoy this blog? Like us on our Facebook page here. Thanks in advance! Mr. Snarky.

His name is Geoffrey Holder...

...and because of him, Mr. Snarky feels kind of inadequate today. No, that's not quite the right word. An underachiever? Getting closer. Let me explain and you'll get the idea. Last night, when Mrs. Snarky went to the store, I asked her to get me some 7up. Not a regular request for me, in fact I don't think I've had one for a few years, but whatever. I was in the mood. When she came back, the old Uncola commercial popped into my head. Some of my readers will be old enough to remember this I think. 

"And they paid me to do this! HA HA HA HA!"

Mr. Snarky has an interesting skill... well, it's interesting to me anyway. I am very good at voice recognition. I shall tell a little story to illustrate. In my 20's, I was often invited to bachelor parties. Sometimes, believe it or not, those parties had strippers. At one such party, my friend and I were sitting in the living room at the apartment it was held in, while the stripper was talking to her escort out of sight in the kitchen. I heard her voice and said to my friend sitting next to me, "That's the same stripper from Jimmy's party two years ago." He told me I was full of it. It couldn't be. When she walked into the living room my friend's jaw dropped. Actually, so did mine because I was amazed at my previously undiscovered skill. Now you may not believe me, or perhaps have determined in your mind that the stripper must have had a distinct voice or speech impediment or something of that nature, but I assure you, it is true, and she had a normal voice with no accent other than the Chicago nasal twang that nearly everyone in the apartment had. I've proven my skill in this many times to Mrs. Snarky who, while slightly impressed by it, does not believe as I do, that one day, this talent will bring me untold riches. I just haven't figured out how it will happen but... IT WILL HAPPEN!!! 

As the Uncola guy's voice went ringing through my head, it quickly occurred to me that this was the same voice as the narrator in...

Long video I know, but skip to around 4:00 and listen to that voice

Obviously the same guy when you hear them one after the other, but remember, the two videos are 30 years apart or so. Being of the Google generation, I had to look it up and prove myself correct, which I was. I then went to his IMDB  page... I'm Geoffrey Holder and look at all the shit I've done. and his Wikipedia entry What have you done in YOUR life? If you don't want to click, here is the start of his Wikipedia page: Geoffrey Richard Holder (born 1 August 1930) is a Trinidadian actor, choreographer, director, dancer, painter,costume designer, singer and voice-over artist.  They forgot to add author to that list. Some of you might be familiar with the man as a contestant on Celebrity apprentice last year, but Mr. Snarky doesn't watch that show. His eyes prefer not to look at Donald Trump, and watching that show would make his goal of never looking at "The Donald" again... impossible/unreachable. Mr. Snarky prefers reachable goals. But Mr. Holder (his middle name is Richard... do you think anyone ever called him Dick Holder? Just wondering) has made Mr. Snarky's simple goals seem... well... just that. Simple. He holds 2 Tony awards, ran his own dance troupe, studied art at the Guggenheim, was a renowned choreographer and has authored 2 books. And what does Mr. Snarky know of him? Yeah... he did a television commercial in the 70's and a voice over for a remake of a Roald Dahl kids book turned movie. Well, what have you done in your life Mr. Snarky, you might ask? Thanks. Yeah. I've written a kids book (not published) a novel (not published) and have been planning a silly little e-book for around a year. I write a blog now and then, I watch Dexter and Supernatural, a lot of sports and play Wii sports ping pong. 

I really hate that Lucia. Bitch beats me every time!

So thanks a lot "Dick Holder." You have made me feel a little worthless today. Also made me feel like I have a ton of work to do and that maybe I should stop screwing around all the time and get to work. Yeah. That's what I'll do. Right after I get done beating Lucia at a game of Ping Pong.

Happy New Year!! 

With Love,

Mr. Snarky

Excitement is in the air. Can you feel it?

I know I can. While skimming through the TV listings... which now takes around ten minutes to discover there is nothing on as opposed to when I was a kid when it took around two minutes to actually turn on each of the five or six channels we had available... I discovered that tonight, the Miss Universe pageant is on. Now THERE is some amazing television. What?? You aren't watching? You can even watch it in Espanol on telemundo or something like that, only it's called Miss Universo. Those Spanish speakers are so clever with all their code words that nobody understands, don't you think? As usual, I digress. I'm very good at that I think. It's quite possible that I could be the worlds number 1 digresser. Or is it digressor? The spell check on this thing doesn't like either spelling, but it doesn't like Espanol either and I'm sure that's a word. Doesn't matter, I'm using it. I'm not gonna let blogger tell me what's a word and what ain't. Is ain't actually a word? According to this it is, but not according to my 4th grade English teacher. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah. Digressing. That's right.

My 4th grade English teacher looked nothing like this.

Anyway, the beauty pageant. I know I'm dating myself, which would be really cool if I was a hot blonde, (don't you hate when you think something is funny and then you say it, or in this case type it, and then it's just lame?) but I remember when one of the television events of the year was the Miss America pageant. Just about everyone my age watched it. It ranked right up there with the annual showing of The Wizard of Oz, Charlie Brown Christmas, and the Muscular Dystrophy telethon with Jerry Lewis. (Okay, now I'm REALLY not listening to this spell checker because it doesn't know the word Dystrophy and when I right clicked it, the only suggestion was "Astrophysics." Really?!?) To those of you 25 and under, it must sound like we lived a boring life, but it really was fun to get together with friends once a year to watch the Wizard of Oz. We didn't have VCRs or cable TV, and the kids shows available were on for about half an hour after school 1 day a week (remember the ABC after school specials?) Saturday morning cartoons, or on PBS, Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers, and the Electric Company, starring Rita Moreno, the amazing Spider-man and Mr. Morgan Freeman.

I really hope my movie career takes off.
This bites!

Yes, THAT Morgan Freeman. That was just about all the kids programming for the entire week. So when Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer was coming on on a night in December, every kid knew, and every kid got to watch, because "it's only once a year" and if you missed it, you were S.O.L.

And so it went with Miss America. It was corny. The speeches about curing hunger and bringing about world peace were lame. But, for two or three hours, every middle aged man in America could watch a bunch of hot young ladies prance around in evening dresses and then in swimsuits, and he was able to act like it really mattered to him if Miss Illinois was going to make it into the top five. This crap was important! Again to you 25 and under folks, as you probably know, we also didn't have internet, Cinemax after hours, or the Victoria's Secret catalogue, among other things. The pageant was about as close to porn as many of the men of my father's generation got for many years... although, I did once find a Playboy in the bottom drawer of a cabinet in my bathroom when I was around 12. I'm guessing my Dad wanted to read the Jimmy Carter interview in it, but I could be mistaken.

Hmm, Jimmy Carter, or Sex in Cinema? What should I read?

Thinking back, my favorite part of Miss America was when they were down to two finalists and they would say that the first runner up would get to take over if the winner was unable to fulfill her duties as Miss America. What an awesome amount of responsibility it must have been for both of them! They would announce the winner and you just knew the first runner up was plotting ways to knock the crown off the winner's head. They would both hug and cry, moms at home would watch and cry over how beautiful the whole thing was and hope that their daughter would one day rise to such heights, and the dads would cry because they had to go back to watching news, or nature shows on PBS. Porn night was over.

I hope my mascara isn't... oh crap. It is.

Maybe it was a little boring, but we didn't know better. Sometimes, boring and naive is okay, don't you think?  Merry Christmas and/or Happy Holidays from the Snarky Family!

mele kalikimaka!

PS. Sorry Mr. Snarky is such a bad liar. This is only my second post since February 29th. I'm not gonna lie and tell you I'll write more soon, but I hope I get the urge a lot more.

PPS. After last week's awfulness, be sure and tell the ones you love how much they mean to you... and not just for the next few weeks. Do it all the time. It just feels good. I love you guys. Snarky.... OUT.

Idiots are everywhere!

You may have noticed that Mr. Snarky hasn't been around lately.  At least, I hope you've noticed. That is about to change. I could make up a whole bunch of excuses as to why I haven't written anything here in so long, but instead, let me just say that I've been working with Mrs. Snarky on a very exciting project lately. No, we haven't been working on it every spare moment since last February, so I could've been writing here too... I just didn't. I am truly sorry if you've missed the blog and I will do my best to post regularly once again. Enough about that. Let's get to the point, shall we?

And that point is.... IDIOTS ARE EVERYWHERE!!! I hope you've noticed that too. Mr. Snarky really hates politics... especially partisan politics. I choose to try to keep my major political beliefs to myself because I can't stand the back and forth bickering that goes with that. BUT (<--- and that's a very big but) in this election cycle, the idiots are on both sides. Therefore, I am choosing to call out one idiot from each side of the aisle. Call it "fair and balanced" if you will. Also, there is one amazingly stupid player from Major League Baseball who is particularly worthy of our scorn.

So, in no particular order, here are my three idiots of the week:

IDIOT A: Vice President, Joe Biden (Democrat). In Virginia on a campaign stop, Biden addressed a crowd that was of mixed races. There was a fairly high percentage of blacks attending the rally. Joe, truly in rare form, stated that if Romney and Ryan win,  "...they're gonna put y'all back in chains." Really Joe, was that necessary? Why didn't you insult their mothers too? Could you maybe tell some jokes about watermelon and black-eyed peas next time? You know, black people have come a long way, and while I almost understand the point you were trying to make, you really stepped all over some of the constituents who came to hear you speak. It's kind of crazy considering you were chosen for your job by the country's first black president. Do me a favor Joe. Think before you speak, okay?

IDIOT B: Missouri Senatorial candidate, Todd Akin (Republican). When asked if he supported abortions for victims of rape, Akin spouted this jewel: "It seems to me first of all, from what I understand from doctors, that's really rare. If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down." Well, Mr. Akin, IT SEEMS TO ME that you don't have a fucking clue about THAT WHOLE THING at all do you? And, to borrow your words a third time, FIRST OF ALL what is a "legitimate rape?" Are you actually telling me that a woman can decide to stop herself from getting pregnant? What if she's drugged, and then raped? Would her subconscious mind stop the egg from being fertilized even if she's knocked out with date rape drug? I don't think so you moron. Women have come a long way, and while I almost understand where you were coming from you really crapped all over an unfortunately high number of your constituents who have been victims of rape. Do me a favor Todd. Think before you speak, okay?


IDIOT C: San Francisco Giant and 2012 MLB All-Star game MVP, Melky Cabrera (Idioticratican). While having the best season of his career, in a "shocking development," Mr. Cabrera tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone and was suspended for 50 games. Enough to call him an idiot? Maybe, maybe not. Is that all? Oh no, that is definitely NOT all. No, Cabrera decided that he was going to get around the system by creating a phony website for a phony supplement that could trigger a false positive for... you guessed it... elevated testosterone. He would then appeal the suspension and act like he was the victim of said supplement. Really Melky? Seriously? Let's just assume for a second that MLB fell for your little ruse. What then? Would you have had to hire chemists to create a supplement that would actually falsely raise your testosterone levels for the test while not actually raising your levels? Well, after that you'd probably have to buy a factory to create the supplement in order to submit it to MLB in order to prove your innocence of the charges. Good luck with that. You should feel lucky that the MLB knows just about every supplement on the market and was quickly wise to you. You sir, are a true moron. Do me a favor Melky. Think before you make up a lie to try to cover up your cheating next time, okay?

..........

One last thing: While I love to have comments to the site, I will ask you to please skip the attacking political type on this column and save those for the political sites. This is not, and will never be, a political forum. There are hundreds of those on the web already. We don't need another.Thanks.

Another last thing: An appropriate movie quote.

Stanley: I bet you're great at chess.
Conrad: I would be if I could remember how all the pieces moved.

Thanks for reading.

 Love, Mr. Snarky

Ode to Mrs. Snarky

Well, last time I posted, it was around Valentine's day. As I said at the time, Mrs. Snarky wrote a lovely, wonderful tribute to our love which was all kindsa mushy and stuff. In just a few hours, we will begin celebrating our 8th year of marriage. As you may have gathered by reading our posts, we are a bit on the goofy side. We decided it would be a good idea to get married on "Leap day", not in order to only have to celebrate our anniversary every four years, but so that every 4 years we would have an extra special day. You see, we still celebrate on non-leap years, we just get to choose whether it is March 1st or February 28th. Then, when there is a February 29th, we do something a little more special. We kind of like it. So Happy 2nd anniversary Mrs. Snarky. I love you!

Now, I don't mush exactly the same way she does. Usually, it takes me a having a couple of beers to really let out my emotions. I don't drink often, but when I do, I get all happy-squishy-gooey-mushy. It's kind of gross actually. Mrs. S. loves on me all the time. I LOVE her all the time, I'm just not as good at showing it as her. Typical male, right? Anyway, this is my attempt at being sweet and snarky at the same time. I hope it's not too disgusting.

This one's for you honey-bunny/love-muffin/sugar-sweetie-poops.

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

One-one thousand!

Two-one thousand!!

Three-one thousand!!!

Hmmm, that one's already been done before. How about this?

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And Summer's lease hath all too short a date:

...

Nahhh. That's not me either. Okay, this one is from the heart. Truly.

To my lover, my wife and best friend:

One fine day

now eight years ago,

you gave me your hand

and the man called me YO.

I said my name's John

now please marry us

'twas done in our front room

with nary a fuss.

We went on with our lives

as if nothing had changed

for we both knew the other

was a little deranged.

We've gone through rough times

as the money got tight

but we pushed our way through

with hardly a fight.

Through good times and bad

through the ups and the downs

we've laughed all the way

like a couple of clowns.

Now your days are all filled

watching our grandchildren's shows

Oomi Zoomi and Dora

and that really blows.

But you've managed to show them

how much they are loved

like a g'amma from heaven

sent down from above.

and you gave me the thing

I was longing to take

you gave me your heart

which I never shall break.

I know that forever

for the rest of my life

I'm the luckiest man

with the most bestest wife.

Thank you for being mine. I'm very happily yours.

And thanks to all who read this. I'll try to get back to Snarkiness next time. I promise. Love to all!

Mr. Snarky.

a little bit of this, a little bit of that.

This is Mr. Snarky's brain lately. It seems to get this way every year between the Super Bowl and March Madness. I do enjoy a little NHL and NBA, but I'm mostly a fan of those sports during the playoffs. Good news though; pitchers and catchers report this week for spring training, so Baseball is not that far away. Okay, so this blog is not really about sports, and in fact I have done very little sports writing on it... but for some reason, watching my favorite sports seems to get my brain moving. Not that you care about any of that anyway. So there's that.

Here's this: Can someone send me a check for a hundred thou or so because I know if I didn't have to go to work, I'd find funny stuff to video or blog about all the time, even in February.

Mrs. Snarky wrote a lovey dovey post on her other blog, (in actuality, "The Snarky Couple" is her other blog... while this is her real blog) and it was really amazing and sweet. So of course, I'll do no such thing here other than this... "Hey Mrs. Snarky!!! You're pretty badass. Happy Valentines day and stuff. Love ya's!" So there's that.

Here's this: Was it just me, or are the 2012 Giants one of the worst teams to ever win a Super Bowl?

It's funny how there are times when blog posts pop into my head no problem and then I go home and write them in like 15 minutes, and then there are times like now when I seem to be writing forever and nothing interesting comes out. I wish there was a creativity button I could just push and the stuff would start flowing. But there isn't. So there's that.

Here's this: Was it just me, or were the Super Bowl commercials really lame this year?

I have intentionally stayed away from politics on this site for a myriad of reasons and will continue to do so. Anyway, there are plenty of places to look for political opinions on the internet, so why would I bother doing it here? The only thing I'm going to say is that both sides need to chill out. Seriously. There's far too much hatred going on over a bunch of bullshit. Just look at the comments on Facebook or on any of the news sites after a major, or even a minor news event. I'm tired of it. So there's that.

Here's this: I'm tired in general.

Is anyone else out there completely sick of all the reality shows on tv? The other day, one of my kids came in the living room, turned on the tube and switched to MTV Real Life. The subject was "Addicted to Texting" or something like that. They followed a 20 something married girl, and a 15 year old who both spend most of their waking hours sending and receiving text messages. Now there's something to waste your time watching, right? I only stayed in the room for 10 minutes or so, but two quotes still ring in my head. First, the married girl saying, "I hope the day never comes when he tells me I have to choose between him, or my phone." Well sweetheart, if you were my wife, and you were texting so many guys that I felt the need to say that, I'd already be gone and you and your phone can be together. Oh, and I'd be taking the phone records into court when we divorced so I would get custody of the kid. The 15 year old told her mom, "It's my life! You can't tell me what to do!" The mom patiently tried to help her to spend a little less time texting. The girl said she texts 13 or 14 thousand times a month. Well mom, the time for being patient is OVER! Here's what you do. You take the phone from her hand, or wait till she's sleeping if you want, then you can drop it in the toilet, hit it with a hammer, throw it against the wall, put it under your tire and back up, throw it over Niagra Falls... the possibilities are endless. However, I wouldn't recommend you shoot it and post it on her Facebook wall... although you might get a hit youtube video if you do. So there's that.

Hope you all get some excellent Valentine's Day action!

Love, Mr. Snarky

Invading South America... and ...The "Big Game"

South America, YOU ARE MINE!!! Last week, I lamented the fact that South America was the least Snarky continent on the planet. Readers were getting their Snark on from all over the globe.... just not there. Well, thanks to some help from a loyal reader, I have brought Snarkiness to one of the lands to the south, (does the continent have a good nickname? Australia and the rest of Oceania is down under, Africa is the dark continent, what the heck is South America?) and the entirety of the continent shall soon fall under my spell. In all 12 countries of South America, people will be learning to say "Snarky" in Spanish and Portuguese and asking each other questions like, "Why do we say a pair of underwear?" Then their friend will say, "Yeah, really. But a bra... is just one. Es mui loco," or some such Spanish stuff. Seriously though, why do we say I'm going to put on some shorts and a t-shirt, and then come back with just one of each? I've never understood that. But if you said, "I'm putting on a short and some t-shirts, people would look at you as if you really were mui loco. Anyway, I digress. To the person in the country of Chile... I salute you for your bravery. To the rest of the continent, c'mon! Check it out! And to Collie, as promised, a free lifetime subscription to the Snarky Couple and my undying gratitude for getting things started down there.

Now, on to part 2. The Big Game. The Snarky Couple is not affiliated with the NFL or any of its franchises and therefore cannot use the phrase Super Bowl without the expressed, written consent of the National Football League. Except for in the preceding sentence. Yeah.

Every year at this time, I get tired of people being unable to use Super Bowl (oops) in their advertising unless they are one of the official sponsors. Joe's bar and grill has to say "Big Game Party." That is until the elephants, tigers and lions in the jungles of Africa sue for the exclusive rights to be called "Big Game" and then the NFL will come up with some other phrase that is acceptable such as, "The Extremely Monumental Annual American Football Classic" or some such nonsense. I'm seriously tired of it. But if I were an ad exec, here's what I'd do. I'd cheat. I'll show you what I mean. Here is my "Screw the NFL" TV and Radio ad campaign.

1. Chunky Soup: A couple is chatting and all of a sudden the man looks at his watch and says, "It's time for the big game honey. I think this one is going to be Super." The wife immediately says, "Bowl of Chunky Soup dear?"





2. Great Clips: Announcer: This week and this week only we are offering our incredible "Super Bowl-Cut" for just 9.95!"

3. Target: A little girl is walking around trying to bounce her ball and it just isn't bouncing very high. She walks up to her dad and says,"Can I get a new Super Ball Sunday Daddy?" Announcer: "For all your Super Ball needs, and much much more, get to Target."

4. Beef: A woman is standing on the porch of her farm house ringing a bell. All the farm hands come running in to the kitchen. She is serving steak. Announcer: When you're ringing your supper bell Sunday, be sure they leave it all out on the field. Beef, it's what's for dinner.

5. Tupperware: Announcer: "Kids. They're just plain messy. But after years of development, tupperware has finally come up with a mess free way for your kids to eat cereal. We call it "The Sipper Bowl"

and finally...

6. FOX network: Announcer: "You've seen him appear as a comedian, on game shows, and on the Tonight Show. Now, comedian Soupy Sales takes on his biggest challenge ever. On February 1st, Mr. Sales heads to the lanes. Don't miss "Soupy Bowls Sunday!"

It probably would be his greatest challenge ever since Soupy is deceased, but Whoopi Bowls Sunday just didn't work.

Hope everyone has a Happy Big Game Day!

Love, Mr. Snarky