New Year, Same Stupidity

So it is New Years Day. In my attempt to stave off working for as long as possible, I stayed home today. I am also staying home tomorrow. So it will be a two day work week. Yay there.

What to do during my day off? I had planned to clean the apartment and do laundry. In actuality I spent the day playing WoW and watching TV. Now, the majority of TV options involves college football bowl games, which I can marginally muster interest in the best of times. This is not the best of times. Other options? All day Dirty Jobs marathon on Discovery. Damn straight. My mancrush for Mike Rowe progresses unabated.

During the course of the day I see two commercials that stand out in memory, very....very strong.

One is for these detoxifying foot pads. They use (and I think I've forgotten the exact term, but this is close) Kojima technology. A similar product can be found here. The principle is that you put these pads on the bottom of your feet when you sleep, and the pads soak up and draw out "heave metals, metabolic wastes, toxins, microscopic parasites, mucous, chemicals, cellulite and much more." Not only that, but the pads help cleanse using the power of IONS. Specifically, "tourmaline (the negative ion and far infrared producing mineral)."

This is, of course, absolute bullshit. It's snake oil. Hokey pokey nonsense. You toss around terms like "Japan" and "ions" and "arsenic" and gullible people are sold this crap. I was astounded that this actually made it onto a commercial for national television. I was completely blown away...

....until I saw a commercial for Zero Smoke. Zero Smoke is a method for quitting smoking. It uses "Auricular Therapy", which involves wearing two small 24 karat gold plated magnets on your left earlobe for 2-4 hours a day. They are BIOMAGNETS! This helps you quit smoking, by stimulating neurotransmitter production in the brain that reduces tobacco craving and nicotine withdrawal symptoms.

I was flabbergasted. This is worse than the foot pads. I mean, I could see some vague scientific basis bound and gagged in the corner of the foot pad platform. But I thought biomagnets were outed as quackery about the same time as phrenology. The fact that both of these commercials appeared on the Discovery Channel, a channel designed to spread scientific exploits and knowledge to the masses, made the stupidity even sweeter. If anything, the combined events of this holiday season has not weakened, but shaken, my faith in humanity.

So anyways, yeah, New Years. I am, once again, going to pretend that I am an intelligent and creative person by completely stealing from Coyote's blog. Here is a list of my New Years resolutions that I will, by hell or high-water, stick to*.

(*note: may not actually stick to these resolutions)

• Pay off my credit card debt before buying a new recliner (as mine just broke), a new computer screen, or a new computer mouse.
• Go on at least 6 dates, one before the end of February.
• Allow my mancrush for Mike Rowe to proceed unchecked.
• Finish Pebbleman and actually look into publishing it.
• Attend TacoCon '08, attempt to remember as much of it as I can.
• Launch my military coup of Zebulon.
• Attain my first major weight point in my weight loss arc.
• Become at least 15% more awesome.
• Say at least one thing that makes people double over laughing.
• Say at least one thing that makes people give me that look of "what the fuck is wrong with you?"
• Get drunk.
• Embarrass myself publicly.
• Keep my houseplant alive.
• Smoke my Meerschaum more than once.
• Keep my apartment clean (HAHAHAHAHAHA).
  
• Live.
• Love.
• Laugh.
• Dance like a fool.
• Weep like a child.
• Hold myself to my New Years resolutions only so much as I want, and not feel guilty if I fail.

Happy New Years. And remember, only a couple more years that you can spell the year using boobs in the middle.