Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

Today is *NOT* Thanksgiving!

 Posted by at 11:59  Down with, principles, rants
Jan 012014
 

You read right folks, today is not Thanksgiving, it is Black Friday Eve.  If you haven’t, read Ralph’s post from yesterday, he explains things well.   So is this the first step to abolishing Turkey Day?  I was driving around the other day trying to get the last of the stuff for Thanksgiving, I mean Black Friday Eve, and all I saw was Christmas stuff and Black Friday sales.

It was Monday of this week and Wal-Mart had already discounted what little Thanksgiving stuff (napkins, plates and the like) they had.  I didn’t see one “Happy Thanksgiving” banner or anything that didn’t have to do with the mighty and all powerful Black Friday.  Commercials on the TV are toting the virtues of black Friday and opening up stores at midnight, if they even are closed for Thanksgivng Black Friday Eve.

I have to say this MUST be the beginning of the end.  Soon the turkey tradition will be gone, replaced with Black Friday specials at Burger King, Chick-Fil-A and Sizzler (just 3 places that I saw who were open on Black Friday Eve.)  We will soon grab a whopper and go home to not watch football games, but whole hour long blocks of commercials sponsored by Toys-R-Us and Wal-Mart.

Amazon.com will probably join in and offer Black Friday Eve promotions that start at 10 AM  on the Thursday that used to be Thanksgiving.  Like Ralph said yesterday, there is no differentiation between holiday’s anymore.  I try very hard to keep Christmas separate from everything else.  I fight tooth and nail in order to keep Christmas from invading until after Thanksgiving.

It still trickles in not long after the Halloween decorations go down.  I am accepting this little by little but I will be damned if that tree is up and decorated before the turkey carcass is cooled.  But there are deals and presents available sometime around election day.  Bah.  Humbug.  Even the bell ringers were out on that Monday BEFORE Thanksgiving, er Black Friday Eve.

POMPANO BEACH, FL - OCTOBER 08: Wal-Mart empl...

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

I for one will not be participating in Black Friday festivities this year.  Despite the lack of money to participate, I have lost the desire to brave the cold and crowds for a few good deals that are mostly gone by the time I get there.  On the news last Saturday, there were already people camping out at Best Buy.  What a load of, well, this is still supposed to be a PG-13 blog so I had better save that line.  You get the gist of it.  Plus, if you want a secret, MOST of the deals you can get on Black Friday are also available online.  Many you can get at Amazon for nearly the same price right now.

Speaking of Amazon, if you like this blog and would like to help Ralph, Bob and myself spread some Christmas cheer, please link to Amazon with our affiliate link over there in the right sidebar.  It will take you to Amazon.com where you can shop to your hearts content and not pay anymore than you normally would.  We just get a small portion for sending you there.  Enough commercial.

Are you planning on hitting the sales this Black Friday or even this Black Friday Eve?  Are you giving up?  Are you going to attempt to hang onto tradition and have THANKSGIVING?!?!?  I am.  I would like to hear your plans down in the comments.

for now, I have to check some ads and try to figure out what to get people for Christmas.  I did just get an email about quality fake ids…

Have a good one,

-Justin

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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How things have changed…

 Posted by at 11:58  Plain 'ol Cantankerous, principles, rants, Reflections
Jan 012014
 
English: Modern bronze statue of Julius Caesar...

English: Modern bronze statue of Julius Caesar, Rimini, Italy. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

 

I am really excited to have a guest post here on Cantankerous Old Coots.  It seems so long since there has been any activity from my fingers that hasn’t included building a site for an actual paying customer that this really does seem like Ralph Carlson blog part 2.  But, Ralph is in Rome trying to walk in the footsteps of Caesar and hopefully miss out on the end of that story.  Ralph has traveled a lot over the past couple of years, this is his second time to Italy, and he spent Christmas in Buenos Aries.  One of these days he is just going to stay somewhere and we will get vague tweets and requests for ransom money.

 

 

But I digress.  Again.  Where is this whole blogging thing going?  I am not sure I hate the world enough to be as cantankerous as I need to be.  Living in my little bubble of ignorance is great, but not as far as a good rant is concerned.  Sure Bob keeps me abreast of the Gestapo tactics that the government of the good old USA is adopting, and the Stalinistic tactics of the NSA, but I feel that it is more Bob’s purview to write on those things.  I am too busy getting ready to build a bunker in the mountains.

I have seen what apathy does to a blog.  I have seen what furious posting does for this blog.  The worst part?  They are not that much different.  So is blogging dead for me?  No.  Do I need to prioritize better? Yes.  Do I need to keep pumping everything I can into an actual paying job?  Yep.  I have promised before to write more.  I am pretty sure that my writing and a lump of petrified dinosaur crap will get you a wry look and a “Yea, ok.  Good luck with that.” response.

The future?  Keep building websites for money.  Blog when I feel like it.  Hope that Ralph doesn’t end up in some Roman orgy jail.  Think about doing another podcast.  Sleep.  I am not sure anymore.  My kids are out of school and, well, my brain is fried 3 weeks into it.

Back to work on that other site.  That actually pays money.  From this point on to be referred to as Stalag 13, without Hogan.

stalag13

-Later, I hope

-Justin

 

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Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Cantankeriffic Week in Review 1. 4/23/10

 Posted by at 11:58  Uncategorized
Jan 012014
 

If you are a long time reader to the Cantankerous Old Coots, you have nearly completed 1 month of irregular reading!

Congratulations, your education in being a coot is in full swing.   Here is some good and bad news.  The good news is that we are continuing to rise in popularity.  People are coming by and reading our blog.  The bad news, Ahh there is no bad news.

I did have to face some hard truths over the past week.  Namely, I need to be a whore to SEO.  In case you missed it, I AM NOW A WHORE TO SEO!  In order to comply with this, there is now a schedule for posts on Cantankerous Old Coots.

Ralph has informed me that this is a less than cantakerous path to take, but in the interest of making this blog a flagship destination for the rest of the world, I had to do it.  We will publish posts on Monday, Wednesday and Friday with a digest post reminding you of this weeks links on Saturday.  Also very SEO whorish.

There will also be an occasional extra post through the week like Ralph had in his lambasting of Earth Day.  Bravo Ralph, we were all thinking it, you just put it out there forever.

So, in case you missed this week because the rock you were under was just too big, Here is what you missed on Cantankerous Old Coots:

Monday April 19: Ralph took us down memory lane with a clip from The Graduate in his post, Equal Opportunity Cantankerosity-The Feminine Side

Wednesday April 21: Justin declared war on pests and vermin in his post, No Quarter Given for Vermin.

Thursday April 22: A special edition of the coots, Ralph slaps the Earth around with, Down With Earth Day.

And finally, Friday April 23: Justin had a flash of Cantankerosity at an ad in a magazine that spawned, Down With Dumb Car Technology

If you are reading this post, you don’t need a link to it.

We are looking forward to much more Cantankerous content in the weeks to come.  Ralph has a doozy planned for Monday.

Remember Guest Cantankerousness is always welcome!  E-mail us your submission!

Thanks for reading.

Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Up With…October!

 Posted by at 09:44  Up With
Dec 082013
 

I love October.  This is the month when it finally begins to cool down, (see last Wednesday’s post) and of course there is Halloween at the end.  I am not going to get into details about Halloween yet, that is another post.

October is a time where everything is wrapping up for winter.  It is a time when the trees start to change and get ready to sleep, when the bears begin to eat like crazy so they can make it through the winter, and the NFL is in full swing.

Raking leaves seems like a chore but as the paperboy lands the paper square on the porch and tips his cap to you can only smile and nod, because you are dreaming that you are in a Norman Rockwell painting.  Leaves are on the tree, and then they are on my lawn and hopefully my neighbors lawn.  I am just glad I have kids who are old enough to rake now.

Still October is a great time, the nights are cool, the days warm, deer season is open.  You can break out your jackets and wear knit caps to the local High School Football game without looking like a complete loser. (there are some kids that I have seen wearing knit caps when it was over 100 degrees this summer.  I think they have cooked their brains.)

I look forward to October every year.  I really like the fall.  September is still like late summer and November starts to get grey and blah looking.  October has to be one of the best months of the year.

Go out and rake some leaves, breathing deeply and letting that crisp air into your lungs.  See if it doesn’t make you want to head to the hills and do some hiking, or hunting.  Rabbit season is on here in Utah (check local regulations) too.

As for me, I think I will head outside too.  Let me know what you think of October in the comments below.

-Justin

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

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Down with Spam!

 Posted by at 15:46  Down with, rants
Nov 232013
 

This is not a new topic.  This is not even fun.  There are probably ten million posts about the evils of spam and here is another one.  Evey morning for the past week or more I have been bombarded with over 400 of the same message, from the same sender.  And they all are about viagra.

I really have tried to unsubscribe from these but I still end up with a ton of email.  It is easy enough to delete but still, it takes so much time sorting through the crap.  I know each and every one of you out there are sick of it too.  Monty python has a slightly different take on spam:

That is still one of the funniest sketches ever.  Now, onto email.  There are those lists you get on that you may even opt on for that send you so much $#!^ every day they might as well be spam.  And these guys are the ones who say how much they hate spam as much as you do.  Maybe that is why our email list here is so anorexic.

These “bombardment marketers” (hey I coined a new phrase let’s get that out there) give everyone a bad name.  We have been trying to grow our list here at the coots and so far, it is pathetically small.  It is populated only by those who write here at the coots, plus a pity subscribe from Dr. Doolin from website in a weekend.  Even Bob was assimilated er invited to join the coots after his joining of the list.

It leads me to theorize.  There are 2 possibilities when it comes to our email list here.  One: people are so afraid of getting bombarded with Cantankerous Spam that they don’t sign up, or, Two: they found out that we make subscribers write for us.  I suspect number one is the culprit.  Here is the skinny on that though, I have been so disappointed with the lack of signups that I have sent out Zero emails to the list.  People on the list probably have forgotten about it.

Even the bait of a free ebook in what promises to be a fantastic course on how to be Cantankerous has not helped.  But I am going to put it out there again, with our fantastic new sign up pop up and the little sign up form right over there———>

Or below.  We will give you the fabulous ebook that includes the first five lessons from the Coots University as well as exclusive Cantankerousness and future discounts to the full course when it comes about.  Sign up below, I swear you will not receive 50 emails from us a day.  You will be lucky to get one a month.  If I feel like it.  It is hard to lose with a deal like that.

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Maybe I will get some hacker buddies together and figure out some code that will destroy the servers of anyone who sends out spam.  That would be worth an email sign up or two I am sure.

Have a Great weekend.  Halloween is Sunday, go dress up as something scary and frighten the children.  Then come back and tell me about it!

-Jusitn

Justin

Justin is the young Coot with a Cantankerous Soul who continues to be educated by older, more cootish Ralph and Bob. His Cantankerosity is his own.

More Posts - Website - Twitter - Facebook

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