Weblog Sin Pies

By Mike Bijon

The 5.5 billion hairless apes with opposable thumbs living on this planet started cleaning up the air a few decades back. A new study reveals that banning smokey cars and all the best spray-can propellants has made the air cleaner, but removing certain pollutants increases the number and severity of hurricanes coming to wash the hairless apes off pricey oceanfront properties. The recent study Clean Air, Global Warming Mean More Hurricanes is bound to be interpreted and twisted wrong many ways in coming years. Industrialists may be rejoicing, but the rest of us really can’t seem to win. What would the dinosaurs say now?

The aerosols essentially dimmed sunlight over the North Atlantic and masked the effect of global warming there over those decades.

No, that’s not what the dinosaurs would say. That’s what the article says. Try to keep up, will you? I may be a simple hairless ape, but I know when I’m being mocked. Aerosols “masked” the effects of global warming? Environmentalists, politicians — discuss please.

Other than giving people a bunch of new things to argue about, how will the the study affect us? Unless you’re the arguing-type, the only thing that you’re likely to take away is that buying a private island in the Caribbean may not be a good idea anytime soon. I guess we at Weblog Sin Pies are going to have to figure out someplace else to relocate.

By Trevor Ryan

I’ve been thinking about getting another degree recently. Mostly, I think, this is in reaction to the low, low prices offered on Internet college degrees, but it’s also because I saw it on TV. These are my two most trusty companions for reasoning.

But let me explain. Actually, the low price thing explains itself. Who wants to pay top dollar for a degree, when he can get one for $30? I mean, that’s less than most items at the average college bookstore. Why get a sweatshirt for $40 that says “Harvard” when you can fork over $30, and get a full four years worth of education?

But besides that, I can’t help but be reminded of the Scarecrow, from “The Wizard of Oz,” who upon receiving a piece of paper suddenly had memorized the Pythagorean theorem (among, we are to assume, other fun and useful information). Based on this, it seems reasonable to me that the Internet (which is far more advanced today than it was in 1939, when “The Wizard of Oz” came out) should provide a piece of paper that is a good deal more intelligent.

Now I have to wonder how much time and money I squandered back in college. Why, I could be a veritable encyclopedia by now. The other thing I wonder about these bargain-basement priced degrees is if they contain a full four years worth of partying in them. It’s sort of like the worm in a tequila bottle, I guess, and the myth about how it contains mescaline, or a bunch of alcohol. “Dude, did you ever try smoking your degree? I heard it gets you totally wasted.” “Yeah, man, but I heard there’s some bad, like all-night study session shit going around …”

Anyway, stay in school, kids. Otherwise, you have to pay back your student loans.

Related Link: Online Degree Online Degree Programs and Online College Degrees - eLearners.com

By Trevor Ryan

When I read about this college kid Skyler Bartels spending 41 hours in a Wal-Mart over Spring Break, I thought two things right off the bat. One, “I spent 41 hours in a Wal-Mart one afternoon too.” Get it? Second, “What an idiot.” I want to congratulate him, as so many people are doing, but the problem is, there’s nothing to congratulate him for. It’s remotely funny, but in all, I think the “experiment” as he describes it, was just another college kid making a half-assed sociological study, where the setting for something great is there, but in practice what’s the point? I went to film school (as you can see in my cool bio), so I was exposed to plenty of “experimental” films, which remind me of this sort of thing.

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that what annoyed me the most is that he didn’t wait to be kicked out. That would have been much funnier, and much more impressive. As it was, people started to notice him, and he walked out. Come on! Couldn’t he at least have played it off a little better, getting indignant about people questioning him? Maybe shouting, “No, I did NOT find everything I was looking for!” I think he should have stayed in Wal-Mart until he was bodily removed, and then he should have sued for discriminating against the more careful consumer. That would have been impressive. How would it go down in court? We shall never know. As it was, he, like tens of thousands of Wal-Mart employees, spent precious moments of his life within the concrete confines of the multinational chain known as “The Deathstar” (by non-Star Wars fans), with little to show for it.

I do forgive him for initially stating that the experiment was a failure. That’s cool. But then, the picture of him looking all bad-ass in the Wal-Mart parking lot really takes away from my forgiveness. And what is your real name, Skyler Bartels? I know it’s not “Skyler Bartels.” Ok, that was low. Please accept my half-assed apology.