Up, up and away . . .

We gonna up and play it like we say it, home crackers and Torn Slatterns and Nugget Ranchers

A girl is missing after a Metallica concert. Please don’t tell us she is up in a balloon.

Don’t be too hasty to call Falcon Henne’s parents crazy; Donald Trump got his show “Celebrity Apprentice” by claiming a six-year-old boy was trapped in his hairpiece.

If the hoax had worked and Balloon Boy’s dad, Richard Henne, was given his own TV show, Henne would not have been close to the craziest stupid a-hole in television.

The Miss California pageant organization is suing Carrie Prejean for the cost of her boob job; it’s part of California’s plan to make money off its monuments.

The baseball playoffs are great, but the commercials need work. How about the woman realtor who says of the housing market; “Affordability has never been higher.” I’m no real estate expert, but doesn’t high affordability just mean the market is in the tank?

High affordability? Doesn’t that mean cheap? That’s like describing a prostitute as a professional date.

The Burger King King is so creepy, he could take the creepiest thing ever and make it creepier. The Burger King King could make Charlie Manson creepier.

The Octomom said she thinks Jon Gosselin is cute. Oh my word, we have to keep these two separate, if they breed their brat litter spawn would be so annoying it could destroy the world.

Astronomers have discovered 32 new planets outside of our galaxy and are attempting to discover if any of them can sustain life or if they cannot sustain life, you know, like Trenton, New Jersey.

You know that awesome J.K. Wedding Dance Entrance clip on YouTube? Love that thing, I could watch it every day. Here is my question though: when did white people learn how to dance? Clearly I missed that trend.

Celebrities are weighing in on balloon boy; Paris Hilton thinks this hoax was a shameless display of neediness. She said that while on the red carpet to pick up her award for best hair and makeup in a reality TV show about a reality TV show.

You know the most amazing thing about the balloon boy hoax? Richard and Mayumi Henne shamelessly used their son to terrify an entire viewing public. And we still don’t hate them as much as we hate Jon and Kate Gosselin.

Celebrities are weighing in on the Balloon Boy hoax: Heidi Montag and Spencer Pratt said they thought it was a shameless attempt at becoming rich celebrities by a couple of untalented and undeserving useless attention whores. And then they burst into flames.

Thanks to that awesome YouTube of Louis C.K. on “Conan”, let’s play a rousing game of:

Things we assume were better back then, but they really weren’t even close to as good as they are now.

Phones. Come on, so you used to know your local operator by name and that was cute. Remember how crappy and expensive long distance was?

The NFL. Yes, Johnny Unitas. and Dick Butkus were tough guys, but there were guys playing in the NFL who couldn’t run. The players now are so much more athletic and well-trained.

Cars. Two words: cup holders. Two more words or one word, I guess: Airbags.

TV. Four channels including your local station which all of us now would produce a more professional looking show than they did in the Seventies. If a station didn’t have a show, they aired a freaking test pattern.

Medical care. Sure, your doctor made house calls, he came to your house to explain he couldn’t do dick or prescribe dick because it didn’t exist back then.

Music. Fine, I admit some of the current bands are not my thang, but, guess what? You can get all of the old 60’s and 70’s music on iTunes. Nobody is forcing you to listen to Rapper Ded Puhpy Q. And near the end of their existence, the average life of an album was maybe a month. Maybe.

The Mail. Letters took a week to just about anyplace. And things got lost in the mail all the time.

Flying. Parents used to take separate flights because plane crashes were so common, this way it wouldn’t leave their kids orphans. Yes, people dressed better and there was more room, but those freaking planes crashed. I’ll sit on a runway for a few more minutes, thank you.

Politicians. John F. Kennedy made John Edwards look like Ghandi.

Watches and clocks. Being twenty minutes late was acceptable because clocks ran twenty minutes behind. If you are twenty seconds behind the actual time, it is because you can’t read your computer or cell phone.

Food. Grandma was a great cook, but that’s because she cooked a big meal once a year. Thai? Sushi? Mexican? Nope. Good microwave food? Forget it. Chinese and Italian restaurants were considered exotic. We ate Swanson’s frozen dinners and liked them. We drank Folgers coffee and ate Sealtest ice cream. Oh, goody. As a kid, I must have serious food poisoning about ten times or more. The standards and health screenings did not exist.

Clothes. We can argue fashion trends until we are blue in the face. The fact is we had about three choices of fabrics. Silk, cotton and wool. If it wasn’t silk – which was way too expensive then – then it was hot and scratchy. The only synthetic back in the day was nylon which in a jacket took the shape and comfort of cardboard. So you think things were more stylish back when people dressed up? Maybe the were, but some of my worst memories of childhood were the nasty fights I would put up when I was forced to dress up on Sunday for Church and lunch afterwards.

Stores. If the local hardware store or electric appliance store did not carry it, you didn’t own it. There was no ordering, there was no shipping, there was no checking with other outlets or branches because they didn’t have other outlets and branches.

Hair styles. Guys, if you were losing your hair, you were out of luck. You could not shave your head and have your style synonymous with the coolest people in the world. Hair coloring was medieval in the sixties and seventies and there was no such thing as extensions. And heaven forbid if a man dyed his hair, people stood and pointed at the funny man with the jet black hair.

Toys. Toys sucked. (Besides Hot Wheels, they were awesome) The toys broke. There weren’t many to choose from. Oh, but kids used their imaginations more, you say. B.S. We were bored out of our stinking minds. A stick, mud and a piece of string can only entertain for so long. And if you have a better imagination than the folks who make these awesome video games? Congratulations, you’re soon going to be rich. You want the family to play checkers or Monopoly together? You still can. But now we have all this other cool stuff.

Drugs. Oh, please. We used to have to smoke a garbage bag full of pot and then we had to pretend we were stoned, because we really weren’t.

There were some things that used to be better back then, but they can be explained by there being way less people. Yes, gas stations were better and a guy used to service your car. Highways were better. You want that back? Than, if you are 35 or under, you don’t exist. The larger population killed our freeways and gas stations.

And civility, for that matter. Used to be there weren’t enough people around for you to piss off a lot of people by being rude. Now what people think of us doesn’t matter because there are no end to you a-holes, so who cares if I am rude?

So there you have it. Apart from there being way too many of you f*ckers, things are way better now than they used to be.

Except for bananas. Not sure why, but bananas lost 40% of their flavor twenty years ago.