Tuesday, December 19, 2006

We're sitting on a goldmine

A recent report suggests that America's biggest cash crop is marijuana. I can't say that I'm surprised. Any 'legitimate' farmer here has to deal with a bewildering number of government departments, all of which are largely worthless, idle, useless and barely competent bureaucratic behemoths. (That's just my own view, you understand, but is based on some personal experience). There's the FDA, the USDA, the OSHA, more recently the INS, not to mention those thieving bastards at the IRS. That's just Federal agencies, mark you, never mind the various State offices that get involved. The only government involvement that a Californian dope-grower needs to worry about is making sure the local sheriff gets his monthly bung on time. If you want to make something profitable, for Christ's sake keep the US Government away from it. Just ask Kenneth Lay.

In the UK things are rather different, where agriculture is now largely a matter of stuffing a load of sheep on a hillside and slaughtering the one's that survive through to spring, whilst claiming EU money for leaving the only productive land you have fallow. This frees up British farmer's time to concentrate on their main business, which is driving around the country in a brand new Discovery bleating about fuel prices, the Common Agricultural Policy, and how they're stricken by poverty.

I've told the University that by keeping the Botanical Gardens going in their present state they are sitting on a veritable goldmine. The funding potential of sustaining non-native plants in expensive greenhouses fizzled out years ago, whereas they could be cultivating some half-decent whacky in there. It wouldn't work on most campuses of course, the crop would be constantly raided by the undergraduates, but here at A Well-Known West Coast University the undergraduates are either too bourgeois to smoke weed, or too scared of getting fried by the campus filth. However, so far my proposal has met with skepticism, and even some censure. Fucking old poofs.

Friday, December 08, 2006

You're wasting your time

Are you still looking for that perfect Christmas gift? If you are then I would suggest you stop wasting your time. Surely you must have something more useful and less galling joining the barbarian horde of consumers, all in search of the holy grail of a gift that is by turns original, personal, and competitively priced? Do what I do, get them the first thing you can find on eBay for under $10 and have it dispatched straight to their home address. You've as much chance of getting something they actually want, and you don't even need to bugger about wrapping it up.

However, in case you are still engaged in this futile ordeal, I'd like to make a few suggestions. These fine gifts are not available in the shops, and can only be acquired from me, on receipt of $49.99 and a decent bottle of scotch. (And I do mean decent. Don't even think about fobbing me off with that bottle of Johnnie Walker Red Label that you picked up in the Duty Free last summer.)


Dick Cheney's Shooting Gallery
All the action of a real-life quail-hunt in the comfort of your own home. Suitable for ages 5 and up, but not for lawyers.

Game of Life - Utah edition
Drive through Utah in a Chevy Silverado, buying property and paying tithes. The winner is player with the most wives at the end, and is swept away to Heaven in a spaceship. Or is that the Scientologists? Whatever, I don't have time to keep track of everything these fruitcakes believe.

Monopoly - Vegas edition
"You've landed on one of my hookers, that's $50 please!" Not suitable for younger children.

Trailor Park Barbie
Currently pending negotiations with Britney Spears' lawyers.

Risk
The classic game of strategy and world domination, updated for 2006. Declare victory five minutes into the game, then spend the next eight hours throwing your entire army into one country as the situation degenerates into a chaotic Battle Royale. Nobody's worked out how to win the game yet, so I can't tell you how it ends.

Spank the Monkey
A favourite in the Vatican. Grunts when you rub his banana. "Innocent, God-fearing fun for boys of all ages" - Mark Foley

Friday, December 01, 2006

My New Year's Resolution

I know it's a little early for New Year's resolutions, but I think that if there's something worth giving up then why bother waiting for some arbitrary date set by a Roman emporer two thousand years ago? If I was into that kind of thing I'd be a catholic.

This year, I am resolved not to waste my time engaging in political debate with anybody who doesn't own a passport. Having a stamp or two in it would be preferable, but ultimately ownership is the only key requirement. At least it indicates some kind of vague intention to visit another country, an entertainment of the possibility that life exists outside the arbitrary political boundaries of one's own nation. I've come to realise that one of the common threads linking the stupid, the scared, and the just plain barking is the lazy moral certainty that comes from never having seen anywhere, except through the goldfish-bowl view of the cathode ray tube.

"Ah, Captain, we were just wondering what your views were on the Second Amendement?"
"Certainly, but may I see your passport first?"
"Umm, I don't actually have one."
"Then fuck off, you dogmatic little cunt. It's 2006, not 1906, for chrissakes."

If you want to buy a drink here you're usually expected to provide proof that you're suitably mature, so I don't see it as unreasonable to expect people to prove that they're qualified to disagree with me.