One thing’s for sure. When you’re on the Bachelor, you may not catch the man of your dreams, but chances are you’ll catch something!

I know I’m not the only one that’s thought it, but someone has to say it.

The Bachelor is a ‘dating game’ in which 1 man ‘dates’ as many 25 woman in an elimination-style reality TV show. Each woman, carefully screened to be a ‘perfect match’ for the Bachelor, competes with the other women in a combination of group and single dates in a ‘winner takes all’ battle for the man of their dreams. At the end of each season, the Bachelor asks one lady for their hand in marriage… most of the time.

The title of this post makes the claim that The Bachelor is destroying humanity, but I stand by my assertion. Let’s start with the basics.

There isn’t enough time

I’m probably going to keep coming back to this, but come on’. This man moves from one woman to another in a series of one on one dates and exploratory relationship that are laughable in terms of time. There’s a whopping 8 episodes, 3 one on one dates and countless group dates in which the Bachelor spends a max of a couple of hours with each woman.

He doesn’t actually ‘plan’ this crap

Every episode, the Bachelor talks about these elaborate and mind-blowing dates that he’s planned for the women. Helicopter rides, cliff diving, romantic private island get-aways, yachts, sunsets, you name it. And often times these women will pine for the Bachelor. “I can’t believe he planned all of this”. Or even better, “This is my idea of the perfect date! But how did Brad know?”. Seriously lady? How did he know? You don’t actually think he planned all of these dates do you? Don’t you remember, in the 5 Applications and 3 demo videos you sent in to ABC, what you filled out on the Application?

Do you really not remember applying for the Passport and requesting travel in another country? I don’t want to shock you here, but he had nothing to do with this. He didn’t pay for it, he didn’t plan it, and he wasn’t told about it until the day before you two went. He’s not bringing you the magic, the Network is.

It’s not personal

Camera’s, lights, sound, producers, electricians… immense man power required for each and every scene. And they’re there, all the time. Those nice quiet scenes in which they make intimate remarks and reveal their deepest darkest fears and secrets? Camera guy. Sound guy. Producer. Electrician far off in the back ground. There’s no actual privacy, or intimacy. And now is a good time to remind you: It’s a television show. Re-takes, cuts, do-overs, scene deletions. It all happens. Don’t think that it doesn’t.

He’s very physical with you… oh, and those 8 other women
This actually bothers me quite a bit. I love these women who say “The kiss was incredible; I think I’m falling in love”. Lady, he just made out with 4 other women this episode… and they’re your room mates! This guy can get some action from 4 different ladies in a single 36 hour period, and none of them are genuinely upset about it. It’s all part of the ‘game’. And it’s all magical. And mystical. One thing’s for sure. When you’re on the Bachelor, you may not catch the man of your dreams, but chances are you’ll catch something!

It’s not real dating

You can’t form a strong, serious (marriage worthy no less!) relationship with someone under the circumstances above when he’s having the same interactions, both physical and emotional, with that many other women.

In addition to that, the experiences that you’re having are not typical of the kind of relationship or life you would have together. While trips to tropical island paradises are wonderful, they’re not every day life. You don’t form the basis for a healthy, life-long relationship by starting with a honeymoon.

Real life does not consist of helicopter dives and cocktail parties. It’s filled with ups and downs. Jobs, bills, lack of time and conflicting schedules. A relationship built on fantasy would never, ever survive in the real world. Which brings me to my next point:

In 14 seasons and 90 episodes, no Bachelor couple has ever stayed together

The reality of the Bachelor can be found not in it’s plethora of episodes, but in the fruits of the show. In 90 episodes, no couple has ever successfully remained a couple. That means that this show has never produced a single good thing for humanity. It’s contributed to heart break, divorce, and statistics that show our nation is in a continual decline.

You’re worth more than this game show

What level of self-esteem must a woman have to participate in this show? I shouldn’t have to be the one to tell you this but you’re worth more than this show. You deserve a man’s full attention. You don’t need to compete for his attention and affection like some kind of wild animal. You need to take the Disney approach and be like Jasmine: You are not a prize to be won!

He’s not a real man

What kind of a real man would make out with, and lead on, 8 different women at the exact same time? 4 women? 2 women? In the real world, a man who was having an intimate relationship with more than one woman would be branded a dirt bag of the worst kind. But on ABC, he’s the man of every woman’s dreams! A real catch!

A real man has self respect, and respect for women. The Bachelor? Not so much.

It turns moms into bad moms

Okay, I guess I don’t have a right to call a woman a ‘bad mom’. That’s really not my place. A lot of people like to throw around the term ‘to each his own’, especially when it’s more convenient to avoid doing the right thing. This last season featured two single women who had small children waiting at home. That’s right, there were two women, including the show favorite (Emily) who have little kids at home wondering where mommy is.

At the end of the day, I don’t know whether these women are good mothers or not. I’m not that judge. That being said, I feel confident in saying that leaving your child for weeks at a time in pursuit of love on a tv game show is not an attribute of a good mother.

In Summary: It sets a standard that cannot be achieved

As our country falls further and further into the pits of self-gratifying entertainment, our moral fibers literally stretched to the limit, and our marriages and relationships portrayed as nothing but one night stands and ‘starter marriages’, the last thing we need is a television show like The Bachelor. The show is degrading to women, to marriage, to parenthood, and the strength and unity of a genuine family unit.

The Bachelor strives to convince us that intimate, life-long relationships can be formed in a series of 3-hour group dates, surrounded by cameras and lights. Real life just isn’t that way, and as our society pushes marriage and family further and further from it’s heart and mind, The Bachelor will continue to play it’s part in the degradation of our society.

And that just sucks.

This particular company handed out random telephone numbers, unless you elected to pay a $10 “vanity number” fee. For this charge, the agent would attempt to assign the number of your choosing, as long as it was available. Obviously this is useful for people looking for any easy to remember number such as (xxx)-xxx-0123. Or maybe they wanted something for their pool repair business such as XXX-POOL.

The sneaky trick here was that whether at random or with the purchase of a vanity number, agents used the same screen to select a phone number. There was no additional work or cost associated with selecting a ‘vanity number’ beyond keying in the 4-7 digits the customer hoped to find.  Because of this, I often gave customers what I considered to be good numbers just out of the goodness of my heart. Things like xxx-0111, 0123, 1234, 2345 and so on.

One particular afternoon I received an activation call from a customer who was activating a cellular telephone for her local Church. The woman was very nice on the phone, and we had pleasant chit chat about the weather while I was busy entering data into the computer. When the number selection screen came up, something inside of me decided it would be funny to assign them a vanity number. Something easy to remember would be good. Something that the congregation would easily remember when looking to get a hold of their clergy.

The number I selected? (xxx)-xxx-0666

I remember little of that phone call. I don’t remember her name, or the name of her Church. I don’t remember what City or State she was from. But I do remember her voice, and the conversation that followed.

Me: Alrighty, so here’s your new number. It’s Area code ###…

Her: Uh huh…

Me:###…

her: ###… yep…

Me: 0666

Her: ..Oh…

Me: Alrighty. So it looks like you’re all taken care of… anything else I can do for you today?

Her: … No… I… well, thank you…

To my recollection, we then disconnected the call. Somewhere in the back of my memory I have a vague memory of deciding at the last moment to change the number, and her being quite happy… but I can’t be sure I haven’t just made that part up to ease my conscience.

Looking back now, I very much regret that decision. This was essentially the one and only time I’ve ever made what I consider to be an unprofessional decision. Although I don’t work in a customer-facing environment anymore, I always took customers very, very seriously and delivered the best service I could… with this one, rare lapse in judgement. In my defense, I was only 17 or 18 at the time… but I regret it nonetheless.

Nice Christian woman who was in the service of her Church a decade ago: I’m sorry I gave you an offensive phone number. It is a decade later and I remember it, and would correct it if I could.

Update:
I would like to point out that this is the same job and time in my life in which this happened.

Definitely Differant.

I saw this gem on my way home from Costco. I did a u-turn through 3 lanes of traffic just to get a picture of it. Well worth the time.

David Haselhoff riding a unicorn running through a care bear

I have a friend… well, for the sake of being honest, let’s call him an acquaintance.

At any rate, the man has phenomenal artistic abilities. This afternoon I asked him to draw a picture of something completely random. I suggested the first three things that came to mind:

David Hasselhoff, riding a unicorn, running through a care bear.

Around 3 hours later he wandered over to show me what he’d churned out.

As you can see the man has more talent in his pinky than Chuck Norris has in his round house.

want to know what the worst part of this story is? Despite my immense pressure to convince him that he is sitting on a veritable internet gold mine, he has 0 interest in pursuing a blog featuring random crap churned out from his awesome mind and all-powerful hand.

“My hand hurts!” is his terse and insistent response.

Don’t waste this awesomeness! if you enjoy this mans work, let me know! I must pressure him into churning out more high quality randomness.

He had been working with a vendor from a very large and well known company for a little over a month. Over this month they’d had a few phone calls, exchanged a few emails, and held one or two ‘online demonstrations’ of the new product, in hopes of getting Thomas to make a purchase. I think it’s important to point out that I’m told Thomas in no way ever led this guy on to believe a sale was going to take place. There was no paperwork, no PO’s, no commitments.

Thomas had a particularly busy week at work, and had to put purchasing on the back burner. Apparently letting some sales calls go to voicemail was a poor decision on his part:

It kind of makes you wonder what he’s been telling “management” that’s got him so worked up. Good luck with that!

I’d also like to point out that I work in a professional office building. In a very conservative State in the Union. So while I myself am no stranger to tattoos, I was definitely surprised when I saw this one!

While some people may consider it gutsy, I asked the young lady if I could take a picture of her tattoo. More specifically the conversation went like this:

Me: Excuse me miss!

Her: <Incredibly weird “why are you talking to me” look>

Me: that is the most awesome Tattoo I have ever seen. Would you mind if I took a picture with my phone?

Her: Sure.

Me: Thanks!

And that was the end of our conversation. Here now I share a censored version with you.  Click the thumbnail above to see the picture I took.

Caution:I wouldn’t let my kids see this tattoo if I could help it! With that being said, I still saw it in my office building.

Personally, I’m not sure what would possess a person to get any kind of tattoo. At all. Part of that is my own personal life-long philosophy; some of it probably has to do with my beliefs;  Mostly my thoughts revolve around: ”What the heck is that thing and why would you want it on your arm?!?!”.

What do you think?

I

If the first few dates were going good, he would take the unusual step of trying to meet the girls family. More specifically, he wanted to meet her mother to evaluate what the younger girls Fat Potential might be, based on how her mother’s appearance has panned out over the years.

If the girl appeared to be at a high risk for FP, he would frequently end the relationship within a couple of days thereafter.

Fortunately, someone was kind enough to make a ring tone of it, which you can get here. Or, for a later part of the video, try this one.

Thanks to Chris Crutchfield for his awesome remix!

In my own life, I find it difficult to understand my position until I understand the opposition.

This just in: House bill 1337 requires all U.S. Citizens to purchase tooth brushes or receive a 250$ fine, 10 days jail time, or both. Subsidies will be provided for low income families who can’t afford tooth brushes.

The narrow 51/49% vote is considered an enormous win for President Barack Obama and the democratic party, who’s approval numbers had been waining in recent months due to unfair criticism by the media and school yard bullying by the republican party.

“Now even less fortunate people with bad teeth will be able to focus more on their ‘arts and crafts’ project time and less on their dental hygiene.” – Nancy Pelosi

The Congressional Budget Office published estimates for the Bills fiscal impact, based on an implementation date of 2014. the CBO estimates that by 2017, 297 million Americans will have tooth brushes, and 220 million americans will be brushing semi-regularly. They also estimate a 250 million dollar revenue for fines and penalties imposed on brushless naysayers.

the remaining 15 million unbrushed americans are either denture wearers or newborn babies.

Update 3/22/2010 1:07 PM – Amending bill passed:

Now, all US citizens are required to brush at least 3 times a week unless they’re disabled, or on medicare in which case, tooth brushes aren’t covered. Also, members of congress aren’t required to have tooth brushes, although they’ll be provided free of charge for the duration of their term.

Update 3/22/2010 2:10 PM – Executive Order Issued:

An executive order by President Barack Obama modifies the existing legislation so that pregnant woman are encouraged to brush regularly, but won’t pay a fine if they choose not to brush.

Note: This is satire. However, it being as believable as it is should be a statement in and of its self.