I, for one, would love to be rich. Being able to partake in the finer things would be awesome. Five-star restaurants. No more broken down cars. Someone else to do my house repairs. A personal trainer to equal out my increase of Volcano Taco consumption. Oh that’d be so grand. However, that stuff would very quickly become boring, I’m sure. So, I’d like to think that I could do something more meaningful with my newfound financial responsibility, such as giving it away, starting my own charity, helping widows & orphans, and spreading the Gospel. You know, Bible stuff. Christian stuff. The trouble is, I don’t really do much of that now, so what makes me think I would increase those activities just because I had more money? More money would probably equal more distractions and stress, which would in all likelihood decrease those activities.

Well, here’s a great example of a few people that did what I’d like to think I would do. And by the way, they were just killed a few hours ago in the pirate-infested waters of Somalia.

According to this news article I read today, four Americans traveling around the world on a Yacht were captured and executed by Somali pirates. Apparently, there was a skirmish aboard the pirate ship when the U.S. military got involved. Unfortunately, they were not able to save the four hostages:

The officials said U.S. military personnel boarded the yacht and discovered all four hostages had been shot by their captors.

The officials said two pirates were killed and 13 others captured after a brief gun battle as U.S. forces took control of the boat.

What you don’t find out until most of the way through the article, is that the people were traveling around the world trying to spread the Gospel. I doubt the people were executed because of their faith, but they still died doing the most important thing in their lives:

Scott Adam, who was in his mid-60s, wanted to combine his love of adventure with his faith by spreading Bibles around the world, Professor Robert K. Johnston, of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, said Sunday.

“He was sailing around the world and serving God, two of his passions,” Johnston said.

He said that despite an adventurous spirit, the Adams were meticulous planners who knew the dangers they faced.

Now, I have no idea what kind of people they were. However, I love this story (as tragic as it is) because here is an example of someone who has a lot of money and decided to enjoy their money while serving God. The could have given it all away, but they chose to go on an adventure. I’m not saying you should do the same thing with your money if you were rich. Some are called to give it all away, and others are called to use it as a tool. I think it depends on what type of person you are. My point here is that I respect people who live their lives for God, but I really respect these people for living their lives for God, know what I mean? Good work.

See other classic works being destroyed at the original article.

*I listen to audiobooks – stop judging.

Fall is my favorite time of year for so many reasons. One of them is going to haunted houses in October. Why do I like haunted houses so much? You pay $10 to spend 2 minutes in a nasty building where high school kids jump out at you and the walls are smeared with red paint. That shouldn’t be appealing, but for some reason it is. We yearn for that feeling of fright that only the macabre can bring, which is why we love telling scary stories and tales like Sleep Hollow around a brisk fall campfire. Hot apple cider. Scarecrows. Pumpkin patches. Harvest moons. Boom – you are now in autumn mode.

I’ve been to some great haunted houses. The best one I’ve ever been to is the Mysterious Mansion in Gatlinburg TN. It’s a year-round haunted house, which means the fixtures are permanent instead of toted in just for the season. The place is very well thought out and offers some unique and terrifying thrills. Just look at this place:

The Mysterious Mansion is indeed one of the best in the country. Now, get ready to read about one of the worst.

Indy ScreamPark is a new park for 2010 as far as I am aware. It consists of 5 separate attractions as well as a “Monster Midway” that sells refreshments and offers a few Halloween midway type games. It is located in Anderson, Indiana, and takes place in a building that hosts paintball games during the rest of the year. One of the attractions is a unique 3D haunted house called Bedlam 3D. It was pretty original and well-themed. Wearing 3D glasses, you progress through the halls which are all painted with special blacklight-sensitive paint which also gives a trippy sense that everything is popping out at you.

The next attraction was a completely blacked-out maze called Kurayami, which features a really weird hall with walls made of pressurized air that completely squeezes you in, giving you a strong feeling of claustrophobia and suffocation that seemingly never ends until you finally emerge about 20 feet down the corridor. That is about where the good part of the experience ends. Instead of going through and critiquing every single element of Indy ScreamPark, I present a pros and cons list for your reading pleasure:

Pros

• They sell beer.
• They have one of those spinning hallways that completely throws you off your balance.

Cons

• Parking costs $5 which is not indicated anywhere on the website
• The total admission price for non-VIP is $25, regardless of how many of the attractions you visit.
• Although it says “Indy” ScreamPark, it is actually 45 minutes away in a different town called Anderson.
• There really is nothing haunted about it. All of the attractions simply feature gory killers ravaging female victims.
• Once you enter the green pavilion, you are forced to go through 3 of the 5 attractions, meaning you can’t pick and choose and experience each one at your leisure.
• Water costs $2 (no other source of water)
• The line for the Backwoods attraction (which completely sucked) was an hour and 15 minutes
• The Corn Maze was not a maze. It was simply a solitary path through a field of corn with no more than 3 people that jump out at you along the way. (We didn’t have time to visit this attraction – a friend informed me of this)
• VIP guests ($35 instead of $25) get to completely cut all other guests and are admitted into attractions at a rate of 2 VIP guests to 1 regular guest (even though regular guests still paid 25 freaking bucks to be there).
• Attempting to politely talk with employees about the problem of waiting in line yields a curt rebuttal, if any response at all.
• Very few animatronics, despite the website descriptions.
• Annoyingly-loud radio station blaring through PA speakers everywhere in the park.
• 15 minute wait just to park before entering (we got there early before the wait – a friend told me about the line later in the night).

Here’s an image of the “Monster Midway”, which as you can see is clearly nothing more than a couple of lousy tents setup on a gravel path:

I could go on and on. There was a complete lack of management and organization. There was no information on any of the attractions, and no indication as to how long waits were, or what the various attractions even were. I would highly recommend NOT EVER visiting this terrible park. We were so bummed after waiting in line for an hour and 15 minutes for the 4th attraction because we ran out of time to visit the corn maze. Our experience was not unique, scary, or fun. Needless to say the hour drive home was a downer. Please don’t give this terribly-run haunted house park any of your hard earned money. And if you decide to for some reason, get the VIP pass because you can save a few hours of your life. I’d say that’s worth the $10 extra.

Both images are white on blue, circular, and contain the letter “W” in white text blending in with the inner white border. Uncanny! But here’s the most interesting part: I got the urge to blog from the commercial, so I blogged about the commercial, which is what lead me to blog in the first place, without which there would have been no catalyst to blog about itself. Or another way of looking at it: this blog post only exists if the commercial exists, which is the source of this blog post originally, which is in turn a post about the commercial itself. The question then is, which came first, the blog post or the commercial?

Wait, we got off topic. The point is, some dude ripped off some other dude’s work. That reminds me of how Nickelback ripped off their own work – remember that post? It was better than this one.

If some dude was transplanted from 50 years ago to a conversation happening today between two people about a third person, that dude would most likely get the wrong impression about the person being discussed. That’s because words can have different meanings based on such variables as A) what time period the word is used, B) the vocal inflection or body language accompanying the words, and C) who the person in question is. For instance, the word “dude” used to probably mean something more specific than it does now. We call everyone a dude, but back then I think it had something to do with a dude ranch or something. I’m not going to look it up, but you get the idea.

Well, today I want to focus in on one of the variables I mentioned, and that is who the person in question is, or more specifically, what gender the person is. This type of thing is discussed ad nauseum in stand-up comic routines about the differences in men and women. So, I decided to make it unique by expressing my ideas not in front of a live studio audience, but via my blog. That makes it different right? No? Well how about this: mine will be way funnier and more true. Actually I probably can’t pull that off. That leaves me only one optoin: embed a Youtube video at the end of the post. Beat that, Jim Gaffagan!

Here is a list of adjectives used to describe people, followed by what that adjective really means. Notice how they unfortunately differ based on whether or not you are talking about a man or a woman:

As promised, here is the bonus video. It’s by DJ Steve Porter, the same guy who did the NFL remix “You Play To Win The Game”. Remember the Pants On The Ground dude from American Idol? Here is the remix:

This is a thing. A real thing. It’s a medication to treat acid reflux disease. What did they call it? AciPhex, naturally. Wait a second… AciPhex? Assiphex? Ass effects? No, no that can’t be right. Well yes, actually, that’s exactly how it’s pronounced. ASS EFFECTS. See for yourself – watch the commercial and try to keep a straight face:

Ass effects is such a great term. It can apply to so many things. You can walk into a really stinky bathroom and say “ooh jeez… ass effects!” Or when you clear out a room with a fart, you can smile and quietly repeat to yourself “man do I have some special ass effects!”. Even Taco Bell can benefit from this phrase, because now they can start including it in their fine print: “ingesting our Volcano Burrito may cause extreme ass effects.”

I was debating on whether or not I should do an entire blog post about the failure of a pharmaceutical company’s marketing department, but my doubt was cast aside when I came across an infographic on Digg about fart facts today. It was at that point that I realized someone was trying to give me a sign. Here is the infographic (click the image for a larger version):

Source: Online Education

So there you go. A TGM post with a bunch of words like “ass”, “fart”, and “pharmaceutical”. Enjoy it while you can because it’s not likely to happen any time in the foreseeable future.

I have to work the Friday after Thanksgiving. I used to think this was a bad thing, and it seems like everyone else has that day off. But this year, after looking through the morbidly obese Sunday paper and seeing all of the “Black Friday” deals, I decided it was actually a good thing, since it meant I didn’t even have the option to shop that day. Black Friday makes me sick. The problem is, like most evil things, it is so appealing in some ways. For instance, I saw that BluRays are going to be like $6. I saw the Cannon T1i (a $900 camera) is going for $699. I saw an xbox 360 for $299… WITH SIX GAMES. So there is definitely that element of intrigue there. But it’s evil, right? Yes. Maybe these low-down, dirty examples of Black Friday ads will disgust you enough to hammer that idea home.

JC Penny

We’ll start off light with the JC Penny ad for their black Friday deals:

Look at the bottom right-hand corner: “stores open friday at 4am!”. 4am is five hours before 9am. 4am is three hours before 7am. 4am is four hours after midnight. And the workers probably have to show up at the store two hours before it opens that day to prepare. That means they have to show up at 2am. 2am is ten hours before noon. That is more than a full work day that the workers will be there before lunchtime. 2am is two hours after the Giants & Broncos game ends Thursday night. 2am is not a recognized time in 37 states. What could be so important at JC-freaking-Penny’s that you need to miss a night of sleep to obtain? A cheaply-made pendant heart necklace? A blender? A pair of Reebok’s? WHAT?

Also of note: “online screen busters”. What is that? What are those?

Lowe’s

Let’s move on to the Lowe’s ads. Keep in mind this is Lowe’s. You buy things to fix your house at Lowe’s.

I snapped this screenshot on Monday. If anyone is planning their Friday shopping orgy four days prior they need to be given ritalin and a warm glass of milk. Now I want you to study the second sentence in the highlighted box. “Super Friday begins Thanksgiving Day”. The Friday sale begins on a Thursday. And apparently the “deals won’t last long”. So that means it is quite possible that if you go to Lowe’s on Friday to shop their Friday sales, they could be sold out of everything because they sold them all on Thursday. Smart.

Walmart

Let’s move on to America’s most embarrassing store’s ad:

Walmart is so sure that they will retain their clientele, no matter how disgusting their stores and products, that they have decided to play a little game with their consumers by placing them in a life-size rat maze. Walmart has engineered a “treasure” map by rearranging their products into a confusing configuration of maximum center-walkway kiosks and minimum motorized-obesity-kart driving. If no one gets trampled to death this year it is only because Walmart did not drop the price low enough on their off-brand wannabe flat panel TVs.

Best Buy

The fastest rising star of Black Friday hands down has got to be Best Buy. The market is clearly a-frenzy for consumer electronics. I mean just look at their ad:

Best Buy is handing out TICKETS for people to BUY THINGS AT THEIR STORE. And I thought the economy wasn’t doing so hot. If luxury electronics items and unnecessary video games are in such demand that Best Buy has been forced to devise a queuing system rivaling that of Disney’s Fast Pass™, I would argue that the general public ain’t doing too bad. Do you understand that Best Buy is expecting people to show up at their front door at 3am Friday morning to stand in line for 2 hours to snatch up a generic $69 BluRay player that is going to break in 3 months and then wait in the cash register line which wraps around to the back of the store to buy the damned thing only to be sold an “extended service plan” for $19 which only covers earthquake damage? And the worst part: lots and lots of people are going to go do this. For goodness sake people, just go to the Olive Garden one less time this year and you will have saved the same amount of money without selling your soul to the Geek Squad.

Kmart

Here is Kmart’s ad:

Hehe, Kmart. Kudos little buddy. Hang in there.

Target

This is one ad that you need to go check out first hand. It is by far the worst, most disappointing, off-the-mark, blasphemous Black Friday campaign yet. Target’s ad:

Target has created an entire mini-site for Black Friday, including quizzes, paid professional actors, and sleek animated graphics. Above, you’ll see one of the questions in the quiz, which includes other questions such as “What are you eating for breakfast on Black Friday morning?” This is really getting out of hand. Before you know it, Black Friday will be a bigger American holiday than Christmas Day. Think about it, have you ever taken a quiz on the Internet about what you will wear to church Christmas morning?

Target’s ad has it all. Here is a direct quote from the introduction dialogue: “Every savvy holiday shopper knows that if you want to win Christmas you better be all over Target’s 2-day sale.” Win. Christmas. Ironically, that makes the loser of Christmas the One who made Christmas for us. Now look at this:

So, these are things now, apparently:

• “Black Friday dominators”
• counting down to next Christmas before this one even gets here
• green blood
• Hark! The herold angels SAVE!

I have a Christian coworker who does not celebrate Christmas at all. At first I thought he was weird. Now I’m beginning to think the rest of us are. Black Friday is one of the bleakest days of the year. It is “Bleak Friday”.

The tallest structure ever built is complete. The Burj Dubai has been under construction since 2004, located in Dubai, UAE (that’s in the Middle East if you don’t know). It is one of the most beautiful buildings I’ve ever seen, in one of the most beautiful cities (structurally) I’ve ever seen. It is 2,684 feet tall with 160 floors, and it’s GIGANTIC. The record for tallest skyskraper in the world has been broken several times recently, but the Burj Dubai not only broke the record, it broke the record for how much a record was broken by. To give you an idea of how tall this building is, let me show you some images and compare it with other supertall buildings.

To the left you can see the tower as it nears completion. Do not adjust your television set, that is a real image of the tower. I know, I know, you just realized it is now the future. Happened to me too. The tower is a half-mile high, and it can hold 35,000 people. Just imagine waiting for an elevator at the end of the work day. Of course, since the building houses offices and residential spaces (and hotels and restaurants to boot), your rush hour commute could potentially consist of an elevator ride from the 150th floor to the 107th floor. That is, if you’re super rich.

Speaking of elevators, Burj Dubai has 56 of them, which are capable of speeds up to 40 mph (a world record). You still want more trivia? Ok, the air outside the building is 11 degrees cooler at the top than the base, and the top of the tower can sway 4 feet during strong winds. It took 22 million man hours to complete. All 700 private residences between the 45th and 108th floors sold out within 8 hours of being on the market.

So just how tall is Burj Dubai? Well, for a long time the tallest building in the world was the Empire State Building, which stands at 1250 feet with 102 floors:

After 42 years of owning the record, the Empire State Building was destroyed by aliens on July 4th. Just kidding, it was surpassed when the World Trade Center towers were built, which stood 1368 feet and had 110 floors, beating the previous record by 118 feet:

Is it just me or were those towers ugly? Well, they were surpassed in 1973 by Willis Tower (originally Sears Tower) which stands at 1450 feet and has 108 floors, beating the previous record by 82 feet:

Willis Tower held the record for a few decades until the Petronas Towers were built – the ones featured in the movie “Entrapment” with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones. Well those are 1480 feet tall, beating the previous record by 30 feet:

They were the tallest buildings in the world from 1998 to 2004. Then, along came Taipei 101, built in Taipei, Taiwan. Completed in 2004, it is 1670 feet tall, breaking the previous record by around 200 feet:

Holy cow that’s tall. Well I’ve got news for you. None of these buildings compare with Burj Dubai. As mentioned, Burj Dubai is a whopping 2684 feet tall. That smashes the previous record by over 1000 feet! Ever since the Empire State Building, the record for tallest building in the world was broken by 118 feet, 82 feet, 30 feet, and 200 feet. You can add all those together and Burj Dubai smashes the record by more than double that number. Just take a look at this infographic to get a feel for the scale of the buildings:

Wow! Feast your eyes on these images of Burj Dubai. Keep in mind the buildings in Dubai are really tall, ultra modern buildings. Look at them compared to Burj Dubai. They seem so insignificant. Also, keep in mind that the exterior of the building was completed so recently (within the last week) that there aren’t even images out there yet of the finished product. The following images were taken before it was even at its full height:

Now that your mind has been fully blown, let me go one step further in classic TGM style. There is a building in the works that is going to blow Burj Dubai out of the water. Remember in Star Wars when you are actually able to fully fathom the size of the Death Star? You are only able to do so when you use relative objects. We start out grasping how extremely large a Star Destroyer is. Then we see how miniscule it is compared to a Super Star Destroyer. Then, and only then, are we able to grasp the sheer size of the Death Star, when we see that a Super Star Destroyer is only a dot compared to it.

In similar fashion we have taken a look at the tallest buildings ever built, and then shown how insignificant they are compared to Burj Dubai. Now, we are going to fully grasp the size of a building that is currently being built by comparing it to Burj Dubai. The building is called Nakheel Tower, and it is being built in – you guessed it – Dubai. It is going to be 4593 feet tall. That is almost a mile! Take a look at some of these renderings:

That second one is interesting because you can see some other buildings in the works around the world, including the China 117 Tower in China, the Freedom Tower (1 World Trade Tower) in New York, the Chicago Spire in Chicago, and the Abraj Al Bait Towers in Saudi Arabia. Some Buildings in the works not pictured are the Shangai Tower in China, the Pentominium in Dubai, the Burj Al Alam in (*yawn*) Dubai, and the Federation Tower in – hey – Moscow enters the ring!

As for local news, let’s check in on the progress of a beautiful skyscraper being built right here in my hometown of Indianapolis. The JW Marriott tower – the 7th tallest building in Indianapolis, the tallest hotel in Indiana, and tallest JW Marriott in the country – is coming along quite nicely:

It’s actually a lot taller than that now, but that’s the latest construction image I could find. Hope you enjoyed this post!

Rest assured I will be seeing this movie. Martin Scorcese has never let me down. Even with Gangs of New York (it was enjoyable right?)

P.S. sorry for the format of the embedded video. I couldn’t find one that was narrower. Oh well, it still works. You know what, I take that back. This is my blog and I apologize to no one! (I apologize for my arrogance.)