Particularly when you're a big lipped, fat assed dictator in Venezuela.

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said on Wednesday CNN may have been instigating his murder when the U.S. TV network showed a photograph of him with a label underneath that read "Who killed him?"

The caption appeared to be a production mistake -- confusing a Chavez news item with one on the death of a football star. The anchor said "take the image down" when he realized.

But Chavez called for a probe in an interview on state television, where he repeatedly reviewed a tape of the broadcast, questioning why the unconnected photograph and wording were left on screen for several seconds.

"I want the state prosecutor to look into bringing a suit against CNN for instigating murder in Venezuela," he said. "... undoubtedly it is part of the psychological warfare."{...}

Yawn. God this is getting old.

Hey, Lippy McLipster, shut up already and be patient. We'll murder you when we're good and ready...and not a second before.

And we'd hardly let CNN do our advance work, ya dig?

Posted by: Kathy at 04:54 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Hit play and watch. It won't take long, I promise you.

So, I ask you, my devoted Cake Eater readers, is bad credit a dealbreaker these days?

Seriously. I want to know.

Call me naive if you must, but when I got married, I took the "for better or worse" part rather seriously. Maybe I'm being a little too inclusive for modern tastes, but that would seem to mean that you took everything, whether or not it made for a catchy commerical or even a pleasant little bitch and moan festival. You seemingly loved this person you were marrying; you realized they were human and probably had made some mistakes in their life, but you were willing to take on said mistakes. Because you're human, too, and probably had made some mistakes yourself.

This commercial would seem to advocate checking your beloved's credit report before getting married. Because, you know, you wouldn't want to get married to them if they had---GASP!---bad credit. Because you know, there's nothing worse in this world than---GASP!---BAD CREDIT! And if your intended did have---GASP!---bad credit, well, then it would apparently be adequate grounds for dumping said intended.

And you could be a happy bachelor with a dog and a yard.

What say you, my devoted Cake Eater readers? Is bad credit a dealbreaker?

Posted by: Kathy at 11:17 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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So, Barry Bonds was finally indicted Thursday, by a Federal grand jury, no less, with five felony counts of perjury and obstruction of justice.

{...}The 10-page indictment mainly consists of excerpts from Bonds' December 2003 testimony before a grand jury investigating the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative, or BALCO. It cites 19 occasions in which Bonds allegedly lied under oath.

{...}Defense attorney Mike Rains said he spoke briefly with Bonds but did not describe his reaction. At an evening news conference, he read a statement accusing federal prosecutors of "unethical misconduct" and declined to take questions.

"Every American should worry about a Justice Department that doesn't know if waterboarding is torture and can't tell the difference between prosecution on the one hand and persecution on the other," Rains said.

{my emphasis}

{insert rolling of eyes here}

While I wouldn't necessarily equate waterboarding with perjury and obstruction of justice charges over alleged steroid use, Bonds' lawyers apparently have no issues with doing so.

Talk about having a big head.

Oh, wait, Bonds does happen to have a big head. A really big head. And not just in the figurative sense, either.

It's ironic that steroids, which are generally used to treat inflammation, can cause such inflamed use of language.

Looks like Hank Aaron's home run record might be safe after all. One can only hope Major League Baseball feels the same way.

Posted by: Kathy at 09:49 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Back when I worked at the Bou, the place was still run by the founders and the company was on the verge of either bankruptcy or great things---it just depended who you talked to. Kim and John Puckett, the founders, had brought in so many original investors, to get things up and running, and they wanted to be paid off handsomely. To achieve this end, Kim and John pretty much had the entire company running around like chickens with their heads cut off, implementing this or that new management technique brought in by this or that new manager.

My personal favorite was the "Labor Management Manual" which was, in theory, meant to help store managers like myself to recognize our peak hours and the adequate level of staffing necessary to maximize said peak hours. Filling out this manual meant going through a week's worth of hour-to-hour sales figures, checking the manual to see how many staff I was supposed to have on shift to cover said sales, and then reporting how many staff members I actually did have on hand. This had to be filled out and handed in with my P&L sheets, and it did me no good whatsoever in a tight labor market, when I couldn't find another person to work the morning shift to save my life. Besides, I didn't need a freakin' manual to tell me that I needed an extra person on staff to handle the morning rush---it would have been obvious to a blind man on a galloping horse. In essence, it was busy work. And it was an "innovation" that was brought in by a guy named Jay Willoughby, who took Boston Market public, and pretty much tanked the company in the process. The Boston Market IPO---and the management that led up to it---is now being taught at Harvard Business School as an example of what not to do. This is the guy who Kim and John hired to help pay off their original antsy investors---and he bailed as soon as it became obvious that he wasn't going to be promoted to CEO. They brought in some dude from McDonald's for that. He managed to get Caribou sold off to some Investment Dar in Dubai and then he bailed.

Then the board hired Michael Coles to take over and take the company public--- and now he's decided to leave the company.

{...}He issued a statement saying it was "time to step aside and let a new CEO take the company through its next phase of growth."{...}

Given that the share price has apparently dropped two-thirds of its value since its launch, I'm not surprised. What's better about Coles' leaving is that it's loaded with irony. You see, when Coles took over the company, a lot of old friends were either ignominiously shitcanned (as in the case of my dear old boss, Eliot, the man who famously advised us that, "You can put shit on a stick and sell it at the airport.") or quit, simply because Coles was intolerable and they didn't want to work for him. Some people waited until the company went public, finally got their stock options they'd worked so very hard for from the very beginning (and which you couldn't keep if you quit before the IPO), and got the fuck out of there with their sanity barely intact, but others who stuck around and disagreed with him were fired. He canned so many people, his nickname around the support center (aka company HQ) was "Willy Wonka" because "people just keep disappearing." It's laughable in the extreme that Willy Wonka has morphed into Veruca Salt.

It's even funnier when you take into account that he and his wife wrote a very touching (heh) children's book called "The Land of the Caring Bou" and it was sold in every single store.

One of the reasons I was so very glad to get the hell out of that company was because it had changed from when I started. Kim and John had been investment bankers in Manhattan, had become fed up with the daily grind, and, after an inspiring trip to Alaska, decided to start up a coffee shop with an Alaskan theme to it. It was a hit, and it rapidly expanded. It wasn't uncommon to find Kim and John actually working behind the counter at any given store. They liked it. They had managed to build it up, but in the process had brought in all that corporate nuttiness they'd eschewed from the very beginning so they could pay off investors. Caribou was the anti-Starbucks, until everyone came to the realization that the only way they were going to make this pay off was to turn into Charbucks. While I abhor their coffee, Charbucks is top dog for a reason, and Caribou will always be playing catch-up if they think that branded breakfast bars and drinks are the solution to the problem. It's completely possible that Caribou will never catch up to Starbucks. Starbucks built up its brand not by selling Frappacino drinks at 7-11, but by building stores. Only then did they they branch out into other marketing opportunities. Caribou thinks they can leapfrog this step---mainly because it's freakin' expensive to open new stores. If I'm remembering correctly, it's about a quarter mil per new store. And now they want to franchise, but instead of attracting franchisees, they want real estate developers instead. When I worked for the Bou, the word "franchise" was anathema. Now, it's apparently the way to go, but only for a select few who have "real estate development" experience. They're just doing everything wrong. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see this.

And never mind about the fact that many, many talented and successful store managers leave the company every day because they're promised advancement within the company, and are always passed over for a. men or b. ass kissers or c. ass kissers who happen to be men. None of that is, apparently, relevant.

Oh, and you can't buy pork sandwiches there, either.

It seems as if the company still hasn't learned its lesson, particularly when it comes to investment money, and I'm beginning to wonder if it ever will.

I hope it succeeds, even though I don't work there anymore, because, really and truly, they do have a superior product. I'm still a loyal customer. But I wonder how long that's going to last.

Posted by: Kathy at 11:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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You wouldn't think that the Chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil would be a bit of a whiner, would you, particularly not when his company is making billions of dollars, in pure profit, per quarter. But apparently he, somehow, finds the time:

{...}Mr Tillerson was strongly critical of the drive in the US for independence in energy supplies, arguing that US imports could be curbed by increasing energy efficiency and boosting oil production by allowing companies access to restricted areas. “Regardless, no conceivable combination of demand moderation or domestic supply development can realistically close the gap and eliminate Americans’ need for imports,” he said.

He warned that pursuing energy independence “can have a chilling effect on existing trading relations”, and quoted a report by the US National Petroleum Council warning that policies intended to foster it “may create considerable uncertainty among international trading partners and hinder investment in international energy supply development”.{...}

Go read the whole thing. It's interesting and I do agree with most of it, but...you have to laugh. What did he think was going to happen with oil at $95 a barrel? That we were simply going to bend over and take it forever? Methinks he's more concerned about the price dropping than he is about trade relations. Which would make Exxon Mobil's shareholders, who have been raking it in, a bit testy. Of course, you should not pay attention to the fact that if we became more energy independent, Exxon Mobil, which has laid out billions of dollars to invest in oil fields world wide, would take a big hit---that's beside the point. Mr. Tillerson is worried about trade relations. Really he is.

{Insert rolling of eyes here}

The US's energy problems stem, mainly, from the fact that we're beholden to oil imports from countries who a. have issues with democracy, b. suck up most of the profits so they can plate their toilets in gold, and/or are determined to nationalize the oil industries to give power back to the people (!) (thy name is Hugo Chavez and Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad) and c. will do what's best for them, not anyone else. We're at their mercy because they control supply. We've gotten sucked into many an international political snafu because of our dependence on oil. The solution to this problem, a rational person would think, is to decrease our dependence on oil imports. You don't have to be a bra-burning hippie to think that life would be a bit easier if we were more energy independent; that's just common sense. While he's right in that we're never going to be able to eliminate imports, it just doesn't strike me as if he's coming from a standpoint of pure philanthropy, with our interests nearest and dearest to his heart, ya dig?

Once upon a time people used to say what was good for GM was good for the country. Are we now supposed to believe that what's good for Exxon Mobil is good for our country?

I think that's a wee bit of a stretch.

Posted by: Kathy at 10:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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That's just not right.

What up, Jewel? Are you too poor to hire a competent plastic surgeon?

You can't possibly be.

I had to suffer through that damn "You Were Meant For Me" song the other day when I was getting my Pet Scan. Talk about "Nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide." Oy. I couldn't move a muscle or the scan would have been ruined. I had to suffer through your music, as it played on the stereo, in a misguided effort to make the process more relaxing.

If I have to listen to the shit, you can at least spend the royalties responsibly, eh?

Update: And get your teeth fixed, too, while you're at it.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:47 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Wow. Just freakin' wow.

STELLA McCartney is fighting back against her evil ex-stepmonster, Heather Mills.

{...) {T}he fashion designer has created a jewelry line, and her first effort is a necklace featuring a single-leg pendant. The bauble costs $500 - a lot less than the $100 million Mills is looking to get from Paul.

You have to respect someone who follows through. Not generally a big fan of Stella McCartney, or her PETA activities, but apparently this chick is willing to put her money where her mouth is.

That I can respect.

Posted by: Kathy at 12:10 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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...Jack Aubrey would think of this monstrosity.

I saw this on 60 Minutes last night, when they profiled the owner, venture capitalist, Tom Perkins. (The footage isn't up on You Tube yet, so you're getting this instead.) And, while I watched, I simply wondered what Lucky Jack would think of a sailboat that he alone could sail. I mean, fer chrissakes, that thing is bigger than anything the Royal Navy had going at the time of the Napoleonic Wars---and you can pretty much sail it yourself. No sailors are required to hoist and unfurl the sails. No one has to climb up the rat lines to do this task...they simply unfurl from inside the masts, where they're stored. There's no wheel on the bridge, but rather a dial, which directs a computer program to do all sorts of sailor-y things. It's made of carbon-fiber, so it's light and scoots through the water like a hot knife through butter. It's amazing.

The boat's cool, don't get me wrong. Have I mentioned that it can unfurl its own sails? What's not to like? I'll bet you can make some pretty good soused hog's face in that galley, too.

But damn. I have to think that Lucky Jack, who was fond of coin, make no bones about it, and would only rarely begrudge someone their money, and only with good reason, would think it an expensive, ostentatious and, ultimately, deeply heretical ship.

Discuss.

Posted by: Kathy at 02:29 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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