My father has all sorts of funny quips and sayings about being a hard worker, respect and life. People ask me when he’s going to retire and I usually respond “never”. Not because he can’t, but simply because I’m not sure it’s even a thought that crosses the mind of a man who was working longer hours than I do before he started grade school. At any rate, one of the things he told me was “If you’re going to be a burger flipper, by God, be the best burger flipper there is.”

Well, I think Quiznos has found the best sub makers around. When the store’s owner disappeared in November and distributors stopped giving the store food supplies on credit the manager took matters into her own hands. She bought supplies from other Quizno stores using money from the previous day’s till and began paying employees cash from the till on a daily basis.

Sounds like things are shaping up now, though, that the corporate office of Quiznos caught window of the story. They are now transferring ownership and sending in support staff.

A while back some of the news sites online were running a story about a tattoo artist who defaced his clients by using Japanese symbols that where profain. As a result he’s spending 5 years in jail. Evidently, jail has not been a reason to stop his scheming ways.

Using a tattoo gun fashioned out of a sharpened paper clip, dental floss, and a ballpoint pen taped to a plastic spork, the disgruntled prisoner has drawn Black Panther Party symbols on white supremacists, written CRIPS 4 EVA on rival gang members, and left dozens of hardened criminals with butterflies, fairies, and unicorns permanently etched in their skin.

“I wanted a stack of skulls on my back,” said murderer Jimmy Drake, “and that Asian prick gave me a giant Winnie the Pooh!”

Many prisoners ask for spider webs on their elbows to signify time spent in jail. Sakai’s webs have hidden messages in them such as, “Fuck Cops,” “I Swallow,” and “Salad Tosser.” Sakai got the idea for the cryptic tats after reading Charlotte’s Web in the prison library. “That E.B. White’s a genius, man,” Sakai proclaimed.

To say it’s hysterical is and understatement, but the guy is obviously an idiot who doesn’t care about his own safety. As a result of his escapades he has been put in solitary confinement for the remainder of his prison sentence (for his own safety of course).

Evidently, the freedoms we take for granted in the U.S. are a little too much according to the students here. 36% of students think newsrooms should get approval from the GOVERNMENT before running a story. The utter helplessness and sorrow I feel when I read something like this is undescribable.

The survey of 112,003 students finds that 36% believe newspapers should get “government approval” of stories before publishing; 51% say they should be able to publish freely; 13% have no opinion.

Asked whether the press enjoys “too much freedom,” not enough or about the right amount, 32% say “too much,” and 37% say it has the right amount. Ten percent say it has too little.

Either the teachers really suck at teaching the ideas this country was founded on or they surveyed students from the School of the Americas. This article comes to me a day after watching OUTFOXED: Rupert Murdoch’s War on Journalism, which is a movie about Fox News and the dangerous game it’s playing with today’s media outlets.

The press is the watchdog of Democracy. They are supposed to be trusthworthy and unbiased. They are supposed to report the news as it happens and not get approval from anyone. The corporate buyout of today’s media outlets and the current consolidation efforts underway will be a bigger part of America’s downfall as a free society than Bush, Cheney or Rove ever will.

If we can’t trust the media to keep leaders in check by reporting blow jobs, illegal arms deals and hotel break-ins then who can we trust? What if those who are reporting the news are best friends with those they are reporting the news on? If your friend did something bad and you had to tell some strangers about it wouldn’t you do all you could to justify your friend’s actions?

Many people outside of Seattle most definitely do not know about a weekly newsmag called The Stranger. It’s a local newsmag about what’s going on, recent news, etc. written by a bunch of liberal hipsters. A great resource for finding fun stuff to do and reading fairly entertaining stories.

At any rate, this month’s issue is all about Ben Exworthy. In fact, it’s called The Ben Exworthy Narcissism Issue.

Back in December, I was reading the Strangercrombie catalog with my girlfriend Brit when she suggested that I buy everything involving The Stranger itself. […] By auction’s end, I’d bought the cover, Last Days, I Anonymous, Savage Love, Celeb I Saw U, rave Chow, Music and Books reviews, Drunk of the Week, the back-page comic, and one page of Stranger editorial space to fill however the hell I wanted.

So for $12,000 this guy bought an entire issue of The Stranger, which I must admit is amazingly hysterical. I’m actually planning on reading the whole issue just because I find it so amusing.

Holy crap. Could you imagine saying the above? Warren Buffet can, because he did just that today when Procter & Gamble bought Gillette. I’d buy suits made of $100 bills if I had that much money. Remy would buy a few light armored units manned with 8 or 9 personnel each.

The Greatest Generation fought WWII over 60 years ago and this week people around the world are remembering the liberation of Auschwitz.

There was a young Polish man in the camp who tattooed the numbers on our arms. He did it with a pen and some ink, dot after dot, like a child doing his homework.

So when he made a mistake, he would cross it out and start anew. A lot of people had this kind of mess on their arms.

When it was my turn I demanded: “Pay attention and do it as well as possible!” And then I began to laugh at my own absurdity, because when you are being gassed, it doesn’t matter if it looks good or not.

My number is still visible, 42646, and beside it, the Star of David.