Happy Birthday TP!

That's right folks, 150 years ago Joseph Gayetty sold the first factory made toilet paper (Gayetty's Medicated Paper) in the USA These were loose, flat, sheets of paper, pre-moistened and medicated with aloe; each sheet has Gayetty's name printed on it.

Before the invention of toilet paper, people were forced to use old corn cobs, leaves, paper (if available) and if nothing else was around, their hand!

Of course inventions take a little while to become popular, it wasn't until the early 1900's that toilet paper became even somewhat common place. I bet if you ask your grandparents, or anyone older then 75 they can probably remember tearing a page out of the sears catalogue to wipe themselves; and maybe they can regale you with graphic stories of other things they used.

The point is, toilet paper has to be one of the most useful inventions in recent history and I'd like to take a minute to wish it a very very happy birthday!

Being reasonably confident that the person I'm shaking hands with is not covered in feces; that's EXTREMELY Tomland Approved!

You can pry that paper dollar from cold dead fingers

Ugh, another Monday and another stupid writer that thinks he's doing the world a favor by defending another stupid idea. Today's article comes from the fine folks at Slate Magazine. I usually enjoy this online publication. It's full of good articles that are well written and bring up a lot of good points.

However a recent Slate article about how the US needs to phase out the paper dollar and start using a coin is misguided at best, idiotic is much more like it. Take a minute and read it here.

After spending over half the article going into the failed history of coin dollars the author starts going into "conspiracy theory" mode of how Missisipi Cotton Farmers are lobbying hard to keep the old greenback.

Get real; the push for a dollar coin comes from the bean counters who say it makes more fiscal sense to use coin; and that's true.... but the problem is that carrying around a bunch of coins in your pocket is just annyoing! Which would you rather have, 9 $1 bills folded in your pocket or 9 heavy coins jingling around everywhere you walk? Who likes coins anyway? There's a movement out there to abolish the penny. Why? Because no one likes carrying around pennys and they certainly don't like carrying around bigger and heavier dollar coins.

Contrary to what this author at Slate seems think the dollar coin was not abandoned multiple times due to lack of acceptance in private industry. It was abandoned because people who get these coins hate them. They refuse to accept them and when they are forced to take them (think of those stamp vending machines at the post office) they immeiatly find a way to turn them in and get paper $.

I'm not just talking out of my ass here; my wife worked for years in the food industry and she's seen many an irate customer with these coin dollars. She now works for a bank and the complaints are the same.

Trying to take away my paper money and replace it with coin? Are you insane? There's no way this is Tomland Approved!

Why are you reading this? You should be dead!

Sure we all know that the air we breath filled with smog, the water we drink contaminated by pollution, my milk is pumped full of cancer causing steroids, and even the fruit and vegetables are laden with harmful pesticides that should have done me in by now...

But toxins take years to build up in the body; according to idiots like the "The National Playground Safety Institue" you probably should have died back in elementary school. Why? All the horribly unsafe playground equipment of course. Metal jungle gyms, high monkey bars, and other dangerous items like the Tornado slide have been replaced with safe, plastic garbage.

I loved the tornado slide. I slid down it, climbed up the wrong way... climbed the support beams and fell down a few times that's what being a kid is all about.

Frankly I'm not sure where these idiots get off... I played on the super dangerous playground equipment, you did too. And look, we're both alive to tell the tale (whew!)...Come to think of it, the folks that are causing all the old equipment to be replaced must have also used the same playground equipment and (except for some stupid ideas, I'm sure as a result of falling on their heads to much as children) are OK.

If you look on the Internet you'll see about 200,000 children go to the emergency room each year for playground related injuries and about 15 die every year.... yep 15 out of millions. I know it sounds cruel but perhaps those 15 were a little dee-dee-dee if you know what I mean. Look folks, sheltering your children from reality is not helping them.

To all the idiots that feel the playgrounds they themselves grew up with are to dangerous for kids I say look... you are obviously a misguided idiot, but not enough of an idiot to have died on the monkey bars" maybe you should have done everyone a favor and just let go of those bars.

Destroying my childhood playgrounds to make them "safer" not tomland approved.

Free Speech? Not in the USA

Ahh free speech. Guaranteed by the first amendment of the US constitution.

Wikipedia says freedom of speech is the concept of the inherent human right to voice one's opinion publicly without fear of censorship or punishment. The right is enshrined in the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and is granted formal recognition by the laws of most nations.

That would be nice; especially since there are quite a few things (and people) that really tick me off and I'd love to blog about them. The problem is that I work in corporate America; for a bunch of lawyers actually. So of course I know that my company would more then likely fire me in a heartbeat if I started commenting about them in a negative way. Don't believe me? Here's a nice article about companies firing their employees for exercising their free speech

Of course I'm not going to say anything about my place of work, not the name of the business, not how much (if at all) certain aspects of my day job make me angry or how certain people are assholes. Nope, not a word.

Now, theremaybe be good aspects about my job too; but you're not going to hear those either because only being able to comment on the positive and not the negative is called censorship, not free speech.

See, corporate America is a bit different from the rest of America. Corporate America will kick you out for a whole host of reasons including; and not limited to; because they feel like it (it's called at-will employment folks)

But today's writing is not about any of the other multitude of reasons that companies will fire, sue, or otherwise make life difficult for their employees... it's about free speech, or lack thereof. I'd like to write more, but I can't because just in the same way Stalin and Hitler terminated countless people that spoke against them, if I proceed further with this article I may join the countless jobless blogers who's companies have terminated them.

Stomping all over my guaranteed freedom of speech? Couldn't be less Tomland approved!

When "The Man" sticks it to you, stick him right back

Hello folks,

As you know, The Man has been out to get all of us since they day we were born. I t turns out there's not just one man, but whoever is twisting that dagger of unfairness into your gut at the time gets elevated to "The Man".... (Of course you know the scuffle with The Man has a happy ending thanks to my "Tomland Approved" guy to the left of this article)

So a few months ago I bought a Nokia E70 for my wife. She specifically wanted this model of phone but it wasn't carried by Cingular. So I got an unlocked phone straight from Nokia. Considering I paid almost $400 for the thing I expected it to work properly. Of course that means I had nothing but problems getting it to work.

The worst part was that I could not get any support for the phone. Cingular told me they didn't know how to configure it (despite having an almost identical model availble for sale) and Nokia said that they didn't have the configuration settings on hand and only Cingular could provide them. At the end of the day I had to sign up for a new plan and get different equipment which came with a substantial discount.

It was a classic blame someone else defense. Of course Nokia was happy to take my $400 for the phone and Cingular was more than happy to continue charging me for my plan.

So I put the thing up on ebay and sold it for $450, netting a profit in the end. Sure it was a learning experience, but the best part was walking away from an ugly situation a few dollars richer.

Taking the dagger The Man is sticking in you and shoving it in his bloated, corporate gut... Tomland Approved!

Tax'em Till they Die!

I was reading a lovely article today regarding the fact that the decline in smoking has been a headache for government because they are forced to raise cigarette taxes in order to keep generating enough revenue. The article can be found here

Well the solution is simple, raise them federal taxes! Not just a little either, double it, or triple it! After all, smoking is an addiction so the vast majority of people will eat the cost and keep smoking. They can't stop. And by increasing the federal tax rate and then reimbursing the states everyone will be hit equally.

Sure the smokers will really grumble, but the other good news about the decline of smoking is that there are less voters out there that smoke, making the non-smokers the vast majority of a congressman's voting block.

Making it more expensive to blow smoke in my face... Definitely Tomland approved!

Fluff

Hello folks,

Well I was going to write a fluff article today, something nice an safe about it being a sunny day. But instead I came across a whole different kind of fluff... apparently a bus driver in Seattle was arrested for voyurism. The article can be found here

In a nutshell, the bus driver saw a woman entering her appartment and then a light turn on shortly after. He walked over to the light and came across a different couple watching a pornographic movie. The couple saw him and the guy ran out (doesn't say if the guy had cloths on or not) and chased after him. The bus driver took off, but the police tracked down his bus and arrested him for voyurism.

Well, despite my name being Tom, I do not condone peeping. But... if you're not going to pull down your blinds while watching porn, having sex, or doing something else you woudln't do in front of your mother, don't be surprised if someone takes some time out of their day to watch the show!

Well, regardless of how you feel on the topic; the article iteself is good for 2 minutes around the water cooler, so that gets 1 thumb up. You could say the entertainment value of it all is Tomland Approved!

Racist math problem? Maybe YOU are the racist

Hello folks,

I came across a article today that really made me angry. Apparently there's been a big hubub regarding a math teacher in Seattle. You can find the original article here and the updated article here

For those of you who don't like to read, here's what the topic is about. Apparently a math teacher put the following question on a test:

"Condoleezza holds a watermelon just over the edge of the roof of the 300-foot
Federal Building, and tosses it up with a velocity of 20 feet per second."
The question went on to ask when the watermelon will hit the ground,
based on a formula provided.

Enough people got angry about the question that the teacher was suspended for a week. However the most recent article says the administration lifted the suspension.

So am I angry that the teacher's suspension was lifted? If you think that you don't know TomLand very well. Better read more posts.

----------------------------

According to one of the many offended people "The question propagates a racial stereotype and denigrates Secretary of State Rice"

To that I say bullshit! First of all, I don't see Condoleezza Rice weighing in on the matter. Perhaps if Condi feels slighted then she should speak up. I'm willing to listen to people that speak up for themselves. I'm a lot less willing to listed to folks that think they speak for others. The person quoted in the article doesn't know the Secretary of State and as such shouldn't presume to speak for her.

But let's move on to the 2nd part of the topic... the propagation of a racial stereotype. To be honest besides a stereotype that black people like watermelon I'm not exactly sure what the specific derogatory thought is. I did a search online and (in very vague terms) this watermelon stereotype also seems to associate with laziness and uncleanliness. Seems like the top 10 hits on the Internet can't explain it either.

I'm a very well read individual, I have a great grasp of the English language and an excellent vocabulary. I also can surf the Internet with the best of them. Despite all that, off the top of my head I couldn't tell you why this "stereotype" is demeaning.

For those people who think I'm wrong and this type of question is just plain wrong I say this:

I don't see a problem with certain ethic groups being associated with certain foods, I take the context at face value. If you're reading into it, you're the one that propagating racial stereotypes, as such you're the racist.

Trying to get folks fired because you're the one with a chip on your shoulder; definitely NOT TomLand approved.

What the blog's about

So, my name is Tom (Tomas actually. For the longest time the wife's been saying that I live in a place called Tomland where everything goes my way. If things are good they're "tomland approved" if things suck they're NOT tomland approved.

She jokingly mentioned that I should make a blog called Tomland and write stuff on it, if I thought the topic was good we'd put a smiley face next to it, if not we'd use a Mr. Yuck sticker....

We'll I've done one better I've got modified Mr Yuck and Mr. Smiley stick figures. Not more then once per day I'll post about a new topic, whatever strikes me that day....To the side of every entry I'll add one or the other so you can quickly see if the particular topic is Tomland Approved.

In what I hear is typical Tomland fashion, I'm starting this post with Mr. Yuck... why you ask? Isn't the blog great? Isn't this the germ of an idea coming to fruition? Yeah it is, but you'll see the URL is tom-land.blogspot.com and I HAD do do it that way because tomland.blogspot.com was already taken!

Someone taking MY URL? Definitely NOT Tomland approved.