Once again, it's time to open up the PetCobra Mailbag. As always, thanks go out to my crack team of interns who spent hours sorting through mountainous piles of letters, picking out only the best ones, and saving the rest for each other to read aloud to the sounds of mocking laughter, over and over and over again. And as always, these are actual letters from imaginary readers. Yes, I copied and pasted this intro from the last PetCobra Mailbag installment. There's a recession on, people, and I have a family to feed. Yes, this does mean that I killed my interns and made a hearty stew out of them. The secret? Coriander!
Dear PetCobra: "surfers live in many worlds at once"...oh ah...wonder why bloggers try so hard to sound deep and philosophical when all they really do is navel gazing! - Iris, A Real Life Commentor Whom I Deleted/Banned - And Now I Feel Terribly, Terribly Guilty, Because Who Am I To Squelch The Voice Of Such A Promising Talent, Even Though She (Ironically) Failed To Properly Conjugate The Verb "Gazing"?
Dear Iris - I am now doing navel gazing and will reply to you as soon as I'm done doing navel gazing.
Dear PetCobra: What do you think about the big Detroit bailout? Will you now buy a Ford? - Henry Ford, Fifth Level, Hell
Dear Henry Ford - no fucking way would I ever, EVER, buy a car made by a shitty American automaker. Please note, before you accuse me of being an Evil Jew (I am, for the record, half Evil Jew on my mom's side, which I guess makes me an Official Evil Jew) or whatever, let me say this: American CARS are not the problem. In my life I've driven a Pontiac Phoenix and a Ford Ranger and I drove them both into the ground, well into the 100k mileage range. Both cars were solid, well-built, very reliable. The problem lies with the idiots who run the Big 3. They've been outfoxed by the Japanese, Germans - hell, even the Swedes! BORN FROM JETS, YANKEE MOTHERFUCKERS! - who took one of America's most iconic products,The Car, and made it their own. The real geniuses here are not the German and Japanese engineers. The big brains belong to the PR, advertising, and marketing teams of Nissan, BMW, Toyota, and Saab, who beat the shit out of us on our own turf. So when I say "shitty American automaker", I mean this: the Big 3 have failed not because they make a bad product, but because they have no clue how to effectively sell the product that they make. We're the company that invented modern advertising and marketing and these guys can't figure this out? Jesus! Rick Wagoner, Alan Mulally, and Bob Nardelli - put Mad Men in your Netflix cue. You might learn a trick or two. (Ok. I might buy a Ford Edge. Henry, why don't you go back and talk to your manager and see what you can do for me.)
Dear PetCobra: What do you want for Christmas? - Santa Claus, North Pole
Dear Santa - I've been struggling with this. The root of my angst: a Sony PlayStation 3. It all began months ago, when Beth hinted that she wanted a Wii, because of the Wii Fit and the Guitar Hero and such. At first I was ambivalent. I'd had a PlayStation, which broke, and an Xbox, which also broke, and wasn't one of those gamer dorks that stayed up until 4 every morning trying to get to the final level of Halo or whatever. But it seems that everyone has a game system, and the Blu-ray player is awesome. But I live in sunny SoCal and should be spending my free time outside playing, surfing, getting exercise. But how kick-ass would it be to have family sessions of Rock Band, with Lucas on the drums? And how cool does Fallout 3 look? But there's a recession on. But the way to get out of a recession is to stimulate the economy, and the best way to do that is to put money back into play via purchasing. But if I'm going to put money back into play, shouldn't I be investing in the stock market? Oh, fuck it, Santa. Just bring me a pony.
