Aloha, You Dumb Tourist - The Drawbacks of Paradise

Danielle diving next to a sea turtle in Napili Bay, Maui.

There is no such thing as a perfect paradise on Earth, but Maui comes pretty darn close. Warm ocean waters teeming with beautiful sea life. Breathtaking views from all over the island. Food so good you'll think you're dreaming. And enough zip-lining, boat-riding, parasailing, surfing, swimming, hiking, and sun-tanning to occupy adventurists of any age.

Ultimately—as our chill surf instructor would say—"It's all cool, bro."

Still, this paradise isn't without its drawbacks, and after ten days of writing and photographing and videotaping and tweeting and Facebooking and everything-else-ing the most delicious aspects of this tropical heaven, we thought it might be prudent to warn you about some of the drawbacks. So if you're thinking of visiting Maui, here are some of the things that tripped us up during our vacation (not that Maui isn't still one of the most awesomest places on earth!)

Bad Directions

For some reason the locals don't know how to give directions, so if you get directions, make sure they are very, very specific. Because sometimes "hang right and it's on your left" really means "turn right, drive two miles, you'll see a really complicated intersection with lots of touristy stuff, but if you turn left down the really narrow one way road that you can't really see because of the palm trees and keep your eyes looking to the left you'll eventually see a really small building with a tiny pink sign that says Hala-ooh-I-Can't-Pronounce-This-Word in minuscule print."

Other times it's as simple as, "See that sign that says, 'Do not enter'? Enter there." (No, seriously, someone said that to us, but, hey, it got us where we wanted to go.)

Beware the Tip Jar

Maui is all about tourism, which means most of the locals work in the service industry and thrive off tips. This gets especially irritating when you book a tour as part of a "package deal," like we did with our sunrise/bicycle/zip line tour. We had no less than five different people to tip—the bus driver who picked us up, the sunrise tour guide, the bicycle tour guide, the zip line guys, and the driver who took us back. We didn't have enough cash to tip everyone, but if we had that would've easily been $80 in tips to three different companies for one excursion.

Timeshare Discounts

Danielle and I wanted to go on a whale-watching tour, so we went to Boss Frog's, one of Maui's top tourism meccas for anything and everything you want to do. A Super cool dude named Mark said he had a great deal for us—a $140 dinner cruise on which we would see whales for $12 if we agreed to sit through a timeshare presentation for 90 minutes. Ninety minutes. That's nine, zero. Super Cool Mark told us if they didn't hold to that to let him know. Dinner, a boat ride, whales, all for $12? I can suffer a 90-minute blowhard, sure.

But the dinner cruise was a disappointment. It wasn't technically a "whale watching tour," so the captain wasn't obligated to go hunt down whales. We saw some way out on the horizon, but not as up close as the official whale-watching boats. The food was mediocre, the drinks were disappointing, and don't even get me started on the timeshare people who did not stick to their 90-minute promise—two hours and ten minutes later, we weren't happy.

Back to Super Cool Mark. When we told him about our disappointing experience he did us a solid and sent us on a whale-watching tour at 50 percent off the listed price. Thanks, dude!

Not All Beaches Are Created Equal

If you go to Maui, rent a car. There shouldn't be any ifs, ands, or buts about it. Your own transportation is a must. Taxis are expensive. Buses are scattered. And you might have a hotel with a very rocky beach when there is a silky, sandy beach just two miles down the road. Fortunately a car came with our vacation package, and we used it every day.

Read the Fine Print

Like I wrote in Friday's blog, Cost-Saving Vacation Tips, having the best hotel wasn't a priority for us. We like to do stuff. The hotel was just a place to crash. Still, I knew my beach-loving wife would love a hotel room on the beach, so when I booked the hotel I was sure to note that I had chosen a room with an "oceanfront view." The room we got, however, did not have an oceanfront view. The hotel was an oceanfront hotel WITH oceanfront views, but not every room had such a view.

I doubt it was the intention of the hotel owners to be misleading in this way. It was likely Expedia's fault for not communicating to the hotel that we had selected an oceanfront room. When I showed the lady at the hotel's front desk my receipt for the room and that it very clearly said "oceanfront" she quickly and kindly moved us to a much better room with a majestic view of the Pacific. So be careful when you book to read the fine print, but don't be afraid to inquire about discrepancies.

Lost in Translation

Speaking of communication errors, we noticed several times there was a breakdown in communication between companies—whether it was between Expedia and our hotel, the timeshare people and Super Cool Mark, or the three different companies operating our sunrise/bicycle/zip line tour. It seemed like everyone was on their own schedules, but no one was on anybody else's. When so many cooks are stirring the pot there needs to be better communication.

That goes for websites, too. Three times we encountered situations where what we got was not what was offered on the website—not the least of which was Anthony's, a little hippie cafe that offered picnic lunches with rentable coolers on their website. When we stopped there on the Road to Hana, we found out that lunches were more expensive than the website listed, and cooler rentals were no longer an option. You had to buy one for $8. The food wasn't that great either.

Aloha ... You Dumb Tourist

Hawaii might be called The Aloha State, but real Hawaiians don't seem to say, "Aloha." Trust me, as a tourist, you'll get Alohaed at every corner, but if you start saying it back you'll stick out like a sore thumb. Real Hawaiians say, "What's up, brudda!" or "What's up, sister!" They're also fond of "Hello," "Hi," and the more modern, "Hey!"

Oh, and if you think about flashing the "hang loose" hand sign, it's ok. Everybody does it. But you're not in Southern California, so don't call it "hang loose." In Hawaii, it's the Shaka.

Get it? Got it? Good!

Our Surf Teacher From The Zoo + 5 Things You Never Knew About Surfing

Non-athletic. That's me. But I'm tall and trim—about six feet, broad shoulders, long legs—so I can fool most anybody into thinking I know how to use my body. The truth is if I didn't have hands to catch myself, I'd have no face from all the tripping and falling I've done over the years. My nose would be flat. Just a flat nose. Just a flat face with a flat nose because I'm a big non-athletic clutz.

But apparently I'm good at surfing. I paddled into a wave, got to my feet, kept my balance for a short distance, and sat back down before I wiped out. More than once, I might add. That's surfing right?

Just humor me, ok? I suck at every other sport in the world. Let me have this one, tiny thing.

Our Instructor From The Zoo

I've got to give credit to our instructor, a man who introduced himself as Armadillo, or Armor for short. He claimed to come from the zoo. He has a brother named Possum, and other family members from the rat species. Honestly, if you asked me if he was kidding, I wouldn't know what to say. In between pushing back long strands of gnarled blond locks from his copper face and looking like he desperately needed some weed to take his mind off his hangover, for all I knew Armadillo probably actually was born in the zoo. Who knows?

The great thing about him though was that even if we didn't learn to surf, Armadillo gave us plenty of Entertainment.

"Dude," he'd say looking at me, "you're doing awesome. These two girls here are doing everything wrong, but you're awesome. Well, except for your feet, get your feet wider apart. And don't slouch. Relax, man. You're too tense. Scoot back. *sigh* Ok, never mind. You're hopeless."

He asked if Danielle and I had any kids with us. When we told him no he sounded disappointed, saying one of the highlights of teaching surfing lessons to kids is being able to pick them up in high winds and skip them across the surface of the water.

"Seriously, bro, that's what we do. Me and another instructor. I'll grab their arms. Another guy grabs their legs and we just chuck 'um and just watch 'um skip—dush, dush, dush. Well, when the parents aren't looking of course."

Despite his antics, Armadillo managed to instill confidence in us—me, my wife, and a financial advisor from Kentucky named Robin who had the pleasure of learning how to surf with us.

"Whatever you're worried about, it's not going to happen," Armadillo said. "You're not going to drown. You're not going to get blown away by the wind."

"What about shark attacks?" I asked. (Because, seriously, that was all I was really worried about.)

Armadillo was silent for a long moment. "Actually, I can't say don't worry about that because, well ... ah-hem. Let's go surfing!"

The two of us alongside our fellow student, Robin, and our
surfing instructor Armadillo at the Goofy Foot Surf School.

5 Things You Didn't Know About Surfing

1. Bikinis and Surfboards Don't Mix
Most movies about surfing always show the female surfers in bikinis because, well, I think the reason is obvious, but after 10 minutes on a surfboard you begin to realize just how unrealistic that is because surfboards HURT! Even with a long-sleeved surf shirt my stomach and chest were beat red by the end of our lesson and the insides of my thighs were chaffed from straddling the board.

2. Surfing Should Be Called "Paddling ... With Style"
Surfing is hours of hard work for about 10 minutes of payoff. If that. First, you have to paddle. And paddle, and paddle, and paddle, just to get in the right spot to catch a wave. If there's a current, you have to paddle almost continuously so you don't float away. When a wave comes, you have to paddle—furiously!—so you can get momentum to ride the wave. And when you're ride is over you have to paddle all over again to get back out to sea. Surfing shouldn't be called surfing. It should be called Shoulder Exercise, or maybe S.E.D., for Shoulder Exercise, Dude. But that just doesn't sound as cool.

3. The Stereotypical Surfer Dude Actually Exists
"Surfer dudes" are real. They're not just some stereotype invented for TV. I already told you about Armadillo, who is every bit the laid back surfer dude you've ever imagined, but there were plenty of others just like him with long, scraggly hair; dark, spotty skin; a nonchalant strut. Even the girl working the desk at the surf shop was throwing off those chill surfer chick vibes. But, hey, it's cool, man.

4. Surfing Will Kill You ... No, Really.
Death is like a major deal in surfing. If you don't do it right it will kill you. There are sharks in the water that can kill you. There are rocks and rock walls that a wave can plow you into in a matter of seconds, killing you. If a wave carries you in too far and too fast even the shore will kill you. When you wipe out there are rocks and coral under the water that will gash your body, slice your hands, and, yes, even kill you.

5. Snowboarding Doesn't Make You A Better Surfer
I was proud to tell Armadillo that I was a fair snowboarder on the wintery cold mountains of Vermont. He just dropped his head between his shoulders in disappointment, as though he suddenly realized the work he had cut out for him in teaching me how to surf. "Snowboarders are the worst," he said. "They're so used to having their feet strapped to the board." And he was right. Shuffling forward and backward on a surf board is kind of essential to making the whole thing work, but making myself move my feet was a challenge.

Going Back for Seconds

Unfortunately, cameras and surfing don't mix, so Danielle and I have no actual proof that we did any of this. We intended to go back and rent some surfboards and take turns surfing while one of us takes pictures from the shore, but, honestly, surfing can, like, KILL YOU! After being on Maui for a week and catching bits and pieces of information about currents, high winds, sharp rocks, coral, gashes, cuts, bruises, gangrene, and, yes, even sharks, you slowly come to understand that surfing is epically dangerous if you don't know what you're doing.

So we opted to go to the mall. Much safer.

-Jake

The Data Shows: Daylight Saving Time Is Asinine

It's always been my personal belief that Daylight Saving Time is stupid. Turns out I was right. Turns out that aside from increasing risk of heart attack, providing adverse mental health in some people, screwing with national and international communication, mixing up global transportation patterns, frustrating farmers, complicating business transactions, and ruining my life twice a year, the only positive thing about DST is that at one point in history it didn't exist.

When The Dumb Began

DST has been used for about 100 years, although its genesis is credited to Benjamin Franklin, according to www.timeanddate.com. Franklin proposed the idea—although a little jokingly—to economize the use of candles by getting people out of bed earlier in the morning, making use of the natural morning light. The idea was never implemented in his lifetime because people didn't take it seriously.

It wasn't until 1895 that a New Zealand entomologist (bug-collector) by the name of George Vernon realized that his love affair with bugs could last longer every day if he had more daylight hours to play with. He proposed a two hour time shift instead of the one that we grudgingly endure today.

This idea was picked up by another genius, William Willett, whose motivation for lobbying DST was his growing aggravation that dusk kept cutting short his after hours game of golf.

That's right, folks. Golf.

It wasn't until World War I that this idea began to catch on. While Europe did its best to commit genocide the west thought DST would be a great way to save energy during war time. DST wasn't observed again until WWII and was officially adopted in the US in 1967.

The "Energy Conservation" Myth

Energy conservation has long been touted as one of the many reasons for DST to remain in effect (though just how much energy it saves has never been proven), but even if DST did, at one point, help save energy, energy consumption has changed greatly since the days of coke stoves and steam engines. In a 24/7 global economy DST no longer serves its purpose.

Most modern studies of DST show little to no benefit and/or reason for it in regards to energy conservation.

What The Facts Show 

• The National Research Council of Canada issued a report in 2008 that indicated fuel consumption actually rises during DST because "…with an extra hour of daylight in the evening people tend to go out more."


• One of the major backers of legislation to keep DST in effect is 7-Eleven, ostensibly to allow the good children of America more time to go out and buy a torso-sized Slurpie. Obesity, folks. DST contributes to obesity.


• When Indiana made DST mandatory in 2006, Dr. Matthew Kotchen examined several million monthly meter readings from a three year period. He found that having the entire state switch to DST each year, rather than remain on Standard Time, cost Indiana households an additional $8.6 million in electricity bills.


• Arizona does not recognize DST. They tried it for one year in the 1960s, but there was so much negative reaction that they never tried it again. Some also said that without DST, the state still managed to save heating and cooling energy in the summer (northern hemisphere) months.


• Kazakhstan abolished DST in 2005, citing negative health effects on more than 51 percent of its population.


• Farmers, who must wake with the sun no matter what time the clock says, are greatly inconvenienced by having to change their schedules to market their crops to businesses observing DST and therefore generally oppose it. (www.standardtime.com)


• In 2008 The Wall Street Journal declared: "Daylight Saving Wastes Energy," and cited Dr. Kotchen's report as well as others.

The "Circadian Rhythm"

Health therapist Shawn Kirby says the negative health repercussions of DST can last for weeks in some people. He says the human body's physical and mental behavioral swings caused by day/night changes and sleep patterns—known as the Circadian Rhythm—is essential to a person's mental health and balanced stress levels. This natural rhythm within our own bodies connects us to the world while DST routinely interrupts it.

"Suicides in men and heart attacks were both found to significantly spike with the 'Spring Forward,'" Kirby says.

In Closing

Even apart from the data, DST shows no reasons to exist. I mean, "time," as we know it, is an artificial construction, measured only by agreed-upon convention. The only purpose of measuring time with a clock is to coordinate action. The actual numbers on a clock don't matter; the clock says whatever we, as a society, agree that it should say. On a global scale observing DST completely destroys the original purpose for which time and the clock were created—some countries observe it; some don't. As a result world time becomes confusing. While observing DST, time zones get screwed up; all clocks and electronic devices must be changed, or programmed to run functions that cause the change. This massive, mostly-computerized switchover inconveniences millions of businesses and individuals every year. DST interrupts what is, otherwise, a smoothly operating convention of coordinating global actions.

Let's face it, DST is an outdated, onerous, ridiculous, asinine "illusion." It is unneeded, unwanted, and pointless. If you really need an extra hour of daylight to play gulf or hunt bugs, GET UP AN HOUR EARLIER!

Stop the madness of pointlessly changing time twice a year. End Daylight Saving Time! Sign the petition at www.standardtime.com.

VIDEO BLOG: Batman versus Superman

Here's some frivolous fun for your Friday the Fourth!

The upcoming "Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice" movie is still a couple years away, but that doesn't mean I'm not as giddy as a face-loving puppy in a room full of toddlers. So here is the first of what I hope to be many video blogs about life's various frivolities.

Some people may call me biased on the topic of Batman versus Superman because I'm a die hard Batman fan, but it's hardly bias when my evidence comes from decades of established mythology. So there! Thbbbpppt!

In all silliness, enjoy the video!

Here's A Teaser Of Our Upcoming Video Blog

Be sure to check back tomorrow for the full video where Jake lists the top seven reasons why... well, you'll have to wait and see! :-)

The World Cup: An Exercise In Mass Denial

It's time for me to come out... as being completely apathetic to the World Cup.

First off, as anyone who knows me can attest, the whole concept of sports perplexes me. From the highest echelons of the over-payed professional athletics, to the lowliest kiddie matches at your local elementary school where hundreds of adults try to convince children that "winning isn't everything" yet celebrate the winning team, is completely weird to me, and, ultimately, completely irrelevant.

But the World Cup manages to be a different kind of weird. It somehow manages to get millions of people who don't care about sports to watch. If it were any other sport I might understand, but, well... it's soccer. Soccer is a special kind of boring. It's like watching your clothes tumble around in the dryer, but it also demands the kind of unwavering attention a detective would give a crime scene because if you're not watching closely you'll miss the important stuff.

Furthermore, even though most Americans don't care about the World Cup, we're made to feel like we should, which, to me, makes soccer feel like communism. To me, the World Cup is an exercise in mass denial, a desperate attempt by the runner-up nations of the world to convince everyone that their dying pastime is something cool that we all should take part in.

Whatever.

Yes, I know, statistics will tell you that soccer has grown in popularity in America since 2006, but that means nothing when you consider that the 2014 match between the US and Ghana only drew in 12 million American viewers, which, when compared to the 108 million viewers of the NFL Championship, is quite sad. So saying Americans like soccer is like saying the fat kid in second grade who always gets picked last is everyone's favorite.

According to an article by CBS that listed the "7 Reasons Why Americans Don't Watch the World Cup," Americans look at soccer with a collective yawn, wondering when they can just go home and nuke some leftovers.

Here's my top ten reasons why the World Cup isn't that important to America.

1. IT BRINGS NATIONS TO A HALT
Don't even think of going to Europe or South America while the World Cup is going on because all of the countries involved virtually come to a halt, and when a country's national team is playing few people even bother to go to work. I have trouble taking seriously any sporting event that holds such a Darth Vader-persuasion over the populace.

2. IT PUTS BOSTON'S RIOTS TO SHAME
As an American, I've done an embarrassed face-palm just like everyone else when cities like Boston celebrate their team's victory with such enthusiasm that it turns into rioting and chaos. But the World Cup garners an even more intense kind of fan enthusiasm. World Cup fans are like invading armies coming to conquer all the other nations. It sparks riots that go from a nationwide embarrassment, to a global one that makes me sad to be a human.

3. IT'S SOCCER
I know they call it football, but soccer is not football. American football is football. Not that I care about the terms, but when I see grown men running around like sissies, trying not to get hurt, doing things that make the commentators say, "Nice footwork!", and with no padding, I think, "There aren't nearly enough concussions for this to be football."

4. IT'S TOO LONG
We already have the Olympics, a weeks-long sporting event where nations come to compete in the things they are actually good at. Ok, that's cool. But the World Cup is ANOTHER weeks-long sporting event that demands you be good at one thing: soccer. And it goes on for weeks. And it's boring. And it goes on for weeks. And when something is boring and goes on for weeks it seems even more boring. I think this is why the World Cup generates so many riots, because, like inmates in prison, fans riot because there's nothing else to do.

5. IT BRINGS OUT THE SNOBS
In America anyway, the World Cup seems to be an excuse for people to try and sound sophisticated because the World Cup is so chic, so in, so European. To these soccer snobs I want to say, "If soccer were so great in the first place, people would care more than once every four years!"

6. IT BRINGS OUT THE HATE
Like the Olympics, people love to say that the World Cup is a sporting event that brings nations together. Uh-huh. Sure. Brings them together on the brink of war maybe. With its fans who take the event too seriously, the protesting throughout the city in which it is held, the hooligans in the stands, the bad refs, the lack of cheerleaders... it's a melting pot of animosity and trivial pride.

7. IT LACKS EVERYTHING THAT MAKES MOST OTHER SPORTS INTERESTING
Americans like scoring. They like action. Maybe it's the fault of our instant gratification culture, but even then 90 minutes of kicking and running with one goal scored doesn't exactly move heaven and earth. Scoring is such a lightning-strike rarity in soccer that once a team gets up by two points the game is pretty much over. There's no chance of a comeback, which is one of the most exciting aspects about any other sport.

8. IT'S ALL ABOUT THE DUDES
I'll give the World Cup credit for breaking down many racial barriers, but there are NO women involved in this sport. None. Not even cheerleaders—who could at least breathe a little life into what is otherwise an absolute borefest. The Olympics, on the other hand, manage to break racial barriers, have nations competing in lots of different events, AND give women their fair share in the limelight.

9. IT DOESN'T CHANGE
In peewee soccer little kids run around and kick at a ball for an hour until a ref finally goes, "Ok, 0-0 score. Game over. Great job everyone!" In professional soccer, with the exception of the players being much bigger and much faster, they're pretty much doing the same thing they were doing in little kid school—running around, kicking after a ball to a 0-0 finish. And if there is a score they all flip out and scream and jump around because, in soccer, when someone scores it's like finding a leprechaun.

10. IT RUINS MY INTERNET
During the winter my news feeds are filled with winter storm reports and Christmas stuff. In the summer I get to see my friends' vacation photos on Facebook, fireworks, news stories about shark attacks, and summer blockbusters at the theater, but during the World Cup all I see is:

Ok, seriously, it's not that I'm against soccer. I certainly don't fault anyone for enjoying it. Nor do I think Americans are necessarily against it for any reason. In America, we just look at the World Cup, shrug our shoulders, and say, "Meh. What else is on?"

:-)

10 Things I Hate About Saving Money

In all honesty, as much as Dave Ramsey has saved our finances, and probably even our marriage, his principles can be a real drain on life sometimes. Especially if you're a free-spirited spender like moi.

Now, for Dani and I, when we get down about things, we'll make a rap music video or find some other creative ludicrousness through which we can vent our frustrations.

Sometimes, however, you just gotta let it out. So here's my top 10 reasons why I hate saving money.

1. I AIN'T GETIN' ANY YOUNGER

A screenshot from our trip to
Cedar Point video.

Bush Gardens. Disneyland. Sea World. The world's tallest roller coaster. Scotland. I want to enjoy these things while I still have youth and vibrance to enjoy them.

2. I AIN'T THE OUTDOORSY TYPE
I don't mind a nice hike from time to time. I enjoy family picnics and bike riding, camping, and boating, but my real passions are indoors—art, writing, movies, books. Sometimes it's not easy to enjoy the indoors for free when there's three new blu-ray movies that just came out or the next installment of George R.R. Martin's Game of Thrones series to read.

3. SPEAKING OF MOVIES
I love the whole movie-going experience. The audience reaction. The surround sound. The dark. The smell of overpriced popcorn. Sadly, my theater-going excursions have drastically diminished over the last couple of years. I don't mind being more selective about which movies I go see, but, dang it, sometimes I just want to BE at the movies.

4. THE LUNCH DATE
Back before I knew how much money I was wasting on eating out, I never gave it a second thought to have dinner with a cousin or my dad or call up my mom and say, "Hey, how 'bout lunch!" Now I have to plan weeks in advance for these sorts of things, if I can afford them at all!

5. I NEED MORE USEFUL STUFF
Not useLESS stuff. UseFULL stuff. Dani and I budget for everything—well, we try to—but even still there's some things that there's just no way to budget for right now. Stuff like bicycles, kayaks, power tools, and games for entertaining friends, are just impossible to find money for when you're trying to break free of debt.

6. WHEN I FEEL LIKE BENG ALL ROMANTIC
When the wifey and I were dating, it was fun to buy her flowers and chocolates and cards and things like that. Now that we're married we find that although that stuff isn't as essential to building intimacy and romance as it once was, it's still fun every now and then. With such limited flexibility in our budget,  however, it's hard to justify spending $30 on a bouquet of flowers.

7. TREATING OTHERS TO SOME FUN
I would love to have extra cash to treat my little nephews to some ice cream, or take some friends out for a round of mini-golf. Assuming the financial burden on behalf of someone else so they can have some free fun is, personally, a lot of fun! And I miss being able to do that.

8. MR. FIX-IT, I AM NOT
At the very mention of something breaking down I get this hot little knot in my chest. I hate engines. I hate plumbing. I hate repairing things. I'm not good at it. I would much rather pay someone else to do the fixing and make sure the job is done right than waste hours of my own time bumbling through something that a professional can do in 10 minutes. Dealing with stressful repairs while on a tight budget means finding ways to bury that hot little knot and fix it myself.

9. FOOD IS MORE COMPLICATED ON A BUDGET
Sometimes I have a tiring day at work. Sometimes the wife does too. Sometimes, when we're both exhausted and it's 90 degrees outside and neither of us feel like making anything I want to just make the executive decision to bring home a pizza. Mmmmm yea.... no. Not in the budget. Sigh.

10. "GET ME OUTTA HERE!"
There's a hilarious scene in the movie "Happy Gilmore" where Adam Sandler's character Happy is bringing his grandmother to a nursing home.

"This place is perfect!" Happy says as they roll up the driveway. "You're going to make friends in no time."

Suddenly a crazed-looking woman throws herself onto the hood of the car and screams desperately, "Mister! Get me outta here!"

And that's kind of how I feel sometimes when all this penny pinching starts to get on my nerves. One eye kind of goes askew. My face contorts. And I'm tempted to run up to total strangers and beg them to help me get free.

And now, if you don't mind, I'm just going to pick my tongue up, hop off my soapbox, and wander to a small little corner to weep.

Keep pinchin' :-)

Our New Music Video Is A Parody... I Mean Satire... Whichever Is Legal

Let It Go: A Penny Pinching Parody

Yeah. We went there.

We even tried to monetize our "Let It Go" parody video, but apparently that's, um... illegal. Even though everyone else in the world seems to be getting away with it.

But are they really?

Even though it seems like all those video parodies on YouTube of the inexplicably popular song "Let It Go," from Disney's Frozen, are generating money, they're actually not... well, at least not for the user.

Legally, you can't monetize satire. Satire is when you take something copyrighted like a song or a movie or a book and rework it to make fun of or critique something else. Our new video, "Let It Go: A Penny Pinching Parody," is technically satire because we're taking an established song and making fun of our penny pinching lifestyle. In fact most of the "Let It Go" videos on YouTube are probably considered more satire.

Parody, on the other hand, is when you take something copyrighted and use it to make fun of the thing itself. You could call a parody "critique," and therefore consider it fair use under copyright law, which allows for the use of copyrighted material "for critique and review." In court, you might be able to get away with an argument for parody, but not so much with satire, especially if you're trying to make money off it. (Wikipedia has a great article explaining all of this in Layman's terms, if you're curious.)

But it's deceptive when you see all these bloody parodies on YouTube with millions of views and advertisements. It looks like the creators of the video are getting rich. But they're not.

Guess who is though.

YouTube.

That's right. Even though a parody video can fall under fair use, YouTube doesn't want to take the chance of getting wrapped up in a law suit, so they forbid the monetization of parodies. However, once a video starts generating a certain number of hits, YouTube automatically begins placing ads on your content. YouTube then delivers a portion of that revenue to its advertising partners, but it keeps a massive chunk. YOU, on the other hand, don't get a cent!

A December 2013 article from Advertising Age indicated that YouTube is expected to record $5.6 billion in gross revenue this year. That's a 51% increase from 2012, and a large part of it has to do with the growing increase of parodies. YouTube has got to be making a planet-sized load of cash off "Let It Go" alone!

Five point six billion dollars.

If you let each word slowly roll off your tongue enough times you can actually hear the sound of your entire body groaning in disgust.

"How can they get away with this?" you ask.

The simple pessimistic answer is: YouTube is owned by Google, which pretty much has more "I do what I wunna" power than the President. If an artist sues them for allowing videos of their copyrighted work on the internet, Google, with its universe encompassing control, will just erase their very existence from the space time space continuum. Ctrl + Alt + Delete.

There's not much an ant can do against a boot.

Anyway, enjoy the video!

A Brush With Bambi - Fully Illustrated!

I never saw the deer coming. All I heard was the sound it made as it connected with 75mph of moving steel. I saw an explosion of hair tufts and dirt and its mangled body being tossed up over the hood of the tow truck that hit it, but that was all. It was over in about two seconds.

Me in my Mr. Miyagi car minding my own business.

The "Dwayne The Rock Johnson" of tow trucks coming up behind me.

It was Monday morning, June 2, 2014. I was on my way to work when I saw the tow truck coming up behind me. It was a thick beast of a truck, kind of like what Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson might look like if he were a Transformer. The truck was moving pretty fast, too—but, then again, I'm on this whole "how much gas can I save?!" kick so I was only doing about 58mph in a 65mph zone. Still, The Rock truck must've been doing 70 or 75.

The Rock moved into the left lane to pass me. I had plenty of time to see if a deer was coming before the truck obscured my view of the roadside, so when that animal came bounding up onto the highway it must've been bookin' it, otherwise I'm pretty sure I would've seen it. When the two connected The Rock jolted from bumper to bumper. The truck slowed and I pulled ahead of it, glancing back to see if the driver was ok. The truck wasn't even dented, and a moment later it sped back up and went on its way.

Bambi was dead on impact. At least I hope she was. In my 32 years of living in New England I've had more close encounters with roadside deer than any other animal. They are creatures of darkness, more dangerous to man's highway travels than any other force of nature.

Bambi always looks innocent until she's leaping in front of your car.

"The Rock" truck turns Bambi into an aerial acrobat at 75mph.

So, first, a confession. I'm embarrassed to admit that it took a couple minutes for it to even occur to me that at the speed that deer was moving it would've crossed into my lane and right into my windshield had that tow truck not been there. That tow truck came at just the right time. Chances are my little Suzuki would not have fared as well as The Rock—my CX4 is more akin to Mr. Miyagi from The Karate Kid; it's a tough little nut, but it's no match for 125 pounds of charging animal.

It got me thinking of how many other times God chooses to protect me and I don't even know it. How many times does a car problem or a delay at work or an ignored alarm clock keep me from harm? How many things does God do behind the scenes to protect me?

I think I almost take it for granted, because—ok, second confession—I didn't even think to thank the Lord for his protection until later that afternoon. When I finally did I felt ashamed and humbled, but extremely grateful for His grace.

I know He doesn't always choose to protect us, but many times He does. Do we take it for granted?

Keep pinchin' :-)

The Story Behind "Drowning in the Basement"

If you asked either of us where "rapping" fell on the list of Crazy Things We're Going To Do As A Married Couple, we'd both probably say: "Nowhere." Because it never would have occurred to either of us that it would ever happen. But we had so much fun creating "The Penny Pinching Rap"—which talk show host Katie Couric called an "ode to Dave Ramsey"—that we wanted to make another one.

We considered a variety of topics—married life, my motorcycle, an ice cream cone that fell on the ground—but when the topic of our flooded basement kept coming up Dani finally said that we had to do a rap about that.

Which comes first—music or words? For me it's always words. For two reasons:

1. I'm a writer. I like words.


2. I don't know jack about music.

After penning a first verse and a bunch of lines for a couple choruses, I couldn't think of a second verse. I presented my problem to Dani and said, "The only thing I can think of is you talking about how impossible it is to find someone who knows how to fix basements."

And she said, "There you go! Just have me a tell the story."

I created the music in Apple's GarageBand (because that's how sophisticated I am), and then we recorded our vocals, completed the audio track, and finally filmed the video.

People have already remarked about how they're delighted to see that we can take a stressful thing like a flooded basement and make fun of it. In truth, that's pretty much all we can do. We have a sump pump that works hard at controlling the incoming water, but our house sits right on top of the moisture bed and so water flows through our basement almost like a stream sometimes. When it rains hard, that poor sump pump runs almost all day. We can't afford to perform the exterior drainage work required to permanently fix the problem, not now anyway, but as long as it's under control we can live with it.

In the meantime we might as well just have fun and laugh because there's too much life to enjoy to get bent out of shape over spilled milk... er, water. So until our next major life event that inspires another rap video, we hope everyone gets a kick out of "Drowning in the Basement!"


Keep pinchin' :-)

Our New Rap Video: "Drowning in the Basement"

As we've mentioned in previous posts, our basement has enjoyed anywhere from 2-to-20 inches of standing water for the last 16 months. In celebration of our frustration, we present the follow-up to our hit music video "The Penny Pinching Rap" with "Drowning in the Basement!" Enjoy!

A Sneak Preview of Our Upcoming Rap Video

So the hubster and I have been busy the past few weeks trying to record our newest rap video, "Drowning in the Basement." Initially when we did "The Penny Pinching Rap" we decided we would only do one a year because it is a very time consuming process to write lyrics, record vocals, record the video, and then put it all together. Ultimately we just had too much fun making it, so we are back for round two.

Hopefully we will have it all ready for its debut later this week, but until then enjoy this little slow-mo sneak peak, and try to figure out what I'm saying. Any guesses can be left in the comments.

Keep pinchin' ... or in this case Keep rappin'! :-)