The Sexiest Women on TV #35-31
Onto day 2 of the list as we continue to push forward. We have to finish the ones who just aren't quite hot enough to crack into the top 30



35. Stacy Farber, Degrassi: The Next Generation, The N

- Possibly the youngest woman on the list (I'm too lazy to check), the 21 year old Farber plays Ellie on the Canadian teen drama. She almost became a huge stateside star as she was one of the finalists for the lead role in Juno. She lost out however to the funny, but less hot Ellen Page. But Farber gets to make this list which has to count for something.



34. Rose Byrne, Damages, FX

- This sexy 29 year old Australian import has made waves playing lawyer Ellen who is harassed by Patty Hewes on the FX drama. Byrne made her name overseas before coming across the pond and starring in Knowing and 28 Weeks Later. The biggest hit of her career so far has clearly been the FX drama which is confusing with all its twists but there is no confusing this fact- Byrne is extremely sexy.




33. Sprague Grayden, 24, FOX

- 28 year old Grayden has made a career being in numerous tv series (John Doe, Six Feet Under, and Jericho.) Recently though she has been on the FOX drama playing the First Daughter and the hint of evil streak she has just enhances her sexiness. To me though it's all about Jericho with her where she played a plucky schoolteacher who helped build wind turbines and negotiated trades for her town. That and her eyes.



32. Navi Rawat, Numb3rs, CBS

- The 31 year old of biracial descent is most known for her role on FOX teen drama The O.C. However lately she has been sexying up the geek fueled CBS show making it ok to watch (if you ignore the really stupid plots.) The most intriguing piece of work- to me- is her film Feast which was a part of the Project Greenlight series. The casting director was a friend of hers so she pushed for Navi in the role. She even ignored the director's casting and gave her the part. If they were looking to cast someone to get men's heart rates pumping then mission accomplished




31. Rashida Jones, Parks and Recreation, NBC

- 33 year old Jones has been on numerous tv shows over the years which include Boston Public, Unhitched, and The Office. She also had some hilarious guest spots on Chappelle's Show. Currently though she is on the NBC mid-season series which is looking to get a full season pick-up. Hopefully it does so we get more of Jones. Even if you disagree with me keep in mind she has a great family pedigree as her dad is famed music producer Quincy Jones.
- posted by Brian @ 4/30/2009 05:20:00 PM

 
The Sexiest women on TV #40-36
So after much delay the list is finally ready to get up on here of the sexiest women on TV, in my opinion. TV Guide does an issue every year where they talk about sexy TV stars but they weigh it down with men as well (and who wants that). Years ago my friend and I did a top 20 sexy women on TV list and this year I flew solo with it.

Now a few rules:

1.) I tried to use women that are only on actual shows and not reality series (so sorry Lauren Conrad, Ivanka Trump, etc)

2.) I tried to only use women on shows that are still currently on TV. They may be on hiatus but they are coming back in some instances. (So sorry Anna Friel, Kristin Chenoweth, etc)

3.) I'm also going to post 5 at a time because 10 or 20 at a time would get pretty cumbersome to scroll through. Plus I like having roughly two weeks worth of material.

4.) No I do not watch all the shows these women are on. I familiar with teh shwos but not necessarily with what they are about.

5.) With each pick you'll get the vitals like age and the show and network it is on.

6.) Why 40? Well I couldn't get it to 50 and 42 (the number I was at) doesn't sound right.

Without any further adieu- on with the list




40. Maggie Lawson, Psych, USA Network

- This 28 year old from Louisville, Kentucky plays a cop and foil for Gus and Shawn on the USA hit comedy. This after a few failed sitcoms like Inside Schwartz and It's All Relative Wouldn't mind being arrested by her

39. Jodi Lyn O'Keefe, Prison Break, FOX

- This 30 year old got her start in the late 90's during the teen movie craze which included turns in She's All That and Whatever It Takes. She also did a few Maxim magazine type spreads. Currently she plays the very power hungry- and sexy- Gretchen on the Fox drama which is nearing the end of its run

38. Kaitlin Olson, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia, FX

- Bit parts were all this 33 year old could get until she landed the female lead on the hilarious FX comedy which just completed its 4th season. On the show she mixes sexy and crazy to new degrees of hotness.

37. Ginnifer Goodwin, Big Love, HBO

- The youngest wife of polygamist Bill Hendrickson is played by the 30 year old Goodwin. Most recently she started finding success outside of the show playing the lead role in the smash He's Just Not That Into You. On her main show though she plays wife Margene with a childlike innocence that is sexy in its vulnerability.


36. Ali Larter, Heroes, NBC

- 33 year old Larter got her start as a fictitious model in Esquire magazine 15 years ago. From there she landed roles in the smash movies Varsity Blues, Final Destination, and Legally Blonde. Currently she is seen on the trouble superhero show where she plays a dual role as a person suffering from DID.


35-31 is coming tomorrow
- posted by Brian @ 4/29/2009 05:11:00 PM

 
The Post with my weekend recap
The weekend is gone and I didn’t do my blog post this weekend as promised. I was busy doing other things and just didn’t finish it. This week I will- I swear it. I like to wait until things aren’t timely anymore. At this point the TV Guide sexiest issue came out like 3 weeks ago which invalidates my list. But I am not deterred by the lateness. Actually I’m trying to cut the women down from like 40 to either 30 or 25. If I can get it to 35 though I may just go with that. Maybe I’ll just go with 40 though. Who knows? It’s a mystery even to me.

Friday night I hit the gym and spent a little extra time than normal there. I did the treadmill for about 35 minutes which was 3.35 miles. I then did the stair treadmill for another 7 minutes which was about .60 miles. For those that have never done that machine I highly recommend that to get in shape. The stair treadmill is exactly what it sounds like- a treadmill that is steps instead of a flat surface. Imagine walking over a half mile up a flight of steps at varying speeds. I don’t care what kind of shape you are in- that is strenuous activity. Then as I was finishing the one guy I talk with there was starting on the elliptical. He asked if I had 20 minutes left in the tank so we could bullshit about the NFL Draft. The Phillies were one so I sucked it up and went another 20 minutes on the elliptical despite my better judgment.

Got home then and turned on the Phillies game. Had to give the dog a bath and he absolutely hates that. So after having him fuss for a while it finally got going. He was clean and annoyed but it made him smell much better than he did before that. Watched the Phillies game and had a few drinks. Did some other things and then crashed into bed around 11:45.

The dog was up around 5:30 so my day began then which kind of sucked. I went to Wal-Mart to get in my shopping and it was pretty nice to be there at 8 am as the place wasn’t full yet. I cleaned up a whole bunch of magazines in my room and threw away like 100 magazines that I accumulated over the years. Mostly FHM and Maxim magazines that I just had no use for anymore. There are a bunch scattered throughout the house yet though that I need to find and decide what to keep and dispose of. I’ve gradually been trying to clean up things in my room that take up a ton of space. The videos went a little while ago (with another bag probably in my room yet, and the magazines went this weekend. Not sure what else I can dump but I’m trying.

Headed outside then because I needed to do some work at my car. I also wanted to vacuum the interior and put the dash protector stuff on. I had washed my car the other week but didn’t do all that interior stuff so this was a little bit of catch-up. After that I broke out the mower and cut the back yard. That took some time as I did everything behind the shed with the riding mower and then used the push mower to do everything from the shed up to the house. Took about 2 and a half hours when everything was all said and done. I also got a little bit of a sunburn from being out cutting yard all day.

After that I went in and got a shower. Headed to Zern’s then to get my oranges for the week. Also picked up an order of fried cauliflower from the fried veggie stand there. Then I headed up to Rita’s and got a gelati for later that evening. After that it was pretty much a night of nothing but sports and beer. I was watching the Flyers game (they found a way to blow a 3-0 lead to lost the series). Then I was watching the NFL Draft (some surprises but overall it held the chalk of what people though would happen) and flipping to the Red Sox-Yankees game (fantastic game that was a bunch of fun to watch). I also made the pizza I had put together and drank a bunch of alcohol. At 7 I turned over to the Phillies game and watched that for the rest of the night periodically flipping back to the draft. Buddy and I then went into bed around 10:45. We didn’t get much sleep though because it was so stinkin’ hot and he was upset that the trucks were leaving Grandview and traveling up the road. We did eventually sleep.

Buddy was up around 6 am so my day began at that point. Did a load of laundry and then headed into Sunday School to do my teaching gig. After that I came home and watched The Three Stooges. I then helped dad unload the camper when he got home since he busted his hand up at work. I watched the Phillies game and then headed to my first softball game. We played really badly and ended up losing 16-10. We had more errors in the field than we scored runs. That is a recipe for disaster in slow pitch softball. This is the first year we went into the competitive league and I enjoy it much more. In the other league we were winning games 34-2 which is just not fun. Win or lose if games or close I’m having a good time. People can field in this league which is the biggest difference I see so far. There are some adjustments to be made but we should be fine.

After that I headed home and took a shower and ate dinner. I watched some TV but I dozed off during Celebrity Apprentice. I woke up about 25 minutes later and thought, “I should tape this,” but then figured no I can stay up. Next thing I knew it was 3:30 am and I just went back to sleep until 6:30. Now I’m here at work.

I needed a mental health weekend badly. Last week sucked big time at work- and the past few weeks have been shitty in general. So a nice weekend of relaxing with my dog, some cigars, and alcohol was perfect. I was by myself and just didn’t worry about anything. Like I said on my facebook, “ I got my dog, a fridge full of beer, and plenty of sports on the tv..only a good woman is missing and since that ain’t happening anytime soon this is as good as it gets.” Truly was. I feel ready to kick ass again. Wonder how long it takes before that will is sucked from me again
- posted by Brian @ 4/27/2009 02:08:00 PM

 
The Post with my weekend recap
Another good weekend has come and gone. And it was another very long weekend.
Friday I left work and headed back home for a little bit because I had a huge downtime until the first movie started. I watched some of the Harry Kalas tribute on CSN which really made me sad. I’ll write more about that later this week. I wanted to do it this past week but I got busy and never felt up to writing something about it. Now with the passage of time I’m ok in writing something. So that should be coming later this week. I also have a list coming- hopefully this weekend. TV Guide recently had their sexiest TV stars issue. It’s basically just pictures of the hottest women (and men) on TV. Then a week later people write in and complain calling it smut while others say, “How could you leave off ___?” So anyway, I decided I’m an authority on this and I will put up my list of the sexiest women on TV. Might be 20, might be 25- it depends on how ambitious I feel this coming weekend as I enjoy the NFL draft, Phillies baseball, and the continuation of the NBA and NHL playoffs.

After some watching of the festivities I headed back to the movies making a quick stop at Rita’s to get a Banana Split Cream gelati. After that I headed back to my movie double shot. The first film on tap was Crank: High Voltage which was about as fun and ridiculous as a movie can be. Within the first 2 minutes of the film you realize this thing is going to be silly. And man does it only get sillier from there. They flash words on the screen at various times for no apparent reason. Bai Ling is delightfully annoying as an Asian hooker. Amy Smart is way hot in her role as a stripper. The Pedro kid from Napolean Dynamite is hilarious in his role. And Jason Statham just kicks all different kinds of ass like he normally does. The way the movie is filmed too is jarring at times but visually looks great. Instead of having big regular movie cameras they went and bought a bunch of DV/high def cams and treated them like pawns in some weird game. The cameras get thrown around which gives you all kinds of angles, and shots that no film shot with a movie camera would ever get. Just a really good, stupid, fun time for 90 minutes. What more can you ask for?

After that I moved into State of Play starring Russell Crowe, Ben Affleck, and Rachel McAdams. A fantastic film. Just great all across the board. The acting was top notch and Affleck held his own against Crowe. The story is really good and there are enough twists that you are never quite sure where the film is going. Then it gets there and then it whips you down a new path. Honestly the twists in the script you won’t see coming (unless you saw the BBC series it was apparently based on). The twists felt authentic too. They weren’t just there for the sake of it. They actually made sense in the context of events that were happening. Highly recommended film.

Went home afterwards and caught some shut eye.

Saturday I got up around 7:30 so I could go help a buddy do some moving. We only had 3 guys but we were busting a little bit and we got a pretty good amount of things done. We filled up a 10 x 24 foot storage locker. And by filled up I mean we used every inch of floor space we possibly could. The boxes and stuff are piled probably 4 to 5 feet high at least. You couldn’t get anything more in that storage shed unless you wanted to carry thing up and down a ladder. You’d be an idiot to want to do that though. We then filled up about half of a 10 x 10 foot locker. The first load we took we did a good job of stacking stuff on and that gave us room to get some furniture on a second load to take over. Took most of the day but it was really nice out so it was a good day to get the work done.

Came home then and showered and ate dinner. I was going to do something Saturday night but plans fell through so I just hung at home and watched the Phillies game. They lost which made me wish I hadn’t watched the Phillies game. Oh well I suppose. Got to bed a little after 11:30 which was good considering how much sleep I got last
night (foreshadowing!!)

Sunday morning I got up and headed into Sunday School to get my teaching in. After that I came home and did some things around the house while I watched The Three Stooges on CW. I still love the Stooges. I could watch them for hours on end.
Around 2:30 I left the house for my night of Greatness. I’ve made some friends online that are interested in the same goofy geek thing I am and there was a pay per view last night at the Liacouras Center in Philly on the campus of Temple. I drove down to the airport and met up with two guys so we could go to dinner and meet 3 other people and go to the event. We grabbed dinner at Moriarity’s Pub in Philadelphia and the food was pretty good. Beer was good too although I can’t see how anyone could drink a lot of it. At one time that is. Over time have at it. After that we trekked up Broad Street and got to the center for the show. Really good pay per view from the little promotion. It was their all cage match show so inherently it has it’s flaws. On the whole though it was a fine show and I had an enjoyable time.

Afterwards we spent the most time I’ve ever spent in a parking garage leaving there. It seriously took an hour to get out of the parking garage. It was just horrible. We got back to the one couple’s hotel and we recorded a video recapping the event for our friends and then around 1:45 we called it a night. Until I got the guys back to the hotel and got home it was 3:15. I just crashed into bed around 3:30 and got roughly 3 hours of sleep before getting up for work. I sit here now barely functional. Also, I have almost no voice. I was talking fine last night until about 7:55. After that the next time I spoke I just sounded really hoarse. I have no upper register in my voice so everything is spoken in a bass like monotone which makes me sound strange. Stranger than normal. I can’t wait til I can take a nap and get a full night’s sleep.

But even though I’m dying for some sleep I’m at work and typing this for you all. That’s the kind of dedication you get from me
- posted by Brian @ 4/21/2009 02:21:00 PM

 
The Post with my weekend recap
A fun long weekend. Needed the extra day off although I ended the weekend extremely tired.

Thursday night I kicked it off by getting to the gym and having a nice little workout. Came home then showered and ate dinner. Thursdays are trivia night and we decided to just stick with what we know. Trivia was packed and they played too much music which led to only 4 rounds rather than 5. I got to bed around 1 hoping to get a decent night sleep.

However, I can't sleep for shit anymore so I was up around 7:30. I watched some stuff on my new computer (which is fucking awesome BTW) and then quick gave my car a wash. Usually I like to hit the car wash after snow season but with the potential of rain I wasn't going to waste my money at the car wash. After that I hit the gym and did about 90 minutes there before heading home. Came home and did my best to fix mom's laptop. Got it mostly fixed although there seems to be some small glitch still I can't figure out.

I then watched the Phillies game which quickly made me realize I shouldn't have watched the Phillies game.

Friday night was 80's night and we hit it up like we always do. However, it was jam packed this time and there was basically no room to move or do anything. On top of that people on the dance floor kept backing into you and just generally not respecting a persons space. So I had to get off the dance floor and spent a majority of my night standing at the wall and talking with people. I think it was full because college is on break and there were a lot of college kids there. I hope that was the case because if it's going to be that full from now on I might find a different place to hit from now on.

Got to bed around 2:45 and again because I sleep like shit was up around 9:00. Got dressed and headed over to Boscov's because they were having a sale on footwear. If you bought a pair of shoes you could get a second pair of equal or lesser value for 1 dollar. So I got a pair of sneakers and new dress shoes for 70 dollars. Not bad prices as the similar stuff at Kohl's would've cost me around 85 dollars (obviously both at regular price.)

After that I came home and did some things around the house before going out for my buddy's bachelor party. Great night as we had about 20 people who hit up dinner and then did a ton of beer drinking before calling it a night around 2 am. Nice 9 hour bachelor party. We ate back at the Horsepower Grille and apparently ate the place out of ribs on all you can eat night. We then hit a bunch of places to drink alcohol and party.

Sunday morning I did sleep and woke up around 10:20 which meant I missed Easter service- kind of figured that would happen. I got up and showered and got dressed and met the family at the old folks home for Easter dinner. Good meal at the home as they had ham, strawberry stuffed french toast, salmon, potatoes, carrots, and sausage. For dessert they had apple fritters, cake, jell-o and ice cream.

We hung around with Grammy for a while and then headed home. I watched the Phillies play and finished cataloging my DVD collection. I currently own 449 DVD's which is probably way too many but whatever.

Watched some tv and then headed off to bed.

Yesterday was a bit of a bummer with the news about Harry Kalas which I'll write about some other time.

That was the weekend.
- posted by Brian @ 4/14/2009 06:36:00 PM

 
The Post with my weekend recap
Another weekend is in the books and we are one week closer to the end. I suppose. Sounds sort of dark I guess, but I mean it in the most light-hearted way possible.

Last week was sort of shitty so I was really looking forward to hitting the movies and just chilling out for the night. First I had a few stops to make though. Before that though I need to speak to the greatness of my new radio package on Sirius. I now have the Best of XM added along with my normal subscription so I now have the MLB channel which is like heaven to me. Friday night was the first of their season long fantasy baseball shows which will be a major help to me as I travel through my keeper league season. And yes I realize very few of you give a damn about that.....

First I stopped in at Shangy’s again and bought another case of Honey Brown as well as a case of Pig’s Eye Light. The latter is a micro brew (I think) that is actually a pretty decent beer for 12 dollars a case. Place was pretty full and there was a line to check out. Funny story though from there. ....

When you walk through the store there are cases of beer that are all around. Some are stacked in piles with a sign at the top that gives you the price. This one guy is standing in line and asks the owner, “How much does this case of Coors Light cost?” The owner looks at him and says, “I’m not sure.” The guy then rolls his eyes and says to his buddy, “Go get the price on this.” The guy takes two steps and the owner says, “I think it is 16.99.” Then the owner just smiled. Good for him. The guy got way to overdramatic about the price of the beer. Not to mention the fact that he needed to physically pick up the sign on the top of the pile to grab the case he did. So he basically held the price of the beer in his hand for a few seconds and never thought to look at it until he was in line and putting on some show. What a douche.....

I then stopped at Rita’s and grabbed a gelati. The place had my favorite which was nice- banana split cream if you care. So I ate that and then stopped at WaWa to fill up the vehicle before hitting the movies.....

The first movie I saw was Adventureland which was a really sweet, funny little film. There were some great lines in the film and the soundtrack is really great. The one thing working against the film is the fact that they keep playing up that it was directed by the guy who did, “Superbad.” That does a real disservice to the film because it is nothing like that film at all. They are both about someone trying to get laid and the awkwardness that comes with it, but that’s it. This movie is more determined to be poignant and actually say something. It works.....

After that I went into Taken which I was itching to see and I knew it was coming to a close soon. Film is a pretty good little action flick even if it is credibility stretching at times. Plus Maggie Grace has to be like 25 and is playing a 17 year old girl in this film. Really good action though.....

Stopped in at Wal-Mart and grabbed my groceries and then headed home for the evening.....

Saturday I went to the gym and got in my time. It wasn’t as much as I normally like to do on a Saturday but the missing 3 days at the beginning of last week really screwed me up. The sickness is what really did me in.....

Came home and ate lunch. I then flipped on the Phillies game and started tearing apart my old computer. The thing was dusty as hell inside. However it was fun to break out the hammer and start breaking it into little pieces. After I got that all taken care of I hooked up the new computer. The thing is just great. Plus I can now access the internet in my room which greatly enhances the computing experience. The 20” monitor is awesome as well. I can now view things in high def on it when I download the proper files for such viewing. I have the most recent episode of Friday Night Lights sitting there for me to watch. The past few days I’ve been trying to download programs and get everything on the new computer. I have downloaded just about everything I need- winamp, audacity, winrar, emule, utorrent, and divx. The only thing I still need is Instant Messenger but I’m debating if I actually want to add that or not to the computer. On one hand it would be nice to have, but on the other hand it’s nice not to have it. I’ll probably end up downloading it though at some point. I got almost all my files transferred over. There is still some stuff to do yet though.....

Sunday I went in and taught Sunday School and then came home to work at setting some more stuff up. Also Sunday was a huge day because it was Wrestlemania XXV day so I needed to mentally prepare myself for that. I broke out the Wrestlemania Anthology and went through some matches I haven’t seen in a while. Some stuff I forgot was as great as it was.....

So I ate dinner and then headed down to Frank’s for the big Wrestlemania party. We all placed our bets and settled in to watch the show. To say I did poorly would be an understatement. At one point, me and Frank’s friend Sean, were at 0-5. This after we were battling for first at the Royal Rumble show. Finally the Undertaker won and got me on the board. I ended up picking 2 of the 8 matches correctly. I suck something fierce.....

The show was pretty good though. It didn’t feel like a Wrestlemania at times as there was not a lot that will stand out. The Undertaker-Shawn Michaels match though is why I love wrestling. That match was 31 minutes of drama, and action all rolled into one. The 72,000 people at the building were going nuts for it, and the 10 people watching it at Frank’s were into it as well towards the end. MITB was good as well, and Ricky Steamboat wrestled much better than a 57 year old who hasn’t wrestled in 15 years should be able to. The Hardy boys match was fine as well but everything else was sort of just there. Definite thumbs in the middle, but a majority of that is the one match that pretty much rescued the show.....

Got home around 12:10 am and crashed.....That was the weekend
- posted by Brian @ 4/07/2009 06:07:00 PM

 
The Post with me talking about the new cigarette tax
This week saw the new cigarette tax go into effect. It’s not just A tax, but rather the largest-ever federal cigarette tax ever. It was signed into law by Barack Obama in February to help subsidize the State Children's Health Insurance Program, or SCHIP. The expansion, which will cost $35 million over five years, is expected to secure federally funded health care for an additional 4 million children. The tax represents a 62 cent hike per pack of cigarettes. That’s a pretty substantial hike. When all the new taxes are added together it works out to roughly 10 dollars more per carton of cigarettes which I guess is high.

Before I make any comments on this let me preface by saying I don’t have a problem with smokers. I have plenty of friends who do. It’s a choice they make. It doesn’t necessarily affect me one way or the other.

Yesterday I read an article as the lead story on CNN where they documented people out buying their cigarettes with the new taxes in effect. The near uniform uniformed opinion of the people interviewed I find far more reprehensible than any amount of nicotine emitted from a cigarette.

Here is a sampling of the comments, and then we will discuss why these people are wrong:

"They're picking on us poor people, the ones that smoke.”

"I think it's ridiculous. ... They're picking on smokers,"

"As old as I am, I'm not going to quit smoking, regardless of what they do."

Within the third quote lies the truth about this tax and why the smokers, and tobacco industry are being targeted. The reason they are taxing cigarettes is because people are not going to stop buying them. This despite the fact that cigarettes are a non-essential item. I guess if you wanted to argue that they are preying on people addicted to something I would listen to that argument. However, trying the “woe is the smokers” approach isn’t really a good one for the debate.

It’s a simple theory really. Let’s pretend you have 20 dollars burning a hole in your pocket, and two people ask to borrow some cash. One person you know is going to pay you back- they just don’t have their wallet right now. The other person you just aren’t sure when you’re going to see that money again. Who are you giving the 20 dollars to? Obviously you are going to give it to the person that you know will pay it back.

That’s the tax in a nutshell. Legislators know people aren’t going to stop buying cigarettes. Some might, but quotes like the last one indicate that some won’t. I would venture that the majority won’t stop. That’s why I can buy the preying on addicted people argument. (I can only buy that to a certain degree though. You run into a tricky area when you start getting into avenues of, “why are people addicted?” “No one got them addicted.”- but that’s another topic)
Also, equating smokers as poor people really doesn’t fly with me. Let’s assume the average person smokes a pack of cigarettes a day (I don’t know if that is low or high), and they are never without cigarettes. A 10 pack carton would take them 10 days to go through. That means in a normal calendar year they would buy ~36 cartons of cigarettes. According to the CNN story, the average price of a carton of cigarettes across the 50 states will now be ~49 dollars. So by plugging those numbers in: a person who smokes a pack a day, is never without cigarettes, always buys cartons, and pays the average price would spend approximately 1764.00 per year on their habit. That’s a lot of money to spend on what is basically a non-essential item.

And that is not me trying to claim some sort of moral authority over smokers. I spend money on non-essential items quite a bit. I don’t think buying games for my Nintendo Wii is particularly essential, but I’m not trying to position myself as a “poor person.”

That’s also not to say all smokers feel the same way as the people who gave quotes for the story. All those quotes mean is the people interviewed have a persecution complex and are trying to pass themselves off as some victim in a bit of political wrangling. The tax isn’t meant to pick on smokers, but if you’re not going to stop then it’s attacking the right group of people. There is one other thing they can do and it’s illustrated by this person’s quote.

"I think tobacco, alcohol, that kind of stuff should be taxed instead of gasoline and food -- things that are necessary for people to survive,"

You could probably argue that gasoline isn’t a necessity depending on where you live, but food is a necessity. I have to wonder if these smokers would still position themselves as, “poor people,” if they had to pay an extra 15 cents on a bag of Doritos. My guess is no, because everyone would be getting hit then. Simple fact is, our economy is already in a shambles and hitting everyone, including legitimately poor people, isn’t really the best plan of attack.

So the smokers feeling persecuted are going to have to make a choice: either give up their habit, and save themselves a ton of cash over the year, or keep their habit and be prepared to pony up more cash. Both decisions have their benefits, and despite what the quotes of some of these people put out there- no real losers
- posted by Brian @ 4/03/2009 01:45:00 PM