Stuff old people like (#6)

At some point in everyone's life, unless they die an untimely and tragic death, they get old. But how old is old? 70, 40, 25? Can you really put a number on it? How does one know when one is old?

One answer that most people seem to agree on is that when you're interested in things that old people are interested in, then you're old. But what are old people interested in? As always, I am here with the answer. Part 6 of our series, "Stuff _____ like" lists a few things that old people consider to be "the cat's pajamas."


Antiques
Ever walk into an antique store and realize the youngest person in there makes your old, haggard mother look like a spring chicken? That's because antiques are a thing of the past. Nobody cares about a little framed picture of your great-great grandma working on a spinning wheel anymore, and if anyone actually buys that old piece of crap, they probably just want to use it as a vintage beer coaster. If you're into antiques, chances are you are an antique yourself.

The modern-day replacement for antiques is the act of antiquing, which means throwing a large quantity of flour on an unexpecting person. If you are the victim of an act of antiquing, do not look at it as a cruel prank, but instead look at it as a thoughtful homage to past generations.

For only a few hundred dollars of your hard-earned money, you can be the proud owner of a whole cart full of this useless old crap!

CDs
See above. In today's world, compact discs are like ancient Egyptian pottery or ancient Greek sculpture: good for showing your friends you are cultured and knowledgeable about history, but otherwise completely and utterly useless. If you don't have an iPod by now, you probably don't have much time to listen to music anyway with your busy schedule of bingo, shuffleboard, bridge, and AARP/VFW/Elks Lodge meetings. CDs are so 2002.

John McCain
Hanging around old people will make you look old. John McCain is very, very old. If you hang out with him, talk about him, or campaign for him, people will think that you are also very old. Case in point: Sarah Palin is 44 years old, or as most people would refer to it, "middle aged." A survey released in early 2008 before she was chosen to be McCain's running mate showed that the average American thought she was 41 years old. A survey released in October 2008, however, showed that the average American thought that Palin was 137.


NOTE: 100% of the 2% of 60-and-over voters who voted for Obama answered either "Yes" or "Eh? What did you say, sonny?" to the follow-up question, "Are you in denial about the fact that you are old?"

Handkerchiefs
Nobody carries a handkerchief around anymore. If you do, or if you even use the word "handkerchief" for any reason other than to mock someone else's antiquity, you will appear to be a dinosaur.

Anything having to do with the show "Happy Days"
If you still watch or refer to anything having to do with this show, you probably also have some great stories to tell about hunting woolly mammoths as a young lad. News flash: Henry Winkler (the guy who played "The Fonz") is 63. Hell, he was old when he starred in "The Waterboy," and that came out over 10 years ago. Imitating or quoting The Fonz in any way, even something as simple as snapping your fingers while saying "Aaaay!" will reveal you as the geezer that you are to all observers.

"'Aaaay!' sonny! Could you hand me my handkerchief? It fell on the floor and I can't reach it because of my bad back!"

Neil Young
This is a tricky one. Judging by his name, you would never suspect that Neil Young is actually old. But the truth is that he is really old, as in 63 years old, or the same age as Henry Winkler. He's also Canadian. Do not make the mistake of thinking that you can judge a person by his or her last name. Is Jack Black black? Is Barry White white? Does Britney Spears stab people with long, pointed objects? Does Tiger Woods use woods (a type of golf club)? Is Martin Short short? Ok, never mind those last two.

"Rockin' in the Free World"? Maybe in 1967. Nowadays the only rockin' "Neil OLD" does is in a chair on his front porch.

Revised presidential projection

Oops. Looks like we were a bit premature in calling Bob Barr the next U.S. President. Apparently it seems that U.S. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) has won the election. In an extremely close race, Obama has defeated Barr in the popular vote, 52.4% to 0.4%, as well as in the electoral vote, 364 to 0.

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama
(who we now project will narrowly defeat Bob Barr)

The key outcome of this election is a shift in power from George W. Bush of the Dumb Redneck Party to Barack Obama of the Radical Communist Hippie Party. Bob Barr, the candidate supported by the Good Presidents Party, will apparently have to wait until 2012 to run again.

What exactly happened to cause this unexpected outcome, you may ask? One word: COMPLACENCY. Going into election, most polls predicted that Bob Barr would garner (the verb, not Jennifer) between 85% and 90% of the national popular vote. However, when people actually went to the polls, a strange thing that historians may someday refer to as "The Barr Effect" took place: Everyone assumed that everyone else was going to vote for Bob Barr, so they tried to get cute. At this point, approximately 99% of voters thought one of the following thoughts: "My vote doesn't matter anyway, so wouldn't it be awesome if I voted for that guy whose middle name is Hussein who supposedly pals around with terrorists?" or "Dude, everyone else is already voting for Barr, but it would be pretty sweet if I voted for that old geezer who called his wife a trollop that one time." or "Screw it, all of these candidates suck. I'm just going to write-in Ronald McDonald again."

And at this fateful moment, a tragedy of the commons like never before unfolded.

The rest is history.

"Buffalo This" salutes President Barack Obama. Better luck next time, Bob.

And the next president is... BOB BARR!

This is the moment you've all been waiting for. Today, November 4, is Election Day in the United States of America, and based on early results, "Buffalo This" officially declares that this race is in the books and we can safely declare the winner to be the Libertarian candidate, former U.S. Representative from Georgia's 7th district BOB BARR!

The 44th U.S. President, Bobbert L. "Bob" Barr
(Fun Fact: the mustache is real and it is awesome)

To get an idea of how this happened, let's take a look at the voting results from several key U.S. states:

Alaska
This is Sarah Palin country through and through. Screw McCain - as you've seen in the news, Palin has gone "rogue" and is hoping to pick up some electoral votes of her own. With 97% of precincts reporting, the Alaska vote currently stands at:
Palin 44% (all write-ins)
Obama 28%
McCain 27%
Barr 1%

I think we can safely call this one for "Caribou Barbie."

California
This historically blue state was expected to provide 55 easy electoral votes for Barack Obama. The results so far, however, have been fairly surprising. This year, California implemented a new voting system where each voter simply writes the first three letters of the candidate's name. On the ballot, the example provided is: "If you wanted to vote for Ichiro Suzuki, you would write 'Ich.'" Of course in Japanese the last name comes first, so the voters should know that they are supposed to write first three letters of the last name of the candidate rather than the first name. With 93% of precincts reporting, the results are as follows:
"Bar" 57%
"Joh" 34%
"Ich" 8%
"Bob" 1%

These results have been translated into the following outcome:
Bob Barr 57%
Scarlett Johansson 34%
Ichiro Suzuki 8%
John Bobbitt 1%

This looks like a definite 55 electoral votes for Bob Barr, despite impressive third-party showings from Johansson and Ichiro, who somehow failed to receive even 0.001% of the vote in any other state.

Ohio
Unfortunately they forgot to un-rig the voting machines here after the 2004 election. As a result, George W. Bush is expected to defeat John Kerry by the slimmest of margins, of 51% to 49%.

Texas
Like California, this reliably red state also instituted an innovative new voting method for the 2008 elections. Instead of picking a candidate using traditional voters, Texans must pick the symbol for the candidate or party they support. The three choices this year, excluding minor-party candidates were a donkey (Democrat), an elephant (representing Babar, i.e. Bob Barr), and Sarah Palin hunting wolves from a helicopter (Republican). With 99% of precincts reporting, it looks like the results are as follows:
Elephant 45% (see right)
Donkey 42%
Palin hunting wolves 12%

Despite the fact that Obama has made a surprisingly strong showing here, enough results are in that we can confidently call this one for Bob Barr. That's 34 more electoral votes if you're keeping score at home.

Utah
This super-conservative Mormon State was considered solid McCain territory until early this morning, when the Barr campaign released a statement that Joseph Smith himself had just descended from the heavens to endorse Bob Barr. Since then, Barr has taken a commanding lead with 89% of the overall vote in this state.


As you can see in the below electoral map, Bob Barr has won this election in a landslide. Obama, once considered the front-runner, carried only his home state of Illinois, his birth state of Hawaii, and two super-hippie New England states, Vermont and Massachusetts. McCain, who many also thought was likely to pick up a fair share of electoral votes, won only his home state of Arizona and Florida, where there are a lot of old people, who often name the #1 quality they look for in a leader as "not plastering on the make-up like a trollop."

Final Electoral Vote totals:
Barr 438
Obama 40
McCain 37
Bush 20
Palin 3

Well, it looks like America has spoken. All hail President Barr!