New regulation

"It is expressly unlawful to make or display any photograph of Jase Dean that does not depict at least one of his thighs."

Let's get this published in the CFR, shall we? Yes.

Sub 1: Implied, abbreviated, or obscured thigh shall be deemed acceptable when other compensating fatties factors are present.

Kovi

Damn my eyes!

As my eyeglasses prescription has urged—with increasing urgency—an update for some time now, I'm in the midst of my biennial "what the fuck" period re optometry and the optical fittings industry. Specifically, I wonder what convolutions of political circumstance have transpired to afford the industry its unique throttlehold on the myopic public. True, it's nominally just another smoky backroom of the hopelessly corrupt American health care industry, so how surprised can one be that it holds citizens—the vast majority of which will need to wear corrective lenses at some point in their lives—hostage for hundred or thousands of dollars for an item comprising mass-producible technology not much more complex than $2 reading glasses from the CVS?

I'm not talking about the optometry itself or the importance of ocular health. As someone who's been a glaucoma suspect for a few years now, I am aware how important it is to keep a regular check on one's eyes and their functioning. No, I'm talking about the showroom floor, which precisely resembles its automotive neighbor's elaborate ballet of price-gouging: EYEGLASSES $99 COMPLETE! the banners and newspaper/web ads proclaim—but when you get to the showroom floor, the four different frames available for $99 are all kept in a scorpion cage and they resemble nothing so much as torture devices of the Holy Inquisition. Buy now and we'll throw in a strappado!

Meanwhile, the rest of the store is littered with frames that have human names attached to them, which phenomenon is ostensibly meant to convince us of two propositions:

• That various enormously rich assholes, the leaders of the "fashion industry"—whose business and livelihood it is to keep other enormously rich assholes in vestments that make them hate each other with envy—have sat down at drawing pads and each made dozens upon dozens of finished drawings and proclaimed, "Voilà tout. This is what people should wear on their face"; and not only that, but that each enormously rich asshole in question does this every! single! year!; and 
• That any of the finished products are actually innovative or represent some qualitative or aesthetic improvement on last year's batch, or the year before that's, or the year before that's, or...

Then the F&I Guy shows up, to warn you that you really need to purchase these 418 contrivances. All to protect your investment, of course. Apparently the lenses themselves are made of sugar and water, because they absolutely require this coating and that coating and this other coating and goodness you can't do without this here coating and what apocalyptic woes would surely befall without you have so-and-so coating on your lenses, I shudder to utter.

At the bitter end, of course, you are saved from certain month-end cat-food dinners by The Coupon. Whether you have clipped The Coupon from the newspapaer, printed an email, or purchased a LivingSocial deal is irrelevant: The Coupon is universal, ubiquitous, immediately findable, and worth hundreds of dollars. "Take $200 off a complete pair of glasses!" the Coupon sirens, smirking through the ridiculous, insulting suggestion that precisely that amount hasn't been artificially added to the purchase price to begin with—or that we can't see through the ruse. An honest bill of particulars would look like this (irrespective of professional medical services):

Materials and manufacturing: $10.00
Overhead (store, staff, etc.): $20.00
Use of the name "Louis Vuitton": $200.00
The Coupon: ($200.00)
Net amount for which you're screwed, you stupid fuck: $500.00

Imagine the going price for a loaf of bread was $45, and the Safeway or Pathmark or Wawa or Kroger always-always-always had a coupon in the weekly circular for $42 off.

But of course, I'm going for my exam, fitting, the whole circus tomorrow. The best I can do is hit a small, local chain not owned by ExxonMobile or AT&T—at least not overtly—and refuse the 418 extras.