Sheepville

Sheepville is back

2011-05-14T19:17:00.000-07:00

I've moved my blog (and other fluff) back to sheepville.

Zynga Poker

2010-05-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

The place is full of idiots. If Zynga showed the true chip count of people including all of the chips they had to purchase no one would buy chips because it would show the millions in the hole they really are. You can spot these people easily just looking at chip count - they have 15k chips and once had a million plus. You slap a fish over their head and play them accordingly.

I was first introduced to Texas Hold'em as a teenager which sounds a bit odd until you realize my first job in life I worked for a bookie. In the 80s I started playing a poker game room on an online service called Delphi. It is the closest I have ever come to an online version being comparable to a real money game. You could not buy chips and there were no free chips. If you lost all you had then you went back to where you started, a once a day 100 chips from the game and play what we called the bot table, another words the computer. It was a long road building a chip stack and you paid by the hour to do so. I was well into six figures but even I rarely played the no-limit room because it was a huge risk if you brought your chips and if you brought a small stack you'd be eaten alive.

In Zynga being able to buy millions of chips for a few bucks completely changes the game. People play for the thrill of pulling the flush or something on the last card and sneaking in the win. With pocket aces against a table you have slightly less than a 50/50 chance to win. In Zynga people constantly go all in with crap like 10 3 off-suit, which means half the time some idiot is going to beat you doing that. They don't care, that 20k chips cost like 5 cents. Any good player knows you play tight to a loose table to win, and these tables are looser than $5 crack whores, but it is still a game of luck. My luck got so bad over the last few days that I started considering folding pocket aces. One hand I had pocket aces, another ace pops on the flop, fish goes all in, I of course oblige him. The flop also had two clubs. He had Jack 7 off-suit with the 7 as a club. The turn and the river both dropped a club, so he win with a flush. Joy.

The nice thing about these fish though is they all have one thing in common, they will pay anything to attempt to fill a straight or flush. Their play also never takes odds into consideration. An example of what will inevitably happen is I have 7 8 suited diamonds in the hole. Most everyone sees the $200 call for the flop. Two diamonds flop. Bozo the fish has to bet so bets another $200 seeing two diamonds and he has the ace of diamonds in the hole. At this point I know the following:

There are 9 diamonds possible out of the 47 unknown cards, so 9:47 or a little worse than 1:5 chance the next card will be a diamond and give me a flush. The pot is going to be about $2000 so my $200 bet will win 10 times the bet. There are no pairs on the table so placing this bet is in my favor, so I do.

The turn drops another diamond giving me my flush and there is still no pair on the table. No pair on the table is important because that means no possibility yet of a full house for someone. Bozo the fish opens with $1000 practically screaming to me he has the ace of diamonds. Bozo has now bet $1000 to win $2000 which is a bad bet in itself because he risking 1:2 and only had about a 1:5 chance to win.

I go all in with 20k because I know at this point the odds of me winning far exceed losing, so any bet on my part is a good bet. Everyone folds except Bozo who pauses a bit and hits the call button. Even if he thought I was bluffing he didn't have the hole cards to call, but he had that ace and he's hoping for a diamond on the last card. If I did flush that means 6 diamonds are gone leaving 7 which means the last card has a 7:44 chance of being a diamond or a 1:6 chance of him getting his ace high flush.

Since he called all in our cards turn up and he has that ace of diamonds and a 7 off-suit. The river drops a club, and he loses. He lost another 5 cents and I know was thinking, "yah, you're just lucky another diamond didn't drop!" And that's the deal, they just don't realize that I would have been UNLUCKY for another diamond to drop. And the real rub is with Zynga Poker it isn't unusual to have 3 or 4 fish trying thei "luck" on one hand and now there's 4 people with a 1:6 chance of getting lucky, and well, now suddenly the odds are....

Star Trek Online - Fail

2010-01-16T10:13:00.000-08:00

My first MPG was a Star Trek type game - STRSHP. 300 baud and you preferred playing it on a smart terminal over a dumb one. The guy that wrote it was a friend of mine and he won the Westinghouse Science award for it that year. I'm also a Star Trek fan. The fact I have absolutely no interest in playing this game doesn't bode well for it. There's something about 10,000 Captain Kirks running around in a Starship Enterprise that just doesn't seem like it will cut it as an MMO.

What makes a mpg successful? Game mechanics and it should have some wow factor. GemStone was by far the most popular of its day. The mechanics based on Rolemaster were sound, the environment was great and people actually roleplayed their characters, and the big quest events like Black Swan Castle were more intricate than anything else I've played since. It was almost like a second home.

The wow factor for Everquest was a stunning world design. I was on the edge of my seat trying to hunt as a young Erudite at night (you couldn't see but a small area around you your torch lit up). I remember my first run from Qeynos at night in the rain with that little torch trying to make it safely to the other side of the continent that someone had said it would be safe to do, just stay on the path. It wasn't until after I started out that someone in the guild said to watch out for hill giants. For years Everquest was a great game but unfortunantly eventually became bogged down with what turned out to be bad mechanics.

Everquest 2 never had a chance. It is by leaps and bounds the best at player housing. The player housing there is so good that I would say it is the single best feature of any MMO out there. The quest lines and lore are also very well done. Game mechanics suck and they have not improved one bit since launch. First the Alternate Advancement does very little to change your character there - it only improves attributes. I have fairly equivelent classes maxxed in both games - a warlock (pet class) in WoW and a necromancer (pet class) in EQ2. Both have pets that tank, magic dps, and melee dps.

In EQ2 if my necro gets aggro I'm toast in a couple of hits - and I'm talking about solo play. The only feasable option is to pet tank and do dps and feign death if you get aggro. Trying to use the mage or scout pets solo is so out of whack from the tank pet that you don't even bother. As for the pet void beast you get from AA, I have no clue exactly what that is good for.

In WoW my warlock can use any of her pets while soloing. There are three distinct talents trees she can choose (the WoW AA) - affliction (vampire health sucking mode), demonology (powerpet class including a felguard pet that you actually use instead of whatever that void beast is), and destruction (fireballs!). All three trees are distinctly different from each other but completely viable in solo or raid play.

Lastly is the raids - I went to an epic x 4 raid (the highest in the game) recently in EQ2. I remember more tactics being used in EQ1 than that had. The raid mechanics designs in WoW are still the best out there of any game I've played. Yeah, WoW is cartoonish, but those mechanics are the real meat of any game and is why WoW is still on top after all this time.

I have played 15 to 20 MMO's since EQ1 and I would have to say EQ1 still ranks second in design behind WoW. I wonder why some of them were even released and I wonder why it is so hard for them to actually improve and come out with a better game.

Pimp and Ho?

2009-08-13T14:15:00.001-07:00

A couple of months ago I went outside to smoke at work and this chick wanders out of the alley and comes over and bums a light off of me. This chick being a 5 foot 100 pound Asian girl wrapped up like Julia Roberts was on the street in Pretty Woman. She proceeds to tell me that she’s pissed because her boyfriend swiped $40 out of her purse. Yes, I immediately thought, “If you need $40…” She wanders off and I drool a bit more and then go over to one of the techs that was outside and saw this and was grinning ear to ear. He says, “I started to tell her she shouldn’t be talking to you dressed like that.” I’m like, “No dude, she was dressed just right!” The people I work with know me and I think his concern was for the girl.

Leaving yesterday I see her coming down the sidewalk and though she might not have much for cleavage, she was showing every bit of it she could possibly show. This time the aforementioned boyfriend seemed to be following her about 5 feet behind and looking just like a 70s pimp – hat with a feather and carrying a cane that he didn’t need but would occasionally set it on his shoulder. He was missing the mink stole but I think only because it was warm out. They went half way down the sidewalk, turned around and went back up to the corner. I’m half way home before thinking to myself, “Why in the hell didn’t you stay and see what happened?” It’s so over the top I would expect a film crew there. If I see them again I’m going to hang around and see if someone gets arrested and if not find out if that $40 she brought up is her going rate.

The winner writes the history

2009-03-18T20:46:00.000-07:00

I saw some line similar to that in something recently. I also recently saw a program on the two fast food leaders, Burger King and McDonalds. The biggest part of the program was the innovations these two giants had brought to the fast food industry. I guess the post baby boomers would assume it was fact, after all it IS television, and carry the assumptions on. No, neither of these two giants (or winners of the fast food race) were as innovative as one might believe. To me the show's biggest accomplishment was to show how history is re-written by those that survive.

If you're old enough, and not from Hawaii, you may remember Burger Chef. A little younger than McDonalds, it came along in the same year, 1954, as Burger King. Burger King's biggest innovation and what makes it stand out from the others is of course the flame broiled burger. The flame broiler was patented in 1954 and used to start the fast food restaurant Burger, umm, Chef? Yep. Though still in use today by Burger King, they didn't invent it.

Although today it's more "have it our way" 30 years ago there was a much friendlier and well known slogan Burger King used, "Have it your way." Burger King no longer has to suffer with you demanding a burger your way because you can't go to Burger Chef, order a burger "without" and wander over to the works bar and put on a dozen pickles and a stack of onions if that's what you want on your burger. The "fixins bar" (I think that was what they called it) that Burger King grudgingly put out was of course quickly snatched back from under your nose when they no longer had to indulge you because of the competition. Oh, and the salad bar mentioned in that Burger Chef commercial - they were the first with that too.

Supersize me! Umm, no, Burger Chef didn't innovate blubbering America, McDonalds can have the credit for that one, or whoever else wants to claim it. Burger Chef did however create the first "value meal". Oops, "value combo", "value meal" is of course McDonalds' renamed stolen idea. McDonalds was no less "innovative" than Burger King in swiping Burger Chef ideas and repackaging them as their own. Burger Chef's frustration finally boiled over into a lawsuit when McDonalds dropped the "Happy Meal" on the public. Note the Wikipedia link not only has no mention of the lawsuit, but in the History section says it was the "brainchild" of a St Louis advertising manager named Dick Brams. I thought maybe Dick went into politics and changed to a stage name of Al Gore. There was not one original idea with this theft including the mentioned tying it in with a movie (Star Trek) as Burger Chef had already done that with their Funmeal using Star Wars.

Burger Chef eventually lost the lawsuit and went on to be sold to Hardees who converted most of the stores to Hardees and those that were near a Hardees the franchisees given a limited time to change their name to something else. In only a generation we are already giving the credit for these innovations to the current giants and it probably won't be too much longer before Burger Chef is written out of history altogether. Although I guess it is much more difficult to do now with things like the web, what matters the most is it will be written out of people's memories as time passes, so the end result is the same. The real lesson is probably to learn what went wrong for a company that was truly the innovator and went from being second only to McDonalds to oblivion in a single generation.

Is it time to use the D word?

2009-03-04T06:59:00.001-08:00

That was the title of an article on MSN yesterday. Umm, yeah, it's been time to use the D word - Depression. One of the points in the article is we don't really have a definition for a Depression. I dunno, for me everytime I read "so and so decline is the worst since the 1930's" that kind of clues me in. Just read the news. 1200 apply for a single job opening. Thousands show up for the jobs to hawk peanuts at the Mariner's games this year. The biggest financial institutions in the U.S. are failing. Same for the Big Three auto makers. The stock market has been in free fall for a year and a half and has lost over 50% of its value. Has anyone seen anything as close to being as bad as this in their lifetime? Has anyone seen any indications or news articles that this is close to bottoming out or do you just read about more and more decline across the board every day, including the biggest one, job loss?

Instead of the change I heard being promised last year the current administration has instead only increased the previous administration's policy of throwing money at these corporations increasing our national debt far more than any previous administration. Change would have been to call them to the carpet on why this happened and not reward them for doing what they did. The people benefiting the most from these trillions of dollars are the people that caused the problems to begin with, not the average american. AIG is a prime example. Their slide began years ago when Owlchick was laid off. A couple of years later it came out they weren't quite up and up on the money figures. Last year they are saying we're solvent we just need a little help to get over a bump. Today they lost I think 62 billion in a quarter, more than any other corporation has, and of course want even more money. There's a saying, throwing good money after bad, that should have been considered for all of these corporations. They should have been allowed to fail, like any other American business, and the government take them over. Instead what we are teaching corporate America is that if you are big enough we will cover your ass with tax payer money.

Lord of the Rings Online

2009-03-02T15:47:00.000-08:00

A couple of friends and I recently started playing this game and I was pleasantly surprised at just how good of a game it is. I was thinking last night as I was trundling through the Shire how Tolkein might have felt seeing his world created. Both the dark side of that world in the movies and the bright side of that world in LOTRO. I thought EQ2 was an amazing world but now that I’ve seen LOTRO I realize too much of EQ2 was oppressive and bleak. What would you expect with zones called Swamp of No Hope though. It’s not that EQ2 was bad and LOTRO doesn’t have some “dark” places, but I think too much was put in EQ2. The environment for LOTRO was really done well and you just enjoy the landscape. There are actual constellations in the night sky to see. One of the problems with EQ2 is all the mob placement seems artificial – not so with LOTRO. The combat system is nothing to write home about but is adequate. I highly doubt there is much replay in the game. First, once you’ve been through the main storyline (the game follows along with the books) and I don’t think there’s much breadth of game play.

Crafting is done well and is the first game that I’ve actually used the items I’ve crafted. The three of us have chosen professions to compliment each other so we can pretty much be self-sufficient in what we need. The main quest lines are the books and chapters of the story everyone knows. Where the movies concentrated on the central characters in LOTRO you see the story unfold as a peripheral character. You do see and interact with the likes of Gandalf and company and see the story progress without being the main story. Best way to describe it. There are also tons of regular quests to do as well. He player population also seems much friendlier than in any other game I’ve played.

Northwest Politics

2009-02-16T17:21:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's not just the northwest that's corrupt but all big cities are that way. Seattle though is definitely pretty corrupt. I remember one of the first things to raise my eyebrow was hearing that city council had voted to pave over a park so a strip club could have more parking. I thought that was an odd thing since Democrats are usually tree huggers. But everyone heard about it because it was discovered they all got free lifetime memberships to the strip club. So since they were caught they had to give up their memberships and revote. The park got paved over on the revote too. I found out shortly after moving to downtown Seattle that there had been a casino just a few blocks from where I now live that was shut down in the 80's. It did fantastic business for years until it was robbed and 13 people were shot and killed. With this many corpses some people wanted to know how a casino the size and apparent popularity of Studio 54 had gone unnoticed. It hadn't of course, they just found out the Seattle police all the way up to the chief were on the take.

The whole Seattle police thing is really wierd. Small things, like was in the local newspaper a few weeks ago about they wouldn't arrest homeless people unless they pretty much have to for a violent crime. You see because of the seperate relationship between Seattle police and the King County sherrif's department, Seattle has to PAY King County if they arrest a homeless person and send them to jail. Seattle pays millions of dollars a year over lawsuits, some of which made national news like the police watching a guy get beat to death during some riot in 2000. It has been so bad that they have been trying to get a civilian oversite committee for years but have been blocked by the Seattle police union. Last year the union finally agreed - in trade for a salary increase to $93,000 a year after I think 5 years of service for a regular cop - and a starting salary in the 70's. Seattle police are now the second highest paid police in the country. Someone in California has them beat.

What I read in the paper today pretty much describes in a nutshell how this city runs. They got busted a while back because they were caught charging the Seattle residents for water used in fire hydrants. They got the idea I guess from earlier charging residents the electricity for the street lights which they got busted for that too and had to pay that back. Seattle was sued and lost, but continued to fight tooth and nail not to pay it back wracking up 4 million in lawyer fees alone. So now they are out of appeals and have to pay 22 million dollars back to the residents of Seattle. City council just voted to add a tax to the water bill of the residents to pay for the 22 million dollar restitution, to the residents. This is like an episode of Night Court, except it's not a comedy, it's real. Obviously the lawyers are just going to sue again and in the end the lawyers are the only ones that are going to come out ahead on this deal.

Hell's Kitchen, Season 5

2009-01-31T01:16:00.000-08:00

I posted about this show when I saw it during its first season. If people hadn't heard of Chef Ramsey then, they most likely have now. Seeing him for the first time, or maybe even after a hundred times, you'll think he's an ass. I'll admit his personality will be a lot for some people to swallow and get past and they will always say, "he doesn't have to be that mean." This guy is the most successful restrauntuer in the world now and there's a reason for that. He's not just an amazing chef, he has an amazing business mind. If you watch his other shows, like Kitchen Nightmares, you'll come to realize that. His other show, The F Word, shows more of him and even brings his family in, and he's really not as bad as he seems to be in other shows.

The first three seasons of this show were good. Last season was a disappointment. The Next Food Network Star - this show picks the very best to join the show. Hell's Kitchen picks bad people because they need them for the friction. It just wouldn't be the same if Chef Ramsey didn't have people to scream at for their screw-ups. Last season they went too far and really had no one there worth winning the show. In the end the guy "won" but lost because he was old and just didn't have the work habits Chef Ramsey was looking for. The girl didn't perform as well but Chef Ramsey said in the end he chose her for her potential and longevity. I read later she didn't even get the promised head chef position for winning the show but a secondary position somewhere.

This season once again looks to have some talent mixed in with the fodder. The fodder that stood out this week was the culinary school teacher who isn't a trained chef. After trying her signature dish, spitting it out, and commenting that he felt he should probably wrap his ass in saran wrap after eating it she says, "I teach manners too, chef." Great moment for the TV audience, I laughed out loud, but Chef Ramsey just painted a target on her. She followed this up with a performance in the kitchen that left in question if she should even be teaching Sandwich Making 101.

It looks like another entertaining season. :)

Dictating Morals

2009-01-17T09:36:00.000-08:00

So this girl wants to sell her virginity and the bid is up to 3.7 million now. This apparently violates the most illogical law in America. It's the only thing that is perfectly legal to give away, but illegal to sell. Sex. That fact alone really outweighs any arguments against prostitution. I would agree with regulations, but making it illegal doesn't make sense. The reason it is illegal is the morality angle - which I thought the following statement in the news article was rather ironic.

"Nevada has been out of step with the rest of the country for many years with regards to prostitution, and that's why I think it's important for federal prosecutors to look into this, so that Nevada does not dictate the morals and moral decency for the rest of the nation," Staver told FOXNews.com.

I think you have that backwards Staver - the laws are dictating the moral decency of the rest of the country. Maybe this would be okay with you if they signed a pre-nup for her to get 3.7 million, had a quickie vegas wedding, did it, then got a divorce? Then they would be using the church to sanction the prostitution, but as long as the preacher got a donation for officiating it that would make everything okay? I'm pretty sure it would be as history shows us how gambling and alcohol are railed against unless it's some monks making the wine and a church hosting the bingo game, which makes it okay.

What some guy paid some girl to get laid doesn't affect me, you, or anyone else in the country. Let's worry about something a bit more in need of worrying about - like the fact we're headed into the next depression.

Country Music

2008-12-03T15:47:00.000-08:00

Let’s skip politics for a more volatile subject. Country Music. I listen to country music. Actually I’m pretty eclectic in what I listen too and even like a few rap songs. There is nothing quite like country music though. As the old joke goes, what do you get when you play a country music record backwards – your wife/dog/car/truck/trailer/job back.

This is a new country music song – where else could you have a hit with “white trash ho” in the title?

This is a list of actual country music songs:

1. Get Your Biscuits In The Oven And Your Buns In Bed
2. Get Your Tongue Otta My Mouth 'Cause I'm Kissing You Goodbye
3. Her Teeth Was Stained, But Her Heart Was Pure
4. How Can I Miss You If You Won't Go Away?
5. I Can't Get Over You, So Why Don't You Get Under Me
6. I Don't Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling
7. I Got In At 2 With a 10, And Woke Up At 10 With a 2.
8. I Hate Every Bone In Your Body Except For Mine
9. I Just Bought A Car From A Guy That Stole My Girl, But The Car Don't Run, So I figure We Got An Even Deal
10. I Keep Forgettin' I Forgot About You
11. I Liked You Better Before I Knew You So Well
12. I Still Miss You Baby, But My Aim's Gettin' Better
13. I Wouldn't Take Her To A Dog Fight, Cause I'm Afraid She'd Win
14. I'll Marry You Tomorrow But Let's Honeymoon Tonight
15. I'm So miserable Without You, It's Like Having You Here
16. I've Got Tears in My Ears From Lying On My Back While I Cry Over you
17. If I Can't Be Number One In Your Life, Then Number Two On You
18. If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I'd Be Out By Now
19. Mama Get A Hammer (There's A Fly On Papa's Head)
20. My Head Hurts, My Feet Stink, And I Love Rovers
21. My Wife Ran Off With My Best Friend, and I Sure Do Miss Him
22. Please Bypass this Heart
23. She Got The Ring and I Got The Finger
24. You're the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

What is funny is how many artists from other genres have done country music songs. Not just the common turn a country music song into a pop song but actual pop singers making country songs. Like Elton John. Yep, he’s done it. Take the following lyrics, Soggy Pretzels:

You were cryin' in your pretzels when I met you
You were washing
All the salt away from the dough
You were cryin' in your pretzels
And I'll never forget you
But, baby, just why, I'll ever know
Cryin' in your pretzels
Cryin' in your beer
Cryin' on the table
That's where I found you dear
Yes, my sweet I came into that bar
It was in Mississippi
There you were, sitting in the corner
Crying in your pretzels
You'd already sogged up
A whole plate of potato chips
But the management didn't mind
Because you were a regular customer
And I saw you sittin' there and I said
"That person needs a friend,
And I'm gonna be a friend
Ain't nobody deserves to cry in his pretzels
All night and wash away the salt.
"So I kinda sided up to you and I said,
"What can I do for you? How can I help you?
What can I do to ease the pain?"
Well, you were cryin' in your pretzels
Oh, you were cryin' in your beer
Yes, that was the night I meet you
And I'll always hold you near

This wasn’t some one hit wonder or barely known pop star – it was Neal Diamond and on one of his greatest selling albums Hot August Night. Yes, I had the 8 track tape of this album as a teenager. Best song he ever did!

Why are the pirates a problem?

2008-11-19T15:11:00.000-08:00

We know who they are, Somalians. We know because they are holding the ships (like the Saudi oil tanker the size of three aircraft carriers for ransom) so there isn't any doubt. An Indian warship just sank one of their big ships, but for the most part they have had free reign. This is an extremely easy problem to solve. We just need to announce that the pirates have stolen one of our nukes and demand its return. Wait a week, nuke their harbor and then express our sympathy over them accidently detonating the nuke evidently while experimenting with it. Express a plea for them to stop their pirating as something like this could happen again.

Random News

2008-11-12T12:01:00.000-08:00

Man accused of stealing communion wafers

He grabbed a handful of crackers. This was a church. Silly me, I thought church people were kind giving people and would have thought to feed the guy instead of sending him to jail.

Dear Mr. President-elect, please take me off your spam list.

Why would anyone be allowed to go into debt for election campaigns? Politicians are such great fiscal examples - spends as much money as you want and ask other people to pay it back for you. We shouldn't let them spend any money. TV Stations can come interview them and they can use You Tube like everyone else.

U.S. increases bailout for struggling AIG

In spite of their Spa and Hunting outings they have almost doubled the original money requested. I made a post about the insanity of 700 billion not being enough to help cover the people at risk to losing their homes. Silly me, I didn't take into account our government throwing the 700 billion at corporations leaving nothing to help people with their mortgage. Sorry Obama but it looks like Bush is going to have spent the 700 billion dollars he stole from my working ass (and other middle class people like me) and you're not going to have anything left. I'm sure that means you'll of course steal another 700 billion dollars from the middle class so you can attempt the same thing.

Lay vs. Lie

She made this much more confusing that it needed to be. As soon as she said, "it's a real cheese grater on the knuckles of grammarians", my first thought was, "If this bothers you that much then you really need to get laid." Then I worried. Is laid right? Wouldn't that be a future participle? She didn't cover future participle, just present and past. Does laid come from someone doing it to you or you taking that position, in which case it would be getting lied? Now I need to get laid. Anyone have her number? It seems we both need to get laid now. Of course we would have to do it standing up or we would both be too confused over laying or lying. If we did it outside and that chicken got involved it would probably send one of us over the deep end.

Shatner invites Takei to his 'Raw Nerve' talk show

It seems Captain Kirk still doesn't understand why Sulu doesn't like him. For any Trek fan who has read all of the books (Kirk, Spock, Sulu, Uhura) they know why.

Obama wins but...

2008-11-11T10:22:00.000-08:00

California still isn't left enough to not ban same sex marriages. Tracy said my last post seemed a bit racist - and in a way it was meant to show racism, just not that I'm a racist. The point is most racism (and some other stuff) is reactionary. It was funny that Tracy missed, or misunderstood the minority and asked, "aren't there poor white people too?" Well, yes there are, in poor white neighborhoods who wouldn't be getting extra voting machines - however the blacks in middle class black neighborhoods would be. This wasn't about wealth, it was about race, and exactly what do you think the reaction of a white person who had to wait in line for hours to vote would be to know blacks got more voting machines so they wouldn't have to wait? The white guy doesn't have to be a racist to be pissed off because he was at a disadvantage because of his race but because he was discriminated against based on his race his anger is going to be directed at the other race that got favored. Things like affirmative action programs are reverse discrimination and people try to tell themselves that this is okay. It is not okay - we are taught at an early age, "two wrongs don't make a right", and these are two wrongs.

As far as California goes, I just don't get it. Even when I leaned a lot farther right than I do today I never had an issue with same sex partnerships. There was a post I made a while back that shows the "reactionary" point of view - I'm 100 percent for same sex partnerships to be treated equal and have all of the same rights as heterosexual relationships. But when a couple of lesbians want father's day removed because they don't have a father in their relationship that boils my blood. When is America going to get over this taboo of same sex relationships? The only reason you can be against it stems from religion. It's been obvious the majority of Americans have gotten past that since now days a group of kids pray in school the community is ready to burn them at the stake. So the underlying reason has to be more than religious. Is it fear? Fear of what? How does a same sex marriage harm anyone else in any way? I want to hear any reason someone would be against this other than religion.

Election Day!

2008-11-04T09:56:00.001-08:00

Personally I'm hoping for an outcome that causes the most friction - McCain by a one state win with a hanging chad. Then for him to keel over with a heart attack and Ms. Alaska for the swear in. Interesting tidbit from my home state:

"Foreshadowing what could be a litigious ending to this year's election, the NAACP filed a federal lawsuit in Virginia, demanding more electronic machines in minority neighborhoods, and extra paper ballots in case those machines are tied up by record turnout. A judge denied the request Monday following a hearing."

So what we're saying is, "Whitey can wait in line for hours and bring a chair with him to wait to vote, but if you're an Obama voter we'll have express lanes up for you." This is why we're never going to get past the whole race thing. Now the reaction is going to be the NAAWP (this would be "working" people, the "white" people NAAWP is known as the KKK and considered racist) would say more voting machines need to be at their location - they work so have a job to get to, those minority locations most of them don't work so have the time to hang around half a day to vote.

If the so called Bradly effect happens and McCain eeks out a win the fur is going to fly. Please let this happen - not to mention the huge amount of material Palin as president is going to provide all of the late night talk show hosts.

One more day

2008-11-03T15:48:00.000-08:00

One more day and all the hoopla will be over. I'm still not voting. Most likely Obama will win, unless people get to the voting booth and change their mind. Dino Rossi, the Republican that won the Governer race for Washington State last year but the state supreme court appointed the Democrat the position will be running again this year. I'm sure the court will cover her ass if she loses again this year.

Interesting thing with the ballots this year, Washington state managed to elimated most of the Republicans from the ballot. I remember a few years back I heard the Democrats screaming foul in Texas when the Republicans re-drew the voting district lines to even out all the districts they could with a 60/40 split in favor of the Republicans. Washington state did even better by removing the Republican from the ballot completely and giving us two Democrats to choose from for the positions this year.

American Politics - The Two-Ring Circus.

Wonder what party they're from?

2008-10-30T11:56:00.000-07:00

It never fails, if I start reading a news article and the political affiliation isn't identified, then they wind up being Democrats. Yeah, Fox leans right and people always point the finger at Fox because of it, but the truth is all the others lean left. An example of one of these articles is the one I just read: DEEP BACKGROUND, NBC News Investigates. Obviously didn't dig deep enough to find out their political party. (snort) Fed's Probe Countrywide's VIP Program is the name of the article.

http://deepbackground.msnbc.msn.com/archive/2008/10/30/1613877.aspx

"The Justice Department is making very serious inquiry into any possible wrongdoing that may involve (former Countrywide CEO) Angelo Mozilo, other Countrywide employees, Sen. Chris Dodd, Sen. Kent Conrad, (former Fannie Mae CEO) Franklin Raines or other public officials," said Feinberg's lawyer, Anthony Salerno. "Robert has always cooperated thoroughly with authorities and is strictly a witness in their investigation."

That was the giveaway - they didn't say (D/R:State). If you go to Wikipedia you will of course find all three are Democrats. I went to Wikipedia after I read the following paragraph:

"Feinberg's client list also runs the gamut. Among those benefitting from the VIP program were four former Cabinet members spanning Democratic and Republican administrations: Henry Cisneros, Richard Holbrooke, Alphonso Jackson, and Donna Shalala. Two former CEO's of Fannie Mae, James Johnson and Franklin Raines, heads of the government-sponsored entity which bought Countrywide's mortgages - also received VIP mortgages from Countrywide."

So for all these names they have thrown out and the way they word it they want the reader to believe both parties share equal responsibility, the truth is only one of these people is a Repulican - Alphonso Jackson. Of course they really don't want to tag him either because he's black and the media just doesn't want it to get out that there are black Republicans. Look at Jimmy Walker (Good Times Di-No-Mite) - poor guy said he was a Republican and couldn't get a bit job in a McDonalds commerical afterwards. I know, you're going to say he never worked again because he was typecast. I could see him in a leading role. Indiana Jones, he could have done that. Maybe a romantic lead. Did they even let him test for the new James Bond roles? I'm sure he could have done "Ray" that the other black guy won an Oscar for recently. He was blackballed because he was a Republican and they had to keep him quiet.

I'm a Republican because...

2008-10-17T15:20:00.000-07:00

...not everyone can be on welfare. Someone sent me a picture of an SUV with this as a bumper sticker. I sort of agree with it. Most Democrats say Republicans want poor innocent children to go hungy, homeless, and without medical care. The truth is I would agree to double to amount of money we spend on people at the poverty level. The catch is you can't GIVE it to them. The same as Republicans bribe the big business vote with tax cuts the Democrats bribe the poor vote with tax money.

Double or triple the tax dollars you spend on the poor, but build medical centers, education centers (books, computers, etc.), daycare centers, and parks and recreation centers for the kids to go to. The poorest neighborhoods usually have the worst houses so pay the people to work to improve and rebuild the houses and pay for the materials to do so. Look at all of the jobs this would create. A mother would have a daycare center to take her children too, get an education and on the job experience to be a nurse at the medical center to make a self supporting life for herself. They could have a life and neighborhood they could have pride in instead of a place where the best way to make money seems to be drugs. There's the old fish saying, teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime. We'd much rather give the fish away to keep them addicted to voting for that party.

For the first time since I've been an adult I won't bother to vote. It doesn't matter anymore who wins, they both just use my money to support their agenda. In the debates I kept hearing the term middle class, because that's really who decides the vote for the most part, the people who pay the most and benefit the least. It's pretty simple who I would vote for in this election. A candidate that says, "All of those people that aren't getting any benefit from the 1 trillion dollars we're spending over the housing mess, vote for me!" Only choices I see this elections are candidates that want to give money to the same people who put us in this mess.

Why CEOs Should Be Held Accountable

2008-10-07T13:30:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine from Canada sent me the link to the following:

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5973452&page=1

Less than a week after snagging 85 billion dollars from taxpayers they executives run off and spend a half million dollars on massages and manicures. The truth is AIG's executives and top people have been making unsound financial decisions for years that have led up to this. Tracy used to work for AIG until she and many others without warning lost their jobs. Though in the long run it worked out well for her at the time it couldn't have come at a worse time really. But she, like the majority of Americans, are middle class and are always the ones expected to pay for the mistakes. I told Tracy at the time that something was fishy because the biggest reason companies lay off people is to cover losses. Think about it, every time a company is losing money you read they lay off people. It's the quickest and surest way to cover losses. It took some time but eventually it came out AIG was covering losses. This link is to an article from 2005.

http://blog.kir.com/archives/001857.asp

"AIG, the largest insurance company in the U.S., admitted transactions that "appear to have been structured for the sole or primary purpose of accomplishing a desired accounting result." To make matters worse, state and federal investigators believe that the full extent of AIG's accounting improprieties over the past decade are even larger."

What is most interesting about this article is the author warns that AIG could suffer a financial meltdown and explains why - although he didn't think it would happen. Undoubtably he's thinking now he should have said he thought it WOULD happen. AIG isn't unique and unfortunantly this is probably common practice for the majority of corporations. Instead of being finacially responsible and save the money they prefer to get manicures and lay off people like Tracy when needed.

There are just three types of people. Rich, Middle Class, and Poor. George Carlin once said the poor people were there to scare the middle class into going to work every day. The rich need the middle class to be scared enough to go to work every day because that's where they get their riches from. Of course the self-imposed poor need us to go to work every day for them too. And by self imposed I mean those that choose to stay and benefit to the maximum from free support. Does it really matter anymore who I vote for?

300 Billion Might Not Be Enough

2008-10-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

News blurb with the header, "Low expectations for the homeowner-help program." The first paragraph:

"The federal government's new $300 billion Hope for Homeowners program opened for business today with the intent of staving off foreclosure for 400,000 homeowners in trouble. But we just have to wonder how effective it will be."

Have Americans become so used to seeing the billions of dollars people like Bill Gates have that they know longer have a concept of how much a billion dollars is? Even before reaching for the calculator my brain was saying, "that seems like a whole bunch o' money for each person." To save anyone else from reaching for a calculator (or any unnamed reader that hates math) this works out to $750,000 for each of the 400,000 homeowners.

So let's say it takes a quarter of a million dollars in expenses (politicians, all the bank people and CEOs that put us in this mess, and hiring someone to do the paperwork) for each home to process this that still leaves a half million dollars to help each of these homeowners with their mortgage they couldn't afford in the first place. So giving all these people twice as much as the median new home price might not be effective?

Once again Americans will trod in to the polling places like the cattle they are and pull the lever for "their party" but whichever party that is you can bet the only thing they think about you is that you're too stupid to operate a calculator.

Ever heard of Newsweek?

2008-10-01T15:37:00.000-07:00

Even though Tracy was pushing me to vote for McCain I was leaning toward Nader again this year. After this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xRkWebP2Q0Y I might have to vote for Obama. I realize Better Igloos and Snowbanks or Moose and Spear are her common reading materials and she couldn't use those - but she can't even name a national news magazine or newspaper? Dan Quayle wasn't exactly someone you wanted in the position of possibly being president over a death, but you figure the interns could have probably helped him through whatever time there was before the next election. If this woman gets there it is just going to be a total freaking nightmare. Did McCain or anyone actually ask this woman some questions before making her the VP nominee?

The Liar's Loan

2008-09-26T14:18:00.000-07:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2189576

Tracy gave me the above link - it's the loan I couldn't think of the name for. The nickname of Liar's Loan fits it well enough that the real name doesn't matter. More than 60% of these people overstated their income by MORE than 50%. The borrower knew about the lie. The real estate agent knew. The loan underwriter knew. Yet everyone turned a blind eye for years to land our economy in the mess it is in today. Today WAMU (Washington Mutual) a bank that has been around since 1889 went belly up - over 300 billion dollars in assets is by far the largest ever to go under. How did a financial institution of this size with 120 years of experience under the belt allow itself to get so deep into this mess it collapsed? If a bank of this size (well, it was a savings and loan actually, the largest one) has failed what others are on the horizon?

Thanks for the housing mess

2008-09-15T15:20:00.000-07:00

Some of my posts the one or two people that read these might wonder if I'm serious - let me say up front I'm serious in this post. The whole housing mess and the collapse of financial institutions, our economy, and the huge waste of my tax dollars to pay for bailouts is manure. Nothing is really being done that should be done to the people that caused this.

The purchase of a home is by far the largest purchase most people will ever make. If you make this purchase without doing some research then you're an idiot. Ignorance of the law is no defense nor as far as I'm concerned a defense for this either. If you're now homeless (or lost your house in which case you should be homeless for at least ten years and not allowed any rental or purchase of a dwelling - and probably pay a 50% tax rate) then you deserve to be. Just because you're an idiot my tax dollars shouldn't be used to pay your mortage because you were too stupid to learn what an ARM could mean in a few years when you bought a house you obviously couldn't afford.

The real people who need to pay are the people who made all the money in the past years from this fiasco. Like home builders and real estate agents. ANYONE invovled in abusing the Title ? Loan things (where you don't have to prove your income but pay a little higher interest rate) it should be considered fraud and you be financially wiped out - everything - left homeless, carless, furnitureless, I don't really care. I'd go for corporal punishment too if we could bring back the whip. You sold these loans to people saying the house would go up so much in value that in a few years you would be able to take that profit and use it as a down payment for a new fixed rate loan, just sign here for that ARM. Everyone knew bubbles all burst, but no one cared because they were making money hand over fist.

Well, the bubble burst and the country is left in a financial mess. The people who did this and profited still have their money. Well, there were some like that Las Vegas couple who couldn't afford to pay for their highly depreciated house who had made millions in the real estate sales but spent it as fast as they made it so were now broke. The people who bought houses that were late getting in now can't afford the ARM or are upside down in their loan. The financial institutions that knew what would eventually happen are now filing bankruptcy. Who's left to pay for this mess?

People like me. I didn't get one of those loans and have an ARM hit me, I rent an apartment and saw my rent skyrocket 50% in 13 months. Why? Because thousands of local rental units were converted to condos because of this housing bubble - and supply went down and demand didn't change so my rent went up. Even now with all the people bailing out of their houses they now are in the rental market, or even people that don't want to buy right now because they want to see how far prices will drop, are in the rental market - so my rent is still going up. So my tax dollars are being used to keep people in a house they couldn't afford, throw money at financial institutions that shouldn't have made (or bought these packaged loans) in the first place - and yet I only get hit with higher and higher costs every day because of this.

The impact from this is far far greater than Enron or MCI and yet not even one person of the people who were responsible (and profited) for letting this happen will ever have anything done to them. I have only seen a couple of articles about possibly pursuing for fraud for knowingly using the Title ? (9? 8? whatever they are) loans but they are afraid too because it would be like going after a victim (that person who lost their house).

It's not over yet. What most people don't realize (because it's never talked about) our trade deficit for all these decades means the same as the trillions of dollars our government owes now - the world holds our dollar. The same as what will happen to a bank on a bank run can happen to the good old USA if the world makes a run on us to turn in our dollar. We can't cover it. It will be devistating to our economy. If for nothing else we import but oil that alone will make our oil and gas prices go up to unimaginable levels. We really don't know how bad this will get and I don't suppose people realized how bad it was going to get in 1927.

Flexcar, Flexpetz, Flexkid, Flexwife

2008-07-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

I guess after seeing Flexcar someone in San Diego decided that would be a great idea for pets too and started Flexpetz. Seems reasonable to me. I might want to walk a dog for an hour or two but not have any long term responsibility to it. One interesting thing, Flexpetz was depreciating the dogs as a "7 year useful life" which is probably about right. Who wants to rent an old lifeless dog anyway? I don't think old dogs play fetch. And it would be like renting an old car that might break down on you except in this case the dog could unexpectedly expire on you and that would really be inconvenient. PETA of course is concerned about all the emotional scarring of being bounced from owner to owner and exactly what happens to the dogs when their shelf life expires. So local governments all over have started outlawing this and there is even a national law in the works to outlaw pet rentals.

I personally don’t see anything wrong with it and in fact think we should expand into a couple of others. Flexkid. They have about the same 7 year shelf life, somewhere in the range of 8 to 15. Anything sooner and they’re pretty much useless to do anything with because they aren’t very bright and ask a lot of questions. They’re also uncoordinated. Have you ever tried to play catch with a 6 year old? The ball better be soft because all it’s going to do is bounce off of them and as far as them throwing it back it’ll go any direction but to you. And the worst part is you have to clean up after them and they usually smell bad. Post 15 they just aren’t interested in spending any time with an adult, probably because at this stage of their life they know more than any adult.

Flexwife. Wives have a highly volatile shelf life that can range anywhere from 50 years to as short as 5 minutes after the wedding so these seem to me to be the best prospect for rental. They also have a very limited use. The cost of purchasing one grossly exceeds their actual value. I really can’t think of anything in favor of purchasing versus renting one. With the failure rate of marriages in this country anyway why don’t we dump that concept completely and just each party get a lawyer up front to draw up a limited term contract of maybe 1 to 5 years and at the end of the contract you renew it or each walk away?

There is a male advice columnist!

2008-06-30T20:26:00.000-07:00

Tracy commented and noted a link to a male advice columnist called Help Me Harlan. Today his letter from a girl starts out with, "I don't understand men. I met this guy on the internet..." My "reply" post may have been a bit tounge in cheek (I said may have) but Harlan's reply proves the point. He doesn't mention this guy she met or her lack of understanding of men. What he does is berate her and lets her know she was lucky and why. The advice was straight to the point and practical with the only emotional aspect pretty much telling her she'll get over it.

I remember reading Ann Landers all the time as a teenager and I'll admit I sometimes do see resoponses from female advice columnists that are like this - but for the most part females approach everything from an emotional point of view and a guy is going to approach stuff from a practical point of view. Men are also more short-sighted - I've never known a woman to follow, "Hey y'all watch this" with a trip to the hospital or dying. When I have been suprised and had to agree with a woman advice columnist it's usually because she had the foresight of a long term consequence I wouldn't have thought of.

Supreme Court and more advice

2008-06-27T16:07:00.000-07:00

Supreme Court made a couple of great decisions yesterday. First, all of us should own a gun unless you're mental or a felon. Second, they let Exxon off the hook for 2.5 billion for that oil spill almost 20 years ago. It wasn't their fault they had a drunk at the wheel. Now if they'd just overturn that pesky Roe vs Wade.

Another "advice" MSN article today from a Mattilda Schneiderman noting "6 secret guy turn ons." And I thought the rumor was men didn't understand women?

1. He loves that you indulge at dinnertime - Here's a woman telling you to take advantage of the guy and order the most expensive thing on the menu. NOT. Men love it when they indulge in a salad. You order expensive food and in quantities we consider this a warning sign.

2. He loves your occasional obscenities - You think we love it when you scream and curse at us? Again, this is a warning sign that "occasional" is going to move to every day nagging once you buy the cow.

3. He loves that you aren’t a neat freak - Only if he's a slob so it doesn't matter what his place looks like when she's over and when he's there he doesn't have to worry about messing up the place. The girl has however removed herself as a potentional lifetime mate because she will be expected to keep the place clean once married.

4. He loves your extra padding - Yeah, right, sure. There's a reason why we don't have a correct answer for, "Does this dress make me look fat?" We don't want extra padding because as soon as you get there you start asking this question for everything you wear and from that point on it's a doomed relationship.

5. He’s fascinated by your knowledge of medieval tapestries - Umm, no, we aren't. We realize in the dating phase you feign interest in our interests. After saying "I do" we realize you will no longer want to go fishing, camping, duck hunting, golfing, bowling, or to strip clubs. We on the other hand didn't feign interest in medieval tapestries, art galleries, shopping malls, or romance novels during the dating phase and still care nothing about your interests and knowledge base about them afterwards. What turns us on is a woman that is just smart enough to operate a vacuum cleaner but dumb enough to think that Cheerios are donut seeds.

6. He loves a good head rub from you - Okay, one out of six were right.

Ask (insert female name here)

2008-06-24T16:53:00.000-07:00

Why are all of the advice columnist I see women? My best guess it is because women reading it think women are right and the men reading it are doing so for the comic value. This is one from MSN today; MSN seems to have a dozen or so women giving advice.

http://msn.match.com/msn/article.aspx?articleid=9596&TrackingID=516311&BannerID=544657&menuid=6&GT1=26000

“Lynn” is all touchy feely with the advice and even starts out with a congratulations on the baby. She’s a woman and even though she seems to be half way on the guy’s side if you really look at several spots where she brings it up she’s basically saying “You aren’t getting any more “me” time when the baby drops.” What would be a more realistic male response?

Dear Overwhelmed,

You start off with, “My girlfriend and I are pregnant with our first child.” Please come to your senses. Your girlfriend is pregnant with as far as you know her first child and until you have a paternity test when she gives birth you’re hoping it’s yours. You’ve also apparently knocked up an unemployed, demanding, whining, little tramp. She carouses all day while you work and as soon as you’re off work she has you under her thumb. She needs to be appraised like a property and as a property she would be considered a negative cash flow – not a good thing. When the baby drops that will just double the negative cash flow and your “me” time will completely vanish.

One hopeful point – you say you sometimes leave without saying anything at all. Hopefully you are practicing? If you’re not practicing for a permanent leave then my only advice is to possibly do a blog or You Tube series on your life as it spirals downhill from here. You may save another male from your fate and possibly put some advertising on your site to recoup some of your losses in this relationship.

George Carlin dies...

2008-06-23T16:29:00.000-07:00

...evidently while watching sports on television yesterday. Having a week heart and witnessing one of the rarest things to happen in sports must have been too much for his ticker. Rarer than a hole in one in golf or a perfect 300 game bowling on national television. We're talking triple crown rarity here - for the second time in the history of women's professional basketball a woman dunked the ball, the only other time being in 2002.

Who's idea was the WNBA anyway? Didn't I make a post about this before? I could understand a bunch of Hooter's girls in their Hooter's uniforms jiggling....errr, dribbling up and down the court being something worth watching. But no, they wanted to be all serious about this. What about the poor fan though that watches faithfully every game. Time and again they see the girl charge down the court, rush the basket, expecting...hoping...praying...will she???...nope, it's another layup. Imagine the disappointment if the one time in 6 years this happens he ran to the fridge for a beer and missed the dunk? Oh sure, there's instant replay, but it's just not the same. That's like watching a porn movie, you weren't there when it happened, it's just not the same. This is followed by the shame of lying to all your friends because you don't want them to know you were an idiot and missed the once in a lifetime live shot.

If they are going to keep the WNBA they really need to make some changes where you have something to talk about more than once every 6 years. Like maybe put mud on the court and combine some aspects of roller derby into the game.

Let's not use the B word

2008-06-01T17:27:00.000-07:00

Lincoln was a Republican and originally the "Southern Democrats" were the white slaveholders. I always wondered when the Black vote shifted to Democrats and this website sums it up.

http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/when_did_blacks_start_voting_democratic.html

The Clintons and the media keep beating around the bush about something but just won't come out and say it. The Black vote. They use terms like how well Clinton did in West Virginia - the third whitest state. What they want everyone to know (as in those super delegates and the public to figure out so they support Clinton instead) is that regardless who the Democratic nominee is 88 to 92 percent of the black vote will go to them and nothing will change that. However if Obama (the Black guy) is the nominee many white Democrats will not vote for him.

The sad thing is they're right - Obama could win or lose based on the number of white people that won't vote for a Black man. On the other hand there are probably more states like Virginia that could swing to Obama. Virigina always votes Republican but they voted for a Black governer (the first Black governer of a Southern state) and that's because Virginia has a very high Black population. It is possible the Black turnout to vote for a Black president could be high enough to outweigh those "white states" the media and Clinton keep referring too.

As for Clinton - to basically admit you're hoping your opponent will be shot when asked why she's still hanging in there (she pointed out the JFK Jr assisination) and then to try to cover it up by saying you only said it because Ted Kennedy is dying of a brain tumor so the Kennedys were on your mind - boy, this is gonna be a swell one to be President. If there's anyone who could screw us worse than Bush has the last eight years, it would be her.

One of those moments...

2008-04-02T20:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting nice and relaxed this afternoon as Kelly is in close, lightly breathing into my ear as she runs her buzzing, vibrating little tool just along the hairline of my neck. She suddenly has the urge to let me know how she feels and says, "I'm so incredibly hot right now." I just had no idea how to respond to that. You see Kelly is the new girl that cuts my hair, the buzzing, vibrating tool was hair clippers, and I'm pretty sure any response of mine to what she said, agreeing with her or not, could very likely result in an unsightly bald patch left by the clippers. After a moment of me silently wondering if she realized what she just said she further explained by bringing up the overhead lighting and the girl behind the counter (who must control the heating levels) must be much cooler just sitting all day.

I have to wonder if she has a blog and is posting today, "OMG, I can't believe what I blurted out to a total stranger today!"

Learning a foreign language

2008-03-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

Most of the material I've seen to learn a foreign language use situations to expect when traveling to that country. Airport, taxi, going out to eat, directions for getting around as examples. Considering that, this was an interesting video for Japanese to learn English.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YS2GY8C_2sY

Isn't this a bit drastic?

2007-12-27T12:53:00.000-08:00

Yahoo news links:

Deputies turned back after initial 911 call to... at Seattle...
Mournful silence fills a Black Diamond yard at Seattle...
Hawaii residents flea expensive islands at Seattle Times
Infamous potatoes: Tater Tots start blaze in... at Seattle Times
Seattle streetcar is stalling at KING 5
Downtown Seattle bus tunnel back open at KING 5

The third news item - I guess that's one way to lower property values. :)

It Could Be Worse

2007-12-26T12:08:00.000-08:00

Spent my birthday and Christmas in bed with my only caloric intake being Nyquil and orange juice. Actually started before my birthday, by Christmas I was down to the hacking up a lung stage after the fact. I worked half a day Christmas eve then went home and went back to bed to wake up at 6:00 - the exact time the store closed downstairs. They were not open Christmas day. Since I was sick I hadn't gotten groceries and didn't have my normal Banquet Christmas cube-carved white and dark meat turkey smothered in gravy with peas and carrots with a golden brown crustlike stuffing. It turns out I didn't have crap in the house. I found a couple of Ramen Noodle packages, expired 9/2006 - tossed. Christmas dinner wound up being a can of green beans and a half dozen boiled eggs. It's not like I'm a stranger to my fridge getting down to ice-cubes only, but I usually have my butt covered for holidays. I still had my internet connection and cable so I squeaked through.

If it weren't for still buying Tracy something for Christmas it would be as meaningless as any other day to me, so no big deal. But if anyone thinks they have it bad for the holidays, it could always be worse. You could have been eaten by a tiger at a zoo for Christmas and a day later no one still knows who you are or apparently has missed you. You could have been killed in a plane crash. Family wiped out by a mudslide. All of this happened on Christmas this year for some people. You could be homeless which is probably about the lowest it can possibly get. Christmas morning I still saw the homeless huddled under blankets in the doorways and anything with an overhang. They sure weren't happy to see the third Christmas snowfall in Seattle since the 1940s. So happy holidays - and a joke to end the year:

Frank always looked on the bright side. He would constantly irritate his friends with his eternal optimism. No matter how horrible the circumstance, he would always reply, "It could have been worse."

To cure him of his annoying habit, his friends decided to invent a situation so completely bad, so terrible, that even Frank could find no hope in it.

On the golf course one day, one of them said, "Frank, did you hear about Tom? He came home last night, found his wife in bed with another man, shot them both and then turned the gun on himself!"

"That's awful," said Frank, "But it could have been worse."
"How in the hell," asked his bewildered friend, "Could it have been worse?"
"Well," replied Frank, "If it happened the night before, I'd be dead now!"

Convicted by the media

2007-12-13T10:22:00.000-08:00

Did Drew Peterson kill his wife? It's been made abundently clear the police and media think so. The media has gone from reporting the facts to an entity that can do and say anything with immunity under the guise of free speech. They can invade people's privacy, tresspass, harrass, threaten - anything. They were responsible for the death of a princess without consequence. The frenzy the media creates undoubtably has a negative impact on the investigations by police. The Joan Benet Ramsey (sp?) girl everything we saw in the media was trolling to get someone in the family convicted. The security guard that should have been a hero at the bombing at the Olympics in Atlanta was turned into a villain with absolutely no evidence against him. If they had found so much as a cement nail in his house he would be in prison today. After months of public conviction by the media that poor guy couldn't get a job guarding chickens. When are we going to tell the media that freedom of the press doesn't give them a right to stalk people and stand in front of their cars preventing them from leaving. You want to stand in front of Britney's Beemer to get photos of her and the kids who may or may not be strapped in a car seat? She should get paid a bonus to mow your ass over.

As long as our society supports this type of media frenzy it will never stop. It used to be faceless masses buying the National Enquirer, but now these millions of people have a voice all over the internet. Some of these people post to these news blurbs like they have a personal stake in the issue. I've got news for you - if one of the primary things in your life is being on the edge of your seat waiting for breaking news about Britney stealing a lighter and posting all over the place about it - you have more mental issues than Britney does. Yeah, even I'm guilty to a certain extent - as soon as I read about Brit's beaver shot I'm over at tmz to see the pic. Anything short of answering the question of carpeting or hardwood floors I'm just not gonna be much interested in - and I don't see anyone else really cares either.

Drew Peterson may have killed his wife but we don't know that. If she pops up tomorrow there will be no apologies to this guy even though he has already been humiliated by the media. Even if she never shows up, no body is ever found, not any evidence to convict him - the public will always believe he is guilty now.

Of course I'm rooting for the wife to show up so I can tell Tracy "SEE! SEE! But if HE had disappeared they would never have suspected her."

Monday Night Football

2007-11-12T19:52:00.000-08:00

Went to see the Monday night Seahawks football game. I made it to the third quarter so it was only a wee bit better than the only ballet I've ever attended where I left at halftime. The main reason I left is because it's freaking cold. Not only that I can rarely see the field because people can't seem to stay in their seats. Maybe they keep jumping up like that to stay warm. I was spending half the time watching the monitors to see what was happening. I might as well have been watching it on tv at home.

I wondered why the gates would open three hours before game time. I figured it out while I was trundling the switch-backs to my second level seats. If I had nosebleed seats it would take me three hours to get to them. Since it was level 2 and on the opposite side of the stadium I entered it only took two hours. Before going out to my seat I stopped, gasping and wheezing, for a soda. Four bucks for a 20 ounce soda. They should at least have the cashiers carry guns so it made me feel better about my purchase. They take your bottle cap - they don't want to mistake the soda bottle for a liquid bomb. Not that anything could have gotten past the frisker I had to go through at the entry. The line next to us twenty people go through for every one person that got through ours. He wasn't checking for weapons he was checking for ticks. I must not have been very attractive to him because I passed by with a pat on both sides. I wasn't sure if I should be relieved, grateful, or offended.

Monday night football just isn't what it used to be. With a half time show of a bunch of high school cheerleaders no wonder ABC dumped it. Oh, and that race of three 6 year olds down the length of the football field was a real nail biter. They need a new halftime events guy. Hey Paul, I've got an idea for you - Seagals mud wrestling at halftime. As cold as it is that should be interesting - would definitely have a stadium full of binoculors.

If I have the urge to watch pro football again it will be on my couch with 50 cent drinks.

Another Stupid Test?

2007-10-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

The Song of Ice and Fire House Test

Your Score: House Stark

36% Dominant, 18% Extroverted, 63% Trustworthy

Responsible. Respectable. Dour. That’s not shit coming out of your ass--it’s honor. You are clearly of House Stark. You are a submissive personality, meaning that you are more than willing to relinquish control to someone more qualified; you will unflinchingly accept any responsibility that is thrust upon you, including servitude. Unfortunately for you, your unending patience and accommodating nature often make people look to you for a leader. In essence, you are the perfect leader: someone who has no desire to lead, yet is substantially well-qualified to do it. You are also introverted, which means that people sometimes have difficulty understanding your thought process. Your dependable nature makes you predictable, but you’ve probably got all sorts of emotional dysfunctions when it comes to more intimate relationships. There are very few people whom you trust unwaveringly, and you’re not the type to confide in other people. So cold, so aloof--so Stark. Finally, you are trustworthy--the very definition of the word. All secrets are safe with you. All of your vows are unbreakable. True to your name, you world is a stark place; there is black, and there is white. Your rigidity tends to undercut your overall value as a friend and ally. Honesty such as yours is hard to come by, which is easy to understand when you consider how easily manipulated you are by less decent individuals. Essentially, you’re the nice guy, and you’ll always finish last. Representative characters include: Eddard Stark, Jon Snow, and Sansa Stark Similar Houses: Frey, Lannister and Tully Opposite House: Baratheon When playing the game of thrones, you play it with one sword in your hand and another up your ass.

The price of a mom: $138,095

2007-05-13T19:23:00.000-07:00

This is the link for reference: http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/CollegeAndFamily/RaiseKids/ThePriceOfAMom.aspx?GT1=10019&f=25&MSPPError=-2147197912&lc=1033

After the tears stopped flowing from the laughter just reading the headline I checked to see what woman wrote the article. They were so ashamed they wouldn't even attach a name to it, just MSN Staff. They were probably being threatened with a lawsuit or something from some left wing mom organization.

The first claim, they work 92 hours a week. That would leave less than 3 hours a day free time once your add in sleeping 8 hours a day. Most women I know can spend that much time a day shopping, so they must only work, shop, and sleep. They list 10 jobs they used to base this salary on.

Housekeeper: Not much here, they may not speak english, but you can get a housekeeper for minimum wage - less depending on immigration status.

Day Care Center Teacher: Seems to me the vast majority of mom's today just tell their kids no, but don't actually follow it up with any teaching when they do otherwise. Seems like a zero should be inserted here.

Cook: Cook is the operative word, not chef. Minimum wage here. The man in the house would be considered a chef - so be worth 5 to 10 times as much.

Computer Operator: What, check email and chat with other moms? We call this entertainment, although admittedly the men are usually talking to different types of women online.

Laundry Machine Operator: First, this should be lumped in with Housekeeper. Second, Laundry Machine Repairmen (which we have to do when it breaks down) make 5 to 10 times as much as someone stuffing clothes in it that probably led to breaking it in the first place.

Janitor: Are we calling Housekeeper by yet a third job title? If anything this would be the male who takes out the garbage. Assuming he remembers it. Doesn't like trip over it and miss it going out the door to work in the morning then she has to do it.

Van Driver: You expect to be paid to drive yourself shopping?

Facilities Manager: You expect to be paid because most of the time we let you have your way to avoid an argument?

Psychologist: You can't even figure out why you tell your kid "no" and he doesn't respond, and you think you're a Psychologist? If anything the male has become the Psychologist trying to even remotely understand women.

Man: Is something wrong?
Woman: No (meaning yes)
Man: What's wrong?
Woman: Nothing (meaning everything)

Woman: Does this dress make me look fat?
Man: No (accused of lying) Yes (you should have lied)

Woman: Do you love me like you used to love me before you loved me like you love me now?
Man: Huh?
Woman: You don't love me anymore!

The list goes on.

And last but not least this salary is based on being a CEO: So really what we're saying is this only applies to the 1:20 households where the man doesn't wear the pants in the family.

What's in a name

2007-04-04T11:53:00.000-07:00

Quite a bit it seems if you want to be president of the U.S. A look back at over two centuries of president names the oddest one is Filmore. I first heard about him talking to a friend of mine months ago and said then he didn't have a chance because of his name. His last name wouldn't fail him except it's combined with that first name and it sounds too much like Osama which I've noticed people are already unfairly making comparisons. Yeah, it doesn't make sense but common sense is left outside the voting booth when America votes. As proof the current president who was such a bad choice it was the first time I didn't vote for a Republican president and that was his first term. Looking at the names only, who has a chance?

Joe Biden - Biden time for what? Seems too weenie.

Chris Dodd - Short, simple, but sounds like dud.

Mike Huckabee - Didn't see the movie, reminds me of Huckleberry Finn, nope.

Barack Obama - Last name is strong but first name kills it. He appears to be black (I really don't know except for a couple of photos I've seen) which will bring a strong vote turnout and he seems to be popular, strong, and charasmatic. If he loses it will be because of his name.

Tom Tancredo - Not a chance.

Sam Brownback - President "Brownback" - too close to brown-noser - no way.

John Edwards - Name is great - wasn't he the one with the bad chin?

Dennis Kucinich - Not even when Charo was actually popular 30 years ago.

Bill Richardson - Name is okay - have no idea who he is.

Hilary Clinton - Didn't she already serve two terms? I'm ashamed to say it but there is a good chance I will vote for this ball-buster.

Rudy Giuliani - One word, Letch. I saw a photo on MSN from a Today Show interview or something, at this point he just looks like her Grandfather. He's not going to be able to touch her without it looking like groping and people are going to be thinking, "At least Clinton didn't dump his wife and marry the intern."

John McCain - Strong name and personality, has a good chance. Probably the only Republican currently in the running I would vote for over the ball buster.

Mitt Romney - Have no idea who he is and unless he's touched by an angel has no chance with that name.

Fred Thompson - Okay, he's not in the running yet and may not be. If he runs he has by far the best chance of any Republican to win and probably the best chance to win of anyone.

Natural Selection

2007-03-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

One of the things I've noticed about the west coast is their prevention of natural selection which has dumbed down the population considerably. One of the earlier things I noticed was when Tracy and I took a trip to the deforested and strip mined section of Washington called Mount Saint Helens is they had signs warning people it was illegal to leave the paved road without a permit. I asked Tracy why. She said it was to make sure people knew how not to get lost. I said then we didn't stop anyone in the south that was dumb enough to get lost in the woods, it's called thinning the herd. I've found out since I've been living here they send search and rescue parties after these people all the time. We didn't have search and rescue in the south, as to why, refer to thinning the herd. What's really amazing is several families in the last year have actually gotten lost while in their vehicles and had to be rescued because they took a wrong turn off the interstate and got lost deep in the mountains in a snowstorm. I once got hit by a white-out and it scared the living daylights out of me. I'm creeping along at two miles an hour only staying in the road by feeling which side of my tires left the pavement and hit the shoulder. I had no chance of winding up on some logging road half way up a mountain lost.

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis.cgi/web/vortex/display?slug=strandedbridge24m&date=20070324&query=bridge+idaho

This is why they need to start allowing natural selection out here. Washington has ordered a bridge section (actually three, this was the first to be on its way) and after making it all the way from Minnesota it was stopped at the border between Washington and Idaho. It boils down to one state employee bought something that another state employee is saying he can't bring into the state. So we have a bunch of other state employees sitting around getting paid waiting to install this bridge section and I guess they have to wait until a bunch of other state employees change state law so they can bring their bridge section they bought into the state.

My tax dollars at waste.

Thank you for reminding me about my dead pet.

2007-03-30T17:37:00.000-07:00

Last December I called the City of Seattle and when the lady answered the phone I said, "Thank you for reminding me about my dead pet during the holidays." There was a long "Ummmm" at the other end of the line so I told her the information she needed to know and that I no longer had the animal. After I came back from a wonderful Vegas vacation I found a post card notice from the city with all this red lettering for fines, penalties, collection notices - and my first reaction was "Oh crap, what didn't I pay?" Then I read all the black and see statutes and laws and realize its about pet licensing. Threats for hundreds of dollars in fines, they're going to send a cop after me, and letting me know if they get a hold of my pet it won't be returned. Gee, you've been so nice so far what kept you from telling me you're going to send her to the gas chamber? Off in a corner they say if you no longer own the animal call them immediately. They even admit they are "aggressive"

http://www.seattle.gov/news/detail.asp?ID=6998&dept=40

City of Seattle
Gregory J. Nickels, Mayor

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: 2/6/2007 1:15:00 PM
Seattle Animal Shelter continues aggressive pet licensing campaign Mass mailers, emphasis patrols enforce “zero tolerance” policy

That's how the link starts off. It's not that I mind they sent a post card inquiring about the pet license, its that they could have done it nicely instead of the completely uncivilized and heavy handed manner they did it. It was completely insensitive. I do miss Maggie. I discovered the above link because on occassion I still go to the Seattle Animal Shelter page and look for another Maggie. Of course I know I won't find another Maggie, so never follow through with any of them, although last time I saw one that was pretty darn close. Over time I've one by one tossed everything that was here that was hers. Maggie really became my cat, she was like me; smart, fluffy, calm. Mittens was like Tracy; high strung, guilable. When I knew I was going to lose Maggie I snapped at Tracy once that she left me with the defective cat out of misdirected anger about it. I'm apologizing publicly Tracy. :) When I had to take her for the final trip to the vet they asked me if I wanted to be with her when they did that and I couldn't. I understand why people do and commend them for doing it, but I just couldn't. I even had to ask the vet to pay her in the examination room instead of going out front to do it.

So City of Seattle (who will never read this anyway) you should consider being a little more thoughtful about your "aggressive campaign" to collect your licensing fees. A lot of people simply lost a pet they cared for is the reason you didn't get your $15.

Why is Halle Berry Black?

2006-06-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

I read an interview she did not long after winning her Oscar for best actress and some of the questions were related to a few disparaging comments some prominent blacks had made about her winning that boiled down to her not "really" being black. She said that if she told people she were white, they would put her away. I thought, "Why can't she call herself white?" She was raised by her white mother without her father, and I couldn't see why it was any more wrong to consider her white than black. Of course I've always considered her black.

It reminded me of a post Tracy made a long time ago stating that she had always been a minority. I understood what she said, but I didn't understand what she meant. I would rarely think of her racially, but when I do I consider her Asian. I know she was raised by her Korean mother and she likes Asian foods, but that's not why I see her as Asian. For me I see white people as white whether they are a southern baptist, a KKK member, or a Swede, and they see me as white regardless of any other differences. I have lived my whole life and just taken for granted the fact I have a race that I belong too.

If you are bi-racial and you are always seen as the "other" race, there has to be an emotional impact to that. Growing up for Tracy and her sister and being seen as "white" was probably the most difficult part and now in her adult life to the people around her, her bi-racial status doesn't really matter - at least until it comes to choosing a race on some document, which all of them I've seen make you choose one or the other. I think of Tracy as Tracy and I wouldn't care if she was green with pink spots. If I didn't know her and someone asked me what her race was, I would say she was "half asian" and I suppose if an Asian was asked they would probably identify her as "half white". That seems very unfair.

?

2006-04-15T08:39:00.000-07:00

The person in front of me at Starbucks yesterday morning ordered a decaffinated, sugarless, fat-free latte. WHY BOTHER? Wouldn't it have been quicker to just pick up a bottle of water at the register?

Sue: The American Pastime

2006-04-03T22:27:00.000-07:00

I went to King County Courthouse this morning to testify in a lawsuit someone brought against one of our customers we had done a job for. Months ago I recieved a phone call from the plaintiff's lawyer. Had she just asked normal technical questions and accepted the answers I wouldn't have thought anything of it. However she made it obvious she didn't like the answers (as in they didn't suit her needs) and was trying very hard to create circumstances against our customer that just weren't true. Because of that I called our customer who asked if they could have their lawyer call me who then asked me to testify on their behalf.

The woman sufferred an injury, and then tried to use the circumstances of our customer to blame them for that injury. At first I thought the woman's lawyer was just trying to blame the customer for negligence that just wasn't true. I thought it very odd she claimed to be injured in a way that in 20 years of being a locksmith I have never heard of happening and thought extremely unlikely, but at that point I thought maybe she had been injured. After seeing the video yesterday the woman herself made I realized for multiple reasons there was just no way she was injured the way she claimed she was.

It's sad to see how abused our legal system is. In the end we all pay for it in higher insurance costs to goods and services purchased.

Adopt a Pooch

2006-03-18T06:17:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine volunteers for Noah's Bark, an animal resuce organization. I couldn't resist filling out an adoption application online.

1.) Why do you want to adopt a pet? Entertainment, food.

2.) Do you live in: Apartment

3.) If you rent, do you have the landlord's permission to own a dog? No Landlord permission, I’m planning on training him to attack the Landlord to keep him out.

4.) How often have you moved in the past 5 years? About every three months, as soon as they realize I have no intention of paying rent. Hopefully with a dog keeping the Landlord at bay I will be able to extend this to 5 or 6 months.

5.) Suppose you move to an apartment or rental that does not accept pets, what would you do? Sneak the dog in during the night.

6.) Does anyone in the household smoke?(some dogs are allergic) No smoking. Chemicals from the meth lab are highly flammable.

7.) Do you foresee any major changes in your life in the next 15 years, (average life span of a dog), such as marriage, children, health problems, going away to college?
Yes No Possibly

If yes, please explain: Prison

8.) Do you have a fenced in yard with no gaps? Yes No If so, how high, what kind? Not at present, but as noted above I could have one in the near future. 20 feet, razor wire.

9.) Number of adults in household? Relationship to you? Just me. I’ve tried to get a woman to move in with me but for some reason it’s been difficult.

10.) How many children live in the household? None. They are all in protective custody and I don’t think I will be allowed to see them again.

13.) Enter the age and type of pets currently in your household? One cat in fridge, aged 3 weeks so he’s about ready for stew.

14.) Do any of your pets currently live (NO) mostly outdoors? Yes No
Please describe:

15.) Are current pets spayed/neutered? Yes No And much more.

17.) Are you able and willing to exercise the dog on a regular basis? Yes No Yes
Method: Pellet Gun – I find they move much faster than when walked on a leash so should be a much better work out for them.

19.) Have you always kept a collar and ID tag on your pets at all time? Yes No Yes, an electrified training collar.

20.) How many pets have you owned in the past? Where are those pets now? Be specific: Lost count. Not sure where they are now, but they were delicious.

21.) Have you ever had a serious behavior problem with a previous pet? Yes No
If yes, please describe. Yes, all of them have turned out to be high strung. I’ve never been lucky enough to get one of those loving snuggle up to you pets.

22.) Were all previous pets spayed/neutered? Yes No Did it matter?

23.) Do you know what heartworm disease is and how to prevent it? Yes No Yes, it is caused by skeeters so I soak all of my pets in the meth lab chemicals to keep them safe.

24.) Is your current dog, (or was your previous dog), on heartworm prevention medication? Yes No No, Vets want you to bring the animal in so they can charge outrageous prices for treatments, it’s not worth it.

25.) How do you plan to prevent fleas and ticks? By getting a dog – hopefully they’ll be more attracted to the dog and infest him instead of me.

26.) How do you feel about spaying or neutering your pet? Why?

27.) How many hours will your new dog be home alone on typical day? None, I don’t go out, my dealers pick up here.

29.) Where will your new pet sleep at night? Chained to the front door.

30.) What percentage of time will the new dog spend inside of house? 100% if he doesn’t escape.

31.) Do you have a doggie door? Yes No NO
Would you consider putting one in? Yes No NO

If "No", please explain: It would aid him in escaping.

32.) What would you expect vet care, heartworm and flea preventative to cost yearly? $0

33.) What type of housetraining procedures will you use? Electrified collar, beatings, and gunpowder in his food.

34.) Under what circumstances do you think it is OK to let a dog outside unattended? As bait to lure another dog in for capturing.

35.) For which of the following reasons would you give up your dog? (please select all that apply)
moving not housebroken
divorce gets too big
shedding not getting along with other pets
allegies behavior problems
barking increased work hours
aggressive medical problems
new baby not getting along with children
getting out of fence none
children lost interest other: If offered enough money from a research center.

36.) Have you ever given a pet up? Yes No NO

If so, please explain the circumstance: Waste not, want not.

37.) What type of pet food do you intend to feed your pet? Leftovers when there are any.

38.) Has a dog died on your premises of distemper, parvo or unknown causes? Yes No No, I’ve always known how they were put down.

39.) Suppose your pet develops a medical problem that becomes expensive, (some treatments can cost thousands of dollars).

What would you do? Dinner

40.) Suppose your pet develops a frequent urination problem at the age of 12. You work 8 hrs a day and he can't hold it that long. Do you:
Have him put to sleep because he is older
Baby-gate him in a place where the flooring is not carpeting
Put in a doggy door
Give him to a rescue group or shelter
other: Is this a trick question? Dogs can actually live 12 years?

41.) If you date or marry someone who does not like or want your pet(s), what would you do? Please elaborate: I really don’t see someone liking or wanting me more than a dog.

42.) How do you feel about dogs being on the furniture? Dogs as furniture is fine, they make great footstools. Oh, “on” furniture, no, they should be on the floor, as a footstool.

43.) If you are adopting a dog with longer hair, will you groom this dog? Yes No
How often? No, I barely groom myself.

44.) How did you hear about us? Radio Newspaper Web Site Word of Mouth TV Other One of your volunteers.

45.) Have you ever looked at or applied for a pet with another rescue group? Yes
How long ago? Several times – I was trying to get one of mine back.

Did you adopt? Yes No No

Please explain: They refused.

46.) Do you object to an unannounced home visit by a representative from our organization? Yes No Not if she’s cute and wearing a bikini.

47.) Please list your Veterinarian's name: Phone number I don’t see a vet, however I do have a psychologist if you need their name.

48.) Please list the name, phone number and address of 3 personal references: All of them are incarcerated so I’ll have to check and see if they can send and receive mail first.

Hot For Teacher

2006-03-13T13:26:00.000-08:00

I think of all the education that I missed.
But then my homework was never quite like this.
Got it bad, got it bad, got it bad,
I’m hot for teacher.
I got it bad, so bad,
I’m hot for teacher.

Van Halen

Mary Kay from these here parts is now as far as I know living happily with her past student and their two kids. In spite of multiple trysts with a minor and convictions and two pregnancies, she really didn't serve much time.

Now we have the Florida woman who was boinking one of her 14 year old students. She pleaded for a few years house arrest. But wait - another judge is saying he's not going to accept the plea and is going to send it to trial. Had this woman looked as homely as Mary Kay, he wouldn't be doing that. He's just pissed because she's gorgeous and a 14 year old was doing her and not him. As http://debralafave.tripod.com/id1.html notes, "THE GREATEST THING TO EVER HAPPEN TO ONE LUCKY 14 YEAR-OLD BOY." with a picture of her in a bikini on a bike.

Now if this were a picture of some hunky male guy and it said 14 year-old girl - that would be totally unacceptable. But it isn't, this is a BOY we are talking about and no matter how feminist you get there is a difference between men and women and there always will be. Let's look at the circus act of statements:

Now, the prosecution and the defense have reached a plea agreement and come in and said, we think this is the best thing. Not necessarily for Debra Lafave, the 25-year-old teacher, but for the 14-year-old victim. Psychologists testified saying that he has already experienced some psychological damage and to put him on the stand could further present problems for him down the road.

HORSE PUCKY! The reason she probably got caught in the first place was because he couldn't keep his mouth shut. He's 14, he's doing someone like that, he's telling everyone. My 8th grade algebra teacher Ms Pool - she was nice. Great butt. We used to chalk her stool so she's get chalk on her butt that wiggled when she erased the board. Had I been doing her, everyone would have known. This kid's mother may have sufferred some psychological damage, but the kid didn't and his father is probably proud.

Heck, they should let it go to trial - as long as it's not a jury of all women, they'll never get a conviction. After the kid testifies he'll probably high five all the guys in the jury on the way by. Someone might read this and want to be offended, but I'll refer you to the lyrics at the beginning of this post. Those lyrics were acceptable (and the music video) because this situation when the minor is a male is acceptable unlike when the minor is a girl and we all think the guy should be drawn and quartered. Heck, we just need to ask the boy, "You okay with this?" and when he responds, "Hell yeah!" just let it go.

Dubya's legacy

2006-03-05T00:32:00.000-08:00

Reading Lynzie's post about the (South Dakota?) law that is making almost all abortions illegal reminded me of reading about it. Basically they are taking a shot at Row vs Wade. First off I am pro-choice. There are circumstances, rape and incest being the extreme end, that I don't believe I have the right to decide for a woman her decision to have an abortion. Personally however I am against abortion. People want to argue that there is some point after conception but before birth that it is a person. My mom put it rather simply, if she had had an abortion, I would not be here. If anyone reading this had been aborted by their mother, well, you wouldn't be reading this.

If Dubya's Supreme Court replacements actually swing the vote to overturn Roe vs Wade, that will probably be his biggest impact, not the mess in Iraq.

6 Months To Live

2006-03-02T06:31:00.000-08:00

My father called me at work the other day to tell me he had 6 months to live. I asked him what was wrong several times but at that point he had started crying and I couldn't understand what he was saying. He said I was the first to know and hung up. He has a wife and three kids besides me and still has a few of his brothers and sisters left. He was one of twelve children. His family has always been about as close as any normal family would be.

My mom had alienated herself from her family in the years before she died and the only ones that knew were me and my brother, and if it hadn't been for my brother I wouldn't have known. I guess her reasons were the same as mine would be, if you've alienated yourself from your family then it just selfish to burden them with knowing you're going to die. I've chosen to live without them and it wouldn't be right to burden them with the grief and expense to travel to the opposite coast just so I don't die alone.

Women on Survivor

2006-02-15T17:03:00.000-08:00

I didn't watch last season's Survivor but watched the first couple of episodes of this season's Survivor. First episode had the people split into four tribes; older men, younger men, older women, younger women. Four in each tribe. Who came up with this idea? Anyone with a grain of common sense knows that the older women are going to be mowed over in the contests unless they plan on the challenges being something like George Hamilton trivia. So they have a slim to none chance as it is, lose the first immunity challenge, and they vote off slim. One of them was afraid of leaves she was so bad, and yet the vote the strongest person off their team? They get back to camp and can't even make a fire anymore since they voted off the only one able to do that. The American Civil Liberties Union probably threatened to sue CBS so the second week they quickly combined the tribes into two. After the merge Ms Leaf-a-fobia and Ms SUV Soccermom were told they were the next two to go. They didn't understand why. Soccermom went at the end of the show.

Season before last the women had the men 7 to 3 at the merge and two weeks later 7 to 1 and the one guy that was left was the one that couldn't make it across the balance beam the first episode. The leader of the pack had planned and schemed and made it clear they were picking off the men to guarantee a woman would win. 7 to 1 and the man who couldn't make it across a balance beam sliding on his butt won. Has anyone since Richard Hatch (who's wearing stripes for not paying taxes on the life changing million dollars) in the first season won that was actually had some scheme going to try to win? 7 women and one guy, he sat back and watched while the women shot each other down. Boston Rob came the closest I can think of, schemed all the way to the end knowing he would lose but then proposed to the winner. Some might say her scheme was to sleep with him to get to the final two - but if that were true she would have turned down the marriage proposal...I really wanted to see her say, "Marry you? I only slept with you to win the million dollars, sucker".

Outwit, outplay, outlast - the only thing the winner seems to do is outlast. Outwit and outplay means outbackstab, outlie, and beat your opponents in the contests. The ones that are strong and win the contests get voted off as soon as they don't win and in the final two the one that outbackstabbed is hated the most, so they vote for the one that simply snuck in under the radar. And let's not forget that the person you really like, from Rudy in the first season to Rupert a few seasons ago, never has a chance to win because they are always voted off because of that. I think about the only enjoyment you can get out of the show now is seeing those self-important scheming I have everything in the bag people get blind sided and voted off tribal meeting at the end of the show.

Oh, and Johnny "My Grandmother Died" Fairplay - Tracy was offended, I just saw a smart, quick thinking good old boy from Virginia.

Cats In The News

2006-01-04T14:33:00.000-08:00

Looking at MSN today they seem cat happy:

'Miracle' cat survives high-speed, 70-mile ride

Male kitty was stuck in the underbelly of a sport utility vehicle Dixon-Aquino said Miracle probably climbed under the SUV and was asleep when the journey began. Somehow, the cat avoided being mangled by fan blades and other moving parts as he clung to the car.

Ahh, there's no better beginning to a morning than to go outside and start your car and hear the sound "RREEEOWWWWW - THUP THUP THUP THUP THUP" caused by a sleeping cat that got caught in the fan blades when you started your car. Unfortunantly this one escaped.

'Emily' returns to Wisconsin after two months in France

Emily vanished from her Appleton home in late September. She apparently wandered into a nearby paper company’s distribution center and crawled into a container of paper bales. The container went by truck to Chicago and by ship to Belgium before the cat was found Oct. 24 at Raflatac, a laminating company in Nancy, France. Workers there used her tags to phone her veterinarian, who called the McElhineys.

Proof you can go a couple of weeks and not worry about feeding and watering a cat.

Ungrateful cat rescued after five days in tree

Collarless tabby ran away after rescue

Why you shouldn't worry about feeding one but once every two weeks.

Kitten dumper to spend cold night in woods

Woman should feel what abandoned animals experienced, judge says.

An Ohio woman will spend the night outside for dumping 33 kittens in the woods. The overnight temperature in the area tonight is expected to dip into the 20s. Michelle Murray, a former animal rescuer, will have no food or shelter but will have water and a way to communicate with park rangers in case of and emergency. Judge Michael Cicconetti said he wanted Murray to feel what the kittens experienced. The animals were recovered but many had upper respiratory infections, and nine died.

I don't often use this but WTF? I'm sorry, but did those kittens have a water bottle and a cell phone to use for a Park Ranger to come to the rescue? I don't think so. I wouldn't exactly call this "what the abandoned animals experienced". She should be blindfolded and dropped somewhere in the Pacific Northwest having no idea where in the hell she is with the approximate odds of her dying being 9 in 33. No food, water, or cell phone. These weren't cats or the sad excuse for a pet minature taco bell dog that Paris and Britany carry around - they were cute little innocent kittens!

Ummmmmm

2005-12-04T18:52:00.000-08:00

Oh yea, I had a blog. It's been like 10 weeks since I've made a peep. The last two posts seem to have been about WoW - I guess that's where I've been. Vtash and I are still having a ball. It's amazing that even past 50 I can still *ding* for level and it be a suprise. We have yet to have to grind during a level. We've just done quests and had fun and it seems to be as much because we really have fun together as it is the game itself.

After sacraficing the cow mentioned in the previous post we didn't do any real pvp. However in the last few weeks that's changed and we agreed this weekend that if you see yellow, kill the fellow - pvp players of the opposite faction have their name highlighted in yellow. Vtash wasn't on today so I sat at an elf outpost that sometimes gets attacked while fooling with the new UI. Rather quickly the defense alarms sounded and I rushed to the bridge, saw yellow, targeted the death ray - they died quicker than I could see who they were. The other player that was attacking cheered me and I looked at them and saw they were 60. I asked what level was that Horde I just vaporized - I learned I got my first 60 kill. :)

I go back to playing with the UI and in a little while the defense alarm goes off again and I wander outside the inn to see a 60th shaman taunting a 51 hunter. Not wanting to commit suicide I hung nearby to see what would happen. Suprisingly the hunter attacked and I wasn't going to let him die alone so I helped. Death ray, a couple of dots and the Imp machine gunning fireballs he went down quickly. Vtash - we can kill a 60 now. :)

Okay, I'm hooked. I had been out of soul shards (I collect souls from what I kill, don't be alarmed) so went to get some to be as effective as I could be. After coming back a 60th mage wandered in to set the alarms off. He snubbed his nose at us and I asked the hunter if I attacked would he back me up. He said Sure! I sacraficed my pet for 1500 extra HP, called my new Infernal demon pet (who comes crashing down as a meteor on top of the mage) death ray the mage followed up by soul fire fireball. My wee little 52 gnome warlock wiped out a level 60 undead mage in under 10 seconds, almost solo. The hunter laughs and says, "That was priceless". :)

The mage was a wee bit upset. He comes back, kills the hunter with what must have been a single blast then starts backing away from me (he may have been undead, but he learned fairly quickly about the death ray). A 60th paladin I think comes up and wipes the mage. The mage doesn't want to give up and comes back again, we start chasing him, finally chase him down (me and the paladin) and this time I do a killing blow with a death coil spell. We all go back to town and the mage comes back once again - he really doesn't like me at this point. He made sure I died first in the next fight. :) The last fight was a draw. He had been running out of my range so I couldn't death ray him, so I started off with the net-o-matic and nailed him to the ground so he couldn't run off. He blinked, an alternate form of running off, and then had to change me into a sheep before I could finish him off. When I un-sheeped I ran out of his range, so it was a draw. I was out of soul shards so decided to call it a night. me 4 and the 60s 1. :)

PvP

2005-09-22T05:57:00.000-07:00

There are two factions in WoW, the Horde and the Alliance, neither of which is allowed through game play to talk/trade/group with each other. Normally you can't just attack the other faction if you see them. However if you engage any NPC with a PVP tag or another player, then you are flagged yourself for PVP and can be attacked for about 5 minutes. Vtash and my little gnome were out in Horde territory having just finished a quest and we see a Horde player that's tagged. I'm 27 with a 27 succubus pet and he's 27 with a 27 bear pet. The Tauren was 20 and currently engaged with the wildlife there. Needless to say there wasn't really any combat involved, the poor cow was just slaughtered when we quickly decided to attack him. I felt a twinge of guilt but Vtash noted he deserved it. This of course meant we were flagged in the middle of Horde territory but my gnome has very short legs and I figured it would be much easier for us to gate back than walk all that way so that wasn't much of a problem. I did note when we were safe at home that someone in the Horde could have thought we deserved it too. Vtash asked, "Why? What did we do?". Good point, I guess. :)

I remember the beginning of EQ1 in the Oasis the dark elves could not buy food and drink from the vendors because they were evil. They would beg players in OOC for food and drink so they didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. Many players wouldn't trade with them in the beginning because I think there was much more thought to roleplaying, and I was one of those that thought, "Starve! Die of thirst! You evil stinking pig dropping!" Unless of course it was a female dark elf, damn they were cute. That was actually the first female character I played when I wanted one of the evil necromancers I made it a female dark elf and found it much much easier to get food and water so I didn't have to go all the way back to Neriak. *cough*

I have always thought from a roleplaying sense that your race shouldn't HAVE to make you evil and there's no reason why you couldn't be a nice vegetarian troll. EQ2 I think did a good job in having a way for you to move to the other side. Even though players don't really use that in a roleplaying way, EQ2 did an excellent job within the game design of how it was done and how the NPCs reacted to you.

EQ2 vs WoW

2005-09-20T05:58:00.000-07:00

I had played EQ2 less and less and a little over a month ago I stopped playing. After not playing a couple of weeks I finally bought WoW. Artistically EQ2 is a 10. It is a beautiful game. I was as high as second on the game-wide first finds and that was directly because I was the highest level chef in the game because I was working for access into the highest zones just so I could see them. I always thought it ironic that it wasn't some iconic fighter that led the way into the new zones, but a chef wielding a spatula. Once I reached 42, I went to Feerrott and Everfrost, took pictures, and went back to adventuring.

Nothing comes close to EQ2 visually. The other artistic half, the lore, is top notch too...especially with Tracy's writing skills. :) The "game" itself sucks. The collection and scrying stone quests, both thanks to Tracy's boyfriend Matt :), are good creative design that fit well. Unfortunantly good design was a rarity in EQ2. Much of my time there was frustrating, and my entire 40s sucked because of thoughtless game design. Level 50 players would not group or hunt content meant for their level but instead would mow down the 43 - 45 solo content which was what I needed. Why? Becuase the writs/money made that the most profitable thing for them to do.

WoW has graphics that seem on par with the original EQ's second generation. The reason WoW is hugely successful and still gaining subscribers (EQ1 after a year was still increasing, EQ2 started going downhill in only a few months as it took that long for us to lose half of our guild there) is because of how well designed it is. WoW has a max of 20 quests, 1/5 of what EQ2 did, but I have yet to run out of quest room. The quests are designed very well and lead you from one area of the game to the other doing an excellent job of matching your level progression. My EQ2 conjurer and WoW warlock are about the same level, 28. EQ2 she only used one pet spell since it was so much better than the others. The format was to sit in a safe spot, send pet out even half way across the zone, bonk critter, call pet back, tell pet to attack critter again, heal pet as needed. I would watch Tivo on my other PC while doing this. My warlock has several pets that are very different from each other AND all useful to play depending on the circumstances - whether it's group play and what pet best suits your party's needs, or solo play and HOW you want to play. Again, the design is excellent, and this is what I've found the game to be overall is just very well designed. No fantastic groundbreaking designs, just good design. Some of it the design is fairly simple, but an excellent simple design is far better than a bad complicated design.

I'll eventually buy the expansion and will keep my EQ2 account with its all access pass. Nifty thing that being able to have a subscription count for all three games even though the player is actually only playing one of them. :) I don't see ever playing either EQ again as the primary game. There's too much new stuff coming up in the next couple of years.

New Orleans

2005-09-01T16:32:00.000-07:00

I truly feel sorry for the people stranded in New Orleans after the Hurricane. It has to be about the lowest point in anyone's life to have a major loss like your home and everything you own due to a hurricane, fire, or whatever. It's not just the TV, PC, and things like that...they can be replaced. It's the things you have that can't be replaced, and just the fact that you lost your "home". That being said....People have a tendency to live in the path of a natural disaster, whether in a city below sea level by the sea, or along a riverbank of a river that floods every 20 years. When it happens, don't be blaming the Mayor, FEMA, the President, and Paris Hilton...the blame lies on the person who decided to live there.

I came across the following story from the Washington Post a few days ago. Being from the area (Lynchburg is just south of Nelson County) I remember the flooding, and you can still see today the devasting effects it had on the land (I used to trout fish the area). When it says it hosed away entire mountainsides, it means that the entire top layer of soil became so saturated that it gave way and slid off the mountain. Trees, boulders, everything. It wiped out a small town along the Tye river in the middle of the night.

Those of us who lived though Hurricane Camille will never forget it. Camille struck with the force of several hydrogen bombs, altering forever the topography of the Mississippi coast. Its nearly 200-mph winds and 25-foot storm surge exploded concrete buildings and erased entire communities -- then gouged open graveyards and hung corpses in the live oaks like so much Spanish moss. There was a problem for a time telling the storm victims from those already embalmed.

More than 250 were dead before Camille swept up the Mississippi Valley as a tropical storm. Then, three days and 1,000 miles after it hit the coast, it took a right turn over West Virginia and, in some sort of terrifying meteorological joke, dumped 20 to 40 inches of rain in eight hours on Nelson County, Va., hosing away entire mountainsides, drowning or burying 150 more people and touching off 100-year-record floods in the James River basin.

A City Run By Democrats

2005-08-18T17:45:00.000-07:00

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8992527/

The above is another story on the Seattle Monorail Project where they have hired some guy and giving him over $100,000 for what amounts to an opinion. Seattle's existing monorail travels about 10 blocks with stops only at each end and was put in for the World's Fair about 50 years ago. Seattle has taxed, and has future tax revenue coming in the in the amount of hundreds of millions (and probably into the billions now) for two things, a monorail and a light rail system. After all of the years and all of that money, neither are close to being started or even have a viable plan to build one. They recently paid a company tens of millions of dollars as a payoff for a retainer where the company simply said, "If you come up with a plan to build one we'll do it for you, but you have to pay us 50 million dollars by this date if you don't have a plan". In the news story it notes that the monorail staff has been trimmed to 47 people. That's 1 accountant that collects the money and pays everyone, and 46 people who have done nothing but "plan" for years now, and that's just the monorail. The light rail system is in the same boat. At least after decades of work, the light rail has somewhat of a route planned to the airport but that's currently considered being trashed because Southwest Airlines wants to move to Boeing Field.

An example of how inept their planning has been is the tunnel underneath Seattle. This is the only place track has been laid for the light rail system, the only actual construction that has ever been done for either of these projects. Only buses have ever used the tunnels. The thing is either the track is the wrong size, the tunnels are too small, or both, so the one thing that was done for light rail, was done incorrectly. If these were publicly traded companies their owners would have been sent to prison. The "business" has collected taxes/invested money and never come through with the promised goods, which I think is fraud. Instead they have only lined their own pockets with this money.

Yes, there have been a vocal minority of republicans trying to stop this mess, but in a state that the democratic governer lost the election but was appointed to the position by the state supreme court (does this sound familiar?) the democrats have managed to keep this "business" going.

Seattle Weather Report

2005-08-18T16:36:00.000-07:00

We've been suffering like the rest of the U.S. as it's been crawling into the low 80s almost every day here. Yesterday after 25 straight days of sun we finally did get some rain though, .05" to be exact, and it stayed in the low 70s. I think we're back to 83/84 this weekend though with just more sun. Nights at least are just barely tolerable as it consistently dips down into the 60s. Every day I get home from work the apartment is like 79/80 degrees and it takes at least a half hours for the AC to get it cooled down. Fall will be here soon.

I'm Rich!

2005-08-14T08:40:00.000-07:00

I seem to have had one relative, a Mr S.U. Seamster who lived in Lome-Toga, die in a car accident on 4/7/1999 and he was worth $18.4 million. Amazingly a mere three minutes later another windfall email came in notifying me a Mr P.A. Seamster worth $28.5 million died in a car accident when arriving for a holiday to Lome on 9/29/2002. After collecting my millions, I'll definitely avoid travelling to Lome as it seems millionaire Seamsters don't fare well there.

Durian

2005-08-10T23:25:00.000-07:00

This is something I can find downstairs. You can go to http://www.durianpalace.com/ and read all about this wonderful fruit. They spend much of the first page trying to say such phrases as "rotten onions with limburger cheese and low-tide seaweed" describing its smell are unwarranted. It's also noted that "It is this characteristic super-fast deterioration of durian fragrance in a closed space that has led to the banning of durians in many public places in Southeast Asia, such as hotels, buses, and airplanes." Dude, if it's illegal it's because it has more stink than a coon dog has fleas.

Jerry, my co-worker, opened a container the other day that had durian fruit in it. In short order everyone in the office was checking their shoe bottoms. Les, another co-worker, wasn't in that day, so yesterday when he came in I knew he should be introduced to the fragrant durian too. I emailed Jerry to grab his container out of the fridge and set it over beside me. I waited, about 30 seconds, and Les, who was talking to one of the techs, stops mid-sentence and whirls around with an audible *whoosh* and gives me a look like I broke wind in church during a moment of silence. I howled, Jerry falls over onto the floor, Les lets out a string of expletives, and Dee and Steve rush out to ask us to check our shoes. I wished afterwards I had a camera to catch that stunned, yet pained, look Les gave me.

I'm sure God placed our nostrils where he did as a last second warning device for things we are about to put in our mouths. Maybe these things do "taste like heaven", but what idiot would have ever let them pass by their nostrils to stick in their mouth to find out in the first place?

The Evils of Video Games

2005-08-09T19:02:00.000-07:00

FAYETTE, Ala. - A 20-year-old whose lawyers claimed the video game “Grand Theft Auto” and childhood abuse caused him to kill three small-town police officers was convicted Tuesday of capital murder.

The victims’ families have filed a civil suit against the video game manufacturer and two stores, claiming Moore killed the three after repeatedly playing “Grand Theft Auto III” and “Grand Theft Auto: Vice City.” No trial date has been set in the civil lawsuit.

Bonnie and Clyde were killers long before video games came along. If people really think that a video game caused someone to go out and kill and not that the person WAS JUST FREAKING NUTS then they're just as nuts as the murderer was. These people kill because they were a sandwich short of a picnic, not because they played a video game or watched some movie. But people would much rather profit from something like this, so they use it as an excuse to sue.

One of the biggest opponent groups to things like violence in video games is the church. What I want to know is when are we going to start suing the church for all the people they are responsible for having been murdered. First, all of those people that heard the voice of the devil (or Jesus, or thought they were Jesus) who told them to off someone. I think all of the Christian denominations should cough up money for those victim's families. All those Muslim extremist using Islam as their excuse to kill, they owe a lot of countries some money. More people have been murdered in the name of religion than about any other reason.

I agree with what Prime Minister Blair is doing. Some Muslim extremist priest that's been freeloading off of British welfare for years is out inciting and promoting violence against Britain. He should be deported, and in a body bag would probably be okay too. Most Muslims are a peaceful people, so are most Christians. Everyone should be allowed to practice whatever religion they choose. Those extremist who abuse their religion, whether it's Al-Qeda or the KKK, and promote religious or racial intolerence, should be shot.

World News

2005-08-04T07:02:00.000-07:00

Japanese people hoping their bank accounts carry a bit more cash could see their hopes come true with an ATM that doubles as a slot machine, a regional bank said Wednesday. Ogaki Kyoritsu Bank, based in Ogaki city, some 300 kilometers (185 miles) west of Tokyo, will on Aug. 8 introduce slot games that run during the wait as cash machines process transactions.

And people think there is a gambling problem in America?

A team of divers are searching at the bottom of the Baie des Ha! Ha! in northeastern Canada for 800 kilograms (1,700 pounds) of cheddar sunk by an entrepreneur hoping to revolutionize cheese making. "A few years ago, a fisherman came to us and said he'd found a piece of Boivin cheese at the bottom of a lake where he'd been diving. He took it, hesitated, ate it and told us it was one of the best cheeses he'd ever eaten," dairy owner Luc Boivin told AFP.

The story goes on to note how they are having a hard time finding it now. I know Canadians aren't known as the scholars of the world, but should one of them have realized by now the only thing they revolutionized was fish feeding?

Indonesian surgeons have delivered a 27-year-old baby from a middle-aged housewife who had carried the dead body inside her because she was too poor to have it removed, doctors said Wednesday. A team of 15 doctors operated for three hours on Tuesday to retrieve the 1.6-kilogram (3.5-pound) petrified baby from the 54-year-old woman, identified as Taminah, at the Sutomo general hospital in the Java island city of Surabaya.

And American women complain about a mere 9 months?

Former U.S. president Bill Clinton, who was visiting Kenya Friday, will probably never hear about it, but he's being offered 20 head of cattle and 40 goats for the hand of his daughter in marriage. The 36-year-old bachelor, Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor, has waited five years after writing to the president and vows to remain unmarried until he gets an answer.

I remember what Chelsea looked like, and at best she'll grow up looking like her mother. Personally I think he should take the deal. Besides, it's a much better deal than the one offered for Amy Carter years ago. That was just a few goats.

Sex in the news

2005-07-27T20:44:00.000-07:00

This recent news story on MSN caught my eye, Woman has sex parties for teen boys. A Colorado mom wanted to be cool. My first thought of course was, "my mom didn't throw sex parties for me". Then I realized reading it that she didn't bring over the high school cheerleading team, good old mom was the one boinking her son's friends. I'm sorry, in eighth grade I wouldn't have minded doing my algebra teacher who was mid 20's, but one of my friend's mom who was 40? Gads, when you're a teenager a 40 year old "mum" is closer to mummy than sex object. Of course there's the usual double standard here for a woman doing something like this compared to a man. Had the sex roles been reversed, "cool" and "party" would have been replaced with "rape" and "pedophile". I also think the charges would have been much more than a couple of misdemeanors and some contributing to the deliquency of a minor. It notes she has the potential to do quite a bit of time for this, but she won't.

Nebraska man charged with sex with wife, 13. She's 14 now, and 7 months pregnant. It seems that all parties involved decided under the circumstances they should get married. It didn't say a shotgun was brought to the decision making process, but where I come from there usually was. They went just over the state line to be married in Kansas, where the minimum age with parental consent for boys is 14 and girls 12. “It seems to me like they, as much as they could, made a responsible decision to try to cope with the problem,” Yoesel said. “The families are all united in this effort,” Yoesel said. “I don’t know who is complaining. ... What benefit is there to anybody in the prosecution of this young man?” Granted, the guy should have been shot for having sex with a 13 year old to begin with. The fact that he did this means he should definitely have an eye kept on him as a possible future child sex offender. But under the current circumstances they are right, there isn't a benefit to prosecuting him now. It's odd to think that in some parts of the world today, and even here a couple of hundred years ago, this was considered normal marrying ages.

Lastly there were a couple of MSN videos on the recent attempt by democrats to pass a bill that would tax internet pornography at a rate of 25%. Quoting, "Porn sites are taking in 12 billion dollars a year, more than CBS, NBC, and ABC combined. Their fastest growing consumer groups is the 12 to 17 year olds. This is an outrage, and we must start taxing them 25% so we can protect our children!" Eh? Why are democrats at their dumbest especially when they are trying to explain a new way to tax you? Even the interviewer had to ask exactly how collecting a tax would protect the children, which she refused to answer the first time. When he asked again, she only said they spend 500 million a year on child pornography investigations. First, child pornography and regular pornography are not the same thing, one of them happens to be illegal. Second, she never said where the 3 billion in taxes would be spent on, and if she didn't say I can guarantee you it won't be for all of the police throughout the country to help fight against child pornography.

Local Darwin Award

2005-07-19T06:38:00.000-07:00

Friend of mine at work brought the newspaper to me with this story on the front page of the local section. And yes, my co-workers have heard rumors about me and sheep.

King County sheriff's detectives are investigating the owners of an Enumclaw-area farm after a Seattle man died from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse boarded on the property.

Investigators first learned of the farm after the man died at Enumclaw Community Hospital July 2. The county Medical Examiner's Office ruled that the death was accidental and the result of having sex with a horse.

A surveillance camera picked up the license plate of the car that dropped the man off at the hospital, which led detectives to the farm and other people involved, said sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart.

Deputies don't believe a crime occurred because bestiality is not illegal in Washington state and the horse was uninjured, said Urquhart.

But because investigators found chickens, goats and sheep on the property, they are looking into whether animal cruelty — which is a crime — was committed by having sex with these smaller, weaker animals, he said.

The farm was talked about in Internet chat rooms as a destination for people looking to have sex with livestock, he said.

"A significant number of people, we believe, have likely visited this farm," said Urquhart.

The Humane Society of the United States intends to use the case during the next state legislative session as an example of why sex with animals should be outlawed in Washington, said Bob Reder, a Humane Society regional director in Seattle.

"This and a few other cases that we have will allow us a platform to talk about sex abuse of animals," Reder said.

Thirty-three states ban sex with animals, he said.

Susan Michaels, co-founder of local animal-rights organization Pasado's Safe Haven, said she has been fighting to have bestiality made illegal. "It's animal cruelty behind closed doors," Michaels said.

I sent a copy of the clip and a link to the newspaper's website to Darwin Awards. Guess you could say he really was nagged to death. The following are the states which embrace all animal lovers, regardless of what kind of love that is:

Alaska
Arizona
Colorado
Connecticut
Florida
Hawaii
Kentucky
Louisiana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
Ohio
South Dakota
Texas
Vermont
Washington
West Virginia
Wyoming

And though technically illegal, it's just a wee misdemeanor in these states:

California
Minnesota
New York
Utah

I must point out that in Virginia it is ILLEGAL (and a felony), but in such states as Hawaii and Washington it's legal - and California littering is considered a worse crime. We made fun of West Virginia, obviously with good reason as it's legal there too. People in Washington make fun of Montana and their sheep thing. Let's check Montana:

Montana (Mont. Code. Ann., @45-5-505 (1994) 10 year sentence and/or $50,000 fine)

Of course maybe the severity is only for sleeping with someone else's sheep. :)

It just doesn't get in sadder than this.

2005-07-13T22:18:00.000-07:00

I happened to see this article off of MSN and read it since I had recently made a post about the ever perky Rachael Ray. I looked at the Rachael Ray Sux blog that the article noted was particularly vicious. A couple of starts to posters: “Did anyone see her jumbo pork franks she made corndogs with? Yeah those are "healthy".” and “Did anyone happen to catch 30 minute meals earlier today? What was that shirt she was wearing??” Does anyone else immediately get the irony here? There are a bunch of people who say they HATE her, yet obviously watch all of her shows and then post about how much they hate them. At least one poster somewhat realizes the stupidity of this because they post, “Now, every time I see her (yes, like all others here, I watch to see JUST how annoying she can get)”. Same poster ends the rant with, “WTF? Someone please put her out of her misery.”

Dude, or Dudette, whichever the case may be – a highpoint of your life seems to be watching a person you hate hosting a television show you hate and then posting about how much you hate her and the show. WTF? If anyone needs to be put out of their misery, I would say it’s you.

Asian Festival

2005-07-11T05:24:00.000-07:00

They’re having the annual Asian Festival here in the International District this weekend. I think it is more appropriately the Asian Fair since it was pretty much like every fair Tracy, the cherubs, and I went too, except this time there was no parking involved, I just walked two blocks east. There were some differences, like the monks from Tibet were there, red robs and shaved head. They offered to have me come in and do an incense offering and prayer to Buddha. I declined; I didn’t want to take the chance of getting inside and being mistaken for the guy and causing a mob scene.

They had plenty of food vendors, which was to be expected. What I didn’t expect was such food vendors as the catfish and hushpuppy vendor and the Mexican vendor. A Mexican vendor sandwiched between the Thai and Hawaiian guys. HELLO? Now if I was Asian and it was MY festival, I’d be a bit offended by this. To make matters worse, the Thai guy was twiddling his thumbs while there were a dozen Asians lined up for burritos next door. I don’t get this. Even I had enough respect to skip the catfish and hushpuppies guy and got that delicacy from Hong Kong called a funnel cake a few tents down.

I watched the Karaoke contest. The final 6 had 4 Asians, a white girl that thought she was Brittany Spears, and a white guy who thought he was a thin Garth Brooks. Brittany, who was from British Columbia won. A Canadian travels to another white country to sing in a Karaoke contest at an Asian festival, and wins. Ah-huh. The only one who I saw that actually sang in something besides English (Chinese) made the final 6 but not the top 3. At least it was sponsored by Toyota.

Asian Women and Communication

2005-07-10T00:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve lived here over a year now and I’m one that has a habit of observing the surroundings. Of course the observing priority is usually some young, cute, petite, long-haired Asian girl. The one thing that has stood out is that Asian women change over the years. The teenage girls all act cute and shy and seem to have a habit of holding hands or walking arm in arm with each other. I don’t think this has anything to do with sexual preferences; it just seems to be what they do. You see young couples and the girl always seems to be sweet, cuddly, and docile. There’s a gradual transformation you see though with couples as they get older. Asian men after 60 I don’t think are allowed to talk anymore, and by that time they are always walking several steps behind the woman. And believe me those elderly Matriarchs of the Asian families are no longer shy, sweet, cuddly, or docile. Somehow during the intervening years she has now become the one wearing the pants in the household and makes it rather apparent.

I much more often now run into the situation of having to communicate with someone who doesn’t speak English. It’s amazing though how two people who don’t speak the same language can on a basic level get an idea across. My earliest memory of this was when I was pretty young and a couple of kids I met I think only spoke Spanish. We still communicated well enough to play as kids play and even to understand we had both seen the same movie, Escape to Witch Mountain. My biggest problem now is usually ordering food around here and somehow NO sesame seeds translates to EXTRA sesame seeds in all Asian languages. Sometimes it’s from people asking directions on the street. This I’ve always thought odd because I just don’t think of myself as looking to be a good prospect to ask in the first place. It usually somehow works out, like if they imitate the theme from Jaws I’ll know to point them to the dried shark fin dealer nearby. Today a Chinese woman cornered me in the hallway. I know she was Chinese because that’s one of the four words she knew, those being no, English, Chinese, and TV. Our cable has been out since about 11:00 this morning, so I knew right away what her problem was, but couldn’t find enough English words she knew to make her understand everyone had the same problem. She was pretty distressed, but perked up again when she realized I would follow her to her apartment. There I found out she knew another English word, thank-you, when I took my shoes off at the front door. I really have no clue which ones this is important too, I only know by experience if you wander into someone’s house it IS important too, it’s evidently equivalent to slapping them as they get pretty upset. She takes me to the bedroom where the Matriarch is in bed and hands me the remote control for the TV. I’m not sure exactly how, but through enough gesticulations I finally made her realize that her TV, my TV, and everybody’s TV was the same way. At that point she was happy again, rattled off the explanation to the Matriarch, and I made my escape picking up my shoes on the way out.

The Neighborhood

2005-07-09T10:09:00.000-07:00

I'm a southern good ol' boy now living in Chinatown. It's actually the International District because all asian cultures are here, not just the Chinese. The city has Chinatown on the banners because as Tracy pointed out no one (meaning us white people) would know what International District was. The biggest thing around here is the food. Tracy told me living here was wasted on a white boy like me, because I look at 99% of the stuff and shudder. She on the other hand will actually eat everything around here. I go downstairs on occassion and try to forage for something to eat. Last trip I was ogling the ribs hanging up, ribs are a southern thing so I'm sure they stole the idea from us. They have roast duck hanging up by the ribs and it takes me a few moments to realize what's wrong....THEY LEFT THE FREAKING HEAD ON THE DUCK! Gah, I'm wondering what else they left on, or in, the duck. Shouldn't suprise me, they had a hundred or so fried chicken feet hanging up in the window next door.

Like I said, Tracy eats this stuff. And believe me, the roast duck with head is mild compared to some things I've seen. I don't need to watch Fear Factor on TV, I can just go downstairs anytime and see it live. I know it's just what your're used too, for Tracy she calls these comfort foods, because it's what she grew up with. When she was a kid she said she and her sister got raw beef liver and considered it a treat. Where I came from if you fed your kids that, they would take your kids away and lock you up. And what gets me - fried chicken livers that I grew up on, she won't eat. I'm sorry, but the choice between gnawing on raw beef liver or having breaded deep fried chicken liver seems a no brainer to me.

Rachael Ray

2005-07-06T21:19:00.000-07:00

There are a few shows I watched on the Food Network. Unwrapped I like, and Good Eats is a good show. Alton Brown is the host of Good Eats, a male, so he actually knows what he's doing in the kitchen. He doesn't just show you how to make a recipe but explains why foods work the way they do in cooking. On occassion I've been caught up watching this femme named Rachael Ray who hosts a couple of shows on Food Network, $40 a day and 30 minute meals. I have no idea if she's a competent cook, since she's a she, I doubt it. I haven't been caught up watching because of some recipe she's making since the few I've seen have all been pretty unappetizing to me. Even brownies, which you would think you couldn't mess up, she's making them and tosses USED coffee grounds in them. Ugh.

What is so fascinating is she's perky. Overly perky. Always perky. It can't possibly get any perkier than she is. I stare at the TV wondering if she is REALLY like that. In the back of my head I'm imagining the moment the cameras go out she turns into Leona Helmsley and starts screaming at all the staff, but if that's true wouldn't I have heard about it in the National Enquirer? And if this is some sort of genetic mutation then scientist need to grab some DNA from her, find which of those 18 quintillion segments is the opposite of the rest of the female population, and sneak in a gene correction for all the other women.

It's frightening though, I can imagine she could be that Hansel and Gretal witch slicing up, cooking, and serving a couple of children, and all the while go about doing it with the same perkiness she does with Italian Mac and Cheese.

The Aruba Thing

2005-07-01T19:37:00.000-07:00

I sympathize with the parents who's daughter was obviously killed in Aruba. The events and hounding by Americans and the media of Aruba however is sad. First off, you leave this country then you leave this country's laws and safety. Granted, many of the countries you may visit are probably safer than it is here, but either way you aren't HERE anymore, you are in someone else's country/nation. You get robbed or murdered away from home, then it's the local law enforement and laws that apply. We don't rush our police over to handle it. The Aruban government showed a courtesy by allowing the FBI in as advisors. How arrogant that her parents and others have written letters to Rice, etc. and demand that the Aruban government allow our police to essentially take over the investigation. Maybe we should just bomb the hell out of them then send in the Marines and take over their country? Would this make you feel better? Guess what, a lot more time, effort, and money, has been put into her investigation by Aruban police and people than would have happened had she disappeared in Miami. Had she disappeared in Miami you might have made the 3rd or 4th page of the local paper.

Afghanastan we had reason to do what we did. Iraq we should have waited until Saddam actually DID do something to someone outside his country. Now we are in a position in Iraq we are going to have a hard time extricating ourselves from. We have enough crime, poverty, and other problems at home - we need to fix ourselves and stop imposing ourselves on other countries. We are most likely in the world's eyes looking less like a role model and more like a bully every day. We have enjoyed a dominance only challenged by the Soviet Union since WWI, but China is looming on the horizon to take that over in another few decades. Wonder how we'll take it when we're not top dog anymore and someone else starts telling us what to do.

Michelle Wie

2005-06-27T20:57:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of her before, she bounded onto the golf scene last year at 14. I saw a 60 Minutes interview with her at the time. She played the US Women's Open and tied for 39th, and played in three men's events missing the cut in all three of them. In January she missed making the cut by only a stroke though, so not bad. Better than Annika Sorenstam who I think played one men's event and was so embarrassed by her performance she said she'd never make that mistake again - and she's the best female pro golfer. This year the LPGA gave Wie an exemption for the US Women's Open, and this past weekend she was tied for the lead after three rounds, but shot a horrible 84 the final round and dropped out of sight. She was the first amatuer to get an exemption from the LPGA and they did it for ticket sales, and it worked for them. She's the female Tiger Woods.

Women for the most part should remain in their place. Usually that's at home raising the kids, cleaning the house, and cooking the meals. If they have some talent though, then there's nothing wrong with them joining the "women's" pro sport. Yes, there's two of them, the "real" pro sport (comprised of all men) and then the female one that excludes men so they have a chance to win with their inferior skills. Women haven't failed so much so because they are weaker physically, they've failed because (pardon the pun) they have no balls. In pro sports they have allowed themselves to be intimidated into making their ladies sport counterparts. In any single player pro sport the mental game will be as much a factor in winning as skill, and if you allow yourself to be intimidated, then you have no chance. Annika made a weak stab, got her ass kicked, and crawled back over to the women's group and said she didn't think she wanted to do that again. Wimp.

Michelle Wie is a ballbuster, and she wants to play with and beat the men. She LIKES being this nice little teenage girl (though at 6 foot little is stretching it) that goes out on a golf course and kicks men's butts. And before any femmes flame me for my previous paragraph, consider the majority of flack Wie has gotten for not wanting to play in the women's sandbox, has been from women and not men. It seems she has no desire to play with and beat the women, but to play with the men, play at Augusta. (If she can win the Amatuer Public Links coming up, she will be invited to Augusta, they have already said she would be welcome there if she did that) If not this year, maybe next year, or the year after. Maybe she won't ever win, but her skill and mostly her attitude is what makes her deserve to be there.

At least until she's 18, at which point she should be married and at home barefoot and pregnant.

Vegas Vacation

2005-06-26T20:53:00.000-07:00

Back from my week in Vegas. Flew first class for the first time, the added room makes it worth it. Other perks - you get your drink in a glass instead of a plastic cup (and free booze if you want that), two packages of peanuts instead of just one, and some garlic toast things with chipotle dip. The trip in was uneventful until we reached Vegas and the turbulence hit, but we had been warned ahead of time and told to buckle up. The stewardess who hadn't buckled up and was at the time perched on the ceiling from a sudden and drastic downward elevation change told us this was normal for Vegas. Ah-huh. Next came my first flight the pilot had to abort the landing. The stewardess came on and said sudden turbulence had blown us off course for the runway. I'll say, had I been able to roll my window down, I could have placed an order at a drive-thru at a McDonalds we passed. The pilot shortly afterwards corrected her and said the reason was the traffic ahead of him had not cleared quickly enough. He didn't mention said traffic was a Toyota, Ford, and two taxis on Flamingo Drive. After another bumpy 15 minute scenic air tour of Vegas he managed to find the runway without incident.

Vegas is full of old people who get there on their own, whether or not they can actually afford to lose the money they do. Why though do families bring Grandma along? I saw a half dozen people rolling grandma down the sidewalk in her wheelchair and an oxygen tank, and it was 109 degrees outside. And then there was the unending supply of parents with a four year old who had to each take a hand and stretch out as wide as possible, and move as slow as possible. Shouldn't they be at Circus Circus and not be allowed to leave? And I found out much to my amazement that a family of five can take up as much space as the MGM Grand.

It was a good week. Trip home was uneventful, though they gave us the same toast and chipotle dip thing. I think they just got a huge supply of those toast things and they probably have a shelf life of 6 months. It's back to work tomorrow.

Hell's Kitchen

2005-06-16T06:22:00.000-07:00

I never really watched the mean Brit in The Weakest Link or American Idol. I love the one in the new Hell's Kitchen, he really makes the show. They started with 12 hopefuls, and the last one wins their very own restaurant. After two shows three are gone, and one of them quit on their own because they couldn't hack it. One of the other two started to quit but came back, then got voted off the same show. Saying he's harsh is an understatement.

The customers I'm sure signed something ahead of time about having to suffer whatever service they got. The first two shows most of the customers went over three hours and didn't get all of their food. One table ordered a couple of pizzas delivered, which caused a scene. And England's best chef 9 years running that's the star of the show is just as mean to the customers. He told one lady that complained to fuck off. After another hour with no food her friend came up and asked him about telling her friend that. He responds in a concerned tone, "Oh did I? Could you do me a favor and tell her I meant it?"

Who cares about the food or who wins, you can just laugh at what happens and it not really matter because they signed up for the abuse. :)

A new blogger

2005-06-08T05:58:00.000-07:00

Friend of mine from EQ2 started a blog, www.valderen.net. He makes what might be a semi-disparaging comment about seeing geeks at their best. Dude, you make a blog and your very first post is about Star Wars. I hate to break the news to you, but....

My only interaction with him has been online, where he types English, so I just kind of think of him as like, white. He's not though, he's French. One of those that escaped though and settled in that place above us that caused our blackout. I think they all fled because they wanted to worship the Queen of England and that Antoinette lady got kinda pissed and was going to kill them all after she gave them cake for their last meal. They still worship her, they plaster the King and Queen all over their money. What I find odd is he speaks French all the time and types English all the time. Impresses me, I can barely handle one. Do they make French keyboards?

What about this woman people thought was going to win Indy? Well, millions of kids think Santa is going to arrive every year too. Good strategy though, she starts off the race by side-swiping someone trying to pass them, so for the rest of the race people just got out of the way when she tried to pass. Still didn't win though. People blamed it on two things; the bunny hopping stall out of the pits and almost running out of gas. Sounds like a typical femme driving a straight and running around on fumes before they'll get gas. Something was up with her qualifications anyway. I saw an MSNBC clip on her a couple of days before the race and the only historical footage they had was her in a go-cart. That was quite a leap.

Star Wars vs Star Trek

2005-05-26T18:46:00.000-07:00

First off for those of you who remember seeing Star Wars in the theatre let me remind you of something. You're old. :) For those who remember watching the original Star Trek series, you should probably start taking a calcium suppliment if you haven't already.

The original Star Wars just didn't make a huge impression on me. I do remember even then though the beginning of the which one is better hype. There really is no comparison. One is just a series of entertaining movies with a few books added in. The other is already a part of our history with the win in the push to change the name of our first space shuttle from Constitution to Enterprise. There is no doubt that if we make it that far, our first starship will be named Enterprise. The totality of Star Trek dwarfs Star Wars. The vast amount of historical and technical detail about every aspect of Star Trek is astounding.

Of course there is the which is the best series debate about all of the Star Trek series we've had. My vote would have to go with The Next Generation. It has really stood up to the test of time. Consider this - the difference in time between the original series and The Next Generation is equivalent to the difference in time between The Next Generation and now. Roughly 19 years between each. In 1986 the original series really really looked dated. Yet today, The Next Generation still does not look dated. That's a noteworthy accomplishment.

I know part of the problem with the original series was the very tight budget for what they were trying to do, but a lot of it is also the storylines and actors. I'm sorry, Kirk sucked as an actor, and is nothing compared to Picard. And for the most part, even if a storyline was good, the dialogue sucked because you can tell it's acting when they perform it. They also just weren't consistent in the original series. I think everyone knows about Spock's seven year mating cycle. He was too ashamed to admit what it was to the captain and doctor. T'pau is making threats to the pale skins before they leave Vulcan about speaking of what they saw to any other outsiders. Yet a season later Spock is blabbering on about it to some blonde in a floating cloud city he met 5 minutes ago. Oh, and that dialogue....

Blonde: Oooo, what sexy pointed ears you have Spock!
Spock: And what extreme beauty you have Blondie.
Blonde: Want to have a quick roll in the clouds?
Spock: My mating cycle is only once every 7 years.
Blonde: And is there nothing that can disturb that cycle?
Spock: Extreme beauty is always disturbing.

That's just so sad.

About Me

2005-04-23T21:14:00.000-07:00

Your Linguistic Profile:

50% General American English

35% Dixie

10% Yankee

5% Upper Midwestern

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

You May Be a Bit Obsessive Compulsive ...

Meticulous and detailed oriented, you have some irrational obsessions.

Maybe it's your super neat closet or washing your hands a gazillion times.

You probably know it's weird, but you just can't stop thinking about it.

In fact, the more you think about your quirks, the more you have to do them.

What Personality Disorder Are You?

A bit? I sort my skittles by color before eating them. However I don't automatically rearrange store shelves without even knowing it like some people. :)

You Are 55% Normal

(Somewhat Normal)

While some of your behavior is quite normal...

Other things you do are downright strange

You've got a little of your freak going on

But you mostly keep your weirdness to yourself

How Normal Are You?

Your Brain is 6.67% Female, 93.33% Male

You've got the brain of a manly man

Feelings, schmeelings... tears aren't for you.

You could break both legs and not get misty eyed.

A great problem solver, nothing ever phases you.

What Gender Is Your Brain?

Which question did THEY screw up?

Your Inner European is French!

Smart and sophisticated.

You have the best of everything - at least, *you* think so.

Who's Your Inner European?

Me sophisticated? *snort*

You Are 29 Years Old

29

Under 12: You are a kid at heart. You still have an optimistic life view - and you look at the world with awe.

13-19: You are a teenager at heart. You question authority and are still trying to find your place in this world.

20-29: You are a twentysomething at heart. You feel excited about what's to come... love, work, and new experiences.

30-39: You are a thirtysomething at heart. You've had a taste of success and true love, but you want more!

40+: You are a mature adult. You've been through most of the ups and downs of life already. Now you get to sit back and relax.

What Age Do You Act?

Your Dominant Intelligence is Logical-Mathematical Intelligence

You are great at finding patterns and relationships between things.
Always curious about how things work, you love to set up experiments.
You need for the world to make sense - and are good at making sense of it.
You have a head for numbers and math ... and you can solve almost any logic puzzle.

You would make a great scientist, engineer, computer programmer, researcher, accountant, or mathematician.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

The Pope Died

2005-04-05T18:41:00.000-07:00

Unless you're one of those Siberian reindeer herding people, you probably know this already. I'm sure at this point even they have heard a rumor or two. He was given much credit for bringing the wall down. So was Regan when he died. I'm sure there's a few left to give credit to when they die, like Gorby. The most interesting statistic I saw was the fact he had been seen by more people in person than anyone else in the world. I thought Michael Jackson held that distinction, especially after the performance in front of half the population of India that time.

He was against removing Terri's feeding tube and even made some statement about it back in 2003 saying how wrong this was and risking her soul to eternal damnation by doing so. I didn't see him being carted to a hospital and being kept artificially alive, they let him expire in his apartment. His statement seemed to be directed at food and water saying it was natural to provide that, even artificially. What about an artificial respirator? Air is about as natural as food and water being supplied artificially, and someone on a respirator can have a better chance of coming around than what Terri did. I would appreciate it if the next Pope could let us know what medical equipment is okay to artificially sustain life, and what isn't so we know what we can get rid of.

I do think he was a good Pope, though he definitely kept faithful to the Old Catholic demands of no divorce, no birth control, and no pre-marital sex. Have you ever been to a Catholic wedding? Calling one long is an example of a British understatement in Webster’s. They don’t want pre-marital sex because they don’t want birth control, and since the gestation period of a human female is shorter than a Catholic wedding, they would have to stop the ceremony for the delivery of the baby, which just wouldn’t be acceptable. They don’t allow divorces because that would be unacceptable to all of the people who took time out of their lives to sit through a Catholic wedding. Of course with an appropriate donation you are allowed to buy an annulment and save your eternal soul.

I checked back a few hundred years on previous Popes and they all seemed to end their tenure by dying. I’m suspicious. Now it seems they are allowed to quit, but the thing is they’ve taken a vow of poverty, so they’re essentially broke. They would also be tossed out of their Pope apartment of course, so where does that leave them? Probably with a tin cup and on the streets of Italy. Of course that would be bad for appearances and I don’t think allowed so they, well, die. Odd, never seem to go senile or otherwise incapacitated, they all quietly die. I’m suspicious. What is really interesting is the one previous to this, John Paul number one. There’s a rumor that his first order of business was to allow women to be ordained. After more than twelve centuries they still haven’t been able to squash that rumor about Pope Joan. One month and he quietly died. They couldn’t even get straight who found the corpse or what he was reading. I’m thinking the Cardinal in the Sistine Chapel with the fluffy white pillow.

Terri Schiavo's Death

2005-03-31T22:23:00.000-08:00

Terri Schiavo died in 1990, not today. Anyone who believes otherwise should do some research or talk to any medical doctor. I read a handout that’s a Q&A written for caregivers of patients with brain injuries from the Swedish hospital here Seattle. One of the things it noted was there were no confirmed reports of someone fully recovering from a permanent vegetative state after more than a few months. Terri was in that state for 15 years. She has had no improvement, and would never have had any improvement. Maybe years from now we will have the medical ability to restore brain function to people like Terri, but not anytime in the next couple of decades. Ironically the one thing that would probably lead us to that medical possibility, stem cell research, is the same thing the people and politicians that were so adamant about keeping Terri alive are against. Terri’s parents, lawyers, and politicians, have not won a single legal proceeding in this whole hoopla. The only thing they have done this whole time is abuse, circumvent, and violate the courts to try and push their agenda that had no legal merit to actually win a case. The media has done their part to create this circus from their emphasis on reporting the side of the parent’s claims rather than just the plain truth being about Terri’s condition. Do people really believe that the doctors and courts would conspire with her husband to murder her?

There is a medical condition called Locked-In Syndrome where the person has only the ability to move their eyes and nothing else. Stephen Hawking has MLS has come close if not now progressed to this point. I read his biography years ago and he even noted that he may owe much of his brilliance to the fact that his body failed him. The thing is even with a condition as severe as his, he is still able to do one important thing even though it is with his eyes only; communicate. Let’s assume Terri was still alive inside that brain and was living this past 15 years without even being able to use her eyes to communicate but could only see whatever they were looking at that she had no control over. (She has never shown awareness by focusing on the people around her, the video showing her following the movement of something over her is an automatic response that can happen with people in a vegetative state) This would seem to me to be the worst, most inhumane prison possible for someone. I would suspect that someone who had lived that way for 15 years would have lost their sanity some time ago.

Yes, there are medical conditions that bear strong similarities to a permanent vegetative state. One movie starring Robin Williams, Awakenings, was based loosely on a real life doctor and his experiments in the 1960s. Those patients however had suffered encephalitis and not the death of so much brain tissue from the lack of oxygen that Terri Schiavo did. Her parents were holding on to a corpse kept alive artificially that hadn’t been their daughter for 15 years, and would have never been their daughter again.

Whiny Tree Huggers

2005-03-30T18:50:00.000-08:00

People amaze me. They'll buy fancy named bottled water at a store and pay $10 a gallon for it when they could get it for free out of the tap, but whine like a bunch of babies over gas now being a bit over $2 a gallon. Maybe if you used the tap water more often you would have a little more to pay for gas? Talk about unappreciative, America has some of the lowest gas prices in the world. Instead of bashing your government over gas prices, you should be thanking them for that. They've spent years bombing brown people to keep them properly terrorized so you can get those cheap prices compared to the rest of the world. Sure, all of the Middle Eastern countries hate us, and every now and then some rogue terrorist manages to kill a few innocent Americans. Truth is you stand a much better chance of being struck by lightning than killed by a terrorist, so why worry? And you can take consolation in the fact that the women and children in whatever country that terrorist came from won't have anything near your odds when we start dropping a few hundred billion dollars in bombs on them in retaliation.

And this whole Alaska thing and don't drill and get our oil there, what's up with this? Who actually cares, or why should you? Have any of your ancestors been to Alaska? Have you been to Alaska? Are you ever going to Alaska? Are your children going to Alaska? 99.99% likely all the answers are no. Look at the history, some Russian dude landed there in like 1722 and asked the Canadians if they wanted it and they said no. Just gave it to them. They explored a few years, quickly learned why the Canadians didn't want it, and left. Couple of hundred years later a wise Republican figured there was oil there, and suckered the Russians into selling it to us for like one and a half cents an acre. Having forgotten they even owned it by that time, they thought that was a heck of a deal. Got as far as getting a pipeline put in, but then all the tree huggers have stopped much progress past that. So what if we wipe out all the animals in Alaska, how many could there be in that desolate place? You'll never notice, at best you'll pass by on a cruise ship along the coast. Considering how cold it is they have to be suffering anyway, so we'd be doing them a favor putting them out of their misery. If you're so worried about them, go up there and trap the polar bears and move them down here, like the Rocky Mountains. If it's not too hot for them to survive in San Diego in the zoo, I'm sure they'll do just fine anywhere else.

Music Survey

2005-03-24T21:34:00.000-08:00

Sorry Lynn, I really should read my notes (and post) more often. I just noticed. :)

Music Survey

1. Total amount of music files on your computer: 213 Megs, I have Musicmatch. I used to have much more but a while back my PC went belly up and wouldn’t boot to windows. Couldn’t think of anything on it that needed saving, so formatted and reinstalled Windows XP. When installing the software I got to Musicmatch and THEN remembered all of my music files I had paid for to download at a buck each. Unfortunately I hadn’t burned very many to CDs.

2. The last CD you bought was: Lee Ann Rimes Greatest Hits and a Cher’s Greatest Hits. Like Lynn posted, I usually like to buy those types of albums because so few regular ones I really like all the music. Gloria Estefan is one of the exceptions that I tend to like most all of the songs on her albums.

3. What is the song you last listened to before reading this message? Dragostea Din Tei – This is the recent popular web thing with the guy bouncing around lip sinking to a song, this is the song, so shoot me, I like this song. The girl at work mentioned she couldn’t find the MP3 of this song, which I immediately piped up and said I had downloaded three versions of it at home. This was immediately followed by me hanging my head in shame over ADMITTING I had three versions. She’s laughing and says, “So, you don’t think you’re a geek, huh?” I am not a geek, I just have eclectic tastes in music.

4. Write down 5 songs you often listen to or that mean a lot to you:

It would be easy to note songs I like listening too, and the likes are really eclectic. I don’t like rap, but love listening to Gangsta’s Paradise. Some comedy like Ray Stevens Haircut Song or Mississippi Squirrel Revival. Manheim Steamroller or Trans-Siberian Orchestra. The Macarena to Save A Horse Ride A Cowboy. When I listen to music I do it simply because I like the songs, not because it’s a specific type of music or from a certain singer or band. I can’t do anything that comes close to dancing, but have Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) by C&C Music Factory downloaded. There would be so many it would be impossible to just pick 5 of them as special over any other.

Means a lot to me is a tough one, so would leave a lot less to choose from. There are a lot songs that the moment I hear them immediately remind me of someone in my past. Escape (The Pina Colada Song) reminds me of Brenda Polotta and Freddie Aloi who noted that her name and that song rhymed and it always made him think of her. I Just Wanna Stop begins with “When I think about those nights in Montreal” which will immediately remind me of a girl from 7th grade who was born in Canada and the dark haired really sweet girl that also sat beside me in the same class, and I have no clue what their names were. So I guess meaningful would have to be those that remind me of a person that meant something to me.

One: Still – The Commodores: First girl I really dated. The words do seem to portray a screwed up relationship, which I guess ours was, especially after I started dating her best friend at the same time. It was okay, they both knew. Of course she eventually got tired of that, dumped me, then I dumped her friend who I really didn’t like anyway (and who’s name I don’t even remember today).

Two: Running With The Night – Lionel Richie: The first girl I really loved. I never told her that and always regretted it.

Three: It’s All Coming Back To Me Now – Celine Dion: The ex-wife.

Four: My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion / Weekend In New England – Barry Manilow: Tracy. Anyone that knows the words would figure why they would fit. Ironically, sadly, our relationship will end the same way it began, living far apart.

Five: Saturday Night – Bay City Rollers: My roller skating days. Mid to late 70s was the peak of the roller skating craze and I was there on Saturday afternoons with the hundreds of other kids. Hundreds of kids slamming their skates against the floor to the beat of that song, especially the points that they spell Saturday night. Brings a warm fuzzy feeling about the happiness of my mid-teen years. I was actually quite social then, what the hell happened?

There is only one song that ever directly impacted my life. Second Home By The Sea – Genesis. This is a six minute song that is almost entirely an instrumental. At the very end of the song however is the following:

Images of sorrow, pictures of delight
things that go to make up a life
endless days of summer longer nights of gloom
just waiting for the morning light
scenes of unimportance like photos in a frame
things that go to make up a life

As we relive our lives in what we tell you

For whatever reason those words inspired me to write poetry. Over the next 12 years or so I wrote hundreds maybe, don’t really know. Most everything I wrote was personal, or was about or to someone close to me. I stopped a long time ago, though I know I did do something recently that was short in this blog. I long ago tossed everything I had, everything I’ve ever written or drawn. I wrote one thing to my mom that she kept in her pocketbook for a long time that my brother might have. Toni told me recently she kept a picture I drew for her years ago. Maybe the painting I did that hung in my GM room is still in GemStone, Tracy once told me when she saw that she realized I had a heart after all, or something to that affect. There was one short thing I wrote sometime in the late 80s that oddly wasn’t about anyone, but after all this time I still remember it.

Dark mysterious eyes haunt me, from them I cannot hide
And though on the verge of recognition, the answer stays locked inside
How can they seem so familiar, if I’ve never seen them before
Unless it’s not the past I see, but what the future holds in store

What three people am I passing this baton to and why? Three? The only people that I even know that read my blog are Tracy, Lynn, and Dickie. Since the other two have already done this, I guess that leaves my brother. Dickie (he prefers to be called Richard now, but I never will since he called me Bubba as a kid) this gives you an excuse to post again.

Women's History Month

2005-03-23T18:37:00.000-08:00

Some lady that writes for MSN, something like Marsha Quakenbush out of Seattle, recently wrote a snippet for “women’s history month”, which March evidently is but probably not many have actually noticed. Though if this is the best she can set forth as examples, that would explain why no one has noticed.

The good eggs

AgnodiceIn the 4th century BC it was illegal for women to practice medicine in Greece. But the 1st-century-AD author Hyginus wrote that one Greek woman, Agnodice, disguised herself as a man, studied medicine, and set up a bustling practice in Athens. Scholars debate whether Hyginus's tale is true, but I wonder if one reason we can't find corroborating evidence is that she was a woman. According to Hyginus, Agnodice was so successful that other doctors got jealous and accused her of "corrupting" aristocratic women. So, Agnodice revealed that she was a woman herself--and was promptly arrested and sentenced to death. Her devoted patients came to her rescue. All noblewomen, they threatened to kill themselves if she was executed. It worked, and thereafter, all free women could become doctors--as long as they treated women only.

When her first example seems at best to be based on rumor, that’s definitely not getting off on a good foot for the article. Maybe you can’t find corroborating evidence simply because it’s not true?

The Trung sisters and Phung Thi ChinhTrung Trac and Trung Nhi, sisters and widows of Vietnamese aristocrats, led a major uprising against Chinese invaders in AD 39. Trung Trac ruled for four years before the Chinese conquered Vietnam again, but resistance continued for the next 1,000 years. Many women figured in the resistance, notably Phung Thi Chinh, who fought while pregnant, paused to give birth, and rejoined the fight with her baby on her back.

Two thousand years from now they’ll probably write the Queen Mum was ruling England too. Same thing 2,000 years ago as today, the Trung sisters as noted were widows, and just assumed the title and were really nothing but figureheads. Phung is a shining example of motherhood, isn’t she? Today the child welfare authorities would move in and take the baby for child endangerment. One good point though, women today are obviously making a mountain out of a mole hill over the child birth thing just to make men feel bad.

Deborah SampsonDuring the Revolutionary War Sampson put on a man's uniform and fought under the alias Robert Shurtleff. Hit in the leg during the Battle of Tarrytown, Sampson removed the musket balls herself so that no one would guess her identity. She later took a shot in the shoulder at the Battle of Yorktown and came down with brain fever (an old-timey term for inflammation of the brain). It was only then that a doctor figured out her secret. Accounts differ over what happened next, but Sampson was eventually given an honorable discharge. Paul Revere later helped her get a soldier's pension, and she went on to give lectures about her experience.

Not quite accurate, but historically significant for being the first, though unwitting, sex change operation. The musket balls didn’t exactly lodge themselves in his leg, just close. Out of embarrassment he removed them himself, with rather severe consequences. Same as men today, we just seem to be so squeamish about seeing a doctor over something like a musket shot to the groin.

Nellie Bly and Ida Wells-BarnettElizabeth Cochrane Seaman--using the pen name Nellie Bly, helped invent an important kind of journalism, even if it did get an ugly name: muckraking. Writing for Pittsburgh and New York newspapers, Bly exposed corruption, horrible prison conditions, slums, and factory abuses. Her most famous exploit, however, was probably the ten days she spent disguised as a patient in a mental hospital in 1888. Her book, 10 Days in a Madhouse (1888), became a bestseller. Bly didn't stop there. In 1889 and 1890, she circled the globe in 72 days, 6 hours, and 11 minutes, beating Jules Verne's fictional 80-day mark. The story of that adventure, Nellie Bly's Book: Around the World in Seventy-two Days (1890), also became a bestseller.

Today she would easily get a job at the National Enquirer, back then she was institutionalized for writing bizarre stories. After getting out she just exploited that story too. As far as her round the world trip, I read the story, seems she spent most of the sea parts heaving over the railing. She also had a MALE escort that she even admits she couldn’t have done without, so it was really a man that went around the world in 72 days, she just tagged along.

Ida B. Wells-Barnett was Bly's equally remarkable contemporary. Wells-Barnett is kind of a precursor to Rosa Parks. In 1884 Wells-Barnett, the daughter of former slaves, was traveling on a first-class train ticket to Memphis. White passengers complained that she should leave the first-class car, but Wells-Barnett refused to move to the smoking section, which was reserved for blacks. She was eventually kicked off the train. Wells-Barnett sued the railroad and won a $500 judgment, but the Tennessee Supreme Court later overruled her victory. She told her story in a newspaper--launching her career as an activist journalist.

I was suspicious when the race card was brought into this so did some research and found it had nothing to do with her being black, it was overturned because she was smoking and it was requested for her to move to the smoking section.

Valentina V. Tereshkova: You hear a lot about Sally Ride, who in 1983 became the first American woman in space. But Soviet cosmonaut Valentina V Tereshkova beat her into orbit by 20 years. In 1963 Tereshkova rode the Vostok 6 spacecraft into orbit and circled the Earth a whopping 48 times during her three-day mission. To put this in perspective, Tereshkova spent more time in orbit than all the U.S. Mercury astronauts combined. (Too bad she didn't write a book, Around the World 48 Times in Three Days: Neener, Neener, Nellie Bly.)

Valentina – Need I say more? I think she should have done a little more research for her article, like maybe photos.

The bad apples

Countess Nadasdy This Hungarian countess, also known as Elizabeth Bathory, had a disturbing beauty regimen. She believed that soaking in human blood would keep her forever young, giving a new and hideous meaning to the term bloodbath. It didn't work. But before she died in 1614, she had stolen the lives of hundreds of female servants. (The Web site Bathory.org says her diary documented 612 killings, but other sources offer slightly different figures.)

But we vilify poor Vlad for what was much less selfish than what she did.

Mary Reade and Anne BonneyPirates are bad, but women pirates could be especially dastardly. In the early 1700s, Mary Reade and Anne Bonney donned menswear and terrorized the West Indies. (This is after Reade had served in both the British army and navy, but decided, evidently, that her survival depended on plundering instead of public service.) The pirating pair was captured in 1720 and sentenced to hang for their crimes. But, choosing an escape route not available to their male colleagues, they claimed to be pregnant--and after they were released, they fled (according to one version of the story). Another version claims that Mary Reade later died of fever and that no one knows what happened to Anne Bonney, other than the fact that she wasn't executed.

Same as today, women get off much easier after being busted for a crime than a man would be under the same circumstances.

Mary Mallon"Typhoid" Mary Mallon worked as a cook in New York, and after an outbreak of the disease in 1904, she was recognized as a carrier. But this didn't stop her from handling food. She went from job to job, infecting the innocent until she was caught in 1907 and committed to an institution until 1910. She wasn't supposed to work in food service again but did--spreading more disease in her wake. In all, authorities attributed 51 cases and three deaths to "Typhoid" Mary, who was institutionalized again in 1914. She died in 1938 but not from typhoid. She was immune to the disease.

More proof men make better cooks that women.

Ilse KochLast but not least is Ilse Koch, who committed atrocities in Nazi concentration camps (for which she got life in prison). But this wasn't the extent of her crimes: She also collected lampshades and other ornaments made from human flesh.

And I thought that was a guy in Silence of the Lambs.

Destiny, Fate, Contentment

2005-01-16T23:25:00.000-08:00

Destiny is what you work hard for to achieve.
Fate is what happens when you aren't content with what you've achieved.
Contentment is the hardest thing to achieve.

Whether you're a creationist or an evolutionist, you would have to agree man was destined for greatness from the beginning, whichever beginning that was. Fiction writers have written numerous ways man's fate is ended at the hands of his own achievements. We've already achieved at least one means of our own destruction in atomic weapons. We of course won't be content with just that and in the belief of self-preservation will will create more ways.

The above holds true for humanity as a whole and as individuals. Bill Gates will continue to try and swallow everything in the PC world regardless how big he gets. There was a guy that went to Vegas years ago and won until he won a casino. Not being content he went on gambling, fate caught up with him and he lost everything. To varying degrees, we are all like that.

Seattle crosswalk buttons

2004-11-17T07:40:00.000-08:00

Most crosswalk buttons I remember were just that, buttons. Seattle has these huge steel domed "buttons". I thought at first maybe it was because people out here just had really bad aim since they killed all of their wildlife ages ago and can't practice shooting furred critters anymore. It's actually to give the "button" a chance to survive more than a week. I'm not sure if it's because the people out here are idiots or nuts (since this is a breeding ground for serial killers, I think it's more of the latter) but they can't handle a crosswalk button. I'm on my ten minute walk home last night waiting at a major crosswalk at the train station, and this average middle aged white collar white guy with a briefcase tries to operate the crosswalk button. You would think people would only push it once, maybe twice, just in case one of the other 75 people standing around hadn't already pushed it. No; he starts pounding on this button like my wife trying to put salmon in a can, and he continues to do so for the next 20 seconds until the light changes. I start thinking about Michael Douglas in the movie "Falling Down" and figure if he opens that briefcase, I'm jumping over the wall down to the tracks. This guy is destined to chop up his wife and kids one day and carry a gun to work and start shooting people. Probably the day after a trip home where a crosswalk button didn't work and put him over the edge.

The sad thing is this is a common...very common occurance in Seattle. What you would think might be otherwise intelligent people, just bang away on these crosswalk buttons. Usually not 20 seconds until the light changes, but "average" would be about 6 to 8 hard bangs on the things. Not a push, but beaten with the palm of their hand. I dunno, maybe they designed these things that way so people could have an outlet so more of them didn't turn into serial killers.

Friends

2004-11-07T21:25:00.000-08:00

The hardest thing about Tracy being gone is she was my best friend, and pretty much the only real friend I had in Seattle. I have co-workers, but it would be hard to call any of those friendships since the relationship stops after office hours. A friend is someone you have a relationship with outside of the environment you met them and you enjoy their company. Since my interests aren't shared by any of my co-workers, and I'm not exactly an outgoing type, the outlook for friends in Seattle is pretty bleak.

As a kid the longest friendship I would have had would have been Robbie Patterson. We bowled together and I even switched bowling alleys to bowl with him when it was the last year he was going to bowl. I only saw him one other time after moving away and that was when the ex-wife and I were in Richmond and we went to see him and the girl he lived with. I remember we played Trivial Pursuit and I missed the easiest question in the world, what is a Meteorologist. My best friend from high school, Allen, I only saw infrequently on visits to Richmond. I looked him up and talked to him about a week ago, and at that point it had been at least ten years since I had spoken with him. I have talked to or emailed a few friends from Lynchburg since I've been here but like the other friends eventually I won't talk to them anymore.

Tracy has done a much better job than I have of keeping up with old friends. When I visited out here before moving we even went out to dinner with one of her friends from school. She probably is still keeping up with them via email from San Diego.

I voted

2004-11-02T18:14:00.000-08:00

Nader, again. The spam phone calls and literature I got from the democrats, basically the major offices, I voted for the opposite republican. The court positions I chose the males. I've seen Judge Judy, females have no place on the bench as they can't make rational decisions. The land use and auditor positions I chose the democrats. I voted against every proposal that would cost me money. Where the money should come from to improve roads I voted to be based on mileage per year driven. I've always thought highway taxes should be use based, not value of the car based. When the guy buys the Lamborghini, he pays his taxes due on it then. If he garages it and barely drives it, why should he pay more than the guy with the 20 year old rustbucket leaking oil and fumes and taking up space on the highway? The same car by the way that has a thousand fold better chance of NOT being insured.

I did note that even though it was almost 6:00 with only 2 hours left to vote, I was only the 239th person in my precinct to vote. There would be more people than that living in my building alone, and there are quite a few apartment buildings in this area.

Election Day

2004-11-02T09:06:00.000-08:00

We start out the day with another seemingly very close election. My guess is Bush will win again. He beat a weak encumbant Democrat last time and this time I don't see Kerry as being stronger than Gore was, and Bush is the encumbant. Bush has the Iraq mess against him, which at least they did capture Saddam. How afraid are Americans about terrorism? That fear will generate votes for Bush.

I'm voting for Nader again after work. Regardless of who wins, you can't blame me for the lousy job they'll do afterwards.

Sims 2

2004-10-28T18:32:00.000-07:00

I'm suprised Sheepette admitted using a stolen key to activate her Sims, especially working for a SOE. Maybe they won't notice. She made "Men" comments about certain aspects of the game. It is true half of the goals in the game are aimed toward "Men", but half are also aimed toward "Women". Most people don't know that the original game was called Sim Work, following the line of Sim City, Sim Ant, Sim Copter, etc. It wound up being a complete failure because no one was interested in a work simulation when no one really wants to work anyway. Well, there was a few geeks that were interested, but that was just too small of a target audience. Rather than scrap the whole project the did a brainstorming session to figure what would make the game more attractive. While all the game designers were sitting around the table mulling this over, one of them made an appreciative comment about the rack of the girl pouring coffee for them. *DING* That's it, SEX! So there was an immediate outpouring of ideas on adding sex to the game. Said coffee server asked what would attract women to the game and there were several "who cares" responses. She noted that half the population WAS female, a rather astute observation for a well-racked blonde. So shopping and babies were added to the mix. She went on to become the first female game designer for EA, and also was the very first booth babe in the industry. She still works for EA, though still just serves coffee as she was never able to come up with another decent idea after that and she's too old now to be a booth bade.

So the next time you see a femme sim have a thought bubble for babies, marriage, and shopping (furniture, paintings, etc.) you can you can snort and say "Women".

Who I'm (not) voting for

2004-10-27T17:40:00.000-07:00

I've remembered the names of the three canidates for the local elections that have called my home phone (on the do not call registery) and left recorded messages on my answering machine. I will be looking specifically for those names on Tuesday and voting for their opponent. Yes, I know you are exempt from the do not call lists. Since you wrote up the laws, of course you'd leave a loophole for yourself. If I put myself on that list however, that means I do not want to be called with solicitations, which is exactly what you are doing. You are showing either 1) you have no resepect for my wishes or 2) you think your political position puts you above the wishes of the little people. Either way you showed me you're someone I don't want to vote for.

I used to be somewhat supportive of non-profit groups, someone else exempt from the do not call list. One was the Virginia State Police yearly drive where they would go door to door in uniform on their own time. When it went telemarketer I happened to notice my check was cashed at a Florida bank. They lost my support, and frankly by now I don't support anything really.

I did figure out the brother's new blogger, posted on the left side under links. Doesn't look like it's going to be too active. It took him 25 years to meet someone worth posting about, so the next post might be a long time coming.

My brother has a blog

2004-10-20T21:51:00.000-07:00

He finally made a journal, and I can't figure what the name is now so I can't link to it. As soon as I remember it I will. He's had aspirations of being a writer, so you'd think with my past proddings he would have done this sooner. His first post is about meeting George Carlin. I've seen Carlin live three times, which of course he's much funnier that way than he would be if he were dead. One of those times was with Dickie (aforementioned brother who would rather be known as Richard now, but he used to call me Bubba, so I'll never change what I call him) while in Richmond. I grew up in Richmond but escaped after school. I would have known the old way to get us back home after the concert, but he mentioned there was this new expressway that would be much faster. Two hours later still being in downtown Richmond having not found the entrance to this new expressway he was talking about, I finally took the route home I knew. I don't think I have ever been in a car where a male claimed they knew a shortcut, and it actually was. At best you add an hour or two, at worse you wind up calling a tow truck to pull you back to the paved road.

I actually might vote for a democrat

2004-10-15T13:45:00.000-07:00

My first post from work, which I guess is the idea behind blog's post from anywhere format.

I'm actually considering voting for Kerry, at least if that loser can gain some ground to where it looks close. Didn't watch the debates, but by the news blurb of Bush surging 4 points ahead in the polls, I assume Kerry probably showed all the intelligence of Al Gore in the debate. I voted for Nader last time since he seemed to be lesser than two evils. Looking at Bush and Kerry I pretty much side 50/50 with one or the other on the issues. The tie breaker would be Bush got us into Iraq when he shouldn't have. It seems like every democrat I've ever seen reminds me of a used car salesman, but at least Kerry might be a new car salesman. Of course I'm in a state that is going to vote democratic regardless, so I should just vote for Nader again.

Welcome to blogger

2004-10-15T07:40:00.000-07:00

Wonder if I set this up correctly.