Eight False Things The Public “Knows” Prior To Election Day

From Campaign for America's Future

By Dave Johnson

There are a number things the public "knows" as we head into the election that are just false. If people elect leaders based on false information, the things those leaders do in office will not be what the public expects or needs.

Here are eight of the biggest myths that are out there:

1) President Obama tripled the deficit.

Reality: Bush's last budget had a $1.416 trillion deficit. Obama's first budget reduced that to $1.29 trillion.

2) President Obama raised taxes, which hurt the economy.

Reality: Obama cut taxes. 40% of the "stimulus" was wasted on tax cuts which only create debt, which is why it was so much less effective than it could have been.

3) President Obama bailed out the banks.

Reality: While many people conflate the "stimulus" with the bank bailouts, the bank bailouts were requested by President Bush and his Treasury Secretary, former Goldman Sachs CEO Henry Paulson. (Paulson also wanted the bailouts to be "non-reviewable by any court or any agency.") The bailouts passed and began before the 2008 election of President Obama.

4) The stimulus didn't work.

Reality: The stimulus worked, but was not enough. In fact, according to the Congressional Budget Office, the stimulus raised employment by between 1.4 million and 3.3 million jobs.

5) Businesses will hire if they get tax cuts.

Reality: A business hires the right number of employees to meet demand. Having extra cash does not cause a business to hire, but a business that has a demand for what it does will find the money to hire. Businesses want customers, not tax cuts.

6) Health care reform costs $1 trillion.

Reality: The health care reform reduces government deficits by $138 billion.

7) Social Security is a Ponzi scheme, is "going broke," people live longer, fewer workers per retiree, etc.

Reality: Social Security has run a surplus since it began, has a trust fund in the trillions, is completely sound for at least 25 more years and cannot legally borrow so cannot contribute to the deficit (compare that to the military budget!) Life expectancy is only longer because fewer babies die; people who reach 65 live about the same number of years as they used to.

8) Government spending takes money out of the economy.

Reality: Government is We, the People and the money it spends is on We, the People. Many people do not know that it is government that builds the roads, airports, ports, courts, schools and other things that are the soil in which business thrives. Many people think that all government spending is on "welfare" and "foreign aid" when that is only a small part of the government's budget.

This stuff really matters.

If the public votes in a new Congress because a majority of voters think this one tripled the deficit, and as a result the new people follow the policies that actually tripled the deficit, the country could go broke.

If the public votes in a new Congress that rejects the idea of helping to create demand in the economy because they think it didn't work, then the new Congress could do things that cause a depression.

If the public votes in a new Congress because they think the health care reform will increase the deficit when it is actually projected to reduce the deficit, then the new Congress could repeal health care reform and thereby make the deficit worse. And on it goes.

Unconditional Love

Unconditional love is an amazing and wonderful thing. It's also very dangerous, and if you ever have to prove it, something horrible must have happened.

I have experience with unconditional love. I have unconditional love for my family, and for my dogs. It doesn't matter what they do, I will love them. No matter how horrible.

What I don't have is unconditional love for a sports team and the players on that team. It scares me that other people do. There was a startling display of unconditional love this weekend among sports fans. Pittsburgh Steelers fans seem to have unconditional love of the Steelers and Ben Roethlisberger.

Big Ben had one hell of an off-season. He was accused of "sexual assualt" for the second time in eight months. He wasn't charged with a crime, mostly because he's Ben Roethlisberger, but even so he admitted to some pretty scary things.

Yet he was welcomed with open arms back to the Pittsburgh Steelers this weekend, because the team was badly in need of a player to fill the quarterback position. The substitute players were horrendous, and the fans were eager to have a better player in that spot.

I understand that. If you are a fan of a team, you want that team to be successful. I expected most fans to look past the horrible reprehensible things that Big Ben has done. It's just the way people and their attitudes to sports are. Many people can overlook a lot of misdeeds if a person can help their team on the field.

What shocked me was the totality. I know quite a few Steelers fans. Unsurprising since they are the most successful NFL franchise ever. They have fans everywhere, not just in Pennsylvania.

I could not find one single Steelers fan that said "I don't care how good he is or how much the team needs him. What the guy did was horrible and I don't want him on my favorite team."

Among every Steelers fan I know, and even ones I searched out on the internet it's consistent. How can this be? I could easily believe that most fans would give him the "benefit of doubt." But 100%? How is it possible that not one person is so offended that they want to be rid of the guy? Every single person is okay with the "he wasn't found guilty of a crime so I'm going to ignore the incidents completely" rationalization?

Mike Vick killed and mistreated dogs. He was vilified, run out of town and sent to prison. Mistreating animals is horrible and a particular behavior that I personally find reprehensible. Roethlisberger was accused of SEXUAL ASSAULT....TWICE! And somehow 100% of the people, even women, look the other way.

Lets face it. Sexual assault is the worst thing you can do in this country. I know most people think it's murder, but they're wrong. If you look at parole statistics you'll find that murderers will generally get paroled from prison after serving significant time. If you are found guilty of sexual assault, you are doing the whole time. Nobody gets parole for sexual assault. NOBODY.

The only explanation I can come up with other than unconditional love is mass hysteria. Maybe because so many people are okay with it, those who really have a problem with it are keeping it to themselves? Or does the subject matter make them so uncomfortable it is just easier to pretend it didn't happen?

It can't possibly be that he's "paid his debt" and "learned his lesson." This guy got a four-game suspension for getting away with the most reprehensible crime our society has. TWICE. His penalty is not even close to "payment" for anything.

Again, I do not expect the sports world to shun Ben Roethlisberger and toss him out of football forever. I'm not talking about any one particular fan I know or any person who should feel a certain way about what happened. How you feel is how you feel. I'm not judging anyone.

I am just astounded that NOBODY seems to feel the way I thought some should. Are they out there and I just can't see them? Maybe the outrage happened months ago and it all just faded away, wounds healed by time and five weeks of an NFL season?

And what if it was me? What if it were the quarterback of my favorite team? Or the center fielder? How would I feel? I think I know, but do you really know until you are tested? Would I be the one making excuses and lame rationalizations? Would I be looking the other way?

Tea Party?

Vast forests have already been sacrificed to the public debate about the Tea Party: what it is, what it means, where it's going. But after lengthy study of the phenomenon, I've concluded that the whole miserable narrative boils down to one stark fact: They're full of shit. All of them. At the voter level, the Tea Party is a movement that purports to be furious about government spending — only the reality is that the vast majority of its members are former Bush supporters who yawned through two terms of record deficits and spent the past two electoral cycles frothing not about spending but about John Kerry's medals and Barack Obama's Sixties associations. The average Tea Partier is sincerely against government spending — with the exception of the money spent on them. In fact, their lack of embarrassment when it comes to collecting government largesse is key to understanding what this movement is all about...

Matt Taibbi in Rolling Stone

Keeping DVDs Durable

In order to maintain the durability of DVDs, you must store them in a case that is specifically designed for DVD storage, handle DVDs properly, clean DVDs regularly and with care, avoid exposure to direct light and heat, label them using appropriate materials, and regularly clean and maintain your DVD player.
The thought of being able to save and preserve memories, music, images and other important data files on something envisioned to last virtually forever is quite tempting. DVDs are known for being a practical choice for storing data because of their storage capacity. They are also popular for their archival longevity. In fact, experts have said that with proper handling and treatment, DVDs may last up to 50 years. Unfortunately, many of us may just think that using plastic sleeves for archiving or stacks of DVDs is sufficient in keeping them durable. Actually, there are several basic things that we tend to forget but are actually very important in order to maintain the durability and lifespan of our DVDs. Here are some of them.
Store in a case that is specifically designed for DVD storage
Most of us think that jewel cases or video cases for CDs will serve the same purpose of keeping our DVDs safe. Actually, there is a big difference between CD cases and cases that are meant for DVD media. Basically, DVDs are 2 discs chemically attached together, which makes it the exact opposite of a CD. DVD cases are designed in such a way that only a sufficient amount of pressure is applied on the surface of the DVD when taking it out and putting it back to its case. It is good to remember to use jewel cases that are meant specifically for DVD media and not CDs. Jewel cases are also more effective at keeping dust away and preventing damage compared to paper or plastic sleeves.
Handle DVDs properly
When handling your DVDs, remember to use the hole in the middle of the DVD when holding it instead of touching other parts of the DVD surface or even the edges. Holding DVDs by their edges might cause it to bend.
Clean DVDs regularly and with care
Dust and lint are common enemies of DVDs. Clean your DVDs regularly using lint-free material or liquid DVD cleaners. Clean the surface of the DVD by following outward strokes, and start from the inside and proceed outside the disc. Do not use rags, tissue or a random piece of cloth when cleaning.
Avoid exposure to direct light and heat
The dye layer of DVDs is susceptible to extreme heat and light, and these external elements can render the data stored on the DVD unreadable. It is more advisable to store DVDs in an attic, closet or dry space where it is not exposed to extreme light and heat.
Regularly clean and maintain your DVD player
It is important to remember that dust and other harmful particles can accumulate inside your DVD players or drivers, and these can transfer onto your DVDs when played. Regularly clean your DVD players by dusting them. It is also a good idea to use a lens cleaner disc on the drive once every 6 months.
Label using appropriate materials
When labeling your disc, use the full-size circle-shaped label, and attach it carefully and smoothly onto the DVD surface using a label applicator. If you intend to hand-write the label on the disc, make sure that you are using a water-based marker, since regular pens contain alcohol that may leak into the dye layer of the DVD and cause damage.
DVDs have provided us with an effective way of preserving and saving important data for a longer span of time. In order to get the most of this type of archiving material, we must take care of our DVDs properly.

Beware

They're Multiplying!

Work Work Work

Today at work I was helping to configure the lighting system here:

Run Monument Run!

I drive right by this on my way home.

Student Loan Scheme

Helmets

Played around with painting motorcycle helmets this weekend, and I kinda like how this one turned out:



Hopefully I don't mess it up too much when I try to clear coat it this afternoon.

P.S. NO! I HATE the Dallas Cowboys! I fail!

Drain a Flooded Basement in 6 Easy Steps

Draining a flooded basement isn’t so hard as long as you follow these steps: check flood water status, examine the home’s exterior, conduct precautionary measures, ventilate the house, pump the water out, and clean up.

When the rainy season comes, a break in the sewer lines, or after a terrible storm, the most common problem that home owners with basements will face is flooding. Flood water can be damaging and, if left unsolved, can cause major and irreversible deterioration to your infrastructures, which may result in pricey repairs. Though you can drain the water yourself, sometimes you also need the help of professionals like Orange County water damage to do the job for you.

When trying to drain your flooded basement, here is a safe guide to follow:

Step 1: Check flood water status

The first thing that you need to do is check the status of the flood water. Determine its cause and see if the flood has receded. If the water is caused by a storm, ask your local officials if the calamity is over and if it is already safe to start cleaning up. If the flood is caused by a break in the sewer lines, report the problem to your officials to immediately fix the problem before it causes more damage to your property.

Step 2: Examine the home’s exterior

The first thing that you have to find out is if there is still standing flood water outside the house. There is no use draining the basement if there is still water that will seep back in. You may also need to check for downed power lines or trees. If there are existing problems, call the appropriate authorities to handle them. The last and most important thing that you will have to check is the foundation of the structure of your house. Look for cracks or any other signs of damage. If there are any, don’t attempt to start draining until reputable personnel, like a building inspector, tells you that it’s safe to do so.

Step 3: Conduct precautionary measures

After attending to possible hazards outside the house, you will need to check if the inside of the house is safe. See to it that the main floor water has receded. Make sure you turn off the electrical main switch and gas valves. These are just precautionary measures to ensure your safety.

Step 4: Ventilate the house

Open up windows and doors to ventilate the house. This will release the fumes inside the house and help everything dry out completely.

Step 5: Pump the water out

After completing steps 1 to 4, you are now ready to pump out the water in your basement. You may need to gather necessary equipment for the process, like a high powered flashlight, waterproof boots, a dust mask, work or rubber gloves, a hammer, screw drivers, a pipe wrench or pliers. Manually putting out the water can consume a lot of time and needs manpower, so you will likely need to use a powered pump. The pump should be gas-powered and not electric-powered. Working with electricity in water is very dangerous and poses a high risk of electrocution. Remember to gradually pump out the water 2 to 3 feet at a time and not all at once to prevent the walls from caving in.

Step 6: Clean up

Clean up all the mess after draining the basement. You might have to remove mud, silt, and debris on the floor and walls while it is wet before they harden. Sanitize the basement to prevent mildew and odor.

Always remember to deal with any flooding problems safely. There is no harm in asking for help if you don’t have any clue about what to do to solve your flooding problem.

Feel the Hate

This guy needs to let it out and not keep things all bottled up or he's going to hurt himself.

Obama Bin Laden? Pictures of Obama and Osama Bin Laden with the phrase "what's the difference?"

I think the Jesus fish and the Texas stickers are totally unnecessary, don't you? Isn't that implied?

Where do you buy these stickers? Klan meeting?

Great Election Sign

I have no idea why, but I'm not going to vote for this guy.

Hot Ride

Lich King Dead

Been playin' for a long time to get to this point.

Record Hail Storm in SD

My parents were visiting relatives in South Dakota when a record hail storm hit the area. My cousin was trying to get to the fire hall during the storm when this happened:



He's okay, the hail stone just cut his arm and bruised his thigh. My folks RV was pretty smashed up but they were out of the area with their car. Insurance should repair or replace the holes that were cut through the roof of the RV and the other parts that were damaged.

Some of the largest hail stones ever recorded hit the area. I've been through bad hail storms that damaged cars and houses, but nothing like this. The record hail stones look about like rugby balls.

The South

Yep.

In the south there's a Cracker Barrel every three miles.

I Write Like

I write like
Kurt Vonnegut

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

I tried two different posts and it came up the same, so it must be true.

World Cup

I was sitting at a restaurant today and someone asked me "do you like soccer?" I said "No."

Here's my problem with soccer and the world cup.

I'll describe how soccer works, and you tell me if I'm right.

Soccer consists of a team of a bunch of guys, but the total number doesn't matter. All that matters is one guy who stands alone and kicks the ball towards a goal. One guy from the other team of guys stands in that goal and tries to stop it. If the goal tender doesn't stop the ball, the first team wins the soccer game.

If you knew soccer and heard me describe it that way, you'd say "that's not soccer!"

But that's the exact method that decides which team is the best soccer team in the world. Not ACTUALLY PLAYING THE GAME OF SOCCER. Spain is the "World Champion Soccer Team" and they got that award by playing some other type of "kick the ball in the net" game than soccer.

How the hell do you call that a sport? The Spanish team plays for ties and penalty kicks. They scored only eight goals for the entire tournament. Nullification of the actual playing of the soccer is their strategy. So the best team in the world doesn't "play soccer," they try to keep the other team from being able to play.

Congrats to the World Champs of Penalty Kicks. To the rest of the world, practice your penalty kicks and flopping and whatever else it is besides actually playing soccer that is "the world cup."

Molli

Closeups of dogs with low depth of field gives weird results.

Six Years (Three GOOD ones!)

Help me celebrate my Six Year Anniversary of this blog by going to Lulu.com and buying Lost Vegas: The Redneck Riviera, Existentialist Conversations with Strippers, and the World Series of Poker by my friend Paul McGuire. It comes with my highest recommendation.



Congrats to Dr. Pauly!

You Steer With Your Butt

The scooter is working out great so far. It makes the drive to work so much more enjoyable. And since it's getting about 55mpg I'm saving some on gas too. It's kind of nice to pay $8 for a fill up.

I've seen all kinds of stuff on the side streets that I drive on. There's a emu living among a bunch of horses on a ranch, farms with miniature horses and donkeys, lots of cattle and tons and tons of corn.

Owning any kind of bike sparks one thing: the never-ending search for the perfect helmet/headphone combination. I got a new helmet that I like a lot, bringing my total to four. Now to find the perfect set of headphones to go with them.

Back when I used to ride (motorcycles) there weren't MP3 players. (I'm old.) There were walkmans for cassettes and portable CD players, but most motorcycles didn't have them. Nobody I knew that rode a bike listened to music. Now everyone I know does, except one guy who thinks it's too dangerous. Well, he hasn't actually ridden his motorcycle yet. He has his license and has a bike, but he hasn't ridden it outside of the class he took to get his license. I'm sure he will actually get the bike on the street one day.

I've never really liked the "sound isolation" inside-your-ear type headphones, but those are really the only kind that you can hear well while riding. They always make me feel like my ears are full of water for some reason. If I toughed it out I'm sure I could adjust, I just haven't put in the time.

The ipod type that sit against your ear aren't quite loud enough with wind noise, and they are sometimes hard to keep in the right place too. I have some that loop over your ear that are better, but still not quite right.

Right now I'm experimenting with a helmet speaker system. The speakers velcro into a holder that sticks in the ear holes of the helmet. They're also not quite loud enough, but I got an amplifier along with the speakers that helps. Every ride is another experiment. I could probably permanently affect my hearing with this system.

A coworker asked me why I didn't just buy a motorcycle since the cost is basically the same, maybe even less. I'm not really sure why I got set on a scooter instead of a big boy bike. When I began looking I didn't even know they made scooters with bigger than 250cc engines. When I found out about "maxi-scooters" I was fascinated. The difference between motorcycle and scooter gets pretty blurry at that point.

Motorcycles have clutches and manual transmissions you have to shift with your foot. Scooters usually have a CVT (constant variable transmission.) Other than bigger wheels there's not much other difference. Scooters have much more built in storage and attaching extra storage is much easier. My scooter has a trunk under the seat that can hold 2 full face helmets. When I had a motorcycle I was pretty much limited to what I could carry in my backpack, and my back always got sweaty while wearing it. Now everything goes under the seat and the ride is much more comfortable.

Even when I rode motorcycles it wasn't really about speed. You don't have to drive really fast to have fun on a bike. The more curves the better. With a bike you kind of steer with your knees against the gas tank. On the scooter there's no gas tank between your knees, but you still maneuver in the same way. So instead of steering with your knees, you steer with your butt.

Almost every time I stop somewhere someone asks me about the scooter. They want to know how fast it goes or if it can get up to the 120mph that the speedometer dial reads. When I tell them how fast it is they almost always say "wow." When they ask if I like it I tell them "It's so much fun I'm surprised it's not illegal."

Tweet

With my new job, I keep Twitter up all day. I follow a few interesting people who generally have interesting things to say. It doesn't take any significant time to keep up with but it makes the day just slightly more entertaining, which is nice.

It's especially nice if you have a general question that smart people might be able to answer. It helps if smart people follow you, of course. I needed help with a Linux installation I was trying out and shot the question out on Twitter and got 3 separate and helpful answers within minutes. Very cool.

Of course people post pointless crap on there. Pointlessness is kind of the point. It's paradoxical. People don't post their bathroom habits as much as the media would have you believe. People do post their food a lot, which I enjoy. Who doesn't like to see a good looking lunch? It's always cheesy, saucy, greasy and delicious looking. And bacon. There's always bacon.

One thing I don't like is when people post the music they're listening to. I'm cool if they're listening to music and happen to bust out a lyric or something that inspired them. Inspiration is always good. I just hate it when they say "this morning I listened to xxx band." Mostly because "xxx band" is inevitably something pretentious. Nobody ever says "I listened to the Carpenters and ABBA all morning!" It's always some underground bullshit music that they want you to think they listen to because they think it makes them look cool and original. Listening to other people be creative doesn't make you any more original!

As I write this Twitter appears to be down. It's not exactly the most robust application, it crashes fairly frequently. Hopefully nobody counts on it for anything important.

If you want to follow me it's cool. @DuggleBogey. I don't automatically follow everyone who follows me so don't be offended if I don't. So don't try following me just to bump up your follow numbers. It won't work and you're a moron. Anytime you can count something people get competitive about it. But in this case quality beats quantity every time.

My New Baby

 

Some stats:
Model: FSC600
Engine Type: 582cc liquid-cooled four-stroke parallel twin
Bore and Stroke: 72mm x 71.5mm
Compression Ratio: 10.2:1
Valve Train: DOHC four valves per cylinder
Carburetion: PGM-FI with automatic enricher circuit
Ignition: Computer-controlled fully transistorized with electronic advance
Transmission: Automatic V-Matic belt drive
Suspension Front: 41mm hydraulic fork; 4.7 inches travel
Suspension Rear: Swingarm with dual hydraulic shocks with five-position spring preload adjustability; 4.7 inches travel
Brakes Front: Single 256mm disc with CBS three-piston caliper
Brakes Rear: Single 240mm disc with CBS twin-piston caliper
Tires Front: 120/80-14
Tires Rear: 150/70-13
Wheelbase: 62.8 inches
Seat Height: 29.1 inches
Dry Weight: 476 pounds
Fuel Capacity: 4.2 gallons, including 0.9-gallon reserve

Yes, it's exactly what you're thinking. It's a scooter that goes over 100mph.

This Means Nothing Unless You Play WoW

My main is a healer named Grither. The nice part about playing a druid is they are probably the most versatile class, and my guild uses my offspec when don't need three healers. There are two reasons they'd pick one particular person for that. One reason could be that they are the weakest healer so they'd be missed the least. But I don't think that's the reason my guild uses me.

This is the reason:



Not bad for an offspec.

Poker Comic #184

Poker Comic presented by Free Poker Money. Some places offer $25 Free Money. Some offer $50 or $75 Free Money. Here you get $100, with No Deposit Required and No Credit Card Required. (New Players Only, Must be 21 or older.)

Click HERE to view the Comics Archive

It's Getting Better

It started going bad last summer. The news was bad, but at least it came from the President of the United States. Obama announced that General Motors would be closing plants as part of its bankruptcy. Everyone in the room knew he was talking about us. Within a few days, or was it a few hours, what we all feared was confirmed, our plant was closing and our product was being transferred to Lansing Michigan.

Even though the plant would no longer be producing the Chevrolet Traverse, it would not shut down completely. There's still a part that assembles engines and another that presses metal parts. Some of the plastic extrusion production would still continue for a little while too. Those of us in IT suspected that we might be able to hold on to our jobs. You could feel the desperation in the air. Some people had already been notified of their last days at work.

I spoke to one of those people as I drove her to Bowling Green Kentucky to the Corvette plant on an emergency run to get some parts we needed in Spring Hill. She was near tears. I felt bad for her but I had confidence that I was one of the safe ones. My skills would protect me. The sacrifices I had made for the company would pay off now.

What sacrifices? I moved from Albany New York to work for the company in Kansas City. When someone died in Oklahoma City I picked up and moved there to pick up his job. When that plant closed I had relocated again, this time to Tennessee. Again, someone was leaving and they were desperate for someone with my experience. I had a resume they could show to the customer that would satisfy any requirements. Even within the locations I was the man when someone was needed in an emergency. Someone is needed in Kansas City, Ohio, even Mexico, I was on a plane the next day.

Still, we planned for the worst. Even if I could hang on at the plant, how long would it last? General Motors while still holding on to the largest market share in the US seemed to be circling the drain. Especially in Tennessee. The Volunteer State is a "right to work" state and the Michigan union folks were always resentful of that. If they had any say in it, Tennessee would be the first plant to be closed, forever.

November I got the news, my last day would be February 1 unless I could find a job in the company. I made a few phone calls and it was quickly obvious that there was no money for relocation. Having purchased a house twice in the last six years meant I wasn't exactly in the position to move myself. We had been saving as much money as possible, but it was much more difficult after a 5% pay cut in February, a 10% pay cut in April and a 20% pay cut in September. More pay cuts were scheduled. The only thing that kept them from cutting sooner was the law.

Through pure luck I picked up another job from a local manager who I knew only through my fantasy football league. The work was good, much more interesting and challenging than the customer maintenance type jobs I had been doing for the last six years. It was actual software programming. I was on a team of two and we worked for a remote team out of Michigan. We still went to the Spring Hill office so we could collaborate, but we didn't work for our local manager. This was big, because the local manager is a complete weasel.

The problem with this job was that the light at the end of the tunnel was a train. There is a team responsible for this software development, but they cannot handle all the work so some of it trickled down to the dregs. There seemed like plenty of work to go around, but at some point the main team would start to get paranoid that we were doing better work than they were, get off their asses and do their jobs. Then I'm out of luck again. My guess was that by August I would be out of a job, although my manager said we were set for the rest of the year.

One of the "lucky ones" who got to keep his job at the plant told me in confidence that he had found another job. I congratulated him but selfishly thought how much I would miss him. "Lucky ones" is in quotation marks there because his job responsibilities had increased three to four times, and his pay had been cut as severely as mine. He was my closest friend in Tennessee but I knew that relationship would begin to fade when we didn't see each other every weekday at work.

When he gave his notice it sent the local weasel into a panic. Finally to fill the local position they took away my teammate. On the bad side I didn't have anyone to bounce ideas off and I would have to do all the work myself. On the good side I no longer needed to go to the Spring Hill plant to work with him side-by-side. I talked to my new manager and he had no problems with me working from home. I didn't think he would, since he works from home about 30 miles away from me. With laptop in hand I gave working at home a try, and I really liked it. All the while, that light got closer as the train plowed forward.

But as the "lucky one" was serving his last two weeks, he approached me and asked me if I was interested in joining him at his new place. His new boss told him he wanted to expand his team and if he knew anyone else from Spring Hill that was qualified and interested, let him know. I was more than just interested.

What made me feel really good was that my coworker did not hesitate to recommend me. He told me he gave them his highest recommendation. Prior to this my confidence was very low. My reputation and my skills had been crapped on for the last six months. I was certainly depressed and I was beginning to feel that what I had been hearing from management was true. I felt worthless and my co-worker, a person who knew exactly how I worked because he sat next to me and worked side-by-side with me on projects for four years staked his reputation at his new company on me and my skills.

This display of encouragement from an unexpected place really inspired me. I charged into the extensive interview process at new company and was sincerely interested in the position. I like that type of work, I like the industry and I like the environment. I like the company attitude and so far I like my coworkers and my boss. While the drive is about 20 minutes farther each day, it's easier driving 20 minutes farther to a job I like than it was driving 40 minutes to a place I hated.

Ironically I would have done better financially if I had gotten laid off in February. I'd have received a lump sum severance for more money overall than I made working that time. It may have been nearly even if I had gotten paid for vacation I didn't take (as per company policy) but my last check reported that all my vacation time for the year had been used. I don't remember taking any vacation time, but I guess my memory is poor.

Speaking of vacation I received as part of my offer from the new company that I was considered a "mid-career hire" and that I receive benefits as though I had been working here for years, like three weeks of vacation immediately. A nice start.

I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There's a lot to learn and a lot of work to do at the new place, but it feels like I am working toward something in the future, not trying to prevent the inevitable.

The difference is beyond belief.

Tennessee Man Guilty of Proving Palin a Moron

A Tennessee student has been found guilty of the felony crime of proving that former Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin is a fucking moron.

News

Some student guessed at Sarah Palin's password answers on her Yahoo account and gets convicted of a Felony that could land him in prison for 20 years.

Palin, proving again that she's a moron, is pleased with the verdict. Yes idiot, week long news snippets that demonstrate that you don't know shit is something you should be pleased about.

I'll remind you that there's a significant portion of the population of this country that wants this person to be the President.

Kill me now.

Inspiration

Yesterday in Nashville a man was driving with his 10-year old daughter in the car and a crazy man rammed their car. When the father stopped the car the crazy man kept ramming him, pushing his car against the curb. What had the father done to inspire such a violent response? He had a Obama/Biden sticker on his bumper. The crazy man was so enraged over the recent health care legislation that seeing the sticker pushed him over the edge and he decided he must endanger the lives of a man and his 10-year old daughter.

Look, I'm not crazy about the health care legislation. I think something needed to be done. Health care quality has been going down and the costs have been rising, while an insurance company CEO just retired after making a billion dollars over 10 years (yes that's ONE MAN and thats BILLION with a "B".) That's a situation that needs to be dealt with. Is this the solution? Probably not. But it's something.

The worst possible downside people are predicting to this legislation is that it will cost more money and health care quality could suffer. That's already happening. It could be worse. Okay.

But the violent responses to this are insanely out of hand. People tried to blow up a congressman's house. People are throwing bricks through windows and shouting "baby killer" and racial epithets. This is in response to a bill that, at it's base, intends to get medical help to people who might need it. People are having a violent reaction to THAT.

Why is the response so disproportionate to the consequences of the legislation? It's the fault of the opponents of the legislation. Their incredible overreaction is spilling over to their constituents. When leadership screams "baby killer" it doesn't matter how much they backtrack later, they're inspiring hatred. When your media advocates say "We have to get these bastards!" on the air, you're inciting violence. When your candidates put out litearature with crosshairs over people's locations, you're asking people to react violently.

No, those people are not legally culpable for the results of their inspirations. There is no law preventing them from doing it, and there shouldn't be. They know the line of criminality and they're dancing on it.

But make no mistake, they are responsible for it. Not 100% responsible, but they have some liability.

What's the solution? Amazingly, this is a problem that will go away if people ignore it. If people simply stop paying attention to these blowhards and imbeciles, it will be gone. If they're a politician don't vote for them. If they're in the media don't watch them. Have a personal zero-tolerance policy against people who advocate violence or seem to. If they seem like could be inspiring violence among their fringe followers, cut them out completely.

Bumper Sticker Violence.

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American Justice

Jayson Williams got sentenced to prison today. Justice has been served.

Ex-NBA star Jayson Williams shot a man to death with a shotgun. That's the only fact that's not in question. He has a bullshit excuse about it being an accident, but fortunately for him the only person who could testify against him is dead from a shotgun wound to the chest.

Williams plead guilty, but wanted to spend some time with his daughters in his last few hours before serving his time. His daughters are seven and five. He killed Costas Christofi Feb 14 2002. Happy Valentine's day.

Williams has been a free man for eight long years while the criminal system worked it's magic and generated the "justice" that is fair to everyone. Now he begins serving his 18-month sentence, after having eight years of freedom to start a family. He apparently has been having a pretty good time, if you can judge by the fact that he crashed a car while drunk in January. Maybe in a decade or so the system will put him back in prison for that crime.

American Justice system, is there any problem you cannot solve?

Manifesto

When I started reading the news about the guy who flew his plane into a government building in Austin Texas, things started seeming creepy.

The guy was frustrated with his government. He was an IT professional. He worked with factory automation. I actually checked his background a little to see if I might have worked with him in the past. It's not impossible that we might have crossed paths on some project somewhere.

I read his manifesto online. It's kind of sickening that the only reason I read it, like millions of other people, was because of what he did. The only possible way for this guy to get that kind of attention to his message was by committing a horrible act. He had to make himself infamous. His infamy will only last a small number of hours, but it was enough to generate the attention he desired.

The manifesto was fairly lucid, but not really compelling because of all the self pity. This guy honestly felt like he was being treated unfairly. He felt like there was some conspiracy within the government to treat him and people like him badly. It seems like he felt that it was impossible for him to get ahead.

And by "people like him" I mean me. I'm an IT professional, I work with factory automation. I'm frustrated with my government. Good thing I don't have a pilot's license.

But that's the thing. This guy DID have a pilots license. So the guy had the spare time and the resources to learn to fly. It's doable, but it certainly isn't easy and it definitely isn't inexpensive. And he had access to a plane. That doesn't exactly scream "extreme poverty."

He cries over and over in his manifesto that he's gone broke due to unfair persecution by the government or his industry or some force that is out of his control. But what does "broke" mean? The guy wasn't starving to death. He could afford a wife and an ex-wife. I've heard that ex-wives aren't a cheap luxury. But worth every penny.

So this guy's biggest problem was...he wasn't rich. He felt like he should've be rich by now. He thought he had worked hard all his life and he deserved to be rich.

I wonder what dollar amount would have made this guy happy? Well, happy was probably not possible, but how much would have kept him from flying his plane into a building full of mostly innocent people? Twenty grand? Fifty?

In the end this guy was just a lunatic that thought the world owed him something. Something like....tenure.

Dominos Pizza Thinks You're Stupid

Have you seen the Dominos Pizza media blitz lately? It's nauseating.

First it was a series of TV commercials that say "We realized our pizza sucks but we changed it." So they're saying that they made shit pizza for 30 or more years but suddenly are experts in determining good pizza? How can that be?

Now they have another series saying they sued Papa John's Pizza for saying their pizza was "better" in their ads. Nevermind the fact that they didn't say "better than Dominos," Dominos took it to court. And they won.

But waitasec... Dominos admitted that their pizza sucks. So they sued Papa Johns for implying something in their commercials that they themselves admitted recently?

Apparently Dominos thinks we're too stupid to remember their commercials from one series to the next. But if you've ever tasted their pizza, you already know they thought you were pretty dumb for buying it in the first place.

Recall!

I just got back from the store, did you know that Toyota also makes keyboaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Foiling the Hackers

Well my World of Warcraft account got restored after being hacked. It's happening so much lately that the WoW folks have a backlog of accounts to restore of more than a week.

All's well that ends well I guess. I got a much needed week off from the game, and my guild and I got all...well, most of our stuff back.

In the meantime, I got a mobile authenticator. It's a cool little dongle that generates a new code every 30 seconds that you must have to log in to my account. Hacker can keylog me all he wants, if he doesn't have the exact same mobile authentication code generated by the unique one associated with my account, he can't get in. It's not completely un-hackable, but it sure makes things difficult. And usually that's enough.

It's very cool, and I love using technology to thwart would-be evildoers. It made me think, I wish I had something like that on my poker accounts, since that's real money and all and I have had my account stolen before.

I checked at Full Tilt Poker and sho-nuff! They have mobile authenticators! Sweet! Waitasec, not so sweet. As far as I can tell the only way to get one is to buy one from their online store, which only takes Full Tilt Points. You need 5000 points to get an authenticator, and I only have 3200 or so after my latest jersey purchase late last year. At the baby stakes I play, 5000 points takes a long time to earn.

The WoW authenticator cost a MASSIVE Six dollars and fifty cents, including shipping. FTP wants 5000 Full Tilt Points? Are they in the poker business or the "ripping off our customers so they can be safe" business? You can get a T-shirt for 1500 points, but a $7 plastic authenticator costs 5000?

Not to mention that you have no choice but to play real money at risk until you earn enough points to order this security "option" which I don't consider very optional these days.

Maybe I'm just an idiot and I can't find the way to buy one of these for cash on their website. If anyone knows of a way to do it, please let me know in the comments.

If not, shame on you Full Tilt Poker.

Edit: I just checked PokerStars. They want 4500 VIP points. Same deal, no way to pay cash for it as far as I can tell.

failbooking

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Hacked? Try Rush

My WoW account got hacked this weekend. Totally my fault, I installed something I knew was questionable. Apparently they are so backed up with requests from people that got hacked that it will take a week to get my account restored. They should take security more seriously, mostly by making it hard on the people that make hacking accounts profitable. But then they would sell less of their "for profit" solution to security. Go free markets.

People are calling to comfort me with ideas on what to do in the meantime. It's just a video game people, it's not like my whole world revolves around it. Some time off will probably be good for me.

Of course when I can't play WoW, I play poker!

I tried out Rush Poker on Full Tilt. If you don't know what that is and you care, eleventy million bloggers have talked about it already.

I guess it's fun, it certainly makes single tabling a lot more action packed. I never really dug that multi-tabling thing. This is like infinite-tabling.

It's perfect for people who play the "oh shit if I had stayed in with my shit hand I would have won" game. Since you never see anything after you fold you never know what you would have had.

Once in a while I folded in a multi-way hand and wondered how it turned out, but I never got to see because I was "whooshed" away to another table before the final player acted. Kinda frustrating.

You get lots of big hands. Because you get LOTS of hands, the big hands come much faster. I flopped quad queens that paid nothing past the pre-flop raise.

It really makes you consider your starting hands very carefully. Since you are in fold-fold-fold-fold mode until you see something that interests you, there is a tendency to stretch out your requirements to start a hand, especially in position. And since opponents seem more likely to fold it tends to make you a bit more aggressive.

I fear that it will take away from the donkeys at the non-rush tables, since rush is apparently crack for donkeys. But I guess I can always go play at Poker Stars instead.

Late Night

I used to watch a lot of late night television. Before Dave moved to CBS, I was a die-hard Letterman fan. Late Night with David Letterman was the greatest late-night talk show of all time, bar none.

If you don't know the story, here's what happened. Johnny Carson was the undisputed king of late night. The other networks were so intimidated by his numbers they didn't dare program similar shows. They cross programmed, showing "Macmillan and Wife" and "Columbo" reruns. Johnny surprised the network by announcing his retirement live at an affiliates meeting. He had been working 3-4 day weeks for a while and had several "guest hosts" such as Bill Cosby and Joan Rivers, but lately the seat had been most often filled by Jay Leno.

David Letterman assumed he would get the Carson show when Johnny retired. The network had other ideas. Letterman got insane numbers for a show that started after midnight eastern. NBC was very greedy and didn't want to lose those numbers, so they gave the Tonight Show to Jay Leno.

Letterman was pissed, and chose to leave the network. There were some back-room deals where NBC would agree to give Letterman the show if Jay faltered, but Letterman decided his best deal was to take a show opposite the Tonight show on CBS.

Letterman regularly beat Jay Leno in that time slot for 3 years, but Leno steadily built his own audience and eventually took over first place in the ratings. "The Tonight Show" was "the show" for late night once more.

Letterman never did a show as good as "Late Night" again. He tempered his comedy for the older audiences that watch the earlier show. He changed his style, lost his edginess. "The Late Show" has always been a watered-down version of "Late Night."

Five and a half years ago Jay Leno announced he was going to retire in five years. NBC wanted to avoid the unpleasantness that occurred when Johnny retired, so they signed a deal to give Conan O'Brien, who had built a very solid show with good ratings and excellent demographics "The Tonight Show." Conan's viewers, much like David Letterman's original show, attracted YOUNG PEOPLE. People over a certain age LITERALLY DO NOT COUNT to advertisers. In other words, Jay Leno's audience.

Conan's deal was that he'd get "The Tonight Show" or NBC would pay him $40 Million. NBC figured it was no big deal to make the number crazy because Jay was going to retire and by then his show would have fallen in the ratings. Conan would continue to do a successful show for five years and then he would step in for the faltering Jay Leno with a younger more desirable demographic. What could go wrong?

Jay Leno changed his mind. He didn't want to retire. His numbers were still fantastic, even better than five years ago. And Leno is a workaholic. Unlike Carson he never took nights off. He never stopped working on the show to make it more and more popular. He had taken Johnny's show and made it his own. He wasn't about to give it up.

So NBC was in a tough spot. They simply couldn't afford to give Conan forty mil, especially during a recession and with NBC last among networks, by far. There are literally no successful shows on the network after Heroes, The Office and 30 Rock. Nothing.

Someone at NBC came up with a brilliant idea. We'll give Conan "The Tonight Show" and avoid paying him $40 Million, and we'll replace all the failing 10pm dramas with Jay Leno. Yes, we will not get great ratings, but we aren't anyway and this show costs 10% of all those pricey one-hour dramas. Problem solved!

What they didn't count on was rebellion from the affiliates. While NBC didn't care whether Jay's 10pm show got ratings, the affiliates live and die off those 10pm dramas for their lead-in audience. See, it turns out nobody actually chooses to watch one local news program over another. I know, you think you have your favorite, but in reality Americans are too lazy to reach for the remote and change the channel. They watch whatever news program is on after the 10pm program they watched.

And Jay Leno's lousy ratings were killing the local news broadcasts. NBC can't have their affiliates upset with them, so they did the predictably chicken-shit move and gave Jay Leno his time slot back. How they are going to pull five hour-long dramas out of their ass to fill the spots is beyond me. They haven't successfully had one since ER, and they rode that pony for twenty years. Michael Crichton is dead. Now what, NBC?

And Conan has to hit the road. He will settle for something between 20 and 40 million dollars from NBC (Go General Electric stock!) so don't feel too bad for him, but he isn't likely to get another 11:30 talk show, not if he has to compete with Letterman AND Leno for an audience. Fox is crazy, but I'm not sure they're THAT crazy.

But who knows? Maybe an 11:00 Fox show will actually beat the shows delayed by the local news. I mean, the local news is really shit, right? I don't know anyone who likes it. Everyone says they hate it but they have to know the weather. NOAA.GOV anybody? Srsly.

And what do I watch? I only really enjoy one late night comedy show, the incredibly self-derisive Craig Ferguson vehicle "The Late Late Show." He even calls himself "the Scottish Conan guy." The thing I like about Ferguson is that he's funny. He's led an interesting life and when he talks about himself it's more interesting than anything else on the show. His experiences from being a musician, being on the Drew Carey show and his alcoholism are all interesting and very entertaining. He's very cynical about show business while enjoying the hell out of himself in his small part of it. He seems to have genuine joy in silliness that he surrounds himself with.

Screw Conan, Jay, Dave and both Jimmys (Had I known that Kimmel's show was directed by Bobcat Goldthwait I might have checked it out.) Check out Craig. He's an acquired taste, for certain. But he's genuine. I like genuine.

Edit:

It's true that Jay Leno never really wanted to retire in 2009. When NBC made the deal with Conan Jay agreed to step aside because that's how Jay is. He's always done whatever NBC wanted. That's how he got the job over Letterman. NBC/GE felt he was "more loyal." It might have had something to do with Letterman calling GE executives "pinheads" every night on their own network.

Jay was too nice too say in 2005 that he didn't want to give up "The Tonight Show," and when he got some leverage in 2009 he said as much. But, still being the NBC lackey, he agreed to this 10pm strategy as a consolation prize.

A Day

I almost didn't have a day today. I drove to work at the normal time and just before I arrived, 35 minutes into the trip, I realized that I had left everything I need for work at home. So I turned the car around and drove back home, then set off for work again.

I almost decided to just stay home and call in sick. A mental health day. It wouldn't be a lie because I knew I would be in a poor mental state after driving a hundred miles before going to work, arriving two hours late.

But I decided to tough it out and called in to say I would be late and probably retarded. They asked how being retarded would be different from any other day and said no problem.

When I got to work I got good news about a job opportunity I was interested in with another company. Then I got good news about a job opportunity to stay with the company I currently work for. Then I got good news that GM is considering re-opening the plant.

None of the news was conclusive. Just possibilities. But as bleak as things have been looking lately, possibilities are a vast improvement.

And to think I almost missed it for a "mental health day." Turns out going to work today was much better for my mental health.

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Eldrick

June 26, 2009 - Smoke filled back room.

Mark: Whew. I'm glad we finally got to close the book on that one.

Stan: You used Propofol? That is brilliant.

Mark: Blamed it on the doc. I knew it would work after we built up the oxygen tent story. Everybody believes that musicians are into drugs.

Stan: I thought we were never gonna get that guy. How could he still be so popular after all the work we did on him? I thought just accusing someone of being a child molester was enough to finish someone these days.

Mark: No kidding! You'd think that brainwashing all those kids to testify would turn the public against the guy so we wouldn't have to resort to this. I guess he just had more resources than we thought.

Stan: We couldn't afford another OJ. Look at all the work we had to do to take care of that one. Faking the robbery and hiring thugs to pretend to be his friends. Undercover work is too expensive and risky.

Mark: And that first failure will be a black mark on my record forever. No pun intended.

Stan: Well OJ was small time compared to this one. Football records and Rental Car commercials are one thing, this guy thought he could be the king of pop! We had to make sure the job was finished.

Mark: Well he's finished all right. What's next on the agenda? There's got to be another one of them that doesn't know his place.

Stan: Well that golfer's raking in way too much cash. That qualifies as 'uppity' if you ask me.

Mark: That boy's squeaky clean. What angle do we take?

Stan: We'll start with that sham of a marriage. He really thinks he can be married to one of us? We have a lot of women on the payroll right? So here's what we'll do...

Not Frogger

Frogger made by Neave Games

Southernisms

A coworker of mine has three buckeyes on his desk.

We were having a conversation about sayings like "don't look a gift horse in the mouth" when he asked me what you would be looking for in a horse's mouth. I said I didn't know and he told me how you can tell a horse's age by looking in its mouth.

A woman who was standing nearby doing inventory asked "Have you told him about the buckeyes? If you give them away it's bad luck. Like if I give you one now, you will have to keep it forever or you'll have back luck."

"That doesn't make sense," I replied.

She turns to my coworker and says "Give me one of those," and points at his three buckeyes.

He hands her one and she hands it to me and says "now you have to keep it forever or you'll have bad luck."

My coworked chimed in and said "but now you will have bad luck for giving it to him!"

Then I stunned him by saying, "Didn't you just give it to her?"

Hoy Knows Sports

Hoy is really a sports expert. The only reason he was so wrong on the World Series predictions was because his judgment was clouded by his being a Phillies fan. Of course that is enough to make someone wonder...

So I kept track of some of his football picks to prove that other than Fan Blindness, he knows what he's talking about.

1. Green Bay Packers -10 at Tampa Bay Buccaneers. I absolutely love this game, even though I would like 9 points a heck of a lot more than the 10 this game is currentiy sitting at.

Result: Tampa Bay 38, Green Bay 28. Even with his generous 9 point line this is a 19 point miss.

2. Miami Dolphins +10.5 at New England Cheatriots.

Result: New England 27, Miami 17. Nailed it! Cleared it by a half point. Niiice. But I think your fan blindness is creeping in here.

3. Houston Texans +9 at Indianapolis Colts.

Result: Indianapolis 20, Houston 17. He was all over this one by 6.

4. New Orleans Saints -13 vs Carolina Panthers.

Result: New Orleans 30, Carolina 20. Damn those field goals.

5. San Francisco 49ers -4.5 vs. the Tennessee Titans.

Tennessee 34, San Francisco 27. Whoops.

Now you can look at these picks and say he got two right out of five, that's almost half! But he picked two favorites giving points who both lost on the field, and squeeked one in by a hook.

So it's not just the Phillies, and not just Baseball. I'm not claiming to be able to pick any better, because my Fantasy Football results prove I know nothing about pro football.

But Hoy's just as wrong as me, and seems to think he's some kind of expert that can pump out PAGES AND PAGES of this garbage. Just shut up already.

Spoiled Rotten

Are people tougher than they were 50 years ago, or weaker? Seems like all the old-time Olympic records have been absolutely eclipsed by modern records. The modern athlete is faster and stronger than his earlier counterparts. Even without performance enhancements.

So why do I keep hearing the stupidest fucking term ever when people talk about the world series? The phrase "three-days rest" has been overused so much I may vomit if I hear it again.

Until fairly recently there was no such term as "three-days rest." Because three days was the NORMAL rest time. All teams used four-man pitching rotations with three days between every start. Not to mention that most of this time was before the advent of frequent relief pitching. So all pitchers had three days between nine innings of pitching, more if the game went into extra innings.

Now a guy has an "effective" start if he pitches at least six innings every five days? Did all major league pitchers become spoiled rotten little wimps? They're not pussies, they're professional athletes.

Both of these pitching staffs will have a hundred days rest after the series is over, and I'm thinking that will be after tonight.

Update

An update about me? Okay, you asked for it.

I'm still enjoying World of Warcraft. My guild is pretty cool and laid back, nobody gets upset about much. One guy was pissing people off so I decided to be the bad guy and kick him out. That's me, asshole-at-arms.

Fantasy Football is a train wreck. Not fun. Don't do it. If you want some advice on it, here goes; everyone is always wrong. Always. No exceptions.

I upgraded my netbook to Windows7. There are some things I like, some things I don't. It's slightly unstable, I did get a bluescreen once when looking at some video from a networked hard drive. It's very, very pretty. Cool sells, and it is cool. I predict it will sell. Big time.

Work is still very up in the air. The plant shuts down on Thanksgiving. There will be 15 or so jobs left for people here after that, and there are around 26 people working here now. So I have a shot. Better than most I think. My closest coworker is interviewing with "another automotive company" today. I don't want him to go because he is my closest friend at work, but I want what's best for him and if he goes that's more chance that everyone else around here can stay.

I'm going to try out Ooma for VoIP phone service. I am currently using Vonage and Ooma reviews make it sound better than Vonage for less money. It's worth a try, I can always go back to Vonage. Thanks to Google Voice my number will not change. GV rocks. Get an invite if you can.

I still play poker occasionally, baby stakes of course. According to PTR I am up $1 overall on Full Tilt. Go me. Good thing they don't show Poker Stars. Whew!

Other than that nothing is going on. Very boring life, but I like it.

Go Yankees!

Mr. Wrong AND Mr. Quiet

Hoyazo, that man of a thousand words (especially when ten will do) has made a lot of noise about the Phillies, especially after they won game one of the World Series.

Now he's silent.

Let's review his picks for the series.

He picked the Yankees to win game one. Wrong, but he sure seemed glad about it.

He picked the Phillies to win game two. Wrong again.

He picked the Yankees to win game three. Finally a winner. Hope he didn't go broke on games one and two.

Game four, he picked the Phillies. Wrong again, all the while totally silent.

He has the Phillies winning game five. He better be right or there is no game six to pick.

As far as where my allegiance lies, there shouldn't be much doubt. I will point to the most impressive play in game 4; Johnny Damon steals second in the top of the ninth. The play is not even close so the man who covers second base due to the Teixeira shift is actually the third baseman, and he moves forward to cut off the throw. Damon sees this and takes third with no play because NOBODY IS COVERING THIRD. Lidge can't bounce a curveball because Damon scores on a wild pitch, so Alex Rodriguez lines a fastball into the left field corner.

They just do everything right. They're the Yankees.

Conservatives: Boycott the NFL!

Yes, this blogger has called on all conservatives to BOYCOTT! the NFL because of the unfair treatment of Rush Limbaugh by hmm... well, I guess by the consortium that he was a part of.

But anyway, the BOYCOTT! is ON! This will show them!



I suspect this boycott will be much more popular with fans of: Oakland, Tennessee, Cleveland, Buffalo, Kansas City, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Jacksonville and oh yeah, St. Louis!

Spit

Someone spit on my car last night.

I'm working the night shift, 3pm to 11pm. So I missed the Monday night football game where my fantasy football opponent's running back (T. Jones) scored two touchdowns to put him ahead by 2 points. I scored the second most points in the league for yet another loss. I lost by half as many points last week.

And when I got out to my car around 11:30, someone had spit on the windshield.

I guess I'm asking for it, parking a Mazda in the lot at a GM plant. A GM plant that closes the assembly section in about six weeks. But I find it hard to believe that my 1994 Mazda really affects the sales around here. Do they think I'm the type to trade in my 15-year old sub-compact in on one of these $40,000 monstrosities with air-conditioned seats?

The plant is closing on me too. I went broke when I moved here two years ago to work at this plant, and I have no idea if I will have a job come February 1st. I hope I do, and I think I will, but nothing is certain. The part of the plant I mostly work in is continuing production, but that doesn't mean I get to keep my job. They could easily fire me and put someone with more seniority (read: kisses WAY more ass) in my spot.

And now I'm working late again tonight. For free of course. Starting November first it's for 20% less actually. When the company I worked for got bought, they reclassified every employee. They say some people got raises and others got pay cuts. Everyone I know got cut, 20% minimum. Some even more. A lot more. It's quite a clever way to reduce staff without having to pay severance. Just keep cutting pay until everyone who can find another job quits. Of course what's left are people who can't get another job, so you're sure to keep all the incompetent people. The very best? They're gone.

I'm so angry I could spit.

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Please SHUT UP

Republicans are trying to pass a resolution called the Czar Accountability and Reform Act of 2009.

At least look up more shit that I do before you do dumbass stuff like this.



Why do Republicans suddenly have a problem with this?

Ow.

RIP Patrick Swayze

I was watching "Today" when I found out Patrick Swayze died. The two stupid holes were talking about him like he was in two movies total. "Some actors are only lucky enough to appear in one iconic movie, and he got to be in two!"

The stupid chicks were talking about "Ghost" and "Dirty Dancing." Both of these ditzy morons were in their 20s.

Mr. Swayze, we remember you from "Roadhouse" and "Point Break." We remember you from "Youngblood", "Red Dawn" and the most hilarious skit ever from "Saturday Night Live." Don't let the 20-year old chick flick loving dizzy bitches fool you, we loved you for all your work.

Rest in peace Patrick.

Glen Beck Not a Murderer

This site is hilarious: Did Glenn Beck Rape and Murder a Young Girl in 1990?

Nobody thinks that rumor is true of course, but until he proves the rumor is false, it's possible, right? He doesn't even deny it!

Play around with it

Nashville at Night

Legalization of online gambling looks like a sure bet.

From The American Conservative.

10th Anniversary Live Event

I'm gonna try to go to this.

Thought of the Day

Stop rewarding bad behavior.

Why would television executives decide to pay millions of dollars to have good actors performing well written material when people keep watching stupid shit like d-list celebrities and washed-up politicians dancing or bad amateur singers badly singing bad music?

Ask yourself that.

Team Info

The New York Yankees, based in the Bronx, N.Y., participate in Major League Baseball (MLB) and are a member of the American League East Division. The Yankees were founded as the Baltimore Orioles in 1901 and moved to New York in 1903 as the New York Highlanders. They became the New York Yankees in 1913. As of Opening Day 2009, the Yankees will play home games at the New Yankee Stadium, which was built next to the original Yankee Stadium. The club has 26 World Series Championships (1923, 1927, 1928, 1932, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1941, 1943, 1947, 1949, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1956, 1958, 1961, 1962, 1977, 1978, 1996, 1998, 1999, 2000).

I've been a Yankee fan all my life. My folks have pictures of me as a toddler in Yankee gear. I have actually worked for the Yankee organization. I received a paycheck with the Yankee logo in the corner. I love the New York Yankees. I am a fan.

I hate it when people think that all Yankee fans only support the team because they win. I'm sure there are those that do. But I grew up in the 80s, and if you look at that list of World Series wins you don't see a lot of 80s in there. In fact, the Yankees didn't play a playoff game for 13 straight years from 1982 to 1994. (They did finish in first place in the AL east in 1994 though.)

I'm not going to say it wasn't nice when I moved to New York in the late 90s and the Yanks only lost one game in three straight World Series. It's always fun when your favorite team in your favorite sport wins. But it's something someone else achieved. It's nothing I did. Root and hope all you like, it doesn't affect the outcome. You just follow it.

I do take a lot of joy when other people are crushed because their teams lose. I don't think it counts as sadism though. Sadists take joy in other people's pain and suffering. And the pain you feel when your sports teams lose isn't real. I laugh at people who actually let the results of a sports contest affect their lives, their moods, their outlook. Those people are silly. They're the kind of people who refer to their favorite team as "we" as in "we won a big game." Really? What was your batting average?

I love sports. My heart races for important games and I feel the thrills and exhilaration when a team I love succeeds or the heartbreak when it fails. But at the end of the season I can put it away. At the end of the day it's just a game. If you actually have part of your life tied up into whether a bunch of overpaid entertainers succeed or fail, then you need to re-examine your priorities.

Another Example of Why Watching Fox News Is Bad For You

No wonder their viewers are retarded.

From Fail Blog

To Red Sox Fans:

Dear Red Sox Fan:



Love: Yankee Fan

Gotta Love Em

I love stuff like this.

"We're good moral Christians but if you FUCKING try to TOUCH our GODDAMN MONEY we will FUCKING KILL you!"

Poor Ed Brayton is obviously obsessed with WND but damn he links some funny shit from there.

Crap, they found it!

Amazon's Database is Weird

Interesting

It's interesting that I got my first experience with the new Full Tilt interface last night. It's more interesting that I didn't even know there WAS a new Full Tilt interface, and I read dozens of "so called" poker blogs. Hm.

I fired it up, checked my balance, played a NL $10 table for two rounds, won 88 cents and quit because I was bored.

But my WoW alt got exalted status with Kirin Tor, got his engineering skill up past the level of making cool enchants, leveled his latest pet up to max level and switched his rep path to Ebon Hold. A very good night if you consider I mostly played my main in Ulduar.

From one hobby with ridiculous jargon to another.

At least it's not spit.

Now that the auto industry is dead in this country, this is the only job I can get:

Deafening

I'm almost afraid to disturb the silence. It's so peaceful.

Things are still on shaky ground here work-wise. The new car was awarded to the plant in Michigan instead of Tennessee or Wisconsin. I lot of people around here cried because it went to a blue state, but those people are silly. Tennessee is a truck plant, Janesville is already closed and idled. Orion Michigan is a car plant (they're currently making Chevy Malibu overflow from Kansas City.) The choice was pretty obvious, and thank goodness it was.

Some people started acting very depressed after the announcement. I guess when you're faced with a shitty proposal and nothing, you hope for shitty. But man, would it have been a disaster. The Chevy Spark was originally supposed to be built in China, but the U.S. Government thought it would be politically incorrect to build a plant in another country when there are plants being shut down in the states. So they ordered GM to build that car on shore.

That car is cursed to fail. GM has repeatedly proven it can't compete in the small car market. In order to even have a shot they would have to build that car three shifts a day seven days a week. And they certainly wouldn't expand our staff. So somehow we would have to provide 11 more shifts per week of coverage with the same staff. In my particular role there are only four of us. That's almost three more eight hour shifts per week each of us would have to cover. Would you be happy if you suddenly had to work 24 more hours per week? Oh, and for less pay than you were getting a year ago. No thanks.

The rumor now is that Tennessee will be getting the new Cadillac Escalade, which is based on the platform that the truck currently being produced shares. There is also some talk of the pickup trucks from Shreveport being moved here when the Louisiana plant closes in 2012.

64

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It's a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn't hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they'd never match
my sweet imagination
everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
They give us those nice bright colors
They give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world's a sunny day, Oh yeah
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So mama don't take my Kodachrome away

RIP 1936-2009

Textbook

In case you were wondering what a textbook example of what a hypocrite might be, here's one:

"I don't understand why Letterman would say that about a young woman. They deserve some kind of protection from being the butt of late-night hosts."---John McCain 2009

"Why is Chelsea Clinton so ugly? Because her father is Janet Reno."---John McCain 1998

Nice work.

Paraphrased

All successful bloggers are ceaseless complainers and prone to start arguments. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else.

Fuck Google. Use Bing.

Fight the power. Stick it to the man.

Use Bing for your web searches instead of Google. It's zippy fast and the results are pretty good, at least as good as a Google search.

Sure it's a Microsoft product and they're the man too.

But they don't discriminate against blogs like Google does.

Bing away.

Life is Good

When I was driving into work this morning, I followed an SUV with the spare tire on the outside. The tire cover said "Life is Good." I like the Life is Good products. I have a few of the shirts and one of my dogs loves the Frisbee they make. She carries it around the house with her wherever she goes, just in case someone somewhere wants to throw it to her.

Life is good. I'm healthy, happy and I make enough money to keep myself that way.

GM will declare bankruptcy on Monday. When Chrysler declared they locked the doors and didn't let any employees through the doors for a week. GM's bankruptcy won't be a "quicky" so predictions are we will be able to come to work on Monday. There is a contingency plan, everyone is supposed to meet at the Cracker Barrel.

So now the government gets do decide if the plant stays open or gets liquidated. Supposedly the closings will be based on profitability, but we have just barely begun producing this SUV, how does one know if it is profitable? I think it's like being in love. If you don't know, you aren't.

"May you live in interesting times." --Chinese curse.

Craps Refresher Refresher

Almost exactly 4 years ago, I wrote a how to play craps post.

It doesn't seem so long ago, but it's not a bad little instructional on how to play craps, and why to not play craps.

I'm Not a "Completer"

From an administration perspective, one of the most difficult things about running World of Warcraft is managing the economy.

In WoW the economy is a very delicate balance. The currency of the game is earned very slowly but by millions of players at a time. In order to balance the economy the game has built in money sinks. The most famous of these is the cost of flight. (There was a widely reported indecent of a woman trading sex for the cost of her flying mount.) But there have always been various money sinks in the game to try to keep inflation under control.

But the latest expansion introduced the most brilliant money sink. Historically money sinks have been a reward system. You sink x amount of money, you get y as a reward. Five thousand gold gets you flight training. But what the developers needed was a way to take money out of the game without any rewards given. And they came up with the "Achievement" system.

With achievements, the game tracks the tasks you have to complete, and when you complete the task it gives you "achievement points." And that's it. The achievement points aren't worth anything. You can't spend them on items or rewards of any kind. It's just a tracking system. You basically get a "check mark" saying you have completed that task.

And the players have gone crazy for the achievements. They are spending hours upon days upon weeks completing these tasks for literally zero rewards. They spend all their resources until they aren't even able to participate in actual gameplay because they've exhausted themselves chasing achievements.

It appeals to the obsessive compulsive nature of all people. People are very naturally "box-checkers" and love to complete things. They have to complete their collection of everything. Without it they feel incomplete. They feel a nearly physical need to finish things. It's amazing to watch.

I'm just not a box-checker. I don't feel the need to finish something "just to finish" it. If there is a reward for completing a task I feel a sense of accomplishment, but if I complete something just to have done it I usually feel disappointed.

When doing achievements in WoW I begin to feel used and manipulated. I rarely try to complete them intentionally, and when I do I feel almost ashamed.

I still enjoy the game, and I have actually built a respectable player up. I'm the 32nd ranked resto druid on the realm I play, which is really not bad. I can keep up with the best players in the game, so I really feel like I can contribute to a group when I play. I take a great deal of pleasure in being an instrumental part of a raid, helping the group achieve a particularly difficult goal (as long as that goal includes a reward that improves the group.)

I guess I'm not very OCD, and if you have a problem with OCD I wouldn't recommend World of Warcraft. But if you just really get off on checking boxes, it may be the game for you.

Tennessee...Sigh

Just when you tell people that living in Tennessee isn't that strange and that it's not really the "deep south" and there aren't THAT many rednecks, the top story in the biggest newspaper in the state has this headline:

Cockfight Raid Results in Arrests of Hundreds

That's right, hundreds. This isn't a dozen rednecks getting together and doing something stupid. This was an organized event where people gathered to sell drugs and abuse animals. Whee.

More Hope

Hopeful story from the NY Times that the UIGEA may be repealed, unless the christian right has anything to say about it...

The biggest potential change would be in the United States, where, perhaps within days, Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Massachusetts, is expected to introduce legislation aimed at overturning the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act.

As always, useless christian conservatives have to get in the way:

Michele Combs, a spokeswoman for the Christian Coalition, said the group was gearing up for a “massive campaign” of letter-writing and lobbying to try to prevent any loosening of the law.

“We’re not saying people shouldn’t go to Las Vegas,” she said. “But when it’s in your home, it’s too easy. It breaks up families.”

Yeah, stupid people in stupid families. Why do you have to restrict my rights because stupid people will do stupid things? Don't you realize that they are just going to find some other stupid way to fuck up their families? Get a fucking life, stop trying to run mine.

Field Sobriety

Last Thursday I took the day off work and drove to Talladega to visit my folks. They were in town for the race and might not have a chance to stop at my place so this could be my only chance to see them this year.

I drove down in the morning. Getting up was tough because I've been working the night shift and sleeping late every day. The weather was pleasant though and it's less than 2.5 hours to make the drive.

You know you're driving through Alabama when you stop for gas and there's a couple there walking their pig. I took a photo but I don't have the card reader with me. If I remember I will add it to this post later.

My folks park their RV in the best possible spot at the track in Talladega. You can't see the track because it's banked, but they're a 3 minute walk to their seats. They walk back after the race and sit outside their RV and watch people sit in traffic for 3 hours while 140,000 people try to get out of the parking lot at the same time. They leave the next day in 5 minutes. Pretty slick.

I spent about 5 or 6 hours visiting with the folks then drove back through Alabama and when I crossed into Tennessee I took a back road to my little town. I got pulled over by a small town police officer who said he smelled "the strong odor of alcohol" from my car and asked me to perform a field sobriety test.

It's pretty humiliating standing in front of his squad car with the lights flashing while performing for him. He wanted me to stare at his finger without moving my head as he moved it around. Then he wanted me to touch my fingers to my thumb quickly while counting "one two three four" and "four three two one" as I touched each finger.

I passed his test, which is good because I think the last time I had a drink was the super bowl. I'm paranoid about getting caught drinking and driving because it seems like the goal of the government is to ruin your life if you get caught driving after you've had a drink. I enjoy a drink now and then but if I'm going to drive in the next 12 hours I skip it. I'm almost always going to drive within 12 hours so I almost never drink.

I suspect the "strong alcohol smell" is the cop's bullshit excuse to check every driver he stops. There's no alcohol smell in my car, I asked two people to smell for it after I got stopped. I don't think I've ever had alcohol in that car.

Hopefully it's just an "isolated incident" but I guess it wouldn't be a shock that there are cops around that violate the civil rights of every person they pull over at night. But it's still kind of disappointing.

I'm Done With You

When people used to ask me "what's your favorite movie," I automatically answered "Reservoir Dogs, and Pulp Fiction is my top five." I still love the films, but I'm done with Quentin Tarantino.

Let's face it: The guy is over. He hasn't done anything great in fifteen years. The last decent thing he did was "Kill Bill" and even that was pretty ordinary unless you're nutty for karate movies and you love to see Daryl Hannah over-act.

The most relevant thing he's done lately is appear on "American Idol." I know he's supposed to be all into "pop culture" and everything, but honestly... crap is crap. "American Idol" is the lowest of the low. The guy is trying to stir up popularity by being on a talent show

The guy was a big splash. A huge splash. His style influenced nearly every movie that came out after 1994. But then it was over, now he's completely hack. "Death Proof" was garbage, and that's all he could come up with in five years. And I'm so crazy about Rosario Dawson I would change my religion if she gave me a wet willy.

He revived John Travolta's career. Thanks. I'd rather kill myself than watch "Wild Hogs" again. He made a star out of Samuel L. Jackson, who screamed his way to the largest career box office grosses of all time. What the fuck was he doing in a Star Wars movie?

Peace out homie. You're dead to me. You're going to have to do something pretty special to win me (and I suspect a lot of your former fans) back.

I hate driving home this late

Bored at werq

I made this.