Thursday, February 10, 2005

late at night

Idiot of the Day - Wanita Renea Young

Nice job, lady.  Two teenage girls try to do something nice for you (and the other neighbors) by baking cookies, and you take them to court because they frightened you?  The cookies said “Have a great night” and were signed with their first initials: “Love, The T and L Club.”  Okay, I can even understand being scared because you didn’t know who was at the door.  It was a nice idea by the girls, but like lots of teens, they didn’t think it all the way through.  But taking them to court?  After you knew their intentions were good and after they offered to pay your medical bills?  What did you expect to get out of them, their allowance?  Their MP3 players?

From the Denver Post, the story of the Evil Cookie Giving Teens.

Wednesday, February 09, 2005

late at night

Idiot of the Day - White House and Jeff Gannon, or is it M4M James Guckert?

When will this farce of a government end?  So, what’s the count now?  Three reporters (so far!)  paid off to spout the White House line, plus this loser who was constantly making inappropriate comments and asking partisan questions at press conferences.  Also, how much did he have to do with outing Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA agent?

And as a Nevadan, I can’t tell you how much it pisses me off to read about the federal government wanting to change yet ANOTHER law, so things will go in their favor.  In 1998, a law was passed to allow Nevada to spend the proceeds of federal land sales in Nevada.  The money was to be used for Nevada schools, to protect habitat, and to build parks and nature trails.  Now that the land is so valuable here, the administration wants to change the law, so they can take 70% (700 Millon Dollars) of the money for the deficit.  Isn’t it bad enough that they want to store nuclear waste here?  They’ll probably start another war and somehow decide that the BLM sales profits go towards our troops.  No one can argue with the “for our troops” crap.  You slap “for the troops” or a flag or some red, white & blue on something, we all must cave.  “Oh, it’s for the troops you say?  Oh, anything for the men and women in service.”

Bush lied to get us into a war, lied about how much said war would cost, lied about how much the Medicare prescription program would cost, paid off reporters (et al, I’m sure) and there are still people supporting him.  Why?  How?

Monday, February 07, 2005

late at night

Public Cell Phone Users Must Die!

Or perhaps I should change that to, “might die”, if they keep ambling across parking lots with phones glued to their ears and no concept of the fact that there are MOVING CARS in parking lots.  People in those moving cars do not care about your phone calls, or your comfort in walking slowly while not acknowledging traffic.  In a brief period of going to Target tonight (love Target!), we saw no less than three people ambling through the parking lot with phones attached to their ears.  You don’t even want to know the percentage of people inside talking on the phone.  I wish I could take their phones and crush them with my heel.  I was wearing my Skechers and they have some pretty good stomping power in those soles.

Even worse than the talking amblers are the DRIVING amblers, who might very well kill me someday.  Should I end up in a car accident, I’m sure it’ll be because someone had a phone glued to their ear, and they weren’t paying attention to me or the signal or the stop sign or how to merge.  If you have a phone call to make, stop your car and make the call.  It’s not that hard.  I manage to live without making any phone calls while driving my car, grocery shopping, eating in a restaurant—it surely can’t be all that hard.

Okay, on to cheery stuff.  It looks like the loan process is well under way, with rates that seem reasonable.  Oh sure, I know I’m being taken a bit, but I think it’s the least amount of being taken that I can find right now.  I like the loan guy, he seems willing to work with me and to get this over with as soon as possible.  I even offered to let him come over and rip out my fingernails, because that how I felt today looking for 1099s, 1040s, LinkShare stats, LinkShare 1099s, etc.  I don’t have a run of the mill job, where it’s a simple paycheck every week, for the same amount, from the same company.  I get checks from a couple dozen companies at sporadic times.  Some are weekly, some monthly, some are supposed to be monthly, but aren’t.  So, my finances are always a fun rollercoaster ride.  Some very good ups (special special memories of January 2002 at 21k), some cruddy downs.  Today, another fun up.  Maybe it was to pay me back for the torture of going through the refinancing ordeal.  But, we got a surprise check for over a thousand bucks.  That explains the $100 trip to Target, I’m sure.

Except for the phone amblers, it was a pleasant shopping trip where we didn’t have to worry about money, which has been a constant for a few months.  So, we got storage bins (to help clean up the garage), saw blades (because Leigh-Ann wanted them), purple t-shirt sheets that were on sale, a wrist brace for me (typing kills me), jawbreakers at a $1 bargain, some Surf detergent…and sadly a couple of laughs at the moms with whining children insisting on going to Toys R Us or having candy.  All I could think was,  “These are the reasons for exasperated blog entries by parents.”  At least from reading mommy blogs, I’m more likely to be amused by the situation versus thinking, “Whoa, that’s one awful kid.”  My mother would like to remind everyone that her children were always well-behaved when we went out.  It’s true, she’s right.  I was a perfect child when we were out.  My brothers were too.  It’s like we knew there wasn’t any other choice.  We weren’t even threatened.  Of course, we are all really calm people, including my parents.  There isn’t a bit of extra energy used unnecessarily on any situation.

Okay, so that check coming, along with getting the refinancing done has made it clear to me that money really does make me happy.  I enjoy paying my bills on time and getting the paperwork off my desk.  I like being able to splurge on cheap books and peppermint mochas.  And soon, that sushi splurge is coming.  I can’t wait.  I’ve missed my eel, my tobiko, my raw tuna salad, my cute teeny little desserts.  Soon, the big $13.95 lunch junket.

Friday, February 04, 2005

early evening

Idiot of the Day - Terrell Owens

“It really doesn’t matter what a doctor says. I’ve got the best doctor of all and that’s God.”

Yeah, yeah, God cares deeply about your ankle and the Super Bowl.  It’s right up there on the list with deciding which boxer should beat the crap out of the other.  Right behind, of course, world peace, poverty, natural disasters and the ever rising price of gas.  God is always sayin’, “Screw those starving little children, I’m gonna watch me some football and have me a beer.  You sit right down next to me.  Hey, check out that picture-in-picture—look at those little kids eating dirt.  Hahaha!  Anyway, back to the game.  Who do you like, Eagles or Patriots?  Get this, I was talking to Terrell the other night and I told him his ankle would be fine and what I wanted, above all else in the world, was for him to play that game.  It’s funny who I chose to smite this year, even though they thanked me for every touchdown:  Matt Hasselbeck, David Carr, Kurt Warner, oh, and many others.  But Terrell, God was looking out for you, he was.”

Wednesday, February 02, 2005

late evening

Idiot of the Day - Parents Television Council

Really, I’d like to honor them with the Idiot of the Day, Lifetime Achievement Award.  Right now, they’re all upset about smutty MTV—yes, I agree MTV is smutty, but when I read stuff like:  The PTC found fault with the teen-targeted network based on an examination of 171 hours of programing that aired the week of March 20 last year, during its annual “Spring Break” celebration. The analysis, contained in a report titled “MTV Smut Peddlers,” spotted 13 sexual scenes per hour in MTV’s reality series, as well as 32 instance of foul language per hour in its music videos., I just picture them counting those sex scenes over and over and over again, if you know what I mean.  I have something to say to the PTC - if you don’t like it, TURN IT OFF.  If the public doesn’t like it, IT WILL BE CANCELLED.  If your views were shared by the rest of the US, THE SMUT WOULDN’T BE THERE.  We want it there.  We want the smut, the homosexuality (hoyay!), the violence, the blood & gore, the stupidity, the bad language.  The stuff we don’t want to watch, like that creepy Touched By An Angel, we change the channel.  Try it.