the end is near.

The end is near, well the end of 2009 and the first decade of this century, unless you're one of those people that counts 2010 as part of the first decade, and 2000, which makes 11 year decades, but nevermind that.

I was in wal-mart this morning, buy disposable diapers, driving a suv, and just releasing bags of co2 into the air becuase it seemed like the thing to do, i mean it was 7 out, I could go from some warming, but nevermind that.

I was in the wal-mart and i discovered what is wrong with the world.

Here it is, walmart sells froasted sugar cookies in colors other than pink.
WTF is that everyone knows that they're pink, but no the folks at walmart don't know they're pink they had yellow and blue.  I mean who wants to eat yellow froasting, afterall frosting how you put snow on gingerbread houses, and everyone know don't eat yellow snow, ergo you don't eat yellow frosted sugar cookies.
AS for the the blue, well that is just wrong (kinda like my spelling).  It is wrong in the same sense as my spelling, usually the thoughts are successfully convied despite my alpha character selection challenges, but it is still wrong.  I could eat a blue sugar cookie and i would probably enjoy it, but it is still blue and therefore just plain wrong.

Avatar

So I went to the Avatar movie yesterday, sorta like a Christmas gift from the wife, I love going to movies, but haven't been since we had a baby. Not that I am complaining I would much rather spend time with the baby


I've been reading lots of bloggers who loved it; I heard a review of it on NPR that was just plain harsh. I've heard a few people discussing the "sexuality" of the movie. I've heard tons of theories about what people think Cameron was commenting on. War, the Native American's plight, conservation, and even one guy on the radio saying it was and anti technology movie. WTF is that guy smoking, you can't make a movie that is totally based on writing software and making movies that were not technologically possible 5 years ago and say it is an anti technology movie. 

The cool thing about the movie is it doesn’t really say what it is; you can take all or none of those messages from it. I saw it and thought, hum, great movie as movies as spectacles go, not such a good movie as movies as a story go. Anyone who sees 3D version who doesn't say the movies is visually amazing, is well, a poor judge of what is amazing.

Anyone who sees it and says it is a movie masterpiece, I question their judgment as well.

This is what I know, it was long. really really long.

It was a fun movie, loud and stunning, and well, I felt as if I had been provided with great entertainment value for my admission ticket. 

Christmas is here

I wont get on again before Christmas, as it is tomorrow I don’t think I am to much of a slacker.

However in the  mean time, I hope all my blogging buddies, anyone else who stumbles upon this site, and just everyone in general, have a spectacular Christmas.

Also take some time to remember the reason for the season.

Scoring lots of loot.

Count downs till family leaves (never mind, I am the offending family this year.)

and the birth of Jesus.

Speaking of loot and Jesus, do you think he got a gift receipt with the Frankincense.

Health Care reform

So healthcare "reform" looks like it is going to pass, I am unsure if i like it or not.  I did a little research, as I am a geek that way, and made this discovery.  Since Obama took office, United, Humana, (and a bunch of (other companies whose names I didn't write down, but i did their stock symbols), WCG, CI, AGP, HS UAM, WLP, MDF and someother, who I can't read my own writing to tell if ti si ANI or AM anyway of all the companies I looked at only 1 had a stock priced lower than the day obama won the election.

It seems to me if we were really going to have health care/insurance reform their stocks wouldn't have more than doubled (a few had) in that time frame.  If anyone is going to benefit from the healthcare reform it would look to be the health insurance companies.

That doesn't sound like a good thing to me.

However, I think we need to fix our healthcare system for a lot of reasons, none them is addressed by this reform but nevermind that.  

I am tepid at best that what we're going to get passed will do anything.  I think it will be years before it passes, mean how can the govenrment mandate everyone has health insurance.  Where are they given the authority in the constitution to do that?  I am asking that as a serious question as i do not know the answer.  

I would be against it, except for this little nugget.  I've talked to 4 dr. this month, 3 as doctors 1 as a client and asked what they think about it, and they all said they support it becuase the current method has to change, even if it is not a good change at least they'll start moving.

So since 4 out of 4 doctors I spoke with, I guess you could say 5 out of 5 since one office has a husband wife and the husband said we support it, as that is who my appointment was with, so i asked him, but anyway, ever dr. I've asked supports it.

What to do?

So the other day, my daughter got $20.00 bucks for Christmas from one of her Aunts.
I thought great, that will get me some soda, a magazine and maybe a candy bar.

Then I though, there is something wrong with me spending her gift money on me. Despite the fact that the holiday season is upon us, and she could give her dad a little something, but i figure until she can at least walk, maybe I'll hold off on buying the Wii, as a gift from her to me. Although that would be a good gift, I do like that my daughter is thoughtful (although fund deprived) like that.

It turns out that fairly close to my office, not really close, I can't see it out my window like I can the pool, but never mind that, there is a place called Young Americans Bank.

It turns out that Bill Daniels, a rich old guy, but also a guy that thought, you know people should know more about finances. He is the same guy that the University of Denver named their business school after the Daniels school of Business. He had a chunk of change to spend. Turns out that Daniels was called "The father of modern Cable Television." Although I am unsure who calls him that, and I am unsure if that is a good or a bad thing. I do know this, that guy is to blame for me having to flip through a lot more channels to find out nothing is on.

Side Bar
Everyone is blaming looking for reasons the childhood obesity problem in the US. Perhaps this guy is partially to blame. When I was growing up at 2:00 pm on a Wednesday in the summer, I would turn on the TV, flip through, be no no no no no no no no no, turn the TV off and go do something else. These days, by time you've flipped through the entire channel line up new programing has started and you can start over, therefore there is no getting up. This is my own theory, but well, it might have some measure of truth behind it.

Back to my post.

Dude had a chunk of cash to spend so he starts a bank and a charitable organization aimed at teaching the little fellows about money. I think this bank is awesome, their mission is to teach young people about finances. That is pretty sweet!

blogging

I like blogging, I've met some good internet buddies doing this, nevermind they're much better at spelling then i and are able to write about stuff that doesn't pertain to bathroom trips, but then they do read my tales of trip to the toto.

I just haven't had much to say or desire to comment on it. The news just makes me sad lately, Tiger Woods, Iran, Health Care and most importantly the Steelers losing so many in a row.

I will try to blog more regular like in the new year. Heck I might even be moved to squeeze an entry or 2 into old 2009. Who knows.

What does the sign mean?

This morning is was a chilly* 5 degrees out, and the wind, with about a 10mph easterly (i am unsure if winds are named for the direction they're going or coming from, it was blowing eastwards) wind and it was snowing a little bit, hence the traffic was slower than usual and the roads were kinda icy.

I was on the freeway, and the programmable sign said, "Winter Driving Conditions Ahead, Use Caution" I got off at the next exit, so i am unsure if the roads and the driving got worse or if they stayed the same. Did that sign mean winter driving conditions ahead as in if you keep going the roads will get worse? That is how I originally read it, however, after pondering it for a spell, did they mean that the weather is going to get worse in the next day or so, and we're going to have winter Driving Conditions Ahead as in later this week? It is a mystery to me, all i want from my road signs is clarity, STOP, that makes sense, Yield, that one i don't like.

* so last week i was in LA not the state, and the weather man said it was a chilly 59 out right now. Friday as i was driving into the office, the weather guy said it is a chilly 12 outside now. I am fairly sure you shouldn't be allowed to us the same adjective for both 59 and 12.

where should you live?

On line you can find all kinds of sites that will ask you few questions and then tell you where you should live, the site at http://www.findyourspot.com/ they took me through 8 pages of questions to come up with the following list.

• Albuquerque
• Portland
• Hartford
• Fayetteville
• Little Rock
• Charleston, WV

Why do these people think I should live in Arkansas, who leaves dever for Arkansas, not that I dislike Arkansas, but I like Denver.

Anyway, the point of this post is this, no where on any of these lists do they ask about when do you want your prime time tv to begin. I seriously have no idea how people the other time zones do it. Mountain is where it is at for me.

I was reminded of this last night, after I ate a 10,000 calarie dinner, at around 7:15 in california, where i was, the biggest loser didn't start till eight, so while i ate, and waited for eight i could eat guilt free. If this happened in denver, I would have been mid-chimiganga when I would have had the primetime inspired thought, "perhaps, i don't need the second taco."

Eastern time is the one that makes the least sense to me. I go to bed when primetime is just getting started, do people stay up that late out there?

things that are dumb

So it turns out that men's suit jackets that have 3 buttons, you're not supposed to button the bottom button. Then why have a bottom button? This makes no sense, to me.

While i am talking about men's fashion, how about ties, ties are stupid, unless you use them as bibs then they're functional if not professional. To sum up in jerry's view, ties worn as they're supposed to be are stupid, ties used to prevent you from soiling your work shirt with the extra kraut you got on your lunch ruben are funtional.

Also stupid is the way in which people tie ties. I know the over hand knot, the one most people use and the one looks the worst if you ask me. so if you're wearing your tie as a fashion piece, you shouldn't use this one, yet most folks do. If you tie it, it isn't symetrical, it is lopsided.

The 1/2 widsor, which is the way i usually tie them. Unless the tie is extra long and i need to use up some more tie in the knot then you go full windsor. I like the way both of them looks, so if your going to be wearing ties with the 1/2 or full widsor, with your third button unbuttoned, and wing tips, you might fit in with accounant types. Man i hate those people.

how cold is it

Well this morning it was so cold when I spied my wives somewhat less than manly gloves in the car, I instanlty thought, those look warm.

I didn't think those are women's gloves.
I didn't think those do not go with my coat.
I didn't think I'll be okay without, I thought, Those look warm and i put them on.

It was only later, when my hands were all toasty, that I thought, I should have worn the black coat that would have gone much better with the gloves :-D

gay marriage

It's been a spell since I wrote all political, but I feel the urge to do so, so I am.
Anyway, the is a group out there opposing Washington State's law that granted civil unions all the rights of marriage, without calling it marriage, so this group opposes it.


These people base their argument against gay marriage on God's law. Does that mean that they also want to forbid non Christians from getting married? They have a commercial that says god created the earth and man and marriage. What if you don't believe any of that? I do not believe in God therefore I do not believe in marriage?

They have another commercial that say, something like most homosexual relationships last less than 2 years. Here is a new flash for you Skippy. Most hetero relationship last less than 2 years! I would be willing to be that most relationships last less than 2 months.

The part that pisses me off is in a commercial when they say that homosexuals have a much higher suicide rate. I do not know if this is true or not. If it is true don't the A-holes that make this argument see that they’re the cause of this statistic?

If gays were accepted as equal and not forced to live as second class citizens shammed into hiding their feeling from the world, they would likely have a lower suicide rate. Actually I do not know that, but never mind that.

What I do know is that when the dildoes running this organization kill over, they’re going to be less than pleasantly surprised about their afterlife and if their god is running things I think I would prefer not to know him.


I hope this referendum fails.

companies I like

last time i posted a list of 3 companies that had given me reason to hope they went away as companies in the last couple weeks, so I'll do the reverse this time.

• Dell Computers actually treated me good, Dell Fiancial services which it turns out is a different company didn't but nevermind that.
• Target - A couple days ago, the clerk took me in the express lane which had no line, from the regular lane, which had a line despite my having about 40 items.
• Coke, and more specifically diet coke, that necture of the gods, or at least overweight middle aged accountants.
• Toyota - I am really really impressed with the prius after getting to ride in the second one I've gotten to ride into.
• Ebay - I've actually sold some of the book i've read in the past month and have earned enough to buy a new book to read :-)

companies that blow

Chase, Tmobile, and Chrysler.

In the past few days, I have had horrible expericances with each of these companies. Is it any wonder that the government had to bail 2 of them out and the third is losing marketshare? I say knwo it is not.

The world would be a better place if all three of these companies went away.

Oct 14th

It is October 14th and I had a client show up this morning before I got here at 8 to deliver his tax paper. Seriously, I haven't gotten anything from them until now. Which if it was an easy return wouldn't bother me, but this is not an easy return(s). They also brought in the information for their business returns. This means I am excpected to prepare 2 or 3 returns, I don't remember which, and then prepare the individual return.

I just looked last year, I spent abotu 75 hours doing their stuff. there are only 39 hours left on the 15th? How am i supposed to do that? And do you really want your accountant to throw numbers down and see what sticks?

What have you learned

Yesterday, someone who obvisouly doesn't know I have a blog asked me What have you learned from being a parent. I gave some thought to this and have came up with this rather short list.

• few things can take away hours of frustration like having your baby smile at you.
• when people ask if your baby is sleeping through the night they ask like it is a good thing, but they don't mention that when they start doing that, they're up for most of the day, which means the Jerry's Big Dog and Pony Baby Entertainment Extravagansa got a second and sometimes third act.
• I never knew what it was like to be tired, before I am up at midnight, with my lower back screaming, my arms throbbing and holding the little girl because the pain in your arms and back doens't compare to haveing to listen to her scream.
• I am munipulatable, even by little girls, well at least little girl and dogs, and my wife, I am starting to think I am what they mobster/villian types would call a mark.
• Day care is expensive
• No matter how many implementations of parenting easy you have like a bottle warmer, swing, car seat, jumper, rings, chew toys, bottle sanitizer, travel bag, stroller, front pack, or the oodles of other stuff out there, the one i want now is always the one i can't find.

That is what I've learned from parenting so far.

What I have learned

I think most of you know that politians, lobbyist, and world leader types are an arrogant lot, who think they're better then the rest of us. I think the expession is they think their poop doesn't stink.

Recently I was in a hotel located very near the White House, Within 3 blocks. Anyway it was pricey I would not have paid that much for a hotel. Anyway this it what I learned. That if you rent a room in a hotel that is alot, there are certain things you get. There are certain things you don't get too. Among the items you don't get is a bathroom fan.

Every bes western I have ever stayed at has one, but this hotel didn't. I can only take this to mean that the power that be in Washington literally believe their poop doesn't stink.

Manipulation

This morning as I am getting ready for work, my dog jumps up on my bed. He doesn't much care for sharing it with me, but if it is empty there is no better place for a dog to rest his head.
Anyway, I get out of the shower and come back into the bedroom, he starts waging his tail sorta slow like, and then the scratches his head once and looks at me.

He waits a few seconds, scratches his head again but just once and than looks at me.

He does this a few times then I start walking towards him and he starts wagging his tail really quickly and turns his head sideways, with the offending ear towards me. SO i sit down and scratch his head from him. He starts waging his tail really quickly and gets his big dog smile on his face and i swear he says, I knew I could get you to do it.

I've been played by a dog, what chance to i stand with my baby girl?

I am swearing off the pulitzer books

So I did some thinking after my prior post about reading a pulitzer prize winning book and what I decided was how about the non fiction.

• 2009 - Slavery by Another Name. (that doesn't sound like there are rainbows and bunnies.)
• 2008 - The Years of Extermination: Nazi Germany and the Jews (no bunnies or rainbows here either
• 2007- The Looming Tower: Al-Quaeda and the Road to 9/11 (pass)

so I think lets skip back a ways.

• 1993 - Lincoln at Gettsyburg: The words taht remade America (hum, four score and all that bore.
• 1991 - Tha Ants (No idea about this one)

from wiki for "The Ants" Review: "The only professional science work to have won a Pulitzer Prize -- for general nonfiction in 1991 – The Ants

Pass

• 1980 - Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid - Again from the Wiki On its surface, GEB examines logician Kurt Gödel, artist M. C. Escher and composer Johann Sebastian Bach, discussing common themes in their work and lives. At a deeper level, the book is a detailed and subtle exposition of concepts fundamental to mathematics, symmetry, and intelligence.

Pass

• 1973 - Children of the Crisis - I am thinking no bunnies here either.

So this is what I have decided, I want a new literary award given, to a book, maybe 2 awards non fiction and fiction. This is what i require from my books, 1. They're entertaining. 2. They invovle hope or at least are devoid of it.

• For example, I've only read 2 of Cornwell's scarpetta books, and despite the fact that they involve crime and murder and a myster and stuff, 1. the bad guys lose in the end. 2. You finish them and don't have to think the world if messed up.
• Even Stephen Kings books usually end with some sense of things will be okay, for example the shining. In the movie that everyone has seen, the dad kills the helpful hotel guy, but in the book that guy doesn't die.
• clive barker - I read the great and secert show a while back and while it is a story of good versus evil, in the end it seems like good is better, although I read that years ago, so what I know.

Anyway, anyone know any books that are both entertaining and are not just sad?

Where is my remote!

So this morning I was getting ready for work and on my tv was an informercial for the hair club for men. Not that I care if you use the hair club, or I dont' care if you don't, if going there makes you feel better about your than GO! however there was one guy that said. Since I've made the decision to go to the hair club, I've got more confidence, then he says a couple other things and then he ends it with "and a new car!"

Seriously doesn't anyone else find it funny that a guy that would say he got a new car is the guy the hair club puts on there? Are people who go there shallow by nature? Isn't that the message that says, get some hair by a car and you're golden.

So I get in the shower and I get out and there is a commercial for the ab circle pro. Where they claim that it is fun and easy. I don't know what the hell they're smoking, but that doesn't look easy. Not that working out should be easy, but they're clamining it is. I mean I am sure it works if you do it, but then so does excerising with a jump rope and doing push ups, but then again, if it was as easy as that we wouldn't have the fattest nation in the world.

Anyway, I need to find that remote or go to work.

Pulitzer Prize for crap

A while back I decided I would try to read the pulitzer prize winning books. Given the 1,000's of books published each year, I figured that should be a good guide to reading books that where good, as they won an award and everything.

So here is the list of winners I stole from Wiki

1948: Tales of the South Pacific by James A. Michener
1949: Guard of Honor by James Gould Cozzens
1950: The Way West by A. B. Guthrie, Jr.
1951: The Town by Conrad Richter
1952: The Caine Mutiny by Herman Wouk
1953: The Old Man and the Sea by Ernest Hemingway
1954: No award given
1955: A Fable by William Faulkner
1956: Andersonville by MacKinlay Kantor
1957: No award given[1]
1958: A Death in the Family by James Agee
1959: The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters by Robert Lewis Taylor
1960: Advise and Consent by Allen Drury
1961: To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
1962: The Edge of Sadness by Edwin O'Connor
1963: The Reivers by William Faulkner
1964: No award given
1965: The Keepers of the House by Shirley Ann Grau
1966: The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter by Katherine Anne Porter
1967: The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1968: The Confessions of Nat Turner by William Styron
1969: House Made of Dawn by N. Scott Momaday
1970: The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford by Jean Stafford
1971: No award given[2]
1972: Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
1973: The Optimist's Daughter by Eudora Welty
1974: No award given [3]
1975: The Killer Angels by Michael Shaara
1976: Humboldt's Gift by Saul Bellow
1977: No award given [4]
1978: Elbow Room by James Alan McPherson
1979: The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever
1980: The Executioner's Song by Norman Mailer
1981: A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole
1982: Rabbit Is Rich by John Updike
1983: The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1984: Ironweed by William Kennedy
1985: Foreign Affairs by Alison Lurie
1986: Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
1987: A Summons to Memphis by Peter Taylor
1988: Beloved by Toni Morrison
1989: Breathing Lessons by Anne Tyler
1990: The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love by Oscar Hijuelos
1991: Rabbit At Rest by John Updike
1992: A Thousand Acres by Jane Smiley
1993: A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain by Robert Olen Butler
1994: The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1995: The Stone Diaries by Carol Shields
1996: Independence Day by Richard Ford
1997: Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer by Steven Millhauser
1998: American Pastoral by Philip Roth
1999: The Hours by Michael Cunningham
2000: Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
2001: The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay by Michael Chabon
2002: Empire Falls by Richard Russo
2003: Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
2004: The Known World by Edward P. Jones
2005: Gilead by Marilynne Robinson
2006: March by Geraldine Brooks
2007: The Road by Cormac McCarthy
2008: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao by Junot Diaz
2009: Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

I've bolded the ones I've read most recently The road. I liked some like to kill a mocking bird and i didn't like other like the road, but do you know what they all have in common. Here it is, they're all sad.

I don't even want to read the brief wonderous life of oscar wao, doesn't that just sound sad? So I think I'll attempt to read the opimist's daughter, which will likely be sad too, but it title isn't.

Smile, it could be worse

So here i am with my head ringing, and working on a spectacular saturday in Septemer. I was thinking, this sucks, woe is me and all stuff. Nevermind, I passed a couple people panhandleing on the way in, that should have made me realize that over Jerry has it better than good, things are freaking great.

I mean i am fairly young, if you hang with the right crowd. Of the 7 people in my office i am younger than 5 of them, so i got that going for me. My house isn't getting forclosed on, I have a job, my baby is healthy and beautiful. My wife is healthy and beautiful, it is some what less than suprizing that my daughter is beautiful given the gene pool she got to pick from. I am thankful she looks more like her mom than me, although she does have a little hint of a chin butt, that is all me.

Anyway, despite everything being great i was lamenting my lot in life earlier today. So i get into the parking lot and there are a bunch of cars here. I think that is odd for a saturday. On the way to the door there are a couple of women hugging and obviously trying to lessen the outward signs of having just gotten an good cry on, and i think that sucks. So I go into the building lobby and there is a sign that says something like this.

The dealing with terminal illness group is meeting on the second floor.

That just sucks!!!

I think I'll work with a much better attitude today.

Trady to the party

So the wife watches the real housewives of Atlanta (and the other cities as well, but atlanta happens to be on now) and I was watching last night and I had this thought, if your going to make a show call the real housewives of anywhere shouldn't the people be housewives?

Here is a run down,
Kandi, not married, so not a housewife.
Sheree is not married, as she divorced her husband.
Nene is married
Kim not married
Lisa is married.

The show should be called "2 housewives, a fiance, a divorcee and a concubine calling each other names.

Guide to happy living

One day I am going to put my book together and it will be called Jerry's guide to happy living. In that book is going to be this nugget to live your life by.

Starting your day before the sun, does little to make you happy.

I hate this time of year. Hate seems a little strong, as I loathe after we set our clocks back. Let me rephrase, I mildly dislike this time of year. As the days are getting shorter, it is dark when I get up. This shouldn't be the case. I mean if the sun with all it's fussion can't find the energy to be up yet, Why is a Jerry expected to find ill begotten morning pep?

I really hate when we set our clocks back though, which just ensures that it is dark when i start my day and dark when I end it. That just sucks, If I were running the world this is what I would do. Well first I would get Steeler's season tickets, I would cancel Dr. Phil, and I would make Cinco de Mayo, Casmir Pulaski birthday, Boxing day, Ceasar Chavez birthday, and Canadian Thanksgiving (becuase I am fairly sure I have blessings enough for 2 days of giving thanks), paid holiday's right after I did these things, I would say, we're going to day light savings time and staying there!!!!

Side note and a little less then completely unrelated but i brought it up so I'll address it. There are people pushing for Ceasar Chavez birthday to be a holiday. Which I'll not judge one way or another, he likely helped to improve the lives of millions of Americans and Mexicans, and Mexican-Americans, or more importantly people, which seems like a good enough reason celebrate the guys birthday to me. However, his timing was all wrong. He was born 3/31/27 (At least according to wiki). This is a horrible time for another holiday.

Here is a list of 2009 federal holidays

Thursday, January 1 New Year’s Day
Monday, January 19 Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr.
Monday, February 16* Washington’s Birthday
Monday, May 25 Memorial Day
Friday, July 3** Independence Day
Monday, September 7 Labor Day
Monday, October 12 Columbus Day
Wednesday, November 11 Veterans Day
Thursday, November 26 Thanksgiving Day
Friday, December 25 Christmas Day

Actually looking at this list, I notice we go from Feb to May without a holiday. I mean Easter is in there but nevermind that. I say we add a holiday to March or April, and add one to August or June. If you look at the holiday list we waste most of them on cold winter days, which is fine if you're in Florida, but I am not.

The next holiday is Columbus day. I say this is a dumb ass to celebrate in the US.

1. Columbus never came to the US, maybe the Virgin Islands, or Puerto Rico, but he didn't come to the Mainland.
2. Do the desedants of the Tainos think his "discovery" was a good thing?
3. Dude is famous for getting lost and discovering a place people already lived. Later this year, I might go discover Wyoming.

Anyway, that is all, getting up early, sucks, we need more holidays, I actually do think we should keep Columbus day, just do so knowing that dude was lost, didn't discover anything and gave little thought to the lives of those around him. In fact, Columbus did the reverse of what Chavez did, his actions led to the misery and death of millions of people. All of a sudden I am a Ceasar Chavez fan.

A thing I think is funny and thing I think is not funny

First the funny thing,
The Dos Equis commercials that have the most interesting man in the world. These crack me up. There is one this one, and part of it says he can speak Russian in French, while his is holding a fox running from the fox hunters, that just strikes me as funny.



The think i find not funny is ear trouble, I have to go to a ENT specialist now, becuase my head is still ringing a week later. I am fairly sure if i was a 16th century inuit I would just ask to be put on an iceberg and float off into whatever they call the bearing straight.

what to do, and lesson learned

So i am sitting in my office with my head throbbing as a result of an inner ear infection that has left me ready to float off on an iceburg into the abyss.

If i turn music on, it gives me a head ache. So I turn it off and all I hear is what sounds like a I have a fire alarm going off on the right side of my head, but it is muted by my holding a seashell over my hear. Which also gives me a head ache. So I turn the music on to distract and i get a head ache.

Oh the there is a lesson to be learned here front. Most kids get ear infections, and well get angry. As a parent, I think you should experiance one, just to remind you that no matter how tired, frustrated and helpless you feel to help your baby, it is nothign compared to what they're feeling right now.

So if or when my little baby gets an ear infection I promise to have as much empathy as humanly possible, cuase this sucks.

here are a list of things that suck!!

This list isn't meant to be all encompassing or complete, just things I know that suck right now because they're suckiness or is that suckyness has been brought to my attention

1. The first thing on the list in inner ear infections, These suck.
2. Whoever makes a pill to treat the aforementioned inner ear infection but fails to but a coating on it so I have the nasty taste stuck in my mouth for hours after taking the pill just waiting to take the next one.
3. Right now I am not a big believer in Intellegent design, there seems to be something screwed up with the way ears are made, this shouldn't happen.
4. Tax dealines, It is labor day, I have a fever, an inner ear infection, they shut the ac off in the building on saturday and I am here at my desk sweating like a native american in one of those sweat lodge things, only it isn't doing a thing for me.
5. Complaining - complaining sucks.

Sunshine cleaning

A while back I saw Little Miss Sunshine which I liked alot, it features a family whose memebers are struggling to find their way. Each of them is odd, out of place and some times painfully ackward, however in the film they all rally together and support one another. One of the main characters played by Alan Arkin.

A while back but not as long ago as when I saw the other movie, i saw a commerical for Sunshine Cleaning, which also features a messed up family trying to figure things out and Alan Arkin is in it. So I thought, I think I want to see that.

well, after seeing it, I thought, that just sucked. Although, the characters do eventually sorta come together, it is still messed up. I suppose the difference between the in part are due to how the characters are messed up. In little miss sunshine, there is the drug addicted grandfather, the teen age son, who has taken a vow of silence in order to become a fighter pilot only to find out he is color blind, the motivational speaker father that no one listens to, and who can't get his own life together, The suicidal gay brother in law. These people all have flaws and are arkward and painful at times, yet their characters have some sense of character. IF that makes sense.

In the later, the two main characteras are sisters, one who was apparently hot shit in high school, but is now a single mom, who is sleeping with a married cop, and her younger sister that as far as my impression, I didn't care about her, I felt bad for the girl she sorta stalks for a minute. I couldn't identify with her. Then things go horribly wrong, like they should of when you're not trying!

Anyway, watch it if you like, but I give it 1 and 1/2 mops.

Also they sorta make lite of Suicide as something to clean up after. I mean phyisically, but how in the hell do you clean up after someone's suicide, the mess that leaves on the survivors is neither triffling nor fleeting, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

times have changed

Times have changed in a lot of ways, but this in a small change well actually a big change societally speaking but this is a small sign of it. I went to my box of checks to get a new check book and i notice there are only 2 books of checks left which is 50 checks. I think or a 100, I don't know, but the thing I noticed was the second to last book said "time to reorder checks." Seriously there probably was a period of time when 50 checks didn't last very long, but here is a list of people we right checks too. Church, Registar my car. I can't think of any others. 50 checks is going to last me at least 6 months perhaps and likely more.

Not to self, don't buy stock in check making companies.

Side note, the other day i wrote about 5 hour energy.

So the wife and I were at costco, and while i was noticing the case of NyQuill I also noticed the big ass jar of b-12 supplements. It had 12000% of your allowance. I guess 8000 seems like less.

personal story, when i first went to the sleep doctor, he told me to take a B, E, and D supplements, because a lack of any of the 3 could mess with your sleep patterns. I've wondered for a long time, is that true or did the guy just want to recommend that I get more BED?
_______________________________________________________________

Speaking of Doctors, I saw another commercial that made me mad, about the health care reform debate, it said, if we give coverage to 50MM people there will be a doctor shortage. Seriously you think? Of course there will be, there already is one. Google doctor shortages and you'll find lots of stories about hospitals denying to offer services because of lack of doctors, or there are no doctors in rural america. That sort of thing, but that is not what made me made this is what made me mad.

This arguement is basically, people shouldn't get to see a doctor so that I don't have to wait to see mine. Really that is it. The message is if your poor go die in an overpass or something. Anyone who makes this arguement in my opinion is an evil vile person.

The health care reform debate is lost already in my opinion, when I say lost I mean nothing is going to happen. You want to know why, well here is what I think. When Hillary tried to get health care passed, something like 25 to 30 million americans didn't have coverage, now it is 50 million. If we don't change it, will that pace continue? I think it will for a few factors, infact I think it will speed up becuase, people with insurance already pay for people without. When someone without or even with lacking coverage goes to the emergency room and doesn't pay, or gets cancer treatment and declares bankrucpty the people that have coverage pay the hospitals for the losses on those patients. The more people without the higher the cost for those with, the faster the costs go up, the faster employers start dropping coverages. So forth and so on. Anyway that is just what I think, so if we wait another 16 years will 100MM or more american lack coverage? If so, will anyone be able to afford coverage?

Anyway, that is just what I think, but there are some serious flaws with the current system, like, how come it is tied to my job, I don't let my employeer buy auto, life, or home insurance for me, why do they (employeers) get tax benefits that I don't individually? Why aren't individuals allowed to organize insurnace purchasing pools? and why are there restrictions on who can offer insurance where? Wouldn't it be much more competitive is I could shop around and buy a plan I liked, either individually or with a group? Changes like this would likely at least slow the rate of insurance cost increases, but here is the catch.

Democrats won't let that happen, why would they, they believe a public option is the moral and ethical think to do (I am assuming they believe this; for the sake of this lets assume that they have genuine inentions.) In order to see what they have decided is the moral and just outcome, the current system must fail. The GOP right now has the power to stop the public option, butlack the power to change anything. All Democrats have to do is wait, for 100MM uninsured Americans, or 200MM or what ever the number ends up being that pushes us over the top. At somepoint the current systems will collapse.

I actually do think for the most part both sides of this arguement believe their idea is better, however those crazy people running the ads I am talking about clearly are using fear to manipulate the audiance. They're probably paid for by Health Care Companies, who gain the most from the status quo at least for now.

Grape Nuts and Other Stuff

I went to Costco today, and we got some of the things for the house that you can buy in a big ass package and it works out well for you, like trash bags and paper towels and stuff like that.

Anyway, I got some Grape Nuts, I get home and amd looking for a midafternoon snack and think, I have myself a bowl of the grapeless, nutless grape nuts. It turns out, that as I had forgotten, grape nuts sucks ass. They are not good, they are infact, bad, they're not completely disgusting but they're not good, but alas woe is me, I have a big ass box of them now.

The second thing I noticed was that they sold NyQuill by the case. I got to thinking WTF, who needs that much NyQuill? I mean seriously, unless your giving it to your kids at nap time, or taking it your self daily for a nap, who could possibly need a case of it?

I hate this lady and this commercial

People on the right those against a public health care option keep sayign the US has the best health care in the world. If this is true why is our infant mortality rate higher than most of the countries that they keep comparing us too? Why is our life expenctancy lower than most of those countries as well? I keep seeing a commerical where they have some women talking about breast cancer and if she lived in the UK she would have been denied treatment and then they say something like don't let 300k women die in the US. Here is a link to the organization running the ad and the commerical. I hate this commercial

Here is a fun statistical game. I found a chart that tracked Breat Cancer deaths per 100k of the population in the US, UK, Canada, Italy, Sweden, and Japan. The death from Breast cancer rate was highest in the UK which is the basis of that commercial, but it was second highest in the US.

Here are my ideas for distastful commercials on the other side.

I could have the husband or kids of someone who has died from breat cancer make the claim that 300k women are going to die from breast cancer unless we reform healthcare. If we had canada's system it is more likely my mommie would be alive today. I know this chart is just the death from breast cancer and not the survivability of breast cancer which isn't apples to apples, but France has a better breast cancer survival rate than the us and they have public health care.

Which brings me to my other idea

Have a husband say when i lost my job we lost our health insurance, when I got a new job they told us my wive's cancer was a pre existing condition. When my wife's cancer came back they didn't cover the treatment, now my kids have to grow up without their mom. If we lived in France, my children would likely have their mother.

Actually I do not want to see those commercials made. It would be a cheap ploy to distort an arguement with emtions, which is really the only stratagy I've seen coming from those who are against a pubic health care option.

I don't understand!

Last night, despite my having aged beyond the target demographic, I was watching MTV’s “The Real World.” On the show, well not on the show as this was not pay per view, but it was openly discussed, 2 of the women house mates slept with one of the guys (at the same time, I add this clarification because apparently he has slept with one of the other women in the house too).

This morning on the way into work, the radio dj's were talking about the same topic and how it is every man fantasy.

I thought to myself, what kind of people are you? I mean I suppose if i were single and like 18 it might be, but that was before I had any experience with women. Once I got older and actually tricked girls into dating me, I learned this very important life lesson. Women are complicated. Complicated in ways that I do not understand, which is why shows like the real housewives are entertaining. I know they're trashy and I don't watch them by myself, but it the wife has them on I will watch and think "WTF" a lot. The real househusbands of Cleveland would be a boring show. This stems from the inherent complications that women have because it is their nature to be complicated.

But more specifically sexually women are complicated. Women are not like men, who are easy to figure out. Just pleasing one women if like trying to solve a Rubik's cube while being chased down an ally by a pit bull. Which might not be an exact analogy but you get understandwhile solving the puzzle cube would be a nice feather in your cap, getting away from the man eating canine takes first priority. The last thing this situation needs is running from the pit bull while having a Rubik's cube in both hands.

Maybe it is just me but I don't get it.

Is this a good idea?

I was in line at the store and they had some of that five hour energy with the gum. I thought that doesn't seem like a good idea, anyway, I read the slogan that said, five hours of energy now no crash later, and i thought, what the hell does this stuff have in it?


So i pick up a bottle and read the label. It has 2000% of B6 which I thought to my self isn't that alot. Like too much, can't too much of a vitemin be a bad thing?

Then I get a little further and it says 8333% of B12. 8333%!!!! Eight Thousand three hundred and thirty three percent.




8333% This is actually the label on the products website.

I know that you can have serious health consequences from taking too much of other vitemins, like Vitemin C and stuff, I am guessing the same is true of B6 and B12.

So i googled b6 and b12 overdose and found this, here

Q: What are the symptoms and consequences of megadoses?
A: Unfortunately, high doses of this vitamin, if taken for too long, can have serious consequences. Excess B6 damages nerves -- especially those in the arms, hands, legs and feet. Symptoms include coordination problems along with sensations of numbness and tingling.
This neuropathy, or nerve problem, resolves gradually after supplementation is stopped, but has resulted in permanent damage in a few cases.
The Institute of Medicine set the tolerable upper intake level for B6 at 100 mg per day from food and supplements combined. However, the Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals in the United Kingdom established a safe upper limit from supplements at 10 mg per day -- one-tenth the U.S. limit.
A recent case study reported that a woman developed serious neuropathy from taking 100 mg per day for 10 years. So the level of intake for long-term safety is likely lower than the U.S. upper limit of 100 mg.
Many foods contain vitamin B6. Consequently, B6 deficiency is unlikely unless the diet is extremely limited in variety or total food consumed.

I found nothing that said b12 overdose causes blindness or voices or comas so it must be okay, although I did find one sight that said something like b12 is considered fairly non toxic. Isn't that qualifier in that sentence pretty important. I mean there is a huge difference between B12 is non toxic and b12 is fairly non toxic.

Now that i type that isn't something either non toxic or not? Can it swing both ways? I suppose it can since you can be exposed to some lead with out dying but too much lead and you go crazy and try dragging a boat across canada.

Anyway, i am not trying to say that five hour energy is like eating food from cans sealed with lead, but taking 8333% of the reccommened amount of anything seems like a bad idea.

appreciate what you have

This morning I was getting ready for work and my wife was getting ready for work, not the same work different work, but at the same time.

I as talking just a minute to talk to her and I was struck by how beautiful she is.

Man, I married up!!!

puzzeling

This is my puzzeling thought for the day.

I pick my daughter up from day care yesterday, get her home and we play and have a bath and that sorta thing, all kinds of groovey stuff. Dad played mixed in with mom time with the baby. So we get home and I am like finally i get to spend some time with her.

Next thing you know she is in bed and I think, finally she went to sleep.

When I had this second thought, it occurred to me, how can i be so happy to see her and 2 hours later be so happy she's asleep?

Anyway, that is all i got.

brilliant idea

The past week, I've been venturing further into suburbia than i usually go to deliver the spawn to daycare. twice I have seen a _____ of i am guessing stay at home moms darting across the street.

I left a blank there because I don't know what to call them.
Lions have prides
Dolphins have pods
Cattle have herds
Wolves have packs
Crows have Murder
Ravens have Unkindness (I am not making that up, although I didn't know it)

What are a group of stay at home mom called when they from up into a group and go out to exercise? I am going to settle on bevy. Which is also what a group of quail is called. Side note of grammatical questions ( In that previous fragmented sentence, should it be quail are called or quail is called?) Anyway, there was a bevy of women in pelaton fashion running in the most aerodynamical arrangement. These women looked mean and like they could take me. Although a lot of women who exercise regularly look like they could take me, but never mind that. I gots to thinking, MMA is exploding onto the nation and worldwide stage. Think there is any interest in a SAHM-MMA battle royal type event?

More parenting

My baby went to daycare and this is pretty much how it went, she cried, it was sad, I didn't want to leave her, so out at the car I thought, you know I am going to go check on her one more time. So i go check on her and she has stopped crying and is happy smiling and stuff.

Day 2, same thing, I drop by to check on her and i swear as soon as she saw me she starts crying. So I hold her and stuff then I have to go to where supplies are kept and so i go and then I come back and she has stopped crying again.

I swear, she looked at the other babies and said something like, oh there is my dad, i better whip up some tears so he'll think i hate it here. Yes, I am sure that is what she did.

speachless

Something just leave you speechless. I mean I was driving down the road today, and NPR had a story on the president of Syria visiting a four year old who was gang raped. So anyway, the piece was introduced and then they said first we'll speak with the girl's father, and then they gave the disclaimer that you might find some of what you hear disturbing.

I was thinking, shouldn't that have preceded even the introduction? and what is up with the might? What they should said is something more like, next we're going to talk about some sick and twisted shit, that at the very least should make feel sickened, and if what you're about to hear doesn't leave you sad, angry and a little frightened, you should immediately and pre-emotively register as a sex offender.

Anyway, I didn't listen to the story, because it was sickening, so i change to sports talk radio and then after a while I change back and they're talking about how some fisheries have recovered do to the protections placed on them, sometimes 2 decades ago.

I got to thinking how the hell do you segue from one story to the other. Was there a story in the middle i missed? Despite the fact I didn't listen to the story about the little girl, I am appalled by it.

some businesses

So I move to Denver a while back, 5 years ago, to be exact, which in case you're wondering is the second longest consecutive streak of my life. I did live in the same town from fifth grade thru 10th grade, so i guess that means next year i will set the you've lived in Denver longer than anywhere else in a row anyway. I lived in the little town i am from for most of my first 23 years, but it was intermittently broken up with moves it Illinois, Salt Lake, and Montana.

Anyway, when I moved here, I tried to ride my road bike, but I was assalted by goat heads. I got the bike tuned up and they people at the bike shop told me you need new tires. It seemed like a good idea, so I get new tires. I ride the bike, and I couldn't go more than 10 miles without a flat. I got mr. tuffies and put in there, I got thorn reistent tubes and put in there, and still the goat head prevailed.

So I go to a different bike shop, mostly cause I won a free water bottle from them durning the Trek, get your wow promotion. Hoopla, so I am talking to the guy and he says, they should have sold you thorn resistent tires, what did they sell you. So go to my bike and look and go back and tell him. It turns out those people sold me racing tires. That are about as thorn resistent as my behind. Which despite all the sitting i do, is not all that thorn resistent.

So I ask him what to get and he tells me if you buy these, or these, you will not get a flat! and they where cheaper than the tires the other people sold me. Anyway, this particular store that was very helpful was treads. The salesman told me they had been on the same corner for 30 years. Different sides of the corner, but the same corner. The place that sold me the very inappropriate tires, has gone out of business. I wonder why that was.

The Visitor

So i was looking for a movie to watch today, and I came accross the Visitor. I remember the people on NPR reviewing so I gave it a watch. Also if your looking to watch this movies again stop reading, but on the other hand I may save you a few hours if you continue on.

So here is the movie summed up. Dude is depressed becuase his wife has passed away, he can't find meaning in his life, he ends up going back to new york where he has an apartment he hasn't used in years. Someone has rented this apartment to a couple. They volunteer to leave, but dude feels bad so he lets them stay while they try to figure things out. So the dude renting the apartment is from Syria i think, and plays the drums, he is teaching the old sad dude to play the drum.

Anyway, they're going through the subway and dude get hung up with his drum in the turn style and the transit police think he jumped so they arrest him. Anyway, he gets arrested sent to immigration and is deported, he is seperated from his girlfriend and sent back to syria where his father died from a sickness he recieved while in prision for an article he wrote.

End of movie.

WTF, i want a happy ending, if i wanted a sad ending, I would watch the news.

WTF, whose idea was this

So i am at work and the copier is out of paper, tray 1 of the copier, not the main tray but the other tray tray one, but for some reason, when I print from .pdf it prints from tray one. Anyway, so the tray is empty so i open a ream of paper and go to load it and the stupid tray only accepts like 3/4 of a ream of paper. What the hell is that. Why would they make a tray that doesn't hold the hold ream?

It is a korean i think copier, does paper in not the USA come in smaller packages? Like liters of petro, or celcius. I've never heard of such a thing with paper. If that is not the case, who the hell decided to make a copier that holds less than a ream of paper.

Anyway, that is all i got.

United Breaks Guitars

This is a pretty funny video some guy made about his experince with United.



Remember Pan AM, Eastern, TWA and a bunch of other airlines? I am sure United is headed that way, with any luck it wont be much longer!!

Anyway, I guess from fearing the bad viral video effet, United has posted this on their twitter page "This has struck a chord w/ us and we've contacted him directly to make it right." United Tweets? Anyway are they trying to be funny by saying that a song about them breaking a guitar strikes a chord with them? Haven't they already displayed enough malice toward chords?

personal stuff

So a couple weeks ago, I climbed on my bathroom scale, and in what I am sure is commentary on my condition, the acesnt took my breathe away. Or perhaps it was becuase it said 194.5 which is near of may infact be an all time high. I got to thinking, WTF!! I might have vocalized this thought, but the aforemention breathless state I found myself in prevented it.

Anyway, as it turns out as sore as your lower back get the all day baby lift is not a good work out. Or perhaps it isn't a good workout becuase you can have a baby in one arm and a turkey leg in the other arms hand. Well, if i was eating turkey legs that might have been okay, but you can also have a spoon full of fruit loops and other cereals that have more sugar than anything.

Anyway, since then I've been trying to follow the weight watchers plan, which is for me 24 points a day, while I don't pay them, and don't get the support of the meetings, this morning I climbed up on the scale and it said 185.5. Hoopla, now, If i can just get back to adding some exercise to the attempted diet this would be great!

Taken

I was watching me some of the movie "Taken." You know the one where in the preview the guys daughter gets kid napped and he threatens them. It is a pretty good action flick but it left me with an icky feeling all over. Anyway, if you want to watch this movie you should likely stop reading, unless you feel my very thoughtful, if not grammatically correct, commentary is helpful in your movies assessment process.

Anyway, this part isn't the spoiler, he kills all the bad guys and get his daughter back. I mean what kinda of crappy action movie would it be if he didn't? No, what they don't tell you in the preview is she is kidnapped not for ransom, but to be sold into sex trade. So throughout the movies he is mingling with girls that are kidnapped, then forced to get hooked on drugs and then made to be prostitutes. He rescues one of the other girls and like I said, he kills the bad guys, but what about all the other girls? It was just sad, despite the happy ending I felt like this is just sad.

Anyway, as far as a thoughtless action flick goes I would say it was very good, however, if you ruin the experience by thinking about it, the entertainment it provides is far out weighted by the ickyness you are awashed with after viewing it.

billy mays' non successor

I am not sure when the slap chop commercial was first released but I saw it a day or 2 after Billy Mays passed away. The sham-wow guy who has been telling me for 3 years we can't do this all day has a new product to pedal.






This guy is no Billy Mays as Billy actually tempted me to buy the product, but this guy is funny.



While he is trying to promote the product he says “Linguine, fettucine, martini, bikini!" What is that supposed to mean? Do i need to dice up swimwear and mix a drink? Do I want to do that at the same time.

At some point he claims to have the cure for a boring life by making tuna less boring. Is tuna a sign of a boring life? Or is it more of a sign of a boring life that you want to make your life less borning by adding steps to a tuna sandwhich. I mean if my life wasn't boring I presume I wouldn't have time to slap chop me a helping of tuna.

I wont even discuss the nuts part, I know he is trying to be funny, but if your trying to sell me something don't make me think that is just wrong.

I still don't get it

So I turn on CNN headline news today and they're talking about Michael Jacksons will that cut his EX-wife out. I am not understanding what ex wife means, I would seem he cut her out when he got divorced, isn't that what a divorce is?

Maybe I don't understand the concept all that well, and well, I have no first hand knowledge of it, nor do i want any. People don't typically leave their ex spouses stuff do they.

This is not news, news would be if he left her something. This is crazy over coverage again.

I don't get it

Michael Jackson amoung others died this last weekend. I personally took the death of Billy Mays the hardest. He cracked me up, but he is getting the least attention, mostly becuase, well the star power of the other deaths. This is what I don't get, and not to be cold, but they are all has beens. As in they have been famous or popular, but they're no longer contributing to the very thing that made them famous.

Ed Mc. died, while sad he was in his late eighties and sick, so this is less than suprizing, and hasn't generated all that much media coverage, so this just sucks.

Farrah died. She was very ill for a very long time, and if you're a person of faith you can think she is in a better place, and if your not, you can think at least her pain has ended.

Michael Jackson. I get that he was the king of pop. Was being the most important thing here. In past 15 years or so, he has been in the news for nothing good. Everyone on my tv is talking like we lost a genius and music will never be the same. Well, hasn't anyone noticed that he hasn't been producing relevent popular music in a very long time. The music industry is the same today as it was last tuesday. I never liked his music, not really my ball of wax, but it is still there. I can listen to Bad, or Billie Jean, or Scream. Okay that last one was listed to make a point it was on his latest record but no one knows.

I was driving into the office and on npr they were interviewing someone that flew from france to stand in line in harlem to see the apollo theatre.

I guess if there is a lesson to be learned here it is this, don't take today for granted. Celebrate today for what you have, don't morn the loss of the past.

Things I've learned

So for about the last 16 years or so, I have known that I know very little about what women want. They're obfuscating creatures whose motives remain a mystery to me. I had always assumed that this started around the same time that I started caring to know what women liked.

Well, as I now have a daughter, I have had several ephinays. Among these is that I am a touch more fusty than I would have liked to belive. However that is not the point of this post the point of this post, Is the lesson I learned while holding my wailing daughter. I do everything I can think of and she screams like a siren. Here mom doesn't seem to have this problem.

I have learned I have I no idea what women want, stems from them being born, not from my actually caring to figure out what they want.

that just doesn't seem right

I am being a concerned father and I am worried that my little girl is going to fall to peer pressure and at best be a Broncos fan and at worst not like football. Ah, the thought gives me the chills, anyway, to install good sense in her at a young age I was over at http://www.babyfans.com/ looking through the selection of appropriate Steelers merchandise. I see several sleepers and a mobile some socks and this item.

It is 16.95 and while it is a sweet item do i really need a leash for my baby? Am I doing this parenting wrong? Or is this just a poorly placed product? No where in the what to expect in the first year book does it mention getting a leash for the girl. Maybe that is in one of the adanced books, like the how to prepare your wife to send your baby to military school or something like that.

Also since abby is clueless (at least as far as all things iron maiden) this is eddie

Iron Maiden is funny

Today, as my baby is nearly 3 months old I thought it would be a good day to introduce her to the musical stylings of Iron Maiden. Well, that might not be entirely true, and it wasn't my thought at all, I was watching the live preformance of Run to the Hills on Comcast's on demand service. It cracked me up not for any obvious reason but here it goes.

Iron Maiden the bady has made a career out of Eddie. Or rather he has come to sybolize the band, most rock fans see eddie and know Iron Madien. Which is good marketing but beyond but nevermind that. Iron Maiden has made a career well beyond the music of dark imagery, associated with heavy metal in general. I like them as a teen and based on the crowed at the bogota concert many teens still do.

Anyway back to what I thought was funny. Hear is a band singing run to the hills. Which is not a feel good warm and fuzzy number. here are the lyrics
White man came across the sea
He brought us pain and misery
He killed our tribes, he killed our creed
He took our game for his own need
We fought him hard we fought him wel
lOut on the plains we gave him hell
But many came too much for cree
Oh will we ever be set free?
Riding through dustclouds and barren wastes
Galloping hard on the plains
Chasing the redskins back to their holes
Fighting them at their own game
Murder for freedom a stab in the back
Women and children and cowards attack
Run to the hills run for your lives
Run to the hills run for your lives

Soldier blue on the barren wastes
Hunting and killing their game
Raping the women and wasting the men
The only good indians are tame
Selling them whisky and taking their gold
Enslaving the young and destroying the old

Run to the hills run for your lives

So there you have it not a cheery number, but It was one of my favorite songs for a while as a anger filled teen.

So Back to the funny part, I put this concert on, and they the giant eddie on station with fire and mayhem, explosions and all kinds of groovy things singing a song that well is not light. But the members of the band were grinning from ear to ear. It was kinda fun, to see a band preforming just for the sake of preforming having so much fun.

Anyway, that is all i got, the baby liked it too.

Here are so things I know

This is what I know, when you're shopping for a place to call your home in Colorado, it doesn't really occur to you to say, "in the case of a tornado, I think this place will do well!". At least in Denver, the people on the plains might do better at this, but us city folks are not all that versed in the art of picking a place that is good for Tornado survival.

So we've been having tornado sirens and warning interrupting my day time television viewing of late. This is what I think, My place is on the second floor of a two story place, there is no where to go that is ground floor or in the basement, or in the center of the building really. As far as tornado survivability goes, my place sucks. On the other hand it hasn't been hit by one either, so maybe we got a good location that is free of tornadoes.

Entirely different subject, but here is another thought. Recently in the news, you had the crazy guy kill that doctor. You had the four guys arrested for planning to blow up synagogues and then you had the nutjob that shot the security guard at the holocaust memorial/museum. Wtf people, do we really need to worry about foreign terrorist? It seems we have plenty of terrorists in the U.S. This is not what I meant to talk about though. It seems there has been a renewed interest in white nationalism. At least according to CNN, and Fox news, I do not know if they're just hyping the story to get viewers but it seems like they have a valid point. Anyway, here is my take on members of hate groups and organizations and those who just hold hateful thoughts. YOU are not good enough! That is it. The people that belong to these groups are, stupid, lazy, untalented losers. That is the end of the list of people that hate jews, or blacks or latinos, or native americans, or white people, or muslims, or christians, or anyone becuase of some preconcieved notion. There are people I don't like, but there is a reason I don't like each of them, not your jewish, I hate you.

It seems that the stupid people marching are mad becuase they don't have something the precieve is their right. Well here is a tip for you, the world doesn't owe you anything, if your not good enough, than now you're not ever going to move out of the trailer court and retire.

odds

So the other day I heard a tale of a gal at an Engineering school. Which got me to thinking, In Accounting at least as far as my experiance goes, it was dominated by men, but is increasingly becoming dominated by women, not that I care either way. I just noticed that all the firms I'v worked at were started by men, but in college and on staff the women out number the men, it would be a fairly safe assumption that when I am one of the old guys that women will out number the partner types as well.

But that is neither here nor there, this enginnering story got me thinking of Abby and Magnum. They met at college I think in an engineering program. Unless they met and than went to the program but I think they met there. Who knows, I mean besides abby and those of you taking notes. Anyway, This is what I learned about engineering programs for women. As far as dating goes anyway. "The odds are good, but the goods are odd." hehe that cracks me up. It also got me thinking about accounting programs, It would seem that increasingly so, at least as far as my experiance goes that the same could be said for men in Accounting.

i should floss more!!

For the second time in my life, yes the second, I broke a tooth eating twizzlers. I've only broken 2 of my teeth ever. perhaps I broke some of my baby teeth. So I have one crown already and I have a second one coming.

Lesson learned here: Twizzlers DO NOT Make your mouth happy.

Also GM is likely going to end up bankrupct monday, and the uwa is going to end up taking concessions to keep the company around in a new form. However this is the part that i find funny and is a good tie in. The union is giving up dental and vision insurance for retiries. Our Dental costs something like 50 a month, it is more than 45 and less than 50 but I am unsure how much. Anyway, they cover 70 dollars for cleanings i think and i pay 9. So lets say the wife gets cleaned twice and i get cleaned twice that costs 316 a year. I still pay 36 of that so dental insurance usually pays 280 a year and collects about 600. This year I am getting a crown. But I have to pay like 590 and they pay like 400. or something stupid, there is some mathmatical calculation to determine what they pay that i swear involves fractals, and derivatives. My point is I think it may be better to self insure, Meaning, if I put the 300 or so into a saving account for dental needs ever year I would be alot better off in the long run. oh well.

and just for old times sake

In what seems to be a rather funny at least to me turn of events, I laugh at all things politcal. Anyway remember when judge roberts was appointed and there was a stale mate in the senate and the GOP threatened to use the "Nuclear" option and just end debate and despite the fact they didn't have the votes customarily needed to end the vote (60). Now the GOP finds itself in a reveral of roles. However, the Dems will not likely need the Nuclear option becuase there are 3 or so moderate members of the GOP, Olympia Snow being one of them. I keep hearing on talk radio that the GOP should fight this nomination, I think for the sake of fighting it, becuase as judges go, she is considered a moderate.

What does the GOP want, to stop this nomination and have Obama appoint a far left wing judge, at which time the Dems could use the nuclear option and end the debate and but anyone they want on the bench. The GOP needs to pick their battles and this one looks like a losing battle.

Songs

So as it turns out as I mentioned before I dont' know very many songs, and as it turns out my girl is sharp and it didn't take her long to realize that the singers fo songs on cds are better than me doing them acapella.

Her favorite song, at least she smiles when it comes on i think likely becuase I make her sorta dance sorta. I swing her arms down like she is hitting a drum every time it says boom.

My kid like to listen to Boom, Boom, Boom by John Lee Hooker. So I got that going for me.

Parenting

So this is my second day home with the baby, in a row. the wife is still doing most of the nightly parenting, so that is good, but this is my review of staying home with the baby.

I want to go back to work and get some rest!

parenting, and my other crap

It turns out that babies or at least my baby likes to be sung to. If i hold her and sing she goes to sleep. the only problem is the songs I keep singing to her are. The Bruce's Song and the thermos song. Here are the lyrics to each.

The Theros song from the movie the jerk.

Oh I'm picking out a thermos for you
not an ordinary thermos for you
but the extra best thermos you can buy
with vinyl and stripes and a cup built right in
I'm picking out a thermos for you
and maybe a barometer tooand what else can I buyso on me you'll rely
a rear end thermometer too

The Bruces song

Immanuel Kant was a real piss ant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel.
There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya'
Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.
John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."
Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed.

Perhaps i need to add to my repertoire.

On CNN this morning I saw this headline article

'Jon & Kate Plus 8' star caught stepping out

I have one baby, and if you ignore the fact, I don't want to go out with another woman, I am thinking, WTF where did this guy find the energy to go out. Also, what kinda ass goes out to a club with another woman and leaves his wife at home with 8 kids.

swine flu

Know what i hate, is the news. I can't watch the news without hearing about the swine flu. As of today 1 person in the us has died of the swine flu. According to this article fro the WHO about 500,000 people die in mexico each year. And according to this site about 2.6 percent are from flu and pnemonia. I can't find a break out of that stat, but lets assume that of that 2.6% 1% is flu and 1.6 is pnemonia.

Meaning 1% of the mexican population's deaths are from the flu each each year, and that number is roughly 5,000. This AP time line has the number of deaths in mexico on 4/24 at 20 with 40 others being investigated. This Article has the number of deaths at 160. The second article has the of people hospitalized in mexico for teh flu at 2,498 but only 1,311 remain hospitalized.


In 2005 in the US Influenza/Pneumonia killed 63,001. I don't know why they group them together, but anyway. But since they do I would guess, that it is a fairly even distribution so lets say 40% of that was the flu, which is a complete guess but helps serve my purpose. The regular flu killed 25,200 people in 2005, or 69 people a day. So far the swine flu has killed 1 person.

On a side note, I am not taking my baby anywhere, casue I dont' want her getting either flu!!

Perhaps we should panic about the regular flu more.

Life's mysteries

I gots to thinking,

How come if all my baby eats is milk she poops bird seed?

oh no

This monring starts out okay, i get up I take the dog out, I make breakfast, I have a shower, bursh my teeth, floss, that sorta thing, get dressed, and then I am looking at sleeping my wife and think, wow, she's hawt. Then i look at my baby and think, wow she looks like her mom.

This is the first time it has occured to me that marrying someone who is much hotter than you is going to present me with some parenting challenges that i am ilequiped to deal with.


Oh, well, on the plus side, I still have a super hot wife.

What is wrong with people

Here is my stories from the last couple weeks.

Story number 1,

This is a good story and doesn't really go with the title. I pulled into the diamond shamrock station to get my morning supply of diet soda, on my way to work a couple weeks ago. I get out of my car, and dude in the car next to me says, I hate to trouble you, but I have a job interview over on federal but don't have the gas to get there.

Dude was driving what looked like a 91, subaru and wearing what looked like his best attempt at business attire. So I say, sure pull up to the pump, and he say great thanks, I swipe my card and give him the pump and he says, how much should i put in? I say, fill it and good luck at the interview,I go into the gas station get my soda, come out and he had stopped at 7.50 and he thanks me and says that is more than enough. Thank you very much and drives off.

He could have been pulling my leg or not who knows.

Story 2

This girl comes up to me in the Wal-marts parking lot (little bit of a side note, refering to things like the wal-mart using the is a very south eastern utah thing to do) I didn't realize it until i started writing letters for my boss who would then go through them and cross out nearly every article I used, who knew) Anyway, This woman but I say woman I mean barely, maybe 20 maybe comes up to me crying and says, my baby's dad didn't pay child support and now i have to choose between rent and formula. So and she says, I need like 12 more dollars or something like that, so I say, lets go inside and get you some formula. Then she says, that is okay, I'll just take the money. I say, I will buy you some formula but I am not giving you cash, and she walks off.

Some people!

dog and babies

Beej and Abby asked how my dog was adjusting to the new and lower position on the totem pole, or in the pack or what ever you want to call it.

At first he didnt' like it, truth be told he still doesn't like it, although the recent april blizzard help his attitude a great deal, he just lay in the snow chewing on random sticks yanked out of the beaver dam. The dog is spoiled, it turns out when you have a beaver for a neighbor, you have an ample supply of free sticks cut to the perfect length to chew on.

Anyway, The dog was feeling a little bit sad about his new lower position, so I took him for a walk Friday. It was snowing somethign awful. Anyway, I sat him down in the park, or rather it went like this, we get to the community park for our development and I let him off the leash. So runs to the swollen creek, S i walk over there and he runs back to the park, so I walk over there and he runs back to the creek. This went on for about 40 mintues.

At which point I sat him down, or he sat down to pant and eat snow (he does that a lot). so i sit down next to him and straching his head explain to him, that he got a demotion in the pack order, but not to fret becuase so did I. He seemed to take heart in that everyone got demotions and got up to run some more.

baby

So I had a baby back on 3/26.
I've been mucho busy o-ever since. This parenting stuff is seriously cutting into my blogging time.
That and it was tax season, but as tax season ended, I am again, back to blogging, only I think I'll be less rested for quite a while.

posting

My posting has become a little sparse perhaps the word is infrequent, or given the lack of fiber in my diet I might describe my past posting as irregular, but that my put bathroom thoughts in peoples heads and we can't have that.

Anyway, as i was saying, my posting has slowed, it isn't that I don't have lots of great thoughts and wisdom to impart on the world, or the five people who read this, but if those five tell their blogging buddies something I said, well, given the people who come here have vast networks of blogging pals, my under exposed but no less genius ideas can be spread throughout the nation, world, universe, muahahahahaha.

However, back to my not posting, I've not been posting lately because, I am busy. Been working 70+ hours a week. Been getting ready for a baby, been walking my dog. How old would you say the baby has to be before I can say take your dog for a walk? How about telling the dog to take his baby for a walk, is that legal?

On a side and slightly less important note, wanna see greatness. I mean since I took the photo of me off of here, there is rarely a sighting to be had anymore.

I know that my claims of greatness might be challenged by some misguided player haters, but if you're the one challenging, I would like to point out you're quite simply but absolutely wrong.

I am a dog person

This video cracks me up and clearly demonstrates why I am a dog person, you can't trust a cat, they're sneaky.

Fires

I was over at Abby's blog and her story inspired me to retale a story of mine. Unfortunatly for me, I can not lay blame at the foot of the dumbass 11 year old next door. My neighbor's could tell a story similar to abby's but mine is differnt.

So here it goes, It is a pleasent day back in I'll say the spring/summer just past the fifth grade. I think that would have been 1984. Oh sweet, van halen jump was likely on my mtv, and i was blissfully unaware of the awsomely understated drama that women would bring to my life.

Anyway, I was thinking, I need some lunch, what do we have, well be got some potatoes and crisco I'll make french fries, and have a coke. Doh, we're out of soda. So I put my fries on and think to myself, I'll bet I can get to the gas station and back (on a bike) before my fries are done.

As it turns out I couldn't do that trip in less time than it takes to cook french fries, burn fries, have grease catch fire from exessive heat, and start cubboards on fire.

In an endorsement of the boyscouts of america, or perhaps cubscouts, I don't remember which your in at that point, I knew not to but water on a grease fire. So I got the fire put out and no one even called the fire department. Which in hind sight my have been the best thing some one could have done, cause than my parents may have realized 1. 5th graders shouldn't be cooking lunch for themselves and 2. fifth graders shouldn't be home alone cooking lunch for themselves, but never mind that. I got grounded, on the plus side we got a new stove hood, i think a new stove and cabinets.

Stupid bmx bikes, they're too slow.

Anyway fast forward to about 89, maybe 88 sometime my sophmore year. I got my driver's liscense. Which was nice, although I didn't have a car, but never mind that. so there I am thinking, I am going to make me some lunch, what do we have, we got potatoes, I think I'll make some french fries, doh we're out of soda, I'll bet I can get to the gas station and back in a car before the fries are done.

It turns out that is also wrong.

FYI, Chrysler financials website is down again.
3rd month in a row the first time i try to log on the site is down.

stuff

I listen to music while at work over on thesixtyone.com which added a thing to some songs that says share, that link about is me just playing with that. Although I really do like the song.

Things that i think are funny.

The feable attempts to bail out the markets. i.e. the housing market. I keep hearing thinks like the housing prices need to recover. I keep thinking no they don't. Over the past decade they went up freak fast and caused people (myself included) to over pay for stuff.

Jerry thinks long term if we didn't bail anyone out the market and the economy would take a bad hit, but recover, this way, the economy and the housing market are going to suffer a 1000 paper cuts and end up in the same place.

The world baseball classic is going on. I know it was news to me too. Here is a tip for the people promoting baseball, Americans are not going to watch in great numbers becuae one it is baseball, but 2 if we win we can claim we're the best in teh world, which we already claim, but when we lose, well, we have to accept we're not the best at the game we invented.

scary stuff

Here is a list of things that scare the you know what outta me (some in a good way some in a less than good way and other in a downright horrible way).
1. The Exorcist
2. Most scary movies, I hate them and do not watch them.
3. Women
4. My career
5. The force that you feel when you are turning sharply in a car, I do not remember if it is centripetal or centrifugal but one of them
6. Dancing in Public
7. Public Speaking
8. Failing
9. Did I mention women.
And finally the thing that scares(/excites) me most
10. I am going to be a dad this month.

my tips for committing fraud

1. Don't
2. See number #1
3. if you must don't record it on a balance sheet account you dolt.
4. Don't mess with payroll, that is the easiest place to find shadiness on the income statement.

For you none accountant types, Here is a brief lesson. Balances sheets are like a cumulative score of your business efforts. They show things like how much cash you have, how much you owe, how much you have had in earnings, that you've not paid out in dividends or withdrawals. The point is the balance sheet is sorta permanent.

The income statement is like a quarter score in a basketball game, This period we had this much income. At the end of the period you roll that into the balance sheet and start over.

As that is the case if you do shady shit on the income statement it goes away at the end of the year. You start over in January.


This is the second tax season in a row, I've found a bookkeepers (albeit a bad bookkeepers) stealing money from their employers because they put it on the balance sheet.

I hope you find this guide helpful. If you don't follow rule one or two and do steal from your employer check back later I think I will write a guide to living in the pokey.

Although, I've no first hand experience of that so I think I'll leave that to someone else.

Here is a link to an open letter from Martha stewart. Hope that helps.

Phish pish. WTF?

I enjoy me some jam band music more them most of your average non weed smokin' CPA types. I suppose I like jam band music more than your average regular folk to, but nevermind that. I mean my favorite band is Widespread Panic, I love me some moe., Dave Matthews Band, The Greatful Dead, the Almond Brothers, String Cheese Incident, Galactic. I think I get some jam band credit for simply knowing some of these bands, but like I said, I likes me some jam bands.

I even likes me some Phish food.



After all who doesn't.

Here is a clip of the band playing a song.



Over at Wikipedia this is the first paragraph says

"Phish is an American band noted for their musical improvisation, extended jam sessions, exploration of music between genres, and their "fiercely loyal fans."[1] Formed at the University of Vermont in 1983, the band's four members performed together for over 20 years until their hiatus in August 2004. The band has recently announced they would reunite for a tour in 2009 starting with three shows at the Hampton Coliseum in Hampton, Virginia."

So these shows are sold out, see the aforementioned fiercely loyal fans.

But if you happen to be in Viginia this weekend you can find your way over to stubhub were tickets are available (sorta).

I don't know how to copy the web page and put it in here.

Seat Row QTY PRICE
GA GA 2 $1,260.50 each
GA GA 1 $2,250.00 each
GA GA 4 $2,300.00 each
GA GA Up to 4 $2,900.00 each
GA GA Up to 3 $2,995.00 each
GA GA 1 $4,000.00 each
GA GA Up to 4 $4,595.00 each
3 DAY Pass *** GA - Hard tix Up to 2 $4,992.00 each
GA GA Up to 2 $5,000.00 each View Details
GA GA 1 $9,949.00 each View Details
GA GA 1 $9,998.00 each View Details
ga ga 1 $9,999.00 each View Details
GA GA Up to 8 $10,999.00 each View Details


I think they're serious. This is what Jerry knows.

I am not goign to pay 1260.50 to go to a concert by myself.
I am not going to pay 2,521 to go to a Phish concert with anyone.

Not that I don't like Phish, but I wouldn't pay 2.5k to see the beatles and that would involve resurections.