2005-2007

 

May 21, 2007

Happy, for real, I made a new page. Jesus will be back tomorrow.

I went to Blockbuster to rent Borat.  The guy checking me out tried desperately to talk me out of renting that movie.  I am going to open a car dealership and when you come to buy a car my salespeople will give you 5 good reasons you don’t need a car.  Screw that little piss-ant.  I didn’t come to his store for commentary; I came to rent a freaking movie.  If you were such a thoughtful and insightful critic you’d be writing for the New York Times, not working at Blockbuster and telling your friends you’re going to Greenville Tech, when you really just sit around and smoke pot.  I called customer service to complain but the hold time was 10 minutes, I wasn’t waiting that long on hold for a piss-ant Blockbuster check-out bitch.  I have better things to do.  By the way Borat was funny, I liked it a lot.  Two words: Ass Face. 

As of today I have written 140,329 words in my philosophy webpage, I have written zero in my blog…..my blog that any of you know about.  The guy in the cubicle next to me is snoring, or he may be having a heart attack.

May 22, 2007

Al Gore evidently believes in creation, as in Adam and Eve….and does not admit evolution has occurred.  I will not use the phrase “believe in evolution” This suggests there is an element of faith in the proven fact of evolution.  Evolution has happened, it is happening and it will continue to do so until Jesus comes back.  There may even be evolution in heaven, maybe Jerry Falwell will de-evolve into a duck or a hamster.  I think there will be a strong feeling against evolution as long as Christianity exist, no matter now much education and science we stuff down kid’s throats.  Evolution pisses people off for some reason.  It’s as if science can prove something in the bible didn’t happen the way the bible says then everything else in the bible is wrong.  That’s not the case.  People are brought up to take what is in the bible as the word of god, we even say it in church “This is the word of God” and in some denominations the congregation chants something back.  It is hard, very hard to get past this ill conceived brain washed function of church which I happen to disagree with.  There is no reason to teach people the bible is literal, and everything that happened in it really did happen, unfortunately at this point, if church’s began to teach this way, a lot of folks heads would explode.  I took a class on Jesus in college, and the professor said that Mary wasn’t a Virgin…well that discussion went no where fast.  About 75% of the class started yelling at him, some black girl started singing gospel and some Hispanic girl left the class – I don’t think she ever came back.  Anyway, the discussion died there, it was useless to even try to discuss academically if Mary could have been a virgin.  This disappointed me, although eventually, later in the semester we revisited the topic, I think it was a night when it was raining and like 5 of us were in class.  My point is, you can’t even begin to discuss these things without pissing someone off – people just refuse to listen.  They rely on their “faith” to guide them. I suggest they are relying on their brainwashed Sunday school dogma, but who’s asking me?  I personally don’t care if Mary was a Virgin, to me it does not change a thing.  I don’t care if evolution occurred either, although I as almost certain it did – but I am no expert on things biological.  After saying all of this, I want to make the point that Al Gore should not be speaking on behalf of global warming.  If he is not objective enough to say evolution may have occurred, how can he be objective enough to say global warming is occurring?  May be his Sunday school teachers hunted him down and brainwashed him again. 

 

May 23, 2007

What the heck does CNN have to report this week?  It’s a slow news week.  News must slow down in the summer, TV sure does.  Speaking of TV, NBC’s ratings have been sucking, in fact a lot of ratings for a lot of show and events has started to suck.  Do American’s watch less TV, we’re fatter than ever, it would seem logical.  I think NBC should bring back some old shows, like say Friends or Seinfeld or maybe Cheers, although I think Cheers would be dated at this point.  I think there will come a day when TV execs take a gamble and try to bring back a popular show, I don’t know when, but I suspect it will happen one day.  So far this has been a real no-no in the TV world, they just don’t do sequels.  But recently it worked for the family guy.  At some point good ideas are going to grow short, everybody will have tried everything three times, and there will be nothing left.  I was right about Brittany Spears posing naked – even though she did it in public.  I was right about the Iraq war turning into another Vietnam and creating more terrorism than it stopped. I was wrong about Jerry Falwell, he was not the devil…so I may be wrong about the reprise of hit shows by the networks. 

I went to the funeral of a friend yesterday.  He was killed recently in a car wreck along with his son.  It was tragic, of course, as is any untimely death.  I don’t have much more to say about that.  My father spoke at the funeral, along with several other people, and an old church member came down from Nashville to sing. It was a respectful service filled with a lot of teenagers, because of the age of the deceased.  My dad stood up near the end and told the crowd that this event cannot be explained, and that we cannot understand why it happened and anyone who tells you otherwise is, well I forget how it put it, but the point came across that if someone says they can explain a tragedy like this….they are full of crap.  He went on to say, that god did not do this, that life was unfair, and hard.  These words perhaps are the most brilliant words I’ve ever heard my father speak.  I can’t stand it when tragedy strikes….such as Virginia Tech or 9/11 or Oklahoma City or Katrina or what have you….and ministers and psychologist get on TV and try to rationalize the situation, the most common realization is “God has a plan.”  And I find this notion unnerving, that god would do such horrible acts, and then to see humans take solace in the blaming of god.  I’m not saying people’s grief pisses me off, if they need to think it to get by, I’m definitely not going to argue with someone who lost a loved one in an accident or a war or a flood.  I’m saying, on an academic level, God cannot be held responsible for the horrible things we may encounter in this world.  I wondered after he spoke these words how many of those students in that room took note of what that strange man up at the pulpit was saying, and how many of them had those feelings.  I wanted to discuss briefly my thoughts on the previous day’s lessons.

 

May 24, 2007

Idol sucked donkey balls this year.  Last night’s idol had about 29.5 million people watching, whereas last year 36.4 million watched the final episode, a decrease of 18%.  To put that in perspective if I was 18% smarter I could probably bend spoons or small blades of grass, outdoors in the breeze.  I watched Lost, it was good, it got better as the season went on, much like the Sopranos.  For some reason I always expect the shows to get off to a good start, then they suck.  Not much to write about, slow news as usual.  I still can’t believe that guy at Virginia Tech shot all those people, what a whack-o. I’ll give him this, he was highly motivated, self trained and well planned.  Why isn’t that terrorism?  You have to be a Muslim and kill someone, then it’s terrorism – at least that’s the impression I get.  Jimmy Carter was right about the Bush administration.  I read an article today comparing horse racing to dog fighting, in light of the whole Michael Vick thing.  I don’t know if I would go that far, but I don’t like horse racing.  I think it is cruel, and more importantly – boring.  It’s about social prowess and gambling more so than a sports.  From Churchill Downs to the Carolina Cup, people go to drink and see other people drink – much like SEC football games.  Horses naturally run, dog naturally hunt and sometimes fight, roosters….well they naturally fight too…so do chinchillas, I’m not kidding, I have proof in my kitchen. No I don’t’ cock fight in my kitchen, I have chinchillas in my kitchen.  The article brought up a good point.  What is the line for animal cruelty?  Well, it is different for different people.  I knew a guy who loved his cows, and wouldn’t think about slaughtering them, but every once in a while he’d sell one….he didn’t ask where it was going…but he loved meat, he’d eat a steak or a hamburger in a second.  So different people have different comfort levels of what they can stand, and even for individuals that level can be different from day to day depending on what mode you are in.  So, seeing a horse race from the infield though beer goggles probably wouldn’t bother most people.  But seeing or hearing a horse scream when it shatters a bone in its leg is a different story, as is seeing a chicken claw the life out of another.  I am an opponent of animal cruelty (I don’t like horse racing or the circus), as you may know, but I myself have my own line I like to draw called putting a sox on the kitty’s head.  I don’t think horse racing is going anywhere, there is too much money involved and too much tradition.  Even if public interest dies off, there will always be the enthusiasts and the purist out there who drive to Louisville once a year to watch oversexed, overmedicated horses run around in a circle with a little man on its back. 

 

May 29, 2007

Ashley and I were talking about Jack Kevorkian the other day, and as it was reported on CNN, we will be release from prison on June1, serving 8 years on a 10-25 year sentence.  So let’s talk about assisted suicide.  Oregon is this country’s only state to allow it, as my wife pointed out. I thought it was Vermont, who recently had a right to die bill voted down, this year in fact, so I was close….Anyway as stupid as it sounds; it is against the law for a person in this state and 48 other states to help another person die.  No matter what the circumstances, no matter how much they pay you or how many times they ask or how many forms or contracts they sign you simply cannot help some one die.  Go to any hospital, go to any nursing home, or anywhere a hospice nurse may be, and ask if they’ve ever helped someone die; an overwhelming majority would so no, because it is illegal, but if you asked them if it “goes on” and most would say yes.  In fact it has been going on for some time.  End of life care and pain management are a euphemism for “assisted suicide.”  It is a nice way, dare I say a legal way, to end the life of an already dying person.  This goes on, it is happening at a hospital down the street right now.

Conservatives really get all pissy about this one, and again, just like all the other crap they get pissy about it has to do with the bible.  They think suicide is an abomination.  In other words it is unforgivable and a quick, one-way trip to hell…just like homosexuality, seriously, they think this.  So it is ok for medical professionals and family members to administer enough morphine to slow down respirations enough to the point they stop, but the second the dying person asks for this…the conservatives want it outlawed.  I don’t see how asking for enough drugs to end ones life is any different of a sin than a nurse doing it when asked by a family member…like Jonny Cochran says “It does not make sense, now look at the monkey” Conservatives put their heads in the sand and call it end of life care and call it pain management, when in fact it is legalized murder administered by medical trained professionals.  Call it what it is.  So do you want legalized suicide or would you like to continue with legalized murder?  Do I worry the crazy ass fundamentalist will try to outlaw pain management, hell no, and why not…because just about everyone has had to deal with a loved on who is dying, and has seen agony at its worst, and deep down 99% of people know, death can be a better, less painful option than terminal suffering.  This is why there isn’t a push to arrest and convict medical professionals who participate in this type of care.  So for now we as a society will continue to drag out the deaths of terminal patients and call it fancy names to keep the religious zealots of this country happy. So they can continue to bury their heads in the sand and impede progress just like they have always done since they sewed a big fat “A” on Demi Moore’s boobs. 

PS:  I would like to writer for the Washington Post, so if you work there give me a call, I won’t use boobs in my articles. 

 

May 29, 2007 Additional Information

I’m sick of people getting my name wrong.  Just ask, don’t guess, and don’t repeat the same mistake over and over again.  I’ve read the management magazines that dealt with this issue, they always say to politely correct the individual who calls you the wrong name or mispronounces your name, and they suggest that to help avoid doing this yourself to ask the person’s name again, write it down or do some kind of word association to help remember it.  The magazines do not say what to do with a repeat offender, or an old bastard who just can’t get it right.  It’s my opinion if you can’t get someone’s name right, when their name it on the freaking door, and in a glass box out front, and you work in the same building as that person, you should not be allowed to design structures that house anything other than chickens.  You chicken pin designer, you suck.   Seriously, old people can’t remember when they ate last, they’re like goldfish, if you put out doughnuts and don’t guard them the old people would eat until they are all gone or they explode.  If assisted suicide was legal and I got get licensed I’d make a fortune at work. 

 

May 30, 2007

House was over last night for the season, as usual it involved some strange ass disease and some miracle cure, and all of House’s peoples quit or got fired…..as usual even the personality conflicts are unbelievable.  And as usual I read cnn and saw where network tv executives are worried about commercials not being watched and ad money being wasted. Something like 10-12% of TV is watched by recorded means and 60% of those don’t watch commercials, and execs are now worried people might get something to eat or go to the bathroom during a commercial.  I’ve got news for you assholes – nobody watches commercials; that shit ended the 3rd day after TV was invented.  I’m sure there are studies proving sales are influenced by ad money, but I wonder if it really matters if you have a decent product.  For example, cell phones suck, yet they advertise like crazy, they even bought an entire freaking sport – NASCAR.  But everyone needs a cell phone, so they go buy one, it’s almost like a utility at this point. If I were a cell phone CEO I would stop advertising and pay my customer service reps decent money.  I don’t watch or pay attention to commercials, I think they are designed to brainwash you. 

In the world of science, many new “extrasolar” planets are being discovered, and a couple are showing signs of water, based on calculations by observers.  10-15 years ago this was science fiction, now methods to calculate extrasolar planet’s size and density and orbits are available.  These methods involve watching the way a star behaves, and how much light is blocked when an object passes in front of it.  What does this mean?  It means we will start to get an idea, and possibly even a probability of how many planets out there are like ours.  It will provide a road map for the geeks out there, so they will know where to point their radio telescopes and listen for Jodie Foster’s dad.  Carl Sagan may have had it right. Chances are we will not have warp driver any time in the next little bit, and chances are Bubba down in Roswell is a drunk and aliens didn’t land in his back yard.  So we probably have not been visited, and probably will not have the ability to visit outside our own star system. Thus if we want to search for life out there we’re gonna have to come up with a way to do it from here.  Based on the rapid rate at which astronomers are finding planets out there, I’d say we’ll have a probability of earth like conditions in the next few years, and possibly within the next 25 years or so we will find some piece of evidence, either from am optical or radio telescope that we’re not alone.  If and when this happens it’s gonna freak out everyone, I can’t wait.  I mean we’ll probably go to war over it, because Israel will claim the new planet for Moses and Palestine will say they saw it first and Mohamed told them about it last Sunday at the local training camp. Either way it’s gonna blow people’s minds, we’ll have arguments over what kind to message to send them – even though most people won’t realize that by default we’ve already sent them everything from Merv Griffin to B-grade late night Cinemax trash.  Stupid republicans, they didn’t do so well in physics.  So well send them so gay ass crap when all they really wanted was more Gilligan’s Island.

 

May 31, 2007

For you PTI fans out there, here is my edition of odds makers.

Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears have a total IQ above 100 – 33.3%

Sanjaya is never heard from again after the VH1’s 2007 year-in-review show – 98%

Michael Vick does something else borderline illegal in the next 12 months – 100%

George Bush acts like he is solving a problem someone else solved a decade ago – 66%

Jesus comes back and does a reunion tour with Jerry Garcia and Elvis – 0.05%

Axl Rose becomes the first space tourist to be kicked off the shuttle in mid flight – 50%

Rosie gives birth to a health baby elephant – 13%

The last name Stern is banned from use in the US – 43%

All people named Stern are sent to camps and re-educated – 72%

Mark Cuban becomes NBA commissioner when David Stern is hauled off to camp– 99%

NASCAR, wrestling and the Republican Party assume control of Mars – 25.5%

Wrestling is banned in every country but the USA and Mars – 85%

Half of congress is filled with former wrestlers – 50%

The other half is NASCAR drivers – 49%

Most US scientist, college professors and strippers move to Cuba – 95%

The democrats fold and most join the WWF – 20%

The Republican Party splits over where to build the next super speedway – 50%

All tracks outside the south are turned into Stern re-education centers – 86%

The next super speedway is built exactly 3.2 miles west of Talladega – 99.9%

By 2050 Winston cup has races every 48 hours at either Talladega or Talladega II – 95%

Nextel falls victim to a hostile takeover by wrestlers and re-educated Sterns – 65%

All Nextel employees are either killed in the raid or sent to the Stern centers – 31%

By 2200 rabbits take over the planet – 99.8%

Most people think this is an improvement over the 2 centuries of NASCAR rule – 100%

Barry Bonds is exhumed, brought back to life with experimental drugs and allowed to play baseball again.  He hits a homerun every 2 at bats even when they try to walk him. He finishes the season with 252 home runs.  He donates his rectum to the hall of fame as a show that they suck.  The commissioner refuses to watch him play and releases a memo he wrote 10 years prior telling club owners not to let deceased player play - 13%

Black people say dead Barry’s record should stand – 90%

White people refuse to honor the record – 90%

Rosie’s baby elephant grows up to host the view, gets pissed at a republican, sits on him and his wife and has to be euthanized on the spot, Rosie gets pissed and sits on a republican and is likewise euthanized on the spot – 31.2%

May 31.5, 2007

For real entry:  I’ve been saying for a while that beer sucks, it’s gross, it has a strange nasty aftertaste that sometimes resembles digested sludge.  According to a report and articles out there beer sales have increased only 1% since 2000.  Most of that is the result of me leaving college, but wine sales during the past 10 years has doubled.  These reports get into all this fancy talk about how industrialized this country was and how now we aspire to be this and that and so we want to act like rich snobs – I saw bullshit.  Beer sucks, everyone knows it.  Wine is better, but wine coolers are even better.  Last week when we were at the bar, I asked for fruity gay shots, and everyone enjoyed them…now the problem is – they are fruity and gay.  However, wine is not gay, so people drink wine.  It’s not my belief that people are drinking wine because it is really good, they drink it because it is better than beer and it gets you drunk.  In the next 50 years people will move to drinking girlie gay drinks and wine will loose market share. This is the evolution of man, as we get smarter we understand that getting drunk does not have to taste bad, but at the same time we can’t look gay.  So once wine cooler and gay drinks are socially acceptable all the people will start drinking wine coolers.  This is evolution you fundamentalist sons-of-bitches.  

 

June 5, 2007

My dad told me he’s said more brilliant things, I told him I wasn’t paying attention for the others, so we’ll leave it at that.  The past few months have been full of weddings and funerals.  Not a big fan of either, not a big fan of any ceremony come to think of it.  Couldn’t people just do stuff in between innings at Braves games.  They could do funerals in the early innings and weddings and graduations in the late innings…or do them at halftime of NFL games, nobody watches halftime at an NFL game.  I don’t understand people’s fascination with rituals; I will sit here and make a list:

General description of some common rituals

 

Christening        =          Washing a baby in public

Baptism            =          Washing a grown up in public

Wedding           =          Excuse to get dressed up, and exchange food and alcohol for gifts, then   

                                    go on vacation, possible excuse for young rich girls to get spoiled

Brisk                =          Celebration of some Jew cutting on another Jew’s wee-wee to make it look bigger, non-Jews have this done at a hospital by a nonreligious

                                    affiliated doctor and do not involve punch and pie

Graduation        =          Giving someone a piece of paper that says they went to school at a certain place, usually takes 2-3 hours and a bunch of random names are read aloud, similar to what occurs at the

                                    Stern re-education centers except you don’t get a piece of paper when you complete the course.  You simply get to live, people use these as an excuse to extract

                                    presents from people, but no food is exchanged for the present, just another piece of paper

Debutant Ball    =          Party where very rich young girls are spoiled yet again for no good reason, random people’s names are read aloud while they mill about

Sweet 16          =          Party where very rich young girls are spoiled yet again for no good reason, getting older is considered no good reason

Birthday            =          The 1 year anniversary of a person’s birth.  No good reason for punch and pie

Initiation            =          Usually for a fraternity and sorority, some kind of ceremony involving knives, swords, robes, bones, scrolls or other artifacts sacred to a specific organization with chanting and maybe                                    singing and a bunch of standing around looking interested in this crap that looks like it came out of a B-rate spooky house down at the state fair.  Generally followed by

                                    mass consumption of alcohol and date rape, time: 2-3 hours for ceremony, 8-12 months to investigate, charge, and convict.

Funeral             =          Public disposal of a body, may involve churches or gravesites and usually a bunch of milling around, also referred to as the celebration of the life of a person that is now dead, but they                                    never involve celebrations or parties, they are usually somber and melancholy, no gifts exchanged

Shower             =          For weddings or babies, again another trade type event, food for presents, females only! Unless you are gay

Bar Mitzvah      =          Jewish equal to a sweet sixteen, only they do it at age 12 or 13, typical food for present exchange, they have another one call Bat Mitzvah, I think that one is for pet bats –

                                    Jews have some strange rituals, see wee-wee cutting above

Prom                =          Not really a ritual except when you don’t want to go and your parents force you to, then it becomes like Stern reeducation training day 19, flowers are exchanged but no gifts

Chinchilla Day   =          The day when all chinchilla owners release their favorite chinchillas into their HVAC ductwork, OK I made this one up, but the rest are true

 

 

June 6, 2007

 

We had a guy do work on our house today and he did a great job, so if you ever need a good carpenter in Greenville let me know.  The reason basketball is so screwed up is David Stern, he’s worn out his welcome.  He became the commissioner is 1984, and prior to that he was some executive in charge.  So, Stern re-education centers are not necessarily for the jackass Sterns corrupting your satellite airwaves, but for the ones screwing up our NBA playoffs.  Commissioners needed ultimate power in the beginnings of the modernization and mass marketing of their sports, but nowadays media attention and the availability of information can keep the leagues in check, so there’s not a need for a czar.  These guys need term limits and need power removed.  Stern did a lot for the game, but he’s to the point the sport is heading in a direction he doesn’t like, so he makes sweeping changes like replacing the ball, charging officials with controlling players from arguing and then suspending officials that take that charge seriously.  All of this without the players or fans consent.  In 1919, maybe fans needed decisions made for them, but now, it’s just stupid.  It’s about time to give up control.  I can’t stand pump salesmen, well most of them anyway.  I can’t throw a rock without hitting one, I would be scared to sell pumps, I don’t see how they make all that much money, there’s so much competition and they all try to undercut each other.  I made one made when I told him we only used brand “X” which wasn’t his brand.  Although I told him on the phone, he still wanted to come in, but when he did he got mad and started arguing with me.  Dude, calm down.  So I have a procedure I use when people try to sell me pumps, I tell them I use brand “X” and I can let them quote our jobs but we always use a certain brand, and most of them salivate at the opportunity just to quote…but then they get mad when we don’t buy them.  The guys that don’t get mad and act like assholes they get the opportunity to come in and sell other stuff.  So I spend a good amount of my time throwing away crap these salesmen bring in. I did make a personal rule; I don’t let them take me to lunch. I always have an excuse for why I can’t go if they call, or I schedule a meeting for early in the morning. I learned this from a previous boss, although I though the rule was stupid at the time, I figured out it is useful when you have to deal with salesmen all the time.  Sometimes regular vendors take a group of us to lunch, these are the folks we regularly buy stuff from and there’s usually a lot of us that go, this too was allowed by the previous job or else we did it anyway. 

What’s the deal with Billy Donovan, and why does it matter.  Nobody likes the Orlando magic anyway, especially since Shaq left there like 20 years ago.  Bill Belichick did it with the Jets, and nobody remembers that, everybody will forget, who cares, coaches screw teams and coaches get screwed it’s life.  Did yall see that manager from the Mississippi Braves go nuts, that was great, totally original with the army crawl and grenade launch, he gets and A+.  If that guy gets fired he could find a job in Vegas or on Saturday Night Live or as an extra Jack Black.  Speaking of Jack Black, what the hell happened to Adam Sandler, it’s like he woke up one day and decided to make shitty movies that a girl and a guy could watch together but really it’s a chick flick – you tricked me once Mr. Sandler, not again.  I don’t think I’ve seen a movie of his in 10 years. Go back to making funny movies without subplots and emotions, it’s like watching Santa Claus in bikini competition – yeah it might make a very small portion of the populace happy, but most of us find it repulsive.  Note to executive producers: Jack Black movies should be less than 60 minutes long.  When you leave SNL you should be forced to take a writer with you, to be at your side at all times in case you decide to write a screenplay by yourself. Writing a 3 minute sketch is way different from a 90 minute movie.  Jack Black was not an actor on SNL, I’m mixing thoughts, he did host – it was decent. Jack Black and Adam Sandler have some similar comical values, when I think of one I think of the other, especially their original early stuff, like Sandler’s first CD, and Jack Black’s HBO series Tenacious D.  They share some rather crude comedy, if you get my drift, although Jack Black was a little darker and more random, and I think perhaps more genius, whereas Sandler was a bit more silly.  That said Happy Gilmore was great, but the chick flick mix with the comedy started getting off balance, and down he went. 

I came close to taking a job in Wren Georgia last summer, I didn’t do them like Billy Donavan.  But I thought about doing that once I got to Greenville.  It has sucked some, but it’s is helping my career.  I’ve been introduced to the dark side of the engineering world where we have all the money and we screw all the plants out of it and given them shit that won’t run right.  I remember seeing problems resurface every so often and people would say it’s been like that since start up.  Now I know how that is possible and I wonder how things get built at all without having to have people killed, beaten and bribed.  But maybe we haven’t got to that part yet.  I’m still learning. 

 

June 7, 2007

 

 

Shown above is “Picture Figure 8.2.” This figure demonstrates the probability of a successful marriage with respect to the amount of time needed to take pictures at your wedding.  Notice 1 hour is the optimum time with a sharp decline at about 1 hour and 5-10 minutes.  Also notice that the Y intercept is set at 0, this is due to the fact that a woman cannot get married without some form of picture(s) needed to be taken.  At 30 minutes the probability is only 25 percent, this is most likely due to the decreased socioeconomic status of a bride that can only afford 30 minutes of pictures or due to a very small wedding at a remote location like Las Vegas or Jamaica.  At 1 hour 30 minutes we see a minimum value of near 10-15% with a slight increase at about 1 hour 45 minutes.  The period of time between the maximum value and the minimum value only 30 minutes later can be attributed to either a) the groom realizing he’s married a stupid bitch or b) the bride realizing her new in-laws want too many damn pictures or c) the cocaine is wearing off.  From the 2 hour mark on we see a steady probability of 25%, this is due to the idiot postulate, proffered by the late Dr. Yohon Sir Rabbit Esquire.  He surmised that stupidity is inversely related to patience yet stupidity if given enough time will render the same conclusion as the genius if given infinite time.  In short, if you are stupid, you can put up with anything for a period of time, but given all the time in the world you will figure out the answer.  In this case the answer is how long can a man put up with a crazy bitch. Dr.  Theodore Chinchilla reports this steady state “Rabbit” trend levels out at 22.7% success, whereas we show it at around 25%.  This is a close enough correlation to say the two conclusions are valid and support one another. 

Note:  The research done here does not account for multiple marriages, children, age, race, or religion.  The assumptions are:  US soil, heterosexual wedding, and standard temperature and pressure. 

Disclaimer:  These probabilities do not reflect any specific marriage or divorce and are merely generalizations.  Some circumstances will be rather different both on the positive an negative side of this figure.  This figure merely represents data collected by over 50,000 mice, gerbils and chinchillas from around the United States between the years 1980 and 1986.  No new data is available due to Donald Trump hiding it under his chinchilla cage. 

 

June 8, 2007

I rest my case California is the most screwed up state in the Union.  We don’t need anymore evidence.  Who cares what Paris Hilton did or does or will do, California officials screwed up and now they have to deal with the consequences of looking like inept donkey’s asses.  I think the best course of action is to fly Miss. Hilton to the Bahamas, put her up in a room with a mini bar filled with power prescription medication and let the bitch eat pills until she dies.  Worked with that other whore.

Richie is in rehab, if you need me I will be in charter hospital out of respect.  He’ll be OK; he’s probably on heroine or something, pretty typical really. 

All I am trying to do it live my life, Richie is too. 

Martin is getting married this weekend, congratulations to him.  We’ve played a few weddings, they are time consuming, we’ve quoted a lot of weddings and there have been a few we couldn’t play because of schedules.  So, I don’t think we’re on our way to becoming a wedding band, although we can play weddings, we don’t specialize in it.

Well I’ve written enough gibberish for 1 week.  See you Monday.

 

June 11, 2007

The Sopranos episode last night was stupid; it was a waste of time.  I emailed HBO and told them I was unhappy and I would be canceling my subscription, I have yet to hear a response.  I can’t believe there was no resolution, only further plot development with a stupid ass ending.  Like I said before I’m glad it’s over, I’m sick of being disappointed more than entertained.  The good news of the weekend is I saw a commercial about a new Die Hard movie coming out this summer, that’s funny, Bruce Willis is like eighty years old, I wonder is he’s going to battle vampires in this one?  Martin’s wedding went off well this weekend.  It was hot, but that’s the only thing that was negative.  Everything worked well, the band was happy for him.  The Braves game last night was the only saving grace for Sunday TV, we came back in the bottom of the 8th to win by 1 run.  In the first inning the Cubs pitcher got thrown out for hitting Renteria with a pitch, because Hudson threw at one of their guys the night before. This is the last time these two teams play each other this season, barring a post season meeting.  The race was at boring Pocono and it was raining, I may have watched 4 minutes of coverage, long flat tracks are an exercise in watching other people have car trouble on TV…I’d rather go to a dentist.  On ABC we had the NBA finals, like this was any better.  The Spurs entertain us about as much as watching someone build a brick wall, yeah it’s interesting the first five minutes the time you see them do it, then a pattern emerges and it turns into watching paint dry.  The Spurs suck, the NBA is very close to sucking, and I don’t care, make it go away.  Oh, USC lost to UNC last night – so what, college baseball is gay.  Little league World Series is where’s it’s at.  I want to see a 30 year old dressed up as a 12 year old throw 95 mph fastballs at little kids – that’s entertainment.  College baseball is about as fun as women’s basketball – there I said it; we all know it’s true.  Ryan was telling me about the radio station in Cola that broadcast both the Braves games and USC baseball games.  When both teams played at the same time they would air the USC game, but so many people complained they had to switch to the Braves – now that’s what I’m talking about, that’s proof of how much college baseball sucks.  Remember the NASCAR guy that died a few weeks back, Bill France, he’s one of the people responsible for taking NASCAR out of the south and into the rest of America, specifically Darlington and Rockingham. Good riddance old bastard, hope the devil likes those lovely California bore-fests more than we do.  How’s the whole west coast thing working out for ya, your ratings are falling and you’re taking cues from the rest of the major sports – No fighting, no yelling and please don’t show your emotions on the field or the track….maybe that’s why all these athletes are acting out.  The IRL is making more headlines than NASCAR these days, and the IRL is as lame as college baseball.  I’ve gotta got watch paint dry.

 

June 11, 2007 later in the day

I’m still mad about the Sopranos.  I pretty much wasted all day trying to determine if I missed something.  There were some subtle characters in the last scene, and one of them was Phil’s nephew, and the two black guys may have gad something to do with a problem Tony had with a gang….but all this is academic at this point, we can discuss it forever.  The reason I think this ending sucks so bad is because of this.  I can show you a blank piece of paper and tell you it is a masterpiece, now am I the genius for coming up with such a thought provoking idea or are you the idiot for believing it.  Chase did just that, he couldn’t or wouldn’t end it, so he left it up to us.  That makes him a girlie-man, not a genius.  HBO should cancel payment on his last check.

 

June 12, 2007

Energy

There’s a lot of things to write about, one of the things I like is when people talk about alternative fuels and the whole saving the earth thing, I was reminded of this when I read Ford has a hybrid that runs on E85 now.  Ashley and I were talking about thing last week.  You could run E-85 on any hybrid car or any car for that matter, it won’t blow up, and it probably won’t kill the engine, although I wouldn’t do it unless I was stuck in the middle of nowhere and had no choice.  There is little hope for ethanol saving this country from foreign oil, there is little hope biodiesel will save us, there is little hope hybrid cars will save us….but if you put all this together and find a way to make ethanol out of wood or grass or biomass…then we may be able to put a dent in the middle eastern oil crack pipe we can’t get off of.  There’s not enough farm land in the US to grow enough corn or soybeans to provide us with ethanol to replace oil…..I’ve seen numbers in the 10-15% range as a max for ethanol production as a percentage of the country’s total oil demand.  Soybeans to make into biodiesel is already reaching a critical point.  There are biodiesel plants being built now that are importing soybean oil and palm oil from South America and Central America and the Caribbean.  Sure it may be more environmentally friendly than No 2 diesel, but we’re already at a tipping point where foreign bio-stocks are easier and sometimes cheaper than US grown crops – so.  The statement “foreign oil” really means “middle eastern” oil.  If we get off the Arab crack pipe we’re just gonna get our oil fix from somewhere else….Costa Rica sure looks promising, I mean do those central American countries really look to be better trading partners than Saudi Arabia….they have militants, and crazy dictators and poverty stricken masses….it’s one problem for another….we’ve just been getting along with the central American folks for so long now they look like Seinfeld whereas the middle east looks like Tony Soprano (I had to get a reference in today).  In the long run cellulosic ethanol will probably play a role in all of this.  That’s where grass, and wheat shafts and wood fiber are used to make ethanol, and the government is throwing money at it left and right.  I’m not 100% sure myself if this is going to take-off. I’ve seen and heard some things that look promising, but no one has a working plant, let alone a cost effective plant that makes ethanol that can be cheap enough to sell on the open market.  There are 2 ways people are trying to do this.  One is to design bugs to eat the wood and create an intermediate product that converts to ethanol the old fashioned way, the residue or left over stuff would be burned in a boiler to make steam.  The other way is to burn the wood/grass/bio-mass stuff under the perfect conditions using a reduced oxygen atmosphere and create a special type of combustion products called a synthesis gas (syn gas for short) and then convert this gas to a liquid and purify and/or convert into ethanol.  My money is on the “bug” method, because the other way is really complicated and new, and folks in the US aren’t up to doing stuff like that.  The other way is similar to some pulping processes, and some digesting processes, and operates like folks are used to operating.  In 10 years we may see ethanol plants and paper mills beside each other.

For the future I think we will see, more dependence on biofuels, with some kind of technology for wood and wood waste materials to convert to ethanol, I think we will see issue arise with the governments of out southern neighbors over crops and monies and border issues.  I think cars will get better and better gas mileage and we may even start to see taxes on cars that don’t, we may even see some form of tax for environmental/energy needs, it may be on cars or it may be on fuel.  I don’t think we’ll see fuel rations, and major shortages – we may see short periods of this, but I’m not thinking there’s any doomsday scenario like mad max or anything.  I’m hoping there will be some breakthroughs in solar energy capture, but I suspect not…this technology has been around for decades and it just sucks, I don’t think we’re gonna be using the sun to power New York City in the next 25 year.  We may be using nuclear power a whole lot more, and coal too.  Both of which the environmentalist hate, but both of which are abundant.  There will be a resurgence of nuclear power, it is already happening, quietly, in the next 5-10 year there will be much more press and many debates on this issue.  I personally don’t care about nuclear energy either way, I mean it sucks but then again it’s a great resource to draw power from without using fossil fuel.  I would probably live near one, but I wouldn’t work at one, why?  Because you can’t sneak out early.

Red Bull is nasty.  I had a watermelon martini this past weekend and it was good.  I wish beer tasted like watermelon. 

 

June 14, 2007

There’s a lot of talk about prime and subprime lenders and borrowers in the news.  They talk  about it like it’s common knowledge, like weather patters or traffic patters.  I was thinking about my loan this morning and wondering if I was subprime – because I got a lower than prime interest rate.  Turns out the interest rate doesn’t have jack to do with being subprime – it has to do with your credit score and the loan-to-value ratio(LTV).  Loan to value is a fancy term for how much you owe – for example if you buy a house that is $100,000 – and put down $10,000 your LTV to 90%.  I am classified as near prime because we have high credit scores and we put down 10% on the house.  When I bought my first house, I had to put down the minimum so I was a subprime person then.  The Federal Reserve classifies prime or near prime as a credit score above 581 and a n LTV of 90% or lower.  I got this info on a flyer I found from the Federal Reserve. For some reason all this prime and subprime stuff has to do with risk…and guess what, minorities are in this risky subprime group – what does that mean, it means higher origination fees, PMI, and possibly higher interest rates, although the interest rates are flexible.  So, all this foreclosure stuff going on is the result of banks lending money to people with lower credit scores and not much money to put down on a house…then couple that with the 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 year “Arm” interest rates…in other words the interest rate goes up, sometimes way up after a certain time period.  So you get a situation where people with poor credit are seeing their house payments go up, up, up and they are screwed.  So, there is something sketchy going on in the world of home loans that could potentially be discriminatory toward blacks and other minorities.  Are we going to see Al Sharpton weight in on this one.  Follow the logic:  the SAT is discriminatory because black children do poorly on it – according to some black media outlets.  So likewise home loans should be discriminatory because a large portion of subprime borrowers are black.  But nothing is said about this, at least it doesn’t make national news.  Wonder why?  Maybe tomorrow I’ll do a figure.

 

June 15, 2007

List 2.6

 

List 2.7

 

 

 

The list needs to be kept in a safe place.  If you loose the list it is as bad as your wife finding out you are shagging the secretary, and in my case that would be extra special bad because I would have either gone over to the dark side or succumbed to the advances of an octogenarian.  Sorry no more figures until next week.

 

 

June 18, 2007

 

The cat is Ade, Journey is telling us the movie never ends, the guy in the jacket is there to kill Tony, the dinner is the “last supper”, the whole thing is a dream, the original ending included 3 whole minutes of black, James Gandolfini says he has no clue and David Chase won’t comment.  I say its time George Bush use Guantanamo Bay the way it was intended – send Chase there and torture him until he confesses what really happened to Tony – that’s all we want to know.  It isn’t a Falkner or Steinbeck novel; it’s a freaking show about a New Jersey organized family.  Enough about that for today.  Well maybe.  As none of you know, my favorite show Stargate has its final episode this coming Friday – but, the series isn’t dead.  Two movies are planned, and one has already been shot and the other is supposed to start this month.  So it’s not all bad, the show was canceled once before and it came back, it’s one of those shows nobody talks about but a lot of geeks like it.  Also, I found out the actor that plays Colonel Mitchell on Stargate graduated from Furman here in Greenville.  So Stargate folks know how to handle a show and its ending and wrap up, David Chase tries to make it into a freaking independent film at the 11th hour – playing on flashback, symbolism and spiritual and theological themes – maybe. 

Braves play Boston tonight – speaking of endings, this is probably the end of Andruw Jones’s career in Atlanta, not because he’s batting 208, but his contract is up.  I’d like to see a Glavine or a Maddux return to Atlanta for one more season before they retire – I don’t think it will happen, but it would be nice.  “Cliché is too easy, avoiding it is an impossibility when you think about it too much, the trick is to unforceably weave random sequences which may make sense and allow the audience to create in tandem”  Most would think this is a quote from some old ass writer from 1542 or something, but the trick is, I just made it up, it’s bullshit, it means nothing….other than in meaning nothing it means something and then it means nothing again – confusing isn’t it, yes, see I could write and direct an HBO series.   Look at the monkey!

There’s a blood mobile in my office complex today, and people are walking around with bandages, I almost had a wreck looking at it as I went to get lunch.  Why don’t the doctors and nurses take blood from coma or unconscious patients that are otherwise healthy, you know brain dead or maybe they have just been kicked in the head by, oh say a pissed off Sopranos fan, why can’t they just sit there all day and make “B word” they don’t care, that would get them the hell away from my truck.  When I’m president I’m gonna make a rule that if you are in a coma or unconscious you donate B-word, and then the shortage will be over.  Hell if you don’t like it, get better insurance.  Cancer will not be cured in the next 10 years, someone said that 10 years ago and they were wrong.  Cancer may be deterred, and it may be “mostly” prevented but not cured or stopped.  Aids will mutate and cause some infected persons to grow a second head that will be terribly annoying.  There was an article in the Washington Post that said Bon Jovi has gone country, that there is steel guitar and banjo on their new CD – the article said that Jersey already lost the Sopranos this year, they can’t stand to loose Bon Jovi – it was clever.  Why is the Washington Post and Chicago Sun Times such better news papers than The State and the Greenville News – and even the Charlotte paper….I’ve often wondered why I didn’t like newspapers, and I always thought it was because I liked TV….no the answer is because the ones around here suck ass.  USA today sucks too, it’s always a day behind when they give you the free one at the hotel.  They waste so much paper giving out USA today’s at hotels – not that wasting paper is bad, I’m all about wasting paper, in fact, I waste paper every day.  Speaking of wasting shit, Hal said he asked people and they never heard of Carbon Offsets…well despite my objections to linking a bunch of stupid crap….here ya go…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_offset

 

Carbon offsets and going green aren’t necessarily about buying crap from a dude on the internet; it’s about spending a little more money up front and designing a building or campus or whatever to have a small environmental footprint.  David Shi – the president of Furman was semi-quoted last week in the Washington Post about colleges going green.  See how I tied up the loose ends by referencing Furman and the Washington Post in my closing, and you thought today’s writing was going no where, I’m not a sick-o donkey’s ass like some writers out there. 

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/12/AR2007061201299.html

 

June 20, 2007

I got the new Bon Jovi CD yesterday, so don’t everybody call me and ask me if I knew the new Bon Jovi CD came out.  Martin does that; he’ll call me in 2 weeks and ask me if I knew it was out.  Ashley promptly took it from me to put it on her ipod, I had to make her give it back.  It seems as though my Bon Jovi brainwash skills have grown beyond comprehension.  She even gives me a daily update on Richie’s health.  I’m not complaining, she could be talking about Alan Jackson all the time.  The new CD called, “Lost Highway” is pretty much a country album, with a couple of Five Way songs on it, and the signature ballad.  10 years ago, maybe even 8 years ago I would be yelling and screaming about how much it sucks, and how the guys sold out….at this point I don’t care what Bon Jovi records…I’m gonna buy it, and I’m gonna go see them play live.  If they did a rap album I’d but it, like it and go see them play at some 8-mile club in Detroit and probably get shot or loose my wife to a pimp in a dancing contest.  Anyway, the CD is well produced, the rhythm guitar work is amazing and extremely well mixed and produced, the lead work is probably something I could do, but it still sounds good and fits, Richie can’t solo for 60 minutes – well he can, and I’d buy it but you wouldn’t because I’m their number 4 fan, maybe number 5.  I calculated that last night.

The Cubs are turning into baseball’s thugs.  They fight with everybody, themselves, the opposing team, and the umpires.  I like them, I hope they keep it up, baseball needs some positive press.  The baseball commissioner Bud Selig looks like he has Cerebral Palsy , and needs to quit, he needs to go ahead and die or go to a Stern facility.  

 

June 21, 2007

Ham and I have this thing where was make a list, and put it in a safe place.  We’ve been know to go into a library and make lists right on the table…it’s a good thing because it prepared me for a career in the real world where I makes list after list after list, if fact 10 minutes before writing this I was working on a list.  So, this leads me to the show about the 100 greatest films – no I didn’t watch it, I hate awards shows, but I read the list, and it was screwed up.  The top 10 pretty much sucks,  here it is:

. "Citizen Kane," 1941.
2. "The Godfather," 1972.
3. "Casablanca," 1942.
4. "Raging Bull," 1980.
5. "Singin' in the Rain," 1952.
6. "Gone With the Wind," 1939.
7. "Lawrence of Arabia," 1962.
8. "Schindler's List," 1993.
9. "Vertigo," 1958.
10. "The Wizard of Oz," 1939.

The only one of these I’ve seen all the way through is the wizard of oz, and I wouldn’t of even put it in my top 200, Raging Bull – I thought it was like a spin off of Bull Durham, which was awesome, but it turns out it’s a Rocky rip-off with Joe Pesci and Robert DeNiro.  I’ve never see it.  Bruce Willis isn’t in any of the top 10, that’s a mistake, and neither is Bill Murray.  Ghost Busters would have been in my top 10, along with all the Die Hard movies.  The people who make these lists must be retarded.  This is why David Chase had a hard time with the Sopranos ending, he’s challenged, like all those other film nut jobs – you want proof – watch 5 minutes of “On the Lot” and you’ll see what I mean.  Film schools should be shut down.  New Rule, film school students are sent to Stern Centers indefinitely, if after 18 month they don’t put Die Hard in the top 10 they get sent to a “Hamster Center” where for the rest of their lives they will run on wheels to make electricity to power a big ass heater I will have installed in Greenland.  The heater will be used to speed up global warming, I’m curious to see what global warming is really going to do, so well speed it up so we can find out, instead of our children’s children having all the fun….like opening a Christmas present early. 

 

June 22, 2007

I was gonna do a sweet dang drawn figure, but the lady downstairs is using the scanner/copier all day, something about we have to send drawings to the job site so it can get built – I don’t see how that is any more important that smart ass figure 8.79-1.  So, plan be, we’re gonna talk about everything from finances to Bon Jovi. 

Bon Jovi, the album is great, except for the Big and Rich song – those guys piss me off, all the do is rap-sing and dress up like Tom Petty, they suck and they song they song on sounds painfully like it was written just to make it sound like a song they would do, and there’s this odd part where Jon introduces them and they talk, I hate the song, it is awful, I hope Richie had nothing to do with the writing of this piece of shit Big and Rich song.  Personality is better than that crap song.  Speaking of personality my sister ran into Walter, and she gave him my number can he called me…that was weird.  On to bigger things.  To Pulitzer Prize people – notice how I tied Bon Jovi to Walter, not that you know Walter or even understand how that corresponds, but it does. 

Financial mis-advice. Disclaimer:  If you do what I say you will end up raising chinchillas and married to a black woman.   Which may not be so bad if you are Jewish.

Rent or own?  Renting for a long period of time is stupid, for short term or if you are in a financial “mess” then it may be necessary.    Here are some common

·        Renting allows freedom – you still have a lease to break if you rent, and selling a house isn’t so much of a headache, especially if you use an agent.  I sold a house and never met the buyer, didn’t go to closing, and I put it on the market after I took a job 200 miles away and the Markey was very, very pitiful market where I sold it.  Breaking a lease can cost you a month’s rent or more.

·        Someone else fixes stuff – True, can’t argue with this one, except that I’ve seen articles where people say owning costs thousands in appliance costs – this is bullshit, you can get appliances cheap, you don’t need a stainless steel, counter depth fridge with ice maker and water fountain attachment – you can get a basic fridge at Best Buy for $400.  You don’t need a dishwasher either, and one could argue you don’t need a dryer.  Cheap washing machines start at around $250, and you could get a used one if you had to.  Some houses come with some of these things, it’s all about the negotiation.

·        Owing has hidden costs – True, if you don’t do your homework, there is insurance, possible HOA due, and taxes, but all this should not be hidden and can be included in your mortgage payment. 

·        You could loose money – True home prices can drop, especially condo prices, I mean who came up with the condo idea, it like someone said, shit, why don’t we sell these idiots an apartment for the same price we’d sell them a house, we’ll make tons, and we don’t have to make them pay us rent.  Owning a condo is not the same as owning a house, even if you own.  I would argue owning a trailer, provided you own the land it is on is better than owning a condo.  Back to the market, if you are reasonable and buy in an area that isn’t high in crime or paper mills then you stand a good chance that the house you buy will increase in value, if you treat it well.  If you have crack head parties and ruin the place then you don’t see and increase in value.

·        You’d be better off investing the money in mutual funds or 401K– This is true if the difference in your rent versus your mortgage is very big, say your rent is $250 and your house payment would be $1000, then you’d be spending an extra $9000 a year, you could be investing.  For every person this number is different and the decision isn’t the same.  Also, you get a tax deduction on the interest.

·        Payback – the biggest reason to own is because in the end, when you move you can sell you house and get something back.  When you move from an apartment, you just move, you don’t get a check for anything.

401 K or Roth

·        This one is easy, have both

·        Spread the money around

·        Take advantage of any match program your employer has

·        Roth is not a candy bar

What should I invest in?

·        10 years or more away from retiring – as risky as possible, if they will let you bet your 401 on the Arizona Diamondbacks – Let it Ride

·        5-10 years away – split between moderate, risky, and old-man style

·        0-5 years – 50% old-man style, the other 50% is your choice – I’d bet it on women’s Tennis (Just Kidding), I’d go with the Red Sox

·        Dead – send you money to me and I’ll invest it for you

·        Zombie – Don’t come round trying to eat me, I don’t have your damn money

Should my wife and I have separate accounts?

·        The complicated answer is that it is everyone’s choice and everybody is different

·        The answer I’d give to my kids is: “Hell Yes”

·        Ashley is not with child

·        The reason is that women and men are too damn different, and if one partner wants that much control over another than there are bigger problems than finances. 

·        Most couples have a spender and a saver – even if both are spenders, one is going to out-weigh the other and be the perceived saver.  Let’s say I was the spender, I wouldn’t want the other person questioning all my purchases, it would be a hassle.  Let’s say I was the saver, I wouldn’t want to have to balance the expenses of a person that is the contradiction to how I spend

·        I think the best way to do it is to have separate accounts but put each other’s name on the account, that way if you need to transfer money or write a check for someone you can

·        This opinion assumes both parties are financially secure and don’t have huge credit issues or bankruptcy or are embezzling, this also assumes an excellent credit score for both parties.

·        This assumes bills and mortgages and payments are divided, and each person pays from his/her account. 

·        This also assumes the house, bills and cars are in each others names where appropriate. 

·        This is not done for fear or ease of a divorce, as divorces are messy anyway and there isn’t anything one can do to protect oneself from fallout from one.  There are urban myths out there about prenuptials and putting money in your sister’s name, but all in all lawyers can get their hands on it and make the whole thing a mess. So, account separation has nothing to do with divorce.  

Do get rich quick infomercials work?

·        Hell no!

·        They are usually some kind of pyramid scheme.

·        I’ve called a few of them, I know – I never gave them money

How do I get rich like you?

·        The real question is, are you afraid of prison?

·        If the answer is yes, then you can never get rich like me.

How can I save extra money?

·        Let your hobby become a source of income

·        For example, if you like to work in the yard, start a landscape business on the side

·        If you play guitar well enough, teach guitar

·        If you play golf – stop playing golf

·        If you ride motorcycles, sell your mobile-of-death and buy some freaking stock

·        If you like to do wood work – start a sign wood working business

·        Stop buying books on how to save money

I hope these pieces of advice have helped.  If they haven’t then you are retarded, and you shouldn’t be allowed to get on the internet, as you might stumble across boobies and not understand them in the proper context and your head will explode. 

 

June 25, 2007

I remember a while back, at work, someone was bragging to me about how Clemson was awesome at baseball, and they were ranked like #2 or some bullshit and I was like, so, that doesn’t mean anything  – well, I rest my case.  Oregon State finished 6th in their conference and entered the playoffs 35th in the nation – and they won the whole damn thing.  This is like a 12 seed winning the NCAA basketball tournament, or USC winning the national championship in football, oh wait that can’t happen, because football doesn’t allow this to happen.  I don’t know if Oregon State’s feat is evidence we need a football playoff or evidence we need to cancel college baseball altogether.  I didn’t watch the game, or much of the playoffs – again as you all know I despise college baseball.  I am beginning to thing Oregon State is the reason I don’t like college baseball.  Anybody can beat anybody else, it does not make sense – it’s almost like the final 2 teams need to play 100 games to get a better idea of who is better.  With a 3 game series, nobody knows.  If college baseball acted like football Oregon State would not have even gotten to play for a title, but thanks to the tournament they got the chance to play.  College baseball needs to be more like football and football needs to be more like baseball.  College baseball has got too many damn ways for luck to play a factor in determining who is better.  Look at the pros – it used to be simple, the best 2 teams in the national league played 7 games to determine who went to the world series- that’s fair – you have 162 games to prove you are the best, and the 6th place team didn’t even get a ticket to the dance.  The wild card came along, and 3 divisions and now there’s a weird 5 game series that does add a bit of luck – but hopefully when Bud dies they’ll take the 5 game series to a 7 game series. 

 

June 26, 2007

There is a hacker who claims to have broken into the computer system of the publisher of the Harry Potter series and has a digital copy of the unreleased book.  He claim Hermione is killed by the one we don’t speak of, while protecting that little weasel bastard with the read hair, Harry shows up late or something and then beats the piss out of the one we don’t speak of.  Personally I don’t believe it, I think it’s just some quack job wanting attention.  I think the movie will end like this:  (Warning, if you haven’t seen Little Miss Sunshine or read my review of it you will think I am a pedophile)

Scene: 27 “Little Miss: Made in America” (Cue Robert Palmer Song)

Hermione:  (Begin dancing up and down those tables in the mess hall and remove shirt, leave on skirt)

Hermione:  (Take Harry’s broom and do unspeakable acts with said broom, be careful not to get splinters) Note: See Madonna videos sent by PA, copy in trailer 2B

Harry: (Sit at table and flip through juke box and settle on a journey song)

Cue Journey

Hermione:  (Remove skirt, slow down dance) Note: No thongs, preferable something unrevealing, we still need a PG rating

Cue Voldermort

Voldermort: (Begin eating onion rings while watching the juvenile striptease and sitting at the bar)

Hermione:  (Begin to remove bra)

Voldermort: (get up to go to bathroom)

Fade to black, leave screen black for 3 seconds

Cue credits

How’s that?  I think it’s pretty freaking genius.  The whore doesn’t get naked, nobody dies and nobody knows how it ends, wonderful.  You can reach me at work or at home or by email in case anyone reading this wants to hire me to write screenplays for David Chase.  What if Harry Potter ended like Sopranos – that lady would have to go into hiding.  Some rich kid in Saudi Arabia would cry so much and complain so much his father would have to initiate a jihad or something.  Years ago I utters a prophesy that Hermione would do a playboy spread – I was off a little, it turned out that Harry was the one doing a nude scene in some gay ass play in London.  What a whack-o.  Fade to black, cue credits.

 

June 27, 2007

Rabbits, rabbits, rabbits.  There are rabbits in the woods.  I was going to go to Charleston tomorrow, but now I am not, maybe next week. 

 

June 29, 2007

Happy birthday to Hal, who turned 20 something this Wednesday.  Good for him.  He wanted me to get him a welder for his birthday, but he does not know how to weld, and then he wanted to keep it at my house.  That is just asking for a house fire, or death by electricity. 

Couple of things I thought about this week.  I sat through a sales pitch for a Political Action Committee (PAC) a year or two ago, and the speaker said something along the lines that giving money to a candidate will get you an audience with them, as if you call or stop by the office they won’t give you the time of day.  I’ve never tried to reach my congressman,  that I remember anway, but I hope they would be accessible without a down payment – what type of  government makes you buy time with your representative.  The reason I though of this is I read an article on how tennis sucks now, and one of the problems is the players require payment for interviews and appearances – I thought you just talked to the media, I didn’t know they took a cover charge. I think tennis sucks because Americans suck at tennis and there isn’t anyone to cheer for, I mean our players are more in the news based on their clothing line and fashion show more so than a tennis match.  Couple that with tournaments mostly outside the US, and interest is lost.  News of the week:  Crazy wrestler, crazy cop kills pregnant girlfriend, the supreme court did a bunch of stuff nobody cares about, cats decided to live with us not the other way around, and the NBA draft occurred without felony charges.

 

July 2, 2007

We watched The Guardian this weekend, and it is a good movie, but it has a few similarities to Top Gun.  I really wished Kevin Costner’s character had stayed quit from the coast guard and gone out and tried to qualify for the US Open or pitched in MLB.  This got me thinking, here are some things I’ve learned from movies:

Chest compressions should be immediately performed on an unconscious victim regardless of circumstance

Charlie Sheen and Brendon Frasier can’t pitch as well as Kevin Costner. 

Scott Bakula never ages, maybe he’s still traveling through time.

If you are with Charlie Sheen you can jump out of airplanes and off bridges and live, but if you are with Kevin Costner an 80 foot fall will do you in. 

If you are drunk, a little coffee or some water in the face or a quick shower will sober you up enough to qualify for Lee Harvey Oswald class sniper status.  No matter how many shots or beers you’ve had.

Every car chase no matter what the movie setting involves streets that look just like San Francisco.

Traumatic head injuries for the good guys either cause amnesia, or an injury requiring a white mummy-like wrapping applied to the head.  If you are a bad guy head injuries require 20-30 seconds of rest followed by attempted ass-kicking and eventually you get shot.

Computers all use DOS in the future.

It is customary to make scrapbook or some weird shrine whenever someone you know dies.

The bad guys can always pull off elaborate robberies and have sophisticated equipment designed and built but yet always get caught by bumbling kids or a stupid ass reporter. 

Dogs are racist.

Aliens see in infrared, just like mosquitoes.

Robots internal calculations and decision making process occurs in English at a slow enough speed an 8 year old can read it.

Life support always fails before artificial gravity.  Artificial gravity only fails in elevator shafts when there are 3 people or less. 

If you are a cop you frequent strip clubs.

Giant squids attack boats, whales attack giant squids, boats attack whales, and this does not make sense.

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