And yes that is meant to be sung to the popular Christmas Song.
So...as you may have noticed, some cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity decided to scupper my attempt to get into the spirit of Christmas and to spread some joy.
I wanted not to get people to belittle the tragedy that happened in Connecticut. Nor did I want people to forget it and let it slip quietly into the night. I only wanted people to try to remember that in spite of the tragedy that there was still some good in the world and in Christmas.
Congratulations you anonymous cock-stain, you killed off what little spirit I had managed to dredge up.
So Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous Coward. What's going to be your encore? Telling toddlers that there is no Santa? Going to a Westboro Baptist protest of the funerals and telling the parents and siblings of the slain children that it all happened because their deceased child was either tolerant of or actively homosexual?
Perhaps you'd like to do some performance art and sodomize kittens and puppies in front of the "Visit Santa" section in the local mall for all the little kids to see?
What next? I'm just dying to find out how you're going to demonstrate that you are a waste of precious food and oxygen that needs to die in a fire.
And you should be thrilled that I used that expression. Considering how fire is a horrific and one of the (if not "the") most painful ways of dying...I don't like to use that casually the way that this current generation likes to use it. But in your case while I do not wish you to die in a fire...should I ever find out your true identity and it happens that you die horribly in a fire and I managed to read about it in the news...
The only emotion I'll feel for you is satisfied amusement.
Wednesday, December 19, 2012
Sunday, December 16, 2012
Christmas Tales
In light of the recent tragedies getting a lot of people shaken up, I'm thinking that it's time we try to lighten up. I'm not saying to just forget this, but let's not let the actions of a few people cause us to forget what's good about the season.
To this end I'm opening up my blog to stories of our fondest and most favorite memories of Christmases past.
I'll start off.
It was the Christmas of 2004 and Kier and I were spending Christmas away from our families trying to get this trailer that her (soon to be ex-) husband had left in a state of disrepair. We needed to get it back to marketable condition so we could finally sell the darn thing.
While we were doing this, the both of us were working at Smith's Medical and we were working the 3pm-11pm shift. Living as we were from week to week we had to budget ahead for Christmas and in order to clear the funds to buy each other presents we were paying off bills off as early as we could. It was hard and the food was a bit stingy that month but we made it.
We got paid on Thursday the 23'rd (at least that was when the direct deposit hit the bank) and we had finished our shift. We went to the 24-hour Walmart in Claremont NH about an hour from where we lived in Keene.
And this is the part that makes this a fond and favorite memory. Here it is the morning before Christmas Eve and and we both grab carts and split up. We're running around the place trying to avoid each other, throwing our coats over the cart of swag to hide each other's presents from prying eyes, enjoying the amused looks of the store clerks watching out antics. We were tear-assing all over that store, hitting departments at random to throw off the scent of what we were really looking at giving to each other, hitting others with guerilla-like stealth and tactics to get what we were buying before the other could see.
Two hours and $300 later (I think we had budgeted $150 each) we finally drove home and smuggled the presents into the house where we once again split up and wrapped presents like mad. Which was really funny since we were going to open some on Christmas Eve (some 18 hours later) and the rest on Christmas Morning (26 hours later) so many would argue "Why bother?"
But that's my fondest Christmas memory. Two silly people in love running around the store like a couple of kids with Grandma's Christmas Card money in hand and the attention spans of hummingbirds on speed.
So folks, share a story in the comments section and share this to all your friends and family. Let's remind ourselves that Christmas (or whatever you celebrate - I'm open to them all) is coming and let's try to remind ourselves of happier times in an attempt to bring some joy and cheer.
To this end I'm opening up my blog to stories of our fondest and most favorite memories of Christmases past.
I'll start off.
It was the Christmas of 2004 and Kier and I were spending Christmas away from our families trying to get this trailer that her (soon to be ex-) husband had left in a state of disrepair. We needed to get it back to marketable condition so we could finally sell the darn thing.
While we were doing this, the both of us were working at Smith's Medical and we were working the 3pm-11pm shift. Living as we were from week to week we had to budget ahead for Christmas and in order to clear the funds to buy each other presents we were paying off bills off as early as we could. It was hard and the food was a bit stingy that month but we made it.
We got paid on Thursday the 23'rd (at least that was when the direct deposit hit the bank) and we had finished our shift. We went to the 24-hour Walmart in Claremont NH about an hour from where we lived in Keene.
And this is the part that makes this a fond and favorite memory. Here it is the morning before Christmas Eve and and we both grab carts and split up. We're running around the place trying to avoid each other, throwing our coats over the cart of swag to hide each other's presents from prying eyes, enjoying the amused looks of the store clerks watching out antics. We were tear-assing all over that store, hitting departments at random to throw off the scent of what we were really looking at giving to each other, hitting others with guerilla-like stealth and tactics to get what we were buying before the other could see.
Two hours and $300 later (I think we had budgeted $150 each) we finally drove home and smuggled the presents into the house where we once again split up and wrapped presents like mad. Which was really funny since we were going to open some on Christmas Eve (some 18 hours later) and the rest on Christmas Morning (26 hours later) so many would argue "Why bother?"
But that's my fondest Christmas memory. Two silly people in love running around the store like a couple of kids with Grandma's Christmas Card money in hand and the attention spans of hummingbirds on speed.
So folks, share a story in the comments section and share this to all your friends and family. Let's remind ourselves that Christmas (or whatever you celebrate - I'm open to them all) is coming and let's try to remind ourselves of happier times in an attempt to bring some joy and cheer.
Wednesday, December 12, 2012
God help people when I get bored.
This is what happens when I get bored. I start dumpster diving my Spam Folder and start doing the MST3K thing with the message headers.
Add 3-4 inches to your penis for free, just pay shipping and handling - Gee! I can add 3-4 inches just by downloading some porn off the internet and I don't have to pay for shipping. Next!
Finally we will meet - That's what you think. Next!
You are my last hope! - Well, you're screwed aren't ya? Next!
Apply for a Black Credit Card - You racist Bastard! Next!
Want to sell your timeshare? - No, If I had one I'd actually use the goddamn thing. Next!
Replica Watches, Bags, Pens - Ooh! I'm interested in that. Can I pay in replica money? Next!
Someone sent you a $1,000 Home Depot Gift card - Can you tell me who so I can hunt down this cheap prick who is making me jump through 30 hoops and spend $10,000 to get this card that was "gifted" to me? Me and a 14 pound lump hammer want to have a few words with him. Next!
Reach your financial goals with robe - If that only made sense. Next!
Your baby can read! - I knew it! All that drooling over the pages of my Poplar Science is a sham to lull me into a false sense of security while he develops his Weather Dominator so he can rule the world. I'm so proud! NEXT!
Is your man withdrawing and becoming distant? Did I leave my gaydar jammer on again? Damnit. Next!
From now on you don't need a crane to life your tool up - Frankly if my "tool" were so big as to need a crane to lift...I'd be making a killing in Porno films. Next!
Drug Rehab, find the one that works for you. - First step in dealing with a problem is admitting you have a problem. Hi! My name is Alex and I have a problem with idiot spammers. Ok, I've admitted it...can I shoot them now? Next!
See Joan Rivers Exposed Gah!- Poke out the minds's eye! Think of holy water, think of holy water! ANYONE GOT ANY BRAIN BLEACH!
We want to buy your house - What a staggering coincidence. I want to buy my house too.
Overcome the un-staying problem - Dude! Wait, what?
We delete free user accounts - Wow! Yer just a buncha douchebags there arentcha?
Virus in our office - Oh yeah, I REALLY want to open your e-mail after reading that.
Desire to become a better reality - Ok, what are you smoking so I can remember to never buy an ounce.
Will you book a place - Nope
Are you mad at me - Yes
Your account was deleted - Impressive considering I never had one.
You did everything wrong! - Funny, my fish are all alive, there's a roof over my head, a pantry full of food, a functional vehicle, a good paying job, loving wife, good sex life, friends that are there for me...sounds like I did at least something right.
Enjoy my pix - No pix. No link. No text. No anything. Odds are this means no brains.
I'll slit my wrists if you don't join my webpage - Just remember kids, Rippy the Razor says "It's down the road, not across the street!"
Go to my Myspace page or I'll blow my brains out - Promise?
I'll throw myself off a building if you don't click this link - What building, what time, and is there popcorn provided?
Answer me or I'll throw this kitten to a Gelatinous Cube - Whoops, that's my old D&D buddy with a new e-mail address...mark that one as safe.
It's second Twilight and looks gay - Hell, Edward sparkles, looks like he lives in the woods, doesn't want to hurt people...He's not a Vampire, He's a fairy!
I was suffering in silence - And you broke that silence to e-mail me? Gee I feel fucking special now.
Never wear glasses again! - Ok, firstly I never wore glasses, my last visit said I don't need glasses and even if I did there is no way in Hell that I'd go to a laser eye surgeon that has to resort to spam to get by. I'd sooner jump naked into a swimming pool filled with single-edged razor blades, salt, and lemon juice.
Make your Penis bigger with Twitter! - How...no...on second thought I'd rather not know.
Hey! Accidently seen you yesturday (sic) - Fuck! My cloaking device blew a converter manifold didn't it?
Get mobile with a power chair! - Why do I feel like yelling at kids to get off of my lawn all of a sudden?
Get 30% off of your free copy of Google Earth - Dude! Sweet! 30% off? Wait, what?
Ugly Older Moms! - Trust me, that's not a incentive to check out your site.
You can learn any language in 10 days - Fuckers! They do not offer Klingon!
Don't fall in love at Match.com - But...but...I thought that was the point of Match.com?
Invest in Mentals - I already have. You and the other thousand spammers are sadly my only return.
My advice is for you to buy this damn product and drill your girl like crazy - My advice is to go shove an agave cactus up your urethra sideways. BTW, I can "drill my girl like crazy" without paying a single penny for your product. So there!
The smoking alternative with no harmful chemicals - Yeah, it's called quitting jackass.
Become a CSI! - Ooh! Ooh! Can I be Lawrence Fishbourne?
Want your girlfriend back? - Nope! She dumped me to become a lesbian. Just wouldn't work out. (really happened)
Expand your manliness spire! - I like this one...This one is silly!
Did you suffer an injury using birth control? - Yes! All the Viagra you keep trying to sell me made me so big that I hurt myself when trying to put on the condom. The latex snapped, it backlashed and I got a very naughty boo boo.
Hawaii = Paradise - No shit Sherlock!
Will trade cash for trees - You do know that there are forests full of the gorram things right?
Stop Harassing Creditors - But I never harass them. Nigerian spammers maybe, but never Creditors. I try to pay my bills on time.
Did you suffer a Gall Bladder injury using birth control? - Nope, can't say that I have. Can't think how a condom could injure one's Gall Bladder for that matter.
Watch your stretch marks disappear - Y'all don't bother with demographics do you?
Watch over 4500 channels! - Great! 4500 channels of reality TV, news, regurgitated crap, biased news, weather that can barely tell you what happened yesterday with a 50% success rate much less trying to guess the future, and political ads where one candidate stated publicly that their opponents whip puppies with live rattlesnakes...I'll stick to my netflix and my Wii thank you.
Only 360 shopping days left until Christmas - Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me. Send me this again and I'll hunt your ass down and make you the Christmas Angel on my Holly tree in the back yard. Guess how I'm going to keep you on it. Just guess
Catnip Enemas - There are no words for this...no gorram words.
Make your boner so iron it could pierce the ceiling - Poor Ceiling Cat.
Wanted ugly timeshares - Well if it was ugly...why in the name of Zeus's ball sack would I have bought it in the first place?
Are you paying too much for Cable? - Nope. My cable bill is nothing. And it's legal too. It's called the "I'm so disgusted with TV that I decided not to buy the service" plan.
Permanent enlarged penis – Uhm…if it’s enlarged for more than 4 hours, isn’t there a risk of it falling off?
Add 3-4 inches to your penis for free, just pay shipping and handling - Gee! I can add 3-4 inches just by downloading some porn off the internet and I don't have to pay for shipping. Next!
Finally we will meet - That's what you think. Next!
You are my last hope! - Well, you're screwed aren't ya? Next!
Apply for a Black Credit Card - You racist Bastard! Next!
Want to sell your timeshare? - No, If I had one I'd actually use the goddamn thing. Next!
Replica Watches, Bags, Pens - Ooh! I'm interested in that. Can I pay in replica money? Next!
Someone sent you a $1,000 Home Depot Gift card - Can you tell me who so I can hunt down this cheap prick who is making me jump through 30 hoops and spend $10,000 to get this card that was "gifted" to me? Me and a 14 pound lump hammer want to have a few words with him. Next!
Reach your financial goals with robe - If that only made sense. Next!
Your baby can read! - I knew it! All that drooling over the pages of my Poplar Science is a sham to lull me into a false sense of security while he develops his Weather Dominator so he can rule the world.
Is your man withdrawing and becoming distant? Did I leave my gaydar jammer on again? Damnit. Next!
From now on you don't need a crane to life your tool up - Frankly if my "tool" were so big as to need a crane to lift...I'd be making a killing in Porno films. Next!
Drug Rehab, find the one that works for you. - First step in dealing with a problem is admitting you have a problem. Hi! My name is Alex and I have a problem with idiot spammers. Ok, I've admitted it...can I shoot them now? Next!
See Joan Rivers Exposed Gah!- Poke out the minds's eye! Think of holy water, think of holy water! ANYONE GOT ANY BRAIN BLEACH!
We want to buy your house - What a staggering coincidence. I want to buy my house too.
Overcome the un-staying problem - Dude! Wait, what?
We delete free user accounts - Wow! Yer just a buncha douchebags there arentcha?
Virus in our office - Oh yeah, I REALLY want to open your e-mail after reading that.
Desire to become a better reality - Ok, what are you smoking so I can remember to never buy an ounce.
Will you book a place - Nope
Are you mad at me - Yes
Your account was deleted - Impressive considering I never had one.
You did everything wrong! - Funny, my fish are all alive, there's a roof over my head, a pantry full of food, a functional vehicle, a good paying job, loving wife, good sex life, friends that are there for me...sounds like I did at least something right.
Enjoy my pix - No pix. No link. No text. No anything. Odds are this means no brains.
I'll slit my wrists if you don't join my webpage - Just remember kids, Rippy the Razor says "It's down the road, not across the street!"
Go to my Myspace page or I'll blow my brains out - Promise?
I'll throw myself off a building if you don't click this link - What building, what time, and is there popcorn provided?
Answer me or I'll throw this kitten to a Gelatinous Cube - Whoops, that's my old D&D buddy with a new e-mail address...mark that one as safe.
It's second Twilight and looks gay - Hell, Edward sparkles, looks like he lives in the woods, doesn't want to hurt people...He's not a Vampire, He's a fairy!
I was suffering in silence - And you broke that silence to e-mail me? Gee I feel fucking special now.
Never wear glasses again! - Ok, firstly I never wore glasses, my last visit said I don't need glasses and even if I did there is no way in Hell that I'd go to a laser eye surgeon that has to resort to spam to get by. I'd sooner jump naked into a swimming pool filled with single-edged razor blades, salt, and lemon juice.
Make your Penis bigger with Twitter! - How...no...on second thought I'd rather not know.
Hey! Accidently seen you yesturday (sic) - Fuck! My cloaking device blew a converter manifold didn't it?
Get mobile with a power chair! - Why do I feel like yelling at kids to get off of my lawn all of a sudden?
Get 30% off of your free copy of Google Earth - Dude! Sweet! 30% off? Wait, what?
Ugly Older Moms! - Trust me, that's not a incentive to check out your site.
You can learn any language in 10 days - Fuckers! They do not offer Klingon!
Don't fall in love at Match.com - But...but...I thought that was the point of Match.com?
Invest in Mentals - I already have. You and the other thousand spammers are sadly my only return.
My advice is for you to buy this damn product and drill your girl like crazy - My advice is to go shove an agave cactus up your urethra sideways. BTW, I can "drill my girl like crazy" without paying a single penny for your product. So there!
The smoking alternative with no harmful chemicals - Yeah, it's called quitting jackass.
Become a CSI! - Ooh! Ooh! Can I be Lawrence Fishbourne?
Want your girlfriend back? - Nope! She dumped me to become a lesbian. Just wouldn't work out. (really happened)
Expand your manliness spire! - I like this one...This one is silly!
Did you suffer an injury using birth control? - Yes! All the Viagra you keep trying to sell me made me so big that I hurt myself when trying to put on the condom. The latex snapped, it backlashed and I got a very naughty boo boo.
Hawaii = Paradise - No shit Sherlock!
Will trade cash for trees - You do know that there are forests full of the gorram things right?
Stop Harassing Creditors - But I never harass them. Nigerian spammers maybe, but never Creditors. I try to pay my bills on time.
Did you suffer a Gall Bladder injury using birth control? - Nope, can't say that I have. Can't think how a condom could injure one's Gall Bladder for that matter.
Watch your stretch marks disappear - Y'all don't bother with demographics do you?
Watch over 4500 channels! - Great! 4500 channels of reality TV, news, regurgitated crap, biased news, weather that can barely tell you what happened yesterday with a 50% success rate much less trying to guess the future, and political ads where one candidate stated publicly that their opponents whip puppies with live rattlesnakes...I'll stick to my netflix and my Wii thank you.
Only 360 shopping days left until Christmas - Oh you have got to be fucking kidding me. Send me this again and I'll hunt your ass down and make you the Christmas Angel on my Holly tree in the back yard. Guess how I'm going to keep you on it. Just guess
Catnip Enemas - There are no words for this...no gorram words.
Make your boner so iron it could pierce the ceiling - Poor Ceiling Cat.
Wanted ugly timeshares - Well if it was ugly...why in the name of Zeus's ball sack would I have bought it in the first place?
Are you paying too much for Cable? - Nope. My cable bill is nothing. And it's legal too. It's called the "I'm so disgusted with TV that I decided not to buy the service" plan.
Permanent enlarged penis – Uhm…if it’s enlarged for more than 4 hours, isn’t there a risk of it falling off?
Curious? – Not really.
Need a promtoion? Nope. Need a spellchecker?
Reach the Mount Everest of Love – What? With oxygen tanks, heavy parkas, snow goggles, triple thick wool socks, climbing pitons and rope? Well the rope is interesting…but I think we’ll stay at sea level.
Lasik starting at $2.99 – I’m a little frightened of eye surgery that costs less than a Big Mac.
Buy a house for Penises – Even if I got a house for it, my wife would be very sad if I got rid of Mr. Fiddles.
3% daily growth no kidding! – And you want me to buy a 120 day supply? My God! By the time I got though that I’d be too big for my wife. Hell, I’d be too big for a Blue Whale. I’d have to dig a hole in the back yard for Christ’s sake.
Make love to Crazy Sponge Bob fans – Not just no, fuck no. DO NOT WANT!
Refresh the homepage now – Or you’ll do what?
How dumb are you? – Not dumb enough to fall for your schemes.
What can be done? – Not a goddamn thing sorry. You’re screwed.
Organize and protect your shoe – But I have two shoes.
Do you see the pics? I don’t – Well that means you were too dumb to attach the pictures to the message…dumbass
Natural colon cleanse – Viagra, Cialis, male enhancement, and now you’re selling me enemas?
Bush will return in 2012 – Not up on your civics classes are ya.
Monday, November 19, 2012
Drug Testing the Welfare Recipient.
This is a hotly debated issue going around the 'net and the social media sites quite a lot. Should we test the welfare recipients for drug usage before allowing them to receive assistance?
A lot of people say that they should. "After all," (as the mindset goes) "I had to get drug tested in order to make the money you're getting for free."
And I can understand that mentality. It makes people angry to see someone paying for groceries with food assistance cards and/or vouchers and then buy a metric fuck ton of cigs with a roll of bills you could use to beat whales to death with. Or to see all that assistance-paid-for groceries getting loaded into a pimped out SUV with rims that cost more than your car did.
I kid you not. I've seen someone loading WIC Voucher paid for groceries into an SUV with PimpStar Rims. And while I think it's awesome to have rims that with the LED's can display any image you want and would love to have a set so I can display the Klingon Emblem...the gorram things cost damn near $12,000 for the set.
They're awesome, but not "costs more than a brand new Hyundai" awesome.
So I do understand the frustration. I do understand how it pisses people off to imagine their hard earned money going to support someone who is going to sit around the house, flip off "da man", and get totally fucked up. The concept pisses me off too.
But I have a bad habit of thinking for myself. I have a tendency to question things. I do research. Case in point, drug testing welfare recipients. It doesn't work as well as people would like. Why? Because contrary to popular belief, not everyone who is on welfare is a junkie-12-grand rim buying wastrel.
Most are simply people who got butt fucked by the bad economy. You know, the one everyone blames on Obama, Bush, God (punishing us for Gay Rights Reforms), Corporations, Rich People, and whatever the blame-recipient du jour is.
You see, Florida already tried this. It didn't work *quite* as planned.
In July 2011, Florida signed into law where welfare applicants must pay for their own drug screening. If they test clean, they get their money back and get onto the assistance program. If they fail, they *dont* get their money back and can not re-apply for one year at which time they'll need to fork up the cash for the test and hopefully have had learned their lesson that "drugs are bad, M'kay". Sounds good...in theory.
But here's where it all falls flat. Between two and three percent of all applicants test positive. That means that 97 to 98 people out of 100 are clean. Reading the article, you're looking at Florida spending about four dollars to save one dollar.
Now if you had a friend that spent $80 on scratch-off lottery tickets and they got super excited that out of all of those tickets they had a single $20 winner...you'd look at them like they had brain damage and would try to get them to seek help for their addiction.
Yet when the State is doing this to try to save you the taxpayer a buck of your hard earned money by spending four bucks of your hard earned money...you're ok with this because "it's getting those damn stoner fucks off of the taxpayer's sore nipples"?
Like I said. I'm all for cutting government spending. I'm all for saving money. But the system has a lot of flaws.
1. You have right off the bat the cost in the system and the 4-to-1 spent vs savings ratio.
2. Drug Testing does not detect the legal drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes. And as so many have said, of you can afford booze and cigs, you don't fugging need welfare.
3. Drug Testing does not detect Plasma High-Def TV's, Xbox 360'a, Pimped out SUV's and all the other luxury items that a lot of the welfare recipients that defraud the system purchase with money that they *should* be using for their own survival.
4. Drug Testing does not detect women who have more babies so they can have a higher welfare check.
5. Drug Testing is a form on unwarranted search that is forbidden by the Constitution. Yes some states are getting away with that but there are a number of lawsuits that challenge the legality of said testing. You getting tested at work is an agreement that you signed off on when you put in your resume at said business. You gave them the permission to test you. You always have the right to say "No." However they have the right to say "you agreed when you signed off on your copy of the employee handbook, it's not our problem that you didn't read it and so now we're going to fire you."
In short it is not the correct solution to the problem. I agree that there needs to be a solution to the problem of welfare fraud and people who do not deserve to be on it. But until something comes along...it is what it is and we have to accept that.
A lot of people say that they should. "After all," (as the mindset goes) "I had to get drug tested in order to make the money you're getting for free."
And I can understand that mentality. It makes people angry to see someone paying for groceries with food assistance cards and/or vouchers and then buy a metric fuck ton of cigs with a roll of bills you could use to beat whales to death with. Or to see all that assistance-paid-for groceries getting loaded into a pimped out SUV with rims that cost more than your car did.
I kid you not. I've seen someone loading WIC Voucher paid for groceries into an SUV with PimpStar Rims. And while I think it's awesome to have rims that with the LED's can display any image you want and would love to have a set so I can display the Klingon Emblem...the gorram things cost damn near $12,000 for the set.
They're awesome, but not "costs more than a brand new Hyundai" awesome.
So I do understand the frustration. I do understand how it pisses people off to imagine their hard earned money going to support someone who is going to sit around the house, flip off "da man", and get totally fucked up. The concept pisses me off too.
But I have a bad habit of thinking for myself. I have a tendency to question things. I do research. Case in point, drug testing welfare recipients. It doesn't work as well as people would like. Why? Because contrary to popular belief, not everyone who is on welfare is a junkie-12-grand rim buying wastrel.
Most are simply people who got butt fucked by the bad economy. You know, the one everyone blames on Obama, Bush, God (punishing us for Gay Rights Reforms), Corporations, Rich People, and whatever the blame-recipient du jour is.
You see, Florida already tried this. It didn't work *quite* as planned.
In July 2011, Florida signed into law where welfare applicants must pay for their own drug screening. If they test clean, they get their money back and get onto the assistance program. If they fail, they *dont* get their money back and can not re-apply for one year at which time they'll need to fork up the cash for the test and hopefully have had learned their lesson that "drugs are bad, M'kay". Sounds good...in theory.
But here's where it all falls flat. Between two and three percent of all applicants test positive. That means that 97 to 98 people out of 100 are clean. Reading the article, you're looking at Florida spending about four dollars to save one dollar.
Now if you had a friend that spent $80 on scratch-off lottery tickets and they got super excited that out of all of those tickets they had a single $20 winner...you'd look at them like they had brain damage and would try to get them to seek help for their addiction.
Yet when the State is doing this to try to save you the taxpayer a buck of your hard earned money by spending four bucks of your hard earned money...you're ok with this because "it's getting those damn stoner fucks off of the taxpayer's sore nipples"?
Like I said. I'm all for cutting government spending. I'm all for saving money. But the system has a lot of flaws.
1. You have right off the bat the cost in the system and the 4-to-1 spent vs savings ratio.
2. Drug Testing does not detect the legal drugs such as alcohol and cigarettes. And as so many have said, of you can afford booze and cigs, you don't fugging need welfare.
3. Drug Testing does not detect Plasma High-Def TV's, Xbox 360'a, Pimped out SUV's and all the other luxury items that a lot of the welfare recipients that defraud the system purchase with money that they *should* be using for their own survival.
4. Drug Testing does not detect women who have more babies so they can have a higher welfare check.
5. Drug Testing is a form on unwarranted search that is forbidden by the Constitution. Yes some states are getting away with that but there are a number of lawsuits that challenge the legality of said testing. You getting tested at work is an agreement that you signed off on when you put in your resume at said business. You gave them the permission to test you. You always have the right to say "No." However they have the right to say "you agreed when you signed off on your copy of the employee handbook, it's not our problem that you didn't read it and so now we're going to fire you."
In short it is not the correct solution to the problem. I agree that there needs to be a solution to the problem of welfare fraud and people who do not deserve to be on it. But until something comes along...it is what it is and we have to accept that.
Friday, November 2, 2012
Christmas.
This is not going to be my usual rant.
I just saw a video that someone posted on Facebook.
Something called the Advent Conspiracy
Now even if you're not all that religious or are of a non-mainstream religion (Wicca, Pagan, etc)...they have a point. We spend 450 Billion dollars per year on Christmas. We shop, shop, shop, and spend, spend, spend...
And what do we get for all of that? Fulfillment? No, we get people snapping at each other for having the audacity to say Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings (or whatever they deem offensive) to one another. We get stressed the fuck out. We get to see people waiting in line for a constantly out of stock toy that a child could wait a week or two to get once the holiday rush is over. We even get to see people beating the shit out of each other just so they can have the one (1) advertised super sale item that a store is offering.
Jesus has got to be facepalming at all of this.
If you didn't want to watch the video, let me mention a very good point in all of this that it brought up. A lack of clean drinking water kills more people than anything else out there. I'm not sure that's true or not, but I do know that at least it's up there in the list of human-killing things...and pretty high on the list at that. The estimated cost of solving the world's clean water problem is around 10 billion. That's 1/45th of what we spend a year. If every American who shops for Christmas were to give $2.20 out of every $100 of what they were planning to spend, we could knock out the clean water problem.
Imagine what we could do for some of the other problems out there if we dropped $25 out of every $100 we were going to spend onto the world's problems.
And if we limit our gift spending to more modest levels and considered other gift ideas. Things made by hand and from the heart. Spending time with family at Christmas instead of letting the kids rip/shred/tear and then toddle off to play in front of the TV maybe we can reconnect to the next generation and guide them towards becoming decent human beings instead of the entitlement whores we read about on Customers Suck and Not Always Right.
Now their message is worship fully, spend less, give more, love more. Even if you're not into worship or worship differently, the message still stands with what's left.
I just saw a video that someone posted on Facebook.
Something called the Advent Conspiracy
Now even if you're not all that religious or are of a non-mainstream religion (Wicca, Pagan, etc)...they have a point. We spend 450 Billion dollars per year on Christmas. We shop, shop, shop, and spend, spend, spend...
And what do we get for all of that? Fulfillment? No, we get people snapping at each other for having the audacity to say Happy Holidays, Merry Christmas, Season's Greetings (or whatever they deem offensive) to one another. We get stressed the fuck out. We get to see people waiting in line for a constantly out of stock toy that a child could wait a week or two to get once the holiday rush is over. We even get to see people beating the shit out of each other just so they can have the one (1) advertised super sale item that a store is offering.
Jesus has got to be facepalming at all of this.
If you didn't want to watch the video, let me mention a very good point in all of this that it brought up. A lack of clean drinking water kills more people than anything else out there. I'm not sure that's true or not, but I do know that at least it's up there in the list of human-killing things...and pretty high on the list at that. The estimated cost of solving the world's clean water problem is around 10 billion. That's 1/45th of what we spend a year. If every American who shops for Christmas were to give $2.20 out of every $100 of what they were planning to spend, we could knock out the clean water problem.
Imagine what we could do for some of the other problems out there if we dropped $25 out of every $100 we were going to spend onto the world's problems.
And if we limit our gift spending to more modest levels and considered other gift ideas. Things made by hand and from the heart. Spending time with family at Christmas instead of letting the kids rip/shred/tear and then toddle off to play in front of the TV maybe we can reconnect to the next generation and guide them towards becoming decent human beings instead of the entitlement whores we read about on Customers Suck and Not Always Right.
Now their message is worship fully, spend less, give more, love more. Even if you're not into worship or worship differently, the message still stands with what's left.
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Disney buys Lucasfilm
You know folks, people are getting into a freaking tizzy over the fact that Disney bought Lucasfilm. While a lot of people have been in support of it (myself included) many more have been pissing, bitching and moaning about the fact that their childhood is ruined. That the next Star Wars is going to be turned into some sort of princess-filled kid's story that's going to have all the soul sucked out of it.
First of all, our "childhood" was ruined when Lucas let the flannel shirts eat his brain and caused him to alter, re-alter, and re-re-alter his films whenever he got a hard-on for whomp-rats. Getting the franchise out of his grubby little dick-skinners is a good start right off the bat. Disney could hardly rape our childhoods any worse than Lucas has already done with his flannel-covered cock.
Greedo shooting first? What the fuck man?
Secondly we have to remember that this is not Disney's first purchase. First there was Pixar and now we have Lassiter making important decisions like the one to rehire the animation team and to release one traditionally hand-drawn animated film every other year. Granted the tech is improved from onion skin to the new wacom tablets...but it's still hand drawn and the magic is still there. Just look at "The Princess and the Frog" Like or loathe the movie, it was wonderful to see something that had the heart and soul of the animators and brings us back to the days of stunning hand-drawn visuals once again.
For the longest time if you wanted that you had to go to Japanese Anime and Studio Ghibli (Spirited Away, Nausica of the Valley of the Winds, My Neighbor Totoro, Kiki's Delivery Service, Ponyo, etc) to see.
And even looking at just the Pixar side of it, they're *still* making good stuff because Disney knows to let them do what they do best and they'll supply the money and rake in their share of the profits.
Henson Studios sold the Muppet Franchise to Disney because they knew that they would protect and promote them. They're keeping Kermit and Piggy and gang alive when no one else would have given a flying fuck about them.
And most recently in 2009, Disney bought Marvel. So to everyone who says that we're going to see a pussified and child-friendly Star Wars with no action, no adult-level plot...I say this.
Iron Man II
Thor
Captain America
And to really drive the point home...
The Avengers
This is what Disney is capable of. Sure they're built on the foundation of "The Mouse" but when it comes down to gritty, action-packed films...they can and have delivered. BECAUSE...they know how to get the right people for the job (Joss Whedon) and let them do what they need to do. Disney is in it for the money. They bloody well know that the best way to make a boodle of money is to deliver quality product.
And most will say that The Avengers is that.
And finally there is one more point. Back in the 80's I saw a documentary about Star Wars that talked about the fact that Lucas had 9 plotlines done. He had done A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi. He had plans of doing the prequels and then the sequels. Then after he had finished "Attack of the Clones" he announced that he couldn't be arsed to do episodes 7, 8, and 9 and that he was done after "Revenge of the Sith". Now Disney is saying that they're going to release new films. Wow! Maybe the sequel plots are in the works. Maybe we can finally know what the hell happens next.
So I'm excited about this news. Disney has in the past given me enough proof of what they're capable of and more importantly what they're *willing* to do. This past performance is enough to let me sit back and say "Ok, I'll give you the chance. Show me what you got."
I'm betting on good things.
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Pull the other one, it plays "Jingle Bells"
Ah, someone *else* wanting my World of Warcraft information.
Greetings!
This is important for you to get it right as my belief will be colored by what you choose. Chose incorrectly and I'll believe that you're a bunch of stupid fucktards trying to scare me for having an account with Blizzard.net but not knowing which one I do have. Choose correctly and I'll believe that you are a bunch of stupid fucktards trying to scare me for having an account with Blizzard.net but not knowing which one I do have...but who got damn lucky. It's 50/50 odds after all.
And for those watching at home? Blizzard was compromised a little while ago. This is why they required everyone to change their passwords. Anyone with the authenticator was safe. They have since plugged the leaks and closed off the holes.
Buncha dumbasses.
And in any case you threatening me with further action against my account is similar to what Robin Williams said about British Police not having guns. "Stop! Or I'll say "Stop" again.". You have as much power, as much bite as the scenario he paints.
Pull the other one...it plays Jingle Bells.
Sorry Rob...didn't feel like using the "Agave Cactus up the ass" bit today. The storm is playing merry hob with my head and just didn't feel like it. I promise next rant I'll put in two to make it up to you so you can have fun making fun of the over-used line.
Greetings!
We have already noted that you are trying to sell your personal World of Warcraft or Diablo III account.So "Oh Mighty Blizzard Administrators", which one is it? Am I selling my WoW account, or my Diablo III account. I only have one, only play one, don't even play the free-to-play demo for the other. So if I'm being a naughty boy and am trying to sell one...why don't you tell *me* which one I have and am trying to sell.
Terms of Use
This is important for you to get it right as my belief will be colored by what you choose. Chose incorrectly and I'll believe that you're a bunch of stupid fucktards trying to scare me for having an account with Blizzard.net but not knowing which one I do have. Choose correctly and I'll believe that you are a bunch of stupid fucktards trying to scare me for having an account with Blizzard.net but not knowing which one I do have...but who got damn lucky. It's 50/50 odds after all.
And for those watching at home? Blizzard was compromised a little while ago. This is why they required everyone to change their passwords. Anyone with the authenticator was safe. They have since plugged the leaks and closed off the holes.
It will be ongoing for further investigation by Blizzard Entertainment's employees.English people! English! For pity's sake your fake website has a .tk address so you're either *in* New Zealand, or are one of the many Taiwanese or Korean scammers trying to make money on a computer game and are hosting on NZ servers. In either case, there are PLENTY of people in all three areas that speak English a hell of a lot better than this.
If you wish to not get your account suspended you should immediately verify your account ownership. You must complete the steps below to secure the account and your computer.
STEP 1: ACCOUNT INVESTIGATIONBoy you fellers could fuck up a wet dream. Not only do you send me to a site that is not anywhere near the Blizzard/Battle.net servers...but you say that I have to go to battle.com which is a holding page for a webhosting company looking to sell that domain.
We now provide a secure website for you to verify that you have taken the appropriate steps to secure the account, your computer, and your email address. Please go to this site and follow the instructions:
http://www.battle.com/support/article/securitywebform
Buncha dumbasses.
STEP 2: VERIFY YOUR SUBMISSION WAS RECEIVEDTRANSLATION: If we don't fuck you in the ass in 2 days, please send us your information a second time so we can try to fuck you in the ass.
We will contact you with further instructions once we have received and processed your submission. If you do not receive a reply within 48 hours of submitting this form, please resend it from the address listed above.
Please be aware that if unauthorized access to this account, it may lead to further action against the account.What unauthorized access? I have the user name, I have the correct password, I have the nifty spiffy authenticator that keeps people like you from logging in even if you have the password. AND...And I'm not trying to sell the account. Who would buy it? I have no large sums of in-game currency, I have no max-tier-geared toons, I just like running around and running quests. And playing with the Pet Battle system (It's like WoW and Pokemon gor their freak on and this was the love child).
And in any case you threatening me with further action against my account is similar to what Robin Williams said about British Police not having guns. "Stop! Or I'll say "Stop" again.". You have as much power, as much bite as the scenario he paints.
Fare Thee Well,Really? No Blizzard employee speaks that way when it comes to the legal terms of the Terms of Agreement.
Game Master DunarthraAnd they only use "in-Game" names when they're resolving an "in-game" issue and are responding to a GM ticket.
Customer Services
Pull the other one...it plays Jingle Bells.
Sorry Rob...didn't feel like using the "Agave Cactus up the ass" bit today. The storm is playing merry hob with my head and just didn't feel like it. I promise next rant I'll put in two to make it up to you so you can have fun making fun of the over-used line.
Friday, October 26, 2012
A political quickie.
To go by the political ads, the Facebook memes, the people *on* Facebook that are so rabidly in support of one candidate or the other (or even a third party candidate)...I have concluded that no matter what I do, I'm un-American.
To date I've seen...
To date I've seen...
- If you vote for Obama you're un-American for supporting a non-US Citizen that illegally became President to support Socialism and to convert us all into Muslim extremists.
- If you vote for Romney, you're an un-American Mormon supporting douchebag that is going to force gays to go to concentration and reeducation camps to have the homo beaten out of them, keep women barefoot and pregnant (and sharing the bedroom with a bazillion other "wives"), and are voting in support of letting the rich butt-fuck the poor whenever they need to rub one out.
- If you vote for a third party candidate, you're un-American because you're taking votes away from the Dirty Commie or from the filthy Polygamist who deserve them more because you're voting for these unwashed hippies.
- If you don't vote at all you're un-American for well not wanting to take your rightful place in the 300 million-plus Americans doing their patriotic duty by picking the shiniest of the turds presented.
So I have to ask. With these four statements flying around the internet in forms that may or may not be as exaggerated as I've presented here (and trust me, I've *seen* far worse)...
What must I do to be seen as a "True, Red-Blooded American"? Seriously! What do I have to do? Pull the ghost of Washington out of my ass? Go back in time and give Lincoln a handjob so we can clone him? What?
Sunday, October 21, 2012
Product Reviews.
I'm getting to the point where I'm convinced that product reviews are written by people who have no idea on how to be honest with a product's description and their experiences.
Look at some product reviews. Either they're "OMG! This was the awesomest thing on the planet EVAR!" or "Oh dear lord this product couldn't be worse if it was pulled from Satan's own backed-up septic tank after Hell's annual Chili Cook-off."
With few reviews in between.
We went to a hotel in Williamsburg Va., and it was an older, very dated and run down hotel. My honest review on Trip Advisor read thus...
To hear what others were saying, one would think that this place was roach-infested, crack-whore central with the police banging on doors and arresting some drug-dealer or prostitute at all hours of the morning.
Saw one cricket, no police ever showed up, no scary individuals...Hell, the strangest thing we saw was a father and his kid (who also went to Busch Gardens) trying to catch a skink that was running around on the stairs.
Another area of interesting product reviews are the people who give a product a bad review based on something that is not the manufacturer's fault. Like one review for a computer monitor. It came in defective and they yelled bloody blue murder about how the company is a bunch of incompetent fuck-tards. What was wrong with the monitor you ask? There was a big boot print in the packaging when the unit arrived.
Now considering that the manufacturer isn't going to want the publicity of shipping damaged equipment, the odds are that this was done during transit. Either from an accident or some employee having a bad day and taking it out on random boxes.
The kicker? The review stated that the replacement sent from Tiger Direct worked perfectly, but they still gave it 1 out of 5 on every category. Yes, even though TD said "Damn that sucks! Here, send us the damaged one back and we'll overnight a replacement at no charge to you." they bashed and bad mouthed the product as if there was a design flaw that caused the units to spontaneously manifest size-12 boot prints in the screen.
Recipe reviews are another fun category. This is the one that really makes me weep for the species. Now the missus and I are looking for new recipe ideas for dinners. Especially slow-cooker meals that we can make on the road when we get the Teardrop Camper built. Now it's fine to post opinions on such reviews. Saying that the recipe is a little bland means that people who love cooking with spices and herbs may want to taste it while it's cooking to see where such can be added to impart more flavor. Someone who reports that it's too spicy for them serves as a warning to people who are a little bit of a spice wimp that they might want to cut down on the hot stuff. Even things like "I didn't have "X" and so I substituted "Y" and it came out tasty" serves to help people who might likewise not be able to get a hold of "X" but want to still try it.
But what you actually get are a bunch of people who say "I tried the Chicken Marsala recipe but didn't have the mushrooms or the Marsala Wine (so I used vodka), and didn't have Olive Oil (substituted Vegetable Oil) and it didn't taste good at all."
Anyone who knows anything about cooking would see the mistakes right off the bat. Anyone who doesn't know cooking would at least surmise that if you don't have the ingredients called for in a recipe, you're not going to get the same results.
Olive oil has more flavor than bland old vegetable oil. Hell vegetable oil is frequently used because it has almost no flavor impact on a food. And the three defining things about Chicken Marsala are the 'shrooms, the chicken and the Marsala wine. Eliminate two out of the three and you ain't got Chicken Marsala.
Now it is possible in this recipe to use a dry red wine instead of the Marsala, it won't be Chicken Marsala, but it would still be pretty tasty. But cutting out the 'shrooms and using vodka and then saying that it "didn't taste good at all" and then blaming the recipe for it (and giving it half a star on the review)...what's your thinking?
This the kind of person who would write Chrysler and complain "My Dodge Truck ran like shit after I got drunk and drove it into a tree. You make crappy products."
eBay feedback is another fun area. This is one of those areas where if the transaction goes well everyone screams "A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++" until they run out of characters in the feedback area, or they belittle the seller if the product is not as awesome as they imagined.
I bought some used books from a chap on eBay recently. 98% positive review with a few negative ones. Let me check the negative reviews. Hrm..."Book was not in new condition...he LIED TO ME!!!" on a book that was listed in "Fair" condition with dents and dings on the hard cover, paper yellowed with age and other signs of a well cared for likewise well used and old copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Player Handbook.
Then we have "It took me two weeks to get the books after I ordered them" This one concerned me until I saw that the seller was in California and the buyer was in Ramstein Germany (my guess son of US Air Force Personnel stationed there). It took two weeks to go halfway around the planet using the least expensive shipping method so the seller didn't sell his book at a loss? Consider yourself lucky punk.
Or on a current transaction of mine. Guy complained "7 days returns HE DID not return$$$$$ after sold me JUNK". The reply from the seller was "Buyer Wanted REFUND before Item was Returned, MUST RETURN ITEM FIRST then Refund".
Which is eBay's advice to sellers. Don't ship until money clears, don't refund until product is returned.
So I've learned to read between the lines when it comes to reviews. Eliminate all the "This was the mostest awesomest thing in the whole wide world!!!" reviews, eliminate the "OMFG This was the suxxors!!!" reviews and read the ones that seem to be written by people who are capable of actually saying why something was good or why it was bad...
And to be able to do so using a reasonable grasp on the English Language. I'm not expecting Shakespearean Dialog or "The Queen's English"...but for fuck's sake hopefully you can do better than "FIRE BAD!"
Look at some product reviews. Either they're "OMG! This was the awesomest thing on the planet EVAR!" or "Oh dear lord this product couldn't be worse if it was pulled from Satan's own backed-up septic tank after Hell's annual Chili Cook-off."
With few reviews in between.
We went to a hotel in Williamsburg Va., and it was an older, very dated and run down hotel. My honest review on Trip Advisor read thus...
Seriously, the worst thing I can say about the hotel was that it is old and it shows. The rooms are dark thanks to the dark wood paneling that was popular when the hotel was built (my guess would be 60's-70's), the plaster is sporting some discoloration, and the fixtures are a bit dated.
But that's the worst I can say about it.
The staff was very friendly, the room was clean, the linens smelled fresh, and the price was reasonable for a weekend rate.
Pros - The room is clean, the water is hot and plentiful, the location is pretty centralized to most of the attractions in Williamsburg and the rates are reasonable.
Cons - The rooms are old and it shows, the mattress is firmer than I like it, but not so firm as to be uncomfortable, and due to a sticking lock we had to take a handicapped accessable room so I got stuck with a low mounted shower head (I'm 6'2 and this was set at 5'0) and we had the toilet with the elevated seat.
This would not be my first choice on my next trip to Williamsburg, but if money is an issue or nothing else in our pricerange is available...I'd not hesitate to come here again.Which is an honest assessment of the room. Everything I described in the review reflects on what we experienced in our stay there. The hotel is getting a little long in the tooth, but is well managed and kept as well as can be expected without doing a full renovation.
To hear what others were saying, one would think that this place was roach-infested, crack-whore central with the police banging on doors and arresting some drug-dealer or prostitute at all hours of the morning.
Saw one cricket, no police ever showed up, no scary individuals...Hell, the strangest thing we saw was a father and his kid (who also went to Busch Gardens) trying to catch a skink that was running around on the stairs.
Another area of interesting product reviews are the people who give a product a bad review based on something that is not the manufacturer's fault. Like one review for a computer monitor. It came in defective and they yelled bloody blue murder about how the company is a bunch of incompetent fuck-tards. What was wrong with the monitor you ask? There was a big boot print in the packaging when the unit arrived.
Now considering that the manufacturer isn't going to want the publicity of shipping damaged equipment, the odds are that this was done during transit. Either from an accident or some employee having a bad day and taking it out on random boxes.
The kicker? The review stated that the replacement sent from Tiger Direct worked perfectly, but they still gave it 1 out of 5 on every category. Yes, even though TD said "Damn that sucks! Here, send us the damaged one back and we'll overnight a replacement at no charge to you." they bashed and bad mouthed the product as if there was a design flaw that caused the units to spontaneously manifest size-12 boot prints in the screen.
Recipe reviews are another fun category. This is the one that really makes me weep for the species. Now the missus and I are looking for new recipe ideas for dinners. Especially slow-cooker meals that we can make on the road when we get the Teardrop Camper built. Now it's fine to post opinions on such reviews. Saying that the recipe is a little bland means that people who love cooking with spices and herbs may want to taste it while it's cooking to see where such can be added to impart more flavor. Someone who reports that it's too spicy for them serves as a warning to people who are a little bit of a spice wimp that they might want to cut down on the hot stuff. Even things like "I didn't have "X" and so I substituted "Y" and it came out tasty" serves to help people who might likewise not be able to get a hold of "X" but want to still try it.
But what you actually get are a bunch of people who say "I tried the Chicken Marsala recipe but didn't have the mushrooms or the Marsala Wine (so I used vodka), and didn't have Olive Oil (substituted Vegetable Oil) and it didn't taste good at all."
Anyone who knows anything about cooking would see the mistakes right off the bat. Anyone who doesn't know cooking would at least surmise that if you don't have the ingredients called for in a recipe, you're not going to get the same results.
Olive oil has more flavor than bland old vegetable oil. Hell vegetable oil is frequently used because it has almost no flavor impact on a food. And the three defining things about Chicken Marsala are the 'shrooms, the chicken and the Marsala wine. Eliminate two out of the three and you ain't got Chicken Marsala.
Now it is possible in this recipe to use a dry red wine instead of the Marsala, it won't be Chicken Marsala, but it would still be pretty tasty. But cutting out the 'shrooms and using vodka and then saying that it "didn't taste good at all" and then blaming the recipe for it (and giving it half a star on the review)...what's your thinking?
This the kind of person who would write Chrysler and complain "My Dodge Truck ran like shit after I got drunk and drove it into a tree. You make crappy products."
eBay feedback is another fun area. This is one of those areas where if the transaction goes well everyone screams "A+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++" until they run out of characters in the feedback area, or they belittle the seller if the product is not as awesome as they imagined.
I bought some used books from a chap on eBay recently. 98% positive review with a few negative ones. Let me check the negative reviews. Hrm..."Book was not in new condition...he LIED TO ME!!!" on a book that was listed in "Fair" condition with dents and dings on the hard cover, paper yellowed with age and other signs of a well cared for likewise well used and old copy of the Dungeons and Dragons Player Handbook.
Then we have "It took me two weeks to get the books after I ordered them" This one concerned me until I saw that the seller was in California and the buyer was in Ramstein Germany (my guess son of US Air Force Personnel stationed there). It took two weeks to go halfway around the planet using the least expensive shipping method so the seller didn't sell his book at a loss? Consider yourself lucky punk.
Or on a current transaction of mine. Guy complained "7 days returns HE DID not return$$$$$ after sold me JUNK". The reply from the seller was "Buyer Wanted REFUND before Item was Returned, MUST RETURN ITEM FIRST then Refund".
Which is eBay's advice to sellers. Don't ship until money clears, don't refund until product is returned.
So I've learned to read between the lines when it comes to reviews. Eliminate all the "This was the mostest awesomest thing in the whole wide world!!!" reviews, eliminate the "OMFG This was the suxxors!!!" reviews and read the ones that seem to be written by people who are capable of actually saying why something was good or why it was bad...
And to be able to do so using a reasonable grasp on the English Language. I'm not expecting Shakespearean Dialog or "The Queen's English"...but for fuck's sake hopefully you can do better than "FIRE BAD!"
Monday, October 15, 2012
I love a slow cooker.
You can make so many easy to prepare meals that are damn tasty.
Cheesy Brat Stew
There are no phases in this one because this one is a true drop, go, come home and eat recipe.
6 Bratwurst links browned and cut into 1/2 inch slices.
4 Medium Russet Potatoes peeled and cubed.
1 Small Sweet Onion peeled and chopped (more on sweet onions later)
1 Can of French Cut Green Beans (Drained)
1 Small to Medium Red Bell Pepper seeded and chopped.
1 Carrot sliced thin
2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
2/3 cup water.
Drop it all in to a slow cooker, set to medium and cook it for three hours or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
Yup. It's that simple. Drop it, cook it, serve it, eat it. We tried it this past weekend and It didn't need anything else. It was hearty, filling and just damn tasty. A lot of our recipes are evolved concoctions. We take the original recipe and say "Ooh! It needs..." or "Hrm...there's too much..." and we'll tweak it for the next go around. Eventually (like the previously mentioned Potato Soup) we get it to the point where we're happy with it and call it a recipe for the book.
This time we were totally happy with it straight off the page and into the soup pot.
Sweet onions. So far I've failed to see a point in buying plain yellow onions. They're very strong, they're pungent, and there is nothing that they can do that a sweet onion can do better. White onions have their place, Red Onions are the go to onion for salads and sandwiches...but when you're talking soups, stews, or even fried into onion rings or your own "bloomin' onion"...a sweet will just be that much more awesome.
Largely because they lack the high amount of sulfur compounds and have a higher water content than the yellows.
And it doesn't matter (much) which ones you get. Texas, Sweetie Sweets, Vidalias...they're pretty much the same and equally do a good job. The nice thing is with so many varieties, we can get them year 'round.
With the bell pepper, a lot of people avoid them because they hear Red Pepper and think "Hotter than balls!" thanks to the other red pepper (the chili pepper) and avoid it. That couldn't get much further from the truth if you tried.
Red Bell peppers are simply the more mature form of the Green Bell Pepper. The greens are at their earliest stages of being ripe and so are less sweet and a little more bitter than the Orange and the Red varieties. As they develop their color, they lose a lot of the bitter and store more sugar for the seeds.
Also Bell Peppers do not have the capsaicin that other peppers have. And if you really want to get all of the bitter out, remove any of the white stuff in the pepper. In other peppers that and the seeds are where the heat is so you can reduce the strength of the bite in other peppers that way.
So don't skip the pepper in the recipe above. It imparts a nice flavor, adds no heat or a bite to the stew and just works out well.
Cheesy Brat Stew
There are no phases in this one because this one is a true drop, go, come home and eat recipe.
6 Bratwurst links browned and cut into 1/2 inch slices.
4 Medium Russet Potatoes peeled and cubed.
1 Small Sweet Onion peeled and chopped (more on sweet onions later)
1 Can of French Cut Green Beans (Drained)
1 Small to Medium Red Bell Pepper seeded and chopped.
1 Carrot sliced thin
2 Cups Shredded Cheddar Cheese
1 can Cream of Mushroom Soup
2/3 cup water.
Drop it all in to a slow cooker, set to medium and cook it for three hours or until the potatoes are fork-tender.
Yup. It's that simple. Drop it, cook it, serve it, eat it. We tried it this past weekend and It didn't need anything else. It was hearty, filling and just damn tasty. A lot of our recipes are evolved concoctions. We take the original recipe and say "Ooh! It needs..." or "Hrm...there's too much..." and we'll tweak it for the next go around. Eventually (like the previously mentioned Potato Soup) we get it to the point where we're happy with it and call it a recipe for the book.
This time we were totally happy with it straight off the page and into the soup pot.
Sweet onions. So far I've failed to see a point in buying plain yellow onions. They're very strong, they're pungent, and there is nothing that they can do that a sweet onion can do better. White onions have their place, Red Onions are the go to onion for salads and sandwiches...but when you're talking soups, stews, or even fried into onion rings or your own "bloomin' onion"...a sweet will just be that much more awesome.
Largely because they lack the high amount of sulfur compounds and have a higher water content than the yellows.
And it doesn't matter (much) which ones you get. Texas, Sweetie Sweets, Vidalias...they're pretty much the same and equally do a good job. The nice thing is with so many varieties, we can get them year 'round.
With the bell pepper, a lot of people avoid them because they hear Red Pepper and think "Hotter than balls!" thanks to the other red pepper (the chili pepper) and avoid it. That couldn't get much further from the truth if you tried.
Red Bell peppers are simply the more mature form of the Green Bell Pepper. The greens are at their earliest stages of being ripe and so are less sweet and a little more bitter than the Orange and the Red varieties. As they develop their color, they lose a lot of the bitter and store more sugar for the seeds.
Also Bell Peppers do not have the capsaicin that other peppers have. And if you really want to get all of the bitter out, remove any of the white stuff in the pepper. In other peppers that and the seeds are where the heat is so you can reduce the strength of the bite in other peppers that way.
So don't skip the pepper in the recipe above. It imparts a nice flavor, adds no heat or a bite to the stew and just works out well.
Sunday, October 14, 2012
I got bored.
I got bored with my blog as it currently stands. I feel the need to do something different. I still plan on posting all the stupid things that I encounter and to make my rants here when I feel the need to do so...
But I find that while I'm surrounded by the stupid, not all of it is blog worthy and my posts have diminished considerably.
That and the Nigerian Scammers are getting lazy. Used to be I'd get these wonderful poorly written essays on why it sucks to be them and why I should be grateful for a chance to help them out and get some of that "Phat Cash" I'm helping them smuggle/embezzle/steal/keep out of the hands of bastard relatives/etc.
Now It's "Contact me for a financial opportunity".
Bo-ring!
So it's time to use this blog for more things. To lighten it up and chronicle interesting things like new recipies that the wife and I experiment with. Comments on the positive things that happen in the world as well as the negative. To boldly go where every other blogger has gone before!
Cue Star Trek music
So to start off....
Many of my friends (and several family members) have tried the evolved concoction that is our Potato Soup. With the exception of the extremely picky eaters (how you cook for that man Steffie I'll never know), everyone has stated that it is awesome to the extreme.
So I'm posting the recipe now that it's getting around to cold weather season and a hearty soup/stew is always a good thing.
Potato Soup
This can be done in the slow cooker or on the stove top depending on the time you have. Either works equally well and it all depends on whether you're willing to wait or want it ready within an hour of getting home.
But I find that while I'm surrounded by the stupid, not all of it is blog worthy and my posts have diminished considerably.
That and the Nigerian Scammers are getting lazy. Used to be I'd get these wonderful poorly written essays on why it sucks to be them and why I should be grateful for a chance to help them out and get some of that "Phat Cash" I'm helping them smuggle/embezzle/steal/keep out of the hands of bastard relatives/etc.
Now It's "Contact me for a financial opportunity".
Bo-ring!
So it's time to use this blog for more things. To lighten it up and chronicle interesting things like new recipies that the wife and I experiment with. Comments on the positive things that happen in the world as well as the negative. To boldly go where every other blogger has gone before!
Cue Star Trek music
So to start off....
Many of my friends (and several family members) have tried the evolved concoction that is our Potato Soup. With the exception of the extremely picky eaters (how you cook for that man Steffie I'll never know), everyone has stated that it is awesome to the extreme.
So I'm posting the recipe now that it's getting around to cold weather season and a hearty soup/stew is always a good thing.
Potato Soup
This can be done in the slow cooker or on the stove top depending on the time you have. Either works equally well and it all depends on whether you're willing to wait or want it ready within an hour of getting home.
- Phase 1 - The soup base
- 6 Potatoes, peeled and chopped.
- 1 cup chopped Onion
- 2 Carrots thinly sliced.
- 4 cups Chicken Broth (now you can use stock or if you have a quality bouillon and not that uber-hard cube of nearly pure salt you can use that to make the broth)
- 1 tsp Basil
- 1 tsp Oregano
- 1 tsp Thyme
- 1 tsp Salt (Don't skip this ingredient. Salt in moderation is fine and potatoes need salt to enhance their flavor)
- 1/2 tsp Ground Black Pepper
- 1 leftover Ham Bone (optional, but trust me on this...freeze and save that Christmas Ham Bone)
- Real Bacon (optional but highly suggested if you don't have a ham bone - Heck! Put in both for even more flavor)
- Phase 2 - The thickening and final cook
- 1/4 cup All-Purpose Flour
- 1-1/4 cup Light Cream or Half-n-Half
- 1/2 pound package of Ham Cubes
- Phase 3 - Serving and Garnish
- Real Bacon Bits (optional)
- Shredded Cheddar (optional - sharper the better but Colby, or any really flavorful cheese works nicely)
Phase 1 - Combine Potatoes, Onion, Carrots, Broth Salt, Herbs, Pepper, ham bone (if you have one) in a slow cooker or pot on the stove (set both for high) and cook until veggies are tender. This takes roughly three hours in a slow cooker.
If you don't have a ham bone, you can chop up some bacon and boil it with the rest of the ingredients. Both the Ham Bone and/or the Bacon are there simply to impart flavor into the stew.
Phase 2 - Once the veggies are tender, remove the ham bone and large chunks of meat (the boiling processes strips most of the flavor out of the ham and/or bacon) and go on to the next step.
Combine flour and cream/half-n-half and mix until all the lumps are gone and stir into soup. Add the ham cubes (optional) and continue cooking for another 30 minutes.
Phase 3 - Serve with bacon bits and shredded cheese and enjoy.
Saturday, September 1, 2012
Y'all really must want me to walk away from Facebook.
I'm serious. If this is what Social Media is degrading into, then I'll leave.
First it was the venom from the politics and the upcoming election where we hear "My candidate is super awesome and his opponent whips puppies with live rattle snakes and if you don't agree you're a baby raping son of a bitch who is going straight to hell".
Now I'm seeing more and more things out there that are ways of saying "I'm super awesomely smart, you're a stupid mouth breather and I'm going to rub your nose in your own puddle of drool if you can't come to the same answer in this basic math problem.
Even if they're wrong.
According to what I was taught in school back in the 70's and 80's (Class of '89) and what Wikipedia confirms is still being used in mathematics, science, and many programming languages currently in use, the order of operations is this.
Terms inside Parentheses or Brackets
Exponents and Roots
Multiplication and Division
Addition and Subtraction
And you do it all from left to right.
So for example, 6 - 1 x 0 + 2 / 2 = to use the one I'm pissing and moaning about...
So there are no parens or brackets, no exponents or roots, this means we start with the multiplication and division. So we have...
6-1x0+2/2=
We do the one in red first since that's the left most one and 1x0 equals zero (since any number multiplied by zero is zero) and the bit in green is 1 since any number divided by itself is 1. This changes the landscape to...
6-0+1
Which is "7"
Getting into the spirit of social media, I went in and solved the equation and posted it when someone posted it to their wall.
It was not as bad as the vile hatred and venom from political matters, but I was hit with a shit storm of "Nuh-uh!" at best and at worst was called by people too numerous for me to want to bother with counting "You are an idiot that should have failed High School and spent the rest of his life shoveling shit since that's all you're smart enough for."
That last was a direct, word-for-word quote, cut and pasted from someone who gave a different answer and decided to rip me a new one from a perspective of some self-induced intellectual superiority.
And I wasn't nasty when I made my answer. I said...
"Well, the way that I was taught math in the 80's...I come up with 7"
I called no one stupid for giving answers that don't jive with mine, I didn't claim that anyone was wrong, I simply stated that the way I was taught leads me to 7.
And trust me, I'm painfully aware that schools can play silly buggers with teaching methods. My own daughter was taught "Whole Language reading" where someone is taught a primer of words and learns to recognize them by sight as opposed to sounding them out. If they come to a word that they have never come across, they're supposed to deduce the meaning of the word and the pronunciation of the word by its use in the sentence.
Now I can understand inferring the meaning of a word through its context. For example I can have a whole language reader read this sentence "The USS Enterprise carrier group was commanded by Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey."
Even if they've never seen "Enterprise" or "Halsey" they can infer that they're names. But unless the teacher decided to add "Halsey" to that week's vocab list, I fail to see how they're going to sort out how to say it without sounding it out.
And I'd love to have a teacher of the Whole Language method explain how to sort out "antidisestablishmentarianism" either the meaning or the pronunciation.
My daughter stopped reading when she was punished for sounding out the words like she had been taught in the past because someone was trying to resurrect Whole Language.
Another example was my father who was taught "Phonic Spelling" for several years. For example, fish can be spelled "ghoti" by deriving the "f" sound from the gh in tough, the "i" sound from o in women and the "sh" sound from the ti from nation.
Imagine how fucked up your spelling is going to be for the rest of your life when you get taught this for your first several years of school and then told "Well kids, now we're going to teach you how to do it the right way"
Kinda leaves you thinking "But I thought this *was* the right way?"
So, knowing this, I didn't bad mouth anyone because not being in school myself anymore I don't know what they're being taught as an experiment. I simply stated my point of view.
But as we have learned recently, stating one's point of view is evil...and I took several verbal shotgun blasts to the face from it.
So...keep it up. You want to run me off of Facebook? Keep it up. I'll leave. I'll leave Facebook to the ones who want to turn it into a cesspool so they can wallow in their own online filth and be happy and content to do so.
As Mark Sieve as his Renaissance Fair character "Ralph Puke" of "Puke and Snot" fame once said...
"I'm like a man riding through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat. I'm in this crap, but I'm clearly above it."
First it was the venom from the politics and the upcoming election where we hear "My candidate is super awesome and his opponent whips puppies with live rattle snakes and if you don't agree you're a baby raping son of a bitch who is going straight to hell".
Now I'm seeing more and more things out there that are ways of saying "I'm super awesomely smart, you're a stupid mouth breather and I'm going to rub your nose in your own puddle of drool if you can't come to the same answer in this basic math problem.
Even if they're wrong.
According to what I was taught in school back in the 70's and 80's (Class of '89) and what Wikipedia confirms is still being used in mathematics, science, and many programming languages currently in use, the order of operations is this.
Terms inside Parentheses or Brackets
Exponents and Roots
Multiplication and Division
Addition and Subtraction
And you do it all from left to right.
So for example, 6 - 1 x 0 + 2 / 2 = to use the one I'm pissing and moaning about...
So there are no parens or brackets, no exponents or roots, this means we start with the multiplication and division. So we have...
6-1x0+2/2=
We do the one in red first since that's the left most one and 1x0 equals zero (since any number multiplied by zero is zero) and the bit in green is 1 since any number divided by itself is 1. This changes the landscape to...
6-0+1
Which is "7"
Getting into the spirit of social media, I went in and solved the equation and posted it when someone posted it to their wall.
It was not as bad as the vile hatred and venom from political matters, but I was hit with a shit storm of "Nuh-uh!" at best and at worst was called by people too numerous for me to want to bother with counting "You are an idiot that should have failed High School and spent the rest of his life shoveling shit since that's all you're smart enough for."
That last was a direct, word-for-word quote, cut and pasted from someone who gave a different answer and decided to rip me a new one from a perspective of some self-induced intellectual superiority.
And I wasn't nasty when I made my answer. I said...
"Well, the way that I was taught math in the 80's...I come up with 7"
I called no one stupid for giving answers that don't jive with mine, I didn't claim that anyone was wrong, I simply stated that the way I was taught leads me to 7.
And trust me, I'm painfully aware that schools can play silly buggers with teaching methods. My own daughter was taught "Whole Language reading" where someone is taught a primer of words and learns to recognize them by sight as opposed to sounding them out. If they come to a word that they have never come across, they're supposed to deduce the meaning of the word and the pronunciation of the word by its use in the sentence.
Now I can understand inferring the meaning of a word through its context. For example I can have a whole language reader read this sentence "The USS Enterprise carrier group was commanded by Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey."
Even if they've never seen "Enterprise" or "Halsey" they can infer that they're names. But unless the teacher decided to add "Halsey" to that week's vocab list, I fail to see how they're going to sort out how to say it without sounding it out.
And I'd love to have a teacher of the Whole Language method explain how to sort out "antidisestablishmentarianism" either the meaning or the pronunciation.
My daughter stopped reading when she was punished for sounding out the words like she had been taught in the past because someone was trying to resurrect Whole Language.
Another example was my father who was taught "Phonic Spelling" for several years. For example, fish can be spelled "ghoti" by deriving the "f" sound from the gh in tough, the "i" sound from o in women and the "sh" sound from the ti from nation.
Imagine how fucked up your spelling is going to be for the rest of your life when you get taught this for your first several years of school and then told "Well kids, now we're going to teach you how to do it the right way"
Kinda leaves you thinking "But I thought this *was* the right way?"
So, knowing this, I didn't bad mouth anyone because not being in school myself anymore I don't know what they're being taught as an experiment. I simply stated my point of view.
But as we have learned recently, stating one's point of view is evil...and I took several verbal shotgun blasts to the face from it.
So...keep it up. You want to run me off of Facebook? Keep it up. I'll leave. I'll leave Facebook to the ones who want to turn it into a cesspool so they can wallow in their own online filth and be happy and content to do so.
As Mark Sieve as his Renaissance Fair character "Ralph Puke" of "Puke and Snot" fame once said...
"I'm like a man riding through a sewer in a glass-bottomed boat. I'm in this crap, but I'm clearly above it."
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Folks, I'm done.
Seriously, I'm fucking done.
I have had it up to here (imagine a standing, 6'2" male stretching his left arm as high as it can reach) with all the politics.
Really. I'm gorram done.
I don't see people discussing politics in anything resembling a rational fashion. I see people dividing into camps and bashing everyone who doesn't see eye to eye with them.
Even if those people are friends. Even if those people are family.
And it's fucking sad.
We currently have two major sides. The left and the right. Nowadays, it seems that to get anywhere in their respective parties, you have to be that party to the extreme. Which means that with the House, Senate, PotUS and VPotUS and the Supreme Court you have 549 people running the government. Now since they're roughly split down the middle as to who is left or right, you have 0.0000881% of the Population of the US on the Right and the same on the left. Which means that 99.9998238% of this country's population are being governed by 0.00017619% of the population. Ant that 0.00017619% are a bunch of people who have long since lost the concept that the rest of us in the United States live somewhere comfortably in the middle.
Take me for example. I could go on for hours describing how I'm a "very conservative liberal" or a very liberal conservative" (as many have said about me).
So I really do not fit any label. Stop trying to shoehorn me into yours.
Don't get me wrong. You people out there have your beliefs. I may not agree with some, others I might. And others violently annoy the shit out of me. But that's my opinion and my beliefs. But you know what? I'm not going to let it color our relationship. You believe one way and I another? That's fine. We're not supposed to be carbon-copy clones of each other.
You want to believe differently than I do? Fine. Feel free to do it. I do not care. I will still be your friend, I'll still be your family. I will still like you for the qualities that managed to get our paths to merge for a while.
And that's what I'm ranting about here. This election has gone FAR nastier than others have in the past. There are people who would rather inflict a thousand paper cuts on their naughty bits and go skinny dipping in a vat of lemon juice than vote for Romney. There are others who feel the same way about Obama.
And you Ass Clowns in the Government should take note. I don't know what the fuck you are doing to really honk off the American public and whip them into the frenzy they're currently in...but fucking stop it before you seriously damabe this country. For fuck's sake people, there is at least one group in Texas who is threatening Civil War if he gets re-elected. People are saying on national news media outlets that they are willing to commit violence of Obama gets a second term. Can't you see that if you keep this shit up and keep escalating it every election that the talk might turn into real violence?
Do you fuckers *really* want that blood on your hands?
But that's not the worst of it. We have gone past the "My opponent does vile things" political ads. We are at each other's throats in Facebook and other Social Media sites. There are friendships breaking up, family members disowning each other for having the audacity to have a differing viewpoint, engagements falling apart...
What.
The.
Fuck.
People?
If you want to keep on carrying on cranky about how your BFF (former) is voting against the person you think is going to masturbate on the White House lawn and ejaculate jobs, fart economic recovery, and in general blow sunshine, rainbows, puppies and kittens up our asses...and want to disown them forever? That's fine, you keep on doing that. You want to do that to me? You wouldn't be the first and are likely not going to be the last.
I am beyond caring at this point. What I am doing is exercising my right to free and *secret* ballot. I know, this is sort of locking the barn door after the horse was stolen, but from here on out and forever more I'm keeping my political views to myself on Facebook and the Social Media outlets. I'm tired of butting heads over a bunch of cranky, moody, half-dead retards in the upper echelons of the Government. They are not worth losing my friends over.
So to that end I'm declaring my Facebook and my Google+ page a politics free zone. Matters pertaining to the elections are verboten. I will not post anything regarding the elections or the candidates unless someone does something illegal in which case I reserve the right to point my finger and say "Dumbass! Shouldn't have abused your power that way." and laugh at the thought of them ending up as some fat, greasy, tattooed bastard's buttery cornhole when they get to prison. I also will continue my tradition of deleting any posting to my wall that others make about the election and the candidates. I will also violently ignore any posting made by my friends regarding the election and the candidates.
I'm getting tired of getting pissed off at my friends and of pissing them off in return about our respective views. I'm no longer playing the game.
If the rest of the country wants to keep on with tearing their lives apart over these jackasses...fine. I'm done dancing for their amusement. The marionette is reaching up with the scissors and is cutting the strings and walking off stage.
And yes, that is is an extended mid-digit pointed in the general direction of DC.
I have had it up to here (imagine a standing, 6'2" male stretching his left arm as high as it can reach) with all the politics.
Really. I'm gorram done.
I don't see people discussing politics in anything resembling a rational fashion. I see people dividing into camps and bashing everyone who doesn't see eye to eye with them.
Even if those people are friends. Even if those people are family.
And it's fucking sad.
We currently have two major sides. The left and the right. Nowadays, it seems that to get anywhere in their respective parties, you have to be that party to the extreme. Which means that with the House, Senate, PotUS and VPotUS and the Supreme Court you have 549 people running the government. Now since they're roughly split down the middle as to who is left or right, you have 0.0000881% of the Population of the US on the Right and the same on the left. Which means that 99.9998238% of this country's population are being governed by 0.00017619% of the population. Ant that 0.00017619% are a bunch of people who have long since lost the concept that the rest of us in the United States live somewhere comfortably in the middle.
Take me for example. I could go on for hours describing how I'm a "very conservative liberal" or a very liberal conservative" (as many have said about me).
So I really do not fit any label. Stop trying to shoehorn me into yours.
Don't get me wrong. You people out there have your beliefs. I may not agree with some, others I might. And others violently annoy the shit out of me. But that's my opinion and my beliefs. But you know what? I'm not going to let it color our relationship. You believe one way and I another? That's fine. We're not supposed to be carbon-copy clones of each other.
You want to believe differently than I do? Fine. Feel free to do it. I do not care. I will still be your friend, I'll still be your family. I will still like you for the qualities that managed to get our paths to merge for a while.
And that's what I'm ranting about here. This election has gone FAR nastier than others have in the past. There are people who would rather inflict a thousand paper cuts on their naughty bits and go skinny dipping in a vat of lemon juice than vote for Romney. There are others who feel the same way about Obama.
And you Ass Clowns in the Government should take note. I don't know what the fuck you are doing to really honk off the American public and whip them into the frenzy they're currently in...but fucking stop it before you seriously damabe this country. For fuck's sake people, there is at least one group in Texas who is threatening Civil War if he gets re-elected. People are saying on national news media outlets that they are willing to commit violence of Obama gets a second term. Can't you see that if you keep this shit up and keep escalating it every election that the talk might turn into real violence?
Do you fuckers *really* want that blood on your hands?
But that's not the worst of it. We have gone past the "My opponent does vile things" political ads. We are at each other's throats in Facebook and other Social Media sites. There are friendships breaking up, family members disowning each other for having the audacity to have a differing viewpoint, engagements falling apart...
What.
The.
Fuck.
People?
If you want to keep on carrying on cranky about how your BFF (former) is voting against the person you think is going to masturbate on the White House lawn and ejaculate jobs, fart economic recovery, and in general blow sunshine, rainbows, puppies and kittens up our asses...and want to disown them forever? That's fine, you keep on doing that. You want to do that to me? You wouldn't be the first and are likely not going to be the last.
I am beyond caring at this point. What I am doing is exercising my right to free and *secret* ballot. I know, this is sort of locking the barn door after the horse was stolen, but from here on out and forever more I'm keeping my political views to myself on Facebook and the Social Media outlets. I'm tired of butting heads over a bunch of cranky, moody, half-dead retards in the upper echelons of the Government. They are not worth losing my friends over.
So to that end I'm declaring my Facebook and my Google+ page a politics free zone. Matters pertaining to the elections are verboten. I will not post anything regarding the elections or the candidates unless someone does something illegal in which case I reserve the right to point my finger and say "Dumbass! Shouldn't have abused your power that way." and laugh at the thought of them ending up as some fat, greasy, tattooed bastard's buttery cornhole when they get to prison. I also will continue my tradition of deleting any posting to my wall that others make about the election and the candidates. I will also violently ignore any posting made by my friends regarding the election and the candidates.
I'm getting tired of getting pissed off at my friends and of pissing them off in return about our respective views. I'm no longer playing the game.
If the rest of the country wants to keep on with tearing their lives apart over these jackasses...fine. I'm done dancing for their amusement. The marionette is reaching up with the scissors and is cutting the strings and walking off stage.
And yes, that is is an extended mid-digit pointed in the general direction of DC.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Mawwage! That bwessed awaingement.
Yes, "The Princess Bride" is a favorite movie of mine.
And another fun issue is the whole "Sanctity of Marriage" bullshit. Why do I call it bullshit? Isn't something to strive for? To keep the religious aspect of marriage pure? To keep it the way that it was in the Bible?
Well if that's the goal of organized religion...it suffered an EPIC FAIL worthy of the icanhascheezburger network's Fail Blog page. We have...
But on to the meat of this entry. Something that's been going around for a while on Facebroke really summed up what I think about marriage.
If you want to get down to brass tacks, my wife and I are not "married". Due to issues with visitation and her ex-husband's creepy Oompah-Loompah vibes about his children staying in a house with two people who are "living in sin" (yet he now lives with a woman who he has not yet married and his children) we were forced to get a quick Justice of the Peace jobber at the county courthouse. Unlike our first marriages, this go around was a marriage license and some county clerk to read off a standard form and a signature on the dotted line.
No religious personage officiated our marriage, it was totally a civil affair. A "Civil Union" if you'd like.
But, this is still considered a "Marriage" in the eyes of Local, County, State, and Federal Government. We have the right of survivorship, she is listed as a beneficiary on my insurance as my wife, we can file "married" on our Income Taxes, no one asks us if it was a full church do when we introduce ourselves as each other's spouse.
If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck...it's a fucking duck. And in the case of marriage, everyone agrees that we are married.
So what is the modern definition of a marriage? Marriage as it stands today in this country is a civil union that is officiated by someone whom the state recognizes as being able to sign the paperwork and officiate over the ceremony. This can, but is not required to be a religious personage.
So gay marriage. What's all the fuss about? What's the objection?
- Religion? You never hear on the news about how the Pope is pressuring the governments of the world to ban marriage to atheists, pagans, secular deists, and the like so it can't be about that.
- Love? Marriage is used by many as an easy entry into the US and often the immigrant pays good money for someone to put up with them as a spouse until permanent legal status is obtained. So it ain't love.
- Child-rearing? Wife has long since had her last child long before she met me. She can not have any more. Elderly couples get married long past their childbearing years. People who are infertile get married all the time so it's not about reproduction.
When you cut to the chase, Marriage (as the civil union that can be but does not necessarily be ratified by a religious personage) is simply an arrangement purely to afford extra services and benefits to people who claim life-long commitment to each other in a court of law.
Sounds a lot more like a legal contract doesn't it?
As the blurb wandering its way around Facebroke says...
That contract should not be limited to any particular gender any more than any other. If two men or two women can start a business together or buy a car together, why should a contract that allows them to share benefits or share insurance be any different? Once you strip away the distracting and unrelated questions of sexual practices and religious beliefs, leaving only the civic and legal agreement that is a marriage license, you quickly realize that there is no sensible argument against allowing same-sex marriages.
And another fun issue is the whole "Sanctity of Marriage" bullshit. Why do I call it bullshit? Isn't something to strive for? To keep the religious aspect of marriage pure? To keep it the way that it was in the Bible?
Well if that's the goal of organized religion...it suffered an EPIC FAIL worthy of the icanhascheezburger network's Fail Blog page. We have...
- Charlie Sheen and his "Porn Family" he wanted to create.
- Britney Spears and her 55 hour marriage
- Kim Kardashian and her 10 Million Dollar wedding that only lasted 72 days. That's just 12 days longer than my $30 World of Warcraft 60-day game time card.
- Larry King and his 8 divorces. Whatever happened to "Til Death do us part"? Having been through a divorce myself, I'm not trying to be a hypocrite. But eight times? Might want to be a bit more careful in picking a potential mate there.
- Jessie James, Tiger Woods, Newt Gingrich, Bill Clinton, and the "far to numerous to mention here" people who could not keep their peckers in their pants.
So really? Is allowing two guys or two gals to marry really going to add another black eye to the already battered and abused institution that is marriage? Really? Is it? By allowing it are we really going to have Nazi's riding on Dinosaurs causing the end of the world?
So what's my take on the whole thing? Personally I do not want to see the rights of religion used as toilet paper in this debate. As much as I rant on about how a number of religious organizations out there want to see it banned forever, I do not want to force same sex marriage onto them.
Religion should be free in this country. If a church does not want same sex marriage, they should not be forced to perform the ceremony. They should have the right to say "We believe this way and that way does not include Adam and Steve!".
Religion should be free in this country. If a church does not want same sex marriage, they should not be forced to perform the ceremony. They should have the right to say "We believe this way and that way does not include Adam and Steve!".
Fine. What would then happen is that there would be a major shifting in religions. People who are for equal rights for everyone will head to the churches that believe likewise and the people who are intolerant of such things will head to the churches that are equally intolerant.
I'm groovy with that and I think that if that were the compromise that eventually occurs, most homosexuals and people who are "Straight but not narrow" (I love that phrase) would have no problem with it and would move on to more pressing matters in their lives.
Friday, July 20, 2012
A PSA notification to my friends.
As a notification to our friends I am here to announce that we are getting a pet snake. This is going to cause some of you to freak out, some of you already have, and others are going to range from not caring one way or the other to "What kind didya get?"
- The type of snake we are getting is called a ribbon snake.
- It will not hurt you.
- It is not going to grow much larger than the thickness of a pencil.
- It will not hurt you.
- It is going to get about two feet long which is small as snakes go.
- It will not hurt you.
- It is not venomous.
- It will not hurt you.
- It is going to be living in my stepson's room.
- It will not hurt you.
- If you do not want to see it you do not have to as it will be behind a closed door.
- It will not hurt you.
- It will be in a terrarium with a securely locking screen.
- It will not hurt you.
- It is not strong enough to force its way out of said enclosure.
- It will not hurt you.
- It eats crickets and feeder gold fish so you will not see frozen and dead rodents in the freezer.
- It will not hurt you.
With that in mind, there is no reason to fear going to my house. You need never see it, you need never get near it, you need never go into the same room as it.
Please remember that my wife is as deathly afraid of snakes as many of our ophidiophobic friends are. This was her idea as she could not stand to see her son disappointed by the fact that his father would not let him have a snake. If she can deal with living in the same house with a snake, there is no reason to freak out over visiting.
That is all.
And did I mention that it is not going to hurt you?
Just checking.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Fishing with Jesus.
Coming back from the store a few towns away we passed a church that had a sigh that said "Fishing with Jesus". I'm assuming that it's some sort of sermon...but I can't help but to take it to a stranger place.
Read this with your best Jeff Foxworthy/Redneck voice in your head.
Yep...think my muse is high on acid, tripping balls again.
Read this with your best Jeff Foxworthy/Redneck voice in your head.
Lo there ma children'. Today on "Fishin' with Jesus" we're fishin' on ol' lake Witchahatchee and today we're gonna show ya how ta catch some big ol' lunker bass.
We got our old buddy Judas here in the boat with us. Course lotuvya might remember Ol' Judas caught the biggest bass ever caught on our show, and like all our guests, ol' Judas let 'im go. We had ta whack 'is ass with a boat paddle, but ol' Judas finally let 'im go.
And hey, another thing, remember conservation is everybody's responsibility, so when yer out on the lake drinkin' beer, don't jus' fling yer cans outta da boat, fill 'em up with water, make sure they sink to the bottom.
And speakin' of beer, looks lak ol' Judas drank the last one out ta cooler again. I know I gave that sumbitch 30 pieces of silver to get more afore we left. Come ta think about it never got the change back either.
Now where's that daggum boat paddle again?
Yep...think my muse is high on acid, tripping balls again.
Monday, July 16, 2012
Why do I tinker?
Two years ago I bought one of those solar patio lights. You know...one of those you see in Walmart for $4-$5 that you can line a path with.
http://www.lampsplus.com/products/Set-of-4-Crackled-Glass-Solar-LED-Outdoor-Path-Lights__R1326.html
Granted this place has them at about $15 each but Walmart had one that was similar with the glass globe but not as well made as these are.
Well it died recently. So I decided to take it apart and see what was wrong.
Popped in a new battery and it was working again. So I took out the battery and put in a new Rechargeable NiMH battery (replacing the old and busted NiCad one). I also disassembled the unit and cleaned out the globe (full of bugs) and the solar panel (covered in dried crud). Put the whole thing back together and it is working like a charm.
A lot of people would ask "Why?"
"Why would you spend the better part of an hour digging out the tools, taking the unit apart, cleaning everything up and putting in a battery that costs about half of what the light fixture itself cost? Between the battery and your time you could have just bought a new one and had done."
Yes those people would be correct. The 2-pack of rechargeable batteries costs more than the light. And with my skills I could charge $10 per hour for my time. More even. But that's not the point.
There are two main points. The first one is that it gave me ideas.
While taking it apart and seeing how it is made and how it ticks...it gave me ideas. Ideas like mounting it onto a wooden staff and making it into a wizard's staff for Halloween, Cons, Cosplay, or even better making a bunch of them and selling them on Etsy. Keeping one or more for myself of course.
Then even more ideas. Get the translucent glass paints (for making the faux stained glass) and paint it different colors. You get the nifty crackle but in whatever color you want ranging from a dignified blue for manly wizards to a sinister red for dark lords of the arcane to "Pretty pretty princess" pink for...
Well I'd say for girls who want one but I've seen too many Anime Convention pictures where the rather large, obese, and only slightly less hairy than your average Wookie men try pulling off Sailor Moon.
[shudder]
Even more ideas involve getting a different LED and replacing the one in the unit. Get one of the color changing ones and frost the inside of the glass either with etching compound or with the Glass Frosting Paints that Krylon has.
But that hour of tinkering gave me so many ideas and fed my imagination. That's got to be worth something right?
The other reason I tinkered was for a more profound reason. There are so many things that are out of our control in our world. Unemployment, Global warming (or cooling...I lost track of which one it is this week), World Hunger, Disease, Politics, The Economy, Rampant Corruption, Crime, Drugs, the Ice Capades...
Sorry...had to throw that one in in honor of George Carlin. If you get it you know what I mean.
But the news loves to bash you in the head about how horrible things are. About how we the viewers are as private parts to the powers that be. They play with us for their sport and there's sod all we can do about it.
This was a challenge. Could I resurrect this device? It's not up there with coming up with a cure for HIV or the common cold, it's not as history changing as discovering the Higgs Boson. But it was a challenge. It was something that I had the power to influence. It was a goal that was potentially within my reach. I tried and had a victory.
And what if I failed? What if I couldn't get it working? Well then I had a nifty glass globe a nice battery holder and an LED...
Add a stick from the forest across the road...I'm sure I could think of something.
http://www.lampsplus.com/products/Set-of-4-Crackled-Glass-Solar-LED-Outdoor-Path-Lights__R1326.html
Granted this place has them at about $15 each but Walmart had one that was similar with the glass globe but not as well made as these are.
Well it died recently. So I decided to take it apart and see what was wrong.
Popped in a new battery and it was working again. So I took out the battery and put in a new Rechargeable NiMH battery (replacing the old and busted NiCad one). I also disassembled the unit and cleaned out the globe (full of bugs) and the solar panel (covered in dried crud). Put the whole thing back together and it is working like a charm.
A lot of people would ask "Why?"
"Why would you spend the better part of an hour digging out the tools, taking the unit apart, cleaning everything up and putting in a battery that costs about half of what the light fixture itself cost? Between the battery and your time you could have just bought a new one and had done."
Yes those people would be correct. The 2-pack of rechargeable batteries costs more than the light. And with my skills I could charge $10 per hour for my time. More even. But that's not the point.
There are two main points. The first one is that it gave me ideas.
While taking it apart and seeing how it is made and how it ticks...it gave me ideas. Ideas like mounting it onto a wooden staff and making it into a wizard's staff for Halloween, Cons, Cosplay, or even better making a bunch of them and selling them on Etsy. Keeping one or more for myself of course.
Then even more ideas. Get the translucent glass paints (for making the faux stained glass) and paint it different colors. You get the nifty crackle but in whatever color you want ranging from a dignified blue for manly wizards to a sinister red for dark lords of the arcane to "Pretty pretty princess" pink for...
Well I'd say for girls who want one but I've seen too many Anime Convention pictures where the rather large, obese, and only slightly less hairy than your average Wookie men try pulling off Sailor Moon.
[shudder]
Even more ideas involve getting a different LED and replacing the one in the unit. Get one of the color changing ones and frost the inside of the glass either with etching compound or with the Glass Frosting Paints that Krylon has.
But that hour of tinkering gave me so many ideas and fed my imagination. That's got to be worth something right?
The other reason I tinkered was for a more profound reason. There are so many things that are out of our control in our world. Unemployment, Global warming (or cooling...I lost track of which one it is this week), World Hunger, Disease, Politics, The Economy, Rampant Corruption, Crime, Drugs, the Ice Capades...
Sorry...had to throw that one in in honor of George Carlin. If you get it you know what I mean.
But the news loves to bash you in the head about how horrible things are. About how we the viewers are as private parts to the powers that be. They play with us for their sport and there's sod all we can do about it.
This was a challenge. Could I resurrect this device? It's not up there with coming up with a cure for HIV or the common cold, it's not as history changing as discovering the Higgs Boson. But it was a challenge. It was something that I had the power to influence. It was a goal that was potentially within my reach. I tried and had a victory.
And what if I failed? What if I couldn't get it working? Well then I had a nifty glass globe a nice battery holder and an LED...
Add a stick from the forest across the road...I'm sure I could think of something.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt.
Years ago, a student managed to put together a significant number of petitions to have a certain chemical banned. And when you hear about what this chemical can do and where it is found, you yourself might want to jump on the band wagon. To give a few examples...
- contributes to the "greenhouse effect".
- may cause severe tissue damage.
- is fatal if inhaled.
- contributes to the erosion of our natural landscape.
- accelerates corrosion and rusting of many metals.
- may cause electrical failures and decreased effectiveness of automobile brakes.
- has been found in excised tumors of terminal cancer patients.
- as an industrial solvent and coolant.
- in nuclear power plants.
- in the production of Styrofoam.
- as a fire retardant.
- in many forms of cruel animal research.
- in the distribution of pesticides. Even after washing, produce remains contaminated by this chemical.
- as an additive in certain "junk-foods" and other food products.
Or how about this one? Bonzai Kittens where a website was advertising ways to get kittens to grow in jars and allow themselves to be molded to fit the shape of the jar, supposedly for a life on containment in said jar.
People were do freaked out over this that even the FBI was brought in to investigate this website.
Except that the site did not actually have the materials for sale and seemed to be nothing but pictured of kittens stuffed into jars that were large enough to accommodate them. After all, anyone who has ever owned a kitten knows just how flexible the little jokers are and how their curiosity draws them into open containers like moths to the porch light.
Don't believe me? Check out "I Can Has Cheezburger" or this youtube video of a kitten getting into and out of a hamster ball all by itself. No one forced it in, it is under no stress, and once it got out, it was trying to get back in.
Guess what? It was found to be simply a case of a humor website being created (in poor taste perhaps) that got a lot of attention of people who were very much animal lovers. It was another "something" taken out of context that had people worked up.
And in both of these cases? This was before Facebook. Before Twitter. Before the internet meme and the concept of "going viral". This was just done by good old fashioned e-mail and word of mouth.
So...why am I bringing these relics of a bygone age up? Because the same thing is happening to day. The difference is that we have Social Media and Meme's and "things going Viral". People can freak out in record breaking speeds.
I already did the bit on the "Let's drug test people who are on welfare." in my last post. It hit, I saw it spread among my friends in less than 24 hours, and 24 hours after that, when I and others like me did some research and posted the $3-4.4k to one spending to savings ratio, it died down.
Flash in the pan. Here and gone.
So again, why am I bringing this up? Because now we have things flash past regarding Obama, Romney, Genetic Modified Foods, Aluminum, Silver, Zombies (thanks to the Drug Induced attacks of recent news events), 2012 being the end of the world...and far too many to recount here.
I had honestly wanted to try and create something and post it to Facebook just so I could see what would happen. But then I decided against it since it would harm whatever I was going to blast.
So I'm simply posting here. Don't take everything you read coming across Facebook as gospel truth. Anyone with a basic photo-editing software package can take an image and put text on it that can say anything. Look at the aforementioned "I Can Has Cheezburger" site for a good example of this. But anyone can do this and say that "[X] causes [Y] and should be banned!" Anyone like [X]'s competitor, someone who holds a grudge against [X], or someone who was bored and wanted to see what people would do if they said [X] was evil.
So please...take a few minutes and do some research on your own. It's not hard. Google, Wikipedia, Bing...any decent search engine in fact. So do some research and if you think there is sufficient evidence to back up the cutsy picture, then repost it...but maybe add a link to an article or two to show that you're not just spreading FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt) but are in fact pointing out a legitimate concern.
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Facebook as a weapon.
There's a thing going around where people on Facebook are posting this photo around. It reads thus...
Say...only 2 people out of a hundred tested.
Read the article and you'll see that the whole process in Florida is spending annually $178 million to save on the high side, $98,000.
Yes, in order to prevent one dollar of taxpayer's hard earned money from supporting a drug fiend, they're spending just under $3,000 to do so.
The funny thing is? If we saw a friend on ours cheering how they won a $20 from an instant, scratch off lottery ticket and we saw them spending $200 to win that...we'd think that they were idiots.
So about the title of my post. Where does that factor in? Ever hear of lobbyists? They're groups of people who get government officials to allow them to do something that their parent companies want to do. Selling drug test kits for example.
Some one brought up an interesting point. That perhaps the people pushing for a captive market to sell their drug kits are making the initial post about the welfare stuff. After all, no one wants to think that their hard earned tax dollars are being used to support crack-heads. So you post something on a fake Facebook account (not that hard to do, I know of people who have three or four accounts just to play the games) and you let it go viral. People are so adamantly against what is said in the post and so go and repost it time and time again.
Because the post is designed to push the right buttons. Hell I'll even admit to being all for it when I first heard about this in 2011. I was just as much champing at the bit to stop this horrible thing from continuing. Then I did something. Something that makes me evil in the eyes of the lobbyists. I did my homework. I thought for myself. I did research.
Very quickly I found quite a few news articles regarding the wasted money. Including the one I linked to above. And very quickly I started realizing that while I'm against my money going to support stoners who can't be arsed to put the bong down and get a job, I'm even more against huge wastes of spending. That money could be better spent on many MANY other things ranging from lessening the tax burden to education and scholarships, to stimulating the economy to create jobs in order to get people off of welfare.
And it would not be the first time that someone has used Facebook for their nefarious purposes. We see advertisers doing it, we see politicians using it to promote themselves and to put down their opponents, we see the Westboro Baptist Church doing it.
Let's face it. It's about as low cost of a form of advertising as you can get. The only money you have to pay is for the staff to do it and the internet connection that you as a business likely already have.
So before reposting something that comes across our Facebook walls and Twitter feeds...Spend a few minutes looking it up on the internet. You might be surprised to learn that what you are supposed to be against is not nearly as bad as what really goes on behind the scenes.
Thank you Florida, Kentucky, and Missouri, which are the first states that will require drug testing when applying for welfare. Some people are crying and calling this unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional? It’s OK to drug test people who work for their money but not those who don’t? Repost this if you’d like this in all 50.Yeah, sounds horrible that people are getting on welfare while on drugs. Except that they're not. Not as many as you'd think. In fact far less than you'd think.
Say...only 2 people out of a hundred tested.
Read the article and you'll see that the whole process in Florida is spending annually $178 million to save on the high side, $98,000.
Yes, in order to prevent one dollar of taxpayer's hard earned money from supporting a drug fiend, they're spending just under $3,000 to do so.
The funny thing is? If we saw a friend on ours cheering how they won a $20 from an instant, scratch off lottery ticket and we saw them spending $200 to win that...we'd think that they were idiots.
So about the title of my post. Where does that factor in? Ever hear of lobbyists? They're groups of people who get government officials to allow them to do something that their parent companies want to do. Selling drug test kits for example.
Some one brought up an interesting point. That perhaps the people pushing for a captive market to sell their drug kits are making the initial post about the welfare stuff. After all, no one wants to think that their hard earned tax dollars are being used to support crack-heads. So you post something on a fake Facebook account (not that hard to do, I know of people who have three or four accounts just to play the games) and you let it go viral. People are so adamantly against what is said in the post and so go and repost it time and time again.
Because the post is designed to push the right buttons. Hell I'll even admit to being all for it when I first heard about this in 2011. I was just as much champing at the bit to stop this horrible thing from continuing. Then I did something. Something that makes me evil in the eyes of the lobbyists. I did my homework. I thought for myself. I did research.
Very quickly I found quite a few news articles regarding the wasted money. Including the one I linked to above. And very quickly I started realizing that while I'm against my money going to support stoners who can't be arsed to put the bong down and get a job, I'm even more against huge wastes of spending. That money could be better spent on many MANY other things ranging from lessening the tax burden to education and scholarships, to stimulating the economy to create jobs in order to get people off of welfare.
And it would not be the first time that someone has used Facebook for their nefarious purposes. We see advertisers doing it, we see politicians using it to promote themselves and to put down their opponents, we see the Westboro Baptist Church doing it.
Let's face it. It's about as low cost of a form of advertising as you can get. The only money you have to pay is for the staff to do it and the internet connection that you as a business likely already have.
So before reposting something that comes across our Facebook walls and Twitter feeds...Spend a few minutes looking it up on the internet. You might be surprised to learn that what you are supposed to be against is not nearly as bad as what really goes on behind the scenes.
Monday, April 23, 2012
And here's where I piss off the tree humpers.
Don't get me wrong. I love the planet and I do try my best to save the planet. But I'm not going to jump on the bandwagon when each and every new thing pops up. And I'm not going to be pressured into it just because it's Earth Day.
I speak of the new LED Lights from Phillips.
These bulbs are energy efficient at a really low 10 watts per hour consumption, last 30,000 hours (at 4 hours usage per night that's 20.54 years), give you 900 lumens (the light of a standard 60 watt bulb), and costs between $50 and $60.
Fuck. That.
Let's meet the contenders and crunch some numbers.
60 Watt Incandescent, 860 Lumens, 60 watts/hour, 1,500 hour lifespan (1 year), $1.00
60 Watt equivalent CFL bulb, 900 Lumens, 13 watts/hour, 10,000 hour lifespan (6.84 years), $3.00
60 Watt equivalent LED bulb, 900 Lumens, 10 watts/hour 30,000 hour lifespan (20.54 years, $50.00
Cost per 20 years:
60-watt at one year life will need one bulb per year at a total cost of $20
CFL will need three bulbs to get me to the 20 year mark at a total cost of $9
LED only needs the one bulb costing $50
CFL for the win.
20-Year Energy Usage (based on $0.09 per kilowatt for my area):
60-watt - 1,752 Kilowatts - $157.68
CFL - 379.6 Kilowatts - $34.16
LED - 292 Kilowatts - $26.28
LED for the win there.
Savings over Incandescent:
60-watt (no savings)
CFL - $123.52
LED - $131.40
LED gets the nod there as well.
Return on Investment:
60-watt (n/a)
CFL - $6.18 savings per year over 60-watt, meaning that the savings pay for the bulb in about 6 months.
LED - $6.56 savings per year, savings pay for the bulb in 7.62 years.
CFL for the win.
Now mind you that I'm not arguing that the LED's would be the best way to go all around. Take my situation for example. I live in a house with 22 fixtures that are running the CFL's. If I were to switch to the LED's I'd be saving an additional 4.38 kilowatts and $8.80 per year over the CFL's...
But I'd have to spend $1,100 to replace every light in my house to do it.
Or I can pay $66 to replace all my lights (which I have already done). Sure the LED is better, but until the price drops down to something a little more reasonable, it's a battle for inches that's not really worth it to the average consumer.
Drop that price to something reasonable and we'll switch over. Until then I'm still a lot greener than I used to be and to be honest, I think I'm green enough.
I speak of the new LED Lights from Phillips.
These bulbs are energy efficient at a really low 10 watts per hour consumption, last 30,000 hours (at 4 hours usage per night that's 20.54 years), give you 900 lumens (the light of a standard 60 watt bulb), and costs between $50 and $60.
Fuck. That.
Let's meet the contenders and crunch some numbers.
60 Watt Incandescent, 860 Lumens, 60 watts/hour, 1,500 hour lifespan (1 year), $1.00
60 Watt equivalent CFL bulb, 900 Lumens, 13 watts/hour, 10,000 hour lifespan (6.84 years), $3.00
60 Watt equivalent LED bulb, 900 Lumens, 10 watts/hour 30,000 hour lifespan (20.54 years, $50.00
Cost per 20 years:
60-watt at one year life will need one bulb per year at a total cost of $20
CFL will need three bulbs to get me to the 20 year mark at a total cost of $9
LED only needs the one bulb costing $50
CFL for the win.
20-Year Energy Usage (based on $0.09 per kilowatt for my area):
60-watt - 1,752 Kilowatts - $157.68
CFL - 379.6 Kilowatts - $34.16
LED - 292 Kilowatts - $26.28
LED for the win there.
Savings over Incandescent:
60-watt (no savings)
CFL - $123.52
LED - $131.40
LED gets the nod there as well.
Return on Investment:
60-watt (n/a)
CFL - $6.18 savings per year over 60-watt, meaning that the savings pay for the bulb in about 6 months.
LED - $6.56 savings per year, savings pay for the bulb in 7.62 years.
CFL for the win.
Now mind you that I'm not arguing that the LED's would be the best way to go all around. Take my situation for example. I live in a house with 22 fixtures that are running the CFL's. If I were to switch to the LED's I'd be saving an additional 4.38 kilowatts and $8.80 per year over the CFL's...
But I'd have to spend $1,100 to replace every light in my house to do it.
Or I can pay $66 to replace all my lights (which I have already done). Sure the LED is better, but until the price drops down to something a little more reasonable, it's a battle for inches that's not really worth it to the average consumer.
Drop that price to something reasonable and we'll switch over. Until then I'm still a lot greener than I used to be and to be honest, I think I'm green enough.
Friday, April 6, 2012
How stupid do they think we are...
Oh yeah...they wouldn't be doing this if people didn't fall for it. But this one is supposedly from "Fedex". This is what I sent back to them.
And how in the name of Zeus's sweaty ball sack do you know what is in my package? Who are you to be looking into my mail?
Shit!
I am not paying a goddamned thing. It is the responsibility of the shipper (the aforementioned payment officer whom is currently in Africa) to pay any fees regarding shipping. And since you somehow managed to have this package get stuck in one of your holding areas for some reason that is certainly not my fault...it is not my responsibility to pay you a fucking thing. You have that package, you have my address on the shipping label and in your computer system (and you should because if you have my e-mail address in your computer and can identify the package well enough to link it to me...then you jolly well have my shipping address) you can get off your stupid fat asses and fucking send it to me...
NOW!!!
And certainly not at Yahoo.com.hk (Hong Kong) when you are supposed to be a branch in Africa.
Being an overnight shipping service, you should be able to get it to me faster than that. Overnight means (according to your advertisements) that you can have it on my desk from anywhere in the world by 11am. So hop to it fuckers.
Mr. Mongo Q. Skruddgemire
Too smart to be fooled by your nonsense LTD.
All rights reversed. © 1971-2012
We have been waiting for you to contact us for your Confirmed Packagethat is registered with us for shipping to your residential location.We had thought that your sender gave you our contact details. It mayinterest you to know that a letter is also added to your package.However, we cannot quote its content to you via email for privacy reasons.And...I'm supposed to be doing your job for you? Last I checked it is *your* responsibility to use the contact information on the packaging and/or shipping label and/or the information in your computers to route the package from whomever sent it to my address. It has *never* been my responsibility to have to tell your company, UPS, US Postal Service, or any company out there that I'm expecting a package and that they should bring it to me.
We understand that the content of your package itself is a Bank Draftworth $750,000.00 USD,FedEx does not ship money in CASH but Bank Draftsare Shippable. The package is registered with us for mailing by yourpayment officer, and he did inform us that he is the payment officerresponsible for your funds and due to some logistic reasons ir could notbe delivered before now that he is from the United Kingdom but he is herein Nigeria for a three (3) months diplomatic assignment in West Africa. Weare sending you this email because your package is been registered on aSpecial Order.
And how in the name of Zeus's sweaty ball sack do you know what is in my package? Who are you to be looking into my mail?
What you have to do now, is to contact our Delivery Department forImmediate dispatch of your package to your residential address; you willhave to pay thesum of $120 USD to the FedEx Delivery Department being fullpayment for the Security Keeping Fee of the FedEx Company as stated in ourprivacy terms & condition page. Note that as soon as our Delivery Teamconfirm your information, it will take only one working day (24 hours) foryour package to arrive it's designated destination. For your information,the VAT & Shipping charges as well as Insurance fees have been paid for byyour payment officer before your package was registered.Bull...
Shit!
I am not paying a goddamned thing. It is the responsibility of the shipper (the aforementioned payment officer whom is currently in Africa) to pay any fees regarding shipping. And since you somehow managed to have this package get stuck in one of your holding areas for some reason that is certainly not my fault...it is not my responsibility to pay you a fucking thing. You have that package, you have my address on the shipping label and in your computer system (and you should because if you have my e-mail address in your computer and can identify the package well enough to link it to me...then you jolly well have my shipping address) you can get off your stupid fat asses and fucking send it to me...
NOW!!!
Kindly contact the delivery department (FedEx Delivery Post) with thedetails given below:Whoops! Now we see that this is a scam. You see, there is no West Africa office. There is one in South Africa, but not the area that you point out. Also their addresses are [name]@fedex.com, @fedex.com.uk, or otherwise @fedex.[country identifier] and not yahoo.com.
FedEx Express ®Courier Company West-Africa .Mr. Josip Rozmanic { Head Dispatch Unit }E-mail: fedex_deliveryunit1@yahoo.com.hkTell:+234 705-190-6700
And certainly not at Yahoo.com.hk (Hong Kong) when you are supposed to be a branch in Africa.
Please Kindly reconfirm the details below via email:Well if you weren't a scam, I'd have to point out to you that if you could utilize enough of the shipping label on the package to identify my e-mail address, then you already have that information
FULL NAMES:TELEPHONE:MOBILE:POSTAL ADDRESS:CITY:STATE:COUNTRY:
As soon as your details are received, our delivery team will give you thenecessary payment procedure so that you can effect the payment for theSecurity Keeping Fee. As soon as they confirm your payment receipt of $120USD, they will not hesitate to dispatch your package as well as theattached letter to your residence. It usually takes 24 hours being anovernight delivery service.Nope. Wrong again!
Being an overnight shipping service, you should be able to get it to me faster than that. Overnight means (according to your advertisements) that you can have it on my desk from anywhere in the world by 11am. So hop to it fuckers.
Note that we were not instructed to email you, but due to the highpriority of your package we had to inform you as your sender did not leaveus with his phone number because he stated that he just arrived Nigeriaand he hasn't registered a phone yet. We indeed personally sealed yourBank Draft and we found your email contact in the receiver?s column as therecipient of the foremost package.No member of any country's diplomatic service would be without a government issues mobile phone in order to contact them at any time day or night. And even then you need not have emailed me anyway. You have my address, you should have just kept up your part of the contract and shipped the goddamn package.
Ensure to contact the delivery department with the email address givenabove and ensure to fill the above form as well for a successfulreconfirmation.Wow! Up to this point you had stellar grammar (compared to most of these scam letters that is) but what the fuck happened?
Yours Faithfully,Mrs. Sawad Susan MarinaFedEx Team Management.All rights reserved. © 1995-2012Get fucked with a red hot agave cactus (yeah, I used it again Rob. Watcha gonna do about it?),
Mr. Mongo Q. Skruddgemire
Too smart to be fooled by your nonsense LTD.
All rights reversed. © 1971-2012
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