425Talker

This twitter WTF??

2011-10-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine has been on twitter in the past and didn't use it much. Recently, he opened a new account and has been thinking of using it more and letting Face book cool on the back burner a bit---

So today he sends me this e-mail

"So today I open my Gmail and I have about 20 new people following me on twitter. I open one and its someone from Malaysia. All their posts are in Malaysian, or whatever they speak. So I click block. Then I go back to my email. ALL of the new followers are from other countries and none of their posts are in English. I blocked them all. Just opened my email, there are MORE, followers from other countries. WTF"?

Here was my response:

There is no need to "block" people, if someone wants to follow you, let them, it is like someone reading your blog, there is no urgency to reach less people, unless you are running a secret society. There are tons of people out there who will follow you with the only expectation that you will follow them back. They just want to be able to say "Hey look at me I got 25,000 followers in 3 months'! Uh ..whatever. The giveaway is somebody who say for instance sells bridal gowns, and that is all they tweet about, suddenly out of the blue they are following you, The odds are they want you to follow them back. There are actually software programs that do this digital phishing. If after a week or so if you don't follow back they disappear. My own pet peeve is people who call themselves "social media experts". They want lots of followers to in fact prove that they are experts at what they claim. Invariably they have a blog and write about things like "Top ten ways to improve web traffic". These people LOVE the words TOP TEN!! I mostly don't follow these people because they seem to be all in a giant pit of silly sameness. Then many businesses will follow, (like restaurants), also wanting a follow back and they are looking for free advertising, and a cheap way to get their message out.

Either it is public or it isn't. There are things you can go on and "categorize" yourself. For instance you can put Aerospace, Photography and Cooking as your interests that you tweet about. Then people searching that might follow you. Also of course they search your Bio, if you have a blog put a link in the bio. There is an expectation if you have 10,000 followers you have more influence in the world than if you have 100. Of course if your 100 followers were heavyweights like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Steve Jobs, etc those 100 might be mucho more important than the 10,000 but that is another discussion. There are sites you can go on to actually buy followers and I don't know how that works. Followers are generally considered good unless it is offensive like maybe porn or spam. Don't be stingy many people are out there slack-jawed and hungry for your wisdom. it is all about sharing right?

You have to decide of course why you are on there, on twitter, and what you want to get out of it.

I have a dude I follow in Singapore (never met, don't know well), and we have had discussions about a variety of things. I think it is pretty cool you have people following you from foreign countries. Don't assume because they mainly write in a foreign language they can't read or communicate in yours. My neighbor is on twitter and she mainly writes in Japanese!

I have actually met up with people IRL that I have only known through twitter, which is weird but good. It is literally a digital community of your own building, it is a digital garden and it grows with the TLC you put into it and the way you tend it. You can be stoic and machine like on twitter or very friendly, open, and gregarious. Of course you know me, I am an opinionated, fairly fearless, wide-open warrior of the good argument, the good discourse, and I am not hiding from anyone. People in America talk about the disenfranchised 99%, well maybe they should make themselves heard a little more. I also like to bring interesting stuff to the table, interesting links, and stuff I do myself like this writing or maybe photos which I take. I have been interested in photography since I was a little kid so it leaks through the fabric of what is me. The more I use twitter the more I see the value in it.

So for me I use twitter more now to find out what is going on in the world, like right damn now, what's happening?? I use it like I used to use DIGG and Reddit.It is better though because it is more focused to followers because I pick and choose, I fine tune my stream regularly-

I use it for news about specific categories of things like Aerospace= @flightblogger and @runwaygirl get on the planefolk list

I use it for comedy so that= @robdelaney and @uncledynamite for instance get on the funny list

I use it for local community so I have local #duvall people and #98019 people because the Snoqualmie Valley is it's own bizarre little ecosphere

You can make lists and put all the people and accounts on that list you want. So you can search for 'woodworking" or :"bloodwood" and then check those people out. You can follow them and add them to the list "woodworking wonks". If later on they get flaky you can delete them to "deleted island". If however someone is truly priceless you might look at the people THEY follow, there might well be some gems in there. You can set up lists that are quite different then just pull up that specific list to see what is happening. You might want a list of "Granite Falls Residents", those people often discuss things you won't read about in the Seattle Times. Use the Find People search window on twitter. Put in Granite Falls just to see how many of your neighbors are on twitter and who they are, and what they are into- I bet it surprises you.

By the by, I think you have an excellent question and I am going to post this response as a blog post. Some people got the original notion that with twitter they were supposed to simply tell people where they were eating lunch, I delete those people. If they do the foursquare thing much and tell me they are "mayor of Woodinville Starbucks", I delete them. Another thing is you can have boring people on a list like "Granite Falls Folks" without Following them and vice-versa, does that help at all??

My number one rule is; don't bore people, their tiny fragile lives are short, and don't tolerate people who bore you either-- tweet on brother!

Happy birthday Ego!?

2010-08-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

It is my birthday and I haven't blogged in a while. A school friend Mike K said that he had a blog and stopped because he thought it was just an ego jerk sort of thing, I have been considering this take on blogging. Sadly, I think he also deleted/threw away everything he wrote. Yes, I would be interested in reading his thoughts.

I often ask people what were the best five years of their lives and they invariably say high school or the five years after graduation. I wonder if this is why so many people only listen to the music that was popular when they were in high school?

So witness the picture above, found at my mother's, while discussing my current birthday. this is possibly the only known photo of myself and my two brothers where we all look somewhat normal, and somewhat happy as psuedo-adults. During this period of life I worked at Lockheed and had a secret security clearance, worked out and played basketball, I was on a very good softball team, even started wearing a diamond earring. In short I thought i was damn cool. I found the various women of Southern California to be surprisingly aggressive. I thought this period of my life I was maybe at "my peak". in fact if you would have asked me if I could turn the clock back to any point of my life I would have most likely picked this moment pictured,... HA!

Now looking at this picture, I think I look skinny and need a haircut. I realize my recollection of the past is circumspect. How odd to not even remember your own life with clarity. it seems maybe my life right now is the best I can be. Possibly wisdom does come with age. We can be forgetful as we get older but we have many, many more important things to remember as time goes on and we experience more of life. It seems clearly priorities now are much different than they were back then. Realizing this might be my best birthday present. The best might be living fully in the present.

Twitter= Sustainable value? YES!

2010-02-12T10:51:00.000-08:00

Of what value is twitter to me?

Me; this 21st century Renaissance man, IMM (in my mind), with a multitude of interests and being very busy of course (don't we all say we are very busy?), what does twitter do for me? Is twitter unique, or just another social media fad that will soon be but a cool shadow in the alleyway of the unused, unwanted and unloved?
I use twitter as a search engine for what is happening in the world and it works very well indeed. With the "lists" feature I can list people, writers, who have their tight little grips on a certain niche of information.

An example would be the "aviation" field, I can follow @flightblogger, @runwaygirl and @Heather_Poole among maybe 25 accounts in all. this gives me a tightly focused news feed from people/sources that I have winnowed out to be valuable to possibly just me.
I ultimately do this myself every day. I hardly ever buy an actual newspaper anymore, I go online, from computer or phone, and scan several news sources for the bits that seem most tasty and useful. If I can locate others that seem of a like mind and they list/mention what they are finding of interest on twitter, it really saves me time, all the while giving me a different, broader perspective, and takes me to places I wouldn't locate on my own. Obviously, searching other people's list of those they follow on twitter gives me leads to the talking heads and info-generators that are tangential to my own life.

I don't see this same ability on; Facebook, Plaxo, Linkin or many of the other social media sites and see them as more of a white pages of who they are. Rated at the top of "social media" are also Reddit and Digg, and they are great but that news is unfiltered as to a particular group of people, and "Youtube" serves a different purpose as well. These sites are often what people put links to on twitter, I don't see them as supplanting twitter. Twitter's use, as far as tweets generated, is over a billion tweets a month http://royal.pingdom.com/2010/02/10/twitter-now-more-than-1-billion-tweets-per-month/ . Twitter continues to grow in importance regardless of what you may have heard. In the same way that snow in D.C. does not supplant the impact of global warming/climate change, so too does the fact that the "dude in the cubicle three over" tweeted for six months and stopped, does not change the fact of twitter's grip on modern news dissemination.

People have said many times that twitter is rubbish, and several embraced the Pear Analytics study that "40% of twitter is pointless babble" last summer, http://www.pearanalytics.com/blog/2009/twitter-study-reveals-interesting-results-40-percent-pointless-babble/ . Well this is quite true, however about 90% of the Seattle Times is; pointless babble, crap I have no interest or use for, ADVERTISING, and poorly written drivel. It is that 10% of shiny nuggets I look for and value.
If we discuss TV, then this figure of "pointless babble" goes to 99%, most especially if we are discussing a Television news broadcast. To calculate FOX News, a cursory understanding of the principles of Six Sigma would be of help.

So if your twitter is dull it is your own lazy fault my friend. Using many services such as Tweetdeck a inquisitive industrious person can have several columns of spicy, meaty topics, divided according to the users own desires and needs.
From the Iranian Revolution to the recent resignation of the CEO of Sun Microsystems, in this day and age twitter is usually the first source, the most varied and unbiased, and the one that can be tailored to tastes you find the most palatable.

So if you most post 'pointles babble" it's OK, I can live with it,go!

The value of Time

2010-01-23T10:55:00.001-08:00

What is the value of time?

People say time is money but that is not true. You can in fact make more money, you can magnify how much money you make in a variety of ways; legal, illegal, risky or safe, but you can never make more time for yourself.

To make matters worse no one knows how much time they will have on this earth. Those old fucks who live to be 97 screw someone else over to make the average in the US around 74 or so, someone has to die quite young to make those averages work out don't they?

It is like musical chairs but you don't win a pie, you just win the right to keep getting up in the morning and going to work, putting the pants on one leg at a time, pet the dog, kiss the wife, call mom once in a while and see what's on TV tonight.
Where I work there are actuarial tables which show if "retire" and move on at 45 your life expectancy is 85, however if you work till 65 your life expectancy is 66.5! Yet people stay on because of medical insurance and "not having quite enough money to get the Lexus paid off first". Of course getting the Lexus paid off is a metaphor because the Lexus of life will never be paid off will it? Just as Sisyphus' boulder will never be up at the top of the hill and set to rest, the Lexus will never be paid off.

I tell the young bucks at work to think about their last day on earth and laying on their deathbed tallying up their lives. Will the new car, the jetski or the 56" TV matter then? Not a whip.

Recently a guy at work, an athlete actually, died at the age of 52, he was a bicycler. At first people said he was 48 and I was comforted just a bit when I saw he was born April of 57. He was always first in his races and first up the hills and now he is first toward the bright light I suppose. The last time I saw him his eyes were red and he was obviously stressed out and irritable, he said he "just didn't have the time for this project" he was supposed to be part of and walked out. Now it would seem he has plenty of time to slow down, be last in races and enjoy things.

So I try and take things one-day-at-a-time and really spend all those minutes in the day as wisely as I can. I think about when I was a child and went to the penny candy store called "Harry Heads" (his actual name), I would look at my small fist "monies" and really calculate how much I would get, how much candy bang for the penny I could figure out. My pennies were precious, and time not so much, time seemed forever and I longed to grow up and have the power to make my own decisions in life and do whatever I wanted.

Now I realize what I really want is to make more time, but more time is not to be made.

http://www.shurupov.ru/time/

Thoughts on Car Pool Lanes:

2009-12-19T10:07:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

Yesterday, while heading home from work, I noticed a gigantic, jacked up full sized pickup truck bouncing down the I-405 south car pool lane, trying to herd it between the lines. I was thinking why should a mess like that be in the car pool lanes, then it hit me, the solution.

I don't know how it works where you live, but the carpool lanes here in the greater Seattle area are an absolute disaster.

The traffic here is horrible and the car pool lanes are not helping a whit. Indeed many times trying to drive south near Renton traffic is bumper to bumper stopped and the car pool lane is virtually empty. The car pool lanes here actually make driving considerably more dangerous.

I am assuming the main intent is to convince people during rush hour traffic to carpool so that there are less cars on the road. So now un-employed house wives use the carpool lanes to go shopping during rush hour in their monstrous SUV's, and take a three year-old child with them to be legal. This does not get cars off the road. Also many carpool lanes here were literally 24 hours a day, the lions' share of the time they sat empty while working folk commuted to work at 5:30 am, what a screaming waste!
It is so bad here that Tim Eyman recently had a referendum on the ballot to entirely dispose of them!
Here is the solution I am confidant you will agree it is elegant.
Change the car pool lanes to ECO-LANES!
They will only be used by vehicles that get 30 miles to the gallon or more. A sticker would be purchased to affix somewhere that is clearly visible. I have noticed that virtually all the huge SUV's cruising the carpool lanes have heavily tinted windows, who knows how many people or legal drivers might actually be in there? The police would have to pull them over just to check!
Of course this solution would not only help with traffic, it would help to minimize buying foreign oil, it would help in the department of global warming as well! The more I think about it, the better the solution works.

Current situation: Car pool lanes are being used by people carrying individuals who are not legal drivers, who are not commuting to work, the intention it being abused. Cars used in the car pool lane are often three time the size and weight, and burn three times the gas of a commuter car.

Proposed Solution: Make the Eco Lanes about real improvement of; traffic, fuel use, carbon emission, pollution, safety, and wasting the very limited resources we have!

How can Twitter turn a buck?

2009-12-08T20:47:00.000-08:00

Image via Wikipedia

How can Twitter turn a buck?

We keep hearing stories about maybe Twitter will be sold, and nothing happens. We hear about revenue models but nothing happens. The idea that keeps getting kicked around is advertising ala Google, and yet there doesn't seem to be any concrete idea how to make it work and nothing happens. To me this is a failure.

I feel just treading water in the rapid breakneck social media world is the very definition of failure. How big a failure? Big. Jolie O'Dell says it is one of the "Top ten failures of 2009" http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/top_10_failures_of_2009.php I agree. The promise was so great and the growth so fast to not make a major move of some kind really saps the momentum. Can you feel the slowing of the Twitter momentum? Yeah I can too.

We can talk about MySpace and how it went from 60% to some 30% of the market in one year and now will lose some hundreds of millions of dollars. In my opinion something like a social media service once tainted as being undesirable and un-cool is almost un-repairable. I don't think we will be able to re-cool MySpace. We can talk about all the little Twitter copycats too.
http://www.wired.com/software/webservices/news/2007/05/twitter_clones

So what to do?
I find the downtime and lack of service or "Fail Whale" the most disturbing aspect of Twitter. It was funny at first, now I wonder if there is any plan at all to move on this and get the infrastructure fixed. I know this costs money.

How to make money? I would look at the users and grade them. We have all seen the studies that a fairly small percentage of people do 90% of the tweeting I would charge these people. A formula should be utilized which considers the amount of tweets, the number of followers, and the value therein. Personally I would pay a small fee, say $10 a year for better service. I would rather deal with this than cheesy advertising. Whatever you decide Twitter hurry up! You are running out of time.

What the Hell does that Woman want for Christmas?

2009-12-05T17:19:00.000-08:00

What the hell does that woman want for Christmas?

Are men and woman different in what they like to get for Christmas, or presents in general? Sure they are, and you know they are, but sometimes slip up in the thinking anyway. Have you ever heard a woman say this, "I don't want anything that plugs in"? Think about that while I make an all encompassing statement;" If you buy her something to wear, that she really wants, you will rarely go wrong".

Think about this in the most round terms. Women wear perfume and virtually all woman want a exotic scent they think as their own. Woman like jewelry. If you have the means, every woman should have diamond earrings and a pearl necklace as classic pieces of jewelry, these can vary in price wildly of course. Women like clothes and if you can latch onto a jacket, dress or shoes she really likes, she will be most happy and also appreciate the effort you have taken to notice what she likes and admires in dressing style. This includes purses of course and if she is a business woman that travels, a nice briefcase or laptop case is part of the package. Cell phones are considered a necessity by most women and a nice I-phone or blackberry could be very handy and help her stay organized and save time.

In broader terms when a woman gets in her car she wears it, I am not suggesting you buy her a new car for Christmas, but it follows with this whole "wearing" concept. In the same way a day at a spa for pampering is something she is seen in, it is something she puts on, a facial etc. A new kitchen, or just new paint, is part of her ensemble. Men rarely care all that much the color of the kitchen wall. You metro-sexual, Architectural Digest magazine readers, I am not speaking to you.
Contrast this with most standard issue, heterosexual men, they want toys.

Things that plug in are fine. If you give a man who woodworks a nice table saw he doesn't think of it as a tool to work with, he sees it as a toy to play with. If you buy him a nice pistol, he doesn't think "oh now I can protect my family", he thinks "ah this is going to make noise, make the other boys jealous, feel nice in my hands, and be fun to play with". A car can be seen as a status symbol by both men and women but guys oftentimes will want to "thrash" a 4x4, dirt bike, maybe even a pontoon boat through rapids, and make no mistake they are playing with their big toys out in the world's sandbox. If you are looking cheap, many men like a video game that caters to their interests, if they like racing maybe a racing game, if they like sitting around and drinking beer, maybe a Wii so they will move occasionally, their skin won't graft with the recliner vinyl.

Men rarely want clothes for gifts, clothes are something required by law to wear in public, you cannot play with clothes.

If you give someone money it says "I don't know you that well, and I don't want to work very hard at this whole gift thingy". If you give them a gym membership it says "god I wish you would clean up your fat-ass act'! If you give them a vacuum cleaner it says "yes the house is dirty and this kills two birds with one stone..right"? If you get them a book or CD it says " here this was cheap, easy to buy, easy to wrap and it technically fulfills the minimum gift requirement". if you buy someone booze it means "hey this is the minimum gift and also I can share it, and I need a shot right now". If you get someone some type of subscription it means "I want to piss you off for the next YEAR"! If you send them a fruit cake or one of those boxes full of sausage, cheese and crackers it means "secretly I hate you and want to poison you". If you give a nephew or grandchild a drum set or puppy it means "HA! you thought my revenge would never arrive and now here it is"!
Homemade gifts? Ahh..it depends of course but the hook is the gift receiver feels obligated to keep it. A book or ugly sweater (unless you knitted it),they can ditch and say they lost it. If you paint them a picture that is 20"x30" and they really hate it but know you put a lot of work into it? Ahh...tough, a Jerry Seinfeld episode of a mess.

Christmas is basically for kids IMHO, but I told my wife today she was" the equivalent of a hard-headed five year old girl". She said "and you are like a 13 year old boy". I said "so I am older than you", she said "yes but boys are more immature so divide by two and there you are". There we are indeed.

Thoughts on our Holidays

2009-11-15T18:21:00.000-08:00

Today my wife went into the post office and it was closed being November 11, she asked an older man there “this must be a holiday”? He said snottily “yes young lady,… this is VETERAN”S DAY”!

Anyway it got me thinking about holidays and what we celebrate and how, the meaning and importance of our holidays and how things are changing.

January 1- The New Year of course at least in most of the western world. I like it from the standpoint it is non-political and basic, it is not someone’s birthday and it is non-religious. It marks the change of seasons and the passage of time and we can all agree these things are in fact important in the larger swirling cosmos of things.

January 18- MLK Day Not so much for me. I think Martin Luther King was a good man and I think he worked hard for changes for the betterment of civil rights in America, which is cool. But his agenda was limited, he wasn’t for equal rights for all, for instance gays, he was about black equal rights when you get right down to it. I feel he was second or third tier when compared to Abe for instance. I also think if he lived, instead of dying a martyr, his reputation would have been dramatically different, just look at the changed opinion of Ralph Nader as an example. MLK’s reputation has grown so outsized to what he really was that it is the only holiday of the year the Seattle Times takes a full page ad to promote every year-preposterous!

February 2- Ground Hog Day A simple holiday without much importance it has become a cultural thing since the movie “Ground Hog Day”. When asked how they doing people now sometimes say “its ground hog day” to indicate the day is the same as yesterday or “same shit different day”. Just about everybody can relate to this, but it isn’t worth a day off. (see Black Friday).

February 7- Super Bowl Sunday One of the very few activities left almost all Americans participate in. Those that don’t like the games like the TV commercials, there are parties everywhere, and it is the biggest gambling day in the world! It is a time to reflect on the Holidays maybe not with your family but your friends. More people are loaded that Sunday afternoon than maybe even New Year’s Eve. Simply put, Super Bowl Sunday is a monster whether you like it or not. People from other areas that can’t even speak English, strangely, can relate to this blood bath of schlock.

Feb 10?- Chinese New Year I don’t know about you and where you live but Chinese New Year gets bigger and bigger every year around the greater Seattle area. We do live in a diverse culture here, and this holiday is celebrated by many Asian communities and also by people connected to them. This holiday seems to vary year to year according to date because it is tied to the lunar calendar. In addition there seems to be separate New Year’s celebrations by some of the SE Asian groups, on different days and some of these will glom onto the Chinese dates, others will stubbornly stay separate. Even on close interrogation- er..questioning it is hard to really tie down the exact dates here. Also it seems the main group-of-people feels this is a three day holiday but some will celebrate for two weeks. Asian’s in general do not have holidays throughout the year as Americans or Europeans do (the more the better IMHO), so this is a big deal; a combination of Christmas, Thanksgiving, New Years and everything else all wrapped up in a huge bash!

My prediction is this: CNY will continue to grow and get bigger and more visible as we blindly Wall Mart ourselves into oblivion.
February 14- Valentine’s Day is a big thing whether you want to admit it or not guys. Yeah it is just a Hallmark Holiday kind of deal to screw you out of time and money but it will cost you if you don’t pay attention. Women view this as a romance thing, if you don’t get involved somehow it is like you are saying you don’t feel the need to woo your woman anymore, you take her for granted.
If you are in one of those “gee whiz I think I should break up with them deals” do it before Thanksgiving for crying out loud. The holidays are a time when many people have parties and mixers, hence this is a good time to be a free agent, yes it can be lonely but a melancholy holiday with the wrong person is worser I thinks.

February 15- President’s Day is one reason for writing this, what a twisted-corpse of a holiday this is! We used to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s actual birthdays on the 12th and the 22nd respectively. Now we glom all presidents together! WHAT! The name of George W. Bush shouldn’t even be in the same paragraph as that of truly great men. Now this holiday is worse than meaningless, it is insulting to those we should actually honor. In times gone past all kinds of stores would give out free cherry pies on George’s B-day. We need to get rid of-or change this horrible idea gone grotesquely wrong.

March 17- St Patrick’s Day If you feel the need to play the Irish card or you are at that stage of alcoholism where you need an excuse to drink excessively. Green beer-Nyquil what’s the difference?

April 2- Good Friday Uhh…what?

April 4- Easter Sunday Well there is Easter Candy, although the candy isn’t as good a deal as Halloween’s. This is now mainly just a Christian Holiday based on when Christ supposedly arose from the grave. Actually it was the spring equinox festival the Christians were trying to supplant. This holiday, more even than Christmas (Saturnalia), really has become the most successful “taking over” of a secular holiday by the church. Interestingly, I have discovered the whole thought about the dead’s spirit rising three days the body’s death is a very universal idea and is common amongst Asian cultures.

April 15- Tax Day similar to Valentine’s Day actually, in that if you forget it, you will pay stiff penalties. If you forget Valentine’s Day maybe no-get-laid, if you forget Tax day maybe get laid by Uncle Sam against your will and big whisker burn on your back!!

April 22- Earth Day something for grade-schoolers to draw pictures about. You will have to pry my carbon footprint off my cold dead foot.
May 1- May Day Originally a pagan religious holiday it was often celebrated with a may pole by Germanic Paganism. A central pole had ribbons emanating from the top which people would hold and circle, symbolizing the seasons and the circle of life. This holiday is also the traditional day to celebrate many workers rights, Labor Day and International Workers Rights day. Interestingly May Day is also the international distress call which supposedly means in French “you come help me”, HA!

May 5- Cinco de Mayo This was the day of a big turning point battle in Mexico, it is not the Mexican Independence Day, although many think it should be. Many also think it should be an American holiday and as the Hispanic population continues to grow and is now by far the largest subset in America, who knows? It is the Mexican equivalent of St Patrick’s Day and involves mucho partying. It also seems to be a good time to party as it is the kick off of good hot weather eh?

May 9- Mother’s Day Ah the chance to go out and stand in line for a truly mediocre meal! She gave birth to you for crying out loud, do SOMETHING for her! Anna Jarvis who instituted this holiday in Grafton, West Virginia was so put off by the Hallmark commercialism of it she opposed it at the end of her life.

May 15- Armed Forces Day ah no.

May 30- Memorial Day it has become the three day holiday to go camping and fishing and basically it kicks off summer doesn’t it? Well that is cool but almost no-one actually goes out and lays flowers and wreaths on the dead anymore. But here is the deal schlemiel—Memorial Day used to be known as “Decoration Day” it was commemorated to honor UNION veterans of the civil war and is celebrated at the time of the re-unification of the United States. Hey that’s great! But why do we also need a Veteran’s Day, an Armed Services Day and a Flag Day on top of this day, and the Fourth of July? Patriotism has gone way the hell overboard to the point where we honor soldiers for “protecting our freedom” when all they did was take over a small helpless country thousands of miles away that never attacked us (Iraq), and never posed any threat whatsoever, and we all know that don’t we? If you pretended you didn’t understand that before it is time to let it go flag-waver and fess up.

June 14- Flag Day Ah no.

June- 20 Father’s Day Well here is another day to show appreciation for dear old dad and all he has done for you, even if it is just the bare minimum required by law.

July 4- Independence Day Well, no one calls it Independence Day and maybe that is part of the problem it is another three dayer between Memorial Day and Labor Day for fishing trips. It seems every year there are fewer and fewer shows put on. There is a lot of noise in the neighborhood and people go buy tranquilizers for their dogs.

July 25- Parent’s Day No.

September 6- Labor Day- The end of summer for the kids and the last big car trip across the mountains or whatever it is you do. The holiday has no actual meaning other than a day off and the time of year is good to break things up. So I propose we ditch/change the import. We can still have the day just not take it off work; of course it will fade away because of that but no big loss.

September 11- 9-11 (Patriot Day), I think this should be the new holiday to replace Labor Day. http://425traveler.blogspot.com/2009/09/celebrate-9-11.html The name Patriot Day I don’t like because the word Patriot has been stolen, abused and raped by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Teabaggers and the Glenn Beck no nothings, it no longer has any real meaning. I would call it something like “Live Brave and be Free Day”. I don’t think the day should be about mourning the loss of a few people, and I don’t think it should be about remembering tragedy for a revenge type feeling like Pearl Harbor Day. I think it should signify that no terrorist act will ever make us afraid enough for us to abandon our way of life and cower in fear. The Patriot Act is just that; a crazy overreaction due to piss-pants fear. Do you see how the word Patriot has been stolen?

9-11 should be about doing the things we have put off due to fear; it should be about laughing in the face of fear. The “No Fear” bumper stickers could have meaning for the masses. Dr Phil and Oprah could have shows about rejecting fear and moving forward in our lives in a positive way. Instead of passively honoring someone else who did something long ago how about a holiday to encourage people to do something positive NOW…..

September 16- Stepfamily Day yur kiddin’ right?

September 17- Citizenship Day I was going to say we could check on our neighbor’s legal citizenship on this day but the Patriots and the Cinco de Mayo people would not see the humor.

October 11- Columbus Day Apparently the US Post Office is the only US institution to still honor this day. Chris Columbus is riding the reverse trajectory of MLK.

October 31- Halloween Hey how about Halloween huh? A truly pagan, secular holiday still survives even after years and years of the Christian Church trying it’s damndest to kill it. The costumes and parties are great although the door-to-door candy thing has been all but wiped out by the fear mongers. The pumpkin mottoes and the time of year make this the beginning of the dark season.
The funniest story I ever heard in regards to Halloween was from a very small Laotian Hill tribe man who was complaining to me about how many holidays we have in America. He said it was right after he got to the states, late at night and dark, there was a knock at the door; he opened the door and……people with masks screamed at him, he fell to the floor in fright, almost having a heart attack. He couldn’t figure out for the life of him what he had done wrong? Who was out to get him? He tried to compose himself and just when he had calmed down…another knock at the door!

November 2- Election Day They had kept running this levy (every six months) to raise taxes to build a 3 million dollar high school football field. The one time I forgot to vote it passed by six votes, enough said.

November 11- Veteran’s Day Like I said how many military holidays do we need? And how many times was America’s freedom really, actually at stake? How many of these wars weren’t just for corporate profits?

November 26- Thanksgiving What many people think of as the true start to the holiday season, what is not to like about thanksgiving? If it involves good food, getting family and friends together, I am for it. Thanksgiving is rarely about spending a lot of money and is not known for hellacious drinking compared to other events. It really places an emphasis more than any other holiday for the whole family to sit down together at one table and be thankful. Good show I say.

November 27- Black Friday A truly funny, although very apropos, name for a madhouse crush of consumerist carnage. People actually camp out at mid-night, to save a few bucks, on the latest plastic-electronic-made-in-china junk they think their kids cannot live without. It really demonstrates everything wrong with America, our values and the empty values of consumerism, all in one bleak terrible day. People have literally been trampled to death in Wall Mart on Black Friday---The Horror! Of dying in a Wall Mart I mean….. http://www.nydailynews.com/ny_local/2008/11/28/2008-11-28_worker_dies_at_long_island_walmart_after.html

December 7- Pearl Harbor Day Like I said how many military holidays do we need for crying out loud? It makes you think we are just a military-industrial complex run machine.

December 12-19 Chanukah/Hanukkah I know in some places this holiday resonates but it seems to me as a whole Hispanic and Asian holidays are blowing this out of the water, for people not directly involved in this religious rite that is.

December 25 Christmas Everyone likes presents don’t they? And drinking and eating to excess and a day off? The kids like lights and putting up the tree and well.. Christmas is really for kids anyway I think, for the big people it is a lot of work and money out. This was of course a popular pagan holiday and it was in fact SO popular the church could not stomp it out and extinguish the JOY people felt. so one day SHABAM! They decide in a great coincidence BABY JESUS just happened to be born then!
The fact that Baby Jesus just happened to be born on a very old and very popular pagan holiday makes everyone happy really, the kids YEAH! The retailers YEAH! The born agains YEAH, and of course regular working folk like you and me …yahweh…I mean yeah!

By the way, I have determined through a very close sampling of data that the fancy Christmas Eve is now the most dangerous day of the year to be out driving. Amateur drunks are out in great number, the weather is bad, roads are clogged with people who are PISSED TO THE BREAKING POINT (these people are going to have a perfect Christmas if it kills them), and they are drunk and have to drive to the hated..INSERT here: mother-in-law, X-wife’s house, other hated relative, brother who always did better in school etc…so watch out if you are forced to drive somewhere on this day.

December 31- New Year’s Eve Regular New Year’s Eve is a sad thing really in comparison to the Chinese New Year extravaganza. Many people used to stay up till mid-night and get falling down drunk but the whole DUI thing is paramount now. It is a time when people reflect about the past year and try and make resolutions for the New Year in ways in which they want to better their lives.

So in celebrating the holidays remember:
1. Your “family” can be anyone you choose to be your family.
2. Money and working overtime won’t count for shit while lying on your death bed.
3. People and relationships are all that matter in the end.

Boeing (787) was Always Leaving....

2009-10-30T14:57:00.000-07:00

This was posted in the Seattle PI by an unregistered user> I thought it was excellent in a turn-the-tables sort of way so I wanted to save it for others to read:

Posted by unregistered user at 10/29/09 6:08 p.m.

Boeing was always leaving. There was nothing that could be done by anyone other than Boeing to affect this decision and this is just the start. In less than twenty years, when the "legacy" aircraft are no longer being manufactured in favor of newer fuel efficient versions, Boeing will be completely gone from this area. Boeing is a "modern" corporation that has no loyalty other than to shareholders. Period.

So, the question is, what does the Puget Sound region do? Is an aerospace manufacturing industry something we want in this area? If so, then there should be immediate steps taken for the future of the people in the area:

1) Immediately drop all Boeing tax breaks in the state of Washington. Use the surplus funds this generates exclusively for education at all levels. An educated workforce is essential to the future and especially in aerospace jobs. Boeing is not living up to their agreement to build the 787 in Washington so they can pay us what every other business in the state has to pay.

2) Starting now, the leaders of this state should be talking with anyone in aerospace - and that means everyone. The region has lots to offer. For Europeans, our union "troubles" are nothing. The IAM is minor league compared with the their unions. We can offer an educated work force (if suggestion #1 is implemented), facilities capable of manufacturing and assembling large items, and a whole support infrastructure.

3) As Boeing closes plants, exercise eminent domain and seize them for fair cost as pieces of vital infrastructure. Pay them what the buildings are worth. Boeing will try to sell the property and tear down the buildings having agreements in place to do this years before it actually happens. Once those buildings are gone, so is the aerospace industry in this area because there just isn't affordable land available to build new ones close to the population centers.

The people of this state can not be afraid to play hardball with Boeing. If the USD is still weak at that time, I wonder if Airbus would be interested in acquiring existing facilities in an area with a trained aerospace work force? There would probably be others from Canada, Brazil, etc. that would be interested, as well, especially if someone is trying to break into the market for large
So much to do in so little time. The only thing that is certain is that Boeing is gone. The ball is in our court.

http://blog.seattlepi.com/aerospace/archives/183633.asp

“Boeing to workers: “Talks were in good faith; union’s offer fell short”.

Guns, Guns and more Guns, and the NRA of course...

2009-10-13T12:37:00.001-07:00

The gun-kook NRA folks really crack me up. They are so far out in la-la land about the reality of keeping and owning guns and the crime rate, and the need to own guns they make me laugh. They always talk about overthrowing the government. I have started asking them that if the police showed up on their doorstep un-announced and demanded all the guns in the house, with the caveat that if any non-registered guns were found upon later search, they would immediately go to prison would they still hold out? Of course not.

Obama is the best thing to happen to the NRA and Glenn Beck. The gun kooks are stockpiling guns and ammo at such record rates for the upcoming “war” they want so badly, the ammo makers can’t keep up with demand. The truth is that if you own guns your chances of being involved in gun violence go way up. The next truth is that people who move away from the big city because of crime have a much bigger chance being killed or maimed in a car wreck than being a crime statistic in the big bad city.

The gun kooks always talk with glowing eyes about getting up in the middle of the night and “shooting a burglar” as if that is a secret wish, a fantasy to fulfill. I wonder if they had a 16 year old neighbor on their living room carpet bleeding to death if they would really feel all that triumphant? This is what really happens:

A kid at work gets shot IN THE SHOWER by his girlfriend. He had thought he heard a burglar the night before and got up and loaded a gun to check it out. He had left it on the nightstand and now his girlfriend was trying to un-load it the next night. She pulled the slide back and BANG~ the bullet took off the end of her finger, went through a wall, and hit him in the arm breaking his arm. It could just have easily killed him, as it was he missed a month of work and she is still in trouble with the cops.

A local man shoots himself in the foot. http://www.mynorthwest.com/?sid=223212&nid=11 This happened “accidentally” while he was unloading the gun. He might be charged with reckless endangerment because the bullet went into the apartment below in the bedroom. People in the comments section have stated he was stupid to be pointing his gun down, but where should he point it? As we see in the story above bullets go through walls fairly easily. There might exist in a crowded apartment people above him, below him and on all sides.

Here is a case where a man hears a noise at night when he is in bed and immediately he gets a gun, and shoots his fiancée who got up in the middle of the night to use the restroom. He saw a figure standing in the hallway, so before determining the identity of the figure he shot first. Who knows he may have been drunk, that is not illegal is it? http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/12/national/main5378015.shtml

But what if there is a actual burglar and he is in fact stealing some small thing covered by homeowners insurance and you do in fact stop him, by shooting him? http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=217024&page=1 Here is a typical example of what happens, two people’s lives are ruined to “protect” a car stereo! Smart thinkin’ fer sure.

Sunshine Cleaning: The real story

2009-09-21T18:17:00.000-07:00

Image via Wikipedia

Have you seen that movie “Sunshine Cleaning”? It is pretty good. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0862846/

You know what else? It is a real story. A woman I work with Stacy Haney and her friend Theresa Borst are the real women who started Bioclean in the greater Seattle-Everett area.
Stacy had told me the story when I asked her what she had done while she was laid off and how she got into working in Haz Mat at our current employment. She explained that she found out that when there is a murder, or a dead body is found it is usually up to the family to clean up the mess. She and her friend felt like this was being victimized twice, first the loss of a loved one and then have to clean up a real nasty mess. They were out of work so started this business. Yes she had all kinds of horror stories that would give anybody the willies!

Today, on seeing the video Sunshine Cleaning on Sunday I mentioned it to her and she said “yes that movie is about me”. I said “no way”, she said “way”. I got the impression she might be a tad miffed about the whole deal too. Here she does an interview for NPR: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1123029

Then someone else hears it and gets a revelation, they write of a screenplay and BOOM, they make money off of YOUR life story. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=101794925&ps=rs
It seems weird from the standpoint that maybe she thought she was doing something a little unusual but not enough to make a Hollywood movie out of (yes of course it was embellished). It got me thinking about everyday lives and writing about them.
I asked Stacy to remind me today why she closed it down and went back to work for someone else. She said it was too much, the hours were terrible and it was either the job or her family. Good choice Stacy.

Celebrate 9-11

2009-09-05T12:16:00.001-07:00

I propose 9-11 should be “National Travel Day” and as Americans who refuse to be afraid of the big bad wolf, we travel, go out to eat and spend money lavishly and in hedonistic ways.
I remember 9-11 well, the burning towers etc, I was working nights and woke up to my morning coffee and the internet news I couldn’t quite believe. Yes for several minutes I thought it was a hoax of some kind.As time went on over the next several weeks it actually got worse as people literally stopped living their lives, and adjusted everything to cowering in fear that some ridiculous imagined threat might materialize. A man I worked with who always talked about his church, cancelled his trip to Hawaii, he was afraid. He was in poor health and about 66 years old, apparently his savior was not powerful enough. People actually called the police if local kids played in the woods and wore camo clothing; they thought “terrorists had targeted their important neighborhood for implosion. People turned in neighbors who took photos outside it was completely nuts.
Things of course have cooled off some but we are nowhere near back to normal are we?
One of the moments I have been proudest of my mother is one week after 9-11 she had plane tickets to Montana. I asked if she was still going and she said of course, she was more worried about airlines cutting down on maintenance (very real), and drunken pilots than terrorists. Her reasoning was; why would the terrorists bother with a little old lady like her. Well, right on.
The terrorists attacked the World Trade Towers as a symbol, a symbol of American might, but also American values, freedom, morality, and happiness. They killed some people sure… but the total effect was a 1000 times worse because they did cause terror, and panic, they did change American life for the worse. They succeeded beyond their wildest dreams because we rolled over, pissed our pants and let them.
So in all seriousness I think 9-11 should be made a holiday and it should be based on travel, and partying, and going out and not being afraid. People should go skydiving or take that hot air balloon trip, or do something new. It should be about breaking out of ruts, mental, physical and spiritual. Don’t tell me about your wonderful life-after-death god and show me your fish bumper sticker, show me your powerful faith by living a fearless, powerful life.

I know we have a lot of holidays but we have tweaked them haven’t we?

We used to celebrate Washington’s and Lincoln’s birthday and now we have the watered down “President’s Day” which means nothing. Columbus Day went the way of political correctness to a dried up death. MLK day is actually the only day the Seattle Times takes out a full page in the paper to remind us, hard to believe, good thing he is not still alive to disappoint us with being human. As near as I can tell Easter has waned and most stores are open now. Memorial Day and Labor Day are just days off from work. Fourth of July is only fireworks day. Thanksgiving and Christmas still retain pop because the weather is bad and hey we still do the family over for dinner right? Halloween is too scary because we can’t trust strangers any more, we are too afraid.
So why not ditch Labor Day and have a real holiday? We could call it American Values Day or something. I honestly think if we had a big holiday spectacular every year it would make Bin Laden’s butt burn. Instead of singing about the “home of the brave” why don’t we go out and live our lives like we always have and be brave or at least not afraid of living our lives like Americans used to live their lives.
Personally I think it would be like a Pearl Harbor Day that we really celebrate, it should be a three day national holiday and can replace Labor Day which has no meaning anymore. People should have resolutions to do something they want to do but have put off due to fear. Ask out that special person on a date you have been afraid to ask. Try out that risky blog idea. Go down to downtown Seattle and take some photo night shots you have been meaning to do, but inexplicably haven’t. Try something new like a play, or new ethnic restaurant you have never tried. If at all possible travel somewhere for no reason at all, other than you are happy to be alive and living in America on September 11, 2009!

So, join me in celebrating 9-11, Amercia is alive and kicking Day.

The Black Leather, Paunchy, Hordes: Being a Biker

2009-08-22T12:05:00.001-07:00

I was just at the gas station trying to remember which side my gas cap was on when I noticed two lesbians on a Harley taking off. The front/driver/husband had on a wife beater t-shirt, huge arm tattoos on her huge arms, and a grim visage. They were both about 50 years old, 5’5” and 250 pounds. Although you would normally never say a full sized Harley is too small for two people, this one certainly appeared to be so. I hope they don’t encounter any sharp corners…good bye and good luck..ah..ladies!
I was considering how people who buy Harleys and bike around now feel the need to play “dress up” very similar to how the peddlers who I call the “neon hordes” feel the need to don a certain type of hideously bright, skin tight second skin costume to feel like they can pedal their bicycles leisurely down the middle of our local highways. http://425talker.blogspot.com/search?q=neon
I know at the turn of the century some women referred to the swim suits of the day as a “swimming costumes” maybe that is what is developing today. People seem to feel the need to identify with certain groups and assume that they must broadcast their allegiance so you will know for sure what-the-fuck they truly are. I suppose this is why evangelical Christians feel driven to wear logo shirts, get tattoos on their calves of Calvary, and having fish bumper stickers swimming sideways on their Volvos.
There is a man I know whose nickname is “little Mike” (or thereabouts) and he is quite diminutive. He does have a Harley though, and a full beard, long hair, (looks like Hagred in Harry Potter)long wallet hanging out the back attached with chain, black t-shirts that usually say something about Harleys, biking or drinking, and black boots of course. At times someone will say “Watch out for little Mike… he IS a biker you know”, laughingly.
If you own a Harley almost every article of clothing you wear needs to be black. One group of people I occasionally visit in the Fall City area all wear so much black that I stick out like a sore thumb with a red jacket and blue jeans. Also you really need to fight the helmet thing with all your might, ala Jack Nicholson in “Easy Rider” wearing the football helmet. A half helmet, Nazi style, or maybe even an old ass WW1 leather helmet, but whatever it is it has to be as non-protective and goofy as possible. It has been fun to watch a female friend accessorize herself, now that she dates a man that owns I believe, two Harleys. She has donned the doo-rag on her head and is trying bravely to appear as “bikeresque” as possible. One of the most bizarre examples is a man I met who had the back covering, spread winged Harley logo on his jacket, the same logo the same size on his vest and on his t-shirt. I remarked on this. He said “yeah that goes skin deep too, if you want me to take off my shirt”. I allowed I believed him, without the need to see more corporate logos.

Biker definition: Merriam-Webster says a biker is a “motorcyclist especially one who is a member of a organized club or group”
Biker definition: according to Me: (1)A biker is a person who rides their bike rain or shine, summer or winter to all activities they participate in, including work, school, dating and mom’s house. (2) Someone who is the member of a club or gang and they wear colors and have office titles like “Bandidios Sergeant at Arms”.

Unfortunately, Harleys are expensive and few dudes who are 20 and struggling with their first job can afford one. Most Harleys these days are ridden by fat, middle aged, Microsoft developers and they only come out on weekends, (in the summer when it is unseasonably nice), where they drive them down to the local tavern in someplace like Duvall, where they can stand outside in their leather chaps and leather vests and look at the latest chrome gew-gaw they paid someone else to install on their $27,000 dollar “bike”. This is fine and good I suppose, but owning a consumer good does not change your personality or make you tough, or much of anything really. You are just someone who gets to play dress up all summer instead of only on October 31st. Are these people bikers? Well…not to me.

Of course there are those two who play biker and have a Harley knockoff or worse yet a Goldwing. Finally there are the biker wannabes and they dress in Harley gear and don't have a bike at all...WTF?

I suppose I think more of a book written by Hunter S. Thompson titled: “Hell's Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs” as true bikers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/index.html?curid=1648890

Why these baby-boomers are trying to pretend they are tough, tattooed Harley ridin’ bikers, I can only guess, midlife crisis? Thinking the purchase of an overly loud motorcycle will give them courage and freedom? I can’t say only watch and wonder. I suppose it is easy enough; you don’t have to exercise or get in shape, you don’t have to read or practice or learn anything, you just have to buy a dangerous toy and you have a whole new exciting life………. They try and cram lost cubicle years into a few crazy weekends, riding their expensive avatars over to Winthrop, dressed in the finest biker livery, Steppenwolf songs playing in their gray haired heads.

Your Dog Won't Laugh if it Sees You Naked

2009-07-22T16:42:00.001-07:00

Do you know if your dog sees you naked it won’t burst out laughing? I know this because I have tested it. Dogs are pretty much man’s best friend I guess. If you quit feeding a cat it will go to the neighbor’s house for food or even go and kill something but a dog will just sit there and starve.
You have most likely also heard the saw about “the more I get to know people the more I like my dog”. Dogs are supposed to have true unconditional love. Anyway I find it odd people so often are more outraged by people’s treatment of animals than of other humans. For instance, there have been several police shootings here recently, one at an Everett Restaurant and one on the Woodinville Duvall road where people were killed. In both those cases eye witnesses said the police had no reason whatsoever to kill those two men. Neither was armed. There has been almost zero public outrage.
However, if a couple State Troopers beat a couple baby seagulls to death the public goes completely nuts! http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009510595_webseagulls20m.html (there is 107 comments). To the troopers credit they did say the seagulls were “being aggressive” and this is usually the same terminology they use when killing a person. They were “afraid” or the person was “walking toward them” even when unarmed, and instead of shooting them once in the leg they were compelled to shoot multiple times in the heart-lung area. I am sure these troopers felt real and unmitigated fear from those small birds.

Can you remember back to when the Marine threw the puppy off the cliff in Iraq and had a U-tube video posted of the event? http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20080613/OPINION01/46575095 I would post a link but I am sure it is gone because it caused a FIRESTORM of controversy. The kid was local to the PNW, I think Monroe and even his family here was getting death threats. Jeez! But of course thousands of innocent women and children have died in Iraq and no one says much do they? Even the men fighting our troops are just trying to repel an invading force that really has no business being there. Wouldn’t you fight back if we had an occupying army in the US no matter how much you hated and despised our current administration? Of course you would, if you have any balls and you are a patriot. Now that the US army is not allowed in Baghdad without permission, the government has not asked for help or given permission one single time, the Iraqi people do not want us there at all under any circumstances, which of course is not only not surprising but makes perfect sense. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2009400213_iraq30.html

Why did I write this? Was it the incredulity I felt as I read about the latest PETA stupidity about not throwing dead fish at the Pike Street Market? No. It was this article today about a poor woman who happened to leave her two dogs in the car and they died. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/iraq/2009400213_iraq30.html Reading the comments from the people, and their bitter stupid outrage, was jarring evento me, even though I am used to it, and a bit jaded. I am sure this woman loved her dogs very much and is horrified enough as it is. Leave it to the animal crazies though to kick someone when they are really down and to not really have much of a perspective about much of anything important

Yes I have a black lab Pinky(pictured), that I love very much. She made the King County “read to your dog” poster this month.

15 to 25 Year-Olds will Change the World!: Just Kidding

2009-07-17T13:08:00.001-07:00

In the last month about fifty articles and blogs have come out addressing how kids/teens use various media and social interaction differently than adults. Apparently, the hook is that people in the 15-25 year old demographic will eventually come up and completely change the world and the way of doing things. Things like business and living, making money and paying bills right? Because isn’t that what we really care about? They will turn the social media world on its ear and everything will change to the way they currently do things..right? Isn’t that the fear that a business doesn’t have a leading edge strategy in selling to the next great new wave of consumers?
Many people have spotlighted this article by Matthew Robson, written for Morgan Stanley. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/jul/13/teenage-media-habits-morgan-stanley . Basically the kid says teenagers don’t have a lot of money, they upgrade their phones every two years on their birthdays, because they have no money. They play a lot of video games and they watch TV, and they use their cell phones a lot. Does this really impact what a business strategy should be for the future? Will these fifteen-year-olds get older and out in public and have a job and change the way people do things? The answer is no.
Reading between the lines of his article the reason kids make the choices they do is that:
They have no money
They see no reason to act differently
Well that will change my deary, very quickly in fact. If you ask a 20 year old or a 25 year old right now what is their main concern, I will bet you cash it has to do with getting a cool job-score! Or making money in general. Sure they want to get laid (money), have fun and party (money), and have really cool toys (money), could be some want to actually get married and have kids (mucho money), or buy a house (extreme money).
They business world will change them in its’ due course. Like the action of a glacier it will move them. If you have been on Twitter at all, just about everyone on there is trying to network and get information, mostly to further their ideas, advance their pull, and of course make money. Yes I know all these reality shots sounds a little jaded.
Personally, I just graduated from college last year and I also work with many people in the hallowed 15-25 “solid gold” demographic (although not there myself). I remember having a conversation with a young woman working her way through school hooking. Her attitude was this: She wanted a college education to get a good job and make money. She could bust her ass 40 hours a week or hook for maybe 10 hours a week and make the same money and have more time for herself and homework.
As these young people matriculate into the work force they will not all be video game designers. One of the best “Fail” posters is a young boy sitting at a window it says: “Reality the toughest game of all”! Many will have jobs doing pretty much all the same crap we currently do, such is life. Sure, cell phones are king, everybody uses them, many of these younger kids will get Blackberries and I-phones and get on whatever social networks they think they need to, to make money and move up in the company. Some will start their own cool businesses and by far the lion’s share of those will fail.
Many of these kids are on Facebook and guess what? So is my 75 year old mother! Bottom line is this; the social media network that provides value, is easy to use, and helps people make money, will make money itself. MySpace didn’t do this, kids used the hell out of MySpace and for all intents and purposes MySpace is already dead.
My point is this, the kids will adapt to the world, the world of business, not the other way around. They will get haircuts, cover their hideous tattoos as much as possible, or get them re-done, and they will travel to social media conventions for the wishes of their company. They will start to discuss insurance and 401K plans with their friends. They will get Costco cards and yes, they will use Twitter, (or its equivalent), to try and make a buck. Once mommy and daddy quit paying the bills it is a rude awakening out in the real world, wasn’t it that way for you?

Google and the Cone of Arrogance: The New Monopoly in Town

2009-07-15T16:24:00.000-07:00

Responsive customer service is a hard find wherever you look these days it would seem, however, I choose to discuss the software/internet/search engine business and their approach to customer service. Due to a complete lack of customer service I no longer do business with Symantec. I was a good customer for years and they made a lot of money off of me. I had bought a new laptop and did a couple re-formats on old machines and they said my suite of software could not be reloaded again. I looked for a way to communicate with them so they would have the opportunity to do right by a loyal customer. Finally, I gave up, and the thing is there are many options available, and I have tried a couple I am happy with, like Kapersky, and there is no reason to ever go back. In a competitive business like theirs this is very, very stupid because I influence others as well.
Google lately has surprised me with their approach to communicating with them; try to do so, I dare you! I had an idea to make their products better and really there is no way to even get a hold of them. One commenter (James Gecko), on a blog comment wrote I could go to a “feedback forum”, yes I suppose I could James. IMHO, telling your customers to go post on a forum is the equivalent to telling them to fuck off, because you are too busy to help them. Let’s say I was in a line at a customer help desk and I finally get up to ask a question and the clerk says “Geez can’t you ask a simple question like that to someone ELSE in line”! That is equivalent to a “help forum” as far as I am concerned.
So to start some semblance of service the customer has to have an open, very easy to find line of communication available. Alan Hogan talks about the arrogance of Google in this post http://alanhogan.com/arrogance-of-google . Sure Google has a monopoly at the moment, they have about 85% of the search engine market, and that is a monopoly in my book. Basically the customer service issue is this: just try and contact them, see if it is even possible. I wrote this post “Google are you there”?http://425talker.blogspot.com/search?q=google to voice my frustration, I couldn’t get through the “cone of arrogance”.
I started to think to myself are Microsoft and Yahoo just as elusive to contact as Google? So I decided to run a test. It would be to go to the home page and count the clicks to “feedback”, or maybe “contact us”. Simple enough right?
At Microsoft.com, “contact us” was on the home page; three clicks later are phone numbers, e-mail customer service, and mailing addresses.
At Yahoo.com “send feedback” is on the home page.
http://www.bing.com/ has “feedback” right on the home page.
http://www.ask.com/ has two clicks to get contact info.
So, really Google you are in left field as far as any customer service gestures go. It is not so much you hear but you don’t listen to customers, (to read an analysis of the difference try this post by Lisa Hoesel http://conversationalchaos.blogspot.com/2009/07/are-we-hearing-or-merely-listening-to.html ), you allow your customers no chance to be heard in the first place. I am sure your many young billionaires are quite pleased with their new found purchasing power and it is hard to be humble. Competition can come quickly though as http://www.myspace.com/ has found out.
When Bing debuted I remarked I hoped it would be a success because Google really needs some competition, to light a fire under their complacent asses. I encourage everyone to spread the love around a bit in the search engine department. If they have no customer service now, imagine what it will be like with their new Operating System!

MAIL-online attempts to demonize the Knox family

2009-07-12T12:59:00.001-07:00

Do these people look happy to you? Me neither. However, somehow, someway the MAIL-online wants terribly to spin it that way. The headline states: "Revealed: Foxy Knoxy's sisters posing happily for 'macabre' photos at the house where Meredith Kercher died"

At first it seemed to me Amanda Knox was guilty, but as time goes on it seems more and more that she is being railroaded. The fierce preoccupation Europeans seem to have with her sex life and her partying at the University of Washington seems like something out of our own Puritanical fascination with anything sexual related.
It only seems natural these people would want to see where all this supposedly happened since there is at least a coin flip of a chance they will ever see their sister or daughter out in the light of the free day again.
This kind of slanted journalism is that much worse when you realize these Italian jurors are not sequestered, they are being bombarded with this every day in their lives. I am really wondering how Amanda Knox can expect anything like a fair trial.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1199111/Revealed-Foxy-Knoxys-sisters-posing-happily-macabre-photos-house-Meredith-Kercher-died.html

Freedom: Fourth of July style

2009-07-04T08:03:00.000-07:00

On this Fourth of July I ask you what is “freedom”? In the US we have all been brainwashed from birth and told we are so much “freer” than the rest of the poor world, we should be so grateful. What really is it, and how do you compare it? Have you ever noticed that the people who say that we have so much freedom in America and we should prize it so, are people who never travel and have no real idea what is going on in the rest of the world?

Here is a definition for a baseline from http://www.dictionary.com/ :
free⋅dom

Use freedom in a Sentence
–noun
1. the state of being free or at liberty rather than in confinement or under physical restraint: He won his freedom after a retrial.

2. exemption from external control, interference, regulation, etc.

3. the power to determine action without restraint.

4. political or national independence.

5. personal liberty, as opposed to bondage or slavery: a slave who bought his freedom.

6. exemption from the presence of anything specified (usually fol. by from): freedom from fear.

7. the absence of or release from ties, obligations, etc.

8. ease or facility of movement or action: to enjoy the freedom of living in the country.

9. frankness of manner or speech.

10. general exemption or immunity: freedom from taxation.

11. the absence of ceremony or reserve.

12. a liberty taken.

13. a particular immunity or privilege enjoyed, as by a city or corporation: freedom to levy taxes.

14. civil liberty, as opposed to subjection to an arbitrary or despotic government.

15. the right to enjoy all the privileges or special rights of citizenship, membership, etc., in a community or the like.

16. the right to frequent, enjoy, or use at will: to have the freedom of a friend's library.

17. Philosophy. the power to exercise choice and make decisions without constraint from within or without; autonomy; self-determination. Compare necessity (def. 7).

What about number 1? We have more people in prison in the US than any other country in the world, by far! Currently we have over 2 MILLION people locked up, many for minor offences like drugs, and by far and away most of them are people of color does that sound like a free state to you?

How about 2? Have you simply tried to drive to work up 405 or I5 and seen the cops sitting on the side of the road ready to pull people over if they drive slightly too fast, or are in the wrong lane, or have a light out, or talk on the cell phone, or don’t have their seat belt on? If you have ever been outside the US you know you will not see this kind of harassment anywhere else in world, it is bizarre what we put up with every day.

What about 3? Try and build an addition to your house without jumping through a myriad of rules determined by minor potentiates. Try and shoot off fireworks =on the wrong day to celebrate your “freedom”, try and go fishing or hunting without and folder full of licenses and certificates and vouchers for the multitude of fees.

4. Political or national independence. Do you think we are independent of other countries when we own China so much money right now we could never pay it back?

5. Do we have personal liberty?

6. I like the example “freedom from fear”, America is riddled with fear. Our news outlets don’t really even report actual news anymore so much as they hype fear. Going through the security checkpoints at LA airport recently about 17 TSA people performed a “security drill” everyone running around screaming BRAVO BRAVO!! There were only five of us beaten down tired travelers trying to go about our business. Do these displays make me feel safe? No. They waste my time and make me realize we have really lost something in America that used to be called balls. See number 8 here as well, “freedom of movement”? HA!

9. Might be OK if no one hears you and you aren’t a teacher or etc. etc. More and more people have jumped on that politically correct zombie speech thing. These people are comical as they try and stumble through life trying to keep up on all of our societies’ “community thought” on what is correct 0or, ok, or won’t ever offend anyone at any time even if it is true.

10. Freedom from taxation… and fees and B&O taxes and car fees and “sin taxes” and GAWD DAMN IT! We are taxed silly to keep all those police on the street and the largest army in the world with standing troops in every country I can think of, and more people in prison than anywhere else (some being tortured with no charges against them). It costs a fortune to keep up all these laws and rules and regulations over every tiny detail of our lives, a police state is very expensive.

14. I don’t think there is anyone alive that doesn’t feel our civil liberties haven’t taken a huge hit under Bush and Cheney. I have been disappointed so far in Obama’s action to turn back the clock to where we were before. Suffice it to say that there was a time when America’s civil liberties were the envy of the world. That time has been very limited. The civil rights act was what 1964? Until that late date people of color might have different rest rooms or be told to ride in the back of the bus. You see the freedoms that people in America take for granted have never been for EVERYONE just the privileged few. Our justice system for instance is for the rich.

15. The freedom to enjoy all the rights of the community? Really like what our justice system that is tilted to the rich so far it no longer even functions or our wonderful health care system that millions and millions of full time working people can not afford?

Yes I know the standard response in our free country. If you are not giddy in love with it the way it is, and the way it is transforming, then leave! If you do not buy into the brainwashed official line then leave.

I once talked to a guy from Laos who made the comment “you Americans think you are so terribly free but you are not”, and shook his head. He had lived around the world. I asked him to name a country that was “freeer” for the common working man than the US and he said Thailand.

Consider this: I know many, many people working here now that were not born here. Almost to a person they have no intention of staying here. They are here to make money. When they retire they are going back home to Canada, Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines, Mexico, Peru, Brazil, and others. They are not here for more freedom and they are not impressed with our freedom at all. They think we are ruled and regulated and micromanaged and taxed to death.

Make sure today you buy your fireworks from the right stand today and check the regulations on your local city, county and state to make sure you will not be arrested by the police or ATF or labeled a terrorist and put on a do not fly list. Check your noise regulations. Make sure someone of the proper age and wearing the correct safety gear is lighting the fireworks. Make sure you hang your flag properly (there are tons of rules about the flag).

Role Playing a Human Being

2009-06-13T20:39:00.000-07:00

So I do know some people that have had problems in their lives. I know a kid that got high on meth and knocked someone’s windows out of their house, he got a felony for that. I know a guy who did time in prison and joined the Aryan Nations, although now he is just a dad who drives truck with four kids. I went to high school with a dude named Randy Roth http://www.seattlepi.com/archives/1992/9204240068.asp , I had him in auto shop, since I didn’t have a car at first I worked on his 57 chevy shorty. But to look on the front page of the PI and a number of other papers like the Huffington Post and see a woman I used to know in cuffs charged with first degree murder, is somewhat bizarre. http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090613/NEWS01/706139922/-1/RSS02

Shawna was always a trouble maker and didn’t take too many things very seriously. When I worked with her she was always in HR, although I don’t think she was actually fired. One time she baked brownies and brought them to work and they had rubbers baked inside them, you can imagine how that went over!!

She had stopped here a couple times at my place on the way to Snoqualmie area to visit her mother. I try and look back at the person I thought I used to know a bit and ask myself~ did I ever see or imagine she could or would ever become a cold blooded murderer? The kind that kills kids, so they won’t be witnesses? The answer is no, hell no.

She had two kids and when she wanted to split up with her current husband she decided to leave her son with him (he wasn’t the father), I asked why? She said her son liked living with him. He is currently in prison now for selling guns illegally among other things. I guess she just never learned the whole humanity thing, about loving and actually caring about other people.

Well you should be happy now Shawna, you are on the front page of the paper! You don’t have to punch the clock and everyone knows your name now. I would imagine that in your own mind you can somehow justify what you did because it seems your mind has become a warped record of a thing that doesn’t work anymore like a brain should work. It is just so sad there are people like you, sneaking around in the midst of people like the rest of us, the most of us, who try and do our best to get along with people and live the right way, do the right thing.

The WIsdom of Solomon can solve the Boeing Tanker Fiasco

2009-06-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

The Military Tanker Battle between Airbus and Boeing has been going on for some time now and nothing is happening; people talk and talk and talk and nothing is happening.
At first of course Boeing was found guilty of ethics violations and fired two of its top employees, (who went to jail), and then the next round Airbus won amid concerns the air Force did not tell Boeing it wanted a larger tanker. Now it is up for bid yet again. This all started approximately 2002 and there is no end in sight. The problem is the current re-fueling tankers the Air Force is running were built in the 1950’s and the other thing is the USA needs the jobs NOW, as in yesterday.
At first I thought, you know what? These are American jobs and should be kept in America, are defensive technology shouldn’t be spread around. Now I have changed my mind, I think the order should be split in half.
By doing the King Solomon division, many problems with this messy affair would be solved. For one, no matter who wins at this point the other conglomerate will whine and scream for years, and the problem is they will most likely be right.
Secondly, this thing needs to be expedited so the Air Force can get their planes and so jobs can be created immediately. Also, by splitting it I think the maximum amount of US jobs would be created, the Air Bus plane will be assembled in Alabama. Although I have not much sympathy at all for our confederate flag waving friends and their right-to-work states, (slave state) mentality it is what is best for the country as a whole. The 767 line could be re-energized and the Boeing Everett facility could be fully utilized with four wide body lines going at once.

Since Boeing off loaded everything they thought they could feasibly get away with on the 787 (turned out far more than they could get away with), they can’t complain about giving away US jobs ever again (incredibly stupid and shortsighted on their part). If the 787 flies this month (HA!) the Everett facility will be buzzing busy and the 747-8 is still being launched. I don’t think trying to come up with a new 777 tanker makes sense right now.

Also I would really like Air Bus to have the pain and discomfort of trying to deal with the US military establishment. It would just hurt them in trying to fix the A380 and launch the A350 new plane at the same time. Dealing with the Air Force and trying to train the southern boys to be somewhat useful would keep them in a whirl for sure. It would provide endless hours of viewing enjoyment, also they have claimed Air Bus would build freighters at the same US facility.
So I say split the order and let’s all move on and get back to work!

If I had only Ten Movies to Watch (for all time)

2009-06-08T19:53:00.000-07:00

A friend and I who discuss movies frequently at work have kicked around the idea of the “top ten favorite movies” to pick as the only movies we could watch the rest of our lives. This would be like the desert island scenario, where these movies would be the only choices available. So in that vein this list might be different than some others. A movie might be truly great but not have the kind of staying power where you could watch it again and again, still getting something out of it. Looking at IMDB.Com and seeing Shawshank Redemption, Schindler’s List and Pulp Fiction in their top five I can’t see these particular movies being something to watch over and over.
Also it would seem a person would want a little variety. Even if a huge science fiction fan I don’t think you would want more than five in that one category. SO hopefully you can see my thinking here and come along for the ride and make your own picks. (These are in no particular order just part of the ten).

1. Blade Runner (1982)
To me a true classic, with great actors and a steamy wet, futuristic netherworld with lots of cool atmosphere. I really think a re-visit sequel (27 years later), would be great here as in the end Harrison Ford took off with Sean Young to escape and start over. Ridley Scott’s director cut does not have the Harrison Ford narration and it changes the feel (there are seven different versions of this film). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blade_Runner

2. When Harry met Sally (1989)
This movie is not highly rated although several scenes have been quoted in popular culture ad infinitum. Directed by Rob Reiner, written by Nora Ephron with Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan as the stars. Favorite line from Carrie Fischer “tell me I’ll never be out there again”….Film asks the question can men and women attracted to each other just be friends?

3. The Godfather Part 2 (1974)
The Godfather series is big and rich, being wonderfully slow and thorough storytelling. Out of the three movies I like this one best showing the history of Don Corelone going back to the 20’s in flashback sequences, I feel it is better and more interesting than the first. Supposedly, Francis Ford Coppolla says that there should have only been one movie the other two were cash grabs. http://www.justpressplay.net/movies/movie-news/5450-coppola-qthe-godfatherq-should-have-stayed-one-movie.html

4. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)
Here again I liked the second of three movies the best. I thought the battle scenes were bigger and more sweeping. The last (third), movie in my opinion was too long, especially the last third with Frodo climbing the mountain which I thought would never end!

5. Princess Bride (1987)

This movie is somewhat silly and a bit of a sleeper it seems to have something for everyone. Everything from Billy Crystal, to Andre the Giant, it is a movie that is often quoted. A classic fairy tale with fighting rodents of unusual size included for your enjoyment.

6. Caddy Shack (1980)
One of the silliest movies ever made, it is endlessly silly and repeatable. I originally wrote that for Monty Python and the Holy Grail but it fits this movie too. Although shown constantly on TV I can always watch a few minutes and see Bill Murray’s bit about the Dali Lama and get a chuckle.

7. Lawrence of Arabia (1962)
Many have said this is the best movie ever made, especially pre-Godfather days. Directed by David Lean this movie has a fantastic cast: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056172/ It was filmed back in the days of the real cast of thousands and location shooting. A truly sweeping epic of 216 minutes (directors cut).

8. Aliens (1986)
Once again the second movie of the series turns out best in my opinion. Paul Reiser is creepy, Bill Paxton is super whiny, and all around science fiction blasting takes place. The many characters and their development make this a fun ride for me.

9. As Good as it Gets (1997)
My favorite Jack Nicholson character catches a dog pissing in the hallway of his tony apartment building for one of the best film starts ever. Love this movie.

10. Unforgiven (1992)
Clint Eastwood’s best movie in my opinion and maybe the best western ever made. It shows the darker side when maybe there is no bright side to matters. Realistic and gritty, it shows realness absent most Hollywood westerns.

Honorable Mention:
Taxi Driver (1976)
Wizard of Oz (1939) The wife’s favorite
Casablanca, Maltese Falcon, African Queen
Commando or Total Recall
Vertigo or The Birds
All about Eve
True Grit
The Big Lebowski, Fargo Raising Arizona

Well that was tough I almost made some last minute changes. If I make the list a year from now it would change, but for now, if I was stuck forever with just ten movies (and ten movies only), I will pick these.
2 romantic comedies
2 science fiction
2 fairy tales
1 goof
1 western
2 serious sweeping epics

Let me know what you think?

The Neon Locusts

2009-05-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

Every nice sunny day now in the Snoqualmie Valley we are descended upon by a horde of neon spandex wearing bicyclists, it is truly awful if you live here.

You might well think well these people are harmless, they are getting exercise and they aren’t increasing the carbon footprint and so on so what in fact is the harm? Let me tell you.

I call these abominations the “loud family” because as they stomp through life everything they do is loud. As they stand five feet away from each other they scream about their tiny ambitions, about how many miles they rode and how many miles they will go next week, about bike accoutrements and the hideous clothing thereof. Yes, they even dress as loudly as possible, some wear electrified clothes that flash and blink, others wear clothing so garish you would swear it has secret power crystals enmeshed therein. But at all times it is loud, loud and more loud.
These people do not live here. They come from Bellevue and Redmond, the hills of Seattle couture and the Woodinville’s of the world to evangelize their freakish hobby across our countryside. As we try and drive somewhere or commute through our beautiful, simple green countryside full of quiet farms we have to be constantly be visually assaulted by the Neon Nannettes. If asked, they will explain the roads “are theirs too”. Of course roads are paid for with gas taxes and various motor vehicle fees and who knows if these folks actually pay a cent for the roads. If however, I walked through THEIR neighborhood with my dog (on a leash of course), along the route they commute to work, the doctor and grocery store, holding hands across the road to make sure we blocked traffic, I really doubt they would see the humor. That is exactly what these people do, what they think is so cool, block our traffic at 3pm during rush hour on weekdays.

These people are not commuting to work. They are doing nothing useful at all other than killing time with their friends. I have the utmost respect for that solitary biker wearing rain gear and pedaling to work at 5am because he can’t afford a car, or is trying to save money to buy a house. I have done this twice myself once in Lynnwood and once in Burbank Ca. I know people now who bike to work. I also have a bike and take it places where I want to park the car (such as Leavenworth) and then use the bike to go to the store and get supplies or look around the rest of the weekend. I don’t block hiway 2.

Yesterday we discussed bike paths. The wife pointed out that even when peddlars have a bike path they wobble over on the road edge to block traffic or block the whole lane while they are chatting to their friends about how their nuts are going numb. Going down Hiway 203 yesterday she commented on how she thinks money should be spent to build more bike path and trails. I said “honey if you look 50 yards to your right you will see a beautiful scenic bike path that runs the length of the Snoqualmie Valley”. But no one was on that of course, it was empty. What fun would that be? Who would see their garish outfits that clash with life itself?

As they say; a bicycler runs into someone walking their dog on the Burke Gillman trail and says “get out of my way I am on a bike”, as they pedal precariously by doing 25mph, later as they go down the road they tell someone trying to drive down the hiway203 (limit 55) , “hey get out of my way I am on a bike”! As they go along at 25mph. There militancy can be seen in the annual bike thing they have in Seattle where they ball up traffic on purpose and every year the violence and fights get worse. I am not going to name it to give it any publicity.

Your little dog and pony show is not needed here, take your Halloween costumes and go home. Ball up traffic and create scenes in your own neighborhood. This is not a Disneyland playground for the tragically hip, it is where we live and work and have to commute. Figure out ways to make your own neighborhood scenic and rustic and then stay there.

Matt, I dedicate this to you.

Top Ten Crazy Women (of the last 30 years or so)

2009-05-23T14:12:00.000-07:00

After reading recently that our PNW home girl Mary Kay Letourneau, is hosting “Hot for Teacher night” at a local night club on Saturday, I was thinking about making up a top ten list of crazy women. I mean why not? What-the-hell, over?

Of course as many submissions poured in I realized there had to be a few rulz. One is they can’t come from too far back in time historically. I was thinking 30 years or so. So that means Janis Joplin, one of my personal favorites, would be right on the border. Just flying off the deep end once or so really doesn’t merit getting on here either (except in one case), so Margot Kidder and Sean Young will be excluded. First alternate Lindsay Lohan.
So here we go:

1. Mary Kay Letourneau; I will never forget how on the day she got a six months sentence for raping a kid she taught in the sixth grade, a guy I worked with got five years for fondling his step daughter (she never got pregnant or was a parent now), because of the mind numbingly light sentence from a female judge she was out and at it again within months and now poor Vili was a double father! Most people don’t know the crazed woman still contacted him in prison and serves quite a bit of time in solitary—Double standard justice but also many-many women she nothing wrong with what she did and think of it as “true love” and other horseshit. http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/19/sports/plus-court-news-harding-sentenced-to-3-days-in-jail.html

2. Tonya Harding; Another local girl-go PNW!! Tonya is deliciously athletic and violent rolled up in a white trailer-trash, tragic-comedy, and visage of legendary proportions. Try searching for “Tonya Harding” and you will see she has become an attack term!! People say things like “if they don’t watch it I will go Tonya Harding on them” etc. My favorite Tonya story is the time she attacked her boyfriend with a hubcap. The only way you can do this is if you have hub caps lying around in your yard…back to white trash… http://www.nytimes.com/2000/05/19/sports/plus-court-news-harding-sentenced-to-3-days-in-jail.html Tonya is yet another person with a “sex tape scandal” http://www.nndb.com/people/502/000025427/

3. Lorena Bobbit; This is in fact just one go, but the side stories gave the thing some legs as they say. First it was taking his penis with her, driving around and throwing it out her car window, then calling 911, the John actually having it sewn back on! Both Bobbit’s went on trial, him for rape and her for “malicious wounding”, they both got off! What? Didn’t someone commit a crime here? This whole thing sparked so much public discourse there were tons of jokes, and even fifteen years later Lorena Bobbit gets TV interviews. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorena_Bobbitt

4. Brittany Spears; She of course married her high school sweetheart, then like an idiot listened to her family got an annulment and married the hideous Kevin Federline. She is always in the news about every little thing. She can just run around town not sporting panties and create an uproar. My favorite story though, is cutting off all her hair because she knew she couldn’t pass a drug test. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j6nJzr3sEM4

5. Amy WInehouse; For starters her name really fits her doesn’t it? She and her Husband/X husband are always in the news for assault and of course re-hab stories. When your hit song says “I don’t want to go to rehab NO, NO,NO” it brings a certain notoriety methinks. Then main thing that always seems to get around her is the before and after pictures of when she obviously descended into heavy drug usage. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TaPubacOLM Unlike many of the listees here she has actual real talent, hopefully she will buck the trend and pull out of it before it is too late.

6. Lisa Marie Nowak; Not really a household name of course, but can anyone forget the story of the NASA astronaut who put on a “diapers” so she didn’t have to stop on a cross-country,900 mile drive from Houston to Orlando to attack another woman who was vying for her true love’s affections. She was also wearing a wig and a trench coat. OK visualize this: a woman wearing nothing but a wig, trench coat and a diaper? WTF!! She then went and boarded the same airport shuttle bus as her rival Colleen Shipman. She sprayed pepper spray into the woman’s car when she cracked the window to talk to her. Bizarre behavior for a woman who has flown on the space shuttle and been to the international space station. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250415,00.html She has a master’s degree in engineering and isn’t bad looking… http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250415,00.html

7. Courtney Love; Does she seek out controversy? It seems she has no talent, similar to Bianca Jagger, she just married someone in Curt Cobain who did and now manages to stay in the spotlight through bizarre behavior. She lost possession of her daughter for drugs and danced naked at a re-hab clinic in Malibu for three hours before being convinced to stop. http://www.nndb.com/people/389/000022323/

8. Ann Coulter; How to describe Ann Coulter in the shortest space possible? A female Rush Limbaugh, I can think of no greater insult (while true), to give any person alive or dead. She has been described by others as a “pundit” and a “rightwing bomb thrower”. She was fired from CNBC for telling a disabled Vietnam veteran “no wonder you guys lost”. She was also fired from the National Review which is hard to believe. Ann Coulter’s books have been described as “page after page of ranting”, it is hard to imagine her having any following at all, from anyone. It does illustrate when one reviews the ultra-neo-con flag bearer’s vitriol and hatred, the depth of emotion involved in what is passed off as politics. Her is Ann at her shrill and strained best: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2wnPHFSdrME

9. Anna Nicole Smith; (real name Vickie Lynn Hogan), The posthumous award goes to the former playboy bunny, eighth grade dropout, and former Wal-Mart cashier who married an ancient millionaire, Howard Marshall 88. Her husband lasted 14 months and when he died she was left nothing his son was sole beneficiary of the will. So you can guess what happened there LAWSUIT! Howard K. Stern was her lawyer and was even there at the end trying to say he fathered her baby. http://www.nndb.com/people/766/000028682/ . Her 20 year old son preceded her in death. http://futurenurses21.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/annanicole1.jpg
Of course there are many nude photos of her out there and even death bed photos, but we don’t need to go there do we? http://thebsreport.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/anna_nicole_smith31.jpg Apparently both her boyfriend and doctor were charged in her death for conspiring to provide her with illegal drugs. http://thebsreport.wordpress.com/2009/03/13/boyfriend-and-doctor-charged-in-anna-nicole-smiths-death-for-prescription-drug-felonies/ Anna, you wanted to be like Marilynn Monroe it is too bad you got your wish.

10. Tammy Faye Baker; (AKA: Tamara Faye La Valley), was nominated by several people. At first I thought well, yeah she is a phony TV evangelist and her husband went to prison for fraud but people like that are a dime a dozen, aren’t they? Well, no, she did in fact take it to a new, historical level. For one thing did you know the PTL ministry launched its own SATELLITE for 24 hour coverage? Not only that but her second husband Roe Messner who made his fortune building churches ALSO went to jail for fraud, WTF! She will be known forever as Mrs. Mascara.
http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Womens%20Page/jewelry_and_makeup.htm YIKE!!

The twittering life:

2009-05-09T10:56:00.000-07:00

So how in the name of baby jesus did I get HERE anyway? And maybe more important is why? Why did I start twittering?

Unlike many, maybe even most, I am not trying to sell you a bill of goods. Many I follow, or have read, are selling photos, services, or seminars. Some have lodges they are trying to fill and some are selling ideas they think-they wish they might have, about how to be a better twitterer.

There has to be a way to butcher this bird for dinner!

This seems to involve getting a bigger audience. More followers the better I guess, bigger is always better, more is more-better and bigger too… and this is America after all. It seems the main way to get a hell of a lot of followers is to follow everyone else like a F’ing madman, and of course none of you actually read each other’s tweets, but you say LooK AT MY FolloWERS damn-your-heathen-eyes! The more followers the more important voice you have, the more convincing you are, the more influential, supposedly. Of course I could say well Brittany Spears has a lot of followers and does she really influence anybody? Isn’t that the classic case of people slowing down on the freeway when there is an accident? They say it is for safety but really they are just looking for blood.
I can see getting caught up in it. Should I find a ap like quitter to see which post made someone quit following me? Then me thinks if I do that and just twitter away my time learning how to be twerfect (politically and perfectly twitterly correct), just to gain followers what have I become? Some kind of digital glad-hander, almost like a politician who wants to be something to everyone, so he becomes nothing to anybody, and he is nothing but a bag of pink methane gas (just like…uh…don’t want to alienate you…).
Besides, this all seems like too much work. It takes away from why I did this in the first most place. Which was it, “twitter”, being a small quick way to communicate, and shout at the world, in a bite sized way, occasionally throwing in a http://www.tinyurl.com/ for spice and the whole enchilada is searchable for topics and names and stuff. Here I am very tempted to insert a list of top ten reasons, or top five thoughts about this, because anytime a person writes about twitter it is almost a requirement to have a list.

TOP TEN WAYS TO HAVE SEX ON TWITTER
Five ways to make twitter followers quit following
Seven deadly sins of Twitter
EIGHT IS NEVER ENOUGH WAYS TO MONETIZE TWITTER
If trapped on a desert island what FIVE Social Media would you choose to take with you?
This is one of the unwritten rulz of twitter; LISTS!

I am learning this as I go (making it up as I go along). But I don’t have a Facebook page (http://425writer.blogspot.com/2009/01/should-i-facebook-myself.html) and it reminds me years ago I didn’t have a TV. People look at me incredulously, YOU DON”T HAVE FACEBOOK!! Like they saw a small slave child chained to my toilet, it seems truly horrific, un-American. But look, in retrospect, now the only people that use MYSPACE are; angst-ridden pre-teens, lousy bands, William Shatner and child molesters, who would have known?

I am sure some figure to play the social media game, the more different pla
tforms a person is on the wider the net is cast, and each network promotes the hell out of the other until you are a superheated, ultra-branded commodity, of a internet nova-shooting star person. At that point you quit the day job and the biggest issue is getting to the bank everyday to cash the checks.
I like twitter because, so far anyway; it is quick and easy. It is my new Digg, (since it seems Digg has gone to hell), I get information which is much more sharply focused from people I choose to follow, and have met new folks I never would have known existed before, (most likely). I can express myself without much work or thought beforehand, which is a pure type of a free-form free association thing for me because hey, I am not trying to sell you anything, or change your mind about much of anything or become the next Steve Buscemi/Christopher Walken of twitter.
So that makes it fun.
Always worshiping at the feet of my furtive followers @425talker

Journalism 2009: Insightful or Incitefiul?

2009-05-02T13:51:00.000-07:00

Right now there is a great deal of talk about journalism all across our media; mainly because so many newspapers and magazines in the US are going out of business. People assume it is because folks are reading the papers online but there is also a lot of discussion about blogging. Many so-called or self-professed “professional” journalists have decried the amateurs which seem to be taking over the web. Many of these upstarts have become quite powerful very quickly. The Perez Hilton’s of the world do not have to be politically correct and can entertain by being outrageous. Gossip, rumor and innuendo are all fair game and good for readership numbers and hits.
Here in the Seattle area many have decried the loss of the Seattle Post Intelligencer. But where did the PI come from? It is a Hearst paper and Randolph Hearst in his day was thought of being a “yellow journalist” for publishing something akin to a National Enquirer of its day. Hearst bumped up crime coverage to 24% of the paper and published rumors about suicides, affairs and printed pictures considered to be very racy to gain circulation. He catered to large population of immigrants where English was a second language and reading content and accuracy were deemed secondary to a good story.
Both Hearst and Pulitzer (now Murdoch), discovered that when going after advertising revenue more circulation meant more money for them. The Spanish American war prequel of 1895 is where Hearst really went nuts, publishing lurid tales of Spanish brutality of very dubious accuracy. He was pushing a war-hawk agenda. In fact when the war started in earnest Hearst actually claimed credit for it. So that is where our beloved PI came from, a quick buck artist who cared little about the integrity of journalistic ethics.
This latest swine flu epidemic scare has already been beaten to death shamelessly by the local media. KING5’s coverage can only be described as hysterical. Clearly they are still selling fear, the meat and potatoes of the FOX NEWS network. It goes deeper than that though; these news organizations get in bed with those they cover. They have reporters that cover things like “Aerospace” and if you think for a minute they are going to be critical of the decision making going on at the Boeing Company you are nuts. If they were they would lose their privileged status and would be persona non grata. Besides that it would be more work. They literally take the company news releases and print whatever they are told, amazing.

So all I can say is this: thank god for the internet, thank god for bloggers and the niche news people all over the world, thank god these established papers and TV finally have real competition from real people who aren’t always just after more circulation, more money and keeping the status quo. Most have nothing to really gain, only that wonderful feeling of community and connectedness.

If you think these people that have been in charge of information dispersion for so many years really did their jobs admirably during the Iraq War, or 9-11, or the torture scandals of the last 8 years, then watch FOX NEWS read the Times and go to bed scared witless every night. So what was the headline today in the online PI? One guess.

Nowadays, with a little work the truths of the world can in fact be gleaned out. This is a tremendous time for people who are citizen journalists all over the world to tell the real, non-commercial, non-politically correct, un-strained, un-washed gritty naked truth.

Repeating until it's True

2009-04-15T17:14:00.000-07:00

Can we form uber-truths that are not really truths just by making a statement over and over again? It would seem so.
I guess this is the heart of propaganda in politics and government. They say the winners of wars write history and the winners of wars seem never to be responsible for atrocities do they? They also say they person with the most money, who can buy the most negative, half-lying, or all the way lying ads often wins in elections. There are some things though that are obviously untrue and they are repeated over and over again and it bothers me, because I was there and these truths just aren’t true.
I could easily go off on politics; about how Republicans act like they are against big, intrusive government, when they clearly are not, or how they act like they are fiscally conservative when in fact Reagan and little Bush have spent us into national bankruptcy more than any other politicians in the history of our country. Those two men, virtually by themselves, have put our country in financial ruin, all for nothing.
But let’s talk about something happy instead, like sports.
Did Ken Griffey Junior have anything whatsoever to do with baseball staying in Seattle? No.
Let’s face it people overplay the 95’ season here to the point of being ridiculous. The Mariners didn’t even play that well in their “refuse to lose” run, look at the stats. The only reason they backed into the playoffs is the Angels had a huge collapse. That is the fact jack!
When the stadium thing came up we voted it down. I voted against it along with a majority of King County voters. Why? Because I have priorities in my life, that’s why, and baseball isn’t one of them, (not close). I don’t need to subsidize a billionaire Japanese owner and millionaire players; they can pay their own way. Why what happened? Who saved the day? A guy I am not that proud of, Gary Locke. So how did Griffey impact this? He didn’t
Locke didn’t care about the voters in King County, he had decided already to run for Governor of Washington. He easily beat the nutcase Ellen Crasswell, he couldn’t have custom ordered a bigger patsy. So if you want to lionize someone for Safeco Field it is your new commerce secretary Gary Locke.
Hey I am glad Griffey is back as long as he can accept being treated as one of the players and not have a big head and a selfish desire to be treated different like he always did before. If he wants to help out the team anyway he can and DH, welcome home Ken. I wish the Mariners the best of luck this year with a new team, manager and GM. I hope they kick some butt in the house that Gary Locke built.

Death of Duvall

2009-04-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

Somewhere east of Seattle; between a nasty neon-glow glow strip mall full of Minute Lubes, nail salons, fast food joints and other urban trash, and a large “instant-slum” project with postage stamp lots and dwellings that all look the same, all painted the same, to appear like a gigantic apartment complex straight out of Casino Road in Everett, used to be a small town known as “Duvall”, sadly, it no longer exists.
There is a very ugly scar on what was Duvall now, north of town, it is hideous. I am not sure how to even describe it. I just know that now when I start across the Snoqualmie Valley coming home from work, or play, or some errand, I can see it from as far away as the eye can see and it makes me very sad, because Duvall is no longer Duvall. This ugly mess north of town symbolizes Duvall has become like Lynnwood, a place you would no longer want to stay in, a place you would no longer want to retire in. It has become a place run by quick buck artists, and real estate speculators, and anything for a buck people and that is really terribly sad.

To do my best to describe this atrocity: if there was a huge black bomb crater there, it would be much better, because you would know that no matter how ugly that was now, eventually it would grow back with trees and brush and some bit of natural life and the earth would heal itself. If there had been no “planning” at all and there were single wide trailers, and trash and rusty cars there it would be infinitely better than what is there now, because there would be some small amount of open space and a few scattered trees and plants and it would look somewhat normal for the area in general. It wouldn’t stick out like a sore thumb, a big ugly sore thumb trying to hitchhike to greed. They call it by different names like Willow Run and Cherry Hill; I propose a new name, “The Carbuncle”.

But there is no respite. The neighbors on New Year’s Eve (if so inclined), will be able to open their kitchen windows and shake their neighbor’s hand, in his kitchen. Of course they can’t sell what is already built there now. They are trying to sell the tiny little lots for $99,000 and they aren’t big enough to even build a decent garage for the comically skinny houses next door. So the muddy scabland sits.
South of town is apparently what the real estate speculators call New Duvall since they have now taken to insulting the real town of Duvall as “old town”. It is non descript storage units and strip mall junk. Stuff you see everywhere else and no one wants to live next to, or anywhere near. I suppose for the people five miles up Big Rock road it is convenient. Since it is there they utilize it. Even the bank which wanted to stay in town was forced to move there since they wouldn’t logically stay where it was and the City let them vacate the alley. If fact, it would appear from the constant non-stop bridge and road construction that the people making the rules want every single business in old town to go out of business (they are close to succeeding right now). It is really too bad the valley floods every year or I have no doubt whatsoever these people wanting “progress” would annex a chunk of the river valley to build a big bright Wallmart as their coup de grace.
I had no idea that the sewer moratorium we had for a while was so important to keeping the town somewhat stable. Now we have outlandishly high sewer and water bills, constant unrelenting construction (as I write my street is blocked off yet again on a Saturday), noise, banging, diesel fumes and round the clock back-up—beeps, and new super skinny houses going up, three in the space one house deserves.
They say when you follow the money; you find who committed the crime. I hope whoever is responsible for the rape of Duvall has made a fortune beyond their wildest dreams. I would hate to think outsiders are making all the cash from building this Lynnwood-looking urban trash heap that the people who want to actually live here are now forced everyday to look at.

The Ordeal: understanding Maslow's Heirarchy of Needs

2009-03-24T20:07:00.000-07:00

For about the twentieth time I went in the laundry room and flipped the light switch. Nothing. There was no power, there had been no power for days actually. It was funny in an ironic way, it was a habit I guess, almost a reflex action I had grown quite used to, flipping on the light, and now it was gone.

The storm was something to behold, I guess several people were killed, I didn’t care that much about them, I was dealing with my own mess. I had to go to work, I was working as a warehouse manager and I needed to get ready for inventory. This involved all the regular standard work on top of the inventory gig. I told the owners the only way possible to make it happen was to open the purse strings for overtime, they said no.
When I first left the house after the storm, trees and power lines were down everywhere, I didn’t actually grasp how bad it was or I wouldn’t have gone “out there”, because then I had to get back. I was driving under trees across the road, under and over live power lines. Coming back, to help things out, the cops were closing all the roads. That is nice when all the local hotels are full and there is no way to even gas up because the gas stations can’t pump either with no juice. Very rapidly it starts to dawn on you how fucked everything is.

I did have a wood stove for heat and some possible cooking. Of course I didn’t really have a bunch of wood. The next morning a cold snap hit to make it really an insult-to-injury kind of cold. Normally to be really windy and stormy it isn’t that cold here, now it was. I wondered just how all the people in apartments with no insulation and no wood stove were making it. Soon there was no hot water and it was getting a little depressing. At one time the power had been connected with the local fire station and so it was a priority to get it back on. Now it seemed they had changed the lines and they had generators and things were different.
At work there was power, but no showers of course and coming home was no longer very appetizing. I learned some things. Hot coffee in the morning is a very important ritual. Light to put in contact lenses is very helpful. I began to understand Mazlow’s Heirarchy of needs much better.

I missed light the most, and then heat, after that most likely my computer and a line to the outside world, (yes I had a cell phone). It was funny but most people complained about TV the most, apparently it is impossible to raise children without one today. Recently, being snowed in for Christmas 2008, that was OK, plans with family had to be changed, we still haven’t had our Christmas roast dinner, but having light and heat, things were OK.

Surveying the Neighborhood

2009-03-22T14:33:00.000-07:00

Currently, I am more intimately acquainted with the daily doings of my neighbors than previously, and it is good to know what is happening around the neighborhood. Who know if I live near criminals, or child molesters or maybe Neo-Cons..? Egad! If I walked around by myself previously, the way I have been recently, I would be most likely stopped and questioned by the police, people would call in and report me for being “suspicious”, some people think I look that way simply sitting in a chair anyway. Now however, I am walking the dog and so everything is okey-dokey, instead of them wondering what I am doing they think ‘he better not let his dog shit in MY yard, damn his eyes”!!

We now know the kids across the street who stand outside and furtively smoke by the storm drain, people we most likely never would have met before. We know other dog people out on their own walk-abouts, since of course the dogs have to meet and size each other up. I see houses for sale and open houses and kids playing, junk for sale, and all manner of goofy things I would normally not bother with. I meet and talk with people that I have nothing in common with but they own a dog, and I own a dog, and…Wheee..I guess.

Some people are afraid of Pinky, especially kids, and I suppose I can’t blame them she is large and black, and almost ridiculously strong, although really just a big puppy. I was surprised to learn recently that the number one dog-bite offender in the US, are in fact black labs, go figure.

So we troop around and inspect stop sign smells, and “trails by their wear attesting to their utility” or whatever Thoreau said. We try and chase squirrels up the ladder and analyze whether we can jump up in the air and catch birds. We stare at airplanes with tilted heads and wonder respectively what they are, or wonder whether I built that particular one. After a while people are used to us, and we fit in, and people don’t notice us much as we inspect our world just a little closer, together.

Calling Google, are you there?

2009-03-20T21:02:00.000-07:00

Hey Google are ya there?

I can’t find any good way to contact Google or submit ideas. They all seem to lead to the Help area which is about using what they already have going.

Here’s an idea; add a search window to blogger to search blogger.

I know they have a search tool for searching within particular blogs, that is not much help. Also I suppose I could use the standard search tool in advanced mode and screw around, or use blog search but I want something simpler. I want a window at the top of the page to search all blogger results around the world for topics and common interests. Does this sound like twitter?

I want to be able to type in “photography” or “quiche recipes for gay Labradors” and then find other people in the world writing about those topics. In this way we could link up and compare notes and do that whole social networking thing people are into now.

So what’s up Google, ya there?

Keep the Home Fires Burning

2009-03-19T21:04:00.000-07:00

It is interesting now when thinking of going out to eat or purchasing a new kitchen faucet, I actually consider; this purchase might very well be the straw that breaks the camel’s back for this or that local business.

I know that seems overly dramatic, but in these economic times there is a point, maybe late on a cold March evening, when you have to look at your business, maybe look in the mirror and then shut the door forever. This is important for more than just being nice to people for me. I live a ways out, and although Costco might be a bit cheaper, even though their shopping experience is hellish, I don’t always want to drive 10 miles for small things. The Safeway here is much bigger, brighter and nicer, but the local store is cheaper, friendlier and has much better meat and local produce, it is also closer, within walking distance and I would really miss their small weird little store if they closed.

Camera stores, like Kenmore Camera, are one of my favorite stores. When buying a new camera it is tough to buy there when the online equivalent will be maybe $200 cheaper. I really want them to stay in business though. For one thing when shopping I want to be able to hold something in my hands and get a feel for it. Ah, what to do.., I try and throw them business to show appreciation for what they do for me when I can.

Locally we have too many restaurants; we had five teriyaki places for a small town. Some shakeout is inevitable; I would like to pick and choose what stays though. The way I vote is money I suppose. Right now the town in its infinite wisdom has decided to re-do all the major downtown roads which makes it even harder to shop the local shops. The tavern a somewhat famous biker type place had been in business for 86 years, it is now gone.

It would appear when done a year or more from now the economy will close about half the stores in town. Right now I have to think and ponder a bit when making purchases, if not I may lose a piece of town I take for granted. The local hardware store is important, when needing small items I don’t want to have to drive to Monroe or Woodinville all the time, I bought the faucet from them. You are welcome True Value, may you live long and prosper!

Black and White and bleeding Red all over: Newspapers

2009-03-17T20:29:00.000-07:00

Everybody around the Seattle area (and a few others), has been bemoaning the loss of the Seattle Post Intelligencer newspaper, for a week at least, which published its last hard copy paper edition today, although they will continue online.

The Times crying for the PI is the funniest, since they have been at each other’s throats litigiously for a long time now. Clearly, if a major paper is to survive at all they will have to stand alone and also make major changes in the way they try and do business, and quickly.
Ian Furness is another funny one. Being a DJ on sports talk 950AM radio in Seattle, he lamented the loss of the PI, saying he needed a hard copy of the sports page for his morning constitutional. Hey guess what Ian, you sloppy jackass? KJR talk radio is one of the reasons I don’t need the sports page! THINK!

Using the sports page as an example of the larger issue, many forms of information were not available before. ESPN and FOX NW sports and so on, were not there to compete in the newspaper heyday. Neither were sports radio shows. And of course the internet was not there either.
I find it funny that some people think bloggers have nothing to add as they don’t have enough inside poop to be valuable. I have heard it said that bloggers simply rehash what has been written about in the newspapers, apparently to some they are idea-less. I don’t agree with this of course and find it silly.

Websites like Craigslist are hurting the papers more than bloggers I think. People really can’t see paying for classified ads when a better service is free for the taking. How could the brains behind the PI not see that one coming? I think the Times will have to come up with special promotions to sell papers. They need a craigslist free posting board but better and more locally integrated. They could start charging a nominal fee for subscription to the online site. I would personally be willing to pay $10 a year to keep them open.

Drugs? Legalize them, so we can control them!

2009-03-15T17:01:00.001-07:00

Really, the catastrophic failure in Iraq is small peanuts compared to the failure of our “War on Drugs”. The war on drugs has been going on so long, and has woven its way into things like our foreign policy to such an extent, that there is no longer any clear way to measure the monsterous monetary cost. It is fantastic though and we all know that. The worser part is that the financial cost is nowhere near the thing that makes this so wrong-headed and horrible.
Consider folks:

The United States has the largest prison population in the world, by far. China, Russia and India together have less people in prison than us.

The Economist call for an end to the madness: http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=13237193&source=hptextfeature

The CIA says that the two most unstable countries in the world right now are Afghanistan and Mexico. That is right, Mexico, over neighbor, over 7,000 people were murdered last year along the US-Mexico border. The drug cartels standing army is larger than the Mexican national army. It is truly amazing but American drug laws are literally tearing apart the governments of countries like Mexico, Colombia, Peru, and many others. 90% of the guns confiscated in Mexico were purchased in the US.

It is far easier for a school kid in the US to buy drugs than booze.
Think about this; we are helping terrorists with our drug laws. The main money maker for the Taliban in Afghanistan is opium.

The budget of the State of Washington is 50% spent on corrections, and we’re broke.
How about this? More people in the US every year die from cigarettes and booze than all illegal street drugs and illegal use of prescription drugs combined.

You would have thought we had learned our lesson. When alcohol was illegal anyone who wanted it could buy it anyway, they just bought it from illegal sources, which made crime syndicates like Al Capone’s very rich and powerful. Capone bought off judges and the law and made them corrupt as well. It isn’t just the tax revenue that is lost, which is huge, it is the loss of control as well. If a drug dealer is doing something illegal anyway, if he is looking at huge jail time anyway, why not sell to kids? Do you think drug dealers are afraid of jail time? Do you think drug dealers are afraid of police? Drug dealers are afraid of one thing only, their friends.

Kids can’t buy booze because there is no money in it. If I am outside a liquor store and a kid wants booze what would I gain by buying it for him? Ten bucks? HA! It is not worth the risk is it?

The really, really sad part of all this is the police actually brag when they drive up the price of street drugs. When a heroin addict needs the shit to keep from going into withdrawal and the price goes up, do they just stop, do they think “hey maybe I will go into de-tox and better my life”? Of course not. They don’t have medical plans, they don’t have choices, they are too far gone for that. They must commit crime to feed the habit, if the price goes up they need to commit more crime. When the police raise the price of drugs they are literally increasing violent crime.

Here is an idea. Let’s get all these young men out of prison and put them to work, our country is in trouble we need to quit screwing around. Let’s make a bunch of tax money off of drugs, and build bridges with it. Let’s look at what Portugal is doing and admit our plan is not working. http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/03/14/portugal/index.html

Let’s admit that just making something like drugs illegal does not make it harder to get. If you doubt this for one minute…try this. Go to downtown Seattle with $100 cash. Try and buy Percodan or Marijuana on the street, see which one you get quicker.

Let’s cut our losses on something that will never work. Let’s admit drugs are no worse than cigarettes or booze, let’s tax it and move on. We have too much work to do, we are in too bad of shape to worry about people getting high in this crazy world. We have the data, clearly what we are doing now doesn’t work and it is time for a change.

The door knocked

2009-03-11T19:51:00.000-07:00

The door knocked, the dog barked, Christ! It sounded like someone broke the window in the door!

I assumed it was the dude to replace the kitchen counter dropping by to check something, (he is supposed to show up tomorrow). So I look out, it is two, cute, fresh scrubbed, little girls, one tall redhead wearing some plaid school girl uniform, and one short Asian with a round face, with ….name tags….uh oh…….

Turns out they were selling something alrighty… MORMONISM. The ultimate con as it turns out. Here I thought they were trying to screw me out of a magazine subscription (the last one by). But they were trying to jack my eternal soul instead!

They asked if I had ever heard of their little church. I remarked “as it just so turns out I know more about your religion than you do”. They asked how that was possible, I told them because I study, because I find it fascinating that their religion is so new and young, but at the same time so big in number. It is a classic study in modern man and his need for religion in general and his not really wanting to know what goes on behind the curtain, but just wanting to believe whatever he is told, and then follow, follow the flock wherever it leads.

I told them I was very surprised to see girls instead of husky corn fed boys as per usual. It turns out the Oriental girl was Mongolian! What!? Well I see what the gig is for her already..hey pretend to be a Mormon and get a free ticket to America! What a scam, I know some others at work that did the same thing, hey I can’t blame them, it worked didn’t it?

Anyway she told me to have faith, the seed when planted if the fruit is good means the seed must have been good, right? I didn’t have the heart to tell her that the last time I heard the “look at the beautiful flower and see god” routine it was back in the 70’s and a Moonie was pushing it. Strangely, it seemed right for a Moonie, for here it seemed pathetic. I asked if she believed the lost tribes of Israel had migrated to South America? She said “you mean like the book of Mormon”? I said ..ah ..yes. She said no she hadn’t bothered to research that much. I asked if she would research buying a new car? “Oh yes I would” she gushed! I asked Isn’t her immortal soul more important than a car?

Right then as if on cue a cat walked past. Pinky the rambunctious black lab darted through for the attack! They said goodbye and left as I chased Pinky into the neighbors yard as Pinky wanted to discuss with ms. Cat her immortal soul. The girls proceeded to my gay neighbors house…..ah the luck…..

A Modest Proposal: Create Limbaughland

2009-02-28T16:04:00.000-08:00

My fellow citizens, now-a-days in general, disappoint me.

American people, (supposedly free and intelligent) voting for George Bush, especially his second term, disappoint me. I realized after the 9-11 fiasco that Americans are much more cowardly, and generally stupid, (and proud of it) as a people, than I ever imagined possible. What other country in the world would despise intellectualism? We have no health insurance and more people in prison than any other country in the world. Right now we are bankrupt, in a ridiculous war in Iraq, and people are worried about an assault weapons ban. It is all truly amazing. The set of priorities many of my fellow citizens have, astounds me.

So we have a fat, drug addict, doctor shopper, who hosts a radio show, literally running one of our major political parties. His hate spewing nonsense, it is religiously followed by millions. He loudly states he hopes our current president’s plan of recovery fails, just because his candidate didn’t get elected. This is all despite the fact the last Republican group’s ideas were clearly failures. So what is the thought behind wanting to continue an agenda that is a colossal failure at any and all costs? To crush our country beyond recognition? To ruin our way of life? Why would that be their goal? I don’t get it.

Now the e-mails are flying out, trying to dredge up memories of Jane Fonda and the Dixie Chicks, and anything else that the Neo-Con nutcases can trump up to be bad things, because let’s face it, even they can’t blame Obama for anything evil yet, except being black, and being educated and intelligent, and having a funny sounding name, all hanging offenses to the Puritans apparently. They can’t admit the Dixie Chicks were right on about being very embarrassed to have Bush as our president. They can’t admit Jane Fonda was very right about us having no business in Viet Nam. Clearly she shouldn’t have cheered the North Viet force on in battle, even though they were just protecting their country against foreign invaders. The point is we were wrong to be there. Remember the “domino theory”? Isn’t it funny no one talks about that anymore? Viet Nam had many opportunities to take over other weaker neighbors, like Cambodia, and didn’t. They just wanted to be left alone to decide their own affairs.
We are also wrong in being in Iraq, we have no business whatsoever being there and what we are doing is morally wrong, any way you look at it. It is also way too expensive unless or lives depend on the outcome, which they don’t.

It is too bad these so-called “red states” cannot secede from our union so they can support themselves with their style of economy. They could teach their idiotic brand of science to their scientists. They could constantly wage religious war over perceived threats to their “way of life”. They could let the rich not pay any taxes and they could keep on the credit card style of living they love. They could keep printing valueless money as long as other countries would take it, which wouldn’t be long. They could fail, and I mean really fail badly, all on their own instead of dragging the rest of us down with them.

So I have an idea, a modest proposal. Let the Neo-Cons have their separate country and let them run it as they will. The so called “blue states” will also have our own country. Places like Eastern Washington could glom on with Idaho and Utah and be red as hell itself. We would call the new blue country Liberalia and the red states country could be Hicksville or the New States of No Education or possibly Limbaughland.

In the new true blue country, we could spend our money on mass transit and infrastructure instead of war in Iraq. We could have national health insurance for all and fund social security fully. We could end the ridiculous “war on drugs” and tax them instead, realizing they kill no more people than booze or cigarettes, and trying to legislate morality has never worked in the history of man. We could make education of the best and brightest a priority. If churches acted as political action committees we could tax them as well. We could make truth and justice for all a motto. We could also subscribe to the saying “we have very few rich men, but even fewer poor”.

The red as hell states could continue the holy war in Iraq. They could blow their money on huge gas hog vehicles and bankrupt themselves trying to be macho and Rambo-like. They could get rid of science and teach creation. They could mix their twisted view of Christianity with the state and make prayer mandatory in schools. They could burn books and outlaw everything. They could execute people who have abortions. They could make a national mania of locking people up and throwing away the keys. They could take away all civil rights and make freedom of speech a thing of the past. Moral police would walk the streets looking for offensive behavior. People could be locked up and tortured for years literally with no charges ever filed, let alone a trial of any kind. George W. Bush could be king for life.

After a period of time, say 25 years or so, we could see which country is better off. In terms of: jobs, wealth, technological growth, education scores, life expectancy, you know all the things that actually matter.

I wonder which country would best win a contest like that?

The Basic Difference: Integrity

2009-02-22T16:26:00.000-08:00

It is often stated that true personal integrity is doing the right thing when no one else is watching. I think the same rule of thumb can be used to tell how Democrats and Republicans really feel about serving the public …..after they get out of office that is…and there is nothing to gain. They all claim to want to “serve their country” when running of course. What better way to serve than to help non-profit organizations, when stepping down from the highest political offices in the country, to go into a useful retirement?

Going back to Richard Nixon, when he got out, in disgrace, he went into hiding. Little was seen or heard from him afterwards until his death. Let’s face it he was bitter, he should have been grateful for not being behind bars but whatever.

Spiro Agnew was a dirty as Nixon. He resigned and was disbarred from practicing law for his nolo contende plea, for taking bribes while in public office. When Nixon was asked why he kept Agnew on the ticket in 1972 he replied, “No assassin in his right mind would kill me." Ouch! Agnew retired to a job as an “international trade executive”.

Gerald Ford was the longest living US president, living to the ripe age of 93 despite a couple of assassination attempts. In addition he was the fifth president who was not elected, and the only one to have never won any national election of any kind, replacing Spiro Agnew when he was convicted of accepting bribery. After leaving the Whitehouse Ford joined the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. He spent much of his retirement playing golf and making ceremonial appearances with Bob Hope.

Jimmy Carter still kicks ass to this day in terms of helping others. When released from the White House he went into being a key figure in Habitat for Humanity. The next year out of office he won the Nobel Peace Prize. Although evangelical Christians hate him, he taught Sunday school throughout his entire life. As an interesting aside check out the red-blue states in Carter’s election!!

Walter Mondale, carter’s VP, after running for president himself worked as Ambassador to Japan under Clinton.

Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease but not for a few years after he left even though he was clearly addled in office. His wife Nancy claimed he fell and hit his head on a horse ride in Mexico in 1989 five years after his White House stint. He did little of anything after that.

George Bush sr. Had a long political career, he was CIA director under Ford, and Vice President under Reagan. Then he finally got his foot in the door for four years and is primarily known for letting Saddam Hussein off the hook in the first Gulf War. Days before leaving office he pardoned six people convicted and doing time in the Iran-Contra affair. He has, since leaving the White House, participated in many ceremonies mostly commemorating some Republican event. On April 21, 2008 he caught a 134 pound tarpon and enjoys playing golf at private country clubs.

Dan Quayle was viewed as a political liability during his career after his vice-presidential debate with Lloyd Bentsen. He has written several books since his retirement about American values and staying strong while working as an investment banker and Chairman of Cerberus Capital Management. He lives in private gated communities like the “Yellow Stone Club” with Bill Gates as a neighbor. His charitable contributions to society cannot be found.

The Clintons are still in politics and seem to be a pair in whatever they do. While President Bill Clinton relied on his strong, educated wife for help and advice and now she appears to be doing the same. Many people have speculated on their marriage but they are still together and work closer together than many people who supposedly have good marriages. When Bill Clinton left office he had the highest approval rating since WW2. 55% of respondents said he still had something to offer and should stay in the public eye. This could be one reason the Republican candidates do so little after leaving office, they are not wanted.

Since leaving office Bill Clinton has been one of the organizers, along with Carter of the new Baptist Covenant. He has also had meetings at the UN regarding disease prevention in 2007, and the Ontario Economic Summit in 2007, regarding healthcare and environmentalism. Like the Clinton’s or hate them, you cannot call them lazy. Can you imagine them retiring to a life of golf and country clubs? I can’t.

Few can rival the hard work and recognition Carter has garnered since leaving office, but Al Gore can. Gore has actually worked harder and become better known around the world for his tireless work on global warming since leaving office. In 1992 his book “Earth in the Balance” was on the New York Times best seller list. Gore’s accomplishments are too many to fully list; in 2006 he was the main character in the film “An Inconvenient Truth”, which won an Academy Award for best documentary. In 2007 he won the Nobel Peace Prize and it goes on and on, his commitment to the people of America, serving his country and the world at large.

I don’t think it is even necessary to mention Cheny is it?

Now we have Georgie porgie Bush on deck. If I was a betting man, and I am, I would bet he will set new benchmarks of laziness and uselessness in his idle rich retirement. After all this is the man who during times of “emergency” due to terrorist attacks and the USA basically going bankrupt, took more vacation days than any other President in our history!

He is fairly young and he can expect a few years for the “historians to judge his presidency” as he always crows. But what will he do with all his new found idle time? Do you expect him to work hard to serve our country, to help out in this terrible time of need, or to sit and watch from his mansion with a smirk on his face at what he has wrought?

Gee I wonder.

The "Soul" of the Internet

2009-02-22T11:40:00.000-08:00

I was scanning the vast wasteland of TV for something remotely interesting yesterday when a Rodger Daltry interview flickered onscreen. He looked fairly good for an old rocker from the Who. He was talking about the internet and music and how they related. He said the internet was full of information but was soulless. It seems to me the internet has as much soul as the people putting content into it.

I have been exposed to many unique bits of news, information and weirdness I never would have known about if not for the internet.

It is so easy to scan the local papers and keep up in today’s zooming times. For instance a former workmate of mine is in trouble again…for shame! http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20090222/NEWS01/702229930&news01ad=1#Trouble.finds.Shawna.Forde

And a friend sent me this disturbing although somewhat funny tidbit today. http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22116/67669

And what about the Ukrainian fighting women, what about THEM! http://www.divinecaroline.com/article/22360/65946-tribe-ukrainian-fighting--pics-?CMP=ILC-MoreFromWdgt

So I have to disagree, I think the internet has a lot of souls putting sounds and words and images of wondrous content out there on public display for all of us. And of course this content is FREE for the most part, unlike Rodger Daltry’s commercially soulful contributions to the art world.
For the first time maybe in the history of the world the little man can speak what he really cares about to the masses. The accounts are free and the possibilities are as endless as the most vibrant person’s imagination. I call that the new definition of soul!

Now do you want to make a tattoo gun in five minutes? http://www.5min.com/Video/Tatoo-Gun-Homemade-In-5-Minutes-10429

HA!

Should I Facebook Myself?

2009-01-09T07:23:00.000-08:00

Do I Facebook? No.

I could well be in the minority however. Looking at Alexa, Facebook is numero five in global use and that is pretty high for social networking. I just read during Christmas day Face book had a huge surge in traffic this year. My Space is currently seven, while the useful Craigslist is 39. My Space used to be the rocket to ride, but now if you are over 22 and not in a crappy band you are basically considered a child molester/stalker for My Spacing.

Facebook is supposed to “keep you in contact with your friends”. It would seem if someone was in fact your friend you would call them, or e-mail them, but possibly this contact is a new kind of contact, a casual, voyueresque creature requiring less effort, thought and concentration. The “friend”person can’t ask questions on the phone to find out if you are really listening, this could be handy for relatives who you are somewhat required to stay in contact with, but who really aren’t friends you would hang with, you know, if you weren’t accidentally related to them. It could be these “friends” are really just passing acquaintances in the social salton sea.
At the start, it was used to get to know people in school at Harvard; it makes a great deal of sense to me. Most people are young, and from different parts of the country, and trying to get to know each other and hookup, and screw each other’s brains out, and that makes sense doesn’t it? I think we were all students at one time and thought “hey who is that cute new girl/guy over in the corner”? It helps out to look up the Facebook profile and find out they are a Mormon or Vegan before you start investing in valuable chatup time no?

One of the first companies to buy in was Microsoft and they also have some kind of advertising deal with Facebook. I suppose it makes some strategic sense to have the same kind of thing at Microsoft as at Harvard, to try and bring diverse groups of people together at work. My wife uses the whole social networking concept in her work, so she is a member of damn near all, and experiments with many different platforms and concepts, to see how they interrelate and succeed with or against each other in the great social networking cage match. Who will win out? Will anyone really still Twitter three years from now? I can see why Obama Twittered during the campaign it was like sending a constant bombardment of TV commercials to millions of people for free. Would anyone really care to know though that I was sitting in the airport waiting to go to New York and I was bored? One article I read recently stated that the fallout of Twitter was that regular working folk were finding out that most glamorous star’s lives were actually quite mundane. Really GTFO?

I always thought everyone would just have their own website eventually and that has not materialized. I suppose it is a little too hard to set up, and maintain, and it is not free generally speaking, and so that isn’t working. What is working is a site that is free and very modular and easy to set up. People want the ability to post from cell phones and that includes pictures and text. People want the ability to easily include or exclude whoever they want. They want the flexibility of having various levels of privacy for different areas of their site too. Many posters need significant storage space because all those digital images, and videos and music clips add up after a while. They also want that high school thing of showing off how many “friends” they have, because this makes them feel popular and cool, just like uh..high school cliques. They want to look cutting edge and cool and rad even though all the cutting edge and rad and cool sites all look the same. They want to look like they lead a glamorous life just like Brittany. (See above)
I don’t think any current site offers all this although maybe Facebook comes closest.
One ironic dichotomy is that people think Facebook and networking is must have for work and business contacts. However for every feel good story of meeting someone and making some money together there are ten horror stories of Facebook faux pas. It is a public face and in the super litigious, politically correct, looking for dirt to get ahead over-someone-else’s back world (in this economy); it is like walking through a dark room full of bear traps.

I like this rant:
"A well-meaning friend of mine, whom I love dearly, is always telling me my life isn't fully realized because I don't have a Facebook page. OK, so what would I get with such a glorious thing? "You can promote your blog," she always assures me. Oh, yeah? But my column promotes my blog and my blog promotes my column. How much more promotion do I need? "People can contact you," she adds soothingly. Oh, yeah? Well, I already put my email address at the end of my column and I'm also reachable by phone, fax, text, blog comments, and messenger pigeon. How hard is it to reach me? "But you can make all new friends," she goes on. Oh, yeah? Well, I already know every single person in New York and even a few in Jersey and one in Pennsylvania. And I actually know them in person, not just by typed messages". http://blogs.villagevoice.com/dailymusto/archives/2008/07/fuck_facebook.php

Right now Facebook might be the best we have but I am getting networking fatigue. How many social networks do I have to be on to be socially connected, information spreading and thought leading enough? Next year will LinkedIn or Hit5 be cool and Facebook just another My Space has-been? What if I do get out there and find myself to be just mundane? The horror, the horror.

Customer Service

2008-12-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

Nothing feels better than to really harangue someone working in customer service or dealing with customers, making minimum wage or close to it, especially during the holidays.
It is like walking up to a sleeping wino, and punching them in the face, and then saying “HA I sure showed you”! And then of course describing in intimate detail, to all your friends, about how you had gotten into a fight and really beat some serious ass.

It relieves stress and makes you feel better than them, and bigger too, doesn’t it? This modern phenomenon is nowhere more clearly displayed than all the digital diatribes I routinely digest on our vast wasteland of the wild, wild, west of the World Wide Web.

People get very brave when carrying a gun against someone unarmed, or someone on the web, or someone on a telephone or maybe in a car if you don’t think they can get to you, face-to-face. When mano-a-mano, and not in a bar, most people still act fairly civil. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mano-a-mano

My wife called customer service at Amazon the day after Christmas and I told her “honey, leave those poor underpaid bastards alone”! Can you imagine anything worse than manning the return counter after Christmas?

We used to have a saying in the restaurant business “the customer is rude and stupid”. What it means in essence is when these overweight self-important, red-faced imbeciles are screaming at you, about some tiny thing you have no control over, they really aren’t mad at you, they are mad at life. They are screaming into the wind about their exalted Christmas that didn’t live up to their sky high expectations. Instead of getting the big present they hoped for, they got the medium present they never wanted. They are ready to burst at the seams with bile. Or maybe it just snowed like hell and they have a sore throat and cough now, (me). Anyway, they feel safe, even justified somehow, taking it out on the poor customer service/whipping post person. They threaten to “take their business elsewhere”.

By the way, when working at a retail establishment years ago, when someone demanded for detailed information, when we were manning a register, with customers standing ready to pay 10 deep, they would say “give me someone who knows what they are talking about”, we would say, “certainly sir”, then just set the phone down. When asked later who was on the phone, we would say “he is waiting for someone who knows what they are talking about”, then we would all laugh. One thing about those kind of jobs, you can have 10 of them tomorrow if you are so inclined.

This whole thing is even crazier because in most cases we have no real choices anyway. Sears or Wall Mart, is that a choice? Verizon or Comcast? Then of course there are things like the garbage pick-up monopoly, the PSE monopoly, the Microsoft monopoly. Is there any difference between Airbus and Boeing, I mean really?

But people have to let off steam somehow I guess, and screaming at people who have the misfortune to not be able to do any better than working in a call center during the holidays, is one way. Really showing them who’s boss, teaching them a lesson, getting your monies’ worth, is better than dressing up like Santa and shooting people. A little better.

Written somewhat in response to my friend: http://eatingmyworld.wordpress.com/2008/12/29/if-there-is-a-hell-its-calling-the-verizon-help-line-for-all-eternity/

Snowy Christmas

2008-12-24T11:53:00.000-08:00

AHhhh the snow, I am so very tired of it.

My wife wanted snow, she got snow.

My dog is crazy for the snow, although it has gotten too deep now even for her. Oddly, we have more snow here in town in Duvall this year than anywhere else I have seen this year.

We from the Seattle area have seen the old pictures of Seattle at around 1920 and the snow was three feet deep and we wondered why it didn’t do that anymore? Global warming? Weather cycles?

As a kid it seemed that we got fairly deep snow almost every year to make a snowman. Of course I was smaller, and it probably seemed deeper. I do also remember one Christmas as a grade-schooler that was bright and sunny and warm. I preferred the snow back then of course.
One of the longest winters I remember was 1969, the big Boeing layoff, my father was laid off I think six months. He played cards, solitaire, everyday, all morning long, I got tired of watching him. This was when they put up billboards, “will the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights”? We had compacted ice on our street for a month.

One time in high school, driving a 1965 Impala, I turned a corner on the way to school and slid into someone’s front yard. I went right up to their front door, at first I laughed and then thought…O SHIT, what if they come out,…amazingly, I was able to back out and continue and it seemed funny again.

Also in high school, driving the same road, I came up to a stop sign on a hill. I had to stop and then just sat and spun. I wanted to back down but my back window was covered with ice. So I got out with a scraper and as I shut the door the vibration broke the tenuous purchase the tires had on the ice. The car started sliding backyard downhill without me in it, the tires didn’t even turn! YIKE! As I chased the car downhill I fell down. Thank goodness no one else was on the road.

Living here now, on a hill, the kids always sled down the hill and make conditions worse than necessary. There have been several cars and four-wheel drive trucks stuck here within one block of the house. Two were stuck right across from our driveway. Things could be far worse though, we could all have no electricity.

Right now it is hard to drive around town because they have so many signs barricading with “road closed” it is like going through a maze to get to the local grocery store. We were going to have people over for Christmas Eve tonight. My mother in Kirkland can’t make it and we decided to go over there, but that seems silly right now. Lisa’s parents on Big Rock Road seem a couple states away.

I have noticed the last couple of years the very worst day of the year to drive, is in fact Christmas Eve. It used to be New Years Eve, because everyone would be so drunk and it was so late. The state and police have advertised against that so much almost no one does it anymore, it is verbotten. Christmas Eve, however, everyone feels obligated to go out and drive, and they don’t want to, so they are pissed off, and drunk as well. They are very angry drivers for sure and on top of it all they have snow this year. So I expect today to be really, really bad. All kinds of people will drive who haven’t driven the last few days. They will kill themselves for Christmas.

In This Economy

2008-12-14T14:30:00.000-08:00

One phrase/thing I am getting really tired of hearing already is this: “In this economy”. It is the new great buzz-phrase and people just can’t say it enough. On a sports talk show today they said the NFL had laid off 10% of their people, some 120 folks. One person said why? They other answered well “in this economy”…blah blah…

I was thinking, why in hell does the NFL need 1200 people!? Anyway it seems the thing now is to look for a reason, any reason, a catch phrase of some kind, to screw over your fellow man like you always wanted to do anyway, but were afraid of the bad public relations.

When we had “frost in Florida” they jacked up price on all the tomatoes and produce…even though it comes from Mexico. With gas high as the sky last summer they went to profit town on everything, because somehow, someway, everything is tied to “gas price”.

Bush’s word was “terrorism”. He would find something he wanted to do anyway, and then just say terrorism a bunch of times and go. Like this; “terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, I am going to take your civil rights, terrorism, terrorism”. Amazingly, it actually worked!! The worst president since Herbert Hoover, got his country destroying, tantrum way. Remember this one? “terrorism, terrorism, terrorism, I think I will invade Iraq just for the hell of it and bankrupt our country, terrorism, terrorism”.

So now any employer who really wanted to cut his employee’s throats says this;“in this economy” and away we go. Of course you can’t have a Christmas bonus “in this economy” and you wouldn’t dare ask for a raise “in this economy”. The Sam Waltons of the world love saying “we have to buy everything we sell from China in this economy”….

People that watch a lot of TV seem to be prone to the buzz word sickness more than most. They seem to hypnotized by the daily disaster doses on FOX and CNN to the point they no longer think clearly. Just like driving a car and not remembering clearly every turn along the way it is a form of hypnosis apparently

Companies like Bxxxxx who want to punish their hourly workers say “in this economy we can’t afford to buy food for holiday celebrations so they must all be approved at the director level”. Meanwhile corpulent office workers go to the Bxxxxx boxes at a Silvertips game and blow $2000 for one party. It all makes sense somehow.

All over town fathers are telling their expectant children “honey, in this economy we shouldn’t put up lights this year”. Tightwads around the world rejoice about the endless possibilities this economy presents them.

Mumbai Massacre: Ruins Thanksgiving in Seattle

2008-11-27T10:56:00.000-08:00

I am very busy lately, this holiday season, like most. I am working full time and also attending school. I had a job interview yesterday and today I have to put up a curtain rod thing before guests arrive for Thanksgiving dinner, do some reading for school and sometime this weekend I need to get a paper done. I have the Lions/Titans game on the radio, and am drinking coffee at my computer, a typical Holiday morning. So I click on the Seattle Times link and am SHOCKED to see in their infinite editorial wisdom they have some yahoos in India running around with rifles and building burning, and the news medias’ favorite word Terrorism on the front page.

So I read a bit thinking ‘well this must have something to do with me or it wouldn’t be there”, but it does not. Other than a mentioned feeling, that because some programmers at Microsoft came from India, there is no connection whatever to me and mine or this area. I am here to tell you that irritates me. I thought this paper was the “Seattle Times” not the “World Terrorism Watch” or the “Disaster News”. Pulling this wrong-headed stunt today, on a holiday the Seattle Times is their dupe, their scary news whore and it saddens me.
Apparently the Times thing is going for shock value.

Apparently, the Times can’t come up with a story people would want to read. Apparently, the Times have no writers that can write, about this area, on this holiday weekend. Apparently, they are just knee jerk hacks that publish anything someone else gives them with no ability to produce original, content of their own that has something to do with Seattle, on Thanksgiving.
I don’t have any problem with it being in the paper. But if all they are is a newsprint version of disaster TV channel CNN, and they feel to get on the front page, it has to be about killing, they have nothing to offer me as a reader. It should be noted here the number two story is the “South Center Mall Shooter”!!

Jesus H!@

Anyway Times, since you are clearly struggling, let me help you. Here is my idea, it will massively get you in the news, and you might even be able to charge people for on-line subscriptions. Just as you already have a sports section, a local section, religion or whatever you can now have a section called: BLOOD AND GORE.

You can name it whatever you want SHOOTINGS AND SHOOTERS, DEAD PEOPLE, TERROISM TIMES. This would be where you would put stories like the India massacre on the front page today. You could publish full color foldouts of death and violence. In addition things like photos of horrific car crashes that are still published in South American newspapers could be reinstituted. You could have celebrity autopsy photos, and all manner of blood and death. There clearly is a market for this, why not mine it?

Mumbai Terror: Cancels Seattle Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T10:49:00.000-08:00

So I read a bit thinking ‘well this must have something to do with me or it wouldn’t be there”, but it does not. Other than a mentioned feeling, that because some programmers at Microsoft came from India, there is no connection whatever to me and mine or this area. I am here to tell you that irritates me. I thought this paper was the “Seattle Times” not the “World Terrorism Watch” or the “Disaster News”. Pulling this wrong-headed stunt today, on a holiday, the Seattle Times is their dupe, their scary news whore and it saddens me.

Apparently the Times thing is going for shock value.

Apparently, the Times can’t come up with a story people would want to read. Apparently, the Times have no writers that can write, about this area, on this holiday weekend. Apparently, they are just knee jerk hacks that publish anything someone else gives them with no ability to produce original, content of their own that has something to do with Seattle, on Thanksgiving.
I don’t have any problem with it being in the paper. But if all they are is a newsprint version of disaster TV channel CNN, and they feel to get on the front page, it has to be about killing, they have nothing to offer me as a reader. It should be noted here the number two story is the “South Center Mall Shooter”!! Amazingly, the third story down I s about a 18karat gold bookmark stolen from an auction house in Madrid in 2002 by a Romanian and his arrest in Bellevue.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008441903_bookmark27m.html

Jesus H!@

Anyway Times, since you are clearly struggling, let me help you. Here is my idea, it will massively get you in the news, and you might even be able to charge people for on-line subscriptions. Just as you already have a sports section, a local section, religion or whatever you can now have a section called: BLOOD AND GORE.

You can name it whatever you want SHOOTINGS AND SHOOTERS, DEAD PEOPLE, TERROISM TIMES. This would be where you would put stories like the India massacre on the front page today. You could publish full color foldouts of death and violence. In addition things like photos of horrific car crashes that are still published in South American newspapers could be reinstituted. You could have celebrity autopsy photos, and all manner of blood and death. There clearly is a market for this, why not mine it?

The Neocons

2008-11-15T15:47:00.000-08:00

There are many definitions of Neo-cons and Neo-conservatism. Some think it is a movement started by Irving Kristol, father of the commentator William Kristol, and founder of the Project for the New American Century. Kristol also seems to have coined the term, saying that neo-cons were “liberals mugged by reality”. Others feel it is a reactionary movement to the liberalism of the 60’s. Most feel it was kicked off in the early 70’s and features a traditional conservative approach on social issues; such as limiting welfare and affirming individualism, promoting traditional moral standards, being anti communist, and having a vigorous interventionist foreign policy designed to push American ideas and ideals around the globe.

Many parts of this are traditional values from Barry Goldwater but there are two main diversions. One is the new interventionist philosophy of foreign policy. This was basically spoon fed to George W Bush from the likes of advisors such as Paul Wolfowitz and has become known as the “Bush Doctrine”. Since it is so central to the modern Neocons’ basic plank there is little wonder so many were upset Sarah Palin had no idea what it was when recently interviewed.

The National Security Strategy, published on September 20, 2002, is often quoted as the basis for this as the core to the Bush Doctrine, these four main points: Preemption, Military Primacy, New Multilateralism, and the Spread of Democracy. This policy made a certain amount of sense in Afghanistan since Osama Bin Laden was headquartered and supported their by the ruling regime.

In Iraq however, it has been an unmitigated disaster mainly due to the tremendous cost. The human cost is of course mind-numbing and hard to calculate. Many analysts around the world have spoken of how America has lost a certain “moral high ground” that it seemed to defend in the past. Who would have thought America would be known as a torturer nation and ignorer of the Geneva Convention strictures? Who foresaw special code words like “rendition” would be developed to mean we were shirking international human rights? Most citizens of the world feel George Bush is a war criminal, and many feel he should be arrested and put on trial similarly to Taiwan’s President Chen Shui-bian and if convicted imprisoned.
The other cost is of course financial. It is clear the US economy is simply not robust enough to pay for the Neocons’ gargantuan spending spree. This is the other way in which Neocons differ from the old school Pat Buchanan and Barry Goldwater Republicans. There is no concern whatsoever in the former Ronald Regan or current George Bush encampments to pay our bills. This new political agenda of the Neocons, to balance the budget by borrowing, to spend way beyond the nation’s means is not sustainable.

This is a very fundamental, basic shift in thinking, about what it means to be a conservative and which political party is the real conservative when it comes to fiscal management.
The Republicans, long a party to not care about the future of the environment for our children, now also have become a party to not care about the future of America’s finances or ability to pay its bills.

What a change from conservative to neocon.

Obama pulls it off!

2008-11-06T08:20:00.000-08:00

Well Obama did it. My wife Lisa and I were in San Francisco and November 4th was a very memorable night, it was something I will never forget. We were staying in a hotel near Union Square (aptly named for public demonstrations during the Civil War), and the people there just went completely nutso!

She was down on business and I was maximo-turista; I had walked and walked that day, clear down to the waterfront, and then up the stairs to Coit Tower, down to China Town and back. We were both exhausted. We took a nap and I had gotten reservations to a restaurant called Michael Mina’s, which is supposedly the best restaurant in San Francisco as rated by Michelin and others.

We walked up to the St. Francis Westin where the restaurant was and we could see people gathering. The bar was packed and CNN was on the election results. We paused a moment to watch and a dude jumped up and came over to tell me I was blocking his view. So we went up and were seated in the restaurant and had a fabulous dinner experience, (more on that later). I was seated looking out the window to Union Square and Lisa was looking on the restaurant. Periodically, during dinner a roar of cheers broke out from the hotel bars. I mentioned to Lisa that curiously, a big group of people were milling around in the square, then a line of police cars.
I thought; what the hell, is this all about the election? Lisa was like a little kid with the biggest grin on her face. The odd couple seated next to us (apparently on an internet date), were talking politics loudly. As we left just walking down the stairs from the restaurant to the lobby people were streaming in dressed in Halloween type costumes, yelling, screaming and laughing! It was just so crazy. Now the main lobby bar had about 1000 people in it and you could hardly get through, the hotel staff were unsure what to do, they didn’t want a riot breaking out.

Going out the door to Union Square it was packed with people, all the sidewalks were jammed with people just standing there not walking. People were ripping off their shirts and waving them running through the intersections. People were hopping up and down screaming OBAMA! And the crowd would cheer YEAH back! Cars were honking their horns in time to the chants.
There have only been a few times in my life when people seemed so connected and together, all the various and sundry disparate elements pulled together for a moment in time. Later, I thought of these times in my own life:

Kennedy’s assassination, I really remember the funeral procession on TV in black and white as a kid, with the horse drawn hearse and the horse being led with no rider.
The arrival of the Beatles, I was at a cousin’s house and people came running over from next door screaming “you have to come over and see this, there are guys on TV singing and their hair is long like girls”! On the Ed Sullivan show.
Landing on the moon, everyone held their breath. (whether it was faked or not).
The first time the 747 flew, people ran outdoors to stare and point, it was just way too big and slow to stay in the air, truly it slipped the brain gears.
Leaving Viet Nam in 1975, what the hell happened?
Nixon resigning (a collected sigh of relief).
The Sonics winning their championship in 1979, now I know how people can get trampled in crowds like that, it was actually scary, moving down the street without moving your legs like being in a river of human flesh.
The start of the first Gulf War. People put huge American flags, on their huge Ford pickups, and stormed down the street honking their horns.
911, of course.
And now this

I realize that in other areas the reception was most likely much different, like Texas for instance. So I was glad I was where I was, to see and enjoy the moment, because their just isn’t many of these kinds of moments that happen in any one person’s life.

Apple goes McCain on us:

2008-10-29T09:04:00.000-07:00

In the current political climate with the elections coming to a close in six days the negativity is oppressive. I really think that is one reason McCain is so far behind Obama. Even running against a black guy with a Muslim sounding name, McCain cannot speak to his ideas and programs, or gain any traction whatsoever, he can only attack with perceived negatives about Obama. This makes him seem small and mean spirited, and older and feebler than he really is, and that is hard to do.
Amazingly, the local Seattle/Eastside campaigns are worse, especially the one between Burner and Reichart and the Governor’s race between Rossi and Gregoire. It is so negative and depressing it makes it hard to watch TV at all. Who wants to be bombarded by such a downer? It is like standing there naked and being pelted with cold, wet, washrags! HA!
Now Apple computer has decided this is the way for them to go too. They apparently have nothing to offer the consumer other than they are not Vista. Their multi-million dollar campaign explains nothing they have to offer or put forward to help someone to compute. Microsoft’s campaign shows they are worldwide and looking to the future I guess Apple can’t really do that so they go negative. Karl Rove has proven certainly that the negative approach does work with some people.
Next I guess we will have Dove soap loudly proclaim “well at least we aren’t Dial”, or Ford pickups say “It could be worse than us, you could own a Dodge”. What a wonderful world we live in where one product spends millions to try and claim the territory of being the least of two evils instead of explaining what it will do to help us live our lives.

The Boeing Strike (September 6, 2008 till...)

2008-10-29T07:55:00.000-07:00

I am disappointed with both sides in the current labor dispute; with Boeing and their “negotiation team” being so arrogant, wrong-headed, and self absorbed; and with the Union, for not being more media aggressive about the future of union jobs and the strategic planning within the company itself.First off, the whole wrongly conceived notion that hourly union workers don’t care about the company, are greedy and lazy, and want to bleed the company dry is nonsense. Many hourly employees there are from families of generations of Boeing workers. As for myself, both my mother and father worked there when they first came to Seattle. In actuality, these people care about the long term viability and competitiveness of Boeing far more than Johnny-come-lately carpetbaggers like Jim McNerney the C.E.O, and others in management who are looking at short term stock price, their next outlandish bonus, and the golden parachute outta-here as the prime drivers in decision making!

The average age of hourly/union employees is somewhere around 47 years old and most have many years of seniority and a pension to try and protect. Most are also either from this area or have settled here and have a great deal of loyalty to the company and to the area. The truth is WE the union members are the true Boeing, not a handful of upper management mercenaries.Through reading all the various comments and blogs where people who are on the outside, looking in, and don’t really understand the issues one thing becomes clear. Many people think that hourly workers should be happy to just have a job, any job. They should be just happy to have a check, any check. They should never speak out about how their company is run or mismanaged. Even if they have worked there for many, many years and own stock in the company. They should work themselves to death and die in the traces, and never, ever, speak out, or horror of horrors, go on strike.

Where this cowardly, daddy-knows-best attitude came from floors me, it seems to be a talking point from the Republican convention. They say we have a bad economy now, so we should be happy with anything, well guess what? The fifties are not coming back. People in this country need to start questioning and questioning hard these management people, and politicians that are selling our country down the river for short term gain.

At the start of the negotiation process the Boeing management team started demanded numerous and significant takeaways from previous contracts, now why would they do that? Having just sold a used car recently, I know when someone really low balls you from the start it makes a person angry; it shows an attitude of disrespect. This approach says that you think the other person in the negotiation is desperate, or dumb, or both and you want to take advantage of them in an unethical way, kicking them in the teeth when they are down. Everyone knows this, it is a universal understanding, so why… (Assuming you wanted to sign a contract and go to work), would you start out this way? It is an antagonistic mean-spirited slant at the very beginning of talks.

The Boeing Company has a huge backlog of orders, has money in the bank and is doing very well in most areas; the Machinists are clearly doing their job and holding up their end. Airbus realizes they can’t currently compete with Boeing looking at the Dollar/Euro exchange rate and are in fact trying to move significant production to the US where costs for experienced, educated workers are cheaper. So when Boeing says they can’t afford to pay the current wages they are lying and everyone who can read knows this. Boeing’s only real thorny issues are the 767 tanker bid and the 787 production delays, which have nothing to do with unions, or wages in the Puget Sound.These two issues in fact have to do with monumental failures from Boeing’s upper management.

The tanker military bid was side-railed by yet another example of unethical behavior by Boeing upper management, something they have a long and well established reputation for. Both of the last two C.E.O’s before the current problem child arrived were involved in ethics scandals and were fired. The 787 has been a failure in scheduling and delivery of historical proportions, being the most costly decision making error in the 86 year history of the Boeing Company, this is mainly due to the holy grail of off-loading. In the past many, many management screw-ups could be fixed by abusing the employees with forced overtime. In this case this isn’t possible and the result is the current fiasco. The Air Force tanker program with spare parts and modifications is considered to be worth 100 billion dollars. The 787 not being able to fly, due to a Pollyanna supply chain strung all over the world, is also costing billions in lost stock price and plane deliveries.

Just think what a hit that plane would have been flying through the sky during the last fuel crisis! Think of where the BA stock would be with one of those planes taking off every few days! Of course the fact that Boeing off-loaded so much of the 787 just helped Airbus in their quest for the tanker, arguing that it was a viable business model. The true cost of off-loading isn’t just losing jobs for the United States and giving the competition training and technology, also lost is program security and as Boeing has learned very dearly….basic control of your programs.When will the 787 fly?

Who knows..McNerney states the program is not “leading edge but bleeding edge”, meaning the program will bleed billions of dollars until sometime way down the road supposedly, it breaks even. This money, this lost profit, will never be recouped regardless of his pie-in-the-sky, off load at any cost philosophy. He just needs to be gotten rid of, if anything begs to be off-loaded at Boeing it is the top management, where is the accountability!? His ideas have proven to be abject failures, just as his baseball team mate at Yale, George Bush’s plans have proven beyond any doubt to be catastrophes. We need to cut the apron strings with this type of divisive, short thinking leadership.

In this regard the machinists union should go on the offensive taking out full page ads in the Wall Street Journal, titled “OFFLOADING: a failed aerospace nightmare”. Details should be published about the amount of lost revenue this offloading maelstrom has caused and then compared to how much the wages and benefits package that Boeing says it cannot afford measures up. Also head to head comparisons should be given comparing the number and wages of mechanics at Airbus and the same comparisons for management numbers, tiers/layers of management, and compensation. We all know Boeing doesn’t want that laundry aired. If Boeing really wants to be competitive let’s look at the big expense hitters first and foremost, let’s not step over a $20 bill to pick up a nickel.Instead of always speaking about how certain new initiatives will save money let’s look at how much they cost and compare.

The public has been so brainwashed into thinking off-loading saves money they think it is inevitable, it is not. The simple fact is US workers are not paid the highest in the world. Our economy has been crap for thirty years and the dollar is in the toilet. When looking at huge transportation costs, training, language barriers and so on Boeing’s hourly workforce is a sensible bargain. Since employee turnover is almost non-existent the workforce is very experienced and professional.

Lastly, let me speak about unionization. I had assumed during this current labor dispute it would be the new people that had only a year or two at work that would be afraid to go out. Most of them only make about $14 dollars an hour, which doesn’t allow much for saving money. I spoke to one woman who said, “hey, you don’t understand, I have two kids and am a single mother I am at poverty level”. In addition there are other groups not used to being in unions; hyphenated-Americans from many places like Asia, I wondered how they would react. As it turned out it was these new people who were the angriest at Boeing’s machinations.

Boeing has spent a great deal of time and money to change people’s “attitudes” at work. One recent program was called “Investment in Excellence”, designed by Lou Tice of the Pacific Institute. This program was for four days on the clock and it was designed to change the “attitudes” of people. Boeing is so concerned with this whole “attitude” thing that on the 787 they wanted all new, inexperienced people with new fresh outlooks who wouldn’t be poisoned with old-school ideas of people like me.Of course that is another reason yet why the program is so mind-blowingly behind schedule. The point is Boeing took these new fresh minds, this new fresh clay, and in a very short time with the multiplier effect of out-of-touch management molded them into militant, angry, striking workers! Truly amazing! Posts

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Ton Ten Things I Hate

2008-10-29T07:45:00.000-07:00

The Top-Ten list of things I Hate…..

1. Huge four wheel drive tucks for commuting: Nothing says “god I am afraid of being perceived as non-masculine” like driving around an enormous gas sucking monster to merely haul your beer-belly ass to work. Bonus demerits for duallies, quad cab with long beds (the 35 footers), and super high wind-shear rigs. They should all have bumper stickers that say “every time I romp on the gas I kill another Marine”. As long as these idiots, who never haul anything, never tow anything, drive these abortions to work every day the price of gas is way too low.

2. Little pregnant dresses for chicks: I am sure you have seen them; women wear them as shirts/tops, often over jeans. The bodice is tight and then they poof out little small dresses for obese girls. I cannot figure out the attraction for any woman to ever wear one. All they do is look unflattering and make even a skinny girl look overweight. I can only assume these hideous apparitions are “comfortable” any time something astoundingly inappropriate (such as grey sweat pants) are worn in public it is announced “they are comfortable”. Of course this is just another way of stating “I am lazy”. I don’t mow my yard because it is “more comfortable”. Similar in way to how older women cut their hair Prince Valiant/Dyke short and then announce, “It is easy to care for”.

3. Costco: Yes, I realize if you are running an orphanage they have cheaper food. If you want to wander around the aisles dodging carts the size of Fiats and then wait in lines the length of a Disneyland holiday weekend nightmare, this is your baby. You can take your huge four-wheel drive and burn your five-dollar a gallon gas to go into town and fight through this mess to save small prices, how grand. People get there before the store opens on Saturday anticipating the crushing rush. The membership card is the final insult to injury. (Yes this is tongue in cheek, since I don’t shop there it has little affect on me).

4. Republicans that still support Bush: It is one of the funniest things I have ever seen to watch these tunnel-vision morons try vainly to say Bush was still a good president, that he was “good for the country”. Some have even said they wished they could vote for him again. The most amusing is he has screwed these people the hardest, (see 1). The damage that Bush has done is irreparable; no one will ever again trust the United State’s motives. He hasn’t just destroyed the US economy but our perception in the world as a leader, a country that was on the moral high ground. Can we say we are any better than the USSR or Communist China in regards to human rights? Imprisoning people, executions, people arrested without charges, and torture? No, not any more.

5. Applelites: These are the strange birds that have somehow been brainwashed to believe that their lives should be devoted to turning every person they meet into Apple computer zombies. They spread the word like electronic “Johnny Appleseed’s”, screaming about new Apple products, or the Apple store or some damn Apple thing ad-naseum. In trying to think of a comparison it is difficult. Mormons come to mind but their conversions are all about money and power. Amway comes to mind but that is money again. Possibly Vegans are a good comparison. Militant fucks out to meddle and change the world to their twisted view because they are so lonely, bored and unhappy. Applelites constantly cite statistics about their increasing share. This is only for the US; the rest of the world sees no point in paying triple-price to join the Apple Elite.

6. Wallmart: Wallmart is lionized in most business papers for their innovative business techniques. This is like praising Hitler for modernizing Germany. Wallmart represents and maximizes everything bad about American business; offloading, cheapness, screwing their employees, destroying small business, hiring illegal workers, disobeying labor laws, nothing is too low or underhanded for the Wallmart billionaires, the Walton’s, America’s new robber barons. They literally have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Sadly, many people are forced to shop there. Once they drive out of business all the businesses that historically served many small towns, nothing is left. They are the maggots of retail.

7. People supporting illegal Mexicans/Immigrants: These people say that if they were not here no one would do the work they do. This is both dumb and racist. It says basically these Mexicans will also gleefully do the menial labor jobs never aspiring to move up the socio-economic ladder, nonsense. America is already overcrowded and having a huge wave of illegal workers to drive down wages helps no one but the already wealthy, the Wallmarts, and people who want to use and abuse these workers who have no legal recourse for fighting labor abuses.

8. One issue voters: These wunderkinds have ruined the middleclass of the United States of America. For the privilege of being against abortions and supporting the NRA they elect snobbish oil whores like Georgie “Herbert Hoover” Bush; who has bankrupted the US, made us much less safe, convinced the rest of the world to despise us, and of course enabled even China to openly laugh at us if we bring up human rights ever again. How did it get to this? That people can’t realize what is really important to them and their families…the bread and butter issues? They have been brainwashed by special interest groups and thankfully the Catholic Church leads the charge into their own special stupid hateful tiny world.

9. The Catholic Church: Easily, hands down, the single most evil institution in the history of the world. You might say what about the Nazis? They only lasted about eight years and killed off a few million. The Roman Empire? They only lasted 1000 years and did provide some good influences in law, engineering etc. The Catholic Church is 2000 years old and still making people miserable all around the world today. They have been responsible for the torture and murder of entire nations, entire genetic ethnic groups gone, because of them. When having the historical opportunities to stand up against despots like Hitler, they climb in bed with them instead, and always have. When they ran Europe for 1000 years it was known as the “dark ages” due to their never ending battle against knowledge, science and art. They are the bottom of the bottom, their meanness and combativeness has been responsible for many, many of the worlds wars sice their inception.

10. The Police: It is very hard to tell what the police forces of the US think their true purpose is but it is certainly not to serve and protect the public. It seems to be collecting revenue and solidifying their power base. They brag about driving up the price of street drugs which we all know just increases violent crime. Certain religious groups being militant by nature, such as the Mormons, are taking over certain branches of the state police such as the FBI. How does this help us? It doesn’t. What a bizarre state of affairs and yet we cannot do anything against them or we will be cutting the publics safety and be deemed unpatriotic to boot!

Applelites Screaming into the Wind

2008-10-27T07:34:00.000-07:00

I didn’t go to work today…DAMN! We had a skiff of snow here in the Puget Sound region and people love to freak around here and blow things totally out of proportion. It has become a cultural phenomenon in this area.People, especially women, just scream at the sight of snow. Of course much of it is contrived nonsense to avoid work and that is fine with me. These women at work just wind each other into a frenzy about it. Two of them drive Jeep Wagoneers that could ford a river but can they cut through two inches of snow? EEEeeeeekkkkk!!! It is funny to watch the progression. First there is the warning OH JEEZ IT’S STIIIICCKKKING !!! We better leave right NOW!

So I was leaving and got about a block and was dead stopped, I turned around and went back to work and worked on an on-line assignment that is coming due and killed two hours. The ironic thing is if I had left when I did at first I think I would have gotten home the same time. I also heard that the road I was on at first was closed and everyone had to turn around, so I feel like I bingoed that deal.My operations manager called and was asking me leading questions like “uh…do you think UPS will be driving today…(pregnant pause, me thinking…). I reply “oh HELL NO! those…brown… vans? With no weight in the back? Not a prayer”,and poured another cup of coffee.

Having the day off today e-mailing and relaxing for the most part I have a little apple/monkey carrying on about apple and how it is the single greatest company ever. He is on the apple computer acid trip of course but also the ipod and phone and any other fucking abomination they churn out. He is totally eaten up with the disease. He even said he watched a two hour Steve Jobs conference, most likely squinting at that ¾” ipod screen like a madman.There again, fine!? Who cares? Well he does.

Just to own it and use it has never been quite enough for the appleites.The thing about Apple computers is I have no problem with them, never have, never will. They have not hurt me in any way and they won’t because I won’t let them. HA! They are just another tool to get your hands on. I have fiddled with them a bit and they seem fine as far as they go. The Jehovah’s Witness Church and Vegan’s are fine too, just leave me out of your little personal hell.Why shouldn’t I try it? Well besides no desire, I am invested in Windows. I don’t have hundreds of dollars in software and add-ons it is thousands. It isn’t all legally upstanding stuff but it is here ready willing and able to amuse me. I also like sticking with things. There is comfort in continuity. My e-mail address hasn’t changed in many years. If someone were to GIVE me a brand new top-of-the-line apple would I play with it? Sure why not.

If I had one at work would I use it? Sure that’s the way work, works so to speak.I was talking to our designer last night watching the snow. He has a brand new top flite apple and was using illustrator. I like watching the guy work because he is very fast and creative as well. I asked him if he stays away from the computer when he goes home at night after using it all day. He said “you can’t escape technology man”. He on lives on Capitol Hill in an apartment and has no, TV, or ipod or any sech accoutrements. He does have a laptop which runs windows and he plays games and occasionally watches a movie on it, he has no home internet connection.

I asked him about the apple deal before and he just said “hey it’s what they bought”. He seemed to think they bought apple just because they already had apple software for it. It is the only apple in the place. While he was using illustrator I said “Christ that looks just like Photoshop”. He said it is basically the same thing they just dumbed it down to run on apple JAnother reason I have never been hot for apple is it is a proprietary thing. Microsoft makes software that runs on a variety of devices, but apple makes the whole shitterey. They remind me of companies like e-machine where if you want to open the box and chisel in a new video card you are screwed you have to use their junk. They have traditionally always wanted the whole pie, the CPU’s and all the hardware. The original Mac’s had the CRT and everything all in one box which makes upgrades and changes pretty tough. Apple used to sue people all the time if they copied their designs.It reminds a person of Sony Beta-Max or Polaroid.

They both really missed the boat by being greedy, stingy fucks and apple almost did too. They almost went under in what, 97? One reason they didn’t is they got some “partnership” money from Microsoft. If you really think about it I bet it is actually in Microsoft’s best interest they stay afloat to avoid more anti-trust heat. Anyway apple has just been a cluster fuck through the years. Now they LOVE Jobs, before they kicked him out of the company.Can you remember back when he was pushing NEXT? GAWD I guess that software is like Microsoft’s ME, the worst product they ever made.When these discussions come up people always assume, wrongly, that Windows computers are the first I have owned they would be wrong. The first was a Commodore. I did play around with something they were trying to call a “computer” at Edmonds CC, which used punchcards. After Commodore I bought a Tandy which had its own OS if you want to call it that. I needed a word processor and it did do that and I had a couple games and limped along with it. It was a damn site better than a typewriter.For a couple years I didn’t have a computer and when I finally re-upped it was Windows 95. All the things they had promised us for years were finally coming true. I use mine now for work, home and school. I shop on it, communicate, and all manner of things like photography. It is damn handy and I use it all the time and never once in my life have I needed or wanted an apple.

I do think PC’s are a little harder to maintain. MACs are more for the type of people that just want to put gas in their car and drive it and never have to know how it actually works. I have heard it said that PC owners are the type that are more likely to rip the side off their machine and tear into it and I agree with that analogy. More women like MACs.But my little friend didn’t say today that apple is changing its name and taking the “computer” off. He also thought it was good news that they were making it so you could dual boot into OSX or Windows. They are making MAC’s now with INTEL processors and most people who use MAC’s use Microsoft Office for MAC’s . Seems funny to me, damn funny to bitch about Microsoft then use their products.Face it folks apple has hung its hat on the ipod and iphone and similar products.

Face it applelites you lost the computer software war sometime back and no one cares about apple hardware. Go ahead and start screaming into the wind about how the iphone is god’s gift to the technorati. Buy your $599 iphone I will limp along with my free phone that works great and has a better camera, text messaging, internet and more.

Technohillbastard

2008-10-27T07:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a note from my illiterate brother!

"one is shareaz and k light pro and bite download i candownloa and copy any thing muic or videos and make disk of them iven games for playstashion sory this thing is skiping leters because im downloadng movies rite now well bye for now o it snowed 5 nches here last night and still snowing hard"

Having Enough

2008-10-27T07:22:00.000-07:00

On the way to work today I wasn’t in the best of moods, I really didn’t want to get up, and it seemed dreary and uninviting outside in the big grey world. But I dutifully went and on the way started listening to a new audio book.I usually like mysteries but when I had gone to the used bookstore in town this weekend there wasn’t much. I was leaving with pursed lips when the owner said “hey Ed, the wife and I were listening to something lately and you might like it”.

I asked what it was called and he allowed as he didn’t know. “I try and drive the car and she is in charge or taking in and out and re-winding and all of that.”So it was called “Havana”. I immediately thought of that Robert Redford movie a few years back that never did anything. You can’t go by that though. Sometimes a book will have the same title as a movie with no relation. I read a book called “Lost in Translation”, by Nicole Menes and it had nothing to do with the Bill Murray movie, although I liked them both.It starts out in Cuba and they are talking of assassinating Fidel. Then it switches to Siberia and some prisoners there.

One prisoner named 4715 is playing another guy cards. The pot is a cockroach. They are starving and the cockroach is protein, he makes a very big deal about eating it, even going so far as giving a speech, none to the pleasure of his bunkmates.He is then called into the office or whatever and allowed a hot shower to clean up for a visit. His describing of the shower and soap, something he had been without for months, or maybe years, was very funny. It put me in a good mood just thinking about someone so hard up a cockroach and a shower made them feel happiness, in the first time, in a long time.

I smiled while driving in.For some reason, just now, I was thinking of when I first left home. My parents had wanted to charge me room and board. I was going to school, and working a job, but that wasn’t enough I guess. They threw out a figure of $125.00 a month! I laughed at them. Why on earth would I pay THAT, I asked, when I have no privacy here?I started looking in old Everett, in large old houses by the water, on the hill above the paper plants. Many had been turned into rooming houses and were cheap. I looked and looked. Finally I moved in with my girlfriend.

We had nothing.When I moved out I had assumed my bedroom furniture was mine. My parents however, had other ideas. They said they had paid for it and tried to sell it to me if I remember right. I told them by no means, they should keep it, and treasure it.

My girl did better, her parents let her have her single wide bed, tiny dresser and maybe a night stand. That was it, all we had.Amazingly, we rented a two bedroom apartment in Lynnwood with hardwood floors, a deck, and a fireplace for $150.00 a month. I remember sitting on the shag carpeting together, sitting with our rumps flat on the floor not a stick of furniture in sight. We looked into each others eyes and laughed, a silly, childish, game-playing, mirthful laugh.

We were playing the game called “grown-ups” and so far we were losing. But we had each other and that was enough.

Bloggage

2008-10-27T07:17:00.000-07:00

Recently, a friend of mine posted some comments on his blog about police being revenue collectors and how he was bent out of shape about it. I responded in the comments section and not only was he ENRAGED but he even ran and got his wife to tail gun me on the turn-about.

That was fine and good with me, but then he just kept going ON and ON about it. I even called him today and he was still in a finely-honed fury that I should question his judgment on his missive.So I have asked him, why do you have a blog? Is it just a family album? He has even titled his blog “the ranting loon”, which would indicate he is ranting and raving, and he is crazy, would it not?

Wikipedia says: A blog is a user-generated website where entries are made in journal style and displayed in a reverse chronological order.Blogs often provide commentary or news on a particular subject, such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic.

The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of most early blogs.Ah well, what do I know? I thought the idea was to get some lively comment and public discourse!I told him “hey if it bothers you that much then go ahead and erase it”!

It was the most interesting thing ON the blog! HAHA!! He did……

WIndows to the Mind

2008-10-27T07:00:00.000-07:00

Well religion is an interesting thing; it is a type of window into the human mind. Where ever you go they seem to have some kind of religion to explain the unexplainable. I suppose in some ways it saves time. When a kid asks where did the world come from? Where do we go when we die? You can just trot out the standard line.

The Arabs have reason to be pissed at us really, we continually go over there, where we have no business, and try and control them, and oh yes, kill them. Things were more or less fine until the crusades and the West started that…not them. Although many people think it was just to get Jerusalem into Christian hands again it was mainly about looting and pillaging and making a buck. One thing I enjoy is medieval history. Did you know that one of the big deals during the Crusades was finding Christian artifacts? Things like a piece of the cross, or Jesus’ shroud or maybe the lance that pierced Jesus’ side? These things would be put into the local cathedral in town and then the faithful would go on a pilgrimage throughout Europe to see them, touch them, pray over them, and get just a little closer to baby Jesus. It is funny in a way that even back then the local nobles were trying to boost tourism. What better way to do that then sack Jerusalem again?

Of course if Iraq had no oil we wouldn’t be there now. Cheney and all that lot don’t care two whits about “Regime change” and human rights and all that rot. Iraq was never any threat to us and I wrote about that before we invaded. Iraq and the world in general is a more dangerous place by far, now, than before we invaded….ah well.

The thing about religion that I find fascinating is when there is proof that the particular beliefs are bullshit, the people still believe. They discount the evidence and still go along. The Mormon religion is a perfect example of this. They have a written history from the start. The Mormon Church has been involved with all kinds of shady dealings, even recently. The Mormons are the only large group that for years has condoned sexual abuse of youngsters (other than the Catholic church of course), even Brigham Young “married” 14 year old twins that he was legal “guardian” for. When my little door-to-door friends come around I discuss this with them. The previous two came by several times; they even mowed my lawn at one point. The last two though got mad at me. They kept telling me to “pray about it” to find the truth about their religion. I told them to “read” to find the truth. As they went down my driveway they were yelling PRAY! I yelled back READ!!! HAHA!!

People always say that a religion or belief in a religious system has to be based on faith. I frankly don’t buy that. To me faith is something that is earned, not something that is drilled into your young head by rote, or something that is simply accepted as the belief-du-jour. Nor should faith circumvent troublesome things like facts. But it does, each and every day. I can honestly say with no hesitation the world in general is a far worse place with religion, than without it.

John Lennon’s song is very easy to imagine.The only religious practices that are worth the powder and shot to blow them to hell are those that do some good, measurable good, right here and now. Things like meditation for instance provide benefits. Beliefs that living a good life will bring good back to you are helpful. The concept of Karma is helpful. The concepts where you can live your life as a total ass and at the last possible second accept Jesus and go to heaven, those kinds of beliefs, are either harmful or at best useless. Beliefs where if you badmouth the church you should be killed or tortured are not helpful to the human condition. Regardless of what some Muslims will say if you are labeled a heretic or disagree with their teachings you are okey-dokey to kill. I have read the teachings of Muhammad and the Quran I know what they say. Both the Quran and the Bible are books of violence and intolerance.

When you look around the world and find religious violence, almost always Christianity or Islam are involved, many times both. I have to wonder….if neither of these two religions had ever existed would we be better off? Or worse off? I have to say the world would be better off without them.