Adventures in a Southern Winter Wonderland Part One

I live in Tennessee; we are in the Southern United States, but just barely. We still have winter’s although usually just unpleasant rather than really nasty ones. As a result, we don’t respond well to snow. We really have no idea how to deal with it and tend to go into a major panic if more than two falling flakes are seen. The early part of last week, winter sent us a diversion. It snowed for 2 days in a row, pretty steady. It would snow and the ground would turn white, then stop and the sun would shine and it would go away, only to repeat the cycle. You couldn’t get into a grocery store without a swat team to clear a path. Then it turned warm and everyone was running around without coats and happy. That lasted three days, and then it turned nasty. The bottom fell out of the temperature and it started snowing and it was serious about it. It snowed all day and night Saturday and Sunday and is still going on Monday. Locally we have between 4 to 14 inches, just depending on what part of the area you are talking about.

I got up a little early this morning. I knew I would have to deal with the snow which meant a slower drive to work, plus time to clean and thaw out the car. I ate and shaved faster than normal. Then I bundled up, two shirts, heavy pants, two pair of socks. I dug out my heaviest winter coat, insulated water resistant gloves, and a knit cap. Donning a pair of boots and this gear, I gathered a broom and then I did a stupid thing. I had a friends laptop that I reinstalled the operating system on over the weekend and my lunch. I opened the door and had to force it open against the snow. Until this point I had only the television news to go by and they were reporting this area as having from 3 to 6 inches. People kept calling in and claiming there was more out there, but I wasn’t paying attention. When I stepped onto the porch I sank into the snow. It reached the bottom of my knees. I fought my way through the snow, and basically fell off my steps. I stumbled plowed through to the driver’s side door, dropping my lunch several times. I used the broom to knock the snow off the door and immediate car top. The door was a little stubborn, but did finally open. I was I put my cargo down and started the car. Then I knocked the rest of the snow off it. I then cleaned off my porch steps and then went to the mailbox to put a couple of items in. This resulted in a couple of embarrassing falls, as I couldn’t see my driveway, yard, ect and the snow depth was anywhere from just above my ankles to halfway to my knees. I had used my leatherman to try and measure the snow depth, as it has an eight inch ruler on it, but the snow was deeper than eight inches on the car. My guess would be about 9 inches deep. When I returned from the mailbox, I swept a path across the porch to my front door and went into the house. The saving grace here is that the snow is a dry snow, so it wasn’t clinging and despite rolling in it a few times, I wasn’t soaked through. I retrieved my cell phone and turned off lights and stuff, locked up and drove, very slowly, on a road I could rarely see to work. I don’t think I slid but once on a curve where I had to leave the single track of ruts because of oncoming traffic. So far, none of my appointments have shown up, all but 4 have already called and cancelled. I had thought to leave early so I wouldn’t have to drive home in the dark, but unfortunately the one person who has called and not rescheduled is my very last appointment. He plans to be here.

Where's The Beef

There have been several times when I have wondered why suddenly everybody and their brother is advertising angus beef. Every fast food restaurant suddenly has an angus except maybe Dairy Queen. Walmart sells angus burger patties and ground beef. Why? I grew up in a rural area and to the best of my knowledge Angus is a breed of cattle. Is the meat of one breed of cow better than all others. It seems to be more expensive. I finally though about this while in front of the computer rather than driving somewhere in my car and I looked it up.

Angus is a breed of cattle, actual two breeds, Black Angus and Red Angus. I believe there may even be subsets in the breeds. They are the most Popular breed in the US. They were brought to the US in the 1800's. For a long time most of the beef in the US came from Angus and Hereford cattle. So why did that change and why suddenly is Angus become such a marketing buzz word?

Well there are two things that make Angus beef different. First both Angus and Hereford have more of a protein called myostatin. Myostatin inhibits the growth of muscle. In other words, Angus and Hereford have more fat in their meat than other breeds of cattle. Second, Angus beef has very fine marbling (the fat is mixed into the lean meat very well).

If you are above a certain age then you may remember how it was decided that eating fat made you fat, so all kinds of stuff became low-fat or fat-free. Well angus beef went out-of-style. It now seems to be back in fashion as a premium food. Part of this might be due to the fact that most women work outside the home now, so slower cooking methods that tenderize the leaner, tougher beef that became standard are no longer practical. Part of it is due to the work of the American Angus Association. They created CAB (Certified Angus Beef), Certified Angus Beef requires that the beef produced if from either a certified Angus or from an animal that had a certified Angus for one parent. It also has to meet standard for marbling and 9 other strict standards. Less than 10% of beef produced meet this standard. So buying Angus beef means you get better meat right? Wrong. Buying CAB marked meat means you are getting a premium cut of meat. But the majority of Angus beef being sold isn't CAB, but we've now bought into Angus being better, so most people assume it is all the same. CAB meet sells for considerably more than other types of beef. You can rest assured that the Angus burger McDonalds sells isn't made from CAB beef. Another thing to consider is that the fast food chains have a major impact on the beef market. They now know people will pay more for a "premium" burger. So if the demand expands, unless the government gets involved and sets standards, suppliers may stretch their definition of what Angus beef is.

Now is Angus beef any better? Some people think it tastes better and is more tender. Well taste is determined by preparation method and fat. Since angus beef has a higher fat content, it may taste better than a leaner cut prepared the same way. Fat can also have a lot to do with tenderness. On the other hand, another cut of the same grade meat would probably taste the same to most people.

Incidentally, the Wagyu cattle breed has similar marbling and possibly even more fat than the Angus. One variety of the Wagyu is where "Kobe beef" comes from.

Recent Events

Things seem to have snowballed for me recently. It's hard to describe but it seems like I need more hours in the day just to cope with the minimum things I need to do, much less things I want to do. I realize that some of it is inefficient time management on my part, but I also seem to lack motivation and energy. I finally worked around to making a doctor's appointment for myself a week before my blood pressure medicine ran out. I hadn't been taking it like I am supposed to, for instance sometimes forgetting either 1 or 2 days on the weekends or skipping the pee pill part of it on days I have court of morning training at work. That pill runs me pretty regular to the restroom from 8 to 11 or so, and all the people from the outlying offices come in for the training as it is mandatory, so there is only 1 bathroom for all the men and only 2 for the women. Even if I can hold it until the breaks, I may end up driving to the nearest gas station for relief. I was prepared for bad news only to find that my blood pressure is down a bunch. After discussion with the doc, she confirms my opinion that I am suffering from depression. She put me on an antidepressant that is also supposed to provide some energy and motivation. She warned me about possible side effects including suicidal thoughts, insomnia, paranoia, ect. I am paranoid most days anyway so probably won't notice that and as I told the doctor, I am more worried about homicidal thoughts than suicidal ones. I have only been on it for 2 days but so far I am sleeping like a baby.

In more interesting news, we had an election. On the local front of said election, there were 2 interesting referendums, neither of which I could vote on. I live very close to the line between the county I live in and the county I work in. I actually spend more of my waking time in the work county as it is where I do most of my shopping, movie viewing, eating out, ect. The county I live in is the economic equivalent of a tumbleweed that hasn't blown away yet, and has little to offer. In the county I live in, the county seat (where I don't live) had a referendum on liquor by the drink. In simple terms, the county has been dry for my entire life, stores with the proper licensing can sell beer and malt liquor drinks and a few restaurants can sell beer with a meal. The liquor by the drink would allow establishments to serve stronger alcoholic beverages for on-premise consumption. It would still require licensing by both state and city governments and would obviously be regulated. The proponents of the referendum argue it would bring in additional sales tax, possibly some new restaurants and employment. The people against the
referendum proclaimed higher crime rates, particularly dui, hell fire, damnation, prostitution and violence in the streets, Mel Gibson visiting town in full apocalyptic glory. Now for some prospective on this. This is a small town growing visibly smaller by the year. The largest town to the north is a thriving small city which has liquor by the drink, to the northeast is a county with a county seat so small, it doesn't even have a chain fast food restaurant, but it allows the sell of liquor. The largest store sits right over the county line from my home county. The largest city in this area is the one I work in. It allows liquor by the drink and just voted in a referendum for liquor stores. This is to the south. They are going to allow 4 and expect them to possibly be open by the end of the year. The largest city to the east offers both liquor by the drink and by the bottle. So only to the west does it require more than a 20 minute drive to by either a single drink or bottle of the demon rum. The county I live in and the one I work in are both dry, but both county seats now sell liquor by the drink, and the work county will soon have liquor by the bottle. This makes sense because a smaller city in the same county voted it in last year and made over a half million in new taxes alone. Now as far as the city in my home county, I don't suspect liquor by the drink will make a huge difference. It's a small place, it isn't going to attract a major chain restaurant, I don't think the demographics are there. There are two existing ethnic restaurants that might benefit a bit, so maybe a little more tax. The dui rate is already high, so I doubt this will contribute, most of those guys prefer Coors or Bud to The Captain or Jack. There aren't any bars or clubs inside the city limits, so unless the zoning commission allows one in, I don't see any issues there unless it gets passed as a county referendum.

Other news, Jack in the Box closed the local branch. This sucks for me. I have 2 places where I like to eat breakfast, both are close to work. One is the Dairy Queen, where they have great breakfast burritos (excellent salsa) and the biscuits and gravy is good too. The other was the Jack in the Box. I loved their breakfast bowls. They also had a grilled breakfast sandwich that was good. Now I am down to one. I tried the new Burger King, but none of there additions seem that good. As far as they go, I still think the old croissanwiches are their best offering. Their breakfast bowls are about half the size of JINB and the only meat is sausage, of which BK's isn't that great. The also dropped the chicken biscuit which was my other item when I had to eat breakfast there. But on the positive side, we are getting a Blue Coast Burrito, which is apparently what happens with people from California try to cook Tex-Mex or Ari-Mex. That being said, maybe I can finally try a Baja Fish Taco. The building is done and they are hiring.

Gripes, pisses and moans

I just read a story on msn which got me to thinking about one of my big pet peeves in life. There are things I don't understand and one of them is the modern methods that some industries use to do business. I have cell phone service through Verizon. I don't really have a choice. People say I do and could use AT&T or Sprint, but there coverage in my areas is sort of like shit. Actually it is shit. Verizon is the only company around that covers not just all of my state but all of my county and the surrounding counties. Even with Verizon there are some areas I have to go, required by my job, where there is no cell phone reception. I have 2 phones on my plan and I was told my plan would be $74.99 per month. That was with a 10% discount on 1 phones access charge due to my employer also being a major Verizon customer. A benefit of my job I guess. The last time I signed a contract with them, I asked repeatedly what my bill would actually be. The salesman kept giving me a funny look and quoting the $74.99 amount. He finally after about 15 minutes of arguing admitted there would be some taxes but it should still be under $90. My average bill, with no overage charges, additional data charges, or long distance from outside of the US calls is $114. 60. That's almost $40 over what I was told. I look at my bill, pick, poke and pry but there are so damn many access charges, taxes, and stuff they claim is required by either state or federal government. I don't get this. If they know they are going to have to charge $10 for some sort of federal access charge, add it to the damn plan cost. Same with state charges. I know that in many cases they may have to charge state and local sales tax and that is hard to predict the exact amount on, but I would rather know up front to expect a $95 bill with tax than a $75 bill that gets inflated to $95 with additional fees and charges then gets tax added. Also, how do I know these charges and fees are legitimate? Why aren't they upfront with them. Obviously they want to make the sale and the lower the price looks the easier the sale, but there really should be some sort of disclosure laws, something to prevent the sticker shock from having an expected $8x bill be a $1xx bill.

Also there is now a company that is offering a prepaid cell phone card that works with any Verizon phone or their phone, uses verizon numbers and costs $49.99 for unlimited mobile to mobile, mobile to land line, text and internet access. I don't have that with my phone. I have unlimited mobile to mobile with other Verizon phones, nights and weekends, and unlimited text on one phone only. I have no internet access on the phones at all. I would actually save a few bucks a month going to that plan, I just have to remember to purchase and activate 2 cards every month. You can bet in March when my contract is up and they are making all the offers to try to make me renew I will be asking questions.

The only other business that seems to be working in this way is satellite television. Now I cannot get cable where I live. They stop the cable about 1/2 a mile from my house and refuse to run it any further despite there being plenty of houses along the way. For a long time, my only option was the various satellite providers. When I first moved out I had the rather limited selection, but reasonable pricing and simple billing of Prime Star. Then they were absorbed by Direct TV. There may be other choices elsewhere, but currently Dish Network and Direct TV. To give full disclosure, I have never had Direct TV service, only Prime Star and Dish Network. I can't say for sure that either cable or Direct work this way, but Dish did. I'm not up on pricing or anything, so don't expect dollar accuracy, but basically with any type of tv you choice a package. They generally have 2 to 4 different packages usually with each advance offering more channels with an increase in price. Then there are usually some smaller sets of channels you can add to a package for an additional monthly fee. For instance there is a base package of channels that most people want, but there will be a few highly popular channels that will be available only by going to the next package.

As an example, say the basic package is 30 channels for 29.99 but they leave off the syfy channel, USA, Disney Kids and one of the ESPN channels. There isn't a subset with those, you have to go to the midlevel package which offers 45 channels for 34.99. There is a superpackage that offers all the midlevel channels plus Starz, Encore and their specialty channels for 44.99 but you don't want that. You do want history international, biography international and some of the discovery subchannels though and that group is an extra 4.99 per month. You aren't interested in HBO or Showtime but would like your local networks via satellite, so that is another $4.99 so now you have a monthly bill of $44.97 right? Yeah, right. That $44.97 bill will probably be closer to $70 by the time it is finished. There are taxes, access charges, ect that go on. I have never figured it out. Now often you don't own the equipment, so they charge rental fees on the boxes and dishes too, but even if you own the equipment, you never pay just for the package. Apparently they share a training facility for the accounting personnel with the cell phone companies.

I currently get digital cable through my telephone company. I chose the basic package plus the family add on to get some of the extra history and discovery channels. It came out about $50 a month. I dreaded the first bill, but you know what? My phone bill only went up about $50 a month.

An Open Letter to the Makers of Farmville

Dear Zynga

Okay, we get it. Somehow you have crafted 3 or 4 stupid little games more addicting than a mutant blend of crack cocaine and methamphetamine. Farmville, Café World, Mafia Wars and now Frontierville pretty much dominate the social network gaming world. I can’t believe I just said social networking gaming world. That just isn’t right, but somehow your partnership with Facebook, the least private and worst secured, yet largest of the social network sites has apparently been a major success for you both. How do you do it? How do you make such repetitive and simple games so damn addicting? How addicting are they? Let me explain.

Somehow, the games are so addicting that even though they have become so FUCKING ANNOYING because of the DAMN NEAR CONSTANT POPUPS and so CRAMMED FULL OF USELESS FUCKING BULLSHIT ITEMS that they are NEARLY IMPOSSIBLE TO PLAY we still PLAY the DAMN THINGS.

Honestly, how freaking many sets of stupid train whistles do you think I need???? I do not want to offer them to my friends because they already have 4 MILLION OF THE FUCKERS. The game doesn’t even make sense. I get a pop up saying I have just successfully harvested 476,000 bushels of ragweed but my market stalls are full. Do I want to offer them to my friends rather than let them spoil? Click ok. Another pop up asking if I want to post a notice to my friends’ walls about this. Well, it’s either that or notifying them via mental telepathy. Click yes. Harvest one more section, and I get another pop up notifying me that I have now found 562,000 bushels of ragweed, one bushel will be placed in my inventory and the rest will be available in my stall. WTF, my market stalls were all full just 3 seconds ago? Then I get another popup about posting it. How about a single pop up per event that says “you have just successfully harvested xxx number of bushels of skunk cabbage, 1 bushel has been placed in your personal inventory and the rest will be available for sale in your market stall. Would you like to post this notice on your wall and your friends wall? Click yes to post or FU to not?” It would be even better to just save all the notices, maybe with a counter on one side of the screen that counted the notices and then let you scroll through the list and pick what you want to claim and/or post when you are ready. The way it works now is really annoying, especially when you add in the stupid bobbing banner on the bottom of the game screen. It’s really annoying if, like me, you can only log on before and after work, so mostly I am rushing in the morning to do all the games and get to work and as I plant or harvest I accidentally click on one of the stupid toy collections notices. Seriously, the collections are annoying but at least finishing one gives experience and stuff, but that damn toy collection just gives some stupid item that isn’t worth the constant notifications of whistles, marbles, toy ducks, ect. And Café World, at least in Farmville if you clicked ahead your guy will usually still do the tasks even with a pop up open. In Café World the little chef freezes until you deal with it. And why can’t we gift more than once a day? Farmville lets us. And lengthen the time on those stupid catering jobs. It’s nearly impossible to finish any in 3 star time, unless you get a full crew, and it can take a day or two to gather in a partial crew, by then the job is already down to one star and if the items to be cooked require a day or more it is even longer. I realize that the following bitch may not by your fault, it may be a fault with Faceplant….errrr Facebook, but when I claim my gifts, one at a time, verrrrrrry slowly, it offers me the choice of returning to the gift page or entering the game, but if I am claiming items some poor friend had to fight through multiple pop ups to make, I click the link, click okay, then get dumped into the game with no option to return to my wall. Why? Chances are there are multiple posts I want to get items from. I have to be very fast on the back or home button to get them all.

Police Porn?

According to MSN an Oregon State University football player (the team is called the Beavers) was found nude and intoxicated in a home where he was not known and did not belong. When the police who responded to the call of a nude and intoxicated trespasser, ordered the man to get on the floor face down with his hands behind his back, the football player responded by dropping into a 3-point football stance and charging at the officers. At this point 2 of the officers discharged their tasers rendering the addled player more addled but less playful.

The lesson of the day:

If confronted by a large, strange, naked beaver, employ battery powered electronic devices to cause spasms and convulsions until the beaver becomes fully compliant.

The History of Lawnwork

Originally mankind did not have lawns. The door out of the house lead straight into the forest, jungle, ocean, ect. This was a lovely and uncomplicated system which had but a single drawback. The one drawback was that rarely one might leave the house only to be eaten by a bear or killed by natives. This could be inconvenient and could have a negative impact on one's income. Therefore man took to clearing a patch of ground around his house so he could sneak a look out the door and tell whether or not it was safe to make a dash for work. Since animals and natives are sneaky, it was necessary to not only fell the trees and cut back the brush, but also to cut down the tall grass. Once this was done, it had to be maintained. Fire would seem to be the obvious choice, except for 2 things. Rebuilding houses is a lot of work and wives tend to not like the look of charred ground. You see after man went through all of the trouble of eradicating all the local vegetation around the house, the wives went out and found weeds they thought attractive and planted them in random locations.

This created a problem. Maintaining the cleared area was time consuming and was no where near as fun as hunting large animals, fishing, or racing souped up horses. Especially if you had to do it with your bear-skinning knife. So man invented the lawn mower. The first lawn mower wasn't sophisticated. It was basically a knife attached to a stick. This was still a lot of work so man invented the teen-aged son. As hindsight, it would probably have been better to just redesign the lawn mower, but once something is invented it is harder than hell to uninvent it, see atomic bomb, Paris Hilton, the Jersey Shore, ect.

The first lawn mower wasn't called a lawnmower of course. Neither the term yard nor the term lawn had been invented yet. The first lawn mower was called the sling blade because it sounded cool. One could often get up to 10 minutes of labor without complaining out of a teen-aged son before he realized that just because the tool had a cool sounding name didn't make it any less work. Fortunately teen-aged sons aren't bright, so often you could get that 10 minutes or so by repeating the name up to 60 or 70 times. Hopefully by then the grass is mowed. Don't worry, by next week he will have forgotten anything he might have learned.

As time progressed, the wheel was invented. Man decided to attach smaller blades to the insides of two small metal wheels. Then these were attached to two larger rubber wheels which was then attached to a handle which, in turn, was attached to a teen-aged son. Duck tape on son's mouth was optional. This was the first lawnmower. It was later discovered that it could also be propelled by teen-aged daughters, and older no-longer-teen-aged-sons that refused to leave home. However, unfortunately man grew tired of making new teen-aged sons when the old ones left and he grew tired of souping up horses, so he invented the internal combustion engine. Originally thought to only be good to propel metal buggies into trees, it was soon to be discovered that if you put the internal combustion on top of a metal frame and a blade underneath it, add 4 wheels, then attach the teen-aged son and handle combination to it, you have a excellent way to wake up your neighbors. It was later discovered that if all the teen-aged sons leave the house to avoid lawn work, you can use a bigger engine and frame and add a steering device and seat and the mower will propel itself into a tree.

It may seem that man had conquered nature at this point, but remember those strategically planted attractive weeds? Well mowing over those weeds often resulted in serious physical
injury when the wife noticed. There were also areas close to trees and the house and other large obstacles where the mower could not cut the grass. This was bad because it is amazing how many bears, tigers and natives can hide in the weeds around a small sapling. As such, trim work was invented. Sometimes the older type mowers would work, but eventually many devices such as clippers, pruners and trimmers were invented. The first real breakthrough came when some man became confused about whether he was working in the yard or fishing and discovered that while fishing line is extremely delicate and prone to snapping and breaking if near fish, it becomes strong and extremely sharp if there are not fish around. Unfortunately it tangles like a son-of-a bitch regardless of where it is. Thus was born the weed whacker. Weed whackers come in many forms. Some are wheeled models, however most are supposed to be portable. They are electric models, most of which seem to be completely incapable of cutting weeds, but excellent at slicing through the toughest extension cords. The gas models weigh more, are almost as noisy as lawn mowers and share a few common characteristics. If using the original heads they are excellent for cutting grass and weeds, but they are best at suddenly tangling themselves into a hopeless knot around the nearest tree, post, or chain link fence. If none of these are available, the weed whacker will tie the line to its own shaft. Another favorite trick is to let you spend 30 minutes patiently winding 600 or so yards of fishing line around the spool and installing the spool in the head, then at the first opportunity it will hurl the entire 600 yards of line out at extremely high velocity into the yard of a neighbor 6 or 7 houses away. If it for some reason doesn't want to do this, it will start to rapidly chop the line into tiny segments it will fire out in rapid secession. You will send a hour of so later that night picking them out of your legs. Yet another favored trick of the evil weed whacker is to unscrew the head and lob it unexpectedly into the most inaccessible, snake and spider infested part of the yard. Unless of course, it spies a hornet, yellow jacket or bumblebee nest, in which case it will aim for that resulting in you throwing the useless weed whacker at the swarm as you dash madly for the house.

One method of attempting to foil these playful pranks is to install a specialty head on the weed whacker rather than the spool. There seems to be 4 basic types.

1. The metal blade. It looks like a saw blade for a circle saw.
Advantage: doesn't break or unspool.
Disadvantage: resounding vibration when striking solid objects, doesn't cut plants very well, cuts wardrobe, vinyl siding and flesh just fine, though. Propels debris such as gravel with high velocity in random directions but usually at the person holding the whacker.

2. The metal chain. It is a little plastic wheel with from 2 to 4 little chains hanging off it, makes you think of a ancient torture device.
Advantage: ought to cut well, doesn't unspool.
Disadvantage: see wardrobe, vinyl siding and flesh damage above, as well as debris. Also, the chains can become tangled and HIGH SPEED METAL PROJECTILES embedded in legs if the chains come apart or loose.

3. Plastic Blades: A plastic wheel with from 2 to 4 somewhat flexible, thick serrated plastic knives attached. The attachments pivot freely.
Advantage: doesn't spool.
Disadvantage: blades wear out and break, although they last fairly well. It can be a bit hard on underpinning, but probably not worse than line. These work fairly well, they can fling light gravel and dirt, but not bigger gravel. A decent compromise. They sting but I haven't lost blood or clothing to them. You can burn a bit of flesh if you have to change a blade mid-job, but that is true of all the heads. Blades are a bit more expensive than line.

4. Line: These heads use line pre-cut to appropriate lengths. The original models were excellent and you just threaded line in through a series of holes, it was a bit hot if you were replacing line mid job, but the line stayed in place and lasted awhile. Fortunately they have wised up and now use a more complicated locking system that uses spring-tensioned metal pieces to hold the string in place. This is supposed to let you use any size line.
Advantage: No spooling, cheaper than blades, all advantages of using line.
Disadvantage: Old system not really any. New system: The metal clamps seem very picky, you are supposed to be able to use any size line, but the smaller line isn't held as well. I haven't tried really large line, but I suspect the tension won't be strong enough to hold it either. If you thread the line through backward, and leave the short side of the line on the wrong side of the clamp, the line shoots out the instant you start the whacker. Sometimes the line shoots out no matter what you do. If the lines are cut too long, they either tangle around the shaft or fly off to nowhere. Sometimes, if the lines stay in, by the time they need changing they have melted onto the clamp and you burn your fingers getting them out. The heads travel really well when removed and hurled by an angry weed whacker operator.

Carnitas -- I Think Not

It's been awhile since I have eaten at Taco Bell. The local stores specialize in screwing up my orders, and I usually end up disappointed as we have a couple of actually Mexican restaurants in the area now and Taco Bell's version is a rather pale shadow of the real thing. But I had court scheduled for today, I had only one case, but it was a 40 mile drive one way and I had to be there early. I knew they had a long docket, and I figured I would be there until well after lunch. I didn't take any food, as I was unsure about my day's schedule. I did have a few clients arriving in the afternoon. My person was a no-show and after sitting through 2 rounds of the docket they decided she wasn't coming and issued a bench warrant. I was dismissed and headed to the office. I wanted to get there in time to do some paperwork before my clients, so it was going to be fast food. The town I was in has very little to offer, so I hit the road. The new town big enough to be classified as more than a suburb had a few selections, but Arbies and Burger King were packed, and McDonalds was out of my way, but Taco Bell looked nice and vacant, so I whipped in the drive through. They had some sort of new taco's and one filling offered was carnitas. Awesome!!!!!!!

For those who might not know. Carnitas are "little meats" Basically pork roast is slow cooked until it is so tender it falls apart, then it is braised or caramelized, however you want to express it. Some cooks spice the meat while cooking, others prefer to let use salsa to add spice later. But the thing that makes them special is the texture and flavor. The outside is crisp, but inside the meat is tender and juicy. I guess it was too much to expect from a fast food place, but there pork basically tasted like it had been boiled in hot sauce. There was no crispy or crunchy, just generic spicy. It was a let down, and there wasn't any salsa verde or anything in the taco other than the meat and maybe a few tomato chunks. They used the bland soft flour tortillas they usually use. I wouldn't bother, the price is cheap, but it really isn't worth it. I think they also offer a steak and a chicken taco. I go to court in a different county tomorrow, it will be an all day event, as I have several cases on the docket. Hopefully we will hit the local Mexican place, as it is next door to the court, and fairly reasonably priced. Maybe they will have carnitas, if not they have excellent chimichangas.

Chiggers

I forgot to explain the chigger reference in my last post. I live in what used to be called the country. Now it is really just a space between subdivisions where they have not yet put a subdivision. Mainly because I go out in the front yard periodically and act like a psychopath so no one will want to be my neighbor who isn't related to me. That's beside the point. The local mailman delivers, but he quite unreasonably insists a machete should not be required to leave the mail in my box, so when the weeds get about a foot or so above the box he starts leaving nasty notes threatening to dump my mail in the ditch if I don't cut the grass around the box. I've done that twice this year, and should probably just buy some agent orange and defoliate the area, but the local military surplus store gave me a rather weird stare when I asked for a spray bottle of it and claimed they were out. Apparently they don't keep a large stock of napalm either. I noticed the other day that the weeds were past the bottom of the box, but it was 150 in the shade, so I didn't feel like arguing with the lazy-assed weed whacker, so I attempted to stomp down the offending plants. It doesn't seem to have worked, but apparently the plants, in an effort to exact revenge, dropped chiggers on me. Chiggers, for those who have never experienced them, are tiny larva stage mites. When full grown, they eat plants, but as larva they prefer birds and reptiles, unfortunately occasionally they decide to snack on humans. They are so tiny you can't actually see one. The traditional southern wisdom says that they bore into your skin and suck your blood. This isn't correct. I have the symptoms, raised, very itchy bumps with little red/black spots in the center. I have about 6 on my right ankle, two behind my right knee and one right above my right knee and nowhere else. This is why I decided it was from the mailbox incident. I plan the machete the offending plant life when I get home.

Traditional southern wisdom offers several cures including washing the area with either kerosene, bleach, gasoline, or brick acid. I made the last one up. My favorite though, from my childhood, when outbreaks of this was common, was to paint the area with clear nail polish. It had to be clear, if it was pink or light blue your friends would make fun of you. This was supposed to smother the chigger and kill it. Now that I am older, wiser, and Al Gore invented the fount of all knowledge, the internet, I know that this is all wrong. Apparently the chigger doesn't burrow into the skin. It sets on top and can easily be brushed off, scratching the bite is enough to do it. When the chigger bites, it inject saliva into the wound. The saliva dissolves the skin which the chigger sucks up. Since mammals were never intended to be it's victim, we aren't a good one for it. The saliva irritates our skin causing itching. It also causes the skin to react making it harden the area around the bite so it resists the saliva, this causes the hard bump, the dark spot is the hole from the disolved skin, not the offending chigger, which is too tiny to see with a naked eye. It generally takes about a week to 10 days for the skin to repair itself. The actual damage comes from scratching the bites as you usually cut the skin and since fingernails play host to germs like crazy, it can cause secondary infections. If you are in a weedy area in the summer, the best thing to do is take a soapy shower as soon as possible. Hopefully you will wash the little buggers off before the bite.

Next, lets all make a pact. Tomorrow at 6:30 AM let's all go to McDonalds and order chicken nuggets, then refuse to believe they don't serve them, go to the drive-in window and argue with the server, punch her repeatedly in the face, try to climb through the drive through window, then shatter the window with a heavy object from our car and drive off. If you haven't seen the video, go to YouTube. You can probably find it by searching for "blonde, trailer-trash looking psycho bitch beating down a McDonalds employee in drive through window over chicken nuggets."

Flip-Flops, Chiggers and Things

I realize that times are less formal than they used to be but What the Hell? Last month I had a client setting across from me explaining that he was going to a job interview right after he left the office. He wasn't wearing a tie, but coat and tie seem to have gone out except for professional and managerial type jobs. He was wearing a nice, dark-colored golf/polo type shirt. He was also wearing clean blue jeans. Well he was looking for a warehouse/installer type position so okay, that was probably appropriate, but he hadn't bother to shave and was wearing flip-flops, the world's most annoying foot-wear. Now today, another client, this one female, told me she was trying to get a mail-room job at the local paper and was going there after she left my office. She was wearing a tight red tee-shirt, tight grey gym shorts, and flip-flops. My office co-workers make extra money in the summer by raising baby penguins in their offices, so the thermostat is usually set to 10 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer months. As such I deduced that while she was wearing a bra, it was probably pretty thin. Oddly enough, my coworkers apparently raise monkeys and tropical plants during the winter, and the thermostat is usually move up to about 110 degrees. I think her outfit was a bit too casual, even for a casual job, although I have to admit, her ass and those shorts complimented each other rather well, and she does have nice legs. If she can keep her level of perkiness after leaving the office and has a male interviewer, she might stand a chance. Got to go spray disinfectant on the chair and get ready for my next client.

Schemes, Scams, and Scum

I really need to stop falling asleep with the bedroom TV on, or at least making sure it is a channel that doesn't sell early morning time to infomercials. I keep waking early to weird crap. It isn't all bad, I discovered steam mops (plan to get one soon, after investigating on the internet I plan on either getting a Bissell or Shark, whichever is cheaper) and the Shark Navigator will probably be my next vacuum, although I don't currently have the loose cash, it seems legit.

This morning I woke to hear people talking in infomercial phony enthusiasm about something called the "Cash Flow Business". Having a business degree I am well aware of what the term cash flow means, but was unaware there was apparently an industry devoted to it. Basically cash flow is exactly that, a measure of the money moving in and out of a business. It is generally a short term thing. I listened to probably 10 minutes or so of the infomercial before the cats discovered I was no longer sleeping and used force to make me get up and restock their food supply, which had waned after midnight and 4 am snacking. Once I was semi-mobile, returning to sleep was not going to happen, despite still having a good 45 minutes until the alarm, so I did the facebook, email thing, sucked down caffeinated beverages and slowly became completely alert. I then remembered the TV. Now, I have fallen for a few get-rich-quick schemes, usually by talking myself past my common sense, or letting someone else do so. I have now established a few bullshit detection guidelines I will share. First, the old sayings are true: if it sounds too good to be true, it is. Second, if you can't really tell what they are talking about from the adds, it's 98% shady or a complete ripoff. Third, if it's so damn good, why are they creating more competition instead of quietly making the big bucks. Fourth, if a major selling point is the money back guarantee and how easy it is to use, that means most people are going to want their money back and will never get it back. A legitimate product may offer a money back guarantee, but will only mention it once toward the end of the commercial, if the product mentions it often, beware. Endorsement and demos or nice, but can be misleading, don't get too caught up in them. Check on the internet for any problem. Be aware that the internet tends to attract complainers, whiners, and angry people, but read each gripe and try to see if they have legitimate complaints. No product is going to satisfy everyone, but if a lot of people have the exact same issue, take note.

The cash flow thing probably isn't a complete ripoff, it seems a legitimate business but it isn't what it is being marketed as. They kept talking about how easy it was, how you just "find it, list it, make money". They advertise no selling, ect. The endorsement emphasized large amounts of money made with only a few hours of work each week. It basically sounded like I could run my home-based business from my laptop on the beach in between sessions of being sexually gratified by the large numbers of scantily clad women bearing mai tais who flocked to the aura of large amounts of cash wafting from me.

From the TV I hear cash notes and posting or listing mentioned, but several times they stated no buying or selling. Apparently what you are required to do is find owner financed housing notes. These are notes where a seller is accepting payments directly from the buyer on real estate. You try to talk the seller into allowing you to find a someone to buy the note from him. If they agree, you list the terms of the note on a special website, access of which you gain by buying the packet I guess. If an investor is interested they make you an offer. You then try to broker a deal. For instance, if the note is for $100,000 the investor my offer you $95000. You figure what commission you get and offer the seller $93000. He gets $93000 now instead of in small payments over years, you get $2000 for your effort and the investor eventually gets $5000 or the property if the buyer defaults. However according to the websites I read, there are several issues with the way this is being sold. First, they claim that there is millions of these notes floating around and once you know the secrets, you practically trip over 3 of them going to the toilet. Apparently that isn't true, they are rather hard to find. Second, the largest complaint was that the 30 day guarantee was useless because you couldn't learn the program well enough to use it in 30 days. Also, the people that tried to return it apparently haven't been able too. Third, some states have strict laws defining a broker, and doing this would qualify you as one, requiring you to become licensed to avoid criminal prosecution and possible civil liabilities. You probably want to check with your state. Also, take any claims the program makes about you not being a broker with a grain of salt, those laws vary state to state and it's going to be you in trouble, I doubt the company sell the program will help you out in court. Fourth, apparently if you buy into the program, you will start to get calls trying to sell you "extras" to "really learn how to work the program" and apparently the sales tactics are pretty hard and pretty annoying, and not cheap. Several times a $2000 figure was mentioned in numerous posts. I am guessing the guy who's name was on this program (I want to say it was Russ Meyers, but that isn't right, he's the guy that made the movies with involving large-breasted women with firearms) doesn't make his money in the Cash Flow Business.

Two other recent products I have seen on TV. These were infomercials, but not the 30 minute long ones. One is for a ceramic bladed kitchen knife that sold for about under $20 plus shipping. I won't mention the name but it looked good, and they started throwing in all the extras. Ceramic blades aren't new and they have a really good reputation, but they tend to be expensive. This looked good to me and I love knives. I googled it. I didn't buy it. I think the knife was okay, but from the complaints, it looked like the pricing was misleading, the shipping was about $40 so you ended up paying around $60 which wasn't a good deal. The customer service was unresponsive and basically it looked hit-or-miss on whether you got the product. If you didn't get the correct order, attempting to correct it usually resulted in more shipping charges being billed to your card. It was scary.

Lately I have been seeing adds for a mysterious bracelet that magically improves your balance, strength, and energy immediately when you put it on. It does this through mysterious "biowaves" or something. It isn't a copper or magnetic bracelet. Anyway, I looked it up again. Mainly because the quick demos on the commercial looked a bit familiar. I found more demos of the mysteriously powerful bracelet online. I figured the claims for Penn and Teller level bullshit, and I think I am right. First, how could a bracelet instantly have such a profound physical effect on someone. It doesn't in my opinion.

I spent a lot of time studying marial arts. I did karate, aikido, judo, jujitsu, arnis and wu shu. I had some excellent instructors and about 16 years in regular study. One of my first instructors was big on public demos, and he would often do demonstrations of miraculous things. Later, when I was a brown belt, he started teaching me how to do the demos and stuff and there are a lot of things that look impressive but are really based on the odd ways the human body works and on laws of physics.

Now in a video, you are limited by the camera angle on what you see, so I can't say 100% for sure on everything, but I think I know how each thing was done.

First video shows how the bracelet improves balance. The host stands behind a volunteer. He has the volunteer move his feet until they are close together, almost touching. He then has the man lace his fingers together behind his back. The host then claims to press straight down on the linked hands. The man falls backward into the host. Then after donning the magic bracelet the experiment is repeated but the man doesn't fall. However, in the post bracelet demo, the man is not told to move his feet and thus assumes a normal stance, giving a bit more stability, the average human stance isn't that stable front to back anyway. Next the host probably press down and into the volunteer, which would direct the force back into the volunteer and to ground, in effect making the volunteer more stable.

Second demo was another balance demo. Basically the host stood beside the man about a foot away and claimed to pull straight down on the volunteers hand causing him to stumble toward the host. When the bracelet was put on the man did not stumble, he hardly moved at all. This looked to be the same volunteer in the previous demo. First, the normal stance is again not that stable left to right, although more so than front to back. If they host pulled down and toward him at the right angle he would stumble. When the demo is done with the bracelet, the host stands a little closer and directs the pull straight down. If the volunteer is part of it, he can adapt a bit wider stance and bend his knees just a little while wearing the bracelet and lock his knees when not.

Third demo, a strength demo. A female volunteer extends her left arm straight out. The host uses both hands and easily bends her wrist down. He puts the bracelet on her other wrist and wow, he almost can't bend it. This one is easy. She probably extends her arm straight to him, so the first time he stands a little to her left so the arm is straight from her shoulder. The second time he stands directly in front of her and lines her arm up with her sternum. You tend to be stronger if you arm is extended in front of the center of your chest. This is used alot with punching and wrist locks in martial arts. You can test it. Have a friend extend his arm straight out from his shoulder with the elbow locked. Tell him to keep you from pushing it down, then try to. You should be able to do it. Now have him do the same but make sure the hand lines up with his sternum You probably can't know. Also, if the elbow is bent, even a little it is harder to move.

A cool trick to try:

Find someone you can lift. Get their cooperation first, don't just run around lifting people, you'll get locked up in a padded room or charged with some strange sex crime. Have them look straight ahead and pick them up. Now set them back down. Have them look up while you lift them again. Any difference? Now set them down. Have them look at the floor or ground and try again. Notice any thing? No I don't understand it either. It only works for lifting people, it doesn't seem to help when standing on a scale.

Ouch!!!!!

It was raining Saturday morning, a lot. I mean a lot, with black skies and thunder and impressive displays of electricity and everything. It had been raining but was fine when I went to get groceries, but about halfway home it let rip. So when I got home I rushed around to get my food inside without getting it all soaked. I told you that to tell you this. I left my car lights on. I noticed a couple of hours later and turned them off. The interior light and buzzer were working, so I hoped the battery would rest and recharge. I vegetated the rest of the weekend and didn't even think of it until this morning. I went out to go to work and click, click, it was dead as Mel Gibson's reputation.

I went over to my parents' to get Dad to jump the battery, he wasn't there. Mom told me to talk the Olds but that was what he left in. I asked about the keys to his truck, as I could jump the car with it, and borrowing the truck I drove back to the house. I parked the truck in front of my car and grabbed his cables which he keeps in the passenger floorboards. Jumper cables apparently practice an art of knotting themselves up in very sophisticated patterns when bored, but I finally untangled them and attached them in an appropriate manner. Then as I was went to start the truck, I stepped into a hole, which had apparently been lurking somewhere and darted out to snare my right foot. I went crashing face-first into the ground. "Fuck sticks!!*" I said, pretty damn loud. An early morning, unplanned face plant into dewy grass and not-so-damn-soft ground can do that to you.

I got up, knocked most of the grass off, limped to the truck and started it. I then went to my car and tried to start it. It took about 10 minutes to charge enough to start, so it was pretty dead. My radio lost all memory. I returned the truck, drove to work. I ache. My right ankle hurts, my left ankle is having sympathy pains, and I had my baton in my right pants pocket and landed heavy on it when I fell, so my right thigh and hip don't feel very good. It's a Monday.

*This is a direct quote from a book I finished recently. Fool by Christopher Moore. It's a retelling of the tale of King Lear from the fool's point of view. It's done a bit tongue-in-cheek with a tiny amount of humor, rather than the overall depressing manner of most tragedies. Moore doesn't normal attempt to use period language much, he mostly writes in the modern era, though and sometimes has characters with unique speech patterns. In this book he sometimes uses Shakespearean quotes and even Shakespearean type dialogue. Allow me to quote: "Die thou vile badger-shagging spunk monkey!!!"

Its a good book, I had to read some Shakespeare in high school and college and I really don't remember that much sex, but this story had a little. Queens got shagged, princesses got shagged (a lot), ghosts got shagged (a little), castle servants got shagged, even sheep and trees got shagged. Check out the book, check out some of his others, I recommend Lamb, Blood Sucking Fiends, You Suck, Bite Me, A Dirty Job, Practical Demon Keeping, and The Stupidest Angel. I recommend avoiding Fluke, and not reading Coyote Blue unless you become a fan. I haven't read the Island of the Sequined Love Nun.

I Think My Brain Melted

Okay, this was the third time I had been to court in this particular county, although not on this same case. As a matter of fact, I hadn't been in this courtroom in around 3 years. I went straight from my house to the court, the office is about 7 miles in the wrong direction, so I generously decided to save the state the extra 14 miles they would have had to pay me for, not to mention the extra hour of time. I will probably regret this somehow, as I usually regret doing anything at work that seems to make common sense. I remember once I was doing home visits on my caseload. My last visit was closer to my house than the office and it was time to quit, so I stopped my mileage there and drove home. When I submitted it, the finance department wouldn't pay it unless I subtracted 7 miles from it. That was the distance from my home to the office. I tried to explain that not only had I not returned to the office, but I had stopped my mileage at the last stop. They would have nothing but me remove 7 miles from that one claim. I did so. The stupid thing was I was at least 12 miles from the office and it would have cost them more had I returned. Since that time, though, I have always returned to the office and stopped my mileage, even if it is pasted quitting time and out of my way. If they want it that way, that's what I will do. Of course, I also added 1 mile to the next 7 items on my next claim, I felt that I was owed that money. I had in good faith attempted to be efficient and cost effective and they punished me for it. In attempting to nitpick and save the state money, they cost the state money because now they pay me to return to the office when, occasionally I would go home and not charge them from the last stop.

The average temperature here, in the shade if you can find any, is about 5000 degrees Fahrenheit. I left early as I had not been to the courthouse in some time and was navigating from ancient memory. Navigation is not my strong point, I generally find places by getting lost and stumbling over them by accident. It was more or less where I remembered it, though and I tripped over it around 8:10 am. The air conditioning in my car is the basic roll down as many windows as possible and go real fast variety, so while I was in tie, I left the sports jacket off until I got there. I should have known it would be a bad day when I noticed, as I climbed the stairs to the court clerk's office, that people in business casual clothes were cursing and thumping on the thermostats. Never, ever take an elevator in a building less than 6 stories in a small town in Tennessee, just don't. I confirmed my client was on the docket, confirmed court start time, heard a rumor the a/c wasn't working very well, then went in search of a restroom(successful) and water fountain or drink machine (unsuccessful).

I then went into the court room, which apparently functions as the third floor janitor closet when court isn't in session. Seriously, I've been to counties so poor and tiny they don't have indoor bathrooms in the courthouse, but that is the smallest courtroom I have ever seen. Now, don't get me wrong, it is an older courthouse, and rather unimpressive on the outside, but inside it is attractive, in great shape and well-maintained, but honestly the court room is designed ass-backward. In most court rooms the jury box is so crowded, that unless you are setting in an end seat, you are intimately acquainted with, and possibly engaged to, the people on each side of you. In this court room, you could set up a flea market booth and run it from your seat in the jury box. You could play handball in the space between the Bench and the attorney tables, but there were only 6 benches for the witnesses/spectators, non-incarcerated participants. These benches were in two sets of 3. This is about a third of what other similar size counties offer and those are usually full. This is important to this story for a few reasons. First, the a/c was a no show and I am in tie and jacket. I sweat like a 200 year old stick of dynamite on a good day. Next, apparently three quarters of the county had, a few months ago, all sold 1 Oxycontin pill each to an undercover detective. Interestingly, most of those people had done so for $50, however a few seem to have made the sale for $60. Those must have been the people who were professional salesmen in their non-criminal mastermind roles. Meanwhile the other quarter of the county were either burglarizing their drug salesmen neighbor's homes, driving while intoxicated, or touching their daughters in a very inappropriate manner. These people had all been previously arraigned and were there for their shuffle to a later date court appearance.

Now I took a seat about 8:20 AM. By 9:00 AM the 60 or so people who could squeeze into the courtroom were in place. The judge showed up about 9:30 AM, court actually started around 10:00. Interestingly the spaces to either side of me stayed empty up until court started when two little grey-haired lady drug pushers finally sat beside me. I am not sure whether it was the large-white-guy-with-a-shaved-head syndrome, or the strange-white-man-with-a-shaved-head-in-a-suit-carrying-an-official-looking-file syndrome. I mean obviously I could have been a TBI agent, lawyer, mafia hit-man, ect. The only people there who knew who I was were the judge, community corrections officer, and the state probation officer for that county. The remaining 2000-3000 people crowded into the outside hallway. Obviously calling the docket would be a waste of time. The docket, by the way, was 32 pages long. You could have knocked me over with a feather. I would think even a major crime wave in that county would result in a 20 page docket at the most.

I came to a conclusion during my uncomfortable wait for my hearing, which came around 2:00 PM. My high school principal, in a display of his awesome class, used to lecture everyone who came to the graduation ceremonies. He would insult the parents and family of the participating students by telling everyone that some people only appeared in public for graduations and mud wrestling and had no idea how to behave. At the time, I thought he was just an asshole. Later, I realized he was a short-sighted asshole who had never visited the county fair. Now I realize he was a major prick who never attended a county fair or visited a court room while court was in session, because those same mud-wrestling fans were obviously present at both places.

I watched the crowd and listened to the people around me. I tend to do that, it is amazing what you can learn by being quiet. I was sitting in the midst of a group of people involved in the previously mentioned drug case. There was also one burglar and his wife/girlfriend, behind me. I heard them griping and talking. Interestingly, when the guy up for fondling his daughter pled guilty everyone got really quiet and I heard a bunch of drug dealers and thieves muttering under their breath. Fortunately, the judge sent him to prison, otherwise he might not have made it out of the courthouse. I have mentioned in other posts that most of the people in court seem to have lost the concept of respect and the need to dress appropriately for a court appearance. I realize that, on the whole, society has gotten more casual and also that in this poor, depressed area people probably don't own suits or even ties and jackets, but if I was coming in front of the man who would shortly decide my entire future, I think I would come up with something nicer than my best wife beater and plaid knee-length shorts. One woman did wear a dress, true it would be more appropriate for the drunken barn dance than court, but she did try. There was this young couple that insisted on loving on each other in court. Now I have nothing against sitting close or hand holding, but fondling and lap dances seem a bit much.

Anyway, that killed my day. I made the mistake of leaving the slightly-cooler-inside-than-out building in search of liquid refreshment on the lunch break. I think my badge melted. When I finally made it home I drank a five-gallon bucket of water and sat in the freezer for an hour, but still feel hot and dehydrated.

Gamera is really neat, Garmera is full of meat

I don't feel good today, and I am not sure why. I woke yesterday with a killer headache. I actually went back to sleep trying to get rid of it, but after I woke again, it was still there. I thought maybe it was falling off the wagon, not the alcohol one but the salt and sugar one. After about 2 months of trying my damnedest to avoid as much salt and sugar as possible and restricting my eating out to no more than twice a week, I screwed up. I ate 4 meals out in 2 days and really didn't stick to subway or salads. Then I let my mother send food over. She means well, and she and Dad need to be avoiding salt as much as I. They also have cholesterol issues and Mom needs to lose weight as much or more than I. Yet Mom seems to think sugar doesn't cause problems if you ignore that you are eating it. She also seems to think corn syrup and honey don't count as sugar. I tried to explain that corn syrup is just cheap sugar and that while honey has a lower glucose index and may not effect you insulin levels, it still has calories, but she don't seem to get it.

Anyway the result is a higher input of calories, sugar and salt than I should have had. Basically in the last 6 days I undid most, if not all of my good intentions. I slowly got out of bed and very slowly went to the kitchen where I got a diet soda and slowly went to the living room where I sat and consumed the soda. I moved the track ball slowly and read a few quiet web pages while letting my head absorb diet Pepsi. I soon found that as long as my head remained still I was okay. I could move my hands, arms or eyes, but not my head, not even to stand. Eventually I decided to endure the sensation of my eyes exploding to attempt to make breakfast. I scrambled some eggs with a little turkey ham, onions, and queso fresco cheese. I also ate a piece of whole grain toast with butter.

Then I tossed 3 ibuprofen tabs with my morning meds. I felt better in about 30 minutes, and the headache was gone until about 9:30 PM. When I woke this morning it was back, although not really. I didn't have the pain, but sort of the the pre-pain warning, the sense of approaching doom. I decided on a pro-active (don't you hate that phony word?) approach and took 2 of the ibuprofen tabs before leaving for work. I felt okay until about 2:00 this afternoon when I started just feeling off. Then about an hour later I felt the headache coming on. Now I feel like maybe I have a bit of fever.

There wasn't a lot to do this weekend. The movies that came out this week weren't anything I wanted to see all sparkly vampires and M. Night not-made-a-good-movie-in-forever. Last weeks weren't anything to brag about either. Television stunk up the place too so I ended up having a google steaming media marathon of MST3K out of desperation. Joel, Mike and the bots helped me out and I am always happy to revisit the SOL. The only downside is now I have that damn Gamera song stuck in my head. Maybe that's why it hurts.

New Movies

Well, I actually watched a few new movies recently. First in a long time. Two of them surprised me, one left me a little underwhelmed. There are a few coming out that I find myself looking forward to though.

The Losers was surprisingly entertaining. It probably won't hit too many award lists, but for a light summer action movie it was good. Ditto the A-team. I really thought is would suck, a movie based on a rather silly 80's TV show by all rights should suck. It didn't though, it was a quick paced action movie with a considerable amount of humor mixed in. The premise behind the two movies is similar but they are done differently. Make a pretty good summer drive-in double feature though. Kick Ass was a movie I was looking forward to. It wasn't a bad movie, it just seemed less than I expected. I guess the trailers and internet hype gave too big a build up to it.

Anyway, the cartoon, Despicable Me looks interesting, and I just saw a trailer for a movie due in October called Red. Another comic book movie, but like the Losers, no superheroes. It stars Bruce Willis, Morgan Freeman, Helen Mirren, Marie Louise Parker, John Malkovich in batshit crazy mode, Karl Urban, and Brian Cox. It's about a retired CIA agent who suddenly finds himself on the agency hit list, so he puts together his old team to raise some hell. Also, the new Robert Rodriguez Predator movie is looking kind of like the first one rather than the lesser sequels.

Dumb Crook News, Local Edition

Two stories, one of which was promised last week.

The promised story first.

There was a lady, who was more of less homeless and was moving between family and friends staying one place for a short while then moving to another. One day she left one place with plans to visit a friend, then was supposed to go to another family member to stay with them for awhile. She left the friends place in a vehicle with another friend and never arrived at the family member's place. After a couple of days without hearing from her and calling up friends and family she was reported missing. A few days later her body was found lying beside a road 50 miles away in another county. Beside the body, cause of death unknown or at least not released to the media, was a pair of dentures. A name was engraved in the dentures. What? You don't have a name engraved in your dentures? Perhaps you did not have yours made, at no cost to yourself, while a resident at the Tennessee Department of Corrections Bed and Breakfast. With this subtle clue law enforcement felt a conversation with the owner of said dentures was a good idea. They first ran a check and found Mr. Denture not only had been a proud consumer of Tennessee's fine correction facilities, but was currently the subject of warrants as yet not served. Armed with these documents, members of the Sheriff's department and the TBI, visited the last known residence. The subject of interest declined to cooperate and expressed this by attempting to run over a TBI agent while attempting to escape. For reasons currently unknown, the agent in question to offense and shot our subject through the shoulder. Said subject is being served soft food while awaiting trial on not only his outstanding charges but also attempted evading arrest and attempted murder. The investigation into the death of the woman is still ongoing.

Police very recently responded to reports of a shirtless man trying to open the door to a dentist office. Upon arriving a man was noticed trying to flee the scene. When apprehended he was wearing one shoe and no shirt. The police found no buildings in the area broken into, but an ambulance had been. Since the missing shoe was lying in the ambulance along with the man's wallet, the man had marks from the heart monitor equipment on his chest, and medical gear was piled behind the ambulance police decided he had been in the ambulance. They also found a shopping cart near the ambulance which contained 3 case of Natural Ice beer. The suspect when apprehended was reported unsteady on his feet with red, watery eyes, slurred speech and smelled strongly of "alcoholic beverage". He admitted to entering the ambulance and placing the heart monitor pads on himself.

More Things I Just Don't Understand

When I bought groceries this week, I bought a bag of shredded "Mexican" blend cheese. I arrived home and started putting away my purchases and I took a good look at the cheese. It contains Cheddar Cheese (British), Monterey Jack (US), Asedero (Mexican) and Queso Quesadilla (Mexican). Wouldn't you think a Mexican blend would have all Mexican cheeses? There were at least 5 more cheeses they could have chosen from, although some are cheeses that soften but don't melt. I have a friend who gets upset because she thinks those of us who live in the US believe Taco Bell serves Mexican food. I told her that surely no one over 14 believes that, but she could be right. If you go to any non-Mexican, non-fast food eatery and order a "Mexican" dish, quesadillo, burrito, taco, ect. It will be covered in cheddar cheese. She keeps telling me Mexican's don't have yellow cheese. She isn't 100% accurate, Chihuahua can have a pale yellow color and supposedly tastes similar to a mild cheddar. She also says taco shells are not supposed to be hard. She says the taco is like a sandwich. They either wrap or roll the filling in a tortilla or sandwich it between two tortillas. I am not sure, but I believe the hard "U" shaped tortilla called a taco shell originated in the state of New Mexico in the 1940's.

Anyway, I have recently been annoyed by a commercial for a website called Been Verified dot Com. I finally checked it out. I guess, other than being a medium quality commercial, what annoys me is that while this commercial promises one thing it sort of makes people think they are getting something else. Basically they prey on a common misconception. There are 3 terms people kind of use interchangeably. This commercial is for a website that offers a background check on people, but they way the commercial is worded it seems like you would be getting a criminal background check. I have had, in my job to do criminal background checks as well as criminal history checks. They are similar, but not exactly the same. A background check is a completely different animal.

A background check is basically a list of where people have lived and went to school. It may include whether they graduated, what jobs they had, marital status, land ownership, business ownership, ect. Most of which should be public record. A criminal background check would have all of this plus arrest records (not public information), conviction records (public record but not always easy to get), outstanding warrants. A criminal history would only be interested in the arrest, conviction and warrants part of this. A very thorough background check done for a security clearance, bonding purposes, ect, would probably include a credit check.

This commercial seems to be promising to give you the info to keep your family safe. I visited the site. I read the disclaimer and info at the bottom of the page and in really small print. This site basically charges you $16 monthly or $96 yearly to run unlimited searches of public information. You aren't getting any confidential or criminal information you couldn't easily get anyway. This site is a convenience site. If you Google everyone you meet, this might save you some time and money, but really if you are worried about going into business with someone, taking a large job where you might take a risk on getting paid, or hiring someone to do a big money job, hire a company that can do an actual criminal background check. In Tennessee, for $25 the TBI will run a criminal history for you. That and a check with the better business bureau and good, old-fashion asking around are probably more accurate.

The mentioned website basically simplifies searching through the major search sites, the social networks, the various sex offender data bases, and the free people finder sites. They also let you run special searches like the social networks, reverse address and phone look ups, ect. All of this you can do for free. Unless you look up a lot of people pretty often, it seems like a rip off.

Coming Soon....local dumb crook story.

Things That Don't Do What They Say They Do

Well, last night was the MTV Movie Awards. I didn't watch them, content to read the results on the internet this morning. As suspected, anything the Twilight movie was nominated for it got and pretty much everything else was equally predictable. Apparently among fans of that channel Robert Messy hair is a better actor than Johnny Depp.

Sort Twilight meander. I don't hate Twilight. I finally stopped it when I realized what it is. You see Twilight isn't literature or film and doesn't pretend to be. Many of its fans seem to think it is, but they will hopefully grow out of it. The Twilight moms on the other hand need serious help. The woman can't write. Not to say she can't tell a story, apparently she can, but she isn't a good writer. The movies aren't good either, but then look at the source material. The best way to look at Twilight is to use the South Park method. Watch the episode about Promise Rings. Then substitute Twilight for Jonas Brothers and movies or books for music. The purpose of the Jonah Brothers isn't to make good music, they don't, but to make young girls tingly in their naughty spots. They don't know the difference, so they buy more Jonas Brothers crap. Although for all I know, Jonas Brothers are out and the Beiber dude is in now. Apparently weird hair is all the rage among the tween set. Well Twilight tells stories that make the target audience tingly in the right spots. They buy more to tingle more. I saw a young guy in Walmart buying one to the books. I was going to choke him out and drag him somewhere for an intervention, but he explained that having the books around made girls think he was sensitive and crap. The end result was Twilight books apparently have a effect similar to that of tequila on female clothing.

Now to what I was actually talking about before I got lost.

What the hell is it with tv networks. MTV now has only slightly more connection to music videos than NBC. Music Television now has almost no music on it, not to mention sister station VH1, Video Hits 1. Basically they seemed to have gone the stupid reality and game show route. Someone said MTV2 had music videos now. That station originally started as an alternative to Top 40/rap stuff MTV1 was mostly dealing with and the "classic" rock videos VH1 pimped. So what the hell? I haven't seen a point to MTV or VH1 in forever.

I used to like the History channel. It showed programs about history. That makes sense to me. All weekend that stupid channel showed a program called Ice Road Truckers. What does that have to do with history, please explain it to me. The Discovery Channel and The Learning Channel seemed to have converted to showing programs about people too dumb no realize there pregnant until the infant pops out and bitch slaps them or other people who keep having more and more kids so the stupid network will keep giving them a show otherwise how will they support their hugely bloated family. Could we go back to hosting shows somewhat educational. Having shows mostly entertaining like Mythbusters, the old Junkyard Wars and stuff is okay, because they are still kind of nerdy. You might learn something. If anyone out there is learning anything from "Kate plus Eight" or "Nineteen and Counting (aka Mrs. Duggars Worn Out Uterus)" I am scared to know what. I have also noticed a recent trend on shows about female police officers. Someone needs to explain why we need this. "Female Forces" and "Policewoman or Fillintheblank County" are the two that come to mind. Reality style police shows can be interesting if the cases are interesting or if they taser annoying people, but otherwise it is kind of boring after about 15 minutes. The only reasons I can come up with to promote female police officers is either to promote equality or to capitalize on male fantasies about women in authority, women in uniform, women with weapons or some other fetish. Since singling a female law enforcement officer out as somehow being different seems a poor way to promote equality, I can only assume that the present shows give excuses for people to fantasize about being handcuffed to beds while being beaten with a baton by women in bullet resistant vests and duty belts.

Happy Holiday

Happy Cinco de Mayo. Unfortunately I live in the wrong country to get the day off work, and my work frowns on drinking alcohol while on the clock, so I am stuck with diet soda and water at my desk.

I've decided to lobby for a new holiday. It can be celebrated anytime in early spring. You get the day off work, but to celebrate you have to clean out your fridge and throw out all the stuff that has turned funny colors, grew fur or liquefied. It will be call Stink of the Mayonnaise.

I thought it was funny, but then I am insane.

Incidentally, I finally found and started reading some books I learned up about 7 years ago. If you like fantasy, used to like fantasy but got tired of the same old crap, like comedy, like comedic fantasy, like history, or like mysteries or preferably like comedic, non-western fantasy with a touch of history and mystery you need to check out Barry Hughart. Mr. Hughart wrote 3 books in a series, he originally planned to write 7, but given that he has pretty high standards and the style of book he wrote took a fine balance and he felt it wasn't financially worth the work because the people in charge of his account at his publishers must have moved to the Fox television network in charge of promising new tv series. They did things like fail to tell him his first book won a prestigious award for fantasy fiction, released the hard and soft cover editions of one book at the same time, and publishing a book 3 months ahead of schedule so by the time the reviews (set to appear to coincide with the publishing date) appeared the books were already off the store shelves. Needless to say, from a business standpoint, who could blame him.

I have finished Mr. Hughart's first 2 books and started the third. The first two are very strong, the pacing is fast, the writing tight, the characters, even minors ones well-drawn. The humor is sometimes very subtle and other times more prominent, but never out-of-place.

The books are not the typical fantasy set in a European middle-ages. Rather it is set in a version of ancient China. Chinese history and mythology is blended with fantasy elements in a most satisfying way. You don't have to be at all familiar with Chinese history to follow the story lines. Everything you need to know is included. These aren't 800 page epics either. The books are exactly as long as they need to be. The stories have no padding, footnotes or extra content. It's odd in the day of the 10 book trilogy to run across a series that doesn't require the use of a war room complete with massive computing power and wall board to track events characters and locations.

Book one is The Bridge of Birds. A village known for its silk is suddenly struck by both the untimely death of its silk worms and the children of the village fall into an odd coma. Yu Lu, not the famous author of the "Classic of Tea" but rather a lowly but heroic and incredibly strong young peasant known as Number Ten Ox, is dispatched to the city to bring back a sage to diagnose the illness of the children. He cannot afford most of the scholars and sages, identified by a sign of an open eye over their doors. He does however find a door marked with a half-closed eye, and a drunken man with incredible credentials who identifies himself as Li Kao, who has a "slight flaw to his character."

Book two is The Story of the Stone. Our two hero's become involved in the mysterious death of a monk, apparently the victim of a mad prince who has been dead for a few centuries.

Book three is Eight Skilled Gentlemen. Thus far an execution was disrupted by a vampire ghoul, which leads to the murder of a high ranking official which apparently is being hushed by the highest officials.

Some very minor non-spoiler items I have found funny.

Upon discovering they need to find a mysterious item known as the great root of power, Li Kao predicts it will be worth 10 times its weight in diamonds and look like a dog turd.

Li Kao comments that he doesn't understand why people sometimes think he is a crude assassin, he is never crude.

The author seems to enjoy poking fun at politicians, greedy people, over pious people, bureaucrats, know-it-alls, ect. but his novels move at a pace that makes putting them down nearly impossible.

Commercials and Things

Okay, another post about TV, largely because it's still new to me. Also otherwise I will just end up ranting about work which will just set me off again and make me feel bad.

I watch a lot of the various flavors of the discover channel and it's clones. I notice now we have a Discover Investigation channel and there is a also a True TV which seem to show mainly true crime type programming. There is also a Crime and Investigation network which seems to mix true crime programs with cop shows and the like. Sort of like if Discovery Investigation mated with the Sleuth Channel. The CI network apparently need some feeler which means they run short clips of their shows or rather of Nash Bridges and Crossing Jordan. I hate Crossing Jordan. That was probably the most annoying non-sitcom character ever created for television. I change the channel everytime one of those clips come on.

Anyway, since I have recently come under commercial bombardment a few things stand out. First, enough with the damn caveman Geico. You pretty much milked the funny out of them. The lizard is still cute, go with him. The vacuum tube, the dollar bill, the accent, those commercial are funny enough to remember. Progressive, your spokes woman should by all rights annoy the hell out of me, yet I find her strangely appeal and scarily attractive. I worry for my sanity, good job. The Capital One Viking commercial are hit or miss. The ski vacation one I love, I think mainly for the goat on ski's and later with the broken leg. "One adult, one goat please," it's comedy gold. Not so much the tropical vacation one though, maybe not enough goat. Billy Mayes died. Why is he still screaming at me? The best ads though are the Dos Equis ads with the most interesting man alive. Love those ads. When the Guiness is gone, I'm going to give Dos Equis a shot.

I saw what might well be the worst possible commercial for the stupidest thing ever. It was so stupid it went through stupid, beyond so-stupid-it-is-funny, and into unbelievably idiotic. It was a product for women. Basically it was underwear padded so that it would make your butt look bigger and stick up higher. First, most women I know are worried about the size of their butts, but as a general rule, they don't want to increase said size. Second, much like a padded bra, isn't this false advertising?

The basic add consisted of before and after shots, showing about 10 different women wearing mini's and shorts and tight pants. The gyrate around then, it shows them supposedly wearing the product doing the same. At least one of the women was apparently considered talented in wiggling her hips, so she was dolled up like she was in a nightclub. She would dance a bit, then they would do the after shot. The provocative little ass wiggle, when coupled with the padded panties making her ass stick out and up, looked unbelievably silly. I about fell out of my chair laughing each time they showed it, and it came on about 6 times in the commercial. Out of the 10 or so women showed, all had what I thought were nice asses, and only 1 of the lot actually, in my opinion looked better with the fake ass cheeks applied. The rest just looked like they suddenly needed a step machine. Strangely enough it reminded me of that old rap video about big butts.

Lastly, a word to advertisers. If you are advertising a product, maybe you should show the product. Make sure we know what you are selling. I read several blogs regularly and one that I keep up with recently posted a link to an ad for Reebok Easy Tones. The only online version she could find was in russian, but it only affects the end. Basically, you only saw quick glances of shoes a few times in the video. Mostly you saw asses. Lots, and lots of really nice female asses, which I am all for, but unless you saw the last 4 seconds of the 30 second spot, you probably though the add was for a fitness center or escort service or something. It's an entertaining ad, if your into young, toned, swimsuit model butts, but I don't think it does a good job displaying the product. Hmm, what if we combined the butt enhancing panties with the butt focused shoes? The ultimate ass ad?

They Put it into the Wrong Hole

Well, earlier I explained how I cannot get cable television from the cable company so I ordered it from my telephone and internet provider. This turned into a hassle because my home network went nuts. Welllllllll, I fixed it with the help of a customer service rep and it only took about 2 weeks. After concentrating on my end of things, we finally looked at there end and guess what? Originally I had a speed stream dsl modem with a netgear router. I started having some issues with dropped internet and resetting the netgear fixed it, but it was happening a lot more often, and the netgear had some age on it, so I bought a linksys. The linksys didn't resolve things, it turned out to be a software issue with one program, but my wife stuck the netgear in a box and put it into a storage shed and my in-laws managed to toss it, so spare router went bye-bye. Anywho recently I upgraded to a linksys wireless n router with 4 hard ports and everything was nice/nice. Then they came in and switched my speed stream modem for a comptrend broadband adsl modem/router, 4 port and wireless g. Sounds cool, and looking up the exact model, which I don't remember and I am not home so can't look up, it's got a reputation as a good, heavy duty router. They hooked my main pc into this router along with both cable boxes and my linksys. My main pc was the only one with internet access. Well, after about 30 minutes of ip changing, resetting ect. with me on my cordless phone, the phone company sets those routers up so they have 3 video ports and only one internet port. My pc was in the internet port but my router was in a video port. All I needed to do was set my linksys to a static ip outside the comtrends range and plug the wan into the internet port of the comtrend. That's right, I didn't even lose a lan port on my linksys. I even left it a dhcp server. Then just set up wireless security and William's your mother's brother.

Life, Internet, Television

I can't get cable. The cable company stops running the line about a mile from my house. They refuse to turn the corner and come down our road. They claim not enough people live on said road that would want cable. From that corner to my house on my side of the road there are 6 houses. There are 2 more I can hit with a thrown rock past me. The other side of the road has 8 or 9 until my house. Maybe 17 isn't enough to justify the expense, but everyone of those houses have a satellite dish in the yard or on the house. I had no tv for the first year I lived there except the local pbs station and an occasional network if the wind was right. I later installed Primestar and had it for a couple of years. I then went to Dish Network until about a year ago. Financial issues caused me to ask them to turn off my service. I requested them to turn it off, they said okay and I disconnected my 2 boxes. I kept getting bills and they kept going up. I kept calling. Basically it took me 3 months to get them to turn off my service and they insisted I owed them for it. I never had the service for that time period, I didn't even have the boxes plugged in. So, until last week I had no television and watched everything streamed off the internet.

I missed a lot of stupid stuff like my history channel and military channel though, so I finally got TV back. I went to my telephone company to get it. They now offer digital cable. I got the 2 room package. Basically, they hook a faster modem up for my dsl and hook the 2 boxes into a dsl modem/router. Unfortunately this has caused problems. I had recently switched my 4 port router for a 4 port wireless "n" router. This let me keep all 4 computers hooked up and use my laptop. The router they brought was a 4 port with wireless g. They hooked my main computer and the 2 tv's in. Then they hooked my router to their router. I took some time off work to be there and I left when they did. I had some issues with my laptop, it was seeing the wireless network and connecting, but could not reach the internet.

After some research I tried several things. I reset my winsock, my tcip, ect. Then finally wiped my laptop and started reinstalling. After redoing windows and my drivers, it was still not working. Then it hit me, that I hadn't tried to use the internet, other than on my main computer since the switch. I tried, it failed. So more research. As of this date, I have an email in to their tech support. I cannot access their modem/router, they won't "for security reasons" give me a log in and password. So I cannot do anything with it. I have disconnected my wireless router completely. My laptop does not see a wireless network with my router turned off. I hooked my router to the laptop, accessed it and turned off the dhcp server. I changed its lan ip from 198.162.1.1 to 198.162.1.99. I then run a cat 5 from the last open lan port to a lan port on the linksys. Still no internet and now it won't assign an ip to my laptop. My second computer, hardwired to my router, but it also can't get onto the internet. My head hurts. I have reset the whole network so many times. Why the hell can't they put on/off switches on routers, whats with this unplug to turn off crap? Anybody got a suggestion?

Stupid Stuff

Attention: the following items are crimes in the state of Tennessee, you have been warned:

1. Unlawful importing of skunks (2 things, first why would you? second, is there lawful importing?)
2. Crime against nature (don't know, don't want to even guess)
3. Glue--unlawful use of (see above)
4. Purchase of hides from unknown person without ID (how about from a known person with no ID or an unknown person with an ID?)
5. Selling children (they have market value?)
6. Teaching sex education unless approved (let them learn it from naughty magazines and television like God intended, besides that's why Al Gore invented the internet).

Rambling Thoughts

What ever happened to the metric system. Back when dinosaurs roamed the land and I was in elementary school, there was a big push for the US to convert to the metric system. What the heck happened? We like convert part way then quit. Distances are still in inches, feet, yards, miles. I still buy milk in Pints, quarts and gallons, but I buy soda in liters, unless it's a smaller container when it becomes ounces again. Most food stuff has both measurements on it. Medicine tends to be measured in metric units for injections or pill form, but back to ounces for liquids taken orally. Weights are usually measured in ounces and pounds. What happened? Why did we quit? The rest of the world uses the metric system, why are we still stuck on the old one? I was just wondering this the other night. It worries me.

I have tv again. I said I wouldn't, but I did. I still can't get traditional cable, I hate dish network almost to the mob with flaming torches level, and I have heard Direct TV is no better. Fortunately the telephone company is now offering digital cable, so I signed up for their 2 room set up. I got the expanded basic cable package with an additional family tier. No premium channels but I get the networks, basic cable plus stuff like the discovery channels, history, the various channels that used to show educational and music programming but now mostly show crappy unreality programming. I had to get the faily tier though, must have my BBC America, dicovery military, and history international channels. Yeah I'm weird, deal with it. I would rather watch Dr. Who or a documentary about the P-51 Mustang than Lost or Survivor or American Idol. Anyway, I get all this for about $20 less than the most comparable of Dish's packages. But I am a bit out of touch with TV. Those Dos Equis Most Interesting Man in the World commercials are a hoot. But there is some ad I heard about 5000 times last night about a website where you can go to get rid of viruses and spyware. Can't remember the name, but it was pretty annoying. They kept giving symptoms which meant you might have a virus. One of them was if it took more than 3 seconds to load an email. Dude? My lap top at work was made in 1937 and has .000000008 gigs of memory and a gasoline powered intel processor and vacuum tubes. It's old and crappy. It couldn't load an email in 3 seconds if you gave it a half hour head start. Not to mention what do you mean load an email? Do you mean off a web based service like hotmail or yahoo, or do you mean in an email program? If in a program, which program, Outlook, outlook express, Thunderbird. Also, what if they have dial up and the email has 2 huge jpegs and a video clip attached? I mean obviously this is aimed at computer novices, because there are a lot of sites out there where you can do free scans, why pay to download an unknown anti anything program. If you are going to pay, go to a well established company like Symantec or Mcafee. Or better yet, download malwarebytes and/or spybot and donate so you can activate the real time protections.

Yes, strange things do keep me awake at night, but at least now I can go back to falling asleep to cable tv.