robrrt

How do I know that? I don’t, but through the years, EVERYONE keeps saying that exact phrase, so it MUST be true. OTOH, his music kicks ass, so should it matter if he’s a douchebag? Only as an OCD trait. Why is Scott Stapp a douchebag? I don’t know. Something about being a hypocrite. Do I care? No, I care about music. Have there been any Creed CD burning parties? Not if being a hypocrite is a good thing. It’s all about jumping on a bandwagon and supporting a popular notion to be accepted among peers.

But anyway, I digress. I was actually exploring this obsessive hatred of the Comic-Sans font. I know Comic-Sans is a douchebag font, but somebody somewhere thinks it kicks ass.

Another summer is winding down. And, as normal, so are gas prices. Locally, I’ve seen over a dime per gallon reduction in the past week. So, is now the time to breathe a sigh of relief? If breathing a sigh of relief is all the US of A is going to do, then what about next time?

Next summer, when gas prices shoot up again? (it will certainly be higher than this summer)

This winter, when the cost of heating your home goes through the roof? (pun intended)

The next Mid-East confrontation? (Iran is not going to back down, what are the Vegas odds that they wont come to blows with someone? and when that happens, it WILL affect the price of oil)

Until we have no more money to donate to OPEC?

How long before new nuke plants come online? (oh yeah, the do-nothing Congress has to give the green light first)

How long before solar energy tech is cheap enough so that everyone can afford to put a solar panel on the roof of their house?

How long before 50+ mpg cars are in mainstream production and every American can afford one as easily as a 10 mpg clunker?

Until then, this country needs cheap oil. It may not be available tomorrow, but we can start now. Prepare for it now. Do our homework now. Break ground now.

Drill now. Then we can breathe a sigh of relief. Until then – hold your breath.

(Time) The drugs used to execute prisoners in the United States sometimes fail to work as planned, causing slow and painful deaths that probably violate constitutional bans on cruel and unusual punishment, a new medical review of dozens of executions concludes.

Even when administered properly, the three-drug lethal injection method appears to have caused some inmates to suffocate while they were conscious and unable to move, instead of having their hearts stopped while they were sedated, scientists said in a report published Monday by the online journal PLoS Medicine.

I have an idea. Let’s just take the Terri Schiavo route and dehydrate them for a couple of weeks. That was deemed humane, wasn’t it?

After sitting on pins and needles for most of the week, I was jumping for joy when UPS delivered my new Nikon SLR camera. At first glance, everything looked normal – the outer box was a little oversized, but appeared to be in great shape. What I pulled out was shocking: the Nikon box was almost completely waterlogged.

The inner packaging was waterlogged as well, but the camera and other components appeared to be in okay. Later, I discovered that the (Amazon) receipt was missing and that’s when I took a closer look at the outer box. The UPS label had been CUT and REMOVED from another box and clear taped onto this one, making it very clear to me that the original box had been either dropped or left sitting in water and then the contents removed and placed in the box before me. The package has originated from New York and I do know that there was a lot of horrible weather in the area and I understand that accidents happen, but for GOD’S SAKE, that doesn’t give a carrier the right to disingenuous acts. If the package is damaged, have a little bit of honesty and RETURN IT TO THE SENDER! Don’t think for a moment that the joy of receiving a $550 camera is going to make me overlook blatant cosmetic damage. One thing I do know, after years of experience, is that electronics and humidity do not go together. And a box that is so waterlogged that it is almost to the point of falling apart does not give me much confidence as to the longevity of the electronic components it contained.

I’ve contacted Amazon, who in turn referred me to the shipping distributor and they have assured me that the camera will be replaced. So, it appears that they are doing their part. But I do have a message for UPS: I am the shipping manager for a well-known and trusted company with a large mail-order and wholesale business. Now that I’ve seen fist-hand this dishonest act performed by your company, it will be safe to say that my other carriers will now be seeing an increase in business from my shipping dock.

It seems that there is a big buzz around the blogosphere and internet news sites concerning Google Maps’ return to pre-katrina satellite views for the New Orleans area.

First of all, it could be that I’m just on a renegade Google data center, but I haven’t seen the post-katrina views for over a year now. Big honking deal.

Second, since when did it become Google’s responsibility to provide close-up views of all the devastation that most would rather forget? Go back through this blog and you will see that I’ve had my own criticisms of Google and I’ll surely have more in the future. However, I’ve got Google’s back on this. It’s a free service to you, the viewer. Unless you’re a stockholder, I’m sure Google could care less about your conspiracy theory (whatever that theory may be.) Want/need post-katrina satellite views? Go to the NOAA site. From what I’ve seen, it has better images anyway.

(update – 4/2) Looks like Google has updated again – to post-post-katrina images. Not the flooding images from immediately afterwards, but blue-roof and FEMA trailer shots after the water had receded. Google didn’t give in to the feds before, I have to wonder if they are doing so now.

And I see that the Ray Nagin Memorial Motor Pool is still going strong.

The US Copyright Office has released their new set of rates for the payment of royalties by Internet Radio – royalty rates so high that they likely will put most US-based indie webcasters out of business. Read more details here.

The recording industry’s greed is so great that rather than accepting royalty rates that are fair (fair being a subjective word), they would prefer to take 100% of nothing.

What can you do?
Sign the online petition
Send a message to your local Congressmembers
As a last resort: Don’t buy CDs from RIAA labels

Friday, February 10th. Around 8-9pm, I lost my my internet connection. After troubleshooting for a few minutes, I find that it’s not just the DSL, but it is actually my phone line that is dead. I place a call to BS tech support. Of course at that time, it’s not a live voice which tells me that a service call has been placed and to expect service to be restored by late Saturday afternoon. About an hour after placing the call, my phone/DSL comes back on of its own accord.

The next morning, I rise and shine about 7am. Since my phone was out when I called BS, I had called on my cell phone and had given that number to contact me. I had not turned it off. It never rang and if it had rang while I was in the shower, etc., the number would have been on the caller ID. My now-working land line never rang and, again, if it had while I was away from it, the caller ID would have shown so. There was never a knock on my door. I left home around 2pm to run some errands and there was no note on the door when I returned an hour later. Nothing on the caller ID, nothing on the answering machine. No follow-up phone call in the days that follow.

So life has been good until today when I see my phone bill and there is a $95 maintenance charge included. I call BS. The rep has me on hold off and on for about 30 minutes (partly due to her own computer crashing) and after speaking with local employee she then claims that a tech had been here at 9am, had called my land line and could hear the phone ringing through the front door. Hmmm, why no message on the answering machine? Why no knock on the door? How could I have spent most of the morning watching TV in my lounge chair by the front window and never saw anyone outside? BS charges for work done to “customer owned equipment”, provided that the customers doesn’t have a maintenance plan. How does placing a call to a phone number (their term was “line test”) equate to working on my equipment?

Finally, after being on the phone for an hour, BS tells me that the best they can do for me is to cut the service charge in half. My response is that I’ll gladly pay them 50% now, but they’ll have to be happy with 100% of nothing in the near future. Click. So, is that an over-reaction? Maybe. Could I afford an extra $95 on my bill, much less $47.50? Without a doubt. But sometimes you just have to stand up and say, “I am NOT going to stand for this!” If I give in and pay them for services NOT rendered this time, what about next time? Am I to always cower before the big bully on the block? I’ve had telephone service with BS since 1991 (currently on the Complete Choice package.) Soon to be gone. I’ve had BS internet service since 2000 (currently DSL Extreme.) Soon to be gone. I’ve have Cingular since 2001. Gone after the contract is up this Fall. And all because they think I have GOAT tattooed across my forehead.

And just to think… had they done the right thing, I was going to give them my long distance service too.

Don’t like what you’ve read, heard or seen about this facility over the past few days?

Too bad.

Get used to it.

This is just a preview of what nationalized health care will look like.

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late addition: could not have said it better myself…

He was for the joke before he was against it.

You know education, if you make the most of it, you study hard, you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, you can do well. If you don’t you get stuck in Iraq. –Democrat Senator John Kerry

And the next day…

My statement yesterday, and the White House knows this full well, was a botched joke about the president and the president’s people, not about the troops… If anyone thinks that a veteran, someone like me who’s been fighting my entire career to provide for veterans to fight for their benefits, to help honor what their service is, if anybody thinks that a veteran would somehow criticize more than 140,000 troops fighting in Iraq and not the president and his people who put them there, they’re crazy.

Call me crazy then, THE WORDS SAY WHAT THEY SAY. Those words contain no mention of the Bush Administration. As a former Air Force F-15 crew chief, I am deeply insulted and would be no matter what side of the isle I’m behind. It’s also embarrassing to realize that this is the person who received 48% of the presidential vote two years ago.

Imagine the brewing shit storm if President Bush had made a “botched joke” along those lines.

Mercury News

Mexican President-elect Felipe Calderon on Monday slammed U.S. plans to build more fences on its southern border, saying it would not solve illegal immigration.

You’re right. You, as the incoming President of Mexico, have the power to solve to problem of your citizens fleeing your country.

President Vicente Fox, of Calderon’s conservative National Action Party, has called the plans “shameful”

You’re right. You should be ashamed.