Where did Joe the Plumber go?

Apparently Joe the Plumber has been briefing congressional Republicans on Gaza!

I’m not sure when this happened, but I just saw it while reading about an interview Jeb Bush did with Esquire, (Jeb Bush being one of the dimwits that was fathered by George G.W. Bush):

Told that Joe the Plumber had briefed congressional Republicans on Gaza, Bush launched into a defense of intellectualism. “I think it’s okay to have a deeper understanding of things. I think it’s okay to talk in three-syllable words. The world we’re living in is incredibly complex,” he told the magazine. “And simplifying things to the point where you’re misunderstanding where we are as a nation isn’t going to help people overcome their fears or give them hope that they can achieve great things. I don’t get inspired by shameless populism.”

Now, there are a few problems in the above quote, but mainly, what the hell is Joe the Plumber doing talking about Gaza or anything else with congressional Republicans?  I’m having a hard time believing this actually happened.

It’s one thing if Joe just hangs around the congressional cafeteria giving out advice on all sorts of things he doesn’t understand, which is probably what happened, but it’s quite another to think he’s actually briefing congressional republicans….I’m going to assume it’s the former so that I can retain some level of respect for Republicans.

Oh, damn.  The last bit of respect I had after hearing that news was wasted away by Senator Sylvia Allen of Arizona with this quote:

I can’t say enough how it’s time that we get beyond and start focusing on this technology we have and move forward into the future so that our grandchildren can have the same lifestyle we have.

This Earth’s been hear 6,000 years — and I know I’m going on and on and I’ll shut up — it’s been here 6,000 years, long before anybody had environmental laws, and somehow it hasn’t been done away with.

http://www.tucsonweekly.com/TheRange/archives/2009/07/09/maybe-sylvia-allen-was-bitten-by-a-radioactive-moron

Okay, back to Jeb Bush’s earlier quote.  I’m actually a bit relieved that Jeb made it clear it’s okay to talk in three-syllable words.  I wasn’t sure what the deal with that was.

He even through out a few out in his quote.  Once you start reaching four though you become a socialist, so be very wary about crossing that line.   I heard Arlen Specter used a bunch of four syllable words and soon thereafter he became a Democrat.

I think Joe the Plumber made up the rule about using three-syllable words while briefing Congress and it was adopted by most Republicans almost immediately.  (Wow, how many syllables in Republican??  I suppose to avoid looking like a populist I’ll pretend I can’t count that high.  I hope it’s not more than three though or Jeb’s on a dark path to becoming a Democrat.)

Here is a bit more from the article just for fun:

He downplayed the president’s approval ratings, which remain above average. “First of all, who cares?” he said.

“His popularity is no greater – in fact it’s less – than what my brother’s was during the beginning of his tenure, in a time of unbelievable friction, if you think about it, because of the 2000 election. His approval ratings were higher than Barack Obama’s during his first one hundred days.”

According to the most recent CNN/Opinion Research Corporation polls, Obama’s approval ratings have averaged several points higher than President George W. Bush’s were at the same point in their presidencies.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/07/09/jeb-bush-i-dont-know-if-obama-is-a-socialist/

Palin retires and other observations from the past week….

This is Part II from my previous post.   Since I was away for a week I thought it would be easier on the eyes to break down the posts into 2 segments.

This is Part II:

Sarah Palin retired.  This would normally be exciting news, but it’s made my favorite radio personalities Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity virtually unlistenable.   Their shows have pretty much turned into 2 hours of defending Palin, and 1-2 hours of their regular nonsense.  Hannity is actually a tad more insane with his defense of Palin.  This exchange pretty much sealed the deal for me that he’s gone off the edge:

Female Caller:  Sean, you’re a great American! (I don’t recall if she said that but 80% of the calls start off this way.)

Hannity:  Thank you female caller, you’re a great American.  (He said her name, but I don’t remember it.)

Caller:  Sean, I think Palin left office because of David Letterman.  After what he said she was probably worried about all the pedophiles and maniacs that are lusting after her children.  She’s worried about their safety.  The pedophiles will be going after those kids now.  (Paraphrasing)

Hannity:  It’s possible, but………

It’s possible?  Are you serious?  Have you gone completely mental Sean?  Of all the thousands of reasons I can think of why she may have left office, her fear that pedophiles are about to rise up en mass because of David Letterman’s comments is probably the one I would throw away without a second thought.

Michael Jackson.  What’s going on here?  When did the media fall back in love with Michael Jackson?  He went from side-show freak, to a beloved misunderstood celebrity.  I’m not really paying that much attention to it all, but I am shocked by just how extensive the coverage is.  Well, not completely shocked since it’s good for ratings, but it all seems a tad hypocritical.

The Oscars upped the number of nominees for best film of the year to 10!!!!!  I’m pretty certain that all this means is that now we will see one or two summer blockbusters nominated each year (Star Trek), and one animated movie from Pixar (Up).  I’m not sure why some people are so upset, I like it at 5, but who watches the Oscars anyway?

The one good thing that may come out of this is that with 10 films being nominated every year there should be a far greater chance that a film featuring Claire Forlnai will be nominated.  You deserve it Claire!

Q-Tip.  I started listening to Q-Tip’s CD, Renaissance, this past week and I have to say it’s pretty solid.  It’s been out since November, so I’m a bit behind schedule on checking it out, but nevertheless it’s worth a listen.

Finally, I spent July 4th in St. Louis to see the fireworks and after hearing that St. Louis puts on one of the top shows in the United States I have to say I was rather disappointed.  It was good, but when I hear top 5 I expect the spectacular and I didn’t get that.  Better luck next year St. Louis.  The one thing that was truly spectacular in St. Louis this past week was my bowling.

Illinois’ loves recovering and reinvesting

I took a much deserved vacation from my days toiling away at the computer this past week, and I figured I would come back with an update covering some of the news I missed out on.

I’ll start though by stating that Illinois is the most ridiculous state in the country.  I never thought it would happen but they passed Iowa in that dubious category.  (I’m only counting states that I have been to, so don’t feel bad Florida and Texas – I’m quite sure your worse)

When the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act was initiated to boost the economy I can’t fathom any state jumped into action faster than Illinois.  Illinois was in such a hurry to start recovering and reinvesting that they just started tearing up every section of I-74 without any concern for how inconvenient it is for me personally.

In fact, Illinois loves recovering and reinvesting so much that they’re tearing up road that they just tore up and fixed last summer.  They actually completely removed the road in some areas.  It’s quite the spectacle to behold, especially because I rarely see them doing much work.   Although they may be doing it under the cover of darkness so that nobody notices that 60% of the roads they are repairing were in good condition before.  (I think they might just be painting some sections of the road black in some sections)

Now, certainly a lot of I-74 needed some work, I’m not disputing that.  However, it certainly didn’t need as much work as they are putting into it.

Also, Illinois has purchased enough orange cones to keep the orange cone business going strong for decades.  You see, when Illinois starts recovering and reinvesting they just plant those orange colored cones everywhere.  Even in the areas that they aren’t currently working on they just throw down some orange cones on the side of the road because sooner or later they’re going to be doing something in that area.  The downside is that it makes it incredibly difficult to know when you’re in a work zone since at some points they tell you that you’ve exited a work zone and other times they don’t.

Life After People…Oh the horror!!

I was watching the History Channel last night and a show came on called “Life After People.”  The show’s ominous title sucks you in, and what follows is 60 minutes of pure unadulterated horror.  Well, it’s not really that scary, but it is somewhat interesting as they explain all about how snakes and alligators will battle for supremacy in Florida, while sand-storms devour Phoenix.

I missed the first five minutes of the show though so I’m not sure how life after people starts.  It appears that we all just disappear because all the animals and everything else seems to survive.  There are dogs running around the streets aimlessly, chimps bonding with birds, snakes eating alligators, and plants running amok through city streets.

The show goes through the first day after people, then 3o days, a year, etc……With each progression in time nothing much seems to change, but they are very skilled at making it sound far more interesting than I just did.

The highlight of the show though appears to be a segment about 40 minutes in where they show a village that’s been abandoned since WWII.

When the time finally arrives to show the abandoned village I’m expecting all sorts of chaos – Dogs that can fly, snakes the size of trees, I’m really prepared for anything at this point.  And what do I get?  Nothing.  The tiny little town that’s been abandoned since WWII looked pretty good to me.

I would guess there are sections of Detroit that are in worse shape than that village.  They had some rodents that dug under the foundation of the homes, some weeds, and a some wood rot that caused some of the walls to fall.  It was all terribly disappointing…….(Pretty good show though if you have the time)

50 Highest Paid Athletes in Sports

This list is published annually and lists the highest earning athletes combining both salary and endorsement money.  A few things really stand out on the list though.

First, why in god’s name do golfers make so much money?  How does Tiger Woods make 92,000,000 in endorsements?  I know he endorses Buick and Gatorade and probably a bunch of golfing equipment, but can his name really bring in that much money for the company paying him?  Perhaps he does, but how do you explain Phil Mickelson coming in at #2.

How is Phil Mickelson #2?  I couldn’t name a single thing that he endorses.  I need to take some time out of my day and watch golf one day, I have to imagine that they must run commercials with Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods for 11 hours straight during a tournament for them to earn that much money.

The rest of the list is sort of interesting just because some of the people on the list are completely useless.   Stephon Marbury at #17?  Marbury logged less minutes playing in the NBA than probably 85% of the league and he comes in at 17?  I almost played as much in the NBA last year as Marbury.

Steve Francis at #22?  Although I actually did play as many minutes in the NBA last year as Francis.

Barry Zito at #26?  That’s hard to beleive considering how absolutely useless he’s been since signing with the Giants.  Although I think most baseball fans were well aware at the time that the Giants had severely overpaid for his services.

The New York Yankees seem to dominate the rest of the list.  I think they have 30 or 40 of the other 50 athletes on the list.

You can check out the entire list by clicking here.

Googling with Bing

This video more or less highlights the problems for Microsoft in going after Google with Bing!  Google is so entrenched as the search engine of choice for most people that it seems as though Bing won’t stand a chance no matter what it does to differentiate itself.

I have to say I’m kind of happy about Bing coming on the scene.  Google is getting to be a bit too large, and they seem intent on taking over the world so if Bing can slow down the inevitable for a bit, I’m all for it.

Check out video mocking Bing’s attempt to market itself below:

more about “Humor video highlights Bing’s challen…“, posted with vodpod

The end of a boycott……U-Haul gets a second chance!

Throughout my life I have encountered very few companies and products that were so awful that I had to resort to the drastic step of boycotting the company.  One such company is U-Haul.  Now the boycott ends tomorrow (unfortunately), but I wanted to put it on the record the PRIMARY reason why I am boycotting U-Haul.  For those of you that are aware of my history with U-Haul you can skip this entry, but for those that are not, the journey starts here.

After graduating from college I decided to move to New York City.  In preparation for my journey I decided to rent from the most beloved rental company in the world – U-Haul.  Knowing I would be moving in May, I reserved my truck about two or three months before that.  Knowing I would be driving into the Queens I wanted the smallest truck possible so I could easily maneuver without worrying about driving an oversized truck.

I didn’t have many possessions to move so the 14” truck seemed perfect to me.  Well, the big day arrived and when I showed up the fine people at U-Haul explained that they didn’t have a 14′ truck available.  The amazing part was that not only did they not have the 14′ available, but apparently they also were out of the 17′ and 24′ trucks as well!

One of the more disturbing aspects of all this is that I drove by the gigantic U-Haul parking lot each and there was always plenty of truck available.  It’s almost as if on the day I went to pick up my truck they took every single truck that was in the parking lot away and hid them……every truck except the fleet of 26 footers!

They actually insisted that I take a 26′ truck.  For those of you unfamiliar with the 26′ truck it’s approximately the size of Rhode Island.  After complaining for a while they found a 24′ truck.  Apparently they have a hidden supply that they keep at gas stations.

After I went a little more crazy they decided that they had a 17′ truck available and I could conveniently pick up at a gas station by my house.  I suppose they were an authorized U-Haul station, but my mother lived by that U-Haul station for a good 2 years and at no point were either of us brave enough to stop there.  I had noticed a U-Haul truck there from time to time, but it just looked like one of those gas stations you don’t enter without a bullet proof vest.  It was quite the eye sore in an otherwise nice neighborhood.

Well, I went and the nice people explained that the 17′ truck had only one minor defect.  It was a “hot start.”   As someone completely unfamiliar with how vehicles work I had no idea what that meant.  As it was explained to me, this meant that after the truck had been running for awhile you would have to let it sit around for 15 minutes before it would start again.  (i.e. it wouldn’t start hot)

Although I wasn’t excited about the news it hardly seemed to be anything worth arguing about since my other optiosn involved driving what amounted to a tractor-trailer to NYC.   I eventually packed the truck up with about 15′ of space in the back still available and began my journey East.

Now, here is a small list of problems I found with this truck:

First, the driver’s side mirror was useless.  It just flapped around kind of aimlessly and wouldn’t remain in a stationary position which made it completely useless.

Second, the “hot start” actually means when you turn the truck off you have to wait at least an hour or two for the truck to start – not 15 minutes.

Third, the brakes didn’t work.  Well, that’s not entirely true.  They worked okay for the first part of the drive, but I guess with breaks the really important part is that they always work…..U-Haul wouldn’t agree, but I guess that’s just how they do business.

Certainly the other problems were kind of annoying, but this was sort of a major problem especially when driving down the Long Island Expressway.  Only through some miraculous driving was my life spared (luckily the emergency lane was clear of debris or else I wouldn’t be around to write this).

Now, the REALLY amazing part of this whole story is that even after arguing endlessly with U-Haul for hours about how dangerous this truck was they still didn’t feel like they should have to pick up the vehicle.  They actually wanted me to drive it to the nearest U-Haul station.  They also didn’t feel like this problem was worth an entire refund.  After arguing for about 4 days about the fees they eventually went from giving 10% off (after day 1) to around 50% off (after day 4) before I finally gave up and accepted the partial refund.

The whole thing was astonishing from start to finish.

Now, I’m telling you this story because tomorrow I will entering a U-Haul truck for the first time in YEARS and quite frankly I’m a little concerned I may die.  Accordingly, I want this account in writing since I firmly believe that U-Haul may be trying to kill me.   Since money is tight and U-Hauls are dirt cheap, I have decided to utilize their services for a local move.

My hope is that when you stay local U-Haul actually tries not to kill their customers since the word would probably spread quickly.

I have many other second hand accounts of trouble with U-Haul, and I’ve seen more than my fair share of U-Hauls broken down on the side of the road, but I’m not going to take the time to list it all now.  Just know, that if I die tomorrow, and there is a decent chance that I will, I would like my friends to avenge my death.

Hollywood.com’s Top 25 DVD’s….

I rent a lot of movies, and every once in awhile I like to look up the new releases before going to the video store to see if it’s worth the drive.  I typically check IMDB, but recently I’ve been checking Hollywood.com instead.

The first time I checked the list I thought it was fairly odd that the movie ‘Sexy Beast’ was first on the list.  I’ve seen the movie and it isn’t bad, but it’s certainly nowhere near good enough to be #1.  Well, after checking the site multiple times over the past few weeks I’ve noticed a distinct pattern to their rankings.

First, ‘Sexy Beast’ wasn’t just #1 that one week, it’s always #1.

Second, this movie called ‘Young People F*cking’ is always in the top 5 as well.  I thought this was pretty odd as well the first time I checked the list since I never heard of the movie.  However, I was astonished to see that it’s always in the top 5 right behind ‘Sexy Beast.’

After a few visits I started noticing that the majority of the titles had a common theme.  I also became more and more suspicious that the top 25 didn’t really feature any well reviewed movies, or any new releases.

The top 25 instead features movies with titles like:

• XXX (Vin Diesel was great in the movie, but top 5 consistently for a movie that’s 5-1o years old.  It’s not like we’re talking ‘Fast and the Furious’ here.)
• Zack and Miri Make a Porno (Hmmmm, porno anyone??)
• Kiss the Girls (Sounds pretty kinky for an Ashley Judd movie)
• Inside Deep Throat (I think the title speaks for itself)
• Sex and Breakfast (I think the people that put this one in the top 25 were probably focused more on the sex than the breakfast)
• Bad Boys 2

Throw in ‘Sexy Beast’ and ‘Young People F*cking’ and I think you get the picture.  Is there really nobody at Hollywood.com that couldn’t figure out the pattern here and filter out the results?  It’s funny, but it’s probably going to be the reason I stop visiting the site since I can’t get an accurate reflection of the top 25 DVDs which I assume they base on search terms and not actual popularity.

More importantly I bet Hollywood.com has a lot of disgruntled customers.  I can only imagine the anger and dismay of the poor folks looking for some wholesome adult entertainment that end up with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd hunting down serial killers instead.

Internet fails in the wake of Jackson’s death

Human See, Human Do hasn’t really been following the death of Michael Jackson that closely, but since it’s such a monumental news story it hardly seemed right that I didn’t at least post something.  So, this more or less sums up what I’ve learned in the last day or so.

Michael Jackson dying was bad news for Farrah Fawcett fans, and good news for Governor Mark Sanford.  Sanford went from running neck and neck with Iran for the top news story to being somewhat of an afterthought.  For the beleaguered politician it must have been a welcome break from the constant scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Fawcett’s death has seemingly fallen under the radar.   I know these things are supposed to come in threes, but at least the celebrities could take a little break between each other’s deaths.  Fawcett deserved as much.

(We’ll miss you too Ed McMahon!!)

Apparently, Google News and others went down for up to 30 minutes in the midst of a feeding frenzy by fans to find stories about the pop icons death.  Google news, at least according to one site, mistook the unprecedented traffic as a virus and shut itself down.   I would never have guessed that the internet was such a fragile creature.

Other sites had problems as well, but it’s not news until Google goes down.

Finally, it seems that Jackson’s death has sent his album sales through the roof.  From what I’ve read he’s currently occupying 18 of the top 20 spots on Amazon’s list of top record sales on their site, and 9 of the top 10 on iTunes.

Palin and John Kerry exchange jokes!

First John Kerry came out with a joke about Sarah Palin, and now it’s Sarah Palin’s turn to respond.

The whole affair got started when Kerry stated that, “[t]oo bad if a governor had to go missing it couldn’t have been the governor of Alaska.  You know, Sarah Palin.”

Not bad, a pretty good shot, a little mean-spirited, but I suppose that’s the type of comedy you expect when dealing with a laugh-out-loud funnyman like John Kerry.

I will say the part at the end where he gives away who he is talking about kind of ruins the whole joke for me.  Did he really think there was somebody in the world that couldn’t figure out the reference?

Well, the extremely-sensitive Sarah Palin, who sometimes fights back, and sometimes cries and plays the victim role, went on the offensive and delivered this response to Kerry’s remarks, “[b]ut the way he said it, he looked quite frustrated, and he looked so sad, and I just wanted to reach out to the TV and say, ‘John Kerry, why the long face?’”

Hmmm, not quite a knockout blow, but Palin wins this match pretty easily by TKO.