Carnival of Madness

So with Christmas coming up soon, I have yet to do any Christmas shopping. Hard to do it with just $6, well $16, but after I pay for this week’s pizza it’ll only have $6 left. However, i have already put aside $300 for Christmas in next month’s budget. it’s way more than I expect to spend, but it’ll give me room in case I find something interesting to buy people. Ya know, in case I find something they just really don’t need but will take anyways.I’ll probably be doing a huge chunk online. I can avoid the stores that way. I pretty much got everyone ready except Dad. I have no idea what to get that guy. I’m hoping to finish everything within a few days, if not 1 day.

Yeah, so that’s the plan right now. Watching Da Bulls game. It’s a really low scoring thing, just like the game last night. For some reason, I’m beginning to believe someone is trying to tell me that I don’t score enough. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, know what I mean, eh? Say no more, say no more. The Bulls finally got some offense going in the 2nd half. But the first half was weak, I think both teams combined to score 60 points.

I like in Futurama how they go to a different planet and all the signs are in English. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to read the signs….

This is gonna be a problem. I can sense it. I mean, what better story for guys like Bill O’Reilly and John Gibson to latch on to for too complain how liberals and civil libertarians are destroying our country, freedom, blah, blah, blah. “Liberals destroy the National Anthem!”This was just a practical decision made because of the weather. The NFL wanted to get the game started as soon as possible and they probably wanted to get some played before the storm might have gotten worse. They skipped the introductions and other pre game ceremonies as well. The only thing held was the coin toss; which determines who gets the ball first….

Of course the comments with that story are just insane. Some of them have no clue that before World War II, there was never a National Anthem sung at sporting events. Major League baseball and the NFL played thousands of games before WW2 and none of the owners, players, coaches, managers or grounds crew were unpatriotic or Stalinist Traitors.

Besides that, for a while now I’ve really disliked the National Anthem. And I’m really disturbed by the people who claim it has to do with patriotism. Really, the anthem is a symbol of war, the military, big government and flag worshipping. If you define your patriotism by singing songs that glorify war, I feel bad for you. In the USA, patriotism should be about freedom, individual liberty, peace and prosperity…whether songs are sung or not. Patriotism should not be defined as loyalty to our government, the president, congress or a song. In a country that is supposed to be free, I don’t think Nationalism and war are the best way to celebrate freedom.

Oh wait, no Steelers 3, Dolphins 0.Ehh….close enough.

Tonight’s game just pissed me off. The Steelers are a much better team than a 3-0 game. Basically this was all defense because the weather was so awful that the offense couldn’t run or pass. The field was a big sloppy mess. Can’t run in mud too well. Can’t pass wet footballs. So it took until the Steeler’s final drive for either team to go past the opposing team’s 20 yard line. They played 59:43 of scoreless football until the Steelers finally scored. Led in the game for all of 17 seconds.

But I expected more of the Steelers at 7-3 facing an 0-10 team. Twice, they got first downs called back because of penalties. Eliminate those two penalties and who knows how good the Steelers would have done.

Ya know, I heard System 7 ended up working just fine. Just a funny look back at the early 90′s computer problems….

I spent tonight, since about 7:00-ish (after eating dinner) reading through old blogs. It’s amazing how wrong I was about somethings (The Pirates will probably make the playoffs in 2006). Close, but way off. In fact, not close at all. I had made the foolish mistake of saying that the war in Iraq might be ok (overall, though I wasn’t on board with it in March 2003). Some of my attitudes about things have changed completely.I think blogs are interesting in that if you keep one around long enough and keep writing in it regularly, you will eventually change your attitudes that when you look back at it from 3, 4 or 5 years in the future you wonder why the hell you wrote that or ever believed that. Another fun thing is to look back and see comments I made about seeing one movie or another. For example, is saw the James Bond flick “Die Another Day”. For real. I honestly cannot remember seeing that movie. It was the same Saturday that a few of us went to CR to find a new couch (that is long gone) and that I bought Mitchell.

Yeah, I was really bored tonight.

Oh something cool from Thanksgiving afternoon, Grandpa asked me if they were lowering interest rates again. I said that I think they are. Both of us agreed that it really sucks because it doesn’t help us any. Then Eric made some comment about me not being able to get a loan. I told him that I wasn’t getting more from savings when it comes to interest. It really sucks. Grandpa and I were in total agreement about it, which was cool.

I also loved the attitude on the radio this morning. Dad turned it on while I was making lunch. One guy said that it’s ok to use your debit card, but you shouldn’t because you could lose money if someone steals it or can charge things to your account. So this guy’s solution? What? Cold hard cash? Nope. Credit Cards! They’re safer and more secure; which is bullshit. Debit and Credit cards have the same amount of security. End of story. And if you pay off the balance every month, you can use someone else’s money for free. Ugh. “Duh, I’d like to borrow money to buy stuff I can afford to pay for on my own…duh.”

Another funny thing was that the guy said that most people starting today will go in to deb to pay for all the Christmas stuff they want to buy and take several months after Christmas to pay for it all.

Whatever I got sick with a few weeks ago or whenever that was, it seems Ed has picked it up. It’s likely that he might have got the same virus, only taking a few weeks to actually do anything. But if that’s true, I wonder why mom and dad don’t have anything like it. Also someone called the cops about the gas leak thing at the natural gas station up the road. I wonder who did that after someone suggested yesterday that if we smell it, we should call the cops. Hmmm…. curious…

Yeah! Yesterday afternoon, I told Sean and his dad that I could come over and help fix Sean’s house this afternoon. But around 12:15 this afternoon, I got in my room and noticed what a complete disaster my room had become since I got back from the east coast this summer (Yeah, I last dusted around the 29th of July). Anyways, I didn’t wanna go to Sean’s anymore and text messaged Sean to see if they still needed me to help. After what seemed like a long wait, I got a message back saying that they didn’t help. So the afternoon was set. Got started around 1:00-ish.First it was dust. Lots of dust. Every freaking where. Ugh, I can’t believe how much dust has been created since I last dusted. I mean, really, how does it build up so fast. Do I have that many dead skin cells? What the fuck?

Then it was the ceiling fan, no idea how dust gets up there. But I kicked it’s ass. By then it was 3:00. Then all the cob webs in the corners, etc. I mean the place was a big dusty mess. Then it was on to the

Next up to attack was the dirt/food/junk on the carpet. Took care of that with the vacuum. Then I went to the TV room. It needed work too, however Jesse was using the room, so all I could do was dust what I could and get the corners and walls and such. Ahh, yeah, it’s nice to experience the clean after a long, relaxing day of cleaning.

Check this out. The military uses 340,000 barrels of oil a day. At $100 a barrel, that’s $12.4 billion a year. No wonder gas is $3 a gallon, I mean the government not only taxes the shit out of us for their bullshit war in Iraq, but then they go along use up 340,000 gallons of oil for their bullshit war every single day, artificially raising the price beyond reasonable levels. That’s what government artificially raises and lower prices, causing panics, recessions and other economic problems. Yep.

John Edwards (the creepy ex-seantor with the same name as a guy who sees dead people) sees hungry people. And not just a few hungry people, but widespread hunger. Clearly there are millions of people who don’t have anything to eat.Oh wait, you can believe that until you read this! So not only are poor people starving, but they’re eating too much. Clearly, I’m probably not getting it at all because I if I did, I wouldn’t have a problem. Poor people are suffering with obesity and they don’t have enough to eat. It all makes sense if you think about it long enough.

I love this quote from John Edwards plan here

But one out of every three eligible families is not enrolled in the program, including millions of families who visit food banks and other community food services.

Those bastards! They’re supposed to take the government hand outs and forget about private charities. Geez, they’re clearly on the dole for Republicans!Also:

the critical but under-used Summer Food Program

A government program that is under-used? So how is it under-used? Is it so under used that it’s coming in right at it’s budget expectations? Perhaps, it’s being under-budgeted, getting to much money for what they do. Who the hell knows. I have to wonder what exactly he means by “under-used”.Also:

Small corner stores are usually more expensive and offer less nutritious food.

Yeah, these are the same corner stores that Wal-Mart is shutting down, right? So do you want them around or not? I mean, you liberals are out there complaining that Wal-Mart is shutting down these corner stores and then complaining they’re too expensive and don’t have enough healthy food.Finally:

He will create a national food access map that identifies neighborhoods lacking grocery stores, emergency food banks and regular access to fresh produce.

In case you’re such a moron, you can’t find out where a grocery store is in your town. How much ya wanna bet that those maps will probably only be online. Apparently, the poor people will be able to buy a computer, but unable to find their way to a grocery store. What’s he gonna do with the maps anyways? Well his solution is to build more grocery stores in poor neighborhoods. Which I’m sure means steal people’s houses through imminent domain and then tear them down, give huge tax breaks to big grocery food chains, create congested and dangerous roads right next to these grocery stores and shut down more privately owned “corner stores”. So really, I don’t see any advantage for the poor here.Personally, I’d like to hear one reporter ask him something like “You state on your website that America is suffering from widespread hunger, but according to the Los Angeles county chief medical officer, Dr. Jonathon Fielding “poverty is one of the determinants of obesity.” So which is it?” Good luck getting any “real” reporter ask him that question.

I came in a few minutes ago and mom had the news on channel 9 and one of the stories was about a grain bin collapse that destroyed a house next to it. Basically the guys who owned the grain bin didn’t break any laws since it wasn’t on or over the property line. But, of course, the son-in-law of the people who owned the house said that the grain bin was an accident waiting to happen and that he actually couldn’t sleep at night with that evil grain bin waiting to attack.First of all, grain bins aren’t accidents waiting to happen. We have 9 grain bins and none of them have ever collapsed. One of them, Ed’s so sure won’t collapse that he lives in a house right next to it. And we’re so sure it won’t collapse because we put our cars in a garage next to it. If these things were really death traps, we wouldn’t have built a garage, house and machine shed next to it.

Grain bins aren’t dangerous. I mean, if you climb op one and fall off, yeah that can be dangerous, but come on! Find something else to keep you awake at night. Bleh.

Fox News’s status as a politically impartial channel is at last being exposed as a fiction.Huh? Where the hell have they been? Geez, have they been asleep since 1997? I mean what have you missed in the last 10 years? We can fill ya in. Guess what else! Iraq was invaded in 2003. Shocking, right? Who knew?

Take a drink every time the Patriots complete a pass. Take two drinks when they score a TD. Take three drinks if Brady passes to Moss. Take two drinks if the defense forces the other team to punt. Take four drinks if the announcers talk about what clothes the Patriots head coach Bill Belichick is wearing. Take a drink if they start talking about next week’s Patriots game. Take two drinks if you can’t believe they’re playing on Sunday night two f&$*ing weeks in a row. When the game is over, take out a pen and piece of paper and try to spell Belichick correctly without looking it up online. If you’re still sober when the game is over, you will see that the Patriots have won the game.Yeah, the Patriots are just killing everyone lately. They make it all look so easy. Any fans who actually went to Patriots games from 1989 to 1993, back when they had those stupid fucking red uniforms with the “patriot” snapping the ball logo and selling out games was a long shot if not completely impossible should be pretty happy these days. Admitting in Boston in 1990 that you’re a Patriots fan is a lot like a person in Pittsburgh admitting to being a Pirates fan this decade.

My demands as a Pirates fan are small:

1. I want the Pirates to have a winning season. Yeah, not much but a start.
2. I want the Pirates to make the playoffs. Again, most teams have done it, why not the Pirates?
3. I want the Pirates to win the division: How hard can it be against the Cubs, Brewers, Astros, Cardinals and Reds? It’s not like there’s some super GM or a money bags team ready to destroy us (Unless the nightmarish scenario of Mark Cuban buying the Cubs comes true).
4. I want the Pirates to win the division 15 years in a row. The fucking Braves got that, I want the Pirates to do it!
5. I want the Braves to lose a lot, I want them to lose Chipper and Andruw and Schuerholz and Cox. I want them to have shitty owners and dumbass GM’s. I want them to have 15 consecutive losing seasons just so they know what it’s like.
6. I want the Pirates to go to the World Series. That would be way awesome. Finally it’d be your team that sucks.
7. Finally: The Pirates win the World Series. Ahhh…..yeah….pain ended….