RingBack Tones

Here is a little something that I really can't stand. The idea is not half-bad. Enable your mobile phone to play music, rather than the traditional ring, to the person that is trying to call you.

The problem is that the execution is horrible. Telephones, and in particular cell phones, were never made to carry or reproduce the frequencies necessary to play music. So what you get when someone uses ringback tones is a garbled, mutilated, sound that you might be able to recognize as music.

It's horrible and extremely agitating. Me being the selfish bastard that I am, have taken to telling my friends that use them that unless I really need to get in touch with them that they can expect me to not be calling as often. Or they'll get a text asking them to give me a call - I don't have any ringback tones programmed.

Though few things might be worse, calling a friend up to have a nice conversation and getting a bunch of staticy, garbled, crap over the phone is pretty bad.

El Cenizo

Last night as I was flipping channels I caught a quick news report on a little town in Texas called El Cenizo. The town has about 6000 residents, pretty much all of which are Hispanic. Now, they claim that everyone is there legally. Ok, I can buy that (even if I don’t quite believe it).

But the really unique thing about this town is that they have made the official language of the town (that is, all business conducted and recorded by the government) Spanish. Not English, but Spanish. They are no longer doing any record keeping in English.

While there is no Federal mandate on this, I found this to be a little disturbing. Legally they have every “right” to do so considering that there is no official language of the U.S. What bothers me, though, is that it is a clear indication that we are:
1 – losing the war on immigration (thanks Bush and Kennedy!)
2 – losing our sovereignty.

I think that it is a bad idea to continue down this path as what we will ultimately do is continue to divide our country and create confusion amongst its citizens (hopefully legal ones).

The other thing that really got me is that in this town it is outright illegal to turn in an illegal immigrant! That’s right! Even though federal law has decreed it is against the law to be in the United States without going through the “process” this town has usurped federal law by making it illegal to do anything about it.

It’s hard for me to believe that a city can get away with this type of behavior. This is not unlike other cities that have thumbed their noses at federal law on other issues. Why are we not enforcing our laws? Why are we allowing cities to write into law ordinances that conflict with federal law?

I really have to blame Clinton and Bush on this one. Neither president has done anything to ensure enforcement of our immigration laws. Especially Bush.

I get the impression that there aren’t any lawyers that read my blog, but if there are I’d love to hear the legal argument of how this is possible and permissible.

Maybe Texas succeeding from the U.S. isn’t such a bad idea after all.

Fooked at the Airport

I had a quick, two-day trip up to St. Louis and back. My original plans were to fly in on Tuesday, then meet with my client on Wed, and fly back late Wed. night. However, after it was all locked in the client said they couldn’t meet Wed. So we did everything on Tuesday afternoon and evening.

Wed. rolls around and I figure there isn’t much point in sitting around at the hotel, and since I have to checkout at some point anyway I decided to head to the airport and grab an earlier flight.

As it turns out, everything was booked up and they best they could do was standby. Ok, no problem. Except two other flights had mechanical delays so now I am at the back of a VERY long standby list. My flight out is not until 7:45 this evening. (BTW – did anyone just catch that I changed verb tense?). So here I am….sitting on my arse without anything to do. I can’t get online because there isn’t any Internet access, here. A whole day wasted. Maybe I’ll get lucky and still grab an earlier flight out.

If You are Going to Turn, then TURN!

One thing that really frustrates me is when you are approaching an intersection and you want to take a left-hand turn, and the driver coming the opposite direction wants to take a right hand-turn.

It should be simple, right? We all learn when that unless there is an arrow to protect our turn that the driver taking the right-hand turn (i.e. oncoming traffic) has the right of way. So why do drivers continuously yield to the person taking the left-hand turn and just sit there looking like a moron? Now both vehicles are 1/2-way into the intersection and nobody is moving.

This drives me crazy. I've gotten to the point that if the oncoming driver pulls this crap, I take my left-turn anyway. I'm not going to sit in the middle of the intersection while the light changes colors and sticks me out there to dangle in the proverbial wind because they had to fiddle-fart around and wouldn't turn.

Lean on My Truck!

Today I was out eating a burger for lunch. I had a spot by the window and was just staring outside. My truck was parked right by the establishment and this older gentleman along with what appeared to be his son and grandson walked up to my truck. he just kind of casually throws his arm over the bed and leans on my truck talking to his son.

So then his son leans on my truck and starts talking back. Now my truck is a 4x4 and therefore has a slight lift to it. It's just about the perfect height to throw you arm up on the bed-rail and lean. Obviously it was working for these two guys.

Now the young boy "disappears" for a moment because he has walked around back. Then his head pops up and I realize he is standing on the bumper and leaning on the tailgate.

So here is the Grandfather, dad, and boy all just hanging out on my truck. It was kind of strange. They obviously weren't hurting anything so I didn't really care. But I wouldn't go up to some strangers car / truck and just start hanging out on it. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that a lot of people would be so possessive as to have said something to them about it. I guess that is just a sign of the times.

Hate Crimes

I received an email from someone I had not heard from in a long time. It was regarding a new hate crime bill called the Mathew Shepard act. I have not yet read this bill or what is contained therein so I can’t comment on the specifics of the bill, though I got the impression from the campaign that it is specifically targeting hate crimes against gays or lesbians.

Personally, I am a bit reluctant to support a hate crime bill that secludes or recognizes one social group of people over another. Isn’t that the very definition of discrimination?

Let me reiterate…. Isn’t any crime against another human being a “hate crime?” If a person kills another person, isn’t that a hate crime regardless of the color of their skin, their sexual orientation, or religious preference?

A lot of liberals like to talk about racism and discrimination. They like to indicate that we should all be treated fairly and equally. But, liberals are usually the first to pass laws that segregate and isolate one class of people. In doing so we are in fact actually enforcing and encouraging discrimination.

Take reverse-discrimination. If what you just read translated to “discrimination against white people” you are already actively taking part of the political juggernaut that perpetuates discrimination. I never said / wrote anything about reverse-discrimination being against white people, but that is what you interpreted it as. Have you ever thought about Why?

If you look at affirmative-action laws, they were not really written to promote equality in the work environment. They were, however, written to make sure that blacks (and I guess, now, Hispanics) are given preferential treatment. Because if it was truly a mechanism to prevent discrimination against a minority, then Caucasians would now be receiving this treatment in areas like Texas and California where we are now considered “minority” states. Again, liberalism at work – calling the majority of people a minority is an oxymoron if I ever heard one.

So look again at hate crime bills. And think about the potential, long-term consequences of these bills before we go and continue to socially identify, isolate, and discriminate for (or against) certain groups of people.

Something is Missing

I don’t know what it is. But I still feel like I am missing something. I’m struggling, but I’m not sure for what. Happiness, maybe. Not that I am whole unhappy, but I just feel like I should be in the prime of my life and somehow I am missing the experience. I’m not quite sure why that is.

OK! Stitch me up!

Do you remember when you were a kid? Did they have Big Wheels and Green Machines back then? I asked one person if they remembered them and they said “no.” How can you say “no?” I asked if they lived under a rock as a child and was quickly reprimanded.

I was at the toy store today to pick out a birthday present for my niece and took my time browsing the toys. The toys are getting better and better, but sometimes the simple toys are still the best.

My niece wants a pair of “heelies.” These are shoes that have wheels in the heel that you can skate on if you lift your toes up off the ground. You’ve probably seen little kids wheeling around on them at the grocery store and stuff.

My mom, the ever, constant, motherly, worry-wart is scared my niece is going to hurt herself and end up in the hospital. “You heard what they said! Kids are pouring into the hospitals from these things!”

Yeah, well they are also pouring in from bicycles, skateboards, swing-sets, cheerleading activities and all sorts of other things. In other words, they are kids and they are going to get hurt. I had my fair share of going to the hospital when I was kid. I got stitched up a lot. I had stitches in my head about 7 times by the time I was 10…..and I’m not accident prone, I just had a lot of fun and sometimes got hurt doing it.

Ever try to jump your bicycle off a home-made ramp that was a ½ of a 4 x 8 and bricks? It takes a couple of times before you realize that as the ramp gets higher, you have to use more bricks to keep the thing from exploding on impact and sending you, your bike, the board, and the bricks all flying in different directions.

My dad says I would go to the ER (and by this point they just about knew us by name), hop up on a gurney and say “ok, stitch me up!”

But I digress….the point is that I was in Toys R Us to get my niece a gift and I saw the new Green Machine that also has a water tank strapped onto it and a trigger right on the handgrip with a squirt gun on the top of the handlebars. You could ride your Green Machine around and squirt the crap out of people. How cool is that

I need one of these for the ‘Priller! (my motorcycle)

I Can Fix Him!

A friend of mine has been going out with this total jerk of a guy for about 8 or 9 months, now. He moved into her house, has paid no rent, bought no groceries, or helped out in any other way, shape or form.

Originally, he was kicked out of the place he was living and he didn’t have any place else to go so she let him stay there until he could save up some cash and get a new place. That’s a very nice thing for her to do for someone. But this guy never saved his money. He’d go out and blow it on trips, and buying other girls clothes and stuff like that.
Did she kick him out? No.

And of course over this time they became “romantically” involved. Now my friend will contest that they were never together, but what else do you call it when you are living together and getting upset because the other person is telling you one thing and then sneaking off to be with other women? I’d say that while you may say you are not “officially” together you are obviously in a relationship of sorts. So this guy treats her like crap, goes out with other women (blatantly) and then gets possessive when she might be going out with someone else.

I recall several occasions where she called me up and was upset over the situation. If you have read my blog for any length of time you can probably guess my response was to throw his bum ass out on the street. “But he doesn’t have any money or any place to go.” So? Kick his fucking ass out!!!
This is called enablement. People (this guy) can’t be the way that they are unless someone enables them to do so. When you see the fat bastards that can’t fit through a doorway you should wonder how they got so big if they can’t fit through the doorway to get to the refrigerator and the bucket of KFC glowing like the 10 Commandments inside the Ark of the Covenant. They had an enabler. Someone brought them the five buckets of KFC that it took to maintain their figure. My friend was the enabler. The guy never had to be financially responsible, or morally, or socially responsible because she wouldn’t do anything about it.

But, I think, FINALLY she is over this guy. She met someone new and I couldn’t be happier for her. She deserves to have someone treat her good and with respect. So we were talking about this and I am really trying to bite my tongue. Then she says “I don’t know….I guess I let it go on for so long because I thought I could change him.” I swear I wanted to reach through the phone and strangle her. I couldn’t believe she just gave me one of the most classic reasons a chick lets a guy treat her like dirt and why they seem to like it.

I have begun to think that if that’s how women think then they deserve what they get.

Electric Ass

If anyone has stayed in a hotel room in the last few years you have probably noticed they give you those electronic room key cards. If you have stayed in the crack motel, you might not have seen one of these as of yet but they look like a credit card and you simply insert them, or swipe them, into a reader embedded in the door. CLICK! And your room opens.

They are supposed to be safer than a key because most hotels never re-key their locks and any psychopath could make a duplicate key and steal your Twinkies in the middle of the night.

But there is also one flaw. They seem to be FAR more sensitive to EMI (electrical magnetic interference) than an average credit card. It seems like I have had a slew of them that didn’t work and I have to keep going to the front desk to get them re-done. Not a big deal if you are right around the corner, or if you are an elevator kind of person. But I am not. I take the stairs and so by the time I go up, figure out it doesn’t work, back down and then back up again, it is a fair bit of exercise when I am carrying my backpack. Mostly, it’s just a hassle.

So I asked the front desk chick what the problem was and she told me that carrying the card next to your wallet or cell-phone might erase it. Check. I was definitely doing this as I would stick my Razr cell-phone and the hotel key-card in the same back pocket. I might even set the key-card on top of my wallet. Of course, my credit cards in my wallet never care if my cell phone is on top of it, but maybe the technology for key-cards in hotels is not as robust.

So this last trip I paid extra attention and made sure that the key card never came within proximity of either my cell phone or my wallet. I put it into my back pocket like usual and that was it.

But, still, EVERY freaking night when I’d get back to the hotel room it didn’t work and had to be re-programmed. So the next logical conclusion is that my ass is electric and puts out some EMI. I wonder if I can market this…..

I’m a Rabbit Hole Kind of Guy

I’m not sure what motivates one to be like this. Recently, I found I could not pull myself away from a situation that could have serious repercussions, or that nothing at all might come of it and I’d have some fun. In the end, I was able to be a “good boy” and nothing happened.

I’ve always been like this. Every since I was a little kid I just have to see how far the rabbit hole goes. Now, I’m not prone to this type of exploration if I know it’s going to get me into trouble. But if it only might get me into trouble then I am all over it like butter on toast.

Maybe it’s the same reason that I ride motorcycles, snowboard, hike in the woods and anything else I do that is a bit adventuresome and exploratory in nature.

Chicks and Wedding Rings

While I was teaching my last course in Arkansas I had encountered a few different women all of whom were not wearing wedding or engagement rings, but that I found out were married. Some of the women were in my class, but I also noticed this with waitresses and other women that I met while in Arkansas. Is this a new trend I am not aware of? Is it a type of deception or am I just missing something?

A Weekend With Dream Theater

Dream Theater is coming to the Nokia-whatever-it's-called Theater-thingie on August 2nd. I just bought two tickets to go see 'em. I am stoked as I haven't seen them in years.

It should be a great concert.

Timing and Illegal Aliens

Here is an interesting article posted by the Washington Times. According to the article the Republican National Committee is taking a hit by people that are pissed off about the proposed amnesty bill.

Here is a link to the article and a link to the comments. Both are good to read.

Please don't forget to call and write your senators!!!

Need more information on how this bill is shaping up, the status of the votes, and what all the legal mumbo-jumbo means? Check out http://www.numbersusa.com/index