This One... Not So Much

OK a free pass on this one. In fact, answer anonymously. Am I an asshole? It’s a simple question. I’m a grown up. I can take an honest evaluation of my character?

In another story, this man just called Bill Gates a fucking dog.

Boo

I just drove through Salem. At 5:30pm on the Sunday before Halloween the streets were mostly empty. There were people walking around but for the most part they stuck to the Witch Museum and commons area.

Last night there were some but not nearly enough slutty girls in animal ears. Maybe the winds and rain this weekend scared everyone off. It seemed pretty subdued. Not like the big weekend in years past. Maybe Tuesday night will be big. Maybe it's only really cool when the day falls on a Saturday. One thing is for sure

OW! Son of a bitch. I just got shocked because I'm typing on an aluminum cased laptop and I just rested my arm on a live USB plug.

One thing is for sure, if this is a sign about America's apathy for holidays then things don't look good for Christmas.

A Sinking Feeling

Yummy cheap gasoline before the election. Now there's news that the IRS is going to back off from some agressive collecting until "after the November election".

Why do I get the feeling that the next two years are going to be so sucky that it's not going to matter who wins the midterm elections.

No Return On Investment

Why do people buy Christmas presents for people? Really the cynic in me can only come up with two answers. One is that we're so conditioned to do it we've lost even the capacity to consider any other way. The other even more cynical reason is peer pressure and the desire to avoid any guilt for having nothing to swap with someone when they bring you something.

I think that's why Halloween is becoming a bigger and bigger holiday each year. I know my signal to noise ratio is high because I live next to and commute through Salem. I know it's not nearly as high as it would be for the Wolfs or the future Mrs and Mrs ? (Who's name are you taking?) Still, it's pretty clear that Halloween has overtaken The 4th of July as America's favorite non-xmas based holiday.

Pagan arguments and Baptist condemnation aside, isn't Halloween kind of about a celebration of our fantasies and dreams? I mean really. Raise your hand if you're going to a party as or specifically to see a slutty girl wearing animal ears. That's what I'm in it for.

And another thing... Raise your hand if you're going to go dressed as Phil from middle management who lives a life of miserable desperation, terrified that his mortgage rates will adjust up after he renegotiates his alimony schedule with his first wife.

I didn't think so.

Remember A Yes Vote Is A Vote That Says Yes To Your Future!

OK, as requested... What do I think of the 2006 Massachusetts ballot questions?

Question 1: Selling wine at the grocery store. As if you had to ask. This one is a fucking no brainer. Bring on the cheap booze and get this party started.

Question 2: Should we allow a single candidate to appear on an election ballot for more then one party nomination and count the total votes for the individual. It's kind of the reverse of the 2000 Presidential election where George Bush got way less then 50% but because the votes were split between Gore and Nader the votes didn't matter. Really this is a bad idea. It can only make elections more frustrating and confusing. After all, we're a state that can't get it through our heads that 1 hour and 3600 seconds are the same amount of time. (You might know that fact but no matter how many times I try to tell your children that they still don't get it in any meaningful way.)

Question 3: Should we reclassify home based child care workers? Yeah probably but this question is even more confusing then #2. Really the question is should we require small daycare centers to maintain professional standards beyond what it takes to get the license. On the face of it, that sounds like a good idea but really it's requiring the little guy to shell out tons of money for classes and credits toward recertification. Lisa drops hundreds of dollars each year for continuing ed credits on her RE license and I'm going to have to get a Masters in Education to keep my teaching license. That ain't going to be cheap. The question is what do we expect out of daycare? If it's preschool age kids then "daycare" should be just that. Care during the day. Anyone with half a brain, even ones that haven't figured out that 3600 seconds is an hour, can do the job. Are the toddlers still toddlin' and alive at the end of the day? Job well done! The key to this question is the phrase "home-based" which means a small time operation where one or two people operate out of their house. This one sounds to me like some big daycare mill got tired of the competition and wants to squeeze out the little guy. I'm especially leery of ballot questions that make financial claims. I can believe the claim it won't cost tax payers extra money. I can't believe forcing a small daycare provider to go for extra classes which usually aren't free isn't going to result in that provider passing along the newly increased cost of licensing to the customer.

So those are the questions. I'd say Yes, No and No.

Bwaaahhh Haaahhh Ha

Only suckers take the dollar anymore. Really, I'd love to make my salary in Euros now.

Barriers To Entry

It seems that Massachusetts is in the midst of it's own Whiskey Rebellion. Cities want to issue more licenses to sell alcohol. Stop n Shop wants to sell wine. We're allowing year round state wide Sunday sales. Even Topsfield is finally moistening up after a dry spell.

I've always said that anyone who wants one should be allowed to open a restaurant and if they legitimately sell food and would otherwise qualify they should be granted a license no matter what. None of this crap of tieing the only available license in town to the tax debt of the previous holder. Let the restaurants compete on food, service, location and price and see who the better chef is. None of this anti-competitive bullshit. A good restaurant should be open because it's a great place, fun and good food. Not because the owner could cough up a hundred grand over the opening costs for a piece of paper.

This goes double for entrepeneurs who live here, grew up here, have family here. All of whom work to build cummunity and pay plenty of taxes already. They deserve the license more then some corporate douchebags from the south with deep pockets from the franchise rights because their chain could get all the licenses they wanted in the state they started the business in.

I knew a restaurant owner who ran a nice place for more then 30 years who committed suicide because he lost a chance to get a license directly from the town and couldn't afford to buy one of the scarce ones on the open market.

The town lost more then the $1000 that they get from the license. It lost a piece of its soul.

Orange Alert

Damn savages. Orange Bowl players from two Florida teams got into a fight. Now the whole sports world is all up in my crack about how the players should be taught a lesson in not fighting. One sportscaster even got fired over his impassioned display of school spirit.

OK it's a game where men beat the crap out of each other but only within some arbitrary set of rules. You can hit a guy after the snap but you can't hit him once the ball carrying players knee is on the ground. Makes no sense to me.

And another thing, fighting during football is bad but fighting during other kinds of games is OK. The same sports writers who think hockey fights are fun are blasting the football players for behaving the same way.

Maybe since hockey is pretty much an all white sport fighting is just fine. Heaven help you if you're a black college football player pulling the same thing. All the uptight white guys in journalism will call for your removal from polite society.

Why can't Arnold Schwarzenegger for Governor voting Americans just suck it up and admit we like gladiatorial violence. I know I do.

Half Assed Wilson Boy

Owen Wilson on The Daily Show getting interviewed high. It's not really that funny.


This is how you do a talk show interview high:

Burning Down The House

The other day a plane crashed into a building in New York. Immediately fighter jets were scrambled and were on the scene. Within minutes. To investigate an accident.

Four airplanes are hijacked within minutes of each other and are in the air more then a half hour and no fighter jets scrambled.

A dinky little private plane flown by a dumbass falls out of the sky and we go to full alert.

I'm just sayin...

Too Long Since Last Real Post

Job Job Job. Taking up all my valuable blogging time. There's a lesson to be learned here. If "The Man" doesn't like bloggers telling it like it is (China I'm looking at you)... Maybe "The Man" could give us decent jobs.

#3 Is The Best

My Life Seems So Boring

Last night I met a man who was in the 101st Airborne during WWII. He wasn't one of the guys featured in 'Band of Brothers' but he was right there from D-day minus one to the end. He was at Bastogne. He was at the Eagles Nest. He found hidden Nazi gold.

What did I do today? I didn't really feel like lesson planning a lecture so I whipped up a worksheet and I gave my kids handheld GPS units. Then I took them for a walk. The lesson didn't really work very well but at least we got to go for a walk.

And the superintendent just happened to see me taking my kids outside the classroom for some hands on learning. Loved what I was doing.

Oh and Lisa and I are going to go see Iron Maiden.

Still I've never found lost Nazi gold.

News Just Keeps Getting Better For Me

More good news. The study that shows drinkers earn more has gone even further into the specifics. It turns out that binge drinking as a teen correlates to a higher paycheck during adult hood. It is a greater factor then even current drinking and so discounts the "social network theory" that I linked to before.

If I read all this right, binge drinking which is unhealthy when a teen is good for your paycheck later in life. Teen binge drinking correlates to a higher degree of risk taking. Along with bad driving and sexual activities. It's basic economics. After they tell you about "buy low, sell high" they tell you about "risk vs reward". Those are risky behaviors and an individuals willingness to engage in risk ultimately pays off. Except in those cases where it doesn't.

So basically everything I tell my students not to do. And everything I did even though I was told not to do is exactly what kids should be doing if they want to be successfull life.

I knew my teachers were full of shit. I hope I'm not.

I Don't Know Why I Was So Nervous

Just like bats. They were more afraid of me then I was of them.

I just got through my first parents night. Most pressing questions? What's my grading policy? How much homework do I give?

And the big one in my Chemistry class??? Do I make them wear safety goggles?

Yes. Yes I do.

Am I The Only Republican Who Isn't Gay?

What the hell? Mark Foley's gay for kids. The White House Press Corp is gay for gay prostitute wrestlers. The governor of New Jersey recently quit because he was having an affair, a gay one.

I don't want to go off on a rant but I'd think the party that spends most of its time attacking homosexuals would learn to lighten up. Or is gay bashing just another lie from a bunch of crooked politicians. Could it be that they really don't care and in fact enjoy the lifestyle? It's too bad we'll never really know. It seems that any outsiders who get to the truth of what the Bush Crime Family is doing either with the drug smuggling/arms for hostages/stolen spy computer operating systems or pedophile sex slaves ends up dead.

Which conspiracy theory are you going to believe? Mine or the one about how 19 poorly trained third world savages followed orders from men living in caves and hijacked 4 planes so they could knock down a couple sky scrapers that were closed the weekend before so un-named men could "install" things?

Sorry for the side bar. It's been on my mind lately. Anyway, that all puts this into perspective.

I Thought It Would Be Higher, I Coach The Science Team

I scored a 46%. How White and Nerdy Are You?

Yee Haw!!!

"I love the Union and the Constitution, but I would rather leave the Union with the Constitution than remain in the Union without it." –-Jefferson Davis


For those who don't know, I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina. I may be a Yankee Calvinist New Englander but to paraphrase Vlad The Impaler... Through these veins flows the blood of a Southerner.

Yee Haw! The South will rise again!




(actually for Dracula it was the "blood of a conquering race.")