Greed Is Good

Ever wonder why fund managers can't beat the S&P 500? 'Cause they're sheep -- and the sheep get slaughtered. I been in the business since '69. Most of these Harvard MBA types don't add up to dog shit. Give me guys that are poor smart and hungry and no feelings. You win a few, lose a few, you keep on fighting... I got 20 other brokers analyzing charts, pal. I don't need another one.

Gordon Gekko

I have a new hero in life and his name is Andrew Lahde!

Part One

I don’t even know where to begin. My weekend has been riding on a high for days now and it’s not even Sunday. I should start from the beginning. Wednesday was parents’ night. I put on a show for 7 minutes and then the bell rings and the parents are ushered into another teacher’s room. I love parents’ night. If I can’t impress the parents in 7 minutes I have no business standing in front of their kids for 90 minutes. At one point during the evening one of the parents said that he really liked my presentation style. I saw a lot of parents nodding their heads at each other. Plus, I was the only teacher who thanked the parents for paying for a new high school.

A little piece of personal trivia that many don’t know is that I teach with Rachel’s mother. I think it’s funny when students find out that Carol and I were friends long before we started teaching together. Many of our colleagues are shocked to learn that I celebrate Christmas Eve with her every year. (My Dads house breaks up around 9pm now that my grandmother isn’t making us wait until midnight to open presents. It leaves me with plenty of time to go over 30 O....)

Wednesday afternoon Carol and Rachel came up to my classroom. I have the last classroom in the building, it really is at the end of the school. When the principal and superintendent come to my floor to spot evaluate us they forget I’m there. I also have the second largest room because I got all the space that was left over. The teacher with the largest room got what he wanted for being the only teacher to actually sit down with the architect. He had to give up his prep room but he got more floor space.

Carol brought Rachel up to see my room before the start of parents’ night. Rachel’s reaction to my classroom is “Oh my god, you really are an adult now.” She’s right to be shocked. How I got to become a pillar of the community is beyond my capacity to understand. I do my teacher on parents night performance for her and she’s impressed.

In all, it was a pretty good night for me.

Thursday night I drove up to the Apple Store in Salem, NH. My 12in PowerBook G4 is dieing. It’s time for a new computer. I was going to get the Black MacBook and upgrade the memory. For about two hundred bucks more I could get the low end MacBook Pro. I really didn’t want to spend the money and I really didn’t want to get something so big. I wish I could get another 12in sub-notebook. I waffled over plain MB or MB Pro for an hour. The store employees thought I was funny going from one computer to the other. In the end I decided that there was enough stress in my life and I didn’t want to learn a new keyboard. I went with the Pro. I saved $600 for being a teacher with iPhone rebates and leaving Taxachusetts.

To be continued…

And it's a fucking great story!

Computer is killing me

Here's a little bit of fucked up trivia.

If you have a webpage in Safari open on your iPhone (you do have an iPhone now don't you?) If you open a page on the built in browser that has a phone number on it, clicking on it dials the phone. That's a nice feature.

The bug is that the feature carries over to TCP/IP addresses. So if you have an iPhone (why do I douubt that you do? Doesn't every one?) Click on this:

192.168.0.1

Now click on this:

http://66.30.66.128/

So it dials the bad number and doesn't recognize the good and proper html for a real website.

Things I Love

iSquint for converting avi, mp4 and wmv files to an iPhone viewable format.

HandBrake for converting (format shifting) my DVD collection to QuickTime files so I can watch them on my iPhone.

320x480 or 480x320 depending on how you hold it is the magic setting to optimize your videos for the 3 1/2 inch monitor.

Also in HandBrake, I notice no flicker down converting to 24 frames per second and unless you're watching something with subtitles 300mb file size looks as good as larger files. There's no need to waste valuable real estate on my puny 4 gig which is really 3.64 gigs.

Been A While

Surgery went well. I chose general anesthesia because I thought I'd be bored with just a local. The doctor attached a syringe to my IV and the next thing I remember is waking up with a cast on my leg.

After horrifying my family with the amount of painkillers I was taking on Saturday I'm not taking them anymore. I took some last night to fall asleep but havent had any since. My ankle is sore but not unbearable. The worse is, I believe over.

I'm on crutches and my arms and right leg are sore from carrying my weight.

I don't have buyers remorse for my iPhone but I am getting annoyed with Safari crashes.

Tonight I'm going to go to trivia over at O'neils in Salem.

Tomorrow I'm going to sit in a hammock.

Welcome To The Party

It seems to me that I've heard someone say something like this a couple years ago. I wonder who it was and what I said.

What's This All Got To Do With Freezing Point?

I may never see the letters Ph.D. behind my name but for the next month I am 16° Prince of Jerusalem. I skipped ahead in Masonic ritual on my way to becoming 32°. Which is too bad because I missed being 4° Secret Master for a month. Next month I skip everything in between and become Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret. It sounds so much cooler then it is. I guess the guys that know the royal secret can't wait 32 years to impart the secret. Most of those guys are in their 80's. If they didn't start skipping ahead in the ritual I would never find out what's going on.

Who Fucking Cares? What Fucking Difference Does It Make?

Call me a cynic or even a tinfoil hat wearing conspiracy theorist. As a GenX'r, Kent State always seemed to be one of those "so what" moments in history that people get disproportionately bent out of shape over. Yeah 4 people got killed by the government. People who look for trouble find trouble. Hippies looking for trouble found it and luckily the bloodshed was limited to a handful. Those same hippies who think that America and her innocence died that day then went on to vote for the Brady Bill. In a staggering show of both historical and constitutional ignorance the Boomers traded safety from government for the Bush administration. Sure not over night, it took a house in the suburbs, a Subaru and the fear of losing the security of being the favored lapdog of power but my parents generation has done a fine job of burying their head up their asses. Now instead of getting bent out of shape for the fuckup they've inflicted on the world by selling out they're lining up to protest what's safe to protest against. I never doubted that the National Gaurd was ordered to shoot Americans. Anyone who thinks that the National Gaurd isn't willing to turn their guns against their friends and family again doesn't deserve the Second Ammendment. I'm not the least bit afraid of getting gunned down by some nigger crackhead. Frankly I don't believe nigger crackheads really exist. Cracker tweakers maybe but I'm not bothered by the thought that someone not as white as me might own a gun. I'm worried about the under educated hillbilly willing to shoot in whatever direction they're told to. Or maybe I should worry about the smart ones.

The Boomers are getting bent out of shape that they've been lied to about events that happened when they were pot smoking kids. Now that they're adults they need to be pissed off about the lies heading their way today.

The real irony is that a bunch of Nigga's With Attitude livin' the hip hop dream are going to be the only ones who could stage a modern day Warsaw Ghetto Uprising when the National Guard is next ordered to fire upon me and you.

All the same assholes that are getting bent out of shape about the government shooting civilians are also bent out of shape that some chinamen shot some college students in a gun free zone. It's OK for the government to bring guns into a gun free zone. It's not OK for you and I to defend ourselves. Don't worry, when the next Kent State occurs the government will own up to the truth... in 40 years... when they need another limited hangout to distract America from what's really going wrong. The honored dead can rest peacefully knowing that they served their master well.

Flashbacks

I spent about 20 minutes of the job interview for my present employ discussing my strategies for controlling a classroom full of young teenagers not fully in control of their hormones. At the time I wondered if the whole "hormones thing" was really as bad as the vice principle so seemed concerned.

Now we're winding down the last term and I've had to rewrite my syllabus to include in the classroom rules the phrase "No lapdances!" I have had countless numbers of young girls fall madly in love with me one day and then refuse to speak to me the next.

I had 3 different sets of girls who were BFF one day turn so venemous against each other that they had to seperate them by switching all their classes.

I have a student who spent a month talking online to her best friend (a boy) pretending to be a girl from Atlanta looking for a boyfriend when she moved to her dads house. She was going to end it by making him think she died of a heart condition. He found out what she was doing and now refuses to sit anywhere he can see her (it's too late to switch classes.)

Then there's the hormones that don't lead to sex. There are the let's do dumbass things because we're bored and stupid hormones.

I thank my lucky stars that I'm not the teacher who had the kid who blew his eyes off. It's everything I can do to keep my kids from turning every moment of their life into a "Jackass" live performance act.

I have a new respect for the force of nature that today's teenager is. I just wish their parents knew how to teach them self control.

Still, it beats working.

My Dream Come True!

A TV show about zombies...

I can't fucking wait! I hope it's on opposite 24. I'm sick of being hooked on that piece of crap.

But I mean Fuck!!! Fuckin zombies!

I'm watching that shit!

I'm The Last Person Who Should Be Chaperoning The Prom

"Some of these dresses cost more then my car is worth." "What kind of car do you drive?" "A Saturn." "Well that's why right there." - Katy, the 8th grade science teacher they talked into chaperoning and myself.

"Don't touch it they're extensions and will come out." - Latania, the other 8th grade teacher they talked into working the prom.

"It doesn't matter, you're not getting laid tonight." - I have no idea who the girl was or what prompted it but I thought it was hilarious.

"You know this is a hotel." - Me to both of the 8th grade science teachers when they lead me by the arm on to the dance floor.

"I can't believe the DJ is throwing Mardi Gras beads to all the girls. You know what teenage girls usually have to do to get free beads?" - Me again to Latania.

"Ignore them, if you catch them doing something we'll have to punish them." - Advice from one of the other teachers to me.

"Mr SEEEEEEEEEEEE!" - About a dozen drunk students to me every time they saw me.

"I think they want us to unload the busses one by one and we're 5th in line so fuck it, it's your prom. Go have fun." Me to my busload of kids after the most uncomfortable ride ever. I'm not kidding, the bus stank of blue toilet water and then one of the electrical panels snapped out of the ceiling and hit a kid on the head half way there.

"Your cardigan sweater and softspoken nature makes every one think you're all prim and proper school teacher but the black eyeshadow leads me to believe that there is a pair of handcuffs somewhere in your bedroom." - Me to Katy, probably crossing a line somewhere.

"In my bedroom? Yes." Katy, who probably should have slapped me.

I can't wait for the senior prom.

Alright 2 More

This first is just some quick bad news.

The second speaks volumes about a fraud. At first read it seems like the scam was taking advantage of some poof dumbfuck savages for every buck they had. Really it was a massive fraud against the American people. One that's so subtle, few people are going to put 2 & 2 together. The mortgage houses all gave out free money like candy and then immediately pooled all those bad loans into mortgage backed securities, slapped them with a Ginnie Mae guarantee that the government will make good on bad mortgages and sold them to everyone who needed to park the money they pulled out of the stock market before the last bear woke up. It's not just some poor wetbacks that are getting scammed for everything they have, it's any poor dumbfuck who pays taxes too.

In the end letting the Fed run the central bank for the benefit of bankers hasn't done you or me any favors. The upside to all this is that the money we're going to use to pay back the good faith and credit of these loans with is going to come back to us cheaply. I love that last linky. The Boston Globe is telling us that Stagflation is coming so we should save our cash. If Stagflation is coming we're far better off maxing out our credit cards now and buying gold or forclosure homes or maybe even go portfolio heavy into canned goods and shotguns.

I Predict

Boston has another marketing bomb scare. This time the outfit being advertised isn't owning up to causing a ruckus to drum up business.

How will Taxachusetts handle this kind of thing? Well they'll probably pass a law that will end up severely curtailing free speach. It will probably also be totally unenforcable. It could even go so far as to require any company who's marketing products cause a bomb scare to pay no questions asked for cleanup.

So if I own a business and I want to crush my competition I could print up a few suspicious looking items with their logo and watch Mayor Mumbles over react. I see a whole new avenue for organized crime opening up here.

So remember I called it first.

Live Free Or Diet

I'm listening to 60 Minutes and there's a story about the Nanny State and some muckraker guy trying to protect us from the tyranny of chicken little telling us how to live. They interview some health lobby shill who complains that 40,000 people a year die of heart disease.

The fuckhead doesn't get it. 40,000 people a year are going to die of something. Ban trans fat and they live a bland life a little while longer and pay more money for food doing it. Give them their burgers until their hearts pop. They're going to die no matter what you do. You just want to tell us all how to live because you make a good living telling the government that you know how we should live.

You know what I miss. Denny's Beer Barrel Pub. Mike, feel like going? (scroll down on that link, it's worth a look)

Actually It's Aluminium Foil

What's the hurry? Is there something scheduled for three days that you know about and I haven't figured out?

Why don't you just fucking telegraph your every move. I don't think the retarded deaf mute in the back row didn't see you put the gun on the table in the first act. Intermission was a while ago so we must be in the third act by now.

End Game

This is horseshit The dollar is collapsing because China is willing to purchase oil from Iran in Euros. Nice job planting disinformation in a foreign alternative media source though. It's good to see that the spooks in Virginia are catching on to how this internet thingy works.

I expect to be at war with Iran by the end of this week. Especially since we have a rare 3 day weekend starting on a thursday night. Nobody pays attention to the news on a weekend.

So there will be some sort of attack against christianity during Easter easily blamed on moslems. We've been so conditioned to think "dirty bomb" or chemical attack that whatever hits will scare the crap out of us.

Where are we going to escape to? There will be nowhere to run.

Canada is tightening their border with the US starting this weekend.

Maybe that's why the Bush family is moving to South America.

I Fuckin Hate Being Right All The Time

We need to distract Americans from the dirty tricks we're pulling in order to set off a new war.

I know, let's kill some of their pets.

What do you mean?

We can put different kinds of poison into the hoppers at the one manufacturing plant that serves all of the premium brands of foods. That way we can be sure of killing the pets of important people. You know the kind of people who spend more then ten cents on their pets meals each day. Rich people. Important people.

OK so what then?

Well one lab will find one kind of poison and then another lab will find a different one. Everyone will squabble over what's gone wrong. No one will notice that we're massing our troops at the Iranian boarder.

Isn't that mean to animals.

Oh come on, it's not like we didn't kill a bunch of New Yorkers six years ago.

How's Work Dean?

No I don't have the kid who blinded himself with science. I do have the kid who gave him the pool cleaner and alcohol. I did not give them the idea. I have however used this as an opportunity to educate my kids that you don't do dumbfuck things and when I tell you to put on eye protection you better well do it.

Afterall, why teach your kids responsibility. Why not just be their party buddy and let the schools teach them morality, respect and how to be a good person. Just don't complain when you find out my values are different from yours. And while I'm raising your fucked up brat take away any meaningful avenue of discipline and leave me totally vulnerable to the slightest false allegation of misconduct.


Editors update: I just saw Fox25 broadcast a story about this. It turns out I had two of the kids involved in class. Every god damned day one of them comes into science class and asks "can we blow something up?" I know what I'm going to ask him tomorrow.

When Did I Become A Screaming Drama Queen?

Barney came home yesterday. It turns out he had a bladder infection from mineral crystals in his regular food. His kidneys are fine and the vet doesn't think it's from the poisonous petfoods at this time. He's on 3 medicines twice a day for a month and has prescription catfood. We have to make sure he pees every day but so far that's not a problem.

We were giving him the best foods we could and spoiling him rotten. He was getting treats. He had a fresh litter box every time he went into it thanks to the robot claw. He had everything he ever wanted (well, except for some kitty lovin with that white cat.)

Since we weren't emptying the litter box every day we didn't really notice he wasn't tinklin properly.

So thanks to the petfood recall, we were hyper vigilant of Barney's health and mistook the early symptoms of a bladder infection for exposure to deadly poison and wisked him off to the vet weeks before we would have noticed otherwise.

He was very relieved to see us when we went to pick him up. So relieved that he forgave us for bringing him to that horrible place. He's not happy about the new food but he's eating it. I think he thinks he's being punished because we can't give him his usual treats. Cat's hate change.

Cheers

I'm taking the day off. It's after 1PM and I'm still in bed. Last night I chaperoned the sophomore semi-formal dance at the Nahant Country Club. 5 alcohol free hours but they did serve us rubbery chicken.

It occured to me that the reason why I am so comfortable teaching is that I'm in very familiar surroundings. I teach science in a typical science classroom. There is a big long lecture bench along the edge of the room. There are tables in the middle of the room. I stand on one side of the bench which is surrounded by people trying to get my attention. It's exactly like bartending. It's probably why I've been dying for a cigarette since labor day.

And when did they stop letting teachers drink? I remember chaperones during every prom sneaking into the bar for a quick one. They went in shifts. Some of them even came back into the ballroom rocks glass in hand.