Well, all the silly shows on my DVR are finally getting watched and deleted. It started with The Office and LOST. Once A watched those with me, I was able to start systematically knocking the others off.
CSI
CSI Miami
Law and Order SVU
Numb3rs
Scrubs
I still have Earl episodes, but those may take awhile. I have old Get Smart episodes which take precedence I think. They are much funnier.
The sad thing is that it all starts again in the fall. And, they left me with all these stupid cliffhangers. Do I really care if Warrick is done with the show? Or Adam Beach? Do I really think that Charlie will never work on another FBI case? Or will Horatio survive the gunshot wounds deployed by a gun which is so lethal, it detects the body's temperature and decides to be shrapnel or not when it enters?
Scrubs did not really leave with a cliffhanger. It was more like: This is not the season finale. This was a lame filler episode that was not going to be used, but since ABC is taking over, they decided to scrub away.
The Office had a good cliffhanger. A major downer cliffhanger. But it was in true Office fashion.
And, with LOST, I don't know what to think. As usual.
26 June 2008
23 June 2008
In Memoriam: George Carlin
One of the greats died yesterday. George Carlin. I say great, because he has been an icon for me for most of my life. And, there have been George Carlin quotes lingering for years. How could I go on a trip to Hawaii without thinking about bringing some of "my stuff"?
The news articles talk about how he was famous for the seven dirty words, but that was not what I remember him for. He was crude and crass and offensive, but I liked how he could challenge things. He did not seem to stand for anything, but comedy. He took potshots at most everything. And, even if I did not agree with him, it was a lesson in thought. I think about his delivery and how he could just list things off. It was as if he memorized stuff, but it was really how his mind worked.
He ripped on Baby on Board signs, euphemisms, and white guys wearing their baseball caps backwards. Golf courses, golf, cemeteries, stupid sayings, the three questions at the airport, the smug greedy people of the world, people who are namby-pamby. People suddenly carrying their water around with them all the time. "Can't they take a drink of water before leaving the house?"
As someone who grew up observing the strange behaviour of people all over the place and writing it down in my notebook, I liked seeing someone who could verbalize it so well. Sometimes, the arguments aren't even rational, but I enjoy it. I agreed. While I did have to filter through the obscenities to get the great insights, I came away with "I'm not handicapped. I'm handicapable!" or "Toilet paper became running shoes. Partly cloudy became partly sunny. The dump became the landfill."
And, he is so right about this euphemistic crap out there. People constantly come up with terms to soften things up. It's the politically correct stuff that gets so old.
He definitely spiced things up with his obscenity, so I can't really recommend anyone to watch or listen to his stuff, but he did have a very fun, challenging, unique perspective that made one think.
12 June 2008
Drama
When being dramatic there are certain rules one has to follow:
1. Make sure that no one else in the vicinity will upstage you in dramatic effort.
2. Emphasize every little action.
3. Sit uncomfortably and make lots of sighs.
4. Make the nausea face when something smells bad or you think it might smell bad.
5. Roll your eyes and make sure everyone else sees it.
6. Be offended at the slightest provocation.
7. If you find yourself to be embarrassed after a dramatic outburst, apologize. But don't ever change anything. Be more embarrassing next time.
8. When being dramatic, don't laugh at yourself. Take yourself very seriously.
9. Pretentiousness is the foundation of drama city.
10. If someone else has entered the room and is being more dramatic than you are, say "I know!" after everything she says. She will figure it out.
11. Drama is all about acting the part. Make sure that everyone knows you truly believe what you are being dramatic about even though you don't.
12. Call someone. Hang up on him. Then, call right back. That is a good dramatic intro.
13. Make a scene. Always make a scene. Everyone needs to know you were there and the least mature person in the room, on the block, at the mall...
14. No matter how lame your news is or how insignificant the gossip, pull your friend aside and tell her that she won't believe what you just heard.
15. When someone else is being dramatic about a lame story or insignificant gossip, go along with them and build up their dramability. They will thank you for it later.
1. Make sure that no one else in the vicinity will upstage you in dramatic effort.
2. Emphasize every little action.
3. Sit uncomfortably and make lots of sighs.
4. Make the nausea face when something smells bad or you think it might smell bad.
5. Roll your eyes and make sure everyone else sees it.
6. Be offended at the slightest provocation.
7. If you find yourself to be embarrassed after a dramatic outburst, apologize. But don't ever change anything. Be more embarrassing next time.
8. When being dramatic, don't laugh at yourself. Take yourself very seriously.
9. Pretentiousness is the foundation of drama city.
10. If someone else has entered the room and is being more dramatic than you are, say "I know!" after everything she says. She will figure it out.
11. Drama is all about acting the part. Make sure that everyone knows you truly believe what you are being dramatic about even though you don't.
12. Call someone. Hang up on him. Then, call right back. That is a good dramatic intro.
13. Make a scene. Always make a scene. Everyone needs to know you were there and the least mature person in the room, on the block, at the mall...
14. No matter how lame your news is or how insignificant the gossip, pull your friend aside and tell her that she won't believe what you just heard.
15. When someone else is being dramatic about a lame story or insignificant gossip, go along with them and build up their dramability. They will thank you for it later.
08 June 2008
Better Than I Deserve...
For a long time, I have been searching for someone or something to help me with financial matters. This is a topic which people generally do not come in and start telling others to do. Finances are personal. But, what are the standards to live by? What are the rules? How does one save money? How does one buy things without going into debt?
I grew up doing all the standard dumb things. My first two cars barely cost me anything, but then when I bought my Toyota Tercel, I paid 18.75% interest. No air conditioning. No radio. I knew nothing. I basically ended up paying double what the car was worth in car payments. Then, when I bought my truck, I did a 6 year loan. I bought my tv, sofa, camera all on credit. I sensed that I was doing something wrong, but I had no real direction. By the time I bought my condo, I had a truck payment, school loans and credit cards.
I knew I wanted to pay off my debt and I knew that I wanted to save money, but all I could do was incur debt and then pay it off. I think that is how most of America works. There seems to be no other solution than to just slap all that money down on a credit card and then spend the next few years enjoying what you have while paying a huge price for it.
This all changed when I came across the teachings of Dave Ramsey. I know some people have read his book, The Total Money Makeover, but the book does not teach people like his radio show does. He talks to people about how much they make, how much debt they have, and what their spending habits are. He actually has 7 Baby Steps for people to follow to feel financially secure. And, most of the calls he takes revolve around those baby steps.
Who is Dave Ramsey? Why should I trust some guy on the radio? He is a Christian, which sort of threw me off at first. I suppose I wondered if he cared about people or converts. But listening to his show changed all that. His story started off with him flipping houses and he was a millionaire, but then some deals went bad and he went bankrupt. After going through that hellish experience, he came across a business idea of being able to help people avoid what he went through and eliminate debt from their lives.
Dave is really conservative when it comes to money. He says to have a written budget before each month starts. Give every dollar a name. It works. It is not hard to realize that one's money gets spent so quickly. Then, the sacrifice steps in. Things we wanted to buy had to wait.
I could go on for hours on how great his program is. I would recommend listening to his show. He has the archives from two weeks back on his website.
But back to my initial statement. I was searching for someone to help me out with this financial stuff. We had a guy come over once who told us to roll our debt over to a 401k loan. Not knowing any better, I signed on. This was a bad idea. If I had lost my job, that money would have become due all at once. Very risky.
The show teaches people to minimize risk. What if I lose my job tomorrow? Do I have anything in place to allow me to look for a new job for a couple months? Why is debt a bad idea? Why get a fixed rate loan on a house? Why avoid debt at all costs?
Dave talks a lot about Murphy's Law. And it is so true. Life is all about the unexpected. And, we live in such a Must Have Now society. So, people buy all these things anticipating that everything will be fine in the future, but it won't. We need to have safeguards in place.
The policy on credit cards is to never use them. A lot of people say that they need to build up a great credit score, but Dave's argument is that one does not need a great credit score if one does not take out any loans. The only exception would be a home loan, and for this he says that one can go to a lender who does manual underwriting, which is what they did in the olden days.
Many would say that no credit card use is too extreme, but the argument here is more about behaviour. The statistic goes that people spend 12% more using credit cards than they do with cash. It does not take a stat to know that this is true. Are some people able to handle this anyway? Sure. But, there are certainly way too many people out there who are in over their heads when it comes to credit card debt. And it comes back to behaviour. If people were disciplined with a written budget, they would be okay. People want to have fun, go out to eat, go on vacation, buy brand new cars, buy large homes. We are not patient.
Dave offers a standard from which to work from. I believe he is right most of the time. He speaks to me in a language I can understand. It is conservative, but that is okay, because it works. And, I am no financial expert. I could not tell people where to invest or how best to use their money. I just know that risky behaviour with money often requires quite a bit of work to overcome. I don't want to do that. I want my family to feel secure.
I grew up doing all the standard dumb things. My first two cars barely cost me anything, but then when I bought my Toyota Tercel, I paid 18.75% interest. No air conditioning. No radio. I knew nothing. I basically ended up paying double what the car was worth in car payments. Then, when I bought my truck, I did a 6 year loan. I bought my tv, sofa, camera all on credit. I sensed that I was doing something wrong, but I had no real direction. By the time I bought my condo, I had a truck payment, school loans and credit cards.
I knew I wanted to pay off my debt and I knew that I wanted to save money, but all I could do was incur debt and then pay it off. I think that is how most of America works. There seems to be no other solution than to just slap all that money down on a credit card and then spend the next few years enjoying what you have while paying a huge price for it.
This all changed when I came across the teachings of Dave Ramsey. I know some people have read his book, The Total Money Makeover, but the book does not teach people like his radio show does. He talks to people about how much they make, how much debt they have, and what their spending habits are. He actually has 7 Baby Steps for people to follow to feel financially secure. And, most of the calls he takes revolve around those baby steps.
Who is Dave Ramsey? Why should I trust some guy on the radio? He is a Christian, which sort of threw me off at first. I suppose I wondered if he cared about people or converts. But listening to his show changed all that. His story started off with him flipping houses and he was a millionaire, but then some deals went bad and he went bankrupt. After going through that hellish experience, he came across a business idea of being able to help people avoid what he went through and eliminate debt from their lives.
Dave is really conservative when it comes to money. He says to have a written budget before each month starts. Give every dollar a name. It works. It is not hard to realize that one's money gets spent so quickly. Then, the sacrifice steps in. Things we wanted to buy had to wait.
I could go on for hours on how great his program is. I would recommend listening to his show. He has the archives from two weeks back on his website.
But back to my initial statement. I was searching for someone to help me out with this financial stuff. We had a guy come over once who told us to roll our debt over to a 401k loan. Not knowing any better, I signed on. This was a bad idea. If I had lost my job, that money would have become due all at once. Very risky.
The show teaches people to minimize risk. What if I lose my job tomorrow? Do I have anything in place to allow me to look for a new job for a couple months? Why is debt a bad idea? Why get a fixed rate loan on a house? Why avoid debt at all costs?
Dave talks a lot about Murphy's Law. And it is so true. Life is all about the unexpected. And, we live in such a Must Have Now society. So, people buy all these things anticipating that everything will be fine in the future, but it won't. We need to have safeguards in place.
The policy on credit cards is to never use them. A lot of people say that they need to build up a great credit score, but Dave's argument is that one does not need a great credit score if one does not take out any loans. The only exception would be a home loan, and for this he says that one can go to a lender who does manual underwriting, which is what they did in the olden days.
Many would say that no credit card use is too extreme, but the argument here is more about behaviour. The statistic goes that people spend 12% more using credit cards than they do with cash. It does not take a stat to know that this is true. Are some people able to handle this anyway? Sure. But, there are certainly way too many people out there who are in over their heads when it comes to credit card debt. And it comes back to behaviour. If people were disciplined with a written budget, they would be okay. People want to have fun, go out to eat, go on vacation, buy brand new cars, buy large homes. We are not patient.
Dave offers a standard from which to work from. I believe he is right most of the time. He speaks to me in a language I can understand. It is conservative, but that is okay, because it works. And, I am no financial expert. I could not tell people where to invest or how best to use their money. I just know that risky behaviour with money often requires quite a bit of work to overcome. I don't want to do that. I want my family to feel secure.
07 June 2008
Write This Down!
I was listening to talk radio today and happened to catch this guy named Steve Godfrey. He appears to be some sort of medium. When he speaks with people on the phone, he tells them of the people he is communicating with on the other side. And, usually it is family.
I was trying to have an open mind on it. Certain things he said did sound amazing, but the one thing that bothered me was "Write this down!" If I was talking to him, I would say: "Screw you! You write it down!"
What is he telling them to write down? He starts things off by telling the people he sees someone who has died.
Steve: "Someone has had lymphoma. Anyone had cancer in your family?"
Caller: "Uh yes. That was my brother."
Steve: "I am sensing that he had a real hard battle. What kind of cancer was it?"
Caller: "Bone cancer."
Steve: "Yes, it was a difficult battle. But he wants to let you know that things are much better now. I am also seeing Santa Claus. Someone who has a big white beard. He either dressed up as Santa a lot or just had a beard like Santa.
Caller: "That was my father-in-law."
Steve: "I am also sensing October 3rd or 4th. Does that ring a bell?"
Caller: "No."
Steve: "Well, write that down! That could be important later on."
Caller: "It is my half birthday. I was born April 2nd."
Steve: "I don't know about that."
This may have been a compilation of a couple calls, but it cracks me up. The dates are never significant to the people. Of course people have family who have died of cancer though. And, what about the Santa Claus? He totally covered his butt when he said that the person could dress up as Santa. Doesn't every family have a designated Santa? I guess mine doesn't...
I realize that the guy brings a positive message to people and people like to be comforted after someone close has died. I think it is all about the confidence the guy portrays. And, the fact that he has the gall to tell them to write down a date or other such information.
"Oh yeah! That was the date I got my oil changed last year... Wow."
I was trying to have an open mind on it. Certain things he said did sound amazing, but the one thing that bothered me was "Write this down!" If I was talking to him, I would say: "Screw you! You write it down!"
What is he telling them to write down? He starts things off by telling the people he sees someone who has died.
Steve: "Someone has had lymphoma. Anyone had cancer in your family?"
Caller: "Uh yes. That was my brother."
Steve: "I am sensing that he had a real hard battle. What kind of cancer was it?"
Caller: "Bone cancer."
Steve: "Yes, it was a difficult battle. But he wants to let you know that things are much better now. I am also seeing Santa Claus. Someone who has a big white beard. He either dressed up as Santa a lot or just had a beard like Santa.
Caller: "That was my father-in-law."
Steve: "I am also sensing October 3rd or 4th. Does that ring a bell?"
Caller: "No."
Steve: "Well, write that down! That could be important later on."
Caller: "It is my half birthday. I was born April 2nd."
Steve: "I don't know about that."
This may have been a compilation of a couple calls, but it cracks me up. The dates are never significant to the people. Of course people have family who have died of cancer though. And, what about the Santa Claus? He totally covered his butt when he said that the person could dress up as Santa. Doesn't every family have a designated Santa? I guess mine doesn't...
I realize that the guy brings a positive message to people and people like to be comforted after someone close has died. I think it is all about the confidence the guy portrays. And, the fact that he has the gall to tell them to write down a date or other such information.
"Oh yeah! That was the date I got my oil changed last year... Wow."
03 June 2008
Chapter 9
Hanken was tired and lethargic after his long journey to the coast. He had rescued maidens, maids and madmen. He figured sleeping would be his reward for his recent good behaviour. So, he napped and napped. When he was done napping he napped some more.
After all this napping, he was rejuvenated. It was time to start working on diffusing the bomb he had in his suitcase. He pulled out his tweezers and his rubber gloves. Hanken started working away and after a few vials of sweat beads trickled off his head, he was once again in the clear.
Now, to fill out the report. He always felt it was good business to document his endeavours. Lest anyone think he was a fool and a teller of tall tales, he would at least know that he had written it down in his ledger. He wrote and he wrote making sure to remember the angle he left the gangster in the trashcan at the airport.
He found that leaving details out was always a mistake. The kinds of villains he was working with had curious tattoos and spoke in funny dialects. These things would be important later on when deciphering who this was. After putting the finishing touches on the woman with the full lips and boisterous laugh, he put down his ledger and began to contemplate his next move.
Where would the next attack come from? Where are the armies amassing? And, where can he get a clean shirt in this pile of clothes scattered all over the floor?
After all this napping, he was rejuvenated. It was time to start working on diffusing the bomb he had in his suitcase. He pulled out his tweezers and his rubber gloves. Hanken started working away and after a few vials of sweat beads trickled off his head, he was once again in the clear.
Now, to fill out the report. He always felt it was good business to document his endeavours. Lest anyone think he was a fool and a teller of tall tales, he would at least know that he had written it down in his ledger. He wrote and he wrote making sure to remember the angle he left the gangster in the trashcan at the airport.
He found that leaving details out was always a mistake. The kinds of villains he was working with had curious tattoos and spoke in funny dialects. These things would be important later on when deciphering who this was. After putting the finishing touches on the woman with the full lips and boisterous laugh, he put down his ledger and began to contemplate his next move.
Where would the next attack come from? Where are the armies amassing? And, where can he get a clean shirt in this pile of clothes scattered all over the floor?
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