Thursday, September 20, 2012

Body parts may not speak aloud, but...

my leg said, quite loudly this morning that we weren't going for a walk.  It demanded we rest.

We played trivia last night and the game went fine, the host was his usual ebullient self which is just part of playing there.  He's a great guy and he runs a good game, but it can run a tad long, so it was nearly 11 p.m. when we finally got out of there.

Today I have a movie screening in the afternoon, otherwise just doing home work and studying for tomorrow's quiz.  Oh wait, I took the quiz already.  I can be happy with my 93% or I can risk it and take the quiz again.  I'm pretty sure I could get the perfect score I have dreamt of if I re-take it, but I'm going to just let it stay as it is.  Oh, why is it when you're going somewhere for the first time (this afternoon's screening is in an office building I've not yet been to) in certain parts of town, you worry more about where you'll park than how to get there?

The space shuttle Endeavor's impending arrival has everyone all excited.  We watched it take off on television.  We watched it land on television.  Several times.  So why does everyone want to go out and see it on its last flight, piggybacked on top of another jet?  I'll wait for every single local and national news program to show way too much footage of the event rather than fighting traffic and trekking up to the Getty to watch it fly over at 1,500 feet.  I'm sad that 400 trees had to come down to make room for this thing to make its final journey to where it will be on permanent display.

So how long will it be before the people who spent 3 plus hours hanging 300 feet in the air file lawsuits against Knotts Berry Farm for having been "mistreated"?  I'd say less than a week.

So the iPhone 5 sales will boost our GDP by 0.5%.  That's frightening.  Not that we don't need the boost, but that this much money will be spent for the latest and greatest "smart" phone, when there will be a newer, more improved version coming within 24 months.

Government can be really scary sometimes.  There's a guy in Philadelphia, who was cited by the Philadelphia Redevelopment Authority because a vacant lot owned by the authority that was next to his business was home to 40 tons of garbage.  He asked the authority to remove the mess and they refused.  He asked them for permission to remove it himself and they refused.  So he ignored them, spent $20,000 of his own money and removed the trash.  Then he levelled the lot and planted trees.  The authority is pondering legal action and demanding he restore the lot to its prior condition.  Are they seriously demanding that he bring back 40 tons of trash and strew it all over the lot, so they can cite him for the mess again?

I've now seen four of the local TV station's news departments cover the story of how Romney said he might do better in the election if he were a Latino.  Every single one of those stations made sure to use one of the Latino/Hispanic reporters to do the story.  Why?  If Bobby Jindal were running for President, and he said something that might have offended a particular ethnic group, would they need to rush out and hire reporters with Indian ethnicity to cover the story?  I think the local news outlets are doing it because they're going out of their way to tell this story with as negative a slant as possible, and having a Latino telling the story permits them to be outraged.  But I do believe the mainstream media's bias is patently obvious.  The only difference today than when I was a member of the media is that today there's a clearly biased outlet on the right side of politics slanting the news just as badly as the left side's outlets slant the news.  Sometimes I wish there were an objective, non-biased news outlet out there, but there's a better chance of Santa Claus showing up on 12/25 being pulled by 8 tiny reindeer.

El Monte won't hire back the lifeguards who made a video spoofing "Gangnam Style".  As Forrest Gump's mama always said, "stupid is as stupid does".  I wonder what the Naval Academy is going to do, now that a group of midshipmen have done the same thing, made a video of themselves on Academy property, doing the Gangnam.  What the heck does "Gangnam" mean in Hangul anyway?  Maybe I need to make a quick trip to South Korea to investigate.  If you want to send me there to look into this go to www.stupidwasteofotherpeoplesmoney.com and donate toward the cost of a round trip ticket to Seoul, hotel, and money to gamble away at the local casinos.

Edit:  I looked up Gangnam and I should have known what it meant.  I've actually been there.  It's the name of one of the gu (district) that make up the city of Seoul.  It's the wealthiest neighborhood in the city, if not the entire country.  So all those people doing "Gangnam" style don't begin to realize that the dance they are performing is a tribute to a symbol of income inequity.  Oh, the word gangnam means "South of the River" (Seoul is divided by the Han River).

That is a link, but of course it doesn't work.  However, it should work, in order for people to be able to donate to all of the dumb things people put up on-line to try to collect money for.  I felt badly for that woman who got harassed on that bus, but she didn't deserve $500,000 or more for her suffering.  Who donates all this money, in this economy, with this level of unemployment?  Heck, how can all the people I see walking up and down Harbor Boulevard every time I go to Anaheim, afford to be going to Disneyland?  A one-day ticket to just one of the two parks is $87.  You can save all of $4 by buying a two-day ticket to one park and pay just $170.  Woohoo, saved four bucks!  Husband, wife, two kids and you're over $320 just to walk in for one day, but there are throngs of people who are there attending the place day in and day out.  Recession?  Not in some people's reality.