Just Another Underwater Sportscar
Got $845,000? Then get your very own submarine! Details here.

What's in a name, anyway?
Did these people really not consider the consequences before they decided to move to Butt Hole Street?

Chopsticks and Arthritis
*Gasp!*

Chopsticks may cause arthritis?!?! That may explain the plethora of relatives I have whose hands have become knobby and stiff.

Click here for the article on MSNBC.com

Dusty Blogs
*Sigh*

When I started this blog back in June, I was so excited by the lovely tool and posted to my heart's content. While on a posting binge, I visited and found some lovely blogs here in the Tripod community that voiced opinions of the world loud and clear or just had plain interesting content. Unfortunately, most have stopped posting and left the poor things to collect dust. Tsk tsk...So sad.

Blog:	Artists For War
Total Posts:	n/a
Date of Last Post:	n/a
Comment: As one of my favorites, this now non-existent blogger was kept by a lovely man with very controversial views. Tested my brainpower til smoke came out of my ears, he did.

Blog:	Tips for Car Buyers
Total Posts:	1
Date of Last Post:	Wednesday, 04 June 2003
Comment: This blogger teased me relentlessly with anticipation with its one and only entry. After all, who doesn't want to pay a rock-bottom price for a car??? Best of all though is the fact that these tips were for buying a car over the Internet...Perfect in aiding my goal to become a hermit when I grow up.

Blog:	My awesome life
Total Posts:	4
Date of Last Post:	Sunday, 08 June 2003
Comment: For the first time ever, I got to read relationship problems...from the perspective of a teenage boy. "There definitly has to be a grace period between the last time you have sex and a break up. Otherwise i will just look like the worlds biggest asshole."

Blog:	Penumbrae
Total Posts:	2
Date of Last Post:	Thursday, 05 June 2003
Comment: "...After much consideration and thinking I have eventually decided to create my very own Blog" Total entries: 2. Pity. I wanted to hear more about South Africa.

Blog:	Musings and Visions
Total Posts:	4
Date of Last Post:	Saturday, 07 June 2003
Comment: Fantastic pictures with stories to go with the musings. Because I'm art-challenged, I always appreciate captions and stories. Kind of like books from the first grade. See spot run.

Blog:	Lost in Amerika
Total Posts:	24
Date of Last Post:	Thursday 25 September 2003
Comment: Holy shit - a whole blogger seemingly dedicated to impeach Bush! He/she seems to be a sporadic poster though...so I'm not sure whether or not he/she's gone. This site did make my brain into fried eggs a few times...

Blog:	YA KNOW WHAT I THINK...
Total Posts:	1
Date of Last Post:	Monday, 02 June 2003
Comment: "I'll soon be posting my thoughts on the U.S. government, more specifically the Bush administration; the war with Iraq; the war on terror; and so many other issues...." Total Posts: 1.

Blog:	The Truth Ain't Pretty
Total Posts:	3
Date of Last Post:	Thursday, 26 June 2003
Comment: Great start with only three but thought-provoking entries (instead of yours truly, which are mostly written on the fly). Stuff on obesity, judging others and social security.

Stalker Sues Britney...
...for causing him "emotional distress."

Yup.

Spam Karma
"A company accused of sending unsolicited bulk e-mail was fined $2 million by a judge Friday, the first such ruling under California's anti-span law...The company, which does not have a Web site and has been accused of operating under fictitious names, has sent millions of illegal, unsolicited e-mails advertising tools for spamming, including $39 how-to books and lists of e-mail addresses of California residents...the owners illegally tapped into computer users' network connections so the company could send e-mail that couldn't be traced back to its source."

I love California!

Quote taken from here

A New New-Car Smell?
"General Motors recently revealed that its Cadillac division has engineered a scent for its vehicles and been processing it into their leather seats. The scent -- sort of sweet, sort of subliminal -- was created in a lab, picked by focus groups and is now the aroma of every new Cadillac put on the road.

It even has a name: Nuance."

Quote taken from here.

Edited to correct HTML mistake.

Crossing Picket Lines
"Grocery shoppers grow frustrated, cross picket lines" <- me last Monday (but in Burbank instead of Irvine)

Darn Weather...Again
According to this page, downtown Los Angeles is supposed to receive a high of 90 degrees.

I live about twenty minutes from downtown up in the foothills, much further away from the beach...Which means it will be hotter than a stinkin 90 degrees in my area.

Edited to correct grammatical mistakes

Fickle Computer
This afternoon my computer beautifully ran Adobe Illustrator, FlexiSign-Pro, Microsoft FrontPage, Microsoft Word, five Internet Explorer windows, Norton Firewall and Norton Anti-Virus. It's great. No hiccups and no pauses.

Yet last night when I attempted to run one of my favorite games, Tropico with a population of eight hundred people, my computer did this constant schizoid thing. One look at my task manager told me that it was hogging up 230 megs of ram...Well where the hell is the hundreds of other ram that I have on here?!?! I had turned off the Internet, all the Norton products and even went through my services menu to temporarily turn off all sorts of other things. I don't understand it.

Fat Beginnings
In 2002, a study was conducted by random telephone interviews "that asked parents or primary caregivers what their youngsters ages 4 months to 2 years ate that particular day." (Taken from this article)

I find it startling how there are parents out there who give their kids no fruits or vegetables...And some of those who think they are fulfilling that daily requirement, give their kids French fries every day.

And people wonder why two thirds of America are overweight.

Ugh.
It was 100 degrees here today in Los Angeles (no exaggeration).

The date is October 24, 2003.

Ha ha, great joke. Now turn down the furnace already!

Excuse me while I take my third shower of the day.

Reflections
Was Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante really that surprised when he lost the election?

Think about it: we fired his boss and now we want the man who is his right-hand-man to be in office? We want one of Gray Davis' biggest supporters to be Governor?

He and his campaign managers obviously think Californians are a bunch of sheep.

And sheep, as we have proven over and over, is what we certainly are not.

Jem!
Jem! The music's contagious...Jem is my name, no one else is the same, Jem is my name!

I was watching "I Love the 80s Strike Back" episode 1985 when the subject of Jem came up.

I was a Jem cartoon fan, though my interest reached no where in my obsession meter where Barbie was. What no one knew was that I really watched it to ponder how exactly the transformation process worked when Jem/Jerrica touched her earrings.

Then one day, someone gave me a Synergy doll for my birthday or Christmas. Purple with big feet, she ended up being the ho-bag that moved into my Barbie neighborhood whom they all hated and later beat up.

All this at the age of seven or so. The memories!

Virus Hoax
Today I received an email indicating that there was a virus on my computer called jdbgmgr.exe. According to the letter, McAfee and Norton do not detect this, so you better delete it yourself...

NOT!

A simple search on jdbgmgr.exe pulled up this link at the Norton website specifying that this was a hoax and to please do NOT delete it! jdbgmgr.exe is actually the Microsoft Debugger Registrar and is used mainly by Visual J++ 1.1 developers.

So...just an fyi.

Grocery Store Clerks...Best Service?
In this article, the author writes about the excellent service he receives from grocers.

Hmmm...Funny. At Vons, "Bill" always throws my groceries carelessly and dishes out an extremely displeasured attitudes towards the elderly customers. It got so bad that I ended up complaining to Vons about him. Other checkers are constantly talking to each other, not paying attention and only talking to me in a way to get me the fuck out of line. At Ralph's, you can count on the slowest and most idiotic checkers you've ever met in your entire life...! In addition, there's one cashier whom you can always count of being on the phone. Then there's Albertsons...Well, after my past few experiences, I just plain will not go there anymore unless I need to complete a MoneyGram transaction, at which I will always endure the grunts and whining the clerk will produce.

More Picketing Ponderings
I find it rather disturbing that picketers are requesting customers who make considerably less money than them to shop elsewhere. The way I see it, they are asking the less fortunate to help the union members make even more money.

There are people in Los Angeles who do not have transportation, so they rely on the neighborhood Ralphs, Vons or Albertsons for food. The strikers are also asking them to go elsewhere. So the union members' benefits are more important than these allowing these poor people to eat? How are they supposed to get there? By bus? No...The MTA mechanics (whom, by the way, are paid anywhere from $50,000 to over $100,000 per year plus FREE benefits and a policy that allows them to retire after 23 years) are striking, remember? Sure some are still active, but there is literally none in my area.

I looked on the local 770 site to see the alternative grocery stores they are recommending. The closest one to me is 16.77 miles away and 22 minutes if utilizing the freeways and located in a crime-infested area. If you don't plan on using the freeways, it will take 31 minutes. Of course this is assuming you have a car. Again, MTA service is disrupted...

Oh wait a minute - I just found a grocery store that is a mile and a half closer at 15.23 miles utilizing freeways. I'll have to pack a gun though, for that is known as gang territory.

So sacrifice my well being for these idiots to continue receiving free benefits I will not. My neighbor is a part of the union and works 20 hours a week at over $17/hr as a cashier...Who else gets paid that kind of money in a job like that that doesn't require any education?

Keep on Striking - I'm Benefitting!
By the way, I'm very sick. Got the flu and stuff. High fevers disillusioned my vision and covered my body with icky sweat.

Blech.

But while I'm still feeling able, allow me to outline benefits of the grocer's strike that I found after visiting Ralphs:

1) A much better store! I've never seen any store so beautifully clean and excellently stocked. I spent well and over beyond my budget because they actually had everything I needed and then some!
2) Friendly employees. Happy employees who were happy to have jobs, even if it is temporary. Bright and cheery...I love it! I had an altercation one time with a checker at Vons who was ALWAYS rude and threw my groceries three feet away. Everyone else was always bored or annoyed. At Ralph's you could count on one particular checker to always be on the goddamned phone. The managers of the local Ralphs, Vons and Albertsons were always the biggest fucking assholes you ever met in your life.
3) Faster service. Even with a ton of groceries and the checker looking up codes, I zipped through the line. On a regular non-striking day at Ralphs, there could be a total of ten customers in the whole store and still take 25 minutes just to check through the Express line with the one box of sugar that I'd only want to get.
4) More parking. On a Saturday - woo hoo! Your loss is my gain.
5) Better sales. Just a few of the many: free eggs, 24 pack of Arrowhead water for $1.99, Carapelli 13 fl oz olive oil for $3.99. Plus $5 off my next purchase just for being a loyal shopper!

So keep striking, because the benefits for me are enormous!

And cross the picket lines I did!
I crossed the picket lines on Monday proudly with my head up high. No, I do not support the strike.

This is a former Benefits expert talking...After examining the proposed benefit plans here, all I have to say is, who the hell gets PPO coverage for FREE nowadays? The union members right now. The proposed plan asks them to pay $43.33 per month for the plan. I used to pay $60 where I used to work.

For those of you who don't know, PPO is the premier plan of all health plans. Unlike an HMO where one doctor or a Medical Group you choose or are assigned to (Primary Care Physician aka PCP) facilitates ALL of your medical needs (specialists i.e. x-rays), a PPO allows your to visit a specialist directly...without ever needing your regular doctor you go to!

Because of the restrictions that HMO plans offer, you usually pay less. My old company offered the plan for around $40/month...In the case of the unions, the stores are asking the union members to pay for around the same rate.

The most deceiving information that I have found about the chart is how purposely disorganized it is. The gigantic inflation of expenses are calculated upon quantity, which is labeled ONE time at the very top. Now the person who made the spreadsheet obviously knew something about tables. And I would have done some of the things to hide certain information on it too. Thus, allow me to yell that the spreadsheet is MISLEADING.

Besides...For any regular random person, who purchases 16 prescriptions per year? Most of the people I have seen at the stores are relatively young and healthy...?

And don't boohoo me about paying $25 for a brand name prescription. That's how much I used to pay...Three years ago.

For those who argue that the union members already dish out so much for union membership, I say that that is a completely different issue than what we are discussing. Take it up with your union rep. After all, the President needs to get paid and someone needs to pay for those picket signs...right?

Grocer union employees should really go out to the IGA stores over in Illinois sometime and talk to the non-union grocers there. I guarantee you; no butchers there make over $19/hr. And the difference in minimum wage is only $1.60. Consider yourself lucky, very lucky.

Oh and another thing. What gives a company not the right to make more money? Isn't that what America is all about? If you want communism, go to a communistic country. Or, get another job and pay what the rest of us pay and stop being such...sheep.

Edited to reflect the correct day

Arnold is California Governor???
Because I have been away from California for three months, I feel entirely disconnected from the entire issue of the recall. I didn't even know the vote date.

I am not surprised that Arnold has been elected. I eagerly await any and all consequences upon Arnold taking office...

At this pinnacle moment, anyone is better than Gray Davis.

That is, with the exception of Gary Coleman.