Quote of the day: DeGeneres on finding time to work out

I gotta work out. I keep saying it all the time. I keep saying I gotta start working out. It's been about two months since I've worked out. And I just don't have the time. Which uh..is odd. Because I have the time to go out to dinner. And uh..and watch tv. And get a bone density test. And uh.. try to figure out what my phone number spells in words.

Ellen DeGeneres

Quote of the day: Work and the rich

I have long been of the opinion that if work were such a splendid thing the rich would have kept more of it for themselves.

---Bruce Grocott

The only way to prevent terrorism on airplanes

The latest terrorist attempt to take down an airplane has me once again kicking around my radical idea of how far we have to go if we want to make sure that no terrorist can ever take down a plane while being a passenger.

Basically, what we need to do is to have all passengers strip down buck naked. Then they must be poked and prodded...all of them...no exceptations. They must fly to their destination this way.

Their luggage must be flown on a different plane. No one is allowed carry-ons of any sort. And the buggage plane can only be used for baggage; it cannot carry passengers.

Furthermore, all passengers must be given drugs, so that they sleep during the entire flight.

All passengers must be subjected to xrays, and other assorted scans; we do not want people hiding bombs in body cavities.

Of course, the flaw in this plan is that it leaves the door open to biological terrorism. It also does not prevent terrorist organizations from recruiting airlane employees.

Oh, on second thought, let's ban just all airtravel and go back to trains and steamboats. After all, it is the only way to make airlanes perfectly safe. And that is what we all want, isn't it?

I am confused by healthcare reform

Something I realized recently is that I have absolutely no clue what the current healthcare reform bill looks like. All I know is that taking a cue from Dan Carlin, I suspect that it is going to cause more harm than good; the people who should be complaining about it, and fighting it every inch of the way, are not concerned about it. So what is in the bill that helps them (and hurts us)?

Presidential Lottery Spam

As most of my regular readers know, periodically I criticize the spam mail that I recieve. Often this happens when I am trying to get into writing mode (today my wife is home sick; all attached writers know how disruptive that is).

Today's winner was from the United States of America International Lottery Program (whoever they are). Supposely, my email address was partially responsible for me having the winning numbers. Hmmm, I am paranoid; I bet everyone who got the email was told the same thing, down to the exact same numbers.

But that is not why it was chosen as today's winner. Here is the best line from this particular piece of spam:

This Lottery was promoted and sponsored by the New American President (Barrack Obama) as part of his social responsibility to the citizens in the communities where they have operational base and you are entitled with a huge lump sum of One Million United States Dollars ($1,000.000.00USD).

Huh?

Ok, the person writing the email has less than perfect knowledge of grammar rules. And what exactly is an "operational base"? Won't it be a lack of an operational base? (Ok, I am bluffing; I have no idea what an operational base is.)

And more importantly, exactly how does running a internet lottery help fulfill the President's social responsibilty? I imagine each of my readers can come with a dozen things that he should be doing that would sooner fulfill his social responsibility.

Fixing the economy, funding higher education, making us safer, etc., add you personal favorites in the comment section.

Once again, I find myself wondering who writes this stuff; and more importantly, who exactly is falling for it.

Oh wait...evil thought...what if this is the same email that was sent to the companies who were "too big to fail"? That give-away was lumped under social responsibility, wasn't it? Maybe I should answer it; after all, it would hurt so many people if I fail, won't it?

Quote of the day: Reagan on the Economy

The government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.

Ronald Reagan

Only 3026 words so far, many more to go

Well, I have only done 3,026 words so far for NaNoWriMo. I should be almost at twelve thousand words (11,669 to be exact) at the end of the day if I was on schedule. Basically I have written six nights for a little while each day, and have only accomplished like two days worth (a touch short actually from even that short goal of 3,334 words).

It is enourgh to drive home the point that I might not even be capable of being a hack. But then again, I had homework, newspaper articles and finished off reading Dracula. I might not be a great writer, but even on a busy week I hacked out three thousand words. I guess that is something to smile about.

In the old days, we used to travel by couch and buggy, or maybe horse and buggy, horses, boat, or just on foot. There are some that believe that we used to (and still do) travel by fairy circle, stone hedges and by flying around on broomsticks. The latter has always puzzled me. Why would anyone trust their existence to a slender piece of wood with straw tied to the end? I do not care how strong of a candle you light, the rarity of the feathers that you tie onto it, or the awesome power of your charms; it is still just a stick being held up by the power of positive thinking. I will stick with mechanical means of travel, thank you no. Then again, given the security line and the reliability of pilots nowadays, going to a broom closet and selecting your own means of travel might be preferable if it wasn’t for the exhaustion that making a broom fly would result in.