Simplicity Is Lost....

For the umpteenth time I had to adjust our ten-year old refrigerator.  Appliances are not made to repair any longer.  I keep adjusting this one, because if I call a repairman, they don't.  All they can do is replace parts until the problem is gone or moves.  Why can't we make anything simply anymore.  Everything is so complicated that even with my Master's in Engineering, and over thirty-five years of experience- I still have problems wondering why something was built that way.  I suppose it is a cost-cutting measure, or to reduce weight, or reduce the number of parts, or ease manufacturing.  The biggest reason that I can think of, though, is planned obsolescence.  Too many repairs or too many EXPENSIVE repairs will force me to replace the unit.  And while I will probably no longer have brand loyalty having been burned by a bad design from this one, I will probably replace it before spending very much on a ten-year old appliance!  Actually, I am impressed that it lasted that long...I am expecting it to fail and need replacement.

WalMart is now considering selling wine from vending machines. As a precaution, the machine requires that you swipe your drivers license first. If you're buying wine from a vending machine, what are the odds you still have a drivers license? 

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years.

No one knows for sure how old he was, as his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn’t always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place.

Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.

He declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer cough drops, sun lotion or a simple band-aid to a student but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

He began to lose the will to live as churches became businesses; creationism vied for equal footing with proper science, alternative treatments became available on the WEB (while cancer drugs were banned) and criminals received better treatment than their victims.

The poor guy took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar can sue you for assault.

He finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Barely recovering from that he was bludgeoned to death by the news that the world's financial markets had been demolished by irresponsible bankers who made a fortune doing so and who the governments bailed out by demanding money from those wise enough to have adopted sensible fiscal policies.

RIP 

"New" theories:

4th RunnerUp: The earth may spin faster on its axis due to deforestation. Just as a figure skater's rate of spin increases when the arms are brought in close to the body, the cutting of tall trees may cause our planet to spin dangerously fast.

3rd RunnerUp: Communist China is technologically underdeveloped because they have no alphabet. The lack of an alphabet means the Chinese cannot use acronyms; thus, they cannot communicate their ideas at a faster rate.

2nd RunnerUp: The 'Why Yawning Is Contagious' Theory: You yawn to equalize the pressure on your eardrums. This pressure change outside your eardrums unbalances other people's ear pressures, so they must yawn to even it all out.

1st RunnerUp: If an infinite number of rednecks riding in an infinite number of pickup trucks fire an infinite number of shotgun rounds at an infinite number of highway signs, they will eventually produce all the world's great literary works in Braille. 

Bulb Frustration...

I've been kept very busy this holiday weekend. Many chores to attend to.  Many were high-priority items on the Honey-Do list and some just needed to get done anyway.  We did find time to watch "Hanna", unfortunately.  It is a dumb movie the unfold poorly.  The audience is left hanging many times waiting for another fold.  It is no wonder that I never saw it come to the theaters.  

So recently I perused the lighting isle at the local Home Depot.  I wasn't sure what to expect, whether you could still buy incandescent bulbs or not. I saw the usual compact florescent ones, ugly spirals and for a bit more, those that are covered with a layer of glass and ALMOST look like incandescent ones. Then I came across the LED variety for $49.99 apiece.  I know that these last almost forever, but for that much money I certainly can wait a year or so for them to come down in price.  Today I saw these (see picture) advertised at $15 each.  That is much better.  It is too bad they are SO UGLY.  Note that this is a push-and-twist variety.  They probably charge more for the one with threads THAT WE CAN ACTUALLY USE! LEDs are really cheap when used in electronics.  I just CAN'T IMAGINE what is so expensive on this frickin' bulbs that would drive the price so high.  Is is because we make them- instead of China?

Political Science For Dummies:

DEMOCRAT
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
You feel guilty for being successful.
You push for higher taxes so the government can provide cows for everyone.

REPUBLICAN
You have two cows.
Your neighbor has none.
So?

SOCIALIST
You have two cows. The government takes one and gives it to your neighbor. You form a cooperative to tell him how to manage his cow.

COMMUNIST
You have two cows. The government seizes both and provides you with milk. You wait in line for hours to get it. It is expensive and sour.

CAPITALISM, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. You sell one, buy a bull, and build a herd of cows.

BUREAUCRACY, AMERICAN STYLE
You have two cows. Under the new farm program, the government pays you to shoot one, milk the other, and then pour the milk down the drain.

AMERICAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You sell one, lease it back to yourself and do an IPO on the 2nd one.
You force the two cows to produce the milk of four cows. You are surprised when one cow drops dead.
You spin an announcement to the analysts stating you have downsized and are reducing expenses.
Your stock goes up.

FRENCH CORPORATION
You have two cows. You go on strike because you want three cows. You go to lunch and drink wine.
Life is good.

JAPANESE CORPORATION
You have two cows. You redesign them so they are one-tenth the size of an ordinary cow and produce twenty times the milk.
They learn to travel on unbelievably crowded trains.
Most are at the top of their class at cow school.

GERMAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You engineer them so they are all blond, drink lots of beer, give excellent quality milk, and run a hundred miles an hour. Unfortunately, they also demand 13 weeks of vacation per year.

ITALIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows but you don't know where they are.
You break for lunch.  Life is good.

RUSSIAN CORPORATION
You have two cows. You drink some vodka.
You count them and learn you have five cows.
You drink some more vodka. You count them again and learn you have 42 cows. The Mafia shows up and takes over however many cows you really have.

TALIBAN CORPORATION
You have all the cows in  Afghanistan , which are two.
You don't milk them because you cannot touch any creature's private parts. You get a $40 million grant from the  US    government to find alternatives to milk production but use the money to buy weapons.

IRAQI CORPORATION
You have two cows. They go into hiding.
They send radio tapes of their mooing.

POLISH CORPORATION
You have two bulls. Employees are regularly maimed and killed attempting to milk them.

BELGIAN CORPORATION
You have one cow. The cow is schizophrenic.
Sometimes the cow thinks he's French, other times he's Flemish. The Flemish cow won't share with the French cow.
The French cow wants control of the Flemish cow's milk.
The cow asks permission to be cut in half.
The cow dies happy.

FLORIDA CORPORATION
You have a black cow and a brown cow. Everyone votes for the best looking one.  Some of the people who actually like the brown one best accidentally vote for the black one. Some people vote for both. Some people vote for neither. Some people can't figure out how to vote at all. Finally, a bunch of guys from out-of-state tell you which one you think is the best looking cow.  Jeb agrees.

CALIFORNIA CORPORATION
You have millions of cows. They make real   California cheese Only five speak English. Most are illegal.
Arnold likes the ones with the big udders.

Charley, a new retiree-greeter at Wal-Mart..just couldn't seem to get to work on time. Every day he was 5, 10, 15 minutes late. But, he was a very good worker, really tidy, clean-shaven, sharp-minded, a real credit to the company and he always demonstrated their "Older Person Friendly" policies. One day the boss called him into the office for a talk. "Charley, I have to tell you, I like your work ethic, you do a bang-up job when you finally get here; but... your being late so often is quite bothersome. It's odd though - your coming in late. I know you're retired from the Armed Forces. What did they say to you there if you showed up in the morning so late and so often?"

The old man looked down at the floor, then smiled. He chuckled quietly, then said with a grin, "They usually saluted and said, Good morning, Admiral, can I get your coffee for you, sir?" 

Arizona's new immigration law

I knew sooner than later that something like this was going to happen.

Illegal immigrants are boycotting Arizona by the thousands, showing their outrage with Arizona's controversial new SB-1070 law by moving elsewhere.

In the small town of Guadalupe, AZ located south of Phoenix, Manuel Renaldo is one of those who is punishing Arizona by leaving. As he loaded his stolen car with his belongings and family of ten, Renaldo told this reporter through an interpreter "It's a matter of principle. I refuse to be supported by a state that treats me like a criminal."

The effects of the exodus are being felt by Arizona retailers who are reporting dwindling sales of beer, spray paint, and ammunition. Also hit hard are the state’s hospitals, which have reported a dramatic decline in births and emergency room visits. Tattoo parlors are in a state of panic.

Renaldo told a reporter through an interpreter "He and his family are moving to California , which is a state that will support him and his family with dignity."

Kind of brings a tear to your eye....huh! 

This morning the Muslim Brotherhood warned the United States that if the United States continued meddling in Egypt, Libya, and other potential hot spots in the middle east, they intend to cut off America's supply of 7-11 and Motel 6 managers.

If this action does not yield sufficient results, cab drivers will be next, followed by Dell, AT&T and AOL customer service reps.

Finally, if all else fails, they have threatened not to send us any more presidents either.

It's gonna get ugly, people.


 

Dolt!

Doh! What a bunch of dolts!  AT&T claims to be surprised that the DOJ actually did its job and blocked the gobbling up of T-Mobile.  Gimme a break.  If AT&T had even a clue, they would have bought more spectrum space to cover the needs of data users.  They could have leased it back to competitors and still made money on the deal.  There is no foresight in a behemoth company.  They only trudgingly move with the market and cannot change direction fast enough to drive it.

 YUK! Can you believe that stem-cell sausage is just months away- WHAT?  Laboratory grown meats from stem cells may be the answer to having slaughter-free meats.  Does this mean that the biggest complaint from Vegans will disappear?  Keep tuned it for the latest recipes (just kidding)....

A dying granny tells her granddaughter, "I want to leave you my farm. That includes the villa, the tractor, and other equipment, the farmhouse and $22,398,750.78 in cash."

The granddaughter, about to become rich says, "Oh granny, you are so generous. I didn't even know you had a farm. Where is it?".

With her last breath, granny whispered, "Facebook..."

Amazing Word Facts--a linguist's take:
For those who are interested in the oddities of linguistics, please see below. Who would have guessed ...

Did you know that, the words "race car" spelled backwards still spells "race car"?

And that "eat" is the only word that, if you take the first letter and move it to the last, spells its own past tense, "ate"?

 And if you rearrange the letters in "Tea Party Republicans," and add just a few more letters, it spells: "Shut the f--- up you free-loading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent hypocrites, and deal with the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush and you're trying to wreck it again and that, yes,
our president is black, so get over it."

Isn't that interesting?

A seventy-five year old couple want to have kids so the man goes to the doctor to have his sperm checked. The Dr. says take this jar home and come back with a sample.

The guy comes back the next day with an empty jar. The Dr. asks why it is empty.

The guy says, well first I tried and nothing came of it. Then my wife tried with her hand and nothing. Then she tried with her mouth, still nothing. Then we called our neighbor and she tried with her hand and then her mouth, still nothing.

The Dr. is shocked, you mean your wife didn't mind your neighbor getting involved. Guy says nope, and no matter how hard we tried, we just couldn't get that jar open.  

 

Unhackable? That is just a challenge....

So Zuck is so confident that Fleecebook is unhackable, he has put a $40K bounty on a chink in his armor.  The money is worth fixing the problem, but no site is unhackable!

Unbelievably, the Department of Justice actually got it right for a change by blocking AT&Ts purchase of T-Mobile.  Obviously, AT&T did not spend enough money on lobbyists or grease the right palms....

Banding together to protect Japan's LCD display business, SONY, Toshiba and Hitachi are merging.  This, I believe will be better for consumers, as there are way too many options involved in the decision to buy, now.  This should simplify, I hope....

Has anyone ever texted to a landline phone by mistake because you couldn't tell the difference because the number looks just the same?  In other countries, cell phones have their own set of area codes, so you can tell what you are dialing ...  Sounds too logical to have occurred in the US....

Never lose your grandson at a shopping mall...
He approached a uniformed security guard and said, "I've lost my grandpa!"
The guard asked, "What's name?"
"Grandpa"
The guard smiled, then asked, "What's he like?"
The little tyke hesitated for a moment and then replied,
"Crown Royal whiskey and women with big tits."

Weekend Weak Movie and Hot Work

Over the weekend, we went to see Columbiana.  It was billed as another La Femme Nikita, but I believe it fell short.  I think that Zoe Saldana's performance was in the "B to B+" category, but the storyline was a bit choppy.  The movie was not cut as well as it could have been.  There were a couple of major jumps in time that the audience was forced to make up on our own without guidance.  Adding an transitional ten minutes to the movie would have definitely helped.

We spent most of the weekend getting my daughter packed and moved back to Occidental.  It could have been less dramatic and a bit more smoothly planned, since it is her third time returning to the school.  Also it was 106 degrees in Eagle Rock.  Thank goodness that this year she drew a number allowing her to be in a dorm with AC.

 
"I was very sheltered growing up. I knew nothing about sex. My mother said this: 'Sex is a dirty, disgusting thing you save for somebody you love'". - Carol Henry

Worried that they hadn't heard anything for days from the elderly widow in the apartment next door, the mother said to her son,

"Tony, would you go next door and see how old Mrs. Pierpoint is?"

A few minutes later, Tony returned.

"Well, is she all right?" asked the mother.

"She's fine, but she's rather annoyed with you," remarked Tony.

"At me?" the mother exclaimed. "Whatever for?"

Tony replied, "Mrs. Pierpoint said it's none of your business how old she is."

The Truth Is Showing...

Interesting that me "do everything for our county" and "totally lacking any international competence Ron Paul wants to cut FEMA altogether!  It appears that there is some natural disaster at least once a month that requires some federal assistance.  What would he have them do ??  While most of the time he sound like the sanest of the formerly (G)OP, lately the truth is showing....

 

Catholic Heart Attack
A man suffered a serious heart attack while shopping in a store. The store clerks called 911 when they saw him collapse to the floor. The paramedics rushed the man to the nearest hospital where he had emergency open heart bypass surgery.

He awakened from the surgery to find himself in the care of nuns at the Catholic Hospital he was taken to. A nun was seated next to his bed holding a clip board loaded with several forms, and a pen. She asked him how he was going to pay for his treatment.
"Do you have health insurance?" she asked.
He replied in a raspy voice, "No health insurance."
The nun asked, "Do you have money in the bank?"
He replied, "No money in the bank."
"Do you have a relative who could help you with the payments?" asked the irritated nun.
He said, "I only have a spinster sister, and she is a nun."
The nun became agitated and announced loudly, "Nuns are not spinsters! Nuns are married to God."
The patient replied, "Perfect. Send the bill to my brother-in-law."

The room was full of pregnant women with their partners. The class was in full swing. The instructor was teaching the women how to breathe and was telling the men how to give the necessary help and assurance to their partners at this stage of the pregnancy.

She said, "Ladies, remember that exercise is good for you. Walking is especially beneficial. It strengthens the pelvic muscles and will make delivery that much easier." Just pace yourself, make plenty of stops and try to stay on a soft surface like grass or a path."
She looked at the men in the room, "Gentlemen, remember -- you're in this together. It wouldn't hurt you to go walking with her. In fact, that shared experience would be good for you both."

The room suddenly got very quiet as the men absorbed this information.

After a few moments, a man named Wayne at the back of the room slowly raised his hand.

"Yes," said the Instructor.

"I was just wondering if it would be all right if she carries a golf bag while we walk?"

---- Brings a tear to your eye doesn't it? This kind of sensitivity just can't be taught.

If you ever testify in court, you might wish you could have been as sharp as this policeman. He was being cross-examined by a defense attorney during a felony trial. The lawyer was trying to undermine the police officer's credibility .....

Q: 'Officer --- did you see my client fleeing the scene?'

A: 'No sir. But I subsequently observed a person matching the description of the offender, running several blocks away.'

Q: 'Officer -- who provided this description?'

A: 'The officer who responded to the scene.'

Q: 'A fellow officer provided the description of this so-called offender. Do you trust your fellow officers?'

A: 'Yes, sir. With my life.'

Q: 'With your life? Let me ask you this then officer. Do you have a room where you change your clothes in preparation for your daily duties?'

A: 'Yes sir, we do!'

Q: 'And do you have a locker in the room?'

A: 'Yes, sir, ... I do.'

Q: 'And do you have a lock on your locker?'

A: 'Yes, sir.'

Q: 'Now, ... why is it, officer, if you trust your fellow officers with your life, you find it necessary to lock your locker in a room you share with these same officers?'

A: 'You see, sir -- we share the building with the court complex, and sometimes lawyers have been known to walk through that room.'

The courtroom EXPLODED with laughter, and a prompt recess was called. The officer on the stand has been nominated for this year's 'Best Comeback' line -- and we think he'll win.

It was inevitable...

I knew it would happen, and it did very rapidly.  Perry has become the frontrunner in the formerly (G)OP candidate list, surpassing Romney.  While there is much ado concerning the everyday quotes from the candidates, apparently health care is going to be the BIG issue between Perry and Romney.  It always seems to be about our wallets!  It is still up in the air, however, whom I will be voting FOR or AGAINST in the primaries- OR whether it will MATTER or NOT.

A blonde watching the news hears that two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident.

She sobs and cries, "Oh my goodness, that is so sad! How many is a brazilian?" 

There was this little elderly man one day who got out of his rocking chair and told his little old wife he would be back in a little while.

She looked up at him from her rocker and asked, "where you going?"

He replied "I'm gonna go get me some of them there Viagra's at the doctors' office"

She didn't say anything just got up and started putting on her sweater.

"Where you going?" the old man asked

She just smiled and said, "If you're gonna start using that old rusty thing again, I'm gonna go get me a tetanus shot!"