June 03, 2004

I'm a bit drunk

But not really that much. Cause things are not as bad on second look as they are on first look.

Still, I could use a good smoke. Y'all suck for keeping me honest.

Posted by: Jim at 10:55 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Good News, Bad News

We got the house. Yay! The sellers agreed to our last counter offer and we're supposed to sign a binding contract tomorrow morning.

I lost my job. Boo! They're eliminating my Quality Assurance and adding another Programmer. I don't program in ProvideX so...bye bye Jim.

Got a lot to think about before tomorrow morning.

Posted by: Jim at 07:12 PM | Comments (14) | Add Comment
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Open letter to everybody in the world who is bitching about America.

Disclaimer: This is a response to a recurring stream of vile lies and innuendo and outright bigotry that I will no longer be taking up the arse with a smile on my face. It's me venting. This is NOT a screed directed at anybody I know personally, correspond with or am blogbuddies with. I have many international friends and y'all are some of the greatest folk a guy could ask for. Then again, none of y'all were the trash talking jackasses that got me this pissed in the first place so this disclaimer probably wasn't warranted in any case.

Oh well, on with the show:

Dear everybody in the world who is bitching about America,

I hear you've been criticizing my country. You criticize our culture, especially you Old Europe types, saying that we don't have any or that we're all fat lazy spoon feeders. You accuse us of empirialism, saying that we send our troops around the world to bully others into submission. I've even heard you saying that we are neglectful of our responsibilities. You think that since we are the only superpower left that we should be fixing the lion's share of the world's problems and you intimate that we're not doing so.

Bullshit. People are always jealous and resentful of the big dog. On the world stage the United States of America is the big dog. We'll even tolerate your nips and yips so long as you don't bite too hard, but that doesn't mean that we like it.

What's this about America not having its own culture? You complain about this while wearing Nike running shoes and an Adidas ball cap, Coke in one hand and McBurger in the other? Why are our movies and music bigger in your country than your own are (excepting France and most Arab countries where the government actively censors and controls imports of music and movies)? We're ignorant yokels because we don't have passports? Our states are bigger than your countries and we have fifty of them. Just like you, we don't need passports to visit our neighbors. One of them is far bigger than Europe and the other is over half the size of Europe. We don't have passports because we don't need them.

Empire? We're no empire. If we were an empire would we have tolerated a border like Mexico? Hell no. America would go South far enough to have a border that could be guarded by three contract workers and a doberman. Would we have tolerated all that acid rain and waste coming down from Canada along with their government subsidized lumber undercutting our own? No way. If we were an empire builder the USA would have 52 states and it would extend from the Great White North down to Ecuador.

Americans are fat, lazy and stupid? Oh, man is that one a laugh. We work. Man, do we work. We work 40 plus hours a week, not 30 or 35 like you do. We take one or two weeks off a year, not six to seven or even more. Do you know what that gets us? The most reliably growing economy in the world and a country filled with the wealthiest citizens in the world. Always and ever. Surprisingly, the closer other countries get to the American work ethic, the better off they are financially. People come to America with a good work ethic and make hundreds of times more than they made in their own country. America works!

Ignoring our responsibilities? Where? What problem is there out there that we haven't tried to help? Nobody gives more money, supplies, expertise and resources to the world's problems than we do. We give aid to freaking Egypt, that's how desperate we are to give money away. I keep hearing about how America is turning its back on the Aids problem in Africa. We spend untold millions on that problem, far more than any other country. We support hundreds of deadbeat countries in the UN, an organization that seems to exist solely to bash us and the only Democracy in the Middle East. Starvation in the third world? Who sends more food than everybody else combined? Oh, yeah - we do. But mean old America didn't sign the Kyoto agreement. Excuse us (and China and Russia, even though they don't seem to get any flak for it) for not agreeing to something specifically designed to screw with our industries. Your shock and dismay would be more convincing if your own country was living up to Kyoto, seeing as you DID sign it.

You complain that American culture invades every country that opens its borders to us. First of all, this isn't something new. Since the very first time one culture has traded with another an influx of the cultures themselves has been part of the bargain. Second, opening borders is a decision of each individual country. You want our products, you get our products and unless your country is in the Orient (because for some unknown reason we'll let Oriental countries set up grossly unfair trade imbalances with us) if you want us to buy your stuff you've got to let us in too. We don't force our way in - there's never a case where the US military launches a beach invasion in order to sell you Pepsi and a Hershey bar.

We're capitalists and we've had 200 years of practice in how to sell shit and we are the freaking shiznit of salesmen. We've got scientists measuring brain waves to see exactly what color the new wrapper of the Snickers bar should be to make you crave peanuts and just how much silicone Ms.October needs in order to make the maximum number of acne covered teens cream in their shorts. We have teams of anthropologists doing studies of your culture and your habits so we can convert our products into things you didn't even know that you can't live without. We OWN capitalism.

In summary, why don't you have a nice hot cup of Shut The Hell Up?

Regards,
Jim

PS - To all you fartknockers who dog Britain: Just how well are your country's former colonies doing right now? Oh, right. That's what I thought.

more...

Posted by: Jim at 11:47 AM | Comments (16) | Add Comment
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Stay on target!

House Lady came over last night with the counter offer and we put together a counter-counter offer. The whole thing so far has sort of been like this:

Us: We'll give you 3 grand more than you're asking for but we want about 13 grand (for a relative lowball figure of about 10 grand) in concessions, kickbacks, closing costs, etceteras. We want your refrigerator, washer, dryer, trampoline and pets too. You can keep your kids.

Them: That's mighty white of you. How about "No"? Let's clarify a thing or two, here's a better way to fix this and that and altogether this gets your lowball to around 4 grand. We're keeping the trampoline and the pets. The kids are negotiable.

Us: Those changes are mostly acceptable only your legalese on this one is a bit off so we're correcting it and we'll go ahead and specify a couple of things that were generalized before. The lowball is about 5 grand and that's really where we need to stay. We really don't want your kids.

Hopefully we'll have a binding contract this evening. Your finger crossings are working wonders!

Posted by: Jim at 10:24 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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One out of four Americans are nuts

A study from Journal of the American Medical Association says that 1 out of every 4 Americans have mental illnesses. Think of your three best friends. If they all seem normal then it's you.

(Hat tip to Electric Venom)

Posted by: Jim at 08:45 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Liberal disease or liberal psychosis?

Dovetailing nicely with Claire's analysis of the psychosis of the far left (previous post) is this post by Ace of Spades. Ace lives in New York City and encounters proselytizing liberals. He wonders if this behavior is reversed in predominantly conservative areas. Judging by the comments this is a behavioral problem particular to the left.

Posted by: Jim at 08:36 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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June 02, 2004

Fever in the morning, fever all through the night

Claire is feeling all hot and bothered, but not in the good way. Somehow she's managed to avoid the worst of the delirium dreams and has even come up with a frighteningly accurate look into the psychology of the moonbat.

IF everything I know is wrong, and everyone I am 'supposed to' trust is actually completely false, I refuse to pay attention to them, and all that world events stuff. I am *above* it all, superior because, if *I* were in that position, *I* would *never* lie or do bad things. I'm not like that.

I could attribute at least two of these ID motives to every loon I've spoken with, argued with or harangued.

POINTS: 5 points to the first person who can name the original singer of the song Fever, choice lyrics of which are the title to this post. No searching, please.

Posted by: Jim at 02:13 PM | Comments (11) | Add Comment
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No deal, yet

The sellers didn't accept our offer. A couple of the things we want were based on the wrong info so it's not too surprising. See, we didn't have a copy of their Seller's Disclosure (this is the form where they say how old everything is and what is included in the house purchase) when we made our offer. House Lady had an unofficial one that Mister Seller had whipped up really quickly but there were errors on it. The biggest error was for the HVAC system. The unofficial Seller's Disclosure said that the HVAC was 17 years old and the water heater was 7. Part of our offer included a replacement HVAC. Turns out the HVAC is 7 and the water heater is 17. No need for a new HVAC.

So, we're now waiting for their counter-offer with the HVAC replacement part removed, hopefully a water heater replacement added, and assorted other niggling changes. Hopefully we'll get it today and hopefully it'll come complete with a genuine Seller's Disclosure. Then we'll put together a counter-counter offer!

Have I told y'all about House Lady yet? No, I don't think I have. She's...motivated. She talks too fast, too. Like somebody from Maryland. On crack. We've been in Georgia for over three years - we can't listen that fast any more. But like I said, she's motivated. That first evening that she came over for house surfing said a lot. She went through the realtor listings with us. The actual realtor listings with all of the super secret house information that lowly buyers aren't supposed to have access to. She also left with her Realty/Company accoung logged in. Not that it mattered since she didn't really hide her password (slightly easier to remember than '1-2-3-4').

We've spent a bit of time cruising around the Realty/Company database, by the way. We can't help it. I'm naturally curious and Lovely Wife is female. No way we could leave that alone. I'll just say that they could definitely use some new programmers, at least one of whom understands the concepts of crafting a user interface.

So to summarize, waiting on a counter offer, probably will lead to a corrected offer. Still working the same (very cool) house. Continue to cross fingers, please.

UPDATE

Just found out that they're supposed to be getting together with their agent this evening to craft the counterproposal. They're not happy with our earnest money. For those of you who haven't purchased a house before, earnest money is sort of like a deposit. It's the money you'll be out if you change your mind at the last minute and stick it to the seller. We don't have a whole lot of earnest money - we're credit rich and cash poor as they say. Apparently the buyers are concerned that we might not be serious about buying the house because we've put in about as much earnest money as a speculator might.

I'm getting the feeling that brokers and agents just get in the way and that if we could sit down with those folks face to face we'd have this whole thing wrapped up in a half hour or so.

Posted by: Jim at 11:09 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
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Pele's cookin it up old world style

How long does it take to cook a chicken inside 2000 degree lava? The answer is surprising.

How to cook with lava.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 10:53 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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Honest Bloggers Quiz

1. Which political party do you typically agree with?
Libertarian on most issues, Republican on some, Democrat on some

2. Which political party do you typically vote for?
Mixed bag. I vote by candidate so there's no fixed trend here.

3. List the last five presidents that you voted for.
Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Gore (See? Told ya so.)

4. Which party do you think is smarter about the economy?
I think they're all pretty stupid about the economy. They all keep thinking they need to screw with it.

5. Which party do you think is smarter about domestic affairs?
This is tough. If we go by party platforms then the Republicans have a distinct edge over the Democrats. If we go by actual performance then it's pretty much a dead heat.

6. Do you think we should keep our troops in Iraq or pull them out?
Our troops need to be there until they are not needed there. The 'need' I speak of is both Iraq's physical need for protection and America's need to protect and promote her interests.

7. Who, or what country, do you think is most responsible for 9/11?
Person: Osama bin Laden. Group: al Quaeda. Country: Afghanistan. Culture: Arab. Fundament: Islam.

8. Do you think we will find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
We already have. We'll find more, too.

9. Yes or no, should the U.S. legalize marijuana?
Yes.

10. Do you think the Republicans stole the last presidental election?
No.

11. Do you think Bill Clinton should have been impeached because of what he did with Monica Lewinski?
No but he should have been impeached for his blatant lies under oath.

12. Do you think Hillary Clinton would make a good president?
Oh Lordy no. She doesn't make a good Senator and didn't even make a particularly good First Wife.

13. Name a current Democrat who would make a great president.
Zell Miller

14. Name a current Republican who would make a great president.
Condoleeza Rice

15. Do you think that women should have the right to have an abortion?
I thought they already did. This question should be "Do you think that a woman's right to have an abortion should be taken away?" My answer would be "no" to that one.

16. What religion are you?
Non-denominational agnostic.

17. Have you read the Bible all the way through?
Yes.

18. What's your favorite book?
Currently it's a toss-up between Everybody Poops and The Gas We Pass. Those get the most laughs from the kids when I read them.

19. Who is your favorite band?
I don't have one. Former favorite bands have included Def Leppard, Guns n' Roses, Concrete Blonde and Live.

20. Who do you think you'll vote for president in the next election?
Bush

21. What website did you see this on first?
First encountered at Blown Fuse

Posted by: Jim at 07:46 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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June 01, 2004

Don't point that fish at me!

It's the last day of school in Rogers, Arkansas. The 1st-grade teacher wraps up the lesson on rainforest animals and rewards the students with fish that squirt water. A summery fun toy that's also apropriate to the material. Karen Young, mother of one of the students, was not happy with this choice of gifts. Not happy at all.

A Rogers mother says she's upset after her first grader came home with a toy gun. Karen Young says her 7 year old came home with what she called a water gun on the last day of school. Young asked her child where it came from. He told her that his teacher gave it to him. Young says she considers the teacher an excellent educator but says this was a really bad decision on the teacher' part.



Assistant school superintendent Dr. Louise Standridge says the package that the toy came in says the toy is called a water squirter. It's in the shape of a fish.

We know it's not a toy gun because if it was the police would have arrested all of the children to enforce the zero tolerance policy against toy weapons. It's a squirting fish. Hello? Ms.Young? What's the dealy-o? Perhaps it has something to do with her history with firearms.

Young says two of her brothers were shot in domestic disputes, her uncle committed suicide with a gun and she accidentally shot her ex boyfriend when the gun she hit him with went off.

She accidentally shot her boyfriend while beating him with a gun. Why was she hitting her boyfriend with a gun? Is it a tradition in Rogers to beat husbands/boyfriends with guns? There seems to be a log of firearms discharging during arguments in that family.

I think a fish that spits water might be exactly what's needed in that household. When mommy starts beating on her boyfriend with a gun, squirt her with water. Hey, it worked to train the cat from eating the ferns, right?

(Hat tip to The Thief)

Posted by: Jim at 02:51 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Survivor begins

The contestants have been named. Who do you think will win? I'll reserve my prediction until I've had a chance to see them in action. Obviously it'll be either Victor or Lemur Girl. Munuvians are just that good.

Posted by: Jim at 01:55 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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Office Morons

I'm the IT manager. Do you fancy me?
Which Office Moron Are You?
Rum and Monkey: jamming your photocopier one tray at a time.

(Hat tip to LeeAnn)

Posted by: Jim at 11:57 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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My new hobby

It's quite intense and very expensive and it hopefully won't last very long. Ryan was into it. So was Clancy. Michele almost had multiple strokes doing it. Yup, I'm talking about home buying.

On Friday we got our preapproved mortgage and the House Lady came over the very same night so we could surf for houses. We identified a short dozen that we liked and House Lady and Lovely Wife planned on looking at them the next day. In a couple hours. Can you say "stressful shopping"?

Fortunately we managed to eliminate half of them so the tour de houses was actually possible in the time frame allowed on Saturday. Four of the houses visited were eliminated. That left two. On Sunday the boys and I joined Lovely Wife and the House Lady to see those two and two others that sort of surfaced while we were out. Both of the ones that popped up were quickly eliminated. Both of the ones that Lovely Wife had pre-scoped for us were very cool.

They each had their advantages. The one was closer to Dopple-G (important for commuting). The other had a workshop (important for manly beer drinking while using power tools). The one had a fenced back yard (we've got two dogs and three kids) and a sun room. The other had a mostly fenced back yard and a den. The one had a nicely sized eat-in kitchen. The other had a bedroom right off of the kitchen. What's up with that? The one had a big two-car sized carport. The other still had that workshop, and a nice dry crawlspace under the house. The one had a magnificent magnolia tree. The other...um...hardwood floors! Yeah, that's it. The one had landscaping and was on a cul-de-sac. The other was right on a major road and had lots and lots of things to mow around.

We put in an offer on the one house. We'll hear back by 8 o'clock tonight.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Posted by: Jim at 11:13 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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Three Thoughts

I was watching "Humanimals: Wild Makeovers" on Discovery Health over the weekend. This is a show about extreme body modification. Things like facial tattoos, implants, split tongues and other such things. They profiled several people who've gone to various levels of body modification. Two were relatively minor - the reptile man has the tattoo of lizard scales all over his body (face and head included) plus a split tongue. The cat girl was similarly adorned with tiger stripe tattoos.

The other two were quite a bit more severe. Cat man had the tattoos as well as a surgically cleft lip (yeah, the thing that people pay money to fix in their kids so they can talk normally), sharpened teeth, whisker implants, cheek implants, 4 inch long finger nails and cat eye contacts. Enigma has the tattoo of a jigsaw puzzle over his entire body with blue tattooed over his face and hands. Oh, he has horns implanted too. more...

Posted by: Jim at 10:54 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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William Tell ain't got nuthin' on this

Then again, there are no apples involved in this archery contest.

(Hat tip to Dopple-G)

Posted by: Jim at 10:23 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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