|
Friday, May 23, 2003
IT'S FRIDAY!!!!! AND THE BEGINNING OF A 3-DAY WEEKEND!!!!! Do me and everyone else a favor and be safe this weekend -- okay?
Today's first rant concerns AOL. I am not an AOL user, but I have issues with their commercial for the new AOL system's ad. See, when I was a kid, the Six-Million Dollar Man was my hero! When I grew up, I wanted to be Steve Austin! Heck, I wanted to be Lee Majors! (To be married to Farrah Fawcett would have been COOL.) Anyway, I turn on my TV and there is the opening sequence to the 6 million dollar man on TV, but instead of Steve Austin, there's the little yellow AOL guy! It's bad enough that Led Zepellin sold out to Cadillac -- but my hero is now the AOL yellow guy? NOOOOOOOOO! SAY IT AIN'T SO!
Saddam Hussein and his son Uday are alive and well and living in Baghdad -- if you believe the Wall Street Journal. Although the paper does say that Saddam is in "questionable mental health". And we are supposed to be surprised by that little ditty? He was "crazy like a fox" before we bombed the heck out of him.
This week is when the little darlin's in my classes get their grades from the past semester. And this is when I get the phone calls and e-mails wondering why they got the grades they did. For example, I gave two D's one class this past semester. One to a lady who missed 28 classes, and another who missed 30. How did they even get a D? Because I give them a chance to make-up missed work at the end of the semester. Both ladies took advantage of the make-up -- however since they missed so much of the class, they didn't do as well as they could have because they made mistakes they shouldn't have. They did things they would have known was wrong IF they had made it to class! Now I'm getting these angry phone calls and e-mails wondering HOW COULD I MAKE A D?!!!!! I tell them the D was a gift! They should have gotten an F! At least they don't have to take the class again -- unless they want to raise their grades. Can you believe the GALL of these people? Let's see you missed 49% of class days and you still got a D, and that upsets you? I wonder how long I would keep my job if I missed 49% of work days, with no excuse, during a quarter? Any guesses?
Another lady I had to give credit to -- even though she did fail. She missed 70% of her scheduled classes. She said it was because of a -- ready for this -- HOMO-SEXUAL STALKER! This stalker was supposedly after her boyfriend, but the stress caused by that made her miss class. I gotta admit, that's a new one on me. I've had students who's grandmother died three times in a semester. But I have never had a student try to get out of failing because of a Homo-sexual stalker -- who wasn't even stalking her! These are college students! I wonder if such excuses worked in High School? Surely this isn't the first time they have tried to get out of failing by going into the bizarro world.
I had another lady tell me once that the reason she missed her morning classes so much was because her boyfriend worked at night. It seems that the boyfriend got off work at eight in the morning -- my class was at nine-thirty. She couldn't make it to very many classes because when her boyfriend got off work, he had "urges" that she HAD to take care of before she left for class. Yep, TMI for me! Still, it didn't work -- I even told her she could bring her boyfriend to class so she wouldn't miss class and still take care of the "urges". She didn't want to go for that because she was afraid that he would have found someone else in the class to satisfy his "urges". At least I tried to come up with a solution. You have to wonder where the priorities of these kids are?
Finally -- for those of you in the Deep South reading this -- that large, Yellowish-Orange ball in the sky is THE SUN! I know we haven't seen it in about three weeks, so you can be forgiven if you forgot what it looked like. Get used to it! We should be able to see it for the next week or so. BLOG OUT!
posted by Eric at 2:49 PM
Thursday, May 22, 2003
Updates from the news -- there is a theory that SARS came from OUTER SPACE! It seems that the area east of the Himalayas in the area of China where SARS first emerged, is also where the Stratosphere is the thinnest! (High altitudes and thin air let the virus arrive on a meteor or cosmic dust particle. Of course, microbiologists are saying that this theory is just plain nuts. However, could this be the first salvo from the Mother Ship for the alien invasion of Earth? Hey it could happen.
I was driving in town this afternoon, and as I came to an intersection, the traffic light turned red. Here in the DEEP SOUTH we have right on red AFTER STOP! (This is an important point). Anyway, I intended to turn right, so I turned on my turn signal and came to a stop at the RED LIGHT. I look in my rear-view mirror, and approximately 40 yards behind me is this white Dodge SUV thing barreling toward me. Just before it crashed into my rear bumper, the SUV cuts left and goes past me -- barely missing my truck. The driver blows his horn, and gives me the finger as he blasts through the RED LIGHT WHICH HAD BEEN RED FOR AT LEAST 30 SECONDS! No one was approaching from the other directions, so there was no wreck. This brings me to my question -- if it is legal for me to shoot someone who is threatening my life, or limb does this mean I can shoot someone who threatens my life on the road? A Dodge SUV rear-ending me at 40 mph will do as much or more damage than a gun or knife. I consider that a life-threatening situation. So if someone's stupid driving endangers me or my family, can I shoot them?
AN-NIK A! AN-NIK-A! YOU GO GIRL! KICK SOME PGA BUTT!
Can you believe that High School Basketball player that signed a $90-million contract with Nike? BEFORE he has played an NBA game? Think he'll pass that up to go to college? How long do you think he'll keep the money after his career is over? What happens when he gets his "Welcome to the NBA, Little Man!" next season? And most importantly, can he hit the outside jumper? BTW, he's going to CLEVELAND! At least he'll get lots of playing time!
A 70 year old Japanese school Head-Master climbs Mt. Everest! BANZAI! How would you like it if he were YOUR principal?
Arizona High School students are taking water balloon fights to a new level -- actually the NEXT LEVEL! Yep, they have balloons filled with piss, shit and bleach. Euwwwwwww! BLOG OUT!
posted by Eric at 9:27 PM
Wednesday, May 21, 2003
Welcome to the Wednesday version of Morning Sickness! IT'S HUMP DAY! From now on it is down hill to the weekend!
The rain that was supposed to end today -- didn't. Now maybe it will end tomorrow? This will make three days that the weather service said the rain was going to end and it didn't. Could this be an example of your government lying to you?
In these days of war against foreign invaders, it becomes imperative that some civil liberties be suspended. The right to freely associate, the right of a free press, the right of privacy in telephone and mail coorespondence and the right of free speech must be temporarily suspended for the duration of this war. All powers over these civil liberties and the punishments meted out for violations will be handled by the office of president. Words from the Patriot Act? No -- they are paraphrased from the "Enabling Act" passed by the German Reichstag in 1935 -- upon the death of President Hindenburg after it was introduced in a speech to the legislative body by the Chancellor/President of Germany -- Adolf Hitler. The Enabling Act gave Hitler and his Nazi Party almost unchecked power to wield over the German people. And who was the enemy? Whomever Hitler said was the enemy. Is history repeating itself?
If we suspend our freedoms and/or change the way we live -- if we spy on our neighbors -- if we lash out on those who are different, or happen to look like Arabs -- if we turn into a police state with the government looking into our homes, listening in to our telephone conversations, reading our mail and listing what we borrow at the library -- then the terrorists have won. They have us running scared. That's what they want. The way to beat terrorism is to go on like before September 11th. That is the best way to give terrorists the finger. You're telling them "you don't scare me, osama!" Sure, some day there might be another terrorist attack on American soil. and there may be people killed. But hiding in your homes and living in fear is not the way to beat them. What you do won't change what the terrorist is going to do. Bottom line is this -- if we are scared, they win. Look at Isreal and the P.L.O. Sure there are suicide bomb attacks and counter-attacks everyday. But you don't hear of people hiding in their homes. They go out and LIVE! We should too. One other thing -- some folks rationalize the loss of their civil liberties by saying "If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about." No, that's not the point! Because TODAY you aren't doing anything wrong -- what about tomorrow? Government is very efficient at gathering information -- and it has a long memory. What it gathers today, remains forever! So maybe what you do today is not illegal. But you're only a Presidential signature away from being an enemy of the state.
On the question of why we have terrorists? Beats me! But I don't think it's because they are jealous of the United States. Their reasons may be valid -- to them. Maybe if we looked at things through the culture that spawns terrorists, we might see the way out of the problem.
Heard on the news today that the U.S. wants to develop penetrating, low-yield nuclear weapons to penetrate deep bunkers and underground storage facilities of bio/chem weapons. The current nuke for this purpose (according to NPR) only goes about 10 feet into the ground before it goes off. Not deep enough according to Donald Rumsfeld. So we risk going to war with North Korea because the MIGHT develop nuclear weapons -- we went to war with Iraq because the MIGHT HAVE developed nuclear weapons, and barely one month after the heavy fighting ended in Iraq we want to develop new nuclear weapons?
Talking to our international students, that's the one of the things they don't get about America -- and is the hardest to explain -- the US has nukes and that's okay because we KNOW we would never use them! But we don't trust anyone else with them, so we blow things up if someone else tries to join the nuclear club. Does that make sense to you? Try to explain that to an international student.
On the news today, there was an explosion at Yale -- hours after the President was there, and hours after the Terror threat level was increased. But the explosion was in the LAW SCHOOL! Maybe this wasn't aimed against the president or the nation -- maybe it was someone out to get some lawyers -- would that be really a bad thing?
On the local front, one of Columbus's finest was found guilty of simple assault for beating a guy with his night stick and dousing him with pepper spray two years ago. It seems that the guy who got beaten was visiting the "former girlfriend" of this officer. The Cop shows up, in uniform while on duty, calls the guy out on the porch and then proceeds to beat the hell out of him with his night stick and flashlight. What turned the case was the story told by the woman's two children who told the jury that the cop hit the other man while he was down. However he was charged with aggravated assault which could have gotten the cop 20 years -- it was reduced to simple assault which is a $300 fine and maybe up to 6 months in jail.
A city worker was busted for pot possession. The city supervisor got an anonymous phone tip that the gentleman in question was using pot while at work. He called the cops, the cops arrived at the work sight, brought in the drug dog and caught the guy with a small amount of pot. Simple possession. No word on whether or not the person who called in the tip is going to get the city worker's job or not. (Yep, folks do pull that kind of stuff.)
Finally, the Illinois hazing case just got hazier -- now they are charging one of the parents with giving alcahol to a minor, and her son with possession of alcahol by a minor. Gee, and I thought it was caused by TV, Movies and Video Games! Mommy gives little Johnny some booze and then wonders why things got out of control? What is the color of the sky on her planet? BLOG OUT!
posted by Eric at 9:41 PM
Monday, May 19, 2003
Welcome to a Monday! And another week begins after a "Honey-do" weekend. That's when I spend the weekend doing my Honey-do list -- Honey do this, honey do that....
This morning as I was heading out do finish more Honey-do projects, as I rounded a curve there was, leaning against a road sign, a hand-lettered poster that said "Please Forgive Me". Gee, I would like to forgive you -- but I don't know who you are or what you did. Could you please be more specific?
THANKS TO S. CREGO FOR HIS ENCOURAGING WORDS! I only have been posting this Blog as a hobby. I didn't know anyone actually read it! Again, thank you!
We are due for more rain tonight and tomorrow! Got to get practicing my back stroke!
We had some of our young folks out having fun Saturday Night! It seems that our little darlins have decided that it's cool to run down road signs with their car. We lost two Stop signs, and a "School Sign". Looking at the posts that used to hold the signs, they were bent in a curve in the same shape as the front of a car. I guess they hit the two signs having a GREAT TIME until they discovered "Hey, we're damaging our car." Then I guess they stopped.
Same night we had a hit and run head on collision! Two women were travelling on the major North-South freeway when they were hit by a red pick-up with no lights. One lady was briefly trapped, but both will be okay. The truck then drove off. I wonder how the truck was still running, but he got away. At least for now. Some Personal stuff fell out of the back of the truck. The police will have no trouble finding the driver.
The re-po man visited the Meth-cookers house yesterday. He was there to pick up one of the cars. He had a long discussion with one of the kids, and then left -- without the car. Last night, there were flickering lights inside the windows of the house. Just like before when the parents were living there and cooking the Meth. Could it be the kids are following in their parents footsteps? Maybe THEY are the ones that need forgiving?
Tomorrow is another day, and more strange events are sure to occur. But for now, it's back to the Honey-do list! BLOG OUT!
posted by Eric at 3:59 PM
|
