Monday, September 27, 2010

Week Six

This is the start of our sixth week in this particular place. We still don't have a real routine down, but things are starting to settle. Unfortunately, things are settling into me not working. If I dusted off my good ol' BS degree and fed out a nice, steaming line cow flop tomorrow, I could fix that, but there are just too many things that are making me hesitate. Any one of them alone, I wouldn't think twice, but given the whole package of things that made me go "Hmmmmm," I'm going to tell the guy that I'm going to take a pass. If it was a year or so from now and we were more sure of what we were doing, then maybe. But right now, the whole thing doesn't feel right. I'll probably still end the day with a gig, just not a paying one. More when I know more.

In a headline straight from The Onion, "Tycoon who took over Segway firm dies in freak accident after riding one of the machines off hillside and into a river."

The multi-millionaire owner of the Segway company died in a freak accident yesterday when he rode one of the high-tech two-wheel machines off a cliff and into a river.

I'm trying real hard to suppress the little movie in my head where Mr. Heselden is riding at top Segway speed towards a cliff, yelling in a George-Jetson-esque voice "Jane! Stop this crazy thing!" then disappears over the edge. Yes, yes; it's so very wrong. But I can't help it. And if you think that makes me a horrible human being, wait until John Stewart and Stephen Colbert start in.

Speaking of which, in a move seemingly designed to prove no one in Congress has clue one about what goes on in the real world, Comedy Central comedian and host of fake comedic news talk show The Colbert Report, is invited to testify before a House panel, who then asks him to leave because he makes jokes like this:

This is America. I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.

Wow. I confess I would never has seen that coming from Colbert; he is usually such a fountain of reason and seriousness. Remind me again why we let these idiots run the country?

So, now that Congress has decided to not seek the advice of comedians on important policy, maybe they can get to work:

Congress is deadlocked over virtually every major issue still pending this year, including key economic matters such as a detailed federal spending plan and extending Bush-era tax cuts, yet lawmakers still hope to leave Washington by Friday and not return until mid-November.

Or not. Of course, given what this congress has managed to accomplish, it's probably safer to have them either deadlocked or at home.

At least the FDIC is keeping busy:

Regulators on Friday shut down small banks in Florida and Washington state, bringing to 127 the number of U.S. bank failures this year on a wave of loan defaults and economic distress.

Something freaky going on in space:

Researchers say Pioneer 10, which took the first close-up pictures of Jupiter before leaving our solar system in 1983, is being pulled back to the sun by an unknown force. The effect shows no sign of getting weaker as the spacecraft travels deeper into space, and scientists are considering the possibility that the probe has revealed a new force of nature.

This is potentially huge. What next? Is someone going to bring back the aether?

Of course, the last time the laws of physics were about to get tossed, it all turned out to be a false alarm. (Maybe.)

Is someone from Microsoft working for Google now? I just looked at the HTML being generated as I type and Blogger is packing my post with useless div's and span's. There is more HTML code than text, and it doesn't accomplish anything. And auto-save is failing about two out of three times. And a huge storm is rolling in, so I'll likely lose power and my post. I am in serious need of an on-line UPS down here in the lightening capital of the world.

Obama throws gays under the bus. Again:

A former U.S. Air Force flight nurse expelled from the military after revealing she is a lesbian was ordered reinstated by a federal judge on Friday in a closely watched court challenge to the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy.

The Obama administration on Thursday, however, asked that judge to keep the policy mostly intact, rather than issue an injunction against it, while Congress debates the issue.

At least with McCain/Palin, you wouldn't have gotten your hopes up. Also note our Commander-in-Chief seems somewhat confused about the chain of command; I wasn't aware it went through Congress.

Someone released a computer virus designed to break one of Iran's nuke plants in the worst possible way. It may have succeeded. Cyberwar is no longer Sci-fi.

And to round things off before I go make dinner, here is a more-or-less balanced essay on who should be in college and for what. This is required reading for any parent currently paying, or who will soon be paying, for a college education.

Gotta run.

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