Huge in Japan
An urge struck me to upload a picture of where I work. As I looked around my cubicle trying to decide what to phtograph, the target of my impulse became immediately clear
Maybe I’ll make this a weekly theme… “Scenes From an Apathetic Cube”
meh.
Communication is
At work, we use intra-office IM a lot. It’s available both in the office and over the Internet and has it’s own dedicated server running the program. You see, communication is important in any corporate setting. Without the proper and immediate exchange of key points, your business is dead in the water.
Like a well oiled machine.
Why Does She Even Talk to Me?
Haitian Pain
I haven’t been able to get this image out of my mind these last two days…
The poignancy of this man’s suffering dwarfs my imagination and his pain haunts me.
I Hate Mondays
This would have been a good day to “work from home.”
On top of it all, some freak, 30 minute snow storm turned my 15 – 20 min commute into an hour this morning.
Getting Your Money’s Worth
One of my father’s traits that I inherited is a deep loathing of paying more for something than it is worth. I can spend a lot or a little on just about anything as it is not the amount that necessarily bothers me. I paid around $1,500 for my current computer and am absolutely in love with it as it is easily worth $3,000. However, when Burger king offers a hamburger for $0.99 and a cheeseburger for $1.49, I am offended at the prospect of paying 50 cents for a &$%@ing slice of cheese!!
Some of you may remember a couple of posts I’ve made in the past regarding our health care system in the USA. Everyone in the world agrees that we suck when it comes to health care. Well here we are with a bill in the Senate and our political wonder boys haranguing each other over exactly what the bill will say. This is good news, although bittersweet. Over the last year, Republicans and Democrats have traded barbs over this subject, using it as a club with which to beat each other bloody. Yay for politics in America. High five.
One of the sticking points has been this notion of government involvement within a capitalist society. The Democrats say that health care is so screwed up in this country, the government has to get involved and be a sounding board of sorts for the health insurance companies. You see, while the rest of the company has lost their asses this last two years, with mortgages as much as twice as much of the value of their house; no work to be found anywhere; and foreclosure now a household word… the health insurance companies have made record profits. Kind of like oil companies. In the last decade, where your income has raised a paltry amount amidst intermittent years of salary freezes and union concessions, the amount you pay for health care has doubled!
Is our health care now twice as good as was a decade ago? Or did the health insurance companies finally figure out that although cheese only costs 3 cents, a cheeseburger will sell for 50 cents more than a hamburger? Actually, it’s even worse… it’s extortion in the worst sense of the word. Al Capone never had as a good of a racket. You say you don’t like the price of your health insurance? You aren’t getting your money’s worth? Heck, it’s a free country and you don’t have to buy insurance or you can just shop around for something better, right? Right?
Health Care Costs Compared
This is the sort of thing that simply enrages me. Countries with the best health care in the entire world are paying HALF of what we do in the USA. Countries that our ignorant asses scoff at and proclaim as inferior.
Michigan Tears
I had such a good time making up the motivational picture in my last post, I had to do one more:
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Rivalry Motivational Posters
I ran across this “de”-motivational poster and just had to pass it along:
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This got me inspired, so I just had to make my own:
Go Bucks!
Just One More
Ever since I left Ohio, back in 1990, I’ve had the same conversation every fall.
Me: GO BUCKEYES!!!
Non-Ohioan: I never knew you went to Ohio State.
Me: I didn’t
Non-Ohioan: …
When you try to explain that when you grow up in Ohio, you’re an Ohio State fan, they’ll give you the cursory nod as if they understand, but as every displaced Ohio native knows, they don’t. For others, the school, the history… the rivalry… is academic. They can read about it, they can listen to your stories even as your voice raises and your gestures grow emphatic with each curse you let slip, but they didn’t live it. And at a very early age we gave up trying to make them understand.
But that’s ok. This time of the year, this week leading up to this Saturday, the last Saturday before Thanksgiving… it’s for us. Well, us and those misguided people cheering for “that school up North”. Our friends and loved ones can join us in our revelry… or anguish, supporting us even without understanding the depths to which emotions permeate, but this time, this game, is solely for us.
What started at the border of two states, a fight over ownership of Toledo of all places, has transcended the years. The beginning may be long ago, 1835 to be exact, but every generation has it’s own years, it’s own games, to fuel the inveterate hatred.
Mine was an entire decade.
They got the ’90s, but I get the 2000s.
Just one more year.
Is there…
Continuing on with one of my favorite themes:
Weird Shit People Search For on the Internet
Further proving that Real Life is funnier than Hollywood will ever be.
Actually, I think I find it even funnier that more people are interested in finding out who’s viewing their Facebook page than whether or not God exists.