Hopes are but the dreams of those that wake.

Okay first, nobody who actually reads this blog will know where that quote came from. I doubt a great deal of literary giants frequent here.

I felt a great urge to write in the blog tonight, and I wanted it to be something of great value. Alas, after working on a group paper for class for the last 4 hours, I am fresh out of ideas.

I did go to our homeowner's association meeting tonight, and had an interesting time. This is only our second annual meeting, with the first skipped by me due to something much more important, an appointment with the CRAPT (again, if you are actually reading this blog I don't need to explain that acronym).

Drawing from my grandfather's high school motto, "I'll try anything once", I decided that I would be on the board of directors for our association. This wasn't altogether difficult to achieve, and thus I now find myself on the board. The exact position on the board will be determined in a board meeting next week.

In a night mostly filled with non-events, there was a piece of interest. While talking with the primary developer of the adjacent developments, we were approached by an older lady (late 60's). She introduced herself, made a very quick small-talk, and then proceeded to tell this developer that he ruined her life, took away her retirement home, was a poor excuse for a human being, and then after a few more insults stormed off. This due to her violating a covenent regarding types of allowed fences.

I was very irritated by this. People who cannot keep business and personal events seperate, and who fail to undertand why rules written on paper and known to all cannot be changed just to accomodate them have no understanding from me. I am a logical person, actions=consqeuences, period. Oh well, she is moving now, so I won't have to deal with her when I am on the board.

Now I must use the remaining time that I am awake to finish even more class work. Good thing the parental units dropped off a spare 2-liter of Mt. Dew when they stopped by for a visit today.

"I've been travelin' for some time...with my fishin' pole and my bottle of shine..."

Phoning it in

Just a quick post to check out this ability to send in posts from my
gmail account. I'm not sure how the formatting will turn out with
this, but otherwise I can see it being very useful.

Just Plain Stupid

GRRR, stupid site. First I tried to include an image inline and it looked like crap. Then I posted that I had it fixed and that didn't show up right. Hopefully this time it worked.


This is a snippet from a piece of mail I got regarding my credit card account today. Let me make this clear, this was physical mail that I got from my mailbox, not email. I like the card overall for its rewards and such, but this just defies logic.

With apologies to Mitch Hedberg: "There is no need to bring ink and paper into this."



I have a few more posts about other things that have annoyed me about credit card companies to follow sometime...

Death II (Electric Boogaloo)

Are the rights of nonsmokers being too highly emphasized? Do smokers have
any rights?" (Hartley, 2005).

Once again I am not a good candidate here to be devil's advocate. I think
the rights of nonsmokers are still far too underemphasized, and I don't
believe that smokers have very many rights. I would be careful not to say
they have no rights, as I do not want to see government taken that far. I
do in fact think that smokers have the right to choose to smoke. That is
their decision. I would support them equally if they chose to hit
themselves in the head with a rock. Again, their choice, and probably
ultimately less painful or damaging than smoking.

My problem is when their addiction affects other unwilling individuals.
Secondhand smoke that reaches any unwilling person is a crime in my mind.
The law would have a problem if a person walked by me on the street, gave me
a nice punch in the face, and kept walking. However, in my mind that is no
worse than a smoker walking by and leaving me in a nice fog of some
carcinogenic chemical compounds.

This problem turns into intense rage when I see a smoker forcing their young
children to inhale these same chemicals, especially when it is a confined
space such as an automobile. That is my mind is actually criminal, and
should lead to charges of child endangerment.

In my mind, smokers have the right to this horrible habit within a sealed,
isolated area of their own ownership. Anything outside of that is
off-limits. Yes, I admit that sounds ridiculous. So is this habit.

Reference:

Hartley, R. (2005). Management mistakes and successes. 8th ed. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley and Sons, Inc..

This of course brings up one of my favorite sayings that most people don't agree with me on yet. I say if it is acceptable for a smoker to make me inhale their secondhand smoke, I should be able to piss or defacate on them at will. Hey, at least mine will wash off, how the hell do I wash out my lungs?

Death Sticks

In my MBA class of all places we were reviewing a case regarding Altria (formerly Phllip Morris). The discussion questions regarding the case ended up pretty much boiling down to a debate for or against cigarettes.

Although I have made my viewpoint on this topic abundantly clear in the past, I thought these posts were interesting enough to include here. Nothing earth-shattering, but possibly blog-worthy.

"What is the ethical difference between promoting cigarettes and promoting
fatty, cholesterol-laden foods?" (Hartley, 2005).


The difference is night and day in my mind. Cigarettes are proven to kill
over time, the effect cannot be reduced or remedied fully even if the habit
is eliminated, they are addictive, and they cause injury to more than just
the person using the product.

Yes, unhealthy foods and cigarettes are both choices made by individuals.
However, one is a less than desirable choice made concerning a necessity --
providing the body with food and nutrition. The other has no benefits
whatsoever to the body.
I am unaware of many unhealthy foods that are addictive. Some are arguably
so appealing to some people that they might almost appear to be an addition,
but it is not likely a chemical one within the brain and body itself as are
cigarettes.

Probably the largest difference in my mind between the two is that eating
too many unhealthy foods generally does not directly have negative effects
on anybody else. Yes, if a person eats too many bad foods, has a heart
attack and dies, they may cause suffering to those close to them. However,
those people will not correspondingly have their life reduced also. This is
not true with cigarettes. Along with suffering through a foul-smell,
innocent people near a smoker are inhaling the same level of toxins as the
smoker, and suffering the same permanent, deadly effects.

Give me my ice cream, keep your death sticks.


Reference:

Hartley, R. (2005). Management mistakes and successes. 8th ed. Hoboken, NJ:
John Wiley and Sons, Inc..

FP

Okay, here I go again. I tried a blog on here at one point in the past only to deem it a failure. I couldn't find anything useful to add to it, and I never updated.
Well, Ryan's convinced me to give it another go, since he has managed to keep his going (at around the same pace I probably will).

I actually think it may have a chance of succeeding this time. I may be getting older and crankier, but for some reason I seem more prone to rambling, bitching, and or pontificating on a great deal of topics recently. That seems like all the more reason to get them out in the ether before they either clog up my head or dissapear.

Also, I go into it with no expectation this time. If I don't update for a year, so be it. I will when I can, and that's that. Through the extreme, wonderful beauty that is RSS (or ATOM...) people won't have to rely on checking the site for the rare updates, they will just magically appear. yay!