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February 25, 2005
Ridiculous Reasoning at Wal-Mart
Wal-Mart associates in Loveland, Colorado have rejected a union offer to represent them, so claims a report from none other than Wal-Mart itself.
“The UFCW has tried to organize our associates for years,” said Terry Srsen, vice president of labor relations for Wal-Mart. “However, many of our associates are former union members -- they know better than anyone that the only guarantee a union can make is that it will cost the members money -- and that is why they continue to reject the UFCW.”
Yes, certainly the reason these "associates" are turning down union offers is because they are afraid of the annual dues. I'm sure it has NOTHING to do with the fact that any time "associates" vote FOR a union, Wal-Mart declares the store unprofitable and shuts it down.
UPDATE: Turtle thinks I'm wrong.
Posted by March at 11:20 AM | TrackBack
February 24, 2005
Disturbing Developments from mdHQ
I couldn't find my deodorant this morning, because the cats keep knocking it down / playing with it / hiding it from me in secret compartments / whatever, so I had to borrow Jennifer's "Pear Illusion" Secret. It's strong enough for a man you know. Here's the disturbing part... I really like the smell. I mean, it smells really good. I like the smell of pear. Do you think that's girly? I hope not.
Surely I won't be allowed to continue use of this addictive stuff. Jennifer likes it when I wear nice, masculine smells, or better yet nothing at all so I have the pungent man-scent she desperately loves. (Kidding!) But maybe I can sneak some in on days when she's not around much.
Gosh, why can't guys have cool scents like this. We only have stuff like "Power Blast" or "Adrenaline Surge" or whatever. I think the scent I usually get is named after a tornado or something. The real downside for guys is we just have no idea what this stuff actually smells like before we buy it. At least a girl can get "Powder Fresh" and have an idea of what it is. What the heck do these smell like?
Posted by March at 09:57 PM | TrackBack
February 19, 2005
Love, Sweetness, and a Hospital Bed
I read with some sadness yesterday that the Instapundit's wife has been hospitalized. It sounds like she'll be okay, with a little help from modern science, but this is never an event you want to be put through, especially with someone so precious as your wife.
I read Instapundit because I like to keep up on politics, but today I read probably the sweetest thing I've seen in the "blogosphere".
LAST NIGHT wasn't as uncomfortable as I feared. I wound up sharing the bed with Helen. Back when we were single, we often shared twin beds that were smaller than this, and it was actually very nice, and snuggly, despite the regular "wake-up-for-your-sleeping-pill" hospital style interruptions. I don't think we'll trade in the king-sized bed at home for a full, but it was a good way to spend the night, especially at a time like this.
I'm touched. I actually didn't know you were ALLOWED to get in the hospital bed with someone, but I guess there's no reason why you couldn't. Of course, if you aren't supposed to, that just makes it sweeter.
The internet, I think, does a poor job in this area. It's full of sarcasm, hate, anger, ridicule, but very rarely love. Good. It's about time we saw a little.
Posted by March at 12:19 PM | TrackBack
February 17, 2005
Bad News and Good News
The bad news first.
I have been sick since Monday. Jennifer and I went out after class to The Keg, where we were going to eat a fancy Valentine's dinner. But by the time we got there, the wait was nearly and hour and 45 minutes, and I was running a fever. So we went home.
The next two days I essentially spent in bed, not going to class.
Today, I'm at school, as I had a midterm. I still have a runny nose, I'm very tired, and I don't know if I have a fever or not, but my body is either too hot or too cold, but never just right.
Unfortunately, I think I totally bombed the midterm. I mean, probably the worst I've ever done on a midterm, ever. I am hoping I got half the questions right. Keep in mind, most of it was multiple choice. That's how bad I did. There were a lot of questions where I narrowed it down to one or two, but they were really obscure things that I hadn't memorized. Honestly, I just don't think there was enough material for a test like this. Some of the questions seemed to repeat themselves. (When in doubt, give two different answers.)
Now I'm waiting for my French class, which is going to be awful. I haven't been there in two days, and I'm in no mood to listen to French and understand it, and what happens is the instructor LOVES to call on me and ask me questions. And I honestly am not in the mood to do so. Part of me just wants to go home, since class is still an hour away. (I got out pretty early out of the midterm... I mean, you can only stare at the test for so long...) But I need to go, I just wish I could disappear into the back of the class and not get harassed. I hate French. I hate THE French too, but I really hate French class. I need a 2.0 to graduate this quarter. That's all I care about getting.
Of course the good news... I had the best night's sleep last night that I have had in I don't know how long. I only got about 5 hours of sleep in the end, but they were five amazing hours. Wow!
And Jennifer stayed home from school today, so I get to look forward to seeing her when I come home! We've got to go to the USPS and send those shirts back to Redding. Jennifer's mom convinced PacSun to take them back, even with the destroyed security tag.
Posted by March at 12:12 PM | TrackBack
February 13, 2005
An Elaborate Scheme
Currently, in American politics we have a huge gulf between the left and the right. The divide is not caused by a difference in ideology, so much as a difference in thinking itself.
Take this MD post from election day.
Earlier, in response to the Bush campaigns claim that they were leading in Ohio, the Kerry campaign claimed they were living in a very different reality and saw things in a very different way. And that reality showed Ohio for Kerry. Well isn't that the problem? The Democrats are living in a very different reality. And the problem is... their "reality" isn't REAL.
Perhaps because of the way they think, or perhaps because of the people they surround themselves, the left has come to believe that the world works in a certain way. The problem for them is that they are wrong, and that's why they keep losing elections. But worse, it's why they will continue to lose elections, because they are unable to turn the ship around. Here's an example of why, from the National Review's TKS/Kerry Spot.
Talk to any conservative or Republican, and they’re either giddy or shaking their heads in disbelief – pretty much in agreement that Dean’s promotion will stand as one of the all-time catastrophic mistakes in political history.To listen to the Dean-friendly liberal grassroots at places like Daily Kos, these reactions from the right are crocodile tears. They contend that when a conservative says, “the Democrats would really be better off with a guy who has proven he can win in red states, like Tim Roemer,” it is actually a lie. In this scenario conservatives secretly wish the Democrats would move too far to the center, in order to depress the party’s liberals, and thus destroy the Democratic party.
Of course, the problem with this thinking is that it dismisses the possibility that the conservatives actually mean what they say – that a Democratic party with a centrist face is a more challenging opponent than one with a stridently liberal face.
Why is it so hard for Democrats to believe that conservatives are telling the truth? In order to accept the theory above, you have to accept that every single conservative is lying in order to trick the Democrats into nominating Dean. This means that, even amongst themselves, conservatives would have to be engaging in a very clever and subtle ruse. (Conservatives, according to liberals, are moronic and out of touch with the world, unless there is some sort of conspiracy involved, in which case they are fiendishly clever.) In this "reality", conservatives hide their TRUE feelings from the public, making sure never to tell the truth in interviews, opinion pieces, even on internet message boards and blogs.
Does this make sense to you? Is the right really that intelligent? Even if it's some plot hatched by the evil genius Karl Rove, how do they keep Cletus from speaking out at the Trailer Park Homeowners meeting?
Isn't this, perhaps, a case of partywide projection? The left, so used to saying one thing when they really mean another, now believes the opposition does the same. That's why they're insistent that Bush "lied" as opposed to made a mistake, is it not?
The left is losing touch with reality, and here we see the DNC moving to the left with Howard Dean at the helm. They don't seem to realize that they are further marginalizing themselves. Of course, they will now pick up those all important liberals... the ones who supported LaRouche or Ralph Nader. But didn't most of them vote for John Kerry last go round?
In my opinion, this is the divide that will define American politics for the next twenty years. The Republican majority will continue to grow, not just because Republicans are having more babies in Jesusland, but because slowly Democrats (I mean real, voting, work for a living Democrats) are going to abandon the faith, and they're going to start voting for the other side.
What, really, was the difference between George W. Bush and John Kerry in the last election? I don't think voters saw a big policy difference between the two. Wasn't it that Bush saw things one way, and he stuck with it, while Kerry just wasn't sure, wasn't able to articulate how he felt, or perhaps was simply unwilling to divulge the truth?
The left's version of reality goes something like this: the war in Iraq was a disaster, Bush is only exacerbating the terror problem, and oh, the horrible economy!
But the war has been, by any reasonable standard, a success. We haven't had a single terror attack since 9/11. And was the economy really that bad? Unemployment remained low by any historical measure. There was debate as to whether a recession took place at all. What we really saw was a slowing of growth. We saw a crummy economy, to be sure, but a crummy economy by the standards with which we were used to. In other words, times were really great, and then they were just good, and we've been waiting for them to be great again.
Voters recognize this. I think they both resent having the left tell them otherwise. But more than that, I think they just stop listening after a while.
That's where we are. The Democrats, hopelessly lost, need to get in touch with the real world again. And I'm just not sure they'll be able to do it.
Posted by March at 06:20 PM | TrackBack
February 11, 2005
World's Biggest Hairball
My wife has an exciting new hobby. Recently, Fluff has been coughing due to his love of Melvin's fur... which usually gets caught in his mouth because he loves biting Melvin so much.
So Jennifer decided to groom Melvin with her Zoom Groom brush. (Zoom zoom groom... zoom zoom zoom groom... zoom zoom zoom groom! That's what the theme song ought to be, with the little Mazda kid and he'd say "Zoom Groom!") Anyway, she has been brushing him today, and this is the result.
This thing is solid hair, and I mean SOLID hair, and it's slightly bigger than a golf ball. Jennifer is keeping it around the house now (Fluff really likes to lick it, defeating the purpose of grooming Melvin in the first place) and her goal is to grow it bigger and bigger every day. Soon we'll be in the Guinness Book of World Records, along with some other things that like to grow bigger and bigger every day.
Posted by March at 11:51 PM | TrackBack
Friday Night Update
It's Friday night, and what's up at MDHQ?
Our new text message page was an instant hit, with my sister and mom both writing, telling us they love us and miss Fluff.
We went last night to Golden Gardens Park, where I took some photos. I liked this one, and put it up on photoSIG. Alas, I am apparently the only one who likes it, but you're welcome to take a look yourself and comment on it!
Previously on Daily, Jennifer told you all about the World's Best Cat Litter and our new stuff. Sadly, our life revolves around school and cat poop these days. Anyway, the new stuff is pretty amazing, as you really can't smell anything. The bathroom does have an interesting smell that I can only describe as a cross between wheat bread and coffee, but it's not bad, and it kind of makes one hungry.
Fluff, meanwhile, has been coughing due to insistence on licking Melvin all the time. The vet told us to go buy Vaseline and have him lick it, but Fluff doesn't really like it. Melvin, on the other hand, likes it so much that he managed to open up the container last night and eat some more.
Meanwhile, Valentine's Day is coming on Monday. Jennifer and I have decided not to buy each other any presents this year. But I did get her a card, and we just got a couple packages from the FedEx man.
One of them contained a couple shirts from Pac Sun, but the security tag hadn't been taken off. So my task of the night was to try to bust in like a crazy shoplifter. Unfortunately, I'm not a shoplifter, because the tag is sitting torn apart, still securely fasten to the two shirts.
I guess I need a metal file now. Fantastic. I guess I should have just gone to PacSun, but I don't have a receipt or anything. And now I REALLY can't go there, since I've obviously tried to tamper with the tag, and their machine wouldn't be able to do anything even if it wanted to.
Posted by March at 06:19 PM | TrackBack
February 08, 2005
It was the Best of Litter, It was the Worst of Litter...
After a little over a month of using The World's Best Cat Litter, we've made a switch yet again. The World's Best Litter lived up to all of my expectations, and more. It was super clumpable. The smell control was excellent. All I ever had to do was add more litter to the box and it was fresh and clean. Unfortunately, the cats weren't as impressed with it as I was. They refused to dig in it, instead doing their business on the top of the litter, and then leaving it there. Or, like Fluff did, doing their business and then proceeding to dig at the side of the box (not actually touching the litter) for anywhere from five to thirty minutes. Melvin wouldn't dig before he went, so he'd end up just sitting down directly on the litter and going, causing a big mess all over himself, which he'd drag on the carpet, the floor, and one morning, our bed.
Michael and I went to my new favorite store today (Mud Bay Granary) to try a new litter, one that cat's might find more pleasing. We ended up buying two types of litter to mix, Cat Country Elite, and Vetbasis Herbal Cat Litter. Both together ended up being the same price as The World's Best Cat Litter, and we ended up with a little more. The Cat Country is in pellet form, so it doesn't stick to their hair when the use the restroom, and the Vetbasis makes it more absorbant and it smells like Lavender!
I hope this one works out better than World's Best. We brought it home and Fluff got into the box and began to dig crazily, like he used to when we used clay litters, so I think that's a good sign. We'll see how it stands up compared to World's Best Cat Litter in terms of smell, clumpability, and longetivity.
(Also, World's Best was made of corn, and smelt like corn tortillas, effectively ending my addiction to the extremely unhealthy tacos from Jack in the Box. -- March)
Posted by December at 10:45 PM | TrackBack
February 04, 2005
Hissy Fit in the Blogosphere
Remember a few days back, I linked to a picture which overlayed a toy doll's head over the "captured hostage" that turned out to be fake.
Turns out a 13 year old boy took the image and put it on his site. Well, some blogger had a hissy fit about it, and it wasn't even the guy who created the image in the first place. HundredPercenter has a pretty good take on it.
Well, the end result is the blogger finally apologized, and the 13 year old boy had his website taken down by his mom. (Ouch!)
What's this all about? It's because the 13 year old didn't follow the rules of blogging. Whoop de do. He's 13! Who cares?! I used to end up with all sorts of things ripped off from me. Some people would just blatantly rip it off too, and I mean, even say stuff like "I ripped this idea from Mike @ XX." And you know what? I was very cool with that. I was honored by it! Here was a cool guy who looked at what I'd done and said "I like that, I want to do that too!"
And you know, I mean really, isn't that just the whole point of blogging? Aren't these people just sitting around reading each other's websites and linking to each other and it's just one big massive orgy of "I like that, I want to do that too." Isn't that what blogging really is? When I started writing my thoughts on the internet, the year was 1996, and there were maybe 50 other people doing it, at the most. Now there's millions! And really, don't they all have the exact same website, basically? I'm using MovableType because I got tired of doing everything by hand, and I finally broke down and said "I'm going to TRY to be kind of modern." And right now, because I haven't bothered fixing anything yet, it's using the default template. It doesn't even link back to the main site, or the message boards.
Besides, sometimes you just have to go with the flow. We had a guy who ripped off my parents website WHOLESALE. I mean, completely ripped off the site and just changed some of the pictures. And what could you do about it? We just had to laugh at the guy.
Gosh, I remember I had a friend who was working for Boeing, and they wanted her to design a Boeing website. I mean, like THE Boeing website. It was that long ago. And she didn't know anything about HTML. She kept calling me up asking for advice. Like she'd call up asking how you put an image in. Or a hyperlink for that matter. (Why didn't I get paid to do the Boeing website?) So finally she went to netscape.com, copied their code, and changed some graphics.
And you want to know how I came up with the design for the marchdecember front page? If it looks familiar to you, it should. I wasn't coming up with my own design very well... so I finally went and stole one. I got on the Wayback Machine, found my old website back in 2002, and ripped off the HTML. (I don't have the site on Jennifer's computer or my computer... both had hard drive crashes... the original is on a computer stored at my parents house, waiting to have it's HDD retrieved.)
I mean, seriously, this is why I disappeared from the internet for so long. Too many people are too pathetic and too immature. It's why I've been willing to grow so incredibly slowly. I'm tired of people who get so upset about really stupid stuff like this. People have to know when something just isn't worth the trouble.
Honestly, get off your computer and go outside.
Posted by March at 09:05 AM | TrackBack
February 03, 2005
Rossi Revote Rally
There was a Revote rally for Dino Rossi here on campus today. I showed up a few minutes late, as I'd forgotten about it entirely (and wasn't really very much interested), but there were some libertarians headed that way so I decided to follow and see what would happen.
As it turns out, the rally started at 12:20, and was supposed to end at 12:50. They had an open mic where just about anybody could speak. But hardly anybody did. There were maybe 40 people there, 45 if you count the libertarians. I don't know how many people at the rally were actual members of the UWCR (UW College Republicans), how many came for the rally itself, and how many were just passerbys.
It was actually kind of sad. I know I'm on a liberal college campus, but there certainly wasn't a lot of support. I also found it a little aggravating that a similar sized rally in protest of the war would have attracted television news crews, maybe even a helicopter or two. There was no such media presence at this rally. I did see a reporter writing down some notes, but she was probably doing so for the Daily, rather than the Seattle Times or P-I.
It's probably for the best. I'm sure the headlines would have been something like "Few Show Up for Revote Rally". And I suppose they'd be right.
UPDATE: Apparently some idiot made a death threat against Gov. Gregoire.
But, and maybe I'm just ignorant here, wouldn't death threats be pretty commonplace for an elected official such as the Governor? I'm not sure why it's making the news.
Why didn't I make "Few Show Up For Revote Rally" the title of this?!
UPDATE 2: I'm told that the rally was on KIRO 7 News. Maybe they flew over in Chopper 7.
If you were at the rally, or saw it on TV, or just want to comment on the whole Rossi thing, feel free to say something on our message boards.
Posted by March at 12:58 PM | TrackBack
February 01, 2005
Today's Example of the High Standards of Journalism
Remember when Tom Oliphant told us how the Swift Vets story didn't meet the high standards of journalism? But look at the things that do!
Today the press services released information on an apparent kidnapping of a U.S. soldier in Iraq. Here's the thing with news from Iraq... good news is ignored, while potentially bad news leads.
But it turns out this potentially bad news wasn't news at all. The kidnapped "soldier" was a TOY DOLL. Backcountry Conservative has a good read on things, including an obviously fake picture.
What seems to be happening here is that the MSM is becoming a conveyor of raw data... with the blogs doing all the real analysis. Unless the data reflects negatively on certain causes, in which case the data is never conveyed in the first place.
Perhaps this is the future model for the news media in general... gone will be the days when the MSM would tell you the news and then tell you what it meant. But in order for this to happen, ALL information would have to be conveyed, and that makes individual news operations useless... news would be raw, and you would no longer care whether you got your news from Peter Jennings or the Bachelorette.
Just my musings on the subject.
Update: Check this out. In fairness this seems like something one couldn't find very quickly, but I mean, the story was hardly up and it was already debunked. Crazy.
Posted by March at 04:12 PM | TrackBack
Other Restaurants That Need to Open Up in Seattle
My last entry on Del Taco in Seattle resulted in a flood of reader mail. HAHAHAHA! Just kidding. But seriously, it got me to thinking about a lot of the restaurants that ought to be here, but aren't.
Obviously, Del Taco is one of them. It IS the second largest taco chain in America. And other people agree with me, that we need a Del Taco here.
Another restaurant that would be nice here is one that often haunts my dreams. I haven't had one for a while, probably because I haven't been in California since the summer, but I have a recurring dream where I find out that In-N-Out has opened up a restaurant here, only to discover that it is NOT in fact In-N-Out, but some sort of bizarre imposter. Usually they will serve, for example, Dubble Dubbles, or in my latest dream, they only served pancakes and breakfast. Sometimes I will notice afterwards that there is a clever misspelling, like Inn-n-Out or In & Out.
In each and every dream, however, I get very excited about my find and take Jennifer there, only to look like a total idiot. In real life, the opening of an In-n-Out in Seattle is virtually impossible. The restaurants are all family owned, and ingredients are shipped in fresh, not frozen. That means everything is put on a refrigerated truck and sent to the appropriate store. Seattle is too far away from any other In-N-Out to be included in this distribution chain.
That's not to say I wouldn't still get my hopes up. A year and a half ago, right before Jennifer and I were married, we saw an In-N-Out semi-truck on an overpass in Federal Way. It drove by so quickly it almost seemed unreal, but sure enough we'd both seen it.
What it was doing here one could only speculate, as no one at In-N-Out corporate was willing to answer my questions, but someone at the Redding store did mention that there had been an In-N-Out cookout in Seattle a while back. Maybe he was right... or maybe the company was conducting secret trial runs for their future expansion plans.
All right, all right, I know I'm living in fantasy land.
But there's another fast food chain that is delicious, unique, and even homegrown, yet not one single restaurant has opened in the Seattle area.
I'm talking about, of course, Burgerville. Burgerville is a Portland area tradition, and it makes some of the best fast food imaginable. It would almost certainly be a hit in Seattle, yet the furthest north this chain has dared to venture is Centralia.
My memories of Burgerville date back almost to the very beginning, when my grandma would take us there as kids. Even as an adult, when I went down to Oregon I'd usually end up taking grandma out to Burgerville, and I remember very distinctly the day that I took her and Jennifer.
There's good news though, as it has been reported that Burgerville is looking to expand to the Seattle area. That would keep delicious Tillamook Cheeseburgers in my tummy.
Of course, I'd still miss Grandma.