Clancy's View

The Truth About Work

Just in case you ever get these two environments mixed up, this should make things a little bit clearer.

IN PRISON........you spend the majority of your time in a 10x10 cell.
AT WORK..........you spend the majority of your time in an 8x8 cubicle.
IN PRISON........you get three meals a day.
AT WORK.........you get a break for one meal and you have to pay for it.
IN PRISON........you get time off for good behavior.
AT WORK..........you get more work for good behavior.
IN PRISON........the guard locks and unlocks all the doors for you.
AT WORK..........you must often carry a security card and open all the doors for yourself.
IN PRISON........you can watch TV and play games.
AT WORK..........you could get fired for watching TV and playing games.
IN PRISON........you get your own toilet.
AT WORK..........you have to share the toilet with some people who pee on the seat.
IN PRISON........they allow your family and friends to visit.
AT WORK..........you aren't even supposed to speak to your family.
IN PRISON........all expenses are paid by the taxpayers with no work required.
AT WORK..........you get to pay all your expenses to go to work, and they deduct taxes from your salary to pay for prisoners.
IN PRISON........you spend most of your life inside bars wanting to get out.
AT WORK..........you spend most of your time wanting to get out and go inside bars.
IN PRISON........you must deal with sadistic wardens.
AT WORK...........they are called managers.

So .. someone please remind me why we work?

Stupid Quote of the Day

Here

NEW YORK (AP) - Former president Bill Clinton, quoting scripture from a church pulpit, sought to frame the 2004 election in moral terms Sunday and said President George W. Bush's Christianity doesn't keep him from seeing things "through a glass darkly."

BAW HA HA HA HA!! … CAN’T. BREATHE.

<catches breath>

There. Where were we? Oh, yeah - Former President Bill Clinton comments on President Bush’s morality. From the pulpit. Yeah. RIIIIGHT.

Anyone wanna’ buy a bridge? Cheap?

Celebrate Good Times, Come On!

Checking the news earlier today I saw this. The text is predictable, but what does a picture of Kerry, with his fists in the air in celebration, have to do with it?

He appears to be quite psyched over the claim that "More Americans Living in Poverty and Without Health Insurance in 2003, Census Bureau Reports"?

Dream Team has Nightmare

I called it!!! Poor ole' Allen Iverson won't be coming home with any golden greek bling-bling around his neck...

Alice Cooper Rocks!

First he did this, now he's been quoted saying this:

"If you're listening to a rock star in order to get your information on who to vote for, you're a bigger moron than they are. Why are we rock stars? Because we're morons. We sleep all day, we play music at night and very rarely do we sit around reading the Washington Journal."

'nuff said.

Delaware SwiftVet Blackout Ends

The esteemed New Journal, Delaware’s upstate newspaper, has finally ended its self-imposed news blackout on the John Kerry / Swiftboat Vets for Truth debacle.

So… Any guesses on which way they spun the story? Here’s a hint - the title; “'They can doubt all they want, but I saw'” Wow. Did they interview one of the Swiftboat vets?

Well… They started with an interview of Dr. John Levinson, a north Wilmington resident who said;

"My perspective is basically I've been down there and seen the Swift boats, visited their base," Levinson said in a telephone interview Wednesday. He said the atrocities that Kerry claimed happened in Vietnam, including the cutting off of ears and firing on civilians, actually did occur.

He said his job as a medical adviser to the Senate was to investigate conditions in South Vietnam. "They can doubt that all they want, but I saw some of those things," Levinson said.

OK, so let me get this right. Dr. Levinson has “seen the Swift boats, [and] visited their base” and “…went to Vietnam more than a dozen times from 1963 to 1989…”

Yeah. Right. So, since I’ve worked in the aviation industry, and since I’ve driven by Cape Canaveral, perhaps The News Journal will interview me the next time they need the qualified opinion of AN ASTRONAUT! Seems just about as relevant.

Ahhh, but it seems the News Journal did have access to a real Delaware resident who is a Swiftboat Vet (and member of SBVFT), Wilmington banker, Bob Elder. Did they ask him about any of the allegations leveled in the book?

NNNNo. (Or at least if they did, they didn’t make the article.)

"We take the position he was undermining the individual fighting man" when Kerry came out against the war, Elder said in a telephone interview. "He was accusing them of war crimes that he said were a matter of policy at all levels, which they were not. None of us who were with him saw or participated in any of that."

Elder also denied Kerry's contention that his group is connected to the Republican Party. Anyone may donate to the organization, he said, and some of them may happen to be Republicans, but "we would not be that dumb" to associate the group with President Bush.

"Any commissioned officer who in time of war gives aid and comfort to the enemy cannot be president of the United States," he said.

In fact, Elder said, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution's 14th Amendment blocks anyone from office who "shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion ... or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof."
"That's what we regard that he did," Elder said.

Yeah, definitely relevant, but where’s the discussion over the questionable medals? Christmas in Cambodia? Anyone? <crickets>

Levinson, however, said he had gone to the village of My Lai shortly after it had been destroyed and its inhabitants massacred by American soldiers in March 1968. "There was the complete loss of the dignity of human life," he said. "This is the kind of thing Kerry is screaming about. Kerry should be championed for criticizing these things," he said.

March of 68 huh? Wow. That’s the cincher. Kerry wasn’t in Vietnam until November of 1968. He knows less than even the good Dr. Levinson on this example.

So maybe I was wrong in my opening paragraph. The News Journal hasn’t ended their self-imposed news blackout on the John Kerry / Swiftboat Vets for Truth debacle.

The Wisdom of Bill

In case you've been missing out on the who Kerry/Swiftvets thing (and if all your doing is watching the major media you probably are), Bill has seen fit to summarize and clarify the whole thing for us.

He [Kerry] talks about Vietnam so much, voters start thinking it's 1970 again. But his old nemesises, the SBVFT appear and expose him for what he really is -- a liberal, pacifist old hippie who just happens to have five houses and a billion dollars because he married a successful ketchup salesman. The old charges are brought up - he lied about how he got his medals, he lied about throwing his medals/ribbons/jacket/pants over the White House fence at some protest, he lied about being in Cambodia. Like the kids in that Who song Happy Jack, he lied and lied and lied and lied and lied. And while the kids couldn't hurt Jack, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth certainly could. And they did and continue to hurt him by pointing out his lies as well as how huge his chin is.

I think Bill took some liberties with the story here and there (and he admits it), but basically, he nails it.

Do You Love Me?

I was working outside, washing the house with my Dad’s pressure washer over the weekend and GF was busy cleaning and straightening up inside. At one point GF came outside and asked, “Do you love me?” Uh oh. What happened? Did she knock a hole in one of my freshly spackled, sanded & painted walls? Did she spill a gallon of paint all over the hardwood floors? Break our only functioning bathroom (the blue bathroom is just stud walls at the moment). I must have stood there looking stupid too long because she asked again, “Do you love me?”

Me: “Umm… yeah”
GF: “Sure?”
Me: “Yeah. Sure. Why do you ask?”
GF: “Well… ‘cause I did something.”
Me: “What did you do?”
GF: “I bought tickets for us to go see Leo Kottke”

Me: “Cool.”
…

And I am truly excited! We’ve never seen Leo live. He allows taping so I’ve heard quite a few of his shows, but we’ve never seen him and know very, very little about him. What initially attracted us to his music was hearing that Willy Porter (remember Willy?) lists Leo as one of his major influences.

I’d totally forgotten about this exchange over the weekend until GF sent me this email:

I ordered tickets for Willy at the Sellersville Theater... it's a double bill with Martin Barre, which was really just tooooooooooooooooooooo good to pass up.

Is there any wonder why I love this woman?

Of course there are other, more relevant reasons – this is just an example. Of course.

(Now for the ultimate test – will she go nuts if I order microphones to go with my new eBay purchased portable DAT recorder so I can tape these shows???)

Cell Spam

I received an unsolicited text message on my cell today. Thankfully, AT&T was thoughtful enough a web address to “opt-out” of future cell phone spam. So I completed their silly little form (picture of form here).

My favorite line:

Additionally, if you do not want to receive email communications from us, you must provide us with the email address we should not contact.

Yeah. Riiiiight.

Potty-Humor

Matt's post of the see-through loo motivated me to learn more about this weird creation. And that led me to a blog I can only view by using the google cache (my web filter at work lists it as 'tasteless' - how does it know?)

Anyway, without further ado, I present the master of all things potty: The PoopReport.

Iverson – Not Having Fun

Allen Iverson, Philly’s basketball bad-boy says this about his Olympic experience thus far:

"It hasn't been drop-dead fun, like we thought it was going to be. It's been tough, obviously, with the two losses. But I feel like, when it's all said and done and we get the gold medal, then that won't even be thought about. The fun part will be standing on the podium with the gold medal."

Ummm, Allen… Remember Lithuania & Puerto Rico??? Both hotbeds for NBA talent, I might add – NOT! The previously undefeated (since ‘92) dream team has lost 2 games this year. And now, before the first quarterfinal playoff game you’re presupposing gold? I’m not a coach, but I’d bet that attitude is what’s led to 2 losses this year.

I predict that Allen will return from Greece with ever having had “fun” and without any gold he didn't already take with him...

Cruisin'

I just saw the most amazing Japanese cruiser bike I have ever seen. This thing looks like a one-off custom that the owner either built himself or was forced to part ways with upwards of $70k to create. Fortunately, said owner had the good sense to park it directly in front of our building where several of my co-workers can still be found drooling all over the pretty candy black cherry paint even now.

Imagine my surprise to find out that it's just the new Valkyrie Rune.

Pictures don't do it justice.

Somehow, knowing that my neighbor can buy one just like it, makes it a little trivial. But at 25k per copy (or 27k with chrome wheels) I doubt too many of my neighbors will have one....

I Wanna Rock!

On my way back home from the aforementioned task, I was flipping through the radio dial when I happened across a DJ totally ripping on Axel Rose for being a class-A asshole and I had to stop and listen. Imagine my surprise to find that it was none other than Dee Snider.

Sometime I forget that Philly is a major market and there are bonuses to living so close.

Weird

Despite all my intentions to take a night off tonight, I wound up having to pick up a new ballcock.

Stehpinkeln

Rachel posts about a new device being marketed in Europe that yells at men when the try to lift the toilet seat to pee. Rachel is right in all of her criticisms; she just misses the one obvious way for men to defeat the device. Simply piss with the seat down! That way your wife/significant other doesn't have to worry about falling into the toilet because the seat is up, instead they just have to worry about sitting on a piss soaked seat. Assuming she doesn't file for divorce, I'd be willing to bet any women with half a brain would simply give up and remove the stupid device. And any women with more than half a brain would learn to check the seat before she sits down. How hard is that anyway? Why is the toilet seat issue an issue?

I mean really. The crux of this issue is that women don't want to come into the bathroom and sit down only to find that the seat was up. And they blame men for forgetting to put the seat down. Men, on the other hand, do 1 of 2 things with the toilet. One allows for them to stand and most civilized men have learned to check the seat and raise it prior to letting go. The other actually requires the man to sit down, and due to some weird genetic anomaly, most men have learned to check the seat before they sit down. So, to recap, when a man goes to the bathroom, he either; 1) raises the seat to piss, or, 2) checks the seat prior to sitting down. In both instances the man checks (as in touches and/or moves) the seat. Women, on the other hand, have never learned to check the seat.

And because of this, a company named Patentwert has sold 1.8 million devices in German supermarkets.

Serenity has offered a different (and cheaper) alternative.

(This poster, when not in a hurry, actually prefers to sit when at home. It is after all his bathroom and he know how clean & safe it is. It also allows this poster to catch up on his reading. And write about himself in third person. Something he rarely does.)

USSR-PA

Remember this bullshit?

The courts in the Soviet Socialist Republic of Pennsylvania have upheld PennDot's decision to recall a Keith Emerich's driver’s license for telling his doctor that he drank beer. The judge ruled that Mr. Emerich could continue to drive, but only if he installed and ignition interlock device - a device normally used for repeat DUI offenders. Emerich was convicted of DUI 23 years ago, but has had a "mostly clean driving record" ever since according to the article.

It's a sad day when the courts can trump common sense and constitutional law.

Be careful of what you tell your doctor!

Not Dead Yet

Posting to resume soon!!

The Birthday Paradox

The birthday paradox states that in a gathering of 20 or more people, there is a greater chance of 2 of the having the same birthday. (Each person individually only has a .027% chance of meeting another individual with the same birthday. But, in a room with 19 other people and their chances increase to almost 5%. And the other 19 people also have a 5% chance, which together increases the likelyhood likelihood probability that two will have the same birthday.)

Anyway, the blogosphere is no different.

Happy, Happy Birthday wishes to Jim & Serenity!!