January 2012
Houdini Dog
Before I left to go out tonight, I locked my dog in her kennel, as I do whenever I leave. When I came home two hours later, she was walking around the living room. I presumed that I had forgotten to latch the kennel or something. When I went to check, I discovered that it was still locked, as I had left it. The mystery remains.
it's like i'm trapped in the 90's or something
notentirely:
i’m actually waiting until next sunday to see season 2 episode 2 of ‘downton abbey’ on pbs’s ‘masterpiece theater’….
maybe i’ll record it on vhs while sporting flannel and drinking zima.
Mmmmm….Zima
Supreme Court rules for church →
The Supreme Court ruled today that churches have the right to hire and fire their religious leaders without regard to discrimination laws. In many ways, I agree with the concept of this - churches have the right to decide who leads their churches.
BUT, the facts of the case that the Supreme Court ruled on are pretty bogus. A teacher at a Lutheran school in Michigan was diagnosed with narcolepsy...
“If we allow the current trend to continue, we’re going to turn the Department of...”
– Arnold L. Punaro, a consultant on a Pentagon advisory group, theDefense Business Board.
December 2011
Call Me Al - How'd I do? →
See how I did on my goals for 2011.
Dumb Jeopardy Contestants
One of the things that really annoy me about Jeopardy is when contestants make illogical Daily Double bets. For example, the guy in second place finds the last Daily Double with only two clues left on the board. He has $12,000 and the four day champion has $22,200. The guy in second place bet $4,000. Now, if he gets it right, he is still in second place. He must hope he gets Final Jeopardy...
Call Me Al - Greatest Day in Belize Yet? →
you say 'heteronormative' like it's a bad thing...
notentirely:
<peeve>
on the way to work i heard a cover of eagle-eye cherry’s “save the night” sung by a woman.
when she gets to the line “Girl you know I’ve got to go” she instead sings “Boy you know I’ve got to go”
now, i’m not gonna get all up in this, but since the lyric’s being changed anyway, i really don’t see why the line can’t be “Babe you know I’ve got to go”.
...
Why a hiring freeze is bad policy
One of the proposals to pay for payroll tax extension is to freeze federal hiring. Under this proposal, the government could only fill one out of every three jobs that is vacated. The main (only?) benefit of reducing the workforce is that no one gets fired. It always sounds better to just not fill a position than it does to fire someone. But, if your goal is to get a better government that...
Call Me Al - Belize Bucket List →
I leave Belize in 6 months - here is what I still have to do.
think4yourself: 1848, 1968, 1989, 2011? →
alcaniglia:
I majored in history in college and one of the concepts I remember vividly is that in many years, very little happens. Sure, they write things in the history book for every year, but if I were to ask you what major events occurred in 1983, you’d probably have to look to Google to find out. (My quick search shows the most significant world event in 1983 to be the bombing of the...
The Tree of Life
I must say that certain elements of this movie don’t suck ass. The visuals are absolutely stunning. The movie looks fantastic. If I didn’t care about things like plot and staying awake, it might be a great movie. But the movie utterly fails to capture my attention.
In many ways, this reminds me of another Brad Pitt film that I hated - The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Again,...
What crap
I want you to think about something. Think about the number of people who put in how many countless days of work so I could watch The Tree of Life tonight.
Writers
Director
Producers
Actors (Sean Penn! Brad Pitt!)
Camera guys
Special effects gurus
Sound guys (the sound was quite outstanding)
Musicians
Animal handlers
Editors
The guys who made the microphones for the innumerable voice...
Why not let the 'doc fix' lapse? →
One of the several pieces of ‘must pass’ legislation before the end of the year is the ongoing ‘doc fix.’ Essentially it is an increase in the appropriations for Medicare because the formula for the entitlement program sucks and does not accurately cover rising Medicare costs. But, maybe it actually does.
So much of what I see in government work has the private sector...
November 2011
“For technical reasons, all of these provisions expire at the end of next year —...”
– GOP Super Committee Republicans.
What was the “technical reason”? It was the use of reconciliation, which allows the Senate to pass budget bills that are not subject to a filibuster. Remember, the evil thing that Dems threatened to use as part of the health care law. The trade off of...
Love Life the Most: Turkey Baster Shots! →
Yep, I created this. Stroke of genius if you ask me.
lovelifethemost:
On the eve of Thanksgiving and the busiest night of the year for bars…I must tell the story of how Turkey Baster Shots began!
Several years ago (2007), when I was still in college (yes it is painful that time frame describes my college years) there was an ASU football game near Thanksgiving. …
LEGAL IMMIGRATION? (NOT SO FAST)
arewepayingattention:
Surprisingly accurate.
October 2011
Obama to reduce student loan burden →
alcaniglia:
The new proposal (carried out by Executive Order, which means it will really happen) caps loan payments at 10% of discretionary income rather than the current 15%. Congress had already passed a law which lowered the cap from 15% to 10% in 2014. Obama’s plan just moves up the date.
The real beauty of this plan comes from the loan forgiveness programs attached or already in...
Obama to reduce student loan burden →
The new proposal (carried out by Executive Order, which means it will really happen) caps loan payments at 10% of discretionary income rather than the current 15%. Congress had already passed a law which lowered the cap from 15% to 10% in 2014. Obama’s plan just moves up the date.
The real beauty of this plan comes from the loan forgiveness programs attached or already in existence....
Mexican Drug Cartels in Belize →
Interesting Washington Post story on Belize.
4 tags
Love Life the Most: There was a Boy and a Girl... →
My little sister - Congrats Katie and Paul
lovelifethemost:
And they fell in love! And he surprised her with a midnight proposal on her 25th birthday! And they lived happily ever after :)
Here’s the story of my Friday night last week (forgive my tardiness on my last smile Friday post).
9/30/11: I worked during the day and snuck off of work around 4…
Call me Al - Guat's Up Dude? →
Contractors arrested for fraud →
The amount of waste and, in this case, fraud in government contracting is astounding. While these types of fraud cases can be fixed with a bit of oversight, the waste can’t be fixed until we fix our budgeting process.
“There aren’t enough black people making maps.”
– Wyatt Cenac - on what it says about America given the surprising number of places sharing a name with Rick Perry’s hunting lodge.
September 2011
“It’s uncomfortable to admit this, but technology has made the ability to...”
– Chuck Klosterman
Al's top 10
I haven’t done this for a while, but here is my top 10 college football teams based on nothing but performance this season. I will not take into account pre-season expectations or expected future performance, but I will use my subjective opinion of the quality of the team that they beat. No team that has a loss can qualify, even if they lost on a blown call like Toledo did.
LSU - duh....
“This is what it’s like now. The new definition of success around here is...”
– An unnamed Congressman
2 tags
Oh my God! Rick Perry is going to be our next...
I don’t know which is worse - that Rick Perry took a course called “Meats” or that he got a ‘D’ in it.
Mandating vaccines →
There is a bunch of crap going on about whether Rick Perry was right or wrong to require children to get the HPV vaccine. Rick Perry defends his actions by saying he was saving lives. Other Republicans are accusing him of interfering in their lives by mandating big government. Mandating vaccines is bad in their world. (The false story that vaccines cause autism has not helped this debate).
...
I actually agree with Rick Perry on something →
According to this article, Perry has stated that he didn’t like the Arizona immigration law, was against building a fence, and wants to crack down on employers who hire illegal immigration. In my opinion, the most effective way to control illegal immigration is to crack down on the employers hiring them. You get an employer facing jail time for hiring an illegal immigrant and you will cut...
3 tags
dear mr. president
notentirely:
wtf?
My problem with rescheduling the speech isn’t the fact that he capitulated AGAIN. My problem is that they either didn’t recognize the possible scheduling conflict (which should have been obvious) or recognized it, decided to schedule it anyway, and then backed down on the conflict. Either way it was a dumb decision. What the White House needs to realize is that...
NFL Predictions
One of the most important factors in the NFL that is overlooked each year is the imbalanced schedule. For example, two surprise teams last year were the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Kansas City Chiefs. What did these two teams have in common? They both got to play the weak NFC West.
So, what does that mean for this year? Well, first we need to separate the teams into three groupings based on...
August 2011
Why Republicans don't care about the payroll tax?
Because it is capped at $106,800. So the guys making $1,000,000 pay only $6,621.60, an effective rate of .6%.
New TV shows
One of the results of not having a DVR is watching commercials for all the new shows coming out this fall. Here is my completely random of the shows and what I think will be good or crap.
2 Broke Girls - Mondays CBS. Crap.
Terra Nova - Mondays Fox. This will either be complete crap or totally awesome. I haven’t decided yet. Unfortunately, it is on at the same time as How I Met Your...
Debt Committee
Anyone notice that the Republicans put nothing but rich white men on the Debt Committee?
Dumb Question
Last week the Senate passed the FAA funding bill with the presence of two Senators. Since Congress is acting like teenagers and can’t even agree to recess, the Senate has to have a few Senators show up and gavel the session to order and then to close. Based on the arcane Senate rules, they could pass the FAA funding bill that had previously passed the House, which was then sent to the...
News Room Time Machine →
A college newspaper does everything old school.
Conundrum
Whenever I see Kristen Stewart in a movie, I am reminded about how good of a young actress she is. Then I remember that she is in those stupid Twilight movies.