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so this is an ad for skin walkers duh. it was on the book as i was doing some random checking this morn. left is the inactive state, but when you mouse over the ad the right image shows, accompanied by a short burst of menacing hiss. check it out here. just a little bit of digital class to get your saturday started off right. you’re welcome.
I totally went there: it was magical.
That, to anyone, makes no sense, so let me explain. On the way out to Pracna delicious, delicious Pracna last night, Fish and I spotted an oddity. A u.r.l. on the bumper of a Honda. The rest of the car was completely bare of promotional materials that could have given us a broader idea of what it meant. Fish landed a pretty solid picture of it as we drove past the woman driving this promotional masterpiece. This morning, I dug a little deeper and, of course, that meant no real digging and as little work as possible.
It’s ridiculous. But, to each their own, I guess. The domain please tell me I’m not the only one that laughed at this is who-let-the-dogs-out.net. I’m not kidding. Across her entire rear bumper. Horrifyingly awesome.
But, as I’ve stated, i totally went there. The site is h.o.r.r.i.b.l.e. I can’t hold it against her, though, because the information therein leads me to believe she has other problems that are more pressing.
1] She left an actual job to start this company up.
b] She named the company, “Who Let the Dogs Out, LLC.”
iii] She’s much older than the assumed age of twenty.
Bethany who i can only assume was the woman driving the car; i don’t see a lot of cross promotion for something like this appears to have watched a guide to recognizing your saints and saw herself a dream job. What sort of person would get a masters in psychology, get eight years of experience in the field, and then toss it to the dogs? like that? This wreaks of someone who is mildly crazy or an obsessive dog lady. Or, it could always be that she went through college, found a job, and worked for almost a decade just to find the right guy with a large enough bankroll to finance her housewifery. But that’s so nineties.
And finally, more importantly, a mere seven years after the Baha Men posed it, the question has been answered: Bethany H. Call off Skooby, we got this one.
the office is where creativity and efficiency go to curl up with the latest Harry Potter, tune the radio easy listening, and die. But, there is a bright shining bit of awesomeness that comes with it.
There are perks to having your soul nibbled at by abstract crows, like the view from the thirteenth floor, the fact i’m eating free pizza right now that has three foods among my favorites all combined in a pile of delicious chicken, bacon, and hamburger: the trifecta of carnivore goodness, and it’s frowned upon to go over forty hours, which means i can jet anytime.
But those pale in comparison to a little chunk of email sweetness that i’ve grown fond of. The cc: or bc: fields are where the happiness lives. These things are great. You can involve people in a conversation they don’t need to know, want to know, or should know anything about. So great.
People think it makes things more efficient. It doesn’t. It’s still an email. People have started using it instead of the to: in order to keep others involved or to message an entire group. But it’s not the same, because you’re not directing the cc: to participate. You’re just letting him/her in on what’s going down.
You’re being let in on a conversation with no response expectations. So voyeuristic. Today what brought about this worthless post i was privy as a cc: to a back and forth set of somewhat strongly worded emails in regard to our email system. Last week i sat at my desk while about a dozen emails were exchanged in an impromptu satellite project meeting over something being held up with approvals.
It’s sort of like when you’re parents argue, but instead of walking to their room in harsh, muted, tones, they stand opposite one another in the kitchen while you munch a sandwich. As if, by making it so public and forcing you to watch, you will somehow see their justification for starting the argument in the first place. The label of cc: means, “come on into this conversation; the more the merrier. But if you could try and not say anything that’d be mint, because you aren’t important enough to be a to:”
In the typical office, where efficiency barely cracks the long list of priorities, email is just a more efficient way of spreading the bullshit. And the cc: is just an extra set of hands on the rake.
I’m all for universal healthcare, but not in the United States. As a resident of those States, and an advocate for the migration to some sort of similar system, you would assume the opposite. Understandable, but the American ideal would immediately render it completely useless.
To start of, I’ve seen Sicko. I’ve read the latest in op-ed pieces and vaguely know some of the statistics behind it. I know there’s a gigantic propaganda campaign against it waged by the medical industry. It’s much like the tobacco industry and the oil industry; the government inherently means less freedom; the service will suffer. Some of that may even be true, but that’s not why it won’t hold water.
We need universal healthcare. This isn’t a want issue. Those that want better service will always have private physicians and specialists to go to. This is about the dying middle class and the growing legions of poor or destitute. It’s about those that have to choose between a house or a surgery. There should be no question in anyone’s mind that this is a necessity and something that needed to be addressed decades ago.
It’s obvious that support is there. The corporations will happily stop cutting their profits in order to insure their employees. No one should have to choose between their health and financial ruin. It’s barbaric and, as far as top economies go, obsolete. The fact that we are behind in every category of health, except for costs, is undeniable. Some of the numbers are closer than others, but as a whole we are taking up the rear on the list of first world nations as far as overall health. Even if you factor out the over indulgence in edible materials, we’re the rusted iron pipe to the rest of our peers’ golden faucet.
But it won’t work. Years of creating a new Gilded Age have prevented even the slightest chance of an effective and efficient healthcare system from being produced. The emphasis on profits, the focus on consumerism, the priority of war, and the fear of socialism have rendered any attempt at such a thing as a universal system impossible.
Look at how the government runs things currently. We contract out as much military power and secondary support as we do voluntary troops. Contracts for planes, weaponry, and facilities are given out in no-bid, hand-shake agreements. We propose budgets that include ridiculous construction projects and reduce funds to something as invaluable as education. Medicare is one of the most inefficient and financially absurd programs to date. And, even when enrolled in the program, pharmaceutical companies have been able to charge astronomical prices for necessary drugs.
That ties into how corporations currently operate. They are built on a platform of greed. They are made up of a pyramidal hierarchy that focuses the wealth on disproportionately small percentage at the top of that pyramid. They are making the decisions and profiting from them while those below them do the work and eek out a living.
With these two entities, the government and the market, working together, there is no possible way for universal healthcare to be an efficient project. The corporations will fight to keep their profit margins high while the government offers contracts to the most connected bidder, not the lowest. The products will be ridiculously sub-par and borderline unhealthy, but when claims are made to that effect, the corporations will claim they have no choice because of the constraints of a cheaper product. But, that’s assuming we get to even that point.
Any attempt to put this through channels will be squashed like a centipede under a flip-flop. The medical industry already spends billions in keeping their connections. Their fear-mongering has everyone ignorant enough to believe it thinking that they will be taxed out of their homes. The pro-business members—I’m sorry, all—of government will perpetuate this impression that we will lose financial freedom into the succubus of socialism. The threat of raising taxes will dry up large chunks of the support even with a large campaign in the direction of healthcare for everyone.
It boils down to the new American way. We are fed messages of being the greatest country on earth even with substantial evidence to the contrary. But we believe it, because we want to know we are better. Things have changed immensely since we worked together to defeat a world terror—please don’t confuse that with the current manufactured and abstract “war on terror.” The first Gilded Age ended in a catastrophic depression. This one will do the same, but without such a fall, we will never see universal healthcare in any form.
The media and government are supported and lead by corporate influence. Corporations will never give up their right to generate profit. The rich will never give up their wealth without a well-funded fight. Consumers will never give up their right to choose. People who have advanced enough not to rely on charity will never significantly give to those who still need similar charity. The poor will never have a voice. And until, after some financial, military, or governmental catastrophe, that changes, we will be treading water down stream from the countries that used to look up to us as they swim quickly past.
The people in those countries realize they are a part of a greater whole. They know that everyone, even the richest, have to rely on someone at sometime in their lives. They know that without strong basic necessities everyone is hurting. They have found ways to exist with each other, not just to be around them. Until the “me first” attitude of even the poorest of Americans fades, we have no hope of something like universal healthcare coming to fruition in a reasonable way.
But maybe you know a way to change the nature of what it is to be American while convincing everyone else. I’m only going on what I’ve seen to date. Any ideas?
haha. awesome title, eh? I should have gone into journalism in order to agree to that statement you must ignore 92% of the writing herein; and on that note: welcome new readers. But anyway, enough about me and on to more about me. The real reason for this late afternoon post is to let ya’ll in on a little secret.
Ok, so it’s not much of a secret, but they sure make it out to be an exposé don’t they? Real gritty shit. Like someone should be surprised a television show isn’t completely real. He’s depicting survival skills, people. He claims he’s surviving in the wilderness with no help, but who in their right mind would do such a thing? Survivorman; obviously.
He’d have to be mentally challenged to go out and risk his life without some back-end support and then he wouldn’t be surviving all that long methinks. Also, if he were actually trying to survive, do you think he’d intentionally jump into a giant hole of quicksand-like mud? No. And that was friggin’ sweet. So please hold our criticism for a show that really needs it. Like So you think you can dance. Now there’s a show that needs a hard-hitting exposé right quick. Flexible bastards.
And I’m not even going to go into what the media should be doing with all this time they apparently have. That belongs here. See, I’m learning not to bore the threes of you.
A year ago I woke up at six fifteen. I was told at five the night before when, and to which office, I was to report to work. Once there, I was handed a clipboard with a few sheets of paperwork. On top of the papers was a map. It was derived from a Mapquest best-guess set of directions and was rarely completely correct. By seven-thirty the day would begin.
As the day, already in the mid-seventies, got warmer, the sweat would start to pour out of me. I’d drink two or three thirty-two ounce reused Gatorade bottles filled with water. I’d be dehydrated.
The day’s work consisted of moving large objects up and down stairs between a house or apartment and a truck. The lifting and walking weren’t bad because I’d already adjusted, but the heat was overwhelming. Pieces would slip in my sweaty grip. The strain of the overworked muscles was only compounded by the sun on the black-on-black uniforms every trip out to the truck. The interior of the truck was stifling and musty. The sweat soaked through each layer of clothes and my deodorant failed miserably to keep up. A stench filled the truck and followed everywhere.
The houses and apartments we moved from had their air conditioning units, if they were equipped with one, on a low setting to reduce cost. The places we moved to were either without, because it was brought along with the move, or not on to reduce the cost of having the doors open for prolonged periods of time. The nice customers kept the air on, but forced us to close the door upon entering or leaving—thus adding about a third to our overall move time. The very nice ones kept the conditioner running and accepted the cost. The very nice ones were rare.
Waters were offered and rarely a lunch would be paid for, but the vast majority of customers wanted the move done as quickly as possible so they could get to their unpacking or pay less. While understandable, this led to more exertion. On the hottest days the morale was entirely too low for polite conversation. The tips, erratic in size, were not at all correlated to the amount moved or the heat of the day.
Today I woke up at six-thirty. I get up at the same time—aside from a snooze or two—every day. I get to work and start a series of mind-numbing maintenance projects before getting into relevant pieces. Some of the work is tedious or repetitive or unnecessary. I work until four forty-five almost every day. I’m rushed only when a project is due.
I started today with an email. A site is being reviewed by a new employee before going live. The email was worded with subtlety, but wreaked of condescension. It implied that only small changes should be suggested because most decisions were made before they were employed here. It also defended the necessity of a redundant and unnecessary page. It was a pathetic attempt to show power in the office politic.
The head of the department routinely yells out of her office door for people thirty to forty feet away instead of dialing their extension. She speaks at a volume at or near the bark of a rottweiler. The words are raspy and strained with the aural tinge of cigarette smoke. The power struggle between personalities in the department is absurd and laces even the most mundane project. Communication is low and project turnaround is high. The office is a relatively consistent seventy degrees.
It’s not that bad.