I just got a paper cut from my engineering paper, and promtly bled on my 551 assignment for tomorrow. I'm so totally going to turn it in like this now.
In honor of the wonderful fat tuesday traditions, I offer up to my male readers...
A Gigantic Set of Jugs:
Some Lovely Melons:
And the coup de gras, never seen before: A Unexposed View of Barbie's Pair of Honkers!
to my Google toolbar for blocking its 1000th pop-up ad.
Can somebody tell me the last time it wasn't supposed to be one of the worst flu seasons on record?
SOECS, as they now like to be called, is either growing stupid or growing evil. Just today I've gotten two stories from them about computers that strike me as suspicious. Those without any technical knowledge should avoid the next two paragraphs, as it will likely be boring to you.
We got a hard drive from one of the aerospace professors and he would like some information off of it. Now we've tried hooking it up to one of the computers we've got lying around to no avail. Regardless of its cable position or jumper settings we just can't get it recognized by the bios. The standard procedure for brain busting problems is to call up Kevin at SOECS and ask him if he's got any ideas. Kevin's a really smart guy, and has got nearly every certification known to man, but the answer he gave us simply doesn't make sense. He told us that we couldn't access the hard drive unless it was paired with a computer running an identical operating system. If you non-technophiles are still reading this, a fog horn and giant red flashing "WRONG!" sign just went off in the rest of our heads. 1's and 0's are 1's and 0's. We're not trying to boot the mo-fo, we can't even get the computer to say "Hey there Mr. Hard drive! I see you!" Now if the computer won't even recognize it's existence, how the hell can it tell that XP made the files and won't be compatible with the existing 2000 Pro operating system? It can't, plain and simply so either Kevin deliberately lied, was confused by the question, or had gone retarded.
Tall Tale Number 2: I research assistant came to me last week and asked for a Linux computer so that he could do some Air Force related stuff, simple enough I say, I don't have any Linux installation disks but I can give you an old computer with all the necessary hardware and you can take it over to SOECS where they've got the goods, and they can take care of you." I simple confirmation call and I sent him on his way. The rub comes the next morning with a call from one of the SOECS lackeys, simply put he told me, "Your computer is too old, Linux won't work on it, get a better computer" Now that my uneducated friends is a farce if ever there was one. Linux will run on anything, and I mean ANYTHING. Xbox, Titan V navigation system, PDA, digital alarm clock, Pentagon super-computer farms, ANYTHING. Given 3 months and enough desire somebody could figure out a way to get a freaking 10-penny nail to run Linux. And you're trying to tell me a single 6-year-old computer, is incapable of running Linux? Pardon me I would have toss my bullsh*t flag, but I wore them all out rooming with Jeff last year. So this leaves me two options, either they deliberately lied, or they've got retarded.
So this goes out to any of your SOECS pseudo-corporate pirates out there:
I’m too good at my job to be fooled by your bush-league psych-outs. If you’re going to try to portray me as an incompetent boob, you better come to the table with more than that. I’ve had student try to pull fast ones on me with more success than you. If you wanna go toe to toe for the right to serve of platefuls of IT glory to the Aerospace Department you better go WAY over my head and put the blinders on the big fish, ‘cause there is no way in hell that I’m letting you use in competency on my part as you ticket to supreme control or’ the land. This job is the key to my existence here, I’ll be damned if you’re just going to push me aside without taking some collateral damage yourself. And acknowledging that point, do you really want to incur my wrath? Go ahead; ask around about me, I’ve got no conscience when it comes to these types of things.
Yes I'm irked at home splediforously George Tenet blundered it up, but the real reason I can't force myself to crank some heads about Iraq?
There is no way on God's green earth I want to be on this guy's side.
money quotes:
"Fidel Castro is a hero...I don't believe [he] is a dictator. He's the most magnificent human being I’ve ever met...He is the greatest man I have ever met, by a country mile."
"Not one shot has been fired in a noble cause by Britain or America since 1945."
I was planning on writing a cynical review of Valentine's day yesterday, but alas I stubbled over to Mucci's website and ended my plans before they began. Because he dropped what is perhaps was the greatest V-day post in the history of the internet.
Ultra Props to the Moochilicious Mooch-Mastic Fantastic Mucci-mama Mooch Man, for your exemplary awesomeness in blogging!
A-Rod to the Yankees?
Damn Damn Damn Damn Damn!
I actually liked the guy while in Texas, but now that he's going to be sporting the third baseman's glove for the evil empire I shall now despise him with every fiber of my being.
How could Leo Epstein allow this to happen? How could he let little Steiny do this to the rest of us? If the Yankees win the series this year, I'm holding him personally responisble.
until the 4 greatest words in all of sports.
"pitchers and catchers report."
because sometime you just need a little funny in your life!
TOG extends well-meaning 3rd Blogiversary wishes to the Juby! For those of you with out a lick of history knowledge, Juby is one of my blog-parents and is responsible for helping me make my own website so blogtacular. So enjoy your swiss cake rolls and ice cream, and here's to another three years of copious streams of jubilicious mugwumpery!
Dubya's ratings are plummeting, and it's got nothing to do with Iraq. It's because many of his supporters, like me, are royally pissed about the amount of our money he's spending on non-defense fried piggy container projects. The doomacrats smell blood. I'm not going to jump ship and swim for the S.S. Liberal, but I'm not a happy camper. High society is ready to drop the financial hammer, but according to the New York Metro there is hope:
money quote:
"A sobering reality lurked beneath all the boozy enthusiasm. If and when Kerry did win the nomination, he would roll off the Democratic-primary assembly line right into the $200 million–plus buzz-saw otherwise known as the Bush reelection apparatus."
just for the record, I'm posting this in the middle of my structures II class, with Dr. Hale staring right at me
I love sports just as much as the next guy...Nay, I love it MORE than the next guy. It's just that I enjoy it for different reasons than most. Sure I marvel at the ability of the modern athlete, their ability to run a 4.4 sec 40-yard dash, jump 11 ft in the air, or sprinting lay out for the short fly to center. But what I really enjoy are the tatics of the game.
I love watching the quick slant check off against a nickel blitz, I know that if you seal off the backside of a match up zone a drive and kick out will leave you with the most open 3 in the history of basketball, and I'm greatly amused by clean up hitter so far out in front of a perfectly thrown 2-0 change up he could nearly pull it back and take another swing.
And because of this quirky love I have a confession to make, I like NASCAR. Not any other kind of racing, just NASCAR. The rules of stock car racing are geared so that all the cars run at the same speed. This means that the driver, and race day strategies are responsible for most success. Change two tires or four? Can we go the last 42 laps on one tank? If we run with the 8 car, will we get lost on the high side coming out of turn two?
So don't right off all NASCAR fans as redneck good ole boys from the south. There are too many of us that appreciate the intellectual side of the sport.
So there you go, I've come clean to the world.
For those less than intuition-savvy out there, let me explain why the traditional media blows.
I pulled this number from MSNBC. For now I will concentrate on a single paragraph:
Job growth is expected to be a key issue as November’s presidential election nears, and President Bush could be vulnerable. The economy has lost more than 2 million jobs since he took office, giving him the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover.
Filtering out the normal opinionating and projectionism of what may or may not happen in 9 months and the flying of it under the "News" banner, and you still find a disturbing "fact"
the worst job creation record of any president since Herbert Hoover
Simply put, the criterion of “worst” is impossible to define. In a field of study as number conscious as economics there is at least a dozen ways to define "bad" and "good" any of them would likely work in this situation. But "worst" has a better ring to it so it makes it in.
I’m going to go ahead and assume the writer means lower number of jobs = bad, and higher number of jobs = good. However if the writer were to use the same logic through out the article, it wouldn't have anything to do with unemployment it would be touting the magnificence of the U.S. economy, because to be consistent he would have to define the "wellness" of the economy by the GNP, so in that respect our economy is the absolute best to ever exist in the history of the world. Hey numbers don't lie do they?
So that's the rub, it's not really the numbers that matter; it's the relation of the numbers to other important indicators, so as to put them in some "context". Now where getting somewhere!
In context, lets just compare Presidents Hoover and Bush 43. Shall we?
In 1929, when Hoover took over there were 47.6 Million people employed, and 1.6 unemployed, for a pretty little unemployment rate of 3.2%. Roar'n 20's eh? Now compare that to 1932 when there were 38.9 million employed, and 12.1 million sitting on the sidelines. This equates to a 23.6% unemployment rate, and a net drop of 8.7 million jobs. Now that my friends is a recession.
In 2001 when Bush took over there were 136.1 million people employed, and 6.0 million not, and an unemployment rate of 4.2 percent. Today there are 134.5 million people employed and 8.3 million not. This equates to an unemployment rate of 5.6 percent. All told that’s a drop of 1.6 million jobs.
Using this logic, It's an absolute forgone conclusion that someday we will have a president with a "worse" employment record that Hoover. We will eventually get to the point where a 12.1 million jobs drop off the face of the earth and nobody notices because it's a statistical anomaly compared to the 1.5 billion other people who are working.
All of this is of course pointless, since no president or political leader deserves any credit what so ever for an economy. Government can only slow, hinder, or delay economic growth. Giant recessions are a result of exponential government control, and giant expansions are the result of bottled up capital being released from the burden of taxation and control.
And before you jump on me for ignoring the numbers I just presented, sit down and think of the current situation in context. The Leftists of the media and this country would have you believe that nobody has jobs, the economy blows, and it's all Bush's fault. But 5.6% unemployment is the statistically average rate of this country since 1948. This country essential spent 20 straight years above that level in 70's and 80's (save for 1988). So before you go all Chicken Little/Doomacrat on me, realize unemployment is about average and it's dropping, and realize that we as a country are making more money right now that any country has ever done since the dawn of time.
The Campus Engineering Career Fair was yesterday, and aside from basically being pointless, a good time was had by me.
I lament any occasion that expects me to show up in a suit, especially job fairs where you just show up to get free coporate office supplies and listen to old people tell you that you have to visit their website in order to apply for a job (thus calling into question their own existence).
I did however get a chance to talk with Mark, the guy from whom I took over my present job 2 years ago, and talked about the days of yore. He was there as a recruiting representative for Raytheon, where he works. He was a non-traditional student when I met him, being somewhere near 26 and married when his senior year, and since then he's become a Dad. And while we were remisicing and discussing my future job prospects his wife, whom I'd never met before, and the little rascal showed up. So I've worked closely with the guy, met his family, and shared many a laugh. It's really too bad he isn't high up on the corporate ladder, I could have had an inside track to a job. Oh well it's good to know the man ain't got him down.