Land of Oz

Consumers Energy

It's bad enough that the price of natural gas has doubled since last year. Normal inflation - right, yeah. Next thing you know we'll be invading some Middle East country for more petroleum products - err, sorry that's another gripe.

Anyway, yesterday I get this email from Consumers Energy customer service - at least that what's I assumed seeing it was signed by a Customer Service rep, the return address was customer and the number listed to contact was Customer Service. As you'll see I was mistaken.

Basically it says (not in so many words naturally) that they think I've started lying about my meter reading and they have to send someone to read it. I should note that I've been reading my meter since it's in the basement for three years. So I call the number given, dive through various voice menus and finally get a human voice. I talk to her and she tells me that they can schedule someone tomorrow (Dec 30) from 8 - 4 to read the meter. They will call me first - in fact she asked for my phone number specifically - before they stop and read it.

So you can guess what's going to happen - right? I sit around all day waiting for the phone to ring. Finally I call the customer service number again around 3pm to find out what's going on. I'm told that I'm still on the schedule for a call and a read.

It's finally 6:30pm and I call the number again. I talk to what I'm guessing was some kind of a supervisor. Naturally, I'm not a happy camper and ask her why I sat around all day waiting for someone to call. She says they don't call. She says there was someone there a 2:16pm. She also tells me that customer service doesn't handle this and why would I think that. I tell her that I get this email that was signed by a Customer Service rep, with a return address of customer and that it had a number listed to contact titled Customer Service - duh?

So now they're going to reschedule...

Cell Phones

Have you got the latest in cell phones from Santa this year? I'll admit to being a near luddite in many things and cell phones is definitely one of those. TV shows on your cell phone. You can tell they aren't marketing the older generation here. I'm lucky to be able to read a telephone number on the screen let alone watch the Green Bay Packers get beat again. The way I figure it, the back of Star would be about 1/8" wide in a normal huddle picture. Can you image instant replay on that tiny little screen? I want to see details on TV. Let's face it, I'm not watching Stacked or reruns of Cleopatra 2025 to follow the plot.

And as if people need something else to make cell phones irritating. Cell phone ring tones - sheesh. Why on earth do people need three stanzas of the Star Wars theme song to let them know their cell phone has a call? It's not like the phone tone sounds good. It's like those old synthesizer melodies from the early 80s. Nothing but raucous sawtooth and square waves modulated to resemble some hit tune. You'd get better sounding noise from Fibber McGee's closet.

It's bad enough watching some cretin in an SUV flying down the interstate with their phone glued to an ear. Now you'll have to watch them as they have a phone glued to an eye. However, I suppose it will save them from having to flip over the DVD in their player while dodging little Hondas and Mazdas in the slow lane.

Dogs and Lawyers

Pit Bull Owner Convicted of Manslaughter
Large's attorney contended that prosecutors never proved her ownership of the pit bulls that attacked Sullivan, and that Large had no knowledge that her dogs were dangerous.

Another dog bite case. This time it was an 82 year old woman who was shredded by the dogs. But what gets me is the lawyer's statement. What he's saying is that not only can't you prove Large owned these dogs, but that she didn't know her dogs (which she might not own) are dangerous.

Why is there a need to prove that she didn't know her dogs were dangerous if they weren't her dogs in the first place?

And yes, while I will agree not all Pit Bulls are dangerous, why do their names come up so often in dog attack cases? Really, when's the last time you read about someone's beagle or golden retriever or gerbil tearing someone's face off?

We're Losing

The war on terror. We are losing, if not lost. We've argued how to bring ourselves down to their level and have by most reports done so. Our country has taken Orwell's newspeak to new highs. It's not kidnapping, it's renditions. It's not torture if they don't die, it's enhanced interrogations. It's not a bureaucratic nightmare that can't even figure out what to do in a hurricane, it's the Department of Homeland Security - an Orwellian term if I've ever heard one. The government is spying on us with no legal reason other than they say they can. Now like many foreign countries we have the national military watching what we do and getting ready to control what we do.

At the same time, our infrastructure is crumbling around us. Companies are going bankrupt faster than their workers can be laid off. Crime is rising in many places. The state I call home is going to hell faster than the factories here can crumble. Every negative list - crime, poverty, segregation - that comes out, puts Michigan and its cities in the top twenty or higher. The only thing that isn't rusting away here is the guns kids use to shoot each other on the street with.

Soon we won't have to worry about other third-world police states, we will be one.

King Bush

I don't get it. How does he keep getting away with it? He lied about all the reasons for going to war with Iraq. There was this dead or alive thing with Osama - and he's completely off the screen now. He's sold out the environment to his cronies who've paid the big bucks. Haliburton is making so much money off this country that Cheney will probably have to declare himself a sovereign nation. And to top it off, he's now listening and watching whatever anyone does - anywhere at anytime for no reason he has to come up with - other than he's the president and he can if he wants.

He's spent billions on the Office for Homeland Defense and when it's really needed - like in a hurricane - it falls flat on its face. His agencies can spy on citizens but can't figure out that there's a stadium full of American refugees that are starving and living in filth for a week. He's planned a trip to Mars and back and our country is now dependent on paying Russia $20 million a flight to take food and water to the International Space Station. We can't even get enough people up there to run it, let alone expand it.

What the hell is he doing to our country? It's going to cost everyone 40-60% more to heat their house this year and about %100 more to put gas in their car. Companies are going bankrupt right and left, leaving their creditors in the lurch, but the common klutz buried under medical bills and fuel costs, whose savings have disappeared in some company's bankruptcy, won't be able to do the same. The country is going to hell and he's spending his political capital without a pause to hurry it along its way.

Boo Hoo

[Terrell] Owens Says He Felt 'Used' by Eagles
Can you believe this? Of course he's been used, that what happens to employees by their employers. But look what his "users" offered. In his seven-year, $48.97 million contract, Owens was set to earn base salaries of $770,000 in 2006, $5.5 million in 2007, $6.5 million in 2008, $7.5 million in 2009, and $8.5 million in 2010.

I am so sick of overpaid athletes who feel they have to celebrate every ground gain or tackle with some theatrics that would make Martha Graham cringe. So you tackled the guy for only a 1 yard gain - that's what you're supposed to do. Gained 4 yards and made a first down - don't celebrate - it's not like you've done something that hasn't been done before.

Take your swelled head and wallet and come down to earth. Yeah, yeah, I've heard, you only have a few years to earn your keep before you become old and decrepit. Yeah - right. Like any of us are going to live forever. You're going to make more in your 4 years of playing than most of us will in a lifetime.

Fooey on you - I should be so used...

Snow 1

What the hell is wrong with you people!!! I got hit this morning driving to work. I was stopped at a traffic light and some guy in a GMC1500 pickup truck runs into the back of me. He said he slid and hit me. What part of winter, snow and ice, don't you understand? We've had several inches of snow this week and the road had a nice rough coating of snow and slush over a slick undercoat of ice - yes, ice. That's what forms when it's below freezing and there's been snow for a week.

And you know what? As we waited there for a cop to show up (which they did surprisingly quickly) you could hear cars whizzing (you know that whirr-whirr sound of tires skidding on ice) on by with their foot buried in their gas pedal. Not just one or two, but at least every other car. And some lady in a minivan was waving at us while she motored through the intersection. At least she wasn't talking on her cell at the time.

So now my poor little bug has once again had some stranger put their mark on her. It's not too bad, just a broke light fixture and a scuff or two, but still. Once you feel that sickening thud as a tailgating truck runs into you, things just aren't the same. By the way, do people think that by driving a big pickup, they can somehow stop quicker on ice? Sorry, but it doesn't work that way. You may be able to start quicker - if you have a 4x4, but you aren't going to stop quicker. Remember, your truck weighs more than a care and your tires aren't that much bigger. And the ice and snow is still slick. You're not going to stop quickly - it's going to take some time.

Put the Pagan back in Christmas

There is currently a lot of flack going on about putting religion back into the Christmas spirit. I agree, but I want to go back to the real origins - before the Christians stole the holiday. You'll find that most agree that xmas day dates back to Roman and Babylonian days.

Mithra, Shamash and Saturnalia are just a few of the ancient deities that are mentioned in connection with a celebration around December 25. So why stop at Jesus - for whom by the way, there is no written record - biblical or otherwise of being born on or about that day. I say let's add good old Mithra and all the rest.

After all, if you want to return to the roots of a holiday, why stop half-way down the plant? Let's go all the way down and get good ol' jolly Shamash involved as well. He/She was a sun god. Supposedly Shamash brings wrong and injustice to light and what's wrong with that? So, YES, I agree, let's get back to the religious basis of Christmas.

Nightmares

Scenario: You and your neighbor don't get along - his dog craps on your lawn, he parks forty-eleven cars on his front lawn and you've called the cops on him in the past for 3am parties. He wants to get even. You are an electronics hobbiest, amateur machinist, woodworker and general tinkerer.

He calls and reports you to the Department of Homeland Security as a possible terrorist threat. He claims to have seen you move suspicious objects into your garage and he's heard you threaten to blow up the world.

The FBI comes along and enters and searches your house without letting you know. The find your firearms, electronics test gear and a large collection of nuclear weapon related books. Further searching reveals texts about military fortifications and weapons systems along with aerial maps of large areas of the world.

Taadaa!! They determine you to be a terrorist threat. You aren't accused or arrested or brought to trial. The fact that they determine you to be a threat is enough for you to be picked up and dropped into one of the blackholes of Homeland Security. You see no lawyer, no evidence and do not even hear the charges against you. Eventually you're "renditioned" to some rathole of a country's jail where you're questioned again - not being tortured, mind you, since you don't suffer organ failure or death, but spend hours in a frigid cell soaked in water, with savage dogs inches from your face and loud music and lights playing and shining 24/7.

You don't wakeup and it's not 1984 the movie and that's the nightmare.

spam non-sense

Actual footer from a group of 18 identical spams that arrived within seconds of each other today

if you are not associated with a nonprofit/charity and/or this is not a nonprofit/charity contact email address and/or you are not interested in our occassional non-commercial, non-transactional, non-cost, non-relationship, courtesy emailings we perform to assist various nonprofits and charities interesting in sending out their special non-commercial message and/or non-commercial web site, please respond to delist your email address from our email database. Thank you.

And as I've said many times before - what cretin responds to this stuff???

Compliments of WalMart

Wonder why you pay less in the short term?

by: Mike Thompson, Detroit, Michigan, The Detroit Free Press

Bah - Humbug

Oh well, it's that time of year again. My least favorite time of the year. If I had a choice, I'd go to be on November 27 and not wake up again until late in the afternoon of January 1. Christmas is just such hassles. (and yes - I'm calling it Christmas, those who get all bent out of shape over the Christmas/Christ/Xmas thing really have too much time on her hands) Do you wonder why I have such problems with it? First there's the gifts. I don't have a problem giving gifts - it's not the money - it's the hassle of giving and getting stuff that nobody wants. And yes, I know it's supposed to be the spirit of the giving - but still. Does uncle Joe really need the eyeglass case in authentic aardvark skin - or does Aunt Mable really enjoy her bottle of sparkling MD20/20?

And then there's the houses and their decoration. There is such a thing as moderation. Some house really look nice with a tasteful spread of colored lights along the house and a wreath or two on the doors; the silhouette of a tree with tinsel and ornaments framed in the window; and a stuffed Santa or two in the corners. What I hate are those who have determined to single-handedly light up the neighborhood with blinding combinations of lights, glitter and stupid stuffed figures in the yard. Now, I could put up with the occasional Santa or reindeer prancing about, but I really hate the Homer Simpsons dressed as Santa, the Grinches with her … reflecting the visions of accountants at a store and greasily stained white-plastic snowmen with flashing lights in their navels.

Most of all, I really hate the incessant repetition of Christmas music. Yes, Silent Night and White Christmas are great songs - the first 100 times. They are everywhere. Radio, television, stores, restaurants and more - all have mind-numbing Christmas jingles jangling everyone's nerves. And if the classics don't become annoying enough, you have the never ending novelty songs that are annoying instantly. Dogs singing Jingle Bells and drunk Santas are two that come to mind. And the clanging of bells!! Everywhere. Dingles, dongs, clangs and clunks. OK - I see your little red pot there and yes, I'll dump some change or a bill or two into it - but not every time, everywhere.

Finally, why pick the winter for a holiday when everyone is supposed to be somewhere else? Does anyone not go anywhere? Hurry for a white Christmas - but does it have to be white all over the roads? Why don't we swap Xmas and Independence day. That way, we can all travel in the long warm sunlit evenings and bundle up and stay in place to watch fireworks reflecting in the snow. You could have a pitcher of lemonade with a sprig of evergreen in it and warm up your hot chocolate over a sparkler or two. It sounds like a perfect pairing.

As for me, a fair to middlin' Christmas to all, and to all a good night (which I would rather be offering from the cocoon of a warm be.

By the way - I'd like to make a plea here for good night to be spelled goodnight.

Grandparents

This morning on the way in to work, I heard a story on NPR about Washington D.C. paying a stipend to grandparents who are taking care of their grandkids instead of the kids parents. Keep track of this now - we got kids, parents and grandparents. The grandparents are taking care of the kids because for whatever reason the parents can't. In the case involved in the story, the parent's problem was crack. The grandmother said her daughter "can't seem to get it together."

OK - my question is, if the parent is messed up, who's responsible? Seems to me that the grandparent didn't do such a good job raising the parent - least ways, not good enough to raise her own kid. Now if the grandparent screwed up the parent, what's to keep her from screwing up this kid? Somebody dropped the ball here.

Is actually better to put the kid in with a grandparent who definitely messed things up at least once, or in some other venue? Personally, I have no idea. Neither choice seems to have much going for it. The kid is the one who loses no matter where they get stuck. Why don't people who don't want to take care of a kid, just not have them? I have no intention of having a kid - I'm too afraid of the kid ending up like me - and that wouldn't be fair to anyone.