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since January 21, 2004

 


This image was taken from one of the previous issues of The Economist. Basically the graph compares California and other "blue states" (as defined as supporting John Kerry in the previous election), compared to the "red states" as defined by those that voted for George Bush. Now, the Economist, as well as the source for this graph (http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001093understanding_us_cli.html, believe that this is some sort of indicator for something political. Of course, this graph leads alot to be desired. For example, using votes for the President as an indicator of the political leanings of the state is probably a sloppy way of determining the two. But it's quick and easily identifiable.

This doesn't even concern the title of the graph itself. For example, states that are "red" are more likely to be in the South or Midwest. These are also states that have hot summers. About 90% of all air conditioning is run on electric. So there is absolutely no adjustment for climate. The same can be said for just using per capita kWh usage without adjusting for industrial usage. Red States are much more likely to have energy intensive industries there than Blue States. For example, I happen to know that there are alot more Alcoa plants in the Southeast than in the Northeast. So obviously, per person kWh usage is going to be higher in states that have these electric-intensive industries than those without. But this graph doesn't make any adjustment for that. A much more telling graph would have been to compare RESIDENTIAL per capita kWh usage compared across red and blue states. But this doesn't happen.

The problem is that these sources believe that this is some sort of indicator of future politics. Case in point is this article by the same source, telling titled: Why Al Gore Will be the Next President of the United States

Ignoring for the moment that the former Vice President hasn't even announced that he's even exploring a Presidential candidate, the author of this post seems to make his position based on a couple of ideas:

1. 2008 will be different than 2004. Elites have decided that global climate change is an issue worth politicizing, that is to say, worth making an issue in politics. Therefore, carbon dioxide emissions will be an issue in the 2008 election.
2. But it seems reasonable to think that the smaller the cost (or perceived cost) of policies on carbon dioxide, the more likely that such policies will be accepted. Similarly, the higher the costs, the greater the likelihood of opposition.

I'm not going to disagree with him on point number two. That makes sense. Number one, I'm going to disagree with. Just because the "elites" have deemed this to be an issue, that doesn't mean that it will be a "make or break" issue. Most polls have shown that global warming/environmental issues rank rather low on voters lists of concerns. Here's some data on voter's priorities. Notice how the environment (unless it gets lumped in with the "energy" category) doesn't show up.

But the bigger issue (and where the author is completely misled) is that he thinks that states with higher CO2 emissions are MORE likely to switch sides. The problem is that this is the opposite. A candidate that would favor higher CO2 restrictions would more likely lose voters than gain them.

Let's take a look at an example. Use a generic high CO2 state, say Pennsylvania. Now, this state has a baseline economic performance concerning production, costs, etc. This baseline, for whatever reason, includes producing more CO2 than other states. Now, say you have a choice in two situations. One keeps the status quo for CO2 and the other creates some kind of cost to production of CO2. If you institute CO2 costs, then states with higher CO2 production will have a higher impact on their economic performance. Thus, either these costs will be passed onto voters (ie higher electricity costs, higher prices for goods) and/or the company will shutter facilities in Pennsylvania and move them to a state with lower costs. Either way, voters in Pennsylvania will see CO2 charges as a NEGATIVE. Thus, if they are rational (a tenuous assumption at best), they will chose the candidate that will impose less of an impact on their economic well-being. Unless you think that voters would want someone to basically force lower CO2 consumption on them. In which case, states with higher CO2 production would support an Al Gore over a Republican. That's what the author believes.

Of course, if that's the case, then all the low CO2 states would support Republicans since they already have low CO2 consumption and thus would care less about global warming issues. But the author wants to have his cake and eat it too. He thinks that low CO2 states will continue their support for CO2 restrictions even though it won't affect them while states with higher CO2 production will want to have these restrictions put in place, in spite of their disproportionate consequences. It's one or the other, but not both.

In the end, the author makes two huge mistakes. The first is that he believes that global warming will be the make or break issue in 2008, when in fact there is considerable evidence to the contrary. The second is that he thinks that he confuses correlation with causation. Basically, he's writing that since states with lower CO2 emissions vote Democratic, that if your state has lower CO2 emissions, you will vote for Al Gore. However, there's no causation between the two.

Then again, I learned that in my statistics class back in 2002. Perhaps they didn't teach that when this professor took his statistics class.
posted by Mike at 9:33 PM 0 comments

 
IN OTHER NEWS

Work

• Work is going ok. I've been having some trouble getting motivated in the morning this week, but more to the point is that certain people in the office (in other departments) have been pissing me off to no end. Luckily, nothing bad happened this time, and it didn't even involve Pam Mingo. So that's good. Instead, the incompetency of some of the other departments (which may be laziness, I'm not sure), drives me crazy to no end. So go figure.
• Also, I got screwed out of two hours of overtime this week because of my company's dumbass policy of using overtime to "compensate" the company for the two-hour delay in opening the office this week. Needless to say, I was pissed. I sent a letter to my supervisor saying as much, but I didn't get a response. So basically, I'm not working overtime until the temps get above freezing. He even sent a request out for overtime for a project, which he said could be manditory. If he forces me to work on it, then I'll tell him that I refuse to work overtime if I'm not going to be compensated for it, and go from there.
• I was also passed over for Employee of the Month again by someone who had been working there for a shorter time than I have. At this point, I shouldn't get worked up about it. The lack of recognition for my work is par for the course now, so I should just accept it. That doesn't make it any better though.
• I will be getting $398 in refund monies from the feds this year. That's good. Thank goodness for the tax deduction for student loan interest. I'm basically going to take my sweet-ass time paying those off, especially if the wonderful Democrat-let Congress signs off on student-loan forgiveness anytime soon. That would be killer.

Life in General

• I'm finally moving out of my apartment. Hooray! Basically, I bitched to the point where they've stopped talking to me, so I started looking for a new place. I found one that's a two-bedroom for less than I'm paying for the one bedroom. Yes, it has a smaller bathroom with no dishwasher, but I'll live with that, especially if it means moving out of this dysfunctional apartment complex. I've pretty much given up on my security deposit, which is fine, since that $150 is a sunk cost at this point. So I'm leaving the apartment a mess and I gave them a "false" forwarding address, in case they try to come after me for more money. The key of course is that I shouldn't have to pay a penalty for breaking my lease early. So that's good. And there's no way in hell that I'm going to pay it since I now have a signed document outlining that I didn't have to pay any fees. So good riddance to Essex Park.
• I've also had a nice sit-down with Luisa's parents about my future with her daughter. That went ok, I guess. There's still some things about Luisa's mom that bothers me... mostly that she's still bat-shit insane. So that has caused me some concern, but I think I'll be able to deal with it. Perhaps. I think the key is in remembering that you're not marrying your spouse's family. Then again, I don't want to drive a wedge between Luisa and her family, so we'll have to see how that turns out. But at least her parents acknowledge how crazy Luisa's sister is, even if Theresa thinks that I'm the nutjob around here. I'm pretty sure that my parents don't bad-mouth me to other people, which I think speaks for itself.
• Ok, one think to speak to that. Direct quote from Theresa's father: "You do realize that you'd be having Theresa as a sister-in-law?" Yeah, speaks volumes.
• On a related note, Luisa may be moving in with me. She also talked to her folks about that, so we'll have to see how that too turns out. But in all honesty, it's not going to be too much different from what's going on now. So I don't have any issues with that.
• I learned from my Dad this afternoon that my grandfather had a mini-stroke. Apparently he doesn't have any major issues, but a mini-stroke is still a stroke. I hope that he'll recover, at least until I see him one more time and head down in a functional car.

posted by Mike at 8:37 PM 0 comments

 
ANOTHER REQUEST FOR BOYCOTT

This week, I happened to get gas at Sam's Club because I got a $.05 discount because I'm a member.

Big mistake.

Pretty much immediately after filling the tank with their "gasoline" (scare quote absolutely justified), I started having issues with my car. Basically, when I went home on Friday, my car stalled driving down a hill. I pulled in the parking lot of a business, kicked the car, cursed alot, and then was able to drive home. The next couple of mornings it was below freezing. Lo and behold, the car wouldn't start.

Between my Dad and I, we figured out that there was something wrong with the fuel line. After the below freezing temps this weekend and the subsequent inability for my car to start, I figured out that it was the crappy gas that probably had a ton of water in it.

Yesterday afternoon, I was able to start the car and drive it to Wal-Mart. Of course, along the way, the car once again had issues, having RPM drops on the highway (not fun while driving 60 MPH) and eventually causing the air to smell like burning water. I went to Wal-Mart and got some fuel additive that was basically isopropanol alcohol and petroleum distillate. I put it into the car and it seemed to run better. That is, with no stalling.

I was also able to start my car in the morning for the first time in 3 days, so that was good. What was bad was that my car stalled at a stoplight on the way home. The car behind me honked their horn and I gave them the ole one-finger salute. She drove around me and then cut in front of me at the next light and gave me the same. So I returned it one more time when I turned off and was pissed the rest of the night.

Needless to say, I have a request to ask. Much like my request to have anyone who can not shop at Dick's Sporting Goods (basically a one-person boycott), I'm going to ask anyone to not buy gas at Sam's Club/Wal-Mart. Basically, consumer action is the only way that they'll learn their lesson, short of a lawsuit. And I hate lawyers.

I also told them of my mishaps, but I sincerely doubt that anything will come of it. You can see it below .

---

Please check the quality of the gas that was delivered to the Columbia (NW), SC Sam's Club location. The amount of water that was in the gas pumped at that location has caused damage to my car, including freezing the fuel line and occasional misfiring and stalling while on the road, which could have become a very unsafe situation.

The situation was resolved of my own accord by using fuel treatment which removed the excess water from my fuel tank. (Which I had to pay for myself) However, the "Check Engine" light is still on my car which may result in further repair. This is directly caused by the gas that was purchased at this Sam's Club.

Needless to say, I will no longer use Sam's Club to purchase gas and will recommend to others that they do not as well.
posted by Mike at 7:54 PM 0 comments

 
QUOTES OF THE MONTH

Here are some quotes to chew on...

"Nei sogni, come in amore, non ci sono cose impossibili." - Janos Arany

"El placer es un pecado, pero el pecado es un placer." - G. Byron

Hey, I never said they'd be in English. But I have some smart friends, I'm sure you guys can figure it out (or use babelfish).
posted by Mike at 10:59 PM 0 comments

 
NEW STUFF GOING ON

[Redacted per the request of my father]

I also managed to score two tickets to the Wake Forest-Virginia Tech throwdown coming up this weekend. It's supposed to be frickin freezing that night, but clear. I'll be so busy screaming for my Hokies that I won't care about the weather. Unless Virgina Tech throws up another BC-esque performance. In which case, I'm not going to be happy about that at all. But I'll be in Section 8, which is by the home bench at the scoreboard end of the field in Row N, which means we'll be about 14 rows up. Which will be pretty sweet. We are going to make that end of the stadium loud. Here's a link to the stadium diagram. I bring this all up, because this game is going to be on ESPN2 starting at 7 PM, so I'm expecting EVERYONE to be watching. And to make sure to tell me if we're on TV. That would be sweet. I'd also like to come up with a sign, but I really don't want to pander to ESPN. At least right now.

I also have a Guinea Pig. More details on that to come.
posted by Mike at 1:34 PM 0 comments

 
THE HOMOSEXUAL BOWL

While watching the Louisville-Rutgers game, I was struck by you much "manly" love was going on with the game. I came to the realization that there were quite a bit of fruity goings-on. Here are some reasons why this game could be dubbed... The Homosexual Bowl.

1. Consider the location: New Jersey. The second state to have man-man relationships sanctioned by the courts.
2. The Players: Louisville's William Gay.
3. The team: During many a down, the Rutgers defensive linemen would hold hands. Now, I know that this is done occasionally when linemen get into their stance, but this was done while Louisville was still in their huddle. Very, very flaming.
4. The Postgame I: Ray Rice, when asked by Erin Andrews what he was thinking during the game-winning kick, replied: "I was holding hands with my teammates."
5. The Postgame II: Brian Leonard and Greg Schiano have a post-game smooch on the cheek. Not the lips, that happens when they go undefeated.

All told, very very suspicious. But note to ESPN, yes I know New Jersey is a dump, but not everything in the Northeast revolves around New York City. I don't think it would've killed you to show ONE shot of the Rutgers campus instead of 500 shots of the Empire State Building.

And finally, don't think for a second that these Rutgers fans aren't bandwagon. Case in point, during the aforementioned interview with Ray Rice, there was a very obnoxious fat dude in the background who was wearing A UVA HAT. He had it turned around so that the UVA logo wasn't obvious, but jeez, could you at least take it off so that you don't make your bandwagon douchebaggery so obvious. That's not too much to act.

I'm going to call it now, when they WVU in Morgantown on Dec. 2nd, they're going to lose and the bandwagon is going to empty so fast, it's going to be a shock. But between now and then, be prepared for ESPN to hype Rutgers to death.
posted by Mike at 11:17 PM 1 comments

 
I'D LIKE TO THANK...

• The good people of South Carolina, Tennessee, Colorado, Wisconsin, Virginia, South Dakota and Idaho for reaffirming traditional values and banning same sex marriage. Now I know you libertarians out there (*cough*Dan*cough*) think that this is not the purview of the government, that they should stay out of the private lives of consentual adults, etc. However, I am not a libertarian. I'm a federalist first and a conservative second. State level bans are certainly fine by me. The Protection of Marriage Act or whatever they passed a couple years ago in Congress is not ok. Of course, the problem is going to come up when a "non-traditional" couple gets married in another state and expects recognition in their home state. What happens then? Trouble. Which is why the only thing that would work is an amendment. I'd be interesting to see how that would go over in those awesome New England states, but you just need 75% of the states to pass it. I'm just surprised someone didn't do the whole by-pass congress thing and go straight to state conventions for this. I think it'd have a chance that way. But otherwise, there's going to be a homosexual Nevada on the horizon. That I'm sure of.
• I'd also like to thank the good people of Michigan for standing up to the status quo and rejecting affirmative action. Along those lines, I'd also like Ford and GM for guaranteeing that the first new car I'm going to buy is going to be an import. I've known that Ford has gone all "socially responsible" over the last couple of years, but this takes the cake. Bankruptcy can't come soon enough for Bill Ford's plaything.
• Thanks to Missouri for showing where I'm NOT going to move anytime in the near future. Throwing out Talent along with passing both a minimum wage bill and putting stem-cell research in your freaking consitution. Good job guys.
• I'd also like to thank President Bush for turning national opinion so against Republicans that they had to lose and then face the reality that they had become so bloated with power that they needed to reform. Unfortunately, Senators Talent and Santorum got thrown out with the bathwater, but if the exchange is for Sens. Chaffee and Burns to be tossed out, then so much the better.
• On that note, I would also like to thank the congressional leadership for being so inept that they couldn't clean house when they should have and now some true fiscal conservatives have a shot at some meaningful congressional positions, such as...
• Thank you, Rep. Pence for biding your time and not running for a house leadership position until you knew the shit was going to hit the fan. There's no way that Boehner or any of the current leadership is going to hold their positions and you're going to be no different. Sure, I don't like your position on immigration or farm policy, but that's because you represent a farming district. I'll let that slide. But if you can bring the Republicans back to being for limited and responsible government, then I'll gladly overlook these shortcomings.
• Thanks to the Democrats, who are more than willing to sacrifice their principles to get office. The hypocracy that's going to happen over the next two years is going to be delicious. The Democrats are probably going to wish two years from now that they had waited another two years and really let frustration at complacent governance by the Republicans boil over. Then it could have been ugly.
• Finally, I'd like to thank Gov. Sanford for not backing down and saying that this election gives him a mandate to really go after public school incompetence and introduce REAL choice into the system. The problem with the educational system in South Carolina is not going to change by throwing more money at the problem. That'll just make people more entrenched and reform that much harder.

posted by Mike at 7:11 PM 0 comments

 
END OF AN ERA

This week, I'm tag teaming with Luisa to dog-sit. So I got in yesterday and I made the mistake of leaving my Ohio State hat out on the couch. When I came back this evening, the hat was very wet, very smelly and very chewed up. So basically, it's unwearable and is the last remnant of my flag football officiating swag. It's not like I got ANYTHING else out of going to those regional tournaments. No lifelong friends (Dan had already gotten into that category regardless), no awards, no nothing. All a giant dissapointment. So after my Nebraska shirt got cut up when I went to the hospital last year and my hat now, I officially have nothing to reflect on that cycle of my life. Oh well, time to move on, I suppose.

And it was a damn good hat too.
posted by Mike at 6:59 PM 0 comments

 
BLACK WOMEN SUCK AT DRIVING

Now, this isn't meant to be a racist post, but if people want to take it that way, so be it. But after nearly getting killed in downtown Columbia, it's got to be said.

Black women are by far the most unsafely aggressive drivers here in Columbia.

Now, it's not to say that there aren't some dangerously aggressive white males or asian female drivers here, but odds are, if someone does something that makes me think "What the f--- is that driver doing?" the person behind the wheel is much more likely to be a black woman than any other combination of race and gender. I wish I knew what the reason behind this was, but the fact of the matter is that this is what happens more often than not when I'm driving around Columbia.

For example, I was waiting to turn left as two people walking were crossing the street. When I start to move, a green minivan takes a turn, right in front of me. Did not stop at the light (the light had turned red as I was waiting to turn), didn't use a turn signal, and didn't even slow down. So when I pulled next to her, of course, she was black.

I'm not sure if this is a South Carolina, Columbia, or nationwide thing. Alot of it has to do with the fact that this is the first time where I've lived in an area that black women made up more than 1% of the drivers on the road. But in any case, when I was driving back from getting my oil changed and saw a State Trooper had pulled someone over on the side of the road. The driver? A black woman.
posted by Mike at 5:15 PM 0 comments

 
STUPID FIREFOX

Yes, Firefox is still the best browser out there. But that's mostly to the lack of quality competition and NOT the fact that it is in fact a quality browser. Case in point. I was just about to finish up writing 45 minutes worth of college football goodness when the stupid, fucking browser crashes. For no reason what so ever. I was doing nothing (unless the stupid Fox Sports site updating would cause the crash) and all of a sudden I look at the screen and I see the completely unhelpful error reporting box. Needless to say, I was fucking pissed. And WHY does that always happen when I'm almost done writing? I think it had a lot to do with the fact that someone, somewhere doesn't want to see me happy. It's probably the biggest testament to my faith in God that I still believe that he is a loving and caring God despite all the crap that's happened in my life so far. Yeah, yeah, the whole "last shall be first thing," which is all I really have going for me at this point.

I can't say that I'm thrilled at my life at this point, but it's probably not so bad. Just starting to go through one of those usual rough patches. Fun stuff, this whole depression thing.
posted by Mike at 12:02 AM 0 comments

 
WORK STUFF

I guess I haven't written too much stuff about work, but that's mostly because I try to keep work stuff at work and the outside stuff outside. But occasionally, there's some stuff that weighs on my mind and just makes things worse.

For example, there's a worker... let's call her Pam M. Or how about P. Mingo. Anyway, Pam M. is a processor. Basically, a monkey could do her job. Unfortunately, she was not trained like a monkey, but since she's been promoted and been named "Employee of the Month", she thinks she's some hot shit. The problem is that she lazy as hell. She cuts corners all the time and just sometimes doesn't enter any information at all. As a result, there are plenty of times where I have to do her job, that is entering information that she should've entered in the first place. I've basically had to do her job in addition to my job. And I don't get paid enough to do two jobs.

This has happened multiple times, enough that I dread every email that she sends to the group because there's a 20-30% chance that I'll have to do her job and that she'll make some stupid mistake that'll piss ME off.

One such event happened on Friday. In addition to it being the end of the week, I was in the middle of the period where we get swamped with work. I've managed to hold up pretty well under the workload, but this was one time that I just had enough.

Basically, what happened was that we received both a delivery bill and a supply bill for a particular location. Our job is to make sure that the location is being billed correctly. For this particular location, we need to have the delivery bill entered in order to verify that the correct ammount was supplied.

Unfortunately, Pam did not do that. What she did was that she entered the data into the wrong column in the spreadsheet. Then, rather than reentering the data into the correct column, she just linked the cells to each other. So, of course, the supply bill is going to be wrong. Nevermind that one of the cells was just left blank entirely.

So basically, I had to reenter two columns and spend all the time looking for the invoice that should have been entered already. As a result, I had to spend two hours on something that should have taken 15 minutes. So needless to say, once I was done, I was not happy at all.

So in the email I sent back to Pam saying that the problem was solved, I let her know that she should... put more effort into her work. In fact, I'll go ahead and put the email I sent out up on the web. In case she had no idea what she was entering, I made it crystal clear that both columns of information had to be entered correctly and not just to make one of the invoices fit. I could've said that what she had done was lazy, sloppy and just something that should've been better done. I also said that the processors should take the time to make sure that what they've entered is accurate, since it's not uncommon for some stupid mistakes to be made that have been sent in my direction when they didn't have to be sent if someone would just make sure that everything fits. But unfortunately, speed is more important than accuracy over there, and it stems from the top, where the manager has been known to send over emails with names of locations and clients spelled egregiously wrong. A spelling mistake or two is fine, but when spell the clients name kkELLLOGG, or something horrible like that, you can see how much the apple falls from the tree.

So of course, after I write the email, my manager writes me one saying that I pushed the line a little bit. Of course, I avoided him all day, but something tells me that the email didn't go over well with the processors. After the last time I sent an email like that, Pam, in particular, was snotty in her emails to the group. I don't expect any different from her.

And I swear if she gets employee of the month any more while I'm there, I'm looking for a new job.

And I won't even go into the racial self-segregation and cliques that happen to go on at the office, but that's a different story altogether.
posted by Mike at 10:17 PM 4 comments

 
SOUTH CAROLINIANS ARE MORONS

Remember that chart I had up a couple of months ago showing that South Carolinans have no idea what the rules of the road are. (If not, you can find them here.) This comes up again because in the past week, on a 4-lane highway (each direction mind you), I've seen probably an accident a week. And that doesn't include what ever massive pileups that caused me to take 20 minutes to go 3 miles from work to my house on Friday.

There's probably two reasons for this. One: South Carolina drivers are morons. See the above chart.

Two: The roads were designed by SCDOT, quite possibly one of the most inept DOTs in the country. Not the worst, I think PennDOT is at the top of that list. But SCDOT has to be pretty close. Why? Because of the traffic signal timing, and a little thing we like to call Malfunction Junction. Sure there's only like 20 malfunction junctions in the country, but this is the South Carolina version. Or as one comic we saw at the Comedy House remarked: "This is the only exit that puts you back on the highway." Unfortunately, there's no good links to any detailed maps of the interchange. But keep in mind, there are very few interchanges that are as poorly designed as this one.

Anyway, I think my next project is going to be using Google Earth to "fix" Malfunction Junction, at least the way I see it. One step at a time.
posted by Mike at 5:48 PM 1 comments

 
BECAUSE LUISA ASKED SO NICELY

Since I now have my computer up and running for the first time since I was kicked out of the Profeta residence, I figured it be a good idea to go ahead and put an update up for the first time in... a couple of days.

Anyway, I'm still here at Chez Cockroach. Like I said, I took the opportunity with Luisa out of town to get the computer setup and do some of the essentials. Like put all of my transactions for the past two months into my computer so I can see how much I can afford to start socking away into the ole IRA. No, it doesn't help when your student loan payments are about to go up 200%, but there's absolutely nothing I can do about that. I guess I'm going to just have to deal with it by eating ramen 5 nights a week.

Chez Cockroach is still filled with useless USPS carriers, packs of wild children running around, and white trash neighbors who have some stupid alarm thing that kept going off this weekend. Needless to say, by the time it started going off for the 20,000th time last night, I was this close to yelling obscenities out my door. This close.

Meanwhile, I would like to thank the other dumbass in this apartment complex for their wireless internet connection. The fact that you leave yourself to just anyone pirating off your connection works for me. Since this is the internet and all, I'll tell you now that I appreciate your internet connection at broadband speeds. I also enjoy not having to spend the $40 for Time Warner to connect me, so that also works in my favor. Kudos to you, fools.

Other than that, the big story over the weekend was my record-breaking bowling at league. Well, it was just for my personal record, but I'll take it anyway. The big 218 last Sunday. Five strikes in a row. One open frame. If I hadn't choked on my last ball and gotten something better than a three, then I could've been in the 220s. Not that I'm going to look a gift score in the mouth, but this is a start at least. But I'm pretty sure that I'm going to be all over the leader board this week. Which makes my strategy of sucking ass the week before all that more cunning. I'm a frickin genius.

But other than that, most of my time involves the trifecta of work, college football, and NCAA Baseball 2006. I'm not doing horribly in my pickem pools, but I can be doing better. I'm just off my game so far, but I usually peak around week 7 or 8 so there's still some time for improvement. It doesn't help that the guy at work that picks the games is an Indiana fan so we get a solid slate of Indiana games that nobody in their right mind would be interested in. Oh well. At least I knew that Indiana would not be able to beat UConn at home, even if others didn't.

I also got a set of business cards at work today. Of course, they had my email address incorrect, but I'm not sure how many times I plan on using the business cards anyway. I'll have to scratch them out or something else entirely unprofessional. But it does have my office phone in all of it's glory. And my title. Analyst.

I guess the last thing that I could report on is that Luisa's thinking about taking a trip with me up to Winston-Salem to see Virginia Tech beat the snot out of Wake Forest. I could get tickets either from Virginia Tech or from Wake Forest, but we'll see how that turns out. Again, I'm going to have to look at the ole finances before I make a decision on how feasible $80+expenses is going to be in a month. Not that I mind the road trip in the least, but I should probably see where all my money is going before I start deciding to spend more of it.

That's it for now. I do have 10 more games of bowling to get in over the next couple of days, so we'll see how that goes. Perhaps I'll improve even more, or something like that.
posted by Mike at 8:55 PM 1 comments

 
YES, I'M ALIVE

Wow, an entire two months since I last posted. Well, I'm sure there are some pretty good excuses as to why that's the case. Let's start at the beginning.

Around the middle of August, I start getting wind from Luisa that her mom, well, hates me. She has something against me. Luisa has theories on them. Something about the bad roommate theory. I just think she's one grape short of a fruit salad, but that's just me. Anyway, the relationship between myself and Luisa's mother has deteriorated to the point where we don't speak directly to each other. Yeah, that badly. Meanwhile, here's an actual quote relayed to me from Luisa:

I would've thrown that son-of-a-bitch out by now if he wasn't dating you.

So basically, I got the picture and that weekend, I ended up moving into my new apartment and out of the Profeta residence. Let the record show that I walked in to the kitchen while the conversation containing said quote was going on. Needless to say, it was quite the awkward moment. At least I picked up that I walked in an a very inopportune time.

So as a result, I'm now living at the Essex Park Apartments. There's a cockroach palmetto bug problem, the porch floods when it rains, and the mail gets delivered three times a week, if I'm lucky. Needless to say, the $529 + utilites I'm paying is a bit of a ripoff. Very much so. But I signed the lease and unless I get a freaking huge check sometime in the next couple of months, I'm stuck there. But at least one of the dumbasses living around me left their wireless internet unsecured. So I'd have that going for me... if I had my computer set up. But that would require a working desk, which I don't have since I moved out as one of the pieces of the desk broke off while moving it. (Note to self: Do not buy cheap furniture from Target again.)

But back to the problem at hand, the old potential in-laws problem. It's gotten to the point that Luisa's dingbat mother has soured the father against me. Here's another quote relayed to me through Luisa:

He's an intellectual wiffleball.

I'm pretty sure that I've been called alot of things in the past, but a wiffleball must be the first.

This probably should piss me off more than it does. Considering I graduated #4 in my HS class, top 10% of my graduating class at Virginia Tech, Magna cum Laude, 1460 SAT, 760 M, 540 V 6.0 Analytical GREs, blah, blah, blah. But since I don't have a framed piece of paper that allows me to call myself a doctor of philosophy, then I'm an intellectual wiffleball. It probably doesn't help that I kick Luisa's mom's ass at Jeopardy! each night. Especially since Luisa's mom has been trying to get on there for the past couple of years. Anyway, I'm an intellectual wiffleball.

There's more to the laundry-list of complaints that Luisa has relayed to me, but I honestly don't remember, or care for that matter, right now. But at times, it makes long-term prospects with Luisa that much harder to grasp at the moment. Sigh.

Beyond living issues, I've fully immersed myself in more or less 6 things that have prevented me from doing too much blogging.

1. Work
2. Bowling
3. Playstation
4. Travel
5. Sleeping
6. College Football

Yeah, I know, some exciting stuff. Work is work, I get paid for doing stuff that other people probably get credit for, but I'll live for now. This is just entry-level after all. But I like most of the people I work for. There's just one worker that I wish I could fire. Then life at work would be good.

Bowling revolves around me being in a league. I'm probably holding myself to too high of a standard, but I'm hovering around a 135 average right now. But I'm adjusting to throwing left-handed, putting spin on the ball, and having a consistant grip. I don't think I'll be joining any professional tours in the next couple of years, but I'd like to get to the point where I could hold my own in a local tournament or two. But we'll see about that. I'd like to just make improvement at this point, but it comes very streakily at this point.

As for the Playstation, it helps that we have friends that like to play video games, so we've immersed ourselves in Dance Dance Revolution, Shrek Super Party, NCAA Baseball 2006 and X-Men Legends II. I'm actually playing as the UConn Huskies, as I enjoy beating both Notre Dame AND West Virginia, and UConn has a decent team. I'll coach the Hokies when I start getting good. And get a kick-ass contract offer.

Travel involves going to various places. I've been to Daytona Beach and Atlanta since I last posted. Again, some nice times. I didn't get too burnt at the beach as I only really spent 1 full day out in the sun. Everything else was just hanging out and enjoying being outside of Columbia for a long weekend. Atlanta involved seeing the Braves play the Phillies. Fun times watching the game. Not so fun times basically not talking to Luisa's mom, AT ALL. At least Mr. Profeta will banter back and forth with me. Which probably is more upsetting since he has all of these issues with me, but is hiding them under cordiality. At least with the mom, I know she dislikes me and I can plan accordingly.

(Oh, side note: One of the major issues I supposedly have with the mother is that I'm not a "born-again Christian". I was originally going to try and defend myself, but now, screw it. If she has a problem that I was a Catholic, am a Catholic and will be a Catholic, then that's her problem. I'm pretty damn comfortable with my relationship with God without needing to be "born again". Then again, I really don't care for the fact that she's all into prophecy. Even to the point that she'll bring up some pretty insane stuff. Like someone prophesizing that New York was going to be hit by a Category 5 hurricane, or that someone will develop a new energy source that begins with an E (and no, it's not ethanol apparently). One more thing, another issue she has with me is that I don't like some woman named Joyce Meyer. Luisa's mother gave me a book of Meyer's called "Battlefield of the Mind." I didn't particularly care for it, especially since I couldn't read more than a chapter of the book. It was pretty pretentious and just spouted off Bible citations without any explaination of the meaning of said quotes. Just like most of the televangelists that she likes to watch.)

Ok, then there's the sleep thing. As a result of all this crap weighing down on me, I've started having issues sleeping again. And having more depression issues. Even with the meds, I still have the issues. However, the Lunesta is helping me sleep, but when I don't take it, the sleep isn't worth crap. As a result, I end up dragging the next day and making the whole depression thing worse. What isn't helping is that I probably have Seasonal Affective Disorder, like my Dad, and we're entering the season of death known as fall. So needless to say, this isn't going to be super in terms of mental health, but just as long as I don't do anything stupid (like drink half a bottle of whisky), then I should be fine.

But I do have College Football to look forward to. I did manage to go to a Univ. of South Carolina game vs. Georgia. Having been to now three college stadiums, I can now say that the USC experience as by far the worst. It probably wouldn't kill the scoreboard operator to put up some out-of-town scores during the TV time outs. But considering that when they would announce the scores, they would be a quarter behind what I could get on my cell phone, it's probably for the best. Also, there's really no excuse for the band to get outplayed by the Georgia band. That's just horrible. While the Marching Virginians are uppity dorks, at least they played their instruments before the 4th quarter. All in all, I miss the Lane Stadium experience. Heck, I miss the Clemson experience.

Ok, that should catch everyone up with what I've been doing. I promise to put more updates up. Especially as I finally upload my many, many pictures onto some kind of picture hosting site online. Blogger just isn't going to cut it, unfortunately. But that would require me putting my computer together in the first place. We'll see about that.
posted by Mike at 6:10 PM 2 comments

 
STUFF SUCKS

The U.S. Postal "Service" sucks. Why, you ask? Because apparently they lost the insurance card that my dad sent down to me for my car. Or at least I hope they just lost it. I wouldn't be surprised if someone opened it so they could rip me off or something. I swear, the USPS is only good for sponsoring bike riders and delivering credit card offers. Seriously. First, what the hell does the USPS need to spend money sponsoring a bunch of bike riders? They're supposedly losing money hand over fist and they don't have a problem blowing a couple hundred grand on some bikers. Super. Second, they are just retarded.

I'm in this awesomely bad mood because I had my first league series with an average under 100 since I was 12. This week's "bowling" action (if you can call it that), was just pitiful. No strikes, five spares and 25 open frames. All while leading Luisa and my team to a solid last place finish. Something like 13 and 30, Not 1962 Mets, but pretty f'ing bad.

Hopefully I'll feel better in the morning and not feel like so much crap. At least I hope that's the case. Because something tells me that I'm going to get slammed with something tomorrow and I'll just go postal on someone. Oh yeah, that's another thing the USPS does well. Workplace violence.

I'm just full of cheer tonight, aren't I?
posted by Mike at 10:10 PM 2 comments