Amurika's Greatest Blog

Thursday, September 29, 2005

DAMN DOES THAT HURT



Well it doesn't hurt so much today but the entire upper-right side of my body feels like someone beat me down with a baseball bat. Yesterday I couldn't even move. Dr. Jackass said that I should feel better by Saturday. Then I go back on Wednesday next week and he can do the injections on my left side.

Here's some light reading.

Wednesday, September 28, 2005

IT HURTS



Well I just got my first series of triggerpoint injections from Dr. Jackass. One injection of lidocaine in three different muscles on my right side, one in the back, one shoulder, one neck.

All I can say is, OH FUCK IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS

I go back for another series next week. This better fucking work.

Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Media Whoredom

I was just browsing Google news, and I caught this headline:

Anti-war mother in White House arrest

A LEADING United States anti-war protester, Cindy Sheehan, whose son was killed in Iraq, was yesterday arrested at a demonstration outside of the White House.


This is about the 500th time that I've seen the mainstream newsmedia refer to Cindy Sheehan as "the Anti-War mother" or "Anti-war protestor". One of the most hurtful ways that media whores distort the truth is their use of labelling. Read this excellent peice by Ted Rall to further explore this topic.

Here's my point. When did Cindy Sheehan ever say she was anti-war or a war protestor? Infact, when has anyone ever directly called her anti-war? The answer is nobody, nowhere. The fact of the matter is that Cindy Sheehan wants a face to face meeting with Bush, and she wants a clear and direct answer to a single question, why did her son die? Ergo, why are we in Iraq?

I think this is a fair question to ask, and the fact that our government will not answer it proves that her son died for no reason, and that we have no reason to be in Iraq. First it was weapons of mass destruction, then it was about getting Sadam, then it was about freeing the Iraqi people and spreading democracy, and now it's about nothing.

Even if you believe that this war was about oil, where is the oil? Reality check, the price of oil more than tripled under Bush's presidency, worldwide consumption is at an all time high, worldwide oil production is dropping off sharply, and oil costs CONTINUE to rise.

We are fighting and dying in a war for nothing. Why isn't that the headline?

Cenk Uygur: Does America Stand for Torture?

Cenk Uygur: Does America Stand for Torture?
09.27.2005, HuffingtonPost.com


Does anyone really believe there are 230 rogue soldiers who were all out of control and did the same abuse throughout Iraq at the same time by coincidence? If you do, please check your beverage because it is clearly either way too much Jack Daniels or way too much Kool-Aid.

And remember these are only the 400 cases the Army decided to pursue. As is evident from the testimonials of the men in the 82nd Airborne, there were many cases of abuse that the Pentagon refused to investigate.

Now, I’ve been calling what happened to the detainees “abuse” for most of this piece. But I’m soft pedaling it. To be fair, we should call it what it is – torture.

If that word makes you uncomfortable and you instinctively don’t want to believe it, then I will let the soldiers of the 82nd Airborne explain it to you:

“We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs, and stomach, and pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day.”

“[Military intelligence personnel] wanted intel. As long as no PUC’s (Persons Under Control) came up dead, it happened. We kept it to broken arms and legs.”

“Despite my efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my leadership about what constitutes lawful and human treatment of detainees. I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage taking, stripping, sleep deprivation and degrading treatment.”

Now imagine if Saddam’s forces had captured some our boys and stripped them naked, broke their arms and legs, took members of their family hostage, threatened to kill the soldiers and sometimes carried out that threat. What do you think we’d call it then? Abuse?

My guess is that we would be perfectly comfortable calling that torture if it happened to us. The Army has also investigated over 30 homicides of detainees by US soldiers, including throwing people off of bridges, suffocating them and, most often, beating them to death. I guess those were the cases where we couldn’t just keep it to breaking arms and legs.

It isn’t any easier for me to write this as it is for you to read it. I love this country and I have always believed that is a special place. A place where things like this don’t happen. A city on a hill that aims to be a light unto the world. That is what makes me so sick about what has happened.

And it has happened in our name. They did this in the name of America.

Click here to read entire article

Zero Stars



From: Jesse S
To: Hoover Customer Service
Subject: Zero Stars

I just returned my Bissel Proheat because it broke after two months. I should be so lucky.

The Hoover SteamVac is the most expensive rug cleaner that Target sells, so I figured it would be the best. Wrong. This thing is very poorly constructed. The parts are thin, flimsy platic, most parts are glued together. The water tank leaks and doesn't fit right, and honestly I don't know what holds it together.

The directions are a joke. The tool caddy doesn't fit on right and the attachments fall out every time you move it.

The water tank is so brittle I could have broken it with one finger.

I ran it for 15 minutes, it performed much better than the Bissel. It got a lot of dirt out of the carpet. Then the engine made a funny noise and started smoking.

I wanted to be sure I wasn't imagining things, so I ran it for a few more minutes. Then I hear a loud BANG and smoke shoots out of it, sets off my fire alarm, and I'm literally covered in SOOT like a chimney sweap. This thing is HISTORY.

Hoover, you should be ashamed for putting such an expensive peice of garbage on the market. This thing isn't only bad, it's dangerous.

Saturday, September 24, 2005

Jetblue

Ok if you haven't seen that Jetblue video, YOU MUST SEE IT. HOLY SHIT.

CBS News go here and look at the videos on the right side, watch all of them.
CNN and look on the right side for WATCH and click on Emergency landing in Los Angeles

Friday, September 23, 2005

Arranged Marriages



At the company where I work, almost everyone is Indian/Asian, but mostly Indian. In my engineering group, I am one of 3 white people of a group of some 20 Indian.

We had a group lunch today because two people in my group have their birthday today, and my boss said something about his wife's birthday is tomorrow, then somehow he said something about his arranged marriage. And then I was like, did you just say you had an arranged marriage?

And it turns out that every Indian person in my group had arranged marriages, and they're in their 30's or 40's, so we're not talking oldschool Indian.

They say for the men, their parents will come up with a criteria for a woman that their son will marry, I'm not entirely clear, but they must be from the right village, must speak the right language dialect, and so on.

Then the parents will present their son with a list of single women that fit the criteria. I don't believe the man gets to meet any of the women before making their choice but I'm not clear on that point.

Then the two parents' families arrange the marriage details, paying the dowry or whatever they need to do.

It's, just, so, weird!

Fake Lawyering

The whole getting-hit-by-a-car thing left me with an interesting question which I posed to the cop, am I legally allowed to ride my scooter to work, and if so, do I go on the sidewalk, bikelane, or make full use of the driving lane?

In short, he had no idea. He got out the vehicle code book and told me that there are too many conflicting rules and he'd have to get back to me.

I went to the DMV website and this is what it says:

VC 21235. The operator of a motorized scooter shall not do any of the following:

(b) Operate a motorized scooter on a highway with a speed limit in excess of 25 miles per hour unless the motorized scooter is operated within a class II bicycle lane.

...

I called the city traffic engineer, and he told me that the road I take to work does have a class II bicycle lane. So scarey as it may be, I am legally allowed to ride my scooter to work.

Just an interesting bit of info for anyone else who is thinking of getting an electric scooter in California.

Wednesday, September 21, 2005

It won't stop

Well I don't know what happened but around 7:30pm today, Mr. Barclay vomited up at least a pound of dogfood on the floor in front of the couch. We Taylor cleaned it up while I looked on in horror. Then a few minutes later, Mr Barfley had another go at the rug.

Taylor cleaned it up again while I comforted the doggy and tried to give him some water. We went upstairs to the bedroom and about 10 minutes later the dog followed us. I wasn't paying attention and a few minutes later I see another pile of unswallowed dogfood. I had no idea the dog could hold this much food.

While Taylor was cleaning that up, I was pondering whether the dog was really sick or not. Then he runs downstairs and vomits on his petbed. This earns him a trip to the vet where there is only one way to take a dog's temperature.



One hour (and roughly the cost of a new dog) later, I had a happy nonsick Mr Barclay, and some x-rays which show that he is full of skeleton and dogstuff. We have no idea what went wrong, althrough I have my theories:

  • Eating the carpet
  • Eating the wicker-basket that holds his toys
  • Eating Taylor's papers, shoes, and cell phone all in the same day
  • Eating every single thing that he encounters on his walk, alive or not
We will give him anti-nausea and anti-biotic for a few days and he should be fine.

Today gets better and better!

So I came home from work early because my brain was unable to simultaneously deal with just having been ran down by a crazy asian lady, getting constantly lectured by an old arrogant chinese man at work who we'll just call TV, and having to deal with everything else I have to deal with at work.

Taylor and I decided to order chinese food from the only place around here that I've decided has good potstickers (thats California for pork-dumplings) and Taylor's decided has good ribs. When I know someone is coming over to deliver something, I'll put Mr. Barclay someplace so he doesn't run out the door.

The chinese delivery guy gets here and he must have been at least a 70 year old man. I don't know what went wrong but after the guy hands me the food, the dog comes flying out of nowhere and runs up to the guy to say hi. He didn't lunge or bite or anything.



The chinese guy recoils in horror and backs into the corner of the hallway, shaking in fear, and puts up his hands as if he's about to be eaten by the Alien, and makes some kind of noise like "OH NO NO NO AH AH".

I picked up Mr. Barclay and put him back in the house and then went back to the door, the chinese delivery guy looked like he was about to have a heart attack. I've never seen a look of such horror on someone's face, ever.

I was genuinly concerned about this man's heart stopping on my doorstep which I don't think is covered in my renter's insurance. I asked him a few times if he was alright, if he needed to sit down, needed help getting back to his car. "NO NO I FINE". I gave him his money and he shook himself down the stairs.

I called the restaurant and asked to talk to the owner and told them what happened and that I was afraid the delivery man might be dying of a heart attack or something. They actually laughed at me and told me not to worry about it.

So yah, Mr Barclay almost killed an old man.

WHY WHY WHY



So as some of you know, I drive an electric scooter to work on some days so that Taylor can have the car. I have the Razor e300 scooter which goes 10-15 mph.

My office is only a mile away, but it's a scary mile because I have to cross through this road called the Central Expressway. There's traffic lights but you can go like 60mph on it. I enter the expressway at a traffic light, only when I get a green left arrow (which only happens if a car is there to make the light change), and I stay in the bike lane.

I am on the central expressway for 200 feet where I take the first exit to Middlefield Ave. The exit ramp of Middlefield ave is about 300 feet long. Once you are off the exit ramp, you are no longer in Sunnyvale, but you are now in Mountain View.

Once you hit the border, there is a bike lane, and a giant sign that says "Mountain View is a Bicycle Friendly Community". Remember that too, it's also important later on.

I am on Middlefield ave, a two lane road, for approximately 3/4 mile, then I turn right onto Ellis Ave. At the intersection of these roads are companies such as Verisign, HP, AOL, and so on, and some place called Synopsys.

Today I took my scooter to work and I got onto Middlefield ave. When I got to the entrance of the parking lot to Synopsys, which is right before 237 in the map image, some lady drove right along side of me and then made a right turn into the parking lot without looking. I had no time to react and went right into the side of her car. Didn't get hurt or damage the scooter somehow.

I don't think she even noticed. She got into the parking lot and I started banging on her window and told her to pull the fuck over and stop about 5 times. She stopped and parked.

I took out my cell phone and called the Mountain view police. I gave them my exact location and they told me that I am not in Mountain View, but I am in Sunnyvale. They told me they would contact the Sunnyvale police and have them send someone.

I waited about 15 minutes and no cop, I called the Sunnyvale police and they told me that I need to call the Mountain View police because I am in Mountain View. The dispatcher was very rude. They insisted that no part of Middlefield Ave is in Sunnyvale, which is sort of true, only the exit ramp onto it is in Sunnyvale. I argued with them for a few minutes and finally they decided to call Mountain View police and I guess have a police to police negotiation about what city I was standing in. Anything to avoid wasting precious police resources.

The cop finally showed up and I told him what happened and the lady didn't dispute anything I said. The cop asked what either of us want done. I said, "I think she should get a ticket."

The cop asked why, and I said "In California, it is illegal to make a right turn without first looking to see if it's safe, and then hit someone, therefore she should get a ticket."

The cop informed me that since there were no witnesses, I had no injuries, and there was no damage to my scooter, that he had no basis to write a ticket. Apparantly I didn't learn my lesson from the guitar bandit, which is that before yelling a stream of obscenities for 10 minutes, find a witness.

I asked the cop whether it's even legal to ride the scooter in the bike lane. He told me that it shouldn't be in the street because it goes less than 25mph, and it shouldn't be in the bike lane or sidewalk because it is a motorized vehicle. I asked him whether it was legal to ride it at all, so he went and got out the california vehicle codebook. He read through it and couldn't find anything that said whether it is illegal or legal, so he said someone would call me back.

The lady went away and thanked the officer. I thanked her for hitting me.

The end

Sunday, September 18, 2005

All Airlines Suck

















From: Jesse S
To: Continental Airlines Customer Service
Subject: Continental Airlines Flight experience

Dear Continental Airlines,

Thank you for trapping me on your horrible airplane for 7 hours today. I was just wondering after being forced to watch your president talk about how great your airline is, has he ever ridden in coach? And does he hate dogs?

If he doesn't hate dogs, then why do you make it so damn hard to travel with a tiny dog that weighs 20 pounds(with carrier) - that I paid $160 for alone out of a total fair of almost $1000?

Not to mention the fact that our carry-on dog and carry-on luggage were dealt with arbitrarily on round trip using the exact same airports and airplanes.

When I called your customer service two weeks ago to confirm the max size of carry on bags, the representative told me that 50 inches was fine. I specifically asked about the part of the flight from Newark to Hartford/Bradley. I told your rep this flight was on a smaller airplane, and he told me that our carry on bags would fit as carry-on on the smaller express planes.

On the flight from SFO to Hartford, we had no problems with checking in the dog, but we were told that one out of two of our carry on bags were too big, even though it was well within the dimensions listed on your website and given to me by your customer service agent, (50 inches).

In checking in for the return flight from Bradley to SFO via Newark, the curbside check-in guy was a creepy weirdo who would frighten any reasonable man. He said that I had to bring my dog to the ticket counter. This did not happen on the original flight from SFO to Hartford.

The ticket-counter agents at the Bradley Continental departure terminal were arguing with us over whether the dog carrier was too big and whether the dog was too heavy, which he was not. They said they would be fined by the something-or-other agency but after arguing about it for 10 minutes they let us go through.

On the flight today from Newark to San Francisco SFO, they put us in the 9th row which is only the second row of coach. Coach is where you put the poor people and give them chairs that bend their spines into a J.

Also the chairs recline which is nice, but the arm rest does not recline, so if you have a lady with you and would like to sit closer together, you're being punched in the face by the armrest.

By the time I was allowed to board, which was last of course, there was no room for any of my carry on, and all of my fragile cargo had to be checked (Checked is when the underpaid teenager throws the bag onto the plane- beneath the other seventy five bags he'll also throw in)

When we arrived at SFO and waited for the baggage to arrive at the carousel, we again were delayed. We landed in SF at 7:30pm, and didn't have everything we'd checked until at LEAST 8:30pm.

I don't understand why so much money gets me so little service. I can't say that I will ever fly your airline again with my dog, if I fly it at all.

Good cheeseburgers though.