Scott Cramer wrote this.

You know, sometimes it’s hard to even add something to the insanity. Check out the article below copied from Adrants.com. Original link here.

Just because the United States of America has a few perception problems in other parts of the world, doesn’t mean the country should go and change it’s name to something that exudes a friendlier perception. Just because everyone refers to Australia and “down under” doesn’t mean the country should adopt that name. Just because Iraq caught some crap from the rest of the world, the country isn’t running out to change it’s name so we all think differently about it.

A county’s name is steeped in history and isn’t something to be toyed with like a brand name but that’s what Al Ries would have us believe. Because Guatemala seems to be suffering some perception problems among the rest of the world’s populace who don’t realize it’s the center of Mayan culture as opposed to Belize, El Salvador and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula who’ve co-opted the culture, Ries, aside from disliking the country’s new slogan, “Soul of the Earth,” thinks the country should change its name to Guatamaya. Yea, you heard that right, Guatemaya. That’s like calling Australia Kangaroo. Or Brazil Bootyville.

Perhaps viewing Guatemala as some sort of helpless third world country that has no pride and doesn’t care what it’s called by pompous marketing blowhards in America, Ries would have us believe the name of a country is on the same level of importance as a product name and subject to the whim of fickle marketers who think a product name is the solution to all ills. While we’re sure Guatelama and its citizens would love to increase its tourism business, Ries’ suggestion does nothing but reinforce the world’s view of American as a country with a serious superiority complex.

2 o’clock in the morning. Staring into the bathroom vanity mirror in the dark. Unkempt hair and a two-day beard staring back wearing a brown t-shirt with a faded Batman symbol. Even in the dark, there’s grey in the beard. I can’t see my own eyes. There’s a reflection from the hall light on my glasses. I don’t want to look there anyway. I know what’s inside because that’s where I am. My daughter is sleeping in my room. My neck hurts from laying on the couch without a pillow avoiding sleep and everything else and watching a month’s worth of backed up television drama on the TiVo. I want to see what happens to these people’s lives. These fictitious people who go home from their jobs and cash their checks and worry about things like product endorsements and network executives putting their show up against another network’s runaway hit of the season. I’ve got to work tomorrow while my daughter is here, before she goes home to her mother in two days. This week is special. She has to give me first dibs on watching her while she’s at a conference. That’s what the court says. I get first dibs. And every other weekend. And alternating holidays. I get a house full of drawings and toys and no echoes ten out of fourteen days a week. It takes about twenty minutes for the Advil to kick in they say. I can’t wait. The pain shoots up the side of my neck and sinks it’s fingers into the tops of my eyes and pulls backwards trying to open me up. Another couple minutes is all I need.

Gas prices this winter have been horrible. As a result people are pulling the “gas belt” tighter to conserve money. There is a shared kitchen in the building where my company is located. An employee of another company fixes Chicken Pot Pies for lunch in the gas oven. The owner of the company she works for told her not to fix her Chicken Pot Pies in the gas oven anymore because of high gas bills. Word of mouth carried this story through the entire building within an hour.

Lets just say the company owner – for all his trying to be fiscally responsible – didn’t come off looking so good. That’s a lot of negative press caused by a little Chicken Pot Pie. So, I started thinking – How much did he really save and was it worth the negative backlash in the employee community?

A quick unscientific search led me to a website from the Gas Foodservice Equipment Network. I’m sure this isn’t exact but I’m willing to bet it gets me into the ballpark. The quote I found is, “Looking at it from a “pure cost” view, the gas oven costs during the one hour test ranged from $0.15 – $0.43 cents per hour…”

We’ve got an old gas oven in the shared kitchen. Assuming it’s not very efficient let’s boot the gas cost up to $.050 cents per hour. I think Chicken Pot Pies take about 45 minutes to bake. Figuring some fudge factor and time to warm up the oven, let’s just call it an even hour. If the employee in question ate Chicken Pot Pies cooked in the gas oven every day of the work-week, we’d have the following:

5 days * 1 hour * $0.50 cents/hour gas cost = $2.50 per week

So, this employee – worst case scenario of being a total Chicken-Pot-Pie-aholic – can assume she’s not worth an extra $2.50 per week to eat her half-hour unpaid lunch onsite where she is available to her coworkers if needed.

To be fair to the company owner,figuring a 40-hour work-week, that comes out to $0.0625 cents per hour raise. Not to mention (but I will) that if a person eats that many Chicken Pot Pies a week, there’s probably an extra cost in water for toilet flushes. (Do I really have to explain this part?) I didn’t do the cost-sleuthing to determine this cost (but I did find an odd site about cats on the toilet if you’re interested).

Since we’re talking about postive/negative opinions, the company owner is also notorious for visiting a coffee shop in the morning before work and carrying in a Starbucks midday. Let’s just guess about $4-5 a coffee on average. That’s about $20 to $50 a week. Not to mention (but I will) the extra cost in water for toilet flushes. (I’m still not going to go into detail on tihs part.)

Conclusion:

Disgruntled, hungry employee. Negative community opinion. Going down the road to putting in pay toilets.

Bad move on the owner’s part.

I’m activating this anti-crime technology into everything I own! This Superbowl ad from Sprint will show it to you in all it’s glory.

Freak’n hilarious. Of course, I still think it’s funny when someone gets poked with a stick…

If the video doesn’t load below (there’s been some trouble with this) then here’s a link for you. CLICK HERE IF VIDEO DOESN’T LOAD

Found these. Don’t ask. Just thought I’d share…

I’m Batman! No, I’m Batman!

How about, I’m saving myself! Eek.

I had a dream that you and I were coming out of a store – grocery I think – and I was in the parking lot ahead of you waiting by the driver’s side of the car. The car in our dreams was a much nicer black SUV than the beaters that we drive now. I turned my back to the car and your brother Darrell was leaning up against the car beside ours. He had sort of an annoyed impatient look on his face. Or since I don’t know your brother Darrell extremely well and I’ve seen that look before, perhaps that’s just the way he looks.

In any case, I think he and I talked but I don’t remember the conversation. I do remember turning back around and you were in the driver’s seat of our car – even though that’s the side that I was waiting to get into. I briefly thought “I usually drive” quickly followed by “how’d she get into the car without me seeing anything”. Oh, to be more self-aware that you’re in a dream.

Anyhow, before I could walk around and get into the passenger side of our spiffy black SUV, Darrell – who’s car had magically turned around 180 degrees and who was now in the driver’s seat and somehow I was now on the other side of his car instead of right beside ours – backed up at about forty miles per hour. I don’t know if your brother really drives like this, but you might want to mention to him that it’s not very parking lot friendly. I was smashed up into his rearview mirror and pinned against the side of his car – painlessly, much like something out of a cartoon. I remember thinking in the dream how odd that was. I was less annoyed with Darrell and more worried you were going to be upset that I hadn’t gotten into our car yet.

Now, suddenly, I’m in the back of a small single engine plane and your brother Darrell is flying with his young son Braxton in the passenger seat. As we are taking off, I’m like, “Excuse me, but I’m in your back seat.” It’s not weird to me that we were just in a grocery store parking lot and now are in an airplane taking off over what appears to be Colorado wilderness. I’m actually a little annoyed that if he doesn’t land that I’ll end up going to their house and you’ll have to drive all the way (I don’t actually know where but it felt like it was a long way away) to their house to pick me up and somehow the whole incident was going to be my fault.

Your brother doesn’t bother replying but instead seems to think this would be the perfect opportunity to scare me and he points the nose of the plane skyward and does a full loop. Once the horizon returns to normal I say, “That was fun.” Now he’s challenged and somehow manages to defy all physics and “skid” the plane in a one-eighty like some airborne version of the Dukes of Hazzard. I’d swear little gravelly pieces of clouds went flying into the tops of rediculously high pine trees we were flying toward. Just as things were getting interesting, I woke up. Of course.

I can’t wait for leftovers tonight so I can see what happens next!

chalk one up for google!
the boys worry me with all the information they have but this is good to see.

“Google stands up to US government porn probe”

crazy conspiracy theory:
microsoft set it all up to gain some data from google to compare against their own logs

disclaimer:
i’m all for protecting kids on the internet. however, i think the governement labels things they want with emotionally loaded reasons so dissenters seem like they are the bad guys. i think this falls into that realm. so, go google!

If I was being chased by bad guys someplace like a rice patty and I had a Twizzler, I would bite off both ends and hide under the water.

Okay, nobody understood the whole “fear of success” post. It was the one entitled “one silly step at a time”. 2 out of 2 readers were completely confused. I guess if this is a trend, I really don’t have to worry too much about it.

Glad I don’t have a fear of failure…

Utter and complete destruction is always just one step away from where you are at any given moment.

So, like, don’t take that step, eh? Things seem so obvious when you get up this early. Maybe there’s something to this whole “morning” thing after all.