It irritates me when halfwits glom onto mediocre shows like this (and “Jericho”) and won’t let them die a well earned death.  Everything about this show irritates me….it couldn’t really do otherwise being based in the perverted ‘Texan’ version of football.  The Billy Bob Thornton movie was little better.  Nowhere in the film or the series do they actually depict the game of FOOTBALL.  The greasy haired kid too dumb to operate a COMB irritates me.  The coach and his wife and his entire extended family irritate me.  The wheelchair quarterback plagued with angst irritates me.  The potbellied Booster irritates me.  The fact that when these idiots want to depict football being played they move the CAMERA instead of moving the PLAYERS irritates me.  And the fact that no one ever gets any dirt on their uniform irritates me.  This fictional Texan backwoods town is a prime sight for one of these random shooting sprees.

I’ll wager it is predominantly republican wackjobs who glom onto this show.  Let’s hear from you….

Also, same applies to Jericho (republican wackjobs in apocalypse cults).

Czech PM Blames AC/DC for “road to hell” comment.  Read

Like my recent post featuring a quote from the Calvin & Hobbes comic strip, I am featuring another comic strip quote here.  I hope that this supports the thesis that if your mind is open to it, there’s no where you can’t learn things.

In this strip, a young girl is whining about how things aren’t perfect in today’s America.  Her grandmother tells her to stop her whining and to remember that America has had more than it’s share of large and small disasters and that, “The Star Spangled Banner wasn’t written about a day at Disneyland.”

Now, which line should I get in for the biggest possible handout?

http://www.luxist.com/2009/03/27/spelling-mansion-listed-at-150-million-now-worlds-most-expens/

Yankees or Mets???

I have the fuller four minute version of this remarkable uTube video on “The Nightjar” …

YouTube – Christian The Lion – i will always love you….

I have been disagreeing with people all week on these bonuses- and this man says it all- good for him. It’s unfortunate more than half the people complaining about the bonuses don’t fully understand what they are talking about.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/25/opinion/25desantis.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=aig%20resignation&st=Search

Since you’re our expert on all things Mormon – I’ve been watching season 1 of Big Love on DVD.  In one of the episodes Mormon missionaries come to Nickie’s door, and go on and on about “The One True Church.”  I’ve had Mormon missionaries come to my door, but they’ve never said anything about, “The One True Church.”  Of course, they weren’t as aggressive as the missionaries were on Big Love in general.  When I tell them that I’m not interested in what they’re selling, but they’re welcome to come in, get warm, use the bathroom, and have some water before moving on they usually seem pretty grateful. 

Is there any accuracy to that portrayal of Mormon missionaries?  If the LDS wants to be offended by some aspect of the show, I think they should be offended by THAT.

It’s state law here in CA that a car must have insurance to be on the road.  Since they really started enforcing this with closer ties between the insurance carriers and the DMV, anyone could walk into a DMV with a phony wallet card from an insurance company and register a vehicle.  So with enforcement up, the percentage of uninsured vehicles on the roadways has dropped a bunch and now it’s only about 25%.  Wheeee!

Insurance companies probably didn’t have the ‘presence’ during the Depression that they have now.  If we fell into a real Depression, maybe property & casualty insurance claims would drop a bunch.  I’ve been doing insurance claims work on my own since 1981 and I’ve never felt any ill effects during a recession, and so far this continues to hold true for this one.  

But I got some very notable news earlier today:  Mercury Insurance Company, which is huge in CA, and is expanding state by state throughout the nation, did a 10% claims personnel lay off at the end of February.   They had a lot of people take a generous early retirement offer, but there were still some people cut who didn’t want to go.  The other big carriers I do work for, State Farm and AIG/21st Century, are still hanging tough.

That Mercury lay off was the first word I’ve had that my industry might be in for some pain.  But hopefully, with the almost 500 point one day run-up in the Market today, things will get going again.  Jobs will open up, cars will sell, houses will get built, etc., etc.    I mean, what could possibly go wrong now?

I called Sprint to get something Pretty Girl did undone – it was costing an additional $20 a month.  Then, I mentioned that I heard somewhere that I heard Sprint sometimes does “loyalty discounts” for long time customers, and I got a 10% discount on my bill because I’ve been with Sprint for so long.