See I told you (read previous post for explanation)

Now why do I say that, at 33 years of age, I'm still a strange child? Well I do tend to know a lot and, perhaps, even to think too much. I love the jingles that have been created for the "free credit report dot com" commercials (all except the last one.) I find them catchy (but not catchy enough to use their services ever again.)

The problem I have is with the commercial where he's "dressed up like a pirate in this restaurant." You see, in this jingle he says "Should have gone to freecreditreport.com, could have seen this coming at me like an atom bomb."

Well, I've expressed my issues with this to the people around me and they all roll their eyes and tell me I'm weird so now I'm posting it here to my blog instead since that's basically what I created the blog for in the first place.

My issue is that an Atom Bomb is built to be fast and difficult to detect. In fact, in "Remembering the Manhattan Project" By Cynthia C. Kelly it's stated that an ICBM can reach any target within 30 minutes. I'm pretty sure I would like to see credit problems coming at me in a more detectable way and with more than 30 minutes warning. How about the rest of you?

I was a strange child (and I still am, just see the next post)

When I was a child I used to watch the cartoon "Captain Planet." I liked the whole 5 element idea as it appealed to my Native American background. There was, however, something that bothered me about the ol' Cap'n. I always wondered why he wanted to kill everyone on earth.

Now I'm sure you're wracking your brain trying to recall when he ever tried to destroy life on earth as he was the epitome of environmentalism in the late 80's (that's when I watched anyway.) It is, however, in his very theme song where you can find evidence to this.

You see his theme song states "Captain Planet he's our hero. Gonna take pollution down to zero."

Now I know I was a geeky child and probably knew "too much" if such a thing is possible. It's just that I was aware even then that moisture that is suspended in the clouds condenses around airborne particulates (pollutants) and that condensation is what forms rain drops. Without these particulates it doesn't rain. Without rain we all die.

So there you have it. Proof positive that Captain Planet wants us all dead.

The Blinking Light Phenomenon

I have always been fascinated by the ability of a blinking light to bring the most intellectual people to the verge of drooling. We see it all the time. The police use blinking lights to get our attention and make us dumb enough to confess to whatever it is they say we were doing to make them pull us over, stores use it to make us buy things we would laugh at someone else for purchasing, lighthouses use them to make us sail blindly into rocks and shallow reefs. It seems that any time we are faced with a blinking light that our brain takes a temporary vacation.

There is nowhere that I find this more annoying than at a broken traffic signal. Any time I see a blinking stop light I dread approaching the intersection. People will sit there for eons with this look upon their face that clearly indicates their feelings of betrayal that a light which has told them day in and day out just what they should do with their cars has now forsaken them.

Today I was pulling up to one such intersection and that familiar feeling set upon me. There was an SUV in the lane beside me and we reached the intersection together. As we came to a stop the “left hand turners” going the direction opposite us were just clearing the intersection leaving one vehicle sitting there waiting to go straight ahead. It was clearly his turn. Not only was he at the intersection before us but he was the only other car there and he was to our right hand side (I can see my driving instructor beaming with pride that I actually read my driver’s handbook.) The driver of the SUV and I were both sitting there staring down the other driver and waving him on. His response was to sit there and look back at us so I did the logical thing and after a good 10 or 15 seconds of just sitting there I took my foot off the brake and hit the gas. This, of course, was the opposing drivers cue to do the same. Thankfully his brain awoke from it’s blinking-red-light induced stupor and he stopped before our cars became one with each other.

It’s the perfect time of the year to send cash, checks or money orders to the owner of this blog.

Sorry, my bad, go back about your business.

Are SCE customers bad people?

Just a bit of observation here for the New Year. I've been inside most of the businesses in Ridgecrest in the years I've lived here. I've certainly been in every bank and government building and there is one thing I've never seen in any of them. There are no serious barriers between the service personnel and the public. Now DHS has Plexiglas windows and the new Desert Valleys bank has that glass window on the outside that is probably pretty stout.

I simply cannot fathom why it is, however, that SCE would need a solid plate of inch and a half bullet proof glass between them and their customers. As far back as I can remember that has been the SCE office. So seriously, are their rates so high that they have to fear a machine gun massacre from their clients?

"Sale" out

I saw a web site today expressing the differences between men and women. One of them said that a man will spend $2 on a $1 item he needs while a woman will spend $1 on a $2 item she doesn’t need. This is, of course true. It’s been shown through studies that a woman will spend more money at a store that is having a sale than she would if they are not. I don’t know if any such studies have followed the spending habits of men but I would imagine that men would be at least a little more likely to buy an item if it’s on sale or at least to chose the sale item over a comparable non sale item. I, myself, have purchased items that were originally priced higher than competing items but were on sale for less.

Here’s the thing though. I HATE sales. I consider them to be insulting. And the bigger the sale the more distaste I have for the store hosting it. I especially hate “perpetual sales” like those you see at the jewelry counter at K-Mart. Why would I hate stores for giving me such great deals? Well, it’s simply a desire not to be reamed.

You see, we all know that each and every item on the shelf has to pay for a certain number of things. It has to pay for the materials to make it, the truck to ship it, the lights to illuminate the associate to help you decide you want it and the cashier to take your money. If it can’t do that and still have a few cents to spare then it’s not worth it to the company to sell it. Another thing we all know (deep down) is that when an item is on “sale” it is still paying for all of those things but has fewer “cents” left over after the sale. No company is going to take a loss on their sales. Now it’s true that they may sell one item for less than the total costs of the aforementioned list hoping the sale will entice you to buy other things. That, however, leads me to my problem with BIG sales.

If a company can afford to sell one or two small things for less in order to get you to buy other items that’s fine. But when you see a “store wide” sale you KNOW they’re still making a profit on the items they’re selling. So if you go in and buy an item that was $10 and it’s now marked down to $6 but they’re still making a profit it just goes to show you how much they’re reaming you when you are purchasing the item at the regular price. For this reason it really bothers me when the sale is for high percentages.

The last thing that bothers me is the perpetual sales. I hate it that every time I go in to K-Mart I see a 70% sale on their Jewelry. If it’s ALWAYS 70% off it’s not a sale…that’s the price you’re selling it for. Do not try to insult me by pretending that the item is worth more but that you are offering me a great deal. If you have to TELL me it’s a great deal then it ISN’T a great deal.

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Edit: I just had to add this. I would accept this as the one exception to the rule that sales are bad

Is Hollywood killing people?

Most of my blog posting are rather humerus in nature but this one is something serious.

I am one of those Harry Potter fans who was looking forward to the Half Blood Prince release for evil reasons. I won't spoil anything but I have not been happy with the editing or directing in the most recent installments. I am amongst the many fans who have begun to lose interest in the movies as they stray further and further from the characters we've come to love in the books and have leaned increasingly on sensationalism and computer graphics to awe their audiences. Warner Brothers is aware of this lack of enthusiasm and they have worked hard to try and overcome it. They have even pushed back the release of the film. I think one reason they've done this is so that those who have been given the pleasure of viewing the film can write their (hopefully glowing) reviews and get people interested in the film before it's release.

Something else happened prior to the film's scheduled release however. Rob Knox who played a supporting role was stabbed and killed in a bar fight. Now these kinds of terrible things happen every day. It's not that uncommon an occurrence. I might even look past it as coincidence if it were not for other prominent deaths preceding movie releases.

The movie the Dark Knight was rumored to be a very good movie. It was, however, to be very dark and much askew from the previous installments of the Batman movies. As such there was some trepidation that it may not be received quite as well by the standing fan base as the others were. You can only put so much of a movie into a trailer so the producers needed to come up with another way to make people interested in this movie. People who were loyal fans as well as those who may never have seen a Batman movie before.

What happened prior to the release of the Dark Knight to garner this interest? There was the sudden and unexpected death of the costarring actor Heath Ledger. What better way to get people to watch a movie than out of respect for the dead right?

Then we move on to the last recent and prominent example. The movie Frost/Nixon was set to be released on a limited basis in select cities. Being a political movie it was standing on a rather narrow line to begin with. People could love it or they could hate it. Now I've seen some of the earnings for the movie from it's first week but it's hard to tell what they mean. As the movie was released only in select cities you can't compare it to the massive earnings of nation wide releases. However, it seems to me that in the time it's been out there the 1.8 million it's earned is somewhat meager.

What is a movie production company to do? Well, you don't want to kill off too many Hollywood actors or you have to go and train new ones and who wants to go through that hassle. So what's the next best thing? Kill off someone famous associated with the story the movie tells. Who could they kill off without being too conspicuous? Well, the options are limited when you're dealing with a movie about the Watergate scandal. There are not too many people still around who the public associates with it. But the powers that be managed to find someone. On Decenber 18th, Mark Felt (A.K.A. Deep Throat) who helped break the scandal died in his home. Yes, he was 95 and in poor health but in light of the other deaths I think his could be considered one in a long line of famous deaths associated with and in close proximity to the release of major motion pictures.

Maybe I'm crazy but Rob Knox, Mark Felt, Heath Ledger, Bruce Lee, Brandon Lee, Bella Lugosi, Richard Harris and a startling long list of others might disagree.

How do they define "most" surfaces?

I got an air freshener about a week ago and decided to instlal it. It is the type that sticks to the wall and you press down on it to make it spray. This is quite odd to me in the first place as it sprays right where you have to press down so you get a hand covered with air freshener.

That problem was solved by the thing breaking before I could even install it though.

Here is the kicker, however. The packaging says "Attaches to most household surfaces." and then goes on to say "Do not use on delicate or vinyl wallpaper, or bare wood. Not recommoneded for use on plasterboard or painted drywall.

So it seems that "most" surfaces refers to tile, metal and stone. I've been to a lot of houses and the places I find tile, metal and stone in those houses is floors, countertops and fixtures. None of which is suitable for the installation of an air freshener.

It reminds me of the sunscreen I get. It says in bold letters on the front of the bottle "Waterproof and sweatproof" and on the back it clearly says to reapply after swimming or sweating.

And still there aren't people out there slapping these advertising directors across the nuckles with rulers for lying (I assum because they eventually tell the truth in small letters on the back of the product.)