Are we this starved for news that all the major news sites have a front page story on Arnold Schwarzengger apologizing for behaving badly in the past. Where exactly is the news value in a apology for the groping of a few bottoms over 20 years? To be honest, I like Arnold and think that he will probably do a halfway decent job if elected, but ( Read more... )

If you ever have the misfortune to end up in the ER of a major hospital you will quickly see why health care costs have exploded in this country. Since all hospitals are legally obligated to provide treatment to people who show up even if they are not able to pay, the ER has become the free clinic of choice for the uninsured. Alas most folks ( Read more... )

Over the last few years, the amount of ads for Viagra and free porn or how to be richer than Bill Gates in just a month have gone from a mere trickle to a torrent that floods my inbox so badly that I am lucky if 2% of the e-mail that I get is actually something that I want to read. Now, I find that these bastards have started using my own domain ( Read more... )

When you get bit by another person's mistake there are a lot of ways that you can react. You can shrug it off and comfort them saying that mistakes happen and that one should learn from the mistake, but not worry about it. Or you can condemn the person for making a mistake and make them feel like shit for making said mistake. Alternately you can ( Read more... )

I was watching a old Dilbert cartoon last night and it made me laugh. The premise was that just because you are good at one thing, you may not be good at other things. It made me laugh because over the years I have come to realize that there are somethings I am very good at and other things that I quite simply suck at. I know that I am a fairly ( Read more... )

Where I work, duct tape and bailing wire are my friends. As a startup, budgets are tight to non-existent and I am expected to make do as best I can. Normally this does not bother me, but lately the users have started getting bitchy when things don't work exactly as they want them to. Needless to say I am NOT in the mood to deal with a user that ( Read more... )

I once heard a quote that said "Understanding is a three-edged sword. Three sides. Your side. Their side. And the truth." Looking back on things over a weekend that went from really nice to somewhat hellish, I think there is a lot of truth in that statement. My view of reality is framed by my experiences and how I was raised. Likewise, each of ( Read more... )

One friend asked why does one cut himself off from ones friends. I think the answer is that you covet what you see others enjoying and when you realize that you cannot have what they have, you get angry. Either I am just unlucky or a major asshole, probbaly both, the reality is that I need to distance myself from all the friends and people I know ( Read more... )

Well it seems like I have come to one of those defining moments we all experiance in life. I finally took my own advice and began cutting off those people and things that remind me of what I so dearly want but seem to be incapable of finding, namely someone to love. As such I am bit-bucketing email from folks, turning off phones and ninstalling ( Read more... )

Editing is kinda like surgery at time in that you are trying to reshape a sick manuscript through by cutting, bending and reshaping the text into a more pleasing and functional form. While some authors, myself included, will say that this process can be as painful as a root canal without any anesthetic, the reality is unless you are really wedded ( Read more... )