G*DDAMNIT!

Those motherf*cking, c*cksucking, lowlife, commie, leftist, pinko, a$$f*cking, sh*t-eating, g*ddamn thieves. So, this morning, I went to put on this new shirt I got, it is this beautiful shirt from Brooks Brothers that is a light purple French-cuff shirt. The thing about a French-cuff shirt is that there are not buttons on the cuff: you need to use cufflinks to get the shirt to work. So, at 7:30am, I reached into my cupboard to get my silver cufflinks, and they weren’t in the box. After thinking about how weird that was, I stood on my tiptoes to see if I could see where they were; guess what, all of my cufflinks were gone. G*ddamn thieves.

Luckily for me, I was about to close out and settle my claim with State Farm yesterday, but they couldn’t quote my DVD player right. So, I am going to get compensated for the cufflinks, but I hate that those bastards were running their grubby little hands threw my personal stuff.

Later,

B

The beginning of my day

On my way to work this morning, my truck started dinging at me; yup, it is time for THAT again. A most unpleasant experience was about to happen: filling up on gas. I have, in the interest of saving money, decided to put 87 octane in my truck until gas prices come down. I know this isn’t good for the engine, it is a 405-hp 6.2 liter V-8, but, hell, the 93 octane stuff is too expensive. Here’s something you might not know: Shell gas stations will shut off the pump at $80 on a credit card purchase. Ouch.

On a better subject, I found this photo on my cell phone (where I get all of my pictures for this blog), it is of my friend Brooke. This picture doesn’t do her justice, but she is still quite cute in it.

Later,

B

Indiana's turn in the barrel

WARNING: This post will get a little gross, here in a few lines.

So there is an old joke that goes like this: Back in the day, when sailing across the Atlantic took a few months, a young man was beginning his career as a sailor. At the beginning of his first voyage he was talking to the captain about being a sailor, “Son, there isn’t a finer job. You get the fresh sea air every day. You get to see new things all the time, go to new places, and experience new things. Really, there isn’t anything this job lacks.”

“Well, said the young man “you do not have the company of women on this ship.”

To which the captain replied, “We’ve thought of that. You see that barrel over by the mast? Every night, after 10, if you need to, you go over to it, put your tool thru the knot whole, and your needs will be taken care of.”

So, that night, the young man having a need, we to said barrel, and had his needs taken care of. The next day he said to the captain, “You’re right, sir, with that barrel, this is the greatest job there is.”

“Great,” said the captain, “tonight is your turn in the barrel.”

Well, now is Indiana’s turn in the barrel. With North Carolina firm in Obama’s back pocket, Indiana is the next state up from grabs in the great debacle known as the Democratic Presidential Primaries. I have to wait until May 5th before all of the stupid commercials are off the air. Hillary will answer a phone at 3:00am, did you know that? Obama’s for change, better change, different change. Hillary has experience, Omaba has hope. Hillary is going to bring back union jobs. Obama is going to speak truth to the power. Etc, etc, etc, etc, etc, and, etc.

What’s worse: all of the hippy, long haired, lefty, communist, Pinko, mouthing breathing liberals in my family lobby me to vote for their pet Democrat in the Indiana Primary. They know I’m a Republican (however, I do admire Obama, he could be our generation’s Kennedy) and; yet, they still want me to care about who McCain’s opponent is going to be. Besides being dishonest and unseemly (trying to influence the Democrat’s process as a Republican) I am too lazy to do so. Plus, I don’t want it getting out that vote in a Democratic Primary, people might think I got some on me.

I really don’t know which would be worse, being in the barrel on the ship, or being in Indiana until May 5th.

Later,

B

Stupid Federal Reserve Bank

I don't know about you, but I am tired of $3.50 gas. My truck, a full size GMC Serria, cost me about $73 to $80 to fill. Currently, with having to fill it once a week, I am one pace to spend around $4,000 a year on gas. Using my net pay rate of 63% (what's left of the paycheck after taxes, social security and 401k) that means $6,300 of my salary is going to gas. That is a huge chunk of my pay. If gas were to drop to $2.50 a gallon, the gross pay cost my gas would be $4,500; if it were to drop to $2.00 a gallon, the gross pay cost would be $3,600.

While I realize that driving a gas guzzling truck does not help the situation by keeping my demand high, another problem driving gas, and other commodities, higher is the devaluation of the Dollar. When good old Ben Bernanke lowers interest rates to spike the economy, which it does in the short term, it lowers the carrying cost of commodities. With a low carrying cost of commodities, an investor can move into the commodities markets and hold more of their capital in commodities – this inflates the price of the commodities. It is somewhat counter-intuitive, but this is one of the processes that causes there to be inflation when the Fed lowers the interest rate.

So, while it is good for the banks, and the financial institutions to have a low Fed rates, it is not good for the US currency. Over the past couple of months that Fed has shown that it can come up with increasingly clever, almost ingenious, ways of keeping the banks solvent without having to lower interest rates. I want them to start raising the rates so that prices will start to come down on all commodities, but mostly gas prices.

Later,

B

So funny that I hurt something laughing

Achmed, the Dead Terrorist, hahahahahaha. ROFLMAO! Hahahahahahaha. So funny.

I've been robbed, again.

You know what sucks, being robbed. You know what sucks more, being robbed by lazy criminals. You know what sucks the most, when they rob you again.

Evidently the folks who robbed me are not dumb, lazy, but not dumb. The know about how long it takes for insurance money to kick in, and then they kicked in my window. Being robbed the first time violated my sense of my personal space, and made me question the goodness of man. (Rather low on the scale of bad things to happen, I know, but the first bad thing that happened to me) This second break-in made me feel like my apartment is never going to be safe. I've decided to move, hopefully they are targeting the apartment complex and not me.

If anyone knows of a robbery team that consists of two hispanics driving a black Dodge Neon type car in Indy, let me, or the Indy Metro Police Department know.

Later,

B

This should be filed away under: WTF?

So, I am in Montreal, again, and I had a WTF moment. This WTF moment was far greater than the one where I noticed that the upscale, hip, chic, and trendy street in Montreal was line with nudy bars. What is this awe inspiring thing that has cause the great WTF moment: the policy of Frechification in Quebec.

The proper question would be: what the hell is “Frechification”? Well, here is the answer: Quebec requires that all aspects of businesses in Quebec operate in French. Now, granted, if you walk into a restaurant, shop, movie theater, or most business and speak English, the transaction(s) will happen in English. But the menu’s, price tags, movie listing, etc will be in French first, English second. I get this, and it really isn’t that big of a deal; but here’s where it gets absurd – if a company has an office in Quebec all of its documents must be in French (at least the ones dealing the Quebec government), and all of the computers must have their operating system, and programs, in French. How screwed up is that, not a “the best language for purpose of doing business”, or a “whatever language the primary user of the computer speaks”, but it has to be the French language for the sake of keeping Quebec French.

I, for the life of me, can’t figure out how a Quebec based business makes money. The 13% sales tax (Federal and Quebec tax together) and this ridiculous requirement to conduct ones business in French would seem to make the cost of doing business so high that anyone from Toronto, New York, or Vermont would be able to supply the services at a much cheaper rate.

Whatever, soon I’ll be back home in Indy.

Later,

B

Adventures in Montreal, Day 8

Well, this is my last full day in Montreal. I am going to be spending most of my day trying to learn the last little bit of information from the accountant leaving the company as possible. His day is done at noon, so my afternoon will be un-eventful. I haven’t decided where I want to eat tonight. There is a great East Indian place, a Thai place, a good Italian place, or maybe something new. After dinner, I’ll probably take one last walk up and down St Catherine’s Street.

I have to say that this visit to Montreal has been much more enjoyable than previous visits. I have been able to bond with the finance people at the subsidiary quite a bit more. I have had a great time exploring the downtown Montreal area. All in all, it has been a great time.

With all that said, I can’t wait until I touch down in Philly tomorrow, I will be able to turn my cell phone back on and be in touch with the rest of the world.
Later,

B