Delaware: The Musical

Simulation of the Wave Action from the Chile Quake

Some Holiday Cheer

Milk Is Expensive At Walmart

One of the false impressions that Walmart tries to create is that they always have the loweest prices around. Recently I was in Walmart, and while there, I picked up a gallon of 2% milk for $3.19. A few minutes later, I stopped by my pharmacy. The pharmacy also sells milk, so I decided to check their prices to see how much money I saved by buying it at Walmart. Much to my surprise, the 2% milk was $2.49. No sales price, just their everyday price. A few days later, I stopped in my local convenience store. While there, I decided to check their milk prices. The price for 2% at the convenience store was $2.69. So, the bottom line is that Walmart has a big markup on milk, and you are better off picking up milk elsewhere.

New England Patriots

Less than two years have gone by, and I’m still amazed that the NFL and the press have managed to keep people from asking more questions about the Patriots’ cheating ways. Although the NFL has done its best to sweep this incident under the carpet, some of you may remember that the Patriots got caught with a videographer on the NY Jets sidelines during the opening game of the 2007 football season. Apparently, the Patriots would film the coaches of the opposing team during the first half of games in an attempt to steal the coaches signals. By halftime, they were able to decipher which plays the coaches were calling, which would then help them during the second half. Strangely, the NFL did NOT force the Patriots to forfeit the game in which they were caught red-handed, despite being caught blatantly violating NFL rules. The Patriots’ defense? The cheating didn’t help them that much. Which of course, begs the question, why do it? And the follow-up? How long have you been cheating? The Patriots were coming off of a 5 year period with unprecedented success, winning 3 Super Bowls in 5 seasons (I think … too lazy to look this up right now).

I think that the NFL realized that a cheating scandal involving the Patriots was a serious risk to their product. In addition, the press tends to make a lot of money off of sports coverage, and had some serious motivation to help the NFL with their cover-up.

NBC and Affirmative Action

MSNBC has decided to take a step from the Fox News playbook. While Fox News tends to have a conservative spin on its coverage of news and politics, MSNBC has decided to capture the other end of the viewership by taking a decidedly liberal/progressive turn.

One point of disagreement between liberals and conservatives is affirmative action. Conservatives would state that affirmative action is government-imposed racism – forcing companies and educational institutions to make decisions based on skin color. Liberals would argue that prejudice is so ingrained in our society that race-base quotas and goals are needed to overcome institutionalized bias.

So what does this have to do with MSNBC/Fox News?

Tim Russert’s son Luke recently graduated from college and he was immediately hired by NBC to be a reporter covering the young voter angle on politics. Now, I saw a few of Luke’s reports, and let’s just say that he’s not ready to be a field reporter for the local news in my tiny market local station. And herein lies the question: how exactly does a kid right out of college get a high profile, highly coveted job right out of college with NO EXPERIENCE? It’s obvious of course. It’s his connection through his deceased father. Realistically, it’s not all that different than how a significant portion of decent jobs are obtained in the U.S. It’s the reason why the CEO’s nephew with the thin resume gets the promotion over the applicants with stellar track records. The guy with the union job in the factory makes sure that his son gets the job on the production line with the over the top benefits. This happens. All. The. Time.

So to me, affirmative action is less about skin color, and more about connections (or lack thereof). Affirmative action would not be needed if companies committed to hiring people based on qualifications and talent, and not on their family tree. So I find it more than ironic that the liberal-leaning NBC/MSNBC news people executed this high profile nepotism. They could choose to do the right thing … instead they choose to encourage the government to force them to do the right thing.

Where’s Keith Olbermann’s special commentary on this?

Change We Can Believe In?

I'm a bit disappointed to read about this. I don't believe that this fits in with his change message. This is 'politics as usual' as far as I'm concerned:


Anti-pork watchdogs, for example, point to the $1.8 million in five earmarks for Chicago's Shedd Aquarium, which ran $8 million in the black last year and has embarked on a four-year, $100 million fundraising campaign. With that kind of money, why should taxpayers fund a $400,000 program earmarked by Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to help the aquarium conduct a program aimed at preventing juvenile delinquency, watchdog groups ask.


http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080608/NEWS02/806080443&referrer=FRONTPAGECAROUSEL

Paterno Versus the Yell Leader

The Alamo Bowl had no real significance to anyone beyond Penn State and Texas A&M fans this year. That all changed a bit when this clip of a Aggie yell leader started making the rounds during the slow news holiday period:




Many people were upset about the blatant disrespect to Joe Paterno, with the comments about how he needs a casket, etc. JoePa shrugged it off, and once again I agree with Joe. While it wasn't the smartest thing to insult Paterno at a joint pep rally, college kids have done dumber things. No ... my strong reaction was to two other aspects of the clip. (1) WTF is "yell leader", what's with all of the goofy motions and movements, etc. (2) Why was the story that he was telling so stupid? There was nothing funny or interesting about it. In theory, this guy performs regularly in front of a big crowd, right? Does this type of rambling pass for entertainment in Texas?

After a little research, I found my answer to issue (1). Here's any entry in wikipedia about the yell leaders.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yell_Leader

With regard to issue (2), apparently you have to go to Texas A&M to understand. It seems that they have a LOT of traditions there, with no concern for how ridiculous they are. There's a short story by Shirley Jackson called "The Lottery". Maybe they should cover this work in a course at Texas A&M.

Just because it is tradition doesn't make it right.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lottery

Customer Support Call Center Ratings

Here are my ratings for customer call centers that I have dealt with. I am rating them on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 being horrible, and 10 being excellent. Here goes:


Bank of America 7
Citizens Bank 8
Comcast 6
E-Trade 2
Vanguard 10
Verizon Wireless 5

Good Site for Consumers

Spoofee is a good site for tracking good shopping deals, freebees, and coupons. Give it a try at:

www.spoofee.com

Good Food/Recipe Site

Mypoints.com

You may be interested in this website ... gain some points via on-line shopping and taking surveys.


http://www.bzzagent.com//p/5260753488/rjmstowe

Need Help Sorting Out Who You Support For Pres?

Here's an interesting site to help you sort out the presidential candidates. Answer some questions about where you stand on the issues, and how important the issue is to you ... let the website do the rest for you!


http://www.dehp.net/candidate/

Bush's Speechwriter

Journalist Shreds Paris Hilton Story

Truer Words ...

“Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”


–Drew Carey

Beyond Diet Coke and Mentos

This youtube video is pretty well done:

The Death of Jerry Falwell

You gotta love this rant by Christopher Hitchens (click on title). It's amazing to me that people continue to donate money to these TV charlatans so that they can live in luxury. Of course, all of us are subsidizing this lifestyle, as they enjoy tax-exempt status as non-profit organizations.

Some Funny Websites

Some of my favorite goofy webites ---

I am better than your kids:

www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=irule


Really bad Nativity scenes:

www.goingjesus.com/cavalcade.shtml


This site just cracks me up ... I especially like their attempts to measure how much is inside, well, things.

www.cockeyed.com/body.html

Comedy Videos

Pacabel Rant:



Celebrity Baby Shower: