I’m really excited that finally a network is giving some attention to our climate change problem. Showtime now has a series out, Years of Living Dangerously, which airs Sunday’s at 10PM.
The other week the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) shouted saying, “Hey guys! We have a problem here!” and no one was listening. And it doesn’t have to be that difficult. Instead places like Oklahoma, who is now making solar and wind more expensive.
One of the reasons I became a vegetarian was to help the planet. I also ride a scooter, recycle, put solar panels on my house, bought a Prius, bought an electric car, reuse as much as I can, etc to help the planet and reduce my carbon footprint.
I think with a little effort we can do amazing things. For instance why don’t we stop eating meat one or two days a week? Why don’t we plant some trees? Or get a pile of recyclables and take them somewhere if you can’t recycle at your house? I think little things that won’t change your lifestyle can make a difference.
If you have Showtime, make sure to catch Years of Living Dangerously. They have celebrities like Harrison Ford, Jessica Alba, Chris Hayes, and Michael C. Hall on there who go investigate climate change and its effect. It’s pretty cool. Check it out if you can.
This problem of climate change doesn’t and shouldn’t be political.
I’m not a big believer in valentines day. I let Bri off the hook and tell him not to do anything. It’s a silly holiday, in my opinion.
However this valentine’s day was very different. Bri wanted to surprise me, and that he did.
On Tuesday night Bri went to the store to get groceries. He came home, I unpacked the groceries. Bri then told me to go into Wiki’s room for a few minutes. When he was done, I walked out to find this:
The note reads:
My love,
I wanted to give you a little bit of the beauty you give me everyday.
Love you always
Bri Bri
I brought the flowers into work the next day. Everyone loved them, as usual. Bri gets me flowers about once every other month. My coworkers get jealous and Bri loves hearing stories about what my coworkers say about them.
I thought it was over from there, but I was wrong. The best was yet to come.
I had been experiencing vertigo for a few days where I’d get disoriented when I tilted my head. We finally went to the doctor about it. (It’s nothing, I should be fine.)
When we got out of the doctors, Bri got something from his trunk:
The note reads:
My Dearest Janny
You give me so much love, I can’t return it all myself. This guy is here to help me return some of the love you show me everyday.
Love
Bri Bri
We decided to go to Carrabbas since we hadn’t been there in a while for dinner. He got something out of his car when we got to the restaurant.
I ordered a drink for him and myself. He came to the table and asked me a question: “small, medium, or large”. I was hoping it wasn’t food since I’ve been on a diet for a little while now… I said “small”.
It wasn’t food, it was a hat:
In fact, it’s a headphone hat. A few days prior, we went for a walk and my ear buds kept falling out. Bri had gotten me a hat with headphones in it. (I had one before but our cat chewed the cord.)
The note inside the hat read:
My Dearest Janny
I hope this can keep you warm during the day because you keep me warm every night.
Love
Bri Bri
Once our main course arrived, Bri got out another surprise for me.
He got me what I had been wanting for a few weeks but was too afraid to buy. Some friends of ours have Up bracelets which tracks their sleep, their water, how much they’ve walked, etc. I’ve been wanting one for a few weeks but couldn’t find the right one. The reviews online were bad.
Bri had done his own research and got me one that had better reviews. It’s called Fitbit Flex:
It was one of the most amazing gifts. I can’t wait to use more of it. It should definitely help my progress in getting more in shape.
The last gift came after dinner:
Now anyone who knows me knows that I don’t like jewelry. I don’t wear rings or anything. Bri later said I had a look of horror on my face when he presented this jewelry box to me.
I was thinking, “Oh, great. Another piece of jewelry I’m going to have to pretend to like and never wear.” But I was wrong:
TESLA KEYS! He had them made!
When I bought the Tesla it only came with one key. We went to Tesla to get two more keys. They were able to make the keys but not cut them. It had been on my to do list for months to find a locksmith to get the keys cut since Tesla didn’t do it. (Model S keys aren’t keys; only Roadster keys are actual keys.)
The note inside read:
My Dearest Janny
You are the key to my happiness, so I hope these keys can return some of the happiness you give everydday.
Love
Bri Bri
I have the sweetest husband. I love him so much.
Everybody thinks the US is a first world country. However some things in this country make it less than great. I think that America isn’t really a first world, but somewhere between second and first. We show a lot of the same behavior or characteristics of a country that isn’t first class. Here are some examples:
Healthcare
We’re way behind a lot of other countries who are not first world; like Cuba. The Affordable Care Act did great things but we’re not there yet. Every citizen isn’t guaranteed healthcare yet. Our life expectancy (#51) and infant mortality rates (#50) are still higher than a lot of other countries. Even some which we consider worse.
Women In Power
According to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the US is 80th in the world in women in parliaments. There are only 20 senators who are women and 79 (or 18%) are in the house of representatives. We still haven’t had a female vice president or president. Even the Philippines has had a women president.
Incarceration Rate
We’re number one in prisoners per capita at 716 per 100,000 population; behind Russia at 490 per 100,000 population. We blow Mexico out of the water. They only have 209 per 100,000 population. We’re less than 5% of the population yet we have almost 25% of the prison population of the world. First world countries start around 100 on the list, but we’re number one in incarceration rate.
Birth Rate
We still have a lot of kids in this country which isn’t like a first world country. And it’s really funny too. Other countries have a lot of incentives for their citizens to have kids, but not in the US. We don’t even get paid maternity leave. The only thing guaranteed for us is under Clinton’s FMLA; and that’s unpaid.
Guns
We have the highest number of guns per capita (and the highest gun deaths). We have 88 guns per 100 people and 10 gun deaths per 100,000 population. Switzerland is behind us with less than half our number (45.7 per 100 people).
Income Inequality
We’re not doing well here either. We’re worse than countries like Egypt, Niger, Iraq, Iran. Even India and Ethiopia have better income equality than we do. Our gini coefficient is at 40.8.
Military
The United States is always high when it comes to military expenditures. We’re number one in defense spending. In fact, according to the World Bank, we spend 4.2% of GDP on military. We’re in the company of all third world and below nations. The UK, only 2.4%.
I’m not getting how news of the third Tesla Model S has sent stocks plummeting and people skeptic about electric cars. I’m doing some math here to try and illustrate why this shouldn’t be such a big deal.
According to Tesla, there have been around 20,600 Telsas sold (including the Roadster; around 2,500 Roadsters were made). 3 Teslas have caught fire… So 1 out of 6,867 Teslas have caught fire.
According to the US Beureu of Transportation Statistics there are 254,212,610 registered passenger vehicles on the road as of 2009. According to the National Fire Protection Association, 152,300 vehicles catch fire per year… So 1 out of 1,669 cars catch fire each year.
I was attempting to find how many new cars catch fire per year but I wasn’t able to find that data as this may seem to some comparing apples to oranges.
I still feel safer in an electric than in a gasoline powered car. We shall see if the NHTSA launches an investigation and what they find.
I know I’m not the first one to gripe, as I was griping through the entire season and last nights final episode. I’m just confounded beyond belief. It wasn’t what I was expecting at all.
Let’s start with the Titanic references:
- When Dexter was saying bye to Harrison, it did sound like “it’s good bye for a little while, only for a little while”. What fathers said to their kids before the kids got on the lifeboats.
- When Dexter put Deb in the ocean, it seemed like he was going to say “I’ll never let go, Deb, I’ll never let go”.
I don’t get Dexter leaving Harrison with Hannah. That’s like the last person he should be left with. First time Harrison talks back, the bitch will poison him. And why isn’t anyone looking for Harrison? Did they assume he went down with the ship like Dexter?
Didn’t Dexter sell his apartment? Didn’t he give his car to Astor? Didn’t he sell his boat? He was ready to leave a lot of loose ends before he left the country.
What about their stuff? Harrison’s never going to have all of Dexter and his belongings? What happened to the blood slides?
And a lumberjack? Seriously? What did they just throw darts on a dart board with random crappy ideas at the beginning of the season… Oka, Hannah’s back… oka, lumberjack… oka, Deb dies.
Dexter left too many characters hurt by his disappearance. There’s like no closure for that pain. Everyone just assumes he’s dead without ever knowing that he was a serial killer… I will give it this, at least it didn’t leave a lot of loose ends with the characters.
Elway’s asleep on a bus. Last of that awesome character.
Quinn is tore apart because of Deb.
And what about Deb’s body’s disappearance? No one is looking for the body? No one looked at the tapes and saw Dexter take the body?
I get it that Deb was Dexter’s last kill. I get that the whole lumberjack thing was his torture. He thinks that everyone in his life dies. He has no pain now; no nothing; he’s just a shell. Is that his punishment?
What I Would Have Liked To See
I wanted an ending where people found out about Dexter. I wanted an ending where Dexter died by the hands of Miami Metro via a shoot out or something. I wanted to see a semi-happy ending where, years later, Deb and Quin were married and raising Harrison. Where Astor and Codey were a part of their lives. Where Hannah was caught by Elway and he collected the reward. Where the Miami Metro department knew the truth… how some would praise Dexter as a hero and most as a villain. I wanted to see more cameo’s of past characters.
How I’m Imagining The Series Now
Like I said in an earlier Dexter post; the series ended right before the Rita death scene. Dexter and Rita meet and have a nice vacation together and Dexter continues being a hidden serial killer. Everyone’s happy. No one dies. It sucks that Deb doesn’t find “true love” and that Lundy died but hell… maybe I’ll imagine a season where Deb and Quin hook up and get married. I need to watch them again to complete this fantasy. Seasons 5-8 can be thrown away!
Series That Had Bad Endings
Big Love – In the history of all bad endings, Big Love takes the cake. Bill dies at the hands of his neighbor? Who the fuck saw that coming? And there was no closure with the other supporting characters. We never saw Wonda again or baby Joey… just some minor closure with the main characters… Still don’t understand how Margie could have taken a cruise 2 months after her husband dies but whatever. And her “dreams” weren’t reveled until that very last episode. They were in too quick of a hurry to wrap it up.
Series That Had Decent Endings
Frasier – I kinda liked it that he went to Chicago to find Laura Linney. It left me hopeful that he’d finally found love and happiness. It just sucked that he was far away from Martin, Niles, and Daphne. But I loved that Daphne and Niles had a kid. We never saw the other characters again though. No Lillith, no Fredrick, no Bulldog.
Lost – After rewatching it again and again, I like the ending. I just wish I knew more about how Hugo ran the island and if the plane made it safely to the main land. I know now that Jack dies which is probably for the best since he was a douche most of the time.
Series That Had Good Endings
Scrubs – Besides the “Scrubs 2.0” which was kinda funny; I thought they wrapped up Scrubs pretty well. It had a lot of closure. We saw a lot of the characters from before when J.D. walked out of the hospital for the last time. I thought it was nice. And it showed glimpses of their futures.
House – This TV show had an ending that everyone should take a lesson from: live your life. It was great that House faked his own death and that him and Wilson were riding motorcycles across the country together. It was a very happy ending and a good moral. We all need to live our lives more.
Monk – That show had an excellent ending. I loved the fact that they finally tied up the loose end with Trudy. I thought it was great that Trudy had an estranged daughter that Monk fell in love with (as a father). I loved the fact that he found that part of Trudy and how they basically lived happier ever after. He continued his detective work.
I’ve been niles38 everywhere since I was like 12. Recently I joined instagram and found out that niles38 was already taken. I know I was late in joining but I really wanted to be niles38 everywhere. There were always a few exceptions (ebay, aim).
I have decided that niles38 isn’t for me anymore. I still like it and I will still have my email as it but I want something new and something that’s free everywhere; hence why I’m writing this blog post.
I need ideas. In another month the domain niles38.com will be available again as I will not be re-registering it. I’m looking for something short and something that’s me. I think LLTM (longlivethemonkey) is long… but maybe I’ll check around to see if it’s available in other places… hey, I have the domain, right?
Anyway internet, what you got for me?
As we prepare to enter or affect yet another region in the middle east, it’s nice to know that after 150+ people died at the hands of an evil dictator the US will be there… Never mind that when thousands upon thousands were being killed by genocide in Darfur we didn’t go in or try to help them but whatever.
I guess we never crossed some “red line” with the number of deaths via gun violence in this country to warrant something to actually be done.
The right likes to use that argument for gun violence “guns don’t kill people, people kill people”. How about for chemical weapons… “chemical weapons don’t kill people, people kill people”?
Maybe is it that chemical weapons don’t give us more freedom but guns do?
Or how about “the only way to stop a bad guy with a chemical weapon is with a good guy with a chemical weapon”?
I’m confounded.
I finally decided to upgrade from my Droid Incredible. I had that phone for over three years and it took a long time for me to finally decide to upgrade. It was the best phone I had in my entire life and I do miss it. However it got slow and had quite a few bugs…
Anyway, this blog post is my review of my new phone; the Motorola Droid Razr HD. I decided to go with the middle child of the Razr’s… it’s between the regular Droid Razr and Droid Razr HD Maxx. I was back and forth on phones at first… I was between the Razr, Razr Maxx, Galaxy S III, and the new HTC Droid Incredible.
So I’ve had this new one for about a week now. It’s pretty cool so far. Having the Incredible first helped. The learning curve was very little. I was able to figure out stuff pretty quick.
The tricky thing was getting my apps onto the new phone, which was why I was hesitant to upgrade in the first place. I actually put an ad on Craigslist for porting over the progress in my one app, Paradise Island. After hooking up with this one cool guy, he was able to root my husbands old Droid Incredible and his new phone, the Samsung Galaxy Note II… he was able to get his progress in his island… After I got my new phone I hooked up with him again and rooted my old and new phone and was able to port over my island.
Anyway, on to cool stuff:
- Basically everything my old phone (Droid Incredible) had that was cool.
- It has unlimited number of “pages” (desktop screens). They are always to the right. To the left is phone management and settings.
- The GPS (Google Maps) is awesome. It loads right away unlike my old phone. It takes a few seconds to get your location and destination.
- I have three browsers: Chrome (came with the phone), FireFox, and Dolphin. I could download these on my old phone but they’re awesome on my new one.
- It’s a bigger screen.
- I can unlock and go right to text message, wherever I was before, phone, or camera… no waiting.
- Front facing camera.
- It’s light weight and durable.
- It always has phone, people, apps, text, and camera.
- The user community is amazing. I can google any question I have and someone has run into the same issue and has a solution.
- BATTERY LIFE IS AMAZING SO FAR. So glad I didn’t get the Maxx. I can already not put my phone on the charger for two days and be perfectly fine.
- It tracks data use and you can turn off Mobile data.
- Loud ring tone. Which is a great and bad thing. At work I need to put it on vibrate since the lowest level of volume is a bit loud.
- Movie quality is amazing. Youtube videos look awesome.
- My emails look amazing since it does HTML email… however it still doesn’t load copy & pasted images. It also creates a vertical scroll sometimes depending on the message.
- Internet speed is awesome since it’s 4G LTE.
- The speakers are loud! This is really good for getting calls or watching video in semi-loud places. You can actually hear it!
Not So Cool:
- The email client isn’t the easiest to understand. In fact, I don’t even know how to get to drafts yet. And the settings are hard to find and understand.
- The settings in general are kinda hard to understand at first.
- Connecting it to the computer the first time didn’t work. It wanted to install this Motorola software that ended up not working. Since I got the phone rooted, it comes up as two drives, which is exactly what I want and expect.
- The weather thing didn’t work until I added a city to it.
- Connecting to WiFi was a lot easier with my old phone. I didn’t need to know the Security thing.
- There’s no way to clear all in your notifications.
- I can’t get Skype to work (which is a problem with Skype and not the phone)… I need to figure out better video conference software… anyone have any suggestions?
- The calendar isn’t as easy as it was in my old phone.
- Not sure how to change my avatar on texts yet.
- Desktop still doesn’t rotate.
- The keyboard doesn’t have the quick keys on the asdfghjkl; like it did on my old phone. It’s taking some getting used to and I need to hit space then backspace to add a period/question mark after my sentence.
Now I have my phone rooted… I still need to figure out cool things I can do with that. I also have an app that should keep the root should I decide to upgrade to the next version of Android.
But all in all I’m loving the new phone so far. Everything’s fast. My island is doing well. It’s good. I’d give the phone 9/10.
Before I start this post which I’m sure a lot of people would say I’m wrong on… I would like to say how pathetic it is that our Senate couldn’t pass one of the poorest, weakest gun control bills ever. And, no offense, how stupid some people are who believe the lies from the NRA. It’s daft that a bill that could have saved some lives couldn’t get passed in our country.
Anyway, to start my thoughts about what happened in Boston… I understand this was a terrorist attack but I’m shocked that the explosion that happened in Texas didn’t get covered. In Texas, one of their fertilizer plants exploded and killed 14 people and injured 200. Five times the amount of people were killed in Texas than were killed in Boston. And twice as many were injured in Texas than in Boston… Yet the media, all they covered was Boston.
It’s very sad to hear in our country of business’ not being regulated enough that something happens which costs people their lives. The last time the fertilizer plant in Texas was inspected by Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) was in 1985. Almost thirty years ago.
Due to them not being inspected regularly, the plant could get away with having crappy safety standards, or no safety standards at all. This happens a lot in coal mining and oil. They either pay the fine or don’t do anything at all. The fines are less expensive than to actually implement safety standards for their employees. We saw another example of this recently with the pipeline explosion in Arkansas.
I can’t understand anyone being against this kind of regulation. I can’t understand how anyone can argue on the side of the business. We all want clean water, we all want safe cars, police, etc. We all don’t want to see people or animals hurt or killed. It’s just sad.
It makes me angry that these kinds of things can be prevented. It also makes me sad that more people died from a lack of government regulation than from a terrorist attack; however we’ll always remember Boston. Will anyone remember Texas?
My husband, a loving Liberal, does not believe in the glass ceiling for women.
Reflecting on National Women’s Day, I think about how women have changed the work force. Although we have in major ways, I feel like it hasn’t been enough. The statistics simply do not show that women are making that much of an impact in breaking through the glass ceiling.
More women are now going to college and graduating than men. However, women still make less than their male colleagues in the same fields. Only 4% of Fortune 500 Company CEO’s are women. This year women hold only 97 (or 18.1%) of the 535 congressional seats (PDF – 663 KB) according to Center for American Women and Politics.
I think these kinds of barriers can be broken through confidence. I think that if we were to give girls at a young age the strength and confidence they can grow up to be as good (if not better) than their male colleagues. I feel this in my own life, for example, when I was applying for jobs. I wouldn’t dare apply for a job that I did not meet 100% of requirements. However, my husband has applied for jobs of which he’s had little experience.
I feel in order to break through this glass ceiling, women need to be given confidence at a young age. It would also help if we started to elect more women to congress and get more women in top positions, therefore providing more examples that we can do it.
Also to note I did a paper and presentation (PDF – 16 KB) about women in my own field (computer science) in college. The statistics and data haven’t changed much since then.
My Ravens, a team I’ve loved for years now, has won the Super Bowl. I’m still beyond shock. I’m still in disbelief. They’re a great team this year.
But I figured it out last night, I’m afraid to love them like I did another team.
Years ago I loved the Philadelphia Eagles. I loved them with all my heart and I was a fan through the tough losses. We had friends who were Eagles fans as well so it was perfect (besides when the Redskins played them). I was supersticious to no end with them. I cried when McNabb went down. I was there with the rookies. We even all wanted to buy tickets and go up there.
Then the most awful thing happened… they signed the dog killer, Michael Vick. That tore my heart out. I cried; I was angry. I threw all my Eagles stuff out, including stuff that really meant a lot to me; like the hat my boss gave me (I don’t get many presents from bosses), the ornament my aunt gave to me, the glasses my friend gave me, the many hats I bought… everything.
I loved that team so much but when they signed that monster, I could no longer.
I’m afraid to love another team like I did the Eagles. I’m afraid to open up my heart just to have it venerable again. The Ravens have won my heart, but not my whole heart.
But on a lighter note, I’m very proud and happy for my Ravens!
In order to discourage myself from eating meat and becoming more of a vegetarian, in the entire year of 2012 I kept track of all the meat I ate. Granted this list doesn’t include seafood in which vegetarians do not eat but I still eat… I’m more of a pescetarian.
A lot of this list contains meat of which I was “forced” to eat via going over family/friends houses where their main course was meat. Also it contains instances where I ate meat because it was going to be thrown out anyway. Here’s a key for the reasons why I ate it:
^ = went over someone’s house who served meat
* = ate meat because it was going to be thrown out anyway
# = chose to eat meat
| Date |
What I Ate |
Reason |
| 1/5/12 |
chicken & broccoli |
# |
| 1/8/12 |
1 piece bacon, turkey |
^ |
| 1/14/12 |
chicken & broccoli |
# |
| 1/15/12 |
chicken wings & sloppy joes |
^ |
| 2/4/12 |
half hot dog, chicken & broccoli |
^, # |
| 2/14/12 |
chicken teriyaki |
# |
| 2/17/12 |
bbq that ar wouldn’t have eaten |
* |
| 2/25/12 |
chicken & spare rib |
^ |
| 3/4/12 |
ham |
^ |
| 3/11/12 |
lasagna with meat |
^ |
| 3/22/12 |
chicken teriyaki |
# |
| 3/24/12 |
pepperoni pizza |
^ |
| 4/3/12 |
roast beef |
^ |
| 4/8/12 |
chicken, turkey, ham |
^ |
| 4/15/12 |
sausage |
^ |
| 5/6/12 |
chicken teriyaki |
# |
| 5/28/12 |
sausage, part of steak |
^ |
| 6/28/12 |
lasagna with meat |
^ |
| 7/1/12 |
fillet minion |
# |
| 7/22/12 |
chicken teriyaki |
# |
| 9/2/12 |
bbq sandwich |
^ |
| 9/27/12 |
hamburger |
# |
| 9/29/12 |
hamburger |
# |
| 9/30/12 |
meat in pasta from pizza hut |
#/* (I didn’t realize the pasta had meat in it when we ordered… damn Pizza Hut) |
| 11/3/12 |
piece of roast, little bacon |
^ |
| 11/22/12 |
turkey, ham |
# |
| 12/25/12 |
ham, little turkey bacon |
# |
| 12/28/12 |
little hot dogs |
* |
So I guess I didn’t do too bad for the year. I ate meat 28 times. I averaged eating meat once every two weeks. I only really chose to eat meat 13 times. I definitely cannot call myself a vegetarian after eating all of that meat though. I will do better in 2013 as I’m more familiar with meat substitutes (Morning Star Ribs, Veggie Chinese place, chik’n, etc).
I’ll continue to keep track and see how I do in 2013. I need to be more strict and refuse to eat meat when it’s served.
By the way, the main reason I became a quasi-vegetarian/pescetarian is to help save the planet. Eating meat is very hurtful to the environment.
I find it interesting that very few gun companies are publicly owned. In fact, out of the most popular gun manufacturers only a few are publicly owned and traded.
Most of the companies you’re hard pressed to find information about the actual person(s) who own them. They seem to want to keep their lives very private; especially after tragedies like the one that just happened in Connecticut. Come on, what can they say? Their product was used to kill 20 innocent kids.
I’ve said on my twitter that I’m sick of this gun debate. I’ve said what I had to, quoted statistics about guns, etc. At this point I think no guns for anyone except law enforcement… And even there that may be a stretch considering police used 90 rounds to take down a teenager in Los Angeles.
I hope Obama is true to his word in what he said last night. This debate has been over. The fat lady has sung and is well on her way back home now. The time for action is long overdue.
Here’s another one of my stabs at a web comic… How long I think I can throw a football and how long I can really throw a football. I know it’s not Oatmeal quality, but…
For more of my attempts at lame web comics, see my not-so-much advertised site, Mr. Right Winger.
After years of finding my personal documents on google, I finally got a win and got docstoc to remove my documents!
I’m a paranoid person and I like to keep tabs on my online presence so I started googling my name every month or so. About two years ago I noticed that some of my personal documents got onto this lame website, docstoc. One of the documents was my resume (outdated) and a paper I wrote in college.
If you googled my name, this website would come up where you could download the documents.
I tried emailing docstoc several times to get them removed but they refused. They said I needed copyright status or whatever. It’s like, it’s a college paper and a resume. It’s no secret that the resume was mine considering it had my name and my email on it (the same email I used to email them). And who gets their college papers copyrighted anyway?
I emailed them earlier this evening and again asked them to be removed. I cited the usernames who shared them. These were two usernames consisting of weird characters, obviously not real people. I also said that if they did not comply, I would be contacting a lawyer.
That seemed to do the trick. They wrote me back and removed the documents. I’m a happy and accomplished Janny tonight!
With this question about “are you better off than you were four years ago”, I thought I’d blog about how I am better off than I was four years ago.
Here’s a few examples of how my family is better off under Obama:
- Obama helped my Aunt Ruth by bailing out the automotive industry. Without that, my Aunt would have lost her health insurance.
- Obama extended unemployment benefits, which helped my mom.
- The Cash For Clunkers program helped Bri’s parents trade in their old van for a Honda Civic.
Note that this is just a list of what Obama has done that effects me personally. He’s also done a lot more that’s good for our country such as federal support for stem cell research, killing Osama bin Laden, overturning Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, bills for veterans, signed START, overturning Bush’s deregulation for endangered species; the list goes on and on. Almost every area that you can think of, Obama has done something about.
I’ll probably blog again a little closer to the election with other stuff that matters.
I’ve just finished watching one of HBO’s older shows, Oz, on HBO GO. It had six seasons. I’m seeing a lot of people I recognize. And the crazy thing is, they’re all in a bunch of the same shows. Here’s a list of people I recognize from each show.
Law & Order: SVU
- J.K. Simmons (Doctor Emil Skoda)
- Dean Winters (Detective Brian Cassidy)
- B.D. Wong (Doctor George Huang)
- Chris Meloni (Detective Elliot Stabler)
- Philip Casnoff (special guest star in Pixies)
Lost
- Harold Perrineau (Michael Dawson)
- Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko)
- Lance Reddick (Matthew Abaddon)
- Ken Leung (Miles Straume)
Dexter
- Lauren Velez (Lieutenant Maria LaGuerta)
- David Zayas (Sargent Angel Batista)
- Erik King (Sargent James Doakes)
Just kinda crazy. I thought I’d blog about it.
I wanted to start out with something to say… well nothing really to say. I guess I’ll just talk about the weather. It’s been good. I’ve been scootering to work. I’m thinking about taking the Prius though since it seems almost every day I have a near death experience. Crazy people on the road.
Football is gearing up. I’ll be posting my picks of who will go to the playoffs in a few weeks. I can’t wait. However it’ll be sad to see Sundays go to nothing but football… Same every year. I say this sucks since that’s one of two free days we get a week… Then football ends and we’re like “What will we do with our Sundays?”. It’s kinda crappy that football will be on Thursday nights as well. We’ll have to get our fantasy line up for the next week in two days.
Bill Maher is also coming back. Just in time too for the craziness that is the 2012 elections.
Anyway since this blog post is lame, I’ll gear up for a new one soon.
Australia
– 11.5% of homicides by firearm
– 30 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 21,262,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .14
Canada
– 32% of homicides by firearm
– 173 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 32,731,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .53
Germany
– 29.9% of homicides by firearm
– 188 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 81,799,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .23
Japan
– 1.8% of homicides by firearm
– 11 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 128,057,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .01
United Kingdom
– 6.6% of homicides by firearm
– 41 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 61,827,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: .07
United States
– 60% of homicides by firearm
– 9,146 homicide deaths by firearm
– population: 307,007,000
– homicide deaths by firearm per 100,000 population: 2.98
Statistics from United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (2009 data)
Driving down the road last Sunday, I saw this…
If only the truck owner had someone to thank for having the ability to get parts to fix his truck. Chevy is still around producing trucks like his. You know, Romney was against the auto bailout… just sayin.
