Weekday Ramblings

I’ve been sort of busy lately, hence the reason for me neglecting this little side project. But I’m back and ready to jump in with one foot. Let’s see what we’ve missed:

Super Bowl: I sort of watched the Super Bowl the other day. It was nice to see the Saints win, since they have never won a Super Bowl before. It was better to see Drew Brees as the MVP of the game. He is a Purdue man, and he led my beloved Boilermakers to their last Rose Bowl appearance in 2001. Winners just look good in black and gold. The ads were okay. Betty White rocks, Doritos did it again, and E*Trade has a good thing going with those babies.  "Milka-what?"

Who Needs The 12th Grade: State politicians are trying to find ways to save money without raising taxes. Senator Chris Buttars, he of the old-school nature (read: incompetent bigot) proposed that Utah drop the 12th grade as other countries have. Unfortunately for Senator Buttars, reality set in as it was demonstrated that the senior year of high school in an integral part of the way the educational system in this country is set up. He is now backpedaling and saying that the 12th grade could be optional. Other politicians are jumping onto this idea like it is some revolutionarily brilliant concept. The best thing since sliced bread!  One problem: it already exists. This has been going on for many years already, to a small degree. And with Utah’s requirements for graduation being as slim as they are, it would not be difficult for motivated kids to get the required credits in three years. I don’t think a lot of them would actually be ready for college if they just did the bare minimum to graduate in three years, but what the hell do I know. Buttars estimates that it would save the Utah school system $60 million. I don’t know if that is per year or per decade, but I think it is grossly over inflated because not that many more kids would take advantage of it.

KOA Is A-OK: Speaking of silly ideas from a dim man, some in the legislature would like to privatize some of our state parks to save money that way. Senator Buttars thinks that $35 million (where does he get these numbers?!?!) could be saved by handing some, if not all of the state's parks over to KOA Campgrounds to run. Have you ever been to a KOA? I’ve seen some that are okay, but a lot are just pathetic. If you want our state parks to look like RV parks, than this would be a good idea. Besides, if we did this, we would have to repay the Federal government for some of the money they gave the state to help buy the land. If they want to privatize things like concessions at the parks, that is one thing, but the parks as a whole? That is just silly talk.

Gary Coleman, Again: Dear Mr. Coleman, please clean up your act or leave this state. Your escapades are taking away valuable blog time from real issues. Just kidding! We love your little rants. Please keep getting in trouble with the law. Domestic violence and criminal mischief make for great blog material.

Coleman and his on-again, off-again wife got into a tiff last year for which the police were called in. Coleman was not able to show up for his previous court date in January because of medical reasons. Coleman spent a day and a half in jail until a fan of his bailed him out. Coleman made it to court the other day and was fined $595 (chump change for such a big star) and has to go through domestic violence classes. I’m sure Charlie Sheen is hoping to get off with a similarly lean sentence. Coleman recently settled a personal injury suit in 2009 for running over a teenager trying to take his picture. Damn paparazzi.

Shrooms And Driving Don’t Mix: Lawrence Wright likes to partake in hallucinogenic mushrooms and then go driving down the interstate. Besides being dazzled by all the lights streaming around him, he also likes to get out of the car at high speed to be closer to them. Last Friday Wright was picked up for reckless driving, driving under the influence (far out, man!), drug possession, and aggravated assault (bummer, dude). As you can tell from the picture, the guy was really enjoying himself, even during the booking. Some motorists just can not tell the difference between someone who is just having a good time and someone who is an aggressive driver.

Eating Like The Cavemen: Art De Vany thinks he has the latest and greatest diet plan for people. Eat and work out just like our ancient ancestors of the Stone Age did, by hunting and gathering. Or rather, just eat the types of food that were available at the time and exercise in bursts. Oh, and pull your Land Rover around to mimic pulling a bison carcass. De Vany thinks that the “Caveman Diet” will do what Atkins, Jenny Craig, and the two dozen or so Oprah diets can’t do – make you lean and man, and grunt a lot. De Vany does get his food from the store, but he sticks to meat, fish, vegetables, and some fruit. What? No highly processed high-fructose corn syrup? That’s preposterous! While I think his diet isn’t a completely bad idea, it also is a little silly. People need to learn how to eat healthier in general, but eating like Caveman did isn’t a cure all. Remember, they ate that way because they did not have a choice. They also died of things like bear attacks and bacterial infections before they got into their 30s.

Roaming Gnome In Utah

Travelocity’s roaming gnome will be in Utah to take in some skiing. Utah won a Facebook poll over Lake Tahoe as to where the gnome would go next for a winter vacation commercial. While some who voted for Lake Tahoe argue that the poll was rigged and demand a recount (Utah won by less than 70 votes), the thing was so non-scientific that no one has a clue who would have won if the thing was other than a simple Facebook promo. It doesn’t matter now as the gnome will be in the area, falling down the slopes of Little Cottonwood Canyon.

Just for the record, while Lake Tahoe is nice, the Sierra Nevada concrete they call snow has a hard time matching the powder that graces the slopes of northern Utah. That, and the ski resorts there are small in comparison to what we have here, and it is a bit of a drive from the Reno airport (unless you have scads of money and can take a private jet to one of the small airports near the lake).  Face it, you go to Tahoe for booze, gambling, and some skiing.  You come to Utah for skiing, a little booze, and wives.

Fun With Bombs

The Salt Lake City Police Department does not want you to have fun making bombs. What’s that you say? Why would you have fun making bombs? Because they blow things up, that’s why. Blowing crap up is entertaining for the whole family. Why do you think we like fireworks displays and Mythbusters?

On Tuesday, police set off a number of chemical and dry-ice bombs at their training center near the Salt Lake International Airport. They were doing this to demonstrate the danger of these types of homemade bombs. The police were trying to get across the point that these types of bombs are unpredictable and can be very powerful. Well of course they are powerful. If they weren’t then teenagers wouldn’t want to make them in the first place. The problem with them is that they can go off in either seconds or minutes, but you never know until you set them. That’s why I am a big advocate for old reliable black powder.

Being caught with homemade chemical or dry-ice bombs is a third-degree felony in Utah. Setting the buggers off and hurting people can up it to a first-degree felony. So my safety warning of the week is this: do not set off a chemical bomb in a crowded theater and then yell “fire!” Also, if you are using a soda bottle to make a bomb do not stand directly over the top of it when you are securing the cap. Those little suckers are like big, flat bullets when they fly off.

Reading things like this makes me nostalgic for the days when black powder was readily available. One could get it at hardware or outdoor supply stores. Additionally, a person could empty a handful of M-80 fireworks and have enough to fill up a ballpoint pen casing, and then use one of the 20-second fuses to light the thing. Mailbox doors never stood a chance with those things. Dry-ice bombs are fun too, but they get everything wet. Very bothersome. Oh, and they are dangerous; very dangerous. Remember, don’t try these things at home kids – you are liable to get caught.

Gigabytes O’ Plenty

IM Flash Technologies has announced that they will start cranking out 8 gigabyte flash memory card. The flash memory chip is small enough to fit through the hole of a standard CD, but has over 10 times the memory. IM Flash Technologies will start selling the chips the second quarter of this year. The chips will be made in their big Lehi, Utah plant, which employs 1,500 people. IM Flash Technologies is a joint venture between Intel and Micron. While the production of the new chips isn’t expected to boost employment at the plant, it is expected to secure the jobs of the people already there. Anything that keeps jobs these days is pretty good.

I remember paying $20 for a 25 megabyte card 5 years ago. Now I can go out and get a 2 gigabyte card for less than that. If memory has gotten so cheap over the last few years, why are they telling me I can only have one gigabyte of email space at work?

Big Ol’ Budgets

President Obama unveiled the 2010 federal budget yesterday. It will be in the ballpark of $3.8 trillion. Or, written out, it will be $3,800,000,000,000. This budget will put us in the hole for $1.56 trillion this year. Think about that for a second. A little over one-third of the budget needs to be borrowed because it is money the federal government does not have. The current national debt stands at about $12.3 trillion, or about $113,000 per tax payer. So by the end of the year we will be around $14 trillion in the debt.

I know we are in hard times, but this is crazy. Do you realize what the biggest threat to this country is? It is not terrorists. It is not foreign oil. It is this debt. How do you think we are financing this thing? Other countries, primarily China, are holding the IOU’s for our piggishness, and if they decide it is time to pay up, we could be in big trouble. We need to get the yearly deficit, and then the national debt, under control, or we as a country will be in a world of hurt down the road. Having some debt is not a bad thing, but when it is one-third of your overall budget…

Sandy Has Fastest Average Internet In The Country

My town of Sandy is numero uno for average internet speed, according to Akamai Technologies, Inc. That means I can download porn faster than most. Er, I mean, download pictures of kittens.

In your face, Logan!

ksl.com - Utah city has fastest average Internet in US

Foreclosures Up, Vegas Down

Poor Las Vegas. The city of lights, sin, and whores is the number one rated city in the U.S. for home foreclosures. It beat out a host of cities in Florida and California (sorry Fort Myers, you were only second) for the highest rate of people walking away from the table. In Utah, the Provo-Orem area was #30 in the country, followed by Salt Lake at #43 and Ogden-Clearfield at #52. While there is little chance that Utah will catch up to California, Nevada, or Florida in terms of rate of foreclosures, areas like Illinois, Oregon, Hawaii, and other that previously didn’t look so bad are trying to catch up. The banks are not doing enough to refinance people, so they are starting to walk away from their homes, even if they can afford the payments. That’s right: things are going to get worse for some time yet before they get better. There is a very important bright spot to all of this. When things improve, and they will, more people will be able to afford homes that previously were not able to. Prices will come down enough that younger couples or people that don’t have that much money to start with will be able to buy a house. Additionally, they will have better mortgages with better terms. People and banks have learned that all those crazy mortgage schemes do not work in the long term. Sure, some of this will pop up again in 20 years or so, but that is Darwinism for you – we have to weed out the idiots some how. Oh, wait. Thanks to Congress we encourage idiots. Nevermind.