Gift Ideas for Heads of State

Over on my “short post” blog today I linked a story about the gift President Obama gave to British Prime Minister Gordon Brown–25 of the awesomest DVDs this country has to offer. I mean, how cool is that? I wanted that for Christmas, but I don’t have any friends or relatives that can pull those kinds of strings.

It would have been cool if Mr. Obama could have swung a Wii Fit, but those are tough to find.

Ok, seriously? DVDs? I think, as a general rule, you should stray away from giving heads of state gifts that you can get on Amazon or in the White House Gift Shop, although the James Bond Blu-ray set or a Kindle 2 would be cool. But I’ve received better gifts than DVDs in the past year, and I couldn’t get elected to the board of my HOA.

So, of course, I have some ideas for future gifts that are better than DVDs if the President ever decides to actually give something thoughtful or significant. These are all things I think the President could actually pull off:

  1. An external hard drive with all the music he downloaded back in the Napster days
  2. Offer to help him move, and actually follow through
  3. Tickets to an Oprah taping (transportation to Chicago not included)–bonus if you can swing a lifetime membership to the Oprah Book Club
  4. Let him “ride bitch” on one of the motorcycles in the Presidential motorcade
  5. Offer to let him crash on the couch for the weekend
  6. Autographed photo of the cast of Facts of Life
  7. A couple of four day passes to Disney
  8. Cubs tickets
  9. Hook it up for him to ring the opening bell at the NYSE (on a non-trading day)
  10. Teach him how to work the teleprompter

Blog Commenters UNITE!

The announcement of this new left-leaning blog made me wonder something…

When left-leaning blogs and websites show advertising, what happens to the money?  I mean, a blog is nothing without its readers, just like a company is nothing without its workforce, right?

Is the money left over after operational costs are paid dispersed evenly amongst the people who comment and the site owners/publishers?  Do they only accept enough advertising revenue to pay the bills for hosting?

Does it seem right that the owner of such a site would profit off the work of the people who leave comments there and provide content and community? And really, it shouldn’t matter how good your comments are or how often you comment, right?

I guess the principle dictate that whoever has been commenting the longest (seniority) should get the most money, even if they don’t leave comments that often any more.

I think people who comment on blogs should unionize.

At least it would get me to stop blogging.  The only thing my commenters are ever going to get here is berated. 😀

$100,000 Cars–Everybody Got ‘Em

For a limited time only, you can buy Barack Obama’s 2005 Chrysler 300 Series C on eBay. Current bid is just under $120k.

Apparently Mr. Obama gave in to pressure a while back and switched to a Ford Escape hybrid. Isn’t it ironic that his gas guzzler is still out on the road? I mean, the carbon footprint remains, so I don’t see what was actually accomplished.  At least his conscious is clear I guess.  Now if he could just find a hybrid jet.

If you can’t afford Obama’s Series C, maybe you can get Jon Voigt’s LaBaron instead.

Back by Popular Demand

Actually no demand at all, but I’ve added the poll back onto the site.  I don’t think anyone missed it, or if they did I didn’t hear about it.  But, as Say Uncle says, “Remember, I do this to entertain me, not you.”  I think he only says that because “Powered by Spite” was taken.

So please vote on the latest poll.  I’ll switch them out and write really long posts about the results when I get bored and want to change them–every 4 or 5 months or so.

Mellish Meter Revealed!!!

I’m going to go ahead and preface this post with a disclaimer–it’s going to get stupid and, as LL Cool J would say, ridicalous (misspelled on purpose for all you sticklers).

Ok, so I have a really bad habit of posting the Mellish Meter rankings on Twitter when I hear them.  What is the Mellish Meter, and why do I do this?  According to the WSB site:

The Mellish Meter is meteorologist Kirk Mellish’s assessment of that day’s weather. A “10” is a perfect day, not too hot, not too cold, no rain, a “Chamber of Commerce” weather day. A “1” is an ugly day with rain, sleet, snow, ice, or severe cold. A “5” is an average day. “4” and “6” are slightly below or above average. “7, 8, and 9” are good to great days while “2 and 3” are fair to poor weather days.

But here’s the thing…this is Atlanta’s weather.  I hear it while listening to WSB in the mornings, and I’ve been tricked more than a couple of times into thinking I’m listening to the local weather.  Several seconds of confusion ensue when Mr. Mellish tells me it’s raining while I’m looking out of my window at pure sunshine, but I usually figure it out.

I dont know if this is the Mellish Meter, but this looks cool
I don't know if it's the Mellish Meter, but this looks cool

Anyway, I did a search and found 14 mentions of the Mellish Meter on Twitter in the last 6 months, eight of which were mine.  That kind of kills an idea I was kicking around.  Because I don’t have enough other things to do </sarcasm> and am a nerd, I was thinking of analyzing the factors that could possibly contribute to the Mellish Meter’s readings.  My plan was to track temperature, humidity, luminance, air pressure, and other weather factors in Atlanta and peg them to the day’s Mellish Meter reading.  I have my suspicions that other non-weather related factors affect the Mellish Meter, and I would like to prove it.  For instance, I’d bet that a bad hangover day can never result in a reading greater than 5, no matter the weather.

The lack of Twitter activity around the Mellish Meter leads me to believe there is not much of a market for this analysis.  Solving the riddle would only satisfy my personal curiousity.  And let’s face it…I’ll move onto something else soon enough.

Thank You Veterans!

That’s not really enough to show my appreciation for the job that you guys do. The best I can do is share one of my favorite stories my grandfather wrote down for us. I’ve posted a couple of things he wrote before in different contexts. This is a short one about two “feasts” he had while serving in World War II. Something for the rest of us to remember when we’re having an afternoon snack that trumps these meals.

It was a one-day trip from Finch Haven to Saidor and we got a1 day supply of “C” rations. As usual we didn’t leave Finch Haven until the next day and our food supply was gone. When we reached Saidor a little after night, the Japs had bombed a fuel (gas) supple and the place was lit up like midday. They ordered us back out sea so we wouldn’t be a lit up target for the Japs to bomb. We spent the night out at sea and came in the next day to land. We sure were a hungry bunch.

While on the boat, I saw a fellow lying on the aft deck under a workbench to shade him from the sun. He was lying on his back and had a can of corned beef setting on the deck right at the top of his head. I was starved which helped put my military strategy ticking. I got down on my stomach, crawled up there, got that can of beef, crawled backwards to where he wouldn’t see me get up and I sat down and had a feast.

When I got off the ship and grabbed a duffel bag and took off, every way I turned that bag something would be resting on my shoulder. We went about 1-½ miles up through the Mott river bottoms grown up in Cuni grass about 12 to 15 fee high. The sun was bearing down 100+. When we got to a stopping place, I took my knife and cut the duffel bag open. It had a lock on it. There were 6 cans (2-½ size) of peaches in that bag. Where he got them I don’t know. Where they went he never knew but me and five of my buddies had a feast.

Vets have sacrificed many small things on a daily basis for us that we don’t even realize.  Again, thank you all for what you do.

More from Newscoma, TennZenn, Michael Silence, SayUncle,

My Favorite Cock Fighting Song

You read that right.  I have a favorite song about cock fighting.

There was a time when the only Spanish words I knew were “hola”, “gallo”, “del”, “cielo”, and “borracho” .  That means half of my vocabulary was a direct result of listening to this song.

Now I know all kinds of new words and phrases in Spanish like “¡no!”, “¡parate!”, and “¡suave con gatito!”

Tennessee Football–What I’d Do

Actually, it’s what I’d do in just about any situation. I’ll be the first to admit I don’t know much about football at all. I mean, I played for 10 years, but most of the teams I played on weren’t very good, so it’s safe to assume that most of what I learned was wrong anyway. On top of that, I don’t really care if Tennessee decides to fire Phil Fulmer. I love hearing the drama on local talk radio, so if he stays that’s fine with me.

But if I were tasked with the difficult job of recruiting and coaching in a state that’s not really known to produce a huge amount of talent out of high school, I would adjust my strategy and get the top talent in the region by doing something no one else in the league is doing.

I’d do what no one else in the league is doing.

I’d take the same contrarian approach to football that people take to investing–do what no one else is doing while it’s cheap and easy to get in. Wait until that’s the fad, then get out and do something else.

No one in the league is running the option? Sweet–that means I should have no problem recruiting the best option quarterback in the region. Yeah, some of those guys would choose to go to another school to play a different position, but in most cases quarterbacks want to play quarterback. Why not give them the opportunity?

It could be–and this is just speculation–that the coaching staff can’t do anything else, so they are forced to compete for the top talent to fit them in to the only system they know.