Something Is Amiss.....

I sent out text messages alerting several of my friends this morning, that it appeared the earth had tilted on it's axis over the course of the night.

I will provide graphical examples in another post, but the sun rose almost from the north this morning. I had to drive up towards the Green Bay area last night, and as I got to the area, dawn was approaching. I was heading north, and the sky was lighting up in front of me, and not behind me, as if the sun would rise from the northerly direction. On the drive home, I was driving due south, and the sun rose at what would have been "seven o'clock" from my vantage point. This is not normal. Again graphics to come, but I've only slept for an hour since Thursday night, so I'm gonna go take a nap on the couch. Hopefully, I'll awake, and the world will still be as one.

The mainstream media is ignoring the story, but this has significant regional climate ramifications.

You heard it here first.

Have You Seen My Stapler?

Spent part of the evening working on the office. It's been a long time coming, too long I think, but we're finally ready to call it home.

It's small, but it's ours. Patrick already has his Vince Lombardi photo up, and I need to find a plant. You can't have an office without a plastic plant.

We've got a microwave. I think I'm gonna take the mini-fridge over there ( sorry Will ). Maybe a couple of pictures.... and well.... it's going to be a pretty standard office.

But it's one step closer to world domination. Next up, freight brokerage license for the company. After that.... hopefully a bigger office.

And more plastic plants.

Sweet Jeebus

This comes out on Tuesday......





... and you thought I was kidding when I said I might never leave the house. That's gonna be followed up by College Football coming out on July 17th. Sweet mercy, my thumbs are gonna hurt.

Two More Weeks???

Nor Rain, Nor Sleet, Nor Stupidity...

This is prolly something I should have known prior to now, but through learning about the transportation industry at work, I learned that the only legal way to send a letter is through the Post Office.

Now, it's a little loose in the interpretation. My company can deliver a letter under the guise of a 'document'. But legally, a document is different than a letter. Small packages are a different matter.

But here's what I don't get. The Post Office advertises.

ALOT.

They do commercials ( which I never paid much attention to ), and they sponsor things. This caught my attention, as I noticed that they sponsor the Milwaukee Brewers. Commercials themselves are expensive, but sponsoring sports teams??? It can't just be the Brewers. We've sucked for so long, they've got to sponsor other teams, which I imagine is really expensive.

But why advertise? They have gov't employees working for them, and there will always be some type of work for them to do. Even with the constant rate hikes, they have an infrastructure that can't be beat. To send a letter from New York to LA in a matter of days for less than fifty cents... no private company could compete with that. Most private companies can't compete with the pricing on non-expedited small packages either.

The competition comes in the expedited delivery, which the Post Office isn't so good at. But they don't have to be. The private companies are good at that. So why doesn't the Post Office stick to what they are good at? Why are they spending tax dollars to advertise??? If they're losing business to UPS, FedEx, DHL, or even E-Freight, so be it. Why are tax dollars being used to advertise a service of the government? If private companies are doing some of the workload, then why not reduce the size of the Post Office, and reduce the tax burden? Advertising only increases the burden.

Private companies can't touch the mainstay of the Post Office. Nor do we want to. What company in their right mind is going to pay me fifty bucks ( assuming that it didn't have to be there in three hours ) to deliver a letter to Chicago, when they can send it for forty-some-odd cents?

There are private garbage collection companies. But you don't see the government advertising that they do trash pickups. There are private security companies, but you don't see the Tosa police force running commercials. Local governments have their own parks departments that landscape public space, but they don't try to compete with private landscapers.

Now in each of those examples, the private company does NOT provide the exact same service as the government entity. Same goes for the Post Office. UPS, FedEX, and even E-Freight does not do the EXACT same thing the Post Office does. We advertise to try to grow our business. We don't have taxpayers paying our bills, we need customers to do that.

Take the garbage men for example. They are there to provide a service. Tax dollars give them an operating budget, and you hope that they run the service in the most cost effective manner as possible. But if half the people move out of the town, then you downsize the service to support the people that are left. The garbage men don't advertise to try to get people to use them more often. Why is the Post Office advertising, and trying to get more business? If people are sending less mail through the Post Office, downsize the service, and just be big enough to support the need.

In the Constitution of the United States, there are only TWO services that are spelled out that the government is supposed to provide for the citizens. One is to provide for a military, and the other is to deliver the mail. I've never been in the military, and you can debate forever if we're spending enough money on it - but I think the military is doing a helluva job.

The Post Office, not so much. Sure, they deliver MOST of the mail that they're given. But stop wasting tax dollars on advertising!!!!

Alot of things in government are just plain stupid. I can't fathom how there are some people that do nothing but follow government. Don't get me wrong, I'm glad we have watchdogs. I just couldn't ever be one, cuz I'd be unconscious from banging my head against the wall over the stupidity.

What Can $3 Billion Buy?

A fucking tunnel that doesn't work.

For those of you not from the great state of Wisconsin, the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewage Commission (MMSD - which is a government entity, but is run by private contractors, go figure) spent three billion dollars to revamp the sewage system in the area. Most of the budget went to build the "Deep Tunnel". Said tunnel was supposed to stop sewage overflows into rivers and the lake.

Sewage overflows only occur when it rains around here. Well, it rained last night. It rained pretty hard.... but for less than a freakin hour. It's not like we had torrential downpour for the whole night. And yet, there was another sewage overflow.

And no one gets in trouble for it. In FIFTEEN minutes, almost six thousand gallons of sewage spilled into the Milwaukee river. Four hundred gallons per minute!!! Imagine if a private company 'accidentally' spilled six thousand gallons of sewage into a river. There would be hell to pay.

But around here, it's par for the course. Almost like it's expected out of our Milwaukee politicians. What a fucking joke. At least I didn't use any water last night.

Day

Damnit.









Double duty.









Dumbass.







Depressing. ( okay, I know they've gone down a little in the last few weeks, but I work in the transportation industry. The first piece of mail I opened at work today was one of our fuel bills )






Daunting. ( the day sure didn't get any easier after that )









Dragon Slayer. ( the day turned around at the end with scoring a huge appointment with a major player in the area )









Diet. ( yum )









Downtime.





Desperately waiting for...



Dreaming.........

Guess What I've Been Up To?

Game designers went all out, and you can now hit the people in the gallery while playing Tiger Woods '07 on the PS3.

While this is amusing for about the first ten times it happens, they start you out with such ridiculously low skills, it's quite impressive when you DON'T hit someone.

UP NEXT: Making virtual Nort and Virtual Will, and having them hit people in the gallery, just like in real life.

'The Next.... Whoever'...

Did LeBron make the leap? Most of the time, I'd leave discussions for this up to people smarter than I in the realm of basketball. But I think this topic covers almost all sports, and therefore, I can weigh in.

There has been non-stop coverage of LeBron singlehandedly taking over game four against the Pistons - and with that, the ad-infinitum debate about if that was enough to make him the 'next' Jordan. He was anointed as the next possible Jordan when he made the SI cover as a junior in high school, but for most of his four years in the NBA, has not been THE dominant player as was expected of him.

Complete with the comparison to Jordan right down to having to go through the Pistons to get to a title shot, media types are trying to make sure that LeBron's career mirrors that of Jordan. And I'm getting a bit tired of it.

There's two issues here. One is - what if this game was an aberration? Even the single minded Bill Simmons points it out in his article ( but it took him 27 paragraphs to even think of mentioning it ) - even Vince Carter ( who once held the "Next Jordan?" mantle ) scored 50 in a playoff game once. Carter never came close to being the next Jordan. So why do we assume that cuz LeBron did it once, that he's now made the leap?

And secondly, why can LeBron be the 'Next LeBron'? No one will ever be like Jordan again. When Jordan came into the league, was he supposed to be the next Pistol Pete? At what point did we stop comparing Jordan to other people, and just let him be Michael? Why does LeBron have to replace Jordan? Will LeBron be better than Jordan? Who knows yet. We won't know for another decade. So let's just enjoy what he brings to the table. If it happens to be a few more games like last night - then great, lets enjoy it. Then dumbass sportswriters will talk 20 years from now about who the next LeBron will be....