Magically Misplaced Talent/ Daniel Days

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 03:49:00 +0000

Tim Tebow?

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:12:00 +0000

Believe!

Ron Paul or Benjamin Button?

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 16:10:00 +0000

How does Ron Paul do it? He's 127 years old but he seems to have the vitality of a 17 year old. He still looks 127 years old but he is out there on the campaign trail keeping right up with those 55 year old kids he is running against.

Coolest Kid Ever.....But He Will Be A Scary Adult

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 11:52:00 +0000

This kid is awesome. He got mad at his grandmother and his genius 7 year-old mind decided to steal her car. He gets on the news after a police chase and when he's interviewed he is very frank and has no remorse. I can't wait to see what this kid contributes to society.

P.S.- I just read online that the kid in the video was taken for a mental health evaluation a month after all of this happened because he allegedly beat up his grandmother (yeah, the one who's car he stole) in a Wal-Mart. I told you he'd contribute a lot to society. I just didn't expect it to start so soon after his first brush with the law.....wait, the kid is 7. How can he beat up a grown woman? This also leads to the question: how could anyone in a Wal-Mart let a 7 year-old beat up a woman and not do anything to help her?

Tebow: Disney World or Holy Land Experience?

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:52:00 +0000

If Tim Tebow wins the Super Bowl and the television guy asks him what he's gonna do now, will he say "I'm going to the Promised Land!"?
Or, will he say "I'm going to The Holy Land Experience in Orlando, FL!" (www.holylandexperience.com)?

"If You Ain't Cheatin', You Ain't Tryin'"

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:17:00 +0000

Apparently the Patriots have hired a former Broncos coach in order to give them "inside information" into the workings of Tebow and the entire Broncos organization. Brady has been talking all week about how they have "inside information" about the Broncos......If you're supposedly the best quarterback the league has seen in decades, you shouldn't need "inside information" to beat an inferior team. Even if you do have that inside information, where's the advantage in advertising the fact that you need a former Broncos coach in order to beat them. If you're Brady and the Patriots, I say you come out and say "We get the hype behind Tebow and the Broncos....but we're the Patriots and we'll stomp them". Instead they've come out and said "Well, uh, we had to go hire a former Broncos coach to essentially help us cheat so that we know the workings of their team."

While this time its not actually cheating, we all know that the Patriots will do anything, legal or illegal, to gain an advantage. Google "Spygate" for the Patriots and Belichick's most recent foray into the world of major sports cheating scandals.

Tebow Pay Day

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 10:10:00 +0000

Tim Tebow got paid $250,000 for his win over Pittsburgh on Saturday night. How much goes into a new pinstriped suit and how much goes in the offering plate?

Sir Jonathan Ive: Continuing the Vision

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 09:42:00 +0000

       Jonathan Ive, Apple's chief designer for almost 20 years, was knighted last week in recognition for his amazing contributions to Apple's vision in designing its major products over the past two decades. He was the leading design and conceptual mind behind the iMac, PowerBook G4, G4 Cube, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, iPod, iPhone, and iPad. His estimated net worth (including Apple stock options) is close to $130 million. His current salary is $2 million/year.
      It must be nice to have a title in front of your name. We don't have that option here in the states although an American citizen can be given the honorary title of "Sir" if he has contributed enough to the Commonwealth. Stephen Spielberg, Rudy Giuliani, Alan Greenspan, Ted Kennedy, Ronald Reagan, Wesley Clark, Dwight Eisenhower, Douglas MacArthur, George Marshall, Chester Nimitz, Omar Bradley, George Patton, Colin Powell, Bill Gates, Paul Getty, Billy Graham, Edward R. Murrow, and J. Edgar Hoover are notable Americans who have been designated as knights of the United Kingdom.
     Having your chief designer knighted for his contributions to the consumer electronic industry really shows how important Apple has been, and will continue to be, to not only this industry, but to the whole world. Consumer electronics spill over into almost every industry these days.
    Apple has been the one company who stays ahead of the competition by designing products that people do not know that they need yet. Apple is unique in this strategy because they are almost always correct. This causes companies to try to copy the products that Apple produces because they know that if Apple says a product is the next big thing, it usually is and most of the time it is because Apple says it is the next big thing that the product, and market for that product, is ultimately successful.

Debt: A Love Story

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:34:00 +0000

$15.218 trillion

Each American owns over $48,000 of that debt (313 million legal citizens).

Our budget hasn't been truly balanced since 1957 when Eisenhower was president (people say Clinton had a surplus in 2000 [$230 billion] but he actually offset budget costs by borrowing from multiple non-budget items such as Social Security [$152.3 billion]).

Basically, we (and everyone born since 1957) have been paying for poor fiscal decisions made over the past 50 years. Some of the people who made those decisions are long deceased. Some are living in multi-million dollar homes while we are scraping by. The rest are still making those decisions in government now.

Politicians need to start making decisions based not on what their party has demanded and start making them based on what an actual American would believe.
They routinely make decisions based on what a person who will live off of a pension from the seemingly endless funds of the U.S. Treasury department would think and not based on what a person who has worked hard his whole life and does not have a sure source of income after he retires.
They think "I won't get reelected by my masters (party handlers) if I think and vote this way" instead of "this will be the best decision for the people who elected me in the first place".

Debt Up To Our Eyeballs

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:27:00 +0000

There are two parts of our national debt. Part 1 is "intragovernmental holdings" which is money the government has borrowed from federal trust funds (Medicare, Social Security, the Federal Financing Bank) to pay for current governmental operations. It has never gone over $5 trillion. The second part is debt held by the public. This number has gone up from $3,789,667,546,849.60 in September of 1997 to $10,481,500,229,395.09....yesterday. The debt held by the public is all federal debt held by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments, and other entities outside the United States Government....including Treasury Bonds.

Drug Testing the Poor

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:19:00 +0000

If they're going to drug test the unemployed and welfare recipients, they should test lawmakers to make sure they're not "lawmaking under the influence".

The Dumbing of America

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 07:08:00 +0000

My favorite thing about the shows they put on the multiple channels of History and Discovery is when they have to subtitle the words coming out of an American speaking English. A lot of these shows make it look like everyone in the South is a hick....but a hick who can get shit done.

Pro-Life Baby, Adolescent, Adult, and Elderly Killers

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:57:00 +0000

The pro-life candidates don't seem to mind invading countries, bombing, and killing countless fully grown humans....when there's money to be made.
Abortions cost $ so fiscal conservatives are against them (among other reasons supposedly).
Killing people to extend our sphere of influence is ultimately profitable for our economy so it's obvious what conservatives think about that.
There is also no profit to be made in keeping a homeless or elderly person alive so they don't mind letting them die.
I guess unborn fetuses are potential future votes for the Republican candidate.Politics make me sick.

Larry the Fraudulent Cable Guy

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 06:51:00 +0000

Larry the Cable Guy is a fraud. He makes his $$$ convincing his fans that he is a working class, "blue collar" guy from the south. He is really from Pawnee City, Nebraska and his southern accent is purely part of his act.

Not only has Daniel Lawrence Whitney not ever been a cable guy, but it's not even clear that he has ever had a blue collar job. He started his career doing radio jobs and voice overs.So all of these southerners who idolize Larry the Cable Guy are really supporting Daniel Whitney, radio personality and southern "good old boy" impostor, from Pawnee City, Nebraska.....about as far north as you can get without being in a Dakota.

Execute a Corporation?

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:55:00 +0000

If corporations are people, can they be executed for being convicted of crimes? Many major corporations would face execution if so. Enron, Exxon, and BP would be prime candidates for execution. Between the three, billions of dollars have been stolen from stockholders, the lobbying industry has been bloated by the thirst for exponential profit which extends these problems further, corruption of gov't officials to change energy prices has been perpetuated, the lives of countless fisherman and seamen of some sort have been irreparably altered, the impact on the various ecosystems affected by oil spills is vast and will not be known for decades, hundreds of employees and contractors have been killed by accidents that could have been prevented if the almighty dollar wasn't the only thing on the plant or oil platform's safety inspector's mind, the economies and individual markets of not only the immediately affected states but countless interconnected economies and markets of other states have been all but destroyed. If you ask me (and I realize that you haven't), I think that a man who killed three people in cold blood over a crack deal gone wrong is way less dangerous than a global corporation who routinely cuts corners that result in preventable deaths, has participated in destroying millions of acres of invaluable ecosystems while contributing to our environmental problems more than any other single corporation, and pays off entire governments to allow them to keep acting this way as long as money keeps rolling in. Yes, the murderer should be taken out of society but the entity responsible for the much more egregious crimes against humanity should not be given a pass simply because they have more money than everyone else. It seems that the more money you have, the more atrocious crimes you can commit.

Politics These Days

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 05:48:00 +0000

Sadly, the more money you have, the more atrocious crimes you can commit. If you're a multi-billion dollar corporation, you can get away with actions that negatively affect large portions of our population or environment (destroying wetlands, rampantly polluting just because it's allowed under current EPA regulations, relaxing safety guidelines that lead to oil spills, corrupting officials, fraud, outsourcing, and over-litigating to avoid wrongful death lawsuits filed for grossly inadequate safety precautions because they can push a man with medical bills and no income out of a lawsuit just by filing papers in court for 5 years) simply because you have the money to hire lobbyists to pay congressmen to make what you're doing legal. Money talks. They teach you that if you always do what's right then you'll get ahead in this world. What they don't tell you is how naïve that worldview is.

Colorado Rockies No Hitter (Ubaldo Jimenez)

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 20:05:00 +0000

I love baseball. Ubaldo Jimenez threw a no-hitter in 128 pitches last night for the Colorado Rockies. 72 pitches were strikes and his fastball was consistently in the upper 90s throughout the game. He also hit a single in the 4th which drove in a run. Then one of the batters after him drove him in so he scored a run. There should be a stat that praises the position players who support the pitcher. If there was just one dropped ball or one throwing error the no-hitter would have been ruined. Those guys (pitcher and in/outfield players) have so much pressure put on them its a wonder they can go out there every inning knowing that they are not only working towards a win, which is hard enough in and of itself, but also towards the prestigious no-hitter. The Rockies have only been a franchise for 18 years and this was the first time in their history that a no-hitter has been thrown. I could watch baseball all day long. What a great sport! I just wish the Red Sox could get on track and start winning some more games. They have a really tough beginning to their season and in some ways its better to get as many of those games out of the way earlier rather than later. I would much rather hear that we are having a "slow start" than to see that we're in a slump. I can't wait to see how the season pans out. Johnathan Papelbon just had his second baby so he is going to miss a couple games when we really need him. We lost 2 in a row to Tampa Bay and right now we're losing again.....like 6-0 last time I looked.

Disco Biscuits (Second Night)

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 17:08:00 +0000

Thanks to the Disco Biscuits and my friends I had one of the best weekends in a long time. The shows both nights were incredible. Here are the setlists from both nights:
4/16 (Friday, Night 1):

Set 1: Mirrors > Flash Mob, Kamaole Sands > Air Song > Humuhumunukunukuapua'a > Kamaole Sands > Magellan Reprise

Set 2: Big Wrecking Ball, M.E.M.P.H.I.S. > Basis For A Day > The Great Abyss > Basis For A Day

E: On Time, Feel Good Inc.
4/17 (Saturday, Night 2):

Set 1: In The Flesh > And the Ladies Were the Rest of the Night > Helicopters ¹, Fish Out of Water, Shelby Rose > The City > Shelby Rose

Set 2: 42 > Lunar Pursuit > And the Ladies Were the Rest of the Night, Portal To An Empty Head, Little Lai ² > I-Man > 42

E: Pimp Blue Rikki
I know that no one reads this but if there is someone reading this and you don't know what all of that means.....it equals two nights of some raw, awesome, sick-nasty music.
It definitely makes me happy that the Biscuits think enough of their fans in Richmond to do two nights at The National. They must really like the venue as well. I know I do. The National is a really, really nice place. The people who manage that place know exactly what they're doing and whoever planned/built the place is obviously extremely experienced because they make everything pretty comfortable. It also flows really well and the prices on booze aren't too high. Liquor drinks are $6. Beers are either $5 or $6. Its definitely worth it to go for the liquor drinks because not only are they the same price as the beers, but the bartenders poured a lot of bourbon in all of my bourbon and cokes. Phil, Kent, Zach, and I most assuredly went through at least 1 bottle of Jim Beam ourselves last night and I know I put a hurting on another bottle the first night. The highlights of both shows were in the first night during Basis>Great Abyss>Basis, the second night during Shelby>The City>Shelby, and also in the second night during Lai>I-Man>42. All of those times I could just feel how much the crowd was getting into it. You know its a good show when you can feel the energy of the whole venue about to explode out of the roof. Its those times when you just can't control how crazy you're dancing and don't care how you look or what other people think about you. You gotta just hope you don't have too much of your drink left because chances are its going to be spilled either by you or some crazy hippie.

Disco Biscuits Last Night

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Sat, 17 Apr 2010 18:05:00 +0000

Wow, the Biscuits show last night was awesome. I have such good friends that they are willing to buy me a ticket for tonight's show because I'm so broke. I didn't know people liked me enough to pay to have me around! Haha. I'm super psyched for tonight.

Waste of Time

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 18:13:00 +0000

I just sat through a 50 minute class period in which the teacher talked about how he would curve the grades for our last test. He started asking people what they thought about it and what they would do. This went on for 50 minutes. I kept waiting for the professor, if you can call him that, to go into the subject that we're learning about which is Communist Russia...but he never did. I raised my hand at one point and said "Why are you curving the test? Didn't you make it? Didn't you come up with the format which was online with two attempts to get the best grade? Didn't you tell us we could use our notes on the test? Why don't you just give us the grades we earned and start teaching the next test's material so we might know it a little better?" Ok well I only said half of that....but I was thinking all of it.

Disco Biscuits @ The National Tonight (Richmond, VA)

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 12:01:00 +0000

It has been another year since I have seen my favorite band, The Disco Biscuits. Tonight they are playing at the National in my own hometown of Richmond, VA!!!!!! Actually they are playing tonight and tomorrow night but I only had enough money (a long time ago when I bought them...now I'm double broke) for tonight's ticket. It is going to be different because it will probably be one of the few times I have seen them where I will be partly or completely sober.
A few of my friends are coming up from Bristol, VA. I haven't seen Kent or Phil in a long, long time. Biscuits shows are always good times where good people and good friends come together that haven't seen each other in a while. We get psyched up for what makes us happy. Its also really fun to watch all of the super drugged out idiots doing some dumb crap and getting kicked out. I LOVE IT!!!!!!!!!!!! I will post something about the show when I get home.....or tomorrow. CHEERS!!!!

"Wall Street" The Movie and Its Sequel

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 04:18:00 +0000

One of the greatest movies of the 1980's was made in 1987 and it was called "Wall Street". Written and directed by Oliver Stone, it stars a young Charlie Sheen as a burgeoning stock broker trying to make it rich by getting into the good graces of a slimy, ruthless power broker named Gordon Gekko, played by Michael Douglas. Sheen's character is named Bud Fox and his father is named Carl Fox (played by Charlie Sheen's real-life father, Martin Sheen). Carl Fox works for an airline called Blue Star Airlines. In order for Bud to get in good with Gekko, he gets a tip from his father about the airline which ends up panning out, making Gekko a lot of money, and in turn makes Gekko take Bud under his wing. The tagline of the movie is "Every dream has its price".
Now Bud is living in the fast lane. He has nice cars, fancy ladies, and lots and lots of money. He gets corrupted and starts to get involved in questionable trading activities which end up being illegal and that is where I will stop in case there is actually someone reading this who hasn't seen the movie....or if there is anyone actually reading this.
Gekko has some great lines throughout the movie and they only work because Michael Douglas is such a great slimy, white collar, "King of All Capitalism" asshole. One of the best lines he has is: "Greed is good". Another is: "Its all about bucks kid. The rest is conversation". There are some other great lines in the movie that aren't yelled by Michael Douglas as Gekko. At one point when Bud Fox (Sheen) realizes that he has to face the facts, he says "Life all comes down to a few moments. This is one of them". Another character in the movie whose name is Lou says a line that I love: "Man looks into the abyss, there's nothing staring back at him. At that moment, man finds his character. And that is what keeps him out of the abyss".
This past year, they made a sequel to "Wall Street" 22 or 23 years after the first one was made. It is going to be released in September and I can't wait to see it. The original was made in '87 when we were in a pretty terrible recession. In October of '87 the Dow lost 22.6% on what they called "Black Monday". The crash of '29 wasn't even as bad as the one in '87. The Dow went from like 2500.00 down to close to 1500.00 in almost one day. But our big companies handled it better than they did in the 20s. Capitalism was in rough shape when the original "Wall Street" came out. Its interesting that they were making a movie about market projections in the middle of that. Now, in the midst of our economic crisis, hopefully "Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps" will be just as good if not better.

The Past

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 00:09:00 +0000

It always seems to come back and bite you in the ass doesn't it?
"They" say you're supposed to learn from your past and your past mistakes but even if you learn from them they still seem to come back and hurt you. I'm not saying that I should just be absolved of everything I have ever done in my past but damn! How am I supposed to get anywhere if my past mistakes are beating me in the head around every turn?

Getting a Job at a State University: Not All Its Cracked Up to Be

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 12:24:00 +0000

Recently I applied to VCU for a technology services position. I think I was just applying so that the Virginia Employment Commission would know that I was looking for a job so they could still legally send me my unemployment check each week. In the job description it said that I would be providing "tier 1 and tier 2 PC support to the University executive, managerial and administrative staff. Support responsibilities include PC staging for installations, PC and peripheral installations, client software installations, hardware/software troubleshooting and network/domain connection troubleshooting." It doesn't say one thing about having to drive a state-owned VCU van around to deliver/pick up PCs. It most certainly does not say that you are required to have a driver's license in order to have this job. After applying I received a call to come in for an interview. This went very well and I was extremely confident once I left.
Still no one had said anything about driving a van or needing a license. I would have volunteered this information to them had I known it was needed. So then I got hired for the position. Then the boss finally tells me I will be driving and need a license. He starts grilling me about why I don't have the license and could I get it soon. I was starting to understand that the supervisor had screwed up and had hired two people who did not have drivers licenses to fill a position in which they would need to drive all over campus. So then I'm told that I have two weeks to get my license and they'll hold the job for me until then. Long story short, I got my license and started working two weeks ago.
The job was boring to say the least. My immediate supervisor, Mark Cahen, mostly sat at his computer all day doing.....something. Sometimes it seemed like he was doing work and other times he would be messing around on his personal computer all the live long day. We only went out and fixed or installed computers when it seemed like the work was actually piling up around him. The rest of the time I sat in front of a computer and e-mailed, played on facebook, and found as many Chuck Norris Facts (Jokes) that I could.
One day last week, one of my many bosses e-mailed me and said she was concerned that I would not be suitable to be insured by the university because there had to be some reason why I had to pay so much money to get my license back. <-----Basically, pay to work for them. So they forgot to let me know I needed a license to work there, then talked down to me like I was a degenerate for not having a license, and then, once I got my license, they decide that I have to have a perfect driving record in order to employ me.
I jumped through some hoops to get that job. Today I lost it.

Hot Weather vs. Cold Weather: Seems To Have An Effect on Attractiveness of Women

noreply@blogger.com (Dbisco) — Thu, 15 Apr 2010 03:19:00 +0000

Being a student at VCU has its ups and downs. The highs and the lows. The ebb and the flow. One of the positive aspects of attending VCU is the sheer number of attractive women (or girls....maturity isn't usually their strongest quality). My question that I don't expect to have answered (1. because no one reads this blog; and 2. because its more hypothetical....ish) is as follows: Do girls get cuter when the weather warms up? Is it just the clothes, or lack of clothes, that are worn as the temperature rises? I don't see a change in the less attractive girls though. What does it all mean? Are winter clothes just unflattering? Am I thinking too hard about this? Probably.