I was sitting there minding my own business trying to decide if Dollhouse was really any good (or at least better then the new Knight Rider) when a family face appeared. Matt Keeslar “The Middleman” of the show of the same name, was playing a psycho path hired to kill echo. Skipping past the Dollhouse I began to wonder when my favorite show from last summer would be appearing again. Only to stumble upon this “The Middleman” Is Dead.

There is nothing more to say about this. Other then that totally sucks, harder then your mom, yes even when she takes out her teeth. The witty dialog and oddly natural banter between the characters made the show highly enjoyable. Although I did always wonder if it was on the right station. It was a bit more adult then the other fare on the station and far more intelligent. Stupid ABC Family. Say you support the show, say you don’t want anything on the show to change, say we are not doing the originally planned 13th episode so we can make the 12lth even better, say you love it. Then say sorry its canceled.

For those that have no idea what or who “The Middleman” is or was or will be, you truly missed out on one of the smartest shows of recent years. It threw together a nice eclectic mix of current and past pop culture with quick witty dialog surrounding unbelievably believable events. Kind of a weird hybrid of X-Files, Chuck, and the Gilmore Girls.

Will Dub Dub ever find  out the truth about her father? Will Lacey ever find out what’s in the middle of the middle man? Will Noser ever actually complete the lyrics to anything?

1. Holding on to a sinking stock.
2. Not  holding on to a sinking stock.

That’s right. As an investor you hold on to a sinking stock and as in investor you do not hold onto a sinking stock. WTF? You can click on the two reasons to take you to respective articles supporting both. I am not a trained stock trader or broker and I am not advocating any particular stocks. Nor am I telling you to hold, buy or sell what you currently have. I just find it fascinating that the most common mistakes made are contradictory.

There is a saying, you can’t gain anything if you don’t risk anything. Similarly, don’t let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game, even a blind squirrel finds an acorn every now and then, Money in a mattress only collects dust mites and fleas, and well you get the point. Everyone has a saying that can be related to investing. Who is right? The experts that tell you to hold onto your money? The ones that tell you to sell your stocks when they drop? The ones that tell you not to worry and to hold on to them and possibly reinvest more money as the drop?

The award for most in need of a frontal lobotomy this week goes to stock brokers and money managers.

Today at lunch I had a friendly discussion about the recent developments surrounding a particular famous Olympic athlete and his poorly chosen method of relaxation. It seems the sheriff of the town where the unfavorable picture was taken of Mr. Michael Phelps has decided to pursue an investigation into the people involved with the activities partaken in said picture. I did not comment on the legality of the main issue, ie whether marijuana should be legalized or not, but merely on the fact that people are chiding the sheriff for his actions.

I suppose I did get a bit stubborn during the course of the conversation and once or twice prevented the other party from voicing their point. But I already knew what their point was. It was the same point and issue that all the people riding the sheriff were already espousing. Namely that it was a waste of resources to pursue the investigation. Phelp’s already said he was sorry, why can’t we leave it at that?

Facts:

1. It is currently illegal to possess marijuana. (I will neither agree or disagree with this, it simply is the state of things currently.)
2. Michael Phelps was pictured using a bong/water pipe.
3. He later admitted that yes it indeed was filled with marijuana and not tobacco.
4. The sheriff, based on that picture, took it upon himself to find and arrest the parties involved.
5. Michael Phelps has a certain level of celebrity that undoubtedly  brought extra scrutiny to bear.

Yes it may be unfair that the sheriff went after arrests based on the picture simply because of Phelp’s celebrity status.  It may be a huge waste of law enforcement resources for rather minimal charges. As far as I know, Phelp’s has yet to be charged with anything. But he has already admitted to it on record. That alone is enough. His lawyers would have a hard time having his admission thrown out, especially because he said it during a press conference and he was not under arrest at the time so he would not have been in violation of his Miranda rights.

The stubbornness on my part came in when the other party involved in the conversation tried to get out their point that it was simply marijuana and surely a huge waste of resources to pursue it, and I constantly interrupted with the question: Is it legal to posses or consume marijuana?” Sure it was a bit annoying, and it was meant to be. More then trying to support the sheriff, I was trying to drive at the point, were is the line where laws can be fudged a bit?

Sure he was not hurting anyone? I attempted to make a comparison to attacking someone with a knife, but only cutting them a little, to the point of drawing blood but leaving no scar. The other party complained that comparing attempted murder or even assault was not accurate when talking about drug use. Why the hell not? Are not both against the law? The biggest difference I see is that the assault depends solely on the second party (the victim) deciding to press charges or not. In the case of drug use there is only one party. So if we apply the same rules to laws governing drug use, then the victimized party should decide whether to press charges or not. Which then means the person using the drugs should decide whether they want to press charges against themselves or not.

The point being that while the actions the sheriff have taken may be a bit overzealous, especially if he does not apply the same resources to similar cases when no celebrity is involved, he was still enforcing the law which is what he was hired to do. If you think the law he was enforcing is ridiculous or outdated, then you have every right to petition the government (local and federal), seek elected office yourself, stage demonstration (legally and peacefully) and more to see it get changed. Until then, you should full expect to pay for the consequences of your actions until such changes are made. That goes double for celebrities and others under the public microscope.

The first batch (good old original plain) was just as I imagined, a piece of cereal heaven in my mouth (just like your mom). Then I started thinking, can you make them any better?

So I set out to try some variations. First up is the Chocolate Orange RK. Not sure if they were better but they were definitely damn good eaten

The Recipe:

Ingredients:

1. 1/2 stick of butter (4 tblspoons)
2. 1 bag marshmallows ( i prefer to use the mini ones)
3. 6 cups rice krispies
4. Zest from 1/2 of orange.
5. 1 cup (or more depending on your tastes) semi sweet chocolate.

Steps:

1. Zest 1/2 of the orange if not already done. To zest use a fine to medium grate to grate the orange peel. Try not to go to far with the zesting, just take off the top layer of orange from the rind/peel.
2. Melt the butter in a large pot.
3. Add the orange zest, stir so it is mixed evenly.
4. Add the marshmallows, stir until completely melted.
5. While waiting for the marshmallows to melt, begin melting the chocolate.
6. Grease a 13 by 9 pan with butter or crisco.
7. Once the marshmallows are completely melted, remove from heat.
8. Add the rice krispies and stir until evenly coated.
9. Spoon into the pan.
10. Butter the backside of a large spoon and use it to smooth out the rice krispies in the pan.
11. Finish melting the chocolate and pour the melted chocolate on top. Smooth to desired thickness.
12. Let cool.
13. Cut and serve.

Tip: Cool in the freezer or refrigerator. One it sets the chocolate faster, two it seems to help set the marshmallows and butter faster as well which keeps the rice krispies krispier.

I repeat, I did not vote for Obama. Political alignment aside, I was open to giving Mr. Obama, sorry, President Obama, the benefit of doubt as he took office. Waiting to pass judgment until he was just about done with his term. Recent events have caused me to reconsider this position, or at least start him off with a C.

FOR THE LOVE OF PETE! You do not get elected by pinning all the current economic woes on the then president and associating your opponent so closely with the then president to the point people believe it, only to try and post key staff that have issues with there own money management. You already got lucky with the secretary treasury who failed to pay more in taxes then most of the people that voted for you make in a year pre-taxes. Now you have two more potential appointees back out because of the very same reason.

Nancy Killefer: and Tom Daschel:

Although it is a great ploy to draw attention from the guy that did get approved. Most people will probably now overlook the previous tax problems like they were nothing compared to these two. But it still leaves me with a very queasy feeling about his administration, and it is only a month into it. One piece of advice: avoid anyone that has had tax issues, or who could face possible jail time if they were audited.

As I was reading the news I had my own brilliant idea on how to make money. OK, so the credit really rests with the democrats and the republicans running the federal government of the U.S.A. See it starts by putting a treasury seceratary in place that sees helping banks to make incredibly risky loans to people that would not normally qualify for a loan as a great strategy. Then with the other hand you relax some of the immigration borders until you hit a critical mass of illegal immigrants and slowly start some infighting between the parties while even slower providing legal status to those illegal masses (which are the main source of the very risky loans, not that they all are or that I have a problem with immigration so I don’t want to hear about how insensitive I am, if I have to follow the rules, why don’t you?). Once you have the treasury rolling along you take that hand and begin to ease regulations on an already emotional market system that has little regulation to begin with. Then you wait several years for all the trains to collide. Why? Because you can continue accumulating massive debts worth billions of dollars because no one will ever call in your tab because you are just too big. Finally you offer to clean everything up by taking money that is not yours (and that does not really exist anyways which further increases your debts now in the trillions) and loaning it to those in trouble. And for what? A paltry percentage of the company that is asking for the money (and usually enough to be a large controlling percentage). Then you have control over a large number of companies (mostly banks) so you control pretty much all the wealth and flow of money. And you did it all with money you never had and that never really existed in the first place. To top it all off you make it look like it was the other parties fault while you all vote to give yourselves raises. I know where I work I don’t get to vote on whether or not to give myself a raise.

I forgot to mention, you finish it off by finally appointing a new treasury seceratary that “forgot” to pay over $30,000 in taxes, which is more then double what you would make working 40 hrs a week for all 52 weeks at the new $7.25 federal minimum wage.

You may be wondering what do these two have in common and why I would I mention them together. Well the story in “Troll” centers around a family that moves into a new apartment that is being tormented by a troll in his evil plans to take over the human world and restore the fairy world. The surname of this family is Potter. The father’s name is Harry and the son (who is the main character) is Harry Potter Jr. Now the name similarity between Harry Potter Jr. and Harry Potter could be rather coincidental, but at some point in the movie, when Harry finds out that the old woman living in the apartment building is actual a magical princess, he asks her to teach him to be a wizard. Yes, Harry Potter asked a magical princess to teach him to be a wizard long before ever attending Hogwarts.

Now you know and now you can form your own conclusions as to whether or not she (and you know who “she” is) plagarized the Harry Potter character or not. While there are plenty of disimilarities, the name and the desire to become a wizard are almost to big to be a coincendence.

Perhaps I will get back on  it and start blogging again, perhaps there will be another long pause in posts, perhaps the them will change, perhaps the content will change, perhaps you will grow a third nipple if you don’t alrady have one.

That may be a stretch as no word yet on whether she will actually make an appearance in the game or not. She is however involved with the project. I applaud her for branching out and finding something to do in her retirement, but have to wonder if she is suffering from dementia. A game to teach children about the court system? Really? Never mind the topic, should any one educated enough to use “vitriolic” effortlessly in conversation ever be involved with a video game? She is just about as far from having her finger on the pulse of current trends as possible.

That sounds a bit harsh, no real details of the game have been released, and it is after all going to be an educational game for children. Thinking back on the computer games back when I was in school, it didn’t take much. Although I do not really remember learning much from “Oregon Trail”. “Where in The World is Carmen Sandiego” was by far more entertaining and probably more educational. Perhaps O’Connor’s new game will be able to achieve the same level of success.

Coming soon: “Justice: Bring the Hammer Down On Those Godless Activists” .

And now onto the regularly scheduled programming.

Talk about having some balls, but apparently a younger gorilla snuck in and did the dirty deed with one of the elder gorilla’s concubines. In the gorilla world this is apparently doubly taboo as not only was the gorilla younger, but it seems that most male gorilla’s are not allowed to mate until the are at least 12 yrs of age.Brass Monkey, that funky monkey. He just snuck right in there and got what he wanted.