If someone wants to start up a class action suit against the laptop manufacturers for this defect, I’m on board. I’m about sick of spending about $3,000 every year on a new laptop because one little connector piece breaks. Just once I would like to feel that my investment in a laptop will last for 3 years. Mine haven’t even reached one third of their tax depreciation value before they have to be thrown out.

that was really annoying and if I catch the punks there will be drama. As it was, nothing was broken – except their eggs – and no real damage done. I took my dog to the vet and once we were finished there I drove through an automatic car wash and got the egg off of my car. At least this was the old beater car and not my nice truck. And like I said, there was no damage. But it is disturbing that this neighborhood is experiencing even these minor acts of vandalism. We have enjoyed a nice, quiet, respectful neighborhood until recently when a few houses down the other end of the street have been rented out to tenants with kids. If it wasn’t those kids I suspect it was some of their friends. If it happens again I’m calling the police and setting up a trap for the punks. As long as they keep getting away with it they have no reason to stop.

But someone familiar with our system has been taking advantage of the unlocked boxes and raiding the boxes. For at least 2 weeks. They are smart enough to not take from the same store every morning – they switch out their target at random, and there are about a dozen from which to choose.

We finally caught on when one of the store managers saw a man getting into a large black Suburban parked in front of their black box. He had been standing in front of the black box and the manager thought he might have been delivering the product, although she had never seen this man before and didn’t recognize his car. It wasn’t until he sped off and she went to retrieve the product and found it missing that she realized she had almost caught the thief red-handed.

So now I am on the lookout for a tall white man with short dark hair who drives a black Suburban between 4:30 and 5:00 each morning. When I catch him, there will be drama, as I intend to have him arrested and prosecuted, and if he is who I think he is, I intend to have him lose his job, as well.

Anyway, over in the section where they evidently don’t give a shit if you steal these older or less popular releases, I found a new western starring, of all people, Luke Perry, as the cowboy who was done wrong and goes out for revenge. It’s called, “The Pledge” and I haven’t seen any ads for this movie but since it is a western and I could take it off the shelf without the security hassle of the other movies, I went ahead and bought it. Hope it’s a good one.

I would love to see the schools get serious about making the school campus a safe and pleasant place for our children to spend the better part of their days. If you’ve not been inside a public school lately and seen the awful conditions, listened to the demeaning and humiliating way that the teachers and school staff talk to the students, and actually looked inside their current textbooks to see what they are supposed to be learning – you can’t begin to understand the ginormous problems we are facing in trying to improve or revamp our public education system here.

A recent study by Colorado State University social psychologist William Szlemko concluded that:

Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts into their lane or is slow to respond to a traffic light, they also are far more likely than others to use their vehicles to express rage —by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.

And you may be interested to know that I do not have any bumper stickers on any of my cars. I think they look trashy. But I have seen a few that made me laugh. Last week I saw this one on an old Humpty:

“If you are going to ride my ass . . .
. . . at least pull my hair.”

At work they have a policy of not using the internet connection at your desk for personal use. Let me tell you, absolutely no one obeys that policy. I know that every one of my co-workers does at least check their personal emails once or twice a day, and often spend the time at their desk to reply to or forward personal emails. Some co-workers go way beyond that, using the internet to read the news, shop for clothing or shoes, and I’m pretty sure that the night shift security guard used the internet to look at porn in the middle of the night. I suspect this because when I worked late one night and had to sign out at the lobby security desk, he had stepped away from the desk for a moment and I could see what was on the computer screen – it was not . . . let’s say, “wholesome.”

Well, I have mixed feelings about the whole subject. I think that employers should forgive employees who want to check on their emails and do a few simple internet searches, particularly if they do it at lunch or at break. I don’t see this as anything different than calling home to check on the kids or touching base with your spouse to confirm plans for dinner. They are little moments that everyone needs to ensure a quality of life in their modern world.

However, some people evidently will abuse these types of small privileges, so the company has put this policy into place. But we aren’t a school or a big government agency – we are just a mid sized firm that watches every penny and tightly regulates our employee’s time and activities. Can you imagine the humiliation of getting fired for using company resources for personal use? That sure wouldn’t look very good on the resume. So I found a way to hide my passive resistance to the policy from the company filters and firewall – it’s called using VPN, which means Virtual Private Network.

A geek friend had told me of a way to log on using proxy servers, but then I learned about VPN and this is even better. If you are interested in Anonymous Surfing then you should check out the web site for Black Logic’s VPN – their site is easy to understand and easy to sign up to start using. And for goodness sake, be smart about it – don’t do anything stupid on company time and end up getting fired for your internet surfing.

The DVD has bonus materials and the website has some goodies for the fans, too. wouldn’t be surprised to see a Playstation game coming out with the must kill all zombies theme.

My son loves the movie – he’s watched it 3 times already. Now he runs around the yard with his super pumper water gun killing pretend zombies.

Interesting concept – that everyone dies quickly from a genetically engineered virus. It was loosely based on fact – as the AIDS virus was manufactured by and released by our government. Only problem is that it takes a long time for someone to die of AIDS, otherwise they had quite a weapon, didn’t they?

I think that someone who has committed murder and spent 8 and half years in jail is NOT someone that I want to listen to about God and morals.

I think McCain is too old and too hot headed. And his election guarantees more war(s).

I think Obama is too inexperienced and naive. I hate the way he makes great speeches but says the stupidest things when he has to ad lib. If you think Bush was nothing but a puppet, if Obama gets in office he’ll be another one.

I think Clinton is the best of the three, but she isn’t going to make it – she and her skirt chasing hubby have too many enemies.

Is it even worth voting this time?