if gas prices can fluctuate as much as 20¢ a week, why don’t milk and bread prices too?

i’ve been in information technology for over 15 years and it wasn’t until last year that i finally started paying my bills online and last week when i first bought and downloaded music from itunes. and now i would tell you that i wouldn’t do either any other way.

when i got to work this morning i found this in my voice mail from over the weekend:

angry man: i said go get dressed for bed
young girl: she won’t answer!
angry man: well then she’s busy. she’s at work marcia, people at work at work
young girl: [something unintelligible]
angry man: you aint get nothing til you get your clothes on
young girl: [something else unintelligible]
angry man: you gonna do what – who you threatening girl?
angry man: go get your clothes on, stop playing with me, i’ll throw you out of this house
angry man: stop messing with me girl…
angry man: go get your clothes on!
young girl: uh-huh
angry man: i’m gonna hurt you i swear to…

the transcript doesn’t do it justice. your going to want to download the sound file.

you always hear about how nice babies smell but no one ever mentions their fermented sour milk morning breath. luckily, i got confirmation from a bunch of other parents that this is typical and i no longer feel the need to take my kid to the emergency room to have whatever died in him removed.

over 120 billion spent to needlessly destroy one country
35 million (oh, everyone thinks we’re stingy – 350 million) ‘pledged’ to reconstruct more than ten countries
and we think they hate us for our freedom?

the expression ‘children will teach you patience’ is totally not true. what children teach you is that by comparison everything else in life is infinitely more tolerable.

some folks at work were talking about how crazy this guy is we work with who has a web site and posts all this goofy software and wacky opinions – hey! wait a minute…

the next time you go shopping at walmart or some other super store you may want to consider what happens to price and selection when competition goes away. in cleveland heights we have a single cable tv provider and right on schedule they have sent their annual “please review the enclosed bill insert for information about a new price structure for your adelphia services. adelphia is committed to offering the best value with friendly service and a community focus. our goal is total customer satisfaction.” this total commitment has been to raise rates and limit service options so now it costs $51.00/month for the service option one step up from broadcast basic (which is the cable equivalent of rabbit ears without static). and it gets better, the original reason i got cable in the first place was to see hockey games… don’t even get me started on that.

its fairly transparent when a corporate benefit is more beneficial for the corporation than the employee. for example, a 401k program is universally regarded as a good thing, but i have never been marketed, mail bombed or invited to webinars to encourage my participation… hmmm, maybe this other thing isn’t so good for me.