Well, we are going to have to flip a coin. My wife and I want to see both the Mama Mia movie and the Dark Knight movie today but we can’t see both! Maybe we’ll just have to go down to the movie theater and see which one has seats available! I’d prefer to see the Dark Knight movie but don’t know if we can get in - I’ve heard that there are really long lines to see it!
I’ve been paying my Verizon phone bill over the Internet at their website for many years now. My phone works fine and I’m still getting their paper bills. I don’t want to sign up for paperless billing, which they have been trying to get me to do to save THEM money. I guess it is a good thing that I haven’t because for the past three months when I try to go online to authorize payment of my bill their stupid website tells me that Verizon doesn’t offer telephone service in my area and it won’t let me access my account! So I’ve been paying the bill from my regular checking account’s online billpay service instead. But I did send Verizon an email asking them what is up with their website and why won’t it let me in. When they replied they addressed the email to someone else’s name. So at that point I decided to call them and find out what in the world is going on. It seems that they have had some kind of glitch on my account that tells them that my phone is in a state that Verizon doesn’t service. They tried to fix it while I was talking to them on the phone and couldn’t so they had to send in a trouble ticket to their really smart geeky technical support people. I hope they get it fixed; I don’t like the thought that someone else has access to my phone records (unless they want to pay my bill for me!)
I don’t know that much about digital cameras, but I like the fact that you can see your picture immediately and take another one if you don’t like it. I also like that you download your pictures and print them off on your computer immediately so you don’t have to take film to the store to be processed. What I don’t like about them is how quickly they go through batteries! I’ve noticed that prices on digital cameras are going down, which is a good thing and that is a big reason why I’m thinking about buying one. I’m just not prepared to spend several hundred dollars on a camera that has high megapixels and high zoom numbers. So I have to settle for lower megapixels with higher zoom or higher megapixels with lower zoom. I don’t know which is the better feature to have so I’ve stalled in my tracks. Which do YOU think is better, and why?
Many people think that celebrating the 4th of July as Independence day is celebrating the anniversary of the day that the Declaration of Independence was signed. I know I did! I recently found out that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 2nd, not July 4th!
The reason we celebrate on July 4th is because the year AFTER the Declaration of Independence was signed no one thought about having a big deal celebration until the day AFTER - on July 3rd! And it took them a day to line up a celebration! Ever since then, Independence Day has been celebrated on the 4th of July!
I was surprised to hear that yesterday the US Supreme Court ruled that the death penalty for child rape cases is unconstitutional, calling it “cruel and unusual punishment.” This was a case brought to the US Supreme court from Louisiana, where a man was convicted of raping his eight year old step-daughter and sentenced to the death penalty.
The most recent medical evidence shows that pedophilia is incurable. People who sexually abuse children, go to jail and serve their time and are released back into society do it again and again. They can’t help themselves.
To make a sweeping declaration about this means that the child rapist, no matter how badly they tortured the victim, no matter how many times they raped the child, they will not be sentenced to death. I think that could be a mistake. I think that victims of child rape suffer the rest of their lives, and the one that raped them stole their lives from them. I think that if the death penalty is taken off the table, then life imprisonment without chance of parole should be the mandatory sentence for child rapists.
Some gas stations have decided to stop accepting credit cards completely, and have switched over to “cash only” at their pumps. They say that the credit card fees are costing them too much money and they can’t afford to pay them. I find that hard to believe, my understanding of credit card fees is that they charge a fixed percentage of the sale. So the more gas costs, the more profits the gas station is making, and that profit should more than cover the credit card fees.
I hate the thought of paying cash at the pump when you have to pump your own gas. I hate the thought that I’d have to have $100 of cash in my pocket at all times.
I can see the scenario now: When pumping gas you have to wait in line for ten minutes for the guy in front of you at the pump to pull away. Then you have to pull into the spot. Then you have to guess how much you are going to be pumping, go into the station and stand in line for ten minutes waiting your turn to pump the gas. Then you pay up front and go out to pump the gas. What should be a ten - fifteen minute process has turned into a thirty minute process. I get very annoyed already at the people who pay cash before pumping because I wait in line for them for fifteen minutes and when they come out their arms are loaded with soda and candy, so you know that they blocked the pump while they were inside shopping. Then they stand beside the car for five minutes, drinking their soda and eating their candy and just staring at you before they start pumping gas. Then they decide to clean all of the trash out of their car before moving away from the pump. You KNOW that is a passive aggressive act, but you are trapped there so you just sit there, trying to be patient, even though you WANT to ask them to “get a move on!”
Oh, the thought just makes me cringe!
Well, I don’t know which news is getting the most press, Tim Russert dying from heart failure, or the big prison break in Afghanistan. No, I take that back, the death of Tim Russert is getting the most press. I understand that is big news, but the prison break in Afghanistan worries me much more. I suspect if Tim Russert hadn’t died on the same day as the prison break, that the prison break would have gotten much more coverage!
So, I am worried about the prison break. Suicide bombers initiated the attack on a major prison in Afghanistan. Other outside militants helped with the break, and almost a thousand prisoners escaped the prison. According to the news, the escapees are mostly Taliban terrorists who will be future suicide bombers. That worries me a lot. We certainly don’t need more fanatical suicide bombers running loose!
This afternoon we are expecting a lot of company. My wife’s side of the family is coming over for a “family day” reunion type of afternoon/evening meal. We are expecting about twelve people to come over, everyone is supposed to bring some kind of food to share with everyone else. They are supposed to start arriving around 3pm today and leave around 8pm.
So my wife is running around the house trying to get the house “company ready.” I’m going to go outside and mow the lawn and hide in the garage as much as possible so she doesn’t ask me to do anything inside the house to help.
The Golden Corral restaurant is one of my very favorite restaurants. It is an all you can eat buffet restaurant that actually has food you want to eat! I’ve been to restaurants that advertise that they have an all you can eat buffet but when you get up to the buffet table you find only five or six items, mostly cheap fillers like macaroni and cheese or spaghetti. The Golden Corral restaurant has no options except all you can eat, and their buffet tables include several types of chicken, several types of beef, several types of fish, a lot of different veggies and fruits, shrimp, and lots of different desserts too.
My wife really likes their yeast dinner rolls that they bring to your table. I know they keep bringing them endlessly, hoping to fill you up on them, but they really are good! We know that the rolls they bring to our table have to be thrown away if we don’t eat them, so my wife brings an extra large purse with her and a large gallon size zipper style plastic storage bag with her so when we are finished eating if there are any dinner rolls left over that we didn’t eat she can bring them home with us. We don’t think that is stealing because we didn’t ASK for the rolls, they just keep bringing them! She doesn’t keep slipping rolls in her purse continuously, she just puts the leftovers in after the meal. And we know they will just get tossed out when we leave if we don’t take them. So we take them and eat them the next day. They are almost as good reheated in the microwave the next day if you wrap them in a paper towel and nuke them for ten seconds.
Well, the news that grabbed my attention this week was the story about a German couple who placed an ad on E-Bay, offering their baby for sale! The couple now claims it was a “joke” but the baby has been placed in protective custody. The ad was only on “the air” for two hours before Ebay removed the ad, and no offers had been placed during those two hours. When Ebay removed the ad they assisted the police track down the couple. The ad claimed that the baby was being sold because it was “too loud.”
I have to say that this is another case where I think these people are NUTS! I’m glad that the baby was placed in protective custody and I hope the parents never get it back! And I hope that the parents are locked up for a very long time. This is a case when I think that the courts out to have the right to force sterilization on people, because in my own opinion people like this should never be allowed to have children again!