Monday, January 24, 2005

Hello Moto!

After two years of dependability I washed my Motorola T720 into oblivion. Having had both Nokia and Motorola Phones I found that Motorolas to be better, the Nokia I had started malfunctioning within the first couple of months. Had I not left my T720 in my pants in the washer I am sure it would still be functioning fine.

If you look through the phones available these days it's a sorry looking field. All the Motorolas have all the features that interest me and they all get bad raps. Many reviews I have seen say that the phone just shuts down, or crashes and you have to take the battery out to reset the whole thing. When looking at the recommend phones, Samsung & Nokia, they are either expensive ($200+) or very large.

I have had t-mobile for a while and like the service and the cost and my intention is to stay with them. I hoped to reactivate through Amazon and get one of those rebates that ends up giving me money for buying the phone once the rebate is processed (a hassle). But I found that unless I changed from t-mobile to another carrier I do not qualify for the amazon special rebate. If I sign up for another year with t-mobile I can purchase a phone at a t-mobile store and qualify for the discounts new customers receive and I can do the mail in rebate if one applies.

So I am checking out the phones and the ones that the salesman recommends I hate. I didn't care much for the salesman either. Just then a girl comes in with her mom and asks if she can return her phone because she is having problems. I asked her what phone she purchased and she pointed at the very Motorola phone I wanted to purchase (V180). I debated this for about 15 minutes and decided to take my chances and buy the Motorola ($50).

So we will see how it goes.

Friday, January 21, 2005

The Road to Objectivity Part 1

My ultimate goal is to be objective.

People see things with a bias, me included, but at some point in my life I hope that I can reach the point where I can view things with an objective eye.

Growing up with a Democrat Father and a Republican Mother I was torn as to which direction to take because I could see the good things on both sides. It wasn't until many years later that I realized politicians are politicians regardless of the side they take. The word politician for me conjures other words like liar, money grubber, corrupter. There is no doubt in my mind that most politicians have one priority, themselves.

I have been a registered Republican since I was 18 and some of my friends would say I am conservative, others would say that I am liberal. If the fact that I enjoy watching Fox News over CNN makes me a conservative then so be it. If listening to Howard Stern every morning makes me a liberal then I guess you got me. I even enjoy an episode of Oprah now and then.

Now that George W Bush has been inaugurated to a second term the press is full of pictures and stories of protestors who burn flags and display signs against the president and the war. It is clear that there are a lot of people who are not fond of this president and I am not his biggest fan either, but do these people really know what they speak of?

Yesterday I spoke of the Indonesian people as a microcosm of people overseas that may have an inaccurate view of what the US War on Terror is all about. I stated that our opinions are shaped by the media around us and that is true of Americans too. So much of what the media reports is negative and especially in relation to the war in Iraq. The only positive mention I saw today was that Abu Musab al-Zarqawi confirmed that one of his top lieutenants was killed when Coalition Forces took back Fallujah. Got em!

There is no doubt that the shocking stories sell newspapers. I have recently started reading other blogs to get more information regarding the war. I came across this interesting article written by a Lieutenant Colonel stationed in Iraq.

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/01/aiding_and_abbe.html

This guy has an interesting perspective and provides insight you will not find in the national news. I provide this only as a service to my readers not a means of slanting then to a particular direction.


Thursday, January 20, 2005

Does it matter who benefits?

In the wake of the Tsunami we have seen people show up asking you for help (mostly in the form of money) to relieve the suffering in India, Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka as the death toll rises. It is surely a sad thing and knowing someone who has lost a child as a result has made this personal. I think it's clear that the dollars we have sent do help the cause but can anything that someone does help soften the loss of a child?

I encourage you to donate to the causes that are helping and I know that your actions count. But have you ever considered who gets the benefit of your money? Does it matter to you?

I was watching a news program in which people were debating whether the money that the United States has promised and sent to aid the tsunami victims will better the world opinion of the US. Being the largest contributor publicly and privately the US should certainly look better in the eyes of the rest of the world shouldn't it?

As you may know Indonesia is one of the largest Muslim communities the world. It seems that overseas that the US war on terror has been perceived as a war on Muslims. I believe this is a result of the news shaping people's perceptions. I believe that regardless of the source of the news you receive it is likely slanted in one way or the other. But you are probably telling yourself that what people read doesn't matter because actions speak louder than words and our gestures to help the tsunami victims will do wonders to help the cause for peace throughout the world.

On the same news program a picture was shown of some men carrying an injured man and one of that men was wearing a t-shirt with the image of Osama Bin Laden on it.

The Idonesian government has ordered that the US be out of their country by March 26th.

Thanks.

Wednesday, January 05, 2005

New found friendship? I think not.

The other day we are at Target shopping for containers and the like to organize all of our crap. As I was looking at the containers I heard "James, James". Next thing I know Frack is walking up to me. She has no clue that Nina and I really have no interest in her trials and tribulations but she has to tell someone and apparently our kindness during the fire resulted in a new found friendship.

The fact that she has lied repeatedly to me has no part in the logic that whirls through that big head of hers.

So she starts telling us about dealing with the claims adjuster and what a slow process it is. She describes how the local cleaners came to pick up all their smoke damaged clothes like they where the nazis coming to nab the jews. Quite tramatic. "Tell me they didn't! And when they came back with the clothes were they actually clean? Shocking!"

She tells us that they have not been staying in the home and that she is staying with her friend (you know the one who drives the red BMW that always parks in front of YOUR house while she is visitng ME). Oh ya that one that when she got into a fender bender she covered up the scratch with contact paper. BLUE contact paper. RED Car. BLUE sticker backed contact paper.

Apparently the damage was not too extensive and pretty much confined to the area of the garage where the dryer was. She said that the insurance company would "go after" the manufacturer. I asked her how old the dryer was and she said 4 years. The idea that enough lint would collect around a dryer drum to cause a fire in four years when there are only 3 people living in the house is surprising to me. But I figure that if their laziness carries over to "the drying process" I suspect they may only clean the lint trap once a month.

Frack tells us that her daughter is going to get married in June and that the grandmother bought her some Tiffany lamps that Frack has put away for safe keeping. Where? You guessed it, in a garage cabinet above the washer & dryer. I know that if I had Tiffany lamps I would store them in the garage. That has to be the safest place for valuables. We keep all our expense jewelry, important documents, family heirlooms all in cabinet next to the weed wacker, motor oil, and fertilizer. I suspect that if she actually did have Tiffany lamps in there they were lamps with pictures of that popstar that used to perform concerts in malls in the 90's.

I am not sure how the conversation went this way but Frack told us that Frick snores and that she can't sleep because she is a light sleeper. I have that same problem when Frick and Frack have those keggers to 2am. So she will wake up Frick in the middle of the night and he gets mad at her for waking him up. I suggested a muzzle but she didn't think Frick would go for it.

Then Frack tells us that her daughter works at a rehab facility for developmentally disabled people. She begins to talk with a speech impediment and walking around like a monkey with her hands in the air to demostrate. If she weren't so pathetic she would be funny. Hasn't society evolved to the point where making fun of the mentally and physically handcapped is not acceptible? I got to hand it to Frack's daughter, after all she is helping people but then again working at the rehab for her is probably like an average day with her parents.


Saturday, January 01, 2005

Happy New Year

I hope 2005 is a great one for all of us.

Nina and I decided to spend New Years Eve at home this year watching the movies Super Size Me, Troy and The Punisher. I thought The Punisher was the best of the three and we didn't even finish watching it. Maybe it was the champagne?

Close to midnight we took a survey of the New Years Eve shows and found none of them to be too exciting. Has Ryan Seacrest's 15 minutes of fame ended yet or is it just beginning? I sure like it when he makes those gay jokes about Simon Cowell. Laugh riot.

Regis did his best to fill in for Dick Clark but what's with interviewing the crowd to find out what their new years resolution is? It's clear that no one has thought about it and the answers always come out flat but they keep plunging forward. And was it really necessary for Regis to interrupt from the booth with "Is that your final answer?"

Also country music is not hip. How many Cowboy Boogie bars are left in America? When was the last time you went line dancing? No one in the blue states wants to watch that crap and in the red they prefer Shania Twain not Kenny Chesney.

Usually MTV has something interesting but they put on Kelly Clarkson. While watching her performance I kept thinking of that sorry son of a bitch Justin Guarini. Remember mister second place? I wonder what vegas lounge he's singing at? Don't get me wrong, Kelly has an amazing voice but I miss the good old days when a band like Nirvana or Pearl Jam rang in the new year. This year the best they could muster was Green Day, a band that has played the same guitar riff for 6 years.

I think the TV highlight was the Usher video on Fox, excuse me I mean the Usher "movie". We kept switching back and forth from this to the other new years eve shows and the thing never ended. When will Usher start wearing one glove? If his hair caught fire he'd end up in much worse shape than Michael did.

If you decide to donate to one of the charities participating in the relief effort in Southeast Asia be sure and use this website http://give.org/ to check them out. I was not a big fan of the Red Cross after they botched up the 9/11 response but a report this morning on the news said that they are making a large impact in Thailand and India. I do not recommend one charity over another but do check out give.org before you donate.

Have a great 2005.