Day 96 of the post a day saga revisits the stupid.  And who or what is the stupid?  The stupid may be you or it may be someone you know.  The stupid does not limit itself to any particular race, creed or culture.  The stupid is all around us.  It is like a retarded version of The Force.  The stupid my friends, is something I encounter on a daily basis.  Monday through Friday between the hours of 9am and 6pm I am bombarded by the stupid.  It never fails to amaze me but just when I think I have spoken to the dumbest person on the planet, the next one calls in.  Now to be fair, not every encounter of the day results in the stupid.  I have had the pleasure of meeting and helping some of the nicest people in the world but that is about as rare as winning the lottery.  Please, I wasn’t born yesterday and I can assure you the problems you are experiencing are most likely caused by you and not by our systems.  Not to brag, but how is it that I have successfully set up dozens of my own emails accounts in Outlook and on various cell phones and have never once experienced failure but yet you complain that you have never gotten your email to work?  Fuck me, I apologize for being so cynical but I’m not buying your story.  The cause of the problem is this, You Are Stupid!  OMG, did I just say that?  Yes, you are a stupid motherfucker.

Okay, so now that I have that out of my system let me comment on another thing.  Building a website is not easy.  Or should I say that building even a remotely decent looking website is not easy.  I’m sorry if the pretty advertisement told you how easy it would be to design a great looking website in an hour.  You were lied to.  Maybe you should have thought about this, you have trouble tying your own shoes so what made you think you could build a website.  Our tools are not broken, you are.  Another thing is this, the reason why you can’t find yourself on the search engines is because your website is shit.  You can’t write a legible sentence much less a complete paragraph of relevant information and this is why Google has you sitting on page 5,295 of whatever keywords you typed in.  And this is my fault how?  Oh right, because you say it is.  Alrighty, I’ll take responsibility for your failures.  After all, I am the master of the universe.

Hey, hope you enjoy it.  It is best served hot!

Here is the link to the AP article discussing the sorry state of the Social Security Administration:

Social Security to Start Cashing Uncle Sam’s IOUs

I’ve seen quite a few of my conservative friends link to this article, hinting that responsibility lays at the hands of the Democrats and President Obama but the following quote from this same articles clearly states otherwise; “For more than two decades, regardless of which political party was in power, Congress has been accused of raiding the Social Security trust funds to pay for other programs, masking the size of the budget deficit.”

I’d like to point out that this is just another example of how our career politicians, in both parties Democrat and Republican, have shown total disregard for the good of the people and the country in general.  I have to believe that these fat cat senators and congressmen are quite happy to sit back and let the various grass roots organizations divide the country and attack whatever sitting president happens to be in office.  Think about it people, a president is limited to two, four year terms in office but think about all of the old goats in Washington D.C. who have been in office since before Reagan.  Congress, the voice of the people.  Rather than joining the Coffee Party or Tea Party movements we need to lobby for definitive term limits for all politicians.  The way the game is set up now, there is no benefit to doing right by the people of the United States.  Congress is merely a collection of individuals that are for sale to the highest bidder.

I am a Democrat and I am not pointing my finger solely at Republican politicians, this problem has infected both parties and it is time for we, the people, to make sure that something is done about it.  Not as a liberal or a conservative but as a citizen of the United States of America.  And I am not talking about any kind of radical actions here.  I am a firm believer in our political system, for the most part it works.  Even with the current two party system it is possible to have elected officials who are able to make sound decisions regarding the future of this country.  To date, Congress has not shown me that they are responsible enough to do the job they were elected to.  So I say, term limits.  You can do a search online for the various arguments surrounding term limits, the pros and the cons, so I won’t go into that here but I say there is enough historical data now that shows how poorly an individual congressman or senator performs after his or her third re-election.

Term limits.  Say it with me, TERM LIMITS.  Capitol Hill is rife with career fat cats and it is time for the American people to stand up and say, no more.  Why should you get treated to a nice federal salary, perks, a pension and of course the kickback that comes in from various special interest groups and lobbyists?  If they were making my life any better or showing me that my children would have a chance at a prosperous future then maybe I’d be willing to turn a blind eye.  But this is a one way street.

Term limits.

More accurately I am referring to life here in Portland, Oregon.  Having spent the last three days battling the flu I can tell you that I’d rather be hit by a truck, less pain involved.  My activities have been limited to what I can accomplish while sitting at my desk, although I did manage to inflate the tires on my bicycle in hopes that I will be well enough to ride to work in the morning.

Also, kudos to Netflix.  I found out quite by accident that Netflix now allows multiple devices to stream instant viewing from a single account.  I do not recall getting a single message from Netflix announcing this new feature and I assume it was a quiet rollout to keep a handle on bandwidth.  But regardless, it works quite well and brings tremendous value to me as a Netflix customer.  At any given time there are at least three PC’s streaming video or music or gaming over our home network and now we do not have to have a schedule set up when someone wants to watch a movie or TV show.  Nice job Netflix!

Another fun but pointless little project that I have been playing around with has been using my old webcam to create time lapse videos.  Nothing award winning so far, just doing it to pass the time.