Patrick’s Rants

Rumsfeld has resigned. Did W. learn something from the recent election? In 2005 he certainly refused to accept this resignation.

My post about Stupid People covered the basics of stupid people and I gave some personal examples (unfortunately, the study that I linked to doesn’t seem to be online anymore seems to have been moved to here: Unskilled and Unaware).

One that didn’t make it was about my dad’s last wife (Ok… getting married four times probably counts as stupid too ;)) When he had his store here in Flagstaff she decided to buy a computer to help with our catalog and price list. First of all the computer was used - which isn’t all that bad, nearly everyone of mine is used at this point - then she had to get it all cleaned up and upgraded. All that probably cost more than a new computer would have.

She set up a spreadsheet to create our price list. We had thousands of items with multiple markups. Using a spreadsheet for this is what spreadsheets were designed to do; make calculations. In theory, all we would have to do would be to enter our cost and the calculations would be made automatically across the columns. Unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. What actually happened was that my dad made hundreds of calculations by hand on yellow legal paper. She copied the results - not the formulae that could be used to calculate the results - into the spreadsheet with the net final result only that the prices were lined up nicely when printed.

On this same computer she chose to have a password set since when she was out she didn’t want the rest of us “playing games”. That really was too bad. I could have actually created the formulae that were needed to make the price list what it needed to be. Instead, she played solitaire when she could have been working on the spreadsheet - doing the very thing that she claimed we would have done if given the chance.

In less than a month, I will be flying to Miami to finish packing up mom, loading the truck and driving her back here. She’s decided that she’s really sick of living in South Florida and has her eye set on Sedona. A week of driving with mom? That should be interesting.

The elections are over. Looks like we aren’t going to ban gay marriage afterall - the only state that it looks like so far. And, unfortunately, we are still going to have to suffer through Jon Kyl for another six years. The good news is that the commercials are over even if all the chads aren’t completely punched and the ballots are not all counted.

It’s a meal all by itself or so says the Sonic Guy. When the other Sonic Guy tries to take his tots, he screams. And who wouldn’t? I mean, they’re tots after all and even if the wrap is a meal one doesn’t give up one’s tots - just ask Napolean Dynamite.

Subway is running a commercial where a guy has this huge wallet. I mean there is a 6-inch hump in the back of his pants. His wife in the commercial says they save so much by eating at Subway. His kid climbs on it at the playground and he is twisted around on the couch like a chiropractic “Don’t do drugs” brochure. Of course this isn’t what happens when you save money at Subway, it’s what happens when you save the bags, sandwich wrappers and napkins in your wallet. It’s just a wallet full of crap that you should have thrown away. But don’t tell that to the women who insist on checking out your “wallet package“.

No matter what kind of mood I’m in Counting Crows seems to meet my emotional need. On days like today when I’m down the songs sound down. When I’m up the exact same songs are dance songs. There isn’t any other group that I can say that about. Usually they are depressive or manic - nothing in between. If you happen to see me driving around today chances are you’ll hear Counting Crows turned up loud enough to hear through the closed car windows.

Maybe I’ll make myself drive through construction traffic on the other side of town. There’s a pretty girl there who smiles and waves back if I wave at her. Sometimes you just gotta get what you can.

Peace.