Another Stupid Shooting

There was a new shooting incident today where two more innocent people lost their lives. Stupid and sad.

I am a curmudgeon

According to a lot of folks, people my age are “curmudgeons”. That is we ain’t cool, we ain’t hip, we don’t get “it”. I have never really been sure what "it" is however being this old design sucks and it seems as if it is something I don't have according to a lot of folks anyway. Then I look around at what passes for news and information and the things that people ought to know and I see garbage. I don't mean to disrespect anyone's talent level or anyone's news source or any of the kinds of music that they listen to or any of the TV shows they watch or what their activities are, or god forbid where they go out and have fun for the evening. Far be it from me to say what is right or wrong.

On the other hand there is a long laundry list of things that I just must be so out of touch with that it is incredible. Sometimes I'm a bit stunned over what is referred to as news by sources that used to be credible. What I mean is used to be able to turn on a television show and see something called "News" and actually get news. See this is one of those things that I guess I don't get as I can tell you everything and bore you to tears with how a computer works but apparently I don't have enough "it" whatever that is, to define what news is anymore or music or clothing or something that should be important to everyone or anything else. 

I now understand why my parents said getting old is hell.

Here is sort of what I mean, you see I thought Albert Einstein was a genius, apparently I was wrong. Apparently Kanye West is a genius.

See I thought this huge media cycle that's been ongoing for the past month or so about this airplane being missing in the Indian Ocean was terribly important. Apparently however the more exciting and important news is that the group OutKast is reuniting at Coachella and Johnny Depp has been subpoenaed to testify in a murder case. The fact that he doesn't know anything about the murder case at all is irrelevant. The news is that he is going to testify or has been subpoenaed, I am not sure which is more accurate. I can read everything I want to know ad infinitum about Tori spelling and her lack of sex with her husband and barely a word is printed about Russia taking over the Ukraine.Unbelievable.

Basically we told Vladimir Putin that it better not be that way when we got home from work or there'll be hell to pay when our father got home or some such nonsense. I mean we shook our finger at him real hard. Oh and Stephen Colbert is apparently going to take over the late show for David Letterman when he retires at the end of next year. I cannot stand that guy and I don't know what they see in him but okay I have already said I am a curmudgeon. I'm too old understand I suppose.

It seems to me that John Stewart would've been a better choice, however the powers that be like that moron over someone with talent. I suppose his mother thinks she's funny I don't know. Basically I can't stand to listen to the man talk in character or out. Is that wrong of me?

I don't know see, and I don't understand or like "The Amazing Race", have never watched one single minute of any show called "Survivor" anything, and  I do not understand why some moron runs around the uninhabited parts of our planet trying to prove that he knows how to survive in it while he's getting filmed. Seems to me the guy that should be called the survivor there is the cameraman but what do I know. 

There is a whole slew of television programming starting with a show like Dancing with the stars and ending with one that is called American Idol that I just don't get and cannot make myself watch. They suck and everything like it sucks. Most of the programming that is called "reality television" is just garbage. 

It is the detritus of our society, crammed into a plastic bag,  surrounded by inane crap filled advertising and product placements, then endorsed in so many ways that you go to sleep singing the jingle and want to go on a rampage. I think that is where this shooting madness comes from. Constant never ending barrages of advertising. Most of it is annoying to me. 

Other people call me laughing or excited and say did you see blah, blah, blah. Either I answer affirmatively and let them talk or I piss  off my friends by saying why do you watch that shit? It just makes me wonder if they have anything to do at all that involves their own life that is important to them.

I could care less and will never care what Paris Hilton, Britney Spears or a single member of the Kardashian family did yesterday. I don't care what they're wearing, do not care what kind of car they drive, do not care where they drink their alcohol or eat their dinners and cannot understand why someone thinks I care who they have sex with or how frequently. I don't want to see their crotches when they get out of a car. Hell I say "Put some panties on you sluts !! Your kids are going to see this someday when their friends ask them about it. Damn, have a little respect for yourself. 

It is insane to me that there are paid photographers following so-called celebrities around in droves making their lives miserable for a society that has an insatiable need to read news about the size of one woman's ass. It makes no sense. 

The television show TMZ makes a living, a very very good living, talking about whether or not Justin Bieber had a hangover or had some run-ins with the law. I just don't understand why anybody including any respectable news outlet pays attention to these guys. Nowadays, if anything happens in the entertainment world and it's being reported, I will guarantee you that all the major networks will now use them as a source. That is what is stunning. A gossip rag using unverified no source based crap &  purveyor of celebrity nonsense is a credible news source for CNN. Unbelievable.

Microsoft has spent the last six months scaring the entire world into believing that windows XP is the second coming of the Antichrist and that if you continue to run Windows XP after April 8 it will melt down your system, start your house on fire, impregnate your dog, turn your car into a YUGO and other assorted bad things. 

The truth is this is a cleverly designed and well executed marketing plan that is designed to sell more surface tablets and more copies of Microsoft Windows 8.1 and that is just about all it is. Guess what? When they end support, what that really means is they will not provide more updates and they will not provide programming updates for free anymore. Everything they have already provided is still there just like it is for Windows 2000 and Windows NT. 

Now I am not advocating that you should stick with old equipment for the sake of sticking with old equipment. That is not my point. My point is that while most of their marketing points were true, in a sense, they were also huge gaping fat ass false holes in that there were a intentionally huge errors  of omission and the media followed right along with them. 

The reason the media followed right along with them is that they know which side their bread is buttered on. Most all of the technical reporters and writers went along with whatever Microsoft said because they wanted to be able to still talk to all of their inside sources next year. They knew that if they went against Microsoft in the reporting, in any way,  that they would not be welcome at all in Redmond. This smacks of the old movie studio system that controlled all the images of their contract stars. It was easy to spot and you could tell that Microsoft controlled the message, no matter who was writing it, just by paying attention to how lockstep everyone at Microsoft was in all of their talking points as they discussed it. Every writer reported virtually the same thing. It was impressive.

See here's what nobody ever said. 

What equipment is Microsoft trying to sell right now? Oh, it's that tablet thing, the Microsoft surface tablet. It is touch screen and is  less than a laptop computer but more than a smart phone thingy. You know the commercial where they have the dancers with the snap on keyboards? 

What operating system does their latest tablet run? Oh coincidentally Windows 8.1 (or to me more accurate it came out with Windows 8). It is the Microsoft answer to the iPad. IPads are all about touch screen. How the world are they going to get you to give up your Microsoft XP equipment and buy a Microsoft produced tablet running the latest Microsoft software unless they somehow convince you that there is a compelling reason to do so? 

One of those sort of "The only way were going to win this war is if we have the help of all the country" kind of things. Sort of like food and gasoline rationing in World War II, this marketing campaign was designed to tell you that the world will end if you continue to use Microsoft Windows XP in any version and in order to prevent that you should get a Microsoft tablet running Windows 8 or some other version. 

So they began a very intricate and multifaceted campaign to get rid of XP in order to help them to increase sales and profitability over last year and the year before by introducing a new version of Microsoft office that is based on a month-to-month subscription, by propping up flagging sales of the Microsoft tablet and by achieving new sales of their latest operating system by replacing older machines running Windows XP. 

All of those were done at the expense of the consumer and with our hearty congratulations for a job well done. Every technical writer in the country is patting them on the back for the great job they did in executing this campaign.

Except wait a minute, most of the automatic teller machines in America are running Windows XP (or some version of it), sometimes an embedded version and I read that 20+ percent of the world is still running Windows XP and millions of users in China are still using Windows XP and millions of users in America are still running Windows XP and that some 30% of the Fortune 1000 is still running windows XP, and a very large portion of small business is running Windows XP. A very large part of our own government still runs older computers and a very large part of our military uses proprietary technology that is built upon the XP framework.

Anyone that is willing to pay for service above and beyond the ability to look up a problem on the Internet and actually talk to somebody at Microsoft or to have a patch created that goes directly to the heart of a problem, they have to pay for it. Microsoft is going to make a projected $800 million on the support strategy alone.Companies are going to pay for this because they can't roll out new hardware right away (cannot spend the money) and they are faced with a fight with their own shareholders to get proprietary software updated and to make the transition to newer machines. 

See they have told us for the last 90 days or so the Microsoft Windows XP is the worst thing that you could possibly do and then they're going to turn around and sell everyone that still runs it in a large organization updates. So the updates will still be made available, however you don't get them, unless you pay for them and at a very hefty rate.  But somehow getting rid of XP is a good thing. 

I do not get any of that either.

This is a test, this is only a test. if this had been anything except opinion you probably would've seen it on Google.

I have a few questions. 

Is anyone aware that there's a problem with the international space Station right now? And if so do you have any idea what it is? Do you know what the new prototype is that NASA has created for their Mars missions? Do you have any idea what has been grown in a lab this week to replace what was not there when someone was born? Have you heard anything about the experimental hepatitis drug that cures 95% of patients, in a recent clinical trial? What new company did Condoleezza Rice go to work for (well as a member of the board anyway). What big change did Face book make this week to privacy settings and to the news feed that has not been widely reported? What 2 large automakers have recalled hundreds of millions of cars in the last month or so? And what for? Who made laptops that catch on fire? Have you seen the video about the self parking car? The one where you actually just get out of the car and go do whatever you're going to do and it goes and finds its own parking space and parks itself? Is juicing really good for you? I wonder why it is that more people do not register as organ donors? What big scary disease is making its way through what country right now? Why are the feds investigating Herbalife? What women's clothing store filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and plants close every store they have by summer? How much is the initial public offering worth for Tinder? And finally which company is offering dissatisfied employees money to quit them?

The only reason I asked any of those questions because if you were watching the size of someones ass or how often Lindsay Lohan got drunk or were paying attention to something that Oprah had to say you may not had a shot at reading any of the real news. 

I didn't even scratch the surface. I didn't talk about Russia, I did not talk about politics, I did not talk about computers except in a general sense, I didn't really ask anything that had anything to do with business or the economy or unemployment or the politics of any of those situations or the politicians that run them. If I had , you would never have read this rant because that would've went on for days. 

I just don't understand why any of the things before my questions were news. I understand why they would've been in the Inquirer magazine or on the TV show TMZ, because they are gossip rags and it is instant gratification. 

What I don't understand is why it is on the same show labeled news?

I think this is the dumbing down of America. It sickens me.

They, who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

- Benjamin Franklin

Thanks for reading my rant,

BIGMIKE

This mess we are in

I just don't get it. I must be a very stupid person. Reporting makes it seem as if this economic mess we are is very complicated and is somehow difficult to explain, and in my view it is pretty easy to understand why we are in the shape we are in. In my view, the explanation is simple to define and how we got here is even easier to know. Yet even if you know why we are here it has little to nothing to do with resolving the problems. The issue is not how to fix the mess; it is however all about how to reorganize our priorities, to put reality in our expectations and how we as a nation should define going forward what is good for America in the first place. This mess however makes the Enron meltdown look like a kids T-ball game, to put it in perspective.

 

Just ask yourself a couple of questions.

 

How is it that a corporation can make millions of dollars per year and pay millions more in bonuses and then is justified in laying off thousands of people in their company in order to bump up the share price for the shareholders, even when the company just had a year of record sales and profits and the CEO personally made more money than he's ever made? Don’t the shareholders realize that at some point they could grow their own share price by investing directly in their own companies and make more profit by having a nimble, trained and staffed company, with a CEO that has their eye on the future and not on his own bankbook? At least they would realize it if it wasn’t the same 2000 people on every corporate board in every major company in America who are all seemingly more worried more about their own personal fortunes than anything else. There is no glass ceiling anymore, it’s an ass ceiling. Sarbanes Oxley is a joke and did not help at all. It is still the same good old boys network running everything, and they still have all ten fingers in the till. In the same train of thought, why is it that the media will report that a company laid off thousands of people, or closed a plant or sold a whole division and on that news alone the share of stock in that company gets a price bump? It is then spun, managed and reported to us that news just like this is somehow a positive outlook, that somehow this is a good thing? Bad news equals higher profits?

 

It seems to me that this kind of "bad news", defined as less capacity and less employees to do more work in less time at a reduced cost -("read move our operation to a cheaper foreign country"), should key the directors and the shareholders and even the general public that they have the wrong upper management in the first place. It seems to me that they ought to hold the CEO responsible for the problem and not the hourly staff. The CEO can hang on however for 10 years or more of poor results and can decimate a company’s capacity and then they have a contract that has to be bought out to get rid of him that eventually will cost that company millions and millions of dollars in order to change him out?

 

What about the common worker? What about Us? It’s a greased banana and don’t let the door hit you in the butt on the way out.  You have just been "right sized", or Out placed, or were part of an RIF campaign, or were Efficiency placed. Your butt was just fired. C-YA wouldn't wanna be ya. Sucks to be you.

 

I know people who have 750-800 credit scores who run successful businesses, and the banks will not loan money to them right now for any reason. Why? Because they are afraid to, because they view it as their duty to protect the bank (read "protect their income" as corporate executives are almost always large shareholders of the institutions they manage and they benefit from higher share prices before anyone else does), and not their duty to protect their depositors, their communities or the people in it. Thank the FED and Ben Bernanke for that. Thankx a lot Mr. Greenspan. I appreciate it Warren. Way to go Mr. Gates. Keep pumping up the banks; somebody has to protect the billionaire’s money I guess.

 

Are these people that stupid?

 

Or are we?

 

Was the current crisis was caused by credit swaps or subprime loans or by subordinated debentures or by packaged mortgage securities? My opinion is that anyone who thinks so is wrong! (And generally mistaken) and here is why I think so.

 

This crisis started because we are allowing our companies to not pay taxes due to tax loopholes big enough to launch the space shuttle through. It is because we are allowing our employers to grow their own bank accounts by merging with each other and then firing thousands of workers at once to manage their share price. It’s because we allow analysts to predict what a company's earnings "should be" and then a company is expected to react to that news. It was caused because a company is allowed to have "Earnings Guidance calls" with reporters and analysts. Fannie mae and Freddie mac failed because the price of food went up, because ethanol increased the price of everything that is made with corn, oil and plastic by huge numbers. They failed because we sat idly by and watched our auto makers pay workers almost 100$ per hour (averaged including retirement benefits based on the average price of a car) and then we wonder and fret about why they lost money and cannot sell cars. They failed because the price of a gallon of gasoline doubled in 8-12 months and a fill up was 2-4 times as expensive at the end of the year as it was on the first day of the year. They failed because electricity, natural gas, jet fuel, diesel fuel and heating oil rose to levels never seen before while we did nothing but wring our hands, if we reacted at all. It failed because it was and is legal to raise the interest rate on your credit card to absurd rates and on your home loan to more than a 40% higher payment per month in less than one year. It failed because we allowed insurance companies to price their policies based on your credit score. This current crisis wasn't caused by a bank, it was caused by classic greed, and its name is Wall Street greed and we stood idly by and let them do it.

 

The rules were made up by people lining their own pockets with our money. What sense does a 25 point different in a complicated credit score mean when it is based on obscure reasoning and then please consider and explain to me how it really does lead to fairly being charged thousands more dollars to buy a house or a car than your next door neighbor? You wonder why nobody is buying houses or cars right now? You wonder why credit card companies and banks are going under? Simple, the people they gave credit to, have lost their jobs. They are in foreclosure, their cars have been repossessed, their bank accounts are empty and most are contemplating some form of bankruptcy, suicide, divorce or all three.

 

And now to the rescue, our politicians are going to help us? Please explain how and when. By giving me a tax break that amounts to about $20 a week more on my paycheck? Gee thankx, thankx a lot. It was my money to begin with and it took you 15 months to give it back to me after I earned it? That will help a lot. I couldn't be more grateful. Does anyone else see how stupid this is? Global warming is something I should be worried about? Yeah right, I'll worry about this one after I burn all the couches and chairs and dinner tables to keep warm maybe. You think I am worrying mostly about how much my 401 K declined? Not my biggest worry right now, I can assure you. I could care less what the price of a share of Ford, GM or Chrysler is right now as long as I can afford a gallon of gas to get to work, I'm good thanks. Heck, I care more about what a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk costs right now than an automakers share price. Hundreds of Thousands or more people have lost their jobs since January 2007 and many of them have now had to take work at less than one-half the salary they used to make or they still do not have jobs. You wonder why banks failed. Not me, I wonder how I'm going to eat and how I'm going to afford to get to work as I have to drive 3 times as far , to make half as much, on gas that is twice as expensive. You want me to feel concerned for a bank or an auto maker? Be real. You think I really care about a corporate bailout? Explain to me how a corporate bailout really helps me or my family or my community and I'll care. Until then, don't speak for me as I really couldn't care less. If my house can be foreclosed upon, all of them can fail for all I care. If my kids are starving, Chrysler can go belly up tomorrow as I can't buy their product anymore, anyhow.

 

The numbers these analyst idiots and our politicians ought to be focused on is the jobless number. Fix the jobless problem and you have just fixed everything else. If I have a job, I'll pay my mortgage, my credit cards, my bank loans etc and I might buy a car sometime in the near future. In the last 15 years I have bought 5 new cars. In the last three I have bought no cars at all, new or used. You do not have to "fix" anything else. Just quit screwing with my job! Stop rewarding CEO's who think they have to trim expenses by firing thousands of workers to make analysts happy so their share price doesn't drop, so they can reap the reward of a multimillion dollar bonus! Stop rewarding the so-called banking titans that caused this mess in the first place with their endless buffet line of increased fees, fluffed up charges and "financial products" that no one (not even a lawyer) can understand. Just what is a future derivative anyway? A banker used to be an upper middle income job. How did it suddenly become a job that is worth millions of dollars a year plus bonus? I'd love to ask the average middle income earner how many credit card offers they got in the mail last year.

 

In companies like the ones I just alluded to, the CEO’s of those firms have one common personality type. They think, for some strange reason that laying off thousands of people, constantly firing and constant criticism will shake up the place and make people more productive. What really happens when you constantly shake up the place is that the staff starts looking for a way to protect their job and then keeps their head down to try and stay out of the line of fire, with the end result that really very little effort is going towards getting any productive work done in the first place. For some years now corporate America has been chasing a share price at the expense of everything else. In the last 30 years, we have almost wiped totally out our ability to manufacture everything from tube socks to washing machines in our quest for the holy grail of lower costs and higher share prices.

 

Large retailers like Wal-Mart have contributed greatly to this idiocy for a long time and I’ve yet to hear anybody ask the one that is pretty obvious to ask. How are we going to be able to buy anything in this new “World Economy” , if we don’t have anywhere to work that pays a decent wage and if there are no companies or jobs left to be loyal to? What in fact are we supposed to be loyal to anyway, a brand?

 

I can hear it now, “Yes ma’am, I’d like one TIDE t-shirt and two pairs of Viagra socks please”. We will not be able soon to buy anything made in China because we won’t have any money to buy it with. Who are all these poor so called third world nations going to sell to if they can’t sell it to us?

 

Just stop the stupidity and please just stop yapping incessantly about the big picture. I can't even afford the gasoline to mow my lawn and you think we care about GM, Or Freddie Mae? It makes no sense. I never want to hear the words "Economic Stimulus package" again, as it is all smoke and mirrors and generally, no one but a select few will ever be helped by it. My 90-pound dog makes a lot of "shovel ready" projects too, OK?

 

Me? I must be stupid as I just don’t get it and Dilbert makes more and more sense every day.

 

It makes very little practical sense to fire the older workers because of higher wages, and then just hire more younger workers because of lower wages, because to do so makes the purchasing power of the money they are paid (the younger worker) worth less. You earning power is less and because of that everything else then costs more and your dollar doesn’t go anywhere as far as it used to. See the thing is, we are in the middle of a fallacy that is a fractured story tale made up of a downward spiral and everything we are doing right now is managing that spiral downwards. We are doing nothing more than managing the decline, because less jobs = less money. Less money = less purchasing. Less purchasing = negative economic trend and means much lower tax revenues and lower tax revenues means reduced social services and slashed municipal budgets. This is exactly where we are right now and it is not that hard to figure out.

 

It’s amazing we put up with this crap. If I can figure it out, anybody can.

 

Here is a word of advice. Even if you have to eat crap with a serving spoon at work right now, keep your job no matter what you do. You lose your job today and you are screwed. Another one at the same money is highly improbable. You better stay focused on keeping that paycheck coming right on in, if you have any sense at all. Can't pay your mortgage? I hear Sears has big cardboard boxes, because no one and I mean no one running any of the Fortune 1000 cares if you are homeless.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts.

“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts. “- Daniel Patrick Moynihan

I am overweight and white. I am handicapped and I am in my 50’s. I am a male. I don’t speak for fat, gimpy, white, male 50 year olds everywhere. I am not the spokesman for my race. I have a concealed gun carry permit, am not a member of the NRA and occasionally do carry a handgun but I don’t profess to speak for any other gun owners. In the last 6 elections I have voted both Democrat and Republican. I am liberal and I am Conservative depending upon the candidate and the issue. I don’t represent a political affiliation or a party view.

I have 2 questions about the Zimmerman-Martin conflict/trial/outcome (The events, death, fight, shooting, the trial and the verdict)

Almost everyone I have talked to thinks this was a case sort of described as “about a grown adult attacking and shooting a tiny 13 year old kid who was outweighed by over 100 lbs"  

Did you see the following reporting in the mainstream media anywhere –printed, video or verbal on the Radio, TV or online or in Newspapers?

Have you ever seen it reported anywhere at all in any medium?
(Hint – It’s a trick question, as this a small, miniscule tip off to the information iceberg that wasn’t reported because it wasn’t convenient and it wasn’t ratings or subscriber worthy.) (PS “This” and the “It” , I use are made to refer to the inconsistencies, lies, distortions, speeches, and manipulations presented in the media concerning this story. There are literally millions of resources available to tell this story and a very high majority of them got it wrong on a lot of factual levels.)For the life of me I cannot understand the reaction of Leonard Pitts Jr (Nationally Syndicated Columnist for the Miami Herald and a Pulitzer Prize winner), beyond the attachment to the story because of his racial makeup. I read everything he wrote and have to say, I am confused if he used facts or assumption or made it up as he went along in order to write his articles and response to the act and the trial.

  

If he is responsible for black response and portrays it “accurately” then let’s see….

Was “it” Reported in the New York Times, or in the LA Times or the NY POST?-Noooo I don’t think so.

Was “it” reported in the Wall Street Journal or even the National Enquirer?
-NOOOO You also didn’t see it in the bottom of a bird cage and it wasn’t on Men in Black either.

Was “it” Seen on NBC, CBS, and ABC, CNN, FOX News or anywhere else for that matter?
-Hell NO, you are joking right?

“It” Definitely was not pushed, prodded and promoted by the Rev's Sharpton, Jackson or Farrakhan (You may know them as the official spokesmen for Black Americans everywhere.)

They said this was a lynching somewhat like the killing of Emmitt Till. (That reference pissed me off and I am lily white!)

What a bunch of morons. You would think the public Big 3 in charge of Black response would at least know the history. This is the whole problem with the way this story was presented by our so called "journalists". This is what is wrong with politics, and is exactly why you, as you read this, don't really give a rat’s ass about it at all. It’s called the NIMBY affect. Doesn’t affect me, I don’t care. As long as it’s NOT IN MY BACK YARD. I cannot understand why people are not pissed off and vocal about this 12 month LIE!

What is “it” you say, well,

 

Take a look at this video –

http://www.pjtv.com/?cmd=mpg&mpid=56&load=8689

And then take a few minutes and read this article (link below).

The link below is one of the only discussions I have seen thus far that addresses the factual elements.Everybody else got “it” wrong and some are still getting “it” wrong as you read this.

http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2013/07/13/answering-7-key-questions-about-the-george-zimmerman-trial-n1639838/page/full

I’m not trying to change your mind; as a matter of fact you can think whatever you want, you can support Jesse Jackson and his idiocy, it’s OK with me. The facts would be nice, but whatever. It won't change anyone's mind about what happened, however at least the framework of your thought process will be surrounded by facts instead of by sound bites, vapid talking head stupidity and racial bigotry from all sides. No one will respond to this in a positive manner. I get that. Go ahead and spew your racial filth and gripe all you want. I don't care too much about your nonsense, because the facts don't change because you don't like them. Every one wishes it would go away. I get that too. This is a very tough subject to think about intellectually. Easier to spew racial epithets and say stupid crap that doesn't have any bearing on the facts.

Anyone who has an opinion about the trial should read this. Factually almost 100 % of what you heard about the night this kid was shot was incorrectly reported, the facts were wrong and distorted or plain wrong on a lot of levels and mostly by the mainstream media.

ALMOST Every major news outlet reported the facts WRONG and really NO ONE has corrected their bad reporting. Almost everyone I have talked to thinks this was a case sort of described as “about a grown adult attacking and shooting a tiny 13 year old kid who was outweighed by over 100 lbs". Even the picture his parents are using to defend the kid is almost 4 years old. I don't blame them and I hope they find peace, but look at the facts. Just once, make up your own mind.

As the author of the article said "It's sad that this case has become polluted with politics, racial grievances and wild speculation in the media because the evidence in this case overwhelmingly suggests that it should be considered a tragedy, not a crime."

I’m a gun owner. I carry a pistol sometimes. Given the ACTUAL facts, I might have shot him too. Everyone who in any official act who caused the Sanford Police Chief to lose his job for not charging Zimmerman should be charged with malfeasance and breach of public trust. Who should be prosecuted here are the politicians. President Obama should be ashamed of supporting this thug.

We are a bunch of stupid, stupid people.

I understand his parent’s motivation however.

Their actions are thus far the only ones that make sense and I get.

I hope they find peace.

Thankx for reading my Rant.

BigMike

you are the enemy

Hi there,

Answrtek Services is mainly a computer repair company but we also do a lot of other things that are in the same realm as computer repair. We are located in Sonoraville Georgia close to Sonoraville middle school and just down the street from the entire Sonoraville school complex.

 

FYI - You say it as "Answer - Tech" and spell it as Answrtek

You can always contact Mike at answrtek@answrtek.com

You are your computer's worst enemy!

A computer should be a simple piece of equipment to operate and for the most part it is. It shouldn't be any harder to use than a toaster more or less. Once you know how to do something then that process should work seamlessly and flawlessly forever. The problem is that that's not how it works. It's how it should work but it's not how it does work. it should be a tool that works the same way every time you pick it up.

The truth is a computer has enemies, Five big enemies. And usually you are the worst one !

Here are your computer's five biggest enemies in order.

1. The reason that you are its biggest enemy is because you have begun to think about your computer as a throwaway disposable device. Computers have gotten pretty cheap over the last 15 years. 15 years ago you could pay $3500 for a mediocre computer and today an above average computer can be bought for as little as $450.  You think about it that way because you know that the paint gets chipped or it runs a little slower, or it doesn't have the latest and greatest software available running on it or it doesn't have enough bells and whistles. So you begin to think this thing is pretty old and I should replace it if I ever want to have a computer that will do what I need it to do. The question is exactly "What do you need your computer to do"? If the answer to that question is I need it to send and receive e-mail , and to surf the Internet, and I have to be able to create simple spreadsheets and simple word documents, then you if you have is a neglect problem masquerading as a need to replace. The reason why is because any computer produced since 2005 will fulfill those needs and more and don't need to be replaced. They may need repair. They may need maintenance. They may need service. But they don't need replaced. a very high majority of the time, what is wrong with the computer is installed between the keyboard and the chair. Don’t forget to do maintenance. You may need to clean up hard drive occasionally, you may need replace equipment occasionally you may need to install a video card or upgrade memory or even occasionally replace a hard drive with a faster drive, you may have a power supply dying, in any one of those things or usually even two of them is half of what it would cost to replace it, and you get to keep all your old software, music, pictures, videos, letters and everything else. So even though you may have the money it doesn’t make sense to throw out the baby with the bathwater.
2. The second biggest enemy of the computer is every day air. Unless of course you live and work in a clean room. a clean room like the ones were they make microchips, or perform surgery. The kind where they measure dust down at the micron level. If that does not describe the room where you have your computer then about once every three or four months have somebody take a look at it and pull the side off of it. Take a look at the interior, and at the entire motherboard inside the case. Look in all of the fans that your computer has. If you see a lot of dirt and dust and if you smoke around the computer, take 60 min. a box of alcohol pads, a can or two of compressed air, a roll of paper towels and a vacuum cleaner and clean everything you can see. Make sure that you have unplugged the computer from the electrical source and that it is turned off before you pull the side off of it. As long as you don't unplug anything or move anything you really can't hurt it. However if you let dirt and dust and cigarette smoke and insects and spider webs and all other sorts of detritus buildup inside your computer case you are asking for trouble and asking for failure.  if you let an accumulation of dust and dirt and debris buildup on a fan or hard drive you are allowing heat to build up and you are not moving air through the computer case the way it was designed. This is guaranteed to shorten the lifespan of your system.
3. The third biggest enemy of the computer is related to placement. I see this all the time. I will get called to work on a computer and it has failed. When I look into why it failed, sometimes I just see that proper care was not taken in where it was placed. Computers are placed inside cabinets or that run all the time inside drawers or closets, or that are wired into enclosed spaces, even when these systems are brand-new they start out at a disadvantage and are guaranteed to fail before their time. Proper airflow must be maintained around and in the computer to keep it cool. One lady I know put her computer next to the floor vent. When I asked why they said that they bought it in the summertime and so it seemed like a good idea to have the computer right around the air-conditioning vent. This was in February, guess what happened? You have to give your computer room to breathe!!
4. The number four reason it is pretty simple (and sometimes pretty hard to explain to a customer.) Children are the next biggest cause of computer problems because they text and drink Coca-Cola's and eat sandwiches and eat chips and ice cream and download music and click on links in e-mail and set up instant messaging programs and set up P2P software programs. They turn off spyware checkers and virus scanners in order to make the computer a little bit faster, they learn from their friends little tricks to make the Web Cam run just a little bit faster or the software respond just a little bit quicker or trying to make the Internet just a little bit faster and they end up telling you, "I don't know what happened I was just using that and it stopped." This is why you have to have software in place that is password-protected and prevents this. This is why you should have a regular backup routine. This is why you should ask a computer professional forward bias about what to do before it happens. Otherwise, about the 15th of August one of your dear little mini-you's will be telling you about the computer that doesn't work anymore and they need it for school next Monday, and oh By the Way today is Saturday.
5. The last and most troublesome issue is the presence of liquid around the computer. Not liquid around a keyboard, but using the tower as a place to balance a drink.  I've seen it happen far too frequently. I am always amazed that the buying public thinks because you can get a laptop computer for $400 and that you can run monitor to it, run a keyboard to it, run some kind of mouse to it and use it like a desktop, so therefore it is as good as a desktop for every function. It's just really not true. They call them laptops but you cannot use them on your lap really, unless you are using a computer socially. I could probably instant message back and forth with somebody on a laptop but I would sure hate to write computer code on it, manipulate large spreadsheets or graphic programs, do any kind of formal writing because the keyboards are so small or any other serious work that primarily begins and in on a laptop-based device . Actually a laptop is just the computer crammed into a small case with built-in heating and cooling problems that is unable to be upgraded because that's what mom and dad wants.  The problem is that dad and mom also has the coffee sitting right there , and everybody else mimics that behavior with drinks and sodas and Kool-Aid and popsicles and ice cream and food and the next thing you know your laptop is full of water. Or the keyboard has stopped working because the two-year-old was pounding on it with X-Acto knife.

 

Think about it. The computer is just a tool. Hopefully you have rules for the road with your other tools like your automobile and you change the oil on a regular schedule, tires every so often. The same thing should happen with the computer. Every now and again it should be scanned with a reputable virus and spyware scanner. Every now and again it should be opened and vacuumed out. For most problems software will handle it. I don't make any specific recommendations because I don't represent any software companies and I do have a few of them that I just don't like, however if you run your virus scanner frequently and updated regularly is better than doing nothing at all.

Thanks for reading,

 

Big Mike at Answrtek

 

Http://answrtek.com

http://www.facebook.com/answrtek

 

 

 

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BigMike

Religious Scumbags and Pedophiles

I can't stand all these scumbags that hide behind their title and then hide behind their position within the organization in order to prey on little kids. Somehow to me, and maybe this is just rhetoric, but I don't know, but to me I don't think normal punishment is enough for these people. I don't care what causes their "condition". We ought to just shoot them.

Having sex with children is wrong, stupid, illegal ,immoral, ignorant and very criminal. Everyone involved with it should be punished. Everyone who hid them, or obscured who they were or their location should be punished. Everyone who obstructed justice by moving them all over Hell's half acre should be punished. Everyone who knew about it and did nothing to stop it should be punished. Everyone who was involved in any way should be punished. Anyone still in power that did not stop it and knew about it should first be removed from their position then they should be punished. I think if we had prosecuted everyone involved there would've been a whole lot more people going to jail than there ever has been publicly admitted. it is shameful, and it is not who we are as a society. We let these scumbags get off easy and no way should it have happened.

I think that taking advantage of your position within your organization (like for example if were are a Catholic priest), is bad enough. What makes it worse is that you were a pedophile for 30 years and your superiors knew about it. What did they do to solve the problem? They transferred you from parish in Brooklyn New York to a parish in Des Moines Idaho. They hid you. They knew you were one that was going to seek out little kids, molest them ,scar them and abuse them and they did nothing to stop it.

NOTHING at all.

Oh they may have sat in their offices and wrung their hands a little bit and said "Oh woe is me what are we ever going to do about these priests that pick on and have sex with little boys ?", but what did they do to protect the little boys? Nothing is what they did, nothing. They offered no solution and were in fact part of the problem.

They had various titles, they were bishops, they were archbishops, they were Cardinals, they were superior father I don't know and you know what, it doesn't matter what their titles were. They know who they are. They are lucky that one of those children were not one of my children, they would've made their peace with God a long time ago.

In my view anyone who sheltered a pedophile knowing full well that they were guilty of abusing little kids were just as guilty as the pedophile was himself. They were part of a conspiracy to deprive the victims protection under the law, they put the financial well-being of their church ahead of the spiritual well-being of their congregations, they put consideration for their own careers ahead of the well-being of what's now turning out to be thousands if not hundreds of thousands of young men for decades maybe centuries. it is repulsive, sickening and wrong.

We should not look at it any differently because the people involved were in involved in the Catholic (or any other) religion. If this had happened within a Little League organization there would've been a perp walk with 40 people in it, in front of five o'clock news ,being pelted by rocks, in front of the police station the next day.

Why would I call it a conspiracy well, a conspiracy is defined as "an evil, unlawful, treacherous, or surreptitious plan formulated in secret by two or more persons".  let's see the actions of the pedophile priests superiors meet the definition of conspiracy.

1. Was it evil? – What is more evil than allowing one human to prey on another human and that human be a child. Yes.
2. Was it unlawful? –  Sex with children is unlawful. Too easy. Yes
3. Is it treacherous? – I can think of not very many other things that could be defined as more treacherous than subverting the trust of a preteen child and then forcing him to have anal sex with a person that he is supposed to trust. Yes
4. Was it surreptitious? (Meaning was it conducted in secret) – one suppose it was I'd never seen any of the documents that said  " This is how we are going to hide the pedophilia priests". Yes
5. Were two or more people involved? – I am assuming that the superior and the priest had at least one conversation and when he told the guy he was being transferred to Idaho or Iowa or lower Podunk in the middle of nowhere he probably asked a question or two. I'm assuming there were questions about allegations, I'm assuming there is some reason for them to suspect him of pedophilia in the first place. I think all of those statements are fair assumptions. Yes

So we meet the definition of conspiracy pretty easily. So that I wonder why all of these people that made all these decisions about moving these pedophiles all over the place and hiding them from authority wonder why they didn't go to jail or were charged or why they were not indicted in greater numbers with conspiracies charges? Because you know why ? Because if they were exposed it would be found out that many of them are the same as the priest they were moving ,and it would be found at I think that there is more pedophilia that has not been exposed then there is pedophilia that has been exposed. It is called CYA.

I posted a fairly short video on the subject and a couple others on YouTube.

Click the link to follow it .

what my user name is BGBOS , Check out rant number seven , click like if you liked it.

look at Rant number 7


Thanks for reading this and also watching my rants on YouTube.

– big Mike

Sometimes News is not News !

Sometimes the stuff that passes for news, sadly just isn't news. Sometimes the angles portrayed by the news collectors are there just to fill in the space and not much more. it's all about advertising dollars and all about the advertisers and not really about things that interest normal people.

For example, in the Jerry Sandusky pedophile case they should tell us how badly he is going to be treated in prison. They should tell us how soon after he has been sent to jail that he will have black eyes. They should tell us when to expect the announcement that another prisoner has probably took him out. I'll bet hardly anybody feels sorry for the guy, or cares what happens to him. How he is preparing for his sentencing hearing is irrelevant I could care less. Maybe some of you out there actually do care however I don't think so.

see the video of this rant

the news aggregators of which Google is one, Yahoo is one, ask.com is one, all figured that you need sections of news broke down into popular categories like trending news stories, news all about television, news all about politics and so forth. They all assume that you're not smart enough to figure out all on your own what the number one news story it that you are interested in is today they have to tell you . So all of them have a section called top news stories. I have to tell you any time Charlie Sheen has an entry in top news stories there something wrong with the way they gather news.

It makes me crazy.

You should be able to look anywhere for news content and even at news providers like CBS, NBC, ABC, MSNBC and all of them should be able to provide unfiltered news content that let you decide which story is the top story in your mind. Occasionally that actually happens but usually it is in a side content box and there are five or 10 stories and you get the pic the top one that you want to look at out of five or 10. In my view there are about two news content providers that do this . One is Reuters and the other one is the Associated Press.

You aren't smart enough to do it for yourself, obviously.

Thanks for reading my rant,

– big Mike

Don't forget you can also look at video versions of the big Mike rant on YouTube

the link is : Big Mike Rant videos

comments are welcome and are expected and are allowed as long as you keep it clean.

Changes to the BigMikeRant and I hate the stupid income tax

Good afternoon everybody,

Over the course of last several months I've been looking into somehow changing the BigMikeRant to be more responsive in today's media and to being a better place for a discussion about the ideas. I also know over the course of time I've had a little bit to say and I know when I have something to say sometimes it'll run to 20 pages and that gets a little tedious for some of my readers. I also know that a lot of people probably ignore the long written pages and I know I probably would too.

What I have started to do then is to create video versions of the BigMikeRant and then I'm sending notifications out in several ways in order to reach the largest audience that I possibly can. For example, where you used to get an e-mail that was multiple pages or you got a link to the website that had the BigMikeRant at http://bigMikerant. Blogspot.com, I've decided to begin a process where I am either converting some of the BigMikeRant subjects to video or I'm just starting to make the BigMikeRant in videos and posting those videos to YouTube, along with notifications on other sites.

Big Mike Rant Videos - Look at the latest ones

Using this method, you don’t have to decide whether or not you want to read a 25 page manifesto on the BigMikeRant and instead you just get notification and it tells you there is a new video available and you can watch that if you want to. If not you can easily and effectively ignore and it didn't take a lot of your time.

I have also opened a Twitter account, Facebook account, YouTube account and have integrated all of them with my blog, effectively turning it all into one big video blog. You can leave comments individually on each service if you're a member or if you're a subscriber, or you can ignore it.

I really would like to hear or see some comments on set on it one of the services.

You can reach Big Mike at one of the following places:

·         Big Mike Computer Service Web Site

·         Big Mike on Thumbtack.com

·         Big Mike On YouTube

·         Big Mike On Facebook

·         Big Mike on Twitter

·         Big Mike Rant

·         Big Mike on Google Places for Business

·         Big Mike on Yahoo Local

It seems to me that that is better in terms of market share and in terms of getting the message out to as many people, so that they can use the easiest form of technology. It also seems that viewing a video is the way to go, or at least it seems that way to me.

So here's the link to the YouTube page that lists all the videos, rant number five is all about taxes, and all about how I hate the stupid income tax laws, the stupid income tax loopholes, the greedy manipulative industry that grew up around the income tax and all of the other professions that are all about the need understand the tax code and how to manipulate it and manage it and avoid paying taxes. Near the end of the video is my suggestion about how to fix it to but they'll never do that because they're afraid of the power of the American taxpayer they being every politician who serves American citizens today.

Let me know what you think won't you?

I can take it.

After all I do call myself Big Mike.

Thanks for reading (and maybe watching my videos) my rant!

Sincerely yours (unless you're a politician),

– Big Mike

I am ticked off at the Politicians and am telling them about it !!

Check out Rant # 4, I am ticked off at Politicians and am telling them all about it.

Please tell all of your friends see it too.

Let’s tell all the politicians too finally and once and for all to get off the over-paid butts and do something!!

If they don't lets fire all of them!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/bgbos

Thankx for reading and watching my rants!!

-bigmike

Check out the Rant on YouTube

I am starting to put videos on YouTube of the big mike rant

Check it out !

As always, Thankx for reading my rant,

Have a great day !!

BigMike

Click here for :

BigMike Rant on youtube

Health debate not new, same old stuff

The health-care debate that's going on in America right now is not a new debate. It is historic and most likely is a game changing decision that will come from the supreme court, that will change the face of the debate, politics, health care, legislation and presidential politics for a generation. This debate however has been going on since about the time that Social Security was created.

Essentially we are still wrestling with the same questions, we are still asking the same things, we are restating what has already been said thousands and thousands of times and we are going around in circles. This debate really is not about health care, not really. The argument is framed around health care, the discussion is centered on states rights versus constitutional federal authority, and at some level is about your grandchildren and your grandmother at the same time.

Depending upon two things you will have a different opinion of this than the person next to you. The two things are your age, and your politics. This is really a transparent debate that is about paying for service. No one is debating that health care costs are higher than they've ever been. No one is debating that the cost of health care is rising, is going to continue to rise and that we have to do something drastic and radical as a society to rein in the cost. No one is saying that expensive medical procedures should only be offered to those that can pay for it ,although that is insinuated heavily throughout the language of the law and in the appeals.

Essentially if you are younger and you lean toward the left a little you favor this law. The same holds true if you are older and you lean a little to the right you probably still favor this law. More than likely if you view yourself as a centrist and not as a liberal or a conservative in a strict sense on either side you probably favor this law. The people that do not favorite are the ones that have money, insurance, and jobs. That is a broad stroke generalization I understand. Asking who is not in favor of this law is sort of like saying who is in favor of letting old people starve? Of course no one is in favor of that.

Here is the problem. If you do not have a job, or you have a job that doesn't make much money or you work in an industry that does not offer insurance, or quite possibly you are young and healthy and have not considered the need for insurance to be a priority or any of a host of reasons for not having insurance, then when you are an eventual consumer of health care, then one of  two things happens. One you are treated and are then saddled with a large medical bill or several large medical bills, and then you are paying on them the rest of your life. Or two, same thing happens you are saddled with a large bill and you just don't pay for it, or pay very little of the total cost. This is the sticking point. This is why people are not in favor of Obama care.

What do you mean Mike? The people that are not in favor of this law say that without regard to the ability of someone to pay, and without consideration of paying for people that cannot afford health care, that it should be universal. The people that are in favor of this law say why should my health care costs be larger because you did not look forward enough in your life to have the insurance necessary to help defray the costs. In other words it was your problem why do I have to pay for it?

This is what the so-called individual mandate attempts to correct. I think they went about it the wrong way and I think the Supreme Court will overturn this portion of the law, but what they were trying to do is level the playing field because eventually everyone is a consumer of health care, whether they are insured or not. Eventually every human being on this planet needs a doctor's care for something.

In some societies physician care is a socialized issue and everyone gets care, in other countries like America is a democratic society and you choose where and when to consume that care. In some societies the health care is substandard, in others is provided for free or doesn't exist. In the United States of America however we choose to treat health-care like grocery shopping. Pick your own plan, cafeteria style insurance, exist on the fringe and use the emergency room as your Dr., or ignore medical care altogether and do without. Up until now that has been perfectly acceptable policy to allow individuals to make health care decisions based on this model.

What the law attempts to do is similar to how many states regulate automobile insurance. the state doesn't tell you what kind of car you can drive, what time you can start driving, what time you have to stop, what road you can take or where you can go. The state however does say that if you're going to drive a vehicle in the state,  that vehicle must absolutely be insured or you lose your licesne to drive.

Essentially (with much more structured language) that's what this law says about personal health. It says you can still make the choice about what Dr. go to, about whether you want to go to the doctor today or not, about whether or not you still want to use the same Dr. and whether or not you would rather use an intermediate care facility instead. All of those are still your choice according to this law. The only thing that is stipulated is to say that you have to have insurance,  because eventually you will be a consumer of health care at some point,  for some reason, and society should not have to pay for it. It makes the argument that everyone else should not have to pay for your health care and/or choice to not have insurance.

The problem is with all of its penalties and fines and mandates is it does not address the inequality in American life in any way. This law will never affect the millionaire, the big high-tech tycoon, the rich CEO. It will never affect the millions of people that are fortunate enough to have employment that provides insurance throughout their adult working life. Every professional athlete can safely ignore this law and all of its structure because it will not affect them .These people will only benefit from this law if and when other people are forced against their will to buy insurance or pay a fine because it will allegedly reduce health care costs overall by collecting revenue from everyone instead of only a portion of the cost from the consumers of health care. I'm very skeptical that even if this law was put in practice that my health-care costs will go down any. I think that even if 100% of the American public had healthcare insurance, because we allow the insurance companies to set up shop in such a disjointed fashion our healthcare costs continue to rise no matter what because it is built into the system for insurance companies to collect more revenue.

It will affect however hundreds of millions of people negatively from the moment that is made law. Rightly or wrongly it require every person that earns an income to have insurance. Rightly or wrongly it will require every person that earns an income to pay for insurance at some level. They will either pay for it out of every paycheck or will reduce the tax refund at the end of the year because they were fined for not having it. Or it may cost them the ability to work somewhere because the employer had to absorb that cost and did not hire that one more person that would've gave them a job where insurance was provided. There is a virtual world where this fallacy of universal health care exists. It doesn't exist anywhere in reality however. There is no model on the face of the planet were universal health care actually is practiced effectively.

Here is what is the coming perfect storm that no one is talking about.

The largest consumer ofsociety in the world (USA) with the largest number of soon-to-be retiring workers (baby boomers), are all going to be retiring in the next few years. At just about the same time as the Social Security system begins to have its largest payout ever, the Medicaid and Medicare systems will also start paying on a larger scale than ever before. Put into the mix of this, a health care law that creates a new confusing dynamic and regulates a market that hasn't even been created yet today as we speak, and millions of people that are aging and will be the largest by percentage consumers of health care, will also be the sickest the most in need of medical care. It's a health care Armageddon waiting to happen.

That's what the argument is about really. Who pays for your grandma and grandpa. if you're 30 years old I think the answer is you do based on this law. I think that's true because grandma and grandpa's is going to be living with you (or you moved in with them 10 years ago).

The last part of the argument is to ask the question why are we not hearing anything from the health insurance industry on this law.? the answer to that question is fairly easy to find. Just look directly at the reelection campaign signs of every liberal congressman and senator in the United States. Every one of them are taking hundreds of millions of dollars from opposition groups and healthcare organizations and drug companies and everything else that's associated with medical care in the United States. Almost every size insurance company is backing this law to become law, and to be fully implemented across the board. You know why that is?

Because it's about the money. See we allow our healthcare industry to operate in such a manner that it forces premium costs to rise because that's the way the system was built to operate. Every company is rated according to their employees ages and sexes and other factors and then each company is assigned a group number. Each group was then offered a series of choices for insurance that costs a certain amount of money to obtain. Inside the group you pay less outside the group you pay more. They also rate the companies by their size about how many people would be in their group, about how many of their employees would choose to pay for the insurance and several other factors like that. This system has been driving healthcare costs up since the 60s. This is really what is wrong with health care cost.

We rate individuals in their individual companies and assigned them payment structures based upon their group level. Then we talk about healthcare as one number $2.6 trillion or 15% of the annual gross domestic product like it is consumed at one level in every location. That's how the healthcare companies want you think about it, that's exactly what they want you to hear.

This means nobody ever asked the question,"why don't you just rate everybody in America as part of the same group and charge us all the same thing for what ever kind of insurance protection we desire?"

I guarantee you that the minute you do that two things would happen, and nothing would get accomplished.

1) The Conservatives would raise bloody hell. The reason why the conservatives would raise bloody hell is because that would sound like socialized medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth but that would matter. The truth doesn't get a plate at this dinner table.

2) The Liberals would raise bloody hell. the reason why the liberals would late raise bloody hell is because it would cut off their funds (their war chests) for reelection. No healthcare company/drug company nor any other healthcare related company would bother donating millions and millions and hundreds of millions of dollars to reelection campaigns if it wouldn't allow them to set the agenda and accomplish their own goals.

Would not do a single thing to help the American public, to help the uninsured, to help the struggling family, or make America a better place to live. It's the same thing as the reason why were paying too much for oil.

Greed in America corporate life and the crossover greed in American political life. It is essentially the same thing.


Thanks for reading my rant

– Big Mike

Telephones are more important than pacemakers

It's getting to the point where I don't think that society could function anymore without telephones or some other kind of electronic device. Everywhere you look and everybody you look at has got a phone plastered to their ear or a Nook or a Kindle or a tablet and their heads down there looking at their feet while they diddle with the electronic gizmo. If the phone isn't up to their ear, they are texting, looking at a web page, shopping, or all the above usually while doing something else. That something else is usually something insignificant like driving. I really don't get it. There isn't that much to say. There isn't that much to do on one of those things, unless you make your living on it. That I can understand, sort of .

I have a cell phone. I have a home phone. I have an office phone. Everybody in my family has a cell phone. Everybody I know has cell phone. The problem I have is that none them of really have anything important to say when they call, except for the people you want talk to and then they don't answer the phone. Standing in a line somewhere waiting to be waited on, the personal cell phone of the clerk will ring, the clerk will look right at you and say "Excuse me, I have to take this." Or you're standing in a line somewhere 2-3 people back in the line and the place is pretty busy. The telephone of the business rings, the clerk will answer the line, put the customer that he was working with on hold and take care of the customer on the phone. I saw that happen Saturday.

I was tempted to whip out my cell phone,  call the business and just have the clerk take care my business over the phone. It would've been more efficient, had it not been so stupid to begin with. I was really tempted to be a jerk but I didn't. I merely said "Should I have called instead of coming up here, because it seems as if when someone calls their call is more important to you?"

On the other hand there's nothing more annoying to either be in a business or be the person calling a business and listening to the business phone of the place where you're at ring off the hook. there has to be a middle ground somewhere, for Christ sake.

Everybody you look at on the roadway has a telephone up to their ear. Just almost every car you pass has someone in it talking on the telephone or texting. It is really an amazing phenomenon that is truly an indicator of the time we live in. I know one of my friends will read this and know say "Hey big Mike, you are one of first guys I saw with one of those Blue tooth stupid headsets". I would have to say guilty as charged. I don't text and drive, and I don't really talk on the phone a lot when driving but I do use the phone to conduct a lot of business. I try to be polite and correct about it though.

I don't know maybe I'm weird, but if there's two people in line and the phone rings I answer the telephone and tell the person on the phone that there are two people in front of them and I'll be right back as soon as a take care of  the other two people. The next question is would you like to hold?

if I forget my phone or leave it at home accidentally it doesn't really bother me. I actually feel a little bit of relief. Oh well I'll answer when I get back. Not my children. They won't leave the house without their phone. They will drive back to the house from 20 miles away to get their telephone, in case somebody calls. Call waiting what is that?, voice-mail what is that?, I'll call you back later when I'm not busy what is that,? someone will actually call my house and no one will answer, then they will call my office telephone line and no one will answer, then they will call my cell phone and no one will answer, then they will send me a text and say call me when you get a second I need to talk to you. So I call them back and they say "what are you doing?" Are you serious? it just makes me want to hit the end call button and walk away.

I know, I know I'm a jerk.

My brother said to me why do people feel like they have to answer the phone just because it rings? I understand the desire to stay in contact and and I also understand the desire to answer the phone. I have to tell you however if you call me at 3 AM, and you expect me to answer the phone, you are probably going to be disappointed. My house phone doesn't even have a ringer in my bedroom. I could actually care less if anybody calls or not,  I hate the telephone, although I use it, I tolerate it and I actually do call a lot of people. Full disclosure here, I'm on the phone a lot, I make a ton of phone calls. in terms of using the telephone to conduct business talking to customers or clients family or friends I would have to say that I am on the phone a lot.  I make a lot of small single digit minute phone calls, and maybe two or three per week that go over 10 min. if you use the telephone in the conduct of your personal life and your business it's kind of sort of unavoidable that you're going to be on the telephone a lot. I get that.

You are bored and you call home just to find out what somebody's doing, or you call someplace with no real purpose behind the telephone call that I just cannot understand. Somebody calls me and says what's up I say what do you want? My wife says it's rude. I say well I'm annoyed what do you expect? Geez Louise !

It's annoying when the phone just won't stop ringing, it gets in the way and  I don't get anything done when the phone's ringing. On the other hand when one of my friends calls I answer and I'll talk for an hour and a half. My opinion on this is one that is split as I am a divergent dichotomy (person of two brains with two separate opinions).

If you're one of those nut jobs that text me and says what's up and you never get an answer from me, well there's your answer. There's probably 10 people on the planet that when they communicate with me it's always more important than whatever I'm doing and I pick up the phone immediately or will text right back. if I didn't get right back in touch with you it is entirely possible and probable that I was either asleep or I was busy with something else more important. That happens.

The rest of you leave me a message I will get back with you eventually, maybe. Unless you annoy me, and that's with the delete key is made for.

Thanks for reading my rant,
– Big Mike