Bad Companies, Pensions, SS reform

As Oregon public employees know, the public retirement system took a nasty hit when fraudulent giants Enron and Worldcom fell. Why our public retirement fund was so heavily invested in such short-term, quick-buck companies baffles me, but none less, I really can’t expect to depend on the public retirement system if they continue to invest in bad companies.

But what are bad companies, and who are they? I suppose for starters you could look for companies that do business with rogue nations. I’m not sure how I feel about the branding, but if we as a country decide that it is illegal to do business with these folks, then we should sure as hell make sure that companies like Haliburton, General Electric, and Phillips-Conoco either stop doing business with them, or suffer the financial consequences.

A recent CBS News article looks at these companies, and points out the almost seamless connection between these companies and projects that undermine both the security of our country and breaks our own laws. I suppose the mail does get routed through an office in the Cayman Islands, but that still doesn’t make for a very sound long term investment.

And speaking of sound, long term investments, Social Security won’t work for us either. A friend of mine has been showing me regression curves and calculated returns on our SS payments, and it looks grim. Neither of us expect that Social Security will do anything for us but cost. And we’re mostly OK with that. Chris would understandably like to invest that money elsewhere. And Pres. Bush would like him to be able to do that too. And I’m not totally opposed to it either. In theory, the return would be greater if invested elsewhere, which would help pay for all those old people, and allow us to look forward to somethign. But I have these irrational fears that investing SS money elsewhere could be dangerous. Why? Because of bad companies.

Supposedly there have been crackdowns on being a bad company. Even Haliburton is under scrutiny for the time during Veep Cheney’s tenure. Something ought to come of all this because we’ll be in even worse of a pickle if we start spreading the money around and companies behave the same as they have lately. Heck – we’d be in the same shape as my public retirement fund.

Audibly out of touch

I tried. I really tried to watch the MTV music video awards. I tried to find something redeemable about pop music in 2004. What I saw and heard did nothing to rekindle my interest. In fact, it annoyed me so much I’ve compiled a small list of complaints.

  • mainstream hip-hop sucks so much that rock is making a comeback
  • Rock hasn’t changed, and seems to only be going backwards, sound and style wise. Mind you, that’s not necessarily bad.
  • Music and the corresponding videos are as commercially bent-over as movies. Pretty soon, albums are going to include “the twenty.”
  • You don’t have to bob your head when something sucks.
  • Wu-Tang is for the children, but where are they now?
  • People’s fascination with the newlyweds seems to affect their taste in music.
  • When do people actually see these videos? I’ve not seen them before.
  • Why isn’t anything else on at this hour?

Gmail Squatter

I’ve passed up several opportunities to get a gmail account because I already have a web-based e-mail account that I like that also allows IMAP access to it. But then I thought about it. What if someone else was to get my name as their e-mail address? That just can’t happen!

So I now have a gmail account, but don’t send stuff to it. I need to decide how I’m going to use it.

Big Screen Debut

Here’s a lesson I’ve learned for you. Don’t hang a sheet against your front window when you’re watching a movie on a projector. More specifically, don’t watch the unrated version of an already suspect film on the screen. But if you do, check to see what it looks like from outside before it gets to the raunchier parts. You might regret it when, after the movie, you check the view from outside and discover that its an even better view than from the inside, and you’ve been showing it to the entire neighborhood. Its even worse than when we left the outdoor speakers on for Charlie’s Angels Full Throttle. This always happens on the worst movies.

I’d have taken a picture, but I was so mortified that I busied myself with dish washing, and Michelle promptly took down the screen absconded to the back room. I hope the neighbors have a sense of humor. And I hope they aren’t offended by boobies.

RIP: 19″ CRT monitor

The summer I was working in a plastic extrusion plant (1999), I often mentally built the computer I wanted as a distraction from how hot the building was, or how monotonous putting freshly made bags in to boxes gets. Near the end of the job, I finally ordered my nearly new G3 and purchased a Sylvania F91 CRT monitor at Costco for the amazing price of $349. I chose it because it had a 3 year warranty. I chose it despite the fact that it was boring, beige cube that weighed 50 lbs.

This morning while checking e-mail, the sound of water on a hot skillet filled the room and the picture started dancing around, shrinking and expanding, until the classic poof of the screen failing to black left me with the smell of a recently fired cap gun. That’s probably not good. The warranty is nearly 2 years out. Anyone looking for birthday ideas?

Flowbee

I’ve been putting of getting my hair cut for some time now. I have a hard time justifying paying for a haircut because my mom cut my hair growing up. In the early days, she used scissors. Then, with the perfect mating of vacuum suction, electric razors, and plastic height limiters, we entered the Flowbee Era.

Despite the Suck-Cut parody on Wayne’s World, the device was a great thing to have around. It was great fun for family, and was always a source of laughter. Just imagine seeing your aunt vacuum up your uncle’s comb over. Comic gold.

Anyway, after getting married, I started going to the cheapest haircut places I could. The cuts were lame, and weren’t worth the $12 I usually spent. I even let friends cut my hair at times. But this summer they didn’t come through. No one would bring down clippers when here for the Oregon Brewers Festival. So when in Yakima again for a friend’s wedding, I cut my own hair with the Flowbee. And it was good. Except the neck fuzz, but Michelle fixed that for me.

I’m so pleased with the cut that I decided to return the love. Thank you Flowbee!

Clem & Erin’s Wedding

This weekend we headed back to Yakima for Clem and Erin’s wedding. Clem has been a friend since middle school, and Erin is a wonderful woman who seems unfazed by his shenanigans.

The night before the wedding, we went out in search of karaoke (I’m not sure why…), but didn’t find it at our first stop: the flight deck. I was unaware that airport bars still existed (especially at non-airports like Yakima’s), but it seems to be one of the places to be in Yakima.

There was no singing, so we headed across town to Las Margaritas. Our entry in to the Cantina lowered the average age to 45. And there were 12 of us, all under 25. Despite a few, um, missed notes, it was a lot of fun, and the rather large group all seemed enjoy most of the same music. Clem got a call around midnight letting him know that the person doing the music for his wedding the next day was backing out. Luckily, replacements were found.

The wedding was a lot of fun, and even the late afternoon rain didn’t spoil the mood. It was surprising to see a number of people for the first time since high school. A friend of the wedding party commented to me that the people there from our high school seemed to be generally more relaxed, genuine, and cooler. I think he was probably right, but he also saw us at karaoke.

Clem and Erin are now enjoying themselves (I hope) in Maui. Congrats, and best wishes.

Bad at Geography? It may cost you

The Guardian estimates that Microsoft has lost hundreds of millions of dollars worth of business because of lacking in geographical knowledge among its developers. To address the problem, the company is going to start having geography classes to avoid future “bloopers.” (The Guardian misspelled the word. Ironic)

Just so I wasn’t a superior feeling jerk, I took the survey myself. I scored a perfect 20. The survey is quite simple, and I’m still a superior feeling jerk.

I don’t think Microsoft is any more to blame than any other corporation. Hell, they provide some great tools, like MapPoint and Terraserver. But I do agree that we as a nation really need to improve our geographic understanding. The survey’s highlights show American’s to be especially lacking. I guess I’ll just have to become a geography teacher someday.