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12/27/07
Ok… I am a little scared that I am either getting a little too old or a little too fat; I farted myself awake last night. The burst was so strong that it actually startled me awake! My wife, bless her, did not seem to notice the disturbance or wake up after my startled stir, however I am worried. No one, I repeat no one, should have to wake up to their own violent burst of gas. I mean really, what kind of sick joke is that?
12/24/07
Merry Christmas to all my loyal readers (all one… none,… well anyone that decides to read this anyway). Boy has a lot happened since my last rant on USBANK; I have learned a lot of important life lessons, like don’t act before you truly think things out.
Yesterday I thought I would do something nice so I decided to buy a used XP computer for my neighbor and fix it up for him so that he, his kids, and his wife would have a computer that they could learn and work on. I thought that it would be a wonderful regalo de navidad para me vecinos de españa, pero despues comprarlo el ordenador espupido no funcionar. So, I had to take it back to the store that I bought it from and hope that they would give me my money back. Sure enough they did give me a refund, but only after I explained to them that my wife was super pissed that I had blown so much money on a gift that did not work.
Moreover, upon further reflection, I think that it might have been a little weird for me to buy them such an expensive gift. I really did just want to be nice, but maybe they would feel a little uncomfortable accepting it. In reality, though, my neighbors have been very kind and have even helped me practice my Spanish. I just wanted to buy them something that I know that their whole family could really use. They even watch my kids so that my wife and I can go to work. It’s not everyone that has such friendly people living next door. After the whole computer fiasco, my wife and I just decided to give them a bag of homemade cookies. How can you go wrong with a bag of cookies right?
At Work,
Work was really interesting last Friday. Since I work in the mortgage industry we did not have any sort of company Christmas party this year, but we did have a little department pot-luck that turned out quite well. We all played a serious game of “Chubby Bunny” that involves sticking marsh-mellows in your mouth one, by one, until you can no longer say the words “Chubby Bunny.” It really Changes how you view your co-workers after you see them straining to utter such absurd words with marsh-mellow foaming out of their mouth. Fun game though, really fun. To top things… we were all sober.
At Home,
My kids seem to be under the impression that Santa Clause is kind of like a mail order catalog. All you have to do us write down a list of the things that you want, put it in a nice little envelope and Santa will send all those things to you no later than Christmas. My son even asked me what the numerical limit was on gifts.
“Dad,” he asked “What’s the limit on gifts we can get from Santa? Isn’t it like five? I’m pretty sure it’s five, right? Cause I want five things.”
All I could do was shrug. I mean I don’t know how many things Santa bought, or made, for the boy this year. I’m not even sure if he is on the nice or naughty list this year.
Mi Español,
Estoy todavia tratando a aprender español, pero es muy dificil. Mi familia no entiende nada que estoy diciendo cuando hablando mi idioma nueva. Mi mujer solo dice que necicito hablar in ingles and mi hijos tambien no comprende nada. Puedo hablar con mis vecinos, pero a veses no puedo intiendo que dicen porque ellos habla muy rapido. Creo que necicito leer mas libros o noticias en español. Cuando estoy leendo tengo que entender todos las palabaras. Ademas, tengo tiemo a buscar por las palabaras en me dicionario de español a ingles. Todavia me gusta español, pero tengo que trabajar mas antes puedo dicer que yo habla el linguage.
Gracials por liendo.
12/17/07
Shame on USBANK
Today I received a letter from USBANK who, by the way, has also called me and sent me emails, about the opportunity for me to lower my interest rate by 3%. On the front of this nice little offer, one might assume that USBANK was simply being generous; however that is not the case. USBANK and the Senior Vice President Lynn Heitman are actually trying to turn my credit card into an adjustable rate nightmare. They want to make it so that my card is actually tied to the Prime Interest rate which fluctuates as the Fed lowers or raises their interest rate. Today the Prime rate is at 7.25% (Not to Shabby actually). Funny thing is, though, that my USBANK letter said that the PRIME rate was at 8.25%! How odd is that? Could it be that Lynn Heitman had not checked the Prime Rate before sending out the letter (easy enough to do at http://www.moneycafe.com/library/prime.htm )? I am afraid not! On the bottom of the letter there is a little line that reads, and I quote...
"The Prime Rate used to calculate the APR is a variable rate that is adjusted monthly based on the highest Prime rate published on the last business day within the last 3 months in the 'Money Rates" column of the Wall Street Journal (currently 8.25%)."
So, to calculate their rate they are using the HIGHEST rate published in the last 3 months. This means that as the rates go down borrowers will have to wait three months in order to experience any benefit. Moreover, as the rates go up USBANK can instantly raise the interest rate for the credit card so that I, or any other person that was suckered into this, has to instantly pay more!
Basically, while it may look like USBANK was simply trying to make a nice offer, they were actually only trying to screw people over by designing one heck of an horrible Adjustable Rate credit card. To make matters worse, Lynn Heitman also put on the letter that I should transfer over any debt from any other credit card to take advantage of USBANK’s generous 3% interest cut. One again, though, there is a little note on the bottom of the letter that need to be highlighted; namely that there will be a 3% charge for any balance transfers! Here again Lynn and USBANK are really trying to screw over the least sophisticated borrower! If I, in fact, wanted to transfer over balances from other credit cards because USBANK lowered my rates by 3%, then that would mean that I was using the 3% decrease as a deciding factor, otherwise I would have done it already, right? But I will not actually gain anything from the transfer, and actually stand to lose out if my current card carrying that balance is not more than 3% higher than the current USBANK rate. USBANK is trying to make (and its other customers?) lose money.
I thought you were my fiend USBANK, but I don’t know if I can be friends with banks that do such tricky and devious business. One should not have to read all the fine details in order to discover that what looks like a good deal is actually a bad one! Its companies like you USBANK, along with leaders like you Lynn Heitman, that make today’s business world such an awful place.
If you are going to make an offer to an existing customer, at least make it a good one! What are you trying to do, screw me over, or lose my business?
That was my little USBANK rant.
12/09/07
I am pretty sure that today is the last day that I need to worry about school. Tomorrow I will be heading to campus in order to turn in 3 boring essays that no one will read and then I can move on with my life. I am gitty with excitement at the prospect that I will not have to worry about my own shcooling everyday when I get home from work. School has been such a drain on me that I have not even been able to write a lousy paragraph on this wonderful blog for nearly four months! That's four months of my life lost to history. Four months of my life in which my loyal readers could have been morning my supposed death! Four months that I will never get back! But, I will move on. I will rebuild. I will finally become the man that I know i can be. I will survive!
8/18/07
Wow, what a summer it has been! I know
that I haven’t written in a while, but that is OK because a
stick to the notion that no one reads this thing anyway.
Nevertheless, hear I am! I read the last Harry Potter book. It
was pretty good. Definitely a satisfying ending. I am a little
bumbed that there will be no more books for me to look forward
to, but I also know that it is time to move on with my life. I
must claw myself out of the deep sadness and try to find a
reason to live with out Hogwarts and all my associated magical
friends. Ron, Harry, Hermione, If you are reading this… I’ll
miss you, but I must move on with my life. I have a wife and
children and can not spend the best part of my life worrying
about a world that I will never be a part of simply because I
can not perform magic. I know that you three do not have time
to worry about me, with the fighting of dark wizards and
whatnot. I though that you could have at least responded to one
of my many letters that I sent to you and addressed to
Gryffindor tower at Hogwarts school for witchcraft and wizardry,
but I understand that you must have been busy saving the magic
world. That’s OK, I can get over my pain. I must get on with
my life… There’s always Eragon, he’ll return my letters; right?
5/02/07
It has been nearly a month since I have last written in this and
I have now decided that I should try and make this blog kind of
like a medieval anal where I write down what ever comes to mind
when I first sit down to write. The first thing that comes
to my mind now, though, is only that I want to know what happens
in the third Eragon book. Dang it! How the heck is
Eragon going to fight against two Dragons!!!!! Maybe he
will some how be able to steel the last Dragon egg and it will
hatch for one of Eragon's friends so that it will be two against
two! Or, maybe he will learn something new from elves that
will help him becomes super strong and he will be able to beat
them both. What i really think will happen, though, is
that the new Dragon rider will break his vow, turn against the
king and help Eragon win. We'll see! At least I will
be able to find out what happens to Harry Potter soon. I
hope he KILLS Snape! Dang I'm Cool!
4/09/07
I just
got a PS1 emulator for my PC (ePSXe). The program works
great. It is not only able to play the original
PlayStation games, but is able to play ISO files as well.
This way I can copy all of my old games on to my hard drive so
that my son can play the games and I don't have to worry about
the disc getting scratched or lost. I am also able to
actually play the game now. Since I don't have a T.V.
playing playStation games has been a bit of a challenge.
Now that I have this wonderful, and apparently free, program I
would like to thank all the people that spent their time
creating it so that I could further waist my time away in front
of my computer. It has been a simple delight!
4/1/07
Target Market for PS3
Are you between the age of 15 and 24? Do you want sex, but
never get it? Well then the PS3 is for you! The PS3 is
specially designed for lonely men with no lives who need to find
an unproductive way to waist away the lives they wish they had!
With HiDef graphics placed on blueray discs you’ll kind of
forget that all of your cooler friends live exciting and
fulfilling lives in reality. For a mere pittance to pathetic
life you’ll be able to bottle up, you can feel remotely
satisfied with your looser life! Buy your PS3 today!
3/29/07
I just updated my resume today, I wonder if the hard work and
dedication that I put into this comprehensive revampification of
my professional history will result in anything more than a
simple waist of time. We'll see, we'll see...
You can find a link to my
resume online if you know where to look...
3/28/07
I know that I have not been posting, but I am still going to use
the school excuse. I continue to be swamped with an
ungodly amount of stuff to do. Some day soon I hope to
write something amazing and life changing, even though no one
will read it. Tell then!
3/16/07
I have been doing school stuff all week, I need sleep. I
really need it...
3/16/07
I just wanted to say that I am getting really, really tired of
all this school work. I know that I am a History Major,
but does it really matter that the Doomsday Book was
commissioned by William the Conqueror in 1086 or that the battle
of Manzikert was in 1071. I have a hard time seeing how
these facts are going to improve my future life... perhaps
I'm just tired and frustrated.
3/14/07
I realized today that I am not special. I used to think that I
was at least smart, or clever, or something that made me above
average, but I am not. I am not better than anyone else, I’m
probably not destine for grandeur and greatness. Most likely I
will not write the all American novel, nor will I be elected
president. I will not produce a hit play and I won’t star in an
award wining Broadway Musical. I will not be the president of a
fortune 500 company, hell I can’t even cook that good and I am
probably not as good in bed as my wife so lovingly leads me on
to believe. Basically, I am just like most of everyone else.
That’s not a bad thing, I don’t think. It could be worse and
tomorrow I could realize that I am below average….
3/12/07
The other day my wife and I were bickering back and forth and I
let it carelessly slip out that I thought many Asian women were,
how shall we say, quite attractive. Well my wife is not Asian
and took offence at this comment claiming that they only reason
that I think Asian women are hot is because they are allegedly
very submissive. My wife thinks that what I want in a woman is
a servant who will do my bidding with little to no resistance.
Although when in a bicker match having a slightly more
submissive woman may sound appealing, when researching the
matter, many Asian women are anything but submissive. As a
matter of fact, in ancient China for example, the founder of the
Han Dynasty, Chinas second historical dynasty, was married to a
woman known as Empress Dowager Lü. Empress Lü was anything but
submissive. In a 1936 entry found in The Journal of the
Northern China Branch of Royal Asiatic Society Homer H. Dubs
wrote that the Emperor Liu Bang was not too pleased with his
wife because she was to self willed and strong headed.
Furthermore, after Liu Bang died Empress Lü took control of the
empire, instated her family members as kings in the province and
in many cases brutally murdered her opponents. Seeing as
Empress Lü was not the only powerful and ambitious Asian woman,
my wife was wrong! I don’t like Asian women because they are
allegedly submissive; they are not. I like Asian women because
they are hot!
3/11/07
Now that I have my home gym I can finally become one of those
cocky sons-of-bitches that always brags about how much they
worked out over the weekend. I'll at last be cool and able to
impress people. I will be able to make myself the center of
attention and the subject of all conversations. I’ll always
point out how what ever the other person did was O.K., but what
I did was better. I’ll be able to belittle people and they
won’t be able to do a thing about it because I will be so gosh
darn sexy. I’ll have women all over me and I won’t even need a
stick to fight them off because the power of my own Bowflex
sculpted muscles will be all that I need to fend off the
unwanted advances and draw near the desirable ones. When I am at
the water cooler, I will unknowingly, however not
unintentionally, distract other workers with my sexy good looks
to the point where the productivity of the entire department
will slow to a financial stop, but they won’t be able to fire me
because I’ll be to gosh darn sexy. I’ll, as a matter of fact be
promoted to CEO, not for my vast understanding of the big
picture and ability to comprehensively plan out successful
business strategies, but because at the meeting all the
executives will want to stair at me and listen to how much I
worked out over the weekend. I’ll be frick’in sweet. Dam, I’m
cool. I wont be cocky, though, no, no, I’ll be way to good to
be cocky. People will love me.
By the way, I don't like the
new time change, I want my hour back!
3/9/07
I got my Bowflex yesterday. I am actually pretty
impressed. The thing seems to be constructed of high
quality materials. It does not seem cheap at all.
I've been working out on it while I watch Robotech, a darn good
anime series by the way, and my whole body feels drained.
I worked out my arms, stomach and legs so now none of me works
right.
I have been thinking that this blog has no real point to it.
There is no subject, nothing that erks me enough so that I ca
find a reason to write about it every day. I could write
about my work, there is a lot of stuff that happens there that
would disserve pages upon pages of witting, but as previously
mentioned, I don't want to get fired. I could write about
my family, but god forbid they read this, I don't want to get
divorced. Basically I am a scardypants, so there will
probably be nothing worth reading in this, and that means that
there will be no body reading it. So, what a rock and a
hard place, I could write a good blog that people would read,
but I don't want them to read, or I could write a boring blog
that no one will read, but it won't matter to me if they do.
I think that I will stick with the boring blog, at least this
way I will keep my job and my wife.
Lastly, I saw a sticker that I liked.... "Frodo failed, Bush got
the ring!"
Really Lastly, Will Gandalf now return?
3/7/07
I got
some exercise today and I feel much better. It’s odd how
running around in circles clears my mind and invigorates my
body. This time I dragged my kids along with me. I had them on
their bikes. I figured that they could use some movement as
well.
Things have been quite
interesting at my work. We hired a new director that seems to
have made it her goal to drastically change the way that our
department works. She hired, although she insists that it was
not her, one of her friends to act as a second manager so that
our team of twenty people that used to function just fine with
one manage, now has three managers (well actually, two managers
and one director). I don’t know the full story, all I know is
that there has been a lot of hearsay and that for some reason HR
has gotten involved. I think that the original manager, we’ll
call her Ms. A (I don’t want to give names because I don’t want
to get fired) really hates the other two manager, we’ll call
them Ms. B, the director, and Ms. C, the newest manager. From
my understanding Ms. B and Ms. C are friends from way back and
have been leaving Ms. A out of all the Managerial functions.
The odd thing is that Ms. A has been with our company for ages
and seems to know infinitely more about the function of our
department than both B and C put together. Furthermore, Ms. A’s
style of management was loved and appreciated by the whole team
and now we have to deal with B and C as though they have been
with the company for ages, which they have not.
For my part, they treat me
just fine, but I don’t think the rest of the team feels that
way. One girl said that either Ms. B, or Ms. C has followed her
to the bathroom on more than one occasion. That’s creepy! Now
this girl wants to transfer to a new department and who can
blame her. I’m just afraid that Ms. B and Ms. C are going to
drive Ms. A out. I don’t even know why Ms. B stays on the
floor. All the other directors have their own office, but Ms. B
chooses to stay on the floor to micromanage. It’s weird, when
one of the team wants to speak to Ms. A we have to speak to Ms.
B and C as well because they all sit next to each other. I hope
that it all works out!
3/5/07
I have to study for a test in International
Economics today. The class I have could be relatively
interesting if it weren’t for the fact that the professor speaks
in a complete monotone. This has got to be the first class
that I have taken where reading the text book is more
fascinating then sitting through the class. Most of the class
time I end up just playing solitaire on my Palm Pilot. I hope
that I do well on the test though.
I’d hate to think that I’m just wasting my time!
This is what I
am studying....
Stolper-Samuelson
theorem: An increase in the
price of a good will cause an increase in the price of the
factor used intensively in that industry and a decrease in the
price of the other factor.
Rybczynski
theorem demonstrates an
increase in a country's endowment of a factor will cause an
increase in output of the good which uses that factor
intensively, and a decrease in the output of the other good.
3/4/07
I hope that not all of my life will have to
be in the pursuit of money. Don’t get me wrong, I would like to
have nice things and be able to give my family all that they
could desire, but having to spend so much of my time and energy
doing tasks that serve no other propose than to generate money
seems kind of like a waist of my life. There is so much that I,
or we as people, could have been put on the earth to do and I
can not imagine that it all has to do with earning green paper.
It’s not as though I even dislike my job, it’s just that it
seems like a waste, that’s all.
I know that I need to do what is best for
my family so I can’t just quit working in order start a search
for a meaningful use of my time. Furthermore, perhaps the sheer
work of providing for my family is what I was put on this earth
to do. Maybe it doesn’t matter how I provide for them as long
as I am providing. So the work that I do, even though it seems
meaningless, is given meaning through the means of which I use
the income. My family then gives my job a purpose.
I guess I’m just complaining because it is
Sunday and I really would love the opportunity to not go to work
tomorrow morning. If I took the day off would I do something
that has more meaning than my job?
3/3/07
Once again I
have skipped a day of my new Blog. This is kind of like
exercising, where I need to make it a habit or I’m just not
going to do it. I did, at least, go running yesterday, but I
also ate bad (yummy food, but bad for my body). I saw a
friend from High-school yesterday that I had not seen for ages.
He filled me in on a bunch of gossip about some people that I
used to be very close to way back when. We all used to hang out
in a group. Although the group seems to have remained intact, I
have drifted away, what with the whole having children and
getting married thing. I still, though, often wonder how my old
friends are doing and wish them well. I found out that two of
my friends ended up getting married. And another of my friends
ended up getting the older sister of one friend pregnant after
two weeks of dating and is now engaged to get married. Another
friend turned out to be gay and is married to another man. All
this happened in such a short time. It is not as though my life
has not changed, but their life has changed a lot! I feel kind
of bad that I have lost touch with all these people that I used
to be so close to. I don’t know how I would have made it
through High-School without out them as my friends. I wonder if
they ever wonder how I am doing as I wonder how they are doing?
3/1/07
I was thinking about the word BLOG today, and I can not figure
out what it means. I though that maybe e-log would make
since, only because that how all other things on the internet
are. Or maybe iLog if I was using a MAC. But BLOG? What
does it mean. Who came up with that? Wikipedia says
that " The term "blog" is derived from "Web log." "Blog"
can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add
content to a blog," but this does not explain what the B is
for. Perhaps BLOG is an acronym for Boring Literature On
Going, or Boasting LOG, of Baby Lions Obey God. I guess it does
not matter what BLOG stands for as long as we all know what it
means, right? How odd it is that I feel compelled to
maintain something of which I can not define.
I didn't go running today, I should have.
I am getting fatter. No worries, though, the Bowflex is on its
way. Then I can be sexy, I hope.
2/28/07
Well, I set up
this thing two days ago and I couldn't even make an entry
yesterday. This goes to show that my powers of follow through
are spectacular!
My co-workers finally
admitted that the whole world revolves around me today, although
I think that they my have been being sarcastic. At least I know
that my whole world revolves around me. If my world were a
movie then I would be in every scene. I would be kind of like a
documentary, but seen through my perspective. I would call it The Life of Me.
On a side note, I
have got to throw a shout out to Bill Gates. Billy, I love
you man. Excel, well words can not describe it's beauty
and the benefit that it offers to the world. That program
has changed my life and made me a better man. Love, as a matter
of fact, is to weak of a word to illustrate how I truly feel
about that magical program. Bill, please keep up the
good work!
Also, my 401K
dropped my almost $200.00 yesterday because of some sort of
glitch at the New York stock exchange. Honestly, I don't
crap gold, that's a lot of money. I could probably bought
an old computer to calculate the stupid average for the amount
of money that I lost in that one day of misguided trading.
Is there no one looking out for this kind of mistake? Oh
well, I won't be retiring for quite a while anyway.
Hopefully I'll have more up days than down days!
2/26/07
Honestly, I don't think that any one will ever read this, but
nevertheless I choose to write this because I was kind of
curious how it worked. Now I should point out that I am a
horrible speller, and I know it, so please don't point out all
my flaws, it makes me self conscious. Perhaps you are wondering
why this site is called awfulpresident.com. Well it is because
I thought that Bush was an awful president and I did not want
him re-elected in 2004. He was though (boy the country showed
up my feeble attempt on the internet)!
So, a little about myself... I am a guy, I have a job, I play
guitar, I have a wife, I don't eat red meat, I like cartoons, I
was born in 1982, I am fat, I kind of respect myself, I go to
school, I have kids, my favorite color is green, aliens scare
me, I have a sense of smell, I shower almost daily, I like
pretty things, I am strait, I don't own a hat, I don't have a
TV., and I am comfortable in crowds. That pretty much sums it
up.
So... Will this have anything to do with Bush? Probably
not.
Welcome to my wonderful blog!
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