The Weekly Notes 2008
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to the Weekly Notes 2008 Archives A Boring Person: I hate being interrupted
by a bore. This time it was too much. I was in the John doing my duty when
the doorbell rang. I considered ignoring it, but then I started thinking it
could be important. I pulled myself together as best I could and went to the
door. My visitor turned out to be one of those insufferable Seventh Day Adventists.
I was so upset that I did something mean and clever. I told the fellow I was
busy with a project, but he could come in and talk to me while I took care of
it. This fool followed me into the John, but he got very jittery when I
dropped my drawers and he beat a hasty retreat to the door. I doubt that I
will ever see him again. Accidentally Mean: You never know the
effect you will have on others. It is important to be careful of what comes
out of your mouth, I rarely do mean thing deliberately, but I have done
several mean things accidentally. These were simply cases of thoughtlessness
on my part. Two examples come readily to mind. One is the case where my
friend came to work wearing green slacks and a yellow shirt. Without
thinking, I told him he looked like a Keebler Elf. He never said a thing, but
I noticed he never wore that particular outfit again. In another case, a
woman friend came to work wearing a tailored jacket with shoulder pads.
Thoughtlessly, I asked her if she was going out for linebacker. That had the
same result. She never wore that outfit again. I will carry the memory of
those careless insults to my grave. Seasons: In Cruel and Usual: The Do-Gooders are
forever babbling about and condemning cruel and unusual punishments. Okay to
a point, but I think we ought to have a cruel and usual punishment for
certain crimes. In this policy, there would be a one-strike law. This law
would give life imprisonment for the first conviction of rape, child
molesting, and murder. We could call that a cruel and usual policy. We do not
want to execute people for any crime. First, that would make us too much like
them. Second, we must allow for the possibility of a wrongful conviction. We
cannot undo death, but we could at least mitigate the damage of a wrongful
incarceration. I would also have a
cruel and usual punishment for betrayal of trust. This would apply to law
officers, corporate executive, politicians, stockbrokers, and others who have
a position of public trust and use it to commit crimes. In this case, the
one-strike law would apply, but the penalty would be incarceration less than
life, but a very long time. I would opt for fifteen years. Most of these
people are used to doing risk analysis. They figure the odds of success
against the cost of failure. We want to give them a situation where the
analysis would ensure they would refrain. Murder Pays: Our Department of State
has renewed their contract with Blackwater for five more years at 1.2 billion
dollars. This was after Blackwater guards murdered Iraqi civilians in a
bloodbath not unlike the Saint Valentine’s Day massacre. There was no
discrimination. Men, women and children were treated the same. I don’t
think we should be hiring international criminals to do our dirty work. I
think the president and vice president should do their executions personally. My Kind of Place: How do you define a
restaurant that has four-star cuisine, three-star service, and all the
ambiance of a rowdy tavern? I call it my kind of place. My son found this
place and told us they had good steaks. I think he was right, but I
don’t know yet. He did not tell us they had a full beef and seafood
menu. When I saw lobster tails on the menu, I had to order them. I have not
had good Lobster tails since the last time I was in Speaking of Restaurants: Our local ABC station
has what they called an online Flint Restaurant guide. I checked it out one
time because I like to find new places to dine. I was stunned when I checked
it out. What it a contained was nothing more than the advertisements for the
restaurants that advertise on that TV station, some of which are not very
good. There were no other restaurants listed. None of the other area restaurants
were shown. I found that to be incredibly dishonest even for that station. Food: It started with
truffles. I was scanning TV looking for another show and I saw a woman
preparing food with truffles. I was interested because I did not know what a
truffle was, though I had heard the word a few times. I found out, not by
watching her, but by going online to find truffles. A truffle is really a
fungus, not unlike a mushroom except it grows underground. The collectors use
pigs and dogs to locate them by smell. I wanted to try one but the best price
I found was about $150.00 for 1 ounce of truffle. At that price, I will never
find out what a truffle tastes like. Attempts to cultivate this fungus have
not been successful for a commercial operation. There is an opportunity for
some young smart entrepreneur. Another thing I noticed
on the cooking show was an incredible waste of food. This woman was wasting
food in a grand manner just to get what she wanted, a gourmet snack. That got
me thinking about how much food is wasted by Americans and Europeans. We throw
out an incredible amount of usable food every day. Even a reasonably frugal
pair like Mrs. Gaffer and me throw out enough food to feed a third world kid.
Of course, it is not thrown away if it goes to our dog. However, that led me
to the though that my dog eats better than most third world children. That is
worth thinking about. There is something wrong somewhere. Back to the
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