New house

We've officially had our offer accepted for a new house in Michigan, so I think it is safe to tell people about it without fear that I will jinx the entire process.

Our new house will be in Hartland, Michigan just a little way off of US-23's M-59 exit. Sue and I are both really excited about it. For one thing, it has a basement! Finally somewhere to store all the shit we have!

Here are some pictures. Sorry about the grainy look: they are a scan of a scan of a cheap digital camera.

Oil is a commodity dumb ass

You know, the more I listen to Democrats or the media or Jon Sewart or whoever talk about how the president isn't doing anything about gas prices, the more I wonder if anyone in this country actual understands anything about economics.

Lets look at the Democrat's charge that Bush has been ignoring the price of gas. How exactly can President Bush change the cost of gas? Gas is commodity. It is bid on by independent agents in a market. What should Bush do? Set a cap on the price of oil? <sarcasm>Oh there's a good idea. We all saw (ok, read) how well that worked in 70's. I want to massive lines and shortages as a rule when I go to the pump. Yes, lets do that.</sarcasm>

Or how about how every article on the rising price of fuel mentions how much money the oil companies are making? Again, are we as a nation just retarded? This is basic econ 101. Oil companies extract oil from the ground for a fixed price. They then put that oil up for auction (key word here) on the global market. The person who is willing to pay the highest amount gets said oil. If my costs are fixed (more or less) and the price people are willing to pay goes up, I make more money. What part of this is difficult to understand? No one is gaming the system. There is just more demand and less supply. That makes prices rise, especially commodities like oil where reducing consummation in the short term is very difficult.

I'm not happy about the price of gas anymore than the next guy, but that is the world we live in. Don't go blaming the people who are not at fault in this.

US Foresight == zero

Adam Felber, the funny guy on NPR's Wait Wait, Don't Tell Me show, also has a hilarious blog. The one today was so clever I thought I would share it with you all.

A History of US/Iranian Relations Since 9/11

(The only one) At work today

So here I am, on a Friday, at the college counseling center for Pace University, and it's only me and one other staff member in the office out of 9 (as an aside, I move that all groups of nine be known as 'fellowships' {as an aside to my aside, technically my job title is a Postdoctoral Fellowship, which is just cool}).

I am just a bit bitter about the knowledge that from 1:30 PM to 5:00 close, I will be the *only* staff member here. Apparently I'm the only one with no life today, the downside of being not particularly religious. I volunteered by the process of everyone else took a vacation day today. Well at least I've declared it casual friday for myself and I'm in comfy jeans for the first time at this job (mmm jeans). Also, most of the students are gone, so no real work today (except for crises which always suck and the paperwork I have to do, which I also don't enjoy).

Aside from that, Happy PassEasterover, biotches! (beyotches? sp!?)

I'm heading up to Montreal tomorrow for a long weekend of youthful hijinks... more when I return.

My Mission

According to the Evil Genius Mission Statement generator, my evil mission in life is:

Mission Statement

To annihilate people who use "impact" as a verb by competing on American Idol.

What's Your Mission?

I have the best job in America

According to CNN and Salary.com, I have the best job in America:

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/moneymag/bestjobs/

From the article:

Why it's great...Designing, developing and testing computer programs requires some pretty advanced math skills and creative problem-solving ability.

That pretty much sums up my entire profession in a nutshell and explains why I like it so much. Software is the one place that I really excel at being creative and solving really complex issues. I'm never going to be an artist, painter, sculptor, or a musician. But by God I write beautiful, elegant code like I was born to do this shit. They say Mozart looked at a piano and saw "music". I can look at all those "if" statements and just see where the issues are. I cannot explain how it works. You either think this way or you don't.

Awesome movie

Stolen shamelessly from my pal Kien's blog

http://ebaumsworld.com/videos/highschool-lightsaber-duel.html

Its even safe for work viewing:)

Joke of the Day

Q: What's the difference between sexy and kinky?

A: Sexy is when you use a feather during sex. Kinky is when you use the whole chicken:)

Pluses/Minuses to Working at Home

For those not in the know, I pretty much work from home for my new job. There are certainly some pluses and minuses to this setup:


Plus: I make my own hours. Banks are actually useful to me again. Ditto for the DMV, although that does not make me fill with any less murderous rage when I go there.

Minus: I feel the urge to work all the time. Sue will be watching some random shit on TV, and I will whip out the laptop and write 3 more lines of code.


Plus: When I am in the zone, no one bothers me. I can code like the mother-f#$king genius that I am. If I want to yell to the ceiling of my home office, "DO MY BIDDING YOU EVIL COMPLIER!", or "I AM A GOLDEN GOD!", or even "WHY MUST I FAIL AT EVERY ATTEMPT AT MASONRY?!?!", I can without having to worry about people staring at me. And I can finally avoid the weird looks from coworkers when they walk by my office and see me talking to myself about some weird facet of my code. And don't get me started on how much better naked Wednesdays are now...

Minus: Do you know how hard it is to get in the zone when you can look at literally ANYTHING on the internet and no one will slap your wrist? There is all that news, sports, info, naked girls, etc. I mean, just today I saw a link to this from one of the wired.com blogs I read: The Ozporns (NSFW, duh). Some day I hope MY life is cool enough that someone will want to make a porn spoof out of it.


Plus: Don't waste gas going to work, lunch, or anything else. I also don't eat out everyday, so I feel like I may be helping the environment just a tiny bit.

Minus: I am one smelly, dirty, hippy for most of the morning and half way into the afternoon. Showering and shaving are just not that far up there on my list of important things to do anymore in the morning.

April Fool's and practical jokes...

SUCK!

Why is this a holiday??? Why is it funny to fool, confuse, anger and make people upset? Practical jokes are wrong and are totally not funny. How would people like it if we as nurses came into your room and said something like "I haven't been giving you any of the right meds these last few days so your heart will stop and the cancer has spread...Just kidding". Not funny right. Then why are other practical jokes funny? GROW UP America and be adults.


By the way, the lack of commenting on our blog makes us want to blog less. :) Please comment more, we enjoy the feedback whatever it is. :)