Lions and Tigers and Politicians, oh my!

I've tried to stay relatively quiet on political matters, but today a news story broke that absolutely ended that.

According to the New York Post, Hillary Clinton said in response to calls for her to drop out of the race... "My husband did not wrap up the nomination in 1992 until he won the California primary somewhere in the middle of June, right? We all remember Bobby Kennedy was assassinated in June in California. I don't understand it," (This isn't the first time she has said this, Jacob just told me. Here is a link to a piece from Time.)

She literally said Obama's assassination would be a method of her winning the Democratic presidential nomination.

Bobby Kennedy and JFK pictures were framed and posted like saints on the walls of nearly every home, church, and school I ever went to as a child. My grandmother cried each time they were discussed. I can't imagine what she would do now.

The Clintons have profoundly offended me almost daily since this race began. The Jesse Jackson remark, the hard working white voter statement, and Hillary's response to "Do you think Sen Obama is a Muslim", as well all of their other continual, not so subtle attempts to strike fear into voter's hearts. These actions, on top of her continually deceit, have made me embarrassed to be a white woman.

Wanting to change the rules of a game with mere seconds left on the clock when it is most advantageous to her, touting her "35 years of experience" of being a hand waver and flower accepter in Sniper ridden countries, not leaving her husband after his affair brought her world wide shame (for the sake of her political career), and now this.

She has ripped from the hearts of generations before mine the sorrow of an assassinated Kennedy to use as her justification for her "Republimocrat", Nuclear War promising campaign. She does this only days after that man's younger brother was informed he has an inoperable, typically fatal brain tumor! I have feared for Obama's safety since January, to the point where I felt physically ill. I rarely ever say I hate someone, especially someone I do not know personally. I proudly say now, pardon my language, but I officially fucking hate this bitch.

Here is a reaction video Jacob just sent me that sums it up quite nicely. I eagerly await a Keith Olbermann "Special Comment" on this one.

Content Flowchart!

Women on the internet?!? Why, the only women on the internet are bimbos or overtly masculine gamers. Oh, and every other type of woman on the planet. So why do women chose names that are gender ambiguous, or end up only getting to read the news on google and have to search for clothing with safe search "on"? I dunno, but here's a thought I had today...

Memories, ah sweet memories

People often ask me why I am so positive. Is it the medication I've been prescribed? Am I feigning this illness? Nope to both. What really keeps me positive is a series of memories I have from my past that make me very thankful to be where I am. Constant physical pain compared to, say, working at a movie theater, make me sigh in relief and ignore the stabbing sensations in my legs. The following is one of three horrible job experiences I have had in my adult life. Enjoy!

I put my work clothes through the washing machine twice, but they still reeked of the popcorn stench that I marinated in for 5 hours every afternoon. I had worked for years at a stressful, yet comfortable loan center job before I went back to college, and in this new city I wanted to try the regular, unappreciated work I had avoided. I should have just read Nickle and Dimed by Barbara Ehrenreich, I realize in hindsight.

This movie theater job lost the "Worst Job Ever" award to my three months as a telemarketer, but it won for worst job environment. Supervisors, who were high school drop outs with slicked back hair and cheap shoes, slung insults with orders as I cleaned the floor and gave popcorn to movie goers. The first person who I ever filled a popcorn bag for was an old man who said "Why don't you try actually filling it up, missy" (it was already full, I ended up sprinkling popcorn on the top to appease him). Naturally, within a week of working the popcorn counter, I asked for a transfer. I was throwing up each day before work from either the stress or the smell still lingering on my uniform.

My weeks suffering through this job isn't the story I wanted to relay with this post. It's about a young woman who worked with me cleaning theaters, who was suffering from narcolepsy. Her brother worked along side her, helping her fall gently to the floor while he cleaned double fast for the both of them. Sometimes he wasn't there to catch her, and she would hit her head on an armrest or on a concrete step. All the while, her brother and the other cleaners pretended to me that there was nothing wrong.

One day she fell down the stairs and hit her head sharply on the wall. I carried her into the bathroom when she came to, her coordination shot and her body dry heaving as I rushed her as well as I could to the bathroom. She was taller than me, and certainly heavier than me, but we finally made it to the restroom. She threw up for a while, I held her hair back as I convinced her to go home and rest.

After dropping her off at the front office, I met up again with her brother and the other cleaners. He explained that they couldn't afford health insurance on their wages, and a doctor who had examined her pro bono had told them her treatment would be very expensive. This job was the best they could do, considering she would fall asleep during interviews and cleaning theaters wasn't supervised by management. They knew if management found out about her illness, they would find a reason to fire her. Illegal as it was, I didn't doubt that at all. She was chained to this thankless job filled with rude, disgusting people who care nothing for the peons that either feed the customers or clean up their mess. I used to do the math in my head as I cleaned up the floors of the theaters. At $9.50 a head, an average of 30 people per theater, they couldn't afford to provide health care to this young woman?

I left the job a few weeks after that. I ended up getting a job at another bank, a truly fabulous job where I sat at a desk and worked with documents I had spent my previous years reviewing. They appreciated me, they were compassionate and kind people, so much so that I wondered if I had exaggerated my memories of the movie theater. I went back a few months after I had quit to see a movie, and I over heard a girl being sworn at by a supervisor as she cried, cleaning up a dropped bag of popcorn.

I don't know what happened to the sick young woman who sobbed on my shoulder as I walked her into the bathroom. I just know that had this event happened in Canada or England or almost any other developed country, she would've gotten treatment for her illness. Movie theaters, which charge obscene amounts of money to patrons, who show paying customers ten minutes of advertisements before each movie, who sell candy and soda for seven times their worth, are the sort of companies that show what is wrong with our version of capitalism. Those on top do anything they can to make those on the bottom stay there, whether its by not providing health insurance or paying minimum wage, a wage that is impossible to live on.

The only founders I respect are the ones who founded countries!

disclaimer: Jacob (JTV Chief Designer) and I (Intermediate Mechanic and Amateur xkcd Fan) attended Tech Crunch's press viewing of Iron Man and got to see the movie before you did. So, HA HA! (BTW, thank you Tech Crunch!) In case you found this off some random google search, I have Idiopathic Polyneuropathy (DRINK!). I'm restricted to a wheelchair, meaning I couldn't avoid being nearly knocked over at this press screening by some douche bag inept moronic halfwit Second Life elf charging through the crowd and throwing his barbaric Big Foot sized feet into my legs. He blamed us for being in his way. I didn't pay attention to this part at the time, because I was busy screaming and crying. This was the accident I've been dreading each time I've left my apartment since January, so it made quite an impression. Besides giving me five bruises, this incident also added gasoline to my simmering resentment towards SOME of the web 2.0 community. Not ALL.

My web 2.0 expertise: I use at least 50% of google's services, I have 'internet fans', and I can embed an image successfully into my blog.

<--Exhibit A



In other words, I'm a perfectly average internet user. I have no special knowledge about anything in e-commerce or iEntertainment. Perhaps this is why I do not understand the internet start up industry, or perhaps the start up industry defies all sense of practical logic and reasoning.

I'm making no assumptions

Expectations of 70 hour work weeks, half hearted business plans, and non-existent monetization plans make me itch. On top of these conundrums are the monstrous investments being thrown at unproven companies. Multi-million dollar rounds of funding and purchase prices for businesses that can't bring in enough money to cover rent bother me.

(I know that this isn't a new argument. Jacob tells me that 37signals frequents this same topic of discussion, and since they were part of a featured broadcast on Justin.tv that I watched, they are infallible.)

I witnessed someone at this Tech Crunch screening who introduced themselves as a co-founder of an image storage site currently in beta testing. Just to recap, this means photoshop express, flickr, photobucket, skitch, image shack, picoodle, imagevenue, tinypic, villagephotos, uploadit, walagata, thefreesite, myotherdrive, shutterfly, google images, yahoo images, or dropbox didn't quite encompass the field of image storage.

That man likes his competition insurmountable with a twist of hopelessness.

In my anti-expert opinion, the field of web development has two basic problems. First, there is a low threshold for starting these companies. Everyone in San Francisco is either a VC, related to a VC, neighbors to a VC, friends with a VC, pet of a VC, frequently comments the blag of a VC, or works for a golf buddy of a VC. If you have a pulse, an idea and programming ability, you can start working out of your apartment and be able to write off your laptop, cable and coffee expenses. The only problem is this was your idea.

The second problem is, to put it lightly, engineering folk tend to have inert social skills. In other words, they are nerds.

No, he's too cool, wrong species, but Right Genus! HA HA, get it? Real Genius, Right Genu...
*cough* ... *cricket chirp*

I get the impression that web 2.0 companies catered towards the general public rarely have the ability to search for solutions from the perspective of the average end user. In fact, I sense the only interaction the 'founders' engage in with representatives of their site's user is tinged with more than a hint of elitism. Or, in my case, I got the full bodied flavor of %&$#ness via a bruised Tibia served on top of searing neuropathy. I'm not bitter though! Nope! *loads gun*

Here is my anthropological/sociological attempt at describing this: The common side symptoms of an ability found in a specialized individual become magnified in a group dynamic (old guy mechanics have grease on their cloths and smell of orange pumice hand cleaner or shallow trophy wives get plastic surgery, for example). In other words, if you typically only work with people like yourself, who behave as you do in a quest for ridiculous sums of money paid for a pointless, useless, boring website, you will probably turn into the sort of person who will step on a girl in a wheelchair and not apologize.

False sense of entitlement is the second most dangerous threat, just behind... BEARS!

Lets further explore the ridiculous sums of money. Youtube sold for $1.65 billion dollars, and the earliest return for just Google's purchase money won't happen until 2010. Add to that the nearly $1 million dollars per day in bandwidth costs, plus typical business carrying costs (equipment, staff, utilities, services, parties, advertising, lawyers, etc), I'm left with just one question... why Google, WHY?!!?

Story time! I worked on reviewing home appraisals for "a big bank" for several years. People in Southern California two years ago and web 2.0 people today are to me essentially the same; awkward to talk to and impossible to reason with. They live in an enclosed environment with people who act, look, and think like them, and their self worth is defined by a sense of overinflated value (codeword: a bubble) and if you don't come from their bubble wand, your opinion is worthless.

End of story time, I've meandered in some level of expertise. Now, I'm a normal person with a slightly below normal level of social interest, so what about social networking sites? I kinda think the socially inept are going to have a hard time designing a self sustaining social networking site. Examples:

1. iminlikewithyou.com: A cracked out, Speed Racer-esk mess of a interface that I find profoundly confusing and annoying. It was probably designed as some amazing Flash programming pissing contest that I don't understand or care to understand. They certainly got a couple visits from me, but I will never go there again. And I won't be a hyper-link enabler. (Friends don't let friends go to epilepsy inducing websites. Trust me, the Camaro has an awesome level of infinity +2.)

2. Myspace: Though it has reigned supreme for several years now, it still generally sucks and has gotten more and more cluttered in pretending to be like Facebook (a site I refuse to use). The persistent slowness of the site probably has to do with attempting to expand their base of features to keep up with the techy trends (i.e. smite competitors with the clever use of Musical Groups), but 14 year old *~*♥Ashlee♥*~* In a Relationship Aries attending Rhodes Junior High is in Arizona holding her breath because all she cares about is she has to wait 15 minutes to view a message from the super cute boy at school who kinda looks like Nick Jonas that only contains the letters "K TTYL!".

If these sites aren't wasting resources trying to steal bad ideas off of one another, they are going so far into the realm of absurdity that their quality of service dissipates exponentially. What's the point to being on a site intended to be used for communication if you can't communicate? It's not just that these techies have lost sight of the end user, they don't care about the end user.

I started using Myspace because my family was on Myspace. I started using Justintv because my boyfriend is their chief designer. I use Blogger because Justin.tv hadn't developed a bulletin system yet (too late to turn back now). I use Gtalk because its generally clear and concise, and I read Wonkette and xkcd because the content is hilarious. YouTube I bring up once a day to check for Obama videos, and Yahoo email is for junk accounts and ex-boyfriend filtering. My priorities online: choosing who/where I want to receive information from, finding this information quickly, sending information to specific recipients, being able to de-prettify clean interfaces with my bad color choices and imbeds, look at muscle car and cute puppy dog pictures, and blocking evidence of my existence from stalkers if I so choose. What about all those sites that leave out a vowel in a suffix or add in a vowel as an imaginary prefix? iGive MyMiddlefingr

I've always been more comfortable being around men than women, and even then, I've never been much of a social butterfly. But the inability to sympathize or empathize I've witnessed this past year is beyond my comprehension. I can't imagine how someone can choose to sacrifice their youth, friendships, and other people's money to create something as immaterial as most websites strive to be. It is staking everything in a gambling game where the rules are made up and the strategy is imaginary. It makes for such bad business.

A window into my googling...

Hi everyone,

I've already admitted I'm a terrible blogger. I bet if I blogged more regularly, I'd have gotten a full stimulus check (hey, look who's manning the helm of the country, who knows what logic, if any, they base their decisions on).

Anywho, I can't sleep again, so what I normally do is find funny interesting facts to entertain myself while I wait for my mind power down. (I used to read medical journals or engineering research reports, but I'm too medicated for that now...) Some of the stuff I threw in there to give back to the statistics/trivia googling community. Happy Boredom my brethren!


A 1999 survey of 25,500 standard English-language dictionary words found that 93 percent of them have been registered as dot-coms.

Karl Benz invented the automobile.

The Camaro was introduced in 1967 in reaction to Ford's Mustang. Camaro is said to be French slang for 'friend'

90% of the population have innie rather than outtie belly buttons.

30% of men on online dating services are married.

Women buy 85% of all Valentines day cards. (1% are purchased by nice guys, 4% are bought by married men on online dating services, and the other 10% are bought by Kyle Vogt.)

India has 50 million monkeys.

I was born on Friday the 13th, in the middle of a hospital strike, under a full moon.

There are at least 100 lightening strikes on Earth every second.

The average lightning flash would light a 100 watt light bulb for 3 months.

Men are struck by lightning four times more often than women. (phew, thanks for the X chromosome dad!)

The world's fastest production car is the Ultimate Aero TT, produced by Shelby Supercars. The Ultimate Aero is powered by a 6.3-liter twin-turbo V8 engine, does 0-60 in 2.78 seconds and costs $485k.

William Henry Harrison, the ninth President of the United States, held that office for the briefest period in history (30 days). He was the first president to die while in office, was the oldest before Ronald Regan came around, and is the only president I really don't think I've ever heard of.

1/2 a percent of all the Earth's population are directly related to Genghis Khan (he got around).

America's first automobile race occurred in 1895 (13 years before the Model T). The 54 mile course stretched from Chicago to Evanston, Il and back again. The winner, Frank Duryea, the first American automobile producer, averaged 7.3 miles per hour.

The first computer start up company was founded in 1946.

In 1947, the first computer bug was logged. The fault was a moth stuck between two relay points. The log note stated: "First actual case of bug being found." The moth is on display at the Smithsonian.

As of 2008, Warren Buffet is the richest person in the world. He added $10 billion dollars this past year to his $62 billion dollar net worth, while the average American income dropped by $1,000 dollars/year.

75% of the entire world's population earns an average of $1,487 per year.