I need more post-its

I have what is often called a 'single-tasking mind'. That means i'm very good at focusing very intently on one thing, but I really suck at dealing with multiple things at once.
Some say this is genetically encoded in men from bygone days; men, being hunters, needed to focus intently on the prey they were hunting, whereas, women, being gatherers, needed to take in a wide swath in order to see all the berries, etc., making women good 'multi-taskers'.
I guess it makes sense, but I don't really know.

What I do know is that I can't keep an idea in my head if a new idea comes along. I'm like a dog getting a new treat; I completely forget about what I was doing 2 seconds ago. This causes Mrs Schwartz (the queen bee of multitasking) all sorts of aggravation. She asks me to get her a glass of water as I go out to the kitchen. I come back without it. "Where's my water?" "Oh yeah, forgot."
I've learned that, when something pops into my head, I need to write it down immediately or I will forget it. Sure, I'll remember it later on when it pops into my head again, but that doesn't help much.

Stone Mountain

As a result of out topsy-turvy sleep schedule, due to the sick dog, we didn't do much on Sunday until about 5pm.

Then we packed up and headed to Stone Mountain Park to meet up with my aunt and watch the Laser Light Show. It's their 25th anniversary doing it, so it was pretty cool.
It didn't start until 9:30, but you have to get there early to get a decent spot on the lawn.
They changed the show around a little, but they kept all the classics.
Nothing like listening to Elvis' rendition of Dixie. The whites hoot and holler along, while the black family in front of us sat stone-faced with their arms crossed.
Ray Charles' Georgia is also a classic.

We just hung around in our chairs until the crowds had cleared out afterwards. It definitely beat trying to fight your way out of the lot. We still pulled into our driveway at 11:30.

Dear Dumbasses

I took the girls for a walk last night. We went through downtown Duluth. There was a wedding reception going on at the square. As we passed by, Janet found a piece of chicken that someone had thrown away. I'm not sure how much of it she ate before I could get it out of her mouth.
She started throwing up around midnight. Mrs Schwartz got it into her head that I should have a nice weekend, since I took Friday off. She volunteered to take Janet downstairs and keep an eye on her. I was half asleep, so I don't know what we said.
It turns out that Janet was sick all night. At 6AM, a beaten Mrs Schwartz came into the bedroom and announced that she couldn't do it any longer. We high-fived as I took Janet back downstairs and the Missus fell into bed.
I'll make deal with you baby-spewing assclowns; you don't leave food lying around the park, and I won't leave psilocybin lollipops for your brats to pick up. Deal?

I'd like to take this time to submit that we change the state law. Since the police have seen fit to completely ignore the county noise ordinance, how about we make it legal for me to shoot at anyone who drives through my neighborhood at 1AM with a loud sound system or exhaust? While we're at it, it would make sense to legalize silencers.

Anybody know where I can get a .223 with a threaded muzzle?

Now Showing at the Atlanta Aquarium

I took the day off work today for a couple of reasons. First, work has been busy as shit and I need a break. Second, I had a few things to do that I knew I could never get done unless I took a day off.
I needed to renew my concealed weapons permit. This involves going to the gigantic GWINNETT COUNTY JUSTICE AND ADMINISTRATION CENTER. Or as I call it, Castle Versailles.
To her credit, the woman that waited on me couldn't have been nicer. The county no longer allows renewals, so you have to go through the whole process all over again. After filling out the paperwork with the nice woman, I had to drive to a different building to get my fingerprints done. Again. What happened to my last set of prints, I don't know. The fingerprint woman didn't look at me the entire time she was taking my prints. This involves her holding my hand over the electronic scanner for all ten of my fingers, then repeating the process with ink and paper on all ten fingers and a 'group shot' of my four fingers on each hand. No speaking, no eye contact. Nice.
After that, we drove downtown to the Georgia Aquarium. The Aquarium is great. I highly recommend going there. What I could do without is the army of Meemaws and Peepaws pushing their giant, empty strollers while their grandkids run amok. The aquarium has a number of curving passageways, and getting this mob of near zombies the fuck out of the way was no small feat. Jeebus, people, I can't help but see this as further wussification of our country. Make the kid walk!
That, and the screaming hoards of latch-key kids on field trips with the Dekalb County Parks and Recreation Field trip, also known as future carjackers.
The big attractions were ok: the beluga whales and the nurse sharks. I think I enjoyed the penguins and the otters more. Also, we got to pet sea rays, which was cool, except they are slimy creatures.
Just as we finished seeing everything, my sensei met us for lunch. We walked to Ray's in the City for lunch (excellent).

In Local News

Norcross man gets six life sentences, then 211 years.


Gustavo Cisneros, 22, was one of nine men indicted for a series of nine home invasion robberies in Gwinnett in the spring of 2004.

The masked, armed bandits battered, shot and tortured male victims, sexually assaulted some female victims and pistol-whipped a child. They stole money, jewelry and vehicles, authorities said.

The three men were part of an organized crew that stormed into nine houses in Gwinnett and one in neighboring Barrow County between Feb. 25 and April 30, 2004. The crimes set area residents on edge because of their randomness.

The group's last robbery ended with the suspects shooting a 40-year-old man four times at a Duluth home. The man was hospitalized with serious injuries.

In another of the home invasions, on April 18, 2004, the suspects tied up a man at a house on Shadowood Road in Lawrenceville, then burned and cut his back with a heated knife.

"They were threatening to cut his sons' fingers off if they didn't tell him where their money was," Jones said.

Three women in Gwinnett and one in Barrow were sexually assaulted in separate incidents, Jones said.


Checking the docket for the Gwinnett County Sheriff, I find that they are also being held for ICE, meaning they are illegal aliens. Thanks, Mexico, for exporting your rich culture to the US!!!

Slaves of the State

We might as well just resign ourselves to the idea that we get up and work every day so that the government can take our money for it's own idiotic needs.

The latest is this piece of crap.

$48 BILLION for aids in Africa. Give me a fucking break.

Sure, they'll bleat all day about how they understand the pain 'the American family' is feeling at the pump, and how they know we're stuggling.

Horseshit.

Gas prices up, the dollar in the dumps. Doesn't matter. Some illiterate, barely evolved tribes need $48,000,000,000, so they can go on killing each other.

Add that to the other $Billions we give away, mostly to people who want to kill us. Just for one year, I'd love for us to give $0.00. Just to remind the assholes where it comes from.

Here's the roll call for the vote. Even my two asshole senators voted for it.

Grouped By Vote Position YEAs ---80
Akaka (D-HI)
Alexander (R-TN)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Bond (R-MO)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Brownback (R-KS)
Burr (R-NC)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Clinton (D-NY)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Grassley (R-IA)
Hagel (R-NE)
Harkin (D-IA)
Hatch (R-UT)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Pryor (D-AR)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Tester (D-MT)
Thune (R-SD)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wyden (D-OR)

NAYs ---16
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Bunning (R-KY)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Ensign (R-NV)
Graham (R-SC)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Sessions (R-AL)
Vitter (R-LA)
Wicker (R-MS)

Not Voting - 4
Kennedy (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Obama (D-IL)
Warner (R-VA)

In Local News

Drug-related kidnappings on rise in metro Atlanta, says DEA

It seems that Mexico is exporting more of its culture to Georgia.

A Rhode Island man was chained in a basement in Lilburn for nearly a week by men who wanted to collect a drug debt.
The number of drug-related kidnappings has been on the rise in metro Atlanta the last 90 days.

Mexican organized crime is moving large amounts of cocaine, methamphetamine and marijuana into the country, Benson said. Gwinnett is the focal point for the Mexican drug trade here because of easy access on I-85 and a large Hispanic population where drug traffickers can try to blend in.

Representatives of Mexican drug cartels in Atlanta are "clashing with each other," Benson said.

His three captors were armed with a military-style .223 rifle and a 9mm handgun, a DEA agent said. They fled but were captured. One man, Victor Abiles-Gomez, 20, hid in a sewer and was holding his breath under water when captured, the agent said.

Charged were Abiles-Gomez; Omar Mendoza-Villegas, 19, and Gerardo Solorio-Reyes, 23, all illegal immigrants from Mexico.

Alleged Insurance Fraud

A friend told me this story last night.

We got to talking about car accidents we'd had. He said that a few years ago, he was driving down the highway, when a car in front of his lost a wheel. The entire wheel came off the lugs and flipped end over end. He hit it while it was flat and it stopped his truck dead. He said he was looking through the windshield at the pavement; his truck was pointing that much down. He came to a stop, and got out. He was talking with a semi driver who also got caught up in the accident. The tire came off of a beatup van filled with latino men, none of whom spoke english. Immediately after the accident, the men were frantically trying to put a spare tire on their van. (To leave the scene, perhaps?) The lugs were damaged, so they discovered they were stuck. It took a while for the cops to arrive. During that time, a truck drove up to the scene and a latino man jumped out. "That guy's going to claim to be the driver because he has a license and insurance.", said the semi driver to my friend. "I've seen this before."

After the cop arrives, he asks, "Ok, who was driving?"

Sure enough, Mr Tardy raises his hand. My friend says, "Officer, if there's one thing I know, it's that THAT guy was not driving. We saw him pull up after the accident." The cop takes my friend and the semi driver to his squad car and puts them in the back seat.

He says to them, "Look, here's the deal. Either you can agree that THAT guy was the driver and get your damages covered. I've checked the guy's insurance and it's good. Or you can say it was one of the other guys and never see a dime. It's your call."

So my friend agreed it was the guy who claimed it was him and got his truck replaced.

Allegedly. Or I could have made the whole story up.

Good Luck, Suckers!

1,215 Troops Re-enlist in Iraq on the 4th.

In case the AP doesn't get around to covering this, what with all the celebrity news.

Who Gave this Idiot a Phd?

The NY Times has an opinion piece by a guy named PAUL H. ROBINSON, who is a professor at the University of PA law school.

Dr Robinson argues that, since there are non-lethal alternatives to guns (more on this later), the courts may eventually (hope hope) decide that anyone who uses a gun in self defense should be prosecuted. The analogy he uses is this:

Of course, anyone who uses a gun in self-defense may argue that he would have used a less lethal weapon if he had had one at hand, but there was only the firearm. The problem with this argument is that the limited option is the person’s choice, and the law may not be blind to that choice.

If you are a surgeon and you leave your glasses behind on the way to the operating room, then botch a delicate procedure, you can’t convince a judge that the resulting death wasn’t your fault because you couldn’t see well. If, on your way to confront an intruder, you choose your gun rather than your more effective but less lethal weapon, you can hardly complain later about your limited options.


Let's look at Dr Nimrod's alternatives

Tasers: Handgun-shaped devices that fire a dart that delivers a painful electrical shock. At least he points out that Tasers are only good for 35' or less. What he fails to point out is that you typically only get ONE SHOT. He fails to mention that the darts will not penetrate even a light jacket. Also, people have been known to yank out the darts.

His other options aren't even on the market, but let's look at them too.

Light lasers: Designed to blind temporarily. Great! Except at the typical 10' distance he cites, my attacker has a good chance of shooting me, even while being blinded by the light.

Microwave beams that instantly cause the skin to feel as if it is on fire, but cause no lasting harm. Really. Did he do NO research? These devices consume ENORMOUS amounts of energy, typically having to be mounted on a truck. How about the cost? I'm guessing IF they ever make it to market AND I want to mount a turret over my bed HOW MUCH do ya think it'll be? Is there a power up time?

It really takes a professor to be that dumb.

John Sure Loved NASCAR

A real grave at my local cemetary