An Old Scam Made New

There's a scam that's been around for a while that basically follows this pattern:

I'll send you a cashier's check for more money than our transaction requires. You cash the check and send me back the balance.

Then a few days later, your bank informs you that the cashier's check is a fake and they take back the full amount.

A friend of mine is looking for work. He was contacted via email for a job. A guy from Canada said that he and his wife are moving to the area. He needs a driver to drive his wife around for two weeks while she scouts out a house, etc. The job paid $500/week for two weeks. The Canadian sent, via UPS, two $1000 checks to my friend, with instructions to cash them and forward the second $1000 to a travel agent or real estate agent. I'm not sure because I had already interrupted my friend to tell him it's a scam.

Gran Torino

Best Movie Ever.

Look for the Future Vandalism

I was about to change the oil on Mrs Schwartz' jeep when three teenage boys climbed over my chainlink fence and cut through my front yard. When the first two saw me, they did what any reasonable kid would do; they had an "oh shit" expression, and quickly walked away. The third, older and bigger kid saw me and gave more of a "what are you gonna do" look. So I said to none of them in particular, "Hey, how about not jumping my damn fence?"

They made it across the street from my yard, and the one kid loudly started in.
"Fuck that punk. I'll jump whatever fuckin fence I want. He can fuck himself."

The fence, I don't really care about, but I'm not going to have some punk talk like that to me in my own yard. So I went over and explained it to him. I was loud. I was mad. One of the smaller kids apologized and I thanked him. It shut the bigger one up long enough to get some distance away, before they all started talking smack. "Fuck you, nigger!" Coming from three young black kids, to the whitest guy in the neighborhood. Explain that one to me.

So I did what I've been planning to do for some time: Added a couple of extra motion sensors with a wireless receiver to the front yard. Just for fun, I also ordered a fake security camera.

Sure, it would have been cheaper and less trouble to just take it, but fuck that.

Funny Headline of the day

The Purple People Beaters

Feel Good Friday

I agree with Paglia?

"Are we like late Rome, infatuated with past glories, ruled by a complacent, greedy elite, and hopelessly powerless to respond to changing conditions?"

"But somehow liberals have drifted into a strange servility toward big government, which they revere as a godlike foster father-mother who can dispense all bounty and magically heal all ills."

As a libertarian and refugee from the authoritarian Roman Catholic church of my youth, I simply do not understand the drift of my party toward a soulless collectivism.

Quite frankly, the president gives little sense of direct knowledge of medical protocols; it's as if his views are a tissue of hearsay and scattershot worst-case scenarios.

Read the whole thing.

Dumbasses

Why can't people figure out that I don't want to talk to them when I'm eating my lunch? And I mean literally, bowl of soup in one hand, spoon in the other, and invariably, some dope decides he needs to chat me up.
Half the time (like today) they want me to look something up!

I may start leaving work, just so I can get some peace for an hour.

There are rules, and there are rules

This morning, I was walking the dogs through the development across the street from the house. I remember when this development was first built. We had moved in just before it was finished. They had strict rules from the Home Owners' Association. You know the type; you can't add this or that to the outside of your house, etc. I remember one of the rules was that you couldn't park any of your cars on the street. All your cars had to fit in your garage or in your driveway, and these McMansions have tiny little driveways.
Over time, I started to notice that people were trying to cram more cars into the driveways, often overhanging into the street.
This morning, I saw that there were cars parked all over the street. There were still many people cramming four cars into their driveways, but many others have just given up.
My friend Mike was looking for an apartment about two weeks ago. When he answered an ad, he was surprised to find that it was at a house in that development that was renting the whole house out to tenants. There were four, single men living there.
(Also against HOA rules)
It reminded me of when we were looking for an apartment years ago. We had a hell of time finding one because we had a Dalmatian that weighed about 60 lbs. All the complexes had strict limits of 25 lbs for dogs. We eventually gave away the dog and moved into one of the strictest. Within a year, the entire area was filled with competing complexes. We started seeing bigger and bigger dogs. One of the people in our building tied up a HUGE rottweiler to their deck on the ground floor.

Supply and demand has a way of bending the rules.

Surprise of the weekend

I had the two movies to watch over the weekend. Tokyo Zombie was as expected, except maybe a little worse than expected.
Chocolate was a surprise. I expected a simple kung fu movie. It is a visual, artistic, emotionally complex movie, as well as having some great Muay Thai. The lead is played by a young actress names JeeJa Yanin. She's amazing. Sure, it's a Thai production, so some of the villains are a little over the top, kind of campy cliched. If you can get past that, the rest of the movie is excellent.
Stick around through the credits at the end, and see just how beaten up the poor actors and stunt guys got through the film. Life is cheap in Thai studios.

Union Lies /Thugs

As they say, tapes don't lie.
Here is the video, taken from the SEIU website, stating that the union is all bunnies and rainbows. All those stories of union thuggery are made up by evil right wing interest groups. They have pinned their argument around a story that a reverend and union member was actually the victim of teabagger violence. Their evidence is at the end of the propaganda video.


Ok, here's the video of the same event:





Looks like purple is the new brown! That really makes me want to support card check, so union thugs will know if they need to motivate me into supporting them. Several of the comments on they SEIU blog were, "Why were only people from our organization arrested?" Gee, I wonder.

Several hundred people protested at a rally outside SEIU headquarters.

Movie Night at Exador's

It's movie night at Exador's! Mrs Schwartz is out of town for the week, so I am eating pizza and watching bad movies.

The first one from Netflix is Tokyo Zombie! Sorry about the lack of dubbing. It's about two losers who practice juijitsu in their warehouse, until the zombie apocalypse. They use their skills to fight the zombie hord.


Then we have Chocolate. A special needs girl has an amazing gift for the martial arts. She's like the Rainman of asskicking!

What is Old is New Again

"There is a lot of disinformation about health insurance reform out there, spanning from control of personal finances to end of life care. These rumors often travel just below the surface via chain emails or through casual conversation. Since we can’t keep track of all of them here at the White House, we’re asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov."

We'll track down the source and set them straight. Our re-education camps are the best in the world.

Fix Healthcare 101

1) Make all health care costs 100% tax deductible for individuals.

2) Remove the state border limitation that prevents people from shopping nationwide.

3) Allow people to form whatever group they want for their GROUP health care.
Why should it be limited to your group of coworkers? How about your church,
your softball league, your union, your blog roll?

4) Tort Reform.

But I guess that wouldn't give Barry all that power.

John Adams

We are watching the first DVD of the series John Adams from HBO. It's excellent. If only they taught history like this in high school; less memorization of dates, and more insight into the people.

Explaining Myself

I was thinking last night, people will ask me if we have kids, which is understandable, but then when I tell them we don't have any, they will often ask why.
Usually, they will ask in a way like they're leading. "You just neverrrrr......"

Fortunately, it's our choice, but suppose we have some medical reason that prevented us from having kids? How incredibly rude is that?

Mind your own business, people!