…On Resurrections.

Sprouts are back! I saw them in Kroger the other night. They were in the “organic” subsection of the plants section, and didn’t have a pricetag. I thought about getting them, but I got squash instead since I know what to do with that: chop it up and put it on the George Foreman Grill.

Also, I’m back. Not that I went away, I just quit posting to the blog because doing that is time-consuming and boring. I’ve started a bunch of posts and not finished them. The latest was about listing the songs on my iPod that would get me in the most trouble at work if anybody heard them. Which is a concern of sorts, since I listen to my iPod with speakers, not headphones, and keep my office door open. So basically, I have to keep the volume down – and be ready really fast to skip a song or turn stuff off.

…On Problem Solving.

Problem solving: this man understands how it’s done. Lian Jiansheng saw a problem, saw the solution, and implemented the solution. Simple, quick, effective. He’s earned my respect.

…On Sprouts.

I remember there used to be this stuff called “sprouts” on salad bars (even at Wendy’s – yes, I remember when Wendy’s had a salad bar). When I was a kid, I called it hair because that’s what it looked like: a medusan tangle of white & green hairlike strands, about three or four inches long each. I remember my mom would buy cartons of it, like the cartons mushrooms or grape tomatoes come in, to put on salads at home. More recently, I remember sandwich shops like Subway or the bagel shop around the corner would offer it as a veggie you could put on your sandwich. And I remember that I liked them, even though for the life of me I couldn’t tell you what they were sprouts of in any more detail than “Not beans” (I know bean sprouts, bean sprouts are the thick sprouts in pad thai and chow mein). And I remember that I liked them on sandwiches and on salads – they added a nice texture to roast beef & swiss, and they were a good compliment to a sliver of lettuce and a load of shredded cheddar drenched in Italian.

Well, I’m starting to think that the Sprout Plant has gone extinct – which is really unlikely since I’m guessing it was something domesticated and grown on farms. Nonetheless, they’ve disappeared. None of the grocery stores I’ve been in lately have had them. None of the salad bars I’ve been to in months have had them. The sandwich places where I could get them last year, they don’t have them anymore. So what happened to sprouts?

…On Identity Theft.

I’ve never been a victim of identity theft, thankfully. Two of my friends have, and from their experiences I’ve learned that it really, really, really sucks. One of my friends has had the theft going on for years, and even though she’s able to give them the thief’s address (when someone uses your stolen identity to set up utility service at their home, it’s a pretty good bet where you’ll find them) three law enforcement agencies haven’t done anything about it, all claiming it’s outside their jurisdiction.

Well, today the fact that I’ve never been a victim of identity theft didn’t change. Instead, I learned that last year I unknowingly blundered into an identity theft that’s been going on since 2005.

See, ever since I got my new cell phone and number last year, I’ve started getting periodic calls on it that were for someone who isn’t me. Every time, it’s been a recorded message telling some guy (let’s call him Ozzy Freer, based on what his name really is) that it’s urgent he call back “about your account”. I, of course, figured it was something akin to those assholes the FTC’s busting. On a side note, I like to imagine the FTC’s staffed entirely by Robocops and Terminators. Something about sicking remorseless cyborgs on fraudulent advertisers and telemarketers just warms the cockles of my heart.

Anyway, I figured the calls for Mr. Freer were all a telemarketer and ignored them. But then, today, I got a call. A call from an actual human, a human explained that she was very sorry to be calling me, but I wouldn’t happen to know anything about the person who stole her husband’s name and social security number and registered for a phone in his name at my number, would I? When I asked if her husband was me (in hindsight, a very stupid question – I’d know if I were husband, and I’m not. I’m not anybody’s husband – at least, not unless I was married by proxy without my knowledge), she said no, her husband is Ozzy Freer. It appears that there is a real Ozzy Freer, and while he was deployed to Iraq back in 2005, someone stole his identity and got a cell phone in his name – a cell phone with the number that became mine last May. And it appears a collection agency’s been hired to collect several hundred dollars in unpaid bills on that old phone account. Got to say, that’s got to absolutely suck for them. So, I wrote her number down and offered to give her a call the next time I get a voice mail for Ozzy Freer. I figure, it might be a little helpful to them, and it should definitely help me quit getting calls that aren’t for me. About which, you’d think that collection agency would’ve been able to figure out that the phone number belongs to somebody else now.

…On Minimal Progress.

I drive a manual transmission 5-speed 1993 Honda Accord DX. According to the EPA’s gas mileage estimates, the 5-speed ‘93 Accord gets 21 MPG city and 29 MPG highway. The 2009 manual 5-speed Accords have EPA gas mileage values of 22 MPG city and 31 MPG highway. So, over the course of 16 model years, the Honda Accord’s gas mileage has improved all of one mile per gallon in city driving and two miles per gallon highway… that’s 240 yards per gallon per year highway and 120 yards per gallon per year city.

Hardly impressive.

Of course, the EPA mileage estimates are just that, estimates. Good thing that the official joint Fuel Economy website of the United States Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency has a lovely feature: Shared MPG Estimates. It allows you to look at estimates based on what people have reported about their actual experienced gas mileage (and allows you to contribute your own data, which I encourage you to do. I’ve started doing it.). From that, well, nobody’s put data in for manual transmission 2009 Accords yet. Plus the data doesn’t give a city/highway mileage value the way the Official Estimates are structured, just a combined total and then each driver’s combined total with their cumulative estimate of % city/highway. But for what it’s worth, 5 drivers of ‘93 manual Accords have reported an average 30.9 MPG while 7 drivers of ‘08 manual Accords have reported an average of 29.7 MPG.

Obviously, the 5-speed Manual Transmission Honda Accord is not the only car in the world. It may not be a properly representative car for comparing typical 1993 model year gas mileage to typical 2009 model year gas mileage and illustrating the non-progress made in improving gas mileage. Maybe, maybe not.

All I know is that I drive a 1993 Honda Accord DX with a 5-speed manual transmission. It is old enough to get its own driver’s license, has 174,000 miles on it, and has been in more wrecks than I can keep track of (I think it’s 5, excluding minor parking-lot collisions, but I could be wrong…). It still manages to pull 32 MPG on the highway and around 25 MPG city. I’m going to have to replace it eventually, but any automobile manufacturer thinks I’m going to put myself into debt to buy a new car that doesn’t give me significantly better performance than what I already get from a 16-year-old crash veteran… frankly, that’s insulting.

…On the Forbidden Topic.

As I’ve alluded to before, I don’t think it’s appropriate to use this blog to discuss my employer or the specific work that I do. For the past two months, that hasn’t been a problem, since I was laid off. And if I’d wanted to badmouth my former employer, there would have been no need to do that here, since someone created a website devoted solely to that purpose. However, on April 16th, the day after my income tax return is due (I’ll be submitting it some time later this week once I’m at my parents’ place and have access to a printer), I’ll begin my new job in a municipal government’s public works department. Accordingly, I won’t ever be talking about that city again, at least for the duration of my employment there. Just thought I’d share.

…On Opposing a Campaign.

I am still looking for a good way to interfere with groups I oppose. In particular, I want a way to do that when there’s not any real opposite. Sure, if you oppose Little Enders, you can support the Big Enders – but what if there are no Big Enders, just Little Enders, people who don’t care which end, and people who don’t eat eggs at all? Then how do you interfere with the Little Enders efforts to impose their will on the populace? How can I cost them money, make them waste their time, keep them from being able to influence things? How can I force them into the dustbin of history faster?

…On Passover.

Several years ago, my dad forwarded me a highly amusing version of the haggadah, Michael Rubiner’s Two-Minute Haggadah. From it I took the wonderful motto, “Free people get to slouch.” Well, following in his footsteps and thus carrying on a family tradition of seasonal sacrilege against the faith of my paternal ancestors, I’m pleased to provide you with this link to the Facebook Haggadah.

May you laugh as I did!

And as to why Pharoah’s Advisor’s thumbnail pic is Rasputin, I have no idea.

…On The Loo(m/n)ing Elections.

Today is Saturday, March 28, 2009. Today, I saw big signs for candidates in a major upcoming election.

Fortunately, it’s an election that will at least take place this year. There’s no excuse for campainging right now for the 2010 elections – or the 2012 elections, though that hasn’t apparently stopped some people (see “Straw Poll comma CPAC 2009″).

But I live in Virginia, and in Virginia, state elections are held in odd-numbered years. So, there’s an election for governor (where His Excellency Governor Kaine’s prohibited from running for re-election because this ass-backwards state not only calls the governor “His (or hypothetically Her) Excellency”, but prohibits reelection), and for the state House of Delegates. And while a bunch of city offices are elected in even numbered years – so last year we voted for mayor and part of the city council – the County and City Sheriffs (Yes, City Sheriffs, because in Virginia a City is the same as a County in any other state. We also have Counties here. That’s why Richmond County contains no cities and is 50 miles away from City of Richmond which is not in any county. Did I mention “ass-backwards” political structure?) and the Commonwealth’s Attorneys (DAs elsewhere).

As a result, people have begun campaigning for Governor already. I mean, the election’s only in November, so it’s only 219 days away. Of course, there’s primaries, but the big signs I saw were all for Bob McDonnell, who is… running unopposed in the Republican Party primary. I think he’d have been ok waiting a little while.

On the other hand, there’s 3 guys running in the Democratic Party’s primary (Brian Moran,Creigh Deeds, and Terry McAuliffe) and and since that’s going to be held on June 9th, the three of them really need to get their signs up – they only have 72 more days to campaign in!!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, the “campaign season” takes too long and becomes farcical. If they’d wait at least until after Tax Day to start, I think there’d be a lot less mudslinging and asinine horse-race sort of “news” coverage. Maybe it wouldn’t actually improve the quality of campaigning from the crap we get right now, but it would at least cut down on the quantity of the crap.

…On Product Selection.

There’s an old saying everybody knows: “The customer is always right.”

Obviously, that saying isn’t true. Sometimes the customer’s a moron. Sometimes the customer’s a jackass. Either way, sometimes the customer’s just plain wrong.

However, there is one thing that the customer does always be. Namely, the customer does always be the one who knows what it wants. Unfortunately, as that inexplicably popular band sang, “you can’t always get what you want,” because sometimes what the customer wants just isn’t available. As another old saying went, “Any customer can have a car painted any color that he wants so long as it is black.” Now, sometimes the issue where the company won’t make the desired product available is trivial, as with Model T colors or the fact that Taco Bell only makes the best thing on their menu available in Atlanta and Minneapolis, but not where I live. It’s annoying and I make a point of complaining about it whenever I fill out a customer (dis)satisfaction form, but in the great scheme of things, including my life, it isn’t that big a deal.

With other things, though, it can be meaningful. Computer software, for instance, is (I think) an area where that’s particularly true. Microsoft’s the poster-child for this. Don’t need, want, or like the new features and functional changes in the new version of Office or Windows? Too damn bad, because we’re not going to support or sell the old version anymore: the new version is the only version. Firefox 3’s another example: you can put up with the way they’ve ruined the location bar’s functionality, or you can not use Firefox, since their piece of crap changes are unremovable from 3 and previous versions are no longer supported. Frankly, in my opinion, the computer software industry’s almost as bad as the textbook industry for putting out unnecessary new versions and new versions that are just plain worse than the old versions (at one point while I was in college, I was taking a class in a department where 4th edition of the textbook was required. Another class in the same department required 5th edition of the same book. The professor for my class proudly explained that 5th edition was 4th edition with the contents rearranged and assorted spelling errors added, and was only available as a $90 new book as opposed to the $30 used 4th edition. I believe the adjective he used to summarize his feelings about the 5th edition was “criminal”.). I think both industries would benefit from applying Barbri’s motto to their product development: do it once, do it right, never do it again. Putting out a Textbook 2nd edition or a Browser Version 2 usually means a fuck-up, either in the original or the new, not an improvement on a good thing (as when the 2009 model of a car gets better gas mileage than the 2008 model which got better gas mileage than the 2007 model).

But hey, it’s the company that decides what their product is. So when they decide it’s time for 5th Edition textbooks or Office 2007 or Firefox 3, the customer is always right might as well sit down and shut up. Apparently “your way, right away” is only at Burger King. A shame, really.