How to Fix the Government

I've given it a lot of thought, and I think I've come up with a way to fix a lot of what is broken in the government.  The federal government is far too powerful, and our elected officials tend to think of themselves as aristocracy.  There are a few simple changes however that would resolve a great many issues.

Movie Review: Men In Black 3

I liked it, I liked it better than MIB 2, and somewhat better than MIB1. The jokes were clever, the acting was reasonable, and the story done about as well as any time travel storyline can be.  Of course the entire time travel, change history thing is way overdone in science fiction these days, so I would say it loses points for that.  Not as many as something more serious would, but I'm still tired of the whole time travel thing.

On the whole, I'm glad I waited until it came on Starz, since I get that for free with my employment, so I didn't actually have to pay to see it, but it wasn't a bad show, and while it probably wouldn't have been worth seeing in a full price theater, I'm not sorry I saw it.    I'd give it about 4 stars out of 5.

New Photographer Friends

Some friends of mine have been trying to start a business.  Audrey and Ken Cramer are working on running a photography business out of their home.  Audrey does some really stellar work, and could really use some business.  Ken is doing photographic assistance, and most of the IT work.  They've asked me to help occasionally.

Check them out at www.cramerimaging.com.

Movie Review The Amazing Spiderman.

I'm still divided on how I feel about this movie.   While watching it, I found that I didn't care much about the characters.  The action scenes weren't done nearly as well as we've come to expect in action superhero movies, and that may be its biggest problem.

Why are some men Anti-gun?

I'd thought this article was well circulated, but it seems some that gun bloggers who have been around a long time hadn't seen it yet.  On Jewish World Review, Julia Gorin explains why many so-called men are against others having guns.

They accuse US of compensating. The truth is, like most liberal accusations, it is another case of liberal projection.

Unplesant People

I've been working for a little over a year doing phone tech support for a major satellite television provider.  It isn't a particularly good job for a career. In fact it sucks.  For someone working their way through college, it would be an excellent job. Since I am technically working my way through college, again, I guess I could look at it that way, but at my age, and with trying to start a family, it feels a bit different.

Probably the most difficult part however is dealing with unpleasant people, and customers can often be extremely unpleasant. I generally find sports fans the worst.  Somehow their team is more important than everything else, and they can't imagine how anyone couldn't be just as in to their team as they are. 

I once had a woman call me screaming to the top of her lungs that she couldn't get "The Game".  When I tried to find out which game she became totally incoherent with rage. I didn't even know what sport she was talking about.  Since there were at least 40 different games on various channels at the time in various sports, I couldn't help her until I had a little more information. She ended up demanding immediate cancel because I was so incompetent as to not know what "The Game" was.

While Sports fans are the most commonly unpleasant, they aren't by any means the only unpleasant people out there.  One man I talked to was angry because he was told his bill would be about $20 per month for the first year.  He said he paid it, and suddenly he owed $40, and he paid that, and was absolutely having a fit that he now owed $80.   He yelled at me for over 30 minutes, and berated me for incompetence, even though I could see what the problem was from the minute I saw his account.The amount he owed was negative.  In other words, he had been paying the credit amount.  It took me another 30 minutes to get him calmed down enough to comprehend that the amount he saw on his billing was not how much he owed us, but how much we owed him. 

It is interesting how often people get an idea in their head, and are either completely unwilling or unable to get over it sufficiently to actually hear what is going on.  A lot of liberals, particularly university professors, like to tout being open minded, but when it comes to tech support (actually anything other than what they want to believe) they're about the most closed minded people out there. They refuse to understand what you're telling them when it comes to what you need to do.

TheWife worked at Taco Bell before I met her.  She talked about people seeing you as a glorified vending machine.  I'm OK with that.  It's the ones that consider you less than a machine.   Some people feel that since you are paid to see to their needs, you are somehow less than human.  That it is somehow their right to abuse you. 

I think that part of this is a relatively recent development in our society.  There was a time when people wouldn't consider abusing someone serving them in a business, and if they did, they would quickly become a social outcast.   Now however, we've lost all of our manners and self control.  There are no consequences for being an unpleasant person.   There are no real consequences for losing control. In some subcultures, it is actually seen as not only reasonable, but a desirable personality trait.

I have no idea how to solve the problem. It seems to be a form of barbarism.  As I write this, there is a program on that was talking about the fall of Rome.  It pointed out that as Rome started to fall, things got really bad.  The Barbarians came in and took over.  Now however we don't have barbarian hordes outside waiting to take us down, we have barbarians already here ready and working to take us down without even knowing. 

I'm not looking forward to what's going to happen, but it should be interesting to see how things shake out. 

Happy Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving, and as part of my ever failing goal of actually writing more in this blog, even though no one seems to be reading it (perhaps there's a connection there), It's time to talk about Thanksgiving.  As the name implies Thanksgiving is, or was supposed to be about giving thanks, but it has long ceased being so.  Most people still try to do some lip service to that by listing a few things they're thankful for, but that is no longer the primary purpose. 

In that vein, I would like to say that I'm thankful for my new job.  I'm finally away from substitute teaching.  I'm working for a place that takes outsourced tech support calls for a satellite television service.  I have one day of classroom training left, then will be starting live on the phones with added help for another two weeks.  I get a decent benefit package, and a few other perks that make it nice. This means I get to pay off some bills, and finally have a bit of fun too.  I can also do some of the things with the scouts that I've been meaning to do.  It's amazing how many wonderful things can be directly traced back to being able to actually earn something resembling a living.

I'm also grateful to my parents that we've been able to live with them.  It's solved a great many problems for us, and allowed us to get on our feet far better than would otherwise be possible.

The only thing is that I guess I can't exactly call myself "formertech" anymore, except that I'm not going to change it because I'm not a computer tech, and I don't intend on staying a front line phone tech for long.  I'm going to work my way up, or find something even better.

What I'd actually like to talk about though is Thanksgiving.  It isn't really about overtly giving thanks anymore.  It seems to be about gluttony, and watching a stupid athletic event on television or similar.  But is that really a bad thing?

First off, let's address the charge of gluttony.  A cynic might suggest it's a bad ting, as would someone trying to find sources of "bad" in society, but first and foremost Thanksgiving is a celebration.  Humans have nearly always celebrated whatever they are celebrating with some sort of feast.  While Thanksgiving isn't really celebrating anything in particular, it is still done with a feast.  If approached with the right attitude, that can be a great thing.  Enjoy it, and have fun. 

Now for the football.  I'm not sure why football is played so much on Thanksgiving, but it doesn't really hurt anyone. Sure for those of us who hate the sport, it's annoying, but don't watch.  I don't and no one in my family does. 

So what is Thanksgiving really about?  It's about family, about seeing them, and being together.  A shared repast is a traditional way of doing that.  Food is generally about socialization, and often love or friendship.  Thanksgiving should reflect that.  Even if the original idea of giving thanks is going away, it can still be a celebration of being together.