I Think, Therefore I Rant!

When I ranted on this before, I told young men to pull their pants up.  Recently, General Larry Platt told young men to get your pants off the ground because you are looking like a fool. He also told them to straighten up their baseball caps. He wrote a simple but catchy little tune and then went to try out on American Idol and it has been a hit!  I am sure the producers of American Idol are going to make the most of this “celebrity” and his catchy little tune.

According to other sites, the General is not really a general but he is an activist.  He walked with Martin Luther King, has been honored by the city of Atlanta, and the Georgia legislature has honored the man. September 4, 2001 was designated as Larry Platt Day in Atlanta.

From the Georgia General Assembly:  

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With the current scare regarding Swine Flu (more appropriately called H1N1 flu), I want to remind my readers to not drink from hotel glasses unless you are VERY confident that they use appropriate cleaning measures to clean their cups and glasses.  It does no good to ask at the front desk when you check in, of course they are going to say that they are following laws. If you aren’t sure, ask the front desk for paper cups to take your morning vitamins.

My rule of thumb is simple.  I look for a maid cart.  If I see a cart and it has DIRTY glasses that the maid has been collecting to take downstairs to be cleaned, I assume proper techniques are being used.  If I can’t find a cart or if that cart has not collected dirty glasses, then I assume the maid is cleaning the glasses in the toilet.  

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First, let me be clear, I think that Rep. Wilson of South Carolina should be censured for his outburst while President Barack Hussein Obama was speaking in a joint session of Congress. He reminds of irresponsible brats such as Kanye West. Public outbursts while the President is speaking are simply unacceptable in any format and definitely not allowed in a joint session of Congress.

I do think that it is interesting that the rude outburst occurred due to a statement from BHO regarding healthcare for illegal aliens. There is a reasonable argument that BHO, while perhaps not lying, was not telling the complete truth. Check out this interesting video below and then read the rest of my comments.

   

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I have always known that Kanye West was a jerk.  Why is it such a surprise that he was a complete jerk and idiot for going on stage with Taylor Swift? Does anyone really expect this imbecile to have good manners?

After all, when we have Congressman yelling “You lie!” during a Presidential address to the joint session of Congress, why would we expect a dumb rapper to have better manners?

Of course, hats off to the beautiful Beyonce for giving up some of her time to honor Ms. Swift.  She has shown the world that she has class (and Kanye and Representative Joe Wilson are classless).

I have an idea!

• If you are in South Carolina – don’t vote for Joe Wilson and donate generously to his opponent
• If you want to listen to music – buy something from Taylor Swift or Beyonce
 

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Mastering Technical Sales has a great article on their site explaining how to handle 200 emails a day. It is purposely written for suggestions to their target audience which is the pre-sales technical folks that are the brains in the IT sales world.

I pulled out a few of the more relevant paragraphs that were relevant to all regarding of profession but I suggest that you read the entire article.

I will start this suggestion list by sharing one of my habits. “Don’t file – SEARCH”.  Install one of the several desktop search indexing tools such as Google Desktop Search, Windows Desktop Search, or Copernic Desktop Search. Then, when you have read and are finished with an email, move it to a “Done” folder and forget about it.  Don’t try to figure out if you should file the email in the customer folder, the folder of the person that sent you the email, the folder for product problems or whatever.  Most people end up spending way to much time worrying about their filing system or trying to find an email in the file system.  Don’t worry about it – just search for the email in one of the above systems let the engine do the heavy lifting for you.  

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Actually my secret is gift giving in general for my wife of over 2 decades.

While I love her dearly, the sad fact is that after this much time and gravity (and her birthing 3 wonderful kids), neither of us can fit into the clothes that we wore on the big day in 1985.

I also suck at picking out clothes for her as gifts!

So what am i to do?  Simple, I have never stopped buying my bride of many years the same sizes that she wore on our first honeymoon.  That way, even though I know she hates the color and style of the blouse that I just bought her, she has a great reason to return it.  She also thinks that I compliment her on her size.  When she says “You know I can’t wear that size anymore”, I simply reply “But you have been working out and dieting. It looked like you were back to your old size again!”  

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I have had enough with being politically correct!  I just don’t get it.  When 96 percent of African-Americans obviously chose to vote for a man because of his color, the rest of the world has the right to comment on his color.  I do not begrudge the man appealing to the minority group that he belongs to.  That is exactly what happens in a representative government.  It is why in some voting districts a person that was a Jew or a Catholic or woman cannot win.  Frankly, it is why in some districts a Republican or a Democrat can’t win.

Stories that Walgreens is putting the spike on “Chia Obama” get my gander up.  After all, a chia pet is almost always a gag gift.  Why can’t it be a gag gift about a particular person?  

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My 3 teenagers have all purchased the iPod Touch from BestBuy.  Actually, the youngest one just received his as a birthday gift and that is what is prompting this rant.

There are a variety of gadget sites that talk about the deals available at BestBuy (see here and here). The forums are split as to buying the warranty (here and here) but Apple doesn’t have a great track record on iPods and the BestBuy warranty has replaced 3 separate iPods for my family over the years so we think it is a good deal.

So when my youngest son wanted a new iPod Touch to replace his nano, it was natural for us to go to BestBuy. He was ecstatic when he opened the gift and it was plugged into the family computer within minutes.  Imagine his disappointment when his brand new Touch had pre-2.0 software on it and iTunes wanted him to upgrade for only $9.95!  This OS upgrade was announced almost a year ago.  

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A lot of us use instant messaging (IM) in our private and professional lives. It is a convenient and quick way to talk to others without the formality and delay of email. A new jargon has been created to talk in this medium and emoticons are often used to express feelings and emphasis.

You can tell a lot about someone by reading their instant messages. The biggest thing you can tell to see if someone is just plain clueless is if they send you messages like this:

IDontKnowHowToIM: Did you watch the game
IDontKnowHowToIM: this weekend? I thought
IDontKnowHowToIM: it was great and I was
IDontKnowHowToIM: amazed at how well Tom
IDontKnowHowToIM: Brady played he must be
IDontKnowHowToIM: the best player in NFL

What IDontKnowHowToIM meant to type was this:

IDontKnowHowToIM: Did you watch the game this weekend? I thought it was great and I was amazed at how well Tom Brady played he must be the best player in NFL

 

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Some of you are not going to get this post. I live in the Midwest, not in Boston or New York. There are different rules of etiquette in driving in those two cities but everywhere else is pretty much like the Midwest (or should be).

When I was a kid (as my children say – back when TV was black and white, the radios only played AM, and a CD was bought by rich people at the bank), we always let others in when driving and were stopped at a stoplight. You know the situation, you are the 5th car from the light, some poor soul just spent half of his savings at the gas station on the corner, and now he needs to enter the traffic stream. Back in the dark ages, that driver would give you a wave of thanks and usually even mouth a “Thank you” in your direction.  

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