Political Correctness Has Gone Too Far
Permalink | Tweet This! | | January 30, 2008 by John in Entertainment, Ranting and Whining
In an effort to make sure I’m legal and support my musically-focus IP creating brethren, last year I basically tossed out all my MP3s and re-ripped my entire library of a few hundred CDs from scratch.
For all the music I do own and have been accumulating for a couple decades on CD (don’t even get me started on the hundreds of cassettes I own), there were perhaps a few dozen albums and miscellaneous songs I got from other people. I inventoried them and decided which ones I wanted to purchase. One album that is not available anywhere, that I had borrowed from a friend, is a compilation titled “Jägermusic,” ostensibly put out by the JägerMeister company as a promo. One of the few songs I wanted off that album was “Cartoon Nightmare” by Insane Clown Posse. No problem, pull up iTunes, and 99¢ later it’s on my iPod.
But I didn’t listen to it until now. Crap.
They don’t edit out the word “hell.” They don’t edit out the word “shit.” Nor do they edit other various and sundry talk of obscene actions against life and limb.
They edited (garbled) this line, “I hijack planes and fly them into record label towers.”
Are Bedards Gullible?
Permalink | Tweet This! | | January 17, 2008 by John in Family, Ranting and Whining
Lately I’ve been getting a ton of bogus chain e-mails forwarded from the Bedard side of my family, mostly political in nature.
As always I fact check with snopes.com. If the message is especially slanderous, I ‘reply-all’ with my findings, usually “false,” on Snopes. The standout gems of late include how Barack Obama is a radical, madrassa-indoctrinated muslim, and the North American Union, or how the U.S., Canada and Mexico are supposed to be combined into one union with one currency called the “amero.” Both, of course, are false. But these are just the two most recent examples. I’ve been fact-checking my family’s e-mails for years.
I’ve been guilty of being gullible, more so when I was younger. What I’m starting to believe is that the gullibility is a Bedard trait, whilst the healthy cynicism I have that keeps my gullibility in check comes from the Stewart side.
I get my stubbornness from both. 
$400 Montana Property Tax Refund
Permalink | Tweet This! | | October 24, 2007 by John in Money, Ranting and Whining
I still have to file for my property tax refund. I’m assuming I’ve paid enough to get the full $400, especially since they let you claim the taxes over the past few years.
I was talking to a renter who was grousing about not getting the refund and I started getting irritated. You pay rent, you don’t pay the mortgage or the taxes. Sure the rent is applied to those expenses, but there is no direct correlation. The property owner assumes most of the risk, risk that the water heater will blow, risk that the market will force a lowering of rent amounts below what will cover the mortgage and taxes, risk that they won’t be able to cover the mortgage and taxes with the rent, risk that the renter will not pay, risk that the renter will damage the property beyond normal wear and tear, etc. The renter ostensibly gets freedom from maintenance and all those risk factors.
So, renters should pipe down or buy a place and assume the same risks as property owners.
Now excuse me while I go XBox 360 shopping in anticipation of my fat refund check…
Paradox
Permalink | Tweet This! | | July 27, 2007 by John in Ranting and Whining
I am simultaneously in awe of people who know more than me and disgusted with people who know less.
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IPHOOOOOOOOOOOONNNNE!!!
Permalink | Tweet This! | | July 6, 2007 by John in Ranting and Whining
All my news feeds have been overrun by iPhone posts! Especially the web design feeds. The reviews and whining about the lack of an SDK and/or Java are starting to give way to tips and tricks and speculation on the next generation iPhone. How crazy is that? People just spent $600 on a phone and they’re already looking forward to the next one.
And no, I wouldn’t get one even if we had AT&T in Montana. I don’t use 80% of the functionality of my new LG VX8600 phone.
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Is this all there is?
Permalink | Tweet This! | | June 20, 2007 by John in Money, Motorcycle News, Of a Personal Nature, Ranting and Whining, Web Design
Disclaimer: the following is one of my rare pieces of self-serving dreck. Proceed with caution.
Is passion, and it’s cousin idealism, the domain of the young?
If there was something I was passionate about, I would leave Northrop Grumman in a heartbeat. I would sell my house, find new homes for my pets and move if necessary.
I’ve never been afraid to drop everything and change my life. Growing up my family moved around a tiny bit less than your typical military family. In 1988 I could’ve stayed at MSU and finished my graphic design degree, but I chose to drop everything and move to Denver. In 1991, I could’ve continued working as an Asst. Accounting Manager at Meyer Health Care Services, but I chose to drop everything and move to Fort Collins to finish my degree. In 1998 I could’ve continued working at Computer Associates, but I chose to drop everything and move back to Montana to work for BDM. I don’t regret any of the changes; I certainly had some interesting times.
My motives are not entirely clear for all of those choices. I was running from things at least as much as I was running to things. One thing was consistent: a lack of stability and/or security. Until 1998 I was living paycheck to paycheck. I was always looking for the next move to make to kick start my career, or something.
Every child has something they want to be when they grow up. For me it was architecture, but I was disillusioned in college and quit. I went to school for graphic design, but it turns out I hate graphic designers. Arrogant liberal snobs. Luckily the intarweb came along and I fell into web design. I still like web design, which is why I started SSDD, but I wouldn’t say I’m passionate about it. If I was passionate I’d leave the wilds of Montana for someplace like Seattle, Portland or Vancouver and go to work for a web design firm. If I was passionate about it, I’d go somewhere where I could immerse myself in the work, where web designers are rockstars, not afterthoughts.
I do solid work but I lack passion. I think more about my 401k and pension. I’m complacent in the perceived security of my job (which in reality could evaporate in five seconds), even though it gives me little or no satisfaction. That said, there’s no sense leaving if it’s not for something really cool that I do feel passionate about.
The only thing I’m even remotely passionate about is my motorcycle. I can work on it and talk about it for hours on end. The only time I feel alive is when I’m riding. But I can’t make a living doing that.
Oh shit. Is this middle age? Is this my middle age crisis? I hate clichés! Dammit! Snap out of it Bedard!
Comments are welcome but I will shoot the first person who says that what’s lacking in my life is a wife and a bunch of crumb gobblers.
Fired for having a penis
Permalink | Tweet This! | | May 31, 2007 by John in Humor, Of a Personal Nature, Ranting and Whining
I worked for a small family-owned company where myself and my coworker were referred to as the office girls. Im not a girl. I’m certainly not THEIR girl. Women work in the office, men work in the trucks. Men are superior. That is where I worked. So, me being the independent, modern, twenty-something that I am… this didnt float well with me. When one of the supervisors not MY supervisor, mind you strutted into the room and said, “Okay girls, we need to get something straight.” I knew what kind of conversation that would be. Needless to say, he treated us like we were his office bitches and then left. I was a tad bit upset.
At first I chuckled. Then I remembered that I too was “laid off” once, ostensibly, for having a penis. I was the only male in the publications department at MACTEC in 1995-96. There was someone in a different department who was a troublemaker (this was my first job out of college so I wasn’t the PITA that I am now - I was just happy to have a job in a field somewhat near my degree). To get rid of this troublemaker they engineered a “lay off of 10%,” which meant four people, including me. Lo and behold, a couple weeks later, the wife of the company vice president, who was trying to start her own graphic design (well, glorified desktop publishing) business, “stepped in” to “pick up the slack” left by my departure.
So much like the guy in the story above, I was let go from a department full of women and replaced by a woman. In the end I was better off, of course, but it did set my career and goals back quite a bit as I started my only real period of unemployment since high school.
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Dental Paradigm Reversal
Permalink | Tweet This! | | April 19, 2007 by John in Health-Medical, Ranting and Whining
Did I miss a memo? It’s been a few years since I had any drilling done at the dentist’s office. Today I had two fillings replaced. The needle and the drill, often the most feared and anxiety-making part of the process, were a breeze. A little topical anesthetic, needle goes right in, no problem. I think the anesthetic itself must be improved. I remember getting occasional little spikes of pain while the drilling was going on because the Novocaine didn’t “take” 100%. None of that this time.
The filling process, on the other hand, sucked ass. A big wedge to pry the gum out of the way, a big clamp around the tooth, toxic-smelling filling material (I still have a whiff of that crap in my nostrils), etc. And they cure the fillings with light, blue light. I remember the blue light from the last time but it still freaks me out. Then there was scraping and shaping and grinding to get the filling to the right shape.
Then I get back to work and I’m sipping on my now cold mocha, and my right upper lip is feeling swollen. Initially I dismiss it, assuming it’s part of the numbness. But then I start feeling around and sure enough, the dentist left a big ol’ chunk of gauze in my upper lip. That’s great…
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A Word to the Wise
Permalink | Tweet This! | | July 25, 2006 by John in Family, Ranting and Whining
If you’ve got all kinds of upheaval and change in your life, especially negative, depressing crap, do not go on vacation, even for a weekend, until it’s resolved. It’s harder to come home than to tough it out.
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Oh the Pressure
Permalink | Tweet This! | | April 15, 2006 by John in Humor, Ranting and Whining
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