Quick Hit

I saw this story last night and thought to myself, “This is great.” Personally I don’t think that showing a picture ID to board a plane is violating any constitutional privileges it is a form of intrusion to privacy. The security personnel glance at the name and your photo id to verify the names on the ticket and ID match, maybe they will casually glance at the picture too.

Yet it comes to mind that if some individual was going to perform a terrorist act on a plane, and sacrifice their life for their belief or cause then are they really going to be worried about showing an ID? Furthermore, outside of a high ranking member whose picture has been plastered all over the place, what do these people look like? Would it be that difficult to obtain a fake ID with ties to an organization like that? Finally even if their name did appear on the list of known terrorists, and they made it all the way to the gate, is the individual going to be able to pick out that certain individual based on glancing at their id and ticket?

What if “Albert Gonzalez” was on the list, are they going to stop all the Albert Gonzalez’s from boarding the plane or give them extra scrutiny?

Anyhow, here is the link:

Fight the Power

Wall Talker

An interesting thing happened to me at work on Wednesday when I was going back to my cube *sigh* from lunch. I meet my friend almost daily for lunch, and on this particular day after we had gotten up from our respective chairs we had stopped at the intersection in the hallway. The hallways are less than six feet wide, very long, and have hanging mirrored globes at intersections to use so you don’t plow over random passers by.

In this particular instance, my friend had taken a step or two down a hallway, and I had taken a step down the one which crosses it. We continued chatting for a brief moment, and I started to walk down the hall when I saw this woman was staring at me funny. There are all sorts of interesting people at the compound, so seeing a look like this was not strange to me there. As I start to pass by her she casually says “I would’ve thought you were talking to the wall if I didn’t see that hand for a second.”

I have been known to do some strange things from time to time, but I don’t typically carry on conversations with walls in the middle of the hallway. I would like to think that the wall and I have mutually realize that our conversation would bore each other if it were to happen, so we choose not to converse with each other. I understand, and I go out on a limb here and say the wall which makes up half of the hallway doesn’t mind either.

Going further into this, who would have been crazier though? I only heard things, or acted like I heard things by carrying on a conversation with a wall. The lady seemed to be seeing things, hallucinating if you will.

Some people say in the future we’ll all be crazy, but I won’t I guess its nice to know I wont be seeing things which aren’t happening, but rather just hearing things.

What was that…?

Eight-One

Kobe Bryant went off for 81 points last night leading the Los Angeles Lakes to the win 122-104. What makes this slightly more amazing is that he had 26 points at the half, which is a good scoring night for 95% of the players in the league. However the flipside of the situation is this – it’s a team game. Still not since David Robinson of the Spurs, who scored 72, has gone off on a scoring rampage like this.

For those not in the know, the highest number of points tallied by a single player in a game was Wilt Chamberlain who scored 100. Jordan never even broke the seventies in his hey-day, although he ended up with 69 in one.

So if Kobe keeps this up will his arm need to be iced for the rest of the season to try and keep it from falling off? He is averaging 28 shots a game and almost 11 free-throws a game. Does this make him the leagues MVP, or the leagues “chucker” (Seinfeld reference)?

Ahoy Hoy

How is one able to deal with the cube neighbor, who seems like a nice person, but has one of the most annoying little habits? I was over in a co-workers cube today, when one of the people that work in the area asked if I wanted to switch cubes. Of course I asked why he was interested in swapping, and it turns out his future cube neighbor has some obnoxious little traits of his own. First off he uses a speaker phone, why I don’t know; second he speaks at unusually high levels – even if the person he is speaking to is right in front of him. Third, he has one of the most distracting laughs, something out of a cartoon.

I said to him, yeah but I have to deal with the throat clearer. “The throat clearer?” is all I heard in response. This person has a terrible tendency to clear his throat about every 45 seconds to a minute, totaling what must be close to one hundred times daily. For no rhyme or reason either, he isn’t about to speak, or talk on the phone. He clears his throat before he starts to type, enough to drive me nuts.

“Oh, so that is why you are always wearing your headphones.” “Yea, now you know” I reply, but they don’t do a great job. If I keep them at a reasonable level I can still hear the clearing of the throat ~ it seems to have just the right frequency to pierce what ever it is I am listening to.

So how does one broach this subject? I already feel like an asshole for bringing it up, but I have reached my limit. I don’t want to come off as a prick to this person, but I think I need to convey how disruptive this thing is, especially since it has been going on for over a month. I have a good feeling that it has to be partially psychological now, and is nothing physical due to the duration and frequency it has been going on.

Oh, and it is starting to spread – the person on the opposite side of him has started doing it. She doesn’t clear her throat as often, but the pattern has started.

The possibility of physical and mental breakdown is now very real. No sympathy for the Devil, keep that in mind. Buy the ticket, take the ride. --H.S. Thompson

Glayvin

So my neighbor who will remain “Oscar the Grouch”, and not because of his counting ability or witty remarks to small children as he helps them count finally got a citation for leaving trash outside his door. When I first moved into the complex there was no evidence that there was going to be such a problem, but time after time “Oscar” has been leaving trash outside his door for days at a time. I’m not talking one bag either, up to four bags at a time.

The neighbor adjacent to him down the breezeway takes a hint and starts putting their trash out front early, so I am surrounded by people’s trash. It is nasty to see and to come home to, further more I would shiver at what my friends or guests may think if they ever saw the filth. The punishment for this filth is supposed to be $20 a bag, which I thought would teach this chump a lesson since I have reported him on several occasions.

Unfortunately it seems that the person responsible for handing out these citations knew the people who lived there, so simply reporting them was going to be a losing battle since it would be squashed by the friend in the office. It seems the protection is no longer there and with a little luck the citation he received is for $80, sweet justice at last? We’ll see.

Vocabulary Lesson
What are some of your favorites? Hoyvin-Mayvin, and Car Hole are two way up there; ha!