Random Sunday Morning Ramblings.....

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Goddamm, these guys are good......SCARY GOOD.....

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Allright.....now, could you possibly get ANY more knee-jerk?

Although, I hafta remember: It is Utah, after all....so that may explain a few things......

I were going to skool there, let's say, and they pulled this shit? Sorry, I'd be gone and demand a refund of tuition monies pre-paid for the semester. I wouldn't feel any safer.....actually, no: I'd feel LESS safe!!

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Too long overdue.....

I had read about this for some time whilst I was existing in Denver. It was pretty sad that this wasn't designated a historic site sooner.

When I was living in Denver, before National Historical Site designation by the Federal Government, for descendants and other tribal members to go to Sand Creek and reflect, or mourn or what have you, they had to contact the property owner (some rancher who used to have people pay to take tours of the part of the massacre that occurred on his land.....this same rancher referrers to the event on this web site as a "battle/massacre"........although a "battle" usually occurs when BOTH sides are capable of fighting and fighting back) and make arrangements with him beforehand......


.......another landowner (where another part of the massacre took place) wouldn't even allow them on his land....

Still, one can say too little, too late.....but maybe it's a start!

Wanna reconcile?? Take John Fucking Evans' name off of every public site, mountain, street, etc. etc. in Colorado.......that'd be a good start.


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This week's dose of absurdity......



I'm on the E-Mail subscription to The United Pro-Choice Smokers Rights Newsletter......man, and some of the stuff I read in there should just scare the hell out of you whether you smoke or not!! Here's a couple of goodies -

• Ohio sets "danser distance" - I love this article. I mean, so what if patrons aren't allows to rub their grubby little paws all over some chick? That's not what is amusing, nor do I really find that to be of great concern. What's funny is the points this author makes and his writing style.

• Living through a civil war in my homeland?? Nah, no worries! But that ham sandwich left on the cafeteria table!!!!!!!!!! Shit, now THAT traumatised me more than ANY enemy tribesman taking off my mother's head with a machete!!

Sadly, though, it really kinda embarrasses the smokers-rights movement when they pop this article on their web site under the main heading- "The Slippery Slope After Smoking Bans" - and don't realise that the article they've just re-printed is a goddamm parody! Jesus......

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And, whilst wasting time on YouTube.......

• Realised that, no matter how cool the artist is.....that videos from the late seventies are really creepy, strange and unnerving.....and whassup wif the ping pong balls?

• Realised also that, despite that everytime that Goddamm "Mickey" video came on TV, I wanted to manually remove each one of my teeth from my skull individually with only a pair of pliers (yes, I despised [and still despise] that song and that video THAT much), Toni Basil did SOMETHING decent.

Lene Lovich* does a far superior version of Be Stiff....but Toni Basil's got nicer thighs.......even though Lene has got a cooler wardrobe.......and a better voice.

* If you watch very carefully in this video of New Toy, you WILL catch Thomas Dolby in it......he originally wrote this tune for Lene Lovich.

More sooner or later.....

-E-

Sorry.....



.....been sick, been traveling, been busy, been watching hockey.......



Anyways.....how 'bout them Sabres??? Jesus, slept through the Islanders Series, and still took it in five games, and woke up from their slumber midway through the second period of Game One against the Rangers.....Jesus, scary good is right!!!!!!!!!














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(No, Morseyboy....this is what's going to stay here! The Golden Slug logo will NOT disgrace this page nor should it be allowed to disgrace this great team!!!)

Islanders tried....Ted Nolan can only do so much, I mean, he had thee worst lineup in hockey WHEN IT WAS HEALTHY!!! When it was injury-depleted, Jesus, I could have beaten them, and I have never been on ice skates in my life!! With anybody else coaching that team, they would have ended up finishing 31st out of the 30-team league!!

Next year? Well, there is literally, seriously, NO WAY the Islanders lineup could possibly have less talent then it possesses this year.....and if Ted Nolan can stop Charles Wang from locking up "top superstars" with 10- and 20- and 30-year contracts (is this guy CRAZY....ten years for Alexi Yashin??? Getting robbed by Miroslav Satan??).....I seriously think they should finish 4th or 5th in the Eastern Conference next season!

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Jesus! Do they really have THAT many expenses where they NEED to raise their fees again????

I had gotten a free ski pass at Mt. Hood SkiBowl for a certain Friday for attending a Portland Winterhawks match! Well, I hadta work.....so it sticker prices at around $35 or $40.......so, I figure I'll pop it on eBay for, like, $5.00.....just to get rid of it!

OK, now understand, eBay has pretty much long ago worn out it's welcome with me! Thee one thing that really infuriates me is how they absolutely fucking DARE to increase their fees EVERY YEAR?? Excuse me....uuuuh, let's take a look at a few things here:

eBay has (and never has had) NO Human customer service agents you can actually phone and talk to immediately.....not even a call centre in the sweatshops on Bangalore!! You just can't do this! Got a major problem with an eBay transaction.....and you NEED to speak with someone RIGHT NOW??? Tough tittie!! Please wait 45 minutes for our next Customer Service Representative to assist you....and that's by live chat!!! So, if you can't type at least 35+ W.P.M. one error.....learn!!

And their costs of operating have remained fairly stable.......sooooo......no, WHY the rate increase again after making record profits?????

Well, eBay pretty much front-loads all of its commissions and fees (meaning, the person who SELLS ITEMS gets the fun job of paying out eBay).....so what has sharp rises in the percentages that eBay charges it's vendors who sell things on it done to sellers and buyers?

A LOT! At least from what I can tell you empirically.....

Items for sale are now having a higher reserve price.

There is a significantly smaller QUANTITY of items now posted on eBay then there ever was in the past.....simply, many sellers are afraid that between fees paid to eBay (that literally DO go up every year) and their own costs, that if they do NOT set that absolute minimum reserve price at X level, that they'll lose money! So they don't bother because even if it DOESN'T SELL, you STILL have to pay the eBay fees!

Sooooo.....in Mr. Rodger's land of make believe:

...I make widgets in my basement at home. I can dump 'em off to people who need reasonably-priced boxes of widgets! Pop 'em onto eBay! OK, so....last year, I got $8.00 a box for them, and we didn't do that badly :-)

NOW, NOW, you have this fee, that fee, the other fee, and every eBay fee, pretty much all of them, have just gone up again....from 150% increase in a fee charge to a 400% increase that eBay charges the seller for things like "listing fee, final value fee, insertion fee, more than ONE picture fee", and all that shit.

And......uuuuuuuuuuhh......if your widgets DON'T SELL? Well, congratulations!! YOU get to STILL pay to eBay all of those fees mentioned above, except the "Final Value Fee" (THAT you only pay if you DO sell).

Sooooooooooooo??

So, in order to stay afloat, and be able to pay all of these new fees, you have to have your widgets NOW go for ten dollars a box, EVEN THOUGH the world market for widgets RIGHT NOW is, like $8.50.....being generous. And, so....you're gonna make up that $2.50 per box HOW again?

Side effect of idiotic eBay fees? Prices go up on merchandise sold on eBay due to higher reserves being set to help sales people offset eBay fees!

Another side effect: Fewer like items being sold!

Thus, let's say you type in "Honda CB650 motorcycle" on an eBay search! Oooooh......four, five years ago: BUNCH of 'em came up....like 45+ listings for a Honda CB650 motorcycle for sale!!!

Now? They will be lucky if 20 to 25 listings show up as the search result. Shit, these people don't want to pay the outlandish fees for selling!!

Thus? FEWER people list thee same exact item (because they have to charge more to make up for eBays increased fees, and if the higher price scares off people and an item DOESN'T sell, the seller still eats the cost of the listing fees) and when THAT happens, the price of that item goes up due to scarcity (as well as to cover the increased fees), because there's fewer widgets for sale on the eBay sites!!!

Thus, the golden ages of 1998 - 2004 where eBay was RENOWN for being thee place to buy something cheap are waaaaay gone! Creating higher Auction prices and less CHOICES on eBay for buyers is not going to bode well for eBay's next quarterly fiscal analysis, since fewer people will be using eBay to buy things and thus, fewer fees for eBay to collect.....

Errrmmm......right. So, the new eBay formula: Fewer listings on eBay for the same item = minimal competition = more competitive upward pressure on bids = higher prices = greater profit for fucking eBay!

Case in point? My SkiBowl voucher.

Shit....OK....OK....hell, five bucks for the voucher would be OK...just git rid of these "new and improved" fees.....

So for a $5.00 voucher I was almost begging to sell, we have eBay charges for this NON-transaction (since nobody bought it) as follows:

Insertion fee:
$0.20

Insertion fee (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.20

Gallery Plus:
$0.75

Gallery Plus (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.75

Subtitle:
$0.50

Subtitle (2nd Category) (Fee doubled because of listing in 2 categories):
$0.50

Scheduled start time :
$0.10

Errrmmm.........right: So, for something that IF I DID sell it, I would have gotten back $2.00?????

eBay.....truly a dinosaur!!!

VIVA http://www.craigslist.org/ - ALSO, look for anything you are thinking of buying at "Google Product!!" You will find AT LEAST ONE of said item about 10% below the lowest price listed for the same item on eBay.

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The walking.......errrr, I mean...driving dead!!

Humour of the day.....

Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a NEW Washington State record.....

And last but not least, a video to celebrate the U.S. Senate passing a bill requiring U.S. troop withdraw from Iraq.......

I'm gonna try geocaching and putting the new speakers speakers in my car this weekend......I ain't going anywhere this weekend......more Saturday Night!

-E-

Oh Jesus.....stay indoors locked away this week!!!!!

It's fucking weirdo week.....

Let's see, this week of April 16th through April 24th, throughout history, we have:

• Klebold and Harris (no, this is NOT the name of a country music duo) performing their smash hit "Columbine, 1999"
• Adolph Hitler's Birthday
• The Waco Massacre
• And, Western New York native Timothy McVeigh's bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City
• And now, this shit!

Be warned, though....these aforementioned tramatic events that have occured during this week in history are USUALLY NOT, repeat, USUALLY NOT do-able excuses to get you a week at home from work and still retain your employ......errrmmm........unless you own the company, or you're lucky enough to be able to tele-commute, or some shit like that!

Jesus, I think I'm gonna run away to The Ocean this weekend......probably safer there!

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Had a good time in The Rocky Mountains! Whilst Black Hawk kicked my ass (my mum fared faaaaaaaaar better there than I did), I did get the opportunity this weekend to see and spend time with some good folks I hadn't hung out with in tooooo long. Just great to see Deuce, The Korean, TJ, Brooke and Susan The Danser. Missed some other people that I would not have minded catching up with, and didn't see a few people whom I really had no desire to see. So all in all, except for the excessive sunshine and getting my arse handed to me on a plate by Black Hawk, it was a perfect weekend.....but it was also just as perfect to land at PDX in a serious mist and fog and just INHALE and smell life....Christ, was it good to be home!

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Isn't it funny how all you need to do is rent a new 2007 car on a trip to realise just HOW shitty the radio in your own car really is?? Just too funny as, on this trip, approaching the one year mark of this dreg that you are reading now (Christ! Does a year go by THAT quickly?), I am at the rental car counter. And what do I get? Yepper....first post ever!

Damm, though, for a bare-bones sorta compact economy car, that stereo in that Caliber kicked!

I couldn't take it......I'm buying new speakers for my beloved car next week!!

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Wow....MISL Indoor Soccer championships are on Verses network! Cool.....of the hell time in 2005 of living outta an extended stay suite in Cleveland whilst both my parents were in dangerous condition in two different hospitals in Cleveland, I have fond memories of going to the CSU Convection Oven and watching Cleveland Force games!

I'l have some more bemusing dronings before the weekend....and some new pics hopefully....

-E-

It must be the pretzels!!!!!

.....though, the pretzels weren't enuff tonight.

Damm, the Sabres are good.....

...scary good!

Though I disagree with this article stating that "Islanders fans may be relieved to hear Rick DiPietro was medically cleared to begin playing" and should start Game 2. NONE of those goals were Dubielewicz’s fault.....

...kinda tough when you got pylons for defensemen.

Dipietro taking the net in game 2 ain't gonna make any difference at all if the Isles play the same way Saturday as they did tonight!

Still though.....when the chips are down, never discount the Injun to come back from adversity!

More later from The Rocky Mountains.....

-E-

Allright...well, as sick as I am.....

......I could NOT ignore this.

I saw this on the bOregonian's web site: www.oregonlive.com

....and this is just sad. This is PAINFUL TO LISTEN TO!! Goddamm, now I realise why I always wonder about Randy Leonard!!

Seriously, you've got to hear this song....

I mean, if you insist on doing something as totally pointless as designating an official City of Portland song, uhhhh......please make certain that, at the very least, it doesn't suck!!!!

Sorry......



I have reeeaaaallly not been feeling well at all over the past week.

Better now, though, thanx.....

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I'll pop something on here maybe Thursday Night (April 12th) before I head off to Denver for the weekend.....



-E-

Random irritants, drones, gripes and thoughts for this Sunday evening.......

......April 1st, 2007


First off - Happy Birfday, V!!

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Now, please understand that.....

.......I'm a HUGE fan of revitalizing Downtown Buffalo (skip the welcome screen on this link).ESPEcIALLY oooooold, historic buildings! They are SUCH an untapped resource that Buffalo has......I mean, it's funny, here in Portlandia (well, anywhere in B.C. or the Pacific NorthWest), you're at a cocktail party or something and someone will say "Yep....yep, I just bought a historic house!! Too cool.....hardwood floors, claw-foot bathtub....wow!!!!"

"Cool, when was it built?", I'd ask.....

"Oh, this is an early WWII bungalow!" (Everyone else in attending this conversation will gasp mildly with astonishment and admiration)!

"Oh....wow. World War II-era bungalow.....cool. Yeah, that's about the era when my last apartment in Buffalo was most recently renovated! And ARE there actually other types of tubs out there besides clawfoot?" I'd state......

(vacant stares all round)......

JESUS!!!! Take advantage of the existing housing and building stock you've got, Buffalo!!! Several other cities would kill for it!!!

(Sorry.....I really love the Guaranty Building)!

Now, it's difficult to say whether THEE SPECIFIC WORK INVOLVED in the worker's death at The Webb Building on March 20th, 2007 had a permit to be performed or not, BUT NOT HAVING A CERTAIN REQUIRED CITY OF BUFFALO BUILDINGS DIVISION PERMIT (SPECIFIC to the task your workers are performing) and disobeying a stop-work order (which would have, thus, shut down the worksite) MAY have played an active role in the death of the worker.

.....but, Byron Brown, with all of his new vision, appears to not have escaped TYPICAL BUFFALO Goomba-ism - As reported below in a Buffalo News investigation in an article dated March 23rd, 2007 by James Heaney (Buffalo News text in red here on out):

Peter Klemann was dispatched to shut down the work site Feb. 23, a day after another inspector found crews had replaced half the floor joists, work that exceeded the scope of the asbestos-removal permit.

After conferring with a supervisor, and in the face of Termini's (the developer of this project) refusal to stop work, Klemann called the police to enforce his stop-work order.

Termini persuaded the police to call Casey (Deputy Mayor of The City of Buffalo), according to inspections records.
"Steven Casey told the police to go back to the station house and not enforce my stop-work order," Klemann wrote in a report. "I returned to City Hall. The contractor continued working."

Casey did not return telephone calls seeking his comment. He issued a statement that did not address whether he told police not to enforce the stop order.

"The police officer requested my assistance in dealing with the matter," Casey said in the statement. "I advised her to tell the parties to take a break and to immediately go to Commissioner [Richard] Tobe's office in City Hall."

Klemann, in an interview, said he spoke to police after their conversation with Casey.

"They felt they were ordered to not enforce the stop-order," he said.

Klemann complained of interference the day of the fatal accident at a meeting of about 15 inspections department supervisors.
A source familiar with the conversation said Klemann, responding to a question from Tobe, inspections and permit commissioner, asking if a stop-order on the job had been issued, said words to the effect: "I put a stop-order on that job over a month ago. The mayor's office told me to go away."

Klemann confirmed that version of events.

Records show that Termini applied for a permit later the same day that Klemann attempted to shut down the job, seeking a permit to do the work he already had started. It was approved, but Tobe said Termini never paid for it nor did he pick it up


Oooops, oh yeah, forgot....this Termini guy also contributed over $9000 to City of Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown's election campaign....

NOW, after some initial statements that were conflicting, the cops had a couple days to get their stories in line with City Hall's official line, as stated in a Buffalo News piece on March 29th, written by Brian Meyer and Vanessa Thomas:

Police Commissioner H. McCarthy Gipson said written statements filed by the officers rebut claims by a city inspector that Casey told police not to enforce a stop-work order at the Webb Building.

Officer Mary May called Casey on Feb. 23 during a dispute between inspector Peter L. Klemann and developer Rocco R. Termini over the inspector's push to shut down work at the building on Pearl Street. Gipson said May called Casey only after Termini threatened to call the deputy mayor. [ed. note - So?? Fucking LET HIM call the Deputy Mayor!!! Why did the police officer feel compelled to do this? Is this standard procedure??]

Gipson said May's statement indicates that Casey never told police to let the work continue. "She was simply told to allow them to come [to City Hall] and resolve the issue," he said. "It was her perspective that everything was done professionally and aboveboard

Lord Byron put it this way to describe the police officer now being on board with City Hall's official line: "new information that has come to light." [Yes, actually, new information had come to light....TWO-PLUS DAYS after the fact......by a Police Officer who would much rather keep her job at 65 G's a year being a Buffalo cop and 'play ball' than spill the beans and end up working in a $6.00-an-hour call centre in Tonawanda].

HERE'S THEE $64,000 question, though:

IF, IF Deputy Mayor Casey DID NOT state to the police officers to ignore Building Inspector Klemann's stop-work order, then WHY didn't these officers then ENFORCE Klemann's stop-work order....which was thee reason he called the Buffalo Police Department IN THE FIRST PLACE???

Hmmmmm............

In the place I work, in the over-arching body we call The Community Development Department, we have The Triumvirate.

Let's make this quick and cite an example:

John wants to renovate a really old building and make it into a porn shop! Cool!!

ALL reviews go through The Triumvirate! The Triumvirate consists of The Three Divisions of Community Development: Buildings Division (to make sure John's porn shop isn't constructed out of Popsicle sticks), Site Development Division (to make sure that John's porn shop isn't constructed on top of a swamp) and Development Services (me.....to make sure that John's porn shop isn't placed next door to an elementary school [children under twelve should NOT be exposed to such smut....although you can give 'em a little wiggle room if they want to put it next to a Jr. High School] and, also architecturally, that John's porn shop kinda fits in with the surroundings [i.e. - a giant 10 foot tall dildo isn't protruding from the roof....because we clearly have a code section limiting rooftop dildo height to SIX feet])!

Now, John can't just go in and apply for just a Site Development Permit through the Site Development Division to construct, because John's application THEN will automatically get passed from Site Development Division through to Buildings Division (WHAT'S it made outta, and HOW is it being constructed?) and also through to Development Services (WHAT'S it LOOK LIKE and WHERE'S it gonna go in terms of designated Zoning?)

Now, if John ONLY JUST applies for a Design Review through Development Services Division, WE pass the application onto both, Buildings Division and Site Development Division, and if John just ONLY went to Buildings Division to get a construction permit, Buildings passes that application onto us (Development Services Division) and to Site Development Division and..........OK.........all right........

..........you get the idea!

And even IF one Division erroneously and blindly signs off on it, or a high-up official who's buddies with the developer that John hired to do this porn shop project tries to pull some Goomba shit, there IS SOOOOOOOOOOO MUCH PUBLIC TRANSPARENCY throughout the entire process..........notices of proposed development mailed, neighbourhood review meetings etc. etc........that the entire project may or may not end up getting approved if that kind of stuff occurred...

Wow......Jesus, different world, I guess.....

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WE WIN!!!!!!

My team won the pub quiz in PDX FINALLY for thee very first time ever. Beat out ten other teams. No small achievement in a city as intellectual as Portlandia, indeed......shit, if I could just take my team to Denver.....we'd clean house!! And instead of betting money, we could play for newspapers! If our team won.....Denver would get The bOregonian and we'd get to take home The Denver Post.

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You, too, can be "undocumented".....

THIS is the bizarro story of the day! Look at the last of the three news blurbs on this web page! This is just too bizarre....but it fascinated the absolute hell out of me! I seriously think I am gonna go to this parque (beware of this link - it's a really awful Google beta-translation from Spanish....but you'll get the idea). Some things out there, literally, have got to be seen.....not read about.....

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No longer in that New York State of mind......

FINALLY did it. After two years, I got my Oregon plates and got rid of my New York State plates! Pretty much the last thing or connection I have with that place (a few friends remain, and I do have all of my family there, but otherwise).

I got a notice in the mail from New York State offering me the oppertunity to renew my registration via Internet for a two-year renewal for.........

.........drum roll........

......$45.00!!

Now this is in tax-happy state number one!!! Wow, I was astounded....jeeeze, I was gonna be a total jerk and take 'em up on their offer and keep my plates for another two years, when I realised just WHAT THE HELL I'd be doing then if I gave money to New York State to renew my registration!

I'd be assisting Eliot Spitzer's Holocaust on The Seneca Nation of Indians!

COST BE DAMMED, I am gonna get my Ora-gaaaaan plates and I'm gonna get 'em now! Not ONE SINGLE SHEKEL is going to Eliot Spitzer!

Oh, and believe me, cost WAS dammed.....rather, it was damming! Emissions test, plate fee, out-of-state title transfer fee, registration fee, etc fee, and so fourth fee, it all came to.............


.........$168.00!!!!!

Jesus, almost suffered cardiac arrest! Man, the cost of just trying to make a point nowadays.......



.....BUT, I DID get the cool license plates kinda like this one below, so......










(By the way, this is Crater Lake plate #00001!!! It also went stolen from a license plate enthusiast convention/show/thingy.....so if you actually see this plate number, let them know!)


Sanctuary across the asphalt ocean.....

They just opened up a franchise across the car park from where I work! Had a grand opening ceremony this weekend (somehow, I got an invite and a chance to win a private vino tasting for 20 because they came in to apply for a sign permit and sent me an invite to the address on my business card!!) and it was fun.

Bought a waaaaay nice Washington State Grenache......NOT thee easiest thing to find (Rosemount Estates put out a Grenache-Sharaz blend that wasn't too bad, but finding just a Grenache isn't easy at all)......

A couple new pics have been added to the pics page......enjoy....

-E-