I am inspired by this.

There is a nice guy with a blog called Zefrank. I love his positive attitude on there. He lists all kinds of projects that he works on. This one in particular really moved me. I think we can all relate to the feelings expressed by the song.

I love that he did this just to be nice. We could all use a virtual (or real) hug sometimes, it is nice that someone is willing to.

Let me know what you all think.

I should get an honorary degree

I am sitting on the train as usual. At this point I don't even pretend to avoid people on the train, the dumbest people are drawn to me like a moth to flame.

I find myself unabashedly listening to the discussion of two people across the aisle from me. A large bearded man and a woman in her late forties(ish?).

Man: "Did you know that cocoa and cocaine come from the same plant? Amazing that such different things can come from the same source!"

Woman: That is astounding! Are you sure?

Man: (leaning over toward me) She doesn't believe me, you know that don't you? You tell her!

Me: Well, actually they aren't the same at all. Cocoa comes from the cocoa bean and Cocaine comes from the Coca plant. They aren't even in the same genus.

Man: What, are you some kind of botanist?

Me: For the purposes of this conversation? Yes, I am.

Aren't there rules for this?

So on the train I noticed something that has been in my periphery for some time. I attribute the oversight to always having to watch out for that sociopath...

Anyway, the train goes right past these subsidized/Income restricted housing(also sometimes called a ghetto) and I noticed that 3/4 of the apartments have a satellite dish. Now I am not certain of the cost of those dishes, but if I have to guess I would put the cost at about $100 plus the Monthly payment that has to be close to what cable is (which in SoCal is about $70-$100). So... these people are in such dire circumstances that they are not able to afford housing on their own. Because of this the government steps in and helps to the tune of 50% (and sometimes more), but they have enough free cash flow to pay for extra TV channels?

That doesn't sit well with me. Here is why:

• the government only has that money to subsidize because they took it from someone else.
• if you are in need of charity, than you should have exhausted your own resources first.
• Cable/Satellite is a luxury, not a need. So are cell phones, computers, Internet, etc.

I am not saying that these people aren't in need. I am simply perplexed that the government doesn't have any rules in place to restrict frivolous spending. California might be able to close that budget deficit by a fair margin if it applies a few common sense rules... but who am I kidding? The government (Federal and State) does not have common sense. If they did, they would understand that you can't spend what you don't have. There is NO SUCH THING AS A FREE LUNCH. Everything has its cost. Shoot we don't even want to think about how much interest we are paying for our current deficit. It is ridiculous... I am going to go cry in the corner for a little while. Someone come get me when they decide to reimburse the tax payers for everyone's cable/satellite.