Nobrainer’s Think Tank

Just in time for New Year’s Eve and a New Year’s Day hangover, I don’t feel like crap.

Sunday I noticed I was developing a cold.

Monday I didn’t worry about it too much, just napped a little extra.

Tuesday I pretty much slept all day.

Wednesday I didn’t feel too bad as I flew across the country.

Thursday I awoke to feeling like death warmed over. Fortunately I had already requested the day off from work. (Great way to spend a “vacation day”).

Friday (today) I’m actually not feeling too bad. Still a little congested, but I have no fever. Today’s goal is to stay off the cold medicine so that I can enjoy some grown-up beverages this evening.

Dear Rob Portman (R – Ohio),

Please remove from your mailing lists. All of your mailing lists. Forever.

Rob, I am not amused that, 9 months ago in March, removing myself from the “rob_portman” mailing list didn’t stop you from sending me emails. I am really not amused that you seem to have worked around this request by simply creating additional email lists and automatically adding me to them. Today, after receiving your eChristmas card I removed myself from “Portman December Emails”. Then I checked my archives, found some of your other emails, and removed myself from “Portman October Emails” and “Portman September Emails.”

Rob Portman, please, cut the shit.

I’ve had Verizon FiOS for about 18 months now, and I’ve been very happy with it. The one little thing that bothers me is the screen they show just after I log into my account.

Auto pay is a great thing. Which is why I signed up for it practically as soon as I opened my account. So what kind of idiot at Verizon decided that they should ask everyone to sign up for auto pay, including the people already signed up for it. I can even imagine the idiot behind this idea being told that, you know, as a technology company with computers and stuff, they could probably logically apply this advertisement to only those who do not have it. To which the idiot must have responded, “well gee, that sounds difficult…. Oh I know! We’ll just add a link to let them tell us if they’ve signed up for it. That way we don’t have to do shit and we look like geniuses!”

Pickens Plan no longer includes wind

The more I learned about his “plan”, the more it seemed to be an obvious natural gas play, which was really a convenient way for him to make a ton more money. Now he’s no longer pretending.

The new Pickens Plan calls for Congress to pass legislation that will incentivize the conversion of 18-wheel trucks to compressed natural gas (CNG). This conversion, according to a report on msnbc.com, would “cut in half the amount of oil imported to United States,” if just eight million of the tractor-trailers in the United States switched to CNG.

So what’s the issue? Well, some are saying Pickens’ 45% ownership in a company called Clean Energy Fuels is his sole motivation. Clean Energy Fuels makes natural gas filling equipment for buses and other large vehicles.

The issue is that Pickens basically wants the federal government hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars for something he ought to be doing his damn self.

The other issue, is that no one is really sure what would happen if we started use that much more natural gas. Sure it’s cheap now, but it wasn’t a few years ago. And it’s subject to the same volatility as the oil market. However, if there were some kind of domestic supply crunch, we’d be pretty screwed because it’s much harder to import natural gas than it is oil. From my point of view, natural gas now has the upside (pricewise) that oil had 10 years ago. 10 years ago (maybe 12 now), we were practically awash in oil and a gallon of gas was selling for well under a dollar. But that suddenly changed and we ended up paying through the nose. The same thing will happen with natural gas.

In other words, in terms of downsides, pick your poison.

Interesting (emphasis mine).

Last year, Homeland Security arrested Matthew Crippen, 28, of California, on accusations that he was running a business out of his home in which he charged people $60 to $80 to modify their Xbox 360 game machines so they could play pirated games and other content.

Seems a little out of their jurisdiction, right?

Well I think so, but it’s apparently not apparently not. I caught an interview on PBS or something with some honcho from Homeland Security. The interviewer kept asking these kinds of questions, about why the hell HS is tracking down video pirates & such. The answer was basically that any illegal activity that could provide a revenue stream to terrorists is under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security. It certainly made me feel safe.

I liked this video on FailBlog.

If you watch closely, you can tell that the driver of the car at the exit of the car wash has their car in reverse with the brakes on. You can tell when they remove their foot from the brake. They then begin to creep backwards, and after a few seconds you can tell when the driver realizes he/she is going backwards and slams on the gas pedal instead of the brake and accelerates into the car behind it.

I’ll bet a dollar that the driver blamed the car.