Nobrainer’s Think Tank

For the last several years, I’ve had my cell phone bill automatically charged to my credit card. That card recently expired. Did Sprint send me a friendly reminder? No. Hell no.

What did they do?

Well they tried to charge my credit card. When that failed, they sent me an email. The body of that email was blank. Attached was a suspicious RTF document. After diving in to check the header information, and running several virus scans, I opted to open the document which, in the end, contained nothing more than a notice that credit card was expired.

This leads me to ask, who the fuck sends RTF attachments instead of regular email?

The incompetents at Sprint, that’s who. Fortunately I’ve grown used their continuous bungling, else I’d assuredly be steamrolling my way to being delinquent and then cut off.

Another software update, another version of iTunes, and another reason to wonder just what the fuck is going on in Cuperttttttttttttttttttttttto, ahem, Cupertino?

The software update tried to install some new software that I had never heard of and that seemed completely unnecessary. That pissed me off.

The new iTunes install was not pleasing either. As I’ve complained before, it auto-places a shortcut on my desktop, which I never want. But this time it went so far as to remove the shortcut from my quicklaunch menu, which is where I do want it.

And just what about the new version of iTunes? None of the new navigation is particularly useful, but I did find a nice bug. When I use a dual-monitor setup (like I always do at work) and I have iTunes visible on the secondary monitor, and when iTunes is in Cover-flow mode, it actually causes my keyboard to lock onto a key I’m typing whenever it flips from one album cover to another, which iiiiiiiiiiiiih, ahem, which is highly annoying.

Despite the lack of activity here, things have been moving quicker over at the Sporting Gnomes.

Otherwise I haven’t been up to a whole lot lately. I’ve managed to harvest 5 Roma tomatoes from my garden. The first 3 were delicious.

I’ve been thinking through some posts in my head. They’re about how I hate Jim Rome, Brett Favre, and the National Association of Realtors and their god-awful radio commercials. Oh, and John Edwards. Yes that would be the same John Edwards that I so lovingly refer to as ex-Senator Ass-Clown. There’s nothing worse than a used car salesman except a Realtor, or John Edwards.

For more on ex-Senator Ass-Clown, you should mosey on over to Harpers.org.

To show his own dedication [to fighting poverty], Edwards “created a tax-exempt nonprofit dedicated to fighting poverty”, reported the New York Times… [T]he Center may have done some good, but its primary purpose was to serve as a vehicle for Edwards’ political career…

About a week before Edwards acknowledged having an affair with Rielle Hunter, Edwards quietly shut down a “scholarship program he started at an Eastern North Carolina high school–a program he once promised would be a model for the nation under an Edwards presidency,” reports the Raleigh News & Observer

And you bet your ass that I believe he’s the father of Rielle Hunter’s baby and that he continues to lie about it.

I’ve never met Larry Abernathy. I’ve never heard him speak. But every time I read things attributed to him I want to kick him in the gonads. Mayor Abernathy has been crusading to making all businesses in Clemson non-smoking. In the process, his words and actions piss me off.

He says the measure is all about improving the community.

“In the long haul, it save [sic] lives, and the bottom line (that’s) what it’s about. We know passive smoke is equally as dangerous as direct smoke,” Abernathy said.

Isn’t that nice. The small town mayor is trying to save ourselves from ourselves. How quaint. It’s all about saving lives, he says. Well does he really believe that? Doubtful, and that’s why he’s a douchebag in my book.

The smoking ban goes into effect July 1. The ordinance also prohibits the use of chewing tobacco, snuff or dip inside any public building or business in the city limits.

Because we all know that passive chewing tobacco, snuff, and dip are so dangerous.

Part 1 - Tonight, I flew from Cincy to Charlottesville (not a bad little flight). The plane is of the moderately-sized commuter variety that holds about 50 passengers. My seat was 1 row from the very back near the toilet (yay!). Being seated in such a place, I noticed a strange thing: passengers, who have just gotten on the plane, rushing to use the lav. The activity makes no sense to me. Boarding was far from complete; there was still much time before the door was closed. And from what I witnessed, the restrooms in the concourse we working perfectly. Is it just that much fun to use the airplane’s pisser?

Part 2 - After finally making it to Vienna (more on Murphy trying to impose his law will appear in another post), I observed a rare driving maneuver.

As I was coming to a stop in the left-hand turn lane to wait for oncoming traffic to clear, a the driver of a vehicle to my right on the cross street saw me 3 lanes over and slowing down and no oncoming traffic. With his turn signal on, he turned right on red. He executed his turn quite well.

Then things got weird. After completing his turn, he drove about 10 yards. Then did a U-turn, effectively crossing about 5 lanes, slicing through traffic so that he could then make a very quick right turn. To clarify, he did a right-U-right, which is effectively a straight line and a very stupid, dangerous way to cross an intersection when you don’t have the green.

I almost hit the motherfucker because, in my ignorance, I was looking at the cars coming at me. I barely noticed him because he was, from my perspective, driving sideways.

Did I mention that he had NY tags?

Lately I have hypothesized that the answer to solving our energy problems isn’t in getting people to want mass transit, it is in getting people to want to use mass transit.

Fortunately, solving the former problem is easy. Unfortunately, solving the latter problem is nearly intractable. Why? Because mass transit has a fundamental problem: the masses.

Ok, I lied. It has more than one problem.

For instance, I’d like to sincerely thank the DC Metro for leaving me waiting on the platform for nearly an hour for a train, any train, to get me close to home. With service like that, I’d rather [comment edited to keep myself out of prison].