Bogieblog

NH Murders

20 people were murdered in New Hampshire in 2005. In Experts: Murder Total Could Have Been Worse, Katherine Murchoki lists the murders individually. Let me break them down for you:

1. Shot = 9
2. Stabbed = 6
3. Beaten to Death = 2
4. Fire (arson) - 1
5. Drowned = 1
6. Unknown cause (body burned in fire pit) = 1

Ooh, looks like guns were at the top of the list. But wait, lets review some of the "murder" by gunshot:

1. Police shot a person (ruled justified) = 1 (not murder in my book)
2. Self Defense (intended victim shot perp) = 2 (ditto)

So now it looks like (by my definition of murder) that 6 people were murdered using guns, and 6 were murdered using knives. I find it interesting that justified police involvement and self defense was defined as "murder" by the author.

So, lets re-adjust the number of murders to 17 (take away the 3 non-murders). 35% were committed with guns, 35% were committed with knives, 11.8% were murdered using the personal touch (beating) and then there were 18.2% committed by "other".

According to gun-grabber theories, we should outlaw both knives and guns. Oh wait, I forgot, we export all our guns so that is why the gun stats are the same as knife stats. But wait, according to the US Attorney General the exportation theory is a myth, which means our guns are are not going elsewhere to commit crimes (tongue firmly in cheek).

What a conundrum!

Quickies

Because the company can't make money even though it has sold and shipped record amounts in the last year, a fiscal responsibility team has been formed. They meet once a week at lunchtime, and the company buys them lunch. Am I the only one that finds this ironic?

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Overheard at the Bogie household: "It's pretty sad when the majority of leftovers in the refrigerator have either beans in them or hot stuff [hot sausage, hot peppers]. I wonder what that says about us?"

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Why don't printers come with the cables that are needed to hook it up to a computer?

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I figured since it was $65 just for someone to look at the printer, and printers can be had for just a couple dollars more, to buy a new one. I did some comparison shopping and ordered it on Monday. The new printer shipped on Wednesday. Hopefully it will get here today to join the USB cable that got her yesterday.

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I'm taking my truck in for its 37,500 mile checkup today. It's pretty sad that I bought the 6 year / 100,000 mile warrantee but it will only be good for 4.5 years.

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That is it for this edition of quick-takes.

Fucked Printer

My printer just died while trying to do customer invoices. Okay, it didn't die but I can't make it print out envelopes and printing the invoices themselves meant I used 6 pieces of paper for every invoice. I did get 3 envelopes to print out, but it took 10 pices of paper (they were printed with the customer's addresses) and 7 envelopes (some had the business address in the corner, some just got eaten by the printer). I have spent 1.5 hours trying to print 4 invoices and their envelopes. I have given up on the last envelope.

Another reason we will never get a vacation - we will be nickle and dimed to death by things that should last for years (with light use and being taken care of), but only last a minimum amount of time so have to be fixed or replaced.

I am soo fucking tired of this shit!

Trivial and Useless

Check out this trivia page filled with useless information.

1. The world's oldest profession is practiced by an animal
2. The origins of the microwave oven
3. the rise of the pink flamingo

etc. etc.

Link stolen from A Secular Franciscan.

Conspiracy Theory Confirmation

My response to Cop Car's rant on the Conspiracy Theory got so long that I made it into a post here.

My winter coat, that WS got for me last Christmas, has the zipper backwards. I haven't figured out how to get it zipped yet. No, that's not true, I know how to zip it, it's just getting the "zip" attached to the "per" that has me dumbfounded . My left hand is used to doing plenty of work (I am almost abidextrous), but my hands cannot coordinate this juxtaposition! Not to mention that the hardware is made for little oriental hands, not my big clumsy American hands (which is strange to say when everyone comments on how small my hands are!).

Thank goodness the coat is plenty warm without needing to be zipped - otherwise I would be up a creek!

So Cop Car*, rest assured that you are not alone and there is a conspiracy (and very mean-spirited at that).

Time Waster

For those that love to hate the Windows operating system, just try Windows RGE (Really Good Edition). It is interactive, so click on the "Start" button and have fun.

Thanks to Kehaar over at Siflay Hraka for the yucks.

As a side note, Typepad seems to have fixed the way you do links so that it can now be dont the old way or the new way - way cool.

Greg and His Borzois are Back

Now that Greg is back to posting, go take a look at this comment on marriage.

Speaking of Greg, go check out his rework of their Soyara Borzoi website.  He has done a great job on it (if you wait, the pictures on the main page change).

No Breaks for the Wicked

Since just before Christmas, The Wonderful Spouse and I have been dreaming of something we haven't done - ever; take a real vacation. Now, we've taken some 3 day weekends here and there - always with friends in tow. We have taken week-long vacations, always to see family (and bless their hearts - stay with them so we have no hotel bill). We have never taken a real vacation (aka more than 3 days - and to places we've never been or want to explore more - and been there together).

The closest we got to that was when we took our honeymoon in 1993 (8 years after the wedding) and went to northern NH for 3 days. We also took a trip to Disney Land for 3 days, but that was a working vacation for me (seminars for 2 1/2 days - and yes, I actually went to the seminars). Then there was the trip to Niagara 2 years ago (3 days, 2 of driving). And, WS got his 2 week biking vacation to Sturgis and surrounding areas.

So, we've been thinking about taking a real vacation; destination - Alaska. I did a little research on the Internet and knew that it would be an expensive vacation, but figured that would be our next 3 Christmas presents to ourselves. I left my name and address with the State Site so they would send us a vacation planning package.

We haven't even gotten the vacation planning package yet, and Bogie's curse rears its ugly head. There were layoffs at work on Thursday. 10 people (not counting the 2 temps) were let go. It is not that we don't have work, we have more than we can handle (literally, our on-time delivery has plunged to 48% because we have too much work to shove thru the process). The fact is that the company tried to grow too fast, and forgot how to make money while it was making the product.

I didn't get hit in the layoffs, but it doesn't look good to me. If we fail to make money in the next month or two, then there will be another layoff (my interpretation - not explicitely said by management). I'm betting that I would get hit then.

So, I have a choice, I can wait and see or I can seek another job. Waiting and seeing isn't appealing to me. I have worked at 3 places in the last 4 years (and had a total of 1 year off work) because of layoffs/company closings. At the other 2 places, I waited - this one I won't. So, I will be dusting off and updating my resume, and start looking for a new job.

There are 3 possibilities of my situation at vacation time:

1. I will be laid off and still not working, so spending money on a vacation would be stupid.
2. I will be in a new job, with no vacation time accrued. Taking time off from a newly received job, especially without vacation time would be stupid.
3. I'll be looking stupid because I still work at the same place and everything is going swimmingly - but we don't have a vacation planned.

I'm thinking the first two possibilities are more likely, so we have put vacation planning on mothballs, to be taken out in another 10+ years (and that one won't pan out either).

Nonsense?

For those interested in science, go read 13 Things That Do Not Make Sense.

Thanks to AMCGLTD for the link.

PS - I do not like the new way the Typepad does the hyperlinks!

The TSO Show

When last we got together, I promised to tell you of the Trans Siberian Orchestra show that we attended Friday night. Of course, when I last posted, I had all these great words just dying to get put down on (virtual) paper. Since then, the words have floated off into the ether, never to be written.

Ah well, TSO put on a very good show. The first half was a narrative Christmas tale with rockanized Christmas carols. It was well done and we enjoyed the mix of blues, jazz and rock sounds entertwined within the tale. You've never truly hear Silent Night, unless it has featured a ripping, screaming guitar solo! At the "intermission" the members of the band were introduced and some people took this as the cue to leave and beat the traffic.

They missed out. After the introductions and thanking the audience for selling out the show so quickly, TSO started back up. The second half of the show was just pure music and the place just rocked. After 3 hours the show ended and we started the long walk back to the truck (which was still parked a couple of blocks away from the Black Brymmer).

We enjoyed ourselves immensly!