Student suspended for tweet critical of sports’ teams

May 162013
 

A Wichita, Kansas high school student was suspended for tweeting.  That must have been a very bad tweet huh?  He must have posted a naked picture of himself right? No?  A sexually explicit picture?  No?  A picture of a naked girl?  No?  Then he must have used explicit language then huh?  No?  Ok, then he had to of called a teacher or faculty member stupid?  No??  What the heck did he do?  He tweeted the following “‘Heights U’ is equivalent to WSU’s football.”  WHAT??  Call the parents!  Expel him!  Never let him step foot in a public school again!

You have freaking got to be kidding me.  What has our country come to?  If this kid was on the school newspaper and wrote an editorial article spelling out how the football team sucked for the whole school to read, it would have been fine.  But, he tweets out a single sentence that doesn’t use any swear words and he is suspended?  What ever happened to free speech rights?  You can’t express your opinion anymore just because Twitter is “louder” and reaches more people?  Are we so sensitive now that we can’t take any type of critique or joke or comment?  Apparently so.

I should not be surprised though.  This might all stem from our sue happy culture.  The slightest thing goes wrong, we file a lawsuit claiming some stupid damage and thus demanding money.  This has been happening for years, and is definitely part of the reason that our health care costs are so high (though there are so many more reasons than that.)  This also comes from the school of David Stern.  For years he has been fining NBA players for the slightest negative comment towards officiating, whether it be in interviews or tweets.  You cannot say one negative thing about a referee or you are docked some pay.  Apparently Stern has been going around the country giving talks because it seems like everyone is now overreacting in the same way. Kids are being suspended for doing a dance and putting it online.  Or tweeting something that some adults in charge deem to be hurtful to their feelings.

Now, I will grant you that I do not know the whole story here.  For all I know, this kid could have been warned numerous times not to tweet.  (Although even if he was warned, this tweet was not even close to inflammatory.  Would he have been suspended if he said he didn’t like the sun?  Or that the schools colors were stupid?)  Or he might have done something else, and this was finally crossing the line.  But, this tweet deserved a suspension?  These “adults” in charge of the school have way too much power.  A suspension looks so bad on a high school kid’s record.  You could be affecting the rest of this kid’s life if he can’t get into college, or even a good college.  You are telling me that this stupid, innocent tweet is as serious a “crime” as fighting?  Or vandalizing the school?  Really?  Something is seriously wrong here.  I really hope that his parents are as sue happy as the rest of our nation so that they can file a lawsuit to remove this suspension from his record.  Sometimes I am so embarrassed for our country.

Why do people go to Starbucks!

May 152013
 

Every day, without fail, I head to work and pass by multiple Starbucks coffeeshops.  And every single one of them has tons of people inside getting a morning cup of coffee before heading to work.  I just don’t get it.  One of many things in this country/world that I just do not get.  Seriously.  I do not get it.  I would understand if you went once in a while, but every day?

I suppose the fact that coffee tastes gross to me contributes largely to that.  I think I was scarred from coffee for life when I was very young and tried a sip of coffee.  I cringed at it, and ever since, it just tastes gross to me.  It doesn’t smell bad or anything to me, but the taste is just so gross.  I’ll grant you that people have very different taste buds.  There are lots of foods that I like that I know others do not.

However, even if I do grant that people have different tastes, what I just don’t comprehend is why people will spend so much money every day for something that costs pennies.  If you are going in just to get a cup of coffee, then I just don’t get it.  Some specialty mixed coffee?  Ok, fine.  But, it costs tons more money for a regular cup of coffee than it would if you just made it yourself at home.  And if you say that it is not the money, but rather the time and convenience?  I don’t drink coffee, but I have made it for the girlfriend since she does enjoy coffee.  Trust me when I say it does not take a long time.  And if you like the specific taste of Starbucks coffee, you can buy the exact same beans and brew it yourself at home as well.

Maybe it is a social thing then?  I can get that, maybe.  I know that if I go to an ice cream place and buy a scoop of ice cream, it will pretty much cost the same for that one scoop as it would if I buy a whole container of ice cream at the grocery store.  I understand that and accept it.  But, when your friends or family are all going, it becomes an outing and a treat and so we do it.  But, I don’t do it often, let alone every day or every morning.  Just fun to sometimes go after dinner or after a movie or just to hang out with people you know.  So, I might understand going to a Starbucks to meet up with your friends, or even to study.  Although, when I was still going to school, I was never able to study at a place that had so much noise or so many people just moving around.  I get the social aspect.  That doesn’t explain, though, the daily morning visits before work.

And if you are going to Starbucks every morning for tea?  Please.  I guess everyone has their thing that others just do not understand.  Count this as one of those things for me.  I guarantee there are some things that I do that people have no clue as to why I do or enjoy.  Just the other day I was asked how I don’t get bored reading so much.  To each their own.

24 will be back!!

May 142013
 

One of my favorite characters of all time is coming back to TV!  I’ve been holding out hope for so long that they would finally make a movie based on 24′s Jack Bauer, but that just never seemed to happen.  And then news just came out that 24 will be coming back next summer as a “limited” series.  Such great news as I loved that show.

I wonder if the show will be exactly the same as it was, or if there will be changes made to it.  There are so many shows or movies that I watch today that I used to like a lot, but when I watch now just seem so dated.  And I wonder, I really liked that show/movie that much?  I’ll grant you that 24 was always way over the top, and often times it seemed like they had twists in the show just for the sake of having twists.    And because of the format of the show in which there had to be 24 episodes, it did seem like there were many filler episodes.  But, there was no bigger badass than Jack Bauer.

Have the fans of the show moved on from this show/character?  Or will they tune back in as if he never left?  When athletes come back from retirement, the 2nd time around does not turn out so well.  TV shows?  Most of them, if they come back, it is only for a reunion show.  I can’t think of an actual show coming back after it has been gone for a bit.  The only other one I can think of is the upcoming Arrested Development, on Netflix.  So, how this turns out will be interesting.  I for one will be watching it.  I remember when the show was still on, I’d watch it about 30 minutes after the show started so as to avoid spoilers and commercials, and then the next day I’d be emailing my friend about what happened.  Good times.  Kiefer Sutherland is not getting any younger, and I can’t imagine his character being as tough and bad ass when old.  Just look at the last Indiana Jones movie.  I think this is a good time for a return of the series as he is not yet “too old” to pull off being a tough guy.  I just hope that when I watch it, it will be as entertaining as it once was for me, and that I am not “too old” and moved on from such over the top fare.

 

Dots

May 132013
 

I downloaded the new game Dots  this past weekend.  It is supposedly the hot game out there right now with a ton of downloads that shot it to the top of the charts.  Me being the one who always wants to see what the big deal is, I downloaded the game and decided to give it a shot.  It’s kind of a cross between connect the dots and Tetris.  Basically, it is a game that last 60 seconds.  You need to connect the same colored dots to get rid of them.  The more you get rid of, the higher your score.  The game keeps track of your lifetime scores (the number of dots you have gotten rid of).  You can then use those dots to buy special upgrades.  Or of course, you can pay for more dots to get those upgrades.  A game developer has got to get their money, as this is a free game after all.

After initially playing the game, I did not think it was that big of a deal.  It was ok.  But, I played it some more last night before going to bed, and before I knew it, I played a lot of games.  I am not in love with the game, nor am I addicted to it.  But, I do like it.  Not because I think it is the best game out there.  I think I like it more based on my current spate of games, rather than because of the game itself.  When I look at all the game apps that I play, they include ones such as Letterpress, Words with Friends, Scramble with Friends.  Those are all multi-player games.  Those are great, don’t me wrong.  After all, I wouldn’t play them regularly if they were not.  However, when you are in bed and it is close to 1 am, many of your friends are not awake.  Or even during other parts of the day, it is your friend’s turn, and not yours.  With Dots, you can play whenever you want.  No need to wait on anyone.  Just play your turn.

I know that is not a ringing endorsement.  Who knows, maybe the game will grow on me.  I like that it is short (only 60 seconds per game) and somewhat challenging.  I’m not quite sure what the strategy in the game is.  I see people getting high scores of a 1,000 or so.  I usually only get 100, with my high score being 250.  So, obviously there are some strategies that I have not really figured out.  Either that or these are the people who spends tons of money on “free” games to get bonuses to play.

Respect to elders

May 092013
 

I was at Costco over the weekend just walking around.  I was walking by one aisle, and as I was doing so, a pretty old man was putting a lot of effort to lift a package of bamboo flooring.  While straining to do so, he grunted out loud, “This is heavy!” as his arms were straining.  Two feet from him was an elder lady watching him (maybe his wife) and a middle aged man sitting down.  Next to him was a younger guy, maybe 20 also sitting down.  After I walked past him, the bamboo package was put back down and I heard them all talking.  It was obvious from their conversation that it was 3 generations of a family.

I then just started laughing inside, taking in the scene again of an elder gentleman straining to lift a heavy object while his younger son and much younger grandson just stood there and observed.  Now, for all I know, maybe this elderly gentleman is stubborn and has yelled at his family in the past not to help him.  Could be.  I am not always the most considerate or sensitive person, and I have had my dad come over to my house to help (ok, who am I kidding.  Not help.  To do!) with some things that I did not know how to do.  But, I can’t really imagine myself doing the same thing.  At least I hope not.  My dad strains his back way too often, so if there is a heavy object, I will usually lift it.  We always get mad at him when he tries to do so because he will just mess up his back again. It is true that I probably rely on my dad too much.  He is always there no matter what when needed.  Always hard to imagine that he needs help.  But, that is just silly.  I should and need to break away from that train of thought.  Hopefully it will never again be me imitating those two younger ones bearing witness to their effort straining dad/granddad.  Otherwise in many years, my kid and grandkids would learn from me and do the same while I try to life heavy objects.

Are vitamin supplements a waste of money?

May 082013
 

I was reading an article the other day that supplements are a multi billion dollar business.  I am one of the smart people or suckers who contributes to those billions.  I have taken a multi-vitamin every night for as long as I can remember now.  The sad thing is that I don’t really think it does anything.  If I were to stop taking these every day, I don’t really think that I would be any less healthy.  Over the last couple years, I’ve become even worse in that I saw some supplements on sale at Costco and bought them just to try them out.  I now have a multi-vitamin, calcium, vitamin E, vitamin C, fish oil (which I take more because my doctor recommended it after my PRK surgery), and I think one or two more pills that I don’t recall.  When most of these run out, I don’t think I will buy anymore, except for probably the calcium and multi-vitamin.

I usually am pretty good at not buying things that scientific studies say are inconclusive.  But, for whatever reason, I pop these suckers in every day.  I can’t really explain why.  It’s probably because they are not that expensive, at least the ones I buy from Costco are not.  I think it’s also partially due to the fact that I know I almost never eat a balanced and healthy meal each and every day.  So, maybe to make up for the vitamins that I a missing from that, I try to make up for it buy swallowing pills.

Then again, maybe it’s one of those things that I will not ever notice in my life.  Maybe I will live a very long and healthy life, thinking myself fortunate, when all along it was because I took vitamins daily all my life.  Humans and long term thinking do not usually mix.  It’s why we are so bad at retirement saving.  If the government or companies did not make us save money with retirement accounts in things like 401k’s, most of us would be broke when we were old and retired.  Hopefully all of this vitamin pill popping is just like me stashing a certain percent of my paycheck all the time to save for a better and easier life in the future.  One can only hope that is the case.

Amazon Add-On Program sucks

May 072013
 

I have been an Amazon Prime member for multiple years now.  With it, I get free 2 day shipping.  I also get some other stuff that I never use, like streaming of videos similar to what you can do with Hulu or Netflix.  Last few times I checked it, there really wasn’t anything on there that I really wanted to watch, and so just haven’t been back on to check.

Anyway, there is an Add-On program that Amazon implemented some time in 2012, which I only just found out about now when I tried to make a purchase.  Apparently, there are a bunch of cheap, inexpensive objects that you can no longer buy by itself.  Instead, they must be added on to other objects so that the total price of the purchase is at least $25 bucks.  Obviously this is a money/cost driven policy.

Basically, if all you buy are cheap objects on Amazon, then I don’t really know if there is a point to being a Prime member, which costs $79/year.  So, the only real difference between being a Prime member and not being one is that you get “free” shipping on orders over $25 bucks in 2 days versus in 4-5 days.  The streaming and free kindle books and whatever other stuff they throw into the membership mean nothing to me so I’m not counting them.  I get why they are doing this.  They want to increase the amount spent per order.  If people cancel because of this, then they probably didn’t want them as customers anyway since they are costing too much.  But, what happens if too many people cancel?  They would probably need to make it a much bigger benefit to be a Prime member.  Since they are probably not going to do away with this stupid program, they might do something like raise the price of “free” shipping for non-Prime members to perhaps $50 bucks.  Not sure that would work either though.  It would just drive non-members to other sites, or even back to brick and mortar places.  The thing with people like me, being cheap and all, is that once we get used to something being cheap, we will never be happy when the price goes up.  I am not brand loyal.  I am price driven.  It’s why advertising on something like Groupon or Living Social is not always a good thing for a business.

As a result of this, are people going to increase what they buy per order?  Or just wait to make purchases until they have enough to make it over $25 bucks?  Or just cancel their membership?  I am in a wait and see mode.  I don’t remember when my membership is due for renewal, but I think I have some time.  I know that if I keep running into this issue, I’ll probably just not renew.  If I did that, then I’d just either buy my stuff at Target with 5% off, or just wait until my total price was over $25 bucks and then order from Amazon.  For the item that started all of this?  I ended up just buying it at Target when I was there anyway.  It actually ended up being cheaper since I got 5% off with the Target card, and since Amazon charges tax now.  I already shop at Target quite a bit.  I’m going to have to look around and start shopping there more often if I find that prices there are cheaper than Amazon.  I would have never done that before since I always just assumed Amazon was cheaper, but because of this policy, it just woke me up and reminded me how lazy I have been and that I don’t like spending more money for the same item.

 

Iron Man 3

May 062013
 

Iron Man 3

The latest Marvel blockbuster hit the theaters in the US this past weekend in Iron Man 3.  In this latest incarnation, Robert Downey’s Iron Man battles the Mandarin, a terrorist that sets off bombs all over the world.  Tony Stark/Iron Man doesn’t really get involved, however, until someone he knows becomes a victim of one of these explosions.  Will he be able to stop this latest villain despite the fact that he now suffers from anxiety attacks worrying about keeping Gwyneth Paltrow’s Pepper Potts safe as they are now in a relationship?

I have now seen all 3 Iron Man movies.  I did not like the 2nd one very much.  This 3rd one?  Definitely better than Iron Man 2.  The question then is if it is better than the first one?  I would have to say no.  This last one was pretty entertaining, but I just don’t think it’s story was quite as good as the original.  I’m not sure if it’s because I was pleasantly surprised with the first one never having been an Iron Man comic book fan in the first place, or it really was better.  Probably the latter though as I think I’m able to judge a movie regardless of the original source material.

Iron Man 3, I believe, ran something like 2.5 hours.  It did actually seem a little long and that’s usually not a good thing. I’m not sure how long the first one was, but whatever it was, I did not get the same feeling.  I did like this movie though, despite that.  It was a movie about Tony Stark as much as it was about Iron Man.  And this movie continued the evolution of technology for the Iron Man armor.  Every movie, it just seems to get more and more high tech.  I wonder, though, if that latest and greatest technology causes the suit to be less strong and indestructible as the previous incarnations.  His suit seemed to be rip to shreds and break apart so many times during the movie.  Maybe my memory is fading me, but that just didn’t seem to be the case in the first movie.  It seemed like every punch or hit he took, something broke off.  That’s actually not really important to the movie or to its entertainment value, but just something I remember for some reason.

Anyway, now that the 3rd movie is out, I wonder where this trilogy ranks among all the trilogies out there.  I would have to suspect that it ranks somewhere up there.  While I said earlier that I wasn’t a huge fan of the 2nd one, I don’t think it was a bad movie either.  And the complete set of 3?  Pretty darn entertaining.  It’s no original Star Wars, but it definitely kills the latter Star Wars.  Spider-Man trilogy?  Hard to say.  I liked the 1st two a lot, but the 3rd one just put a bad taste in my mouth as I thought it was very bad.  The same can be said of the first three X-Men movies, as that last one made me forget how much I liked the 2nd one.  Christian Bale’s Batman trilogy?  I think Batman’s got this one beat.  But, whatever you may think, I think this trilogy definitely belongs in the conversation.  If you saw the first two, go check this one out.

Poor Yelp reviews

May 012013
 

I saw an article last week about a restaurant owner complaining that his poor Yelp reviews costs him much business.  The first thing I thought before reading this article was that this was just a restaurant owner with sour grapes.  After all, make better food and have better service and you won’t get so many bad reviews.  This was actually not the first article I’ve seen like this over the years.  But, it was the first one I actually read.

The owner claims that his bad reviews started happening after a person from Yelp came by his place asking him to advertise on the site.  He refused to do so, and thus the bad reviews came in.  I’m a little skeptical, since if something like this ever did happen Yelp would lose all credibility and go out of business.  However, I have heard a couple of stories like this before.  I suppose that it MIGHT be possible for one particular employee to do something bad, against company and management policy, in order to meet whatever sales quota he had.  I mean, make a couple of friends in the right department, then who knows what is possible to do to a website.

The one particular review that was in the article seemed particularly egregious, so it did seem kind of fishy.  However, I still think that on the whole, if you get bad reviews on Yelp, it’s because the customers you were serving that day had a bad or poor experience.  I suppose that your competitor and go on Yelp and excoriate you.  But, how many competitors do you have that will care that much?  I would bet that you have more friends that have written you good reviews than you have dirty competitors writing you bad ones.

These articles about owners complaining on Yelp always remind me of NBA fans complaining that the NBA favors the other team when that team beats them in the playoffs.  Their team lost because the NBA gave the that series, or the refs favored them, or some reason other than the fact that the team that beat them just happened to be the better team.  Do you really think the NBA is going to risk its entire business by fixing a playoff series?  Doubtful.  And Yelp?  Their entire website is based on the fact that their reviews are real, written by real people/customers.  Yes, there are going to be examples of lousy competitors writing bad things.  Or just stupid people writing randomly bad reviews.  This is going to be the case in all peer review sites.  Just look at all the reviews on Amazon, which isn’t even primarily a review site.  But, the reason that Yelp is so popular and can potentially “cost your business money” is because people trust it.  They are not going to risk that trust for a few extra advertising dollars.  They can’t possibly be that stupid.

What’s with the constant recycling of bad coaches?

Apr 302013
 

If the stories are to be believed, Mike Brown has been rehired as the coach of the Cleveland Cavaliers.  This happens only a few years after he was fired from the exact same job, and after he was fired this year by the Lakers.  Only in sports are you even more attractive to other employers the more you are fired.

Seriously, why do teams constantly recycle fired coaches?  Do they think that the coach just learned from past mistakes and is a better coach now?  I might grant you that in this particular case Brown didn’t really deserve to be fired from Cleveland the first time (MIGHT), but he did get fired from the Lakers.  True, the Lakers still sucked with Mike D’antoni.  But, they did end the season with many more wins than losses after he finally realized he could not run with that team.  Granted they still would have lost in the first round if healthy, but they did finally improve.  I don’t know if that is saying much with what the expectations were, but whatever.  Who knows if the same could have been said if Brown remained the coach.  And by the way, Mike D’antoni is also a coach who was run out of New York before landing in LA.  If you ask any Laker fan today, he might be the most hated person in Los Angeles right now and might be this close to being fired if Dwight Howard demands it.

Byron Scott was fired at the end of the season.  And he had been fired twice before.  And he will probably be hired again.  Vinny Del Negro was fired from the Bulls, only to be snatched up by the Clippers.  When the Clippers do not win the championship this year (and possibly be bounced in the first round like their big brother Lakers), you can expect him to be fired too when Chris Paul demands it.  Ben Howland was fired by UCLA this year.  You can bet he will be in a new head coaching job soon.  Andy Reid fired by the Eagles, hired within minutes by the Chiefs.  Norv Turner, who was fired earlier and stupidly hired by the Chargers in the first place years ago, running them into the ground, and finally getting fired this year.  I remember yelling when he was first hired about how stupid the move was.  At least the Chargers hired someone new.  Let’s see if that works out.

I know that there are only a small number of head coaching positions out there.  Which makes it even more confounding as to why the same names keep getting recycled over and over again.  Is it a case of knowing what you are getting, accepting the baggage and bad history?  There are many coaches out there that came out of nowhere, or did not have a previous head coaching job, that became great.  Pat Riley.  Phil Jackson.  Gregg Popovich.  Granted I just named 3 Hall of Famers, but you get the picture.  If the Lakers’ D’antoni gets fired again, don’t be surprised if you hear Byron Scott’s name come up again.  After all, only formerly fired coaches need apply.

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