Hiatus

Prolly won't be posting for awhile. It's hard to be bothered with the effort when you're sleeping 12-16 hours a day.

Dave Matthews Band

After reading about crapping puffins on Boudicca's blog and my subsequent comment to it, I recalled something I had heard about a couple of weeks ago but forgot to post on. If you've already heard about it I apologize, a day late and a dollar short I guess.

Complaint links rock band to dumped sewage The Dave Matthews Band's concerns for the environment stretch from marine life in Biscayne National Park to transit riders in the San Francisco Bay Area. But on Tuesday the band was accused of making a not-so-ecofriendly contribution to the Chicago River: dumping raw sewage from a tour bus onto the heads of people aboard an architectural tour boat.

I dunno if I like them more or less after this. Oh, ran across another link while searching for the article. Didn't check it out very much though. (Bou - You are forewarned...ya might not want to click this link....ohhh..yeaaah..let the morbid curiosity take control. You are all ID, baby!!) A lil something for the kiddies.

Why Me?

I got a call today for an interview. I accepted, but thought it seemed a bit fishy. I had received an email earlier today and checked out the webpage and thought NAH, seems sorta like telemarketing positions. After I got home from physical therapy (man did that ever SUCK), I had a message to call someone back for an interview. So I did, and she asked if I had received their email earlier. So I checked things out and asked her a few questions. Based upon the answers I received for those questions and the information I viewed on the website earlier today, I was more than a bit leery. I decided to check and see if there was any bad press about this company. Trying to keep a fairly objective view because ANYONE/THING is going to have bad press from somewhere. Hmmmm, I didn't think it was going to be THIS bad...Now..I am pretty damned sure I am not going to go. If even half of what these people say is true, I am not driving my happy black ass 2 hours one-way if there is even an INKLING of a scam. This is what I found after 30 seconds of searching. Not a good sign, eh? Arbordahl & Associates Though, I think it would have been cool if I had my mutual friend's, friend's (that CANNOT be grammatically correct) tape recorder and I could upload the more interesting lies on here. But, that sort of sounds like work so we'll keep it as a hypothetical for now.

BTW

I found out this weekend that I will not have to worry about any fraud charges. I got a letter stating that they just wanted me to pay the money back. - which is what I was figuring I'd have to do from the onset. So, no harm no foul. And my back is feeling much better. I fell asleep last night without having to take drugs. MAN, did I sleep well. Unfortunately, there is a crapload of stuff that I have to do around this house, it's a goddamned pit.

Complete Bullshit

Ok, I try to stay away from politics and heavy duty subjects because no one really reads my longer posts. But with all of the issues that I've had going on in the past few days I've been predominantly bitching and whining about my personal life falling to shambles I completely forgot about this one. Last Thursday I was full of a righteous anger because of a couple of things which coincidentally fueled each other from two separate news sources. While sitting in the waiting room at my doctor's office I was reading a magazine (Time, or Newsweek I think, I can't remember the magazine and they have pay subscriptions to access articles so I gave up trying to find the article online) I ran across a blurb stating that the illustrious "they" wanted to have mandatory health insurance for all Americans. "Ok," I thought..."That's kinda stupid." Maybe long-term it would be great, but it's a little too close to socialized medicine. The people who cannot AFFORD health insurance (we will get to that in a minute) will be given waivers, and special grants in order to be able to attain it. "Hmmm," I pondered, "How much money is that going to be?" I cannot recall if they mentioned how many people overall were uninsured, I remember them having a bar graph that showed the expenses for a single person's health insurance annually over certain time periods. I remember 2004 was over $9,000 per person; 2006 was supposed to be an estimated at over $14,000 per person). My issue with this is..health insurance costs are rising because of the goddamned frivolous malpractice lawsuits against doctors. Their premiums are atrocious, and some doctors are opting to drop it, or get out of the medical profession altogether.

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. - Dr. Rene Loyola says he has given up just about everything to keep practicing medicine. The surgeon owns no home or land, and has no savings other than a retirement plan after 29 years in the profession. He says he frequently has to turn away patients who need his help the most. Read the Rest of the Article

The common sense aspect of cost-and-demand comes into play. You don't have enough doctors, the others can charge more (which they have to do to keep up with their premiums) and soon you have a shortage of doctors on a whole, and the ones still working (and insured) are rollin'. Well, later on, I was driving back home and was listening to NPR (yeah, I know...I know...but the radio stations around here suck and you can only listen to a TOOL cd sooo many times). Well, to make a long story short, they had to say this:

The U.S. Census Bureau releases new data that shows the number of Americans living in poverty rose last year by 1.3 million people. The number of people living without health insurance also rose, to 1.4 million, according to the report. Hear the Audio

That brings the approximate total of people living under the poverty level to 35.8 million people - 12.8% of the population. Most of this is related to an increase in CHILD poverty -I believe it is stated that the rates did not change very much for those 18-65. 15.6% of the population - 45 million people - do not even HAVE health insurance. Well, when I see those numbers, I realize a slight gap. Which means that people who are above the poverty level are still not able to afford insurance. I recently had a friend tell me that the health insurance costs to cover his family of 5 was going to be $65/week. That breaks down to over $3000 per year. Not including co-pays, and any other extraneous costs that insurance won't cover. Also not sure if that includes dental insurance.* That's no pittance when you have mouths to feed and mortgages to pay. Imagine if this person were a single parent? He would likely be included in those statistics, along with his children. A frightening conundrum no? Do we raise taxes to make sure that everyone is insured? (Remember that total is 45 million people); or do we continue along the path we are going down and wind up having the rates raised higher and higher with each passing year? Or maybe, just MAYBE we can get people to stop suing doctors, and to allow for medical costs to equalize, thereby bringing down insurance costs and allowing the government programs already in place to do their goddamned work? Maybe I am oversimplifying things, I must admit that this isn't an issue I have done hours of research into. But with the information I have been fed by the "objective media" *snort*, this is the conclusion I have come to. Either that, or just bring in socialized medicine and then everyone can be miserable and mistreated. I don't want my doctor looking at me and seeing a potential malpractice suit with legs, nor do I want him to look at me and see a number. We have to come up with a happy medium because those numbers are reaching crisis numbers; and this issue can't be ignored until it all just "blows over". I have craploads of friends WITH medical insurance who have monumental amounts to pay back, and they are considered middle class. I can't even imagine what it would be like for someone not even making enough to be considered over the poverty level. A living hell, indeed. *My beef with dental insurance being a "luxury" item is that some medical issues could be headed off at the pass if dental problems were taken care of like regular maintenance. Examples being: getting your annual eye exam or pap smear. (Or that thing where the doctor squeezes your balls and makes you cough..is that to check your prostate? I just think of it as fun..*squeeze..SQUEEEEEEEEZE*)

What A Happy Day

Let me tell you, being wrapped in duct tape sux ASS. I spent from 5-8:30 pm being taped up by a friend for a body double (since I am so short I can't get patterns to fit me - hence my wanting to take the fashion design program at that college). She did the outline, ok..good. Then she did the fill in work, ok...good. Then she did my arms. "Ummm, my fingers are starting to tingle"..ok..not so good. Then she moved on to the second layer. "Ummmm, my knee and my back are hurting kinda bad"...ok..not so good. "Errr, I think I have to go to the bathroom..." ok...you get the point. Things didn't get to be "oh..god this is bad" until we realized the scissors to be used to get me OUT of the duct tape fetish outfit were not working. So her sister's boyfriend had to get out his boxcutter and cut up the mid-back - Can you say SPIIIIINE boys and girls? That was a freaky ordeal. Fortunately, he only had to do a bit before the scissors worked, and he was nice enough to put his hand in between my duct tape shell, and the dripping, sweat laden shirt I was wearing underneath. Let me tell you - Duct tape does NOT breathe for shit. Anyway, the worst part is over, now I have to stuff it, shove a pole up it, and maybe, just MAYBE I can manage to make myself bodices that don't leave my ample breasts falling out whenever I bend over. Unfortunately, I might have to have it done again, the shirt rode up and the damned thing was supposed to go down to mid-thigh but it wound up hip-level. At least if I have to have it done again I might be able to wear the original and have an addition of sorts put onto the bottom. That way I won't have to deal with the uncomfortable scenario of my friend feeling me up again. (This is the second time I've had this done....It's kinda creepy having women rubbing on your breasts to smooth down the duct tape.) OK, now that I have made all of my male friends vomit...my work here is done *triumphant grin*...