Oh nothing… Just watching the banks burn down around me.

Let me start out by saying I know NOTHING about the financial sector. I am merely stating what I have witnessed transpire in the recent weeks. 11 banks our down and out with 90 more on a FED watch list. As I have stated in one of my earlier posts this all comes down to greed. People who had NO business getting a loan were allowed to, the banker got his or her commission and the CEO got massive bonuses while the whole fucking company went down the shitter. The person that got the loan that shouldn’t have now can’t pay it off, then the bank loses that money when the loanee declares bankruptcy. Who cleans up the mess? The federal government and in turn that mess is handed down to the taxpayers to pay off. This just doesn’t work and with an administration on it’s last leg that still won’t tell the truth, the American people are left in the dark. This administration tells us that the inflation rate is around 5%. That sounds reasonable but when you calculate in the cost of gas and other factors the inflation rate is much closer to 13%. I have no way of backing up that claim so take it with a grain of salt. 

When Fanny Mae and Freddy Mac bit the bullet they would have created a larger disturbance in the world economy than if the entire nation of United Kingdom had gone bankrupt. Again I heard this from my high school economics teacher so take this factoid with a grain of salt also. So the FED cleans up the mess and in turn hand the invoice to the American people to pay. We are in serious trouble and clearly financial collapse is imminent. I really hope it isn’t but when more banks are going bankrupt now than they did prior to the Great Depression something is clearly wrong. 

Whatever does happen isn’t entirely President Bush’s fault. These problems we face have been mounting for decades and just so happened to explode under this failed president’s administration. That said, no one under his administration has helped these problems and a war that is still droning on to increase our deficit doesn’t help. 

If nothing else can be said, it can be said these are interesting times. I hate that I have to become a contributing member of society and start my career just as this great nation and possible the whole fucking world go down the drain. C’est la vie!

Burn After Reading Review

I start off like I always do by giving a disclaimer, I love the Coen’s work and this review may be ever so slightly biased. Secondly I say that this movie isn’t as good as No Country for Old Men. Granted this an entirely different kind of movie and No Country for Old Men was such an incredible film that makes this hard to compare. Anyway I won’t even bother giving you the plot, that ruins the review and ruin the film for you. That said this is a truly funny movie with more than it’s fair share of Blue Humor. John Malkovich’s drunken CIA Analyst character spend most of the movie drinking and slurring profanity. Brad Pitt’s character is clueless, Frances McDormand is desperate for money, Tilda Swinton is a bitch as always and George Clooney is  a womanizer. With affairs and paranoia abound, trouble ensues when everyone thinks everything is a more serious problem than it really is. The main problem is Everyone has something to be paranoid about and what they think is happening to them is actually not the case. Blue humor comes in with props such as a dildo and the line George Clooney utters following it is just and example. “I didn’t have the equipment for hard molding.” I’m sure you didn’t Mr. Clooney I’m sure you didn’t. You will get lost in the stroy mush like you did watching the Big Labowski but that’s the point. This is a truly funny movie, and for once isn’t centered at the teenage demographic. It’s highbrow humor. That said some will find it dull. The people that find it dull our people who don’t understand slightly sophisticated humor and should have been eaten at birth, the way God intended. This is a movie that everyone should see. Even if they don’t like it. This is a very vague review but if I had said anymore the whole movie would have come undone.

Today Review

 

Today is a great light weight app that keeps your events and tasks in one central easily accessible location. Today is built on the same data management engine as Apple’s iCal and Mail applications so the same data is shared throughout. Today allows you to to add or change events and tasks and those changes will appear in Mail and iCal instantly because of the shared data engine. The same goes if you change a task or event in Mail or iCal that change will be show up immediately in Today. 

The Today window is small but scalable, it’s there when you need it but gone when you don’t. The items are color coated corresponding to the color that you set to that calender in iCal. The window is split into two sections. The top has your selected calendars and the bottom has your tasks for that day. You can select just the calenders you want to show up in Today so you can remain focused on only the most important tasks. You can also see what events and tasks you have on future dates. To return to the current date just click on the black Today is area at the top of the window. If you have events or tasks on your iPhone or iPod Touch they also will synchronize to Today, it also integrates perfectly into the MobileMe service making all your events, and tasks available across all your Macs.

I have used this app extensively and it does come in handy quite often. I don’t always want to open iCal or Mail to see what is planed for the day, and why should I when I have this small, light weight app that launches quickly with all the information I am seeking? This comes in handy when I fire up my Mac for the first time in the day and don’t have time to wait for the other apps to launch when I can set this bad boy to launch at start up and everything is there at my disposal quickly. 

This is a great app but not with out it’s faults. A missing feature (as far as I know) that would work well with Today is alarms. Secondly I personally would love to see a integration into modern web browsers a la Firefox plug-ins or maybe even integration directly into the Finder. Lastly the ability to make a print out of your agenda so you could share it with you co-workers and the like would be nice.

Today is available here and only costs $15 USD. It is money well spent. Images courtesy of SecondGear llc

My Thoughts on This Dying Country.

Before I am accused of being biased to one party or the other, let me just say that I HATE politics. Both political parties are as crooked as a dog’s hind leg and are slowly becoming one in the same. With that little ditty out of the way, I’ll give you my brief opinion. I have a tendency to lean more towards the right. For only one reason. I despise the thought of abortion. Can’t have a baby? Don’t have sex. It really is that simple. Rape is an entirely different story and in my opinion abortion is acceptable in that situation even though I hate the thought. Everything else the Republican party can go to hell. The only three Republicans I can think of that were worth a damn were Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Ronald Reagan. This fucking moron we have as a president couldn’t be leaving quick enough if you ask me. That said not everything that has happened under his administration is his fault. Like our recent panic in the economy. This catastrophe has been building up for decades and just now finally burst. Where president Bush has failed, is diplomacy and his ability to use the government to intervene in tragedies. The Bush administration, against all warning signs allowed the September 11th attacks to happen. Granted these signs had been present for years and could have been dealt with a decade earlier. When hurricane Katrina struck most of our Coast Guard was over seas fighting in an unnecessary war. When the government tried to respond it had no personal and no equipment to respond with and had to improvise. There have been more lives lost under this administration than was necessary and I think Bush should have to answer for that. Public apology maybe?

   The Democrats aren’t our savior either. Republicans are to hostility as Democrats are to bitching. They squabble about fucking everything but propose nothing themselves. After years of being in a Republican deadlock both houses of Congress were handed over to the Democrats and nothing important has happened. No shift in direction no major refocusing, nothing. Empty promises. 

   My point with all of my bitching is our government, the greatest in the world, is failing. It is no longer being used for the common good, but for self advancement. Our politicians are becoming rich off of our good faith. This isn’t how this is supposed to work. They are supposed to answer to us, the citizens of the United States of America. We our their employers and we can fire them, but we have become to fat and complacent to do anything about it. We are currently in a self-destruct sequence and I don’t see any way out. Corruption, death, war, back room deals, none of these things should be happening, but we have let them. There are no real signs of trouble right now, except for the unstable economy. This will blow over and we’ll go back to our mary ways until the next crisis, and we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves. All of the things that are happening in this country look eerily similar to the stages of the Roman empire when it was collapsing. 

Will something good come out of this historical political race? I really hope so. I hope we can turn this country around, but I sincerely doubt it. We should have started fixing it years ago but here we are knee deep in shit and no way out. Great job guys.

Lets make our own campaign.

This nifty little site allows you to make a fake news report as if you were in the running for president. I’m not going to lie it’s rather crude but it pokes fun at the two major political parties and that’s all that matters. Here is the one I made for myself.

Update on my School Year

School has finally gotten into full swing and I must say it wasn’t as bad as I had feared. It is still bad, it’s school what do you expect. My point is this is my last hooray before College and the rest of life. It’s been a long time getting here and I want it to be done. On that same note I am a bit apprehensive about the whole college thing. The thought scares me and the last thing I need is a shift in a new direction right now. Unrelated: I have a teacher who is ancient and requires an insulin pump. I’m wait for here to collapse in a diabetic fit.

Mactropolis Blogger

I am now a contributor to the Mac blog Mactropolis. I will still be posting things on here, but I recommend you go check out Mactropolis. I can’t wait to see you there.

My thoughts on the Olympics…

   I have a problem with the Olympics. My problem is that the Olympics are no longer primarily about countries competing for medals and greatness, but for how much money it can drag in. The powers that be say this is done for tradition, because it’s been done for centuries. The way I look at is, this “Tradition” would have dried up ages ago if someone hadn’t found a way to make shit loads of money. For all three of you that are regular readers you probably already know this. I don’t see this as a sportsmanship event as much as a money generating scheme for the city that is selected to host it. With all of that said I couldn’t be prouder of the people that participate in it. It show people can get along no matter where they are from. I’m especially proud of our team this year and how well they have done. There are still some things that America can be proud about and this is one of them.

Best Buy to sell iPhone 3G

   Best Buy is the first to retail chain to sell the iPhone 3G in the U.S. other than Apple and AT&T stores. I’m not going to lie I didn’t think Apple would do this, it made no sense because Apple loses more control on activation. But then again Best Buy has strong ties to AT&T. It looks like Best Buy will be doing the same as Apple and AT&T stores, you have to wait in a line, in store to activate the phone. The whole story can be located here.

BreakClassic Lite

I swear this is my last post on any of the apps from bootant.com. People like me started to gripe when BreakClassic went from being free to $.99 to $2.99. Now bootant.com is offering a version for free called BreakClassic Lite. Try it out, it is a neutered version of BreakClassic but it will give you a feel of the game and if you like it, I strongly suggest you buy it.