04 06 06 14:39BIG NEWS! A Republican mayor comes out... gasp... PRO-SCIENCE!! ZOMG!!!
Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, recently was asked to give the graduating commencement speech at Johns Hopkins University. During his speech he did what any public speaker is required to do, which is engage in silly, possibly stupid jovial monologging to the audience. This is always especially true of high profile people, who feel this need to "come down to our level" with the use of jocularity, so I was not surprised to see the first couple of minutes of Bloomberg's 15 minute speech were occupied with some fairly lame jokes and dumb attempts to portray himself as "down with the kids" in the graduating audience. I think the only one that worked was a joke about never eating from a local Oriental take-out place again, which got light chuckles. Some of the comments started to get a little politically bent, and I was thinking that there must be as much as 50% of the audience who may not appreciate his comments... and then he whipped out his A-game.
...read more
Don Stratton - No comments - § ¶
02 06 06 14:47Visa Gift cards; the most inconvenient and costly way to send money!
Recently I got an offer from my bank to purchase Visa Gift cards, which are prepaid Visa cards that spend like a long-distance calling card; you buy a card with a certain monetary value and when it runs out the card can be thrown out like a long-distance calling card. This seemed like a hell of a good idea in this modern day and age! I filed it in the back of my head for future reference.
Well, a few days later I received an E-mail from my mother. It was a blanket E-mail to friends and family, telling the story of how almost a year ago she had invited two teenage girls to stay with her while they attended the annual Writer's Conference held each year in her town. Unfortunately, her finances were a little short and she was concerned about her ability to care for the girls, resource-devourers that teenagers are. So she asked for a donation of $5-10 to help out. Something clicked in my mind and I thought of the Visa Gift card... how ideally timed!
Or not.
...read more
Don Stratton - Only one comment - § ¶