insurance in other countries

i don't remember how i stumbled onto this 'women only car insurance' ad, but it's interesting. and the second one is frustrating as well as interesting. then this third ad is just great! i laughed so much and i'm not sure why. i mean, you've got to be proud of her -- she worked up her courage and accomplished her purpose.

so ... enjoy. or not.

look out, look out, look.... *splat!* and items suddenly quadruplicate....

the picture at the beginning of this article is pretty amazing -- so much junk we have left in space to fly around our world! good grief -- will we NEVER learn??!!!

they've been dying without 'em for years

oh this is rich. we are to belive that long-term care insurance is good for us? right. this article can't seem to figure out why more people don't buy it. well, let's see .... how much is top insurance management getting paid? have insurance companies ever screwed people? are premiums high and do they keep raising them? do insurance companies have dictates which should really be under the perview of doctors?

so, duh. people are sick of insurance companies and want to be left to die without the aggravation.

christmas music

well, now ... this is pretty cool. i've never heard of the north point iband, but check this out.

i love the bells, in fact the whole first thing was very great! i didn't care for the second one -- it pointed up how much better real instruments are. but the third one was very fun! all of it done with iphones and ipads. and the little robot guy was waaay cool!

enjoy!

i think it's in ontario

say you were eating at a shopping mall and music broke out ..... (thanks, sister-in-law!)

giddy-up

you've got to read this really funny account of a guy stealing food and making his get-away in a motorized shopping cart.

getting old is partly adventure and partly horror movie. i went to the eye doctor the other day because i had noticed, a number of months ago, that one particular ‘floater’ was always there in the same place. i didn’t go immediately because i wasn’t in any discomfort, it’s so hard to get away from work that i wanted to roll it up with a regular visit, and because the insurance company wasn’t going to pay anything unless it was more than a year since i’d gone previously.

after the eye doctor VERY thoroughly checked things out, he said it looked like my retina may have torn a little, but that it looked like my body was fixing it. he wanted me to come back in 3-4 months so he could see the progress.

he mentioned that if a bunch of floaters showed up, or one showed up persistently, or if a dark curtain covered half my vision, or anything strange happened, that i was to see him immediately. he also mentioned that several years ago, cataracts had started, but they hadn’t progressed.

do you know what this means? i’ve been moved out of the people-who-will-live-forever category into the people-who-might-die-someday category. i mean, these eye problems are things which happen to old people who do eventually die. honestly, it’s just amazing to think that includes me! who would have thought?!

computer weather

cloud computing. it's been a buzz-word for several years and now it's being adopted by the federal government. gsa is going forward with google and usda is going forward with microsoft. i know the gov't is trying to cut costs, but doesn't this seem like a right-hand/left-hand type of scenario? maybe they're trying to stay away from a monopoly situation, and maybe it doesn't matter, but big problems usually start out small.

but i guess the thing that really bothers me is this statement:  "But are there any security risks to moving to the cloud? One observer, noting that cloud platforms can host data servers on foreign soil, raised the specter of data being stored on third-party servers based outside the United States."

gsa doesn't seem concerned though:  "But Coleman told Nextgov that 'Information security is about much more than where your server sits,' because, regardless of location, all of the security controls in the contract are still monitored."

oh, of course. my fears are unreasonable. the security controls will be monitored. *sigh* will they never learn?

gsa has been, and continues to be, at the top of my list. of dunderheads.

amazing diversity

some republican comments about palin:

former Republican congressman Joe Scarborough: "What man or mouse with a fully functioning human brain and a resume as thin as Palin's would flirt with a presidential run?"


Mark McKinnon, a former campaign adviser to Republicans Bush and McCain: wrote that he admires Palin's "tenacity, her verve, her moxie and her pluck" but believes she is "perhaps the only Republican nominee who could lose in 2012."


Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak: "I think what's most worrisome is the uncertainty. She hasn't played the game at the national level like the others."

Jennifer Cross: "We just really like her. We think that she's down to earth, she's a mother and she's very intelligent no matter what others may say."

dumb bunnies

what do you think of this wikileaks thing? frankly, i think it's bad. i mean, anyone who discloses information like they've been doing should be thrown in jail.

FOIA was put in place to  legally get information, and there have always been moles and informants. but, gees, to get and distribute information which threatens our safety and way of life? i mean, does anyone really think these types of documents shouldn't exist? if so, you have no connection to reality!

trying to make everything the government does totally available to the public is just idiotic. you cannot run a large country by making every single thing public knowledge. do the terrorists operate that way? hell no. and have they been effective? pretty damn. do other countries honestly tell us what they're doing? hahaha.

transparency is a nice ideal, but get real. and people who expose sensitive and classified information should be allowed to rot in jail. without tv, books, computers, or yard time.

ah so ...

the husband and i went for thai tonight for supper. yeah, i know, we don't really like thai. i mean, lemongrass, cucumber, coconut, curry, and weird stuff like that -- yuck!!

but when we go there i get pad garlic. i mean, GARLIC!  yum!!! it's really great and it's fixed with chicken and spinach. just tooooo fabulous!

but that means i can't kiss the husband for awhile. he hates garlic.

turn here, no ... wait!

did you see how becoming a slave to gps might lower your brain function as you get older? i've just never gotten around to doing the gps thing. maybe my spiritual guide was keeping me away from something which wouldn't be good for me. i've worried along the way that maybe i was slipping behind in the 'knowledge of technology' area, but that might not necessarily be a bad thing. besides, i like doing the 'map' and 'getting lost' thing.

little green men? no.

it's amazing to me that these scientists are awed by their project of forcing microbes to assimilate arsenic rather than phosphorus. they have concluded, "If the claim holds up, it would lend weight to the idea that life as we know it isn't the only way life could develop."

well, duh. ego-and ethno-centrism at its finest.

i've always wondered when i've heard 'life couldn't exist there. it's (too cold, there's no oxygen, there's no water, there's no .....).' i mean, with the variety we have right here on earth, how could intelligent people NOT think life could appear in a variety of ways. *sheesh*

ca-na-ba-ru

able to last through extreme heat or cold! able to be used in shock absorbers or space craft! it's SUPer rubber!

entertainment!

some movies i think i want to see:

True Grit
Cowboys and Aliens
Tron: Legacy
Gulliver's Travels
The Tourist

no place like home

if you want to see a collection of interesting pictures of different places on our planet, go here. some of the pictures are interesting, some are cool, some are curious, some are icky, and some are beautiful.