Wierd Gas Prices

It's a combination of low prices ($2.19) and the local supermarkets having a price-saver card deal thing going on. If you spend enough at the supermarket - you get $.30 off per gallon. We would up spending $1.89 per gallon for 20 gallons. It's only a $6 savings but damn. $1.89

just sayin'

Update:
That was Novemeber; now it's December.
Now it is cheaper than that without the discount. And we still get the discount.

New Year's Day: $1.54
Isn't it amazing how quickly we get used to these prices? I'd scream if it went up to $4.00 again.

Don't wear a hat!

It's puzzling, really

Curmudgeon's stepson reminded him of some more administrator silliness that you'll all get a kick out of. His school has a no-hat rule.

"No big deal, Curmudgeon," I can hear you all saying. "No hoodies and no hats is a pretty common rule."

And you would be right, but at his school, the rule was extended for the holidays. Halloween costumes were fine on the 31st, but without a hat. That's right. You could be a witch and dress in a scanty and flimsy sheer thing that wouldn't have passed the dress code if it weren't for the green-and-white-striped tall socks and even then the cleavage on display could be impressive. The hat was forbidden, though.

Camoflage was verboten at first because of the whole guns thing. This changed to ok when kids pointed out that many wore it almost every day and "Yes, Virginia, it is hunting season."

Then came Christmas. Stepson wore his Santa hat and everyone thought it pretty cool except Vice-Principal CSI and Principal Frumpyants. "Take off the hat or get a detention."

You just can't make this stuff up.

Racy Photos and Teenagers

Is it any real surprise that Sending racy photos is common among teens? They're immature, they don't have much forethought, and they don't have much fear of shame. No one is allowed to point out the inappropriateness of this to them for fear of being labeled a pervert, or worse. Their friends certainly won't criticize, just forward on the pictures. They see nothing wrong with it and probably do it themselves. Their parents have no clue until the kid gets upset by it, and that's rare.

Teenagers should not be interacting only with teenagers. Adults need to be a bigger part of their lives to point out that there are consequences even if the kid doesn't particularly care right now. It's not a good idea to post pictures of yourself getting stoned or drunk on Facebook, or acting like an idiot.

Shame isn't available. It's not the thing anymore.

They don't have jobs or other adult interactions where an adult can say "That's bad. You're fired," or simply point out how ridiculous they look.

I guess we'll just have to let them hang themselves.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all,

and to all a Good Night.

Silent Night, full of Snow

There's only one Christmas song appropriate for this much snow.

Snow Day !

View out the living room sliding glass door, through the "tropical" plants at the nearly 20" of snow and thinking about the next storm of 1"-2" tonight and 5"-8" inches tomorrow and tomorrow night.

It's enough for a snow day. Ayup.

update: more snow.

Oh my goodness. Even the bird feeder is getting into the act.

Bailouts

I'm not an economist, just a annoyed curmudgeon. My thoughts are therefore not to be taken literally here, but maybe my ramblings have a notion of good sense in them.

Everyone from Jamele Hill on ESPN is saying things like:

Congress is stalling regarding the Big Three automakers, having forgotten it just wrote a blank check to Wall Street without even asking for so much as a Christmas card in return.

I think they're wrong to beg for an auto company bailout and here's why. The Big 3 built cars and a new (overpriced, overweight, overhyped) car (SUV, pickup) is not a necessity. In fact, in these times of trouble, the last thing that any family should do is to buy a new car if the old one has anything left on it.

For me, the difference in the bailouts is that the banks had retirement money, mortgages and such. The house and the retirement are more important to the average American than replacing a 20-month old car with a shiny new 3-month old car.

Companies go under all the time. There have been layoffs and closures that have hit my state hard. It's nature and it's style have changed dramatically over the last few years. That's progress. Move on.

I would let the banks go under, too. Screw the banks and their multi-millionaire owners and CEO -- save the account holders and mortgage holders. If you took the $700Billion dollars and distributed it a little differently, you could pay the mortgages for a year for more than 35 million families. Then sell their mortgages to someone like GMAC (the highest profit arm of GM, don't you know ...) at, say, 97 cents on the dollar and tell the banking industry to go buzz off.

Much more sensible than giving it to a company that's paying it's CEO more than $100 million dollars this year alone.

New Math for Newlyweds

I am rarely at a loss for an opinion. Those who play fast and loose with math to make a point, or who just don't understand the basics and demand to be heard by shouting from their soapboxes, need to be corrected.

In a comment about condoms, DANEgerous points out:

In contrast condoms break, or slip, up to 12% of the time. That may not sound like a big number but if you have sex more then once, each event is cumulative and the probability of unsafe sex quickly exceeds 100%. Given the average single person 'hooks up' with a few partners a year, a few times each, multiply those dozen "trials" by a failure rate that high and the average single person exceeds 100% every year.

What school did you attend, dude? Probability never exceeds 100%. Didn't I teach you that? Repeatedly?

Teh Funneh

Green campaigners called in police after discovering an illegal logging site in a nature reserve. Environmentalists found 20 neatly stacked tree trunks and others marked for felling with notches at the beauty-spot at Subkowy in northern Poland. But police followed a trail left where one tree had been dragged away - and found a beaver dam right in the middle of the river.

How about that logic ability?
How about the ability to notice detail?
How about the GODDAM TEETHMARKS?

Sheesh.

Some more bogus research?

New York is apparently considering (or is currently pushing into place - I'm not sure) a law that puts taxes on non-diet sodas.   Moonbattery is having a conniption over it, saying in part

There's just one problem: Studies have found links between drinking diet sodas and obesity and diabetes.

Well, duh.  Fat people drink diet soda because they don't like being fat and they are trying to reduce their calorie intake.  Diet soda is not causing the fat.  Come on, people, think.

Lesson Plans

So we've got lesson plans due later this month - hand in all of your plans at the end of the semester so Principal PJs can review them.

I took the easy way out. I made'em electronic.

Course by course, day by day, I've been transcribing them. I don't have to do every class, of course -- I have a few left over from last year. There are some updates and changes but math doesn't change that much from year to year. Shocking! Redoing all those lesson plan books was annoying and time consuming - thank God I saved them.

But now? Now the curriculum map is one aspect of it, daily lesson plans another, and substitute plans are a third. I have even less desire to do lesson plans now that I've actually compared a couple of years - I've always been a wing it and teach from the seat of my pants kind of person anyway. Really, I don't need a roadmap anymore. I have them if I need to prove I can do them.

Algebra started as a collection of assignment lists, then daily notes. The Calculus one is essentially an expanded version of what I did for the AP audit, along with the assignment list and various powerpoints, display, and labs. I don't have them dated with the actual date. Instead, they're day 1, day 2, day 3 etc. It's so much more useful and the whole "hand them in" thing is much less stressful. I just print. It's not my nickel.

Why did I wait so long? Why do I feel like I've caved in to the man?

The Night before the Unmentionable

Let's pass this one on, shall we?
Wish I knew who to attribute it to ..

'Twas the Night Before Christmas (PC Sytle)
A Christmas poem

'Twas the night before Christmas and Santa's a wreck...
How to live in a world that's politically correct?
His workers no longer would answer to "Elves".
"Vertically Challenged" they were calling themselves.
And labor conditions at the north pole
Were alleged by the union to stifle the soul.

Four reindeer had vanished, without much propriety,
Released to the wilds by the Humane Society.
And equal employment had made it quite clear
That Santa had better not use just reindeer.
So Dancer and Donner, Comet and Cupid,
Were replaced with 4 pigs, and you know that looked stupid!

The runners had been removed from his sleigh;
The ruts were termed dangerous by the E.P.A.
And people had started to call for the cops
When they heard sled noises on their roof-tops.
Second-hand smoke from his pipe had his workers quite frightened.
His fur trimmed red suit was called "Unenlightened."

And to show you the strangeness of life's ebbs and flows,
Rudolf was suing over unauthorized use of his nose
And had gone on Geraldo, in front of the nation,
Demanding millions in over-due compensation.

So, half of the reindeer were gone; and his wife,
Who suddenly said she'd enough of this life,
Joined a self-help group, packed, and left in a whiz,
Demanding from now on her title was Ms.

And as for the gifts, why, he'd ne'er had a notion
That making a choice could cause so much commotion.
Nothing of leather, nothing of fur,
Which meant nothing for him. And nothing for her.
Nothing that might be construed to pollute.
Nothing to aim. Nothing to shoot.
Nothing that clamored or made lots of noise.
Nothing for just girls. Or just for the boys.
Nothing that claimed to be gender specific.
Nothing that's warlike or non-pacific.

No candy or sweets...they were bad for the tooth.
Nothing that seemed to embellish a truth.
And fairy tales, while not yet forbidden,
Were like Ken and Barbie, better off hidden.
For they raised the hackles of those psychological
Who claimed the only good gift was one ecological.

No baseball, no football...someone could get hurt;
Besides, playing sports exposed kids to dirt.
Dolls were said to be sexist, and should be passe;
And Nintendo would rot your entire brain away.

So Santa just stood there, disheveled, perplexed;
He just could not figure out what to do next.
He tried to be merry, tried to be gay,
But you've got to be careful with that word today.
His sack was quite empty, limp to the ground;
Nothing fully acceptable was to be found.

Something special was needed, a gift that he might
Give to all without angering the left or the right.
A gift that would satisfy, with no indecision,
Each group of people, every religion;
Every ethnicity, every hue,
Everyone, everywhere...even you.
So here is that gift, it's price beyond worth...
"May you and your loved ones enjoy peace on earth."

Christmas Stupidity

What is wrong with these people?

Benson school removes holiday decorations

Instead of simply telling the kids "Sure, put up decorations from whichever tradition you'd like" and letting them have at it, we must remove it all. Complete idiots.

I like the comment "I just wish that we could give as much attention to eradicating drugs from our schools as we do to eradicating Christmas wreaths."

'Nuff said.


UPDATE: It turns out that one Jewish couple is complaining about Christmas decorations. That was the cause.