Glad I bought a Honda!

So I ran across this, a prime example of consumer pwnage that I just had to share.

This should sum it up nicely.

The first two times Jason brought his truck in to his local Toyota dealership for service, he noticed that someone had taken quarters from his change compartment. He complained both times, but was ignored. So the third time he brought his truck in, he placed a video camera on the passenger side. The dealership didn't ignore him this time.

Jason was originally only concerned about the missing quarters, but his camera also captured Hampton Toyota employees sifting through his medication, using racial slurs, and watching porn in Jason's truck. Jason emailed us a copy of the letter he sent the owner of Hampton Toyota.

What's crazy about this, and reading Jason's email will rip your gut up a little, is the youtube clips embedded towards the bottom.  I mean the behavior of both guys stealing coins and examining the pill carrier are so frickin' ROTE that you know these goons have been up to much worse.

I'm gonna have to start counting my change before I take my car in now.

People leave weird comments...

This one's a bit old because I lost it during a recent swath of moving data from Rorschach over to Octane.

The original posting was related to a Microsoft Video about what life will be like in 2019. Check it out here.




I know you'll have to click on the pic to see it in all its glory but it is definitely something that caught me off guard for sheer WTFness. Enjoy!

Pitiful!

Link to Original Article

This links to a story of an 'angel' that miraculously appeared at Presbyterian Hospital recently in Charlotte, NC. My wife recently forwarded me an email containing the backstory and a super bad quality image of the purported angel. Email follows:

From: WhereAngelsFly
> To: Shirley8648
> Sent: 12/6/2008 10:29:19 P.M. Eastern Standard Time
> Subj: Angel in ICU
>
>
> So many of you have heard me tell the story, but I
wanted to pass it
> along anyway to those who didn't hear it and for
those who wanted it
> in email.
>
> A couple of Wednesdays ago, I got an evening phone
call from the
> pediatric ICU at Presbyterian Hospital, where I work
as a child life
> specialist. Usually when they call at night, it
means something bad
> has happened. This, however, was different. My
coworker told me that
> the most amazing thing had just happened and she
just had to call to
> tell me.
>
> We had a patient who has really grown up in and out
of the hospital.
> All the staff knows her and her family. She had been
in the Pediatric
> Intensive Care Unit (PICU) for about a month, and
had been intubated -
> on life support. She was not doing well. The doctors
had approached
> mom about taking her off life support the Saturday
before. Mom was
> okay with it, and said that she'd been through so
much and if was her
> time to go she wanted to honor that. So they had
taken her off.
>
> It was Wednesday and she was still alive. Amazing.
The doctors
> approached mom about taking off her oxygen mask. Mom
was supportive,
> and began praying over her daughter. The mother of
another young
> patient who was in the bed next to her began praying
with her.
>
> The nurse practitioner went to the nurses station to
chart that she
> had taken off the oxygen mask. While doing so, she
looked up at the
> security monitor that videotapes the double doors
leading into the
> PICU. It records anyone who may be waiting outside
the doors to get in
> since it is a secure unit. She saw a man standing
there, and it looked
> a little funny to her, so she decided to walk down
the hall to open
> the double doors personally. When she opened them,
no one was standing
> there.
>
> She walked back down to the nurses station to finish
charting,
> assuming he had walked away, but saw him still
standing there on the
> monitor. So she opened the doors with a button near
the nurses station
> and leaned over to see him walk in, but no one was
standing there.
>
> She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring
at this man on
> the monitor and opening the doors to find no one
there. The nurse
> practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on
the monitor and
> said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his
wings!'
>
> They said that the sun starting shining so brightly
and the whole PICU
> was strangely filled with light. They said he was a
tall man and you
> could see wings behind him.
>
> They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the
two praying mothers
> and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor
and opening the
> doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled
out their camera
> phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to
show up on their
> camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera
phone and finally
> got a picture of the angel who was guarding the
doors to the PICU. He
> turned out as a man of light. I have attached the
picture from her
> phone.
>
> The girl was later discharged from the hospital to
go home.
> A Miracle.
>
> This story makes me so grateful for the way that God
reveals himself
> to us, and the how Great He is really is. We have
much to be thankful
> for this holiday. :)
>
>
> --
> Katy L. Field, CCLS
> Certified Child Life Specialist
> Presbyterian Blume Pediatric Hematology and Oncology
Clinic
> Charlotte, NC

And here's the angelic being itself:

Here's a better quality image, I haven't had much luck finding the original security footage but take a look at this pic and tell me what you think.

Now take a long hard look at the blue floor directly underneath the alleged seraphim. Doesn't look all that angelic or even personlike under scrutiny. I bet it'll take you one full second to make that observation.

See it's harder to tell in the ultra grainy cellphone pic that accompanies the email but the high quality version CLEARLY shows not an angel but Windows. That's right, sun shining through the windows.

In another account the details are a little different. Here's a quote to, shall we say, highlight the kicker.

She pulled over another nurse and both stood staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. The nurse practitioner leaned in closely to look at the man on the monitor and said, 'Oh my gosh. That's an angel. You can see his wings!'

They said that the sun starting shining so brightly and the whole PICU was strangely filled with light. They said he was a tall man and you could see wings behind him.

They pulled over all the staff of the PICU and the two praying mothers and everyone was staring at this man on the monitor and opening the doors to find no one there. Crying, everyone pulled out their camera phones to take pictures, but no one could get it to show up on their camera. The mother of the girl pulled out her camera phone and finally got a picture of the angel who was guarding the doors to the PICU. He turned out as a man of light.

Emphasis in the preceding was mine but how hard is it for people to piece this sort of thing together? You people make me sad.

I'll quote Matt for the conclusion:

Matthew: Occam's razor. The sun was out ooooorr

Matthew: Jesus himself rode down on wings of happy to save you insignificant mortal shell

Me: and let a ton of other kids die because he was too busy to get to them

Crazy Sexy Cancer...that's the name of a show.

So the old ball and chain made me sit through the tail-end of this lifetime wanna be show about some ladies and their dealings with breast cancer. It caught my attention because one of the closing arguments of the show was that 'cancer can be a catalyst for something wonderful' or some such hokitude.

In typical Seth fashion I remarked 'It's not the cancer, its the fear of death that motivates people to change' and of course Jonesy told me that one of the girls had already said so.

Boo hoo on that. Fear is a powerful motivator, it certainly starts a lot of people on a path towards jogging. However it is amazing to me how complex fear reactions can become when people and culture mix and mingle at certain densities.

Consider the following problem: Billy gets three dollars a week for allowance. He wants to save up for a bike that costs fifty dollars. however Billy also spends 1 dollar a week buying candy. If he starts with ten dollars how many weeks will go by before he can get the bike? How much faster could he get the bike if he stopped buying candy every week?

Now I didn't bother to actually answer that problem. For one thing word problems always struck me as stupidly simplistic. There are ALWAYS outside variables to consider. Billy might find some cash lying around or pilfer the loose change from his dad's change dish. He could steal some dough or loan out his ten bucks to a weaker kid and charge interest. Maybe he gives up on candy for a few weeks but snaps one day and spends five dollars on candy instead of one. Hell its more likely he'd give up after a while and just buy a shit load of candy to forget about the bike.

All that's just silliness of course. However its interesting to look at a simple money problem and expand it just a little bit. Doing simple dollars and cents arithmetic is a good learning tool for kids but trying to extrapolate some of the more arcane financial complexities? That takes genius, or evil, or probably both.

Fear strikes me as a similar feature of human life. Consider the effects of fear as a survival tool. You see something that can eat you, you run away. Case closed. Well not so fast, there are other things to fear. Hunger, thirst, cold, heat, disease, boredom and [lump of social fears] are all pretty terrifying to most humans.

But like money, fear can become very interesting if we manipulate it just a little. Back to the original example. Maybe you are afraid of something that can eat you. Maybe you're so afraid you just crap yourself and freeze up (thus you get eaten.) Consider still that you are afraid enough to run away and save yourself but the fear remains with you. That eater is still out there somewhere. I must kill it to truly be safe, one might think. Now if you were an ancient human who managed to kill something that could eat you there is also a BONUS!!! Odds are good that the eater was an animal. And animals are made of meat. Meat is food. Food is good.

Now man has the option to gamble with his fear. If he wins, he kills a predator thus protecting himself and getting some nasty carnivore meat. If he loses, the carnivore gets some tasty human meat. So it all balances out.

However the more people that are killing dangerous animals the few animals there are to kill. SO the prey becomes stronger and can multiply more freely. But that means that people need more food. People are afraid to run out of food so they more actively hunt but this still only leaves enough food for a small number of people.

Enter agriculture. Hey guys, some one says. Lets stop chasing these stupid animals around for food. We can just plant this stuff, stay here and keep an eye on it, and we'll have ten times the food we could get otherwise. No doubt some laughed at the early attempts at agriculture. It was probably a gradual enterprise but for this case we'll pretend a group of people tried it and another very similar group did not.

It is tough work growing food. I couldn't do it without hating a good part of my life and something tells me most people couldn't either. But Group A grows their grain and Group B does not. One hundred years later Group A's descendants have become twenty times more numerous that the descendants of group B.

[Human history up to this point]

So that turned out really choppy and I don't even feel like going back to edit it into some semblance of coherent thought. It all made sense in my head but oh well. Next post I will just tell another swimming story.