davebg

Things have been quite rocky the past few months between me and Mrs. DaveBG. We started going to counseling a couple of weeks ago, but so far we've only gone separately. This week we go together for the first time. I'm just rying to get an idea as to how brutal it's going to be.

Mrs. DaveBG was NONE too pleased. Our homework from last week was to have a nice date nite on Sat...dinner, drinks, sex. We did and it was OK...a little awkward at times, but OK. So, this week the doc wanted to do some communication exercise where we're supposed to phrase things like an invitation and the other person responds in a polite manner. He asks one of us to start. Mrs. daveBG had nothing, so I gave it a whirl. I asked/called her out on why she couldn't have dressed all sexy for date nite. First, I started w/the lingere. Mrs. DaveBG: I was wearing nice underwear. DaveBG: Looked like the same beige padded bra you always wear & some new blue panties. May have been nice, but certainly not sexy. Then I got into her not wearing a sexy outfit. Mrs. DaveBG: I wore something nice. DaveBG: I didn't say you didn't wear something nice...I said you didn't wear something sexy. Mrs. DaveBG: What sexy outfit? DaveBG: EXACTLY!!! You don't have/wear any! Mrs. DaveBG: Why should I dress sexy? DaveBG: BECAUSE YOU ARE A WOMAN AND I AM A MAN!!! If you were single in the city and going out on a hot date w/a guy you liked you'd do it, right? Mrs. DaveBG: <makes a face> DaveBG: You are a prude. Doc: I really don't think DaveBG is making an unreasonable request. DaveBG: Yeah, it's not like I asked you to break out the 6 inch stilettos and gimp mask. Doc: Yeah, that's for next time...jk Mrs. DaveBG: Why should I do it...you are so mean to me. Doc: Sorry, you can't answer his invitation w/a condition...that's not how this exercise works. DaveBG: Mrs. DaveBG: Why is it always about what I do wrong...things DaveBG doesn't like? DaveBG: You had an opportunity to bring up something that you don't like about me for this exercise, but you didn't want to, so I took the lead and we're talking about what I want to talk about. You had your chance. Doc: He's right.

I live in a pretty nice condo development in northern NJ right on the Hudson. My place has a balcony (in my case a deck, as I'm on the "ground" floor) like everyone, but I also have a large stone patio that extends off of it. Well, twice now in the last few weeks (since it got really cold) I have found dog sh|t on my patio, which is odd b/c...well...I don't have a dog. Last night I discovered that the lady who moved in about six months ago a couple of floors directly above me has a dog...a big dog. Since she's the only person above me who has a dog, I went up there to alert her to the problem. What a focking weirdo. First thing I do is introduce myself by telling her my name and that I live downstairs. Her reaction? Focking crazy ###### doesn't even tell me her name! When I pressed her about the dog, she told me that it's an old dog and it doesn't always make it outside, but that she tried to "keep up" w/the crap on her balcony. I told her that a balcony is NOT a dog run, nor is it an appropriate place for her dog to use as a toilet. If the dog is so infirmed that it can't make the elevator ride down a few floors, then maybe she should have moved into a place w/a backyard, not a fifth floor condo. I also pointed out that people have seen the dog left out there for extended periods of time, so it's not as if the dog is about to have an emergency and she lets the dog out on the balcony to keep it from making a mess in the elevator. I told her that it had better not happen again or we were going to have a serious problem and that she'd find any future piles of dog sh|t smeared all over the door to her unit. This morning I reported that skank to the management office. WTF is wrong w/people? More to the point, how did this dirty slob afford a place in my development? I guess what they say is true...you can't buy class...either you have it or you don't.

And these muther fockers have the nevre to talk about morals and tell people how to live their lives? Focking pieces of SH|T...ALL OF THEM!

Let me share my craptastic shopping experience with you. On Wednesday evening I placed an order for some holiday gifts at ToysRUs.com. Normally, I am very good about making sure to uncheck the "send me spam" box when ordering online. I guess in my eager anticipation of a Thanksgiving Day of food & family, I missed it. Shortly after placing my order I started getting emails from TRU. In the less than a week since, I have received TWENTY-SIX emails from TRU. Four of them actually pertain to my order. The rest is pure spam. Once I realized what was going on, I logged on to their site and changed my email preferences. The site said it could take up to ten days to process my removal from their spam list. I followed up with calls to customer service and was told the exact same thing. Of course, this isn't due to some technical limitation, as TRU customer service would have you believe. Their spambot started sending me junk within hours of placing my order. It is entirely an automated process. The reason that it takes up to ten days is because TRU made a conscious marketing decision to continue harassing their customers via email...the express wishes of their customers be damned. I thought that TRU was a reputable company to do business with. Apparently, I was wrong. Normally, I find it's best to attribute things to incompetence rather than malice and this is no exception. I don't believe that TRU is doing this to be mean to their customers. I just think they have no damn clue about the internet. Either that or they just don't give a rat's @$$ about their customers. Either way, I'm doing the rest of my holiday shopping at Target.

Apparently, being spam king of the toy world is a long-standing business practice for Toys R Us.

As long as you're switching carriers. Linky

I've been a huge fan of my iPhone. It has been the single greatest device that I have EVAH owned. Unfortunately, because it's tied to AT&T, it has also been the worst cell phone that I've ever owned. So, today I made the switch and ordered the HTC Incredible from Verizon. I will miss the effortless syncing of my iPhone and the games (games on Droid aren't quite where they are on the iPhone.) I also will miss the Retina display on the iPhone4 (the HD screen is the best I've seen in a mobile phone.) However, with the Droid I get to fully customize my phone and because it's on Verizon, I will actually be able to use it as a phone (and finally ditch my land line.) I decided to pay the extra $70 up front for a 1 yr contract instead of 2. So, ten months from now when the iPhone5 is announced I will be getting close to my upgrade date and will have that option open to me. In the meantime, Google gets a year to impress me. The craziest thing about all of these phones is that you literally can't just walk into a store and buy one. They can't get enough screens to make the phones. This weekend, in the NYC area you literally couldn't find an iPhone4, HTC Evo (didn't look that hard b/c I'm not a fan of Sprint), HTC Incredible or Droid X. The Apple store had folks who had a reservation for a phone standing in line. Verizon is promising that the Incredible and the X will ship no later than 8/3. You know, for a country that's in a recession, it's kind of crazy that you can't get your hand on a gadget that costs $200 or more and requires you to commit to thousands of dollars in fees via a 1 or 2 yr contract.

Seen it. The Super AMOLED screen is REAL nice (I might have waited for the Galaxy S on Verizon if it came with more than 2GB internal memory), but it's not HD like the Retina Display on the iPhone4.

Last I checked/synced (before the weekend) I had 150 dropped calls in 111 days.

The retina display screen is the best thing out there, but as long as it's on AT&T I just can't.

Strongly considered the X, but it's too big to be comfortable in my pocket. Plus, I'd have to root it immediately b/c the Moto skin is teh suck.

This reminds me of my first business trip. I was working at my second post-college job and I had the opportunity to go on the road to assist with some training we were giving to a client. The destination? Lovely Newark, DE. Where did I go to college? Lovely Newark, DE.

BUMP for some Monday morning outrage.

Try looking at a map. The SK capital is extremely close to the DMZ. NK has hundreds of guns/cannons/etc that could decimate the city upon any attack/provocation.

That's exactly what Gov Christie did. He cut millions from all corners of the budget, including education. It wasn't pretty or extremely popular, but it had to be done. I admit, I did not vote for Christie. I did not like him during the campaign and, frankly, when he talked of making these huge cuts, I thought he was full of sh|t like any other politician. However, he's proven me wrong. I may not agree with all of his decisions, but I give him major credit for doing his job and trying to fix the mess of a budget that he inherited, as opposed to being a typical politician who's only looking out for his next re-election.

So, about 2 yrs ago when I had my kitchen remodeled, we also installed Pergo laminate flooring in the living & dining rooms. It has not held up well at all. In particular, I have problems near the back of the couch. The couch has plastic nubs on its feet and can sometimes slide around when someone sits down. A few of the boards near the rear legs of the couch have begin to dent and flat-out crack like peanut brittle. So, I contacted Pergo and initiated a warranty claim. They sent out an inspector. They then denied my claim. According to Pergo, the inspector placed the blame for the damage with the plastic nubs on the feet of my couch. Pergo claims that if I had followed the care instructions below, then I would not have had the damage and that, therefore, it is my fault. Now, if we were talking about some scratches or scuffing, I'd agree with Pergo. However, we are talking about boards that are completely broken. I'm not talking about keeping my floor "looking new"...I'm talking about my floor not looking like someone had just started banging away at my floor with a hammer. In effect, Pergo is claiming that their flooring cannot handle the regular wear and tear of people using the furniture that they put on their product without additional protection. Apparently, there needs to be a layer of something (felt protectors) between your furniture and Pergo's flooring products to keep said flooring products from failing miserably. Thankfully, I kept a few boxes of extra flooring, but I'm going to have to pay for a pro to come out and replace the bad boards (and lay out more felt than at a 3rd grade art class.) All in all, a very disappointing result coming from Pergo. Not only would I NEVER use or recommend their products again, but I plan to tell everyone who will listen about my experience and why they shouldn't install Pergo flooring in their home (unless they plan to protect it by covering the Pergo with a rug of felt.) Of course, helpful comments or anyone wanting to cheer me up by bringing the funny are always welcome.

Well, it's not quite so kosher in many other states. The OP showed how the governor in IL is cutting $1.4 billion (which means cuts to various areas that the state pays for) while giving phat raises to his staff. We saw the Governor in NY try the same thing. One minute he's pushing furloughs on state workers and the next he's handing out major raises to his staff and cronies.

They chose the inspector to send out. His report makes absolutely no allegations of abnormal use, other than not having felt protectors on the nubs of the couch legs. Bought all the flooring at Home Depot. There was no packing slip of any kind. I'd be surprised if the warranty information was not on/in the packaging, but we'll see if the "felt tip" care instructions are there as well.

You make some valid points. I have a few of my own for you to consider. Unions are supposed to represent ALL of their members, not just those senior members who have high salaries, pensions and tenure. In this economy all manner of businesses and organizations are having to spend less, including those that employ unionized workers. If there's a finite amount of money then there are only two options: compensate all your workers less or maintain compensation rates while laying off staff. If unions were serious about representing all of their members, then there's really no decision to be made...you protect the jobs of the many. Now, is it fair that these unions negotiated something with politicians who have ridden off into the sunset? No, but what would you have the current politicians in charge do? The state of NJ was facing an $11 BILLION deficit when Christie was elected Governor. Sure, he could have done as his predecessors did and played ball with the unions and, therefore, likely passed the costs further on down the line for some other politician to deal with. He didn't do that. He did what had to be done. It wasn't popular with many people and will definitely cost him just about any support he could have hoped to get from unions during the next election. However, he actually governed and has tried to address the problems that he inherited. I think that many of us have come to the realization that we promised more than we could afford during the boom times. Now that we've recognized the problem, what do we do about it? Continue down the same failed path or actually try to change things?

Well, here in the NY/NJ area we see CRAZY sh|t from all sorts of unions...particularly transit workers. Fockers sleeping on the job while they paid well and get sick benefits. Train conductors that make almost $250k/yr because of OT. Totally nuts. NJ was facing an absurd deficit and the governor actually, you know, governed. He made the tough decisions and made some enemies along the way instead of running the state as though his only focus was his re-election in four years. The unions didn't want to negotiate. Instead, they protested. I actually saw one woman (a teacher) being interviewed at one such anti-gov rally and she had the nerve to complain that for the first time since she's been teaching she actually owed the state taxes. Totally focked up. Even when the union leadership knows better, the union delegates still stir the masses up. In NY the teachers union recently came to an agreement with the city. The deal was done completely behind closed doors. Only the union leadership knew about it. They purposely kept the delegates in the schools out of the loop bc they know what everyone else does...the delegates are the militant nutjobs in the union. They are the ones who whip the members into a fury and they're the ones who don't want to ever give anything back. This is largely bc the union delegates are senior people who only want to keep their salaries as high as possible prior to retirement, which inflates their pension. These senior union delegates also fight tooth and nail to protect things like tenure, so that when there are layoffs they can't be made based upon merit, but rather on seniority. I'm not saying this happens with all unions, but from where I'm sitting, it happens at many of them. IMO unions are an outdated idea that should be restricted to a few limited industries/occupations. For example, those coal miners in PA need unions to ensure that they operate under safe working conditions. School teachers? Train conductors? Notsomuch.

I guess it all depends on your definition of normal wear. I think that I should be able to put a couch on the floor and not have the floor crack and break without applying another material between said couch and floor. I also need to more closely check out one of the boxes of flooring that I still have. That bit about the felt was from their website. I want to see if it's anywhere on/in the packaging. If not, then I fail to see how I could be held to such a requirement.

The last couple of years has really seen a dramatic redistribution of wealth, but not necessarily between the rich and the poor, but rather between the public and private workforce. Private employees are losing jobs, enduring salary freezes, facing reduced benefits and being forced to do the work of their laid-off former co-workers. Meanwhile, public employees are making out like bandits. Government employees, in particular, are seeing an abundance of riches. Public unions are also reaping the rewards of years of "negotiating" phat deals during the boom times while refusing to make any sort of meaningful give-backs to match the sacrifices that everyone else is being forced to deal with in this economy. This situation just cannot keep going. It is economically unfeasible. The costs associated with public employees is paid for by taxes on the salaries of private employees. If the private employees are making less money and losing their jobs, then that represents less tax revenue with which to pay the public sector. For some reason, nobody wants to talk about this or deal with the reality of it all. Here in NJ the gov played hardball with many public unions, including teachers. IMO he didn't ask for anything unreasonable. He wanted a 1 or 2 yr pay freeze and for workers to contribute 1-1.5% towards their benefits. Given what's been going on with the economy, those seemed like fair requests. Instead, the union opposed the changes and hundreds (thousands?) of teachers in NJ lost their jobs. Why? Because the union was more concerned about senior, tenured teachers getting their salaries as high as possible before they retired, as opposed to protecting the jobs of their less senior, untenured members. I guess if you're a union leader you don't have to worry about backlash from the people in your union who got screwed bc they just lost their jobs and are no longer in the union, which means they no longer have a say in the union (or how they were treated by said union.)

Been playing on PS3. Best in-game purchase is the bandanna. Wear it and you can do all the bad stuff you want w/out it messing with your fame meter.