Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time

A new poll finds Governor Paterson’s approval rating in New York fell 6 points to 51 percent (via). So far I have not had a favorable opinion of his job as Governor either. Part of that is I do not believe he is holding to the core principles of the Democratic party of which he claims to be affiliated with. It really looked like things were on the upswing when Spitzer started office. Then his Wall Street enemies forced his embarrassing removal from office and we got stuck with a seeming right-wing republican in democrats clothing. I think the biggest problem I have with the Governor is that he is being one-sided in his requests for cuts. You can’t expect the working class to consider taking cuts when he refuses to even consider tapping the ‘rainy day’ fund and taxing the wealthy. I believe that those three areas together could achieve a well planned and equitable solution to these budget woes. But by insisting that those least able to shoulder cuts bear the entirety of the cuts is unconscionable. I hope he sees (no pun intended) the error of his plans and seeks a more equitable solution in the future.

….because I can’t stop laughing. Here are highlights from the train-wreck that is NY government. Instead of getting anything done they apparently sat around a table and traded jabs for the reporters and TV. I heard the special session cost taxpayers approximately $40,000. I want my money back.

When did NY politics enter the twilight zone? We have Democrats calling for massive cuts that will force the working class to shoulder the burden of bad economic times, and then we have Republicans refusing to cut funding to education and health care. WTF?

So for this edition of Tuesday Tunes I figured I’d do a Prince expo. If you hadn’t guessed it, I got the title for my Sunday Fun from a Prince song (see yesterday’s post). I’ve been a Prince fan since I first saw the movie Purple Rain in the mid 80′s and got the soundtrack soon after. What an awesome musician! Following are a few of my favorite Prince songs that are available online and aren’t the standard Prince songs you usually hear on the radio, well except for maybe Kiss;)

And if there was any question as to Prince’s musical ability check him out in this George Harrison tribute:

And if you have a spare 18 minutes, check out this super long video:

Do you have a routine? Do you get all messed up when your routine is interrupted or altered? I do.

This morning Karen was giving a training, so I stayed home with the girls. Gillian is feeling better so she went to school today, something I was not anticipating. So I wound up feeling very flustered this morning. And I still haven’t felt like I’ve gained my equilibrium yet. It’s not that I’m not flexible about things, but I am a creature of habit and when my routine is changed it really takes me a long time to adjust.

And of course it wouldn’t be complete without a LOLCat.

more animals

One of our local radio stations has already switched to their 24 hours of Christmas music. This is the earliest they’ve started, usually it is closer to Thanksgiving when they switch. It seems like every year the “Christmas season” is starting earlier and earlier. The one thing that always seems weird about the whole 24 hours of Christmas music thing is that after more than a month of it you kind of get used to it and then BAM on December 26 they’re back to playing regular Pop music like nothing has changed. It’s like, couldn’t they wean us off, maybe a few Pop songs interspersed with Christmas until it is all Pop?

I wonder if the rush to Christmas is a capitalist response to the economic downturn? Are stores hoping that we will all be good consumers and start spending now instead of waiting until after Thanksgiving?

My Neon is averaging 23 miles per gallon doing nothing but local driving. I imagine it will get even better on the highway.

Edit: Just checked it out online, 22/29 are the estimates. (via)

New York State is undergoing a serious financial meltdown and Gov. Paterson is demanding that the working families of New York shoulder the burden while the wealthy enjoy their bailout. I don’t understand how someone who calls himself a Democrat does not see that only cutting services and hurting the working class while coddling the wealthy will not allow wealth to trickle down and bring back our economy.

A coalition of groups, including UUP, has released a press release, which you can read here. I think it is a good response to the looming cuts. I particularly liked this quote from Alan Lubin, executive vice-president of NYSUT and Bruce Ventimiglia, President and Chief Executive Officer of Saratoga Capital Management, LLC : Co- Chairmen : BALCONY : The Business and Labor Coalition of New York:

The Wall Street Meltdown was not created by working men and women and they must not be forced to bear the brunt of New York State’s Budget Crisis. Destruction of the public workforce, schools, state services and health care would leave our state with a terrible economy, hasten our decline and dramatically impact the ability of small businesses to survive. The state must be more realistic in its solutions to repair the budget shortfalls. Just as the federal government has moved quickly to support the financial sector with almost a trillion dollars, so too must Washington provide the assistance necessary for New York State and other states

I was going to write about something completly different today, but after reading this article I decided to switch topics. Go ahead and read it, I’ll be here when you get back.

If you didn’t feel like reading the article, just a quick synopsis – some guy is suing classmates.com for false advertising. This reminded me of when I received my high school alumni directory. What a printed piece of useless information. All it had was 10 year old addresses in it. It was completely worthless. Many moons ago I had signed up for a classmates.com account, but that too is pretty lame unless you pay for a membership. But even then would it be worth it? Probably not back then and certainly not (in my opinion) now in the days of MySpace, Facebook, and LinkedIn.

I’ve reconnected with many old school friends, both high school and college, through Facebook and am quite happy with its clean interface (yes I am one of the dastardly people who likes the new Facebook layout). Why Facebook and not MySpace? Mainly because I hate being blinded by the crappy themes that MySpace allows its users to setup. Also the fact that Facebook emails me actual information of which I can then log into Facebook at my convenience to respond. MySpace just emails a generic message which then forces me to log in to see what it going on. Actually I don’t, I haven’t logged onto MySpace in forever. The only reason I leave it up is so if someone wants to find me they can and since I have links to my blog there they will know where to find me.

Another advantage of Facebook is that I can ignore all of the stupid applications. I would rather they didn’t exist, since I find them too MySpacey but at least I can ignore the super-pokes and the vampires and all the other crap. That would be one advantage to LinkedIn. It doesn’t pretend to be anything other than a way to form business connections. So even though they opened up to developers there will be no throwing hearts at people or other ridiculous things. However, more people are on Facebook and so there I am too. Which leads me back to Classmates. Why pay for something that is inferior to the free product where all my friends are anyway?

So, what do you use?