As I sat there and waited, four other patients came in and registered.  Each one of them said that they were there for their 10:30 appointment for the same doctor that I was there to see.  Right away I knew I would be waiting for a while.  It is no wonder that you have to wait so long when you are at a doctor’s office.  There is no way that the doctor could see everyone at 10:30.  So, why do they do that?  Why not schedule to appointments fifteen minutes apart?  Why not have some consideration for your patients?  I sat there for 40 minutes waiting to get in to see the doctor.  I don’t know about you, but I could use that extra forty minutes in my day.

My wife’s hospital visit was worse.  She was scheduled for a routine test.  Her appointment was for 8:30AM at Millard Fillmore Suburban.  We got there ahead of time like we normally do for doctor’s visits.  They ended up taking her in at 10:15, which was almost 2 hours after the time we were scheduled to be there.  That is downright annoying.

And how much worse is it to sit and wait in a hospital waiting room than it is to just show up an hour later when they will actually take you in for your procedure.  The whole process drives me nuts.

I probably shouldn’t complain though.  I remember twenty years ago when I had to go to ECMC for some Xrays or something, it took like 4 hours of sitting and waiting before I got in to get my Xrays done.  At least it isn’t that bad anymore.  Well, maybe it still is that bad at ECMC.  I don’t know.  But, I know that I speak for most Western New Yorkers when I say that sitting and waiting in a doctor’s office or a hospital waiting room just plain sucks.  There is no simpler way to put it.

Kids will be kids.  When an adult catches them acting in a manner that is inappropriate like bullying, then yes they ought to put a stop to it.  Anyone who doesn’t stop it is a sorry excuse for an adult if you ask me.  I really don’t think we need any laws or any new formal policies to handles something that is so ridiculously common and so common sense.

People think that common sense can be legislated through some kind of law or some kind of official policy.  Really?  How stupid do you have to be to be to actually believe that?

You can’t make me not like someone by passing some friggin law.  You cannot make one kid like another one because of some school policy.  It isn’t going to happen.  You people who think that it will make a difference should all be put into a room where I can come in and belittle all of you like a big bully.  I can come in and call you the names you deserve to be called by being whiny little babies.  You don’t think it’s fair that your kid has to learn to cope with the basic realities that life is not all hugs and kisses.   Kids are going to be mean and nasty to each other when nobody is looking.  Teach your kid to deal with it.  There are far worse things that are going to happen to them in life than this.

How To Stop Bullying

If your child is being bullied, you should call the school principle and voice your concerns to them.  Tell him or her that you are teaching your kid how to kick the other kid’s ass.  Let them know that you are giving your kid the green light to do it too.  Tell them that you are no longer requiring your kid to just sit and take it. 

Tell your kid that the next time this bully acts out against him that he should tell the bully that this is his last chance to stop.  Of course the other kid won’t.  So then your child should go punch the other one directly in the face repeatedly as fast and as hard as possible.  That will shut the other kid up.  Bullies have a tendency to back down when someone actually challenges them.  When your kid goes apeshit on the bully he is going to earn newly found respect from everyone in his class.  That will give him back all the self esteem plus some that he has let the bully take from him up till now.

The Big Picture About Bullying

The fact that there is such bad bullying happening today is due to the fact that parents do not raise their kids with as many moral standards as they used to.  Kids used to be brought up going to church and being taught not to do things like bullying.  These days less and less kids are going to church.  It is not so much the fact that they don’t go to church.  Not going to church is just a reflection of the fact that kids’ manners have been moved lower in the average parent’s priority scale.  Kids are more spoiled than ever before.  By their own parent’s example they are being taught that material things are extremely important.  They simply aren’t being taught to respect each other the way they should be.  That is the root of the problem.

So now you want to blame the bully’s parents right?  Yeah.  Well it is their fault.  But, it is also your fault for not doing enough to make sure that your school teaches moral values to kids in addition to reading, writing and arithmetic.  You have not done enough to let your lawmakers know that having kids taught moral values in school is important to you.  You continue voting for people who think that all morality should be taken out of schools completely.  It is as much your own damn fault as it is anyone else’s.  Stop electing the piece of crap liberals who think kids should not be exposed to moral teachings in school.

You want bullying to stop for your kid?  Send them to one of the great local area Catholic schools.  Those schools still believe that common values and respect for fellow man should be taught as part of any responsible school curriculum.

For starters:

Winning a football game is not about the stats at the end of the game.  It is about winning momentum throughout the game.  It is about scoring at the end of drives instead of punting or turning the ball over.  It is about forcing the other team into punting situations or turning the ball over.

In my opinion this game was lost when the Bills opted to kick that field goal on their opening drive.  I would almost never say that in a game.  But, you knew and I knew that the Bills were not going to win this one unless they got the momentum and kept it.

You don’t win the momentum by kicking a field goal.  Field goals are for games that you expect to be close or for teams who already have a comfortable lead against an opponent.  The sick thing is that Buffalo had the momentum during that opening drive.  They were running the ball exceptionally well and pounding it down the throat of the New England defense.  The momentum was building and building.  Then they decided to throw the ball to an inexperienced receiver (unfortunately there aren’t any experienced receivers to throw to) who failed to drag his feet to the sideline even though he had practiced it again and again and again since playing high school football.

Kicking that field goal at the end of that drive was accepting that you were okay with the Patriots outscoring you.  It was exactly what Dick Jauron would have done.  If you are going to take a chance on fourth down, that is the place to do it.  You don’t take that chance when it is forth and twelve when you are down 14-3.  That is when you should have kicked the field goal.

So far I pretty much like everything Chan Gailey is doing except for his play calling.  I can forgive him for kicking that original field goal when it was still zero to zero.  Most people would have also kicked there and told me that I was nuts for wanting to go for it.  I cannot accept his decision to go for it later in the first half when it was fourth and twelve from the Patriot’s 32 yard line.  Kick the field goal and make it a one score game again.  Why are you going for it there when you didn’t go for it on the opening drive?

As far as Stevie Johnson goes, he lost me as a fan.  I want someone with better hands period.  I don’t have time for this crap.  You are paid to catch the ball.  If you can’t catch, what the hell are you doing here?  You have got to be able to go over the middle, catch the ball and hang onto it.  What good is a guy who can’t be relied on to catch the ball?  This guy will cost the Bills a playoff game if the Bills ever make the playoffs ever again.  Nelson on the other hand catches every damn thing thrown his way.  The only ball be dropped was one where he took a hit that knocked him out of the game.  Nelson should be starting over Johnson.

We knew the Bills’ defense would have a hard time stopping the Patriots offense.  Brady is too damn good.  That is why momentum meant everything in this game.  Once you lose momentum and give it to the Patriots you are done.  They will cut your throat, slap you in the head and kick you in the groin when you are on the ground.  If you can’t get a pass rush on Brady you are not going to win period.  I don’t care who his receivers are.  I don’t care who they have in the back field.  Brady will beat you by himself if his offensive line does their job.  In this case Brady didn’t have to do squat.  The Patriots ran all over Buffalo as did most other teams this year.

People are going to blame this game on Ryan Fitzpatrick because of the turnovers.  Yes a large part of this is probably his fault.  He can still play for me though.  That guy gave 110% despite the outcome of that game.  Some of the mistakes he made were because he was trying to force something to make a big play.  It all went against him today.  I would rather lose a game with a guy who fights like that than lose a game because someone like Randy Moss took a play off.

Take away the turnovers and the Bills still lost this one in my opinion. Until you can stop the run, you are going to be a lousy football team.

That crappy ending to the home season sure isn’t going to help season ticket sales.  Count me in though for another year of Sunday abuse in 2011.   Eventually the odds have to come back around our way.  Don’t they?

Another thing convincing people to stay home is the price of simple things that you almost take for granted at a football game or any sporting event for that matter.   We have been bitching about beer prices for years now.  A cheap beer at the stadium is eight bucks.  You can pay more than that depending on which stand you go to and what kind of beer you want.  I think the eight dollar beer is Miller (but don’t quote me on that).

As you probably guessed by the title of this post, six dollar hotdogs, my main beef this past week was the price of a friggin hotdog.  Give me a break.  During the preseason (for kids day) the Bills sell hotdogs for a buck apiece.  During the regular season, they sell foot long dogs for six bucks.  Really!  Six bucks for a friggin hotdog? Wow how things have gotten out of whack.

At those prices it is no wonder that the lines are really (really) small for concessions.  When I started going to games twenty some years ago, the lines for beer were a mile long.  You also could not get food without a substantial wait.  People would actually pay you money to let them in line in front of you.  Now, things are different.  An awful lot of the time now, there are more workers behind the counter than there are people in line to buy concessions.

My wife and I buy a large sub from our local deli every Sunday morning before the game.  We also buy some munchies.  That stuff gets packed in a travel bag along with some beer and other adult beverages.  We typically tailgate along with some other friends and relatives before the game.  The stadium food is decent quality, but at those prices we won’t be buying too many of their concessions.

I know that this kind of thing just happens.  It just pisses me off that the city is so damn dirty that this kind of thing is more common than it should be.  I wish the scumbags who are responsible for littering and turning that part of the city into a shit-hole would grow up and act like adults.  Pick up after yourself you worthless shitheads.

Take some friggin pride in your neighborhood for Christ’s sake.   Just look at what has happened to the majority of the city over the last fifty years.  All those old neighborhoods where families used to live in tight communities have been neglected by the people living there.  The gangs and scumbags have taken over a lot of those neighborhoods.  Those neighborhoods all look like ghettos now.

It really doesn’t matter which side of the city you are on either.  Every side has its own shit-hole.  Some are bigger than others.  Still, the vast majority of people who actually give a shit about their property have moved farther and farther out to get away from it all.

When you are driving around the city pay attention to the condition of the vehicles.  Notice how many dents you find in the vehicles.  Accidents happen, but they happen a lot more frequently in the city.   I think that a lot of that stems from the same carelessness that you see in the housing.

The city’s solution is to bulldoze the old homes and make way for new housing.  Do you really think that is the fix though?  Isn’t the long term fix really to somehow get people to start caring about their own environment?  Let’s see how those new housing developments that have been government funded end up in a few more years.  Maybe these residents do care and will take better care of those homes.  There is also a good chance that those people will be driven out of the city just like their predecessors.

I don’t have any idea how the city intends to go about attracting people to live there who actually care about their environment.  One drive around the city’s limits will change their minds.  It is a real shame that you can find hundreds of thousands of people living in a region who couldn’t give a shit about their neighborhood.

If I saw a plastic bottle or broken glass on the street in front of my house, I would pick it up.  I wouldn’t leave it for someone else because I know that nobody else is going to pick it up.  As far as I am concerned the city of Buffalo has become one giant garbage dump.  Carelessness breeds more carelessness.  I wonder if we will ever get to be the caliber of an area that will ever produce another United States president.  It doesn’t look like it at the rate we are going.  Isn’t it amazing how so much can change in just a couple generations?

You can’t automatically expect, presume or assume that everyone else loves animals as much as you do, nor is it any of your damn business whether they do or not.  As far as the lady goes with the horses that were portrayed as being so badly abused, the horses did not look badly abused to me.  They are farm animals after all.  They grew up sleeping in horseshit.  They grew up smelling horseshit their whole lives.  They are used to horseshit being stuck to their bodies.  I can assure you that if the horses could speak and you asked them about the horse manure, they would tell you that it really is no big deal.  In fact, not only is it not a big deal, they probably aren’t even aware of the fact that there is shit stuck to them.

Ask any kid who grew up on a dairy farm in the country about the smell of cow shit and how much it bothers them.  They will tell you that you get used to it and it is no big deal.  It is part of life growing up on a dairy farm.  Horses getting shit stuck to them and having to sleep in their own feces is part of growing up a horse.  I am sorry if you think that is abusive, but I think it is pretty normal to a horse.  I think a judge with any common sense whatsoever would also agree, especially any judge with experience in farming.

Another fact to consider is that older people also have a different outlook than we of a younger generation do.  I can’t help but think of when I was a kid.  Farmers would not hesitate to get a gun and put a 12 gauge slug into the vitals of a stray dog that was running loose on their property.  That includes little old church going grandmothers.  They would also not hesitate to kill them even though it was probably someone’s beloved pet.  (In case you can’t tell, I grew up in the country)  This was part of life.  Dogs were not to be trusted.   Nobody ever got reprimanded for it.  You knew that if your dog went and visited the neighbors farm, there was a really good chance it wasn’t coming back.  Those old farmers would exceptionally good marksmen.

When we had a pet dog growing up, that dog spent its entire life sleeping in a dog house outside.  So did grandma’s dogs.  That dog was loved and cared for, but it was never treated as well as one of us kids, nor do I think it ever should have been.  We would turn it loose and play with it outside on nice days, but living in that doghouse was its reality.  After all, it was a dog.  Isn’t that why they invented the dog house?  What did the dog eat?  It ate table scraps and dog food.  After all, it was a dog.

The point I am trying to make here is that I think reasonable people put all pets below humans on their priority scale.  Some people will put them at the very bottom of that scale.  Some will put them higher above most other things in terms of their importance in the grand scale of life.  I love animals too, but I obviously put them much farther down the scale of importance than you obviously do.  When I see a dead animal, I feel sorrow for the pet owner, but very little for the pet itself.  I don’t like to see an animal suffer but I would euthanize one before I would pay a $1000 vet bill.  That is right.  I put $1000 above the value of a pet’s life.  Call me cold hearted.  I call it being a practical person who has his priorities right.  I could care less if your animal’s value is $1 or $10,000,000.  That is your call.    Just don’t expect me to put the same value as you do.  That is my judgment to make, not yours.

People have different perspectives and priorities that we need to consider and respect.  This lady who was arrested for animal cruelty was in tears over the death of her dogs.  Was it a stupid thing to do?  Yes, of course it was.  Should she have been arrested for it?  I hardly think so.  In my mind that is obvious abuse of power over a citizen who caused no harm to another citizen.  Was it irresponsible?  Yes, without a doubt.  I think that those tears on her face were penalty enough as far as I am concerned.  How would you like it if you got arrested for every irresponsible thing you have done in your life?  Yea, I thought so.  You probably have done far worse things than neglect your pets in your lifetime, and you got away with it.  Yeah.  How about your early drinking years when you got behind the wheel after a couple too many beers?  I bet you did that more than once or twice.  How about that first time you smoked that doobie with your buddies?  Yeah, how would that look having a permanent police record for something like that?  This lady is balling her eyes out because she knows the death of her dogs is her own fault.  Leave her be.  She will not repeat this mistake.  The laws in this country and this state are out of hand and you seemingly innocent people who think you are doing everyone a favor are really adding to the problem.

It is Friday and I heard Tom say on his show that he doesn’t claim to be an angel.  Really Tom?  Sounds to me like you are talking out of both sides of your mouth. 

Tom, I like your apparent stance on political issues which I happen to agree with almost entirely.  But, sticking your nose into these people’s business like this just because animals are not as high of priority in their lives could not be any more liberal.  Your whole stance on this issues screams that you are a raging liberal on this issue.  You lost major wisdom points in my book pal.  You call yourself a Tea Partier?  Really?  How about you let people live their lives their way and butt the hell out if it doesn’t affect you.   Isn’t that what this tea party movement is all about.   You claim to want the government out of our lives and yet you support stiff laws against people who neglect a friggin dog?

I am so infuriated by this issue that I am seriously considering stopping all future contributions to the SPCA.  I thought we were helping out a good organization.  After seeing them stick their noses into matters like these farther than I think any person has a right to, I have to reconsider my previously undying support for their organization.  Maybe that money isn’t supporting the kinds of things I thought it was. 

It is great that you love animals.  It is great that you do what you can to help abandoned animals.  However, it is completely irresponsible for you to stick your nose into these people’s lives in the way that you have with the horse lady and this lady with the dead dogs.  It was wrong of you to make the accusations and assumptions that you have without considering the obvious fact that these people have the human right to set their own priorities in life when it comes to how much they care about the animals they own.  Stop assuming we all should and that we all ought to treat animals as well as we treat our brethren. 

I encourage you all to travel out into the country and take a damn good look around a real farm.  (You know, the places where that packaged food in the supermarket comes from.)  How about a little common friggin sense on this issue?  If you really loved animals that much Tom, I can assure you that you would be a vegetarian.  Go visit a slaughterhouse for Christ’s sake.   How could you possibly take the stance on these issues that you have and not be completely appalled at what goes on every single day in the life cycle of every single farm animal.  Come back to reality, would you please?  Animals are animals and should be treated as such.  It is sad when they are mistreated.  People should be encouraged not to mistreat them.  But, that is as far as it should go.  They are animals after all.

From everything I know about the horse issue, I am glad to see the horses were returned to their owner.  That is the common sense thing to do whether you nosy do-gooders like it or not.  I applaud the judge for standing for liberty.

They make it out to be like they are trying to be helpful.  In fact, they aren’t trying to be helpful.  They are trying to monetize your typo by getting you to click on advertisements.  In my opinion that is just taking advantage of someone for your own profit.  I am a hardcore capitalist.  So I don’t begrudge a company its profit.  This is just idiocy though. 

It takes about 5 seconds for the Time Warner computer to return your page that shows you that you have made a typo.  This is the part that pisses me off.  Before they used to do this, you would get the infamous “Page Cannot Be Displayed” message.  But, that message would come up almost instantly when Time Warner’s DNS server found there was no such myreallybadtypo.com website.

I never considered how to fix this recently until I heard that Google was publishing a set of public DNS server addresses that anyone could use.  I changed the settings on my computer.  Holy bajesus am I pleased.

Not only do I no longer get that incredibly stupid page from Time Warner, my page load speeds have gone way up.  That means I am navigating the internet at much faster speeds than I was before.  And, it is all free.  Kick ass!  I am a huge fan of free things that actually rock!

Thank you Google.  Click on that link to see more about Google’s public DNS.

I really don’t have many nice things to say about Time Warner.  The amount of bandwidth you get is pretty good.  Their latency to some major websites is crappy.  Their DNS is crappy.  Their reliability is crappy.  I wish that FIOS would come to this neighborhood.

I like having the extra bandwidth that I get over a standard Verizon DSL connection.  But aside from that………………..

I also have a low level password for things that don’t matter a whole heck of a lot, like my accounts at social bookmark websites or my accounts at other social media sites.  The way that I see it is if something gets compromised on there, then I will just create a new account.  I think the incentive for hackers to crack those accounts is pretty low.  It really wouldn’t be a big issue unless someone had a really trusted account with tons of followers who marched in unison to their every request.

Then I have some mid level passwords.  Those are the passwords for sites that are important to me and would be a pain if they were compromised somehow.   Maintaining lists of passwords is a necessary pain in the rear.  Even if you use a program to save them, you still need a master backup.

The whole point of this post though was to rant about something that bothers me.  An awful lot of the time, I will go to create an account at some website and the password I want to use is not within their guidelines for passwords.  This is completely infuriating.  The passwords I use are pretty long.  I do this on purpose to make it even harder for brute force password crackers to figure mine out.  It is going to take a computer a number of years to crack my better passwords.  I usually change them within that time frame anyway.

The infuriating part is the fact that my higher security passwords are declined on some of these websites.  The company actually has the nerve to tell me that my password cannot be longer than 15 characters.  Screw you pal.  I like long passwords.  You guys are idiots for not accepting them.  As far as I am concerned, there should be a much higher threshold on password length.  There should also be more flexibility in terms of what you can put in there.

I skipped out on a service for a website that I like to visit that is called Intense Debate.   Basically it is a script that some bloggers use to monitor their comments.  You have to log into the system if you want to comment with your name.  Otherwise, you just comment as a generic guest.  Nobody gets to see your link back to your website if they are really interested in your opinions.  I skipped out on this because the dumbass service requires that your password be 15 characters or less.   The password I wanted to use was a few more than that. I just wasn’t in the mood for this bullshit today.  I whipped the bird at my computer screen and took that person’s blog off my reading list.  I am no longer a subscriber.

People are fickle.  I guess I am too.  This blogger probably thought he was doing something great when he decided to use that particular service for his blog.  Well pal, you lost one reader because of their stupid password insecurity.  This isn’t the only service this has happened with.  There are a lot of them out there.  I have just gotten to the point where I am fed up with companies not taking reasonable measures to make it easy for people to participate in things that the companies pretend to want participation in.  If you actually want people to comment on your site, you should probably make it easy for them to do so.  I was willing to sign up for intense debate so I could comment on that site.  But, the second inconvenience of having to come up with a new low value password that I would have to record specifically for a rare service like this one was a deal breaker for me.

Everybody acts like some evil guy working at BP knew that this drilling was going to lead to an explosion and he did it anyway.  That is utterly ridiculous.  I am quite sure that the man in charge did not think that there was going to be this massive accident.  If he did, he most certainly would have stopped the project.  There is no doubt that no one wanted to see those 11 people lose their lives.  Speaking of which, how come we don’t hear about that anymore?  All we hear about is how the leak is gushing thousands of gallons and how the government is responding to it.

It is becoming just like after hurricane Katrina where all of these people blamed the federal government for not responding faster.  They blamed the government for not somehow stopping the damage caused by the hurricane.  This is just ridiculous.  Now people are blaming the government for not stopping the oil leak.  It is as if people think that the government can wave a magic want and make everything better.  What a bunch of retards.

Governments are essentially worthless in times like this.  They weren’t designed to handle problems like this.  Nor are they capable of doing so.  Getting the government involved in this is like asking your grandmother to fix your computer when it blue screens while booting to Windows.  It is ridiculous to even ask for their help.

This whole issue is just another political football that will be used to drive a wedge deeper into American society.  People will choose sides over this issue.  How did we get so far off track as a people?  Can’t we just admit that sometimes bad shit happens?  Let’s just fix it and move on instead of worrying about who has to become a scapegoat.

If consumer confidence improves enough in the US where people start committing to large ticket purchases, companies will begin hiring again.  If companies begin hiring again, the economic problems we are facing right now will begin to fade.

In most countries in Europe, government taxation is a very big drag on the economy.  The people also tend to work fewer hours per week.  There is also a lot less manufacturing.  All of these things are more links in the chain that is going to keep Europe shackled for the next decade.  Unfortunately, the US is not immune to problems in Europe.  The worse their economy gets, the worse our economy gets.  The world is flat and very much interdependent.

The United States economy is much more elastic and much more resilient than other economies in the world.  If need be, the United States can monetize its way out of its debt problems.  Hopefully that doesn’t happen.  If it does though, you had better own gold or something else that doesn’t lose its value.

If people in the US don’t wake up and start holding politicians accountable for overspending, the United States will soon be in the exact same boat as Europe.  Then we will not be able to get ourselves out of messes like this.