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Gov. Pawlenty, now you fucked up.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

It doesn’t surprise me that once again our government fails to actually make change on what matters, but then institute yet another law to save people from themselves. I was driving back from camping and the news on the radio said that he vetoed a bill to streamline the voter registration process, he vetoed a bill to provide medicinal marijuana to terminally-ill patients in Minnesota, and then signed a bill to allow law enforcement to pull someone over simply for not wearing a seatbelt.

As you can imagine, hearing those three things pissed me off. Clearly Pawlenty has no idea that he represents citizens of the state of Minnesota but instead thinks he was voted in by law enforcement and he should represent their interests. Maybe he even thinks he is law enforcement. More on that later.

So I decided I am going to take the only possible response to someone this ignorant, even if he won’t get it. I am going to cite fact and logical reasoning.

The first bill he shot down was one that would automatically register someone to vote in Minnesota when they apply for a drivers license or state ID. According to Secretary of State Mark Ritchie, this process would have streamlined the process for voters, saved time and money for local governments that process voter registrations, and it would reduce the number of Election Day registrations as much as 75 percent. According to Rep. Steve Simon, the sponsor of the bill in the house, this would have improved the accuracy and integrity of the records by allowing the Secretary of State have access to Social Security death records and by and requiring more extensive reporting on felons who aren’t allowed to vote.

This bill sounds like it would reduce bureaucracy for the average citizen and ensure we have a more accurate voting system at the same time. It also proactively addresses the issue of accuracy in our voting system by requiring reports be sent to the Secretary of State by agencies monthly with information about citizenship, felons, guardianship, and change of name.

So why did Pawlenty veto this?

Although there are some worthy provisions in this bill, registering to vote should be a voluntary, intentional act. Changes to election law should also be accomplished on a bipartisan basis. This bill does not reflect bipartisan support.

Really?

Voting is a voluntary, intentional act, just like vetoing. If our citizens are registered automatically, it empowers more people to vote. On Election Day people still decide whether to voluntarily and intentionally vote. And since this bill was favored by Democrats we get a two sentence ramble about bipartisanship, which is double the amount of sentences he gave us for a “reason.”

Pawlenty, if you are going to veto something that makes perfect sense, your reasoning needs to also make perfect sense. Nothing you stated is a factual reason why this bill was vetoed. You voluntarily and intentionally vetoed this bill, but you chose not to share an actual reason why.

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Senate passes budget-minus marching band

Thursday, May 28, 2009

We were cleaning out a lot of stuff in the music department today when we came across what little remains of the college’s marching band. Inside of one of the helmets I found an entire Student Voice from September 30, 1971 taped inside, with the top headline reading “Senate passes budget-minus marching band”

It says:

The 1971-1972 Student Activities Budget was approved by the Student Senate at their Wednesday meeting, however, missing from the budget is the University Marching Band.

The vote was seven to two with four abstentions for the resolution authored by Louis Rideout excluding the marching band. Rideout argued that the marching band was placed in the budget after the spring deadline. Rideout stated Senate policy not to add or make major changes in the budget after the spring approval.

Rideout then argued that in the budget there is an allocation to the music department, thus a duplication since the marching band is also under that department.

He asked the senators to consider priorities: To have a “showcase college” at the expense of such programs as human relations; which he argued needed expansion because of the increase numbers of minority students attending the university.

Support was expressed by Senator Jim Pendowski, as he accused University President George Field of starting the marching band then letting its future funding slide onto the laps of the Senate.

Senate President Randy Nilsestuen voted against the action. Asked after the meeting why he voted negatively he replied that the marching band is a legitimate student activity that should have been funded in part with activities money. It’s a worthwhile activity because it involves a large number of students, students that might have normally gone home on weekends, he added.

He also recalled when the idea of a marching band first came up before the Senate they approved it. He commented those Senators couldn’t have been that shortsighted to not see approval would eventually mean Senate bearing part of the band expense.

If the allocation had been accepted as part of the budget it would have been a $2,200 item. This would have covered one proposed trip and instrument maintenance.

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Ticketmaster tries the semantics game…

Sunday, May 3, 2009

Apparently now it is acceptable to evade whatever laws you want as long as you can rename an object into something the law doesn’t apply to. In this case the customer had a $50 gift card, but Ticketmaster won’t honor it, even though the customer resides in the state of California, and by law the gift card can’t expire.

I can just imagine some executives sitting in a board room wondering what they do so they don’t have to cut a percentage of their already overinflated salary. It must have went something like this:

Executive #1: “All we need to do is call them discount cards, that way we can legally make them expire and fuck people out of their money so we can still get ours!!!”

Executive #2 from very far inside Executive #1’s ass: “Sounds good! We do need to put food on the table, and this is just the only way to do it!”

And here we are.

Too bad the gift card says “$50 GIFT CARD.”

Fuck off Ticketmaster.

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They rape you no matter what…

Monday, April 27, 2009

Apparently it is necessary to pay $700 for a purse so you will be popular, because shit like that wasn’t enough when you were in high school.

However, when you pay a ridiculous amount for something like that, you have every right to get what you payed for, in the correct size and everything. Apparently that is too much of a challenge for Louis Vuitton. They shipped a customer a size that cost $25 less then the size she ordered, but when she attempted to return it they claimed it had been used. Their proof? A hair that was inside the bag. But they won’t comment on what color or length the hair was. Or give her the right bag.

It’s one thing to make a mistake, it’s quite another to pretend like your shit doesn’t stink when it clearly does and lie like a 2-year-old. Louis Vuitton is yet another stunning example of corporate greed. Welcome to the Bullshit Corporation List!

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Quotes of Wisdom

Monday, April 13, 2009

Found while I was on a random internet forum (Joe is a moderator…):

“Joe does take the emoticons the wrong way, so I think we all should respect his wishes of not using them when responding to something he says.”

Really?

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Upcoming Performances

Friday, April 10, 2009

If you are in the River Falls area and want to see me in my last series of concerts at UWRF, here is when I’m performing next:

New Music Ensemble: Tues. April 14
Percussion Ensemble: Thurs. April 16
Jazz Ensemble: Sat. April 18
Honors Recital: Sun. April 19
Brass Ensemble: Wed. April 22 (5:00 PM)
Senior Recital: Tues. May 5
Trumpet Studio Recital: Sun. May 10 (5:00 PM)

All performances are 7:30 PM and in Abbott Concert Hall unless noted otherwise.

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Updates

Sunday, March 8, 2009

I am well into the full swing of my last semester at UWRF. I found out about a week before classes started that I had to take one more science class. It turns out that even though I transferred with an Associates degree, since I have an Associates in Fine Arts and not just in Arts, UWRF won’t automatically waive all generals (even though I have seen it done for a previous student with the same degree, 1 point for consistency!) “AFA and other Associates degrees are not acceptable as they do not have the broad Liberal Arts Education as an AA Degree does.” Really? We waste enough time with classes we don’t need already. I am a music major, but apparently to make my education “broad” enough I have to take a freshman level geography class. Waste of time.

I am waiting to hear back about audition results for grad school. Either I made it or I didn’t, and I am very excited for the future. If I don’t make it I am thinking about spending another year in River Falls just working and practicing. I would easily stay another year in a town where your average bar tab is less then $15 for a lot of alcohol and crime is pretty much non-existent.

Lars Jansson came back for a concert as a guest artist, and what a memorable concert that was. Everybody sacrificed a large amount of time to pull everything together in a very short amount of time, and in the end it was completely worth it. The end crowns the work.

Now the focus is on several upcoming performances. I have several concerts for ensembles that each present their own challenge, and at the very end of the semester is my senior recital. I intentionally scheduled it close to the end of the semester so that I have plenty of time to refine a large list of things. I just need to commit to staying focused and remembering why I enjoy doing this in the first place.

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Digital camera ships with virus, Fisher-Price could care less

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Working retail, and specifically working the return desk, gives me a lot of insight into the quality control standards companies have for their products. Usually, if there is a problem, it’s isolated and really no big deal because it is a fluke. However a company sometimes completely fucks up their quality control standards, often because someone just didn’t pay attention. This seems to be the case down in the land of Fisher-Price.

The camera in question is the Kid-Tough model, which apparently has been shipping with viruses preloaded in the memory. This is much more than an isolated issue as a Google search shows several stories about this happening. OK, shit happens, but the true test of a company is how they recover from a mistake.

Fisher-Price’s solution appears to be that you can send the camera into them and you will get a replacement in about a month. This is a kid’s model, do you really think this is feasible? Apparently their offices are all closed for the holidays this week so they conveniently won’t be able to comment. According to one user, he contacted them on December 11, so there was definitely plenty of time for Fisher-Price to do the right thing. Although I’m sure they were banking on the fact that several people wouldn’t even notice. Now we have another company that puts their bottom line ridiculously ahead of the service it provides to its customers.

Is anyone else getting sick of the lack of accountability in major corporations?

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The masses will believe anything you tell them…

Tuesday, November 11, 2008

We’ve all seen the Lifelock commercials featuring CEO Todd Davis and his social security number. He claims that his company will protect you from identity theft and also remove you from junk mail lists. And if someone were to happen to still steal your identity, they have a $1,000,000 guarantee. It’s “so good” that topconsumerreviews.com states:

If you are concerned about identity theft, LifeLock will put your mind at ease. By taking the steps necessary to protect your identity, LifeLock provides a strong defense against identity thieves.

As part of their identity theft “prevention” they provide the following services:

      Send fraud alert notification to the credit bereaus- This places an Initial Security Alert on your credit report for 90 days. When potential creditors process a credit application to your name, they are required to verify your identification (usually by calling over a phone number) before approving your application. After that alert expires, they send in another alert to continue for another 90 days. This is something you can do entirely on your own for free.
      Opt-Out from junk mail lists and pre-approved credit card offers- This basically takes your name and address off of mailing lists that companies buy to send their advertisements to. This is something you can also do entirely on your own for free.
      Order free credit reports-Remember the bad lip syncing on the free credit report commercial? You can obtain your free credit report once every 12 months entirely on your own for free
      Notification of lost wallets-They will basically call every company that has a card in your wallet, call your bank for checks you have, and call the appropriate government office for replacement drivers licenses and social security cards to have what was in your wallet deactivated and to have new ones sent. This doesn’t include cash, photos or “other monies,” so really, you would be in the same situation you would have been in without the service. You can do all of this entirely on your own by calling the appropriate institution yourself. All you pay is whatever the independent institutions charge for such replacements, and you would have paid this had Lifelock assisted you with this too.
      Monitor “known criminal websites” that sell or trade personal information-Any idiot can accomplish this by searching entirely on your own for free
      Monitors national “address databases” for change of address requests-Too bad the USPS already thought of that one.

A little bit of independent research shows that this company is hell-bent on getting your money to do something you are easily capable of doing yourself. Oh, and the $1 million dollar guarantee? You don’t get any money back if someone steals your identity without your knowledge, they agree to spend up to $1 million dollars to “pay professionals to assist in restoring any such loss or recover such expenses, as required, provided however that the maximum limit of our Service Guarantee is $1 (one) million per lifetime for all incidents in the aggregate.” Yet another example of a conveniently worded advertising point that implys one thing, but really means another. You don’t actually get any money from them, you have to hope that their hired professionals, that they choose, will help you go through legal methods to get it back.

Congrats Todd! Your company helps supplant the lack of proactivity in the United States! Once again, we can pay someone else to take care of it, and even then it’s entirely something anybody could do themselves, mostly for free. And you don’t even give as thorough of a protection as you imply, you only “protect” against credit card fraud. I welcome you and your company to the Bullshit Corporation List!

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The Search for 6py7

Saturday, November 8, 2008

As with most everybody right now, there are times when we have to hold off on buying something that we really can survive without. I was debating not even renewing the hosting account and letting 6py7 fade away. I haven’t been updating it at all in recent history, but there have been a lot of things I wanted to talk about. It is amazing when you start to budget your money a little carefully, you also free up money to pay for random things like this.

A few things I wanted to write about but never did:
The Poopsmith broke his vow of silence for Strong Bad’s 200th email. There was an amazing election day. We have a fresh new outlook on the political landscape of the United States, and I am looking forward to the day when I can say I am proud of this country again. Not only did Petter’s group shit on their employees, it turns out their CEO, Tom Petters, is a crook.

And now the obligatory update on my life:
I’m registered for my last semester of college. I am ready for it to come, and at the same time I am also wanting to get the most out of every moment left. Real life is drastically approaching, and while I am a little apprehensive, I am mostly excited for what is ahead. The trick is to make sure I am doing everything I can now to make sure I get there with some momentum.

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