Welcome to The Hoosier Illuminati. Macintosh bigot, clothes horse, motorsports fanatic (as long as they turn right), Anglophile.

Clothes and manners do not make the man; but when he is made, they greatly improve his appearance. --Arthur Ashe

What’s the deal with all the gambling spam suddenly?

For the last week or so about 90% of my spam is gambling related.  I used to get a few of those, but lately it’s just ridiculous.  Cloudmark on the Mini-Note and Spam Sieve on the Mac gets rid of it all, but I still look through the spam folder occasionally to make sure it’s not marking something legitimate.  (I must say I’m completely impressed with Cloudmark.  Spam Sieve occasionally decides it simply isn’t going to work anymore, but Cloudmark has been rock solid.  Highly recommended if you’re not using a suite with spam filtering.)

I guess it’s OK to change up the distribution of the spam occasionally, I just got so used to dick pills and porn that I notice when I start getting pounded with something unique.  For a while it was all about fake ... I mean, replica watches.  I have a watch.  If I was buying a watch it wouldn’t be a fake one.  My body parts all work fine, thank you very much, and I really don’t want to talk to that tired girl who saw my profile online and wants to chat with me and only me because I excite her so. 

But I digress.

The only gambling I do is the occasional lottery ticket and driving on the interstate, so please… enough. 

I think our global warming is malfunctioning.

It’s almost Memorial Day, it has barely hit 70 degrees and I’m freaking freezing right now.  I wish I had a nice big can of freon I could tap. 

Does CBS have any strategy?

Any strategy at all? 

First Katie Couric, now this. 

Why in the world would CBS pay $1.8 billion for C|Net?  The only people happy about that are C|Net’s shareholders.  What on earth are they going to do with C|Net? 

This is a case of CBS having a lot of cash sitting around and needing to buy something to try to prove they’re hip to the kids and that internet thing.  All that’s going to happen is that in the very near future C|Net is going to be even more convoluted and difficult to navigate than it already is.  In a way I guess it makes sense.  CBS is floundering, C|Net is floundering, let’s flounder together. 

Why is this news?

Karl Rove wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal today entitled ”The GOP Must Stand for Something.”

Well.  Duh.  Congratulations, Karl.  It only took you eight years to finally grasp what we’ve been telling you and the president all along.  The GOP must stand for something. 

We think we stand for lower spending, for lower taxes, for allowing the states to attend to those duties which are the states’.  We think we shouldn’t be running amok invading places when we have no national interest at stake, but when the decision IS made to invade that we should go balls out until the mission is well and truly accomplished beyond any doubt.  We think the president should be a role model whether he wants to be or not, setting an example for others to follow.  This means, among other things, that it shouldn’t appear that English is perhaps his third language.  We believe that America is for Americans and people who want to legally become Americans, and that WE are our primary interest in the world, not our trading partners.  We believe we should get out of the way of business and allow them to innovate and to reward that innovation.  We believe people should get to keep as much of the money they earn as possible.  We think the Constitution says what it says and that it is the centerpiece of our laws and our system of government.  We’re just sorry you’ve spent eight years not agreeing with us.  If you did we might not be where we are today. 

Yes, Karl, the GOP must stand for something.  Too little too late, you finally figured this out.  Now get out of the way.  Those of us who are left have a hell of a lot of cleaning up to do. 

Is a response really so much trouble?

I’ve wanted to buy some new calling cards for a while.  My old cards have some information that really isn’t all that relevant anymore and I just wanted to get some new ones. 

I found a company on-line that had a very nice card at a reasonable price and a quick Googling of their company’s name indicates that they do nice work.  With debit card in hand I started to fill out the online form and discovered that the line where I wanted to put my e-mail address and cell number has a 30 character limit and I wanted to place 32 characters there. 

“No problem,” says I, “they have a contact form here, I’ll just see if we can modify the font size to allow for a couple more characters, it shouldn’t be a big problem.”

Silence.

This was a couple of days ago now, still no reply. 

I’m not asking for much here, just to give me the courtesy of a reply, even if it’s a quick, “No, we’re sorry, but that’s not a modification we can make to that design,” would have been quite sufficient. 

Silence.

In the mean time I found another printer online, a new one and one that is significantly more expensive, but they were very prompt about answering a question I had about font styles.  Guess who gets the business? 

I’ll always pay more for good service.  An inexpensive product is worthless if the producer is unwilling to make even a token gesture of support. 

Good news for anyone wanting to try Hemrajani Tailors

I just got this e-mail from Joe Hemrajani:

I am pleased to let you know that Mr. Ram Keswani of Hemrajani Tailors will shortly be making a special visit to your area.  Ram Keswani very much looks forward to meeting you, and welcomes the opportunity to be of service any way he can.

As you know, Ram Keswani will be carrying the latest selection of styles and fine fabrics with him. I’m sure you will find something memorable to suit your personal taste.

His schedule is as follows:

May 21 Wed Only
Double Tree
11355 N. Meridian St
Carmel IN 46032

If I should happen to get my first order prior to that I will definitely be going to order some more shirts, but I’d like to get the first bunch and see if any modifications need to be made to my pattern before placing another order.  I’ll probably wait until August when Mr. Kenny returns to the area though, I’ll definitely have things in hand by then and maybe then I’ll be ready to place my order for that three piece suit I’ve wanted for so long.  Hemrajani must be doing a fair amount of business here in Indianapolis to warrant sending salespeople in this often.

There was a day…

when I could get on a bicycle and ride 20 miles with absolutely no problem.

Unfortunately, that day was about 30 years ago. 

Nice job, Danica

Hey, look at the bright side—at least you didn’t kill him.

Yes, please, let’s put her in an F1 car. 

Public Service Announcement

The Formula 1 Grand Prix of Turkey is this weekend. 

I understand there’s some stuff going on at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway too, but real motorsport is found in Turkey. 

Who knew?

Apparently Mitch Daniels is some kind of gladiator or something. 

I expect one of these graphics to announce that Mitch slays wild leopards with his bare hands.

I hate printers

Printers are the bane of my existence, I despise them and wish we could get around to that paperless office crap I’ve heard about for years. 

With that said, I just installed a Xerox Phaser 8860 that may just be the best printer I’ve ever used.  It prints in color on both sides of the page faster than any black and white printer we have will print on one side with the exception of our behemoth HP LaserJet 9050 in accounting.  Perhaps the coolest thing about it is that it doesn’t use toner cartridges, it uses a block of solid ink.  I can store packages of all four colors of ink in the same space I store a single toner cartridge.  You don’t change them as you do toners, you just replenish them and there’s virtually no waste aside from the box the ink stick comes in.  Did I mention that a package of six ink sticks costs $70 and is rated for 4000 pages more than a $250 toner? 

The administration through the embedded web server is way more impressive than anything I’ve ever seen in an HP too. 

If this thing holds up I can’t imagine ever buying another HP color laser and I’m certainly going to be looking at Xerox for my B&W printing needs too. 

Twitter

OK, I’ve resisted Twitter for a long time now because I really don’t need one more website to have to update and I haven’t been able to get my mind around what the difference is between a blog and Twitter.  I think I finally get it.  Beyond the social networking aspect of Twitter, which is good enough reason to use it, I’ve always felt like if I was going to bother to write a blog entry there ought to be enough to it to explain my opinion fully.  Twitter isn’t like that, With Twitter it’s all about short, in fact you’re only allowed 140 characters in an individual post. 

I also like the fact that I can write a Twitter post (I refuse to call it a ‘tweet’) from my Blackberry with Twitterberry.  I need to figure out how to embed my Twitter posts in here too and in the other blog I’m thinking about starting.  More about that later… maybe.  But Twitter could play a part in that project too. 

Anyway, especially for you guys who have been bloggers and dropped out because you were having problems coming up with something to say regularly, maybe Twitter is your thing, bring our attention to things and places around the web and keep us updated on what sucks in your life without needing to write a full-blown post about it. 

Twitter:  I think I kind of like it.  My Twitter page.

My civic duty

I felt a little queasy as I entered the polling location.  I had my drivers license in my hand, ready to show the election clerk.  “Geez, what a hassle,” I thought to myself, “I can certainly see what a disadvantage it is to some voters to have to extract a card from their wallets.” The very pretty young clerk handed my license back to me and told the older gentleman my name. 

“Are you voting Republican, sir?” There’s always the presumption here that you are going to vote Republican, but this year?  Well, this year is different.  I must have hesitated just a bit too long before responding because he asked me again.  “Sir?  Are you voting Republican?”

“D… Dem...”

Crap.  I couldn’t say it.  I’ve never said it before, and the word just wouldn’t leave my mouth.

“Democrat, sir?”

“Yes, that one.”

“Very good, please step to your right and sign the book.” Clearly he’d had to help others though this already today and I appreciate that he didn’t seem to be holding it against me, it was as if he understood.  He marked the ‘D’ box and turned the book around so I could sign.  I stared at the book for a moment, stared at the box marked ‘D’ which I was fairly sure was pulsing red.  I hoped no one I knew heard any of this exchange. 

“Sir, if you’re ready you can step right in here,” said the next clerk.  She gave me a quick explanation of how to use our county’s new machine, but I don’t believe I heard a word of it.  She stepped away and there I was, alone for the first time with a Democrat primary ballot spread before me.  It felt kind of dirty, sort of like going in an adult bookstore.

There it was.  PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.  There were two choices.  Barack Obama.  Hillary Clinton.  It felt like I stood there for an eternity, my hands shaking as my finger touched the button, and suddenly it was over.  I had done it.  I had actually done it.

I voted for Hillary Clinton. 

I stumbled away from the booth and out the door, numb, feeling like I might throw up at any second.  I had to beep my car horn to find it in the lot because my vision was a little blurry.  Somehow I managed to hit the unlock button and flop down inside the car.  I don’t even remember driving back to work, but the next thing I remembered was sitting in my chair in my office, my head still throbbing and my knees still a bit weak.  “Maybe it was a nightmare,” I thought to myself, “Maybe I didn’t really do it,” but I looked down at my jacket lapel and there it was… a sticker proclaiming that I had, in fact, voted.

It was time for me to come to grips with the reality of my situation.  Not only had I requested a Democrat ballot, but I voted for Hillary Clinton. 

Intentionally. 

I felt a little dizzy, a bit disoriented, but there I was.  A Hillary Clinton voter. 

A Democrat. 

God, has it really come to this? 

Look, I know what you’re thinking.  He’s lost his mind.  He’s had some kind of… episode, or something.  No, dammit, I do not need to see a professional about this.  I mean, it’s not like I’ll vote for her in the general or anything, but I have to do what I can to keep Che Obama out of the Oval Office.  I don’t support Hillary, but at least we know what we’re getting with her.  She’s no blank slate with no program any more sophisticated than “CHANGE YOU CAN BELIEVE IN” and “BUSH SUCKS” as if Bush were his opponent in November or something. 

I’m sorry, I don’t like this any more than you do, but I had to do what I had to do.  Still, if you don’t feel like you can come around here anymore, if you’re afraid you’re watching the beginning of a long, slow decline into becoming a member of the ass party, I understand.  Dire times call for dire measures, and damned if this doesn’t feel like one of those, but hey, I still understand if it’s something you just can’t deal with.  I’m having trouble dealing with it myself, so how can I imagine you’ll handle it?  I guess what I’m saying is that I hope this doesn’t change the way you feel about me, but if it does, well, I understand.  I hope we can still be friends. 

Thanks,
The Hoosier Illuminati

MotoGP is coming

I’m certainly a big fan of motorsports, but I’ve never really gotten into motorcycle racing.  Those few times I’ve watched MotoGP I couldn’t really get past the fact that these guys are insane, just nuts.

Wouldn’t this seem to prove my feelings about MotoGP? 

I’ll watch the Indy GP though. 

One of the greatest blogs ever.

The Art of Manliness

This is the most tremendous example of bloghood I’ve stumbled across in some time, I can’t believe I haven’t seen it before. 

Go forth and become informed.