News
It sure seems like this week is video week, doesn’t it? Last night was the final Presidential Debate between Barack Obama and John McCain. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. So for 90 minutes I watched and listened. I then realized after the debate that how I perceived the entire thing could be wrapped up in 120 seconds…
I wonder if the Republican Party will excommunicate me now?
Today is the Jewish High Holy Day of Yom Kippur, commonly referred to as The Day of Atonement. Making ammends for our wrong doings is a serious responsibility. Sometimes making ammends is as simple as just being truthful.
Unfortunately it appears that Casey Anthony, the mother of missing 4 year old Caylee Anthony, is not ready to make ammends. She has continued to refuse to cooperate in the search for her daughter and apparently my suggestion hasn’t been taken by authorities (c’mon… its Florida… you can SEE Guantanamo Bay from there… just like you can see Russia from Alaska… and all that). She is currently being held on house arrest for writing fraudulent checks while the Florida State Attorney prepares to go to a Grand Jury next week seeking either murder or manslaughter charges.
Even if the State Attorney doesn’t get a Grand Jury to indict her on those charges, they do have a very good case against her for the use of checks that she stole from her friend Amy Huizenga. Those 13 charges could send her to jail for 65 years if she’s convicted. Now sure that’s some serious jail time, but I have to wonder if that’s enough to atone for the lies and deceit she has perpetrated upon the public and to the detriment of her child.
As much as I personally would like to believe that Caylee Anthony is alive, I think that with no true signs of life 4 months after the day she disappeared makes that belief a lie upon myself. I think we may never definitively know but I believe that something horrible happened to her. I think that with the lies, deceit, and uncooperative nature for which she has not made ammends, Casey Anthony is to blame along with those who have enabled her behavior. I know those thoughts make me sick.
Your atonement is overdue Casey Anthony. If not for the public, or your family, or your friends for whom your lies have done untold or known damage to… then atone for your daughter… for mother is the name for God on the lips of all children*… and you have behaved like the Devil instead.
Did you catch the new episode of Cereal Wednesday yesterday? If not… shame on you! It’s a good one… albeit long… but still good. In other Cereal Wednesday news, it turns out that The Blogger’s Choice Awards for 2008 are coming to an end October 16 and Cereal Wednesday is in the Top 3 Finalist group for Best Video Blogger. Now I honestly have no idea how I ended up in the Top 3 again this year… unless its because we’re just that damn good…
So if you have a free moment and want to throw a vote my way, you can do so here.
One thing about blog reading that irks me is unreadable text on a template. Yes, I realize that for the most part I read blogs through my RSS Feedreader, I realize that in theory content is king, and I realize that people choose their templates to express who they are. All of these things however should not change the fact that your text should be readable… preferably a decent 11pt or greater size and dark text on a light background.
Got Blogger? Don’t use one of their standard templates which are boring as all hell. Check out Free Blogger Templates, Final Sense, or Gecko and Fly.
Got WordPress? Besides the WordPress Theme Gallery you can also check out the list from Emily Robbins, and of course ThemeShaper.
Got TypePad? Move to WordPress. Really.
Got Expression Engine? Go to WDS and shell out some of that economic stimuli check.
Service
I went to Red Lobster last weekend. Because we were a relatively large group, we got sat at one of those high tables in what passes for a bar area nowadays. Now normally, I have no problem with this… except for the fact that apparently our waiter did not realize he was our waiter. When a manager finally told him… well it just went downhill from there. We waited 15 minutes for sodas, another 15 minutes to place our order (since he wasn’t ready to take it with the drinks and he was not the one who brought the drinks), another 15 minutes to get some damn biscuits, and another 15 minutes until our food actually arrived… all messed up. Seriously, if I come to Red Lobster, and I order the Ultimate Feast with the lobster tail, make sure its on the fucking plate. Guess how long I had to wait for my tail to arrive? Yep. 15 minutes. Then, when I asked for the check, it got delivered to the other side of the table… where the 9-year old sat.
It had to be the absolute worst experience ever. Now I’m normally a 20% tipper… because I know that waiters and waitresses live off tips. It should have been about a $25.00 tip. I left $10. I felt bad after… until I was reminded of the extremely shitty and shoddy service. I’m never going back there again.
Gold Delayed
I did not realize how the Olympics being delayed would totally annoy me as badly as it has. It’s as if NBC has to show you every race, pretending it hasn’t happened 12 hours ago. That annoys me. If you want to show the race, then that’s fine… but be sure the viewers know that it took place “last night” meaning “early this morning in the US”. Normally I’m a slight Olympic freak… but this year… eh… not so much. It isn’t that I’m not patriotic… I just find it easier to check all the results in the morning. So when night time comes… well… I already know what happened!
I do have to admit though that the medals this year are pretty cool. Each medal is inlaid with a different color of jade. Gold medals have white jade, silver medals have green jade, and bronze medals have a brown jade. They’re pretty damn cool.
I wonder how many will wind up on E-Bay?
Complacency
The price of oil per barrel has steadily come down from its July 11 high of $147.27 to $116 yesterday. I think the price is going to continue to go down, because Americans have in fact cut back on their excess use of it. Trying to close an oil speculator loophole, the passing of HR 6377 by the House of Representatives happened in June. I seriously hope the Senate passes this bill, that we continue moving towards freeing ourselves from foreign energy and that we don’t become complacent again on cheaper oil from the Middle East.
The Pickens Plan is actually a good first step.
So I subscribe to the AC 360 Podcast from CNN, and download it every morning so I can listen to it at work. Over the last week or so, along with the politcal discussions, they’ve also been featuring the case of missing 3-year old Caylee Anthony from Orlando.
A Brief Timeline
June 9, 2008- Original date Caylee is supposedly dropped off at a babysitter’s residence. Later, investigators discover that the apartment has been vacant, no babysitter by the name given lived there, and the name of the babysitter given has revealed no such person existed
June 15, 2008- Caylee is supposedly last seen alive by her grandparents
July 15, 2008- Caylee is reported missing by her grandmother, Cindy Anthony to 911. During a second call to 911, mother Cassie Anthony says, “I know who has her. I tried to contact her.” Cassie tells detectives originally that she dropped Caylee off at a baby sitters on June 9.
July 16, 2008- Cassie Anthony, Caylee’s mother, lies to investigators repeatedly about where she is employed, where Caylee supposedly is, and who Caylee is supposedly with. Cassie is arrested on charges of child neglect and filing a false report
August 9, 2008- Caylee’s third birthday… and still missing
Lies, Deceit, and Psychics
Investigators have faced nothing but family stonewalling in this case. Her mother is apparently a compulsive liar, the family has circled the wagons after Caylee’s grandmother INITIATED the phone call to 911 to report her granddaughter missing, and constantly refer to the possibility that, “Well if Cassie says something then Caylee is in danger.” They are trying to insinuate that Caylee has been kidnapped by a nefarious individual or group, and that if the family cooperates with the police that the kidnappers would potentially end her life.
Psychic Gale St. John has also become involved in the case. She has envisioned an area near a lake, surrounded by trees and wildflowers. She thinks that is where Caylee will be found… but not alive.
Waterboard Her
Due to Cassie’s constant lying and deception, her daughter HAS undoubtedly been put in harm’s way (if in fact harm as not already come to her). We need to send her to Guantanamo Bay if we can’t stomach the fact that advanced interrogative techniques should be applied to learn the truth from what is at the least an apathetic parent, and at worse a woman who has murdered her own child. While I can understand the family circling the proverbial wagons around Cassie, is this really in Caylee’s best interest? Considering the statements made by the entire family are now questionable… I say send them all. Let the waterboard do its job.
Think I’m being a little bit harsh?
So Starbucks Gossip has the full list of impending US Store Closures. You can download the full list here (right click, save as) to see what stores near you may be affected.
Personally, I found the New York store closings of extreme interest. Here’s how it basically breaks down:
New York City Closings
- •Store #14186 - 8414 Third Avenue, Bay Ridge
- •Store #2880 - 1675 Broadway, Mid-town Manhattan/ Times Square District (btwn. W. 52nd and W. 53rd Street)
- •Store #7515 - 400 Madison Avenue, Mid-town Manhattan (btwn. E. 47th and E. 48th Street)
- •Store #11538 - 1600 Broadway, Mid-town Manhattan/ Times Square District (btwn. W. 48th and W. 49th Street)
- •Store #11692 - 565 Fifth Avenue, Mid-town Manhattan (btwn. E. 46th and E. 47th Street)
- •Store #11737 - 340 Madison Avenue, Mid-town Manhattan (E. 44th Street and Madison Avenue)
- •Store #14091 - 151 W. 34th Street, Mid-town Manhattan (Macy’s Flagship Store on the 5th Floor)
- •Store #10165 - 242-02 61 Avenue, Douglaston (Douglaston Plaza)
- •Store #10166 - 89-89 Union Turnpike, Glendale (Super Stop and Shop Plaza)
- •Store #11812 - 80-00 Cooper Avenue, Glendale (Atlas Terminals)
- •Store #11280 - 1756 Forest Avenue, Staten Island
Brooklyn
Manhattan
Queens
Staten Island
Starbux Cannibals
It is pretty obvious that Starbux has no one to blame but themselves for this. They cannibalized themselves. This is evident by the first two stores listed in Manhattan. See the four digit store number? Yeah, that means they were opened awhile ago… before 2006. See how the other stores that are literally down the street or a few blocks away have five digit store numbers? Yeah, those stores were opened more recently, and undoubtedly cannibalized the customer base of the two older stores. Had they not been so damn greedy, it is quite possible those stores would have performed within expectations and those jobs could have been saved.
The closings in Queens I found remarkable for two reasons. The first is that all three of those stores are in shopping centers where there is pretty decent traffic. The second is that the two in Glendale also happen to have other Starbux stores in those centers. The 89-89 Union Turnpike store is faced with competition from a Starbux inside the Super Stop and Shop, and the 80-00 Cooper Avenue store faces competition from a Seattle’s Best that is located inside the Borders bookstore of that complex. I’m sure if I drove out to Douglaston, I’d find a similar situation of cannibalization going on. Surprisingly, none of the Forest Hills stores have been touched.
So How Honest Is Starbux?
One of the interesting phenomenons about this is that Starbux supposedly held this list back so they could notify all their “partners”. Funny thing, when I was recently in the Starbux at 80-00 Cooper Avenue last week, no one thought their store was closing. So I think I’m going back this weekend once I print this list out… to make sure that they have been properly informed that they better start looking for jobs elsewhere. I think Esparks Coffee is still hiring… and they actually call their large coffee a “large”. So if you hear about a Starbux being burned to the ground in Queens, New York… you’ll know where I’ve been and in all likelihood will be in jail for inciting a riot.
Send Dunkin’ Donuts.
