DAY 5

Appleton, Wisconsin
April 17, 2009
Fri 4:06 PM

like a termite that's chokin' on the splinters... just a little lyric drop from "i'm a loser baby" by beck. its an absolutely beautiful day in appleton, just reached 70 degrees out according to the radio. just drove up from milwaukee, and yeah, this blog's a bit earlier than my others, but who knows if i'll feel like blogging after the party tonight. besides, i have more than enough fodder to go on from earlier today. (and yes, i realize i'm not really in appleton, but technically i'm in the appleton metropolitan area and i hate saying the name of that place my parent's house technically falls in, so deal with the fact that i say 'appleton')

woke up this morning and my sister hadn't left for work yet. she was watching the daily show on the dvr and so i caught some of it. jon stewart is a genius, and so are all the writers of that show. this episode was of particular interest to me because they had on the chair of the tarp oversight committee. or something like that. for those who don't know or wonder why this sounds familiar, tarp is the name of the first bill that gave the banks billions and billions of dollars to prevent failing. i'm so glad we have oversight now after most of the money has been given away. perhaps we should've been more particular on how the money would be spent in the first place. yeah yeah, hindsight is 20/20, and this is a government program we're talking about, so there were bound to be problems. but what bothered me was the chair of this committee was a law professor from harvard. yeah, that sounds real impressive, but let's not forget we're talking about money, not law. i want somebody with a Ph. D. in accounting or finance to look at this information. no disrespect to those involved with the law, i understand its incredibly complicated and something i will never wrap my head around, but so too is finance. if you are not trained in it you don't understand it. i know this because i'm a finance major. i start a class and think, oh this is easy i get this, and ten minutes later in class i'm thinking, that makes no sense, this is the opposite of what i thought. everything you think you know about money does not necessary apply in finance and accounting. this is how madoff got away with his ponzi scheme, he was tight with the SEC and he knew that those guys were all lawyers who could pick out the illegalities in almost any document in front of them; but put an income statement or balance sheet under their nose and they can't tell you anything about it. that's why the math and stats guy who ended up busting bernie only needed ten minutes to know his numbers were wrong and two hours to mathmatically prove it. so, while harvard law professor sounds all nice, i want a chair trained in business finance and/or accounting. that's just my two cents.

i also had a group meeting today, had to go check out some stores for this retail marketing class i'm taking. a nice member of my group offered to drive so we headed off for west milwaukee in her little toyota. i think i'm pretty spoiled driving my boat of a car, whenever i get in a compact, or even a mid-size sedan it feels too small to me. and i'm pretty small! but when you grow up with your parents never driving anything smaller than a dodge intrepid (greatest car ever made i might add) everything feels small. how i love my big car.

and my big car served me well on my drive up to appleton. i very much enjoy driving the two hours by myself, just me, titleist (the name of my automobile), and my ipod. my ipod is relegated to car duty only, the thing can't hold a charge for anything. lately i've just been plugging it in and putting all songs on shuffle. great songs come up that i forget i have on my ipod. and i really have everything on my ipod- there's my staples aerosmith and van halen, but then i've got everything from german hip hop to bollywood showtunes, celine dion to george clinton & parliament funkadelic, depeche mode to the mamas and the papas. and of course michael jackson. much love to the king of pop. anyway, the drive is a great chance to just be alone with my thoughts and my varied (or if you'd rather, random) music.

it's a very nice drive, but no drive is complete without the crazed jackass who swerves in and out of traffic, who pulls behind you and tailgates because you aren't going fast enough for them (and sidenote here to all those tailgaters- you only make me go slower. if someone rides my bumper because 30 in a 25 zone is too slow for them, i have no problem dropping down to 20. i've done it, the only place i don't is on a highway cause it messes up other traffic. but on a one lane, heck yeah if five over the speed limit isn't enough for you, i'll go five under), and then gets around you and cuts you off. and then you see their jesus fish, so you know, they can't be that much of an asshole. ugh, i hate those things. i really dislike anybody who wears their religion on their sleeve (or their car). because those people invariably come off as a hypocrit. it's impossible not to, because nobody is perfect. nobody can live up to any religion, i don't care if you're christian, muslim, hindu, buddhist, jewish, whatever- you cannot be the shining example of your religion at all times. unless you're the dalai lama, then you can, but we all can't be lucky enough to be the 14th reincarnation of the bodhisattva Avalokiteśvara (thank you to the simpsons for knowing that). i'm not raggin' on religion here, i am certainly a person of faith, but i don't go around with a jesus fish on my car acting like i'm better than you. i'm not. nobody is better than anyone, regardless of religion or lack thereof. it's a personal choice. i don't believe my religion is the right one, and i don't think yours is the wrong one. and i don't think you need one. and i don't hold someone in higher or lower esteem because of their religious beliefs. or lack thereof. i hate people who do.

and going along with the jesus fish theme, i also hate political bumper stickers, cause if you have a politician's sticker on your car that i don't like or agree with i automatically judge you and don't like you. and if you have a sticker i do like, i think, hey, this person must be pretty nice and/or cool. but i know this isn't the case. the person with the sticker i hate could be a really nice person who is just incredibly flawed when it comes to political issues. heck, they could be one step down from being mother teresa, i doubt it, but its possible. and that person with the sticker i approve of, they could be a serial killer. you just don't know, which is why i don't and will never put any political stickers on my car. the ones that are there, well, inquire what you will about the union jack.

gosh, the electricity in this house goes off all the time, i just looked up at my digital clock and its flashing 12:15. last time i was home it went off too, it was like 1 am and i was on the computer and everything turned off but the toshi, my faithful laptop, kept humming.

time to get going for the party, it's at a bowling bar, but i'm NOT bowling. i suck/loathe bowling. seriously, i'm terrible. i got a 62 once... bumber bowling. and i'm an equal opportunity bowler, i hit both gutters. so, no, avoiding the lanes tonight.

oh, and i'm changing the way i post stuff on these blogs, well, at least the time and day. the time i put above is the time i start, whereas from now on the post time will be, well, the post time. just so you can see how much effort i put into these things (or how distracted i get in the middle of writing them). oh, and i almost forgot, a big congratulations to Mr. Amitabh Bachchan who today celebrated the one year anniversary of his blog (his blog being the inspiration for this one). So, congrats to you Big B, you rock!

salbrent