Nom de plume: Rivrdog

Predicted that...

...back in April, 2006:

"Listen up, POTUS Bush: your Immigration stance is about to lose the next two elections for your party, and history WILL stick that LOSER label on you because of it. Be my guest, have a flip-flop, we'll forgive you, just as all those (D)onks forgave John Kerry all HIS flip-flops."

From "Curmudgeon Call", a BlogSnot blog I ran for a while....

Pair of Kroger WTFs (Updated!)

In the Rivrdog neck of the woods, Kroger (the chain) is known as Fred Meyer. I do most of my shopping there, because it is only a mile from my house, and they usually have most everything I could need except hardware, of which they have too little.

Kroger tends to succumb too much to the Retail Marketing gurus they hire and listens damn little to their shoppers. They are right with the gurus about 85% of the time, but occasionally, they pitch a clunker at me. Today, it was TWO clunkers.

This is from the Department of Retail WTF Department (retail is ALWAYS redundant):

When YOU figure out the logical connection between Sporting Goods and "Stationary" (aka, Office Supplies), please let ME know. Some Marketing Wizard probably got a promotion for this, but if it was my store, he'd be demoted to Cart Shagger for even suggesting it.

Then I get to the Food section to execute a long list, and doing my methodical aisle-by-aisle run, pass by the Meat Jerky display. I usually buy World Kitchens Beef jerky, in either Traditional, Peppered, or Teriyaki flavors. World Kitchens makes an OK jerky, the epitome of a Man's Snack, and they USED to be very reasonable, selling a one-pound bag for $8.99 (on sale) to a normal price of $9.99 to $10.99. Most other jerkys sell for around $5 for a 4-ounce package, or $9.99 for a half-pound bag. I just eyeball the display as I cruise by with the cart, I have about 3 bags on hand and another 4 in the survival shed, so I don't need any. Something catches my eye in the display, but I can't put my finger on it, so I go back. The one-pound packages are no more, they have been replaced by 12 oz packages, but the price is $10.99.

Now, look at the website. They still show the one-pound packages. They list for $15.99 with shipping included, but are on sale now for a couple dollars off. The web site doesn't even mention the short packages, and they ARE tricky, being almost the same size as the old pounders.

I wonder if their drop-shipping arrangement with the mail-order robber barons, Amazon, had anything to do with this.

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UPDATE: 020509 1319 PST: My good friend Donna refreshes my memory. I now remember how first a 3# can of coffee became a 39-oz can, then a one-pound can became a 13-oz can. That was what, 25 years ago? The only time this has worked in reverse was when booze went to metric measure. A fifth of a gallon was the standard, and that's 25.6 oz, but when we went to the 750 ml size of bottle, that's actually 30 ounces. The old half-gallon bottle of hooch was 68 oz, and now the 1.5 liter bottle that is sold as it's replacement is only 60 oz, though.

****************************************************************************

The competition will probably get my jerky business now, since their premier jerky, the Steak Nuggets, are just over $12/pound. World Kitchens is made in Brazil, out of Argentine beef, and Tillamook is made about 100 miles from where I sit, in a county which KNOWS beef.

OK, WTF fans, that's a two-fer. I could make it a three-fer because I picked up some Newman's Own (yeah, don't rag me about their politcs, they make GOOD sauces) Spaghetti Sauce, which I could SWEAR used to come in a 32 oz jar, but is now in a 24 oz jar (and not a Mason Jar like they used to have, either!).

This shit is happening EVERYWHERE. Quantity goes down, often associated with making a Metric size (probably to suit NAFTA), but the price stays the same or rises slightly.

Don't the Marketing Bozos know that most of us can figure a unit price in our heads? In Oregon, unit pricing is mandatory.

Look, I know that inflation hits everyone, even food barons. So, raise the price and be honest about it. This sneakiness amounts to a cover-up, and we all know that automatically means your're a crook. So, your choice is to raise the price and leave me guessing how much of a crook you are, or try to sneak it by me and convince me to a moral certainty that you are.

...and then the fight started

...time for more curmudgeon humor. You may have seen these....

My wife sat down on  the couch next to me as I was flipping channels. She  asked, 'What's on TV?'

I said, 'Dust.'

And then the fight started...

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for  our upcoming anniversary. She said, 'I want something  shiny that goes from 0 to 150 in about 3 seconds.'

I bought her a scale.

And then the fight  started...

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*
When I got home last night, my wife demanded  that I take her someplace expensive... so, I took her to  a gas station.

And then the fight started...

#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*#*
After retiring, I went to the Social Security  office to apply for Social Security. The woman behind  the counter asked me for my driver's license to verify  my age. I looked in my pockets and realized I had left  my wallet at home. I told the woman that I was very  sorry, but I would have to go home and come back later.

The woman said, 'Unbutton your shirt'. So I  opened my shirt revealing my curly silver hair. She  said, 'That silver hair on your chest is proof enough  for me' and she processed my Social Security  application.

When I got home, I excitedly told  my wife about my experience at the Social Security  office.

She said, 'You should have dropped your  pants. You might have gotten disability, too.'

And then the fight started...

Seasonal Peeves

OK, time for a curmudgeon rant. Somehow, it seem easier to do these rants at Christmastime, probably because shallow people are trying to hide their shallowness with false generosity, and THAT SHOWS.

First Prize in the "You're stupid AND you suck" category goes to Zale's Jewelers, the mega chain (which is about to fail, if CNBC has called it right). They have pinned a new moniker on diamond jewelry, "Love Rocks". "Baby, if you love me, give me Love Rocks." Right. How about, "Baby, if you love me, let's just talk, you pick the subject" (Better analogy and pun struck due to failing ALL the filters).

BBBLLLLLARRRRRACH! (then, sound of toilet flushing) There, I feel SO much better now.

First Runner Up goes to just about everybody on the road in suburban Gresham, OR this evening. Did all you nimrods forget how to drive just because it's nearly Christmas? Why does a trip of 4 1/2 minutes to the transit station to pick up the spousal unit take 16 minutes at Christmastime? The answer is because everyone is in a dithering, blithering FARGING fog. It takes everyone two to three seconds to start rolling when their light changes, and then those behind the slowpoke have to add THEIR slow-poke factor in, then some numbnuts tries to pass in an intersection and causes a fenderbender, then both bent fenders have to get out of their cars and discuss it, blocking a Federal FARGING Highway (US 26) and attracting the po-po which TOTALLY gums up traffic, instead of going to one of three out of four parking lots available at the intersection to exchange. I need to buy a good mouthguard, or I might have to get my tongue sutured. I used to just scream at this village idiot corps from behind my closed vehicle windows, but now, if someone reports me for that, I will end up looking at police weapons as the subject of a high-risk traffic stop, as I will have been designated an "Aggressive Driver".

Also-rans include the fools who invented the oh-so-"green" LED string Christmas lights. They put out so few lumens that the green weenies in my neighborhood who have started using them now have to kill all their outside lighting just so the LED-lit roof outlines will show. They don't show if you have just a few 60-watt porch lights burning. Makes the damn neighborhood so dark that I've started carrying a bigger gun on trips to the mailbox, and the coyotes yip at an an earlier hour, scaring my poor housecat.

OK, I'll make one political rant, and it goes between the eyes of the dildoes at the Washington State Capitol who claim to be atheists, but their atheist sign advocates the celebration of an earth-religious holiday, the Winter Solstice. C'mon, hosenoses, you can't be atheist AND claim to celebrate a holiday at the same time, now, or HAVE I HOPPED INTO A PARALLEL FARGING UNIVERSE WHERE LOGIC IS COMPLETELY MISSING?

OK, Rivrdog, take three combat breaths, and hit "send"...

Easy Ed of Iggle Crik

Easy Ed is an old compadre of mine, another local retired LEO. He lives in a little wide-spot village on one of the highways into the Cascade Mountains, about a half-hour southeast of me. He's a gunny (OR State championship rifle team, '63), specializing in varminting, and in THAT persuasion, specializing in wiping out the rancher's nemesis, the Sage Rat. Lately, he's a HUGE fan of the micro-sniper 17HMR catridge, which he is FOREVER on my case about adopting. I keep telling him that it's fine for micro goblins like sage rats, but not so good for larger goblins, for which I prefer at least a .243 Winchester.

Easy Ed isn't just about guns, though. In fact, his main claim to fame is that he is a curmudgeon, and has the gift of reducing his curmudgeonliness to VERY FEW WORDS!

Here, he reacts to various article headlines in today's fishwrapper, aka, The Oregonian:

1.  "Give governor $36,000 raise panel says...salary isn't up to par with other govs.." Has anyone entertained the idea of reducing other governors' salaries to match ours? Now,there's an original thought.

 

2.  "Jet crash claims 153 in Madrid."

     The plane in Spain falls mainly on the runway.

 

3.  "Gay marriage in Oregon, Tribe says yes,"

    It gives a whole new meaning to the word HOW.

 

4.  "Amish numbers nearly double in 16 years."

     Does this mean they're as prolific as Catholics and Mormons?

Oh, and did I mention that Easy Ed is NOT politically correct?

You may respond to Easy Ed in comments, and I will pass along your messages.

You may osculate with my posterior

I have gotten away from the You may Kiss my Ass posts in recent months. It was a mood thing, I guess, but now I'm ready to resume them.

I think I touched on this a few weeks ago, in regard to NASCAR's overboard promotion of this "charity", which, like NASCAR itself, is more of finely tuned money-extraction machine than anything else.

I know about Autism. One of my children is autistic, but because parental custody of that child was awarded by a sexist Court to my ex-wife, who badly mishandled her remedial training, the child was not allowed to reach her full potential as an adult, as both testing and promising early training experience had shown she was capable of.

Autism is now our new "Attention Deficit Disorder" or whatever they call it now. It is the "cross to bear" of the decade. Those labeled as afflicted are usually afflicted with mild to severe mental retardation, a better term that functionally describes the problem. The "autistic" are given excuses, any excuse NOT involving admitting that their brains are actually damaged.

Now, if we want to pour money into a research black hole, it should be research into brain chemistry in ALL it's minute and finite variations. A chemical map of the brain and how it is supposed to work would be very useful, because chemical analysis could then alert us to abnormalities in a child's developing brain BEFORE the prospect of reversing damage had winked out.

So, years ago, some parents of brain-damaged children who had also been inoculated against childhood diseases as the State had determined was necessary, turned out to have manifestations relating to their brain damage that was declared to be the fault of a preservative in the vaccines (this is why brain chemistry research is needed!). The company making the preservative and the companies marketing the vaccines were all hit with huge compensatory damages in the usual game of "convince the dumb jury that this is all the fault of the rich, uncaring capitalists".

Now comes the other shoe dropping. A number of parents, including two here in Portland, OR, are suing to have a finding that the preservative caused not only damage in their childrens' brains, as the court had previously found, but that it had specifically caused "autism".

Why is this an issue?

It is an issue because "autism" is the new boogeyman. It is the new boogeyman because of groups like "Autism Speaks", who are out there running a lavish corporate empire based on your sympathy.

Aha, you note, the resident ranter has come full circle.

Yes, I have, and it's time to award the "You may Kiss my Ass" award for today to....

The Fourth Circuit of Oregon! For being the go-to den of crybaby justice, the mavens of malpractice, the home of so many ambulance-chasers that they need a special parking garage just for plaintiff's attorneys. Yes, the Circuit Court of Oregon for Multnomah County, you may Kiss my Ass!

BTW, I used to be an Officer of the Court there, so I KNOW how bad they are.

Q.O.T.D.

Question of the day:

Is it possible to be a conservative and hate the predatory way big banks do business with little people?

We need a new set of banking regulations that will bring the likes of the Bank of America down out of their robber-baron castles to the customer-friendly village street that they claim to operate in, but don't.

Examples:

• Why do you get a bank statement for your credit card that is due on a day when the bank isn't open for business, so that in order to avoid a late fee, you actually have to pay them their money two days before the due date? It's not really a "due date", then, is it? The actual due date is two days earlier.
• So, when you try to pay electronically, they refuse to post the funds to your account until the next banking day, which makes the payment late, and subject to their stratospheric late charge. My credit union, where all my money resides, allows charges to deduct against my accounts 24/7, so why can't the B of A accept that same electronic transfer 24/7?
• Still trying to avoid the late fee, I go next to their telephone payment system. All goes smoothly, and there is even a message saying it will post TODAY (non-banking day). At last, the cheapie analog phone system works where their billion-dollar website doesn't. Then, just before I push the final "pounds" button to execute, they say that they are going to charge me $15.00 for the privilege of avoiding the $40.00 late fee. I didn't push the button. Finally, I got a real voice, speaking REAL English, and I calmly (at first) asked the person why the bank has the above problems. His reply? "All banks do those things, Mr. Rivrdog". I didn't actually go off on the chap, but I did use the words "immoral business behavior", which he seemed to think was a conversation-ender.

We need a new "Truth in Banking" law. Simple rules that require banks having web pages (all of them) to post ALL their fees on a fee page clearly linked to the front (log-in) page. I don't think it would be too much of a burden to have them restricted from having credit card or loan due dates on non-banking days, either.

Am I a Marxist here? Please tell me I am so I can get out my Anarchist's Cookbook and get to work!

NSFW Words #2

A while back, I started this little series of things you would like to say to co-workers at work, but probably can't, since your boss actually pays a PeeCee maven to keep tabs on your intra-office communications, and make sure that they say nothing that would offend anyone you not only send it to, but anyone in the entire world.

Without further ado, then, here is the Second Edition.

NSFW Words

I haven't written a Curmudgeon post in a while, so it's about time.

I got a list of things that a Curmudgeon would like to say at work, but would be prevented by the PeeCee VeePee from doing so.

I'll put a few of them up today, more when I get in the mood.

Credit for the list goes to Major S, who is, unfortunately, still working where these words apply.

Curmudgeon Gripes

OK, this is my Declaration of Independence.

When, in the course of human events, one gets old enough to be considered for Curmudgeon Status, one has certain inalienable Rights, the foremost among them being expected to express Curmudgeonly Rants on diverse subjects.

1. Why are more and more gas stations going to Cash Only pricing, or adding 8 cents for using a credit card? I don't like to carry a lot of cash, because then I have to carry a bigger gun and keep my head moving more than is comfortable. Rates one Bah!
2. Celebrity worship. This is getting out of hand in our culture. When a gangsta rappa-ette gets out of prison, and there are five-minute segments on national news showing her surrounded by her thug posse and shaking her booty all the way to her Rolls Royce, it's too much for me:

"Throw nose-candy in the square, watch the gangstas gather 'round, take your twenty-millimeter there, and mow the foul-mouth bastards down." Rates two Bah!s and a RAAAAALPH!

Others:

• Ethanol. This society isn't going to be saved by Ethanol as fuel, for the simple engineering reason that it uses more energy to produce than engines can get out of it, so it's development as a replacement for gasoline is energy-negative, and will cost us dearly in the long run. It is also a huge Federal boondoggle for farmers, and is the next great subsidy, replacing the Land Bank subsidies. Just today, I noted a news item that a Kelo-type land taking is underway in Colorado to rip off a landowner for right-of-way to an unaccessed parcel so that an Ethanol plant can be built there, and a spur rail line connected. All the local pols are NOT apologetic about the taking, all turning strangely Marxian with the same old "it's for the greater good". Since Federal subsidies and tax abatements are involved, doesn't this taking fly in the face of the POTUS' recent Executive Order on banning the Feds from being involved in Kelo-type takings? Rates a swift kick in the ass for the "conservatives" who thought up this bonehead corporate and agrarian welfare scheme, and TWO kicks for any politician soiling his or her hands putting it into effect.
• My neighbors, who, every year, either force me to stay at home to man a garden hose to protect my property from their illegal fireworks, or use up a thousand gallons of expensive city water, over-sprinkling my lawns, cedar fences and flower-beds to prevent them catching fire. Actually, this year I'll have to both stay home AND sprinkle, since I have tempoary custody of a runabout boat on a trailer, with a nylon cover in my RV space, and I have seen first-hand what a single flying firework will do to one of those. I'm thinking of driving down to the Marine Patrol where I used to work and borrowing a roll of firehose and nozzle and just hosing down the whole cul-de-sac so that the fireworks shooters have to wear raincoats.
• Real estate agents. Who pollute my neat, valuable and well-kept subdivision with 6 or 8 signs for every house up for sale. They have the nerve even to plant them ON MY PROPERTY. They think that they have to have a trail of signs from the main drag 4 corners away to the house for sale, and there has to be at least two signs visible from each corner, and they don't even knock on my door to ask permission to plant a sign. I don't even get to wet my beak in their lucrative deals in return for providing the advertizing for them. For their ingratitude, my friend Vinnie, who worries about things like the lack of respect I'm getting, will un-round their tires, then sell them a $500 tow job to the nearest tire store. I've also thought about modifying the sign on my parking strip to read "6 million dollar house ahead", so prospective lookers won't make the last turn to get to the overpriced $437K cottage with mosquito-and-possum infested creek in the back. Rates a Bah! and a "Goom-bye, don't come back!"
• Colon surgery after-effects. Don't ask.