Open Note to Retailers...Dedicated to Guitar Center

So, it appears in our spare time (between 2-3a), we're going to take up electric guitar. We decided that Guitar Hero is an absolute waste of space, we can push buttons, let's learn a craft. T has an old one that's he's taken apart and is going to need a lot of work, and I don't have one at all, so we decided to do our homework and get some gear.

Imagine the glee when we found that Guitar Center is running tax day specials, (since we'd have to purchase, at minimum 2 guitars and an amp) that we could get up to $100 off our order, because hobbies ain't cheap, bitches. Well, decent musical instruments aren't anyway. I played bassoon for over a decade; ever price one of those things? Hint: you could buy a car.

Note to retailers, if you run a sale, then exclude everything from such sale, it's not a sale, but a gimmick. Exactly ONE of my items qualified. They had a note on their website that if you had exclusions, call them. So, I'm thinking, given the size of this order since this stuff is excluded, you might cut me a little break, yeah?

HELL NO. Basically, the Customer Service Rep told me that once she keyed in everything (manually), there might be specials that aren't online advertised. So, I asked, "you're not going to make me redo this order manually with you, and spend 20 minutes out of my life before you tell me there are no special deals, when I can just do this one I've already got online in a couple of minutes?" She assured me, "defnitely not", that there are deals that they can't run online.

The short of it, is that she lied. I spent 20 minutes doing a phone order, there were no special deals, and the thanks I got was some nice young lady trying to upsell me on extended warranties. No little 5-10% discount or whatever because the order was a biggun or anything. Just a "fuck you very much, what's your credit card number?" Actually, she was totally nice, I'm just pretty dissatisfied with Guitar Center right now.

So, what was on special? Well Roland (excluded) would allow some obscure synthesizer to be sold on the promotion. Basically, a lot of back stock shit nobody wants is on sale. They're running a deceptive special and I just wanted to take my 5 minutes and let people know.

Try Musician's Friend (their tax day special is a bit of a gimmick as well) or One Music Square. The latter is a small town shop out of Huntsville who will match any advertised price. Anything but Guitar Center, because right now, as far as I'm concerned, Guitar Center is stupid and sucks balls.

The Penn State Scandal, A Different Perspective

I've been reading with a little interest some of the reaction to the horrific situation at Penn State. I'm not going to go into the details of the story here, the news is full of it; however, I do notice one angle that has been widely overlooked. There has been a lot of shock registered at the reaction of Mr. Sandusky's colleagues, including the lack of follow through taken by Messrs. Paterno and McQueary after making an internal report to supervisors and University officials, but not to law enforcement. It now appears that Mr. Paterno intends to retire at the end of the season. Frankly, I'm surprised at all the surprise.

For all the talk about "success with honor", why would anyone be shocked that these individuals would refuse by omission to disgrace one of their own? These men have reached a remarkable level of success in a field that has a history of treating its own as above the rules. Why would the rules suddenly matter in this case? Do they even understand what the rules are? In a world that pulls aside young boys who exhibit a talent for playing a game, and exempts them from all of the conventions of normal society...honestly, why is anyone surprised?

Think about it. Once a boy in his teens shows a talent for football (or any sport for that matter, but especially football), he becomes a singular focus, and is made worthy of great praise. Coaches pay special attention, parents reward and foster (because they see future wealth and fame), and there is a great benefit and self-esteem boost to all involved for increasing the talent of the player. In many cases, the young athlete is taught that nothing else matters but the sport. School no longer becomes a focus, teachers are pressured to grant grades not earned, and bad behavior is covered up or mitigated because the athlete is integral to the team. Only the results on the field matter. The individual becomes secondary.

There is a lot of recruiting hype for high school athletes. Most "star" players are catered to at a level unfathomable to a boy of 17 or 18. Most of us know a high school athlete who could barely read but got a full ride to a major university. How many football scholarships are granted to young men who lack the academic capability to succeed at the school that is paying for his "education"? Judging by college graduation rates by football players, many. College is about the sport for these guys. Many college classes are designed for them (most colleges have "football majors"), they have special tutors to keep them eligible, and they are above the realm of traditional students. If they get caught committing crimes or behaving in ways that might get traditional students expelled, the situation is handled, usually without real punishment to the player. They are a special class in a closed society. In many cases, they're not even truly connected to the University at large.

While few of these young men are actually drafted into their professional league, some go into coaching at various levels, and some go home to obscurity. Many of those who do not find success in the sport which has carried them their entire lives to this point, suddenly find themselves subject to the same mundane lives as the rest of us. And...some turn out just fine. But, many don't understand this new normal and turn to drug use, or some various type of illegal escapism. Everyone who knows that dude who can't stop going on and on about when he was a high school football star may be able to identify with the type. The former college football star who doesn't make it is often far worse. Some spend their lives trying to get a break into the NFL via lower leagues. Most don't make it. Many are never productive, and just become pathetic ruins of people.

Those who do manage to maintain success with their sport, whether the route be the pros or via coaching, maintain this exclusive a society within themselves. They are the exalted ones. I don't think we need to discuss NFL salaries or all the reports of unpunished crimes by pro athletes. The highest compensated state employee in Texas is the Head Coach of the University of Texas Football team. Most people will tell you that Coach Paterno was a far more important figure than the President of Penn State. And as people who have had this level of success have spent most of their youth and all of their adulthood in this protected class, they don't know anything beyond protecting the class. Again, they are special. It is them, their fellow players, and then everyone else. They protect their own as they have always been protected. Results on the field are all that matters, and everything else is just minutia.

The rest of us only feed this insanity. The professional athletic society is rarely held accountable for poor behavior, so why do we expect them to suddenly open their inner sanctum and behave properly? Why do we feign great shock when these people hide the misbehavior of one of their own? Their own misbehavior has likely been hidden their entire lives. We as outsiders hold these people up as heroes and role models...because of a GAME. Because the ideal is so superficial, we should not feel loss when the fiction is revealed. The only fault of the athlete is that he believes the hype we bestow upon him. The true and greatest fault is with all of us.

Perhaps if we would treat what they do with the perspective it actually deserves, we wouldn't be having the Sandusky conversation today. We reap what we sow.

QOTD

"The President does not have power under the Constitution to unilaterally authorize a military attack in a situation that does not involve stopping an actual or imminent threat to the nation."

--Senator Barack Obama

I Want A Challenger

Failing a Challenger, I'll take a Charger. SRT package on either one I receive, thanks. I figure it's the least the .gov and Chrysler owe me for involuntarily propping up the zombie of a corporation. Since Chrysler isn't giving the money back, we should be getting free cars. Oh, wait an 8% share of the revenant is supposed to adequately compensate the US Treasury for the $7,200,000,000 we pumped into the dying dreams of the UAW.

Let me see. Some quick math is necessary here. For 8% of the new improved undead automaker to be worth $7.2 billion, that implies the entity going forward is worth $90 billion. Fat fucking chance. GM's assets were barely worth that much at year-end, and they ain't now. Chrysler sure as hell doesn't have that much on the balance sheet. Alternatively, some schmuck is thinking there's a reasonable chance Chrysler will start making money again and that 8% will someday be worth the money we paid. Well, hell, that's easy math. It's a net present value proposition, right? How much money does Chrysler need to make for the UAW Employment Plan to be worth what we paid for it? Well, assuming a discount rate of 4.25% (the latest number for 30 year T-Bonds) we can just about break even if our 8% of the profits is $430 million a year for the next 30 years. Over a shorter time horizon, the number goes up. Of course, I've never seen a discount rate that low out here in corporate America, either. The number goes up if we assume a higher discount rate, too. Figure the odds of that happening. I'm not even going to try because I'm well aware of the computational limits of my machine and software.

Now, keep in mind I got my engineering and business degrees from state school here in Texas, so I might not be up to the minute on the fancy financial thinking emanating from DC. All I can see from out here in the sticks is we, as unwilling taxpayers, are getting shafted to benefit somebody else. If I can figure this out, surely your beneficient elected leaders in DC have someone around who has noticed as well. So they must not give a rat's ass. Yay!

Short answer: all the rest of us taxpayers just got screwed to benefit the UAW and some Italians. Hope and change my pasty white ass.

Not By Choice

So, over at the trainwreck that is recovery.gov, I find a few curious tidbits.

We are asking the American people to trust their government with an unprecedented level of funding to address the economic emergency.

Really? I don't recall being asked. I seem to recall it went down more along the lines of "Here's what we're gonna do, suck it up and pay for it." Good thing they didn't ask, since I don't trust the government to handle the problem at all, much less responsibly.

Another funny from the same site:

This is your money. You have a right to know where's it going and how it's being spent.

How nice. I have a right to know what my money is doing, but not the right to decide where it's going or the right to, I dunno, keep it. Interesting how that works, isn't it?

The Voter Registrar

So, with all the news on voter fraud going on over the past couple of days, ACORN, Obama people, and the like, I notice this transcript that our local TV station broadcast recently.

I don't know about everywhere else, but I can tell you how voter registration and the rolls work in Harris county. Paul Bettencourt's office works his ass off on this, and Click 2 Houston isn't being entirely accurate. I am sure there are dead people on the rolls, but as long as a voter is shown voting (the name is signed in the voter book)...which means as long as the election workers in the precincts are perpetrating fraud, a voter will stay on the rolls.

A voter is placed in suspense if he goes something like 3 elections where he doesn't vote. The line next to his name in the sign in book will have a notation and the election worker must see a photo ID if he shows up. In the meantime notices are sent to the address of record. After the next general election, if no response is received by mail and the voter doesn't show, he's removed from the rolls altogether.

As a former Election Judge, I have personally dealt with an individual (stupid donk twit) who came in, was rude to my 82 year old Grandmother, started bitching and moaning because she wasn't on the rolls, demanded her right to vote, produced her ID, and let me look her up. I saw no record, so I called Bettencourt's super secret election day number for judges in situations like this. Guess what? Uncle Paul's office can tell me that she re-registered in OREGON the previous year. I look at the twit in question and state, "according to the voter registrar, you registered in the State of Oregon last year, is this true?" Then I sit back, secretly smile, and watch the idjit twitch. I say that is pretty darned impressive on behalf of the registrar's office.

Prior to the introduction of ESlate in Harris County, I witnessed in precincts in Sheila Jackson (TV) Lee's congressional district, the workers go through the books near the end of the polls closing, sign by peoples' names who didn't show, and vote for them. And yes, you can see there will be 4 or 5 people in a row with the exact same handwriting in the book. Where the problem lies in our area, is at the precinct level, and then post-election. An individual who ran for state rep several years ago in that same (Queen Sheila's) area lost his race by less than 500 votes due to a ballot box with a broken seal that arrived to the county at 2a. When issues are reported, certain folks cry racism, the matter is swept away, and rightfully elected candidates are branded as sore losers.

I think probably what the counties need to do in the case of the dead is link up with death certificates issued in their respective counties, drop a couple of cards in the mail, and if they get no contact, remove the voter. I honestly thought they already did this. I also would love to see more volunteer poll watchers assigned to these precincts to see what is really going on in those rooms. A lot of people need to go to jail.

As an aside, I think the key to involving more people in elections in general is making it an additional exemption to jury duty.

As a second aside, I find it odd that all of these fraud issues only seem to occur with Democrat organizations, in Democrat precincts, and with Democrat workers and voters. The news media tells us how everybody hates and disagrees with Republicans, and yet it is the Democrats who cheat at every level and still can't totally sweep elections. Hmmm...

And finally, I think it goes without saying that the lazy assed news media should really engage in a little more fact checking.