Chansen's Xombytes

Hello, this is today's office forecast.

For today's forecast, we seem to have a bit of a break in the wet and windy days, and have moved on to an office dry front. This dry front is primarily halting any chance of your wall clock from ever hitting 5:00 pm. Ever.

The internet throughout the years has been a place to learn, shop, communicate, teach, meet people, find employment, look for travel destinations, find yourself on Dateline with Chris Hansen, seek advice, find news reports and thoroughly entertain oneself. Not so anymore.

Washington State public schools are going down. Down in rank, down in State funding, down period.

This can be a very sensitive and touchy subject for some people, and rightly so. The entire Nation's education system is constantly under scrutiny from all sides: teachers, students, parents, administration, state. So what is the problem? Money? Quite possibly, yes. It is always a sad story to hear how children are locked out of schools because of a teacher strike. But what causes a person to stop doing their job when so much is at stake, and so many lives are affected?

So my dog attacked a possum last night. Or is it opossum? Anyway. So of course I am a responsible dog owner who takes his dog outside to do his "business" before bedtime. Apparently "business" meant something entirely different last night.

When you think of diabetes who do you think about? Is it Wilford Brimley sitting on a horse instructing you to check your blood-sugar and check it often? Or is it the nice girl behind the checkout stand asking if you would like to donate one dollar for the Diabetes Foundation? I think of both – which is sad because I am diabetic yet I have the Quaker Oats guy emblazoned into my brain.

There are a lot of, lets say, not-so-smart people who vote during every election. There are also very educated people who heavily weigh the positives and negatives of each candidate; carefully considering the choices. There is another class of person though, like myself, who simply chooses not to vote. I am not particularly brainy, or dumb for that matter either; but when it comes to voting I am probably not the one you want in that little booth. If you read further on you might begin to see why.

Obviously to the tune of "The night before Christmas"

'Twas my first week of Xomba, Caught deep in the web
My fingers typed furiously, With me rarely seeing my bed

My Xombytes were posted on the web with great care

Does the title sound familiar at all? If you have ever perused through slate.com I doubt you could have missed it. This regular blog and podcast by David Plotz is one of the more popular features of the site. The entire point of his articles seem to be to try and make the Bible look as bad as possible.

Recalls are happening by the dozens across the U.S. today as it was found that metal particles have been found inside acetaminophen tablets. Apparently these particles are very small in size - experts who were randomly selected off the street and given large amounts of money have concluded that they do not think this would cause serious injury to those who have ingested the tablets.

Perhaps you have heard it, perhaps you haven't. I am not sure if it is a local commercial, or nationwide - either way it is annoying.

A radio commercial for Progressive Car Insurance where a woman is venting her frustration with other car insurance companies. She goes on to ask why insurance companies give you a check after you have been in an accident. Further asking rhetorical questions like "can I drive a check"" and "can I take the kids up to the mountain on a check?", concluding her point with "a check is not what I need. Why don't insurance companies get that?". Apparently with Progressive, now instead of issuing a check, they just send you to a car dealership. Almost sounds tempting, but no thank you.