Month: January 2004

Another ass dragging Sunday night prepping me up for a wonderful Monday morning. Nothing excites me as much as watching the clock count down until it’s time for me to get to bed so I can wake up in the morning and start my week over from scratch. Tomorrow I have a bunch of new items coming in that I need to find a home for. I have a few new medicine items coming in, and I have the new line of low carb items from Slim Fast. I wonder who won’t have a low carb item coming out soon?

Speaking of the low carb craze, I tried one of the new low carb tortilla wraps at Subway last week. I went for the Chicken Bacon Ranch Wrap. It was very good except that they jacked me $4.09 for it. I did enjoy it very much though and have been working very hard in my laboratory (kitchen) trying to duplicate it. I already have the low carb tortillas on hand, and I cook my chicken breast and cut it into little pieces, put a slice of bacon on it, some lettuce (which I didn’t get at Subway… the bastards) and some ranch dressing and voila… dinner is served.

I bought American Wedding Unrated Friday night. I had to drive all over town because Walmart (my best friends) only carried the R rated version, and dammit that wasn’t good enough. I ended up having to go to Sam Goody to get my copy, which was well worth it. On a side note, I picked up Season 3 of South Park at Walmart Friday night. I guess an unrated movie is too dirty for them, but a dirty cartoon is right up their alley. Fucking hypocrites.

I went to a ski hill today. You are probably wondering what in the hell I was doing at a ski hill so let me assure you, I do not ski. I went tubing with my friends. You know I almost felt like a kid again, aside from the chronic arthritis. Seriously though, I am in some minor pain, but nothing that some Icy Hot won’t take care of. I guess there should be a sign out front with a circle with the 30 in it and line through it. I must say it was nice to get outside and breathe the fresh air for a while though. Of course being outside in the winter in Wisconsin is a few steps short of being insane. Our high today was somewhere near 20. That’s 12 below freezing in case you were wondering. But there’s nothing like a little outdoor fun to get your heart beating fast, speaking of which…

I see that the government is going to put a ban on Ephedra in a little under 60 days. “We have a tremendous burden of proof in order to take supplements off of the market,” Thompson said Tuesday in announcing the ban on a supplement that has been linked to 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes. 155 deaths and dozens of heart attacks and strokes? Dozens as in 12?
Here are some facts I’ve looked up on cigarettes… let’s compare shall we? Each year, more than 440,000 Americans die from cigarette smoking. As far as the heart disease goes, 81,976 people are afflicted with it, and strokes get another 17,445 people. Hey, lets go somewhere that Ephedra doesn’t. Lung cancer will get 124,813 more people and other lung diseases will afflict 82,431 people. Other cancers will get 130,948 people.

So… how does the comparison go? I’m going to give the Ephedra people the benefit of the doubt here and go with 30 dozen, giving us 360 people, add in the 155 deaths and we have a whopping 515 deaths/strokes/heart attacks. Now, what are those cigarette numbers? To be fair I will only use the deaths and heart attack/stroke numbers which come to a jaw dropping 539,421. So I guess we ban the Ephedra that has done in slightly over 500 people and continue to sell the tobacco that has done in roughly 540,000. Good plan America, good plan.

Why would the government not want to outlaw such a horrible item that is killing so many and making them sick? The same thing that makes all top law officials look away. Dead presidents, and lots of them. Cigarettes are one of the most heavily taxed consumer products in the United States. Federal, state and local governments have a virtual monopoly on tobacco profits. With excise tax collections on cigarettes for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2002 amounting to more than $16 billion, the government made more money from the sale of cigarettes than retailers, wholesalers, farmers and manufacturers combined. Government pocketed over $74 million a day from smokers from 1998 to 2002, more tobacco tax revenue per minute than the average working family brings home in a year ($51,334 per minute vs. $42,228 per year median household income in 2001). (source) It’s always nice to know how much you are handing over to the government.
Sounds like a good plan doesn’t it? If the Ephedra would rake in profits for the government you wouldn’t find them being banned at all. And these are the same people that are keeping us safe from the oil holding terrorists?

Wild parties, lots of drinking and lots of un-remembered sex. Does that describe the total opposite of what your evening was like? Mine too. Just think of all the clean up time you’ve saved yourselves from by not partying your ass off. I’m sure plenty of people partied like there was no tomorrow. They unfortunately found out that there is a tomorrow, and most likely they will be in jail then. Hey, you only have a New Years Celebration once a year. What exactly is the point of this whole New Years celebration anyway? I would think that after the first 2000 of them, they would start to get a little old. It’s not like we don’t know which year is coming next. If we randomly picked a year or something it might add a little more excitement to the whole deal. Hey, just a quick New Year News-flash, I broke one of my resolutions already. I did not win the Powerball last night. I know that is probably a major shock to everyone but I did manage to match a few numbers. None on the same line, but if diagonals counted I’d be a fucking winner. Damn New Year.

Well, it’s officially here, 2004 has kicked the hinges off the door and is here in full force. I now have my brand new calendar all in place and I am ready for whatever the new year has to offer, which seems to be earthquakes. Lots of fucking earthquakes. We’ve already had one in California on December 22, then there was a large one in Iran on December 26. Today another earthquake hit Mexico city. I see a trend beginning here, don’t you? 2004 will be the year of horrible natural disasters. Please note I am not a scientist nor do I have any working knowledge of how earthquakes work or any indication of future earthquakes that might possibly happen. I don’t know if you are truly fucked here. I cannot be held responsible for any rash actions you may take as a result of this report because as stated previously, it’s all bullshit I made up. However in the event that 2004 does become a bumper year for natural disasters, you can all suck my shit.

Had a major rip-off at the store yesterday. The Old Dutch rep told me she found seven boxes of generic Actifed buried behind the chips. When I went over to check my shelf I noticed that all my boxes of Actifed, and all generics were gone. I had absolutely nothing on my shelf. I always knew the stupid worthless fuckers could make meth out of Sudafed (pseudoephedrine), but I guess it never occurred to me that they could make it out of a Sudafed mixed with an antihistamine (pseudoephedrine & Triprolidine). I guess you learn something new every day. I can only hope that the assholes either blow their house up while they are making the shit, or they get caught selling it and go to jail for a long time. A definitely good way to end my last day of the year at my job.

Fucking people.