Acceptance.

For every reasonable belief system to be accepted without censorship, as a people, the government can not endorse any belief system or their icons. What of our Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, and atheist citizens, etc? Do we also put up Muslim Koran scriptures on stones at Mt. Rushmore? Do we build Hindu statues in front of our town halls? Do we have a 30' budda sitting and laughing on the White House lawn? Do we put "God is Dead" on our coins? Do we build a Wiccan alter at Arlington? Hell No! For all of us to be religiously free, we must keep our government from choosing a religion or using relevant religious icons. (I believe using religious icons of dead religions, from Greek and Roman mythology, in the tradition of western culture is acceptable since they don't invoke any practiced religion)
And about prayer in school: Again, what of our atheist citizens? A moment of silence does impose a religious practice on to their children.

A fish named Goldy...mystery thriller and some sheit

At work today, there’s a bit of a mystery. A coworker of mine (I’ll call her Squeeks) had this nice mylar balloon of a large gold fish delivered for her birthday yesterday. It was actually kind of an eye sore from far away, but it really is a very nice balloon. She named it Goldy. Anyways, she gets in to work this morning to find a ransom note and pictures of her balloon with pitiful “help me” type printed messages, being threatened by sulfuric acid and a screwdriver in the eye. The kidnapper is demanding one stick of mango flavored Trident gum, a “shinny” (mispelt) 1977 penny and before & after pictures of Michael Jackson. It was signed “Sick Individual”. Squeeks and other coworkers are looking over the pictures for any clues as to who is involved. Her boss keeps seeing people in the reflections on the mylar surface of the balloon in the picture. No clear details, of course.
So, as if that isn’t ridiculously fun enough, I wanted a piece of this action myself! I set out to frame a cube neighbor of mine (I’ll call him Fred) for the heinous deed. I quickly printed out one threatening follow-up ransom note, which quickly got picked up as part of a large report that someone else was printing, and copied 60 times as part of that report. I couldn’t have planned that better if I tried! Needless to say, Squeeks got the message. She waited in the printer room for someone she suspected to come to the to pick up the now multiplied message. Fred haplessly comes walking into the printer room to pick up his mail. Of course, Squeeks immediately suspects him of the kidnapping! Again, I couldn’t have planned that any better if I tried. Phase two of my plan spoke for itself. I printed another threatening note and left it in Fred’s cube and just waited for Squeeks to make the incriminating discovery. As she’s still reeling from the first “discovery” when she finds the second note in Fred’s office. The timing was perfect. Of course, Fred is nowhere around, being in the labs most of the day. Their boss goes to find him to see if he is the culprit. Everyone is cracking up the whole time about this ridiculous situation.
So right before this lunch hour, Squeeks is in Fred’s office making further accusations about other “evidence” against him. Fred’s pitiful and weary “help me, help me!” cries were drifting from his office like a ghost’s moaning.
For lunch, their boss is eating fish…hmmm…very suspicious!

A Fish named Goldy Part II

Around 3:00pm or so, after meeting two/thirds of the ransom requirements, Squeeks got her golf fish balloon back. It turns out that it was her boss that staged the kidnapping! Too funny. Fred and other coworker were in on it as well. The fish is now safely back in Squeek's cube, no worse for the wear.

Well...

Friday night was supposed to be a big nite, but ended up not going out. I do wanna check out a couple of new places in San Jose downtown soon, so maybe plan sometime this week. I did a little shopping this weekend too with some girlfriends as my guide (and to make the experience a bit more palatable). Despite my protests, they dragged me into the Gap. They wanted to get me shirts and stuff, but I insisted that I'd only get jeans there. Ended up a Banana Republic and got a couple of nice thangs there. I know, some say it's worse than the Gap (and it's the same company), but it is more stylish. I walked in the Guess too...what the hell are they thinking with all that ugly patchwork clothing? Yuk...doesn't looks interesting, stylish or wearable.
Yesterday, I was aboard the Spitfire practicing in the tactical position for getting our timing down on our race starts. It was a lot of fun!

Impossible to find customer service numbers for Amazon.com and others!

Here's some impossible to find customer service numbers for online retailers (as listed in U.S.News Aug 18-25, 2003)
Amazon.com 800-201-7575
Hallmark.com 800-425-5627
Netflix.com 800-585-8131
Sony.com 800-571-7669
Target.com 800-591-3869

Here's a page about issues with Amazon.com customer services and suggestions to resolve them. http://www.clicheideas.com/amazon.htm

Use in good health!

List of Candidates for Governor of California's Recall

Here's the link. You'll need PDFReader installed to view the page. http://www.ss.ca.gov/elections/2003_cert_list.pdf