The War in the Middle East

There has been a lot in the news about how we should withdraw troops from Iraq and Afghanistan...or not pull out because there would be chaos. Anna Quindlen from Newsweek wrote,

"Now the party line is that American forces will get out, but they cannot get out now. They cannot get out now because Iraq would become a place of civil war, of untrammeled violence, of complete chaos. Iraq has been a place of civil war, untrammeled violence, complete chaos for a long time now. American intervention has not made that better. It has made it worse." [Click here for her full article.]

She also basically says that other people who say it will become chaotic over there if we pull out our troops now are inferring that it is currently NOT chaotic and violent because we are there. With all the headlines of deaths and suicide bombs, it is certainly not calm now.

My theory is this: It will never be peaceful over there because the people of the country don't want it to be. A system of authority can only work if the masses believe in that authoritative system. If not enough people believe in the authority, it will never work. In Iraq, it is more important to citizens to have only their particular party in charge than it is to have peace in the country. As an example, imagine if the Republicans took to the streets and did massive suicide bombs because the Democrats took over Congress in November 2006. Or the Democrats created massive upheaval because Bush was re-elected president. But we don't do that in the US. Sure, there are a few crazies that always want to try and kill whatever president is in power, but we don't have severe and massive uprisings where Democrats take to the streets and shoot all the Republicans they can find. We all still generally believe in the system our ancestors created, and we all still basically want peace. The Iraqi people don't seem to want peace. That's why I think no matter what we do - pull out now, pull out later, or pull out slowly -it won't make a difference to the country. So I think we might as well cut our losses (of lives and money) and get out now while we still have some soldiers still alive.

Sports Doping Scandals

The Tour de France and Barry Bonds (again) have been in the news a lot lately, in regards to using steroids to enhance performance. Here's my cynical take on it...

Since it seems to be so hard to detect the stuff, and people seem to use it whether or not it is illegal (and deny deny deny), I have a revolutionary idea. First, we will start a new set of sports records books. Then we change the rules so it is no longer against the rules to use drugs or steroids or any type of performance enhancing stuff for sports. Then it puts everyone on the same playing field again (well, on the new set of record books), and they can continue to compete. Then we level the playing field again, and it will come down to whoever is the best athlete at the end of the day. And if someone takes it too far and takes too many drugs - the consequence is clear....death. They will just end up killing themselves from drug overdoses, and that's the catch.

My revolutionary method has fixed the problem, and no one needs to be tested or watched for drug use. It will be clear that everyone is using them, and the dead ones used too much. Problem solved!

Bridezilla in One Easy Step!

So everyone talks about "Bridezillas". I certainly hope I don't become one of them. But I think I know how they come to be....

Whenever you talk to a vendor at a bridal fair, or in their shop, they always say (several times) "Just do whatever YOU want." "It's YOUR day, it should be everything YOU dreamed of..." blah blah. The vendors start all of it!! They bring it on themselves (probably trying to get you to spend more money to make everything PERFECT for the BIG day). It is the same way people become vain - after hearing something ump-teen million times, you start to believe it...then more and more.... voila! Bridezilla created!

So I'm Planning My Wedding...

...and I've been to a couple of these "Bridal Fairs" where all the vendors get together in one place and, as a bride, you pay money to be accosted by all these people trying to get more money from you. As you enter, they slap a "BRIDE" sticker on you, to label you like the Scarlet Letter. Then the vendors know who to target as you are walking by, and you can walk past anyone! I hate that sticker...

And something else I learned from these bridal fairs.....Everyone and their stinkin' mother wants to be your wedding Coordinator. There are DJ's who want to help you plan your entire wedding and pick a cake and caterer for you, too! They've got a priest they know as well! The catering companies can set you up with a cake place and a DJ too! It's as if someone specializes in ANY part of a wedding ceremony or reception, they are skilled to do all the rest of it too! Everyone is selling "all inclusive" packages, rather than just a price for their particular service. Trying to parse that out from them gets difficult and annoying.

It's difficult to figure out how you are going to pick your various vendors for the wedding. With catering and cake, you can taste the food. But with a DJ, you can't really listen to their music, because it's all the same. You really have to see them in action to know whether they would be any good or not. So I came up with a question to ask DJs to help me determine who might be good. My question is, "If I told you I wanted 80's pop/dance music played at my reception, name 5 songs you would play." It turns out, this is not a bad question! A couple of the DJs I asked had pretty good answers (Come On Eileen, Tainted Love, etc.). One DJ said, "Anything by Michael Jackson or Madonna" and that's it. Uh...there was a lot more dance music in the 80s that wasn't done by the white female freak or Madonna.

Ahhh....to blog again....I've got to remember to do this at my lunchtime at work!

Long Time No Post

Sorry it's been a while since I posted on my blog. I first went on vacation for a cruise to visit Hurricane Paul! Two of our three ports were cancelled, the boat was very rocky, and all the good free games they played were held in the smoking lounges so we didn't want to go. I won't even talk about all the old people there. But the food was excellent!

Then about a week after we got back my boyfriend proposed and we are now engaged! So that's been consuming a lot of my time now, too. So sorry for the delay in updating my blog. I'm sure that since I'll be dealing with people in the wedding industry, there will be plenty to rant about, so stay tuned for those.

Some of my books (I bought about five from Amazon - used, of course! - on how to have a great wedding and not spend a fortune) say that bridal stores charge you a "try-on" fee of $50 just to try on their dresses! How ridiculous is that?!!

Don't even get me started on hotel or banquet halls charging "corkage" fees if you bring your own wine....what a total scam! This one place has a $14 corkage fee per bottle. My fiance said to just buy boxed wine so there's no corks to pull....great idea, but I somehow think that won't fly. They also charge a cake-cutting fee of $1.50 per person, which more or less doubles the cost of the cake. These fees are so excessive and ridiculous, that I can't stand it. I'm going to hold my reception at a community center or a church parish hall so i don't have those stupid extra costs. Besides, the wine I like only costs $6 a bottle at Trader joe's!

That's it for this episode...

Financial Tip #1

My boyfriend and I were watching TV several weeks ago, and managed to stumble across a repeat of Saturday Night Live. Steve Martin was the host, so we decided to watch a bit.

One of their fake commercials came on, and my boyfriend and I were nearly rolling on the ground laughing so hard. It sounds EXACTLY like something I'd say to people (and probably have, on occasion). It turns out that there's a clip of this commercial available on-line! So here is a link to it - you've just got to see it for yourself! SNL Video

This commercial tells you what my #1 Financial Tip is.

Let me know what you think...

It's called a M-I-X-E-R

So on 10/8 we had our first small fundraising event for HSSV. We managed to raise about $2500, I think, and had about 50-60 people attend. One of our sponsors was DateMyPet.com, which is a singles site for animal lovers. We held it at a brewery, and all beer was donated by a local brewery, which we then sold for $3 a glass to benefit the animals. We had a few games (i.e. doggie musical chairs where the last dog to sit when the music stops is out) and raffle prizes, and several people told us they had a really good time. We even had beer for the dogs! It's called Happy Tail Ale, and it's actually brewed just for dogs, without alcohol or carbonation. You can buy it on-line here.

[Sorry for all the links in this post. I just figured out how to do it and it's kinda cool! Practice, Practice, practice!]

One lady at the event, though, didn't seem to be having a good time. While delivering some glasses of beer to a table, she looked at me and said sarcastically, "This is a RAGING party." I decided to just ignore her. But my thought was, Well, it's a mix and mingle event, and you're sitting here by yourself in the middle and not trying to meet anyone. It's not my fault you can't mingle right!" Was she expecting a full-scale dating service for her $10 entrance donation?? Ugh.