NPR and pledge drives...

OK, this has been going on now for a week, and it's driving me crazy. I know, I know. NPR needs to hold a pledge drive a couple of times per year to get the money that they need to operate, and I of course donate everytime I heard the stupid pledge drive on the air, because yeah, I listen to a hell of a lot of NPR, so it's worth $50 a couple of times per year. But damn. Just damn. I love NPR because there aren't any commercials really, and it's just constant news and information, but they make up for not having commercials when they have the pledge drive. I think they pack an entire year's worth of "commercials" into the days that they do the pledge drive. I miss a lot of information because I have to switch it off, because I can't bear to hear about Cory Flintoff coffee mugs that I'll get for donating my money. Or even worse, that limited edition CD of Backporch Music that they'll send me if I donate enough cash. Um, yeah, you can keep that crap, trust me on that. If there is anything I hate more Garrison Keeler, it's Backporch Music. Oh wait, maybe The Thistle and Shamrock with Fiona Ritchie. Lots of Celtic music, so there are a lot of fiddles, whistles, bells, and bad Irish accents. Oh my God. I hear that, and I turn it over to the local pop music station, which is even worse, because they play the same 10 songs over and over and over and over again until it makes your ears bleed. Clear Channel Communications is the Devil. I know it. I know they are. There is a decent talk radio station out of Greensboro these days though, and there is one show on there that I like and I can usually catch part of that on the drive home from work, which during the pledge drive is good, because when there are regular commercials on the talk radio station, I can switch over and actually maybe catch a piece of All Things Considered on NPR. Maybe. That is if Joan Seifert isn't out there asking for us to donate more money. It's almost over though, the pledge drive that is. I can't wait. I think that it ends tomorrow, and I will celebrate by hoisting a cold beer when I get home in the evening from the menial task that I call work. I can't help it. It drives me nuts. I know I said that before, repeating here again for emphasis on the NUTS part. Makes me want to pull my nose hair out.

By happenstance at some point in time I came across this one person's blog out there on the web. This young lady happens to be a highly conservative right winger Republican. I frequent her blog, and place some "balanced" comments on there. Today, she posted this series of questions on there that I had to respond to because as I read through them, my pulse started to go through the roof, and then reading her responses, and the rest of her friends' responses, it started to drive me mad. Of course I went off on a long not too bad tirade on her questions, and I think I had the longest response in her blog. Go there, make responses if you would. It would be "good" for her to hear from a different point of view, because to me it is so apparent that she has drank the "kool aid" of the Republican party, we should call her Little Karl. She has the most infuriating trait of so-called conservatives these days. She claims she is pro-life and respects life in all forms, and then goes on to say she supports war in Iraq and the death penalty. I don't know what you guys might call this, but I most certainly call it hypocrisy at the very least, and that was being nice. I didn't blast her, because she has requested for people to not use bad words on her blog, and I can respect that, so I don't even cuss her out, although in my opinion she probably deserves that at the very least. Maybe someday when she lives out in the world and out from the protection of her parents, she can then make her own political decisions, and decide for herself who she wants to be. Maybe she'll stay the same person as she is now. I don't know. I only hope to influence her thinking just a tad, but I think it's a fruitless effort really. From what she blogs about, it appears that she reads the official RNC talking points and or listens to Rush in the afternoons, and then repeats what she has heard. I've yet to hear her make a rational independent thought about, well, anything. Check her out at the following location (Graham go get her son):

http://mary-anns-musings.blogspot.com/

Now, with all that being said, I do respect her opinions and her thoughts, they are her thoughts, no matter how ad nauseum that they are. I give her credit for trying. It's probably more than most of her ilk do. So be sort of nice, but still get some more comments on there.

Today at work, I almost saw one of my co-workers get his ass kicked. Holy crap that would have been hilarious. OK, bad, but hilarious. There is this guy that I work with, we'll call him Jamie (mostly because that's his name). Jamie is a hard working bloke, very easy to get along with, and will do just about anything for you when you ask. He's very easy going. There is this other guy that I work with, we'll call him Gary (once again because that is his name), who is also a decent bloke, it's just that sometimes he does these things that are very annoying. Like trying to press home his point and going after it, again, and again, and again, and again, and again. He's that guy that you could ask him a simple yes or no question and you end up with a 25 minute explanation of something that should have rightly taken 2 seconds to answer. He's that guy. He's the guy in your high school class that asked such a long question that when the bell rang you had to stay in the classroom for another 5 minutes before he got through it, and he's the kid everyone wanted to beat up. Well, that almost happened today. He kept needling Jamie about this one thing, and they were arguing about it back and forth for awhile (like for the first 30 minutes I was at work) over the phone, and finally, Jamie hung up on him. He had tired of the conversation. Or he was just worn out from it. I can't tell which it was. This of course set Gary of on a mission to "correct an attitude" as he told it to me. I had to follow him out for this one. This would be too good to miss really. Luckily, we never found Jamie as Gary walked around the plant (and I followed him around). Talking to Jamie later, he was still incensed and made mention that had Gary been anywhere near him after their phone "conversation" he would have gotten dropped with a haymaker. Let me see who I would take in a brawl? Gary. Kind of doughy smart kid, someone that we would have called a nerd in high school. Jamie. Former farm boy turned Marine, now working on his own landscaping business. I'll take the former Marine/farm boy over the doughy nerd any day of the week I think. Yeah, definitely. It would have been a massacre I believe. And someone, or 2 people probably would have lost jobs on that one. It's good thing Gary didn't find him to adjust his "attitude" as he mentioned before. Ah, the workplace. Such a fun place to be. We had someone get the cuffs slapped on them in the parking lot earlier this week. Although that person didn't work there, they just turned into the parking lot to avoid getting pulled over by the Po-Lice. Good stuff. Got to love Roxboro North Cackalacky. A small town where everyone knows your name, and your business. I'm glad I don't live there.