Friday, March 31, 2006

Deep Thoughts by Joe Carr.

I always loved the Deep Thoughts stuff done on SNL. Some of the stuff on there was just funny as hell. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of my thoughts about random things. They won't be funny or well developed, but here are my ideas on a range of topics.

Intel vs. AMD: Personally, I think Intel has the market by the balls, and because of the fact that I've never had a problem running an Intel chip, I'll never run an AMD chip until I do have a failure. With that said, AMD is running Intel in the "cool shit" department as of the past few years. Intel needs to catch up, big time.

Bottled Water: I buy bottled water, but usually only one bottle a week. After that, I fill it up four to five times per day, and drink on average, about 80 ounces per day. It makes me have to piss every 15 minutes, but at least I'm flushing all the crap out of my system...

Global Warming: I won't say that it doesn't exist, but the research I've seen proves that it's nothing but bunk. The research that I've seen that supports it just doesn't take into account the natural cycles of the earth or its ability to regenerate. In the past decades, it's been used to blame everyone for everything. I think there's a Family Guy episode in which someone says that global warming raped their mother and killed their father...I might be wrong, though.

Being Younger than Everyone you work with: This is something I've been dealing with all my life. When I started my first job as a lifeguard, I was 15, and all the people I worked with were in their early 20s. Of course, I got the shitty jobs. This has ceased now that I'm where I am today. I don't mind it as much...I actually seem to get a bit of respect because I'm one of the only people in the tech staff that has a degree. Most came directly from the Navy and have much more practical experience than I could ever hope to have. I have a piece of paper...What is more worth it?

Grad School: I'm excited as hell to get my grad degree, but the next three years just seems too long. I mean, I took 192 credits while I was at Drexel. Divide that out (using 4 credits as the standard), and that's 48 courses in four years, with two co-ops. Now, my grad degree is 10, three credit courses. It's going to take me three years because Lockheed won't reimburse more than $7500/year, and each course is almost $3K. Sucks, right? Well, at least I'm getting paid to do my masters degree.

Being Sick: I have a nasty head cold, and I'm pissed as hell about it. I mean, I drink orange juice and eat pretty well, but when I get a cold, it totally knocks me on my ass. I can't wait for the day when we've eradicated the common cold. May it come quickly, and may death for the cold be swift...But not painless.

Campbell's Chunky Soup: I currently work nights (tonight is my last night, then to mornings) and a can of Campbell's Chunky is just what I need at night. I'm constantly looking for low cost food alternatives that are relatively healthy, with a low caloric and fat count. A can is about $2, fills your belly for the night, and is only about 300 calories, and 2 grams of fat. Beat that salads!

Work Provided Pens: These always suck. I don't understand why they can't pay 20 cents for a pen and get a decent roller ball, 7 mm, instead of the crap they buy for 15 cents. I understand the cost savings, and most people aren't as anal about their pens as I am, but come on. I have the feel of the standard Bic pen, but in the way its made and in the quality of its writing. I always feel as though I'm scraping the paper when I use them. This is why I'll only use the Pilot Precise V7 rolling ball pens, or the Pilot G2 rolling ball pens. Of course, I need to purchase them on my own.

The Simpsons: Come on...16 seasons? Give it a rest. Bring back Futurama while you've still got fans.

Jessica Simpson: She's a beautiful woman, no doubt about it...she's also dumb as a fox...but I can't stand hearing any more about her and her breakup with Nick Lachey (or however you spell his name). It's time to move on, people! As BigDaddy2x4 once told me, "No matter how good she looks, someone, somewhere, is sick of her shit."

Overtime: I'm happy as hell to work it, because I love the extra money it gives me, especially if I'm getting my night shift differential. The problem is that I tend to work too much overtime, and burn myself out quickly, especially when I do two 12+ hour days in one week. With that said, as long as it's needed, I'll keep doing it..."Cash rules everything around me, CREAM, get the money, dolla' dolla' billz, ya'll" - Biggie

Teen Movies: Of the Not Another Teen Movie/The Girl Next Door genre. These movies are funny as hell, even if they are cheap laughs. I'm a big fan of dick and fart jokes, so I've got no problem "lowering myself". What am I, a film student?

Hope you've enjoyed these. When I have nothing better to write about, I'll do a few more.

Thursday, March 30, 2006

A follow up to my thread on immigration...

The other night, while I was on my way home from work (at 12:45 AM), I had the XM on and was tuned to channel 166, good old AmericaRight. Anyway, Michael Reagan was on, and he was talking about this immigration bill. He had one person saying that the economy was going to tank if the flow of the 1+ million illegal immigrants per year stopped, and another that said it would tank if it continued. I don't know either way, because you can never get a good count on how many people actually come in per year, and even if you could, you'd never get good data on how much each of them cost the American tax payers.

What I did get from the discussion was Mike Reagan's four-point plan for future immigration, which I partially agree with...You'll see why...

Part 1 - Double the number of legal immigrants let in per year.
Part 2 - Make each immigrant demonstrate the ability to read, write, and speak English. (At what level, I don't know)
Part 3 - All violent criminals (rape, murder, assault, etc) are barred from entering this country. Period.
Part 4 - For the first seven years that you are in this country, you (and your family) are not eligible for any federal money. No welfare, no Medicare, no small business loans, no federal college loans or Pell Grants, etc.

What I like:
First of all, I was stoked (that's right, I said stoked) to hear that Mike was calling for all immigrants to be required to read, speak, and write English. While it is not the official language of the United States (we don't have one, btw), it should be. I'm tired of people in this country not knowing how to speak English. This goes for the people working at the Lukoil on 38 and Hartford, who can't figure out the difference between cash and credit, the people sweeping and making pizzas at Gaetano's, et al. I mean, if you let people into this country that can't speak English, how can they assimilate? Let me tell you, folks, assimilation is what this country is all about. I'm not telling you that every person needs to look, speak, and feel alike. But, when my ancestors came to this country many moons ago (on my mother's side) from Poland and the Ukraine (via Canada), they had to do one thing to take care of their family: get a job. Back then, you didn't have Babelfish or GoogleTranslations, you either spoke English or you didn't. To get a job, you needed to speaka-de-engeris... Whether you were from Russia, China, Spain, etc, you needed to speak english to have a job and make money. How would you communicate with your boss? Hand signals? No dice, my friends...These people learned English the hard way, because they were forced to. They couldn't' live otherwise. Today, there's a faction in our country that wants to allow everyone to keep their languages, and make everyone else adapt to speak with them. This is totally ridiculous, as far as I'm concerned. If they want to be here, they need to learn to speak English, not spanglish, not ruskie-lish, ENGLISH.

I was also very happy to hear that no violent criminals would be allowed in, period. Unfortunately, trying to get prison records from places like Zimbabwe and Nicaragua might pose difficult.

The last part of the plan I'm ecstatic about. This is the crux of my argument...I mean, these people are coming into the country illegally and are giving birth to their children in our hospitals, instantly making the children US citizens. Then, who's going to deport a mother and keep her child here? You? Me? Who's going to pay for that child's well-being? I say, build a big ass wall along the entire freaking US/Mexico border, have a 10K strong military force down there with orders to shoot to kill if they see people trying to cross the wall. This will stop them from trying and make that situation I mentioned above much more difficult. Anyway, I digress. If you stop these people from getting any sort of federal aid, they will stop coming here. If you turn them away at hospitals and give them nothing, they'll leave! If the states would start passing more stringent laws regarding business owners employing illegal immigrants, people will stop hiring them. I mean, the only way to really stop illegal immigration is to starve them out...Metaphorically, of course.

I'm not advocating that we put them in a prison and give them nothing but bread and water for the rest of their days. What I am saying is that if you take away their sources of income (illegal work, federal benefits), they'll go home and either try to come here LEGALLY or find work there. This, over time, will stop the influx of illegals.

The first point of Mike's plan (and the last thing I'll speak about) is doubling the amount of legal immigrants that can come to the US per year. Now, I know what you're thinking...Joe, if we stop all illegal immigration and double the number of legal immigrants, we're going to wind up in the same pickle. I would tend to agree with you, if we were not also following the other rules mentioned above. If we were providing them with federal benefits for nothing, then yes, we'd be in the exact same situation...But we wouldn't be. They'd need to find a place to live, work, and yes, assimilate on their own. Make them find legal work and pay taxes, just like the rest of us. In seven years, they can become eligible for college funding, military service, and best of all, the chance to become a US citizen, with all rights and duties.

Hey, if my mother's family could do it, so can these people.

In closing, just a little story about a friend of mine that used to work at Staples. One day, she was stocking shelves, when a small, middle-aged Asian man came in. He asked her if they sold "ca-fo-kis" and said it really quickly. She asked him to repeated it several times, slowly, but she was still unable to understand him, and thinking that he had said "coffee cakes," she replied, "No sir. This is Staples. We don't sell coffee cakes here. Try xxx food store." Obviously frustrated, he yelled at her "CA-FO-KIS, CA-FO-KIS, POKEMON!!!" She realized then that he wanted Pokemon cards for kids. She showed him that up near the registers, they had a few novelty card sets, and Pokemon cards were among them. He seemed happy to hear that, and then asked her if they sold "reeea pus piiiiins". Again, she couldn't understand him, so she asked him to repeat it, and again he did, several times. At the end, he got so frustrated that he asked "WATS A MATTA, YOU NO SPEAKA ENGERIS"??? The guy was actually looking for red push pins...

So, make sure you speak the language before you insult someone who can't understand you...

Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Online grad school sucks.

On this idiot I'm in a group with...


As you might have read in my first post, I'm currently working on my Masters Degree in Systems Engineer at Stevens Institute of Technology. I'm doing the degree online, since I live in Mount Laurel, NJ, and SIT happens to be in Hoboken, NJ, which is a pretty damn far drive.

Anywho, much of the coursework is in groups. While I do have an individual assignment due each week (more of a discussion of the week's coursework), we have a team project, in which we need to come up with a need for a system, define the stakeholders, and do all applicable analysis, such as QFD Matrices, DPDs, etc. The team that I have is working out decently, however we have this guy Avinash in the group. He's obviously not from around here (actually, there are only two people in my group that are native English speakers, out of 5). I'm not sure if he's Pakistani, Afghan, Indian, or what, but the guy couldn't speak (err...type) english if his life depended on it. His posts on the discussion boards typically follow with this general format: reposting of the initial question, reposting of his previous posts, reposting of what someone else said, more reposting (in entirety) of his posts, and finally a sentence or two of rambling, jumbled english (or whatever you can call it).

Now, for two months, I've been very understanding of this guy's problems communicating. Unfortunately, over the past two weeks, his posts have become even more and more difficult to understand, just as we're getting to the hard part of the project. He doesn't make any damn sense in his posts, and we're working very hard as a team to keep our heads above water.

Today, we got a message from our instructor informing us that Avinash was no longer with our group, and that the four of us would need to finish the project, with no further input from him. Of course, I was very concerned. I graduated Magna Cum Laude at Drexel, and I damn sure want to do the same now. Of particular concern was that we (myself and the other group members) had pissed him off and he had decided to leave the group and give us a bad name with the instructor. Fortunately for us, I messaged the prof and was told that although she could not discuss Avinash's situation with us (confidentiality), we were not at fault and had done nothing wrong. We're to continue on and finish the project without him.

Let me tell you that this is a total load off my mind. While this guy seemed to know his shit early on in the course, he was becoming a liability as we progressed further and further. I mean, this isn't rocket science, but it's not underwater basketweaving either.

Anyway, on a personal note, I'd like to thank my buddy BigDaddy2x4 over at the Anti-Zombification League for linking me up to his blog. I hope to prove him proud...if I can remember to keep up with my posting!

Monday, March 27, 2006

Rights for illegal immigrants? Hogwash...

Check out this article from CNN.com...

This, my friends, is completely and utterly ridiculous. These people are walking out of their jobs and schools to protest for a group of people that have NO rights in the United States. While they may be citizens of Mexico, Panama, Ecuador, or another South American country, any rights they have under that country's rules do not apply here. The only people in this country that are entitled to the rights of a US citizen are...You guessed it...US CITIZENS! Besides the rights that a US citizen has, they also have responsibilities; paying state/federal/local taxes, obeying state and federal laws, registering for the draft (if they are appropriately aged and sexed), paying into their social security, etc. What don't illegal immigrants do? Well, if I need to spell this out for you, please, click the "Next blog" button at the top of the screen.

So why does the topic of illegal immigration grind my gears? First of all, these people have come to a country to advance themselves after drawing a shitty lot in life. I applaud them for trying to make something of themselves...Hell, that's what my family did when they came here. The difference is that my mother's family waited their turn, from the Ukraine and Poland, in the early 1900s. My father's family has been in the US since the mid-1700s and helped forge this great nation. Am I saying that I don't want anyone to immigrate into the US? Of course not, but I do want the immigration to occur through proper channels.

In my opinion, immigrants should only be permitted into the country if they are needed for a particular industry. Having too many people who do nothing but sweep floors does nothing but give you a bunch of people that can sweep floors. No, we want the nuclear engineers, the automotive engineers, businessmen and women, etc. These people will take an active roll in our economy, which brings me to my next point: illegal immigrants are a drain on our economy. Why? They cost our judicial system many millions of dollars to track, prosecute, and either imprison or deport. Too few are simply deported, as that word seems to have developed a non-PC connotation to it...Most are detained and incarcerated. They cost our Homeland Security department money when additional agents are employed to stop the transit of illegals into California and Texas. They cost the government money when they go to hospitals. They don't have a social security number, so obviously they don't have any health insurance. Couple that with the fact that US hospitals are required by federal law to provide emergency care to anyone, regardless of whether they can pay or have insurance, and realize what that means. I have decent health insurance, and my emergency room co-pay is $100. Imagine what an emergency care visit by an illegals costs. Those doctors aren't working for free...

The immigrants also do not pay into Medicare or Social Security, yet they will receive benefits once they finally become citizens, as will their children. As I said earlier, they also do not register for the draft. The US hasn't had a draft since 1973, yet all men that turn 18 are required to register, and required to update the Selective Service Administration of address changes until their 26th birthday. Do I believe we should have a draft? No...Do I want all people (and yes, women are people) currently residing in this country, legal or not, to register? Hell yes. While I have ambivalence towards a conscripted military, I do believe that everyone living in this country, enjoying the rights and prosperity that comes along with it, should be required to register for the draft in case of war. Will a draft ever be needed again? I can't answer that question.

Anyway, enough of my problems with illegal immigrants...On to the article. What's my beef? These people, who were protesting, should have been at work or school. If they were school aged, they should have been arrested for cutting. If they were supposed to be at work, they should be reprimanded, and depending on the situation, fired. My biggest issue is that these people were out protesting for people who don't have any rights! These people are not American citizens. They deserve none of the rights that I, as an American citizen enjoy, unless they are granted by their own government, and they are in their own country. Sometimes I wonder if people really stop to think about what they're doing...

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Well, this is my first post on a new blog. I've had several in the past, and this is actually my oldest, which hadn't been updated since the end of 2003. I was on this thing when it was still called Blogspot (I think). Anywho, I've deleted those old posts and in the coming days, weeks, and months, will have plenty of ammunition to use as I bitch about whatever I feel like today.

So, my introduction to the Blogger world is this:

I'm a 23 year old, white conservative male, who is engaged to a wonderful Irish/German girl named Meghan. I live in Mount Laurel, NJ, and grew up about an hour away in Neptune City, NJ. I have a BS in Business Administration with a concentration in Management Information Systems and a minor in Information Systems and Technologies from Drexel University (Magna Cum Laude). I'm currently working on my MS in Systems Engineering from Stevens Institute of Technology (yeah, I'm a nerd, but not that kind of nerd). I work as a UNIX Systems Administrator for Lockheed Martin, on the AEGIS Combat System. The building I work in is commonly known as the "Cruiser in the Cornfield", as it's a mock-up of a US Navy Arleigh Burke class Destroyer, complete with combat system and fully functional radar systems. Most everything in the building is secret, so I can't divulge much, but it's a pretty damn cool building. So, besides that, I'm an avid sports fan. I'm a diehard NY Mets and NY Giants fan. I don't care too much for professional basketball, but I've been known to watch some college bball. I'm also a huge fan of the Ford Motor Company. My fiancee is the love of my life, but my car is second. I have a 1998 Mercury Sable, and before you say "it's just a Taurus," realize that I have more blood, sweat, and money invested in this car than I care to think about. Why do I keep it? It's a great driver's car once you set the suspension up and take care of a few transmission issues. It is very responsive and takes well to modding, especially the suspension. Sometime in the next year, it'll receive a heart transplant, when it gets a 4.6L DOHC V8 from a Lincoln Continental, which will bump it to approximately 280 HP.

Anyway, that's enough for my introductory post. Hope you know me a little better now. I'm sure you'll be getting plenty of my opinions in the coming days (if anyone actually reads this).