A Cartoonish Life

Casey Anthony finally named a suspect in her daughter's disappearance.

I've been following this case on "Nancy Grace," and it makes me angry and sick. Casey's been lying to the police and investigators from the very beginning. Seriously, who waits a whole damn month to report their child as missing?!

What kills me is what a liar she is. She tells the police that she left Caylee with a nanny. How on Earth can she afford a nanny when she hasn't held down a job in two years? How is she "so busy" with no job that she needs a goddamned nanny? She tried lying to the police and told them she worked as an "event coordinator" for Universal Studios when in reality, she was fired from Universal two years ago. She even pinned a name on this "nanny"--Zenaida Gonzalez--when the real Zenaida doesn't even know Casey, has four or so kids of her own to take care of, and works as a cleaning lady. (Nancy interviewed Zenaida last night, and I seriously hope that this Zenaida takes some legal action against Casey Anthony because Casey's ruined her life with these false accusations.)

They went through her old laptop and discovered a bunch of links that she visited involving chloroform in a search. Over 200 pictures of Caylee were deleted recently from her laptop. And there were a bunch of text messages found on her cell involving barely anything about Caylee, but she sure had time to text all of her friends about "wet t-shirt" and "hot body" contests at local dance clubs. And the few texts that mention Caylee refer to her as a "snothead." Then she's busted on fradulent check charges--forging her friend's checks, and using the router number on her grandmother's checking account and wiping it clean. (Of course, she's going to rip off money to keep up her club-going lifestyle when she HAS NO REAL JOB OF HER OWN!) She's been put in jail three times because of the fraud and bailed out each time on very high bail. She's wasting taxpayer's money, and she's been continually lying to the police and sending them on a wild goose chase when deep down, she more than likely killed Caylee and disposed of her body in such a way that the search teams will never find her at this point.

Casey Anthony needs to rot in prison. Plain and simple.

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/nancy.grace/

http://www.burntorangereport.com/

If you can find it in your heart (and I hate to say it, your wallet) to help those in Houston/Galveston, please do so, because it looks like FEMA's gonna drop the ball on them like they did in New Orleans.

We got word from Grandma Cozie today. She's sounding in good spirits, actually. She, Uncle Glen and Aunt Roberta managed to survive the storms/hurricane. The hurricane didn't hit Livingston, but they got parts of the storm on the outside.

It's still bad out here, too. 7.35 inches here in Lowell. The water around where I live is pretty much receded, and it's fine downtown now. Hunter said it was way worse two days ago when it was actually storming. In St. John, the whole area by that Shrine of the Passion looks like a LAKE.

Like iamfiction said, it wouldn't quit raining!

And to top it all off....today, everyone just decided to make today their big grocery haul day. When there are flash flood warnings and massive rainstorms going on, you just don't go out in that weather to buy a metric crap ton of groceries. The water will recede in a couple of days; it's not like you're going to be snowed in. Maybe it just makes people feel more secure knowing they have their fridge packed to capacity JUST IN CASE!!! I dunno, I think it's an American feeling of excess.


On a completely unrelated note, here's a old McDonald's commercial from the 70s. What were the creative ad people smoking at the time?!:




Oh, and an old KFC commercial, back when people still called it "Kentucky Fried Chicken":




Ya hungry yet?!

Lone accountant takes on the IRS...and wins

By CHRISTOPHER S. RUGABER, AP Business Writer Sun Aug 24, 5:41 PM ET

WASHINGTON - It took seven years, but Charles Ulrich did something many people dream about, but few succeed at: He beat the IRS in a tax dispute.

Not only that, but tax experts say potentially millions of other taxpayers could benefit from his victory.

The accountant from Baxter, Minn., challenged the method the IRS has used for more than 20 years to tax shares and cash distributed by mutual life insurance firms to their policyholders when they reorganize as public companies.

A federal court recently agreed with his interpretation.

"There's a tremendous amount of money at stake," said Robert Willens, a New York City-based tax analyst at Robert Willens LLC. "Tens of thousands of people could be in line for a refund."

( Read more... )

Why NOT two gold medals?

Their gymnasts are too frickin' young to be competing in the first place, you know?! And China's already ahead in gold medal count. It's not like letting Nastia have a gold would've thrown it all off.

It's all political, I'm sure of it.

A car crashed into the bank that they do their banking at yesterday!

If I had been there getting change or depositing a night deposit....


No one got hurt, though. But still...I was nearly late getting to work at Strack's because of the traffic backup it caused. (Diane F. later told me she would've excused it if I were late given the circumstances; Strack & Van Til's is right across the street from that bank.)

*semi-related tangent* Ugh....Tuesday was my last day off. Since Wednesday, I'll be working a full ten straight days. My next day off won't be until next Saturday. But I found out why this could possibly be. Mary (the management trainee; she's an "intern" of sorts) did the schedule for this week. I'll forgive her this time. *ha ha*

America, F*CK YEAH!

We're in the lead, so far! China may have gold medals, though, but we still have more medals!

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080704/ap_on_re_us/statue_of_liberty

NEW YORK - The National Park Service is considering reopening Lady Liberty's crown for the first time since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to documents a congressman released on July Fourth.

The park service requested bids last month to study what it would take to safely open the Statue of Liberty's iconic headpiece to the public, according to documents released by U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y.

Liberty Island was closed after the terrorist attacks. The statue's base, pedestal and lower observation deck reopened in August 2004, after a $20 million effort to enhance fire safety.

But the crown and its interior observation deck, which soar about 265 feet above New York Harbor, remained closed because the Park Service said there was no way to evacuate them safely in an emergency. The narrow spiral staircase that leads up to the crown doesn't comply with fire and building codes.

Visitors are now limited to the statue's 154-foot-tall pedestal.

Weiner, a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security, helped arrange a congressional hearing in September on reopening the crown.

He said keeping the observation deck shuttered hurts the city's economy: Since the crown closed, the number of visitors to Lady Liberty has dropped 44 percent, from 3.6 million in 2000 to 2.5 million in 2006.

"The bureaucracy which had stubbornly refused to open the crown is finally moved in the right direction," Weiner said Friday. "Today's news means that America is one step closer to providing what everyone wants: safe access to the heights of Lady Liberty."

The Park Service said in a statement Friday that several architectural and engineering firms have assessed visitor access since the attacks, and that all concluded the area from the pedestal to the crown doesn't meet safety codes.

The newest Park Service survey, sent to nearly 800 security firms, asks them to prepare plans that address whether the statue can be updated to meet fire safety codes, and, if not, how the service can minimize safety risks there.

The deadline for submitting proposals is Wednesday, and the plans would be finalized by January 2009, Weiner said. The House recently agreed to provide $1 million to help fund the work; it wasn't immediately clear Friday whether the Senate would do the same.

The Park Service said the staircase to the observation deck was installed for maintenance workers, not for sightseers. When it was open, rangers responded to emergencies almost daily, especially in summer heat.

Sightseers suffered heat exhaustion, shortness of breath, panic attacks, claustrophobia and fear of heights, the service said.

"The statue's designer, Frederic Auguste Bartholdi, never intended visitors to ascend to the crown," spokesman Darren Boch said.

The crown is the only National Park Service site that hasn't reopened since the 2001 attacks. The Park Service oversees such sites as the Washington Monument and Mount Rushmore.

A gift from France to the United States, the Statue of Liberty was dedicated in 1886.

*ha* Know what this reminded me of? Not just the fact that it's Independence Day, but...

http://blogs.moneycentral.msn.com/topstocks/archive/2007/11/02/blockbuster-hates-the-internet.aspx?CommentPosted=true#commentmessage

Blockbuster hates the Internet
Posted Nov 02 2007, 07:11 AM by Kim Peterson

This is how I picture board meetings at Blockbuster world headquarters. CEO Jim Keyes stands up and slams his hands on the table. "This Internet thing is killing us!" he shouts. "Come on, people, we need ideas!"

Silence. Crickets chirping.

If any company could pack the Internet up in a box and shove it on the garage shelf, it would be Blockbuster. Oh, for the days when it could zap you with late fees if you didn't have the movie back by 4 p.m. [Holly sez: Actually, it's noon. Well, actually, they TELL you it's due back by noon, but they give you till 2 PM anyway.] Or when it could charge you an arm and a leg for new releases. The company hasn't been able to handle the rise of online distribution or the Web-slash-mail delivery system that Netflix has pioneered.

Netflix had a, ahem, blockbuster third quarter, beating expectations and growing subscribers. But Blockbuster's quarter was miserable. Its loss was worse than what analysts had expected. It closed 500 stores, leaving 7,800 worldwide, and scaled back its advertising budget. Its online subscriber count fell to 3.1 million from 3.6 million (Netflix has 7 million).

Keyes put it this way in the company's conference call:

"Our pursuit of by-mail subscribers was a bit overzealous. Clearly our spending ... was exceeding our returns."

In other words, we went after Netflix like a pit bull and it backfired. Now, according to the company's press release, "the company will no longer be narrowly focused on its online subscriber count but instead will concentrate on the growth of, and report on, its total membership."

Is Blockbuster getting out of the online rental business? Kinda sounds like it. So maybe the company isn't going to compete with Netflix on mail delivery. It doesn't have to. Even Netflix acknowledges that digital delivery is the future, and that DVDs by mail is an interim step. If Blockbuster had any smarts, it would be looking closely at digital delivery. Someone in that board room's gotta know that.

And I'd like to address some of the messages in this thread:
The only reason I signed on with Blockbuster online was because we could return movies and exchange at the local store instead of mailing them in. Then they messed everything up and got greedy by limiting the amount of returns to local stores and charged more if you wanted to have unlimited store returns.
Well, what can I say? Blockbuster got greedy. And they're trying to overcompensate for how badly they've done this year. I'm glad I got out while I could.

Blockbuster needs to somehow secretly change its name. I remember paying more in late fees for a tape (yes VHS tape) than the movie would have cost to purchase.
Actually, if you ruin that VHS tape, you get charged the original price it cost to purchase it. And if it's an older VHS tape, guess whaaat? That's gonna be a lot of money! Especially if it's a rare one!

One problem Blockbuster has is that I can not rent a game w/o a credit card. I am in college so I try to avoid credit cards. I have a debit/check card and they won't accept that. I go to Hollywood Video and get games without a problem. I think that Blockbuster has forgotten about their customers.
One night when I had just started at Strack's and I was working a night shift with Adam supervising for the night, he was asking about when I worked there and "why the hell do they require a credit card number for a frickin' membership?" A lot of people don't like handing over their credit card because of identity theft issues anymore. They really need to find a way around this; I feel this is their way of scamming people. When a movie is 14 days late, your credit card gets charged the price of the movie and they just "assume" that you liked it so much, you just want to hang onto it.

Netflix DVD's are junk. Nine out of every ten movies I've rented lately I had to return without watching the end of the movie because the discs are so badly scratched that the movie doesn't play. I never had that problem with Blockbuster rentals. Maybe they should advertise that you can actually watch a Blockbuster movie all the way without the annoying freeze frames and pixelating.
That's the downside with renting online. You don't know the quality of the DVDs you're going to get because so much could possibly happen to them through the mail service. However, you have the same problem renting from a store. There are customers who just don't take care of the disc and return them in poor shape because "it's not THEIR disc." That ruins it for someone else who wants to rent the movie.

I was a victim of Netflix's throttling... never getting what was on top of my list or new releases, I had been a member for a couple of years. When Blockbuster came out with their rent by mail and exchanges I immediateky switched and I'm grandfathered into their unlimited store returns. I get all the new releases I want and and I pay less than Netflix. I'm VERY happy with Blockbuster, it helps to have a store less than a 1/2 mile from my house and the people will hold a movie for me for a 1/2 hour when I call in (or call me if a movie I want has been out). You DO NOT get that service anywhere else. Netflix should have been penalized greater for their illegal practices... instead they got a slap on the wrist and only offered those effected a 1 month free service... if you canceled them why would you go back for 1 month free? That was not restitution for those of us who awaited their new releases for sometimes 7 months.
This has been the one bad thing I've ever heard about Netflix: the throttling issue, and I don't know if it's been resolved or not. (It must have.) However, I think the only reason Blockbuster still stays in business is because of the proximity factor. They're everywhere, and people will go rent from there as opposed to driving further to a cheaper mom & pop joint. People in general are stupid and lazy, and they will pay for convenience.

Blockbuster is greedy. They limit in-store exchanges to two. At first, they did not enforce this rule but recently they have and that was the last straw for me. They deserve a beating from Netflix.
They were starting to enforce the in-store exchange limit around the time I quit. I thought it was stupid. I also thought the stores were getting a $2 credit from each online rental exchanged. I guess THAT didn't work.

Blockbuster has abused its customers for years, and now that they no longer have a monopoly on the video rental business, they are getting their comeuppance. Remember when they came out with the whole "no more late fees" thing and acted like they were doing us a favor, but then jacked their rates up $1 per rental? Now that we have alternatives, I'll never set foot in a Blockbuster store again. Long live Netflix!
I've explained it before, and I'll explain it again. The reason the rental prices went up is because customers were taking advantage of the "no late fees" deal and keeping the movies out as long as they damn well wanted. Other customers would come in to rent movies and get angry because the movies they wanted just weren't in stock. Rental prices went up to compensate for buying more copies to make up for this. I always thought "end of late fees" was a bad idea from the get-go.

...Blockbuster needs to adjust their rates, eliminate all of the "excess" non movie related items they sell from their stores, tweak the online rental terms and policies to garner more business.
I really hated doing the "suggested sales" and add-ons because customers don't want to be pressured into spending more money on shit from the videostore. (*psst* It's to bring in more revenue that they're not getting in from movie rentals!) It's like how they charge you an arm and a leg at the concessions counter at regular movie theaters; movie theaters don't earn much off of ticket sales (that's why ticket prices have gone up so much), so they make up for it by jacking up prices on popcorn and candy. Shawn explained this to me when the Crossroads was still functioning on a normal level.

I am sorry to say this but all those people who got the late fees got what they deserved. All they had to do was return their videos on time then there would have been no fees. These idiots return their rentals late and then complain about the late fees.
People, just return the videos on time and you would not have pay their late fees.
I bet this person works for Blockbuster because that's what I would say, too, if I still worked there. HOWEVER, that whole "due by noon" thing is a bunch of crap and how they "get" you with the late fees. Normally, any other videostore asks that you get it turned in by closing time before you get charged with a late fee. It's deceiving, and unless you're paying attention to the Blockbuster worker who tells you, "Due by noon on *so and so day*," you're screwed.

I still haven't forgiven Blockbuster for the barely disclosed right to freeze your bank account if you didn't pay your late fee in a couple of weeks.
Woah! That's a new one. Never heard of that. Bastards!

jeez you guys act like Blockbuster stole your first born. They were the only ones around for years that were consistant. Anyone paying late fees that much has a problem in the first place. Don't blame Blockbuster for that. Blockbuster will just have to change with the times and they will be ok.
See, I have a theory with this. "Don't rent it if you don't think you'll get it turned in on time, because who really wants to pay for late fees? You're wasting your money right there." (I say this, yet I owe about $3 in late fees at Family Video for Planet Terror. I figured late fees are a dollar a day there anyway, and if new releases cost $2.50 a night there, I got to watch it for four nights for $5.50. Better deal than a 2-day new release at Blockbuster for $4.65, IMO.)

I've run an independent store for several years. We have very reasonable prices - $3.49 on New Releases and $1.99 on older titlles along with a large inventory of both newer and older titles. Despite a firm customer base, we still encounter people who seem to think Blockbuster in some sort of 'authority' on movie rentals. All they are is a name with an inflated ego.
I'm convinced Blockbuster's prices were kind of high in the first place because you're paying for the corporate name signage on the product. This is why you can still rent at mom & pop joints for relatively cheap.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20071022/sc_livescience/emotionsrunamokinsleepdeprivedbrains

Without sleep, the emotional centers of our brains dramatically overreact to bad experiences, research now reveals.

"When we're sleep deprived, it's really as if the brain is reverting to more primitive behavior, regressing in terms of the control humans normally have over their emotions," researcher Matthew Walker, a neuroscientist at the University of California, Berkeley, told LiveScience.

Anyone who has ever gone without a good night's sleep is aware that doing so can make a person emotionally irrational. While past studies have revealed that sleep loss can impair the immune system and brain processes such as learning and memory, there has been surprisingly little research into why sleep deprivation affects emotions, Walker said. ( Read more... )

The findings are detailed in the Oct. 23 issue of the journal Current Biology.