Rant

Just how many people are going to use the Colorado theater shooting for their own agendas? We've got the anti-gun folks riled up in one corner, the anti-Hollywood-violence people in another, those heinous Westboro Baptists whose motivation I don't know and don't care to find out, and... oh... here's a new and most ridiculous one- some guy on one of the morning news shows yesterday who actually said this was a "federally funded" tragedy.

You're wondering how long he stayed up the night before, thinking of some unique angle for his story. But stay with him here. See, the monster who committed this crime was a grad student who was receiving government and school stipends, as almost all grad students do. He didn't have any other income, so he obviously used those funds to purchase his weapons and ammunition. This guy's concern was that we should be more careful with who is getting grad school financial aid and what they are doing with the money. 

Um. Seriously? Are you going to start having students submit receipts to make sure they are spending their financial aid on school expenses? That is highly impractical and a little nutty. 99% of grad students are using their money for school. If the university or the NIH knew this guy was a ticking time bomb, they wouldn't have supported him in his pursuit of a PhD or anything else.

Perhaps they just need a checkbox on the scholarship application.


Psychotic killer?  __Yes  __No


Today, I have two guys coming to give me estimates to prune my trees. That's not a euphamism.

I had two dates in one day once. I scheduled them very carefully- one in the morning and one at night. Well, the tree services are both coming "this afternoon." I'm really hoping they don't show up at the same time. I'm envisioning a sitcom-like juggling act, keeping one occupied in the backyard, while the other is in the front.

"Oh! Jerry, have you met Luther?"