A sad/interesting look at suicide locations on the golden gate bridge…

http://el-oso.net/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/04/mn_suicide30_loc_tt.gif

On that note, The Bridge is an “awesome” documentary. The following trailer (video volume seems to be low on my computer) includes nothing graphic though it doesn’t fully highlight how well done the movie is…

If you’d rather not buy The Bridge from the movie’s webpage, you can watch it on google video though nobody watches 1.5 hour movies with only sub par screen quality on their computer.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4636757064676695790&hl=en

Lame and unnecessary disclaimer: If you have a problem, go visit a doctor/get some help. The movie doesn’t glamorize/romanticize suicide but it’s one of the better documentaries that I’ve seen in awhile.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/jun/03/november-sit-out-threats-worry-gop/

Yeah, the above link is “old.” It was on Drudge earlier this week. But, it would have made the original Bcc:List eventually.

“Republican voters increasingly say they have lost faith in the party and might not vote this year, compounding headaches for party leaders struggling to avert a November massacre at the polls.

“The Republican Party doesn’t represent me anymore,” longtime Republican voter Joseph E. Ayers, 57, said recently…

“We were betrayed by Bush in a lot of ways,” he said, adding that presumptive Republican presidential nominee Sen. John McCain of Arizona lacks the conservative mettle needed to repair the damage.

“I won’t vote for McCain,” he said. “I might not even vote at all. That’s the way it looks now.”

“It is a clear sign Republicans have not yet come to grips with how big a hole they have dug for themselves and how much work it will take to get out,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who spearheaded the 1994 Republican win of the majority in Congress that ended four decades of Democratic control.”

I used to hate bush and was so confused how any person could have voted for him in both 2000/2004. But, now I think it’s sort of funny watching him close things out and it seems like a blessing in disguise. Maybe the GOP can rebound by 2032. Naw.

That said…

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com

Historically – no joke – I don’t think Obama has ever started off leading any political race he’s entered. But, the above link is encouraging since he’s “leading” while…

a) he’s been taking it in the a$$ from the democrat’s favorite last name over the last 12 months

b) he hasn’t got the chance to share the same stage with the old man and

c) he hasn’t picked a VP candidate that will deliver the southern and appalachian states.

This general election massacre (54%+ of the popular vote – 290+ electoral college vote) is going to be awesome!

Per the recent flooding in Bloomington, I guess this is the main stretch of bars at IU. Needless to say, if you look close enough, it seems that Kilroy’s never closes…

And, this kid didn’t attend the lecture on newspapers not saving you from possible downed active power lines and flood water.

Burchie – you dirt ball – thank you.

By now, I assume everybody has seen this video…

But, Chief Daryl Roberts of the Hartford Police Department definitely wins the “Overreaction of the Month” award when he publicly/ridiculously said…

“We no longer have a moral compass. We have no regard for each other.”

Hey Daryl, heads up – Everyone is taught (or should be taught) that you NEVER touch an injured victim. What were they supposed to do, drag him aside and possibly injure him more? Traffic was stopped – it’s not like cars were continually running over the old man. As you notice within the clip, people eventually go over to the victim within 30 seconds or so. But, rightfully so, they didn’t move him. I’m sure 911 calls were made. I’m sure everyone was in shock and didn’t move quick enough. But, Daryl, congrats – you win the award. Nice work!

P.S. I saw this story yesterday and caught (in the background as I was getting ready for work) the NBC Today Show anchors talking about the incident. But, I didn’t hear their commentary. If they (or anyone else) made the same point I made above, excuse the repetitiveness.

Along with the aforementioned…

https://bcclist.com/2008/05/30/tales-from-the-racquetball-court/

I’ve also recently (last night) learned…

a) Haruska’s recent purchase of the $49 Elite Stainless Steel Buffet Server Warmer from Costco is the best investment any single person has ever made outside of those that purchased the Logitech Ipod Audio Station for $29*. As he mentioned, this buffet warmer is worth its weight in gold – he’d pay up to $200 for it as need be. I will definitely be picking one up soon.

b) Don’t eat from the buffet all night long as you will literally gain 6.5 pounds from your weight the morning before. Chicken strips, meatballs, and cheese sticks. Lord. But, the options for this thing are unlimited. Pulled pork, italian beef, sloppy joe, meatball sandwiches, nacho cheese etc.

c) Don’t ever take the challenge of trying to consume a tablespoon of cinnamon. It can’t be done – at least the way I tried it. Since I knew no other technique, mine was to simply throw it back in my mouth as far as possible and hope for the best.

It immediately turns into a concrete type substance, a cloud of cinnamon smoke comes out of your mouth/nose, and you begin choking horribly. Yes, Amy, choking more than the kid that I “beat” in the muffin eating contest though he nearly died. Running to the faucet and consuming mass amounts of water luckily loosens up this “concrete” and you can live to blog another story. I think gargling the cup or so of Half & Half helped too.

Cupples claims to have completed the mission at hand but you have to work up a good amount of saliva before and chew the concrete like cinnamon substance that forms. Of course, this was not mentioned until after I tried the straight shot. Nor, was there any time limit set. Regardless, I guarantee you that nobody can do the straight shot of 1 tablespoon of cinnamon. Make sure they have water nearby and don’t mind a cinnamon “drip” for the next three hours.

d) The Stanley Cup always goes to whichever finalist team’s fan base subscribed most to the NHL Hockey TV package – aka NHL Center Ice. This is a fail safe way to know which team is going to win. Conor: 1 subscriber. All other Pittsburgh Penguin fans combined: 0 subscribers. Hence, The Red Wings win the Stanley Cup.

e) No room full of guys want to look at blogs during commercials/intermissions of a Stanley Cup Final game. I won’t mention which blog I’m referencing.

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080602/SPORTS05/806020336/1053/SPORTS05

Guy lives in Cleveland, goes all the way to Royal Oak, MI (?) to get an Octopus, visits Cedar Point (while always a good time, unnecessary point brought up during the video), takes way too many measures to get the Octopus past “security,” launches it onto the ice, gets kicked out, changes into his Red Wings jersey outside of the stadium, and then uses a spare $300 ticket to get back into the game.

a) this kid’s parents are way too rich

b) his carbon footprint is exponentially larger after that around the Midwest tour. dude’s like a deer in the headlights version of Ferdinand Magellan

c) the hair is worse than Trump’s

Ryan and Conor, thank you.

Let’s Go Red Wings!

From…

https://bcclist.com/2008/05/25/top-25-list-under-35/

#11 African American Man President – no, that’s not propaganda but this race is done. especially, once he picks a running mate: VA, NM, NC, PA, or PA 2. long shots – KS (now that’s how you deliver a horrible democratic response to the state of the union), the general, or the loose cannon from DE. regardless, it’s over.

I’m looking forward to the official “short list” coming out over the next few weeks! I’m “guessing” Webb will definitely be on there since he has vast military experience, bipartisan stances, and the southern/appalachian vote is invaluable. Does Obama need a PA or OH VP? He’s polling strongly as of recent in PA and OH since the last 8 years have screwed each state good enough. How about a VP that can draw the Latino vote? I’m not quite sure mccain will woo many Latinos. Should be interesting…

Impressive Obama victory speech.  I’m definitely looking forward to his general election victory speech on 11/4.

Given the fact that voter registration is up dramatically, I assume the first presidential debate will draw some decent ratings. Once Obama owns and confuses (in a good way) mccain within the first 60 or so minutes of the debate – like he did tonight – I assume ratings for subsequent debates will slightly decrease.

Can mccain concede the presidency before November 4th so he doesn’t have to endure sharing the stage with a man that understands what’s actually going on in the world?

Regardless, I can’t wait to see Obama work mccain during each and every debate. Burchie, we’ll definitely be watching everyone of these debates so I can point, laugh, drink, point again, and laugh a lot harder.

In all seriousness, my thoughts are with the mccain family as I hope he lives until/through the debates as they’re still a few months away and 71 years old is 71 years old. No, this isn’t ageism – the facts are the facts and the clock is ticking.

If Johan Franzen could have literally cleared the puck ONE LAST TIME instead of shooting it off the board at the worst possible angle with less than a minute to go in the 3rd period and an empty net, the Red Wings could have wrapped this beauty up, eh? Nothing is more exciting than an eventual Game 6 during Conor’s bachelor party. Regardless, Pittsburgh wins Game 5…4-3 in 3 OTs. Fckers.

While sort of shiatty quality, watch seconds 1:05 and 1:10 of the YouTube clip (below) or 40 and 34 seconds left in regulation for Franzen’s lame attempt at being an intelligent/hustling/healthy NHL player.

Side note – Doesn’t Pierre McGuire (announcer from NBC Sports Hockey) look like a human penis with glasses? The resemblance is more uncanny when you see him announcing live from the benches/intermission shows. You make the call…

A Bcc:List Original “Classic”…

April 23, 2008

“Wow – I would “hate” to live in any city that has good public transportation as things are going to get pretty flipping crammed (if that’s possible) once gas goes to $5.50 a gallon.

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/JubaksJournal/WhyOilCouldHit180DollarsABarrel.aspx

The idiot of the United States has been real progressive about forcing our consumption down, right? And, at least $20 a barrel is because the chaos in the middle east (speculation) caused by his current war and continual treat of war against Iran. These two things, along with the fact that our dollar is literally worthless now because we are in so much debt, makes $180 a barrel oil seem like a dream. What happened to all those 4 more years chants in 2004?”

Later that week…

“http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24316855

Wow – another article…this one says oil will go to $200 a barrel. At least this one mentions the major reason…

“Many analysts believe the weakness of the dollar is a bigger factor than supply and demand because the soft dollar draws investors worried about inflation into commodities such as oil and gold.

It also makes commodities less expensive for buyers operating in other currencies. Many investors see the dollar only heading lower if the Federal Reserve keeps cutting interest rates, which most analysts still expect it to do next week.”

Articles like this and the one sent earlier always come out 6-12 months before the prices mentioned are hit. A year ago everyone said $120 a barrel could be coming and nobody believed it. Believe it ($180-$200 a barrel), son.

$5.50 – $6.00 a gallon for gas coming soon to a city near you and mccain doesn’t think there’s an inflation issue? mccain (and clinton) wants taxes on gas decreased though those taxes are paying for roads, our mounting national debt, etc? That doesn’t make much sense, right?”

UPDATE:

The Wall Street Journal (blog) mentions the fall of suburban home prices on May 12, 2008. CNN (tv) had a news story today about the fall of suburban home prices but an expected rise in city home prices due to the surge in oil prices. I can’t find the link but I assume it will hit Google News tomorrow.

Regardless, home prices aren’t rising anywhere for at least 2-? more years. That said, hopefully you live in a city with mass transportation because $200 a barrel oil could be knocking on the door.

http://www.webware.com/8301-1_109-9952955-2.html

Per the link above, coming from a VERY close and reliable source (cough, cough) that worked at Citysearch, the sales reps quota’s were set by the amount of monthly billing their new client’s agreed to. So, if a monthly quota was $3,000, the sales rep was looking to close 10 new clients at $300 a month advertising budget.

It wasn’t guaranteed the client was going to be charged $300 (the above example), but, they agreed to be billed up to that amount based on the number of their clicks. Each click cost a certain amount based on the category. Once the $300 monthly advertising budget was hit, the advertisement didn’t receive as much exposure throughout Citysearch, other search engines, syndication sites, etc. More on this later. Hence, the higher your budget as a client, the more exposure you should get on the “internets.”

While the client was only charged if someone clicked on their ad, there were various different networks the client’s ad could be put on. Furthermore, as mentioned above, sales reps quota’s were set on how much new business monthly billing they closed. However, the rep was only paid a percentage of whatever amount of that was actually billed to the client.

So, if the client agreed to be billed $1,500 a month but only got $456 worth of clicks delivered, the sales rep’s monthly quota ($3,000) was closer to being hit but the sales rep was only paid a percentage of the $456 worth of billable clicks. Makes sense…

The very moment the client starts advertising with Citysearch, their advertisement is first displayed solely on Citysearch. Over the next few weeks, it’s broadcasted on related Google/Yahoo/MSN/Ask.com as SEM banner ads. Lastly, the SEM advertising could be broadcast out to other pertinent Citysearch syndication sites like Local.com.

Example: Someone searches “sushi” on Citysearch, Google, or Local.com. If the sushi restaurant’s Citysearch ad is brand new, the restaurant will show up as a featured/paid sponsor only on Citysearch. Over the next few weeks, if someone searches “sushi” on any of the aforementioned type of partner sites, the ad will be fully live and that sushi restaurant client should see some increased traffic.

I’m normally down with lawyers, but, the lawsuit by Kabateck Brown Kellner is a fcking joke. The new ambulance chaser is a click fraud chaser. It’s worth noting, the “click fraud” link was the first published article I read regarding click fraud – BusinessWeek 2006…they’re always ahead of the times. Anyways, with the above sales rep quota and ad posting process explanation, Citysearch should have no issue handling this mockery of a class action lawsuit.

But, Kabateck Brown Kellner has already gone after – and somehow won – class action lawsuits against Google, Yahoo, and Google Ad Words (pending). I wonder who’s next, Yelp? Seems infinite, eh?

KBK – Die.

Since the process of producing normal store bought eggs is fcking disgusting, Organic and Free Range eggs are a household “requirement.” But, I wasn’t aware of this…

British TV at its best.