What’s in a name?

Posted on by

Names that I have seen people call Donald Trump on the Internet:

Trumpty Dumpty

tRump

Cheetolini

Cheeto Benito

Cheeto In Chief

Cheeto Hitler

Cheeto Emperor

TrumPutin

Forrest Trump

Drumpf

Donochio

Orange Foolius

Orange Buffoon

Annoying Orange

Trumpenfurher

FantaFührer

Sunkist Stalin

Big Goldfish

Yam-in-Chief

The Yamchurian Candidate

Herr Asshat

Herr Asshat von Cheetolini

Herr Asshat von Cheetolini de la Orange

Sweet Potato Saddam

Marmalade Mephisto

Our Orange Overlord

Liar-in-Chief

Tweetie Bird

King Tweet

Cheetocabra

Donny Two Scoops

Pumpkin Spice Hitler

Senseless, Screaming Cheese Grit

Diet Shasta Orange flat soda

(barely) sentient cum rag

 

Ouch. That is a lot of name calling.

The Rental Car Blues — Part One

Posted on by
Keys from a rental car.

Keys from a rental car.

My wife and I are currently driving a rented car because her car was totaled after it was hit while parked in front of our house minding its own business.

Okay so take a look at this photo of the keys to that rental car. You’ve seen car keys like this for a while now right? Nothing special to see here.

You would think so but take a closer look. Nothing special about the keys except they are bound with a ring that cannot be taken apart UNLESS IT IS CUT. Huh. Why?

This is not the first time I have seen this idiotic key ring setup either.

Implications of this dumb system are:

  1. If two people are going to drive said rental car, they can’t each carry their own key, you can carry both of them or neither.
  2. This arrangement can be (is) quite bulky in the average persons pocket or purse.
  3. If you have ever lost the key/remote for your own car, you know that they can be expensive to replace. If you lost THIS set of keys you would be expected to replace, as in pay for, TWO of these expensive keys/remotes/panic buttons. Wha?

Okay rental car companies of the world, (yes I have seen this loony key arrangement in countries in addition to the USA) please reconsider your unfortunate car key system. Here are a couple of suggestions:

  1. Consider putting each key on a separate ring so each driver can have their very own key. Yes I can hear you now, “That’s an extra ring and TAG for each car. That will cost too much money.” Trust me, I will give you 2 extra dollars to rent your lovely car to cover the ‘extra’ costs of another key ring and a tag. If every renter of said car gave you two dollars extra, (even though I paid for the extra ring and tag the first time I rented the car) think of all the extra profit you can make. You could call it a ‘key ring’ surcharge of you want and most people would never notice that you are nickel and dime-ing them for your car. Don’t you dare do this part.
  2. Maybe start using those ‘magic’ key rings that have two loops that can each contain their own key (and tag too if you want) that can be SEPARATED into two individual rings if desired, each with their own key and tag (if desired).
  3. Maybe only give the renter one key and keep the other. You know, if you might ever need a spare key. For your car. If the other one gets lost or stolen.

If you can make this happen, that would be great. If you can’t, you need to try harder. Thank you rental car companies of the world.

Tattoo you. Not me.

Posted on by

As much as I have always wanted a tattoo, I will probably never get one. I’ve identified 3 reasons why:

  1. Of everything I have ever wanted to have permanently etched onto my body, I am glad none of those things are on my body now.
  2. I am a wimp. I don’t like pain. Tattoos hurt.
  3. I am a cheap skate. Tattoos are not cheap.

Oh well maybe I’ll get a tattoo in another life. Yeah right, like I believe in reincarnation, so never I guess.

Oh, that’s what you meant.

Posted on by

I finally went and had a sleep study done after years of my wife having to endure my snoring. Of course, once she told me that I would stop breathing from time to time, I didn’t walk, I ran to the sleep clinic. There are different ways to perform sleep studies, my insurance only covered a one night study. Once at the clinic, the technician hooked up various sensors used to record the ‘before’ measurements and then I went to sleep. At least I tried to.

After I slept about half the night away, the tech woke me so she could put a CPAP (I know it looks like CRAP right?) or Continuous Positive Air Pressure mask on me, like so:

CPAP man

Then I tried to sleep the rest of the night as they recorded all my vitals etc. while I had a machine blowing air in my face the whole time. They should call it a ‘not getting any sleep’ study.

A couple of weeks later at the follow-up appointment, the doctor showed me the before and after results of all that monitoring that went on. She pulled out this rather cool looking chart of things like blood pressure, oxygen levels and the different levels of sleep I attained that night. My brain waves provided the data. All very sophisticated and scientific.

Then the doc points out one particular set of lines on the graph and says, “Look at how many fewer arousals you experienced after we put the CPAP machine on you.” Well I stopped and stared at her for some time and said, “I didn’t even realize you were measuring that.” She then gave me a long stare back and said, “It means how often you almost woke up.”

Crickets.

“Oh”, I said, “so that’s what that means.” And then I left.

It’s called what now?

Posted on by

Down here in South Louisiana some people feast on a peculiar turkey substitute around the holidays, mainly Thanksgiving and Christmas, called a turducken. Don’t ask me who first thought this thing up or if was actually even created here, although it certainly sounds like something someone from here might create, but it is a strange beast indeed. A turducken is a chicken stuffed inside of a duck which is then stuffed inside of a turkey. Weird huh?

Now I am sure that feasting on a turducken is probably a culinary delight because all of the individual ingredients are delicious on their own, but I don’t know because I have ever even tried one bite of turducken. While I have eaten duck on occasion and turkey quite often and chicken constantly, I’ve never tried turducken because I just can’t bring myself to try any food that has the word turd in its name.

I’ve got the health care blues

Posted on by

My wife recently needed to see a doctor. Quick. There are thankfully several options near us, from hospital emergency rooms to urgent care facilities. We chose the closest one, a hospital emergency room at a smallish community hospital. They saw her within about 20 minutes and took good care of her problem. We left about 2 hours after we arrived. Before we walked out, I asked them what we owed. My jaw dropped when she said the co-pay was $150.00! The woman helping us looked at my insurance card to verify the co-pay amount, and sure enough it was right there on the front: ER $150. Then I looked right below that and saw UC $50. Urgent Care is only a $50 co-pay. Wow did I feel stupid. I could have saved myself $100 by just looking at my insurance card. Of course if you have a loved one who is hurting, money is the last thing on your mind. The moral of the story is that unless you have a body part ready to fall off or blood or other fluids spewing out of you, don’t go to the ER, go to the Urgent Care.

Part II. Next we went to a pharmacy to have her prescription filled. This medication would be rather pricey. Great. The pharmacist took the prescription, filled it and then told us that my insurance would only cover the cost of HALF the prescription at that time. We could pick up the other half in three days! Wha? That sounded crazy. The nice pharmacist told me I could have the entire prescription today but it would cost around $200! Wow, these better be some good drugs. I said I’d take half now and be back in three days for the rest. Total cost: $10. $10 in 3 days. Huh? I took the pills, slapped a 10 on the counter and ran. Health care in the U.S. is so great eh?

Later.