Alan Hood

With Christmas just around the corner and 2007 coming to a close I want to take a moment to say I love you to all of the people in my life who mean so much to me. First to my beautiful wife Lisa, baby you mean the world to me and I count my blessings for having found you every single day. You know how much I love you so I don’t need to say it again but I want to. Lisa, I love you. My daughter Kelsey, I love the caring young lady you have grown into, and hope that you will find happiness in your life. My daughter Tayler, you are a great friend and I am lucky to have you. Keep up the hard work.

I am not doing this to get all sappy, so I just want to acknowledge a few of the people who make a big difference in my life. Mom and Dad I hope you find the happiness you deserve in the coming year, I love you both. Grandma, I will miss you and hope that you have found the rest and peace you wanted. Gordon, you are a great friend to all, I hope the New Year brings you health and happiness, I love you. Paula and Tammy, I know this coming year will be hard for you so I hope a little joy comes your way soon, I love you both immensely. Sadie you are the best and I love you the most but don’t tell Sammy. To all the people I work with at Verizon Wireless, You bring joy to an otherwise dreadful place, thanks for being great. That’s it or I will get that whole sappy thing going on. I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and the best of all in 2008.

Sometimes taking yourself to seriously can lead to more problems than you already have.  One of the problems I have is taking myself too serious.  I get overly concerned over the smallest details and forget to just live life for the sake of living.  I get mad at the people I love the most for no real reason at all.  I need to learn to just let thing be and see circumstances for what they really are which is just a test of my character.  Don’t get me wrong this is something I have worked on for a very long time; I am just writing this to remind myself that I need to do better every day.  I have to let things go and accept people for who they are.  That is usually easier said than done, but if I want to have the best life I can have then I need to remember it all the time.  I have read and practiced a lot of different self help seminars, books, and cd’s which I am sure some people think is a load of crap.  I get a little something from each one that helps me be not only a better person to the people around me, but helps me live a happier life by accepting the things that I cannot change.

Some people find the guidance in their lives through religion or some other means like meditation or yoga.  But I have always had a hard time accepting any form of organized religion and I do better by focusing just simply making an effort to be better.  I hope one day soon I will learn to not take things too seriously, but unfortunately that day is not today.  I will just work harder to get past the obstacles in my life and make tomorrow a better day for all of the people I love.  I am one of the lucky few who have a great support team in my incredible family.  If I were half as good a person as my wife is then I would be great.  I can’t tell you how lucky I am to have her, she is without question one of the finest people ever put on earth.  It doesn’t hurt that she has great boobs also, but that is a different story.

As time goes by it seems to me you could have been a better friend to me. A statement that when turned around makes think that I should have done some things in my life better than I did. I guess that is always a problem that I have had though, dwelling on the past and not looking to the future. We are not our past. We are our present, and our future. I have to keep reminding myself that no matter what has happened in the past as long as I am breathing there is always time to make the present and the future better.

If you are like me and tend to procrastinate and dwell in the past then I submit for you also that no matter what you have done in your past, you have the opportunity right here right now to make your life better. Mend those broken relationships and take action right now on the things that have prevented you from succeeding in the past. Don’t regret tomorrow what you didn’t do today. It is better to regret action you did take than action you didn’t.

I met you before the fall of Rome. I begged you to let me take you home. You were wrong, I was right, you said goodbye I said good night. I love Bare Naked Ladies and the band is okay too.

Alright the real point of this article is that while browsing the internet it occurs to me that everything is really just a copy of something else. Very few original ideas survive the onslaught of copycats. All great or semi original ideas are copied almost as quickly as they are applied by the original, while maybe not as well they are most certainly copied. As surly as I am saying this there is already someone or many someone’s who have already said it. I love technology and the ease at which people can access ideas, but at some point too many clones become litter. Digg.com is a great idea for focusing attention on popular stories, but 1000 digg clones is litter. Why do people or more importantly corporations feel the need to always compete with the joneses? If you can’t do something better then come up with your own idea.

Facebook does what myspace only dreams it could do, so in some spaces a clone is a good thing. But not usually. The internet has given voice to many people who would probably not otherwise have the means to express themselves, but too many people singing the same rhetoric just becomes a cloud of noise.

I guess that’s why my blog this one in particular seems so completely unfocused. I don’t have a grand plan; I just enjoy writing about the things that interest or annoy me. Stats show that quite a few people read this blog on a regular basis and I hope they enjoy what they read or it at least stirs a little fire somewhere within them. At times I take a controversial side to an issue and don’t mind telling everyone why I think I’m right, but at least I am not unoriginal. I don’t care about the Joneses and I don’t care if people don’t like what I have to say. I do care about many things but I don’t care to read anymore unoriginal blogs.

My privacy is important to me, but more disconcerting is when a company I pay for services decides that it is okay to either force advertising on me, or sell my personal information to other companies for profit. I got a letter in the mail today which I won’t explain why I decided to open this particular letter, normally it would go straight into the trash like other junk mail, from my wireless phone provider.

The letter reads as follows: As part of our ongoing effort to ensure consistent experience for all of our customers, V___z__ W___less has updated its Customer Agreement, a copy of which is enclosed. Depending on how recently you last activated a new line of service, upgraded your device or changed calling plans, the changes in this new Customer Agreement may be minimal. The “Your Privacy” section, however, has been updated to include information regarding Customer Proprietary Network Information (“CPNI”) as well as information about how we may include our own or third-party advertising in the services you’ve purchased from us. These changes are consistent with the V___z__ W___less Privacy Principles, which can be found at V___z______less.com. This new Customer Agreement will be effective at the beginning of your next billing period. For information about our rights to make changes to the agreement, please consult your original Customer Agreement, or the enclosed Customer Agreement.

The quotes around “Your Privacy” are their doing not mine. Kind of ironic that they are calling it “Your Privacy” when it should be “Our Invasion of Your Privacy” or “you have no privacy”. I as a customer have to opt out of this company selling my information or I am giving implied consent. I really find it disgusting that a company this large would think that it is okay to sell their customers information to third parties just to make more of a profit. Why don’t companies understand that forcing advertising on people who are paying them money will only drive their customers away, not endear their customers to them. If you want to provide ad supported services then make them free, don’t charge me a couple of hundred bucks a month and then put ads on my phone also. Speaking of that isn’t it “My” phone I did pay for it right? If it gets lost or damaged I have to pay to replace it right? I can really smell a class action lawsuit coming out of this if it goes the way I think it is going. I understand that having a wireless phone is a luxury and not a necessity, and if I start getting ads on my phone then you can be damn sure I will decide to spend my money on something else.

I love the last sentence of the letter I got “For information about our rights to make changes to the agreement, please consult your original Customer Agreement, or the enclosed Customer Agreement.” To me this says and if you don’t like it then we don’t really care. We can do what we want when we want no matter what you may have agreed to when you signed up for our services.

Just thought everyone would like a heads up on this one. To opt out call 1-800-333-9956. And next time you sign up for a service read the customer agreement because it really may make you think twice before giving any company your hard earned money.

It has been hard to find the time to write on this blog lately, but I sure have a lot to say so here it goes.  First I am sure all of the readers of this blog are aware that I have multiple blogs that I maintain and this is just my personal gripe spot so if you want to read better more interesting posts then visit some of the links in my blogroll.  I am excited that survivor starts tonight, it is by far the best show ever invented and I hope that it will continue to air for many years to come, without survivor I would not have any entertainment left on TV at all.  TV actually bores me and turning it on is a good way to get me to fall asleep, but not survivor.  What could be better than taking a bunch of city folk out into the wilderness and making them fend for themselves, and then top it off by beating on them during challenges?  There is just so much fun in that scenario it is almost hard to describe.

Work right now is really interesting, I have not had a supervisor for almost 2 months so I am pretty much left alone to do my job, which is a really good thing.  If they could just keep it this way I may never want to quit.  Alas I am sure that it will not stay this way and soon enough I will have some idiot telling me that I am not sending out enough spam to our customers and not asking the customers if I have resolved their questions.  Yes you heard me right resolved their questions.  How do you resolve a question you ask, well obviously the people I work for don’t speak the English too good or they would have us say something slightly more correct but this is the way they choose to run their business and who am I to question them?  I am a nobody in the grand scheme of their plan so like a good little monkey I just show up and help the customers.  Customers are mostly nice but wow do we have the dregs of society also.  People so stupid that there is no possible way you could help them, but I guess that’s just one of the realities of life.

Unfortunately I have to cut this post off here.  Mama wants to go to lunch and get her tire fixed so chores over rule.

2 games down just 14 more wins to go. I don’t really think the cowboys are going to have a perfect season but after 2 games they are looking very good. I am relieved because it’s hard to watch you team mired in mediocrity. That is exactly what the Cowboys have been for the last few years, just a very mediocre team. Long gone are the days of Troy, Emmitt, and Michael but it looks at long last that Cowboy fans will have something to cheer about in the future. Go Cowboys.

Just as I assumed would happen the Cowboys went out today and took care of business.  Tony Romo looked great and for some reason I am starting to not mind Terrel Owens.  Not really for just some reason the reason is that he hasn’t been running his mouth yet.  I am not sure if this is an indication that he is finally growing up or it’s just the first game of the season and he hasn’t hit tantrum mode yet.  I hope it is an indication that he is finally maturing as a person.  He has always been a great football player, but he has yet to prove that he can be a great teammate.  I hope for his sake and the sake of the Cowboys that it is finally his time to shine off of the field also.

In other games, I have to laugh anytime someone gets beat by the Lions, and when it is my next door neighbors team the Raiders then it is even funnier.  It shouldn’t be so fun to see other people in misery but when they are a raider fan I just have to love it.  I know it makes me a bad person, but life is rough and sometimes people suffer.  I just hope the Cowboys defense doesn’t make me suffer this year, because they were downright horrible tonight.  The NFL is back baby!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My new schedule starts at work tomorrow, but more importantly tomorrow is the first full day of the NFL season.  It is almost a bad as waiting for a baby to arrive.  You get all excited and then finally the day comes.  Thank god for football, it is what makes living in America great.  I can remember more things about football games that I have watched over the years than just about any other single thing in life.  Kinda sad I know but think about it like this, I have been watching football for 30 years and there is no other single thing that I have also done for that long. 

Pre season football sucks but the wait is finally over and the real tests begin tomorrow.  Opening day is when you really get to find out if your team is for real.  The NFL isn’t like baseball where the regular season goes on forever and the games are almost meaningless, every single game counts and every loss hurts.  But more importantly every Cowboy win brings them one step closer to winning the Super Bowl.  I know there are some Cowboy haters out there but we don’t mind you can talk all the trash you want to talk, because when it comes right down to it you know the Cowboys are the best team ever, just look at the Lombardi trophies to see the results of their greatness.  Then go look at the trophy case for your team and shut up.

I am only half way serious because the Cowboys are my team but what I truly love is football.  I try to watch as many games as I can (TIVO is great) just to be watching football.  And speaking of football I hope that everyone saw what my Sooners did to Miami today.  Ha what a serious butt kicking.  Go Sooners and Go Cowboys.

Some of the crap that people write in mainstream news sources is thoroughly disgusting, and “The sad truth about dog fighting” by her highness Emily Deschanel is no different.  I call Miss Deschanle her highness because she obviously from this piece thinks very highly of herself and very poorly of others.  Not only that but it is quite obvious that she wrote this piece only because it is a popular topic right now and she needs the publicity.  The picture attached to the story is of her highness not of anything relevant to the story. 

Her highness starts the story with “Like most decent Americans, I have been sickened by the Michael Vick dogfighting debacle.”  Please let me interpret that for you indecent pieces of crap who disagree with her highness.  That’s right I just did.  If you disagree with her highness you are a piece of crap and clearly not a decent person at all.  Her highness goes on to call high profile rappers and Michael Vick “Twisted” and then resorts to calling Mr. Vick a “Big Shot”.  I know that I am calling this ignorant bitch her highness but she started it so it’s okay. 

Her highness tries to make a legitimate argument late in the article but fails miserably when she says “The results of a recent Chicago Police Department study bear this out: Of those arrested for animal crimes, including dogfighting, 65 percent had past arrests for battery.”  Well if you say it like that it makes me think that these people are doing the best they can to turn their lives around and not take their aggression out on people any longer.  Now if her highness had found a study that indicated that people arrested for animal crimes were later arrested for battery that would be a worthwhile statistic.  But obviously doing her homework is not something that her highness has any interest in doing.  It is much easier for her to act outraged and call names than it is to do any real reporting.

Her highness makes a point of referring to these dogs, which were bred for fighting as our “canine companions” not simply as dogs or really what they are which is warriors bred for the pit.  This is some of the most disgusting reporting I have ever seen and the editor who let this piece of crap slip by should be thrown into the pit in the middle of a fight, just so that they really have a chance to “see the light”.  Miss Deschanle if you ever happen to run across this article I would like to be the first to let you know that it is time for you to get married and let your husband take care of you, but please don’t get pregnant the world cannot handle any more like you running around.