RANT: Glenn Hollis Found?

Lately I looked at my blog review stats and saw that most people come here for info while searching for "Glenn Hollis" on google. Then I thought, where the hell IS Glenn Hollis? He couldn't have dropped off the face of the earth. Then I found this- apparently Glenn has gone to "97.3, The Coast"- South Florida's Concert and Community Fun Site. The good news? You can listen to After Hours with Glenn Hollis on The Coast from the website. The bad news? The show airs from midnight to 5 am Monday through Friday.

Here's hoping that The Coast appreciates Glenn more than Wash FM!
And that they move his show to a more listener-friendly spot soon.

RAVE: Talking Cats/ RANT: You Tube

Instead of being able to see the greatest you tube of all time from my page, I have to put in a link here to my favorite you tube video. For some reason (maybe because blogger switched to beta?) I am having problems uploading the video.

This video is my favorite thing on you tube right now, besides from all the Saddam Hussein execution videos. 'Cause really, what's better than watching some dictator hanging? I'll tell you- talking cats.

Warning: this video will freak your freak. Seriously. Sit down to watch it.

RANT: Northwest Airlines = Worst Ever

My husband and i just got back from a week-long vacation over the holidays and flew Northwest Airlines there and on the return trip back. Let me take a moment to tell you why Northwest Airlines is the worst airline EVER.

1) Very unfriendly staff. Sure, they do the usual, "buh-bye" when you exit the plane, but while you are on the plane you are treated like an annoying 5-year old. No you can NOT have a snack, they are 2.50 for pretzels and 3.00 for pringles. And no I can NOT check on your connecting flight/gate. GAWD you're annoying, fine, here's the info, but I can NOT guarantee its accuracy. So F u, hippie.

2) Cannot get a flight out on time, even though its the FIRST flight of the morning.

3) All flights must go through Memphis. Memphis is OK, but their airport is ridiculously spaced out. For example, gate B2 is approximately 50 yards away from gate B3. So although it is in the middle of the country, it's not exactly an ideal place to have a hub.

4) Pilots have twitches. I swear to god that twice during a flight the pilot must have hit the steering wheel with his elbow, because the plane swerved dramatically to the left mid-flight and everybody screamed. Screamed for their lives.

5) No one from the airline said a thing to the obese man who sat next to us on the flight out this morning. The man should have had 2 seats. He did NOT fit in the airline seat, was spilling out onto the aisle and onto my husband, and could barely wrestle the seat belt around his girth-y middle.
Afterwards, while I was soothing my husband as he uttered "I feel..... so..... cold inside....," I told him, "at some point the airline needs to tell him that he has to start buying 2 seats." To which he answered, "at some point people need to consider their surgical options."

6) Although I know this has NOTHING to do with Northwest Air, the people on our flights were among the most annoying I have encountered in a while. And because a) I think that the people that frequent a business reflect on the business and b) it was really really annoying, I'm going to bitch about it for a while.
1. For starters, there was the morbidly obese passenger.
2. Today, there were also about 35 screaming babies on the flight. Alls I know is, if I just had a baby a month or so ago, any relatives that want to see it for Christmas can come to me. TO ME.
3. There was also the "Spanish family reunion" sitting behind us today. I have no idea WHAT they were talking about (because I don't speak Spanish), but I do know that the family of 4 (mom, dad, and 2 teenage sons) were speaking when we boarded the plane, through the flight, when we got off the plane, and while we were waiting for our luggage. I don't have that much to say to ANYone, much less my family. The only thing I understood was when they started listing countries. No shit, they started naming countries. "Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, the Bahamas..." This went on for a long time. If you are naming countries, I think that you must just like to hear yourself talk.
4. There was also a nerdy love-connection a few rows behind us, which was quite puke-y. Two overweight dorks with their backpacks exchanging contact info. Looking longingly into each others eyes, starved for mutual nerd attention. Gag.


So along with boycotting 97.1 until Glenn comes back and Delilah is kicked off the air in DC for good, I think that I will also boycott Northwest Airlines. Because there was absolutely nothing pleasant about it, and there are enough airlines out there to choose from. Plently. Lets start with the As: American Airlines, Alaska Air....

RANT: What Interest Rate is a "High Interest Rate"?

I should always copy or mail MSN money articles to myself when I see them, because I can never find them again later- they disappear into the MSN black hole/vortex. So of course now I can't link you to the article. You'll just have to trust me. (ha)

I was reading one yesterday about how to "give your kids a million dollars." Basically they told you how much you needed to invest when your child was born, and monthly payments into the various accounts per month, to give your kid a million dollars (approximately) when they turn 18. I thought the whole idea was pretty interesting. There was also a column for how much you had to give if you didn't start saving until the kid was 5, etc.

Then there was a disclaimer stating that until you have your high interest rate debt paid off, this isn't something you should be thinking about doing. So what qualifies as a "high interest rate"? Anything above the going market rate for a mortgage? How much higher? Obviously 5% is low and 20% is high, but there has to be a commonly accepted formula for what counts as high interest.

The whole thing was depressing.

RAVE: @^$%'n Quebecois

There is an excellent article today from the Washington Post's website called In French Speaking Canada, the Sacred is Also Profane about Quebecois swear words. Apparently, when something bad happens, the Quebecois shout their favorite Catholic word, such as "Communion!", "Holy Host!" or "Tabernacle"!

From the article:

"You swear about things that are taboo," André Lapierre, a professor of linguistics at the University of Ottawa. In the United States, "it is not appropriate to talk about sex or scatological subjects, so that is what you use in your curse words. The f-word is a perfect example.

"In Canadian French, you have none of the sexual aspects. So what do you replace it with? You replace it with religion. If you are going to use a taboo word, it would be anything related to the cult, to Christ, the Communion wafer, Jesus Christ, vestments, and elements of the altar like tabernacle. There's quite a few of them."

However, apparently this doesn't carry over to the rest of the Francophone. The article reports that French visitors are surprised at these swear words. Lapierre credits this to the fact that the French have long been away from domination by the Catholic Church.

RAVE: Tenacious D

Just saw the new SNL tonight with Matthew Fox (from Party of 5 and Lost) hosting and Tenacious D as the musical guest. What can I say but Tenacious D has, and always will, kick some major metal ass. I was a little disappointed that Jack Black wasn't in any of the sketches, but what can I say? He did recently get married and has two movies coming out this month- "The Pick of Destiny" and "The Holiday". I guess I will cut them some slack and just revel in the awesome performances they gave tonight. Even if they did poke more than a little fun of grunge music.

This is not the greatest blog in the world; no, this is just a tribute- to Tenacious D.

RANT: Student Loans III

OK, so I shouldn't be ranting about how I can't afford stuff I don't need, like a bigger house or new shoes. That's just being bratty. What I do care about is that I can't really plan for the future with the amount of loans I am paying off. Since I have been paying off my loans I have been able to save very little and have put nothing towards my Roth IRA/retirement.

There is an excellent recent article from the Washington Post by Michelle Singletary from September 24, 2006 titled "Lesson for Students: the Best Debt is None," which talks about the myth of "student loan debt is bad debt". She ends her article with this:

I think all the questions, on some level, stem from the belief that student loan debt is good debt. It's not. Debt is bad, even when necessary. Conventional wisdom should follow this old Chinese proverb, "A good debt is not as good as no debt."

RANT: Evil Student Loans Part II

As my brother so politely pointed out in his comment below, yes, student loans are considered to be "good debt," meaning that you can deduct the interest payments from your federal income taxes. However, when it's not the interest payments but the principal payments that are killing you, this is of little comfort. All I know is: we can't afford to get another car so both husband and I can drive to work (one of us has to take public transport), can't afford to go on vacay, can't even really afford the gym payments we were making so had to quit, can't afford a bigger house/house in a nicer hood. Even the mundane things that shouldn't be big become big.... I need new sneakers but they cost so much. Why? Because about 10k a year is going into my loans.

At least when you get your mortgage, you know that you will be paying it for the next 30 years. However, when you are in school and your parents suddenly cut you off from tuition payments, but also won't let you quit school, you suddenly find yourself desperate to get a loan, any loan, to keep going to school. And there's not exactly a lot of options for the student loan payments- you can't really shop around as much as you do for your mortgage. There's the minimum amount of federal loans that you can get because your parents make X amount of $ (even though they aren't giving any to you), and then there's the private lenders who are looking to make as much off of you as they can. You don't realize when you sign that loan check to keep going to class that you are really signing away the rest of your life to the evil corporation that is the American education industry.

So, any multi-millionaires out there (Paris, hello, I'm your new BFF) who feel like being charitable, let me know.