I don’t know who Jon and Kate are, but they are driving me mad.  Yes, I know that I could google them and find out, but I honestly don’t care enough to do so.  Jon hates Kate, Kate hates Jon, they both hate together… who cares?  I imagine that they are some overnight celebrity couple who won fame on a game show or some reality TV nonsense, but I could be wrong.  Regardless, I would try to ignore them except they keep popping up on my Internets almost daily.  Every time I try to read up on my news, regardless of whatever web site I use, Jon and Kate jump out specifically to annoy me.  Stop it already!  Nobody (and by nobody, I mean me) cares about either one of you.  Please fade away into obscurity where you belong.

II.

I have State Farm insurance.  I’ve had them for more than 20 years, and I’ve loved the low rates and helpful agents the whole time, but for the LOVE OF GOD, fix your website!  State Farm has the most asinine security system possible, and it has once again locked me out for failing to answer stupid questions three times.  The worst part is, I KNOW I gave the correct answers to the stupid questions.  I’ve been using those SAME correct answers for a number of years now, but for some reason, this time DoucheBot didn’t like them, and subsequently locked me out.  I did possibly want to pay my bill, but I’m feeling more ambivalent to that possibility now that I have to jump through hoops to get my account reinstated.  Here’s a hint, State Farm:  Technology is supposed to make things EASIER, not more aggravating.

III.

Got into a fun little debate on Facebook today about Obama’s speech to the kiddies this morning.  I read the full text of the speech, and I applaud it heartily for its good message and its relevancy.  What annoys me are the parents that are having fits over it.  I understand that as parents, you need to know exactly the type of information your kids are being exposed to as school.  That is important, and I agree with you.  However, don’t dismiss what the President has to say simply because your own personal politics give you some sort of grudge against him.  Your kids are not your politics, and no matter how much you hate Democrats or hate Obama or hate Liberals, that doesn’t give you the excuse to use your children as a personal political shield.

The parents that are going batshit insane over this are, by and large, residents of areas that voted Conservative in the polls last November.  This isn’t me saying that either, it’s the news agencies reporting it.  What this says to me is that people are bitter about having their conservative representatives lose the election, and they see this as a way to make noise.  I’m sorry if your conservative values don’t jibe with the way our country needs to be run, but don’t deny supportive and encouraging information to your kids because of it.

Could you imagine Sarah Palin making an address to school children?  It would probably involve prayer hour and Jesus riding dinosaurs to school as a little boy.  No thanks, I’ll stick with the Liberal views this particular time.  The best thing for you upset parents to do is talk to your kids when they get home and ask them what they thought of the President and his speech.  Use this as a teachable opportunity, not a political platform for your opinions.

Anyway, that’s not what I want to talk about.  What I want to talk about is this stupid DTV transition thing, and the fact of our idiot government pissing us all off by delaying it AGAIN.  People, it’s time to rip off the band-aid.  I know it’s going to be a tough few weeks once this thing happens, but delaying it is not going to make it any easier.  If you aren’t ready for it now, you won’t be ready for it in June.

We’ve been talking about this for YEARS.  It’s been delayed at least once before.  I’m sorry that congress is a bunch of morons with VCR’s that still blink 12:00, but that doesn’t mean the rest of us are idiots.

If you are an aging Baby Boomer and for whatever reason you can’t figure out the very simple procedure of hooking up a new tuner box, then call your grand kids.  I’m sure 11 year-old Timmy can hook grandma up.  Besides, most people these days already have a new HDTV or the like, or have cable or satellite TV, and don’t even need to worry about this to begin with.

This is just another example of the idiocy of our government.  What I’m thinking is that someone, somewhere is making money in some way by continually pushing this thing back.  That has to be the answer.  I’m pretty disappointed in Obama for this.  I thought he’d know better.

As for me, well I stopped watching TV years ago.  My television is sitting tucked away in my closet somewhere, probably covered with old clothes and dust.  Good riddance to it.  The only TV shows I ever see are courtesy of Hulu.com and the almighty Internet.  This transition thing doesn’t affect me in the slightest.

Just do it America, and quit screwing around.  It’s time to join the 21st century already.  Pull the plug on analog.

Let me state that, for the record, I don’t really support either candidate.  My own opinions tend to lean to the liberal side of things, but I’m not quite so far left as to sport Obama yard signs and hats.  I like him for the most part, but he’s borderline scary in some respects.  I just don’t know.  I do think he picked a moron for a running mate, and he gets points off for that, but I think he’s relatively solid otherwise.  Is he what this country needs?  Survey says yes, but only because McCain is DEFINIETELY NOT what this country needs, and we only get those two choices. 

Seriously though, how can anyone support McCain at all?  I just don’t get it.  He’s perfectly qualified with respect to experience in domestic and foreign affairs, and no one will debate that.  But it ends there.  He’s shown time after time after time that he’s a typical, extremely dishonest, greedy-ass politician with no respect for the people.  His campaign has been nothing but lie after lie, and his biggest mistake was picking that half-witted beauty pageant contestant as a running mate.  Hell, she makes Dan Quayle look smart by comparison. 

Anyway, back to McCain.  Today he "suspended" his campaign so he could actually do his real job, which is representing the state of Arizona in Washington.  Fair enough, but I smell a rat.  Multitasking is something a president needs to be able to do, and if he thinks it’s so important to be present for this issue, he has a vice-residential nominee whose very function at this stage should be to pick up and carry on while he’s gone.  Frankly, I call bullshit on the whole thing.  He’s attempting to cancel the debate scheduled for Friday because he’s not ready.  There’s no way he can stand up to Obama when it comes to speaking, and there’s no way he’s going to risk that embarrassment.  He even canceled an appearance on Letterman because he feared being grilled over this issue, but it backfired because Dave absolutely slammed him for it.  Check it:

Now comes the news that McCain is trying to cancel the vice-presidential debate as well.  Could this possibly be more transparent?  I think not.  Bottom line:  The Republican campaign for president is falling completely apart.  It’s a joke at this point, and they don’t stand a snowball’s chance in Hell come November, and they know it.  All this crap is just political maneuvering and stalling, and we’re not stupid enough to fall for it. 

Looks like Obama’s got this one pretty much wrapped up, from my view.