Bleeding Blue, Get the door, its...oops, the Global crisis, Stimulus bonus

Here on the homefront, well, we're just waiting and hoping right now. After the two initial positive instances, we haven't gotten any calls from other interested parties. This despite a lot of applications being sent in, so that's a bit of a letdown. But, the harsh reality is that there is a lot of competition out there for jobs right now.

On a fun note, I went to the St. Louis Blues game on Saturday night. A buddy of mine got some free tickets from his employer, so it didn't cost us anything. In fact, not only were the tickets free, but they were very good ones too- just about at center ice, down on the first level, and in the "Club" section, where the chairs are leather(ette?) and the ticket price includes all you can eat and drink, beer included. And the game was really good too, going into overtime before the Blues won. So, yeah, that was pretty sweet!

Yesterday, Domino's Pizza got caught in a mistake. What was it? A customer happened upon a coupon code that was never greenlit for use- one free 1-topping medium pizza, for carryout only. That's right, one FREE medium pizza. About mid-morning yesterday, corporate pulled the plug on the coupon, but they ended up giving away 11,000 free pizzas by that time. Yours truly even got one, and boy does free taste good! Remember those deals websites I mentioned last week? I found this deal on spoofee.

Here in the US, I think we often tend not to think about what goes on in the rest of the world. But there are a lot of countries out there that are very upset with us right now, not due to the War on Terror, or the Iraq war, or Afghanistan, Guantanimo, should I go on? Nope, they're mad at us because of the global impacts of our economic crisis. Of course, not everyone blames just the US, and the US in all fairness should not, in my opinion, be held solely to blame for the worldwide problems. In any event, there's quite a bit of information out there about the G20 Summit protests going on if you're interested in the topic. Oh, and I even grabbed some pictures for ya, courtesy monstersandcritics.com

On another topic, here's a good article talking about the stimulus money that will soon be making its way into our paychecks. It has some good information about certain risk factors, so I think it's a good read.

That's all I've got for now. Sorry for the delay in updating; my long weekend threw me off a bit.

The waiting game, assigning culpability, cutting the cable, Foxy Lady now hiring!

Hello out there. So, not to get too specific, but Jenny has now successfully completed two, umm, instances. And now we wait, and hope for the best. And I'll be honest, patience is not one of my virtues :). Of course, we're still on the lookout for other opportunities, and she is actually finding stuff out there, so the market hasn't completely dried up at least. In fact, I've noticed in the past week or so that some headlines are starting to break the mold of "We're screwed guys" and leaned toward some degree of positivity.

To whit, a lot of people are looking to assign blame in this economy, and it seems a lot of blame goes toward a) the government and b) ridiculously huge corporations. I certainly think that both are culpable to the degree to which the government could have implemented better policies/incentives and large businesses could have tried for a business model that doesn't revolve around a pyramid of debt stacked on top of more debt. But then you also have the consumers who, in our efforts to live the American dream (promised to us as our birthright by both the Government and corporate product/service advertisements) have made poor financial decisions time and again. I'm not saying "let's all blame the little guy", but as consumers we are the foundation of the economy, and if we are strong enough to resist the temptation to consistently spend more than we make, then the economy will have a strong foundation.

One other item I wanted to bring up is media culpability. As I mentioned earlier, we are finally seeing the occasional headline that is positive, but otherwise, we are drowning in a sea of negativity. And when it comes to speculation, which is what the stock market and a lot of spending habits are based on, bad makes worse. In other words, if you go around telling everyone that the economy is in the toilet and the stock markets are crashing, then people are going to stop spending, and they are going to pull their money out of the stock market. And then the economy will be in the toilet and the stock market will crash. So, hey media, for the sake of the current and future welfare of not just the US economy, but the world, how's about we try not to perpetuate so much negativity? You're only making it worse, in this writer's humble opinion.

And finally, on to the lighter side... I read an article in a newsletter that I subscribe to (Bizarre News, available through GopherCentral), entitled Strip Club Plans Job Fair. Apparently, the Foxy Lady strip club in Providence, Rhode Island has decided that the current unemployment problems warrant hosting a job fair to find new talent to serve as "dancers, managers,
DJs, bouncers and bartenders". So, if you live in the area, and you need a job... Sorry I am not able to direct link to the article, but if you go to the Bizarre news link above, it's currently posted under the main headline "The Drinks Are On Utah".

Well, that's it for now. I realize that I got pretty opinionated on this one, and that I didn't go into much depth regarding our personal life, but I'm just winging it here. If you want to hear more personal stuff, let me know, and if you want to hear more opinion, let me know that too! Thanks!
-Douglas