A Gentler Jim

"Nothing to excess and Know Thyself."

This is wisdom out of ancient Greece.  Wisdom that I got half right.

I do Know Myself.

And the one thing about me I am certain of is that I do EVERYTHING to Excess (even the use of capital letters.)

This knowledge has probably saved my life.  For example, I'm certain that if I ever dabbled in Crystal Meth, I would overdose the very first day.  So I stay away from that side of the street.

My only vice is food.  Earlier today, I opened a bag of wafer cookies to take a nibble or two.  Two hours later, I went into the kitchen to get another nibble only to discover the bag is now empty.

I am the only one in the house.

Do you know what this means?  Ghosts like wafer cookies as much as I do.

I'm currently in Hungary and I have to say, I love the food here.  My wife is a great cook but everywhere I go there is thick stew (goulosh) with dumplings.  This stuff is great.  I'll have to find a simple version for my Cooking for the Single Man blog.

Speaking of blogs, have a look at my Poetry for Men Blog.  I tried to transfer my political outrage there.

However, I do have an observation about the GOP budget plan.  The GOP is in favor of reforming the tax code  like Obama mentioned, so that people can't take advantage of it.  This is true.  They go on to say, and I'm not making this up, that the rich will have to pay more taxes because all of their loopholes will be closed.  Therefore, the rich need a tax cut to give them back the money they would lose.  I'm not making this up.  They are proud of this clever idea so do a little searching and see if I'm wrong.

By the way, the U.S. stock has been downgraded by Standard & Poor's because of GOP threatened refusal to raise the debt ceiling.  I feel they will cave, but keep alert for a little more posturing and promoting of political agenda (i.e. stuff that has nothing to do with the budget like abortion but they pretend it does.) by the GOP.  Every day the outlook on our long term debt is low, we pay higher interest.

Travel tip.  There are great airfares available to Japan and the Middle East.  I actually saw this on CNN today.

Inflation is on the rise in China.  This is an opportunity and I hope someone is noticing.  While places like California actively work at driving jobs out of the state, someone will figure out that its time to grab some market share.  The entire world's manufacturing base is flat.  Except for China.  To date, they build crappy stuff but at extremely attractive prices.  If those prices go up due to inflation, a void will be created.  Hopefully, someone is paying attention.

Microsoft has come out with a beta version of some new cloud based stuff.  I don't know about you but I think their sun is setting.  Take spell check for example.  Microsoft Office spell check is only effective it you are "almost" correct.  I never "almost" spell a word correct.  So I often use Google to figure out what I am trying to type.  Why can't Microsoft be as effective?

My next laptop will be a Mac.  Why?  Because everyone that uses a Mac loves it.  I was at an airport lounge the other day.  There were four of us strangers sitting at a table.  The other three people had each switched to Mac in the last three months.  Each loved it and said they would never go back.  I have never heard a story about a Mac user switching to a PC an seeing it as an improvement.

I need to get a job as an air traffic controller.  Lately I have been having trouble sleeping through the night.

The Middle East is filling up CNN's airtime.  My cape is in the wash.  But it will be clean soon enough.  Then it will be hero time.

Up, up and away.

By the way, below is some pre-election video as Fox (Fair and Balanced) tries to push Obama under the bus.