Rick G's Blog

A lot of talk has been made in the blogs lately about Bill Clinton's hidden bad temper and red-faced anger.  Condi Rice has been phographed the last two days making the meanest and ugliest faces I've ever seen on a woman since Linda Blair in "The Exorcist".

I don't care who's taking the pictures, when you catch images of 'Sybil' in a photograph of yourself, it's time for the public relations department to step in and train you in facial control and photogenesis, no matter what your party affiliation is.

This is not a political statement...this is a case of an attractive woman making herself look very ugly.  I think she's scaring the kids.  I know she's scaring me.

 

Time to wake up folks.  Something is not right with this picture.  Our president is hovering around the 40% approval range in his own country depending on the latest series of "tough talk on terror" speeches aimed at keeping GOP members in office this November.  Before that, he was at the 35% approval rating from his own countrymen.  A foreign adversary can deride him and be applauded at a UN speech?

65% of the American public and 75% of the international community think the United States and our current administration has been heading in the wrong direction.  "Oh," huffs Rush Limbaugh as he pops a Percocet, "these are polls taken by commie left-wing democrats and don't reflect the truth". 

This isn't a poll, this is stark reality.  When the members of the United Nations can snicker and then stand up and applaud after Chavez's tirade against Bush, it is time to take our necks out of the sand and examine what's going on with an objective viewpoint.

Oh yeah, the United Nations is left-wing commie too.  So I guess one-quarter of the world population is correct according to St. Neo,  and three-quarters are crazy liberals.  Thank God we're spreading democracy.  Hope it hits these shores too.

I lose in lottery but I'll be taking bets that St. Neo won't be happy when the fat lady sings on the first Wednesday of November.  This is one bet I'm sure of winning.

 

 

 A neighbor of mine has a mini-van in excellent condition that he wants to sell.  He approached me today and said he's been wanting to talk to me about purchasing his van. 

I've been doing maintenance at my complex for 30 years and for the last few years have been using my '89 Bonneville to do it.  The seller and I have known each other for years so I knew there was a "reason" for this conversation.

Later, as I was cleaning up around our dumpsters I got to thinking about it.  I've been living as a pauper for years but I'm sitting on $80,000 of home equity.

I applied for a home equity loan today and have been approved for $25,000 to $40,000 line of credit.  I will be driving that van, have my credit cards paid off and pay off Uncle Sam for the taxes I'll owe him on 4/15, all within the next 30 days.

Good times. 

I use Firefox as my browser now and checked out the add-ons to the program.  Many of you might already be aware of answers.com but I'd like to bring it to the attention of those that aren't.

It's a very quick download.  It allows you to click on a word while holding down the Alt key and a pop-up window gives you the definition, pronunciation, origin, uses of the word in sentences, multiple encyclopedic references, quotes using the word...you name it.  If you don't know how to spell the word, type in how you think it's spelled and it will give you alternatives to your spelling.

This is one of the most amazing tools I've ever seen on the internet, and it's free.  

Thanks to all of you who turned me on to Firefox in the first place.  Awesome browser.

Got the ladies reading with that headline...

It's not necessarily looks or sex.  Contrary to popular belief, it is intelligence and a good sense of humor that are the most attractive qualities.

We've read this before in Cosmo as to what women like in men.  Sure, they like a good bicep and buttocks, but invariably and unanimously they like a sense of humor in their man and a man who can hold up their side of a conversation with them.

Men are attracted to the same attributes in women.  Men and women differ in many ways but actually have more in common than we realize when it comes to attraction that leads to companionship which leads to mating.

The four basics seem to be humor, intelligence, physical appeal, sexual compatibility....pretty much, but not exclusively in that order. 

But the stronger appeal seems to come from the neck up and the secondary appeal comes from the neck down.  Although these focuses of appeal can be jumbled at any given time (e.g., physical appeal is usually the first magnet but gives way to humor and intelligence quickly and sexual compatibility is the last frontier to explore), it seems that lasting and successful relationships have a strong compatibility from the neck up as a primary attraction and from the neck down as a secondary attraction (a bonus to the relationship).

We can't have a complete relationship without all aspects of compatibility, but the higher we are compatible relative to the physical human body, the higher the chance of success at a relationship.

Dr. Phil G.   

 

Shouldn't health insurance be treated like car insurance?  If you get in an accident or make a claim, your rates go up.  If you've never made a claim your rates go down. 

After that being considered, a sliding scale based on age should be implemented.

I've never spent a night in a hospital since the day I was born and I've never made a major claim against a health insurance company, but I'm paying higher premiums than people half my age that have suited doctors and hospitals or made major claims against their insurance.

Once again, I'm faced with the prospect of having to drop all health insurance because of cost.  This is just not fair.  I've paid into the system my whole life, never drawn on it and if I have a heart attack tomorrow, I (or my family) will have to come up with $50,000 to pay for it because I couldn't afford to bankroll the law suits of the dishonest A-holes, the $10 aspirins or the $20 rolls of toilet paper.  Who knows what they're charging for a glass of tap water these days...maybe $5 ?

No wonder people get pissed off.

Is there one grade of fascism sanctioned by God, Allah or whatever name you give to the Judge of all matters?  What other-worldly power annoints those who are the would-be judges and jury of the conduct of the lives of every living being on this planet? 

On the one hand we have a zealous religious group that wants to destroy all infidels.  This comes straight from 500 AD thinking.  (Infidels? What is that all about?)   Their women live in black woolen robes and headgear with eye slits in 110 degree weather in a damned desert.  In the 21st century this is an appalling circumstance.  Why do they put up with it?  One word...CONTROL.

On the other hand we have a religious group that blanches at the very  thought of destroying a single unfertilized embryo cell but has no problem murdering thousands of human beings, composed of trillions upon trillions of already fertilized and living cells in an organism known as a human being.  Again, CONTROL rules the game.  Who are the gamemasters in this world?  A handful of Lex Luthers.

The crusaders goose-stepping blindly behind their leaders make up the armies.  If you took away the emperor's clothes, even the goose-steppers would see their folly and re-join the ranks of the real world.  It's 6.5 billion of us and about 1 million of them.  Let's take this world back from the thiefs who wish to destroy our lives.

We're all being played for suckers here to further agendas that are not our own.  When are we going to stop this backward slide to the days of the crusades?  Who started it, who is perpetuating it, why are they perpetuating it and last but not least, when is is going to stop and how are we going to stop it? 

It won't be stopped by religious fascism or political ideology.  It will only stop when 6.5 billion of us put our feet down and say "enough is enough!", raise our fists and and shout, "NO MORE!",  "Pull the emporer's clothes off!"

Citizens of Iran, pay heed to these words before it's too late.  You enjoyed your freedom for a decade and now your "leaders" want to take it all away.  This has nothing to do with Islam, it has all to do with the control being exerted on you.  You can be a good Muslim and still wear blue jeans and call pizza, pizza.

I really liked this guy.  My sons and I have spent many hours watching his dangerous antics on Discovery channel and always felt he was impervious to harm.  He would hold a black mambo snake by the tail or wrestle crocodiles like it was child's play.  And yet he always played it safe and explained the dangers of the animals he was dealing with.  Who would have thought a stingray's barb could manage to slip between his ribs and pierce his heart?  A freakish accident.

This was a very tragic ending to a good man's life.  Let's include Steve, his wife and kids, and the rest of his family in our thoughts and send our positive energy their way.  We lost a good mate there.  It will be difficult to watch his shows in the future without a little emotion spilling into our eyes.

Crikey, Steve.

With the midterm elections coming upon us, we are again starting to see the tired "Us against Them" debates.  They are not truly debates, but rather label-tossing when the brain is unable to come up with a reasonable argument on the issue being discussed.  When in doubt call the opponent a name that you think will discredit him.  Playground politics.

If you're against our involvement in the Middle East, you are labeled a Liberal.  If you're against spending on social programs, you're considered a Conservative.  If you're against the war on drugs, you're a liberal.  If you want to incarcerate pot-smokers, you're a conservative.  A Conservative is strong on terror, a Liberal is weak on terror (weak on terror is a phrase that is used when the the label throwing doesn't work...playground excrement...the nuclear bomb to end all arguments, post 9/11).

If you're liberal, your left-wing, if you're conservative you're right-wing....blah, blah, blah, ad infinitum.  No such thing as middle ground or indepentent thought anymore.

There is a good portion of the American people who don't see things as strictly black or white as portrayed by our "leaders".  There are actually Americans who think for themselves and dislike being labeled by the teeter-totter of current American political thinking.  Unfortunately we're all stuck on the teeter-totter because that's exactly where they want us.  A house divided is a house conquered.  Note the last two presidential elections and the divisiveness that has permeated our country.  We've never been so far apart as a nation, one half against the other half, blue against red, etc.  In the past it was the political blowhards who fought, now it has become you and I.

Third-party voters will never have an impact because of the good old boy mentality set up by our two-party system on both sides of the fence.  Every single one of them is better off than most of us.  That is why the American voter is disgusted and doesn't bother to vote. 

We could take a lesson from other democratic nations on how we run our elections.  There should be a primary with ALL of the candidates on a single ballot, no "parties" involved.  The top three vote-getters are then placed on the national ballot.  The winner must have over 50% of the votes or otherwise it goes down to the top two and the one with the most votes in that final election wins in the final vote.  A FAIR vote, not a Florida vote.  A national vote, not an electoral college vote.  Each vote should count as a single vote in a national referendum for our national leaders.

Our voting rights are being maligned.  That is why we have the lowest voter turnout of the democratic countries in the world.  Our vote truly doesn't count.  Throw in illegal voting procedures and it's a recipe for disaster.  We've seen it and it's only going to get worse.  Venezuela's Chavez has an active interest in the electronic voting machines being used in our country.  How stupid is that?  We have a whole lot of foxes watching our henhouse.  And us hens are sitting here squawking at each other when we should be squawking at the foxes.

Let's drop the liberal vs. conservative dialogue, start focusing on real issues and get the United States of America back on track by 1) revamping our election procedures by dropping the two-party joke and the electoral college, 2) ensuring fair elections that cannot be tainted by an internal or foreign power and 3) re-uniting our citizens to common goals that we can work for side-by-side instead of facing off with each other with bayonettes fighting the enemy's battle for him.

 

9/5/06

 

Stats based on all pick 3 draws in the last year in IL (684 draws)

 

Hottest single pairs:

01, 04, 05, 16, 18, 23, 24, 26, 28, 34, 35, 38, 56, 68, 69, 79  

 

Hottest doubles pairs:

11, 44, 66, 88, 99 

 

Hottest digits:

4, 5, 6, 8 

 

Hottest number formats:

Singles

Even, Even, Odd

Low, High, High

 

Hottest Last Digit Sums:

1, 3, 4, 5

 

Number order:

Singles...All number orders are hot EXCEPT C-A-B (highest digit-lowest digit-middle digit).  This order is appreciably behind the rest in occurrence.  It stands out like a sore thumb and should be playing catch-up in the months to come.

Doubles...Ascending order is cold, split order and descending order are hot.  There is not an appreciable difference in that category.

 

Combining all of these stats leaves one straight.....645

 

Good luck! 

 

Discovered an "electric blues" channel on my internet radio...gettin' blisters on my lips from wailing on the harp...workin' on some Mickey's malt liquor...man, it doesn't get any better than this.  I don't need to win the lottery if every day can be like this.  If they keep playing music like this I'm going to be lipless.

Thank God for life and music!

My son purchased a George Foreman grill the other day for 15 bucks, half-priced deal, from where he works.  This is one convenient little tool.  We've had steaks, burgers, brats, salmon and today I cooked chorizo sausage on it.  Anyone not familiar with the appliance, it's designed on a tilt so the fat runs out into a receptacle.  Next time I'm browning burger meat I'm using this.  Due to the teflon surface, clean-up can be done with a wet paper towel.

No more draining the fat from a pan with a cover precariously protecting the contents from spilling, no more soaking the broiler pan and scraping off the burnt remains. 

We give it a five-star rating....that, and my macaroni y cueso con chorizo. 

 

A very cool instrument.  You don't have to be a musician to play it, just a crude sense of melody, harmony and rhythm are the only requirements.  (That and at least one working finger on each hand).

Our local Wal-Mart has a sale on these babies for $15 a pop.  My sons and I got three of them the other night.  We are sounding like "dueling banjos" already.

Our van's been a-rockin'.  Good times. 

 

 

 

............. 

The other day a three-post LP member decided to sabotage a thread started by an LP friend of mine, with 24,000 views and 500 replies. I reacted angrily saying his ilk was making Lottery Post suck. He succeeded in sabotaging a good thread. It is locked now.

Lottery Post does not suck by any means. I wouldn't be here if it did. I apologize to Todd and all Lottery Post members for that remark.

However I stand behind what I said about his kind not helping LP in any fashion.

I've contributed more to LP in one hour than this person will ever do during his membership. I was subsequently attacked by a new member who decided to join LP just to attack me with his first post. This in my opinion was not a "report abuse" issue. This was Rick G standing up for himself. I don't need to hide behind anyone to fight my battles. Anyone who knows me understands that if attacked, I'll fight back harder than the attacker. That will never change. No one had my back on it either, which troubles me because I have covered backs for 7 years on these lottery forums. So it was up to Rick G to defend himself alone.

My "bashing" LP was out of anger to posters, not LP.

I sincerely apologize to Todd for that remark. It was not intended as it sounded.

I think I'm a good parent because I raised two boys on my own from the ages of 2 and 5 and they're still living with me at 19 and 22 and we're all happy as hell with each other.

One of the most important lessons I learned is that you treat your children equally according to the exact same rules. The rules are important and the fair application of those rules is even more important.

When you favor one child over the other by bending the rules in their favor and not the other's, you are begging for disharmony and they will leave you and each other.