Government bureaucracy, District 9 trailer and yada yada

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Columbus makes National News
The Today Show - the 3:40 mark!!

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

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ALERT - we are looking for more people for a football pick'm pool. All NFL and selected Collage games against the spread each week. We are down a few people this year to maybe 8 or 10. $50. Lots of money spread around. Winner each week gets $$ and top 3 places. Contact me (easy competition).
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We have all heard my stories of my lifelong exploits with my friend Elweed. We have known each other since before kindergarten and thinking about it he is actually more like a brother you would like to kick every so often.

He is a poverty person who has SAD (Social Anxiety Disorder) works 15-20 hours a week at low wages cleaning because he can be on his own. If you want someone to clean your house or business there is no other person I would hire then an anal cleaner (like Monk).

He makes about $8000 a year and applied for BadgerCare + CORE and Foodshare recently because it became available. Before these programs you had to be a non-American or a woman with kids to get any health benefits.

He was excited as he has seen a Doctor only once in the last 30 years and I doubt he has seen a Dentist since High School.

He applied and received all the forms and became exasperated at trying to figure out what exactly is needed. People like this have not really dealt with government bureaucracy.

So he applies and on their site it says BY LAW his request MUST be handled in 1 month or less. If it takes longer contact Enrollment Services. After 7 weeks he tries to call but uses up all 30 minutes left on his phone while on hold. So I call and after 49 minutes on hold I'm told to disregard the BY LAW thing and all is going well and they will contact him.

After 7 weeks they contact him and say they need certain information and it MUST be in to them within 7 days or they will "deny your assistance".

This puts a little stress on him.

He ask me for help so I look at the forms because they baffle him. One says he needs "Proof of Health Insurance Access" . . . . . . . what? what does this mean exactly? and there are a number of other things that will take more time to get as it is from his place of business who are not really "into" doing things fast and a few other ticky tacky things but if you do not have a car it's a freaking hassle.

"If you have trouble obtaining the information please call as soon as possible".

I call the number listed and am on hold for 65 minutes. Finally I'm told not to worry about the time thing and just send what you have with a letter explaining that more is coming.

So he gets everything ready and it is due today. The instructions say "Send or bring photocopies of these items to the agency . . . " . Well - he wants to do everything right so he decides to bring in the papers. HOWEVER - there is no address on any forms.

We figure out where the offices are and he WALKS four miles with papers in hand to deliver his forms.

NOPE - they say you can not hand in the forms, you can only mail or FAX the forms. He says but it says "bring in" and they say if there is a problem you can always "call the number listed" OR use the FAX.

He has never even used a copy machine much less a FAX and he is a little ticked off now.

SIGH! Now I see how they are trying to save money. Make it so convoluted half the people that need help will drop out.

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Lately I've not been drinking coffee at work to save some money and instead I've started taking out all my bills and rubbing them between my fingers since 90% of all American bills have trace amounts of cocaine. I'm not sure if this is good news for Starbucks! But then - it does not seem to be working very well for me and I might have to start licking all my bills! What do you think.

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Speaking of Global Warming. One of the common theory's is that while the earth warms (due to natural conditions of man made) there will be more violent weather. In Wisconsin this year there has been a huge LACK of violent weather. In fact this summer is one of the calmest on record with only 12 twisters. This lack of twisters is creating The Weather Geek Blues. Might as well live in San Diego.

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Happy Birthday Hawaii!!! I hear there are protests over there about being part of America. Well, I'm sure you would be much better off being part of the Japanese Empire instead of the American Empire. At least you would not have to pay your woman so much. That whole equal pay thing America has is not quite how Japan does things.

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Movies. When I saw the first advertisement for Inglorious Bastards I knew this was not a movie I would be seeing with DJ. And I still think that. But this thing is getting some big time buzz. It had a 16 minute standing ovation at Cannes, it got 3.5 out of 4 stars in USA Today, and EVERYONE is talking about it's violence and humor.

I've never had a problem with funny violence. Heck I read The Preacher which was a way way funny black humor Comic (I have copies if anyone wants a good dark humor comic) one of my all time favs.

I might have to Netflix this one as I love a movie that reinvents history.

Another movie getting big time Buzz is District 9 which is being called "the most inventive sci-fi action film of the summer". It's about some aliens whose ship breaks and they are forced to live in the inner-city residential area in Cape Town, South Africa. The area is called District 9 and is for Whites only. Now they are being forced to move.

I might have top go see this one. The aliens just want to go home - they don't want to be here either.


District 9 trailer


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Have a great weekend.

Rod