Bumper Stickers

I hate bumper stickers. I love bumper stickers. What? I’m not making sense? Well, let me explain. I hate bumper stickers because they are ugly, stupid, and tacky. I really don’t care that your kid is an honor roll student. I really don’t care about your political views. Or that Jesus Saves. Stickers that try to be funny or snarky are just as bad. “If you can read this, you’re riding my ass. Back off!” If I can read it, I’m riding your ass because you’re driving like a moron and need to go back to driving school. “I see stupid people.” Oh, so do I. I’m looking at them driving a car with a stupid bumper sticker right now. What might be even worse than bumper stickers are window stickers. Fear this! stickers kill me. The only thing I fear is you procreating. Or how about the ever popular Calvin peeing on . I’ve got an idea. Quick, someone make a Calvin peeing on Calvin peeing on things sticker. I’d buy thousands and carry them around with me and stick them on every car I see with the Calvin sticker. Confederate flags are another pet peeve. Quit lying to yourself. The flag is not a symbol of states rights. In fact, the people who claim that are usually the ones that want the federal government controlling our lives even more (unless it has to do with their guns). The flag is a symbol of the enslaving of an entire race. If you want to symbolize states rights, create a new one.

I love bumper stickers because when I’m driving and see the wonderful pieces of tackiness, I can automatically, with 99.9% accuracy, tell that you are, in fact, a complete moron that I don’t want to waste any part of my life on. It’s basically an early warning system for morons and douche bags. So, in that respect, I am thankful. Every once in a while, bumper stickers are ok. If you’re a high school teenager with a crappy car and you plaster the back of it with your favorite bands, it’s ok. You’re making lemonade out of lemons. I also enjoy seeing an old VW Beetle rocking the “It’s a Jeep thing and you wouldn’t understand” bumper sticker. That’s funny. I might want to hang out with that guy. But probably not. I also sometimes enjoy political stickers. I only enjoy them if they are rocking the sticker of the opponent of my guy and my guy won. When I see people still rocking the McCain/Caribou Barbie sticker I let out a little chuckle. Your guy lost. My guy won.

I guess bumper stickers are a necessary evil. They tell me who the dumb people are without me actually going through the time and pain of talking to them to figure it out myself. I hate bumper stickers, yet I love them.

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MVP… Again


Albert Pujols has won the National League Most Valuable Player Award… for the second time in his illustrious career. From StL Today:

Increasingly perceived as a transcendent player, Cardinals first baseman Albert Pujols overcame his team’s fourth-place finish and a Bunyanesque second half by Philadelphia Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard to earn election as the 2008 National League Most Valuable Player.

Pujols, who also won the award in 2005, becomes the first Dominican-born player to earn multiple MVP titles.

Pujols, 28, amassed 37 home runs and 116 RBI in a season hampered by a strained calf that forced him to the disabled list and a nerve condition that caused him to undergo surgery last month.

Universally perceived as an overachieving team in transition, the Cardinals stayed in contention for more than five months while drafting behind El Hombre’s daunting consistency.

Pujols had finished second three times in balloting during his eight-year career — twice to Barry Bonds and once to Howard in 2006. Just as Pujols won this time without reaching the postseason, Howard won previously by keeping the Phillies in contention. Though denied a second Gold Glove Award earlier this month, Pujols is recognized as one of the best defenders at his position in the game. He also led the NL in on-base-plus-slugging percentage (1.114) and reached 100 walks for the first time in his career.

Howard mashed 48 home runs with 146 RBI but was doubtless hurt by a .251 batting average and 199 strikeouts. No NL MVP has ever hit below .267.

Pujols’ margin of victory was more decisive than expected, perhaps suggesting a growing appreciation for a player long consigned to Bonds’ shadow and perhaps penalized for never leading his league in home runs or RBI. Still, Pujols has hit .334 and averaged 40 home runs and 122 RBI during his career.

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Disappointed in the New XM Channel Lineup

The new lineup for the merged SiriusXM satellite radio service came out today. You can view changes here. Two of the stations I listen to, in fact, the two I listen to 90% of the time, have changed. Ethel changed to AltNation. I’m sure the music will be more or less the same. It is still an Alternative station, just with a new name.

The biggest disappointment is with The Rhyme. The Rhyme was an Old School hip hop station. It played classic joints from the 80s and 90s, had great shows with Afrika Bambaataa, and great Progressive hip hop music and discussions. They have done away with it and merged it with Sirius’ Hip Hop Nation, which plays “Some Old Skool Rap.” Which means the rest is going to be new crap, which I can’t stand. If it’s not old school or progressive, I will most likely not listen. The good thing about satellite when it launched was the variety of music that could be featured on the stations. The sad thing is, for at least the rap stations, they sound just like a Clear Channel or Channel One stations across the country. The crap at the top of the charts, over and over and over.

I’ve also noticed that the quality of the online stream seems to be lower than usual and it keeps cutting out. The merger isn’t starting out on a good note, in my opinion. One of my favorite channels is gone and the service is sub-par. XM might have just lost a subscriber.

iTunes Problem Leads to New Solution

Friday night I plugged my iPhone into my computer and let it sync. Next thing I know, all the apps on my iPhone were deleted and some of the songs and videos that were on the iPhone were removed as well. It’s no secret I really do not like iTunes, especially with how slow and buggy iTunes 8 is, so when I started iTunes the other day and it told me the library was corrupted and it backed up the corrupted file and loaded up a new, I thought nothing of it. Typical iTunes being stupid and not working how it’s supposed to. I never thought that the broken library file would effect my syncing, but it did. I’m guessing because the file was broken, the new one it created didn’t have all the music and applications that it should have. Therefore, when my iPhone synced, it deleted the things on the iPhone that did not exist in the library.

I added the applications, music, and podcasts back into iTunes. The problem was knowing what songs were deleted from the iPhone. I add only checked files, but that doesn’t always work (because iTunes sucks). So sometimes I have to add them to a playlist in order for them to sync, even though they are checked to sync. Trying to figure out which ones were in a playlist or already on the iPhone would take forever. That’s when I decided to do a little searching. That’s when I found this post. Basically, what I did was create a smart playlist that included items that I check. As soon as I check an item, it is added to the playlist. If I uncheck, it is deleted. I set up my iPhone to sync that playlist, now every song that I check is synced with my iPhone. It’s the easiest way I’ve found to manually manage the music to sync. So, iTunes breaking and not doing things right made me find a solution that I never knew about that will save me a lot of time. Of course, if iTunes “just worked” I wouldn’t have had to search for a solution in the first place.