Extrapolating from a study by the University of Illinois which stated that obese people cause their vehicles to get lower gas mileage, they must also contribute more to "global warming" than other groups.

The total amount of extra gasoline burned due to weight gain since 1960 is 938 MILLION gallons.

According to the Sierra Club, the average automobile emits 6 tons of carbon dioxide pollution every year, so every car driven by an obese person puts approximately an extra 360 pounds of pollution into the air. If 2/3 of the U.S. population is obese that comes to an extra 37,000 tons of additional emissons being put into the air, and if that doesn't add to global warming, I don't know what does.

Continue reading "Study: Obese Americans Cause of Global Warming" »

Posted by Vic at 10:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Since there are some folks who send me 3 jokes or "pass this on" emails a week, but not a personal "Hi, what have you been up to?" to be seen anywhere, I gotta say this tickled my funny bone:

Posted by Vic at 08:46 PM | Permalink

I grew up where White Castle burger joints were prolific, and scarfed down many a burger after a night out on the town. I moved to the west coast where for some reason WC doesn't exist, but I'm in the midwest on business right now and they have 'em here.

It was late tonight and I hadn't gotten around to eating dinner when I saw the familiar logo and I just HAD to pull in and have a few.

Now I haven't eaten a WC burger in over 20 years, but I'm here to tell you that they taste EXACTLY like I remember them, and God help me but I actually like the way they taste. :-)

This experience differed radically from that of a few months back when I decided to try some Hostess "Ding Dongs" (those chocolate frosted, cream filled chocolate hockey puck things). Now I know tastes change from when you're a kid, but that thing tasted like nothing but a bunch of chemicals and artificial flavors. Blegh.

It's nice to know that SOME things do indeed never change....

Posted by Vic at 10:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It occurs to me that I don't have to always rant about something socially/culturally significant... I mean this is MY blog, right? :-)

Anyway, I'm travelling for business right now, the proverbial "on the road" and I've forgotten how much fun it's NOT. I've taken on a position that requires travel one week out of every month doing appraisals of high end homes for insurance companies and it's not all as rosey as it sounds.

At least not when you're starting out with no real estate background and completely green.

It's pretty grueling, doing 5 or so appointments a day with each one taking me (right now) about 1 1/2 hours (I should get that down to about 20 minutes after a few months of experience) and the drive time between appointments. I have to measure the outside perimeter of homes in addition to interior surveying and it's no fun out in the sun in business clothes, measuring and drawing the perimeter of a 6,000 SF house.

Yeah, I know, lousy attitude. Really I enjoy seeing the homes and meeting the owners, especially after years of having almost exclusively online friends. It's more the travel and grueling schedule (not to mention the reports I haven't started writing yet) that makes this less than pleasant. I miss my home, my wife and daughter.

This is as close to corporate as I've come in the last 5 years... been self-employed on my on schedule for so long that I'd forgotten the stress level that comes with being responsible to someone else. I'm sure I'll adjust after a few trips, but right now, man oh man...!

Posted by Vic at 09:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Proud parents can also choose from other witty logos like: "Jr. Pimp Squad" or "My Mom Is a MILF". (If you don't know what "MILF" stands for, I ain't gonna tell ya.)

Of course if you agree with the mom who is helping her 10 year old daughter fight for the right to wear miniskirts to school, you probably think I'm the one who's out to lunch.

But of course I know that I'm right. :-)

Source: BostonHerald.com

Posted by Vic at 10:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I wish I had a camera with me this weekend. I drove by a local high school and on the electronic billboard outside the stadium was the following message:

Hopefully you can tell why I thought that was funny. ;-)

Posted by Vic at 03:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

I just found out about a feature of Google Video that allows you to add video to a web page easily, and I just had to try out. I selected one that I thought was pretty funny and represented a place I have definitely been before with my computer. :-)

Posted by Vic at 11:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Sorry about not posting over the past week, but I've been otherwise occupied and nothing much has jumped out at me that has been worth writing about. About the most relevant thing I can think of is the fact that I'm not going to bother tuning into the Oscars this year since they will no doubt be a Hollywood, left-wing socio-political circle jerk.

I haven't seen the leading contenders for the awards anyway. Watching the celebs gush over Capote, Brokeback Mountain, Good Night and Good Luck, Syriana and Transamerica would no doubt either make my head explode or cause me to launch some heavy object at my HDTV, and I'd rather do neither.

Posted by Vic at 06:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Went skiing today with the family. We've all vastly improved this season due to taking lessons four weeks in a row, but I'm still at the point where stuff happens. No doubt due to my overzealous style of wanting to improve rapidly and go faster than I should. :-)

Anyway, it was quite annoying (not to mention, painful) to have my skis put me into the better part of a split, especially when I wasn't going very fast. Almost standing still, actually.

Thankfully I didn't seem to do any permanent damage...

Still fun though. :-)

Posted by Vic at 07:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I didn't really put much thought into the name of this blog when I set it up, so I solicited some folks for ideas for a better name for the site. Jarrod from MrSciFi.com came up with the winning suggestion: Life Rant.

I hope you find it to be a good fit. :-)

Posted by Vic at 03:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I don't know if this is an Ogden thing or if it goes beyond that to the entire Wasatch Front or even all of Utah, but the drivers here are driving me NUTS! (No pun intended)

These are the most meek drivers with whom I've ever shared the road. I've lived a lot of places, but never have I experienced people driving on main roads (ie. 2-3 lanes each direction) not even at the speed limit! Now I'm sorry if I'm a bit hyper, but when I'm in my car I want to get to wherever it is I'm going (unless I'm out in the country enjoying the scenery). I'm not advocating everyone drive like a 17 year drag racing fool, but come ON folks... it's the pedal on the RIGHT and your car won't break if you press it a little harder.

It's not just the driving at or below the limit that gets me either (personally I think it's ok to go up to 5MPH over if not in a residential area), it's also the SLOOOOOOW acceleration from a stop light. We're talking zero to forty in about 2 minutes. It's like the weight of their shoe is supposed to drive the pedal down with no effort from their leg.

But conversely what's funny is that the local drivers' leisurely acceleration is matched by how leisurely they brake... the stop lights at intersections here actually stay red in both directions for about one second due to the propensity of locals to just mosey on through red lights rather than stop at them.

Now I was thinking perhaps that the large Mormon population here could be contributing to the extreme dedication to speed limits, but that doesn't reconcile with the blowing past red lights thing.

Thank goodness I don't have to spend a lot of time behind the wheel...

Posted by Vic at 10:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Tell me, just how much money do I have to pay to get a decent coffee maker? A really long time ago I had a generic, white, plain old coffee maker that lasted for years and never had a problem. Well-built, even though it was mostly plastic, it never leaked at all and made a decent pot of coffee.

I'm now on my second coffee maker in as many years and the thing is as finicky as a bloody antique sportscar. The first one started leaking from the rim of the coffee pot for some strange reason, and my wife decided to be nice and go ahead and get me a brand new coffee maker a year ago Christmas. This one sometimes leaks onto the hot plate and the counter when the coffee pot is in place for brewing and it sometimes leaks when you pull the pot out to pour a cup of coffee while it's still brewing.

This was not a wildly expensive "Mr.Coffee" machine, but it wasn't a $15.99 Wal-Mart special, either.

So what the heck does a person have to pay for a DECENT coffee maker that will actually last longer than a year without defects?

BTW, I also had problems with a coffee grinder of the same brand a while back. The thing just stopped working and I swear to you they must carefully design these things to break one week after the one year warranty expires. :-\

Yeesh!

Posted by Vic at 02:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Hi there! Sorry, this site is no longer about the classic horror movie Suspiria. I acquired this domain recently and since it's based on a scary theme, have decided to use it as a place to post my thoughts about stuff that I consider scary. Of course I won't limit it to that, but also to whatever happens to pop into my head, news tidbits and other items of interest.

Posted by Vic at 08:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)