More wastebook, and some other stuff

First off, my post yesterday with my “50 questions to ask on your last day”  Got 2 groupings of responses.  First there are those that want to raid it for their blogs.  To which I say, go right ahead!  The whole idea was to take a somewhat unbelievable situation and make something constructive with it.  I intend to apply some of my answers to my thought processes this year, and if it helps someone else too, the more the better!  The second group reacted with the “don’t go and leave us “ sort of thing, which is sweet and I appreciate that.  Rest assured I have no intent to jump in front of a truck, eat improperly cooked fugu, or even end up at the strip bar I speculated on.  I am not a fan of self-inflicted pain of any form (other than Thanksgiving overstuffing), and that includes earring piercing, tattoos, and self medicating by needle.  One comment said, “This is not funny.”  Well, that post was not meant to be.  It was meant to be INTROSPECTIVE, which is a good thing.  But if it wasn’t somewhat funny, I’d have to take it serious and then start pulling my hair out as of 11 hours ago worrying about it.  And if I turn into a pumpkin at midnight, well, you’ll be sorry you didn’t laugh along while you could.  There are a million things in life to take serious, and my imminent death as predicted by a webpage that wants to sell you health supplements to prevent said demise is NOT one of them.

Next, Tuesday night, my Lokomotiv boys took their first regular-time loss.  They were at Rubin (the Ruby) of Tyumen, a team that one their league’s championship last season and was 26-4-6 going into this one.  Alexander Gorhkov put the home team up at the 4 minute mark of the game.  But Loko rallied for 2 goals in a 47-second span later on in the period- Rafael Akhmetov getting his 3rd at 16:11 and Vladislav Kartayev his first (with an assist from last game’s star Emil Galimov) at 16:58.  That, however, was all the boys managed.  Maxim Korobov tied it at 8:28 of the second, and a goal just 36 seconds into the third by Remir Khaidarov  gave Tyumen the lead for good. Alexander Neznamov scored halfway through the period top make a 4-2 final.  This morning our time, they had their next match against Zauralie (the Urals) of Kurgan.  Again, the hosts struck first, with Ashat (now there’s a name) Rakhmatulin scoring at 8:08 of the first.  But it was Kartayev again tying it, shorthanded, with an assist from Oleg Yashin at 16:34.  Somehow, though, there must be bad mojo for us scoring in the sixteenth minute of the first, because that was once again all she wrote.  Igor Kutugin tallied at the halfway mark of the game and Anton Khovrin beat Pavel Shegala on a power play at 17:33 of the third for a second loss, this one 3-1.  Saturday, they play at Mechel Cheyabinsk, Traktor’s farm team.

Now, onto wastebook, where you can find lots of government waste, but I find the humour.
64- The Dept of Homeland Security bought Snow-cone machines for thirteen Michigan counties last year, at a cost of $480 per.  Why?  According to a December 7th e-mail to the state of Michigan, to “assist with the treating of heat exhaustion and other illnesses at large events (including terrorist incidents or similar emergencies.)”  Of course, a snow-cone is the first thing I’d want after a terrorist attack.
Martin savings:  Actually , if you discount the stupidity, the DHS didn’t do too bad on the machines.  The deluxe machine can be had for $475 per, and the standard is $420 plus thirty bucks for the non-standard but required drip pan (WTF?).  The standard thus would have cut the cost from $6,279 to $5,836.

63- The National Institute of Health (who has about as good a grip on the term “national” as it does “health”, apparently) gave a $170, 000/3 year grant to a researcher at VCU to study “ associations between sociodemographic variables and water pipe tobacco smoking”- translated “opinions about hookah smoking”- among university students in JORDAN.  Perhaps it is important for SOMEONE to know that 62.5 % of students think hookahs are more unhealthy than cigarettes, but unless you can show me when Jordan became the 51st state, I’d have to declare the entire thing a pissing in the ocean.

53- Salt Lake City’s parks dept. got a $150,000 federal grant to fix up the carriage house on the grounds of their recent purchase of the old Albert Fisher mansion.  Part of the Jordan River Parkway Trail system, the grant involves shoring up the building “seismically”  (because there are just SO MANY earthquakes in Utah) and refurbishing the exterior to make it watertight and pest proof.  And then what will they do with it?  Damn good question, as the parks dept. still hasn’t figured out what to do with the MANSION, let alone the carriage house, despite having owned it since 2007 and having solicited ideas from the community!!  Those of you bitching about King Tom Henry wanting to buy the south river property, I think SLC has him beat.
Martin savings:  Call Allstate. Get earthquake insurance.  Wait for the quake.  Enjoy the profits.

Oh, and speaking of the “Good Hands People”, look what they’re doing now:

FAYETTEVILLE (MCT) — The Fayetteville woman said she had insured her home through Allstate for 27 years and had never filed a claim.

So she was startled when the insurer contacted her several weeks ago to say it wouldn't be renewing her policy.
The reason? She didn't have car insurance through Allstate as well.
She's among nearly 46,000 North Carolinians whose home insurance policies with Allstate are being canceled because they don't also have auto insurance through the company. Allstate, which held the fourth largest share of the state's homeowners insurance market in 2010, isn't alone. N.C. Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Co., which had the third largest share of the homeowners insurance market in 2010, planned to make a similar move with about 28,000 policyholders starting Jan. 1.
Allstate spokesman Tracy Owens said the company made the move in order to remain financially strong.
"Basically, we have to meet the needs of 400,000 households across North Carolina," he said.
The company decided early in 2011 that it would drop homeowner policies which weren't bundled with an auto insurance policy, starting with policies that renewed on or after June 19. Affected policy holders were notified by letter two months ahead of time and were given an option of transferring their business to Universal North America.

Good hands my ass!  Dennis Haysbert, your trustworthiness takes a big hit here, dude.