I've notice that the focus placed on certain crimes seems to be incongruent with the nature of the crime...at least in the case of celebrities.  I'm going to focus on four different instances that seem to exemplify the strangeness I find here.  Let's talk about Bonds, Plaxico, Vick, and Stallworth.

 

Bonds may have lied to congress during their inquery into steroid use in baseball.  What was the result of those inqueries?  A long document listing a bunch of players who likely took PEDs that isn't even public.  Bonds may have lied to save his own legacy and his own reputation.  He clearly didn't do it to protect anyone from prison or hide a crime since none of that was the result of the inquery.  Would anything have changed if he had told the truth?  Probably not.  Now he faces a possible 30 years in prison.  I'm not saying that lying to congress is right but when it comes to what he lied about, there was basically nothing on the line whether he lied or didn't lie except for his own reputation so is it fair to send him to prison for 30 years because of that?

 

Plaxico shot himself.  He's facing a minimum 3.5 years in prison for shooting himself.  I guess technically it was for having an illegally concealed handgun.  Is 3.5 years and millions of dollars in lost wages fair considering that he already missed a number of games and SHOT HIMSELF.  I'm sure he was probably reaching for the gun to shoot someone else but we can't really prove that and all we can prove is he was carrying around a gun with him.

 

Vick engaged in a dogfighting ring that injured a killed a number of dogs.  What he did was horrible, there is no doubt about it.  However, he was sentenced to 2 years in prison and probably lst 10s of millions of dollars in salary and fines.  Does his punishment fit the crime that he commited?  It's certainly far closer than anyone else I'll mention in this post.  The damage to his career and reputation were far worse than those 2 years ever could have been.  At least his crime was pretty horrendous compared with lying or shooting oneself his punishment wasn't so bad comparatively although I'd probably give him a years suspension and 6-12 months in prison instead.

 

Last but not least we have Stallworth.  He got drunk and hit someone with his car.  He is going to spend 30 DAYS in prison. WTF!  I understand that he didn't do it on purpose but seriously.  He killed someone and will only spend 30 days in prison!!!  How is 2 years for dogfighting even fair when 30 days for killing someone is?

 

I would argue that each of the crimes above was worse than the one above it but it looks like the punishments are going to go in the opposite direction.  Of course, the first two haven't been sentenced yet so they could get off much easier than what I listed but that's what the could be getting for those crimes.  Yeesh.  Something is definately wrong with our legal system imo.

During the trip to Florida, we rented a car as we were flying into Ft.  Meyers but leaving from Ft. Lauderdale (who knew that Florida had so many forts).  When I picked up the car, the car had a quarter tank of gas in it.  I didn't notice this or look for this until after I'd left the lot as I'd never received a car with less than a full tank of gas.

 

I figured that they'd have to fill up the tank if they were going to charge the previous person who dropped it off (seems incredibly underhanded to charge someone for a tank of gas and then not actually fill it up).

 

Anyway, I didn't think much of it and figured this must just be common practice in Florida or something because the rest of my friends who also got rental cars from Avis had the same issue.  However, when I dropped it off, it was a problem.  They said they had no idea what the other location was doing but they were violating policy and the Ft. Laud.  location could not verify my statement.

 

When I returned to the states, I email Avis about it after spending 20 minutes on the phone.  They sent a nice mail back about how they appreciated me reporting the issue and it had been forwarded to the person in question.  I kindly replied that I appreciated their response but they didn't mention anything about removing the fraudulent charges from my bill.  I also mentioned that if they did not, I would be forced to report the charge as fraud to the government and my credit card company (if they knew how lazy I was, they'd have done nothing).  The response I got back was very apologetic and said they would remove the fee as a show of good faith.  :)  The score is now Me: 1, Avis: 0.

After getting burgers on the west side, we decided to go get some ice cream.  The people we were with suggested some local ice cream place that had opened recently in like Wallingford.  We head over to it and when we get there, the line is out the door and down the street. 

 

Having little else to do, we get in line to see how slow the line is moving.  The line barely moves even after ten minutes.  At that point, we've been waiting long enough that we have to find out why the line is so long.  45 minutes later, we finally make it inside for getting ice cream.  Apparently, this Molly Moon place is known for having interesting ice cream flavors and homemade waffle cones.  They were out of the cones so we were left with the interesting flavors.

 

For those who know me, you'll know that I'm not really one for too interesting flavors (like a pomegranate curry) so I stuck to chocolate and birthday cake.  Let me tell you, as ice cream goes, it was not worth the wait at all.  The birthday cake was fine but nothing really special.  I'm sure that for some people, tasting the different combination of flavors would be cool and new.  However, the basic chocolate was grainy and bitter as it was an all organic darker chocolate.  I much prefer flavors of ice cream that mix interesting combinations of chocolate and taste rich and creamy.  For the first time ever, I didn't even finish the ice cream that I had in front of me as it had a terrible after taste as well.

 

This hippy ice cream place may be for some but it was not for me.  I can maybe see how some would like it as an occasional diversion from good ice cream but the line out the door boggles my mind.

Here's the facebook IM conversation I had earlier today:

Marc
you give the rest of us crap for being on facebook and now I find you on facebook while in Europe

fie on you, fie I say

5:47pm Justin
lol

5:47pm Marc
how are things there?

i was actually looking out for someone to assist me with something

things has been great here

5:53pm Marc
coolness

say hi to Maggie

5:54pm Justin
ok

are u still here

how do u mean coolness

5:59pm Marc
I meant cool that things have been great for you

still here

have to leave for Daniel's soon though

:P

oh ok

I dont know if i could ask u for a favour

6:00pm Marc
what's the favor?

and if it's to spell it favour, the answer is no

6:02pm Justin
eheh..... A friend of mine is very sick..

she is in need of financial assistance . I dont know if u can loan me some amount and help send to her

i will be back to state in about a week i will pay back to you as soon as i get back

 

6pm was right around the time that Julie told me that she didn't think it was Justin she was talking to.  That's when I looked closer at the IM and realized that it likely was not.  I was pretty amused by the conversation either way as it's pretty clearly not Justin at all.  Apparently, his account has been hacked probably from him logging in on some insecure kiosk in Europe somewhere.  Hopefully he gets my mail warning him and can change his password (if it hasn't been changed already).  Don't trust anything you read on facebook.  :)

I also forgot to mention that I discovered the greating casino game ever invented called Triple Shot.

 

You put out 15 dollars.  You are then dealt one card and the dealer is dealt one card.  You then play war.  :)

 

Then you're dealt a second and the dealer is dealt a second and you play blackjack.

 

Then, you're dealt more cards until you have 6 cards.  At this point, you make a 5 card poker hand from the 6 cards and if you have a pair of Jacks or better, you're paid off based on a scale they have.

 

Now I know that this came probably has horrendous odds against you.  However, it's just awesome.  It's a combination of casino war, black jack, and video poker.  So much excitement and fun in one hand of a table game has not been seen ever prior to this game being invented.

I just got back from an awesome weekend in Vegas.  That is definately the most absurd city I've been to but it's so surreal that being there doesn't even feel like you're anywhere.  It's like you're outside of time for a weekend as you don't really see day or night consistently, have indoor skies and fake lighting, and quite the cross-section of America.

 

I got there thursday night like 30 minutes early after spending 20 minutes circuling over Vegas.  I'm not sure why we got in that early but it had to be wind of some sort.  We headed to Bally's and managed to get all 5 rooms on one floor which was nice (although the floors were quite big).  I proceeded to help the bachelor lose a hundred bucks in no time.  Let's just say it was a bad weekend for gambling.  Besides the last day, I lost every time I gambled except 3 times.  I won 0 dollars at one black jack session, 6 at one pai gao session, and won like 40 at another blackjack session.  Otherwise, I lost at slots, video blackjack, poker, a few other times playing blackjack, craps, etc.  You name it, I lost at it.  I really do dislike 10 dollar craps too because if you're losing, you lose so quickly.  Then again, had it been a 10 dollar table the last day, I'd have made all my money back.

 

I did ok in poker for a while and was even up like 30 bucks at 3am but kept playing.  I got killed on a hand I had a flush on the turn, a straight flush jackpot draw, and both opponents had trips.  Both opponents didn't seem to notice the straights and flushes possible and kept betting.  Someone then rivered a boat on me and I lost a lot of money in limit because the losing trips kept raising for some reason (and I was tired and chose to pay to see it rather than folding the flush I was 95% sure I had lost on).  Oh wells.  If only the river card had been Qd instead.  I would have won the pot and the 400 dollar jackpot for a straigh flush.  :)

 

We had Brazillion BBQ one night which was quite filling.  I had one blue drink and one green drink that I paid for but other than that it was free sailing.  It must be so sad for the people who live and work there as it seemed like every person was trying to make an extra buck on the side by "hooking us up" with some deal for strippers or club access.  I feel especially sorry for the guys on the street handing out flyers for hookers. 

 

We had the crazy Bellagio buffet and ate a ton.  We headed off to see Penn and Teller.  They clearly had an agenda about personal freedoms (libertarians are funny) as that came through a few times in the act but overall it was quite the good performance.  I liked it when they showed us how things were done.

 

After Friday, I tried to do my team a favor and not bet on the Astros.  It seemed to work on Saturday and then failed me again on Sunday.  Sunday was the best day for gambling as my friend hit 5 points at craps and I won a lot of money.  I rolled as well and hit only one point but hit the 5 and 9 like 6 times each which made me a fair amount as well. I still ended down but felt good about the weekend as a whole.  Twas indeed fun.

Going green is typically a good decision. It helps the environment, it's often cheaper in the long run, etc.  However, how much is too much?

 

I ask this because a few weeks back I received about 10 boxes.  I arrived home and these boxes blocked out the view of my front door.  The contents were my grandmothers' 3 sets of china.  How two grandmothers end up with 3 sets of china I will never know.

 

Anyway, after unpacking all of the boxes, we found ourselves having about 6 boxes and two trashbags full of styrofoam peanuts.  Unfortunately, these were the completely unbiodegradable kind that last forever (and not the ones that melt in water).  We packed the car full and headed over to fedex to drop them off.  That is when we were told that fedex wouldn't take them.

 

They said they were going green and using different packing material.  I asked why that mattered since reusing the peanuts seemed far more green than using brand new packing material instead.  They refused to budge but luckily UPS wasn't so picky.

 

I have to wonder how ridiculous it was to be told that they would not reuse our packing peanuts because they were trying to be better for the environment.  Sometimes one can go too green it seems.