The Eleven Commandments of the USA

(The real 10 Commandments can be found in Exodus 20 - the real commandments are useful to us today because they show us that we do wrong (Romans 3:23) and that we don't deserve heaven. But we can still go to heaven if we call on God Romans 10:13)

The Ten Eleven Commandments of the USA

1. Thou shalt not tell others that there is only one God and one way to enter heaven.

2. Thou shalt not read the bible unless you have time. Thou shalt not pray unless you are in a really tough spot in your life. And whatsoever thou doest, never pray or bring a bible to a school.

3. Thou shalt not tell anyone to watch their language as it is a hindrance to their freedom of speech.

4. Thou shalt play sports, go to the beach, sleep in, travel, or do any other activity, but whatsoever thou doest, thou shall not go to church unless there is absolutely nothing else in your schedule.

5. Honor anybody famous.

6. Thou shalt not murder, especially if thou art the government and are punishing someone for breaking this rule. If thou dost break this rule, depending on how much publicity you get, you will spend 25 years (less if you are good), in prison, working lightly and getting free meals, exercise rooms, and TV.

7. Thou shalt receive really high TV ratings if thou have adultery in the show.

8. Thou shalt not steal … very much. Unless thou dost not get caught, then it’s o.k.

9. Thou shalt say anything thou wishest in order to get things you want. If thou dislike thy neighbor, by all means, lie to get rid of them.

10. You shalt love money, sex, houses, cars, stocks, bonds, bank accounts, and all other worldly goods that you can get. You shall work as hard as you can to obtain these things.

11. Thou shalt not put the unrevised version of these commandments in a public place.

Fantasy Football

To those of you who have never tried "Fantasy Football" count yourselves lucky. If you don't know what it is, here's a short synopsis. People get together before the football season begins and throw all the NFL player's names into a big player pool. Then, each "manager" drafts players onto their own fantasy "all-star" team. Each fantasy team must have one quarterback, 2 or 3 running backs, 2 or 3 wide receivers, a kicker, a defense, 1 or 2 tight ends. Then, the playing begins. Your teams score is determined by how well your players play. Long TD passes and your QB gains points, interceptions and fumbles loose points.

Well, I liked fantasy football until my team met a highly successful player named Daunte Culpepper. Yesterday, Daute was intercepted 5 times (-10 points). 3 times the week before. To put this in perspective, he only needs 3 more to match his total interceptions from last season.

A good quarterback in fantasy football will get your team 20 points or more, so it's very frustrating to a fantasy manager when he is actually happy at seeing a big fat zero after being in negative numbers for most of the game.

For those of you who don't like football, give fantasy football a try. You'll find yourself involved in watching and tracking a sport and find out it's actually fun sometimes. As long as you stay away from a guy named Daunte Culpepper.

Computer and TV displays in thin air

Several years ago I read an article about projections in mid air and again a few months ago. So, I looked it up. Yes, that's right, "Help me Obi-one-kenobi" is only weeks away. Well, for those of us who have an extra $18,000 lying around. Two major companies where you can spend your $18K is www.io2technology.com and www.fogscreen.com. I think amusement parks should get some of these things. Haunted mansions and stuff. Check them out. Once you get an extra $18K lying around, let me know and you can buy me one.

Alanna Playing at home (picture)

Amanda, Here are your cute Alanna pictures :) Enjoy :)

Accountants and waste management

The more I work in the field of accounting and financial analysis, the more I see the strange, yet significant similarities between the accountant and the waste management business.

For example, I analyze an account called "other miscellaneous accruals and deferrals", which is accountant talk for "iey yie yie, what the heck is this and where do I put it ... oh, this looks like a good place." I spend endless hours a month dealing with the accounting trash of the company, the dust bin called "other misc".

Another such place is a great world called intercompany. In large companies this dumping ground is so huge that some companies such as Enron can defraud the public for years before the feds catch up to them. Other more honest companies, such as my own, simply spend thousands of man hours a year trying to keep on top of it. What exactly is intercompany and how can it get so out of hand.

Let's suppose I took $100 out of my pocket and sent it to you via Western Union, but didn't tell you about it. Would you know to go to Western Union to pick up the cash? Of course not. So it goes for all large companies. Company A takes money out of their pockets and puts it into intercompany (Western Union), but if they don't tell Company B, then the money just sits there until someone cleans it up. Enron cleaned up all of it...many times... then didn't include Company A as part of their company so they would get all the cash (Company B), but not send any of it out.

Well, it's time to go home. I think I'll wear an orange garbage man suit to work on Monday :)

Internet Explorer

For the past few weeks, I've been using AOL Explorer instead of Microsoft Internet Explorer to browse the web and it's opened my eyes to a new world of internet exploring.

I'm what you would think of as a power surfer. I like reading ten different web pages at a time and, much to the annoyance of Kristen (my wife), I click back and forth between web pages at frequent intervals. As you can imagine, anyone looking over my shoulder trying to read the news article, e-mail, or weather needs a quick eye to read it all... or fast reflexes like Kristen, who immediately smacks me on the shoulder and says "hey, I was reading that."

Well, now with AOL explorer (or Mozilla Firefox), I can have five or six pages open at a time and not five or six icons in my toolbar that all say "Internet Explorer". It's called tabbed browsing and instead of creating a new bar, it just creates a new tab (like a tab in Excel). Now, I can switch to a different page even faster and know exacly what page I'm going to. Cool!

Another great thing is a skinny little toolbar on the left with Mail, Favorites, Channels, Feeds (*cool) History, and others. The feeds button is great because I can look check on any new additions to news or blog feeds without having to browse to the web page. Which reminds me, any of you who have blogs should create a feed so I can add it to my new favorite button :)

Anyway, I'm still trying to keep up on posting to this blog frequently, so keep checking.