The Rants of Mister P

I went to a CPR/First Aid class for work yesterday. It amazes me how much the Red Cross has changed over the years. 20 years ago, it was all about saving the victim. Now, it's all about saving your own butt. They talk about Good Samaritan laws, your legal responsibilities, and liability issues for The Company. And probably half of the class time was spent going over how to protect yourself from disease when giving first aid by wearing gloves and not making contact when giving mouth-to-mouth.

All of that is fine and good, but you should know something: when the next plane hits your building, and I need to make a choice between finding some gloves or saving your sorry butt, I'll be fingerpainting with your blood if I have to. So do me a favor and make sure you ain't carrying any little viruses that I don't want.

From the "it's a small world department": one of the women in the in the First Aid video was a college roommate of mine who was training as a firefighter. Kudos to her for sticking with it.

Vacuums Suck

I needed a new vacuum cleaner. My old one was about 15 years old: the little spinning brushes didn't spin any more, the outer casing was cracked, and for some reason there was a piece of metal jamming out of the bottom of it which would scrape the floor as I cleaned. It was OK for carpets, but not for bare floors. (Some of you might say it wasn't good for carpets either.) It was a nice little vacuum, so I figured I would go to Sears and pick up the latest version of the same model. Simple, right?

Wrong.

I'm sure you women out there know everything there is to know about the latest advances in home cleaning technology (yes, intentional sexist joke.) But I had no idea.what was out there. Do you want powered wheels? Bag-less? Micro-alergen filtration? Turbo-tornado-mega-sucking-power?

I got myself a Hoover with "V2 Dual Air Path Technology". I don't know what that means, but I imagine I will still run over a piece of lint on the floor, pick it up, and then throw it back down and try to vacuum it again.

The latest theory regarding the cause of the Columbia disaster is that a small tear developed in one of the wings, allowing super-heated gases to enter and tear apart the orbiter. After 2 1/2 months of investigation, the safety board has announced their proposal to protect future flghts: check the wings more closely.

Well duh, I could have told them that.

I managed to get an impromptu zinger on a telemarketer last night:

Telemarketer: "We're calling SBC Pacific Bell customers to let them know about an exciting program for long distance service."
Me: "I'm not interested."
Telemarketer: "I understand sir, but may I ask what it is you look for when choosing a long distance carrier?"
Me: "I look for a company that doesn't call me at home with annoying promotional offers."
Telemarketer: (laughing) "Yeah, well good luck with that!"

When I came home, this message was waiting for me on my machine from a former game player:

"OK, it's 5 minutes to 9, I was just checking to see that you have left the house and weren't playing the game. Glad to see that you're still working and please stock up on food because we won't be able to stop by 'cause we're in Mexico for the next few days. We want to make sure that you aren't found next to the mouse twitching and things when we get back."

Awww, isn't that sweet.

What's worse than losing your pants in the middle of town? Losing your pants in the middle of town when it's snowing.

For Brad.