Our data indicates....

Noting the extreme closeness of the Presidential race, the suggestion for conducting some type of polling was raised during our weekly staff meeting this past Monday. Various polls indicate an extremely close race between both candidates with each identified as the front-runner. Our commitment here at FTI to policy analysis and event commentary while simultaneously offering accuracy, fairness, and timely delivery of issues that mean the most to our 2 faithful readers dictated some type of random political work on our behalf.

Realizing that sending the Misfits to canvassing our immediate area around the compound would result in jamming the phone lines at our local mental health center, I decided to simply conduct an internal poll here at FTI. And the results were, uh surprising. Devising the simply scientific question of, "To hell with everyone else, whom of the active presidential candidates will benefit you the most, and why?" The results are stunning:

Dickie the Peap:"That's easy. Romney. He's for us rich guys."

Gummo, the Balloon Boy: "Levon. He sells cartoon balloon's all day" (EDITOR'S NOTE: Our pollsters were confused by this answer . We had no idea what this is about. Deep research later concluded this answer is in reference to the lyrics of a 40 year old Elton John song, "Levon")

The Green Comic: "Huh? Oh I get it now. I didn't understand why all of the guys I steal material from were riffing on the President."

Rat Bastard G: "Obama. He and I both don't know what we are going to do for the next 4 years, so, I figure, what the hell.
Hey, you wanna see my scar?"

Our poll was conducted with an established error ratio of 50/50 of troubled individuals contacted during the period of October 22nd to 23rd. We feel certain these results will only add to the uncertainty already associated with this race.

Jukebox: A different (better) version of an Oldie

Hey, I am having a little dinner party. You want to come over?

HOLLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich.-Authorities say a blaze that displaced dozens of people from a southwest Michigan apartment complex may have been sparked by a resident trying to cook a squirrel with a propane torch.

Fire Chief Jim Kohsel said that the resident apparently planned to eat the animal and was burning off its fur on a third-floor deck at the building in Ottawa County's Holland Township when the fire broke out Wednesday. Flames spread to the roof. Kohsel said eight apartments were destroyed and others damaged. No residents were injured though one firefighter suffered a broken toe.

Residents were later able to return to their homes and enjoy flaming Spanish coffee's for dessert, however.

Justice Delayed is Justice denied

Once again, I simply cannot understand the depths at which our justice system will afford any and every opportunity to a wrong-doer a chance to avoid judgment. Case in point? My experience yesterday.

Having been scheduled to hear our case for determing an increase in the amount of bond needed to secure our judgment in my onling legal battle, the Idiot judgment debtor's attorney suddenly claiming that over 80 pages of documents received in the last 36 hours, she simply didn't have time to adequately prepare and so requests another 2 weeks of preparation. Of course, the fact that all but 13 pages of it is old material and is only evidence to buttress the position of the new 13 pages seems to garner a sympathetic ear from a judge who received the same info, but, failed to read any of it in advance. This, of course, is due to a county that is broke and cannot afford to add another judge to an overworked, overloaded, understaffed, and overwhelming amount of cases backed up in the system.

I am normally an upbeat person. I still think I am going to prevail. My worry, though, is that my remaining plaintiff partners are becoming as disgusted as I am and are considering, like me, to quit this whole exercise which means, ultimately, we lose and are back to square one. It just isn't right.

Jukebox: That's what I want

That's a lot of clams

The astute reader will notice the countdown clock to the right rapidly approaching the end of it's cycle as we come upon the day of reckoning for the idiot developer. Today is a milestone as we are now owed a total of over one quarter of a million dollars!

I am currently reviewing and preparing to sign an affadavit attesting to some pertaining facts to be brought up at our hearing on Friday. The details of the affadavit are tedious, but, the purpose is not. My fellow plaintiffs and I are legally owed some money. Will we ever see all of it? Probably not. Will we see some? I think so and that is the purpose of this important hearing. Unfortunately, our legal system has become so twisted and bogged down that a simple procedural hearing becomes so vast and complicated that, ultimately, no one ever prevails. What good is a multi- million dollar judgment against a tobacco company or auto manufacturer if you will never collect it? The same can be said for this case except the majority of the present award is tied up in property. I don't care about property. I want cash. And that is what Friday is about.

I have been disappointed, oh, so many times before in this case. Honestly, I have no expectations over this hearing, either. If I never see a cent of this judgment is really of no consequence to me. Wrongdoing was adjudicated and determined to have been damaging. Lies were committed and exposed. And someone has been formally and legally held responsible. And, for me, that is good enough.

My simple government policy in 2 words

I note the continuing need to make government more efficient and more responsible to the citizenry. I think I have found a simple way that would do both, plus as an added bonus, perhaps, make our mail-in election process a bit more honest. And all of it costs nothing. The process is simple.

I went to the mailbox over the weekend and noted that there was a jury summons from my local county addressed to Kfred Jr. 2. Of course, Kfred Jr. 2 is serving his country overseas and will be doing so for the next 30 months or so. As a result, I am sure his employer will probably not be willing to have him come home for a week in order to phone in by 7:30 to determine if he is available to sit in on a dogbite case to be heard by a jury. More ridiculously, this was the second jury summons he has received in over a year. He wasn't available then and he isn't available now! This incident is on top of the repeated vote by mail ballots we continuously receive addressed to Kfred Jr. 1 during each election season. He (and we) have each called the county elections office twice to notify them that Kfred Jr. 1 is no longer a resident of the county or, for that matter, of the state. Doesn't matter. They just keep coming. Now we throw them out and pay no attention to them, but, this is how voter fraud is perpetuated.

Wouldn't it seem during this current political climate, with all of the rhetoric and hot air on both sides, that someone would extol the simple practice to make government more efficient? The practice and my policy? It's called "paying attention."

Jukebox: Like the man says, "There's only one way to get something done"

Hey, I paid to let you know that

I note that Facebook is now testing an option where a person can promote their posts by paying a fee that moves your post up the newsfeeds of friends wall.

As one facebook user noted, "It would probably be useful for politicians, business owners, and narcissists, but useless for everyone else". Or, put another way: Still, nobody cares.

Jukebox: I even lost my last quarter

I'll give you a piece of the good Neighbor

I recently signed up for an account under my alter ego with Linkedin, the social media site for working professionals. Its kind of a Facebook for working people. No, you don't use it to let your friends know you are having "4th meal" at Taco Bell at 1 in the morning. (On an unrelated topic, isn't it amazing that marketers have figured out a way to describe the appearance of food during a massive drunk as "4th meal" with attractive smiling people sitting around at a party as opposed to half passed-out, cigarettes hanging out of their mouths, obnoxious drunks with too loud of music in the background, slobbering over a bunch of cold tacos? Alas, I digress.) It's more of a place where you can network with other people in your trade or outside of your trade as well. You put up a personal profile of your work experience which is available for others to see. It also is a place where job recruiters search for candidates for various jobs.

Anyways, my organizational and management skills have recently drawn the attention of the good folks of both State Farm and Bankers Life and Casualty Insurance Companies as candidates for their management programs. Now, they really don't go into detail about which skills they covet so much as an employer. State Farm was impressed because of my "initiative and relationship-building skills" that I demonstrated in my past experiences. Bankers, on the other hand, felt I "had the right mix of skills for a career as an Independent Insurance Sales Agent". I took both of these complements along with the countless thanks-but-no-thanks rejection letters over the years from employers whom always laud my "background and impressive experience, but we have decided to pursue other candidates" when searching for work and put them neatly in the garbage file. They all are meaningless. Hey guys, here's a hint: You can at least expend the energy to halfway personalize your message to me so I don't think it's a robot trolling through profiles for candidates for your half baked job. I don't need another half-baked job. My Executive Director position here more than meets my career goals.

Tempis Fugit

With the impending arrival of fall, I spent yesterday performing the "get-ready-for-change-of-season" duties: Clean gutters? Done. Put away the lawn furniture? Uh-huh. Trim the overgrowth on some of the plants and bushes? Yep. Hydrate with some beer in the meantime? Well, of course. Remove some stubborn moss from the rooftop? Finally, but it's done. Edge around the perimeter of the lawn after avoiding it all summer long? Oh yeah. Repeat beer ritual? It goes without saying. Turn and re-stack the growing pile of brush and debris that will be ignited once the open burning ban is lifted? Oh, boy , I can't wait for that one (and it's gonna be a whopper)!

Funny. I don't know where summer went. I just unpacked my summer sandals last week.

Jukebox: Keep on truckin'

Fiction? Truth? These are both real.

CARSON CITY, NEVADA-A quiet recluse who died with $200 in his bank account surprised Carson City, Nev. officials when they were inspecting his run-of-the mill home to put it up for sale.

Inside Walter Samaszko Jr.'s 1,200-square-foot house, officials found stashes of gold coins and bullion. $7 million worth of it.

"You never anticipate running into anything like this," Carson City Clerk-Recorder Alan Glover said. "This guy was everybody's next-door neighbor."

Glover told the Tahoe Daily Tribune that several boxes of coins were found all neatly wrapped in aluminum foil in Samaszko's garage.

He had so much gold it took two trips on wheelbarrows to haul it out, the Daily Tribune reported. Officials also searched crawl spaces and used a metal detector in his yard to ensure they found all the gold, according to the Daily Tribune.

"He was a hoarder — there was everything inside that home you could think of," Glover told the L.A. Times. "The workers found a crawl space from the garage. That led to everything else."

Oddly, in an eerily similar incident, Dickey the Peap was observed emerging from a small, well camouflaged, hollowed-out stump in his own backyard yesterday. Immediately realizing, he had been observed, the short armed one yelled, "Get the hell out of here! I am just checking for termites."

Jukebox: Hey, it's still summer!

How a +6 was parlayed into .25

I experienced another semi-infrequent lunch and round of golf with Dickey the Peap yesterday. At this rate, I am not sure that the FTI legal defense fund won't be replenished in approximately 10, 000 years or so. And I am not sure that the little miser still won't be around at that time insisting that the cost of death is simply more than he is willing to pay and that he will find a cheaper option. In the meantime, the George Jetson's of the future will be curiously studying the visitor from another time with the short arms.

In fairness, for the record, there was no static regarding whom had the responsibility to host yesterday's lunch. We alternate each time and yesterday was his turn to pay. I did find it curious, however, that upon seeing us, our host waiter, turned over to the bar and bellowed, " I need 16 ounces of beer in a 12 oz. glass!". Obviously, he has dealt with this character before. Good service by waitstaff at a restaurant includes knowledge by the staff of what the customer prefers and to try to accommodate the wishes of the guest. The successful business model of some restaurants do include promotional vehicles such as , "all-you-can-eat", "half-priced happy hour", "Taco Tuesday" and the like. I am unaware of any financially solvent operation employing the practice of negotiating menu prices with the customer before the order is taken. I know of only one individual that could systematically, individually, take down an operation by himself: Mr 16.oz of beer in a 12 oz glass.

Anyways, we had a good round of 9 holes of golf on a warm, later summer afternoon. At the end of hole 3, I was up by a score of 3 strokes and mentioned that I predicted I would probably win by 6 strokes at the end of our round. (For the infrequent reader: I am not a good golfer; I play approximately 5 times a year. My game is such that 90% of the time I flail about and move the ball 25 yards in the wrong direction. The other 10%, though, encourages me to keep playing and think I might have a chance to be actually good. It doesn't matter though; I do it just to have some fun.) The little miser immediately picked up on this and said, "I'll remember that, I'll remember that!". I wasn't trying to insult him, rather, just get inside of his head because he is actually as lousy as I am and each round is basically a coin toss as to whom will emerge the victor. We played even golf up to the last hole, where the wheels finally fell off for the Frugal One and he lost the hole by 3 strokes. Adding these 3 strokes to my prior 3 stroke advantage equaled the previously predicted 6 stroke advantage. Quietly and immediately, he handed me a well worn, aged, shiny from the repeated rubbing by oily fingers, uneven around the edges due to repeated handling while counted, payment for the loss of our standing bet when we play golf, quarter. "Ya know what really pisses me off?" he said. "Now I have to buy beer, too." "Look on the bright side." I told him. "They only sell 16 oz bottles in the bar."

Never Forgotten. Ever.

The usual mirth, merriment, and silliness associated with our normal observations will be suspended today in honor of the over 3000 lives lost 11 years ago today.

Regardless of your political leanings, interpretation of cause, or assignment of blame, the cowardly acts of that day were despicable. May their be a special place in Hell for those involved with the planning and carrying out of those acts.

Jukebox: They say it's my birthday

Gee, what's a few days among friends?

True to form, I have once again had to  reset the money countdown clock an additional 21 days due to the legal system.  The judge ruled today that due to the crushing caseload assigned to him, his earlier opening to hear our round for increasing our long over due bond has been supplanted by a pending  12 day criminal trial and, as a result, has now been pushed back to the 12th of October as the earliest date for adjudication. This is simply unbelievable.

Here is some free advice (and it is really good, trust me): If you ever, EVER, contemplate a lawsuit, turn and sprint away like your bank account depended on it. Because it does.

Where are those damn earbuds?

I wish I could think of this kind of stuff on my own:

Authorities say a New Hampshire woman has been arrested four times in 26 hours for blasting the AC/DC song "Highway to Hell" and other loud music from her home and for throwing a frying pan.

Police first issued a warning to Joyce Coffey on Tuesday afternoon at her home in Epping. They say they were called back an hour later and arrested her for the loud music. She was released on $500 personal recognizance bail, but police returned to her home about five hours later -- again because of a report about loud music and arrested her again.

Police say Coffey was arrested again five hours later. This time, she was released on a $1000 bond, but four hours later was arrested again, this time over  more loud music and a domestic violence charge by her nephew who alleged he was hit by a frying pan thrown by the woman while trying to  remove some of his belongings from her house

Coffey was jailed Friday and couldn't be reached for comment.

Reportedly,  a judge has recommended she use headphones.