Kasey's Page of Mindless Rants

All right, all right, so my whole "one post per week" thing has been almost as successful as Congress lately. Lately being since the second weekend of August. I seriously have meant to keep this thing updated, but it just isn't happening so much.

Of course, that changes today.

Why today? Well, since I just compared my ability to update my blog with the ability of the United States Congress to accomplish anything, it only makes sense that I actually start being consistent on the day that Congress finally got the bail-out bill passed. That's right, earlier today the House finally pushed the 700 Billion Dollar monster through and saved us all. Right?

I understand that there were a few "concessions" made on either side. Apparently, the original document was amended somewhat, and went from three pages to just over 400. They had to make sure all the important groups out there are being taken care of during these difficult times. In the end, the benefits in the new bill included groups critical to the stability of our economic infrastructure such as wine bottlers and wooden arrow makers. Finally, somebody's thinking of the children! So take a deep breath, everybody, because it's all going to be okay. The stock market just closed and hey-- the Dow only dropped 157 points.

In all seriousness, I know that we do need to take action to fix the mess we're in, it just becomes frustrating when the emergency bail-out bill gets loaded down with more pork than a farm in Milford. But the gloom and doom of our economy is not what I'm going to complain about today. That's much too depressing, and it's a lot more fun to rant about things that don't really matter.

However, as I don't have much of a topic for today, I don't know if I'm going to go much further than this. I considered a few different things, but the one that came the closest was my frustration with the way the instructions for a model boat I'm trying to put together have been translated from Japanese. I think I'll save that one for later; it's a lot to take in and I don't want to wear you all out. (Notice me speaking as if someone were actually reading this)

Anyway, I'm going to try and keep up with the Friday thing. We'll see.

It's mid-August, and you know what that means. No, it doesn't mean that it's been three months since I submitted my last weekly post. It means that the Olympics are here, which pretty much puts me on the tail end of that long description of my busy summer that I provided in my last entry. The Olympics have arrived in Beijing, which means in two weeks we'll be having the Democratic National Convention in Denver, followed by the Republican National Convention in Minneapolis, followed by the onset of the College Football season (BYU is actually ranked in the preseason Top 20 this year!), followed by the beginning of Fall, Corn Maze Season, and Bam!!! Here comes Halloween.

So naturally, I thought it would be prudent to add a Countdown to Halloween banner to my blog. Only 76 shopping days left, folks.

Of course, everybody knows Halloween is a harbinger of Thanksgiving, which is in turn a harbinger of Christmas. Therefore, Olympics -> Political Conventions -> Football -> Fall -> Corn Mazes -> Halloween -> Thanksgiving -> Christmas; ergo, the Olympics are a harbinger of Christmas! QED! It could snow any minute.

Okay, okay, back to August. Since I really am going to start posting weekly now, I'll talk about what's going on right now, and that is the Olympics. I've been watching the first week pretty faithfully, and it's been pretty entertaining so far.

It's been neat to see the US wipe out the competition in Swimming and pretty much get our rear ends handed to us in every other event. Obviously, there have been a few medals here and there outside of swimming -- the Women's team in gymnastics has done really well and we swept one of the fencing competitions, but our medals have mostly come from the swimming events (thus far, anyway).

The Chinese, on the other hand, are cleaning house. They've got pervasive wins across the board. I'm guessing that their success must stem from their government's non-interventionist approach to the games and the fact that they haven't tried to turn the Olympics into a political statement by constantly reminding everyone how great China is. Either that or the fact that they have discovered how to bend space and time; after all they have learned how to turn 13-14 year-old gymnasts into 16-17 year-old gymnasts in the space of about 10 months! Pretty impressive.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this topic or this post in general. This is, after all, my page of Mindless Rants. I hope you weren't expecting poetry.

That's it for this week. Join me again next week, when I review the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.