KGB Report by Kevin G. Barkes

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(July 2000 and earlier)

Saturday, August 23, 2008
posted by KGB at 12:20 AM (permalink)

Junk email of the day

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Friday, August 22, 2008
posted by KGB at 3:54 AM (permalink)

Lifestyles of the Rich and Clueless

McCain and his wife own ten homes valued at $13,823,269, and Obama is an elitist?

The kicker is McCain doesn't know how many properties he owns. Worse, he bought a second beach house at the same time he suggested middle class Americans cancel vacations and work second jobs in order to keep up with the mortgages on their homes.

You can't make this stuff up. And, of course, the mainstream media isn't covering it. I mean, $13 million in real estate is nowhere near as scandalous as a $400 haircut, is it?

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posted by KGB at 2:18 AM (permalink)

Quotes of the day

Don't ever look at local television news again. It's all crap. There's no news, there's no information. It's negative, negative, negative. You look at that, and you think the world is coming to an end.

If we listened to our intellect, we'd never have a love affair. We'd never have a friendship. We'd never go into business, because we'd be cynical. Well, that's nonsense. You've got to jump off cliffs all the time and build your wings on the way down.

If you don't want a man unhappy politically, don't give him two sides to a question to worry him; give him one. Better yet, give him none.

Insanity is relative. It depends on who has who locked in what cage.

Our civilization is flinging itself to pieces. Stand back from the centrifuge.

People ask me to predict the future, when all I want to do is prevent it. Better yet, build it.

The human race likes to give itself airs. One good volcano can produce more greenhouse gases in a year that the human race has in its entire history.

To hell with more. I want better.

Why would you clone people when you can go to bed with them and make a baby? C'mon, it's stupid.

You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them.

Read, read, read and put away computers. Forget the Internet, that's all crap.

Ray Bradbury (b. August 22, 1920)

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posted by KGB at 1:41 AM (permalink)

Photo of the day

The charming and vivacious Miss Cindy recounts the events of August 22, 2006, in which she and the photographer initially met and spent six hours talking in a booth at the Belle Vernon Eat N Park. The older dogs have heard it all before, but the pups never tire of romantic fables.

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posted by KGB at 12:18 AM (permalink)

Junk email of the day

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Thursday, August 21, 2008
posted by KGB at 4:20 PM (permalink)

Headline of the day

(via The Onion)

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posted by KGB at 6:00 AM (permalink)

I'm with Bob

Back in the late 80s and through the 90s there was a wonderful accounting program for the PC called MoneyCounts. It was inexpensive, easy to configure, fast, accurate and error-free. I can honestly say it was the most useful and reliable piece of software I ever owned.

So of course its creator, Bob Parsons, sold it and the rest of his company in 1994 to Intuit for $64 million. MoneyCounts essentially disappeared and the world was infested with Quicken from that point on.

Parsons took a year off to play golf, and then founded a series of tech firms, eventually creating the domain name and web hosting powerhouse GoDaddy.

He's quite a character, and I disagree with a lot of what he says. But his 16 Rules are worth serious consideration:

1. Get and stay out of your comfort zone.

2. Never give up.

3. When you are ready to quit, you're closer than you think.

4. Accept the worst possible outcome.

5. Focus on what you want to have happen.

6. Take things a day at a time.

7. Always be moving forward.

8. Be quick to decide.

9. Measure everything of significance.

10. Anything that is not managed will deteriorate.

11. Pay attention to your competitors, but pay more attention to what you're doing.

12. Never let anybody push you around.

13. Never expect life to be fair.

14. Solve your own problems.

15. Don't take yourself too seriously.

16. There's always a reason to smile.

Good points, Bob. I'm still pissed about MoneyCounts, but hey... GoDaddy's always worked well for me, and when the Purple Daisies' website mysteriously disappeared after an unannounced server migration, your U.S.-based helpdesk had things back up and working in just a couple hours.

Best wishes, and continued good fortune.

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posted by KGB at 1:20 AM (permalink)

Junk email of the day

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Wednesday, August 20, 2008
posted by KGB at 2:21 PM (permalink)

Quote of the day

With schools turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators, the word "intellectual," of course, became the swear word it deserved to be.
-Ray Bradbury, in "Fahrenheit 451"

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posted by KGB at 2:05 PM (permalink)

Crass commercialism

Okay, but I love the picture of daughter Sara and granddaughter Leanna, and I didn't feel like firing up the photoshop clone to cut out the advertising part.

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posted by KGB at 6:01 AM (permalink)

Book of the day

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posted by KGB at 5:58 AM (permalink)

The only problem with an evangelical minister...

... asking questions of a religious nature to Presidential candidates is that it violates the spirit and intent of the United States Constitution.

Article Six explicitly states, "...no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States."

Were the founders serious? You betcha. It's the only time the word "ever" is used anywhere in the Constitution.

The Obama/McCain interrogation of faith conducted by Rev. Rick Warren last weekend is a sad commentary on the state of our nation. The event was implicitly a religious test to determine if the candidates have Christian beliefs. And not Christian beliefs in general, but fundamentalist Christian beliefs.

This is totally wrong. The United States was not founded on the principles of Christianity, but of the Enlightenment.

One thing I've never been able to understand is why some Christians feel it is necessary- or even desirable- to have our government enforce their religious beliefs. There are five major sects in Christianity, each with widely diverse practices and doctrines. Which is "correct?"

Theocracies don't work- and they especially don't work when there are significant differences in their beliefs. Forget denominational differences; the disparities within denominations can be mind-boggling enough: both President Bush and Hillary Clinton are United Methodists.

The mutation of our constitutional republic into an evangelical Christian theocracy should- pardon the expression- scare the bejeezus out of us.

I don't want religion in my government because the next step is having government in my religion... and, if you've been paying attention, you know: that way madness lies.

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posted by KGB at 12:01 AM (permalink)

Junk email of the day

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Tuesday, August 19, 2008
posted by KGB at 1:46 PM (permalink)

You really don't want to be late with your rent...

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posted by KGB at 12:33 PM (permalink)

Greening makes power companies wealthier

The story is here.

The bottom line: compact fluorescent lightbulbs save energy, but money? Not so much, thanks to a perhaps intentional design flaw that allows the power company to charge you for nearly twice the devices' actual electrical usage.

(from a post by Jack Unger in Dave Farber's "Interesting Persons" mailing list)

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posted by KGB at 6:30 AM (permalink)

Signs of the Apocalypse, #784

Paris Hilton reading Sun Tzu's The Art of War.

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posted by KGB at 12:01 AM (permalink)

Quote of the day

The strength of a civilization is not measured by its ability to fight wars, but rather by its ability to prevent them.

-Gene Roddenberry (August 19, 1921 - October 24, 1991)

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Monday, August 18, 2008
posted by KGB at 11:34 PM (permalink)

Computer quote of the day

If you asked me to name the three scariest threats facing the human race, I'd give the same answer that most people would: nuclear war, global warming and Windows.
-Dave Barry

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posted by KGB at 6:51 PM (permalink)

Good breeding

(From The Pet Blog via Leslie.)

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posted by KGB at 12:01 AM (permalink)

Quotes of the day

Mr. Right is now a guy who hasn't been laid in fifteen years.

My ancestors wandered through the wilderness for 40 years because even in Biblical times, men would not stop to ask directions.

The latest fad, giving birth under water, may be less traumatic for the baby, but it's more traumatic for the other people in the pool.

The Vatican is against surrogate motherhood. Good thing they didn't have that rule when Jesus was born.

We have women in the military, but they don't put us in the front lines. They don't know if we can fight, if we can kill. I think we can. All the general has to do is walk over to the women and say, "You see the enemy over there? They say you look fat in those uniforms."

When the sun comes up, I have morals again.

When women are depressed, they either eat or go shopping. Men invade another country.

You never see a man walking down the street with a woman who has a little pot belly and a bald spot.

Elayne Boosler (b. August 18, 1952)

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Sunday, August 17, 2008
posted by KGB at 5:01 PM (permalink)

Wow...

From the Times Herald in Vallejo, California:

Dolores Aguilar
1929 - Aug. 7, 2008

Dolores Aguilar, born in 1929 in New Mexico, left us on August 7, 2008. She will be met in the afterlife by her husband, Raymond, her son, Paul Jr., and daughter, Ruby.

She is survived by her daughters Marietta, Mitzi, Stella, Beatrice, Virginia and Ramona, and son Billy; grandchildren, Donnelle, Joe, Mitzie, Maria, Mario, Marty, Tynette, Tania, Leta, Alexandria, Tommy, Billy, Mathew, Raymond, Kenny, Javier, Lisa, Ashlie and Michael; great-grandchildren, Brendan, Joseph, Karissa, Jacob, Delaney, Shawn, Cienna, Bailey, Christian, Andre Jr., Andrea, Keith, Saeed, Nujaymah, Salma, Merissa, Emily, Jayci, Isabella, Samantha and Emily. I apologize if I missed anyone.

Dolores had no hobbies, made no contribution to society and rarely shared a kind word or deed in her life. I speak for the majority of her family when I say her presence will not be missed by many, very few tears will be shed and there will be no lamenting over her passing.

Her family will remember Dolores and amongst ourselves we will remember her in our own way, which were mostly sad and troubling times throughout the years. We may have some fond memories of her and perhaps we will think of those times too. But I truly believe at the end of the day ALL of us will really only miss what we never had, a good and kind mother, grandmother and great-grandmother. I hope she is finally at peace with herself. As for the rest of us left behind, I hope this is the beginning of a time of healing and learning to be a family again.

There will be no service, no prayers and no closure for the family she spent a lifetime tearing apart. We cannot come together in the end to see to it that her grandchildren and great-grandchildren can say their goodbyes. So I say here for all of us, GOOD BYE, MOM.

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posted by KGB at 12:01 AM (permalink)

Quotes of the day

A hospital is no place to be sick.

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on.

A wide screen just makes a bad film twice as bad.

Anyone who goes to a psychiatrist ought to have his head examined.

Don't pay any attention to the critics-don't even ignore them.

Don't worry about the war. It's all over but the shooting.

Gentlemen, include me out.

I can give you a definite "perhaps."

I can tell you in two words: im possible.

I don't think anyone should write their autobiography until after they're dead.

I don't want yes men around me. I want everyone to tell the truth, even if it costs them their jobs.

I had a terrific idea this morning, but I didn't like it.

I paid too much for it, but it's worth it.

I read part of it all the way through.

If I could drop dead right now, I'd be the happiest man alive.

If I entered into an agreement with that man, I would be sticking my head into a moose.

If I look confused it's because I'm thinking.

If Roosevelt were alive today, he's turn over in his grave.

It's absolutely impossible, but it has possibilities.

Keep a stiff upper chin.

Let's bring it up to date with some snappy nineteenth century dialogue.

Let's have some new clichés.

Never make forecasts, especially about the future.

Our comedies are not to be laughed at.

Pictures are for entertainment. Messages should be delivered by Western Union.

Spare no expense to make everything as economical as possible.

Television has raised writing to a new low.

That's the trouble with directors: always biting the hand that lays the golden egg.

Too caustic? To hell with the cost. If it's a good picture, we'll make it.

We're dealing with facts, not realities.

What we want is a story that starts with an earthquake and builds to a climax.

Why should people go out and pay money to see bad films when they can stay at home and see bad television for nothing?

You've got to take the bitter with the sour.

Samuel Goldwyn (August 17, 1879 - January 31, 1974)

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Copyright © 1987-2024 by Kevin G. Barkes
All rights reserved.
Violators will be prosecuted.
So there.
The kgb@kgb.com e-mail address is now something other than kgb@kgb.com saga.
kgbreport.com used to be kgb.com until December, 2007 when the domain name broker Trout Zimmer made an offer I couldn't refuse. Giving up kgb.com and adopting kgbreport.com created a significant problem, however. I had acquired the kgb.com domain name in 1993, and had since that time used kgb@kgb.com as my sole e-mail address. How to let people know that kgb@kgb.com was no longer kgb@kgb.com but rather kgbarkes@gmail.com which is longer than kgb@kgb.com and more letters to type than kgb@kgb.com and somehow less aesthetically pleasing than kgb@kgb.com but actually just as functional as kgb@kgb.com? I sent e-mails from the kgb@kgb.com address to just about everybody I knew who had used kgb@kgb.com in the past decade and a half but noticed that some people just didn't seem to get the word about the kgb@kgb.com change. So it occurred to me that if I were generate some literate, valid text in which kgb@kgb.com was repeated numerous times and posted it on a bunch of different pages- say, a blog indexed by Google- that someone looking for kgb@kgb.com would notice this paragraph repeated in hundreds of locations, would read it, and figure out that kgb@kgb.com no longer is the kgb@kgb.com they thought it was. That's the theory, anyway. kgb@kgb.com. Ok, I'm done. Move along. Nothing to see here...