GM needs to get what it deserves.  For the twenty years I’ve been in the trade their greed and ego drove them to the position they’re in today.  Up until now it’s been the suppliers making the sacrifices so GM could continue to feed the bank accounts of their corporate execs and the fat, outdated UAW.  How important were American jobs when they were taking technology and designs innovated here in the USA and handing them over to foreign suppliers for the last 15 years?  Those very technologies and designs are ones they’re now CRYING about having to compete against in the marketplace!!  They’re whining about having to compete with overseas manufacturers that THEY DEVELOPED ALL OF THE STRUCTURE FOR!!  They have essentially destroyed the possibilty of manufacturing to have a future in this country.  GM has been nothing but knee jerk reactions for as long as I can remember.  They’ve been 5+ years behind the market and had absolutely no concern about the future.  Their products are average at best and do little to entice the consumer.  They’ve made decisions continually assuming the government would be there to help them out and it never should have gotten this far.  Let them go bankrupt and let the UAW see what the real world is like.  Had they been willing to make some sacrifices and concessions in the best interest of their employers ability  to be able to compete over the last 10 years none of this would be nearly as bad as it is.  Ego and greed…the American way…..the outcome is inevitable….welcome to it.

For those of you living under a rock, World of Warcraft is the biggest online role playing game on the planet.  I wouldn’t say I’m a total addict but I’m not too far from it.  I’ve been playing for about a year and love just about everything about the game…until I got hacked today!

Now let me state a few things before I continue….I’m not retarded enough to give out any account information or anything of that nature.  I don’t click things that are obvious scams and I always check the actual URL before following any kind of link whether it’s an email or on a website.  My anti-virus is always up to date and I do regular scans.  So now that we’ve covered that…on to the main course.

I’ve never had any security related issues with WoW…never really had any issues at all….until today.  I found out this morning that my account had been hacked.  If you’ve ever had something important stolen from you then you know how it feels.  What’s different is this is worse than getting most material goods stolen…for me anyways.  I’m taking it much more serious than when my truck was broken into just earlier this year.  Why?….because of all the time I had into my WoW characters.  They got all of my gold, all of my inventory, and all of my bank items including the bags that they were held in.  If that wasn’t enough they deleted or sold everything that was soulbound (stuff that can’t be traded or auctioned) including my damn mount!!  I’d seriously beat the hell out of whoever did it if I ever got my hands on them.  It took me a year to get all of that stuff and it was gone in a matter of minutes.  Whether or not Blizzard is going to be able to restore everything remains to be seen but I’m sure I won’t get everything back.

So how does this happen you may ask?  Well I’ve got my suspicions.  Last week I heard about an addon called Questhelper that I wanted to check out.  I’ve been using an addon management program called UI Central from Inc Gamers but this addon wasn’t available through them so I had to goto Curse Gaming to get it.  So I got the addon last week and loved it, wish I had it a year ago.  Curse seemed to have a lot to offer so I created an account at their site and was going to check into their automatic mod updating program but never got to it.  A few days after registering at Curse I start getting spam email from WoWminer.com about buying WoW gold….hmm…probably not a coincidence.  Then a day after that my account is hacked…go figure.  A few quick searches about Curse and WoW accounts and it seems I’m not the only one with problems after getting stuff from Curse.  Intentional or not I think it’s a pretty safe bet that my interaction with them has something to do with my account getting hacked.  Supposedly people are getting Trojan’s from their site or addons they download from there that are keylogging your WoW account information.  From the reading I’m doing it appears there are some Trojan issues with UI Central too.  So basically you need to watch what mods you’re using and always do a google on them before installing them to make sure people aren’t having similar problems.  I’m going to do away with the automatic updaters too…not worth the risk.

So now I sit and wait to see what Blizzard can do for me…guess I’ll actually have to get a life for a few days.

How ironic that while filming a documentary explaining how everyone has been misled to believe that stingrays are dangerous……Steve Irwin, the croc hunter, gets killed by guess what….a stingray.  Sorry people but you play with fire and it’s just a matter of time until you get burned.  I must admit I always figured it would be a snake that put him in the ground.  As far as him helping me better understand wildlife goes….bullshit.  All I learned from him is that there are actually people stupid enough to mess with creatures that really don’t want to be messed with.  Every time he’s telling me how wonderful and beautiful something is it just so happens to be trying to kill him.  I hate to think of how many people have/will die from messing with animals just because they saw him do it.  And just for the record….it’s not okay to hold your 1 year old baby in your arms while feeding a crocodile…it’s actually just plain stupid.  Let’s see….Michael Jackson holding baby over balcony = bad….. Steve Irwin holding baby while feeding crocodile = okay.  I don’t think so…

Being a motorcycle rider of almost 30 years and having lived in states both with and without helmet laws, I believe I’m qualified to comment on our state’s standing on motorcycle helmets. It seems people in Michigan are unwilling to accept the reality that wearing a helmet doesn’t necessarily make a motorcyclist safer. You don’t have to take my word for it, just do the math. Unfortunately motorcycle fatalities aren’t tracked by the exact cause of death. Head injuries are not the only cause of death of a motorcyclist and the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration admits they’re not the main cause, but since the GR Press recently ran an Associated Press article about motorcycle deaths in Florida since they repealed their mandatory helmet law, let’s just use Florida’s numbers here. According to the article, since the repeal of the helmet law there has been a 67 percent increase in motorcycle fatalities. That sounds like a lot, until you take into account the fact that motorcycle registrations rose 87 percent. Add to that the fact that motorcycle riders in states without mandatory helmet laws on average ride significantly more miles in a year than their helmeted counterparts, and it doesn’t take someone with a math degree to figure out that when applied to the masses, states with no helmet laws are more safe. Similar statistics can be attained from other states that have repealed their helmet laws. I have also yet to see any credible proof that the lack of a helmet law creates a larger financial burden to society, a statement which is always broadcast by the helmet proponents yet they seem to only speculate. On the other hand, the 10’s of million’s of tourism dollars Michigan is missing out on because most motorcyclists from surrounding states (none of which have mandatory helmet laws like we do) won’t come here on their motorcycles requires no speculation. Here are a few tidbits of information for the misinformed and/or uneducated to chew on:
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Pretty hot topic lately.  I’ve taken some time to think about it and have finally formed my opinion although it’s sure to evolve.  I’m going to stick primarily to the Mexicans since that seems to be the kindling for this fire.

There are many jobs American’s won’t do….for the same amount of money that "Mexican’s" will.  A drive through the "plantations" of West Michigan is all that’s needed to see what I’m talking about.  I wouldn’t go pick those crops for $5hr….nor would I necessarily want my kids doing it.  That’s actually not how it works though.  All those farms have "foremen" who are legal sub-contractors and live here year round.  They are paid huge amounts of money and it’s up to them to get and pay their "crew".  Just in case you didn’t know…that’s how the farms cover their azz…they don’t hire off "applications".  I would expect that’s standard operating procedure for the large farms all over the country which is where most of the Mexican immigrants make a living from what I see.
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It all started yesterday morning when my wife called me from a garage sale asking if $40 was a good deal for a bike trailer to throw the kids in.  Well…it was a great deal…but we didn’t have any bikes…..yet.  So I went down and bought one of these from Gordy at the Freewheeler in Grand Rapids.  I got some extra stuff too and he ended up saving me about $200 over what I could have got it for anywhere else.  Nice guy…great prices.