A little extra bit of rambling

It's pretty slow here in the office b/c the schools are on vacation this week and we are just cleaning up the office (and i finished my section already) so I figured I'd just post more stuff. Aren't you so lucky?

Well yesterday was President's day meaning- no work! So I was happy about that. However, I wasn't happy about the fact it snowed, or the fact that Ariana had a bunch of school work and other chores she just needed to get done, so we wound up not being able to hang out.

So I spent the day being a bum. I watched a TON of stuff I recorded last week on my DVR. And I know I've already sung the praises of that device, but it truly is great. One show I really get to enjoy now that I didn't watch on any kind of regular basis before is the Daily Show. Good Lord is that show just freakin hysterical. After watching all last week, I was inspired to purchase the book- America by Jon Stewart on Amazon. I can't wait until it arrives.

I also wound up getting into another show, although this one is more of a guilty pleasure. It's Gilmore Girls. My mom and sis used to watch the show when it first started and I'd be in the dining room on the computer but never really paying attention. Well the other week at Henry's b-day party we watched an episode and it was pretty entertaining. Then I saw another episode during the week and I got hooked. The dialogue on the show is superb, especially anything between the two main characters. It's just really witty and fun- on par with stuff like Buffy and Angel for sure. I can't believe I'm admitting all this here for the world to see, but it is a fun show.

- And as for other fun shows, I've mentioned in the past how I wake up to watching Cold Pizza on ESPN2 in the mornings. It's a great morning show. Well they are in the middle of a segment called 30 Teams in 30 Days where they rate all 30 Baseball teams (one a day) and speak to a member of the team and tell them their teams grade and ask them questions.

Well today was the Brewers turn. Big Whoop, you say? That's what I was thinking initially also. But then they brought on their starting pitcher- Ben Sheets and it wound up being a hysterical interview.  It was probably the most fun sports interview i've seen in a LONG time. 

Sheets talked about being terrible pitcher/hitter- he never hit in HS, said the last time he did it was in little league.  He made jokes how he only had about 9 hits all year last season.  Jay made joke about "So the rumors that Ben Sheets is using Steroids to help his swing, that's completely not true right?."  And Ben responded "I think you misheard that, that was TWINKIES, I've been using twinkies to improve my swing."
 
He continued to mock himself saying things like: "But the thing could be, I could be left handed, I haven't tried that yet, but I KNOW I'm not a right handed hitter, maybe I'm a left handed swinger, I dunno, I should try it." And these were just a few of his amusing comments that were just made more funny by the delivery. And it came across well on TV b/c you could just see how much fun both the interviewer and interviewee were having. So that was cool.

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I didn't just watch stuff from DVR though. I also watched Saw (by myself, b/c Ariana told me the other day it wasn't her type of film and my sister who was supposed to watch it with me, bailed last minute to continue playing Suikoden 4).

It was interesting to say the least. It wasn't as gory and bloody as I expected from the commercials. It was much more of a mindjob and a pretty good one at that. I can say I was genuinely surprised by the ending. The only problem was while the ending made sense, it wasn't explained very well (there were a lot of plotholes). In the end I'd give it a thumbs in the middle but leaning slightly up (b/c of the uniqueness of the film).

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And finally, big things happened on Raw last night (ok ok, so just one big thing, but it was pretty cool). Batista finally made his decision about which title he would fight for at Wrestlemania and to the surprise of no one chose Triple H. It was just how it went down that was cool. Fisticuffs were exchanged (including Batista powerbombing HHH through a table) so now we are full steam ahead for Wrestlemania 21.

I just want to put something on record though. I made mention of this to a few of my wrestling fan buddies, but I want it known that I have an idea that was in my head well before Wrestlemania. it pertains to the Smackdown World Championship. Right now the match is John Cena vs JBL for the title and everyone is picking Cena to topple the champ b/c JBL has had the title for nearly a year and evryone online thinks he should lose it on the grandest stage of the year in a one on one match.

Well, I disagree.

First off, I think Eddie Guerrero and Rey Mysterio should fight in a #1 Contenders match at WM21, which Rey should win and I think JBL should once again win and go off gloating how he now has no more legit challengers to his title. Then on a Smackdown in the near future they should have JBL vs Rey Mysterio, and JBL will be all cocky and not take Rey seriously and not even make one of his "guarentees" of winning, and then actually lose the title.

JBL will be humiliated and fans will eat it up by not only laughing at JBL's loss but loving the fact that Mysterio was the one to do it. You kill two birds with one stone. And as for those who say "how could Rey be champ?" Well I wouldn't have him hold it for long. Probably for like barely a month. He would be a total "transitional champ" and drop the belt shortly to Kurt Angle. That way Angle can kick ass and work main events against guys like Booker T, Eddie Guerrero, RVD and Undertaker (who would prob be his Summerslam main event foe).

This is what WWE should do if they were smart, cuz it thinks in the long term. So of course they totally won't do this and just have Cena win the title... but hey, I can dream. And if it DOES happen? Well then you heard it here first!

Wow, I can't believe I forgot...

I neglected to post anything about the end of Valentine's Day weekend. I mentioned the beginning with me surprising Ariana at her job on Friday with flowers and taking her out to dinner, but there was a little bit more (hanging out all weekend, going to dinner on Sat night also, having a nice family dinner at my Grandparents on Sunday, etc) and on Monday we actually exchanged gifts.

I got Ariana a tiny little mp3 player. I forget the brand name offhand but the player is SUPER thin. It's even smaller than my Dell Pocket DJ. Ariana absolutely loved it.

She then surprised me with a few random gifts i didn't expect (which was cool). She appealed to my inner geek by getting me two very hard to find action figures. The first one- an Original Spike figure from Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and the other was the Marvel Legends Deadpool figure. I was very psyched b/c I had been wanting those two for quite some time but they were impossible to find in stores and sold for more than I was willing to pay on ebay (I'm very anal about paying too much for a figure I know sells in stores for under $10). She topped it all off by giving me a wireless Wavebird controller for my Gamecube, b/c I had been complaining like a month ago about how I missed it when my sister took the one she had lent me back when she had set up her Gamecube in her room again. So that was very cool and much appreciated.

The Inner Geek and a Trip Down Memory Lane

I'm doing this post completely from memory (meaning I'll probably leave out stuff I wanted to say). I had little notes which I e-mailed myself the night before, but I'm at work now, and I don't know if it's hotmail or my internet explorer's fault, but I can't freakin open any e-mails here today for some reason. I'll just chalk it up to Macs totally sucking.

-I mentioned my dislike of macs to Charles and this convo followed

SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:03:26 PM): but macs still suck
SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:03:37 PM): i don't use art and design program so they are useless to me
Chaz(12:04:04 PM): lol
Chaz (12:04:07 PM): All right, have your vendetta
SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:04:24 PM): they're almost as bad as Randy Orton!
SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:04:29 PM): they are the Orton of computers!
Chaz (12:04:40 PM): I made the mental link too!
Chaz (12:04:41 PM): lol
SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:04:43 PM): pretty but useless
SuperSaiyaJinDX (12:04:47 PM): lol

Ahh, I can never turn down a chance to bash Orton...

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Bought a handful of things this week. On Wed I went to Bestbuy and got Angel Season 5 on DVD and also the new 3 Doors Down CD. The 3DD CD is pretty good. The first track actually sounds VERY much like Foo Fighters circa Colour and the Shape (and that's not a bad thing).

Then on Friday the inner geek in me came to the surface again for a few hours. I wound up meeting up with Greg and Jessii over at Bay Plaza. We hit Gamestop first and each of bought a movie (we put them all in together to take advantage of a buy 2 get 1 free deal). I wound up getting the movie 100 Girls, which most of you probably never heard of. I actually have not seen it, but have heard about it and it's supposed to be funny (in an American Pie sort of way) and I've been wanting to rent it for the longest but I couldn't find it at any Blockbusters or Hollywood Videos. It was only $7 bucks and after the deal it only came up to like $5 so I figured, why the hell not?

After that, we then headed to Toys R Us. And I should have known that was gonna be a mistake. Now I've stopped fully collecting figures like I used to (mostly b/c I have no more space for anything), but every once in awhile I'll go into a TRU and buy something cool. And well this was one of those days. First off, I saw a pretty cool Rey Mysterio figure that came with a mask. And not just any mask, the one that looks like the Spider-Man mask. And it wasn't a cheapy mask either, it was an actual full head mask. The geek in me completely took over just like "Buy it! you know you wanna try on that mask! It looks cool! BUY IT!"

And who am I to ignore my inner geek? So of course I did buy it, along with a Cartoon Network Star Wars- General Grievous Figure, and a Super Posable Movie version Spider-Man figure (with magnets on his feet) that was on sale for only $3.98. (Like I said, the geek was in control of me this day).

And the best part? I actually got the Rey figure and mask for FREE!

The cashier wound up screwing up, b/c as she was scanning the items I saw that the Spidey figure was scanned in at full price, so I was all like "Umm miss that is supposed to be on clearance." she she had the manager come over and check it out, and when she saw I was right had to delete stuff rescan them and I guess she forgot to rescan my the Rey figure. So when I saw the price I was a bit thrown off, but I didnt think anything of it at first until I got outside the store and checked my receipt and saw the mistake.

And that's when me, Greg and Jessii ran away, lol.

Umm, so yeah after that, we headed to Hollywood Video b/c I still had more of those coupons for 3 movies for 99 cents each and wanted to take advantage of them. So I wound up renting Saw, King Arthur and The Perfect Score (was gonna rent either Shark Tale or Mulan 2 for Ariana but both were rented out). Then I got the hell out of there and went home before I was tempted to purchase any more crap.

-Shortly after I got home, Ariana came over and I showed her my purchases. She laughed over the Rey Mysterio with the mask. I then opened it up and tried it on. She swore it wouldn't fit (and I didn't think it would either). And at first it didn't- it looked pretty freakin bad, but funny. So then Ariana tried it on, and it fit perfectly. It was pretty freakin funny, especially b/c she had these flame socks on and a cool flame pendant so I called her "Buena Girl" (points if u get the reference).

The geek in me got jealous that it fit her so well though, so I tried the mask on again and after some shifting I realized that it actually did fit! it was quite snug, but the sucker fit, so that was fun. We decided to take pics and record our geekdom, maybe I'll post them here in the future so you can all share a laugh.

****

Speaking of laughs, the next day me and Ariana did a little bit of shopping. I wound up getting some needed clothes (like new jeans and sneakers) but then also purchased two pretty funny shirts.

One of them said: Nintendo Rehabilitation Clinic- "The First Step is Admitting You Have a Problem"

As for the other? i won't spoil it here (not yet anyways). I plan to wear it on Saturday when I go with the gang to see Spamalot. Maybe after that I'll scan it in for you all to see. iI's pretty amusing.

****

Later that day we watched King Arthur. It was ok, nothing great (story-wise at least) but the action was pretty cool. We then played X-Men for a few hours and I think we are close to beating it.

****

On Sunday, we went to Phil's for the WWE PPV- No Way Out.

Before the show started Phil showed us a letter he had gotten in the mail he had told me briefly about. Basically it was a thank you card from HHH and Stephanie McMahon. Apparently Phil somehow found their wedding registry and sent them a gift so they were just thanking him for it.

The gift in question? A spatula.

But it was still cool, the letter was all like "Thank you very much for the gift, sorry for the lateness of this letter, we have been very busy, etc." And it also said "thank you for the spatula, many of Hunter's eggs have been made with it."

All in all, it was pretty amusing, and quite legit (I have HHH's autograph so I knew the signature on the letter was his). I think it was cool of them to actually send a thank you letter, props to them.

-The rest of the night continued to be amusing. Phil got a hold of some naughty catalog that looked like it was for lingere, but actually had all sorts of adult products in it (with full nudity), so of course it was passed around.

It wound up making it's way to Pete as he was in the middle of some math homework. So he took a small break to look at it and we all started commenting how it would be a good motivator and how he should look at it after solving each problem. But then we warned that he should be careful or he might start getting confused...

... and that's when Ariana chimed in with PERFECT timing "2+2= Titties!"

The whole room exploded in laughter. God, I love my gf.

- And STILL the fun and laughter did not stop, as after the PPV Phil informed us he found the old "Alan Springer" tape they recorded durng our freshman year at Fordham and popped it in for everyone to watch. The video was basically everyone doing a spoof on Jerry Springer with Alan playing Springer, Phil as the main guest who was cheating on his girlfriend (this girl Wendy) with Henry, who in the end ran off with Phil's sister. It was just insane (kinda like the show) with lots of fights and chairs being thrown and everything.

Sadly I wasn't in it, b/c it was LITERALLY like the one day I wasn't around (damn class!) but it was still freakin hysterical to watch.

We all looked so young and high schoolish still. It was truly a trip down memory lane, it was crazy to think that was like 6 and a half years ago. And like I said, still funny as all hell.

****

And well I think I've babbled enough for one post. I have a little bit more to say but I think I'll break it up a bit, so check back soon for another update.

As promised....

Here are the links and quotes I mentioned in the last post.

First off, a funny link Joe V. sent to me. It's kinda long but totally worth it. Check it out:
http://img51.exs.cx/img51/4230/48-196510_Son_of_a_P.swf

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Second, is a hysterical quote from John Stewart from the Daily Show last week.

I know everyone is still probably reeling a little bit at home after watching Katie Couric's report earlier tonight- "the 411- Teens and Sex".  411 of course slang- teen slang for "information," concerning sex.
Apparently in this country teens like "doing it"
"Doin it" by the way- also slang.
"Doin" of course meaning participating or engaging in.  And "it" the pronoun or euphemism, in this case referring to "f**king."
 
-It's funnier if you hear the deilvery of the joke, but oh man, did that have me lmao.

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- Oh and for the geeks out there. My mom's husband (who is a huge Star Wars geek) sent me this link which contains the opening scroll of Episode 3. Only click on it if you don't mind spoilers.

http://www.killermovies.com/s/starwarsepisodeiii/articles/4852.html

Finally back

Well, I didn't get back to this post as early as I had planned, but I'm finally back to finish what I started.

Ok so it was a fairly normal week at first, but on Wed, me and Ariana hung out. We finished up the movies we had rented on the weekend by watching Saved! It was a pretty good movie, and lots of parts hit close to home, especially since I was raised in the church and a Christian Youth Group. So yeah all in all I was pleased with our 3 movie rentals.

Oh but before watching the movies something even better happened. So, you know how me and Henry have been extoling the many great virtues of TiVo? Well I wound up being told that Cablevision had their own DVR and service and I decided to call and get some more info about it so I could compare the two.

Now don't get me wrong, I love TiVo, but I was having a few small issues with it. It was through no fault of the tivo system itself though, just that my TV is old and has a lot of stuff hooked to it, so I had to go some ass-backwards way of installing the TiVo which did not allow it to perform at its optimal level. I won't go into details (as I've already mentioned some things here and told people in person about it).

So I call and start asking questions, and I start hearing some very good things. The Cablevision DVR is also the regular cablebox, so that would reduce the amount of space used. Second, it holds 110 hours as opposed to the 40 hours my TiVo had. It was also only $9.95 a month as opposed to TiVo's $12.95. It could also record two shows at the same time (something Tivo could not do).

But the big kicker? The Cablevision DVR was FREE!

I didn't believe them, when they said it. I was just like "What!?!? You mean I don't have to pay to get the DVR box?" They were like "no, it's like a regular cable box, you can come in to the cablevision center nearest you and pick it up. You basically rent it per month just like you do with the box you have now."

It sounded too good to be true though, so the very next day i swung by the Cablevision center and picked one up to try out (b/c my 30 day money-back guarentee with TiVo was gonna be over in less than a week).

So I hooked it up and tried it out...

... and it's pretty freakin good.

This put me in a position where I had to make a tough decision. Cuz while the Cablevision DVR had a lot of good qualities about it, it wasn't as "User-friendly" as Tivo was.

Here's how the DVR stacks up to TiVo:
-Setting up to tape shows on TiVo is super easy. You just type in the name of the show you want and a list will pop up of all the upcoming episodes of that show on every channel it airs on. Then you can pick to record one episode (or multiple) or get a season pass. On the DVR, it's not that easy (not hard, just not ultra-simplified). Basically the way to find shows is to go through the normal cablevision channel guide and go up to a show and select it. You can still do season passes, but you can't just type in the name of a show and bring up a list of upcoming ones. You just gotta go day by day in the schedule and look at it that way (which can be kind of annoying).

-When you are fastforwarding TiVo has like a 3-5 second "pullback." Cuz you know how when u are FFing commercials and sometimes you don't stop it in time and usually have to rewind like 5 seconds back so you don't miss the restart of the show? Well TiVo did it automatically, and I got used to that. The new DVR does not.

-And the thing that bothers me the most... it's hard to explain but let me give you an example: Ok on Monday nights I watch Monday Night Raw and 24. The COOL thing about the DVR is that I can now record both shows unlike the Tivo where I had to watch one through the VCR and record the other. But anyways, both shows start at 9pm. 24 is from 9-10pm and Raw is from 9-11pm. So let's say I watch 24, then at 10pm I wanna go watch Raw, but from the beginning. On TiVo, all you had to do was select the show from the menu and it AUTOMATICALLY started from the beginning (unless you select Live TV). On the DVR, it just starts from where it is, so that means I have to manually rewind it to the begining, which is kind of annoying. And the other thing that ties into that, is let's say I start watching Raw at 10pm, meaning I'm an hour behind "Live TV." Thing is at 11pm (when the show ends), the recording I am watching, for some reason automatically jumps to the end for the final second of the show. So then i'd have to restart the show and Fast-forward up to the point I was up to, to continue watching. Which is obviously a big pain in the ass (although there might be a way around this, i haven't found out yet).

-TiVo has an option called "Suggestions." Where it will record shows that it feels you might be interested in, based on shows you have recorded previously, which was a fun little option (but not necessary, at least not to me, since it never got anything good for me).

And so far, TiVo looks like it has the upper hand, but like I said, the DVR does have its advantages- like being FREE (saving me the $100 it cost me to buy the TiVo box), holds almost 3 times more space. Is $3 cheaper a month to have. You can record 2 shows at once (and also watch a 3rd previously recorded show at the same time). And for ME, I can now easliy watch one show while recording another and tape things on my VCR, which i was unable to do with the TiVo b/c of my crazy installation arrangement.

So while I will miss some of TiVo's cool features, for this moment in time the Cablevision DVR just works better for me. Maybe in the future when I move out and buy a new TV and stuff I will get a TiVo again but for now I'm moving over to the DVR.

And hopefully I've provided enough info for all of you who may be researching into getting a TiVo or DVR of your own so you could make the best choice for YOUR home set up.

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Jumping over to the weekend- on Friday we had my college trip for my students. We took them to Hofstra University out in Long Island. It's a pretty nice school and I was impressed with their overall presentation. The guides were VERY informative and the students really enjoyed themselves, so it was a job well done.

As for later on in the day, I decided to get a jump start on Valentine's Day and went down to the city to surprise Ariana at her job with two dozen roses (12 red surrounded by 12 purple- it looked really nice), and took her to dinner at this Japanese restaurant nearby (which had pretty good food).

After that, we headed back to my place b/c we had to pick up my sister so we could drive over to the airport to pick up her boyfriend who was visiting for the weekend. This was the first time we were all meeting him (Jenny went to visit him before, but he hadn't been here yet). So the whole family was looking forward to his visit (b/c Hell anyone would be an upgrade over her last bf).

His flight got delayed a little while though, so the three of us got in kind of silly moods while waiting around for him at the airport. We saw three of those carts you can put your luggage on stranded in the corner of the airport, and it was pretty deserted in the area for some reason. So I sat in one, put my feet up and Ariana pushed me around in it, going in circles around the line for the tickets kinda like a Go-Kart track. it was pretty freakin hilarious if I do say so myself. I noticed the only one other guy in the area look over to us and crack a smile and start to chuckle (which I think was quite an accomplishment cuz the guy had a pretty sour face on the entire rest of the time beforehand).

As for my sister's bf, he seems nice. A lot more quite and calm than the last one (which i think is a good thing). And he seems to treat my sister very well, so he gets some extra points for that. I'm hoping things work out this time for my sis. She sure seems happy.

And yeah, that was about it for last week, plus I gotta run for a few b/c we are doing some cleaning up here in the office, so I will be back later- I have some fun links and quotes to share with you all.

Getting back on track

I meant to talk about a lot more things in my last post before I got a bit preachy. And at that point it didn't seem right to shift gears to another subject after what was said.

So here I am again! So let's see, where was I...?

Not much happened last week or weekend. Me and Ariana basically decided to chill in. On Friday after work I went to Hollywood video b/c we received our annual coupons (4 of them) of 3 movies for 99 cents each. So we decided to make use of them. I rented Napoleon Dynamite, 13 Going on 30, and Saved! (I also swung by Bestbuy on the way home and picked up the Rob Van Dam- One of a Kind DVD which is basically a best of set. I can't wait to watch that).

We watched Napoleon Dynamite on Friday night. It was... interesting. It's just a very bizarre movie, with even weirder characters. There were some funny moments though (especially at the end, but that might only be b/c it hit close to home for me) but the scenes between those moments reminded me of how I felt while watching that shitty movie- Ghost World (oh and don't any of you try to defend that movie, it totally SUCKED). But like I said, at least this movie had a few funny scenes and not just one like Ghost World (the nunchuck scene). So even though, this movie will never be one of my favorites, I can see how it would become a cult hit. But don't take my word for it, you might have a different sense of humor than me- I once again point to Ghost World- people somehow thought that was the most hilarious movie ever. So check it out for yourselves and make the call.

Saturday consisted of a lot more bumming around and watching of lots and lots of TiVo. Me and Ariana also watched 13 Going on 30 downstairs with my mom and Pat. It was a cute movie.

Sunday was "Super-Sunday." So after bumming around my house for the first part of the day, I picked up Ariana and we went to Joe and Patty's place for their annual Superbowl party.

It wound up being a small group- only me, Ariana, Henry and Maryellen went but it was still a lot of fun. We played some Texas Hold-em before the game started and had some good food too. As for the game itself, me and Henry went against almost everybody for the most part and rooted for the Eagles just for the hell of it. That made things even more interesting.

And as for the commercials this year- ehh. There were some good ones- the Bud Light one with the skydiver, the two for some broker company I think where the people in them get caught in compromising situations by accident, and of course all the commercials with monkeys. B/c dammit, monkeys are funny!

Other than that, it was fairly tame.

And sadly, I just realized I need to get over to the middle school now for their after school program so I gotta run. I'll finish this post later, so check back soon!

I hate falling behind...

I really do... cuz things always happen that are important at the time, but then by the time I get around to writing about it, I either forget things or I'm not as into it b/c other things have happened since.

Take for example the fact that I have not really updated you all on my Grad school situation. I've told some of you in person, but I really didn't feel like writing about it. Hell, I still don't. It's a LOOOONG story, so I'm not gonna go into detail, but in a nutshell the final result is that I need to re-apply to the program, and everything I did this past semester will not count (yeah, it SUCKS). Luckily, I obviously don't have to pay anything, so all I lost is time, but dammit time is very important, especially with my job being eliminated in about a year...

And yeah, that's another thing, I've gotten lots of info about Bush's new budget (which they publicly released on Monday) and his plans to cut tons of money from education. I read a huge 2 page article about it in the New York Times, but you can all see for yourselves what he's planning to do with the nation's money over at this website.

Here's a direct quote from the site itself:
"To provide funding for States under the High School Intervention Initiative, the Administration proposes to consolidate narrow-purpose programs that support a particular high school intervention strategy. These include Vocational Education, Upward Bound, Talent Search, GEAR UP, and Smaller Learning Communities. Most of these programs have not proven effective in improving our secondary students’ academic achievement or ability to obtain a job."

-To which I "OH PLEASE!"

They are so full of it. These programs do not have "a narrow-purpose." We serve students of all kinds and help them in many different ways in order to better prepare them for college and life beyond High school. I don't know about ALL of those programs but I work for Talent Search and I also know about Upward Bound and GEAR UP (a program started by Hilary & Bill Clinton), and all are excellent programs that really reach out to students, especially those who are first-generation college-bound and low-income. Those are some of the students who need the most help! But sadly Bush will probably get away with this b/c of the ONE "good thing" he did for education and that was to FINALLY increase the FUNDING of Pell Grants. He increased it by 45% to which he can now boast "Oh look I gave Pell the biggest increase in history!"

Well lemme drop some knowledge on you.

As I have stated before, it is a FACT (look it up) that he never increased funding to Pell the previous four years of his administration. What he did was increase the amount of students eligible for aid, but since the budget was never increased, what that meant was each student got less money. But that was STILL going against his word on his initial campaign. Because during his first run for office he was the "President for Education" and he made lots of promises he did not keep. And not only that, he has continued CUTTING from the Department of Education. He was supposed to increase Pell a certain amount every year (according to his promises) and never did, so now he lumps it in to one big sum all of a sudden. Thing is, he's taking that money from other important educational programs by flat out ELIMINATING them!

He is not supposed to be getting money for Pell from OTHER educational programs, that money was supposed to be already set aside as part of his previous budgets. But I guess he's too damn preoccupied with pumping billions of dollars into Iraq to worry about education.

But wait, there's more! Did you know that Bush also made huge cuts (by more than half!) to Stafford and other such federal loans? Thus, making it even harder for students to afford college. Bet you didn't know that!

So now he'll gloat about the huge increase to Pell and his plan to put more money behind the idiotic "No Child Left Behind Act", and democrats will most likely wuss out and not call him out on what he has done, and the idiotic American public will fall for Bush's lies once again. Not realizing that what he's done boils down to this- students don't pass the harder tests, federal ed. programs are no longer around to help the student, so they don't go to college; OR students pass, want to go to a good school, get Pell but not that much of an increase (even with the bigger budget) b/c more students are eligible, loans are severely cut so they can't afford to go to college, so they don't go.

Oh, but look what looks nice and enticing!! Those nice army and marine guys going around the schools extoling the benefits of the U.S. Armed forces. "We'll help you pay for college! Just give us 4 years... and maybe even your life." And since the students only choice is either that, or trying his/her hand at the terrible economy and job market (without the benefit of a college education), the Armed forces might not seem so bad. And BAM, Bush gets his soldiers for his stupid war...

Tell me I'm wrong!

If this new proposed budget upsets you as much as it does me, please get active. Tell your family, friends and co-workers. Have them all write to their local congressmen and senators to tell them how you feel and to vote against this terrible budget. Only our united voices have a chance of making a change.