TheBachelor

About 80 percent. An old boss asked me to come back to her department. Told me to name my price. I thought my "demand" was too much, but she said "OK" immediately. Went from $110,000 to $200,000. Should have asked for more, probably would have gotten it. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I've known about approximately $300 that I'm owed. Unfortunately, I don't know how to prove that I lived at a particular address 39 years ago. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

13. Only a couple away from certified asshole. It's good to have something to shoot for. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Occupation: 83rd percentile Education:91st percentile Income: 99th percentile Wealth: 98th percentile Average: 93rd percentile Interesting... There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I personally know two jumpers who are alive because of their AADs. The first one had a total mal on his main, and couldn't get his reserve out (he didn't pull the handle far enough.) The second was hit by another jumper and was temporarily paralyzed so he couldn't pull anything. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

A number of years ago, I told my father that if I died skydiving, it was all worth it. It has brought a lot of enjoyment to my life -- one old girlfriend noted that I now have a "passion" that I didn't have before. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Honda has developed a diesel engine that will pass emissions in all 50 states. They will first launch a four-cylinder diesel engine by 2010 and a V-6 will soon follow. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Another from Saturday Night Live: Quarry Cereal: Quarry contains no preservatives, no additives, no artificial flavoring. And it's made without the use of pesticides or inorganic fertilizer. Because Quarry isn't grown; it's mined. It's the only cereal that's pure 100% rocks and pebbles, for a hearty old-fashioned flavor the whole family will enjoy. ...every serving is chockful of minerals. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

No, I own Exxon and Valero. I figured that if you can't beat them, join them. Since I bought the stock, gas prices don't bother me any more. I've made 50 times as much on the stock as I've paid for gas. [rant] I see a lot of people bitching about gas prices, but unwilling to change their habits when it comes to using it. Look at all of the SUVs and 8-cylinder trucks/cars on the road. Look at how so many people have jackrabbit starts just to hit the brakes at the next stop sign/light. In Europe, where gas has been well over $5 a gallon for years, there are tons of tiny cars (like the SMART car), and people actually take public transportation. Most Americans don't want to be bothered -- but they'll still bitch about a business making money. [/rant] There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

It depends on who you ask: JERRY FALWELL: Because the chicken was gay! Isn't it obvious? Can't you people see the plain truth in front of your face? The chicken was going to the "other side." That's what "they" call it: the "other side." Yes, my friends, that chicken is gay. And, if you eat that chicken, you will become gay too. I say we boycott all chickens until we sort out this abomination that the liberal media whitewashes with seemingly harmless phrases like "the other side." That chicken should not be free to cross the road. It's as plain and simple as that. PAT BUCHANAN: To steal a job from a decent, hardworking American. DR. SEUSS: Did the chicken cross the road? Did he cross it with a toad? Yes! The chicken crossed the road, but why it crossed, I've not been told! ERNEST HEMINGWAY: To die. In the rain. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.: I envision a world where all chickens will be free to cross roads without having their motives called into question. GRANDPA: In my day, we didn't ask why the chicken crossed the road. Someone told us that the chicken crossed the road, and that was good enough for us. ARISTOTLE: It is the nature of chickens to cross the road. KARL MARX: It was a historical inevitability. SADDAM HUSSEIN: This was an unprovoked act of rebellion and we were quite justified in dropping 50 tons of nerve gas on it. RONALD REAGAN: What chicken? CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK: To boldly go where no chicken has gone before. FOX MULDER: You saw it cross the road with your own eyes. How many more chickens have to cross before you believe it? MACHIAVELLI: The point is that the chicken crossed the road. Who cares why? The end of crossing the road justifies whatever motive there was. FREUD: The fact that you are at all concerned that the chicken crossed the road reveals your underlying sexual insecurity. BILL GATES: I have just released eChicken 98, which will not only cross roads, but will lay eggs, file your important documents, and balance your checkbook. Internet Explorer is an inextricable part of eChicken. EINSTEIN: Did the chicken really cross the road or did the road move beneath the chicken? BILL CLINTON: I did not cross the road with THAT chicken. What do you mean by chicken? Could you define chicken please? IMMANUEL KANT: The chicken was acting out of a sense of duty to cross the road, as chickens have traditionally crossed roads throughout history. LOUIS FARRAKHAN: The road, you will see, represents the black man The chicken crossed the "black man" in order to trample him and keep him down. THE BIBLE: And God came down from the heavens, and He said unto the chicken, "Thou shalt cross the road." And the chicken crossed the road, and there was much rejoicing. COLONEL SANDERS: I missed one? L. A. POLICE DEPARTMENT: Give us five minutes with the chicken and we'll find out. RICHARD M. NIXON: The chicken did not cross the road. I repeat, the chicken did not cross the road. I don't know any chickens. I have never known any chickens. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Get a copy of the Skydivers Information Manual. If you don't have one, you can download it from the USPA web site. The SIM will tell you which sections will be on the test. Just read those sections. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

A few more: The minimum amount of time you have to wait for another guy who's running late is 5 minutes. For a woman, you are required to wait 10 minutes for every point of hotness she scores on the classic 1-10 scale. Agreeing to distract the ugly friend of a hot babe your buddy is trying to hook up with is your legal duty. Should you get carried away with your good deed and end up having sex with the beast, your pal is forbidden to speak of it, even at your bachelor party. The universal compensation for buddies who help you move is beer. Before dating a buddy's ex, you are required to ask his permission and he, in return, is required to grant it. When is it okay for a man to kiss another man? When he is your brother and you are Al Pacino, and this is the only really sportsmanlike way to let him know that, for business reasons, you have to have him killed. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Most women on TV or in movies go to bed with their makeup on. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

It's pretty cool, but it's not in the realm of skydiving, at least for me. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I have the extension and a check for $14,000 ready to be mailed. Maybe another month before the taxes are back from the accountant. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Just over 20 pounds. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

http://www.billingsgazette.net/articles/2007/04/04/opinion/guest/50-will.txt George Will: America's gas price woes highly over-reported WASHINGTON - They come with metronomic regularity, these media stories about "soaring" gasoline prices and the causes thereof, news stories that always identify the same two culprits, supply and demand. The stories always give various reasons for supplies being tight - more often, why prices include a risk premium based on fears that supplies might become tight - or why demand is higher than it is "should" be, given supposedly high prices. Today, as the price of a gallon of regular ($2.70 nationally on Monday) "soars" almost to where it was (measured in constant dollars) in 1982, the "news" is: "Drivers Offer a Collective Ho-Hum as Gasoline Prices Soar" (the New York Times, last Friday). People are not changing their behavior because the real, inflation-adjusted cost of that behavior has not changed significantly, and neither has the cost of the commodity in question, relative to disposable income. The next wave of stories about "soaring" gas prices will predictably trigger some politicians' indignation about oil companies' profits. The day after Exxon Mobil's announcement that it earned $39.5 billion in 2006, Hillary Clinton said: "I want to take those profits, and I want to put them into a strategic energy fund that will begin to fund alternative smart energy, alternatives and technologies that will begin to actually move us toward the direction of independence." Confiscatory itch Clinton's "take" reveals her confiscatory itch. Her clunky "toward the direction of" suggests that she actually knows that independence is as chimeric a goal as Soviet grain production goals were. President Bush proposes reducing gasoline usage 20 percent in 10 years. Perhaps: After the oil shocks of the late 1970s, gasoline consumption fell 12 percent and did not again reach 1978 levels until 1993. This decline was produced by an abrupt and substantial increase in the price of gasoline, which no politician, least of all the president, is proposing. And we actually could get lower prices because the president and various presidential candidates have become such enthusiasts for federal subsidies for ethanol and other alternative fuels. If these fuels threaten seriously to dampen demand for oil, the Saudis might increase production enough to drive down oil prices, in order to make investments - investors beware - in alternative fuels even more uneconomic than they already are. In the 20 years from 1987 to 2006, Exxon Mobil invested more ($279 billion) than it earned ($266 billion). Five weeks after the company announced its 2006 earnings, it said it will invest $60 billion in oil and gas projects over the next three years. It will, unless a President Clinton and a Democratic-controlled Congress "take" Big Oil's profits, which are much smaller than Big Government's revenue from gasoline consumption. Oil companies make about 13 cents on a gallon gas. Government makes much more. The federal tax is 18.4 cents per gallon. Mrs. Clinton's New York collects 42.4 cents a gallon. Forty-nine states - all but Alaska - make more than the oil companies do on every gallon. Lots of oil in reserve In 1971, according to M.A. Adelman, an MIT economist, non-OPEC countries had remaining proven reserves of 200 billion barrels. After the next 33 years of global economic growth, Adelman says, those countries had produced 460 billion barrels and had 209 billion remaining. As for OPEC countries, in 1971 they had 412 billion in proven reserves; by 2004 they had produced 307 billion and had 819 billion remaining. Note the adjective "proven." In 1930, U.S. proven reserves were 13 billion barrels. Then we fought a global war, fueled the largest, most sustained economic expansion in human history, and achieved today's electricity-powered "information economy." Today, America's proven reserves are about 30 billion barrels - not counting the perhaps 15 billion in the field discovered last year in deep water 175 miles off Louisiana's coast. America produces about one-quarter of the 20.6 million barrels of oil it uses a day. Unfortunately, just as liberals love employees but not employers, they want energy independence but do not want to drill in the "pristine" (read: desolate) Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (potential yield: 10.4 billion barrels) and are reluctant to countenance drilling offshore. Well, then, what can be done immediately about the gasoline "crisis" du jour? Americans could save 1.2 billion of the 130 billion gallons of gasoline they use a year if they would properly inflate their tires. And they might do that if ever "soaring" prices actually make gasoline unusually expensive. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I've been to the Library to see Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, and Condolezza Rice. All were interesting speeches, and a nice dinner. Don't own a suit. Well, you'll be in the minority, but this is California, so you won't be the only one without a jacket... There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I've also called a friend from the bathroom. It saved me from ripping off my arm and beating her with it. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

In a minute. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

In one case, I called a friend from the restroom. I told him to call me about a fictional "work problem" in 10 minutes. Got me out of an extremely painfull blind date. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Still waiting for my first cutaway. 1200+ jumps so far. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

Unfortunately for us who don't get paid (by our employers) for jury duty, it's very difficult to get out of it in Los Angeles County now. It used to be that you could claim "financial hardship", and they'd automatically let you go. If you claim that now, they'll ask you to provide detailed information about your income and expenses. A positive change they've made is the "1 day or 1 trial" rule. Most people just have to call in the night before you're to report. If you get called in, and don't get on a jury that day, you're [probably] done. Unfortunately for me, the last two times I got called in, I first went to Compton, and then at lunch they said to report to another courthouse (Long Beach once, and one near LAX the other time) in the afternoon. On both occasions, I was part of the pool that they questioned for jury selection, and in both cases, they didn't get the jury seated by the end of the day, so we had to come back. I got chosen for a jury in the first case. The trial only took a couple of hours, but with schedule changes, etc., I was there for about 12 hours over 3 days. The second time, I was about to get chosen, and because I'm self-employed and didn't want to spend the [unpaid] time, I used the only excuse that I thoght would work. It did, and they threw me off. Look on the bright side. I almost got picked for the GRAND JURY of L.A. County. That would have been one day a week for a year in downtown L.A. The judge wasn't very accommodating for excuses, but eventuallly gave me the option of doing "regular" jury duty instead. By then, I jumped at the chance. I just got another summons, which I postponed for 90 days. The good thing about this one is it's in Torrance, where I live and work. P.S. I'd love to be on jury duty if I was not losing income to do it. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

At my church, most people wear jeans, shorts, etc. The pastor said that if you see anyone in the congregation that is dressed up, they must be a first-time visitor. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...

I'm in IT -- I stay as far away from management as I can. I started out doing mainframe programming. From there, a client offered to train me on client-server. I took the training, then further trained myself to be a database administrator. When a client showed their DBA the door, they asked me to take his place (as a consultant.) I learned PeopleSoft, which because a great niche market. I do most of my work in PeopleSoft now, but a client is paying to train me on JD Edwards now. Could be another good niche. There are battered women? I've been eating 'em plain all of these years...