Insurance Sucks

I am back and OH BOY am I pissed. My face is red and there is steam pouring out of my ears. It is bad enough that folks crap on teachers for being lazy and over paid, but today I got news that is just about enough to put me over the edge.

Our school district just announced that our insurance premiums are going up next year. Seems like our 'self-funded' insurance plan is $800 K in the red this year. Someone is going to the doctor too much.

Why am I so livid?

I work my ass off for the good of the community. I love being a teacher and the world needs all the good ones that it can find. As an employee, I expect decent benefits.

Right now I pay over $600 a month for the right to go to the Doctor. If I go, I still pay $30-45 in the form of a copay. I won't even touch prescription costs.

My family (3 of us) probably go to the Doctor 6 times a year. My daughter has check up every 3 months or so, the misses does the girly thing once a year, and sometimes I get a kidney stone that needs attention. We don't get sick. We don't use the insurance that much.

Now I have to pay more for those who do. Am I wrong to feel angry about this?

Maybe I am just confused?

Is it too much to ask that we pay premiums based on our usage?
Maybe I am just angry and not seeing things correctly?

If I wasn't worried about getting hit by a runaway truck full of pianos, I would drop my insurance, save the $7,200 a year I pay in premiums and use it to pay our medical expenses out of pocket. It would be NO WHERE NEAR $7,200.00.

Of course if I did this, (insert accident involving pain and hospital stay), would happen instantly to me.

So what am I going to do?

Get my ass to the doctor and demand the most expensive battery of tests known to mankind. I want scanned, I want probed, I want dissected and injected. If I have to pay more, I freakin want my money's worth. I want to know that I have a speckled liver and bumpy kidneys. I want to know that my testicles are millimeters shy of exploding.

I am going to do my part to make health insurance to the local teachers too expensive.
Why should I stand in the way of progress? Do unto others as they are doing unto me?

Cell Phone Whore

Once upon a time, over at Live journal, I tended to rant a lot more than I do here. I really channeled some inner rage into some good writing. I will be sharing more of these in the coming weeks.

Here is a good one.

Is that a cell phone in your ear or are you just a dumb ass?

The reason that I post it and bring things up is that over the last few months I have developed Cell phone envy. This is a bad thing. Read the post above first. Then you will know that I went cell phone cold turkey for years, then life changed.

I was a happy person with my basic phone. It rang, it took messages, and it let me talk to people. I was happy.


Then the envy set it.
I started to shake when I drove by cell phone stores.
I stared at displays in the mall while drooling.

I was becoming a cell phone whore.
I wanted more.
I wanted a phone that spoke, vibrated, and made me feel manly.

So what finally happened? I gave in. I gave in really badly.

I traded old faithful in for Mr. Sexy. Yep, a sleek black Motorola Razr.


I am a phone whore.
I am a technology whore.

What is next? Where does it end?

I have this feeling about plasma televisions.
I crave an Ipod.
This has to stop.

Twenty Four Tuesday

I am a bit disappointed today. Yeah, I got to see a bit of sibling torture last night, and we also discovered that not all Muslims are terrorist scum. Actually, I guess last night's episode taught us a lesson that A LOT of folks need to learn. Muslim does not equal evil.

But....
Back to Jack.
He got bushwhacked by his evil weasel brother.
How does that crap happen?

It is annoying enough that the entire federal government constantly questions Jack's ability to save the world, but the evil weasel brother seems to have no such illusions. Jack has to die because evil weasel brother knows he will save the day.

If only everyone had that kind of faith in Jack.

Till next week when I can hopefully touch on Sibling Torture Part 2 and Jack's Body Count.

My Name is Doom Cake, and I am a blogger.

Yeah, there ought to be BA.
Bloggers Anonymous.

It is not only about writing or trying to write and keep up with blogs of your own. I won't even touch that one. I try (and fail) to keep up with too many of my own personal blogs. One really should be enough for me, but for some reason there is Doom Cake, then there is the rest of my life.

The worst part for me is the reading. I read. I read a lot. I read voraciously.

I love reading good blogs.
Blogs that make me laugh.
Blogs that make me happy.
Blogs that have a good point, even if I don't agree.

The worst part is that most bloggers don't write everyday.
Not a criticism, but I don't either.

So.....
What I need from my faithful readers, all 1.3459 of you, is to let me know what some of your favorite blogs are. I need more to read. Blogs to fill in the gaps between the quality posts of my current links list. My brain needs input. My brain needs to process.

HELP ME PLEASE.

Don't Blame It on Someone Else

It is no big secret that I am a teacher. One thing that really burns me up is kids who who are mean because they they are embarrassed.

Last week I had two students who were raising their hands and pinching their nose with their free hands. I asked them what their urgency was and rather than come up and quietly tell me, they "WHISPERED" loud enough for the entire class to hear that [pointing at the person in the front of their row] "SMELLS."

I laughed, told them they were being silly and went back to doing my job. Yeah, 8th graders can smell and a lot of the time it is on accident or due to something far beyond their control. The general idea is to deal with everything in a quiet, peaceful manner that doesn't embarrass anyone.

A few minutes later there was a chance for the class to get up and move around as part of the lesson and it was my opening to let the two children who were complaining to get some relief without being too obvious.

What really got my goat was after a few minutes in new seats, one of the people that had to move before they gagged to death got up and quietly asked to go the restroom. This student's stomach hurt REALLY bad and they needed to go ASAP.

Then it dawned on me.
The poor kid that they had called out in front of the class (an probably humiliated needlessly) had nothing to do with the odiferousness that was going on earlier in the class. It was this student who was obviously in gastronomic distress and didn't want anyone to know that they had been performing the gas warfare on the room.

I was livid.
I was angry to a degree that probably required extra church this week.

It is one thing to quietly complain about the stinky kid so that the teacher can change some seats. Stinky kids need love too and the teacher can often find a way to solve the situation without anyone feeling bad, but.....

It is another to be the cause of the smell and loudly blame it on someone else so that you can escape humiliation.

All I can say is that my two favorite students have a date with the counselor this week. Yep, my revenge is going to be some sensativity lectures from the professionals.

Brain Candy

This is small.
This is also the last monthly installment of Brain Candy. I am hoping that this will become a weekly feature to better serve your Brain Candy needs. Enjoy.

Pink and Blue Things

S12 Prison

One Easy Piece

Pet of the Month

Diet Tip

First McDonald’s Commercial

Daily Monster

Thomas Allen

Vertical Garden

SPAM: It isn't just for breakfast.

I have had an idea for a new feature for a long time, but I have been really lazy when it came to getting it started. After I read the most recent post at Notes From My Corner, I realized that I needed to bite the bullet and go with it. I don't know if it will be a regular feature or if I will let it it die after a while, but here it is: SPAM. I have culled through the 642 messages in my spam folder and found the best message titles/subjects to share here. Be warned. They are not politically correct and all spellings are how they arrived in the spambox, not typos on my part. I hope you enjoy.

Medications that you need.

Beware of fake pills.

Never be isolated again?

Xainex wholleslale.

More size more pleasure

Start a rewarding career in nursing

Foar beyond the norm fullfillness for yourself?

Low-price Viagra@ and other meds

save up to 70% on the medications for your need*

Advanced Gain Pro will make your penis so large

Date for Guaranteed intimicy!

Man, listen to me, give yourself 3 inches longer jyt

Babes for your atonement

Small Pen is ?

Doomcake, Oprah has invited you to see her show live!

Why be an average guy any longer?

Meet for warranted intimicy

Ciali$ mail for you

Stronger Muscles and improved erection

Thanks 4 last night

Hard satiation for you

Women to get you satiated?

Gals for you satiation!

Increase Cum Volume by 500%

vestigial then pile

You thinkyou have enough size?

To carbonaceous by astrophysicist

[re:] could you reply why your meat is so short?

A capybara at delphi

is yourDick can't stand up & not hard enough? Your girl doesn't like it?

Get enormous, big and thick, pretty, long, amazing dick

I wonder if there is a way to tell someone's fortune based up the subject lines in their spam emails? I am going to have to work on that one.

Doom Cake: The Exorcist Edition

This is my daughter (17 months old) running away at top speed. She is wearing her extra warm Jammies and her winter hat. I think the hat makes the outfit, but my daughter running around in crazy clothes isn't always the thing that her mother wants, but revenge is like that.

Last night I came home, late after a meeting, and was greeted at the door by my daughter and the dogs. I said my hellos, put my stuff down, walked the dogs and generally did what I do when I arrive home. When all the chores were done, I picked up the dirt urchin and did my ritual chit chat with her.

"Did you miss daddy today?"
"Did you have fun with mommy today?"
"Are you a good baby?"
Crap like that makes me look all sensitive and shit. The family eats it up.

Yesterday evening I was in the middle of the ritual chat when the dirt urchin started to cough.
"Baby, you need to cover your mouth when you cough." (I believe in manners.)

My daughter kept coughing, brought her little hand up to cover her mouth, the went totally exorcist on me.

SHE HORKED HER SNACK ALL OVER MY JACKET AND WORK CLOTHES.
Now a little vomit doesn't freak me out.

What got my dander up was my wife laughing
"Oh yeah, she isn't feeling well. She has been coughing and trying to gag all day."

She knew the little one was headed to pukeville, but didn't warn me.
It was a trap.
A bad joke.

I was in a less than husbandly mood after that.
It is one thing to pull a prank on me, but to let me handle a fully loaded infant with a hair trigger without prior warning is wrong.
Kinda like not realizing that you are playing russian roulette until the gun goes off.

I am already working on my revenge. Letting the little hork monster run free in her jammies and cool winter hat was part one. There will be more to come.

Twenty Four Tuesday

I know that everyone is going to get tired of hearing my "Jack Bauer Rules" tirades, but since my life revolves around Monday nights and "24", this is the thing I have to do.

Last night was almost a redemption for Good Ole Jack. At the end of last week I was lamenting the fact that he pussed out. Jack was all beat up and tortured out after two years in a Chinese prison and after having to shoot his friend Curtis. The fight was all out of Jack. In fact, I was starting to doubt that Jack wasn't THE MAN.

After last night, Jack is definitely back. All it took was one little nuke going off in Los Angeles to get him back on the team.
Screw the Chinese.
Screw the taking out of Curtis
Screw the crybaby routine.
Jack is back in the game.

I was even impressed when the extreme evil weasel from last season turned out to be Jack's long lost brother. Oh yeah. Jack's Brother is Evil Weasel Boy.

What made my night even better was the ending.
Jack shows up all cordial and stuff, and WHAM!!!!
As soon as he gets his brother alone, he ties his weasel ass to a chair and starts strangling him with a plastic bag over the head.

How many times have you wanted to go a little torturous on your siblings?
EVERYONE DREAMS OF IT.

Jack warned him first.
Weasel boy played dumb.
WHAM!!!!
Bag on head.

Talk about some serious sibling angst here.

Before I sign off today, I do have something fairly thoughtful to say.

If you haven't read "Deliverance", then do it.
DO NOT watch the movie.

The transformation of the main character from man to beast is interesting, especially when you compare it to good old Jack Bauer. Each act Jack carries out is necessary for the greater good, but it chips away at his humanity.

SO our lesson today is easy; Watch "24" and read "Deliverance."

How about a Stomp Day?

Go ahead and read the cartoon. I know you have click on it to see it.
While it isn't the funniest thing I have ever seen, I agree with something though, MONDAYS SUCK.

Why don't we change Monday to Stompday instead?
Everyone has to wear Dinosaur Suits on Stompday.





You also get one free stomp on Stompday if you are wearing your dinosaur suit. That means some poor fool is getting a stomping from a lunatic in a dinosaur costume come Stompday. It also means that you have to be NICE to other people on Stompday or you might become the stompee.

I starting to like this idea more and more. Silly costumes, physical abuse, and fun, all rolled into the new first day of the week. Goodbye Monday, welcome Stompday.

Friday

What a total shit week.
It was cold.
It was wet.
It was like being cooped up in a crazy house all by myself.

It sucked ass in the worst way.
When the alarm went off at 5:30 am today I set my goal pretty low: Get back in bed in the shortest amount of time.

Of course that means at least 12, maybe 14 hours of wakefullness before I can crawl back between the covers, but crap, what kind of a day starts off with counting the minutes till you can get back in bed?

If I could start this week all over, I would.

I don't even want to live it up because it is Friday. I want to get back in bed and sleep.
Either I am old or this week sucks ass. I think I have already settled on the suck ass part.

Damn, I hope next week is better.
I will settle on Saturday being better.
My only worry is that the rain isn't supposed to stop till Sunday.
I can't live another week like this.

I need to make someone suffer.

Collect Call from Doom Cake, Do You Accept the Charges?

Yesterday it was COLD and icy. Work was canceled, but not in a good way. Everyone was at work dancing the dance of joy on Tuesday and I warned them.

"It isn't cold enough to call work off and even if it is, you won't know till the moment before you get out the door."

I was called a heartless bastard, a cad, a black hearted son of a bitch, and probably worse.
I was nearly right.

My job didn't make the call to cancel work(school) till almost 6 a.m. That meant everyone I had to notify of the closure was already up, dressed, and ready to rumble. It really is no fun calling folks at 6 in the morning to tell them to get back in bed, there is no work today.

Talk about a collect call from Doom Cake Central.

One person had his car running and was headed out the door when I got him on the line.
Nothing better than a coworker croaking at you over the phone at 6:10 a.m. "No work today. Roads too icy. Stay home." Believe me, I was croaking.

I would rather have made the call at midnight so I could have told everyone to sleep late, eat a huge breakfast, and enjoy their day.

No such luck in the world of Doom Cake.

So what did I do?
I stayed home and babysat.
Watched some television (news coverage of the BIG ICE STORM).
Laughed at all those who thought that this was really serious weather.

I have news for them. There is worse. Much worse.

And the Award for "One Tough Mutha" Goes to . . .

I know that I have ranted here before about the show "24".
All I can say is that Jack Bauer is the official Doom Cake mascot. If that man isn't living the life of Doom Cake, no one is.

So far after just 4 episodes Jack has

1) Been released from a Chinese prison after 2 years of torture
2) Handed over to terrorists so he can be tortured and killed
3) Bitten the throat out of a terrorist while he was chained in a chair
4) Shot one of his own men to protect a terrorist
5) Wailed like a woman "I can't do this anymore." (weak, I know)
6) Got the post nuke, "I am going to all kung fu on these terrorist scum" look after seeing a nuke go off in LA.


Got to love the man.
You have got to respect the amount of shit he takes and keeps on going.
If there was a Doom Cake award for one tough son of a bitch, Jack Bauer would win hands down.

The Franken Feeder Lives

It was 37 F here today and the Franken Feeder was full of food and birds. Everyone including gold finches, blue jays, two types of woodpeckers, doves, chickadees, tufted titmice, Cardinals, and several other types of birds. I really wish I had a zoom lens.



The finch swarm.




See the finches and the dove in the top tray? Hungry birds.





Mr. Bluejay is a repeat customer.


Mr. Cardinal is an old friend.


The redheaded woodpecker is cool.

Doom Cake Updates

Doom Cake has finally stepped over into new blogger. I was seriously wanting this, but not so sure anymore. Here are some questions and resolutions for Doom Cake in the new year.

1) Anyone know how to paste the html code for my hit counter into the new template? I just can't figure where it goes. I want my counter back. Please help.

2) Brain Candy is going weekly. I owe it to my readers.

3) At least 3 GOOD posts per week. Yep, I have to keep the quality while making your serving of doom and humor reliable.

That is all, for now.

Road Rage

I kept my promise. Here is my new thing for Doom Cake. I call it "Road Rage."

This jerk cut me off, then went on to terrorize and annoy at least 20 cars in front of me on my way home Friday night.

Hopefully not everyone from North Carolina drives like this bastard.

Here's to you ass monkey. I hope you like your photo and my scorn

It is slow around here (my mind and this blog)

Your Personality Is Like Cocaine

You're dynamic, brilliant, and alluring to those who don't know you. Hyper and full of energy, you're usually the last one to leave a party. Sometimes your sharp mind gets the better of you... you're a bit paranoid!

What Drug Is Your Personality Like?

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The View Sucks

As a someone who hates the morning, I can say that my morning show of choice contains Regis and Kelly. That's right. Doom Cake watches Regis and Kelly.



Now onto the main part of my rant.

I freakin hate "The View".

I hated it when Star Jones was on it.

I have always hated it.



I hate That little Elisabeth beotch with all my heart.

Take a look a her. There are days that I flip past the show and go into a rage. I just want to take a stick to her.



I can't wait till she is old and nasty. Wrinkles everywhere and smells like mothballs. That will show her.



Wait till her husband the pro football player gets caught in the backseat with a transvestite hooker. That will show her too.

I should probably cut this rant off now, but I haven't gotten to Rosie.

I forgave her when she bush whacked Tom Seleck on her talk show (Tom put one in her face anyway, proving payback is a bitch).



Then she goes off on Kelly Rippa about her "homophobic" comment to Clay Aiken.



What the sweet hell was that?

If some foolish nobody put their dirty stinky hands over Rosie's mouth you had better believe that she would go all ape shit and put a body slam down on the little turd.



Kelly tried to laugh it off with a remark that meant NOTHING.

NOT ONE ANTI-GAY freakin subtext to the whole sentence.



Now, I don't want to go on and on, because I at this point I don't like Rosie or Trump. They are both worthless ugly rich bastards who get off on being viscious those who they can bully.



That's right.

Rosie and the Trumpster are both bullies. Part of me thinks that Rosie is really Trump pulling a bit of the "Mrs. Doubtfire" routine on us.



So I hope I got all that venom out today.

I needed to.

It has been burningg a hole on the inside for too long.

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Good News

I found a firefox add on called Performancing.



It lets me write and edit my blog entries without going to that darned blogger page. I like it even better than Blogger for Word, which doesn't seem to work with Office 2003.







What is really cool is that you can drag and drop pictures from websites into your blog. I just grabbed this one from one of my favorite blogs to make a point.



Tiny got dragged and dropped.

Now I am going to upload this post.



This is so Anti-Doom Cake I can't believe it.



If you blog and you use firefox, this is a great tool.

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The Kids Are Back

One thing that I seem to have to have forgotten about 8th grade students is that they smell.

Actually they stink.
RIPE is a word I like to use when talking about it.

When I walked into my room this morning it hit me like a ton of bricks.
WHAM!!

Stink attack deluxe.

Body odor.
Perfume.
Body Spray.
Mud.

All rolled into something so much beyond the wet dog odor that I really think is offensive.

Not as bad as rotten trash, but definitely a few degrees past stale.

I really wish I could blog in odors right now. I really want to share this with everyone.

Doom Cake presents Blodor, the only scent driven blog site in the world.

On a semi-related note, no matter how hard I concentrate during a staff meeting, I can still not make another human being's head explode through sheer force of will.
I tried all day Tuesday on at least two different targets.

No bloody sprays of brains.

But,
I tried.

Fishing Fun

Over the holidays I decided that I was going to dedicate a little time to fishing, a past time that I really enjoy.
It is quiet.
It is slow paced.
It means I am alone.

The first dose of Doom Cake hit when I took my hiking rod out of the car and put it in the garage. I told myself not to leave it there, but in a fit of stupidity I hit the button to closed the garage and snapped the top foot or so off of it.

Damn was I mad.
Mad
Mad
Mad

The rod wasn't expensive, but I had kept from destroying it for over 10 years. That is a long time for me to own anything. I dwell in the House of Doom Cake and we all know how that works.

So, I sneaked out to the sporting goods store and found a rod on sale for $4.88.
Yeah, you read it right. A monsterous seven foot rod for my trusty Zebco 33.
Not only was it bargain priced, but it had been marked down THREE (3) times already.
Talk about a deal.

I was gloating.
I was floating.
I was one happy son of a doom cake.

Then I went fishing with my father in law.
It rained.
I caught no fish.
It was sad.

I put my trusty new $4.88 rod in the back of the truck and headed home.
When we arrived at the house, I noticed that when the tailgate to the truck had been shut, it snapped the top 8 inches off of my new rod.

I had only used it twice.
It only cost me $4.88.

Doom Cake strikes again.

I knew better than to brag about how much it cost.
I damn well knew better.