“The New Mexico State men’s basketball team will play Michigan State on Friday in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.”
Oh yeah, baybee!
Source: Las Cruces Sun News
Oh…yeah. Well. The Lobos made it in too. Congratulations…I guess.
Nah, nah, just kidding. It’s a good day to be a New Mexico native! Both major schools made it to the dance!
I’m trying new templates and I may have totally hosed things up……
Edit: well, I may have reached the end of my coding knowledge… I fixed a lot of glitches, made the font a bit bigger, but I still don’t have date (time only) on the posts, which bugs me. And I don’t have an “older posts” link at the bottom of the page, which bugs The Good Man.
If anyone has a few spare coding cycles to lend to me, I’d greatly appreciate.
Otherwise, just still getting comfy in this new template home.
Thoughts and comments appreciated. Thanks!
Recently, my local Long’s Drug store was converted to a CVS store. Mergers and acquisitions are a way of life.
With the new CVS store came a new request…”Do you have your CVS card?”
As soon as CVS took over, they implemented one of those frequent shopper cards that it seems every store has these days.
You shop the store and when you swipe the card, you get discounts on some items.
Seems harmless, right? Swipe a card to get a discount.
Actually, I think these things are pretty insidious. This, despite the fact that I actually use the cards in many stores.
So in exchange for discounts on items, which, by the way, I believe are marked up so they can discount them…the store gets to track my shopping data and use that information however they choose.
Ostensibly, it is used to both market to me personally, and to help figure out what to stock and in what quantities.
But here’s what bugs me: In order to get a card, I have to give them personal data. Name (first and last), address, phone number, and date of birth (so they can send me a birthday card??).
Just what, exactly, do the stores do with all of this data they’ve mined?
By the by, to purchase marketing data like this costs a lot of money. They are getting it for the price of marking up an item so they can take a discount off the top. Cheap deal!
Plus, I suspect they are also selling the data too. Tidy sideline business, I’d say.
I got to thinking about all of this today when I read an article about a recent salmonella outbreak. The CDC asked permission from the patients, and used their shopper cards to trace back to which food item caused their illness.
Ok, so that’s a pretty good use of the data. Permission was granted, in advance, to use shopping information.
If only all the uses of my data were for such noble causes.
I personally have an issue with all of the data that is collected and tracked in our ever-evolving data driven society. Google tracks all the websites I’ve visited, has satellite and street level images of my home, and oh, and if I use their email service, they track information from that too.
Airlines and Homeland Security track everywhere I travel.
Security cameras everywhere track my movements.
A retail company I worked for installed cameras that track a shopper as they come into the store, note what items a shopper looks at, picks up, and ultimately buys (to evaluate effectiveness of the store layout, the manufacturer of the device says).
AT&T knows WAY more about me than pretty much anyone in my life. Phone calls, text messages, email, what sites I surf, etc is all available on their mobile network.
And honestly, every single time I use my credit card, someone tracks where I am, how much I’ve spent and what I spent it on.
I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist. Usually I take things in stride, but even I have my limits.
Lately, I’ve been using cash more and trying to frequent stores that don’t collect my data, like Trader Joe’s and Walgreens.
I’m not yet to the point where I want to live “off the grid” on my compound in Montana, with razor wire around the perimeter and an avid suspicion of authority.
But some days, I gotta be honest, it doesn’t sound too bad…..
You know, where I come from, folks don’t necessarily have the best opinion of California.
“Land of fruits and nuts,” the old saying goes.
California does tend to come off weird, aberrant, plastic surgeried and just plain wacky to the middle of the country.
Ninety-nine percent of the time, I can manage to fight off those accusations.
“I live in Northern California, it’s different,” I say.
Or, “you only know what you see on TV. That’s not real.”
Or, “I wouldn’t have lived here so long if it was really like that.”
And then every once in a while, this crazy state does something even I, a long time apologist, can’t manage to explain.
No, I’m not talking about the Guvernator, but yes, that’s one example I can’t rightly explain.
Today, the one that’s got me scratching my head is this recent bit of legislation:
A little thing called “Cuss-Free Week”.
What the &*$#!?!?!
No cussing?
This is California for &*$#’s sakes!
No cussing?
Ok, so the idea was brought on by a fourteen year old kid who I’m sure has the best of intentions.
And yes, it’s probably a good idea to clean up the ol’ language.
But for the love of %$#@, this is California. You know, the state where people like to bring wacky lawsuits?
Ten will get you twenty, SOMEONE is going to allege a first amendment rights violation. This thing will get hung up in court for YEARS costing the taxpayers of an already on the verge-of-bankrupt state millions of dollars to adjudicate the situation.
I might remind you that the whole “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance kerfuffle began in, you guessed it, California.
Our residents seem to know how to tie things up in the courts.
Well %&@$.
P.S. As an aside, a friend of mine brought up the question of: does the curse ban only apply to English colloquialisms? Because she is fluent in another language. I find this to be a very good pinche point. Yeah, cabrons?
P.P.S. To my Spanish speaking readers…I Googled “pinche” to see if any of the letters needed accenting. I was amused to find that one user on Urban Dictionary seems to think pinche means : all the guys who work in the kitchen at a restaurant. If I had been drinking coffee, I would have spewed it all over my screen.
