Atomictumor

The Oak Ridger today announces that the AMSE, in the process of pimping out 12 acres of land to squealing excited developers all over town, have passed up the previously mention Graham Corp proposal in favor of one from GBT Reality. Graham was talking big and bad about bringing a Target and Lowe’s to town, and according to Oak Ridger’s coverage, GBT is weighing in with a weenier selection:

“ Joe Lenhard, chairman of the museum foundation’s proposal review committee, said the GBT proposal includes stores a quarter the size of “big-box” stores like Target and Lowe’s, and also includes an upscale restaurant on South Illinois Avenue.”

Oooo, an upscale restaurant. Looks like the Blue Hound has some competition!

Now, these plans apparently screwed the great Oak Ridge Mall redevelopment pooch when Arnsdorf called out the council for upsetting the great Oak Ridge development plan, which he stated he had first dibs on. This halted demolition, which as I understand it is now on a race with the I-75 West Hills exit and the slow demise of the sun to see which will be completed first.

My money’s on the sun, because it looks shifty.

I’m Like Lionel,
I’m easy like Sunday morning.
Don’t know what that means.

New anime theme,
As usual, Firefox,
Seems to work the best.

Frasier playing Beast,
New X-Men movie looks dumb,
Or maybe I’m wrong.

Painted the bedroom,
And now its very purple,
Paint’s still on my foot

When you write haikus
Do you count with your fingers?
Have to every time.

I’m trying to think of something funny about Iran’s decision to enforce a mandatory dress code, complete with badges and whatnots marking non-muslims, so everybody knows who to throw a rock at. Its not easy.

I’m also trying like a son of a bitch to avoid Godwin’s Law in this discussion, but its hard to do.

I’m trying, additionally, to hope that the current US administration isn’t going to take everybody down with them in a mighty desert scrap to end all scraps. At the same time I ask myself “Damn. Them weird assed fundy muslims are f’ed in the head. Would a big ass kicking do them some good?”

The metaphysical questions get old at that point.

Heres whats going to happen. Iran is trying so hard to get the world worked up on their theocracy bullshit that W blows his stack and sends in the calvary (what little is left). Russia and China are pissed, because Iran is hooking them up on the back end. Nobody else is interested in getting involved. Israel will probably end up getting jumped by everybody in the area, and the US will start drafting to make sure they have enough kids to put in Iraq, Iran, and Israel. Afgani-what? No, they’re on their own, and the Taliban takes over. And all of a sudden you wake up and realize that you’re living in Russia circa 1984…

Weird times, man. My plan is to buy that deserted island I was talking about, and building a big assed DEATH ROBOT to protect me. In this day of fences and constant vigilance to keep out terrorists, I think its a sensible solution.

When we bought our house, AT’s dad the Biscuit recommended Tennessee Farm Bureau. They’d done him right for several years, and after we went around getting some quotes, we found they were the cheapest by far.
Well, as the saying goes, you get what you pay for. Our policy was cancelled today through some serious ineptitude.
Our insurance go-to guy, Chance Boffing (name changed to protect our asses), has been trying for some time to get us to switch our auto insurance from our current company to TFB. When we got a letter from TFB a few weeks ago saying something to the effect that he would like to discuss if and how our policy would need to be modified, we assumed this was another attempt to get us on his side.
A few days later, I received a post-card type mailing that asked if I would like to do a survey on TFB’s performance. Since it didn’t say it was mandatory, I opted to do better things with my time. Besides, up until now, we’ve not had to deal with TFB other than paying our yearly membership dues, so I didn’t have much to say.
Then shortly after the survey, we received a letter saying our policy would be cancelled effective May 18th because TFB couldn’t confirm we still lived here. Apparently the letter about modifications was some sort of secret-society test to see if we were worthy of being policy holders for another year. If the letter had said “Hey, fool, if you don’t call me or write me back, we’re cancelling your policy”, I daresay I would have contacted them immediately. Also, card-carrying Mensa member Chance Boffing himself supposedly drove by our house to try to confirm residency and couldn’t tell by the new paint job, art on the front window, toys in the yard and curtains in the window that we do, in fact, still live here.

When we got the notice that our insurance would be cancelled, AT immediately got on the ol’ horn to straighten the situation out.
No answer at the office and no answering machine. What self-respecting company doesn’t have voice mail or an answering machine in 2006? A company that doesn’t want my business, that’s who. Not only that, but they rarely pick up the phone during normal business hours. AT’s tried to call at various hours of the day and has come to the conclusion that Chance must do his best work sans office. In fact, his secretary told us the other day that he’d be out for over a week, so no, there wasn’t anything she could do to help. Yeah, Chance is the only agent at this branch.
The last time AT talked to anyone at the office, they assured us that the matter would be taken care of, we would not lose our policy and they are very sorry about the mix-up. That’s all well and good, but when he called this morning, he was informed that our policy was in fact cancelled today, and we’re shit out of luck until the escrow company decided to cough up a check. Or something. It’s really all beyond me.
So, if you want to set our house on fire, or steal all of our shit, please wait a couple weeks. K? Thanks.