North Korea Is Screwed

I am sure that by now most of you are familiar with the recent leak of diplomatic cables by Wiki Leaks. One of the things the most interests me is the announcement that China is sick and tired of having to deal with their wild and Wacky  Neighbor, the Not Ironically Named at All Democratic People's Republic of Korea, aka North Korea.

Click Here is you want to read for yourself

Long story short, North Korea is done, finished. Once Kim Jong Il kicks the bucket the country has two years, three max before it all goes to hell. And the Chinese are  just trying to cut their loses and insure that the endgame plays out with maximum benefit for them.

Korean reunification is going to be a messy matter, it shall be a long and messy reconstruction process where one of the poorest and most isolated countries in the world have to be reintegrated into one of its wealthiest. Official reports from the South Korean government have estimated the final, long term costs of reunification at 0.8 TRILLION dollars, that's right TRILLION WITH A T just to get the standard of living of the average North Korean to HALF that of his southern cousin.  No one has that money, not the South Koreans, not the US, not the Chinese, or the Japanese or the Russians. Repairing the damage done be six decades of misrule by House of Kim shall be a project of international scale with most us footing at least a part of the bill. Right during a time when much of the world is short on money too.

And you know what, North Korea just imploding and a ton of refugees crossing over into China and South Korea looking for food is the BEST CASE scenario. Do you know what the worst case one is? North Korea decides to go "Screw it, if we are going down, might as well go down fighting." and launches a second Korean War. My thoughts on that are in an earlier post but believe me. It isn't pretty.

Your Dinnertime is not that Important

As I may have perhaps mentioned in my first post on the blog, one of my jobs is as a phone interviewer for a political research company in Sacramento, CA. My job is to call people during the early evening and ask them if they would be willing to spend some time, usually from 10-15 minutes to do a survey about some topic, usually political in nature. All in all, I love this job, the only problem is that work isn't all that steady. It tends to come and go peaking with the coming election and than slowing when it is over. Take last month for and instance, I was working nearly every day and than once  November 2nd came around, BANG, it all dried up and now I and am sitting by my phone calling at 2:30 hoping for work. Well to be fair last week was Thanksgiving and we did have work the week before, but still.

The one other thing I don't like about this job is that some of the people I call can be, for lack of a better word, jerks. The seem to think that fact that you are taking them away of from their dinner/TV Program/Movie/ whatever constitutes some capital offense that is worth treating you like some they stepped in. Really, does it ever occur to these people that I am only doing my job. Yes, I know that you would rather be doing whatever it was your were doing before I called but come on. A simple "I'm not interested" would suffice. Is making you walk up and answer the phone really worth shouting obscenities over. If you don't want to talk to me, let the machine get it or pay a little extra for caller ID Block. They only thing I can think of is that most of these people just want to be nasty to others and this is their excuse. Are these people proud of themselves?

"O Yes, I told the one person that called last night to ear sh*t and die and a I dropped the F bomb into the other's ear I hope that it hurts."

The last one actually happened to me. I politely explained to him the Do Not Call Registry act did not apply to surveyors his response was "You are not exempt from my law so F*CK YOU" and he screamed the last one so loud that my ears hurt for three days. I hope that really made your day sir.

Honestly I have come to the conclusion the civility and respect for others is more or less out of style. We are so absorbed when ourselves and ours that we barely acknowledge the humanity of anyone outside of our circle. Some calling you on the phone to take you away from you lasagna for 10-15 minutes is some sort of vermin, not a human being but be shouted at, mocked and toyed with. Heck since some of the people I call are rather elderly anyway, I probably constitute their only entertainment anyway. Screw Politeness, I'm a Senior I guess. Being old is practically an excuse to get away with murder.

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Futbol Sunday

I am a member of a very rare but growing and thriving species. I am an American soccer fan. Now, now don't get me wrong. I still follow the Holy Trinity of American Sports (though not so much basketball ever since the Kings decided to suck) but, thanks to my brother (who I love any despite his being an Arsenal Fan), I have come to appreciate the Beautiful Game.

All in all, 2010 has been a very good year for us. The Stars and Stripes finished the year with a winning record in international play, including a trip to knockout phase in the World Cup. Though I would have preferred it is our defense did not take fifteen minutes to show up. MLS has been growing and expanding with two new teams joining up in 2011 and one more in 2012 and the quality of play has been improving.

On another note, the San Jose Earthquakes seem to be officially on their way back. Making the playoffs for the first time since returning to league and showing Tierry Henri and Red Bull New York the door before losing to Colorado, the eventual champions. We also have the most effective goal scorer in MLS in Chirs Woldonowski and a strong defense, though losing Joe Cannon the expansion draft does worry me a little.

And on the other side of Pond, just two weeks ago or so, Chelsea looked as though it was securely atop the EPL but a loss to Sunderland , another loss to Birmingham and a DRAW to Newcastle United mean that we are two points BEHIND Satan United. Man oh man come on Blues, please TRY to remember how to play before the New Year.

I Guess Nothing is Free

Well, I am still looking for things that can bring traffic to this blog. After all, one hopes that I am not just sounding off to the thin air and not being  heard anyone in particular. As such, I am most thankful for the thirty five or so people that have come by and read me.
In response to this I decided to make and ad for my blog on Facebook. First, I was struggling to find some way to say what I wanted to say with in the character limit restrictions. Than, after that was done, I decided to get my blog to reach as many people as I could. I was up to about 180 million people with the settings I had selected. Finally, it came time for the part I did not think of, paying for it. They wanted to have me pay about $50.00 a day or $1.94 a click.

Really people, $50.00 a day for a picture and about two to three sentences. Come one, sure it can't be that much. Well I guess people have to make money some how. I know I have to do so. All and all, I am grateful to those who have visited so far. I shall be looking into other options and if any one has any ideas. Please feel free.

See How the Broncos Have Fallen

I have a small confession to make. I did not watch the Boise State versus Nevada game last night. I was so certain that a Bronco victory/coronation was such a fait acompli , that I tuned into  a Law and Order UK marathon and worked on my blog. How wrong I was, oh man how wrong I was. It goes to show just how much things can change from just one game in college football, especially if you are a mid-major/non-AQ/whatever ESPN decides is the politically correct term this week. Boise has gone from the Rose Bowl to the Humanitarian Bowl all in the space of a few botched kicks. The clock has struck midnight, coach has become a pumpkin and Boise is reminded that they are not considered one of the big boys. If you are not an AQ school than nothing less than perfection is good enough if you have ambitions above playing in the Sid’s Tires Pocatello Bowl.

On the positive side however, especially if my Warriors beat New Mexico State about an hour from now, this actually makes things look good for the coming move to the Mountain West Conference. Not it looks more and more like The MWC is not getting just Boise State and two or three sidekicks. It is something that adds considerable value to the league. A Hawai’i victory over New Mexico State would make us Co-Champions along with Boise and Nevada, helping us in our negations to get into to the Mountain West for Football only. That being said, we still have to beat the Aggies, so I should not be counting my Chickens before they hatch, especially after the egg The Orange and Blue laid.  

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/columns/story?columnist=wojciechowski_gene&id=5854511

This is alot of work

I have spent more or less most of the past day or so working on this blog. Adding ads getting signed up for Technorati and generally learning how I am to make money off this thing. It is a rather interesting process really, but than it seems as though making money off of blogging seems to be allot like fishing.  But than again, anything that involves making money is by nature a job.

But it has not been all work and no play for me. I have also spent this evening watching a marathon of Law and Order UK. It is more or less Law and Order, but with wigs. This is an awesome, if you don't have BBC America and get it damn you. British TV is beyond awesome.

Are we all in deep Kimchi?

Well reading the papers again and watching the news. It seems as though North Korea is starting up trouble again. I have long since trying to put the actions of the particular country's leaders into rational logical terms. The only thing I can really think of is that Kim Jong Il has decided that if his whole country is screwed he might as well take us (or at least South Korea) down with him. I seriously hope that things do not become as bad as they appear to be. However, between Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan and just how soft and spoiled we have all become, part of me doubt if we even have the resources or the resolve needed for what may be coming. We are talking about a petty tyrant with nukes that lives like a king while his own people starve. He is a man who is threat to the liberty and prosperity of one of the most free and democratic societies in all of Asia. The people of South Korea would be starving along with their Northern cousins had we not saved them sixty years ago. But can we live with the idea of losing more people in the first two weeks of a Second Korea War and in all of Iraq and Afghanistan combined. Part of me doubts that that America even exists anymore. I hope I am wrong, I really am.

On a more positive note, I got paid at TJ Maxx today and I just bought my bus pass for December so now I can enjoy another month of Sacramento County's chronically underfunded public Transportation service. For only $100 a month you to can enjoy spotty inadequate bus service that only runs every 30 min to every hour up until the oh so convenient time of 9:00 PM. All thanks to massive budget cuts brought to you by the State of California: passing its budget's late since 1990.

No I am not bitter bu when you consider the fact that a work a job at night the ends at 9:00 it does seem rather inconvenient. What makes it more annoying is that this a a company that is also trying to expand its light rail to the Airport and is putting signs on train stations. I would think that is they had money for that they could have money to keep their service running a little longer, say til at midnight like you know, they used to. But what do I know.

My First Entry

Hello everyone. My name is Bradley Paranial, I am a thirty year old semi employed phone interviewer living in Carmichael, CA. I started to write this blog primarily because my family is under the rather bizarre impression that I am funny and that I should start a career as a freelance writer. I am not sure what to make of this however, but since my original plans for being a doctor and a science geek did not work out, perhaps they are on to something.

Okay, what to write about?  It seems that, having gotten this far, I have not put that much though in to it. Perhaps since it is Black Friday, I shall write about that or more accurately how I just don't get why people get so worked up over it. I mean for the past few years or so, while coming home Thanksgiving at my mother and stepfather's house. I have seen people lining up outside of stores like Best Buy and Target camping out literally in the parking lot just to be the first one in the store for the "big sale". I  mean, is it a really worth it people? Isn't this sale going to be going on all week? Really, is whatever you are going to get really worth spending a night the normal people spend with their families out in the cold in a parking lot camping with strangers, did I mention that the temperature got in the upper 20's last night? I don't know, perhaps if I had more money, I would understand.