Let me see, if I've got this straight.

If I were to enter Ace's "Dream Ace" contest, which they so kindly notified me about via email, it appears these are the steps;

I'll need to begin by taking an online multiple choice test that must be done in a single, forty-five minute session and all the questions must be answered for it to count. Then, I would need to answer three essay questions, using one hundred or fewer words for each response and this too will need to be done in a single online session that can not exceed two hours in length. This process will determine the fifty state winners, one from each state.

Those who move on from this round will go to New York for a thirty minute in-person interview with a select panel of Ace retailers. This interview will consist of questions being taken from a list that will be provided to each contestant.

On the morning following the interviews, Quarter-Finalists will be named and they each will do a ten minute presentation for pre-qualified Ace retailers and former Apprentice, Bill Rancic. The subject of the presentation will be yourself and why you should be named the "top aspiring entreprenuer" and it must be done without aids or handouts. After your individual presentation, you'll be subjected to another ten minutes of questions from the judges.

The next morning, the Semi-Finalists will be named and round four will commence that afternoon.

Survivors at this point in the contest will begin by taking a written sales aptitude test in New York City, then a week later, they'll need to submit a business and marketing plan in Chicago. On the day following their plan submission, all semi-finalists will be required to attend a boot camp at Lou Manfredini's* Ace Hardware Store in Chicago, where they'll be assigned in-store activities and judged on their performance.

Afterward, each contestant will be required to attend an all-day session in the corporate offices, where their performance will not be judged and they will be expected to pay a one-day visit to the location of the prize store. Then, the two highest-scoring finalists will be named and they'll need to attend the company's retailer convention in Las Vegas, approximately one week later.

Oh, and all contestants must agree to and maintain good standing with credit and background checks.

All to win a new, fully-stocked Ace Hardware in Houston with a fifteen year lease, plus $20k in moving expenses.

Does that sound right? Do you think I've got it?
The rules, prize info and actual contest procedure are really in such a skinny screen.

After all, I got the email because I'm a registered customer of my local store, so obviously there's an Ace near my home, which left me wondering after seeing the sparse contest pages; Exactly where would the "prize" be located?

Now, I know.

*"The Helpful Hardware Man"

Excerpted from the Associated Press;

A Walt Disney World employee dressed as the character "Tigger" was accused of hitting a child while posing for a photo, a spokeswoman for the theme park said Saturday.

Jerry Monaco of New Hampshire videotaped his son, Jerry Jr., posing with the costumed character at Disney-MGM Studios on Friday and recorded the confrontation, according to a statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Office.

The father said Fedelem intentionally hit his son "on or about the head," said sheriff's spokesman Carlos M. Padilla. "The tape only shows a fraction of what happened. Now it's up to us to find out what led up to that."

In 2004 a Walt Disney World employee dressed as Tigger was accused of touching the breast of a 13-year-old girl while she posed with him for a photo. A jury found the man not guilty.

Related: Fathers Assault "Telly" and "Cookie Monster" at Sesame Place (from 2003)

The big grocery store here in town is called Smith's. It was a regional chain out of Utah and I don't know how long ago it changed ownership, but as long as I've been in New Mexico, it's been a division of Kroger's. Kroger's is the country's second-largest chain. They own King Soopers, Ralph's and several other stores, with operations in 31 states.

Some time back, especially if you were to go shopping before 10pm, there was a time when the baggers would say "bottom clear", when it was your turn at the checkout. I don't know if this procedure was chainwide, or if it was only for stores under the Smith's banner, nor do I know if they were supposed to quit or what, but this only happened at my local store for a couple of weeks.

Then, sometime afterwards, they started nonchalantly taking your bagged groceries and putting them into another cart after they had been scanned and I remember that at least once, I transferred the baby from my old cart to the new one without thinking. On a couple of other occasions, I simply took the groceries out of the other cart and put them back into mine with nothing more than a confused shrug, until a friend told me that she pitched a fit because she didn't want a different cart, she wanted the one with her kid.

Ordinarily this wouldn't really be an issue for me because it's not too often that I take the baby to the grocery before ten o'clock. I don't know why and there's no particular reason, but though I do go to the store a couple of times a day, it's usually without my son and my daughter is far too big for the carts. After ten, the store is reduced to barebones and there's usually only one cashier, one bagger and one CSM, so things are a lot more laid back, much less busy and a lot of the employees want to talk.

Well, earlier this evening, I didn't take either of my kids to the store because they're both under the weather, but because the place was quite busy and there was only one bagger on duty, I naturally started bagging my own groceries. As I filled each bag, I'd put it back into my cart, which I had pushed out beyond the line. Eventually the bagger was free, so she took over the duty and said something along the lines of "I'm sorry sir, but we have to change carts", before taking my stuff and moving it to her back-up cart.

As I left the store, I flashed onto my friend and her fit, then I thought about the pain it would be to unbuckle my toddler and move him, just so they'd be forced to make certain the bottom is clear. In all actuality, I don't know if that's the reason for the policy, but it's the only one that comes to mind and though it may not sound like a very big deal to anyone who hasn't pushed a toddler; If it were to continue, it could very easily be considered a valid reason to go elsewhere, whenever I'm shopping with the kid.

With about ten minutes remaining in tonight's rerun of Boston Legal, ABC News jumped into programming with a "Special Report", where Terry Moran told us that Gerald Ford had died. I'll admit that the death of a former President is news, but the man was of an advanced age, he was the longest living former President and he has not been well for a while.

Perhaps, if ABC had simply said that Gerald Ford had died and told us to stay tuned for our late local news or for additional coverage on Nightline, I could be giving them credit for possibly being first, but that's not what they did. Instead, Mr Moran did a phone interview with someone I don't remember, then via a telephone report, they reminded us that Charles Gibson is the only anchor old enough to have been working at the time and he only said stuff that most people already know.

There was only a few seconds left in the primetime broadcast, when Mr Moran tossed it back to Nightline for viewers in the eastern time zone, where he said there would be extended coverage. At no point in his broadcast did he say to stay tuned to the late local news for further information, something which would've been relevant to viewers in the other three time zones, nor did he say that they'd be doing another edition of Nightline for the remainder of the country.

Admittedly it was news, but nothing was said that couldn't wait, it was mostly just an exercise in being first and a way to promote Charles Gibson. The story may have warranted an interruption, but the bulk of the message could've been communicated in a minute or two, which would've allowed everyone not in the eastern time zone to finish the program, they had been watching.

In my opinion and with all due respect to the late President, the performance of ABC News mostly showed their lack of regard for everyone not living in the east and for the time we had devoted to watching one of their programs. A quick spin of the dial because they weren't saying anything new, showed that no other broadcast network was pre-empting the full final minutes of any show.

ABC News may or may not have been first, we won't know until later. But, I am willing to bet that their extended interruption, where they simply rehashed ancient history did the network's entertainment division no favors, nor did it serve the local affiliates by failing to mention their upcoming coverage and in the area of viewer loyalty, it could have done more harm than good.

As part of my continuing effort to clean out my coffers of bookmarked stuff, I thought I'd throw a couple of driving cautions into the mix. I'm not sure of the math from these first two, but I'll take their word for it and the third is pretty straight-forward. It is, as it seems.

Over the past couple of days, a lot of blogs have been pointing toward the newest "feature" from the "braintrust" at Google.

If you've seen any of the other postings, you've learned that you can now search via Google Maps for a business, say "Socorro NM hotel" and when you click one of the little locator flags, a "call" link appears behind the phone number on the pop-up. If you click the "call", a box comes-up for you to punch-in your own phone number, then for free, your telephone will ring within a matter of seconds and you'll be automatically connected to the business.

(I'm pretty confident that this feature won't be around for long because one would think, somebody is currently seeking a court order to have it pulled, if the company doesn't do it voluntarily because the problems are so freaking obvious.)

No matter the initial tone of the blog posts announcing this feature, it's usually pretty quick that someone jumps onto the potential for mischief in the comments. For example: Pull-up adult bookstores and connect them to an old girlfriend, or hook-up an old boyfriend with an escort service. Do you have a client that won't pay? Send them a subtle hint by connecting them with a collection agency. Does your ISP not perform? Send them some technical support. Hook a congressperson up with a candygram, or have Mark Foley's office get a call from a daycare center. The prank-calling possibilities are pretty endless.

Anyway, one of the things which has prompted a question in my mind is from the service's helpfile; It says that when your phone rings, your Caller ID will show the name and number of the business, so that you can store it for future reference.

I'm not going to try it because I don't pay for Caller ID and though I have some knowledge of phone systems, I'm not sure how this would work. How can Google spoof a Caller ID and what kind of dangers might that present to battered women or other victimized people? Theoretically and though it might require some technology, but Radio Shack is nationwide; Could a drunken wife-beater call his spouse in hiding and instead of his number appearing on the screen, why couldn't he pretend that the call is from her mother?

Again, I don't know. But, if anyone has any thoughts about this technology; I'm curious.

An AP wire story from this morning's paper hits upon the familiar refrain of portion control and properly reading nutrition labels. Its purpose is to promote a Vanderbilt University study that will be printed in the next American Journal of Preventive Medicine, where among other findings, "researchers found that even patients with higher levels of education can struggle to interpret current food labels, particularly in situations that involve interpretation and application of serving sizes".

The wire service reporter fleshes out this topic with a couple of examples; A 20-ounce soda represents 2.5 servings; There are fifteen Lays potato chips in a single serving and the package info reflects only three Chips Ahoy cookies.

Both the original press release and the article notes that there is a movement underway to make labels more understandable and to reflect a better reality. For example, prepacked muffins, two to a package should take into account that most people will eat both muffins and we generally don't limit our beverage consumption to an 8-ounce serving. Which brings me around to this morning's WTF?; "Health officials, however, worry that boosting the serving size might be taken as a cue to eat more."

As if that would really be a problem.

Last night I thought about making a post, where I made fun of the spinach recall. One of the local stations was teasing it for the late news and New Mexico is among the states with reported cases of E Coli.

My comment was going to be about a blurb from an FDA person that said the bad spinach hadn't been tied to any specific producer, processing plant or lot number. The local station said there are seven cases under investigation in New Mexico, but the young lady from the state health department said that not all of our local patients had reported eating bagged spinach. Also, one of the other stations had an interview with a grocery customer, who said that her family eats bagged spinach several times a week, they had no plans to change this behavior and she wondered about the personal hygiene of those who had gotten sick.

Most of my fun-making was going to be pointed toward the federal official because I know that here in my small town, there's four different brands of bagged spinach. My daughter has always refused lettuce and tomato in her salads, so up until this year, we always made our salads without either of these ingredients, though my wife and I would always have ours on a bed of lettuce. For the most part, my daughter's salads contained garbanzos, black olives, baby carrots, cheese chunks, unsalted sunflower kernels and croutons. It was only this year, we discovered that she has no objection with having baby spinach in her salads, so by and large, my wife and I have quit having lettuce and all of our salads for the whole family, now contains bagged spinach.

Despite what was being reported, I found it doubtful that every brand of spinach was coming from the same processor, so I couldn't see how all bagged spinach could be bad. Sure, we don't buy the "Popeye's" brand because it doesn't look like salad spinach and most often, we buy the "Newman's Own" because whenever possible, we buy the Newman brand of everything. As it says on my t-shirt; "All profits to charity". They've given over $200 million away, thus far and I've always tried to do my part.

Locally, only Walmart has the "Newman's Own Organics" bagged baby spinach, so if I'm in a hurry and at the other store, I usually buy the "Earthbound Farm" or the "Dole", when it's on sale and at a very good price.

Now, tonight, I learn that though they can't say for certain, it is the organic processor owned by Earthbound Farms that appears to be the source of the problem. The latest story from Yahoo! News says they also process the "Dole - Organic" and several other brands. A quick look at the press releases on Earthbound Farms parent company's website shows that they actually do the production for thirty-one labels. Thankfully, the Newman's Own is not among them and though his website says there has been no reported cases tied to their product, they also don't recommend eating their spinach until more information is known, as a precaution.

Out of all the brands, I prefer the Newman's because of the taste and superior quality, plus as I said above, whenever I'm given my druthers, I'll always pay a little extra for the better product and in support of charity. And, though everything may not be known at this time, I'm really glad that there's half a bag of Newman's in the fridge. After all, it can't be beat.

According to his website, the young lady on the right is the eighteen year old daughter of former Chattanooga Mayor and current Senatorial candidate Bob Corker from Tennessee. Her name is Julia and yesterday, the Wonkette posted a couple of racy pics from her Facebook. Last night, as I was contemplating a comment and wishing that I could use my Paris Hilton icon on the Wonkette site, I read through a lot of her father's site and discovered the above three-quarter length, campaign picture.

This marks only the latest Facebook entry to be publicly disclosed by one of the Gawker sites and the blogosphere in general. If you follow their link, you'd see that they recently revealed a photo from Senator Bill Frist's middle son's collection and that they suspect it could be tied to a "cease and desist" order from the networking site. Obviously they are contesting the order because Miss Corker's images are post-letter and they've even tried to do a little investigation into the relationship with privacy and the founder of Facebook. Also, I'm supportive of Gawker's position for the reason cited by editor Nick Douglas in the comments to the letter; If you go to Ohio State, your Facebook can be viewed by more than 50,000 people, so it can't really be considered private. Of course, I also don't have access to Facebook because I don't have an university email, so I may be basing some of my beliefs in my own prejudice.

The easy thing that may first spring to mind, when you look at the ganked photos from the children of Senator Frist and the man who hopes to succeed him is that the children of Tennessee politicians are a wild bunch. This could even be further evidenced by the publicity which surrounded the time that Al Gore III was clocked doing 97mph in a 55 zone. But, I think it goes more to show that though the children of politicians and celebrities should be extra aware of the public face of the internet; I'm sure many people remember when the blogosphere outed the daughter of noted homophobe Alan Keyes and though they had to publicly work through the thing, she seems no worse for wear and according to her current blog, she's even getting a few speaking engagements from the deal. As a recent New York Times article discussed, pretty much everyone should be conscious of exactly what they're putting online, how it might be viewed in the future or under different circumstances and be fully aware of the permanence of the 'net.

Dear Auto Salespeople;

I'm not really a hostile guy, but by the third lot and becoming the victim of my fourth swarm, I may be prone to snap.

I realize that you're working on commission and that some of you will not get paid, if I don't buy a car, but what percentage of people walk onto a lot and drive away with a vehicle? I'm going to guess that it isn't very many and most people are like us, they have a list of models they'd like to see and in our case, try-on. After all, we've got all these figures about head and leg room from Consumer Reports, but what do they really mean and how does it fit someone sitting in the backseat?

Through today's effort, we've narrowed our list down to two possibilities. More focused research will be done to compare and contrast these two options. We will also be checking the price difference between new and slightly used, plus now that we're familiar with your promotional packages, we'll be doing the math to determine the best way for us to pay for the vehicle. Sometime next week, we'll probably return to the city for a test drive and at that time, we may be willing to sit down and do the nitty-gritty.

Today was a reconnaissance mission. We needed to look at the actual vehicles and narrow our list. We will be buying something within the next couple of weeks. We've procrastinated too long and we need something larger for our family. No, Mr Toyota Guy, we weren't leaving the lot because we hadn't been assaulted by an over-eager salesperson. We sat in your option, pushed the seat all the way back and my knee was penned into a small area between the console and steering column. All of the vehicles are in a same price bracket, they all get good rankings and similar mileage. Unfortunately, there's nothing you can do, if I don't fit.

.	Have a Nice Day and I Have Your Card; discreet_chaos

We're about two years from the next presidential primary and I don't know how many of these are trial balloons, how much could be called groundwork, or if the political writers are simply getting bored. We're already seeing asides that Mr Bush could benefit from a Democratic House, they are still in the whisper phase, but in this one instance, it leads right into the sentence; "I don't know whether any hope remains to save the House GOP."

There isn't a lot the President can do, as E.J. Dionne detailed in a recent column; Conservative activists are suggesting that Mr Bush take a hard right turn to solidify his base and in an effort to boost his poll numbers, but though he's down a little with the right, his numbers are still decent and his real problem is with moderate independents. A recent Pew survey shows that his support has dropped from 48% to 22% among members of this group, since January of last year.

Obviously, the more moderate members of his party, many of whom are in highly contested races are praying and braying that the President doesn't do anything to alienate these swing voters. For, while Tip O'Neill used to say that "all politics are local", we must also keep in mind those incessant bumper-stickers the boomers plastered onto their Volvos, as many of them abandoned their beliefs to become yuppies; "Think globally, act locally". If the political strategists keep this mantra in the back of their minds, they should be able to reshape the current congressional election into a referendum on Mr Bush. I'm sure moderate Republicans have also been coming to this conclusion and they really wouldn't want the President to muck them up.

So, I'm going to say that political writers are probably bored and they're really looking forward to the next election, so that's why we're getting analysis of Hillary Clinton's marriage, with articles which contains gems like the following;

Since the start of 2005, the Clintons have been together about 14 days a month on average, according to aides who reviewed the couple's schedules. Sometimes it is a full day of relaxing at home in Chappaqua; sometimes it is meeting up late at night. At their busiest, they saw each other on a single day, Valentine's Day, in February 2005 — a month when each was traveling a great deal. Last August, they saw each other at some point on 24 out of 31 days. Out of the last 73 weekends, they spent 51 together. The aides declined to provide the Clintons' private schedule.

And, we're learning that Al Gore owns a "ton of Google" stock, so he could seed his own bid for the nomination and we get what I'm sure was supposed to be a hype piece for his movie, but is mostly a lot of words about the potential of his candidacy and how moderate Democrats think he may be able to stop Hillary.

Of course like the political writers, I'm also sort of bored with this cycle and things won't really heat up until closer to the election and then, they may not get hot until the Presidential fields form. So after reading about Mr Gore, I followed a link to an unrelated story.

It seems that since 2002, the average price of an alcoholic drink in a New York bar has gone from $6.92 to $8.83, but people are still only tipping a dollar and the bartenders aren't happy. If you apply the same rate of inflation to tips that has occurred with drinks, the average tip should be up to $1.28. I haven't been to many bars since moving to New Mexico, but when I've lived in places with a wider variety and a more active scene; I'd say that I'd usually pay $3.50 for a call brand and I'd always leave the 50¢ as the tip, plus I'd make a show of adding an occasional dollar to the jar.

Back in college, there was one place where I'd always start my nights and they'd do highballs with house liquor for $1.25. When another place matched them on price and because they really didn't have any ambiance, it was mostly a place to get a cheap start on drinking, they tried dropping the price to an even dollar. But, according to a barmaid that I'd sometimes take home, tips dropped off considerably because people were reluctant to leave a 100% tip and no one carried change. So, the help forced management to up the price to where it had been for years. To make up for the drop in business, they boosted the cover to their disco upstairs.

New Mexico's Secretary of State, Rebecca Vigil-Giron has been starring in a public service announcement about the new election reform laws, which passed through the legislature last session. The funny thing about her ad is when she says "vote early" because every time I hear it, I want to tack on "and often", but to be perfectly honestly, it's the bulk of the commercial causes me concern.

Most of the focus is on the new voter identification cards. I can't find an image or an online copy of the PSA, but she walks the viewer through the card onscreen. It features the voter's full name and address, their date of birth and their voter identification number, which is the last four digits of their Social Security number. It is these elements that set off my alarm bells because some combination of these things are often used to verify identity, when one does business over the phone.

A few weeks ago, I needed some information from my online broker. When I called, the operator asked for the address they had on file and the last four digits of my Social Security number, before he could talk. For more than twenty years, I banked at one of the world's largest. I started with them my freshman year of college and we only closed our accounts, when we moved to New Mexico.

Throughout all of our moves, we stayed with this bank as our main. We'd always open an account locally, but it was cheaper and easier to keep the bulk of our banking in one place. Besides the fact that I was already established with the firm, we expanded our dealings and stayed with them because they were among the first to offer debit cards featuring the Visa logo, they allowed larger ATM withdrawals than most banks and were among the first with an in-house brokerage, which we used for mutual funds.

They also kept a staff of telephone bankers, who were available 24/7. Whenever we'd call, which was fairly often, they'd verify our identity through our dates of birth and the last four digits of our Social Security number. By having all of this information stored on one card, it seems to me that it's an invitation for identity theft and though she didn't personally pass the legislation and by all rights, Bill Richardson should get more of the blame; It's her face we see, when we hear about this horribly bad idea.

New Mexico has a problem with identity theft. I have a locking mailbox and as I mentioned in a previous post, a lot of the crime in my town is an invited guest, who rummages through their host's purse or belongings. Numerous people have been arrested for creating false identification and for opening credit card accounts in other people's names. Therefore, it seems to me that because there have been gangs who would systematically steal people's mail throughout a neighborhood and reports of criminals filing change of address cards with the post office, diverting a victim's mail to their house; By having a single card with the answers to many of the questions that financial institutions use to verify identity, it's just asking for trouble and an all around bad idea.

Recently, the TSA has been moving toward privatizing airport screenings, while today, we discover one of the potential problems with such a program. Admittedly, the two issues aren't directly related, but a couple of air marshals commercially smuggling coke on flights where they are providing security, certainly should be a heads-up about the possibility of problems.

(Thanks jaberwockynmt for posting a thruway to the original story, a couple of weeks ago.)

In an interview with the Associated Press, President Bush defended Exxon Mobil's record-breaking profit of $10.71 billion for the fourth quarter and $36.13 billion for the year by blaming it on the market. Back in 2000, when he was first running for office, in response to Democratic calls for an investigation into the skyrocketing cost and shortages of electricity in California and along the West Coast, he used similar language to that, which he employed on Wednesday.

We now know that in the California case, Enron and others were requesting abnormal amounts of electricity through deeply hidden subsidiaries and then, their parent company or another subsidiary would bid to satisfy the demand. In some instances, the faked demand for electricity was more than the system could transport and because there never was a reason to actually pump that power, it was all an illusion to create phantom shortages. Due to flaws in the California market, these "shortages" would result in the energy firms getting "emergency" prices at an inflated rate, which resulted in higher consumer costs and increased profits.

Mr Bush and his campaign blamed the situation on the marketplace and the lack of new generating plants in the state. Now, he's using similar terminology to defend Exxon and the other oil companies. When asked, the oil companies mutter some nonsense about their wholesale rates increasing and try to toss some blame onto the shortage of refineries in this country.

A simple, cursory glance at the quarterly and annual reports of Exxon Mobil shows that their revenues and profits are broken down into a couple of sectors. First, there is what they call "downstream" and that includes the sale of gasoline at local outlets. The other is referred to as being "upstream" and this includes the wholesale delivery of oil and the monies from their refineries. According to the recent press release; Upstream earnings were $7,038 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of $2,151 million over 2004.

By all appearances, the marketplace that the President is once again defending is similar to the one he supported during the 2000 election cycle. The huge oil conglomerates are selling fuel to themselves and to others at an inflated price. And, while it is true that in the case of Exxon Mobil, downstream earnings increased by only $46 million over the fourth quarter of 2004; The bulk of their profits have migrated upstream and in the course of this magic act, they've created straw men for their PR departments to blame.

Even if you don't subscribe to the Dish Network, you may have seen Lifetime TV's "Ditch Dish!" ad or have seen mention of their dispute in the press. The two companies are at issue over the amount Dish will pay Lifetime for their channels. We've all seen this before, it occasionally happens with cable and more often lately, it's become an issue with the satellite companies.

As what looks to be an empty gesture on behalf of Dish, they've "offered" Lifetime a contract that would let anyone subscribe to their channels, à la carte. Senator John McCain has been a leading advocate of making all programming, cable and satellite available on a per channel basis for years. The argument he's always gotten is that it would increase costs and choice would be limited because some smaller channels, which are generally thrown in for free as part of a larger contract would cease operations.

Sure, the Dish offer isn't real. They've already signed Oxygen to replace Lifetime Movie and nowhere in the letter are the consumer costs defined. Lifetime also hasn't responded, so I'm guessing they're not taking it seriously, or that they feel they'd suffer. But, if Dish can seriously make such a gesture and if the YES Network (NY Yankees) can sign a similar deal with Cablevision; Why can't the choice be offered to all of us? Personally, I've yet to do a cost-benefit analysis, but it seems to me that Dish's efforts to gain a position demonstrates that such a deal is not technologically difficult and it could be a viable option for all of us.