Doing the Cha Cha

I recently became an independent contractor for ChaCha.com. Its a text your question, get an answer kind of site, like KGB. You text in your question, a real person has it pop on their computer screen and they answer everything from "whats the twins score right now" to "why doesn't he like me?"
I make about 2 cents an answer, but some answers only take a couple of seconds to answer since I have access to the answers given to previously asked questions. Its not a bad thing to pick up if you're bored on a snowy/rainy day. I think I made about 20 bucks a week the last couple of weeks in my spare time.

As you can imagine, you get a lot of questions from teenagers. It is the questions from that age that make me laugh/concerned the most. I have seen 2 trends from the questions I get, and I thought I'd share.

1. Lock up your meds parents! Don't laugh at the PSA's about kids stealing pills from grandma. I can always count on a few questions during the time period between school getting out and parents getting home from work asking what Pill has "X" number on the side, is "X" color and can you get high from it?

2. Technology is hamstringing education. I get a lot of requests to summarize a chapter in the Great Gatsby or asked other questions that seem oddly close to questions I was asked in tests in middle/high school. If we wanted the answers to these questions we'd have to do them the old fashion way....buy the cliff notes.

3. I know I said only 3, but 80% of the questions with the word "does" in it, is spelled "dose". We can't even spell fowr letter words right.

Overall its been fun answering questions at ChaCha.com. You log on when you want, answer for as long as you want, and learn along the way. Did you know NCAA Basketball broadcaster Clark Kellogg is 6'7"? I didn't know either until someone asked me. Trying to remember the name of Kevin Garnett's High School? Want to know what movies and the times they're playing in Sioux falls, SD? Need a Chuck Norris Joke to lighten your day? Text it to 242242. Unlike KGB(.99 per question), Its free! Who knows, I might even be the one answering it!

The Ben Identity

I got a phone call on Tuesday night from my dad. He was calling to relay a message from someone identifying himself as a welfare fraud investigator from Olmstead county (Rochester).

With my mind racing on what it could possibly be about, i called the number he had left. He said they were looking for me in Blue Earth County (Mankato) but they thought I had moved back home with my parents. He said that he had to serve me papers to appear in court in May, but didn't elaborate. He said he'd refer my paperwork back to his partner in Blue Earth County and I should hear back from him next week.
NEXT WEEK?
I got a random phone call out of the blue, saying i needed to appear in court for an ungiven reason. But I won't find out WHY until NEXT WEEK?
What was this about? Was my identity stolen? Did they get the wrong Ben Nelson? Helpless, I had to sit and wait......
Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep wondering what it could possibly be.
The next day I called the guy that I had talked to the day before to see if he would elaborate on what the summons was about. He was just as uninformative as the day prior.

Putting pieces together, I made the assumption that I was being summoned by Blue Earth County. So I called the Blue Earth County Attorneys office to see if I could get to the bottom of this. They said that they did have a affidavit for me to sign about a court case in which I was listed as a victim of a Mr Gleason. Talking with Lisa, the person assigned to the case, she asked me to send her pictures of the scars on my face. She also said the court date was in May, as referenced by the process server that I had talked to on Tuesday. But she said the Ben they were looking for was in California.
They obviously had the wrong guy. However, Lisa said that they had not sent out a summons for this case, so no one should have been looking for me. She also said that they don't use private investigators, so the person looking for me, wasn't from this case.

So I was back to square 1 with even more questions than answers. I decided to follow up with the Blue Earth County Sheriffs office to whom Lisa said was holding the affidavit for me (well the other Ben Nelson) to sign. According to the Sheriffs office, they had nothing for a Ben Nelson to sign and there was no summons for a Ben Nelson, directly contradicting the County Attorneys office.

Frustrated, I gave up and just decided to wait until next week, and be served the papers from the Blue Earth private investigator.

Before coming into work this evening, i received a phone call from the local process server that I wasn't expecting until next week. He wanted to meet me and give me paperwork for the exact case I talked with the Blue Earth County Attorneys office about. He was looking for a Benjamin Joesph Nelson born 2 years after me.

One kicker is that about 2 years ago I hired a Benjamin Joseph Nelson at FedEx that was 2 years younger than me. So not only was i mistaken for him, but our paths had crossed before.

Even though its been sorted out and I know I have nothing to worry about, I still have a ton of questions. Like how did the system fail so bad that talking to 3 different parties about the same case, none could come to a consensus. Why did someone contact my parents, Identifying himself as an Olmsted County Welfare Fraud investigator?

As frustrated as I am, I can't help but laugh when im reminded of Allen's line in The Hangover "Classic Mixup"

How close is too close?

Last night, for the second home game in a row, the Minnesota State Men's Basketball team lost a game in the closing seconds. For a team that has mostly dominated their NSIC competition, MSU has yet to show that they can hit that cold blooded shot as time expires, or make the big defensive stop when it counts.

The average margin of victory for MSU this season has been in the neighborhood of 20 points. But the last couple of home losses in close games is a concern as they enter the NCAA tournament next week.

Sunday the Mavericks will find out if they will host the regional tournament, or will hit the road in their pursuit of an NCAA DII Title. With other regional front runners Mesa State and Augustana also getting knocked out of the first round of their conference tournaments, my money is on MSU still hosting despite the loss.

Netflix...those Inglorious Bastards

On December 15th the movie inglorious bastards was released to DVD. A few days earlier, I had it in my Netflix queue. When it release its expected availability was "Very long wait" which according to nextflix "30 days, usually less". Two months later, its status "very long wait".

I'm typically a big fan of Netflix. I even bought a blue ray player with internet availability to stream movies directly to my TV. Recently I've streamed 5 seasons of the TV show lost.

But right now, it seems my best case senerio to see a good new release is 3 months or a quarter of a year AFTER it was released to DVD and they know it. When you click on "new releases" all of the A-list movies aren't even listed. They instead steer you towards the B-list releases as if they are what you were really looking for.

Other new releases that are in my queue yet not available That weren't even blockbusters:

And reminder, Very long wait = about a month.

Couples Retreat - Released Feb 9 - Very long wait

ZombieLand - Released Feb 2 - Very long wait

Paranormal Activity - Release Dec 29 - Very long wait

I can only imagine the wait for "Up in the air", the next movie i really want to see.

Perhaps my expectations are too high, but I continue to see prices of media access (cable, internet, netflix) going up, without quality and availability moving along with it.

Delivering the shopper vs littering

Here is the deal..... pardon the pun.

As i stepped out of my front door this morning, only to trip over a shopper wrapped in one of those weather condoms. I walked further down my front step to see another one in the snow in my yard.

I take partial blame, I don't always pick them up on my walk into the house, and throw them away. But then again, why should I have to? I did not ask for this role of ads to be thrown on my front lawn. In my whole time in mankato, i have never read one.

I can't just start throwing things on peoples lawns without getting ticketed for littering. So why can they? Can I gather up all the ones thrown in my yard, and throw them in the yard of the guy delivering them? Can he get mad or should he just be grateful for all the money I just saved him?

I hope you can reference this rant when you hear on the news "Man trips and dies, reason is classified"

No news is Good news.

Stepping away from Sports, Sports, Sports, Sports for a second to take a brief look at the rest of the news.

Its True.

Ignorance is bliss.

Over the past couple of years, I've tuned out of the news.

Not that I don't care about being informed, I just don't want to be mis-informed. It is almost impossible to read or view a news story that doesn't have some sort of political slant to it.

CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, Telemundo, they all inject a political view into even non-political stories. Each network also parades out their best pundits to either rial up the opposing political view, or stroke the egos of those who agree.

This has turned any kind of rational political discussion into a vomit-fest. Each side regurgitating the same talking points they heard on their respective network the night before.

So I confide in sports. Why? Because it doesn't really matter.

Subtraction by Addition?

Rumors continue to swirl about a Mauer deal in the works, with both sides inching ever closer to a long term deal. WCCO's Mark Rosen, aka Joe Mauer's real father, has stated for months now that a 10 year deal is in the works. But only recently has WCCO actually gone with that as a story. The report was immediately scoffed at by ESPN's Buster Olney, and Joe Christiansen of the Star Tribune, them citing their own sources to the contrary.

Rewind to this past summer:

Rosen was among the first to actually accurately report the Favre agreement. A report that was blasted by the national media who failed to get it right, time after time, only to have Rosen proven right a short time later.

Whether a deal is done or not, the two sides have been talking.

The recent Thome signing and current Orlando Hudson speculation leads me to think the Twins are taking a Subtraction by addition approach. Subtracting the, no doubt, enormous Mauer asking price, by adding talent in other areas.

When asked if he wanted to stay at home in MN, or Win, Mauer answered with a question of his own: "Why can't we do both"

I think the Twins are wisely bringing in talent, realizing that a supporting cast, is just as important as a deep wallet when it comes to signing Mauer and securing the fan base for years to come.