Dan

Wells Fargo CEO doesn’t get it

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Yesterday, CNN’s Campbell Brown took Wells Fargo to task, not for canceling their lavish Vegas shindig, but for taking out two full-page ads in newspapers as a “thank you” to employees and to blame the media for the cancellation of their extravagant employee recognition festivities.

In the ads, Wells Fargo’s CEO announced all of its big employee events for the year have now been canceled. He then blamed the media and said that our one-sided reporting on this subject makes every employee recognition event sound like a boondoggle. And that ultimately, our misleading reports have hurt Wells Fargo employees who deserve a pat on the back, and hurt the tourism industry since they aren’t taking these trips anymore.

I echo Campbell Brown’s reply of “Give me a break.” Wells Fargo shouldn’t be whining and complaining that the big, mean media is trashing them for a flagrant waste of taxpayer money. They should be thanking the media for setting them straight and reminding them that, without that taxpayer bailout money, they wouldn’t have jobs to appreciate in the first place.

She continues.

And do you really think the best use of your money right now is to buy full page newspapers ads trashing the media, disguising the ads as thank you notes to your employees?

You want to thank your workers, try e-mail. Put the letter on your Web site instead. It won’t cost a dime.

Exactly. If they really were just concerned about thanking their employees, that’s what they would have done… used email or their website. Taking out full-page ads just shows that what they’re interested in is playing the victim. They want to portray themselves as “poor Wells Fargo” because they can’t properly thank their employees. They’re pouting because they can’t throw their big, extravagant, 12-day party this year because of that damned media. Then they have the gall to say that they “hope Americans will understand when a company tries to do the right thing by honoring its employees.”

Yes. I think Americans will understand when a company honors its employees. But I don’t think Americans will understand, or more importantly sympathize with, a company who takes taxpayer bailout money and then wants to spend it in irresponsible, unproductive, and outlandish ways. Once that bailout money is paid back in full with interest, they can do whatever they want with their income.

To add insult to injury, the Wells Fargo CEO evidently has warned of possible job cuts this year.

If they’re strapped for cash and need to lay people off, spending bailout money on parties is even more reprehensible.

I think it’s time for their CEO to step down… with no parachute.

Lunch Bag Art

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Lunch Bag ArtI just found this website while checking out PvP, a web comic that I follow.

It’s a dad who creates new artwork on his kids’ lunchbags every day and he’s got a bunch of the bags on display on his website. Check them out. They’re pretty amazing… and it’s such a fun thing for a dad to do for his kids!

Cool dads rock.

Random Borders Book Discovery, FTW!

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Zombie HaikuI’ve been a fan of zombies for quite some time, so any time I get a chance to partake in some new zombie shenanigans, it’s a good day.

I was at Borders Bookstore today to spend my newly earned $20 in Borders Bucks (along with a 30% off coupon) and after picking up a book about dinosaurs for my daughter and 40 Days and 40 Nights and The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster for me, I was briefly perusing the humor section (it was on the way to the checkout counter) and stumbled across this gem entitled Zombie Haiku.

I paused and stared blankly at the book on the shelf for a good 15 or 20 seconds, stunned. Then, without another thought, I reached down, grabbed the book, and tossed it in my basket without even looking through it.

Oh, it was worth it! It starts out posing as someone’s poetry journal, but there’s a story scribbled in the margins from someone locked in a bathroom in order to avoid the zombies outside, knowing that he will inevitably be devoured, since he had no way to escape. He explains that the journal was being held by a zombie whose arm he had hacked off. The rest of the “poetry journal” shows the haiku of the former owner as he transforms from a puzzled office worker (Why all the car accidents in the morning? Why is nobody at the office? Why is Beth in her car eating spaghetti? Oh my god, that’s not spaghetti!) to minion of the undead.

Here’s a brief sampling…

Beth from accounting
is just sitting in her car
eating spaghetti.

I ask her what’s up
but she just eats in her car.
Something’s wrong with Beth.

That escalates to things like…

They surround the car
and are all moaning something.
Is that the word “trains”?!

…and then…

There’s nothing quite like
the pain you feel while dying —
switching to hunger.

…and…

One thing on my mind,
only one thing on my mind.
I’m going to eat you.

…and my favorite so far…

Brains, BRAINS, Brains, brains, BRAINS.
Brains, brains, Brains, BRAINS, Brains, brains, BRAINS.
BRAINS, Brains, brains, BRAINS, brains.

It just keeps going after that with some real gems, depicting the continuing adventure of life as a zombie.

The author ends with a heartfelt haiku thanks to George Romero.

To George Romero:
Because of you, I’m screwed up.
Thanks for your movies

Ah, zombies.

Wells Fargo Cancels

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It seems that Wells Fargo canceled it’s all-expense-paid employee extravaganza in Vegas very shortly after the Associated Press article hit the news.

The company initially defended the trip after The Associated Press reported it had booked 12 nights beginning Friday at the Wynn Las Vegas and the Encore Las Vegas. But within hours, investigators and lawmakers on Capitol Hill had scorned the bank, and the company canceled.

I’m stunned and impressed by lawmakers actually commenting on this so quickly and laying the smack down. It’s refreshing… and surprising.

What did Wells Fargo have to say about the whole thing?

“In light of the current environment, we have now decided to cancel this event as well,” the company said Tuesday night in a news release that also said the it had never planned to use taxpayer bailout money for the trip.

“The current environment” must mean the environment where everyone in the entire country, including investigators and lawmakers,  is screaming obscenities at their absurd lack of judgement.

And what’s this about never planning to use taxpayer bailout money for the trip? Until they pay back the full amount they were given via the bailout, every penny in that company is taxpayer bailout money. It’s not like they were given a loan to make some improvements to their facilities. They were given bailout money to keep their company from going under due to poor management and bad business decisions. Without the bailout money, they’d be done… finished… game over.

So until they demonstrate they can be fiscally and managerially responsible by paying back all the bailout money and making a profit without government assistance, they’ve got no money that isn’t taxpayer bailout money. Until that point, every single cent of expenditure should be watched with a proverbial magnifying glass to make sure they don’t try, once again, to bilk their customers… and their country… out of billions of dollars.

Buying some extra staples is fine. Buying a  12-day, all-expense-paid, hedonistic party for the employees… not so much.

No, no, no, no, NO!!!!

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Filled with stolen taxpayer money
Filled with stolen taxpayer money

According to this article on MSNBC, Wells Fargo, which received about $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money,  is planning on having a “series of corporate junkets” to Las Vegas casinos this month.

From the article…

Wells Fargo, once among the nation’s top writers of sub prime mortgages, has booked 12 nights at the Wynn Las Vegas and its sister hotel, the Encore Las Vegas beginning Friday, said Wynn spokeswoman Michelle Loosbrock. The hotels will host the annual conference for company’s top mortgage officers.

The conference is a Wells Fargo tradition. Previous years have included all-expense-paid helicopter rides, wine tasting, horseback riding in Puerto Rico and a private Jimmy Buffett concert in the Bahamas for more than 1,000 employees and guests.

Other banks have cancelled their “employee recognition” outings due to financial cutbacks, but not Wells Fargo. Evidently, they feel it’s okay to spend all this taxpayer bailout money on parties and “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” shenanigans.

“I was amazed with just how lavish it was,” said Debra Rickard, a former Wells Fargo mortgage employee from Colorado who attended the events regularly until she left the company in 2004. “We stayed in top hotels, the entertainment was just unbelievable, and there were awards — you got plaques or trophies.”

What’s the excuse for continuing this lavish event even though the company needed (and received) bailout money to stay afloat?

“Recognition events are still part of our culture,” spokeswoman Melissa Murray said. “It’s really important that our team members are still valued and recognized.”

“Part of our culture?” Is poor management to the point of bankruptcy part of your culture, too? Is misusing public funds part of your culture? Is destroying the public trust part of your culture? Is lavish excess funded by taxpayer money part of your culture?

Evidently, it is now.

If they actually hold this event, I think all their bailout money should be returned… forcibly if necessary. Let them fail because they certainly aren’t doing anything to succeed. They are just taking in public funds for their own grand, hedonistic enjoyment, flushing the money down the financial toilet of delusional entitlement.

There was supposed to be some pretty stringent oversight attached to this bailout money. I hope Congress steps in and puts the smack down on this Wells Fargo fiasco, but I sadly fear that they won’t.

Murray did not immediately have details about the size or cost of the events or what was planned.

No surprise there. The MSNBC article provides this detail, though.

Rooms at the Wynn and the Encore are consistently among the most expensive in Las Vegas. The $2.3 billion Encore opened in December as sister hotel to the Wynn. Its decor includes a 27-foot Asian dragon made from 90,000 Swarovski crystals and artwork by Colombian artist Fernando Botero. One of the restaurants features Frank Sinatra’s 1953 Oscar.

I guess the Red Roof Inn is out of the question.

Please Pass the Lipitor

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Bacon Explosion Ingredients
A Great Start!

Bacon makes everything better… except cholesterol and blood pressure. Overlooking that (negligible) downside for the time being, what do you get when you mix 2 pounds of thick-cut bacon, 2 pounds of Italian sausage, and some barbecue sauce? You get the Bacon Explosion… bacon and sausage wrapped up and barbecued for an artery-clogging feast fit for a 500-pound king.

Now just serve this other recipe as a side dish, season it all with a few shakes of Lipitor, and you’ve got yourself a party!

When it comes right down to it, you can’t beat the pig for providing humanity with the largest variety of indisputably succulent meat. I mean, seriously.

And bacon is, of course, the supreme meat.

But wait! There’s more!

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Brisingr CoverI just finished reading the book Brisingr by Christopher Paolini. It’s the third book in The Inheritance Cycle (which was originally intended to be a trilogy but will continue in a fourth book). It took me a long time to read, mostly because I only read it a few nights a week after going to bed, but also because it didn’t pull me in the way the previous two books did.

Brisingr continues the story of Eragon, a dragon-rider, and Saphira, his dragon. Secondary characters include Rowan,  Eragon’s step-brother, and Nasuada, the queen of the Varden, a group united to overthrow Galbatorix, the evil ruler of Alagaesia. The story progresses with threads following each one’s adventures as they struggle with issues surrounding the war, its effect on their lives, and the puzzle of how to defeat Galbatorix, a seemingly undefeatable foe.

The trouble is that the story doesn’t advance very far, especially given the 750 pages of the book. Things happen, of course, but Paolini tended to draw them out into long stretches of debatably articulate prose. The 200 or so pages dedicated to a tediously staged delving into dwarven politics come to mind, with the teeth-grindingly annoying use of “mine” instead of “my” to characterize dwarven speech (This is mine house. This is mine brother. These are mine annoying speech habits). No doubt, some of the events that laboriously unfolded will be of some importance in the last (?) book of the series, but forcing the reader to trudge through 200 pages to explain those events tests the limits of fan loyalty.

Once free from dwarven politics, we are then set upon by the nuances of internal dragon monologues where dragons seem to lose their ability to speak in English as they do for the rest of the book. Instead of writing “humans,” Paolini decides that Saphira calls them “two-legs-round-ears.” He replaces similar common words (somewhat randomly, it seems) with other hyphenated-description-words. Perhaps it was an attempt to show that dragons think differently that we do, but it comes across as annoying and stilted, especially given how dragons are developed in the books as extremely intelligent and even eloquent up to that point.

There were, however, many interesting parts and wonderful tidbits scattered throughout the pages of the book and overall, it was a pleasant read. Dragons and elves, magic and swordplay… they are the things fantasy readers adore, and Brisingr is filled with them. The return to the elven city of Ellesméra was a delight (for me, anyway) since it signaled a continuation of Eragon and Saphira’s training with their elders. The revelations which unfolded there probably laid the key groundwork for the conclusion of the series.

But those revelations occurred in the final 150 pages (or less) of the book. Up to that point, there were 500+ pages of narrative that really didn’t do much in the way of character development or plot development. There were points here and there, but nothing that couldn’t have been accomplished in 100 pages or less. The entire book should have been contained within 250 pages at the most. Why it wasn’t, I’m not sure. Whether to blame it on Paolini or his editors or a money-grubbing publisher who wanted to extend the series… I don’t know. Nor does it really matter.

I am disappointed that Brisingr didn’t complete the epic. I am disappointed that I now have to wait an indeterminate amount of time for Paolini to finish the fourth (and hopefully final) book in the series.

And, worst of all, I’m apprehensive that the fourth book will force me to wade through a bog of tedium in order to gather the worthwhile parts of what started out a delightful story.