how-to, what-for, and guesses as to why
Today we celebrate our independence from a King that had the gall to tax us at 3%. Now, two hundreds later, we are blessed with officials that tax us at a combined rate of almost 50%. Which is worst, tyranny by a monarchy or tyranny by major vote?
Popularity: 1% [?]
Several state governments will enact higher gas taxes on July 1st, 2008. Courtesy of API.ORG, here is a detail map of how much you will pay at the pump in taxes. Price includes the Federal bite of 18.4 cents/gallon. Click on the image below for a larger picture.
So as you drive over potholes and rough roads, as you sit trapped in traffic jams and ill conceived construction projects, as you motor in the states of Alabama, California, Connecticut, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, Washington, and West Virginia, be sure to thank your state representative!
Popularity: 2% [?]
Yesterday, I stood chatting with three of my women co-workers when suddenly, all three had a hot flash. Their body heat was so intense that I could feel the warmth being generated as their inner child played with matches. As the room’s air conditioning immediately kicked into high, my female friends swarmed around it like kids around an ice cream van. I swear that I saw steam rising as the cold air rushed past their feverish forms. All I could do was nervously glance at the sprinkler system in the ceiling and hope for the best.
So, all right! I’ll admitted it! I was wrong. I thought there was no way that humans could be the direct and only cause of global warming. But after yesterday’s experience, I have to consider that the world’s population is growing older. More and more of the 3 billion women are hitting that change of life phase where they almost spontaneously combust from their hot flashes. All of the heat has to go somewhere!
Now I’m not blaming aging women as the sole cause of climate change. There is the deadly carbon foot print from that untapped energy resource — the flatulence of aging males.
So what can we do to protect our environment from ourselves? First of all, what shall we do about the gentler half of our species? Perhaps we can send all menopausal women to the coast and have them relaxingly lounge at the ocean’s edge. When their body temperatures spike, the rising sea level is immediately turned into steam. Our female friends are cooled, the ocean waters are turned into clouds, which will block the sun and cool the planet. Female generated global heating is counteracted. The planet is saved. Everyone is happy. Life is good.
Now if we only knew that outlawing all male “pull my finger” instances would be enough to control the carbon butt print threat to the planet. I’ll work on that solution in another post.
Popularity: 2% [?]
This post is for you if your car’s gas cap is black. DO NOT put the ethanol and gasoline mixture into your car unless you are trying to destroy your engine from the inside out. Cars with the yellow gas cap can safely use this alternative fuel, also known as E85. Everyone else beware!
Before any of you yellow cappers get feeling too smug, don’t let the cheaper price for this alcohol based fuel fool you. It actually costs you more because Ethanol has less energy per gallon than regular gasoline. In fact, you may have already noticed that your MPG has significantly dropped.
Let’s say you can get 20 miles out of one gallon of regular gas. That’s 130.96 MegaJoules of energy your car used to haul your butt down the road. Because E85 only has 96.86 MegaJoules per gallon, you will only go 14.79 miles with that one gallon.
In terms of cost, the most expensive station in my area gouges $4.109 for a gallon of regular. In our 20 mpg example, that’s 20.5 cents per mile. We have another station that sells E85 at $3.769 per gallon. That looks cheap but using our example, that means you pay 25.5 cents per mile! If ethanol is to be cost effective, it would have to be cheaper than $3.04 for that gallon.
Popularity: 2% [?]
The first week of June was great. I finally got approval to attend some much needed training. Though the classes were intensive, it was one wonderful week away from chaos of the plant. When I returned on Monday of the second week, what had I missed? The plant facility manager and one of the purchasing agents had been fired. And my boss had turned in his notice.
I can say that I was there on Tuesday, when one of my friends on the assembly line waited until quitting time to tell her boss that she would not be returning the next day. It didn’t matter that she was within a few months of retiring. She had had enough.
So these past couple of weeks have been interesting. My boss spent much of this past week going over all of his work with me. Lucky me. Since these new owners have taken over, my work load has already increased. Now with the addition of my boss’ responsibilities, my cup runneth over …. but not my wallet.
I too have been looking for work with that ideal company. One where I can enjoy a share of the profitability that I bring to them. One where “plan” is not a four letter word. One where management-by-crisis is a forbidden practice. If you’re looking for a competent, fun loving, hard working, creative, programmer/test development engineer, call me. Please! And Soon!!!
Popularity: 4% [?]
Over the past 6 weeks, a group in Washington, DC have been visiting gas stations in the area to hold prayer vigils that implore God to lower gas prices. When our intrepid group first started, you could get a gallon of regular for $3.53. Today, as they continue their fuelish chants, gasoline is within a few pennies of the four dollar mark. I guess with all the war, poverty, disease, and injustice in the world, perhaps high gas prices haven’t made the heavenly top ten list yet. It probably doesn’t help that they start each session with, “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Gas.”
Their undertaking made me wonder about that burning theological question, WWJD — what would Jesus Drive? Since he’s of Middle Eastern dissent and speaks no English, my first guess was a taxi. But that’s not very biblical. I believe that the answer lies in the New Testament where we learn that Jesus drove a Honda. For proof, I refer you to the book of Acts where the apostles were said to be in one Accord with Jesus. (Getting 13 men into a small car is nothing short of a miracle. Getting 13 men out of an Accord is nothing short of a circus act.) But we shouldn’t be too surprised that Jesus had a car. God himself drove a Pontiac. Don’t believe me? If you will turn to the book of Genesis, you’ll read about God driving Adam and Eve from Eden in a Fury.
Of course, that was eons ago. Now that God is at least 13 billion years old (that’s 10,000 in Christian fundamentalist years), we don’t know if he still has his driver’s license … which could explain why he is now said to be everywhere at once. This omnipotence must have happened after an uprising of extremely annoyed Angels who were stuck behind God in traffic. What could be worse than being behind an all-knowing Deity who is driving like he has all the time in world while forgetting that his left turn signal is on. “Let there be light. Let there be not. Let there be light. Let there be not. Let there be..” No doubt, Lucifer made the mistake of angrily honking his horn while making obscene hand gestures. God’s response was the first “Go to hell!” ever spoken. The rest is biblical history.
Anyway, I have no doubt that gas prices will become cheaper. Hopefully this will happen in my lifetime. But if our prayer warriors really do bring pump prices down, I do hope that they then turn their attention to 30 year old scotch. Who are we to say that God doesn’t appreciate the finer things of life? That water-to-wine miracle proved that good alcohol was well within the realm of heavenly powers. Wouldn’t you appreciate fine scotch made cheap? I know I would pull over and raise a toast in thanks to the Almighty …
Popularity: 7% [?]
I enjoy the challenge of writing. Sometimes it’s difficult to give meaning and structure to a half-baked idea. At those times, it feels like the closest that I’ll ever come to child bearing — lots of wailing and pain. But then, my thought sees the light of day (or at least, the glow of the monitor). On shaking legs, it begins to walk until it’s running full speed under its own power, knocking things over and scaring the cat. Before I know, it has matured and moved out to start raising a family of other half-baked ideas. Sadly, it never writes or calls me.
I wish I were proficient enough to make some great money through writing. You know, a couple of books deals, a rock-and-roll type tour to sign my precious tomes, along with following of literary groupies. But what would I write about?
To answer this, I did a little market research. Lucky for me, there is market down the street run by midgets. Unfortunately, I got very little information from them so I turned to the Internet. It seems that the highest selling books are cookbooks. The second highest sellers are diet books. All I need to do then is write about how to cook the greatest meal possible and then how to not eat it. I think it would sell very well. Think of all the people who buy toys and never take them out of the box to play with them. My published words would appeal to the cooking version of these folks.
Oh well. For now, I keep work on this mental exertion know as writing. Heaven knows I need the exercise. If you see me with a bulging forehead, I swear that I have not taken steroids. Owww… I think I just pulled a hamstring in my neocortex…
Popularity: 5% [?]
So today I tackled the lawn. Well, it was more like I tripped and fell spread eagle onto the grass. But the way I held onto that ground, if it had been running, you would’ve said that was a good tackle. To keep my mind from running away (which I explained in Part 1), I downloaded a podcast interview of Wiley Miller who writes and draws the great comic, Non Sequitur. This would have worked out very well — my body busy while my mind kept entertained. As I got set up, I realized why I haven’t used earbud headsets in many many years.
You see, I was born with a birth defect. But don’t feel sorry for me. It’s not one of those defects that get me into special parking spots or get me free money from the government and charity groups. I simply have smaller than normal ears. Often I have beautiful women telling how cute they find my ears to be. I learned long ago that they meant “cute” as in “let’s just be friends and nothing more.” I told you it was a defect. Although I completely don’t understand why they would want to be just friends. You know what they say about guys with little ears, don’t you. No? Neither do I … probably because I can’t hear very well what people whisper.
Anyway, in this day of modern technology and miracle cures, I can’t get those ear bud headsets to stay in my ears. There are those $300 varieties that even fetuses can wear as they listen to “Mozart for Intelligent Pre-Born”. But who has $300 just laying around? Certainly not fetuses. And definitely not me. Sometimes you have to come up with your own technological cures. In my case, I taped the ear pieces to the sides of my head. For a few minutes, I was able to listen to a podcast. In hindsight, I should have used duct tape wrapped completely around my head. Instead, as I began to sweat, the Scotch tape began to loosen from my ears. The headset began to shift gradually and then more dramatically. It got to the point where I would take a few steps and suddenly jerk to try catch the headset. To my neighbors, I must have looked like I was either having a seizure or dancing to a hip-hop song. In the end, I finished the lawn as a podcast concluded. It was very good. I think it was about people talking about something. It must have been very funny because I think I heard them laugh from time to time.
Popularity: 6% [?]
First of all, I want to apologize to the children of my neighborhood. For the past seven years, I have been hiring any one of you when you offered to mow my yard. Since I didn’t have the time or a lawn mower, you helped protect me from the town’s lawn Nazis. It was well worth the $20 ($25 for those smooth talking hustlers out there).
This year I have a little more free time. I had to quit one of my side jobs when it began to cost me more money than I was earning. No employee should treat any large profitable corporation as a charity case. And I felt that Domino’s was making more than enough money by selling a $2 pizza for $15. The only time I raked in the dough while working for them was when I had to clean up a rack of fallen pizza patties.
So a few weeks ago, I used the money that would have benefited my neighborhood economy and bought a lawn mower. It took a little bit to convince myself. After all, who enjoys that mind numbing task of pushing a noisy machine along the ground. Oh sure, it was fun when we were three. But now I am an adult. Like my neighbors, I need to do my part to pollute the air while killing defenseless vegetation. Besides, I need the exercise.
I don’t know what goes through your mind as you mow your vast estate. I start out thinking about various design projects that I’m working on it. Soon my bored mind wanders and gets lost. I almost have to stop and put up those “missing brain” posters on telephone poles. “Have you seen my mind? Gray and easily distracted. Prone to following shiny objects, convoluted thoughts and women’s breasts. Reward possible. Call …” But then I think, “Oh, never … mind.”
Eventually I catch up to my wondering thoughts. Usually they’re in the midst of a Walter Mitty type adventure. You know, those inspiring daydreams of “what I would do if I were all rich and powerful.” In that world, I’m saving it from all sorts of evil, righting all sorts of wrongs, and being the kind of super guy that that men are jealous of and women long for. Kind of a letdown when the lawn mower makes a horrible crunching noise when it hits that tree stump or neighborhood cat. Instantly, I’m returned back to reality where I’m only saving the town from grass and weeds that are taller than 6 inches.
There seems to be nothing this town fears more than grass and weeds that are over regulation height. Their only defense is official named Earl who will descend upon your yard with bright pink citations. He has found that threats of extortion for the town’s coffers usually do a good job in taming wild lawn growth … and justify his phony-baloney job.
Anyway, in the classical battle of man verses authority, nature, and himself, who will prevail? All will be revealed in Part 2, including a serious personal flaw (besides this blog) …
Popularity: 6% [?]
What can I say? When I read this ‘Pearls Before Swine’, I laughed harder than I have in a long time. If laughter is the best medicine, then buying Stephan Pastis’ comics need to be covered by my HMO.
Popularity: 8% [?]
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