Yesterday I planned to make a run to the hardware store to buy a new drill. I needed to drill out some rivets in a bracket that is part of my attic access. As I posted previously, it’s all jacked up and I needed to get the bracket out.
I went online and researched some quick pricing, knowing that I wasn’t going to spend long on making a decision – mostly being that I’ve always wanted a nice DeWalt cordless drill. I already have a small 9v Makita that I affectionately call my “Misquita” since it’s so small. I needed something bigger for the task at hand. You know how tools work – bigger, better, faster, more. The American way.
I pretty much figure out that Home Depot had the best price on them for some place that I could run down and pick one up. No eBay, no mail order, etc. I also figured, that if I was going to go to Home Depot I might as well pick up a few other items. I thought about a new chain saw, but figured I could hold off on that one. However, I did think that a shade / screen of some type for my back porch would be nice as the plants out there are dying from the little bit of direct sunlight they are getting – hey! When it’s 105 outside you try sitting in the direct sunlight for three hours or so every day and see how you fare.
I also wanted to get some air filters and perhaps a new ceiling fan for the same back porch. Mine hasn’t worked in years and it’s something I miss. I figured if I was going to get a new fan, I better see how it’s mounted so I’d know if I needed a new mount kit, brackets, etc.
I went out on the back porch and proceded to drop the decorative “cup” that hides the mounting and wires. No biggie. Then I realized that the mount is pretty much a ball-and-socket type mount that is free-hanging. I just had to undo the wires that had it all wired up. So I did that and removed the fan. It was kind of dirty.
About two hours later I had the entire fan disassembled. And I do mean the entire fan, all the way down to the bearings in the spindle. Dirt dobbers had gotten up in there and formed a solid layer of dirt that had fused the spindle to the shell. I had it scrubbed, washed, cleaned, lubricated and then re-assembled it. It works like a champ, now.
…but I still didn’t have a new drill to get the rivets out.
Tuesday, July 07, 2009
Saturday, July 04, 2009
Happy 233!!
Happy Birthday America!!
Another one down, and hopefully many many more to go. May everyone enjoy their 4th of July weekend, even if it is hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of your car.
Be safe out there, relax, and be thankful that we live in a country as wonderful as ours.
Another one down, and hopefully many many more to go. May everyone enjoy their 4th of July weekend, even if it is hot enough to fry an egg on the hood of your car.
Be safe out there, relax, and be thankful that we live in a country as wonderful as ours.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Mandatory Reading
About a week or so ago I finished reading a book entitled The Dirty Dozen by Robert A. Levy and William Mellor. The byline: How Twelve Supreme Court Cases Radically Expanded Government and Eroded Freedom.
I’m a bit of a libertarian and a constructionist so this book was right up my alley. I loved it. One of the things I’ve never quite understood is how our government and our society has ended up where it is if the Constitution of the United States was written specifically to prohibit some of the things our government is doing.
The book examines twelve critical U.S. Supreme Court cases and explains how the decisions that came down from these cases had far reaching and, in my opinion, detrimental impact to the Constitution. More importantly, though, it explains how we have arrived where we are in terms of our government and society.
The authors are clearly libertarians and this is fairly evident as your read the book. Let that be a warning to you if you are a liberal pussy or right-wing wacko – you won’t like this book. There is an afterward in which they break down the main ideologies of how to read and interpret the U.S. Constitution. I think that this should have been just after the forward, prior to getting into reading the cases.
This book should practically be mandatory reading in any late high-school or college government course. That’s not to say I agreed with everything that the authors wrote. Again, it was an enlightening reading even if at times I was too exhausted to spend the mental energy to read it. The authors did a good job of breaking down things that we non-lawyers can understand, but it still gets a bit tedious in spots.
Supposedly there is another book out there called The_something_ Thirteen and is supposed to be a rebuttal to this book. I’d like to read it, too.
I’m a bit of a libertarian and a constructionist so this book was right up my alley. I loved it. One of the things I’ve never quite understood is how our government and our society has ended up where it is if the Constitution of the United States was written specifically to prohibit some of the things our government is doing.
The book examines twelve critical U.S. Supreme Court cases and explains how the decisions that came down from these cases had far reaching and, in my opinion, detrimental impact to the Constitution. More importantly, though, it explains how we have arrived where we are in terms of our government and society.
The authors are clearly libertarians and this is fairly evident as your read the book. Let that be a warning to you if you are a liberal pussy or right-wing wacko – you won’t like this book. There is an afterward in which they break down the main ideologies of how to read and interpret the U.S. Constitution. I think that this should have been just after the forward, prior to getting into reading the cases.
This book should practically be mandatory reading in any late high-school or college government course. That’s not to say I agreed with everything that the authors wrote. Again, it was an enlightening reading even if at times I was too exhausted to spend the mental energy to read it. The authors did a good job of breaking down things that we non-lawyers can understand, but it still gets a bit tedious in spots.
Supposedly there is another book out there called The_something_ Thirteen and is supposed to be a rebuttal to this book. I’d like to read it, too.
Why I have no Faith in the System
Last week, The House of Representatives passed another democratic sponsored bill that would be the single, largest, tax-hike in our country’s history – and they didn’t even read it. This isn’t anything new. Obama and Pelosi have been cranking out legislation with unprecedented spending and nobody reading the bills since Obama took office. Don’t worry about what it says, and what it will do, just vote for it. Unfortunately, most of them do because they are party hacks.
As usual, despite all of Obama’s posturing and talking about bipartisanship the bill passed the house with virtually no Republican support at all. The bill is the famous carbon cap-and-trade scheme. The bill aims to reduce greenhouse emissions 83% by 2050 even though there is virtually no scientific evidence that indicates this will have any effect on global warming. There is, however, strong evidence that suggests it will cost us a fortune in regulations, taxation, and additional expenditures.
As a small example, the bill has a provision in it that would require anyone selling a home to have an EPA study done of the home to see if it abides by government mandated standards for energy efficiency. Think about that one for a moment. The guidelines are not yet specified in the bill, but they want homeowners to have to call out the EPA to survey the house and see if it meets the code. Can you imagine what the code will be? And if you don’t meet it? Expect to spend another $20k or more fixing your house up. I’d bet over 90% of the homes won’t meet the guidelines. There goes the housing market and your dream of upgrading to a new home, not to mention the codes and regulations driving up the costs of new homes to astronomical proportions.
And what about Obama’s promise to be the most open and transparent administration ever? Well, while he and Pelosi were shoving the bill down our throats and telling people we had to have it NOW (remind you of another recent bill?) they were simultaneously suppressing reports from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other groups that provided observations and evidence that the information the AGWs alarmists are using to dictate policy aren’t viable. But the Obama administration doesn’t want anyone to know about these so they suppressed them.
And the icing on the cake?
There have been numerous reports of switchboards being flooded by concerned citizens about this bill and what it can do to our economy. As Rep. Chales Gonzalez, D-Texas said “I can’t begin to tell you how many calls we’ve received and it’s disproportionately vote “’no.’”
Yet, Gonzalez voted “yes” anyway.
This entire scenario is, to me, the epitome of how fucked up our system is. You have politicians making law that the public doesn’t want, hiding the truth from the public while telling people that it’s absolutely necessary, it’s based on junk science, and it’s completely partisian. Yet, the politicians do whatever they want anyway based on some personal agenda ignoring their constituents. Why bother?
As usual, despite all of Obama’s posturing and talking about bipartisanship the bill passed the house with virtually no Republican support at all. The bill is the famous carbon cap-and-trade scheme. The bill aims to reduce greenhouse emissions 83% by 2050 even though there is virtually no scientific evidence that indicates this will have any effect on global warming. There is, however, strong evidence that suggests it will cost us a fortune in regulations, taxation, and additional expenditures.
As a small example, the bill has a provision in it that would require anyone selling a home to have an EPA study done of the home to see if it abides by government mandated standards for energy efficiency. Think about that one for a moment. The guidelines are not yet specified in the bill, but they want homeowners to have to call out the EPA to survey the house and see if it meets the code. Can you imagine what the code will be? And if you don’t meet it? Expect to spend another $20k or more fixing your house up. I’d bet over 90% of the homes won’t meet the guidelines. There goes the housing market and your dream of upgrading to a new home, not to mention the codes and regulations driving up the costs of new homes to astronomical proportions.
And what about Obama’s promise to be the most open and transparent administration ever? Well, while he and Pelosi were shoving the bill down our throats and telling people we had to have it NOW (remind you of another recent bill?) they were simultaneously suppressing reports from the Competitive Enterprise Institute and other groups that provided observations and evidence that the information the AGWs alarmists are using to dictate policy aren’t viable. But the Obama administration doesn’t want anyone to know about these so they suppressed them.
And the icing on the cake?
There have been numerous reports of switchboards being flooded by concerned citizens about this bill and what it can do to our economy. As Rep. Chales Gonzalez, D-Texas said “I can’t begin to tell you how many calls we’ve received and it’s disproportionately vote “’no.’”
Yet, Gonzalez voted “yes” anyway.
This entire scenario is, to me, the epitome of how fucked up our system is. You have politicians making law that the public doesn’t want, hiding the truth from the public while telling people that it’s absolutely necessary, it’s based on junk science, and it’s completely partisian. Yet, the politicians do whatever they want anyway based on some personal agenda ignoring their constituents. Why bother?
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
New Television
I got my new TV in. It’s a Panasonic TC-P54V10. I’m pretty stoked about it. The guy showed up to deliver it and I asked if he would mind hanging around long enough for me to inspect it. Some places are real picky about this. If you sign for it without inspecting it, it’s yours. If you have problems they refer you to the manufacturer for warranty repair work. The guy not only hung around, but helped me take it out of the box, put it on its stand, and get it plugged in long enough to make sure it turned on.
After that, I left the entire mess of packing materials and the TV sitting on the floor while I got back to work and wrapped up a few things. Later in the day, I moved the old TV out of the way and cleaned up a bit to make room for the new one.
Since I had the old TV out of the way I checked out the jacks behind the TV. I remembered dropping a CAT5 cable, but couldn’t remember if we had put an RJ-45 (network) or RJ-45 (phone only) jack in. Turns out it was the latter so I was going to have to put a new jack in. No problem as this is right up my alley even though I hadn’t done cabling work in a while.
While I was there I decided to replace the face-plate on the wall which had also cracked. I went to go check out my jacks and supply box in the attic. This is where things went terribly wrong. My attic access is a one of those nifty pull-down thingies with a ladder attached to it. Well, when I was pulling it down one entire side of the ladder hinge decided it had enough abuse of the years and let go popping out of it’s pivot cup and breaking loose from the spring and a few other things.
Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt and nothing else was severely damaged such as the trim and what-not. Unfortunately, the ladder piece is severely jacked and I don’t think it’s fixable…which means a complete replacement. My neighbor, Budda, thinks he can fix it but he hasn’t seen it, yet. I’ll certainly give him the opportunity as the project is a little more in-depth than I personally care to deal with.
No worries, let me run down to the hardware store and see what my options are. I picked up a new face plate while I was there and a couple of spare jacks “just in case.” I didn’t want to have to come back.
I get home and re-wire the phone jack to make it a network jack. No luck, it doesn’t work. Shit. Now I have to go up into the attic to see why. Did I mention it’s over 100 now in the great state of Texas, which makes the attic temperature somewhere around 120~130 degrees Fahrenheit? And now, I have to go up in the garage which is nowhere near where I need to be.
*sigh* tools in the bag, up I go. I have to work my way along and through some rafters to get to where the other part of the attic is decked in. It’s hotter than hell up there and I am already sweating like a pig. Great, I’ve been up here two minutes and already lost half of my body fluids.
I make my way over to where the cable comes up into the attic and discover some fuck-tard had decided to cut my cable and do it “their” way. My guess is that it was the DirecTV guy that installed the satellite years and years ago. In my attic, I have all of my CAT5 runs coming to a patch panel for quick and easy cross-connect. I also have a 110 block sitting there with the phone wires. This is REAL common stuff in the IT world, but not real common for a house. So, this guy cut my cable, put a biscuit on the 2x4 and wired it in that way, and then wired that to a line that was already wired into the 110 block for phones. Moron. I was going to have to fix it and run a new cable.
Back to the hardware store. I picked up a few more jacks “just in case” and about 100ft of CAT5 cable. Back home, I pray to the gods and use electrical tape to bond the old wire (already in the wall) to the new one which is now uncoiled to make it easier to pull.
Back in the attic. I think it’s actually hotter, now. I get up there and begin pulling the old one out. Fortunately, the tape held and there wasn’t any extra stuff to hang the new wire up so I pulled out all the old wire until the new one came through. Then I ripped out all of the DirecTV fuck-tard’s crap and re-ran the cable through my wire-loops and everything the way it was supposed to be in the first place.
Now I am completely soaked in sweat, but my cable is now ran and just needs to be wired up. I’m sitting in the attic and I was too hot and tired to bother with hooking up an extra light. I can see, but not that great and I grab a spare jack to wire into my patch panel. My hands are slick with sweat and it’s dripping into my eyes and all over the place. How the hell do the A.C. guys work like this? I eventually get the wire stripped and punched down and everything all wrapped up and make my way across the attic, again, to climb down. You know it’s hot when you step into the 101-degree air and think that it feels cool.
I just polished off my second 32oz. container of Gatorade and head back inside to finish wiring the cable. I grab another jack and begin wiring it up when my punch-down tool decimates the jack. So much for cheap shit from Home Depot. Grab another jack and start over. No biggie, at least I am inside the AC, now. Get it all wired up, grab my laptop, plug it in…and….nothing. It doesn’t freaking work.
So I double-check everything I can down where it’s cool and no luck. It all looks correct. I must have made a mistake up in the attic. So now, for the third time I climb back into the attic, across the rafters, and sweat my balls off trying to figure out what is wrong. I grabbed a small flashlight this time and upon removal of the jack from the patch panel I realize I had put in a jack that was some jacked up IOS standard – not the AT&T 568A / 568B standard that you need in data networks.
Grab another jack, this time the right one, and re-wire the damned thing again with sweat dripping all over the place. It’s amazing I didn’t short something out. Climb back across the attic and outside into the “cool” air. This time, it worked.
Why do all that? Because the new TV has an Ethernet connection and can communicate over the Internet to do things like download firmware updates (which I did), sync the clock to an NTP service, watch on-demand movies from Amazon, get weather reports, watch YouTube, and check out other things.
I finally got everything cleaned up and moved an old coffee table in place to hold the TV. Hopper helped me set it up on the stand and I spend about 2 hours dicking with cables and stuff to get everything setup right. The good thing is that by now utilizing HDMI cables I was able to pull out a bunch of RGB cables and clean things up a bit.
I also tweaked the screen to some specs that were setup by CNET after conducting all of their tests (thanks CNET). Then it was on to re-programming my Harmony One remote to do everything I wanted it to with the new TV.
At the end of the day everything works beautifully. I’m not a hard-core videophile. I like it to look great, not perfect (I don’t have that kind of cash) and this TV fulfills my expectations and then some. The picture is far superior to anything I’ve seen before and I am not even using a blue-ray player, yet. I lost about 2-inches on the top and side by downsizing from a 55” to a 54”, but the form factor is the same as my old TV so it still fits nicely.
Now I just have to get a new stand and figure out how to hide some of the cabling.
After that, I left the entire mess of packing materials and the TV sitting on the floor while I got back to work and wrapped up a few things. Later in the day, I moved the old TV out of the way and cleaned up a bit to make room for the new one.
Since I had the old TV out of the way I checked out the jacks behind the TV. I remembered dropping a CAT5 cable, but couldn’t remember if we had put an RJ-45 (network) or RJ-45 (phone only) jack in. Turns out it was the latter so I was going to have to put a new jack in. No problem as this is right up my alley even though I hadn’t done cabling work in a while.
While I was there I decided to replace the face-plate on the wall which had also cracked. I went to go check out my jacks and supply box in the attic. This is where things went terribly wrong. My attic access is a one of those nifty pull-down thingies with a ladder attached to it. Well, when I was pulling it down one entire side of the ladder hinge decided it had enough abuse of the years and let go popping out of it’s pivot cup and breaking loose from the spring and a few other things.
Fortunately, I wasn’t hurt and nothing else was severely damaged such as the trim and what-not. Unfortunately, the ladder piece is severely jacked and I don’t think it’s fixable…which means a complete replacement. My neighbor, Budda, thinks he can fix it but he hasn’t seen it, yet. I’ll certainly give him the opportunity as the project is a little more in-depth than I personally care to deal with.
No worries, let me run down to the hardware store and see what my options are. I picked up a new face plate while I was there and a couple of spare jacks “just in case.” I didn’t want to have to come back.
I get home and re-wire the phone jack to make it a network jack. No luck, it doesn’t work. Shit. Now I have to go up into the attic to see why. Did I mention it’s over 100 now in the great state of Texas, which makes the attic temperature somewhere around 120~130 degrees Fahrenheit? And now, I have to go up in the garage which is nowhere near where I need to be.
*sigh* tools in the bag, up I go. I have to work my way along and through some rafters to get to where the other part of the attic is decked in. It’s hotter than hell up there and I am already sweating like a pig. Great, I’ve been up here two minutes and already lost half of my body fluids.
I make my way over to where the cable comes up into the attic and discover some fuck-tard had decided to cut my cable and do it “their” way. My guess is that it was the DirecTV guy that installed the satellite years and years ago. In my attic, I have all of my CAT5 runs coming to a patch panel for quick and easy cross-connect. I also have a 110 block sitting there with the phone wires. This is REAL common stuff in the IT world, but not real common for a house. So, this guy cut my cable, put a biscuit on the 2x4 and wired it in that way, and then wired that to a line that was already wired into the 110 block for phones. Moron. I was going to have to fix it and run a new cable.
Back to the hardware store. I picked up a few more jacks “just in case” and about 100ft of CAT5 cable. Back home, I pray to the gods and use electrical tape to bond the old wire (already in the wall) to the new one which is now uncoiled to make it easier to pull.
Back in the attic. I think it’s actually hotter, now. I get up there and begin pulling the old one out. Fortunately, the tape held and there wasn’t any extra stuff to hang the new wire up so I pulled out all the old wire until the new one came through. Then I ripped out all of the DirecTV fuck-tard’s crap and re-ran the cable through my wire-loops and everything the way it was supposed to be in the first place.
Now I am completely soaked in sweat, but my cable is now ran and just needs to be wired up. I’m sitting in the attic and I was too hot and tired to bother with hooking up an extra light. I can see, but not that great and I grab a spare jack to wire into my patch panel. My hands are slick with sweat and it’s dripping into my eyes and all over the place. How the hell do the A.C. guys work like this? I eventually get the wire stripped and punched down and everything all wrapped up and make my way across the attic, again, to climb down. You know it’s hot when you step into the 101-degree air and think that it feels cool.
I just polished off my second 32oz. container of Gatorade and head back inside to finish wiring the cable. I grab another jack and begin wiring it up when my punch-down tool decimates the jack. So much for cheap shit from Home Depot. Grab another jack and start over. No biggie, at least I am inside the AC, now. Get it all wired up, grab my laptop, plug it in…and….nothing. It doesn’t freaking work.
So I double-check everything I can down where it’s cool and no luck. It all looks correct. I must have made a mistake up in the attic. So now, for the third time I climb back into the attic, across the rafters, and sweat my balls off trying to figure out what is wrong. I grabbed a small flashlight this time and upon removal of the jack from the patch panel I realize I had put in a jack that was some jacked up IOS standard – not the AT&T 568A / 568B standard that you need in data networks.
Grab another jack, this time the right one, and re-wire the damned thing again with sweat dripping all over the place. It’s amazing I didn’t short something out. Climb back across the attic and outside into the “cool” air. This time, it worked.
Why do all that? Because the new TV has an Ethernet connection and can communicate over the Internet to do things like download firmware updates (which I did), sync the clock to an NTP service, watch on-demand movies from Amazon, get weather reports, watch YouTube, and check out other things.
I finally got everything cleaned up and moved an old coffee table in place to hold the TV. Hopper helped me set it up on the stand and I spend about 2 hours dicking with cables and stuff to get everything setup right. The good thing is that by now utilizing HDMI cables I was able to pull out a bunch of RGB cables and clean things up a bit.
I also tweaked the screen to some specs that were setup by CNET after conducting all of their tests (thanks CNET). Then it was on to re-programming my Harmony One remote to do everything I wanted it to with the new TV.
At the end of the day everything works beautifully. I’m not a hard-core videophile. I like it to look great, not perfect (I don’t have that kind of cash) and this TV fulfills my expectations and then some. The picture is far superior to anything I’ve seen before and I am not even using a blue-ray player, yet. I lost about 2-inches on the top and side by downsizing from a 55” to a 54”, but the form factor is the same as my old TV so it still fits nicely.
Now I just have to get a new stand and figure out how to hide some of the cabling.
Off The Hook Bar
A couple of weeks back GrassHopper invited me to go check out a bar in Fort Worth that is supposed to be one of the best live music bars in the area. It’s called The Keys Lounge and is a blues bar.
We got over there a tad early and since we weren’t quite sure what to expect we grabbed a table towards the back. Hopper had heard it was open mike night and was hoping to get a chance to play with the band a little bit.
We talked to the waitress some and found out that it was, in fact, open mike night and she’d see what she could do to get him on stage at some point. We also learned that the owners of the bar have successful business ventures and opened the joint so that they would have a place to jam on a regular basis.
The bar itself wasn’t that much to talk about. The stage was off to the side, with a dance floor in the middle and seating areas on three sides with the bar on the fourth side. Kind of your typical blues bar that was almost, but not quite, a dive.
But that’s about where anything resembling “normal” came to a screeching halt. We started realizing it wasn’t going to be a typical night when the waitress couldn’t seem to remember our drink orders. As Hopper pointed out, she was a great waitress provided that you didn’t care what you were drinking. No matter what beers he or his date ordered she kind of brought whatever she wanted. I think they drank about six kinds of beer between them even though they ordered the same thing every time. I had Jack and Cokes that always seem to come out right.
Since we had gotten there a tad early there weren’t that many people, but we kind of noticed that most of the crowd was older. How much older? Umm….late 50’s, 60’s and probably even a few 70’s in there. We were the youngest folks, but didn’t think much of it because it was so early.
As the band started setting up more and more people started showing up. Mind you, this was a Thursday night and we could tell it was about to get busy….but not with a bunch of young, rowdy college kids. Nope, the age bracket wasn’t changing…there were just more of them. Before too long the place was packed, and I mean PACKED with old people. Some even had their walkers and canes ‘n shit. We were guessing if more men, or more women, had their hair dyed. It was really bizarre.
But these folks weren’t just “sitting around!!” they were getting out there on the dance floor and letting lose. At one point, I couldn’t see the band through the throng of people dancing. We figured there might have been about three other people in the place that were even close to our age. It was really strange.
One guy had on a somewhat traditional Western shirt. It had the god-awful brown patches on the back and sleeves, with pearl buttons. But the fabric wasn’t white or black, no my friends, it was leopard spotted. I kid you not. And this guy had to be at least 65. Not only was he a strange individual with his dyed hair, pressed Levis, and leopard western shirt he was dancing with chick after chick on the floor. He was having a great time and the ladies were eating it up.
I think we also saw the inventor of the mullet, and one of the guys from Whitesnake, though about 30 years and 30lbs heavier. There was also this one dood there that had a huge mullet. He got on stage and sang a few song. Hopper and I kept expecting the guy to turn around so a little Quasimodo guy could part the back of his hair and bust out on the mike.
The band was pretty damned good – mostly older traditional R&B. Though it was open-mike the guest list was pretty short and the band and the guests clearly knew each other and all of the material. It was simply too tight for them to be playing any other way. One old black guy looked like he came straight out of the Chicago blues bars from 1940. He had on his cream colored suit, a white shirt, black tie, and a small fedora, with tortoise shell sunglasses on. He sang about three or four songs and the guy was pretty good.
The more the evening wore on, the more we were amazed at the crowd, the band, and the bar in general. Hopper finally got his chance to jam towards the end of the night and he was pretty loose as he’d had a few beers in ‘em. After he was done we went to tab out and though we’d been there for about four hours drinking steady our tab was only $35. Not bad for a night out.
I’m going to have to go back, but next time I am taking my camera…..
We got over there a tad early and since we weren’t quite sure what to expect we grabbed a table towards the back. Hopper had heard it was open mike night and was hoping to get a chance to play with the band a little bit.
We talked to the waitress some and found out that it was, in fact, open mike night and she’d see what she could do to get him on stage at some point. We also learned that the owners of the bar have successful business ventures and opened the joint so that they would have a place to jam on a regular basis.
The bar itself wasn’t that much to talk about. The stage was off to the side, with a dance floor in the middle and seating areas on three sides with the bar on the fourth side. Kind of your typical blues bar that was almost, but not quite, a dive.
But that’s about where anything resembling “normal” came to a screeching halt. We started realizing it wasn’t going to be a typical night when the waitress couldn’t seem to remember our drink orders. As Hopper pointed out, she was a great waitress provided that you didn’t care what you were drinking. No matter what beers he or his date ordered she kind of brought whatever she wanted. I think they drank about six kinds of beer between them even though they ordered the same thing every time. I had Jack and Cokes that always seem to come out right.
Since we had gotten there a tad early there weren’t that many people, but we kind of noticed that most of the crowd was older. How much older? Umm….late 50’s, 60’s and probably even a few 70’s in there. We were the youngest folks, but didn’t think much of it because it was so early.
As the band started setting up more and more people started showing up. Mind you, this was a Thursday night and we could tell it was about to get busy….but not with a bunch of young, rowdy college kids. Nope, the age bracket wasn’t changing…there were just more of them. Before too long the place was packed, and I mean PACKED with old people. Some even had their walkers and canes ‘n shit. We were guessing if more men, or more women, had their hair dyed. It was really bizarre.
But these folks weren’t just “sitting around!!” they were getting out there on the dance floor and letting lose. At one point, I couldn’t see the band through the throng of people dancing. We figured there might have been about three other people in the place that were even close to our age. It was really strange.
One guy had on a somewhat traditional Western shirt. It had the god-awful brown patches on the back and sleeves, with pearl buttons. But the fabric wasn’t white or black, no my friends, it was leopard spotted. I kid you not. And this guy had to be at least 65. Not only was he a strange individual with his dyed hair, pressed Levis, and leopard western shirt he was dancing with chick after chick on the floor. He was having a great time and the ladies were eating it up.
I think we also saw the inventor of the mullet, and one of the guys from Whitesnake, though about 30 years and 30lbs heavier. There was also this one dood there that had a huge mullet. He got on stage and sang a few song. Hopper and I kept expecting the guy to turn around so a little Quasimodo guy could part the back of his hair and bust out on the mike.
The band was pretty damned good – mostly older traditional R&B. Though it was open-mike the guest list was pretty short and the band and the guests clearly knew each other and all of the material. It was simply too tight for them to be playing any other way. One old black guy looked like he came straight out of the Chicago blues bars from 1940. He had on his cream colored suit, a white shirt, black tie, and a small fedora, with tortoise shell sunglasses on. He sang about three or four songs and the guy was pretty good.
The more the evening wore on, the more we were amazed at the crowd, the band, and the bar in general. Hopper finally got his chance to jam towards the end of the night and he was pretty loose as he’d had a few beers in ‘em. After he was done we went to tab out and though we’d been there for about four hours drinking steady our tab was only $35. Not bad for a night out.
I’m going to have to go back, but next time I am taking my camera…..
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Really Busy Lately
Nothing more than the usual I guess. I get busy and I’m so wrapped up in writing other things that I tend to neglect the blog.
Quickies:
Working a Lot
The main thing is that I’ve been working my balls off on an RFP for that power company. They need someone to step in and replace their entire infrastructure. Problem? Well, they dicked around for a few months to release the RFP and now they are giving everyone until the end of August to get the work done. This is a LOT of work and it’s very tedious so that isn’t much time. To me? I’d normally give this a 6mos time-frame or more. Not 8 weeks. So we had to figure out how to do it and how to get a response in. We got our response in for the first RFP, but now we also have to get one in for the second RFP. I’ll try to update more, when I actually feel like writing.
Friend’s Doing OK
Had a big cook-out party about two weekends ago. Surprisingly, not nearly as many people showed up as we anticipated. My neighbor and I cooked all day. Around lunchtime we pulled of sausages, and he did home-made hot wings in his fryer. We nibbled a bit all-day long, but around dinner time we pulled off:
A salmon
Three racks of ribs
A brisket
A Jack ‘n Dr. Pepper chicken
Of course, there were sides and stuff and everyone scarfed down some good groceries. But we weren’t done, because we also pulled off:
10 more racks of ribs
Three more briskets
8 chicken ½’s.
We had way too much food and not enough people. Our new neighbors were there and I think they had a good time. I also got to see a lot of my friends I don’t see on a daily basis. One, in particular, I hadn’t seen in over ten years. He told us he had fought cancer, and was currently in remission. He’s doing good, with a successful career, a wife and a couple of kids. Living the life, so to speak. It was really good to see him and find out that he was doing well. I like to see my friends doing well.
Great Aunt Turns 90
Yup!! Not much to say there other than she made it to 90 and seems to be doing just fine. Still feisty, too!
Hopper to Be Deployed
My friend and current room-mate is being deployed. I am still not sure if he knows where he is going, but it will probably be Iraq or Afghanistan. It could also be N. Korea as I understand we (the U.S.) is very uneasy about their latest shenanigans. In any event he seems eager to go, though a bit nervous – which is understandable.
Turns out they are deploying him without a flak vest. I had heard that the guys (and women) being deployed to Afghanistan were being shorted things such as flak vests and guns. But do you hear about this in the mainstream press and public? Nope, typical left-wing partisan Bush hating crap. People went ape-shit, and I STILL hear about how horrible Bush was sending guys into battle without the proper gear and now Obama is doing the same crap, but you don’t hear about it.
Obama
Man, I don’t even have anything to say. Go read my dad’s web site http://politicalangstinamerica.blogspot.com/
New TV
I hope you didn’t get caught in the digital transition. If you did, though, you might not have anyone to blame but yourself. You would think after a few years you could figure it out, but I realize most people wait until the last minute for everything so why not this?
In any event, I got a new TV. Not that I had to have one, I have Satellite (when it’s not suspended) and my friend had an older HDTV tuner that he had been letting me borrow for off-air stuff.
My old TV is a good TV, but it doesn’t have an HDTV tuner. It is, however, and HDTV. The old rear-projection type. It still works great, but I wanted a something a little more modern. That, and since I put my wood floors in the sub keeps knocking the mirrors out of alignment driving me nuts.
I was going to pick up a Panasonic TH-50PZ800U, but I never saw the prices get to quite where I wanted them to get to (about $1600 ~ $1700). Then, Panasonic started announcing their new line of TV’s so I waited. They then introduced the TC-P54G10, and it got excellent reviews so I was stoked, but wait – there is more. While waiting for that one to come out I started hearing bout the TC-P54V10. It has a few more features and tweaks than the G10 did so I kept waiting to see how the reviews were.
Well, it just became openly available and the reviews are excellent. Most notably were the ones that said “best HDTV set tested in the last year” etc….. So that synched it, only it was way more than I wanted to pay. List price is $3550, with most of ‘em going for about $2600 across the board.
Then I was surfing last night and for kicks did a Google for it. Found it on sale for $1999.99 – no tax and free shipping! Really? So I checked out the web site, got an above average consumer rating and placed the order. Now I just have to wait for it to come in, but I’m very excited about it.
Quickies:
Working a Lot
The main thing is that I’ve been working my balls off on an RFP for that power company. They need someone to step in and replace their entire infrastructure. Problem? Well, they dicked around for a few months to release the RFP and now they are giving everyone until the end of August to get the work done. This is a LOT of work and it’s very tedious so that isn’t much time. To me? I’d normally give this a 6mos time-frame or more. Not 8 weeks. So we had to figure out how to do it and how to get a response in. We got our response in for the first RFP, but now we also have to get one in for the second RFP. I’ll try to update more, when I actually feel like writing.
Friend’s Doing OK
Had a big cook-out party about two weekends ago. Surprisingly, not nearly as many people showed up as we anticipated. My neighbor and I cooked all day. Around lunchtime we pulled of sausages, and he did home-made hot wings in his fryer. We nibbled a bit all-day long, but around dinner time we pulled off:
A salmon
Three racks of ribs
A brisket
A Jack ‘n Dr. Pepper chicken
Of course, there were sides and stuff and everyone scarfed down some good groceries. But we weren’t done, because we also pulled off:
10 more racks of ribs
Three more briskets
8 chicken ½’s.
We had way too much food and not enough people. Our new neighbors were there and I think they had a good time. I also got to see a lot of my friends I don’t see on a daily basis. One, in particular, I hadn’t seen in over ten years. He told us he had fought cancer, and was currently in remission. He’s doing good, with a successful career, a wife and a couple of kids. Living the life, so to speak. It was really good to see him and find out that he was doing well. I like to see my friends doing well.
Great Aunt Turns 90
Yup!! Not much to say there other than she made it to 90 and seems to be doing just fine. Still feisty, too!
Hopper to Be Deployed
My friend and current room-mate is being deployed. I am still not sure if he knows where he is going, but it will probably be Iraq or Afghanistan. It could also be N. Korea as I understand we (the U.S.) is very uneasy about their latest shenanigans. In any event he seems eager to go, though a bit nervous – which is understandable.
Turns out they are deploying him without a flak vest. I had heard that the guys (and women) being deployed to Afghanistan were being shorted things such as flak vests and guns. But do you hear about this in the mainstream press and public? Nope, typical left-wing partisan Bush hating crap. People went ape-shit, and I STILL hear about how horrible Bush was sending guys into battle without the proper gear and now Obama is doing the same crap, but you don’t hear about it.
Obama
Man, I don’t even have anything to say. Go read my dad’s web site http://politicalangstinamerica.blogspot.com/
New TV
I hope you didn’t get caught in the digital transition. If you did, though, you might not have anyone to blame but yourself. You would think after a few years you could figure it out, but I realize most people wait until the last minute for everything so why not this?
In any event, I got a new TV. Not that I had to have one, I have Satellite (when it’s not suspended) and my friend had an older HDTV tuner that he had been letting me borrow for off-air stuff.
My old TV is a good TV, but it doesn’t have an HDTV tuner. It is, however, and HDTV. The old rear-projection type. It still works great, but I wanted a something a little more modern. That, and since I put my wood floors in the sub keeps knocking the mirrors out of alignment driving me nuts.
I was going to pick up a Panasonic TH-50PZ800U, but I never saw the prices get to quite where I wanted them to get to (about $1600 ~ $1700). Then, Panasonic started announcing their new line of TV’s so I waited. They then introduced the TC-P54G10, and it got excellent reviews so I was stoked, but wait – there is more. While waiting for that one to come out I started hearing bout the TC-P54V10. It has a few more features and tweaks than the G10 did so I kept waiting to see how the reviews were.
Well, it just became openly available and the reviews are excellent. Most notably were the ones that said “best HDTV set tested in the last year” etc….. So that synched it, only it was way more than I wanted to pay. List price is $3550, with most of ‘em going for about $2600 across the board.
Then I was surfing last night and for kicks did a Google for it. Found it on sale for $1999.99 – no tax and free shipping! Really? So I checked out the web site, got an above average consumer rating and placed the order. Now I just have to wait for it to come in, but I’m very excited about it.
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Why I watch hockey….
Or rather why I think soccer players are pussies:
I love soccer. I played it as a kid and really enjoyed it. It’s a great game and takes a tremendous amount of talent and athleticism to play the game. So why do I think the players are pussies? Just watch the clip below, this is not an unusual act of thespianism for a soccer player.
This is exactly why it’s hard for me to listen to Europeans proclaim how great soccer is.
Hockey players on the other hand…..
I love soccer. I played it as a kid and really enjoyed it. It’s a great game and takes a tremendous amount of talent and athleticism to play the game. So why do I think the players are pussies? Just watch the clip below, this is not an unusual act of thespianism for a soccer player.
This is exactly why it’s hard for me to listen to Europeans proclaim how great soccer is.
Hockey players on the other hand…..
Saturday, May 23, 2009
Twilight
If you really like a good Vampire movie do NOT rent this one. This has got to be one of the suckiest vampire movies of all time – even beating out Plan 9 From Outer Space. Why does this movie suck so bad?
Well, it got rave reviews and people said it was great. That was the first problem. I remember the first Batman movie remake by Tim Burton. Everyone said it was awesome. It was sold out for weeks on end. People I knew had seen it five and 10 times already. I was expecting a great film and went I went to see it I was highly disappointed (though Nicholson was incredible in it).
Twilight didn’t get quite as much hype, but it wasn’t too far behind either. Little did I know that the people that must have been reviewing the film were all 12-year old girls that didn’t know anything about vampires. Cuz vampires are real, right?
Ann Rice has probably developed the vampire as a character species more than any other author. Other authors have also had their twists on the classic vampire. As a general rule of thumb we accept a few basic facts: strong, fast, drinks blood, and above all CANNOT BE IN THE FUCKING SUNLIGHT.
Why is this so important? Because it means everything happens at night. When the time magic is high and things that are evil are the most powerful. Daylight is reserved for the good and nighttime is the antithesis of things that are good. This is part of the vampire persona.
But Twilight totally twists this around and makes the vampires completely immune to daylight. In Twilight the vampires try to avoid direct sunlight, not because they’ll die but because their skin gets all sparkly – like the stupid makeup crap that only strippers and 12 year old girls wear. Can you say gay?
The rest of the film is equally as poor in that it attempts to develop a relationship with a young high-school chick and vampire that has repeated high-school about a billion times because he is eternally 17. And the film is great at portraying all the high-school drama and crap that only 12-year old girls care about to you, the audience, who is glad to be fucking out of high-school because they couldn’t stand that crap to begin with.
And the guy vampire that is supposed to be hot and good looking? He’s gay. He’s weird looking, not good looking. He acts like he’s about to come out of the closet at any moment. You think that might be the big turning point in the film, when he comes out and tells the chick he’s really a gay vampire, because the film sure as hell isn’t really going anywhere else.
These vampires are “vegetarian” vampires – meaning they don’t eat humans – and so there is very little violence or action in the film.
Mostly the closet vampire lies in the grass and stares deeply into to the eyes of the high school chick that is his co-star. No wonder the chicks loved it. I wanted to puke. He doesn’t even kiss her but one time in the whole film.
Vampires are supposed to be erotic, attractive creatures. They use their charisma, charm, and strength to overcome the will of people. They are not sissies that lie in the grass and make no effort to bone a hot high-school chick – Except in twilight they apparently are.
And should I spoil the climax and ending for you? Why not. The climax was not the guy announcing that he was gay. Instead, the g/f gets attacked by another vampire, a real vampire (except for the sunlight crap) – one that sucks human blood and is malevolent. Rather than kill her immediately he bites her, which infects her, and toys with her giving the sissy vampires a chance to save her. And then, while she is lying their dying the gay vampire guy has to save her by sucking out the venom, but not draining her blood to the point he kills her.
She wakes up in the hospital and he tells her he must leave an go away at which point she breaks into the worst acting of the entire film and tells him that he can’t, that she needs him, etc. Classic-fucking-boo-hoo crap.
They go to the high-school prom and she tells him he wants her to bite her and make her a vampire too. Of course he declines and asks “isn’t it enough to be with me for one lifetime?” ACK!! Where is my barf-bag because I am going to get sick from all the cheese I am being fed.
And why doesn’t he turn her so she can be with him forever? Because at least he is smart enough to know that if you live for a thousand years, that 80 years really isn’t that long and he can get out there and go bone some cute guy as soon as she’s gone.
He should have killed her about two hours ago and they should have been hunting his ass down AT NIGHT like a proper vampire film instead of wasting my time by watching this atrocious film.
Well, it got rave reviews and people said it was great. That was the first problem. I remember the first Batman movie remake by Tim Burton. Everyone said it was awesome. It was sold out for weeks on end. People I knew had seen it five and 10 times already. I was expecting a great film and went I went to see it I was highly disappointed (though Nicholson was incredible in it).
Twilight didn’t get quite as much hype, but it wasn’t too far behind either. Little did I know that the people that must have been reviewing the film were all 12-year old girls that didn’t know anything about vampires. Cuz vampires are real, right?
Ann Rice has probably developed the vampire as a character species more than any other author. Other authors have also had their twists on the classic vampire. As a general rule of thumb we accept a few basic facts: strong, fast, drinks blood, and above all CANNOT BE IN THE FUCKING SUNLIGHT.
Why is this so important? Because it means everything happens at night. When the time magic is high and things that are evil are the most powerful. Daylight is reserved for the good and nighttime is the antithesis of things that are good. This is part of the vampire persona.
But Twilight totally twists this around and makes the vampires completely immune to daylight. In Twilight the vampires try to avoid direct sunlight, not because they’ll die but because their skin gets all sparkly – like the stupid makeup crap that only strippers and 12 year old girls wear. Can you say gay?
The rest of the film is equally as poor in that it attempts to develop a relationship with a young high-school chick and vampire that has repeated high-school about a billion times because he is eternally 17. And the film is great at portraying all the high-school drama and crap that only 12-year old girls care about to you, the audience, who is glad to be fucking out of high-school because they couldn’t stand that crap to begin with.
And the guy vampire that is supposed to be hot and good looking? He’s gay. He’s weird looking, not good looking. He acts like he’s about to come out of the closet at any moment. You think that might be the big turning point in the film, when he comes out and tells the chick he’s really a gay vampire, because the film sure as hell isn’t really going anywhere else.
These vampires are “vegetarian” vampires – meaning they don’t eat humans – and so there is very little violence or action in the film.
Mostly the closet vampire lies in the grass and stares deeply into to the eyes of the high school chick that is his co-star. No wonder the chicks loved it. I wanted to puke. He doesn’t even kiss her but one time in the whole film.
Vampires are supposed to be erotic, attractive creatures. They use their charisma, charm, and strength to overcome the will of people. They are not sissies that lie in the grass and make no effort to bone a hot high-school chick – Except in twilight they apparently are.
And should I spoil the climax and ending for you? Why not. The climax was not the guy announcing that he was gay. Instead, the g/f gets attacked by another vampire, a real vampire (except for the sunlight crap) – one that sucks human blood and is malevolent. Rather than kill her immediately he bites her, which infects her, and toys with her giving the sissy vampires a chance to save her. And then, while she is lying their dying the gay vampire guy has to save her by sucking out the venom, but not draining her blood to the point he kills her.
She wakes up in the hospital and he tells her he must leave an go away at which point she breaks into the worst acting of the entire film and tells him that he can’t, that she needs him, etc. Classic-fucking-boo-hoo crap.
They go to the high-school prom and she tells him he wants her to bite her and make her a vampire too. Of course he declines and asks “isn’t it enough to be with me for one lifetime?” ACK!! Where is my barf-bag because I am going to get sick from all the cheese I am being fed.
And why doesn’t he turn her so she can be with him forever? Because at least he is smart enough to know that if you live for a thousand years, that 80 years really isn’t that long and he can get out there and go bone some cute guy as soon as she’s gone.
He should have killed her about two hours ago and they should have been hunting his ass down AT NIGHT like a proper vampire film instead of wasting my time by watching this atrocious film.
Nuclear Dreams
I had a really bad dream the other morning. Note that I said morning and not night. Because I don’t sleep really well at night my best time to sleep is in the morning. I don’t dream often, and I usually don’t remember them but this one was a little different.
It started off fairly benignly. My and a friend were hanging out and were supposed to catch a flight to some place in the Caribbean. As dreams go, we missed the flight and ended up in some hotel. No real significance there. While in the hotel I was looking out the window and I could see the landscape – somewhere near a beach. I could make out the landscape, buildings, trees and water way off in the distance. Suddenly, there was an impact of some type, a bright flash, and then a big cloud. I thought we might be far enough to make it.
In my dream a sea of fire rushed across the landscape after the shock wave. I then knew I’d survived the shock wave, but didn’t know if we could escape the advancing fire. Again, it’s a dream so it doesn’t have to be based in much realism. Fortunately, we were in some funky concrete building and just on the edge of the advancing fire. But then I saw another impact, and flash of light.
Now I was trying to figure out why we were being attacked and again I was afraid we wouldn’t survive this one. I felt the shock wave, but the building stood. Things are getting worse. And as I stare off I see the next bomb coming in….watched it arc across the sky, and then I see it explode and the light is so blinding that I can’t see any more and am submerged into darkness. Now I know I am going to die and I have mere milliseconds to live. My mind is racing and I begin to feel the building shudder, then….
Nothing. Except I still have consciousness. Am I alive? Is this what it’s like to be dead? I can’t hear or see anything.
Slowly I begin to realize I am awake. But I didn’t jump up out of this dream like you usually do when you have a bad dream and wake up right before you die. I think that’s what was so freaky about it. Because I was apparently ½-awake already I really thought I was going to die, which is just slightly different from dreaming it outright. It’s very hard to explain but in this instance the lines between dreamland and reality were really blurred. Ever had a dream in which you incorporated real-world sounds and stimulus into your dream? If you can imagine that, and then try to picture how I dreamed that it would be close.
It started off fairly benignly. My and a friend were hanging out and were supposed to catch a flight to some place in the Caribbean. As dreams go, we missed the flight and ended up in some hotel. No real significance there. While in the hotel I was looking out the window and I could see the landscape – somewhere near a beach. I could make out the landscape, buildings, trees and water way off in the distance. Suddenly, there was an impact of some type, a bright flash, and then a big cloud. I thought we might be far enough to make it.
In my dream a sea of fire rushed across the landscape after the shock wave. I then knew I’d survived the shock wave, but didn’t know if we could escape the advancing fire. Again, it’s a dream so it doesn’t have to be based in much realism. Fortunately, we were in some funky concrete building and just on the edge of the advancing fire. But then I saw another impact, and flash of light.
Now I was trying to figure out why we were being attacked and again I was afraid we wouldn’t survive this one. I felt the shock wave, but the building stood. Things are getting worse. And as I stare off I see the next bomb coming in….watched it arc across the sky, and then I see it explode and the light is so blinding that I can’t see any more and am submerged into darkness. Now I know I am going to die and I have mere milliseconds to live. My mind is racing and I begin to feel the building shudder, then….
Nothing. Except I still have consciousness. Am I alive? Is this what it’s like to be dead? I can’t hear or see anything.
Slowly I begin to realize I am awake. But I didn’t jump up out of this dream like you usually do when you have a bad dream and wake up right before you die. I think that’s what was so freaky about it. Because I was apparently ½-awake already I really thought I was going to die, which is just slightly different from dreaming it outright. It’s very hard to explain but in this instance the lines between dreamland and reality were really blurred. Ever had a dream in which you incorporated real-world sounds and stimulus into your dream? If you can imagine that, and then try to picture how I dreamed that it would be close.
Tuesday, May 19, 2009
PhotoBucket Bullshit
I use photobucket for my blog pictures. I basically upload them into photobucket and then you see them in-line when the blog presents.
http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2009/04/no-trespassing.html
I never did figure out why they pulled this one.....
Sometimes, I really don't understand how they pick and chose what to remove from their site or what violates terms of use. Here are a few examples and the original blog posts that they were supposed to be attached to:
No nudity, but it's awfully suggestive. The best part? It's not a real person.....
http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2009/04/no-trespassing.html
I never did figure out why they pulled this one.....
http://invioletlight.blogspot.com/2007/01/i-was-censored-man-i-really-hate-that.html
and this one I almost understand about as much as the Real Doll chick. Again, though, there is no nudity in the picture..... I wouldn't post stuff like that!
Destroying Paper One Small Hole at a Time
My friend and I had some time yesterday so we went to the gun range to sight in my M4. It was a darned near perfect day. Mid-70’s, sunny, very mild breeze. Beautiful. So we grabbed the gun, a few hundred rounds of ammo, and a spotting scope.
Not many people were at the range, and those of us who were there were not in a particular hurry to do anything. We took our time setting up and waited until we could go down-range to put up a target.
It took us a while to get the gun sighted in. I had sighted it at about 75 feet, but due to the way a bullet rises and falls it was significantly off by the time we started shooting at 100 yards.
We finally got it, though, and ended up putting about 300 rounds through it before the day was up. Surprisingly enough, I am a tad sore in the shoulder today even though a .223 doesn’t have any kick. I guess it’s like a lot of things. Shoot it a few times and you don’t notice it. Shoot it a couple-hundred times and it’s noticeable.
Oh, and if you ever go to sight a gun in take a spotting scope. Not a pair of binoculars, but a scope. I had both and it made a huge difference when were trying to find out the gross impact area (binoculars) and the specific impact (scope).
When we got done, I was surprisingly relaxed and at peace. Hard to believe that firing a gun over and over again could do that. I think, though, that it wasn't the fact we were firing a gun so much as the repetition of the exercise. You have to be focused both mentally and physically to hit a target with a gun. You must be relaxed so that your body movement allows you to stabilize the gun to hit your target. You must breathe properly and you have to allow your mind to become clear and focused on the one thing you are trying to do – hit the target. Do that a few hundred times and it becomes a very peaceful experience.
BTW – if anyone is curious, or a gun nut, we were sighting in A2 style iron sights at 100 yards with groups at about 5” I don’t know if that is good or not, but my vision is not such that I can group much better than that.
A Word on Environmentalist
Here is a link to a speech given by Michael Crichton in San Francisco back in 2003. Crichton was one of my favorite authors, but fell out of favoritism with many people due to his unapologetically viewpoints and stance against fear mongering with regards to environmentalist and politically motivated zealots.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
Crichton, as an author, is able to verbalize his opinions in ways that I am not. I simply do not have that particular talent in a way that he does. He may not be able to mow the yard as eloquently as I can, either.
I’ve often felt that politics and religion are very similar and for the same primary reason that Crichton states – that facts become irrelevant and people believe what they want to believe. If you don’t believe me, find someone with opposing political views and try to convince them that your views are the correct ones. Make sure you back it up with facts, nto beliefs. It wont’ make a difference.
The same thing is true of environmentalist fear mongering and global warming. I’ve written about this before, but Crichton is far more compelling and articulate than I am.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speech-environmentalismaseligion.html
Crichton, as an author, is able to verbalize his opinions in ways that I am not. I simply do not have that particular talent in a way that he does. He may not be able to mow the yard as eloquently as I can, either.
I’ve often felt that politics and religion are very similar and for the same primary reason that Crichton states – that facts become irrelevant and people believe what they want to believe. If you don’t believe me, find someone with opposing political views and try to convince them that your views are the correct ones. Make sure you back it up with facts, nto beliefs. It wont’ make a difference.
The same thing is true of environmentalist fear mongering and global warming. I’ve written about this before, but Crichton is far more compelling and articulate than I am.
Annoying Sales Chick
Last week, I went to Dicks Sporting Goods and picked up a couple of collapsible camping chairs. They had the super cheapies on sale for about $6.00, but I tried them out and they were uncomfortable and pretty flimsy.
I ended up getting the fat-bastard camp chairs because they were comfy, roomy, and most importantly had a mesh area on both the back and bottom of the chair. Turns out they would hold up to 350lbs, and since they were roomy (i.e. big) that is why I call them the fat-bastard camp chairs.
In any case, I take them to the counter to checkout. The girl asks me if I have a reward card. “No” I tell her. I probably do, but I don’t carry those things around with me or on key chains like everyone else. I hate these things.
So she grabs a rewards card stack and says how she can just sign me up and shows me the cards. “Fine.” I tell her. She then grabs the forum to fill out and says she’ll just need my information. “Umm…that’s why I don’t want one of those. I don’t want to fill one of those out.”
“Oh…well it’s not a problem, if you’ll just show me your ID I’ll fill it out for you.”
So I flash my ID, but I clearly did not intend to take it out and give it to her. “I can get it off your credit card……”
“No, you can’t. That’s illegal.” SURPRISE!
“What?”
“yeah, that’s illegal. You can’t copy my personal information off the credit card onto any forms or pieces of paper.”
“oh. Well they just want to send you fliers and other coupons and information.”
“exactly. That’s why I don’t want to sign up for all that.” I get enough junk mail, don't you?
She finally gave up, but I have to hand it to her. She was very persistent!!! Her manger should give her a cookie for her effort.
Tuesday, May 12, 2009
The Price of Cheap Sex
Somehow, we were sitting around having one of our usual ADJECTIVE conversations and we started talking about the Real Doll. Now, if you have never seen or heard of a Real Doll, you should go check out the web site, but I’ve provided a couple of pics here just for your amusement.
The concept behind the Real Doll was to provide something more than just a blow-up doll. As you can tell from the pics they are pretty realistic looking. And I loved some of the marketing points. Here are three of my favorites:
Convenient – always ready and available
Relaxing and Comforting – provides stress-free companionship
Affordable – Cheaper than most alternatives
Convenient? Yeah, it’s a freaking doll. Of course it’s always ready and available. But I’m not sure it’s 100% convenient. These are life-sized dolls after all and weigh in at about 70 ~ 80 lbs. So, where you stash this when you aren’t getting your groove on could be problematic. Of course, you could keep it in the car and hit the toll roads without too much difficulty. Feeling spry? Pull over into a rest stop.
If you leave it lying around on the couch / bed, just be prepared to get a lot of strange responses and the occasional buddy that just couldn’t help himself and had to try it out. Umm…ewww.
Stress-free companionship? Yeah, I suppose if you are the type of person that never wants to have a conversation or interact with someone that has an opinion then it is certainly stress free. No more having to appease the other person. No more emotional breakdowns, whether they be freak-out tirades or all-night cry-a-thons. And no more happy moments other than your own sadistic perverted desires being fulfilled. That should go over just fine and you can become even more anti-social and withdrawn from society in your mom’s basement.
Affordable? These things run about $7,000. That’s fairly expensive, but far more affordable than a wedding, or expensive divorce. You also wouldn’t have to pay for movies, dinners, or any other fun things that real people do. So yeah, you might get off cheaper in the long run. Somewhere there is an ROI in here…..
But being the sick, twisted, heathens that we are we wanted to see if they could make a midget Asian for us. The shortest doll they had is 4’10, and while that just fits the Little People of America’s definition for a midget, it’s not short enough. So I sent them an inquiry….
Question:
I took a look around your web site and it certainly seems that you have a highly customizable product. However, I was interested in putting together a doll that had a definitive Asian face as well as a shorter body type.
It looks like the shortest body type you make is 4’10” and I’m really interested in a midget – something shorter than 4’6”. It also didn’t appear as if you have distinctly asian faces such as Vietnamese, Chinese, or Japanese. Can you put together a custom face?
Since these are custom modifications, can I get a rough idea of the budget I should put together for such a doll?
-- END OF SUBMISSION --
And their response:
Hello Calvin,
If you want a custom doll not based on any of our existing faces and bodies you're looking at a minimum of $50,000. Such a project would take at least eight months to complete, but probably longer. However, we have two distinctly Asian faces; number 9 (Mai) and number 13 (Kaori). I know Kaori is meant to be Japanese, and I believe Mai is Chinese.
Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.
Amanda
Abyss Creations LLC
Dood…. $50 grand?? Are you kidding me? I don’t know about you, but if you are really that hard up you could have a lot of sex for $50k. Heck, for $50k I can buy an Asian midget I don’t mean for the night, either. I mean permanently.
Monday, May 04, 2009
My Dreams
I don’t sleep very well. I never have. I’m not sure what type of sleep disorder I deal with, but I seem to have had it all my life. There is something called the circadian rhythm, which is the cycle an organism goes through in any given 24-hour period. It regulates when you are active and when you want to sleep.
In my case, if I were left to my own devices I’d stay up until about 2:00 or 3:00am every night and then get up around 10:00am in the morning. Only because of work do I alter this and force my body to do something it doesn’t want to do.
I don’t know if it’s because I interrupt my natural rhythm or because of something else but I have never been able to sleep very well. Because of that, I don’t dream very often or at least don’t dream to the extent at which I remember them.
But I do have some common re-occurring themes in my dreams:
Theme 1 – I can’t hurt people. No matter what the situation is I can’t hurt someone. Let’s say I am dreaming that I am fighting with someone. In that case I can hit them or pull their hair or whatever all I want and it doesn’t affect them. If I have a gun, the gun fails to fire correctly (as in the bullet barely travels out of the gun) or just magically doesn’t inflict any real damage to the person if it manages to fire.
Theme 2 – Ever seen those long overpasses used to interconnect highways? Well, in my dreams there is often one that goes from one highway to another and I have to traverse it in my vehicle (the actual vehicle is irrelevant). As you go up and onto the ramp and it starts to curve in the new direction of travel it also twists so that the asphalt surface becomes perpendicular to the ground as opposed to parallel to it. If you were to travel fast enough, you could stick to the surface and go around the ramp. This reminds me of playing with little cars and stuff as a kid. You’d build these things where the cars stick to the surface from the g-force. But in my dreams you can’t go fast enough and the whole car slides off the ramp and falls into space.
I never land, nor do I wake up in some kind of terror sweat. The dream just ends. It’s interesting that the girl I date has the same type of dream so I wonder if this is a common dream? Note that I am not afraid of these ramps in real life for any reason, including their height.
In my case, if I were left to my own devices I’d stay up until about 2:00 or 3:00am every night and then get up around 10:00am in the morning. Only because of work do I alter this and force my body to do something it doesn’t want to do.
I don’t know if it’s because I interrupt my natural rhythm or because of something else but I have never been able to sleep very well. Because of that, I don’t dream very often or at least don’t dream to the extent at which I remember them.
But I do have some common re-occurring themes in my dreams:
Theme 1 – I can’t hurt people. No matter what the situation is I can’t hurt someone. Let’s say I am dreaming that I am fighting with someone. In that case I can hit them or pull their hair or whatever all I want and it doesn’t affect them. If I have a gun, the gun fails to fire correctly (as in the bullet barely travels out of the gun) or just magically doesn’t inflict any real damage to the person if it manages to fire.
Theme 2 – Ever seen those long overpasses used to interconnect highways? Well, in my dreams there is often one that goes from one highway to another and I have to traverse it in my vehicle (the actual vehicle is irrelevant). As you go up and onto the ramp and it starts to curve in the new direction of travel it also twists so that the asphalt surface becomes perpendicular to the ground as opposed to parallel to it. If you were to travel fast enough, you could stick to the surface and go around the ramp. This reminds me of playing with little cars and stuff as a kid. You’d build these things where the cars stick to the surface from the g-force. But in my dreams you can’t go fast enough and the whole car slides off the ramp and falls into space.
I never land, nor do I wake up in some kind of terror sweat. The dream just ends. It’s interesting that the girl I date has the same type of dream so I wonder if this is a common dream? Note that I am not afraid of these ramps in real life for any reason, including their height.
Not Posting Much Lately
I haven’t been writing much lately. Oh…I’ve been here. I’ve had time. I just haven’t been motivated. I think the reason I haven’t been motivated is because I really don’t want to make this a political blog but with all of the crap the Obama administration is pulling it’s hard not to write about it all the time. I just don’t want to do it. I get sick of it. For example, did you know Obama tried to sneak a bill in that would force business owners that have more than three employees to unionize? How crazy is that?
But I got out and rode a bit this weekend. Last weekend the weather report called for rain and it never rained. I never rode because it was supposed to rain. This weekend it called for rain in the evening, but not during the day. I double-checked the radar and there was nothing on it and the reports were still calling for evening storms.
We took off and got out a good ways and got caught in the storms. So much for the weather report. I had my mesh jacket on and that doesn’t do anything to keep water off of you so I was soaked pretty much instantaneously. It was also cold. Great. And then it really started to come down and it got a little sketchy on the road. We had to slow way down and take it easy. About ½-way back, I was so soaked that the water finally trickled down into my jeans and I could feel my balls getting wet. Now I had wet balls. Ick. Nothing is worse than cold, wet balls while riding a bike.
But we made it back without any incidents and it’s a good thing we did because we were right ahead of the big storm cells. When they hit it got back. Heavy rain, hail, pretty much everything except a tornado, and there may have been one of those.
We sat out in the storms and had a bug boil that evening. Fortunately, my friend had large covered patios so nobody got too soaked....
Right to Carry
Yesterday I was at the gun show. Right now you can’t find the Bersa .380 Concealed Carry model. Nobody has ‘em because they can’t keep them in stock. Because of that I ended up picking up a new Kimber Ultra CDP II .45 for carry. Yes, I know…big gun, but it comes in a small package and compared to something like a .380 double-stack it is actually a little smaller and weighs about the same.
I got a pretty good deal because Bling! had the same gun and was looking to step up to the same model gun, but with a larger (5”) barrel. Because I was looking at buying the exact same one I ended up buying his off him for a couple hundred less than it was going for at the show. That also gave him enough cash to pick up the one he wanted. We both ended up happy, and since Bling! takes immaculate care of his guns I didn’t have any problems buying a used one off of him.
Of course, I can’t find bulk .45 target rounds because everybody is out. So while I was able to load it with some nice hydro shock ammo, it may be a while before I can get to the range and finish breaking the gun in and get used to it. I’ve shot the gun before, and it kicks quite a bit (due to its small size and being a .45).
But why carry at all?
About a year or so ago I decided to get my CHL (concealed handgun license). I had a few reasons for this, but there were three prevailing reasons:
1 – the writing was on the wall. The republicans couldn’t possibly hold any control over the white house in the upcoming election. It was likely that the house, senate, white house, and Supreme Court would soon be under democratic control and those democrats in powerful positions favor gun control. Better to get it while I could, before a law gets passed that makes it impossible to get one.
2 – While I didn’t carry my other guns too often I did take them in my truck from time to time if I was traveling. Though some of the laws had changed in Texas regarding this, I figured it would be a lot less hassle if I was legal to carry at all times rather than deal with esoteric loopholes and allowances in the law. This way, there was no question that I was legal to have it on me.
3 – it affords me an opportunity to protect myself, my family, and my friends at just about any and all times. Don’t get me wrong, that is a huge responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly.
But despite getting my CHL I wasn’t packing heat. This really wasn’t an issue but I had been thinking about it more and more. The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that I wasn’t exercising my rights appropriately. My g/f says that most people scream and bitch about their rights yet rarely exercise them responsibly. While I wouldn’t say that I was being irresponsible, I would say that I wasn’t exercising them.
Statistically speaking CHL owners that have a chance to draw their guns usually survive the encounter / situation. Perps are not so lucky. Those CHL owners that never drew, or were unable to draw, don’t always end up so lucky. Let’s face it, the truth of the matter is that in some situations someone will walk up to another person and shoot them point-blank without provocation. In those situations you don’t have a chance and it doesn’t matter if you are packing or not.
So my thought process was that here I am with the right to carry, the right to defend myself or others, the responsibility that goes with it and I wasn’t carrying. If I got into a bad situation and got shot or allowed someone else to get shot and I didn’t have my gun on me what does that say? You wouldn’t buy a refrigerator, car, or some other item and not use it would you?
Because of that I decided to start carrying on a more regular basis. I’m still figuring out exactly how I want to carry, where to carry, etc. But it’s a start. It’s a great responsibility and I hope and pray I never have to use it. However, if that situation arises I also hope that I’ll be able to make the right decision when the time comes.
I got a pretty good deal because Bling! had the same gun and was looking to step up to the same model gun, but with a larger (5”) barrel. Because I was looking at buying the exact same one I ended up buying his off him for a couple hundred less than it was going for at the show. That also gave him enough cash to pick up the one he wanted. We both ended up happy, and since Bling! takes immaculate care of his guns I didn’t have any problems buying a used one off of him.
Of course, I can’t find bulk .45 target rounds because everybody is out. So while I was able to load it with some nice hydro shock ammo, it may be a while before I can get to the range and finish breaking the gun in and get used to it. I’ve shot the gun before, and it kicks quite a bit (due to its small size and being a .45).
But why carry at all?
About a year or so ago I decided to get my CHL (concealed handgun license). I had a few reasons for this, but there were three prevailing reasons:
1 – the writing was on the wall. The republicans couldn’t possibly hold any control over the white house in the upcoming election. It was likely that the house, senate, white house, and Supreme Court would soon be under democratic control and those democrats in powerful positions favor gun control. Better to get it while I could, before a law gets passed that makes it impossible to get one.
2 – While I didn’t carry my other guns too often I did take them in my truck from time to time if I was traveling. Though some of the laws had changed in Texas regarding this, I figured it would be a lot less hassle if I was legal to carry at all times rather than deal with esoteric loopholes and allowances in the law. This way, there was no question that I was legal to have it on me.
3 – it affords me an opportunity to protect myself, my family, and my friends at just about any and all times. Don’t get me wrong, that is a huge responsibility and one that should not be taken lightly.
But despite getting my CHL I wasn’t packing heat. This really wasn’t an issue but I had been thinking about it more and more. The more I thought about it, the more it occurred to me that I wasn’t exercising my rights appropriately. My g/f says that most people scream and bitch about their rights yet rarely exercise them responsibly. While I wouldn’t say that I was being irresponsible, I would say that I wasn’t exercising them.
Statistically speaking CHL owners that have a chance to draw their guns usually survive the encounter / situation. Perps are not so lucky. Those CHL owners that never drew, or were unable to draw, don’t always end up so lucky. Let’s face it, the truth of the matter is that in some situations someone will walk up to another person and shoot them point-blank without provocation. In those situations you don’t have a chance and it doesn’t matter if you are packing or not.
So my thought process was that here I am with the right to carry, the right to defend myself or others, the responsibility that goes with it and I wasn’t carrying. If I got into a bad situation and got shot or allowed someone else to get shot and I didn’t have my gun on me what does that say? You wouldn’t buy a refrigerator, car, or some other item and not use it would you?
Because of that I decided to start carrying on a more regular basis. I’m still figuring out exactly how I want to carry, where to carry, etc. But it’s a start. It’s a great responsibility and I hope and pray I never have to use it. However, if that situation arises I also hope that I’ll be able to make the right decision when the time comes.
Gun Toting Wuss
Lately I’ve been carrying around a Kimber Ultra CDP II to see if I like the feel of it. It’s actually on loan to me from a friend….well, technically I bought it for $1 just in case something happened. Maybe I should sell it back for market value?
In any event, it’s a nice gun but I just can’t quite get used to having it in the small of my back when I am driving. It seems to really bother me when I am seated in a vehicle and forces me to have to twist my spine / hips out of alignment.
Unfortunately, the Bersa .380 pistols are not much smaller. So I may be in a situation that forces me to take it out / off when I ride in the truck. Not sure how that will work with other people’s vehicles.
I guess I am just a wuss, but I don’t see how everyone else drives around with one in the small of their back and that it doesn’t bother them.
In any event, it’s a nice gun but I just can’t quite get used to having it in the small of my back when I am driving. It seems to really bother me when I am seated in a vehicle and forces me to have to twist my spine / hips out of alignment.
Unfortunately, the Bersa .380 pistols are not much smaller. So I may be in a situation that forces me to take it out / off when I ride in the truck. Not sure how that will work with other people’s vehicles.
I guess I am just a wuss, but I don’t see how everyone else drives around with one in the small of their back and that it doesn’t bother them.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Tea Bagging
No, it’s not what you are thinking. Last week, on Tax Day thousands of people gathered across the country to hold a tea party. This tea party was symbolic of the first Boston Tea Party, but it wasn’t just about taxes.
You might not know that if you watched the news. The press coverage was astoundingly horrible. Liberal bias skewed the entire coverage and what little bit of a story there was. If you watched the news you might be inclined to believe it was a bunch of radical right-wing groups protesting income taxes.
The truth of the matter is that it was people from both sides of the fence – republicans and democrats. And the protest was not specifically about taxes, but the oppression and expansion of the federal government in just about every aspect of our lives. People that want to get back to a government by the people, for the people, that adheres to a unified standard. You know, there is this thing called the Constitution of the United States? Our government seems to have lost sight of this.
And the humorous headline on this post? That actually comes from CNN where they referred to the tea parties as “tea bagging” and the people as “tea baggers.” Of course they couldn’t say it with a straight face because they knew what they were saying. Disgusting.
You might not know that if you watched the news. The press coverage was astoundingly horrible. Liberal bias skewed the entire coverage and what little bit of a story there was. If you watched the news you might be inclined to believe it was a bunch of radical right-wing groups protesting income taxes.
The truth of the matter is that it was people from both sides of the fence – republicans and democrats. And the protest was not specifically about taxes, but the oppression and expansion of the federal government in just about every aspect of our lives. People that want to get back to a government by the people, for the people, that adheres to a unified standard. You know, there is this thing called the Constitution of the United States? Our government seems to have lost sight of this.
And the humorous headline on this post? That actually comes from CNN where they referred to the tea parties as “tea bagging” and the people as “tea baggers.” Of course they couldn’t say it with a straight face because they knew what they were saying. Disgusting.
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Happy Tax Day!!!
According to a book I just finished reading the first taxes were levied and recorded in human history. It does not indicate who thought this brilliant scheme up, but let me take this opportunity to call him or her a bastard.
Hope you got yours done....
Sunday, April 12, 2009
No Trespassing!
Well....photobucket apparently removed my image for use violation. I'm not sure how a picture of a sign in a field, with no harsh language, no nudity, etc., violated their usage but let me describe the sign...
It was a picture of a sign, posted to a fence post in some random field with haystacks behind it. The sign read "If you can read this you're in range."
I liked this sign. I felt it was pretty straightforward and to the point. After my nieces baptism we were eating lunch over at my sisters. Somehow the conversation turned towards medical shows and stuff of that nature. My father pointed out that statistically speaking people are more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a stabbing if they make it to the hospital. I pointed out that people obviously aren’t using the right caliber.
It was a picture of a sign, posted to a fence post in some random field with haystacks behind it. The sign read "If you can read this you're in range."
I liked this sign. I felt it was pretty straightforward and to the point. After my nieces baptism we were eating lunch over at my sisters. Somehow the conversation turned towards medical shows and stuff of that nature. My father pointed out that statistically speaking people are more likely to survive a gunshot wound than a stabbing if they make it to the hospital. I pointed out that people obviously aren’t using the right caliber.
Happy Easter!!
I went to church today. Not because it was Easter. Not because I felt compelled to attend church for spiritual reasons. No, I went because my niece got Baptized. I was afraid that I would be struck down by lightning upon entering the church, but I survived that without too much difficulty.
The church was huge. Apparently there are over 25,000 members of the church!! They have a bus schedule to get you to remote parking lots. And it certainly wasn’t like when I attended church. The seating was stadium style with section numbers and everything. How do you get the good seats? I guess you “pay” more for your ticket.
This was one of those churches where they have full bands, a video production, stage show with props, the whole nine-yards. It was odd to me that we couldn’t watch my niece get baptized directly. They wanted us in the theater so they could stick it up on the big screen and show us a pre-recorded testimonial before she got dunked. The dunking was live, but everything else was recorded.
Before the baptism they had a song, then a quick prayer. The baptism took all of about 10 minutes for several people to get baptized. Then they broke into song….and then another song…and people were holding their hands up to feel the power of Jesus and the collection plates were passing and I said “fuck this, I’m out.” I bailed. Then I realized that even in the atrium they had speakers and the show on the monitors. Then the guy starts preaching and even in the atrium I couldn’t take it. So I went and stood outside in the rain to get away. Some of the people that stayed told me that it got even more theatrical as it went on. Apparently, they had green berets guarding Jesus’ tomb and that was proof that he rose from the dead. I had never heard of this, but…umm…OK. Whatever it takes.
Now I love my niece and I am glad that I got to see her get baptized because it was very important to her. However, I didn’t really appreciate feeling like I was supposed to sit there for a 2 hour preaching session about how I needed to be saved. And my niece got a “do-over.” Apparently when they baptized her they screwed up the order and so our photographer wasn’t ready. They had to do it again after the preaching to get the good photos. I’ve never seen anyone have a mulligan on a baptism, but I don’t exactly attend a lot of baptisms.
The church was huge. Apparently there are over 25,000 members of the church!! They have a bus schedule to get you to remote parking lots. And it certainly wasn’t like when I attended church. The seating was stadium style with section numbers and everything. How do you get the good seats? I guess you “pay” more for your ticket.
This was one of those churches where they have full bands, a video production, stage show with props, the whole nine-yards. It was odd to me that we couldn’t watch my niece get baptized directly. They wanted us in the theater so they could stick it up on the big screen and show us a pre-recorded testimonial before she got dunked. The dunking was live, but everything else was recorded.
Before the baptism they had a song, then a quick prayer. The baptism took all of about 10 minutes for several people to get baptized. Then they broke into song….and then another song…and people were holding their hands up to feel the power of Jesus and the collection plates were passing and I said “fuck this, I’m out.” I bailed. Then I realized that even in the atrium they had speakers and the show on the monitors. Then the guy starts preaching and even in the atrium I couldn’t take it. So I went and stood outside in the rain to get away. Some of the people that stayed told me that it got even more theatrical as it went on. Apparently, they had green berets guarding Jesus’ tomb and that was proof that he rose from the dead. I had never heard of this, but…umm…OK. Whatever it takes.
Now I love my niece and I am glad that I got to see her get baptized because it was very important to her. However, I didn’t really appreciate feeling like I was supposed to sit there for a 2 hour preaching session about how I needed to be saved. And my niece got a “do-over.” Apparently when they baptized her they screwed up the order and so our photographer wasn’t ready. They had to do it again after the preaching to get the good photos. I’ve never seen anyone have a mulligan on a baptism, but I don’t exactly attend a lot of baptisms.
Friday, April 10, 2009
Off The West Coast of Africa
I have no idea why I am there....
it certainly doesn't feel like I am there.
it certainly doesn't feel like I am there.
Harley Davidson Seeking Bailout Cash
Harley Davidson, like most companies, is perusing bailout money. Yes, The Motor Company, has apparently fallen from grace with the financial gods.
For years now, I've thought HD made a significantly inferior product to the Japanese alternatives. In the last few years HD has made significant improvements in their technology and quality control. They had to. They were rapidly losing market share to superior motorcycles that cost less money. No doubt this had some impact on their current situation.
But what really gets me is that they pretty much did the same thing banks did. That is, target individuals with subprime loans on their grossly expensive motorcycles. HD reportedly had 30% of their loan portfolio in subprime loans. More than 5% of their loans were delinquent 30 days or more at the end of 2008. I have a friend that fell into this category.
This pisses me off. Once again we have a company that engages in poor business practices and now we may bail them out as well. Why do we keep doing this?
Recently, a friend of mine sent me an editorial comment based upon the latest round of trillion-dollar expenditures from the Obama administration. My response to him was as follows:
You know, [my friend]....I can't even keep up with all the spending and bail-outs anymore. I wasn't a huge McCain supporter, but I recall him saying that he would start cutting programs and that Obama would spend, spend, spend. Of course, McCain was pretty far off target because he only estimated a $1 Trillion dollar budget that Obama had in mind. We have already surpassed that and are heading for more.
It's interesting that people really liked to rail on Bush about the deficit and his spending. Did you know that when Bush left office the 2009 budget had a deficit of "only" $500 Billion? Even with the war in Iraq and the first bail-out and all that it was that low. So they railed on him at how much he spent. The big one was "Bush doubled the deficit in his eight years in office." Great. Obama tripled it in his first quarter.
I'm a pretty firm believer in capitalism and keeping the government out of the private enterprise. I do not believe that we should be bailing all these companies out. I really don't believe that we should be bailing them out and trying to take control over them and that's what part of all these stimulus bills are doing. I don't believe that we should be earmarking all this pork and continuing to run up the deficit that our grandkid’s grandkids will have to pay for. If anything, history showed us that if the government stayed out of it that we returned to prosperity in a short amount of time. The first great depression lingered because Truman got the government involved. The previous depressions recovered fairly quickly because the government didn't' get involved.
Even the individual states are filing cease-and-desist orders against the federal government to keep them out of states business. That's why so many states are turning down the money. They don't want the strings attached to it. The private companies and banks are doing the same thing. But the government is forcing it down their throats. Why? So they can have control of them. Our constitution was explicitly written to prevent this type of behavior and yet it's happening.
For a long time, people miss-used the term "fascist." The true definition of fascism is a government controlled private entity. I think that it’s what the Obama administration is trying to do. I think that the Democrats finally see their window of opportunity to turn us into a socialist state. I wouldn't go so far as to say communist, yet. But socialism is usually the first step to communism. Destroy the economy and make the people reliant on the government and you have an easy avenue for socialism. It's already happening. The government is in the process of federalizing banks, and private enterprise (fascism) and pushing more socialist programs through all this spending.
I also think that this spending is a slush fund for the DNC to continue to steamroll their war on republicans and capitalism. And further, it's quite obvious that at least some of this pork and the ludicrous things they are doing are to pay off Obama's buddies that helped get him into office. Just look at the presidential order to waive contract negotiations and mandate that all road construction go to unionized companies.
I'm not saying that I have the right answer. I'm not sure what that is, but I certainly believe that we should be treading lightly and not pushing these bills through. [my g/f] once said that if someone tells you they have the definitive, de-facto answer, that they probably are wrong and haven't examined the issue well enough. I tend to agree with that, but even she can't see that is exactly what the DNC and Obama have said, which makes me wonder.....
For years now, I've thought HD made a significantly inferior product to the Japanese alternatives. In the last few years HD has made significant improvements in their technology and quality control. They had to. They were rapidly losing market share to superior motorcycles that cost less money. No doubt this had some impact on their current situation.
But what really gets me is that they pretty much did the same thing banks did. That is, target individuals with subprime loans on their grossly expensive motorcycles. HD reportedly had 30% of their loan portfolio in subprime loans. More than 5% of their loans were delinquent 30 days or more at the end of 2008. I have a friend that fell into this category.
This pisses me off. Once again we have a company that engages in poor business practices and now we may bail them out as well. Why do we keep doing this?
Recently, a friend of mine sent me an editorial comment based upon the latest round of trillion-dollar expenditures from the Obama administration. My response to him was as follows:
You know, [my friend]....I can't even keep up with all the spending and bail-outs anymore. I wasn't a huge McCain supporter, but I recall him saying that he would start cutting programs and that Obama would spend, spend, spend. Of course, McCain was pretty far off target because he only estimated a $1 Trillion dollar budget that Obama had in mind. We have already surpassed that and are heading for more.
It's interesting that people really liked to rail on Bush about the deficit and his spending. Did you know that when Bush left office the 2009 budget had a deficit of "only" $500 Billion? Even with the war in Iraq and the first bail-out and all that it was that low. So they railed on him at how much he spent. The big one was "Bush doubled the deficit in his eight years in office." Great. Obama tripled it in his first quarter.
I'm a pretty firm believer in capitalism and keeping the government out of the private enterprise. I do not believe that we should be bailing all these companies out. I really don't believe that we should be bailing them out and trying to take control over them and that's what part of all these stimulus bills are doing. I don't believe that we should be earmarking all this pork and continuing to run up the deficit that our grandkid’s grandkids will have to pay for. If anything, history showed us that if the government stayed out of it that we returned to prosperity in a short amount of time. The first great depression lingered because Truman got the government involved. The previous depressions recovered fairly quickly because the government didn't' get involved.
Even the individual states are filing cease-and-desist orders against the federal government to keep them out of states business. That's why so many states are turning down the money. They don't want the strings attached to it. The private companies and banks are doing the same thing. But the government is forcing it down their throats. Why? So they can have control of them. Our constitution was explicitly written to prevent this type of behavior and yet it's happening.
For a long time, people miss-used the term "fascist." The true definition of fascism is a government controlled private entity. I think that it’s what the Obama administration is trying to do. I think that the Democrats finally see their window of opportunity to turn us into a socialist state. I wouldn't go so far as to say communist, yet. But socialism is usually the first step to communism. Destroy the economy and make the people reliant on the government and you have an easy avenue for socialism. It's already happening. The government is in the process of federalizing banks, and private enterprise (fascism) and pushing more socialist programs through all this spending.
I also think that this spending is a slush fund for the DNC to continue to steamroll their war on republicans and capitalism. And further, it's quite obvious that at least some of this pork and the ludicrous things they are doing are to pay off Obama's buddies that helped get him into office. Just look at the presidential order to waive contract negotiations and mandate that all road construction go to unionized companies.
I'm not saying that I have the right answer. I'm not sure what that is, but I certainly believe that we should be treading lightly and not pushing these bills through. [my g/f] once said that if someone tells you they have the definitive, de-facto answer, that they probably are wrong and haven't examined the issue well enough. I tend to agree with that, but even she can't see that is exactly what the DNC and Obama have said, which makes me wonder.....
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