Holy Cow, Is It Cold!

My part of Texas isn't supposed to get too cold: to us, a 20F low is ridiculously cold...not to mention rare.

Later this week, though, the weather's really going to suck. I really don't remember the last time we hit the teens as a high or a low, to be honest.

I'll be bundled up in every piece of warm clothing that I own because I don't have proper, arctic gear - unlike those of you who are sitting there thinking, "Teens for a low? That's IT? What a weenie." While I'm doing that, I'll also be waiting for somebody to bring up global warming...because that person's getting a shot right to the face for his or her stupidity.

Kanye West: Thug Trash in Nice Clothes

You can dress up a dog turd all you want, but it's still a dog turd. The same idea applies to Kanye "I have no class" West: dress him up in overpriced clothes all you want, but he's still a street thug. He's still common trash, without any ability or desire to act like a civilized human being.

First of all: Taylor Swift didn't have jack squat to do with Kanye West, or with the rap/hip-hop genre. This wasn't some ridiculous little rapper beef thing at all - not, of course, that I would condone acting like a complete jerk at an awards ceremony because one dude has a problem with someone else.

Secondly: Kanye's blogged apology does not mean diddly squat to me. I can do all sorts of rotten things to other people, say that I'm sorry, and not be truly remorseful. I can come to your house; poke your right eye; mutter "Sorry" and then poke your left eye. How sincere was my apology? Yeah, that's what I thought.

This is NOT Kanye's first incident of this sort, and it probably won't be his last. If he were truly repentant, he would not continue interrupting people, verbally trashing them, and otherwise acting like the gutter trash that he insists on being.

Thirdly: His music sucks anyway. If I wanted to listen to some jackass babble about how freaking awesome he is, I'll sign up for another class with Professor Self-absorbed. That would cost me more money, granted, but I wouldn't feel nearly as bad about myself if I did that - versus spending even ten cents on any of Kanye's egotistical drivel.

Of course...how seriously can you take a grown, allegedly-heterosexual dude who puts a friggin' teddy bear on his album covers?

---

Now that I've said all that, I'd like to add that Beyoncé Knowles showed real class after Kanye acted in his typical, trashy fashion. Even though I honestly could not give less of a crap about MTV, or their awards ceremonies, I'm glad that someone with such a kind heart and good attitude scored "Video of the Year."

Dear Fellow Smokers:

Being one of you, I’m the first to recognize our right to partake of ye olde coffin nails. Because we’re Americans, and therefore free citizens, we have the God-given right to poison ourselves over an agonizingly-long period of time (decades, usually), and at great personal expense. Why we do this is beyond me, but still: a right’s a right, even when it’s self destructive and just plain dumb.

However, I have a difficult time standing up for any of my fellow fag suckers when some of us do the most socially-retarded and inconsiderate crap.

The. World. Is. Not. Our. Ashtray.

If you want to put your cigarette butts on your car’s floorboard, or on your front lawn, go right ahead. If you want to throw them into your toilet, be my guest. Stick them up your nose for all I care. Your property, your rights, right?

However, don’t do stupid crap like, oh, throw the butt into the windshield-washer-fluid bin at the gas station. That’s just disgusting, to look into that bin and see hundreds and hundreds of soggy, gross-smelling bits of tobacco floating atop the scummy water…along with a bloated, brown filter. Do you really think that ANYONE wants to clean his or her windshield with that crap? Would YOU want to clean YOUR windshield with it? No and no. Use an ashtray.

Speaking of ashtrays: What in the world is wrong with the smokers who dump the whole thing out BESIDE the trash can? Are you insane? Are you the world’s biggest jerk? Or are you just too stupid to understand how to perform such complicated tasks as upturning your car’s ashtray over, instead of beside, the proper receptacle?

Finally, if you’re in a position that encourages you to bum cigs off other people, don’t be picky. Either accept my non-filter, all-natural cig or go buy your own. Quit giving me the cat-butt face when I generously offer to help you out…or quit mooching.

Sit Down, Shut Up, and Listen

If our politicians would follow that advice during these town-hall meetings, I think that most people, if not everyone, would get a chance to express their opinions – and we wouldn’t have nearly as much of the yelling and general discontent that’s running through these meeting places.

The hired help doesn’t want to listen to the boss, though. Instead, they’re telling us what’s best for us, and that we need to just let them do their jobs. The last time I checked, they work for us, so shouldn’t they be listening to us – not the other way around? I think so.

I suggest that we ALL make sure that we’re registered to vote – go ahead and take care of that right now if necessary – and be ready to vote to fire the worst offenders when the polling places open. If you try to tell your boss how to run the place, do you still have a job? No. Why, then, should our employees keep their gigs? They shouldn’t. Screw them – they’ve run the show long enough, and they’re blatantly disregarding their employers.

In the meantime, it would help if we all remembered that everyone else has the same First-amendment rights that we possess. We can’t shout down anyone at town-hall meetings. We can’t accuse others of hiring plants. We can’t do these things and NOT look like jackasses when we complain about similar, or identical, things being done to us in return.

Keep things as civil as possible until the voting booths open, folks.

VBS...over...finally...

Vacation Bible School is over! Yay! Our church is very small, and had only about a dozen kids every evening, but we’re all exhausted anyway. My feet are worn right out from standing in the kitchen every evening for a few hours straight, and I will be thrilled if I never see some of those bratty kids again.

We had Spoiled Brat, the nine-year-old who resorts to bawling when she doesn’t get her way. She threw fits throughout the week because the adults kept telling her “No” – and most of us made it stick. She wasn’t allowed to get into the dunking booth on Family Night because she’s too small. When she tried to get in after being told “No” more than once, by more than one adult, someone saw her and told her to get down. She was bawling before her feet touched the grass.

There was Jerk, the ten-year-old brat who went into the kitchen after I’d already closed down everything. He’d been given a sno-cone during his snack break, just like everyone else, but wanted another one. Having been told “No” already, he decided to sneak in. I caught him with the bag of ice out on the counter and a Sytrofoam cup in one hand.

Even if I didn’t care that he was trying to pull an end run on me, we were borrowing an industrial sno-cone machine. Those suckers, in case you don’t know, are pretty sweet. They have lots of sharp blades inside and a large, electric motor to turn them. Like I really want to hose Jerk’s blood and bits of finger and bone out of the sno-cone machine.

Most of the helpers had at least one run in with Monster from Hell, the ten-year-old boy who did everything he could to piss off everyone. He trash talked his age group’s leader. During prayers, he stepped on peoples’ feet and made faces at the adults. When he wasn’t busy doing these things, he was running around like a monkey on crack, finding small objects to put in his mouth. The adults finally had enough when he started putting brads – the metal bits that you use to put pieces of paper together if you want to, say, make a fake clock with movable hands to teach your child how to tell time – in his mouth. Like anyone at the church really wants to rush this monster to the emergency room for surgery.

None of this seems too bad, I know, but we all put up with it every night for a week straight. All of the bratty kids were pulling their stunts at once, too, which made it kind of difficult to keep an eye on everyone. All of the helpers had both hands full pretty much nonstop, and it gets tiring after the first evening or so.

But to be completely honest, I’m not annoyed at the kids so much as I am at their so-called parents. I’m not a mother, and have no desire to become one later. But I know many, many parents, and the ones who really love their kids take the time to teach them that “No” means “No.” The kids who are truly loved are taught to obey their parents, and to be respectful. They’re taught that they aren’t special enough to circumvent social courtesies like waiting their turn and throwing away their empty cups after snack time. Their parents really care about them, and this is evident by the fact that these adults spend so much time and effort teaching the kids how to be functional, welcomed members of society.

Then you have the parents who just don’t care enough about their kids to do much beyond yelling, or making threats that never stick. I saw a lot of these unloved kids all week long, and I feel a little sorry for them even though they did nothing but tick me off.

My sibs and I are blessed because Mom loved us so much when we were kids – and she still loves us. She spanked us when we disobeyed her. She took away things that we loved when we didn’t do what we knew was right. She told us that she loved us at least once every day, and she made sure that we all had everything that we needed. Mom did a lot of great things for us all, but I think that the best thing she did for me personally was to make her “No” stick almost every time.

Studio Set to Screw Up Another TV Show

Remember how I wrote, not too long ago, that "Futurama" is coming back? Yeah, that's exciting. That show was great, and I was very sad to see it go. Watching the reruns on Cartoon Network's "Adult Swim" block was fine at first, but you can see the old episodes only so many times before you get sick of them. That's why I haven't really tuned in to Comedy Central's broadcasts, seeing as they're the same old thing.

(Oh, and I'm not a huge fan of the movie-length episodes, for the most part. They're all right, but not really.)

Unfortunately, it appears that Twentieth Century Fox has put out a casting call for the new episodes. From what I can tell, it looks like all of the major voices are going to be replaced, probably with "soundalike" actors.

It appears that someone wants to save money by hiring new voice actors instead of paying our old, favorite folks what they're asking. If this is true, then it sucks. I understand having to stick to a budget and all that good stuff, but come ON. If it's possible to hire back the old voice actors, even at a higher pay rate than the new guys, then do it. "Futurama" could make a buttload of money almost overnight if everyone involved did things right. However, if they churn out a cheap imitation of the old favorite, they're going to either fail or come close to it.

Gotta Get Me Some O'them Stickers

Apparently, thanks to the Department of Homeland (in)Security's recent "ZOMG! Terrorists!" documents, which were released to law-enforcement agencies all over the United States, it's now cool to pull over a guy whose truck sports a Gadsden-flag bumper sticker, tell him that his choice of vehicle decoration is an extremist kind of thing, and hold him while you look into his background.

Gee...the last time I checked, the "Don't tread on me" flag was a symbol of America, much like Old Glory in her various incarnations. The last time I checked, terrorists don't exactly embrace the symbols of the nations they're trying to destroy...I mean, come on - when was the last time you saw Muhammad McBomberson wearing an American-flag tee shirt underneath his bomb vest?

I was also under the impression that all Americans still had our First-amendment rights to freedom of speech and of expression (among the other rights outlined in that particular Amendment).

Yeah...I'll be buying these bumper stickers by the case, just to prove a point.

I don't usually "do" tea, but...

April Fifteenth is going to be a busy day for the family. We’re going to be at one of the Tax Day Tea Parties that are going on in our part of Texas. Which one? I don’t quite know yet, because there are several to choose from. All I know is that most of us have already made plans to be there, because we’re sick of the runaway taxing and spending that’s been going on for too long.

I realize that protesting is usually reserved for granola-munching, tofu-defecating, tree-humping hippies, but there are times when peacefully assembling to petition the government makes the most sense. All of the Tea Party locations near me are at court houses, which would of course be logical places to protest the outrageous things that our government is doing even as I type this. This, I imagine, will be slightly more productive than assembling on a college campus to blow bubbles as a protest against the Iraq War. (This is exactly what a bunch of people at my college did. Really.)

Make plans to be at a Tea Party in your area, on Tax Day, if you’re sick of the taxing and spending. If you’re tired of working hard to support welfare bums, big government, and insane social programs with your tax dollars, be there. If you’re looking around and muttering, “This isn’t the change we were promised,” go.

I’ll have a trip report, possibly with pics, for you all after Tax Day. In the meantime, keep writing to your elected officials – our hired help - and letting them know exactly what they’re doing wrong.

Keyboards Piss Me Off (Ranting, Nostalgia)

I’m officially pissed off at keyboards in general right now, because it’s occurred to me that I’ve had to replace mine every 1.5 to 2 years. Writing, school, and work keep me typing for a few hours every day, if not longer. Around my house, I’m notorious for wearing out, breaking, and replacing keyboards, because the modern designs are not nearly as good as the ones that companies like IBM used to crank out.

Let’s see: I’ve been doing lots of typing since about age thirteen or fourteen. With only a few breaks (like when I joined the Army and, obviously, left home) I’ve been mostly responsible for several keyboards’ sad, sad deaths.

There were two early-generation Microsoft Ergo Boards that died. There were at least three cheap, ten-dollar keyboards somewhere in there that I flat wore out. I’ve gone through two of my own, ergonomic keyboards, including a fairly-rugged Belkin that actually held up for a little more than two years despite heavy usage.

Silk-screened letters wear off. Spacebars crap out. Whole sections of the keyboards just stop responding. Even when I routinely clean out these things, and even when I’m very careful to keep crap out of them – liquids, food crumbs, that sort of thing – they still wear out and break long before I think they should.

Right now, I’m using a Microsoft ergonomic model that I’ve had for several months. This thing is starting to piss me off, because the keys aren’t responding like they did when this first came out of the box. These stupid tactile-mat, “dome” ‘boards get that “mushy” feel after awhile, because they’re foreign-made, cheap pieces of garbage. The really-sad part is that I’ll pay ten, sixty, seventy dollars for these pieces of crap.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about the IBM “M” model keyboard that I got with an old IBM 286 PC when I was in my mid teens. Even back then, all of this was outdated equipment, but the computer got online and ran Microsoft Word just fine, which were my two main concerns. And the keyboard…oh, my goodness, the keyboard! It weighed several pounds because there was a solid-metal base to it, and the removable key caps were etched: IBM didn’t use silk screening, or stickers, to put the characters on the keys. Even when I pulled off the caps and dumped them in a bucket of soap and warm water, the letters stayed because they were etched.

I could take apart the ‘board, too, and give the plastic top a good scrubbing. Putting the thing back together didn’t take long, and I was good to go for another several months, if not longer, without any work on my part.

Oh…and mine had a coiled cable, much like old telephone cords. Sweet? You bet.

So, I’m on the lookout for another one, and hope that I find an old, dusty one for a few bucks. Otherwise, I’ll have to cough up sixty, eighty bucks at this site for a refurbished model. As much as I appreciate the fact that these people have done all the work for me…I’d really rather save my money and clean up the ‘board myself.

By the way: if I ruled the world, I’d have the rare, ergonomic version. Yes, they did exist. They’re very difficult to find, though, which is sad because that would be absolutely perfect as far as I’m concerned. If you just happen to have one lying around, wasting space in your garage or attic or something, I would LOVE to talk with you about possibly acquiring it. Just saying.

Why Isn't This Breaking News?

Would anybody care to tell me why our media is not widely, rabidly reporting the fact that Military Police were sent into Samson, Alabama following a civilian's murder spree?

You see, good citizens, the military cannot legally do this sort of thing. Oh, no. They cannot just waltz into a community and do their thing, because that violates federal law.

Even so, the personnel were there, and now people are wondering why.

Why isn't this all over the news? Shouldn't this be the lead story? Shouldn't every major newspaper and TV-news program in the nation cover this? You would think that, because the mainstream media is so awesome at tearing into our military, they'd be all over this. But...they aren't.

Weird.

So...this event is covered in a very-limited fashion, even though it's definitely newsworthy. Fortunately, we don't have to rely on the MSM to give us information. We have Teh Intarwebz, dangit!

(And, to be clear: I love our military. Don't even think that I'm blaming the personnel who were on the ground in Alabama for this. I just despise the thought of the military being used in a manner that violates our current laws, that's all.)

Dear Alzheimer's

Dear Alzheimer's:

Die in a grease fire.

Sincerely,

Me

Why I'm Going to Snap Soon

Yesterday, while I was out shopping, I saw a poster that convinced me that I am really going to snap soon. It totally won't be my fault, either, because crap like this is going to turn any rational, decent human being into a raving, drooling nutcase.



This picture isn't that great, but you might be able to make out the gist of this "art." Basically, this poster, designed to resemble a cell phone, offers a rather-extensive glossary of text-message abbreviations, misspellings, and other crimes against the English language. As if your average 12-year-old needs to hang a reference guide to English-language butchery on her door or wall, right?

What's next? A thumb exerciser so that the tweens can build up muscle strength for extended sessions with their cell phones? Maybe I shouldn't take this sort of thing so seriously, but we're talking about the deterioration of our communication skills. When high schoolers fail English exams because they use textspeak in their papers (which has really happened in my town), I tend to worry about this nation's future.

Anybody who buys this poster without fully intending to take it to the range for a little rifle practice shall incur my unholy wrath.

Punctuation Ban in London

England's oppressive nanny, a.k.a. the government, loves to ban things, like firearms. And crossbows. And swords. My thinking is that this not-so-free nation is going to eventually outlaw pointy sticks, because their socialized health-care system can’t afford to pass out eyepatches to all the people who are too stupid to keep their sticks pointed in a safe direction at all times. Liberty? Please – not in England, where there are plenty of security cameras watching all the citizens and tourists.

But what’s hilarious, in a pathetic way, is the recent move to ban the apostrophe. No. Really. It seems that the powers that be in London are tired of arguing over the lowly apostrophe's place on road signs. So, they’ve decided to stop using this particular punctuation mark, regardless of whether that’s the grammatically-correct choice or not.

One Councilman, Martin Mullaney, offered the Stupid Quote of the Century about the decision to ignore proper grammar:

Apostrophes denote possessions that are no longer accurate, and are not needed," he said. "More importantly, they confuse people. If I want to go to a restaurant, I don't want to have an A-level (high school diploma) in English to find it.

That’s right, folks. Finding streets is too "hard" when the signs contain apostrophes. The person who said that? A government official. This is just more proof that governments are full of morons.

Then again: this grammar-related insanity isn’t a huge surprise. The United Kingdom is known for moronic reactions, such as last year’s outrage over a citizen choosing to spray paint a wall specifically erected for…spray painting. (You know, that graffiti-wall idea that so many ‘hoods have tried in the past? Yeah, that thing.)

When I Rule the World, Part Three

When I rule the world, stupid people won't be allowed to drive.

Today, when I was trying to pull out of my parking spot at the dollar store and onto the main aisle in front of said store, I had to come to a nice, slow stop. Why? Because I noticed, in plenty of time, that a moron of the highest order was backing out of her spot right in front of the store (and right in front of me) without looking to her left-rear side. The psycho hose beast never so much as glanced in that direction. Instead, she craned her neck and head to the right and stared in that direction as she gassed her little crapbox right out of her spot and into the aisle that I was attempting to occupy.

Clearly, the half-wit (minus about one-fourth wit) was not using her mirrors to check out her left-rear side, and she definitely was not directly looking that way. Technically, she did have the right of way. I'm fine with that. But even though she was supposed to back out first, she should have been paying attention. Just assuming that everyone else will look out for your little crapbox...well...that's how accidents happen.

My conclusion: some people are stupid, and those with a terminal case of this nasty disease should not drive.

When I rule the world, all the morons are losing their licenses. I'm running those suckers through the industrial shredder and telling people that they're going to have to sell their land yachts and buy Segways. And if they're particularly stupid, they won't be allowed to operate their new wheels without first shrouding themselves in bubble wrap and putting on helmets.

Ridiculous Ideas from the Texas Legislature

Some Texas politicians are scum. If you don’t believe me, check out H.B. 738, related to inattentive driving. Should this piece of garbage pass, it will be illegal for Texas drivers to do the following while operating our vehicles:

Interact with pets
Interact with a passenger
Eat or drink
Interact with your stereo, CD player, MP3 player, et cetera (including changing the station or track)

Et cetera, so forth and so on, blah, blah, blah. These are just the most outrageous things that Rep. Chente Quintanilla included in this piece of crap.

Up yours, Quintanilla. You’re an embarrassment to Texans, because you’re in league with the nanny state. Instead of holding people accountable for the things that they choose to do, your introduced legislation attempts to prevent all of us from doing normal, routine things – like talking with passengers or taking a sip of soda while we’re going to work to earn the taxes that pay your useless, miserable ass.

What sort of scum-sucking, anti-freedom oxygen thief would even think of introducing legislation like this?

Smoking in the Nanny State

Being radically conservative in quite a few areas, including politics/government, I’m just about sick of the Nanny State trying to protect me from myself. I am a 27-year-old U.S. citizen, not on Uncle Sam’s gravy train. Therefore, I should be able to do pretty much whatever I want to myself. (Emphasis on “to myself” because interfering with other people and their equal right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness is not on my agenda…or right, for that matter.)

Let’s take smoking, for example. I’m an adult. I pay for my own cigarettes. As far as I’m concerned, nobody should have the right to interfere with me when I am privately consuming my vice of choice. I’m all for people in charge of public places choosing to be smoke free, because it’s their property and they have every right to say that I can’t light up inside their buildings.

I disagree with smoke-free legislation, however, such as the smoking ban in Dallas, because that is a case of the government telling private business owners that they may not allow a legal activity in their establishments. That’s crap. If non-smokers don’t want to inhale the smoke, they can find an establishment that is voluntarily smoke free.

And yes – Dallas did have smoke-free bars, restaurants, and clubs before the ban. Restaurants had smoking and non-smoking sections, and a good number (if not all) of those places had independent air-filtration systems for each section. As for bars and nightclubs: nobody has to go to a specific one, so finding a smoke-free establishment is the non-smoker’s responsibility.

Speaking of government intrusion: how about this year’s new self-extinguishing cigarette law here in the Great State of Texas? After all the current inventory is sold, retailers must sell us only self-extinguishing smokes. Why? Because stupid people fall asleep while smoking and catch themselves on fire. If you’re too stupid to understand that smoking while you’re in bed is just insane, then the government can’t help you. You will off yourself in some other fundamentally-stupid fashion, because the modern world is crammed full of ways for dummies to foul up. You’ll wrap your vehicle around a telephone pole because you attempted to send a text message with both hands while steering with your knee (at 70 miles per hour, no less). You’ll fall off the upper deck at the baseball stadium because you climbed up on the safety railing to see the action. You’ll electrocute yourself trying to steal copper wiring from a building. If you’re just plain stupid, Darwinism will take care of you despite Uncle Sam’s attempts to retard nature.

Some people argue that the self-extinguishing cigarette is a good thing, because it reduces the number of fires. The problem here is that the Nanny State is interfering with my personal life. I don’t care if this is “good for me.” This is my vice and, if I’m too stupid to avoid self immolation while enjoying it, that’s my own problem.

The same goes for seat-belt and helmet laws. If the government would repeal those laws – which it should, because they’re Nanny-state legislation – then insurance companies would take over. My insurer would tell me, “Hey, Sarah. If you don’t wear your seat belt, and there’s an accident, we aren’t covering it – no matter whose fault it was.” If people choose to not wear their seat belts after receiving that notice, then they deserve what they get. The government has no right to protect me from myself, and does not need to do so in the first place – because people with a personal stake in my safety, such as my insurance company, will encourage me to avoid the stupidest actions in life, like zipping down the road on a chopper without a helmet.

We Americans have the right to choose for ourselves. There is, of course, a consequence for every choice. That’s nature, and we can’t change that, even with all the legislation in the universe. Because we have every right to choose good things – our own careers, for example, which people in caste societies can’t do – we also have the right to choose bad things – and we ought to be free enough to deal with the consequences of those choices.

I Want My Thirty Minutes Back

I want my half hour back because I paid for it fair and square.

Today, the first day of classes, I showed up about ten minutes before my 11 a.m. class. Instead of an open classroom door, my fellow students and I found a sign informing us that class would begin at 11:30 instead. Why? Because today was Inauguration Day, and the ceremonies began at 11 o'clock our time.

Yes, that's right, folks: I stood around for an extra half an hour this morning, waiting for my class to start. There was no good reason to delay this class. It's not like my instructor can't, you know, pull up the video coverage on the Internet, or watch one of the many repeats that so many TV stations are airing. And goodness knows that she has access to a VCR, or some other recorder that would capture the broadcast for her to view on her own time.

She just had to watch this epic event live, even if it meant dicking me out of half an hour of my life. Oh, yeah, and those thirty minutes aren't refundable, by the way. I can't just claim credit for them at the end of my life or anything like that.

This is an English class, by the way. It's not like the political-science professors let their students out to watch, you know, a government/political event. My class has zip, zilch, NOTHING to do with Inauguration Day, the ceremonies, the President, et cetera, but my half hour was ripped off all the same.

If I wanted to watch TV, I would have either stayed at home or gone to one of the "watch points" set up all over campus, including right across the walkway from my classroom building. Plenty of other people on campus did one or the other today. It's not like we had no choice but to be in our 11 a.m. classes today.

But no - we couldn't just have class, which is what those of us who showed up wanted. Instead, we all had to occupy ourselves for an extra half hour, waiting for the ceremonies to conclude so that we could get on with what we're paying to do (learn).

I'm so glad that I should, God willing, graduate in December. I've had just about enough of academia and all its collective insanity. I'll be taking my school-logo baseball cap to the pistol range right after I walk - to give it a proper, .45-caliber sendoff and all.

Today was the first day of classes and I'm already sick of the whole thing.

Plastic Bumpers Suck Butt

One of my brothers had to straddle a big ol' chunk of tire on the highway. He was, at the time, driving the Del Sol. This maneuver cracked the front bumper cover: that happy piece of plastic that, for some bizarre reason, costs a lot more than it's actually worth. (Well, the alternative included being creamed by a semi in the next lane, so he obviously did the right thing.)

The stupid bumper cover, which is cracked down the middle and won't, therefore, stay in place without some repair work, is necessary because it covers a reservoir along with a bunch of wiring. It's not a good idea to drive around without this piece of plastic on the front of the car. Really, it's a bad idea. I mean, unless you want to have to invest a lot of money in repairing or replacing damaged parts.

Local auto-body and marine shops don't want to patch the cracked bumper cover. Okay, that's cool. We have to either buy another one (which will cost about $150) or try to patch this one (which will be less expensive). Either way, I'm annoyed because this is just a piece of flimsy plastic. It's not reinforced, or durable. It's actually a big piece of crap, but it's expensive and vital.

This is why I hate newer vehicles. Back when my parents were my age, vehicles had actual, steel bumpers, and that was it. I used to own a '77 Ford pickup. That sucker's bumpers were a lot tougher than pretty much anything else on the road, from tire parts to smaller vehicles. One of my brothers drives a pickup with a steel bumper. He was rear ended, but was able to pull the bumper back into something approximating its original shape - a few minutes with a crowbar did that.

Yes, I know that cars cost money. I understand that I have to invest cash in their repair and maintenance. But for the love of all that's warm and fuzzy, why can't I have a bumper that's more than a seriously overpriced piece of thin, crappy plastic?

Katrina Whining Resumes

So I was watching the local news yesterday and saw a whole bunch of people whining about George W. Bush's responses to Katrina.

I wish they'd aired the charity fundraiser clip of Kanye West blurting out that Bush hates black people. That should have been MTV's Video of the Year if you ask me. Kanye West uncovered the cracker conspiracy! He figured it out all by himself! Give that man a Grammy or something!

It's really amazing, though, how a bunch of able-bodied, sane people can stand around, pointing fingers, when they were the ones who chose to wait for Katrina to demolish their lives - instead of, you know, getting out of there before landfall.

Oh, right. They had only a few days to evacuate before the storm hit. That obviously wasn't enough time to hop into the car, or even put on the bug-out shoes, and make tracks. Silly me, thinking that people who live below sea level know that they need to have a plan for avoiding buttloads of water.

Man, I Hate Chewing Gum

For last semester's creative-nonfiction class, I concluded the term with an essay about my search for chewing gum that does not suck. It seems that, in the several-year period in which I did not even glance at chewing gum (having a mouthful of busted teeth will make this choice rather appealing, but heartbreaking at the same time if you love gum like I do), the chewing-gum market exploded. Now, there are more brands and flavors on the market than there are lies in a politician's speech. Amazing.

Chewing gum is frickin' disgusting because manufacturers have, for the most part, begun adding phenylalanine as a flavoring. Oh, yes. We have yet another sugar substitute in our food. This one tastes slightly bitter. Does real sugar taste that way to you? No? Me neither. So how is this a good substitute? Oh, right. Phenylalanine enables the manufacturers to boast of their brands' decreased calories, which is obviously more important than, you know, taste. God knows that I'd rather munch a dog turd than ingest a whopping fifteen, twenty calories from a stick of delicious, old-school Big Red.

If my formerly-favorite chewing-gum makers go back to pouring obscene amounts of sugar - pure, blessed, sugar! - into the vats, I'll buy their wares by the gross.