My car is 20 years old and gets 27 mpg highway
Current mood: incredulous
Category: incredulous Automotive

Hey, that's not at all interesting.  Thanks for taking up valuable new blog post space, Theron.

Wait - I'm only saying because in these difficult economic times, we keep talking about gas prices first and foremost.  Gas is almost $4 a gallon at my local Hess.  Government officials proposed (absurdly) a gas-tax holiday for the summer.  But the neatest thing is car companies rushing to tout the fuel efficiency of their automobiles.

One luxury company has a commercial that proudly reveals that almost all their cars get at least 28 mpg.  Twenty-eight, baby.  Boo-yah!  Another company proclaims that they have a number of vehicles with at least 35 mpg.  I don't think these companies are making themselves look good.  I'm sure Grandma Steiner's old K-car wasn't the top of the line in 1988, and it gets 27 mpg.  So what these companies are telling me is that in 20 years of advances in technology, they've managed to add somewhere between 1 and 7 miles per gallon in the fuel efficiency (not to mention companies who don't bother talking up vehicles that get even less mileage) department.  Really?  In 20 years?

20 years ago we didn't have cell phones (as we know them today - car phones, yes).  Now they can get the internet and pinpoint your location via satellite.

20 years ago laptops didn't exist - let alone the internet.

20 years ago I thought Winger was a really good band.

20 years ago it would be unheard of for any professional sports player to beat cancer, let alone return to their sport.  Jon Lester, of the Boston Red Sox, threw a no-hitter this season.

20 years ago you had to go to the actual bank.

Hey, way to go, auto makers.  What did you spend your time on? 

Cup holders.

Dvd players in headrests.

Chilled glove compartments.

Stow-n-go seating.

Dual climate zones.

Great job, everyone.  Give yourselves pats on the back and raises.

Currently listening : Gas Dream By Eligh Release date: 2000-05-15

6:41 PM - 4 Comments - 5 Kudos - Add Comment

"20th hijacker" in 9/11 attacks attempted suicide, lawyer says
Current mood: Bewildered
Category: Bewildered News and Politics

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080520/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/guantanamo_suicide_attempt

No shit, on 9/11.

Some people are seriously weird.  This is a guy who (allegedly) tried to kill himself in spectacular fashion, and when facing a possible death sentence, thought about avoiding death by killing himself?

I realize this is all alleged and everything, but the thought process is kind of twisted if he were going to be on one of those planes.

Currently listening : something about airplanes By Death Cab for Cutie

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Brown Point, Indiana
Current mood: relieved
Category: Travel and Places

It's always great to peruse the odd news section of Yahoo and find an item regarding something near the town in which I grew up (that'd be Demotte, Indiana).  Apparently last week a truck carrying human waste spilled it on Route 55 in Crown Point.  In one of the most appropriate citations ever issued, the driver was cited for an unsecured load.

I get a little bummed when I realize decency laws will prevent some excellent headlines, though.  What might we have missed?

WHEN THE SHIT HITS THE VAN

NOTHING TO DO BUT WATCH THE CORN FLOW

TECHNICALLY HE WASN'T IN A NO DUMPING ZONE

TRAFFIC REALLY BACKED UP

ROTO-ROUTE

A DIARRHEAL MESS

In any case, I bet those "How To Survive" books don't have anything for how to drive on road fudge.

7:34 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

The satisfaction of a well pressed shirt?
Current mood: imaginative
Category: Sports

Combined with the thrills of an extreme outdoor activity, it is the latest danger sport, apparently.  The creators call it extreme ironing, and there are at least 72 people interested in doing it, because they just set a world record for it.  If you can dream it up, you can get your name in a book.  Extreme ironing entails going scuba diving, and bringing an ironing board, an iron and some laundry.

I’m not in charge of overseeing activities that get into the book, but if I were, I might require certain rules to get in.  Namely, actually doing the thing you’re claiming to do.  I’m no scientist, but I’m guessing steam won’t help you in the ocean when pressing shirts, so I guess I’m okay with the power cords being removed.  What I’m not okay with is saying you get the satisfaction of a well-pressed shirt.  If you go to www.extremeironing.com and poke around, you’ll notice a participant doing the worst job of ironing a shirt ever, not to mention it will be soaking wet once it comes out of the water, thereby ruining any successful pressing (provided there was any).

Then there’s the whole calling it a danger sport.  In my experience, a sporting event yields a winner.  What was the score of the underwater ironing game?  Oh, it doesn’t have a score.  Well, who won?  Did one contestant train for months on end, enduring a special diet and see the fruits of his labor by barely beating some else’s time?  Did he have a special bathtub put in his house just to train?  But at least it is dangerous.  Surely someone could get electrocuted, right?  Where’s the nearest outlet, anyway?  Oh, right, they removed the cords.  So the danger is...getting eaten by a shark?  I don’t wish bad things to happen to people (you know, like death), but if I were eaten by a great white while pretending to iron shirts underwater, my family would be well within their rights to have "World’s Dumbest Man" engraved on my tombstone.  A tombstone that would denote a casket in the ground filled with my shark feces encrusted skeleton taped together.

On the other hand, surely I can invent more "danger sports" and get my name in the record book.

1.  Skybowl Cleaning - Get some friends and an airplane.  Get some toilet bowls, bowl cleaner and a toilet brush.  Get your parachutes on.  Attach parachutes to your toilet bowls.  Push the toilets out of the plane, immediately opening the chutes on them.  Wait a minute, then grab your cleaning supplies and jump.  Whoever has the shiniest bowl when you get to Earth wins!

2. Downhill Gutter Cleaning - Strap on a helmet.  Get a giant roof, modified so that it will scream down a giant ski slope, and line it with leaf-clogged gutters.  First one to the bottom with an unclogged gutter is the champion.

3.  The Yard Workathalon - This one is really extreme.  First you bike ten miles across a grass field pedaling a bicycle outfitted with a mower deck.  Then you run 4 miles through a hedgebush maze, trimming the hedges the entire time with a gas-powered trimmer.  To finish off, you have to rake and bag 25 bags of leaves.

Okay, there’s three.  I invite any readers to submit their own ideas.

8:48 PM - 1 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Maybe if the case is on Judge Joe Brown
Current mood: irritated
Category: Music

Billy Corgan is suing Virgin Records, in case some of you didn’t know.  He alleges that Virgin gave Pepsi the permission to use the music of the Smashing Pumpkins for some sort of promotion.  Corgan is claiming that this has irreparably harmed the group, their reputation and their goodwill with fans.

He has an airtight case.  I know for a fact that the moment I lost interest in them is when I found out about that Pepsi bullshit.  Until that moment, I had not lost any interest in or respect for Billy Corgan.  I mean, Machina was an album.  It’s not like I got that one and thought it wasn’t good.  Then there was that whole, painfully short-lived Zwan thing.  Derivative?  Yeah, right.  This was Billy’s ultimate moment of awesomenessism.  I mean, the name even - how do you even think of that?  Swan, but with a Z!  It was zwell.  It was zweet.

After that debut album was released, I went around telling anyone who would listen that in 30 years it would be a collector’s item for people, especially if it came out on vinyl.  As a personal bonus to me, the record store I worked in at the time got a promotional Zwanmobile to hang in the store.  We hung it in a conspicuous place, and promptly came up with one of the most fun time wasters, Zwan Ball  (please don’t sue me, we didn’t profit off of it, nor did we compromise your artistic integrity).  It was a glorious time.

Then Jimmy Chamberlain released a solo album, and you countered with one of your own.  I’m not saying that I don’t own either one now, because that would be true, and the truth hurts.  But one record was better than the other.  I don’t want to say which one was better, but the artist’s name rhymes with Nimmy Namberlain.

Then, through a stroke of luck, you re-formed Smashing Pumpkins with nearly all of the original members, kind of.  This return to glory featured a record release that sounds revelant if now happened to be 1992.  Nice work.

Did Billy get a flood of complaints once they heard the song used in the promotion?

Somehow I’ve managed to figure out that when a song I love ends up being used for a commercial, it’s not the end of the world.  It doesn’t change the fact that the music was good.  Yeah, it’s a bummer that music gets co-opted, but based on my life experience I don’t expect that to stop happening.  If I lost respect for every musician or band that had a song used for promotional purposes, I’d have quite a bit less good music in my collection.

In the spirit of full disclosure, I own "Siamese Dream", "Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness" and "Adore", along with the single for "Thirty-Three".  "Adore" happens to be my favorite.

Currently listening : Adore By The Smashing Pumpkins Release date: 02 June, 1998

9:37 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

"It’s time for us white folks to start getting some of our rights back."
Current mood: cultured
Category: News and Politics

That quote is from David Dupre Jr., who was protesting the MLK holiday in Jena, Lousiana.  Here's the link to the Yahoo! article:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080121/ap_on_re_us/jena_six;_ylt=AgexD4dq50iBrSxmLzKXD3ms0NUE

Couldn't agree more, man.  Couldn't agree more.  On a personal note, it must be difficult to live life knowing MLK was also named after his father, just like you.  What a horrible coincidence to have to suffer.  Of course, you didn't choose your name - and lucky for you.  That would be a tough choice - keeping your father's namesake knowing the indignity you would suffer because of the connection to Martin Luther King, Jr., or taking a different name to save yourself the humiliation, but rejecting your father in the process, who clearly raised you to be a kind and just person.

I realize you probably have a much more comprehensive and well-thought-out list about what rights we should be taking back, but I would humbly offer some suggestions:

1.  Back to the back of the bus.  Why should I have to walk all the way back there?

2.  Separate water fountains.  I can't tell you how many times I've been thirsty and sought out a fountain to soothe my parched white throat, only to find a black person there already drinking out of it.  I don't know what actually happens to the water and/or the fountain after the black has been there, because I'm not a scientist, but I know it's bad.  Really bad.

3.  Strike Lincoln's birthday from the calendar.  That asshole started this whole downward spiral.

4.  Figure out a way to take Oprah's money away from her.  Two words - reverse reparations.

5.  No more black keys on pianos (this one's just for spite).  They could just as easily be painted another color - perhaps a nice sea-foam green?

6.  No more black-people malls.  I'll admit, in a moment of poor judgement I laughed at that Chris Rock routine about the difference between white people malls and black people malls, but then I realized I shouldn't have to drive farther just to get to the white people's mall when there's a perfectly usuable mall in a more convenient location.

7.  Burn all jazz, blues, and Hendrix records.  I mean, I don't even get blues music.  What were they all so sad about?  Ingrates.

8.  Re-segragate sports.  Boy, do I long for the days of white-only sports teams.  Being a die-hard Chicago Bulls fan, I remember the outrage that boiled up inside of me while I was watching Michael Jordan knowing that poor Bill Wennington was hardly getting any playing time.  It's still fresh.

9.  As long as we're kicking Mexicans out, let's kill two birds with one stone.  Black birds (and Mexican birds).  All blacks out of the U.S.  I mean, white people did all the hard work of stealing the land from the Indians, and then the blacks just move in like we're not even here.

10.  No more chocolate milk - pretty self-explanatory.

11.  Get the rights to "The Little Rascals" back from Cosby.  I fondly remember the hours I used to spend being bewildered as to why other kids liked that show.  You know, aside from the fact that it was shown in black & white (how appropriate, no?).

I realize this list is only a drop in a very large rights bucket, but I just want to help.  I'm hopeful you have a website/blog/podcast so I can find out more about your ideas.  For instance, what are your thoughts on the holocaust?  Hitler had all those people killed* even though they were white.  What does being Jewish have in common with being black?

Your friend in whiteness,

Theron

*This is still under debate.  Google Ahmadinejad and holocaust and you'll see what I mean.

Currently listening : Al Jolson - 22 Greatest Hits By Al Jolson Release date: 24 March, 2000

8:49 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Irony, I adore thee
Current mood: giggly
Category: News and Politics

Anyone else find it quite hilarious that President Bush was in the Middle East promoting peace?

Pay no attention to the hundred-plus thousand American troops in Iraq...

Currently listening : If He Is Protecting Our Nation... Who Is Protecting Big Oil, Our Children? By Of Montreal Release date: 23 October, 2007

11:03 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Time to close the "gate"

Why is it that anything remotely close to being a scandal has to be a catchword with the suffix -gate on it?  This week in the NFL the Patriots and the Jets meet for the second time this year.  You may recall the first time they met, the Patriots were caught videotaping the Jets' sideline, supposedly to study the film after the game.  Now, three months later, the incident is still being referred to as "Spygate".

There was also "Towelgate," which had something to do with Terrell Owens and a towel, but that's the extent of my knowledge on that thing.

The original (and best) "gate" is Watergate, which was a huge deal.  It also happened to be the name of the hotel that was broken into, which is why it's referred to as the Watergate scandal.

Nothing these days that gets the "gate" tag is even remotely close to being a scandal, and is quite often barely worth mentioning at all, let alone trying to make it into a scandal.  If it's really big enough to be a scandal, it will get its own scandalous name from something or someone that's involved in the scandal, and won't need the "gate" tag because it will hold up on its own for being major.

Although I wouldn't mind some quasi-scandals that would be fun to say, like if Bill Gates did something really wild (GatesGate), or some woman carrying someone else's baby went nuts (SurroGate).

But seriously, media people - Gate the f*ck outta here with that shit (and no, I don't know why I feel it necessary to use the star in one curse word but not the other).

Currently listening : Watergate Blues By Big Joe Williams Release date: 12 December, 2000

7:53 AM - 6 Comments - 3 Kudos - Add Comment

Yeah, but if you’re going to do it, think big
Current mood: hungry
Category: News and Politics

Ah, Iowa.  It's the land of sweet, sweet corn.  It's also the land that has a certain significance in our country's Presidential election.  Today I learned something else about Iowa, specifically its Department of Revenue.  From Yahoo!:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071031/ap_on_fe_st/pumpkin_tax

The gist is this: pumpkins got taxed this year because they're used as decoration (as jack o' lanterns) instead of food, but you could get an exemption if you filled out a form.  Nothing like burdening taxpayers with red tape to get extra tax profits, and just in time for Thanksgiving, where making a fresh pumpkin pie for the family is an extra-special pain in the ass.

Consider yourself warned: this is just the beginning.  There's a whole slew of foods that could pump money into the state of Iowa's coffers.  Chew on this:

Eggs:  Two great times of year for these beauties: Halloween and Easter.  Judging by the number of dried yolks and bits of shell I saw on the street, sidewalk, cars and houses today, there are a ton of people who aren't eating them, but using them instead as the ammunition in the original game of paintball - throwing eggs with your own grit and mettle.  Then at Easter some of these same people will be doing the most artistic thing they do all year, coloring eggs and then hiding them for kids to find.  A lot of those don't get eaten - ka-ching!

Parsley: It shows up on your plate only to be thrown on the table.  Ever hear anyone ask for more parsley?  Instant $$.

Carrots:  How many millions of snowmen needs noses every winter?

Popcorn: Christmas tree garlands.

Macaroni: Got kids in grade school?  Got a fridge?  Artwork - totally taxable.  (This also reminds me - the tax on paste should be dropped.  It's a staple of the diet of youngsters everywhere.)

So let's go, Iowa Department of Revenue - you're running a business here.  You need a good plan, and you need to diversify.  You can't just count on pumpkins.

Currently listening : The Food Album By Weird Al Yankovic Release date: 22 June, 1993

7:07 PM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

If it’s so great, how come I don’t know anyone personally?
Category: Automotive

Every time I watch TV, I see ads for Geico.  They're on all the time, and there are a ton of different ones.

Weird thing is, no one I know has Geico.  I haven't met anyone that thought Geico was so awesome that they told me about how it's the best move they've ever made.  We all know the name and the commercials, but who has it?

And wouldn't they save you even more money if they cut back on the advertising a smidge?

Currently listening : Take Out Some Insurance By Jimmy Reed Release date: 01 July, 1999

4:05 PM - 3 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment