The Wife and I flew up to PA for a family wedding. Since we were up that way, we decided to stay with her father and his girlfriend, who share a home right outside of Philadelphia. Neither of us had ever been to Philly, so we figured this would be a good opportunity to see the sights.

The city itself is actually quite nice. Lots of famous landmarks and interesteing architecture. Oh, and they give away free shit for no reason. They just give it the hell away. I guess it's for product review or brand recognition, but they'll drop these huge crates on the street corner, and people will get in line to take whatever they're giving out. When we were there, it was those Handi-Vac vaccuum sealers and they were handing them out by the twos. I was like "Sweet! Now I don't have to buy a wedding gift!"

We drove out of the city to this place called West Goshen Township. Apparently, PA is a commonweatlh, which means they do some pretty odd things like call towns townships, and make access to alcohol about as clumsy as possible. You can't buy beer anywhere except a bar or a beer warehouse. And you have to go to state-run liquor stores for wine and the hard stuff. Whatever. So this town where the girlfriend lives is really upper crust. The schools are expensive and manor-like, with fenced in manicured pastures around them. I've never seen so many private schools in such a small town.

Her house is very nice. It's small, but it's been tastefully maintained and updated. You know, they kept the cool stuff (original doors, floors, etc) and updated things like ladnscaping, added an A/V setup in the basement and a hot tub on the patio. Well, one of the things that they decided to keep 'period' were the plumbing fixtures. Don't get me wrong, these still looked nice, but the reason plumbing fixtures have changed is because the old shit is just not very user friendly.

She made this great dinner, and I had two portions. Needless to say, after that much beef tips and rice, any normal person has a serious poop on deck. So I go upstairs to the bathroom and briefly survey the scene. Toilet paper? Check. Clean toilet? Check. Then I step closer. The hole at the bottom of the toilet bowl is about as big as the hole in the middle of a Lifesaver. This antique peice is not going to be able to handle the 21st-Century assault that is about to come charging out of my ass. I decide to hold off. We're only here for one more night, and if I can hold my poo for another 24 or 36 hours, then I'll be good.

Seriously, there wasn't even a plunger handy. I go back downstairs and sit on the patio with everyone else, but all I can think about is this Impossible Toilet. I mean, how do they take a shit int his house? There isn't a reasonably sized toilet? Do they shit outside? I guess, maybe. As The Wife and I are sitting in bed, I decide to consult with her.

"Babe, I seriously have to take a dump; and this woman's toilets are a joke."
"What are you, stupid?"
"Seriously. Go look at her toilets, and come back and tell me how I'm supposed to shit 7 pounds of beef and rice into that thing without some serious power tools." I shove her out of bed and make her go check this out. She comes back, get's into bed and says, "Dude, I don't know what to tell you."
Well shit. I thought she would actually have an idea. She says, "Maybe you should go a little, and do multiple flushes?"
This does not satisfy me. I can tell that what I have inside me is a giant log, and I won't be able to cleave it with my sphincter. It's just too massive, too solidly organized.

I wake up in the morning, and the urge to shit is so intense it carves a look of obvious discomfort on my face. The Wife sees me and tells me I need to go take a shit before I hurt myself. I figure if I go now while everyone's still asleep, at least I can clean up any overflow without anyone noticing. I decide that I have to do what I have to do, and hike off to meet my fate.

I make another more thorough plunger check that is completely fruitless. These people must have turds like robin's eggs. I decide that my only option is to try and break this giant dump into peices, so there I am: hovering over a toilet, looking down through my legs and hoping I don't end up shitting all down the back of the toilet. I am completely disgusted at the sight of shit coming out of my own ass, but I have no choice.

The first barrage comes out the bomb bay with such force that I push so hard to pinch it off that my knees buckle and I damn near end up falling over. I look down in the bowl and see that my dump is practically choking the worlds tiniest crapper. My shit is actually laughing at me.

I hit the flusher and watch as the toilet begins to work it's ass off. The bowl is filling, and the higher it gets the wider my eyes become. Oh Lord, my shit water is going to be coming through the floor into the room below isn't it? The bowl is now just over half full and rising, and I'm pretty sure at this point we'll be leaving a day early. This bitch is not going to want me in her house after I get my poo all over it. At three quarters full, I'm already hobbling around the bathroom with my pants around my ankles, grabbing towels off their racks in preparation for a shit flood of biblical proportions.

Then it happens. There is a deep thunking noise like a bass drum, and my shit disappears down the hole. Success! Sweet God yes! The weight of the water must have squished it through the head of the needle. I repeat this process several times over, probably flushing three or four payloads down the toilet. About thirty minutes later I come out of the bathroom and The Wife is laughing at me. "What were you doing in there? Beating a drum?"

That was ridiculous. Speaking of which, remind me to tell you about the Ridiculous Clock. These people were all about frustrating housewares.

Posted by: shank at 06:22 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 1121 words, total size 6 kb.

Hello. What Shank doesn't know is that Jim (who originally blogged here and is now missing & presumed employed) gave six people rights to post here while he was on vacation -- let's call them The Snooze Crew™ -- and I was one of those six.

He never revoked that right. And now I see Shank has put out a request for co-bloggers, not knowing he already has some!

There's a lesson in there, somewhere.

So. I think I'm gonna post here every now and then, mostly because I think it'll annoy Shank. And maybe Jim, but I'm ready to take that risk. It's possible I'll see my rights revoked Real Soon Now, but until that happens, enjoy this clip from the old Johnny Cash Show:

And just so you know: I don't really want to annoy Jim, because he's a good guy.

Posted by: Victor at 01:04 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 157 words, total size 1 kb.

I am somewhere in the vicinity of West Chester, Pennsylvania.

I have been drinking all day, and I feel like a champion.

I am staying at The Wife's Father's Girlfriend's house (which is friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend awkward for me); and it is way too nicely outfitted for a person of my drunkedness.

Remind me to ask you about the Impossible Toilet.

I have a rental car. I bought the retarded $20 insurance policy. Enterprise is going to cry when they see what I bring home next week.

Until then? Crickets...

Posted by: shank at 02:47 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 94 words, total size 1 kb.

Leaving in the morning for a prolonged (and past due) vacation; so blogging will be light.

Which of course is a retardedly redundant statement.

I just wish there was someone else I could share this blog with. Maybe even two someone else's would be nice.

Yeah, two. So i;ll be taking applications when I get back. You can post them in the comments, or just send them to the two emails on the sidebar over there that don't belong to me.

More importantly than a co-blogger, I need a co-spammer. Seriously, I'm despamming 20 or thirty comments a day on this bad biotch; and that shit is monotonous and sucky beyond belief. I'd punch a baby if it would keep spam away for a day, and then I would continue to punch that unfortunate little fucker every day just for ransom. I'd pay serious dough to hire someone to find spammers, fucking break into their houses, rip their nuts off, eat them, and shit them down their throats.

Oh fuck me, the goddamn local dumbass news channel has these 'meteorologists', and they just interrupted my fucking TV program to tell me there's a thunderstorm three counties away. Right at the good part of the show too.

You know what?

Fuck three counties away, alright! I'm watching my fucking nationally broadcast, live TV show; and I don't give a fuck what's going on out there in western bumfuck flyover country! They can kiss my ass!

Posted by: shank at 08:49 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 252 words, total size 1 kb.

As I've noted before, I see a lot of froth in the oil market; and probably in other commodities too. The reason I think this is happening is because traders are beginning to treat commodities futures as assets.

In reality, a future is simply a bet on which way you think the price is going to go. So if I work at Goldman Sachs and I have a billion-dollar position in oil; then I release a press statement that says "Gee, I think oil is going to double," everyone else is going to say "Holy shit, that Goldman Sachs guy must know what he's talking about, so I'm going to fall in line behind his position." And voila, oil prices begin to edge upwards. In this example, supply and demand of actual oil has not effected price. This is what we call a bubble. If you bought a home in 2007 and you're trying to sell it now, you're painfully familiar with this idea, I'm sure.

The story of supply and demand is that it hasn't really changed much over the last three years, yet price has tripled. The real bad news is that Congress is on the job, and they're trying to enlist the help of the FTC and a commodities regulation body to help reign in the traders. I don't like the idea of meddling with the free market, but the situation begs the question: Is this really a free market if the price of a good is decoupled from demand for said good? Either way, with demand plateauing (or declining, if you look at recent numbers); I would expect some volatility in the oil markets in coming quarters. When the price run-up has made it into the forefront of everyone's mind; it's time to sell your position and wait for the bottom.

Posted by: shank at 09:43 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 309 words, total size 2 kb.

Certain threats to the sovereign authority of the Peoples' Party, however insignificant, will not be tolerated.

Posted by: shank at 10:35 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 28 words, total size 1 kb.

So The Wife and I have lived in our new neighborhood for about six months now, and we're really glad we chose to buy here. And no, we didn't get an ARM or finance more than we can afford or anything like that; so you won't be paying our mortgage with your tax dollars anytime soon. One of the reasons we like it so much is because we live on a cul-de-sac, and we've made some really good friends with all the neighbors.

Anyways, so I'm walking out of the garage yesterday evening and B, the guy who lives across the street, waves me over. "Come on around back, M and E are over with the baby. We're just sitting on the porch." So I head over and he says, "Just give us a holler when you're about to come through the gate. M's dogs are over, and we'll have to hold them so they don't make a break for it." I hadn't yet met M's wife E, or the new baby; so I figured what the hey.

So I pause at the gate, get the go ahead, and walk through. Now, I'm carrying a beer and a folding chair, so my hands are fairly full. As I close the gate, they open the screen door on the porch, and the dogs come out as I go in. Of course, the dogs are excited because dogs generally get all excited around new people, and they're barking and jumping as we pass eachother. I hold out a palm to them as I'm walking through the screen door, and amidst the canine social niceties I get a solid bite on the ass.

Now, I've never been bitten by a dog, so I'm like. "Son of a ... (they had their kid with them, so I held back the urge to scream BLOODY MOTHERFUCKING BASTARD)! Your dog just bit my butt dude!" I put my chair down, and B's wife L is a nurse, so she's like "Go in the bathroom and have a look to make sure you're not bleeding." M grabs the dog that bit me and chastises him, while the little dog is still running around yelping and shit. I go off to the bathroom to survey the damage to one of humanity's Great Flawless Asses.

Thankfully there were no puncture wounds, but it did leave a raspberry about the size of a silver dollar. Almost as if I'd scraped it in a fall or something. So I go back outside, and of course M, E, B, and L are all as shocked as I am. The dog doesn't have a history of biting, and it's shots are all up to date and what not. So there we are, making awkward conversation and pretending that what just happened was neither hilarious nor painful. I slammed my beer as fast as possible just so I'd have an excuse to get the hell out of there.

I got home and called The Wife, who'd just left for her shift. Now, she's a nurse to; and as soon as I made the mistake of telling her about it, she got all hypochondriac on me. Generally, I dislike going to the doctor. However, I have discovered that for the sake of my marriage (and my own health) it is best to just take my medicine. I ended up going to the local urgent care last night for a tetanus booster and some advice on how to prevent infection. I also had a weird moment with the doc, when he asked me how the hell I got bit on the ass by a dog. The way he said it implied that he thought I was running around the dog park in a banana hammock, trying to lay with the beasts of the field or something. Anyways, he said soak in a bath for a while, wash it with some antibacterial soap, and keep an eye on it.

When I returned from the urgent care, I had a voicemail from M. He said he'd heard I went to have it looked at, and wanted to make sure everything was okay. Needless to say, it's kind of an awkward situation now. Firstly, I haven't been scared of a dog since I don't know when, and now I'm kind of scared of M's dog; and secondly because we don't really now each other that well. The dog didn't growl or posture in any way that made me feel like it was in an aggressive mood. I mean, I understand that animals are animals, and sometimes they bite; but now I'm all thrown off. Maybe it didn't like the color I was wearing. Maybe it was because it was held, then released as I came in; thus putting it in a defensive mindset. Hell, maybe it was just being friendly. I mean, I didn't have to pull myself away from it; the bite was more of a quick release type of nip than a chomp and hold.

I realize that some people would have probably reported the bite to animal control, but I didn't. The dog doesn't have a history, and B &L even kept the dogs for a week while M &E were away and had no problems. I mean, it would only add tension to an already awkward situation. Here I am, embarrassed that I got bit in the damn ass; but I could tell M & E were equally embarrassed that their dog acted like that. If I reported the bite, it would just give them a reason to let their embarrassment turn into resentment. I'd prefer not to have a relationship like that with neighbors, especially people who are as easy to like as M & E seem to be. I figure it'll be socially lame for a little while, but eventually it'll be a funny story.

I ain't going to be hanging around his damn dogs anytime soon though, and you can take that shit to the bank son!

Posted by: shank at 11:47 AM | Comments (8) | Add Comment
Post contains 1019 words, total size 5 kb.

So at 8:30am this morning I read some economic data that I can only describe as fascinating. It's kind of like a jungle gym for your mind. You read the report, and it's a framework that you just sit and mull over.

Okay - so the trade gap is narrowing - which means even though we're still importing more than we export, we've actually begun to import less and/or export more in the last quarter. Which is good, because that will increase our GDP.

So here we are, using less of 'other peoples stuff' to run our economy, and it's still growing. The real interesting part is this:

Imports of industrial supplies fell 3.2% to $61.6 billion, including an 8.9% drop in petroleum imports.
The average price of oil rose to a record $89.85 a barrel, but demand fell 9% to 8.97 million barrels a day.

We're using 10% less energy. Think about that. Then think about the ridiculous increase in oil prices of late. And you wonder if maybe there's an oil bubble expanding, what with Iran floating 28 million barrels of oil.

Is this an indication of some kind of 'lean' capitalism? Are consumers going from big spenders to keen shoppers? Is this the invisible hand at work here, as lean operations become a response to inflated energy prices?

Posted by: shank at 07:57 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 223 words, total size 2 kb.

It'll never happen, mainly because it would trample the liberties of billions; but my dark side is beginning to wonder if we need to require people to take a test and get licensed to surf the web.

There's a whole lot of good stuff out here, but there's an equal amount of scams, garbage, revisionism and sensationalism as well. You only have to look as far as current events to see it.

Take the 'rice shortage'. I mean, give me a break. I went into Walmart today and the shit was a buck-fifty a bag, and the shelf was full. What's stupid is that people in the US are hoarding the shit. What first world citizen fucking lives on rice anyways? If the industrialized world went without rice for a month, would it kill us? It's not like rice is irreplaceable. If it wasn't on the shelf, you could always eat hominy, grits, polenta, or risotto. Or, you know, a fucking PB&J. But no, these people hear there's a rice shortage and what do they do - they go down to the store and load up. Dude, now that I think about it, rice isn't really even a staple food for me. If I had to give it up for an extended period of time so that folks in far-flung places who do consider it a staple could eat; it would have zero effect on me. I eat so little of it now, that if it disappeared from the shelf I wouldn't even notice. It would be like Bentley going out of business or something.

Then there was the whole global warming thing. Now they're saying the globe is actually getting colder. It must be because Al Gore finally converted that horrible energy hog of a mansion he's got to something that doesn't need its own power grid. What a dickhole. But that wasn't our first response to global warming, was it kiddies? Nope, everyone lined up to punch their ticket on the Alarmist Express for a rip roarin' ride straight to the edge of sanity. There were a few people who actually began to look at the data, and the hipocrisy, and the politics of the situation and they caught a lot of flack for going against the grain.

Seriously, before anyone should be allowed to purchase a modem or sign up with an ISP, they should have to show some kind of license that proves they've taken an internet safety class. You know, one that would explain how shit gets out of hand, and that just because the internet is the fastest way to spread the word, doesn't mean that the word is neccesarily worth a damn.

Jesus people. Get your shit together, pull your head out of your ass and behave like rational human beings! Now go out there and make me proud!

Posted by: shank at 08:20 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 482 words, total size 3 kb.

The Wife had to work tonight, so we set the DVR to record Hell's Kitchen for her. For some reason, the damn thing wouldn't record. It's a cable company-supported peice, and they recently upgraded the software on it and ever since it's been a little wonky. Anyways, I decided to take notes for her, and write up the episode so she wouldn't miss anything.

I present it to you here in the style of a video game walkthrough. If you're not familiar with the genre, you're a geriatric or a Luddite, or both.

Now, what follows may not be funny if you've never seen the show. I'm also willing to take the risk that it may not be funny regardless; but I don't care. more...

Posted by: shank at 10:21 PM | Comments (186) | Add Comment
Post contains 1348 words, total size 8 kb.

I moved into a new office yesterday. The office itself is actually much nicer, it's in a quieter location, and it's got a little more cache than the old one.

Unfortunately, the woman who moved into the office directly adjacent to mine is a ghastly posterchild for Bring Your Gun To Work Day. Firstly, her perfume reeks. It's so bad that I assume she's marinating potpourri in turpentine for a few days, then bathing in it each morning. The whole suite of offices smells like a goddamn whore house, and she's only been here one day. There's about six offices here joined to a main atrium, and when you walk into the central room, it smells faintly of urine; or maybe a wild animal in full rut.

As if that's not enough, she's in her office right now singing. Okay, I don't give a shit if your Mariah fucking Carey; don't sing at the office. Who the hell behaves like that? She's a total hack too. I can't even recognize the song she's singing. It sounds like vocal Muzak, and that's before she starts faintly wailing along with the melody. Her voice reminds me of a violin being played with a hack saw.

Topping it all off is her ridiculous personality. A full-on Obnoxious Yankee, Jersey variety, early baby-boomer vintage. You know, the guttural raspy tone, weird giant jewlery (giant bracelets clanging around her wrists, giant earings weighing on her sagging giant ear lobes, giant teeth jutting out of her giant lower jaw - wait. That's not jewlery is it? Anyways, back at the ranch...), and one of those laughs that makes you want to punch a baby. Good Lord, how I would love to punch a baby right now.

The upside to all this, is that she's retiring in five or six weeks and they're already recruiting for her position. I can only hope that Fate and Irony will not collaborate against me, and find a replacement that's even worse. I mean, the only way to insure my sanity is to weasel my way into the interview process. At least then I can attempt to control who will be invading my space on a regular basis.

Posted by: shank at 10:50 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 377 words, total size 2 kb.

So I was listening to someone this morning who said that grocery lists are a sure sign of recession. This assertion is, by far, one of the laziest and most inaccurate economic indicators I've ever heard of. How in the hell does one go grocery shopping without a damn list?

Obama can't handle the heat? You know, I've had just about enough of this frickin' n00b. If these debates are wearing you out, do I really want your pussy ass in the White House for four years? I'm surprised that the guy has gotten so much attention anyways, being that he lacks experience and has such a questionable background.

Posted by: shank at 07:58 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
Post contains 111 words, total size 1 kb.

Since the inception of the automobile, people have long pondered the innate connection between a man and his car. Which is stupid, because it's retardedly obvious.

Evolutionarily speaking, men crave simple logic-based reciprocal relationships. When we were hunter-gatherers, the men hunted and understood the dangerous but practical circumstance of such an activity. A primeval man understood that he must eat and feed his family; hence, he must hunt large animals with fangs/claws/husks. Ever since, men have always sought out roles that best-suited their overly pragmatic mindset.

The logic-based reciprocal relationship was that if you didn't get too loud, stand windward, or generally make an ass of yourself; you'd be bringing home dinner. Act outside of the common sense of hunting, and you'd be eating salad for a couple of weeks.

When we moved to an agrarian society, men took up the role of learning how to raise crops. Which plants had the highest yields, or had double-harvests. Support the crop and the environment they grew in, and you'd have a high yield.

When we moved to manufacturing, men took the lead. Of course, at about the same time, women and children began to take manufacturing jobs too. But it's no surprise that men lead the way. To provide for your family, whether it be hunting wild game, working a peice of land, digging a coal mine, or driving a desk; men were for the most part first into the work place. Work for a company for thirty years, and you got benefits, a pension, and a salary with which to raise your children.

These days, as men and women find themselve sharing the role of sole breadwinner, we guys have had to find things that make us more valuable. Providing for the family is no longer solely a man's domain.

Cleaning a carburetor, on the other hand, is entirely a family man's business. Changing the oil? Dad. Brake pads? Dad. Anyone know the significance of blue exhaust or white exhaust? Dad does. Checking sparkplug gaps? Dad's job. Should i go with synthetic or conventional oil? I dunno, ask Dad. Hey, should I use 10-10-10 on my centipede or 5-5-10? You know, Dad told me...

Cars are machines. They work on the simple principle of "Good in, Good out; Bad in, Bad out". If a man takes care of the car, it will reward him with years and years of service. I've seen Pontiacs (yes, Pontiacs!) go 200,000 miles on basic preventive maintenace from the home garage. Granted, you invest a lot of time, but it beats buying a car every five years.

So get out there, read some shit, and try not to be such a prickish little pussy about getting your hands dirty and your mind full.

Posted by: shank at 08:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 464 words, total size 3 kb.

I know I'd get knocked for this, but I'm still bearish on oil in the long run. Yes, even in the face of recent inflation. If inflation is the reason for the recent drive in oil prices, then the oil market is pricing in a 10-15% inflation factor. Ridiculous.

The price of oil has quintupled in the last six years. The only other market in recent memory where price runs like this have persisted for such a long period of time was (drumroll please) real estate. And look what happened to that 'miracle investment'. All I'm saying is I think that too many speculators are in the market, and they're making positions on oil that are driving up the price. Once people start saying "Just buy it, it'll never lose value!", that should be your ticket to dump it.

Even in the US, we're curbing fuel consumption and beginning to turn towards more efficient technologies. Demand has already shrunk in many European nations, it's planing here, and inventories are at seasonal norms. As the price rises, demand will wane; and eventually we won't need to be buying it on the open market, because we'll be supporting demand by ourselves. Consider that:

"If we raise fuel-efficiency standards by just one mile per gallon, we save two ANWRs full of oil over the projected 50-year life of the fields. If we raise them 2.7 mpg, that's more than all the oil we import from Iraq and Kuwait combined. If we raise standards by 8 mpg, we don't have to import one drop of Persian Gulf oil into this country. Fuel efficiency is an untapped resource. It's cheap oil."

Posted by: shank at 09:16 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 294 words, total size 2 kb.

Why is it that nearly all the Brits who make it onto TV shows are raging pricks.

Simon Cowell, a cunting condescender if there ever was one, pretty much makes money coming up with creative ways to tell people they'd be better off shoving that mic up their ass than singing into it.

I'm pretty sure that Gordon Ramsey is really just Simon Cowell in an apron. I mean, he makes money telling people they'd be better off shoving their cooking up their ass than eating it.

What the hell, UK? The only Brits on TV who actually seem like enjoyable people are the guys from Top Gear. I mean, I would actually like to sit in a bar and get drunk with those guys.

Can you imagine what it would be like to get drunk with Simon Cowell? He'd end up getting into a bar brawl with someone over how their shoes look 'shtew-pid' or something. Unfortunately for him, he'd find that outside of American Idol, most people with 'shtew-pid' attire are big enough to kick his cockney ass. And Ramsey? The guy totally strikes me as a grade-a, skeevy letch. He'd probably get drunk and start sizing up anything in the bar with a warm snatch. You can't blame him though. I don't know if you noticed or not, but if you get a close look at his face, it looks like he's been dropping it in deep fryers. Fame is the only thing that's getting him laid, and he's just trying to ride the wave as long as possible.

Posted by: shank at 08:29 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
Post contains 272 words, total size 1 kb.

This is awesome. Imagine the impact that an information network this speedy would have on life as we know it.

Of course, it's also kind of freaky that if it went down, and you were 'cloud computing', you'd pretty much be ass-out.

And how 'bout that collider? I like how the theory is that the LHC will either produce a tiny harmless little thingie; a blakc hole, or a runaway fusion process. That's only two out of three for an outcome that would result in total cataclysm.

It's an exciting time to be alive...

Posted by: shank at 01:56 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 100 words, total size 1 kb.

Jenelle had an interesting morning, thanks to guy who decided that today was the day that he needed to kill his family and himself. She says, "I want to believe there is a Hell at times like these."

I have to say that Hell must exist in instances like these, if only in the mind of the shooter. I simply can't imagine the kind of torment one must be in to think that only way to bring it to an end is to murder your family and yourself.

I mean, I have regular panic attacks about the dumbest shit. I don't know why, but they always seem to revolve around things I personally have no control over (global stability, apocalypse, disaster). I become afraid, frantic to do something to avoid certain doom, to prevent the imminent destruction of everything I take for granted. Quite literally, I become attacked by panic; my mind set upon itself, fear scaling the walls of rationality; horror at the realization of my own powerlessness. But even in the grip of such an irrational tailspin, I've never concluded that the death of myself or anyone I hold dear would bring peace.

So does Hell exist? Well, something tortured him to the point that he had to commit a horrible, senseless crime. I suppose the answer has to be yes, but whether Hell is a result or a punishment remains a mystery.

Posted by: shank at 11:02 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
Post contains 239 words, total size 1 kb.

The Spinster mentioned something here about purchasing firearms, which reminded me that The Wife and I were discussing the very idea this weekend.

We're not big hunters, so the guns would be primarily for security purposes. We decided that if we were going to buy guns for personal safety, it doesn't make much sense unless you apply for a permit to conceal and carry your weapon. I mean, if your gun is at home in your safe, how can you possibly use it to protect you?

Neither one of us grew up in homes that owned guns, but several in my extended family own guns and hunt on a regular basis. I've been hunting on a couple occasions, and been to the range with them; so I have a familiarity in some respects. Maybe we're just a little paranoid, but you read some of the crazy shit that goes on and you think to yourself "If that shit happened to me, it would be really nice to have some protection."

Anyone have any advice on selecting a gun, a proper storage method (e.g., something secure, but easy to get to in the event that we need access in the middle of the night), and how to go about the process? I mean, what happens if you get pulled over for a routine traffic stop and you've got your gun in the glovebox? Are you supposed to inform the officer immediately or what?

Posted by: shank at 12:54 PM | Comments (340) | Add Comment
Post contains 252 words, total size 1 kb.

Is it just me, or does this song not make you damn near cry every time you hear it. I know nothing about this Cactus Cuties thing (it sounds really suspiciously dirty, if you ask my old perverted ass); but they sing it so nice.

I'd embed, but the embedable version just isn't as good as this one.

It doesn't matter if I'm standing on the field waiting to play, standing in the stands (or at home) waiting to watch a game, or just plain old hearing it at a ceremony - this song brings tears to my eyes. I think of my parents and grand parents and great grand parents; and the sacrifices and lives they lead and friends they lost so that I could (at the very least) have this song grace my ears. On a regular beautiful basis, mind you.

Pleasepleaseplease feel free to post links in the comments to other great renditions.

Posted by: shank at 11:05 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 162 words, total size 1 kb.

I'm sure you've all heard of the concept of peak oil. I'm sure not all of you understand why it's a total crock of shit. For that, you've got this WSJ article to thank.

Personally, I'm beginning to feel just a tad contrarian on oil. Not that I'd start shorting it or anything, but enough that I find myself stifling condescing chortles when I think of a certain weird possibility for oil prices. Here we are in America, beginning to curb fuel consumption; which I think is a flashing red light that consumers are fed up. It took us a while, but we've decided that hybrids and efficiency technology have finally become comfy enough for our fat, lazy asses to begin buying into. The reason I think it's such a turning point is that Americans rarely change consumption habits, but when we do we tend to take an equal amount of time changing back. Muscle cars all but disappeared after the fuel crunch in the 70's, a fuel crunch that ushered in the era of Honda, Toyota and other such economy car makers into the American markets. Gas guzzling vehicles didn't make it back into the mainstream until the mid and late 90's with the advent of SUV's. A time that also coincided with lower oil prices.

At any rate, I think it's all coming around the mountain. The more the OPEC cartel tries to drive prices upward, the more they open themselves up to their own unravelling. In all markets, when rising prices stifle demand, a low cost provider comes in and snatches up the marketshare (and profits) of it's competitors. This instantly deflates pricing as the other providers scramble to stay afloat. I say, why can't this happen in the oil market?

Think about the OPEC countries - Iran, Venezuela, Iraq, etc. They're all in the shitter; infrastructurally speaking. This is where it gets hypothetical. What if an American company goes to a friendly oil producing nation (Iraq?) and says - We'll bring in billions of dollars of 21st century oil production and refinement technology for a discount on the final product. Iraq, who could definitely use the technology, the jobs, and the income; thinks maybe it's time to start making some capitalist decisions. OPEC's span of control loosens up a bit, and other oil producing nations begin saying 'Hey, we can do the same joint venture and offer a slightly steeper discount.' And the invisble hand is in motion.

It's a rough out, but I don't see what keeps a sovreign nation in a modern free-market society from telling OPEC to stick it where the sun don't shine, especially if it means the nation can produce as much oil as it wants at whatever price it wants.

UPDATE: Check it out, Weintraub agrees. Sort of. And for totally different reasons: Time to Dump Big Oil.

Posted by: shank at 02:50 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
Post contains 484 words, total size 3 kb.